The Last Continent
Chapters - Terry Pratchett
Section: The Librarian Falls Ill
At Unseen University, snow blankets the grounds as the bledlows perform the ancient Ceremony of the Keys. The Bursar complains about the noise while The Librarian lies gravely ill in the sanatorium, shifting uncontrollably between forms due to a magical flu attacking his morphic field. The wizards - including the Dean, the Senior Wrangler, the Lecturer in Recent Runes, the Chair of Indefinite Studies, and Rincewind's former colleague Ponder Stibbons - gather to discuss the crisis.
Meanwhile, far away on the scorching continent of EcksEcksEcksEcks, Rincewind digs for grubs in the red desert, surviving by sheer luck. Underground, an opal miner named Strewth discovers something extraordinary - a hollow opal shell containing a living creature. Back at UU, Ponder explains his work on the invisible writings using the University's thinking engine Hex, and how Ridcully has been reading management books found in L-space, causing havoc with his attempts at dynamic leadership.
The wizards realise they cannot cure the Librarian with magic without knowing his true name, which he has systematically erased from all records. The Lecturer in Recent Runes recalls that Rincewind, as former Deputy Librarian, might know it - but Rincewind is stranded on the mysterious continent of XXXX.
On page: The Bursar, The Librarian, Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, Rincewind, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Librarian·Mentioned: Mrs Whitlow, Hex
Section: Through The Bathroom Window
Death contemplates Rincewind's bizarre lifetimer, a twisting glass impossibility that defies prediction. The Death of Rats tries to attack the image of Rincewind but Death stops him, citing the rules. Death summons Albert, who recalls the continent as 'Terror Incognita' - impossibly hot, dry, and surrounded by a permanent anti-cyclone that prevents rain.
At UU, Ridcully leads the wizards through the labyrinthine corridors to find the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, whose study is crammed with rocks, bones, fishing nets and coconuts. The Professor appears to be having an extended bath, but when Ridcully opens the bathroom door, beyond the window lies not the University grounds but a tropical beach with warm breezes and blue sky.
Out in the desert, Rincewind crafts makeshift sandals and keeps a journal documenting his miserable survival. He keeps falling into waterholes by apparent coincidence, and something watches him from the water. The waterhole erupts with mysterious light that travels along ancient lines across the land, illuminating rock paintings that appear and fade. The continent itself seems to be watching him, guiding him.
On page: Death, The Death of Rats, Albert, Rincewind, Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Bursar·Mentioned: The Librarian
Section: Scrappy The Talking Kangaroo
An unseen voice chants near Rincewind, causing the landscape to spin around him. The old creator of the continent works in an otherworldly desert, sending a trickster bird to guide Rincewind on his quest. Meanwhile, the wizards from UU climb through the Geography Professor's bathroom window on to the tropical island, where The Librarian stabilises briefly in the sunlight.
Rincewind discovers food appearing impossibly in the desert - chocolate sponge cakes beneath rocks, chicken sandwiches under stones. A talking kangaroo called Scrappy appears and reveals itself as Rincewind's guide, explaining that the continent has been keeping him alive by steering him into waterholes. In a collapsed cave, Rincewind finds rock paintings depicting figures in pointy hats - wizards.
On the island, Ridcully fishes while the wizards explore. Mrs Whitlow, the University housekeeper, climbs through the window bringing food. The Senior Wrangler is visibly smitten. When Mrs Whitlow moves the stick propping open the window, the portal back to UU vanishes, stranding them all on the island.
On page: Rincewind, Scrappy, Mustrum Ridcully, The Librarian, Mrs Whitlow, Ponder Stibbons, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Bursar, The Librarian
Section: The Jigsaw Piece
Scrappy the kangaroo explains to Rincewind that this continent was the last to be created, that something went wrong during its making, and that Rincewind's arrival caused a disruption in history itself - not future history, but history that has already happened. The land needs to be 'wound into the world' like a final jigsaw piece, and the rock paintings of pointy-hatted figures somehow connect to the solution.
