Moving Pictures

‘What’s he waiting for?’ said Victor.

‘You’ve got to tell him he’s a good boy,’ sighed Gaspode.

‘Doesn’t he expect some meat or a sweet or something?’

Gaspode shook his head. ‘Jus’ tell him what a good boy he is. It’s better’n hard currency, for dogs.’

‘Oh? Well, then: good boy, Laddie.’

Laddie bounced up and down excitedly. Gaspode swore under his breath.

‘Sorry about this,’ he said. ‘Pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘Good boy, find Ginger,’ said Victor.

‘Look, I can do that,’ said Gaspode desperately, as Laddie started snuffling at the floor. ‘We all know where she’s headed. You don’t have to go and—’

Laddie dashed out of the door, but gracefully. He paused at the bottom of the stairs and gave an eager, follow-me bark.

‘Pathetic,’ said Gaspode, miserably.

The stars always seemed to shine more brightly over Holy Wood. Of course, the air was clearer than Ankh, and there wasn’t much smoke, but even so … they were somehow bigger, too, and closer, as if the sky was a vast lens.

Laddie streaked over the dunes, pausing occasionally for Victor to catch up. Gaspode followed on some way behind, rolling from side to side and wheezing.

The trail led to the hollow, which was empty.

The door was open about a foot. Scuffed sand around it indicated that, whatever may or may not have come out, Ginger had gone in.

Victor stared at it.

Laddie sat by the door, staring hopefully at Victor.

‘He’s waitin’,’ said Gaspode.

‘What for?’ said Victor apprehensively.

Gaspode groaned. ‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘Oh. Yes. There’s a good boy, Laddie.’

Laddie yapped and tried to turn a somersault.

‘What do we do next?’ said Victor. ‘I suppose we go in, do we?’

‘Could be,’ said Gaspode.

‘Er. Or we could wait till she comes out. The fact is, I’ve never been very happy about darkness,’ said Victor. ‘I mean, night-time is OK, but pitch darkness—’

‘I bet Cohen the Barbarian isn’t afraid of the dark,’ said Gaspode.

‘Well, yes—’

‘And the Black Shadow of the Desert, he’s not afraid of the dark either.’

‘OK, but—’

‘And Howondaland Smith, Balgrog Hunter, practic’ly eats the dark for his tea,’ said Gaspode.^{43}

‘Yes, but I’m not those people!’ wailed Victor.

‘Try tellin’ that to all those people who handed over their pennies to watch you bein’ ’em,’ said Gaspode. He scratched at an insomniac flea. ‘Cor, it’d be a laugh to have a handleman here now, wouldn’t it?’ he said, cheerfully. ‘Wot a comedy feature it’d make. Mr Hero Not Goin’ Into the Dark, we could call it. It’d be better’n Turkey Legs. It’d be funnier’n A Night At The Arena. I reckon people’d queue fo—’

‘All right, all right,’ said Victor. ‘I’ll go a little way in, perhaps.’ He looked around desperately at the dried-up trees around the hollow. ‘And I’ll make a torch,’ he added.

He’d expected spiders and dampness and possibly snakes, if nothing worse …

Instead, there was just a dry, roughly square passageway, leading slightly downwards. The air had a slightly salty smell, suggesting that somewhere the tunnel was connected to the sea.

Victor took a few paces along it, and stopped.

‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘If the torch goes out, we could get horribly lost.’

‘No, we can’t,’ said Gaspode. ‘Sense of smell, see?’

‘Gosh, that’s clever.’

Victor went on a little further. The walls were covered with big versions of the square ideograms that featured in the book.

‘You know,’ he said, pausing to run his fingers over one, ‘these aren’t really like a written language. It’s more as if—’

‘Keep movin’ and stop makin’ excuses,’ said Gaspode behind him.

Victor’s foot kicked against something which bounced away into the darkness.

‘What was it?’ he quavered.

Gaspode snuffled off into the darkness, and returned.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said.

‘Oh?’

‘It’s just a skull.’

‘Whose?’

‘He dint say,’ said Gaspode.

‘Shut up!’

Something crunched under Victor’s sandal.

‘An’ that—’ Gaspode began.

‘I don’t want to know!’

‘It was a seashell, in fact,’ said Gaspode.

Victor peered into the moving square of darkness ahead of them. The makeshift torch flared in the draught and, if he strained his ears, he could hear a rhythmic sound; it was either a beast roaring in the distance, or the sound of the sea moving in some underground tunnel. He opted for the second suggestion.

‘Something’s been calling her,’ he said. ‘In dreams. Someone that wants to be let out. I’m afraid she’s going to get hurt.’

‘She’s not worth it,’ said Gaspode. ‘Messin’ around with girls who’re in thrall to Creatures from the Void never works out, take my word for it. You’d never know what you were going to wake up next to.’

‘Gaspode!’

‘You’ll see I’m right.’

The torch went out.

Victor waved it desperately and blew on it in a last attempt to rekindle it. A few sparks flared and faded. There simply wasn’t enough torch left.