The Last Continent

No, sir. There’s probably fish and lobsters in the sea, but the land looks pretty bare to me.”
    It did. Reddish sand stretched away through the grayish drizzle to bluish mountains. The only greenishness was the Dean’s face and, suddenly, the shoots winding out of the Bursar’s surfing seed. Leaves unfolded in the rain, tiny flowers opened with little plopping noises.
    “Well, at least we’ll have another boat,” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “I doubt it, sir,” said Ponder. “The god wasn’t very good at breeding things.” And, indeed, the swelling fruit was not looking very boat-shaped.
    “You know, I still think it would help if we thought of all this as a valuable opportunity,” said Ridcully.
    “That’s true,” said the Dean, sitting up. “It’s not many times in your life you get the chance to die of hunger on some bleak continent thousands of years before you’re born. We should make the most of it.”
    “I meant that pitting ourselves against the elements will bring out the best in us and forge us into a go-getting and hard-hitting team,” said Ridcully. This view got no takers.
    “I’m sure there must be something to eat,” mumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies, looking around aimlessly. “There usually is.”
    “After all, nothing is beyond men like us,” said Ridcully.
    “That’s true,” said Ponder. “Oh gods, yes. That’s true.”
    “And at least a wizard can always make a decent fire.”
    Ponder’s eyes opened wide. He rose in one movement aimed at Ridcully, but was still airborne when the Archchancellor tossed a small fireball at a heap of driftwood. By the time the glowing ball was halfway to the wood Ponder had hit Ridcully in the back, so that both of them were sprawled on the wet sand when the world went whooph .
    When they looked up the heap of driftwood was a blackened crater.
    “Well, thank you,” said the Dean, behind them. “I feel lovely and dry now, and I never did like my eyebrows all that much.”
    “High thaumic field, sir,” Ponder panted. “I did say.”
    Ridcully stared at his hands. “I was going to light my pipe with one…” he muttered. He held the hand away from him. “It was only a Number Ten,” he said.
    The Dean stood up, brushing away some tufts of burnt beard.
    “I’m not sure I believe what I just saw,” he said, and pointed a finger at a nearby rock.
    “No, sir, I don’t think you—”
    Most of the rock was lifted off the ground and landed a hundred yards away. The rest of it sizzled in a red-hot puddle.
    “Can I have a go?” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “Sir, I really think—”
    “Oh, well done, Senior Wrangler,” said the Dean, as another rock fractured into fragments.
    “Ye gods, you were right , Stibbons,” said Ridcully. “The magic field here is huge !”
    “Yes, sir, but I really don’t think we should be using it, sir!” Ponder shrieked.
    “We’re wizards, young man. Using magic is what wizarding is all about.”
    “No, sir! Not using magic is what wizarding is all about!”
    Ridcully hesitated.
    “This is fossil magic, sir!” said Ponder, speaking fast. “It’s what’s being used to create this place! We could do untold damage if we’re not careful!”
    “All right, all right, no one do anything for a moment,” said Ridcully. “Now…what are you talking about, Mister Stibbons?”
    “I don’t think the place is properly, well, finished , sir. I mean, there’re no plants or animals, are there?”
    “Nonsense. I saw a camel a little while ago.”
    “Yes, sir, but that came with us. And there’s seaweed and crabs on the beach and they got washed up too. But where are the trees and bushes and grasses?”
    “Interesting,” said Ridcully. “Place is as bald as a baby’s bottom.”
    “Still under construction, sir. The god did say it was being built.”
    “Unbelievable, really,” said Ridcully. “A whole continent being created out of nothing?”
    “Exactly, sir.”
    “Gazillions of thaums of magic pouring into the world.”
    “You’ve got it, sir.”
    “Whole mountains and cliffs and beaches where once there was nothing, style of thing.”
    “That’s right, sir.”
    “Bit of a miracle, you could say.”
    “I certainly would, sir.”
    “Unimaginably vast amounts of magic doing their stuff.”
    “Astonishing, sir.”
    “So I expect no one will miss a little bit, eh?”
    “ No ! That’s not how it works, sir! If we use it, it’s like…like treading on ants, sir! This