Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

His informant looked shocked. 'They're pies, guv. You don't ask.'

Ridcully nodded. 'And as a final transaction, I'll pay you one penny for a kick of your can.'

'Tuppence,' said the boy promptly.

'You little scamp, we have a deal.'

Ridcully dropped the can on the toe of his boot, balanced it for a moment, then flicked it into the air and, as it came down, hit it with a roundhouse kick that sent it spinning over the crowd.

'Not bad, granddad,' said the kid, grinning. In the distance there was a yell and the sound of someone bent on retribution.

Ridcully plunged a hand into his pocket and looked down. 'Two dollars to start running, kid. You won't get a better deal today!' The boy laughed, grabbed the coins and ran. Ridcully walked on sedately, while the years fell back on him like snow.

He found Ponder Stibbons pinning up a notice on the board just outside the Great Hall. He did this quite a lot. Ridcully assumed it made him feel better in some way.

He slapped Ponder on the back, causing him to spill drawing pins all over the flagstones.

'It is a bulletin from the Ankh Committee on Safety, Archchancellor,' said Ponder, scrabbling for the spinning, wayward pins.

'This is a university of magic, Stibbons. We have no business with safety. Just being a wizard is unsafe, and so it should be.'

'Yes, Archchancellor.'

'But I should pick up all those pins if I were you, you can't be too careful. Tell me-didn't we use to have a sports master here?'

'Yes, sir. Evans the Striped. He vanished about forty years ago, I believe.'

'Killed? It was dead men's shoes in those days, you know.'

'I can't imagine who would want his job. Apparently he evaporated while doing press-ups in the Great Hall one day.'

'Evaporated? What kind of death is that for a wizard? Any wizard would die of shame if he just evaporated. We always leave something behind, even if it's only smoke. Oh, well. Cometh the hour, cometh the... whatever. General comethness, perhaps. What is that thinking engine of yours doing these days?'

Ponder brightened. 'As a matter of fact, Archchancellor, Hex has just discovered a new particle. It travels faster than light in two directions at once!'

'Can we make it do anything interesting?'

'Well yes! It totally explodes Spolwhittle's Trans-Congruency Theory!'

'Good,' said Ridcully cheerfully. 'Just so long as something explodes. Since it's finished exploding, set it to finding either Evans or a decent substitute. Sports masters are pretty elementary particles, it shouldn't be difficult. And call a meeting of the Council in ten minutes. We are going to play football!'

Truth is female, since truth is beauty rather than handsomeness; this, Ridcully reflected as the Council grumbled in, would certainly explain the saying that a lie could run around the world before Truth has got its, correction, her boots on, since she would have to choose which pair¨Cthe idea that any woman in a position to choose would have just one pair of boots being beyond rational belief. Indeed, as a goddess she would have lots of shoes, and thus many choices: comfy shoes for home truths, hobnail boots for unpleasant truths, simple clogs for universal truths and possibly some kind of slipper for self-evident truth. More important right now was what kind of truth he was going to have to impart to his colleagues, and he decided not on the whole truth, but instead on nothing but the truth, which dispensed with the need for honesty.

'Well, go on, then, what did he say?'

'He responded to reasoned argument.'

'He did? Where's the catch?'

'None. But he wants the rules to be more traditional.'

'Surely not! Gather they are practically prehistoric as it is!'

'And he wants the university to take the lead in all this, and quickly. Gentlemen, there is a game going to be played in about three hours' time. I suggest we observe it. And to this end, I will require you to wear... trousers.'

After a while Ridcully took out his watch, which was one of the old-fashioned imp-driven ones and was reliably inaccurate. He flipped up the gold lid and stared patiently as the little creature pedalled the hands around. When the expostulating had not stopped after a minute and a half, he snapped the lid shut. The click had an effect that no amount of extra shouting could have achieved.

'Gentlemen,' he said gravely. 'We must partake of the game of the people¨Cfrom whom, I might add, we derive. Has any of us, in the last few decades, even seen the game being played? I thought not. We should get outside more. Now, I'm not asking you to do this for me, or even for the hundreds of people who work to provide us with a life in which discomfort so seldom rears its head. Yes, many other ugly heads have reared, it is true, but dinner has always beckoned. We are, fellow wizards, the city's last line of defence against all the horrors that can be thrown against it. However, none of them are as potentially dangerous as us. Yes, indeed. I don't know what might happen if wizards were really hungry. So do this, I implore you on this one occasion, for the sake of the cheeseboard.'