Last Continent

by Pratchett, Terry

  ‘Really?’ Rincewind brightened. ‘Ah, a washerwoman. Big lady, bulky dress, possibly wears a hood which can be pulled down to cover a lot of her face?’

  ‘Yep, pretty much.’

  ‘Well then, is she due in—?’

  ‘She’s my mum,’ said the warder.

  ‘Right, fine . . .’

  They looked at one another.

  ‘I reckon that about covers it, then,’ said Rincewind. ‘I hope you didn’t mind me asking.’

  ‘Bless yew, no! No worries! Happy to help. Worked out what yew’re gonna say on the gallows, have yer? Only some of the ballad-writers want to know, if yew wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Ballads?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. There’s three so far and I reckon there’ll be ten by tomorra.’

  Rincewind rolled his eyes. ‘How many of them have put “too-ra-la, too-ra-la addity” in the chorus?’ he asked.

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘Oh, gods . . .’

  ‘And yew wouldn’t mind changin’ your name, would yew? Only they’re sayin’ “Rincewind” is a bit tricky to turn a line on. “Concernin’ of a bush ranger, Rincewind was his name . . .”’s got the wrong sort of sound . . .’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d better let me go, then?’

  ‘Ha, nice one. Now, if you want my advice, you’ll keep it short when yew’re up on the gallows,’ said the warder. ‘The best Famous Last Words are the shortest. Something simple gen’rally works best. Go easy on the swearin’.’

  ‘Look, all I did was steal a sheep! And I didn’t even do that! What’s everyone so excited about?’ said Rincewind desperately.

  ‘Oh, very notorious crime, sheep-stealing,’ said the warder cheerfully. ‘Strikes a chord. Little man battlin’ against the forces of brutal authority. People like that. You’ll be remembered in song ’n’ story, ’specially if yew come up with some good Last Words, like I said.’ The warder hitched up his belt. ‘To tell you the truth, a lot of people these days haven’t even seen a bloody sheep, but hearing that someone’s stolen one makes ’em feel proper Ecksians. It even does me good to have a proper criminal in the cells for once, instead of all these bloody politicians.’

  Rincewind sat down on the bunk again, with his head in his hands.

  ‘O’ course, a famous escape is nearly as good as gettin’ hanged,’ said the warder, in the manner of someone trying to keep up someone else’s spirits.

  ‘Really,’ said Rincewind.

  ‘Yew ain’t asked if the little grille in the floor there leads into the sewers,’ the warder prompted.

  Rincewind peered between his fingers. ‘Does it?’

  ‘We ain’t got any sewers.’

  ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’

  The warden strolled off again, whistling.

  Rincewind lay back on the bunk and closed his eyes again.

  ‘Baah!’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘’scuse me, mister . . .’

  Rincewind groaned and sat up again. This time the voice was coming from the high, small, barred window.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘Yew know when you was caught?’

  ‘Well? What about it?’

  ‘Er . . . what kind of a tree were you under?’ Rincewind looked up at the narrow square of blue the prisoner calls the sky. ‘What kind of question is that to ask me?’

  ‘It’s for the ballad, see? Only it’d help if it was a name with three syllables . . .’

  ‘How do I know? I didn’t stop for a bit of botany!’

  ‘All right, all right, fair enough,’ said the hidden speaker. ‘But would you mind telling me what you was doing just before you stole the sheep?’

  ‘I didn’t steal the sheep!’

  ‘Right, right, okay . . . What was you doing just before you didn’t steal the sheep . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember!’

  ‘Were you boiling your billy, by any chance?’

  ‘I’m not admitting to that! The way you people talk, that could mean anything!’

  ‘Means cookin’ something up in a tin.’

  ‘Oh. Well, yes, I had been doing that, as it happens.’

  ‘Good on yer!’ Rincewind thought he heard the sound of scribbling. ‘Shame you didn’t die at the end, but you’re gonna get hung so that’s all right. Got a beaut tune for this one, you just can’t stop whistling it . . . Well, of course you will, no worries.’

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘Reckon you might be as famous as Tinhead Ned, mate.’

