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There was ae of History It’s sad, but that’s all you can say about some people

But the eighth son grew up and ht sons, and because there is only one suitable profession for the eighth son of an eighth son, he became a wizard And he became wise and powerful, or at any rate powerful, and wore a pointed hat and there it would have ended …

Should have ended …

But against the Lore of Magic and certainly against all reason-except the reasons of the heart, which are waric and fell in love and got married, not necessarily in that order

And he had seven sons, each one from the cradle at least as powerful as any wizard in the world

And then he had an eighth son …

A wizard squared A source of ic

A sourcerer

Summer thunder rolled around the sandy cliffs Far below, the sea sucked on the shingle as noisily as an old ulls hung lazily in the updraughts, waiting for so to happen

And the father of wizards sat ae of the cliff, cradling the child in his ar out to sea

There was a roil of black cloud out there, heading inland, and the light it pushed before it had that deep syrup quality it gets before a really serious thunderstorm

He turned at a sudden silence behind hih tear-reddened eyes at a tall hooded figure in a black robe

IPSLORE THE RED? it said The voice was as hollow as a cave, as dense as a neutron star

Ipslore grinned the terrible grin of the suddenly mad, and held up the child for Death’s inspection

‘My son,’ he said ‘I shall call him Coin’