THAT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THIS PLACE?
Death’s finger tapped the red continent. His manservant looked closely.
‘Oh, there,’ he said. ‘“Terror Incognita” we called it when I was alive, master. Never went there myself. It’s the currents, you know. Many a poor sailorman has washed up on them fatal shores rather than get carried right over the Rim,{19} and regretted it, I expect. Dry as a statue’s ti— Very dry, master, or so they say. And hotter’n a demon’s joc— Very hot, too. But you must’ve been there yourself?’
OH, YES. BUT YOU KNOW HOW IT IS WHEN YOU’RE THERE ON BUSINESS AND THERE’S HARDLY ANY TIME TO SEE THE COUNTRY …
Death pointed to the great spiral of clouds that turned slowly around the continent, like jackals warily circling a dying lion which looked done for but which might yet be capable of one last bite.
VERY STRANGE, he said. A PERMANENT ANTI–CYCLONE. AND INSIDE, A HUGE, CALM LAND, THAT NEVER SEES A STORM. AND NEVER HAS A DROP OF RAIN.
‘Good place for a holiday, then.’
COME WITH ME.
The two of them, trailed by the Death of Rats, walked into Death’s huge library. There were clouds here, up near the ceiling.
Death held out a hand. I WANT, he said, A BOOK ABOUT THE DANGEROUS CREATURES OF FOURECKS—
Albert looked up and dived for cover, receiving only mild bruising because he had the foresight to curl into a ball.
After a while Death, his voice a little muffled, said: ALBERT, I WOULD BE SO GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD GIVE ME A HAND HERE.
Albert scrambled up and pulled at some of the huge volumes, finally dislodging enough of them to allow his master to clamber free.
HMM … Death picked up a book at random and read the cover.
DANGEROUS MAMMALS, REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, BIRDS, FISH, JELLYFISH, INSECTS, SPIDERS, CRUSTACEANS, GRASSES, TREES, MOSSES, AND LICHENS OF TERROR INCOGNITA, he read. His gaze moved down the spine. VOLUME 29C, he added. OH. PART THREE, I SEE.
He glanced up at the listening shelves. POSSIBLY IT WOULD BE SIMPLER IF I ASKED FOR A LIST OF THE HARMLESS CREATURES OF THE AFORESAID CONTINENT?
They waited.
IT WOULD APPEAR THAT—
‘No, wait, master. Here it comes.’
Albert pointed to something white zigzagging lazily through the air. Finally Death reached up and caught the single sheet of paper.
He read it carefully and then turned it over briefly just in case anything was written on the other side.
‘May I?’ said Albert. Death handed him the paper.
‘“Some of the sheep,”’ Albert read aloud. ‘Oh, well. Maybe a week at the seaside’d be better, then.’
WHAT AN INTRIGUING PLACE, said Death. SADDLE UP THE HORSE, ALBERT. I FEEL SURE I’M GOING TO BE NEEDED.
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.
PARDON?
‘He said, “No worries,” master,’ said Albert.
I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY.
Four huge blooms of silence rolled over the city as Old Tom so emphatically did not strike the hour.
Several servants rumbled a trolley along the corridor. The Archchancellor had given in. An early breakfast was on the way.
Ridcully lowered his tape measure.
‘Let’s try that again, shall we?’ he said. He stepped out of the window and picked a seashell out of the sand. It was warm from the sun. Then he pulled himself back into the bathroom and walked around to a door beside the window.
It led to a dank, moss-grown light well, which allowed second-hand and grubby daylight into these dismal floors. Even the snow hadn’t managed to get more than a brushing of flakes down this far.
The window on this side glimmered in the light from the doorway like a pool of very black oil.
‘Okay, Dean,’ he said. ‘Push your staff through. Now waggle it about.’
The wizards looked at the gently rippling surface. There should have been several feet of solid wood sticking out of it.
‘Well, well, well,’ said the Archchancellor, going back in out of the cold air. ‘Do you know, I’ve never actually seen one of these?’
‘Anyone remember Archchancellor Bewdley’s boots?’ said the Senior Wrangler, helping himself to some cold mutton from the trolley. ‘He made a mistake and got one of the things opened up in the left boot. Very tricky. You can’t go walking around with one foot in another dimension.’
‘Well, no …’ said Ridcully, staring at the tropical scene and tapping his chin thoughtfully with the seashell.
‘Can’t see what you’re treading in, for one thing,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘One opened up in one of the cellars once, all by itself,’ said the Dean. ‘Just a round black hole. Anything you put in it just disappeared. So old Archchancellor Weatherwax had a privy built over it.’
‘Very sensible idea,’ said Ridcully, still looking thoughtful.
‘We thought so too, until we found the other one that had opened in the attic. Turned out to be the other side of the same hole. I’m sure I don’t need to draw you a picture.’
‘I’ve never heard of these!’ said Ponder Stibbons. ‘The possibilities are amazing!’
‘Everyone says that when they first hear about them,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘But when you’ve been a wizard as long as I have, my boy, you’ll learn that as soon as you find anything that offers amazing possibilities for the improvement of the human condition it’s best to put the lid back on and pretend it never happened.’
‘But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it’d come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again … It’d reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be—’
‘That’s pretty much what happened between the attic and the cellar,’ said the Dean, taking a cold chicken leg. ‘Thank goodness for air friction, that’s all I’ll say.’
Ponder waved his hand gingerly through the window and felt the sun’s heat.
‘And no one’s ever studied them?’ he said.
The Senior Wrangler shrugged. ‘Studied what? They’re just holes. You get a lot of magic in one place, it kind of drops through the world like a hot steel ball through pork dripping. If it comes to the edge of something, it kind of fills it in.’
‘Stress points in the space-time continuinuinuum …’ said Ponder. ‘There must be hundreds of uses—’
‘Hah, yes, no wonder our Egregious Professor is always so suntanned,’ said the Dean. ‘I feel he’s been cheating. Geography should be hard to get to. It shouldn’t be in your windowbox, is what I’m saying. You shouldn’t get at it just by sneaking out of the University.’
‘Well, he hasn’t, really, has he?’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘He’s really just extended his study a bit.’
‘Do you think that is EcksEcksEcksEcks, by any chance?’ said the Dean. ‘It certainly looks foreign.’
‘Well, there is sea,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘But would you say that it looks as if it is actually girting?’
‘It’s just … you know … sloshing.’
‘One would somehow imagine that sea that was girting something would look more, well … defiant,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘You know? Thundering waves and so on. Definitely sending a message to outsiders that it was girting this coast and they’d better be jolly respectful.’
‘Perhaps we could go right through and investigate,’ said Ponder.
‘Something dreadful’ll happen if we do,’ said the Senior Wrangler gloomily.
‘It hasn’t happened to the Bursar,’ said Ridcully. The wizards crowded around. There was a figure standing in the surf. Its robe was rolled up above the knees. A few birds wheeled overhead. Palm trees waved in the background.