Moving pictures

Then heshivered. 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 fast­disappearing 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?'

'Those old priests built a kind of half-baked religion around it. They forgot all about what it really was. That didn't matter, though. I don't think you need chants and fires. You just need to remember Holy Wood. We need someone to remember Holy Wood really well.'

'Yeah,' said Ginger, gri

elephants.'!

'Yeah.' Victor laughed. 'Poor old Dibbler,' he said. 'He never got them, either . . . '

Ginger moved a fragment of potato round and round on her plate. There was something on her mind, and it wasn't food.

'But it was great, wasn't it?' she burst out. 'We had something really amazing, didn't we?'

'Yes.'

'People really thought it was good, didn't they?'

'Oh, yes,' said Victor sombrely.

'I mean, didn't we bring something really great into the world?'

'No kidding.'

'I didn't mean that. Being a screen goddess isn't all it's cracked up to be, you know,' said Ginger.

'Right.'

Ginger sighed. 'No more Holy Wood magic,' she said.

'I think there may be some left,' said Victor.

'Where?'

'Just drifting around. Finding ways to use itself up, I expect.'

Ginger stared at her glass. 'What are you going to do now?' she said.

'Don't know. How about you?'

'Go back to the farm, maybe.'

'Why ?'

'Holy Wood was my chance, you see? There aren't many jobs for women in Ankh-Morpork. At least,' she added, 'none that I'd care to do. I've had three offers of marriage. From quite important men.'

'Have you? Why?'

She frowned. 'Hey, I'm not that unattractive?'

'I didn't mean it like that,' said Victor hurriedly.

'Oh, I suppose if you're a powerful merchant it's nice to have a famous wife. It's like owning jewellery.' She looked down. 'Mrs Cosmopilite says can she have one of the ones I don't want. I said she could have all three.'

'I've always been that way about choices myself,' said 'victor, cheering up.

'Have you? If that's all the choice there is, I'm not choosing. What can you be, after you've been yourself, as big as possible?'

'Nothing,' said Victor.

'No-one knows what it feels like.'

'Except us.'

'Yes.'

'Yes.'

Ginger gri

'Cheer up,' she said. 'Tomorrow is another day.'

Click . . .

Sergeant Colon, Ankh-Morpork city watch, was awakened from his peaceful doze in the guardhouse over the main gate by a distant rumbling.

A cloud of dust stretched from horizon to horizon. He watched it thoughtfully for some time. It grew bigger and, eventually, disgorged a dark-ski

It trotted up the road to the gates and lumbered to a halt at the city wall. The dust cloud, Colon couldn't help noticing, was still on the horizon and still getting bigger.

The boy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted: 'Can you tell me the way to Holy Wood?'

'There ain't no Holy Wood any more, from what I hear,' said Colon.

The boy appeared to consider this. He looked down at a piece of paper in his hand. Then he said: 'Do you know where I can find Mr C.M.O.T. Dibbler?'

Sgt Colon repeated the initials under his breath.

'You mean Throat?" he said. 'Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler?'

'Is he in?'

Sgt Colon glanced at the city behind him. 'I'll just go and see,' he said. 'Who shall I say wants him?'

'We've got a delivery for him. COD.'

'Cod?' hazarded Colon, glancing at the lowering cloud. 'You're herding fish?'

'Not fish.'

Huge grey foreheads were becoming visible in the dust. There was also the very distinctive smell you get when a thousand elephants have been foraging for days in cabbage fields:

'Just hang on,' he said. 'I'll go and fetch him.'

Colon pulled his head back into the guardroom and nudged the sleeping form of Corporal Nobbs, currently the other half of the keen-eyed fighting force that was ceaselessly guarding the city.

'Wassat?'

'You seen .ole Throat this morning, Nobby?'

'Yeah, he was in Easy Street. Bought a Jumbo Sausage Surprise off him.'

'He's back selling sausages?'

'Got to. Lost all his money. What's up?'

'Just take a look outside, will you?' said Colon, in a level voice.

Nobby took a look.

'Looks like - would you say it was a thousand elephants, Sarge?'

'Yeah. About a thousand, I'd say.'

'Thought it looked about a thousand.'

'Man down there says Throat ordered 'em,' said Sergeant Colon.

'Get away? He's going into this Jumbo Sausage thing in a big way, then?'

Their eyes met. Nobby's grin was evil.