The Wee Free Men d(-2

by Terry Pratchett

  Tiffany couldn’t think. Her head was full of hot, pink fog. It hadn’t worked.

  Her Third Thoughts were somewhere in the fog, trying to make themselves heard.

  ‘Got Roland out,’ she muttered, still staring at her boots.

  ‘But he’s not yours,’ said the Queen. ‘He is, let us face it, a rather stupid boy with a big red face and brains made of pork, just like his father. You left your little brother behind with a bunch of little thieves and you rescued a spoiled little fool.’

  There was no time! shrieked the Third Thoughts. You wouldn’t have got to him and got back to the lighthouse! You nearly didn’t get away as it was! You got Roland out! It was the logical thing to do! You don’t have to be guilty about it! What’s better, to try to save your brother and be brave, courageous, stupid and dead, or save the boy and be brave, courageous, sensible and alive?

  But something kept saying that stupid and dead would have been more… right.

  Something kept saying: Would you say to Mum that you could see there wasn’t time to rescue your brother so you rescued someone else instead? Would she be pleased that you’d worked that out? Being right doesn’t always work.

  It’s the Queen! yelled the Third Thoughts. It’s her voice! It’s like hypnotism! You’ve got to stop listening!

  ‘I expect it’s not your fault you’re so cold and heartless,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s probably all to do with your parents. They probably never gave you enough time. And having Wentworth was a very cruel thing to do, they really should have been more careful. And they let you read too many words. It can’t be good for a young brain, knowing words like paradigm and eschatological. It leads to behaviour such as using your own brother as monster bait.’ The Queen sighed. ‘Sadly, that kind of thing happens all the time. I think you should be proud of not being worse than just deeply introverted and socially maladjusted.’

  She walked around Tiffany.

  ‘It’s so sad,’ she continued. ‘You dream that you are strong, sensible, logical… the kind of person who always has a bit of string. But that’s just your excuse for not being really, properly human. You’re just a brain, no heart at all. You didn’t even cry when Granny Aching died. You think too much, and now your precious thinking has let you down. Well, I think it’s best if I just kill you, don’t you?’

  Find a stone! the Third Thoughts screamed. Hit her!

  Tiffany was aware of other figures in the gloom. There were some of the people from the summer pictures, but there were also dromes and the headless horseman and the Bumble-Bee women.

  Around her, frost crept over the ground.

  ‘I think we’ll like it here,’ said the Queen.

  Tiffany felt the cold creeping up her legs. Her Third Thoughts, hoarse with effort, shouted: Do something!

  She should have been better organized, she thought dully. She shouldn’t have relied on dreams. Or… perhaps I should have been a real human being. More… feeling. But I couldn’t help not crying! It just… wouldn’t come! And how can I stop thinking? And thinking about thinking? And even thinking about thinking about thinking?

  She saw the smile in the Queen’s eyes, and thought: Which one of all those people doing all that thinking is me?

  Is there really any me at all?

  Clouds poured across the sky like a stain. They covered the stars. They were the inky clouds from the frozen world, the clouds of nightmare. It began to rain, rain with ice in it. It hit the turf like bullets, turning it into chalky mud. The wind howled like a pack of grimhounds.

  Tiffany managed to take a step forward. The mud sucked at her boots.

  ‘A bit of spirit at last?’ said the Queen, stepping back.

  Tiffany tried another step, but things were not working any more. She was too cold and too tired. She could feel her self disappearing, getting lost…

  ‘So sad, to end like this,’ said the Queen.

  Tiffany fell forward, into the freezing mud.

  The rain grew harder, stinging like needles, hammering on her head and running like icy tears down her cheeks. It struck so hard it left her breathless.

  She felt the cold drawing all the heat out of her. And that was the only sensation left, apart from a musical note.

  It sounded like the smell of snow, or the sparkle of frost. It was high and thin and drawn out.

  She couldn’t feel the ground under her and there was nothing to see, not even the stars. The clouds had covered everything.

  She was so cold she couldn’t feel the cold any more, or her fingers. A thought managed to trickle through her freezing mind. Is there any me at all? Or do my thoughts just dream of me?

