Interesting Times

They may look about the right size for a butterfly's wings, but that's only because human beings have always preferred common sense to logic.

The Quantum Weather Butterfly (Papilio tempestae) is an undistinguished yellow colour, although the mandelbrot patterns on the wings are of considerable interest. Its outstanding feature is its ability to create weather.

This presumably began as a survival trait, since even an extremely hungry bird would find itself inconvenienced by a nasty localized tornado.[2] From there it possibly became a secondary sexual characteristic, like the plumage of birds or the throat sacs of certain frogs. Look at me, the male says, flapping his wings lazily in the canopy of the rain forest. I may be an undistinguished yellow colour but in a fortnight's tone, a thousand miles away, Freak Gales Cause Road Chaos.

This is the butterfly of the storms.

It flaps its wings…

This is the Discworld, which goes through space on the back of a giant turtle.

Most worlds do, at some time in their perception. It's a cosmological view the human brain seems preprogrammed to take.

On veldt and plain, in cloud jungle and silent red desert, in swamp and reed marsh, in fact in any place where something goes 'plop' off a floating log as you approach, variations on the following take place at a crucial early point in the development of the tribal mythology…

'You see dat?'

'What?'

'It just went plop off dat log.'

'Yeah? Well?'

'I reckon… I reckon… like, I reckon der world is carried on der back of one of dem.'

A moment of silence while this astrophysical hypothesis is considered, and then…

'The whole world?'

'Of course, when I say one of dem, I mean a big one of dem.'

'It'd have to be, yeah.'

'Like… really big.'

''S funny, but… I see what you mean.'

'Makes sense, right?'

'Makes sense, yeah. Thing is…'

'What?'

'I just hope it never goes plop.'

But this is the Discworld, which has not only the turtle but also the four giant elephants on which the wide, slowly turning wheel of the world revolves.[3]

There is the Circle Sea, approximately halfway between the Hub and the Rim. Around it are those countries which, according to History, constitute the civilized world, i.e., a world that can support histor-ians: Ephebe, Tsort, Omnia, Klatch and the sprawling city state of Ankh-Morpork.

This is a story that starts somewhere else, where a man is lying on a raft in a blue lagoon under a sunny sky. His head is resting on his arms. He is happy — in his case, a mental state so rare as to be almost unprecedented. He is whistling an amiable little tune, and dangling his feet in the crystal clear water.

They're pink feet with ten toes that look like little piggy-wiggies.

From the point of view of a shark, skimming over the reef, they look like lunch, dinner and tea.

It was, as always, a matter of protocol. Of discretion. Of careful etiquette. Of, ultimately, alcohol. Or at least the illusion of alcohol.

Lord Vetinari, as supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork, could in theory summon the Archchancellor of Unseen University to his presence and, indeed, have him executed if he failed to obey.

On the other hand Mustrum Ridcully, as head of the college of wizards, had made it clear in polite but firm ways that he could turn him into a small amphibian and, indeed, start jumping around the room on a pogo stick.

Alcohol bridged the diplomatic gap nicely. Sometimes Lord Vetinari invited the Archchancellor to the palace for a convivial drink. And of course the Archchancellor went, because it would be bad manners not to. And everyone understood the position, and everyone was on their best behaviour, and thus civil unrest and slime on the carpet were averted.

It was a beautiful afternoon. Lord Vetinari was sitting in the palace gardens, watching the butterflies with an expression of mild annoyance. He found something very slightly offensive about the way they just fluttered around enjoying themselves in an unprofitable way.

He looked up.

'Ah, Archchancellor,' he said. 'So good to see you. Do sit down. I trust you are well?'

'Yes indeed,' said Mustrum Ridcully. 'And yourself? You are in good health?'

'Never better. The weather, I see, has turned out nice again.'

'I thought yesterday was particularly fine, certainly.'

'Tomorrow, I am told, could well be even better.'

'We could certainly do with a fine spell.'

'Yes, indeed.'

'Yes.'

'Ah…'

'Certainly.'

They watched the butterflies. A butler brought long, cool drinks.

'What is it they actually do with the flowers?' said Lord Vetinari.

'What?'

The Patrician shrugged. 'Never mind. It was not at all important. But — since you are here, Archchancellor, having dropped by on your way to something infinitely more important, I am sure, most kind — I wonder if you could tell me: who is the Great Wizard?'

Ridcully considered this.

'The Dean, possibly,' he said. 'He must be all of twenty stone.'

'Somehow I feel that is not perhaps the right answer,' said Lord Vetinari. 'I suspect from context that 'great' means superior.'

'Not the Dean, then,' said Ridcully.

Lord Vetinari tried to recollect the faculty of Unseen University. The mental picture that emerged was of a small range of foothills in pointy hats.

'The context does not, I feel, suggest the Dean,' he said.

'Er… what context would this be?' said Ridcully.

The Patrician picked up his walking stick.

'Come this way,' he said. 'I suppose you had better see for yourself. It is very vexing.'

Ridcully looked around with interest as he followed Lord Vetinari. He did not often have a chance to see the gardens, which had been written up in the 'How Not To Do It' section of gardening manuals everywhere.

They had been laid out, and a truer phrase was never used, by the renowned or at least notorious landscape gardener and all round inventor 'Bloody Stupid' Johnson, whose absent-mindedness and blindness to elementary mathematics made every step a walk with danger. His genius… well, as far as Ridcully understood it, his genius was exactly the opposite of whatever kind of genius it was that built earthworks that tapped the secret yet beneficent forces of the leylines.

No-one was quite certain what forces Bloody Stupid's designs tapped, but the chiming sundial frequently exploded, the crazy paving had committed suicide and the cast iron garden furniture was known so have melted on three occasions.