There was a row of empty pickle jars beside them.
Granny sat down and folded her hands in her lap.
“Want a cup of tea, Esme?” said Nanny Ogg.
“No, dear, thank you. You get on back to the Trials. Don’t you worry about me,” said Granny.
“You sure?”
“I’ll just sit here quiet. Don’t you worry.”
“I’m not going back!” Agnes hissed, as they left. “I don’t like the way Letice smiles …”
“You once told me you didn’t like the way Esme frowns,” said Nanny.
“Yes, but you can trust a frown. Er … you don’t think she’s losing it, do you?”
“No one’ll be able to find it if she has,” said Nanny. “No, you come on back with me. I’m sure she’s planning … something.” I wish the hell I knew what it is, she thought. I’m not sure I can take any more waiting.
She could feel the mounting tension before they reached the field. Of course, there was always tension, that was part of the Trials, but this kind had a sour, unpleasant taste. The sideshows were still going on but ordinary folk were leaving, spooked by sensations they couldn’t put their finger on which nevertheless had them under their thumb. As for the witches themselves, they had that look worn by actors about two minutes from the end of a horror movie, when they know the monster is about to make its final leap and now it’s only a matter of which door.
Letice was surrounded by witches. Nanny could hear raised voices. She nudged another witch, who was watching gloomily.
“What’s happening, Winnie?”
“Oh, Reena Trump made a pig’s ear of her piece and her friends say she ought to have another go because she was so nervous.”
“That’s a shame.”
“And Virago Johnson ran off ’cos her weather spell went wrong.”
“Left under a bit of a cloud, did she?”
“And I was all thumbs when I had a go. You could be in with a chance, Gytha.”
“Oh, I’ve never been one for prizes, Winnie, you know me. It’s the fun of taking part that counts.”
The other witch gave her a skewed look.
“You almost made that sound believable,” she said.
Gammer Beavis hurried over. “On you go, Gytha,” she said. “Do your best, eh? The only contender so far is Mrs. Weavitt and her whistling frog, and it wasn’t as if it could even carry a tune. Poor thing was a bundle of nerves.”
Nanny Ogg shrugged, and walked out into the roped-off area. Somewhere in the distance someone was having hysterics, punctuated by an occasional worried whistle.
Unlike the magic of wizards, the magic of witches did not usually involve the application of much raw power. The difference is between hammers and levers. Witches generally tried to find the small point where a little changes made a lot of result. To make an avalanche you can either shake the mountain, or maybe you can just find exactly the right place to drop a snowflake.
This year Nanny had been idly working on the Man of Straw. It was an ideal trick for her. It got a laugh, it was a bit suggestive, it was a lot easier than it looked but showed she was joining in, and it was unlikely to win.
Damn! She’d been relying on that frog to beat her. She’d heard it whistling quite beautifully on the summer evenings.
She concentrated.
Pieces of straw rustled through the stubble. All she had to do was use the little bits of wind that drifted across the field, allowed to move here and here, spiral up and—
She tried to stop her hands from shaking. She’d done this a hundred times, she could tie the damn stuff in knots by now. She kept seeing the face of Esme Weatherwax, and the way she’d just sat there, looking puzzled and hurt, while for a few seconds Nanny had been ready to kill—
For a moment she managed to get the legs right, and a suggestion of arms and head. There was a smattering of applause from the watchers. Then an errant eddy caught the thing before she could concentrate on its first step, and it spun down, just a lot of useless straw.
She made some frantic gestures to get it to rise again. It flopped about, tangled itself, and lay still.
There was a bit more applause, nervous and sporadic.
“Sorry … don’t seem to be able to get the hang of it today,” she muttered, walking off the field.
The judges went into a huddle.
“I reckon that frog did really well,” said Nanny, more loudly than was necessary.
The wind, so contrary a little while ago, blew sharper now. What might be called the psychic darkness of the event was being enhanced by real twilight.
