Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full Of Sky

‘Ach, this is no’ the time for strong licker,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘My heart is heavy, wumman.’

‘Quickly now!’ Jeannie shouted down the hole… ‘He’s deid and still talkin’! ’

‘She’s the hag o’ these hills,’ said Rob, ignoring her. ‘Just like her granny. She tells the hills what they are, every day. She has them in her bones. She holds ‘em in her heart. Wi’out her, I dinnae like tae think o’ the future.’

The other Feegles had come scurrying out of the hole and were looking uncertainly at Jeannie.

‘Is somethin’ wrong?’ said Daft Wullie.

‘Aye!’ snapped the kelda. ‘Rob willnae tak’ a drink o’ Special Sheep Liniment!’

Wullie’s little face screwed up in instant grief.

‘Ach, the Big Man’s deid! ’ he sobbed. ‘Oh waily waily waily—’

‘Will ye hush yer gob, ye big mudlin!’ shouted Rob Anybody, standing up. ‘I am no’ deid! I’m trying to have a moment o’ existential dreed here, right? Crivens, it’s a puir lookout if a man cannae feel the chilly winds o’ Fate lashing aroound his nethers wi’out folks telling him he’s deid, eh?’

‘Ach, and I see ye’ve been talking to the toad again, Rob,’ said Big Yan. ‘He’s the only one arroond here that used them lang words that tak’ all day to walk the length of…’ He turned to Jeannie. ‘It’s a bad case o’ the thinkin’ he’s caught, missus. When a man starts messin’ wi’ the readin’ and the writin’ then he’ll come doon with a dose o’ the thinkin’ soon enough. I’ll fetch some o’ the lads and we’ll hold his heid under water until he stops doin’ it, ‘tis the only cure. It can kill a man, the thinkin’.’

‘I’ll wallop ye and ten like ye!’ yelled Rob Anybody in Big Yan’s face, raising his fists. ‘I’m the Big Man in this clan and—’

‘And I am the Kelda,’ said their kelda, and one of the hiddlins of keldaring is to use your voice like that: hard, cold, sharp, cutting the air like a dagger of ice. ‘And I tell you men to go back doon the hole and dinnae show you faces back up here until I say. Not you, Rob Anybody Feegle! You stay here until I tell ye!’

‘Oh waily waily—’ Daft Wullie began, but Big Yan clapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him away quickly.

When they were alone, and scraps of cloud were beginning to mass around the moon, Rob Anybody hung his head.

‘I willnae go, Jeannie, if you say,’ he said.

‘Ach, Rob, Rob ,’ said Jeannie, beginning to cry. ‘Ye dinnae understand . I want no harm to come to the big wee girl, truly I don’t. But I cannae face thinkin’ o’ you out there fightin’ this monster that cannae be killed! It’s you I’m worried aboot, can ye no’ see?’

Rob put his arm around her. ‘Aye, I see,’ he said.

‘I’m your wife, Rob, askin’ ye not to go!’

‘Aye, aye. I’ll stay,’ said Rob.

Jeannie looked up to him. Tears shone in the moonlight. ‘Ye mean it?’

‘I never braked my word yet,’ said Rob. ‘Except to polis’men and other o’ that kidney, ye ken, and they dinnae count.’

‘Ye’ll stay? Ye’ll abide by my word?’ said Jeannie, sniffing.

Rob sighed. ‘Aye. I will.’

Jeannie was quiet for a while, and then said, in the sharp cold voice of a kelda: ‘Rob Anybody Feegle, I’m tellin’ ye now to go and save the big wee hag.’

‘Whut?’ said Rob Anybody, amazed. ‘Jus’ noo ye said I was tae stay—’

‘That was as your wife, Rob. Now I’m telling you as your kelda.’ Jeannie stood up, chin out and looking determined. ‘If ye dinnae heed the word o’ yer kelda, Rob Anybody Feegle, ye can be banished fra’ the clan. Ye ken that. So you’ll listen t’ me guid. Tak’ what men you need afore it’s too late, and go to the mountains, and see that the big wee girl comes tae nae harm. And come back safe yoursel’. That is an order! Nay, ‘tis more’n an order. ‘Tis a geas I’m laying on ye! That cannae be brake!’

