“Yes. Nanny wouldn’t tell me much about what was in it.”
Magrat opened up her hands like an angler measuring a medium-sized fish.
“The polished wooden box? About this size?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen it. Nanny seemed to think it was important. She didn’t say what was in it,” Agnes repeated, just in case Magrat hadn’t got the hint.
Magrat clasped her hands together and looked down, biting her knuckles. When she looked up her face was set with purpose. She pointed at Oats.
“
You
find a bag or something and empty into it all the stuff in the top drawer over there, and take the potty, and the little truck, oh, and the stuffed animals, and the bag of nappies, and the bag for
used
nappies, and the bath, and the bag with the towels, and the box of toys, and the wind-up things, and the musical box, and the bag with the little suits, oh, and the woolly hat, and
you
, Agnes, find something we can make into a sling. You came up the back stairs? We’ll go down the same way.”
“What do we need a sling for?”
Magrat leaned over the crib and picked up the baby, wrapped in a blanket.
“I’m not going to leave her here, am I?” she said.
There was a clatter from the direction of Mightily Oats. He already had both arms full, and a large stuffed rabbit in his teeth.
“Do we need all of that?” said Agnes.
“You never know,” said Magrat.
“Even the box of toys?”
“Verence thinks she might be an early developer,” said Magrat.
“She’s a couple of weeks old!”
“Yes, but stimulus at an early age is vital to the development of the growing brain,” said Magrat, laying baby Esme on the table and shuffling her into a romper suit. “Also, we have to get on top of her hand–eye coordination as soon as possible. It’s no good just letting things slide. Oh yes…If you can bring the little slide, too. And the yellow rubber duck. And the sponge in the shape of a teddy bear. And the teddy bear in the shape of a sponge.”
There was another crash from the mound around Oats.
“Why’s the box so important?” said Agnes.
“Not
important
as such,” said Magrat. She looked over her shoulder. “Oh, and put in that rag doll, will you? I’m sure she’s focusing on it. Oh blast…the red bag has got the medicines in it, thank you…What was it you asked me?”
“Granny’s box,” Agnes hinted.
“Oh, it’s…just important to her.”
“It’s magical?”
“What? Oh no. No as far as I know. But everything in it belongs to her, you see. Not to the cottage,” said Magrat, picking up her daughter. “Who’s a good girl, then? You are!” She looked around. “Have we forgotten anything?”
Oats spat out the rabbit. “Possibly the ceiling,” he said.
“Then let’s go.”
Magpies flocked around the castle tower. Most magpie rhymes peter out at around ten or twelve, but here were hundreds of birds, enough to satisfy any possible prediction. There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones the magpies know themselves.
The Count sat in the darkness below, listening to their minds. Images flashed behind his eyes. This was the way to run a country, he reflected. Human minds were so hard to read, unless they were so close that you could
see
the words just hovering below actual vocalization. But the birds could get everywhere, see every worker in the fields and hunter in the forest. They were good listeners, too. Much better than bats or rats. Once again, tradition was overturned.
No sign of Granny, though. Some trick, perhaps. It didn’t matter. Eventually she’d find
him
. She wouldn’t hide for long. It wasn’t in her nature. Weatherwaxes would always stand and fight, even when they knew they would be beaten. So predictable.
Several of the birds had seen a busy little figure trudging across the kingdom, leading a donkey laden with falconry gear. The Count had taken a look at Hodgesaargh, found a mind crammed end to end with hawks, and dismissed him. He and his silly birds would have to go eventually, of course, because he made the magpies nervous. He made a note to mention this to the guards.
“Ooaauooow!”
…but there was probably no combination of vowels that could do justice to the cry Nanny Ogg made on seeing a young baby. It included sounds known only to cats.
“Isn’t she a little precious,” Nanny crooned. “I’ve probably got a sweetie somewhere—”
“She’s not on solids,” said Magrat.
“Still keeping you up at nights?”
“And days. But she’s slept well today, thank goodness. Nanny, give her to Mr. Oats and let’s sort this out right away.”
The young priest took the baby nervously, holding it, as some men do, as if it would break or at least explode.
“There, there, there,” he said, vaguely.
