"It'd never work," she said. "We're basically incompatible. When I'm 5' 4" you'll still only be 3' 9". Anyway, I'm old enough to be your mother."
"You can't be. My mother's nearly 300, and she's got a better beard than you."
And of course that was another point. By dwarf standards, Nanny Ogg was hardly more than a teenager.
"La, sir," she said, giving him a playful tap that made his ears ring, "you do know how to turn a simple country girl's head and no mistake!"
Casanunda picked himself up and adjusted his wig happily
"I like a girl with spirit," he said. "How about you and me having a little tete-a-tete when this is over?"
Nanny Ogg's face went blank. Her cosmopolitan grip of language had momentarily let her down.
"Excuse me a minute," she said. She put her drink down on his head and pushed through the crowd until she found a likely looking duchess, and prodded her in the bustle regions.
"Hey, your grace, what's a tater tate?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"A tater tate? Do you do it with your clothes on or what?"
"It means an intimate meeting, my good woman."
"Is that all? Oh. Ta."
Nanny Ogg elbowed her way back to the vibrating dwarf.
"You're on," she said.
"I thought we could have a little private dinner, just you and me," said Casanunda. "In one of the taverns?"
Never, in a long history of romance, had Nanny Ogg ever been taken out for an intimate dinner. Her courtships had been more noted for their quantity than their quality.
"OK," was all she could think of to say.
"Dodge your chaperone and meet me at six o'clock?"
Nanny Ogg glanced at Granny Weatherwax, who was watching them disapprovingly from a distance.
"She's not my-" she began.
Then it dawned on her that Casanunda couldn't possibly have really thought that Granny Weatherwax was chaperoning her.
Compliments and flattery had also been very minor components in the machinery of Nanny Ogg's courtships.
"Yes, all right," she said.
"And now I shall circulate, so that people don't talk and ruin your reputation," said Casanunda, bowing and kissing Nanny Ogg's hand.
Her mouth dropped open. No one had ever kissed her hand before, either, and certainly no one had ever worried about her reputation, least of all Nanny Ogg.
As the world's second greatest lover bustled off to accost a countess. Granny Weatherwax — who had been watching from a discreet distance[31] — said, in an amiable voice: "You haven't got the morals of a cat, Gytha Ogg."
"Now, Esme, you know that's not true."
"All right. You have got the morals of a cat, then."
"That's better."
Nanny Ogg patted her mass of white curls and wondered if she had time to go home and put her corsets on.
"We must stay on our guard, Gytha."
"Yes, yes."
"Can't let other considerations turn our heads."
"No, no."
"You're not listening to a word I say, are you?"
"What?"
"You could at least find out why Magrat isn't down here."
"All right."
Nanny Ogg wandered off, dreamily.
Granny Weatherwax turned—
—there should have been violins. The murmur of the crowd should have faded away, and the crowd itself should have parted in a quite natural movement to leave an empty path between her and Ridcully
There should have been violins. There should have been something.
There shouldn't have been the Librarian accidentally knuckling her on the toe on his way to the buffet, but this, in fact, there was.
She hardly noticed.
"Esme?" said Ridcully
"Mustrum?" said Granny Weatherwax.
Nanny Ogg bustled up.
"Esme, I saw Millie Chillum and she said-"
Granny Weatherwax's vicious elbow jab winded her. Nanny took in the scene.
"Ah," she said, "I'll just, I'll just. . . I'll just go away, then."
The gazes locked again.
The Librarian knuckled past again with an entire display of fruit.
Granny Weatherwax paid him no heed.
The Bursar, who was currently on the median point of his cycle, tapped Ridcully on the shoulder.
"I say, Archchancellor, these quails' eggs are amazingly go-"
"DROP DEAD. Mr. Stibbons, fish out the frog pills and keep knives away from him, please."
The gazes locked again.
"Well, well," said Granny, after a year or so.
"This must be some enchanted evening," said Ridcully.
"Yes. That's what I'm afraid of."
"That really is you, isn't it?"
"It's really me," said Granny
"You haven't changed a bit, Esme."
"Nor have you, then. You're still a rotten liar, Mustrum Ridcully"
They walked toward one another. The Librarian shuttled between them with a tray of meringues. Behind them, Ponder Stibbons grovelled on the floor for a spilled bottle of dried frog pills.
"Well, well," said Ridcully.
"Fancy that."
"Small world."
"Yes indeed."
"You're you and I'm me. Amazing. And it's here and now."
"Yes, but then was then."
"I sent you a lot of letters," said Ridcully
"Never got 'em."
There was a glint in Ridcully's eye.
"That's odd. And there was me putting all those destination spells on them too," he said. He gave her a critical up-and-down glance. "How much do you weigh, Esme? Not a spare ounce on you, I'll be bound."
"What do you want to know for?"
"Indulge an old man."
"Nine stones, then."
"Hmm . . . should be about right . . . three miles hubward . . . you'll feel a slight lurch to the left, nothing to worry about. . ."
In a lightning movement, he grabbed her hand. He felt young and light-headed. The wizards back at the University would have been astonished.
