The Last Continent

Remorse and his horses, all those people who’d shown him how to find the things you could eat without throwing up too often…all drying up, and blowing away…
    Him, too.
    G’ DAY .
    “Ook?”
    “Oh, no …” Rincewind moaned.
    T HROAT A BIT PARCHED ?
    “Look, you’re not supposed to—”
    I T’S ALL RIGHT , I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT DOWN IN THE CITY . T HERE’S BEEN A FIGHT OVER THE LAST BOTTLE OF BEER . H OWEVER, LET ME ASSURE YOU OF MY PERSONAL ATTENTION AT ALL TIMES .
    “Well, thank you. When it’s time to stop living, I will certainly make Death my number one choice!”
    Death faded.
    “The cheek of him, turning up like that! We’re not dead yet,” shouted Rincewind to the burning sky. “There’s lots we could do! If we could get to the Hub we could cut loose a big iceberg and tow it here and that’d give us plenty of water…if we could get to the Hub! Where there’s hope there’s life, I’ll have you know! I’ll find a way! Somewhere there’s a way of making rain!”
    Death had gone.
    Rincewind swung the bullroarer menacingly. “And don’t come back!”
    “Ook!”
    The Librarian gripped Rincewind’s arm, and sniffed the air.
    Then Rincewind caught the smell too.
    Rincewind spoke a fairly primitive language, and it had no word for “that smell you get after rain” other than “that smell you get after rain.” Anyone trying to describe the smell would have to flounder among words like moisture, heat, vapor and, with a following wind, exhalation.
    Nevertheless, there was the smell you get after rain. In this burning land, it was like a brief jewel in the air.
    Rincewind whirled the piece of wood again. It made noise out of all proportion to the movement, and there was that smell again.
    He turned it over. It was still just a wooden oval. There weren’t any markings on it.
    He gripped the end of the string and whirled the thing experimentally a few more times.
    “Did you notice that when it did this—” he began.
    It wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t lower his arm.
    “Er…I think it wants to be spun,” he said.
    “Ook!”
    “You think I should?”
    “Ook!”
    “That’s very helpful. Oooh—”
    The Librarian ducked.
    Rincewind spun. He couldn’t see the wood now because the string was getting longer with each turn. A blur curved through the air some way from the tower, getting further away with each spin.
    The sound of it was a long-drawn-out drone.
    When it was well out over the city it exploded in a thunderclap. But something still whirled on the end of the line, like a tight silver cloud, throwing out a trail of white particles that made a spiral that sped out wider and wider.
    The Librarian was flat on his face with his hands over his head.
    Air roared up the side of the tower, carrying dust, wind, heat and budgerigars. Rincewind’s robe flapped around his chin.
    Letting go was unthinkable. He wasn’t even sure if he could, until it wanted him to.
    Thin as smoke now, the spiral drifted out into the heat haze.
    (…and out over the red desert and the unheeding kangaroos, and as the tail of it flew out over the coast and into the wall of storms the warring airs melted peacefully together…the clouds stopped their stately spin around the last continent, boiled up in confusion and thunderheads, reversed their direction and began to fall inwards …)
    And the string whipped out of Rincewind’s hand, stinging his fingers. The bullroarer flew away, and he didn’t see it fall.
    This may have been because he was still pirouetting, but at last gravity overcame momentum and he fell full length on the boards.
    “I think my feet have caught fire,” he muttered.

    The dead heat hung on the land like a shroud. Clancy the stockman wiped the sweat off his brow very thoroughly, and wrung out the rag into an empty jam tin. The way things were going, he’d be glad of it. Then, carrying the tin with care, he climbed back down the windmill’s ladder.
    “The bore’s fine, boss, there’s just no bloody water,” he said.
    Remorse shook his head. “Look at them horses,” he said. “Look at the way they’re lying down, willya? That’s not good. This is it, Clancy. We’ve battled through thick and thin, and this is too thick altogether by half. We may as well cut their poor bloody throats for the meat that’s on ’em—”
    A gust of wind took his hat off for him, and blew a lash of scent across the wilted mulga bushes. A horse raised his head.
    Clouds were pouring across the