The Last Continent (Discworld 22)

'You've got a bow, right?' yelled Mad, who was balancing on the back of one of the horses. 'And find something to hold onta, they're gonna go at any minute—' The cart had been moving at the gallop, but now it suddenly shot forward and almost jolted Rincewind right off. Smoke poured out of the axles. The landscape blurred. 'What the hell is that?'

'Supercharger!' shouted Mad, pulling himself on to the cart inches from the frantically pounding hooves. 'Secret recipe! Now hold 'em off, right, 'cos someone's gotta steer!' The emu emerged from the dust cloud with a few of the faster carts rattling behind it. An arrow buried itself in the cart right between Rincewind's legs. He flung himself flat on the swaying roof, held out the crossbow, shut his eyes and fired. In accordance with ancient narrative practice, the shot ricocheted off someone's helmet and brought down an innocent bird some distance away, whose only role was to expire with a suitably humorous squawk. The man driving the emu drew alongside. From under a familiar hat with 'Wizzard' dimly visible in the grime he gave Rincewind a grin. Every tooth had been sharpened to a point, and the front six had 'Mother' engraved on them. 'G'day!' he shouted cheerfully. 'Hand over your cargo and I promise you that you won't be killed all in one go.' That's my hat! Give me back my hat!'

'You're a wizard, are you?' The man stood up on the saddle, balancing easily as the wheel bounced over the sand. He waved his hands over his head. 'Look at me, mates! I'm a bloody wizard! Magic, magic, magic!' A very heavy arrow, trailing a rope, smashed into the back of the cart and stuck fast. There was a cheer from the riders. 'You give me back my hat or there'll be trouble!'

'Oh, there's gonna be trouble anyway,' said the rider, aiming his crossbow. Tell you what, why not turn me into somethin' bad? Oh, I'm all afrai—' His face went green. He pitched backwards. The crossbow bolt hit the driver of the cart beside him, which veered wildly into the path of another, which swerved and crashed into a camel. That meant the carts behind were suddenly faced with a pile-up which, together with the absence of brakes on any vehicle, immediately got bigger. Part of it was kicking people as well. Rincewind, hands over his head, watched until the last wheel had rolled away, and then walked unsteadily along the swaying cart to where Mad was leaning on the reins.

'Er, I think you can slow down now, Mr Mad,' he ventured. 'Yeah? Killed 'em all, didja?'

'Er . . . not all of them. Some of them just ran away.'

'You kiddin' me?' The dwarf looked round. 'Stone me, you ain't! Here, pull that lever as hard as you can!' He waved at a long metal rod beside Rincewind, who tugged it obediently. Metal screamed as the brakes locked against the wheels. 'Why're they going so fast?'

'It's a mixture of oats and lizard glands!' shouted Mad, against the red-hot squealing. 'Gives 'em a big jolt!' The cart had to circle for a few minutes until the adrenalin wore off, and then they went back along the track to look at the wreckage. Mad swore again. 'What happened!'

'He shouldn't've stolen my hat,' Rincewind mumbled. The dwarf jumped down and kicked a broken cartwheel. 'You did this to people because they stole your hat? What do you do if they spit in your eye, blow up the country?'

' 's my hat,' said Rincewind sullenly. He wasn't at all sure what had happened. He wasn't any good at magic, that he knew. The only curses of his that stood a chance of working were on the lines of 'May you get rained on at some time in your life,' and 'May you lose some small item despite the fact that you put it there only a moment ago.' Going pale green . . . he looked down . . . oh, yes, and slightly yellow in blotches, now . . . was not the usual effect. Mad wandered purposefully among the wreckage. He picked up a few weapons and tossed them aside. 'Want the camel?' he said. The creature was standing a little way off, eyeing him suspiciously. It looked quite unscathed, having been the cause of considerable scathe in other people. 'I'd really rather stick my foot in a bacon slicer,' said Rincewind. 'Sure? Well, hitch it onta the cart, it'll fetch a good price in Dijabringabeeralong,' said Mad. He looked at a home-made repeating crossbow, grunted and tossed it aside. Then he looked at another cart and his face brightened. 'Ah! Now we're cooking with charcoal!' he said. 'It's our lucky day, mate!'

'Oh. A bag of hay,' said Rincewind. 'Give us a hand to get it on the wagon, willya?' said Mad, unbolting the rear of his own cart. 'What's so special about hay?' The cart opened. It was full of hay. 'Life or death out here, mate. There's people'd slit yew from here to breakfast for a bale of hay. Man without hay is a man without a horse, and out here a man without a horse is a corpse.'

'Sorry? I went through all that for a load of hay?' Mad waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially. 'And two sacks of oats in the secret compartment, mate.' He slapped Rincewind on the back. 'An' to think I thought yew was some back-stabbin' drongo I ort to toss over the rail! Turns out you're as mad as me!' There are times when it does not pay to declare one's sanity, and Rincewind realized that he'd be mad to do so now. Anyway, he could talk to kangaroos and find cheese and chutney rolls in the desert. There were times when you had to look wobbly facts in the face. 'Mental as anything,' he said, with what he hoped was disarming modesty. 'Good bloke! Let's load up their weapons and grub and get goin'!'

