Last Continent (39 page)

Contrary to the usual procedures it began to grow lighter, although the proliferation of luminous fungi or iridescent crystals in deep caves where the torchlessly improvident hero needs to
see
is one of the most obvious intrusions of narrative causality into the physical universe. In this case, the rocks were glowing, not from some mysterious inner light but simply as though the sun were shining on them, just after dawn.

There are other imperatives that operate on the human brain. One says: the bigger the space, the softer the voice, and refers to the natural tendency to speak very, very quietly when stepping into somewhere huge. So when Archchancellor Rincewind stepped out into the
big
cave he said, ‘Strewth, it's bloody big!' in a low whisper.

The Dean, however, shouted, ‘Coo-eee!' because there's always one.

Stalactites crowded the cave here, too, and in the very centre a gigantic stalactite had almost touched its mirror-image stalagmite. The air was chokingly hot.

‘This isn't right—' said Rincewind.

Plink
.

They spotted the source of the noise eventually. A tiny trickle was making its way down the side of the stalactite and forming droplets that fell a few feet to the stalagmite.

Another drop formed while they watched, and hung there.

One of the wizards clambered up the dry slope and peered at it.

‘It's not moving,' he said. ‘The trickle's drying up. I think . . . it's evaporating.'

The Archchancellor turned to Rincewind. ‘Well, we've followed you this far, mate,' he said. ‘What now?'

‘I think I could do with another b—'

‘There's none left, mate.'

Rincewind looked desperately around the cave, and then at the huge translucent mass of limestone in front of him.

It was definitely pointy. It was also in the centre of the cave. It had a certain
inevitability
about it.

Odd, really, that something like this would form down here, shining away like a pearl in an oyster. The ground trembled again. Up there, people would already be getting thirsty, cursing the windmills as only an Ecksian could curse. The water was gone and that was very bad, and when the beer ran out people would
really
get angry . . .

The wizards were all waiting for him to
do
something.

All right, start with the rock. What did he know about rocks and caves in these parts?

There was a curious freedom at a time like this. He was going to be in real trouble whatever he
did, so he might as well give this a try . . .

‘I need some paint,' he said.

‘What for?'

‘For what I need,' said Rincewind.

‘There's young Salid,' said the Dean. ‘He's a bit of an arty blager. Let's go and kick his door down.'

‘And bring some more beer!' Rincewind called after them.

Neilette patted Rincewind on the shoulder. ‘Are you going to do some magic?' she said.

‘I don't know if it counts as magic here,' said Rincewind. ‘If it doesn't work, stand well back.'

‘Is it going to be dangerous, then?'

‘No, I might have to start running without looking where I'm going. But . . . this rock's warm. Have you noticed?'

She touched it. ‘I see what you mean . . .'

‘I was just thinking . . . Supposing someone was in a country who shouldn't be there? What would it do?'

‘Oh, the Watch would catch him, I expect.'

‘No, no, not the people. What would the
land
do? I think I need another drink, it made more sense then . . .'

‘Okay, here we are, we couldn't find much, but there's some whitewash and some red paint and a tin of stuff which might be black paint or it could be tar oil.' The wizards hurried up. ‘Not much in the way of brushes, though.'

Rincewind picked up a brush that looked as though it had once been used to whitewash a very rough wall and then to clean the teeth of some large creature, possibly a crocodile.

He'd never been any good at art, and this is a distinction quite hard to achieve in many education systems. Basic artistic skills and a familiarity with occult calligraphy are part of a wizard's early training, yet in Rincewind's fingers chalk broke and pencils shattered. It was probably due to a deep distrust of getting things down on paper when they were doing all right where they were.

Neilette handed him a tin of Funnelweb. Rincewind drank deeply and then dipped the brush in what might have been black paint and essayed a few upturned Vs on the rock, and some circles under the lines, with three dots in a V and a friendly little curve in each one.

He took another deep draught of the beer and saw what he was doing wrong. It was no good trying to be strictly true to life here; what he had to go for was an
impression
.

