Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen . . .
From ghosties and bogles and long-leggity beasties . . .
My mother said I never should . . .
We dare not go a-hunting, for fear . . .
And things that go bump . . .
Play with the fairies in the wood . . .
Magrat sat on the horse she didn't trust and gripped the sword she didn't know how to use while the ciphers crept out of memory and climbed into a shape.
They steal cattle and babies. . .
They steal milk. . .
They love music, and steal away musicians. . .
In fact they steal everything.
We'll never be as free as them, as beautiful as them, as clever as them, as light as them; we are animals.
Chilly wind soughed in the forest beyond the town. It had always been a pleasant forest to walk in at nights but now, she knew, it would not be so again. The trees would have eyes. There would be distant laughter in the wind.
What they take is everything.
Magrat spurred the horse into a walk. Somewhere in the town a door slammed shut.
And what they give you is fear.
There was the sound of hammering from across the street. A man was nailing something on his door. He glanced around in terror, saw Magrat, and darted inside.
What he had been nailing on the door was a horseshoe.
Magrat tied the horse firmly to a tree and slid off its back. There was no reply to her knocking.
Who was it who lived here? Carter the weaver, wasn't it, or Weaver the baker? "Open up, man! It's me, Magrat Garlick!"
There was something white beside the doorstep.
It turned out to be a bowl of cream.
Again, Magrat thought of the cat Greebo. Smelly, unreliable, cruel and vindictive — but who purred nicely, and had a bowl of milk every night.
"Come on! Open up!"
After a while the bolts slid back, and an eye was applied to a very narrow crack.
"Yes?"
"You're Carter the baker, aren't you?"
"I'm Weaver the thatcher."
"And you know who I am?"
"Miss Garlick?"
"Come on, let me in!"
"Are you alone, miss?"
"Yes."
The crack widened to a Magrat width.
There was one candle alight in the room. Weaver backed away from Magrat until he was leaning awkwardly over the table. Magrat peered around him.
The rest of the Weaver family were hiding under the table. Four pairs of frightened eyes peered up at Magrat.
"What's going on?" she said.
"Er . . ." said Weaver. "Didn't recognize you in your flying hat, miss . . ."
"I thought you were doing the Entertainment? What's happened? Where is everyone? Where is my going-to-be-husband?"
"Er . . ."
Yes, it was probably the helmet. That's what Magrat decided afterward. There are certain items, such as swords and wizards' hats and crowns and rings, which pick up something of the nature of their owners. Queen Ynci had probably never sewn a tapestry in her life and undoubtedly had a temper shorter than a wet cowpat[38]. It was better to think that something of her had rubbed off on the helmet and was being transmitted to Magrat like some kind of royal scalp disease. It was better to let Ynci take over.
She grabbed Weaver by his collar.
"If you say 'Er' one more time," she said, "I'll chop your ears off."
"Er . . . aargh . . . I mean, miss . . . it's the Lords and Ladies, miss!"
"It really is the elves?"
"Miss!" said Weaver, his eyes full of pleading. "Don't say it! We heard 'em go down the street. Dozens of 'em. And they've stolen old Thatcher's cow and Skindle's goat and they broke down the door of-"
"Why'd you put a bowl of milk out?" Magrat demanded.
Weaver's mouth opened and shut a few times. Then he managed: "You see, my Eva said her granny always put a bowl of milk out for them, to keep them hap-"
"I see," said Magrat, icily. "And the king?"
"The king, miss?" said Weaver, buying time. "The king," said Magrat. "Short man, runny eyes, ears that stick out a bit, unlike other ears in this vicinity very shortly."
Weaver's fingers wove around one another like tormented snakes.
"Well. . . well. . . well. . ."
He caught the look on Magrat's face, and sagged.
"We done the play," he said. "I told 'em, let's do the Stick and Bucket Dance instead, but they were set on this play. And it all started all right and then, and then, and then. . . suddenly They were there, hundreds of 'em, and everyone was runnin', and someone bashed into me, and I rolled into the stream, and then there was all this noise, and I saw Jason Ogg hitting four elves with the first thing he could get hold of-"
"Another elf?"
"Right, and then I found Eva and the kids, and then lots of people were running like hell for home, and there were these Gentry on horseback, and I could hear 'em laughing, and we got home and Eva said to put a horseshoe on the door and-"
"What about the king?"
"Dunno, miss. Last I remember, he was laughin' at Thatcher in his straw wig."
"And Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax? What happened to them?"
"Dunno, miss. Don't remember seein' 'em, but there was people runnin' everywhere-"
"And where was all this?"
"Miss?"
"Where did it happen?" said Magrat, trying to speak slowly and distinctly.
"Up at the Dancers, miss. You know. Them old stones." Magrat let him go.
"Oh, yes," she said. "Don't tell Magrat, Magrat's not to know about this sort of thing. The Dancers? Right."
"It wasn't us, miss! It was only make-believe!"
"Hah!"
She unbolted the door again.
"Where're you going, miss?" said Weaver, who was not a competitor in the All-Lancre Uptake Stakes.
"Where d'you think?"
"But, miss, you can't take iron-"
Magrat slammed the door. Then she kicked the bowl of milk so hard that it sprayed across the street.
Jason Ogg crawled cautiously through the dripping bracken. There was a figure a few feet away. He hefted the stone in his hand—
"Jason?"
"Is that you, Weaver?"
"No, it's me — Tailor."
"Where's everyone else?"
"Tinker'n Baker found Carpenter just now. Have you seen Weaver?"
"No, but I saw Carter and Thatcher."
Mist curled up as the rain drummed into the warm earth. The seven surviving Morris Men crawled under a
dripping bush.
"There's going to be hell to pay in the morning!"
moaned Carter. "When she finds us we're done for!"
"We'll be all right if we can find some iron," said Jason. "Iron don't have no effect on her! She'll tan our hides for us!"
Carter clutched his knees to his chest in terror.
"Who?"
"Mistress Weatherwax!"
Thatcher jabbed him in the ribs. Water cascaded off the leaves above them and tunnelled down every neck.
"Don't be so daft! You saw them things! What're you worrying about that old baggage for?"
"She'll tan our hides for us, right enough! 'Twas all our fault, she'll say!"
"I just hopes she gets a chance," muttered Tinker.
"We are," said Thatcher, "between a rock and a hard place."
"No we ain't," sobbed Carter. "I been there. That's that gorge just above Bad Ass. We ain't there! I wish we was there! We're under this bush! And they'll be looking for us! And so shall she!"
"What happened when we was doing the Ent-" Carpenter began.
"I ain't asking that question right now," said Jason. "The question I'm asking right now is, how do we get home tonight?"
"She'll be waiting for us!" Carter wailed.
There was a tinkle in the darkness.
"What've you got there?" said Jason.
"It's the props sack," said Carter. "You said as how it was my job to look after the props sack!"
"You dragged that all the way down here?"
"I ain't about to get into more trouble 'cos of losing the props sack!"
Carter started to shiver.
"If we gets back home," said Jason, "I'm going to talk to our mam about getting you some of these new dried frog pills."
He pulled the sack toward him and undid the top.
"There's our bells in here," he said, "and the sticks. And who told you to pack the accordion?"
"I thought we might want to do the Stick and-"
"No one's ever to do the Stick and-"
There was a laugh, away on the rain-soaked hill, and a crackling in the bracken. Jason suddenly felt the focus of attention.
"They're out there!" said Carter.
"And we ain't got any weapons," said Tinker.
A set of heavy brass bells hit him in the chest.
"Shut up," said Jason, "and put your bells on. Carter?"
"They're waiting for us!"
"I'll say this just once," said Jason. "After tonight no one's ever to talk about the Stick and Bucket dance ever again. All right?"
The Lancre Morris Men faced one another, rain plastering their clothes to their bodies.
Carter, tears of terror mingling with make-up and the rain, squeezed the accordion. There was the long-drawn-out chord that by law must precede all folk music to give bystanders time to get away
Jason held up his hand and counted his fingers.
