Nanny flopped into the rocking chair, pulled up her skirt and fumbled in the depths of a lengthy knickerleg until she came up with the spirit flask. She took a long pull. Her hands were shaking.

'I can't start being a hag at my time of life,' she muttered. 'None of my bras'll fit.'

'Nanny?'

'Yes?'

'What the hell are you going on about? Daughter? Not lighting fires? Hags?'

Nanny replaced the flask and felt around in the other leg, coming up eventually with her pipe and tobacco pouch.

'Not sure if I ought to tell you,' she said.

Now Granny Weatherwax was well beyond the local woods and high in the forests, following a track used by the charcoal burners and the occasional dwarf.

Already Lancre was dying away. She could feel it ebbing from her mind. Down below, when things were quiet, she was always aware of the buzz of minds around her. Human and animal, they all stirred up together in some great mental stew. But here there were mainly the slow thoughts of the trees, which were frankly boring after the first few hours and could be safely ignored. Snow, still quite thick in the hollows and on the shadow sides of trees, was dissolving in a drizzle of rain.

She stepped into a clearing and a small herd of deer on the far edge raised their heads to watch her. Out of habit she stopped and gently let herself unravel, until from the deer's point of view there was hardly anyone there.

When she began to walk forward again a deer

stepped out of some bushes and stopped and turned to face her.

She'd seen this happen before. Hunters talked about it sometimes. You could track a herd all day, creeping silently among the trees in search of that one clean shot, and, just as you were aiming, a deer would step out right in front of you, turn and watch – and wait. Those were the times when a hunter found out how good he was . . .

Granny snapped her fingers. The deer shook itself and galloped off.

She climbed higher, following the stony bed of a stream. Despite its swiftness, there was a border of ice along its banks. Where it dropped over a series of small waterfalls she turned and looked back down into the bowl of Lancre.

It was full of clouds.

A few hundred feet below she saw a black and white magpie skim across the forest roof.

Granny turned and scrambled quickly up the dripping, icy rocks and on to the fringes of the moorland beyond.

Up here there was more sky. Silence clamped down. Far overhead an eagle wheeled.

It seemed to be the only other life. No one ever came up here. The furze and heather stretched away for a mile between the mountains, unbroken by any path. It was matted, thorny stuff that would tear unprotected flesh to ribbons.

She sat down on a rock and stared at the unbroken expanse for a while. Then she reached into her sack and took out a thick pair of socks.

And set off, onwards and upwards.

Nanny Ogg scratched her nose. She very seldom looked embarrassed, but there was just a hint of embarrassment about her now. It was even worse than Nanny Ogg upset.

'I ain't sure if this is the right time,' she said.

'Look, Nanny,' said Agnes, 'we need her. If there's something I ought to know, then tell me.'

'It's this business with . . . you know . . . three witches,' she said. 'The maiden, the mother and...'

'-the other one,' said Agnes. 'Oh yes, I know that. But that's just a bit of superstition, isn't it? Witches don't have to come in threes.'

'Oh, no. Course not,' said Nanny. 'You can have any number up to about, oh, four or five.'

'What happens if there's more, then? Something awful?'

'Bloody great row, usually,' said Nanny. 'Over nothin' much. And then they all goes off and sulks. Witches don't like being compressed up, much. But three . . . sort of . . . works well. I don't have to draw you a picture, do I?'

'And now Magrat's a mother-' said Agnes.

'Ah, well, that's where it all goes a bit runny,' said Nanny. 'This maiden and mother thing . . . it's not as simple as you'd think, see? Now you,' she prodded Agnes with her pipe, 'are a maiden. You are, aren't you?'

'Nanny! That's not the sort of thing people discuss!'

'Well, I knows you are, 'cos I'd soon hear if you

wasn't,' said Nanny, the kind of person who discussed that kind of thing all the time. 'But that ain't really important, because it ain't down to technicalities, see? Now me, I don't reckon I was ever a maiden ment'ly. Oh, you don't need to go all red like that. What about your Aunt May over in Creel Springs? Pour kids and she's still bashful around men. You got your blush from her. Tell her a saucy joke and if you're quick you can cook dinner for six on her head. When you've been around for a while, miss, you'll see that some people's body and head don't always work together.'

'And what's Granny Weatherwax, then?' said Agnes, and added, a little nastily because the reference to the blush had gone home, 'