Carpe Jugulum

  Granny stopped so suddenly that Oats nearly fell over.

  “I did what?”

  “You were mumbling and—”

  “I was talkin’ in my…sleep?”

  “Yes, and you said something about darkness being where the light needs to be, which I remember because in the Book of Om—”

  “You listened?”

  “No, I wasn’t listening, but I couldn’t help hearing, could I? And you sounded as if you were having an argument with someone…”

  “Can you remember everything I said?”

  “I think so.”

  Granny staggered on a little, and stopped in a puddle of black water that began to rise over her boots.

  “Can you forget?” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  “You wouldn’t be so unkind as to pass on to anyone else the ramblings of a poor ol’ woman who was probably off her head, would you?” said Granny, slowly.

  Oats thought for a moment. “What ramblings were these, Mistress Weatherwax?”

  Granny seemed to sag with relief.

  “Ah. Good thing you asked, really, bein’ as there weren’t any.”

  Black bubbles arose from the bog around Granny Weatherwax as the two of them watched each other. Some sort of truce had been declared.

  “I wonder, young man, if you would be so good as to pull me out?”

  This took some time and involved a branch from a nearby tree and, despite Oats’s best efforts, Granny’s first foot came out of its boot. And once one boot has said goodbye in a peat bog, the other one is bound to follow out of fraternal solidarity.

  Granny ended up on what was comparatively dry and comparatively land wearing a pair of the heaviest-looking socks Oats had ever seen. They looked as if they could shrug off a hammer blow.

  “They was good boots,” said Granny, looking at the bubbles. “Oh well, let’s get on.”

  She staggered a little as she set off again, but to Oats’s admiration managed to stay upright. He was beginning to form yet another new opinion of the old woman, who caused a new opinion to arise about once every half hour, and it was this: she needed someone to beat. If she didn’t have someone to beat, she’d probably beat herself.

  “Shame about your little book of holy words…” she said, when she was farther down the track.

  There was a long pause before Oats replied.

  “I can easily get another,” he said levelly.

  “Must be hard, not having your book of words.”

  “It’s only paper.”

  “I shall ask the King to see about getting you another book of words.”

  “I wouldn’t trouble him.”

  “Terrible thing to have to burn all them words, though.”

  “The worthwhile ones don’t burn.”

  “You’re not too stupid, for all that you wear a funny hat,” said Granny.

  “I know when I’m being pushed, Mistress Weatherwax.”

  “Well done.”

  They walked on it silence. A shower of hail bounced off Granny’s pointed hat and Oats’s wide brim.

  Then Granny said: “It’s no good you trying to make me believe in Om, though.”

  “Om forbid that I should try, Mistress Weatherwax. I haven’t even given you a pamphlet, have I?”

  “No, but you’re trying to make me think ‘Oo, what a nice young man, his god must be something special if nice young men like him helps old ladies like me,’ aren’t you.”

  “No.”

  “Really? Well, it’s not working. People you can believe in, sometimes, but not gods. And I’ll tell you this, Mister Oats…”

  He sighed. “Yes?”

  She turned to face him, suddenly alive. “It’d be as well for you if I didn’t believe,” she said, prodding him with a sharp finger. “This Om…anyone seen him?”

  “It is said three thousand people witnessed his manifestation at the Great Temple when he make the Covenant with the prophet Brutha and saved him from death by torture on the iron turtle—”

  “But I bet that now they’re arguing about what they actually saw, eh?”

  “Well, indeed, yes, there are many opinions—”

  “Right. Right. That’s people for you. Now if I’d seen him, really there, really alive, it’d be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched ’em like a father and cared for ’em like a mother…well, you wouldn’t catch me sayin’ things like ‘there are two sides to every question’ and ‘we must respect other people’s beliefs.’ You wouldn’t find me just being gen’rally nice in the hope that it’d all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin’ sword. And I did say burnin’, Mister Oats, ’cos that’s what it’d be. You say that you people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just…is just bein’ nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbors.”

