The Last Continent (Discworld 22)

Rincewind sighed, picked up his stick, beat the hell out of a patch of ground, lay down and went to sleep. Occasionally he screamed under his breath and his legs made running motions, which just showed that he was dreaming. The waterhole rippled. It wasn't large, a mere puddle deep in a bush-filled gully between some rocks, and the liquid it contained could only be called water because geographers refuse to countenance words like 'souphole'. Nevertheless it rippled, as though something had dropped into the centre. And what was odd about the ripples was that they didn't stop when they reached the edge of the water but continued outwards over the land as expanding circles of dim white light. When they reached Rincewind they broke up and flowed around him, so that now he was the centre of concentric lines of white dots, like strings of pearls. The waterhole erupted. Something climbed up into the air and sped away across the night. It zigzagged from rock to mountain to water-hole. And as the eye of observation rises, the travelling streak briefly illuminates other dim lines, hanging above the ground like smoke, so from above the whole land appears to have a circulatory system, or nerves . . . A thousand miles from the sleeping wizard the line struck ground again, emerged in a cave, and passed across the walls like a searchlight. It hovered in front of a huge, pointed rock for a moment and then, as if reaching a decision, shot up again into the sky. The continent rolled below it as it returned. The light hit the waterhole without a splash but, once again, three or four ripples in something spread oui across the turbid water and the surrounding sand. Night rolled in again. But there was a distant thumping under the ground. Bushes trembled. In the trees, birds awoke and flew away. After a while, on a rock face near the waterhole, pale white lines began to form a picture. Rincewind had attracted the attention of at least one other watcher apart from whatever it was that dwelt in the waterhole. Death had taken to keeping Rincewind's lifetimer on a special shelf in his study, in much the way that a zoologist would want to keep an eye on a particularly intriguing specimen. The lifetimers of most people were the classic shape that Death thought was right and proper for the task. They appeared to be large eggtimers, although, since the sands they measured were the living seconds of someone's life, all the eggs were in one basket.

Rincewind's hourglass looked like something created by a glassblower who'd had the hiccups in a time machine. According to the amount of actual sand it contained – and Death was pretty good at making this kind of estimate – he should have died long ago. But strange curves and bends and extrusions of glass had developed over the years, and quite often the sand was flowing backwards, or diagonally. Clearly, Rincewind had been hit by so much magic, had been thrust reluctantly through time and space so often that he'd nearly bumped into himself coming the other way, that the precise end of his life was now as hard to find as the starting point on a roll of really sticky transparent tape. Death was familiar with the concept of the eternal, ever-renewed hero, the champion with a thousand faces. He'd refrained from commenting. He met heroes frequently, generally surrounded by, and this was important, the dead bodies of very nearly all their enemies and saying, 'Vot the hell shust happened?' Whether there was some arrangement that allowed them to come back again afterwards was not something he would be drawn on. But he pondered whether, if this creature did exist, it was somehow balanced by the eternal coward. The hero with a thousand retreating backs, perhaps. Many cultures had a legend of an undying hero who would one day rise again, so perhaps the balance of nature called for one who wouldn't. Whatever the ultimate truth of the matter, the fact now was that Death did not have the slightest idea of when Rincewind was going to die. This was very vexing to a creature who prided himself on his punctuality. Death glided across the velvet emptiness of his study until he reached the model of the Discworld, if indeed it was a model. Eyeless sockets looked down. SHOW, he said. The precious metals and stones faded. Death saw ocean currents, deserts, forests, drifting cloudscapes like albino buffalo herds . . . SHOW. The eye of observation curved and dived into the living map, and a reddish splash grew in an expanse of turbulent sea. Ancient mountain ranges slipped past, deserts of rock and sand glided away. SHOW. Death watched the sleeping figure of Rincewind. Occasionally its legs would jerk. HMM. Death felt something crawling up the back of his robe, pause for a minute on his shoulder, and leap. A small rodent skeleton in a black robe landed in the middle of the image and started flailing madly at it with his tiny scythe, squeaking excitedly. Death picked up the Death of Rats by his cowl and held him up for inspection.

