Carpe Jugulum

by Terry Pratchett

  “I come up here with a young wizard once, when I was a girl,” said Nanny. “He liked nothing so much as bashing at rocks with his little hammer…well, almost nothing,” she added, with a smile toward the past and then a happy sigh. “He said the witch was just a lot of ol’ stuff from the rocks, left there by the water drippin’. But my granny said it was a witch that sat up here to think about some big spell, and she turned to stone. Person’ly, I keep an open mind.”

  “It’s a long way to bring someone,” said Agnes.

  “Oh, there was a lot of us kids at home and it was rainin’ a lot and you need a lot of privacy for really good geology,” said Nanny vaguely. “I think his hammer’s still around here somewhere. He quite forgot about it after a while. Mind how you tread, the rocks is very slippery. How’s young Esme doing, Magrat?”

  “Oh, gurgling away. I’ll have to feed her soon.”

  “We’ve got to look after her,” said Nanny.

  “Well, yes. Of course.”

  Nanny clapped her hands together and pulled them apart gently. The glow between them wasn’t the showy light that wizards made, but a grainy graveyard glimmer. It was just enough to ensure that no one fell down a hole.

  “Probably some dwarfs in a place like this,” said Magrat, as they picked their way along a tunnel.

  “Shouldn’t think so. They don’t like places that don’t stay the same. No one comes up here now but animals and Granny when she wants to be alone with her thoughts.”

  “And you when you were banging rocks,” said Magrat.

  “Hah! But it was different then. There was flowers on the moor and the bridge was just stepping stones. That’s ’cos I was in love.”

  “You mean it really does change because of the way you feel?” said Agnes.

  “You spotted it. It’s amazing how high and rocky the bridge can be if you’re in a bad mood, I know that.”

  “I wonder how high it was for Granny, then?”

  “Probably clouds could go underneath, girl.”

  Nanny stopped where the path forked, and then pointed.

  “I reckon she’s gone this way. Hold on—”

  She thrust out an arm. Stone groaned, and a slab of roof thudded down, throwing up spray and pebbles.

  “So we’ll just have to climb over this bit, then,” Nanny went on, in the same matter-of-fact tone of voice.

  “Something’s trying to push us out,” said Agnes.

  “But it won’t,” said Nanny. “And I don’t think it’ll harm us.”

  “That was a big slab!” said Agnes.

  “Yeah. But it missed us, didn’t it.”

  There was an underground river farther on, sheer white water blurred with speed. It poured around and almost over a dam of driftwood, topped by an inviting long log.

  “Look, this isn’t safe for the baby!” said Agnes. “Do you both see that? You’re her mother, Magrat!”

  “Yes, I know, I was there,” said Magrat, with infuriating calm. “But this doesn’t feel unsafe. Granny’s here somewhere.”

  “That’s right,” said Nanny. “Really close now, I think.”

  “Yes, but she can’t control rivers and rocks—” Agnes began.

  “Here? Dunno. Very…responsive place, this.”

  They inched their way across the log, passing the baby from one to the other.

  Agnes leaned against the stone wall. “How much farther?”

  “Well, tecnic’ly a few inches,” said Nanny. “That’s helpful to know, isn’t it?”

  “Is it just me,” said Magrat, “or is it getting warmer?”

  “Now that,” said Agnes, pointing ahead, “I don’t believe.”

  At the end of a slope a crevasse has opened in the rock. Red light spilled out of it. As they stared at it, a ball of flame rolled up and burst across the ceiling.

  “Oh deary deary me,” said Nanny, who had taken a turn to carry the baby. “An’ it’s not even as if there’s any volcanoes anywhere near here. What can she be thinking?” She headed purposefully toward the fire.

  “Careful!” Agnes shouted. “Perdita says it’s real!”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of fish?” said Nanny, and stepped into the fire.

  The flames snapped out.

  The other two stood in the chilly, damp gloom.

  Magrat shuddered. “Nanny, you are carrying the baby.”

  “The harm you come to here is what you brings with you,” said Nanny. “And it’s Granny’s thoughts that are shaping this place. But she wouldn’t raise a hand to a child. Couldn’t do it. Hasn’t got it in her.”

