Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'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 AnkhMorpork 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.