Unseen Academicals (26 page)

‘Only the collectors get so annoyed if there is a speck of dust on them and I give mine to the butler’s little boy,’ Henry went on blithely. He turned the pasteboard over and frowned. ‘Notable Wizards of our
Time, No. 9 of 50: Dr Able Baker, BC (Hons), Fdl, Kp, PdF (escrow), Director of Blit Studies, Brazeneck. I’m sure he’s already got this one.’ He dropped it into a waistcoat pocket. ‘Never mind, good for swapsies.’

Ridcully could assess things quite fast, especially when fuelled by banked fires of rage.

‘The Wizla tobacco, snuff and rolling paper company,’ he said, ‘of Pseudopolis. Hmm, clever idea. Who’s in this from UU?’

‘Ah. Well, I have to admit that the Assembly and people of Pseudopolis are rather…patriotic in their outlook—’

‘I think the word is “parochial”, don’t you?’

‘Harsh words, considering that Ankh-Morpork’s the smuggest, most self-satisfied city in the world.’ This was self-evidently true, so Ridcully decided he hadn’t heard it.

‘You on one of these cards, then?’ he grunted.

‘They insisted, I’m afraid,’ said Henry. ‘I was born there, you see. Local boy and all that.’

‘And no one from UU,’ said Ridcully flatly.

‘Technically no, but Professor Turnipseed is in there as the inventor of Pex.’ As Henry said it, guilt and defiance fought for space in the sentence.

‘Pex?’ said Ridcully slowly. ‘You mean like Hex?’

‘Oh, no, not at all like Hex. Certainly not. The principle is quite different.’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘It’s run by chickens. They trigger the morphic resonator, or whatever it’s called. Your Hex, as I recall, utilizes ants, which are far less efficient.’

‘How so?’

‘We get eggs we can eat.’

‘That doesn’t sound all that different, you know.’

‘Oh, come now. They are hundreds of times bigger! And Pex is in a purpose-built room, not strung haphazardly all over the place. Professor Turnipseed knows what he is doing, and even you, Mustrum, must acknowledge that the river of progress is fed by a thousand springs!’

‘And they didn’t all rise in bloody Brazeneck!’ said Ridcully.

They glared at one another. Professor Turnipseed poked his head around the corner and pulled it back very quickly.

‘If we were the men our fathers were, we’d be throwing fireballs by now,’ said Henry.

‘The point is taken,’ said Ridcully. ‘Although, I must point out, our fathers were not wizards.’

‘That’s right, of course,’ said the former Dean. ‘Your father was a butcher, as I recall.’

‘That’s right. And your father owned a lot of cabbage fields,’ said Ridcully.

There was a moment’s silence and then the former Dean said, ‘Remember the day we both turned up at UU?’

‘We fought like tigers as I recall,’ said Ridcully.

‘Good times, when you come to remember them,’ said the Dean.

‘Of course, we’ve all passed a lot of water over the bridge since then,’ said Ridcully. There was another pause and he added, ‘Fancy a drink?’

‘I don’t mind if I do,’ said the former Dean.

‘So you are trying to play football?’ said Henry as they progressed majestically towards the Archchancellor’s office. ‘I did see something about it in the paper, but I thought it was a joke.’

‘Why, pray?’ said Ridcully as they began to walk across the Great Hall. ‘We have a fine sporting tradition, as well you know!’

‘Ah yes, tradition is the scourge of endeavour. Be sensible, Mustrum. The leopard may change his shorts, but I think he’d have a job getting into the ones he wore forty years ago. Oh, I see that you still have Mister Stibbons here?’

‘Er…’ began Ponder, looking from one to the other.

Ponder Stibbons had once got one hundred per cent in a prescience exam by getting there the previous day. He could see a little storm cloud when it was beginning to grow.

‘How’s the football going, lad?’

‘Oh, it seems to be going very well, Archchancellor. Good to see you again, Dean.’

‘Archchancellor,’ purred the former Dean. ‘I wonder how good you would be against
my
university.’

‘Well, we have a pretty nifty team built here,’ said Ridcully, ‘and, while it is our intention to play our first game against a local side, I would take great pleasure in showing Brazeneck a thing or two on the field.’ By now they were almost in the middle of the Great Hall and their presence, not unexpectedly, had stopped play.

