Interesting Times (Discworld #17)

Interesting Times (Discworld #17) Page 3

'I mean how fast things are going when compared to other things,' Ponder said quickly, but not quite quickly enough. 'We should be able to work it out quite easily. Er. On Hex.'

'Oh, no,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, pushing his chair back. 'Not that. That's meddling with things you don't understand.'

'Well we are wizards,' said Ridcully. 'We're supposed to meddle with things we don't understand. If we hung around waitin' till we understood things we'd never get anything done.'

'Look, I don't mind summoning some demon and asking it,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'That's normal. But building some mechanical contrivance to do your thinking for you, that's . . . against Nature. Besides,' he added in slightly less foreboding tones, 'last time you did a big problem on it the wretched thing broke and we had ants all over the place.'

'We've sorted that out,' said Ponder. 'We—'

'I must admit there was a ram's skull in the middle of it last time I looked,' said Ridcully. 'We had to add that to do occult transformations,' said Ponder, 'but—'

'And cogwheels and springs,' the Archchancellor went on. 'Well, the ants aren't very good at differential analysis, so—'

'And that strange wobbly thing with the cuckoo?'

'The unreal time clock,' said Ponder. 'Yes, we think that's essential for working out—'

'Anyway, it's all quite immaterial, because I certainly have no intention of going anywhere,' said the Dean. 'Send a student, if you must. We've got a lot spare ones.'

'Good so be would you if, duff plum of helping second A,' said the Bursar. The table fell silent. 'Anyone understand that?' said Ridcully. The Bursar was not technically insane. He had passed through the rapids of insanity some time previously, and was now sculling around in some peaceful pool on the other side. He was often quite coherent, although not by normal human standards. 'Um, he's going through yesterday again,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Backwards, this time.'

'We should send the Bursar,' said the Dean firmly. 'Certainly not! You probably can't get dried frog pills there—'

'Oook!' The Librarian re-entered the study at a bandy-legged run, waving something in the air. It was red, or at least had at some time been red. It might well once have been a pointy hat, but the point had crumpled and most of the brim was burned away. A word had been embroidered on it in sequins. Many had been burned off, but: WIZZARD . . . could just be made out as pale letters on the scorched cloth. 'I knew I'd seen it before,' said Ridcully. 'On a shelf in the Library, right?'

'Oook.' The Archchancellor inspected the remnant. 'Wizzard?' he said. 'What kind of sad, hopeless person needs to write WIZZARD on their hat?' A few bubbles broke the surface of the sea, causing the raft to rock a little. After a while, a couple of pieces of shark skin floated up.

Rincewind sighed and put down his fishing rod. The rest of the shark would be dragged ashore later, he knew it. He couldn't imagine why. It wasn't as if they were good eating. They tasted like old boots soaked in urine. He picked up a makeshift oar and set out for the beach. It wasn't a bad little island. Storms seemed to pass it by. So did ships. But there were coconuts, and breadfruit, and some sort of wild fig. Even his experiments in alcohol had been quite successful, although he hadn't been able to walk properly for two days. The lagoon provided prawns and shrimps and oysters and crabs and lobsters, and in the deep green water out beyond the reef big silver fish fought each other for the privilege of biting a piece of bent wire on the end of a bit of string. After six months on the island, in fact, there was only one thing Rincewind lacked. He'd never really thought about it before. Now he thought about it - or, more correctly, them - all the time. It was odd. He'd hardly ever thought about them in Ankh-Morpork, because they were there if ever he wanted them. Now they weren't, and he craved. His raft bumped the white sand at about the same moment as a large canoe rounded the reef and entered the lagoon. Ridcully was sitting at his desk now, surrounded by his senior wizards. They were trying to tell him things, despite the known danger of trying to tell Ridcully things, which was that he picked up the facts he liked and let the others take a running jump. 'So,' he said, 'not a kind of cheese.'

'No, Archchancellor,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Rincewind is a kind of wizard.'

'Was,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Not a cheese,' said Ridcully, unwilling to let go of a fact. 'No.'

'Sounds a sort of name you'd associate with cheese, I mean, a pound of Mature Rincewind, it rolls off the tongue . . .'

'Godsdammit, Rincewind is not a cheese!' shouted the Dean, his temper briefly cracking. 'Rincewind is not a yoghurt or any kind of sour milk derivative! Rincewind is a bloody nuisance! A complete and utter disgrace to wizardry! A fool! A failure! Anyway, he hasn't been seen here since that . . . unpleasantness with the Sourcerer, years ago.'

'Really?' said Ridcully, with a certain kind of nasty politeness. 'A lot of wizards behaved very badly then, I understand.'

'Yes indeed,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, scowling at the Dean, who bridled.

'I don't know anything about that, Runes. I wasn't Dean at the time.'

'No, but you were very senior.'

'Perhaps, but it just so happens that at the time I was visiting my aunt, for your information.'

'They nearly blew up the whole city!'

'She lives in Quirm.'

'And Quirm was heavily involved, as I recall.'

'—near Quirm. Near Quirm. Not all that near, actually. Quite a way along the coast—'

'Hah!'

'Anyway, you seem to be very well informed, eh, Runes?' said the Dean. 'I - What? - I - was studying hard at the time. Hardly knew what was going on—'

'Half the University was blown down!' The Dean remembered himself and added, 'That is, so I heard. Later. After getting back from my aunt's.'

