Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett [105]
Let’s see, he thought, exactly how did I—
He sat bolt upright and grabbed the Archchancellor’s robe and screamed into the big pink and orange face: “Something dreadful’s going to happen!”
The wizards strolled through the twilight streets. So far the disguise was working perfectly. People were even jostling them. No one ever knowingly jostled a wizard. It was a whole new experience.
There was a huge crowd of people outside the entrance to the Odium, and a queue that stretched down the street. The Dean ignored it, and led the party straight up to the doors, whereupon someone said “Oi!”
He looked up at a red-faced troll in an ill-fitting military-looking outfit that included epaulettes the size of kettledrums and no trousers.
“Yes?” he said.
“There are a queue, you know,” said the troll.
The Dean nodded politely. In Ankh-Morpork a queue was, almost by definition, something with a wizard at the head of it. “So I see,” he said. “And a very good thing, too. And if you will be so good as to stand aside, we’d like to take our seats.”
The troll prodded him in the stomach.
“What you fink you are?” he said. “A wizard or something?” This got a laugh from the nearest queuers.
The Dean leaned closer.
“As a matter of fact, we are wizards,” he hissed.
The troll grinned at him.
“Don’t come the raw trilobite with me,” he said. “I can see your false beard!”
“Now listen—” the Dean began, but his voice became an incoherent squeak as the troll picked him up by the collar of his robe and propelled him out into the road.
“You get in queue like everyone else,” he said. There was a chorus of jeers from the queue.
The Dean growled and raised his right hand, fingers spread—
The Chair grabbed his arm.
“Oh, yes,” he hissed. “That’d do a lot of good, wouldn’t it? Come on.”
“Where to?”
“To the back of the queue!”
“But we’re wizards! Wizards never stand in line for anything!”
“We’re honest merchants, remember?” said the Chair. He glanced at the nearest click-goers, who were giving them odd looks. “We’re honest merchants,” he repeated loudly. He nudged the Dean. “Go on,” he hissed.
“Go on what?”
“Go on and say something merchanty.”
“What sort of thing is that?” said the Dean, mystified.
“Say something! Everyone’s looking at us!”
“Oh.” The Dean’s face creased in panic, and then salvation dawned. “Lovely apples,” he said. “Get them while they’re hot. They’re luvverly…Will this do?”
“I suppose so. Now let’s go to the end—”
There was a commotion at the other end of the street. People surged forward. The queue broke ranks and charged. The honest merchants were suddenly surrounded by a desperately-pushing crowd.
“I say, there is a queue, you know,” said the Honest Merchant in Recent Runes diffidently, as he was shoved aside.
The Dean grabbed the shoulder of a boy who was ferociously elbowing him aside.
“What is going on, young man?” he demanded.
“They’re a-coming!” shouted the boy.
“Who are?”
“The stars!”
The wizards, as one man, looked upward.
“No, they’re not,” said the Dean, but the boy had shaken himself free and disappeared in the press of people.
“Strange primitive superstition,” said the Dean, and the wizards, with the exception of Poons, who was complaining and flailing around with his stick, craned forward to see.
The Bursar met the Archchancellor in a corridor.
“There’s no one in the Uncommon Room!” screamed the Bursar.
“The Library’s empty!” bellowed the Archchancellor.
“I’ve heard about that sort of thing,” the Bursar whimpered. “Spontaneous something-or-other. They’ve all gone spontaneous!”
“Calm down, man. Just because—”
“I can’t even find any of the servants! You know what happens when reality gives way! Even now giant tentacles are probably—”
There was a distant whumm…whumm noise, and the sound of pellets bouncing off the wall.
“Always the same direction,” the Bursar muttered.
“What direction is that, then?”
“The direction They’ll be coming from! I think I’m going mad!”
“Now, now,” said the Archchancellor, patting him on the shoulder. “You don’t want