Rembrandt Bathsheba at Her Bath

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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’reelse. 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. a lot of laughs, aren’t they?’ he said.‘Heaps,’ said Ginger.‘Of course, all that stuff about eating people is just 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
‘That thing on the slab,’ he said.

Paul Cezanne Leda with Swan

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they? That’s very interesting,’ said Dibbler. ‘Very interesting indeed.’ He flicked the ash from his cigar towards the demons. One of them caught it and ate it.
‘So what would happen’, he said slowly, ‘if, say, just one picture in the whole click was different.’
‘Funny you should ask,’ said Gaffer. ‘It happened the other day when we were patching up Beyond the Valley of the Trolls. One of the apprentices had stuck in just one picture from The Golde Rush and we all went around all ‘Never felt better, lad,’ Dibbler said. ‘Never felt better.’
He rubbed his hands together. ‘Let’s you and me have a little chat, man to man,’ he added. ‘Because, you know . . . ‘ he laid a friendly hand on Gaffer’s shoulder, ‘ . . . I’ve a feeling that this could be your lucky day.’morning thinking about gold and not knowing why. It was as if it’d gone straight into our heads without our eyes seeing it. Of course, I took my belt to the lad when we spotted it, but we’d never have found out if I hadn’t happened to look at the click slowly.’He picked up the paste brush again, squared up a couple of strips of film, and fixed them together. After a while he became aware that it had gone very quiet behind him.‘You all right, Mr Dibbler?’ he said.‘Hmm? Oh.’ Dibbler was deep in thought. ‘Just one picture had all that effect?’‘Oh, yes. Are you all right, Mr Dibbler?’

Paul Gauguin The Siesta

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didn’t come. A few acres of scrubby backlot stopped being the rolling dunes of the Great Nef and went back to being scrubby backlot again. Victor felt that much the same thing was happening to him.
In ones and twos, the makers of moving-picture magic departed, laughing and joking and arranging to meet at Borgle’s later on.
Ginger and Victor were left alone in a widening circle of emptinessJust after another half-hearted fight scene Dibbler announced that it was all finished. ‘Aren’t we going to do the ending?’ said Ginger. ‘You did that this morning,’ said Soll. ‘Oh.’ There was a chattering noise as the demons were let out of their box and sat swinging their little legs on the edge of the lid and passing a tiny cigarette from hand to hand. The extras queued up for their wages. The camel kicked the Vice-President in Charge of Camels. The handlemen wound the great reels of film out of the boxes and went away to whatever arcane cutting and gluing the handlemen got up to in the hours of darkness. Mrs Cosmopilite, Vice-President in Charge of Wardrobe, gathered up the costumes and toddled off, possibly to put them back on the beds.

Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles dAvignon

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doesn’t it?’
‘May I?’ said Dibbler, taking a piece of chalk from Silverfish’s desk. He scribbled intently on the back of the card for a while, and then turned it around.
Now it read:

Goddes and Men Saide It Was Notte To Bee, But They
Would it was also their own.
‘Well, well,’ said Silverfish. ‘My word . . . I don’t know if there was anything actually forbidden. Er. It was just very historical. I thought it would help, you know, children and so on. Learn about history. They never actually met, you know, which was what was so tragic. It was all Notte Listen! Pelias and Melisande, A Storie of Forbiden Love! A searing Sarger of Passion that Bridged Spaes and Tyme! Thys wille shok you! With a 1,000 elephants! Victor and Silverfish read it carefully, as one reads a dinner menu in an alien language. This was an alien language, and to make it worse

Thomas Kinkade Pinocchio Wishes Upon a Star

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would like to thank all the wonderful people who made this book possible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you . .
Watch . . .
This is space. It’s sometimes called the final frontier.
(giant elephants. On their shoulders, rimmed with water, glittering under its tiny orbiting sunlet, spinning majestically around the mountains at its frozen Hub, lies the Discworld, world and mirror of worlds.
Nearly unreal.
Reality is not digital, an on-off state, but analog. Something gradualExcept that of course you can’t have a final frontier, because there’d be nothing for it to be a frontier to, but as frontiers go, it’s pretty penultimate . . .) And against the wash of stars a nebula hangs, vast and black, one red giant gleaming like the madness of gods . . . And then the gleam is seen as the glint in a giant eye and it is eclipsed by the blink of an eyelid and the darkness moves a flipper and Great A’Tuin, star turtle, swims onward through the void. On its back, four

