Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

And then suddenly someone somewhere wanted a thousand elephants, and the lad had raised his head and a gleam had come into his eye and you could see that under that grin was a skilled kilopachydermatolist ready to answer the call. Funny. You could know someone for their whole life and not realize that the gods had put them in this world to move a thousand elephants around the place.

Azhural had no sons. He'd already made up his mind to leave everything to his assistant. Everything he had at this

point amounted to three hundred and sixty-three elephants and, ahaha, a mammoth overdraft, but it was the thought that counted.

M'Bu trotted up the path towards him, his clipboard held firmly under one arm.

'Everything ready, boss,' he said. 'You just got to say the word.'

Azhural drew himself up. He looked around at the heaving plain, the distant baobab trees, the purple mountains. Oh, yes. The mountains. He'd had misgivings about the mountains. He'd mentioned them to M'Bu, who said, 'We'll cross them bridges when we get to 'em, boss,' and when Azhural had pointed out that there weren't any bridges, had looked him squarely in the eye and said firmly, 'First we build them bridge, then we cross 'em.'

Far beyond the mountains was the Circle Sea and Ankh-Morpork and this Holy Wood place. Far-away places with strange sounding names.

A wind blew across the veldt, carrying faint whispers, even here.

Azhural raised his staff.

'It's fifteen hundred miles to Ankh-Morpork,' he said. 'We've got three hundred and sixty-three elephants, fifty carts of forage, the monsoon's about to break and we're wearing . . . we're wearing . . . sort of things, like glass, only dark . . . dark glass things on our eyes . . . ' His voice trailed off. His brow furrowed, as if he'd just been listening to his own voice and hadn't understood it. '

The air seemed to glitter.

He saw M'Bu staring at him.

He shrugged. 'Let's go,' he said.

M'Bu cupped his hands. He'd spent all night working out the order of the march.

'Blue Section bilong Uncle N'gru - forward!' he shouted. 'Yellow Section bilong Aunti Googool - forward! Green Section bilong Second-cousin! Kck! - forward . . . '

An hour later the veldt in front of the low hill was deserted except for a billion flies and one dung beetle who couldn't believe his luck.

Something went 'plop' on the red dust, throwing up a little crater.

And again, and again.

Lightning split the trunk of a nearby baobab.

The rains began.

Victor's back was beginning to ache. Carrying young women to safety looked a good idea on paper, but had major drawbacks after the first hundred yards.

'Have you any idea where she lives?' he said. 'And is it somewhere close?'

'No idea,' said Gaspode.

'She once said something about it being over a clothes shop,' said Victor.

'That'll be in the alley alongside Borgle's then,' said Gaspode.

Gaspode and Laddie led the way through the alleys and up a rickety outside staircase. Maybe they smelled out Ginger's room. Victor wasn't going to argue with mysterious animal senses.

Victor went up the back stairs as quietly as possible. He was dimly aware that where people stayed was often infested by the Common or Greatly Suspicious Landlady, and he felt that he had enough problems as it was.

He used Ginger's feet to push open the door.

It was a small room, low-ceilinged and furnished with the sad, washed-out furniture found in rented rooms across the multiverse. At least, that's how it had started out.

What it was furnished with now was Ginger.