He watched in horror as the great ape grunted, grasped a piece of the film in both hands and, with two bites, edited it. Then the Librarian picked him up, dusted him off, patted him on the head, thrust the great pile of unwound click into his helpless arms, and ambled swiftly out of the room with a few frames of film dangling from one paw.
Bezam stared helplessly after him.
‘You’re banned!’ he shouted, when he judged the ape to be safely out of earshot.
Then he looked down at the two severed ends.
Breaks in films weren’t unusual. Bezam had spent many a flustered few minutes feverishly cutting and pasting while the audience cheerfully stamped its feet and high-spiritedly threw peanuts, knives and double-headed axes at the screen.
He let the coils fall around him and reached for the scissors and glue. At least — he found, after holding the two ends up to the lantern — the Librarian hadn’t taken a very interesting bit. Odd, that. Bezam wouldn’t have put it past the ape to have taken a bit where the girl was definitely showing too much chest, or one of the fight scenes. But all he’d wanted was a piece that showed the Sons galloping down from their mountain fastness, in single file, on identical camels.
‘Dunno what he wanted that for,’ he muttered, taking the lid off the glue pot. ‘It just shows a lot of rocks.’
Victor and Gaspode stood among the sand dunes near the beach.
‘That’s where the driftwood hut is,’ said Victor, pointing, ‘and then if you look hard you can see there’s a sort of road pointing straight towards the hill. But there’s nothing on the hill but the old trees.’
Gaspode looked back at Holy Wood Bay.
‘Funny it bein’ circular,’ he said.
‘I thought so,’ said Victor.
‘I heard once where there was this city that was so wicked that the gods turned it into a puddle of molten glass,’ said Gaspode, apropos of nothing. ‘And the only person who saw it happen was turned into a pillar of salt by day and a cheese shaker by night.’
‘Gosh. What had the people been doing?’
‘Dunno. Prob’ly not much. It doesn’t take much to annoy gods.’
‘
The dog came streaking over the dunes, a comet of gold and orange hair. It skidded to a halt in front of Gaspode, and then began to dance around excitedly, yapping.
‘He’s escaped and he wants me to play with him,’ said Gaspode despondently. ‘Ridiculous, ain’t it?
Laddie rolled over obediently, all four legs in the air.
‘See? He understands every word I say,’ muttered Gaspode.
‘He likes you,’ said Victor.
‘Huh,’ sniffed Gaspode. ‘How’re dogs ever goin’ to amount to anything if they bounce around worshipping people just ’cos they’ve been given a meal? What’s he want me to do with this??’
Laddie had dropped a stick in front of Gaspode and was looking at him expectantly.
‘He wants you to throw it,’ said Victor.
‘What for?’
‘So he can bring it back.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ said Gaspode, as Victor picked up the stick and hurled it away, Laddie racing along underneath it, ‘is how come we’re descended from wolves. I mean, your average wolf, he’s a bright bugger, know what I mean? Chock full of cunnin’ an’ like that. We’re talking grey paws racing over the trackless tundra, is what I’m getting at.’
Gaspode looked wistfully at the distant mountains. ‘And suddenly a handful of generations later we’ve got Percy the Pup here with a cold nose, bright eyes, glossy coat and the brains of a stunned herring.’
‘And you,’ said Victor. Laddie whirled back in a storm of sand and dropped the damp stick in front of him. Victor picked it up and threw it again. Laddie bounded off, yapping himself sick with excitement.
‘Well, yeah,’ said Gaspode, ambling along in a bowlegged swagger. ‘Only I can look after myself. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. You think Dopey the Mutt there would last five minutes in Ankh-Morpork? He set one paw in some o’ the streets, he’s three sets of fur gloves an’ Crispy Fried No. 27 at the nearest Klatchian all-night carry-out.’
Victor threw the stick again.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘who was the famous Gaspode you’re named after?’
‘You never heard of him?’
‘No.’
‘He was dead famous.’
‘He was a dog?’
‘Yeah. It was years and years ago. There was this ole bloke in Ankh who snuffed it, and he belonged to one of them religions where they bury you after you’re dead, an’ they did, and he had this ole dog—’
‘—called Gaspode—?’
‘Yeah, and this ole dog had been his only companion and after they buried the man he lay down on his grave and howled and howled for a couple of weeks. Growled at everybody who came near. An’ then died.’
Victor paused in the act of throwing the stick again.
‘That’s very sad,’ he said. He threw. Laddie tore along underneath it, and disappeared into a stand of scrubby trees on the hillside.
‘Yeah. Everyone says it demonstrates a dog’s innocent and undyin’ love for ’is master,’ said Gaspode, spitting the words out as if they were ashes.
‘You don’t believe that, then?’
