Interesting Times

Page 6

'It's this book the Dean loaned me, Mustrum. It's about apes.'
'Really.'
'It's most fascinating,' said the Bursar, who was on the median part of his mental cycle and therefore vaguely on the right planet even if insulated from it by five miles of mental cotton wool. 'It's true what he said. It says here that an adult male orang-utan doesn't grow the large flamboyant cheek pads unless he's the dominant male.'
'And that's fascinating, is it?'
'Well, yes, because he hasn't got 'em. I wonder why? He certainly dominates the Library, I should think.'
'Ah, yes,' said the Senior Wrangler, 'but he knows he's a wizard, too. So it's not as though he dominates the whole University.' One by one, as the thought sank in, they grinned at the Archchancellor. 'Don't you look at my cheeks like that!' said Ridcully. 'I don't dominate anybody!'
'I was only—'
'So you can all shut up or there will be big trouble!'
'You should read it,' said the Bursar, still happily living in the valley of the dried frogs. 'It's amazing what you can learn.'
'What? Like . . . how to show your bottom to people?' said the Dean, from on high. 'No, Dean. That's baboons,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'I beg your pardon, I think you'll find it's gibbons,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'No, gibbons are the ones that hoot. It's baboons if you want to see bottoms.'
'Well, he's never shown me one,' said the Archchancellor. 'Hah, well, he wouldn't, would he?' said a voice from the chandelier. 'Not with you being dominant male and everything.'
'Two Chairs, you come down here this minute!'
'I seem to be entangled, Mustrum. A candle is giving me some difficulty.'
'Hah!' Rincewind shook his head and wandered away. There had certainly been some changes around the place since he had been there and, if it came to it, he didn't know how long ago that had been . . . He'd never asked for an exciting life. What he really liked, what he sought on every occasion, was boredom. The trouble was that boredom tended to explode in your face. Just when he thought he'd found it he'd be suddenly involved in what he supposed other people - thoughtless, feckless people - would call an adventure. And he'd be forced to visit many strange lands and meet exotic and colourful people, although not for very long because usually he'd be running. He'd seen the creation of the universe, although not from a good seat, and had visited Hell and the afterlife. He'd been captured, imprisoned, rescued, lost and marooned. Sometimes it had all happened on the same day. Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it was something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you. The root problem, Rincewind had come to believe, was that he suffered from pre-emptive karma. If it even looked as though something nice was going to happen to him in the near future, something bad would happen right now. And it went on happening to him right through the part where the good stuff should be happening, so that he never actually experienced it. It was as if he always got the indigestion before the meal and felt so dreadful that he never actually managed to eat anything. Somewhere in the world, he reasoned, there was someone who was on the other end of the see-saw, a kind of mirror Rincewind whose life was a succession of wonderful events. He hoped to meet him one day, preferably while holding some sort of weapon. Now people were babbling about sending him to the Counterweight Continent. He'd heard that life was dull there. And Rincewind really craved dullness. He'd really liked that island. He'd enjoyed Coconut Surprise. You cracked it open and, hey, there was coconut inside. That was the kind of surprise he liked. He pushed open a door. The place inside had been his room. It was a mess. There was a large and battered wardrobe, and that was about the end of it as far as proper furniture was concerned unless you wanted to broaden the term to include a wicker chair with no bottom and three legs and a mattress so
full of the life that inhabits mattresses that it occasionally moved sluggishly around the floor, bumping into things. The rest of the room was a litter of objects dragged in from the street - old crates, bits of planking, sacks . . . Rincewind felt a lump in his throat. They'd left his room just as it was. He opened the wardrobe and rummaged through the moth-haunted darkness within, until his questing hand located— —an ear— —which was attached to a dwarf. 'Ow!'
'What,' said Rincewind, 'are you doing in my wardrobe?'
'Wardrobe? Er . . . Er . . . Isn't this the Magic Kingdom of Scrumptiousness?' said the dwarf, trying not to look guilty. 'No, and these shoes you're holding aren't the Golde Jewels of the Queen of the Fairies,' said Rincewind, snatching them out of the thief's hands. 'And this isn't the Wand of Invisibility and these aren't Giant Grumblenose's Wonderful Socks but this is my boot—'
'Ow!'
'And stay out!' The dwarf ran for the door and paused, but only briefly, to shout: 'I've got a Thieves' Guild card! And you shouldn't hit dwarfs! That's speciesism!'
'Good,' said Rincewind, retrieving items of clothing. He found another robe and put it on. Here and there moths had worked their lacemaking skills and most of the red colour had faded to shades of orange and brown, but to his relief it was a proper wizard's robe. It's hard to be an impressive magic-user with bare knees. Gentle footsteps pattered to a halt behind him. He turned. 'Open.' The Luggage obediently cracked its lid. In theory it should have been full of shark; in fact it was half full of coconuts. Rincewind turfed them out on to the floor and put the rest of the clothes inside. 'Shut.' The lid slammed. 'Now go down to the kitchen and get some potatoes.'
