The ball curved over at the top of its arc and tumbled down, its perfect path interrupted suddenly by the ground. There was a sound like a harp string breaking, a brief babble of incomprehensible voices, a rush of hot wind, and the gods of the Disc were free.
They were very angry.
'There is nothing we can do, is there?' said Creosote.
'No,' said Conina.
'The ice is going to win, isn't it?' said Creosote.
'Yes,' said Conina.
'No,' said Nijel.
He was trembling with rage, or possibly with cold, and was nearly as pale as the glaciers that rumbled past below them.
Conina sighed. 'Well, just how do you think-’ she began.
'Take me down somewhere a few minutes ahead of them,' said Nijel.
'I really don't see how that would help.'
'I wasn't asking your opinion,' said Nijel, quietly. 'Just do it. Put me down a little way ahead of them so I've got a while to get sorted out.'
'Get what sorted out?'
Nijel didn't answer.
'I said,' said Conina, 'get what-’
'Shut up!'
'I don't see why-’
'Look,' said Nijel, with the patience that lies just short of axe-murdering. 'The ice is going to cover the whole world, right? Everyone's going to die, okay? Except for us for a little while, I suppose, until these horses want their, their, their oats or the lavatory or whatever, which isn't much use to us except maybe Creosote will just about have time to write a sonnet or something about how cold it is all of a sudden, and the whole of human history is about to be scraped up and in these circumstances I would like very much to make it completely clear that I am not about to be argued with, is that absolutely understood?'
He paused for breath, trembling like a harpstring.
Conina hesitated. Her mouth opened and shut a few times, as though she was considering arguing, and then she thought better of it.
They found a small clearing in a pine forest a mile or two ahead of the herd, although the sound of it was clearly audible and there was a line of steam above the trees and the ground was dancing like a drumtop.
Nijel strolled to the middle of the clearing and made a few practice swings with his sword. The others watched him thoughtfully.
'If you don't mind,' whispered Creosote to Conina, 'I'll be off. It's at times like this that sobriety loses its attractions and I'm sure the end of the world will look a lot better through the bottom of a glass, if it's all the same to you. Do you believe in Paradise, o peachcheeked blossom?'
'Not as such, no.'
'Oh,' said Creosote. 'Well, in that case we probably won't be seeing each other again.' He sighed. 'What a waste. All this was just because of a geas. Um. Of course, if by some unthinkable chance-’
'Goodbye,' said Conina.
Creosote nodded miserably, wheeled the horse and disappeared over the treetops.
Snow was shaking down from the branches around the clearing. The thunder of the approaching glaciers filled the air.
Nijel started when she tapped him on the shoulder, and dropped his sword.
'What are you doing here?' he snapped, fumbling desperately in the snow.
'Look, I'm not prying or anything,' said Conina meekly, 'but what exactly do you have in mind?'
She could see a rolling heap of bulldozed snow and soil bearing down on them through the forest, the mind-numbing sound of the leading glaciers now overlaid with the rhythmic snapping of tree trunks. And, advancing implacably above the treeline, so high that the eye mistook them at first for sky, the blue-green prows.
'Nothing,' said Nijel, 'nothing at all. We've just got to resist them, that's all there is to it. That's what we're here for.'
'But it won't make any difference,' she said.
'It will to me. If we're going to die anyway, Iii rather die like this. Heroically.'
'Is it heroic to die like this?' said Conina.
'I think it is,' he said, 'and when it comes to dying, there's only one opinion that matters.'
'Oh.'
A couple of deer blundered into the clearing, ignored the humans in their blind panic, and rocketed away.
'You don't have to stay,' said Nijel. 'I've got this geas, you see.'
Conina looked at the backs of her hands.
'I think I should,' she said, and added, 'You know, I thought maybe, you know, if we could just get to know one another better-’
'Mr and Mrs Harebut, was that what you had in mind?' he said bluntly.
Her eyes widened. 'Well-’ she began.
'Which one did you intend to be?' he said.
The leading glacier smashed into the clearing just behind its bow wave, its top lost in a cloud of its own creation.
At exactly the same time the trees opposite it bent low as a hot wind blew from the Rim. It was loaded with voices - petulant, bickering voices - and tore into the clouds like a hot iron into water.
Conina and Nijel threw themselves down into snow which turned to warm slush under them. Something like a thunderstorm crashed overhead, filled with shouting and what they at first thought were screams although, thinking about them later, they seemed more like angry arguments. It went on for a long time, and then began to fade in the direction of the Hub.
Warm water flooded down the front of Nijel's vest. He lifted himself cautiously, and then nudged Conina.
Together they scrambled through the slush and mud to the top of the slope, climbed through a logjam of smashed timber and boulders, and stared at the scene.
The glaciers were retreating, under a cloud stuffed with lightning. Behind them the landscape was a network of lakes and pools.
'Did we do that?' said Conina.
'It would be nice to think so, wouldn't it?' said Nijel.
'Yes, but did-’ she began.
'Probably not. Who knows? Let's just find a horse,' he said.