  ‘Really.’ Rincewind went and lay down on his bunk again.

  ‘Yeah. They used to lock him up in that very cell you’re in now, in fact. And he always escaped. No one knows how, ’cos that’s a bloody good lock and he didn’t bend any bars. He said they’d never build a jail that could hold him.’

  ‘Thin fellow, was he?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So he had a key or something.’

  ‘Nope. Got to go now, mate. Oh, yeah, I remember. Er, do you think your ghost will be heard if people pass by the billybong, or not?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’d be helpful if it did. Makes a good last verse. Top stuff.’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘We-ell, I’ll say it will, shall I? No one’s gonna go back and check.’

  ‘Don’t let me stand in your way, then.’

  ‘Bonza. I’ll get these songsheets printed up in time for the hanging, don’t you worry about that.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Rincewind lay back. Tinhead Ned again. That was just a joke, he could spot it. It was some kind of torture, telling him that anyone had ever escaped from a cell like this. They wanted him to run around rattling bars and things, but even he could see they were well set in and very heavy and the lock was bigger than his head.

  He was just lying back on the bunk again when the warder turned up.

  There were a couple of men with him. Rincewind was pretty sure there weren’t any trolls here, because it was probably too hot for them and anyway there wouldn’t be enough room for them on the driftwood, what with all those camels, but these men definitely had the heavy-set look of men who occupy the kind of job where the entrance examination is ‘What is your name?’ and they scrape through on the third try.

  The warder was wearing a big grin and carrying a tray. ‘Got some dinnah for you,’ he said.

  ‘I won’t tell you anything, no matter how much you feed me,’ Rincewind warned.

  ‘You’ll like this,’ the warder urged, pushing the tray forward. There was a covered bowl on it. ‘I done it special for you. It’s a regional speciality, mate.’

  ‘I thought you said bread and water’s what you’re good at.’

  ‘Well, yeah . . . but I had a bash at this anyway . . .’

  Rincewind watched gloomily as the warder lifted the cover.18

  It looked fairly inoffensive, but they often did. It looked, in fact, like—

  ‘Pea soup?’ he said.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘The leguminous vegetable? Comes in pods?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘I thought I’d better check that point.’

  ‘No worries.’

  Rincewind looked down at the knobbly green surface. Was it just possible that someone had invented a regional speciality you could eat?

  And then something rose out of the depths. For a moment Rincewind thought it was a very small shark. It bobbed to the surface and then settled back down, while the soup slopped over it.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Meat pie floater,’ said the warder. ‘Meat pie floating in pea soup. Best bloody supper on earth, mate.’

  ‘Ah, supper,’ said Rincewind, as realization dawned. ‘This is another one of those late-night, after-the-pub foods, right? And what kind of meat is in it? No, forget I asked, it’s a stupid question. I know this sort of food. If you have to ask “What kind of meat is in it?” you’re to
o sober. Ever tried spaghetti and custard?’

  ‘Can you sprinkle coconut on top of it?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Thanks, mate, I’ll surely give it a go,’ said the warder. ‘Got some other good news for you, too.’

  ‘You’re letting me out?’

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t want that, a hard-bitten larrikin like yourself. Nah, Greg and Vince here will be coming back later to put you in irons.’

  He stepped aside. The wall-shaped men were holding a length of chain, several shackles and a small but very, very heavy-looking ball.

  Rincewind sighed. One door closes, he thought, and another door slams shut. ‘This is good, is it?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yew’ll get an extra verse for that, for sure,’ said the warder. ‘No one’s been hung in irons since Tinhead Ned.’

  ‘I thought there wasn’t a prison cell that could hold him,’ said Rincewind.

  ‘Oh, he could get out of ’em,’ said the warder. ‘He just couldn’t run very far.’

  Rincewind eyed the metal ball. ‘Oh, gods . . .’

  ‘Vince says how much do you weigh, ’cos he has to add the chains to your weight to get the drop right,’ said the warder.

  ‘Does that matter?’ said Rincewind in a hollow voice. ‘I mean, I die anyway, don’t I?’