"One, two . . ." His forehead wrinkled. "One, two, three . . ."
". . . four . . ." hissed Tinker.
". . . four," said Jason. "Dance, lads!"
Six heavy ash sticks clashed in mid-air.
". . . one, two, forward, one, back, spin . . ."
Slowly, as the leaky strains of Mrs. Widgery's Lodger wound around the mist, the dancers leapt and squelched their way slowly through the night. . .
". . . two, back, jump . . ."
The sticks clashed again.
"They're watching us!" panted Tailor, as he bounced past Jason, "I can see 'em!"
". . . one . . . two . . . they won't do nothing 'til the music stops! . . . back, two, spin . . . they loves music! . . . forward, hop, turn . . . one and six, beetle crushers! . . . hop, back, spin . . ."
"They're coming out of the bracken!" shouted Carpenter, as the sticks met again.
"I see 'em . . . two, three, forward, turn . . . Carter . . . back, spin . . . you do a double . . . two, back . . . wandering angus down the middle . . ."
"I'm losing it, Jason!"
"Play! . . . two, three, spin . . ."
"They're all round us!"
"Dance!"
"They're watching us! They're closing in!"
". . . spin, back . . . jump . . . we're nearly at the road . . ."
"Jason!"
"Remember when . . . three, turn . . . we won the cup against Ohulan Casuals? . . . spin . . ."
The sticks met, with a thump of wood against wood. Clods of earth were kicked into the night.
"Jason, you don't mean-"
". . . back, two . . . do it. . . "
"Carter's getting . . . one, two . . . out of wind . . ."
". . . two, spin. . ."
"The accordion's melting, Jason," sobbed Carter.
". . . one, two, forward . . . bean setting!"
The accordion wheezed. The elves pressed in. Out of the corner of his eye Jason saw a dozen grinning, fascinated faces.
"Jason!"
". . . one, two . . . Carter into the middle . . . one, two, spin. . ."
Seven pairs of boots thudded down . . .
"Jason!"
". . . one, two . . . spin . . . ready . . . one, two . . . back . . . back . . . one, two . . . turn . . . KILL . . . and back, one, two. . ."
The inn was a wreck. The elves had stripped it of everything edible and rolled out every barrel, although a couple of rogue cheeses in the cellar had put up quite a fight.
The table had collapsed. Lobster claws and candlesticks lay among the ruined meal.
Nothing moved.
Then someone sneezed, and some soot fell into the empty grate, followed by Nanny Ogg and, eventually, by the small, black, and irate figure of Casanunda.
"Yuk," said Nanny, looking around at the debris. "This really is the pips."
"You should have let me fight them!"
"There were too many of them, my lad."
Casanunda threw his sword on the floor in disgust.
"We were just getting to know one another properly and fifty elves burst into the place! Damn! This kind of thing happens to me all the time!"
"That's the best thing about black, it doesn't show the soot," said Nanny Ogg vaguely, dusting herself off. "They managed it, then. Esme was right. Wonder where she is? Oh, well. Come on."
"Where're we going?" said the dwarf.
"Down to my cottage."
"Ah!"
"To get my broomstick," said Nanny Ogg firmly. "I ain't having the Queen of the Fairies ruling my children. So we'd better get some help. This has gone too far."
"We could go up into the mountains," said Casanunda, as they crept down the stairs. "There's thousands of dwarfs up there."
"No," said Nanny Ogg. "Esme won't thank me for this, but I'm the one who has to wave the bag o' sweets when she overreaches herself . . . and I'm thinking about someone who really hates the Queen."
"You won't find anyone who hates her worse than dwarfs do," said Casanunda.
"Oh, you will," said Nanny Ogg, "if you knows where to look."
The elves had been into Nanny Ogg's cottage, too. There weren't two pieces of furniture left whole.
"What they don't take they smash," said Nanny Ogg.
She stirred the debris with her foot. Glass tinkled.
"That vase was a present from Esme," she said, to the unfeeling world in general. "Never liked it much."
"Why'd they do it?" said Casanunda, looking around.
"Oh, they'd smash the world if they thought it'd make a pretty noise," said Nanny She stepped outside again and felt around under the eaves of the low thatched roof, and pulled out her broomstick with a small grunt of triumph.
"I always shove it up there," she said, "otherwise the kids nick it and go joy-riding. You ride behind me, and I say this against my better judgement."
Casanunda shuddered. Dwarfs are generally scared of heights, since they don't often have the opportunity to get used to them.
Nanny scratched her chin, making a sandpapery sound.
"And we'll need a crowbar," she said. "There'll be one in Jason's forge. Hop on, my lad."
"I really wasn't expecting this," said Casanunda, feeling his way on to the broomstick with his eyes shut. "I was looking forward to a convivial evening, just me and you."
"It is just me and you."
"Yes, but I hadn't assumed there'd be a broomstick involved."
The stick left the ground slowly Casanunda clung miserably to the bristles.
"Where're we going?" he said weakly
"Place I know, up in the hills," said Nanny "Ages since I've been there. Esme won't go near it, and Magrat's too young to be tole. I used to go there a lot, though. When I was a girl. Girls used to go up there if they wanted to get-oh, bugger. . ."
"What?"
"Thought I saw something fly across the moon, and I'm damn sure it wasn't Esme."
Casanunda tried to look around while keeping his eyes shut.
"Elves can't fly," he muttered.
"That's all you know," said Nanny. "They ride yarrow stalks."
"Yarrow stalks?"
"Yep. Tried it meself, once. You can get some lift out of 'em, but it plays merry hell with the gussets. Give me a nice bundle of bristles every time. Anyway," she nudged Casanunda, "you should be right at home on one of these. Magrat says a broomstick is one of them sexual metaphor things.[39]"
Casanunda had opened one eye just long enough to see a rooftop drift silently below him. He felt sick.
"The difference being," said Nanny Ogg, "that a broomstick stays up longer. And you can use it to keep the house clean, which is more than you can say for — are you all right?"
"I really don't like this at all, Mrs. Ogg."
"Just trying to cheer you up, Mr. Casanunda."
"'Cheer' I like, Mrs. Ogg," said the dwarf, "but can we avoid the 'up'?"
"Soon be down."
"That I like."
Nanny Ogg's boots scraped along the hard-packed mud of the smithy's yard.
"I'll leave the magic running, won't be a mo," she said. Ignoring the dwarfs bleat for help, she hopped off the stick and disappeared through the back door.
The elves hadn't been there, at least. Too much iron. She pulled a crowbar from the toolbench and hurried out again.
"You can hold this," she said to Casanunda. She hesitated. "Can't have too much luck, can we?" she said, and scurried back into the forge. This time she was out again much faster, slipping something into her pocket.
"Ready?" she said. ' "No."
"Then let's go. And keep a look out. With your eyes open."
"I'm looking for elves?" said Casanunda, as the stick rose into the moonlight.
"Could be. It wasn't Esme, and the only other one ever flying around here is Mr. Ixolite the banshee, and he's very good about slipping us a note under the door when he's going to be about. For air traffic control, see?"
Most of the town was dark. The moonlight made a black and silver checkerboard across the country. After a while, Casanunda began to feel better about things. The motion of the broomstick was actually quite soothing.
"Carried lots of passengers, have you?" he said.
"On and off, yes," said Nanny.
Casanunda appeared to be thinking about things. And then he said, in a voice dripping with scientific inquiry, "Tell me, has anyone ever tried to mak-"
"No," said Nanny Ogg firmly. "You'd fall off."
"You don't know what I was going to ask."
"Bet you half a dollar?"
They flew in silence for a couple of minutes, and then Casanunda tapped Nanny Ogg on the shoulder.
"Elves at three o'clock!"
"That's all right, then. That's hours away."
"I mean they're over there!"
Nanny squinted at the stars. Something ragged moved across the night.
"Oh, blast."
"Can't you outfly them?"
"Nope. They can put a girdle round the world in forty minutes."