Edward Hopper Soir Bleu

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glanced at the sun which, old professional that it was, chose that moment to drop below the horizon. The gods had crossed the river, their progress slowed only by their tendency to push and shove among themselves, and were lurching the broad band of the river.
The gods abandoned their interest in Dios, this strange little human with the stick and the cracked voice. The nearest god, a crocodile-headed thing, jerked on to the plaza before the pyramid, squinted up at Teppic, and reached out towards him. Teppic fumbled for a knife, wondering what sort was appropriate for gods .
And, along the Djel, the pyramids began to flare their meagre store of hoarded time.
through the buildings of the necropolis. Several were clustered around the spot where Dios had been. The ancestors dropped away, sliding back down the pyramid as fast as they had climbed it, leaving Teppic alone on a few square feet of rock. A couple of stars came out. He saw white shapes below as the ancestors hurried away on some private errand of their own, lurching at a surprising speed towards

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mortlake Terrace

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Perhaps that was what had woken him up.
The air was warm and damp. Curls of mist rose from the river, and-
The pyramids weren't flaring.
He'dis there. It stands to reason. I'm just seeing it properly for the first time.
There. Does that make me feel any better?
No.
He turned and ran down the street, sandals flapping, until he reached the house that held Gern and his numerous family. He dragged the protesting apprentice from the communal sleeping grown up in this house: it had been in the family of the master embalmers for thousands of years, and he'd seen the pyramids flare so often that he didn't notice them, any more than he noticed his own breathing. But now they were dark and silent, and the silence cried out and the darkness glared. But that wasn't the worst part. As his horrified eyes stared up at the empty sky over the necropolis they saw the stars, and what the stars were stuck to. Dil was terrified. And then, when he had time to think about it, he was ashamed of himself. After all, he thought, it's what I've always been told

Salvador Dali The Rose

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Dios's boat slid gently through the water and bumped into the jetty. Dios climbed out and hurried into the palace, bounding up the steps three at a time and rubbing his hands together at the thought of a fresh day laid out before him, mask, mind,' he said. Gern, who was working hard on the corner slab on one of the Queen's late cats, which he had been allowed to do all by himself, looked up in horror.
'I done it very careful,' he said sulkily.
'That's the whole point,' said the sculptor.
'I know,' said Dil sadly, 'it's the nose, isn't it.'
'It was more the chin.'
'And the chin.'every hour and ritual ticking neatly into place. So much to organise, so much to be needed for . . . The chief sculptor and maker of mummy cases folded up his measure. 'You done a good job there, Master Dil,' he said. Dil nodded. There was no false modesty between craftsmen. The sculptor gave him a nudge. 'What a team, eh?' he said. 'You pickle 'em, I crate 'em.' Dil nodded, but rather more slowly. The sculptor looked down at the wax oval in his hands. 'Can't say I think much of the death

Jack Vettriano The Runaways

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There was a figure outlined against the afterglow of the sunset. Teppic paused alongside a particularly repulsive gargoyle to consider his options.
Fairly solid classroom rumour said that if he inhumed his examiner before the test, that was an automatic pass. He slipped a Number Three throwing knife from its thigh sheath and hefted it thoughtfully. Of course, any attempt, on the gargoyle, and hastily pulled himself together. What is the sensible course of action at this point?
A party of revellers staggered through a pool of light in the street far below.
Teppic sheathed the knife and stood up.
'Sir,' he said, 'I am here.'
A dry voice by his ear said, rather indistinctly, 'Very well.'any overt move which missed would attract immediate failure and loss of privileges*. (* Breathing, for a start.) The silhouette was absolutely still. Teppic's eyes swivelled to the maze of chimneys, gargoyles, ventilator shafts, bridges and ladders that made up the rooftop scenery of the city. Right, he thought. That's some sort of dummy. I'm supposed to attack it and that means he's watching me from somewhere else. Will I be able to spot him? No. On the other hand, maybe I'm meant to think it's a dummy. Unless he's thought of that as well . . . He found himself drumming his fingers

