‘A bean, possibly,’ said Ponder Stibbons.
‘Whatever. But I damn well don’t believe there’s such a thing as a mature Lancre Blue runny cheese nut!’ He prodded the thing.
‘But nature does come up with some very funny coincidences, Archchancellor,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Why, I myself, as a child, once dug up a carrot which, ahaha, most amusingly looked just like a man with a—’
‘Er …’ said the Dean.
It was only a little sound, but it had a certain portentous quality. They turned to look at him.
He’d been peeling away the yellowing husk from something like a small bean pod. What he now held—
‘Hah, yes, good joke,’ said Ridcully. ‘They certainly don’t grow on—’
‘I didn’t do anything! Look, it’s still got bits of pith and stuff on it!’ said the Dean, waving the thing wildly.
Ridcully took it, sniffed it, held it up to his ear and shook it, and then said quietly: ‘Show me where you found it, will you?’
The bush was in a small clearing. Dozens of the little green shoots hung down between its tiny leaves. Each was tipped by a flower, but the flowers were curling up and falling off. The crop was ripe.
Multi-coloured beetles zoomed away from the bush as the Dean selected a pod and peeled it open, revealing a slightly damp white cylinder. He examined it for a few seconds, then put one end in his mouth, took a box of matches from a pocket in his hat, and lit up.
‘Quite a smooth smoke,’ he said. His hand shook slightly as he took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew a smoke ring. ‘Cork filter, too,’ he said.
‘Er … well, both tobacco and cork are naturally occurring vegetable products,’ quavered the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
‘Chair?’ said Ridcully.
‘Yes, Archchancellor?’
‘Shut up, will you?’
‘Yes, Archchancellor.’
Ponder Stibbons broke open a cork tip. There was a tiny ring of what well might have been—
‘Seeds,’ he said. ‘But that can’t be right, because—’
The Dean, wreathed in blue smoke, had been staring at the nearby vines.
‘Has it occurred to anyone else that those pods are remarkably rectangular?’ he said.
‘Go for it, Dean,’ said Ridcully.
A brown outer husk was pulled aside.
‘Ah,’ said the Dean. ‘Biscuits. Just the thing with cheese.’
‘Er …’ said Ponder. He pointed.
Just beyond the bush a couple of boots lay on the ground.
Rincewind ran his fingers over the cave wall.
The ground shook again.
‘What’s causing that?’ he said.
‘Oh, some people say it’s an earthquake, some say it’s the country drying up, others say it’s a giant snake rushing through the ground,’ said Scrappy.
‘Which is it?’
‘The wrong sort of question.’
They definitely looked like wizards, thought Rincewind. They had that basic cone shape familiar to anyone who had been to Unseen University. They were holding staffs. Even with the crude materials available to them the ancient artists had managed to portray the knobs on the ends.
But UU hadn’t even existed thirty thousand years ago …
Then he noticed, for the first time, the drawing right at the end of the cave. There were a lot of the ochre handprints on top of it, almost — and the thought expanded in his mind in a sneaky way — as though someone had thought that they could hold it down on to the rock, prevent it — this was a silly thought, he knew — prevent it from getting out.
He brushed away some dust.
‘Oh, no,’ he mumbled.
It was an oblong box. The artist hadn’t got the hang of conventional perspective, but there was no doubt that he’d tried to paint hundreds of little legs.
‘That’s my Luggage!’
‘Always the same, right?’ said Scrappy, behind him. ‘You arrive okay and your luggage ends up somewhere else.’
‘Thousands of years in the past?’
‘Could be a valuable antique.’
‘It’s got my clothes in it!’
‘They’ll probably be back in style, then.’
‘You don’t understand! It’s a magical box! It’s supposed to end up where I am!’
‘It probably is where you are. Just not when.’
‘What? Oh.’
‘I told you time and space were all stirred up, didn’t I? You wait till you’re on your journey. There’s places where there’s several times happening at once and places where there’s hardly any time at all, and times when there’s hardly any place. You’ve got to sort it out, right?’
‘What, like shuffling cards?’ said Rincewind. He made a mental note about ‘on your journey’.
‘Yep.’
‘That’s impossible!’
‘Y’know, I’d have said so too. But you will do it. Now, you’ll have to concentrate about this bit, right?’ Scrappy took a deep breath. ‘I know you’re going to do it because you’ve already done it.’
Rincewind put his head in his hands.
‘I told you about time and space here being mixed up,’ said the kangaroo.
‘I’ve already saved the country, have I?’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh, good. Well, that wasn’t so difficult. I don’t want much — a medal, perhaps, the grateful thanks of the population, maybe a small pension and a ticket home …’ He looked up. ‘I’m not going to get any of that, though, am I?’
‘No, because—’
‘—I haven’t already done it yet?’
‘Exactly! You’re getting the hang of it! You have to go and do what we know you’re going to do because you’ve already done it. In fact, if you hadn’t done it already I wouldn’t be here to make sure it gets done. So you’d better do it.’
‘Facing terrible dangers?’
The kangaroo waved a paw. ‘Slightly terrible,’ it said.
‘And go for many miles over parched and trackless terrain?’
‘Well, yeah. We haven’t got any of the other sort.’
Rincewind brightened up slightly. ‘And I’ll meet comrades whose strengths and skills will be a great help to me?’
‘Don’t bet on it.’
‘Any chance of a magic sword?’
‘What would you do with a magic sword?’
‘Fair enough. Fair enough. Forget the magic sword. But I’ve got to have something. Cloak of invisibility, potion of strength, something like that …’
‘That stuff’s for people who know how to use them, mister. You’ll have to rely on your native wit.’
‘I’ve got nothing? What sort of quest is that? Can’t you give me any hints?’
‘You may have to drink some beer,’ said the kangaroo. It cringed back for a moment, as if confident of facing a storm of objections.
Rincewind said: ‘Oh. Right. Well, I know how to do that. What direction am I supposed to go?’
‘Oh, you’ll find it.’
‘And when I get to where I’m going, what am I supposed to do?’
‘It’ll … be obvious, right?’
‘And how will I know I’ve done it?’
‘The Wet will come back.’
‘The wet what?’
‘It’ll rain.’
‘I thought it never rained here,’ said Rincewind.
‘See? I knew you were smart.’
The sun was setting. The rocks around the edge of the cave glowed red. Rincewind stared at them for a while, and reached a brave decision.
‘I’m not the man to shirk when the fate of whole countries is in the balance,’ he said. ‘I will make a start at dawn to complete this task which I have already completed, by hoki, or my name isn’t Rincewand!’