Moving Pictures

years ago supplicants had flocked out here to buy…what? Consecrated sausages, maybe, and the holy banged grains.
    Spectral light filled it now. It was still full of damp and ancient mold wherever Victor looked. Yet wherever he didn’t look, at the edges of his vision, he kept getting the feeling that the place was decorated like a palace with red plush draperies and baroque gold decorations. He kept turning his head sharply, trying to trap the ghostly, glittering image.
    He met the Librarian’s worried frown, and chalked on the cave wall:
    “ REALITIES MERGING ?”
    The Librarian nodded.
    Victor winced, and led his little group of Holy Wood guerrillas—at least, two guerrillas and one orangutan—up the worn steps into the pit.
    Victor realized later that it was Detritus who saved them all.
    They took one look at the swirling images on the obscene screen and…
    Dream. Reality. Believe.
    Await …
    …and Detritus tried to walk through them. Images designed to trap and throw a glamor over any sapient mind bounced off the back of his rocky skull and came right out again. He paid them no attention at all. He had other fish to fry. 29
    Being trampled almost to death by a preoccupied troll is almost the ideal cure for a person confused about what is real and what isn’t. Reality is something walking heavily up your spine.
    Victor hauled himself back onto his feet, pulled the others toward him, pointed to the flickering, bulging oblong at the other end of the hall, and mouthed “Don’t look!”
    They nodded.
    Ginger gripped his arm tightly as they inched their way down from the aisle.
    All of Holy Wood was there. They saw faces they knew ranged along the seats, immobile in the shivering light, every expression nailed in place.
    He felt her nails dig into his skin. There was Rock, and Morry, and Fruntkin from the commissary, and Mrs. Cosmopilite the wardrobe lady. There was Silverfish, and a row of other alchemists. There were the carpenters, and the handlemen, and all the stars that never were, all the people who had held horses or cleaned tables or stood in queues and waited and waited for their big chance…
    Lobsters, thought Victor. There was a great city and lots of people died and now it’s the home of lobsters.
    The Librarian pointed.
    Detritus had found Ruby in the very front row, and was trying to pull her out of her seat. Whichever way he moved her, her eyes swiveled toward the dancing images. When he stood in front of her she blinked for a moment, scowled, and knocked him aside.
    Then her expression slid back to vacuity and she settled into her seat.
    Victor laid a hand on his shoulder and made what he hoped would be soothing, beckoning motions. Detritus’ face was a fresco of misery.
    The suit of armor was still on the slab behind the screen, in front of the tarnished disc.
    They stared at it, hopelessly.
    Victor tentatively drew his finger through the dust. It left a streak of shiny yellow metal. He looked at Ginger.
    “What now?” he mouthed.
    She shrugged. It meant—how should I know? I was asleep, before.
    The screen above them was bulging very fatly now. How long before the Things came through?
    Victor tried shaking the—well, call it a man. A very tall man. In seamless golden armor. Might as well try to shake awake a mountain.
    He reached over and tried to free the sword, although it was longer than he was and, even if he could lift it, would be as maneuverable as a barge.
    It was gripped fast.
    The Librarian was trying to read the book by the light of the screen, feverishly thumbing through the pages.
    Victor chalked on the side of the slab: “ CAN ’ T YOU THINK OF ANYTHIN AT AL ?”
    Ginger took the chalk: “ NO ! YOU WOKE ME UP !! I DON ’ T NO HOW TO DO IT !!! WHATEVER IT IS !!!.”
    The fourth exclamation mark only failed to be completed because the chalk snapped. There was a distant “ping” as part of it hit something.
    Victor took the other half out of her hand.
    “ MAYBE YOU SHOUD HAV A LOOK AT THE BOOK ,” he suggested.
    The Librarian nodded and tried to put the book in her hands. She waved him off for a moment, and stood staring into the shadows.
    She took the book.
    She looked from the ape to the troll to the man.
    Then she pulled her arm back and hurled the book away from her.
    This time it wasn’t a ping. It was a definite, low and very resonant “booong.” Something could make a noise in the place with no sound.
    Victor skidded around the slab.
    The big disc was