  “This place is reacting to what she’s thinking?” said Agnes.

  “I reckon so,” said Nanny, setting off again.

  “I’d hate to be inside her head!”

  “You nearly are,” said Nanny. “Come on. We’ve passed the fire. I don’t think there’ll be anything else.”

  They found her in a cavern. It had sand on the floor, smooth and unmarked by anything except one set of footprints. Her hat had been placed neatly beside her. Her head rested on a rolled up sack. She held a card in stiff hands.

  It read:

  GOE AWAY

  “That is not very helpful,” said Magrat, and sat down with the baby across her lap. “After all this, too.”

  “Can’t we wake her up?” said Agnes.

  “That’s dangerous,” said Nanny Ogg. “Trying to call her back when she ain’t ready to come? Tricky.”

  “Well, can we at least take her out of here?”

  “She won’t bend round corners but, hah, maybe we could use her as a bridge,” said Nanny. “No, she came here for a reason…”

  She pulled the sack out from under Granny’s head, which did not move, and opened it.

  “Wrinkly apple, bottle of water and a cheese sandwich you could bend horseshoes round,” she said. “And her old box.”

  She set it down on the floor between them.

  “What is in there?” said Agnes.

  “Oh, keepsakes. Memorororabililia, like I said. That sort of thing,” said Nanny. “She always says it’s full of things she’s got no further use for.” She drummed her fingers on the box as if accompanying a thought on the piano, and then picked it up.

  “Should you do that?” said Agnes.

  “No,” said Nanny. She lifted out a bundle of papers tied with ribbon and put them on one side.

  They all saw the light shining up from underneath. Nanny reached in and took out a small glass medicine bottle, tightly corked, and held it up. A little glow inside was quite bright in the gloom of the cave.

  “Seen this bottle before,” said Nanny. “She’s got all kinds of odds and ends in here. Never noticed it glowing, though.”

  Agnes took the bottle. Inside there was what looked like a piece of fern, or…no, it was a feather, quite black except for the very tip which was as yellow and bright as a candle flame.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “No. She’s always pickin’ up stuff. She’s had the bottle a long time, ’cos I’ve seen it in there—”

  “I faw her fick it uff—” Magrat removed a safety pin from her mouth. “I saw her pick that thing up years ago,” she tried again. “It was around this time of year, too. We were walking back through the woods and there was a shooting star and this sort of light fell off it and we went to look and there it was. It looked like a flame but she was able to pick it up.”

  “Sounds like a firebird feather,” said Nanny. “There used to be old stories about them. They pass through here. But if you touch their feathers, you’d better be damn sure of yourself, because the old stories say they burn in the presence of evil—”

  “Firebird? You mean a phoenix?” said Agnes. “Hodgesaargh was going on about one.”

  “Haven’t seen one go over for years,” said Nanny. “Sometimes you’d see two or three at a time when I was girl, just lights flying high up in the sky.”

  “No, no, the phoenix…there’s only one o
f it, that’s the whole point,” said Agnes.

  “One of anything’s no bloody use,” said Nanny.

  Granny Weatherwax smacked her lips, like someone emerging from a very deep sleep. Her eyelids flickered.

  “Ah, I knew opening her box’d work,” said Nanny happily.

  Granny Weatherwax’s eyes opened. She stared straight up for a moment, and then swiveled them toward Nanny Ogg.

  “W’t’r,” she mumbled. Agnes hastily passed her the water bottle. She touched Granny’s fingers, and they were as chilly as stone.

  The old witch took a gulp.

  “Oh. It’s you three,” she whispered. “Why did you come here?”

  “You told us to,” said Agnes.

  “No I didn’t!” Granny snapped. “Wrote you a note, did I?”

  “No, but the stuff—” Agnes stopped. “Well, we thought you wanted us to.”

  “Three witches?” said Granny. “Well, no reason why not. The maiden, the mother and the—”

  “Go carefully,” Nanny Ogg warned.

