Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

Hammering filled the air. Buildings were spreading backwards from the nameless main street into the dunes. No-one owned any land in Holy Wood; if it was empty, you built on it.

Dibbler had two offices now. There was one where he shouted at people, and a bigger one just outside it where people shouted at each other. Soll shouted at handlemen. Handlemen shouted at alchemists. Demons wandered over every flat surface and drowned in the coffee cups and shouted at one another. A couple of experimental green parrots shouted at themselves. People wearing odd bits of costume wandered in and just shouted. Silverfish shouted because he couldn't quite work out why he now had a desk in the outer office even though he owned the studio.

Gaspode sat stolidly by the door to the inner office. In the past five minutes he had attracted one half-hearted kick, a soggy biscuit and a pat on the head. He reckoned he was ahead of the game, dogwise.

He was trying to listen to all the conversations at once. It was extremely instructive. For one thing, some of the people coming in and shouting were carrying bags of money . . .

'You what?'

The shout had come from the inner office. Gaspode cocked the other ear.

'I, er, want a day off, Mr Dibbler,' said Victor.

'A day off? You don't want to work?'

'Just for the day, Mr Dibbler.'

'But you don't think I'm going to go around paying people to have days off, do you? I'm not trade of money, you know. It's not as if we make a profit, even. Hold a crossbow to my head, why don't you.'

Gaspode looked at the bags in front of Soll, who was furiously adding up piles of coins. He raised a cynical eyebrow.

There was a pause. Oh, no, thought Gaspode. The young idiot's forgetting his lines.

ter,' said Victor.

She waved a hand irritably. 'Any shellfish you like,' she said. 'I was thinking of oysters, actually.' 'Were you? I was thinking of lobsters.'

'Bursaar!'

I shouldn't have to run around like this at my age, thought the Bursar, scurrying down the corridor in answer to the Archchancellor's bellow. Why's he so interested in the damn thing, anyway? Wretched pot! 'Coming, Master,' he trilled.

The Archchancellor's desk was covered with ancient documents.

When a wizard died, all his papers were stored in one of the outlying reaches of the Library. Shelf after shelf of quietly mouldering documents, the haunt of mysterious beetles and dry rot, stretched away into an unguessable distance. Eyeryone kept telling everyone that there was a wealth of material here for researchers, if only someone could find the time to do it.

The Bursar was annoyed. He couldn't find the Librarian anywhere. The ape never seemed to be around these days. He'd had to scrabble among the stuff himself.

'I think this is the last, Archchancellor,' he said, tipping an avalanche of dusty paperwork on to the desk. Ridcully flailed at a cloud of moths.

'Paper, paper, paper,' he muttered. 'How many damn bits of paper in his stuff, eh?'

'Er . . . 23,813, Archchancellor,' said the Bursar. 'He kept a record.'

'Look at this,' said the Archchancellor. ' “Star Enumerator” . . . “Rev Counter for Use in Ecclesiastical Areas” . . . “Swamp Meter” . . . Swamp meter! The man was mad!'

'He had a very tidy mind,' said the Bursar.

'Same thing.'

'Is it, er, really important, Archchancellor?' the Bursar ventured. 'Damn thing shot pellets at me,' said Ridcully.

'Twice!'

'I'm sure it wasn't, er, intended-'

'I want to see how it was made, man! Just think of the sportin' possibilities!'

The Bursar tried to think of the possibilities.