Last Continent

by Pratchett, Terry

  ‘You’re not going to believe any of this,’ mumbled the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘You’re going to accuse us of trickery.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said the Dean. ‘They don’t look very tricky to me.’

  The Chair of Indefinite Studies gave a sigh. ‘Have a coconut,’ he said.

  ‘Do they go off bang or something?’

  ‘No, nothing like that at all.’

  The Dean picked up a nut, gave it a suspicious look, and banged it on a stone. It fell into two exact halves.

  There was no milk to spill out. Inside the husk was a brown inner shell, full of soft white fibres.

  Ridcully picked up a bit of it and sniffed. ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said. ‘That’s not natural.’

  ‘So?’ said the Dean. ‘It’s a coconut full of coconut. What’s odd about that?’

  The Archchancellor broke off a piece of the shell and handed it over. It was soft and slightly crumbly.

  The Dean tasted it. ‘Chocolate?’ he said.

  Ridcully nodded. ‘Dairy milk, by the taste of it. With a creamy coconut filling.’

  ‘Thaf’s nod poffible,’ said the Dean, his cheeks bulging.

  ‘Spit it out, then.’

  ‘I think I might perhaps try a little more,’ said the Dean, swallowing. ‘In a spirit of enquiry, you understand.’

  The Senior Wrangler picked up a knobbly bluish nut about the size of a fist and tapped it experimentally. It shattered but was held together because of the gooey contents.

  The smell was very familiar. A careful taste confirmed it. The wizards regarded the nut’s innards in shocked silence.

  ‘It’s even got the blue veins,’ said the Senior Wrangler.

  ‘Yes, we know, we tried one,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies weakly. ‘And, after all, there is such a thing as a bread fruit—’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ said Ridcully. ‘And I might believe there’s such a thing as a nat’rally chocolate-covered coconut, because chocolate’s a kind of potato—’

  ‘A bean, possibly,’ said Ponder Stibbons.

  ‘Whatever. But I damn well don’t believe there’s such a thing as a mature Lancre Blue runny cheese nut!’ He prodded the thing.

  ‘But nature does come up with some very funny coincidences, Archchancellor,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Why, I myself, as a child, once dug up a carrot which, ahaha, most amusingly looked just like a man with a—’

  ‘Er . . .’ said the Dean.

  It was only a little sound, but it had a certain portentous quality. They turned to look at him.

  He’d been peeling away the yellowing husk from something like a small bean pod. What he now held—

  ‘Hah, yes, good joke,’ said Ridcully. ‘They certainly don’t grow on—’

  ‘I didn’t do anything! Look, it’s still got bits of pith and stuff on it!’ said the Dean, waving the thing wildly.

  Ridcully took it, sniffed it, held it up to his ear and shook it, and then said quietly: ‘Show me where you found it, will you?’

  The bush was in a small clearing. Dozens of the little green shoots hung down between its tiny leaves. Each was tipped by a flower, but the flowers were curling up and falling off. The crop was ripe.

  Multi-coloured beetles zoomed away from the bush as the Dean selected a pod and peeled it open, revealing a slightly damp white cylinder. He examined it for a few seconds, then put one end in his mouth, took a box of matches from a pocket in his hat, and lit up.

  ‘Quite a smooth smoke,’ he said. His hand shook slightly as he took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew a smoke ring. ‘Cork filter, too,’ he said.

  ‘Er . . . well, both tobacco and cork are naturally occurring vegetable products,’ quavered the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

  ‘Chair?’ said Ridcully.

  ‘Yes, Archchancellor?’

  ‘Shut up, will you?’

  ‘Yes, Archchancellor.’

  Ponder Stibbons broke open a cork tip. There was a tiny ring of what well might have been—

  ‘Seeds,’ he said. ‘But that can’t be right, because—’

  The Dean, wreathed in blue smoke, had been staring at the nearby vines.

  ‘Has it occurred to anyone else that those pods are remarkably rectangular?’ he said.

  ‘Go for it, Dean,’ said Ridcully.

