The flickering chariot came out of a stand of trees and paused at the top of the incline that led down to the town.
Mist wreathed Holy Wood. From out of it spears of light criss�crossed the sky.
‘We’re too late?’ said Ginger hopefully.
‘Almost too late,’ said Victor.
‘Oook,’ said the Librarian. His fingernail raced back and forth as he read the ancient pictograms – right to left, right to left.
‘I knew there was something not right,’ Victor had said. ‘That sleeping statue . . . the guard. The old priests sang songs and did ceremonies to keep him awake. They remembered Holy Wood as best they could.’
‘But I don’t know anything about a guard!’
‘Yes, you do. Like, deep down inside.’
‘Gook,’ said the Librarian, tapping a page. ‘Oook!’
‘He says you’re probably descended from the original High Priestess. He thinks everyone in Holy Wood is descended from . . . you see . . . I mean, the first time the Things broke through the entire city was destroyed and the survivors fled everywhere, you see, but everyone has this way of remembering even things that happened to their ancestors, I mean, it’s like there’s this great big pool of memory and we’re linked, up to it and when it all started happening again we were all called to the place, and you tried to put it right, only it was weak so it couldn’t get through to you unless you were asleep-‘
He trailed off helplessly.
‘ “Oook”?’ said Ginger suspiciously. ‘You got all this from “oook”?’
‘Well, not just one,’ Victor admitted.
‘I’ve never heard such a lot of-‘ Ginger began, and stopped. A hand softer than the softest leather was pushed into hers. She looked around into a fare that compared badly to a deflated football.
‘Oook,’ said the Librarian.
Ginger locked eyes with him for a moment.
Then she said, ‘But I’ve never felt the least bit like a high priestess . . . ‘
‘That dream you told me about,’ said Victor. ‘It sounded pretty high priestessy to me. Very . . . very-‘
‘Gook.’
‘Sacerdotal. Yeah,’ Victor translated.
‘It’s just a dream,’ said Ginger nervously. ‘I’ve, dreamed it occasionally as far back as I can remember.’
‘Oook oook.’
‘What’d he say?’ said Ginger.
‘He says that’s probably a lot further back than you think.’
Ahead of them Holy Wood glittered like frost, like a city made of congealed starlight.
‘Victor?’ said Ginger.
‘Yes?’
‘Where is everybody?’
Victor looked down the road. Where there should have been people, refugees, desperately fleeing . . . was nothing.
Just silence, and the light.
‘Where are they?’ she repeated.
He looked at her expression.
‘But the tunnel fell down!’ he said, saying it loudly in the hope that this would make it true. ‘It was all sealed off!’
‘It wouldn’t take trolls long to clear a way through, though,’ said Ginger.
Victor thought about the – the Cthinema. And the first house, which had been going on for thousands of years. And all the people he knew, sitting there, for another thousand years. While overhead the stars changed.
‘Of course, they might just be . . . well . . . somewhere else,’ he lied.
‘But they’re not,’ said Ginger. ‘We both know that.’
Victor stared helplessly at the city of lights.
‘Why us?’ he said. ‘Why is it happening to us?’
‘Everything has to happen to someone,’ said Ginger.
Victor shrugged. ‘And you only get one chance,’ he said. ‘Right?’
‘Just when you need to save the world, there’s a world for you to save,’ said Ginger.
‘Yeah,’ said Victor. ‘Lucky old us.’
The two farmers peered in through the barn doors. Stacks of cabbage waited stolidly in the gloom.
‘Told you it were cabbage,’ said one of them. ‘Knew it weren’t chickens. Oi knows a cabbage when I sees one, and of believes what I sees.’
From far above came voices, getting closer:
‘For gods’ sake, man, can’t you steer?’
‘Not with you throwing your weight about, Archchancellor!’
‘Where the hell are we? Can’t see a thing in this fog!’
‘I’ll just see if I can point it – don’t lean over like that! Don’t lean over like that! I said don’t lean-!’
The farmers dived sideways as the broomstick corkscrewed through the open doorway and disappeared among the ranks of cabbage. There was a distant, brassica’d squelch.
Eventually a muffled voice said: ‘You leaned.’
‘Nonsense. A fine mess you got me into. What is it?’
‘Cabbages, Archchancellor.’
‘Some kind of vegetable?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can’t stand vegetables. Thins the blood.’