On the island, the wizards discover extraordinary food growing naturally - coconuts filled with dairy milk chocolate, nuts containing blue-veined cheese, bread-fruit that is literally bread. Ponder Stibbons notes the impossibility: every tree and plant is unique, with no two alike, and they seem designed for human consumption despite there being no humans to eat them. The wizards begin planning to build a boat, with predictably poor results.
The Dean and Senior Wrangler attempt boat construction while Mrs Whitlow settles into island life, much to the Senior Wrangler's distraction. The Bursar wanders about in his usual state of benign disconnection.
On page: Rincewind, Scrappy, Ponder Stibbons, Mustrum Ridcully, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, Mrs Whitlow, The Bursar
Section: Mad's Armoured Cart
Ponder struggles to explain the concept of evolution and natural selection to Ridcully, who is deeply uncomfortable learning that trees reproduce sexually and that eating fruit might be helping plants. Ridcully prefers his own theory of evolution - that lemmings plunging off cliffs should simply decide to grow wings immediately. A massive reptilian creature, essentially a dinosaur, emerges from the island's small jungle and charges towards Mrs Whitlow. Before the wizards can fire their spells, the creature is bizarrely compressed, folded and shrunk into a large chicken by some unseen force.
Meanwhile, Rincewind reaches a road in the desert and is nearly run down by an armoured cart driven by Mad, a heavily armed dwarf. Rincewind is conscripted to help fight off road gangs - bandits who attack carts for cargo. Mad's cart is a rolling fortress pulled by eight armoured horses, equipped with a periscope and supercharger (nosebags of high-energy oats). A wild chase ensues through the desert, with Rincewind clinging to the roof as road warriors attack.
On page: Rincewind, Ponder Stibbons, Mustrum Ridcully, Mrs Whitlow, Mad, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Bursar
Section: Crocodile Crocodile's Pub
Rincewind and Mad reach a small outback settlement with a pub. Rincewind encounters Crocodile Crocodile, the barman, who is actually a crocodile standing upright and wearing an apron. The locals are remarkably accepting of a crocodile running a pub. Rincewind drunkenly bets five hundred squids he does not have that he can shear a sheep faster than anyone, and receives the distinctive Ecksian hat with corks dangling from the brim to ward off flies.
On the island, Ponder studies the unfamiliar stars and realises with horror that they have not merely moved through space but have travelled backwards in time by thousands of years. The wizards accept this with surprising equanimity - 'Bound to happen eventually.' Ponder desperately tries to explain the grandfather paradox and the danger of altering the past, but Ridcully cheerfully dismantles every metaphor with his own aggressive brand of logic, ultimately concluding that since he exists, he cannot have trodden on any important ants.
The Luggage, meanwhile, is lost and confused, its temporal sense scrambled. It wanders along a dusty track and is picked up by a brightly coloured cart labelled 'Petunia, The Desert Princess' and filled with ladies' shoes.
On page: Rincewind, Crocodile Crocodile, Ponder Stibbons, Mustrum Ridcully, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Luggage·Mentioned: Mad
Section: Rincewind Shears A Sheep
Scrappy shows Rincewind his skills with a scorpion, but the God of Evolution - an unseen presence on the island - watches the wizards' boat-building efforts with bewildered interest. The Bursar stumbles upon a fully formed green boat floating in the lagoon, complete with a bare naked green figurehead. The god, who created it accidentally, is mortified about the figurehead.
Mrs Whitlow emerges from her hut in a self-made bathing costume - a substantial two-piece affair that nonetheless reduces the Senior Wrangler to gibbering ('Mwaaa'). The wizards are thoroughly distracted from their boat-building efforts.