“Now…what’s this about Granny?” said Magrat.
They told her, interrupting one another at important points.
“The gnarly ground over toward the top of the forest?” said Magrat, when they were nearly finished.
“That’s right,” said Nanny.
“What
is
gnarly ground?” said Agnes.
“There’s a lot of magic in these mountains, right?” said Nanny. “And everyone knows mountains get made when lumps of land bang together, right? Well, when the magic gets trapped you…sort of…get a bit of land where the space is…sort of…scrunched up, right? It’d be quite big if it could but it’s like a bit of gnarly wood in an ol’ tree. Or a used hanky…all folded up small but still big in a different way.”
“But I’ve been up there and it’s just a bit of moorland!”
“You’ve got to know the right direction,” said Nanny. “Damn hard to scry into a place like that. It goes all wobbly. It’s like tryin’ to look at something close up
and
a long way away at the same time. It makes your crystal ball water.”
She pulled the green ball toward her.
“Now, you two push an’ I’ll steer—”
“Er, are you going to do some magic?” said Oats, behind them.
“What’s the problem?” said Nanny.
“I mean, does it involve, er…” he colored up, “er…removing your garments and dancing around and summoning lewd and salacious creatures? Only I’m afraid I couldn’t be a party to that. The
Book of Om
forbids consorting with false enchanters and deceitful soothsayers, you see.”
“I wouldn’t consort with false enchanters neither,” said Nanny. “Their beards fall off.”
“We’re real,” said Magrat.
“And we certainly don’t summon lewd and salacious creatures,” said Agnes.
“Unless we want to,” said Nanny Ogg, almost under her breath.
“Well…all right, then,” said Oats.
As they unwound the power, Agnes heard Perdita think
I don’t like Magrat. She’s not like she used to be.
Well, of course she’s not.
But she’s taking charge, she’s not cringing slightly like she used to, she’s not WET.
That’s because she’s a mother, Agnes thought. Mothers are only slightly damp.
She was not, herself, hugely in favor of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn’t exactly
difficult
. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they’d been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they’d got the label which said “mother,” everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said “child”…
She gave a mental shrug, and concentrated on the craft in hand.
Light grew and faded inside the green globe. Agnes had only scryed a few times before, but she didn’t remember the light pulsing like this. Every time it dissolved into an image the light flickered and bounced to somewhere else…a patch of heather…a tree…boiling clouds…
And then Granny Weatherwax came and went. The image appeared and was gone in an instant, and the glow that rolled in with a finality told Agnes that this was all, folks.
“She was lying down,” said Magrat. “It was all fuzzy.”
“Then she’s in one of the caves. She said once she goes up there to be alone with her thoughts,” said Nanny. “And did you catch that little twitch? She’s trying to keep us out.”
“The caves up there are just scoops in the rock,” said Agnes.
“Yes…and no,” said Nanny. “Did I see her holding a card in her hands?”
“The ‘I ate’nt dead’ card?” said Magrat.
“No, she’d left that in the cottage.”
“Just when we really need her, she goes away into a cave?”
“Does she know we need her? Did she know about the vampires?” said Agnes.
“Can’t we go and ask her?” said Magrat.
“We can’t fly all the way,” said Nanny, scratching her chin. “Can’t fly prop’ly over gnarly ground. The broomsticks act funny.”
“Then we’ll walk the rest,” said Magrat. “It’s hours to sunset.”
“You’re not coming, are you?” said Agnes, aghast.
“Yes, of course.”
“But what about the baby?”
“She seems to like it in the sling and it keeps her warm and it’s not as if there’s monsters up there,” said Magrat. “Anyway,
I
think it’s possible to combine motherhood and a career.”
“I thought you’d given up witchcraft,” said Agnes.
“Yes…well…yes. Let’s make sure Granny’s all right and get this all sorted out, and then obviously I’ll have other things to do…”
“But it could be dangerous!” said Agnes. “Don’t you think so, Nanny?”
Nanny Ogg turned her chair and looked at the baby.
“Cootchie-cootchie?” she said.
The small head looked around and Esme opened her blue eyes.
Nanny Ogg stared thoughtfully.