"Why? It's not that fat," said Casanunda, who was feeling in the mood for a handful of dried frog pills.
"I mean they're fast. We can't outrun 'em, even if we lost some weight."
"I think I'm losing a tiny bit," said Casanunda, as the broomstick dived toward the trees.
Leaves scraped on Nanny Ogg's boots. Moonlight glinted briefly off ash-blond hair, away to her left. "Bugger, bugger, bugger."
Three elves were keeping station with the broomstick. That was the thing about elves. They chased you till you dropped, until your blood was curdling with dread; if a dwarf wanted you dead, on the other hand, they'd simply cut you in half with an axe first chance they got. But that was because dwarfs were a lot nicer than elves.
"They're gaming on us!" said Casanunda.
"Got the crowbar?"
"Yes!"
"Right. . ."
The broomstick zigzagged over the silent forest. One of the elves drew its sword and swung down. Knock them down into the trees, leave them alive as long as possible . . .
The broomstick went into reverse. Nanny Ogg's head and legs went forward, so that partly she was sitting on her hands but mainly she was sitting on nothing. The elf swooped toward her, laughing—
Casanunda stuck out the crowbar.
There was a sound very like doioinng.
The broomstick jerked ahead again, dumping Nanny Ogg in Casanunda's lap.
"Sorry."
"Don't mention it. In fact, do it again if you like."
"Get him, did you?"
"Took his breath away."
"Good. Where're the others?"
"Can't see them." Casanunda grinned madly. "We showed them, eh?"
Something went zip and stuck into Nanny Ogg's hat. "They know we've got iron," she said. "They won't come close again. They don't need to," she added bitterly.
The broomstick swerved around a tree and ploughed through some bracken. Then it swung out on to an overgrown path.
"They aren't following us anymore," said Casanunda, after a while. "We've frightened them off, yes?"
"Not us. They're nervy of going close to the Long Man. It's not their turf. Huh, look at the state of this path. There's trees growing in it now. When I was a girl, you wouldn't find a blade of grass growing on the path." She smiled at a distant memory. "Very popular place on a summer night, the Long Man was."
There was a change in the texture of the forest now. It was old even by the standards of Lancre forestry. Beards of moss hung from gnarled low branches. Ancient leaves crackled underfoot as the witch and the dwarf flew between the trees. Something heard them and crashed away through the thick undergrowth. By the sound of it, it was something with horns.
Nanny let the broomstick glide to a halt.
"There," she said, pushing aside a bracken frond, 'the Long Man.'"
Casanunda peered under her elbow.
"Is that all? It's just an old burial mound."
"Three old burial mounds," said Nanny
Casanunda took in the overgrown landscape.
"Yes, I see them," he said. "Two round ones and a long one. Well?"
"The first time I saw 'em from the air," said Nanny, "I nearly fell off the bloody broomstick for laughin'."
There was one of those pauses known as the delayed drop while the dwarf worked out the topography of the situation.
Then:
"Blimey," said Casanunda. "I thought the people who built burial mounds and earthworks and things were serious druids and people like that, not. . . not people who drew on privy walls with 200,000 tons of earth, in a manner of speaking."
"Doesn't sound like you to be shocked by that sort of thing."
She could have sworn the dwarf was blushing under his wig.
"Well, there's such a thing as style," said Casanunda. "There's such a thing as subtlety. You don't just shout: I've got a great big tonker."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," said Nanny, pushing through the bushes. "Here it's the landscape saying:
I've got a great big tonker. That's a dwarf word, is it?"
"Yes."
"It's a good word."
Casanunda tried to untangle himself from a briar.
"Esme doesn't ever come up here," said Nanny, from somewhere up ahead. "She says it's bad enough about folksongs and maypoles and suchlike, without the whole scenery getting suggestive. 'Course," she went on, "this was never intended as a women's place. My great-gran said in the real old days the men used to come up for strange rites what no women ever saw."
"Except your great-grandmother, who hid in the bushes," said Casanunda.
Nanny stopped dead.
"How did you know that?"
"Let's just say I'm developing a bit of an insight into Ogg womanhood as well, Mrs. Ogg," said the dwarf. A thorn bush had ripped his coat.
"She said they just used to build sweat lodges and smell like a blacksmith's armpit and drink scumble and dance around the fire with horns on and piss in the trees any old how," said Nanny. "She said it was a bit sissy, to be honest. But I always reckon a man's got to be a man, even if it is sissy. What happened to your wig?"
"I think it's on that tree back there."
"Still got the crowbar?"
"Yes, Mrs. Ogg."
"Here we are, then."
They had arrived at the foot of the long mound. There were three large irregular stones there, forming a low cave. Nanny Ogg ducked under the lintel into the fusty and somewhat ammonia-scented darkness.
"About here'd do," she said. "Got a match?"
The sulphurous glow revealed a flat rock with a crude drawing scratched on it. Ochre had been rubbed into the lines. They showed a figure of an owl-eyed man wearing an animal skin and horns.
In the flickering light he seemed to dance.
There was a runic inscription underneath.
"Anyone ever worked out what that says?" said Casanunda.
Nanny Ogg nodded.
"It's a variant of Oggham," she said. "Basically, it means 'I've Got a Great Big Tonker.'"
"Oggham?" said the dwarf.
"My family has been in these, how shall I put it, in these parts for a very long time," said Nanny.
"Knowing you is a real education, Mrs. Ogg," said Casanunda.
"Everyone says that. Just shove the crowbar down the side of the stone, will you? I've always wanted an excuse to go down there."
"What is down there?"
"Well, it leads into Lancre Caves. They run everywhere, I've heard. Even up to Copperhead. There's supposed to be an entrance in the castle, but I've never found it. But mainly they lead to the world of the elves."
"I thought the Dancers led to the world of the elves?"
"This is the other world of the elves."
"I thought they only had one."
"They don't talk about this one."
"And you want to go into it?"
"Yes."
"You want to find elves?"
"That's right. Now, are you going to stand here all night, or are you going to crowbar that stone?" She gave him a nudge. "There's gold down there, you know."
"Oh, yes, thanks very much," said Casanunda sarcastically. "That's speciesist, that is. Just because I am . . . vertically disadvantaged, you're trying to get round me with gold, yes? Dwarfs are just a lot of appetites on legs, that's what you think. Hah!"
Nanny sighed.
"Oh, all right," she said. "Tell you what. . . when we get back home, I'll bake you some proper dwarf bread, how about that?"
Casanunda's face split into a disbelieving grin.
"Real dwarf bread?"
"Yes. I reckon I've still got the recipe, and anyway it's been weeks since I emptied out the cat box.[40]"
"Well, all right-."
Casanunda rammed one end of the crowbar under the stone and pulled on it with dwarfish strength. After a moment's resistance the stone swung up.
There were steps below, thick with earth and old roots.
Nanny started down them without a look back, and then realized that the dwarf wasn't following.
"What's the matter?"
"Never liked dark and enclosed spaces much."
"What? You're a dwarf."
"Born a dwarf, born a dwarf. But I even get nervous when I'm hiding in wardrobes. That's a bit of a drawback in my line of work."
"Don't be daft. I'm not scared."
"You're not me."
"Tell you what — I'll bake 'em with extra gravel."
"Ooh . . . you're 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 haven't 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 weren't tripping over shoes all the time, and there probably wasn't 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. It's mythical."
"It's not real?"
"Oh, it's 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.
"Don't touch the money," said Nanny "'Ere, watch this, my dad told me about this, it's 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 he'd sat up he almost certainly was alive, but he looked as though he'd gone from life to rigor mortis without passing through death on the way.
He focused deepset eyes on Nanny Ogg.
"What bloody tyme d'you call thys, then?"
"Not time yet," said Nanny.
"What did you goe and bang the bell for? I don't know, I haven't had a wynke of sleep for two hundred years, some sodde alwayes bangs the bell. Go awaye."
The warrior lay back.
"It's some old king and his warriors," whispered Nanny, as they hurried away. "Some kind of magical sleep, I'm told. Some old wizard did it. They're 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."
