Moving Pictures 
by 
Terry Pratchett 
Watch . . . 
This is space. It's sometimes called the final frontier. 
(Except that of course you can't have a final frontier, because there'd be 
nothing for it to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it's pretty penultimate 
. . .) 
And against the wash of stars a nebula hangs, vast and black, one red giant 
gleaming like the madness of gods . . . 
And then the gleam is seen as the glint in a giant eye and it is eclipsed by the 
blink of an eyelid and the darkness moves a flipper and Great A'Tuin, star 
turtle, swims onward through the void. 
On its back, four giant elephants. On their shoulders, rimmed with water, 
glittering under its tiny orbiting sunlet, spinning majestically around the 
mountains at its frozen Hub, lies the Discworld, world and mirror of worlds. 
Nearly unreal. 
Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradual. In other 
words, reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they 
possess, say, weight. Some people are more real than others, for example. It has 
been estimated that there are only about five hundred real people on any given 
planet, which is why they keep unexpectedly running into one another all the 
time. 
The Discworld is as unreal as it is possible to be while still being just real 
enough to exist. 
And just real enough to be in real trouble. 

About thirty miles Turnwise of Ankh-Morpork the surf boomed on the wind-blown, 
seagrass-waving, sand-dunecovered spit of land where the Circle Sea met the Rim 
Ocean. 
The hill itself was visible for miles. It wasn't very high, but lay amongst the 
dunes like an upturned boat or a very unlucky whale, and was covered in scrub 
trees. No rain fell here, if it could possibly avoid it. Although the wind 
sculpted the dunes around it, the low summit of the hill remained in an 
everlasting, ringing calm. 
Nothing but the sand had changed here in hundreds of years. 
Until now. 
A crude but of driftwood had been built on the long curve of the beach, although 
describing it as 'built' was a slander on skilled crude but builders throughout 
the ages; if the sea had simply been left to pile the wood up it might have done 
a better job. 
And, inside, an old man had just died. 
'Oh,' he said. He opened his eyes and looked around the interior of the hut. He 
hadn't seen it very clearly for the past ten years. 
Then he swung, if not his legs, then at least the memory of his legs off the 
pallet of sea-heather and stood up. Then he went outside, into the 
diamond-bright morning. He was interested to see that he was still wearing a 
ghostly image of his ceremonial robe - stained and frayed, but still 
recognizable as having originally been a dark red plush with gold frogging - 
even though he was dead. Either your clothes died when you did, he thought, or 
maybe you just mentally dressed yourself from force of habit. 
Habit also led him to the pile of driftwood beside the hut. When. he tried to 
gather a few sticks, though, his hands passed through them. 
He swore. 
It was then that he noticed a figure standing by the water's edge, looking out 
to sea. It was leaning on a scythe. The wind whipped at its black robes. 
He started to hobble towards it, remembered he was dead, and began to stride. He 
hadn't stridden for decades, but it was amazing how it all came back to you. 
Before he was halfway to the dark figure, it spoke to him. 
DECCAN RIBOBE, it said. 
'That's me.' 
LAST KEEPER OF THE DOOR. 
'Well, I suppose so.' 
Death hesitated. 
YOU ARE OR YOU AREN'T, he said. 
Deccan scratched his nose. Of course, he thought, you have to be able to touch 
yourself. Otherwise you'd fall to bits. 
'Technic'ly, a Keeper has to be invested by the High Priestess,' he said. 'And 
there ain't been a High Priestess for thousands o' years. See, I just learned it 
all from old Tento, who lived here before me. He jus' said to me one day, 
"Deccan, it looks as though I'm dyin', so it's up to you now, 'cos if there's 
no-one left that remembers properly it'll all start happening again and you know 
what that means." Well, fair enough. But that's not what you'd call a proper 
investmenting, I'd say.' 
He looked up at the sandy hill. 
'There was jus' me and him,' he said. 'And then jus' me, remembering Holy Wood. 
And now. . . ' He raised his hand to his mouth. 
'Oo-er,' he said. 
YES, said Death. 
It would be wrong to say a look of panic passed across Deccan Ribobe's face, 
because at that moment it was several yards away and wearing a sort of fixed 
grin, as if it had seen the joke at last. But his spirit was definitely worried. 

'See, the thing is,' it said hastily, 'no-one ever comes here, see, apart from 
the fishermen from the next bay, and they just leaves the fish and runs off on 
account of superstition and I couldn't sort of go off to find an apprentice or 
somethin' because of keepin' the fires alight and doin' the chantin' . . . ' 
YES. 
' . . . It's a terrible responsibility, bein' the only one able to do your job . 
. . ' 
YES, said Death. 
'Well, of course, I'm not telling you anything . . . ' 
NO. 
' . . . I mean, I was hopin' someone'd get shipwrecked or somethin', or come 
treasure huntin', and I could explain it like old Tento explained it to me, 
teach 'em the chants, get it all sorted out before I died . . . ' 
YES? 
'I s'pose there's no chance that I could sort of . . . ' 
NO. 
'Thought not,' said Deccan despondently. 
He looked at the waves crashing down on the shore. 
'Used to be a big city down there, thousands of years ago,' he said. 'I mean, 
where the sea is. When it's stormy you can hear the ole temple bells ringin' 
under the sea.' 
I KNOW. 
'I used to sit out here on windy nights, listenin'. Used to imagine all them 
dead people down there, ringin' the bells.' 
AND NOW WE MUST GO. 
'Ole Tento said there was somethin' under the hill there that could make people 
do things. Put strange fancies in their 'eads,' said Deccan, reluctantly 
following the stalking figure. 'I never had any strange fancies.' 
BUT YOU WERE CHANTING, said Death. He snapped his fingers. 
A horse ceased trying to graze the sparse dune grass and trotted up to Death. 
Deccan was surprised to see that it left hoofprints in the sand. He'd have 
expected sparks, or at least fused rock. 
'Er,' he said, 'can you tell me, er . . . what happens now?' 
Death told him. 
'Thought so,' said Deccan glumly. 
Up on the low hill the fire that had been burning all night collapsed in a 
shower of ash. A few embers still glowed, though. Soon they would go out. 
. . .. 
. . . 
.. 
. 
They went out. 
. 
.. 
. . . 
. . .. 
Nothing happened for a whole day. Then, in a little hollow on the edge of the 
brooding hill, a few grains of sand shifted and left a tiny hole. 
Something emerged. Something invisible. Something joyful and selfish and 
marvellous. Something as intangible as an idea, which is exactly what it was. A 
wild idea. 
It was old in a way not measurable by any calendar known to Man and what it had, 
right now, was memories and needs. It remembered life, in other times and other 
universes. It needed people. 
It rose against the stars, changing shape, coiling like smoke. 
There were lights on the horizon. 
It liked lights. 
It regarded them for a few seconds and then, like an invisible arrow, extended 
itself towards the city and sped away. 
It liked action, too . . . 
And several weeks went past. 

There's a saying that all roads lead to Ankh-Morpork, greatest of Discworld 
cities. 
At least, there's a saying that there's a saying that all roads lead to 
Ankh-Morpork. 
And it's wrong. All roads lead away from Ankh-Morpork, but sometimes people just 
walk along them the wrong way. 
Poets long ago gave up trying to describe the city. Now the more cunning ones 
try to excuse it. They say, well, maybe it is smelly, maybe it is overcrowded, 
maybe it is a bit like Hell would be if they shut the fires off and stabled a 
herd of incontinent cows there for a year, but you must admit that it is full of 
sheer, vibrant, dynamic life. And this is true, even though it is poets that are 
saying it. But people who aren't poets say, so what? Mattresses tend to be full 
of life too, and no-one writes odes to them. Citizens hate living there and, if 
they have to move away on business or adventure or, more usually, until some 
statute of limitations runs out, can't wait to get back so they can enjoy hating 
living there some more. They put stickers on the backs of their carts saying 
'Ankh-Morpork - Loathe It or Leave It'. They call it The Big Wahooni, after the 
fruit.[1] 
Every so often a ruler of the city builds a wall around Ankh-Morpork, ostensibly 
to keep enemies out. But Ankh-Morpork doesn't fear enemies. In fact it welcomes 
enemies, provided they are enemies with money to spend.[2] It has survived 
flood, fire, hordes, revolutions and dragons. Sometimes by accident, admittedly, 
but it has survived them. The cheerful and irrecoverably venal spirit of the 
city has been proof against anything . . . 
Until now. 

Boom. 
The explosion removed the windows, the door and most of the chimney. 
It was the sort of thing you expected in the Street of Alchemists. The 
neighbours preferred explosions, which were at least identifiable and soon over. 
They were better than the smells, which crept up on you. 
Explosions were part of the scenery, such as was left. 
And this one was pretty good, even by the standards of local connoisseurs. There 
was a deep red heart to the billowing black smoke which you didn't often see. 
The bits of semi-molten brickwork were more molten than usual. It was, they 
considered, quite impressive. 
Boom. 
A minute or two after the explosion a figure lurched out of the ragged hole 
where the door had been. It had no hair, and what clothes it still had were on 
fire. 
It staggered up to the small crowd that was admiring the devastation and by 
chance laid a sooty hand on a hot-meat-pie-and-sausage-in-a-bun salesman called 
Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, who had an almost magical ability to turn up wherever 
a sale might be made. 
'Looking,' it said, in a dreamy, stunned voice, 'f'r a word. Tip of my tongue.' 
'Blister?' volunteered Throat. 
He recovered his commercial senses. 'After an experience like that,' he added, 
proffering a pastry case full of so much reclaimed organic debris that it was 
very nearly sapient, 'what you need is to get a hot meat pie inside you-' 
'Nonono. 'S not blister. 'S what you say when you've discovered something. You 
goes running out into the street shoutin',' said the smouldering figure 
urgently. 'S'pecial word,' it added, its brow creasing under the soot. 
The crowd, reluctantly satisfied that there were going to be no more explosions, 
gathered around. This might be nearly as good. 
'Yeah, that's right,' said an elderly man, filling his pipe. 'You runs out 
shouting "Fire! Fire!" ' He looked triumphant. 
' 'S not that . . . ' 
'Or "Help!" or-' 
'No, he's right,' said a woman with a basket of fish on her head. 'There's a 
special word. It's foreign.' 
'Right, right,' said her neighbour. 'Special foreign word for people who've 
discovered something. It was invented by some foreign bugger in his bath-' 
'Well,' said the pipe man, lighting it off the alchemist's smouldering hat, 'I 
for one don't see why people in this city need to go round shouting heathen 
lingo just 'cos they've had a bath. Anyway, look at him. He ain't had a bath. He 
needs a bath, yes, but he ain't had one. What's he want to go round shouting 
foreign lingo for? We've got perfectly satisfactory words for shoutin'.' 
'Like what?' said Cut-me-own-Throat: 
The pipe-smoker hesitated. 'Well,' he said, 'like . . . "I've discovered 
something" . . . or . . . "Hooray" . . . ' 
'No, I'm thinking about the bugger over Tsort way, or somewhere. He was in his 
bath and he had this idea for something, and he ran out down the street 
yelling.' 
'Yelling what?' 
'Dunno. P'raps "Give me a towel!" ' 
'Bet he'd be yellin' all right if he tried that sort of thing round here,' said 
Throat cheerfully. 'Now, ladies and gents, I have here some sausage in a bun 
that'd make your-' 
'Eureka,' said the soot-coloured one, swaying back and forth. 
'What about it?' said Throat. 
'No, that's the word. Eureka.' A worried grin spread across the black features. 
'It means "I have it".' 
'Have what?' said Throat. 
'It. At least, I had it. Octo-cellulose. Amazing stuff. Had it in my hand. But I 
held it too close to the fire,' said the figure, in the perplexed tones of the 
nearly concussed. 'V'ry important fact. Mus' make a note of it. Don't let it get 
hot. V'ry important. Mus' write down v'ry important fact.' 
He tottered back into the smoking ruins. 
Dibbler watched him go. 
'Wonder what that was all about?' he said. Then he shrugged and raised his voice 
to a shout. 'Meat pies! Hot sausages! Inna bun! So fresh the pig h'an't noticed 
they're gone!' 

The glittering, swirling idea from the hill had watched all this. The alchemist 
didn't even know it was there. All he knew was that he was being unusually 
inventive today. 
Now it had spotted the pie merchant's mind. 
It knew that kind of mind. It loved minds like that. A mind that could sell 
nightmare pies could sell dreams. 
It leaped. 
On a hill far away the breeze stirred the cold, grey ash. 
Further down the hill, in a crack in a hollow between two rocks where a dwarf 
juniper bush struggled for a Ping, a little trickle of sand began to move. 

Boom. 
A fine film of plaster dust drifted down on to the desk of Mustrum Ridcully, the 
new Archchancellor of Unseen University; just as he was trying to tie a 
particularly difficult fly. 
He glanced out of the stained-glass window. A smoke cloud was rising over uptown 
Morpork. 
'Bursaar!' 
The Bursar arrived within a few seconds, out of breath. Loud noises always upset 
him. 
'It's the alchemists, Master,' he panted. 
'That's the third time this week. Blasted firework merchants,' muttered the 
Archchancellor. 
'I'm afraid so, Master,' said the Bursar. 
'What do they think they're doing?' 
'I really couldn't say, Master,' said the Bursar, getting his breath back. 
'Alchemy has never interested me. It's altogether too . . . too . . . ' 
'Dangerous,' said the Archchancellor firmly. 'Lot of damn mixin' things up and 
saying, hey, what'll happen if we add a drop of the yellow stuff, and then goin' 
around without yer eyebrows for a fortnight.' 
'I was going to say impractical,' said the Bursar. 'Trying to do things the hard 
way when we have perfectly simple everyday magic available.' 
'I thought they were trying to cure the philosopher's stones, or somethin',' 
said the Archchancellor. 'Lot of damn nonsense, if you ask me. Anyway, I'm off.' 

As the Archchancellor began to sidle out of the room the Bursar hastily waved a 
handful of papers at him. 
'Before you go, Archchancellor,' he said desperately, 'I wonder if you would 
just care to sign a few-' 
'Not now, man,' snapped the Archchancellor. 'Got to see a man about a horse, 
what?' 
'What?' 
'Right.' The door closed. 
The Bursar stared at it, and sighed. 
Unseen University had had many different kinds of Archchancellor over the years. 
Big ones, small ones, cunning ones, slightly insane ones, extremely insane ones 
- they'd come, they'd served, in some cases not long enough for anyone to be 
able to complete the official painting to be hung in the Great Hall, and they'd 
died. The senior wizard in a world of magic had the same prospects of longterm 
employment as a pogo stick tester in a minefield. 
However, from the Bursar's point of view this didn't really have to matter. The 
name might change occasionally, but what did matter was that there always was an 
Archchancellor and the Archchancellor's most important job, as the Bursar saw 
it, was to sign things, preferably, from the Bursar's point of view, without 
reading them first. 
This one was different. For one thing, he was hardly ever in, except to change 
out of his muddy clothes. And he shouted at people. Usually at the Bursar. 
And yet, at the time, it had seemed a really good idea to elect an 
Archchancellor who hadn't set foot in the University in forty years. 
There had been so much in-fighting between the various orders of wizardry in 
recent years that, just for once, the senior wizards had agreed that what the 
University needed was a period of stability, so that they could get on with 
their scheming and intriguing in peace and quiet for a few months. A search of 
the records turned up Ridcully the Brown who, after becoming a Seventh Level 
mage at the incredibly young age of twenty-seven, had quit the University in 
order to look after his family's estates deep in the country. 
He looked ideal. 
'Just the chap,' they all said. 'Clean sweep. New broom. A country wizard. Back 
to the thingumajigs, the roots of wizardry. Jolly old boy with a pipe and 
twinkly eyes. Sort of chap who can tell one herb from another, 
roams-the-high-forest-with-every-beast-his-brother kind of thing. Sleeps under 
the stars, like as not. Knows what the wind is saying, we shouldn't wonder. Got 
a name for all the trees, you can bank on it. Speaks to the birds, too.' 
A messenger had been sent. Ridcully the Brown had sighed, cursed a bit, found 
his staff in the kitchen garden where it had been supporting a scarecrow, and 
had set out. 
'And if he's any problem,' the wizards had added, in the privacy of their own 
heads, 'anyone who talks to trees should be no trouble to get rid of.' 
And then he'd arrived, and it turned out that Ridcully the Brown did speak to 
the birds. In fact he shouted at birds, and what he normally shouted was, 
'Winged you, yer bastard!' 
The beasts of the field and fowls of the air did know Ridcully the Brown. They'd 
got so good at patternrecognition that, for a radius of about twenty miles 
around the Ridcully estates, they'd run, hide or in desperate cases attack 
violently at the mere sight of a pointy hat. 
Within twelve hours of arriving, Ridcully had installed a pack of hunting 
dragons in the butler's pantry, fired his dreadful crossbow at the ravens on the 
ancient Tower of Art, drunk a dozen bottles of red wine, and rolled off to bed 
at two in the morning singing a song with words in it that some of the older and 
more forgetful wizards had to look up. 
And then he got up at five o'clock to go duck hunting down in the marshes on the 
estuary. 
And came back complaining that there wasn't a good trout fishin' river for 
miles. (You couldn't fish in the river Ankh; you had to jump up and down on the 
hooks even to make them sink.) 
And he ordered beer with his breakfast. 
And told jokes. 
On the other hand, thought the Bursar, at least he didn't interfere with the 
actual running of the University. Ridcully the Brown wasn't the least interested 
in running anything except maybe a string of hounds. If you couldn't shoot 
arrows at it, hunt it or hook it, he couldn't see much point in it. 
Beer at breakfast! The Bursar shuddered. Wizards weren't at their best before 
noon, and breakfast in the Great Hall was a quiet, fragile occasion, broken only 
by coughs, the quiet shuffling of the servants, and the occasional groan. People 
shouting for kidneys and black pudding and beer were a new phenomenon. 
The only person not terrified of the ghastly man was old Windle Poons, who was 
one hundred and thirty years old and deaf and, while an expert on ancient 
magical writings, needed adequate. notice and a good run-up to deal with the 
present day. He'd managed to absorb the fact that the new Archchancellor was 
going to be one of those hedgerow-and-dickie-bird chappies, it would take a week 
or two for him to grasp the change of events, and in the meantime he made polite 
and civilized conversation based on what little he could remember about Nature 
and things. 
On the lines of: 
'I expect it must be a, mm, a change for you, mm, sleeping in a real bed, 
instead of under the, mm, stars?' And: 'These things, mm, here, are called 
knives and forks, mm.' And: 'This, mm, green stuff on the scrambled egg, mm, 
would it be parsley, do you think?' 
But since the new Archchancellor never paid much attention to anything anyone 
said while he was eating, and Poons never noticed that he wasn't getting any 
answers, they got along quite well. 
Anyway, the Bursar had other problems. 
The Alchemists, for one thing. You couldn't trust alchemists. They were too 
serious-minded. 
Boom. 
And that was the last one. Whole days went by without being punctuated by small 
explosions. The city settled down again, which was a foolish thing to do. 
What the Bursar failed to consider was that no more bangs doesn't mean they've 
stopped doing it, whatever it is. It just means they're doing it right. 

It was midnight. The surf boomed on the beach, and made a phosphorescent glow in 
the night. Around the ancient hill, though, the sound seemed as dead as if it 
was arriving through several layers of velvet. 
The hole in the sand was quite big now. 
If you could put your ear to it, you might think you could hear applause. 

It was still midnight. A full moon glided above the smoke and fumes of 
Ankh-Morpork, thankful that several thousand miles of sky lay between it and 
them. 
The Alchemists' Guildhall was new. It was always new. It had been explosively 
demolished and rebuilt four times in the last two years, on the last occasion 
without a lecture and demonstration room in the hope that this might be a 
helpful move. 
On this night a number of muffled figures entered the building in a 
surreptitious fashion. After a few minutes the lights in a window on the top 
floor dimmed and went out. 
Well, nearly out. 
Something was happening up there. A strange flickering filled the window, very 
briefly. It was followed by a ragged cheering. 
And there was a noise. Not a bang this time, but a strange mechanical purring, 
like a happy cat at the bottom of a tin drum. 
It went clickaclickaclickaclicka . . . click. 
It went on for several minutes, to a background of cheers. And then a voice 
said: 
'That's all, folks.' 

'That's all what?' said the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, next morning. 
The man in front of him shivered with fear. 
'Don't know, lordship,' he said. 'They wouldn't let me in. They made me wait 
outside the door, lordship.' 
He twisted his forgers together nervously. The Patrician's stare had him pinned. 
It was a good stare, and one of the things it was good at was making people go 
on talking when they thought they had finished. 
Only the Patrician knew how many spies he had in the city. This particular one 
was a servant in the Alchemists' Guild. He had once had the misfortune to come 
up before the Patrician accused of malicious lingering, and had then chosen of 
his own free will to become a spy.[3] 
'That's all, lordship,' he whined. 'There was just this clicking noise and this 
sort of flickery glow under the door. And, er, they said the daylight here was 
wrong.' 
'Wrong? How?' 
'Er. Dunno, sir. just wrong, they said. They ought to go somewhere where it was 
better, they said. Uh. And they told me to go and get them some food.' 
The Patrician yawned. There was something infinitely boring about the antics of 
alchemists. 
'Indeed,' he said. 
'But they'd had their supper only fifteen minutes before,' the servant blurted 
out. 
'Perhaps whatever they were doing makes people hungry,' said the Patrician. 
'Yes, and the kitchen was all shut up for the night and I had to go and buy a 
tray of hot sausages in buns from Throat Dibbler.' 
'Indeed.' The Patrician looked down at the paperwork on his desk. 'Thank you. 
You may go.' 
'You know what, lordship? They liked them. They actually liked them!' 

That the Alchemists had a Guild at all was remarkable. Wizards were just as 
unco-operative, but they also were by nature hierarchical and competitive. They 
needed organization. What was the good of being a wizard of the Seventh Level if 
you didn't have six other levels to look down on and the Eighth Level to aspire 
to? You needed other wizards to hate and despise. 
Whereas every alchemist was an alchemist alone, working in darkened rooms or 
hidden cellars and endlessly searching for the big casino - the Philosopher's 
Stone, the Elixir of Life. They tended to be thin, pink-eyed men, with beards 
that weren't really beards but more like groups of individual hairs clustering 
together for mutual protection, and many of them had that vague, unworldly 
expression that you get from spending too much time in the presence of boiling 
mercury. 
It wasn't that alchemists hated other alchemists. They often didn't notice them, 
or thought they were walruses. 
And so their tiny, despised Guild had never aspired to the powerful status of 
the Guilds of, say, the Thieves or the Beggars or the Assassins, but devoted 
itself instead to the aid of widows and families of those alchemists who had 
taken an overly relaxed attitude to potassium cyanide, for example, or had 
distilled some interesting fungi, drunk the result, and then stepped off the 
roof to play with the fairies. There weren't actually very many widows and 
orphans, of course, because alchemists found it difficult to relate to other 
people long enough, and generally if they ever managed to marry it was only to 
have someone to hold their crucibles. 
By and large, the only skill the alchemists of Ankh-Morpork had discovered so 
far was the ability to turn gold into less gold. 
Until now . . . 
Now they were full of the nervous excitement of those who have found an 
unexpected fortune in their bank account and don't know whether to draw people's 
attention to it or simply take the lot and run. 
'The wizards aren't going to like it,' said one of them, a thin, hesitant man 
called Lully. 'They're going to call it magic. You know they get really pissed 
if they think you're doing magic and you're not a wizard.' 
'There isn't any magic involved,' said Thomas Silverfish, the president of the 
Guild. 
'There's the imps.' 
'That's not magic. That's just ordinary occult.' 
'Well, there's the salamanders.' 
'Perfectly normal natural history. Nothing wrong with that.' 
'Well, all right. But they'll call it magic. You know what they're like.' 
The alchemists nodded gloomily. 
'They're reactionaries,' said Sendivoge, the Guild secretary. 'Bloated 
thaumocrats. And the other Guilds, too. What do they know about the march of 
progress? What do they care? They could have been doing something like this for 
years, but did they? Not them! Just think how we can make people's lives so much 
. . . well, better. The possibilities are immense.' 
'Educational,' said Silverfish. 
'Historical,' said Lully. 
'And of course there's entertainment,' said Peavie, the Guild treasurer. He was 
a small, nervous man. Most alchemists were nervous, in any case; it came from 
not knowing what the crucible of bubbling stuff they were experimenting with was 
going to do next. 
'Well, yes. Obviously some entertainment,' said Silverfish. 
'Some of the great historical dramas,' said Peavie. 'Just picture the scene! You 
get some actors together, they act it just once, and people all over the Disc 
will be able to see it as many times as they like! A great saving in wages, by 
the way,' he added. 
'But tastefully done,' said Silverfish. 'We have a great responsibility to see 
that nothing is done which is in any way . . . ' his voice trailed off, ' . . . 
you know . . . coarse.' 
'They'll stop us,' said Lully darkly. 'I know those wizards.' 
'I've been giving that some thought,' said Silverfish. 'The light's too bad here 
anyway. We agreed. We need clear skies. And we need to be a long way away. I 
think I know just the place.' 
'You know, I can't believe we're doing this,' said Peavie. 'A month ago it was 
just a mad idea. And now it's all worked! It's just like magic! Only not 
magical, if you see what I mean,' he added quickly. 
'Not just illusion, but real illusion,' said Lully. 
'I don't know if anyone's thought about this,' said Peavie, 'but this could make 
us a bit of money. Um?' 
'But that isn't important,' said Silverfish. 
'No. No, of course not,' muttered Peavie. He glanced at the others. 
'Shall we watch it again?' he said, shyly. 'I don't mind turning the handle. 
And, and . . . well, I know I haven't contributed very much to this project, but 
I did come up with this, er, this stuff.' 
He pulled a very large bag from the pocket of his robe and dropped it on the 
table. It fell over, and a few fluffy, white mis-shapen balls rolled out. 
The alchemists stared at it. 
'What is it?' said Lully. 
'Well,' said Peavie, uncomfortably, 'what you do is, you take some corn, and you 
put it in, say, a Number 3 crucible, with some cooking oil, you see, and then 
you put a plate or something on top of it, and when you heat it up it goes bang, 
I mean, not seriously bang, and when it's stopped banging you take the plate off 
and it's metamorphosed into these, er, things . . . ' He looked at their 
uncomprehending faces. 'You can eat it,' he mumbled apologetically. 'If you put 
butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter.' 
Silverfish reached out a chemical-stained hand and cautiously selected a fluffy 
morsel. He chewed it thoughtfully. 
'Don't really know why I did it,' said Peavie, blushing. 'Just sort of had an 
idea that it was right.' 
Silverfish went on chewing. 
'Tastes like cardboard,' he said, after a while. 
'Sorry,' said Peavie, trying to scoop the rest of the heap back into the sack. 
Silverfish laid a gentle hand on his arm. 
'Mind you,' he said, selecting another puffed morsel, 'it does have a certain 
something, doesn't it? They do seem right. What did you say it's called?' 
'Hasn't really got a name,' said Peavie. 'I just call it banged grains.' 
Silverfish took another one. 'Funny how you want to go on eating them,' he said. 
'Sort of more-ish. Banged grains? Right. Anyway . . . gentlemen, let us turn the 
handle one more time.' 
Lully started to wind the film back into the unmagical lantern. 
'You were saying you knew a place where we could really build up the project and 
where the wizards wouldn't bother us?' he said. 
Silverfish grabbed a handful of banged grains. 
'It's along the coast a way,' he said. 'Nice and sunny and no-one ever goes 
there these days. Nothing there but some wind-blown old forest and a temple and 
sand dunes.' 
'A temple? Gods can get really pissed if you-' Peavie began. 
'Look,' said Silverfish, 'the whole area's been deserted for centuries. There's 
nothing there. No people, no gods, no nothing. Just lots of sunlight and land, 
waiting for us. It's our chance, lads. We're not allowed to make magic, we can't 
make gold, we can't even make a living - so let's make moving pictures. Let's 
make history!' 
The alchemists sat back and looked more cheerful. 
'Yeah,' said Lully. 
'Oh. Right,' said Peavie. 
'Here's to moving pictures,' said Sendivoge, holding up a handful of banged 
grains. 'How'd you hear about this place?' 
'Oh, I-' Silverfish stopped. He looked puzzled. 'Don't know,' he said, 
eventually. 'Can't . . . quite remember. Must have heard about it once and 
forgot it, and then it just popped into my head. You know how these things 
happen.' 
'Yeah,' said Lully. 'Like with me and the film. It was like I was remembering 
how to do it. Funny old tricks the mind can play.' 
'Yeah.' 
'Yeah.' 
' 'S'n idea whose time has come, see.' 
'Yeah.' 
'Yeah.' 
'That must be it.' 
A slightly worried silence settled over the table. It was the sound of minds 
trying to put their mental fingers on something that was bothering them. 
The air seemed to glitter. 
'What's this place called?' said Lully, eventually. 
'Don't know what it was called in the old days,' said Silverfish, leaning back 
and pulling the banged grains towards him. 'These days they call it the Holy 
Wood.' 
'Holy Wood,' said Lully. 'Sounds . . . familiar.' There was another silence 
while they thought about it. 
It was broken by Sendivoge. 
'Oh, well,' he said cheerfully, 'Holy Wood, here we come.' 
'Yeah,' said Silverfish, shaking his head as if to dislodge a disquieting 
thought. 'Funny thing, really. I've got. this feeling . . . that we've been 
going there . . . all this time.' 

Several thousand miles under Silverfish, Great A'Tuin the world turtle sculled 
dreamily on through the starry night. 
Reality is a curve. 
That's not the problem. The problem is that there isn't as much as there should 
be. According to some of the more mystical texts in the stacks of the library of 
Unseen University 
- the Discworld's premier college of wizardry and big dinners, whose collection 
of books is so massive that it distorts Space and Time - 
- at least nine-tenths of all the original reality ever created lies outside the 
multiverse, and since the multiverse by definition includes absolutely 
everything that is anything, this puts a bit of a strain on things. 
Outside the boundaries of the universes lie the raw realities, the 
couldhave-beens, the might-bes, the neverweres, the wild ideas, all being 
created and uncreated chaotically like elements in fermenting supernovas. 
Just occasionally where the walls of the worlds have worn a bit thin, they can 
leak in. 
And reality leaks out. 
The effect is like one of those deep-sea geysers of hot water, around which 
strange submarine creatures find enough warmth and food to make a brief, tiny 
oasis of existence in an environment where there shouldn't be any existence at 
all. 
The idea of Holy Wood leaked innocently and joyfully into the Discworld. 
And reality leaked out. 
And was found. For there are Things outside, whose ability to sniff out tiny 
frail conglomerations of reality made the thing with the sharks and the trace of 
blood seem very boring indeed. They began to gather. 

A storm slid in across the sand dunes but, where it reached the low hill, the 
clouds seemed to curve away. Only a few drops of rain hit the parched soil, and 
the gale became nothing more than a faint breeze. 
It blew sand over the long-dead remains of afire. 
Further down the slope, near a hole that was now big enough for, say, a badger, 
a small rock dislodged itself and rolled away. 

A month went by quickly. It didn't want to hang around. 

The Bursar knocked respectfully at the Archchancellor's door and then opened it. 

A crossbow bolt nailed his hat to the woodwork. 
The Archchancellor lowered the bow and glared at him. 
'Bloody dangerous thing to do, wasn't it?' he said. 'You could have caused a 
nasty accident.' 
The Bursar hadn't got where he was today, or rather where he had been ten 
seconds ago, which was where a calm and self-assured personality was, rather 
than where he was now, which was on the verge of a mild heart attack, without a 
tremendous ability to recover from unexpected upsets. 
He unpinned his hat from the target chalked on the ancient woodwork. 
'No harm done,' he said. No voice could be as calm as that without tremendous 
effort. 'You can barely see the hole. Why, er, are you shooting at the door, 
Master?' 
'Use your common sense, man! It's dark outside and the damn walls are made of 
stone. You don't expect me to shoot at the damn walls?' 
'Ah,' said the Bursar. 'The door is, er, five hundred years old, you know,' he 
added, with finely-tuned reproach. 
'Looks it,' said the Archchancellor, bluntly. 'Damn great black thing. What we 
need around here, man, is a lot less stone and wood and a bit more jolliness. A 
few sportin' prints, yer know. An ornament or two.' 
'I shall see to it directly,' lied the Bursar smoothly. He remembered the sheaf 
of papers under his arm. 'In the meantime, Master, perhaps you would care to-' 
'Right,' said the Archchancellor, ramming his pointed hat on his head. 'Good 
man. Now, got a sick dragon to see to. Little devil hasn't touched his tar oil 
for days.' 
'Your signature on one or two of-' the Bursar burbled hurriedly. 
'Can't be havin' with all that stuff,' said the Archchancellor, waving him away. 
'Too much damn paper around here as it is. And-' He stared through the Bursar, 
as if he had just remembered something. 'Saw a funny thing this mornin',' he 
said. 'Saw a monkey in the quad. Bold as brass.' 
'Oh, yes,' said the Bursar, cheerfully. 'That would be the Librarian.' 
'Got a pet, has he?' 
'No, you misunderstand me, Archchancellor,' said the Bursar cheerfully. 'That 
was the Librarian.' 
The Archchancellor stared at him. 
The Bursar's smile began to glaze. 
'The Librarian's a monkey?' 
It took some time for the Bursar to explain matters clearly, and then the 
Archchancellor said: 'What yer tellin' me, then, is that this chap got himself 
turned into a monkey by magic?' 
'An accident in the Library, yes. Magical explosion. One minute a human, next 
minute an orang-utan. And you mustn't call him a monkey, Master. He's an ape.' 
'Same damn difference, surely?' 
'Apparently not. He gets very, er, aggressive if you call him a monkey.' 
'He doesn't stick his bottom at people, does he?' 
The Bursar closed his eyes and shuddered. 'No, Master. You're thinking of 
baboons.' 
'Ah.' The Archchancellor considered this. 'Haven't got any of them workin' here, 
then?' 
'No, Master. Just the Librarian, Master.' 
'Can't have it. Can't have it, yer know. Can't have damn great hairy things 
shambling around the place,' said the Archchancellor firmly. 'Get rid of him.' 
'Good grief, no! He's the best Librarian we've ever had. And tremendous value 
for money.' 
'Why? What d'we pay him?' 
'Peanuts,' said the Bursar promptly. 'Besides, he's the only one who knows how 
the Library actually works.' 
'Turn him back, then. No life for a man, bein' a monkey.' 
'Ape, Archchancellor. And he seems to prefer it, I'm afraid.' 
'How d'yer know?' said the Archchancellor suspiciously. 'Speaks, does he?' 
The Bursar hesitated. There was always this trouble with the Librarian. Everyone 
had got so accustomed to him it was hard to remember a time when the Library was 
not run by a yellow-fanged ape with the strength of three men. If the abnormal 
goes on long enough it becomes the normal. It was just that, when you came to 
explain it to a third party, it sounded odd. He coughed nervously. 
'He says "cook", Archchancellor,' he said. 
'And what's that mean?' 
'Means "no", Archchancellor.' 
'And how does he say "yes", then?' 
The Bursar had been dreading this. ' "Oook", Archchancellor,' he said. 
'That was the same oook as the other oook!' 
'Oh, no. No. I assure you. There's a different inflection . . . I mean, when you 
get used to . . . ,' the Bursar shrugged. 'I suppose we've just got into the way 
of understanding him, Archchancellor.' 
'Well, at least he keeps himself fit,' said the Archchancellor nastily. 'Not 
like the rest of you fellows. I went into the Uncommon Room this morning, and it 
was full of chaps snoring!' 
'That would be the senior masters, Master,' said the Bursar. 'I would say they 
are supremely fit, myself.' 
'Fit? The Dean looks like a man who's swallered a bed!' 
'Ah, but Master,' said the Bursar, smiling indulgently, 'the word "fit", as I 
understand it, means "appropriate to a purpose", and I would say the body of the 
Dean is supremely appropriate to the purpose of sitting around all day and 
eating big heavy meals.' The Bursar permitted himself a little smile. 
The Archchancellor gave him a look so old-fashioned it might have belonged to an 
ammonite. 
'That a joke?' he said, in the suspicious tones of someone who wouldn't really 
understand the term 'sense of humour' even if you sat down for an hour and 
explained it to him with diagrams. 
'I was just making an observation, Master,' said the Bursar cautiously. 
The Archchancellor shook his head. 'Can't stand jokes. Can't stand chaps goin' 
around tryin' to be funny the whole time. Comes of spendin' too much time 
sitting indoors. A few twenty-mile runs and the Dean'd be a different man.' 
'Well, yes,' said the Bursar. 'He'd be dead.' 
'He'd be healthy.' 
'Yes, but still dead.' 
The Archchancellor irritably shuffled the papers on his desk. 
'Slackness,' he muttered. 'Far too much of it going on. Whole place gone to pot. 
People goin' round sleepin' all day and turnin' into monkeys the whole time. We 
never even thought of turnin' into a monkey when I was a student.' He looked up 
irritably. 
'What was it you wanted?' he snapped. 
'What?' said the Bursar, unnerved. 
'You wanted me to do somethin', didn't you? You came in to ask me to do 
somethin'. Probably because I'm the only feller here not fast asleep or sittin' 
in a tree whoopin' every mornin',' the Archchancellor added. 
'Er. I think that's gibbons, Archchancellor.' 
'What? What? Do try and make some sense, man!' 
The Bursar pulled himself together. He didn't see why he had to be treated like 
this. 
'In fact, I wanted to see you about one of the students, Master,' he said 
coldly. 
'Students?' barked the Archchancellor. 
'Yes, Master. You know? They're the thinner ones with the pale faces? Because 
we're a university? They come with the whole thing, like rats-' 
'I thought we paid people to deal with 'em.' 
'The teaching staff. Yes. But sometimes . . . well, I wonder, Archchancellor, if 
you would care to look at these examination results . . . ' 

It was midnight - not the same midnight as before, but a very similar midnight. 
Old Tom, the tongueless bell in the University bell tower, had just tolled its 
twelve sonorous silences. 
Rainclouds squeezed their last few drops over the city. Ankh-Morpork sprawled 
under a few damp stars, as real as a brick. 
Ponder Stibbons, student wizard, put down his book and rubbed his face. 
'All right,' he said. 'Ask me anything. Go on. Anything at all.' 
Victor Tugelbend, student wizard, picked up his battered copy of 
Necrotelicomnicon Discussed for Students, with Practical Experiments and turned 
the pages at random. He was lying on Ponder's bed. At least, his shoulder blades 
were. His body extended up the wall. This is a perfectly normal position for a 
student taking his ease. 
'OK,' he said. 'Right. OK? What, right, what is the name of the outerdimensional 
monster whose distinctive cry is "Yerwhatyerwhatyerwhat"?' 
'Yob Soddoth,' said Ponder promptly. 
'Yeah. How does the monster Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with A Million 
Young, torture its victims to death?' 
'It . . . don't tell me . . . it holds them down and shows them pictures of its 
children until their brains implode.' 
'Yep. Always wondered how that happens, myself,' said Victor, flicking through 
the pages. 'I suppose after you've said "Yes, he's got your eyes" for the 
thousandth time you're about ready to commit suicide in any case.' 
'You know an awful lot, Victor,' said Ponder admiringly. 'I'm amazed you're 
still a student.' 
'Er, yes,' said Victor. 'Er. Just unlucky at exams, I guess.' 
'Go on,' said Ponder, 'Ask me one more.' 
Victor opened the book again. 
There was a moment's silence. 
Then he said, 'Where's Holy Wood?' 
Ponder shut his eyes and pounded his forehead. 'Hang on, hang on . . . don't 
tell me . . . ' He opened his eyes. 'What do you mean, where's Holy Wood?' he 
added sharply. 'I don't remember anything about any Holy Wood.' 
Victor stared down at the page. There was nothing about any Holy Wood there. 
'I could have sworn I heard . . . I think my mind must be wandering,' he 
finished lamely. 'It must be all this revision.' 
'Yes. It really gets to you, doesn't it? But it'll be worth it, to be a wizard.' 

'Yes,' said Victor. 'Can't wait.' 
Ponder shut the book. 
'Rain's stopped. Let's go over the wall,' he said. 'We deserve a drink.' 
Victor waggled a finger. 'Just one drink, then. Got to keep sober,' he said. 
'It's Finals tomorrow. Got to keep a clear head!' 
'Huh!' said Ponder. 
Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many 
worthwhile careers in the street-cleansing, fruit-picking and 
subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of 
this simple fact. 
But Victor had a special reason for keeping alert. 
He might make a mistake, and pass. 
His dead uncle had left him a small fortune not to be a wizard. He hadn't 
realized it when he'd drawn up the will, but that's what the old man had done. 
He thought he was helping his nephew through college, but Victor Tugelbend was a 
very bright young lad in an oblique sort of way and had reasoned thusly: 
What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a wizard? Well, you got a 
certain amount of prestige, but you were often in dangerous situations and 
certainly always at risk of being killed by a fellow mage. He saw no future in 
being a well-respected corpse. 
On the other hand . . . 
What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a student wizard? You got 
quite a lot of free time, a certain amount of licence in matters like drinking a 
lot of ale and singing bawdy songs, no-one tried to kill you much except in the 
ordinary, everyday Ankh-Morpork way of things and, thanks to the legacy, you 
also got a modest but comfortable style of living. Of course, you didn't get 
much in the way of prestige but at least you were alive to know this. 
So Victor had devoted a considerable amount of energy in studying firstly the 
terms of the will, the byzantine examination regulations of Unseen University, 
and every examination paper of the last fifty years. 
The pass mark in Finals was 88. 
Failing would be easy. Any idiot can fail. 
Victor's uncle had been no fool. One of the conditions of the legacy was that, 
should Victor ever achieve a mark of less than 80, the money supply would dry up 
like thin spit on a hot stove. 
He'd won, in a way. Few students had ever studied as hard as Victor. It was said 
that his knowledge of magic rivalled that of some of the top wizards. He spent 
hours in a comfy chair in the Library, reading grimoires. He researched answer 
formats and exam techniques. He listened to lectures until he could quote them 
by heart. He was generally considered by the staff to be the brightest and 
certainly the busiest student for decades and, at every Finals, he carefully and 
competently got a mark of 84. 
It was uncanny. 

The Archchancellor reached the last page. 
Eventually he said: 'Ah. I see. Feel sorry for the lad, do you?' 
'I don't think you quite see what I mean,' said the Bursar. 
'Fairly obvious to me,' said the Archchancellor. 'Lad keeps coming within an ace 
of passin'.' He pulled out one of the papers. 'Anyway, it says here he passed 
three years ago. Got 91.' 
'Yes, Archchancellor. But he appealed.' 
'Appealed? Against passin'?' 
'He said he didn't think the examiners had. noticed that he got the allotropes 
of octiron wrong in question six. He said he couldn't live with his conscience. 
He said it would haunt him for the rest of his days if he succeeded unfairly 
over better and more worthy students. You'll notice he got only 82 and 83 in the 
next two exams.' 
'Why's that?' 
'We think he was playing safe, Master.' 
The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on the desk. 
'Can't have this,' he said. 'Can't have someone goin' around almost bein' a 
wizard and laughin' at us up his, his - what's it that people laugh up?' 
'My feelings exactly,' purred the Bursar. 
'We should send him up,' said the Archchancellor firmly. 
'Down, Master,' said the Bursar. 'Sending him up would mean making spiteful and 
satirical comments about him.' 
'Yes. Good thinkin'. Let's do that,' said the Archchancellor. 
'No, Master,' said the Bursar patiently. 'He's sending us up, so we send him 
down.' 
'Right. Balance things up,' said the Archchancellor. The Bursar rolled his eyes. 
'Or down,' the Archchancellor added. 'So you want me to give him his marchin' 
orders, eh? Just send him along in the morning and-' 
'No, Archchancellor. We can't do it just like that.' 
'We can't? I thought we were in charge here!' 
'Yes, but you have to be extremely careful when dealing with Master Tugelbend. 
He's an expert on procedures. So what I thought we could do is give him this 
paper in the finals tomorrow.' 
The Archchancellor took the proferred document. His lips moved silently as he 
read it. 
'Just one question.' 
'Yes. And he'll either pass or fail. I'd like to see him manage 84 per cent on 
that.' 

In a sense which his tutors couldn't quite define, much to their annoyance, 
Victor Tugelbend was also the laziest person in the history of the world. 
Not simply, ordinarily lazy. Ordinary laziness was merely the absence of effort. 
Victor had passed through there a long time ago, had gone straight through 
commonplace idleness and out on the far side. He put more effort into avoiding 
work than most people put into hard labour. 
He had never wanted to be a wizard. He'd never wanted much, except perhaps to be 
left alone and not woken up until midday. When he'd been small, people had said 
things like, 'And what do you want to be, little man?' and he'd said, 'I don't 
know. What have you got?' 
They didn't let you get away with that sort of thing for very long. It wasn't 
enough to be what you were, you had to be working to be something else. 
He'd tried. For quite a long while he'd tried wanting to be a blacksmith, 
because that looked interesting and romantic. But it also involved hard work and 
intractable bits of metal. Then he'd tried wanting to be an assassin, which 
looked dashing and romantic. But it also involved hard work and, when you got 
right down to it, occasionally having to kill someone. Then he'd tried wanting 
to be an actor, which looked dramatic and romantic, but it had involved dusty 
tights, cramped lodgings and, to his amazement, hard work. 
He'd allowed himself to be sent to the University because it was easier than not 
going. 
He tended to smile a lot, in a faintly puzzled way. This gave people the 
impression that he was slightly more intelligent than they were. In fact, he was 
usually trying to work out what they had just said. 
And he had a thin moustache, which in a certain light made him look debonair 
and, in another, made him look as though he had been drinking a thick chocolate 
milk shake. 
He was quite proud of it. When you became a wizard you were expected to stop 
shaving and grow a beard like a gorse bush. Very senior wizards looked capable 
of straining nourishment out of the air via their moustaches, like whales. 
It was now half-past one. He was ambling back from the Mended Drum, the most 
determinedly disreputable of the city's taverns. Victor Tugelbend always gave 
the impression of ambling, even when he was running. 
He was also quite sober and a bit surprised, therefore, to find himself in the 
Plaza of Broken Moons. He'd been heading for the little alley behind the 
University and the piece of wall with the conveniently spaced removable bricks 
where, for hundreds and hundreds of years, student wizards had quietly got 
around, or more precisely climbed over, Unseen University's curfew restrictions. 

The plaza wasn't on the route. 
He turned to amble back the way he had come, and then stopped. There was 
something unusual going on. 
Usually there'd be a storyteller there, or some musicians, or an entrepreneur 
looking for prospective buyers of such surplus Ankh-Morpork landmarks as the 
Tower of Art or the Brass Bridge. 
Now there were just some people putting up a big screen, like a bedsheet 
stretched between poles. 
He sauntered over to them. 'What're you doing?' he said amiably. 
'There's going to be a performance.' 
'Oh. Acting,' said Victor, without much interest. 
He mooched back through the damp darkness, but stopped when he heard a voice 
coming from the gloom between two buildings. 
The voice said 'Help', quite quietly. 
Another voice said, 'Just hand it over, right?' 
Victor wandered closer, and squinted into the shadows. 
'Hallo?' he said. 'Is everything all right?' 
There was a pause, and then a low voice said, 'You don't know what's good for 
you, kid.' 
He's got a knife, Victor thought. He's coming at me with a knife. That means I'm 
either going to get stabbed or I'm going to have to run away, which is a real 
waste of energy. 
People who didn't apply themselves to the facts in hand might have thought that 
Victor Tugelbend would be fat and unhealthy. In fact, he was undoubtedly the 
most athletically-inclined student in the University. Having to haul around 
extra poundage was far too much effort, so he saw to it that he never put it on 
and he kept himself in trim because doing things with decent muscles was far 
less effort than trying to achieve things with bags of flab. 
So he brought one hand round in a backhanded swipe. It didn't just connect, it 
lifted the mugger off his feet. 
Then he looked for the prospective victim, who was still cowering against the 
wall. 
'I hope you're not hurt,' he said. 
'Don't move!' 
'I wasn't going to,' said Victor. 
The figure advanced from the shadows. It had a package under one arm, and its 
hands were held in front of its face in an odd gesture, each forefinger and 
thumb extended at right angles and then fitted together, so that the man's 
little weaselly eyes appeared to be looking out through a frame. 
He's probably warding off the Evil Eye, Victor thought. He looks like a wizard, 
with all those symbols on his dress. 
'Amazing!' said the man, squinting through his fingers. 'Just turn your head 
slightly, will you? Great! Pity about the nose, but I expect we can do something 
about that.' 
He stepped forward and tried to put his arm round Victor's shoulders. 'It's 
lucky for you', he said, 'that you met me.' 
'It is?' said Victor, who had been thinking it was the other way around. 
'You're just the type I'm looking for,' said the man. 
'Sorry,' said Victor. 'I thought you were being robbed.' 
'He was after this,' said the man, patting the package under his arm. It rang 
like a gong. 'Wouldn't have done him any good, though.' 
'Not worth anything?' said Victor. 
'Priceless.' 
'That's all right, then,' said Victor. 
The man gave up trying to reach across both of Victor's shoulders, which were 
quite broad, and settled for just one of them. 
'But a lot of people would be disappointed,' he said. 'Now, look. You stand 
well. Good profile. Listen, lad, how would you like to be in moving pictures?' 
'Er,' said Victor. 'No. I don't think so.' 
The man gaped at him. 
'You did hear what I said, didn't you?' he said. 'Moving pictures?' 
'Yes.' 
'Everyone wants to be in moving pictures!' 
'No, thanks,' said Victor, politely. 'I'm sure it's a worthwhile job, but moving 
pictures doesn't sound very interesting to me.' 
'I'm talking about moving pictures!' 
'Yes,' said Victor mildly. 'I heard you.' 
The man shook his head. 'Well,'- he said, 'you've made my day. First time in 
weeks I've met someone who isn't desperate to get into moving pictures. I 
thought everyone wanted to get into moving pictures. I thought as soon as I saw 
you: he'll be expecting a job in moving pictures for this night's work.' 
'Thanks all the same,' said Victor. 'But I don't think I'd take to it.' 
'Well, I owe you something.' The little man fumbled in a pocket and produced a 
card. Victor took it. It read: 

Thomas Silverfish 
Interesting and Instructive Kinematography 
One and Two Reelers Nearly non-explosive Stock 
1, Holy Wood 

'That's if ever you change your mind,' he said. 'Everyone in Holy Wood knows 
me.' 
Victor stared at the card. 'Thank you,' he said vaguely. 'Er. Are you a wizard?' 

Silverfish glared at him. 
'Whatever made you think that?' he snapped. 
'You're wearing a dress with magic symbols-' 
'Magic symbols? Look closely, boy! These are certainly not the credulous symbols 
of a ridiculous and outmoded belief system! These are the badges of an 
enlightened craft whose clear, new dawn is just . . . er, dawning! Magic 
symbols!' he finished, in tones of withering scorn. 'And it's a robe, not a 
dress,' he added. 
Victor peered at the collection of stars and crescent moons and things. The 
badges of an enlightened craft whose new dawn was just dawning looked just like 
the credulous symbols of a ridiculous and outmoded belief system to him, but 
this was probably not the time to say so. 
'Sorry,' he said again. 'Couldn't see them clearly.' 
'I'm an alchemist,' said Silverfish, only slightly mollified. 
'Oh, lead into gold, that sort of thing,' said Victor. 
'Not lead, lad. Light. It doesn't work with lead. Light into gold . . . ' 
'Really?' said Victor politely, as Silverfish started to set up a tripod in the 
middle of the plaza. 
A small crowd was collecting. A small crowd collected very easily in 
Ankh-Morpork. As a city, it had some of the most accomplished spectators in the 
universe. They'd watch anything, especially if there was any possibility of 
anyone getting hurt in an amusing way. 
'Why don't you stay for the show?' said Silverfish, and hurried off. 
An alchemist. Well, everyone knew that alchemists were a little bit mad, thought 
Victor. It was perfectly normal. 
Who'd want to spend their time moving pictures? Most of them looked all right 
where they were. 
'Sausages inna bun! Get them while they're hot!' bellowed a voice by his ear. He 
turned. 
'Oh, hallo, Mr Dibbler,' he said. 
'Evening, lad. Want to get a nice hot sausage down you?' 
Victor eyed the glistening tubes in the tray around Dibbler's neck. They smelled 
appetizing. They always did. And then you bit into them, and learned once again 
that Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler could find a use for bits of an animal that the 
animal didn't know it had got. Dibbler had worked out that with enough fried 
onions and mustard people would eat anything. 
'Special rate for students,' Dibbler whispered conspiratorially. 'Fifteen pence, 
and that's cutting my own throat.' He flapped the frying pan lid strategically, 
raising a cloud of steam. 
The piquant scent of fried onions did its wicked work. 
'Just one, then,' Victor said warily. 
Dibbler flicked a sausage out of the pan and snatched it into a bun with the 
expertise of a frog snapping a mayfly. 
'You won't live to regret it,' he said cheerfully, 
Victor nibbled a bit of onion. That was safe enough. 
'What's all this?' he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the flapping 
screen. 
'Some kind of entertainment,' said Dibbler. 'Hot sausages! They're lovely!' He 
lowered his voice again to its normal conspiratorial hiss. 
'All the rage in the other cities, I hear,' he added. 'Some sort of moving 
pictures. They've been trying to get it right before coming to Ankh-Morpork.' 
They watched Silverfish and a couple of associates fumble technically with the 
box on the tripod. White light suddenly appeared at a circular orifice on the 
front of it, and illuminated the screen. There was a halfhearted cheer from the 
crowd. 
'Oh,' said Victor. 'I see. Is that all? It's just plain old shadow play. That's 
all it is. My uncle used to do it to amuse me. You know? You kind of move your 
hands in front of the light and the shadows make a kind of silhouettey picture.' 

'Oh, yeah,' said Dibbler uncertainly. 'Like "Big Elephant", or "Bald Eagle". My 
grandad used to do that sort of stuff.' 
'Mainly my uncle did "Deformed Rabbit",' said Victor. 'He wasn't very good at 
it, you see. It used to get pretty embarrassing. We'd all sit round desperately 
guessing things like "Surprised Hedgehog" or "Rabid Stoat" and he'd go off to 
bed in a sulk because we hadn't guessed he was really doing "Lord Henry Skipps 
and His Men beating the Trolls at the Battle of Pseudopolis". I can't see what's 
so special about shadows on a screen.' 
'From what I hear it's not like that,' said Dibbler. 'I sold one of the men a 
Jumbo Sausage Special earlier on, and he said it's all down to showing pictures 
very fast. Sticking lots of pictures together and showing them one after 
another. Very, very fast, he said.' 
'Not too fast,' said Victor severely. 'You wouldn't be able to see them go past 
if they were too fast.' 
'He said that's the whole secret, not seeing 'em go past,' said Dibbler. 'You 
have to see 'em all at once, or something.' 
'They'd all be blurred,' said Victor. 'Didn't you ask him about that?' 
'Er, no,' said Dibbler. 'Point of fact, he had to rush off just then. Said he 
felt a bit odd.' 
Victor looked thoughtfully at the remnant of his sausage in a bun and, as he did 
so, he was aware of being stared at in his turn. 
He looked down. There was a dog sitting by his feet. 
It was small, bow-legged and wiry, and basically grey but with patches of brown, 
white and black in outlying areas, and it was staring. 
It was certainly the most penetrating stare Victor had ever seen. It wasn't 
menacing or fawning. It was just very slow and very thorough, as though the dog 
was memorizing details so that it could give a full description to the 
authorities later on. 
When it was sure it had his full attention, it transferred its gaze to the 
sausage: 
Feeling wretched at being so cruel to a poor dumb animal, Victor flicked the 
sausage downwards. The dog caught and swallowed it in one economical movement. 
More people were drifting into the plaza now. Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler had 
wandered off and was doing a busy trade with those latenight revellers who were 
too drunk to prevent optimism triumphing over experience; anyone who bought a 
meal at one a.m. after a7 night's revelling was probably going to be riotously 
ill anyway, so they might as well have something to show for it. 
Victor was gradually surrounded by a large crowd. It didn't consist solely of 
humans. He recognized, a few feet away, the big rangy shape of Detritus, an 
ancient troll well known to all the students as someone who found employment 
anywhere people needed to be thrown very hard out of places for money. The troll 
noticed him, and tried to wink. This involved closing both eyes, because 
Detritus wasn't good at complicated things. It was widely believed that, if 
Detritus could be taught to read and write sufficiently to sit down and do an 
intelligence test, he'd prove to be slightly less intelligent than the chair. 
Silverfish picked up a megaphone. 
'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'you are privileged tonight to witness a 
turning point in the history of the Century of-' he lowered the megaphone and 
Victor heard him whisper urgently to one of his assistants, 'What century is 
this? Is it?' and then raised the megaphone again and continued in the original 
plummily optimistic tones '-Century of the Fruitbat! No less than the birth of 
Moving Pictures! Pictures that move without magic!' 
He waited for the applause. There wasn't any. The crowd just watched him. You 
needed to do more than end your sentences with exclamation marks to get a round 
of applause from an Ankh-Morpork crowd. 
Slightly dispirited, he went on, 'Seeing is Believing, they say! But, ladies and 
gentlemen, you will not believe the Evidence of Your Own Eyes! What you are 
about to witness is a Triumph of Natural Science! A Marvel of the Age! A 
Discovery of World, nay, dare I say, Universe-Shaking Proportions!-' 
' 'S got to be better than that bloody sausage, anyway,' said a quiet voice by 
Victor's knee. 
'-Harnessing Natural Mechanisms to create Illusion! Illusion, Ladies and 
Gentlemen, without recourse to Magic! ' 
Victor let his gaze slide downwards. There was nothing down there but the little 
dog, industriously scratching itself. It looked up slowly, and said 'Woof?' 
'-Potential for Learning! The Arts! History! I thank you, Ladies and Gentlemen! 
Ladies and Gentlemen, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!' 
There was another hopeful break for applause. 
Someone at the front of the crowd said, 'That's right. We ain't.' 
'Yeah,' said the woman next to him. 'When're you goin' to stop goin' on like 
that and get on with the shadow play?' 
'That's right,' snapped a second woman. 'Do "Deformed Rabbit". My kids always 
love that one.' 
Victor looked away for a while, to lull the dog's suspicions, and then turned 
and glared hard at it. 
It was amiably watching the crowd, and apparently taking no notice of him. 
Victor poked an exploratory finger in his ear. It must have been a trick of an 
echo, or something. It wasn't that the dog had gone 'woof!', although that was 
practically unique in itself; most dogs in the universe never went 'woof!', they 
had complicated barks like 'whuuugh!' and 'hwhoouf!'. No, it was that it hadn't 
in fact barked at all. It had said 'woof'. 
He shook his head, and looked back as Silverfish climbed down from the screen 
and motioned to one of his assistants to start turning a handle at the side of 
the box. There was a grinding noise that rose to a steady clicking. Vague 
shadows danced across the screen, and then . . . 
One of the last things Victor remembered was a voice beside his knee saying, 
'Could have bin worse, mister. I could have said "miaow".' 

Holy Wood dreams . . . 

And now it was now eight hours later. 
A horribly overhung Ponder Stibbons looked guiltily at the empty desk beside 
him. It was unlike Victor to miss exams. He always said he enjoyed the 
challenge. 
'Get ready to turn over your papers,' said the invigilator at the end of the 
hall. The sixty chests of sixty prospective wizards tightened with dark, 
unbearable tension. Ponder fumbled anxiously with his lucky pen. 
The wizard on the dais turned over the hourglass. 'You may begin,' he said. 
Several of the more smug students turned over their papers by snapping their 
fingers. Ponder hated them instantly. 
He reached for his lucky inkwell, missed completely in his nervousness, and then 
knocked it over. A small black flood rolled over his question paper. 
Panic and shame washed over him nearly as thoroughly. He mopped the ink up with 
the hem of his robe, spreading it smoothly over the desk. His lucky dried frog 
had been washed away.. 
Hot with embarrassment, dripping black ink, he looked up in supplication at the 
presiding wizard and then cast his eyes imploringly at the empty desk beside 
him. 
The wizard nodded. Ponder gratefully sidled across the aisle, waited until his 
heart had stopped thumping and then, very carefully, turned over the paper on 
the desk. 
After ten seconds, and against all reason, he turned it over again just in case 
there had been a mistake and the rest of the questions had somehow been on the 
top side after all. 
Around him there was the intense silence of fifty-nine minds creaking with 
sustained effort. 
Ponder turned the paper over again. 
Perhaps it- was some mistake. No . . . there was the University seal and the 
signature of the Archchancellor and everything. So perhaps it was some sort of 
special test. Perhaps they were watching him now to see what he'd do . . . 
He peered around furtively. The other students seemed to be working hard. 
Perhaps it was a mistake after all. Yes. The more he came to think about it, the 
more logical it seemed. The Archchancellor had probably signed the papers and 
then, when the clerks had been copying them out, one of them had got as far as 
the all-important first question and then maybe had been called away or 
something, and no-one had noticed, and it'd got put on Victor's desk, but now he 
wasn't here and Ponder had got it which meant, he decided, in a sudden rush of 
piety, that the gods must have wanted him to get it. After all, it wasn't his 
fault if some sort of error gave him a paper like this. It was probably 
sacrilegious or something to ignore the opportunity. 
They had to accept what you put down. Ponder hadn't shared the room with the 
world's greatest authority on examination procedures without learning a thing or 
two. 
He looked again at the question: 'What is your name?' 
He answered it. 
After a while he underlined it, several times, with his lucky ruler. 
After a little while longer, to show willing, he wrote above it: 'The anser to 
questione One is:'. 
After a further ten minutes he ventured 'Which is what my name is' on the line 
below, and underlined it. 
Poor old Victor will be really sorry he missed this, he thought. 
I wonder where he is? 

