Sourcery
Chapters - Terry Pratchett
Section: The Eighth Son's Staff
Ipslore the Red, a wizard banished for marrying, confronts Death on a clifftop after his wife dies in childbirth. He names his eighth son Coin - an eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son, making him a sourcerer, a channel for raw magic. Ipslore binds his spirit into a metal staff and passes it to the baby, vowing his son will become Archchancellor and show the wizards what real power means. Death extracts one concession: the prophecy can be broken if Coin ever throws the staff away.
At Unseen University, the books in the Library become agitated and Rincewind and the Librarian struggle to calm them. Rats, gargoyles and insects flee the University, sensing what is coming. Rincewind drags the Librarian and the Luggage out of the University and heads to the Mended Drum tavern, where he drinks and laments how wizardry has lost its old power.
Meanwhile, young Coin arrives at the University during the feast to select a new Archchancellor. He challenges the wizards, easily surpasses eighth-level wizard Billias by expanding Maligree's Wonderful Garden into a real place, then vanishes Billias entirely. The bursar Spelter and senior wizard Carding recognise what Coin is - a sourcerer - and begin scheming to use his power for their own advancement, planning to give him the Archchancellor's hat. But the real hat has already been stolen from the University by a mysterious thief on the hat's own orders.
On page: Ipslore the Red, Death, Coin, Rincewind, The Librarian, The Luggage, Spelter, Marmaric Carding, Skarmer Billias, Conina, The Archchancellor's Hat·Mentioned: Great A'Tuin
Section: Quest for the Hat
Conina, the thief who stole the Archchancellor's hat, finds Rincewind at the Mended Drum. She is the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian, blessed with his fighting instincts despite wanting to be a hairdresser. The hat itself speaks, ordering them to flee to Klatch to find someone worthy to wear it, warning that sourcery will destroy the world. After a violent bar fight with the Patrician's guards and a terrifying journey through the Shades, Rincewind reluctantly agrees to the quest. They commandeer a boat and set sail across the Circle Sea with the Luggage.
Back at the University, Coin's presence floods the building with raw magic. Wizards find they can perform spells they never could before. Carding and Spelter present Coin with a replica Archchancellor's hat that Spelter has crafted. Coin begins reshaping the University - transforming the Great Hall into gleaming marble and glass, destroying the portraits of former Archchancellors. He summons the Patrician to the University and demands to know why wizards do not rule the world. When the Patrician refuses to submit, Carding - drunk on new power - transforms him into a small yellow lizard. The Librarian rescues the lizard-Patrician and his dog Wuffles, barricading himself in the Library. The wizards march out into Ankh-Morpork and begin imposing their rule, casually destroying anyone who resists.
On page: Rincewind, Conina, The Luggage, The Librarian, Coin, Spelter, Marmaric Carding, Havelock Vetinari, Ovin Hakardly, The Librarian, The Archchancellor's Hat·Mentioned: Cohen the Barbarian
Section: Snake Pit in Al Khali
At sea, Rincewind and Conina are attacked by Klatchian slave pirates. Conina fights brilliantly while the Luggage devours the pirate leader, but the slavers escape with the Archchancellor's hat. The ship continues to Al Khali, where Rincewind and Conina enter the soak to track down the stolen hat. They are captured by armed men and brought before Creosote, the fabulously wealthy Seriph of Al Khali, a hopeless poet who lives in a walled pleasure garden and writes terrible verse. His Grand Vizier Abrim is the real power - a man rejected by Unseen University who hungers for magical authority. Abrim sends Conina to the seraglio and throws Rincewind into the snake pit.
In the pit, Rincewind meets Nijel the Destroyer, a would-be barbarian hero who has been a barbarian for only three days, learned from a mail-order book supposedly by Cohen the Barbarian. He wears woolly underwear under his leather straps because he promised his mother. They escape through a secret passage just as the towers of sourcery begin erupting across the world - Coin's power is building new towers everywhere. At the University, Spelter grows increasingly disturbed, secretly visiting the Librarian and warning him about the staff's sinister control over Coin. When Spelter tries to flee, the staff hunts him down in the kitchens and kills him.
