Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'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.'