There was no road to Holy Wood yet. Anyone trying to get there would take the 
highway to Quirm and, at some unmarked point out in the scrubby landscape, would 
turn off and strike out towards the sand dunes. Wild lavender and rosemary lined 
the banks: There was no sound but the buzzing of bees and the distant song of a 
skylark, which only made the silence more obvious. 
Victor Tugelbend left the road at the point where the bank had been broken down 
and flattened by the passage of many carts and, by the look of it, an increasing 
number of feet. 
There were still many miles to go. He trudged on. 
Somewhere at the back of his mind a tiny voice was saying things like 'Where am 
I? Why am I doing this?' and another part of him knew that he didn't really have 
to do it at all. Like the hypnotist's victim who knows they're not really 
hypnotized and can snap out of it any time they like, but just happened not to 
feel like it right now, he let his feet be guided. 
He wasn't certain why. He just knew that there was something that he had to be 
part of. Something that might never happen again. 
Some way behind, but catching up fast, was Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, trying to 
ride a horse. He was not a natural horseman, and fell off occasionally, which 
was one reason why he hadn't overtaken Victor yet. The other was that he had 
paused, before leaving the city, to sell his sausage-in-a-bun business cheaply 
to a dwarf who could not believe his luck (after actually trying some of the 
sausages, would still not be able to believe his luck). 
Something was calling Dibbler, and it had a golden voice. 
A long way behind Throat, knuckles dragging in the sand, was Detritus the troll. 
It's hard to be certain of what he was thinking, any more than it's possible to 
tell what a homing pigeon is thinking. He just knew that where he ought to be 
was not where he was. 
And finally, even further down the road, was an eight-horse wagon taking a load 
of lumber to Holy Wood. Its driver wasn't thinking about anything very much, 
although he was slightly puzzled by an incident that occurred just as he was 
leaving Ankh-Morpork in the darkness before dawn. A voice from the gloom by the 
road had shouted 'Stop in the name of the city guard!' and he had stopped, and 
when nothing further had transpired he had looked around, and there was no-one 
there. 
The wagon rumbled past, revealing to the eye of the imaginative beholder the 
small figure of Gaspode the Wonder Dog, trying to make himself comfortable 
amongst the balks of timber at the rear. He was going to Holy Wood too. 
And he also didn't know why. 
But he was determined to find out. 

None would have believed, in the final years of the Century of the Fruitbat, 
that Discworld affairs were being watched keenly and impatiently by 
intelligences greater than Man's, or at least much nastier; that their affairs 
were being scrutinized and studied as a man with a three-day appetite might 
study the All-You-Can-Gobble-For A Dollar menu outside Harga's House of Ribs . . 
. 
Well, actually . . . most wizards would have believed it, if anyone had told 
them. 
And the Librarian would certainly have believed it. 
And Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite of 3 Quirm Street, Ankh-Morpork, would have 
believed it, too. But she believed the world was round, that a sprig of garlic 
in her underwear drawer kept away vampires, that it did you good to get out and 
have a laugh occasionally, that there was niceness in everyone if you only knew 
where to look, and that three horrible little dwarfs peered in at her undressing 
every night.[4] 

Holy Wood! . . . 
. . . was nothing very much, yet. Just a hill by the sea, and on the other side 
of the hill, a lot of sand dunes. It was that special sort of beautiful area 
which is only beautiful if you can leave after briefly admiring its beauty and 
go somewhere else where there are hot tubs and cold drinks. Actually staying 
there for any length of time is a penance. 
Nevertheless, there was a town there . . . just. Wooden shacks had been built 
wherever someone had dropped a load of timber, and they were crude, as if the 
builders had resented the time taken from something more important that they'd 
much rather be doing. They were square plank boxes. 
Except for the front. 
If you wanted to understand Holy Wood, Victor said years afterwards, you had to 
understand its buildings. 
You'd see a box on the sand. It'd have a roughly peaked roof, but that wasn't 
important, because it never rained in Holy Wood. There'd be cracks in the walls, 
stuffed with old rags. The windows would be holes-glass was too fragile to cart 
all the way from Ankh-Morpork. And, from behind, the front was just like a huge 
wooden billboard, held up by a network of struts. 
From the front, it was a fretted, carved, painted, ornate, baroque architectural 
extravaganza. In Ankh-Morpork, sensible men built their houses plain, so as not 
to attract attention, and kept the decoration for inside. But Holy Wood wore its 
houses inside out. 
Victor walked up what passed for the main street in a daze. He had woken up in 
the early hours out in the dunes. Why? He'd decided to come to Holy Wood, but 
why? He couldn't remember. All he could remember was that, at the time, it was 
the obvious thing to do. There had been hundreds of good reasons. 
If only he could remember one of them. 
Not that his mind had any room to review memories. It was too busy being aware 
that he was very hungry and acutely thirsty. His pockets had yielded a total of 
seven pence. That wouldn't buy a bowl of soup, let alone a good meal. 
He needed a good meal. Things would look a lot clearer after a good meal. 
He pushed through the crowds. Most of them seemed to be carpenters, but there 
were others, carrying carboys or mysterious boxes. And everyone was moving very 
quickly and resolutely, bent on some powerful purpose of their own. 
Except him. 
He trailed up the impromptu street, gawping at the houses, feeling like a stray 
grasshopper in an ant hill. Arid there didn't seem to- 
'Why don't you look where you're going!' 
He rebounded off a wall. When he got his balance the other party in the 
collision had already whirred off into the crowd. He stared for a moment and 
then ran desperately after her. 
'Hey!' he said, 'Sorry! Excuse me? Miss?' 
She stopped, and waited impatiently as he caught up. 
'Well?' she said. 
She was a foot shorter than him and her shape was doubtful since most of her was 
covered in a ridiculously frilly dress, although the dress wasn't as ludicrous 
as the big blond wig full of ringlets. And her face was white with make-up apart 
from her eyes, which were heavily ringed in black. The general effect was of a 
lampshade that hadn't been getting much sleep lately. 
'Well?' she repeated, 'Hurry up! They're shooting again in five minutes!' 
'Er-' 
She unbent slightly. 'No, don't tell me,' she said. 'You've just got here. It's 
all new to you. You don't know what to do. You're hungry. You haven't got any 
money. Right?' 
'Yes! How did you know?' 
'Everyone starts like that. And now you want to break into the clicks, right?' 
'The clicks?' 
She rolled her eyes, deep within their black circles. 
'Moving pictures!' 
'Oh-' I do, he thought. I didn't know it but I do. Yes. That's why I came here. 
Why didn't I think of that? 'Yes,' he said. 'Yes, that's what I want to do. I 
want to, er, break in. And how does one do that?' 
'One waits for ever and ever. Until one is noticed.' The girl looked him up and 
down with unconcealed contempt. 'Take up carpentry, why don't you? Holy Wood 
always needs good wood butchers.' 
And then she spun around and was gone, lost in a crowd of busy people. 
'Er, thank you,' Victor called after her. 'Thank you.' He raised his voice and 
added, 'I hope your eyes get better!' 
He jingled the coins in his pocket. 
Well, carpentry was out. It sounded too much like hard work. He'd tried it once, 
and wood and him had soon reached an agreement - he wouldn't touch it, and it 
wouldn't split. 
Waiting for ever and ever had its attractions, but you needed money to do it 
with. 
His fingers closed around a small, unexpected rectangle. He pulled it out and 
looked at it. 
Silverfish's card. 

No. 1 Holy Wood turned out to be a couple of shacks inside a high fence. There 
was a queue at the gate. It was made up of trolls, dwarfs and humans. They 
looked as though they had been there for some time; in fact, some of them had 
such a naturally dispirited way of sagging while remaining upright that they 
might have been specially-evolved descendants of the original prehistoric 
queuers. 
At the gate was a large, heavy-set man, who was eyeing the queue with the smug 
look of minor power-wielders everywhere. 
'Excuse me-' Victor began. 
'Mister Silverfish ain't hiring any more people this morning,' said the man out 
of the corner of his mouth., 'So scram.' . 
'But he said that if ever I was in- ' 
'Did I just say scram, friend?' 
'Yes, but-' 
The door in the fence opened a fraction. A small pale face poked out. 
'We need a troll and a coupla humans,' it said. 'One day, usual rates.' The gate 
shut again. 
The man straightened up and cupped his scarred hands around his mouth. 
'Right, you horrible lot!' he shouted. 'You heard the man!' He ran his eyes over 
the line with the practised gaze of a stock breeder. 'You, you and you,' he 
said, pointing. 
'Excuse me,' said Victor helpfully, 'but I think that man over there was 
actually first in the-' 
He was shoved out of the way. The lucky three shuffled in. He thought he saw the 
glint of coins changing hands. Then the gatekeeper turned an angry red face 
towards him. 
'You,' he said, 'get to the end of the queue. And stay there!' 
Victor stared at him. He stared at the gate. He looked at the long line of 
dispirited people. 
'Um, no,' he said. 'I don't think so. Thanks all the same.' 
'Then beat it!' 
Victor gave him a friendly smile. He walked to the end of the fence, and 
followed it. It turned, at the far end, into a narrow alley. 
Victor searched among the usual alley debris for a while until he found a piece 
of scrap paper. Then he rolled up his sleeves. And only then did he inspect the 
fence carefully until he found a couple of loose boards that, with a bit of 
effort, let him through. 
This brought him into an area stacked with lumber and piles of cloth. There was 
no-one around. 
Walking purposefully, in the knowledge that no-one with their sleeves rolled up 
who walks purposefully with a piece of paper held conspicuously in their hand is 
ever challenged, he set out across the wood and canvas wonderland of Interesting 
and Instructive Kinematography. 
There were buildings painted on the back of other buildings. There were trees 
that were trees, at the front, and just a mass of struts at the back. There was 
a flurry of activity although, as far as Victor could see; no-one was actually 
producing anything. 
He watched a man in a long black cloak, a black hat and a moustache like a yard 
brush tie a girl to one of the trees. No-one seemed interested in stopping him, 
even though she was struggling. A couple of people were in fact watching 
disinterestedly, and there was a man standing behind a large box on a tripod, 
turning a handle. 
She flung out an imploring arm and opened and shut her mouth soundlessly. 
One of the watchers stood up, sorted through a stack of boards beside him, and 
held one up in front of the box. 
It was black. On it, in white, were the words 'Noe! Noe!' 
He walked away. The villain twirled his moustache. The man walked back with a 
board. This time it said 'Ahar! My proude beauty!' 
Another of the seated watchers picked up a megaphone. 
'Fine, fine,' he said. 'OK, take a five minutes break and then everyone back 
here for the big fight scene.' 
The villain untied the girl. They wandered off. The man stopped turning the 
handle, lit a cigarette, and then opened the top of the box. 
'Everyone get that?' he said. 
There was a chorus of squeaks. 
Victor walked over and tapped the megaphone man on his shoulder. 
'Urgent message for Mr Silverfish?' he said. 
'He's in the offices over there,' said the man, jerking his thumb over his 
shoulder without looking around. 
'Thank you.' 
The first shed he poked his head into contained nothing but rows of small cages 
stretching away into the gloom. Indistinct things hurled themselves against the 
bars and chittered at him. He slammed the door hurriedly. 
The next door revealed Silverfish, standing in front of a desk covered with bits 
of glassware and drifts of paper. He didn't turn around. 
'Just put it over there,' he said absently. 
'It's me, Mr Silverfish,' said Victor. 
Silverfish turned around and peered vaguely at him, as if it was Victor's fault 
that his name meant nothing. 
'Yes?' 
'I've come because of that job,' said Victor. 'You know?' 
'What job? What should I know?' said Silverfish. 'How the hell did you get in 
here?' 
'I broke into moving pictures,' said Victor. 'But it's nothing that a hammer and 
a few nails won't put right.' 
Panic bloomed on Silverfish's face. Victor pulled out the card and waved it in 
what he hoped was a reassuring way. 
'In Ankh-Morpork?' he said. 'A couple of nights ago? You were being menaced?' 
Realization dawned. 'Oh, yes,' said Silverfish faintly. 'And you were the lad 
who was of some help.' 
'And you said to come and see you if I wanted to move pictures,' said Victor. 'I 
didn't, then, but I do now.' He gave Silverfish a bright smile. 
But he thought: he's going to try and wriggle out of it. He's regretting the 
offer. He's going to send me back to the queue. 
'Well, of course,' said Silverfish, 'a lot of very talented people want to be in 
moving pictures. We're going to have sound any day now. I mean, are you a 
carpenter? Any alchemical experience? Have you ever trained imps? Any good with 
your hands at all?' 
'No,' Victor admitted. 
'Can you sing?' 
'A bit. In the bath. But not very well,' Victor conceded. 
'Can you dance?' 
'No.' 
'Swords? Do you know how to handle a sword?' 
'A little,' said Victor. He'd used one sometimes in the gym. He'd never in fact 
fought an opponent, since wizards generally abhor exercise and the only other 
University resident who ever entered the place was the Librarian, and then only 
to use the ropes and rings. But Victor had practised an energetic and 
idiosyncratic technique in front of the mirror, and the mirror had never beaten 
him yet. 
'I see,' said Silverfish gloomily. 'Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword 
a little.' 
'But I have saved your life twice,' said Victor. 
'Twice?' snapped Silverfish. 
'Yes,' said Victor. He took a deep breath. This was going to be risky. 'Then,' 
he said, 'and now.' 
There was a long pause. 
Then Silverfish said, 'I really don't think there's any call for that.' 
'I'm sorry, Mr Silverfish,' Victor pleaded. 'I'm really not that kind of person 
but you did say and I've walked all this way and I haven't got any money and I'm 
hungry and I'll do anything you've got. Anything at all. Please.' 
Silverfish looked at him doubtfully. 
'Even acting?' he said. 
'Pardon?' 
'Moving about and pretending to do things,' said Silverfish helpfully. 
'Yes!'. 
'Seems a shame, a bright, well-educated lad like you,' said Silverfish. 'What do 
you do?' 
'I'm studying to be a w-,' Victor began. He remembered Silverfish's antipathy 
towards wizardry, and corrected himself, 'a clerk.' 
'A waclerk?' said Silverfish. 
'I don't know if I'd be any good at acting, though,' Victor confessed. 
Silverfish looked surprised. 'Oh, you'll be OK,' he said. 'It's very hard to be 
bad at acting in moving pictures.' 
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a dollar coin. 
'Here,' he said, 'go and get something to eat.' 
He looked Victor up and down. 
'Are you waiting for something?' he said. 
'Well,' said Victor, 'I was hoping you could tell me what's going on.' 
'How do you mean?' 
'A couple of nights ago I watched your, your click,' he felt slightly proud of 
remembering the term, 'back in the city and suddenly I wanted to be here more 
than anything else. I've never really wanted anything in my life before!' 
Silverfish's face broke into a relieved grin. 
'Oh, that,' he said. 'That's just the magic of Holy Wood. Not wizard's magic,' 
he added hastily, 'which is all superstition and mumbo-jumbo. No. This is magic 
for ordinary people. Your mind is fizzing with all the possibilities. I know 
mine was,' he added. . 'Yes,' said Victor uncertainly. 'But how does it work?' 
Silverfish's face lit up. 
'You want to know?' he said. 'You want to know how things work?' 
'You see, most people are so disappointing,' Silverfish said. 'You show them 
something really wonderful like the picture box, and they just go "oh". They 
never ask how it works. Mr Bird!' 
The last word was a shout. After a while a door opened on the far side of the 
shack and a man appeared. 
He had a picture box on a strap round his neck. Assorted tools hung from his 
belt. His hands were stained with chemicals and he had no eyebrows, which Victor 
was later to learn was a sure sign of someone who had been around octo-cellulose 
for any length of time. He also had his cap on back to front. 
'This is Gaffer Bird,' beamed Silverfish. 'Our head handleman. Gaffer, this is 
Victor. He's going to act for us.' 
'Oh,' said Gaffer, looking at Victor in the same way that a butcher might look 
at a carcass. 'Is he?' 
'And he wants to know how things work!' said Silverfish. 
Gaffer gave Victor another jaundiced look. 
'String,' he said gloomily. 'It all works by string. You'd be amazed how 
things'd fall to bits around here,' he said, 'if it weren't for me and my ball 
of string.' 
There was a sudden commotion from the box round his neck. He thumped it with the 
flat of his hand. 
'You lot can cut that out,' he said. He nodded at Victor. 
'They gets fractious if their routine is upset,' he said. 
'What's in the box?' said Victor. 
Gaffer winked at Silverfish. 'I bet you'd like to know,' he said. 
Victor remembered the caged things he'd seen in the shed. 
'They sound like common demons,' he said cautiously. 
Gaffer gave him an approving look, such as might be given to a stupid dog who 
had just done a rather clever trick. 
'Yeah, that's right,' he conceded. 
'But how do you stop them escaping?' said Victor. 
Gaffer leered. 'Amazin' stuff, string,' he said. 

Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler was one of those rare people with the ability to think 
in straight lines. 
Most people think in curves and zig-zags. For example, they start from a thought 
like: I wonder how I can become very rich, and then proceed along an uncertain 
course which includes thoughts like: I wonder what's for supper, and: I wonder 
who I know who can lend me five dollars? 
Whereas Throat was one of those people who could identify the thought at the 
other end of the process, in this case I am now very rich, draw a line between 
the two, and then think his way along it, slowly and patiently, until he got to 
the other end. 
Not that it worked. There was always, he found, some small but vital flaw in the 
process. It generally involved a strange reluctance on the part of people to buy 
what he had to sell. 
But his life savings were now resting in a leather bag inside his jerkin. He'd 
been in Holy Wood for a day. He'd looked at its ramshackle organization, such as 
it was, with the eye of a lifelong salesman. There seemed nowhere in it for him, 
but this wasn't a problem. There was always room at the top. 
A day's enquiries and careful observation had led him to Interesting and 
Instructive Kinematography. Now he stood on the far side of the street, watching 
carefully. 
He watched the queue. He watched the man on the gate. He reached a decision. 
He strolled along the queue. He had brains. He knew he had brains. What he 
needed now was muscle. Somewhere here there was bound to- 
'Aft'noon, Mister Dibbler.' 
That flat head, those rangy arms, that curling lower lip, that croaking voice 
that bespoke an IQ the size of a walnut. It added up to- 
'It's me. Detritus,' said Detritus. 'Fancy seein' you here, eh?' 
He gave Dibbler a grin like a crack appearing in a vital bridge support. 
'Hallo, Detritus. You working in films?' said Dibbler. 
'Not exactly working,' said Detritus, bashfully. 
Dibbler looked quietly at the troll, whose chipped fists were generally the 
final word in any street fight. 
'I call that disgusting,' he said. He pulled out his money bag and counted out 
five dollars. 'How would you like to work for me, Detritus?' 
Detritus touched his jutting brow respectfully. 
'Right you are, Mr Dibbler,' he said. 
'Just step this way.' 
Dibbler strolled back up to the head of the queue. The man at the door thrust 
out an arm to bar his way. 
'Where d'you think you're going, pal?' he said. 
'I have an appointment with Mr Silverfish,' said Dibbler. 
'And he knows about this, does he?' said the guard, in tones that suggested that 
he personally would not believe it even if he saw it written on the sky. 
'Not yet,' said Dibbler. 
'Well, my friend, in that case you can just get yourself to-' 
'Detritus?' 
'Yes, Mr Dibbler?' 
'Hit this man.' 
'Right you are, Mr Dibbler.' 
Detritus's arm whirled round in a 180 degree arc with oblivion on the end of it. 
The guard was lifted off his feet and smashed through the door, coming to a stop 
in its wreckage twenty feet away. There was a cheer from the queue. 
Dibbler looked approvingly at the troll. Detritus was wearing nothing except a 
ragged loincloth which covered whatever it was that trolls felt it necessary to 
conceal. 
'Very good, Detritus.' 
'Right you are, Mr Dibbler.' 
'But we shall have to see about getting you a suit,' said Dibbler. 'Now, please 
guard the gate. Don't let anyone in.' 
'Right you are, Mr Dibbler.' 
Two minutes later a small grey dog trotted through the troll's short and bandy 
legs and hopped over the remains of the gate, but Detritus didn't do anything 
about this because everyone knew dogs weren't anyone. 

'Mr Silverfish?' said Dibbler. 
Silverfish, who had been cautiously crossing the studio with a box of fresh film 
stock, hesitated at the sight of a skinny figure bearing down on him like a 
long-lost weasel. Dibbler's expression was the expression worn by something long 
and sleek and white as it swims over the reef and into the warm shallow waters 
of the kiddies' paddling area. 
'Yes?' said Silverfish. 'Who're you? How did you get-' 
'Dibbler's the name,' said Dibbler. 'But I'd like you to call me Throat.' 
He clasped Silverfish's unresisting hand and then placed his other hand on the 
man's shoulder and stepped forward, pumping the first hand vigorously. The 
effect was of acute affability, and it meant that if Silverfish backed away he 
would dislocate his own elbow. 
'And I'd just like you to know', Dibbler went on, 'that we're all incredibly 
impressed at what you boys are doing here.' 
Silverfish watched his own hand being strenuously made friends with, and grinned 
uncertainly. 
'You are?' he ventured. 
'All this-', Dibbler released Silverfish's shoulder just long enough to 
expansively indicate the energetic chaos around them. 'Fantastic!' he said. 
'Marvellous! And that last thing of yours, what was it called now-?' 
'High Jinks at the Store,' said Silverfish. 'That's the one where the thief 
steals the sausages and the shop-keeper chases him?' 
'Yeah,' said Dibbler, his fixed smile glazing for only a second . or two before 
becoming truly sincere again. 'Yeah. That was. it. Amazing! True genius! A 
beautifully sustained metaphor!' 
'That cost us nearly twenty dollars, you know,' said Silverfish, with shy pride. 
'And another forty pence for the sausages, of course.' 
'Amazing!' said Dibbler. 'And it must have been seen by hundreds of people, 
yes?' 
'Thousands,' said Silverfish. 
There was no analogy for Dibbler's grin now. If it had managed to be any wider, 
the top of his head would have fallen off. 
'Thousands?' he said. 'Really? That many? And of course they all pay you, oh, 
how much-?' 
'Oh, we just take up a collection at the moment,' said Silverfish. 'Just to 
cover costs while we're still in the experimental stage, you understand.' He 
looked down. 'I wonder,' he added, 'could you stop shaking my hand now?' 
Dibbler followed his gaze. 'Of course!' he said, and let go. Silverfish's hand 
carried on going up and down for a while of its own accord, out of sheer 
muscular spasm. 
Dibbler was silent for a moment, his expression that of a man in deep communion 
with some inner god. Then he said, 'You know, Thomas - may I call you Thomas? 
when I saw that masterpiece I thought, Dibbler, behind all this is a creative 
artist-' 
'-how did you know my name was-' 
'-a creative artist, I thought, who should be free to pursue his muse instead of 
being- burdened with all the fussy details of management, am I right?' 
'Well . . . it's true that all this paperwork is a bit-' 
'My thoughts exactly,' said Dibbler, 'and I said, Dibbler, you should go there 
right now and offer him your services. You know. Administrate. Take the load off 
his shoulders. Let him get on with what he does best, am I right? Tom?' 
'I, I, I, yes, of course, it's true that my forte is really more in-' 
'Right! Right!' said Dibbler. 'Tom, I accept!' 
Silverfish's eyes were glassy. 
'Er,' he said. 
Dibbler punched him playfully on the shoulder. 'Just you show me the paperwork,' 
he said, 'and then you can get right out there and do whatever it is you do so 
well.' 
'Er. Yes,' said Silverfish. 
Dibbler grasped him by both arms and gave him a thousand watts of integrity. 
'This is a proud moment for me,' he said hoarsely. 'I can't tell you how much 
this means to me. I can honestly say this is the happiest day of my life. I want 
you to know that. Tommy. Sincerely.' 
The reverential silence was broken by a faint sniggering. 
Dibbler looked around slowly. There was no-one behind them apart from a small 
grey mongrel dog sitting in the shade of a heap of lumber. It noticed his 
expression and put its head on one side. 
'Woof?' it said. 
Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler looked around momentarily for something to throw, 
realized that this would be out of character, and turned back to the imprisoned 
Silverfish. 
'You know,' he said sincerely, 'it's really lucky for me that I met you.' 

Lunch in a tavern had cost Victor the dollar plus a couple of pence. It was a 
bowl of soup. Everything cost a lot, said the soup-seller, because it all had to 
be brought a long way. 
There weren't any farms around Holy Wood. Anyway, who'd grow things when they 
could be making movies? 
Then he reported to Gaffer for his screen test. 
This consisted of standing still for a minute while the handleman watched him 
owlishly over the top of a picture box. After the minute had passed Gaffer said, 
'Right. You're a natural, kid.' 
'But I didn't do anything,' said Victor. 'You just told me not to move.' 
'Yeah. Quite right. That's what we need. People who know how to stand still,' 
said Gaffer. 'None of this fancy acting like in the theatre.' 
'But you haven't told me what the demons do in the box,' said Victor. 
'They do this,' said Gaffer, unclicking a couple of latches. A row of tiny 
malevolent eyes glared out at Victor. 
'These six demons here', he said, pointing cautiously to avoid the claws, 'look 
out through the little hole in the front of the box and paint pictures of what 
they see. There has to be six of them, OK? Two to paint and four to blow on it 
to get it dry. On account of the next picture coming down, see. That's because 
every time this handle here. is turned, the strip of transparent membrane is 
wound down one notch for the next picture.' He turned the handle. It went 
clickaclicka, and the imps gibbered. 
'What did they do that for?' said Victor. 
'Ah,' said Gaffer, 'that's because the handle also drives this little wheel with 
whips on. It's the only way to get them to work fast enough. He's a lazy little 
devil, your average imp. It's all feedback, anyway. The faster you turn the 
handle, the faster the film goes by, the faster they have to paint. You got to 
get the speed just right. Very important job, handlemanning.' 
'But isn't it all rather, well, cruel?' 
Gaffer looked surprised. 'Oh, no. Not really. I gets a rest every half an hour. 
Guild of Handlemen regulations.' 
He walked further along the bench, where another box 
stood with its back panel open. This time a cageful of sluggishlooking lizards 
blinked mournfully at Victor. 
'We ain't very happy with this,' said Gaffer, 'but it's the best we can do. Your 
basic salamander, see, will lie in the desert all day, absorbing light, and when 
it's frightened it excretes the light again. Self-defence mechanism, it's 
called. So as the film goes past and the shutter here clicks backwards and 
forwards, their light goes out through the film and these lenses here and on to 
the screen. Basically very simple.' 
'How do you make them frightened?' said Victor. 
'You see this handle?' 
'Oh.' 
Victor prodded the picture box thoughtfully. 
'Well, all right,' he said. 'So you get lots of little pictures. And you wind 
them fast. So we ought to see a blur, but we don't.' 
'Ah,' said Gaffer, tapping the side of his nose. 'Handlemen's Guild secret, that 
is. Handed down from initiate to initiate,' he added importantly. 
Victor gave him a sharp look. 'I thought people'd only been making movies for a 
few months,' he said. 
Gaffer had the decency to look shifty. 'Well, OK, at the moment we're more sort 
of handing it round,' he admitted. 'But give us a few years and we'll soon be 
handing it down don't touch that!' 
Victor jerked his hand back guiltily from the pile of cans on the bench. 
'That's actual film in there,' said Gaffer, pushing them gently to one side. 
'You got to be very careful with it. You mustn't get it too hot because it's 
made of octo-cellulose, and it don't like sharp knocks either.' 
'What happens to it, then?' said Victor, staring at the cans. 
'Who knows? No-one's ever lived long enough to tell us.' Gaffer looked at 
Victor's expression and grinned. 
'Don't worry about that,' he said. 'You'll be in front of the moving-picture 
box.' 
'Except that I don't know how to act,' said Victor. 
'Do you know how to do what you're told?' said Gaffer. 
'What? Well. Yes. I suppose so.' 
'That's all you need, lad. That's all you need. That and big muscles.' . 
They stepped out into the searing sunlight and headed for Silverfish's shed. 
Which was occupied. 
Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler was meeting the movies. 

'What I thought', said Dibbler, 'is that, well, look. Something like this.' He 
held up a card. On it was written, in shaky handwriting: 

After thys perfromans, Why Notte Visit 
Harp's Hous of Ribs, 
For the Best inne Hawt Cuisyne 

'What's hawt cuisyne?' said Victor. 
'It's foreign,' said Dibbler. He scowled at Victor. Someone like Victor under 
the same roof wasn't part of the plan. He'd been hoping to get Silverfish alone. 
'Means food,' he added. 
Silverfish stared at the card. 
'What about it?' he said. 
'Why don't you', said Dibbler, speaking very carefully, 'hold this card up at 
the end of the performance?' 
'Why should we do that?' 
'Because someone like Sham Harp will pay you a lo- quite a lot of money,' said 
Dibbler. 
They stared at the card. 
'I've eaten at Harga's House of Ribs,' said Victor. 'I wouldn't say it's the 
best. Not the best. A long way from being the best.' He thought for a bit. 
'About as far away from being the best as you can get, in fact.' 
'That doesn't matter,' said Dibbler sharply. 'That's not important.' 
'But,' Silverfish said, 'if we went around saying Harga's House of Ribs was the 
best place in the city, what would all the other restaurants think?' 
Dibbler leaned across the table. 
'They'd think,' he said, ' "Why didn't we think of it first?" ' 
He sat back. Silverfish flashed him a look of bright incomprehension. 
'Just run that past me one more time, will you?' he said. 
'They'll want to do exactly the same thing!' said Dibbler. 
'I know,' said Victor. 'They'll want us to hold up cards with things on like 
"Harga's Isn't the Best Place in Town, Actually, Ours Is".' 
'Something like that, something like that,' snapped Dibbler, glaring at him. 
'Maybe we can work on the words, but something like that.' 
'But, but,' Silverfish fought to keep ahead of the conversation, 'Harga won't 
like it, will he? If he pays us money to say his place is best, and then we take 
money from other people to say that their place is best, then he's bound to-' 
'Pay us more money,' said Dibbler, 'to say it again, only in larger letters.' 
They stared at him. 
'You really think that will work?' said Silverfish. 
'Yes,' said Dibbler flatly. 'You listen to the street traders any morning. They 
don't shout, "Nearly-fresh oranges, only slightly squashy, reasonable value", do 
they? No, they shout, "Git chore orinjes, they're luvverly". Good business 
sense.' 
He leaned across the desk again. 
'Seems to me', he said, 'that you could do with some of that around here.' 
'So it appears,' said Silverfish weakly. 
'And with the money,' said Dibbler, his voice a crowbar inserted in the cracks 
in reality, 'you could really get on with perfecting your art.' 
Silverfish brightened a bit. 'That's true,' he said. 'For example, some way of 
getting sound on-' 
Dibbler wasn't listening. He pointed to a stack of boards leaning against the 
wall. 
'What are those?' he said. 
'Ah,' said Silverfish. 'That was my idea. We thought it would be, er, good 
business sense', he savoured the words as if they were some rare new sweet, 'to 
tell people about the other moving pictures we were making.' 
Dibbler picked up one of the boards and held it critically at arm's length. 
It said: 

Nexte weke wee will be Shewing 
Pelias and Melisande, 
A Romantick Tragedie in Two Reels. 
Thank you. 

'Oh,' he said, flatly. 
'Isn't that all right?' said Silverfish, now thoroughly beaten. 'I mean, it 
tells them everything they should know, doesn't it?' 
'May I?' said Dibbler, taking a piece of chalk from Silverfish's desk. He 
scribbled intently on the back of the card for a while, and then turned it 
around. 
Now it read: 

Goddes and Men Saide It Was Notte To Bee, But They 
Would Notte Listen! 

Pelias and Melisande, A Storie of Forbiden Love! 

A searing Sarger of Passion that Bridged Spaes and Tyme! 

Thys wille shok you! 

With a 1,000 elephants! 

Victor and Silverfish read it carefully, as one reads a dinner menu in an alien 
language. This was an alien language, and to make it worse it was also their 
own. 
'Well, well,' said Silverfish. 'My word . . . I don't know if there was anything 
actually forbidden. Er. It was just very historical. I thought it would help, 
you know, children and so on. Learn about history. They never actually met, you 
know, which was what was so tragic. It was all very, er, sad.' He stared at the 
card. 'Though I must say, you've certainly got something there. Er.' He looked 
uncomfortable about something. 'I don't actually remember any elephants,' he 
said, as if it was his own fault. 'I was there the whole afternoon we made it, 
and I don't recall a thousand elephants at any point. I'm sure I would have 
noticed.' 
Dibbler stared. He didn't know where they were coming from, but now he was 
putting his mind to it he was getting some very clear ideas about what you 
needed to put in movies. A thousand elephants was a good start. 
'No elephants?' he said. 
'I don't think so.' 
'Well, are there any dancing girls?' 
'Um, no.' 
'Well, are there any wild chases and people hanging by their fingertips from the 
edge of a cliff?' 
Silverfish brightened up slightly. 'I think there's a balcony at one point,' he 
said. 
'Yes? Does anyone hang on it by their fingertips?' 
'I don't think so,' said Silverfish. 'I believe Melisande leans over it.' 
'Yes, but will the audience hold their breath in case she falls off?' 
'I hope they'd be watching Pelias' speech,' said Silverfish testily. 'We had to 
put it on five cards. In small writing.' 
Dibbler sighed. 
'I think I know what people want,' he said, 'and they don't want to read lots of 
small writing. They want spectacles!' 
'Because of the small writing?' said Victor, sarcastically. 'They want dancing 
girls! They want thrills! They want elephants! They want people falling off 
roofs! They want dreams! The world is full of little people with big dreams!' 
'What, you mean like dwarfs and gnomes and so on?' said Victor. 
'No!' 
'Tell me, Mr Dibbler,' said Silverfish, 'what exactly is your profession?' 
'I sell merchandise,' said Dibbler. 
'Mostly sausages,' Victor volunteered. 
'And merchandise,' said Dibbler, sharply. 'I only sells sausages when the 
merchandising trade is a bit slow.' 
'And the sale of sausages leads you to believe you can make better moving 
pictures?' said Silverfish. 'Anyone can sell sausages! Isn't that so, Victor?' 
'Well . . . ' said Victor, reluctantly. No-one except Dibbler could possibly 
sell Dibbler's sausages. 
'There you are, then,' said Silverfish. 
'The thing is', said Victor, 'that Mr Dibbler can even sell sausages to people 
that have bought them off him before.' 
'That's right!' said Dibbler. He beamed at Victor. 
'And a man who could sell Mr Dibbler's sausages twice could sell anything,' said 
Victor. 

The next morning was bright and clear, like all Holy Wood days, and they made a 
start on The Interestinge and Curious Adventures of Cohen the Barbarian. Dibbler 
had worked on it all evening, he said. 
The title, however, was Silverfish's. Although Dibbler had assured him that 
Cohen the Barbarian was practically historical and certainly educational, 
Silverfish had held out against Valley of Blud! 
Victor was handed what looked like a leather purse but which turned out to be 
his costume. He changed behind a couple of rocks. 
He was also given a large, blunt sword. 
'Now,' said Dibbler, who was sitting in a canvas chair, 'what you do is, you 
fight the trolls, rush up and untie the girl from the stake, fight the other 
trolls, and then run off behind that other rock over there. That's the way I see 
it. What do you say, Tommy?' 
'Well, I-' Silverfish began. 
'That's great,' said Dibbler. 'OK. Yes, Victor?' 
'You mentioned trolls. What trolls?' said Victor. 
The two rocks unfolded themselves. 
'Don't you worry about a fing, mister,' said the nearest one. 'Me and ole Galena 
over there have got this down pat.' 
'Trolls!' said Victor, backing away. 
'That's right,' said Galena. He flourished a club with a nail in it. 
'But, but,' Victor began. 
'Yeah?' said the other troll. 
What Victor would like to have said was: but you're trolls, fierce animated 
rocks that live in the mountains and bash travellers with huge clubs very 
similar to the ones you're holding now, and I thought when they said trolls they 
meant ordinary men dressed up in, oh, I don't know, sacking painted grey or 
something. 
'Oh, good,' he said weakly. 'Er.' 
'And don't you go listening to them stories about us eatin' people,' said 
Galena. 'That's a slander, that is. I mean, we're made of rock, what'd we want 
to eat people-' 
'Swaller,' said the other troll. 'You mean swaller.' 
'Yeah. What's we want to swaller people for? We always spit out the bits. And 
anyway we're retired from all that now,' he added quickly. 'Not that we ever did 
it.' He nudged Victor in a friendly fashion, nearly breaking one of his ribs. 
'It's good here,' he said conspiratorially. 'We get three dollars a day plus a 
dollar barrier cream allowance for daylight working.' 
'On account of turning to stone until nightfall otherwise, what is a pain,' said 
his companion. 
'Yeah, an' it holds up shooting and people strike matches on you.' 
'Plus our contract says we get five pence extra for use of own club,' said the 
other troll. 
'If we could just get started-' Silverfish began. 
'Why's there only two trolls?' complained Dibbler. 'What's heroic about fighting 
two trolls? I asked for twenty, didn't I?' 
'Two's fine by me,' Victor called out. 
'Listen, Mr Dibbler,' said Silverfish, 'I know you're trying to help, but the 
basic economics-' 
Silverfish and Dibbler started to argue. Gaffer the handleman sighed and took 
the back off the moving-picture-box to feed and water the demons, who were 
complaining. 
Victor leaned on his sword. 
'Do a lot of this sort of thing, do you?' he said to the trolls. 
'Yeah,' said Galena. 'All the time. Like, in A King's Ransom, I play a troll who 
rushed out an' hit people. An' in The Dark Forest, I play a troll who rushed out 
an' hit people. An', an', in Mystery Mountain I play a troll who rushed out, an' 
jumped up an' down on people. It doesn't pay to get type-cast.' 
'And do you do the same thing?' said Victor, to the other troll. 
'Oh, Morraine's a character actor, ain't you?' said Galena. 'Best in the 
business.' 
'What does he play?' 
'Rocks.' 
Victor stared. 
'On account of his craggy features,' Galena went on. 'Not just rocks. You should 
see him do an ancient monolith. You'd be amazed. Go on, Morry, show 'im yer 
inscription.' 
'Nah,' said Morraine, grinning sheepishly. 
'I'm thinking of changing my name for movin' pictures,' Galena went on. 
'Somethin' with a bit o' class. I thought "Flint".' He gave Victor a worried 
look, insofar as Victor was any judge of the range of expressions available to a 
face that looked as though it had been kicked out of granite with a pair of 
steel-toed boots. 'What you fink?' he said. 
'Er. Very nice.' 
'More dynamic, I fought,' said the prospective Flint. 
Victor heard himself say: 'Or Rock. Rock's a nice name.' 
The troll stared at him, its lips moving soundlessly as it tried out the alias. 
'Cor,' he said. 'Never fought of that. Rock. I like that. I reckon I'd be due 
more'n three dollars a day, with a name like Rock.' 
'Can we make a start?' said Dibbler sternly. 'Maybe we'll be able to afford more 
trolls if this is a successful click, but it won't be if we go over budget, 
which means we ought to wrap it up by lunchtime. Now, Morry and Galena-' 
'Rock,' corrected Rock. 
'Really? Anyway, you two rush out and attack Victor, OK. Right . . . turn it . . 
. ' 
The handleman turned the handle of the picture box. There was a faint clicking 
noise and a chorus of small yelps from the demons. Victor stood looking helpful 
and alert. 
'That means you start,' said Silverfish patiently. 'The trolls rush out from 
behind the rocks, and you valiantly defend yourself.' 
'But I don't know how to fight trolls!' Victor wailed. 
'Tell you what,' said the newly-christened Rock. 'You parry first, and we'll 
sort of arrange not to hit you.' 
Light dawned. 
'You mean it's all pretending?' said Victor. 
The trolls exchanged a brief glance, which nevertheless contrived to say: 
amazing, isn't it, that things like this apparently rule the world?. 
'Yeah,' said Rock. 'That's it. Nuffin's real.' 
'We ain't allowed to kill you,' said Morraine reassuringly. 
'That's right,' said Rock. 'We wouldn't go round killin' you.' 
'They stops our money if we does things like that,' said Morraine, morosely. 

Outside the fault in reality They clustered, peering in with something 
approaching eyes at the light and warmth. There was a crowd of them by now. 
There had been a way through, once. To say that they remembered it would be 
wrong, because they had nothing as sophisticated as memory. They barely had 
anything as sophisticated as heads. But they did have instincts and emotions. 
They needed a way in. 
They found it. 

It worked quite well, the sixth time. The main problem was the trolls' 
enthusiasm for hitting each other, the ground, the air and, quite often, 
themselves. In the end, Victor just concentrated on trying to hit the clubs as 
they whirred past him. 
Dibbler seemed quite happy with this. Gaffer wasn't. 
'They moved around too much,' he said. 'They were out of the picture half the 
time.' 
'It was a battle,' said Silverfish. 
'Yeah, but I can't move the picture box around,' said the handleman. 'The imps 
fall over.' 
'Couldn't you strap them in or something?' said Dibbler. 
Gaffer scratched his chin. 'I suppose I could nail their feet to the floor,' he 
said. 
'Anyway, it'll do for now,' said Silverfish. 'We'll do the scene where you 
rescue the girl. Where's the girl? I distinctly instructed her to be here. Why 
isn't she here? Why doesn't anyone ever do what I tell them?' 
The handleman took his cigarette stub out of his mouth. 
'She's filmin' A Bolde Adventurer over the other side of the hill,' he 
volunteered. 
'But that ought to have been finished yesterday!' wailed Silverfish. 
'Film exploded,' said the handleman. 
'Blast! Well, I suppose we can do the next fight. She doesn't have to be in it,' 
said Silverfish grumpily. 'All right, everybody. We'll do the bit where Victor 
fights the dreaded Balgrog.' 
'What's a Balgrog?' said Victor. 
A friendly but heavy hand tapped him on the shoulder. 
'It's a traditional evil monster what is basically Morry painted green with 
wings stuck on,' said Rock. 'I'll jus' go an' help him with the paintin'.' 
He lumbered off. 
No-one seemed to want Victor at the moment. 
He stuck the ridiculous sword into the sand, wandered away and found a bit of 
shade under some scrubby olive trees. There were rocks here. He tapped them 
gently. They didn't appear to be anyone. 
The ground formed a cool little hollow that was almost pleasant by the seared 
standards of Holy Wood hill. 
There was even a draught blowing from somewhere. As he leaned back against the 
stones he felt a cool breeze coming from them. Must be full of caves under here, 
he thought. 
- far away in Unseen University, in a draughty, many pillar'd corridor, a little 
device that no-one had paid much attention to for years started to make a noise 
- 
So this was Holy Wood. It hadn't looked like this on the silver screen. It 
seemed that moving pictures involved a lot of waiting around and, if he was 
hearing things right, a mixing-up of time. Things happened before the things 
they happened after. The monsters were just Morry painted green with wings stuck 
on. Nothing was really real. 
Funnily enough, that was exciting. 
'I've just about had enough of this,' said a voice beside him. 
He looked up. A girl had come down the other path. Her face was red with 
exertion under the pale make-up, her hair hung over her eyes in ridiculous 
ringlets, and she wore a dress which, while clearly made for her size, was 
designed for someone who was ten years younger and keen on lace edging. 
She was quite attractive, although this fact was not immediately apparent. 
'And you know what they say when you complain?' she demanded. This was not 
really addressed to Victor. He was just a convenient pair of ears. 
'I can't imagine,' said Victor politely. 
'They say, "There's plenty of other people out there just waiting for a chance 
to get into moving pictures". That's what they say.' 
She leaned against a gnarled tree and fanned herself with her straw hat. 'And 
it's too hot,' she complained. 'And now I've got to do a ridiculous one-reeler 
for Silverfish, who hasn't got the faintest idea. And some kid probably with bad 
breath and hay in his hair and a forehead you could lay a table on.' 
'And trolls,' said Victor mildly. 
'Oh gods. Not Morry and Galena?' 
'Yes. Only Galena's calling himself Rock now.' 
'I thought it was going to be Flint.' 
'He likes Rock.' 
From behind the rocks came the plaintive bleat of Silverfish wondering where 
everyone had got to just when he needed them. The girl rolled her eyes. 
'Oh gods. For this I'm missing lunch?' 
'You could always eat it off my forehead,' said Victor, standing up. 
He had the satisfaction of feeling her thoughtful gaze on the back of his neck 
as he retrieved his sword and gave it a few experimental swishes, with rather 
more force than was necessary. 
'You're the boy in the street, aren't you?' she said. 
'That's right. You're the girl who was going to be shot,' said Victor. 'I see 
they missed.' 
She looked at him curiously. 'How did you get a job so quickly? Most people have 
to wait weeks for a chance.' 
'Chances are where you find them, I've always said,' said Victor. 
'But how-' 
Victor had already strolled away with gleeful nonchalance. She trailed after 
him, her face locked in a petulant pout. 
'Ah,' said Silverfish sarcastically, looking up. 'My word. Everyone where they 
should be. Very well. We'll go from the bit where he finds her tied to the 
stake. What you do,' he said to Victor, 'is untie her, then drag her off and 
fight the Balgrog, and you,' he pointed to the girl, 'you, you, you just follow 
him and look as, as rescued as you possibly can, OK?' 
'I'm good at that,' she said, resignedly. 
'No, no, no,' said Dibbler, putting his head in his hands. 'Not that again!' 
'Isn't that what you wanted?' said Silverfish. 'Fights and rescues?' 
'There's got to be more to it than that!' said Dibbler. 
'Like what?' Silverfish demanded. 
'Oh, I don't know. Razzmatazz. Oomph. The old zonkaroonie.' 
'Funny noises? We haven't got sound.' 
'Everyone makes clicks about people running around and fighting and falling 
over,' said Dibbler. 'There should be something more. I've been looking at the 
things you make here, and they all look the same to me.' 
'Well, all sausages look the same to me,' snapped Silverfish. 
'They're meant to! That's what people expect!' 
'And I'm giving them what they expect, too,' said Silverfish. 'People like to 
see more of what they expect. Fights and chases, that sort of thing-' 
' 'Scuse me, Mister Silverfish,' said the handleman, above the angry chattering 
of the demons. 
'Yes?' snapped Dibbler. 
' 'Scuse me, Mister Dibbler, but I got to feed 'em ina quarter of a hour.' 
Dibbler groaned. 
In retrospect, Victor was always a little unclear about those next few minutes. 
That's the way it goes. The moments that change your life are the ones that 
happen suddenly, like the one where you die. 
There had been another stylized battle, he knew that much, with Morry and what 
would have been a fearsome whip if the troll hadn't kept tangling it round his 
own legs. And, when the dreadful Balgrog had been beaten and had slid out of 
shot mugging terribly and trying to hold its wings on with one hand, he'd turned 
and cut the ropes holding the girl to the stake and should have dragged her 
sharply to the right when- 
-the whispering started. 
There were no words but there was something that was the heart of words, that 
went straight through his ears and down his spinal column without bothering to 
make a stopover in his brain. 
He stared into the girl's eyes and wondered if she was hearing it too. 
A long way off, there were words. There was Silverfish saying, 'Come on, get on 
with it, what are you looking at her like that for?' and the handleman saying, 
'They gets really fractious if they misses a meal,' and Dibbler saying, in a 
voice hissing like a thrown knife, 'Don't stop turning the handle.' 
The edges of his vision went cloudy, and there were shapes in the cloud that 
changed and faded before he had a chance to examine them. Helpless as a fly in 
an amber flow, as much in control of his destiny as a soap bubble in a 
hurricane, he leaned down and kissed her. 
There were more words beyond the ringing in his ears. 
'Why's he doing that? Did I tell him to do that? No-one told him to do that!' 
'-and then I have to muck 'em out afterwards, and let me tell you, it's no-' 
'Turn that handle! Turn that handle!' screamed Dibbler. 
'Now why's he looking like that?' 
'Cor!' 
'If you stop turning that handle you'll never work in this town again!' 
'Listen, mister, I happen to belong to the Handlemen's Guild-' 
'Don't stop! Don't stop!' 
Victor surfaced. The whispering faded, to be replaced by the distant boom of the 
breakers. The real world was back, hot and sharp, the sun pinned to the sky like 
a medal awarded for being a great day. 
The girl took a deep breath. 
'I'm, gosh, I'm terribly sorry,' babbled Victor, backing away. 'I really don't 
know what happened-' 
Dibbler jumped up and down. 
'That's it, that's it!' he yelled. 'How soon can you have it ready?' 
'Well, like I said, I got to feed the imps and muck 'em out-' 
'Right, right - it'll give me time to get some posters drawn,' said Dibbler. 
'I've already had some done,' said Silverfish coldly. 
'I bet you have, I bet you have,' said Dibbler, excitedly. 'I bet you have. I 
bet they say things like "You mighte like to see a Quite Interestinge Moving 
Picture"!' 
'What's wrong with it?' Silverfish demanded. 'It's a bloody sight better than 
hot sausage!' 
'I told you, when you sell sausages you don't just hang around waiting for 
people to want sausage, you go out there and make them hungry. And you put 
mustard on 'em. And that's what your lad there has done.' 
He clapped one hand on Silverfish's shoulder, and waved the other expansively. 
'Can't you see it?' he said. He hesitated. Strange ideas were pouring into his 
head faster than he could think them. He felt dizzy with excitement and 
possibilities. 
'Sword of Passione,' he said. 'That's what we'll call it. Not name it after some 
daft old bugger who's probably 
not even alive any more. Sword of Passione. Yeah. A Tumultuous Saga of - of 
Desire an' Raw, Raw, Raw wossname in the Primal Heat of a Tortured Continent! 
Romance! Glamour! In three Searing Reels! Thrill to the Death Fight with 
Ravening Monsters! Scream as a thousand elephants-' 
'It's only one reel,' muttered Silverfish testily. 
'Shoot some more this afternoon!' crowed Dibbler, his eyes revolving. 'You just 
need more fights and monsters!' 
'And there's certainly no elephants,' snapped Silverfish. 
Rock put up a craggy arm. 
'Yes?' demanded Silverfish. 
'If you've got some grey paint an' stuff to make the ears out of, I'm sure me 
an' Morry could-' 
'No-one's ever done a three-reeler,' said Gaffer reflectively. 'Could be really 
tricky. I mean, it'd be nearly ten minutes long.' He looked thoughtful. 'I 
suppose if I was to make the spools bigger-' 
Silverfish knew he was cornered. 
'Now look here,' he began. 
Victor stared down at the girl. Everyone else was ignoring them. 
'Er,' he said, 'I don't think we've been formally introduced?' 
'You didn't seem to let that stop you,' she said. 
'I wouldn't normally do something like that. I must have been . . . ill. Or 
something.' 
'Oh, good. And that makes me feel a lot better, does it?' 
'Shall we sit in the shade? It's very hot out here.' 
'Your eyes went all . . . smouldery.' 
'Did they?' 
'They looked really odd.' 
'I felt really odd.' 
'I know. It's this place. It gets to you. D'you know,' she said, sitting down on 
the sand, 'there's all kind of rules for the imps and things, they mustn't be 
worn out, what 
kind of food they get, stuff like that: No-one cares about us, though. Even the 
trolls get better treatment.' 
'It's the way they go around being seven foot tall and weighing 1,000 lbs all 
the time, I expect,' said Victor. 
'My name's Theda Withel, but my friends call me Ginger,' she said. 
'My name's Victor Tugelbend. Er. But my friends call me Victor,' said Victor. 
'This is your first click, is it?' 
'How can you tell?' 
'You looked as though you were enjoying it.' 
'Well, it's better than working, isn't it?' 
'You wait until you've been in it as long as I have,' she said bitterly. 
'How long's that?' 
'Nearly since the start. Five weeks.' 
'Gosh. It's all happened so fast.' 
'It's the best thing that's ever happened,' said Ginger flatly. 
'I suppose so . . . er, are we allowed to go and eat?' said Victor. 
'No. They'll be shouting for us again any minute,' said Ginger. 
Victor nodded. He had, on the whole, got through life quite happily by doing 
what he pleased in a firm yet easy-going sort of way, and he didn't see why he 
should stop that even in Holy Wood. 
'Then they'll have to shout,' he said. 'I want something to eat and a cool 
drink. Maybe I've just caught a bit too much sun.' 
Ginger looked uncertain. 'Well, there's the commissary, but-' 
'Good. You can show me the way.' 
'They fire people just like that-' 
'What, before the third reel?' 
'They say "There's plenty more people who're dying to break into moving 
pictures", you see-' 
'Good. That means they'll have all afternoon to find two of them who look just 
like us.' He strolled past Morry, who was also trying to keep in the shade of a 
rock. 
'If anyone wants us,' he said, 'we'll be having some lunch.' 
'What, right now?' said the troll. 
'Yes,' said Victor firmly, and strode on. 
Behind him he could see Dibbler and Silverfish locked in heated discussion, with 
occasional interruptions from the handleman, who spoke in the leisurely tones of 
one who knows he's going to get paid six dollars today regardless. 
'-we'll call it an epic. People will talk about it for ages.' 
'Yes, they'll say we went bankrupt!' 
'Look, I know where I can get some coloured woodcuts done at practically cost-' 
'-I was finking, maybe if I got some string and tied the moving picture box on 
to wheels, so it can be moved around-' 
'People'll say, that Silverfish, there's a moving-picture-smith with the guts to 
give the people what they want, they'll say. A man to roll back the wossname of 
the medium-' 
'-maybe if I was to make a sort of pole and swivel arrangement, we could bring 
the picture box right up close to-' 
'What? You think they'll say that?' 
'Trust me, Tommy.' 
'Well . . . all right. All right. But no elephants. I want to make that 
absolutely clear. No elephants.' 

'Looks weird to me,' said the Archchancellor. 'Looks like a bunch of pottery 
elephants. Thought you said it was a machine?' 
'More . . . more of a device,' said the Bursar uncertainly. He gave it a prod. 
Several of the pottery elephants wobbled. 'Riktor the Tinkerer built it, I 
think. It was before my time.' 
It looked like a large, ornate pot, almost as high as a man of large pot height. 
Around its rim eight pottery elephants hung from little bronze chains; one of 
them swung backwards and forwards at the Bursar's touch. 
The Archchancellor peered down inside. 
'It's all levers and bellows,' he said, distastefully. 
The Bursar turned to the University housekeeper. 
'Well, now, Mrs Whitlow,' he said, 'what exactly happened?' 
Mrs Whitlow, huge, pink and becorseted, patted her ginger wig and nudged the 
tiny maid who was hovering beside her like a tugboat. 
'Tell his lordship, Ksandra,' she ordered. 
Ksandra looked as though she was regretting the whole thing. 
'Well, sir, please, sir, I was dusting, you see-' 
'She hwas dusting,' said Mrs Whitlow, helpfully. When Mrs Whitlow was in the 
grip of acute class consciousness she could create aitches where nature never 
intended them to be. 
'-and then it started me'king a noise-' 
'Hit made hay hnoise,' said Mrs Whitlow. 'So she come and told me, your 
lordship, h'as hper my instructions.' 
'What kind of noise, Ksandra? said the Bursar, as kindly as he could. 
'Please, sir, sort of-' she screwed up her eyes, ' "whumm . . . whumm . . . 
whumm . . . whumm . . . whummwhummwhumm WHUMMWHUMM - plib", sir.' 
'Plib,' said the Bursar, solemnly. 
'Yes, sir.' 
'Hplib,' echoed Mrs Whitlow. 
'That was when it spat at me, sir,' said Ksandra. 
'Hexpectorated,' corrected Mrs Whitlow. 
'Apparently one of the elephants spat out a little lead pellet, Master,' said 
the Bursar. 'That was the, er, the "plib",' 
'Did it, bigods,' said the Archchancellor. 'Can't have pots going around gobbin' 
all over people.' 
Mrs Whitlow twitched. 
'What'd it go and do that for?' Ridcully added. 
'I really couldn't say, Master. I thought perhaps you'd know. I believe Riktor 
was a lecturer here when you were a student. Mrs Whitlow is very concerned', he 
added, in tones that made it clear that when Mrs Whitlow was concerned about 
something it would be an unwise Archchancellor who ignored her, 'about staff 
being magically interfered with.' 
The Archchancellor tapped the pot with his knuckles. 'What, old "Numbers" 
Riktor? Same fella?' 
'Apparently, Archchancellor.' 
'Total madman. Thought you could measure everythin'. Not just lengths and 
weights and that kind of stuff, but everythin'. "If it exists," he said, "you 
ought to be able to measure it."' Ridcully's eyes misted with memory. 'Made all 
kinds of weird widgets. Reckoned you could measure truth and beauty and dreams 
and stuff. So this is one of old Riktor's toys, is it? Wonder what it measured?' 

'Ay think', said Mrs Whitlow, 'that it should be put haway somewhere out of 
'arm's way, if it's hall the hsame to you.' 
'Yes, yes, yes, of course,' said the Bursar hurriedly. Staff were hard to keep 
at Unseen University. 
'Get rid of it,' said the Archchancellor. 
The Bursar was horrified. 'Oh, no, sir,' he said. 'We never throw things out. 
Besides, it is probably quite valuable.' 
'Hmm,' said Ridcully. 'Valuable?' 
'Possibly an important historical artifact, Master.' 
'Shove it in my study, then. I said the place needs bright'nin' up. It'll be one 
of them conversation pieces, right? Got to go now. Got to see a man about 
trainin' a gryphon. Good day, ladies-' 
'Er, Archchancellor, I wonder if you could just sign-' the Bursar began, but to 
a closing door. 
No-one asked Ksandra which of the pottery elephants had spat the ball, and the 
direction wouldn't have meant anything to them anyway. 
That afternoon a couple of porters moved the universe's only working 
resograph[5] into the Archchancellor's study. 

No-one had found a way to add sound to moving pictures, but there was a sound 
that was particularly associated with Holy Wood. It was the sound of nails being 
hammered. 
Holy Wood had gone critical. New houses, new streets, new neighbourhoods, 
appeared overnight. And, in those areas where the hastily-educated alchemical 
apprentices were not yet fully alongside the trickier stages of making 
octo-cellulose, disappeared even faster. Not that it made a lot of difference. 
Barely would the smoke have cleared before someone was hammering again. 
And Holy Wood grew by fission. All you needed was a steadyhanded, non-smoking 
lad who could read alchemical signs, a handleman, a sackful of demons and lots 
of sunshine. Oh, and some people. But there were plenty of those. If you 
couldn't breed demons or mix chemicals or turn a handle rhythmically, you could 
always hold horses or wait on tables and look interesting while you hoped. Or, 
if all else failed, hammer nails. Building after rickety building skirted the 
ancient hill, their thin planks already curling and bleaching in the pitiless 
sun, but there was already a pressing need for more. 
Because Holy Wood was calling. More people arrived every day. They didn't come 
to be ostlers, or tavern wenches, or short-order carpenters. They came to make 
movies. 
And they didn't know why. 
As Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler knew in his heart, wherever two or more people are 
gathered together, someone will be trying to sell them a suspicious sausage in a 
bun. 
Now that Dibbler was in fact engaged elsewhere, others had arisen to fulfil that 
function. 
One such was Nodar Borgle the Klatchian, whose huge echoing shed wasn't so much 
a restaurant as a feeding factory. Great steaming tureens occupied one end. The 
rest of it was tables, and around the tables were - 
Victor was astonished. 
- there were trolls, humans and dwarfs. And a few gnomes. And perhaps even a few 
elves, the most elusive of Discworld races. And lots of other things, which 
Victor had to hope were trolls dressed up, because if they weren't, everyone was 
going to be in a lot of trouble. And they were all eating, and the amazing thing 
was that they were not eating one another. 
'You take a plate and you queue up and then you pay for it,' said Ginger. 'It's 
called self-serf.' 
'You pay for it before you eat it? What happens if it's dreadful?' 
Ginger nodded grimly. 'That's why.' 
Victor shrugged, and leaned down to the dwarf behind the lunch counter. 'I'd 
like-' 
'It's stoo,' said the dwarf. 
'What kind of stew?' 
'There ain't more'n one kind. That's why it's stoo,' the dwarf snapped. 'Stop's 
stoo.' 
'What I meant was, what's in it?' said Victor. 
'If you need to ask, you're -not hungry enough,' said Ginger. 'Two stews, 
Fruntkin.' 
Victor stared at the grey-brown stuff that was dribbled on to his plate. Strange 
lumps, carried to the surface by mysterious convection currents, bobbed for a 
moment, and then sank back down, hopefully forever. 
Borgle belonged to the Dibbler school of cuisine. 
'It's stoo or puffin, boy.' The cook leered. 'Half a dollar. Cheap at half the 
price.' 
Victor handed over the money with reluctance, and looked around for Ginger. 
'Over here,' said Ginger, sitting down at one of the long tables. 'Hi, 
Thunderfoot. Hi, Breccia, how's it goin'? This is Vic. New boy. Hi, Sniddin, 
didn't see you there.' 
Victor found himself wedged between Ginger and a mountain troll in what looked 
like chain mail, but it turned out to be just Holy Wood chain mail, which was 
inexpertly knitted string painted silver. 
Ginger started talking animatedly to a four-inch-high gnome and a dwarf in one 
half of a bear outfit, leaving Victor feeling a little isolated. 
The troll nodded at him, and then grimaced at its plate. 
'Dey call dis pumice,' he said. 'Dey never even bother to cut der lava off. And 
you can't even taste der sand.' 
Victor stared at the troll's plate. 
'I didn't know trolls ate rock,' he said, before he could stop himself. 
'Why not?' 
'Aren't you made of it?' 
'Yeah. But you're made a meat, an' what do you eat?' 
Victor looked at his own plate. 'Good question,' he said. 
'Vies doing a click for Silverfish,' said Ginger, turning around. 'It looks like 
they're going to make it a three-reeler.' 
There was a general murmur of interest. 
Victor carefully laid something yellow and wobbly on the side of his plate. 
'Tell me,' he said thoughtfully, 'while you've been filming, have any of you had 
a . . . heard a sort of . . . felt that you were . . . ' He hesitated. They were 
all looking at him. 'I mean, did you ever feel something was acting through you? 
I can't think of any other way to put it.' 
His fellow diners relaxed. 
'Days just Holy Wood,' said the troll. 'It gets to you. It's all dis creativity 
sloshin' about.' 
'That was a pretty bad attack you had, though,' said Ginger. 
'Happens all the time,' said the dwarf reflectively. 'It's just Holy Wood. Last 
week, me and the lads were working on Tales of the Dwarfes and suddenly we all 
started singing. 
Just like that. Just like this song came into our heads, all at once. What d'you 
think of that?' 
'What song?' said Ginger. 
'Search me. We just call it the "Hiho" song. That's all it was. Hihohiho. 
Hihohiho.' 
'Sound like every other dwarf song I ever did hear,' rumbled the troll. 

