Wyrd Sisters

And she realised, in an absolutely clear way, that her padding had slipped down to her waist, her head felt as though a family of unhygienic birds had been nesting in it, and her eyeshadow had not so much run as sprinted. Her dress was torn in several places, her legs were scratched, her arms were bruised, and for some reason she felt on top of the world.

'I think you'd better stand back, Verence,' she said. 'I'm not sure how this is going to work.'

There was a sharp intake of breath.

'How did you know my name?'

Magrat sized up the door. The oak was old, centuries old, but she could sense just a little sap under a surface varnished by the years into something that was nearly as tough as stone. Normally what she had in mind would require a day's planning and a bagful of exotic ingredients. At least, so she'd always believed. Now she was prepared to doubt it.

If you could conjure demons out of washtubs, you could do anything.

She became aware that the Fool had spoken.

'Oh, I expect I heard it somewhere,' she said vaguely.

'I shouldn't think so, I never use it,' said the Fool. 'I mean, it's not a popular name with the duke. It was me mam, you see. They like to name you after kings, I suppose. My grandad said I had no business having a name like that and he said I shouldn't go around—'

Magrat nodded. She was looking around the dank tunnel with a professional's eye.

It wasn't a promising place. The old oak planks had been down here in the darkness all these years, away from the clock of the seasons . . .

On the other hand . . . Granny had said that somehow all trees were one tree, or something like that. Magrat thought she understood it, although she didn't know exactly what it meant. And it was springtime up there. The ghost of life that still lived in the wood must know that. Or if it had forgotten, it must be told.

She put her palms flat on the door again and shut her eyes, tried to think her way out through the stone, out of the castle, and into the thin, black soil of the mountains, into the air, into the sunlight . . .

The Fool was merely aware that Magrat was standing very still. Then her hair stood out from her head, gently, and there was a smell of leafmould.

And then, without warning, the hammer that can drive a marshmallow-soft toadstool through six inches of solid pavement or an eel across a thousand miles of hostile ocean to a particular pond in an upland field, struck up through her and into the door.

She stepped back carefully, her mind stunned, fighting against a desperate urge to bury her toes into the rock and put forth leaves. The Fool caught her, and the shock nearly knocked him over.

Magrat sagged against the faintly jingling body, and felt triumphant. She had done it! And with no artificial aids! If only the others could have seen this . . .

'Don't go near it,' she mumbled. 'I think I gave it rather . . . a lot.' The Fool was still holding her toastrack body in his arms and was too overcome to utter a word, but she still got a reply.

'I reckon you did,' said Granny Weatherwax, stepping out of the shadows. 'I never would have thought of it myself.'

Magrat peered at her.

'You've been here all the time?'

'Just a few minutes.' Granny glanced at the door. 'Good technique,' she said, 'but it's old wood. Been in a fire, too, I reckon. Lot of iron nails and stuff in there. Can't see it working, I'd have tried the stones if it was me, but—'

She was interrupted by a soft 'pop'.

There was another, and then a whole series of them together, like a shower of meringues.

Behind her, very gently, the door was breaking into leaf.

Granny stared at it for a few seconds, and then met Magrat's terrified gaze.

'Run!' she yelled.

They grabbed the Fool and scurried into the shelter of a convenient buttress.

The door gave a warning creak. Several of its planks twisted in vegetable agony and there was a shower of rock splinters when nails were expelled like thorns from a wound, ricocheting off the stonework. The Fool ducked as part of the lock whirred over his head and smashed into the opposite wall.

The lower parts of the planks extended questing white roots, which slithered across the damp stone to the nearest crack and began to auger in. Knotholes bulged, burst and thrust out branches which hit the stones of the doorway and tumbled them aside. And all the time there was a low groan, the sound of the cells of the wood trying to contain the surge of raw life pounding through them.

'If it had been me,' said Granny Weatherwax, as part of the ceiling caved in further along the passage, 'I wouldn't have done it like that. Not that I'm objecting, mind you,' she said, as Magrat opened her mouth. 'It's a reasonable job. I think you might have overdone it a bit, that's all.'

'Excuse me,' said the Fool.

'I can't do rocks,' said Magrat.

'Well, no, rocks is an acquired taste—'

'Excuse me.'

The two witches stared at him, and he backed away.

'Weren't you supposed to be rescuing someone?' he said.

'Oh,' said Granny. 'Yes. Come on, Magrat. We'd better see what she's been getting up to.'

'There were screams,' said the Fool, who couldn't help feeling they weren't taking things seriously enough.

'I daresay,' said Granny, pushing him aside and stepping over a writhing taproot. 'If anyone locked me in a dungeon, there'd be screams.'

There was a lot of dust inside the dungeon, and by the nimbus of light around its one torch Magrat could dimly make out two figures cowering in the furthest corner. Most of the furniture had been overturned and scattered across the floor; it didn't look as though any of it had been designed to be the last word in comfort. Nanny Ogg was sitting quite calmly in what appeared to be a sort of stocks.

'Took your time,' she observed. 'Let me out of this, will you? I'm getting cramp.'

And there was the dagger.

It spun gently in the middle of the room, glinting when the turning blade caught the light.

