Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

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.