It was past two o'clock when they got back to the moving-picture-making place. 
The handleman had the back off the picture box and was scraping at its floor 
with a small shovel. 
Dibbler was asleep in his canvas chair with a handkerchief over his face. But 
Silverfish was wide awake. 
'Where have you two been?' he shouted. 
'I was hungry,' said Victor. 
'And you'll jolly well stay hungry, my lad, because-' 
Dibbler lifted the corner of his handkerchief. 
'Let's get started,' he muttered. 
'But we can't have performers telling us-' 
'Finish the click, and then sack him,' said Dibbler. 
'Right!' Silverfish waved a threatening finger at Victor and Ginger. 'You'll 
never work in this town again!' 
They got through the afternoon somehow. Dibbler made them bring a horse in, and 
cursed the handleman because the picture box still couldn't be moved around. The 
demons complained. So they put the horse head-on in front of the box and Victor 
bounced up and down in the saddle. As Dibbler said, it was good enough for 
moving pictures. 
Afterwards, Silverfish very grudgingly paid them two dollars each and dismissed 
them. 
'He'll tell all the other alchemists,' said Ginger dispiritedly. 'They stick 
together like glue.' 
'I notice we only get two dollars a day but the trolls get three,' said Victor. 
'Why's that?' 
'Because there aren't so many trolls wanting to make moving pictures,' said 
Ginger. 'And a good handleman can get six or seven dollars a day. Performers 
aren't important.' She turned and glared at him. 
'I was doing OK,' she said. 'Nothing special, but OK. I was getting quite a lot 
of work. People thought I was reliable. I was building a career-' 
'You can't build a career on Holy Wood,' said Victor. 'That's like building a 
house on a swamp. Nothing's real.' 
'I liked it! And now you've spoilt it all! And I'll probably have to go back to 
a horrible little village you've probably never even heard of! Back to bloody 
milkmaiding! Thanks very much! Every time I see a cow's arse, I'll think of 
you!' 
She stormed off in the direction of the town leaving Victor with the trolls. 
After a while Rock cleared his throat. 
'You got anywhere to stay?' he said. 
'I don't think so,' said Victor, weakly. 
'There's never enough places to stay,' said Morry. 
'I thought I might sleep on the beach,' said Victor. 'It's warm enough, after 
all. I think I really could do with a good rest. Good night.' 
He tottered off in that direction. 
The sun was setting, and a wind off the sea had cooled things a little. Around 
the darkening bulk of the hill the lights of Holy Wood were being lit. Holy Wood 
only relaxed in the darkness. When your raw material is daylight, you don't 
waste it. 
It was pleasant enough on the beach. No-one much went there. The driftwood, 
cracked and salt-crusted, was no good for building. It was stacked in a long 
white row on the tide line. 
Victor pulled together enough to make a fire, and lay back and watched the surf. 

From the top of the next dune, hidden behind a dry clump of grass, Gaspode the 
Wonder Dog watched him thoughtfully. 

It was two hours after, midnight. 
It had them now, and poured joyfully out of the hill, poured its glitter into 
the world. 
Holy Wood dreams . . . 
It dreams for everyone. 
In the hot breathless darkness of a clapboard shack, Ginger Withel dreamed of 
red carpets and cheering crowds. And a grating. She kept coming back to a 
grating, in the dream, where a rush of warm air blew up her skirts . . . 
In the not much cooler darkness of a marginally more expensive shack, Silverfish 
the moving picturesmith dreamed of cheering crowds, and someone giving him a 
prize for the best moving picture ever made. It was a great big statue. 
Out in the sand dunes Rock and Morry dozed fitfully, because trolls are night 
creatures by nature and sleeping in darkness bruised the instincts of eons. They 
dreamed of mountains. 
Down on the beach, under the stars, Victor dreamed of pounding hooves, flowing 
robes, pirate ships, sword fights, chandeliers . . . 
On the next dune, Gaspode the Wonder Dog slept with one eye open and dreamed of 
wolves. 
But Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler was not dreaming, because he was not asleep. 
It had been a long ride to Ankh-Morpork and he preferred selling horses to 
riding them, but he was there now. 
The storms that so carefully avoided Holy Wood didn't worry about Ankh-Morpork, 
and it was pouring with rain. That didn't stop the city's night life, though - 
it just made it damper. 
There was nothing you couldn't buy in Ankh-Morpork, even in the middle of the 
night. Dibbler had a lot of things to buy. He needed posters painted. He needed 
all sorts of things. Many of them involved ideas he'd had to invent in his head 
on the long ride, and now had to explain very carefully to other people. And he 
had to explain it fast. 
The rain was a solid curtain when he finally staggered out into the grey light 
of dawn. The gutters overflowed. Along the rooftops, repulsive gargoyles threw 
up expertly over passers-by although, since it was now five a.m., the crowds had 
thinned out a bit. 
Throat took a deep breath of the thick city air. Real air. You would have to go 
a long way to find air that was realer than Ankh-Morpork air. You could tell 
just by breathing it that other people had been doing the same thing for 
thousands of years. 
For the first time in days he felt that he was thinking clearly. That was the 
strange thing about Holy Wood. When you were there it all seemed natural, it all 
seemed just what life was all about, but when you got away from it and looked 
back, it was like looking at a brilliant soap bubble. It was as though, when you 
were in Holy Wood, you weren't quite the same person. 
Well, Holy Wood was Holy Wood, and Ankh was Ankh, and Ankh was solid and proof, 
in Throat's opinion, against any Holy Wood weirdness. 
He splashed through the puddles, listening to the rain. 
After a while he noticed, for the first time in his life, that it had a rhythm. 
Funny. You could live in a city all your life, and you had to go away and come 
back again before you noticed the way the rain dripping off the gutters had a 
rhythm all its own: DUMdi-dim-dim, dumdi-dumdiDUM-DUM . . . 
A few minutes later Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs of the Night Watch were 
sharing a friendly roll-up in the shelter of a doorway and doing what the Night 
Watch was best at, which was keeping warm and dry and staying out of trouble. 
They were the only witnesses to the manic figure which splashed down the 
dripping street, pirouetted through the puddles, grabbed a drainpipe to swing 
around the corner and, clicking its heels together merrily, disappeared from 
view. 
Sgt Colon handed the soggy dog-end back to his companion. 
'Was that old Throat Dibbler?' he said after a while. 
'Yeah,' said Nobby. 
'He looked happy, didn't he?' 
'Must be off 'is nut, if you ask me,' said Nobby. 'Singing in the rain like 
that.' 

Whumm . . . whumm . . . 
The Archchancellor, who had been updating his dragon stud book and enjoying a 
late night drink in front of the fire, looked up. 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
'Bigods!' he muttered, and wandered over to the big pot. It was actually 
wobbling from side to side, as if the building was shaking. 
The Archchancellor watched, fascinated. 
. . . whumm . . . whummwhummwhummWHUMM. 
It wobbled to a standstill, and went silent. 
'Odd,' said the Archchancellor. 'Damned odd.' 
Plib. 
On the other side of the room, his brandy decanter shattered. 
Ridcully the Brown took a deep breath. 
'Bursaar!' 

Victor was woken up by sandflies. The air was already warm. It was going to be 
another fine day. 
He waded out into the shallows to wash and clear his head. 
Let's see . . . he still had his two dollars from yesterday, plus a handful of 
pennies. He could afford to stay a while, especially if he slept on the beach. 
And Borgle's stoo, while only food in the technical sense, was cheap enough - 
although, come to think of it, eating there might involve embarrassing 
encounters with Ginger. 
He took another step, and sank. 
Victor hadn't swum in the sea before. He surfaced, half-drowned, treading water 
furiously. The beach was only a few yards away. 
He relaxed, gave himself time to get his breath back, and swam a leisurely crawl 
out beyond the breakers. The water was crystal clear. He could see the bottom 
shelving away sharply to - he surfaced for a quick breath - a dim blueness in 
which it was just possible, through the teeming shoals of fish, to see the 
outline of pale, rectangular rocks scattered on the sand. 
He tried a dive, fighting his way down until his ears clanged. The largest 
lobster he had ever seen waved its feelers at him from a rocky spire and snapped 
away into the depths. 
Victor bobbed up again, gasping, and struck out for the shore. 
Well, if you couldn't make it in moving pictures there was an opening here for a 
fisherman, that was certain. 
A beachcomber would do all right, as well. There was enough winddried firewood 
piled up on the edge of the dunes to keep Ankh-Morpork's fires supplied for 
years. No-one in Holy Wood would dream of lighting a fire except for cooking or 
company. 
And someone had been doing just that. As he waded ashore Victor realized that 
the wood further along the beach had been stacked not haphazardly but apparently 
by design, in neat piles. Further along, stones had been stacked into a crude 
fireplace. 
It was clogged with sand. Maybe someone else had been living on the beach, 
waiting for their big chance in moving pictures. Come to think of it, the timber 
behind the half-buried stones had a dragged-together look. You could imagine, 
looking at it from the sea, that several balks of timber had been set up to form 
an arched doorway. 
Perhaps they were still there. Perhaps they might have something to drink. 
They were, indeed, still there. But they hadn't needed a drink for months. 

It was eight in the morning. A thunderous knocking awoke Bezam Planter, owner of 
the Odium, one of Ankh-Morpork's mushrooming crop of moving-picture pits. 
He'd had a bad night. The people of Ankh-Morpork liked novelty. The trouble was 
that they didn't like novelty for long. The Odium had done great business for a 
week, had broken even for the next week, and was now dying. The late showing 
last night had been patronized by one deaf dwarf and an orang-utan, who'd 
brought along its own peanuts. Bezam relied on the sale of peanuts and banged 
grains for his profit, and wasn't in a good mood. 
He opened the door and stared out blearily. 
'We're shut 'til two o'clock,' he said. 'Mat'nee. Come back then. Seats in all 
parts.' 
He slammed the door. It rebounded off Throat Dibbler's boot and hit Bezam on the 
nose. 
'I've come about the special showing of Sword of Passione,' said Throat. 
'Special showing? What special showing?' 
'The special showing I'm about to tell you about,' said Throat. 
'We ain't showing nothin' about any special passionate swords. We're showin' The 
Exciting-' 
'Mister Dibbler says yore showing Sword of Passione,' rumbled a voice. 
Throat leaned against the doorway. Behind him was a slab of rock. It looked as 
though someone had been throwing steel balls at it for thirty years. 
It creased in the middle and leaned down towards Bezam. 
He recognized Detritus. Everyone recognized Detritus. He wasn't a troll you 
forgot. 
'But I haven't even heard of-' Bezam began. 
Throat pulled a large tin from under his coat, and grinned. 
'And here are some posters,' he added, producing a fat white roll. 
'Mister Dibbler let me stick some up on walls,' said Detritus proudly. 
Bezam unrolled the poster. It was in eye-watering colours. It showed a picture 
of what might just possibly be Ginger pouting in a blouse too small for her, and 
Victor in the act of throwing her over one shoulder while fighting an assortment 
of monsters with the other hand. In the background, volcanoes were erupting, 
dragons were zooming through the sky, and cities were burning down. 
' "The Motione-Picture They Coud Not Banne!" ', read Bezam hesitantly. ' "A 
Scorching Adventure In the White-Hotte Dawne of A New Continont! A Mann and a 
Womann Throne Together in the Wherlpool of a World Gone Madde!! STARING 
**Delores De Syn** as The Woman and **Victor Maraschino** as Cohen the 
Barbarian!!! THRILS! ADVENTURE!! ELEPHANTS!!! Cominge Soone to A Pit nr. 
You!!!!" ' 
He read it again. 
'Who's Staring Delores De Syn?' he said, suspiciously. 
'That's starring,' said Throat. 'That's why we've put stars against their names, 
see.' He leaned closer and lowered his voice to a piercing whisper. 'They do' 
say', he said, 'that she's the daughter of a Klatchian pirate and his wild, 
headstrong captive, and he's the son of . . . the son of . . . a rogue wizard 
and a reckless gypsy flamenco dancer.' ' 
'Cor!' said Bezam, impressed despite himself. Dibbler permitted himself a mental 
slap on the back. He'd been quite taken with it himself. 
'I reckon you should start showing it in about an hour,' he said. 
'At this time in the morning?' said Bezam. The click he had obtained for the day 
was An Exciting Study of Pottery Making, which had been worrying him. This 
seemed a much better proposition. 
'Yes,' said Dibbler. 'Because a lot of people are going to want to watch it.' 
'I dunno about that,' said Bezam. 'Houses have been falling off lately.' 
'They'll want to watch this one,' said Throat. 'Trust me. Have I ever lied to 
you?' 
Bezam scratched his head. 'Well, one night last month you sold me a sausage in a 
bun and you said-' 
'I was speaking rhetorically,' snapped Throat. 
'Yeah,' said Detritus. 
Bezam sagged. 'Oh. Well. I dunno about rhetorically,' he said. 
'Right,' said Throat, grinning like a predatory pumpkin. 'Just you open up, and 
you can sit back and rake in the money.' 
'Oh. Good,' said Bezam weakly. 
Throat put a friendly arm around the man's shoulders. 'And now,' he said, 'let's 
talk about percentages.' 
'What're percentages?' 
'Have a cigar,' said Throat. 

Victor walked slowly up Holy Wood's nameless main street. There was packed sand 
under his fingernails. 
He wasn't sure that he had done the right thing. 
Probably the man had just been some old beachcomber who'd just gone to sleep one 
day and hadn't woken up, although the stained red and gold coat was unusual 
beachcombing wear. It was hard to tell how long he'd been dead. The dryness and 
salt air had been a preservative; they'd preserved him just the way he must have 
looked when he was alive, which was like someone who was dead. 
By the look of his hut, he'd beachcombed some odd stuff. 
It had occurred to Victor that someone ought to be told, but there was probably 
no-one in Holy Wood who would be interested. Probably only one person in the 
world had been interested in whether the old man lived or died, and he'd been 
the first to know. 
Victor buried the body in the sand, landward of the driftwood hut. 
He saw Borgle's ahead of him. He'd risk breakfast there, he decided. Besides, he 
needed somewhere to sit down and read the book. 
It wasn't the sort of thing you expected to find on a beach, 
in a driftwood hut, clutched in the hand of a dead man. 
On the cover were the words The Boke of the Film. 
On the first page, in the neat round hand of someone to whom writing doesn't 
come easily, were the further words: This is the Chroncal of the Keeprs of the 
ParaMountain coppied out by me Deccan Beacuase Of the old onne it being fallin 
Apart. 
He turned the stiff pages carefully. They seemed to be crammed with almost 
identical entries. They were all undated, but that wasn't very important, since 
one day had been pretty much like the other. 
Gott up. Went to lavatry. Made up fire, announused the Matinee Performanse. 
Broke fast. Colected woode. Made up fire. Foraged on the hille. Chanted the 
Evening Performansee. Supper. Sed the Late-Nite Performanse chant. Wnet to 
lavatry. Bed. 
Gott up. Went to lavatry. Made up fire, sed the Matinee Performanse. Broke fast. 
Crullet the fisheman from Jowser Cove have left 2 fyne see bass. Clected woode. 
Heralded the Evewning Performanse, made up fire. Howskeepeing. Supper. Chanted 
the Late Night performanse. Bed. Gott up at Midnigte, went to lavaotry, checked 
fire, but it was not Needful of Woode. 

He saw the waitress out of the tail of his eye. 
'I'd like a boiled egg,' he said. 
'It's stew. Fish stew.' 
He looked up into Ginger's blazing eyes. 
'I didn't know you were a waitress,' he said. 
She made a show of dusting the salt bowl. 'Nor did I until yesterday,' she said. 
'Lucky for me Borgle's regular morning girl got a chance in the new moving 
picture that Untied Alchemists are making, isn't it?' She shrugged. 'If I'm 
really lucky, who knows? I might get to do the afternoon shift too.' 
'Look, I didn't mean-' 
'It's stew. Take it or leave it. Three customers this morning have done both.' 
'I'll take it. Look, you won't believe it, but I found this book in the hands 
of-' 
'I'm not allowed to dally with customers. This isn't the best job in town, but 
you're not losing it for me,' snapped Ginger. 'Fish stew, right?' 
'Oh. Right. Sorry.' 
He flicked backwards through the pages. Before Deccan there was Tento, who also 
chanted three times a day and also sometimes received gifts of fish and also 
went to the lavatory, although either he wasn't so assiduous about it as Deccan 
or hadn't thought it always worth writing down. Before that, someone called 
Meggelin had been the chanter. A whole string of people had lived on the beach, 
and then if you went back further there was a group of them, and further still 
the entries had a more official feel. It was hard to tell. They seemed to be 
written in code, line after line of little complex pictures . . . 
A bowl of primal soup was plonked down in front of him. 
'Look,' he said. 'What time do you get off-' 
'Never,' said Ginger. 
'I just wondered if you might know where-' 
'No.' 
Victor stared at the murky surface of the broth. Borgle worked on the principle 
that if you find it in water, it's a fish. There was something purple in there 
and it had at least ten legs. 
He ate it anyway. It was costing him thirty pence. 
Then, with Ginger resolutely busying herself at the counter with her back to him 
lighthouse-fashion, so that however he tried to attract her attention her back 
was still facing him without her apparently moving, he went to look for another 
job. 
Victor had never worked for anything in his life. In his experience, jobs were 
things that happened to other people. 

Bezam Planter adjusted the tray around his wife's neck. 'All right,' he said. 
'Got everything?' 
'The banged grains have gone soft,' she said. 'And there's no way to keep the 
sausages hot.' 
'It'll be dark, love. No-one'll notice.' He tweaked the strap and stood back. 
'There,' he said. 'Now, you know what to do. Halfway through I'll stop showing 
the film and put up the card that says "Wy not Try a Cool Refreshinge Drinke and 
Some Banged Grains?" and then you come out of the door over there and walk up 
the aisle.' 
'You might as well mention cool refreshing sausages as well,' said Mrs Planter. 
'And I reckon you should stop using a torch to show people to their seats,' said 
Bezam. 'You're starting too many fires.' 
'It's the only way I can see in the dark,' she said. 
'Yes, but I had to let that dwarf have his money back last night. You know how 
sensitive they are about their beards. Tell you what, love, I'll give you a 
salamander in a cage. They've been on the roof since dawn,- they should be nice 
and ready.' 
They were. The creatures lay dozing in the bottom of their cages, their bodies 
vibrating gently as they absorbed the light. Bezam selected six of the ripest, 
climbed heavily back down to the projection room, and tipped them into the 
showing-box. He wound Throat Dibbler's film on to a spool, and then peered out 
into the darkness. 
Oh, well. Might as well see if there was anyone outside. 
He shuffled to the front door, yawning. 
He reached up, and slid the bolt. 
He reached down, and slid the other bolt. 
He pulled open the doors. 
'All right, all right,' he grumbled. 'Let's be having you . . .' 
He woke up in the projection room, with Mrs Planter fanning him desperately with 
her apron. 
'What happened?' he whispered, trying to put out of his mind the memories of 
trampling feet. 
'It's a full house!' she said. 'And they're still queueing up outside! They're 
all down the street! It's them disgusting posters!' 
Bezam got up unsteadily but with determination. 
'Woman, shut up and get down to the kitchen and bang some more grains!' he 
shouted. 'And then come and help me repaint the signs! If they're queueing for 
the fivepenny seats, they'll queue for tenpence!' 
He rolled up his sleeves and grasped the handle. 
In the front row the Librarian sat with a bag of peanuts in his ,lap. After a 
few minutes he stopped chewing and sat with his mouth open, staring and staring 
and staring at the flickering images. 

'Hold your horse, sir? Ma'am?' 
'No!' 
By mid-day Victor had earned tuppence. It wasn't that people didn't have horses 
that needed holding, it was just that they didn't seem to want him to hold them. 

Eventually a gnarled little man from further along the street sidled up to him, 
dragging four horses. Victor had been watching him for hours, in frank 
astonishment that anyone should give the wizened homunculus a kindly smile, let 
alone a horse. But he'd been doing a brisk trade, while Victor's broad 
shoulders, handsome profile and honest, open smile were definitely a drawback in 
the horse-holding business. 
'You're new to this, right?' said the little man. 
'Yes,' said Victor. 
'Ah. I could tell. Waitin' for yer big break in the clicks, right?' He grinned 
encouragingly. 
'No. I've had my big break, in fact,' said Victor. 
'Why you here then?' 
Victor shrugged. 'I broke it.' 
'Ah, is that so? Yessir, thank'ee sir, godsblessyousir, rightchewaresir,' said 
the man, accepting another set of reins. 
'I suppose you don't need an assistant?' said Victor wistfully. 

Bezam Planter stared at the pile of coins in front of him. Throat Dibbler moved 
his hands and it was a smaller pile of coins, but it was still a bigger pile of 
coins than Bezam had ever seen while in a waking state. 
'And we're still showing it every quarter of an hour!' breathed Bezam. 'I've had 
to hire a boy to turn the handle! I don't know, what should I do with all this 
money?' 
Throat patted him on the shoulder. 
'Buy bigger premises,' he said. 
'I've been thinking about that,' said Bezam. 'Yeah. Something with fancy pillars 
out in front. And my daughter Calliope plays the organ really nice, it'd make a 
good accompaniment. And there should be lots of gold paint and curly bits-' 
His eyes glazed. 
It had found another mind. 
Holy Wood dreams. 
- and make it a palace, like the fabulous Rhoxie in Klatch, or the richest 
temple there ever was, with slave girls to sell the banged grains and peanuts, 
and Bezam Planter walking about proprietorially in a red velvet jacket with gold 
string on it 
'Hmm?' he whispered, as the sweat beaded on his forehead. 
'I said, I'm off,' said Throat. 'Got to keep moving in the moving-picture 
business, you know.' 
'Mrs Planter says you've got to make more pictures with that young man,' said 
Bezam. 'The whole city's talking about him. She said several ladies swooned when 
he gave them that smouldery look. She watched it five times,' he added, his 
voice rimed with sudden suspicion. 'And that girl! Wow!' 
'Don't you worry about a thing,' said Throat loftily. 'I've got them under 
contr-' 
Sudden doubt drifted across his face. 
'See you,' he said shortly, and scurried out of the building. 
Bezam stood alone and looked around at the cobwebbed interior of the Odium, his 
overheated imagination peopling its dark corners with potted palms, gold leaf 
and fat cherubs. Peanut shells and banged grain bags crunched under his feet. 
Have to get it cleaned up for the next house, he thought. I expect that 
monkey'll be first in the queue again. 
Then his eye fell on the poster for Sword of Passione. Amazing, really. There 
hadn't been much in the way of elephants and volcanoes, and the monsters had 
been trolls with bits stuck on them, but in that close up . . . well . . . all 
the men had sighed, and then all the women had sighed . . . It was like magic. 
He grinned at the images of Victor and Ginger. 
Wonder what those two're doing now? he thought. Prob'ly eating caviar off of 
gold plates and lounging around up to their knees in velvet cushions, you bet. 

'You look up to your knees in it, lad,' said the horseholder. 
'I'm afraid I'm not getting the hang of this horseholding,' said Victor. 
'Ah, 'tis a hard trade, horse-holding,' said the man. 'It's learning the proper 
grovellin' and the irreverent-but-not-too-impudent cheery 'oss'older's banter. 
People don't just want you to look after the'oss, see. They want a'oss-'olding 
hexperience.' 
'They do?' 
'They want an amusin' encounter and a soup-son of repartee,' said the little 
man. 'It's not just a matter of 'oldin' reins.' 
Realization began to dawn on Victor. 
'It's a performance,' he said. 
The 'oss-'older tapped the side of his strawberry-shaped nose. 
'That's right!' he said. 

Torches flared in Holy Wood. Victor struggled through the crowds in the main 
street. Every bar, every tavern, every shop had its doors thrown open. A sea of 
people ebbed and flowed between them. Victor tried jumping up and down to search 
the mob of faces. 
He was lonely and lost and hungry. He needed someone to talk to, and she wasn't 
there. 
'Victor!' 
He spun around. Rock bore down on him like an avalanche. 
'Victor! My friend!' A fist the size and hardness of a foundation stone pounded 
him playfully on the shoulder. 
'Oh, hi,' said Victor weakly. 'Er. How's it going, Rock?' 
'Great! Great! Tomorrow we shoot Bad Menace of Troll Valley!' 
'I'm very happy for you,' said Victor. 
'You my lucky human!' Rock boomed. 'Rock! What a name! Come and have a drink!' 
Victor accepted. He really didn't have much of a choice, because Rock gripped 
his arm and, ploughing through the crowds like an icebreaker, half-led, 
half-dragged him towards the nearest door. 
A blue light illuminated a sign. Most Morporkians could read Troll, it was 
hardly a difficult language. The sharp runes spelled out The Blue Lias. 
It was a troll bar. 
The smoky glow from the furnaces beyond the slab counter was the only light. It 
illuminated three trolls playing - well, something percussive, but Victor 
couldn't quite make out what because the decibel level was in realms where the 
sound was a solid force, and it made his eyeballs vibrate. The furnace smoke hid 
the ceiling. 
'What you havin'?' roared Rock. 
'I don't have to drink molten metal, do I?' Victor quavered. He had to quaver at 
the top of his voice in order to be heard. 
'We got all typer human drink!' shouted the female troll behind the bar. It had 
to be a female. There was no doubt about it. She looked slightly like the 
statues cavemen used to carve of fertility goddesses thousands of years ago, but 
mostly like a foothill. 'We very cosmopolitan.' 'I'll have a beer, then!' 'Ana 
flowers-of-sulphur onna rocks, Ruby!' added Rock. 
Victor took the opportunity to look around the bar, now that he was getting 
accustomed to the gloom and his eardrums had mercifully gone numb. 
He was aware of masses of trolls seated at long tables, with here and there a 
dwarf, which was astonishing. Dwarfs and trolls normally fought like, well, 
dwarfs and trolls. In their native mountains there was a state of unremitting 
vendetta. Holy Wood certainly changed things. 
'Can I have a quiet word?' Victor shouted in Rock's pointed ear. 
'Sure!' Rock put down his drink. It contained a purple paper umbrella, which was 
charring in the heat. 'Have you seen Ginger? You know? Ginger?' 'She working at 
Borgle's!' 
'Only in the mornings! I've just been there! Where does she go when she's not 
working?' 'Who know where anyone OF 
There was a sudden silence from the combo in the smoke. One of the trolls picked 
up a small rock and started to pound it gently, producing a slow, sticky rhythm 
that clung to the walls like smoke. And from the smoke, Ruby emerged like a 
galleon out of the fog, with a ridiculous feather boa around her neck. It was 
continental drift with curves. She began to sing. 
The trolls stood in respectful silence. After a while Victor heard a sob. Tears 
were rolling down Rock's face. 'What's the song about?' he whispered. Rock 
leaned down. 
'Is ancient folklorique troll song,' he said. 'Is about Amber and Jasper. They 
were-' he hesitated, and waved his hands about vaguely. 'Friends. Good friends?' 
'I think I know what you mean,' said Victor. 'And one day Amber takes her 
troll's dinner down to the cave and finds him-' Rock waved his hands in vague 
yet thoroughly descriptive motions '-with another lady troll. So she go home and 
get her club and come back and beat him to death, thump, thump, thump. 'Cos he 
was her troll and he done her wrong. Is very romantic song.' 
Victor stared. Ruby undulated down from the tiny stage and glided among the 
customers, a small mountain in a four-wheel skid. She must weigh two tons, he 
thought. If she sits on my knee they'll have to roll me off the floor like a 
carpet. 
'What did she just say to that troll?' he said, as a deep wave of laughter 
rolled across the room. 
Rock scratched his nose. 'Is play on words,' he said. 'Very hard to translate. 
But basically, she say "Is that the legendary Sceptre of Magma who was King of 
the Mountain, Smiter of Thousands, Yea, Even Tens of Thousands, Ruler of the 
Golden River, Master of the Bridges, Delver in Dark Places, Crusher of Many 
Enemies",' he took a deep breath, "'in your pocket or are you just glad to see 
me?"' Victor's forehead creased. 'I don't get it,' he said. 
'Perhaps I not translate properly,' said Rock. He took a pull of molten sulphur. 
'I hear Untied Alchemists is casting for-' 
'Rock, there's something very odd about this place,' said Victor. urgently. 
'Can't you feel it?' 'What odd?' 
'Everything seems to, well, fizz. No-one acts like they should. Did you know 
there was a great city here once? Where the sea is. A great city. And it's just 
gone!' 
Rock rubbed his nose thoughtfully. It looked like a Neanderthal Man's first 
attempt at an axe. 
'And there's the way everyone acts!' said Victor. 'As if who they are and what 
they want are the most important things in the world!' 'I'm wondering-' Rock 
began. 
'Yes?' said Victor. 
'I'm wondering, would it be worth takin' half a inch off my nose? My cousin 
Breccia knows this stonemason, fixed his ears a treat. What do you fink?' 
Victor stared dully at him. 
'I mean, on the one hand, it's too big, but on the other hand, it's definit'ly 
your stereotyped troll nose, right? I mean, maybe I'll look better, but in this 
business maybe it best to look just as troll as you can. Like, Morry's had his 
touched up with cement, now he got a face you wouldn't want to meet on a dark 
night. What you fink? I value your opinion, because you a human with ideas.' 
He gave Victor a bright silicon smile. 
Eventually Victor said: 'It's a great nose, Rock. With you behind it, it could 
go a long way.' 
Rock gave a big grin, and took another pull of sulphur. He extracted a small 
steel swizzle stick and sucked the amethyst off it. 
'You really fink-' he began, and was then aware of the small area of empty 
space. Victor had gone. 

'I don't know nuffin about no-one,' said the horse-holder, looking shiftily at 
the looming presence of Detritus. 
Dibbler chewed on his cigar. It had been a bumpy journey from Ankh, even in his 
new coach, and he'd missed lunch. 
'Tall lad, bit dopey, thin moustache,' he said. 'He was working for you, right?' 
The horse-holder gave in. 
'He'll never make a good 'oss-'older, anyway,' he said. 'Lets his work get on 
top of him. I think he went to get something to eat.' 

Victor sat in the dark alley, his-back pressed against the wall, and tried to 
think. 
He remembered staying out in the sun too long, once, when he was a boy. The 
feeling he'd got afterwards was something like this. 
There was a soft flopping noise in the packed sand by his feet. 
Someone had dropped a hat in front of him. He stared at it. 
Then someone started playing the harmonica. They weren't very good at it. Most 
of the notes were wrong, and those that were right were cracked. There was a 
tune in there somewhere, in the same way that there's a bit of beef in a 
hamburger grinder. 
Victor sighed and fumbled in his pocket for a couple of pennies. He tossed them 
into the hat. 
'Yeah, yeah,' he said. 'Very good. Now go away.' 
He was aware of a strange smell. It was hard to place, but could perhaps have 
been a very old and slightly damp nursery rug. 
He looked up. 
'Woof bloody woof,' said Gaspode the Wonder Dog. 

Borgle's commissary had decided to experiment with salads tonight. The nearest 
salad growing district was thirty slow miles away. 
'What dis?' demanded a troll, holding up something limp and brown. 
Fruntkin the short-order chef hazarded a guess. 
'Celery?' he said. He peered closer. 'Yeah, celery.' 
'It brown.' 
' Wright. Wright! Ripe celery ort to be brown,' said Fruntkin, quickly. 'Shows 
it's ripe,' he added. 
'It should be green.' 
'Nah. Yore finking about the tomatoes,' said Fruntkin. 
'Yeah, and what's this runny stuff?' said a man in the queue. 
Fruntkin drew himself up to his full height. 
'That', he said, 'is the mayonnaisey. Made it myself. Out of a book,' he added 
proudly. 
'Yeah, I expect you did,' said the man, prodding it. 'Clearly oil, eggs and 
vinegar were not involved, right?' 
'Specialitay de lar mayson,' said Fruntkin. 
'Right, right,' said the man. 'Only it's attacking my lettuce.' 
Fruntkin grasped his ladle angrily. 
'Look-' he began. 
'No, it's all right,' said the prospective diner. 'The slugs have formed a 
defensive ring.' 
There was a commotion by the door. Detritus the troll waded through the diners, 
with Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler strutting along behind him. 
The troll shouldered the queue aside and glared at Fruntkin. 
'Mr Dibbler want a word,' he said, and reached across the counter, lifted the 
dwarf up by his food-encrusted shirt, and dangled him in front of Throat. 
'Anyone seen Victor Tugelbend?' said Throat. 'Or that girl Ginger?' 
Fruntkin opened his mouth to swear, and thought better of it. 
'The boy was in here half an hour ago,' he squeaked. 'Ginger works here 
mornings. Don't know where she goes.' 
'Where'd Victor go?' said Throat. He pulled a bag out of his pocket. It jingled. 
Fruntkin's eyes swivelled towards it as though they were ball bearings and it 
was a powerful magnet. 
'Dunno, Mr Throat,' he said. 'He just went out again when she wasn't here.' 
'Right,' said Throat. 'Well, if you see him again, tell him I'm looking for him 
and I'm going to make him a star, right?' 
'Star. Right,' said the dwarf. 
Throat reached into his moneybag and produced a tendollar piece. 
'And I want to order dinner for later on,' he added. 
'Dinner. Right,' quavered Fruntkin. 
'Steak and prawns, I think,' said Throat. 'With a choice of sunkissed vegetables 
in season, and then strawberries and cream.' 
Fruntkin stared at him. 
'Er-,' he began. 
Detritus poked the dwarf so that he swung backwards and forwards. 
'An' I', he said, 'will 'ave . . . er . . . a well-weathered basalt with a 
aggregate of fresh-hewn sandstone conglomerates. Right?' 
'Er. Yes,' said Fruntkin. 
'Put him down, Detritus. He doesn't want to be hanging around,' said Throat. 
'And gently.' He looked around at the fascinated faces. 
'Remember,' he said, 'I'm looking for Victor Tugelbend and I'm going to make him 
a star. If anyone sees him, you must tell him. Oh, and I'll have the steak rare, 
Fruntkin.' 
He strode back to the door. 
After he had gone the chattering flowed back like a tide. 
'Make him a star? What'd he want a star for?' 
'I didn't know you could make stars . . . I thought they were like, you know, 
stuck to the sky . . . ' 
'I think he meant make him a star. You know, him himself. Turn him into a star.' 

'How can you make. anyone into a star?' 
'I dunno. I suppose you compress them right up small and they burst into this 
mass of flaming hydrogen?' 
'Good grief!' 
'Yeah! Is that troll mean, or what?' 

Victor looked at the dog carefully. 
It couldn't have spoken to him. It must have been his imagination. But he'd said 
that last time, hadn't he? 
'I wonder what your name is?' said Victor, patting it on the head. 
'Gaspode,' said Gaspode. 
Victor's hand froze in mid-tousle. 
'Tuppence,' said the dog, wearily. 'World's only bloody harmonica-playing dog. 
Tuppence.' 
It is the sun, Victor thought. I haven't been wearing a hat. In a minute I'll 
wake up and there'll be cool sheets. 
'Well, you didn't play very well. I couldn't recognize the tune,' he said, 
stretching his mouth into a terrible grin. 
'You're not supposed to recognize the bloody tune,' said Gaspode, sitting down 
heavily and industriously scratching one ear with his hind leg. 'I'm a dog. 
You're supposed to be bloody amazed I can bloody well get a squeak out of the 
bloody thing.' 
How shall I put it? Victor thought. Do I just say: excuse me, you appear to be 
tad . . . No, probably not. 
'Er,' he said. Hey, you're quire chatty for . . . no. 
'Fleas,' said Gaspode, changing ears and legs. 'Giving me gyp. I 
'Oh dear.' 
'And all these trolls. Can't stand 'em. They smell all wrong. Bloody walking 
stones. You try and bite 'em, next minute you're spittin' teef. It's not 
natural.' 
Talking of natural, I can't help noticing that- 
'Bloody desert, this place,' said Gaspode. 
You're a talking dog. 
'I expect you're wondering,' said Gaspode, turning his penetrating stare on 
Victor once again, 'how come I'm talking.' 
'Hadn't given it a thought,' said Victor. 
'Me neither,' said Gaspode. 'Until a couple of weeks ago. All my life, never 
said a bloody word. Worked for a bloke back in the big city. Tricks and that. 
Balancing a ball on my nose. Walkin' on me 'rod legs. Jumpin' through a 'oop. 
Carried the hat round in my mouf afterwards. You know. Show business. Then this 
woman pats me on me 'ead, says "Eow, wot a dear little doggy, he looks like he 
understands every word we say," and I thinks, "Ho, ho, I don't even bother to 
make the effort any more, missus," and then I realizes I can hear the words, and 
they're coming out of me own mouf. So I grabbed the 'at and had it away on my 
paws pretty damn quick, while they were still starin'.' 
'Why?' said Victor. 
Gaspode rolled his eyes. 'Exactly wot life do you fink a genuine talking dog is 
going to have?' he said. 'Shouldn't have opened my stupid mouth.' 
'But you're talking to me,' said Victor. 
Gaspode gave him a sly look. 
'Yeah, but jus' you try tellin' anyone,' he said. 'Anyway, you're all right. 
You've got the look. I could tell it a mile orf.' 
'What on earth do you mean?' said Victor. 
'You don't fink you really belong to yourself, right?' said the dog. 'You've 'ad 
the feeling that something else is doin' your thinking for you?' 
'Good grief.' 
'Give you a kind of hunted look,' said Gaspode. He picked up the cap in his 
mouth. 'Tuppence,' he said indistinctly. 'I mean, it's not as if I've got any 
way of spending it, but . . . tuppence.' He gave a canine shrug. 
'What do you mean by a hunted look?' said Victor. 
'You've all got the look. Many are called and few are chosen, style of fing.' 
'What look?' 
'Like you've been called here and you don't know why.' Gaspode tried to scratch 
his ear again. 'Saw you acting Cohen the Barbarian,' he said. 
'Er . . . what did you think of it?' said Victor. 
'I reckon, so long as ode Cohen never gets to hear about it, you should be OK.' 

'I said, how long ago was he in here?' shouted Dibbler. On the tiny stage, Ruby 
was crooning something in a voice like a ship in thick fog and bad trouble. 
'GrooOOowwonnogghrhhooOOo-'[6] 
'He only just went out!' bellowed Rock. 'I'm trying to listen to this song, all 
right?' 
'-OowoowgrhhffrghooOOo-'[7] 
Cut-me-own-Throat nudged Detritus, who was taking the weight off his knuckles 
and watching the floor show with his mouth open. 
The old troll's life had, up to now, been very straightforward; people paid you 
money, and you hit other people. 
Now it was beginning to get complicated. Ruby had winked at him. 
Strange and unfamiliar emotions were rampaging through Detritus' battered heart. 

'-groooOWooohoofooOOoo-'[8] 
'Come on,' snapped Throat. 
Detritus lumbered to his feet and took one last longing look at the stage. 
'-ooOOOgooOOmoo. OOhhhooo.'[9] 
Ruby blew him a kiss. Detritus blushed the colour of fresh-cut garnet. 

Gaspode led the way out of the alley and through the dark hinterland of scrubby 
bushes and sandgrass behind the town. 
'There's definitely something wrong with this place,' he muttered. 
'It's different,' said Victor. 'What do you mean, wrong?' 
Gaspode looked as though he was going to spit. 
'Now, take me,' he said, ignoring the interruption. 'A dog. Never dreamed in my 
life except about chasing fings. And sex, of course. Suddenly I'm dreaming these 
dreams. In colour. Frightened the bloody life out of me. Never seen colour 
before, right? Dogs see in black-an'white, as I expect you knows, you bein' a 
great reader. Red comes as a nasty shock, I can tell you. You fink your dinner 
is just this white bone with shades of grey on it, suddenly it turns out for 
years you bin eatin' this gharsteley red and purple stuff.' 
'What kind of dreams?' said Victor. 
'It's bloody embarrassing,' said Gaspode. 'Like, in one there's this bridge 
that's been washed away and I have to run and bark a warning, right? And there's 
another where this house is on fire and I drag these kids out. And there's one 
where some kids are lost in these caves and I find 'em and go and lead the 
search party to them . . . and I hates kids. Seems I can't get me 'ead down 
these days without rescuin' people or savin' people or foilin' robbers or 
sunnink. I mean, I'm seven years old, I got hardpad, I got scurf, I got fleas 
somethin' dreadful, I don't need to be a 'ero every time I go to sleep.' 
'Gosh. Isn't life interesting,' said Victor, 'when you see it from someone 
else's perspective . . . ?' 
Gaspode rolled a crusted yellow eye skyward. 
'Er. Where are we going?' said Victor. 
'We're goin' to see a few Holy Wood folk,' said Gaspode. ' 'Cos there's 
something weird goin' on.' 
'Up on the hill? I didn't know there were any people on the hill.' 
'They ain't people,' said Gaspode. 

A little twig fire burned on the slope of Holy Wood Hill. Victor had lit it 
because - well, because it was reassuring. Because it was the sort of thing 
humans did. 
He found it necessary to remember he was human, and probably not crazy. 
It wasn't that he'd been talking to a dog. People often talked to dogs. The same 
applied to the cat. And maybe even the rabbit. It was the conversation with the 
mouse and the duck that might be considered odd. 
'You think we wanted to talk?' snapped the rabbit. 'One minute I'm just another 
rabbit and happy about it, next minute whazaam, I'm thinking. That's a major 
drawback if you're looking for happiness as a rabbit, let me tell you. You want 
grass and sex, not thoughts like "What's it all about, when you get right down 
to it?" ' 
'Yeah, but at least you eats grass,' Gaspode pointed out. 'At least grass don't 
talk back at you. The last thing you needs when you're hungry is a bloody 
ethical conundrum on your plate.' 
'You think you've got problems,' said the cat, apparently reading his mind. 'I'm 
reduched to eating fish. You put a paw on your dinner, it shoutsh "Help!", you 
got a major predicament.' 
There was silence. They looked at Victor. So did the mouse. And the duck. The 
duck was looking particularly belligerent. It had probably heard about orange 
sauce. 
'Yeah. Take us,' said the mouse. 'There's me, being chased by this,' it 
indicated the cat looming over it, 'around the kitchen. Scrabble, scrabble, 
squeak, panic. Then there's this sizzling noise in my head, I see a frying pan - 
you understand? A second ago I never knew what frying was, now I'm holding the 
handle, he comes around the corner, clang. Now he's staggering around saying 
"What hit me?" I say "Me." That's when we both realize. We're talking.' 
'Concheptualishing,' said the cat. It was a black cat, with white paws, ears 
like shotgun targets, and the scarred face of a cat that has already lived eight 
lives to the full. 
'You tell him, kid,' said the mouse. 
'Tell him what you did next,' said Gaspode. 
'We came here,' said the cat. 
'From Ankh-Morpork?' said Victor. 
'Yeah.' 
'That's nearly thirty miles!' 
'Yeah, and take it from me,' said the cat, 'it's hard to hitch-hike when you's a 
cat.' 
'See?' said Gaspode. 'It's happening all the time. All sorts are turnin' up in 
Holy Wood. They don't know why they've come, only that it's important to be 
here. An' they don't act like they do anywhere else in the world. I bin 
watchin'. Somethin' weird's goin' on.' 
The duck quacked. There were words in there somewhere, but so mangled by the 
incompatibility of beak and larynx that Victor couldn't understand a word. 
The animals, gave it a sympathetic audience. 
'What's up, Duck?' said the rabbit. 
'The duck says', translated Gaspode, 'that it's like a migratory thing. Just the 
same feelin' as a migration, he says.' 
'Yeah? I didn't have far to come,' the rabbit volunteered. 'We lived on the 
dunes anyway.' It sighed. 'For three happy years and four miserable days,' it 
added. 
A thought struck Victor. 'So you'd know about the old man on the beach?' he 
said. 
'Oh, him. Yeah. Him. He was always coming up here.' 
'What sort of person was he?' said Victor. 
'Listen, buster, up to four days ago I had a vocabulary consisting of two verbs 
and one noun. What do you think I thought he was? All I know is, he didn't 
bother us. We probably thought he was a rock on legs, or something.' 
Victor thought about the book in his pocket. Chanting and lighting fires. What 
sort of person did that? 
'I don't know what's going on,' he said. 'I'd like to find out. Look, haven't 
you got names? I feel awkward, talking to people without names.' 
'Only me,' said Gaspode. 'Bein' a dog. I'm named after the famous Gaspode, you 
know.' 
'A kid called me Puss once,' said the cat doubtfully. 
'I thought you had names in your own language,' said Victor. 'You know, like 
"Mighty Paws" or - or "Speedy Hunter". Or something.' 
He smiled encouragingly. 
The others gave him a long blank stare. 
'He reads books,' explained Gaspode. 'See, the thing is,' he added, scratching 
himself vigorously, 'animals don't normally bother with names. I mean, we know 
who we are.' 
'Mind you, I like "Speedy Hunter",' said the mouse. 
'I was thinking that's more a cat's name,' said Victor, starting to sweat. 'Mice 
have friendly little names, like - like Squeak.' 
'Squeak?' said the mouse, coldly. 
The rabbit grinned. 
'And, and I always thought rabbits were called Flopsy. Or Mr Thumpy,' Victor 
gabbled. 
The rabbit stopped grinning and twitched its ears. 
'Now look, pal-' it began. 
'Y'know,' said Gaspode cheerfully, in an attempt to revive the conversation, 'I 
heard there's this legend where the first two people in the world named all the 
animals. Makes you fink, don't it.' 
Victor pulled out the book to cover his embarrassment. Chanting and lighting 
fires. Three times a day. 
'This old man-' he began. 
'What's so important about him?' said the rabbit. 'He just used to come up on to 
the hill and make noises a couple of times every day. You could set your . . . 
your,' it hesitated. 'It was always the same times. Many times a day.' 
'Three times. Three performances. Like a sort of theatre?' said Victor, running 
his finger down the page. 
'We can't count up to three,' said the rabbit sourly. 'It goes one . . . many. 
Many times.' He glared at Victor. 'Mr Thumpy,' it said, in withering tones. 
'And people from other places brought him fish,' said Victor. 'There's no-one 
else living near here. They must have come from miles away. People sailed miles 
just to bring him fish. It's as though he didn't want to eat fish out of the bay 
here. And it's teeming with them. When I went swimming I saw lobsters you 
wouldn't believe.' 
'What did you name them?' said Mr Thumpy, who wasn't the kind of rabbit that 
forgot a grudge. 'Mr Snappy 
'Yeah, I want this cleared up right now,' squeaked the mouse. 'Back home I was 
top mouse. I could lick any other mouse in the house. I want a proper name, kid. 
Anyone calls me Squeaky Boots', he looked up at Victor, 'is asking for a head 
shaped like a frying pan, do I make myself clear?' 
The duck quacked at length. 
'Hold it,' said Gaspode. 'The thing is, the duck says,' said Gaspode, 'that all 
this is part of the same thing. Humans and trolls and everything coming here. 
Animals suddenly talking. The duck says he thinks it's caused by something 
here.' 
'How does a duck know that?' said Victor. 
'Look, friend,' said the rabbit, 'when you can fly all the way across the sea 
and even end up finding the same bloody continent, you can start badmouthing 
ducks.' 
'Oh,' said Victor. 'You mean mysterious animal senses, yes?' 
They glared at him. 
'Anyway, it's got to stop,' said Gaspode. 'All this cogitatin' and talkin' is 
all -right for you humans. You're used to it. Fing is, see, someone's got to 
find out what's causin' all this . . . ' 
They carried on glaring at him. 
'Well,' he said, vaguely, 'maybe the book can help? The early bits are in some 
sort of ancient language. I can't-,' he paused. Wizards weren't welcomed in Holy 
Wood. It probably wasn't a good idea to mention the University, or his small 
part in it. 'That is,' he continued, choosing his words with care, 'I think I 
know someone in AnkhMorpork who might be able to read it. He's an animal, too. 
An ape.' 
'How's he in the mysterious senses department?' said Gaspode. 
'He's red hot on mysterious senses,' said Victor. 
'In that case-' said the rabbit. 
'Hold it,' said Gaspode. 'Someone's coming.' 
A moving torch was visible coming up the hill. The duck rocketed clumsily into 
the sir and glided away. The others disappeared into the shadows. Only the dog 
didn't move. 
'Aren't you going to make yourself scarce?' Victor hissed. 
Gaspode raised an eyebrow. 
'Woof?' he said. 
The torch zig-zagged erratically among the scrub, like a firefly. Sometimes it 
would stop for a moment, and then wander away in some totally new direction. It 
was very bright. 
'What is it?' said Victor. 
Gaspode sniffed. 'Human,' he said. 'Female. Wearin' cheap scent.' His nose 
twitched again. 'It's called Passion's Plaything.' He sniffed again. 'Fresh 
laundry, no starch. Old shoes. Lot of studio make-up. She's been in Borgle's and 
had-' his nose twitched '-stoo. Not a big plate.' 
'I suppose you can tell how tall she is, can you?' said Victor. 
'She smells about five foot two, two and a half,' hazarded Gaspode. 
'Oh, come on!' 
'Walk a mile on these paws and call me a liar.' 
Victor kicked sand over his little fire and strolled down the slope. 
The light stopped moving as he approached it. For a moment he got a glimpse of a 
female figure clasping a shawl around her with one hand holding the torch high 
above her head. Then the light vanished so quickly it left blue and purple 
after-images dancing across his vision. Behind them, a small figure made a 
blacker shadow against the dusk. 
It said, 'What are you doing in my . . . what am I . . . why are you in . . . 
where . . . ,' and then, as if it had finally got to grips with the situation, 
changed gear and in a much more familiar voice demanded, 'What are you doing 
here?' 
'Ginger?' said Victor. 
'Yes?' 
Victor paused. What were you supposed to say in circumstances like this? 
'Er . . . ' he said. 'It's nice up here in the evenings, don't you think?' 
She glared at Gaspode. 
'That's that horrible dog who's been hanging round the studio, isn't it?' she 
said. 'I can't stand small dogs.' 
'Bark, bark,' said Gaspode. Ginger stared at him. Victor could almost read her 
thoughts: he said Bark, bark. And he's a dog, and that's the kind of noise dogs 
make, isn't it? 
'I'm a cat person, myself,' she said, vaguely. 
A low-level voice said: 'Yeah? Yeah? Wash in your own spit, do you?' 
'What was that?' 
Victor backed away, waving his hands frantically. 'Don't look at me!' he said. 
'I didn't say it!' 
'Oh? I suppose it was the dog, was it?' she demanded. 
'Who, me?' said Gaspode. 
Ginger froze. Her eyes swivelled around and down, to where Gaspode was icily 
scratching an ear. 
'Woof?' he said. 
'That dog spoke-' Ginger began, pointing a shaking finger at him. 
'I know,' said Victor. 'That means he likes you.' He looked past her. Another 
light was coming up the hill. 
'Did you bring someone with you?' he said. 
'Me?' Ginger turned round. 
Now the light was accompanied by the cracking of dry twigs, and Dibbler stepped 
out of the dusk with Detritus trailing behind like a particularly scary shadow. 
'Ah-ha!' he said. 'The lovebirds surprised, eh?' 
Victor gaped at him. 'The what?' he said. 
'The what?' said Ginger. 
'Been looking all over for you two,' said Dibbler. 'Someone said he'd seen you 
come up here. Very romantic. Could do something with that. Look good on the 
posters. Right.' He draped his arms around them. 'Come on,' he said. 
'What for?' said Victor. 
'We're shooting first thing in the morning,' said Dibbler. 
'But Mr Silverfish said I wasn't going to work in this town again-' Victor 
began. 
Dibbler opened his mouth, and hesitated just for a moment. 'Ah. Yes. But I'm 
going to give you another chance,' he said, speaking quite slowly for once. 
'Yeah. A chance. Like, you're young people. Headstrong. Young once myself. 
Dibbler, I thought, even if it means cutting your own throat, give 'em a chance. 
Lower wages, of course. A dollar a day, how about that?' 
Victor saw the look of sudden hope on Ginger's face. 
He opened his mouth. 
'Fifteen dollars,' said a voice. It wasn't his. 
He shut his mouth. 
'What?' said Dibbler. 
Victor opened his mouth. 
'Fifteen dollars. Renegot'ble after a week. Fifteen dollars or nuffin'.' 
Victor shut his mouth, his eyes rolling. 
Dibbler waved a finger under his nose, and then hesitated. 
'I like it!' he said eventually. 'Tough bargainer! OK. Three dollars.' 
'Fifteen.' 
'Five's my last offer, kid. There's thousands of people down there who'd jump at 
it, right?' 
'Name two, Mr Dibbler.' 
Dibbler glanced at Detritus, who was lost in a reverie concerning Ruby, and then 
stared at Ginger. 
'OK,' he said. 'Ten. Because I like you. But it's cutting my own throat.' 
'Done.' 
Throat held out a hand. Victor stared at his own as if he was seeing it for the 
first time, and then shook. 
'And now let's get back down,' said Dibbler. 'Lot to organize.' 
He strode off through the trees. Victor and Ginger followed meekly behind him, 
in a state of shock. 
'Are you crazy?' Ginger hissed. 'Holding out like that! We could have lost our 
chance!' 
'I didn't say anything! I thought it was you!' said Victor. 
'It was you!' said Ginger. 
Their eyes met. 
They looked down. 
'Bark, bark,' said Gaspode the Wonder Dog. 
Dibbler turned round. 
'What's that noise?' he said. 
'Oh, it's - it's just this dog we found,' said Victor hurriedly. 'He's called 
Gaspode. After the famous Gaspode, you know.' 
'He does tricks,' said Ginger, malevolently. 
'A performing dog?' Dibbler reached down and patted Gaspode's bullet head. 
'Growl, growl.' 
'You'd be amazed, the things he can do,' said Victor. 
'Amazed,' echoed Ginger. 
'Ugly devil, though,' said Dibbler. He gave Gaspode a long, slow stare, which 
was like challenging a centipede to an arse-kicking contest. Gaspode could 
outstare a mirror. 
Dibbler seemed to be turning an idea over in his mind. 'Mind you . . . bring him 
along in the morning. People like a good laugh,' said Dibbler. 
'Oh, he's a laugh all right,' said Victor. 'A scream.' 
As they walked off Victor heard a quiet voice behind him say, 'I'll get you for 
that. Anyway, you owe me a dollar.' 
'What for?' 
'Agent's fee,' said Gaspode the Wonder Dog. 

Over Holy Wood, the stars were out. They were huge balls of hydrogen heated to 
millions of degrees, so hot they could not even burn. Many of them would swell 
enormously before they died, and then shrink to tiny, resentful dwarfs 
remembered only by sentimental astronomers. In the meantime, they glowed because 
of metamorphoses beyond the reach of alchemists, and turned mere boring elements 
into pure light. 
Over Ankh-Morpork, it just rained. 
The senior wizards crowded around the elephant vase. It had been put back in the 
corridor on Ridcully's strict orders. 
'I remember Riktor,' said the Dean. 'Skinny man. Bit of a one-track mind. But 
clever.' 
'Heh, heh. I remember his mouse counter,' said Windle Poons, from his ancient 
wheelchair. 'Used to count mice.' 
'The pot itself is quite-' the Bursar began, and then said, 'What d'you mean, 
count mice? They were fed into it on a little belt or something?' 
'Oh, no. You just wound it up, y'see, and it sat there whirring away, counting 
all the mice in the building, mm, and these little wheels with numbers on them 
came up.' 'Why?' 
'Mm? I s'pose he just wanted to count mice.' 
The Bursar shrugged. 'This pot', he said, peering closely, 'is actually quite an 
old Ming vase.' 
He waited expectantly. 
'Why's it called Ming?' said the Archchancellor, on cue. 
The Bursar tapped the pot. It went ming. 
'And they spit lead balls at people, do they?' said Ridcully. 
'No, Master. He just used it to put the . . . the machinery in. Whatever it is. 
Whatever it's doing.' 
. . .whumm . . . 
'Hold on. It wobbled,' said the Dean . 
. . .whumm . . . whumm . . . 
The wizards stared at one another in sudden panic . . . 
'What's happening? What's happening?' said Windle Poons. 'Why won't anyone, mm, 
tell me what's happening?' 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
'Run!' suggested the Dean. 
'Which way?' quavered the Bursar. 
. . . whummWHUMM . . . 
'I'm an old man and I demand someone tell me what's-' 
Silence. 
'Duck!' shouted the Archchancellor. 
Plib. 
A splinter of stone was knocked off the pillar behind him. 
He raised his head. 'Bigods, that was a damn lucky es-' 
Plib. 
The second pellet knocked the tip off his hat. 
The wizards lay trembling on the flagstones for several minutes. After a while 
the Dean's muffled voice, 'Was that all, do you think?' 
The Archchancellor raised his head. His face, always red, was now incandescent. 
'Bursaar!' 
'Master?' 
'That's what I call shootin'!' 

Victor turned over. 
'Wzstf,' he said. 
'It's six aye-emm, rise and shine, Mr Dibbler says,' said Detritus, grasping the 
bedclothes in one hand and dragging them on to the floor. 
'Six o'clock? That's night-time!' groaned Victor. 
'It's going to be a long day, Mr Dibbler says,' said the troll. 'Mr Dibbler says 
you got to be on set by half past six. This is goin' to happen.' 
Victor pulled on his trousers. 
'I suppose I get to eat breakfast?' he said sarcastically. 'Mr Dibbler is havin' 
food laid on, Mr Dibbler says,' said Detritus. There was a wheezing noise from 
under the bed. Gaspode emerged, in a cloud of old-rugness, and had an early 
morning scratch. 
'Wha-' he began, and then saw the troll. 'Bark, bark,' he corrected himself. 
'Oh. A little dog. I like little dogs,' said Detritus. 
'Woof.' 
'Raw,' the troll added. But he couldn't get the right amount of statutory 
nastiness into his voice. Visions of Ruby in her feather boa and three acres of 
red velvet kept undulating across his mind. 
Gaspode scratched his ear vigorously. 
'Woof,' he said quietly. 'In tones of low menace,' he added, after Detritus had 
gone. 

The slope of the hill was already alive with people when Victor arrived. A 
couple of tents had been erected. Someone was holding a camel. Several cages of 
demons gibbered in the shade of a thorn tree. 
In the middle of all this were Dibbler and Silverfish, arguing. Dibbler had his 
arm around Silverfish's shoulder. 
'A dead giveaway, is that,' said a voice from the level of Victor's knees. 'It 
means some poor bugger is about to be taken to the cleaners.' 
'It'll be a step up for you, Tom!' Dibbler was saying. 'I mean, how many people 
in Holy Wood can call themselves Vice-President in Charge of Executive Affairs?' 