On page: Rincewind, Conina, The Luggage, Creosote, Abrim, Nijel the Destroyer, Spelter, The Librarian, Coin, The Archchancellor's Hat·Mentioned: Cohen the Barbarian
Section: Rival Towers Rise
Nijel and Rincewind rescue Conina from the seraglio and find Creosote buried under rubble as the Rhoxie palace tears itself apart - its stones flying to build a rival tower of sourcery. Abrim has put on the Archchancellor's hat, which has made a dark bargain with him, granting him two thousand years of accumulated wizardly knowledge. The hat and Abrim destroy a wizard who challenges them at the Al Khali tower, and Abrim begins his own campaign of magical conquest.
The Librarian prepares for the worst, speaking to his books and gathering them. The group escapes on a magic carpet from Creosote's treasury, with Rincewind figuring out it must be placed upside down to fly. They flee across the desert as wizard towers multiply around the world, each fighting the others.
The Luggage, abandoned in the desert after a drinking binge, fights off a chimera and sets out to find its way back to Rincewind. In the Ankh tower, Carding and the wizards battle Al Khali remotely. Carding grows uneasy about what they have done, remembering the pink geraniums of Quirm, a city they have just destroyed. He recognises the staff is controlling Coin, but when he tries to seize and smash it, the staff kills him.
On page: Rincewind, Conina, Nijel the Destroyer, Creosote, Abrim, The Luggage, The Librarian, Marmaric Carding, Coin, Death, Ovin Hakardly, The Librarian, The Archchancellor's Hat
Section: The Horsemen Forget
Death and the other three Horsemen of the Apocralypse - War, Famine and Pestilence - gather at a roadside inn. Death rides on alone while the other three get progressively drunk, eventually forgetting what they were supposed to be doing. Conina, Nijel and Creosote are transported near Ankh-Morpork by a time-share genie from Creosote's lamp. They steal horses from outside the inn - including Death's horse Binky - and fly towards the city.
Rincewind, meanwhile, has flown alone to Ankh-Morpork on the carpet, finding the transformed city empty and the Library burned. He discovers the Librarian has saved the books by moving them into the ancient Tower of Art, along with the lizard-Patrician and Wuffles. The Librarian challenges Rincewind's resolve by threatening to cut up his hat, provoking him to fight for it - proving he will fight for what matters. Rincewind arms himself with a half-brick in a sock and flies the carpet to the top of the sourcery tower.
The Luggage storms Abrim's tower in Al Khali. When Abrim is momentarily distracted by the Luggage, Carding (striking from the Ankh tower remotely) exploits the lapse, causing Abrim to implode. The magical backlash destroys the Al Khali tower and blows the hat to pieces.
On page: Death, War, Famine, Pestilence, Rincewind, The Librarian, Havelock Vetinari, The Luggage, Conina, Nijel the Destroyer, Creosote, Abrim, Marmaric Carding, Coin, Ovin Hakardly, The Librarian, The Archchancellor's Hat
Section: A Sock and a Half-Brick
Coin, urged by the staff, imprisons the gods of the Disc inside a pearl, then Rincewind arrives at the top of the tower armed with nothing but a sock containing a half-brick. The staff orders Coin to kill him, but the boy hesitates - Rincewind looks harmless and is carrying only a sock. When the staff begins torturing Coin to force obedience, Rincewind swings the sock and knocks the staff from his hands. The staff flies back and attacks, but Coin catches it and, in a tremendous act of will, fights his father's spirit within the metal. He throws the staff away, fulfilling the condition Death set long ago. Death claims Ipslore at last.
Rincewind and Coin are pulled through a rift into the Dungeon Dimensions, where the Things are trying to break through to the Disc. Coin cannot use magic here without feeding them. Rincewind tells Coin to run for the light back to their world while he distracts the creatures with his sock. The Librarian pulls Coin through at the last moment, and the Luggage charges past them into the darkness after Rincewind. The rift closes.
Coin releases the gods from the pearl, and they drive back the Ice Giants who had been stampeding across the Sto Plains while Conina and Nijel attempted to reason with them. Coin restores the University and Ankh-Morpork, then, unable to exist safely in a world so thin that his mere thoughts reshape reality, retreats into Maligree's Wonderful Garden - a private universe. The Patrician is restored but retains an unsettling urge to catch moths with his tongue. Rincewind's battered hat is placed in a niche in the Library wall, because no matter how far a wizard goes, he will always come back for his hat.
On page: Coin, Rincewind, Death, The Librarian, The Luggage, Conina, Nijel the Destroyer, Creosote, Havelock Vetinari, Ovin Hakardly, War, Famine, Pestilence, The Librarian, The Archchancellor's Hat·Mentioned: Ipslore the Red