Salvador Dali Figure on the Rocks

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was already going wrong. The earlier rehearsals had their little teething troubles, it was true, but Hwel had known one or two monumental horrors in his time and this one was shaping up to be the worst. The company was more jittery than a potful of lobsters. Out of the corner of his ear he heard the on-stage dialogue falter, and scurried to the wings.
'—avenge the terror of thy father's death—' he hissed, and hurried back to the trembling witches. He groaned. Divers alarums. This lot were supposed to be terrorising a kingdom. He had about a minute before the cue.
'Right!' he said, pulling himself together. 'Now, what are you? You're evil hags, right?'
'Yes, Hwel,' they said meekly.
'Tell me what you are,' he commanded.
'We're evil hags, Hwel.'
'Louder!'
'We're 'What are you?'
'We're hags, Hwel!'
'What kind of hags?'
'We're black and midnight hags!' they yelled, getting into the spirit.
'What kind of black and midnight hags?'
'Evil black and midnight hags!'Evil Hags!'Hwel stalked the length of the quaking line, then turned abruptly on his heel, 'And what are you going to do?'The 2nd Witche scratched his crawling wig.'We're going to curse people?' he ventured. 'It says in the script—''I-can't-HEAR-you!''We're going to curse people!' they chorused, springing to attention and staring straight ahead to avoid his gaze.Hwel stumped back along the line.

Thomas Kinkade Conquering the Storms

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the silence in the bar took on a whole new intensity in which the sound of a stool being slowly pushed back was like the creak of doom. All eyes swivelled to the other end of the room, where sat the one drinker in the Mended Drum who came into category C.
What Tomjon had thought was an old sack hunched over the bar was extending arms and – other arms, except that they were its legs. A sad, rubbery face turned towards the speaker, its expression as melancholy as the mists of evolution. Its funny lips curled back. There was abolutely nothing funny about its teeth.
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Tomjon opened his mouth to speak, but Hwel nudged him sharply in the knee. Put up with it, put up with it, slip out as soon as possible, it was the only way . . .
'Where's your little pointy hat, then?' said the bearded man.
The room had gone quiet. This looked like being cabaret time.
'I said, where's your pointy hat, dopey?'
The barman got a grip of the blackthorn stick with nails in which lived under the counter, just in case, and said, 'Er—'
'I was talking to the lawn ornament here.'
The man took the dregs of his own drink and poured them carefully over the silent dwarfs head.
'I ain't drinking here again,' he muttered, when even this tailed to have any effect. 'It's bad enough they let monkeys drink here, but pygmies—'
Now the silence in the bar took on a whole new intensity in which the sound of a stool being slowly

Pino Purity

sought solace in the stables, where his beloved hunting dogs had whined and scratched at the door and had generally been very ill-at-ease at his sensed but unseen presence.
Now he haunted – and how he hated the word – the Long Gallery, where paintings of long-dead kings looked down at him from the dusty shadows. He would have felt a lot more kindly towards them if he hadn't met a number of themidiot's company would lend a new terror to death.
He sat under a painting of Queen Bemery (670-722), whose rather stern good looks he would have felt a whole lot happier about if he hadn't seen her earlier that morning walking through the wall.
Verence tried to avoid walking through walls. A man had his dignity.
He became aware that he was being watched.
He turned his head. gibbering in various parts of the premises.Verence had decided that he had two aims in death. One was to get out of the castle and find his son, and the other was to get his revenge on the duke. But not by killing him, he'd decided, even if he could find a way, because an eternity in that giggling

