The Science of Discworld II

what we call “colour” them. You have to work hard on this bit. A chewed piece of wood will be your friend here. See how by a careful mixture of tints I’m giving it a certain, oh, je ne sais quoi ?’
    â€˜Hey, that looks like a real buffalo! Scary stuff!’
    â€˜It gets better. May I have the charcoal? Thank you. What’s this?’
    Rincewind carefully drew another figure.
    â€˜Man with big [expressive gesture]?’ said Burnt Stick Man.
    â€˜What? Oh. Sorry, I got that wrong … I mean this …’
    â€˜Man with spear! Hey, he’s throwing it at the buffalo!’
    Rincewind smiled. There had been a few false starts over the last couple of weeks, but Burnt Stick Man had exactly the right sort of mind. He was impressively simple, and people with truly simple minds were very rare.
    â€˜I knew there was something intelligent about you the moment I saw you,’ he lied. ‘Maybe it was the way your brow ridge came around the corner only two seconds before the rest of you did.’ Burnt Stick Man beamed. Rincewind went on: ‘And the question you’ve got to ask yourself now is: how real is this picture, really? And where was the picture before I drew it? What is going to happen now it’s on the wall?’
    The wizards watched from the circle of firelight.
    â€˜Why’s the man poking at the picture?’ said the Dean.
    â€˜I think he’s learnin’ about the power of symbols,’ said Ridcully. ‘Hey, if anyone doesn’t want any more ribs I’ll finish ’em.’
    â€˜No barbecue sauce,’ moaned the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘How long before there’s an agricultural revolution?’
    â€˜Could be a hundred thousand years, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘Perhaps a lot more.’ The Lecturer in Recent Runes groaned and put his head in his hands.
    Rincewind came and sat down. The rest of Burnt Stick Man’s clan,greasy to the eyebrows with free food, watched him cautiously.
    â€˜That seemed to go well,’ he said. ‘He’s definitely working out the link between pictures in his head and real life. Any potatoes yet?’
    â€˜Not for thousands of years,’ groaned the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    â€˜Damn. I mean, here’s meat. There should be potatoes. How hard is that for a world to understand? Vegetables are less complicated than meat!’ He sighed, and then stared.
    Burnt Stick Man, who had been staring motionless at the drawing for a while, ambled to another rock wall and picked up a spear. He squinted at the buffalo drawing, which did indeed seem to move as the firelight flickered, paused, and then hurled the spear at it and ducked behind a rock.
    â€˜Gentlemen, we’ve found our genius and we’re on our way,’ said Rincewind. ‘Ponder, can Hex move some buffaloes to right outside this cave at dawn tomorrow?’
    â€˜That shouldn’t be hard, yes.’
    â€˜Good.’ Rincewind looked around. ‘And there’s quite a few tall trees here, too. Which is just as well.’
    It was dawn, and the tree was full of wizards.
    The ground below was full of buffalo. Hex had moved an entire herd, which was now more or less penned in amongst the rocks and trees.
    And, on the rocky ledge in front of the bewildered, panicking creatures, Burnt Stick Man and the other hunters stared down in disbelief.
    But only for a moment. They had spears, after all. They got two of the creatures before the rest thundered away. And, afterwards, people were certainly showing Burnt Stick Man a bit of respect.
    â€˜All right, I think I see what you’re getting at,’ said Ridcully, as the wizards very carefully climbed down.
    â€˜Well, I don’t,’ said the Dean. ‘You’re teaching them basic magic. And that doesn’t work here!’
    â€˜They think it does,’ said Rincewind.
    â€˜But that was only because we helped them! What’re they going to do tomorrow when he does another painting and no buffaloes turn up?’
    â€˜They’ll think it’s experimental error,’ said Rincewind. ‘Because it’s so sensible , isn’t it? You draw a magic picture, and the real thing turns up! It’s so sensible that they’ll take a lot of convincing that it doesn’t work. Besides …’
    â€˜Besides what?’ said Ponder.
    â€˜Oh, I was thinking that if Burnt Stick Man is really sensible he’ll keep