The chest did a complicated, many-legged about-turn and trotted away. Rincewind followed it out and headed towards the Archchancellor's study. Behind him he could hear the wizards still arguing. He'd become familiar with the study through long years at Unseen. Generally he was there to answer quite difficult questions, like 'How can anyone get a negative mark in Basic Firemaking?' He'd spent a lot of time staring at the fixtures while people harangued him. There had been changes here, too. Gone were the alembics and bubbling flagons that were the traditional props of wizardry; Ridcully's study was dominated by a full-size snooker table, on which he'd piled papers until there was no room for any more and no sign of green felt. Ridcully assumed that anything people had time to write down couldn't be important. The stuffed heads of a number of surprised animals stared down at him. From the antlers of one stag hung a pair of corroded boots Ridcuffy had won as a Rowing Brown for the University in his youth.[10] There was a large model of the Discworld on four wooden elephants in a corner of the room. Rincewind was familiar with it. Every student was . . . The Counterweight Continent was a blob. It was a shaped blob; a not very inviting comma shape. Sailors had brought back news of it. They'd said that at one point broke into a pattern of large islands, stretching around the Disc to the even more mysterious island of Bhangbhangduc and the completely mythical continent known only on the charts as 'XXXX'. Not that many sailors went near the Counterweight Continent. The Agatean Empire was known to ignore a very small amount of smuggling; presumably Ankh-Morpork had some things it wanted. But there was nothing official; a boat might come back loaded with silk and rare wood and, these days, a few wild-eyed refugees, or it might come back with its captain riveted upside down to the mast, or it might not come back. Rincewind had been very nearly everywhere, but the Counterweight Continent was an unknown land, or terror incognita. He couldn't imagine why they'd want any kind of wizard. Rincewind sighed. He knew what he should do now. He shouldn't even wait for the return of the Luggage from its argosy to the kitchens, from which the sound of yelling and something being repeatedly hit with a large brass preserving pan suggested it was going about his business. He should just gather up what he could carry and get the hell out of here. He— 'Ah, Rincewind,' said the Archchancellor, who had an amazingly silent walk for such a large man. 'Keen to leave, I see.'
'Yes, indeed,' said Rincewind. 'Oh, yes. Very much so. The Red Army met in secret session. They opened their meeting by singing revolutionary songs and, since disobedience to authority did not come easily to the Agatean character, these
had titles like 'Steady Progress And Limited Disobedience While Retaining Well-Formulated Good Manners'. Then it was time for the news. 'The Great Wizard will come. We sent the message, at great personal risk. 'How will we know when he arrives?'
'If he's the Great Wizard, we'll hear about it. And then—'
'Gently Push Over The Forces of Repression!' they chorused. Two Fire Herb looked at the rest of the cadre. 'Exactly,' he said. 'And then, comrades, we must strike at the very heart of the rottenness. We must storm the Winter Palace!' There was silence from the cadre. Then someone said, 'Excuse me, Two Fire Herb, but it is June.'
'Then we can storm the Summer Palace!' A similar session, although without singing and with rather older participants, was taking place in Unseen University, although one member of the College Council had refused to come down from the chandelier. This was of some considerable annoyance to the Librarian, who usually occupied it. 'All right, if you don't trust my calculations, then what are the alternatives?' said Ponder Stibbons hotly. 'Boat?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'They sink,' said Rincewind. 'It'd get you there in no time at all,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'We're wizards, after all. We could give you your own bag of wind.'
'Ah. Forward the Dean,' said Ridcully, pleasantly. 'I heard that,' said a voice from above. 'Overland,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Up around the Hub? It's ice practically all the way.'
'No,' said Rincewind. 'But you don't sink on ice.'
'No. You tip up and then you sink and then the ice hits you on the head. Also killer whales. And great big seals vif teece ike iff.'
'This is off the wall, I know,' said the Bursar, brightly.
'What is?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'A hook for hanging pictures on.' There was a brief embarrassed silence. 'Good lord, is it that time already?' said the Arch-chancellor, taking out his watch. 'Ah, so it is. The bottle's in your left-hand pocket, old chap. Take three.'
'No, magic is the only way,' said Ponder Stibbons. 'It worked when we brought him here, didn't it?'
'Oh, yes,' said Rincewind. 'Just send me thousands of miles with my pants on fire and you don't even know where I'll land? Oh, yes, that's ideal, that is.'
'Good,' said Ridcully, a man impervious to sarcasm. 'It's a big continent; we can't possibly miss it even with Mr Stibbons' precise calculations.'
'Supposing I end up crushed in the middle of a mountain?' said Rincewind. 'Can't. The rock'll be brought back here when we do the spell,' said Ponder, who hadn't liked the crack about his maths. 'So I'll still be in the middle of a mountain but in a me-shaped hole,' said Rincewind. 'Oh, good. Instant fossil.'
'Don't worry,' said Ridcully. 'It's just a matter of . . . thingummy, you know, all that stuff about three right angles making a triangle . . .'
'Is it possible you're talking about geometry?' said Rincewind, eyeing the door. 'That kind of thing, yes. And you'll have your amazing Luggage item. Why, it'll practically be a holiday. It'll be easy. They probably just want to . . . to . . . ask you something, or something. And I hear you've got a talent for languages, so no problem there.[11] You'll probably be away for a couple of hours at the most. Why do you keep sayin' “hah” under your breath?'