“Astonishing!” said Ridcully.

“Eek!”

“Obviously he must be an inferior life form if he cannot tell the difference between a monkey and an orang-utan. So that’s another world is it, eh Stibbons?”

“Yes.”

Ridcully poked the mirror. It’s strange surface rippled slightly along with the image of the tall, dark haired man standing on the other side. He was joined by four others, including the two that had been dancing about with the banana and the smaller one who had screamed at them before.

“What are they?” the one with the hat and banana asked.

“Cooee!” said the Bursar with an insane smile and a cheery wave.

“I wonder,” said Ridcully. “Can we bring them here?”

“Ooh yes, let’s!” exclaimed the Dean, staring at the five men with bulging eyes.

“I wouldn’t advise that Archchancellor. Who knows what impact their presence will have upon this world. They might upset the balance of the disc or - ”

“Nonsense! Is it this button?”

“No don’t Archchancellor!”

Ridcully pushed the button. There was a blinding pink flash followed by a tinkling noise. Green smoke billowed from a crack in the mirror. Five figure lie moaning in front of it.

“It worked!” Ridcully said, excitedly.

“You also broke it!” Ponder Stibbons replied.

The Dean waddled over and poked the nearest one, which happened to be the small one with the curly blond hair. He looked up and his eyes widened in terror. He gave a unintelligible whimper and backed away.

“Leave him alone, Dean! You don’t know where he’s been!” Ridcully snapped.

The other four began to pick themselves up and look about them in adazed sort of way.

“Er, hello,” Ponder said. “We were, um, doing an experiment and we bought you here.”

They stared at him.

“I’ll deal with this, Stibbons,” Ridcully said. He pointed at himself. “Me, Archchancellor Ridcully. Us, wiz – ards.”

“Um, me Kevin. Us humans,” the big dark haired one said.

“They understand,” said Ridcully, proudly.

“They speak the same language as us, Archchancellor!” Ponder pointed out. He turned to Kevin. “We’re sorry to have caused so much inconvenience, but we were curious about you. We are not from your world. This is what we call the Discworld.”

“Um, we’re from a planet called ‘Earth’,” Kevin said.

“What do you want with us?” the tall blond one asked.

“Like we said, we were curious.”

“Uh, right. Say, what’s with the monk - ”

“Don’t say the ‘M’ word!” Ponder said, quickly.

“What monke - ”

“Orang-utan! He doesn’t like the ‘M’ word! It insults him! He’s our librarian,” Ponder said.

“Okay,” Kevin said, nervously. “Um, Nick, leave the… orang-utan alone.”

The one known as Nick backed away. The Dean tilted his head to stare at the other blond one, who immediately hid behind Nick.

“How did we get here?” the one in the hat asked. The librarian’s eyes followed the banana in his hand.

“This magic mirror,” Ridcully said, helpfully.

“Um, it looks kinda broken,” Nick said.

“Mr.Stibbons, how did that happen?” Ridcully turned to Ponder.

“You overloaded it!”

“I did not!”

“I told you not to press that button!”

Ridcully ignored this. “We don’t need the mirror to send them back. We can do it by magic!”

“Magic?” the long haired man asked.

Ridcully rolled up his sleeves. The other wizards did the same. “Yes, I believe a banishing spell might work.”

“Might work?!” Nick said.

“You are not banishing me anywhere!” the one in the hat said.

“Archchancellor, using magic upon them will have even worse consequences for the disc! I must insist that you allow me to repair the omniscope!” Ponder said, urgently.

The wizards had already began to chant though. When they stopped Ridcully raised his arms. The five men backed towards the wall where they huddled together nervously. They were beginning to edge towards the door.

“Are we prepared now?” Ridcully asked. “Good. All together now! One, two, three…. Azulum Banichek. Be gone!”

There was a rumbling sound and then a flash of brilliant orange. The five men were gone.

“Well they went somewhere,” Ridcully said, cheerfully.



*************************



Somewhere on the disc……

The Ankh went ‘squelch’…

Nanny Ogg thought she heard someone stir beside her…

The Luggage burped…

Binky stared beneath him curiously…



And AJ woke up three doors down the corridor.



***********************



Death looked up from his book. Five new hourglasses had appeared on his desk… and time was running out.

BACK

NEXT