  “—the other one,” said Granny. “That’s up to you, I’m sure. It’s not something about which I would venture any sort of opinion. So I expect you’ve got some dancin’ to be doing, and good day to you. I’ll have my pillow back, thank you very much.”

  “You know there’s vampires in Lancre?” Nanny demanded.

  “Yes. They got invited.”

  “You know they’re taking over?”

  “Yes!”

  “So why did you run away up here?” said Agnes.

  The temperature of a deep cave should remain constant, but suddenly this one was a lot colder.

  “I can go where I like,” said Granny.

  “Yes, but you ought—” Agnes began. She wished she could bite the word back, but it was too late.

  “Oh, ought, is it? Where does it say ought? I don’t remember it saying ought anywhere. Anyone going to tell me where it says ought? There’s lots of things that ought, I dare say. But they ain’t.”

  “You know a magpie stole your invite?” said Nanny. “Shawn delivered it okay, but them thieving devils had it away and into a nest.”

  She flourished the crumpled, smudged yet gold-laden invitation.

  In the moment of silence Agnes fancied she could hear the stalactites grow.

  “Yes, of course I did,” said Granny. “Worked that out first thing.” But the moment had been just slightly too long, and just slightly too quiet.

  “And you know Verence got an Omnian priest in to do the naming of young Esme?”

  Again…fractionally too long, infinitesimally too silent.

  “You know I put my mind to business,” said Granny. She glanced at the baby sitting on Magrat’s lap.

  “Why’s she got a pointy head?” she said.

  “It’s the little hood Nanny knitted for her,” said Magrat. “It’s meant to look like that. Would you like to hold her?”

  “She looks comfortable where she is,” said Granny diffidently.

  She didn’t know the baby’s name! Perdita whispered. I told you! Nanny thinks Granny’s been in the baby’s mind, I can tell by the way she’s been looking at her, but if she did she’d know the name and she doesn’t, I swear. She wouldn’t do anything that might hurt a child…

  Granny shook herself. “Anyway, if there’s a problem, well, you’ve got your three witches. It doesn’t say anywhere that one of them ought,” she nodded at Agnes, “to be Granny Weatherwax. You sort it out. I’ve been witching in these parts for altogether too long and it’s time to…move on…do something else…”

  “You’re going to hide up here?” said Magrat.

  “I’m not going to keep on repeating myself, my girl. People aren’t going to tell me what I ought to do no more. I know what’s ought and what’s not. Your husband invited vampires into the country, did he? That’s modern for you. Well, everyone else knows that a vampire don’t have no power over you ’less you invite it in, and if it’s a king as does the inviting, then they’ve got their teeth into the whole country. And I’m an ol’ woman living in the woods and I’ve got to make it all better? When there’s three of you? I’ve had a lifetime of ought from can to can’t and now it’s over, and I’ll thank you for gettin’ out of my cave. And that’s an end of it.”

  Nanny glanced at the other two and shrugged.

  “Come on, then,” she said. “If we get a wiggle on we can be back at the broomsticks before dark.”

  “Is that all?” said Magrat.

  “Things come to an end,” said Granny. “I’m going to rest up here and then I’m on my way. Plenty of places to go.”

  Now get her to tell you the truth, said Perdita. Agnes bit down. Ought had been bad enough.

  “So we’ll be getting along,” said Nanny. “Come on.”

  “But—”

  “But me no buts,” said Nanny. “As Granny would have said.”

  “That’s right!” said Granny, lying back.

  As they filed back into the caves Agnes heard Perdita start counting.

  Magrat patted her pockets. Nanny patted her knickerlegs.

  Magrat said, “Oh, I must have le—”

  “Blow, I left my pipe back there,” said Nanny, so quickly that the sentence overtook the one in front.

  Five seconds, said Perdita. “I didn’t see you take it out,” said Agnes.

  Nanny gave her a piercing look. “Really? Then I’d better go and leave it there, hadn’t I. Was there something you’d left too, Magrat? Never mind, I’ll be sure to look for it, whatever it was going to be.”

  “Well!” said Magrat, as Nanny darted back.

  “Granny was certainly not telling the truth,” said Agnes.

