The Last Continent (Discworld #22)

The Last Continent (Discworld #22) Page 3

Ponder looked at the Library doors. A big strip of black and yellow tape had been stuck across them, along with a sign saying: Danger, Do Notte Enter in Any Circumstances. It was now hanging off, and the doors were ajar. This was no surprise. Any true wizard, faced with a sign like 'Do not open this door. Really. We mean it. We're not kidding. Opening this door will mean the end of the universe,' would automatically open the door in order to see what all the fuss was about. This made signs rather a waste of time, but at least it meant that when you handed what was left of the wizard to his grieving relatives you could say, as they grasped the jar, 'We told him not to.' There was silence from the darkness on the other side of the doorway. Ridcully extended a finger and pushed one door slightly. Behind it something made a fluttering noise and the doors were slammed shut. The wizards jumped back. 'Don't risk it, Archchancellor!' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'I tried to go in earlier and the whole section of Critical Essays had gone critical!' Blue light flickered under the doors. Elsewhere, someone might have said, 'It's just books! Books aren't dangerous!' But even ordinary books are dangerous, and not only the ones like Make Gelignite the Professional Way. A man sits in some museum somewhere and writes a harmless book about political economy and suddenly thousands of people who haven't even read it are dying because the ones who did haven't got the joke. Knowledge is dangerous, which is why governments often clamp down on people who can think thoughts above a certain calibre. And the Unseen University Library was a magical library, built on a very thin patch of space- time. There were books on distant shelves that hadn't been written yet, books that never would be written. At least, not here. It had a circumference of a few hundred yards, but there was no known limit to its radius. And in a magical library the books leak, and learn from one another . . . They've started attacking anyone who goes in,' moaned the Dean. 'No one can control them when the Librarian's not here!'

'But we're a university! We have to have a library!' said Ridcully. 'It adds tone. What sort of people would we be if we didn't go into the Library?'

'Students,' said the Senior Wrangler morosely. 'Hah, I remember when I was a student,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Old “Bogeyboy” Swallett took us on an expedition to find the Lost Reading Room. Three weeks we were wandering around. Had to eat our own boots.'

'Did you find it?' said the Dean. 'No, but we found the remains of the previous year's expedition.'

'What did you do?'

'We ate their boots, too.' From beyond the door came a flapping, as of leather covers. There's some pretty vicious grimoires in there,' said the Senior Wrangler. They can take a man's arm right off.'

'Yes, but at least they don't know about doorhandles,' said the Dean. They do if there's a book in there somewhere called Doorknobs for Beginners,' said the Senior Wrangler. They read each other.' The Archchancellor glanced at Ponder. There likely to be a book like that in there, Stibbons?'

'According to L-space theory, it's practically certain, sir.' As one man, the wizards backed away from the doors. 'We can't let this nonsense go on,' said Ridcully. 'We've got to cure the Librarian. It's a magical illness, so we ought to be able to cook up a magical cure, oughtn't we?' That would be exceedingly dangerous, Archchancellor,' said the Dean. 'His whole system is a mess of conflicting magical influences. There's no knowing what adding more magic would do. He's already got a freewheeling temporal gland.[6] Any more magic and . . . well, I don't know what'll happen.'

'We'll find out,' said Ridcully brusquely. 'We need to be able to go into the Library. We'd be doing this for the college, Dean. And Unseen University is bigger than one man—'

'—ape—'

'—thank you, ape, and we must always remember that “I” is the smallest letter in the alphabet.' There was another thud from beyond the doors. 'Actually,' said the Senior Wrangler, 'I think you'll find that, depending on the font, “c” or even “u” are, in fact, even smaller. Well, shorter, anyw—'

'Of course,' Ridcully went on, ignoring this as part of the University's usual background logic, 'I suppose I could appoint another librarian . . . got to be a senior chap who knows his way around . . . hmm . . . now let me see, do any names spring to mind? Dean?'

'All right, all rightl' said the Dean. 'Have it your own way. As usual.'

'Er . . . we can't do it, sir,' Ponder ventured. 'Oh?' said Ridcully. 'Volunteering for a bit of bookshelf tidying yourself, are you?'

'I mean we really can't use magic to change him, sir. There's a huge problem in the way.' There are no problems, Mister Stibbons, there are only opportunities.'

'Yes, sir. And the opportunity here is to find out the Librarian's name.' There was a buzz of agreement from the other wizards. The lad's right,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Can't magic a wizard without knowing his name. Basic rule.'

'Well, we call him the Librarian,' said Ridcully. 'Everyone calls him the Librarian. Won't that do?' That's just a job description, sir.' Ridcully looked at his wizards. 'One of us must know his name, surely? Good grief, I should hope we at least know our colleagues' names. Isn't that so . . .' He looked at the Dean, hesitated, and then said, 'Dean?'

'He's been an ape for quite a while . . . Archchancellor,' said the Dean. 'Most of his original colleagues have . . . passed on. Gone to the great Big Dinner in the Sky. We were going through one of those periods of droit de mortis.[7]'

'Yes, but he's got to be in the records somewhere.' The wizards thought about the great cliffs of stacked paper that constituted the University's records. The archivist has never found him,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Who's the archivist?'

'The Librarian, Archchancellor.' Then at least he ought to be in the Year Book for the year he graduated.'

'It's a very funny thing,' said the Dean, 'but a freak accident appears to have happened to every single copy of the Year Book for that year.' Ridcully noted his wooden expression. 'Would it be an accident like a particular page being torn out leaving only a lingering bananary aroma?'