Rincewind arrives at the shearing shed, where Daggy the gang boss forces him to make good on his drunken bet. Rincewind's approach to shearing involves a chair, two mirrors, a towel, a comb, and chatting about holidays and the weather - essentially giving the sheep a haircut rather than a shearing. The horrified shearers watch as he shows the sheep the back of its head in the mirror. Despite the unorthodox method, the local attitude is grudging respect for sheer audacity.
On page: Rincewind, Scrappy, The Bursar, The Dean, The Senior Wrangler, Mrs Whitlow, Mustrum Ridcully, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, Daggy, The God of Evolution
Section: Snowy The Wonder Horse
Rincewind is drafted into a horse-mustering operation. He ends up on a small, wiry horse called Snowy, who turns out to be supernaturally capable - galloping down near-vertical cliff faces, running along the underside of overhangs in defiance of gravity, and crossing chasms on fallen tree trunks. Rincewind, helplessly tangled on the horse's back, accidentally rounds up an entire wild herd single-handedly. The horsemen, led by Remorse, are deeply impressed and buy Snowy for two hundred squids, giving Rincewind money and directions to Bugarup.
On the island, the wizards encounter the God of Evolution, a gentle, eccentric deity obsessed with perfecting the designs of creatures. His cave is full of half-finished prototypes - improved beetles, experimental mammals, and failed designs. He's working through evolution methodically but has been struggling with the concept of sex, which he's heard about but doesn't understand. Mrs Whitlow arrives, and the god becomes intensely curious about the difference between male and female. When the wizards prove too embarrassed to explain reproduction, Mrs Whitlow pragmatically takes the god aside and explains with hand gestures.
On page: Rincewind, The God of Evolution, Mrs Whitlow, Ponder Stibbons, Mustrum Ridcully, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Chair of Indefinite Studies
Section: The God Of Evolution
Rincewind reaches the city of Bugarup, a rough and ready metropolis with a harbour. He is arrested for sheep theft after being caught up in a misunderstanding, thrown into a cell with the sheep as evidence, and sentenced to hang in the morning. Bugarup is civilisation, of a kind - stone buildings, watchmen, taverns, an opera house.
On the island, the God of Evolution enthusiastically embraces the concept of sexual reproduction and begins redesigning all his creatures accordingly. Ponder watches with growing unease as the god's evolutionary experiments accelerate. The wizards discover that the island is saturated with an extraordinary amount of ambient magic. Their behaviour begins to shift subtly under its influence - the Dean becoming uncharacteristically reasonable, Ponder losing his temper. A thaumometer melts from the sheer magical intensity. Ridcully realises this is the fossil magic being used to create the last continent.
The god creates a green boat for the wizards to use, and they set sail towards the mainland, leaving Ponder behind. Ponder has a disturbing final encounter with the god's work - a cockroach that stirs to life - and swims desperately after the ship.
On page: Rincewind, The God of Evolution, Ponder Stibbons, Mustrum Ridcully, The Senior Wrangler, The Dean, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, Mrs Whitlow, The Librarian, The Bursar
Section: Inventing The Peach Nellie
Rincewind escapes from gaol in Bugarup and encounters the local version of Dibbler, selling souvenir rope and broadsheet ballads about the notorious outlaw they're about to hang - who happens to be Rincewind himself. Rincewind has become an accidental folk hero; the Ecksians admire a good escape more than they condemn a crime.
He falls in with three performers - Neilette, Letitia, and Darleen - who are actually men in elaborate drag, performers heading to the Bugarup Opera House. They take Rincewind under their wing, lending him a sequinned dress as a disguise while the Watch searches for him. Rincewind also reunites with The Luggage, which has been travelling with the performers, filled with ladies' shoes.
At the Opera House, Rincewind meets the cooks Charley and Ron, who are desperate for a new dessert to name after the opera's star soprano, Dame Nellie Butt. Rincewind helps invent the Peach Nellie - a dessert of peaches, meringue and cream. The kitchen sequence is a comedy of culinary improvisation.
