Last Continent

by Pratchett, Terry

  ‘These are carnival floats, aren’t they?’ said Rincewind.

  The woman gritted her teeth, rammed the new wheel into place and then released the axle. The cart bounced down on to the cobbles.

  ‘Damn, I think I broke a nail on that,’ she said. She glanced at Rincewind. ‘Yeah, this is the carnival. That dress has seen better days, hasn’t it? Nice moustache, shame about the beard. It’d look good with a tint.’

  Rincewind glanced back down the street. The floats and the press of people were hiding him from view, but this wouldn’t last long.

  ‘Er . . . could you help me, madam?’ he said. ‘Er . . . the Watch are after me.’

  ‘They can be so tiresome like that.’

  ‘There was a misunderstanding over a sheep.’

  ‘There so often is, mate.’ She looked Rincewind up and down. ‘You don’t look like a country boy, I must say.’

  ‘Me? I get nervous when I see a blade of grass, miss.’

  She stared at him. ‘You . . . haven’t been here very long, have you, Mister . . . ?’

  ‘Rincewind, ma’am.’

  ‘Well, get on the cart, Mister Rincewind. My name’s Letitia.’ She held out a rather large hand. He shook it, and then tried surreptitiously to massage some blood back into his fingers as he scrambled up.

  The purple cart had been decorated with huge swathes of pink and lavender, and what looked like roses made out of paper. Boxes, also covered in cloth, had been set up in the centre to give a sort of raised dais.

  ‘What d’you think?’ said Letitia. ‘The girls worked all arvo.’

  The scheme was a bit too feminine for Rincewind’s taste, but he’d been brought up to be polite. He snuggled down, as far out of view as possible.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Very gay.’

  ‘Glad you think so.’

  Up ahead somewhere a band started to play. There was a stirring as people got on to the floats or formed up to march. A couple of women climbed up into the purple cart, all sequins and long gloves, and stared at Rincewind.

  ‘What the—’ one began.

  ‘Darleen – we have to talk,’ said Letitia, from the front of the cart.

  Rincewind watched them go into a huddle. Occasionally one of them would raise her head and give him an odd look, as if she was reassuring herself that he was here.

  Fine big girls they had here, though. He wondered where they got their shoes from.

  Rincewind was not intensively familiar with women. Quite a lot of his life that hadn’t been spent at high speed had been passed within the walls of Unseen University, where women were broadly put in the same category as wallpaper or musical instruments – interesting in their way, and no doubt a small but important part of the proper structure of civilization but not, when you got right down to it, essential.

  On these occasions when he had spent some time in the intimate company of a woman, it was generally when she was trying to either cut his head off or persuade him to a course of action that would probably get someone else to do it. When it came to women he was not, as it were, capable of much fine-tuning. A few neglected instincts were telling him that something was out of place, but he couldn’t work out what it was.

  The one addressed as Darleen strode down the cart with a decisive and rather aggressive air. Rincewind pulled his hat off respectfully.

  ‘Are you coming the raw prawn?’ she demanded.

  ‘Me? Certainly not, miss. No prawns at all. If I can just lie low until we’re a few streets away, that’s all I ask—’

  ‘You know what this is, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, miss. The carnival.’ Rincewind swallowed. ‘No worries there. Everyone likes dressing up, don’t they?’

  ‘But are you tellin’ me you really think . . . I mean we . . . What are you staring at my hair for?’

  ‘Er . . . I was wondering how you get it so sparkly. Are you on the stage at all?’

  ‘We’re moving, girls,’ Letitia called back. ‘Remember . . . pretty smiles. Leave him alone, Darleen, you don’t know where he’s been.’

  The third woman, the one the others had called Neilette, was watching him curiously, and Rincewind felt that there was something not right about her. Her hair wasn’t drab, but it certainly appeared to be when compared with that of her colleagues. She didn’t seem to have enough make-up. She seemed, in short, slightly out of place.

  Then he caught sight of a watchman ahead, and flung himself below the edge of the cart. A gap in the boards gave him a view, as the cart turned the corner, of the waiting crowds.