  ‘Yeah, no worries there, but if he gets it wrong, see, you either end up with a neck six feet long or, you’ll laugh about this, your head flies off like a perishin’ cork!’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  ‘With Larrikin Larry we had to search the roof all arvo!’

  ‘Marvellous. All arvo, eh?’ said Rincewind. ‘Well, you won’t have that problem with me. I shall be elsewhere when I’m being hanged.’

  ‘That’s what we like to hear!’ said the warder, punching him jovially in the elbow. ‘A battler to the end, eh?’

  There was a rumbling from Mt Vince.

  ‘And Vince says he’ll be very privileged if you’d care to spit in his eye when he puts the rope aroun’ your neck,’ the warder went on. ‘That’ll be something to show his grandchildren—’

  ‘Will you all please go away!’ Rincewind shouted.

  ‘Ah, you’ll be wanting some time to plot your getaway,’ said the warder knowingly. ‘No worries. We’ll be leavin’ you alone, then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Until about five a.m.’

  ‘Good,’ said Rincewind gloomily.

  ‘Got any requests for your last breakfast?’

  ‘Something that takes a really really long time to prepare?’ said Rincewind.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’

  ‘Go away!’

  ‘No worries.’

  The men walked off, but the warder strolled back after a while as if he had something on his mind.

  ‘There is something that you ought to know about the hanging, though,’ he said. ‘Might brighten up your night.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’ve got a special humanitarian tradition if the trapdoor sticks three times.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sounds a bit odd, but it’s happened once or twice, believe it or not.’

  A tiny green shoot rose from the blackened branches of hope.

  ‘And what’s the tradition?’ said Rincewind.

  ‘It’s on account of it being heartless to have a man standing there more than three times, knowing that at any second his—’

  ‘Yes, yes—’

  ‘—and then all his—’

  ‘Yes—’

  ‘—and the worst part to my mind is where your—’

  ‘Yes, I understand! And so . . . after the third time . . . ?’

  ‘He’s allowed back into his cell while we get a carpenter in to repair the trapdoor,’ said the warder. ‘We even give him his dinner, if it’s gone on a long time.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, when the carpenter’s given it a good test, then we take him out again and hang him.’ He saw Rincewind’s expression. ‘No need to look like that. ’s better than having to stand around in the cold all morning, isn’t it? That wouldn’t be nice.’

  When he’d gone, Rincewind sat and stared at the wall.

  ‘Baa!’

  ‘Shut up.’

  So it was down to this, then. One brief night left, and then, if these clowns had anything to do with it, happy people would be wandering the streets to see where his head had come down. There was no justice!

  G’DAY, MATE.

  ‘Oh, no. Please.’

  I JUST THOUGHT I SHOULD ENTER INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE THING. A VERY CONVIVIAL PEOPLE, AREN’T THEY? said Death. He was sitting beside Rincewind.

  ‘You just can’t wait, can you?’ said Rincewind bitterly.

  NO WORRIES.

  ‘So this is really it, then. I was supposed to have saved this country, you know. And I’m going to really die.’

  OH, YES. THIS IS CERTAIN, I’M AFRAID.

  ‘It’s the stupidity of it that gets me. I mean, think of all the times I’ve nearly died in the past. I could’ve been flamed by dragons, right? Or eaten by huge things with tentacles. Or even had every single particle of my body fly off in a different direction.’

  YOU HAVE CERTAINLY HAD AN INTERESTING LIFE.

  ‘Is it true that your life passes before your eyes before you die?’

  YES.

  ‘Ghastly thought, really.’ Rincewind shuddered. ‘Oh, gods, I’ve just had another one. Suppose I am just about to die and this is my whole life passing in front of my eyes?’

  I THINK PERHAPS YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. PEOPLE’S WHOLE LIVES DO PASS IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES BEFORE THEY DIE. THE PROCESS IS CALLED ‘LIVING’. WOULD YOU LIKE A PRAWN?

  Rincewind looked down at the bucket on Death’s lap.

  ‘No, thank you. I really don’t think so. They can be pretty deadly. And I must say it’s a bit much of you to come here and gloat and eat prawns at me.’

