‘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