Last Continent (19 page)

‘Not when they're really close.'

‘If it
was
the poop deck, how would we know?' said the Dean.

Ponder shook his head. There were times when the desire to climb the thaumaturgical ladder was seriously blunted, and one of them was when you saw what was on top.

‘I . . . I just don't know what to say,' he said. ‘I am frankly astonished.'

‘Well done, lad. So run along and get some bananas, will you? Green ones will keep better. And don't look so upset. When it comes to gods, I have to say, you can give me one of the make-out-of-clay-and-smite-'em brigade any day of the week. That's the kind of god you can deal with.'

‘The practically human sort,' said the Dean.

‘Exactly.'

‘Call me overly picky,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, ‘but I'd prefer not to be around a god who might suddenly decide I'd run faster with three extra legs.'

‘Exactly. Is there something wrong, Stibbons? Oh, he's gone. Oh well, no doubt he'll be back. And . . . Dean?'

‘Yes, Archchancellor?'

‘I can't help thinking you're working up to some sort of horrible joke about a poop deck. I'd prefer not, if it's all the same to you.'

‘You all right, mate?'

No one in the world had ever been so pleased to see Crocodile Crocodile before.

Rincewind let himself be pulled upright. His hand, against all expectation, was
not
blue and three times its normal size.

‘That bloody kangaroo . . .' he muttered, using the hand to wave away the eternal flies.

‘What kangaroo waf that, mate?' said the crocodile, helping him back towards the pub.

Rincewind looked around. There were just the normal components of the local scenery – dry-looking bushes, red dirt and a million circling flies.

‘The one I was talking to just now.'

‘I was juft fweeping up and I faw you dancing around yellin',' said Crocodile. ‘I didn't fee no kangaroo.'

‘It's probably a
magic
kangaroo,' said Rincewind wearily.

‘Oh,
right
, a
magic
kangaroo,' said Crocodile. ‘No worrieth. I think maybe I'd better make you up the cure for drinking too much beer, mate.'

‘What's the cure?'

‘More beer.'

‘How much beer
did
I have last night, then?'

‘Oh, about twenty pinth.'

‘Don't be silly, no one can even
hold
that much beer!'

‘Oh, you didn't hang on to much of it at all, mate. No worrieth. We like a man who can't hold hif beer.'

In the fetid fleapit of Rincewind's brain the projectionist of memory put on reel two. Recollection began to flicker. He shuddered.

‘Was I . . . singing a song?' he said.

‘Too right. You kept pointing to the Roo Beer pofter and finging . . .' Crocodile's huge jaws moved as he tried to remember, ‘“Tie my kangaroo up.” Bloody good fong.'

‘And then I . . . ?'

‘Then you loft all your money playing Two Up with Daggy's shearing gang.'

‘That's . . . I . . . there were these two coins, and the bloke'd toss them in the air, and you . . . had to bet on how they'd come down . . .'

‘Right. And you kept bettin' they wouldn't come down at all. Faid it was bound to happen fooner or later. You got good odds, though.'

‘I lost
all
the money Mad gave me?'

‘Yep.'

‘How was I paying for my beer, then?'

‘Oh, the blokes were queueing up to buy it for you. They faid you were better than a day at the races.'

‘And then I . . . there was something about sheep . . .' He looked horrified. ‘Oh, no . . .'

‘Oh, yeah. You faid, “Ftrain the fraying crones, a dollar a time for giving fheep a haircut? I could do a beaut foft job like that with my eyes fhut, too right no flaming worries by half bonza fhoot through ye gods this if good beer . . .”'

‘Oh, gods. Did anyone hit me?'

‘Nah, mate, they reckoned you were a good sport, 'specially when you wagered five hundred fquids that you could beat their best man at shearin'.'

‘I couldn't've done that, I'm not a betting man!'

‘Well, I am, and if you've been fhootin' a line I wouldn't give tuppence for your chances, Rinfo.'

‘Rinso?' said Rincewind weakly. He looked at his beerglass. ‘What's in this stuff?'

