The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [124]
“What’s that do?” said Archchancellor Rincewind.
“Unmixes two things, like…sugar and sand, for example. Uses nanny’s demons.”
“Nano-demons, possibly,” murmured Ponder wearily.
“Oh, like Bonza Charlie’s Beaut Sieve? Yeah, we’ve got that.”
“Ah, parallel evolution. Fine. Dig it out, man.”
Archchancellor Rincewind nodded at one of the wizards, and then broke into a grin.
“Are you thinking about it working on salt?” he said.
“Exactly! One spell, one bucket of seawater, no more problem…”
“Er, that’s not exactly true,” said Ponder Stibbons.
“Sounds perfect to me, man!”
“It takes a great deal of magic, sir. And the demons take about a fortnight per pint, sir.”
“Ah. A significant point, Mister Stibbons.”
“Yes, sir.”
“However, just because it wouldn’t work does not mean it was a bad idea—I wish they’d stop that shouting!”
The shouting outside stopped.
“Perhaps they heard you, sir,” said Ponder.
Pang. Pang, pang…
“Are they throwing stuff on to the roof?” said Archchancellor Rincewind.
“No, that’s probably just rain,” said Ridcully. “Now, I suppose you’ve tried evaporating—”
He realized that no one was listening. Everyone was looking up.
Now the individual thuds had merged into a steady hammering and from outside came the sound of wild cheering.
The wizards struggled in the doorway and finally fought their way outside, where water was pouring off the roof in a solid sheet and cutting a channel in the lawn.
Archchancellor Rincewind stopped abruptly and reached out to the water like a man not sure if the stove is hot.
“Out of the sky?” he said. He pushed his way out through the liquid curtain. Then he took off his hat and held it upside down to catch the rain.
The crowd had filled the university grounds and spilled out into the surrounding streets. Every face was turned upwards.
“And those dark things?” Archchancellor Rincewind called out.
“They are the clouds, archchancellor.”
“There’s a hell of a lot of them!”
There were. They piled up over the tower in an enormous, spreading black thunderhead.
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 center 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…”
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.