The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [2]
“It’s quite hard to change the shape of a living thing but once it’s been done it’s a lot easier to do it next time,” he translated.
“Say again?”
“He was a human before he was an ape, Arch-chancellor. Remember?”
“Oh. Yes,” said Ridcully. “Funny, really, the way you get used to things. Apes and humans are related, accordin’ to young Ponder here.”
The other wizards looked blank. Ponder screwed up his face.
“He’s been showing me some of the invisible writings,” said Ridcully. “Fascinatin’ stuff.”
The other wizards scowled at Ponder Stibbons, as you would at a man who’d been caught smoking in a fireworks factory. So now they knew who to blame. As usual…
“Is that entirely wise, sir?” said the Dean.
“Well, I do happen to be the Archchancellor in these parts, Dean,” said Ridcully calmly.
“A blindly obvious fact, Archchancellor,” said the Dean. You could have cut cheese with his tone.
“Must take an interest. Morale, you know,” said Ridcully. “My door is always open. I see myself as a member of the team.” Ponder winced again.
“I don’t think I’m related to any apes,” said the Senior Wrangler thoughtfully. “I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d get invited to their weddings and so on. My parents would have said something like, ‘Don’t worry about Uncle Charlie, he’s supposed to smell like that,’ wouldn’t they? And there’d be portraits in—”
The chair sneezed. There was an unpleasant moment of morphic uncertainty, and then the Librarian was sprawling in his old shape again. The wizards watched him carefully to see what’d happen next.
It was hard to remember the time when the Librarian had been a human being. Certainly no one could remember what he’d looked like, or even what his name had been.
A magical explosion, always a possibility in somewhere like the Library where so many unstable books of magic are pressed dangerously together, had introduced him to unexpected apehood years before. Since then he’d never looked back, and often hadn’t looked down either. His big hairy shape, swinging by one arm from a top shelf while he rearranged books with his feet, had become a popular one among the whole University body; his devotion to duty had been an example to everyone.
Archchancellor Ridcully, into whose head that last sentence had treacherously arranged itself, realized that he was unconsciously drafting an obituary.
“Anyone called in a doctor?” he said.
“We got Doughnut Jimmy* here this afternoon,” said the Dean. “He tried to take his temperature but I’m afraid the Librarian bit him.”
“He bit him? With a thermometer in his mouth?”
“Ah. Not exactly. There, in fact, you have rather discovered the reason for his biting.”
There was a moment of solemn silence. The Senior Wrangler picked up a limp black-leather paw and patted it vaguely.
“Does that book say if monkeys have pulses?” he said. “Is his nose supposed to be cold, or what?”
There was a little sound, such as might be made by half a dozen people all sharply drawing in their breath at once. The other wizards began to edge away from their Senior Wrangler.
There was, for a few seconds, no other sound but the crackling of the fire and the howl of the wind outside.
The wizards shuffled back.
The Senior Wrangler, in the astonished tones of someone still possessing all known limbs, very slowly took off his pointy hat. This was something a wizard would normally do only in the most somber of circumstances.
“Well, that’s it, then,” he said. “Poor chap’s on his way home. Back to the big desert in the sky.”
“Er, rainforest, possibly,” said Ponder Stibbons.
“Maybe Mrs. Whitlow could make him some hot nourishing soup?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Archchancellor Ridcully thought about the housekeeper’s hot nourishing soup. “Kill or cure, I suppose,” he murmured. He patted the Librarian carefully. “Buck up, old chap,” he said. “Soon have you back on your feet and continuing to make a valued contribution.”
“Knuckles,” said the Dean helpfully.
“Say again?”
“Knuckles, rather than feet.”
“Castors,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“Bad taste,