Witches Abroad (7 page)

Granny Weatherwax inspected the rockfall critically.

‘We shall have to have everyone out of here,' she said. ‘This is goin' to have to be private.'

‘I know how it is,' said the King. ‘Craft secrets, I expect?'

‘Something like that,' said Granny.

The King shooed the other dwarfs out of the tunnel, leaving the witches alone in the lantern light. A few bits of rock fell out of the ceiling.

‘Hmm,' said Granny.

‘You've gone and done it now,' said Nanny Ogg.

‘Anything's possible if you set your mind to it,' said Granny vaguely.

‘Then you'd better set yours good and hard, Esme. If the Creator had meant us to shift rocks by witchcraft, he wouldn't have invented shovels. Knowing when to use a shovel is what being a witch is all about. And put down that wheelbarrow, Magrat. You don't know nothing about machinery.'

‘All right, then,' said Magrat. ‘Why don't we try the wand?'

Granny Weatherwax snorted. ‘Hah! Here? Whoever heard of a fairy godmother in a mine?'

‘If I was stuck behind a load of rocks under a mountain
I'd
want to hear of one,' said Magrat hotly.

Nanny Ogg nodded. ‘She's got a point there, Esme. There's no rule about where you fairy godmother.'

‘I don't trust that wand,' said Granny. ‘It looks wizardly to me.'

‘Oh, come
on
,' said Magrat, ‘generations of fairy godmothers have used it.'

Granny flung her hands in the air.

‘All right, all right, all right,' she snapped. ‘Go ahead! Make yourself look daft!'

Magrat took the wand out of her bag. She'd been dreading this moment.

It was made of some sort of bone or ivory; Magrat hoped it wasn't ivory. There had been markings on it once, but generations of plump fairy godmotherly hands had worn them almost smooth. Various gold and silver rings were set into the wand. Nowhere were there any instructions. Not so much as a rune or a sigil anywhere on its length indicated what you were supposed to do with it.

‘I think you're supposed to wave it,' said Nanny Ogg. ‘I'm pretty sure it's something like that.'

Granny Weatherwax folded her arms. ‘That's not proper witching,' she said.

Magrat gave the wand an experimental wave. Nothing happened.

‘Perhaps you have to say something?' said Nanny.

Magrat looked panicky.

‘What do fairy godmothers
say
?' she wailed.

‘Er,' said Nanny, ‘dunno.'

‘Huh!' said Granny.

Nanny Ogg sighed. ‘Didn't Desiderata tell you
anything
?'

‘Nothing!'

Nanny shrugged.

‘Just do your best, then,' she said.

Magrat stared at the pile of rocks. She shut her eyes. She took a deep breath. She tried to make her mind a serene picture of cosmic harmony. It was all very well for monks to go on about cosmic harmony, she reflected, when they were nicely tucked away on snowy mountains with only yetis to worry about. They never tried seeking inner peace with Granny Weatherwax glaring at them.

She waved the wand in a vague way and tried to put pumpkins out of her mind.

She felt the air move. She heard Nanny gasp.

She said, ‘Has anything happened?'

After a while Nanny Ogg said, ‘Yeah. Sort of. I hope they're hungry, that's all.'

And Granny Weatherwax said, ‘That's fairy godmothering, is it?'

Magrat opened her eyes.

There was still a heap, but it wasn't rock any more.

‘There's a, wait for it, there's
a bit of a squash
in here,' said Nanny.

Magrat opened her eyes wider.

‘
Still
pumpkins?'

‘Bit of a squash.
Squash
,' said Nanny, in case anyone hadn't got it.

The top of the heap moved. A couple of small pumpkins rolled down almost to Magrat's feet, and a small dwarfish face appeared in the hole.

It stared down at the witches.

Eventually Nanny Ogg said, ‘Everything all right?'

The dwarf nodded. Its attention kept turning to the pile of pumpkins that filled the tunnel from floor to ceiling.

‘Er, yes,' it said. ‘Is dad there?'

‘Dad?'

‘The King.'

