A few acres of scrubby backlot stopped being the rolling dunes of the Great Nef and went back to being scrubby backlot again. Victor felt that much the same thing was happening to him.
In ones and twos, the makers of moving-picture magic departed, laughing and joking and arranging to meet at Borgle’s later on.
Ginger and Victor were left alone in a widening circle of emptiness.
‘I felt like this the first time the circus went away,’ said Ginger.
‘Mr Dibbler said we were going to do another one tomorrow,’ said Victor. ‘I’m sure he just makes them up as he goes along. Still, we got ten dollars each. Minus what we owe Gaspode,’ he added conscientiously. He grinned foolishly at her. ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘You’re doing what you’ve always wanted to do.’
‘Don’t be stupid. I didn’t even know about moving pictures a couple of months ago. There weren’t any.’
They strolled aimlessly towards the town.
‘What did you want to be?’ he ventured.
She shrugged. ‘I didn’t know. I just knew I didn’t want to be a milkmaid.’
There had been milkmaids at home. Victor tried to recollect anything about them. ‘It always looked quite an interesting job to me, milkmaiding,’ he said vaguely. ‘Buttercups, you know. And fresh air.’
‘It’s cold and wet and just as you’ve finished the bloody cow kicks the bucket over. Don’t tell me about milking. Or being a shepherdess. Or a goosegirl. I really hated our farm.’
‘Oh.’
‘And they expected me to marry my cousin when I was fifteen.’
‘Is that allowed?’
‘Oh, yes. Everyone marries their cousins where I come from.’
‘Why?’ said Victor.
‘I suppose it saves having to worry about what to do on Saturday nights.’
‘Oh.’
‘Didn’t you want to be anything?’ said Ginger, putting a whole sentence-worth of disdain in a mere three letters.
‘Not really,’ said Victor. ‘Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job. I bet even people like Cohen the Barbarian get up in the morning thinking, “Oh, no, not another day of crushing the jewelled thrones of the world beneath my sandalled feet.”‘
‘Is that what he does?’ said Ginger, interested despite herself.
‘According to the stories, yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Search me. It’s just a job, I guess.’
Ginger picked up a handful of sand. There were tiny white shells in it, which stayed behind as it trickled away between her fingers.
‘I remember when the circus came to our village,’ she said. ‘I was ten. There was this girl with spangled tights. She walked a tightrope. She could even do somersaults on it. Everybody cheered and clapped. They wouldn’t let me climb a tree, but they cheered her. That’s when I decided.’
‘Ah,’ said Victor, trying to keep up with the psychology of this. ‘You decided you wanted to be someone?’
‘Don’t be silly. That’s when I decided I was going to be a lot more than just someone.’
She threw the shells towards the sunset and laughed. ‘I’m going to be the most famous person in the world, everyone will fall in love with me, and I shall live forever.’
‘It’s always best to know your own mind,’ said Victor diplomatically.
‘You know what the greatest tragedy is in the whole world?’ said Ginger, not paying him the least attention. ‘It’s all the people who never find out what it is they really want to do or what it is they’re really good at. It’s all the sons who become blacksmiths because their fathers were blacksmiths. It’s all the people who could be really fantastic flute players who grow old and die without ever seeing a musical instrument, so they become bad ploughmen instead. It’s all the people with talents who never even find out. Maybe they are never even born in a time when it’s even possible to find out.’
She took a deep breath. ‘It’s all the people who never get to know what it is they can really be. It’s all the wasted chances. Well, Holy Wood is my chance, do you understand? This is my time for getting!’
Victor nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. Magic for ordinary people, Silverfish had called it. A man turned a handle, and your life got changed.
‘And not just for me,’ Ginger went on. ‘It’s a chance for all of us. The people who aren’t wizards and kings and heroes. Holy Wood’s like a big bubbling stew but this time different ingredients float to the top. Suddenly there’s all these new things for people to do. Do you know the theatres don’t allow women to act? But Holy Wood does. And in Holy Wood there’s jobs for trolls that don’t just involve hitting people. And what did the handlemen do before they had handles to turn?’
She waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Ankh-Morpork’s distant glow.
‘Now they’re trying to find ways of adding sound to moving pictures,’ she said, ‘and out there are people who’ll turn out to be amazingly good at making, making . . . making soundies. They don’t even know it yet – but they’re out there. I can feel them. They’re out there.’
Her eyes were glowing gold. It might just be the sunset, Victor thought, but . . .
‘Because of Holy Wood, hundreds of people are finding out what it is they really want to be,’ said Ginger. ‘And thousands and thousands are getting a chance to forget themselves for an hour or so. This whole damn world is being given a shake!’
‘That’s it,’ said Victor. ‘That’s what worries me. It’s as though we’re being slotted in. You think we’re using Holy Wood, but Holy Wood is using us. All of us.’ ‘How? Why?’ ‘I don’t know, but-‘
‘Look at wizards,’ Ginger went on, vibrating with indignation. ‘What good has their magic ever done anyone?’
‘I think it sort of holds the world together-‘ Victor began.
‘They’re pretty good at magic flames and things, but can they make a loaf of bread?’ Ginger wasn’t in the mood for listening to anyone. ‘Not for very long,’ said Victor helplessly. ‘What does that mean?’
‘Something real like a loaf of bread contains a lot of . . . well . . . I suppose you’d call it energy,’ said Victor. ‘It takes a massive amount of power to create that amount of energy. You’d have to be a pretty good wizard to make a loaf that’d last in this world for more than a tiny part of a second. But that’s not what magic is really about, you see,’ he added quickly, ‘because this world is-‘
‘Who cares?’ said Ginger. ‘Holy Wood’s really doing things for ordinary people. Silver screen magic.’ ‘What’s come over you? Last night-‘
‘That was then,’ said Ginger impatiently. ‘Don’t you see? We could be going somewhere. We could be becoming someone. Because of Holy Wood. The world is our-‘
‘Lobster,’ 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.
‘I’m sure Riktor didn’t intend to make any kind of offensive device,’ he’ventured, hopelessly.
‘Who gives a damn what he intended? Where is the thing now?’
‘I had a couple of servants put sandbags around it.’