‘Of course, that’ll be Laddie,’ said Soll. ‘What a clever dog!’
Gaspode looked smug.
‘Mind you, that’s Laddie in a nutshell,’ said Soll, as they set off towards the barking. ‘I expect he could teach your dog a few tricks, eh?’
Victor didn’t dare look down.
After a few false turns the archway of Century of the Fruitbat passed overhead like a ghost. There were more people here; the site seemed to be filling up with lost wanderers who didn’t know where else to go.
There was a coach waiting outside Dibbler’s office and Dibbler himself stood beside it, stamping his feet.
‘Come on, come on,’ he said, ‘I’ve sent Gaffer ahead with the film. Get in, the pair of you.’
‘Can we travel in this?’ said Victor.
‘What’s to go wrong?’ said Dibbler. ‘There’s one road to Ankh�Morpork. Anyway, we’ll probably be well out of this stuff when we leave the coast. I don’t see why everyone’s so nervy. Fog’s fog.’
‘That’s what I say,’ said Victor, climbing into the coach.
‘It’s just a mercy we finished Blown Away yesterday,’ said Dibbler. ‘All this is probably just something seasonal. Nothing to worry about at all.’
‘You said that before,’ said Soll. ‘You said it at least five times so far this morning.’
Ginger was hunched on one seat, with Laddie lying underneath it. Victor slid along until he was next to her.
‘Did you get any sleep?’ he whispered.
‘Just an hour or two, I think,’ she said. ‘Nothing happened. No dream or anything.’
Victor relaxed.
‘Then it really is over,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure.’
‘And the fog?’ she demanded.
‘Sorry?’ said Victor guiltily.
‘What’s causing the fog?’
‘Well,’ said Victor, ‘as I understand it, when cool air passes over warm ground, water is precipitated out of-‘
‘You know what I mean! It’s not like normal fog at all! It – sort of drifts oddly,’ she finished lamely. ‘And you can nearly hear voices,’ she added.
‘You can’t nearly hear voices,’ said Victor, in the hope that his own rational mind would believe him. ‘You either hear them or you don’t. Listen, we’re both just tired. That’s all it is. We’ve been working hard and, er, not getting much sleep, so it’s understandable that we think we’re nearly hearing and seeing things.’
‘Oh, so you’re nearly seeing things, are you?’ said Ginger triumphantly. ‘And don’t you go around using that calm and reasonable tone of voice on me,’ she added. ‘I hate it when people go around being calm and reasonable at me.’
‘I hope you two lovebirds aren’t having a tiff?’
Victor and Ginger stiffened. Dibbler clambered up into the opposite seat, and leered encouragingly at them. Soll followed. There was a slam as the driver shut the carriage door.
‘We’ll stop for a meal when we’re halfway,’ said Dibbler,. as they lurched forward. He hesitated, and then sniffed suspiciously.
‘What’s that smell?’ he said.
‘I’m afraid my dog is under your seat,’ said Victor.
‘Is it ill?’ said Dibbler.
‘I’m afraid it always smells like that.’
‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea to give it a bath?’
A mutter on the edge of hearing said: ‘Do you think it would be a good idea to have your feet bitten right orf?’
Meanwhile, over Holy Wood, the fog thickened . . .
The posters for Blown Away had been circulating in Ankh�Morpork for several days, and interest was running at fever pitch.
They’d even got as far as the University this time. The Librarian had one pinned up in the fetid, book-lined nest he called home,[24] and various others were surreptitiously circulating among the wizards themselves.
The artist had produced a masterpiece. Held in Victor’s arms, against the background of the flaming city, Ginger was portrayed as not only showing nearly all she had but quite a lot of what she had not, strictly speaking, got.
The effect on the wizards was everything that Dibbler could possibly have hoped for. In the Uncommon Room, the poster was passed from hand to shaking hand as if it might explode.
‘There’s a girl who’s got It,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. He was one of the fattest wizards, and so overstuffed that he seemed to be living up to his title. He looked as though horsehair should be leaking from frayed patches. People felt an overpowering urge to rummage down the side of him for loose change.
‘What’s “It”, Chair?’ said another wizard.
‘Oh, you know. It. Oomph. The old way-hey-hey.’