NO, WE DON'T DO IT THAT WAY. The Death of Rats struggled madly. SQUEAK? BECAUSE IT'S AGAINST THE RULES, said Death. NATURE MUST TAKE ITS COURSE. He glanced down at the image again as if a thought had struck him, and lowered the Death of Rats to the floor. Then he went to the wall and pulled a cord. Far away, a bell tolled. After a while an elderly man entered, carrying a tray. 'Sorry about that, master. I was cleaning the bath.' I BEG YOUR PARDON, ALBERT? 'I mean, that's why I was late with your tea, sir,' said Albert. THAT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THIS PLACE? Death's finger tapped the red continent. His manservant looked closely. 'Oh, there,' he said. ' “Terror Incognita” we called it when I was alive, master. Never went there myself. It's the currents, you know. Many a poor sailorman has washed up on them fatal shores rather than get carried right over the Rim, and regretted it, I expect. Dry as a statue's ti— Very dry, master, or so they say. And hotter'n a demon's joe— Very hot, too. But you must've been there yourself?' OH, YES. BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS WHEN YOU'RE THERE ON BUSINESS AND THERE'S HARDLY ANY TIME TO SEE THE COUNTRY . . . Death pointed to the great spiral of clouds that turned slowly around the continent, like jackals warily circling a dying lion which looked done for but which might yet be capable of one last bite. VERY STRANGE, he said. A PERMANENT ANTI-CYCLONE. AND INSIDE, A HUGE, CALM LAND, THAT NEVER SEES A STORM. AND NEVER HAS A DROP OF RAIN. 'Good place for a holiday, then.' COME WITH ME. The two of them, trailed by the Death of Rats, walked into Death's huge library. There were clouds here, up near the ceiling. Death held out a hand, I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS— Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball. After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.

Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them to allow his master to clamber free. HMM . . . Death picked up a book at random and read the cover. DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA, he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE. He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT? They waited. IT WOULD APPEAR THAT— 'No, wait, master. Here it comes.' Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up and caught the single sheet of paper. He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side. 'May I?' said Albert. Death handed him the paper. ' “Some of the sheep,” ' Albert read aloud. 'Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside'd be better, then.' WHAT AN INTRIGUING PLACE, said Death. SADDLE UP THE HORSE, ALBERT. I FEEL SURE I'M GOING TO BE NEEDED. SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats. PARDON? 'He said, “No worries,” master,' said Albert. I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY. Four huge blooms of silence rolled over the city as Old Tom so emphatically did not strike the hour. Several servants rumbled a trolley along the corridor. The Archchancellor had given in. An early breakfast was on the way. Ridcully lowered his tape measure.

'Let's try that again, shall we?' he said. He stepped out of the window and picked a seashell out of the sand. It was warm from the sun. Then he pulled himself back into the bathroom and walked around to a door beside the window. It led to a dank, moss-grown light well, which allowed second-hand and grubby daylight into these dismal floors. Even the snow hadn't managed to get more than a brushing of flakes down this far. The window on this side glimmered in the light from the doorway like a pool of very black oil. 'Okay, Dean,' he said. Tush your staff through. Now waggle it about.' The wizards looked at the gently rippling surface. There should have been several feet of solid wood sticking out of it. 'Well, well, well,' said the Archchancellor, going back in out of the cold air. 'Do you know, I've never actually seen one of these?'

'Anyone remember Archchancellor Bewdley's boots?' said the Senior Wrangler, helping himself to some cold mutton from the trolley. 'He made a mistake and got one of the things opened up in the left boot. Very tricky. You can't go walking around with one foot in another dimension.'

'Well, no . . .' said Ridcully, staring at the tropical scene and tapping his chin thoughtfully with the seashell. 'Can't see what you're treading in, for one thing,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'One opened up in one of the cellars once, all by itself,' said the Dean. 'Just a round black hole. Anything you put in it just disappeared. So old Archchancellor Weatherwax had a privy built over it.'

'Very sensible idea,' said Ridcully, still looking thoughtful. 'We thought so too, until we found the other one that had opened in the attic. Turned out to be the other side of the same hole. I'm sure I don't need to draw you a picture.'

'I've never heard of these!' said Ponder Stibbons. The possibilities are amazing!'

'Everyone says that when they first hear about them,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'But when you've been a wizard as long as I have, my boy, you'll learn that as soon as you find anything that offers amazing possibilities for the improvement of the human condition it's best to put the lid back on and pretend it never happened.'

