‘Gosh!’
‘Now, there’s some new words I want you to learn,’ said Gaspode. ‘Think you can?’
‘I hope so.’
‘ “Per-cent-age of the gross” ‘, said Gaspode. ‘There. Think you can remember it?’
‘ “Per-cent-age of the gross”,’ said Victor.
‘Good lad.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Gaspode. ‘You just have to say it’s what you want, OK. When the time’s right.’
‘When will the time be right, then?’ said Victor.
Gaspode grinned nastily. ‘Oh, I reckon when Dibbler’s just got a mouthful of food’d be favourite.’
Holy Wood Hill bustled like an ant heap. On the seaward side Fir Wood Studios were making The Third Gnome. Microlithic Pictures, which was run almost entirely by the dwarfs, was hard at work on Golde Diggers of 1457, which was going to be followed by The Golde Rushe. Floating Bladder Pictures was hard at work with Turkey Legs. And Borgle’s was packed out.
‘I don’t know what it’s called, but we’re doing one about going to see a wizard. Something about following a yellow sick toad,’ a man in one half of a lion suit explained to a companion in the queue.
‘No wizards in Holy Wood, I thought.’
‘Oh, this one’s all right. He’s not very good at the wizarding.’
‘So what’s new?’
Sound! That was the problem. Alchemists toiled in sheds all over Holy Wood, screaming at parrots, pleading with mynah birds, constructing intricate bottles to trap sound and bounce it around harmlessly until it was time for it to be let out. To the sporadic boom of octo-cellulose exploding was added the occasional sob of exhaustion or scream of agony as an enraged parrot mistook a careless thumb for a nut.
The parrots weren’t the success they’d hoped for. It was true that they could remember what they heard and repeat it after a fashion, but there was no way to turn them off and they were in the habit of ad-libbing other sounds they’d heard or, Dibbler suspected, had been taught by mischievous handlemen. Thus, brief snatches of romantic dialogue would be punctuated with cries of ‘Waaaarrrk! Showusyerknickers!’ and Dibbler said he had no intention of making that kind of picture, at least at the moment.
Sound! Whoever got sound first would rule Holy Wood, they said. People were flocking to the clicks now, but people were fickle. Colour was different. Colour was just a matter of breeding demons who could paint fast enough. It was sound that meant something new.
In the meantime, there were stop-gap measures. The dwarfs’ studio had shunned the general practice of putting the dialogue on cards between scenes and had invented sub-titles, which worked fine provided the performers remembered not to step too far forward and knock over the letters.
But if sound was missing, then the screen had to be filled from side to side with a feast for the eyes. The sound of hammering was always Holy Wood’s background noise, but it redoubled now . . .
The cities of the world were being built in Holy Wood.
Untied Alchemists started it, with a one-tenth-size wood and canvas replica of the Great Pyramid of Tsort. Soon the backlots sprouted whole streets in Ankh-Morpork, palaces from Pseudopolis, castles from the Hublands. In some cases, the streets were painted on the back of the palaces, so that princes and peasants were separated by one thickness of painted sacking.
Victor spent the rest of the morning working on a one-reeler. Ginger hardly said a word to him, even after the obligatory kiss when he rescued her from whatever it was Morry was supposed to be today. Whatever magic Holy Wood worked on them it wasn’t doing it today. He was glad to get away.
Afterwards he wandered across the backlot to watch them putting Laddie the Wonder Dog through his paces.
There was no doubt, as the graceful shape streaked like an arrow over obstacles and grabbed a trainer by a well-padded arm, that here was a dog almost designed by Nature for moving pictures. He even barked photogenically.
‘An’ do you know what he’s sayin’?’ said a disgruntled voice beside Victor. It was Gaspode, a picture of bowlegged misery.
‘No. What?’ said Victor.
“‘Me Laddie. Me good boy. Good boy Laddie,”‘ said Gaspode. ‘Makes you want to throw up, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but could you leap a six-foot hurdle?’ said Victor.
‘That’s intelligent, is it?’ said Gaspode. ‘I always walk around – what’s that they’re doing now?’
‘Giving him his lunch, I think.’
‘They call that lunch, do they?’
Victor watched Gaspode stroll over and peer into the dog’s bowl. Laddie gave him a sideways look. Gaspode barked quietly. Laddie whined. Gaspode barked again.
