Chapter 34 - A Different Kind of Magic

The Librarian had gone through two entire bunches of bananas and three full shelves of books… at the same time.

Had a human attempted this, he would have ended up either shoving an accidentally torn-out page into his mouth, or smearing mashed banana all over an irreplaceable tome of wisdom.

Had a human attempted this in the Librarian's line of sight, he would have found himself forced to learn how to eat without using his hands… for a few months at the minimum.

The Librarian, on the other hand, had very early on found that one of the fringe benefits of being turned into an ape had been that his available number of thumbs were doubled, greatly increasing the number of things he could do at once.

But even a Librarian can become worn out after an entire afternoon and evening poring over obscure works.

As he peeled his fifteenth banana with his feet and closed Volume XI of "MAGIKUL CREATURES BOTH GREAT AND MINUTE", he peered tiredly at the nearly empty shelf. All that was left of that set were the recently updated Appendices by the Senior Wrangler, and he doubted those would be very helpful. He gave a deep simian sigh and looked to his left. There, stacked haphazardly, were all ten volumes of "THE DIRECTORY OF ARCANE PRACTICIONERS," and the five book set of "USERS OF OTHERWORLDLY ARTS". He had even skimmed over "ELVES, PICTSIES, AND OTHER UNWELCOME TEATIME GUESTS," though he had suspected it would be no help at all.

None of them had included any sort of creature that looked, or could look, like a human while also exhibiting the kind of power that he had seen at the restaurant.

"Ook," he ooked softly to himself, extracted himself from the pile,[1] and knuckled his way out of the stacks, heading toward the High Energy Magic Building to have a conversation with HEX.[2]

The HEM building was empty when the Librarian entered, but he could see that HEX was working furiously on some prior assignment. The ants were travelling at a fast clip through the tubes, and its various other moving parts were spinning, whirring, and humming along.

"Ook."

There was a momentary pause, and a very small number of ants diverted along a new path. A few moments later, the quill pens scribbled and a scrap of paper spat out.

+++[LOWER FORMIC LIMIT REACHED. OUT OF BANANA ERROR]+++

The Librarian stared at the paper for a minute, then cracked all four knuckles. "Ook," he responded, with a bit more emphasis.

+++[PRIORITIZATION LIMIT EXCEEDED. REDO FROM START]+++

When Ponder Stibbons reached the HEM Building, he knew immediately something was wrong. The beehives on the outside, which served as the long-term memory for the device, were completely silent.

Inside, he saw immediately what the problem was.

The Librarian, hanging from the rafters, had removed the FTB[3] and was working his way across the ceiling. HEX was in a state of chaos, with ants going every which direction, and paper spitting out with line after line of errors and gibberish.

+++[FTB UNINITIALIZED]+++

+++[ %#^ ^%^#]+++

+++[REDO FROM START REDO FROM START]+++

+++[FThAGN!Ia!CTHulHu!]+++

"Here, what are you doing?!" Ponder demanded as the Librarian dropped to the floor. "You know HEX has to have the FTB or it stops working!"

"Ook."

"What do you mean it was a loan, not a gift? You gave HEX the FTB?"

"Ook."

"Oh. Well I still think that's rather selfish. And besides, he was working on a very important project for us. You see, by analyzing the octarine flux-"

The Librarian, clutching the Fluffy Teddy Bear in the crook of one long arm, turned and knuckled toward the door, and the room suddenly became deadly silent. Ponder turned to find the ants all frozen in place, all watching the Librarian slowly work his way toward the exit. Then they all moved again, with purpose. Gears turned. Quills scratched. Paper spat out.

+++[BANANA ERROR REDO FROM START]+++

The Librarian stopped, turned, and showed Ponder an enormous number of yellow teeth. "Ook?"

More quill scratching.

+++[(OOK^2 * BANANA+INV[RLT] ) / 42 ROOT (OOKEEK)]+++

"What the bloody…"

"Ook." The Librarian eased his way past Ponder and began explaining, in myriad ooks and eeks, the little problem he was having.

Curiosity overrode Ponder's initial disappointment at having processor time hijacked. "I had no idea HEX could self-program in OOK-PLUS-PLUS." He adjusted his glasses slightly. "How interesting."

