The Last Continent

The Senior Wrangler picked up a knobbly bluish nut about the size of a fist and tapped it experimentally. It shattered but was held together because of the gooey contents.

The smell was very familiar. A careful taste confirmed it. The wizards regarded the nut's innards in shocked silence.

'It's even got the blue veins,' said the Senior Wrangler.

'Yes, we know, we tried one,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies weakly. 'And, after all, there is such a thing as a bread fruit—'

'I've heard of it,' said Ridcully. 'And I might believe there's such a thing as a nat'rally chocolate-covered coconut, because chocolate's a kind of potato—'

'A bean, possibly,' said Ponder Stibbons.

'Whatever. But I damn well don't believe there's such a thing as a mature Lancre Blue runny cheese nut!' He prodded the thing.

'But nature does come up with some very funny coincidences, Archchancellor,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Why, I myself, as a child, once dug up a carrot which, ahaha, most amusingly looked just like a man with a—'

'Er...' said the Dean.

It was only a little sound, but it had a certain portentous quality. They turned to look at him.

He'd been peeling away the yellowing husk from something like a small bean pod. What he now held—

'Hah, yes, good joke,' said Ridcully. 'They certainly don't grow on—'

'I didn't do anything! Look, it's still got bits of pith and stuff on it!' said the Dean, waving the thing wildly.

Ridcully took it, sniffed it, held it up to his ear and shook it, and then said quietly: 'Show me where you found it, will you?'

The bush was in a small clearing. Dozens of the little green shoots hung down between its tiny leaves. Each was tipped by a flower, but the flowers were curling up and falling off. The crop was ripe.

Multi-coloured beetles zoomed away from the bush as the Dean selected a pod and peeled it open, revealing a slightly damp white cylinder. He examined it for a few seconds, then put one end in his mouth, took a box of matches from a pocket in his hat, and lit up.

'Quite a smooth smoke,' he said. His hand shook slightly as he took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew a smoke ring. 'Cork filter, too,' he said.

'Er... well, both tobacco and cork are naturally occurring vegetable products,' quavered the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

'Chair?' said Ridcully.

'Yes, Archchancellor?'

'Shut up, will you?'

'Yes, Archchancellor.'

Ponder Stibbons broke open a cork tip. There was a tiny ring of what well might have been—

'Seeds,' he said. 'But that can't be right, because—'

The Dean, wreathed in blue smoke, had been staring at the nearby vines.

'Has it occurred to anyone else that those pods are remarkably rectangular?' he said.

'Go for it, Dean,' said Ridcully.

A brown outer husk was pulled aside.

'Ah,' said the Dean. 'Biscuits. Just the thing with cheese.'

'Er...' said Ponder. He pointed.

Just beyond the bush a couple of boots lay on the ground.

Rincewind ran his fingers over the cave wall.

The ground shook again.

'What's causing that?' he said.

'Oh, some people say it's an earthquake, some say it's the country drying up, others say it's a giant snake rushing through the ground,' said Scrappy.

'Which is it?'

The wrong sort of question.'

They definitely looked like wizards, thought Rincewind. They had that basic cone shape familiar to anyone who had been to Unseen University. They were holding staffs. Even with the crude materials available to them the ancient artists had managed to portray the knobs on the ends.

But UU hadn't even existed thirty thousand years ago...

Then he noticed, for the first time, the drawing right at the end of the cave. There were a lot of the ochre handprints on top of it, almost – and the thought expanded in his mind in a sneaky way -as though someone had thought that they could hold it down on to the rock, prevent it – this was a silly thought, he knew – prevent it from getting out.

He brushed away some dust.

'Oh, no,' he mumbled.

It was an oblong box. The artist hadn't got the hang of conventional perspective, but there was no doubt that he'd tried to paint hundreds of little legs.

'That's my Luggage!'

'Always the same, right?' said Scrappy, behind him. 'You arrive okay and your luggage ends up somewhere else.'

Thousands of years in the past?'

'Could be a valuable antique.'

'It's got my clothes in it!'

'They'll probably be back in style, then.'

'You don't understand! It's a magical box! It's supposed to end up where I am!'

'It probably is where you are. Just not when.'

'What? Oh.'

'I told you time and space were all stirred up, didn't I? You wait till you're on your journey. There's places where there's several times happening at once and places where there's hardly any time at all, and times when there's hardly any place. You've got to sort it out, right?'

'What, like shuffling cards?' said Rincewind. He made a mental note about 'on your journey'.

'Yep.'

That's impossible!'