"We're walking in a circle?"
"A spiral. We're right under the Long Man now."
"No, that can't be right," said Casanunda. "We climbed down a hole under the Long Man . . . hold on . . . you mean we're in the place where we started and it's a different place?"
"You're 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 here's vertical, so they only needed three. Might as well leave your crowbar here and take your boots off if they've 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 fox's 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 can't be inside the Long Man, he told himself. That's an earthworks, this is a long tent of skins.
They can't 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.
"Y'lordship," said Nanny.
"I suppose it is too much to expect you to kneel?"
"Yes indeed, y'honor," 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, y'grace."
"No one even dances for me now. Is that too much to ask?"
"Just as you say, y'lordship."
"You witches don't 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!"
"I'll take it away when I go," said Nanny. "Now you listen to me. She's making trouble again. You've got to put a stop to it. Fair's fair. We're not having all the Old Trouble again."
"Why should I do that?"
"You want her to be powerful, then?"
There was a snort.
"You can't ever rule again, back in the world," said Nanny. "There's too much music. There's too much iron."
"Iron rusts."
"Not the iron in the head."
The King snorted.
"Nevertheless . . . even that. . . one day . . ."
"One day." Nanny nodded. "Yes. I'll drink to that. One day. Who knows? One day. Everyone needs 'one day.' But it ain't today. D'you see? So you come on out and balance things up. Otherwise, this is what I'll do. I'll get 'em to dig into the Long Man with iron shovels, y'see, and they'll say, why, it's 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 that'll be another iron nail in your coffin. And I'd be a little bit sorry about that, 'cos you know I've always had a soft spot for you. But I've got kiddies, y'see, and they don't hide under the stairs because they're frit of the thunder, and they don't put milk out for the elves, and they don't hurry home because of the night, and before we go back to them dark old ways I'll see you nailed."
The words sliced through the air.
The homed man stood up. And further up. His antlers touched the roof.
Casanunda's 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. . . will decide."
"Very good. You decide. And I'll 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 don't 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 wasn't 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 didn't wait to see what happened next. He dived through the apparition's legs and ran on, but a distant war-cry echoed in his long, floppy ears:
"Why, certainly, I'll 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-"
"He's brighter than she is. Or more lazy," said Nanny. "He's going to wait it out."
"But he was-"
"They can look like whatever they want, to us," said Nanny. "We see the shape we've given 'em." She let the rock drop back, and dusted off her hands.
"But why should he want to stop her?"
"Well, he's her husband, after all. He can't stand her. It's 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 it'll all pass, see. And one day it'll all be over, and people'll look up at the skyline at sunset and there he'll be."
Casanunda found himself turning to look at the sunset beyond the mound, half-imagining the huge figure outlined against the afterglow.
"One day he'll be back," said Nanny softly "When even the iron in the head is rusty"
Casanunda put his head on one side. You don't move around among a different species for most of your life without learning to read a lot of their body language, especially since it's in such large print.
"You won't entirely be sorry, eh?" he said.
"Me? I don't want 'em back! They're untrustworthy and cruel and arrogant parasites and we don't need 'em one bit."
"Bet you half a dollar?"
Nanny was suddenly flustered.
"Don't you look at me like that! Esme's right. Of course she's right. We don't want elves anymore. Stands to reason."
"Esme's the short one, is she?"
"Hah, no, Esme's the tall one with the nose. You know her."
"Right, yes."
"The short one is Magrat. She's a kind-hearted soul and a bit soft. Wears flowers in her hair and believes in songs, I reckon she'd be off dancing with the elves quick as a wink, her."
More doubts were entering Magrat's life. They concerned crossbows, for one thing. A crossbow is a very useful and usable weapon designed for speed and convenience and deadliness in the hands of the inexperienced, like a faster version of an out-of-code TV dinner. But it is designed to be used once, by someone who has somewhere safe to duck while they reload. Otherwise it is just so much metal and wood with a piece of string on it.
Then there was the sword. Despite Shawn's misgivings, Magrat did in theory know what you did with a sword. You tried to stick it into the enemy by a vigorous arm motion, and the enemy tried to stop you. She was a little uncertain about what happened next. She hoped you were allowed another go.
She was also having doubts about her armour. The helmet and the breastplate were OK, but the rest of it was chain-mail. And, as Shawn Ogg knew, chain-mail from the point of view of an arrow can be thought of as a series of loosely connected holes.
The rage was still there, the pure fury still gripped her at the core. But there was no getting away from the fact that the heart it gripped was surrounded by the rest of Magrat Garlick, spinster of this parish and likely to remain so.
There were no elves visible in the town, but she could see where they had been. Doors hung off their hinges. The place looked as though it had been visited by Genghiz Cohen[41].
Now she was on the track that led to the stones. It was wider than it had been; the horses and carriages had churned it on the way up, and the fleeing people had turned it into a mire on the way down.
She knew she was being watched, and it almost came as a relief when three elves stepped out from under the trees before she'd even lost sight of the castle.
The middle one grinned.
"Good evening, girl," it said. "My name is Lord Lankin, and you will curtsy when you talk to me."
The tone suggested that there was absolutely no possibility that she would disobey She felt her muscles strain to comply.
Queen Ynci wouldn't have obeyed . . .
"I happen to be practically the queen," she said.
It was the first time she'd looked an elf in the face when she was in any condition to notice details. This one was currently wearing high cheekbones and hair tied in a ponytail; it wore odds and ends of rags and lace and fur, confident in the knowledge that anything would look good on an elf.
It wrinkled its perfect nose at her.
"There is only one Queen in Lancre," it said. "And you are, most definitely, not her."
Magrat tried to concentrate.
"Where is she, then?" she said.
The other two raised their bows.
"You are looking for the Queen? Then we will take you to her," Lankin stated. "And, lady, should you be inclined to make use of that nasty iron bow there are more archers hidden in the trees." There was indeed a rustling in the trees on one side of the track, but it was followed by a thump. The elves looked disconcerted.
"Get out of my way," said Magrat.
"I think you have a very wrong idea," said the elf. Its smile widened, but vanished when there was another sylvan crash from the other side of the track.
"We felt you coming all the way up the track," said the elf. "The brave girl off to rescue her lover! Oh, the romance! Take her."
A shadow rose up behind the two armed elves, took a head in either hand, and banged them together.
The shadow stepped forward over their bodies and, as Lankin turned, caught it with one roundarm punch that picked it up and slammed it into a tree.
Magrat drew her sword.
Whatever this was, it looked worse than elves. It was muddy and hairy and almost troll-like in its build, and it reached out for the bridle with an arm that seemed to extend for ever. She raised the sword—
"Oook?"
"Put the sword down, please, miss!"
The voice came from somewhere behind her, but it sounded human and worried. Elves never sounded worried.
"Who are you?" she said, without turning around. The monster in front of her gave her a big, yellow-toothed grin.
"Um, I'm Ponder Stibbons. A wizard. And he's a wizard, too."
"He's got no clothes on!"
"I could get him to have a bath, if you like," said Ponder, slightly hysterically. "He always puts on an old green dressing gown when he's had a bath."
Magrat relaxed a bit. No one who sounded like that could be much of a threat, except to themselves.
"Whose side are you on, Mr. Wizard?"
"How many are there?"
"Oook?"
"When I get off this horse," said Magrat, "it'll bolt. So can you ask your . . . friend to let go of the bridle? He'll be hurt."
"Oook?"
"Um. Probably not."
Magrat slid off. The horse, relieved of the presence of iron, bolted. For about two yards.
"Oook."
The horse was struggling to get back on its feet.
Magrat blinked.
"Um, he's just a bit annoyed at the moment," said Ponder. "One of the . . . elves . . . shot him with an arrow."
"But they do that to control people!"
"Um. He's not a person."
"Oook!"
"Genetically, I mean."
Magrat had met wizards before. Occasionally one visited Lancre, although they didn't stay very long. There was something about the presence of Granny Weatherwax that made them move on.
