‘It’s a bit odd,’ the Chairman admitted. ‘And they cheered the head of the Assassins’ Guild and the High Priest of Blind Io, too. And now someone’s rolled out a red carpet.’
‘What, in the street? In Ankh-Morpork?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t like to have their cleaning bill,’ said Poons.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes nudged the Chair heavily in the ribs, or at least at the point where the ribs were overlaid by the strata of fifty years of very good dinners.
‘Quiet!’ he hissed. ‘They’re coming!’
‘Who?’
‘Someone important, by the look of it.’
The Chair’s face creased in panic behind his false real beard. ‘You don’t think they’ve invited the Archchancellor, do you?’
The wizards tried to shrink inside their robes, like upright turtles.
In fact it was a far more impressive coach than any of the crumbling items in the University’s mews. The crowd surged forward against the line of trolls and city guards and stared expectantly at the carriage door; the very air hummed with anticipation.
Mr Bezam, his chest so inflated with self-importance that he appeared to be floating across the ground, bobbed towards the carriage door and opened it.
The crowd held its collective breath, except for a small part of it that hit surrounding people with its stick and muttered, ‘What’s happening? What’s going on? Why won’t anyone tell me what’s happening? I demand someone tell me, mm, what’s happening?’
The door stayed shut. Ginger was gripping the handle as if it was a lifeline.
‘There’s thousands of them out there!’ said Ginger. ‘I can’t go out there!’
‘But they all watch your clicks,’ pleaded Soll. ‘They’re your public.’
‘No!’
Soll threw up his hands. ‘Can’t you persuade her?’ he said to Victor.
‘I’m not even sure I can persuade myself,’ said Victor.
‘But you’ve spent days in front of these people,’ said Dibbler.
‘No I haven’t,’ said Ginger. ‘It was just you and the handlemen and the trolls and everyone. That was different. Anyway, that wasn’t really me,’ she added. ‘That was Delores De Syn.’
Victor bit his lip thoughtfully.
‘Maybe you ought to send Delores de Syn out there, then,’ he said.
‘How can I do that?’ she demanded.
‘Well . . . why not pretend it’s a click .
The Dibblers, uncle and nephew, exchanged glances. Then Soll cupped his hands around his face like the eye of a picture box and Dibbler, after a prompting nudge, placed one hand on his nephew’s head and turned an invisible handle in his ear.
‘Action!’ he directed.
The carriage door swung open.
The crowd gasped, like a mountain breathing in. Victor stepped out, reached up, took Ginger’s hand . . .
The crowd cheered, madly.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes bit his fingers in sheer excitement. The Chair made a strange hoarse noise in the back of his throat.
‘You know you said what could a boy find to do that was better than being a wizard?’ he said.
‘A true wizard should only be interested in one thing,’ muttered the Dean. ‘You know that.’
‘Oh, I know it.’
‘I was referring to magic.’
The Chair peered at the advancing figures.
‘You know, that is young Victor. I’ll swear it,’ he said.
‘That’s disgusting,’ said the Dean. ‘Fancy choosing to hang around young women when he could have been a wizard.’
‘Yeah. What a fool,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who was having trouble with his breathing.
There was a sort of communal sigh.
‘You got to admit she’s a bit of a corker, though,’ said the Chair.
‘I’m an old man and if someone doesn’t let me see very soon,’ said a cracked voice behind them, ‘someone’s going to be feeling the wrong end of, mm, my stick, all right?’
Two of the wizards edged aside and eased the wheelchair through. Once moving, it coasted right up to the edge of the carpet, bruising any knees or ankles that stood in its way.
Poons’ mouth fell open.
Ginger gripped Victor’s hand.
‘There’s a group of fat old men in false beards waving at you over there,’ she said through clenched and grinning teeth.
‘Yes, I think they’re wizards,’ Victor grinned back.
‘One of them keeps bouncing up and down in his wheelchair and shouting things like “Way-hey!” and “Whoopwhoop!” and “Hubba�hubba!” ‘
‘That’s the oldest wizard in the world,’ said Victor. He waved at a fat lady in the crowd, who fainted.
‘Good grief! What was he like fifty years ago?’
‘Well, for one thing he was eighty.[25] Don’t blow him a kiss!’
The crowd roared its approval.
‘He looks sweet.’