“Take her with us,” she said at last. “I used to take our Jason everywhere when he was tiny. They like being with their mum.”
She gave the baby another long hard look.
“Yes,” she went on, “I think that’d be a damn good idea.”
“Er…I feel perhaps there is little that I’d be able to do,” Oats said.
“Oh, it’d be too dangerous to take
you
,” said Nanny, dismissively.
“But of course my prayers will go with you.”
“That’s nice.” Nanny sniffed.
Drizzling rain soaked Hodgesaargh as he trudged back to the castle. The damp had got into the lure, and the noise it made now could only attract some strange, lost creature, skulking in ancient estuaries. Or possibly a sheep with a very sore throat.
And then he heard the chattering of magpies.
He tied the donkey to a sapling and stepped out into a clearing. The birds were screaming in the trees around him, but erupted away at the sight of King Henry on her perch on the donkey.
Crouched against a mossy rock was……a small magpie. It was bedraggled and
wrong
, as if put together by someone who had seen one but didn’t know how it was supposed to work. It struggled when it saw him, there was a fluffing of feathers and, now, a smaller version of King Henry was trying to unfold its tattered wings.
He backed away. On her perch, the hooded eagle had its head turned to the strange bird…
…which was now a pigeon. A thrush. A wren…
A sudden intimation of doom made Hodgesaargh cover his eyes, but he saw the flash through the skin of his fingers, felt the
thump
of the flame, and smelled the scorched hairs on the back of his hand.
A few tufts of grass smoldered on the edge of a circle of scorched earth. Inside it a few pathetic bones glowed red hot and then crumbled into fine ash.
Away in the forest, the magpies screamed. Count Magpyr stirred in the darkness of his room and opened his eyes. The pupils widened to take in more light.
“I think she has gone to ground,” he said.
“That was remarkably quick,” said the Countess. “I thought you said she was quite powerful.”
“Oh, indeed. But human. And she’s getting older. With age comes doubt. It’s so simple. All alone in that barren cottage, no company but the candlelight…it’s so simple to open up all the little cracks and let her mind turn in on itself. It’s like watching a forest fire when the wind changes, and suddenly it’s roaring down on all the houses you thought were built so strongly.”
“So graphically put.”
“Thank you.”
“You were so successful in Escrow, I know…”
“A model for the future. Vampires and humans in harmony at last. There is no
need
for this animosity, just as I have always said.”
The Countess walked over to the window and gingerly pulled aside the curtain. Despite the overcast sky, gray light filtered in.
“There’s no requirement to be so cautious about this, either,” said her husband, coming up behind her and jerking the curtain aside. The Countess shuddered and turned her face away.
“You see? Still harmless. Every day, in every way, we get better and better,” said Count Magpyr cheerfully. “Self help. Positive thinking. Training. Familiarity. Garlic? A pleasant seasoning. Lemons? Merely an acquired taste. Why, yesterday I mislaid a sock and I simply don’t care. I have lots of socks. Extra socks can be arranged!” His smile faded when he saw his wife’s expression.
“The word ‘but’ is on the tip of your tongue,” he said flatly.
“I was just going to say that there were no witches in Escrow.”
“And the place is all the better for it!”
“Of course, but—”
“There you go again, my dear. There is no room for ‘but’ in our vocabulary. Verence was right, oddly enough. There’s a new world coming, and there won’t be any room in it for those ghastly little gnomes or witches or centaurs and especially not for the firebirds! Away with them! Let us progress! They are unfitted for survival!”
“You only wounded that phoenix, though.”
“My point exactly. It allowed itself to be hurt, and therefore extinction looms. No, my dear, if we won’t fade with the old world we must make shift in the new. Witches? I’m afraid witches are all in the past now.”
The broomsticks in the present landed just above the treeline, on the edge of the moor. As Agnes had said, it was barely big enough to deserve the term. She could even hear the little mountain brook at the far end.
“I can’t see anything
gnarly
looking,” said Agnes. She knew it was a stupid thing to say, but the presence of Magrat was getting on her nerves.
Nanny looked up at the sky. The other two followed her gaze.
“You’ve got to get your eye in, but you’ll see it if you watch,” she said. “You can only see it if you stands on the moor.”
