Sourcery

love?”
    R ARE , said Death. N EVERTHELESS —
    “Listen! They drove us here, to the ends of the world, and that killed her! They tried to take my staff away!” Ipslore was screaming above the noise of the wind.
    “Well, I still have some power left,” he snarled. “And I say that my son shall go to Unseen University and wear the Archchancellor’s hat and the wizards of the world shall bow to him! And he shall show them what lies in their deepest hearts. Their craven, greedy hearts. He’ll show the world its true destiny, and there will be no magic greater than his.”
    N O . And the strange thing about the quiet way Death spoke the word was this: it was louder than the roaring of the storm. It jerked Ipslore back to momentary sanity.
    Ipslore rocked back and forth uncertainly. “What?” he said.
    I SAID NO . N OTHING IS FINAL . N OTHING IS ABSOLUTE. EXCEPT ME, OF COURSE . S UCH TINKERING WITH DESTINY COULD MEAN THE DOWNFALL OF THE WORLD . T HERE MUST BE A CHANCE, HOWEVER SMALL . T HE LAWYERS OF FATE DEMAND A LOOPHOLE IN EVERY PROPHECY .
    Ipslore stared at Death’s implacable face.
    “I must give them a chance?”
    Y ES .
    Tap, tap, tap went Ipslore’s fingers on the metal of the staff.
    “Then they shall have their chance,” he said, “when hell freezes over.”
    N O . I AM NOT ALLOWED TO ENLIGHTEN YOU, EVEN BY DEFAULT, ABOUT CURRENT TEMPERATURES IN THE NEXT WORLD .
    “Then,” Ipslore hesitated, “then they shall have their chance when my son throws his staff away.”
    N O WIZARD WOULD EVER THROW HIS STAFF AWAY , said Death. T HE BOND IS TOO GREAT .
    “Yet it is possible, you must agree.”
    Death appeared to consider this. Must was not a word he was accustomed to hearing, but he seemed to concede the point.
    A GREED , he said.
    “Is that a small enough chance for you?”
    S UFFICIENTLY MOLECULAR .
    Ipslore relaxed a little. In a voice that was nearly normal, he said: “I don’t regret it, you know. I would do it all again. Children are our hope for the future.”
    T HERE IS NO HOPE FOR THE FUTURE , said Death.
    “What does it contain, then?”
    M E .
    “Besides you, I mean!”
    Death gave him a puzzled look. I’ M SORRY ?
    The storm reached its howling peak overhead. A seagull went past backwards.
    “I meant,” said Ipslore, bitterly, “what is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?”
    Death thought about it.
    C ATS , he said eventually, C ATS ARE NICE .
    “Curse you!”
    M ANY HAVE , said Death, evenly.
    “How much longer do I have?”
    Death pulled a large hourglass from the secret recesses of his robe. The two bulbs were enclosed in bars of black and gold, and the sand was nearly all in the bottom one.
    O H, ABOUT NINE SECONDS .
    Ipslore pulled himself up to his full and still impressive height, and extended the gleaming metal staff toward the child. A hand like a little pink crab reached out from the blanket and grasped it.
    “Then let me be the first and last wizard in the history of the world to pass on his staff to his eighth son,” he said slowly and sonorously. “And I charge him to use it to—
    I SHOULD HURRY UP, IF I WERE YOU …
    “—the full,” said Ipslore, “becoming the mightiest—”
    The lightning screamed from the heart of the cloud, hit Ipslore on the point of his hat, crackled down his arm, flashed along the staff and struck the child.
    The wizard vanished in a wisp of smoke. The staff glowed green, then white, then merely red-hot. The child smiled in his sleep.
    When the thunder had died away Death reached down slowly and picked up the boy, who opened his eyes.
    They glowed golden, from the inside. For the first time in what, for want of any better word, must be called his life, Death found himself looking at a stare that he found hard to return. The eyes seemed to be focused on a point several inches inside his skull.
    I did not mean for that to happen , said the voice of Ipslore, from out of the empty air. Is he harmed?
    No. Death tore his gaze away from that fresh, knowing smile. H E CONTAINED THE POWER . H E IS A SOURCERER: NO DOUBT HE WILL SURVIVE MUCH WORSE . A ND NOW—YOU WILL COME WITH ME .
    No .
    Y ES . Y OU ARE DEAD, YOU SEE . Death looked around for Ipslore’s wavering shade, and failed to find it. W HERE ARE YOU ?
    In the staff .
    Death leaned on his scythe and sighed.
    F OOLISH . H OW EASILY COULD I CUT YOU LOOSE .
    Not without destroying the staff , said the voice of Ipslore, and it seemed to Death that there was a new, thick,