  A brown outer husk was pulled aside.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Dean. ‘Biscuits. Just the thing with cheese.’

  ‘Er . . .’ said Ponder. He pointed.

  Just beyond the bush a couple of boots lay on the ground.

  Rincewind ran his fingers over the cave wall.

  The ground shook again.

  ‘What’s causing that?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, some people say it’s an earthquake, some say it’s the country drying up, others say it’s a giant snake rushing through the ground,’ said Scrappy.

  ‘Which is it?’

  ‘The wrong sort of question.’

  They definitely looked like wizards, thought Rincewind. They had that basic cone shape familiar to anyone who had been to Unseen University. They were holding staffs. Even with the crude materials available to them the ancient artists had managed to portray the knobs on the ends.

  But UU hadn’t even existed thirty thousand years ago . . .

  Then he noticed, for the first time, the drawing right at the end of the cave. There were a lot of the ochre handprints on top of it, almost – and the thought expanded in his mind in a sneaky way – as though someone had thought that they could hold it down on to the rock, prevent it – this was a silly thought, he knew – prevent it from getting out.

  He brushed away some dust.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he mumbled.

  It was an oblong box. The artist hadn’t got the hang of conventional perspective, but there was no doubt that he’d tried to paint hundreds of little legs.

  ‘That’s my Luggage!’

  ‘Always the same, right?’ said Scrappy, behind him. ‘You arrive okay and your luggage ends up somewhere else.’

  ‘Thousands of years in the past?’

  ‘Could be a valuable antique.’

  ‘It’s got my clothes in it!’

  ‘They’ll probably be back in style, then.’

  ‘You don’t understand! It’s a magical box! It’s supposed to end up where I am!’

  ‘It probably is where you are. Just not when.’

  ‘What? Oh.’

  ‘I told you time and space were all stirred up, didn’t I? You wait till you’re on your journey. There’s places where there’s several times happening at once and places where there’s hardly any time at all, and times when there’s hardly any place. You’ve got to sort it out, right?’

  ‘What, like shuffling cards?’ said Rincewind. He made a mental note about ‘on your journey’.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘That’s impossible!’

  ‘Y’know, I’d have said so too. But you will do it. Now, you’ll have to concentrate about this bit, right?’ Scrappy took a deep breath. ‘I know you’re going to do it because you’ve already done it.’

  Rincewind put his head in his hands.

  ‘I told you about time and space here being mixed up,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘I’ve already saved the country, have I?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Oh, good. Well, that wasn’t so difficult. I don’t want much – a medal, perhaps, the grateful thanks of the population, maybe a small pension and a ticket home . . .’ He looked up. ‘I’m not going to get any of that, though, am I?’

  ‘No, because—’

  ‘—I haven’t already done it yet?’

  ‘Exactly! You’re getting the hang of it! You have to go and do what we know you’re going to do because you’ve already done it. In fact, if you hadn’t done it already I wouldn’t be here to make sure it gets done. So you’d better do it.’

  ‘Facing terrible dangers?’

  The kanga
roo waved a paw. ‘Slightly terrible,’ it said.

  ‘And go for many miles over parched and trackless terrain?’

  ‘Well, yeah. We haven’t got any of the other sort.’

  Rincewind brightened up slightly. ‘And I’ll meet comrades whose strengths and skills will be a great help to me?’

  ‘Don’t bet on it.’

  ‘Any chance of a magic sword?’

  ‘What would you do with a magic sword?’

  ‘Fair enough. Fair enough. Forget the magic sword. But I’ve got to have something. Cloak of invisibility, potion of strength, something like that . . .’

  ‘That stuff’s for people who know how to use them, mister. You’ll have to rely on your native wit.’

  ‘I’ve got nothing? What sort of quest is that? Can’t you give me any hints?’

  ‘You may have to drink some beer,’ said the kangaroo. It cringed back for a moment, as if confident of facing a storm of objections.

  Rincewind said: ‘Oh. Right. Well, I know how to do that. What direction am I supposed to go?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll find it.’

  ‘And when I get to where I’m going, what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘It’ll . . . be obvious, right?’

