Witches Abroad

Page 7

 

  Hmm, she said.

  A few snow crystals landed on her hat.

  Well, well, she said.

  Whatre you doing, Granny? said Magrat.

  Cogitatin.

  Granny walked to the valleys steep side and strolled along it, peering at the rock. Nanny Ogg joined her.

  Up here? said Nanny.

  I reckon.

  S a bit high for em, aint it?

  Little devils get everywhere. Had one come up in my kitchen once, said Granny. “Following a seam”, he said.

  Theyre buggers for that, said Nanny.

  Would you mind telling me, said Magrat, what youre doing? Whats so interesting about heaps of stones?

  The snow was falling faster now.

  They aint stones, theyre spoil, said Granny. She reached a flat wall of ice-covered rock, no different in Magrats eyes from the rock available in a range of easy-to-die-on sizes everywhere in the mountains, and paused as if listening.

  Then she stood back, hit the rock sharply with her broomstick, and spake thusly:

  Open up, you little sods!

  Nanny Ogg kicked the rock. It made a hollow boom.

  Theres people catching their death of cold out here! she added.

  Nothing happened for a while. Then a section of rock swung in a few inches. Magrat saw the glint of a suspicious eye.

  Yes?

  Dwarfs? said Magrat.

  Granny Weatherwax leaned down until her nose was level with the eye.

  My name, she said, is Granny Weatherwax.

  She straightened up again, her face glowing with self-satisfaction.

  Whos that, then? said a voice from somewhere below the eye. Grannys expression froze.

  Nanny Ogg nudged her partner.

  We must be moren fifty miles away from home, she said. They might not have heard of you in these parts.

  Granny leaned down again. Accumulated snowflakes cascaded off her hat.

  I aint blaming you, she said, but I know youll have a King in there, so just you go and tell him Granny Weatherwax is here, will you?

  Hes very busy, said the voice. Weve just had a bit of trouble.

  Then Im sure he dont want any more, said Granny.

  The invisible speaker appeared to give this some consideration.

  We put writing on the door, it said sulkily. In invisible runes. Its really expensive, getting proper invisible runes done.

  I dont go around readin doors, said Granny.

  The speaker hesitated.

  Weatherwax, did you say?

  Yes. With a W. As in “witch”.

  The door slammed. When it was shut, there was barely a visible crack in the rock.

  The snow was falling fast now. Granny Weatherwax jiggled up and down a bit to keep warm.

  Thats foreigners for you, she said, to the frozen world in general.

  I dont think you can call dwarfs foreigners, said Nanny Ogg.

  Dont see why not, said Granny. A dwarf who lives a long way off has got to be foreign. Thats what foreign means.

  Yeah? Funny to think of it like that, said Nanny.

  They watched the door, their breath forming three little clouds in the darkening air. Magrat peered at the stone door.

  I didnt see any invisible runes, she said.

  Corse not, said Nanny. Thats cos theyre invisible.

  Yeah, said Granny Weatherwax. Dont be daft.

  The door swung open again.

  I spoke to the King, said the voice.

  And what did he say? said Granny expectantly.

  He said, “Oh, no! Not on top of everything else!”

  Granny beamed. I knew e would have heard of me, she said.

  In the same way that there are a thousand Kings of the Gypsies, so there are a thousand Kings of the Dwarfs. The term means something like senior engineer. There arent

  any Queens of the Dwarfs. Dwarfs are very reticent about revealing their sex, which most of them dont consider to be very important compared to things like metallurgy and hydraulics.

  This king was standing in the middle of a crowd of shouting miners. He* looked up at the witches with the expression of a drowning man looking at a drink of water.

  Are you really any good? he said.

  Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax looked at one another.

  I think es talking to you, Magrat, said Granny.

  Only weve had a big fall in gallery nine, said the King. It looks bad. A very promising vein of gold-bearing quartz is irretrievably trapped.

  One of the dwarfs beside him muttered something.

  Oh, yeah. And some of the lads, said the King vaguely. And then you turn up. So the way I look at it, its probably fate.

