Terry Pratchett - Wintersmith

"Yes!"

"So you'll fight monsters tae save the big wee hag? Will ye?"

"The big wee hag?"

"That's Tiffany tae ye."

"You mean Tiffany Aching? What's happened to her?"

"You'll be ready for when she needs ye?"

"Yes! Of course! Who are you?"

"And ye know how tae fight?"

"I've read the Manual of Swordsmanship all the way through!"

After a few seconds the voice from the high shadows said: "Ah, I think I've put ma finger on a wee flaw in this plan…."

There was an armory across the castle courtyard. It wasn't much of one. There was a suit of armor made of various nonmatching pieces, a few swords, a battle-axe that no one had ever been able to lift, and a chain-mail suit that appeared to have been attacked by extremely strong moths. And there were some wooden dummies on big springs for sword practice. Right now the Feegles were watching Roland attack one with a great deal of enthusiasm.

"Ach weel," said Big Yan despondently as Roland leaped about. "If he never meets anythin' other than bits o'wood that dinna fight back, he might be okay."

"He's willin'," Rob Anybody pointed out as Roland put his foot against the dummy and tried to tug the sword point out of it.

"Oh, aye." Big Yan looked glum.

"He's got a bonny action, ye must admit," said Rob.

Roland succeeded in pulling the sword out of the dummy, which sprang back on its ancient spring and hit him on the head.

Blinking a little, the boy looked down at the Feegles. He remembered them from the time he was rescued from the Queen of the Elves. No one who met the Nac Mac Feegles ever forgot them, even if they tried hard. But it was all vague. He'd been near crazy part of the time, and unconscious, and had seen so many strange things that it was hard to know what was real and what wasn't.

Now he knew: They were real. Who'd make up a thing like this? Okay, one of them was a cheese that rolled around of its own accord, but nobody was perfect.

"What am I going to have to do, Mr. Anybody?" he asked.

Rob Anybody had been worried about this bit. Words like "Underworld" can give people the wrong idea.

"Ye must rescue a…lady," he said. "Not the big wee hag. Another…lady. We can take ye to the place where she bides. It's like…undergroound, ye ken. She's like…sleepin'. An' all ye ha' tae do is bring her up tae the surface, kind o' thing."

"Oh, you mean like Orpheo rescuing Euniphon from the Underworld?" said Roland.

Rob Anybody just stared.

"It's a myth from Ephebe," Roland went on. "It's supposed to be a love story, but it's really a metaphor for the annual return of summer. There's a lot of versions of that story."

They still stared. Feegles have very worrying stares. They're even worse than chickens in that respect.

That was then. This is now.

"Ach, crivens," moaned Wee Dangerous Spike, on the roof of the cart shed.

The fire went out. The snow that had filled the sky began to thin. Wee Dangerous Spike heard a scream high overhead and knew exactly what to do. He raised his arms in the air and shut his eyes just as the buzzard swooped out of the white sky and snatched him up.

He liked this bit. When he opened his eyes, the world was swinging beneath him and a voice nearby said, "Get up here quick, laddie!"

He grabbed the thin leather harness above him and pulled, and the talons gently released their grip. Then, hand over hand in the wind of the flight, he dragged himself across the bird's feathers until he could grab the belt of Hamish the aviator.

"Rob says ye're old enough tae come doon intae the Underworld," said Hamish over his shoulder. "Rob's gone tae fetch the Hero. Ye are a lucky wee laddie!"

The bird banked.

Below, the snow…fled. There was no more melting, it simply drew back from the lambing pen like the tide going out or a deep breath being taken, with no more sound than a sigh.

Morag skimmed over the lambing field, where men were looking around in puzzlement. "One deid ship and a dozen deid lambs," said Hamish, "but no big wee hag! He's taken her."

"Where to?"

Hamish steered Morag up in a big wide circle. Around the farm the snow had stopped falling. But up on the downs it was still dropping like hammers.

And then it took a shape.

"Up there," he said.

All right, I'm alive. I'm pretty sure about that.

Yes.

And I can feel the cold all around me, but I don't feel cold, which would be pretty hard to explain to anyone else.

And I can't move. Not at all.

White all around me. And inside my head, all white.

Who am I?

I can remember the name Tiffany. I hope that was me.

White all around me. That happened before. It was a kind of dream or memory or something else I don't have a word for. And all around me, whiteness falling. And building up around me, and lifting me up. It was…the chalk lands being built, silently, under ancient seas.

That's what my name means.

It means Land Under Wave.

And, like a wave, color came flooding back into her mind. It was mostly the redness of rage.

How dare he!

To kill the lambs!

Granny Aching wouldn't have allowed that. She never lost a lamb. She could bring them back to life.

I should never have left here in the first place, Tiffany thought. Perhaps I should have stayed and tried to learn things by myself. But if I hadn't gone, would I still be me? Know what I know? Would I have been as strong as my grandmother, or would I just be a cackler? Well, I'll be strong now.

When the killing weather was blind nature, you could only cuss; but if it was walking about on two legs…then it was war. And there would be a reckoning!

She tried to move, and now the whiteness gave way. It felt like hard snow, but it wasn't cold to her touch; it fell away, leaving a hole.

A smooth, slightly transparent floor stretched away in front of her. There were big pillars rising up to a ceiling that was hidden by some sort of fog.

There were walls made of the same stuff as the floor. They looked like ice—she could even see little bubbles inside them—but were no more than cool when she touched them.

It was a very large room. There was no furniture of any sort. It was just the sort of room a king would build to say "Look, I can afford to waste all this space!"

Her footsteps echoed as she explored. No, not even a chair. And how comfortable would it be if she found one?

She did, eventually, find a staircase that went up (unless, of course, you started at the top). It led to another hall that at least had furniture. They were the sort of couches that rich ladies were supposed to lounge on, looking tired but beautiful. Oh, and there were urns, quite big urns, and statues, too, all in the same warm ice. The statues showed athletes and gods, very much like the pictures in Chaffinch's Mythology, doing ancient things like hurling javelins or killing huge snakes with their bare hands. They didn't have a stitch of clothing between them, but all the men wore fig leaves, which Tiffany, in a spirit of enquiry, found would not come off.

And there was a fire. The first strange thing about it was that the logs were also of the same ice. The other strange thing was that the flames were blue—and cold.

This level had tall pointed windows, but they began a long way from the floor and showed nothing but the sky, where the pale sun was a ghost among the clouds.

Another staircase, very grand this time, led up to yet another floor with more statues and couches and urns. Who could live in a place like this? Someone who didn't need to eat or sleep, that's who. Someone who didn't need to be comfortable.

"Wintersmith!"

Her voice bounced from wall to wall, sending back "ITH…Ith…ith…" until it died away.

Another staircase, then, and this time there was something new. On a plinth, where there might have been a statue, was a crown. It floated in the air a few feet above the base, turning gently, and glittered with frost. A little bit farther on was another statue, smaller than most, but around this one, blue and green and gold lights danced and shimmered.