Piet Mondrian Composition with Red Blue Yellow 2

dear lady,' said Vitoller. 'Could I begin to tell you how gratifying it is for a mere mummer to learn that his audience has seen behind the mere shell of greasepaint to the spirit beneath?'
'I expect you could,' said Granny. 'I expect you could say anything, Mr Vitoller.'
He not the kind she was used to.
It was Vitoller's voice. By the mere process of articulation it transformed everything it talked about.
Look at the two of them, she told herself, primping away like a couple of ninnies. Granny stopped her hand in the process of patting her own iron-hard bun, and cleared her throat meaningfully.
'We'd like to talk to you, Mr Vitoller.' She indicated the actors, who were dismantling the setreplaced his hat and their eyes met in the long and calculating stare of one professional weighing up another. Vitoller broke first, and tried to pretend he hadn't been competing.'And now,' he said, 'to what do I owe this visit from three such charming ladies?'In fact he'd won. Granny's mouth fell open. She would not have described herself as anything much above 'handsome, considering'. Nanny, on the other hand, was as gummy as a baby and had a face like a small dried raisin. The best you could say for Magrat was that she was decently plain and well-scrubbed and as flat-chested as an ironing board with a couple of peas on it, even if her head was too well stuffed with fancies. Granny could feel something, some sort of magic at work. But

Alphonse Maria Mucha Monaco Monte Carlo

'What?' said Mort, blinking in the light.
'What he means is, what d'you want to drink?' said a small ferret-faced man sitting by the fire, who was giving Mort the kind of 'What do people like to drink here, then?'
The landlord looked sideways at his customers, a clever trick given that they were directly in front of him.
'Why, lordship, we drink scumble, for preference.'
'Scumble?' said Mort, failing to notice the muffled sniggers.
'Aye, lordship. Made from apples. Well, mainly apples.'
This to Mort. 'Oh, right,' he said. 'A pint of scumblelook a butcher gives a field full of lambs.'Um. I don't know,' said Mort. 'Do you sell stardrip?''Never heard of it, lordship.'Mort looked around at the faces watching him, illuminated by the firelight. They were the sort of people generally called the salt of the earth. In other words, they were hard, square and bad for preoccupied to notice.

Vincent van Gogh Field with Poppies

Perhaps screaming wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. . . .
The window imploded. For an instant Keli saw, framed against a hell of blue and purple flames, a hooded figure crouched on the back of the largest horse she had ever seen.
There was someone standing by the bed, with a knife half raised.
In slow motion, she watched fascinated as the arm went up and the horse galloped at glacier speed across the floor. Now pleading into their voice was either genuine or such a good actor they wouldn't have to bother with assassination for a living. She said, 'Who are you?'
'I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you,' said the voice. 'You are still alive, aren't you?'
She bit down the sarcastic reply just in time. Something about the tone of the question worried her.
'Can't you tell?' she said.
'It's not easy. . . .' There was a pause. She strained to see in the darkness,the knife was above her, starting its descent, and the horse was rearing and the rider was standing in the stirrups and swinging some sort of weapon and its blade tore through the slow air with a noise like a finger on the rim of a wet glass —The light vanished. There was a soft thump on the floor, followed by a metallic clatter.Keli took a deep breath.A hand was briefly laid across her mouth and a worried voice said, 'If you scream, I'll regret it. Please? I'm in enough trouble as it is.'Anyone who could get that amount of bewildered

Thomas Kinkade Victorian Christmas

Mort was, in fact, counting to ten.
'I'm not dead,' he said eventually. 'At least, I don't think so. It's a little hard to tell. Who are you?'
'You may one for breakfast.'
The man turned his head slowly, and nodded at her without saying a word. She turned back to Mort.
'I must say,' she said, 'that with the whole Disc to choose from, I should think Father call me Miss Ysabell,' she said haughtily. 'Father told me you must have something to eat. Follow me.'She swept away towards one of the other doors. Mort trailed behind her at just the right distance to have it swing back and hit his other elbow.There was a kitchen on the other side of the door – long, low and warm, with copper pans hanging from the ceiling and a vast black iron stove occupying the whole of one long wall. An old man was standing in front of it, frying eggs and bacon and whistling between his teeth.The smell attracted Mort's taste buds from across the room, hinting that if they got together they could really enjoy themselves. He found himself moving forward without even consulting his legs.'Albert,' snapped Ysabell, 'another