From ghosties and bogles and long-leggity beasties . . .
My mother said I never should . . .
We dare not go a-hunting, for fear . . .
And things that go bump . . .
Play with the fairies in the wood . . .
Magrat sat on the horse she didn't trust and gripped the sword she didn't know how to use while the ciphers crept out of memory and climbed into a shape.
They steal cattle and babies. . .
They steal milk. . .
They love music, and steal away musicians. . .
In fact they steal everything.
We'll never be as free as them, as beautiful as them, as clever as them, as light as them; we are animals.
Chilly wind soughed in the forest beyond the town. It had always been a pleasant forest to walk in at nights but now, she knew, it would not be so again. The trees would have eyes. There would be distant laughter in the wind.
What they take is everything.
Magrat spurred the horse into a walk. Somewhere in the town a door slammed shut.
And what they give you is fear.
There was the sound of hammering from across the street. A man was nailing something on his door. He glanced around in terror, saw Magrat, and darted inside.
What he had been nailing on the door was a horseshoe.
Magrat tied the horse firmly to a tree and slid off its back. There was no reply to her knocking.
Who was it who lived here? Carter the weaver, wasn't it, or Weaver the baker? "Open up, man! It's me, Magrat Garlick!"
There was something white beside the doorstep.
It turned out to be a bowl of cream.
Again, Magrat thought of the cat Greebo. Smelly, unreliable, cruel and vindictive — but who purred nicely, and had a bowl of milk every night.
"Come on! Open up!"
After a while the bolts slid back, and an eye was applied to a very narrow crack.
"Yes?"
"You're Carter the baker, aren't you?"
"I'm Weaver the thatcher."
"And you know who I am?"
"Miss Garlick?"
"Come on, let me in!"
"Are you alone, miss?"
"Yes."
The crack widened to a Magrat width.
There was one candle alight in the room. Weaver backed away from Magrat until he was leaning awkwardly over the table. Magrat peered around him.
The rest of the Weaver family were hiding under the table. Four pairs of frightened eyes peered up at Magrat.
"What's going on?" she said.
"Er . . ." said Weaver. "Didn't recognize you in your flying hat, miss . . ."
"I thought you were doing the Entertainment? What's happened? Where is everyone? Where is my going-to-be-husband?"
"Er . . ."
Yes, it was probably the helmet. That's what Magrat decided afterward. There are certain items, such as swords and wizards' hats and crowns and rings, which pick up something of the nature of their owners. Queen Ynci had probably never sewn a tapestry in her life and undoubtedly had a temper shorter than a wet cowpat[38]. It was better to think that something of her had rubbed off on the helmet and was being transmitted to Magrat like some kind of royal scalp disease. It was better to let Ynci take over.
She grabbed Weaver by his collar.
"If you say 'Er' one more time," she said, "I'll chop your ears off."
"Er . . . aargh . . . I mean, miss . . . it's the Lords and Ladies, miss!"
"It really is the elves?"
"Miss!" said Weaver, his eyes full of pleading. "Don't say it! We heard 'em go down the street. Dozens of 'em. And they've stolen old Thatcher's cow and Skindle's goat and they broke down the door of-"
"Why'd you put a bowl of milk out?" Magrat demanded.
Weaver's mouth opened and shut a few times. Then he managed: "You see, my Eva said her granny always put a bowl of milk out for them, to keep them hap-"
"I see," said Magrat, icily. "And the king?"
"The king, miss?" said Weaver, buying time. "The king," said Magrat. "Short man, runny eyes, ears that stick out a bit, unlike other ears in this vicinity very shortly."
Weaver's fingers wove around one another like tormented snakes.
"Well. . . well. . . well. . ."
He caught the look on Magrat's face, and sagged.
"We done the play," he said. "I told 'em, let's do the Stick and Bucket Dance instead, but they were set on this play. And it all started all right and then, and then, and then. . . suddenly They were there, hundreds of 'em, and everyone was runnin', and someone bashed into me, and I rolled into the stream, and then there was all this noise, and I saw Jason Ogg hitting four elves with the first thing he could get hold of-"
"Another elf?"
"Right, and then I found Eva and the kids, and then lots of people were running like hell for home, and there were these Gentry on horseback, and I could hear 'em laughing, and we got home and Eva said to put a horseshoe on the door and-"
"What about the king?"
"Dunno, miss. Last I remember, he was laughin' at Thatcher in his straw wig."
"And Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax? What happened to them?"
"Dunno, miss. Don't remember seein' 'em, but there was people runnin' everywhere-"
"And where was all this?"
"Miss?"
"Where did it happen?" said Magrat, trying to speak slowly and distinctly.
"Up at the Dancers, miss. You know. Them old stones." Magrat let him go.
"Oh, yes," she said. "Don't tell Magrat, Magrat's not to know about this sort of thing. The Dancers? Right."
"It wasn't us, miss! It was only make-believe!"
"Hah!"
She unbolted the door again.
"Where're you going, miss?" said Weaver, who was not a competitor in the All-Lancre Uptake Stakes.
"Where d'you think?"
"But, miss, you can't take iron-"
Magrat slammed the door. Then she kicked the bowl of milk so hard that it sprayed across the street.
Jason Ogg crawled cautiously through the dripping bracken. There was a figure a few feet away. He hefted the stone in his hand—
"Jason?"
"Is that you, Weaver?"
"No, it's me — Tailor."
"Where's everyone else?"
"Tinker'n Baker found Carpenter just now. Have you seen Weaver?"
"No, but I saw Carter and Thatcher."
Mist curled up as the rain drummed into the warm earth. The seven surviving Morris Men crawled under a
dripping bush.
"There's going to be hell to pay in the morning!"
moaned Carter. "When she finds us we're done for!"
"We'll be all right if we can find some iron," said Jason. "Iron don't have no effect on her! She'll tan our hides for us!"
Carter clutched his knees to his chest in terror.
"Who?"
"Mistress Weatherwax!"
Thatcher jabbed him in the ribs. Water cascaded off the leaves above them and tunnelled down every neck.
"Don't be so daft! You saw them things! What're you worrying about that old baggage for?"
"She'll tan our hides for us, right enough! 'Twas all our fault, she'll say!"
"I just hopes she gets a chance," muttered Tinker.
"We are," said Thatcher, "between a rock and a hard place."
"No we ain't," sobbed Carter. "I been there. That's that gorge just above Bad Ass. We ain't there! I wish we was there! We're under this bush! And they'll be looking for us! And so shall she!"
"What happened when we was doing the Ent-" Carpenter began.
"I ain't asking that question right now," said Jason. "The question I'm asking right now is, how do we get home tonight?"
"She'll be waiting for us!" Carter wailed.
There was a tinkle in the darkness.
"What've you got there?" said Jason.
"It's the props sack," said Carter. "You said as how it was my job to look after the props sack!"
"You dragged that all the way down here?"
"I ain't about to get into more trouble 'cos of losing the props sack!"
Carter started to shiver.
"If we gets back home," said Jason, "I'm going to talk to our mam about getting you some of these new dried frog pills."
He pulled the sack toward him and undid the top.
"There's our bells in here," he said, "and the sticks. And who told you to pack the accordion?"
"I thought we might want to do the Stick and-"
"No one's ever to do the Stick and-"
There was a laugh, away on the rain-soaked hill, and a crackling in the bracken. Jason suddenly felt the focus of attention.
"They're out there!" said Carter.
"And we ain't got any weapons," said Tinker.
A set of heavy brass bells hit him in the chest.
"Shut up," said Jason, "and put your bells on. Carter?"
"They're waiting for us!"
"I'll say this just once," said Jason. "After tonight no one's ever to talk about the Stick and Bucket dance ever again. All right?"
The Lancre Morris Men faced one another, rain plastering their clothes to their bodies.
Carter, tears of terror mingling with make-up and the rain, squeezed the accordion. There was the long-drawn-out chord that by law must precede all folk music to give bystanders time to get away
Jason held up his hand and counted his fingers.
