Moving Pictures

The vase recoiled back, in accordance with the famous principle of reaction. Instead of hitting a sandbag, it hit the Bursar.

Ming-ng-ng.

He blinked. He took a step backwards. He fell over.

Because Holy Wood’s disturbances in reality were extending weak but opportunist tendrils even as far as Ankh-Morpork, a couple of little bluebirds flew around his head for a moment and went ‘tweet-tweet-tweet’ before vanishing.

Gaspode lay on the sand and wheezed. Laddie danced around him, barking urgently.

‘We’re well out of that,’ he managed, and stood up and shook himself.

Laddie barked and looked incredibly photogenic.

‘All right, all right,’ sighed Gaspode. ‘How about if we go and find some breakfast and maybe catch up on our sleep and then we’ll—’

Laddie barked again.

Gaspode sighed.

‘Oh, all right,’ he said. ‘Have it your way. But you won’t get any thanks, you know.’

The dog whizzed away across the sand. Gaspode followed at a more leisurely, ambling pace, and was very surprised when Laddie doubled back, picked him up gently by the scruff of the neck, and bounded off again.

‘You’re only doin’ this to me ’cos I’m small,’ Gaspode complained, as he swung from side to side, and ‘No, not that way! Humans’ll be no good at this time o’ the morning. We want trolls. They’ll still be up and about and they’re dab hands at the underground stuff. Take the next right. We want the Blue Lias and — oh, bugger.’

It had suddenly dawned on him that he was going to be required to talk.

And in public.

You could spend ages carefully concealing your vocal abilities from people and then, bingo, you were on the spot and you had to talk. Otherwise young Victor and Cat Woman would be moulderin’ down there forever. Young Laddie was going to drop him in front of someone and look expectant and he’d have to explain. And afterwards spend his whole life as some sort of freak.

Laddie trotted up the street and into the smoky portals of the Blue Lias, which was crowded. He threaded his way through a maze of treetrunk legs to the bar, barked sharply, and dropped Gaspode on the floor.

He looked expectant.

The buzz of conversation stopped.

‘Is that Laddie?’ said a troll. ‘What he want?’

Gaspode wandered groggily to the nearest troll and tugged politely at a trailing strip of rusty chain mail.

‘’Scuse me,’ he said.

‘He bloody intelligent dog,’ said another troll, idly kicking Gaspode aside. ‘I see him in click yesterday. He can play dead and count up to five.’

‘That two more than you can, then.’ This got a round of laughter.[23]

‘No, shut up. I reckon’, said the first troll, ‘he trying to tell us something.’

‘—’scuse me—’

‘You only got to look at the way he leaping about and barking.’

‘That right. I saw him in this click, he showing people where to find lost children in caves.’

‘—’scuse me—’

A troll brow wrinkled. ‘To eat ’em, you mean?’

‘No, to bring ’em outside.’

‘What, like for a barbecue sort of thing?’

‘—’scuse me—’

Another foot caught Gaspode on the side of his bullet head.

‘Could be he found some more. Look at the way he running back and forwards to the door. He one clever dog.’

‘We could go look,’ said the first troll.

‘Good idea. It seems like ages since I had my tea.’

‘Listen, you not allowed to eat people in Holy Wood. It get us bad name! Also Silicon Anti-Defamation League be down on you like a ton of rectangular building things.’

‘Yeah, but could be a reward or something.’

‘—’SCUSE ME—’

‘Right! Also, big improvement for troll image vizah-viz public relations if we find lost children.’

‘And even if we don’t, we can eat the dog, right?’

The bar emptied, leaving only the usual clouds of smoke, cauldrons of molten troll drinks, Ruby idly scraping the congealed lava off the mugs, and a small, weary, moth-eaten dog.

The small, weary, moth-eaten dog thought hard about the difference between looking and acting like a wonder dog and merely being one.

It said ‘Bugger.’

Victor remembered being frightened of tigers when he was young. In vain did people point out that the nearest tiger was three thousand miles away. He’d say, ‘Is there any sea between where they live and here?’ and people would say, ‘Well, no, but—’ and he’d say, ‘Then it’s just a matter of distance.’

Darkness was the same thing. All dreadful dark places were connected by the nature of darkness itself. Darkness was everywhere, all the time, just waiting for the lights to go out. Just like the Dungeon Dimensions, really. Just waiting for reality to snap.

He held on tight to Ginger.

‘You needn’t,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a grip on myself now.’

‘Oh, good,’ he said weakly.

‘The trouble is, so have you.’

He relaxed.

‘Are you cold?’ she said.

‘A bit. It’s very clammy down here.’

‘Is it your teeth I can hear chattering?’

‘Who else’s? No,’ he added hurriedly, ‘don’t even think about it.’

‘You know,’ she said, after a while, ‘I don’t remember anything about tying you up. I’m not even very good at knots.’

‘These were pretty good,’ said Victor.