  ‘And how will I know I’ve done it?’

  ‘The Wet will come back.’

  ‘The wet what?’

  ‘It’ll rain.’

  ‘I thought it never rained here,’ said Rincewind.

  ‘See? I knew you were smart.’

  The sun was setting. The rocks around the edge of the cave glowed red. Rincewind stared at them for a while, and reached a brave decision.

  ‘I’m not the man to shirk when the fate of whole countries is in the balance,’ he said. ‘I will make a start at dawn to complete this task which I have already completed, by hoki, or my name isn’t Rincewand!’

  ‘Rincewind,’ said the kangaroo.

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘Well said, mate. Then I should get some sleep, if I were you. Could be a busy day tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve not been found wanting when duty calls,’ said Rincewind. He reached into a hollow log and, after some rummaging around, pulled out a plate of egg and chips. ‘See you at dawn, then.’

  Ten minutes later he stretched out on the sand with the log as his pillow, and looked up at the purple sky. Already a few stars were coming out.

  Now, there was something . . . Oh, yes. The kangaroo was lying down on the other side of the waterhole.

  Rincewind raised his head. ‘You said something about when “he” created this place, and you talked about “him” . . .’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Only . . . I’m pretty sure I’ve met the Creator. Short bloke. Does all his own snowflakes.’

  ‘Yeah? And when did you meet him?’

  ‘When he was making the world, as a matter of fact.’ Rincewind decided to refrain from mentioning that he’d dropped a sandwich into a rockpool at the time. People don’t like to hear that they may have evolved from somebody’s lunch. ‘I get around quite a lot,’ he added.

  ‘Are you coming the raw prawn?’

  ‘What? Oh, no. Certainly not. Coming a raw prawn? Not me. That’s something I never do. Or even cooked prawns. Or crustaceans of any sort, especially in rockpools. Not me. Er . . . what was it that you actually meant?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t create this place,’ said Scrappy, ignoring him. ‘This was done after.’

  ‘Can that happen?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, it’s not like, you know, building on over the stables, is it?’ said Rincewind. ‘Someone just wanders along when a world’s all finished and slings down an extra continent?’

  ‘Happens all the time, mate,’ said Scrappy. ‘Bloody hell, yeah. Why not, anyway? If other creators go around leaving ruddy great empty oceans, someone’s bound to fill ’em up, right? Does a world good, too, having a fresh look, new ideas, new ways.’

  Rincewind stared up at the stars. He had a mental vision of someone walking from world to world, sneaking in extra lands when no one was looking.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ he said. ‘I for one would not have thought of making all the snakes deadly, and all the spiders deadlier than the snakes. And putting pockets on everything? Great idea.’

  ‘There you go, then,’ said Scrappy. He was hardly visible now, as the dark filled up the cave.

  ‘Made a lot of them, has he?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So’s maybe at least one of them won’t get mucked up. Always puts kangaroos on ’em, too. Sort of a signature, you might say.’

  ‘Does this Creator have a name?’

  ‘Nope. He’s just the man who carries the sack that contains the whole universe.’

  ‘A leather sack?’

  ‘Sounds like him,’ the kangaroo agreed.

  ‘The whole universe in one small sack?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Rincewind settled back. ‘I’m glad I’m not religious,’ he said. ‘It must be very complicated.’

  After another five minutes he began to snore. After half an hour he moved his head slightly. The kangaroo didn’t seem to be around.

  With almost super-Rincewind speed he was upright and scrambling up the fallen rocks, over the lip of the cave and into the dark oven of the night.

  He sighted on a random star and got into his stride, ignoring the bushes that lashed at his bare legs.

  Hah!

  He was not going to be found wanting when duty called. He did not intend to be found at all.

  In the cave the water in the pool rippled under the starlight, the expanding circles lapping against the sand.

  On the wall was an ancient drawing of a kangaroo, in white and red and yellow. The artist had tried to achieve on stone what might better have been attempted with eight dimensions and a large particle accelerator; he’d tried to include not just the kangaroo now but also the kangaroo in the past, and the kangaroo in the future and, in short, not what the kangaroo looked like but what the kangaroo was.

