Lords and Ladies (Discworld #14) 7

Elves! The bastards . . . and yet . . . and yet . . . somehow, yes, they did things to memory.

Nanny Ogg turned over in bed. Greebo growled in protest.

Take dwarfs and trolls, for e.g. People said: Oh, you can't trust 'em, trolls are OK if you've got 'em in front of you, and some of 'em are decent enough in their way, but they're cowardly and stupid, and as for dwarfs, well, they're greedy and devious devils, all right, fair enough, sometimes you meet one of the clever little sods that's not too bad, but overall they're no better'n trolls, in fact-

-they're just like us.

But they ain't any prettier to look at and they've got no style. And we're stupid, and the memory plays tricks, and we remember the elves for their beauty and the way they move, and forget what they were. We're like mice saying, “Say what you like, cats have got real style.”

People never quaked in their beds for fear of dwarfs. They never hid under the stairs from trolls. They might have chased 'em out of the henhouse, but trolls and dwarfs were never any more than a bloody nuisance. They were never a terror in the night.

We only remembers that the elves sang. We forgets what it was they were singing about.

Nanny Ogg turned over again. There was a slithering noise from the end of the bed, and a muffled yowl as Greebo hit the floor.

And Nanny sat up.

“Get your walking paws on, young fella-me-lad. We're going out.”

As she passed through the midnight kitchen she paused, took one of the big black flatirons from the hob by the fire, and attached it to a length of clothesline.

For all her life she'd walked at night through Lancre with no thought of carrying a weapon of any sort. Of course, for most of that time she'd recognizably been a witch, and any importunate prowler would've ended up taking his essentials away in a paper bag, but even so it was generally true of any woman in Lancre. Man too, come to that.

Now she could sense her own fear.

The elves were coming back all right, casting their shadows before them.

Diamanda reached the crest of the hill.

She paused. She wouldn't put it past that old Weatherwax woman to have followed her. She felt sure there had been something tracking her in the woods.

There was no one else around.

She turned.

“Evenin', miss.”

“You? You did follow me!”

Granny got to her feet from the shadow of the Piper, where she had been sitting quite invisibly in the blackness.

“Learned that from my dad,” she said. “When he went hunting. He always used to say a bad hunter chases, a good hunter waits.”

“Oh? So you're hunting me now?”

“No. I was just waiting. I knew you'd come up here. You haven't got anywhere else to go. You've come to call her, haven't you? Let me see your hands.”

It wasn't a request, it was a command. Diamanda found her hands moving of their own accord. Before she could pull them back the old woman had grabbed them and held them firmly; her skin felt like sacking.

“Never done a hard day's work in your life, have you?” said Granny, pleasantly. “Never picked cabbages with the ice on 'em, or dug a grave, or milked a cow, or laid out a corpse.”

“You don't have to do all that to be a witch!” Diamanda snapped.

“Did I say so? And let me tell you something. About beautiful women in red with stars in their hair. And probably moons, too. And voices in your head when you slept. And power when you came up here. She offered you lots of power, I expect. All you wanted. For free.”

Diamanda was silent.

“Because it happened before. There's always someone who'll listen.” Granny Weatherwax's eyes seemed to lose their focus.

“When you're lonely, and people around you seem too stupid for words, and the world is full of secrets that no one'll tell you . . . ”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Yours?” Granny's attention snapped back, and her voice lost its distant quality. “Hah! Flowers and suchlike. Dancing about without yer drawers on. Mucking about with cards and bits of string. And it worked, I expect. She gave you power, for a while. Oh, she must have laughed. And then there is less power and more price. And then no power, and you're payin' every day. They always take more than they give. And what they give has less than no value. And they end up taking everything. What they like to get from us is our fear. What they want from us most of all is our belief. If you call them, they will come. You'll give them a channel if you call them here, at circle time, where the world's thin enough to hear. The power in the Dancers is weak enough now as it is. And I'm not having the . . . the Lords and Ladies back.”

Diamanda opened her mouth.

“I ain't finished yet. You're a bright girl. Lots of things you could be doing. But you don't want to be a witch. It's not an easy life.”

“You mad old woman, you've got it all wrong! Elves aren't like that-”

“Don't say the word. Don't say the word. They come when called.”

“Good! Elf, elf, elf! Elf-”

Granny slapped her face, hard.

“Even you knows that's stupid and childish,” she said. “Now you listen to me. If you stay here, there's to be none of this stuff anymore. Or you can go somewhere else and find a future, be a great lady, you've got the mind for it. And maybe you'll come back in ten years loaded down with jewels and stuff, and lord it over all us stay-at-homes, and that will be fine. But if you stay here and keep trying to call the . . . Lords and Ladies, then you'll be up against me again. Not playing stupid games in the daylight, but real witchcraft. Not messing around with moons and circles, but the true stuff, out of the blood and the bone and out of the head. And you don't know nothin' about that. Right? And it don't allow for mercy.”