George Bellows Stag at Sharkey's

The track wound down between the mountains. For once the sky was clear, the high Ramtops standing out crisp and white like the brides of the sky (with their trousseaux stuffed with thunderstorms) and the many little streams that bordered or crossed the path flowed sluggishly through strands of meadowsweet and go-fasterroot.lewd things could happen to country women who were freshly arrived in big cities, and she gripped her handbag until her knuckles whitened. If any male stranger had happened to so much as nod at her it would have gone very hard indeed for him.
Esk's eyes were sparkling. The square was a jigsaw of noise and colour and smell. On one side of it were the temples of the Disc's more demanding deities, and weird perfumes drifted out to join with the reeks of commerce in a complex ragrug of fragrances. There were stalls filled with enticing curiosities that she itched to investigate. By lunchtime they reached the suburb of Ohulan (it was too small to have more than one, which was just an inn and a handful of cottages belonging to people who couldn't stand the pressures of urban a few minutes later the cart deposited them in the town's main, indeed its only, square. It turned out to be market day. Granny Weatherwax stood uncertainly on the cobbles, holding tightly to Esk's shoulder as the crowd swirled around them. She had heard that

Paul Cezanne Mount Sainte Victoire

be able to do anything about that?'
'Make a nice rockery.' Rincewind turned and waved at the workmen.
'You're very cheerful,' said Twoflower, a shade reproachfully. 'Didn't you go to bed?'
'Funny thing, I couldn't sleep,' said Rincewind. 'I came out for a breath of fresh air, and no-one seemed to have any idea what to do, so I just sort of got people together,' he indicated the librarian, who tried to hold his hand, 'and started organising things. Nice day, isn't it? Air like wine.'
'Rincewind, I've decided that —'
'You know, I think I might re-enroll,' said Rincewind cheerfully. 'I think I could really make a go of things this time. I can really see myself getting to grips with magic and graduating really well. They do say if it's summa cum 'Oh.'
'Oook?'laude, then the living is easy – .''Good, because —'There's plenty of room at the top, too, now all the big boys will be doing doorstop duty, and —''I'm going Home.''— a sharp lad with a bit of experience of the world could – what?''Oook?''I said I'm going Home,' repeated Twoflower, making polite little attempts to shake off the librarian, who was trying to pick lice off him.'What Home?' said Rincewind, astonished.'Home home. My Home. Where I live,' Twoflower explained sheepishly. 'Back across the sea. You know.Where I came from. Will you please stop doing that?'
There was a pause. Then Twoflower said, 'You see, last night

Leroy Neiman Marlin Fishing

That's a shame. I've done good Business here. Too magical, they say! What's wrong with magic, that's what I'd like to know?'
'What will you do?' said Twoflower.
'Oh, go to some other universe, there's plenty around,' said the shopkeeper airily. 'Thanks for telling me about the star, though. Can I drop you off somewhere?'
The Spell gave Rincewind's mind a kick.
''Er, no,' he said, 'I think perhaps we'd better stay. To ee it through, you know.'
'You're not worried about this star thing, then?'
'The star is life, not death,' said Riricewind.
'How's that?'
'How's what?'
'You did it again!' said Twoflower, pointing an accusing finger. 'You say things and then don't know you've said them!'
'You told me it was the only city that actually started out decadent.'
Rincewind looked embarrassed. Yes, but, well, it's my Home, don't you see?'
'No,' said the shopkeeper, 'not really. I always say Home is where you hang your 'I just said we'd better stay,' said Rincewind.'You said the star was life, not death,' said Twoflower. 'Your voice went all crackly and far away. Didn't it?' He turned to the shopkeeper for confirmation.'That's true,' said the little man. 'I thought his eyes crossed a bit, too.''It's the Spell, then,' said Rincewind. 'It's trying to take me over. It knows what's going to happen, and I think it wants to go to Ankh-Morpork. I want to go too,' he added defiantly. 'Can you get us there?''Is that the big city on the Ankh? Sprawling place, smells of cesspits?''It has an ancient and honourable history,' said Rincewind, his voice stiff with injured civic pride.'That's not how you described it to me,' said Twoflower.

