Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett [129]
The duck quacked.
“The duck says,” said Call-me-Mr-Thumpy-and-die, “it’s got to be worth a try. If we’re going to be sapient, we might as well get good at it. Come on.”
Then he shivered. There had been something like a faint tang of static electricity. For a moment the little area in the sand dunes wavered as in a heat haze.
The duck quacked again.
Not-Mr-Thumpy wrinkled his nose. It was suddenly hard to concentrate.
“The duck says,” he wavered, “the duck says…says…the duck…says…says…quack…?”
The cat looked at the mouse.
“Miaow?” it said.
The mouse shrugged. “Squeak,” it commented.
The rabbit wrinkled its nose uncertainly.
The duck squinted at the cat. The cat stared at the rabbit. The mouse peered at the duck.
The duck rocketed upward. The rabbit became a fast-disappearing cloud of sand. The mouse tore over the dunes. And, feeling a lot happier than it had done for weeks, the cat ran after it.
Click…
Ginger and Victor sat at a table in the corner of the Mended Drum. Eventually Ginger said: “They were good dogs.”
“Yes,” said Victor, distantly.
“Morry and Rock have been digging through the rubble for ages. They said there’s all kind of cellars and things down there. I’m sorry.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe we ought to put up a statue to them, or something.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Victor. “I mean, considering what dogs do to statues. Maybe dogs dying is all part of Holy Wood. I don’t know.”
Ginger traced the outline of a knothole on the tabletop.
“It’s all over now,” she said. “You do know that, don’t you? No more Holy Wood. It’s all over.”
“Yes.”
“The Patrician and the wizards won’t let anyone make anymore clicks. The Patrician was very definite about it.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to make any,” said Victor.
“Who’s going to remember Holy Wood now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Those old priests built a kind of half-baked religion around it. They forgot all about what it really was. That didn’t matter, though. I don’t think you need chants and fires. You just need to remember Holy Wood. We need someone to remember Holy Wood really well.”
“Yeah,” said Ginger, grinning. “You’d need a thousand elephants.”
“Yeah.” Victor laughed. “Poor old Dibbler,” he said. “He never got them, either…”
Ginger moved a fragment of potato around and around on her plate. There was something on her mind, and it wasn’t food.
“But it was great, wasn’t it?” she burst out. “We had something really amazing, didn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“People really thought it was good, didn’t they?”
“Oh, yes,” said Victor somberly.
“I mean, didn’t we bring something really great into the world?”
“No kidding.”
“I didn’t mean that. Being a screen goddess isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, you know,” said Ginger.
“Right.”
Ginger sighed. “No more Holy Wood magic,” she said.
“I think there may be some left,” said Victor.
“Where?”
“Just drifting around. Finding ways to use itself up, I expect.”
Ginger stared at her glass. “What are you going to do now?” she said.
“Don’t know. How about you?”
“Go back to the farm, maybe.”
“Why?”
“Holy Wood was my chance, you see? There aren’t many jobs for women in Ankh-Morpork. At least,” she added,
“none that I’d care to do. I’ve had three offers of marriage. From quite important men.”
“Have you? Why?”
She frowned. “Hey, I’m not that unattractive—”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” said Victor hurriedly.
“Oh, I suppose if you’re a powerful merchant it’s nice to have a famous wife. It’s like owning jewelry.” She looked down. “Mrs. Cosmopilite says can she have one of the ones I don’t want. I said she could have all three.”
“I’ve always been that way about choices myself,” said Victor, cheering up.
“Have you? If that’s all the choice there is, I’m not choosing. What can you be, after you’ve been yourself, as big as possible?”
“Nothing,” said Victor.
“No one knows what it feels like.”
“Except us.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Ginger grinned. It was the first time Victor had ever seen her face shorn of petulance,