Night Watch

metallic noise from the big clock tower. Ponder and Ridcully waited a few moments, but the city stayed full of normal noise, like the collapse of masonry and distant screams.
    “Right,” said Ridcully, as if grudgingly awarding the world a mark for trying. “What was all that about, Stibbons? And why are there policemen in the Library?”
    “Big magical storm, sir. Several thousand gigathaums. I believe the Watch is chasing a criminal.”
    “Well, they can’t just run in here without askin’,” said Ridcully, stepping out of the bath and striding forward. “What do we pay our taxes for, after all?”
    “Er, we don’t actually pay taxes, sir,” said Ponder, running after him. “The system is that we promise to pay taxes if the city ever asks us to, provided the city promises never to ask us, sir. We make a voluntary—”
    “Well, at least we have an arrangement, Stibbons.”
    “Yes, sir. May I point out that you—”
    “And that means they have to ask permission. The essential decencies must be maintained,” said Ridcully firmly. “And I am the Master of this college!”
    “On the subject of, er, decencies, sir, you are not, in fact, wearing—”
    Ridcully strode through the open doors of the Library.
    “What is going on here?” he demanded.
    The watchmen turned and stared. A large blob of foam, which up until that point had been performing sterling service in the cause of the essential decencies, slipped slowly to the floor.
    “Well?” he snapped. “Haven’t you lot seen a wizard before?”
    A watchman snapped to attention and saluted. “Captain Carrot, sir. We’ve, er, never seen so much of a wizard, sir.”
    Ridcully gave him the slow blank stare used by those with acute uptake-grasping deficiency.
    “What’s he talkin’ about, Stibbons?” he said out of the corner of his mouth.
    “You’re, er, insufficiently dressed, sir.”
    “What? I’ve got my hat on, haven’t I?”
    “Yes, sir—”
    “Hat = wizard, wizard = hat. Everything else is frippery. Anyway, I’m sure we’re all men of the world,” Ridcully added, looking around. For the first time, he took in other details about the watchmen. “And dwarfs of the world…ah…trolls of the world, too, I see…and…women of the world, too, I note…er…” The Archchancellor lapsed into a moment’s silence, and then said, “Mr. Stibbons?”
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Would you be so kind as to run up to my rooms and fetch my robe?”
    “Of course, sir.”
    “And, in the meantime, please be so good as to lend me your hat…”
    “But you do actually have your hat on, sir,” said Ponder.
    “Quite so, quite so,” said Ridcully slowly and carefully through his fixed grin. “And now, Mister Stibbons, in addition, right now, I wish you, in fact, to lend, to me, your hat, please.”
    “Oh,” said Ponder. “Er…yes…”
    A few minutes later a thoroughly clean and decent and clothed Archchancellor was standing in the very center of the Library, staring up at the damaged dome, while beside him Ponder Stibbons—who, for some reason, had elected to continue to remain hatless even though his hat had been handed back to him—stared glumly at some magical instruments.
    “Nothing at all?” said Ridcully.
    “Ook,” said the Librarian. *
    “You’ve searched everywhere?”
    “He can’t search everywhere in this library, sir,” said Ponder. “That would take more time than actually could possibly exist. But all the mundane shelves, certainly. Um.”
    Carrot turned to Ponder. “What was the ‘um’ for, please, sir?”
    “You understand that this is a magical library? And that means that even in normal circumstances there is an area of high magical potential above the bookshelves?”
    “I have been in here before,” said Carrot.
    “Then you know that time with libraries is…somewhat more flexible?” said Ponder. “Given the additional power of the storm, it might just be possible that—”
    “Are you going to tell me he’s been moved in time?” said the watchman.
    Ponder was impressed. He hadn’t been brought up to believe that watchmen were clever. However, he took care not to show it.
    “Would that it were that simple,” he said. “However, um, the lightning appears to have added a random lateral component…”
    “A what?” said Ridcully.
    “You mean in time and space?” said Carrot. Ponder felt himself getting rattled. Nonwizards shouldn’t be that quick.
    “Not… exactly ,” he said and gave up.