Sourcery

Man.
    They all knew the Librarian, in the same definite but diffused way that people know walls and floors and all the other minor but necessary scenery on the stage of life. If they recall him at all, it was as a sort of gentle mobile sigh, sitting under his desk repairing books, or knuckling his way among the shelves in search of secret smokers. Any wizard unwise enough to hazard a clandestine rollup wouldn’t know anything about it until a soft leathery hand reached up and removed the offending homemade, but the Librarian never made a fuss, he just looked extremely hurt and sorrowful about the whole sad business and then ate it.
    Whereas what was now attempting with considerable effort to unscrew Sconner’s head by the ears was a screaming nightmare with its lips curled back to reveal long yellow fangs.
    The terrified wizards turned to run and found themselves bumping into bookshelves that had unaccountably blocked the aisles. The smallest wizard yelped and rolled under a table laden with atlases, and lay with his hands over his ears to block out the dreadful sounds as the remaining wizards tried to escape.
    Eventually there was nothing but silence, but it was that particularly massive silence created by something moving very stealthily, as it might be, in search of something else. The smallest wizard ate the tip of his hat out of sheer terror.
    The silent mover grabbed him by the leg and pulled him gently but firmly out into the open, where he gibbered a bit with his eyes shut and then, when ghastly teeth failed to meet in his throat, ventured a quick glance.
    The Librarian picked him up by the scruff of his neck and dangled him reflectively a foot off the ground, just out of reach of a small and elderly wire-haired terrier who was trying to remember how to bite people’s ankles.
    “Er—” said the wizard, and was then thrown in an almost flat trajectory through the broken doorway, where his fall was broken by the floor.
    After a while a shadow next to him said, “Well, that’s it, then. Anyone seen that daft bastard Sconner?”
    And a shadow on the other side of him said, “I think my neck’s broken.”
    “Who’s that?”
    “ That daft bastard ,” said the shadow, nastily.
    “Oh. Sorry, Sconner.”
    Sconner stood up, his whole body now outlined in magical aura. He was trembling with rage as he raised his hands.
    “I’ll show that wretched throwback to respect his evolutionary superiors—” he snarled.
    “Get him, lads!”
    And Sconner was borne to the flagstones again under the weight of all five wizards.
    “Sorry, but—”
    “—you know that if you use—”
    “—magic near the Library, with all the magic that’s in there—”
    “—get one thing wrong and it’s a critical Mass and then—”
    “BANG! Goodnight, world!”
    Sconner growled. The wizards sitting on him decided that getting up was not the wisest thing they could do at this point.
    Eventually he said, “Right. You’re right. Thank you. It was wrong of me to lose my temper like that. Clouded my judgment. Essential to be dispassionate. You’re absolutely right. Thank you. Get off.”
    They risked it. Sconner stood up.
    “That monkey,” he said, “has eaten its last banana. Fetch—”
    “Er. Ape, Sconner,” said the smallest wizard, unable to stop himself. “It’s an ape, you see. Not a monkey…”
    He wilted under the stare.
    “Who cares? Ape, monkey, what’s the difference?” said Sconner. “What’s the difference, Mr. Zoologist?”
    “I don’t know, Sconner,” said the wizard meekly. “I think it’s a class thing.”
    “Shut up.”
    “Yes, Sconner.”
    “You ghastly little man,” said Sconner.
    He turned and added, in a voice as level as a sawblade: “I am perfectly controlled. My mind is as cool as a bald mammoth. My intellect is absolutely in charge. Which one of you sat on my head? No, I must not get angry. I am not angry. I am thinking positively. My faculties are fully engaged—do any of you wish to argue?”
    “No, Sconner,” they chorused.
    “Then get me a dozen barrels of oil and all the kindling you can find! That ape’s gonna fry !”
    From high in the Library roof, home of owls and bats and other things, there was a clink of chain and the sound of glass being broken as respectfully as possible.

    “They don’t look very worried,” said Nijel, slightly affronted.
    “How can I put this?” said Rincewind. “When they come to write the list of Great Battle Cries of the