Agnes squinted at the overcast.
“Oh…I think I can,” said Magrat.
I bet she doesn’t,
said Perdita,
I can’t
.
And then Agnes did. It was tricky to spot, like a join between two sheets of glass, and it seemed to move away whenever she was certain she could see it, but there was an…
inconsistency
, flickering in and out on the edge of vision.
Nanny licked a finger and held it up to the wind. Then she pointed.
“This way. An’ shut your eyes.”
“There’s no path,” said Magrat.
“That’s right. You hold on to my hand, Agnes will hold onto yours. I’ve been this way a few times. It ain’t hard.”
“It’s like a children’s story,” said Agnes.
“Yes, we’re down to the bone now, all right,” said Nanny. “And…off we go…”
Agnes felt the heather brush her feet as she stepped forward. She opened her eyes.
Moorland stretched away on every side, even behind them. The air was darker, the clouds heavier, the wind sharper. The mountains looked a long way away. There was a distant thunder of water.
“Where are we now?” said Magrat.
“Still here,” said Nanny. “I remember my dad saying sometimes a deer or somethin’ would run into gnarly ground if it was bein’ hunted.”
“It’d have to be pretty desperate,” said Agnes. The heather was darker here, and scratched so much it was almost thorny. “Everything’s so…nasty looking.”
“Attitude plays a part,” said Nanny. She tapped something with her foot.
It was…well, it had been a standing stone, Agnes thought, but now it was a lying stone. Lichen grew thickly all over it.
“The marker. Hard to get out again if you don’t know about it,” said Nanny. “Let’s head for the mountains. Esme all wrapped up, Magrat? Little Esme, I mean.”
“She’s asleep.”
“Yeah,” said Nanny, in what Agnes thought was an odd tone of voice. “Just as well, really. Let’s go. Oh…I thought we might need these…”
She fumbled in the bottomless storeroom of her knicker leg and produced a couple of pairs of socks so thick that they could have stood up by themselves.
“Lancre wool,” she said. “Our Jason knits ’em of an evenin’ and you know what strong fingers he’s got. You could kick your way through a wall.”
The heather ripped fruitlessly at the wire-like wool as the women hurried over the moor. There was still a sun here, or at least a bright spot in the overcast, but darkness seemed to come up from beneath the ground.
Agnes…
said Perdita’s voice, in the privacy of her shared brain.
What? thought Agnes.
Nanny’s worried about something to do with the baby and Granny. Have you noticed?
Agnes thought: I know Nanny keeps looking at little Esme as if she’s trying to make up her mind about something, if that’s what you mean.
Well, I think it’s to do with Borrowing…
She thinks Granny’s using the baby to keep an eye on us?
I don’t know. But something’s happening…
The roar ahead grew louder.
“There’s a little stream, isn’t there?” said Agnes.
“That’s right,” said Nanny. “Just here.”
The moor fell away. They stared into the abyss, which didn’t stare back. It was huge. White water was just visible far below. Cold damp air blew past their faces.
“That
can’t
be right,” said Magrat. “That’s wider and deeper than Lancre Gorge!”
Agnes looked down into the mist.
It’s a couple of feet deep,
Perdita told her.
I can see every pebble.
“Perdita thinks it’s a…well, an optical illusion,” Agnes said aloud.
“She could be right,” said Nanny. “Gnarly ground, see? Bigger on the inside.”
Magrat picked up a rock and tossed it in. It bounced off the wall a few times, tumbling end over end, and then nothing was left but a stony echo. The river was too far down even to see the splash.
“It’s very realistic, isn’t it,” she said weakly.
“We could use the bridge,” said Nanny, pointing.
They regarded the bridge. It had a certain negative quality. That is to say, while it was possible at the limits of probability that if they tried to cross the chasm by walking out over thin air this might just work—because of sudden updrafts, or air molecules suddenly all having a crazy idea at the same time—trying to do the same thing via the bridge would clearly be laughable.
There was no mortar in it. The pillars had been piled up out of rocks laid like a drystone wall, and then a series of big flat stones dropped across the top. The result would have been called primitive even by people who were too primitive to have a word yet for “primitive.” It creaked ominously in the wind. They could hear stone grind against stone.
