They made a sound like a swarm of flies.
They were the creatures out of her dreams, come to feed on magic. She knew they weren’t interested in her now, except in the nature of an after-dinner mint. Their whole concentration was focused on Simon, who was totally unaware of their presence.
Esk kicked him smartly on the ankle.
The cold desert vanished. The real world rushed back. Simon opened his eyes, smiled faintly, and gently fell backwards into Esk’s arms.
A buzz went up from the wizards, and several of them started to clap. No one seemed to have noticed anything odd, apart from the silver lights.
Cutangle shook himself, and raised a hand to quell the crowd.
“Quite – astonishing,” he said to Treatle. “You say he worked it out all by himself?”
“Indeed, lord.”
“No one helped him at all?”
“There was no one to help him,” said Treatle. “He was just wandering from village to village, doing small spells. But only if people paid him in books or paper.”
Cutangle nodded. “It was no illusion,” he said, “yet he didn’t use his hands. What was he saying to himself? Do you know?”
“He says it’s just words to make his mind work properly,” said Treatle, and shrugged. “I can’t understand half of what he says and that’s a fact. He says he’s having to invent words because there aren’t any for the things he’s doing.”
Cutangle glanced sideways at his fellow mages. They nodded.
“It will be an honour to admit him to the University,” he said. “Perhaps you would tell him so when he wakes up.”
He felt a tugging at his robe, and looked down.
“Excuse me,” said Esk.
“Hallo, young lady,” said Cutangle, in a sugarmouse voice. “Have you come to see your brother enter the University?”
“He’s not my brother,” said Esk. There were times when the world had seemed to be full of brothers, but this wasn’t one of them.
“Are you important?” she said.
Cutangle looked at his colleagues, and beamed. There were fashions in wizardry, just like anything else; sometimes wizards were thin and gaunt and talked to animals (the animals didn’t listen, but it’s the thought that counts) while at other times they tended towards the dark and saturnine, with little black pointed beards. Currently Aldermanic was in. Cutangle swelled with modesty.
“Quite important,” he said. “One does one’s best in the service of one’s fellow man. Yes. Quite important, I would say.”
“I want to be a wizard,” said Esk.
The lesser wizards behind Cutangle stared at her as if she was a new and interesting kind of beetle. Cutangle’s face went red and his eyes bulged. He looked down at Esk and seemed to be holding his breath. Then he started to laugh. It started somewhere down in his extensive stomach regions and worked its way up, echoing from rib to rib and causing minor wizardquakes across his chest until it burst forth in a series of strangled snorts. It was quite fascinating to watch, that laugh. It had a personality all of its own.
But he stopped when he saw Esk’s stare. If the laugh was a music hall clown then Esk’s determined squint was a whitewash bucket on a fast trajectory.
“A wizard?” he said; “You want to be a wizard?”
“Yes,” said Esk, pushing the dazed Simon into Trestle’s reluctant arms. “I’m the eighth son of an eighth son. I mean daughter.”
The wizards around her were looking at one another and whispering. Esk tried to ignore them.
“What did she say?”
“Is she serious?”
“I always think children are so delightful at that age, don’t you?”
“You’re the eighth son of an eighth daughter?” said Cutangle. “Really?”
“The other way around, only not exactly,” said Esk, defiantly.
Cutangle dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief.
“This is quite fascinating,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of something quite like this before. Eh?”
He looked around at his growing audience. The people at the back couldn’t see Esk and were craning to check if some interesting magic was going on. Cutangle was at a loss.
“Well, now,” he said. “You want to be a wizard?”
“I keep telling everyone but no one seems to listen,” said Esk.
“How old are you, little girl?”
“Nearly nine.”
“And you want to be a wizard when you grow up.”
“I want to be a wizard now,” said Esk firmly. “This is the right place, isn’t it?”
Cutangle looked at Trestle and winked.