Diamanda looked up. Her face was red where the slap had landed.

“Go?” she said.

Granny reacted a second too late.

Diamanda darted between the stones.

“You stupid child! Not that way'.”

The figure was already getting smaller, even though it appeared to be only a few feet away.

“Oh, drat!”

Granny dived after her, and heard her skirt rip as the pocket tore. The poker she'd brought along whirred away and clanked against one of the Dancers.

There was a series of jerks and tings as the hobnails tore out of her boots and sped toward the stones.

No iron could go through the stones, no iron at all.

Granny was already racing over the turf when she realized what that meant. But it didn't matter. She'd made a choice.

There was a feeling of dislocation, as directions danced and twirled around. And then snow underfoot. It was white. It had to be white, because it was snow. But patterns of colour moved across it, reflecting the wild dance of the permanent aurora in the sky

Diamanda was struggling. Her footwear was barely suitable for a city summer, and certainly not for a foot of snow. Whereas Granny Weatherwax's boots, even without their hobnails, could have survived a trot across lava.

Even so, the muscles that were propelling them had been doing it for too long. Diamanda was outrunning her.

More snow was falling, out of a night sky. There was a ring of riders waiting a little way from the stones, with the Queen slightly ahead. Every witch knew her, or the shape of her.

Diamanda tripped and fell, and then managed to bring herself up to a kneeling position.

Granny stopped.

The Queen's horse whinnied.

“Kneel before your Queen, you,” said the elf. She was wearing red, with a copper crown in her hair.

“Shan't. Won't,” said Granny Weatherwax.

“You are in my kingdom, woman,” said the Queen. “You do not come or go without the leave of me. You will kneel!”

“I come and go without the leave of anyone,” said Granny Weatherwax. “Never done it before, ain't starting now.”

She put a hand on Diamanda's shoulder.

“These are your elves,” she said. “Beautiful, ain't they?”

The warriors must have been more than two meters tall. They did not wear clothes so much as items strung together - scraps of fur, bronze plates, strings of brightly coloured feathers. Blue and green tattoos covered most of their exposed skin. Several of them held drawn bows, the tips of their arrows following Granny's every move.

Their hair massed around their heads like a halo, thick with grease. And although their faces were indeed the most beautiful Diamanda had ever seen, it was beginning to creep over her that there was something subtly wrong, some quirk of expression that did not quite fit.

“The only reason we're still alive now is that we're more fun alive than dead,” said Granny's voice behind her.

“You know you shouldn't listen to the crabbed old woman,” said the Queen. “What can she offer?”

“More than snow in summertime,” said Granny. “Look at their eyes. Look at their eyes.”

The Queen dismounted.

“Take my hand, child,” she said.

Diamanda stuck out a hand gingerly. There was something about the eyes. It wasn't the shape or the colour. There was no evil glint. But there was . . .

. . . a look. It was such a look that a microbe might encounter if it could see up from the bottom end of the microscope. It said: You are nothing. It said: You are flawed, you have no value. It said: You are animal. It said: Perhaps you may be a pet, or perhaps you may be a quarry. It said:

And the choice is not yours.

She tried to pull her hand away.

“Get out of her mind, old crone.”

Granny's face was running with sweat.

“I ain't in her mind, elf. I'm keeping you out.”

The Queen smiled. It was the most beautiful smile Diamanda had ever seen.

“And you have some power, too. Amazing. I never thought you'd amount to anything, Esmerelda Weatherwax. But it's no good here. Kill them both. But not at the same time. Let the other one watch.”

She climbed on to her horse again, turned it around, and galloped off.

Two of the elves dismounted, drawing thin bronze daggers from their belts.

“Well, that's about it, then,” said Granny Weatherwax, as the warriors approached. She dropped her voice.

“When the time comes,” she said, “run.”

“What time?”

“You'll know.”

Granny fell to her knees as the elves approached.

“Oh, deary me, oh spare my life, I am but a poor old woman and skinny also,” she said. “Oh spare my life, young sir. Oh lawks.”

She curled up, sobbing. Diamanda looked at her in astonishment, not least at how anyone could expect to get away with something like that.

Elves had been away from humans for a long time. The first elf reached her, hauled her up by her shoulder, and got a doubled-handed, bony-knuckled punch in an area that Nanny Ogg would be surprised that Esme Weatherwax even knew about.

Diamanda was already running. Granny's elbow caught the other elf in the chest as she set off after her.

Behind her, she heard the merry laughter of the elves.

Diamanda had been surprised at Granny's old lady act. She was far more surprised when Granny drew level. But Granny had more to run away from.

“They've got horses!”

Granny nodded. And it's true that horses go faster than people, but it's not instantly obvious to everyone that this is only true over moderate distances. Over short distances a determined human can outrun a horse, because they've only got half as many legs to sort out.