'The Apogee,' said War, 'or something. I'm pretty sure.'
They had staggered out of the inn and were sitting on a bench in the afternoon sunshine. Even War had been persuaded to take off some of his armour.
'Dunno,' said Famine, 'Don't think so.'
Pestilence shut his crusted eyes and leaned back against the warm stones.
'I think,' he said, 'it was something about the end of the world.'
War sat and thoughtfully scratched his chin. He hiccuped.
'What, the whole world?' he said.
'I reckon.'
War gave this some further consideration. 'I reckon we're well out of it, then,' he said.
People were returning to Ankh-Morpork, which was no longer a city of empty marble but was once again its old self, sprawling as randomly and colourfully as a pool of vomit outside the all-night takeaway of History.
And the University had been rebuilt, or had rebuilt itself, or in some strange way had never been unbuilt; every strand of ivy, every rotting casement, was back in place. The sourcerer had offered to replace everything as good as new, all wood sparkling, all stone unstained, but the Librarian had been very firm on the subject. He wanted everything replaced as good as old.
The wizards came creeping back with the dawn, in ones or twos, scuttling for their old rooms, trying to avoid one another's gaze, trying to remember a recent past that was already becoming unreal and dream-like.
Conina and Nijel arrived around breakfast time and, out of kindness, found a livery stable for War's horse.[25] It was Conina who insisted that they look for Rincewind at the University, and who, therefore, first saw the books.
They were flying out of the Tower of Art, spiralling around the University buildings and swooping through the door of the reincarnated Library. One or two of the more impudent grimoires were chasing sparrows, or hovering hawk-like over the quad.
The Librarian was leaning against the doorway, watching his charges with a benevolent eye. He waggled his eyebrows at Conina, the nearest he ever got to a conventional greeting.
'Is Ri
ncewind here?' she said.
'Oook.'
'Sorry?'
The ape didn't answer but took them both by the hand and, walking between them like a sack between two poles, led them across the cobbles to the tower.
There were a few candles alight inside, and they saw Coin seated on a stool. The Librarian bowed them into his presence like an ancient retainer in the oldest family of all, and withdrew.
Coin nodded at them. 'He knows when people don't understand him,' he said. 'Remarkable, isn't he?'
'Who are you?' said Conina.
'Coin,' said Coin.
Are you a student here?'
'I'm learning quite a lot, I think.'
Nijel was wandering around the walls, giving them the occasional prod. There had to be some good reason why they didn't fall down, but if there was it didn't lie in the realms of civil engineering.
'Are you looking for Rincewind?' said Coin.
Conina frowned. 'How did you guess that?'
'He told me some people would come looking for him.'
Conina relaxed. 'Sorry,' she said, 'we've had a bit of a trying time. I thought perhaps it was magic, or something. He's all right, isn't he? I mean, what's been happening? Did he fight the sourcerer?'
'Oh, yes. And he won. It was very ... interesting. I saw it all. But then he had to go,' said Coin, as though reciting.
'What, just like that?' said Nijel.
'Yes.'
'I don't believe it,' said Conina. She was beginning to crouch, her knuckles whitening.
'It is true,' said Coin. 'Everything I say is true. It has to be.'
'I want to-’ Conina began, and Coin stood up, extended a hand and said, 'Stop.'
She froze. Nijel stiffened in mid-frown.
'You will leave,' said Coin, in a pleasant, level voice, 'and you will ask no more questions. You will be totally satisfied. You have all your answers. You will live happily ever after. You will forget hearing these words. You will go now.'
They turned slowly and woodenly, like puppets, and trooped to the door. The Librarian opened it for them, ushered them through and shut it behind them.
Then he stared at Coin, who sagged back on to the stool.
'All right, all right,' said the boy, 'but it was only a little magic. I had to. You said yourself people had to forget.'
'Oook?'
'I can't help it! It's too easy to change things!' He clutched his head. 'I've only got to think of something! I can't stay, everything I touch goes wrong, it's like trying to sleep on a heap of eggs! This world is too thin! Please tell me what to do!'
The Librarian spun around on his bottom a few times, a sure sign of deep thought.
Exactly what he said is not recorded, but Coin smiled, nodded, shook the Librarian's hand, and opened his own hands and drew them up and around him and stepped into another world. It had a lake in, and some distant mountains, and a few pheasants watching him suspiciously from under the trees. It was the magic all sourcerers learned, eventually.
Sourcerers never become part of the world. They merely wear it for a while.
He looked back, halfway across the turf, and waved at the Librarian. The ape gave him an encouraging nod.
And then the bubble shrank inside itself, and the last sourcerer vanished from this world and into a world of his own.
Although it has nothing much to do with the story, it is an interesting fact that, about five hundred miles away, a small flock, or rather in this case a herd, of birds were picking their way cautiously through the trees. They had heads like a flamingo, bodies like a turkey, and legs like a Sumo wrestler; they walked in a jerky, bobbing fashion, as though their heads were attached to their feet by elastic bands. They belonged to a species unique even among Disc fauna, in that their prime means of defence was to cause a predator to laugh so much that they could run away before it recovered. Rincewind would have been vaguely satisfied to know that they were geas.