  He’d been to quite a number of carnivals, although not usually on purpose. He’d even attended Fat Lunchtime in Genua, generally regarded as the biggest in the world, although he vaguely recalled that he’d been hanging upside down under one of the floats in order to escape pursuers, but right now he couldn’t quite remember why he’d been chased and it was never wise to stop and ask. Although Rincewind had covered quite a lot of the Disc in his life, most of his recollections were like that – a blur. Not through forgetfulness, but because of speed.

  This looked like the usual audience. A real carnival procession should only take place after the pubs have been open for a good long time. It adds to the spontaneity. There were cheers, whistles, jeers and catcalls. Up ahead, people were blowing horns. Dancers whirled past Rincewind’s peephole.

  He sat back and pulled a swathe of taffeta over his head. This sort of thing always took up a lot of Watch time, what with pickpockets and so on. He’d wait until they were in whatever bit of wasteground these things always ended up in, and drop quietly out of sight.

  He glanced down.

  These ladies were certainly into shoes in a big way. They had hundreds.

  Hundreds of shoes, all lined up, peeking out from under a heap of women’s clothing. Rincewind looked away. There was probably something morally wrong about staring at women’s clothes without women in them.

  His head turned back and looked at the shoes again. He was sure that several of them had moved—

  A bottle shattered near his head. Glass showered around him. Up above, Darleen uttered a word he’d never have expected on the lips of a lady.

  Rincewind raised his head cautiously and another bottle bounced off his hat.

  ‘Some hoonies having a bit of fun,’ said Darleen, through gritted teeth. ‘There’s always some joker— oh really?’

  ‘Give us a kiss, mister?’ said a young man who’d leapt on to the edge of the cart, waving a beer can happily.

  Rincewind had seen some serious fighters in action, but no one had ever swung a punch like Darleen. Her eyes narrowed, her fist seemed to travel in a complete circle, it met the man’s chin about halfway round and when he disappeared from the wizard’s view he was still rising.

  ‘Will you look at that?’ Darleen demanded, waving her hand at Rincewind. ‘Ripped! These evening gloves cost a fortune, the bastard!’ A beer can sailed past her ear. ‘Didja see who threw that? Didja? I saw yer, yer mazza! I’ll stick my hand down yer throat and pull yer trousers up!’

  The crowd roared their appreciation and derision at the same time. Rincewind caught sight of watchmen’s helmets heading purposefully towards them.

  ‘Er . . .’ he said. ‘Hey, that’s him! That’s Rinso the bush ranger!’ someone yelled, pointing.

  ‘It wasn’t bushes, it was just a sheep!’

  Rincewind wondered who’d said that, and realized it was him. And there was no escape. And the watchmen were looking up at him. And there was really no escape. The street was packed. There was another fight further up the procession. There were no nearby alleyways, the fugitive’s friend. And the watchmen were fighting their way through the throng, with great difficulty. And the crowd were having the time of their lives. And the huge kangaroo beer sign gleamed overhead.

  This was it, then. Time for a Famous Last Stand.

  ‘What?’ he said aloud. ‘It’s never time for a Famous Last Stand!’

  He turned to
Letitia. ‘I should just like to thank you for trying to help me,’ he said. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet some real ladies for once.’

  They looked at one another.

  ‘The pleasure’s all ours,’ said Letitia. ‘Such a change to meet a real gentleman, isn’t it, girls?’

  Darleen kicked a fishnet leg at a man trying to climb on the cart, causing with a stiletto heel what bromide in your tea is reputed to take several weeks to achieve.

  ‘Too bloody true,’ she said.

  Rincewind leapt from the cart, landed on someone’s shoulder, jumped again very briefly on to someone’s head. It worked. Provided you kept moving, it really worked. A few hands grabbed at him and one or two cans were thrown, but there were also plenty of cries of ‘Good on yer!’ and ‘That’s the way!’

  At last there was an alley. He jumped down from the last obliging shoulder and changed leg gear, and then found that the best way to describe the alley was as a cul-de-sac. The worst way was as an alley with three or four watchmen in it, who’d ducked in for a smoke.

