The Last Continent

'So?' said the Dean. 'We're in for a bit of a blow?' The grey line filled the immediate future like a dental appointment.

'I think it might be a lot worse,' said Ponder.

'Well, let's steer somewhere else, then.'

'There's no rudder, sir. And we don't know where anywhere else is. And we're low on water anyway.'

'Don't they say that a big bank of cloud means there's land ahead?' said the Dean.

'Bloody big land, then. EcksEcksEcksEcks, do you think?'

'I hope so, sir.' Above Ponder, the sail flapped and billowed. 'Wind's freshening, sir. I think the storm's sucking the air towards it. And... there's something else, I think. I wish I hadn't left my thaumometer on the beach, sir, because I think there's a very high level of background magic in this area.'

'What makes you say this, boy?' said the Dean.

'Well, for one thing everyone seems to be getting a bit tense, and wizards tend to get stro— to get touchy in the presence of large amounts of magic,' said Ponder. 'But my suspicions were first aroused when the Bursar developed planets.'

There were two of them, orbiting his head at a height of a few inches. As was so often the case with magical phenomena, they possessed virtual unreality and passed unscathed through him and one another. They were slightly transparent.

'Oh dear, Mugroop's Syndrome,' said Ridcully. 'Cerebral manifestation. Better than a canary down a coalmine, a sign like that.'

A little sub-routine in Ponder's head began a short countdown.

'Remember old "Dicky" Bird?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'He—'

'Three! No, I don't, as a matter of fact. Do tell!' Ponder heard himself bark, louder than he would have done even if he had meant to vocalize his thoughts.

'Indeed I shall, Mister Stibbons,' said the Chair calmly. 'He was very susceptible to high magical fields, and if his mind wandered, as it might do when he was dozing off, sometimes around his head there'd be, hehehe, there'd be these little—'

'Yes, certainly,' said Ponder, quickly. 'We'll have to be very careful to keep an eye open for unusual behaviour.'

'Among wizards?' said Ridcully. 'Mister Stibbons, unusual behaviour is perfectly ordinary for wizards.'

'People acting out of character, then!' Ponder shouted. Talking sense for two minutes together, perhaps! Acting like normal civilized people instead of a herd of self-regarding village idiots!'

'Stibbons, it's not like you to take that tone,' said Ridcully.

'That's what I mean!'

'Now then, Mustrum, go easy on him, we're all under a lot of stress,' said the Dean.

'Now he's doing it!' Ponder yelled, pointing a shaking finger. The Dean is normally never nice! Now he's being aggressively reasonable!'

Historians have pointed out that it is in times of plenty that people feel like going to war. In times of famine they're simply trying to find enough to eat. When they've just enough to go round they tend to be polite. But when a banquet is spread before them, it's time to argue over the place settings.

And Unseen University, as even wizards realized at somewhere just below the top level of their minds, existed not to further magic but, in a very creative way, to suppress it. The world had seen what happened when wizards got their hands on enormous amounts of magical power. It had happened a long time ago and there were still some areas where you didn't go, if you wanted to walk out on the same kind of feet that you'd had when you went in.

Once upon a time the plural of 'wizard' was 'war'.

But the great, open ingenious purpose of UU was to be the weight on the arm of magic, causing it to swing with grave majesty like a pendulum rather than spin with deadly purpose like a morn-ingstar. Instead of hurling fireballs at one another from fortified towers the wizards learned to snipe at their colleagues over the interpretation of Faculty Council minutes, and long ago were amazed to find that they got just as much vicious fun out of it. They consumed big dinners, and after a really good meal and a fine cigar even the most rabid Dark Lord is inclined to put his feet up and feel amicable towards the world, especially if it's offering him another brandy. And slowly, and by degrees, they absorbed the most important magical power of all, which is the one that persuades you to stop using all the others.

The trouble is that it's easy to abstain from sweets when you're not standing knee deep in treacle and it's raining sugar.

There does indeed seem to be a certain... tang in the air,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. Magic tastes like tin.

'Hold on a moment,' said Ridcully. He reached up, pulled open one of the many drawers in his wizarding hat, and removed a cube of greenish glass.

'Here we are,' he said, handing it to Ponder.

Ponder took the thaumometer and peered into it.

'Never used it myself,' Ridcully said. 'Wetting a finger and holding it up has always been good enough for me.'

'It's not working!' said Ponder, tapping the thaumometer as the ship rocked under them. The needle's... Oow!'