Terry Pratchett: Witches Abroad

Death said nothing. From where he sat, Desiderata reflected, losing was something that everyone learned.

She drained her tea. Then she stood up, put on her pointy hat with a certain amount of ceremony, and hobbled out of the back door.

There was a deep trench dug under the trees a little way from the house, down into which someone had thoughtfully put a short ladder. She climbed in and, with some difficulty, heaved the ladder on to the leaves. Then she lay down. She sat up.

"Mr Chert the troll down at the sawmill does a very good deal on coffins, if you don't mind pine."

I SHALL DEFINITELY BEAR IT IN MIND.

"I got Hurker the poacher to dig the hole out for me," she said conversationally, "and he's goin' to come along and fill it in on his way home. I believe in being neat. Take it away, maestro."

WHAT? OH. A FIGURE OF SPEECH.

He raised his scythe.

Desiderata Hollow went to her rest.

"Well," she said, "that was easy. What happens now?"

And this is Genua. The magical kingdom. The diamond city. The fortunate country.

In the centre of the city a woman stood between two mirrors, watching herself reflected all the way to infinity.

The mirrors were themselves in the centre of an octagon of mirrors, open to the sky on the highest tower of the palace. There were so many reflections, in fact, that it was only with extreme difficulty that you could tell where the mirrors ended and the real person began.

Her name was Lady Lilith de Tempscire, although she had answered to many others in the course of a long and eventful life. And that was something you learned to do early on, she'd found. If you wanted to get anywhere in this world - and she'd decided, right at the start, that she wanted to get as far as it was possible to go - you wore names lightly, and you took power anywhere you found it. She had buried three husbands, and at least two of them had been already dead.

And you moved around a lot. Because most people didn't move around much. Change countries and your name and, if you had the right manner, the world was your mollusc. For example, she'd had to go a mere hundred miles to become a Lady.

She'd go to any lengths now...

The two main mirrors were set almost, but not quite, facing one another, so that Lilith could see over her shoulder and watch her images curve away around the universe inside the mirror.

She could feel herself pouring into herself, multiplying itself via the endless reflections.

When Lilith sighed and strode out from the Space between the mirrors the effect was startling. Images of Lilith hung in the air behind her for a moment, like three-dimensional shadows, before fading.

So... Desiderata was dying. Interfering old baggage. She deserved death. She'd never understood the kind of power she'd had. She was one of those people afraid to do good for fear of doing harm, who took it all so seriously that they'd constipate themselves with moral anguish before granting the wish of a single ant.

Lilith looked down and out over the city. Well, there were no barriers now. The stupid voodoo woman in the swamp was a mere distraction, with no understanding.

Nothing stood in the way of what Lilith liked more than anything else.

A happy ending.

Up on the mountain, the sabbat had settled down a bit. Artists and writers have always had a rather exaggerated idea about what goes on at a witches' sabbat. This comes from spending too much time in small rooms with the curtains drawn, instead of getting out in the healthy fresh air.

For example, there's the dancing around naked. In the average temperate climate there are very few nights when anyone would dance around at midnight with no clothes on, quite apart from the question of stones, thistles, and sudden hedgehogs.

Then there's all that business with goat-headed gods. Most witches don't believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don't believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman.

And there's the food and drink - the bits of reptile and so on. In fact, witches don't go for that sort of thing. The worst you can say about the eating habits of the older type of witch is that they tend to like ginger biscuits dipped in tea with so much sugar in it that the spoon won't move and will drink it out of the saucer if they think it's too hot. And do so with appreciative noises more generally associated with the cheaper type of plumbing system. Legs of toad and so on might be better than this.

Then there's the mystic ointments. By sheer luck, the artists and writers are on firmer ground here. Most witches are elderly, which is when ointments start to have an attraction, and at least two of those present tonight were wearing Granny Weatherwax's famous goose-grease-and-sage chest liniment. This didn't make you fly and see visions, but it did prevent colds, if only because the distressing smell that developed around about the second week kept everyone else so far away you couldn't catch anything from them.

And finally there's sabbats themselves. Your average witch is not, by nature, a social animal as far as other witches are concerned. There's a conflict of dominant personalities. There's a group of ringleaders without a ring. There's the basic unwritten rule of witchcraft, which is "Don't do what you will, do what I say." The natural size of a coven is one. Witches only get together when they can't avoid it.

Like now.

The conversation, given Desiderata's absence, had naturally turned to the increasing shortage of witches.

"What, no-one?" said Granny Weatherwax.

"No-one," said Gammer Brevis.

"I call that terrible," said Granny. "That's disgustin'."

"Eh?" said Old Mother Dismass.

"She calls it disgusting!" shouted Gammer Brevis.

"Eh?"

"There's no girl to put forward! To take Desiderata's place!"

"Oh."

The implications of this sank in.

"If anyone doesn't want their crusts I'll ‘ave ‘em," said Nanny Ogg.

"We never had this sort of thing in my young days," said Granny. "There was a dozen witches this side of the mountain alone. Of course, that was before all this" - she made a face - "making your own entertainment. There's far too much of this making your own entertainment these days. We never made our own entertainment when I was a girl. We never had time."

"Tempers fuggit," said Nanny Ogg.

"What?"

"Tempers fuggit. Means that was then and this is now," said Nanny.

"I don't need no-one to tell me that, Gytha Ogg. I know when now is."

"You got to move with the times."

"I don't see why. Don't see why we - "

"So I reckon we got to shift the boundaries again," said Gammer Brevis.

"Can't do that," said Granny Weatherwax promptly. "I'm doing four villages already. The broomstick hardly has time to cool down."

"Well, with Mother Hollow passing on, we're definitely short handed," said Gammer Brevis. "I know she didn't do a lot, what with her other work, but she was there. That's what it's all about. Being there. There's got to be a local witch."

The four witches stared gloomily at the fire. Well, three of them did. Nanny Ogg, who tended to look on the cheerful side, made toast.

"They've got a wizard in, down in Creel Springs," said Gammer Brevis. "There wasn't anyone to take over when old Granny Hopliss passed on, so they sent off to Ankh-Morpork for a wizard. An actual wizard. With a staff. He's got a shop there and everything, with a brass sign on the door. It says "Wizard"."

The witches sighed.

"Mrs Singe passed on," said Gammer Brevis. "And Gammer Peavey passed on."

"Did she? Old Mabel Peavey?" said Nanny Ogg, through a shower of crumbs. "How old was she?"

"One hundred and nineteen," said Gammer Brevis. "I said to her, "You don't want to go climbing mountains at your age" but she wouldn't listen."