Grim saw a glittering metal rod in Chloe’s hands, ending in a complicated hook. Chloe took a swing and hit the man hard on the leg.

  ‘Oooee!’ the man screamed. ‘Oo-oo-oo!’

  ‘We don’t love our people,’ said Chloe. ‘We’re Orks.’

  ‘What is that you’ve got?’ asked Grim.

  ‘A golf club,’ said Chloe. ‘It was in his car.’

  ‘And what’s golf?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Chloe answered. ‘Probably this.’

  And she hit the man on the leg again with the club. The man screamed again.

  ‘How often have I told you?’ said Chloe. ‘Express yourself clearly. What’s an image?’

  ‘An aggregate representation, which …’

  Chloe raised the club.

  ‘It’s the way we show you on the manitou,’ the discoursemonger said quickly.

  ‘You mean the longer I beat you, the worse you’ll make us look?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you said you always try to make us look as bad as possible, didn’t you? Remember? When you were drunk?’

  The man didn’t say anything to that and Chloe hit him on the leg with the club.

  ‘Oo-oo-oooo!’

  ‘That’s hurting him,’ said Grim.

  Chloe looked at him as if he was a bit strange.

  ‘That’s why I’m doing it.’

  Grim was about to take the club away from her, but then he decided not to risk it. Instead, he dragged her as far away from the sobbing discoursemonger as he could.

  ‘What are you hitting him for?’

  Chloe walked over to one of the shelves, got down a bundle and unfolded it.

  ‘Look what I found.’

  What Grim saw looked weird. It was like a pair of bath scrubbers made of hair and glued to shrivelled pieces of leather – one reddish, the other one dark. The hair was short and trimmed unevenly.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Scalps.’

  ‘What scalps?’

  ‘The scalps that are the way everything ends up with him,’ said Chloe. ‘These are the last two. And I was next.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He confessed.’

  Grim looked at the golf club in her hand.

  ‘Maybe he’s trying to make himself look bad?’

  ‘No,’ said Chloe, ‘he’s not trying to make himself look bad. I beat him so hard, he wouldn’t have risked it. He’s already asked me to kill him five times. He wouldn’t make himself look bad.’

  ‘But how did you find out?’

  Chloe shrugged.

  ‘I sensed it. When he wanted to tie me up. You have to understand, he says – now I’m completely in your power. I’m trusting you with my life. As soon as you untie me I want to do the same thing to you, just once. Literally just for five minutes. To feel that you trust me the same way I trust you … I won’t beat you, he says, and I’ll never ask you to do this again. I’ll untie you immediately and we’ll go to the Green Zone.’

  ‘And you didn’t want to?’

  ‘Na-ah,’ said Chloe. ‘I got this sudden twinge … I realised that if I sat down in that corner, I’d never get up out of it again. He’s got everything here arranged far too … conveniently. Anyway, I didn’t untie him.’

  ‘And then what?’

  Chloe swung the club.

  ‘And then he told me.’

  ‘But how did you find the scalps?’

  ‘He confessed where they were. The plaits used to be there too. He trimmed them off and took them up there.’

  ‘You must have given him a real beating,’ Grim said with a whistle.

  ‘Yes, not bad,’ said Chloe. ‘But now I know everything. The bones are buried right here, in the corner. But he took the skulls up there. Says he polished them up as bright as mirrors. I ask him what for, and he keeps spouting these clever words. And no matter how hard I beat him, he can’t explain any other way, although he’s already crying from the pain. He’s weird. Totally crazy, a psycho. Do you want to ask him anything while he can still talk?’

  The discoursemonger looked at Grim with his eyes gaping wide in terror. Grim pondered. The thousands of agonising questions that no one around him knew the answers to had suddenly flown right out of his head.

  ‘Aha, here’s one,’ he remembered. ‘Why do we have the same word for Manitou, manitou and manitou? Do you know?’

  The discoursemonger nodded.

  ‘In ancient times,’ he said, ‘people believed that the screen of an information terminal glowed because a special spirit descended into it. They called the spirit “Manitou”. That’s why they called the screen a “monitor” – “illuminated by Manitou”. And in Church English the word for manitou is “money”, that’s what it was originally. The Prescriptions of Manitou explain it like this …’

  The discoursemonger closed his eyes and recollected for a few seconds.

  ‘Manitou the Antichrist said, “Those who came unto me did proclaim – ‘Render unto God that which is God’s, and unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.’ But I say unto you, all is Manitou – God and Caesar, and what belongs to them or to you. And since Manitou is in everything, let the three most important things bear his name: the Earthly Form of the Great Spirit, the panel of personal information and the universal measure of value …” The priests say that one of the proofs of the existence of Manitou is that these words spontaneously arose in the language with similar forms …’

  Grim remembered another question that he was far more concerned about than linguistic archaeology.

  ‘I always wanted to know where snuffs came from,’ he said. ‘After all, in ancient times the films weren’t like that. Why is a snuff always half about war and half about love? They never explain that at school. They say that such is the love of Manitou and his fury. And that’s it.’