‘Your mate Mad faid you were this big wizard
and could kill people just by pointing at 'em and shoutin',' said Crocodile. ‘I wouldn't mind feein' that.'

Rincewind looked up desperately and his eye caught the Roo Beer poster. It showed some of the damn silly trees they had here, and the arid red earth and – nothing else.

‘Huh?'

‘What's that?' said Crocodile.

‘What happened to the kangaroo?' Rincewind said hoarsely.

‘What kangaroo?'

‘There was a kangaroo on that poster last night . . . wasn't there?'

Crocodile peered at the poster. ‘I'm better at smell,' he admitted at last. ‘But I got to admit, it smells like it's gorn.'

‘Something very strange is going on here,' said Rincewind. ‘This is a very strange country.'

‘We've got an opera house,' Crocodile volunteered. ‘That's
cultcher
.'

‘And ninety-three words for being sick?'

‘Yeah, well, we're a very . . . vocal people.'

‘Did I really bet five hundred . . . What was it?'

‘Squids.'

‘. . . squids I haven't got?'

‘Yup.'

‘So I'll probably get killed if I lose, right?'

‘No worries.'

‘I wish people'd stop saying that—'

He caught sight of the poster again. ‘That kangaroo's back!'

Crocodile turned around awkwardly, walked up
to the poster and sniffed. ‘Could be,' he said cautiously.

‘And it's facing the wrong way!'

‘Take it easy, mate!' said Crocodile Dongo, looking concerned.

Rincewind shuddered. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘It's the heat and the flies getting to me. It must be.'

Dongo poured him another beer. ‘Ah well, beer's good for the heat,' he said. ‘Can't do anythin' about the bloody flies, though.'

Rincewind started to nod, and stopped. He removed his hat and looked at it critically. Then he waved a hand up and down in front of his face, temporarily dislodging a few flies. Finally, he looked thoughtfully at a row of bottles.

‘Got any string?' he said.

After a few experiments, and some mild concussion, Dongo advanced the opinion that it'd be better with just the corks.

The Luggage was lost. Usually, it could find its way anywhere in time and space, but trying to do that now was like a man trying to keep his footing on two moving walkways heading in opposite directions, and it simply couldn't cope. It knew it had been stuck underground for a long time, but it
also
knew that it had been stuck underground for about five minutes.

The Luggage had no brain as such, even though an outsider might well get the impression that it could think. What it
did
do was react, in quite complex ways, to its environment. Usually this
involved finding something to kick, as is the case with most sapient creatures.

Currently it was ambling along a dusty track. Occasionally its lid would snap at flies, but without much enthusiasm. Its opal coating glowed in the sunlight.

‘Oaaw! Isn't that
pretty
! Fetch it here, you two!'

It paid no attention to the brightly coloured cart that stopped a little way along the track. It was possibly aware at some level that people had got out and were staring at it, but it didn't resist when they appeared to reach a decision and lifted it on to the cart. It didn't know where it had to go, and since it also didn't know where this cart was going perhaps it would take it there.

It waited a decent while after it had been put down, and then took in its surroundings. It had been stacked up by a lot of other boxes and suitcases, which was comforting. After five minutes spent being underground for millions of years the Luggage felt that it was due some quality time.

And it didn't even resist when someone opened its lid and filled it up with shoes. Quite large shoes, the Luggage noticed, and many of them with interesting heels and inventive ways with silk and sequins. They were clearly ladies' shoes. That was good, the Luggage thought (or emoted, or reacted). Ladies tended to lead quieter lives.

The purple cart rumbled off. Painted crudely on the back were the words: Petunia, The Desert Princess.

* * *

Rincewind looked hard at the shears that the head shearer was waving. They looked sharp.

‘You know what we do to people who go back on a bet round here?' said Daggy, the gang boss.

‘Er . . . but I was drunk.'

‘So were we. So what?'

Rincewind looked out across the sheep pens. He knew what sheep were, of course, and had come into contact with them on many occasions, although normally in the company of mixed vegetables. He'd even had a toy stuffed lamb as a child. But there is something hugely unlovable about sheep, a kind of mad, eye-rolling brainlessness smelling of damp wool and panic. Many religions extol the virtues of the meek, but Rincewind had never trusted them. The meek could turn very nasty at times.

