Interesting Times

occasionally moved sluggishly around the floor, bumping into things. The rest of the room was a litter of objects dragged in from the street—old crates, bits of planking, sacks…
    Rincewind felt a lump in his throat. They’d left his room just as it was.
    He opened the wardrobe and rummaged through the moth-haunted darkness within, until his questing hand located—
    —an ear—
    —which was attached to a dwarf.
    “Ow!”
    “What,” said Rincewind, “are you doing in my wardrobe?”
    “Wardrobe? Er…Er…Isn’t this the Magic Kingdom of Scrumptiousness?” said the dwarf, trying not to look guilty.
    “No, and these shoes you’re holding aren’t the Golden Jewels of the Queen of the Fairies,” said Rincewind, snatching them out of the thief’s hands. “And this isn’t the Wand of Invisibility and these aren’t Giant Grumblenose’s Wonderful Socks but this is my boot—”
    “Ow!”
    “And stay out!”
    The dwarf ran for the door and paused, but only briefly, to shout: “I’ve got a Thieves’ Guild card! And you shouldn’t hit dwarfs! That’s speciesism!”
    “Good,” said Rincewind, retrieving items of clothing.
    He found another robe and put it on. Here and there moths had worked their lacemaking skills and most of the red color had faded to shades of orange and brown, but to his relief it was a proper wizard’s robe. It’s hard to be an impressive magic-user with bare knees.
    Gentle footsteps pattered to a halt behind him. He turned.
    “Open.”
    The Luggage obediently cracked its lid. In theory it should have been full of shark; in fact it was half full of coconuts. Rincewind turfed them out on to the floor and put the rest of the clothes inside.
    “Shut.”
    The lid slammed.
    “Now go down to the kitchen and get some potatoes.”
    The chest did a complicated, many-legged about-turn and trotted away. Rincewind followed it out and headed towards the Archchancellor’s study. Behind him he could hear the wizards still arguing.
    He’d become familiar with the study through long years at Unseen. Generally he was there to answer quite difficult questions, like “How can anyone get a negative mark in Basic Firemaking?” He’d spent a lot of time staring at the fixtures while people harangued him.
    There had been changes here, too. Gone were the alembics and bubbling flagons that were the traditional props of wizardry; Ridcully’s study was dominated by a full-size snooker table, on which he’d piled papers until there was no room for any more and no sign of green felt. Ridcully assumed that anything people had time to write down couldn’t be important.
    The stuffed heads of a number of surprised animals stared down at him. From the antlers of one stag hung a pair of corroded boots Ridcully had won as a Rowing Brown for the University in his youth. *
    There was a large model of the Discworld on four wooden elephants in a corner of the room. Rincewind was familiar with it. Every student was…
    The Counterweight Continent was a blob. It was a shaped blob; a not very inviting comma shape. Sailors had brought back news of it. They’d said that at one point it broke into a pattern of large islands, stretching around the Disc to the even more mysterious island of Bhangbhangduc and the completely mythical continent known only on the charts as “XXXX.”
    Not that many sailors went near the Counterweight Continent. The Agatean Empire was known to ignore a very small amount of smuggling; presumably Ankh-Morpork had some things it wanted. But there was nothing official; a boat might come back loaded with silk and rare wood and, these days, a few wild-eyed refugees, or it might come back with its captain riveted upside-down to the mast, or it might not come back.
    Rincewind had been very nearly everywhere, but the Counterweight Continent was an unknown land, or terror incognita . He couldn’t imagine why they’d want any kind of wizard.
    Rincewind sighed. He knew what he should do now.
    He shouldn’t even wait for the return of the Luggage from its argosy to the kitchens, from which the sound of yelling and something being repeatedly hit with a large brass preserving pan suggested it was going about his business.
    He should just gather up what he could carry and get the hell out of here. He—
    “Ah, Rincewind,” said the Archchancellor, who had an amazingly silent walk for such a large man. “Keen to leave, I see.”
    “Yes, indeed,” said Rincewind. “Oh, yes. Very much