Then the quiet, internal voice added: BUT WHY DOESN’T IT MOVE?
Bill Door let himself inch forward slightly. There was no response from the hunched thing.
Then it dawned on him that the thing on the other side of the hedge was only a robed assemblage of ribs and femurs and vertebrae if viewed from one point of view but, if looked at slightly differently, was equally just a complexity of sparging arms and reciprocating levers that had been covered by a tarpaulin which was now blowing off.
The Combination Harvester was in front of him.
Bill Door grinned horribly. Un-Bill Door thoughts rose up in his mind. He stepped forward.
The wall of trolleys surrounded the wizards.
The last flare from a staff melted a hole, which was instantly filled up by more trolleys.
Ridcully turned to his fellow wizards. They were red in the face, their robes were torn, and several over-enthusiastic shots had resulted in singed beards and burnt hats.
“Hasn’t anyone got any more spells on them?” he said.
They thought feverishly.
“I think I can remember one,” said the Bursar hesitantly.
“Go on, man. Anything’s worth trying at a time like this.”
The Bursar stretched out a hand. He shut his eyes. He muttered a few syllables under his breath.
There was a brief flicker of octarine light and—
“Oh,” said the Archchancellor. “And that’s all of it?”
“‘Eringyas’ Surprising Bouquet’,” said the Bursar, bright eyed and twitching. “I don’t know why, but it’s one I’ve always been able to do. Just a knack, I suppose.”
Ridcully eyed the huge bunch of flowers now gripped in the Bursar’s fist.
“But not, I venture to point out, entirely useful at this time,” he added.
The Bursar looked at the approaching walls and his smile faded.
“I suppose not,” he said.
“Anyone else got any ideas?” said Ridcully.
There was no reply.
“Nice roses, though,” said the Dean.
“That was quick,” said Miss Flitworth, when Bill Door arrived at the pile of stooks dragging a tarpaulin behind him.
YES, WASN’T IT, he mumbled non-committally, as she helped him drag it over the stack and weigh it down with stones. The wind caught at it and tried to drag it out of his hands; it might as well have tried to blow a mountain over.
Rain swept over the fields, among shreds of mist that shimmered with blue electric energies.
“Never known a night like it,” Miss Flitworth said.
There was another crack of thunder. Sheet lightning fluttered around the horizon.
Miss Flitworth clutched Bill Door’s arm.
“Isn’t that…a figure on the hill?” she said. “Thought I saw a…shape.”