The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [45]
There was a huge windmill, squeaking around on top of a metal tower. A sign attached to the tower read: “Dijabringabeeralong: Check your Weapons.”
“Yep, still got all mine, no worries,” said Mad, urging the horses forward.
They crossed a wooden bridge, although Rincewind couldn’t see why anyone had bothered to build it. It seemed a lot of effort just to cross a stretch of dry sand.
“Sand?” said Mad. “That’s the Lassitude River, that is!”
And, indeed, a small boat went past. It was being towed by a camel and was making quite good time on its four wide wheels.
“A boat,” said Rincewind.
“Never seen one before?”
“Not one being pedaled, no,” said Rincewind, as a tiny canoe went past.
“They’d hoist the sail if the wind was right.”
“But…this might sound a strange question…Why is it a boat shape?”
“It’s the shape boats are.”
“Oh, right. I thought it’d be a good reason like that. How did the camels get here?”
“They cling to driftwood, people say. The currents wash a lot of stuff up, down on the coast.”
Dijabringabeeralong was coming into view. It was just as well there had been the sign, otherwise they might have ridden through it without noticing. The architecture was what is known professionally as “vernacular,” a word used in another field to mean “swearing” and this was quite appropriate. But then, Rincewind thought, it’s as hot as hell and it never rains—all you need a house for is to mark some kind of boundary between inside and outside.
“You said this was a big town,” he said.
“It’s got a whole street. And a pub.”
“Oh, that’s a street, is it? And that logpile is a pub?”
“You’ll like it. It’s run by Crocodile.”
“Why do they call him Crocodile?”
A night sleeping on the sand hadn’t helped the Faculty very much. And the Archchancellor didn’t help even more. He was an early morning man as well as being, most unfairly, a late-night man. Sometimes he went from one to the other without sleeping in between.
“Wake up, you fellows! Who’s game for a brisk trot around the island? There’ll be a small prize for the winner, eh?”
“Oh, my gods,” moaned the Dean, rolling over. “He’s doing push-ups.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m advocating a return to the bad old days,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, trying to dislodge some sand from his ear, “but once upon a time we used to kill wizards like him.”
“Yes, but we also used to kill wizards like us, Chair,” said the Dean.
“Remember what we’d say in those days?” said the Senior Wrangler. “‘Never trust a wizard over sixty-five’? Whatever happened?”
“We got past the age of sixty-five, Senior Wrangler.”
“Ah, yes. And it turned out that we were trustworthy after all.”
“Good thing we found out in time, eh?”
“There’s a crab climbing that tree,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who was lying on his back and staring straight upwards. “An actual crab.”
“Yes,” said the Senior Wrangler. “They’re called Tree-climbing Crabs.”
“Why?”
“I had this book when I was a little lad,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “It was about this man who was shipwrecked on an island such as this and he thought he was all alone and then one day he found a footprint in the sand. There was a woodcut,” he added.
“One footprint?” said the Dean, sitting up, clutching his head.
“Well…yes, and when he saw it he knew that he—”
“—was alone on an island with a crazed one-legged long-jump champion?” said the Dean. He was feeling testy.
“Well, obviously he found some other footprints later on…”
“I wish I was on a desert island all alone,” said the Senior Wrangler gloomily, watching Ridcully running on the spot.
“Is it just me,” the Dean asked, “or are we marooned thousands of miles and thousands of years from home?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. Is there any breakfast?”
“Stibbons found some soft-boiled eggs.”
“What a useful young man he is,” the Dean groaned. “Where did he find them?”
“On a tree.”
Bits of last night came back to the Dean.
“A soft-boiled-egg tree?”
“Yes,” said the Senior