‘But the gods choose the Archchancellor!’
Carding raised an eyebrow. ‘Do they?’ he said, and coughed.
‘Well, yes, I suppose they do. In a manner of speaking.’
‘In a manner of speaking?’
Carding got up and gathered his skirts around him. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you have a great deal to learn. By the way, where is that hat?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Spelter, who was still quite shaken.
‘Somewhere in, um, Virrid’s apartments, I suppose.’
‘We’d better fetch it,’ said Carding.
He paused in the doorway and stroked his beard reflectively. ‘I remember Ipslore,’ he said. ‘We were students together. Wild fellow. Odd habits. Superb wizard, of course, before he went to the bad. Had a funny way of twitching his eyebrow, I remember, when he was excited.’ Carding looked blankly across forty years of memory, and shivered.
‘The hat,’ he reminded himself. ‘Let’s find it. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.’
In fact the hat had no intention of letting anything happen to it, and was currently hurrying towards the Mended Drum under the arm of a rather puzzled, black-clad thief.
The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well. This thief had scandalised Ankh by taking a particular interest in stealing, with astonishing success, things that were in fact not only nailed down but also guarded by keen-eyed guards in inaccessible strongrooms. There are artists that will paint an entire chapel ceiling; this was the kind of thief that could steal it.
This particular thief was credited with stealing the jewelled disembowelling knife from the Temple of Offler the Crocodile God during the middle of Evensong, and the silver shoes from the Patrician’s finest racehorse while it was in the process of winning a race. When Gritoller Mimpsey, vice-president of the Thieves’ Guild, was jostled in the marketplace and then found on returning home that a freshly-stolen handful of diamonds had vanished from their place of concealment, he knew who to blame.[7] This was the type of thief that could steal the initiative, the moment and the words right out of your mouth.
However, it was the first time it had stolen something that not only asked it to, in a low but authoritative voice, but gave precise and somehow unarguable instructions about how it was to be disposed of.
It was that cusp of the night that marks the turning point of Ankh-Morpork’s busy day, when those who make their living under the sun are resting after their labours and those who turn an honest dollar by the cold light of the moon are just getting up the energy to go to work. The day had, in fact, reached that gentle point when it was too late for housebreaking and too early for burglary.
Rincewind sat alone in the crowded, smoky room, and didn’t take much notice when a shadow passed over the table and a sinister figure sat down opposite him. There was nothing very remarkable about sinister figures in this place. The Drum jealousy guarded its reputation as the most stylishly disreputable tavern in Ankh-Morpork and the big troll that now guarded the door carefully vetted customers for suitability in the way of black cloaks, glowing eyes, magic swords and so forth. Rincewind never found out what he did to the failures. Perhaps he ate them.
When the figure spoke, its husky voice came from the depths of a black velvet hood, lined with fur.
‘Psst,’ it said.
‘Not very,’ said Rincewind, who was in a state of mind where he couldn’t resist it, ‘but I’m working on it.’
‘I’m looking for a wizard,’ said the voice. It sounded hoarse with the effort of disguising itself but, again, this was nothing unusual in the Drum.
‘Any wizard in particular?’ Rincewind said guardedly. People could get into trouble this way.
‘One with a keen sense of tradition who would not mind taking risks for high reward,’ said another voice. It appeared to be coming from a round black leather box under the stranger’s arm.
‘Ah,’ said Rincewind, ‘that narrows it down a bit, then. Does this involve a perilous journey into unknown and probably dangerous lands?’
‘It does, as a matter of fact.’
‘Encounters with exotic creatures?’ Rincewind smiled.
‘Could be.’
‘Almost certain death?’
‘Almost certainly.’
Rincewind nodded, and picked up his hat.
‘Well, I wish you every success in your search,’ he said, ‘Id help you myself, only I’m not going to.’