Moving Pictures

one hand, the rope in the other, and leapt.
    The most graphic way of describing the Librarian’s swing across the buildings of Unseen University is to simply transcribe the noises made during the flight.
    First: “AaaAAAaaaAAAaaa.” This is self-explanatory, and refers to the early part of the swing, when everything looked as if it was going well.
    Then: “Aaarghhhh.” This was the noise made as he missed the lurching Thing by several meters and was realizing that, if you have tied a rope to the top of a very high and extremely solid stone tower and are now swinging toward it, failing to hit something on the way is an error which you will regret for the rest of your truncated life.
    The rope completed its swing. There was a noise exactly like a rubber sack full of butter hitting a stone slab and this was followed, after a moment or two, by a very quiet “oook”.
    The pike clanged away in the darkness. The Librarian spread-eagled himself starfish-like against the wall, ramming fingers and toes into every available crevice.
    He might have been able to climb his way down but the option never became available, because the Thing reached out a flickering hand and plucked him off the wall with a noise like a sink-plunger clearing a difficult blockage.
    It held him up to what was currently its face.

    The crowds flowed into the square in front of Unseen University, with the Dibblers to the fore.
    “Look at them,” Cut-me-own-Throat sighed. “There must be thousands of them, and no one’s selling ’em anything.”
    The wheelchair slid to a halt in another spray of sparks.
    Victor was waiting for it, the spectral horse flickering under him. Not one horse, but a succession of horses. Not moving, but changing from frame to frame.
    Lightning flashed again.
    “What’s he doing?” said the Chair.
    “Trying to keep It from getting to the Library,” said the Dean, peering through the rain that was beginning to thud on the cobbles. “To stay alive in reality, Things need magic to hold themselves together. They’ve got no natural morphogenic field, you see, and—”
    “Do something! Blow it up with magic!” shouted Ginger.
    “Oh, that poor monkey!”
    “We can’t use magic! That’s like pouring oil on a fire!” snapped the Dean. “Besides…I don’t know how you go about blowing up a fifty-foot woman. It’s not the sort of thing I’ve ever been called upon to do.”
    “It’s not a woman! It’s…it’s a film creature, you idiot! Do you think I’m really that big?” shouted Ginger. “It’s using Holy Wood! It’s a Holy Wood monster! From film land!”

    “Steer, godsdamnit! Steer!”
    “I don’t know how to!”
    “You just have to throw your weight about!”
    The Bursar gripped the broomstick nervously. It’s all very well for you to say, he thought. You’re used to it.
    They had been stepping out of the Great Hall when a giant woman had lurched past the gate with a gibbering ape in one hand. Now the Bursar was trying to control an antique broom out of the University museum while a madman behind him feverishly tried to load a crossbow.
    Airborne, the Archchancellor had said. It was absolutely essential that they were airborne.
    “Can’t you keep it steady?” the Archchancellor demanded.
    “It’s not made for two, Archchancellor!”
    “Can’t damn well aim with you weavin’ around the sky like this, man!”
    The contagious spirit of Holy Wood, whipping across the city like a steel hawser with one end suddenly cut free, sliced once again through the Archchancellor’s mind.
    “We don’t leave our people in there,” he muttered.
    “Apes, Archchancellor,” said the Bursar automatically.

    The Thing lurched toward Victor. It moved uneasily, fighting against the forces of reality that tugged at it. It flickered as it tried to maintain the shape it had climbed into the world with, so that images of Ginger alternated with glimpses of something that writhed and coiled.
    It needed magic.
    It eyed Victor and the sword, and if it was capable of something so sophisticated as knowledge, it knew that it was vulnerable.
    It turned, and bore down on Ginger and the wizards.
    Who burst into flame.

    The Dean burned with a particularly pretty blue color.
    “Don’t worry, young lady,” said the Chair from the heart of his fire. “It’s illusion. It’s not real.”
    “You’re telling me ?” said Ginger. “Get on with it!”
    The wizards moved forward.
    Ginger heard footsteps behind her. It