Discworld 27 - The Last Hero (10 page)

 
 
   
“Really? I make decisions like that every day,” said Lord Vetinari. “Oh.
very well. What are they short of?”
“Air and dragon power, sir.”
“If they chop up the orangutan and feed him to the dragons, won't that
kill two birds with one stone?”
The sudden iciness told Lord Vetinari that once again he hadn't taken his
audience with him. He sighed.
“They need dragon flame to ... ?” he said.
“To bring their ringpath over the Disc, sir. They have to fire the
dragons at the right time.”
Vetinari looked at the magical orrery again. “And now ... ?”
“I'm not quite sure. sir. They may crash into the Disc, or they may shoot
straight out into endless space.”
“And they need air ...”
“Yes, sir.”
Vetinari's arm moved through the outline of the world and a long
forefinger pointed.
“Is there any air here?” he said.
That meal,“ said Cohen, ”was heroic. No other word for it.“
”That's right, Mrs McGarry.“ said Evil Harry. ”Even rat doesn't taste
this much like chicken.“
”Yes, the tentacles hardly spoiled it at all!“ said Caleb
enthusiastically.
They sat and watched the view. What had once been the world below was now
a world in front, rising like an endless wall.
”What're they, right up there?“ said Cohen, pointing.
”Thanks, friend.“ said Evil Harry, looking away. ”I'd like the ...
chicken to stay down, if it's all the same to you.“
”They're the Virgin Islands.“ said the minstrel. ”So called because
there's so many of them.“
”Or maybe they're hard to find.“ said Truckle the Uncivil, burping. ”Hur,
hur, hur.“
”Ye can see the stars from up here,“ said Mad Hamish, ”e'en though 'tis
day.“
Cohen grinned at him. It wasn't often Mad Hamish volunteered anything.
”They say every one of 'em's a world,“ said Evil Harry.
”Yeah,“ said Cohen, ”How many, bard?“
”I don't know. Thousands. Millions,“ said the minstrel.
”Millions of worlds, and we get... what? How old are you, Hamish?“
”Whut? I were born the day the old thane died.“ said Hamish.
”When was that? Which old thane?“ said Cohen patiently.
”Whut? I ain't a scholar! I canna remember that kinda stuff!“
”A hundred years, maybe,“ said Cohen. ”One hundred years. And there's
millions o' worlds.“ He took a pull of his cigarette and rubbed his
forehead with the back of his thumb. ”It's a bugger.“
He nodded at the minstrel. ”What did your mate Carelinus do after he'd
blown his nose?“
”Look, you really shouldn't think of him like that,“ said the minstrel
hotly. ”He built a huge empire ... too big, really. And in many ways he
was a lot like you. Haven't you heard of the Tsortean Knot?“
”Sounds dirty,“ said Truckle. ”Hur, hur, hur ... sorry.“
The minstrel sighed. ”It was a huge, complicated knot that tied two beams
together in the Temple of Offler in Tsort, and it was said that whoever
untied it would reign over the whole of the continent.“ he said.
”They can be very tricky, knots.“ said Mrs McGarry.
”Carelinus sliced right through it with his sword!" said the minstrel.
The revelation of this dramatic gesture did not get the applause he
expected.

 
 
   
“So he was a cheat as well as a cry-baby?” said Boy Willie.
“No! It was a dramatic, nay, portentous gesture!” snapped the minstrel.
“Yeah, okay, but it's not exactly untying it, is it? I mean, if the rules
said ”untying“. I don't see why he should-”
“Nah, nah, the lad's got a point.” said Cohen, who seemed to have been
turning this one over in his mind. “It wasn't cheating, because it was a
good story. Yeah. I can understand that,” He chuckled. “I can just
imagine it, too. A load of whey-faced priests and suchlike standin'
around and thinkin', ”that's cheating but he's got a really big sword so
I won't be the first to point this out, plus this damn great army is just
outside“. Hah. Yeah. Hmm. What did he do next?”
“Conquered most of the known world.”
“Good lad. And after that?”
“He ... er ... went home, reigned for a few years, then he died and his
sons squabbled and there were a few wars .. . and that was the end of the
empire.”
“Children can be a problem,” said Vena, without looking up from carefully
embroidering forget-me-nots around BURN THIS HOUSE.
“Some people say you achieve immortality through your children,” said the
minstrel.
“Yeah?” said Cohen. “Name one of your great-granddads, then.”
“Well... er ...”
“See? Now, I got lots of kids,” said Cohen. “Haven't seen most of 'em ..
. you know how it is. But they had fine strong mothers and I hope like
hell they're all living for themselves, not for me. Fat lot of good they
did your Carelinus, losin' his empire for him.”
“But there's lots more a proper historian could tell you-” said the
minstrel.
“Hah!” said Cohen. “It's what ordin'ry people remember that matters. It's
songs and savin's. It doesn't matter how you live and die, it's how the
bards wrote it down.”
The minstrel felt their joint gaze fix on him.
“Urn ... I'm making lots of notes,” he said.
“Ook,” said the Librarian, by way of explanation.
“And then he says something fell on his head,” Rincewind translated. “It
must have been...”
“Can we throw some of this stuff out of the ship to lighten it?” said
Carrot. “We don't need most of it.”
“Alas, no,” said Leonard. “We will lose all our air if we open the door.”
“But we've got these breathing helmets,” Rincewind pointed out.
“Three helmets,” said Leonard.
The omniscope crackled. They ignored it. The Kite was still passing under
the elephants, and the thing showed mostly a kind of magical snow.
But Rincewind did glance up, and saw that someone in the storm was
holding a card on winch had been scrawled, in large letters: STAND BY.
Ponder shook his head.
“Thank you. Archchancellor, but I'm far too busy for you to help me,” he
said.
“But will it work?”
“It has to, sir. It's a million-to-one chance.”
“Oh, then we don't have to worry. Everyone knows million-to-one chances
always work.”
"Yes, sir. So all I have to do is work out if there's still enough air
outside the ship for Leonard to steer it, or how many dragons he will
need to fire for how long, and if there will be enough power left to get
them off again. I think he's travelling at nearly the right speed, but
I'm not sure how much flame the dragons will have left, and I don't know

