Lords and Ladies

Page 38

 

  “Whats the matter?”

  “Never liked dark and enclosed spaces much. ”

  “What? Youre a dwarf. ”

  “Born a dwarf, born a dwarf. But I even get nervous when Im hiding in wardrobes. Thats a bit of a drawback in my line of work. ”

  “Dont be daft. Im not scared. ”

  “Youre not me. ”

  “Tell you what - Ill bake em with extra gravel. ”

  “Ooh . . . youre a temptress, Mrs. Ogg. ”

  “And bring the torches. ”

  The caves were dry, and warm. Casanunda trotted along after Nanny, anxious to stay in the torchlight.

  “You havent been down here before?”

  “No, but I know the way. ”

  After a while Casanunda began to feel better. The caves were better than wardrobes. For one thing, you werent tripping over shoes all the time, and there probably wasnt much chance of a sword-wielding husband opening the door.

  In fact, he began to feel happy.

  The words rose unbidden into his head, from somewhere in the back pocket of his genes.

  “Hiho, hiho-”

  Nanny Ogg grinned in the darkness.

  The tunnel opened into a cavern. The torchlight picked up the suggestion of distant walls.

  “This it?” said Casanunda, gripping the crowbar.

  “No. This is something else. We . . . know about this place. Its mythical. ”

  “Its not real?”

  “Oh, its real. And mythical. ”

  The torch flared. There were hundreds of dust-covered slabs ranged around the cavern in a spiral; at the centre of the spiral was a huge bell, suspended from a rope that disappeared into the darkness of the ceiling. Just under the hanging bell was one pile of silver coins and one pile of gold coins.

  “Dont touch the money,” said Nanny “Ere, watch this, my dad told me about this, its a good trick. ”

  She reached out and tapped the bell very gently, causing a faint ting.

  Dust cascaded off the nearest slab. What Casanunda had thought was just a carving sat up, in a creaky way. It was an armed warrior. Since hed sat up he almost certainly was alive, but he looked as though hed gone from life to rigor mortis without passing through death on the way.

  He focused deepset eyes on Nanny Ogg.

  “What bloody tyme dyou call thys, then?”

  “Not time yet,” said Nanny.

  “What did you goe and bang the bell for? I dont know, I havent had a wynke of sleep for two hundred years, some sodde alwayes bangs the bell. Go awaye. ”

  The warrior lay back.

  “Its some old king and his warriors,” whispered Nanny, as they hurried away. “Some kind of magical sleep, Im told. Some old wizard did it. Theyre supposed to wake up for some final battle when a wolf eats the sun. ”

  “Those wizards, always smoking something,” said Casanunda.

  “Could be. Go right here. Always go right. ”

  “Were walking in a circle?”

  “A spiral. Were right under the Long Man now. ”

  “No, that cant be right,” said Casanunda. “We climbed down a hole under the Long Man . . . hold on . . . you mean were in the place where we started and its a different place?”

  “Youre getting the hang of this, I can see that. ”

  They followed the spiral.

  Which, at length, brought them to a door, of sorts.

  The air was hotter here. Red light glowed from side passages.

  Two massive stones had been set up against a rock wall, with a third stone across them. Animal skins hung across the crude entrance thus formed; wisps of steam curled around them.

  “They got put up at the same time as the Dancers,” said Nanny, conversationally. “Only the hole heres vertical, so they only needed three. Might as well leave your crowbar here and take your boots off if theyve got nails in em. ”

  “These boots were stitched by the finest shoemaker in Ankh-Morpork,” said Casanunda, “and one day I shall pay him. ”

  Nanny pulled aside the skins.

  Steam billowed out.

  There was darkness inside, thick and hot as treacle and smelling of a foxs locker room. As Casanunda followed Nanny Ogg he sensed unseen figures in the reeking air, and heard the silence of murmured conversations suddenly curtailed. At one point he thought he saw a bowl of red hot stones, and then a shadowy hand moved across them and upturned a ladle, hiding them in steam.

  This cant be inside the Long Man, he told himself. Thats an earthworks, this is a long tent of skins.

  They cant both be the same thing.

  He realized he was dripping with sweat.

  Two torches became visible as the steam swirled, their light hardly more than a red tint to the darkness. But they were enough to show a huge sprawled figure lying by another bowl of hot stones.

  It looked up. Antlers moved in the damp, clinging heat.

  “Ah. Mrs. Ogg. ”

  The voice was like chocolate.

  “Ylordship,” said Nanny.

  “I suppose it is too much to expect you to kneel?”

  “Yes indeed, yhonor,” said Nanny, grinning.

  “You know, Mrs. Ogg, you have a way of showing respect to your god that would make the average atheist green with envy,” said the dark figure. It yawned.

  “Thank you, ygrace. ”

  “No one even dances for me now. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Just as you say, ylordship. ”

  “You witches dont believe in me anymore. ”

  “Right again, your homishness. ”

  “Ah, little Mrs. Ogg - and how, having got in here, do you possibly think you are going to get out?” said the slumped one.

