Sourcery

jug.
    “I tend to be best at sherry this time of day,” he said, and spread his hands over the glasses. “Say, um, the word—sweet or dry?”
    “Um, no,” said Rincewind. “Perhaps you’re right. I think I’ll go and have a bit of rest.”
    “Good idea.”
    Rincewind wandered down the chilly stone passages. Occasionally he’d touch the wall and appear to be listening, and then he’d shake his head.
    As he crossed the quadrangle again he saw a herd of mice swarm over a balcony and scamper toward the river. The ground they were running over seemed to be moving, too. When Rincewind looked closer he could see that it was because it was covered with ants.
    These weren’t ordinary ants. Centuries of magical leakage into the walls of the University had done strange things to them. Some of them were pulling very small carts, some of them were riding beetles, but all of them were leaving the University as quickly as possible. The grass on the lawn rippled as they passed.
    He looked up as an elderly striped mattress was extruded from an upper window and flopped down onto the flagstones below. After a pause, apparently to catch its breath, it rose a little from the ground. Then it started to float purposefully across the lawn and bore down on Rincewind, who managed to jump out of its way just in time. He heard a high-pitched chittering and caught a glimpse of thousands of determined little legs under the bulging fabric before it hurtled onward. Even the bedbugs were on the move, and in case they didn’t find such comfortable quarters elsewhere they were leaving nothing to chance. One of them waved at him and squeaked a greeting.
    Rincewind backed away until something touched the back of his legs and froze his spine. It turned out to be a stone seat. He watched it for some time. It didn’t seem in any hurry to run away. He sat down gratefully.
    There’s probably a natural explanation, he thought. Or a perfectly normal unnatural one, anyway.
    A gritty noise made him look across the lawn.
    There was no natural explanation of this . With incredible slowness, easing themselves down parapets and drainpipes in total silence except for the occasional scrape of stone on stone, the gargoyles were leaving the roof.
    It’s a shame that Rincewind had never seen poor quality stop-motion photography, because then he would have known exactly how to describe what he was seeing. The creatures didn’t exactly move, but they managed to progress in a series of high speed tableaux, and lurched past him in a spindly procession of beaks, manes, wings, claws and pigeon droppings.
    “What’s happening?” he squeaked.
    A thing with a goblin’s face, harpy’s body and hen’s legs turned its head in a series of little jerks and spoke in a voice like the peristalsis of mountains (although the deep resonant effect was rather spoiled because, of course, it couldn’t close its mouth).
    It said: “A Ourcerer is umming! Eee orr ife!”
    Rincewind said “Pardon?” But the thing had gone past and was lurching awkwardly across the ancient lawn. *
    So Rincewind sat and stared blankly at nothing much for fully ten seconds before giving a little scream and running as fast as he could.
    He didn’t stop until he’d reached his own room in the Library building. It wasn’t much of a room, being mainly used to store old furniture, but it was home.
    Against one shadowy wall was a wardrobe. It wasn’t one of your modern wardrobes, fit only for nervous adulterers to jump into when the husband returned home early, but an ancient oak affair, dark as night, in whose dusty depths coat-hangers lurked and bred; herds of flaking shoes roamed its floor. It was quite possible that it was a secret doorway to fabulous worlds, but no one had ever tried to find out because of the distressing smell of mothballs.
    And on top of the wardrobe, wrapped in scraps of yellowing paper and old dust sheets, was a large brass-bound chest. It went by the name of the Luggage. Why it consented to be owned by Rincewind was something only the Luggage knew, and it wasn’t telling, but probably no other item in the entire chronicle of travel accessories had quite such a history of mystery and grievous bodily harm. It had been described as half suitcase, half homicidal maniac. It had many unusual qualities which may or may not become apparent soon, but currently there was only one that set it apart from any other brass-bound chest. It was snoring, with a sound like someone