Last Continent

by Pratchett, Terry

  He looked up, through the legs of the sheep. A man was creeping down across the dried-up waterhole, whistling tunelessly between his teeth. He’d failed to notice Rincewind because his gaze was fixed so intently on the milling sheep. He dropped the pack he’d been carrying, pulled out a sack, sidled towards a sheep all by itself, and leapt. It barely had time to bleat.

  As he was stuffing it into the sack a voice said: ‘That probably belongs to someone, you know.’

  The man looked around hurriedly. The voice was coming from a group of sheep.

  ‘I reckon you could get into serious trouble, stealing sheep. You’ll regret it later on, I’m sure. Probably someone really cares about that sheep. Come on, let it go.’

  The man stared around wildly. ‘I mean, think about it,’ the voice went on. ‘You’ve got this nice country here, parrots and everything, and you’re going to spoil it all by stealing someone’s sheep that they’ve worked so hard to grow. I bet you wouldn’t like to be remembered as a sheep-stealer— Oh.’

  The man had dropped the sack and was running away very fast.

  ‘Well, you didn’t have to waltz off like that, I was only trying to appeal to your better nature!’ said Rincewind, pulling himself up out of the hole.

  He cupped his hands. ‘And you’ve forgotten your camping stuff!’ he shouted, after the disappearing dust.

  The sack baa-ed.

  Rincewind picked it up, and a noise behind him made him look round. There was another man watching him from the back of a horse. He was glaring.

  Behind him were three men wearing identical helmets and jerkins and humourless expressions that had ‘watchman’ written all over them in slow handwriting. And all three were pointing crossbows at him.

  That bottomless feeling that he had once again wandered into something that didn’t concern him and was going to find it hard to wander out again grew within Rincewind.

  He tried to smile.

  ‘G’day!’ he said. ‘No worries, eh? I must say I’m really glad to see you drongos and no two ways about it!’

  Ponder Stibbons cleared his throat.

  ‘Where would you like me to start?’ he said. ‘I could probably finish off the elephant . . .’

  ‘How are you at slime?’

  Ponder hadn’t considered a future as a slime designer, but everyone had to start somewhere.

  ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Of course, slime just splits down the middle,’ said the god, as they walked along rows of glowing, life-filled cubes while beetles sizzled overhead. ‘Not a lot of future in that, really. It works all right for lower lifeforms but, frankly, it’s a bit embarrassing for the more complicated creatures and positively lethal for horses. No, sex is going to be very, very useful, Ponder. It’ll keep everything on its toes. And that will give us time to work on the big project.’

  Ponder sighed. Ah . . . he knew there had to be a big project. The big project. A god wasn’t going to do all this sort of thing just to make life better for inflammable cows.

  ‘Could I help with that?’ he said. ‘I’m sure I could make a contribution.’

  ‘Really? I thought perhaps animals and birds would be more up your . . . up your . . .’ The god waved his hands vaguely. ‘Up whatever you walk on. Where you live.’

  ‘Well, yes, but they’re a bit limited, aren’t they?’ said Ponder.

  The god beamed. There’s nothing like being near a happy god. It’s like giving your brain a hot bath.

  ‘Exactly!’ he said. ‘Limited! The very word! Each one stuck in some desert or jungle or mountain, relying on one or two foods, at the mercy of every vagary of the universe and wiped out by the merest change of climate. What a terrible waste!’

  ‘That’s right!’ said Ponder. ‘What you need is a creature that is resourceful and adaptable, am I right?’

  ‘Oh, very well put, Ponder! I can see you’ve turned up at just the right time!’ A pair of huge doors swung open in front of them, revealing a circular room with a shallow pyramid of steps in the centre. At the summit was another cloud of blue mist, in which occasional lights flared and died.

  The future unrolled in front of Ponder Stibbons. His eyes were so bright that his glasses steamed, that he could probably scorch holes in thin paper. Oh, right . . . what more could any natural philosopher dream of? He’d got the theories, now he could do the practice.

