'He bloody intelligent dog,' said another troll, idly kicking Gaspode aside. 'I see him in click yesterday. He can play dead and count up to five.'

'That two more than you can, then.' This got a round of laughter. [23]

'No, shut up. I reckon', said the first troll, 'he trying to tell us something.'

'-'scuse me?'

'You only got to look at the way he leaping about and barking.'

'That right. I saw him in this click, he showing people where to find lost children in caves.'

'-'scuse me?'

A troll brow wrinkled. 'To eat 'em, you mean?'

'No, to bring 'em outside.'

'What, like for a barbecue sort of thing?'

'-'scuse me?'

Another foot caught Gaspode on the side of his bullet head.

'Could be he found some more. Look at the way he running back and forwards to the door. He one clever dog.'

'We could go look,' said the first troll.

'Good idea. It seem like ages since I had my tea.'

'Listen, you not allowed to eat people in Holy Wood. It get us bad name! Also Silicon Anti-Defamation League be down on you like a ton of rectangular building things.'

'Yeah, but could be a reward or something.'

'-'SCUSE ME?'

'Right! Also, big improvement for troll image viz-ah-viz public relations if we find lost children.'

'And even if we don't, we can eat the dog, right?'

The bar emptied, leaving only the usual clouds of smoke, cauldrons of molten troll drinks, Ruby idly scraping the congealed lava off the mugs, and a small, weary, moth-eaten dog.

The small, weary, moth-eaten dog thought hard about the difference between looking and acting like a wonder dog and merely being one.

It said 'Bugger.'

Victor remembered being frightened of tigers when he was young. In vain did people point out that the nearest tiger was three thousand miles away. He'd say, 'Is there any sea between where they live and here?' and people would say, 'Well, no, but?' and he'd say, 'Then it's just a matter of distance.'

Darkness was the same thing. All dreadful dark places were connected by the nature of darkness itself. Darkness was everywhere, all the time, just waiting for the lights to go out. Just like the Dungeon Dimensions, really. Just waiting for reality to snap.

He held on tight to Ginger.

'You needn't,' she said. 'I've got a grip on myself now.'

'Oh, good,' he said weakly.

'The trouble is, so have you.'

He relaxed.

'Are you cold?' she said.

'A bit. It's very clammy down here.'

'Is it your teeth I can hear chattering?'

'Who else's? No,' he added hurriedly, 'don't even think about it.'

'You know,' she said, after a while, 'I don't remember anything about tying you up. I'm not even very good at knots.'

'These were pretty good,' said Victor.

'I just remember the dream. There was this voice telling me that I must wake the - the sleeping man?'

Victor thought of the armoured figure on the slab.

'Did you get a good look at it?' he said. 'What was it like?'

'I don't know about tonight,' said Ginger cautiously. 'But in my dreams it's always looked a bit like my Uncle Oswald.'

Victor thought of a sword taller than he was. You couldn't parry a slash from something like that, it'd cut through anything. Somehow it was hard to think of anything looking like an Oswald with a sword like that.

'Why's he remind you of your Uncle Oswald?' he said.

'Because my Uncle Oswald lay quite still like that. Mind you, I only ever saw him once. And that was at his funeral.'

Victor opened his mouth - and there were distant, blurred voices. A few stones moved. A voice, a little closer now, trilled, 'Hallo, little children. This way, little children.'

'That's Rock!' said Ginger.

'I'd know that voice anywhere,' said Victor. 'Hey! Rock! It's me! Victor!'

There was a worried pause. Then Rock's voice bellowed: 'It's my friend Victor!'

'That mean we can't eat him?'

'No-one is to eat my friend Victor! We dig him out with speed!'

There was the sound of crunching. Then another troll's voice complained, 'They call this limestone? I call it tasteless.'

There was some more scrabbling. A third voice said, 'Don't see why we can't eat him. Who'd know?'

'You uncivilized troll,' scolded Rock. 'What you thinking of? You eat people, everyone laugh at you, say, "He very defective troll, do not know how to behave in polite society" and stop paying you three dollar a day and send you back to mountains.'

Victor gave what he hoped would sound like a light chuckle.

'They're a lot of laughs, aren't they?' he said.

'Heaps,' said Ginger.

'Of course, all that stuff about eating people isjust bravado. They hardly ever do it. You shouldn't worry about it.'

'I'm not. I'm worried because I walk around all the time when I'm asleep and I don't know why. You make it sound as if I was going to wake up that sleeping creature. It's a horrible thought. Something's inside my head.'

There was a crash as more rocks were pulled aside.

'That's the odd thing,' said Victor. 'When people are, er, possessed, the, er, possessing thing doesn't usually care much about them or anyone else. I mean, it wouldn't have just tied me up. It would have hit me over the head with something.'

He reached for her hand in the dark.

'That thing on the slab,' he said.

'What about it?'

'I've seen it before. It's in the book I found. There's dozens of pictures of it, and they must have thought it was very important to keep it behind the gate. That's what the pictograms say, I think. Gate . . . man. The man behind the gate. The prisoner. You see, I'm sure the reason why all the priests or whoever they were had to go and chant there every day was?'

A slab by his head was pulled aside and weak daylight poured through. It was very closely followed by Laddie, who tried to lick Victor's face and bark at the same time.

'Yes, yes! Well done, Laddie,' said Victor, trying to fight him off. 'Good dog. Good boy, Laddie.'

'Good boy Laddie! Good boy Laddie!'

The bark brought several small shards of stone down from the ceiling.

'Aha!' said Rock. Several other troll heads appeared behind him as Victor and Ginger stared out of the hole.

'They not little children,' muttered the one who had been complaining about the eating ban. 'They look stringy.'

'I tell you before,' said Rock menacingly, 'no eating people. It cause no end of trouble.'

'Why not just one leg? Then everyone'll be?'

Rock picked up a half-ton slab in one hand, weighed it thoughtfully, and then hit the other troll so hard with it that it broke.

'I tell you before,' he told the recumbent figure, 'it trolls like you getting us a bad name. How can we take rightful place in brotherhood of sapient species with defective trolls like you letting side down alter time?'

23

By troll standards, this was Oscar Wilde at his best.