He sloshed wildly at the stone, humming madly under his breath.

‘Anyone guess what it is yet?' he said, over his shoulder.

‘Looks a bit modern to me,' said the Dean.

But Rincewind was into the swing of it now. Any fool could just copy what he saw, except possibly Rincewind, but surely the whole point was to try to paint a picture that moved, that definitely expressed the, the, the—

Definitely expressed it, anyway. You went the way the paint and the colour wanted you to go.

‘You know,' said Neilette, ‘the way the light falls on it and everything . . . it could be a group of wizards . . .'

Rincewind half closed his eyes. Perhaps it
was
the way that the shadows moved, but he had to admit he'd done a really good job. He slapped some more paint on.

‘Looks like they're almost coming out of the stone,' said someone behind him, but the voice sounded muffled.

He felt as though he was falling into a hole. He'd had the sensation before, although usually it
was
when he was falling into a hole. The walls were fuzzy, as though they were streaking past him at a tremendous rate. The ground shook.

‘Are we moving?' he said.

‘Feels like it, doesn't it?' said Archchancellor Rincewind. ‘But we're standing still!'

‘Moving while standing still,' muttered Rincewind, and giggled. ‘That's a good one!' He squinted happily at the beer can. ‘Y'know,' he said, ‘I can't stomach more than a pint or two of the ale we have at home but this stuff is like drinking lemonade! Has anyone got that meat pie—'

As loudly as a thunderstorm under the bed but as softly as two soufflés colliding, past and present ran into one another.

They contained a lot of people.

‘What's this?'

‘Dean?'

‘Yes?'

‘You're not the Dean!'

‘How dare you say that! Who are you!'

‘Ook!'

‘Stone the cows, there's a
monkey
in here!'

‘No! No!
I
didn't say that!
He
said that!'

‘Archchancellor?'

‘Yes?'

‘Yes?'

‘What? How many of you are there?'

The darkness became a deep purple, shading to violet.

‘
Will you all stop shouting and listen to me!
'

To Rincewind's amazement, they did.

‘Look, the walls are getting closer! This place is trying not to exist!'

And, having done his duty to the community, he turned and ran over the shaking rock floor.

After a couple of seconds the Luggage passed him, which was always a bad sign.

He heard the voices behind him. Wizards had a hard job accepting the term ‘clear and present danger'. They liked the kind you could argue about. But there is something about a rapidly descending ceiling that intrudes into the awareness of even the most quarrelsome.

‘I'll save you, Mrs Whitlow!'

‘Up the tunnel!'

‘How fast are those walls closing in, would you say?'

‘Shut up and run!'

Now Rincewind was passed by a large red, furry kangaroo. The Librarian's erratic morphism, having briefly turned him into a red stalactite as an obviously successful shape for surviving in caves, had finally taken on board the fact that it would make for a terminally lengthy survival in a cave that was rapidly getting smaller, and had
flipped into a local morphic field built for speed.

Man, Luggage and kangaroo piled through the hole into the cellar and ended in a heap against the opposite side.

There was a rumbling behind them and wizards and women were fired out into the cellar with some speed, several of them landing on Rincewind. Behind the wall, the rock groaned and creaked, expelling these alien things in what, Rincewind thought, was a geological chunder.

Something flew out of the hole and hit him on the ear, but this was only a minor problem compared to the meat pie, which came out trailing mushy peas and tomato sauce and hit him in the mouth.

It wasn't, actually, all that bad.

The ability to ask questions like ‘Where am I and who is the “I” that is asking?' is one of the things that distinguishes mankind from, say, cuttlefish.
²³

The wizards from Unseen University, being perhaps the intellectual cream or certainly the cerebral yoghurt of their generation, passed through this stage within minutes. Wizards are very adept at certain ideas. One minute you're arguing over the shape of a duck's head and the next there are people telling you you've been
inside a rock for thousands of years because time goes slower on the inside. This presents no great problem for a man who has found his way to the lavatory at Unseen University.
²⁴

There were more important questions as they sat round the table in BU.