  They gave him that look of harassed policemen everywhere which said that, as an unwelcome intruder into their brief smoko, he was definitely going to be guilty of something. And then light dawned in the face of their sergeant.

  ‘That’s him!’

  Out in the street people started yelling and screaming. These were not the beery shouts of the carnival. People were in real pain out there. They were also pressing in so tightly that there was no way out.

  ‘I can explain everything,’ said Rincewind, half aware of the growing noise. ‘Well . . . most things. Some things, certainly. A few things. Look, about this sheep—’

  Something brilliant passed over his head and landed on the cobbles between him and the guards.

  It looked rather like a table wearing an evening dress, and it had hundreds of little feet.

  They were wearing high heels.

  Rincewind rolled into a ball and put his hands over his head, trying to block his ears until the noise had died away.

  * * *

  At the very edge of the sea, the surf bubbled and sucked at the sand. As the wavelet drew back it flowed around the splintered bulk of a tree.

  The drifting wood’s cargo of crabs and sand fleas waited for their moment and slid off cautiously, scuttling ashore ahead of the next wave.

  The rain banged into the beach, running in miniature canyons of crumbling sand on its way to the sea. The crabs surged across these like a homesteaders’ stampede, rushing to mark out territory on the endless, virgin beach.

  They followed the salty tideline of weed and shells, scrambling over one another in their search for a space where a crab can proudly stand sideways and start a new life and eat the heady sand of freedom.

  A few of them investigated a grey, sodden pointy hat that was tangled in seaweed, and then ran on to a more promising heap of soaked cloth which offered even more interesting holes and crevices.

  One of them tried to climb into Ponder Stibbons’s nose, and was snorted out again.

  Ponder opened an eye. When he moved his head, the water filling his ears made a ringing noise.

  The history of the last few minutes was complicated. He could remember rushing along a tube of green water, if such a thing were possible, and there had been several periods where the air and the sea and Ponder himself had been very closely entwined. Now he felt as though someone had, with great precision, hit every part of his body with a hammer.

  ‘Get off, will you!’

  Ponder reached up and pulled another crab out of his ear, and realized that he had lost his glasses. They were probably rolling at the bottom of the sea by now, frightening lobsters. So here he was, on an alien shore, and he’d be able to see everything really clearly provided everything was meant to be a blur.

  ‘Am I dead this time?’ It was the Dean’s voice, from a little further away along the beach.

  ‘No, you’re still alive, sir,’ said Ponder.

  ‘Damn. Are you sure?’

  There were other groans as bits of tidal debris turned out to be wizards mixed with seaweed.

  ‘Are we all here?’ said Ridcully, trying to get to his feet.

  ‘I’m sure I’m not,’ moaned the Dean.

  ‘I don’t see . . . Mrs Whitlow,’ said Ridcully. ‘Or the Bursar . . .’

  Ponder sat up.

  ‘There’s . . . oh, dear . . . well, there’s the Bursar . . .’

  Out at sea a huge wave was building up. It towered higher and higher. And the Bursar was on top of it.

  ‘Bursar!’ Ridcully screamed.

  The distant figure stood up on the seed and waved.

  ‘He’s standing up,’ said Ridcully. ‘Is he supposed to stand up on those things? He’s not supposed to stand up, is he? I’m sure he shouldn’t be standing up. YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO STAND UP, BURSAAAR! How . . . That’s not supposed to happen, is it?’

  The wave curled, but the Bursar seemed to be skimming down the side of it, skidding along the huge green wet wall like a man on one ski.

  Ridcully turned to the other wizards. ‘He can’t do that, can he? He’s walking up and down on it. Can he do that? The wave’s curling over and he’s just sliding gently along the . . . Oh, no . . .’

  The foaming crest curled over the speeding wizard.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ said Ridcully.

  ‘Er . . . no . . .’ said Ponder.

  The Bursar reappeared further along the beach, expelled from the collapsing tube of water like an arrow from a bow. The wave crashed over behind him, striking the shore as if it had just offended it.

  The seed changed direction, cruised gently over the backwash and crunched to a halt on the sand.

