‘Oook,’ he commanded. Rincewind nodded miserably, and obediently handed him a pair of long-nosed scissors. The wizard winced as a couple of damaged pages were snipped free and dropped to the floor.
‘What are you doing to it?’ he managed.
‘Oook.’
‘An appendectomy? Oh.’
The ape jerked his thumb again, without looking up. Rincewind fished a needle and thread out of the ranks on the tray and handed them over. There was silence broken only by the scritching sound of thread being pulled through paper until the Librarian straightened up and said:
‘Oook.’
Rincewind pulled out his handkerchief and mopped the ape’s brow.
‘Oook.’
‘Don’t mention it. Is it - going to be all right?’
The Librarian nodded. There was also a general,
almost inaudible sigh of relief from the tier of books above them.
Rincewind sat down. The books were frightened. In fact they were terrified. The presence of the sourcerer made their spines creep, and the pressure of their attention closed in around him like a vice.
‘All right,’ he mumbled, ‘but what can I do about it?’
‘Oook.’ The Librarian gave Rincewind a look that would have been exactly like a quizzical look over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles, if he had been wearing any, and reached for another broken book.
‘I mean, you know I’m no good at magic.’
‘Oook.’
‘The sourcery that’s about now, it’s terrible stuff. I mean, it’s the original stuff, from right back in the dawn of time. Or around breakfast, at any rate.’
‘Oook.’
‘It’ll destroy everything eventually, won’t it?’
‘Oook.’
‘It’s about time someone put a stop to this sourcery, right?’
‘Oook.’
‘Only it can’t be me, you see. When I came here I thought I could do something, but that tower! It’s so big! It must be proof against all magic! If really powerful wizards won’t do anything about it, how can I?’
‘Oook,’ agreed the Librarian, sewing a ruptured spine.
‘So, you see, I think someone else can save the world this time. I’m no good at it.’
The ape nodded, reached across and lifted Rincewind’s hat from his head.
‘Hey!’
The Librarian ignored him, picked up a pair of shears.
‘Look, that’s my hat, if you don’t mind don’t you dare do that to my-’
He leapt across the floor and was rewarded with a thump across the side of the head, which would have astonished him if he’d had time to think about it; the Librarian might shuffle around the place like a good-natured wobbly balloon, but underneath that oversized skin was a framework of superbly-cantilevered bone and muscle that could drive a fistful of calloused knuckles through a thick oak plank. Running into the Librarian’s arm was like hitting a hairy iron bar.