Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

It was a man and a woman and something like a size five man in a size twelve fur coat, all in a chariot that flickered as it moved. It bowled along the road towards Holy Wood and was soon out of sight.

A minute or two later it was followed by a wheelchair. Its axle glowed red-hot. It was full of people screaming at one another. One of them was turning a handle on a box.

It was so overburdened that wizards occasionally fell off and ran along after it, shouting, until they had a chance to jump on again and start screaming.

Whoever was attempting to steer was not succeeding, and it weaved back and forth across the road and eventually hurtled off it completely and through the side of a barn.

One of the farmers nudged the other.

'Oi've seen this on the clicks,' he said. 'It's always the same. They crash into a barn and they allus comes out the other side covered in squawking chickens.'

His companion leaned reflectively on his hoe.

'It'd be a sight worth seeing that,' he said.

'Sure would.'

' 'Cos all there is in there, boy, is twenty ton of cabbage.'

There was a crash, and the chair erupted from the barn in a shower of chickens and headed madly towards the road.

The farmers looked at one another.

'Well, dang me,' said one of them.

Holy Wood was a glow on the horizon. The earth tremors were stronger now.

The flickering chariot came out of a stand of trees and paused at the top of the incline that led down to the town.

Mist wreathed Holy Wood. From out of it spears of light crisscrossed the sky.

'We're too late?' said Ginger hopefully.

'Almost too late,' said Victor.

'Oook,' said the Librarian. His fingernail raced back and forth as he read the ancient pictograms - right to left, right to left.

'I knew there was something not right,' Victor had said. 'That sleeping statue . . . the guard. The old priests sang songs and did ceremonies to keep him awake. They remembered Holy Wood as best they could.'

'But I don't know anything about a guard!'

'Yes, you do. Like, deep down inside.'

'Gook,' said the Librarian, tapping a page. 'Oook!'

'He says you're probably descended from the original High Priestess. He thinks everyone in Holy Wood is descended from . . . you see . . . I mean, the first time the Things broke through the entire city was destroyed and the survivors fled everywhere, you see, but everyone has this way of remembering even things that happened to their ancestors, I mean, it's like there's this great big pool of memory and we're linked, up to it and when it all started happening again we were all called to the place, and you tried to put it right, only it was weak so it couldn't get through to you unless you were asleep-'

He trailed off helplessly.

' “Oook”?' said Ginger suspiciously. 'You got all this from “oook”?'

'Well, not just one,' Victor admitted.

'I've never heard such a lot of-' Ginger began, and stopped. A hand softer than the softest leather was pushed into hers. She looked around into a fare that compared badly to a deflated football.

'Oook,' said the Librarian.

Ginger locked eyes with him for a moment.