 
 
   
what kind of surface he'll land on or anything they'll find there. I can
adapt a few spells, but they were never devised for this sort of thing.“
”Good man.“ said Ridcully.
Is there anything we can do to help?” said the Dean.
Ponder gave the other wizards a desperate look. How would Lord Vetinari
have handled this?
“Why, yes.” he said brightly. “Perhaps you would be kind enough to find a
cabin somewhere and come up with a list of all the various ways I could
solve this? And I will just sit here and toy with a few ideas?”
“That's what I like to see,” said the Dean. “A lad with enough sense to
make use of the wisdom of: his elders.”
Lord Vetinari gave Ponder a faint smile as they left the cabin.
In the sudden silence Ponder ... pondered. He stared at the orrery,
walked around it, enlarged sections of it, peered at them, pored over the
notes he had made about the power of dragon flight, stared at a model of
the Kite, and spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling.
This wasn't the normal way of working for a wizard. A wizard evolved the
wish, and then devised the command. He didn't bother much with observing
the universe: rocks and trees and clouds could not have anything very
intelligent to impart. They didn't even have writing on them, after all.
Ponder looked at the numbers he had scribbled. As a calculation, it was
like balancing a feather on a soap bubble which wasn't there.
So he guessed.
On the Kite, the situation was being “workshopped”. This is the means by
which people who don't know anything get together to pool their
ignorance. “Could we all hold our breath for a quarter of the time?” said
Carrot.
“No. Breath doesn't work like that, alas,” said Leonard.
“Perhaps we should all stop talking?” said Rincewind.
“Ook,” said the Librarian, pointing to the fuzzy screen of the omniscope.
Someone was holding up another placard. The huge words could just be made
out:
THIS IS WHAT YOU DO.
Leonard snatched a pencil and began to scribble in the corner of a
drawing of a machine for undermining city walls.
Five minutes later he put it down again.
“Remarkable,” he said. “He wants us to point the Kite in a different
direction and go faster.”
“Where to?”
“He doesn't say. But... ah, yes. He wants us to fly directly towards the
sun.”
Leonard gave them one of his bright smiles. It faced three blank stares.
“It will mean allowing one or two individual dragons to flare for a few
seconds, to bring us around, and then-”
“The sun,” said Rincewind.
“It's hot; said Carrot.
”Yes, and I am sure we're all very glad of that,“ said Leonard, unrolling
a plan of the Kite.
”Ook!“
”I'm sorry?“
”He said. “And this boat is made of wood!”“ said Rincewind.
”All that in one syllable?“
”He's a very concise thinker! Look. Stibbons must have made a mistake. I
wouldn't trust a wizard to give me directions to the other side of a very
small room!“
”He does seem to be a bright young man, though,“ said Carrot.
”You'll be bright, too, if you're in this thing when it hits the sun,“
said Rincewind. ”Incandescent. I expect."

Discworld 27 - The Last Hero

Discworld 27 - The Last Hero

 
 