  Granny Weatherwax shook the snow off her. hat and looked around.

  She was impressed, despite herself. You didnt often see proper dwarf halls these days. Most dwarfs were off earning big money in the cities down in the lowlands, where it was much easier to be a dwarf - for one thing, you didnt have to spend most of your time underground hitting your thumb with a hammer and worrying about fluctuations in the international metal markets. Lack of respect for tradition, that was the trouble these days. And take trolls. There were more trolls in Ankh-Morpork now than in the whole mountain range. Granny Weatherwax had nothing against trolls but she felt instinctively that if more trolls stopped wearing suits and walking upright, and went back to living under bridges and jumping out

  * Many of the more traditional dwarf tribes have no female pronouns, like she or her. It follows that the courtship of dwarfs is an incredibly tactful affair.

  and eating people as nature intended, then the world would be a happier place.

  Youd better show us where the problem is, she said. Lots of rocks fallen down, have they?

  Pardon? said the King.

  Its often said that eskimos have fifty words for snow. *

  This is not true.

  Its also said that dwarfs have two hundred words for rock.

  They dont. They have no words for rock, in the same way that fish have no words for water. They do have words for igneous rock, sedimentary rock, metamorphic rock, rock underfoot, rock dropping on your helmet from above, and rock which looked interesting and which they could have sworn they left here yesterday. But what they dont have is a word meaning rock. Show a dwarf a rock and he sees, for example, an inferior piece of crystalline sulphite of barytes.

  Or, in this case, about two hundred tons of lowgrade shale. When the witches arrived at the disaster site dozens of dwarfs were working feverishly to prop the cracked roof and cart away the debris. Some of them were in tears.

  Its terrible . . . terrible, muttered one of them. A terrible thing.

  Magrat lent him her handkerchief. He blew his nose noisily.

  Could mean a big slippage on the fault line and then weve lost the whole seam, he said, shaking his head. Another dwarf patted him on the back.

  Look on the bright side, he said. We can always drive a horizontal shaft off gallery fifteen. Were bound to pick it up again, dont you worry.

  * Well, not often. Not on a daily basis, anyway. At least, not everywhere. But probably in some cold countries people say, Hey, those eskimos! What a people! Fifty words for snow! Can you believe that? Amazing! quite a lot.

  L

  Excuse me, said Magrat, there are dwarfs behind all that stuff, are there?

  Oh, yes, said the King. His tone suggested that this was merely a regrettable side-effect of the disaster, because getting fresh dwarfs was only a matter of time whereas decent gold-bearing rock was a finite resource.

  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 tu
nnel, leaving the witches alone in the lantern light. A few bits of rock fell out of the ceiling.

  Hmm, said Granny.

  Youve gone and done it now, said Nanny Ogg.

  Anythings possible if you set your mind to it, said Granny vaguely.

  Then youd better set yours good and hard, Esme. If the Creator had meant us to shift rocks by witchcraft, he wouldnt have invented shovels. Knowing when to use a shovel is what being a witch is all about. And put down that wheelbarrow, Magrat. You dont know nothing about machinery.

  All right, then, said Magrat. Why dont 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 Id want to hear of one, said Magrat hotly.

  Nanny Ogg nodded. Shes got a point there, Esme. Theres no rule about where you fairy godmother.

  I dont 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. Shed been dreading this moment.

  It was made of some sort of bone or ivory; Magrat hoped it wasnt 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 youre supposed to wave it, said Nanny Ogg. Im pretty sure its something like that.

  Granny Weatherwax folded her arms. Thats 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. Didnt 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 theyre hungry, thats all.

  And Granny Weathenvax said, "Thats fairy godmother-ing, is it?

  Magrat opened her eyes.

  There was still a heap, but it wasnt rock any more.

  Theres a, wait for it, theres 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 hadnt got it.

  The top of the heap moved. A couple of small pumpkins rolled down almost to Magrats 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?

  Its all right, dad. No faulting or anything.