Terry Pratchett - Discworld 12 - Witches Abroad

Terry Pratchett

Witches Abroad

A Discworld Novel

This is the Discworld, which travels through space on the back of four elephants which themselves stand

on the shell of Great A’Tuin, the sky turtle.

Once upon a time such a universe was considered unusual and, possibly, impossible.

But then . . . it used to be so simple, once upon a time.

Because the universe was full of ignorance all around and the scientist panned through it like a

prospector crouched over a mountain stream, looking for the gold of knowledge among the gravel of

unreason, the sand of uncertainty and the little whiskery eight-legged swimming things of superstition.

Occasionally he would straighten up and say things like ‘Hurrah, I’ve discovered Boyle’s Third Law.”

And everyone knew where they stood. But the trouble was that ignorance became more interesting,

especially big fascinating ignorance about huge and important things like matter and creation, and people

stopped patiently building their little houses of rational sticks in the chaos of the universe and started

getting interested in the chaos itself - partly because it was a lot easier to be an expert on chaos, but

mostly because it made really good patterns that you could put on a t-shirt.

And instead of getting on with proper science scientists suddenly went around saying how impossible it

was to know anything, and that there wasn’t really anything you could call reality to know anything about,

and how all this was tremendously exciting, and incidentally did you know there were possibly all these

little universes all over the place but no-one can see them because they are all curved in on themselves?

Incidentally, don’t you think this is a rather good t-shirt?

Compared to all this, a large turtle with a world on its back is practically mundane. At least it doesn’t

pretend it doesn’t exist, and no-one on the Discworld ever tried to prove it didn’t exist in case they

turned out to be right and found themselves suddenly floating in empty space. This is because the

Discworld exists right on the edge of reality. The least little things can break through to the other side. So,

on the Discworld, people take things seriously.

Like stories.

Because stories are important.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.

Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power.

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Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the

universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest

have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling . . . stories, twisting and blowing through the

darkness.

And their very existence overlays a faint but insistent pattern on the chaos that is history. Stories etch

grooves deep enough for people to follow in the same way that water follows certain paths down a

mountainside. And every time fresh actors tread the path of the story, the groove runs deeper.

This is called the theory of narrative causality and it means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It

picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been.

This is why history keeps on repeating all the time.

So a thousand heroes have stolen fire from the gods.

A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother, a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million

unknowing actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of story.

It is now impossible for the third and youngest son of any king, if he should embark on a quest which has

so far claimed his older brothers, not to succeed.

Stories don’t care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story

repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the

service only of the story itself.

It takes a special kind of person to fight back, and become the bicarbonate of history.

Once upon a time . . .

Grey hands gripped the hammer and swung it, striking the post so hard that it sank a foot into the soft

earth.

Two more blows and it was fixed immovably.

From the trees around the clearing the snakes and birds watched silently. In the swamp the alligators

drifted like patches of bad-assed water.

Grey hands took up the crosspiece and fixed it in place, tying it with creepers, pulling them so tight that

they creaked.

She watched him. And then she took up a fragment of mirror and tied it to the top of the post.

“The coat,” she said.

He took up the coat and fitted it over the crosspiece. The pole wasn’t long enough, so that the last few

inches of sleeve draped emptily.

“And the hat,” she said.

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It was tall, and round, and black. It glistened.

The piece of mirror gleamed between the darkness of the hat and the coat.

“Will it work?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “Even mirrors have their reflection. We got to fight mirrors with mirrors.” She glared up

through the trees to a slim white tower in the distance. “We’ve got to find her reflection.”

“It’ll have to reach out a long way, then.”

“Yes. We need all the help we can get.”

She looked around the clearing.

She had called upon Mister Safe Way, Lady Bon Anna, Hotaloga Andrews and Stride Wide Man.

They probably weren’t very good gods.

But they were the best she’d been able to make.

This is a story about stories.

Or what it really means to be a fairy godmother.

But it’s also, particularly, about reflections and mirrors.

All across the multiverse there are backward tribes who distrust mirrors and images because, they say,

they steal a bit of a person’s soul and there’s only so much of a person to go around. And the people

who wear more clothes say this is just superstition, despite the fact that other people who spend their

lives appearing in images of one sort or another seem to develop a thin quality. It’s put down to

over-work and, tellingly, over-exposure instead.

Just superstition. But a superstition doesn’t have to be wrong.

A mirror can suck up a piece of soul. A mirror can contain the reflection of the whole universe, a whole

skyful of stars in a piece of silvered glass no thicker than a breath.

Know about mirrors and you nearly know everything.

Look into the mirror . . .

. . . further . . .

. . . to an orange light on a cold mountaintop, thousands of miles from the vegetable warmth of that

swamp . . .

