A couple of people looked down long enough to see the group of soaked wizards, and there were some cheers. And suddenly they were the new centre of attention, and being picked up and carried shoulder high.
‘They think we did it!’ shouted Archchancellor Rincewind, as he was borne aloft.
‘Who’s to say we didn’t?’ shouted Ridcully, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially.
‘Er …’ someone began.
Ridcully didn’t even look round. ‘Shut up, Mister Stibbons,’ he said.
‘Shutting up, sir.’
‘Can you hear that thunder?’ said Ridcully, as a rumble rolled across the city. ‘We’d better take cover …’{94}
The clouds above the tower were rising like water against a dam. Ponder said afterwards the fact that the BU tower was very short and extremely tall at the same time might have been the problem, since the storm was trying to go around it, over it and through it, all at the same time.
From the ground the clouds seemed to open up slowly, leaving a glowing, spreading chimney filled with the blue haze of electrical discharges …
… and pounced. One solid blue bolt hit the tower at every height all at once, which is technically impossible. Pieces of wood and corrugated iron roared into the air and rained down across the city.
Then there was just a sizzling, and the rushing of the rain.
The crowd stood up again, cautiously, but the fireworks were over.
‘And that’s what we call lightning,’ said Ridcully.
Archchancellor Rincewind got up and tried to brush mud off his robe, then found out why you cannot do this.
‘It’s not usually as big as that, though,’ Ridcully went on.
‘Oh. Good.’
There was a clank from the steaming debris where the tower had stood, and a sheet of metal was pushed aside. Slowly, with much mutual aid and many false starts, two blackened figures emerged. One of them was still wearing a hat, which was on fire although the rain was putting out the flames.
Leaning against one another, weaving from side to side, they approached the wizards.
One of them said, ‘Ook,’ very quietly and fell backwards.
The other one looked blearily at the two archchancellors, and saluted. This caused a spark to leap from its fingers and burn its ear.
‘Er, Rincewind,’ it said.
‘And what have you been up to while we’ve been doing all this hard work, pray?’ said Ridcully.
Rincewind looked around, very slowly. Occasional little blue streaks crackled in his beard.
‘Well, that all seemed to go pretty well, really. All things considered,’ he said, and fell full length into a puddle.
It rained. After that, it rained. Then it rained some more. The clouds were stacked like impatient charter flights over the coast, low on fuel, jockeying for position, and raining. Above all, raining.
Floodwater roared down the rocks and scoured out the ancient muddy waterholes. A species of tiny shrimps whose world for thousands of years had been one small hole under a stone were picked up and carried wholesale into a lake that was spreading faster than a man could run. There had been fewer than a thousand of them. There were a lot more next day. Even if the shrimps had been able to count how many, they were far too busy to bother.
In the new estuaries, rich in sudden silt and unexpected food, a few fish began the experiment of a salt-free diet. The mangroves started their stop-motion conquests of the new mudbanks.
It went on raining.
Then it rained some more.
After that, it rained.
It was some days later.
The ship rose and fell gently by the dock. The water around it was red with suspended silt in which a few leaves and twigs floated.
‘A week or two to NoThingfjord and we’re practically home,’ said Ridcully.
‘Practically on the same continent, anyway,’ said the Dean.
‘Quite an int’resting long vacation, really,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
‘Probably the longest ever,’ said Ponder. ‘Did Mrs Whitlow like her stateroom?’
‘I for one will quite enjoy bunking down in the hold,’ said the Senior Wrangler loyally.
‘The bilges, actually,’ said Ponder. ‘The hold’s full. Of opals, beer, sheep, wool and bananas.’
‘Where’s the Librarian?’ said Ridcully.
‘In the hold, sir.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was silly of me to ask. Still, nice to see him his old self again.’
‘I think it may have been the lightning, sir. He’s certainly very lively now.’
And Rincewind sat on the Luggage, down on the dock.
Somehow, he felt, something should be happening. The worst time in your life was when nothing much was going on, because that meant that something bad was about to hit you. For some strange reason.
He could be back in the University Library in a month or so, and then ho! for a life of stacking books. One dull day after another, with occasional periods of boredom. He could hardly wait. Every minute not being a minute wasted was, well, a minute wasted. Excitement? That could happen to other people.
He’d watched the merchants loading the ship. It was pretty low in the water, because there would be so many Ecksian things the rest of the world wanted. Of course, it’d come back light, because it was hard to think of any bloody thing it could bloody import that was better than any bloody thing in EcksEcksEcksEcks.
There were even a few more passengers willing to see the world, and most of them were young.
‘Hey, aren’t you one of the foreign wizards?’
The speaker was a young man carrying a very large knapsack topped by a bedroll. He seemed to be the impromptu leader of a small group of similarly overloaded people, with wide, open faces and slightly worried expressions.
‘You can tell, can’t you?’ said Rincewind. ‘Er … you wanted something?’
‘D’yew think we can buy a cart in this place NoThingfjord?’
‘Yes, I should think so.’
‘Only me and Clive and Shirl and Gerleen were thinkin’ of picking one up and driving to—’ He looked around.
‘Ankh-Morpork,’ said Shirl.
‘Right, and then selling it, and gettin’ a job for a while, having a look round, y’know … for a while. That’d be right?’
Rincewind glanced at the others trooping up the gangplank. Since the invention of the dung beetle, which had in fact happened not too far away, it was probable that no creature had ever carried so much weight.
‘I can see it catching on,’ he said.
‘No worries!’
‘But … er …’
‘Yes, mate?’
‘Do you mind not humming that tune? It was only a sheep, and I didn’t even steal it …’
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was Neilette. Letitia and Darleen were standing behind her, grinning. It was ten in the morning. They were wearing sequinned evening gowns.
‘Budge up,’ she said, and settled down beside him. ‘We just thought … well, we’ve come to say, you know, thanks and everything. Letitia and Darleen are coming in with me and we’re going to open up the brewery again.’
Rincewind glanced up at the ladies.
‘I’ve had enough beer thrown at me, I ought to know something about it,’ said Letitia. ‘Although I do think we could make it a more attractive colour. It’s so …’ she waved a large, be-ringed hand irritably, ‘… aggressively masculine.’
‘Pink would be nice,’ said Rincewind. ‘And you could put in a pickled onion on a stick, perhaps.’
‘Bloody good suggestion!’ said Darleen, slapping him so hard on the back that his hat fell over his eyes.
‘You wouldn’t like to stay?’ said Neilette. ‘You look like someone with ideas.’