  I BEG YOUR PARDON?

  ‘Just because I’m being hanged in the morning, I mean.’

  ARE YOU? THEN I SHALL LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING HOW YOU ESCAPED. I’M DUE TO MEET A MAN IN . . . IN . . . Death’s eyesockets glowed as he interrogated his memory. AH, YES . . . INSIDE A CROCODILE. SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES AWAY, I BELIEVE.

  ‘What? Then why are you here?’

  OH, I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SEE A FRIENDLY FACE. AND NOW I THINK I HAD BETTER BE GOING. Death stood up. VERY PLEASANT CITY IN MANY RESPECTS. TRY TO SEE THE OPERA HOUSE WHILE YOU’RE HERE.

  ‘Hang on . . . I mean, hold on, you told me I was certainly going to die!’

  EVERYONE IS. EVENTUALLY.

  The wall opened and closed around Death as if it wasn’t there, which was, from his lengthy perspective, quite true.

  ‘But how? I can’t walk through—’ Rincewind began.

  He sat down again. The sheep cowered in the corner.

  Rincewind looked at the untouched meat pie floater and gave the pie a prod. It sank slowly beneath the vivid green soup.

  The sounds of the city filtered in.

  After a while the pie rose again like a forgotten continent, sending a very small wave slopping against the edge of the bowl.

  Rincewind lay back on the thin blanket and stared at the ceiling. Someone had even been writing on that, too. In fact . . .

  Slowly, as if being raised by invisible strings, Rincewind turned and looked at the door.

  The hinges were massive. They weren’t screwed into the doorframe so that some clever prisoner might unscrew them. They were huge iron hooks, hammered into the stone itself, so that two heavy rings welded on to the door could drop right down on them. What was the man talking about?

  He walked over and examined the lock closely. It drove a huge metal rod into the frame on its side and looked quite unpickable.

  Rincewind stared at the door for some time. Then he rubbed his hands together and, gritting his teeth, tried to lift the door on the hinge side. Yes, there was just enough play . . .

  It was po
ssible to lift the rings off the spikes.

  Then, if you pulled slightly and took a knee-wobbling step this way, you could yank the lock’s rod out of its hole and the entire door into the cell.

  And then a man could walk through and carefully rehang the door again and quietly wander away.

  And that, Rincewind thought as he carefully manoeuvred the door back on to the hinges, was exactly what a stupid person would do.

  At moments like this cowardice was an exact science. There were times that called for mindless, terror-filled panic, and times that called for measured, considered, thoughtful panic. Right now he was in a place of safety. It was, admittedly, the death cell, but the point was that it was perhaps the one place in this country where nothing bad was going to happen for a little while. The Ecksians didn’t look like the kind of people who went in for torture, although it was always possible they might make him eat some more of their food. So, for the moment, he had time. Time to plan ahead, to consider his next move, to apply his intellect to the problem at hand.

  He stared at the wall for a moment, and then stood up and gripped the bars.

  Right. That seemed to be about long enough. Now to run like hell.

  The green deck of the melon boat had been divided into a male and female section, for the sake of decency. This meant that most of the deck was occupied by Mrs Whitlow, who spent a lot of the time sunbathing behind a screen. Her privacy was assured by the wizards themselves, since at least three of them would probably kill any of the others who ventured within ten feet of the palm leaves.

  There was definitely what Ponder’s aunt, who’d raised him, would have called An Atmosphere.

  ‘I still think I ought to climb the mast,’ he protested.

  ‘Ah! A peeping tom, eh?’ snarled the Senior Wrangler.

  ‘No, I just think it would be a good idea to see where the boat is going,’ said Ponder. ‘There’re some big black clouds ahead.’

  ‘Good, we could do with the rain,’ snapped the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

  ‘In which case, I shall be honoured to make Mrs Whitlow a suitable shelter,’ said the Dean.

  Ponder walked back to the stern, where the Archchancellor was gloomily fishing.

  ‘Honestly, you’d think Mrs Whitlow was the only woman in the world,’ he said.

  ‘Do you think she might be?’ said Ridcully.