Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett [112]
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.
“The film’s doing something to them,” he said. “It must be the film. But I can’t see how. It’s a perfectly ordinary film. We don’t use magic in Holy Wood. At least…not normal magic…”
He struggled over unyielding knees until he reached the aisle, and ran up it through the tendrils of fog. He hammered on the door of the picture-throwing room. When that got no answer he kicked it down.
Bezam was staring intently at the screen through a small square hole cut in the wall. The picture-thrower was clicking away happily by itself. No one was turning the handle. At least, Victor corrected himself, no one he could see.
There was a distant rumble, and the ground shook.
He stared at the screen. He recognized this bit. It was just before the Burning of Ankh-Morpork scene.
His mind raced. What was it they said about the gods? They wouldn’t exist if there weren’t people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality was what went on inside people’s heads. And in front of him were hundreds of people really believing what they were seeing…
Victor scrabbled among the rubbish on Bezam’s bench for some scissors or a knife, and found neither. The machine whirred on, winding reality from the future to the past.
In the background, he could hear Gaspode saying, “I expect I’ve saved the day, right?”
The brain normally echoes with the shouts of various inconsequential thoughts seeking attention. It takes a real emergency to get them to shut up. It was happening now. One clear thought that had been trying to make itself heard