‘I shall drink to your success, Margolotta,’ said Vetinari as their footsteps died away. ‘You know, I seriously intended to proposition Miss Sugarbean to be my cook.’ He sighed again. ‘Still, what is a pie to a happy ending?’
You think it’s all over?
The following morning Ponder Stibbons was at work in the High Energy Magic Building when Ridcully limped in. There was a glowing silver band around his knee. ‘Grapeshot’s Therapeutic Squeezer,’ he announced. ‘A simple little spell. I’ll be right as rain in no time. Mrs Whitlow wanted me to put a stocking on it, but I told her that I’m not interested in that sort of thing.’
‘I’m glad to see that you’re in such good spirits, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder, working his way down a long calculation.
‘Have you had a chance to see the papers yet this morning, Mister Stibbons?’
‘No, sir. What with the football business, I’m a little behind with my work.’
‘It may interest you to know that late last night a seventy-foot-high chicken broke out of what they are pleased to call the Higher Energy Magic Building at Brazeneck and is apparently rampaging through Pseudopolis while being pursued by most of the faculty, who, I assume, would be quite capable of terrorizing the city all by themselves. Henry has just had a frantic clacks and has had to rush off.’
‘Oh, that is very disturbing, sir.’
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ said Ridcully. ‘Apparently it’s laying eggs very fast.’
‘Ah, that sounds like a quasi-expansion blit phenomenon adapting itself to a living organism,’ said Ponder. He turned the page, his pencil moving neatly across the column of figures.
‘The former Dean has egg all over his face,’ said Ridcully.
‘Well, I’m sure that Professor Turnipseed will be able to bring things back under control,’ said Ponder. The tone of his voice was entirely unchanged.
There was a busy little silence and Ridcully said, ‘How long do you think we should give him to get it under control?’
‘What size are the eggs?’
‘Eight or nine feet high, apparently,’ said Ridcully.
‘With calcium shells?’
‘Yes, quite thick, so I’m told.’
Ponder looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. ‘Hmm, that’s not too bad, then. If you’d said steel it would have been rather worrying. It sounds very much like a blit devolution, possibly caused by… lack of experience.’
‘I thought you taught Mister Turnipseed everything you know,’ said Ridcully, looking happier than Ponder had seen him in a very long time.
‘Well, sir, perhaps there was something he didn’t quite grasp. Are people at risk?’
‘The wizards have told everyone to stay indoors.’
‘Well, sir, I think if I got some of my equipment together we could leave about teatime.’
‘I’ll come, too, of course,’ said Ridcully. He looked at Ponder. ‘And—’
‘What?’ said Ponder. He looked at Ridcully’s grin. ‘Yes, it might be a good idea if one of the gentlemen from the Times came along to take pictures. They might be very good for instructional purposes.’
‘An extremely good plan, Mister Stibbons, and I think we should take the senior faculty as well. They will lend some much-needed… ’ He snapped his fingers. ‘What’s the word?’
‘Confusion,’ said Ponder.
‘No, not that,’ said Ridcully.
‘Appetite?’ said Ponder. ‘Weight?’
‘Something like that… Ah, gravitas. Oh, yes, lots of gravitas. We aren’t the kind of fellows who run around chasing strange birds. I’ll see you after lunch. And now I have other matters to deal with.’
‘Yes, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder. ‘Oh, and, um… What about the proposed football match?’
‘Regrettably, it appears that it will have to wait until they have rebuilt the university.’
‘That’s a shame, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder.
He carried on with the calculation until the very last figures danced into place, made sure the Archchancellor had left, gave a very small smile, which you might not have noticed had you not expected it, and then pulled another ledger towards him.
It was another good day.
It is now!
1
Technically, the city of Ankh-Morpork is a Tyranny, which is not always the same thing as a monarchy, and in fact even the post of Tyrant has been somewhat redefined by the incumbent, Lord Vetinari, as the only form of democracy that works. Everyone is entitled to vote, unless disqualified by reason of age or not being Lord Vetinari.
And yet it does work. This has annoyed a number of people who feel, somehow, that it should not, and who want a monarch instead, thus replacing a man who has achieved his position by cunning, a deep understanding of the realities of the human psyche, breathtaking diplomacy, a certain prowess with the stiletto dagger, and, all agree, a mind like a finely balanced circular saw, with a man who has got there by being born. (A third proposition, that the city be governed by a choice of respectable members of the community who would promise not to give themselves airs or betray the public trust at every turn, was instantly the subject of music-hall jokes all over the city.)
However, the crown has hung on anyway, as crowns do–on the Post Office and the Royal Bank and the Mint and, not least, in the sprawling, brawling, squalling consciousness of the city itself. Lots of things live in that darkness. There are all kinds of darkness, and all kinds of things can be found in them, imprisoned, banished, lost or hidden. Sometimes they escape. Sometimes they simply fall out. Sometimes they just can’t take it any more.