'But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it'd come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again . . . It'd reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be—'

That's pretty much what happened between the attic and the cellar,' said the Dean, taking a cold chicken leg. 'Thank goodness for air friction, that's all I'll say.' Ponder waved his hand gingerly through the window and felt the sun's heat. 'And no one's ever studied them?' he said. The Senior Wrangler shrugged. 'Studied what? They're just holes. You get a lot of magic in one place, it kind of drops through the world like a hot steel ball through pork dripping. If it comes to the edge of something, it kind of fills it in.'

'Stress points in the space-time continuinuin-uum . . .' said Ponder. 'There must be hundreds of uses—'

'Hah, yes, no wonder our Egregious Professor is always so suntanned,' said the Dean. 'I feel he's been cheating. Geography should be hard to get to. It shouldn't be in your windowbox, is what I'm saying. You shouldn't get at it just by sneaking out of the University.'

'Well, he hasn't, really, has he?' said the Senior Wrangler. 'He's really just extended his study a bit.'

'Do you think that is EcksEcksEcksEcks, by any chance?' said the Dean. 'It certainly looks foreign.'

'Well, there is sea,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'But would you say that it looks as if it is actually girting?'

'It's just . . . you know . . . sloshing.'

'One would somehow imagine that sea that was girting something would look more, well . . . defiant,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'You know? Thundering waves and so on. Definitely sending a message to outsiders that it was girting this coast and they'd better be jolly respectful.'

'Perhaps we could go right through and investigate,' said Ponder. 'Something dreadful'll happen if we do,' said the Senior Wrangler gloomily. 'It hasn't happened to the Bursar,' said Ridcully. The wizards crowded around. There was a figure standing in the surf. Its robe was rolled up above the knees. A few birds wheeled overhead. Palm trees waved in the background. 'My word, he must have snuck out while we weren't looking,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Bursaar!' Ridcully yelled. The figure didn't look round.

'I don't want to, you know, make trouble,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, looking wistfully at the sundrenched beach, 'but it's freezing cold in my bedroom and last night there was frost on my eiderdown. I don't see any harm in a quick stroll in the warm.'

'We're here to help the Librarian!' snapped Ridcully. Faint snores were coming from the volume entitled Ook. 'My point exactly. The poor chap'd be a lot happier in those trees there.'

'You mean we could wedge him in the branches?' said the Archchancellor. 'He's still The Story of Ook.'

'You know what I mean, Mustrum. A day at the seaside for him would be better than a . . . a day at the seaside, as it were. Let's get out there, I'm freezing.'

'Are you mad? There could be terrible monsters! Look at the poor chap standing there in the surf! That sea's probably teeming with—'

'Sharks,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Right!' said Ridcully. 'And—'

'Barracudas,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Marlins. Swordfish. Looks like somewhere out near the Rim to me. Fishermen say there's fish there that'd take your arm off.'

'Right,' said Ridcully. 'Right . . .' There was a small but significant change in his tone. Everyone knew about the stuffed fish on his walls. Archchancellor Ridcully would hunt anything. The only cockerel still crowing within two hundred yards of the University these days stood under a cart to do it. 'And that jungle,' said the Senior Wrangler, sniffing. 'Looks pretty damn dangerous to me. Could be anything in it. Fatal. Could be tigers and gorillas and elephants and pineapples. I wouldn't go near it. I'm with you, Archchancellor. Better to freeze here than look some rabid man-eater in the eye.' Ridcully's own eyes were burning bright. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. 'Tigers, eh?' he said. Then his expression changed. 'Pineapples? 'Deadly,' said the Senior Wrangler firmly. 'One of them got my aunt. We couldn't get it off her. I told her that's not the way you're supposed to eat them, but would she listen?' The Dean looked sidelong at his Archchancellor. It was the glance of a man who also didn't want another night in a frigid bedroom and had suddenly worked out where the levers were. 'That gets my vote, Mustrum,' he said. 'Catch me going through some hole in space on to some warm beach with a sea teeming with huge fish and a jungle full of hunting trophies.' He yawned like a bad poker player. 'No, it's me for my nice freezing bed, I don't know about you. Archchancellor?'

'I think—' Ridcully began.

'Yes?'