The Color of Magic The Sending of Eight / Chapter 9 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • This info-chapter explains the origins and problems of magic on the Discworld.
  • See, a spell is a spell regardless of whether it's in a wizard's mind or printed on a page in a tome.
  • As such, they can sometimes sneak out of spell books and cause problems. To fix this, some books are buried, while others thrown over the edge of the world.
  • Still others are housed in large rooms of octrion, a magic-resistant material. The room housing the Octavo at the Unseen University is one such room.
  • The very same Octavo Rincewind opened on a bet, the very same Octavo housing the spell that would hop out of it to "settle in [Rincewind's] memory like a toad in a stone" (2.9.4).