“That’s not right,” said Magrat. “It wouldn’t stand up to a gale.”
“It wouldn’t stand up to a dead calm,” said Agnes. “I don’t think it’s really real.”
“Ah, I can see where that’d make crossing it a bit tricky, then,” said Nanny.
It’s just a slab laid over a ditch,
Perdita insisted.
I could cart-wheel over it.
Agnes blinked.
“Oh, I
understand
,” she said. “This is some sort of test, is it? It is, isn’t it? We’re worried, so fear makes it a deep gorge. Perdita’s always confident, so she hardly notices it…”
“
I
’d like to notice it’s there,” said Magrat. “It’s a
bridge
.”
“We’re wasting time,” said Agnes. She strode out over the slabs of stone and stopped halfway.
“Rocks a bit, but it’s not too bad,” she called back. “You just have to—”
The slab shifted under her, and tipped her off.
She flung out her hands and caught the edge of the stone by sheer luck. But, strong though her fingers were, a lot of Agnes was penduluming underneath.
She looked down. She didn’t want to, but it was a direction occupying a lot of the world.
The water’s about a foot below you, it really is,
said Perdita.
All you have to do is drop, and you’d be good at that…
Agnes looked down again. The drop was so long that probably no one would hear the splash. It didn’t just look deep, it
felt
deep. Clammy air rose around her. She could feel the sucking emptiness under her feet.
“Magrat threw a stone down there!” she hissed.
Yes, and I saw it fall a few inches.
“Now, I’m lyin’ flat and Magrat’s holdin’ on to my legs,” said Nanny Ogg conversationally, right above her. “I’m going to grab your wrists and, you know, I reckon if you swings a little sideways you ought to get your foot on one of the stone pillars and you’ll be right as ninepence.”
“You don’t have to talk to me as if I’m some kind of frightened idiot!” snapped Agnes.
“Just tryin’ to be pleasant.”
“I can’t move my hands!’
“Yes, you can. See, I’ve got your arm now.”
“I can’t move my hands!”
“Don’t rush, we’ve got all day,” said Nanny. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Agnes hung for a while. She couldn’t even
sense
her hands now. That presumably meant that she wouldn’t feel it when her grip slipped.
The stones groaned.
“Er…Nanny?”
“Yep?”
“Can you talk to me a bit more as if I’m some kind of frightened idiot?”
“Okay.”
“Er…why do they say ‘right as ninepence’? As opposed to, say, tenpence?”
“Interestin’. Maybe it’s—”
“And can you speak up? Perdita’s shouting at me that if I drop eighteen inches I’ll be standing in the stream!”
“Do you think she’s right?”
“Not about the eighteen inches!”
The bridge creaked.
“People seldom are,” said Nanny. “Are you getting anywhere, dear? Only I can’t lift you up, you see. And my arms are going numb, too.”
“I can’t reach the pillar!”
“Then let go,” said Magrat, from somewhere behind Nanny.
“Magrat!” snapped Nanny.
“Well, perhaps it
is
only a little stream to Perdita. Gnarly ground can be two things at the same time, can’t it? So if that’s how she sees it…well, can’t you let her get on with it? Let
her
sort it out. Can’t you let her take over?”
“She only does that when I’m really under stress! Shut up!”
“I only—”
“Not you, her! Oh
no
—”
Her left hand, white and almost numb, pulled itself off the stone and out of Nanny’s grip.
“Don’t let her do this to us!” Agnes shrieked. “I’ll fall hundreds of feet onto sharp rocks!”
“Yes, but since you’re going to do that anyway, anything’s worth a try, isn’t it?” said Nanny. “I should shut your eyes, if I was you—”
The right hand came loose.
Agnes shut her eyes. She fell.
Perdita opened her eyes. She was standing in the stream.
“Damn!” And Agnes would never say “damn,” which was why Perdita did so at every suitable occasion.
She reached up to the slab just above her, got a grip, and hauled herself up. Then, catching sight of Nanny Ogg’s expression, she jerked her hands around into a new position and kicked her legs up.