They watched him politely and expectantly, like people awaiting the punch line.
‘Good grief, do I have to spell it out?’ he said.
‘He means sexual magnetism,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, happily. ‘The lure of wanton soft bosoms and huge pulsating thighs, and the forbidden fruits of desire which-‘
A couple of wizards carefully moved their chairs away from him.
‘Ah, sex,’ said the Dean of Pentacles, interrupting the Lecturer in Recent Runes in mid-sigh. ‘Far too much of it these days, in my opinion.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He looked wistful.
The noise woke up Windle Poons, who had been dozing in his wheelchair by the fire. There was always a roaring fire in the Uncommon Room, summer or winter.
‘Wassat?’ he said.
The Dean leaned towards an ear.
‘I was saying’, he said loudly, ‘that we didn’t know the meaning of the word “sex” when we were young.’
‘That’s true. That’s very true,’ said Poons. He stared reflectively at the flames. ‘Did we ever, mm, find out, do you remember?’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘Say what you like, she’s a fine figure of a young woman,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes defiantly.
‘Several young women,’ said the Dean.
Windle Poons focused unsteadily on the poster.
‘Who’s the young feller?’ he said.
‘What young feller?’ said several wizards.
‘He’s in the middle of the picture,’ said Poons. ‘He’s holding her in his arms.’
They looked again. ‘Oh, him,’ said the Chair, dismissively.
‘Seems to me I’ve, mm, seen him before,’ said Poons.
‘My dear Poons, I hope you haven’t been sneaking off to the moving pictures,’ said the Dean, grinning at the others. ‘You know it’s demeaning for a wizard to patronize the common entertainments. The Archchancellor would be very angry with us.’
‘Wassat?’ said Poons, cupping a hand to his ear.
‘He does look a bit familiar, now that you mention it,’ said the Dean, peering at the poster.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes put his head on one side.
‘It’s young Victor, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘Eh?’ said Poons.
‘You know, you could be right,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘He had the same type of weedy moustache.’
‘Who’s this?’ said Poons.
‘But he was a student. He could have been a wizard,’ said the Dean. ‘Why would he want to go off and fondle young women?’
‘It’s a Victor all right, but not our Victor. Says here he’s “Victor Maraschino”,’ said the Chair.
‘Oh, that’s just a click name,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes airily. ‘They all have funny names like that. Delores De Syn and Blanche Languish and Rock Cliffe and so on . . . ‘ He realized that they were looking at him accusingly. ‘Or so I’m told,’ he added lamely. ‘By the porter. He goes to see a click nearly every night.’
‘What’re you on about?’ said Poons, waving his walking stick in the air.
‘The cook goes every night, too,’ said the Chair. ‘So do most of the kitchen staff. You just try getting so much as a ham sandwich after nine o’clock.’
‘Just about everyone goes,’ said the Lecturer. ‘Except us.’
One of the other wizards peered intently at the bottom of the poster.
‘It says here,’ he said, ‘ “A Sarger of Passione and Broad Staircases in Ankh-Morpork’s Turbelent Histry!” ‘
‘Ah. It’s historical, then, is it?’ said the Lecturer.
‘And it says “A Epic Love Story that Astoundede Goddes and Menne!!” ‘
‘Oh? Religious, as well.’
‘And it says, “Withe a 1,000 elephants!!!” ‘
‘Ah. Wildlife. Always very educational, wildlife,’ said the Chair, looking speculatively at the Dean. The other wizards were doing so, too.
‘It seems to me’, said the Lecturer, slowly, ‘that no-one could possibly object to senior wizards viewing a work of historical, religious and, er, wildliforific interest.’
‘University rules are very specific,’ said the Dean, but not very enthusiastically.
‘But surely only meant for the students,’ said the Lecturer. ‘I can quite understand that students shouldn’t be allowed to watch something like this. They’d probably whistle and throw things at the screen. But it couldn’t be seriously suggested, could it, that senior wizards such as ourselves shouldn’t examine this popular phenomenon?’
Poons’ flailing walking stick caught the Dean sharply across the back of his legs.
‘I demand to know what everyone’s talking about!’ he snapped.
‘We don’t see why senior wizards shouldn’t be allowed to watch moving pictures!’ bellowed the Chair.