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No enemies had ever taken Ankh-Morpork Well, technically they had, quite often; the city welco barbarian invaders, but somehow the puzzled raiders always found, after a few days, that they didn't own their own horses any more, and within a couple of raffiti and food shops

But the heat had besieged the city and triu streets like a shroud Under the glowlamp of the sun assassins were too tired to kill It turned thieves honest In the ivy-covered fastness of the Unseen University, pree of wizardry, the inmates dozed with their pointy hats over their faces Even bluebottles were too exhausted to bang against panes The city siesta'd, awaiting the sunset and the brief, hot, velvet surcease of the night

Only the librarian was cool He was also swinging and hanging out

This was because he'd rigged up a few ropes and rings in one of the sub-basements of the Unseen University library - the one where they kept the, u kinky It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken) In vats of crushed ice And he was drea in the chilly vapour above them

All books of etic ones can't simply be chained the bookshelves; they have to be nailed shut or kept between steel plates Or, in the case of the voluic for the serious connoisseur, kept under very cold water to stop the their severely plain covers

The Librarian swung gently back and forth above the seething vats, dozing peacefully

Then the footsteps came out of nowhere, raced across the floor with a noise that scraped the raw surface of the soul, and disappeared through the wall There was a faint, distant screaonna DIE

The Librarian woke up, lost his grip, and flopped into the few inches of tepid water that was all that stood between The Joy of Tantric Sex with Illustrations for the Advanced Student, by A Lady, and spontaneous combustion

And it would have gone badly for hi Fortunately, he was currently an orangutan With soaround in the Library it would be surprising if accidents did not happen sometimes, and one particularly iet the chance to leave the human race while still alive, and he'd strenuously resisted all efforts to turn him back Since he was the only librarian in the universe who could pick up books with his feet the University hadn't pressed the point

It also meant that his idea of desirable fe like a sack of butter thrown through a roll of old inner tubes, and so he was lucky to get aith only s about cucumbers, which wore off by teatime

In the Library above, the gries in astonishh the bookshelves and disappeared, or rather disappeared even more

Ankh-Morpork gradually awoke fro at the top of its voice was passing through every part of the city, dragging in its wake a trail of destruction Wherever it went, things changed

A fortune-teller in the Street of Cunning Artificers heard the footsteps run across her bedroolass sphere with a cottage in it, plus snowflakes

In a quite corner of the Mended Drum tavern, where the adventuresses Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan, Red Scharron and Dioirl talk and a game of canasta, all the drinks turned into small yellow elephants

“It's them wizards up at the university,” said the barhtn't to be allowed”