That stupid Agnes never realizes how strong she is, Perdita thought. There’s all these muscles she’s afraid of using…
She pushed gently until her toes pointed at the sky and she was doing a handstand on the edge. The effect, she felt, was spoilt by her skirt falling over her eyes. “You’ve still got that tear in yer knickers,” said Nanny sharply.
Perdita flicked herself onto her feet.
Magrat had her eyes tight shut. “She didn’t do a handstand on the
edge
, did she?”
“She did,” said Nanny. “Now then, A—Perdita, stop that showing off, we’ve wasted too much time. Let Agnes have the body back, you know it’s hers really—”
Perdita did a cartwheel. “This body’s wasted on her,” she said. “And you should see the stuff she eats! Do you know she’s still got two shelves full of soft toys? And dolls? And she wonders why she can’t get along with boys!”
“Nothing like being stared at by a teddy bear to put a young man off his stroke,” said Nanny Ogg. “Remember old Mrs. Sleeves, Magrat? Used to need two of us when she had one of her nasty turns.”
“What’s that got to do with toys?” said Perdita suspiciously.
“And what’s it—Oh yes,” said Magrat.
“Now, I recall that old bellringer down in Ohulan,” said Nanny, leading the way. “He had no fewer than
seven
personalities in his head. Three of ’em were women and four of ’em were men. Poor old chap. He said he was always the odd one out. He said they let him get on with all the work and the breathin’ and eatin’ and they had all the fun. Remember? He said it was hellish when he had a drink and they all started fightin’ for a tastebud. Sometimes he couldn’t hear himself think in his own head, he said—
Now! Now! Now!
”
Agnes opened her eyes. Her jaw hurt.
Nanny Ogg was peering at her closely, while rubbing some feeling back into her wrist. From a couple of inches away, her face looked like a friendly pile of elderly laundry.
“Yes, that’s Agnes,” she said, standing back. “Her face goes sharper when it’s the other one. See? I told you she’d be the one that came back. She’s got more practice.”
Magrat let go of her arms. Agnes rubbed her chin.
“That
hurt
,” she said reproachfully.
“Just a bit of tough love,” said Nanny. “Can’t have that Perdita running around at a time like this.”
“You just sort of
grabbed
the bridge and came right back up,” said Magrat.
“I felt her stand on the ground!” said Agnes.
“And that too, then,” said Nanny. “Come on. Not far now. Sometimes. And let’s just take it easy, shall we? Some of us might have further to fall than others.”
They edged forward, despite an increasingly insistent voice in Agnes’s head that kept telling her she was being a stupid coward and
of course
she wouldn’t be hurt. She tried to ignore it.
The caves that Agnes remembered hadn’t been much more than rock overhangs.
These
were caverns. The difference is basically one of rugged and poetic grandeur. These had a lot of both.
“Gnarly ground’s a bit like icebergs,” said Nanny, leading them up a little gully to one of the largest.
“Nine-tenths of it is under water?” said Agnes. Her chin still hurt.
“There’s more to it than meets the eye, I mean.”
“There’s someone there!” said Magrat.
“Oh, that’s the witch,” said Nanny. “She’s not a problem.”
Light from the entrance fell on a hunched figure, sitting among pools of water. Closer to, it looked like a statue, and perhaps not quite as human as the eye at first suggested. Water glistened on it; drops formed on the end of the long hooked nose and fell into a pool with the occasional
plink
.
“I come up here with a young wizard once, when I was a girl,” said Nanny. “He liked nothing so much as bashing at rocks with his little hammer…well, almost nothing,” she added, with a smile toward the past and then a happy sigh. “He said the witch was just a lot of ol’ stuff from the rocks, left there by the water drippin’. But my granny said it was a witch that sat up here to think about some big spell, and she turned to stone. Person’ly, I keep an open mind.”
“It’s a long way to bring someone,” said Agnes.
“Oh, there was a lot of us kids at home and it was rainin’ a lot and you need a lot of privacy for really good geology,” said Nanny vaguely. “I think his hammer’s still around here somewhere. He quite forgot about it after a while. Mind how you tread, the rocks is very slippery. How’s young Esme doing, Magrat?”