Wyrd Sisters tds-6

by Terry David John Pratchett

  Mistress, said the vision of Nanny Ogg, and made a brief gesture involving much grinning and waving of forearms.

  'We shall have to see,' she said.

  It was destined to be the most impressive kiss in the history of foreplay.

  Time, as Granny Weatherwax had pointed out, is a subjective experience. The Fool's years in the Guild had been an eternity whereas the hours with Magrat on the hilltop passed like a couple of minutes. And, high above Lancre, a double handful of seconds extended like taffy into hours of screaming terror.

  'Ice!' screamed Granny. 'It's iced up!'

  Nanny Ogg came alongside, trying vainly to match courses with the tumbling, bucking broomstick. Octarine fire crackled over the frozen bristles, shorting them out at random. She leaned over and snatched a handful of Granny's skirt.

  'I tole you it was daft!' she shouted. 'You went all through all that wet mist and then up into the cold air, you daft besom!'

  'You let go of my skirt, Gytha Ogg!'

  'Come on, grab hold o'mine. You're on fire at the back there!'

  They shot through the bottom of the cloud bank and screamed in unison as the shrub-covered ground emerged from nowhere and aimed itself directly at them.

  And went past.

  Nanny looked down a black perspective at the bottom of which a boil of white water was dimly visible. They had flown over the edge of Lancre Gorge.

  Blue smoke was pouring out of Granny's broomstick but she hung on, determined, and forced it around.

  'What the hell you doing?' roared Nanny.

  'I can follow the river,' Granny Weatherwax screamed, above the crackle of flames. 'Don't you worry!'

  'You come aboard, d'you hear? It's all over, you can't do it . . .'

  There was a small explosion behind Granny and several handfuls of burning bristles broke off and whirled away into the booming depths of the gorge. Her stick jerked sideways and Nanny grabbed her around the shoulders as a gout of fire snapped another binding.

  The blazing broomstick shot from between her legs, twisted in the air, and went straight upwards, trailing sparks and making a noise like a wet finger dragged around the top of a wineglass.

  This left Nanny flying upside down, supporting Granny Weatherwax at arm's length. They stared into one another's face and screamed.

  'I can't pull you up!'

  'Well, I can't climb up, can I? Act your age, Gytha!'

  Nanny considered this. Then she let go.

  Three marriages and an adventurous girlhood had left Nanny Ogg with thigh muscles that could crack coconuts, and the G-forces sucked at her as she forced the speeding stick down and around in a tight loop.

  Ahead of her she made out Granny Weatherwax dropping like a stone, one hand clutching her hat, the other trying to prevent gravity from seeing up her skirts. She urged the stick forwards until it creaked, snatched the falling witch around the waist, fought the plunging stick back up to level flight, and sagged.

  The subsequent silence was broken by Granny Weatherwax saying, 'Don't you ever do that again, Gytha Ogg.'

  'I promise.'

  'Now turn us around. We're heading for Lancre Bridge, remember?'

  Nanny obediently turned the broomstick, brushing the canyon walls as she did so.

  'It's still miles to go,' she said.

  'I mean to do it,' said Granny. 'There's plenty of night left.'

  'Not enough, I'm thinking.'

  'A witch doesn't know the meaning of the word "failure". Gytha.'

  They shot up into the clear air again. The horizon was a line of golden light as the slow dawn of the Disc sped across the land, bulldozing the suburbs of the night.

  'Esme?' said Nanny Ogg, after a while.

  'What?'

  'It means "lack of success".'

  They flew in chilly silence for several seconds.

  'I was speaking wossname. Figuratively,' said Granny.

  'Oh. Well. You should of said.'

  The line of light was bigger, brighter. For the first time a flicker of doubt invaded Granny Weatherwax's mind, puzzled to find itself in such unfamiliar surroundings.

  'I wonder how many cockerels there are in Lancre?' she said quietly.

  'Was that one of them wossname questions?'

  'I was just wondering.'

  Nanny Ogg sat back. There were thirty-two of crowing age, she knew. She knew because she'd worked it out last night – tonight - and had given Jason his instructions. She had fifteen grown-up children and innumerable grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and they'd had most of the evening to get into position. It should be enough.