Local people called it the Bear Mountain. This was because it was a bare mountain, not because it had a

lot of bears on it. This caused a certain amount of profitable confusion, though; people often strode into

the nearest village with heavy duty crossbows, traps and nets and called haughtily for native guides to

lead them to the bears. Since everyone locally was making quite a good living out of this, what with the

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sale of guide books, maps of bear caves, ornamental cuckoo-clocks with bears on them, bear

walking-sticks and cakes baked in the shape of a bear, somehow no-one had time to go and correct the

spelling.

It was about as bare as a mountain could be.

Most of the trees gave out about halfway to the top, only a few pines hanging on to give an effect very

similar to the couple of pathetic strands teased across his scalp by a baldie who won’t own up.

It was a place where witches met.

Tonight a fire gleamed on the very crest of the hill. Dark figures moved in the flickering light.

The moon coasted across a lacework of clouds. Finally, a tall, pointy-hatted figure said, “You mean

everyone brought potato salad?”

There was one Ramtop witch who was not attending the sabbat. Witches like a night out as much as

anyone else but, in this case, she had a more pressing appointment. And it wasn’t the kind of

appointment you can put off easily.

Desiderata Hollow was making her will.

When Desiderata Hollow was a girl, her grandmother had given her four important pieces of advice to

guide her young footsteps on the unexpectedly twisting pathway of life.

They were:

Never trust a dog with orange eyebrows,

Always get the young man’s name and address,

Never get between two mirrors,

And always wear completely clean underwear every day because you never knew when you were going

to be knocked down and killed by a runaway horse and if people found you had unsatisfactory

underwear on, you’d die of shame.

And then Desiderata grew up to become a witch. And one of the minor benefits of being a witch is that

you know exactly when you’re going to die and can wear what underwear you like.

That had been eighty years earlier, when the idea of knowing exactly when you were going to die had

seemed quite attractive because secretly, of course, you knew you were going to live forever.

That was then.

And this was now.

Forever didn’t seem to last as long these days as once it did.

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Another log crumbled to ash in the fireplace. Desiderata hadn’t bothered to order any fuel for the winter.

Not much point, really.

And then, of course, there was this other thing . . .

She’d wrapped it up carefully into a long, slim package. Now she folded up the letter, addressed it, and

pushed it under the string. Job done.

She looked up. Desiderata had been blind for thirty years, but this hadn’t been a problem. She’d always

been blessed, if that was the word, with second sight. So when the ordinary eyes gave out you just

trained yourself to see into the present, which anyway was easier than the future. And since the eyeball of

the occult didn’t depend on light, you saved on candles. There was always a silver lining, if you knew

where to look. In a manner of speaking.

There was a mirror on the wall in front of her.

The face in it was not her own, which was round and pink.

It was the face of a woman who was used to giving orders. Desiderata wasn’t the sort to give orders.

Quite the reverse, in fact.

The woman said, “You are dying, Desiderata.”

“I am that, too.”

“You’ve grown old. Your sort always do. Your power is nearly gone.”

“That’s a fact, Lilith,” said Desiderata mildly.

“So your protection is withdrawing from her.”

“ ‘Fraid so,” said Desiderata.

“So now it’s just me and the evil swamp woman. And I will win.”

“That’s how it seems, I’m afraid.”

“You should have found a successor.”

“Never had the time. I’m not the planning sort, you know.”

The face in the mirror got closer, as if the figure had moved a little nearer to its side of the mirror.

“You’ve lost, Desiderata Hollow.”

“So it goes.” Desiderata got to her feet, a little unsteadily, and picked up a cloth.

The figure seemed to be getting angry. It clearly felt that people who had lost ought to look downcast,

and not as if they were enjoying a joke at your expense.

“Don’t you understand what losing means?”

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“Some people are very clear about that,” said Desiderata. “Goodbye, m’lady.” She hung the cloth over

the mirror.

There was an angry intake of breath, and then silence.

Desiderata stood as if lost in thought.

Then she raised her head, and said: “Kettle boiled just now. Would you like a cup of tea?”

NO, THANK YOU, said a voice right behind her.

“How long have you been waiting?”

FOREVER.

“Not keeping you, am I?”

IT’S A QUIET NIGHT.

“I’m making a cup of tea. I think there’s one biscuit left.”

NO, THANK YOU.

“If you feel peckish, it’s in the jar on the mantelpiece. That’s genuine Klatchian pottery, you know.

Made by a genuine Klatchian craftsman. From Klatch,” she added.

INDEED?

“I used to get about a lot in my younger days.”

YES?

“Great times.” Desiderata poked the fire. “It was the job, you see. Of course, I expect it’s very much

the same for you.”

YES.

