Sourcery (Discworld, #5; Rincewind, #3)

by Terry Pratchett

“I meant,” said Ipslore, bitterly, “what is there in this world that makes living worthwhile?” Death thought about it. CATS, he said eventually, CATS ARE NICE.

But it wasn’t the sight of the cockroaches that was so upsetting. It was the fact that they were marching in step, a hundred abreast. Of course, like all the informal inhabitants of the University the roaches were a little unusual, but there was something particularly unpleasant about the sound of billions of very small feet hitting the stones in perfect time. Rincewind stepped gingerly over the marching column. The Librarian jumped it. The Luggage, of course, followed them with a noise like someone tapdancing over a bag of potato chips.

But that voice would have made even a statue get down off its pedestal for a few brisk laps of the playing field and fifty press-ups. It was a voice that could make “Good morning” sound like an invitation to bed.

“Quick, you must come with me,” she said. “You’re in great danger!” “Why?” “Because I will kill you if you don’t.”

“No, really, I’m a terrible coward, I always run away.” Rincewind’s chest heaved. “Danger has stared me in the back of the head, oh, hundreds of times!”

The current Patrician, head of the extremely rich and powerful Vetinari family, was thin, tall and apparently as cold-blooded as a dead penguin. Just by looking at him you could tell he was the sort of man you’d expect to keep a white cat, and caress it idly while sentencing people to death in a piranha tank; and you’d hazard for good measure that he probably collected rare thin porcelain, turning it over and over in his blue-white fingers while distant screams echoed from the depths of the dungeons. You wouldn’t put it past him to use the word “exquisite” and have thin lips. He looked the kind of person who, when they blink, you mark it off on the calendar.

He didn’t administer a reign of terror, just the occasional light shower.

Ankh-Morpork, a city once described as resembling an overturned termite heap without the charm.

“Talent just defines what you do,” he said. “It doesn’t define what you are. Deep down, I mean. When you know what you are, you can do anything.”

“This is fun,” said Creosote. “Me, robbing my own treasury. If I catch myself I can have myself flung into the snake pit.” “But you could throw yourself on your mercy,” said Conina, running a paranoid eye over the dusty stonework. “Oh, no. I think I would have to teach me a lesson, as an example to myself.”

“I can’t hear anything,” said Nijel loudly. Nijel was one of those people who, if you say ‘don’t look now,’ would immediately swivel his head like an owl on a turntable. These are the same people who, when you point out, say, an unusual crocus just beside them, turn around aimlessly and put their foot down with a sad little squashy noise. If they were lost in a trackless desert you could find them by putting down, somewhere on the sand, something small and fragile like a valuable old mug that had been in your family for generations, and then hurrying back as soon as you heard the crash.

They had heads like a flamingo, bodies like a turkey, and legs like a Sumo wrestler; they walked in a jerky, bobbing fashion, as though their heads were attached to their feet by elastic bands. They belonged to a species unique even among Disc fauna, in that their prime means of defense was to cause a predator to laugh so much that they could run away before it recovered.