Moving Pictures (21 page)

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.

“O’course,” 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 of fing, 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 offense 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 anymore,” 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 toward 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 mustaches! 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 onward.

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.