Last Continent (15 page)

‘Yes indeed.'

‘So we should have worn bigger boots?' said the Bursar.

‘Try to keep up, Bursar.'

Ridcully stretched and yawned. ‘Well, that seems to be it,' he said. ‘Let's try to get back to sleep, shall we? It's been rather a long day.'

Someone
was
keeping up.

After the wizards got back to sleep, a faint light, like burning marsh gas, circled over them.

He was an omnipresent god, although only in a small area. And he was omnicognizant, but just enough to know that while he did indeed know everything it wasn't the
whole
Everything, just the part of it that applied to his island.

Damn! He'd
told
himself the cigarette tree would cause trouble. He should have stopped it the moment it started growing. He'd never meant it to get out of
hand
like this.

Of course, it had been a shame about the other
. . . pointy creature, but it hadn't been
his
fault, had it? Everything had to eat. Some of the things that were turning up on the island were surprising even him. And some of them never stayed stable for five minutes together.

Even so, he allowed himself a little smirk of pride. Two hours between the one called the Dean dying for a smoke and the bush evolving, growing and fruiting its first nicotine-laden crop. That was evolution in
action
.

Trouble was, now they'd start poking around and asking questions.

The god, almost alone among gods, thought questions were a good thing. He was in fact
committed
to people questioning assumptions, throwing aside old superstitions, breaking the shackles of irrational prejudice and, in short, exercising the brains their god had given them, except of course they hadn't been given them by any god, lord knows, so what they really ought to do was exercise those brains developed over millennia in response to the external stimuli and the need to control those hands with their opposable thumbs, another damn good idea that he was very proud of. Or would have been, of course, if he existed.

However, there were limits. Freethinkers were fine people, but they shouldn't go around thinking just
anything
.

The light vanished and reappeared, still circling, in the sacred cave on the mountain. Technically, he knew, it wasn't in fact sacred, since you needed believers to make a place sacred and this god didn't actually want believers.

Usually, a god with no believers was as powerful as a feather in a hurricane, but for some reason he'd not been able to fathom he was able to function quite happily without them. It may have been because he believed so fervently in himself. Well, obviously not in
himself
, because belief in gods was irrational. But he did believe in what he did.

He considered, rather guiltily, making a few more thunder lizards in the hope that they might eat the intruders before they got too nosey, but then dismissed the thought as being unworthy of a modern, forward-thinking deity.

There were racks and racks of seeds in this part of the cave. He selected one from among the pumpkin family, and picked up his tools.

These were unique. Absolutely no one else in the world had a screwdriver that small.

A green shoot speared up from the forest litter in response to the first light of dawn, unfolded into two leaves, and went on growing.

Down among the rich compost of fallen leaves, white shoots writhed like worms. This was no time for half-measures. Somewhere far down, a questing tap root found water.

After a few minutes, the bushes around the by now large and moving plant began to wilt.

The lead shoot dragged itself onwards, towards the sea. Tendrils just behind the advancing stem wound around handy branches. Larger trees were used as support, bushes were uprooted and tossed
aside and a tap root sprouted to take possession of the newly vacated hole.

The god hadn't had much time for sophistication. The plant's instructions had been put together from bits and pieces lying around, things he knew would work.

At last the first shoot crossed the beach and reached the sea. Roots drove into the sand, leaves unfolded, and the plant sprouted one solitary female flower. Small male ones had already opened along the stem.

The god hadn't programmed this bit. The whole problem with evolution, he'd told himself, was that it wouldn't obey orders. Sometimes, matter thinks for itself.

A thin prehensile tendril bunched itself for a moment, then sprang up and lassoed a passing moth. It curved back, dipped the terrified insect waist deep in the pollen of a male flower, then coiled back with whiplash speed and slam-dunked it into the embracing petals of the female.

A few seconds later the flower dropped off and the small green ball below it began to swell, just as the horizon began to blush with the dawn.
Argo nauticae uniquo
was ready to produce its first, and only, fruit.