  “Of course she wasn’t, she never does,” said Magrat. “She expects you to work it out for yourself.”

  “But she’s right about us being three witches.”

  “Yes, but I never intended to come back to it, I’ve got other things to do. Oh, perhaps when Esme’s older I thought, maybe, a bit of part-time aromatherapy or something, but not serious full time witching. This power-of-three business is…well, it’s very old-fashioned…”

  And what have we got now? Perdita chimed in. The knowing but technically inexperienced young woman, the harassed young mother and the silver-haired golden ager…doesn’t exactly sound mythic, does it? But Magrat just bundled up her little baby as soon as she heard Granny was in trouble and she didn’t even stop to worry about her husband…

  “Wait a moment…listen,” said Agnes.

  “What for?”

  “Just listen…the sound echoes in these caves…”

  Nanny Ogg sat down on the sand and wriggled slightly to settle in firmly. She took out her pipe.

  “So,” she said to the recumbent figure, “apart from all that, how are you feeling?”

  There was no reply.

  “Saw Mrs. Patternoster this morning,” Nanny went on chattily. “Her from over in Slice. Just passed the time of day. Mrs. Ivy is bearing up well, she says.”

  She blew out a cloud of smoke.

  “I put her right about a few things,” she said.

  There was still silence from the shadowy figure.

  “The Naming went off all right. The priest’s as wet as a snow omelet, though.”

  “I can’t beat ’em, Gytha,” said Granny. “I can’t beat ’em, and that’s a fact.”

  One of Nanny Ogg’s hidden talents was knowing when to say nothing. It left a hole in the conversation that the other person felt obliged to fill.

  “They’ve got minds like steel. I can’t touch ’em. I’ve been tryin’ everything. Every trick I’ve got! They’ve been searching for me but they can’t focus right when I’m in here. The best one nearly got to me at the cottage. My cottage!”

  Nanny Ogg understood the horror. A witch’s cottage was her fortress.

  “I’ve never felt anything like it, Gytha. He’s had hundreds of years to get good. You noticed the magpies? He’s using ’em a
s eyes. And he’s clever, too. He’s not going to fall to a garlic sandwich, that one. I can pick up that much. These vampires has learned. That’s what they’ve never done before. I can’t find a way into ’em anywhere. They’re more powerful, stronger, they think quick…I tell you, going mind to mind with him’s like spittin’ at a thunderstorm.”

  “So what’re you going to do?”

  “Nothing! There’s nothing I can do! Can’t you understand what I’ve been tellin’ you? Don’t you know I’ve been lying here all day tryin’ to think of something? They know all about magic, Borrowing’s second nature to them, they’re fast, they think we’re like cattle that can talk…I never expected anything like this, Gytha. I’ve thought about it round and round and there’s not a thing I can see to do.”

  “There’s always a way,” said Nanny.

  “I can’t see it,” said Granny. “This is it, Gytha. I might as well lie here until the water drips on me and I go into stone like the ol’ witch at the door.”

  “You’ll find a way,” said Nanny. “Weatherwaxes don’t let ’em-selves get beaten. It’s something in the blood, like I’ve always said.”

  “I am beaten, Gytha. Even before I start. Maybe someone else has a way, but I haven’t. I’m up against a mind that’s better’n mine. I just about keep it away from me but I can’t get in. I can’t fight back.”

  The chilly feeling crept over Nanny Ogg that Granny Weather-wax meant it.

  “I never thought I’d hear you say that,” she muttered.

  “Off you go. No sense in keepin’ the baby out in the cold.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “Maybe I shall move on. Maybe I’ll just stop here.”

  “Can’t stop here forever, Esme.”

  “Ask her that is by the door.”

  That seemed to be all there was going to be. Nanny walked out, found the others looking slightly too innocent in the next cave, and led the way to the open air.

  “Found your pipe, then,” said Magrat.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “What’s she going to do?” said Agnes.

  “You tell me,” said Nanny. “I knows you was listenin’. You wouldn’t be witches if you wasn’t listenin’ somehow.”

  “Well, what can we do that she can’t? If she’s beaten, then so are we, aren’t we?”