Moving Pictures

They de-hatted, but with reluctance. A wizard gets very attached to his pointy hat. It gives him a sense of identity. But, as the Chair had pointed out earlier, if people knew you were a wizard because you were wearing a pointy hat, then if you took the pointy hat off, they’d think you were just some rich merchant or something.

The Dean shuddered. ‘It feels like I’ve taken all my clothes off,’ he said.

‘We can tuck them in under Poons’ blanket,’ said the Chair. ‘No-one’ll know it’s us.’

‘Yes,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, ‘but will we?’

‘They’ll just think we’re, well, solid burghers.’

‘That’s just what I feel like,’ said the Dean. ‘A solid burgher.’

‘Or merchants,’ said the Chair. He smoothed back his white hair.’

‘Remember,’ he said, ‘if anyone says anything, we’re not wizards. Just honest merchants out for an enjoyable evening, right?’

‘What does an honest merchant look like?’ said a wizard.

‘How should I know?’ said the Chair. ‘So no-one is to do any magic,’ he went on. ‘I don’t have to tell you what’ll happen if the Archchancellor hears that his staff has been seen at the common entertainments.’

‘I’m more worried about our students finding out,’ shuddered the Dean.

‘False beards,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, triumphantly. ‘We should wear false beards.’

The Chair rolled his eyes.

‘We’ve all GOT beards,’ he said. ‘What kind of disguise would false beards be?’

‘Ah! That’s the clever bit,’ said the Lecturer. ‘No-one would suspect that anyone wearing a false beard would have a real beard underneath, would they?’

The Chair opened his mouth to refute this, and then hesitated.

‘Well—’ he said.

‘But where’d we get false beards at this time of night?’ said a wizard doubtfully.

The Lecturer beamed, and reached into his pocket. ‘We don’t have to,’ he said. ‘That’s the really clever bit. I brought some wire with me, you see, and all you need to do is break two bits off, twiddle them into your sideburns, then loop them over your ears rather clumsily like this,’ he demonstrated, ‘and there you are.’

The Chair stared.

‘Uncanny,’ he said, at last. ‘It’s true! You look just like someone wearing a very badly-made false beard.’

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said the Lecturer happily, passing out the wire. ‘It’s headology, you know.’

There were a few minutes of busy twanging and the occasional whimper as a wizard punctured himself with wire, but eventually they were ready. They looked shyly at one another.

‘If we got a pillow case without a pillow in it and shoved it down inside the Chair’s robe so the top was showing, he’d look just like a thin man making himself tremendously fat with a huge pillow,’ said one of them enthusiastically. He caught the Chair’s eye, and went quiet.

A couple of wizards grasped the handles of Poons’ terrible wheel chair and started it rumbling over the damp cobbles.

‘Wassat? What’s everyone doing?’ said Poons, suddenly waking up.

‘We’re going to play solid burghers,’ said the Dean.

‘That’s a good game,’ said Poons.

‘Can you hear me, old chap?’

The Bursar opened his eyes.

The University sanitarium wasn’t very big, and was seldom used. Wizards tended to be either in rude health, or dead. The only medicine they generally required was an antacid formula and a dark room until lunch.

‘Brought you something to read,’ said the voice, diffidently.

The Bursar managed to focus on the spine of Adventures with Crossbow and Rod.

‘Nasty knock you had there, Bursar. Been asleep all day.’

The Bursar looked blearily at the pink and orange haze, which gradually refined itself into the Archchancellor’s pink and orange face.

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 kettle-drums 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!’