'Yes, but it's my company!' Silverfish wailed. 
'Right! Right!' said Dibbler. 'That's what a name like Vice-President of 
Executive Affairs means.' 
'It does?' 
'Have I ever lied to you?' 
Silverfish's brow furrowed. 'Well,' he said, 'yesterday you said-' 
'I mean metaphorically,' said Dibbler quickly. 
'Oh. Well. Metaphorically? I suppose not-' 
'There you are, then. Now, where's that artist?' Dibbler spun around, giving the 
impression that Silverfish had just been switched off. 
A man scurried up with a folder under his arm. 
'Yessir, Mr Dibbler?' 
Throat pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket. 
'I want the posters ready by tonight, understand?' he warned. 'Here. This is the 
name of the click.' 
'Shadowe of the Dessert,' the artist read. His brow furrowed. He had been 
educated beyond the needs of Holy Wood. 'It's about food?' he said. 
But Dibbler wasn't listening. He was advancing on Victor. 
'Victor!' he said. 'Baby!' 
'It's got him,' said Gaspode quietly. 'Got him worse than anyone, I reckon.' 
'What has? How can you tell?' Victor hissed. 
'Partly a'cos of subtle signs what you don't seem to be abler recognize,' said 
Gaspode, 'and partly because he's actin' like a complete twerp, really.' 
'Great to see you!' Dibbler enthused, his eyes glowing manically. 
He put his arm round Victor's shoulder and half walked, half dragged him towards 
the tents. 
'This is going to be a great picture!' he said. 
'Oh, good,' said Victor weakly. 
'You play this bandit chieftain,' said Dibbler, 'only a nice guy, too, kind to 
women and so forth, and you raid this village and you carry off this slave girl 
only when you look into her eyes, see, you fall for her, and then there's this 
raid and hundreds of men on elephants come charging-' 
'Camels,' said a skinny youth behind Dibbler. 'It's camels.' 
'I ordered elephants!' 
'You got camels.' 
'Camels, elephants,' said Dibbler dismissively. 'We're talking exotic here, OK? 
And-' 
'And we've only got one,' said the youth. 
'One what?' 
'Camel. We could only find one camel,' said the youth. 
'But I've got dozens of guys with bedsheets on their heads waiting for camels!' 
shouted Dibbler, waving his hands in the air. 'Lots of camels, right?' 
'We only got one camel 'cos there's only one camel in Holy Wood and that's only 
'cos a guy from Klatch rode all the way here on it,' said the youth. 
'You should have sent away for more!' snapped Dibbler. 
'Mr Silverfish said I wasn't to.' 
Dibbler growled. 
'Maybe if it moves around a lot it'll look like more than one camel,' said the 
youth optimistically. 
'Why not ride the camel past the picture box, and then get the handleman to stop 
the demons, and lead it back and put a different rider on it, then start up the 
box again and ride it past again?' said Victor. 'Would that work?' 
Dibbler looked at him open-mouthed. 
'What did I tell you?' he said, to the sky in general. 'The lad is a genius! 
That way we can get a hundred camels for the price of one, right?' 
'It means the desert bandits ride in single file, though,' said the youth. 'It's 
not like, you know, a massed attack.' 
'Sure, sure,' said Dibbler dismissively. 'Makes sense. We just put a card up 
where the leader says, he says-' He thought for a second. 'He says, "Follow me 
in single file, bwanas, to fool the hated enemy," OK?' 
He nodded at Victor. 'Have you met my nephew Soll?' he said. 'Keen lad. Been 
nearly to school and everything. Brought him out here yesterday. He's 
Vice-President in Charge of Making Pictures.' 
Soll and Victor exchanged nods. 
'I don't think "bwanas" is the right word, Uncle,' said Soll. 
'It's Klatchian, isn't it?' said Dibbler. 
'Well, technically, but I think it's the wrong part of Klatch and maybe 
"effendies" or something-' 
'Just so long as it's foreign,' said Dibbler with an air that suggested the 
matter was settled. He patted Victor on the back again. 'OK, kid, get into 
costume.' He chuckled. 'A hundred camels! What a mind!' 
'Excuse me, Mr Dibbler,' said the poster artist, who had been hovering uneasily, 
'I don't understand this bit here . . . ' 
Dibbler snatched the paper from him. 
'Which bit?' he snapped. 'Where you're describing Miss De Syn-' 
'It's obvious,' said Dibbler. 'What we want here is to conjure up the exotic, 
alluring yet distant romance of pyramid-studded Klatch, right, so nat'r'ly we 
gotta use the symbol of a mysterious and unscrutable continent, see? Do I have 
to explain everything to everyone all the time?' 
'It's just that I thought-' the artist began. 
'Just do it!' 
The artist looked down at the paper. ' "She has the face",' he read, ' "of a 
Spink." ' 
'Right,' said Dibbler. 'Right!' 
'I thought maybe Sphinx-' 
'Will you listen to the man?' said Dibbler, talking to the sky again. He glared 
at the artist. 'She doesn't look like two of them, does she? One Spink, two 
Spinks. Now get on with it. I want those posters all round the city first thing 
tomorrow.' 
The artist gave Victor an agonized look he was coming to recognize. Everyone 
around Dibbler wore them after a while. 
'Right you are, Mr Dibbler,' he said. 
'Right.' Dibbler turned to Victor. 
'Why aren't you changed?' he said. 
Victor ducked quickly into a tent. A little old lady[10] shaped like a cottage 
loaf helped him into a costume apparently made of sheets inexpertly dyed black, 
although given the current state of accommodation in Holy Wood they were 
probably just sheets taken off a bed at random. Then she handed him a curved 
sword. 
'Why's it bent?' he asked. 
'I think it's meant to be, dear,' she said doubtfully. 
'I thought swords had to be straight,' said Victor. Outside, he could hear 
Dibbler asking the sky why everyone was so stupid. 
'Perhaps they start out straight and go bendy with use,' said the old lady, 
patting him on the hand. 'A lot of things do.' 
She gave him a bright smile. 'If you're all right, dear, I'd better go and help 
the young lady, in case any little dwarfs is peering in at her.' 
She waddled out of the tent. From the tent next door came a metallic chinking 
noise and the sound of Ginger's voice raised in complaint. 
Victor made a few experimental slashes with the sword. 
Gaspode watched him with his head on one side. 
'What're you supposed to be?' he said at last. 
'A leader of a pack of desert bandits, apparently,' said Victor. 'Romantic and 
dashing.' 
'Dashing where?' 
'Just dashing generally, I guess. Gaspode, what did you mean when you said it's 
got Dibbler?' 
The dog gnawed at a paw. 
'Look at his eyes,' he said. 'They're even worse than yours.' 
'Mine? What's wrong with mine?' 
Detritus the troll stuck his head through the tent flaps. 'Mr Dibbler says he 
wants you now,' he said. 
'Eyes?' said Victor. 'Something about my eyes?' 
'Woof.' 
'Mr Dibbler says-' Detritus began. 
'All right, all right! I'm coming!' 
Victor stepped out of his tent at the same time as Ginger stepped out of hers. 
He shut his eyes. 
'Gosh, I'm sorry,' he babbled. 'I'll go back and wait for you to get dressed . . 
. ' 
'I am dressed.' 
'Mr Dibbler says-' said Detritus, behind them. 
'Come on,' said Ginger, grabbing his arm. 'We mustn't keep everyone waiting.' 
'But you're . . . your . . . ' Victor looked down, which wasn't a help. 'You've 
got a navel in your diamond,' he hazarded. 
'I've come to terms with that,' said Ginger, flexing her shoulders in an effort 
to make everything settle. 'It's these two saucepan lids that are giving me 
problems. Makes you realize what those poor girls in the harems must suffer.' 
'And you don't mind people seeing you like that?' said Victor, amazed. 
'Why should I? This is moving pictures. It's not as if it's real. Anyway, you'd 
be amazed at what girls have to do for a lot less than ten dollars a day.' 
'Nine,' said Gaspode, who was still trailing at Victor's heels. 
'Right, gather round, people,' shouted Dibbler through a 
megaphone. 'Sons of the Desert over there, please. The slave 
girls - where are the slave girls? Right. Handlemen?-' 
'I've never seen so many people in a click,' Ginger whispered. 'It must be 
costing more than a hundred dollars!' 
Victor eyed the Sons of the Desert. It looked as though Dibbler had dropped in 
at Borgle's and hired the twenty people nearest the door, irrespective of their 
appropriateness, and had given them each Dibbler's idea of a desert bandit 
headdress. There were trollish Sons of the Desert Rock recognized him, and gave 
him a little wave - dwarf Sons of the Desert and, shuffling into the end of the 
line, a small, hairy and furiously-scratching Son in a headdress that reached 
down to his paws. 
' . . . grab her, become entranced by her beauty, and then throw her over your 
pommel.' Dibbler's voice intruded into his consciousness. 
Victor desperately re-ran the half-heard instructions past his mind. 
'My what?' he said. 
'It's part of your saddle,' Ginger hissed. 
'Oh.' 
'And then you ride into the night, with all the Sons following you and singing 
rousing desert bandit songs-' 
'No-one'll hear them,' said Soll helpfully. 'But if they open and shut their 
mouths it'll help create a, you know, amby-ance.' 
'But it isn't night,' said Ginger. 'It's broad daylight.' 
Dibbler stared at her. 
His mouth opened once or twice. 
'Soll!' he shouted. 
'We can't film at night, Uncle,' said the nephew hurriedly. 'The demons wouldn't 
be able to see. I don't see why we can't put up a card saying "Night-time" at 
the start of the scene, so that-' 
'That's not the magic of moving pictures!' snapped Dibbler. 'That's just messing 
about!' 
'Excuse me,' said Victor. 'Excuse me, but surely it doesn't matter, because 
surely the demons can paint the sky black with stars on it?' 
There was a moment's silence. Then Dibbler looked- at Gaffer. 
'Can they?' he said. 
'Nah,' said the handleman. 'It's bloody. hard enough to make sure they paint 
what they do see, never mind what they don't.' 
Dibbler rubbed his nose. 
'I might be prepared to negotiate,' he said. 
The handleman shrugged. 'You don't understand, Mr Dibbler. What'd they want 
money for? They'd only eat it. We start telling them to paint what isn't there, 
we're into all sorts of-' 
'Perhaps it's just a very bright full moon?' said Ginger. 
'That's good thinking,' said Dibbler. 'We'll do a card where Victor says to 
Ginger something like: "How bright the moon is tonight, bwana".' 
'Something like that,' said Soll diplomatically. 

It was noon. Holy Wood Hill glistened under the sun, like a champagne-flavoured 
wine gum that had been half-sucked. The handlemen turned their handles, the 
extras charged enthusiastically backwards and forwards, Dibbler raged at 
everyone, and cinematographic history was made with a shot of three dwarfs, four 
men, two trolls and a dog all riding one camel and screaming in terror for it to 
stop. 
Victor was introduced to the camel. It blinked its long eyelashes at him and 
appeared to chew soap. It was kneeling down and it looked like a camel that had 
had a long morning and wasn't about to take any shit from anyone. So far it had 
kicked three people. 
'What's it called?' he said cautiously. 
'We call it Evil-Minded Son of a Bitch,' said the newly-appointed Vice-President 
in Charge of Camels. 
'That doesn't sound like a name.' 
' 'S a good name for this camel,' said the handler fervently. 
'There's nothin' wrong with bein' a son of a bitch,' said a voice behind him. 
'I'm a son of a bitch. My father was a son of a bitch, you greasy 
nightshirt-wearin' bastard.' 
The handler grinned nervously at Victor and turned around. There was no-one 
behind him. He looked down. 
'Woof,' said Gaspode, and wagged what was almost a tail. 
'Did you just hear someone say something?' said the handler carefully. 
'No,' said Victor. He leaned close to one of the camel's ears and whispered, in 
case it was a special Holy Wood camel: 'Look, I'm a friend, OK?' 
Evil-Minded Son of a Bitch flicked a carpet-thick ear.[11] 
'How do you ride it?' he said. 
'When you want to go forward you swear at it and hit it with a stick, and when 
you want to stop you swear at it and really hit it with a stick.' 
'What happens if you want it to turn?' 
'Ah, well, you're on to the Advanced Manual there. Best thing to do is get off 
and do it round by hand.' 
'When you're ready!' Dibbler bellowed through his megaphone. 'Now, you ride up 
to the tent, leap off the camel, fight the huge eunuchs, burst into the tent, 
drag the girl out, get back on the camel and away. Got it? Think you ran do 
that?' 
'What huge eunuchs?' said Victor, as the camel unfolded itself upwards. 
One of the huge eunuchs shyly raised a hand. 
'It's me. Morry,' it said. 
'Oh. Hi, Morry.' 
'Hi, Vic., 
'And me, Rock,' said a second huge eunuch. 
'Hi, Rock.' 
'Hi, Vic.' 
'Places, everyone,' said Dibbler. 'We'll - what is it, Rock?' 
'Er, I was just wondering, Mr Dibbler . . . what is my motivation for this 
scene?' 
'Motivation?' 
'Yes. Er. I got to know, see,' said Rock. 
'How about: I'll fire you if you don't do it properly?' 
Rock grinned. 'Right you are, Mr Dibbler,' he said. 
'OK,' said Dibbler. 'Everyone ready . . . turn 'em!' 

Evil-minded Son of a Bitch turned awkwardly, legs flailing at odd camel angles, 
and then lumbered into a complicated trot. The handle turned . . . 
The air glittered. 
And Victor awoke. It was like rising slowly out of a pink cloud, or a 
magnificent dream which, try as you might, drains out of your mind as the 
daylight shuffles in, leaving a terrible sense of loss; nothing, you know 
instinctively, nothing you're going to experience for the rest of the day is 
going to be one half as good as that dream. 
He blinked. The images faded away. He was aware of 
an ache in his muscles, as if he'd recently been really exerting himself. 
'What happened?' he mumbled. 
He looked down. 
'Wow,' he said. An expanse of barely-clad buttock occupied a view recently 
occupied by the camel's neck. It was an improvement. 
'Why', said Ginger icily, 'am I lying on a camel?' 
'Search me. Didn't you want to?' 
She slid down on to the sand and tried to adjust her costume. 
At this point they both became aware of the audience. 
There was Dibbler. There was Dibbler's nephew. There was the handleman. There 
were the extras. There were the assorted vicepresidents and other people who are 
apparently called into existence by the mere presence of moving-picture 
creation.[12] There was Gaspode the Wonder Dog. 
And every one, except for the dog, who was sniggering, had his mouth open. 
The handleman's hand was still turning the handle. He looked down at it as if 
its presence was new to him, and stopped. 
Dibbler seemed to come out of whatever trance he was in. 
'Whoo-hoo,' he said: 'Blimey.' 
'Magic,' breathed Soll. 'Real magic.' 
Dibbler nudged the handleman. 
'Did you get all that?' he said. 
'Get what?' said Ginger and Victor together. 
Then Victor noticed Morry sitting on the sand. There was a sizeable chip out of 
his arm; Rock was trowelling something into it. The troll noticed Victor's 
expression and gave him a sickly grin. 
'Fink you're Cohen the Barbarian, do you?' he said. 
'Yeah,' said Rock. 'There was no call to go callin' him wot you called him. An' 
if you're going to go doin' fancy swordwork, we're applyin' for an extra dollar 
a day Havin'-Bits-Chopped-Off allowance.' 
Victor's sword had several nicks on the blade. For the life of him, he couldn't 
imagine how they had got there. 
'Look,' he said desperately. 'I don't understand. I didn't call anyone anything. 
Have we started filming yet?' 
'One minute I'm sitting in a tent, next minute I'm breathing camel,' said Ginger 
petulantly. 'Is it too much to ask what is going on?' 
But no-one seemed to be listening to them. 
'Why can't we find a way of getting sound?' said Dibbler. 'That was damn good 
dialogue there. Didn't understand a word of it, but I know good dialogue when I 
hear it.' 
'Parrots,' said the handleman flatly. 'Your common Howondaland Green. Amazing 
bird. Memory like an elephant. Get a couple of dozen in different sizes and 
you've got a full vocal-' 
That launched a detailed technical discussion. 
Victor let himself slide off the camel's back and ducked under its neck to reach 
Ginger. 
'Listen,' he said urgently. 'It was just like last time. Only stronger. Like a 
sort of dream. The handleman started to take pictures and it was just like a 
dream.' 
'Yes, but what did we actually do?' she said. 
'What you did,' said Rock, 'was gallop the camel up to the tent, leap off, come 
at us like a windmill-' 
'-leapin' on rocks and laughin'-'said Morry. 
'Yeah, you said to Morry, "Have at you, you Foul Black Guard," ' said Rock. 'And 
then you caught him a right ding on the arm, cut a hole in the tent-' 
'Good sword work, though,' said Morry appraisingly. 'A bit showy, but pretty 
good.' 
'But I don't know how to-' Victor began. 
'-and she was lying there all longgrass,' said Rock. 'An' you swept her up, and 
she said-' 
'Long grass?' said Ginger weakly. 
'Languorous,' said Victor. 'I think he means languorous.' 
'-she said, "Why, it is the Thief of : . . the Thief of . . . " ' Rock 
hesitated. 'Dad's Bag, I think you said.' 
'Bagged Dad,' said Morry, rubbing his arm. 
'Yeah, an' then she said, "You are in great danger, for my father has sworn to 
kill you", and Victor said "But now, o fairest rose, I can reveal that I am 
really the Shadow of the Dessert-" ' 
'What's languorous mean?' said Ginger suspiciously. 
'An' he said, "Fly with me now to the casbah", or something like that, an' then 
he gave her this, this, thing humans do with their lips-' 
'Whistle?' said Victor, with hopeless hope. 
'Nah, the other thing. Sounds like a cork coming out of a bottle,' said Rock. 
'Kiss,' said Ginger, coldly. 
'Yeah. Not that I'm any judge,' said Rock, 'but it seemed to go on for a while. 
Definitely very, you know, kissy.' 
'I thought it was going to be bucket-of-water time myself,' said a quiet canine 
voice behind Victor. He kicked out backwards, but failed to connect. 
'And then he was back on the camel and dragged her up and Mr Dibbler shouted 
"Stop, stop, what the hell's going on, why won't anyone tell me what the hell's 
going on," ' said Rock. 'And then you said "What happened?" ' 
'Don't know when I last saw swordplay like that,' said Morry. 
'Oh,' said Victor. 'Well. Thank you.' 
'All that shouting "Ha!" and "Have at you, you dog". Very professional,' said 
Morry. 
'I see,' said Victor. He reached sideways and grabbed Ginger's arm. 
'We've got to talk,' he hissed. 'Somewhere quiet. Behind the tent.' 
'If you think I'm going anywhere alone with you-'she began. 
'Listen, this is no time to start acting like-' 
A heavy hand settled on Victor's shoulder. He turned, and saw the shape of 
Detritus eclipsing the world. 
'Mr Dibbler doesn't want anyone running off,' he said. 'Everyone has to stay 
until Mr Dibbler says.' 
'You're a real pain, you know,' said Victor. Detritus gave him a big, 
gem-studded grin. [13] 
'Mr Dibbler says I can be a vice-president,' he said proudly. 
'In charge of what?' said Victor. 
'Vice-presidents,' said Detritus. 
Gaspode the Wonder Dog made a little growling sound at the back of his throat. 
The camel, which had been idly staring at the sky, sidled around a bit and 
suddenly lashed out with a kick that caught the troll in the small of the back. 
Detritus yelped. Gaspode gave the world a look of satisfied innocence. 
'Come on,' said Victor grimly. 'While he's trying to find something to hit the 
camel with.' 
They sat down in the shade behind the tent. 
'I just want you to know', said Ginger coldly, 'that I have never attempted to 
look languorous in my life.' 
'Could be worth a try,' said Victor, absently. 
'What?' 
'Sorry. Look, something made us act like that. I don't know how to use a sword. 
I've always just waved it around. What did you feel like?' 
'You know how you feel when you hear someone say something and you realize 
you've been daydreaming?' 
'It was like your own life fading away and something else filling up the space.' 

They considered this in silence. 
'Do you think it's something to do with Holy Wood?' she said. 
Victor nodded. Then he threw himself sideways and landed on Gaspode, who had 
been watching them intently. 
'Yelp,' said Gaspode. 
'Now listen,' Victor hissed into his ear, 'No more of these hints. What is it 
that you noticed about us? Otherwise it's Detritus for you. With mustard.' 
The dog squirmed in his grip. 
'Or we could make you wear a muzzle,' said Ginger. 
'I ain't dangerous!' wailed Gaspode, scrabbling with his paws in the sand. 
'A talking dog sounds pretty dangerous to me,' said Victor. 
'Dreadfully,' said Ginger. 'You never know what it might say.' 
'See? See?' said Gaspode mournfully. 'I knew it'd be nothing but trouble, 
showin' I can talk. It shouldn't happen to a dog.' 
'But it's going to,' said Victor. 
'Oh, all right. All right. For what good it'll do,' muttered Gaspode. 
Victor relaxed. The dog sat up and shook sand off himself. 
'You won't understand it, anyway,' he grumbled. 'Another dog would understand, 
but you won't. It's down to species experience, see. Like kissing. You know what 
it's like, but I don't. It's not a canine experience.' He noticed the warning 
look in Victor's eyes, and plunged on, 'It's' the way you look as if you belong 
here.' He watched them for a moment. 'See? See?' he said. 'I tole you you 
wouldn't understand. It's - it's territory, see? You got all the signs of bein' 
right where you should be. Nearly everyone else here is a stranger, but you 
aren't. Er. Like, you mus' have noticed where some dogs bark at you when you're 
new to a place? It's not jus' smell, we got this amazin' sense of displacement. 
Like, some humans get uncomfortable when they see a picture hung crooked? It's 
like that, only worse. It's kind of like the only place you ought to be now is 
here.' He looked at them again, and then industriously scratched an ear. 
'What the hell,' he said. 'The trouble is, I can explain it in Dog but you only 
listen in Human.' 
'It sounds a bit mystical to me,' said Ginger. 
'You said something about my eyes,' said Victor. 
'Yeah, well. Have you looked at your own eyes?' Gaspode nodded at Ginger. 'You 
too, miss.' 
'Don't be daft,' said Victor. 'How can we look at our own eyes?' 
Gaspode shrugged. 'You could look at each other's,' he suggested. 
They automatically turned to face each other. 
There was a long drawn-out moment. Gaspode employed it to urinate noisily 
against a tent peg. 
Eventually Victor said, 'Wow.' 
Ginger said, 'Mine, too?' 
'Yes. Doesn't it hurt?' 
'You should know.' 
'There you are, then,' said Gaspode. 'And you look at Dibbler next time you see 
him. Really look, I mean.' 
Victor rubbed his eyes, which were beginning to water. 'It's as though Holy Wood 
has called us here, is doing something to us and has, has-' 
'-branded us,' said Ginger bitterly. 'That's what it's done.' 
'It, er, it does look quite attractive, actually,' said Victor gallantly. 'Gives 
them a sort of sparkle.' 
A shadow fell across the sand. 
'Ah, there you are,' said Dibbler. He put his arms around their shoulders as 
they stood up, and gave them a sort of hug. 'You young people, always going off 
alone together,' he said archly. 'Great business. Great business. Very romantic. 
But we've got a click to make, and I've got lots of people standing around 
waiting for you, so let's do it.' 
'See what I mean?' muttered Gaspode, very quietly. 
When you knew what you were looking for, you couldn't miss it. 
In the centre of both of Dibbler's eyes was a tiny golden star. 

In the heartlands of the great dark continent of Klatch the air was heavy and 
pregnant with the promise of the coming monsoon. 
Bullfrogs croaked in the rushes[14] by the slow brown river. Crocodiles dozed on 
the mudflats. 
Nature was holding its breath. 
A cooing broke out in the pigeon loft of Azhural N'choate, stock dealer. He 
stopped dozing on the veranda, and went over to see what had caused the 
excitement. 
In the vast pens behind the shack a few threadbare bewilderbeests, marked down 
for a quick sale, yawning and cudding in the heat, looked up in alarm as 
N'choate leapt the veranda steps in one bound and tore towards them. 
He rounded the zebra pens and homed in on his assistant M'Bu, who was peacefully 
mucking out the ostriches. 
'How many-' he stopped, and began to wheeze. 
M'Bu, who was twelve years old, dropped his shovel and patted him heavily on the 
back. 
'How many-' he tried again. 
'You been overdoing it again, boss?' said M'Bu in a concerned voice. 
'How many elephants we got?' 
'I just done them,' said M'Bu. 'We got three.' 
'Are you sure?' 
'Yes, boss,' said M'Bu, evenly. 'It's easy to be sure, with elephants.' 
Azhural crouched in the red dust and hurriedly began to scrawl figures with a 
stick. 
'Old Muluccai's bound to have half a dozen,' he muttered. 'And Tazikel's usually 
got twenty or so, and then the people on the delta generally have-' 
'Someone want elephants, boss?' 
'-got fifteen head, he was telling me, plus also there's a load at the logging 
camp probably going cheap, call it two dozen-' 
'Someone want a lot of elephants, boss?' 
'-was saying there's a herd over T'etse way, shouldn't be a problem, then 
there's all the valleys over towards-' 
M'Bu leaned on the fence and waited. 
'Maybe two hundred, give or take ten,' said Azhural, throwing down the stick. 
'Nowhere near enough.' 
'You can't give or take ten elephants, boss,' said M'Bu firmly. He knew that 
counting elephants was a precision job. A man might be uncertain about how many 
wives he had, but never about elephants. Either you had one, or you didn't. 
'Our agent in Klatch has an order for', Azhural swallowed, 'a thousand 
elephants. A thousand! Immediately! Cash on delivery!' 
Azhural let the paper drop to the ground. 'To a place called Ankh-Morpork,' he 
said despondently. He sighed. 'It would have been nice,' he said. 
M'Bu scratched his head and stared at the hammerhead clouds massing over Mt 
F'twangi. Soon the dry veldt would boom to the thunder of the rains. 
Then he reached down and picked up the stick. 
'What're you doing?' said Azhural. 
'Drawing a map, boss,' said M'Bu. 
Azhural shook his head. 'Not worth it, boy. Three thousand miles to Ankh, I 
reckon, I let myself get carried away. Too many miles, not enough elephants.' 
'We could go across the plains, boss,' said M'Bu. 'Lot of elephants on the 
plains. Send messengers ahead. We could pick up plenty more elephants on the 
way, no problem. That whole plain just about covered in damn elephants.' 
'No, we'd have to go around on the coast,' said the dealer, drawing a long 
curving line in the sand. 'The reason being, there's the jungle just here,' he 
tapped on the parched ground, 'and here,' he tapped again, slightly concussing 
an emerging locust that had optimistically mistaken the first tap for the onset 
of the rains. 'No roads in the jungle.' 
M'Bu took the stick and drew a straight line through the jungle. 
'Where a thousand elephants want to go, boss, they don't need no roads.' 
Azhural considered this. Then he took the stick and drew a jagged line by the 
jungle. 
'But here's the Mountains of the Sun,' he said. 'Very high. Lots of deep 
ravines. And no bridges.' 
M'Bu took the stick, indicated the jungle, and grinned. 
'I know where there's a lot of prime timber just been uprooted, boss,' he said. 
'Yeah? OK, boy, but we've still got to get it into the mountains.' 
'It just so happen that a t'ousand real strong elephants'll be goin' that way, 
boss.' 
M'Bu grinned again. His tribe went in for sharpening their teeth to points.[15] 
He handed back the stick. 
Azhural's mouth opened slowly. 
'By the seven moons of Nasreem,' he breathed. 'We could do it, you know. It's 
only, oh, thirteen or fourteen hundred miles that way. Maybe less, even. Yeah. 
We could really do it.' 
'Yes, boss.' 
'Y'know, I've always wanted to do something big with my life. Something real,' 
said Azhural. 'I mean, an ostrich here, a giraffe there . . . it's not the sort 
of thing you get remembered for . . . ' He stared at the purple-grey horizon. 
'We could do it, couldn't we?' he said. 
'Sure, boss.' 
'Right over the mountains!' 
'Sure, boss.' 
If you looked really hard, you could just see that the purple-grey was topped 
with white. 
'They're pretty high mountains,' said Azhural, his voice now edged with doubt. 
'Slope go up, slope go down,' said M'Bu gnomically. 
'That's true,' said Azhural. 'Like, on average, it's flat all the way.' 
He gazed at the mountains again. 
'A thousand elephants,' he muttered. 'D'you know, boy, when they built the Tomb 
of King Leonid of Ephebe they used a hundred elephants to cart the stone? And 
two hundred elephants, history tells us, were employed in the building of the 
palace of the Rhoxie in Klatch city.' 
Thunder rumbled in the distance. 
'A thousand elephants,' Azhural repeated. 'A thousand elephants. I wonder what 
they want them for?' 

The rest of the day passed in a trance for Victor. 
There was more galloping and fighting, and more rearranging of time. Victor 
still found that hard to understand. Apparently the film could be cut up and 
then stuck together again later, so that things happened in the right order. And 
some things didn't have to happen at all. He saw the artist draw one card which 
said 'In thee Kinges' Palace, One Houre Latre.' 
One hour of Time had been vanished, just like that. Of course, he knew that it 
hadn't really been surgically removed from his life. It was the sort of thing 
that happened all the time in books. And on the stage, too. He'd seen a group of 
strolling players once, and the performance had leapt magically from 'A 
Battlefield in Tsort' to 'The Ephebian Fortresse, That Nighte' with no more than 
a brief descent of the sackcloth curtain and a lot of muffled bumping and 
cursing as the scenery was changed. 
But this was different. Ten minutes after doing a scene, you'd do another scene 
that was taking place the day before, somewhere else, because Dibbler had rented 
the tents for both scenes and didn't want to have to pay any more rent than 
necessary. You just had to try and forget about everything but Now, and that was 
hard when you were also waiting every moment for that fading sensation . . . 
It didn't come. Just after another half-hearted fight scene Dibbler announced 
that it was all finished. 
'Aren't we going to do the ending?' said Ginger. 
'You did that this morning,' said Soll. 
'Oh.' 
There was a chattering noise as the demons were let out of their box and sat 
swinging their little legs on the edge of the lid and passing a tiny cigarette 
from hand to hand. The extras queued up for their wages. The camel kicked the 
Vice-President in Charge of Camels. The handlemen wound the great reels of film 
out of the boxes and went away to whatever arcane cutting and gluing the 
handlemen got up to in the hours of darkness. Mrs Cosmopilite, Vice-President in 
Charge of Wardrobe, gathered up the costumes and toddled off, possibly to put 
them back on the beds. 
A few acres of scrubby backlot stopped being the rolling dunes of the Great Nef 
and went back to being scrubby backlot again. Victor felt that much the same 
thing was happening to him. 
In ones and twos, the makers of moving-picture magic departed, laughing and 
joking and arranging to meet at Borgle's later on. 
Ginger and Victor were left alone in a widening circle of emptiness. 
'I felt like this the first time the circus went away,' said Ginger. 
'Mr Dibbler said we were going to do another one tomorrow,' said Victor. 'I'm 
sure he just makes them up as he goes along. Still, we got ten dollars each. 
Minus what we owe Gaspode,' he added conscientiously. He grinned foolishly at 
her. 'Cheer up,' he said. 'You're doing what you've always wanted to do.' 
'Don't be stupid. I didn't even know about moving pictures a couple of months 
ago. There weren't any.' 
They strolled aimlessly towards the town. 
'What did you want to be?' he ventured. 
She shrugged. 'I didn't know. I just knew I didn't want to be a milkmaid.' 
There had been milkmaids at home. Victor tried to recollect anything about them. 
'It always looked quite an interesting job to me, milkmaiding,' he said vaguely. 
'Buttercups, you know. And fresh air.' 
'It's cold and wet and just as you've finished the bloody cow kicks the bucket 
over. Don't tell me about milking. Or being a shepherdess. Or a goosegirl. I 
really hated our farm.' 
'Oh.' 
'And they expected me to marry my cousin when I was fifteen.' 
'Is that allowed?' 
'Oh, yes. Everyone marries their cousins where I come from.' 
'Why?' said Victor. 
'I suppose it saves having to worry about what to do on Saturday nights.' 
'Oh.' 
'Didn't you want to be anything?' said Ginger, putting a whole sentence-worth of 
disdain in a mere three letters. 
'Not really,' said Victor. 'Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then 
you find it's just another job. I bet even people like Cohen the Barbarian get 
up in the morning thinking, "Oh, no, not another day of crushing the jewelled 
thrones of the world beneath my sandalled feet."' 
'Is that what he does?' said Ginger, interested despite herself. 
'According to the stories, yes.' 
'Why?' 
'Search me. It's just a job, I guess.' 
Ginger picked up a handful of sand. There were tiny white shells in it, which 
stayed behind as it trickled away between her fingers. 
'I remember when the circus came to our village,' she said. 'I was ten. There 
was this girl with spangled tights. She walked a tightrope. She could even do 
somersaults on it. Everybody cheered and clapped. They wouldn't let me climb a 
tree, but they cheered her. That's when I decided.' 
'Ah,' said Victor, trying to keep up with the psychology of this. 'You decided 
you wanted to be someone?' 
'Don't be silly. That's when I decided I was going to be a lot more than just 
someone.' 
She threw the shells towards the sunset and laughed. 'I'm going to be the most 
famous person in the world, everyone will fall in love with me, and I shall live 
forever.' 
'It's always best to know your own mind,' said Victor diplomatically. 
'You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?' said Ginger, not 
paying him the least attention. 'It's all the people who never find out what it 
is they really want to do or what it is they're really good at. It's all the 
sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It's all the 
people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without 
ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad ploughmen instead. It's all 
the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born 
in a time when it's even possible to find out.' 
She took a deep breath. 'It's all the people who never get to know what it is 
they can really be. It's all the wasted chances. Well, Holy Wood is my chance, 
do you understand? This is my time for getting!' 
Victor nodded. 'Yes,' he said. Magic for ordinary people, Silverfish had called 
it. A man turned a handle, and your life got changed. 
'And not just for me,' Ginger went on. 'It's a chance for all of us. The people 
who aren't wizards and kings and heroes. Holy Wood's like a big bubbling stew 
but this time different ingredients float to the top. Suddenly there's all these 
new things for people to do. Do you know the theatres don't allow women to act? 
But Holy Wood does. And in Holy Wood there's jobs for trolls that don't just 
involve hitting people. And what did the handlemen do before they had handles to 
turn?' 
She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Ankh-Morpork's distant glow. 
'Now they're trying to find ways of adding sound to moving pictures,' she said, 
'and out there are people who'll turn out to be amazingly good at making, making 
. . . making soundies. They don't even know it yet - but they're out there. I 
can feel them. They're out there.' 
Her eyes were glowing gold. It might just be the sunset, Victor thought, but . . 
. 
'Because of Holy Wood, hundreds of people are finding out what it is they really 
want to be,' said Ginger. 'And thousands and thousands are getting a chance to 
forget themselves for an hour or so. This whole damn world is being given a 
shake!' 
'That's it,' said Victor. 'That's what worries me. It's as though we're being 
slotted in. You think we're using Holy Wood, but Holy Wood is using us. All of 
us.' 'How? Why?' 'I don't know, but-' 
'Look at wizards,' Ginger went on, vibrating with indignation. 'What good has 
their magic ever done anyone?' 
'I think it sort of holds the world together-' Victor began. 
'They're pretty good at magic flames and things, but can they make a loaf of 
bread?' Ginger wasn't in the mood for listening to anyone. 'Not for very long,' 
said Victor helplessly. 'What does that mean?' 
'Something real like a loaf of bread contains a lot of . . . well . . . I 
suppose you'd call it energy,' said Victor. 'It takes a massive amount of power 
to create that amount of energy. You'd have to be a pretty good wizard to make a 
loaf that'd last in this world for more than a tiny part of a second. But that's 
not what magic is really about, you see,' he added quickly, 'because this world 
is-' 
'Who cares?' said Ginger. 'Holy Wood's really doing things for ordinary people. 
Silver screen magic.' 'What's come over you? Last night-' 
'That was then,' said Ginger impatiently. 'Don't you see? We could be going 
somewhere. We could be becoming someone. Because of Holy Wood. The world is 
our-' 
'Lobster,' said Victor. 
She waved a hand irritably. 'Any shellfish you like,' she said. 'I was thinking 
of oysters, actually.' 'Were you? I was thinking of lobsters.' 

'Bursaar!' 
I shouldn't have to run around like this at my age, thought the Bursar, 
scurrying down the corridor in answer to the Archchancellor's bellow. Why's he 
so interested in the damn thing, anyway? Wretched pot! 'Coming, Master,' he 
trilled. 
The Archchancellor's desk was covered with ancient documents. 
When a wizard died, all his papers were stored in one of the outlying reaches of 
the Library. Shelf after shelf of quietly mouldering documents, the haunt of 
mysterious beetles and dry rot, stretched away into an unguessable distance. 
Eyeryone kept telling everyone that there was a wealth of material here for 
researchers, if only someone could find the time to do it. 
The Bursar was annoyed. He couldn't find the Librarian anywhere. The ape never 
seemed to be around these days. He'd had to scrabble among the stuff himself. 
'I think this is the last, Archchancellor,' he said, tipping an avalanche of 
dusty paperwork on to the desk. Ridcully flailed at a cloud of moths. 
'Paper, paper, paper,' he muttered. 'How many damn bits of paper in his stuff, 
eh?' 
'Er . . . 23,813, Archchancellor,' said the Bursar. 'He kept a record.' 
'Look at this,' said the Archchancellor. ' "Star Enumerator" . . . "Rev Counter 
for Use in Ecclesiastical Areas" . . . "Swamp Meter" . . . Swamp meter! The man 
was mad!' 
'He had a very tidy mind,' said the Bursar. 
'Same thing.' 
'Is it, er, really important, Archchancellor?' the Bursar ventured. 'Damn thing 
shot pellets at me,' said Ridcully. 
'Twice!' 
'I'm sure it wasn't, er, intended-' 
'I want to see how it was made, man! Just think of the sportin' possibilities!' 
The Bursar tried to think of the possibilities. 
'I'm sure Riktor didn't intend to make any kind of offensive device,' 
he'ventured, hopelessly. 
'Who gives a damn what he intended? Where is the thing now?' 
'I had a couple of servants put sandbags around it.' 
'Good idea. It's-' 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
It was a muffled sound from the corridor. The two wizards exchanged a meaningful 
glance . 
. . . whumm . . . whummWHUMM. 
The Bursar held his breath. 
Plib. 
Plib.. 
Plib. 
The Archchancellor peered at the hourglass on the mantelpiece. 'It's doin' it 
every five minutes now,' he said. 
'And it's up to three shots,' said the Bursar. 'I'll have to order some more 
sandbags.' 
He flicked through a heap of paper. A word caught his eye. 
Reality. 
He glanced at the handwriting that flowed across the page. It had a very small, 
cramped, deliberate look. Someone had told him that this was because Numbers 
Riktor had been an anal retentive. The Bursar didn't know what that meant, and 
hoped never to find out. 
Another word was: Measurement. His gaze drifted upwards, and took in the 
underlined title: Some Notes on the Objective Measurement of Reality. 
Over the page was a diagram. The Bursar stared at it. 
'Found anything?' said the Archchancellor, without looking up. 
The Bursar shoved the paper up the sleeve of his robe. 
'Nothing important,' he said. Down below, the surf boomed on the beach. ( . . . 
and below the surface, the lobsters walked backwards along the deep, drowned 
streets . . . ) 
Victor threw another piece of driftwood on to the fire. It burned blue with 
salt. 
'I don't understand her,' he said. 'Yesterday she was quite normal, today it's 
all gone to her head.' 
'Bitches!' said Gaspode, sympathetically. 
'Oh, I wouldn't go that far,' said Victor. 'She's just aloof.' 
'Loofs!' said Gaspode. 
'That's what intelligence does for your sex life,' said Don't-call-me-Mr-Thumpy. 
'Rabbits never have that sort of trouble. Go, Sow, Thank You Doe.' 
'You could try offering her a moushe,' said the cat. 'Preshent company 
exchepted, of course,' it added guiltily, trying to avoid 
Definitely-Not-Squeak's glare. 
'Being intelligent hasn't done my social life any favours, either,' said Mr 
Thumpy bitterly. 'A week ago, no prob lems. Now suddenly I want to make 
conversation, and all they do is sit there wrinklin' their noses at you. You 
feel a right idiot.' 
There was a strangulated quacking. 
'The duck says, have you done anything about the book?' said Gaspode. 
'I had a look at it when we broke for lunch,' said Victor. 
There was another irritable quack. 
'The duck says, yes, but what have you done about it?' said Gaspode. 
'Look, I can't go all the way to Ankh-Morpork just like that,' snapped Victor. 
'It takes hours! We film all day as it is!' 
'Ask for a day off,' said Mr Thumpy. 
'No-one asks for a day off in Holy Wood!' said Victor. 'I've been fired once, 
thank you.' 
'And he took you on again at more money,' said Gaspode. 'Funny, that.' He 
scratched an ear. 'Tell him your contract says you can have a day off.' 
'I haven't got a contract. You know that. You work, you get paid. It's simple.' 
'Yeah,' said Gaspode. 'Yeah. Yeah? A verbal contract. It's simple. I like it.' 

Towards the end of the night Detritus the troll lurked awkwardly in the shadows 
by the back door of the Blue Lias. Strange passions had wracked his body all 
day. Every time he'd shut his eyes he kept seeing a figure shaped like a small 
hillock. He had to face up to it. Detritus was in love. 
Yes, he'd spent many years in Ankh-Morpork hitting people for money. Yes, it had 
been a friendless, brutalizing life. And a lonely one, too. He'd been resigned 
to an old-age of bitter bachelorhood and suddenly, now, Holy Wood was handing 
him a chance he'd never dreamed of. 
He'd been strictly brought up and he could dimly remember the lecture he'd been 
given by his father when he was a young troll. If you saw a girl you liked, you 
didn't just rush at her. There were proper ways to go about things. 
He'd gone down to the beach and found a rock. But not any old rock. He'd 
searched carefully, and found a large sea-smoothed one with veins of pink and 
white quartz. Girls liked that sort of thing. Now he waited, shyly, for her to 
finish work. 
He tried to think of what he would say. No-one had ever told him what to say. It 
wasn't as if he was a smart troll like Rock or Morry, who had a way with words. 
Basically, he'd never needed much of what you might call a vocabulary. He kicked 
despondently at the sand. What chance did he have with a smart lady like her? 
There was a thump of heavy feet, and the door opened. The object of desire 
stepped out into the night and took a deep breath, which had the same effect on 
Detritus as an ice cube down the neck. He gave his rock a panicky look. It 
didn't seem anything like big enough now, when you saw the size of her. But 
maybe it was what you did with it that mattered. 
Well, this was it. They said you never forgot your first time . . . 
He wound up his arm with the rock in it and hit her squarely between the eyes. 
That's when it all started to go wrong. 
Tradition said that the girl, when she was able to focus again, and if the rock 
was of an acceptable standard, should immediately be amenable to whatever the 
troll suggested, i.e., a candle-lit human for two, although of course that sort 
of thing wasn't done any more now, at least if there was any chance of being 
caught. 
She shouldn't narrow her eyes and catch him a ding across the ear that made his 
eyeballs rattle. 
'You stupid troll!' she shouted, as Detritus staggered around in a circle. 'What 
you do that for? You think I unsophisticated girl just off mountain? Why you not 
do it right?' 
'But, but,' Detritus began, in terror at her rage, 'I not able to ask father 
permission to hit you, not know where he living-' 
Ruby drew herself up haughtily. 
'All that old-fashioned stuff very uncultured now,' she sniffed. 'It's not the 
modern way. I not interested in any troll', she added, 'that not up-to-date. A 
rock on the head may be quite sentimental,' she went on, the certainty draining 
out of her voice as she surveyed the sentence ahead of her, 'but diamonds are a 
girl's best friend.' She hesitated. That didn't sound right, even to her. 
It certainly puzzled Detritus. 
'What? You want I should knock my teeth out?' he said. 
'Well, all right, not diamonds,' Ruby conceded. 'But there proper modern ways 
now. You got to court a girl.' 
Detritus brightened. 'Ah, but I-' he began. 
'That's court, not caught,' said Ruby wearily. 'You got to, to, to-' She paused. 

She wasn't all that sure what you had to do. But Ruby had spent some weeks in 
Holy Wood, and if Holy Wood did anything, it changed things; in Holy Wood she'd 
plugged into a vast cross-species female freemasonry she hadn't suspected 
existed, and she was learning fast. She'd talked at length to sympathetic human 
girls. And dwarfs. Even dwarfs had better courtship rituals, for gods' sake.[16] 
And what humans got up to was amazing. 
Whereas all a female troll had to look forward to was a quick thump on the head 
and the rest of her life subduing and cooking anything the male dragged back to 
the cave. 
Well, there were going to be changes. Next time Ruby went home the troll 
mountains were going to receive their biggest shake-up since the last 
continental collision. In the meantime, she was going to start with her own 
life. 
She waved a massive hand in a vague way. 
'You got to, to sing outside a girl's window,' she said, 'and, and you got to 
give her oograah.' 
'Oograah?' 
'Yeah. Pretty oograah.'[17] 
Detritus scratched his head. 
'Why?' he said. 
Ruby looked panicky for a moment. She also couldn't for the life of her imagine 
why the handing over of inedible vegetation was so important, but she wasn't 
about to admit it. 
'Fancy you not knowing that,' she said scathingly. 
The sarcasm was lost on Detritus. Most things were. 
'Right,' he said. 'I not so uncultured as you think,' he added. 'I bang up to 
date. You wait and see.' 

Hammering filled the air. Buildings were spreading backwards from the nameless 
main street into the dunes. No-one owned any land in Holy Wood; if it was empty, 
you built on it. 
Dibbler had two offices now. There was one where he shouted at people, and a 
bigger one just outside it where people shouted at each other. Soll shouted at 
handlemen. Handlemen shouted at alchemists. Demons wandered over every flat 
surface and drowned in the coffee cups and shouted at one another. A couple of 
experimental green parrots shouted at themselves. People wearing odd bits of 
costume wandered in and just shouted. Silverfish shouted because he couldn't 
quite work out why he now had a desk in the outer office even though he owned 
the studio. 
Gaspode sat stolidly by the door to the inner office. In the past five minutes 
he had attracted one half-hearted kick, a soggy biscuit and a pat on the head. 
He reckoned he was ahead of the game, dogwise. 
He was trying to listen to all the conversations at once. It was extremely 
instructive. For one thing, some of the people coming in and shouting were 
carrying bags of money . . . 
'You what?' 
The shout had come from the inner office. Gaspode cocked the other ear. 
'I, er, want a day off, Mr Dibbler,' said Victor. 
'A day off? You don't want to work?' 
'Just for the day, Mr Dibbler.' 
'But you don't think I'm going to go around paying people to have days off, do 
you? I'm not trade of money, you know. It's not as if we make a profit, even. 
Hold a crossbow to my head, why don't you.' 
Gaspode looked at the bags in front of Soll, who was furiously adding up piles 
of coins. He raised a cynical eyebrow. 
There was a pause. Oh, no, thought Gaspode. The young idiot's forgetting his 
lines. 
'I don't want paying, Mr Dibbler.' 
Gaspode relaxed. 
'You don't want paying?' 
'No, Mr Dibbler.' 
'But you want a job when you get back, I suppose?' said Dibbler sarcastically. 
Gaspode tensed. Victor had taken a lot of coaching. 
'Well, I hope so, Mr Dibbler. But I was thinking of going to see what Untied 
Alchemists had to offer.' 
There was a sound exactly like the sound of a chairback striking the wall. 
Gaspode grinned evilly. 
Another bag of money was dropped in front of Soll. 
'Untied Alchemists!' 
'They really look as if they're making progress with soundies, Mr Dibbler,' said 
Victor meekly. 
'But they're amateurs! And crooks!' 
Gaspode frowned. He hadn't been able to coach Victor past this stage. 
'Well, that's a relief, Mr Dibbler.' 
'Why's that?' 
'Well, it'd be dreadful if they were crooks and professional.' 
Gaspode nodded. Nice one. Nice one. 
There was the sound of footsteps hurrying around a desk. When Dibbler spoke 
next, you could have sunk a well in his voice and sold it at ten dollars a 
barrel. 
'Victor! Vic! Haven't I been like an uncle to you?' 
Well, yes, thought Gaspode. He's like an uncle to most people here. That's 
because they're his nephews. 
He stopped listening, partly because Victor was going to get his day off and was 
very likely going to get paid for it as well, but mainly because another dog had 
been led into the room. 
It was huge and glossy. Its coat shone like honey. 
Gaspode recognized it as pure-bred Ramtop hunting dog. When it sat down beside 
him, it was as if a beautifully sleek racing yacht had slipped into a berth 
alongside a coal barge. 
He heard Soll say, 'So that is Uncle's latest idea, is it? What's it called?' 
'Laddie,' said the handler. 
'How much was it?' 
'Sixty dollars.' 
'For a dog? We're in the wrong business.' 
'It can do all kinds of tricks, the breeder said. Bright as a button, he said. 
Just what Mr Dibbler is looking for.' 
'Well, tie it up there. And if that other mutt starts a fight, kick it out.' 
Gaspode gave Soll a long, thoughtful scrutiny. Then, when the attention was no 
longer on them, he sidled closer to the newcomer, looked it up and down, and 
spoke quietly out of the corner of his mouth. 
'What you here for?' he said. 
The dog gave him a look of handsome incomprehension. 
'I mean, do you b'long to someone or what?' said Gaspode. 
The dog whined softly. 
Gaspode tried Basic Canine, which is a combination of whines and sniffs. 
'Hallo?' he ventured. 'Anyone in there?' 
The dog's tail thumped uncertainly. 
'The grub here's ruddy awful,' said Gaspode. 
The dog raised its highly-bred muzzle. 
'What dis place?' it said. 
'This is Holy Wood,' said Gaspode conversationally. 'I'm Gaspode. Named after 
the famous Gaspode, you know. Anythin' you want to know, you just-' 
'All dese two-legs here. Dur . . . What dis place?' 
Gaspode stared. 
At that moment Dibbler's door opened. Victor emerged, coughing, at one end of a 
cigar. 
'Great, great,' said Dibbler, following him out. 'Knew we could sort it out. 
Don't waste it, boy, don't waste it. They cost a dollar a box. Oh, I see you 
brought your little doggie.' 
'Woof,' said Gaspode, irritably. 
The other dog gave a short sharp bark and sat up with obedient alertness 
radiating from every hair. 
'Ah,' said Dibbler, 'and I see we've got our wonder dog.' 
Gaspode's apology for a tail twitched once or twice. 
Then the truth dawned. 
He glared at the larger dog, opened his mouth to speak, caught himself just in 
time, and managed to turn it into a 'Bark?' 
'I got the idea the other night, when I saw your dog,' said Dibbler. 'I thought, 
people like animals. Me, I like dogs. Good image, the dog. Saving lives, Man's 
best friend, that kind of stuff.' 
Victor looked at Gaspode's furious expression. 
'Gaspode's quite bright,' he said. 
'Oh, I expect you think he is,' said Dibbler. 'But you've just got to look at 
the two of them. On the one hand there's this bright, alert, handsome animal, 
and on the other there's this dust ball with a hangover. I mean, no contest, am 
I right?' 
The wonder dog gave a brisk yap. 
'What dis place? Good boy Laddie!' 
Gaspode rolled his eyes. 
'See what I mean?' said Dibbler. 'Give him the right name, a bit, a training, 
and a star is born.' He slapped Victor on the back again. 'Nice to see you, nice 
to see you, drop in again any time, only not too frequently, let's have lunch 
sometime, now get out, Soll!' 
'Coming, Uncle.' 
Victor was suddenly alone, apart from the dogs and the room full of people. He 
took the cigar out of his mouth, spat on the glowing end, and carefully hid it 
behind a potted plant. 
'A star is whelped,' said a small, withering voice from below. 
'What he say? Where dis place?' 
'Don't look at me,' said Victor. 'Nothing to do with me.' 
'Will you just look at it? I mean, are we talking Thicko City here or what?' 
sneered Gaspode. 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
'Come on,' said Victor. 'I'm supposed to be on set in five minutes.' 
Gaspode trailed after him, muttering under his horrible breath. Victor caught 
the occasional 'old rug' and 'Man's best friend' and 'bloody wonder bloody dog'. 
Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer. 
'You're just jealous,' he said. 
'What, of an overgrown puppy with a single-figure IQ?' sneered Gaspode. 
'And a glossy coat, cold nose and probably a pedigree as long as your ar - as my 
arm,' said Victor. 
'Pedigree? Pedigree? What's a pedigree? It's just breedin'. I had a father too, 
you know. And two grandads. And four great grandads. And many of 'em were the 
same dog, even. So don't you tell me from no pedigree,' said Gaspode. 
He paused to cock a leg against one of the supports of the new 'Home of Century 
of the Fruitbat Moving Pictures' sign. 
That was something else that had puzzled Thomas Silverfish. He'd come in this 
morning, and the handpainted sign saying 'Interesting and Instructive Films' had 
gone and had been replaced by this huge billboard. He was sitting back in the 
office with his head in his hands, trying to convince himself that it had been 
his idea. 
'I'm the one Holy Wood called,' Gaspode muttered, in a self-pitying voice. 'I 
came all the way here, and then they chose that great hairy thing. Probably 
it'll work for a plate of meat a day, too.' 
'Well, look, maybe you weren't called to Holy Wood to be a wonder dog,' said 
Victor. 'Maybe it's got something else in mind for you.' 
This is ridiculous, he thought. Why are we talking about it like this? A place 
hasn't got a mind. It can't call people to it . . . well, unless you count 
things like homesickness. But you can't be homesick for a place you've never 
been to before, it stands to reason. The last time people were here must have 
been thousands of years ago. 
Gaspode sniffed at a wall. 
'Did you tell Dibbler everything I told you?' he said. 
'Yes. He was very upset when I mentioned about going to Untied Alchemists.' 
Gaspode sniggered. 
'An' you told him what I said about a verbal contract not being worth the paper 
it's printed on?' 
'Yes. He said he didn't understand what I meant. But he gave me a cigar. And he 
said he'd pay for me and Ginger to go to AnkhMorpork soon. He said he's got a 
really big picture planned.' 
'What is it?' said Gaspode suspiciously. 
'He didn't say.' 
'Listen, lad,' said Gaspode, 'Dibbler's making a fortune. I counted it. There 
were five thousand, two hundred and seventy-three dollars and fifty-two pence on 
Son's desk. And you earned it. Well, you and Ginger did.' 
'Gosh!' 
'Now, there's some new words I want you to learn,' said Gaspode. 'Think you 
can?' 
'I hope so.' 
' "Per-cent-age of the gross" ', said Gaspode. 'There. Think you can remember 
it?' 
' "Per-cent-age of the gross",' said Victor. 
'Good lad.' 
'What does it mean?' 
'Don't you worry about that,' said Gaspode. 'You just have to say it's what you 
want, OK. When the time's right.' 
'When will the time be right, then?' said Victor. 
Gaspode grinned nastily. 'Oh, I reckon when Dibbler's just got a mouthful of 
food'd be favourite.' 

Holy Wood Hill bustled like an ant heap. On the seaward side Fir Wood Studios 
were making The Third Gnome. Microlithic Pictures, which was run almost entirely 
by the dwarfs, was hard at work on Golde Diggers of 1457, which was going to be 
followed by The Golde Rushe. Floating Bladder Pictures was hard at work with 
Turkey Legs. And Borgle's was packed out. 
'I don't know what it's called, but we're doing one about going to see a wizard. 
Something about following a yellow sick toad,' a man in one half of a lion suit 
explained to a companion in the queue. 
'No wizards in Holy Wood, I thought.' 
'Oh, this one's all right. He's not very good at the wizarding.' 
'So what's new?' 
Sound! That was the problem. Alchemists toiled in sheds all over Holy Wood, 
screaming at parrots, pleading with mynah birds, constructing intricate bottles 
to trap sound and bounce it around harmlessly until it was time for it to be let 
out. To the sporadic boom of octo-cellulose exploding was added the occasional 
sob of exhaustion or scream of agony as an enraged parrot mistook a careless 
thumb for a nut. 
The parrots weren't the success they'd hoped for. It was true that they could 
remember what they heard and repeat it after a fashion, but there was no way to 
turn them off and they were in the habit of ad-libbing other sounds they'd heard 
or, Dibbler suspected, had been taught by mischievous handlemen. Thus, brief 
snatches of romantic dialogue would be punctuated with cries of 'Waaaarrrk! 
Showusyerknickers!' and Dibbler said he had no intention of making that kind of 
picture, at least at the moment. 
Sound! Whoever got sound first would rule Holy Wood, they said. People were 
flocking to the clicks now, but people were fickle. Colour was different. Colour 
was just a matter of breeding demons who could paint fast enough. It was sound 
that meant something new. 
In the meantime, there were stop-gap measures. The dwarfs' studio had shunned 
the general practice of putting the dialogue on cards between scenes and had 
invented sub-titles, which worked fine provided the performers remembered not to 
step too far forward and knock over the letters. 
But if sound was missing, then the screen had to be filled from side to side 
with a feast for the eyes. The sound of hammering was always Holy Wood's 
background noise, but it redoubled now . . . 
The cities of the world were being built in Holy Wood. 
Untied Alchemists started it, with a one-tenth-size wood and canvas replica of 
the Great Pyramid of Tsort. Soon the backlots sprouted whole streets in 
Ankh-Morpork, palaces from Pseudopolis, castles from the Hublands. In some 
cases, the streets were painted on the back of the palaces, so that princes and 
peasants were separated by one thickness of painted sacking. 
Victor spent the rest of the morning working on a one-reeler. Ginger hardly said 
a word to him, even after the obligatory kiss when he rescued her from whatever 
it was Morry was supposed to be today. Whatever magic Holy Wood worked on them 
it wasn't doing it today. He was glad to get away. 
Afterwards he wandered across the backlot to watch them putting Laddie the 
Wonder Dog through his paces. 
There was no doubt, as the graceful shape streaked like an arrow over obstacles 
and grabbed a trainer by a well-padded arm, that here was a dog almost designed 
by Nature for moving pictures. He even barked photogenically. 
'An' do you know what he's sayin'?' said a disgruntled voice beside Victor. It 
was Gaspode, a picture of bowlegged misery. 
'No. What?' said Victor. 
"'Me Laddie. Me good boy. Good boy Laddie,"' said Gaspode. 'Makes you want to 
throw up, doesn't it?' 
'Yes, but could you leap a six-foot hurdle?' said Victor. 
'That's intelligent, is it?' said Gaspode. 'I always walk around - what's that 
they're doing now?' 
'Giving him his lunch, I think.' 
'They call that lunch, do they?' 
Victor watched Gaspode stroll over and peer into the dog's bowl. Laddie gave him 
a sideways look. Gaspode barked quietly. Laddie whined. Gaspode barked again. 
There was a lengthy exchange of yaps. 
Then Gaspode strolled back, and sat down beside Victor. 
'Watch this,' he said. 
Laddie took the food bowl in his mouth, and turned it upside down. 
'Disgustin' stuff,' said Gaspode. 'All tubes and innards. I wouldn't give it to 
a dog, and I am one.' 
'You made him tip out his own dinner?' said Victor, horrified. 
'Very obedient lad, I thought,' said Gaspode smugly. 
'What a nasty thing to do!' 
'Oh, no. I give 'im some advice, too.' 
Laddie barked peremptorily at the people clustering around him. Victor heard 
them muttering. 
'Dog don't eat his dinner,' came Detritus' voice, 'dog go hungry.' 
'Don't be daft. Mr Dibbler says he's worth more than we are!' 
'Perhaps it's not what he's used to. I mean, a posh dog like him an' all. It's a 
bit yukky, isn't it?' 
'It dog food! That what dogs are supposed to eat!' 
'Yeah, but is it wonder dog food? What're wonder dogs fed on?' 
'Mr Dibbler'll feed you to him if there's any trouble.' 
'All right, all right. Detritus, go around to Borgle's. See what he's got. Not 
the stuff he gives to the usual customers, mind.' 
'That IS the stuff he give to usual customers.' 
'That's what I mean.' 
Five minutes later Detritus trailed back carrying about nine pounds of raw 
steak. It was dumped in the dog bowl. The trainers looked at Laddie. 
Laddie cocked an eye towards Gaspode, who nodded almost imperceptibly. 
The big dog put one foot on one end of the steak, took the other end in his 
mouth, and tore off a lump. Then he padded over the compound and dropped it 
respectfully in front of Gaspode, who gave it a long, calculating stare. 
'Well, I dunno,' he said at last. 'Does that look like ten per cent to you, 
Victor?' 
'You negotiated his dinner?' 
Gaspode's voice was muffled by meat. 'I reckon ten per cent is ver' fair. Very 
fair, in the circumstances.' 
'You know, you really are a son of a bitch,' said Victor. 
'Proud of it,' said Gaspode, indistinctly. He bolted the last of the steak. 
'What shall we do now?' 
'I'm supposed to get an early night. We're starting for Ankh very early 
tomorrow,' said Victor doubtfully. 
'Still not made any progress with the book?' 
'No.' 
'Let me have a look, then.' 
'Can you read?' 
'Dunno. Never tried.' 
Victor looked around them. No-one was paying him any attention. They never did. 
Once the handles stopped turning, no-one bothered about performers; it was like 
being temporarily invisible. 
He sat down on a pile of lumber, opened the book randomly at an early page, and 
held it out in front of Gaspode's critical stare. 
Eventually the dog said, 'It's got all marks on it.' 
Victor sighed. 'That's writing,' he said. 
Gaspode squinted. 'What, all them little pictures?' 
'Early writing was like that. People drew little pictures to represent ideas.' 
'So . . . if there's a lot of one picture, it means it's an important idea?' 
'What? Well, yes. I suppose so.' 
'Like the dead man.' 
Victor was lost. 
'The dead man on the beach?' 
'No. The dead man on the pages. See? Everywhere, there's the dead man.' 
Victor gave him an odd look, and then turned the book around and peered at it. 
'Where? I don't see any dead men.' 
Gaspode snorted. 
'Look, all over the page,' he said. 'He looks just like those tombs you get in 
old temples and stuff. You know? Where they do this statchoo of the stiff lyin' 
on top of the tomb, with his arms crossed an' holdin' his sword. Dead noble.' 
'Good grief! You're right! It does look sort of . . . dead . . . ' 
'Prob'ly all the writing's goin' on about what a great guy he was when he was 
alive,' said Gaspode knowledgeably. 'You know, "Slayer of thousands" stuff. 
Prob'ly he left a lot of money for priests to say prayers and light candles and 
sacrifice goats and stuff. There used to be a lot of that sort of thing. You 
know, you'd get dese guys whorin' and drinkin' and carryin' on regardless their 
whole life, and then when the old Grim Reaper starts sharpenin' his scythe they 
suddenly becomes all pious and pays a lot of priests to give their soul a quick 
wash-and-brush-up and gen'rally keep on tellin' the gods what a decent chap they 
was.' 
'Gaspode?' said Victor levelly. 
'What?' 
'You were a performing dog. How come you know all this stuff?' 
'I ain't just a pretty face.' 
'You aren't even a pretty face, Gaspode.' 
The little dog shrugged. 'I've always had eyes and ears,' he said. 'You'd be 
amazed, the stuff you see and hear when you're a dog. I dint know what any of it 
meant at the time, of course. Now I do.' 
Victor stared at the pages again. There certainly was a figure which, if you 
half-closed your eyes, looked very much like a statue of a knight with his hands 
resting on his sword. 
'It might not mean a man,' he said. 'Pictographic writing doesn't work like 
that. It's all down to context, you see.' He racked his brains to think of some 
of the books he'd seen. 'For example, in the Agatean language the signs for 
"woman" and "slave" written down together actually mean "wife".' 
He looked closely at the page. The dead man - or the sleeping man, or the 
standing man resting his hands on his sword, the figure was so stylized it was 
hard to be sure seemed to appear beside another common picture. He ran his 
finger along the line of pictograms. 
'See,' he said, 'it could be the man figure is only part of a word. See? It's 
always to the right of this other picture, which looks a bit like - a bit like a 
doorway, or something. So it might really mean-'he hesitated.' "Doorway/man",' 
he hazarded. 
He turned the book slightly. 
'Could be some old king,' said Gaspode. 'Could mean something like The Man with 
the Sword is Imprisoned, or something. Or maybe it means Watch Out, There's a 
Man with a Sword behind the Door. Could mean anything, really.' 
Victor squinted at the book again. 'It's funny,' he said. 'It doesn't look dead. 
Just . . . not alive. Waiting to be alive? A waiting man with a sword?' 
Victor peered at the little man-figure. It had hardly any features, but still 
managed to look vaguely familiar. 
'You know,' he said, 'it looks just like my Uncle Osric . . .' 