  And this time it’d be done properly. To hell with messing up the future! That’s what the future was for. Oh, he’d been against it, that was true, but it’d been . . . well, when someone else was thinking of doing it. But now he’d got the ear of a god, and maybe some intelligence could be applied to the task of creating intelligence.

  For a start, it ought to be possible to put together the human brain so that long beards weren’t associated with wisdom, which would instead be seen to reside in those who were young and skinny and required glasses for close work.

  ‘And . . . you’ve finished this?’ he said, as they climbed the steps.

  ‘Broadly, yes,’ said the god. ‘My greatest achievement. Frankly, it makes the elephants look very flimsy by comparison. But there’s plenty of fine detail left to do, if you think you’re up to it.’

  ‘It’d be an honour,’ said Ponder.

  The blue mist was right in front of him. By the look of the sparks, something very important was happening in there.

  ‘Do you give them any instructions before you let them out?’ he said, his breathing shallow.

  ‘A few simple ones,’ said the god. He waved a wrinkled hand, and the glowing ball began to contract. ‘Mostly they work things out themselves.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Ponder. ‘And I suppose if they go wrong we could always put them right with a few commandments.’

  ‘Not really necessary,’ said the god, as the blue ball vanished and revealed the pinnacle of creation. ‘I find very simple instructions are quite sufficient. You know . . . “Head for dark places,” that sort of thing. There! Isn’t it perfect? What a piece of work! The sun will burn out, the seas will dry up, but this chap will be there, you mark my— Hello? Ponder?’

  The Dean wet a finger and held it up. ‘We have the wind on our starboard beam,’ he said.

  ‘That’s good, is it?’ said the Senior Wrangler.

  ‘Could be, could be. Let’s hope it can take us to this continent he mentioned. I’m getting nervous of islands.’

  Ridcully finished hacking through the stem of the boat and threw it overboard.

  At the top of the green mast the trumpet-like blooms appeared to tremble in the wind. The leaf sail creaked slowly into a different position.

  ‘I’d say this was a miracle of nature’, said the Dean, ‘if we hadn’t just met the person who did it. Rather spoils it, that.’

  While wizards were not generally adventurous, they did understand that a vital part of any great undertaking is the securing of adequate provisions, which is why the boat was noticeably heavier in the water.

  The Dean selected a natural cigar, lit it, and made a face. ‘Not the best,’ he said. ‘Rather green.’

  ‘We’ll just have to rough it,’ said Ridcully. ‘What are you doing, Senior Wrangler?’

  ‘Just preparing a little tray for Mrs Whitlow. A few choice things.’

  The wizards glanced towards the crude awning they’d erected towards the prow. It wasn’t that she’d actually asked for it. It was simply that she’d made some remark about how hot the sun was, as anyone might, and suddenly wizards were getting in each other’s way as they vied with one another to cut poles and weave palm leaves. Perhaps never has so much intellectual effort gone into building a sunshade, which might have accounted for the wobble.

  ‘I thought it was my turn to do that,’ said the Dean, coldly.

  ‘No, Dean, you took her the fruit drink, if you remember,’ said the Senior Wrangler, cutting a cheese nut into dainty segments.

  ‘That was just one small drink!’ the Dean snapped. ‘You
’re doing a whole tray. Look, you’ve even done a flower arrangement in a coconut shell!’

  ‘Mrs Whitlow likes that sort of thing,’ said the Senior Wrangler calmly. ‘But she did say it was still a bit warm, so possibly you can fan her with a palm leaf while I peel these grapes for her.’

  ‘Once again it is left to me to point out the elementary unfairness,’ said the Dean. ‘Merely waving a leaf is a very menial activity compared to removing grape skins, and I happen to outrank you, Senior Wrangler.’

  ‘Indeed, Dean? And exactly how do you work that out?’

  ‘It’s not my opinion, man, it’s written into the Faculty structure!’

  ‘Of where, precisely?’

  ‘Have you gone totally Bursar? Unseen University, of course!’

  ‘And where is that, exactly?’ said the Senior Wrangler, carefully arranging some lilies in a pleasing design.