On page: Rincewind, Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, Neilette, The Luggage
Section: The Storm Wall
On the green boat, the wizards sail towards the last continent. The high magical field causes temporal disturbances - the Dean splits into two temporal copies of himself, the Senior Wrangler vanishes entirely, and Ridcully is temporarily reduced to a six-year-old, demanding sweeties and his stuffed toy Mr Pootle. Ponder ages rapidly into an old man before the effects stabilise.
The Librarian's morphic instability proves useful when he transforms into a red-haired dolphin to fight off sharks threatening Mrs Whitlow, who has jumped overboard and is swimming for shore. The boat hits the storm wall surrounding the continent and is destroyed, but the wizards survive by clinging to large flat seeds that act as surfboards. A massive wave carries them to shore on what will become the coast of XXXX, in the deep past.
They arrive on a barren, unfinished landmass - no plants, no animals, just bare rock saturated with creative magic. The wizards discover their powers are enormously amplified, with casual gestures producing devastating fireballs. Ponder warns them not to use the fossil magic, as it's the raw material being used to build the continent.
On page: Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, The Dean, The Senior Wrangler, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, Mrs Whitlow, The Librarian, The Bursar, The Librarian
Section: Bugarup University
In Bugarup, Rincewind discovers that the country's entire water supply is failing. Waterholes are drying up, wells are running empty, and the land is dying of thirst. The continent's magical systems are breaking down. Scrappy the kangaroo reappears in various forms - on beer posters, as advertising signs - urging Rincewind onwards.
Rincewind learns about Bugarup University (BU), the local centre of magical learning, built of corrugated iron with the motto 'Nullus Anxietas' (No Worries). He finds his way to BU through a loose iron sheet, the local equivalent of the removable brick. The Ecksian wizards are a rough but recognisable breed, led by Archchancellor Bill Rincewind - a distant relative.
The crisis deepens as all water sources fail simultaneously across the continent. The Ecksian wizards believe Rincewind, as a foreign wizard with knowledge of the old country, might be able to help. The ground trembles constantly, and drawings appear and disappear on rock surfaces. The old creator of the continent is running out of options.
Section: The Old Painter
In the deep past, The Bursar wanders away from the other wizards and encounters the old creator - the aboriginal painter who creates things by drawing them on rock. As the Bursar watches in his pharmaceutically-enhanced state of perception, the painter draws a kangaroo into existence with ochre and charcoal. The other wizards find the painter and, with characteristic insensitivity, the Dean takes the artist's stick and attempts to draw a duck on the rock.
The wizards' attempts at drawing are comically terrible - the duck ends up with three legs, the wrong beak placement, and debatable species identity. But their scratchy, awful drawing has real consequences in this place of raw creation. Behind the Dean, a snake wriggles into existence from his earlier drawing. The painter watches with a mixture of fascination and horror as the wizards inadvertently create life forms through their incompetent art.
Rincewind, in the present, reaches BU and discovers it has a corrugated-iron version of everything UU has. The Ecksian wizards are pragmatic and hard-drinking, and they recognise Rincewind as the key to solving the water crisis.
On page: The Bursar, The Dean, The Senior Wrangler, The Chair of Indefinite Studies, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, Mustrum Ridcully, Ponder Stibbons, Rincewind
Section: Into The Drying Caves
Rincewind is led into caves beneath Bugarup University by the Ecksian wizards. The caverns are vast, impossibly old despite apparently having appeared recently - an example of the continent's elastic relationship with time. Stalactites and stalagmites crowd the passages, lit by glowing rock.
Rincewind is kept in a delicate state of inebriation on local beer (Funnelweb) to maintain his courage - sober enough to function, drunk enough that even Dibbler's meat pies sound appetising. The Ecksian Archchancellor monitors this narrow window carefully. The Luggage follows faithfully.