"One, two . . ." His forehead wrinkled. "One, two, three . . ."
". . . four . . ." hissed Tinker.
". . . four," said Jason. "Dance, lads!"
Six heavy ash sticks clashed in mid-air.
". . . one, two, forward, one, back, spin . . ."
Slowly, as the leaky strains of Mrs. Widgery's Lodger wound around the mist, the dancers leapt and squelched their way slowly through the night. . .
". . . two, back, jump . . ."
The sticks clashed again.
"They're watching us!" panted Tailor, as he bounced past Jason, "I can see 'em!"
". . . one . . . two . . . they won't do nothing 'til the music stops! . . . back, two, spin . . . they loves music! . . . forward, hop, turn . . . one and six, beetle crushers! . . . hop, back, spin . . ."
"They're coming out of the bracken!" shouted Carpenter, as the sticks met again.
"I see 'em . . . two, three, forward, turn . . . Carter . . . back, spin . . . you do a double . . . two, back . . . wandering angus down the middle . . ."
"I'm losing it, Jason!"
"Play! . . . two, three, spin . . ."
"They're all round us!"
"Dance!"
"They're watching us! They're closing in!"
". . . spin, back . . . jump . . . we're nearly at the road . . ."
"Jason!"
"Remember when . . . three, turn . . . we won the cup against Ohulan Casuals? . . . spin . . ."
The sticks met, with a thump of wood against wood. Clods of earth were kicked into the night.
"Jason, you don't mean-"
". . . back, two . . . do it. . . "
"Carter's getting . . . one, two . . . out of wind . . ."
". . . two, spin. . ."
"The accordion's melting, Jason," sobbed Carter.
". . . one, two, forward . . . bean setting!"
The accordion wheezed. The elves pressed in. Out of the corner of his eye Jason saw a dozen grinning, fascinated faces.
"Jason!"
". . . one, two . . . Carter into the middle . . . one, two, spin. . ."
Seven pairs of boots thudded down . . .
"Jason!"
". . . one, two . . . spin . . . ready . . . one, two . . . back . . . back . . . one, two . . . turn . . . KILL . . . and back, one, two. . ."
The inn was a wreck. The elves had stripped it of everything edible and rolled out every barrel, although a couple of rogue cheeses in the cellar had put up quite a fight.
The table had collapsed. Lobster claws and candlesticks lay among the ruined meal.
Nothing moved.
Then someone sneezed, and some soot fell into the empty grate, followed by Nanny Ogg and, eventually, by the small, black, and irate figure of Casanunda.
"Yuk," said Nanny, looking around at the debris. "This really is the pips."
"You should have let me fight them!"
"There were too many of them, my lad."
Casanunda threw his sword on the floor in disgust.
"We were just getting to know one another properly and fifty elves burst into the place! Damn! This kind of thing happens to me all the time!"
"That's the best thing about black, it doesn't show the soot," said Nanny Ogg vaguely, dusting herself off. "They managed it, then. Esme was right. Wonder where she is? Oh, well. Come on."
"Where're we going?" said the dwarf.
"Down to my cottage."
"Ah!"
"To get my broomstick," said Nanny Ogg firmly. "I ain't having the Queen of the Fairies ruling my children. So we'd better get some help. This has gone too far."
"We could go up into the mountains," said Casanunda, as they crept down the stairs. "There's thousands of dwarfs up there."
"No," said Nanny Ogg. "Esme won't thank me for this, but I'm the one who has to wave the bag o' sweets when she overreaches herself . . . and I'm thinking about someone who really hates the Queen."
"You won't find anyone who hates her worse than dwarfs do," said Casanunda.
"Oh, you will," said Nanny Ogg, "if you knows where to look."
The elves had been into Nanny Ogg's cottage, too. There weren't two pieces of furniture left whole.
"What they don't take they smash," said Nanny Ogg.
She stirred the debris with her foot. Glass tinkled.
"That vase was a present from Esme," she said, to the unfeeling world in general. "Never liked it much."
"Why'd they do it?" said Casanunda, looking around.
"Oh, they'd smash the world if they thought it'd make a pretty noise," said Nanny She stepped outside again and felt around under the eaves of the low thatched roof, and pulled out her broomstick with a small grunt of triumph.
"I always shove it up there," she said, "otherwise the kids nick it and go joy-riding. You ride behind me, and I say this against my better judgement."
Casanunda shuddered. Dwarfs are generally scared of heights, since they don't often have the opportunity to get used to them.
Nanny scratched her chin, making a sandpapery sound.
"And we'll need a crowbar," she said. "There'll be one in Jason's forge. Hop on, my lad."
"I really wasn't expecting this," said Casanunda, feeling his way on to the broomstick with his eyes shut. "I was looking forward to a convivial evening, just me and you."
"It is just me and you."
"Yes, but I hadn't assumed there'd be a broomstick involved."
The stick left the ground slowly Casanunda clung miserably to the bristles.
"Where're we going?" he said weakly
"Place I know, up in the hills," said Nanny "Ages since I've been there. Esme won't go near it, and Magrat's too young to be tole. I used to go there a lot, though. When I was a girl. Girls used to go up there if they wanted to get-oh, bugger. . ."
"What?"
"Thought I saw something fly across the moon, and I'm damn sure it wasn't Esme."
Casanunda tried to look around while keeping his eyes shut.
"Elves can't fly," he muttered.
"That's all you know," said Nanny. "They ride yarrow stalks."
"Yarrow stalks?"
"Yep. Tried it meself, once. You can get some lift out of 'em, but it plays merry hell with the gussets. Give me a nice bundle of bristles every time. Anyway," she nudged Casanunda, "you should be right at home on one of these. Magrat says a broomstick is one of them sexual metaphor things.[39]"
Casanunda had opened one eye just long enough to see a rooftop drift silently below him. He felt sick.
"The difference being," said Nanny Ogg, "that a broomstick stays up longer. And you can use it to keep the house clean, which is more than you can say for — are you all right?"
"I really don't like this at all, Mrs. Ogg."
"Just trying to cheer you up, Mr. Casanunda."
"'Cheer' I like, Mrs. Ogg," said the dwarf, "but can we avoid the 'up'?"
"Soon be down."
"That I like."
Nanny Ogg's boots scraped along the hard-packed mud of the smithy's yard.
"I'll leave the magic running, won't be a mo," she said. Ignoring the dwarfs bleat for help, she hopped off the stick and disappeared through the back door.
The elves hadn't been there, at least. Too much iron. She pulled a crowbar from the toolbench and hurried out again.
"You can hold this," she said to Casanunda. She hesitated. "Can't have too much luck, can we?" she said, and scurried back into the forge. This time she was out again much faster, slipping something into her pocket.
"Ready?" she said. ' "No."
"Then let's go. And keep a look out. With your eyes open."
"I'm looking for elves?" said Casanunda, as the stick rose into the moonlight.
"Could be. It wasn't Esme, and the only other one ever flying around here is Mr. Ixolite the banshee, and he's very good about slipping us a note under the door when he's going to be about. For air traffic control, see?"
Most of the town was dark. The moonlight made a black and silver checkerboard across the country. After a while, Casanunda began to feel better about things. The motion of the broomstick was actually quite soothing.
"Carried lots of passengers, have you?" he said.
"On and off, yes," said Nanny.
Casanunda appeared to be thinking about things. And then he said, in a voice dripping with scientific inquiry, "Tell me, has anyone ever tried to mak-"
"No," said Nanny Ogg firmly. "You'd fall off."
"You don't know what I was going to ask."
"Bet you half a dollar?"
They flew in silence for a couple of minutes, and then Casanunda tapped Nanny Ogg on the shoulder.
"Elves at three o'clock!"
"That's all right, then. That's hours away."
"I mean they're over there!"
Nanny squinted at the stars. Something ragged moved across the night.
"Oh, blast."
"Can't you outfly them?"
"Nope. They can put a girdle round the world in forty minutes."
"Why? It's not that fat," said Casanunda, who was feeling in the mood for a handful of dried frog pills.