There was a huge windmill, squeaking around on top of a metal tower. A sign attached to the tower read: ‘Dijabringabeeralong: Check your Weapons.'

‘Yep, still got all mine, no worries,' said Mad, urging the horses forward.

They crossed a wooden bridge, although Rincewind couldn't see why anyone had bothered to build it. It seemed a lot of effort just to cross a stretch of dry sand.

‘Sand?' said Mad. ‘That's the Lassitude River, that is!'

And, indeed, a small boat went past. It was being towed by a camel and was making quite good time on its four wide wheels.

‘A boat,' said Rincewind.

‘Never seen one before?'

‘Not one being pedalled, no,' said Rincewind, as a tiny canoe went past.

‘They'd hoist the sail if the wind was right.'

‘But . . . this might sound a strange question . . . Why is it a boat shape?'

‘It's the shape boats are.'

‘Oh, right. I thought it'd be a
good
reason like that. How did the camels get here?'

‘They cling to driftwood, people say. The currents wash a lot of stuff up, down on the coast.'

Dijabringabeeralong was coming into view. It was just as well there had been the sign, otherwise they might have ridden through it without noticing. The architecture was what is known professionally as ‘vernacular', a word used in another field to mean ‘swearing' and this was quite appropriate. But then, Rincewind thought, it's as hot as hell and it never rains – all you need a house for is to mark some kind of boundary between inside and outside.

‘You said this was a big town,' he said.

‘It's got a whole street.
And
a pub.'

‘Oh, that's a
street
, is it? And that logpile is a pub?'

‘You'll like it. It's run by Crocodile.'

‘Why do they call him Crocodile?'

A night sleeping on the sand hadn't helped the Faculty very much. And the Archchancellor didn't help even more. He was an early-morning man
as well
as being, most unfairly, a late-night man. Sometimes he went from one to the other without sleeping in between.

‘Wake up, you fellows! Who's game for a brisk trot around the island? There'll be a small prize for the winner, eh?'

‘Oh, my gods,' moaned the Dean, rolling over. ‘He's doing press-ups.'

‘I certainly wouldn't want anyone to think I'm advocating a return to the bad old days,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, trying to dislodge some sand from his ear, ‘but once upon a time we used to kill wizards like him.'

‘Yes, but we also used to kill wizards like us, Chair,' said the Dean.

‘Remember what we'd say in those days?' said the Senior Wrangler. ‘“Never trust a wizard over sixty-five”? Whatever happened?'

‘We got past the age of sixty-five, Senior Wrangler.'

‘Ah, yes. And it turned out that we were trustworthy after all.'

‘Good thing we found out in time, eh?'

‘There's a crab climbing that tree,' said the
Lecturer in Recent Runes, who was lying on his back and staring straight upwards. ‘An actual crab.'

‘Yes,' said the Senior Wrangler. ‘They're called Tree-climbing Crabs.'

‘Why?'

‘I had this book when I was a little lad,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘It was about this man who was shipwrecked on an island such as this and he thought he was all alone and then one day he found a footprint in the sand. There was a woodcut,' he added.

‘One footprint?' said the Dean, sitting up, clutching his head.

‘Well . . . yes, and when he saw it he knew that he—'

‘—was alone on an island with a crazed one-legged long-jump champion?' said the Dean. He was feeling testy.

‘Well,
obviously
he found some other footprints later on . . .'

‘I wish
I
was on a desert island all alone,' said the Senior Wrangler gloomily, watching Ridcully running on the spot.

‘Is it just me,' the Dean asked, ‘or are we marooned thousands of miles and thousands of years from home?'

‘Yes.'

‘I thought so. Is there any breakfast?'

‘Stibbons found some soft-boiled eggs.'

‘What a useful young man he is,' the Dean groaned. ‘Where did he find them?'

‘On a tree.'

Bits of last night came back to the Dean.

‘A soft-boiled-egg tree?'

‘Yes,' said the Senior Wrangler. ‘Nicely runny. They're quite good with breadfruit soldiers.'