Franz Marc Rehe im Schnee

was the Luggage.
It squatted on the path, watching him.
Rincewind had never got on with the Luggage, it had always given him the impression that it thoroughly disapproved of him. But just for once it wasn't glaring at him. It had a rather pathetic look, like a dog that's just a pleasant roll in the cowpats to find that the family has moved to the next continent.
'All right,' said Rincewind. 'Come on.'
It extended its legs and followed him up the path.
Somehow Rincewind had expectedan eye for colour, always provided the colour was deep purple, night black or shroud white. Huge lilies perfumed the air. There was a sundial without a gnomon in the middle of a freshly-scythed lawn.
With the Luggage trailing behind him Rincewind crept along a path of marble chippings until he was at the rear of the cottage, and pushed open a door.
Four pushed it open. It gave onto a stone-flagged passageway, which in turn opened onto a wide entrance hall.
He crept forward with his back pressed tightly against a wall. Behind him the Luggage rose up on tiptoes and skittered along nervously.
The hall itself . . .horses looked at him over the top of their nosebags. They were warm and alive, and some of the best kept beasts Rincewind had ever seen. A big white one had a stall all to itself, and a silver and black harness hung over the door. The other three were tethered in front of a hay rack on the opposite wall, as if visitors had just dropped by. They regarded Rincewind with vague animal curiosity.The Luggage bumped into his ankle. He spun around nd hissed, 'Push off, you!'The Luggage backed away. It looked abashed.Rincewind tiptoed to the far door and cautiously
Well, it wasn't the fact that it was considerably bigger than the whole cottage had appeared from the outside that worried Rincewind; the way things were these days, he'd have laughed sarcastically

Francois Boucher Adoration of the Shepherds

the very edge of the city and country of Krull was a large semicircular amphitheatre, with seating for several tens of thousands of people. The arena was only semi-circular for the very elegant reason that it overlooked the cloud sea that boiled up from the Rimfall, far below, and now every seat was occupied. And the crowd was growing to regret," said the Arch-astronomer.
"Yes, lord."
"How much longer do we have?"
The Launchcontroller glanced at the rapidly-climbing sun.
"Thirty minutes, your prominence. After that Krull will have revolved away restive. It had come to see a double sacrifice and also the launching of the great bronze space ship. Neither event had yet materialised.The Arch-astronomer beckoned the Master Launchcontroller to him."Well?" he said, filling a mere four letters with a full lexicon of anger and menace. The Master Launchcontroller went pale."No news, lord," said the Launchcontroller, and added with a brittle brightness, "except that your prominence will be pleased to hear that Garhartra has recovered.""That is a fact he may come

Leroy Neiman 16th at Augusta

e and delicate dams, and valleys walled with polished silica, to catch the slow sunlight and sort of store it. The Scintillating reservoirs of the Nef, overflowing after several weeks of uninterrupted sunlight, were a truly magnificent sight from the air and it is therefore the world...
"What can you see?" said Twoflower to the dragon.
I see fighting on the top of the mountain came the gentle reply.
"See?" said Twoflower. "Hrun's probably fighting for his this very moment."
Rincewind was silent. After a moment Twoflower looked around. The wizard was staring intently at nothing at all, his lips moving soundlessly.unfortunate that Twoflower and Rincewind did not happen to glance in that direction.)In front of them the billion-ton impossibility that was the magic-wrought Wyrmberg hung against the sky and that was not too bad, until Rincewind turned his head and saw the mountain's shadow slowly unroll itself across the cloudscape of