  'Did you hear that?' said Granny. 'Over Razorback way?'

  Nanny looked innocently across the misty landscape. Sound travelled very clearly in these early hours.

  'What?' she said.

  'Sort of an "urk" noise?'

  'No.'

  Granny spun around.

  'Over there,' she said. 'I definitely heard it this time. Something like "cock-a-doo-arrgh".'

  'Can't say I did, Esme,' said Nanny, smiling at the sky. 'Lancre Bridge up ahead.'

  'And over there! Right down there! It was a definite squawk!'

  'Dawn chorus, Esme, I expect. Look, only half a mile to go.'

  Granny glared at the back of her colleague's head.

  'There's something going on here,' she said.

  'Search me, Esme.'

  'Your shoulders are shaking!'

  'Lost my shawl back there. I'm a bit chilly. Look, we're nearly there.'

  Granny glared ahead, her mind a maze of suspicions. She was going to get to the bottom of this. When she had time.

  The damp logs of Lancre's main link to the outside world drifted gently underneath them. From the chicken farm half a mile away came a chorus of strangled squawks and a thud.

  'And that? What was that, then?' demanded Granny.

  'Fowl pest. Careful, I'm bringing us down.'

  'Are you laughing at me?'

  'Just pleased for you, Esme. You'll go down in history for this, you know.'

  They drifted between the timbers of the bridge. Granny Weatherwax alighted cautiously on the greasy planking and adjusted her dress.

  'Yes. Well,' she added, nonchalantly.

  'Better than Black Aliss, everyone'll say,' Nanny Ogg went on.

  'Some people will say anything,' said Granny. She peered over the parapet at the foaming torrent far below, and then up at the distant outcrop on which stood Lancre Castle.

  'Do you think they will?' she added, nonchalantly.

  'Mark my words.'

  'Hmm.'

  'But you've got to complete the spell, mind.'

  Granny Weatherwax nodded. She turned to face the dawn, raised her arms, and completed the spell.

  It is almost impossible to convey the sudden passage of fifteen years and two months in words.

  It's a lot easier in pictures, when you just use a calendar with lots of pages blowing off, or a clock with hands moving faster and faster until they blur, or trees bursting into blossom and fruiting in a matter of seconds . . .

  Well, you know. Or the sun becomes a fiery streak across the sky, and days and nights flicker past jerkily like a bad zoetrope, and the fashions visible in the clothes shop across the road whip on and off faster than a lunchtime stripper with five pubs to do.

  There are any amount of ways, but they won't be required because, in fact, none of this happened.

  The sun did jerk sideways a bit, and it seemed that the trees on the rimward side of the gorge were rather taller, and Nanny couldn't shake off the sensation that someone had just sat down heavily on her, squashed her flat, and then opened her out again.

  This was because the kingdom did not, in so many words, move through time in the normal flickering sky, high-speed photography sense of the word. It moved around it, which is much cleaner, considerably easier to achieve, and saves all that travelling around trying to find a laboratory opposite a dress shop that will keep the same dummy
in the window for sixty years, which has traditionally been the most time-consuming and expensive bit of the whole business.

  The kiss lasted more than fifteen years.

  Not even frogs can manage that.

  The Fool drew back, his eyes glazed, his expression one of puzzlement.

  'Did you feel the world move?' he said.

  Magrat peered over his shoulder at the forest.

  'I think she's done it,' she said.

  'Done what?'

  Magrat hesitated. 'Oh. Nothing. Nothing much, really.'

  'Shall we have another try? I don't think we got it quite right that time.'

  Magrat nodded.

  This time it lasted only fifteen seconds. It seemed longer.

  A tremor ran through the castle, shaking the breakfast tray from which the Duke Felmet, much to his relief, was eating porridge that wasn't too salty.

  It was felt by the ghosts that now filled Nanny Ogg's cottage like a rugby team in a telephone box.

  It spread to every henhouse in the kingdom, and a number of hands relaxed their grip. And thirty-two purple-faced cockerels took a deep bream and crowed like maniacs, but they were too late, too late ...

  'I still reckon you were up to something,' said Granny Weatherwax.

  'Have another cup of tea,' said Nanny pleasantly.