‘But I—’ Rob began, completely bewildered.

‘I’m the kelda , Rob,’ said Jeannie. ‘I cannae run a clan with the Big Man pinin’. And the hills of our children need their hag. Everyone knows the land needs someone tae tell it whut it is.’

There was something about the way Jeannie had said ‘children’. Rob Anybody was not the fastest of thinkers, but he always got there in the end.

‘Aye, Rob,’ said Jeannie, seeing his expression. ‘Soon I’ll be birthing seven sons.’

‘Oh,’ said Rob Anybody. He didn’t ask how she knew the number. Keldas just knew.

‘That’s great! ’ he said.

‘And one daughter, Rob.’

Rob blinked. ‘A daughter? This soon?’

‘Aye,’ said Jeannie.

‘That’s wonderful good luck for a clan!’ said Rob.

‘Aye. So you’ve got something to come back safe to me for, Rob Anybody. An’ I beg ye to use your heid for somethin’ other than nuttin’ folk.’

‘I thank ye, Kelda,’ said Rob Anybody. ‘I’ll do as ye bid. I’ll tak’ some lads and find the big wee hag, for the good o’ the hills. It cannae be a good life for the puir wee big wee thing, all alone and far fra’ home, among strangers.’

‘Aye,’ said Jeannie, turning her face away. ‘I ken that, too.’

At dawn Rob Anybody, watched with awe by his many brothers, wrote the word:

PLN

…on a scrap of paper bag. Then he held it up.

‘Plan, ye ken,’ he said to the assembled Feegles. ‘Now we have a Plan, all we got tae do is work out what tae do. Yes, Wullie?’

‘Whut was that about this geese Jeannie hit ye with?’ said Daft Wullie, lowering his hand.

‘Not geese, geas,’ said Rob Anybody. He sighed. ‘I told yez. That means it’s serious. It means I got tae bring back the big wee hag, an’ no excuses, otherwise my soul gaes slam-bang intae the big cludgie in the sky. It’s like a magical order. ‘Tis a heavy thing, tae be under a geas.’

‘Well, they’re big birds,’ said Daft Wullie.

‘Wullie,’ said Rob, patiently, ‘ye ken I said I would tell ye when there wuz times you should’ve kept your big gob shut?’

‘Aye, Rob.’

‘Weel, that wuz one o’ them times.’ He raised his voice. ‘Now, lads, ye ken all aboot hivers. They cannae be killed! But ‘tis oor duty to save the big wee hag, so this is, like, a sooey-side mission and yell probably all end up back in the land o’ the living doin’ a borin’ wee job. So… I’m askin’ for volunteers!’

Every Feegle over the age of four automatically put his hand up.

‘Oh, come on ,’ said Rob. ‘You cannae all come! Look, I’ll tak’… Daft Wullie, Big Yan and… you, Awf’ly Wee Billy Bigchin. An’ I’m takin’ no weans, so if yez under three inches high ye’re not comin’! Except for ye, o’course, Awf’ly Wee Billy. As for the rest of youse, we’ll settle this the traditional Feegle way. I’ll tak’ the last fifty men still standing!’

He beckoned the chosen three to a place in the corner of the mound while the rest of the crowd squared up cheerfully. A Feegle liked to face enormous odds all by himself, because it meant you didn’t have to look where you were hitting.

‘She’s more’n a hundret miles awa’,’ said Rob as the big fight started. ‘We cannae run it, ‘tis too far. Any of youse scunners got any ideas?’

‘Hamish can get there on his buzzard,’ said Big Yan, stepping aside as a cluster of punching, kicking Feegles rolled past.

‘Aye, and he’ll come wi’ us, but he cannae tak’ more’n one passenger,’ shouted Rob over the din.

‘Can we swim it?’ said Daft Wullie, ducking as a stunned Feegle hurtled over his head.