“I never knew when I was going to be called out. Well, of course you’d know about that, wouldn’t you.

Kitchens, mainly. It always seemed to be kitchens. Balls sometimes, but generally it was kitchens.” She

picked up the kettle and poured the boiling water into the teapot on the hearth.

INDEED.

“I used to grant their wishes.”

Death looked puzzled.

WHAT? YOU MEAN LIKE . . . FITTED CUPBOARDS? NEW SINKS? THAT KIND OF

THING?

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“No, no. The people.” Desiderata sighed. “It’s a big responsibility, fairy godmothering. Knowing when

to stop, I mean. People whose wishes get granted often don’t turn out to be very nice people. So should

you give them what they want - or what they need?”

Death nodded politely. From his point of view, people got what they were given.

“Like this Genua thing - “ Desiderata began.

Death looked up sharply.

GENUA?

“You know it? Well, of course you would.”

I . . . KNOW EVERYWHERE, OF COURSE.

Desiderata’s expression softened. Her inner eyes were looking elsewhere.

“There were two of us. Godmothers go in twos, you know. Me and Lady Lilith? There’s a lot of power

in godmothering. It’s like being part of history. Anyway, the girl was born, out of wedlock but none the

worse for that, it wasn’t as if they couldn’t have married, they just never got round to it. . . and Lilith

wished for her to have beauty and power and marry a prince. Hah! And she’s been working on that ever

since. What could I do? You can’t argue with wishes like that. Lilith knows the power of a story. I’ve

done the best I could, but Lilith’s got the power. I hear she runs the city now. Changing a whole country

just to make a story work! And now it’s too late anyway. For me. So I’m handing on the responsibility.

That’s how it goes, with fairy godmothering. No-one ever wants to be a fairy godmother. Except Lilith,

of course. Got a bee in her bonnet about it. So I’m sending someone else. I may have left things too

late.”

Desiderata was a kindly soul. Fairy godmothers develop a very deep understanding about human nature,

which makes the good ones kind and the bad ones powerful.

She was not someone to use extreme language, but it was possible to be sure that when she deployed a

mild term like ‘a bee in her bonnet’ she was using it to define someone whom she believed to be several

miles over the madness horizon and accelerating.

She poured out the tea.

“That’s the trouble with second sight,” she said. “You can see what’s happenin’, but you don’t know

what it means. I’ve seen the future. There’s a coach made out of a pumpkin. And that’s impossible. And

there’s coachmen made out of mice, which is unlikely. And there’s a clock striking midnight, and

something about a glass slipper. And it’s all going to happen. Because that’s how stories have to work.

And then I thought: I knows some people who make stories work their way.”

She sighed again. “Wish I was going to Genua,” she said. “I could do with the warmth. And it’s Fat

Tuesday coming up. Always went to Genua for Fat Tuesday in the old days.”

There was an expectant silence.

Then Death said, YOU SURELY ARE NOT ASKING ME TO GRANT A WISH ?

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“Hah! No-one grants a fairy godmother’s wishes.” Desiderata had that inward look again, her voice

talking to herself. “See? I got to get the three of them to Genua. Got to get ‘em there because I’ve seen

‘em there. Got to be all three. And that ain’t easy, with people like them. Got to use headology. Got to

make ‘em send ‘emselves. Tell Esme Weatherwax she’s got to go somewhere and she won’t go out of

contrariness, so tell her she’s not to go and she’ll run there over broken glass. That’s the thing about the

Weatherwaxes, see. They don’t know how to be beaten.”

Something seemed to strike her as funny.

“But one of ‘em’s going to have to learn.”

Death said nothing. From where he sat, Desiderata reflected, losing was something that everyone

learned.

She drained her tea. Then she stood up, put on her pointy hat with a certain amount of ceremony, and

hobbled out of the back door.

There was a deep trench dug under the trees a little way from the house, down into which someone had

thoughtfully put a short ladder. She climbed in and, with some difficulty, heaved the ladder on to the

leaves. Then she lay down. She sat up.

“Mr Chert the troll down at the sawmill does a very good deal on coffins, if you don’t mind pine.”

I SHALL DEFINITELY BEAR IT IN MIND.

“I got Hurker the poacher to dig the hole out for me,” she said conversationally, “and he’s goin’ to come

along and fill it in on his way home. I believe in being neat. Take it away, maestro.”

WHAT? OH. A FIGURE OF SPEECH.

He raised his scythe.

Desiderata Hollow went to her rest.

“Well,” she said, “that was easy. What happens now?”

And this is Genua. The magical kingdom. The diamond city. The fortunate country.

In the centre of the city a woman stood between two mirrors, watching herself reflected all the way to

infinity.