  ‘Ye gods, man, it’s . . . it’s . . .’ The Dean flapped a hand in the direction of the horizon, and his voice trailed off as certain facts of time and space bore in on him.

  ‘I’ll leave you to work it out, shall I?’ said the Senior Wrangler, getting off his knees and raising the tray reverentially.

  ‘I’ll help!’ shouted the Dean, lumbering to his feet.

  ‘It’s very light, I assure you—’

  ‘No, no, I can’t let you do it all by yourself!’

  Each holding the tray with one hand, and trying to push the other man away with the spare hand, they lurched forward, leaving a trail of spilt coconut milk and petals.

  Ridcully rolled his eyes. It must be the heat, he thought. He turned to the Chair of Indefinite Studies, who was trying to tie a short log to a long stick with a piece of creeper.

  ‘I was just thinking’, he said, ‘that everyone’s gone a little bit mad except me and you . . . Er, what are you doing there?’

  ‘I was just wondering whether Mrs Whitlow might like a game of croquet,’ said the Chair. He waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially.

  The Archchancellor sighed and wandered off along the deck. The Librarian had gone back to being a deckchair as a suitable mode for shipboard life, and the Bursar had gone to sleep on him.

  The big leaf moved slightly. Ridcully got the feeling that the green trumpets on the mast were sniffing.

  The wizards were already a little way from shore, but he saw the column of dust come down the track. It stopped at the beach and became a dot, which plunged into the sea.

  The sail creaked again, and flapped as the wind grew.

  ‘Ahoy there!’ shouted Ridcully.

  The distant figure waved for a moment and then continued swimming.

  Ridcully filled his pipe and watched with interest as Ponder Stibbons caught up with the boat.

  ‘Very well swum, if I may say so,’ he said.

  ‘Permission to come aboard, sir?’ said Ponder, treading water. ‘Could you throw down a creeper?’

  ‘Why, certainly.’

  The Archchancellor puffed his pipe as the wizard climbed aboard. ‘Possibly a record time over that distance, Mister Stibbons.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Ponder, dripping water on the deck.

  ‘And may I congratulate you on being properly dressed. You are wearing your pointy hat, which is the sine qua non of a wizard in public.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘It is a good hat.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘They say a wizard without his hat is undressed, Mister Stibbons.’

  ‘So I have heard, sir.’

  ‘But in your case, I must point out, you are with your hat but you are still, in a very real sense, undressed.’

  ‘I thought the robe would slow me down, sir.’

  ‘And, while it is good to see you, Stibbons, albeit rather more of you than I would usually care to contemplate, I am moved to ask why you are, in fact, here.’

  ‘I suddenly felt it would be unfair to deprive the University of my services, sir.’

  ‘Really? A sudden rush of nostalgia for the old alma mater, eh?’

  ‘You could say that, sir.’

  Ridcully’s eyes twinkled behind the smoke and, not for the first time, Ponder suspected that the man was sometimes rather cleverer than he appeared. It would not be hard.

  The Archchancellor shrugged, removed his pipe, and poked around inside it to remove a particularly obstructive clinker.

  ‘The Senior Wrangler’s bathing costume is around somewhere,’ he said. ‘I should put it on, if I were you. I suspect that offending Mrs Whitlow at the moment will get you hanged. All right? And if there is anything you want to talk about, my door is always open.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Right now, of course, I don’t have a door.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Imagine it as being open, nevertheless.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  After all, Ponder thought as he slipped gratefully away, the wizards of UU were merely crazy. Not even the Bursar was insane.

  Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could still see the God of Evolution beaming so happily as the cockroach stirred.

  Rincewind rattled the bars. ‘Don’t I get a trial?’ he shouted.

  After a while a warder wandered along the corridor. ‘Wha’d’yew want a trial for, mister?’

  ‘What? Well, call me Mister Silly, but it might just prove that I wasn’t trying to steal the damn sheep, mightn’t it?’ said Rincewind. ‘I was in fact rescuing it. If only you people would track down the thief, he’d tell you!’