  The man licked his lips

  ‘That’s basically a religious question,’ he said. ‘You ought to ask a priest. But I do know what your priests are like. I’ll try to remember what they tell us in school … In the Prescriptions of Manitou it says that Manitou conceived a desire for the people to draw nigh unto his chambers and bestowed on them two magical arts. They were called “movies” and “news”. And one and the same mystery lay at their heart – “the miracle of the far-removed head”.’

  ‘The far-removed head?’ Chloe asked suspiciously. ‘Is that what you take the skulls up there for?’

  The discoursemonger’s despair showed in his face.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You know yourself what the far-removed head is. We have six senses, but if you consider what percentage of information each of them supplies for the construction of the picture of the world …’ The man squinted at the club in Chloe’s hands. ‘… Anyway, the percentage isn’t important. What is important is that sight and hearing, acting together, are capable of totally replacing reality. And this shift in the state of consciousness, in principle, is no different from sleep or … Oo-ooee!’

  Chloe hit the man so suddenly that Grim didn’t have time to stop her. He just shoved her on the shoulder. Chloe shoved him back, but Grim didn’t continue with the scuffle, so that they wouldn’t disgrace themselves in front of the discoursemonger.

  ‘Why are you hitting him?’ he asked.

  ‘When he was drunk he said that Orks have to be treated like children,’ Chloe replied. ‘They should be told magical fairy tales. Otherwise, he says, their primitive imagination won’t be able to grasp anything.’

  ‘Well, that’s fantastic,’ said Grim. ‘I love fairy tales. But I can’t understand you. First it’s too complicated for you, then you get offended because it’s like some stuff for children. Carry on, monger.’

  ‘All right,’ said the discoursemonger, squinting at Chloe. ‘The ancient people perceived that the miracle of the far-removed head makes it possible to transfer the attention to anywhere you like. Using it, one can make a person see any world at all, be it a real or imaginary one. But there is a line that divides reality and fantasy. It also divides the movies from the news. To put it in crude, simple terms – the news shows what really exists. The movies show what doesn’t really exist. Together, they have brought the world to war many times.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Grim.

  ‘Because the magicians of antiquity, the informancers, controlled reality by manipulating these arts. They frequently mixed them together, or completely switched them around, passing off movies as news and news as movies. It is possible to do this, because the miracle of the far-removed head works in exactly the same way when it happens.’

  ‘Do you understand what he’s saying?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘I understand how it’s possible to pass off movies as news,’ said Grim. ‘That’s when the news shows something that didn’t happen. Or …’ he remembered the lover of little children’s guts running across the field of battle ‘… it seems as if it happened, but it’s not true … But how can you pass off news as movies?’

  Chloe turned towards the man and raised the golf club slightly.

  ‘It’s the same thing, only the other way round,’ the man answered and suddenly flew into a fury. ‘Don’t hit me, all right? It’s not my fault that it can’t be explained in words of one syllable!’

  ‘Speak more simply,’ Chloe ordered him, but she lowered the club anyway.

  ‘Actually,’ the discoursemonger continued, ‘it really is almost exactly the same thing. In ancient times people used to work a lot and they had only a few hours a week to relax in front of a screen. The movies served as their encyclopaedia of life. People drew all their knowledge from the movies, which often served as their primary source of information about the world. So if some nation was constantly depicted in the movies as a band of murderers and degenerates, then in reality that was news. But it was passed off as movies.’

  ‘I get it,’ said Grim. ‘What comes next?’

  ‘The skill of the ancient informancers was terrifying. Especially in everything to do with news. There was a reason for this – the world was divided into clans, and each clan tried to create a special version of reality with the help of its own magicians.’

  ‘But why didn’t anyone show the truth? Were all the ancient magicians so mean and wicked, then?’

  ‘That’s not the point here,’ said the man. ‘They could be good and kind. But ever since they were children they’d been raised in the reality invented by the magicians of their clan. And even if a man is an informancer, his first purpose is to fight for his own personal survival. What do you think, who had the better chance of surviving – the one who reinforced the traditional version of reality or the one who changed it? Even just a tiny little bit?’

  ‘Probably the one who reinforced it,’ said Grim.

  ‘Of course,’ said the discoursemonger, pulling a sour face. ‘The informancers only thought that they could control the informational environment, but in actual fact everything that happened was governed by the same kind of biological laws which determine how fish in the ocean decide which way they should swim. It wasn’t people who were drawing up the picture of the world, but the picture of the world that was constructing itself through them. It was pointless to look for guilty parties.’

  ‘Why did wars start?’ asked Grim.

  ‘They started when the informancers of one clan or another declared that someone else’s reality was pernicious. They showed themselves movies about other people, and then pretended that those were news, worked themselves up into a frenzy and then started bombing those others.’

  ‘And did people believe the news?’

