He had her full attention. ‘Yes?’ she said encouragingly, and, ‘It doesn’t sound too bad so far.’
‘I’m getting to the bad bit.’
‘Oh.’
Victor swallowed. His brain was bubbling like a bouillon. Half�remembered facts surfaced tantalizingly and sank again. Dry old tutors in high old rooms had been telling him dull old things which were suddenly as urgent as a knife, and he dredged desperately for them.
‘I’m not-‘ he croaked. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m not sure it’s right, though,’ he managed. ‘It’s come from somewhere else. It can happen. You’ve heard of ideas whose time has come?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, they’re the tame ones. There’s other ones. Ideas so full of vigour they don’t even wait for their time. Wild ideas. Escaped ideas. And the trouble is, when you get something like that, you get a hole-‘
He looked at her polite, blank expression. Analogies bubbled to the surface like soggy croutons. Imagine all the worlds that have ever been are in one sense pressed together like a sandwich . . . a pack of cards . . . a book . . . a folded sheet . . . if conditions are right, things can go through rather than along . . . but if you open a gate between worlds, there are terrible dangers, as for instance . . .
As for instance . . .
As for instance . . .
As for instance what?
It rose up in his memory like the suddenly-discovered bit of suspicious tentacle just when you thought it was safe to eat the paella.
‘It could be that something else is trying to come through the same way,’ he ventured. ‘In the, uh, in the nowhere between the somewhere there are creatures which on the whole I’d rather not describe to you.’
‘You already have,’ said Ginger, in a tense voice.
‘And, uh, they’re generally quite keen to get into the real worlds and perhaps they’re somehow making contact with you when you’re asleep and . . . ‘ He gave up. He couldn’t bear her expression any more.
‘I could be entirely wrong,’ he said quickly.
‘You’ve got to stop me opening the door,’ she whispered. ‘I could be one of Them.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Victor loftily. ‘They’ve generally got too many arms, I think.’
‘I tried putting tacks on the floor to wake myself up,’ said Ginger.
‘Sounds awful. Did it work?’
‘No. They were all back in their bag in the morning. I must have picked them up again.’
Victor pursed his lips. ‘That could be a good sign,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘If you were being summoned by, uh, unpleasant things,
I think they wouldn’t bother what you walked over.’
‘Urgh.’
‘You haven’t got any idea why it’s all happening, have you?’ Victor said.
‘No! But I always get the same dream.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Hey, how come you know all this stuff?’
‘I – a wizard told me, once,’ said Victor.
‘You’re not a wizard yourself?’
‘Absolutely not. No wizards in Holy Wood. And this dream?’
‘Oh, it’s too strange to mean anything. Anyway, I used to dream it even when I was small. It starts off with this mountain, only it’s not a normal mountain, because-‘
Detritus the troll loomed over them.
‘Young Mr Dibbler says it’s time to start shooting again,’
he rumbled.
‘Will you come to my room tonight?’ hissed Ginger.
‘Please? You can wake me up if I start sleepwalking again.’
‘Well, er, yes, but your landlady might not like it-‘ Victor began.
‘Oh, Mrs Cosmopilite is very broadminded,’ said Ginger.
‘She is?’
‘She’ll just think we’re having sex,’ said Ginger.
‘Ah,’ said Victor hollowly. ‘That’s all right, then.’
‘Young Mr Dibbler don’t like being kept waiting,’ said Detritus.
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Ginger. She stood up and brushed the dust off her dress. Detritus blinked. People didn’t usually tell him to shut up. A few worried fault-lines appeared on his brow. He turned and tried another loom, this time aimed at Victor.
‘Young Mr Dibbler don’t like-‘
‘Oh, go away,’ snapped Victor, and wandered off after her.
Detritus stood alone and screwed up his eyes in the effort of thought. Of course, people did occasionally say things like ‘Go away’ and ‘Shut up’ to him, but always with the tremor of terrified bravado in their voice, and so naturally he always riposted ‘Hur hur’ and hit them. But no-one had ever spoken to him as if his existence was the last thing in the world they could possibly be persuaded to worry about. His massive shoulders sagged. Perhaps all this hanging around Ruby was bad for him.
Soll was standing over the artist who lettered the cards. He looked up as Victor and Ginger approached.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘places, everyone. We’ll go straight on to the ballroom scene.’ He looked pleased with himself.
‘Are the words all sorted out?’ said Victor.
‘No problem,’ said Soll proudly. He glanced at the sun. ‘We’ve lost a lot of time,’ he added, ‘so let’s not waste any more.’
‘Fancy you being able to get C.M.O.T. to give in like that,’ said Victor.
‘He had no argument at all. He’s gone back to his office to sulk, I expect,’ said Soll loftily. ‘OK, everyone, let’s all get-‘
The lettering artist tugged at his sleeve.
‘I was just wondering, Mr Soll, what you wanted me to put in the big scene now Victor doesn’t mention ribs-‘
‘Don’t worry me now, man!’
‘But if you could just give me an idea-‘
Soll firmly unhooked the man’s hand from his sleeve. ‘Frankly,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a damn,’ and he strode off towards the set.
The artist was left alone. He picked up his paintbrush. His lips moved silently, shaping themselves around the words.
Then he said, ‘Hmm. Nice one.’
Banana N’Vectif, cunningest hunter in the great yellow plains of Klatch, held his breath as he tweezered the last piece into place. Rain drummed on the roof of his hut.
There. That was it.
He’d never done anything like this before, but he knew he was doing it right.
He’d trapped everything from zebras to thargas in his time, and what had he got to show for it? But yesterday, when he’d taken a load of skins into N’kouf, he’d heard a trader say that if any man ever built a better mousetrap, then the world would beat a path to his door.
He’d lain awake all night thinking about this. Then, in the first light of dawn, he scratched a few designs on the but wall with a stick, and got to work. He had taken the opportunity to look at a few mousetraps while he was in the town, and they were definitely less than perfect. They hadn’t been built by hunters.
Now he picked up the twig and pushed it gently into the mechanism.
Snap.
Perfect.
Now, all he had to do was take it into N’kouf and see if the merchant
The rain was very loud indeed. In fact, it sounded more like
When Banana woke up he was lying in the ruins of his but and they were in a half-mile wide swathe of trodden mud.
He looked muzzily at what remained of his home. He looked at the brown scar that stretched from horizon to horizon. He looked at the dark, muddy cloud just visible at one end of it.
Then he looked down. The better mousetrap was now a rather nice two-dimensional design, squashed into the middle of an enormous footprint.
He said, ‘I didn’t know it was that good.’
According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, ended with a practical score of Humans 0, ravens 1,000, which is the case with most battles.
Something that both Dibblers were agreed on was that, if they’d been in charge, no-one would have been able to get away with such a low-grade war. It was a crime that people should have been allowed to stage a major turning-point in the history of the city without using thousands of people and camels and ditches and earthworks and siege-engines and trebuckets and horses and banners.
‘And in a bloody fog, too,’ said Gaffer. ‘No thought about light levels.’
He surveyed the proposed field of battle, shading his eyes from the sun with one hand. There would be eleven handlemen working on this one, from every conceivable angle. One by one they held up their thumbs.
Gaffer rapped on the picture box in front of him.
‘Ready, lads?’ he said.
There was a chorus of squeaks.
‘Good lads,’ he said. ‘Get this one right and thee can have an extra lizard for thy tea.’
He grasped the handle with one hand and picked up a megaphone with the other.
‘Ready when you are, Mr Dibbler!’ he yelled.