Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I was, um, just talking to myself,’ said Agnes wretchedly. ‘Look, everyone knows you helped Granny. They just pretend they don’t.’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘You don’t mind?’

Oats shrugged. Agnes coughed.

‘I thought perhaps you were going to stay on here for a while.’

‘There’d be no point. I’m not needed here.’

‘I shouldn’t think vampires and so on would be very keen on singing hymns,’ said Agnes quietly.

‘Perhaps they can learn something else,’ said Oats. ‘I shall see what may be done.’

Agnes stood hesitantly for a few moments.

‘I’ve got to give you this,’ she said, suddenly handing over a small bag. Oats reached inside and took out a small jar.

Inside, a phoenix feather burned, lighting up the field with a clear, cool light.

‘It’s from—’ Agnes began.

‘I know who it’s from,’ said Oats. ‘Is Mistress Weatherwax all right? I didn’t see her here.’

‘Er … she’s been having a rest today.’

‘Well, thank her from me, will you?’

‘She said it’s to take into dark places.’

Oats laughed.

‘Er … yes. Er … I might come and see you off in the morning …’ said Agnes, uncertainly.

‘That would be nice of you.’

‘So … until … you know …’

‘Yes.’

Agnes seemed to be struggling with some inner resistance. Then she said, ‘And, er … there’s something I’ve been meaning to … I mean, perhaps you could …’

‘Yes?’

Agnes’s right hand dived urgently into her pocket and she pulled out a small package wrapped in greased paper.

‘It’s a poultice,’ she blurted out. ‘It’s a very good recipe and the book says it always works and if you heat it up and leave it on it’ll do wonders for your boil.’

Oats took it gently. ‘It’s just possible that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever given me,’ he said.

‘Er … good. It’s from … er … both of us. Goodbye.’

Oats watched her leave the circle of light, and then something drew his eye upwards again.

The circling eagle had risen above the shadow of the mountains and into the light of the setting sun. For a moment it flashed gold, and then dropped into the dark again.

From up here the eagle could see for miles across the mountains.

Over Uberwald, the threatened storm had broken. Lightning scribbled across the sky.

Some of it crackled around the highest tower of Don’tgonearthe Castle, and on the rainhat that Igor wore to stop his head rusting. It raised little balls of glowing light on the big telescopic iron spike as, taking care to stand on his portable rubber mat, he patiently wound it upwards.

At the foot of the apparatus, which was already humming with high tension, was a bundle wrapped in a blanket.

The spike locked itself in position. Igor sighed, and waited.

DOWN, BOY! DOWN, I SAY! WILL YOU STOP— LET GO! LET GO THIS MINUTE! ALL RIGHT, LOOK … FETCH? FETCH? THERE WE GO …

Death watched Scraps bound away.

He wasn’t used to this. It wasn’t that people weren’t sometimes glad to see him, because the penultimate moments of life were often crowded and complex and a cool figure in black came as something of a relief. But he’d never encountered quite this amount of enthusiasm or, if it came to it, this amount of flying mucus. It was disconcerting. It made him feel he wasn’t doing his job properly.

THERE’S A SATISFACTORY DOG. NOW … DROP. LET GO, PLEASE. DID YOU HEAR ME SAY LET GO? LET GO THIS MINUTE!

Scraps bounced away. This was far too much fun to end.

There was a soft chiming from within his robe. Death rubbed his hand on the cloth in an effort to get it dry and brought out a lifetimer, its sand all pooled in the bottom bulb. But the glass itself was misshapen, twisted, covered in welts of raised glass and, as Death watched, it filled up with crackling blue light.

Normally, Death was against this sort of thing but, he reasoned as he snapped his fingers, at the moment it looked as though it was the only way he’d get his scythe back.

The lightning hit.

There was a smell of singed wool.

Igor waited a while and then trudged round to the bundle, trailing molten rubber behind him. Kneeling down, he carefully unwrapped the blanket.

Scraps yawned. A large tongue licked Igor’s hand.

As he smiled with relief there came, from far down below in the castle, the sound of the mighty organ playing ‘Toccata for Young Women in Underwired Nightdresses’.

The eagle swooped on into the bowl of Lancre.

The long light glowed on the lake, and on the big V-shaped ripple, made up of many small V-shaped ripples, that arrowed through the water towards the unsuspecting island.

The voices echoed around the mountains.

‘See you, otter!’

‘Taggit, jins ma greely!’

‘Wee free men!’

‘Nac mac Feegle!’

The eagle passed overhead, dropping fast and steep now. It drifted silently over the shadowy woods, curved over the trees, and landed suddenly on a branch beside a cottage in a clearing.

Granny Weatherwax awoke.

Her body did not move, but her gaze darted this way and that, sharply, and in the gloom her nose looked more hooked than normal. Then she settled back, and her shoulders lost the hunched, perching look.

After a while she stood up, stretched, and went to the doorway.

The night felt warmer. She could feel greenness in the ground, uncoiling. The year was past the edge, heading away from the dark … Of course, dark would come again, but that was in the nature of the world. Many things were beginning.

When at last she’d shut the door she lit the fire, took the box of candles out of the dresser and lit every single one and put them around the room, in saucers.

On the table the pool of water that had accumulated in the last two days rippled and rose gently in the middle. Then a drip soared upwards and plopped into the damp patch in the ceiling.

Granny wound up the clock, and started the pendulum. She left the room for a moment and came back with a square of cardboard attached to a loop of elderly string. She sat down in the rocking chair and reached down into the hearth for a stick of half-burned wood.

The clock ticked as she wrote. Another drop left the table and plunged towards the ceiling.

Then Granny Weatherwax hung the sign around her neck and lay back with a smile. The chair rocked for a while, a counterpoint to the dripping of the table and the ticking of the clock, and then slowed.

The sign read:

I STILL ATE’NT DEAD

The light faded from can to can’t.

After a few minutes an owl woke up in a nearby tree and sailed out over the forests.

THE END

Terry Pratchettis the acclaimed creator of the global bestselling Discworld® series, the first of which, The Colour of Magic , was published in 1983. His novels have been widely adapted for stage and screen, and he is the winner of multiple prizes, including the Carnegie Medal, as well as being awarded a knighthood for services to literature. Worldwide sales of his books now stand at 70 million, and they have been translated into thirty-seven languages.

For more information about Terry Pratchett and his books, please visit www.terrypratchett.co.uk

The Discworld Series is a continuous history of a world not totally unlike our own except that it is a flat disc carried on the backs of four elephants astride a giant turtle floating through space, and that it is peopled by, among others, wizards, dwarves, policemen, thieves, beggars, vampires and witches. Within the history of Discworld there are many individual stories, which can be read in any order, but reading them in sequence can increase your enjoyment through the accumulation of all the fine detail that contributes to the teeming imaginative complexity of this brilliantly conceived world.