Moving pictures

Victor heard a clicking beside him. Gaffer the handleman was intently capturing the scene on film.

The Chair was shouting at Dibbler.

'Of course we can't use magic against it! They need magic! Magic only makes them stronger.'

'You must be able to do something!' screamed Dibbler.

'My dear sir, we didn't start meddling with things best left -' the Chair hesitated in mid-snarl, 'unmeddled-with with,' he finished lamely.

'Matches!' Victor shouted. 'Matches! Hurry!'

They all stared at him.

Then the Chair nodded. 'Ordinary fire,' he said. 'You're right. That should do it.

Good thinking, boy.' He fumbled in a pocket and produced the bundle of matches that chain­ smoking wizards always carried.

'You can't burn the Odium,' snapped Dibbler. 'There's heaps of film in there!'

Victor ripped a poster off the wall, wrapped it in a crude torch, and lit one end.

'That's what I'm going to burn,' he said.

' 'Scuse me?'

'Stupid! Stupid!' shouted Dibbler. 'That stuff burns really fast!'

' 'Scuse me?'

'So what? I wasn't intending to hang around in there,' said Victor.

'I mean really fast!'

' 'Scuse me,' said Gaspode patiently. They looked down at him.

'Me an' Laddie could do it,' he said. 'Four legs're better 'n two and so forth, y'know? When it comes to savin' the day.'

Victor looked at Dibbler and raised his eyebrows.

'I suppose they might be able to,' Dibbler conceded. Victor nodded. Laddie leaped gracefully, snatched the torch out of his hand and ran back into the building with Gaspode lurching after him.

'Did I hear things, or can that little dog speak?' said Dibbler.

'He says he can't,' said Victor.

Dibbler hesitated. The excitement was unhinging him a little. 'Well,' he said, 'I suppose he should know.'

The dogs bounded towards the screen. The Victor-Thing was nearly through, half-sprawled among the cans.

'Can I light the fire?' said Gaspode. ' 'Smy job, really.'

Laddie barked obediently and dropped the blazing paper. Gaspode snapped it up and advanced cautiously towards the Thing.

'Savin' the day,' he said, indistinctly, and dropped the torch on a coil of film. It flared instantly and burned with a sticky white fire, like slow magnesium.

'OK,' he said. 'Now, let's get the hell out of?'

The Thing screamed. What semblance there still was of Victor left it, and something like an