The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [22]
The ground shivered underfoot. It had been doing that once or twice a day for a while, and that was another odd thing, because this didn’t look like volcano country. This was the kind of country where, if you watched a large cliff for a few hundred years, you might see a rock drop off and you’d talk about it for ages. Everything about it said that it had got over all the more energetic geological exercises a long time ago and was a nice quiet country which, in other circumstances, a man might be at home in.
He became aware after a while that a kangaroo was watching him from the top of a small rock. He’d seen the things before, bounding away through the bushes. They didn’t usually hang around when there were humans about.
This one was stalking him. They were vegetarian, weren’t they? It wasn’t as though he was wearing green.
Finally it sprang out of the bushes and landed in front of him.
It brushed one ear with a paw, and gave Rincewind a meaningful look.
It brushed the other ear with the other paw, and wrinkled its nose.
“Yes, fine, good,” said Rincewind. He started to edge away, and then stopped. After all, it was just a big…well, rabbit, with a long tail and the kind of feet you normally see associated with red noses and baggy pants.
“I’m not frightened of you,” he said. “Why should I be frightened of you?”
“Well,” said the kangaroo, “I could kick your stomach out through your neck.”
“Ah. You can talk?”
“You’re a quick one,” said the kangaroo. It rubbed an ear again.
“Something wrong?” said Rincewind.
“No, that’s the kangaroo language. I’m trying it out.”
“What, one scratch for ‘yes,’ one for ‘no’? That sort of thing?”
The kangaroo scratched an ear, and then remembered itself. “Yep,” it said. It wrinkled its nose.
“And that wrinkling?” said Rincewind.
“Oh, that means ‘Come quick, someone’s fallen down a deep hole,’” said the kangaroo.
“That one gets used a lot?”
“You’d be amazed.”
“And…what’s kangaroo for ‘You are needed for a quest of the utmost importance’?” said Rincewind, with guileful innocence.
“You know, it’s funny you should ask that—”
The sandals barely moved. Rincewind rose from them like a man leaving the starting blocks, and when he landed his feet were already making running movements in the air.
After a while the kangaroo came alongside and accompanied him in a series of easy bounds.
“Why are you running away without even listening to what I have to say?”
“I’ve had long experience of being me,” panted Rincewind. “I know what’s going to happen. I’m going to be dragged into things that shouldn’t concern me. And you’re just a hallucination caused by rich food on an empty stomach, so don’t you try to stop me!”
“Stop you?” said the kangaroo. “When you’re heading in the right direction?”
Rincewind tried to slow down, but his method of running was very efficiently based on the idea that stopping was the last thing he’d do. Legs still moving, he ran out over the empty air and plunged into the void.
The kangaroo looked down and, with a certain amount of satisfaction, wrinkled its nose.
“Archchancellor!”
Ridcully awoke, and sat up. The Lecturer in Recent Runes was hurrying up, out of breath.
“The Bursar and I went for a walk along the beach,” he said. “And can you guess where we ended up?”
“In Kiddling Street, Quirm,” said Ridcully tartly, brushing an exploring beetle off his beard. “That little bit by the teashop, with the trees in it.”
“That’s astonishing, Archchancellor. Because, you know, in fact, we didn’t. We wound up back here. We’re on a tiny island. Were you having a rest?”
“A few moments’ cogitating,” said Ridcully. “Any idea where we are yet, Mister Stibbons?”
Ponder looked up from his notebook. “I won’t be able to work that out precisely until sundown, sir. But I think we’re pretty close to the Rim.”
“And I think we found where the Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography has been camping,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He rummaged in a deep pocket. “There was a camp, and a fireplace. Bamboo furniture and whatnot. Socks on a washing line. And this.