'Lucky guess, Archchancellor.' Ridcully scratched his chin. 'A pattern emerges,' he said. 'You see, he's always been dead set against anyone finding out his name,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'He's afraid we'll try to turn him back into a human.' He looked meaningfully at the

Dean, who put on an offended expression. 'Some people have been going around saying that an ape as Librarian is unsuitable.'

'I merely expressed the view that it is against the traditions of the University—' the Dean began. 'Which consist largely of niggling, big dinners and shouting damnfool things about keys in the middle of the night,' said Ridcully. 'So I don't think we—' The expressions on the faces of the other wizards made him turn around. The Librarian had entered the hall. He walked very slowly, because of the amount of clothing he'd put on; the sheer volume of coats and sweaters meant that his arms, instead of being used as extra feet, were sticking out very nearly horizontally on either side of his body. But the most horrifying aspect of the shuffling apparition was the red woolly bat. It was jolly. It had a bobble on it. It had been knitted by Mrs Whitlow, who was technically an extremely good needlewoman, but if she had a fault it lay in failing to take into account the precise dimensions of the intended recipient. Several wizards had on occasion been presented with one of her creations, which often assumed they had three ankles or a neck two metres across. Most of the things were surreptitiously given away to charitable institutions. You can say this about Ankh-Morpork – no matter how misshapen a garment, there will always be someone somewhere it would fit. Mrs Whitlow's mistake here was the assumption that the Librarian, for whom she had considerable respect, would like a red bobble hat with side flaps that tied under his chin. Given that this would technically require that they be tied under his groin, he'd opted to let them flap loose. He turned a sad face towards the wizards as he stopped outside the Library door. He reached for the handle. He said, in a very weak voice, '

'k,' and then sneezed. The pile of clothing settled. When the wizards pulled it away, they found underneath a very large, thick book bound in hairy red leather. 'Says Ook on the cover,' said the Senior Wrangler after a while, in a rather strained voice. 'Does it say who it's by?' said the Dean. 'Bad taste, that man.'

'I meant that maybe it'd be his real name.'

'Can we look inside?' said the Chair oi Indefinite Studies. 'There may be an index.'

'Any volunteers to look inside the Librarian?' said Ridcully. 'Don't all shout.'

'The morphic instability responds to the environment,' said Ponder. 'Isn't that interesting? He's near the Library, so it turns him into a book. Sort of . . . protective camouflage, you could say. It's as if he evolves to fit in with—'

'Thank you, Mister Stibbons. And is there a point to this?'

'Well, I assume we can look inside,' said Ponder. 'A book is meant to be opened. There's even a black leather bookmark, see?'

'Oh, that's a bookmark, is it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, who had been watching it nervously. Ponder touched the book. It was warm. And it opened easily enough. Every page was covered with 'ook'. 'Good dialogue, but the plot is a little dull.'

'Dean! I'd be obliged if you'd take this seriously, please!' said Ridcully. He tapped his foot once or twice. 'Anyone got any more ideas?' The wizards stared at one another and shrugged. 'I suppose . . ,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Yes, Runes . . . Arnold, isn't it?'

'No, Archchancellor . . .'

'Well, out with it anyway.'

'I suppose . . . I know this sounds ridiculous, but . . .'

'Go on, man. We're almost all agog.'

'I suppose there's always . . . Rincewind.' Ridcully stared at him for a moment. 'Skinny fella? Scruffy beard? Bloody useless wizard? Got that box on legs thingy?'

'That's right, Archchancellor. Well done. Er . . . he was the Deputy Librarian for a while, as I expect you remember.'

'Not really, but do go on,' he said. 'In fact he was here when the Librarian . . . became the Librarian. And I remember once, when we were watching the Librarian stamping four books all at the same time, he said, “Amazing, really, when you think he was born in Ankh-Morpork.” I'm sure if anyone knows the name of the Librarian it's Rincewind.'

'Well, go and fetch him, then! I suppose you do know where he is, do you?'

'Technically, yes, Archchancellor,' said Ponder quickly. 'But we're not sure quite where the place where he is is, if you follow me.'

Ridcully gave him another stare. 'You see, we think he's on EcksEcksEcksEcks, Archchancellor,' said Ponder. 'EcksEcks—'

'—EcksEcks, Archchancellor.'

'I thought no one knew where that place was,' said Ridcully. 'Exactly, Archchancellor,' said Ponder. Sometimes you had to turn facts in several directions until you found the right way to fit them into Ridcully's head.[8] 'What's he doing there?'

'We don't really know, Archchancellor. If you remember, we believe he ended up there after that Agatean business . . .'

'What did he want to go there for?'

'I don't think he exactly wanted to,' said Ponder. 'Er . . . we sent him. It was a trivial error in bi-locational thaumaturgy that anyone could make.'

'But you made it, as I recall,' said Ridcully, whose memory could spring nasty surprises like that. 'I am a member of the team, sir,' said Ponder, pointedly. 'Well, if he doesn't want to be there, and we need him here, let's bring him b—' The rest of the sentence was drowned out not by a noise but by a sort of bloom of quietness, which rolled over the wizards and was so oppressive and soft that they couldn't even hear their own heartbeats. Old Tom, the University's magical and tongueless bell, tolled out 2 a.m. by striking the silences. 'Er—' said Ponder. 'It's not as simple as that.' Ridcully blinked. 'Why not?' he said. 'Bring him back by magic. We sent him there, we can bring him back.'