“I saw that,” said Esk.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a lady wizard before,” said Cutangle. “I rather think it might be against the lore. Wouldn’t you rather be a witch? I understand it’s a fine career for girls.”
A minor wizard behind him started to laugh. Esk gave him a look.
“Being a witch is quite good,” she conceded. “But I think wizards have more fun. What do you think?”
“I think you are a very singular little girl,” said Cutangle.
“What does that mean?”
“It means there’s only one of you,” said Trestle.
“That’s right,” said Esk, “and I still want to be a wizard.”
Words failed Cutangle. “Well, you can’t,” he said. “The very idea!”
He drew himself up to his full width and turned away. Something tugged at his robe.
“Why not?” said a voice.
He turned.
“Because”, he said, slowly and deliberately, “because . . . the whole idea is completely laughable, that’s why. And it’s absolutely against the lore!”
“But I can do wizard magic!” said Esk, the faintest suggestion of a tremble in her voice.
Cutangle bent down until his face was level with hers.
“No you can’t,” he hissed. “Because you are not a wizard. Women aren’t wizards, do I make myself clear?”
“Watch,” said Esk.
She extended her right hand with the fingers spread and sighted along it until she spotted the statue of Malich the Wise, the founder of the University. Instinctively the wizards between her and it edged out of the way, and then felt rather silly.
“I mean it,” she said.
“Go away, little girl,” said Cutangle.
“Right,” said Esk. She squinted hard at the statue and concentrated ….
The great doors of Unseen University are made of octiron, a metal so unstable that it can only exist in a universe saturated with raw magic. They are impregnable to all force save magic: no fire, no battering ram, no army can breach them.
Which is why most ordinary visitors to the University use the back door, which is made of perfectly normal wood and doesn’t go around terrorising people, or even stand still terrorising people. It had a proper knocker and everything.
Granny examined the doorposts carefully and gave a grunt of satisfaction when she spotted what she was looking for. She hadn’t doubted that it would be there, cunningly concealed by the natural grain of the wood.
She grasped the knocker, which was shaped like a dragon’s head, and rapped smartly, three times. After a while the door was opened by a young woman with her mouth full of clothespegs.
“Ot o0 00 ont?” she enquired.
Granny bowed, giving the girl a chance to take in the pointy black hat with the batwing hatpins. It had an impressive effect: she blushed and, peering out into the quiet alley-way, hurriedly motioned Granny inside. There was a big mossy courtyard on the other side of the wall, crisscrossed with washing lines. Granny had the chance to become one of the very few women to learn what it really is that wizards wear under their robes, but modestly averted her eyes and followed the girl across the flagstones and down a wide flight of steps.
They led into a long, high tunnel lined with archways and, currently, full of steam. Granny caught sight of long lines of washtubs in the big rooms off to the sides; the air had the warm fat smell of ironing. A gaggle of girls carrying washbaskets pushed past her and hurried up the steps – then stopped, halfway up, and turned slowly to look at her.
Granny set her shoulders back and tried to look as mysterious as possible.
Her guide, who still hadn’t got rid of her clothes-pegs, led her down a side-passage into a room that was a maze of shelves piled with laundry. In the very centre of the maze, sitting at a table, was a very fat woman with a ginger wig. She had been writing in a very large laundry book-it was still open in front of her-but was currently inspecting a large stained vest.
“Have you tried bleaching?” she asked.
“Yes, m’m,” said the maid beside her.
“What about tincture of myrryt?”
“Yes, m’m. It just turned it blue, m’m.”
“Well, it’s a new one on me,” said the laundry woman. “And Ay’ve seen brimstone and soot and dragon blood and demon blood and Aye don’t know what else.” She turned the vest over and read the nametape carefully sewn inside. “Hmm. Granpone the White. He’s going to be Granpone the Grey if he doesn’t take better care of his laundry. Aye tell you, girl, a white magician is just a black magician with a good housekeeper. Take it -“