Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'Shsss!' said a woman in the row behind. Windle Poons' scrawny head turned like a magnet.

'Hoochie koochie!' he cackled. 'Twopence more and up goes the donkey!'

The lights went down further. The screen flickered. Numbers appeared and blinked briefly, counting down.

Calliope peered intently at the score in front of her, rolled up her sleeves, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and launched a spirited attack on what was just discernible as the old Ankh-Morporkian civic anthem.[27]

The lights went out.

The sky flickered. It wasn't like proper fog at all. It shed a silvery, slatey light, flickering internally like a cross between the Aurora Coriolis and summer lightning.

In the direction of Holy Wood the sky blazed with light. It was visible even in the alley behind Sham Harga's House of Ribs, where two dogs were enjoying the All-You-Can-Drag-Out-Of-The-Midden-For-Free Special.

Laddie looked up and growled.

'I don't blame you,' said Gaspode. 'I said it boded. Didn't I say there was boding happening?'

Sparks crackled off his fur.

'Come on,' he said. 'We'd better warn people. You're good at that.'

Clickaclickaclicka . . .

It was the only noise inside the Odium. Calliope had stopped playing and was staring up at the screen.

Mouths hung open, and closed only to bite on handfuls of banged grains.

Victor was dimly aware that he'd fought it. He'd tried to look away. Even now, a little voice in his own head was telling him that things were wrong, but he ignored it. Things were clearly right. He'd shared in the sighs as the heroine tried to preserve the old family mine in a Worlde Gonne Madde . . . He'd shuddered at the fighting in the war. He'd watched the ballroom scene in a romantic haze. He . . .

. . . was aware of a cold sensation against his leg. It was as though a half-melted ice cube was soaking through his trousers. He tried to ignore it, but it had a definite unignorable quality.

He looked down.

' 'Scuse me,' said Gaspode.

Victor's eyes focused. Then his eyes found themselves being dragged back to the screen, where a huge version of himself was kissing a huge version of Ginger.

There was another feeling of sticky coldness. He surfaced again.

'I can bite your leg if you like,' said Gaspode.

'I, er, I-' Victor began.

'I can bite it quite hard,' Gaspode added. 'Just say the word.'

'No, er-'

'Something's boding, just like I said. Bode, bode, bode. Laddie's tried barkin' until he's hoarse and no-one's listenin'. So I fort I'd try the old cold nose technique. Never fails.'

Victor looked around him. The rest of the audience were staring at the screen as if they were prepared to remain in their seats for . . . for . . .

. . . forever.

When he lifted up his arms from his seat, sparks crackled from his fingers, and there was a greasy feel to the air that even student wizards soon learned to associate with a vast accumulation of magical potential. And there was fog in the pit. It was ridiculous, but there it was, covering the floor like a pale silver tide.

He shook Ginger's shoulder. He waved a hand in front of her eyes. He shouted in her ear.

Then he tried the Patrician, and Dibbler. They yielded to pressure but swayed gently back into position again.