They watched Silverfish and a couple of associates fumble technically with the box on the tripod. White light suddenly appeared at a circular orifice on the front of it, and illuminated the screen. There was a halfhearted cheer from the crowd.
s that?'
'We think he was playing safe, Master.'
The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on the desk.
'Can't have this,' he said. 'Can't have someone goin' around almost bein' a wizard and laughin' at us up his, his - what's it that people laugh up?'
'My feelings exactly,' purred the Bursar.
'We should send him up,' said the Archchancellor firmly.
'Down, Master,' said the Bursar. 'Sending him up would mean making spiteful and satirical comments about him.'
'Yes. Good thinkin'. Let's do that,' said the Archchancellor.
'No, Master,' said the Bursar patiently. 'He's sending us up, so we send him down.'
'Right. Balance things up,' said the Archchancellor. The Bursar rolled his eyes. 'Or down,' the Archchancellor added. 'So you want me to give him his marchin' orders, eh? Just send him along in the morning and-'
'No, Archchancellor. We can't do it just like that.'
'We can't? I thought we were in charge here!'
'Yes, but you have to be extremely careful when dealing with Master Tugelbend. He's an expert on procedures. So what I thought we could do is give him this paper in the finals tomorrow.'
The Archchancellor took the proferred document. His lips moved silently as he read it.
'Just one question.'
'Yes. And he'll either pass or fail. I'd like to see him manage 84 per cent on that.'
In a sense which his tutors couldn't quite define, much to their annoyance, Victor Tugelbend was also the laziest person in the history of the world.
Not simply, ordinarily lazy. Ordinary laziness was merely the absence of effort. Victor had passed through there a long time ago, had gone straight through commonplace idleness and out on the far side. He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labour.
He had never wanted to be a wizard. He'd never wanted much, except perhaps to be left alone and not woken up until midday. When he'd been small, people had said things like, 'And what do you want to be, little man?' and he'd said, 'I don't know. What have you got?'
They didn't let you get away with that sort of thing for very long. It wasn't enough to be what you were, you had to be working to be something else.
He'd tried. For quite a long while he'd tried wanting to be a blacksmith, because that looked interesting and romantic. But it also involved hard work and intractable bits of metal. Then he'd tried wanting to be an assassin, which looked dashing and romantic. But it also involved hard work and, when you got right down to it, occasionally having to kill someone. Then he'd tried wanting to be an actor, which looked dramatic and romantic, but it had involved dusty tights, cramped lodgings and, to his amazement, hard work.
He'd allowed himself to be sent to the University because it was easier than not going.
He tended to smile a lot, in a faintly puzzled way. This gave people the impression that he was slightly more intelligent than they were. In fact, he was usually trying to work out what they had just said.
And he had a thin moustache, which in a certain light made him look debonair and, in another, made him look as though he had been drinking a thick chocolate milk shake.
He was quite proud of it. When you became a wizard you were expected to stop shaving and grow a beard like a gorse bush. Very senior wizards looked capable of straining nourishment out of the air via their moustaches, like whales.
It was now half-past one. He was ambling back from the Mended Drum, the most determinedly disreputable of the city's taverns. Victor Tugelbend always gave the impression of ambling, even when he was running.
He was also quite sober and a bit surprised, therefore, to find himself in the Plaza of Broken Moons. He'd been heading for the little alley behind the University and the piece of wall with the conveniently spaced removable bricks where, for hundreds and hundreds of years, student wizards had quietly got around, or more precisely climbed over, Unseen University's curfew restrictions.
The plaza wasn't on the route.
He turned to amble back the way he had come, and then stopped. There was something unusual going on.