The wizards said that there was a ruler back in, oh, it would be the Century of the Dragonfly, who had tried to tell the University what to do. The Patrician could come and have a look at him if he liked.
The Patrician said that he would. He truly would.
In the end it was agreed that while the wizards of course paid no taxes, they would nevertheless make an entirely voluntary donation of, oh, let’s say two hundred dollars per head, without prejudice, mutatis mutandis, no strings attached, to be used strictly for non-militaristic and environmentally-acceptable purposes.
It was this dynamic interplay of power blocs that made Ankh-Morpork such an interesting, stimulating and above all bloody dangerous place in which to live.*
Senior wizards did not often get out and about on what Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke probably called the thronged highways and intimate byways of the city, but it was instantly obvious that something was wrong. It wasn’t that cobblestones didn’t sometimes fly through the air, but usually someone had thrown them. They didn’t normally float by themselves.
A door burst open and a suit of clothes came out, a pair of shoes dancing along behind it, a hat floating a few inches above the empty collar. Close behind them came a skinny man endeavoring to do with a hastily-snatched flannel what normally it took a whole pair of trousers to achieve.
“You come back here!” he screamed, as they rounded the corner. “I still owe seven dollars for you!”
A second pair of trousers scurried out into the street and hurried after them.
The wizards clustered together like a frightened animal with five pointed heads and ten legs, wondering who was going to be the first to comment.
“That’s bloody amazing!” said the Archchancellor.
“Hmm?” said the Dean, trying to imply that he saw more amazing things than that all the time, and that in drawing attention to mere clothing running around by itself the Archchancellor was letting down the whole tone of wizardry.
“Oh, come on. I don’t know many tailors around here who’d throw in a second pair of pants for a seven dollar suit,” said Ridcully.
“Oh,” said the Dean.
“If it comes past again, try to trip it up so’s I can have a look at the label.”
A bedsheet squeezed through an upper window and flapped away across the rooftops.
“Y’know,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, trying to keep his voice calm and relaxed, “I don’t think this is magic. It doesn’t feel like magic.”
The Senior Wrangler fished in one of the deep pockets of his robe. There was a muffled clanking and rustling and the occasional croak. Eventually he produced a dark blue glass cube. It had a dial on the front.
“You carry one of them around in your pocket?” said the Dean. “A valuable instrument like that?”
“What the hell is it?” said Ridcully.
“Amazingly sensitive magical measuring device,” said the Dean. “Measures the density of a magical field. A thaumometer.”
The Senior Wrangler proudly held the cube aloft and pressed a button on the side.
A needle on the dial wobbled around a little bit and stopped.
“See?” said the Senior Wrangler. “Just natural background, representing no hazard to the public.”
“Speak up,” said the Archchancellor. “I can’t hear you above the noise.”
Crashes and screams rose from the houses on either side of the street.
Mrs. Evadne Cake was a medium, verging on small.
It wasn’t a demanding job. Not many people who died in Ankh-Morpork showed much inclination to chat to their surviving relatives. Put as many mystic dimensions between you and them as possible, that was their motto. She filled in between engagements with dressmaking and church work—any church. Mrs. Cake was very keen on religion, at least on Mrs. Cake’s terms.
Evadne Cake was not one of those bead-curtain-and-incense mediums, partly because she didn’t hold with incense but mainly because she was actually very good at her profession. A good conjuror can astound you with a simple box of matches and a perfectly ordinary deck of cards, if you would care to examine them, sir, you will see they are a perfectly ordinary deck of cards—he doesn’t need the finger-nipping folding tables and complicated collapsible top hats of lesser prestidigitators. And, in the same way, Mrs. Cake didn’t need much in the way of props. Even the industrial-grade crystal ball was only there as a sop to her customers. Mrs. Cake could actually read the future in a bowl of porridge.* She could have a revelation in a panful of frying bacon. She had spent a lifetime dabbling in the spirit world
, except that in Evadne’s case dabbling wasn’t really apposite. She wasn’t the dabbling kind. It was more a case of stamping into the spirit world and demanding to see the manager.
And, while making her breakfast and cutting up dogfood for Ludmilla, she started to hear voices.