Moving Pictures (15 page)

“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-flavored wine gum that had been half-sucked. The handlemen turned their handles, the extras charged enthusiastically backward and forward, 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 can do that?”

“What huge eunuchs?” said Victor, as the camel unfolded itself upward.

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 onto 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 vice-presidents 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 backward, 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.”