  She relaxed slightly, and went on in a quieter voice: “Anyway, that’s what I’d be, if I really believed. And I don’t think that’s fashionable right now, ’cos it seems that if you sees evil now you have to wring your hands and say ‘oh deary me, we must debate this.’ That my two penn’orth, Mister Oats. You be happy to let things lie. Don’t chase faith, ’cos you’ll never catch it.” She added, almost as an aside, “But, perhaps, you can live faithfully.”

  Her teeth chattered as a gust of icy wind flapped her wet dress around her legs.

  “You got another book of holy words on you?” she added.

  “No,” said Oats, still shocked. He thought: my god, if she ever finds a religion, what would come out of these mountains and sweep across the plains? My god…I just said “my god”…

  “A book of hymns, maybe?” said Granny.

  “No.”

  “A slim volume o’ prayers, suitable for every occasion?”

  “No, Granny Weatherwax.”

  “Damn.” Granny slowly collapsed backward, folding up like an empty dress.

  He rushed forward and caught her before she landed in the mud. One thin white hand gripped his wrist so hard that he yelped. Then she relaxed, and sagged in his grasp.

  Something made Oats look up.

  A hooded figure sat on a white horse a little way away, outlined in the faintest blue fire.

  “Go away!” he screamed. “You be gone right now or…or…”

  He lowered the body onto some tufts of grass, grabbed a handful of mud and flung it into the gloom. He ran after it, punching wildly at a shape which was suddenly no more than shadows and curling mist.

  He dashed back, picked up Granny Weatherwax, slung her over his shoulder and ran on, downhill.

  The mist behind him formed a shape on a white horse.

  Death shook his head.

  IT WASN’T EVEN AS IF I SAID ANYTHING, he said.

  Waves of black heat broke over Agnes, and then there was a pit, and a fall into hot, suffocating darkness.

  She felt the desire. It was tugging her forward like a current.

  Well, she thought dreamily, at least I’ll lose some weight…

  Yes, said Perdita, but all the eyeliner you’ll have to wear must add a few pounds…

  The hunger filled her now, accelerating her.

  And there was light, behind her, shining past her. She felt the fall gradually slow as if she’d hit invisible feathers, and then the world spun and she was rising again, moving up faster than an eagle stoops, toward an expanding circle of cold white—

  It couldn’t possibly be words that she heard. There was no sound but a faint rushing noise. But it was the shadow of words, the effect they leave in the mind after they had been said, and she felt her own voice rushing in to fill the shape that had appeared there. I…can’t…be…having…with…this…

  Light exploded. r />
  And someone was about to hammer a stake through her heart.

  “Stdt?” she said, knocking the hand away. She spluttered for a moment and then spat the lemon out of her mouth. “Hey, stop that!” she tried again, this time with all the authority she could muster. “What the heck are you doing? Do I look like a vampire?”

  The man with the stake and mallet hesitated, and then tapped a finger to the side of his neck.

  Agnes reached to hers, and found two raised weals. “He must have missed!” she said, pushing the stake away and sitting up. “Who took my stocking off? Who took off my left stocking? Is that boiling vinegar I can smell? What’re all these poppy seeds doing poured down my bra? If it wasn’t a woman who took my stocking off there’s going to be some serious trouble, I can tell you!”

  The crowd around the table looked at one another, suddenly uncertain in the face of her rage. Agnes glanced up as something brushed her ear. Hanging over her were stars and crosses and circles and more complex designs she recognized as religious symbols. She’d never felt inclined to believe in religion, but she knew what it looked like.

  “And this is just a very tasteless display,” she said.

  “She doesn’t act like a vampire,” said a man. “She doesn’t look like one. And she did fight the others.”

  “We saw that one bite her!” said a woman.

