Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

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!'