‘Just keep smiling and waving.’
‘Oh, gods, look at all those people waiting to be introduced to us!’
‘I can see ’em,’ said Victor.
‘But they’re important!’
‘Well, so are we. I guess.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’re us. It’s like you said, that time on the beach. We’re us, just as big as we can be. It’s just what you wanted. We’re-‘
He stopped.
The troll at the door of the Odium gave him a hesitant salute. The thump as its hand smacked into its ear was quite audible above the roar of the crowd . . .
Gaspode waddled at high speed down an alleyway, with Laddie trotting obediently at his heels. No-one had paid them any attention when they jumped, or in Gaspode’s case plopped, down from the carriage.
‘All evening in some stuffy pit ain’t my idea of a good night out,’ muttered Gaspode. ‘This is the big city. This ain’t Holy Wood. You stick by me, pup, and you’ll be all right. First stop, the back door of Harga’s House of Ribs. They know me there. OK?’
‘Good boy Laddie!’
‘Yeah,’ said Gaspode.
‘Look at what it’s wearing!’ said Victor.
‘Red velvet jacket with gold frogging,’ said Ginger out of the corner of her mouth. ‘So what? A pair of trousers would have been a good idea.’
‘Oh, gods,’ breathed Victor.
They stepped into the brightly-lit foyer of the Odium.
Bezam had done his best. Trolls and dwarfs had worked overnight to finish it.
There were red plush drapes, and pillars, and mirrors.
Plump cherubs and miscellaneous fruit, all painted gold, seemed to cover every surface.
It was like stepping into a box of very expensive chocolates.
Or a nightmare. Victor half expected to hear the roar of the sea, to see drapes fall away with a smear of black slime.
‘Oh, gods,’ he repeated.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ said Ginger, grinning fixedly at the line of civic dignitaries waiting to be introduced to them.
‘Wait and see,’ said Victor hoarsely. ‘It’s Holy Wood! Holy Wood’s been brought to Ankh-Morpork!’
‘Yes, but-‘
‘Don’t you remember anything? That night in the hill? Before you woke up?’
‘No. I told you.’
‘Wait and see,’ Victor repeated. He glanced at a decorated easel against one wall.
It said: ‘Three showings a day!’
And he thought of sand dunes, and ancient myths, and lobsters.
Map-making had never been a precise art on the Discworld. People tended to start off with good intentions and then get so carried away with the spouting whales, monsters, waves and other twiddly bits of cartographic furniture that they often forgot to put the boring mountains and rivers in at all.
The Archchancellor put an overflowing ashtray on a corner that threatened to roll up. He dragged a finger across the grubby surface.
‘Says here “Here be Dragons”,’ he said. ‘Right inside the city, too. Odd, that.’
‘That’s just Lady Ramkin’s Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons,’ said the Bursar, distractedly.
‘And here there’s “Terra Incognita”,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘Why’s that?’
The Bursar craned to see. ‘Well, it’s probably more interesting than putting in lots of cabbage farms.’
‘And there’s “Here be Dragons” again.’
‘I think that’s just a lie, in fact.’
The Archchancellor’s horny thumb continued in the direction they’d worked out. He brushed aside a couple of fly specks.
‘Nothing here at all,’ he said, peering closer. ‘Just the sea. And-‘ he squinted – ‘The Holy Wood. Mean anything?’
‘Isn’t that where the alchemists all went?’ said the Bursar:
‘Oh, them.’
‘I suppose’, said the Bursar slowly, ‘they wouldn’t be doing some kind of magic out there?’
‘Alchemists. Doing magic?’
‘Sorry. Ridiculous idea, I know. The porter told me they do some sort of, oh, shadow play or something. Or puppets. Or something similar. Pictures. Or something. I wasn’t really paying attention. I mean . . . alchemists. Really! I mean, assassins . . . yes. Thieves . . . yes. Even merchants . . . merchants can be really devious, sometimes. But alchemists -show me a more unworldly, bumbling, well-meaning . . . ‘
His voice trailed off as his ears caught up with his mouth.
‘They wouldn’t dare, would they?’ he said.
‘Would they?’
The Bursar gave a hollow laugh. ‘No-o-o. They wouldn’t dare! They know we’d be down on them like a ton of bricks if they tried any magic round here . . . ‘ His voice trailed off again.