Sourcery

No one noticed the gates swing back. But a silence rolled out of the University, spreading out across the noisy, crowded square like the first fresh wavelets of the tide trickling over a brackish swamp. In fact it wasn’t true silence at all, but a great roar of anti-noise. Silence isn’t the opposite of sound, it is merely its absence. But this was the sound that lies on the far side of silence, anti-noise, its shadowy decibels throttling the market cries like a fall of velvet.

The crowds stared around wildly, mouthing like goldfish and with about as much effect. All heads turned towards the gates.

Something else was flowing out besides that cacophony of hush. The stalls nearest the empty gate-way began to grind across the cobbles, shedding merchandise. Their owners dived out of the way as the stalls hit the row behind them and scraped relentlessly onwards, piling up until a wide avenue of clean, empty stones stretched the whole width of the square.

Ardrothy Longstaff, Purveyor of Pies Full of Personality, peered over the top of the wreckage of his stall in time to see the wizards emerge.

He knew wizards, or up until now he’d always thought he did. They were vague old boys, harmless enough in their way, dressed like ancient sofas, always ready customers for any of his merchandise that happened to be marked down on account of age and rather more personality than a prudent housewife would be prepared to put up with.

But these wizards were something new to Ardrothy. They walked out into Sator Square as if they owned it. Little blue sparks flashed around their feet. They seemed a little taller, somehow.

Or perhaps it was just the way they carried themselves.

Yes, that was it…

Ardrothy had a touch of magic in his genetic makeup, and as he watched the wizards sweep across the square it told him that the very best thing he could do for his health would be to pack his knives and mincers in his little pack and have it away out of the city at any time in the next ten minutes.

The last wizard in the group lagged behind his colleagues and looked around the square with disdain.

‘There used to be fountains out here,’ he said. ‘You people – be off.’

The traders stared at one another. Wizards normally spoke imperiously, that was to be expected. But there was an edge to the voice that no one had heard before. It had knuckles in it.

Ardrothy’s eyes swivelled sideways. Arising out of the ruins of his jellied starfish and clam stall like an avenging angel, dislodging various molluscs from his beard and spitting vinegar, was Miskin Koble, who was said to be able to open oysters with one hand. Years of pulling limpets off rocks and wrestling the giant cockles in Ankh Bay had given him the kind of physical development normally associated with tectonic plates. He didn’t so much stand up as unfold.

Then he thudded his way towards the wizard and pointed a trembling finger at the ruins of his stall, from which half a dozen enterprising lobsters were making a determined bid for freedom. Muscles moved around the edges of his mouth like angry eels.

‘Did you do that?’ he demanded.

‘Stand aside, oaf,’ said the wizard, three words which in the opinion of Ardrothy gave him the ongoing life expectancy of a glass cymbal.

‘I hates wizards,’ said Koble. ‘I really hates wizards. So I am going to hit you, all right?’

He brought his fist back and let fly.

The wizard raised an eyebrow, yellow fire sprang up around the shellfish salesman, there was a noise like tearing silk, and Koble had vanished. All that was left was his boots, standing forlornly on the cobbles with little wisps of smoke coming out of them.

No one knows why smoking boots always remain, no matter how big the explosion. It seems to be just one of those things.

It seemed to the watchful eyes of Ardrothy that the wizard himself was nearly as shocked as the crowd, but he rallied magnificently and gave his staff a flourish.

‘You people had better jolly well learn from this,’ he said. ‘No one raises their hand to a wizard, do you understand? There are going to be a lot of changes around here. Yes, what do you want?’

This last comment was to Ardrothy, who was trying to sneak past unnoticed. He scrabbled quickly in his pie tray.

‘I was just wondering if your honourship would care to purchase one of these finest pies,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Full of nourish—’

‘Watch closely, pie-selling person,’ said the wizard. He stretched out his hand, made a strange gesture with his fingers, and produced a pie out of the air.

It was fat, golden-brown and beautifully glazed. Just by looking at it Ardrothy knew it was packed edge to edge with prime lean pork, with none of those spacious areas of good fresh air under the lid that represented his own profit margin. It was the kind of pie piglets hope to be when they grew up.

His heart sank. His ruin was floating in front of him with short-crust pastry on it.

‘Want a taste?’ said the wizard. ‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’

‘Wherever it came from,’ said Ardrothy.