Sourcery - A Novel Of Discworld Part 12

Do I mean aeons?

Right. Aeons. Go back aeons to the time when raw magic ruled. The whole framework of reality trembled daily. It was pretty terrible, I can tell me.

How do I know?

Racial memory.

Gosh. Have I got one of those?

Well. A part of one.

Yes, all right, but why me?

In your soul you know you are a true wizard. The word "Wizard" is engraved on your heart.

"Yes, but the trouble is I keep meeting people who might try to find out," said Rincewind miserably.

"What did you say?" said Conina.

Rincewind stared at the smudge on the horizon and sighed.

"Just talking to myself," he said.

Carding surveyed the hat critically. He walked around the table and stared at it from a new angle. At last he said: "It's pretty good. Where did you get the octarines?"

"They're just very good Ankhstones," said Spelter. "They fooled you, did they?"

It was a magnificent magnificent hat. In fact, Spelter had to admit, it looked a lot better than the real thing. The old Archchancellor's hat had looked rather battered, its gold thread tarnished and unravelling. The replica was a considerable improvement. It had style. hat. In fact, Spelter had to admit, it looked a lot better than the real thing. The old Archchancellor's hat had looked rather battered, its gold thread tarnished and unravelling. The replica was a considerable improvement. It had style.

"I especially like the lace," said Carding.

"It took ages."

"Why didn't you try magic?" Carding waggled his fingers, and grasped the tall cool gla.s.s that appeared in mid-air. Under its paper umbrella and fruit salad it contained some sticky and expensive alcohol.

"Didn't work," said Spelter. "Just couldn't seem, um, to get it right. I had to sew every sequin on by hand." He picked up the hatbox.

Carding coughed into his drink. "Don't put it away just yet," he said, and took it out of the bursar's hands. "I've always wanted to try this-"

He turned to the big mirror on the bursar's wall and reverently lowered the hat on his rather grubby locks.

It was the ending of the first day of the sourcery, and the wizards had managed to change everything except themselves.

They had all tried, on the quiet and when they thought no one else was looking. Even Spelter had a go, in the privacy of his study. He had managed to become twenty years younger with a torso you could crack rocks on, but as soon as he stopped concentrating he sagged, very unpleasantly, back into his old familiar shape and age. There was something elastic about the way you were. The harder you threw it, the faster it came back. The worse it was when it hit, too. Spiked iron b.a.l.l.s, broadswords and large heavy sticks with nails in were generally considered pretty fearsome weapons, but they were nothing at all compared to twenty years suddenly applied with considerable force to the back of the head.

This was because sourcery didn't seem to work on things that were instrinsically magical. Nevertheless, the wizards had made a few important improvements. Carding's robe, for example, had become a silk and lace confection of overpoweringly expensive tastelessness, and gave him the appearance of a big red jelly draped with antimaca.s.sars.

"It suits me, don't you think?" said Carding. He adjusted the hat brim, giving it an inappropriately rakish air.

Spelter said nothing. He was looking out of the window.

There had been a few improvements all right. It had been a busy day.

The old stone walls had vanished. There were some rather nice railings now. Beyond them, the city fairly sparkled, a poem in white marble and red tiles. The river Ankh was no longer the silt-laden sewer he'd grown up knowing, but a glittering gla.s.s-clear ribbon in which-a nice touch-fat carp mouthed and swam in water pure as snowmelt.*

From the air Ankh-Morpork must have been blinding. It gleamed. The detritus of millennia had been swept away.

It made Spelter strangely uneasy. He felt out of place, as though he was wearing new clothes that itched. Of course, he was wearing new clothes and they did itch, but that wasn't the problem. The new world was all very nice, it was exactly how it should be, and yet, and yet-had he wanted to change, he thought, or had he only wanted things rearranged more suitably?

"I said, don't you think it was made for me?" said Carding.

Spelter turned back, his face blank.

"Um?"

"The hat, man."

"Oh. Um. Very-suitable."

With a sigh Carding removed the baroque headpiece and carefully replaced it in its box. "We'd better take it to him," he said. "He's starting to ask about it."

"I'm still bothered about where the real hat is," said Spelter.

"It's in here," said Carding firmly, tapping the lid.

"I mean the, um, real one."

"This is is the real one." the real one."

"I meant-"

"This is the Archchancellor's Hat," said Carding carefully. "You should know, you made it."

"Yes, but-" began the bursar wretchedly.

"After all, you wouldn't make a forgery forgery, would you?"

"Not as, um, such-"

"It's just a hat. It's whatever people think it is. People see the Archchancellor wearing it, they think it's the original hat. In a certain sense, it is is. Things are defined by what they do. And people, of course. Fundamental basis of wizardry, is that." Carding paused dramatically, and plonked the hatbox into Spelter's arms. "Cogitum ergot hatto, you might say."

Spelter had made a special study of old languages, and did his best.

"'I think, therefore I am a hat?'" he hazarded.

"What?" said Carding, as they set off down the stairs to the new incarnation of the Great Hall.

"'I considered I'm a mad hat?'" Spelter suggested.

"Just shut up, all right?"

The haze still hung over the city, its curtains of silver and gold turned to blood by the light of the setting sun which streamed in through the windows of the hall.

Coin was sitting on a stool with his staff across his knees. It occurred to Spelter that he had never seen the boy without it, which was odd. Most wizards kept their staves under the bed, or hooked up over the fireplace.

He didn't like this staff. It was black, but not because that was its color, more because it seemed to be a moveable hole into some other, more unpleasant set of dimensions. It didn't have eyes but, nevertheless, it seemed to stare at Spelter as if it knew his innermost thoughts, which at the moment was more than he he did. did.

