Free Sourcery by Terry Pratchett Page A

bright and cold as comet fire. It sleeted through the stones and crackled off sharp edges like static electricity on the nylon carpet of Creation. It buzzed and sizzled. It curled wizardly beards, poured in wisps of octarine smoke from fingers that had done nothing more mystical for three decades than a little light illusion. How can the effect be described with delicacy and taste? For most of the wizards, it was like being an elderly man who, suddenly faced with a beautiful young woman, finds to his horror and delight and astonishment that the flesh is suddenly as willing as the spirit.
    And in the halls and corridors of the University the word was being whispered: Sourcery !
    A few wizards surreptitiously tried spells that they hadn’t been able to master for years, and watched in amazement as they unrolled perfectly. Sheepishly at first, and then with confidence, and then with shouts and whoops, they threw fireballs to one another or produced live doves out of their hats or made multi-colored sequins fall out of the air.
    Sourcery! One or two wizards, stately men who had hitherto done nothing more blameworthy that eat a live oyster, turned themselves invisible and chased the maids and bedders through the corridors.
    Sourcery! Some of the bolder spirits had tried out ancient flying spells and were bobbing a little uncertainly among the rafters. Sourcery!
    Only the Librarian didn’t share in the manic breakfast. He watched the antics for some time, pursing his prehensile lips, and then knuckled stiffly off toward his Library. If anyone had bothered to notice, they’d have heard him bolting the door.
    It was deathly quiet in the Library. The books were no longer frantic. They’d passed through their fear and out into the calm waters of abject terror, and they crouched on their shelves like so many mesmerized rabbits.
    A long hairy arm reached up and grabbed Casplock’s Compleet Lexicon of Majik with Precepts for the Wise before it could back away, soothed its terror with a long-fingered hand, and opened it under “S.” The Librarian smoothed the trembling page gently and ran a horny nail down the entries until he came to:
Sourcerer, n. (mythical). A proto-wizard, a doorway through which new majik may enterr the world, a wizard not limited by the physical capabilities of hys own bodie, not by Destinie, nor by Deathe. It is written that there once werre sourcerers in the youth of the world but not may there by nowe and blessed be, for sourcery is not for menne and the return of sourcery would mean the Ende of the Worlde…If the Creator hadd meant menne to bee as goddes, he ould have given them wings. SEE ALSO: thee Apocralypse, the legende of thee Ice Giants, and thee Teatime of the Goddes .
    The Librarian read the cross-references, turned back to the first entry, and stared at it through deep dark eyes for a long time. Then he put the book back carefully, crept under his desk, and pulled the blanket over his head.
    But in the minstrel gallery over the Great Hall Carding and Spelter watched the scene with entirely different emotions.
    Standing side by side they looked almost exactly like the number 10.
    “What is happening?” said Spelter. He’d had a sleepless night, and wasn’t thinking very straight.
    “Magic is flowing into the University,” said Carding. “That’s what sourcerer means. A channel for magic. Real magic, my boy. Not the tired old stuff we’ve made do with these past centuries. This is the dawning of a…a—”
    “New, um, dawn?”
    “Exactly. A time of miracles, a…a—”
    “ Anus mirabilis? ”
    Carding frowned. “Yes,” he said, eventually, “something like that, I expect. You have quite a way with words, you know.”
    “Thank you, brother.”
    The senior wizard appeared to ignore the familiarity. Instead he turned and leaned on the carved rail, watching the magical displays below them. His hands automatically went to his pockets for his tobacco pouch, and then paused. He grinned,