  The blackness grew deeper. Night was never as black as this, and winter never as cold. It was colder than the deep winters when the snow came down and Granny Aching would plod from snowdrift to snowdrift, looking for warm bodies. The sheep could survive the snow if the shepherd had some wits, Granny used to say. The snow kept the cold away, the sheep surviving in warm hollows under roofs of snow while a bitter wind blew harmlessly over them.

  But this was as cold as those days when even the snow couldn’t fall, and the wind was pure cold itself, blowing ice crystals across the turf. Those were the killer days in early spring, when the lambing had begun and winter came howling down one more time…

  There was darkness everywhere, bitter and starless.

  There was a speck of light, a long way off.

  One star. Low down. Moving…

  It got bigger in the stormy night.

  It zigzagged as it came.

  Silence covered Tiffany, and drew her into itself.

  The silence smelled of sheep, and turpentine, and tobaccco.

  And then… came movement, as if she was falling through the ground, very fast.

  And gentle warmth, and, just for a moment, the sound of waves.

  And her own voice, inside her head.

  This land is in my bones.

  Land under wave.

  Whiteness.

  It tumbled through the warm, heavy darkness around her, something like snow but as fine as dust. It piled up somewhere below her, because she could see a faint whiteness.

  A creature like an ice-cream cone with lots of tentacles shot past her and jetted away.

  I’m underwater, thought Tiffany.

  I remember…

  This is the million-year rain under the sea, this is the new land being born underneath an ocean. It’s not a dream. It’s… a memory. The land under wave. Millions and millions of tiny shells…

  This land was alive.

  All the time there was the warm, comforting smell of the shepherding hut, and the feeling of being held in invisible hands.

  The whiteness below her rose up and over her head, but it didn’t seem uncomfortable. It was like being in a mist.

  Now I’m inside the chalk, like a flint, like a calkin…

  She wasn’t sure how long she spent in the warm deep water, or if indeed any time really had passed, or if the millions of years went past in a second, but she felt movement again, and a sense of rising.

  More memories poured into her mind.

  There’s always been someone watching the borders. They didn’t decide to. It was decided for them. Someone has to care. Sometimes, they have to fight. Someone has to speak for that which has no voice…

  She opened her eyes. She was still lying in the mud, and the Queen was laughing at her and, overhead, the storm still raged.

  But she felt warm. In fact, she felt hot, red-hot with anger… anger at the bruised turf, anger at her own stupidity, anger at this beautiful creature whose only talent was control.

  This… creature was trying to take her world.

  All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My fami
ly! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

  I have a duty!

  The anger overflowed. She stood up clenched her fists and screamed at the storm, putting into the scream all the rage that was inside her.

  Lightning struck the ground on either side of her. It did so twice.

  And it stayed there, crackling, and two dogs formed.

  Steam rose from their coats, and blue light sparked from their ears as they shook themselves. They looked attentively at Tiffany.

  The Queen gasped, and vanished.

  ‘Come by, Lightning!’ shouted Tiffany. ‘Away to me, Thunder!’ And she remembered the time when she’d run across the downs, falling over, shouting all the wrong things, while the two dogs had done exactly what needed to be done…

  Two streaks of black and white sped away across the turf and up towards the clouds.

  They herded the storm.

  Clouds panicked and scattered, but always there was a comet streaking across the sky and they were turned. Monstrous shapes writhed and screamed in the boiling sky, but Thunder and Lightning had worked many flocks; there was an occasional snap of lightning-sparked teeth, and a wail. Tiffany stared upwards, rain pouring off her face, and shouted commands that no dog could possibly have heard.

  Jostling and rumbling and screaming, the storm rolled off the hills and away towards the mountains, where there were deep canyons that could pen it.

  Out of breath, glowing with triumph, Tiffany watched until the dogs came back and settled, once again, on the turf. And then she remembered something else: it didn’t matter what orders she gave those dogs. They were not her dogs. They were working dogs.

  Thunder and Lightning didn’t take orders from a little girl.