The shadow of the bonfire loomed on the far side of the field. No one as yet had the heart to light it. Almost all of the non-witches had gone home. Anything good about the day had long drained away.
The circle of judges broke up and Mrs. Earwig advanced on the nervous crowd, her smile only slightly waxen at the corners.
“Well, what a difficult decision it has been,” she said brightly. “But what a marvelous turnout, too! It really has been a most tricky choice—”
Between me and a frog that lost its whistle and got its foot stuck in its banjo, thought Nanny. She looked sidelong at the faces of her sister witches. She’d known some of them for sixty years. If she’d ever read books, she’d have been able to read the faces just like one.
“We all know who won, Mrs. Earwig,” she said, interrupting the flow.
“What do you mean, Mrs. Ogg?”
“There’s not a witch here who could get her mind right today,” said Nanny. “And most of ’em have bought lucky charms, too. Witches? Buying lucky charms?” Several women stared at the ground.
“I don’t know why everyone seems so afraid of Miss Weatherwax! I certainly am not! You think she’s put a spell on you, then?”
“A pretty sharp one, by the feel of it,” said Nanny. “Look, Mrs. Earwig, no one’s won, not with the stuff we’ve managed today. We all know it. So let’s just all go home, eh?”
“Certainly not! I paid ten dollars for this cup and I mean to present it—”
The dying leaves shivered on the trees.
The witches drew together.
Branches rattled.
“It’s the wind,” said Nanny Ogg. “That’s all …”
And then Granny was simply there. It was as if they’d just not noticed that she’d been there all the time. She had the knack of fading out of the foreground.
“I jus’ thought I’d come to see who won,” she said. “Join in the applause, and so on …”
Letice advanced on her, wild with rage.
“Have you been getting into people’s heads?” she shrieked.
“An’ how could I do that, Mrs. Earwig?” said Granny meekly. “Past all them lucky charms?”
“You’re lying!”
Nanny Ogg heard the indrawn breaths, and hers was loudest. Witches lived by their words.
“I don’t lie, Mrs. Earwig.”
“Do you deny that you set out to ruin my day?”
Some of the witches at the edge of the crowd started to back away.
“I’ll grant my jam ain’t to everyone’s taste but I never—” Granny began, in a modest little tone.
“You’ve been putting a ’fluence on everyone!”
“—I just set out to help, you can ask anyone—”
“You did! Admit it!” Mrs. Earwig’s voice was as shrill as a gull’s.
“—and I certainly didn’t do any—”
Granny’s head turned as the slap came.
For the moment no one breathed, no one moved.
She lifted a hand slowly and rubbed her cheek.
“You know you could have done it easily!”
It seemed to Nanny that Letice’s scream echoed off the mountains.
The cup dropped from her hands and crunched on the stubble.
Then the tableau unfroze. A couple of her sister witches stepped forward, put their hands on Letice’s shoulders, and she was pulled, gently and un
protesting, away.
Everyone else waited to see what Granny Weatherwax would do. She raised her head.
“I hope Mrs. Earwig is all right,” she said. “She seemed a bit … distraught.”
There was silence. Nanny picked up the abandoned cup and tapped it with a forefinger.
“Hmm,” she said. “Just plated, I reckon. If she paid ten dollars for it, the poor woman was robbed.” She tossed it to Gammer Beavis, who fumbled it out of the air. “Can you give it back to her tomorrow, Gammer?”
Gammer nodded, trying not to catch Granny’s eye.
“Still, we don’t have to let it spoil everything,” Granny said pleasantly. “Let’s have the proper ending to the day, eh? Traditional, like. Roast potatoes and marshmallows and old stories round the fire. And forgiveness. And let’s let bygones be bygones.”
Nanny could feel the sudden relief spreading out like a fan. The witches seemed to come alive, at the breaking of the spell that had never actually been there in the first place. There was a general straightening up and the beginnings of a bustle as they headed for the saddlebags on their broomsticks.