On the other hand . . . they were covered in wool, and the shears looked pretty keen. How hard could it be? His radar told him that trying and failing was probably a lot less of a crime than not trying at all.

‘Can I have a trial run?' he said.

A sheep was dragged out of the pens and flung down in front of him.

Rincewind gave Daggy what he hoped was the smile of one craftsman to another, but smiling at Daggy was like throwing meringues against a cliff.

‘Er, can I have a chair and a towel and two mirrors and a comb?' he said.

Daggy's look of intense suspicion deepened. ‘What's this? What d'you want all that for?'

‘Got to do it properly, haven't I?'

* * *

Away out of sight at the back of the shearing shed, on the sun-bleached boards, the outline of a kangaroo began to form. And then, the white lines drifting across the wood like wisps of cloud across a clear sky, it began to change shape
. . .

Rincewind hadn't had a proper haircut in a long time, but he knew how it was done.

‘So . . . have you had your holidays this year, then?' he said, clipping away.

‘Mnaaarrrhh!'

‘What about this weather, eh?' Rincewind said, desperately.

‘Mnaaarrrhh!'

The sheep wasn't even trying to struggle. It was an old one, with fewer teeth than feet, and even in the very limited depths of its extremely shallow mind it knew that this wasn't how shearing was supposed to go. Shearing was supposed to be a brief struggle followed by glorious cool freedom back in the paddock. It wasn't supposed to include searching questions about what it thought of this weather or enquiries as to whether it required something for the weekend, especially since the sheep had no concept of the connotations of the term ‘weekend' or, if it came to that, of the word ‘something' either. People weren't supposed to splash lavender water in its ear.

The shearers watched in silence. There was quite a crowd of them, because they'd gone and
fetched everyone else on the station. They knew in their souls that here was something to tell their grandchildren.

Rincewind stood back, looked critically at his handiwork, and then showed the sheep the back of its head in the mirror, at which point the creature cracked, managed to get its feet under it and made a run for the paddock.

‘Hey, wait till I take the curlers out!' Rincewind shouted after it.

He became aware of the shearers watching him. Finally one of them said, in a stunned voice, ‘That's sheep-shearing where yew come from, is it?'

‘Er . . . what did you think?' said Rincewind.

‘It's a bit slow, innit?'

‘How fast was I supposed to go?'

‘Weell, Daggy here once did nearly fifty in an hour. That's what you've got to beat, see? None of that fancy rubbish. Just short back, front, top and sides.'

‘Mind yew,' said one of the shearers, wistfully, ‘that was a beautiful lookin' sheep.'

There was an outbreak of bleating from the sheep corrals.

‘Ready to give it a
real
go, Rinso?' said Daggy.

‘Ye gawds, what's
that
?' said one of his mates.

The fence shattered. A ram stood in the gap, shaking its head to dislodge bits of post from its horns. Steam rose from its nostrils.

Most of the things Rincewind had associated with sheep, apart from the gravy and mint sauce, had to do with . . . sheepishness. But this was a
ram, and the word association was suddenly . . .
rampage
. It pawed the ground. It was a lot bigger than the average sheep. In fact, it seemed to fill Rincewind's entire future.

‘That's not one of
mine
!' said the flock's owner.

Daggy placed his shears in Rincewind's other hand and patted him on the back.

‘This one's yours, mate,' he said, and backed away. ‘You're here to show us how it's done, eh, mate?'

Rincewind looked down at his feet. They weren't moving. They remained firmly fixed to the ground.

The ram advanced, snorting and looking Rincewind in the bloodshot eye.

‘Okay,' it whispered, when it was very close. ‘You just make with the shears and the sheep'll do the rest. No worries.'

‘Is that
you
?' said Rincewind, glancing at the distant ring of watchers.

‘Hah, good one. Ready? They'll do what I do. They're like sheep, okay?'

The shearers watched as wool fell like rain.

‘That's somethin' you don't often see,' said one of them. ‘Them standin' on their heads like that . . .'