The mirrors were themselves in the centre of an octagon of mirrors, open to the sky on the highest tower

of the palace. There were so many reflections, in fact, that it was only with extreme difficulty that you

could tell where the mirrors ended and the real person began.

Her name was Lady Lilith de Tempscire, although she had answered to many others in the course of a

long and eventful life. And that was something you learned to do early on, she’d found. If you wanted to

get anywhere in this world - and she’d decided, right at the start, that she wanted to get as far as it was

possible to go - you wore names lightly, and you took power anywhere you found it. She had buried

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three husbands, and at least two of them had been already dead.

And you moved around a lot. Because most people didn’t move around much. Change countries and

your name and, if you had the right manner, the world was your mollusc. For example, she’d had to go a

mere hundred miles to become a Lady.

She’d go to any lengths now . . .

The two main mirrors were set almost, but not quite, facing one another, so that Lilith could see over her

shoulder and watch her images curve away around the universe inside the mirror.

She could feel herself pouring into herself, multiplying itself via the endless reflections.

When Lilith sighed and strode out from the Space between the mirrors the effect was startling. Images of

Lilith hung in the air behind her for a moment, like three-dimensional shadows, before fading.

So . . . Desiderata was dying. Interfering old baggage. She deserved death. She’d never understood the

kind of power she’d had. She was one of those people afraid to do good for fear of doing harm, who

took it all so seriously that they’d constipate themselves with moral anguish before granting the wish of a

single ant.

Lilith looked down and out over the city. Well, there were no barriers now. The stupid voodoo woman

in the swamp was a mere distraction, with no understanding.

Nothing stood in the way of what Lilith liked more than anything else.

A happy ending.

Up on the mountain, the sabbat had settled down a bit. Artists and writers have always had a rather

exaggerated idea about what goes on at a witches’ sabbat. This comes from spending too much time in

small rooms with the curtains drawn, instead of getting out in the healthy fresh air.

For example, there’s the dancing around naked. In the average temperate climate there are very few

nights when anyone would dance around at midnight with no clothes on, quite apart from the question of

stones, thistles, and sudden hedgehogs.

Then there’s all that business with goat-headed gods. Most witches don’t believe in gods. They know

that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don’t believe in them.

They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.

And there’s the food and drink - the bits of reptile and so on. In fact, witches don’t go for that sort of

thing. The worst you can say about the eating habits of the older type of witch is that they tend to like

ginger biscuits dipped in tea with so much sugar in it that the spoon won’t move and will drink it out of

the saucer if they think it’s too hot. And do so with appreciative noises more generally associated with

the cheaper type of plumbing system. Legs of toad and so on might be better than this.

Then there’s the mystic ointments. By sheer luck, the artists and writers are on firmer ground here. Most

witches are elderly, which is when ointments start to have an attraction, and at least two of those present

tonight were wearing Granny Weatherwax’s famous goose-grease-and-sage chest liniment. This didn’t

make you fly and see visions, but it did prevent colds, if only because the distressing smell that developed

around about the second week kept everyone else so far away you couldn’t catch anything from them.

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And finally there’s sabbats themselves. Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as

other witches are concerned. There’s a conflict of dominant personalities. There’s a group of ringleaders

without a ring. There’s the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is “Don’t do what you will, do what I

say.” The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can’t avoid it.

Like now.

The conversation, given Desiderata’s absence, had naturally turned to the increasing shortage of witches.

“What, no-one?” said Granny Weatherwax.

“No-one,” said Gammer Brevis.

“I call that terrible,” said Granny. “That’s disgustin’.”

“Eh?” said Old Mother Dismass.

“She calls it disgusting!” shouted Gammer Brevis.

“Eh?”

“There’s no girl to put forward! To take Desiderata’s place!”

“Oh.”

The implications of this sank in.

“If anyone doesn’t want their crusts I’ll ‘ave ‘em,” said Nanny Ogg.

“We never had this sort of thing in my young days,” said Granny. “There was a dozen witches this side

of the mountain alone. Of course, that was before all this” - she made a face - “making your own

entertainment. There’s far too much of this making your own entertainment these days. We never made

our own entertainment when I was a girl. We never had time.”

“Tempers fuggit,” said Nanny Ogg.

“What?”

“Tempers fuggit. Means that was then and this is now,” said Nanny.

“I don’t need no-one to tell me that, Gytha Ogg. I know when now is.”

“You got to move with the times.”

“I don’t see why. Don’t see why we - “

“So I reckon we got to shift the boundaries again,” said Gammer Brevis.

“Can’t do that,” said Granny Weatherwax promptly. “I’m doing four villages already. The broomstick

hardly has time to cool down.”

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Terry Pratchett - Discworld 12 - Witches Abroad

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