Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

As far as wizards were concerned, paying to get into anything was something that happened to other people. A pointy hat usually did nicely.

While the Dean struggled, the Chair beamed madly at the young woman who was selling tickets. 'But I assure you, dear lady,' he said desperately, 'we are wizards.'

'I can see your false beards,' said the girl, and sniffed. 'We get all sorts in here. How do I know you aren't three little boys in your dad's coat?'

'Madam!'

'I've got two dollars and fifteen pence,' said the Dean, picking the coins out of a handful of fluff and mysterious occult objects.

'That's two in the stalls, then,' said the girl, grudgingly unreeling two tickets. The Chair scooped them up.

'Then I'll take Windle in,' he said quickly, turning to the others. 'I'm afraid the rest of you had better get back to your honest trading.' He moved his eyebrows up and down suggestively.

'I don't see why we should-' the Dean began.

'Otherwise we'll be in arrears,' the Chair went on, mugging furiously. 'If you don't get back.'

'See here, that was my money, and-' the Dean said, but the Lecturer in Recent Runes grabbed his arm.

'Just come along,' he said, winked slowly and deliberately at the Chair. 'Time we were getting back.'

'I don't see why-'the Dean gurgled, as they dragged him off.

Grey clouds swirled in the Archchancellor's magic mirror. Many wizards had them, but not many ever bothered to use them. They were quirky and unreliable. They weren't even much good for shaving in.

Ridcully was surprisingly adept at using one.

'Stalkin',' he offered as a brief explanation. 'Couldn't be having with all that crawlin' around in damp bracken for hours, bigods. Help yourself to a drink, man. And one for me.'

The clouds flickered.

'Can't seem to see anything else,' he said. 'Odd, that. Just fog, flashing away.

The Archchancellor coughed. It was beginning to dawn on the Bursar that, against all expectation, the Archchancellor was quite bright.

'Ever seen one of these shadow moving puppet play picture things?' Ridcully asked.

'The servants go,' said the Bursar. This, Ridcully decided, meant 'no'.

'I think we should have a look,' he said.

'Very well, Archchancellor,' said the Bursar, meekly.

An inviolable rule about buildings for the showing of moving pictures, applicable throughout the multiverse, is that the ghastliness of the architecture around the back is inversely proportional to the gloriousness of the architecture in the front. At the front: pillars, arches, gold leaf, lights. At the back: weird ducts, mysterious prolapses of pipework, blank walls, fetid alleys.

And the window to the lavatories.

'There's no reason at all why we should have to do this,' moaned the Dean, as the wizards struggled in the darkness.

'Shut up and keep pushing,' muttered the Lecturer in Recent Runes, from the other side of the window.

'We should have changed something into money,' said the Dean. 'Just a quick illusion. Where's the harm in that?'

'It's called watering the currency,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'You can get thrown into the scorpion pit for stuff' like that. Where am I putting my feet? Where am I putting my feet?'

'You're fine,' said a wizard. 'Right, Dean. Up you come.'

'Oh, dear,' moaned the Dean, as he was dragged through the narrow window into the unmentionable gloom beyond. 'No good will come of this.'