  'You won't go and put any drink in it, will you,' Granny said flatly. 'It was the drink what did it last night. I would never have put myself forward like that. It's shameful.'

  'Black Aliss never done anything like it,' said Nanny, encouragingly. 'I mean, it was a hundred years, all right, but it was only one castle she moved. I reckon anyone could do a castle.'

  Granny's frown puckered at the edge.

  'And she let all weeds grow over it,' she observed primly.

  'Right enough.'

  'Very well done,' said King Verence, eagerly. 'We all thought it was superb. Being in the ethereal plane, of course, we were in a position to observe closely.'

  'Very good, your graciousness,' said Nanny Ogg. She turned and observed the crowding ghosts behind him, who hadn't been granted the privilege of sitting at, or partly through, the kitchen table.

  'But you lot can bugger off back to the outhouse,' she said. 'The cheek! Except the kiddies, they can stay,' she added. 'Poor little mites.'

  'I am afraid it feels so good to be out of the castle,' said the king.

  Granny Weatherwax yawned.

  'Anyway,' she said, 'we've got to find the boy now. That's the next step.'

  'We shall look for him directly after lunch.'

  'Lunch?'

  'It's chicken,' said Nanny. 'And you're tired. Besides, making a decent search will take a long time.'

  'He'll be in Ankh-Morpork,' said Granny. 'Mark my words. Everyone ends up there. We'll start with Ankh-Morpork. You don't have to search for people when destiny is involved, you just wait for them in Ankh-Morpork.'

  Nanny brightened up. 'Our Karen got married to an innkeeper from there,' she said. 'I haven't seen the baby yet. We could get free board and everything.'

  'We needn't actually go. The whole point is that he should come here. There's something about that city,' said Granny. 'It's like a drain.'

  'It's five hundred miles away!' said Magrat. 'You'll be away for ages!'

  'I can't help it,' said the Fool. 'The duke's given me special instructions. He trusts me.'

  'Huh! To hire more soldiers, I expect?'

  'No. Nothing like that. Not as bad as that.' The Fool hesitated. He'd introduced Felmet to the world of words. Surely that was better than hitting people with swords? Wouldn't that buy time? Wouldn't it be best for everybody, in the circumstances?

  'But you don't have to go! You don't want to go!'

  'That doesn't have much to do with it. I promised to be loyal to him—'

  'Yes, yes, until you're dead. But you don't even believe that! You were telling me how much you hated the whole Guild and everything!'

  'Well, yes. But I still have to do it. I gave my word.'

  Magrat came close to stamping her foot, but didn't sink so low.

  'Just when we were getting to know one another!' she shouted. 'You're pathetic!'

  The Fool's eyes narrowed. 'I'd only be pathetic if I broke my word,' he said. 'But I may be incredibly ill-advised. I'm sorry. I'll be back in a few weeks, anyway.'

  'Don't you understand I'm asking you not to listen to him?'

  'I said I'm sorry. I couldn't see you again before I go, could I?'

  'I shall be washing my hair,' said Magrat stiffly.

  'When?'

  'Whenever!'

  Hwel pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted wearily at the wax-spattered paper.

  The play wasn't going at all well.

  He'd sorted out the falling chandelier, and found a place for a villain who wore a mask to conceal his disfigurement, and he'd rewritten one of the funny bits to allow for the fact that the hero had been born in a handbag. It was the clowns who were giving him trouble again. They kept changing every time he thought about them. He preferred them in twos, that was traditional, but now there seemed to be a third one, and he was blowed if he could think of any funny lines for him.

  His quill moved scratchily over the latest sheet of paper, trying to catch the voices that had streamed through his dreaming mind and had seemed so funny at the time.

  His tongue began to stick out of the corner of his mouth. He was sweating.

  This iss My Little Study, he wrote. Hey, with a Little Study youe could goe a Long Way. And I wishe youed start now. Iffe You can't leave yn a Cab then leave yn a Huff. Iffthates too soone, thenn leave yn a minute and a Huff. Say, have you Gott a Pensil? A crayon?—

  Hwel stared at this in horror. On the page it looked nonsensical, ridiculous. And yet, and yet, in the thronged auditorium of his mind . . .