‘You'll be telling me next he found a spoon tree . . .'

‘Of course not.'

‘Good.'

‘It's a bush.' The Senior Wrangler held up a small wooden spoon. It had a few small leaves still attached to it.

‘A bush that fruits spoons . . .'

‘Young Stibbons said it makes perfect sense, Dean. After all, he said, we'd picked them because they're useful, and then spoons are always getting lost. Then he burst into tears.'

‘He's got a point, though. Honestly, this place is like Big Rock Candy Mountain.'

‘I vote we leave it as soon as possible,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘We'd better have a serious look at this boat idea today. I don't want to meet another of those horrible lizards.'

‘One of everything, remember?'

‘Then probably there's a worse one.'

‘Building some sort of boat can't be very hard,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Even quite primitive people manage it.'

‘Now
look
,' snapped the Dean, ‘we've searched
everywhere
for a decent library on this island. There simply isn't one! It's ridiculous. How is anyone supposed to get anything done?'

‘I suppose . . . we could . . .
try
things?' said the Senior Wrangler. ‘You know . . . see what floats,
that sort of thing.'

‘Oh, well, if you want to be
crude
about it . . .'

The Chair of Indefinite Studies looked at the Dean's face and decided it was time to lighten the atmosphere.

‘I was, aha, just wondering,' he said, ‘as a little mental exercise . . . if you were marooned on a desert island, eh, Dean . . . what kind of music would you like to listen to, eh?'

The Dean's face clouded further. ‘I think, Chair, that I would like to listen to the music in the Ankh-Morpork Opera House.'

‘Ah. Oh? Yes. Well . . . very . . . very . . . very direct thinking there, Dean.'

Rincewind grinned glassily. ‘So . . . you're a crocodile, then.'

‘Thif worrying you?' said the barman.

‘No! No! Don't they call you anything else, though?'

‘Well . . . there'f a nickname they gave me . . .'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘Yeah. Crocodile Crocodile. But in here moft people call me Dongo.'

‘And . . . er . . . this stuff? What do you call
this
?'

‘We call it beer,' said the crocodile. ‘What do
you
call it?'

The barman wore a grubby shirt and a pair of shorts, and until he'd seen a pair of shorts tailored for someone with very short legs and a very long tail Rincewind hadn't realized what a difficult job tailoring must be.

Rincewind held the beer glass up to the light. And that was the point. You could see light all the way through it.
Clear
beer. Ankh-Morpork beer was technically ale, that is to say, gravy made from hops. It had texture. It had flavour, even if you didn't always want to know what of. It had body. It had dregs. You could eat the last half-inch of it with a spoon.

This stuff was thin and sparkly and looked as though someone had already drunk it. Tasted all right, though. Didn't sit on your stomach the way the beer at home did. Weak stuff, of course, but it never did to insult someone else's beer.

‘Pretty good,' he said.

‘Where'd you blow in from?'

‘Er . . . I floated here on a piece of driftwood.'

‘Was there room with all the camels?'

‘Er . . . yes.'

‘Good on yer.'

Rincewind needed a map. Not a geographical map, although one of those would be a help, but one that showed him where his head was at. You didn't usually get crocodiles serving behind a bar, but everyone else in this cavern of a place seemed to think it was perfectly normal. Mind you, the people in the bar included three sheep in overalls and a couple of kangaroos playing darts.

And they weren't
exactly
sheep. They looked more like, well . . . human sheep. Sticking-out ears, white curls, a definite sheepish look, but standing upright, with hands. And he was pretty sure that there was no way you could get a cross between a human and a sheep. If there was,
people would definitely have found out by now, especially in the more isolated rural districts.

Something similar had happened with the kangaroos. There were the pointy ears and they definitely had snouts, but now they were leaning on the bar drinking this thin, strange beer. One of them was wearing a stained vest with the legend ‘Wagga Hay – it's the Rye Grass!' just visible under the dirt.