'My own dagger!' said the ghost of the king, in a voice only the witches could hear. 'All this time and I never knew it! My own dagger! They bloody well did me in with my own bloody knife!'

He took another step towards the royal couple, waving the dagger. A faint gurgle escaped from the lips of the duke, glad to be out of there.

'He's doing well, isn't he,' said Nanny, as Magrat helped her out of her prison.

'Isn't that the old king? Can they see him?'

'Shouldn't think so.'

King Verence staggered slightly under the weight. He was too old for such poltergeist activity; you had to be an adolescent for this . . .

'Let me just get a grip on this thing,' he said. 'Oh, damn . . .'

The knife dropped from the ghost's tenuous grasp and clattered to the floor. Granny Weatherwax stepped forward smartly and put her foot on it.

'The dead shouldn't kill the living,' she said. 'It could be a dangerous wossname, precedent. We'd all be outnumbered for one thing.'

The duchess surfaced from her terror first. There had been knives swooping through the air and exploding doors, and now these women were defying her in her own dungeons. She couldn't be sure how she was supposed to react to the supernatural items, but she had very firm ideas about how she should tackle the last one.

Her mouth opened like the gateway to a red hell. 'Guards!' she yelled, and spotted the Fool hovering near the door. 'Fool! Fetch the guards!'

'They're busy. We were just leaving,' said Granny. 'Which one of you is the duke?'

Felmet stared pink-eyed up at her from his half-crouch in the corner. A thin dribble of saliva escaped from the corner of his mouth, and he giggled.

Granny looked closer. In the centre of those streaming eyes something else looked back at her.

'I'm going to give you no cause,' she said quietly. 'But it would be better for you if you left this country. Abdicate, or whatever.'

'In favour of whom?' said the duchess icily. 'A witch?'

'I won't,' said the duke.

'What did you say?'

The duke pulled himself upright, brushed some of the dust off his clothes, and looked Granny full in the face. The coldness in the centre of his eyes was larger.

'I said I won't,' he said. 'Do you think a bit of simple conjuring would frighten me? I am the king by right of conquest, and you cannot change it. It is as simple as that, witch.'

He moved closer.

Granny stared at him. She hadn't faced anything like this before. The man was clearly mad, but at the heart of his madness was a dreadful cold sanity, a core of pure interstellar ice in the centre of the furnace. She'd thought him weak under a thin shell of strength, but it went a lot further than that. Somewhere deep inside his mind, somewhere beyond the event horizon of rationality, the sheer pressure of insanity had hammered his madness into something harder than diamond.

'If you defeat me by magic, magic will rule,' said the duke. 'And you can't do it. And any king raised with your help would be under your power. Hag-ridden, I might say. That which magic rules, magic destroys. It would destroy you, too. You know it. Ha. Ha.'

Granny's knuckles whitened as he moved closer.

'You could strike me down,' he said. 'And perhaps you could find someone to replace me. But he would have to be a fool indeed, because he would know he was under your evil eye, and if he mispleased you, why, his life would be instantly forfeit. You could protest all you wished, but he'd know he ruled with your permission. And that would make him no king at all. Is this not true?'

Granny looked away. The other witches hung back, ready to duck.

'I said, is this not true?'

'Yes,' said Granny. 'It is true . . .'

'Yes.'

'. . . but there is one who could defeat you,' said Granny slowly.

'The child? Let him come when he is grown. A young man with a sword, seeking his destiny.' The duke sneered. 'Very romantic. But I have many years to prepare. Let him try.'

Beside him King Verence's fist smashed through the air and quite failed to connect.

The duke leaned closer until his nose was an inch from Granny's face.

'Get back to your cauldrons, wyrd sisters,' he said softly.

Granny Weatherwax stalked through the passages of Lancre Castle like a large, angry bat, the duke's laughter echoing around her head.

'You could give him boils or something,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Haemorrhoids are good. That's allowed. It won't stop him ruling, it just means he'll have to rule standing up. Always good for a laugh, that. Or piles.'

Granny Weatherwax said nothing. If fury were heat, her hat would have caught fire.

'Mind you, that'd probably make him worse,' said Nanny, running to keep up. 'Same with toothache.' She gave a sideways glance at Granny's twitching features.

'You needn't fret,' she said. They didn't do anything much. But thanks, anyway.'

'I ain't worried about you, Gytha Ogg,' snapped Granny. 'I only come along 'cos Magrat was fretting. What I say is, if a witch can't look after herself, she's got no business calling herself a witch.'

'Magrat done well with the woodwork, I thought.'

Even in the grip of her sullen fury, Granny Weatherwax spared a nod.

'She's coming along,' she said. She looked up and down the corridor, and then leaned closer to Nanny Ogg's ear.

'I ain't going to give him the pleasure of saying it,' she said, 'but he's got us beaten.'

'Well, I don't know,' said Nanny. 'Our Jason and a few sharp lads could soon—'

'You saw some of his guards. These aren't the old sort. These are a tough kind.'

'We could give the boys just a bit of help—'

'It wouldn't work. People have to sort this sort of thing out for themselves.'

'If you say so, Esme,' said Nanny meekly.