  He dipped the quill in the inkpot, and chased the echoes further.

  Seconde Clown: Atsa right, Boss.

  Third Clowne: [businesse with bladder on stick] Honk. Honk.

  Hwel gave up. Yes, it was funny, he knew it was funny, he'd heard the laughter in his dreams. But it wasn't right. Not yet. Maybe never. It was like the other idea about the two clowns, one fat, one thin . . . Thys ys amain Dainty Messe youe have got me into, Stanleigh . . . He had laughed until his chest ached, and the rest of the company had looked at him in astonishment. But in his dreams it was hilarious.

  He laid down the pen and rubbed his eyes. It must be nearly midnight, and the habit of a lifetime told him to spare the candles although, for a fact, they could afford all the candles they could eat now, whatever Vitoller might say.

  Hour gongs were being struck all across the city and nightwatchmen were proclaiming that it was indeed midnight and also that, in the face of all the evidence, all was well. Many of them got as far as the end of the sentence before being mugged.

  Hwel pushed open the shutters and looked out at Ankh-Morpork.

  It would be tempting to say the twin city was at its best this time of year, but that wouldn't be entirely correct. It was at its most typical.

  The river Ankh, the cloaca of half a continent, was already pretty wide and silt laden when it reached the city's outskirts. By the time it left it didn't so much flow as exude. Owing to the accretion of the mud of centuries the bed of the river was in fact higher than some of the low lying areas and now, with the snow melt swelling the flow, many of the low-rent districts on the Morpork side were flooded, if you can use that word for a liquid you could pick up in a net. This sort of thing happened every year and would have caused havoc with the drains and sewage systems, so it is just as well that the city didn't have very many. Its inhabitants merely kept a punt handy in the back yard and, periodically, built another storey on the house.

  It was reckoned to be very healthy there. Very few germs were able to survive.

  Hwel looked across a sort of misty sea in which buildings clustered like a sandcastle competition at high tide. Flares
and lighted windows made pleasing patterns on the iridescent surface, but there was one glare of light, much closer to hand, which particularly occupied his attention.

  On a patch of slightly higher ground by the river, bought by Vitoller for a ruinous sum, a new building was rising. It was growing even by night, like a mushroom – Hwel could see the cressets burning all along the scaffolding as the hired craftsmen and even some of the players themselves refused to let the mere shade of the sky interrupt their labours.

  New buildings were rare in Morpork, but this was even a new type of building.

  The Dysk.

  Vitoller had been aghast at the idea at first, but young Tomjon had kept at him. And everyone knew that once the lad had got the feel of it he could persuade water to flow uphill.

  'But we've always moved around, laddie,' said Vitoller, in the desperate voice of one who knows that, at the end of it all, he's going to lose the argument. 'I can't go around settling down at my time of life.'

  'It's not doing you any good,' said Tomjon firmly. 'All these cold nights and frosty mornings. You're not getting any younger. We should stay put somewhere, and let people come to us. And they will, too. You know the crowds we're getting now. Hwel's plays are famous.'

  'It's not my plays,' Hwel had said. 'It's the players.'

  'I can't see me sitting by a fire in a stuffy room and sleeping on feather beds and all that nonsense,' said Vitoller, but he'd seen the look on his wife's face and had given in.

  And then there had been the theatre itself. Making water run uphill was a parlour trick compared to getting the cash out of Vitoller but, it was a fact, they had been doing well these days. Ever since Tomjon had been big enough to wear a ruff and say two words without his voice cracking.

  Hwel and Vitoller had watched the first few beams of the wooden framework go up.

  'It's against nature,' Vitoller had complained, leaning on his stick. 'Capturing the spirit of the theatre, putting it in a cage. It'll kill it.'

  'Oh, I don't know,' said Hwel diffidently. Tomjon had laid his plans well, he'd devoted an entire evening to Hwel before even broaching the subject to his father, and now the dwarfs mind was on fire with the possibilities of backdrops and scenery changes and wings and flies and magnificent engines that could lower gods from the heavens and trapdoors that could raise demons from hell. Hwel was no more capable of objecting to the new theatre than a monkey was of resenting a banana plantation.