  “Bad aim in poor light,” said Agnes, knowing that it wasn’t. There was a hunger welling up. It was not like the black urge she’d felt in the dark, but sharp and urgent all the same. She had to give into it.

  “I’d kill for a cup of tea,” she added.

  That seemed to clinch it. Tea wasn’t the liquid usually associated with vampires.

  “And for goodness’ sake let me shake some of these poppy seeds out,” she went on, adjusting her bosom “I feel like a wholemeal loaf.”

  They moved aside as she swung her legs off the table, which now meant that she could see the vampire lying on the floor. She nearly thought of it as the other vampire.

  It was a man wearing a long frock coat and a fancy waistcoat, both covered in mud and blood; there was a stake through his heart. Further identification, though, would have to await finding where they’d put his head.

  “I see you got one, then,” she said, trying not to be sick.

  “Got two,” said the man with the hammer. “Set fire to the other one. They killed the mayor and Mr. Vlack.”

  “You mean the rest got away?” said Agnes.

  “Yes. They’re still strong but they can’t fly much.”

  Agnes indicated the headless vampire. “Er…is that one Vlad?” she said.

  “Which one was he?”

  “The one that…bit me. Tried to bite me,” she corrected herself.

  “We can check. Piotr, show her the head.”

  A young man obediently went to the fireplace, pulled on a glove, lifted the lid of a big saucepan and held up a head by its hair.

  “That’s not Vlad,” said Agnes, swallowing. No, said Perdita, Vlad was taller.

  “They’ll be heading back to their castle,” said Piotr. “On foot! You should see them trying to fly! It’s like watching chickens panicking.”

  “The castle…” said Agnes.

  “They’ll have to make it before cock-crow,” said Piotr, with some satisfaction. “And they can’t cut through the woods, ’cos of the werewolves.”

  “What? I thought werewolves and vampires would get along fine,” said Agnes.

  “Oh, maybe it looks like that,” said Piotr. “But they’re watching one another all the time to see who’s going to be the first to blink.” He looked around the room. “We don’t mind the werewolves,” he went on, to general agreement. “They leave us alone most of the time because we don’t run fast enough to be interesting.”

  He looked Agnes up and down.

  “What was it you did to the vampires?” he said.

  “Me? I didn’t do—I don’t know,” said Agnes.

  “They couldn’t even bite us properly.”

  “And they were squabbling like kids when they left,” said the man with the mallet.

  “You’ve got a pointy hat,” said Piotr. “Did you put a spell on them?”

  “I—I don’t know. I really don’t.” And then natural honesty met witchcraft. One aspect of witchcraft is the craftiness, and it’s seldom unwise to take the credit for unexplained but fortuitous events. “I may have done,” she added.

  “Well, we’re going after them,” said Piotr.

  “Won’t they have got well away?”

  “We can cut through the woods.”

  Blood tinted the rain that ran off the wound on Jason Ogg’s shoulder. He dabbed at it with a cloth.

  “Reckon I’ll be hammerin’ left-handed for a week or two,” he said, wincing.

  “They got very good fields of fire,” said Shawn, who had taken refuge behind the beer barrel used so recently to wet the baby’s head. “I mean, it’s a castle. A frontal attack simply won’t work.”

  He sighed, and shielded his guttering candle to keep the wind from blowing it out. They’re tried a frontal attack nevertheless, and the only reason no one had been killed was that the drink seemed to be flowing freely within the keep. As it was, one or two people would be limping for a while. Then they’d tried what Jason persisted in referring to as a backal attack, but there were arrow slots even over the kitchens. One man creeping up to the walls very slowly—a sidle attack, as Shawn had thought of it—had worked, but since all the doors were very solidly barred this had just meant that he’d stood there feeling like a fool.

  He was trying to find some help in the ancient military journals of General Tacticus, whose intelligent campaigning had been so successful that he’d lent his very name to the detailed prosecution of martial endeavor, and had actually found a section headed What to Do If One Army Occupies a Well-fortified and Superior Ground and the Other Does Not, but since the first sentence read “Endeavor to be the one inside” he’d rather lost heart.

