– far away in Unseen University, in a draughty, many pillar’d corridor, a little device that no-one had paid much attention to for years started to make a noise –
So this was Holy Wood. It hadn’t looked like this on the silver screen. It seemed that moving pictures involved a lot of waiting around and, if he was hearing things right, a mixing-up of time. Things happened before the things they happened after. The monsters were just Morry painted green with wings stuck on. Nothing was really real.
Funnily enough, that was exciting.
‘I’ve just about had enough of this,’ said a voice beside him.
He looked up. A girl had come down the other path. Her face was red with exertion under the pale make-up, her hair hung over her eyes in ridiculous ringlets, and she wore a dress which, while clearly made for her size, was designed for someone who was ten years younger and keen on lace edging.
She was quite attractive, although this fact was not immediately apparent.
‘And you know what they say when you complain?’ she demanded. This was not really addressed to Victor. He was just a convenient pair of ears.
‘I can’t imagine,’ said Victor politely.
‘They say, “There’s plenty of other people out there just waiting for a chance to get into moving pictures”. That’s what they say.’
She leaned against a gnarled tree and fanned herself with her straw hat. ‘And it’s too hot,’ she complained. ‘And now I’ve got to do a ridiculous one-reeler for Silverfish, who hasn’t got the faintest idea. And some kid probably with bad breath and hay in his hair and a forehead you could lay a table on.’
‘And trolls,’ said Victor mildly.
‘Oh gods. Not Morry and Galena?’
‘Yes. Only Galena’s calling himself Rock now.’
‘I thought it was going to be Flint.’
‘He likes Rock.’
From behind the rocks came the plaintive bleat of Silverfish wondering where everyone had got to just when he needed them. The girl rolled her eyes.
‘Oh gods. For this I’m missing lunch?’
‘You could always eat it off my forehead,’ said Victor, standing up.
He had the satisfaction of feeling her thoughtful gaze on the back of his neck as he retrieved his sword and gave it a few experimental swishes, with rather more force than was necessary.
‘You’re the boy in the street, aren’t you?’ she said.
‘That’s right. You’re the girl who was going to be shot,’ said Victor. ‘I see they missed.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘How did you get a job so quickly? Most people have to wait weeks for a chance.’
‘Chances are where you find them, I’ve always said,’ said Victor.
‘But how-‘
Victor had already strolled away with gleeful nonchalance. She trailed after him, her face locked in a petulant pout.
‘Ah,’ said Silverfish sarcastically, looking up. ‘My word. Everyone where they should be. Very well. We’ll go from the bit where he finds her tied to the stake. What you do,’ he said to Victor, ‘is untie her, then drag her off and fight the Balgrog, and you,’ he pointed to the girl, ‘you, you, you just follow him and look as, as rescued as you possibly can, OK?’
‘I’m good at that,’ she said, resignedly.
‘No, no, no,’ said Dibbler, putting his head in his hands. ‘Not that again!’
‘Isn’t that what you wanted?’ said Silverfish. ‘Fights and rescues?’
‘There’s got to be more to it than that!’ said Dibbler.
‘Like what?’ Silverfish demanded.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Razzmatazz. Oomph. The old zonkaroonie.’
‘Funny noises? We haven’t got sound.’
‘Everyone makes clicks about people running around and fighting and falling over,’ said Dibbler. ‘There should be something more. I’ve been looking at the things you make here, and they all look the same to me.’
‘Well, all sausages look the same to me,’ snapped Silverfish.
‘They’re meant to! That’s what people expect!’
‘And I’m giving them what they expect, too,’ said Silverfish. ‘People like to see more of what they expect. Fights and chases, that sort of thing-‘
‘ ‘Scuse me, Mister Silverfish,’ said the handleman, above the angry chattering of the demons.
‘Yes?’ snapped Dibbler.
‘ ‘Scuse me, Mister Dibbler, but I got to feed ’em ina quarter of a hour.’
Dibbler groaned.
In retrospect, Victor was always a little unclear about those next few minutes. That’s the way it goes. The moments that change your life are the ones that happen suddenly, like the one where you die.