There was a lengthy exchange of yaps.
Then Gaspode strolled back, and sat down beside Victor.
‘Watch this,’ he said.
Laddie took the food bowl in his mouth, and turned it upside down.
‘Disgustin’ stuff,’ said Gaspode. ‘All tubes and innards. I wouldn’t give it to a dog, and I am one.’
‘You made him tip out his own dinner?’ said Victor, horrified.
‘Very obedient lad, I thought,’ said Gaspode smugly.
‘What a nasty thing to do!’
‘Oh, no. I give ‘im some advice, too.’
Laddie barked peremptorily at the people clustering around him. Victor heard them muttering.
‘Dog don’t eat his dinner,’ came Detritus’ voice, ‘dog go hungry.’
‘Don’t be daft. Mr Dibbler says he’s worth more than we are!’
‘Perhaps it’s not what he’s used to. I mean, a posh dog like him an’ all. It’s a bit yukky, isn’t it?’
‘It dog food! That what dogs are supposed to eat!’
‘Yeah, but is it wonder dog food? What’re wonder dogs fed on?’
‘Mr Dibbler’ll feed you to him if there’s any trouble.’
‘All right, all right. Detritus, go around to Borgle’s. See what he’s got. Not the stuff he gives to the usual customers, mind.’
‘That IS the stuff he give to usual customers.’
‘That’s what I mean.’
Five minutes later Detritus trailed back carrying about nine pounds of raw steak. It was dumped in the dog bowl. The trainers looked at Laddie.
Laddie cocked an eye towards Gaspode, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
The big dog put one foot on one end of the steak, took the other end in his mouth, and tore off a lump. Then he padded over the compound and dropped it respectfully in front of Gaspode, who gave it a long, calculating stare.
‘Well, I dunno,’ he said at last. ‘Does that look like ten per cent to you, Victor?’
‘You negotiated his dinner?’
Gaspode’s voice was muffled by meat. ‘I reckon ten per cent is ver’ fair. Very fair, in the circumstances.’
‘You know, you really are a son of a bitch,’ said Victor.
‘Proud of it,’ said Gaspode, indistinctly. He bolted the last of the steak. ‘What shall we do now?’
‘I’m supposed to get an early night. We’re starting for Ankh very early tomorrow,’ said Victor doubtfully.
‘Still not made any progress with the book?’
‘No.’
‘Let me have a look, then.’
‘Can you read?’
‘Dunno. Never tried.’
Victor looked around them. No-one was paying him any attention. They never did. Once the handles stopped turning, no-one bothered about performers; it was like being temporarily invisible.
He sat down on a pile of lumber, opened the book randomly at an early page, and held it out in front of Gaspode’s critical stare.
Eventually the dog said, ‘It’s got all marks on it.’
Victor sighed. ‘That’s writing,’ he said.
Gaspode squinted. ‘What, all them little pictures?’
‘Early writing was like that. People drew little pictures to represent ideas.’
‘So . . . if there’s a lot of one picture, it means it’s an important idea?’
‘What? Well, yes. I suppose so.’
‘Like the dead man.’
Victor was lost.
‘The dead man on the beach?’
‘No. The dead man on the pages. See? Everywhere, there’s the dead man.’
Victor gave him an odd look, and then turned the book around and peered at it.
‘Where? I don’t see any dead men.’
Gaspode snorted.
‘Look, all over the page,’ he said. ‘He looks just like those tombs you get in old temples and stuff. You know? Where they do this statchoo of the stiff lyin’ on top of the tomb, with his arms crossed an’ holdin’ his sword. Dead noble.’
‘Good grief! You’re right! It does look sort of . . . dead . . . ‘
‘Prob’ly all the writing’s goin’ on about what a great guy he was when he was alive,’ said Gaspode knowledgeably. ‘You know, “Slayer of thousands” stuff. Prob’ly he left a lot of money for priests to say prayers and light candles and sacrifice goats and stuff. There used to be a lot of that sort of thing. You know, you’d get dese guys whorin’ and drinkin’ and carryin’ on regardless their whole life, and then when the old Grim Reaper starts sharpenin’ his scythe they suddenly becomes all pious and pays a lot of priests to give their soul a quick wash-and-brush-up and gen’rally keep on tellin’ the gods what a decent chap they was.’