"Archchancellor we have a problem!" Ponder Stibbons announced across the table in earnest.
"I should co-co Stibbons, we've run out of those Klatchian jobbies!" he affably returned.
"No...sorry what?!" Ponder was confused. To be fair that was the usual state of affairs when around his fellow faculty. The mind buggled* the majority of the time.
*Like the mind boggled but with a touch of 'buggered if I know'.
"Like a long bread? All sliced with butter. Bit garlicky, just a touch of avec. Could do with some more of it chap."
"Garlic bread?"
"Yes, that's the stuff. Go on then." He gestured with a chicken leg to indicate the urgency of the matter.
"Um no. That might be a problem, but it's not the problem at hand." There were grumbles of disagreement from the other wizards, "One of our students is missing."
Archchancellor Ridcully guffawed which was his default setting for laughter, "Oh Stibbons, really! We lose 'em all the time. They turn up eventually. Not always the same size or shape, but always with a story to tell. Part and parcel of University Education."
"It's not just the student that's missing Archchancellor," Ponder continued, "He took a book from the library. And there is a sizeable chunk of his dormitory that is absent also."
"What book?" suddenly Ridcully was interested, if only so he knew what chance he had of placating the librarian.
"The Colour of Magick," he answered solemnly.
There was a gasp of horror from the Wizards and their gout red faces turned ashen*. "This is going to take more than a banana." Ridcully muttered.
*Except the Bursar, who squeaked, choked on his doorstep-sized slice of gammon and turned puce.
'The Colour of Magick' was a curious book in that it was one of those that had never been written. It had come to exist in the library from nothing but potential, from the myriad other possibilities, knowledge and ideas that leaked from the other actually written books.* The Librarian soon discovered that it had quite a few too many possibilities in it and had housed it in it's own sub-dungeon.
* Some writers profess the opposite problem, especially when a deadline is overdue.
But when the Faculty bustled their way into the Library it was clear that Ponder was correct. The book had been removed without permission. The Librarian was throwing a wobbly in the way only a 300lb ape can. The Orang-utan 'Ooked' and 'Eeked' an angry monologue toward his wizarding colleagues, which did not show any signs of abating. So much so they took their leave, walking backwards slowly lest they take their eye off the red-haired ball of fury.
"Apparently the book wanted to be stolen," Ponder said when they had got into a safer space, three floors up, "or at least that's what the Librarian is saying. There should be no way that a student wizard of Uthan Dazzle's level could even open a book that powerful, let alone get it out of the library."
"Dazzle...Dazzle? Doesn't ring a bell." the Senior Wrangler responded.
"He was in only in his second year, neither remarkable nor abysmal. An average student." Ponder had already checked the records with Hex. "His attendance to lectures was exemplary until Micklemote term."
"What about this missing bit of Dormitory?" the Archchancellor asked, "Missing how?"
"Best you see it for yourself." Stibbons replied, leading the way. Or don't see it, he thought to himself.
###
The dormitories in any guild were always an experience. Young men newly away from their Mothers with no one to cook, clean or iron for them rarely developed the abilities to do this for themselves*. Instead, their living spaces would morph into an organic entity all its own; part discarded sock, part take-away carton, part filth. Add magic into the equation and it was squalor of a whole different level.
*The exception being the meticulous Assassin's Guild.
Dazzle's quarters were of a similar ilk apart from one thing, that one thing being two of the walls, part of the ceiling and half of his unmade bed. The Bursar crept closer to the void that was now in their place.
"I wouldn't touch it if I were you," warned Stibbons, in his role of Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic.
"What is it?" the Bursar asked tremulously, bottle of dried frog pills rattling as he popped one in his mouth.
"Infra-black."
"But that's just a colour!" the Archchancellor boomed, "What you see when you get bonked on the head."
"What?" the Bursar asked.
The Archchancellor clipped the Bursar round the noggin, knocking off his hat.
"Oh! I see it now..." he bent to retrieve the hat.
"Yes it is a colour," Ponder looked into it, frowning.
"Is it not paint? Or something?" The Chair of Indefinite Studies suggested.
"Try throwing something in." Ponder suggested, then, "No, not the Bursar!"
The Chair picked up one of the pillows from the bed instead and tossed it toward the infra-black where it promptly disappeared.
"Magically seal this room," Ridcully ordered. Then with an air of defeat, "Best to notify the Watch. We all know what happened the last time a book was stolen. Late fees were the least of it."