Interesting Times

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 Archchancellor, 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?'

'Was I?'

'And everyone will be so grateful if you come back.'

Rincewind looked around — and, in one case, up — at the Council.

'How will I get back?' he said.

'Same way you went. We'll find you and bring you out. With surgical precision.'

Rincewind groaned. He knew what surgical precision meant in Ankh-Morpork. It meant 'to within an inch or two, accompanied by a lot of screaming, and then they pour hot tar on you just where your leg was'.

But… if you put aside for the moment the certainty that something would definitely go horribly wrong, it looked foolproof. The trouble was that wizards were such ingenious fools.

'And then I can have my old job back?'