  ‘Belief has nothing to do with it. The picture that was created by the informancers became the truth not because people believed in it, but because it wasn’t safe to think any other way. What people were expecting from information wasn’t the truth, but a roof over their head. The surest way was to join the most powerful tribe, after learning to see the same visions as its informancers saw. Things were just calmer that way. Even if a man nominally lived under the authority of a different clan.’

  ‘But could someone be punished because he put his trust in different people?’

  ‘No one could punish a person for seeing the same thing as the masters of the world. That would have signified the beginning of the struggle against them. But gradually the masters of the world lost their power, and their truth started disintegrating into bits and pixels.’

  Grim remembered the huge face of the new Urkagan above the market.

  ‘Lost their power?’ he asked. ‘But where does the power lie, discoursemonger? Whencer da strengser cømer, brü?’

  The man giggled in anguish, and Grim guessed that he had also seen the poster of Torn Trojan – although where and when was a mystery.

  ‘Power always lies in power. And nowhere else. In the Ancient Films they used to say “power is where the truth is”. And that’s the way it is, they always come together. But not because the power goes to where the truth is. It’s the truth that crawls over to where the power is. When people try to understand where the truth is, they’re really trying to figure out on the sly where the power is now. And when power departs, all at once everybody notices that the truth has departed. A man feels with his heart, not his mind. And what the heart wants above all is to survive.’

  ‘How can the truth depart?’ asked Grim. ‘Two times two is four. That’s always right, no matter if you have any power or not.’

  ‘The only reason two times two is four is because they thrashed you long and hard when you were a child,’ said the discoursemonger. ‘And also because four is temporarily called “four” and not “five”. When the last Neanderthals were being polished off, they didn’t have any truth left, although they’d had it for millions of years before. The truth is where life is. And where there is no life, there is neither truth nor lies.’

  ‘But you can’t go brainwashing like that—’ Grim started to say.

  ‘The history of mankind,’ the discoursemonger interrupted, ‘is the history of mass disinformation. And not because human beings are stupid and easily deceived. Human beings are intelligent and perceptive. But they gladly believe in the most abominable lies, if someone will set them up with a good life as a result. This is called the “social contract”. No brainwashing is required – a civilised person’s brains are always as clean as a toilet bowl in a theatre.’

  ‘I can’t argue with you there,’ Grim sighed. ‘And what happened when the masters of the world lost their power?’

  ‘When the social contract ceased to function, the news fell into decline first. People stopped believing in it, because it didn’t guarantee a full stomach any longer. Then arts fell into decline. The movies stopped inducing “total immersion” and “empathy”.’

  ‘Explain,’ Grim demanded.

  ‘The ancient books said that in order to fall under the power of the movies a person had to take a step towards them, he or she had to perform an act which in Church English is called “suspending disbelief”, that is, “setting aside one’s scepticism”. The viewer, as it were, agreed: “For the time being I will believe that this is really happening, and you will take me on a thrilling and incredible journey.” As long as the magicians of antiquity had power, it all worked. But later the social contract lost its power in this too.’

  ‘Why? Did people forget how to set aside their scepticism?’

  ‘No. Another problem appeared. As they were watching movies, it became harder and harder for them to “suspend belief” in the sense of “setting aside their certainty”. They couldn’t even forget temporarily that all films really told one and the same story – about a gang of entrepreneurs trying to transform the thirty million they’ve been lent by the loan sharks into three hundred million, by dunking the money in the viewers’ consciousness. This essential truth showed right through all the costumes and plots, all the psychological and technical gimmickry of the magicians of antiquity and all the reviews that they sponsored, and in the end it completely displaced all the other meanings. But it didn’t happen because the films changed. Life changed. The central character in the movies – the solitary hero cutting across the screen in pursuit of a sackful of manitou – ceased to express the viewer’s dream, for that dream became unattainable. He became no more than a caricature of his own creators. The movies still brought in money, but they stopped influencing hearts and souls. Exactly the same happened to the news.’

  ‘And what happened after that?’

  ‘The movies and the news used to bind mankind together. When they fell into decline the informancers of the minor clans were exultant. They thought they would be able to create reality for themselves. But soon several incompatible versions of this reality appeared in the world – from Aztlan, the Caliphate, the Warring Kingdoms, Eureich, Siberia and others. Now every clan had its own news, which was more like movies, and everyone made movies that were more like news. Not one of the realities was shared by everyone. Good and evil started swapping places at a snap of the fingers or a puff of wind. And a great war of annihilation could no longer be prevented …’

  ‘And how many people were killed?’

  The man just chuckled.

  ‘It’s easier to count up the ones who survived. Very few, and mostly in the offglobes. But people would never forget what they’d learned – that wars start when the movies and the news swap places. And the survivors decided to combine them into a single whole, so that no swapping over would ever occur again. People decided to create “movinews” – a universal actuality that would run like a unifying thread through reality and fantasy, arts and information. This new actuality had to be stable and permanent. As genuine as life and so unambiguous that no one would be able to stand it on its head. It had to be a fusion of the two main energies of human existence, love and death – presented as they are in actual fact. That was how snuffs appeared – and the post-informational age, in which we live, began.’