The Last Continent (Discworld 22)

'Ahoy there!' shouted Ridcully. The distant figure waved for a moment and then continued swimming. Ridcully filled his pipe and watched with interest as Ponder Stibbons caught up with the boat. 'Very well swum, if I may say so,' he said. 'Permission to come aboard, sir?' said Ponder, treading water. 'Could you throw down a creeper?'

'Why, certainly.' The Archchancellor puffed his pipe as the wizard climbed aboard. 'Possibly a record time over that distance, Mister Stibbons.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Ponder, dripping water on the deck. 'And may I congratulate you on being properly dressed. You are wearing your pointy hat, which is the sine qua non of a wizard in public.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'It is a good hat.'

'Thank you, sir.' They say a wizard without his hat is undressed, Mister Stibbons.'

'So I have heard, sir.'

'But in your case, I must point out, you are with your hat but you are still, in a very real sense, undressed.'

'I thought the robe would slow me down, sir.'

'And, while it is good to see you, Stibbons, albeit rather more of you than I would usually care to contemplate, I am moved to ask why you are, in fact, here.'

'I suddenly felt it would be unfair to deprive the University of my services, sir.'

'Really? A sudden rush of nostalgia for the old alma mater, eh?'

'You could say that, sir.' Ridcully's eyes twinkled behind the smoke and, not for the first time, Ponder suspected that the man was sometimes rather cleverer than he appeared. It would not be hard. The Archchancellor shrugged, removed his pipe, and poked around inside it to remove a particularly obstructive clinker.

'The Senior Wrangler's bathing costume is around somewhere,' he said. 'I should put it on, if I were you. I suspect that offending Mrs Whitlow at the moment will get you hanged. All right? And if there is anything you want to talk about, my door is always open.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Right now, of course, I don't have a door.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Imagine it as being open, nevertheless.'

'Thank you, sir.' After all, Ponder thought as he slipped gratefully away, the wizards of UU were merely crazy. Not even the Bursar was insane. Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could still see the God of Evolution beaming so happily as the cockroach stirred. Rincewind rattled the bars. 'Don't I get a trial?' he shouted. After a while a warder wandered along the corridor. 'Wha'd'yew want a trial for, mister?'

'What? Well, call me Mister Silly, but it might just prove that I wasn't trying to steal the damn sheep, mightn't it?' said Rincewind. 'I was in fact rescuing it. If only you people would track down the thief, he'd tell you!' The warder leaned against the wall and stuck his hands in his belt. 'Yeah, well, it's a funny thing,' he said, 'but. y'know, we searched and searched and put up notices and everything but, funny thing, yew'll never believe this, the bastard hasn't had the decency to come forward? Makes yew despair of human nature, eh?'

'So what's going to happen to me?' The warder scratched his nose. 'Gonna hang you by the neck until you're dead, mate. Tomorrow morno.'

'You couldn't perhaps just hang me by the neck until I'm sorry?'

'No, mate. Got to be dead.'

'Good grief, it was only a sheep when all's said and done!' The warder grinned widely. 'Ah, a lot of men have gone to the gallows sayin' that in the past,' he said, '

's'matterofact, you're the first sheep-stealer we've had here for years. All our big heroes have been sheep-stealers. You're gonna get a big crowd.'

'Baah!'

'Maybe a flock, too,' said the warder. 'That's another thing,' said Rincewind. 'Why's this sheep in my cell?'

'Evidence, mate.' Rincewind looked down at the sheep. 'Oh. Well, no worries, then.' The warder wandered off. Rincewind sat down on the bunk. Well, he could look on the bright side, couldn't he? This was civilization. He hadn't seen much of it, what with being tied across the back of a horse and everything, but what he'd been able to see was full of ruts and hoofprints and smelled pretty bad, which civilization often does. They were going to hang him in the morning. This building was the first one made of stone he'd seen in this country. They had watchmen, even. They were going to hang him in the morning. There were the sounds of carts and people filtering in through the high window. They were going to hang him in the morning. He gazed around the cell. It looked as though whoever'd built it had unaccountably forgotten to include any useful trapdoors. Trapdoors . . . Now there was a word he shouldn't think about. He'd been in nastier places than this. Much, much nastier. And that made it worse, because he'd been up against nasty, weird and magical things which suddenly seemed a lot easier to contemplate than the fact that he was held in some stone box and in the morning some perfectly nice people who he might quite like if he met them in a bar were going to march him out and make him stand on a really unsafe floor in a very tight collar. 'Baah!'

'Shut up.'

'Baah?'