  Among other things, as it faded, it was grinning.

  Among the complexities that made up the intelligent biped known to the rest of the world as Mrs Whitlow was this: there was no such thing as an informal meal in Mrs Whitlow’s world. If Mrs Whitlow made sandwiches even just for herself she would put a sprig of parsley on the top. She placed a napkin on her lap to drink a cup of tea. If the table could have a vase of flowers and a placemat with a tasteful view of something nice, so much the better.

  It was unthinkable that she should eat a meal balanced on her knees. In fact it was unthinkable to think of Mrs Whitlow as having knees, although the Senior Wrangler had to fan himself with his hat occasionally. So the beach had been scoured to find enough bits of driftwood to make a very rough table, and some suitable rocks to use as seats.

  The Senior Wrangler dusted one off with his hat. ‘There we are, Mrs Whitlow . . .’

  The housekeeper frowned. ‘Ai’m really sure it’s Not Done for the staff to eat with the gentlemen,’ she said.

  ‘Be our guest, Mrs Whitlow,’ said Ridcully.

  ‘Ai really can’t. It does not Do to get ideas above one’s station,’ said Mrs Whitlow. ‘Ai would never be able to look you in the face again, sir. Ai hope Ai know my Place.’

  Ridcully looked blank for a moment, and then said quietly: ‘Faculty meeting, gentlemen?’

  The wizards went into another huddle a little way along the beach.

  ‘What are we supposed to do about that?’

  ‘I think it’s very commendable of her. Her world is Below Stairs, after all.’

  ‘Yes, very well, but it’s not as if there’re any stairs on this island.’

  ‘Could we build some?’

  ‘We can’t let the poor woman sit off by herself somewhere, that is my point.’

  ‘We spent ages on that table!’

  ‘And did you notice something about the driftwood, Archchancellor?’


  ‘Looked like perfectly ordinary wood to me, Stibbons. Branches, treetrunks and whatnot.’

  ‘That’s the strange thing, sir, because—’

  ‘It’s very simple, Ridcully. I hope that, as gentlemen, we know how to treat a woman—’

  ‘Lady.’

  ‘Let me just say that was unnecessarily sarcastic, Dean,’ said Ridcully. ‘Very well. If the Prophet Ossory won’t go to the mountain, the mountain must go to the Prophet Ossory. As they say in Klatch.’

  He paused. He knew his wizards.

  ‘I believe, in fact, that it’s in Omnia that—’ Ponder began.

  Ridcully waved a hand. ‘Something like that, anyway.’

  And that is why Mrs Whitlow dined alone at the table, while the wizards sat around the fire a little way away, except that very frequently one of them would lumber over to offer her some choice bit of nature’s bounty.

  It was obvious that starvation would not be a problem on this island, although dyspepsia and gout might be.

  Fish was the main course. Frenzied searching had failed to locate a steak bush so far but had found, in addition to numerous more conventional fruits, a pasta bush, a sort of squash that contained something very much like custard and, to Ridcully’s disgust, a pineapple-like plant the fruit of which was, when the husk had been stripped away, a large plum pudding.

  ‘Obviously it’s not really a plum pudding,’ he protested. ‘We just think it’s like a plum pudding because it tastes exactly like a . . . plum pudding . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘It’s got plums and currants in it,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘Pass the custard squash, will you?’

  ‘My point is that we only think they look like currants and plums—’

  ‘No, we also think they taste like currants and plums,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘Look, Archchancellor, there’s no mystery. Obviously wizards have been here before. This is the result of perfectly ordinary magic. Perhaps our lost geographer did a bit of experimenting. Or it’s sourcery, perhaps. Some of the things that got created in the old days, well, a cigarette bush is very small beer by comparison, eh?’

  ‘Talking of small beer . . .’ said the Dean, waving his hand, ‘pass me the rum, will you?’

  ‘Mrs Whitlow doesn’t approve of strong liquor,’ said the Senior Wrangler.