‘Carding, listen, it’s important, listen, when I looked in-‘
‘I really wish you’d stop doing that.’
‘But the staff, his staff, it’s not-’
Coin stood up and pointed the staff at the wall, where a doorway instantly appeared. He marched out through it, leaving the wizards to follow him.
He went through the Archchancellor’s garden, followed by a gaggle of wizards in the same way that a comet is followed by its tail, and didn’t stop until he reached the banks of the Ankh. There were some hoary old willows here, and the river flowed, or at any rate moved, in a horseshoe bend around a small newt-haunted meadow known rather optimistically as Wizards Pleasaunce. On summer evenings, if the wind was blowing towards the river, it was a nice area for an afternoon stroll.
The warm silver haze still hung over the city as Coin padded through the damp grass until he reached the centre. He tossed the egg, which drifted in a gentle arc and landed with a squelch.
He turned to the wizards as they hurried up.
‘Stand well back,’ he commanded. ‘And be prepared to run.’
He pointed the octiron staff at the half-sunken thing. A bolt of octarine light shot from its tip and struck the egg, exploding into a shower of sparks that left blue and purple after-images.
There was a pause. A dozen wizards watched the egg expectantly.
A breeze shook the willow trees in a totally unmysterious way.
Nothing else happened.
‘Er-’ Spelter began.
And then came the first tremor. A few leaves fell out of the trees and some distant water bird took off in fright.
The sound started as a low groaning, experienced rather than heard, as though everyone’s feet had suddenly become their ears. The trees trembled, and so did one or two wizards.
The mud around the egg began to bubble.
And exploded.
The ground peeled back like lemon rind. Gouts of steaming mud spattered the wizards as they dived for the cover of the trees. Only Coin, Spelter and Carding were left to watch the sparkling white building arise from the meadow, grass and dirt pouring off it. Other towers erupted from the ground behind them; buttresses grew through the air, linking tower with tower.
Spelter whimpered when the soil flowed away from around his feet, and was replaced by flagstones flecked with silver. He lurched as the floor rose inexorably, carrying the three high above the treetops.
The rooftops of the University went past and fell away below them. Ankh-Morpork spread out like a map, the river a trapped snake, the plains a misty blur. Spelter’s ears popped, but the climb went on, into the clouds.
They emerged drenched and cold into blistering sunlight with the cloud cover spreading away in every direction. Other towers were rising around them, glinting painfully in the sharpness of the day.
Carding knelt down awkwardly and felt the floor gingerly. He signalled to Spelter to do the same.
Spelter touched a surface that was smoother than stone. It felt like ice would feel if ice was slightly warm, and looked like ivory. While it wasn’t exactly transparent, it gave the impression that it would like to be.
He got the distinct feeling that, if he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t be able to feel it at all.
He met Carding’s gaze.
‘Don’t look at, um, me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it is either.’
They looked up at Coin, who said: ‘It’s magic.’
‘Yes, lord, but what is it made of?’ said Carding.
‘It is made of magic. Raw magic. Solidified. Curdled. Renewed from second to second. Could you imagine a better substance to build the new home of sourcery?’
The staff flared for a moment, melting the clouds. The Discworld appeared below them, and from up here you could see that it was indeed a disc, pinned to the sky by the central mountain of Cori Celesti, where the gods lived. There was the Circle Sea, so close that it might even be possible to dive into it from here; there was the vast continent of Klatch, squashed by perspective. The Rimfall around the edge of the world was a sparkling curve.
‘It’s too big,’ said Spelter under his breath. The world he had lived in hadn’t stretched much further than the gates of the University, and he’d preferred it that way. A man could be comfortable in a world that size. He certainly couldn’t be comfortable about being half a mile in the air standing on something that wasn’t, in some fundamental way, there.
The thought shocked him. He was a wizard, and he was worrying about magic.
He sidled cautiously back towards Carding, who said: ‘It isn’t exactly what I expected.’
‘Um?’
‘It looks a lot smaller up here, doesn’t it.’
‘Well, I don’t know. Listen, I must tell you-’
‘Look at the Ramtops, now. You could almost reach out and touch them.’
They stared out across two hundred leagues towards the towering mountain range, glittering and white and cold. It was said that if you travelled hubwards through the secret valleys of the Ramtops, you would find, in the frozen lands under Cori Celesti itself, the secret realm of the Ice Giants, imprisoned after their last great battle with the Gods. In those days the mountains had been mere islands in a great sea of ice, and ice lived on them still.
Coin smiled his golden smile.
‘What did you say, Carding?’ he said.
‘It’s the clear air, lord. And they look so close and small. I only said I could almost touch them-’
Coin waved him into silence. He extended one thin arm, rolling back his sleeve in the traditional sign that magic was about to be performed without trickery. He reached out, and then turned back with his fingers closed around what was, without any shadow of a doubt, a handful of snow.
The two wizards observed it in stunned silence as it melted and dripped on to the floor.
Coin laughed.
‘You find it so hard to believe?’ he said. ‘Shall I pick pearls from rim-most Krull, or sand from the Great Nef? Could your old wizardry do half as much?’
It seemed to Spelter that his voice took on a metallic edge. He stared intently at their faces.
Finally Carding sighed and said rather quietly, ‘No. All my life I have sought magic, and all I found was coloured lights and little tricks and old, dry books. Wizardry has done nothing for the world.’
‘And if I tell you that I intend to dissolve the Orders and close the University? Although, of course, my senior advisors will be accorded all due status.’
Carding’s knuckles whitened, but he shrugged.
‘There is little to say,’ he said. ‘What good is a candle at noonday?’
Coin turned to Spelter. So did the staff. The filigree carvings were regarding him coldly. One of them, near the top of the staff, looked unpleasantly like an eyebrow.
‘You’re very quiet, Spelter. Do you not agree?’
No. The world had sourcery once, and gave it up for wizardry. Wizardry is magic for men, not gods. It’s not for us. There was something wrong with it, and we have forgotten what it was. I liked wizardry. It didn’t upset the world. It fitted. It was right. A wizard was all I wanted to be.
He looked down at his feet.
‘Yes,’ he whispered.
‘Good,’ said Coin, in a satisfied tone of voice. He strolled to the edge of the tower and looked down at the street map of Ankh-Morpork far below. The Tower of Art came barely a tenth of the way towards them.
‘I believe,’ he said, ‘I believe that we will hold the ceremony next week, at full moon.’
‘Er. It won’t be full moon for three weeks,’ said Carding.
‘Next week,’ Coin repeated. ‘If I say the moon will be full, there will be no argument.’ He continued to stare down at the model buildings of the University, and then pointed.
‘What’s that?’
Carding craned.
‘Er. The Library. Yes. It’s the Library. Er.’
The silence was so oppressive that Carding felt something more was expected of him. Anything would be better than that silence.
‘It’s where we keep the books, you know. Ninety thousand volumes, isn’t it, Spelter?’
‘Um? Oh. Yes. About ninety thousand, I suppose.’
Coin leaned on the staff and stared.
‘Burn them,’ he said. ‘All of them.’
Midnight strutted its black stuff along the corridors of Unseen University as Spelter, with rather less confidence, crept cautiously towards the impassive doors of the Library. He knocked, and the sound echoed so loudly in the empty building that he had to lean against the wall and wait for his heart to slow down a bit.
After a while he heard a sound like heavy furniture being moved about.
‘Oook?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Oook?’
‘Spelter.’
‘Oook.’
‘Look, you’ve got to get out! He’s going to burn the Library!’