"Let me take you away from all this."
He snapped his fingers.
There has to be at least an approximate conservation of mass. It's a fundamental magical rule. If something is moved from A to B, something that was at B has got to find itself at A.
And then there's momentum. Slow as the disc spins, various points of its radii are moving at different speeds relative to the Hub, and a wizard projecting himself any distance toward the Rim had better be prepared to land jogging.
The three miles to Lancre Bridge merely involved a faint tug, which Ridcully had been ready for, and he landed up leaning against the parapet with Esme Weatherwax in his arms.
The customs troll who had until a fraction of a second previously been sitting there ended up lying full length on the floor of the Great Hall, coincidentally on top of the Bursar.
Granny Weatherwax looked over at the rushing water, and then at Ridcully.
"Take me back this instant," she said. "You've got no right to do that."
"Dear me, I seem to have run out of power. Can't understand it, very embarrassing, fingers gone all limp," said Ridcully. "Of course, we could walk. It's a lovely evening. You always did get lovely evenings here."
"It was all fifty or sixty years ago!" said Granny. "You can't suddenly turn up and say all those years haven't happened."
"Oh, I know they've happened all right," said Ridcully. "I'm the head wizard now. I've only got to give an order and a thousand wizards will. . . uh . . . disobey, come to think of it, or say 'What?', or start to argue. But they have to take notice."
"I've been to that University a few times," said Granny. "A bunch of fat old men in beards."
"That's right! That's them!"
"A lot of 'em come from the Ramtops," said Granny. "I knew a few boys from Lancre who became wizards."
"Very magical area," Ridcully agreed. "Something in the air."
Below them, the cold black waters raced, always dancing to gravity, never flowing uphill.
"There was even a Weatherwax as Archchancellor, years ago," said Ridcully.
"So I understand. Distant cousin. Never knew him," said Granny.
They both stared down at the river for a moment. Occasionally a twig or a branch would whirl along in the current.
"Do you remember-"
"I have a . . . very good memory, thank you."
"Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if
you'd said yes?" said Ridcully.
"No."
"I suppose we'd have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing . . ."
Granny shrugged. It was the sort of thing romantic idiots said. But there was something in the air tonight. . .
"What about the fire?" she said.
"What fire?"
"Swept through our house just after we were married.
Killed us both."
"What fire? I don't know anything about any fire?"
Granny turned around.
"Of course not! It didn't happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can't say 'if this didn't happen then that would have happened' because you don't know everything that might have happened. You might think something'd be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can't say 'If only I'd . . . ' because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you'll never know. You've gone past. So there's no use thinking about it.
So I don't."
"The Trousers of Time," said Ridcully, moodily. He picked a fragment off the crumbling stonework and dropped it into the water. It went plunk, as is so often the case.
"What?"
"That's the sort of thing they go on about in the High Energy Magic building. And they call themselves wizards! You should hear them talk. The buggers wouldn't know a magic sword if it bit them on the knee. That's young wizards today. Think they bloody invented magic."
"Yes? You should see the girls that want to be witches these days," said Granny Weatherwax. "Velvet hats and black lipstick and lacy gloves with no fingers to 'em. Cheeky, too."
They were side by side now, watching the river.
"Trousers of Time," said Ridcully. "One of you goes down one leg, one of you goes down the other. And there's all these continuinuinuums all over the place. When I was a lad there was just one decent universe and this was it, and all you had to worry about was creatures breaking through from the Dungeon Dimensions, but at least there was this actual damn universe and you knew where you stood. Now it turns out there's millions of the damn things. And there's this damn cat they've discovered that you can put in a box and it's dead and alive at the same time. Or something. And they all run around saying marvellous, marvellous, hooray, here comes another quantum. Ask 'em to do a decent levitation spell and they look at you as if you've started to dribble. You should hear young Stibbons talk. Went on about me not inviting me to my own wedding. Me!"
From the side of the gorge a kingfisher flashed, hit the water with barely a ripple, and ricocheted away with something silver and wriggly in its beak.
"Kept going on about everything happening at the same time," Ridcully went on morosely. "Like there's no such thing as a choice. You just decide which leg you're heading for. He says that we did get married, see. He says all the things that might have been have to be. So there's thousands of me out there who never became a wizard, just like there's thousands of you who, oh, answered letters. Hah! To them, we're something that might have been. Now, d'you call that proper thinking for a growing lad? When I started wizarding, old 'Tudgy' Spold was Archchancellor, and if any young wizard'd even mentioned that sort of daft thing, he'd feel a staff across his backside. Hah!"
Somewhere far below, a frog plopped off a stone. "Mind you, I suppose we've all passed a lot of water since then."
It dawned gently on Ridcully that the dialogue had become a monologue. He turned to Granny, who was staring round-eyed at the river as if she'd never seen water before.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she said.
"I beg your pardon? I was only-"
"Not you. I wasn't talking to you. Stupid! I've been stupid. But I ain't been daft! Hah! And I thought it was my memory going! And it was, too. It was going and fetching!"
"What?"
