A Blink of the Screen (36 page)

Her words came back to her. She’d said, in sobriety: end it in hemp.

And they’d dragged him off and hanged him and she’d gone to watch because she owed him that much, and he’d cursed, which was unfair because hanging is a clean death, or at least cleaner than the one he’d have got if the villagers had dared defy her, and she’d seen the shadow of Death come for him, and then behind Death came the smaller, brighter figures, and then –

In the darkness, she rocked.

The villagers had said justice had been done, and she’d lost
patience
and told them to go home, then, and pray to whatever gods they believed in that it was never done to them. Because the smug face of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as wickedness revealed.

The odd thing was, quite a lot of villagers had turned up to his funeral, and there had been mutterings on the lines of, yes, well, but overall he wasn’t such a bad chap … and anyway, maybe she made him say it. And she’d got the dark looks.

Supposing there was justice for all, after all? For every unheeded beggar, every harsh word, every neglected duty, every slight …

Who’d come to her funeral when she died?

Other memories jostled. Other figures marched out into the darkness of the cave.

She’d done things and been places, and found ways to turn anger outwards that had surprised even her. She’d faced down others far more powerful than she was, if only she’d allowed them to believe it. She’d given up so much, but she’d earned a lot. And she’d never, never declare that she doubted her choices. And yet … if, all those years ago, she’d made the other choices … she wouldn’t have known. She’d have led a quiet life. She was certain of this, because sometimes she could sense those other selves, off in the alternatives of time. After all, if you could read minds at a distance, you should certainly be able to pick up your own. A nice quiet life, and then death.

But she’d never set out to be nice. When you went up against some of the opponents she’d met, nice people would finish last, or not even finish.

In truth, deep down, she was aware of a dark desire. Sometimes, the world really had it coming, and endeavouring to see that it didn’t get it was a white-knuckle task, every day of her life. Letice would never know that she had been an inch away from … from
something
very, very unpleasant happening to her. But it was an inch that Esme Weatherwax had spent a lifetime constructing, and she’d thought it was tougher than steel. Knowing how bad you could be is a great encouragement to be good.

So she’d been good. She was good at justice. She was good at medicine, particularly that type of medicine which started in the head. She was good at winning. She was good, though she said it herself, at most of the things she set her mind at.

But not nice. She had to admit it. And it seemed that people preferred nice to good.

And there was a terrible temptation. Better witches than her had succumbed. The more you faced the light the brighter it grew, and one day for the brief respite that it brought you’d look over your shoulder. And you’d see how lovely and rich and dark and beguiling your shadow had become …

Nanny Ogg was sitting out in her back garden in the no-nonsense way of old ladies everywhere, legs wide apart for the healthy circulation of the air. She was keeping an eye on one of her sons and two of her grandsons, who were digging her vegetable garden, and occasionally she would give them shouts of encouragement or point out bits that hadn’t been done properly.

In her broad lap was a heap of golden leaves from her tobacco harvest, which she was shredding and dipping into her special herbal and honey mixture. After it had matured in her press over the winter, people would come a long way for Ogg’s Nutty Shag, Not To be Smoked for At Least Three Hundred Years before Operating Heavy Machinery.

And occasionally she’d take a swig from the pint pot beside her.

This time, as she reached down for it, she saw the bubbles clear and the surface turn as calm as old tea.

‘Flat already?’ she said aloud.

She glanced across the village. Rooks were swarming up out of the elm trees in battle order, cawing loudly.

Nanny Ogg ambled into her cottage and went to the scullery, where the milk jugs cooled in the sink. One sniff was enough. What they contained was practically cheese. And it’d been fresh milk an hour ago.

A faint rustling made her look down. Dozens of beetles were running under the door and scuttling into the cracks between the flagstones.

A witch lived by the little signs. Butter wouldn’t come, wine became vinegar, spiders ran for cover … people thought it meant there was a storm coming, and in a way they were right.

And a witch used what was to hand, too. All that fiddlin’ with coloured candles and crystal balls and whatnot, that was fine for them as needed it, but at a pinch you used what you could reach.

In this case she reached down and lifted the heavy wooden lid of the well and looked down into the dark waters.

There was nothing there. But there was never anything in a crystal, either. There was simply emptiness, which said: fill me up.

Nanny’s inner eye saw snow, and rock, and the outline of a hooked nose made of stone …

‘Oh, the daft ole fool,’ she muttered.

A moment later her son and grandsons saw her burst from the house, carrying her broomstick. She leapt aboard and applied the magic so hard that it bobbed along almost vertically before she was able to force the handle down and point it towards the mountains.

Ten minutes later snow billowed up as she touched down in the little valley. It was hard to find, even from the air. She patted the guardian Witch as she hurried past. She’d never found her frightening, even when she was young.

Some young wizard who’d spent his holidays up here, knocking at rocks with a little hammer, had said the Witch at the mouth of the cave was just the result of dissolved rock dripping and dripping and piling up in a stalagmite for thousands of years. As if that explained anything. It just said how she was made, not why she was here. And the man hadn’t gone very far into the cave, she recalled. He’d remembered other things he had to do. The place took men that way.