Clickaclickaclicka. Click. 
The film spun to a standstill. There was a thunder of applause, a stamping of 
feet and a barrage of empty banged grain bags. 
In the very front row of the Odium the Librarian stared up at the now-empty 
screen. It was the fourth time that afternoon he'd watched Shadow of the 
Dessert, because there's something about a 300lb orangutan that doesn't 
encourage people to order it out of the pit between houses. A drift of peanut 
shells and screwed up paper bags lay around his feet. 
The Librarian loved the clicks. They spoke to something in his soul. He'd even 
started writing a story which he thought would make a very good moving 
picture.[18] Everyone he showed it to said it was jolly good, often even before 
they'd read it. 
But something about this click was worrying him. He'd sat through it four times, 
and he was still worried. 
He eased himself out of the three seats he was occupying and knuckled his way up 
the aisle and into the little room where Bezam was rewinding the film. 
Bezam looked up as the door opened. 
'Get out-' he began, and then grinned desperately and said, 'Hallo, sir. Pretty 
good click, eh? We'll be showing it again any minute now and - what the hell are 
you doing? You can't do that!' 
The Librarian ripped the huge roll of film off the projector and pulled it 
through his leathery fingers, holding it up to the light. Bezam tried to snatch 
it back and got a palm in his chest that sat him firmly on the floor, where 
great coils of film piled up on top of him. 
He watched in horror as the great ape grunted, grasped a piece of the film in 
both hands and, with two bites, edited it. Then the Librarian picked him up, 
dusted him off, patted him on the head, thrust the great pile of unwound click 
into his helpless arms, and ambled swiftly out of the room with a few frames of 
film dangling from one paw. 
Bezam stared helplessly after him. 
'You're banned!' he shouted, when he judged the ape to be safely out of earshot. 

Then he looked down at the two severed ends. 
Breaks in films weren't unusual. Bezam had spent many a flustered few minutes 
feverishly cutting and pasting while the audience cheerfully stamped its feet 
and high-spiritedly threw peanuts, knives and double-headed axes at the screen. 
He let the coils fall around him and reached for the scissors and glue. At least 
- he found, after holding the two ends up to the lantern - the Librarian hadn't 
taken a very interesting bit. Odd, that. Bezam wouldn't have put it past the ape 
to have taken a bit where the girl was definitely showing too much chest, or one 
of the fight scenes. But all he'd wanted was a piece that showed the Sons 
galloping down from their mountain fastness, in single file, on identical 
camels. 
'Dunno what he wanted that for,' he muttered, taking the lid off the glue pot. 
'It just shows a lot of rocks.' 

Victor and Gaspode stood among the sand dunes near the beach. 
'That's where the driftwood but is,' said Victor, pointing, 'and then if you 
look hard you can see there's a sort of road pointing straight towards the hill. 
But there's nothing on the hill but the old trees.' 
Gaspode looked back at Holy Wood Bay. 
'Funny it bein' circular,' he said. 
'I thought so,' said Victor. 
'I heard once where there was this city that was so wicked that the gods turned 
it into a puddle of molten glass,' said Gaspode, apropos of nothing. 'And the 
only person who saw it happen was turned into a pillar of salt by day and a 
cheese shaker by night.' 
'Gosh. What had the people been doing?' 
'Dunno. Prob'ly not much. It doesn't take much to annoy gods.' 
'Me good boy! Good boy Laddie!' 
The dog came streaking over the dunes, a comet of gold and orange hair. It 
skidded to a halt in front of Gaspode, and then began to dance around excitedly, 
yapping. 
'He's escaped and he wants me to play with him,' said Gaspode despondently. 
'Ridiculous, ain't it? Laddie drop dead.' 
Laddie rolled over obediently, all four legs in the air. 
'See? He understands every word I say,' muttered Gaspode. 
'He likes you,' said Victor. 
'Huh,' sniffed Gaspode. 'How're dogs ever goin' to amount to anything if they 
bounce around worshipping people just 'cos they've been given a meal? What's he 
want me to do with this??' 
Laddie had dropped a stick in front of Gaspode and was looking at him 
expectantly. 
'He wants you to throw it,' said Victor. 
'What for?' 
'So he can bring it back.' 
'What I don't understand,' said Gaspode, as Victor picked up the stick and 
hurled it away, Laddie racing along underneath it, 'is how come we're descended 
from wolves. I mean, your average wolf, he's a bright bugger, know what I mean? 
Chock full of cunnin' an' like that. We're talking grey paws racing over the 
trackless tundra, is what I'm getting at.' 
Gaspode looked wistfully at the distant mountains. 'And suddenly a handful of 
generations later we've got Percy the Pup here with a cold nose, bright eyes, 
glossy coat and the brains of a stunned herring.' 
'And you,' said Victor. Laddie whirled back in a storm of sand and dropped the 
damp stick in front of him. Victor picked it up and threw it again. Laddie 
bounded off, yapping himself sick with excitement. 
'Well, yeah,' said Gaspode, ambling along in a bowlegged swagger. 'Only I can 
look after myself. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. You think Dopey the Mutt 
there would last five minutes in Ankh-Morpork? He set one paw in some o' the 
streets, he's three sets of fur gloves an' Crispy Fried No. 27 at the nearest 
Klatchian all-night carryout.' 
Victor threw the stick again. 
'Tell me,' he said, 'who was the famous Gaspode you're named after?' 
'You never heard of him?' 
'No.' 
'He was dead famous.' 
'He was a dog?' 
'Yeah. It was years and years ago. There was this ole bloke in Ankh who snuffed 
it, and he belonged to one of them religions where they bury you after you're 
dead, an', they did, and he had this ole dog-' 
'-called Gaspode-?' 
'Yeah, and this ole dog had been his only companion and after they buried the 
man he lay down on his grave and howled and howled for a couple of weeks. 
Growled at everybody who came near. An' then died.' 
Victor paused in the act of throwing the stick again. 
'That's very sad,' he said. He threw. Laddie tore along underneath it, and 
disappeared into a stand of scrubby trees on the hillside. 
'Yeah. Everyone says it demonstrates a dog's innocent and undyin' love for 'is 
master,' said Gaspode, spitting the words out as if they were ashes. 
'You don't believe that, then?' 
'Not really. I b'lieve any bloody dog will stay still an' howl when you've just 
lowered the gravestone on his tail,' said Gaspode. 
There was a ferocious barking. 
'Don't worry about it. He's probably found a threatening rock or something,' 
said Gaspode. 
He'd found Ginger. 

The Librarian knuckled purposefully through the maze of Unseen University's 
library and descended the steps towards the maximumsecurity shelves. 
Nearly all the books in the Library were, being magical, considerably more 
dangerous than ordinary books; most of them were chained to the bookcases to 
stop them flapping around. 
But the lower levels . . . 
. . . there they kept the rogue books, the books whose behaviour or mere 
contents demanded a whole shelf, a whole room to themselves. Cannibal books, 
books which, if left on a shelf with their weaker brethren, would be found 
looking considerably fatter and more smug in the smoking ashes next morning. 
Books whose mere contents pages could reduce the unprotected mind to grey 
cheese. Books that were not just books of magic, but magical books. 
There's a lot of loose thinking about magic. People go around talking about 
mystic harmonies and cosmic balances and unicorns, all of which is to real magic 
what a glove puppet is to the Royal Shakespeare Company. 
Real magic is the hand around the bandsaw, the thrown spark in the powder keg, 
the dimension-warp linking you straight into the heart of a star, the flaming 
sword that burns all the way down to the pommel. Sooner juggle torches in a tar 
pit than mess with real magic. Sooner lie down in front of a thousand elephants. 

At least, that's what wizards say, which is why they charge such swingeingly 
huge fees for getting involved with the bloody stuff. 
But down here, in the dark tunnels, there was no hiding behind amulets and 
starry robes and pointy hats. Down here, you either had it or you didn't. And if 
you hadn't got it, you'd had it. 
There were sounds from behind the heavily barred doors as the Librarian shuffled 
along. Once or twice something heavy threw itself against a door, making the 
hinges rattle. 
There were noises. 
The orang-utan stopped in front of an arched doorway that was blocked with a 
door made not of wood but of stone, balanced so that it could easily be opened 
from outside but could withstand massive pressure from within. 
He paused for a moment, and then reached into a little alcove and removed a mask 
of iron and smoked glass, which he put on, and a pair of heavy leather gloves 
reinforced with steel mesh. There was also a torch made of oil-soaked rags; he 
lit this from one of the flickering braziers in the tunnel. 
At the back of the alcove was a brass key. 
He took the key, and then he took a deep breath. 
All the Books of Power had their own particular natures. The Octavo was harsh 
and imperious. The Bumper Fun Grimoire went in for deadly practical jokes. The 
Joy of Tantric Sex had to be kept under iced water. The Librarian knew them all, 
and how to deal with them. 
This one was different. Usually people saw only tenth- or twelfthhand copies, as 
like the real thing as a painting or an explosion was to, well, to an explosion. 
This was a book that had absorbed the sheer, graphite-grey evil of its subject 
matter. 
Its name was hacked in letters over the arch, lest men and apes forget. 
NECROTELICOMNICON. 
He put the key in the lock, and offered up a prayer to the gods. 
'Oook,' he said fervently. 'Gook.' 
The door swung open. 
In the darkness within, a chain gave a fait clink. 

'She's still breathing,' said Victor. Laddie leapt around them, barking 
furiously. 
'Maybe you should loosen her clothing or something,' said Gaspode. 'It's just a 
thought,' he added. 'You don't have to glare at me like that. I'm a dog, what do 
I know?' 
'She seems all right, but . . . look at her hands,' said Victor. 'What the hell 
has she been trying to do?' 
'Tryin' to open that door,' said Gaspode. 
'What door?' 
'That door there.' 
Part of the hill had slipped away. Huge blocks of masonry protruded from the 
sand. There were the stubs of ancient pillars, sticking up like fluoridated 
teeth. 
Between two of them was an arched doorway, three times as high as Victor. It was 
sealed with a pair of pale grey doors, either of stone or of wood that had 
become as hard as stone over the years. One of them was slightly open, but had 
been prevented from opening further by the drifts of sand in front of it. 
Frantically scrabbled furrows had been dug deep into the sand. Ginger had been 
trying to shift it with her bare hands. 
'Stupid thing to do in this heat,' said Victor, vaguely. He looked from the door 
to the sea, and then down at Gaspode. 
Laddie scrambled up the sand and barked excitedly at the crack between the 
doors. 
'What's he doing that for?' said Victor, suddenly feeling spooked. 'All his hair 
is standing up. You don't think he's got one of those mysterious animal 
premonitions of evil, do you?' 
'I think he's a pillock,' said Gaspode. 'Laddie shut up!' 
There was a yelp. Laddie recoiled from the door, lost his balance on the 
shifting sand, and rolled down the slope. He leapt to his feet and started 
barking again; not ordinary stupid-dog barking this time, but the genuine 
treed-cat variety. 
Victor leaned forward and touched the door. 
It felt very cold, despite the perpetual heat of Holy Wood, and there was just 
the faint suspicion of vibration. 
He ran his fingers over the surface. There was a roughness there, as though 
there had been a carving that had been worn into obscurity over the years. 
'A door like that,' said Gaspode, behind him, 'a door like that, if you want my 
opinion, a door like that, a door like that,' he took a deep breath, 'bodes.' 
'Hmm? What? Bodes what?' 
'It don't have to bode anything,' said Gaspode. 'Just basic bodingness is bad 
enough, take it from me.' 
'It must have been important. Looks a bit temple-ish,' said Victor. 'Why'd she 
want to open it?' 
'Bits of cliff sliding down an' mysterious doors appearin',' said Gaspode, 
shaking his head. 'That's a lot of boding. Let's go somewhere far away and 
really think about it, eh?' 
Ginger gave a groan. Victor crouched down. 
'What'd she say?' 
'Dunno,' said Gaspode. 
'It sounded like "I want to be a lawn", I thought?' 
'Daft. Touch of the sun there, I reckon,' said Gaspode knowledgeably. 
'Maybe you're right. Her head certainly feels very hot.' He picked her up, 
staggering a little under the weight. 
'Come on,' he managed. 'Let's get down into the town. It'll be getting dark 
soon.' He looked around at the stunted trees. The door lay in a sort of hollow, 
which presumably caught enough dew to make the growth there slightly less 
desiccated than elsewhere. 
'You know, this place looks familiar,' he said. 'We did our first click here. 
It's where I first met her.' 
'Very romantic,' said Gaspode distantly, hurrying away with Laddie bounding 
happily around him. 'If something 'orrible comes out of that door, you can fink 
of it as Our Monster.' 
'Hey! Wait!' 
'Hurry up, then.' 
'What would she want to be a lawn for, do you think?' 
'Beats me . . . ' 
After they had gone silence poured back into the hollow. 
A little later, the sun set. Its long light hit the door, turning the merest 
scratches into deep relief. With the help of imagination, they might just have 
formed the image of a man. 
With a sword. 
There was the faintest of noises as, grain by grain, sand trickled away from the 
door. By midnight it had opened by at least a sixteenth of an inch. 
Holy Wood dreamed. 

It dreamed of waking up. 
Ruby damped down the fires under the vats, put the benches on the tables, and 
prepared to shut the Blue Lias. But just before blowing out the last lamp she 
hesitated in front of the mirror. 
He'd be waiting out there again tonight. Just like every 
night. He'd been in during the evening, grinning to himself. He was planning 
something. 
Ruby had been taking advice from some of the girls who worked in the clicks, and 
in addition to her feather boa she'd now invested in a broad-rimmed hat with 
some sort of oograah, cherries she thought they were called, in it. She'd been 
assured that the effect was stunning. 
The trouble, she had to admit, was that he was, well, a very hunky troll. For 
millions of years troll women had been naturally attracted to trolls built like 
a monolith with an apple on top. Ruby's treacherous instincts were firing 
messages up her spine, insidiously insisting that in those long fangs and bandy 
legs was everything a troll girl could wish for in a mate. 
Trolls like Rock or Morry, of course, were far more modern and could do things 
like use a knife and fork, but there was something, well, reassuring about 
Detritus. Perhaps it was the way his knuckles touched the ground so dynamically. 
And apart from anything else, she was sure she was brighter than he was. There 
was a sort of gormless unstoppability about him that she found rather 
fascinating. That was the instincts at work again -intelligence has never been a 
particularly valuable survival trait in a troll. 
And she had to admit that, whatever she might attempt in the way of feather boas 
and fancy hats, she was pushing 140 and was 400 lbs above the fashionable 
weight. 
If only he'd buck his ideas up. 
Or at least, buck one idea up. 
Maybe this make-up the girls had been talking about could be worth a try. 
She sighed, blew out the lamp, opened the door and stepped out into a maze of 
roots. 
A gigantic tree stretched the whole length of the alley. He must have dragged it 
for miles. The few surviving branches poked through windows or waved forlornly 
in the air. 
In the middle of it all was Detritus, perched proudly on the trunk, his face 
split in a watermelon grin, his arms spread wide. 
'Tra-laa!' he said. 
Ruby heaved a gigantic sigh. Romance wasn't easy, when you were a troll. 

The Librarian forced the page open and chained it down. The book tried to snap 
at him. 
Its contents had made it what it was. Evil and treacherous. 
It contained forbidden knowledge. Well, not actually forbidden. No-one had ever 
gone so far as forbidding it. Apart from anything else, in order to forbid it 
you'd have to know what it was, which was forbidden. But it definitely contained 
the sort of information which, once you knew it, you wished you hadn't.[19] 
Legend said that any mortal man who read more than a few lines of the original 
copy would die insane. 
This was certainly true. Legend also said that the book contained illustrations 
that would make a strong man's brain dribble out of his ears. 
This was probably true, too. Legend went on to say that merely opening the 
Necrotelicomnicon would cause a man's flesh to crawl off his hand and up his 
arm. 
No-one actually knew if this was true, but it sounded horrible enough to be true 
and no-one was about to try any experiments. 
Legend had a lot to say about the Necrotelicomnicon, in fact, but absolutely 
nothing to say about orang-utans, who could tear the book into little bits and 
chew it for all legend cared. The worst that had ever happened to the Librarian 
after looking at it was a mild migraine and a touch of eczema, but that was no 
reason to take chances. He adjusted the smoked glass of the visor and ran one 
black-leather finger down the Index; the words bridled as the digit slid past, 
and tried to bite it. 
Occasionally he'd hold the strip of film up to the light of the flickering 
torch. 
The wind and sand had blurred them, but there was no doubt that there were 
carvings on the rock. And the Librarian had seen designs like that before. 
He found the reference he was looking for and, after a brief struggle during 
which he had to threaten the Necrotelicomnicon with the torch, forced the book 
to turn to the page. 
He peered closer. 
Good old Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches . . . 
' . . . and in that hill, it is said, a Door out of the World was found, and 
people of the city watched What was Seen therein, knowing not that Dread waited 
between the universes . . . ' 
The Librarian's fingertip dragged from right to left across the pictures, and 
skipped to the next paragraph. 
' . . . for Others found the Gate of Holy Wood and fell upon the World, and in 
one nighte All Manner of Madnesse befell, and Chaos prevailed, and the City sank 
beneath the Sea, and all became one withe the fishes and the lobsters save for 
the few who fled . . . ' 
He curled a lip, and looked further down the page. 
' . . . a Golden Warrior, who drove the Fiends back and saved the World, and 
said, Where the Gate is, There Am I Also; I Am He that was Born of Holy Wood, to 
guard the 
Wild Idea. And they said, What must we do to Destroy the Gate Forever, and he 
said unto them, This you Cannot Do, for it is Not a Thing, but I will Guard the 
Gate for you. And they, not having been Born yesterday, and fearing the Cure 
more than the Malady, said to him, What will you Take from Us, that you will 
Guard the Door. And he grew until he was the height of a tree and said, Only 
your Remembrance, that I do Not Sleep. Three times a day will you remember Holy 
Wood. Else The Cities of the World Will Tremble and Fall, and you will See the 
Greatest of them All in Flames. And with that the Golden Man took up his golden 
sword and went into the Hill and stood at the Gate, forever. 
'And the People said to one another, Funny, he lookes just like my Uncle Osbert 
. . . ' 
The Librarian turned the page. 
' . . . But there were among them, humans and animals alike, those touched by 
the magic of Holy Wood. It goeth through the generations like an ancient curse, 
until the priests cease in their Remembrance and the Golden Man sleepeth. Then 
let the world Beware . . . ' 
The Librarian let the book snap shut. 
It wasn't an uncommon legend. -He'd read it before at least, had read most of it 
- in books considerably less dangerous than this. You came across variants in 
all the cities of the Sto Plain. There had been a city once, in the mists of 
pre-history - bigger than Ankh-Morpork, if that were possible. And the 
inhabitants had done something, some sort of unspeakable crime not just against 
Mankind or the gods but against the very nature of the universe itself, which 
had been so dreadful that it had sunk beneath the sea one stormy night. Only a 
few people had survived to carry to the barbarian peoples in the less-advanced 
parts of the Disc all the arts and crafts of civilization, such as usury and 
macrame. 
No-one had ever really taken it seriously. It was just one of those usual 'If 
you don't stop it you'll go blind' myths that civilizations tended to hand on to 
their descendants. 
After all, Ankh-Morpork itself was generally considered as wicked a city as you 
could hope to find in a year of shore leaves, and seemed to have avoided any 
kind of supernatural vengeance, although it was always possible that it had 
taken place and no-one had noticed. 
Legend had always put the nameless city far away and long ago. 
No-one knew where it was, or even if it had existed. 
The Librarian glanced at the symbols again. 
They were very familiar. They were on the old ruins all over Holy Wood. 

Azhural stood on a low hill, watching the sea of elephants move below him. Here 
and there a supply wagon bobbed between the dusty grey bodies like a rudderless 
boat. A mile of veldt was being churned into a soggy mud wallow, bare of grass - 
although, by the smell of it, it'd be the greenest patch on the Disc after the 
rains came. 
He dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his robe. 
Three hundred and sixty-three! Who'd have thought it? 
The air was solid with the piqued trumpeting of three hundred and sixty-three 
elephants. And with the hunting and trapping parties already going on ahead, 
there should be plenty more. According to M'Bu, anyway. And he wasn't going to 
argue. 
Funny, that. For years he'd thought of M'Bu as a sort of mobile smile. A handy 
lad with a brush and shovel, but not what you might call a major achiever. 
And then suddenly someone somewhere wanted a thousand elephants, and the lad had 
raised his head and a gleam had come into his eye and you could see that under 
that grin was a skilled kilopachydermatolist ready to answer the call. Funny. 
You could know someone for their whole life and not realize that the gods had 
put them in this world to move a thousand elephants around the place. 
Azhural had no sons. He'd already made up his mind to leave everything to his 
assistant. Everything he had at this 
point amounted to three hundred and sixty-three elephants and, ahaha, a mammoth 
overdraft, but it was the thought that counted. 
M'Bu trotted up the path towards him, his clipboard held firmly under one arm. 
'Everything ready, boss,' he said. 'You just got to say the word.' 
Azhural drew himself up. He looked around at the heaving plain, the distant 
baobab trees, the purple mountains. Oh, yes. The mountains. He'd had misgivings 
about the mountains. He'd mentioned them to M'Bu, who said, 'We'll cross them 
bridges when we get to 'em, boss,' and when Azhural had pointed out that there 
weren't any bridges, had looked him squarely in the eye and said firmly, 'First 
we build them bridge, then we cross 'em.' 
Far beyond the mountains was the Circle Sea and Ankh-Morpork and this Holy Wood 
place. Far-away places with strange sounding names. 
A wind blew across the veldt, carrying faint whispers, even here. 
Azhural raised his staff. 
'It's fifteen hundred miles to Ankh-Morpork,' he said. 'We've got three hundred 
and sixty-three elephants, fifty carts of forage, the monsoon's about to break 
and we're wearing . . . we're wearing . . . sort of things, like glass, only 
dark . . . dark glass things on our eyes . . . ' His voice trailed off. His brow 
furrowed, as if he'd just been listening to his own voice and hadn't understood 
it. ' 
The air seemed to glitter. 
He saw M'Bu staring at him. 
He shrugged. 'Let's go,' he said. 
M'Bu cupped his hands. He'd spent all night working out the order of the march. 
'Blue Section bilong Uncle N'gru - forward!' he shouted. 'Yellow Section bilong 
Aunti Googool - forward! Green Section bilong Second-cousin! Kck! - forward . . 
. ' 
An hour later the veldt in front of the low hill was deserted except for a 
billion flies and one dung beetle who couldn't believe his luck. 
Something went 'plop' on the red dust, throwing up a little crater. 
And again, and again. 
Lightning split the trunk of a nearby baobab. 
The rains began. 

Victor's back was beginning to ache. Carrying young women to safety looked a 
good idea on paper, but had major drawbacks after the first hundred yards. 
'Have you any idea where she lives?' he said. 'And is it somewhere close?' 
'No idea,' said Gaspode. 
'She once said something about it being over a clothes shop,' said Victor. 
'That'll be in the alley alongside Borgle's then,' said Gaspode. 
Gaspode and Laddie led the way through the alleys and up a rickety outside 
staircase. Maybe they smelled out Ginger's room. Victor wasn't going to argue 
with mysterious animal senses. 
Victor went up the back stairs as quietly as possible. He was dimly aware that 
where people stayed was often infested by the Common or Greatly Suspicious 
Landlady, and he felt that he had enough problems as it was. 
He used Ginger's feet to push open the door. 
It was a small room, low-ceilinged and furnished with the sad, washed-out 
furniture found in rented rooms across the multiverse. At least, that's how it 
had started out. 
What it was furnished with now was Ginger. 

She had saved every poster. Even those from early clicks, when she was just in 
very small print as A Girl. They were thumb-tacked to the walls. Ginger's face - 
and his own stared at him from every angle. 
There was a large mirror at one end of the poky room, and a couple of 
half-burned candles in front of him. 
Victor deposited the girl carefully on the narrow bed and then stared around 
him, very carefully. His sixth, seventh and eighth senses were screaming at him. 
He was in a place of magic. 
'It's like a sort of temple,' he said. 'A temple to . . . herself.' 
'It gives me the willies,' said Gaspode. 
Victor stared. Maybe he'd always successfully avoided being awarded the pointy 
hat and big staff, but he had acquired wizard instincts. He had a sudden vision 
of a city under the sea, with octopuses curling stealthily through the drowned 
doorways and lobsters watching the streets. 
'Fate don't like it when people take up more space than they ought to. Everyone 
knows that.' 
I'm going to be the most famous person in the whole world, thought Victor. 
That's what she sail. He shook his head. 
'No,' he said aloud. 'She just likes posters. It's just ordinary vanity.' 
It didn't sound believable, even to him. The room fairly hummed with . . . 
. . . what? He hadn't felt anything like it before. Power of some sort, 
certainly. Something that was brushing tantalizingly against his senses. Not 
exactly magic. At least, not the kind he was used to. But something that seemed 
similar while not being the same, like sugar compared with salt; the same shape 
and the same colour, but . . . 
Ambition wasn't magical. Powerful, yes, but not magical . . . surely? 
Magic wasn't difficult. That was the big secret that the whole baroque edifice 
of wizardry had been set up to conceal. Anyone with a bit of intelligence and 
enough perseverance could do magic, which was why the wizards cloaked it with 
rituals and the whole pointyhat business. 
The trick was to do magic and get away with it. 
Because it was as if the human race was a field of corn and magic helped the 
users grow just that bit taller, so that they stood out. That attracted the 
attention of the gods and - Victor hesitated - other Things. outside this world. 

People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a 
sticky end. 
All over the entire room, sometimes. 
He pictured Ginger, back on the beach. I want to be the most famous person in 
the whole world. Perhaps that was something new, come to think of it. Not 
ambition for gold, or power, or land or all the things that were familiar parts 
of the human world. Just ambition to be yourself, as big as possible. Not 
ambition for, but to be. 
He shook his head. He was just in some room in some cheap building in some town 
that was about as real as, as, as, well, as the thickness of a click. It wasn't 
the place to have thoughts like this. 
The important thing was to remember that Holy Wood wasn't a real place at all. 
He stared at the posters again. You just get one chance, she said. You live for 
maybe seventy years, and if you're lucky you get one chance. Think of all the 
natural skiers who are born in deserts. Think of all the genius blacksmiths who 
were born hundreds of years before anyone invented the horse. All the skills 
that are never used. All the wasted chances. 
How lucky for me, he thought gloomily, that I happen to be alive at this time. 
Ginger turned over in her sleep. At least her breathing was more regular now. 
'Come on,' said Gaspode. 'It's not right, you being alone in a lady's boodwah.' 
'I'm not alone,' Victor said. 'She's with me.' 
'That's the point,' said Gaspode. 
'Woof,' Laddie added, loyally. 
'You know,' said Victor, following the dogs down the stairs, 'I'm beginning to 
feel there's something wrong here. There's something going on and I don't know 
what it is. Why was she trying to get into the hill?' 
'Prob'ly in league with dread Powers,' said Gaspode. 
'The city and the hill and the old book and everything,' said Victor, ignoring 
this. 'It all makes sense if only I knew what was connecting it.' 
He stepped out into the early evening, into the lights and noise of Holy Wood. 
'Tomorrow we'll go up there in the daylight and sort this out once and for all,' 
he said. 
'No, we won't,' said Gaspode. 'The reason being, tomorrow we're goin' to 
Ankh-Morpork, remember?' 
'We?' said Victor. 'Ginger and I are going. I didn't know about you.' 
'Laddie goin', too,' said Gaspode. 'I-' 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
'Yeah, yeah. I heard the trainers say. So I've got to go with him to see he 
don't get into any trouble, style of fing.' 
Victor yawned. 'Well, I'm going to go to bed. We'll probably have to start 
early.' 
Gaspode looked innocently up and down the alley. Somewhere a door opened and 
there was the sound of drunken laughter. 
'I fought I might have a bit of a stroll before turnin' in,' he said. 'Show 
Laddie-' 
'Laddie good boy!' 
'-the sights and that.' 
Victor looked doubtful. 
'Don't keep him out too late,' he said. 'People will worry.9 
'Yeah, right,' said Gaspode. 'G'night.' 
He sat and watched Victor wander off. 
'Huh,' he said, under his dreadful breath. 'Catch anyone worryin' about me.' He 
glared up at Laddie, who sprang to obedient attention. 
'Right, young fells-me-pup,' he said. ' 'S time you got educated. Lesson One, 
Glomming Free Drinks in Bars. It's lucky for you', he added, 'that you met me.' 

Two canine shapes staggered uncertainly up the midnight street. 
'We're poor li'l lambs', Gaspode howled, 'wot have loorst our way . . . ' 'Woof! 
Woof! Woof!' 
'We're li'l loorst sheeps wot have - wot have . . . ' Gaspode sagged down, and 
scratched an ear, or at least where he vaguely thought an ear might be. His leg 
waved uncertainly in the air. Laddie gave him a sympathetic look. 
It had been an amazingly successful evening. Gaspode had always got his free 
drinks by simply sitting and staring intently at people until they got 
uncomfortable and poured him some beer in a saucer in the hope that he would 
drink it and go away. It was slow and tedious, but as a technique it had served 
him well. Whereas Laddie . . . 
Laddie did tricks. Laddie could drink out of bottles. Laddie could bark the 
number of fingers people held up; so could Gaspode, of course, but it had never 
occurred to him that such an activity could be rewarded. 
Laddie could home in on young women who were being taken out for the evening by 
a hopeful swain and lay his head on their lap and give them such a soulful look 
that the swain would buy him a saucer of beer and a bag of goldfish-shaped 
biscuits just in order to impress the prospective loved-one. Gaspode had never 
been able to do that, because he was too short for laps and, anyway, got nothing 
but disgusted screams if he tried it. 
He'd sat under the table in perplexed disapproval to begin with, and then in 
alcoholic perplexed disapproval, because Laddie was generosity itself when it 
came to sharing saucers of beer. 
Now, after they'd both been thrown out, Gaspode decided it was time for a 
lecture in true dogness. 
'You don't want to go himblong. Umlong. Humbling yourself to 'umans,' he said. 
'It's letting everyone down. We'll never frow off the shackles of dependency on 
mankind if dogs like you go aroun' bein' glad to see people the whole time. I 
was person'ly disgusted when you did that Lyin'-on-your-back-and-playin'-dead 
routine, let me tell you.' 
'Woof.' 
'You're just a running dog of the human imperialists,' said Gaspode severely. 
Laddie put his paws over his nose. 
Gaspode tried to stand up, tripped over his legs, and sat down heavily. After a 
while a couple of huge tears coursed down his fur. 
'Concourse,' he said, 'I never had a chance, you know.' He managed to get back 
on all four feet. 'I mean, look at the start I had in life. Frone inna river 
inna sack. An actual sack, Dear little puppy dog opens his eyes, look out in 
wonder at the world, style offing, he's in this sack.' The tears dripped off his 
nose. 'For two weeks I thought the brick was my mother.' 
'Woof,' said Laddie, with uncomprehending sympathy. 
'Just my luck they threw me in the Ankh,' Gaspode went on. 'Any other river, I'd 
have drowned and gone to doggy heaven. I heard where this big black ghostly dog 
comes up to you when you die an' says, your time has gome. Cone. Come.' 
Gaspode stared at nothing much. 'Can't sink in the Ankh, though,' he said 
thoughtfully. 'Ver' tough river, the Ankh.' 
'Woof.' 
'It shouldn't happen to a dog,' said Gaspode. 'Metaphorically.' 
'Woof.' 
Gaspode peered blearily at Laddie's bright, alert and irrevocably stupid face. 
'You don't understand a bloody word I've been saying, do you?' he muttered. 
'Woof.' said Laddie, begging. 
'Lucky bugger,' sighed Gaspode. 
There was a commotion at the other end of the alley. He heard a voice say, 
'There he is! Here, Laddie! Here, boy!' The words dripped relief. 
'It's the Man,' growled Gaspode. 'You don't have to go.) 
'Good boy Laddie! Laddie good boy!' barked Laddie, trotting forward obediently, 
if a little unsteadily. 
'We've been looking for you everywhere!' muttered one of the trainers, raising a 
stick. 
'Don't hit it!' said the other trainer. 'You'll ruin everything.' He peered into 
the alley, and met Gaspode's stare coming the other way. 
'That's the fleabag that's been hanging around,' he said. 'It gives me the 
creeps.' 
'Heave something at it,' suggested the other man. 
The trainer reached down and picked up a stone. When he stood up again the alley 
was empty. Drunk or sober, Gaspode had perfect reflexes in certain 
circumstances. 
'See?' the trainer said, glaring at the shadows. 'It's like it's some kind of 
mind reader.' 
'It's just a mutt,' said his companion. 'Don't worry about it. Come on, get the 
leash on this one and let's get him back before Mr Dibbler finds out.' 
Laddie followed them obediently back to Century of the Fruitbat, and allowed 
himself to be chained up to his kennel. Possibly he didn't like the idea, but it 
was hard to be sure in the network of duties, obligations and vague emotional 
shadows that made up what, for want of a better word, had to be called his mind. 

He pulled experimentally on the chain once or twice, and then lay down, awaiting 
developments. 
After a while a small hoarse voice on the other side of the fence said, 'I could 
send you a bone with a file in it, only you'd eat it.' 
Laddie perked up. 
'Good boy Laddie! Good boy Gaspode!' 
'Ssh! Ssh! At least they ort to let you speak to a lawyer,' said Gaspode. 
'Chaining someone up's against human rights.' 
'Woof.' 
'Anyway, I paid 'em back. I followed the 'orrible one back to his house an' 
piddled all down his front door.' 
'Woof.' 
Gaspode sighed, and waddled away. Sometimes, in his heart of hearts, he wondered 
whether it wouldn't after all be nice to belong to someone. Not just be owned by 
them or chained up by them, but actually belong, so that you were glad to see 
them and carried their slippers in your mouth and pined away when they died, 
etc. 
Laddie actually liked that kind of stuff, if you could call it 'liked'; it was 
more like something built into his bones. Gaspode wondered darkly if this was 
true dogness, and growled deep in his throat. It wasn't, if he had anything to 
do with it. Because true dogness wasn't about slippers and walkies and pining 
for people, Gaspode was sure. Dogness was about being tough and independent and 
mean. 
Yeah. 
Gaspode had heard that all canines could interbreed, even back to the original 
wolves, so that must mean that, deep down inside, every dog was a wolf. You 
could make a dog out of a wolf, but you couldn't take the wolf out of a dog. 
When the hardpad was acting up and the fleas were feisty and acting full of 
plumptiousness, it was a comforting thought. 
Gaspode wondered how you went about mating with a wolf, and what happened to you 
when you stopped. 
Well, that didn't matter. What mattered was that true dogs didn't go around 
going mad with pleasure just because a human said something to them. 
Yeah. 
He growled at a pile of trash and dared it to disagree. 
Part of the pile moved, and a feline face with a defunct fish in its mouth 
peered out at him. He was just about to bark half-heartedly at it, for 
tradition's sake, when it spat the fish out and spoke to him. 
'Hallo, Gathpode.' 
Gaspode relaxed. 'Oh. Hallo, cat. No offence meant. Didn't know it was you.' 
'I hateth fisth,' said the cat, 'but at leasth they don't talk back.' 
Another part of the trash moved and Squeak the mouse emerged. 
'What're you two doin' down here?' said Gaspode. 'I thought you said it was 
safer on the hill.' 
'Not any more,' said the cat. 'It'sh getting too shpooky.' 
Gaspode frowned. 'You're a cat,' he said disapprovingly. 'You ort to be right 
alongside the idea of spooky.' 
'Yeah, but that doesh'nt exhtend to having golden sparks crackling off your fur 
and the ground shaking the whole time. And weird voices that you think must be 
happening in your own head,' said cat. 'It's becoming eldritch up there.' 
'So we all came down,' said Squeak. 'Mr Thumpy and the duck are hiding out in 
the dunes-' 
Another cat dropped off the fence beside them. It was large and ginger and not 
blessed with Holy Wood intelligence. It stared at the sight of a mouse looking 
relaxed in the presence of a cat. 
Squeak nudged cat on the paw. 'Get rid of it,' he said. 
Cat glared at the newcomer. 'Sod off,' he said. 'Go on, beat it. Gods; thish ish 
so humiliating.' 
'Not just for you,' said Gaspode, as the new cat trotted away shaking its head. 
'If some of the dogs in this town see me chatting to a cat, my street cred is 
going to go way down.' 
'We were reckoning', said the cat, with the occasional nervous glance towards 
Squeak, 'that maybe we ought to give in and see if, see if, see if-' 
'He's trying to say there might be a place for us in moving pictures,' said 
Squeak. 'What do you think?' 
'As a double act?' said Gaspode. They nodded. 
'Not a chance,' he said. 'Who's going to pay good money to see cats and mice 
chasing one another? They're only interested even in dogs if they jus' pander to 
humans the whole time, so they certainly ain't going to watch a cat chase a 
mouse. Take it from me. I know about movin' pictures.' 
'Then it's about time your humans got it sorted out so we can go home,' snapped 
the mouse. 'The boy isn't doing anything.' 
'He's useless,' said the mouse. 
'He's in love,' said Gaspode. 'It's very tricky.' 
'Yeah, I know how it ish,' said the cat sympathetically. 'People throwing old 
boots and things at you.' 
'Old boots?' said the mouse. 
'That'sh what's always happened to me when I've been in love,' said cat 
wistfully. 
'It's different for humans,' said Gaspode uncertainly. 'You don't get so many 
boots and buckets of water thrown at you. It's more, er, flowers and arguing and 
stuff.' 
The animals looked glumly at one another. 
'I've watched 'em,' said Squeak. 'She thinks he's a idiot.' 
'That's all part of it,' added Gaspode. 'They call it romance.' 
Cat shrugged. 'Give me a boot every time. You know where you stand, with a 
boot.' 

The glittering spirit of Holy Wood streamed out into the world, no longer a 
trickle but a flood. It bubbled in the veins of people, even of animals. When 
the handlemen turned their handles, it was there. When the carpenters hammered 
their nails, they hammered for Holy Wood. Holy Wood was in Borgle's stew, in the 
sand, in the air. It was growing. 
And it was going to flower . . . 
Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler, or C.M.O.T. as he liked to be called, sat up in bed 
and stared at the darkness. 
In his head a city was on fire. 
He fumbled hurriedly beside his bed for the matches, managed to light the 
candle, and eventually located a pen. 
There was no paper. He specifically told everyone there ought to be some paper 
by his bed, in case he woke up with an idea. That's when you got the best ideas, 
when you were asleep. 
At least there was a pen and ink . . . 
Images sleeted past his eyes. Catch them now, or let them go forever . . . 
He snatched up the pen and started to scribble on the bedsheets. 
A Man and A Woman Aflame With Passione in A Citie Riven by Sivil War! 
The pen scritched and spluttered its way across the coarse linen. 
Yes! Yes! This was it! 
He'd show 'em, with their silly plaster pyramids and penny-and-dime palaces. 
This was the one they'd have to look up to! When the history of Holy Wood was 
written this was the one they'd point to and say: That was the Moving Picture to 
End all Moving Pictures! 
Trolls! Battles! Romance! People with thin moustaches! Soldiers of fortune! And 
one woman's fight to keep the - Dibbler hesitated - something-or-other she 
loves, we'll think about this later, in a world gone mad! 
The pen jerked and tore and raced onwards. 
Brother against brother! Women in crinoline dresses slapping people's faces! A 
mighty dynasty brought low! 
A great city aflame! Not with passione, he made a note in the margin, but with 
flame. 
Possibly even 
He bit his lip. 
Yeah. He'd been waiting for this! Yeah! 
A thousand elephants! 
(Later Soll Dibbler said, 'Look, Uncle, the Ankh-Morpork civil war - great idea. 
No problem with that. Famous historical occurrence, no problem. It's just that 
none of the historians mentioned seeing any elephants.' 
'It was a big war,' said Dibbler defensively. 'You're bound to miss things.' 
'Not a thousand elephants, I think.' 
'Who's running this studio?' 
'It's just that-' 
'Listen,' said Dibbler. 'Maybe they didn't have a thousand elephants, but we're 
going to have a thousand elephants, 'cos a thousand elephants is more real, 
OK?') 
The sheet gradually filled up with Dibbler's excited scrawl. He reached the 
bottom and continued over the woodwork of the bed. 
By the gods, this was the real stuff! No fiddly little battles here. They'd need 
just about every handleman in Holy Wood! 
He sat back, panting with exhilarated exhaustion. 
He could see it now. It was as good as made. 
All it needed was a title. Something with a ring to it. Something that people 
would remember. Something - he scratched his chin with the pen - that said that 
the affairs of ordinary people were so much chaff in the great storms of 
history. Storms, that was it. Good imagery, a storm. You got thunder. Lightning. 
Rain. Wind. 
Wind. That was it! 
He crawled up to the top of the sheet and, with great care, wrote: 
BLOWN AWAY. 

Victor tossed and turned in his narrow bed, trying to get to sleep. Images 
marched through his half-dozing mind. There were chariot races and pirate ships 
and things he couldn't identify, and in the middle of it all this thing, 
climbing a tower. Something huge and terrible, grinning defiance at the world. 
And someone screaming . . . 
He sat up, drenched in sweat. 
After a few minutes he swung his legs out of bed and went to the window. 
Above the lights of the town Holy Wood Hill brooded in the first dim light of 
dawn. It was going to be another fine day. 

Holy Wood dreams surged through the streets, in great invisible golden waves. 
And Something came with it. 
Something that never, never dreamed at all. Something that never went to sleep. 
Ginger got out of bed and also looked towards the hill, although it is doubtful 
if she saw it. Moving like a sightless person in a familiar room, she padded 
across to the door, down the steps, and out into the tail of the night. 
A small dog, a cat and a mouse watched from the shadows as she moved silently 
down the alley and headed for the hill. 
'Did you see her eyes?' said Gaspode. 
'Glowing,' said the cat. 'Yukth!' 
'She's going to the hill,' said Gaspode. 'I don't like that.' 
'So what?' said Squeak. 'She's always around the hill somewhere. Goes up there 
every night and moons around looking dramatic.' 
'What?' 
'Every night. We thought it was all this romance stuff.' 
'But you can see by the way she's movin' that somethin's not right,' said 
Gaspode desperately. 'That's not walkin', that's lurchin'. Like she's bein' 
pulled along by a inner voice, style of fing.' 
'Don't look like that to me,' said Squeak. 'Walking on two legs is lurching, in 
my book.' 
'You've only got to look at her face to see there's somethin' wrong!' 
'Of course there's something wrong. She's a human,' said Squeak. 
Gaspode considered the options. There weren't many. The obvious one was to find 
Victor and get him to come back here. He rejected it. It sounded too much like 
the silly, bouncy sort of thing that Laddie would do. It suggested that the best 
a dog could think of when confronted with a puzzle was to find a human to solve 
it. 
He trotted forward and gripped the trailing hem of the sleepwalker's nightdress 
firmly in his jaws. She walked on, pulling him off his feet. The cat laughed, 
far too sarcastically for Gaspode's liking. 
'Time to wake up, miss,' he growled, letting the nightdress go. Ginger strode 
onwards. 
'See?' said the cat. 'Give them an opposed thumb and they think they're 
something shpecial.' 
'I'm going to follow her,' said Gaspode. 'A girl could come to harm out by 
herself at night.' 
'That's dogs for you,' said the cat to Squeak. 'Alwaysh fawning on people. It'll 
be diamante collars and a bowl with his name on it nexsht, I'm telling you.' 
'If you're lookin' to lose a mouthful of fur you've come to the right place, 
kitty,' snarled Gaspode, barring his rotting teeth again. 
'I don't have to tolerate that short of thing,' said the cat, lifting its nose 
haughtily. 'Come, Squeak. Let us hie us to a garbage heap where there ain't sho 
much rubbish.' 
Gaspode scowled at their departing backs. 
'Pussy!' he yelled after them. 
Then he trotted after Ginger, hating himself. If I was a wolf, which technic'ly 
I am, he thought, there'd definitely be a rending of jaws and similar. Any girl 
wandering around by herself would be in dead trouble. I could attack, I could 
attack any time I liked, I'm jus' choosing not to. One thing I'm not doin', I'm 
not sort of keepin' an eye on her. I know Victor told me to keep an eye on her, 
but catch me goin' around doin' what humans tell me. I'd like to see humans that 
could give me orders. Tear his froat out, jus' like that. Hah. 
An' if anything happened to her he'd go around moonin' for days and prob'ly 
forget to feed me. Not that dogs like me needs humans to feed 'em, I could be 
out bringing down reindeers just by leaping on their backs and bitin' their 
jugulars off, but it's damn convenient getting it all on a plate. 
She was moving quite fast. Gaspode's tongue hung out as he strove to keep up. 
His head was aching. 
He risked a few sideways squints to see if any other dogs were watching. If they 
were, he thought, he could pretend he was chasin' her. Which was what he was 
doing, anyway. Yeah. The trouble was, he never had much breath at the best of 
times, and it was getting hard to keep pace. She ought to have the decency to 
slow down a bit. 
Ginger began to climb the lower slopes of the hill. 
Gaspode considered barking loudly, and then if anyone drew attention to this 
afterwards he could always say it was to frighten her. Trouble was, he had about 
enough wind left for a threatening wheeze. 
Ginger topped a rise and went down into the little dell among the trees. 
Gaspode staggered after her, righted himself, opened his mouth to whimper a 
warning, and almost swallowed his tongue. 
The door had opened several inches. More sand rolled down the heap even as 
Gaspode watched. 
And he could hear voices. They didn't seem to be speaking words but the bones of 
words, meaning without disguise. They hummed around his bullet head like 
mendicant mosquitoes, begging and cajoling and 
-he was the most famous dog in the world. The knots unravelled from his coat, 
the frayed patches sprouted glossy curls, his fur grew on his suddenly-supple 
frame and withdrew from his teeth. Plates appeared in front of him not laden 
with the multi-coloured and mysterious organs that he was normally expected to 
eat but with dark red steak. There was sweet water, no, there was beer in a bowl 
with his name on it. Tantalizing odours on the air suggested that a number of 
lady dogs would be happy to make his acquaintance after he had drunk and dined. 
Thousands of people thought he was marvellous. He had a collar with his name on 
it, and - 
No, that couldn't be right. Not a collar. It'd be a squeaky toy next, if you 
dint draw the line at collars. 
The image collapsed in confusion, and now - 
- the pack bounded through the dark, snow-covered trees, falling in behind him, 
red mouths agape, long legs eating up the road. The fleeing humans on the sledge 
didn't have a chance; one was thrown aside when a runner bounced off a branch, 
and lay screaming in the road as Gaspode and the wolves fell upon - 
No, that wasn't right, he thought wretchedly. You dint actually eat humans. They 
got up your nose all right, the gods knew, but you couldn't acktually eat 'em. 
A confusion of instincts threatened to short-circuit his schizophrenically doggy 
mind. 
The voices gave up their assault in disgust and turned their attention to 
Ginger, who was methodically trying to shift more sand. 
One of Gaspode's fleas bit him sharply. It was probably dreaming of being the 
biggest flea in the world. His leg came up automatically to scratch it, and the 
spell faded. 
He blinked. 
'Bloody hell,' he whined. 
This is what's happening to the humans! Wonder what they're making her dream? 
The hairs rose along Gaspode's back. 
You didn't need any special mysterious animal instincts here. Perfectly 
generalized everyday instincts were enough to horrify him. There was something 
dreadful on the other side of the door. 
She was trying to let it out. 
He had to wake her up. 
Biting wasn't really a good idea. His teeth weren't that good these days. He 
doubted very much if barking would be any better. That left one alternative . . 
. 
The sand moved eerily under his paws; maybe it was dreaming of being rocks. The 
scrawny trees around the hollow were wrapped in sequoia fantasies. Even the air 
that curled around Gaspode's bullet head moved sluggishly, although it's 
anyone's guess what the air dreams about. 
Gaspode trotted up to Ginger and pushed his nose against her leg. 

The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the 
noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or 
the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably 
long way off. A dog's wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, 
but it has its own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and 
dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It's like having a small 
piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you. 

Ginger blinked. The glow faded from her eyes. She looked down, her expression of 
horror turning to astonishment and then, when she saw Gaspode leering up at her, 
back to a more mundane horror. 
' 'Allo,' Gaspode said, ingratiatingly. 
She backed away, bringing her hands up protectively. Sand dribbled between her 
fingers. Her eyes flickered towards it in bewilderment, and then back to 
Gaspode. 
'Gods, that's horrible,' she said. 'What's going on? Why am I here?' Her hands 
flew to her mouth. 'Oh no,' she whispered, 'not again!' 
She stared at him for a moment, glared up at the doorway, then turned, hitched 
up her nightdress, and hurried back to town through the morning mists. 
Gaspode struggled after her, aware of anger in the air, desperately trying to 
put as much space as possible between the door and himself. 
Sunnink dreadful in there, he thought. Prob'ly tentacled fings that rips your 
face off. I mean, when you finds mysterious doors in old hills, stands to reason 
wot comes out ain't going to be pleased to see you. Evil creatures wot Man 
shouldn't wot of, and here's one dog wot don't want to wot of them either. Why 
couldn't she . . . 
He grumbled on towards the town. 
Behind him the door moved the tiniest fraction of an inch. 

Holy Wood was awake long before Victor, and the hammering from Century of the 
Fruitbat echoed around the sky. Waggonloads of timber were queuing up to enter 
the archway. He was buffeted and pushed aside by a hurrying stream of plasterers 
and carpenters. Inside, crowds of workmen scurried around the arguing figures of 
Silverfish and C.M.O.T. Dibbler. 
Victor reached them just as Silverfish said, in astonished, tones, 'The whole 
city?' 
'You can leave out the bits round the edge,' said Dibbler. 'But I want the whole 
of the centre. The palace, the University, the Guilds - everything that makes it 
a real city, understand? It's got to be right!' 
He was red in the face. Behind him loomed Detritus the troll, patiently holding 
what appeared to be a bed over his head on one massive hand, like a waiter with 
a tray. Dibbler had the sheets in one hand. Then Victor realized that the whole 
bed, not just the sheets, was covered in writing. 
'But the cost -' Silverfish protested. 
'We'll find the money somehow,' said Dibbler calmly. 
Silverfish couldn't have looked more horrified if Dibbler had worn a dress. He 
tried to rally. 
'Well, if you're determined, Throat-' 
'Right!' 
'-I suppose, come to think of it, maybe we could amortize the cost over several 
clicks, maybe even hire it out afterwards-' 
'What are you talking about?' demanded Dibbler. 'We're building it for Blown 
Away!' 
'Yes, yes, of course,' said Silverfish soothingly. 'And then afterwards, we 
can-' 
'Afterwards? There won't be any afterwards! Haven't you read the script? 
Detritus, show him the script!' 
Detritus obligingly dropped the bed between them. 
'It's your bed, Throat.' 
'Script, bed, what's the difference? Look . . . here . . . just above the 
carving . . . ' 
There was a pause while Silverfish read. It was quite a long one. Silverfish 
wasn't used to reading matter that didn't come in columns with totals at the 
bottom. Eventually he said, 'You're going . . . to . . . set it on 
'It's historical. You can't argue with history,' said Dibbler smugly. 'The city 
was burned down in the civil war, everyone knows that.' 
Silverfish drew himself up. 'The city might have been,' he said stiffly, 'but I 
didn't have to find the budget for it! It's recklessly extravagant!' 
'I'll pay for it somehow,' said Dibbler, calmly. 
'In a word - im-possible!' 
'That's two words,' said Dibbler. 
'There's no way I can work on something like this,' said Silverfish, ignoring 
the interruption. 'I've tried to see your point of view, haven't I? But you've 
taken moving pictures and you're trying to turn them into, into, into dreams. I 
never wanted them to be like this! Include me out!' 
'OK.' Dibbler looked up at the troll. 
'Mr Silverfish was just leaving,' he said. Detritus nodded, and then slowly and 
firmly picked up Silverfish by his collar. 
Silverfish went white. 'You can't get rid of me like that,' he said. 
'You want to bet?' 
'There won't be an alchemist in Holy Wood who'll work for you! We'll take the 
handlemen with us! You'll be finished!' 
'Listen! After this click the whole of Holy Wood will be coming to me for a job! 
Detritus, throw this bum out!' 
'Right you are, Mr Dibbler,' rumbled the troll, gripping Silverfish's collar. 
'You haven't heard the last of this, you - you scheming, devious megalomaniac!' 
Dibbler removed his cigar. 
'That's Mister Megalomaniac to you,' he said. 
He replaced the cigar, and nodded significantly to the troll, who gently but 
firmly grasped Silverfish by a leg as well. 
'You lay a finger on me and you'll never work in this town again!' shouted 
Silverfish. 
'I got a job anyway, Mr Silverfish,' said Detritus calmly, carrying Silverfish 
towards the gate. 'I'm VicePresident of Throwing Out People Mr Dibbler Doesn't 
like the Face Of.' 
'Then you'll have to take on an assistant!' snarled Silverfish. 
'I got a nephew looking for a career,' said the troll. 'Have a nice day.' 
'Right,' said Dibbler, rubbing his hands briskly. 'Soll!' 
Soll appeared from behind a trestle table loaded with rolled-up plans, and took 
a pencil out of his mouth. 
'Yes, Uncle?' 
'How long will it take?' 
'About four days, Uncle.' 'That's too long. Hire more people. I want it done by 
tomorrow, right?' 
'But, Uncle-' 
'Or you're sacked,' said Dibbler. Soll looked frightened. 
'I'm your nephew, Uncle,' he protested. 'You can't sack nephews.' 
Dibbler looked around and appeared to notice Victor for the first time. 
'Ah, Victor. You're good at words,' he said. 'Can I sack a nephew?' 
'Er. I don't think so. I think you have to disown them, or something,' said 
Victor lamely. 'But-' 
'Right! Right!' said Dibbler. 'Good man. I knew it was some kind of a word like 
that. Disown. Hear that, Soll?' 
'Yes, Uncle,' said Soll dispiritedly. 'I'll go and see if I can find some more 
carpenters, then, shall I?' 
'Right.' Soll flashed Victor a look of terrified astonishment as he scurried 
away. Dibbler started haranguing a group of handlemen. Instructions spouted out 
of the man like water from a fountain. 
'I reckon no-one's goin' to Ankh-Morpork this morning, then,' said a voice by 
Victor's knee. 
'He's certainly very, er, ambitious today;' said Victor. 'Not like himself at 
all.' 
Gaspode scratched an ear. 'There was sunnink I got to tell you. What was it, 
now? Oh, yeah. I remember. Your girlfriend is an agent of demonic powers. That 
night we saw her on the hill she was prob'ly on her way to commune with evil. 
What d'you fink of that, eh?' 
He grinned. He was rather proud of the way he'd introduced the subject. 
'That's nice,' said Victor abstractedly. Dibbler was certainly acting even 
stranger than usual. Even stranger than usual for Holy Wood, even . . . 
'Yeah,' said Gaspode, slightly annoyed at this reception. 'A-cavortin' at night 
with eldritchly occult Intelligences from the Other Side, I shouldn't wonder.' 
'Good,' said Victor. You didn't normally burn things in Holy Wood. You saved 
them and painted on the other side. Despite himself, he began to get interested. 

'-a cast of thousands,' Dibbler was saying. 'I don't care where you get them 
from, we'll hire everyone in Holy Wood if we have to, right? And I want-' 
'A-helpin' them in their evil attempts to take over the whole world, if I'm any 
judge,' said Gaspode. 
'Does she?' said Victor. Dibbler was talking to a couple of apprentice 
alchemists now. What was that. A twentyreeler? But no-one had ever dreamed of 
going above five! 
'Yeah, a-diggin' away to rouse them from their ancient slumber to reek havoc, 
style offing,' said Gaspode. 'Prob'ly aided by cats, you mark my-' 
'Look, just shut up a minute, will you?' said Victor, irritably. 'I'm trying to 
hear what they're saying.' 
'Well, 'scuse me. I was jus' tryin' to save the world,' muttered Gaspode. 'If 
gharstely creatures from Before the Dawna Time starts wavin' at you from under 
your bed, jus' you don't come complainin' to me.' 
'What are you going on about?' said Victor. 
'Oh, nothin'. Nothin'.' 
Dibbler looked up, caught sight of Victor's craning face, and waved at it. 
'You, lad! Come here! Have I got a part for you!' 
'Have you?' said Victor, pushing his way through the crowd. 
'That's what I said!' 
'No, you asked if-' Victor began, and gave up. 
'And where's Miss Ginger, may I ask?' said Dibbler. 'Late again?' 
' . . . prob'ly sleepin' in . . . ' grumbled a sullen and totally ignored voice 
from down below in the sea of legs, '. . . prob'ly takes it out of you, messin' 
with the occult . . . ' 
'Soll, send someone to fetch her here-' 
'Yes, Uncle.' 
'. . . wot can you expect, huh, people who like cats're capable of anythin', you 
can't trust 'em. . . ' 
'And find someone to transcribe the bed.' 
'Yes, Uncle.' 
' . . . but do they listen! Not them. Bet if I had a glossy coat an' ran aroun' 
yappin' they'd listen all right . . . ' 
Dibbler opened his mouth to speak, and then frowned and raised a hand. 
'Where's that muttering coming from?' he said. 
' . . . prob'ly saved the whole world for 'em, by rights I'd get a statchoo put 
up to me nose but no, oh no, not for you Mr Gaspode, on account of you not bein' 
the right kinda person, so . . . ' 
The whine stopped. The crowd shuffled aside, revealing a small bowlegged grey 
dog, which looked up impassively at Dibbler. 
'Bark?' it said, innocently. 