‘Oh.' Nanny Ogg cupped her hands around her mouth and turned to face up the tunnel. ‘Hey, King!'

The dwarfs appeared. They looked at the pumpkins, too. The King stepped forward and stared up into the face of his son.

‘Everything all right, son?'

‘It's all right, dad. No faulting or anything.'

The King sagged with relief. Then, as an afterthought, he added, ‘Everyone all right?'

‘Fine, dad.'

‘I was quite worried for a time there. Thought we might have hit a section of conglomerate or something.'

‘Just a patch of loose shale, dad.'

‘Good.' The King looked at the heap again. He scratched his beard. ‘Can't help noticing you seem to have struck pumpkin.'

‘I thought it was an odd kind of sandstone, dad.'

The King walked back to the witches.

‘Can you turn anything into anything?' he said hopefully.

Nanny Ogg looked sideways at Magrat, who was still staring at the wand in a sort of shock.

‘I think we only do pumpkins at the moment,' she said cautiously.

The King looked a little disappointed.

‘Well, then,' he said, ‘if there's anything I can do for you ladies . . . a cup of tea or something . . .'

Granny Weatherwax stepped forward. ‘I was just thinking something like that myself,' she said.

The King beamed.

‘Only more expensive,' said Granny.

The King stopped beaming.

Nanny Ogg sidled up to Magrat, who was shaking the wand and staring at it.

‘Very clever,' she whispered. ‘Why'd you think of pumpkins?'

‘I didn't!'

‘Don't you know how to work it?'

‘No! I thought you just had to, you know,
want
something to happen!'

‘There's probably more to it than just wishing,' said Nanny, as sympathetically as possible. ‘There generally is.'

Some time around dawn, in so far as dawn happened in the mines, the witches were led to a river somewhere deep in the mountains, where a couple of barges were moored. A small boat was pulled up to a stone jetty.

‘This'll take you right through the mountains,' said the King. ‘I think it goes all the way to Genua, to tell the truth.' He took a large basket off an attendant dwarf. ‘And we've packed you some lovely food,' he said.

‘Are we going to go all the way in a boat?' said Magrat. She gave the wand a few surreptitious flourishes. ‘I'm not good at boats.'

‘Listen,' said Granny, climbing aboard, ‘the river knows its way out of the mountains, which is more than we do. We can use the brooms later on, where the landscape's acting a bit more sensible.'

‘And we can have a bit of a rest,' said Nanny, sitting back.

Magrat looked at the two older witches, who were making themselves comfortable in the stern like a couple of hens settling down on a nest.

‘Do you know how to row a boat?' she said.

‘We don't have to,' said Granny.

Magrat nodded gloomily. Then a tiny bit of self-assertion flashed a fin.

‘I don't think I do, too,' she ventured.

‘That's all right,' said Nanny. ‘If we sees you doing anything wrong, we'll be sure to tell you. Cheerio, your kingship.'

Magrat sighed, and picked up the oars.

‘The flat bits go in the water,' said Granny helpfully.

The dwarfs waved. The boat drifted out into midstream, moving slowly in a circle of lantern light. Magrat found that all she really had to do was keep it pointing the right way in the current.

She heard Nanny say: ‘Beats me why they're always putting invisible runes on their doors. I mean, you pays some wizard to put invisible runes on your door, and how do you know you've got value for money?'

She heard Granny say: ‘No problem there. If you can't see 'em, you know you've got proper invisible runes.'

She heard Nanny say: ‘Ah, that'd be it. Right, let's see what we've got for lunch.' There was a rustling noise.

‘Well, well, well.'

‘What is it, Gytha?'

‘Pumpkin.'

‘Pumpkin what?'

‘Pumpkin nothing. Just pumpkin pumpkin.'

‘Well, I suppose they've got a lot of pumpkin,' said Magrat. ‘You know how it is at the end of the summer, there's always so much in the garden. I'm always at my wits' end to think of new types of chutney and pickles to use it all up—'

In the dim light she could see Granny's face which seemed to be suggesting that if Magrat was at her wits' end, it was a short stroll.

‘
I
,' said Granny, ‘have never made a pickle in my life.'