Custom was slow in the Mended Drum. The troll chained to the doorpost sat in the shade and reflectively picked someone out of his teeth.
Creosote was singing softly to himself. He had discovered beer and wasn't having to pay for it, because the coinage of compliments - rarely employed by the swains of Ankh - was having an astonishing effect on the landlord's daughter. She was a large, good-natured girl, with a figure that was the colour and, not to put too fine a point on it, the same shape as unbaked bread. She was intrigued. No-one had ever referred to her breasts as jewelled melons before.
Absolutely,' said the Seriph, sliding peacefully off his bench, 'no doubt about it.' Either the big yellow sort or the small green ones with huge warty veins, he told himself virtuously.
'And what was that about my hair?' she said encouragingly, hauling him back and refilling his glass.
'Oh.' The Seriph's brow wrinkled. 'Like a goat of flocks that grazes on the slopes of Mount Wossname, and no mistake. And as for your ears,' he added quickly, 'no pink-hued shells that grace the sea-kissed sands of-’
'Exactly how like a flock of goats?' she said.
The Seriph hesitated. He'd always considered it one of his best lines. Now it was meeting Ankh-Morpork's famous literal-mindedness head-on for the first time. Strangely enough, he felt rather impressed.
'I mean, in size, shape or smell?' she went on.
'I think,' said the Seriph, 'that perhaps the phrase I had in mind was exactly not like a flog of gits.'
'Ah?' The girl pulled the flagon towards her.
And I think perhaps I would like another drink,' he said indistinctly, 'and then - and then-’ He looked sideways at the girl, and took the plunge. Are you much of a raconteur?'
'What?'
He licked his suddenly dry lips. 'I mean, do you know many stories?' he croaked.
'Oh, yes. Lots.'
'Lots?' whispered Creosote. Most of his concubines only knew the same old one or two.
'Hundreds. Why, do you want to hear one?'
'What, now?'
'If you like. It's not very busy in here.'
Perhaps I did die, Creosote thought. Perhaps this is Paradise. He took her hands. 'You know,' he said, 'it's ages since I've had a good narrative. But I wouldn't want you to do anything you don't want to.'
She patted his arm. What a nice old gentleman, she thought. Compared to some we get in here.
'There's one my granny used to tell me. I know it backwards,' she said.
Creosote sipped his beer and watched the wall in a warm glow. Hundreds, he thought. And she knows some of them backwards.
She cleared her throat, and said, in a sing-song voice that made Creosote's pulse fuse. 'There was a man and he had eight sons-’
The Patrician sat by his window, writing. His mind was full of fluff as far as the last week or two was concerned, and he didn't like that much.
A servant had lit a lamp to dispel the twilight, and a few early evening moths were orbiting it. The Patrician watched them carefully. For some reason he felt very uneasy in the presence of glass but that, as he stared fixedly at the insects, wasn't what bothered him most.
What bothered him was that he was fighting a terrible urge to catch them with his tongue.
And Wuffles lay on his back at his master's feet, and barked in his dreams.
Lights were going on all over the city, but the last few strands of sunset illuminated the gargoyles as they helped one another up the long climb to the roof.
The Librarian watched them from the open door, while giving himself a philosophic scratch. Then he turned and shut out the night.
It was warm in the Library. It was always warm in the Library, because the scatter of magic that produced the glow also gently cooked the air.
The Librarian looked at his charges approvingly, made his last rounds of the slumbering shelves, and then dragged his blanket underneath his desk, ate a goodnight banana, and fell asleep.
Silence gradually reclaimed the Library. Silence drifted around the remains of a hat, heavily battered and
frayed and charred around the edges, that had been placed with some ceremony in a niche in the wall. No matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat.
Silence filled the University in the same way that air fills a hole. Night spread across the Disk like plum jam, or possibly blackberry preserve.
But there would be a morning. There would always be another morning.
THE END
Notes
1
Like rhinestones, but different river. When it comes to glittering objects, wizards have all the taste and self-control of a deranged magpie.
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2
A magical accident in the Library, which as has already been indicated is not a place for your average rubber-stamp-and-Dewey¬decimal employment, had some time ago turned the Librarian into an orang-utan. He had since resisted all efforts to turn him back. He liked the handy long arms, the prehensile toes and the right to scratch himself in public, but most of all he liked the way all the big questions of existence had suddenly resolved themselves into a vague interest in where his next banana was coming from. It wasn't that he was unaware of the despair and nobility of the human condition. It was just that as far as he was concerned you could stuff it.
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3
The furrow left by the fleeing gargoyles caused the University's head gardener to bite through his rake and led to the famous quotation: 'How do you get a lawn like this? You mows it and you rolls it for five hundred years and then a bunch of bastards walks across it.'
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4
In most old libraries the books are chained to the shelves to prevent them being damaged by people. In the Library of Unseen University, of course, it's more or less the other way about.
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5
Sourcery tds-5 Page 25