'What do we want their weapons for?'

'Fetch a good price.'

'And what about the bodies?'

'Nah, worthless.' While Mad was nailing salvaged bits of scrap metal to his cart, Rincewind sidled over to the green and yellow corpse . . . and, oh yes, large black areas now . . . and, using a stick, levered his hat from its head. A small eight-legged ball of angry black fur sprang out and locked its fangs on to the stick, which began to smoulder. He put it down very carefully, grabbed the hat and ran. Ponder sighed. 'I wasn't questioning your authority, Arch-chancellor,' he said. 'I just feel that if a huge monster evolves into a chicken right in front of you, the considered response should not be to eat the chicken.' The Archchancellor licked his fingers. 'What would you have done, then?' he said.

'Well . . . studied it,' said Ponder. 'So did we. Post-mortem examination,' said the Dean. 'Minutely,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, happily. He belched. 'Pardon me, Mrs Whitlow. Will you have a little more br . . .' He caught Ridcully's steely glance, and went on, '. . . front part of the chicken, Mrs Whitlow?'

'And we've discovered that it'll no longer be any menace to visiting wizards,' said Ridcully. 'It's just that I think proper research should involve more than having a look to see if you can find a sage-and-onion bush,' said Ponder. 'You saw how quickly it changed, didn't you?'

'Well?' said the Dean. That can't be natural.'

'You're the one who says things naturally change into other things, Mister Stibbons.'

'But not that fast!'

'Have you ever seen any of this evolution happening?'

'Well, of course not, no one has ever—'

'There you are, then,' said Ridcully, in a closing-the-argument voice. That might be the normal speed. As I said, it makes perfect sense. There's no point in turning into a bird a bit at a time, is there? A feather here, a beak there . . . You'd see some damn stupid creatures wandering around, eh?' The other wizards laughed. 'Our monster probably simply thought, Oh, there's too many of them, perhaps I'd better turn into something they'd like.'

'Enjoy,' said the Dean. 'Sensible survival strategy,' said Ridcully. 'Up to a point.' Ponder rolled his eyes. These things always sounded fine when he worked them out in his head. He'd read some of the old books, and sit and think for ages, and a little theory would put itself together in his head in a row of little shiny blocks, and then when he let it out it'd run straight into the Faculty and one of them, one of them, would always ask some bloody stupid question which he couldn't quite answer at the moment. How could you ever make any progress against minds like that? If some god somewhere had said, 'Let there be light,' they'd be the ones to say things like 'Why? The darkness has always been good enough for us.' Old men, that was the trouble. Ponder was not totally enthusiastic about the old traditions, because he was well into his twenties and in a moderately important position and therefore, to some of the mere striplings in the University, a target. Or would have been, if they weren't getting that boiled eyeball feeling by sitting up all night tinkering with Hex. He wasn't interested in promotion, anyway. He'd just be happy if people listened for five minutes, instead of saying, 'Well done, Mister Stibbons, but we tried that once and it doesn't

work,' or, 'We probably haven't got the funding,' or, worst of all, 'You don't get proper fill-in- nouns these days – remember old “nickname” ancient-wizard-who-died-fifty-years-ago-who- Ponder-wouldn't-possibly-be-able-to-remember? Now there was a chap who knew his fill-in- nouns.' Above Ponder, he felt, were a lot of dead men's shoes. And they had living men's feet in them, and were stamping down hard. They never bothered to learn anything, they never bothered to remember anything apart from how much better things used to be, they bickered like a lot of children and the only one who ever said anything sensible said it in orang-utan. He prodded the fire viciously. The wizards had made Mrs Whitlow a polite crude hut out of branches and big woven leaves. She bade them goodnight and demurely pulled some leaves across the entrance behind her. 'A very respectable lady, Mrs Whitlow,' said Ridcully. 'I think I'll turn in myself, too.' There were already one or two sets of snores building up around the fire. 'I think someone ought to stand guard,' said Ponder. 'Good man,' muttered Ridcully, turning over. Ponder gritted his teeth and turned to the Librarian, who was temporarily back in the land of the bipedal and was sitting gloomily wrapped in a blanket. 'At least I expect this is a home from home for you, eh, sir?' The Librarian shook his head. 'Would you be interested in hearing what else is odd about this place?' said Ponder. 'Ook?'

'The driftwood. No one listens to me, but it's important. We must have dragged loads of stuff for the fire, and it's all natural timber, do you notice that? No bits of plank, no old crates, no tatty old sandals. Just . . . ordinary wood.'

'Ook?'

'That means we must be a long way off the normal shipping . . . oh, no . . . don't . . .' The Librarian wrinkled his nose desperately. 'Quickly! Concentrate on having arms and legs! I mean living ones!' The Librarian nodded miserably, and sneezed.

'Awk?' he said, when his shape had settled down again. 'Well,' said Ponder sadly. 'At least you're animate. Possibly rather large for a penguin, though. I think it's your body's survival strategy. It keeps trying to find a stable shape that works.'