“Mr. Hopcroft gave me a whole sack of spuds,” said Nanny, as conversation rose around them. “I’ll go and drag ’em over. Can you get the fire lit, Esme?”
A sudden change in the air made her look up. Granny’s eyes gleamed in the dusk.
Nanny knew enough to fling herself to the ground.
Granny Weatherwax’s hand curved through the air like a comet and the spark flew out, crackling.
The bonfire exploded. A blue-white flame shot up through the stacked branches and danced into the sky, etching shadows on the forest. It blew off hats and overturned tables and formed figures and castles and scenes from famous battles and joined hands and danced in a ring. It left a purple image on the eye that burned into the brain—
And settled down, and was just a bonfire.
“I never said nothin’ about forgettin’,” said Granny.
When Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg walked home through the dawn, their boots kicked up the mist. It had, on the whole, been a good night.
After some while, Nanny said, “That wasn’t nice, what you done.”
“I done nothin’.”
“Yeah, well … it wasn’t nice, what you didn’t do. It was like pullin’ away someone’s chair when they’re expecting to sit down …”
“People who don’t look where they’re sitting should stay stood up,” said Granny.
There was a brief pattering on the leaves, one of those very brief showers you get when a few raindrops don’t want to bond with the group.
“Well, all right,” Nanny conceded. “But it was a little bit cruel.”
“Right,” said Granny.
“And some people might think it was a little bit nasty.”
“Right.”
Nanny shivered. The thoughts that’d gone through her head in those few seconds after Pewsey had screamed—
“I gave you no cause,” said Granny. “I put nothin’ in anyone’s head that weren’t there already.”
“Sorry, Esme.”
“Right.”
“But … Letice didn’t mean to be cruel, Esme. I mean, she’s spiteful and bossy and silly, but—”
“You’ve known me since we was girls, right?” Granny interrupted. “Through thick and thin, good and bad?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“And you never sank to sayin’ ‘I’m telling you this as a friend,’ did you?”
Nanny shook her head. It was a telling point. No one even remotely friendly would say a thing like that.
“What’s empowerin’ about witchcraft anyway?” said Granny. “It’s a daft sort of a word.”
“Search me,” said Nanny. “I did start out in witchcraft to get boys, to tell you the truth.”
“Think I don’t know that?”
“What did you start out to get, Esme?”
Granny stopped, and looked up at the frosty sky and then down at the ground.
“Dunno,” she said, at last. “Even, I suppose.”
And that, Nanny thought, was that.
Deer bounded away as they arrived at Granny’s cottage.
There was a stack of firewood piled up neatly by the back door, and a couple of sacks on the doorstep. One contained a large cheese.
“Looks like Mr. Hopcroft and Mr. Poorchick have been here,” said Nanny.
“Hmph.” Granny looked at the carefully yet badly written piece of paper attached to the second sack: “’Dear Misftresf Weatherwax, I woud be moft grateful if you woud let me name thif new champion fhip Variety “Efme Weatherwax.” Yours in hopefully good health, Percy Hopcroft.’ Well, well, well. I wonder what gave him that idea?”
“Can’t imagine,” said Nanny.
“I would just bet you can’t,” said Granny.
She sniffed suspiciously, tugged at the sack’s string, and pulled out an Esme Weatherwax.
It was rounded, very slightly flattened, and pointy at one end. It was an onion.
Nanny Ogg swallowed. “I told him not—”
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh … nothing …”
Granny Weatherwax turned the onion round and round, while the world, via the medium of Nanny Ogg, awaited its fate. Then she seemed to reach a decision she was comfortable with.
“A very useful vegetable, the onion,” she said, at last. “Firm. Sharp.”
“Good for the system,” said Nanny.
“Keeps well. Adds flavor.”
“Hot and spicy,” said Nanny, losing track of the metaphor in the flood of relief. “Nice with cheese—”
“We don’t need to go that far,” said Granny Weatherwax, putting it carefully back in the sack. She sounded almost amicable. “You comin’ in for a cup of tea, Gytha?”