‘Archchancellor, I really feel that it might be a good idea to—’ Ponder began, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of approval that rang out from all sides around the Great Hall.

‘And the prize would be?’ said Henry, smiling at the crowd.

‘What?’ spluttered the Archchancellor. ‘What prize?’

‘We picked up a few rowing trophies when we were lads, didn’t we?’

‘I believe the Patrician has got something planned for the league, yes.’

‘I think that refreshments will be laid out in the Blue refectory shortly,’ said Ponder with a kind of desperate, sweaty cheerfulness. ‘There will, of course, be cake, but also, I believe, an interesting assortment of curries.’

On many occasions this might have worked, but the two senior wizards had locked glares and would not so much as blink, even for a slice of Ploughman’s Pie.

‘But we men of craft are not interested in such paltry baubles as cups and medals, are we?’ said Henry. ‘For us it’s huge great big baubles or nothing, is that not right, Mustrum?’

‘You are after the Hat,’ said Ridcully flatly. The air between them was humming.

‘Yes, of course.’

There followed the menacing silence of a clash of wills, but Ponder Stibbons decided that as he was, technically, twelve important people at the university, he formed, all by himself, a committee, and since he was therefore, de facto, very wise, he should intervene.

‘And
your
stake, Dea—Sir, would be…?’

Ridcully turned his head slightly and growled, ‘He doesn’t have to have one. I have rather walked into this…’

There was a stirring from the more senior wizards, and Ponder heard a whispered phrase. ‘Dead man’s pointy shoes?’

‘No, I forbid it!’ said Ponder.

‘You forbid it?’ said Henry. ‘You are but a chick, young Stibbons.’

‘The accumulated votes of all the posts I hold on the University Council mean that I do, technically, control it,’ said Ponder, trying to stick out a skinny chest that was never built for sticking, but still buoyed up and awash with righteous rage and a certain amount of terror about what might happen when it ran out of steam.

The contenders relaxed a little more in the presence of this turning worm.

‘Didn’t anyone notice that you were getting all this power?’ said Ridcully.

‘Yes, sir, me. Only I thought it was responsibility and hard work. None of you ever bother with details, you see. Technically, I have to report to other people, but usually the other people are
me
. You have no idea, sirs. I’m even the Camerlengo, which means that if you drop dead, Archchancellor, from any cause other than legitimate succession under the Dead Man’s Pointy Shoes tradition, I run this place until a successor is elected which, given the nature of wizardry, will mean a job for life, in which case the Librarian, as an identifiable and competent member of the senior staff, will try to discharge his duties, and if he fails, the official procedure is for wizards everywhere to fight among themselves for the Hat, causing fire, destruction, doves, rabbits and billiard balls to appear from every orifice and much loss of life.’ After a short pause he continued. ‘Again. Which is why some of us get a little worried when we see powerful wizards squabbling like this. To conclude, gentlemen, I have spoken at some length in order to give you time to consider your intentions.
Somebody
has to.’

Ridcully cleared his throat. ‘Thank you for your input, Stibbons. We shall discuss this matter further. Definitely something that needed to be said. These aren’t the old days, after all.’

‘Your point is taken,’ said Henry, ‘except that, technically, these are going to be somebody else’s old days.’

Ponder’s chest was still going up and down.

‘A very good point,’ said Ridcully.

‘I believe I heard mention of a curry?’ said Henry, with equal care. It was like listening to two ancient dragons talking to each other with the help of an even older book of etiquette written by nuns.

‘It’s a long time until lunch.
*
I tell you what, why don’t you accept the hospitality of my university? I believe we have left your room
exactly
as it was, although I understand some quite amazing things have crawled out under the door. And perhaps you might like to stay on for tomorrow’s banquet?’

‘Oh? Are you having a banquet?’ said Henry.

‘Indeed so, and I would be delighted if you would accept, old boy. We’ll be entertaining some of the solid citizenry. Salt-of-the-earth fellows, you understand. Wonderful people if you don’t watch them eat, but quite good conversationalists if you give them enough beer.’

‘Funnily enough, I find that works with wizards too. Well, I must accept, of course. I haven’t been to a banquet in ages.’

‘You haven’t?’ said Ridcully. ‘I thought
you
would have a banquet every night.’