  The Bursar stepped off. ‘Hooray,’ he said. ‘My feet are wet. What a nice forest. Time for tea.’

  He picked up the seed and rammed it point first in the sand. Then he wandered away up the beach.

  ‘How did he do that?’ said Ridcully. ‘I mean, the man’s crazier than a ferret! Damn good Bursar, of course.’

  ‘Possibly the lack of mental balance means there’s nothing to impede physical stability?’ said Ponder wearily.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Not really, sir. I just said it for something to say.’ Ponder tried to massage some life back into his legs, and started to count under his breath.

  ‘Is there anything to eat here?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

  ‘Four,’ said Ponder.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What? Oh, it was just some counting I was doing, sir. No, sir. There’s probably fish and lobsters in the sea, but the land looks pretty bare to me.’

  It did. Reddish sand stretched away through the greyish drizzle to bluish mountains. The only greenishness was the Dean’s face and, suddenly, the shoots winding out of the Bursar’s surfing seed. Leaves unfolded in the rain, tiny flowers opened with little plopping noises.

  ‘Well, at least we’ll have another boat,’ said the Senior Wrangler.

  ‘I doubt it, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘The god wasn’t very good at breeding things.’ And, indeed, the swelling fruit was not looking very boat-shaped.

  ‘You know, I still think it would help if we thought of all this as a valuable opportunity,’ said Ridcully.

  ‘That’s true,’ said the Dean, sitting up. ‘It’s not many times in your life you get the chance to die of hunger on some bleak continent thousands of years before you’re born. We should make the most of it.’

  ‘I meant that pitting ourselves against the elements will bring out the best in us and forge us into a go-getting and hard-hitting team,’ said Ridcully. This view got no takers.

  ‘I’m sure there must be something to eat,’ mumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies, looking around aimlessly. ‘There usually is.’

  ‘After all, nothing is beyond men like us,’ said Ridcully.

  ‘That’s true,’ said Ponder. ‘Oh gods, yes. That’s true.’

  ‘An
d at least a wizard can always make a decent fire.’

  Ponder’s eyes opened wide. He rose in one movement aimed at Ridcully, but was still airborne when the Archchancellor tossed a small fireball at a heap of driftwood. By the time the glowing ball was halfway to the wood Ponder had hit Ridcully in the back, so that both of them were sprawled on the wet sand when the world went whooph.

  When they looked up the heap of driftwood was a blackened crater.

  ‘Well, thank you,’ said the Dean, behind them. ‘I feel lovely and dry now, and I never did like my eyebrows all that much.’

  ‘High thaumic field, sir,’ Ponder panted. ‘I did say.’

  Ridcully stared at his hands. ‘I was going to light my pipe with one . . .’ he muttered. He held the hand away from him. ‘It was only a Number Ten,’ he said.

  The Dean stood up, brushing away some tufts of burnt beard.

  ‘I’m not sure I believe what I just saw,’ he said, and pointed a finger at a nearby rock.

  ‘No, sir, I don’t think you—’

  Most of the rock was lifted off the ground and landed a hundred yards away. The rest of it sizzled in a red-hot puddle.

  ‘Can I have a go?’ said the Senior Wrangler.

  ‘Sir, I really think—’

  ‘Oh, well done, Senior Wrangler,’ said the Dean, as another rock fractured into fragments.

  ‘Ye gods, you were right, Stibbons,’ said Ridcully. ‘The magic field here is huge!’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I really don’t think we should be using it, sir!’ Ponder shrieked.

  ‘We’re wizards, young man. Using magic is what wizarding is all about.’

  ‘No, sir! Not using magic is what wizarding is all about!’

  Ridcully hesitated.

  ‘This is fossil magic, sir!’ said Ponder, speaking fast. ‘It’s what’s being used to create this place! We could do untold damage if we’re not careful!’

  ‘All right, all right, no one do anything for a moment,’ said Ridcully. ‘Now . . . what are you talking about, Mister Stibbons?’

  ‘I don’t think the place is properly, well, finished, sir. I mean, there’re no plants or animals, are there?’

  ‘Nonsense. I saw a camel a little while ago.’