There had been another stylized battle, he knew that much, with Morry and what would have been a fearsome whip if the troll hadn’t kept tangling it round his own legs. And, when the dreadful Balgrog had been beaten and had slid out of shot mugging terribly and trying to hold its wings on with one hand, he’d turned and cut the ropes holding the girl to the stake and should have dragged her sharply to the right when-
-the whispering started.
There were no words but there was something that was the heart of words, that went straight through his ears and down his spinal column without bothering to make a stopover in his brain.
He stared into the girl’s eyes and wondered if she was hearing it too.
A long way off, there were words. There was Silverfish saying, ‘Come on, get on with it, what are you looking at her like that for?’ and the handleman saying, ‘They gets really fractious if they misses a meal,’ and Dibbler saying, in a voice hissing like a thrown knife, ‘Don’t stop turning the handle.’
The edges of his vision went cloudy, and there were shapes in the cloud that changed and faded before he had a chance to examine them. Helpless as a fly in an amber flow, as much in control of his destiny as a soap bubble in a hurricane, he leaned down and kissed her.
There were more words beyond the ringing in his ears.
‘Why’s he doing that? Did I tell him to do that? No-one told him to do that!’
‘-and then I have to muck ’em out afterwards, and let me tell you, it’s no-‘
‘Turn that handle! Turn that handle!’ screamed Dibbler.
‘Now why’s he looking like that?’
‘Cor!’
‘If you stop turning that handle you’ll never work in this town again!’
‘Listen, mister, I happen to belong to the Handlemen’s Guild-‘
‘Don’t stop! Don’t stop!’
Victor surfaced. The whispering faded, to be replaced by the distant boom of the breakers. The real world was back, hot and sharp, the sun pinned to the sky like a medal awarded for being a great day.
The girl took a deep breath.
‘I’m, gosh, I’m terribly sorry,’ babbled Victor, backing away. ‘I really don’t know what happened-‘
Dibbler jumped up and down.
‘That’s it, that’s it!’ he yelled. ‘How soon can you have it ready?’
‘Well, like I said, I got to feed the imps and muck ’em out-‘
‘Right, right – it’ll give me time to get some posters drawn,’ said Dibbler.
‘I’ve already had some done,’ said Silverfish coldly.
‘I bet you have, I bet you have,’ said Dibbler, excitedly. ‘I bet you have. I bet they say things like “You mighte like to see a Quite Interestinge Moving Picture”!’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ Silverfish demanded. ‘It’s a bloody sight better than hot sausage!’
‘I told you, when you sell sausages you don’t just hang around waiting for people to want sausage, you go out there and make them hungry. And you put mustard on ’em. And that’s what your lad there has done.’
He clapped one hand on Silverfish’s shoulder, and waved the other expansively.
‘Can’t you see it?’ he said. He hesitated. Strange ideas were pouring into his head faster than he could think them. He felt dizzy with excitement and possibilities.
‘Sword of Passione,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’ll call it. Not name it after some daft old bugger who’s probably
not even alive any more. Sword of Passione. Yeah. A Tumultuous Saga of – of Desire an’ Raw, Raw, Raw wossname in the Primal Heat of a Tortured Continent! Romance! Glamour! In three Searing Reels! Thrill to the Death Fight with Ravening Monsters! Scream as a thousand elephants-‘
‘It’s only one reel,’ muttered Silverfish testily.
‘Shoot some more this afternoon!’ crowed Dibbler, his eyes revolving. ‘You just need more fights and monsters!’
‘And there’s certainly no elephants,’ snapped Silverfish.
Rock put up a craggy arm.
‘Yes?’ demanded Silverfish.
‘If you’ve got some grey paint an’ stuff to make the ears out of, I’m sure me an’ Morry could-‘
‘No-one’s ever done a three-reeler,’ said Gaffer reflectively. ‘Could be really tricky. I mean, it’d be nearly ten minutes long.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose if I was to make the spools bigger-‘
Silverfish knew he was cornered.
‘Now look here,’ he began.
Victor stared down at the girl. Everyone else was ignoring them.
‘Er,’ he said, ‘I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced?’