Her boots splashed into the rock pools as she left the light behind.

She’d tried being alone with her thoughts once, but had never tried it again. It had been too dull.

Oh yes, the things she was ashamed of were here, but she’d never tried to hide them from herself and they were simply memories and held no terror. And here were all the things she’d done that she should have done, and mostly they’d been enjoyable. And there were all the things she’d done that she shouldn’t have done, and they’d been fun too. More fun, in many cases. And she’d never regretted them, either, except maybe sometimes when, a little wistfully, she’d regretted she hadn’t done them sooner and that occasions for doing them now did not, as it were, arise all that often …

‘Oh, Esme? What’ve you done?’

She reached down and pulled at the slumped figure.

‘Come on,’ she said cheerfully, slinging the dead weight across her shoulders. ‘You don’t have to hang around here, thinking. No one ever got anywhere by thinking all the time.’

When they were outside she managed to heave Granny on to the stick and strapped her safely with her own striped stockings.

People say things like ‘lost in thought’ and think they mean that state of mind that just precedes ‘Pardon? I was thinking’. But that’s
just
‘not paying attention’. Lost in thought means that someone may need to come and find you.

She took her home, flying slowly a few feet above the trees in the sunset air, and put her to bed.

About the Author

Terry Pratchett
is the accliamed creator of the global bestselling Discworld
^®
series, the first title of which,
The Colour of Magic
, was published in 1983. In all, he is the author of over fifty bestselling books. 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.

www.terrypratchett.co.uk

Also by Terry Pratchett

The Discworld
^®
series

1. THE COLOUR OF MAGIC

2. THE LIGHT FANTASTIC

3. EQUAL RITES

4. MORT

5. SOURCERY

6. WYRD SISTERS

7. PYRAMIDS

8. GUARDS! GUARDS!

9. ERIC

(illustrated by Josh Kirby)

10. MOVING PICTURES

11. REAPER MAN

12. WITCHES ABROAD

13. SMALL GODS

14. LORDS AND LADIES

15. MEN AT ARMS

16. SOUL MUSIC

17. INTERESTING TIMES

18. MASKERADE

19. FEET OF CLAY

20. HOGFATHER

21. JINGO

22. THE LAST CONTINENT

23. CARPE JUGULUM

24. THE FIFTH ELEPHANT

25. THE TRUTH

26. THIEF OF TIME

27. THE LAST HERO

(illustrated by Paul Kidby)

28. THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS

(for young adults)

29. NIGHT WATCH

30. THE WEE FREE MEN

(for young adults)

31. MONSTROUS REGIMENT

32. A HAT FULL OF SKY

(for young adults)

33. GOING POSTAL

34. THUD

35. WINTERSMITH

(for young adults)

36. MAKING MONEY

37. UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

38. I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT

(for young adults)

39. SNUFF

Other books about Discworld

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD

(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD II: THE GLOBE

(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

THE SCIENCE OF DISCWORLD III: DARWIN’S WATCH

(with Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen)

TURTLE RECALL: THE DISCWORLD COMPANION … SO FAR

(with Stephen Briggs)

NANNY OGG’S COOKBOOK

(with Stephen Briggs, Tina Hannan and Paul Kidby)

THE PRATCHETT PORTFOLIO

(with Paul Kidby)

THE DISCWORLD ALMANAK

(with Bernard Pearson)

THE UNSEEN UNIVERSITY CUT-OUT BOOK

(with Alan Batley and Bernard Pearson)

WHERE’S MY COW?

(illustrated by Melvyn Grant)

THE ART OF DISCWORLD

(with Paul Kidby)

THE WIT AND WISDOM OF DISCWORLD

(compiled by Stephen Briggs)

THE FOLKLORE OF DISCWORLD

(with Jacqueline Simpson)

MISS FELICITY BEEDLE’S THE WORLD OF POO

(with the Discworld Emporium)

Discworld maps

THE STREETS OF ANKH-MORPORK

(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)

THE DISCWORLD MAPP

(with Stephen Briggs, painted by Stephen Player)

A TOURIST GUIDE TO LANCRE – A DISCWORLD MAPP

(with Stephen Briggs, illustrated by Paul Kidby)

DEATH’S DOMAIN

(with Paul Kidby)

THE COMPLETE ANKH-MORPORK

(with the Discworld Emporium)

A complete list of Terry Pratchett ebooks and audio books as well as other books based on the Discworld series – illustrated screenplays, graphic novels, comics and plays – can be found on
www.terrypratchett.co.uk

Non-Discworld books

THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN

STRATA

THE UNADULTERATED CAT (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)

GOOD OMENS (with Neil Gaiman)

THE LONG EARTH (with Stephen Baxter)

Non-Discworld novels for young adults

THE CARPET PEOPLE

TRUCKERS

DIGGERS

WINGS

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND*

JOHNNY AND THE DEAD

JOHNNY AND THE BOMB

NATION

DODGER

*
www.ifnotyouthenwho.com

TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA
A Random House Group Company
www.transworldbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain
in 2012 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers

Collection copyright © Terry and Lyn Pratchett 2012

Terry Pratchett has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781409043997
ISBN 9780385618984

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at:
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