Events always moved fast in Holy Wood, but the work on Blown Away sped forward 
like a comet. The other Fruitbat clicks were halted. So were most of the others 
in the town, because Dibbler was hiring actors and handlemen at twice what 
anyone else would pay. 
And a sort of Ankh-Morpork rose among the dunes. It would have been cheaper, 
Soll complained, to have risked the wrath of the wizards, sneaked some filming 
in Ankh-Morpork itself, and then slipped someone a fistful of dollars to put a 
match to the place. 
Dibbler disagreed. 
'Apart from anything else,' he declared, 'it wouldn't look right.' 
'But it's the real Ankh-Morpork, Uncle,' said Soll. 'It's got to look exactly 
right. How can it not look right?' 
'Ankh-Morpork doesn't look all that genuine, you know,' said Dibbler 
thoughtfully. 
'Of course it's bloody genuine!' snapped Soll, the bonds of .kinship stretching 
to snapping point. 'It's really there! It's really itself! You can't make it any 
more genuine! It's as genuine as it can get!' 
Dibbler took his cigar out of his mouth. 
'No, it isn't,' he said. 'You'll see.' 
Ginger turned up around lunchtime, looking so pale that even Dibbler didn't 
shout at her. She kept glaring at Gaspode, who tried to stay out of her way. 
Dibbler was preoccupied, anyway. He was in his office, explaining The Plot. 
It was basically quite simple, running on the familiar lines of Boy Meets Girl, 
Girl Meets Another Boy, Boy Loses Girl, except that on this occasion there was a 
civil war in the middle of it . . . 
The origins of the Ankh-Morpork Civil War (8.32 p.m., Grune 3, 432 -10.45 a. m., 
Grune 4, 432) have always been a subject of heated debate among historians. 
There are two main theories: 1. The common people, having been heavily taxed by 
a particularly stupid and unpleasant king, decided that enough was enough and 
that it was time to do away with the outmoded concept of monarchy and replace it 
with, as it turned out, a series of despotic overlords who still taxed heavily 
but at least had the decency not to pretend the gods had given them the right to 
do it, which made everyone feel a bit better OR 2. One of the players in a game 
of Cripple Mr Onion in a tavern had accused another of palming more than the 
usual number of aces, and knives had been drawn, and then someone had hit 
someone with a "bench, and then someone else had stabbed someone, and arrows 
started to fly, and someone had swung on the chandelier, and a carelesslyhurled 
axe had hit someone in the street, and then the Watch had been called in, and 
someone had set fire to the place, and someone had hit a lot of people with a 
table, and then everyone lost their tempers and commenced to start fighting. 
Anyway, it all caused a civil war, which is something every mature civilization 
needs to have had . . . [20] 
'The way I see it,' said Dibbler, 'there's this high-born girl living all by 
herself in this big house, right, and her young man goes off to fight for the 
rebels, you see, and she meets this other guy, and there's the chemistry between 
them-' 
'They blow up?' said Victor. 
'He means they fall in love,' said Ginger coldly. 
'That sort of thing,' nodded Dibbler. 'Eyes meeting across a crowded room. And 
she's all alone in the world except for the servants and, let's see, yeah, 
perhaps her pet dog-' 
'This'll be Laddie?' said Ginger. 
'Right. And of course she's going to do everything she can to preserve the 
family mine, so she's kind of flirting with 'em both, the men, not the dog, and 
then one of them gets killed in the war and the other one throws her over but 
it's all OK because she's tough at heart.' He sat back. 'What d'you think?' he 
said. 
The people sitting around the room looked uneasily at one another. 
There was a fidgety silence. 
'It sounds great, Uncle,' said Soll, who wasn't looking for any more problems 
today. 
'Technically very challenging,' said Gaffer. 
There was a chorus of relieved assent from the rest of the team. 
'I don't know,' said Victor slowly. 
Everyone else's eyes turned on him in the same way that spectators at the lion 
pit watch the first condemned criminal to be pushed out through the iron gate. 
He went on: 'I mean, is that all? It doesn't sound, well, very complicated for 
such a long click. People sort of falling in love while a civil war is going on 
in the background . . . I don't see how you can make much of a picture out of 
that.' 
There was another troubled silence. A couple of people near Victor moved away. 
Dibbler was staring at him. 
Victor could hear, coming from under his chair, an almost inaudible little 
voice. 
' . . . oh, of course, there's always a part for Laddie . . . woes he got that I 
haven't got, that's wot I'd like to . . . ' 
Dibbler was still staring fixedly at Victor. 
Then he said, 'You're right. You're right. Victor's right. Why didn't anyone 
else spot it?' 
'That's just what I was thinking, Uncle,' said Soll hurriedly. 'We need to flesh 
it out a bit.' 
Dibbler waved his cigar vaguely. 'We can think up some more stuff as we go, no 
problem. Like . . . like . . . how about a chariot race? People always like a 
chariot race. It's gripping. Will he fall out, will the wheels come off? Yeah. A 
chariot race.' 
'I've, er, been reading a bit about the Civil War,' said Soll cautiously, 'and I 
don't think there's any mention of-' 
'Of there not being chariot races, am I right?' said Dibbler, in soapy tones 
containing the razor blade of menace. Soll sagged. 
'Since you put it like that, Uncle,' he said, 'you're right.' 
'And . . . ' Dibbler stared reflectively, ' . . . we could try . . . a great big 
shark?' Even Dibbler sounded slightly surprised at his own suggestion. 
Soll looked hopefully at Victor. 
'I'm almost certain sharks didn't fight in the Civil War,' said Victor. 
'You sure?' 
'I'm sure people would have noticed,' said Victor. 
'They'd have got trampled by the elephants,' muttered Soll. 
'Yeah,' said Dibbler, sadly. 'It was just a thought. Don't know why I said it, 
really.' 
He stared at nothing for a while, and then shook his head briskly. 
A shark, Victor thought. All the little golden fishes of your own thoughts are 
swimming away happily, and then the water moves and this great shark of a 
thought comes in from outside. As if someone's doing our thinking for us. 

'You just don't know how to behave,' Victor told Gaspode, when they were alone. 
'I could hear you grumbling under the chair the whole time.' 
'I might not know how to behave, but at least I don't go mooning around over 
some girl who's letting dretful Creatures of the Night into the world,' said 
Gaspode. 
'I should hope not,' said Victor, and then, 'What do you mean?' 
'Aha! Now he listens! Your girlfriend-' 
'She's not my girlfriend!' 
'Would-be girlfriend,' said Gaspode, 'is goin' out every night and tryin' to 
open that door in the hill. She tried it again last night, after you'd gone. I 
saw her. I stopped her,' he added, defiantly. 'Not that I expect any credit, of 
course. There's some dretful in there, an' she's lettin' it out. No wonder she's 
always late and tired in the mornings, what with spendin' the whole night 
diggin'.' 
'How do you know they're dreadful?'said Victor weakly. 
'Put it like this,' said Gaspode. 'If something's shoved in a cave under a hill 
behind great big doors, it's not 'cos people want it to come out every night to 
wash the dishes, is it? 'Corse,' he added charitably, 'I'm not sayin' she knows 
she's doing it. Prob'ly they've got a grip of her weak an' feeble cat-lovin' 
female mind and are twisting it to their evil will.' 
'You do talk a lot of crap sometimes,' said Victor, but he didn't sound very 
convincing even to himself. 
'Ask her, then,' said the dog, smugly. 
'I will!' 
'Right!' 
Exactly how, though? thought Victor, as they trudged out into the sunshine. 
Excuse me, miss, my dog says that you . . . no. I say, Ginger, I understand that 
you're going out and . . . no. Hey, Ginj, how come my dog saw . . . no. 
Perhaps he should just start up a conversation and wait until it got around 
naturally to monstrosities from Beyond the Void. 
But it would have to wait, because of the row that was going on. 
It was over the third major part in Blown Away. Victor was of course the dashing 
but dangerous hero, Ginger was the only possible choice for the female lead, but 
the second male role -the dull but dutiful one - was causing trouble. 
Victor had never seen anyone stamp their foot in anger before. He'd always 
thought it was something they did only in books. But Ginger was doing it. 
'Because I'd look an idiot, that's why!' she was saying. 
Soll, who was by now feeling like a lightning rod on a stormy day, waved his 
hand frantically. 
'But he's ideal for the role!' he said. 'It calls for a solid character-' 
'Solid? Of course he's solid! He's made of stone!' shouted Ginger. 'He might 
have a suit of chain mail and a false moustache but he's still a troll!' 
Rock, looming monolithically over the pair of them, cleared his throat noisily. 
'Excuse me,' he said, 'I hope we're not going to get elementalist about this?' 
Now it was Ginger's turn to wave her hands. 'I like trolls,' she said. 'As 
trolls, that is. But you can't seriously mean me to do a romantic scene with a, 
a, a cliff face.' 
'Now look here,' said Rock, his voice winding up like a pitcher's arm. 'What 
you're saying is, is OK for trolls to be shown bashing people with clubs, is not 
OK to show trolls have finer feelings like squashy humans?' 
'She's not saying that at all,' said Soll desperately. 'She's not-' 
'If you cut me, do I not bleed?' said Rock. 
'No, you don't,' said Soll, 'but-' 
'Ah, yes, but I would. If I had blood, I'd bleed all over the place.' 
'And another thing,' said a dwarf, prodding Soll in the knee. 'It says in the 
script that she owns a mine full of happy, laughing, singing dwarfs, right?' 
'Oh, yes,' said Soll, putting the troll problem on one side. 'What about it?' 
'It's a bit stereotypical, isn't it?' said the dwarf. 'I mean, it's a bit dwarfs 
= miners. I don't see why we have to be type-cast like this all the time.' 
'But most dwarfs are miners,' said Soll desperately. 
'Well, OK, but they're not happy about it,' said another dwarf. 'And they don't 
sing the whole time.' 
'That's right,' said a third dwarf. ' 'Cos of safety, see? You can bring the 
whole roof down on you, singing.' 
'And there's no mines anywhere near Ankh-Morpork,' said possibly the first 
dwarf, although they all looked identical to Soll. 'Everyone knows that. It's on 
loam. We'd be a laughing stock, if our people saw us mining for jewels anywhere 
near Ankh-Morpork.' 
'I wouldn't say I've got a cliff face,' rumbled Rock, who sometimes took a 
little time to digest things. 'Craggy, maybe. But not cliffy.' 
'The fact is,' said one of the dwarfs, 'we don't see why humans get all the good 
roles and we get all the titchy bit parts.' 
Soll gave the jolly little laugh of someone in a corner who hopes that a joke 
will lighten the atmosphere a bit. 
'Ah,' he said, 'that's because you-' 
'Yes?' said the dwarfs in unison. 
'Um,' said Soll, and struck out quickly for a change of subject. 'You see, the 
whole point, as I understand it, is that Ginger will do absolutely anything to 
keep the mansion and the mine and=' 
'I hopes we can get on,' said Gaffer, 'only I've got to muck the imps out in an 
hour.' 
'Oh, I see,' said Rock. 'I'm absolutely anything, am I?' 
'You don't keep mines,' said one of the dwarfs. 'Mines keep you. You take the 
treasure out. You don't put it in. That's fundamental to the whole mine 
business.' 
'Well, perhaps this mine is worked out,' said Soll quickly. 'Anyway, she-' 
'Well, in that case, you don't keep it,' said another dwarf, in the expansive 
manner of one about to settle down to a good long explanation. 'You abandon it, 
propping and shoring where necessary, and sink another shaft on a line with the 
major seam-' 
'Allowing for fault escarpments and uniclinal structures,' said another dwarf. 
'Of course, allowing for fault escarpments and uniclinal structures, and then-' 
'And general crustal shifting.' 
'All right, and then-' 
'Unless you're just cutting and filling, of course.' 
'Granted, but-' 
'I don't see', Rock began, 'that my face could be called-' 
'SHUT UP!' screamed Soll. 'Everyone shut up! SHUT UP! The next person who 
doesn't shut up will never work in this town again! Understand? Do I make myself 
CLEAR? Right.' He coughed, and continued in a more normal voice: 'Very well. 
Now, I want it understood that this is a Breathtaking, Block-busting Romantic 
film about a woman's fight to save the-' he consulted his clipboard, and went on 
valiantly, '-everything she loves against the background of a World Gone Mad, 
and I don't want any more trouble from anyone.' 
A dwarf tentatively raised his hand. 
' 'Scuse me?' 
'Yes?' said Soll. 
'Why is it all Mr Dibbler's films are set against the background of a world gone 
mad?' said the dwarf. 
Soll's eyes narrowed. 'Because Mr Dibbler', he growled, 'is a very observant 
man.' 

Dibbler had been right. The new city was the old city distilled. Narrow alleys 
were narrower, tall buildings taller. Gargoyles were more fearsome, roofs more 
pointed. The towering Tower of Art in Unseen University was, here, even taller 
and more precariously towering even though it was at- the same time only one 
quarter the size; the Unseen University was more baroque and buttressed; the 
Patrician's Palace more pillar'd. Carpenters swarmed over a construction that, 
when it was finished, would make Ankh­Morpork look like a very indifferent copy 
of itself, except that the buildings in the original city were not, by and 
large, painted on canvas stretched over timber and didn't have the dirt 
carefully sprayed on. Ankh-Morpork's buildings had to get dirty all by 
themselves. 
It looked far more like Ankh-Morpork than Ankh-Morpork ever had. 

Ginger had been ushered off to the changing tents before Victor had a chance to 
speak to her, and then shooting started and it was too late. 
Century of the Fruitbat (and now it said on the sign, in slightly smaller type: 
More Stars than There Are in the Heavens[21]) believed that a click should be 
made in less than ten times the time it took to watch. Blown Away was going to 
be different. There were battles. There were night scenes, the imps painting 
away furiously by torchlight. Dwarfs worked merrily in a mine never seen before 
or since, where fake gold nuggets the size of chickens had been stuck in the 
plaster walls. Since Soll demanded that their lips should be seen to move they 
sang a risque version of the 'Hihohiho' song, which had rather caught on among 
holy Wood's dwarf population. 
It was just possible that Soll knew how it all fitted together. Victor didn't. 
It was always best, he had learned, never to try to follow the plot of any click 
you were in, and in any case Soll wasn't just shooting back to front but sides 
to middle as well. It was totally confusing, just like real life. 
When he did get a chance to talk to Ginger, two handlemen and everyone else in 
the cast who currently had nothing to do were watching them. 
'OK, people,' said Soll. 'This is the scene near the end where Victor meets 
Ginger after all they've been through together, and on the card he'll be 
saying-' He stared at the big black oblong handed to him. 'Yes, he'll be saying 
"Frankly, my dear, I'd give anything for one of . . . Harga's . . . prime . . . 
pork . . . ribs . . . in . . . special . . . curry . . . sauce. . . " ' 
Soll's voice slowed and stopped. When he breathed in, it was like a whale 
surfacing. 
'Who wrote THIS?' 
One of the artists cautiously raised a hand. 
'Mr Dibbler told me to,' he said quickly. 
Soll leafed through the big heap of cards that represented the dialogue for a 
large part of the click. His lips tightened. He nodded to one of the people with 
clipboards and said, 'Could you just run ever to the office and ask my uncle to 
stroll over here, if he's got a moment?' 
Soll pulled a card out of the stack and read, ' "I sure miss the old mine but 
for a taste of real country cooking I always . . . go . . . to . . .Harp's . . 
.House . . . Of . . ." I see.' 
He selected another at random. 'Ah. I see here a wounded Royalist soldier's last 
words are "What I wouldn't give right now for a $1 Eat-Till-It-Hurts special at 
. . . Harga's . . . House . . . of . . . Ribs . . . Mother!" ' 
'I think it's very moving,' said Dibbler, behind him. 'There won't be a dry eye 
in the house, you'll see.' 
'Uncle-' Soll began. 
Dibbler raised his hands. 'I said I'd raise the money somehow,' he said, 'and 
Sham Harga's even helping us with the food for the barbecue scene.' 
'You said you weren't going to interfere with the script!' 
'That's not interfering,' said Dibbler stolidly. 'I don't see how that could be 
considered interfering. I just polished it up here and there. I think it's 
rather an improvement. Besides, Harp's All-You­Can-Gobble-For-A-Dollar is 
amazing value these days.' 
'But the click is set hundreds of years ago!' shouted Soll. 
'We=ell,' said Dibbler. 'I suppose someone could say, "I wonder if the food at 
Harga's House of Ribs will still be as good in hundreds of years' time-" ' 
'That isn't moving pictures. That is crass commerce!' 
'I hope so,' said Dibbler. 'We're in real trouble if it isn't.' 
'Now look-' Soll began, threateningly. 
Ginger turned to Victor. 
'Can we go somewhere and talk?' she said, quietly. 'Without your dog,' she 
added, in her normal voice. 'Definitely without your dog.' 
'You want to talk to me?' said Victor. 
'There hasn't been much of a chance, has there?' 
'Right. Certainly. Gaspode, stay. There's a good dog.' Victor derived a quiet 
satisfaction from the brief look of pure disgust that flashed across Gaspode's 
face. 
Behind them the eternal Holy Wood argument had wound up to cruising speed, with 
Soll and C.M.O.T. standing nose to nose and arguing in a circle of amused and 
interested staff. 
'I don't have to take this, you know! I can resign!' 
'No, you can't! You're my nephew! You can't resign from being a nephew-!' 
Ginger and Victor sat down on the steps of a canvas and wood mansion. They had 
absolute privacy. No-one was going to bother to watch them with a rip-snorter of 
a row going on a few yards away. 
'Er,' said Ginger. Her fingers twisted among themselves. Victor couldn't help 
noticing that the nails were worn down. 
'Er,' she said again. Her face was a picture of anguish, and pale under the 
make-up. She isn't beautiful, Victor felt himself think, but you could have real 
trouble believing it. 
'I, er, don't know how to say this,' she said, 'but, er, has anyone noticed me 
walking in my sleep?' 
'To the hill?' said Victor. 
Her head whipped around like a snake. 
'You know? How do you know? Have you been spying on me?' she snapped. It was the 
old Ginger again, all fire and venom and the aggressiveness of paranoia. 
'Laddie found you . . . asleep yesterday afternoon,' said 
Victor, leaning back. 
'During the day?' 
'Yes.' 
She put her hands to her mouth. 'It's worse than I thought,' she whispered. 
'It's getting worse! You know when you met me up the hill? Just before Dibbler 
found us, and thought we were . . . spooning . . . ' she blushed. 
'Well, I didn't even know how I'd got there!' 
'And you went back last night,' said Victor. 
'The dog told you, did he?' she said, dully. 
'Yes. Sorry.' 
'It's every night now,' moaned Ginger. 'I know, because even if I go back to bed 
there's sand all over the floor and my nails are all broken! I go there every 
night and I don't know why!' 
'You're trying to open the door,' said Victor. 'There's this big ancient door 
now, where part of the hill has slid away, and-' 
'Yes, I've seen it, but why?' 
Well, I've got a couple of ideas,' said Victor cautiously. 
'Tell me!' 
'Um. Well, have you heard of something called a genius loci?, 
'No.' Her brow wrinkled. 'It's clever, is it?' 
'It's the sort of soul of a place. It can be quite strong. It can be made 
strong, by worship or love or hate, if it goes on long enough. And I'm wondering 
if the spirit of a place can call to people. And animals, too. I mean, Holy Wood 
is a different sort of place, isn't it? People act differently here. Everywhere 
else, the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most 
important thing is to be important.' 
He had her full attention. 'Yes?' she said encouragingly, and, 'It doesn't sound 
too bad so far.' 
'I'm getting to the bad bit.' 
'Oh.' 
Victor swallowed. His brain was bubbling like a bouillon. Half­remembered facts 
surfaced tantalizingly and sank again. Dry old tutors in high old rooms had been 
telling him dull old things which were suddenly as urgent as a knife, and he 
dredged desperately for them. 
'I'm not-' he croaked. He cleared his throat. 'I'm not sure it's right, though,' 
he managed. 'It's come from somewhere else. It can happen. You've heard of ideas 
whose time has come?' 
'Yes.' 
'Well, they're the tame ones. There's other ones. Ideas so full of vigour they 
don't even wait for their time. Wild ideas. Escaped ideas. And the trouble is, 
when you get something like that, you get a hole-' 
He looked at her polite, blank expression. Analogies bubbled to the surface like 
soggy croutons. Imagine all the worlds that have ever been are in one sense 
pressed together like a sandwich . . . a pack of cards . . . a book . . . a 
folded sheet . . . if conditions are right, things can go through rather than 
along . . . but if you open a gate between worlds, there are terrible dangers, 
as for instance . . . 
As for instance . . . 
As for instance . . . 
As for instance what? 
It rose up in his memory like the suddenly-discovered bit of suspicious tentacle 
just when you thought it was safe to eat the paella. 
'It could be that something else is trying to come through the same way,' he 
ventured. 'In the, uh, in the nowhere between the somewhere there are creatures 
which on the whole I'd rather not describe to you.' 
'You already have,' said Ginger, in a tense voice. 
'And, uh, they're generally quite keen to get into the real worlds and perhaps 
they're somehow making contact with you when you're asleep and . . . ' He gave 
up. He couldn't bear her expression any more. 
'I could be entirely wrong,' he said quickly. 
'You've got to stop me opening the door,' she whispered. 'I could be one of 
Them.' 
'Oh, I don't think so,' said Victor loftily. 'They've generally got too many 
arms, I think.' 
'I tried putting tacks on the floor to wake myself up,' said Ginger. 
'Sounds awful. Did it work?' 
'No. They were all back in their bag in the morning. I must have picked them up 
again.' 
Victor pursed his lips. 'That could be a good sign,' he said. 
'Why?' 
'If you were being summoned by, uh, unpleasant things, 
I think they wouldn't bother what you walked over.' 
'Urgh.' 
'You haven't got any idea why it's all happening, have you?' Victor said. 
'No! But I always get the same dream.' Her eyes narrowed. 'Hey, how come you 
know all this stuff?' 
'I - a wizard told me, once,' said Victor. 
'You're not a wizard yourself?' 
'Absolutely not. No wizards in Holy Wood. And this dream?' 
'Oh, it's too strange to mean anything. Anyway, I used to dream it even when I 
was small. It starts off with this mountain, only it's not a normal mountain, 
because-' 
Detritus the troll loomed over them. 
'Young Mr Dibbler says it's time to start shooting again,' 
he rumbled. 
'Will you come to my room tonight?' hissed Ginger. 
'Please? You can wake me up if I start sleepwalking again.' 
'Well, er, yes, but your landlady might not like it-' Victor began. 
'Oh, Mrs Cosmopilite is very broadminded,' said Ginger. 
'She is?' 
'She'll just think we're having sex,' said Ginger. 
'Ah,' said Victor hollowly. 'That's all right, then.' 
'Young Mr Dibbler don't like being kept waiting,' said Detritus. 
'Oh, shut up,' said Ginger. She stood up and brushed the dust off her dress. 
Detritus blinked. People didn't usually tell him to shut up. A few worried 
fault-lines appeared on his brow. He turned and tried another loom, this time 
aimed at Victor. 
'Young Mr Dibbler don't like-' 
'Oh, go away,' snapped Victor, and wandered off after her. 
Detritus stood alone and screwed up his eyes in the effort of thought. Of 
course, people did occasionally say things like 'Go away' and 'Shut up' to him, 
but always with the tremor of terrified bravado in their voice, and so naturally 
he always riposted 'Hur hur' and hit them. But no-one had ever spoken to him as 
if his existence was the last thing in the world they could possibly be 
persuaded to worry about. His massive shoulders sagged. Perhaps all this hanging 
around Ruby was bad for him. 
Soll was standing over the artist who lettered the cards. He looked up as Victor 
and Ginger approached. 
'Right,' he said, 'places, everyone. We'll go straight on to the ballroom 
scene.' He looked pleased with himself. 
'Are the words all sorted out?' said Victor. 
'No problem,' said Soll proudly. He glanced at the sun. 'We've lost a lot of 
time,' he added, 'so let's not waste any more.' 
'Fancy you being able to get C.M.O.T. to give in like that,' said Victor. 
'He had no argument at all. He's gone back to his office to sulk, I expect,' 
said Soll loftily. 'OK, everyone, let's all get-' 
The lettering artist tugged at his sleeve. 
'I was just wondering, Mr Soll, what you wanted me to put in the big scene now 
Victor doesn't mention ribs-' 
'Don't worry me now, man!' 
'But if you could just give me an idea-' 
Soll firmly unhooked the man's hand from his sleeve. 'Frankly,' he said, 'I 
don't give a damn,' and he strode off towards the set. 
The artist was left alone. He picked up his paintbrush. His lips moved silently, 
shaping themselves around the words. 
Then he said, 'Hmm. Nice one.' 

Banana N'Vectif, cunningest hunter in the great yellow plains of Klatch, held 
his breath as he tweezered the last piece into place. Rain drummed on the roof 
of his hut. 
There. That was it. 
He'd never done anything like this before, but he knew he was doing it right. 
He'd trapped everything from zebras to thargas in his time, and what had he got 
to show for it? But yesterday, when he'd taken a load of skins into N'kouf, he'd 
heard a trader say that if any man ever built a better mousetrap, then the world 
would beat a path to his door. 
He'd lain awake all night thinking about this. Then, in the first light of dawn, 
he scratched a few designs on the but wall with a stick, and got to work. He had 
taken the opportunity to look at a few mousetraps while he was in the town, and 
they were definitely less than perfect. They hadn't been built by hunters. 
Now he picked up the twig and pushed it gently into the mechanism. 
Snap. 
Perfect. 
Now, all he had to do was take it into N'kouf and see if the merchant 
The rain was very loud indeed. In fact, it sounded more like 
When Banana woke up he was lying in the ruins of his but and they were in a 
half-mile wide swathe of trodden mud. 
He looked muzzily at what remained of his home. He looked at the brown scar that 
stretched from horizon to horizon. He looked at the dark, muddy cloud just 
visible at one end of it. 
Then he looked down. The better mousetrap was now a rather nice two-dimensional 
design, squashed into the middle of an enormous footprint. 
He said, 'I didn't know it was that good.' 

According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork 
Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one 
misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, ended with a practical 
score of Humans 0, ravens 1,000, which is the case with most battles. 
Something that both Dibblers were agreed on was that, if they'd been in charge, 
no-one would have been able to get away with such a low-grade war. It was a 
crime that people should have been allowed to stage a major turning-point in the 
history of the city without using thousands of people and camels and ditches and 
earthworks and siege-engines and trebuckets and horses and banners. 
'And in a bloody fog, too,' said Gaffer. 'No thought about light levels.' 
He surveyed the proposed field of battle, shading his eyes from the sun with one 
hand. There would be eleven handlemen working on this one, from every 
conceivable angle. One by one they held up their thumbs. 
Gaffer rapped on the picture box in front of him. 
'Ready, lads?' he said. 
There was a chorus of squeaks. 
'Good lads,' he said. 'Get this one right and thee can have an extra lizard for 
thy tea.' 
He grasped the handle with one hand and picked up a megaphone with the other. 
'Ready when you are, Mr Dibbler!' he yelled. 
C.M.O.T. nodded and was about to raise his hand when Soll's arm shot out and 
grabbed it. The nephew was staring intently at the ranged ranks of horsemen. 
'Just one moment,' he said levelly, and then cupped his hands and raised his 
voice to a shout. 'Hey, you there! Fifteenth knight along! Yes, you! Would you 
mind unfurling your banner, please? Thank you. Could you please report to Mrs 
Cosmopilite for a new one. Thank you.' 
Soll turned to his uncle, his eyebrows raised. 
'It's . . . it's a heraldic device,' said Dibbler quickly. 
'Crossed spare ribs on a bed of lettuce?' said Soll. 
'Very keen on their food, those old knights-' 
'And I liked the motto,' said Soll. ' "Every (k)night is Gormay Night At Harga's 
House of Ribs." If we had sound, I wonder what his battle cry would have been?' 
'You're my own flesh and blood,' said Dibbler, shaking his head. 'How can you do 
this to me?' 
'Because I'm your own flesh and blood,' said Soll. 
Dibbler brightened. Of course, when you looked at it like that, it didn't seem 
so bad. 

This is Holy Wood. To pass the time quickly, you just film the clock hands 
moving fast . . . 
In Unseen University, the resograph is already recording seven pubs a minute. 

And, towards the end of the afternoon, they burned Ankh­-Morpork. 
The real city had been burned down many times in its long history - out of 
revenge, or carelessness, or spite, or even just for the insurance. Most of the 
big stone buildings that actually made it a city, as opposed simply to a load of 
hovels all in one place, survived them intact and many people[22] considered 
that a good fire every hundred years or so was essential to the health of the 
city since it helped to keep down the rats, roaches, fleas and, of course, 
people not rich enough to live in stone houses. 
The famous Fire during the Civil War had been noteworthy simply because it was 
started by both sides at the same rime in order to stop the city falling into 
enemy hands. 
It had not otherwise, according to the history books, been very impressive. The 
Ankh had been particularly high that summer, and most of the city had been too 
damp to burn. 
This time it was a lot better. 
Flames poured into the sky. Because this was Holy Wood, everything burned, 
because the only difference between the stone buildings and the wooden buildings 
was what was painted on the canvas. The two-dimensional Unseen University 
burned. The Patrician's backless palace burned. Even the scale-model Tower of 
Art gushed flames like a roman candle. 
Dibbler watched it with concern. 
After a while Soll , behind him, said, 'Waiting for something, Uncle?' 
'Hmm? Oh, no. I hope Gaffer's concentrating on the tower, that's all,' said 
Dibbler. 'Very important symbolic landmark.' 
'It certainly is,' said Soll. 'Very important. So important, in fact, that I 
sent some lads up it at lunchtime just to make sure it was all OK.' 
'You did?' said Dibbler, guiltily. 
'Yes. And do you know what they found? They found someone had nailed some 
fireworks to the outside. Lots and lots of fireworks, on fuses. It's a good 
thing they found them because if the things had gone off it would have ruined 
the shot and we'd never be able to do it again. And, do you know, they said it 
looked as though the fireworks would spell out words?' Soll added. 
'What words?' 
'Never crossed my mind to ask them,' said Soll. 'Never crossed my mind.' 
He stuck his hands in his pockets and began to whistle under his breath. After a 
while he glanced sidelong at his uncle. 
' "Hottest ribs in town",' he muttered. 'Really!' 
Dibbler looked sulky. 'It would have got a laugh, anyway,' he said. 
'Look, Uncle, this can't go on,' said Soll. 'No more of this commercial messing 
about, right?' 
'Oh, all right.' 
'Sure?' 
Dibbler nodded. 'I've said all right, haven't I?' 
'I want a bit more than that, Uncle.' 
'I solemnly promise not to do any more meddling in the click,' said Dibbler 
gravely. 'I'm your uncle. I'm family. Is that good enough for you?' 
'Well. All right.' 
When the fire had died down they raked some of the ashes together for a barbecue 
at the end-of-shooting party, under the stars. 

The velvet sheet of the night drapes itself over the parrot cage that is Holy 
Wood, and on warm nights like this there are many people with private business 
to pursue. 
A young couple, strolling hand in hand across the dunes, were frightened to near 
insensibility when an enormous troll jumped out at them from behind a rock 
waving its arms and shouting 'Aaaargh!' 
'Scared you, did I?' said Detritus, hopefully. 
They nodded, white-faced. 
'Well, that's a relief,' said the troll. He patted them on the heads, forcing 
their feet a little way into the sand. 'Thanks very much. Much obliged. Have a 
nice night,' he added mournfully. 
He watched them walk off hand in hand, and then burst into tears. 
In the handlemen's shed, C.M.O.T. Dibbler stood watching thoughtfully as Gaffer 
pasted together the day's footage. The handleman was feeling very gratified; Mr 
Dibbler had never shown the slightest interest in the actual techniques of film 
handling before now. This may have explained why he was a little freer than 
usual with Guild secrets that had been handed down sideways from one generation 
to the same generation. 
'Why are all the little pictures alike?' said Dibbler, as the handleman wound 
the film on to its spool. 'Seems to me that's wasting money.' 
'They're not really alike,' said Gaffer. 'Each one's a bit different, see? And 
so people's eyes see a lot of little slightly different pictures very fast and 
their eyes think they're watching something move.' 
Dibbler took his cigar out of his mouth. 'You mean it's all a trick?' he said, 
astonished. 
'Yeah, that's right.' The handleman chuckled and reached for the paste pot. 
Dibbler watched in fascination. 
'I thought it was all a special kind of magic,' he said, a shade disappointed. 
'Now you tell me it's just a big Find-the­-Lady game?' 
'Sort of. You see, people don't actually see any one picture. They see a lot of 
them at once, see what I mean?' 
'Hey, I got lost at see there.' 
'Every picture adds to the general effect. People don't see, sorry, any one 
picture, they just see the effect caused by a lot of them moving past very 
quickly.' 
'Do they? That's very interesting,' said Dibbler. 'Very interesting indeed.' He 
flicked the ash from his cigar towards the demons. One of them caught it and ate 
it. 
'So what would happen', he said slowly, 'if, say, just one picture in the whole 
click was different.' 
'Funny you should ask,' said Gaffer. 'It happened the other day when we were 
patching up Beyond the Valley of the Trolls. One of the apprentices had stuck in 
just one picture from The Golde Rush and we all went around all morning thinking 
about gold and not knowing why. It was as if it'd gone straight into our heads 
without our eyes seeing it. Of course, I took my belt to the lad when we spotted 
it, but we'd never have found out if I hadn't happened to look at the click 
slowly.' 
He picked up the paste brush again, squared up a couple of strips of film, and 
fixed them together. After a while he became aware that it had gone very quiet 
behind him. 
'You all right, Mr Dibbler?' he said. 
'Hmm? Oh.' Dibbler was deep in thought. 'Just one picture had all that effect?' 
'Oh, yes. Are you all right, Mr Dibbler?' 
'Never felt better, lad,' Dibbler said. 'Never felt better.' 
He rubbed his hands together. 'Let's you and me have a little chat, man to man,' 
he added. 'Because, you know . . . ' he laid a friendly hand on Gaffer's 
shoulder, ' . . . I've a feeling that this could be your lucky day.' 
And in another alleyway Gaspode sat muttering to himself. 
'Huh. Stay, he says. Givin' me orders. Jus' so's his girlfriend doesn't have to 
have a horrid smelly dog in her room. So here's me, man's best friend, sittin' 
out in the rain. If it was rainin', anyway. Maybe it ain't rainin', but if it 
was rainin', I'd be soaked by now. Serve him right if I just upped and walked 
away. I could do it, too. Any time I wanted. I don't have to sit here. I hope 
no-one's thinkin' I'm sittin' here because I've been told to sit here. I'd like 
to see the human who could give me orders. I'm sittin' here 'cos I want to. 
Yeah.' 
Then he whined for a bit and shuffled into the shadows, where there was less 
chance of being seen. 
In the room above, Victor was standing facing the wall. This was humiliating. It 
had been bad enough bumping into a grinning Mrs Cosmopilite on the stairs. She 
had given him a big smile and a complicated, elbowintensive gesture that, he 
felt certain, sweet little old ladies shouldn't know. 
There were clinks and the occasional rustle behind him as Ginger got ready for 
bed. 
'She's really very nice. She told me yesterday that she had had four husbands,' 
said Ginger. 
'What did she do with the bones?' said Victor. 
'I'm sure I don't know what you mean,' said Ginger, sniffing. 'All right, you 
can turn around now. I'm in bed.' 
Victor relaxed, and turned round. Ginger had drawn the covers up to her neck and 
was holding them there like a besieged garrison manning the barricades. 
'You've got to promise me,' she said, 'that if anything happens, you won't try 
to take advantage of the situation.' 
Victor sighed. 'I promise.' 
'It's just that I've got a career to think about, you see.' 
'Yes, I see.' 
Victor sat by the lamp and took the book out of his pocket. 
'I'm not trying to be ungrateful or anything like that,' Ginger went on. 
Victor ruffled through the yellowing pages, looking for the place he'd got to. 
Scores of people had spent their lives by Holy Wood Hill, apparently just to 
keep a fire alight and chant three times a day. Why? 
'What are you reading?' said Ginger, after a while. 
'It's an old book I found,' said Victor, shortly. 'It's about Holy Wood.' 
'Oh.' 
'I should get some sleep if I were you,' he said, twisting so that he could make 
out the crabby script in the lamp light. 
He heard her yawn. 
'Did I finish telling you about the dream?' she said. 
'I don't think so,' said Victor, in what he hoped was a politely discouraging 
voice. 
'It always starts off with this mountain-' 
'Look, you really shouldn't be talking-' 
'-and there are stars around it, you know, in the sky, but one of them comes 
down and it's not a star at all, it's a woman holding a torch over her head-' 
Victor slowly turned back to the front of the book. 
'Yes?' he said, carefully. 
'And she keeps on trying to tell me something, something I can't make out, about 
waking something, and then there are a lot of lights and this roar, like a lion 
or a tiger or something, you know? And then I wake up.' 
Victor's finger idly traced the outline of the mountain under the stars. 
'It's probably just a dream,' he said. 'It probably doesn't mean anything.' 
Of course, Holy Wood Hill wasn't pointed. But perhaps it was once, in the days 
when there had been a city where now there was a bay. Good grief. Something must 
have really hated this place. 
'You don't remember anything else about the dream, by any chance?' he asked, 
with feigned casualness. 
There was no answer. He crept to the bed. 
She was asleep. 
He went back to the chair, which was promising to become annoyingly 
uncomfortable within half an hour, and turned down the lamp. 
Something in the hill. That was the danger. 
The more immediate danger was that he was going to fall asleep, too. 
He sat in the dark and worried. How did you wake up a sleepwalker, anyway? He 
recalled vaguely that it was said to be a very dangerous thing to do. There were 
stories about people dreaming about being executed and then, when someone had 
touched them on the shoulder to wake them up, their heads had fallen off. How 
anyone ever knew what a dead person had been dreaming wasn't disclosed. Perhaps 
the ghost came back afterwards and stood at the end of the bed, complaining. 
The chair creaked alarmingly as he shifted position. Perhaps if he stuck one leg 
out like this he could rest it on the end of the bed, so that even if he did 
fall asleep she wouldn't be able to get past without waking him. 
Funny, really. For weeks he'd spent the days sweeping her up in his arms, 
defending her bravely from whatever it was Morry was dressed up as today, 
kissing her, and generally riding off into the sunset to live happily, and 
possibly even ecstatically, ever after. There was probably no-one who'd ever 
watched one of the clicks who would possibly believe that he'd spend the night 
sitting in her room on a chair made out of splinters. Even he found it hard to 
believe, and here he was. You didn't get this sort of thing in clicks. Clicks 
were all Passione in a Worlde Gone Madde. If this was a click, he certainly 
wouldn't be sitting around in the dark on a hard chair. He'd be . . . well, he 
wouldn't be sitting around in the dark on a hard chair, that was for sure. 

The Bursar locked his study door behind him. You had to do that. The 
Archchancellor thought that knocking on doors was something that happened to 
other people. 
At least the horrible man seemed to have lost interest in the resograph, or 
whatever Riktor had called it. The Bursar had had a dreadful day, trying to 
conduct University business while knowing that the document was hidden in his 
room. 
He pulled it out from under the carpet, turned up the lamp, and began to read. 
He'd be the first to admit that he wasn't any good at mechanical things. He gave 
up quickly on the bits about pivots, octiron pendulums, and air being compressed 
in bellows. 
He homed in again on the paragraph that said: 'If, then, disturbances in the 
fabric of reality cause ripples to spread out from the epicentre, then the 
pendulum will tilt, compress the air in the relevant bellows, and cause the 
ornamental elephant closest to the epicentre to release a small lead ball into a 
cup. And thus the direction of the disturbance-' 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
He could hear it even up here. They'd just heaped more sandbags around it. 
No-one dared move it now. The Bursar tried to concentrate on his reading. 
'-can be estimated by the number and force-' 
. . .whumm . . . whummWHUMMWHUMM. 
The Bursar found himself holding his breath. 
'-of the expelled pellets, which I estimate in serious disturbances-' 
Plib. 
'-may well exceed two pellets-' 
Plib. 
'-expelled several inches-' 
Plib. 
'-during the-' 
Plib. 
'-course-' 
Plib. 
'-of-' 
Plib. 
'-one-' 
Plib. 
'-month, 
Plib. 

Gaspode woke up and quickly hauled himself into what he hoped looked like an 
alert position. 
Someone was shouting, but politely, as if they wanted to be helped but only if 
it wouldn't be too much trouble. 
He trotted up the steps. The door was ajar. He pushed it open with his head. 
Victor was lying on his back, tied to a chair. Gaspode sat down and watched him 
intently, in case he was about to do something interesting. 
'All right, are we?' he said, after a while. 
'Don't just sit there, idiot! Untie these knots,' said Victor. 
'Idiot I may be, but tied up I ain't,' said Gaspode evenly. 'Got the jump on 
you, did she?' 
'I must have nodded off for a moment,.' said Victor. 
'Long enough for her to get up, rip up a sheet, and tie you to the chair,' said 
Gaspode. 
'Yes, all right, all right. Can't you gnaw through it, or something?' 
'With these teeth? I could fetch someone, though,' said Gaspode, and grinned. 
'Er, I'm not sure that's a very good-' 
'Don't worry. I'll be right back,' said Gaspode, and padded out. 
'It might be a bit difficult to explain-' Victor called after him, but the dog 
was down the stairs and ambling along through the maze of backlots and alleys to 
the rear of Century of the Fruitbat. 
He shuffled up to the high fence. There was the gentle clink of a chain. 
'Laddie?' he whispered hoarsely. 
There was a delighted bark. 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
'Yeah,' said Gaspode. 'Yeah.' He sighed. Had he ever been like that? If he had, 
thank goodness he hadn't known about it. 
'Me good boy!' 
'Sure, sure. Laddie be quiet,' muttered Gaspode, and squeezed his arthritic body 
under the fence. Laddie licked his face as he emerged. 
'I'm too old for this sort of stuff,' he muttered, and peered at the kennel. 
'A choke chain,' he said. 'A bloody choke chain. Stop pulling on it, you daft 
idiot. Back up. Back up. Right.' 
Gaspode shoved a paw into the loop and eased it over Laddie's head. 
'There,' he said. 'If we all knew how to do that, we'd be runnin' the world. Now 
stop kiddin' around. We need you.' 
Laddie sprang to tongue-lolling attention. If dogs could salute, he would have 
done. 
Gaspode wriggled under the fence again, and waited. He could hear Laddie's 
footsteps the other side, but the big dog seemed to be padding away from the 
fence. 
'No!' hissed Gaspode. 'Follow me!' 
There was a scurry of paws, a swishing noise, and Laddie cleared the high fence 
and did a four-point landing in front of him. 
Gaspode unpeeled his tongue from the back of his throat. 
'Good boy,' he muttered. 'Good boy.' 

Victor sat up, rubbing his head. 
'I caught myself aright crack when the chair fell backwards,' he said. 
Laddie sat looking expectantly, with the remains of the sheet in his mouth. 
'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. 
'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. 
The darkness flowed back. Victor had never known darkness like it. No matter how 
long you looked into it, your eyes wouldn't grow accustomed to it. There was 
nothing to become accustomed to. It was darkness and mother of darkness, 
darkness absolute, the darkness under the earth, darkness so dense as to be 
almost tangible, like cold velvet. 
'It's bloody dark,' volunteered Gaspode. 
I've broken out into what they call a cold sweat, thought Victor. So that's what 
it feels like. I'd always wondered. 
He eased himself sideways until he reached the wall. 
'We'd better go back,' he said, in what he hoped was a matter-of­fact voice. 
'There could be anything ahead of us. Ravines or anything. We could get more 
torches and more people and come back.' 
There was a flat sound from far down the passage. 
Whoomph. 
It was followed by a light so harsh that it projected the image of Victor's 
eyeballs on the back of his skull. It faded after a few seconds, but was still 
almost painfully bright. Laddie whimpered. 
'There you are,' said Gaspode hoarsely. 'You've got some light now, so 
everything's all right.' 
'Yes, but what's making it?' 
'I'm supposed to know, am I?' 
Victor inched forward, his shadow dancing behind him. 
After a hundred yards or so the passageway opened out in what had perhaps once 
been a natural cave. The light was coming from an arch high up at one end, but 
it was bright enough to reveal every detail. 
It was bigger even than the Great Hall at the University, and must once have 
been even more impressive. The light gleamed off baroque gold ornamentation, and 
on the stalactites that ribbed the roof. Stairs wide enough for a regiment rose 
from a wide shadowy hole in the floor; a regular thud and boom and a smell of 
salt said that the sea had found an entrance somewhere below. The air was 
clammy. 
'Some kind of a temple?' muttered Victor. 
Gaspode sniffed at a dark red drapery hung on one side of the entrance. At his 
touch it collapsed into a mess of slime. 
'Yuk,' he said. 'The whole place is mouldy!' Something many­-legged scuttled 
hastily across the floor and dropped into the stairwell. 
Victor reached out gingerly and prodded a thick red rope, slung between 
gold-encrusted posts. It disintegrated. 
The cracked stairway carried on up to the distant lighted arch. They climbed it, 
scrambling over heaps of crumbling seaweed and driftwood flung up by some past 
high tide. 
The arch opened out into another vast cavern, like an amphitheatre. Rows of 
seats stretched down towards a - a wall? 
It shimmered like mercury. If you could fill an oblong pool of mercury the size 
of a house, and then tip it on its side without any of it spilling, then it 
would look something like this. 
Only not so malevolent. 
It was flat and blank but Victor suddenly felt he was being stared at, like 
something under a lens. 
Laddie whined. 
Then Victor realized what it was that was making him uneasy. 
It wasn't a wall. A wall was attached to something. That thing was attached to 
nothing. It just hung in the air, billowing and rippling like an image in a 
mirror, but without the mirror. 
The light was coming from somewhere on the other side of it. Victor could see it 
now, a bright pinpoint moving around in the shadow at the far end of the 
chamber. 
He set off down the sloping aisle between the rows of stone seats, the dogs 
plodding along beside him with their ears flat and their tails between their 
legs. They waded through something that might once have been carpet; it tore 
wetly and disintegrated under their feet. 
After they'd gone a few yards Gaspode said, 'I don't know if you've noticed, but 
some of-' 
'I know,' said Victor, grimly. 
'-the seats, they're still-' 
'I know.' 
'-occupied.' 
'I know.' 
All these people - these things who had been people - sitting in rows. It's as 
though they were watching a click. 
He'd almost reached it now. It shimmied above him, a rectangle with length and 
height but no thickness. 
Just in front of it, almost underneath the silver screen, a smaller flight of 
steps led him down into a circular pit half filled with debris. By climbing on 
to it he could see behind the screen, to where the light was. 
It was Ginger. She was standing with one hand held above her head. The torch in 
it burned like phosphorus. 
She was staring up at a body on a slab. It was a giant. Or, at least, something 
like a giant. It might just have been a suit of armour with a sword laid on top 
of it, half buried in dust and sand. 
'It's the thing from the book!' he hissed. 'Ye gods, what does she think she's 
doing?' 
'I don't think she's thinkin' anythin',' said Gaspode. 
Ginger half turned and Victor saw her face. She was smiling. 
Behind the slab Victor could make out some kind of big, corroded disc. At least 
it was hanging from the ceiling by proper chains, and not defying gravity in 
such a disconcerting way. 
'Right,' he said, 'I'm going to put a stop to this right now. Ginger!' 
His voice boomed back at him from the distant walls. He could hear it bouncing 
away along caverns and corridors er, er, er. There was a thud of falling rock 
somewhere far behind him. 
'Keep it quiet!' said Gaspode. 'You'll have the whole place down on us!' 
'Ginger!' Victor hissed. 'It's me!' 
She turned and looked at him, or through him, or into him. 
'Victor,' she said sweetly. 'Go away. Far away. Go away now or great harm will 
befall.' 
'Great harm will befall,' muttered Gaspode. 'That's boding talk, that is.' 
'You don't know what you're doing,' said Victor. 'You asked me to stop you! Come 
back. Come back with me now.' 
He tried to climb up . . . 
. . . and something sank under his foot. There was a faraway gurgling noise, a 
metallic clonk, and then one watery musical note billowed up around him and 
echoed around the cavern. He moved his foot hurriedly, but only on to another 
part of the ledge which sank like the first, producing a different note. 
Now there was a scraping sound as well. Victor had been standing in a small 
sunken pit. Now to his horror he realized that it was rising slowly, to the 
accompaniment of blaring notes and the whirr and wheeze of ancient machinery. He 
thrust out his hands and hit a corroded lever, which produced a different chord 
and then snapped off. Laddie was howling. Victor saw Ginger drop her torch and 
clap her hands over her ears. 
A block of masonry leaned slowly out of the wall and smashed on the seats. 
Fragments of rock pattered down, and a rumbling counterpoint to the blare 
suggested that the noise was rearranging the shape of the whole cavern. 
And then it died, with a long strangulated gurgle and a final gasp. A series of 
jerks and creaks indicated that whatever prehistoric machinery had been 
activated by Victor had given of its all before collapsing. 
Silence returned. 
Victor eased himself carefully out of the music pit, which was now several feet 
in the air, and ran over to Ginger. She was on her knees, and sobbing. 
'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get out of here.' 
'Where am I? What's happening?' 
'I couldn't even begin to explain.' 
The torch was spluttering on the floor. It wasn't an actinic fire now, it was 
just a piece of charred and nearly extinguished driftwood. Victor grabbed it and 
waved it around until a dull yellow flame appeared. 
'Gaspode?' he snapped. 
'Yeah?' 
'You two dogs lead the way.' 
'Oh, thank you very much.' 
Ginger clung to him as they lurched back up the aisle. Despite the incipient 
terror, Victor had to admit that it was a very pleasant sensation. He looked 
around at the occasional occupants of the seats and shuddered. 
'It looks as though they died watching a click,' he said. 'Yeah. A comedy,' said 
Gaspode, trotting ahead of him. 
'Why do you say that?' 
'They're all grinnin'.' 
'Gaspode!' 
'Well, you've got to look on the bright side, haven't you?' sneered the dog. 
'Can't go around bein' miserable jus' because you're in some lost underground 
tomb with a mad cat lover an' a torch that's goin' to go out any minute-' 
'Keep going! Keep going!' 
They half-fell, half ran down the steps, skidded unpleasantly on the seaweed at 
the bottom, and headed for the little archway that led to the wonderful prospect 
of living air and bright daylight. The torch was beginning to scorch Victor's 
hand. He let it go. At least there had been no problems in the passage; if they 
kept to one wall and didn't do anything stupid they couldn't help but reach the 
door. And it must be dawn by now, which meant that it shouldn't be long before 
they could see the light. 
Victor straightened up. This was pretty heroic, really. There hadn't been any 
monsters to fight, but probably even monsters would have rotted away centuries 
ago. Of course it had been creepy, but really it was only, well, archaeology. 
Now it was all behind him it didn't seem so bad at all . . . 
Laddie, who had been running ahead of them, barked sharply. 
'What's he saying?' said Victor. 
'He's saying', said Gaspode, 'that the tunnel's blocked.' 
'Oh, no!' 
'It was prob'ly your organ recital that did it.' 
'Really blocked?' 
Really blocked. Victor crawled over the heap. Several large roof slabs had come 
down, bringing tons of broken rock with them. He pulled and pushed at one or two 
pieces, but this produced only further falls. 
'Perhaps there's another way out?' he said. 'Perhaps you dogs could go and-' 
'Forget it, pal,' said Gaspode. 'Anyway, the only other way must be down those 
steps. They connect with the sea, right? All you have to do is swim down there 
and hope your lungs hold out.' 
Laddie barked. 
'Not you,' said Gaspode. 'I wasn't talking to you. Never volunteer for 
anything.' 
Victor continued his burrowing among the rocks. 
'I don't know,' he said, after a while, 'but it seems to me I can see a bit of 
light here. What do you think?' 
He heard Gaspode scramble over the stones. 
'Could be, could be,' said the dog grudgingly. 'Looks like a couple of blocks 
have wedged up and left a space.' 
'Big enough for someone small to crawl through?' said Victor encouragingly. 
'I knew you were going to say that,' said Gaspode. 
Victor heard the scrabble of paws on loose rock. Eventually a muffled voice 
said, 'It opens up a bit . . . tight squeeze here . . . blimey . . . ' 
There was silence. 
'Gaspode?' said Victor apprehensively. 
'It's OK. I'm through. An' I can see the door.' 
'Great!' 
Victor felt the air move and there was a scratching noise. He reached out 
carefully and his hand met a ferociously hairy body. 
'Laddie's trying to follow you!' 
'He's too big. He'll get stuck!' 
There was a canine grunt, a frantic kicking which showered Victor with gravel, 
and a small bark of triumph. 
'O'corse, he's a bit skinnier'n me,' said Gaspode, after a while. 
'Now you two run and fetch help,' said Victor. 'Er. We'll wait here.' 
He heard them disappear into the distance. Laddie's faraway barking indicated 
that they had reached the outside air. 
Victor sat back. 
'Now all we have to do is wait,' he said. 
'We're in the hill, aren't we?' said Ginger's voice in the darkness. 
'Yes.' 
'How did we get here?' 
'I followed you.' 
'I told you to stop me.' 
'Yes, but then you tied me up.' 
'I did no such thing!' 
'You tied me up,' repeated Victor. 'And then you came here and opened the door 
and made a torch of some sort and went all the way into that - that place. I 
dread to think of what you'd have done if I hadn't woken you up.' 
There was a pause. 
'I really did all that?' said Ginger uncertainly. 
'You really did.' 
'But I don't remember any of it!' 
'I believe you. But you still did it.' 
'What - what was that place, anyway?' 
Victor shifted in the darkness, trying to make himself comfortable. 
'I don't know,' he confessed. 'At first I thought it was a temple. And it looked 
as though people used it for watching moving pictures.' 
'But it looked hundreds of years old!' 
'Thousands, I expect.' 
'But look, that can't be right,' said Ginger, in the small voice of one trying 
to be reasonable while madness is breaking down the door with a cleaver. 'The 
alchemists only got the idea a few months ago.' 
'Yes. It's something to think about.' 
He reached out and found her. Her body was ramrod stiff and flinched at his 
touch. 
'We're safe enough here,' he added. 'Gaspode will soon bring back some help. 
Don't you worry about that.' 
He tried not to think about the sea slapping at the stairs, and the many-legged 
things that scuttled over the midnight floor. He tried to put out of his mind 
the thought of octopi slithering silently over the seats in front of that 
living, shifting screen. He tried to forget the patrons who had been sitting in 
the darkness while, above them, centuries passed. Perhaps they were waiting for 
the lady to come around with the banged grains and hot sausages. 
The whole of life is just like watching a click, he thought. Only it's as though 
you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will 
tell you the plot, so you have to work it all out yourself from the clues. 
And you never, never get a chance to stay in your seat for the second house. 

Candlelight flickered in the University corridor. 
The Bursar did not think of himself as a brave man. The most he felt happy about 
tackling was a column of numbers, and being good at numbers had taken him 
further up the hierarchy of Unseen University than magic had ever done. But he 
couldn't let this pass . 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . whummwhummwhummWHUMM WHUMM. 
He crouched behind a pillar and counted eleven pellets. 
Little jets of sand puffed out of the bags. They were coming at two-minute 
intervals now. 
He ran to the heap of sandbags and tugged at them. 
Reality wasn't the same everywhere. Well, of course, every wizard knew that. 
Reality wasn't very thick anywhere on the Discworld. In some places it was very 
thin indeed. That was why magic worked. What Riktor thought he could measure was 
changes in reality, places where the real was rapidly becoming unreal. And every 
wizard knew what could happen if things became unreal enough to form a hole. 
But, he thought, as he clawed at the bags, you'd need massive amounts of magic. 
We'd be bound to spot that amount of magic. It'd stand out like . . . well, like 
a lot of magic. 
I must have taken at least fifty seconds so far. 
He peered at the vase in its bunker. 
Oh. 
He'd been hoping he might be wrong. 
All the pellets had been expelled in one direction. Half a dozen sandbags had 
been shot full of holes. And Numbers had thought that a couple of pellets in a 
month indicated a dangerous build-up of unreality . . . 
The Bursar mentally drew a line from the vase, through the damaged sandbags, to 
the far end of the corridor . 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
He jerked back, and then realized that there was no need to worry. All the 
pellets were being shot out of the ornamental elephant's head opposite him. He 
relaxed. 
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
The vase rocked violently as mysterious machinery swung around inside it. The 
Bursar put his head closer to it. Yes, there was definitely a hissing sound, 
like air being squeezed 
Eleven pellets slammed at high speed into the sandbags. 
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 seem 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 viz-ah-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. 
'I just remember the dream. There was this voice telling me that I must wake the 
- the sleeping man?' 
Victor thought of the armoured figure on the slab. 
'Did you get a good look at it?' he said. 'What was it like?' 
'I don't know about tonight,' said Ginger cautiously. 'But in my dreams it's 
always looked a bit like my Uncle Oswald.' 
Victor thought of a sword taller than he was. You couldn't parry a slash from 
something like that, it'd cut through anything. Somehow it was hard to think of 
anything looking like an Oswald with a sword like that. 
'Why's he remind you of your Uncle Oswald?' he said. 
'Because my Uncle Oswald lay quite still like that. Mind you, I only ever saw 
him once. And that was at his funeral.' 
Victor opened his mouth - and there were distant, blurred voices. A few stones 
moved. A voice, a little closer now, trilled, 'Hallo, little children. This way, 
little children.' 
'That's Rock!' said Ginger. 
'I'd know that voice anywhere,' said Victor. 'Hey! Rock! It's me! Victor!' 
There was a worried pause. Then Rock's voice bellowed: 'It's my friend Victor!' 
'That mean we can't eat him?' 
'No-one is to eat my friend Victor! We dig him out with speed!' 
There was the sound of crunching. Then another troll's voice complained, 'They 
call this limestone? I call it tasteless.' 
There was some more scrabbling. A third voice said, 'Don't see why we can't eat 
him. Who'd know?' 
'You uncivilized troll,' scolded Rock. 'What you thinking of? You eat people, 
everyone laugh at you, say, "He very defective troll, do not know how to behave 
in polite society" and stop paying you three dollar a day and send you back to 
mountains.' 
Victor gave what he hoped would sound like a light chuckle. 
'They're a lot of laughs, aren't they?' he said. 
'Heaps,' said Ginger. 
'Of course, all that stuff about eating people is just bravado. They hardly ever 
do it. You shouldn't worry about it.' 
'I'm not. I'm worried because I walk around all the time when I'm asleep and I 
don't know why. You make it sound as if I was going to wake up that sleeping 
creature. It's a horrible thought. Something's inside my head.' 
There was a crash as more rocks were pulled aside. 
'That's the odd thing,' said Victor. 'When people are, er, possessed, the, er, 
possessing thing doesn't usually care much about them or anyone else. I mean, it 
wouldn't have just tied me up. It would have hit me over the head with 
something.' 
He reached for her hand in the dark. 
'That thing on the slab,' he said. 
'What about it?' 
'I've seen it before. It's in the book I found. There's dozens of pictures of 
it, and they must have thought it was very important to keep it behind the gate. 
That's what the pictograms say, I think. Gate . . . man. The man behind the 
gate. The prisoner. You see, I'm sure the reason why all the priests or whoever 
they were had to go and chant there every day was-' 
A slab by his head was pulled aside and weak daylight poured through. It was 
very closely followed by Laddie, who tried to lick Victor's face and bark at the 
same time. 
'Yes, yes! Well done, Laddie,' said Victor, trying to fight him off. 'Good dog. 
Good boy, Laddie.' 
'Good boy Laddie! Good boy Laddie!' 
The bark brought several small shards of stone down from the ceiling. 
'Aha!' said Rock. Several other troll heads appeared behind him as Victor and 
Ginger stared out of the hole. 
'They not little children,' muttered the one who had been complaining about the 
eating ban. 'They look stringy.' 
'I tell you before,' said Rock menacingly, 'no eating people. It cause no end of 
trouble.' 
'Why not just one leg? Then everyone'll be-' 
Rock picked up a half-ton slab in one hand, weighed it thoughtfully, and then 
hit the other troll so hard with it that it broke. 
'I tell you before,' he told the recumbent figure, 'it trolls like you getting 
us a bad name. How can we take rightful place in brotherhood of sapient species 
with defective trolls like you letting side down alter time?' 
He reached through the hole and pulled Victor out bodily. 
'Thanks, Rock. Er. There's Ginger in there, too.' 
Rock gave him a crafty nudge that bruised a couple of ribs. 
'So I see,' he said. 'And she wearing very pretty silk neggleliggle. You find 
nice place to indulge in bit of "What is the health of your parent?" and the 
Disc move for you, yeah?' The other trolls grinned. 
'Uh, yes, I suppose-' Victor began. 
'That's not true at all!' snapped Ginger, as she was helped through the hole. 
'We weren't-' 
'Yes, it is!' said Victor, making furious signals with his hands and eyebrows. 
'It's absolutely true! You're absolutely right, Rock!' 
'Yeah,' said one of the trolls behind Rock. 'I seen them on the clicks. He 
kissing her and carrying her off the whole time.' 
'Now listen,' Ginger began. 
'And now we get out of here fast,' said Rock. 'This whole ceiling looking very 
defective to me. Could go at any time.' 
Victor glanced up. Several of the blocks were dipping ominously. 
'You're right,' he said. He grabbed the arm of the protesting Ginger and hustled 
her along the passage. The trolls gathered up the fallen compatriot who did not 
know how to behave in polite company and plodded after them. 
'That was disgusting, giving them the impression that-' Ginger hissed. 
'Shut up!' snapped Victor. 'What did you want me to say, hmm? I mean, what sort 
of explanation do you think would fit? What would you like people to know?' 
She hesitated. 
'Well, all right,' she conceded. 'But you could have thought of something else. 
You could have said we were exploring, or looking for, for fossils-' her voice 
trailed off. 
'Yes, in the middle of the night with you in a silk neggleliggle,' said Victor. 
'What is a neggleliggle, anyway?' 
'He meant negligee,' said Ginger. 
'Come on, let's get back to town. Afterwards I might just have time to have a 
couple of hours' sleep.' 
'What do you mean, afterwards?' 
'We're going to have to buy these lads a big drink-' 
There was a low rumble from the hill. A cloud of dust billowed out of the 
doorway and covered the trolls. The rest of the roof had gone. 
'And that's it,' said Victor. 'It's over. Can you make the sleepwalking part of 
you understand that? It's no good trying to get in any more, there isn't any 
way. It's buried. It's over. Thank goodness.' 

