Moving Pictures

Holy Wood’s own magic, now rootless and fading, crackled across the landscape, looking for pathways to earth itself: Click …

It was early evening. The reddened light of the setting sun filled the windows of Harga’s House of Ribs, which was nearly deserted at this time of day.

Detritus and Ruby sat awkwardly on human-size chairs.

The only other person around was Sham Harga himself, smearing the dirt more evenly around the vacant tables with a cloth and whistling vaguely.

‘Ur,’ Detritus ventured.

‘Yes?’ said Ruby, expectantly.

‘Ur. Nuffin,’ said Detritus. He felt out of place here, but Ruby had insisted. He kept feeling she wanted him to say something, but all he could think of was hitting her with a brick.

Harga stopped whistling.

Detritus felt his head twist around. His mouth opened.

‘Play it again, Sham,’ said Holy Wood.^{54}

There was a crashing chord. The back wall of the House of Ribs moved aside into whatever dimension these things go, and an indistinct but unmistakable orchestra occupied the space normally filled by Harga’s kitchen and the noisome alley behind it.

Ruby’s dress became a waterfall of sequins. The other tables whirled away.

Detritus adjusted an unexpected tuxedo, and cleared his throat.

‘Dere may being trouble ahead—’ he began, the words flowing straight from somewhere else into his vocal chords.

He took Ruby’s hand. A gold-tipped cane hit his left ear. A black silk hat materialized at high speed and bounced off his elbow. He ignored them.

‘But while dere moonlight, an’ music—’

He faltered. The golden words were fading. The walls came back. The tables reappeared. The sequins flared and died.

‘Um,’ said Detritus, suddenly.

She was watching him intently.

‘Ur. Sorry,’ he said. ‘Dunno what come over me, there.’

Harga strode up to the table.

‘What was all that—’ he began. Without shifting her gaze, Ruby shot out a treetrunk arm, spun him around, and pushed him through the wall.

‘Kiss me, you mad fool,’ she said.

Detritus’ brow wrinkled. ‘What?’ he said.

Ruby sighed. Well, so much for the human way.

She picked up a chair and hit him scientifically over the head with it. A smile spread across his face, and he slumped forwards.

She picked him up easily and slung him over her shoulder. If Ruby had learned anything in Holy Wood, it was that there was no use in waiting around for Mr Right to hit you with a brick. You had to make your own bricks.

Click …

In a dwarf mine miles and miles from the loam of Ankh-Morpork, a very angry overseer banged on his shovel for silence and spoke thusly: ‘I want to make this absolutely clear, right? One more, and I really mean it, one more, right? Just one more Hihohiho out of you bloody lawn ornaments and it’s double-headed axe time, OK? We’re dwarfs, godsdammit. So act like them. And that includes you, Dozy!’^{55}

Click …

Make-my-day, Call-me-Mr-Thumpy hopped to the top of the dune and peered over. Then he slid back down again.

‘All clear,’ he reported. ‘No humans. Just ruins.’

‘A playshe of our own,’ said the cat, happily. ‘A playshe where all animals, regardlesh of shape or speciesh, can live together in perfect—’

The duck quacked.

‘The duck says,’ said Call-me-Mr-Thumpy-and-die, ‘it’s got to be worth a try. If we’re going to be sapient, we might as well get good at it. Come on.’

Then he shivered. There had been something like a faint tang of static electricity. For a moment the little area in the sand dunes wavered as in a heat haze.

The duck quacked again.

Not-Mr-Thumpy wrinkled his nose. It was suddenly hard to concentrate.

‘The duck says,’ he wavered, ‘the duck says … says … the duck … says … says … quack …?’

The cat looked at the mouse.

‘Miaow?’ it said.

The mouse shrugged. ‘Squeak,’ it commented.

The rabbit wrinkled its nose uncertainly.

The duck squinted at the cat. The cat stared at the rabbit. The mouse peered at the duck.

The duck rocketed upwards. The rabbit became a fast-disappearing cloud of sand. The mouse tore over the dunes. And, feeling a lot happier than it had done for weeks, the cat ran after it.

Click …

Ginger and Victor sat at a table in the corner of the Mended Drum. Eventually Ginger said: ‘They were good dogs.’

‘Yes,’ said Victor, distantly.

‘Morry and Rock have been digging through the rubble for ages. They said there’s all kind of cellars and things down there. I’m sorry.’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe we ought to put up a statue to them, or something.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Victor. ‘I mean, considering what dogs do to statues. Maybe dogs dying is all part of Holy Wood. I don’t know.’

Ginger traced the outline of a knothole on the tabletop.

‘It’s all over now,’ she said. ‘You do know that, don’t you? No more Holy Wood. It’s all over.’

‘Yes.’

‘The Patrician and the wizards won’t let anyone make any more clicks. The Patrician was very definite about it.’

‘I don’t think anyone wants to make any,’ said Victor. ‘Who’s going to remember Holy Wood now?’

‘What do you mean?’