Terry Pratchett - The Last Continent

‘The Librarian, Archchancellor.’

‘Then at least he ought to be in the Year Book for the year he graduated.’

‘It’s a very funny thing,’ said the Dean, ‘but a freak accident appears to have happened to every single copy of the Year Book for that year.’

Ridcully noted his wooden expression. ‘Would it be an accident like a particular page being torn out leaving only a lingering bananary aroma?’

‘Lucky guess, Archchancellor.’

Ridcully scratched his chin. ‘A pattern emerges,’ he said.

‘You see, he’s always been dead set against anyone finding out his name,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘He’s afraid we’ll try to turn him back into a human.’ He looked meaningfully at the Dean, who put on an offended expression. ‘ Some people have been going around saying that an ape as Librarian is unsuitable .’

‘I merely expressed the view that it is against the traditions of the University—’ the Dean began.

‘Which consist largely of niggling, big dinners and shouting damnfool things about keys in the middle of the night,’ said Ridcully. ‘So I don’t think we—’

The expressions on the faces of the other wizards made him turn around.

The Librarian had entered the hall. He walked very slowly, because of the amount of clothing he’d put on; the sheer volume of coats and sweaters meant that his arms, instead of being used as extra feet, were sticking out very nearly horizontally on either side of his body. But the most horrifying aspect of the shuffling apparition was the red woolly hat.

It was jolly. It had a bobble on it. It had been knitted by Mrs Whitlow, who was technically an extremely good needlewoman, but if she had a fault it lay in failing to take into account the precise dimensions of the intended recipient. Several wizards had on occasion been presented with one of her creations, which often assumed they had three ankles or a neck two metres across. Most of the things were surreptitiously given away to charitable institutions. You can say this about Ankh-Morpork — no matter how misshapen a garment, there will always be someone somewhere it would fit.

Mrs Whitlow’s mistake here was the assumption that the Librarian, for whom she had considerable respect, would like a red bobble hat with side flaps that tied under his chin. Given that this would technically require that they be tied under his groin, he’d opted to let them flap loose.

He turned a sad face towards the wizards as he stopped outside the Library door. He reached for the handle. He said, in a very weak voice, ‘’k,’ and then sneezed.

The pile of clothing settled. When the wizards pulled it away, they found underneath a very large, thick book bound in hairy red leather.

‘Says Ook on the cover,’ said the Senior Wrangler after a while, in a rather strained voice.

‘Does it say who it’s by?’ said the Dean.

‘Bad taste, that man.’

‘I meant that maybe it’d be his real name.’

‘Can we look inside?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘There may be an index.’

‘Any volunteers to look inside the Librarian?’ said Ridcully. ‘Don’t all shout.’

‘The morphic instability responds to the environment,’ said Ponder. ‘Isn’t that interesting? He’s near the Library, so it turns him into a book. Sort of … protective camouflage, you could say. It’s as if he evolves to fit in with—’

‘Thank you, Mister Stibbons. And is there a point to this?’

‘Well, I assume we can look inside,’ said Ponder. ‘A book is meant to be opened. There’s even a black leather bookmark, see?’

‘Oh, that’s a bookmark , is it?’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, who had been watching it nervously.

Ponder touched the book. It was warm. And it opened easily enough.

Every page was covered with ‘ook’.

‘Good dialogue, but the plot is a little dull.’

‘Dean! I’d be obliged if you’d take this seriously, please!’ said Ridcully. He tapped his foot once or twice. ‘Anyone got any more ideas?’

The wizards stared at one another and shrugged.

‘I suppose …’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

‘Yes, Runes … Arnold, isn’t it?’

‘No, Archchancellor …’

‘Well, out with it anyway.’

‘I suppose … I know this sounds ridiculous, but …’

‘Go on, man. We’re almost all agog.’

‘I suppose there’s always … Rincewind.’

Ridcully stared at him for a moment. ‘Skinny fella? Scruffy beard? Bloody useless wizard? Got that box on legs thingy?’

‘That’s right, Archchancellor. Well done. Er … he was the Deputy Librarian for a while, as I expect you remember.’

‘Not really, but do go on,’ he said.

‘In fact he was here when the Librarian … became the Librarian. And I remember once, when we were watching the Librarian stamping four books all at the same time, he said, “Amazing, really, when you think he was born in Ankh-Morpork.” I’m sure if anyone knows the name of the Librarian it’s Rincewind.’

‘Well, go and fetch him, then! I suppose you do know where he is, do you?’

‘Technically, yes, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder quickly. ‘But we’re not sure quite where the place where he is is , if you follow me.’

Ridcully gave him another stare.

‘You see, we think he’s on EcksEcksEcksEcks, Archchancellor,’ {10} 10 The continent referred to in this quote is Australia (which means that we are talking here about the Wizards of Oz, right?), where there exists a brand of beer called ‘XXXX’ (pronounced ‘Four Ex’), produced by the Castlemaine Tooheys brewery. A New Zealand correspondent tells me that the reason the beer is called ‘XXXX’ is that if it had been called ‘BEER’ the Australians wouldn’t have been able to spell it. Ahem. (The actual origin of the name ‘XXXX’ lies in the number of marks used by Castlemaine to indicate alcoholic strength. Most European beers today are of 4X strength, with some being 3X or even 5X.) said Ponder.

‘EcksEcks—’

‘—EcksEcks, Archchancellor.’

‘I thought no one knew where that place was,’ said Ridcully.

‘ Exactly , Archchancellor,’ said Ponder. Sometimes you had to turn facts in several directions until you found the right way to fit them into Ridcully’s head. [8] Sometimes Ponder thought his skill with Hex was because Hex was very clever and very stupid at the same time. If you wanted it to understand something, you had to break the idea down into bite-sized pieces and make absolutely sure there was no room for any misunderstanding. The quiet hours with Hex were often a picnic after five minutes with the senior wizards.

‘What’s he doing there?’

‘We don’t really know, Archchancellor. If you remember, we believe he ended up there after that Agatean business …’

‘What did he want to go there for?’

‘I don’t think he exactly wanted to,’ said Ponder. ‘Er … we sent him. It was a trivial error in bi-locational thaumaturgy that anyone could make.’

‘But you made it, as I recall,’ said Ridcully, whose memory could spring nasty surprises like that.

‘I am a member of the team, sir,’ said Ponder, pointedly.

‘Well, if he doesn’t want to be there, and we need him here, let’s bring him b—’

The rest of the sentence was drowned out not by a noise but by a sort of bloom of quietness, which rolled over the wizards and was so oppressive and soft that they couldn’t even hear their own heartbeats. Old Tom, the University’s magical and tongueless bell, tolled out 2 a.m. by striking the silences.