‘Is there anything to eat?' said Ridcully.

‘It's the middle of the night, sir.'

‘You mean we missed
dinner
?'

‘Thousands of years of dinners, Archchancellor.'

‘Really? Better start catching up, then, Mister Stibbons. Still . . . nice little place you've got here . . . archchancellor.'

Ridcully pronounced the word very carefully in order to accentuate the lower case ‘a'.

Archchancellor Rincewind gave him a fraternal nod. ‘Thank you.'

‘For a colony, of course. I daresay you do your best.'

‘Why, thank you, Mustrum. I'd be happy to show you our tower later on.'

‘It does look rather small.'

‘So people say.'

‘Rincewind, Rincewind . . . name rings a faint bell . . .' said Ridcully.

‘We came looking for Rincewind, Archchancellor,' said Ponder, patiently.

‘Is he? Done well for himself, then. Fresh air made a man of him, I see.'

‘No, sir. Ours is the skinny one with the bad
beard and the floppy hat, sir. You remember? The one sitting over there.'

Rincewind raised a hand diffidently. ‘Er. Me,' he said.

Ridcully sniffed. ‘Fair enough. What's that thing you're playing with, man?'

Rincewind held up the bullroarer. ‘It came with you out of the cave,' he said. ‘What were you doing with it?'

‘Oh, some toy the Librarian found,' said Ponder.

‘All sorted out, then,' said Ridcully. ‘I say, this beer's good, isn't it? Very drinkable. Yes, I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from one another, archchancellor. You from us rather more than us from you, of course. Perhaps we could set up a student exchange, that sort of thing?'

‘Good idea.'

‘You can have six of mine in exchange for a decent lawnmower. Ours has broken.'

‘The Arch— the
arch
chancellor is trying to say that getting back might be rather hard, sir,' said Ponder. ‘Apparently things ought to have changed now we're here. But they haven't.'

‘Your Rincewind seemed to think that bringing you blokes here would make it rain,' said Bill. ‘But it hasn't.'

. . . whumm . . .

‘Oh, do stop playing with that thing, Rincewind,' said Ridcully. ‘Well . . . Bill, it's obvious, isn't it? As more experienced wizards than you, we naturally know plenty of ways of making it rain. No problem there.'

. . . whumm . . .

‘Look, lad, take that thing outside, will you?'

The Librarian was sitting at the top of the tin tower, with a leaf over his head.

‘Something odd, see?' said Rincewind, dangling the bullroarer from its string. ‘I've only got to wiggle my hand a bit and it swings right round.'

‘. . . ook . . .'

The Librarian sneezed.

‘. . . awk . . .'

‘Er . . . now you're some sort of large bird . . .' said Rincewind. ‘You
are
in a bad way, aren't you? Still, once I tell them your name . . .'

The Librarian changed shape and moved fast. There was a very short period of time in which a lot happened.

‘Ah,' said Rincewind calmly when it seemed to be over. ‘Well, let us start with what we know. I can't see. The reason I can't see is that my robe is hanging over my eyes. From this I can deduce that I am upside down. You are gripping my ankles. Correction, one ankle, so obviously you are holding me upside down. We are at the top of the tower. This means . . .'

He fell silent.

‘All right, let's start again,' he said. ‘Let's start by me not telling anyone your name.'

The Librarian let go.

Rincewind dropped a few inches on to the planks of the tower.

‘You know, that was a really mean trick you just did,' he said.

‘Ook.'

‘We'll say no more about it, shall we?'

Rincewind looked up at the big, empty sky. It
ought
to be raining. He'd done everything he was supposed to do, hadn't he? And all that had happened was that the Faculty of UU was down there being condescending about everything. It wasn't even as if they could
do
a rainmaking spell. For one of those to work you needed some rain around to start with. In fact, it was prudent to make sure that some heavy-looking clouds were being blown in your direction.