'Yes, but I've got a very thick door—'

'And I happen to know the Senior Wrangler was here, because—'

'—with that heavy green baize stuff you can hardly hear any—'

'Nap my for time it's think I.'

'Will you all shut up right now this minute!' Ridcully glared at his faculty with the clear, innocent glare of someone who was blessed at birth with no imagination whatsoever, and who had genuinely been hundreds of miles away during the University's recent embarrassing history. 'Right,' he said, when they had quietened down. 'This Rincewind. Bit of an idiot, yes? You talk, Dean. Everyone else will shut up.' The Dean looked uncertain. 'Well, er . . . I mean, it makes no sense, Archchancellor. He couldn't even do proper magic. What good would he be to anyone? Besides . . . where Rincewind went' - he lowered his voice - 'trouble followed behind.' Ridcully noticed that the wizards drew a little closer together. 'Sounds all right to me,' he said. 'Best place for trouble behind. You certainly don't want it in front.'

'You don't understand, Archchancellor,' said the Dean. 'It followed behind on hundreds of little legs.' The Archchancellor's smile stayed where it was while the rest of his face went solid behind it. 'You been on the Bursar's pills, Dean?'

'I assure you, Mustrum—'

'Then don't talk rubbish.'

'Very well, Archchancellor. But you do realize, don't you, that it might take years to find him?'

'Er,' said Ponder, 'if we can work out his thaumic signature, I think Hex could probably do it in a day. . .' The Dean glared. 'That's not magic!' he snapped. 'That's just . . . engineering!' Rincewind trudged through the shallows and used a sharp rock to hack the top off a coconut that had been cooling in a convenient shady rock pool. He put it to his lips. A shadow fell across him. It said, 'Er, hello?' It was possible, if you kept on talking at the Arch-chancellor for long enough, that some facts might squeeze through. 'So what you're tellin' me,' said Ridcully, eventually, 'is that this Rincewind fella has been chased by just about every army in the world, has been bounced around life like a pea on a drum, and probably is the one wizard who knows anything about the Agatean Empire on account of once being friends with,' he glanced at his notes,' “a strange little man in glasses” who came from there and gave him this funny thing with the legs you all keep alluding to. And he can speak the lingo. Am I right so far?'

'Exactly, Archchancellor. Call me an idiot if you like,' said the Dean, 'but why would anyone want him?' Ridcully looked down at his notes again. 'You've decided to go, then?' he said. 'No, of course not—'

'What I don't think you've spotted here, Dean,' he said, breaking into a determinedly cheery grin, 'is what I might call the common denominator. Chap stays alive. Talented. Find him. And bring him here. Wherever he is. Poor chap could be facing something dreadful.' The coconut stayed where it was, but Rincewind' s eyes swivelled madly from side to side. Three figures stepped into his line of vision. They were obviously female. They were abundantly female. They were not wearing a great deal of clothing and seemed to be altogether too fresh-from-the-haidressers for people who have just been paddling a large war canoe, but this is often the case with beautiful Amazonian warriors. A thin trickle of coconut milk began to dribble off the end of Rincewind's beard. The leading woman brushed aside her long blonde hair and gave him a bright smile. 'I know this sounds a little unlikely,' she said, 'but I and my sisters here represent a hitherto undiscovered tribe whose menfolk were recently destroyed in a deadly but short-lived and highly specific plague. Now we have been searching these islands for a man to enable us to carry on our line.'

'How much do you think he weighs?' Rincewind's eyebrows raised. The woman looked down shyly. 'You may be wondering why we are all blonde and white-skinned when everyone else in the islands around here is dark,' she said. 'It just seems to be one of those genetic things.'

'About 120, 125 pounds. Put another pound or two of junk on the heap. Er. Can you detect . . . you know . . . IT?'

'This is all going to go wrong, Mr Stibbons, I just know it.'

'He's only six hundred miles away and we know where we are, and he's on the right half of the Disc. Anyway, I've worked this out on Hex so nothing can possibly go wrong.'

'Yes, but can anyone see . . . that . . . you know . . . with the . . . feet?' Rincewind's eyebrows waggled. A sort of choking noise came from his throat. 'Can't see . . . it. Will you lot stop huffing on my crystal ball?'

'And, of course, if you were to come with us we could promise you . . . earthly and sensual pleasures such as those of which you may have dreamed . . .'

'All right. On the count of three—'

The coconut dropped away. Rincewind swallowed. There was a hungry, dreamy look in his eyes. 'Can I have them mashed?' he said. 'NOW!' First there was the sensation of pressure. The world opened up in front of Rincewind and sucked him into it. Then it stretched out thin and went twang. Cloud rushed past him, blurred by speed. When he dared open his eyes again it was to see, far ahead of him, a tiny black dot. It got bigger. It resolved itself into a tight cloud of objects. There were a couple of heavy saucepans, a large brass candlestick, a few bricks, a chair and a large brass blancmange mould in the shape of a castle. They hit him one after the other, the blancmange mould making a humorous clang as it bounced off his head, and then whirled away behind him. The next thing ahead of him was an octagon. A chalked one. He hit it. Ridcully stared down. 'A shade less than 125 pounds, I fancy,' he said. 'All the same . . . well done, gentlemen.' The dishevelled scarecrow in the centre of the circle staggered to its feet and beat out one or two small fires in its clothing. Then it looked around blearily and said, 'Hehehe?'