  And the dogs weren’t looking at her.

  They were looking just behind her.

  She’d have turned if someone had told her a horrible monster was behind her. She’d have turned if they’d said it had a thousand teeth. She didn’t want to turn round now. Forcing herself was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  She was not afraid of what she might see. She was terribly, mortally frightened, afraid to the centre of her bones of what she might not see. She shut her eyes while her cowardly boots shuffled her round and then, after a deep breath, she opened them again.

  There was a gust of Jolly Sailor tobacco, and sheep, and turpentine.

  Sparkling in the dark, light glittering off the white shepherdess dress and every blue ribbon and silver buckle of it, was Granny Aching, smiling hugely, glowing with pride. In one hand she held the huge ornamental crook, hung with blue bows.

  She pirouetted slowly, and Tiffany saw that while she was a brilliant, glowing shepherdess from hat to hem, she still had her huge old boots on.

  Granny Aching took her pipe out of her mouth, and gave Tiffany the little nod that was, from her, a round of applause. And then—she wasn’t.

  Real starlit darkness covered the turf, and the night-time sounds filled the air. Tiffany didn’t know if what had just happened was a dream or had happened somewhere that wasn’t quite here or had only happened in her head. It didn’t matter. It had happened. And now—

  ‘But I’m still here,’ said the Queen, stepping in front of her. ‘Perhaps it was all a dream. Perhaps you have gone a little mad, because you are after all a very strange child. Perhaps you had help. How good are you? Do you really think that you can face me alone? I can make you think whatever I please—’

  ‘Crivens!’

  ‘Oh no, not them,’ said the Queen, throwing up her hands.

  It wasn’t just the Nac Mac Feegles, but also Wentworth, a strong smell of seaweed, a lot of water and a dead shark. They appeared in mid-air and landed in a heap between Tiffany and the Queen. But a pictsie was always ready for a fight, and they bounced, rolled and came up drawing their swords and shaking sea water out of their hair.

  ‘Oh, ‘tis you, izzut?’ said Rob Anybody, glaring up at the Queen. ‘Face to face wi’ ye at last, ye bloustie ol’ callyack that ye are! Ye canna’ come here, unnerstand? Be off wi’ ye! Are ye goin’ to go quietly?’

  The Queen stamped heavily on him. When she took her foot away, only the top of his head was visible above the turf.

  ‘Well, are ye?’ he said, pulling himself out as if nothing had happened. ‘I don’t wantae havtae lose my temper wi’ ye! An’ it’s no good sendin’ your pets against us, ‘cos you ken we can take ‘em tae the cleaners!’ He turned to Tiffany, who hadn’t moved. ‘You just leave this tae us, Kelda. Us an’ the Quin, we go way back!’

  The Queen snapped her fingers. ‘Always leaping into things you don’t understand,’ she hissed. ‘Well, can you face these?’

  Every Nac Mac Feegle sword suddenly glowed blue.

  Back in the crowd of eerily lit pictsies a voice that sounded very much like that of Daft Wullie said:

  ‘Ach, we’re in real trouble noo…’

  Three figures had appeared in the air, a little way away. The middle one, Tiffany saw, had a long red gown, a strange long wig and black tights with buckles on his shoes. The others were just ordinary men, it seemed, in ordinary grey suits.

  ‘Oh, ye are a harrrrrd wumman, Quin,’ said William the gonnagle, ‘to set the lawyers ontae us…’

  ‘See the one on the left there,’ whimpered a pictsie. ‘See, he’s got a briefcase! It’s a briefcase! Oh, waily, waily, a briefcase, waily.’

  Reluctantly, a step at a time, pressing together in terror, the Nac Mac Feegles began to back away.

  ‘Oh, waily waily, he’s snappin’ the clasps,’ groaned Daft Wullie. ‘Oh, waily waily waily, ‘tis the sound o’ Doom when a lawyer does that!’

  ‘Mister Rob Anybody Feegle and sundry others?’ said one of the figures in a voice of dread.

