Jim was suddenly enveloped in an octarine glow. It was a colour he’d never seen before; the colour of magik. It seeped out from the book he’d clutched and spread through him.
“Oh dear,” gasped Rincewind. “It looks like you’ve been read by a spell book.”
“What do you mean ‘read by’ the book?” demanded Jim
“Haven’t they covered that yet?” asked Rincewind with an arched eyebrow. Rincewind mightn’t be a hot shot spell caster, but at least he knew the theory of magik. “Words of magik aren’t like ordinary words,” he explained patiently, “when you read a spell it will fade from the page, and when you say it it will fade from your mind. Only on the specially prepared pages of magik books do they have any permanence; once cast a spell will eventually return to its book. But Magik Words have power of their own and when placed in books, those books take on a mind and a life of their own. It looks like the book has read a spell into you for some reason.”
“So I now know a spell from...” Jim glanced at the spine of the book and read,
Sat Sep 2 21:49:09 2000