  The rest of the Lancre militia cowered behind buttresses and upturned carts, waiting for him to lead them.

  There was a respectful clang as Big Jim Beef, who was acting as cover for two other part-time soldiers, saluted his commander.

  “I reckon,” he ventured, “dat it we got big fire’s goin’ in frun’ of the doors we could smoke dem out.”

  “Good idea,” said Jason.

  “That’s the King’s door,” Shawn protested. “He’s already been a bit sharp with me for not cleaning the privy pit this week—”

  “He can send Mum the bill.”

  “That’s seditious talk, Jason! I could have you arr—I could arr—Mum would have something to say about you talking like that!”

  “Where is the King, anyway?” said Darren Ogg. “Sittin’ back and lettin’ Mum sort everything out while we get shot at?”

  “You know he’s got a weak chest,” said Shawn. “He does very well considering he—”

  He stopped as a sound rolled out across the countryside. It had a hoarse, primal quality, the sound of an animal who is in pain but who also intends to pass it on as soon as possible. The men looked around nervously.

  Verence came thundering through the gates. Shawn recognized him only by the embroidery on his nightshirt and his fluffy slippers. He held a long sword over his head in both hands and was running straight for the door of the keep, trailing a scream behind him.

  The sword struck the wood. Shawn heard the whole door shudder.

  “He’s gone mad!” shouted Darren. “Let’s grab the poor creature before he gets shot!”

  A couple of them scurried across to the struggling King, who was standing horizontally on the door in an effort to get the sword out.

  “Now, see here, your maj—Aargh!”

  “Ach, tak a faceful o’heid!”

  Darren staggered back, clutching at his face.

  Little shapes swarmed across the courtyard after the King, like some kind of
plague.

  “Gibbins!”

  “Fackle!”

  “Nac mac Feegle!”

  There was another scream as Jason, trying to restrain his monarch’s enthusiasm, found that while the touch of a monarch may indeed cure certain scalp conditions, the scalp of a king itself is capable of spreading someone’s nose into an interesting flat shape.

  Arrows thudded into the ground around them.

  Shawn grabbed Big Jim. “They’re all going to get shot, drink or not!” he shouted above the din. “You come with me!”

  “What we gonna do?”

  “Clean the privies!”

  The troll scuttled after him as he edged his way around the keep, to where the Gong Tower loomed against the night in all its odiferous splendor. It was the bane of Shawn’s life. All the keep’s garderobes discharged into it. One of his jobs was to clean it out and take the contents to the pits in the gardens where Verence’s efforts at composting were gradually turning them into, well, Lancre.* But now that the castle was a lot busier than it used to be his weekly efforts with shovel and wheelbarrow weren’t the peaceful and solitary interludes they had been. Of course he’d let the job sort of…pile up these last few weeks, but did they expect him to do everything?

  He waved Big Jim toward the door at the bottom of the tower. Fortunately, trolls have not much interest in organic odors, although they can easily distinguish types of limestone by smell.

  “I want you to open it when I say,” he said, tearing a strip off his shirt and wrapping it around an arrow. He searched his pockets for a match. “And when you’ve opened the door,” he went on, as the cloth caught, “I want you to run away very, very fast, right? Okay…open the door!”

  Big Jim pulled at the handle. There was a very faint whoosh as the door swung back.

  “Run!” Shawn shouted. He drew back the bowstring, and fired through the doorway.

  The flaming arrow vanished into the noisome darkness. There was a pause of a few heartbeats. Then the tower exploded.

  It happened quite slowly. The green-blue light mushroomed up from story to story in an almost leisurely way, blowing out stones at every level to give the tower a nice sparkling effect. The roofing leads opened up like a daisy. A faint flame speared the clouds. Then time, sound and motion came back with a thump.