  ‘There’s naebody here o’ that name!’ shouted Rob Anybody. ‘We dinnae know anythin’!’

  ‘We have heard a list of criminal and civil charges totalling nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-three separate offences—’

  ‘We wasnae there!’ yelled Rob Anybody desperately. ‘Isn’t that right, lads?’

  ‘—including more than two thousand cases of Making an Affray, Causing a Public Nuisance, Being Found Drunk, Being Found Very Drunk, Using Offensive Language (taking into account ninety-seven counts of Using Language That Was Probably Offensive If Anyone Else Could Understand It), Committing a Breach of the Peace, Malicious Lingering—’

  ‘It’s mistaken identity!’ shouted Rob Anybody. ‘It’s no’ oour fault! We wuz only standing there an’ someone else did it and ran awa’!’

  ‘—Grand Theft, Petty Theft, Burglary, Housebreaking, Loitering With Intent To Commit a Felony—’

  ‘We wuz misunderstood when we was wee bairns!’ yelled Rob Anybody. ‘Ye’re only pickin’ on us cuz we’re blue! We always get blamed for every thin’! The polis hate us! We wasnae even in the country!’

  But, to groans from the cowering pictsies, one of the lawyers produced a big roll of paper from his briefcase. He cleared his throat and read out: ‘Angus, Big; Angus, No’-As-Big-As-Big-Angus; Angus, Wee; Archie, Big; Archie, One-Eyed; Archie, Wee Mad—’

  ‘They’ve got oour names!’ sobbed Daft Wullie. ‘They’ve got oour names! It’s the pris’n hoose for us!’

  ‘Objection! I move for a writ of Habeas Corpus,’ said a small voice. ‘And enter a plea of Vis-nefaciem capite repletam, without prejudice.’

  There was absolute silence for a moment. Rob Anybody turned to look at the frightened Nac Mac Feegles and said: ‘OK, OK, which of youse said that?’

  The toad crawled out of the crowd, and sighed. ‘It suddenly all came back to me,’ it said. ‘I remember what I was now. The legal language brought it all back. I’m a toad now but…’ it swallowed, ‘once I was a lawyer. And this, people, is illegal. These charges are a complete tissue of lies based on hearsay evidence.’

  It raised yellow eyes towards the Queen’s lawyers. ‘I further move that
the case is adjourned sine die on the basis of Potest-ne mater tua suere, amice.’

  The lawyers had pulled large books out of nowhere and were thumbing through them hastily. ‘We’re not familiar with counsel’s terminology,’ said one of them.

  ‘Hey, they’re sweatin’,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘You mean we can have lawyers on oour side as well?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said the toad. ‘You can have defence lawyers.’

  ‘Defence?’ said Rob Anybody. ‘Are you tellin’ me we could get awa’ wi’ it ‘cos of a tishoo o’ lies?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said the toad. ‘And with all the treasure you’ve stolen you can pay enough to be very innocent indeed. My fee will be—’

  It gulped as a dozen glowing swords were swung towards him.

  ‘I’ve just remembered why that fairy godmother turned me into a toad,’ it said. ‘So, in the circumstances, I’ll take this case pro bono publico.’

  The swords didn’t move.

  ‘That means for free,’ it added.

  ‘Oh, right, we like the sound o’ that,’ said Rob Anybody, to the sound of swords being sheathed. ‘How come ye’re a lawyer an’ a toad?’

  ‘Oh, well, it was just bit of an argument,’ said the toad. ‘A fairy godmother gave my client three wishes—the usual health, wealth and happiness package—and when my client woke up one wet morning and didn’t feel particularly happy she got me to bring an action for breach of contract. It was a definite first in the history of fairy godmothering. Unfortunately, as it turned out, so was turning the client into a small hand mirror and her lawyer, as you see before you, into a toad. I think the worst part was when the judge applauded. That was hurtful, in my opinion.’

  ‘But ye can still remember all that legal stuff? Quid,’ said Rob Anybody. He glared at the other lawyers. ‘Hey, youse scunners, we got a cheap lawyer and we no’ afraid tae use him wi’ prejudice!’