"I mean they're fast. We can't outrun 'em, even if we lost some weight."
"I think I'm losing a tiny bit," said Casanunda, as the broomstick dived toward the trees.
Leaves scraped on Nanny Ogg's boots. Moonlight glinted briefly off ash-blond hair, away to her left. "Bugger, bugger, bugger."
Three elves were keeping station with the broomstick. That was the thing about elves. They chased you till you dropped, until your blood was curdling with dread; if a dwarf wanted you dead, on the other hand, they'd simply cut you in half with an axe first chance they got. But that was because dwarfs were a lot nicer than elves.
"They're gaming on us!" said Casanunda.
"Got the crowbar?"
"Yes!"
"Right. . ."
The broomstick zigzagged over the silent forest. One of the elves drew its sword and swung down. Knock them down into the trees, leave them alive as long as possible . . .
The broomstick went into reverse. Nanny Ogg's head and legs went forward, so that partly she was sitting on her hands but mainly she was sitting on nothing. The elf swooped toward her, laughing—
Casanunda stuck out the crowbar.
There was a sound very like doioinng.
The broomstick jerked ahead again, dumping Nanny Ogg in Casanunda's lap.
"Sorry."
"Don't mention it. In fact, do it again if you like."
"Get him, did you?"
"Took his breath away."
"Good. Where're the others?"
"Can't see them." Casanunda grinned madly. "We showed them, eh?"
Something went zip and stuck into Nanny Ogg's hat. "They know we've got iron," she said. "They won't come close again. They don't need to," she added bitterly.
The broomstick swerved around a tree and ploughed through some bracken. Then it swung out on to an overgrown path.
"They aren't following us anymore," said Casanunda, after a while. "We've frightened them off, yes?"
"Not us. They're nervy of going close to the Long Man. It's not their turf. Huh, look at the state of this path. There's trees growing in it now. When I was a girl, you wouldn't find a blade of grass growing on the path." She smiled at a distant memory. "Very popular place on a summer night, the Long Man was."
There was a change in the texture of the forest now. It was old even by the standards of Lancre forestry. Beards of moss hung from gnarled low branches. Ancient leaves crackled underfoot as the witch and the dwarf flew between the trees. Something heard them and crashed away through the thick undergrowth. By the sound of it, it was something with horns.
Nanny let the broomstick glide to a halt.
"There," she said, pushing aside a bracken frond, 'the Long Man.'"
Casanunda peered under her elbow.
"Is that all? It's just an old burial mound."
"Three old burial mounds," said Nanny
Casanunda took in the overgrown landscape.
"Yes, I see them," he said. "Two round ones and a long one. Well?"
"The first time I saw 'em from the air," said Nanny, "I nearly fell off the bloody broomstick for laughin'."
There was one of those pauses known as the delayed drop while the dwarf worked out the topography of the situation.
Then:
"Blimey," said Casanunda. "I thought the people who built burial mounds and earthworks and things were serious druids and people like that, not. . . not people who drew on privy walls with 200,000 tons of earth, in a manner of speaking."
"Doesn't sound like you to be shocked by that sort of thing."
She could have sworn the dwarf was blushing under his wig.
"Well, there's such a thing as style," said Casanunda. "There's such a thing as subtlety. You don't just shout: I've got a great big tonker."
"It's a bit more complicated than that," said Nanny, pushing through the bushes. "Here it's the landscape saying:
I've got a great big tonker. That's a dwarf word, is it?"
"Yes."
"It's a good word."
Casanunda tried to untangle himself from a briar.
"Esme doesn't ever come up here," said Nanny, from somewhere up ahead. "She says it's bad enough about folksongs and maypoles and suchlike, without the whole scenery getting suggestive. 'Course," she went on, "this was never intended as a women's place. My great-gran said in the real old days the men used to come up for strange rites what no women ever saw."
"Except your great-grandmother, who hid in the bushes," said Casanunda.
Nanny stopped dead.
"How did you know that?"
"Let's just say I'm developing a bit of an insight into Ogg womanhood as well, Mrs. Ogg," said the dwarf. A thorn bush had ripped his coat.
"She said they just used to build sweat lodges and smell like a blacksmith's armpit and drink scumble and dance around the fire with horns on and piss in the trees any old how," said Nanny. "She said it was a bit sissy, to be honest. But I always reckon a man's got to be a man, even if it is sissy. What happened to your wig?"
"I think it's on that tree back there."
"Still got the crowbar?"
"Yes, Mrs. Ogg."
"Here we are, then."
They had arrived at the foot of the long mound. There were three large irregular stones there, forming a low cave. Nanny Ogg ducked under the lintel into the fusty and somewhat ammonia-scented darkness.
"About here'd do," she said. "Got a match?"
The sulphurous glow revealed a flat rock with a crude drawing scratched on it. Ochre had been rubbed into the lines. They showed a figure of an owl-eyed man wearing an animal skin and horns.
In the flickering light he seemed to dance.
There was a runic inscription underneath.
"Anyone ever worked out what that says?" said Casanunda.
Nanny Ogg nodded.
"It's a variant of Oggham," she said. "Basically, it means 'I've Got a Great Big Tonker.'"
"Oggham?" said the dwarf.
"My family has been in these, how shall I put it, in these parts for a very long time," said Nanny.
"Knowing you is a real education, Mrs. Ogg," said Casanunda.
"Everyone says that. Just shove the crowbar down the side of the stone, will you? I've always wanted an excuse to go down there."
"What is down there?"
"Well, it leads into Lancre Caves. They run everywhere, I've heard. Even up to Copperhead. There's supposed to be an entrance in the castle, but I've never found it. But mainly they lead to the world of the elves."
"I thought the Dancers led to the world of the elves?"
"This is the other world of the elves."
"I thought they only had one."
"They don't talk about this one."
"And you want to go into it?"
"Yes."
"You want to find elves?"
"That's right. Now, are you going to stand here all night, or are you going to crowbar that stone?" She gave him a nudge. "There's gold down there, you know."
"Oh, yes, thanks very much," said Casanunda sarcastically. "That's speciesist, that is. Just because I am . . . vertically disadvantaged, you're trying to get round me with gold, yes? Dwarfs are just a lot of appetites on legs, that's what you think. Hah!"
Nanny sighed.
"Oh, all right," she said. "Tell you what. . . when we get back home, I'll bake you some proper dwarf bread, how about that?"
Casanunda's face split into a disbelieving grin.
"Real dwarf bread?"
"Yes. I reckon I've still got the recipe, and anyway it's been weeks since I emptied out the cat box.[40]"
"Well, all right-."
Casanunda rammed one end of the crowbar under the stone and pulled on it with dwarfish strength. After a moment's resistance the stone swung up.
There were steps below, thick with earth and old roots.
Nanny started down them without a look back, and then realized that the dwarf wasn't following.
"What's the matter?"
"Never liked dark and enclosed spaces much."
"What? You're a dwarf."
"Born a dwarf, born a dwarf. But I even get nervous when I'm hiding in wardrobes. That's a bit of a drawback in my line of work."
"Don't be daft. I'm not scared."
"You're not me."
"Tell you what — I'll bake 'em with extra gravel."
"Ooh . . . you're 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 haven't 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 weren't tripping over shoes all the time, and there probably wasn't 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. It's mythical."
"It's not real?"
"Oh, it's 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.
"Don't touch the money," said Nanny "'Ere, watch this, my dad told me about this, it's 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 he'd sat up he almost certainly was alive, but he looked as though he'd gone from life to rigor mortis without passing through death on the way.
He focused deepset eyes on Nanny Ogg.
"What bloody tyme d'you call thys, then?"
"Not time yet," said Nanny.
"What did you goe and bang the bell for? I don't know, I haven't had a wynke of sleep for two hundred years, some sodde alwayes bangs the bell. Go awaye."
The warrior lay back.
"It's some old king and his warriors," whispered Nanny, as they hurried away. "Some kind of magical sleep, I'm told. Some old wizard did it. They're 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."