   
“We can point the Kite if we're very careful how we operate the port and
starboard mirrors.” said Leonard thoughtfully. “There may be a little
trial and error...”
“Ah, we seem to have the hang of it.” said Leonard. He turned over a
small eggtimer. “And now, all dragons for two minutes ...”
“I ssuppose he'll ttell uss ssoon wwhat happens nnext?” shouted Carrot,
while behind them dungs tinkled and creaked.
“MMr Sstibbonss hhas ttwo ththousand yyears of uuniversity eexpertise
bbehind hhim!” yelled Leonard, above the din.
“Hhow mmuch of ththat hhas iinvolved ssteering fflying sships wwith
ddragons?” screamed Rincewind.
Leonard leaned against the tug of home-made gravity and looked at the
eggtimer.
“Aabout wwwwwone hhundred sseconds!”
“Ah! Iiit'ss ppractically aaa ttradition, tthenn!”
Erratically, the dragons stopped flaming. Once again, things filled the
air.
And there was the sun. But no longer circular. Something had clipped its
edge.
“Ah,” said Leonard. “How clever. Gentlemen, behold: the moon!”
“We're going to hit the moon instead?” said Carrot, “is that better?”
“My feelings exactly.” said Rincewind.
“Ook!”
“I don't think we're going so very fast,” said Leonard. “We're only just
catching it up. I think Mr.Stibbons intends that we land on it.”
He flexed his fingers.
“There's some air there, I'm sure of it.” he went on. “Which means there
is probably something we can feed to the dragons. And then, and this is
very clever thinking, we ride on the moon until it rises over the Disc,
and all we need to do is drop down lightly.”
He kicked the release on the wing levers. The cabin raided to the
spinning of the flywheels. On either side, the Kite spread its wings.
“Any questions?” he said.
“I'm trying to think of all the things that could go wrong,” said Carrot.
“I've got to nine so far.” said Rincewind. “And I haven't started on the
fine detail.”
The moon was getting bigger, a dark sphere eclipsing the light of the
distant sun.
“As I understand it.” said Leonard, as it began to loom in the windows,
“the moon, being much smaller and lighter than the Disc, can only hold on
to light things, like air. Heavier things, like the Kite, should hardly
be able to stay on the ground.”
“And that means ... ?” said Carrot.
“Er .. . we should just float down,” said Leonard. “But holding on to
something might be a good idea ...”
They landed. It's a short sentence, but contains a lot of incident.
There was silence on the boat, apart from the sound of the sea and Ponder
Stibbons's urgent muttering as he tried to adjust the omniscope. “The
screams...” murmured Mustrum Ridcully, after a while. “But then they
screamed a second time, a few seconds later.” said Lord Vetinari. “And a
few seconds after that? said the Dean.
”I thought the omniscope could see anywhere,“ said the Patrician,
watching the sweat pour off Ponder.
”The shards, er, don't seem stable when they're too far apart, sir,“ said
Ponder. ”Uh ... and there's still a couple of thousand miles of world and
elephant between them ... ah ..."
The omniscope flickered, and then went blank again.

 
 
   
“A good wizard, Rincewind.” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “Not
particularly bright, but, frankly, I've never been quite happy with
intelligence. An overrated talent, in my humble opinion.”
Ponder's ears went red.
“Perhaps we should put a small plaque up somewhere in the University,”
said Ridcully. “Nothing garish, of course.”
“Gentlemen, are you forgetting?” said Lord Vetinari. “Soon there will be
no University.”
“Ah. Well, a small saving there, then.”
“Hello? Hello? Is there anyone there?”
And there was. fuzzy but recognisable, a face peering out of the
omniscope.
“Captain Carrot?” Ridcully roared. “How did you get that damn thing to
work?”
“I just stopped sitting on it, sir.”
“Are you all right? We heard screams!” said Ponder.
“That was when we hit the ground, sir?
”But then we heard screams again.“
”That was probably when we hit the ground for the second time, sir?
“And the third time?”
“Ground again, sir. You could say the landing was a bit...tentative...for
a while there.”
Lord Vetinari leaned forward. “Where are you?”
“Here, sir. On the moon. Mr.Stibbons was right. There is air here. It's a
bit thin, but it's fine if your plans for the day include breathing?
”Mr Stibbons was right, was he?“ said Ridcully, staring at Ponder. ”How
did you work that out so exactly. Mr Stibbons?“
”I, er ...“ Ponder felt the eyes of the wizards on him. ”I-“ He stopped.
”It was a lucky guess, sir.“
The wizards relaxed. They were extremely uneasy with cleverness, but
lucky guessing was what being a wizard was all about.
”Well done, that man,“ said Ridcully, nodding. ”Wipe your forehead. Mr
Stibbons. you've got away with it again.“
”I've taken the liberty of asking Rincewind to take a picture of me
planting the flag of Ankh-Morpork and claiming the moon on behalf of all
the nations of the Disc, your lordship. Carrot went on.
“Very ... patriotic,” said Lord Vetinari. “I may even tell them.”
“However. I can't show you this on the omniscope be, cause, shortly
afterwards, something ate the flag. Things here .. . aren't entirely what
you'd expect, sir.”
They were definitely dragons. Rincewind could see that. But they
resembled swamp dragons in the same way that greyhounds resembled those
odd yappy little dogs with lots of Zs and Xs in their name.
They were all nose and sleek body, with longer arms and legs than the
swamp variety, and they were so silvery that they looked like moonlight
hammered into shape.
And ... they flamed. But it was not from the end that Rincewind had
hitherto, associated with dragons.
The strange thing was, as Leonard said, that once yon stopped sniggering
about the whole idea it made a lot of sense. It was so stupid for a
flying creature to have a weapon which stopped it dead in midair, for
example.
Dragons of all sizes surrounded the Kite, watching it with deer-like
curiosity. Occasionally one or two would leap into the air and roar away,
but others would land to join the throng. They stared at the crew of the
Kite as if they were expecting them to do tricks, or make an important
announcement.