‘But you
like
pickles,' said Magrat. Witches and pickles went together like – she hesitated before the stomach-curdling addition of peaches and cream, and mentally substituted ‘things that went together very well'. The sight of Nanny Ogg's single remaining tooth at work on a pickled onion could bring tears to the eyes.

‘I likes 'em fine,' said Granny. ‘I gets 'em
given
to me.'

‘You know,' said Nanny, investigating the recesses of the basket, ‘whenever I deals with dwarfs, the phrase “Duck's arse” swims across my mind.'

‘Mean little devils. You should see the prices they tries to charge me when I takes my broom to be repaired,' said Granny.

‘Yes, but you never pay,' said Magrat.

‘That's not the point,' said Granny Weatherwax. ‘They shouldn't be allowed to charge that sort of money. That's thievin', that is.'

‘I don't see how it can be thieving if you don't pay anyway,' Magrat persisted.

‘I never pay for anything,' said Granny. ‘People never
let
me pay. I can't help it if people gives me things the whole time, can I? When I walks down the street people are always running out with cakes they've just baked, and fresh beer, and old clothes that've hardly been worn at all. “Oh, Mistress Weatherwax, pray take this basket of eggs”, they say. People are always very kind. Treat people right an' they'll treat
you
right. That's respect. Not having to pay,' she finished, sternly, ‘is what bein' a witch is all about.'

‘Here, what's this?' said Nanny, pulling out a small packet. She unwrapped the paper and revealed several hard brown discs.

‘My word,' said Granny Weatherwax, ‘I take it all back. That's the famous dwarf bread, that is. They don't give that to just anyone.'

Nanny tapped it on the edge of the boat. It made a noise very similar to the kind of noise you get when a wooden ruler is held over the edge of a desk and plucked; a sort of hollow
boioioing
sound.

‘They say it never goes stale even if you stores it for years,' said Granny.

‘It'd keep you going for days and days,' said Nanny Ogg.

Magrat reached across, took one of the flat loaves, tried to break it, and gave up.

‘You're supposed to
eat
it?' she said.

‘Oh, I don't think it's for eating,' said Nanny. ‘It's more for sort of—'

‘—keeping you going,' said Granny. ‘They say that—'

She stopped.

Above the noise of the river and the occasional drip of water from the ceiling they could all hear, now, the steady slosh-slosh of another craft heading towards them.

‘Someone's following us!' hissed Magrat.

Two pale glows appeared at the edge of the lamplight. Eventually they turned out to be the eyes of a small grey creature, vaguely froglike, paddling towards them on a log.

It reached the boat. Long clammy fingers grabbed the side, and a lugubrious face rose level with Nanny Ogg's.

‘'ullo,' it said. ‘It'sss my birthday.'

All three of them stared at it for a while. Then Granny Weatherwax picked up an oar and hit it firmly over the head. There was a splash, and a distant cursing.

‘Horrible little bugger,' said Granny, as they rowed on. ‘Looked like a troublemaker to me.'

‘Yeah,' said Nanny Ogg. ‘It's the slimy ones you have to watch out for.'

‘I wonder what he wanted?' said Magrat.

After half an hour the boat drifted out through a cave mouth and into a narrow gorge between cliffs. Ice glistened on the walls, and there were drifts of snow on some of the outcrops.

Nanny Ogg looked around guilelessly, and then fumbled somewhere in the depths of her many skirts and produced a small bottle. There was a glugging noise.

‘I bet there's a fine echo here,' she said, after a while.

‘Oh no you don't,' said Granny firmly.

‘Don't what?'

‘Don't sing That Song.'

‘Pardon, Esme?'

‘I ain't going,' said Granny, ‘if you insists on singing That Song.'

‘What song would that be?' said Nanny innocently.

‘You know the song to whom I am referring,' said Granny icily. ‘You always get drunk and let me down and sing it.'

‘Can't recall any song like that, Esme,' said Nanny Ogg meekly.

‘The one,' said Granny, ‘about the rodent that can't – that can't ever be persuaded to care about anything.'