"We're walking in a circle?"
"A spiral. We're right under the Long Man now."
"No, that can't be right," said Casanunda. "We climbed down a hole under the Long Man . . . hold on . . . you mean we're in the place where we started and it's a different place?"
"You're 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 here's vertical, so they only needed three. Might as well leave your crowbar here and take your boots off if they've 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 fox's 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 can't be inside the Long Man, he told himself. That's an earthworks, this is a long tent of skins.
They can't 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.
"Y'lordship," said Nanny.
"I suppose it is too much to expect you to kneel?"
"Yes indeed, y'honor," 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, y'grace."
"No one even dances for me now. Is that too much to ask?"
"Just as you say, y'lordship."
"You witches don't 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!"
"I'll take it away when I go," said Nanny. "Now you listen to me. She's making trouble again. You've got to put a stop to it. Fair's fair. We're not having all the Old Trouble again."
"Why should I do that?"
"You want her to be powerful, then?"
There was a snort.
"You can't ever rule again, back in the world," said Nanny. "There's too much music. There's too much iron."
"Iron rusts."
"Not the iron in the head."
The King snorted.
"Nevertheless . . . even that. . . one day . . ."
"One day." Nanny nodded. "Yes. I'll drink to that. One day. Who knows? One day. Everyone needs 'one day.' But it ain't today. D'you see? So you come on out and balance things up. Otherwise, this is what I'll do. I'll get 'em to dig into the Long Man with iron shovels, y'see, and they'll say, why, it's 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 that'll be another iron nail in your coffin. And I'd be a little bit sorry about that, 'cos you know I've always had a soft spot for you. But I've got kiddies, y'see, and they don't hide under the stairs because they're frit of the thunder, and they don't put milk out for the elves, and they don't hurry home because of the night, and before we go back to them dark old ways I'll see you nailed."
The words sliced through the air.
The homed man stood up. And further up. His antlers touched the roof.
Casanunda's 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. . . will decide."
"Very good. You decide. And I'll 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 don't 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 wasn't 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 didn't wait to see what happened next. He dived through the apparition's legs and ran on, but a distant war-cry echoed in his long, floppy ears:
"Why, certainly, I'll 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-"
"He's brighter than she is. Or more lazy," said Nanny. "He's going to wait it out."
"But he was-"
"They can look like whatever they want, to us," said Nanny. "We see the shape we've given 'em." She let the rock drop back, and dusted off her hands.
"But why should he want to stop her?"
"Well, he's her husband, after all. He can't stand her. It's 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 it'll all pass, see. And one day it'll all be over, and people'll look up at the skyline at sunset and there he'll be."
Casanunda found himself turning to look at the sunset beyond the mound, half-imagining the huge figure outlined against the afterglow.
"One day he'll be back," said Nanny softly "When even the iron in the head is rusty"
Casanunda put his head on one side. You don't move around among a different species for most of your life without learning to read a lot of their body language, especially since it's in such large print.
"You won't entirely be sorry, eh?" he said.
"Me? I don't want 'em back! They're untrustworthy and cruel and arrogant parasites and we don't need 'em one bit."
"Bet you half a dollar?"
Nanny was suddenly flustered.
"Don't you look at me like that! Esme's right. Of course she's right. We don't want elves anymore. Stands to reason."
"Esme's the short one, is she?"
"Hah, no, Esme's the tall one with the nose. You know her."
"Right, yes."
"The short one is Magrat. She's a kind-hearted soul and a bit soft. Wears flowers in her hair and believes in songs, I reckon she'd be off dancing with the elves quick as a wink, her."
More doubts were entering Magrat's life. They concerned crossbows, for one thing. A crossbow is a very useful and usable weapon designed for speed and convenience and deadliness in the hands of the inexperienced, like a faster version of an out-of-code TV dinner. But it is designed to be used once, by someone who has somewhere safe to duck while they reload. Otherwise it is just so much metal and wood with a piece of string on it.
Then there was the sword. Despite Shawn's misgivings, Magrat did in theory know what you did with a sword. You tried to stick it into the enemy by a vigorous arm motion, and the enemy tried to stop you. She was a little uncertain about what happened next. She hoped you were allowed another go.
She was also having doubts about her armour. The helmet and the breastplate were OK, but the rest of it was chain-mail. And, as Shawn Ogg knew, chain-mail from the point of view of an arrow can be thought of as a series of loosely connected holes.
The rage was still there, the pure fury still gripped her at the core. But there was no getting away from the fact that the heart it gripped was surrounded by the rest of Magrat Garlick, spinster of this parish and likely to remain so.
There were no elves visible in the town, but she could see where they had been. Doors hung off their hinges. The place looked as though it had been visited by Genghiz Cohen[41].
Now she was on the track that led to the stones. It was wider than it had been; the horses and carriages had churned it on the way up, and the fleeing people had turned it into a mire on the way down.
She knew she was being watched, and it almost came as a relief when three elves stepped out from under the trees before she'd even lost sight of the castle.
The middle one grinned.
"Good evening, girl," it said. "My name is Lord Lankin, and you will curtsy when you talk to me."
The tone suggested that there was absolutely no possibility that she would disobey She felt her muscles strain to comply.
Queen Ynci wouldn't have obeyed . . .
"I happen to be practically the queen," she said.
It was the first time she'd looked an elf in the face when she was in any condition to notice details. This one was currently wearing high cheekbones and hair tied in a ponytail; it wore odds and ends of rags and lace and fur, confident in the knowledge that anything would look good on an elf.
It wrinkled its perfect nose at her.
"There is only one Queen in Lancre," it said. "And you are, most definitely, not her."
Magrat tried to concentrate.
"Where is she, then?" she said.
The other two raised their bows.
"You are looking for the Queen? Then we will take you to her," Lankin stated. "And, lady, should you be inclined to make use of that nasty iron bow there are more archers hidden in the trees." There was indeed a rustling in the trees on one side of the track, but it was followed by a thump. The elves looked disconcerted.
"Get out of my way," said Magrat.
"I think you have a very wrong idea," said the elf. Its smile widened, but vanished when there was another sylvan crash from the other side of the track.
"We felt you coming all the way up the track," said the elf. "The brave girl off to rescue her lover! Oh, the romance! Take her."
A shadow rose up behind the two armed elves, took a head in either hand, and banged them together.
The shadow stepped forward over their bodies and, as Lankin turned, caught it with one roundarm punch that picked it up and slammed it into a tree.
Magrat drew her sword.
Whatever this was, it looked worse than elves. It was muddy and hairy and almost troll-like in its build, and it reached out for the bridle with an arm that seemed to extend for ever. She raised the sword—
"Oook?"
"Put the sword down, please, miss!"
The voice came from somewhere behind her, but it sounded human and worried. Elves never sounded worried.
"Who are you?" she said, without turning around. The monster in front of her gave her a big, yellow-toothed grin.
"Um, I'm Ponder Stibbons. A wizard. And he's a wizard, too."
"He's got no clothes on!"
"I could get him to have a bath, if you like," said Ponder, slightly hysterically. "He always puts on an old green dressing gown when he's had a bath."
Magrat relaxed a bit. No one who sounded like that could be much of a threat, except to themselves.
"Whose side are you on, Mr. Wizard?"
"How many are there?"
"Oook?"
"When I get off this horse," said Magrat, "it'll bolt. So can you ask your . . . friend to let go of the bridle? He'll be hurt."
"Oook?"
"Um. Probably not."
Magrat slid off. The horse, relieved of the presence of iron, bolted. For about two yards.
"Oook."
The horse was struggling to get back on its feet.
Magrat blinked.
"Um, he's just a bit annoyed at the moment," said Ponder. "One of the . . . elves . . . shot him with an arrow."
"But they do that to control people!"
"Um. He's not a person."
"Oook!"
"Genetically, I mean."
Magrat had met wizards before. Occasionally one visited Lancre, although they didn't stay very long. There was something about the presence of Granny Weatherwax that made them move on.