There was a pause. Then the farmers heard the other voice say: ‘Well, I’m very sorry about that, you bloodthirsty overbearing tub of lard.’
There was another pause.
Then: ‘Can I sack you, Bursar?’
‘No, Archchancellor. I’ve got tenure.’
‘In that case, help me out and let’s go and find a drink.’
The farmers crept away.
‘Dang me,’ said the believer in cabbages. ‘They’re wizards. Best not to meddle in the affairs of danged wizards.’
‘Yeah,’ said the other farmer. ‘Er . . . what does dang mean? Exactly?’
It was the time of the silence.
Nothing moved in Holy Wood except the light. It flickered slowly. Holy Wood light, Victor thought.
There was a feeling of dreadful expectation. If a movie set was a dream waiting to be made real, then the town was one step further up the scale – a real place waiting for something new, something that ordinary language couldn’t define.
‘ ,’ he said, and stopped.
‘ ?’ said Ginger.
‘ ?’
‘ !’
They stared at one another for a moment. Then Victor grabbed her hand and dragged her into the nearest building, which turned out to be the commissary.
The scene inside was indescribable and remained so until Victor found the blackboard that was used for what was laughingly referred to as the menu.
He picked up the chalk.
‘I’M TALKING BUT I CANT HERE ME,’ he wrote, and solemnly handed her the chalk.
‘ME TO. Y?’
Victor tossed the chalk up and down thoughtfully, and then wrote: ‘I THINK BCOS WE NEVER INVENTED SOUND MOVIES. IF WE DIDNT HAVE IMPS THAT COULD PAINT IN COLOR MAYBE THERE WOULD JUST BE BLAK AND WHITE HERE TOO.’ .
They stared at the scene around them. There were untouched or half-eaten meals on almost every table. This wasn’t particularly unusual at Borgle’s, but normally they were accompanied by people complaining bitterly.
Ginger delicately dipped a finger in the nearest plate.
‘Still warm,’ she mouthed.
‘Let’s go,’ said Victor quietly, pointing at the door.
She tried to say something complicated, scowled at his blank expression, and wrote: ‘WE SHUOD WAIT FOR
THE WIZARDS.’
Victor stood frozen for a moment. Then his lips shaped a phrase that Ginger would not admit to knowing and he made a dash for the outside.
The overloaded chair was already bowling along the street with smoke billowing from its axles. He jumped up and down in front of it, waving his arms.
A long silent conversation went on. There was a lot of chalking on the nearest wall. Finally Ginger couldn’t contain her impatience any longer and hurried over.
‘YOUVE GOT TO STAY AWAY. IF THEY BRAKE THRU YOU WIL BE A MEAL.’
‘SO WILL YOU.’ This was neater handwriting; it was the Dean’s.
Victor wrote: ‘XCEPT I THINK I KNOW WHAT’S HAPNEN. ANYWAY, YOU WILL BE NEEDED IF IT GOES WRONG.’
He nodded at the Dean and hurried back to Ginger and the Librarian. He gave the ape a worried look. Technically the Librarian was a wizard – at least, when he’d been human he was a wizard, so presumably he still was. On the other hand, he was also an ape, and a handy man to have around in an emergency. He decided to ask it.
‘Come on,’ he mouthed.
It was easy enough to find the way to the hill. Where there had been a path there was now a broad trail, poignantly scattered with the debris of hurried passage. A sandal. A discarded picture box. A trailing red feather boa.
The door into the hill had been torn off its hinges. A dull glow came from the tunnel. Victor shrugged and marched inside.
The debris hadn’t been cleared right away, but it had been pushed aside and flattened down to allow the crowd to go through. The ceiling hadn’t fallen in. This wasn’t because of the debris. It was because of Detritus.
He was holding it up.
Nearly up. He was already down on one knee.
Victor and the Librarian stacked boulders around the troll until he could let the weight off his shoulders. He groaned, or at least looked as if he’d groaned, and toppled forward. Ginger helped him up.
‘What happened?’ she mouthed at him.
‘ ? ?’ Detritus looked puzzled at the absence of his voice and tried to squint at his mouth.
Victor sighed. He had a vision of the Holy Wood people stampeding blindly along the passage, the trolls scrabbling at the blockage. Since Detritus was the toughest, naturally he’d play a major part. And since the only function he normally used his brain for was to stop the top of his head falling in, equally naturally he’d be the one left holding up the weight on the hill. Victor imagined him calling out, unheard, as the rest of them hurried by.