Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'You mean it's all pretending?' said Victor.

The trolls exchanged a brief glance, which nevertheless contrived to say: amazing, isn't it, that things like this apparently rule the world?.

'Yeah,' said Rock. 'That's it. Nuffin's real.'

'We ain't allowed to kill you,' said Morraine reassuringly.

'That's right,' said Rock. 'We wouldn't go round killin' you.'

'They stops our money if we does things like that,' said Morraine, morosely.

Outside the fault in reality They clustered, peering in with something approaching eyes at the light and warmth. There was a crowd of them by now.

There had been a way through, once. To say that they remembered it would be wrong, because they had nothing as sophisticated as memory. They barely had anything as sophisticated as heads. But they did have instincts and emotions.

They needed a way in.

They found it.

It worked quite well, the sixth time. The main problem was the trolls' enthusiasm for hitting each other, the ground, the air and, quite often, themselves. In the end, Victor just concentrated on trying to hit the clubs as they whirred past him.

Dibbler seemed quite happy with this. Gaffer wasn't.

'They moved around too much,' he said. 'They were out of the picture half the time.'

'It was a battle,' said Silverfish.

'Yeah, but I can't move the picture box around,' said the handleman. 'The imps fall over.'

'Couldn't you strap them in or something?' said Dibbler.

Gaffer scratched his chin. 'I suppose I could nail their feet to the floor,' he said.

'Anyway, it'll do for now,' said Silverfish. 'We'll do the scene where you rescue the girl. Where's the girl? I distinctly instructed her to be here. Why isn't she here? Why doesn't anyone ever do what I tell them?'

The handleman took his cigarette stub out of his mouth.

'She's filmin' A Bolde Adventurer over the other side of the hill,' he volunteered.

'But that ought to have been finished yesterday!' wailed Silverfish.

'Film exploded,' said the handleman.

'Blast! Well, I suppose we can do the next fight. She doesn't have to be in it,' said Silverfish grumpily. 'All right, everybody. We'll do the bit where Victor fights the dreaded Balgrog.'

'What's a Balgrog?' said Victor.

A friendly but heavy hand tapped him on the shoulder.

'It's a traditional evil monster what is basically Morry painted green with wings stuck on,' said Rock. 'I'll jus' go an' help him with the paintin'.'

He lumbered off.

No-one seemed to want Victor at the moment.

He stuck the ridiculous sword into the sand, wandered away and found a bit of shade under some scrubby olive trees. There were rocks here. He tapped them gently. They didn't appear to be anyone.

The ground formed a cool little hollow that was almost pleasant by the seared standards of Holy Wood hill.