There's a bar like it in every town. It's dimly-lit and the drinkers, although 
they talk, don't address their words to one another and they don't listen, 
either. They just talk the hurt inside. It's a bar for the derelict and the 
unlucky and all of those people who have been temporarily flagged off the 
racetrack of life and into the pits. 
It always does a brisk trade. 
On this dawn the mourners sat ranged along the counter, each in his cloud of 
gloom, each certain that he was the most unfortunate individual in the Whole 
world. 
'I created it,' said Silverfish, morosely. 'I thought it would be educational. 
It could broaden people's horizons. I didn't intend for it to be a, a, a show. 
With a thousand elephants!' he added nastily. 
'Yeah,' said Detritus. 'She don't know what she wants. I do what she want, then 
she say, that not right, you a troll with no finer feelin', you do not 
understand what a girl wants. She say, Girl want sticky things to eat in box 
with bow around, I make box with bow around, she open box, she scream, she say 
flayed horse not what she mean. She don't know what she wants.' 
'Yeah,' said a voice from under Silverfish's stool. 'It'd serve 'em all right if 
I went off an' joined the wolves.' 
'I mean, take this Blown Away thing,' said Silverfish. 'It's not even real. It's 
not like things really were. It's just lies. Anyone can tell lies.' 
'Yeah,' said Detritus. 'Like, she say, Girl want music under window, I play 
music under window, everyone in street wake up and shouting out of house, You 
bad troll, what you hitting rocks this time of night? And she never even wake 
up.' 
'Yeah,' said Silverfish. 
'Yeah,' said Detritus. 
'Yeah,' said the voice under the stool. 
The man who ran the bar was naturally cheerful. It wasn't hard to be cheerful, 
really, when your customers acted like lightning rods for any misery that 
happened to be floating around. He'd found that it wasn't a good idea to say 
things like, 'Never mind, look on the bright side,' because there never was one, 
or 'Cheer up, it may never happen,' because often it already had. All that was 
expected of him was to keep the drink coming. 
He was a little puzzled this morning, though. There seemed to be an extra person 
in the bar, quite apart from whoever it was speaking up from the floor. He kept 
getting the feeling that he was serving an extra drink, and even getting paid 
for it, and even talking to the mysterious purchaser. But he couldn't see him. 
In fact he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing, or who he was talking to. 
He wandered down to the far end of the bar. 
A glass slid towards him. 
SAME AGAIN, said a voice out of the shadows. 
'Er,' said the barman. 'Yeah. Sure. What was it?' 
ANYTHING. 
The barman filled it with rum. It was pulled away. 
The barman sought for something to say. For some reason, he was feeling 
terrified. 
'Don't see you in here, much,' he managed. 
I COME FOR THE ATMOSPHERE. SAME AGAIN. 
'Work in Holy Wood, do you?'said the barman, topping up the glass quickly. It 
vanished again. 
NOT FOR SOME TIME. SAME AGAIN. 
The barman hesitated. He was, at heart, a kindly soul. 'You don't think you've 
had enough, do you?' he said. 
I KNOW EXACTLY WHEN I'VE HAD ENOUGH. 
'Everyone says that, though.' 
I KNOW WHEN. EVERYONE'S HAD ENOUGH. 
There was something very odd about that voice. The barman wasn't quite sure that 
he was hearing it with his ears. 'Oh. Well, er,' he said. 'Same again?' 
NO. BUSY DAY TOMORROW. KEEP THE CHANGE. 
A handful of coins slid across the counter. They felt icy cold, and most of them 
were heavily corroded. 
'Oh, er-' the barman began. 
The door opened and shut, letting in a cold blast of air despite the warmth of 
the night. 
The barman wiped the top of the bar in a distracted way, carefully avoiding the 
coins. 
'You see some funny types, running a bar,' he muttered. A voice by his ear said, 
I FORGOT. A PACKET OF NUTS, PLEASE. 

Snow glittered on the rimward outriders of the Ramtop mountains, that great 
world-spanning range which, where it curves around the Circle Sea, forms a 
natural wall between Klatch and the great flat Sto plains. 
It was the home of rogue glaciers and prowling avalanches and high, silent 
fields of snow. 
And yetis. Yetis are a high-altitude species of troll, and quite unaware that 
eating people is out of fashion. Their view is: if it moves, eat it. If it 
doesn't, then wait for it to move. And then eat it. 
They'd been listening all day to the sounds. Echoes had bounced from peak to 
peak along the frozen ranges until, now, it was a steady dull rumble. 
'My cousin', said one of them, idly probing a hollow tooth with a claw, 'said 
they was enormous grey animals. Elephants.' 
'Bigger'n us?' said the other yeti. 
'Nearly as bigger'n us,' said the first yeti. 'Loads of them, he said. More than 
he could count.' 
The second yeti sniffed the wind and appeared to consider this. 
'Yeah, well,' he said, gloomily. 'Your cousin can't count above one.' 
'He said there was lots of big ones. Big fat grey elephants, all climbing, all 
roped together. Big and slow. All carrying lots of oograah.' 
Ah. 
The first yeti indicated the vast sloping snowfield. 
'Good and deep today,' he said. 'Nothing's gonna move fast in this, right? We 
lie down in the snow, they won't see us till they're right on top of us, we 
panic 'em, it's Big Eats time.' He waved his enormous paws in the air. 'Very 
heavy, my cousin said. They'll not move fast, you mark my words.' 
The other yeti shrugged. 
'Let's do it,' he said, against the sound of distant, terrified trumpeting. 
They lay down in the snow, their white hides turning them into two unsuspicious 
mounds. It was a technique that had worked time and again, and had been handed 
down from yeti to yeti for thousands of years, although it wasn't going to be 
handed much further. 
They waited. 
There was a distant bellowing as the herd approached. 
Eventually the first troll said, very slowly, because it had been working this 
out for a long time. 'What do you get, right, what do you get if, you cross . . 
. a mountain with a elephant?' 
It never got an answer. 
The yetis had been right. 
When five hundred crude two-elephant bobsleighs crested the ridge ten feet away 
at sixty miles an hour, their strapped-on occupants trumpeting in panic, they 
never saw the yetis until they were right on top of them. 

Victor got only two hours' sleep but got up feeling remarkably refreshed and 
optimistic. 
It was all over. Things were going to be a whole lot better now. Ginger had been 
quite nice to him last night - well, a few hours ago -and whatever it was in the 
hill had been well and truly buried. 
You got that sort of thing sometimes, he thought, as he poured some water into 
the cracked basin and had a quick wash. Some wicked old king or wizard gets 
buried and their spirit creeps about, trying to put things right or something. 
Well-known effect. But now there must be a million tons of rock blocking the 
tunnel, and I can't see anyone doing any creeping through that. 
The unpleasantly alive screen surfaced briefly in his memory, but even that 
didn't seem so bad now. It had been dark in there, there had been lots of moving 
shadows, he had been wound up like a spring in any case, no wonder his eyes had 
played tricks on him. There had been the skeletons, too, but even they now 
lacked the power to terrify. Victor had heard of tribal leaders up on the cold 
plains who'd be buried with whole armies of mounted horsemen, so that their 
souls would live on in the next world. Maybe there was something like that 
here, once. Yes, it all seemed much less horrifying in the cold light of day. 
And that's just what it was. Cold light. 
The room was full of the kind of light you got when you woke up on a winter's 
morning and knew, by the light, that it had snowed. It was a light without 
shadows. 
He went to the window and looked out on a pale silver glow. 
Holy Wood had vanished. 
The visions of the night fountained up in his mind again, as the darkness 
returns when the light goes out. 
Hang on, hang on, he thought, fighting the panic. It's only fog. You're bound to 
get fog sometimes, this close to the sea. And it's glowing like that because the 
sun's out. There's nothing occult about fog. It's just fine drops of water 
floating in the air. That's all it is. 
He dragged his clothes on and threw open the door to the passage and almost 
tripped over Gaspode, who had been lying full length in front of the door like 
the world's most unwashed draught excluder. 
The little dog raised himself unsteadily on his front paws, fixed Victor with a 
yellow eye and said, 'I jus' want you to know, right, that I ain't lyin' in 
front of your door 'cos of any of this loyal-dog­protectin'-his-master nonsense, 
OK, it's jus' that when I got back here-' 
'Shut up, Gaspode.' 
Victor opened the outer door. Fog drifted in. It seemed to have an exploratory 
feel to it; it came in as if it had been waiting for just this opportunity. 
'Fog's just fog,' he said aloud. 'Come on. We're going to Ankh­-Morpork today, 
remember?' 
'My head,' said Gaspode, 'my head feels like the bottom of a cat's basket.' 
'You can sleep on the coach. I can sleep on the coach, if it comes to that.' 
He took a few steps into the silvery glow, and was almost immediately lost. 
Buildings loomed vaguely at him in the thick clammy air. 
'Gaspode?' he said hesitantly. Fog's just fog, he repeated. But it feels 
crowded. It feels like that, if it suddenly went away, I'd see lots of people 
watching me. From outside. And that's ridiculous, because I am outside, so 
there's nothing outside of outside. And it's flickering. 
'I expect you'll be wantin' me to lead the way,' said a smug voice by his knee. 
'It's very quiet, isn't it?' said Victor, trying to sound nonchalant. 'I expect 
it's the fog muffling everything.' 
'O'corse, maybe gharstely creatures have come up out o' the sea and murthered 
every mortal soul except us,' said Gaspode conversationally. 
'Shut up!' 
Something loomed up out of the brightness. As it got closer it got smaller, and 
the tentacles and antennae that Victor's imagination had been furnishing became 
the more-or-less ordinary arms and legs of Soll Dibbler. 
'Victor?' he said uncertainly. 

Soll's relief was visible. 'Can't see a thing in this stuff,' he said. 'We 
thought you'd got lost. Come on, it's nearly noon. We're more or less ready to 
go.' 
'I'm ready.' 
'Good.' Fog droplets had condensed on Soll's hair and clothing. 'Er,' he said. 
'Where are we, exactly?' 
Victor turned around. His lodgings had been behind him. 
'The fog changes everything, doesn't it?' said Soll unhappily. 'Er, do you think 
your little dog can find his way to the studio? He seems quite bright.' 
'Growl, growl,' said Gaspode, and sat up and begged in what Victor at least 
recognized as a sarcastic way. 
'My word,' said Soll. 'It's as if he understands, isn't it?' 
Gaspode barked sharply. After a second or two there was a barrage of excited 
answering barks. 
'Of course, that'll be Laddie,' said Soll. 'What a clever dog!' 
Gaspode looked smug. 
'Mind you, that's Laddie in a nutshell,' said Soll, as they set off towards the 
barking. 'I expect he could teach your dog a few tricks, eh?' 
Victor didn't dare look down. 
After a few false turns the archway of Century of the Fruitbat passed overhead 
like a ghost. There were more people here; the site seemed to be filling up with 
lost wanderers who didn't know where else to go. 
There was a coach waiting outside Dibbler's office and Dibbler himself stood 
beside it, stamping his feet. 
'Come on, come on,' he said, 'I've sent Gaffer ahead with the film. Get in, the 
pair of you.' 
'Can we travel in this?' said Victor. 
'What's to go wrong?' said Dibbler. 'There's one road to Ankh­Morpork. Anyway, 
we'll probably be well out of this stuff when we leave the coast. I don't see 
why everyone's so nervy. Fog's fog.' 
'That's what I say,' said Victor, climbing into the coach. 
'It's just a mercy we finished Blown Away yesterday,' said Dibbler. 'All this is 
probably just something seasonal. Nothing to worry about at all.' 
'You said that before,' said Soll. 'You said it at least five times so far this 
morning.' 
Ginger was hunched on one seat, with Laddie lying underneath it. Victor slid 
along until he was next to her. 
'Did you get any sleep?' he whispered. 
'Just an hour or two, I think,' she said. 'Nothing happened. No dream or 
anything.' 
Victor relaxed. 
'Then it really is over,' he said. 'I wasn't sure.' 
'And the fog?' she demanded. 
'Sorry?' said Victor guiltily. 
'What's causing the fog?' 
'Well,' said Victor, 'as I understand it, when cool air passes over warm ground, 
water is precipitated out of-' 
'You know what I mean! It's not like normal fog at all! It - sort of drifts 
oddly,' she finished lamely. 'And you can nearly hear voices,' she added. 
'You can't nearly hear voices,' said Victor, in the hope that his own rational 
mind would believe him. 'You either hear them or you don't. Listen, we're both 
just tired. That's all it is. We've been working hard and, er, not getting much 
sleep, so it's understandable that we think we're nearly hearing and seeing 
things.' 
'Oh, so you're nearly seeing things, are you?' said Ginger triumphantly. 'And 
don't you go around using that calm and reasonable tone of voice on me,' she 
added. 'I hate it when people go around being calm and reasonable at me.' 
'I hope you two lovebirds aren't having a tiff?' 
Victor and Ginger stiffened. Dibbler clambered up into the opposite seat, and 
leered encouragingly at them. Soll followed. There was a slam as the driver shut 
the carriage door. 
'We'll stop for a meal when we're halfway,' said Dibbler,. as they lurched 
forward. He hesitated, and then sniffed suspiciously. 
'What's that smell?' he said. 
'I'm afraid my dog is under your seat,' said Victor. 
'Is it ill?' said Dibbler. 
'I'm afraid it always smells like that.' 
'Don't you think it would be a good idea to give it a bath?' 
A mutter on the edge of hearing said: 'Do you think it would be a good idea to 
have your feet bitten right orf?' 

Meanwhile, over Holy Wood, the fog thickened . . . 

The posters for Blown Away had been circulating in Ankh­Morpork for several 
days, and interest was running at fever pitch. 
They'd even got as far as the University this time. The Librarian had one pinned 
up in the fetid, book-lined nest he called home,[24] and various others were 
surreptitiously circulating among the wizards themselves. 
The artist had produced a masterpiece. Held in Victor's arms, against the 
background of the flaming city, Ginger was portrayed as not only showing nearly 
all she had but quite a lot of what she had not, strictly speaking, got. 
The effect on the wizards was everything that Dibbler could possibly have hoped 
for. In the Uncommon Room, the poster was passed from hand to shaking hand as if 
it might explode. 
'There's a girl who's got It,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. He was one 
of the fattest wizards, and so overstuffed that he seemed to be living up to his 
title. He looked as though horsehair should be leaking from frayed patches. 
People felt an overpowering urge to rummage down the side of him for loose 
change. 
'What's "It", Chair?' said another wizard. 
'Oh, you know. It. Oomph. The old way-hey-hey.' 
They watched him politely and expectantly, like people awaiting the punch line. 
'Good grief, do I have to spell it out?' he said. 
'He means sexual magnetism,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, happily. 'The 
lure of wanton soft bosoms and huge pulsating thighs, and the forbidden fruits 
of desire which-' 
A couple of wizards carefully moved their chairs away from him. 
'Ah, sex,' said the Dean of Pentacles, interrupting the Lecturer in Recent Runes 
in mid-sigh. 'Far too much of it these days, in my opinion.' 
'Oh, I don't know,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He looked wistful. 
The noise woke up Windle Poons, who had been dozing in his wheelchair by the 
fire. There was always a roaring fire in the Uncommon Room, summer or winter. 
'Wassat?' he said. 
The Dean leaned towards an ear. 
'I was saying', he said loudly, 'that we didn't know the meaning of the word 
"sex" when we were young.' 
'That's true. That's very true,' said Poons. He stared reflectively at the 
flames. 'Did we ever, mm, find out, do you remember?' 
There was a moment's silence. 
'Say what you like, she's a fine figure of a young woman,' said the Lecturer in 
Recent Runes defiantly. 
'Several young women,' said the Dean. 
Windle Poons focused unsteadily on the poster. 
'Who's the young feller?' he said. 
'What young feller?' said several wizards. 
'He's in the middle of the picture,' said Poons. 'He's holding her in his arms.' 

They looked again. 'Oh, him,' said the Chair, dismissively. 
'Seems to me I've, mm, seen him before,' said Poons. 
'My dear Poons, I hope you haven't been sneaking off to the moving pictures,' 
said the Dean, grinning at the others. 'You know it's demeaning for a wizard to 
patronize the common entertainments. The Archchancellor would be very angry with 
us.' 
'Wassat?' said Poons, cupping a hand to his ear. 
'He does look a bit familiar, now that you mention it,' said the Dean, peering 
at the poster. 
The Lecturer in Recent Runes put his head on one side. 
'It's young Victor, isn't it?' he said. 
'Eh?' said Poons. 
'You know, you could be right,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'He had 
the same type of weedy moustache.' 
'Who's this?' said Poons. 
'But he was a student. He could have been a wizard,' said the Dean. 'Why would 
he want to go off and fondle young women?' 
'It's a Victor all right, but not our Victor. Says here he's "Victor 
Maraschino",' said the Chair. 
'Oh, that's just a click name,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes airily. 'They 
all have funny names like that. Delores De Syn and Blanche Languish and Rock 
Cliffe and so on . . . ' He realized that they were looking at him accusingly. 
'Or so I'm told,' he added lamely. 'By the porter. He goes to see a click nearly 
every night.' 
'What're you on about?' said Poons, waving his walking stick in the air. 
'The cook goes every night, too,' said the Chair. 'So do most of the kitchen 
staff. You just try getting so much as a ham sandwich after nine o'clock.' 
'Just about everyone goes,' said the Lecturer. 'Except us.' 
One of the other wizards peered intently at the bottom of the poster. 
'It says here,' he said, ' "A Sarger of Passione and Broad Staircases in 
Ankh-Morpork's Turbelent Histry!" ' 
'Ah. It's historical, then, is it?' said the Lecturer. 
'And it says "A Epic Love Story that Astoundede Goddes and Menne!!" ' 
'Oh? Religious, as well.' 
'And it says, "Withe a 1,000 elephants!!!" ' 
'Ah. Wildlife. Always very educational, wildlife,' said the Chair, looking 
speculatively at the Dean. The other wizards were doing so, too. 
'It seems to me', said the Lecturer, slowly, 'that no-one could possibly object 
to senior wizards viewing a work of historical, religious and, er, wildliforific 
interest.' 
'University rules are very specific,' said the Dean, but not very 
enthusiastically. 
'But surely only meant for the students,' said the Lecturer. 'I can quite 
understand that students shouldn't be allowed to watch something like this. 
They'd probably whistle and throw things at the screen. But it couldn't be 
seriously suggested, could it, that senior wizards such as ourselves shouldn't 
examine this popular phenomenon?' 
Poons' flailing walking stick caught the Dean sharply across the back of his 
legs. 
'I demand to know what everyone's talking about!' he snapped. 
'We don't see why senior wizards shouldn't be allowed to watch moving pictures!' 
bellowed the Chair. 
'Jolly good thing, too!' snapped Poons. 'Everyone likes to look at a pretty 
woman.' 
'No-one mentioned anything about any pretty women. We were far more interested 
in examining popular phenomenons,' said the Chair. 
'Call it what you like, mm?' cackled Windle Poons. 
'If people see wizards strolling out of the gate and going into a common 
moving-picture pit they'll lose all respect for the profession,' said the Dean. 
'It's not even as if it's proper magic. It's just trickery.' 
'Y'know,' said one of the lesser wizards, thoughtfully, 'I've always wondered 
exactly what these wretched clicks are. Some kind of puppet show, are they? Are 
these people acting on a stage? Or a shadow play?' 
'See?' said the Chair. 'We're supposed to be wise, and we don't even know.' 
They all looked at the Dean. 
'Yes, but who wants to see a lot of young women dancing around in tights?' he 
said, hopelessly. 

Ponder Stibbons, luckiest post-graduate wizard in the history of the University, 
sauntered happily towards the secret entrance over the wall. His otherwise 
uncrowded mind was pleasantly awash with thoughts of beer and maybe a visit to 
the clicks and maybe a Klatchian extra-hot curry to round off the evening, and 
then- 
It was the second worst moment in his life. 
They were all there. All the senior staff. Even the Dean. Even old Poons in his 
wheelchair. All standing there in the shadows, looking at him very sternly. 
Paranoia exploded its dark fireworks in the dustbin of his mind. They were all 
waiting just for him. 
He froze. 
The Dean spoke. 
'Oh. Oh. Oh. Er. Ah. Um. Um,' he began, and then seemed to catch up with his 
tongue. 'Oh. What's this? Forward this minute, that man!' 
Ponder hesitated. Then he ran for it. 
After a while the Lecturer in Recent Runes said, 'That was young Stibbons, 
wasn't it? Has he gone?' 
'I think so.' 
'He's bound to say something to someone.' 
'No he won't,' said the Dean. 
'Do you think he saw where we'd taken out the bricks?' 
'No, I was standing in front of the holes,' said the Chair. 
'Come on, then. Where were we?' 
'Look, I really think this is most unwise,' said the Dean. 
'Just shut up, old chap, and hold this brick.' 
'Very well, but tell me this; how do you propose to get the wheelchair over?' 
They looked at Poons' wheelchair. 
There are wheelchairs which are lightweight and built to let their owners 
function fully and independently in modern society. To the thing inhabited by 
Poons, they were as gazelles to a hippopotamus. Poona was well aware of his 
function in modern society, and as far as he was concerned it was to be pushed 
everywhere and generally pandered to. 
It was wide and long and steered by means of a little front wheel and a long 
cast-iron handle. Cast iron, in fact, featured largely in its construction. Bits 
of baroque ironwork adorned its frame, which seemed to have been made of iron 
drainpipes welded together. The rear wheels did not in fact have blades affixed 
to them, but looked as though these were optional extras. There were various 
dread levers which only Poons knew the purpose of. There was a huge oilskin hood 
that could be erected in a matter of hours to protect its occupant from showers, 
storms and, probably, meteor strikes and falling buildings. By way of fight 
relief, the front handle was adorned with a selection of trumpets, hooters and 
whistles, with which Poons was wont to announce his progress around the passages 
and quadrangles of the University. For the fact was that although the wheelchair 
needed all the efforts of one strong man to get it moving it had, once actually 
locomotive, a sort of ponderous unstoppability; it may have had brakes, but 
Windle Poons had never bothered to find out. Staff and students alike knew that 
the only hope of survival, if they heard a honk or a blast at close range, was 
to flatten themselves against the nearest wall while the dreaded conveyance 
rattled by. 
'We'll never get that over,' said the Dean firmly. 'It must weigh at least a 
ton. We ought to leave him behind, anyway. He's too old for this sort of thing.' 

'When I was a lad I was over this wall, nun, every night,' said Poons, 
resentfully. He chuckled. 'We had some scrapes in those days, I can tell you. If 
I had a penny, mm, for every time the Watch chased me home,' his ancient lips 
moved in a sudden frenzy of calculation, 'I'd have fivepence-ha'penny.' 
'Maybe if we-' the Chair began, and then said 'What do you mean, 
fivepence-ha'penny?' 
'I recall once they gave up halfway,' said Poons, happily. 'Oh, those were great 
times. I remember me and old "Numbers" Riktor and "Tudgy" Spold climbed up on 
the Temple of Small Gods, you see, in the middle of a service, and Tudgy had got 
this piglet in a sack, and he-' 
'See what you've done?' complained the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'You've set him 
off now.' 
'We could try lifting it by magic,' said the Chair. 'Gindle's Effortless 
Elevator should do the trick.' 
'-and then the high priest turned around and, heh, the look on his face! And 
then old Numbers said, let's-' 
'It's hardly a very dignified use of magic,' sniffed the Dean. 
'Considerably more dignified than heaving the bloody 
thing over the wall ourselves, wouldn't you say?' said the Lecturer in Recent 
Runes, rolling up his sleeves. 'Come on, lads.' 
'-and next thing, Pimple was hammering on the door of the Assassins' Guild, and 
then old Scummidge, who was the porter there, heehee, he was a right terror, 
anyway, he came out, mm, and then the guards come around the corner-' 
'All ready? Right!' 
'-which puts me in mind of the time me and "Cucumber" Framer got some glue and 
went round to-' 
'Up your end, Dean!' 
The wizards grunted with effort. 
'-and, mm, I can remember it as if it was only yesterday, the look on his face 
when-' 
'Now lower away!' 
The iron-shod wheels clanged gently on the cobbles of the alley. 
Poons nodded amiably. 'Great times. Great times,' he muttered, and fell asleep. 
The wizards climbed slowly and unsteadily over the wall, ample backsides 
gleaming in the moonlight, and stood wheezing gently on the far side. 
'Tell me, Dean,' said the Lecturer, leaning on the wall to stop the shaking in 
his legs, 'have we made . . . the wall . . . higher in the last fifty years?' 
'I . . . don't . . . think . . . so.' 
'Odd. Used to go up it like a gazelle. Not many years ago. Not many at all, 
really.' 
The wizards wiped their foreheads and looked sheepishly at one another. 
'Used to nip over for a pint or three most nights,' said the Chair. 
'I used to study in the evenings,' said the Dean, primly. 
The Chair narrowed his eyes. 
'Yes, you always did,' he said. 'I recall.' 
It was dawning on the wizards that they were outside the University, at night 
and without permission, for the first time in decades. A certain suppressed 
excitement crackled from man to man. Any watcher trained in reading body 
language would have been prepared to bet that, after the click, someone was 
going to suggest that they might as well go somewhere and have a few drinks, and 
then someone else would fancy a meal, and then there was always room for a few 
more drinks, and then it would be 5 a.m. and the city guards would be 
respectfully knocking on the University gates and asking if the Archchancellor 
would care to step down to the cells to identify some alleged wizards who were 
singing an obscene song in six-part harmony, and perhaps he would also care to 
bring some money to pay for all the damage. Because inside every old person is a 
young person wondering what happened. 
The Chair reached up and grasped the brim of his tall, wide and floppy wizarding 
hat. 
'Right, boys,' he said. 'Hats off.' 
They de-hatted, but with reluctance. A wizard gets very attached to his pointy 
hat. It gives him a sense of identity. But, as the Chair had pointed out 
earlier, if people knew you were a wizard because you were wearing a pointy hat, 
then if you took the pointy hat off, they'd think you were just some rich 
merchant or something. 
The Dean shuddered. 'It feels like I've taken all my clothes off,' he said. 
'We can tuck them in under Poons' blanket,' said the Chair. 'No­one'll know it's 
us.' 
'Yes,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, 'but will we?' 
'They'll just think we're, well, solid burghers.' 
'That's just what I feel like,' said the Dean. 'A solid 
burgher.' j 
'Or merchants,' said the Chair. He smoothed back his white hair. 
'Remember,' he said, 'if anyone says anything, we're not wizards. Just honest 
merchants out for an enjoyable evening, right?' 
'What does an honest merchant look like?' said a wizard. 
'How should I know?' said the Chair. 'So no-one is to do any magic,' he went on. 
'I don't have to tell you what'll happen if the Archchancellor hears that his 
staff has been seen at the common entertainments.' 
'I'm more worried about our students finding out,' shuddered the Dean. 
'False beards,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, triumphantly. 'We should wear 
false beards.' 
The Chair rolled his eyes. 
'We've all GOT beards,' he said. 'What kind of disguise would false beards be?' 
'Ah! That's the clever bit,' said the Lecturer. 'No-one would suspect that 
anyone wearing a false beard would have a real beard underneath, would they?' 
The Chair opened his mouth to refute this, and then hesitated. 
'Well-' he said. 
'But where'd we get false beards at this time of night?' said a wizard 
doubtfully. 
The Lecturer beamed, and reached into his pocket. 'We don't have to,' he said. 
'That's the really clever bit: I brought some wire with me, you see, and all you 
need do is break two bits off, twiddle them into your sideburns, then loop them 
over your ears rather clumsily like this,' he demonstrated, 'and there you are.' 

The Chair stared. 
'Uncanny,' he said, at last. 'It's true! You look just like someone wearing a 
very badly-made false beard.' 
'Amazing, isn't it?' said the Lecturer happily, passing out the wire. 'It's 
headology, you know.' 
There were a few minutes of busy twanging and the occasional whimper as a wizard 
punctured himself with wire, but eventually they were ready. They looked shyly 
at one another. 
'If we got a pillow case without a pillow in it and shoved it down inside the 
Chair's robe so the top was showing, he'd look just like a thin man making 
himself tremendously fat with a huge pillow,' said one of them enthusiastically. 
He caught the Chair's eye, and went quiet. 
A couple of wizards grasped the handles of Poons' terrible wheelchair and 
started it rumbling over the damp cobbles. 
'Wassat? What's everyone doing?' said Poons, suddenly waking up. 
'We're going to play solid burghers,' said the Dean. 
'That's a good game,' said Poons. 

'Can you hear me, old chap?' 
The Bursar opened his eyes. 
The University sanitarium wasn't very big, and was seldom used. Wizards tended 
to be either in rude health, or dead. The only medicine they generally required 
was an antacid formula and a dark room until lunch. 
'Brought you something to read,' said the voice, diffidently. 
The Bursar managed to focus on the spine of Adventures with Crossbow and Rod. 
'Nasty knock you had there, Bursar. Been asleep all day.' 
The Bursar looked blearily at the pink and orange haze, which gradually refined 
itself into the Archchancellor's pink and orange face. 
Let's see, he thought, exactly how did I 
He sat bolt upright and grabbed the Archchancellor's robe and screamed into the 
big pink and orange face: 'Something dreadful's going to happen!' 

The wizards strolled through the twilight streets. So far the disguise was 
working perfectly. People were even jostling them. No-one ever knowingly jostled 
a wizard. It was a whole new experience. 
There was a huge crowd of people outside the entrance to the Odium, and a queue 
that stretched down the street. The Dean ignored it, and led the party straight 
up to the doors, whereupon someone said 'Oi!' 
He looked up at a red-faced troll in an ill-fitting military-looking outfit that 
included epaulettes the size of kettle-drums and no trousers. 
'Yes?' he said. 
'There are a queue, you know,' said the troll. 
The Dean nodded politely. In Ankh-Morpork a queue was, almost by definition, 
something with a wizard at the head of it. 'So I see,' he said. 'And a very good 
thing, too. And if you will be so good as to stand aside, we'd like to take our 
seats.' 
The troll prodded him in the stomach. 
'What you fink you are?' he said. 'A wizard or something?' This got a laugh from 
the nearest queuers. 
The Dean leaned closer. 
'As a matter of fact, we are wizards,' he hissed. 
The troll grinned at him. 
'Don't come the raw trilobite with me,' he said. 'I can see your false beard!' 
'Now listen-' the Dean began, but his voice became an incoherent squeak as the 
troll picked him up by the collar of his robe and propelled him out into the 
road. 
'You get in queue like everyone else,' he said. There was a chorus of jeers from 
the queue. 
The Dean growled and raised his right hand, fingers spread- 
The Chair grabbed his arm. 
'Oh, yes,' he hissed., 'That'd do a lot of good, wouldn't it? Come on.' 
'Where to?' 
'To the back of the queue!' 
'But we're wizards! Wizards never stand in line for anything!' 
'We're honest merchants, remember?' said the Chair. He glanced at the nearest 
click-goers, who were giving them odd looks. 'We're honest merchants,' he 
repeated loudly. 
He nudged the Dean. 'Go on,' he hissed. 
'Go on what?' 
'Go on and say something merchanty.' 
'What sort of thing is that?' said the Dean, mystified. 
'Say something! Everyone's looking at us!' 
'Oh.' The Dean's face creased in panic, and then sal­vation dawned. 'Lovely 
apples,' he said. 'Get them while they're hot. They're luvverly . . . Will this 
do?' 
'I suppose so. Now let's go to the end-' 
There was a commotion at the other end of the street. People surged forward. The 
queue broke ranks and charged. The honest merchants were suddenly surrounded by 
a desperately-pushing crowd. 
'I say, there is a queue, you know,' said the Hon­est Merchant in Recent Runes 
diffidently, as he was shoved aside. 
The Dean grabbed the shoulder of a boy who was ferociously elbowing him aside. 
'What is going on, young man?' he demanded. 
'They're a-coming!' shouted the boy. 
'Who are?' 
'The stars!' 
The wizards, as one man, looked upwards. 
'No, they're not,' said the Dean, but the boy had shaken himself free and 
disappeared in the press of people. 
'Strange primitive superstition,' said the Dean, and the wizards, with the 
exception of Poons, who was complain­ing and flailing around with his stick, 
craned forward to see. 

The Bursar met the Archchancellor in a corridor. 
'There's no-one in the Uncommon Room!' screamed the Bursar. 
'The Library's empty!' bellowed the Archchancellor. 
'I've heard about that sort of thing,' the Bursar whim­pered. 'Spontaneous 
something-or-other. They've all gone spontaneous!' 
'Calm down, man. Just because-' 
'I can't even find any of the servants! You know what happens when reality gives 
way! Even now giant tentacles are probably-' 
There was a distant whumm . . . whumm noise, and the sound of pellets bouncing 
off the wall. 
'Always the same direction,' the Bursar muttered. 
'What direction is that, then?' 
'The direction They'll be coming from! I think I'm going mad!' 
'Now, now,' said the Archchancellor, patting him on the shoulder. 'You don't 
want to go around talking like that. That's crazy talk.' 

Ginger stared, panic-stricken, out of the carriage window. 
'Who are all these people?' she said. 
'They're fans,' said Dibbler. 
'But I'm not hot!' 
'Uncle means that they're people who like seeing you in the clicks,' said Soll. 
'Er. Like you a lot.' 
'There's women out there too,' said Victor. He gave a cautious wave. In the 
crowd, a woman swooned. 
'You're famous,' he said. 'You said you always wanted to be famous.' 
Ginger looked out at the crowd again. 'I never thought it would be like this, 
though. They're all shouting our names!' 
'We've put a lot of effort into telling people about Blown Away,' said Soll. 
'Yes,' said Dibbler. 'We said it was the greatest click in the entire history of 
Holy Wood.' 
'But we've been making clicks for only a couple of months,' Ginger pointed out. 
'So what? That's still a history,' said Dibbler. 
Victor saw the look in Ginger's face. Exactly how long was Holy Wood's real 
history? Perhaps there was some ancient stone calendar, down there on the sea 
bed, among the lobsters. Perhaps there was no way it could be measured. How did 
you measure the age of an idea? 
'A lot of civic dignitaries are going to be there, too,' said Dibbler. 'The 
Patrician and the nobles and the Guild heads and some of the high priests. Not 
the wizards, of course, the stuck-up old idiots. But it'll be a night to 
remember right enough.' 
'Will we have to be introduced to them all?' said Victor. 
'No. They'll be introduced to you,' said Dibbler. 'It'll be the biggest thrill 
of their lives.' 
Victor stared out at the crowds again. 
'Is it my imagination,' he said, 'or is it getting foggy?' 

Poons hit the Chair across the back of the legs with his stick. 
'What's going on?' he said. 'Why's everyone cheering?' 
'The Patrician's just got out of his carriage,' said the Chair. 
'Don't see what's so wonderful about that,' said Poons. 'I've got out of 
carriages hundreds of times. There's no trick to it at all.' 
'It's a bit odd,' the Chairman admitted. 'And they cheered the head of the 
Assassins' Guild and the High Priest of Blind Io, too. And now someone's rolled 
out a red carpet.' 
'What, in the street? In Ankh-Morpork?' 
'Yes.' 
'Wouldn't like to have their cleaning bill,' said Poons. 
The Lecturer in Recent Runes nudged the Chair heavily in the ribs, or at least 
at the point where the ribs were overlaid by the strata of fifty years of very 
good dinners. 
'Quiet!' he hissed. 'They're coming!' 
'Who?' 
'Someone important, by the look of it.' 
The Chair's face creased in panic behind his false real beard. 'You don't think 
they've invited the Archchancellor, do you?' 
The wizards tried to shrink inside their robes, like upright turtles. 
In fact it was a far more impressive coach than any of the crumbling items in 
the University's mews. The crowd surged forward against the line of trolls and 
city guards and stared expectantly at the carriage door; the very air hummed 
with anticipation. 
Mr Bezam, his chest so inflated with self-importance that he appeared to be 
floating across the ground, bobbed towards the carriage door and opened it. 
The crowd held its collective breath, except for a small part of it that hit 
surrounding people with its stick and muttered, 'What's happening? What's going 
on? Why won't anyone tell me what's happening? I demand someone tell me, mm, 
what's happening?' 

The door stayed shut. Ginger was gripping the handle as if it was a lifeline. 
'There's thousands of them out there!' said Ginger. 'I can't go out there!' 
'But they all watch your clicks,' pleaded Soll. 'They're your public.' 
'No!' 
Soll threw up his hands. 'Can't you persuade her?' he said to Victor. 
'I'm not even sure I can persuade myself,' said Victor. 
'But you've spent days in front of these people,' said Dibbler. 
'No I haven't,' said Ginger. 'It was just you and the handlemen and the trolls 
and everyone. That was different. Anyway, that wasn't really me,' she added. 
'That was Delores De Syn.' 
Victor bit his lip thoughtfully. 
'Maybe you ought to send Delores de Syn out there, then,' he said. 
'How can I do that?' she demanded. 
'Well . . . why not pretend it's a click . 
The Dibblers, uncle and nephew, exchanged glances. Then Soll cupped his hands 
around his face like the eye of a picture box and Dibbler, after a prompting 
nudge, placed one hand on his nephew's head and turned an invisible handle in 
his ear. 
'Action!' he directed. 

The carriage door swung open. 
The crowd gasped, like a mountain breathing in. Victor stepped out, reached up, 
took Ginger's hand . . . 
The crowd cheered, madly. 
The Lecturer in Recent Runes bit his fingers in sheer excitement. The Chair made 
a strange hoarse noise in the back of his throat. 
'You know you said what could a boy find to do that was better than being a 
wizard?' he said. 
'A true wizard should only be interested in one thing,' muttered the Dean. 'You 
know that.' 
'Oh, I know it.' 
'I was referring to magic.' 
The Chair peered at the advancing figures. 
'You know, that is young Victor. I'll swear it,' he said. 
'That's disgusting,' said the Dean. 'Fancy choosing to hang around young women 
when he could have been a wizard.' 
'Yeah. What a fool,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who was having trouble 
with his breathing. 
There was a sort of communal sigh. 
'You got to admit she's a bit of a corker, though,' said the Chair. 
'I'm an old man and if someone doesn't let me see very soon,' said a cracked 
voice behind them, 'someone's going to be feeling the wrong end of, mm, my 
stick, all right?' 
Two of the wizards edged aside and eased the wheelchair through. Once moving, it 
coasted right up to the edge of the carpet, bruising any knees or ankles that 
stood in its way. 
Poons' mouth fell open. 
Ginger gripped Victor's hand. 
'There's a group of fat old men in false beards waving at you over there,' she 
said through clenched and grinning teeth. 
'Yes, I think they're wizards,' Victor grinned back. 
'One of them keeps bouncing up and down in his wheelchair and shouting things 
like "Way-hey!" and "Whoopwhoop!" and "Hubba­hubba!" ' 
'That's the oldest wizard in the world,' said Victor. He waved at a fat lady in 
the crowd, who fainted. 
'Good grief! What was he like fifty years ago?' 
'Well, for one thing he was eighty.[25] Don't blow him a kiss!' 
The crowd roared its approval. 
'He looks sweet.' 
'Just keep smiling and waving.' 
'Oh, gods, look at all those people waiting to be introduced to us!' 
'I can see 'em,' said Victor. 
'But they're important!' 
'Well, so are we. I guess.' 
'Why?' 
'Because we're us. It's like you said, that time on the beach. We're us, just as 
big as we can be. It's just what you wanted. We're-' 
He stopped. 
The troll at the door of the Odium gave him a hesitant salute. The thump as its 
hand smacked into its ear was quite audible above the roar of the crowd . . . 

Gaspode waddled at high speed down an alleyway, with Laddie trotting obediently 
at his heels. No-one had paid them any attention when they jumped, or in 
Gaspode's case plopped, down from the carriage. 
'All evening in some stuffy pit ain't my idea of a good night out,' muttered 
Gaspode. 'This is the big city. This ain't Holy Wood. You stick by me, pup, and 
you'll be all right. First stop, the back door of Harga's House of Ribs. They 
know me there. OK?' 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
'Yeah,' said Gaspode. 

'Look at what it's wearing!' said Victor. 
'Red velvet jacket with gold frogging,' said Ginger out of the corner of her 
mouth. 'So what? A pair of trousers would have been a good idea.' 
'Oh, gods,' breathed Victor. 
They stepped into the brightly-lit foyer of the Odium. 
Bezam had done his best. Trolls and dwarfs had worked overnight to finish it. 
There were red plush drapes, and pillars, and mirrors. 
Plump cherubs and miscellaneous fruit, all painted gold, seemed to cover every 
surface. 
It was like stepping into a box of very expensive chocolates. 
Or a nightmare. Victor half expected to hear the roar of the sea, to see drapes 
fall away with a smear of black slime. 
'Oh, gods,' he repeated. 
'What's the matter with you?' said Ginger, grinning fixedly at the line of civic 
dignitaries waiting to be introduced to them. 
'Wait and see,' said Victor hoarsely. 'It's Holy Wood! Holy Wood's been brought 
to Ankh-Morpork!' 
'Yes, but-' 
'Don't you remember anything? That night in the hill? Before you woke up?' 
'No. I told you.' 
'Wait and see,' Victor repeated. He glanced at a decorated easel against one 
wall. 
It said: 'Three showings a day!' 
And he thought of sand dunes, and ancient myths, and lobsters. 

Map-making had never been a precise art on the Discworld. People tended to start 
off with good intentions and then get so carried away with the spouting whales, 
monsters, waves and other twiddly bits of cartographic furniture that they often 
forgot to put the boring mountains and rivers in at all. 
The Archchancellor put an overflowing ashtray on a corner that threatened to 
roll up. He dragged a finger across the grubby surface. 
'Says here "Here be Dragons",' he said. 'Right inside the city, too. Odd, that.' 

'That's just Lady Ramkin's Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons,' said the 
Bursar, distractedly. 
'And here there's "Terra Incognita",' said the Archchancellor. 'Why's that?' 
The Bursar craned to see. 'Well, it's probably more interesting than putting in 
lots of cabbage farms.' 
'And there's "Here be Dragons" again.' 
'I think that's just a lie, in fact.' 
The Archchancellor's horny thumb continued in the direction they'd worked out. 
He brushed aside a couple of fly specks. 
'Nothing here at all,' he said, peering closer. 'Just the sea. And-' he squinted 
- 'The Holy Wood. Mean anything?' 
'Isn't that where the alchemists all went?' said the Bursar: 
'Oh, them.' 
'I suppose', said the Bursar slowly, 'they wouldn't be doing some kind of magic 
out there?' 
'Alchemists. Doing magic?' 
'Sorry. Ridiculous idea, I know. The porter told me they do some sort of, oh, 
shadow play or something. Or puppets. Or something similar. Pictures. Or 
something. I wasn't really paying attention. I mean . . . alchemists. Really! I 
mean, assassins . . . yes. Thieves . . . yes. Even merchants . . . merchants can 
be really devious, sometimes. But alchemists -show me a more unworldly, 
bumbling, well-meaning . . . ' 
His voice trailed off as his ears caught up with his mouth. 
'They wouldn't dare, would they?' he said. 
'Would they?' 
The Bursar gave a hollow laugh. 'No-o-o. They wouldn't dare! They know we'd be 
down on them like a ton of bricks if they tried any magic round here . . . ' His 
voice trailed off again. 
'I'm sure they wouldn't,' he said. 
'I mean, even that far away,' he said. 
'They wouldn't dare,' he said. 
'Not magic. Surely not?' he said. 
'I've never trusted those grubby-handed bastards!' he said. 'They're not like 
us, you know. They've got no idea of proper dignity!' 

The crowd surging around the box office was getting deeper and more angry by the 
minute. 
'Well, have you gone through all your pockets?' demanded the Chair. 
'Yes!' muttered the Dean. 
'Have another look, then.' 
As far as wizards were concerned, paying to get into anything was something that 
happened to other people. A pointy hat usually did nicely. 
While the Dean struggled, the Chair beamed madly at the young woman who was 
selling tickets. 'But I assure you, dear lady,' he said desperately, 'we are 
wizards.' 
'I can see your false beards,' said the girl, and sniffed. 'We get all sorts in 
here. How do I know you aren't three little boys in your dad's coat?' 
'Madam!' 
'I've got two dollars and fifteen pence,' said the Dean, picking the coins out 
of a handful of fluff and mysterious occult objects. 
'That's two in the stalls, then,' said the girl, grudgingly unreeling two 
tickets. The Chair scooped them up. 
'Then I'll take Windle in,' he said quickly, turning to the others. 'I'm afraid 
the rest of you had better get back to your honest trading.' He moved his 
eyebrows up and down suggestively. 
'I don't see why we should-' the Dean began. 
'Otherwise we'll be in arrears,' the Chair went on, mugging furiously. 'If you 
don't get back.' 
'See here, that was my money, and-' the Dean said, but the Lecturer in Recent 
Runes grabbed his arm. 
'Just come along,' he said, winked slowly and deliberately at the Chair. 'Time 
we were getting back.' 
'I don't see why-'the Dean gurgled, as they dragged him off. 

Grey clouds swirled in the Archchancellor's magic mirror. Many wizards had them, 
but not many ever bothered to use them. They were quirky and unreliable. They 
weren't even much good for shaving in. 
Ridcully was surprisingly adept at using one. 
'Stalkin',' he offered as a brief explanation. 'Couldn't be having with all that 
crawlin' around in damp bracken for hours, bigods. Help yourself to a drink, 
man. And one for me.' 
The clouds flickered. 
'Can't seem to see anything else,' he said. 'Odd, that. Just fog, flashing away. 

The Archchancellor coughed. It was beginning to dawn on the Bursar that, against 
all expectation, the Archchancellor was quite bright. 
'Ever seen one of these shadow moving puppet play picture things?' Ridcully 
asked. 
'The servants go,' said the Bursar. This, Ridcully decided, meant 'no'. 
'I think we should have a look,' he said. 
'Very well, Archchancellor,' said the Bursar, meekly. 

An inviolable rule about buildings for the showing of moving pictures, 
applicable throughout the multiverse, is that the ghastliness of the 
architecture around the back is inversely proportional to the gloriousness of 
the architecture in the front. At the front: pillars, arches, gold leaf, lights. 
At the back: weird ducts, mysterious prolapses of pipework, blank walls, fetid 
alleys. 
And the window to the lavatories. 
'There's no reason at all why we should have to do this,' moaned the Dean, as 
the wizards struggled in the darkness. 
'Shut up and keep pushing,' muttered the Lecturer in Recent Runes, from the 
other side of the window. 
'We should have changed something into money,' said the Dean. 'Just a quick 
illusion. Where's the harm in that?' 
'It's called watering the currency,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'You can 
get thrown into the scorpion pit for stuff' like that. Where am I putting my 
feet? Where am I putting my feet?' 
'You're fine,' said a wizard. 'Right, Dean. Up you come.' 
'Oh, dear,' moaned the Dean, as he was dragged through the narrow window into 
the unmentionable gloom beyond. 'No good will come of this.' 
'Just watch where you're putting your feet. Now see what you've done? Didn't I 
tell you to watch where you were putting your feet? Anyway, come on.' 
The wizards skulked, or in the Dean's case, squelched furtively through the 
backstage area and into the darkened, bustling auditorium, where Windle Poons 
was keeping some seats free by the simple expedient of waving his stick at 
anyone who came near them. They sidled in, tripping over one another's legs, and 
sat down. 
They stared at the shadowy grey rectangle at the other end of the hall. 
After a while the Chair said, 'Can't see what people see in it, myself.' 
'Has anyone done "Deformed Rabbit"?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 
'It hasn't started yet,' hissed the Dean. 
'I'm hungry,' complained Poons. 'I'm an old man, mm, and I'm hungry.' 
'Do you know what he did?' said the Chair. 'Do you know what the old fool did? 
When a young lady with a torch was showing us to our seats he pinched her on the 
. . . the fundament!' 
Poons sniggered. 'Hubba-hubba! Does your mother know you're out?' he cackled. 
'It's all too much for him,' the Chair complained. 'We never should have brought 
him.' 
'Do you realize we're missing our dinner?' said the Dean. 
The wizards fell silent at this. A stout woman edging past Poons' wheelchair 
suddenly started and looked around suspiciously and saw nothing except a dear 
old man, obviously fast asleep. 
'And it's goose on Tuesdays,' said the Dean. 
Poons opened one eye and honked the horn on his wheelchair. 
'Tantarabobs! How's your granny off for soap!' he muttered triumphantly. 
'See what I mean?' said the Chair. 'He doesn't know what century it is.' 
Poons turned a beady black eye on him. 
'Old I am, mm, and daft I may be,' he said, 'but I ain't goin' to be hungry.' He 
rummaged around in the unspeakable depths of the wheelchair and produced a 
greasy black bag. It jingled. 'I saw a young lady up the front a-selling of 
special moving-picture food,' he said. 
'You mean you had money all the time?' said the Dean. 'And you never told us?' 
'You never asked,' said Poons. 
The wizards stared hungrily at the bag. 
'They be having buttered banged grains and sausages in buns and chocolate things 
with things on and things,' said Poons. He gave them a toothless and crafty 
look. 'You can have some too, if you like,' he added graciously. 

The Dean ticked off his purchases. 'Now,' he said, 'that's six Patrician-sized 
tubs of banged grains with extra butter, eight sausages in a bun, a jumbo cup of 
fizzy drink, and a bag of chocolate-covered raisins.' He handed over the money. 
'Right,' said the Chair, gathering up the containers. 'Er. Do you think we 
should get something for the others?' 

In the picture-throwing room Bezam cursed as he threaded the huge reel of Blown 
Away into the picture-throwing box. 
A few feet away, in a roped-off section of the balcony, the Patrician of 
Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari, was also ill at ease. 
They were, he had to admit, a pleasant enough young couple. He just wasn't sure 
why he was sitting next to them, and why they were so important. 
He was used to important people, or at least to people who thought they were 
important. Wizards became important through high deeds of magic. Thieves became 
important for daring robberies and so, in a slightly different way, did 
merchants. Warriors became important through winning battles and staying alive. 
Assassins became important through skilful inhumations. There were many roads to 
prominence, but you could see them, you could work them out. They made some sort 
of sense. 
Whereas these two people had merely moved interestingly in front of this 
new-fangled moving-picture machinery. The rankest actor in the city's theatre 
was a mufti-skilled master of thespianism by comparison to them, but it wouldn't 
occur to anyone to line the streets and shout out his name. 
The Patrician had never visited the clicks before. As far as he could ascertain, 
Victor Maraschino was famous for a sort of smouldering look that had middle-aged 
ladies who should know better swooning in the aisles, and Miss De Syn's forte 
was acting languidly, slapping faces, and looking fantastic while lying among 
silken cushions. 
While he, Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, ruled the city, preserved the city, loved 
the city, hated the city and had spent a lifetime in the service of the city . . 
. 
And, as the common people had been filing into the stalls, his razor-keen 
hearing had picked up the conversation of two of them: 
'Who's that up there?' 
'That's Victor Maraschino and Delores De Syn! Do you know nothing?' 
'I mean the tall guy in black.' 
'Oh, dunno who he is. Just some bigwig, I expect.' 
Yes, it was fascinating. You could become famous just for being, well, famous. 
It occurred to him that this was an extremely dangerous thing and he might 
probably have to have someone killed one day, although it would be with 
reluctance.[26] In the meantime, there was a kind of secondary glory that came 
from being in the company of the truly celebrated, and to his astonishment he 
was enjoying it. 
Besides he was also sitting next to Miss del Syn, and the envy of the rest of 
the audience was so palpable he could taste it, which was more than he could do 
with the bagful of fluffy white starchy things he'd been given to eat. 
On his other side, the horrible Dibbler man was explaining the mechanics of 
moving pictures in the utterly mistaken belief that the Patrician was listening 
to a word of it. 
There was a sudden roar of applause. 
The Patrician leaned sideways to Dibbler. 
'Why are all the lamps being turned down?' he said. 
'Ah, sir,' said Dibbler, 'that is so you can see the pictures better.' 
'Is it? One would imagine it would make the pictures harder to see,' said the 
Patrician. 
'It's not like that with the moving pictures, sir,' said Dibbler. 
'How very fascinating.' 
The Patrician leaned the other way, to Ginger and Victor. To his mild surprise 
they were looking extremely tense. He'd noticed that as soon as they had walked 
into the Odium. The boy looked at all the ridiculous ornamentation as if it was 
something dreadful, and when the girl had stepped into the pit proper he'd heard 
her gasp. 
They looked as though they were in shock. 
'I expect this is all perfectly commonplace to you,' he said. 
'No,' said Victor. 'Not really. We've never been in a proper picture pit 
before.' 
'Except once,' said Ginger grimly. 
'Yes. Except once.' 
'But, ah, you make moving pictures,' said the Patrician kindly. 
'Yes, but we never see them. We just see bits of them, when the handlemen are 
gluing it all together. The only clicks I've ever seen were on an old sheet 
outdoors,' said Victor. 
'So this is all new to you?' said the Patrician. 
'Not exactly,' said Victor, grey-faced. 
'Fascinating,' said the Patrician, and went back to not listening to Dibbler. He 
had not got where he was today by bothering how things worked. It was how people 
worked that intrigued him. 
Further along the row Soll leaned across to his uncle and dropped a small coil 
of film in his lap. 
'This belongs to you,' he said sweetly. 
'What is it?' said Dibbler. 
'Well I thought I'd have a quick look at the click before it got shown-' 
'You did?' said Dibbler. 
'And what did I find, in the middle of the burning city scene, but five minutes 
showing nothing but a plate of spare ribs in Harga's Special Peanut Sauce. I 
know why, of course. I just want to know why this.' 
Dibbler grinned guiltily. 'The way I see it,' he said, 'if one little quick 
picture can make people want to go and buy things, just think what five minutes' 
worth could do.' 
Soll stared at him. . 
'I'm really hurt by this,' said Dibbler. 'You didn't trust me. Your own uncle. 
After I gave you my solemn promise not to try anything again, you didn't trust 
me? That wounds me, Soll. I'm really wounded. Whatever happened to integrity 
round here?' 
'I think you probably sold it to someone, Uncle.' 
'I'm really hurt,' said Dibbler. 
'But you didn't keep your promise, Uncle.' 
'That's got nothing to do with it. That's just business. We're talking family 
here. You got to learn to trust family, Soll. Especially me.' 
Soll shrugged. 'OK. OK.' 
'Right?' 
'Yes, Uncle.' Soll grinned. 'You've got my solemn promise on that.' 
'That's my boy.' 
At the other end of the row, Victor and Ginger were staring at the blank screen 
in sullen horror. 
'You know what's going to happen now, don't you,' said Ginger. 
'Yes. Someone's going to start playing music out of a hole in the floor.' 
'Was that cave really a picture pit?' 
'Sort of, I think,' said Victor, carefully. 
'But the screen here is just a screen. It's not . . . well, it's just a screen. 
Just a better class of sheet. It's not -' 
There There was a blast of sound from the front of the hall. With a clanking and 
the hiss of desperately escaping air, Bezam's daughter Calliope rose slowly out 
of the floor, attacking the keys on a small organ with all the verve of several 
hours' practice and the combined efforts of two strong trolls working the 
bellows behind the scenes. She was a beefy young woman and, whatever piece of 
music she was playing, it was definitely losing. 
Down in the stalls, the Dean passed a bag along to the Chair. 
'Have a chocolate-covered raisin,' he said. 
'They look like rat droppings,' said the Chair. 
The Dean peered at them in the gloom. 
'So that's it,' he said. 'The bag fell on the floor a minute ago, and I thought 
there seemed rather a lot.' 
'Shsss!' said a woman in the row behind. Windle Poons' scrawny head turned like 
a magnet. 
'Hoochie koochie!' he cackled. 'Twopence more and up goes the donkey!' 
The lights went down further. The screen flickered. Numbers appeared and blinked 
briefly, counting down. 
Calliope peered intently at the score in front of her, rolled up her sleeves, 
pushed her hair out of her eyes, and launched a spirited attack on what was just 
discernible as the old Ankh-Morporkian civic anthem.[27] 
The lights went out. 

The sky flickered. It wasn't like proper fog at all. It shed a silvery, slatey 
light, flickering internally like a cross between the Aurora Coriolis and summer 
lightning. 
In the direction of Holy Wood the sky blazed with light. It was visible even in 
the alley behind Sham Harga's House of Ribs, where two dogs were enjoying the 
All-You-Can-Drag-Out-Of-The-­Midden-For-Free Special. 
Laddie looked up and growled. 
'I don't blame you,' said Gaspode. 'I said it boded. Didn't I say there was 
boding happening?' 
Sparks crackled off his fur. 
'Come on,' he said. 'We'd better warn people. You're good at that.' 

Clickaclickaclicka . . . 
It was the only noise inside the Odium. Calliope had stopped playing and was 
staring up at the screen. 
Mouths hung open, and closed only to bite on handfuls of banged grains. 
Victor was dimly aware that he'd fought it. He'd tried to look away. Even now, a 
little voice in his own head was telling him that things were wrong, but he 
ignored it. Things were clearly right. He'd shared in the sighs as the heroine 
tried to preserve the old family mine in a Worlde Gonne Madde . . . He'd 
shuddered at the fighting in the war. He'd watched the ballroom scene in a 
romantic haze. He . . . 
. . . was aware of a cold sensation against his leg. It was as though a 
half-melted ice cube was soaking through his trousers. He tried to ignore it, 
but it had a definite unignorable quality. 
He looked down. 
' 'Scuse me,' said Gaspode. 
Victor's eyes focused. Then his eyes found themselves being dragged back to the 
screen, where a huge version of himself was kissing a huge version of Ginger. 
There was another feeling of sticky coldness. He surfaced again. 
'I can bite your leg if you like,' said Gaspode. 
'I, er, I-' Victor began. 
'I can bite it quite hard,' Gaspode added. 'Just say the word.' 
'No, er-' 
'Something's boding, just like I said. Bode, bode, bode. Laddie's tried barkin' 
until he's hoarse and no-one's listenin'. So I fort I'd try the old cold nose 
technique. Never fails.' 
Victor looked around him. The rest of the audience were staring at the screen as 
if they were prepared to remain in their seats for . . . for . . . 
. . . forever. 
When he lifted up his arms from his seat, sparks crackled from his fingers, and 
there was a greasy feel to the air that even student wizards soon learned to 
associate with a vast accumulation of magical potential. And there was fog in 
the pit. It was ridiculous, but there it was, covering the floor like a pale 
silver tide. 
He shook Ginger's shoulder. He waved a hand in front of her eyes. He shouted in 
her ear. 
Then he tried the Patrician, and Dibbler. They yielded to pressure but swayed 
gently back into position again. 
'The film's doing something to them,' he said. 'It must be the film. But I can't 
see how. It's a perfectly ordinary film. We don't use magic in Holy Wood. At 
least . . . not normal magic . . . ' 
He struggled over unyielding knees until he reached the aisle, and ran up it 
through the tendrils of fog. He hammered on the door of the picture-throwing 
room. When that got no answer he kicked it down. 
Bezam was staring intently at the screen through a small square hole cut in the 
wall. The picture-thrower was click­ing away happily by itself. No-one was 
turning the handle. At least, Victor corrected himself, no-one he could see. 
There was a distant rumble, and the ground shook. 
He stared at the screen. He recognized this bit. It was just before the Burning 
of Ankh-Morpork scene. 
His mind raced. What was it they said about the gods? They wouldn't exist if 
there weren't people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality 
was what went on inside people's heads. And in front of him were hundreds of 
people really believing what they were seeing . . . 
Victor scrabbled among the rubbish on Bezam's bench for some scissors or a 
knife, and found neither. The machine whirred on, winding reality from the 
future to the past. 
In the background, he could hear Gaspode saying, 'I expect I've saved the day, 
right?' 
The brain normally echoes with the shouts of various inconsequential thoughts 
seeking attention. It takes a real emergency to get them to shut up. It was 
happening now. One clear thought that had been trying to make itself heard for a 
long time rang out in the silence. 
Supposing there was somewhere where reality was a little thinner than usual? And 
supposing you did something there that weakened reality even more. Books 
wouldn't do it. Even ordinary theatre wouldn't do it, because in your heart you 
knew it was just people in funny clothes on a stage. But Holy Wood went straight 
from the eye into the brain. In your heart you thought it was real. The clicks 
would do it. 
That was what was under Holy Wood Hill. The people of the old city had used the 
hole in reality for entertainment. And then the Things had found them. 
And now people were doing it again. It was like learning to juggle lighted 
torches in a firework factory. And the Things had been waiting . . . 
But why was it still happening? He'd stopped Ginger. 
The film clicked on. There seemed to be a fog around the picture throwing box, 
blurring its outline. 
He snatched at the spinning handle. It resisted for a moment, and then broke. He 
gently pushed Bezam off his chair, picked it up and hit the throwing box with 
it. The chair exploded into splinters. He opened the cage at the back and took 
out the salamanders, and still the film danced on the distant screen. 
The building shook again. 
You only get one chance, he thought, and then you die. 
He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand. Then he reached out for 
the flashing line of the film itself, and gripped it. 
It snapped. The box jerked backwards. Film went on unreeling in glittering coils 
which lunged at him briefly and then slithered down to the floor. 
Clickaclick . . . a . . . click. 
The reels spun to a halt. 
Victor cautiously stirred the heap of film with his foot. He'd been half 
expecting it to attack him like a snake. 
'Have we saved the day?' prompted Gaspode. 'I'd ap­preciate knowing.' 
Victor looked at the screen. 
'No,' he said. 
There were still images there. They weren't very clear, but he could still make 
out the vague shapes of himself and Ginger, hanging on to existence. And the 
screen itself was moving. It bulged here and there, like ripples of a pool of 
dull mercury. It looked unpleasantly familiar. 
'They've found us,' he said. 
'Who have?' said Gaspode. 
'You know those ghastly creatures you were talking about?' 
Gaspode's brow furrowed. 'The ones from before the dawnatime?' 
'Where they come from, there is no time,' said Victor. The audience was 
stirring. 
'We must get everyone out of here,' he said. 'But without panicking-' 
There was a chorus of screams. The audience was waking up. 
The screen Ginger was climbing out. She was three times normal size and 
flickered visibly. She was also vaguely transparent, but she had weight, because 
the floor buckled and splintered under her feet. 
The audience was climbing over itself to get away. Victor fought his way down 
the aisle just as Poons' wheelchair went past backwards in the flow of people, 
its occupant flailing desperately and shouting, 'Hey! Hey! It's just getting 
good!' 
The Chair grabbed Victor's arm urgently. 
'Is it meant to do this?' he demanded. 
'No!' 
'It's not some sort of special kinematographic effect, then?' said the Chair 
hopefully. 
'Not unless they've got really good in the last twenty-four hours,' said Victor. 
'I think it's the Dungeon Dimensions.' 
The Chair stared intently at him. 
'You are young Victor, aren't you,' he said. 
'Yes. Excuse me,' said Victor. He pushed past the astonished wizard and climbed 
over the seats to where Ginger was still sitting, staring at her own image. The 
monster Ginger was looking around and blinking very slowly, like a lizard. 
'That's me?' 
'No!' said Victor. 'That is, yes. Maybe. Not really. Sort of. Come on.' 
'But it looks just like me!' said Ginger, her voice modulated with hysteria. 
'That's because they're having to use Holy Wood! It . . . it defines how they 
can appear, I think,' said Victor hurriedly. He tugged her out of the seat and 
into the air, his feet kicking up mist and scattering banged grains. She 
stumbled along after him, looking over her shoulder. 
'There's another one trying to come out of the screen,' she said. 
'Come on!' 
'It's you!' 
'I'm me! It's . . . something else! It's just having to use my shape!' 
'What shape does it normally use?' 
'You don't want to know!' 
'Yes I do! Why do you think I asked?' she yelled, as they stumbled through the 
broken seats. 
'It looks worse than you can imagine!' 
'I can imagine some pretty bad things!' 
'That's why I said worse!' 
'Oh.' 
The giant spectral Ginger passed them, flickering like a strobe light, and 
smashed its way out through the wall. There were screams from the outside. 
'It looks like it's getting bigger,' whispered Ginger. 
'Go outside,' said Victor. 'Get the wizards to stop it.' 
'What're you going to do?' 
Victor drew himself up to his full height. 'There are some Things', he said, 
'that a man has to do by himself.' 
She gave him a look of irritated incomprehension. 
'What? What? Do you want to go to the lavatory or something?' 
'Just get out!' 
He shoved her towards the doors, then turned and saw the two dogs looking at him 
expectantly. 
'And you two, too,' he said. 
Laddie barked. 
'Dog's gotta stay by 'is master, style of fing,' said Gaspode, shame-facedly. 
Victor looked around in desperation, picked up a fragment of seat, opened the 
door, threw the wood as far as possible and shouted 'Fetch!' 
Both dogs bounded away after it, propelled by instinct. On his way past, though, 
Gaspode had just enough selfcontrol to say, 'You bastard!' 
Victor pulled open the door of the picture-throwing room and came out with 
handfuls of Blown Away. 
The giant Victor was having trouble leaving the screen. The head and one arm had 
pulled free and were threedimensional. The arm flailed vaguely -at Victor as he 
methodically threw coils of octo-cellulose over it. He ran back to the booth and 
pulled out the stacks of clicks that Bezam, in defiance of common sense, had 
stored under the bench. 
Working with the methodical calmness of bowel-twisting terror, he carried the 
cans by the armload to the screen and heaped them there. The Thing managed to 
wrench another arm free of two-dimensionality and tried to scrabble at them, but 
whatever was controlling it was having trouble controlling this new shape. It 
was probably unused to having only two arms, Victor told himself. 
He threw the last can on to the heap. 
'In our world you have to obey our rules,' he said. 'And I bet you burn just as 
well as anything else, hey?' 
The Thing struggled to pull a leg free. 
Victor patted his pockets. He ran back to the booth and scrabbled around madly. 
Matches. There weren't any matches! 
He pushed open the doors to the, foyer and dashed out into the street, where the 
crowds were milling around in horrified fascination and watching a fifty-foot 
Ginger disentangling Itself from the wreckage of a building. 
Victor heard a clicking beside him. Gaffer the handleman was intently capturing 
the scene on film. 
The Chair was shouting at Dibbler. 
'Of course we can't use magic against it! They need magic! Magic only makes them 
stronger.' 
'You must be able to do something!' screamed Dibbler. 
'My dear sir, we didn't start meddling with things best left -' the Chair 
hesitated in mid-snarl, 'unmeddled-with with,' he finished lamely. 
'Matches!' Victor shouted. 'Matches! Hurry!' 
They all stared at him. 
Then the Chair nodded. 'Ordinary fire,' he said. 'You're right. That should do 
it. Good thinking, boy.' He fumbled in a pocket and produced the bundle of 
matches that chain­smoking wizards always carried. 
'You can't burn the Odium,' snapped Dibbler. 'There's heaps of film in there!' 
Victor ripped a poster off the wall, wrapped it in a crude torch, and lit one 
end. 
'That's what I'm going to burn,' he said. 
' 'Scuse me-' 
'Stupid! Stupid!' shouted Dibbler. 'That stuff burns really fast!' 
' 'Scuse me-' 
'So what? I wasn't intending to hang around in there,' said Victor. 
'I mean really fast!' 
' 'Scuse me,' said Gaspode patiently. They looked down at him. 
'Me an' Laddie could do it,' he said. 'Four legs're better 'n two and so forth, 
y'know? When it comes to savin' the day.' 
Victor looked at Dibbler and raised his eyebrows. 
'I suppose they might be able to,' Dibbler conceded. Victor nodded. Laddie 
leaped gracefully, snatched the torch out of his hand and ran back into the 
building with Gaspode lurching after him. 
'Did I hear things, or can that little dog speak?' said Dibbler. 
'He says he can't,' said Victor. 
Dibbler hesitated. The excitement was unhinging him a little. 'Well,' he said, 
'I suppose he should know.' 