“Er … I’d be getting along—”
“Fair enough.”
Granny started to close the door, and then stopped and opened it again. Nanny could see one blue eye watching her through the crack.
“I was right though, wasn’t I,” said Granny. It wasn’t a question.
Nanny nodded.
“Right,” she said.
“That’s nice.”
The Sword of Truth
TERRY GOODKIND
WIZARD’S FIRST RULE (1994)
STONE OF TEARS (1995)
BLOOD OF THE FOLD (1996)
TEMPLE OF THE WINDS (1997)
Terry Goodkind burst onto the fantasy scene in 1994 with the publication of Wizard’s First Rule, which tells the story of Richard Cypher, a young man who learns that he is the key to defeating the evil sorcerer Darken Rahl, who threatens to subjugate all lands and peoples. Three succeeding novels in the series have brought Goodkind to the best-seller lists.
Little does Richard know when he happens across Kahlan, an alluring but secretive woman being chased by four assassins, that his life as a woods guide is about to be forever altered. Richard, a man with his own troubling secrets, helps Kahlan find the wizard she seeks but, as the boundary between the lands begins to fail, discovers himself caught up not only in a strange new world, but in Kahlan’s quest for a way to stop Darken Rahl, the charismatic and cunning leader of the far-off land of D’Hara. Darken Rahl has launched a war of arms as well as persuasion against the people of the Midlands as he searches for the power to control them entirely. Richard and Kahlan are running out of time to find the repository of this power before Darken Rahl can impose a merciless fate on them. Richard, who comes to care deeply for Kahlan, must confront timeless lessons about the encroachment of evil on an unsuspecting world. The series becomes an inner quest as much as it is a struggle for destiny and freedom. In the course of obtaining the essential weapon—the Sword of Truth—he learns that the stakes are higher than simple life and death, and that the dividing line between moral choices and evil ones is often shrouded by apathy, ignorance, and greed.
In Stone of Tears, Richard strives to master the magic powe
r that is his birthright, but finds that the effort of wielding such magic threatens his life. To save him, Kahlan, in desperation, sends him away with the Sisters of the Light. The Sisters, who promise to teach him to control his power, spirit him away beyond the Valley of the Lost to the Palace of the Prophets in the Old World. Kahlan undertakes an arduous journey to find their friend and mentor, Zedd, the First Wizard. Along the way she discovers the people of a city that has been attacked by the Imperial Order, and must forge an army of young recruits into a force that will not only stop this new threat to the Midlands but will extract vengeance. Richard’s teachers turn out to include some who are sworn to the Keeper of the Underworld and intend to use Richard to free their master. Richard has already unwittingly helped them by using his gift, which tore the veil that separates the realm of the dead from the world of the living. Richard’s only hope to save everyone is to find the Stone of Tears, but to do that, he must escape his imprisonment at the Palace of the Prophets. And to have any hope of escape, he must learn to use his gift before the Sisters of the Dark, who would destroy him, can turn him to their purposes.
In Blood of the Fold, the third novel, the emperor of the Imperial Order in the Old World lusts to conquer the Midlands. To that end, he tries to use an army of anti-magic zealots to purge the Midlands of those born with the gift of magic. The emperor, a dream-walker with magic of his own, captures the Sisters of the Dark and uses them against Richard and Kahlan, while the people who call themselves the Blood of the Fold plot their own conquest of the Midlands. Unless Richard can seize power and mold the fragmented Midlands into one, the Imperial Order will sweep across the land, shadowing the Midlands in an age of slavery, and freedom’s last flames will die forever.
In Temple of the Winds, Emperor Jagang sends an assassin to kill Richard, and in the process unleashes a deadly plague. The conflagration of disease claims more people with each passing day as Richard and Kahlan desperately search for a cure. Trust and love are tested in a twisting trail of devotion and betrayal. With hundreds and then thousands of their people perishing each day, Richard and Kahlan must find the Temple of the Winds, and then decide if they will pay the terrible price required to enter.
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