Deep underground, they find an enormous central cave dominated by a massive stalactite almost touching its corresponding stalagmite, with the last drops of water trickling between them and evaporating in the heat. This is the heart of the continent's crisis - the water is literally running out at the source. The ground trembles constantly. Rincewind realises the rock formation is inevitably pointy, like a wizard's hat, and understands what he must do.
On page: Rincewind, The Luggage, Neilette·Mentioned: The Dean
Section: Rincewind Paints The Wizards
Rincewind asks for paint. Supplied with whitewash, red paint, and something that might be black paint or tar oil, he begins painting on the cave rock. Though normally terrible at art, the beer and the unique creative magic of the place guide his hand. He paints an impression of wizards - not a realistic depiction but something that captures their essence, the way the aboriginal art captures the inside and outside of things simultaneously.
As he paints, the images seem to come alive, almost stepping out of the stone. The past and present begin to converge - Ponder Stibbons, Ridcully, the Dean, and the other UU wizards, who have been stranded thousands of years in the past, are drawn through the rock painting into the present. The two groups of wizards collide in confusion in the cave - two Archchancellors, two Deans, The Librarian in kangaroo form.
The cave begins collapsing as the continent rejects these temporal anomalies. Everyone runs for the exit, including The Luggage. A meat pie floater hits Rincewind in the mouth during the geological expulsion. The two groups of wizards emerge into the Bugarup University cellar.
On page: Rincewind, Ponder Stibbons, Mustrum Ridcully, The Librarian, The Luggage, The Dean, Mrs Whitlow, The Librarian
Section: And Then It Rains
The UU wizards and the Ecksian wizards sit around a table in Bugarup University, coming to terms with having been inside a rock for thousands of years while only minutes passed outside. Ridcully and Archchancellor Bill Rincewind engage in polite academic one-upmanship.
Meanwhile, on the surface, Rincewind's cave painting has completed the circuit. The continent's creation is finally resolved - the 'jigsaw piece' has been turned and fitted into place. A tower built by the Ecksian wizards to try to call rain explodes in a shower of magic and corrugated iron as the continent's systems reset. The Librarian, briefly turned into a red stalactite and then a kangaroo, emerges from the wreckage with Rincewind.
And then it rains. The anti-cyclone breaks and the rain comes - not gentle rain but torrential, continent-drenching, waterhole-filling, creek-bed-flooding rain. The drought that has plagued XXXX since its imperfect creation finally ends. The water transforms the red land, filling estuaries, creating lakes, feeding mangroves. It goes on raining for days.
On page: Rincewind, Mustrum Ridcully, The Librarian, Ponder Stibbons, The Librarian
Section: Sailing Home From Bugarup
Days later, a ship is loaded in the rain-soaked harbour of Bugarup. Ridcully plans the voyage home via NoThingfjord. Mrs Whitlow gets the stateroom while the wizards are consigned to the bilges. The Librarian, restored to his proper orang-utan form by lightning during the tower explosion, is lively again in the hold, which is packed with opals, beer, sheep, wool and bananas.
Rincewind sits on The Luggage at the dock, saying goodbye. Young Ecksians prepare to travel the world. Neilette, Letitia, and Darleen come to say farewell - they plan to reopen a brewery together. The cooks Charley and Ron report that the Peach Nellie was a triumph, and a new soprano named Germaine Trifle has joined the opera. The gaoler brings Rincewind an official pardon and a gift of the rope they were going to hang him with. Bill Rincewind offers him a position at BU, but Rincewind declines.
In the final scene, far inland, the old creator catches a falling bullroarer from the sky and hurls a painted boomerang upwards. It lodges in the heavens and becomes a rainbow - the first the continent has ever seen. A small boy watches from a tree and speaks a word that has been preserved for thousands of years for this moment: the word for the smell after rain.
On page: Rincewind, Mustrum Ridcully, Mrs Whitlow, The Librarian, Ponder Stibbons, The Senior Wrangler, Neilette, The Luggage, The Dean, The Lecturer in Recent Runes, The Librarian·Mentioned: Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler