Lords and Ladies (Discworld #14) 7

The bees headed toward the Dancers.

Granny Weatherwax dropped to her knees, clutching at her head.

“No-”

“Oh, but yes,” said the Queen.

Esme Weatherwax raised her hands. The fingers were curled tightly with effort and pain.

Magrat found she could move her eyes. The rest of her felt weak and useless, even with chain-mail and the breast-plates. So this was it. She could feel the ghost of Queen Ynci laughing scornfully from a thousand years ago. She'd not give up. Magrat was just another one of those dozens of simpering stiff women who'd just hung around in long dresses, ensuring the royal succession-

Bees poured down out of the sky.

Granny Weatherwax turned her face toward Magrat.

Magrat heard the voice clearly in her head.

“You want to be queen?”

And she was free.

She felt the weariness drop away from her and it also felt as though pure Queen Ynci poured out of the helmet.

More bees rained down, covering the slumped figure of the old witch.

The Queen turned, and her smile froze as Magrat straightened up, stepped forward and, with hardly a thought in her head, raised the battleaxe and brought it around in one long sweep.

The Queen moved faster. Her hand snaked out and gripped Magrat's wrist.

“Oh yes,” she said, grinning into Magrat's face. "Really?

You think so?"

She twisted. The axe dropped from Magrat's fingers.

“And you wanted to be a witch?”

Bees were a brown fog, hiding the elves - too small to hit, impervious to glamour, but determined to kill.

Magrat felt the bone scrape.

“The old witch is finished,” said the Queen, forcing Magrat down. “I won't say she wasn't good. But she wasn't good enough. And you certainly aren't.”

Slowly and inexorably, Magrat was forced downward. “Why don't you try some magic?” said the Queen. Magrat kicked. Her foot caught the Queen on the knee, and she heard a crack. As she staggered back Magrat launched herself forward and caught her around the waist, bearing her to the ground.

She was amazed at the lightness. Magrat was skinny enough, but the Queen seemed to have no weight at all. “Why,” she said, pulling herself up until the Queen's face was level with hers, “you're nothing. It's all in the mind, isn't it? Without the glamour, you're-”

-an almost triangular face, a tiny mouth, the nose hardly existing at all, but eyes larger than human eyes and now focused on Magrat in pinpoint terror.

“Iron,” whispered the Queen. Her hands gripped Magrat's arms. There was no strength there. An elfs strength lay in persuading others they were weak.

Magrat could feel her desperately trying to enter her mind, but it wasn't working. The helmet-

-was lying several feet away, in the mud.

She just had time to wish she hadn't noticed that before the Queen attacked again, exploding into her uncertainty like a nova.

She was nothing. She was insignificant. She was so worthless and unimportant that even something completely worthless and exhaustively unimportant would consider her beneath contempt. In laying hands upon the Queen she truly deserved an eternity of pain. She had no control of her body. She did not deserve any. She did not deserve a thing.

The disdain sleeted over her, tearing the planetary body of Magrat Garlick to pieces.

She'd never be any good. She'd never be beautiful, or intelligent, or strong. She'd never be anything at all.

Self-confidence? Confidence in what? The eyes of the Queen were all she could see. All she wanted to do was lose herself in them . . .

And the ablation of Magrat Garlick roared on, tearing at the strata of her soul. . . . . . exposing the core.

She bunched up a fist and hit the Queen between the eyes. There was a moment of terminal perplexity before the Queen screamed, and Magrat hit her again. Only one queen in a hive! Slash! Stab! They rolled over, landing in the mud. Magrat felt something sting her leg, but she ignored it. She took no notice of the noise around her, but she did find the battleaxe under her hand as the two of them landed in a peat puddle. The elf scrabbled at her but this time without strength, and Magrat managed to push herself to her knees and raise the axe -

-and then noticed the silence.

It flowed over the Queen's elves and Shawn Ogg's makeshift army as the glamour faded.

There was a figure silhouetted against the setting moon.

Its scent carried on the dawn breeze.

It smelled of lions' cages and leaf mold.

“He's back,” said Nanny Ogg. She glanced sideways and saw Ridcully, his face glowing, raising his crossbow.

“Put it down,” she said.

“Will you look at the horns on that thing-”

“Put it down.”

“But-”

“It'd go right through him. Look, you can see that tree through him. He's not really here. He can't get past the doorway. But he can send his thoughts.”

“But I can smell-”

“If he was really here, we wouldn't still be standing up.” The elves parted as the King walked through. His hind legs hadn't been designed for bipedal walking; the knees were the wrong way round and the hooves were overlarge.

It ignored them all and strutted slowly to the fallen Queen. Magrat pulled herself to her feet and hefted the axe uncertainly.

The Queen uncoiled, leaping up and raising her hands, her mouth framing the first words of some curse-

The King held out a hand, and said nothing.

Only Magrat heard it.

Something about meeting by moonlight, she said later.

And they awoke.

The sun was well over the Rim. People pulled themselves to their feet, staring at one another.