  The warder leaned against the wall and stuck his hands in his belt.

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘but, y’know, we searched and searched and put up notices and everything but, funny thing, yew’ll never believe this, the bastard hasn’t had the decency to come forward? Makes yew despair of human nature, eh?’

  ‘So what’s going to happen to me?’

  The warder scratched his nose. ‘Gonna hang you by the neck until you’re dead, mate. Tomorrow morno.’

  ‘You couldn’t perhaps just hang me by the neck until I’m sorry?’

  ‘No, mate. Got to be dead.’

  ‘Good grief, it was only a sheep when all’s said and done!’

  The warder grinned widely. ‘Ah, a lot of men have gone to the gallows sayin’ that in the past,’ he said. ‘’s’matterofact, you’re the first sheep-stealer we’ve had here for years. All our big heroes have been sheep-stealers. You’re gonna get a big crowd.’

  ‘Baah!’

  ‘Maybe a flock, too,’ said the warder.

  ‘That’s another thing,’ said Rincewind. ‘Why’s this sheep in my cell?’

  ‘Evidence, mate.’

  Rincewind looked down at the sheep. ‘Oh. Well, no worries, then.’

  The warder wandered off. Rincewind sat down on the bunk.

  Well, he could look on the bright side, couldn’t he? This was civilization. He hadn’t seen much of it, what with being tied across the back of a horse and everything, but what he’d been able to see was full of ruts and hoofprints and smelled pretty bad, which civilization often does. They were going to hang him in the morning. This building was the first one made of stone he’d seen in this country. They had watchmen, even. They were going to hang him in the morning. There were the sounds of carts and people filtering in through the high window. They were going to hang him in the morning.

  He gazed around the cell. It looked as though whoever’d built it had unaccountably forgotten to include any useful trapdoors.

  Trapdoors . . . Now there was a word he shouldn’t think about.

  He’d been in nastier places than this. Much, much nastier. And that made it worse, because he’d been up against nasty, weird and magical things which suddenly seemed a lot easier to contemplate than the fact that he was held in some stone box and in the morning some perfectly nice people who he might quite like if he met them in a bar were going to march him out and make him stand on a re
ally unsafe floor in a very tight collar.

  ‘Baah!’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Baah?’

  ‘Couldn’t you have had a bath, or a dip or something? It’s a bit agricultural in here.’

  The wall, now his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, was covered with scrawls, and in particular those little wicket gate tallies drawn by prisoners who were counting the days. They were going to hang him in the morning, so that was one chore he wouldn’t have to . . . Shut up, shut up.

  Now he came to look closer, most of the counts went up to one.

  He lay back with his eyes closed. Of course he’d get rescued, he’d always got rescued. Although, come to think of it, always in circumstances that put him in such a lot more danger than a prison cell usually held.

  Well, he’d been in enough cells. There were ways to handle these things. The important thing was to be direct. He got up and banged on the bars until the warder sauntered along the corridor.

  ‘Yes, mate?’

  ‘I just want to get things sorted out,’ said Rincewind. ‘It’s not as though I’ve got time to waste, okay?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘Is there any chance that you’re going to fall asleep in a chair opposite this cell with your keys fully exposed on a table in front of you?’

  They looked at the empty corridor.

  ‘I’d have to get someone to help me bring a table down here,’ said the warder doubtfully. ‘Can’t see it happening, mister. Sorry.’

  ‘Right. Okay.’ Rincewind thought for a moment. ‘All right . . . Is my dinner likely to be brought in by a young lady carrying, and this is important, carrying a tray covered with a cloth?’

  ‘No, ’cos I do the cooking.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Bread and water is what I’m good at.’

  ‘Right, just checking.’

  ‘’ere, that sticky brown stuff they brought in with you is top stuff on bread, mister.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  ‘I can feel the vitamins and minerals doing me a power of good.’

  ‘No worries. Now . . . ah, yes. Laundry. Are there any big laundry baskets around, which will happily get tipped down a chute to the outside world?’

  ‘Sorry, mister. There’s an old washerwoman comes in to collect it.’