Ridcully could tell that Ponder had experienced one of those whatdoyoucallems. A Piffany, or somesuch. He could tell this, because Ponder kept taking off his glasses with one hand, shaking his head, and then putting them back on as he waved a piece of paper full of little fiddly lines in front of the Archchancellor's nose. That and the fact that it was five in the morning and Ponder had interrupted his morning calisthenics, looking like he had not slept at all.

"See the characteristic signature with a high delta theta exponent? The Librarian and I found evidence of a surge of epsilon-thaums yesterday afternoon, and ran it through HEX's pseudometrical formic matrix. If these calculations are correct, and we ran them twice to confirm, it indicates a large thaumic event occurred at the same time that the Librarian saw a table converted to base particulate matter in the middle of lunch."

Ridcully lowered his eyebrows and considered Ponder the way a small child with a magnifying glass considers a very odd slow-moving insect on a hot sunny day.

Maybe we've been working him too hard.

Bah. Impossible. "Speak Morporkian, man! Honestly Stibbons, how do you expect to be taken seriously when you can't even use real words?"

Ponder stopped, adjusted his brain to Archchancellor Mode,[4] and tried again. "There was large discharge of magical energy at the Maul at noon yesterday."

"Why didn't you say so? And why is that important?"

"It wasn't a wizard. The thaumic signature was all wrong."

"They signed their name? That's awfully accommodating of them."

Ponder sighed and dialed back his mental filter another three notches. "No Archchancellor. I mean that the magic used wasn't wizard magic."

"Ahh… then we have a visiting witch, perhaps?"

"No sir. I compared it to our most recent recorded visit of Dame Weatherwax, sir." He didn't see Ridcully smile slightly at the mention of the name. "And it didn't match that either. And witches don't generally do that kind of showy magic. As far as I understand, they prefer to be more subtle than blowing up a restaurant."

As he continued the explanation, Ridcully's expression faded into complete blankness. In the silence that followed, Ponder did a slow countdown starting from 100. He made it to 42 before the Archchancellor spoke again.

"So. You are saying. This was a magic event. But not a witch. And not a wizard?"

Ponder praised several gods. "Yes Archchancellor. And I had Hex do an analysis for similar events over the last several months. Apparently it also matches another thaumic surge about a week ago that set off all the alarms at the HEM building, and a smaller one several weeks before that, which no one noticed at the time."

"Any link to the Dungeon Dimensions? Those rascals are always trying to sneak their way in. Too many arms for my taste, really."

"No sir. We have alarms for that." He paused, wondering whether he should even bring it up. "Erm, the Librarian thinks that the event may have been caused by Miss LeJean."

"What? The same one that Vetinari was bothering me about?"

"Yes Archchancellor. The Librarian says she may not actually be human."

"Well, she doesn't have enough eyes to be from the Dungeon Dimensions. Is she some sort of elf?"

"No sir, we have alarms for that too. Frankly, I think it might just be a coincidence, but the Librarian is convinced."

"Stibbons, if you are going to waste my time keeping me guessing all morning, I'm going to have to find you another job to keep you more busy."

"Sorry sir. The closest thaumic profile we've been able to find is an anthropomorphic personification, or an act of a god, but we'd need to do more analysis to confirm that."

"What, LeJean? A god?

"Possibly sir."

"Ah hah!"

"Ah hah?"

"Ah hah!" The Archchancellor clapped his hands. "Problem solved!"

"How does that solve the problem?"

"By making it someone else's! Honestly, Stibbons, how do you expect to survive in the world of administration if you don't learn how to delegate?"

[1] It's a testament to how frustrated he was, that he would leave books just sitting there in a pile. The books were as surprised as we were, and just to play it safe put themselves back on the shelves as soon as the Librarian was out of sight.

[2] HEX was Unseen University's super-calculating device. In fact, it was the first real computer on the Disc, consisting of tubes full of ants, bits of clockwork, cogwheels, and devices for entering information verbally or by punchcard. It used a series of quill pens to draw or write responses.

[3] FTB = Fluffy Teddy Bear. HEX refused to function without it, and (almost) no one was sure how it got there.

[4] Which was contiguous in his mind with Small Child Mode.