His skin p.r.i.c.kled as the two wizards crossed the floor and felt the blast of a raw magic flowing outward from the seated figure.

Several dozen of the most senior wizards were cl.u.s.tered around the stool, staring in awe at the floor.

Spelter craned to see, and saw- The world.

It floated in a puddle of black night somehow set into the floor itself, and Spelter knew with a terrible certainty that it was was the world, not some image or simple projection. There were cloud patterns and everything. There were the frosty wastes of the Hublands, the Counterweight Continent, the Circle Sea, the Rimfall, all tiny and pastel-colored but nevertheless real... the world, not some image or simple projection. There were cloud patterns and everything. There were the frosty wastes of the Hublands, the Counterweight Continent, the Circle Sea, the Rimfall, all tiny and pastel-colored but nevertheless real...

Someone was speaking to him.

"Um?" he said, and the sudden drop in metaphorical temperature jerked him back into reality. He realized with horror that Coin had just directed a remark at him.

"I'm sorry?" he corrected himself. "It was just that the world...so beautiful..."

"Our Spelter is an aesthete," said Coin, and there was a brief chuckle from one or two wizards who knew what the word meant, "but as to the world, it could be improved. I had said, Spelter, that everywhere we look we can see cruelty and inhumanity and greed, which tell us that the world is indeed governed badly, does it not?"

Spelter was aware of two dozen pairs of eyes turning to him.

"Um," he said. "Well, you can't change human nature."

There was dead silence.

Spelter hesitated. "Can you?" he said.

"That remains to be seen," said Carding. "But if we change the world, then human nature also will change. Is that not so, brothers?"

"We have the city," said one of the wizards. "I myself have created a castle-"

"We rule the city, but who rules the world?" said Carding. "There must be a thousand petty kings and emperors and chieftains down there."

"Not one of whom can read without moving his lips," said a wizard.

"The Patrician could read," said Spelter.

"Not if you cut off his index finger," said Carding. "What happened to the lizard, anyway? Never mind. The point is, the world should surely be run by men of wisdom and philosophy. It must be guided. We've spent centuries fighting amongst ourselves, but together...who knows what we could do?"

"Today the city, tomorrow the world," said someone at the back of the crowd.

Carding nodded.

"Tomorrow the world, and-" he calculated quickly-"on Friday the universe!"

That leaves the weekend free, thought Spelter. He recalled the box in his arms, and held it out toward Coin. But Carding floated in front of him, seized the box in one fluid movement and offered it to the boy with a flourish.

"The Archchancellor's hat," he said. "Rightfully yours, we think."

Coin took it. For the first time Spelter saw uncertainty cross his face.

"Isn't there some sort of formal ceremony?" he said.

Carding coughed.

"I-er, no," he said. "No, I don't think so." He glanced up at the other senior mages, who shook their heads. "No. We've never had one. Apart from the feast, of course. Er. You see, it's not like a coronation, the Archchancellor, you see, he leads the fraternity of wizards, he's," Carding's voice ran down slowly in the light of that golden gaze, "he's you see...he's the...first...among...equals..."

He stepped back hurriedly as the staff moved eerily until it pointed toward him. Once again Coin seemed to be listening to an inner voice.

"No," he said eventually, and when he spoke next his voice had that wide, echoing quality that, if you are not a wizard, you can only achieve with a lot of very expensive audio equipment. "There will be a ceremony. There must be a ceremony, people must understand that wizards are ruling, but it will not be here. I will select a place. And all the wizards who have pa.s.sed through these gates will attend, is that understood?"

"Some of them live far off," said Carding, carefully. "It will take them some time to travel, so when were you thinking of-"

"They are wizards!" shouted Coin. "They can be here in the twinkling of an eye! I have given them the power! Besides," his voice dropped back to something like normal pitch, "the University is finished. It was never the true home of magic, only its prison. I will build us a new place."

He lifted the new hat out of its box, and smiled at it. Spelter and Carding held their breath.

"But-"

They looked around. Hakardly the Lore master had spoken, and now stood with his mouth opening and shutting.

Coin turned to him, one eyebrow raised.

"You surely don't mean to close the University?" said the old wizard, his voice trembling.

"It is no longer necessary," said Coin. "It's a place of dust and old books. It is behind us. Is that not so...brothers?"

There was a chorus of uncertain mumbling. The wizards found it hard to imagine life without the old stones of UU. Although, come to think of it, there was a lot of dust, of course, and the books were pretty old...

"After all...brothers...who among you has been into your dark library these past few days? The magic is inside you now, not imprisoned between covers. Is that not a joyous thing? Is there not one among you who has done more magic, real real magic, in the past twenty-four hours than he has done in the whole of his life before? Is there one among you who does not, in his heart of hearts, truly agree with me?" magic, in the past twenty-four hours than he has done in the whole of his life before? Is there one among you who does not, in his heart of hearts, truly agree with me?"

Spelter shuddered. In his heart of hearts an inner Spelter had woken, and was struggling to make himself heard. It was a Spelter who suddenly longed for those quiet days, only hours ago, when magic was gentle and shuffled around the place in old slippers and always had time for a sherry and wasn't like a hot sword in the brain and, above all, didn't kill people.

Terror seized him as he felt his vocal chords tw.a.n.g to attention and prepare, despite all his efforts, to disagree.

The staff was trying to find him. He could feel it searching for him. It would vanish him, just like poor old Billias. He clamped his jaws together, but it wouldn't work. He felt his chest heave. His jaw creaked.

Carding, s.h.i.+fting uneasily, stood on his foot. Spelter yelped.

"Sorry," said Carding.