Page 38 (1/2)

The voice in the Bursar's head thought: but a bird round You don't see the wings,' said the Dean, and then looked puzzled at having answered a question no one had asked 'Blast! You know, it's harder than it looks, drawing on a rock' I always see the wings, thought the voice in the Bursar's head The Bursar fu pill bottle The voices were never usually this precise 'Very flat bird,' said Ridcully 'Coo and work out a really good boat spell'

'Looks ot the tail wrong'

'The stick slipped'

'A duck's fatter than that,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies 'You shouldn't try to show off Dean When was the last time you saw a duck that didn't have peas round it?'

'Last week, actually!'

'Yes, we had crispy duck With pluo'

'Now you've given it three legs!'

'I did ask for the stick! You snatched it away!'

'Now look,' said Ridcully 'I'hable Give me thatthank you You do a beak like this 'That's on the wrong end and it's too big'

'You think that's a beak?'

'Look, all three of you are barking up the wrong tree here Give me that stick'

'Ah, but, you see, ducks don't bark! Hah! There's no need to snatch like that--' Unseen University was built of stone – so built out of stone that in fact there were many places where it was hard to tell where wild rock ended and doine what else you could build a university out of If Rincewind had set out to list possible ated iron sheets In response to soh, the sheets around the gates had been quite expertly bent and hammered into the shape of a stone arch Over it, burned into the thin metal, were the words: NULLUS ANXIETAS

'I shouldn't be surprised, should I?' he said 'No worries' The gates, which were alsosecondhand nails, were fir on them 'Looks like a lot of other people have the same idea,' said Neilette 'There'll be another way in,' said Rincewind, walking away 'There'll be an alleyAh, there it is Now, these aren't stone walls, so there won't be removable bricks, which means' He prodded at the tin sheets, and one of thes aside so you can get back in after hours'

'How did you know that?'

'This is a university, isn't it? Coe had been chalked beside the loose sheet ' "Nulli Sheilae sanguineae," ' Rincewind read aloud 'But your name's not Sheila, so we're probably okay'

'If it means what I think it means, it means they don't allooht Darleen'

'Sorry?'

'Forget I mentioned it' Somewhat to Rincewind's surprise there was a short, pleasant lawn on the other side of the fence, illu All the buildings were low but had big wide roofs, giving the effect you et if someone stepped on a lot of square mushrooms If they had been painted, it had been an historical event, probably co somewhere between Fire and the Invention of the Wheel There was a tower It was about twenty feet high 'I don't call this much of a university,' said Rincewind He allowed hih? I could pi-- I could spit from the top of it Oh well' He hter and was tinted with octarine, the eighth colour that was intiic The doors the thes, brothers!' he shouted 'I bring you-- Good grie--' The world si door and the next he was in a circle with half a dozen wizards watching hiht his balance

'Well, full ed 'Where I co if you like, we just open the door'

'Stone the crows, but we're getting good at this,' said a wizard And they izards Rinceas in no doubt of it They had proper pointy hats, although the bri buttresses Their robes weren't th, and below the leather sandals A lot of this was not the typical wizarding outfit as he'd grown up to understand it, but they were still wizards They had that unmistakable hot-air-balloon-about- to-take-off look The apparent leader of the group nodded at Rincewind 'Good evening, Mister Boring I ot here a lot quicker than we expected' Rincewind felt intuitively that saying 'I was just outside the door' was not a good idea 'Er, I had an assisted passage,' he said 'He doesn't look very demonic,' said a wizard 'Remember that last one we called up? Six eyes and three--' The really good ones can disguise theenius, Archchancellor' Thank you very much,' said Rincewind The Archchancellor nodded at him He was, of course, elderly, with a face that looked as though it had been screwed up and then s oddly familiar that Rincewind couldn't quite place 'We've called you up, Boring,' said the man, 'because ant to knohat's happened to the water' It's all gone, has it?' said Rincewind 'Thought so'

'It can't go' said the Dean 'It's water There's alater, if you go down deep enough'