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2
That is to say Glenda officially sleeps in the old iron bedstead; in reality most of her sleeping is done in a huge and ancient armchair in the Night Kitchen, where she has very nearly mastered the art of doing without proper sleep altogether. So many crumbs, spoons, bits of pie dough, books and spilt drinks have gone down the sides of the cushions of that chair that it might well now harbour a small, thriving civilization.
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3
Strictly speaking, Dr Hix, spelled with an X, was the son of Mr and Mrs Hicks, but a man who wears a black robe with nasty symbols on it and has a skull ring would be mad, or let us say even madder, to pass up the chance to have an X in his name.
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4
The Egregious Professor of Grammar and Usage would have corrected this to ‘she was not she’, which would have caused the Professor of Logic to spit out his drink.
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5
Employing professional dribblers might seem extravagant for a body like Unseen University. Nothing could be further from the truth. No traditional wizard worth his pointy hat could possibly work by the light of pure, smooth, dare one say virgin undribbled candles. It would just not look right. The ambience would be totally shattered. And when it did happen, the luckless wizard would mess about, as people do, with matchsticks and bent paperclips, to try to get nice little dribbles and channels of wax, as nature intended. However, this sort of thing never really works and invariably ends with wax all over the carpet and the wizard setting himself on fire. Candle dribbling, it has been decreed, is a job for a dribbler.
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6
Originally the Explorers’ Society until Lord Vetinari forcibly insisted that most of the places ‘discovered’ by the society’s members already had people living in them, who were already trying to sell snakes to the newcomers.
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7
There are those who say that sherry should not be drunk early in the morning. They are wrong.
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8
In short, every wizard knew that, whatever you did, you’d get some wizards creeping off to do weird and messy magic in some cave somewhere.
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9
Hix had flatly refused to wear trousers. No self-disrespecting dark wizard would dream o
f wearing such common garb as a trouser, he declared. It totally spoiled the effect.
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10
In fact, Juliet’s rising from beneath the cart passed relatively unnoticed by all except an art student who was almost blinded by the light at the spectacle, and many years later painted the picture known as Beauty Arising from the Pease Pudding Cart Attended by Cherubs Carrying Hot Dogs and Pies. It was widely regarded as a masterpiece, although no one could ever work out exactly what the hell it was all about. But it was beautiful and so it was true.
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11
But you’d got another eye, right? And now you had solid proof that you were a hard man, especially if you got one of those scars that run across the eye and down the cheek. Get a black eye-patch, and you would never have to wait to be served at a bar ever again.
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12
Dwarfs have a straightforward approach to alcoholic drink: beer, mead, wine, sherry–one large size fits all.
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13
You didn’t get anywhere at Unseen University without being able to understand the vast number of meanings that can be carried by the word ook.
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14
This diagram was devised to chart the tendency of wizards, who start out small and pale, to progress through the craft getting bigger and cholerically redder until at last they swell up and explode in a cloud of pomposity.
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15
This may not be true. Wizards tend to think it’s a long time to the next meal, right up until they are consuming it.
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16
It is said that if you want to stand up to someone you should picture them naked. In the case of Mrs Whitlow this would be, as Ponder Stibbons might put it, contra-indicated.
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17
Contrary to popular belief and hope, people don’t usually come running when they hear a scream. That’s not how humans work. Humans look at other humans and say, ‘Did you hear a scream?’ because the first scream might just have been you screaming inside your head, or a horse backfiring.
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18
One other reason that you could call them Faces was that crude drawings of them appeared on Watch posters, with hopeful messages asking people to let the Watch know if said person had been seen around and about.
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19
An archbishop in a house of negotiable affection might have looked a little more puzzled than Nutt right now, but the amount of said puzzlement depends on how many archbishops you know.
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20
Policemen have a way of pronouncing the word ‘sir’, as if they would really like to spell it ‘cur’.
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21
i.e., up to something.
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22
In his seat, the university’s Master of the Music fumbled for his notebook and wrote down rapidly: Macarona Unum Est. Certes Macarona Est. And couldn’t wait to get back to the choir.
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23
This was slightly modified when she realized that none of the spectators had tried any hanky panky whatsoever.
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24
According to Fletcher’s Avian Nausea Index, parrot sickness stands at number five in the ‘wishing yourself dead’ index. The highest level of sickness is that suffered by the great Combovered Eagle which can vomit over three countries at once.
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25
It is traditional on these occasions for the conquering heroes to spray bottles of champagne on the crowd. This did not happen. If a wizard succeeds in getting the cork out of a champagne bottle, he certainly does not intend to pour it away.
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26
Who was the same shape as most of the wizards and felt doubly at home.
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Unseen Academicals d-37 Page 43
