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those above you to give you a leg up. Of course, no wizard would normally dream of giving a colleague a leg up unless it was in order to catch them on the hop. The mere thought of actually encouraging a competitor…But on the other hand, this old fool might be of assistance for a while, and afterwards , well…
    They looked at one another with mutual, grudging admiration and unlimited mistrust, but at least it was a mistrust each one felt he could rely on. Until afterwards.
    “His name is Coin,” said Spelter. “He says his father’s name is Ipslore.”
    “I wonder how many brothers has he got?” said Carding.
    “I’m sorry?”
    “There hasn’t been magic like that in this university in centuries,” said Carding, “maybe for thousands of years. I’ve only ever read about it.”
    “We banished an Ipslore thirty years ago,” said Spelter. “According to the records, he’d got married. I can see that if he had sons, um, they’d be wizards, but I don’t understand how—”
    “That wasn’t wizardry. That was sourcery,” said Carding, leaning back in his chair.
    Spelter stared at him across the bubbling varnish.
    “Sourcery?”
    “The eighth son of a wizard would be a sourcerer.”
    “I didn’t know that!”
    “It is not widely advertised.”
    “Yes, but—sourcerers were a long time ago, I mean, the magic was a lot stronger then, um, men were different…it didn’t have anything to do with, well, breeding .” Spelter was thinking, eight sons, that means he did it eight times. At least. Gosh.
    “Sourcerers could do everything,” he went on. “They were nearly as powerful as the gods. Um. There was no end of trouble. The gods simply wouldn’t allow that sort of thing anymore, depend upon it.”
    “Well, there was trouble because the sourcerers fought among themselves,” said Carding, “But one sourcerer wouldn’t be any trouble. One sourcerer correctly advised, that is. By older and wiser minds.”
    “But he wants the Archchancellor’s hat!”
    “Why can’t he have it?”
    Spelter’s mouth dropped open. This was too much, even for him.
    Carding smiled at him amiably.
    “But the hat—”
    “It’s just a symbol,” said Carding. “It’s nothing special. If he wants it, he can have it. It’s a small enough thing. Just a symbol, nothing more. A figurehat.”
    “Figurehat?”
    “Worn by a figurehead.”
    “But the gods choose the Archchancellor!”
    Carding raised an eyebrow. “Do they?” he said, and coughed.
    “Well, yes, I suppose they do. In a manner of speaking.”
    “ In a manner of speaking? ”
    Carding got up and gathered his skirts around him. “I think,” he said, “that you have a great deal to learn. By the way, where is that hat?”
    “I don’t know,” said Spelter, who was still quite shaken. “Somewhere in, um, Virrid’s apartments, I suppose.”
    “We’d better fetch it,” said Carding.
    He paused in the doorway and stroked his beard reflectively. “I remember Ipslore,” he said. “We were students together. Wild fellow. Odd habits. Superb wizard, of course, before he went to the bad. Had a funny way of twitching his eyebrow, I remember, when he was excited.” Carding looked blankly across forty years of memory, and shivered.
    “The hat,” he reminded himself. “Let’s find it. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”
     
    In fact the hat had no intention of letting anything happen to it, and was currently hurrying toward the Mended Drum under the arm of a rather puzzled, black-clad thief.
    The thief, as will become apparent, was a special type of thief. This thief was an artist of theft. Other thieves merely stole everything that was not nailed down, but this thief stole the nails as well. This thief had scandalised Ankh by taking a particular interest in stealing, with astonishing success, things that were in fact not only nailed down but also guarded by keen-eyed guards in inaccessible strong rooms. There are artists that will paint