The Last Continent

brain. One says: the bigger the space, the softer the voice, and refers to the natural tendency to speak very, very quietly when stepping into somewhere huge. So when Archchancellor Rincewind stepped out into the big cave he said, “Strewth, it’s bloody big!” in a low whisper.
    The Dean, however, shouted, “Coo-eee!” because there’s always one.
    Stalactites crowded the cave here, too, and in the very center a gigantic stalactite had almost touched its mirror-image stalagmite. The air was chokingly hot.
    “This isn’t right—” said Rincewind.
    Plink .
    They spotted the source of the noise eventually. A tiny trickle was making its way down the side of the stalactite and forming droplets that fell a few feet to the stalagmite.
    Another drop formed while they watched, and hung there.
    One of the wizards clambered up the dry slope and peered at it.
    “It’s not moving,” he said. “The trickle’s drying up. I think…it’s evaporating.”
    The Archchancellor turned to Rincewind. “Well, we’ve followed you this far, mate,” he said. “What now?”
    “I think I could do with another b—”
    “There’s none left, mate.”
    Rincewind looked desperately around the cave, and then at the huge translucent mass of limestone in front of him.
    It was definitely pointy. It was also in the center of the cave. It had a certain inevitability about it.
    Odd, really, that something like this would form down here, shining away like a pearl in an oyster. The ground trembled again. Up there, people would already be getting thirsty, cursing the windmills as only an Ecksian could curse. The water was gone and that was very bad, and when the beer ran out people would really get angry…
    The wizards were all waiting for him to do something.
    All right, start with the rock. What did he know about rocks and caves in these parts?
    There was a curious freedom at a time like this. He was going to be in real trouble whatever he did, so he might as well give this a try…
    “I need some paint,” he said.
    “What for?”
    “For what I need,” said Rincewind.
    “There’s young Salid,” said the Dean. “He’s a bit of an arty blager. Let’s go and kick his door down.”
    “And bring some more beer!” Rincewind called after them.
    Neilette patted Rincewind on the shoulder. “Are you going to do some magic?” she said.
    “I don’t know if it counts as magic here,” said Rincewind. “If it doesn’t work, stand well back.”
    “Is it going to be dangerous, then?”
    “No, I might have to start running without looking where I’m going. But…this rock’s warm. Have you noticed?”
    She touched it. “I see what you mean…”
    “I was just thinking…Supposing someone was in a country who shouldn’t be there? What would it do?”
    “Oh, the Watch would catch him, I expect.”
    “No, no, not the people. What would the land do? I think I need another drink, it made more sense then…”
    “Okay, here we are, we couldn’t find much, but there’s some whitewash and some red paint and a tin of stuff which might be black paint or it could be tar oil.” The wizards hurried up. “Not much in the way of brushes, though.”
    Rincewind picked up a brush that looked as though it had once been used to whitewash a very rough wall and then to clean the teeth of some large creature, possibly a crocodile.
    He’d never been any good at art, and this is a distinction quite hard to achieve in many education systems. Basic artistic skills and a familiarity with occult calligraphy are part of a wizard’s early training, yet in Rincewind’s fingers chalk broke and pencils shattered. It was probably due to a deep distrust of getting things down on paper when they were doing all right where they were.
    Neilette handed him a tin of Funnelweb. Rincewind drank deeply and then dipped the brush in what might have been black paint and essayed a few upturned Vs on the rock, and some circles under the lines, with three dots in a V and a friendly little curve in each one.
    He took another deep draught of the beer and saw what he was doing wrong. It was no good trying to be strictly true to life here; what he had to go for was an impression .
    He sloshed wildly at the stone, humming madly under his breath.
    “Anyone guess what it is yet?” he said, over his shoulder.
    “Looks a bit modern to me,” said the Dean.
    But Rincewind was into the swing of it now. Any fool could just copy what he saw, except possibly Rincewind, but