Moving pictures

The grey light of pre-dawn unrolled over the blue-green expanse,and around a couple of farmers who were making an early start on the spinachharvest.

They looked up, not at a sound, but at a travelling point of silence where sound ought to have been.

It was a man and a woman and something like a size five man in a size twelve fur coat, all in a chariot that flickered as it moved. It bowled along the road towards Holy Wood and was soon out of sight.

A minute or two later it was followed by a wheelchair. Its axle glowed red-hot. It was full of people screaming at one another. One of them was turning a handle on a box.

It was so overburdened that wizards occasionally fell off and ran along after it, shouting, until they had a chance to jump on again and start screaming.

Whoever was attempting to steer was not succeeding, and it weaved back and forth across the road and eventually hurtled off it completely and through the side of a barn.

One of the farmers nudged the other.

'Oi've seen this on the clicks,' he said. 'It's always the same. They crash into a barn and they allus comes out the other side covered in squawking chickens.'

His companion leaned reflectively on his hoe.

'It'd be a sight worth seeing that,' he said.

'Sure would.'

' 'Cos all there is in there, boy, is twenty ton of cabbage.'

There was a crash, and the chair erupted from the barn in a shower of chickens and headed madly towards the road.

The farmers looked at one another.

'Well, dang me,' said one of them.

Holy Wood was a glow on the horizon. The earth tremors were stronger now.

The flickering chariot came out of a stand of trees and paused at the top of the incline that led down to the town.

Mist wreathed Holy Wood. From out of it spears of light criss­crossed the sky.

'We're too late?' said Ginger hopefully.

'Almost too late,' said Victor.

'Oook,' said the Librarian. His fingernail raced back and forth as he read the ancient pictograms - right to left, right to left.

'I knew there was something not right,' Victor had said. 'That sleeping statue . . . the guard. The old priests sang songs and did ceremonies to keep him awake. They remembered Holy Wood as best they could.'

'But I don't know anything about a guard!'

'Yes, you do. Like, deep down inside.'

'Gook,' said the Librarian, tapping a page. 'Oook!'

'He says you're probably descended from the original High Priestess. He thinks everyone in Holy Wood is descended from . . . you see . . . I mean, the first time the Things broke through the entire city was destroyed and the survivors fled everywhere, you see, but everyone has this way of remembering even things that happened to their ancestors, I mean, it's like there's this great big pool of memory and we're linked, up to it and when it all started happening again we were all called to the place, and you tried to put it right, only it was weak so it couldn't get through to you unless you were asleep?'

He trailed off helplessly.

' "Oook"?' said Ginger suspiciously. 'You got all this from "oook"?'

'Well, not just one,' Victor admitted.

'I've never heard such a lot of?' Ginger began, and stopped. A hand softer than the softest leather was pushed into hers. She looked around into a fare that compared badly to a deflated football.

'Oook,' said the Librarian.

Ginger locked eyes with him for a moment.

Then she said, 'But I've never felt the least bit like a high priestess . . . '

'That dream you told me about,' said Victor. 'It sounded pretty high priestessy to me. Very . . . very-'

'Gook.'

'Sacerdotal. Yeah,' Victor translated.

'It's just a dream,' said Ginger nervously. 'I've, dreamed it occasionally as far back as I can remember.'

'Oook oook.'

'What'd he say?' said Ginger.

'He says that's probably a lot further back than you think.'

Ahead of them Holy Wood glittered like frost, like a city made of congealed starlight.

'Victor?' said Ginger.

'Yes?'

'Where is everybody?'

Victor looked down the road. Where there should have been people, refugees, desperately fleeing . . . was nothing.

Just silence, and the light.

'Where are they?' she repeated.

He looked at her expression.

'But the tu

'It wouldn't take trolls long to clear a way through, though,' said Ginger.

Victor thought about the - the Cthinema. And the first house, which had been going on for thousands of years. And all the people he knew, sitting there, for another thousand years. While overhead the stars changed.

'Of course, they might just be . . . well . . . somewhere else,' he lied.

'But they're not,' said Ginger. 'We both know that.'

Victor stared helplessly at the city of lights.

'Why us?' he said. 'Why is it happening to us?'

'Everything has to happen to someone,' said Ginger.

Victor shrugged. 'And you only get one chance,' he said. 'Right?'

'Just when you need to save the world, there's a world for you to save,' said Ginger.

'Yeah,' said Victor. 'Lucky old us.'

The two farmers peered in through the barn doors. Stacks of cabbage waited stolidly in the gloom.

'Told you it were cabbage,' said one of them. 'Knew it weren't chickens. Oi knows a cabbage when I sees one, and of believes what I sees.'

From far above came voices, getting closer:

'For gods' sake, man, can't you steer?'

'Not with you throwing your weight about, Archchancellor!'

'Where the hell are we? Can't see a thing in this fog!'

'I'll just see if I can point it ? don't lean over like that! Don't lean over like that! I said don't lean?!'

The farmers dived sideways as the broomstick corkscrewed through the open doorway and disappeared among the ranks of cabbage. There was a distant, brassica'd squelch.

Eventually a muffled voice said: 'You leaned.'

'Nonsense. A fine mess you got me into. What is it?'

'Cabbages, Archchancellor.'

'Some kind of vegetable?'

'Yes.'

'Can't stand vegetables. Thins the blood.'

There was a pause. Then the farmers heard the other voice say: 'Well, I'm very sorry about that, you bloodthirsty overbearing tub of lard.'

There was another pause.

Then: 'Can I sack you, Bursar?'

'No, Archchancellor. I've got tenure.'

'In that case, help me out and let's go and find a drink.'

The farmers crept away.

'Dang me,' said the believer in cabbages. 'They're wizards. Best not to meddle in the affairs of danged wizards.'