The dogs bounded towards the screen. The Victor-Thing was nearly through, 
half-sprawled among the cans. 
'Can I light the fire?' said Gaspode. ' 'Smy job, really.' 
Laddie barked obediently and dropped the blazing paper. Gaspode snapped it up 
and advanced cautiously towards the Thing. 
'Savin' the day,' he said, indistinctly, and dropped the torch on a coil of 
film. It flared instantly and burned with a sticky white fire, like slow 
magnesium. 
'OK,' he said. 'Now, let's get the hell out of-' 
The Thing screamed. What semblance there still was of Victor left it, and 
something like an explosion in an aquarium twisted among the flames. A tentacle 
whipped out and grabbed Gaspode by the leg. 
He turned and tried to bite it. 
Laddie ricocheted back down the stricken hall and launched himself at the 
flailing arm. It recoiled, knocking him over and spinning Gaspode across the 
floor. 
The little dog sat up, took a few wobbling steps, and fell over. 
'Bloody leg's been and gone,' he muttered. Laddie gave him a sorrowful look. 
Flames crackled around the film cans. . 
'Go on, get out of here, you stupid mutt,' said Gaspode. 'The whole thing's 
goin' to go up in a minute. No! Don't pick me up! Put me down! You haven't got 
time-' 

The walls of the Odium expanded with apparent slowness, every plank and stone 
maintaining its position relative to all the others but floating out by itself. 
Then Time caught up with events. 
Victor threw himself flat on his face. 
Boom. 
An orange fireball lifted the roof and billowed up into the foggy sky. Wreckage 
smashed against the walls of other houses. A red-hot film can scythed over the 
heads of the recumbent wizards, making a menacing wipwipwip noise, and exploded 
against a distant wall. 
There was a high, thin keening that stopped abruptly. 
The Ginger-Thing rocked in the heat. The gust of hot air lifted its huge skirts 
in billows around its waist and it stood, flickering and uncertain, as debris 
rained down around it. 
Then it turned awkwardly and lurched onward. 
Victor looked at Ginger, who was staring at the thinning clouds of smoke over 
the pile of rubble that had been the Odium. 
'That's wrong,' she was muttering. 'It doesn't happen like that. It never 
happens like that. Just when you think it's too late, they come galloping out of 
the smoke.' She turned dull eyes upon him. 'Don't they?' she pleaded. 
'That's in the clicks,' said Victor. 'This is reality., 
'What's the difference?' 
The Chair grabbed Victor's shoulder and spun him around. 
'It's heading for the Library!' he repeated. 'You've got to stop it! If it gets 
there the magic'll make it invincible! We'll never beat it! It'll be able to 
bring others!' 
'You're wizards,' said Ginger. 'Why don't you stop it?' 
Victor shook his head. 'The Things like our magic,' he said. 'If you use it 
anywhere around them, it only makes them stronger. But I don't see what I can do 
. . . ' 
His voice trailed off. The crowd was watching him expectantly. 
They weren't looking at him as if he was their only hope. They were looking at 
him is if he was their certainty. 
He heard a small child say, 'What happens now, Mum?' 
The fat woman holding it said, authoritatively, 'It's easy. He rushes up and 
stops it just at the last minute. Happens every time. Seen him do it before.' 
'I've never done it before!' said Victor. 
'Saw you do it,' said the woman smugly. 'In Sons of the Dessert. When this lady 
here', she gave a brief curtsey in the direction of Ginger, 'was on that horse 
what threw her over the cliff, and you galloped up and grabbed her at the last 
minute. Very impressive, I thought.' 
'That wasn't Sons of the Dessert,' said an elderly man pedantically, while he 
filled his pipe, 'that was Valley of the Trolls.' 
'It was Sons,' said a thin woman behind him. 'I should know, I watched it 
twenty-seven times.' 
'Yes, it was very good, wasn't it,' said the first woman. 'Every time I see a 
scene where she leaves him and he turns to her and gives her that look, I burst 
into tears-' 
'Excuse me, but that wasn't Sons of the Dessert,' said the man, speaking slowly 
and deliberately. 'You're thinking of the famous plaza scene in Burninge 
Passiones.' 
The fat woman took Ginger's unresisting hand and patted it. 
'You've got a good man there,' she said. 'The way he always rescues you every 
time. If I was being dragged off by mad trolls my ole man wouldn't say a word 
except to ask where I wanted my clothes sent.' 
'My husband wouldn't get out of his chair if I was being et by dragons,' said 
the thin woman. She gave Ginger a gentle prod. 'But you want to wear more 
clothes, miss. Next time you're taken off to be rescued, you insist they let you 
take a warm coat. I never see you on the screen without thinking to myself, 
she's temptin' a dose of 'flu, going around like that.' 
'Where's 'is sword?' said the child, kicking its mother on the shin. 
'I expect he'll be off to fetch it directly,' she said, giving Victor an 
encouraging smile. 
'Er. Yes,' he said. 'Come on, Ginger.' He grabbed her hand. 
'Give the lad room,' shouted the pipe smoker authoritatively. 
A space cleared around them. Ginger and Victor saw a thousand expectant faces 
watching them. 
'They think we're real,' moaned Ginger. 'No-one's doing anything because they 
think you're a hero, for gods' sake! And we can't do anything! This Thing is 
bigger than both of us!' 
Victor stared down at the damp cobblestones. I can probably remember some magic, 
he thought, but ordinary magic's no good against the Dungeon Dimensions. And I'm 
pretty sure real heroes don't hang around in the middle of cheering crowds. They 
get on with the job. Real heroes are like poor old Gaspode. No-one ever notices 
them until afterwards. That's the reality.' 
He raised his head slowly. 
Or is this the reality? 
The air crackled. There was another kind of magic. It was snapping wildly in the 
world now, like a broken film. If only he could grab it . . . 
Reality didn't have to be real. Maybe if conditions were right, it just had to 
be what people believed . . . 
'Stand back,' he whispered. 
'What're you going to do?' said Ginger. 
'Try some Holy Wood kind of magic.' 
'There's nothing magic about Holy Wood!' 
'I . . . think there is. A different sort. We've felt it. Magic's where you find 
it.' 
He took a few deep breaths, and let his mind unravel slowly. That was the 
secret. You did it, you just didn't think about it. You just let the 
instructions come from outside. It was just a job. You just felt the eye of the 
picture-box on you, and it was a different world, a world that was just a 
flickering silver square. 
That was the secret. The flicker. 
Ordinary magic just moved things around. It couldn't create a real thing that'd 
last for more than a second, because that took a lot of power. 
But Holy Wood easily created things over and over again, dozens of times a 
second. They didn't have to last for long. They just had to last for long 
enough. 
But you had to work Holy Wood magic by Holy Wood's rules . . . 
He extended a rock-steady hand towards the dark sky. 
'Lights!' 
There was a sheet of lightning that illuminated the whole city . . . 
'Picture box!' 
Gaffer spun the handle furiously. 
'Action!' 
No-one saw where the horse came from. It was just there, leaping over the heads 
of the crowd. It was white, with lots of impressive silver work on the bridle. 
Victor swung up into the saddle as it cantered past, then made it rear 
impressively so that it pawed the air. He drew a sword which hadn't been there a 
moment before. 
The sword and the horse flickered almost imperceptibly. 
Victor smiled. Light glinted off a tooth. Ting. A glint, but no sound; they 
hadn't invented sound, yet. 
Believe it. That was the way. Never stop believing. Fool the eye, fool the 
brain. 
Then he galloped between the cheering lines of spectators towards the University 
and the big scene. 
The handleman relaxed. Ginger tapped him on the shoulder. 
'If you stop turning that handle,' she said sweetly, 'I'll break your bloody 
neck.' 
'But he's nearly out of shot-' 
Ginger propelled him towards Windle Poons' ancient wheelchair and gave Windle a 
smile that made little clouds of wax boil out of his ears. 
'Excuse me,' she said, in a sultry voice that caused all the wizards to curl 
their toes up in their pointy shoes, 'but could we borrow you for a minute?' 
'Way-hey! Draw it mild!' 

. . . whumm . . . whumm . . . 
Ponder Stibbons knew about the vase, of course. All the students had wandered 
along to have a look at it. 
He didn't pay it much attention as he sneaked along the corridor, attempting 
once again to make a bid for an evening's freedom . 
. . . whummwhummWHUMMWHUMMWHUMMMMwhumm. 
All he had to do was cut across through the cloisters and . . . 
PLIB. 
All eight pottery elephants shot pellets at once. The resograph exploded, 
turning the roof into something like a pepper shaker. 
After a minute or two Ponder got up, very carefully. His hat was simply a 
collection of holes held together by thread. A piece had been taken out of one 
of his ears. 
'I only wanted a drink,' he said, muzzily. 'What's wrong with that?' 

The Librarian crouched on the dome of the Library, watching the crowds scurrying 
through the streets as the monstrous figure lurched nearer. 
He was slightly surprised to see it followed by some sort of spectral horse 
whose hooves made no sound on the cobbles. 
And that was followed by a three-wheeled bathchair that took the corner on only 
two of them, sparks streaming away behind it. It was loaded down with wizards, 
all shouting at the tops of their voices. Occasionally one of them would lose 
his grip and have to run behind until he could get up enough speed to leap on 
again. 
Three of them hadn't made it. That is, one of them had made it sufficiently to 
get a grip on the trailing leather cover, and the other two had made it just 
enough to grab the robe of the one in front, so that now, every time it took a 
bend, a tail of three wizards going 'whaaaaa' snapped wildly across the road 
behind it. 
There were also a number of civilians, but if anything they were shouting louder 
than the wizards. 
The Librarian had seen many weird things in his time, but that was undoubtedly 
the 57th strangest.[28] 
Up here the could very clearly hear the voices. 
'-got to keep it turning! He can only make it work if you keep it turning! It's 
Holy Wood magic! He's making it work in the real world!' That was a girl's 
voice. 
'All right, but the imps get very fractious if-' That was a man's voice under 
extreme pressure. 
'Bugger the imps!' 
'How can he make a horse?' That was the Dean. The Librarian recognized the 
whine. 'That's high-grade magic!' 
'It's not a real horse, it's a moving-picture horse.' The girl again. 'You! 
You're slowing down!' 
'I'm not! I'm not! Look, I'm turning the handle, I'm turning the handle!' 
'He can't ride on a horse that isn't real!' 
'You're a magician and you really believe that?' 
'Wizard, actually.' 
'Well, whatever. This isn't your kind of magic.' 
The Librarian nodded, and then stopped listening. He had other things to do. 
The Thing was almost level with the Tower of Art, and would soon turn to head 
for the Library. Things always homed in on the nearest source of magic. They 
needed it. 
The Librarian had found a long iron pike in one of the University's mouldering 
storerooms. He held it carefully in one foot while he unfastened the rope he'd 
tied to the weathercock. It stretched all the way up to the top of the Tower; it 
had taken him all night to fix it up. 
He surveyed the city below, and then pounded his chest and roared: 
'AaaaAAAaaaAAA - hngh, hngh.' 
Maybe the pounding wasn't entirely necessary, he thought, while he waited for 
the buzzing noises and little flashing lights to go away. 
He gripped the pike in one hand, the rope in the other, and leapt. 
The most graphic way of describing the Librarian's swing across the buildings of 
Unseen University is to simply transcribe the noises made during the flight. 
First: 'AaaAAAaaaAAAaaa.' This is self-explanatory, and refers to the early part 
of the swing, when everything looked as if it was going well. . 
Then: 'Aaarghhhh.' This was the noise made as he missed the lurching Thing by 
several metres and was realizing that, if you have tied a rope to the top of a 
very high and extremely solid stone tower and are now swinging towards it, 
failing to hit something on the way is an error which you will regret for the 
rest of your truncated life. 
The rope completed its swing. There was a noise exactly like a rubber sack full 
of butter hitting a stone slab and this was followed, after a moment or two, by 
a very quiet 'oook'. 
The pike clanged away in the darkness. The Librarian spread-eagled himself 
starfish-like against the wall, ramming fingers and toes into every available 
crevice. 
He might have been able to climb his way down but the option never became 
available, because the Thing reached out a flickering hand and plucked him off 
the wall with a noise like a sink-plunger clearing a difficult blockage. 
It held him up to what was currently its face. 

The crowds flowed into the square in front of Unseen University, with the 
Dibblers to the fore. 
'Look at them,' Cut-me-own-Throat sighed. 'There must be thousands of them, and 
no-one's selling 'em anything.' 
The wheelchair slid to a halt in another spray of sparks. 
Victor was waiting for it, the spectral horse flickering under him. Not one 
horse, but a succession of horses. Not moving, but changing from frame to frame. 

Lightning flashed again. 
'What's he doing?' said the Chair. 
'Trying to keep It from getting to the Library,' said the Dean, peering through 
the rain that was beginning to thud on the cobbles. 'To stay alive in reality, 
Things need magic to hold themselves together. They've got no natural 
morphogenic field, you see, and-' 
'Do something! Blow it up with magic!' shouted Ginger. 'Oh, that poor monkey!' 
'We can't use magic! That's like pouring oil on a fire!' snapped the Dean. 
'Besides . . . I don't know how you go about blowing up a fifty-foot woman. It's 
not the sort of thing I've ever been called upon to do.' 
'It's not a woman! It's . . . it's a film creature, you idiot! Do you think I'm 
really that big?' shouted Gin­ger. 'It's using Holy Wood! It's a Holy Wood 
monster! From film land!' 

'Steer, godsdamnit! Steer!' 
'I don't know how to!' 
'You just have to throw your weight about!' 
The Bursar gripped the broomstick nervously. It's all very well for you to say, 
he thought. You're used 'to it. 
They had been stepping out of the Great Hall when a giant woman had lurched past 
the gate with a gibbering ape in one hand. Now the Bursar was trying to control 
an antique broom out of the University museum while a madman behind him 
feverishly tried to load a crossbow. 
Airborne, the Archchancellor had said. It was absolutely essential that they 
were airborne. 
'Can't you keep it steady?' the Archchancellor demanded. 
'It's not made for two, Archchancellor!' 
'Can't damn well aim with you weavin' around the sky like this, man!' 
The contagious spirit of Holy Wood, whipping across the city like a steel hawser 
with one end suddenly cut free, sliced once again through the Archchancellor's 
mind. 
'We don't leave our people in there,' he muttered. 
'Apes, Archchancellor,' said the Bursar automatically. 

The Thing lurched towards Victor. It moved uneasily, fighting against the forces 
of reality that tugged at it. It flickered as it tried to maintain the shape it 
had climbed into the world with, so that images of Ginger alternated with 
glimpses of something that writhed and coiled. 
It needed magic. 
It eyed Victor and the sword, and if it was capable of something so 
sophisticated as knowledge, it knew that it was vulnerable. 
It turned, ant bore down on Ginger and the wizards. 
Who burst into flame. 

The Dean burned with a particularly pretty blue colour. 
'Don't worry, young lady,' said the Chair from the heart of his fire. 'It's 
illusion. It's not real.' 
'You're telling me?' said Ginger. 'Get on with it!' 
The wizards moved forward. 
Ginger heard footsteps behind her. It was the Dibblers. 
'Why's it frightened of the flame?' said Soll, and the Thing backed away from 
the advancing wizards. 'It's just illusion. It must be able to feel there's no 
heat.' 
Ginger shook her head. She looked like someone surfing on a curling wave of 
hysteria, perhaps because it is not every day you see giant images of yourself 
trampling down a city. 
'It's used Holy Wood magic,' she said. 'So it can't disobey Holy Wood rules. It 
can't feel, it can't hear. It can only see. What it sees is what is real. And 
what film fears is fire.' 
Now the giant Ginger was pressed against the tower. 
'Well, it's trapped,' said Dibbler. 'They've got it now.' 
The Thing blinked at the advancing flames. 
It turned. It reached up with its free hand. It began to climb the tower. 

Victor slid off his horse and stopped concentrating. It vanished. 
Despite his panic, he found room for a tiny gloat. If only wizards had gone to 
the clicks, they'd have known exactly how to do it. 
It was the critical fusion frequency. Even reality had one. If you could only 
make something exist for a tiny part of a second, that didn't mean you'd failed. 
It meant you had to keep on doing it. 
He scurried crabwise along the base of the tower, staring up at the climbing 
Thing, and tripped over something metallic. It turned out to be the Librarian's 
dropped pike. A little further off, the end of the rope trailed in a puddle. 
He stared at them for a moment, then used the pike to chop a few feet off the 
rope to make a crude shoulder strap for the weapon. 
He grabbed the rope and gave it an experimental tug, and then . . . 
There was an unpleasant lack of resistance to the pull. He threw himself 
backwards just before hundreds of feet of sodden rope smacked damply on to the 
paving. 
He looked around desperately for another route to the top. 

The Dibblers watched open mouthed as the Thing climbed. It wasn't moving very 
fast, and occasionally had to wedge the gibbering Librarian into a handy 
buttress while it found the next handhold, but it was moving up. 
'Oh, yes. Yes. Yes,' breathed Soll. 'What a picture! Pure kinema!' 
'A giant woman carrying a screaming ape up a tall building,' sighed Dibbler. 
'And we're not even having to pay wages!' 
'Yeah,' said Soll. 
'Yeah . . . ' said Dibbler. There was a tiny note of uncertainty in his voice. 
Soll looked wistful. 
'Yeah,' he repeated. 'Er.' 
'I know what you mean,' said Dibbler slowly. 
'It's . . . I mean, it's really great, but . . . well, I can't help feeling . . 
. ' 
'Yeah. There's something wrong,' said Dibbler flatly. 
'Not wrong,' said Soll desperately. 'Not exactly wrong. Not wrong as such. Just 
missing . . . ' He stopped, at a loss for words. 
He sighed. And Dibbler sighed. 
Overhead, the thunder rolled. 
And out of the sky came a broomstick with two scream­ing wizards on it. 

Victor pushed open the door at the base of the Tower of Art. 
It was dark inside, and he could hear water dripping down from the distant roof. 

The tower was said to be the oldest building in the world. It certainly felt 
like it. It wasn't used for anything now, and the internal floors had long ago 
rotted away, so that all that was left inside was the staircase. 
It was a spiral, made of huge slabs set into the wall itself. Some of them were 
missing. It'd be a dangerous climb, even in daylight. 
In the dark . . . not a chance. 
The door slammed open behind him and Ginger strode in, dragging the handleman 
behind her. 
'Well?' she said. 'Hurry up. You've got to save that poor monkey.' 
'Ape,' said Victor absently. 
'Whatever.' 
'It's too dark,' Victor muttered. 
'It's never too dark in the clicks,' said Ginger flatly. 'Think about it.' 
She nudged the handleman, who said, very quickly, 'She's right. 'S never dark in 
the clicks. Stands to reason. You've got to have enough light to see the dark 
by.' 
Victor glanced up at the gloom, and then back at Ginger. 
'Listen!' he said urgently. 'If I . . . if something goes wrong, tell the 
wizards about the . . . you know. The pit. The Things will be trying to break 
through there, too.' 
'I'm not going back there!' 
There was a roll of thunder. 
'Get going!' shouted Ginger, white-faced. 'Lights! Pic­ture box! Action! And 
stuff like that!' 
Victor gritted his teeth and ran for it. There was enough light to give the 
darkness a shape, and he leapt from stair to stair with the magic of Holy Wood 
reciting its litany in his head. 
'There has to be enough light', he panted, 'to see the darkness.' 
He staggered onwards. 
'And in Holy Wood I never run out of strength,' he added, hoping his legs would 
believe him. 
That took care of the next turn. 
'And in Holy Wood I have to be in the nick of time,' he shouted. He leaned 
against the wall for a moment and fought for breath. 
'Always in the nick of time,' he muttered. 
He started to run upwards again. 
The slabs passed under his feet like a dream, like squares of movie clicking 
through the picture box. 
And he'd arrive in the nick of time. Thousands of people knew he would. 
If heroes didn't arrive in the nick of time, where was the sense in anything? 
And- 
There was no slab in front of his falling foot. 
His other foot was already arching to leave the step. 
He focused every ounce of energy into one tendon­twanging push, felt his toes 
hit the edge of the next slab up, flung himself forward and then jumped again 
because it was that or snap a leg. 
'This is nuts.' 
He ran onward, straining to look for more missing slabs. 
'Always in the nick of time,' he muttered. 
So maybe he could stop and have a rest? He could 
still make it in the nick of time. That's what the nick of time meant . . . 
No. You had to play fair. 
There was another missing slab ahead. 
He stared blankly at the space. 
There was going to be a whole tower of this. 
He concentrated briefly and jumped on to nothing. The nothing became a slab for 
the fraction of a second he needed to jump off on to the next one. 
He grinned in the dark, and a sparkle of light twin­kled on a tooth. 
Nothing created by Holy Wood magic was real for long. 
But you could make it real for long enough. 
Hooray for Holy Wood. 

The Thing was flickering more slowly now, spending less time looking like a 
giant version of Ginger and more looking like the contents of a taxidermist's 
sink trap. It pulled its dripping bulk over the top of the tower and lay there. 
Air whistled through its breathing tubes. Under its tentacles the rock crumbled, 
as the magic drained away and was replaced by the hungry appetite of Time. 
It was bewildered. Where were the others? It was alone and besieged in a strange 
place . . . 
. . . and now it was angry. It extended an eye and glared at the ape struggling 
in what had been a hand. Thunder rocked the tower. Rain cascaded off the stones. 

The Thing extended a pseudopod and wrapped it around the Librarian's waist . . . 

. . . and became aware of another figure, ridiculously small, erupting from the 
stairwell. 

Victor unslung the pike from his back. What did you do now? When you were 
dealing with humans you had options. You could say 'Hey, put down that ape and 
come on out with your feelers up.' You could . . . 
A claw-tipped tentacle as thick as his arm slammed down on the stones, cracking 
them. 
He leapt backwards and brought the pike around in a backhanded swipe that drew a 
deep yellow slash in the Thing's hide. It howled and shuffled around with 
unpleasant speed to flail more tentacles at him. 
Shape, thought Victor. They've got no real shape in this world. It has to spend 
too much time holding itself together. The more it has to concentrate on me, the 
less it can concentrate on not falling to bits. 
An assortment of mismatched eyes extended from vari­ous bits of the Thing. 
As they focused on Victor they crinkled with angry bloodshot veins. 
OK, he thought. I've got its attention. Now what? 
He stabbed at a snapping claw and jumped with his knees up under his chin when a 
mercifully unidentifiable pseudopod tried to chop his legs from under him. 
Another tentacle snaked out. 
An arrow passed through it with the same effect as a steel pellet shooting 
through a sock filled with custard. The Thing screeched. 
The broomstick barrelled over the top of the tower, with the Archchancellor 
feverishly reloading. 
Victor heard a distant, 'If it bleeds, we can kill it!' followed by 'What do you 
mean, we?' 
Victor pressed forward, hacking at anything that looked vulnerable. The creature 
changed form, trying to thicken its hide or grow a carapace wherever the pike 
fell, but it wasn't fast enough. They're right. It can be killed, Victor 
thought. It may take all day, but it's not invincible -. . . 
And then there was Ginger in front of him, her ex­pression filled with pain and 
shock. 
He hesitated. 
An arrow thudded into what might have been its body. 
'Tally ho! Take us round again, Bursar!' 
The image dissolved. The Thing screeched, threw the Librarian aside like a doll, 
and lurched at Victor with all tentacles at full stretch. One of them knocked 
him over, three others dragged the pike from his hands, and then the Thing was 
rearing up, like a leech, raising the iron pike to knock its tormentors out of 
the sky. 
Victor raised himself up on his elbows and concentrated. 
Just real for long enough. 
The lightning bolt outlined the Thing in blue-and-white light. After the 
thunderclap the creature swayed drunk­enly, with little tendrils of electricity 
coruscating across it and making whizzing noises. A few limbs were smoking. 
It was trying to hold itself together against the forces roaring around inside 
its body. It skewed wildly across the stone, making odd little mewling noises, 
and then, with one good eye glaring balefully at Victor, stepped off into space. 

Victor pushed himself up on his hands and knees and dragged himself to the edge. 

Even on the way down the Thing wasn't giving up. It was trying frantic 
evolutions of feather and hide and membranes in an attempt to find something 
that would survive the fall - 
Time slowed. The air took on a purple haze. Death swung his scythe. 
YOU BELONG DEAD, he said. 
- and then there was a sound like wet laundry hitting a wall and, it turned out, 
the only thing that could survive the fall was a corpse. 

The crowd moved closer in the pouring rain. 
Now that all the control was gone the Thing was dissolving into its component 
molecules, that were washing into the gutters and down to the river and out into 
the cold depths of the sea. 
'It's deliquescing,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 
'Is it?' said the Chair. 'I thought that it was some kind of shop.' 
He prodded it with his foot. 
'Careful,' said the Dean. 'That is not dead which can eternal lie.' 
The Chair studied it. 
'It looks bloody dead to me,' he said. 'Hang on - there's something moving-' 
One of the outflung tentacles slumped aside. 
'Did it land on someone?' said the Dean. 
It did. They pulled out the twitching body of Ponder Stibbons, and prodded and 
patted him in a well-meant way until he opened his eyes. 
'What happened?' he said. 
'A fifty-foot monster fell on you,' said the Dean, simply. 'Are you, er, all 
right?' 
'I only wanted one drink,' Ponder muttered. 'I'd have come straight back, 
honest.' 
'What are you talking about, lad?' 
Ponder ignored him. He got up, swaying a bit, and staggered off towards the 
Great Hall, and never, ever, went out again. 
'Funny chap,' said the Chair. They looked back down at the Thing, which had 
nearly dissolved. 
' 'Twas beauty killed the beast,' said the Dean, who liked to say things like 
that. 
'No it wasn't,' said the Chair. 'It was it splatting into the ground like that.' 

The Librarian sat up and rubbed his head. 
The book was thrust in front of his eyes. 
'Read it!' said Victor. 
'Oook.' 
'Please!' 
The ape opened it at a page of pictograms. He blinked at them for a moment. Then 
his finger went to the bottom right-­hand comer of the page and began to trace 
the signs from right to left. 
Right to left. 
That was how you were supposed to read them, Victor thought. 
Which meant that he'd been exactly wrong all the time. 

Gaffer the handleman panned his picture box along the row of wizards and then 
down to the rapidly-dissolving monster. 
The handle stopped turning. He raised his head and gave everyone a bright smile. 

'If you could just bunch up tighter, gentlemen?' he said. The wizards obediently 
shuffled even closer. 'The light's not very good.' 
Soll wrote down, 'Wizards Joking at the Corepse, take 3,' on a piece of card. 
'Shame you didn't get the fall,' he said, the edges of his voice deckled with 
hysteria. 'Maybe we can stunt it up or something?' 
Ginger sat in the shadows by the tower, hugging her knees and trying to stop 
trembling. Among the shapes the Thing had tried just before the end had been her 
own. 
She pulled herself upright and, holding on to the rough stonework to steady 
herself, walked uncertainly away. She wasn't certain what the future held, but 
coffee would be involved if she had any say in the matter. 
As she passed the tower door there was a clattering of feet and Victor staggered 
out, with the Librarian swinging along behind him. 
He opened his mouth to speak, and started to gasp for air. The orang-utan pushed 
him aside and grabbed Ginger firmly by the arm. It was a warm, soft grip, but 
with just a hint that, if he really ever needed to, the Librarian could easily 
turn any arm into a tube of jelly with bits in it. 
'Gook!' 
'Look, it's over,' said Ginger. 'The monster's dead. That's how things end, OK? 
And now I'm going to get something to drink.' 
'Oook!' 
'Oook yourself.' 
Victor raised his head. 
'It's . . . not over,' he said. 
'It is for me. I just saw myself turn into a . . . a THING with tentacles. A 
Thing like that has a bit of an effect on a girl, you know.' 
'It's not important!' Victor managed. 'We got it wrong! Look, they'll keep on 
coming now! You've got to come back to Holy Wood! They'll be coming through 
there, too!' 
'Gook!' the Librarian agreed, jabbing the book with a purple fingernail. 
'Well, they can do it without me,' said Ginger. 
'No, they can't! I mean, they will anyway! But you can stop them! Oh, stop 
looking at me like that!' He nudged the Librarian. 'Go on, tell her,' he said. 
'Gook,' said the Librarian, patiently. 'Oook.' 
'I can't understand him!' wailed Ginger. 
Victor's brow wrinkled. 'You can't?' 
'It's all just monkey noises to me!' 
Victor's eyes swivelled sideways. 'Er-' 
The Librarian stood like a small prehistoric statue for a moment. Then he took 
Ginger's hand, very gently, and patted it. 
'Oook,' he said, graciously. 
'Sorry,' said Ginger. 
'Listen!' said Victor. 'I got it wrong! You weren't trying to help Them, you 
were trying to stop them! I read it the wrong way round! It's not a man behind a 
gate, it's a man in front of a gate! And a man in front of a gate', he took a 
deep breath, 'is a guard!' 
'Yes, but we can't get to Holy Wood! It's miles away!' 
Victor shrugged. 'Go and get the handleman,' he said. 

The land around Ankh-Morpork is fertile and largely given over to the cabbage 
fields that help to give the city its distinctive odour. 
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 spinach harvest. 
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 tunnel fell down!' he said, saying it loudly in the hope that this 
would make it true. 'It was all sealed off!' 
'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.' 
'Yeah,' said the other farmer. 'Er . . . what does dang mean? Exactly?' 

It was the time of the silence. 
Nothing moved in Holy Wood except the light. It flickered slowly. Holy Wood 
light, Victor thought. 
There was a feeling of dreadful expectation. If a movie set was a dream waiting 
to be made real, then the town was one step further up the scale - a real place 
waiting for something new, something that ordinary language couldn't define. 
' ,' he said, and stopped. 
' ?' said Ginger. 
' ?' 
' !' 
They stared at one another for a moment. Then Victor grabbed her hand and 
dragged her into the nearest building, which turned out to be the commissary. 
The scene inside was indescribable and remained so until Victor found the 
blackboard that was used for what was laughingly referred to as the menu. 
He picked up the chalk. 
'I'M TALKING BUT I CANT HERE ME,' he wrote, and solemnly handed her the chalk. 
'ME TO. Y?' 
Victor tossed the chalk up and down thoughtfully, and then wrote: 'I THINK BCOS 
WE NEVER INVENTED SOUND MOVIES. IF WE DIDNT HAVE IMPS THAT COULD PAINT IN COLOR 
MAYBE THERE WOULD JUST BE BLAK AND WHITE HERE TOO.' . 
They stared at the scene around them. There were untouched or half-eaten meals 
on almost every table. This wasn't particularly unusual at Borgle's, but 
normally they were accompanied by people complaining bitterly. 
Ginger delicately dipped a finger in the nearest plate. 
'Still warm,' she mouthed. 
'Let's go,' said Victor quietly, pointing at the door. 
She tried to say something complicated, scowled at his blank expression, and 
wrote: 'WE SHUOD WAIT FOR 
THE WIZARDS.' 
Victor stood frozen for a moment. Then his lips shaped a phrase that Ginger 
would not admit to knowing and he made a dash for the outside. 
The overloaded chair was already bowling along the street with smoke billowing 
from its axles. He jumped up and down in front of it, waving his arms. 
A long silent conversation went on. There was a lot of chalking on the nearest 
wall. Finally Ginger couldn't contain her impatience any longer and hurried 
over. 
'YOUVE GOT TO STAY AWAY. IF THEY BRAKE THRU YOU WIL BE A MEAL.' 
'SO WILL YOU.' This was neater handwriting; it was the Dean's. 
Victor wrote: 'XCEPT I THINK I KNOW WHAT'S HAPNEN. ANYWAY, YOU WILL BE NEEDED IF 
IT GOES WRONG.' 
He nodded at the Dean and hurried back to Ginger and the Librarian. He gave the 
ape a worried look. Technically the Librarian was a wizard - at least, when he'd 
been human he was a wizard, so presumably he still was. On the other hand, he 
was also an ape, and a handy man to have around in an emergency. He decided to 
ask it. 
'Come on,' he mouthed. 
It was easy enough to find the way to the hill. Where there had been a path 
there was now a broad trail, poignantly scattered with the debris of hurried 
passage. A sandal. A discarded picture box. A trailing red feather boa. 
The door into the hill had been torn off its hinges. A dull glow came from the 
tunnel. Victor shrugged and marched inside. 
The debris hadn't been cleared right away, but it had been pushed aside and 
flattened down to allow the crowd to go through. The ceiling hadn't fallen in. 
This wasn't because of the debris. It was because of Detritus. 
He was holding it up. 
Nearly up. He was already down on one knee. 
Victor and the Librarian stacked boulders around the troll until he could let 
the weight off his shoulders. He groaned, or at least looked as if he'd groaned, 
and toppled forward. Ginger helped him up. 
'What happened?' she mouthed at him. 
' ? ?' Detritus looked puzzled at the absence of his voice and tried to squint 
at his mouth. 
Victor sighed. He had a vision of the Holy Wood people stampeding blindly along 
the passage, the trolls scrabbling at the blockage. Since Detritus was the 
toughest, naturally he'd play a major part. And since the only function he 
normally used his brain for was to stop the top of his head falling in, equally 
naturally he'd be the one left holding up the weight on the hill. Victor 
imagined him calling out, unheard, as the rest of them hurried by. 
He wondered whether to write him a cheery message, but in Detritus' case this 
was almost certainly a waste of time. Anyway, the troll wasn't about to hang 
around. He loped off along the tunnel with a grim look on his face, 
concentrating fiercely on some private errand of his own. His trailing knuckles 
left two furrows in the dust. 
The passage opened out into the cavern which was, Victor now realized, a sort of 
ante-chamber to the pit itself. Maybe thousands of years ago supplicants had 
flocked out here to buy . . . what? Consecrated sausages, maybe, and the holy 
banged grains. 
Spectral light filled it now. It was still full of damp and ancient mould 
wherever Victor looked. Yet wherever he didn't look, at the edges of his vision, 
he kept getting the feeling that the place was decorated like a palace with red 
plush draperies and baroque gold decorations. He kept turning his head sharply, 
trying to trap the ghostly, glittering image. 
He met the Librarian's worried frown, and chalked on the cave wall: 
'REALITIES MERGING?' 
The Librarian nodded. 
Victor winced, and led his little group of Holy Wood guerrillas -at least, two 
guerrillas and one orang-utan up the worn steps into the pit. 
Victor realized later that it was Detritus who saved them all. 
They took one look at the swirling images on the obscene screen and . . . 
Dream. Reality. Believe. 
Await . . . 
. . . and Detritus tried to walk through them. Images designed to trap and throw 
a glamour over any sapient mind bounced off the back of his rocky skull and came 
right out again. He paid them no attention at all. He had other fish to fry.[29] 

Being trampled almost to death by a preoccupied troll is almost the ideal cure 
for a person confused about what is real and what isn't. Reality is something 
walking heavily up your spine. 
Victor hauled himself back on to his feet, pulled the others towards him, 
pointed to the flickering, bulging oblong at the other end of the hall, and 
mouthed 'Don't look!' 
They nodded. 
Ginger gripped his arm tightly as they inched their way down from the aisle. 
All of Holy Wood was there. They saw faces they knew ranged along the seats, 
immobile in the shivering light, every expression nailed in place. 
He felt her nails dig into his skin. There was Rock, and Morry, and Fruntkin 
from the commissary, and Mrs Cosmopilite the wardrobe lady. There was 
Silverfish, and a row of other alchemists. There were the carpenters, and the 
handlemen, and all the stars that never were, all the people who had held horses 
or cleaned tables or stood in queues and waited and waited for their big chance 
. . . 
Lobsters, thought Victor. There was a great city and lots of people died and now 
it's the home of lobsters. 
The Librarian pointed. 
Detritus had found Ruby in the very front row, and was trying to pull her out of 
her seat. Whichever way he moved her, her eyes swivelled towards the dancing 
images. When he stood in front of her she blinked for a moment, scowled, and 
knocked him aside. 
Then her expression slid back to vacuity and she settled into her seat. 
Victor laid' a hand on his shoulder and made what he hoped would be soothing, 
beckoning motions. Detritus' face was a fresco of misery. 
The suit of armour was still on the slab behind the screen, in front of the 
tarnished disc. 
They stared at it, hopelessly. 
Victor tentatively drew his finger through the dust. It left a streak of shiny 
yellow metal. He looked at Ginger. 
'What now?' he mouthed. 
She shrugged. It meant - how should I know? I was asleep, before. 
The screen above them was bulging very fatly now. How long before the Things 
came through? 
Victor tried shaking the - well, call it a man. A very tall man. In seamless 
golden armour. Might as well try to shake awake a mountain. 
He reached over and tried to free the sword, although it was longer than he was 
and, even if he could lift it, would be as manoeuvrable as a barge. 
It was gripped fast. 
The Librarian was trying to read the book by the light of the screen, feverishly 
thumbing through the pages. 
Victor chalked on the side of the slab: 'CAN'T YOU THINK OF ANYTHIN AT AL?' 
Ginger took the chalk: 'NO! YOU WOKE ME UP!! I DON'T NO HOW TO DO IT!!! WHATEVR 
IT IS!!!.' 
The fourth exclamation mark only failed to be completed because the chalk 
snapped. There was a distant 'ping' as part of it hit something. 
Victor took the other half out of her hand. 
'MAYBE YOU SHOUD HAV A LOOK AT THE BOOK,' 
he suggested. 
The Librarian nodded and tried to put the book in her hands. She waved him off 
for a moment, and stood staring into the shadows. 
She took the book. 
She looked from the ape to the troll to the man. 
Then she pulled her arm back and hurled the book away from her. 
This time it wasn't a ping. It was a definite, low and very resonant 'booong'. 
Something could make a noise in the place with no sound. 
Victor skidded around the slab. 
The big disc was a gong. He tapped it. Bits of corrosion fell off, but the metal 
shivered under the light blow and gave out another tinny rumble under his touch. 
Below it, now that his eyes were instinctively seeing it out, was a six-foot 
metal pole with a padded ball at one end. 
He grabbed it and heaved it off its supports. Or tried to, at least. It was 
rusted solidly in place. 
The Librarian positioned himself at the other end, caught Victor's eye, and this 
time they hauled on it together. Flakes of rust dug into Victor's hands. 
It was immovable. The gong hammer and its supports had been turned by time and 
salt air into one single metallic whole. 
Then time seemed to slow and became a series of frozen events in the flickering 
light, like moving pictures sliding through the box. 
Click. 
Detritus reached down over Victor's head, grasped the hammer by its middle, and 
lifted it up, tearing the rusted supports out of the very rock. 
Click. 
They threw themselves flat as he gripped it in both hands, flexed his muscles, 
and took a swing at the gong. 
Click. 
Click. 
Click. 
Click. 
Caught in a series of tableaux, Detritus appeared to move instantly into . . . 
click . . . different but connected positions as he pivoted on one horny foot, 
the hammer head . . . click . . . making a bright arc in the darkness. 
Click. 
The impact knocked the gong so far backwards that the chains broke, and it 
slammed against the wall of the pit. 
Sound came back quickly and in vast quantities, as though it had been dammed up 
somewhere and had then suddenly been released, to slosh joyfully back into the 
world and drown every eardrum. 
Booong. 
Click. 

The giant figure on the slab sat upright slowly, dust cascading off it in slow 
streams. Underneath it was gold, untarnished by the years. 
It moved slowly but deliberately, as though propelled by clockwork. One hand 
grasped the giant sword. The other gripped the edge of the slab to steady the 
figure as its long, tapering legs swung down to the ground. 
It stood upright, ten feet tall, rested its hands on the hilt of the sword, and 
halted. It didn't look very much different from its posture on the slab, but 
this time there was an air of alertness about it, a sense of huge energies idly 
ticking over. It paid no attention at all to the four who had awoken it. 
The screen stopped its wild pulsating. Something had sensed the presence of the 
golden man and was focusing its attention on him. Which meant that it was 
temporarily removing it from elsewhere. 
There was a stirring from the audience. They were waking up. 
Victor grabbed the Librarian and Detritus. 
'You two,' he said. 'Get everyone out of here. Get them out of here fast.' 
'Gook!' 
The Holy Wood people didn't need much encouragement. Seeing the shapes on the 
screen clearly, without the cushion of hypnosis, was enough to make anything 
brainier than Detritus have a sudden urge to be a long way away. Victor could 
see them struggling over the seats, fighting to escape from the pit. 
Ginger started to follow them. Victor stopped her. 
'Not yet,' he said, quietly. 'Not us.' 
'What do you mean?' she demanded. 
He shook his head. 'We have to be the last ones out,' he said. 'It's all part of 
Holy Wood. You can use the magic, but it uses you, too. Besides, don't you want 
to see how it all ends?' 
'I had rather hoped to see how it all ends from a long way off.' 
'OK, look at it another way . . . it's going to take a couple of minutes for 
them to get out. We might as well have a clear run at it, eh?' 
They could hear shouts in the ante-chamber as the former audience piled into the 
tunnel. 
Victor walked up the suddenly-deserted aisle to the back row and sat down in a 
vacated seat. 
'I hope old Detritus is bright enough not to be left holding up the ceiling 
again,' he said. 
Ginger sighed, and sat down next to him. 
Victor put his feet up on the seat in front of him and fumbled in his pockets. 
'Would you like', he said, 'some banged grains?' 
The golden man was just visible under the screen. His head was bowed. 
'You know, he does look like my Uncle Oswald,' said Ginger. 
The screen went dark with such suddenness the inrushing blackness almost made a 
noise. 
This must have happened many times before, Victor thought. In dozens of 
universes. The wild idea arrives, and somehow the golden man, the Oswald or 
whatever, arises. To control it. Or something. Maybe wherever Holy Wood goes, 
Osric follows. 
A point of purple light appeared, and grew faster very quickly. Victor felt that 
he was dropping down a tunnel. 
The golden figure raised its head. 
The light twisted, and took on random features. The screen wasn't there any 
more. This was something entering the world. It wasn't an image at the other end 
of the hall, but something frantically trying to exist. 
The golden man drew back his sword. 
Victor shook Ginger's shoulder. 
'I think this is where we leave,' he said. 
.The sword connected. Golden light filled the cave. 
Victor and Ginger were already racing down the steps of the ante­chamber when 
the first shock hit. They stared at the tunnel's empty mouth. 
'Not on your life,' said Ginger. 'I'm not going to be trapped in there again.' 
The flooded stairs lay in front of them. Of course, they must connect to the 
sea, and really it was only a few yards away, but the water was inky black and, 
in Gaspode's word, boding. 
'Can you swim?' said Victor. One of the cavern's rotting pillars crashed down 
behind them. From the pit itself came a terrible wailing. 
'Not very well,' said Ginger. 
'Me neither,' he said. The commotion behind them was getting worse. 
'Still,' he said, taking her hand. 'We could look on this as a great opportunity 
to improve really quickly.' 
They jumped. 

Victor surfaced fifty yards offshore, lungs bursting. Ginger erupted a few feet 
away. They trod water, and watched. 
The earth trembled. 
Holy Wood Town, built of unseasoned wood and short nails, was shaking apart. 
Houses folded down on themselves slowly, like packs of cards. Here and there 
small explosions indicated that stores of octo-cellulose were involved. Canvas 
cities and plaster mountains slid into ruin. 
And between it all, dodging the falling timber but letting nothing else stand in 
their way, the people of Holy Wood ran for their lives. Handlemen, actors, 
alchemists, imps, trolls, dwarfs - they ran like ants whose heap is ablaze, 
heads down, legs pumping, eyes fixed furiously on the horizon. 
A whole section of hill caved in. 
For a moment Victor thought he saw the huge golden figure of Osbert, as 
insubstantial as dust motes in a shaft of light, rise over Holy Wood and bring 
its sword around in one all-embracing sweep. 
Then it was gone. 

Victor helped Ginger ashore. 
They reached the main street, silent now except for the occasional creak and 
thud as another plank dropped off the half-­collapsed buildings. 
They picked their way over fallen scenery and broken picture boxes. 
There was a crash behind them as the 'Century of the Fruitbat' sign slipped off 
its moorings and thudded on the sand. 
They passed the remains of Borgle's commissary, whose destruction had increased 
the average food quality of the entire world by a small but significant amount. 
They waded through unreeled clicks, flapping in the wind. 
They climbed over broken dreams. 
At the edge of what had been Holy Wood, Victor turned and looked back once. 
'Well, they were right at last,' he said. 'You'll never work in this town 
again.' 
There was a sob. To his surprise, Ginger was crying. 
He put his arm around her. 
'Come on,' he said. 'I'll walk you home.' 

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 Harp 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. 
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 Harp'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!' 

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 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, grinning. 'You'd need a thousand 
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 grinned. It was the first time Victor had ever seen her face shorn of 
petulance, anger, worry or Holy Wood make-up. 
'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-skinned young 
man riding an elephant. 
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. 
'Oh, go on,' he said. 'Let me go and tell him. Please?' 

Click . . . 
Thomas Silverfish, alchemist and failed click producer, stirred the contents of 
a crucible and sighed wistfully. 
A lot of gold had been left behind in Holy Wood, for anyone who had the nerve to 
go and dig for it. For those who hadn't, and Silverfish wouldn't hesitate to put 
himself first among that number, there were the old tried-and-tested or, to put 
it another way, tried-and-repeatedly-failed methods of wealth production. So now 
he was back home, picking up where he had left off. 
'Any good?' said Peavie, who had dropped in to commiserate. 
'Well, it's silvery,' said Silverfish doubtfully. 'And it's sort of metallic. 
And it's heavier than lead. You have to cook up a ton of ore, too. Funny thing 
is, I thought I was on to something this time. I really thought that this time 
we were on the way to a new, clear future . . . ' 
'What are you going to call it?' said Peavie. 
'Oh, I don't know. It's probably not worth naming,' said Silverfish. 
'Ankhmorporkery? Silverfishium? Notleadium?' said Peavie. 
'Uselessium, more like,' said Silverfish. 'I'm giving up on it and going back to 
something more sensible.' 
Peavie peered into the furnace. 
'It doesn't go boom, does it?' he said. 
Silverfish gave him a withering look. 
'This stuff?' he said. 'Whatever gave you that idea?' 

Click . . . 
It was pitch dark under the rubble. 
It had been pitch dark for a long time. 
Gaspode could feel the tons of stone above this little space. You didn't need 
any special doggy senses for that. 
He dragged himself over to where a pillar had smashed down into the cellar. 
Laddie raised his head with difficulty, licked Gaspode's face, and managed the 
faintest of barks. 
'Good boy Laddie . . . Good boy Gaspode . . . ' 
'Good boy Laddie,' Gaspode whispered. 
Laddie's tail thumped once or twice on the stones. Then he whimpered for a 
while, with longer and longer pauses between the sounds. 
Then there was a faint noise. Just like bone on stone. 
Gaspode's ears twitched. He looked up at the advancing figure, visible even in 
utter darkness because it Would forever be darker than mere blackness alone 
could manage. 
He pulled himself upright, the hairs rising along his back, and growled. 
'Another step and I'll have your leg off and bury it,' he said. 
A skeletal hand reached out and tickled him behind the ears. 
There was a faint barking from the darkness. 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
Gaspode, tears pouring down his face, gave Death an apologetic grin. 
'Pathetic, isn't it?' he said hoarsely. 
I WOULDN'T KNOW. I'VE NEVER BEEN THAT MUCH OF A DOG PERSON, said Death. 
'Oh? Come to that, I've never liked the idea of dyin',' said Gaspode. 'We are 
dyin', ain't we?' 
YES. 
'Not surprised, really. Story of my life, dyin',' said Gaspode. 'It's just that 
I fought', he added, hopefully, 'that there was a special Death for dogs. A big 
black dog, maybe' . 
No, said Death. 
'Funny that,' said Gaspode. 'I heard where every type of animal had its own 
ghastly dark spectre what come for it at the end. No offence meant,' he added 
quickly. 'I fought there was this big dog that trots up to you an' says, "OK, 
Gaspode, your work is done and so forth, lay down your 
weary burden, style offing, and follow me to a land flowin' with steak and 
offal." ' 
NO. THERE'S JUST ME, said Death. THE FINAL FRONTIER. 
'How come I'm seein' you, if I ain't dead yet?' 
YOU'RE HALLUCINATING. 
Gaspode looked alert. 'Am I? Cor.' 
'Good boy Laddie!' The barking was louder this time. 
Death reached into the mysterious recesses of his robe and produced a small 
hourglass. There was almost no sand left in the top bulb. The last seconds of 
Gaspode's life hissed from the future to the past. 
And then there were none at all. 
Death stood up. 
COME, GASPODE. 
There was a faint noise. It sounded like the audible equivalent of a twinkle. 
Golden sparks filled the hourglass. 
The sand flowed backwards. 
Death grinned. 
And then, where he had been, there was a triangle of brilliant light. 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
'There he are! Told you I hear barking!' said the voice of Rock. 'Good boy! 
Here, boy!' 
'Cor, am I glad to see you-' Gaspode began. The trolls clustering around the 
opening paid him no attention at all. Rock heaved the pillar aside and gently 
lifted Laddie up. 
'Nothing wrong that time won't heal,' he said. 
'Can we eat it now?' said a troll above him. 
'You defective or something? This one heroic dog!' 
'-'scuse me-' 
'Good boy Laddie!' 
Rock handed up the dog and climbed out of the hole. 
'-'scuse me-' Gaspode croaked after him. 
He heard a distant cheer. 
After a while, since there didn't seem to be much of an alternative, he crawled 
painfully up the sloping pillar and managed to drag himself out on to the 
rubble. 
No-one was around. 
He had a drink out of a puddle. 
He stood up, testing the injured leg. 
It'd do. 
And finally, he swore. 
'Woof, woof, woof!' 
He paused. That wasn't right. 
He tried again. 
'Woof!' 
He looked around . . . 
. . . and colour drained out of the world, returning it to a state of blessed 
blacks and whites. 
It occurred to Gaspode that Harga would be throwing out the trash around now, 
and then there was bound to be a warm stable somewhere. And what more did a 
small dog need? 
Somewhere in the distant mountains, wolves were howling. Somewhere in friendly 
houses, dogs with collars and dishes with their names on were being patted on 
the head. 
Somewhere in between, and feeling oddly cheerful about it, Gaspode the Wonder 
Dog limped into the gloriously-monochrome sunset. 

About thirty miles Turnwise of Ankh-Morpork the surf boomed on the wind-blown, 
seagrass-waving, sand-dune-covered spit of land where the Circle Sea met the Rim 
Ocean. 
Sea swallows dipped low over the waves. The dried heads of sea­poppies clattered 
in the perpetual breeze, which scoured the sky of clouds and moved the sand 
around in curious patterns. ' 
The hill itself was visible for miles. It wasn't very high, but lay amongst the 
dunes like an upturned boat or a very unlucky whale, and was covered in scrub 
trees. No rain fell here, if it could possibly avoid ·t. 
But the wind blew, and piled the dunes against the dried-out, bleached wood of 
Holy Wood Town. 
It howled its auditions on the deserted backlots. 
It tumbled scraps of paper through the crumbling plaster wonders of the world. 
It rattled the boards until they fell into the sand and were covered. 
Clickaclickaclicka. 
The wind sighed around the skeleton of a picturethrowing box, leaning drunkenly 
on its abandoned tripod. 
It caught a trailing scrap of film and wound out the last picture show, snaking 
the crumbling glistening coils across the sand. 
In the picture-thrower's glass eye tiny figures danced jerkily, alive for just a 
moment . . . 
Clickaclicka. 
The film broke free and whirled away over the dunes. 
Clicka . . . click . . . 
The handle swung backwards and forwards for a moment, and then stopped. 
Click. 
Holy Wood dreams. 
THE END 

[1] This is the one that grows only in certain parts of heathen Howondaland. 
It's twenty feet long, covered in spikes the colour of ear wax, and smells like 
an anteater that's eaten a very bad ant.
[BACK] 

[2] In fact the Guild of Merchants' famous publication Wellcome to 
Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises now has an entire section 
entitled 'Soe you're a Barbaeriean Invader?' which has notes on night life, 
folklorique bargains in the bazaar and, under the heading 'Steppe-ing Out', a 
list of restaurants that do a dependable mares' milk and yak pudding. And many a 
pointedhelmeted vandal has trotted back to his freezing yurt wondering why he 
seems to be a great deal poorer and the apparent owner of a badly-woven rug, a 
litre of undrinkable wine and a stuffed purple donkey in a straw hat.
[BACK] 

[3] The alternative was choosing of his own free will to be thrown into the 
scorpion pit.
[BACK] 

[4] She was right about that, but only by coincidence.
[BACK] 

[5] Lit.: 'Thingness-writer', or device for detecting and measuring disturbances 
in the fabric of reality.
[BACK] 

[6] SUB-TITLE: 'Vunce again I am fallink in luf (lit., experiencing the pleasant 
feeling of being hit over the head with a rock by Chondrodite, the troll god of 
love).' Note: Chondrodite must not be confused with Gigalith, the troll god who 
gives trolls wisdom by hitting them on the head with a rock, or Silicarous, the 
troll god who brings trolls good fortune by hitting them on the head with a 
rock, or with the folk hero Monolith, who first wrested the secret of rocks from 
the gods.
[BACK] 

[7] SUB-TITLE : 'Vy iss it I now am a blue colour?'
[BACK] 

[8] SUB-TITLE: 'Vot is the action I should take at this time?'
[BACK] 

[9] SUB-TITLE: ' . . . I can't help it. Hiya, big boy.'
[BACK] 

[10] Mrs Marietta Cosmopilite, former Ankh-Morpork seamstress until her dreams 
led her to Holy Wood, where she found her skill with a needle was highly prized. 
Once a darner of casual socks, now a knitter of fake chain mail for trolls and 
able to run up a pair of harem trousers in a trice.
[BACK] 

[11] Camels are far too intelligent to admit to being intelligent.
[BACK] 

[12] Some of them have clipboards.
[BACK] 

[13] Trolls' teeth are made of diamond.
[BACK] 

[14] But were edited out of the finished production. 
[BACK] 

[15] Not for any particular religious reason. They just rather liked the effect 
when they grinned.
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[16] All dwarfs have beards and wear many layers of clothing. Their courtships 
are largely concerned with finding out, in delicate and circumspect ways, what 
sex the other dwarf is.
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[17] Trolls have 5,400 words for rocks and one for vegetation. 'Oograah' means 
everything from moss to giant redwoods. The way trolls see it, if you can't eat 
it, it's not worth naming it.
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[18] It was about a young ape who is abandoned in the big city and grows up 
being able to speak the language of humans.
[BACK] 

[19] The Necrotelicomnicon was written by a Klatchian necromancer known to the 
world as Achmed the Mad, although he preferred to be called Achmed the I Just 
Get These Headaches. It is said that the book was written in one day after 
Achmed drank too much of the strange thick Klatchian coffee which doesn't just 
sober you up, but takes you through sobriety and out the other side, so that you 
glimpse the real universe beyond the clouds of warm self-delusion that sapient 
life usually generates around itself to stop it turning into a nutcake. Little 
is known about his life prior to this event, because the page headed 'About The 
Author' spontaneously combusted shortly after his death. However, a section 
headed 'Other Books By the Same Author' indicates that his previous published 
work was Achmed the I Just Get These Headaches's Book of Humorous Cat Stories, 
which might explain a lot.
[BACK] 

[20] Apart from anything else, it gives brother a rather better excuse to fight 
brother than the normal one, viz, what his wife said about our Mam at Auntie 
Vera's funeral.
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[21] 49,873, according to Numbers Riktor's clockwork Celestial Enumerator.
[BACK] 

[22] The ones living in stone buildings, anyway.
[BACK] 

[23] By troll standards, this was Oscar Wilde at his best.
[BACK] 

[24] In fact he called it 'oook'. But probably, in translation, it meant 'home'.
[BACK] 

[25] Wizards who manage to avoid the ambitious attentions of other wizards tend 
to live for a long time. It seems even longer.
[BACK] 

[26] On his part, that is. Their reluctance probably goes without saying.
[BACK] 

[27] 'We Can Rule You Wholesale'.
[BACK] 

[28] He had a tidy mind.
[BACK] 

[29] The trollish phrase is 'Other maddened grizzly bears to stun.'
[BACK]