There was not an elf in sight.

Nanny Ogg was the first to speak. Witches can generally come to terms with what actually ('s, instead of insisting on what ought to be.

She looked up at the moors. “The first thing we do,” she said, “the first thing, is put back the stones.”

“The second thing,” corrected Magrat.

They both looked down at the still body of Granny Weatherwax. A few stray bees were flying disconsolate circles in the grass near her head.

Nanny Ogg winked at Magrat.

“You did well there, girl. Didn't think you had it in you to survive an attack like that. It fairly had me widdling myself.”

“I've had practice,” said Magrat darkly.

Nanny Ogg raised her eyebrows, but made no further comment. Instead she nudged Granny with her boot.

“Wake up, Esme,” she said. “Well done. We won.”

“Esme?”

Ridcully knelt down stiffly and picked up one of Granny's arms.

“It must have taken it out of her, all that effort,” burbled Nanny. “Freeing Magrat and everything-”

Ridcully looked up.

“She's dead,” he said.

He thrust both arms underneath the body and got unsteadily to his feet.

“Oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that,” said Nanny, but in the voice of someone whose mouth is running on automatic because their brain has shut down.

“She's not breathing and there's no pulse,” said the wizard.

“She's probably just resting.”

“Yes.”

Bees circled, high in the blue sky.

Ponder and the Librarian helped drag the stones back into position, occasionally using the Bursar as a lever. He was going through the rigid phase again.

They were unusual stones. Ponder noticed - quite hard, and with a look about them that suggested that once, long ago, they had been melted and cooled.

Jason Ogg found him standing deep in thought by one of them. He was holding a nail on a piece of string. But, instead of hanging from the string, the nail was almost at right angles, and straining as if desperate to reach the stone. The string thrummed. Ponder watched it as though mesmerized.

Jason hesitated. He seldom encountered wizards and wasn't at all sure how you were supposed to treat them.

He heard the wizard say: “It sucks. But why does it suck?”

Jason kept quiet.

He heard Ponder say: “Maybe there's iron and . . . and iron that loves iron? Or male iron and female iron? Or common iron and royal iron? Some iron contains something else? Some iron makes a weight in the world and other iron rolls down the rubber sheet?”

The Bursar and the Librarian joined him, and watched the swinging nail.

“Damn!” said Ponder, and let go of the nail. It hit the stone with a plink.

He turned to the others with the agonized expression of a man who has the whole great whirring machinery of the Universe to dismantle and only a bent paper clip to do it with.

“What ho, Mr. Sunshine!” said the Bursar, who was feeling almost cheerful with the fresh air and lack of shouting.

“Rocks! Why am I messing around with lumps of stone? When did they ever tell anyone anything?” said Ponder. “You know, sir, sometimes I think there's a great ocean of truth out there and I'm just sitting on the beach playing with . . . with stones.”

He kicked the stone.

“But one day we'll find a way to sail that ocean,” he said. He sighed. “Come on. I suppose we'd better get down to the castle.”

The Librarian watched them join the procession of tired men who were staggering down the valley.

Then he pulled at the nail a few times, and watched it fly back to the stone.

“Oook.”

He looked up into the eyes of Jason Ogg.

Much to Jason's surprise, the orang-utan winked.

Sometimes, if you pay real close attention to the pebbles you find out about the ocean.

The clock ticked.

In the chilly morning gloom of Granny Weatherwax's cottage. Nanny Ogg opened the box.

Everyone in Lancre knew about Esme Weatherwax's mysterious box. It was variously rumoured to contain books of spells, a small private universe, cures for all ills, the deeds of lost lands and several tons of gold, which was pretty good going for something less than a foot across. Even Nanny Ogg had never been told about the contents, apart from the will.

She was a bit disappointed but not at all surprised to find that it contained nothing more than a couple of large envelopes, a bundle of letters, and a miscellaneous assortment of common items in the bottom.

Nanny lifted out the paperwork. The first envelope was addressed to her, and bore the legend: To Gytha Ogge, Reade This NOWE.

The second envelope was a bit smaller and said: The Will of Esmerelda Weatherwax, Died Midsummer's Eve.

And then there was a bundle of letters with a bit of string round them. They were very old; bits of yellowing paper crackled off them as Magrat picked them up.

“They're all letters to her,” she said.

“Nothing odd about that,” said Nanny. “Anyone can get letters.”

“And there's all this stuff at the bottom,” said Magrat. “It looks like pebbles.”

She held one up.

“This one's got one of those curly fossil things in it,” she said. “And this one . . . looks like that red rock the Dancers were made of. It's got a darning needle stuck to it. How strange.”

“She always paid attention to small details, did Esme. Always tried to see inside to the real thing.”

They were both silent for a moment, and the silence wound out around them and filled the kitchen, to be sliced into gentle pieces by the soft ticking of the clock.

“I never thought we'd be doing this,” said Magrat, after a while. “I never thought we'd be reading her will. I thought she'd keep on going for ever.”