"I was getting scared! Me! And not thinking clear!
Except I was thinking clear!"
"What!"
"Never mind! Well, I won't say this hasn't been . . . nice," said Granny. "But I've got to get back. Do the thing with the fingers again. And hurry."
Ridcully deflated a little.
"Can't," he said.
"You did it just now."
"That's the point. I wasn't joking when I said I couldn't do it again. It takes a lot out of you, transmigration."
"You used to be able to do it all the time, as I recall," said Granny. She risked a smile. "Our feet hardly touched the ground."
"I was younger then. Now, once is enough." Granny's boots creaked as she turned and started to walk quickly back toward the town. Ridcully lumbered after her.
"What's the hurry?"
"Got important things to do," said Granny, without turning around. "Been letting everyone down."
"Some people might say this is important."
"No. It's just personal. Personal's not the same as important. People just think it is."
"You're doing it again!"
"What?"
"I don't know what the other future would have been like," said Ridcully, "but I for one would have liked to give it a try."
Granny paused. Her mind was crackling with relief. Should she tell him about the memories? She opened her mouth to do so, and then thought again. No. He'd get soppy.
"I'd have been crabby and bad-tempered," she said, instead.
"That goes without saying."
"Hah! And what about you? I'd have put up with all your womanizing and drunkenness, would I?"
Ridcully looked bewildered.
"What womanizing?"
"We're talking about what might have been."
"But I'm a wizard! We hardly ever womanize. There's laws about it. Well. . . rules. Guidelines, anyway."
"But you wouldn't have been a wizard then."
"And I'm hardly ever drunk."
"You would have been if you'd been wedded to me."
He caught up with her.
"Even young Ponder doesn't think like this," he said. "You've made up your mind that it would have been dreadful, have you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Why'd you think?"
"I asked you!"
"I'm too busy for this," said Granny. "Like I said, personal ain't the same as important. Make yourself useful, Mr. Wizard. You know it's circle time, don't you?"
Ridcully's hand touched the brim of his hat.
"Oh, yes."
"And you know what that means?"
"They tell me it means that the walls between realities get weaker. The circles are . . . what's the word Stibbons uses? Isoresons. They connect levels of, oh, something daft . . . similar levels of reality. Which is bloody stupid. You'd be able to walk from one universe to another."
"Ever tried it?"
"No!"
"A circle is a door half open. It doesn't need much to open it up all the way. Even belief'll do it. That's why they put the Dancers up, years ago. We got the dwarfs to do it. Thunderbolt iron, those stones. There's something special about 'em. They've got the love of iron. Don't ask me how it works. Elves hate it even more than ordinary iron. It . . . upsets their senses, or something. But minds can get through. . ."
"Elves? Everyone knows elves don't exist anymore. Not proper elves. I mean, there's a few folk who say they're elves-"
"Oh, yeah. Elvish ancestry. Elves and humans breed all right, as if that's anything to be proud of. But you just get a race o'skinny types with pointy ears and a tendency to giggle and burn easily
in sunshine. I ain't talking about them. There's no harm in them. I'm talking about real wild elves, what we ain't seen here for-"
The road from the bridge to the town curved between high banks, with the forest crowding in on either side and in places even meeting overhead. Thick ferns, already curling like green breakers, lined the clay banks.
They rustled.
The unicorn leapt on the road.
Thousands of universes, twisting together like a rope being plaited from threads . . .
There's bound to be leakages, a sort of mental equivalent of the channel breakthrough on a cheap hi-fi that gets you the news in Swedish during quiet bits in the music. Especially if you've spent your life using your mind as a receiver.
Picking up the thoughts of another human being is very hard, because no two minds are on the same, er, wavelength.
But somewhere out there, at the point where the parallel universes tangle, are a million minds just like yours. For a very obvious reason.
Granny Weatherwax smiled.
Millie Chillum and the king and one or two hangers-on were clustered around the door to Magrat's room when Nanny Ogg arrived.
"What's happening?"
"I know she's in there," said Verence, holding his crown in his hands in the famous At'-Senor-Mexican-Bandits-Have-Raided-Our-Village position. "Millie heard her shout go away and I think she threw something at the door."
Nanny Ogg nodded sagely.
"Wedding nerves," she said. "Bound to happen."
"But we're all going to attend the Entertainment," said Verence. "She really ought to attend the Entertainment."
"Well, I dunno," said Nanny. "Seeing our Jason and the rest of 'em prancing about in straw wigs . . . I mean, they mean well, but it's not something a young — a fairly young — girl has to see on the night before her nuptials. You asked her to unlock the door?"
"I did better than that," said Verence. "I instructed her to. That was right, wasn't it? If even Magrat won't obey me, I'm a poor lookout as king."
"Ah," said Nanny, after a moment's slow consideration. "You've not entirely spent a lot of time in female company, have you? In a generalized sort of way?"
"Well, I-"
The crown spun in Verence's nervous fingers. Not only had the bandits invaded the village, but the Magnificent Seven had decided to go bowling instead.
"Tell you what," said Nanny, patting him on the back,
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