‘We have a limited budget, you know,’ said the Archchancellor of Brazeneck. ‘It’s a governmental grant thing, you see.’

The wizards fell silent. It was as if a man had just told you his mother had died.

Ridcully patted him on the hand. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ He paused at the doors of the Hall and turned back to Ponder. ‘We will be having some high-level discussions, Stibbons. Keep them on their toes! The lads will help! Find out what football wants to be!’

The older members of the faculty exhaled as the two heads left. Most of them were old enough to recall at least two pitched battles among factions of wizards, the worst of which had only been brought to a conclusion by Rincewind, wielding a half-brick in a sock…

Ponder looked across at Rincewind now, and he was hopping awkwardly on one leg, trying to put a sock back on. He thought it better not to comment. It was probably the same sock.

The Chair of Indefinite Studies slapped Ponder on the back. ‘Well done, lad. Could have been a nasty incident there.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘I’m sorry we seem to have loaded you down a bit. I’m sure it wasn’t deliberate.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t, too, sir. Very little around here is.’ Ponder sighed. ‘I’m afraid that unthinking delegation and prevarication and procrastination are standard practice here.’ He looked expectantly at the remaining members of the Council. He wanted to be disappointed, but knew he wouldn’t be.

‘A very bad state of affairs indeed,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

The Chair looked grave. ‘Hm…’

So go on, thought Ponder, say it. I know you’re going to, you just won’t be able to stop yourself, you really won’t—

‘I think, Stibbons, that you should sort it out when you have a moment,’ said the Chair.

‘Bingo!’

‘I beg your pardon, Stibbons?’

‘Oh, nothing, sir, not really. I was just pondering, as it were, on the unchangeable nature of the universe.’

‘I’m glad somebody is. Keep it up.’ The Lecturer in Recent Runes looked around and added, ‘It all seems to have quietened down. That curry sounds amusing.’

There was a general movement towards the doors on the part of those wizards who were well endowed with years, gravitation or both, but the scratch match went on among those less magnetically attracted to knives and forks.

Ponder sat down, his clipboard balanced on his lap. ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what I’m doing here,’ he declared to the world around him.

‘May I be of some worth, sir?’

‘Mister Nutt? Oh, well, it’s very kind of you, but I don’t think that your skill with a candle can be of much—’

‘In games of this nature there are three classes of things to be considered: one, the rules of the game in all their detail; two the correct skills, actions and philosophies required for success, and three, an understanding of the real nature of the game. May I continue?’

‘Huh,’ said Ponder, in that slight daze that overcame everyone hearing a Nutt lecture for the first time.

‘Got a fine jaw on him, ain’t he?’ said Trev. ‘He can say the long words where the likes of you an’ me would ’ave to stop for a rest ’alfway through! Me, anyway,’ he trailed off.

‘Er, do continue, Mister Nutt.’

‘Thank you, sir. As I understand it, the purpose of this game is to score at least one more goal than your opponents. But our two teams just ran around, with everyone trying to kick the ball at once. Oh, goals were scored, but only opportunistically. As in chess, you must secure the king, your goal. Yes, you are going to say that you have the custodian of the goal, but he is only one man, figuratively speaking. Every ball he saves shames the team members who let the opponents get so close. Yet at the same time, they must maximize their chances of getting the ball into the opposing goal. This is a problem I will have to address. I have mentioned chess, but this game, and particularly the ease with which the ball takes flight, means that the activity can go from one end of the play to the other in seconds, just as one dwarf piece can upset the whole board in a game of Thud.’

He smiled up at their expressions and added, ‘You know, this game is surely one of the simplest. Any little boy knows how to play it…and yet playing it optimally requires superhuman talents.’ He thought for a moment and added, ‘Or possibly subhuman. Certainly the willing sublimation of the ego, which takes us into the realms of the metaphysical. So simple and yet so complex. You know, this is wonderful. I am quite thrilled!’

The ring of silence around him was not ominous, but the air choked with bafflement. Finally, the wizard Rincewind said, ‘Er, Mister Nutt,
I thought you told us we just had to get the ball between the pointy hats?’

‘Professor Rincewind, you run very well, but you don’t do anything with it. Professor Macarona, you attempt to score as soon as you get the ball irrespective of anything else that is happening. Dr Hix, you cheat and foul constantly—’