Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'You can sleep on the coach. I can sleep on the coach, if it comes to that.'

He took a few steps into the silvery glow, and was almost immediately lost. Buildings loomed vaguely at him in the thick clammy air.

'Gaspode?' he said hesitantly. Fog's just fog, he repeated. But it feels crowded. It feels like that, if it suddenly went away, I'd see lots of people watching me. From outside. And that's ridiculous, because I am outside, so there's nothing outside of outside. And it's flickering.

'I expect you'll be wantin' me to lead the way,' said a smug voice by his knee.

'It's very quiet, isn't it?' said Victor, trying to sound nonchalant. 'I expect it's the fog muffling everything.'

'O'corse, maybe gharstely creatures have come up out o' the sea and murthered every mortal soul except us,' said Gaspode conversationally.

'Shut up!'

Something loomed up out of the brightness. As it got closer it got smaller, and the tentacles and antennae that Victor's imagination had been furnishing became the more-or-less ordinary arms and legs of Soll Dibbler.

'Victor?' he said uncertainly.

Soll's relief was visible. 'Can't see a thing in this stuff,' he said. 'We thought you'd got lost. Come on, it's nearly noon. We're more or less ready to go.'

'I'm ready.'

'Good.' Fog droplets had condensed on Soll's hair and clothing. 'Er,' he said. 'Where are we, exactly?'

Victor turned around. His lodgings had been behind him.

'The fog changes everything, doesn't it?' said Soll unhappily. 'Er, do you think your little dog can find his way to the studio? He seems quite bright.'

'Growl, growl,' said Gaspode, and sat up and begged in what Victor at least recognized as a sarcastic way.

'My word,' said Soll. 'It's as if he understands, isn't it?'

Gaspode barked sharply. After a second or two there was a barrage of excited answering barks.

'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 AnkhMorpork. 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.