  “Because I have iron,” said Nanny, her voice suddenly sharp.

  “Of course you have not, little Mrs. Ogg. No iron can enter this realm. ”

  “I have the iron that goes everywhere,” said Nanny.

  She took her hand out of her apron pocket, and held up a horseshoe.

  Casanunda heard scuffles around him, as the hidden elves fought to get out of the way More steam hissed up as a brazier of hot stones was overturned.

  “Take it away!”

  “Ill take it away when I go,” said Nanny. “Now you listen to me. Shes making trouble again. Youve got to put a stop to it. Fairs fair. Were not having all the Old Trouble again. ”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “You want her to be powerful, then?”

  There was a snort.

  “You cant ever rule again, back in the world,” said Nanny. “Theres too much music. Theres too much iron. ”

  “Iron rusts. ”

  “Not the iron in the head. ”

  The King snorted.

  “Nevertheless . . . even that. . . one day . . . ”

  “One day. ” Nanny nodded. “Yes. Ill drink to that. One day. Who knows? One day. Everyone needs one day. But it aint today. Dyou see? So you come on out and balance things up. Otherwise, this is what Ill do. Ill get em to dig into the Long Man with iron shovels, ysee, and theyll say, why, its just an old earthworks, and pensioned-off wizards and priests with nothin better to do will pick over the heaps and write dull old books about burial traditions and such-like, and thatll be another iron nail in your coffin. And Id be a little bit sorry about that, cos you know Ive always had a soft spot for you. But Ive got kiddies, ysee, and they dont hide under the stairs because theyre frit of the thunder, and they dont put milk out for the elves, and they dont hurry home because of the night, and before we go back to them dark old ways Ill see you nailed. ”

  The words sliced through the air.

  The homed man stood up. And further up. His antlers touched the roof.

  Casanundas mouth dropped open.

  “So you see,” said Nanny, subsiding, “not today. One day, maybe. You just stay down here and sweat it out til One Day. But not today. ”

  “I. . . wi
ll decide. ”

  “Very good. You decide. And Ill be getting along. ”

  The homed man looked down at Casanunda.

  “What are you staring at, dwarf?”

  Nanny Ogg nudged Casanunda.

  “Go on, answer the nice gentleman. ”

  Casanunda swallowed.

  “Blimey,” he said, “you dont half look like your picture. ”

  In a narrow little valley a few miles away a party of elves had found a nest of young rabbits which, in conjunction with a nearby antheap, kept them amused for a while.

  Even the meek and blind and voiceless have gods.

  Heme the Hunted, god of the chased, crept through the bushes and wished fervently that gods had gods.

  The elves had their backs to him as they hunkered down to watch closely.

  Heme the Hunted crawled under a clump of bramble, tensed, and sprang.

  He sank his teeth in an elfs calf until they met, and was flung away as it screamed and turned.

  He dropped and ran.

  That was the problem. He wasnt built to fight, there was not an ounce of predator in him. Attack and run, that was the only option.

  And elves could run faster.

  He bounced over logs and skidded through drifts of leaves, aware even as his vision fogged that elves were overtaking him on either side, pacing him, waiting for him to . . .

  The leaves exploded. The little god was briefly aware of a fanged shape, all arms and vengeance. Then there were a couple of disheveled humans, one of them waving an iron bar around its head.

  Heme didnt wait to see what happened next. He dived through the apparitions legs and ran on, but a distant war-cry echoed in his long, floppy ears:

  “Why, certainly, Ill have your whelk! How do we do it? Volume!”

  Nanny Ogg and Casanunda walked in silence back to the cave entrance and the flight of steps. Finally, as they stepped out into the night air, the dwarf said, “Wow. ”

  “It leaks out even up here,” said Nanny. “Very mackko place, this. ”

  “But I mean, good grief-”

  “Hes brighter than she is. Or more lazy,” said Nanny. “Hes going to wait it out. ”

  “But he was-”

  “They can look like whatever they want, to us,” said Nanny. “We see the shape weve given em. ” She let the rock drop back, and dusted off her hands.

  “But why should he want to stop her?”

  “Well, hes her husband, after all. He cant stand her. Its what you might call an open marriage. ”

  “Wait what out?” said Casanunda, looking around to see if there were anymore elves.

  “Oh, you know,” said Nanny, waving a hand. “All this iron and books and clockwork and universities and reading and suchlike. He reckons itll all pass, see. And one day itll all be over, and peoplell look up at the skyline at sunset and there hell be. ”

  Casanunda found himself turning to look at the sunset beyond the mound, half-imagining the huge figure outlined against the afterglow.

  “One day hell be back,” said Nanny softly “When even the iron in the head is rusty”

  Casanunda put his head on one side. You dont move around among a different species for most of your life without learning to read a lot of their body language, especially since its in such large print.

  “You wont entirely be sorry, eh?” he said.

  “Me? I dont want em back! Theyre untrustworthy and cruel and arrogant parasites and we dont need em one bit. ”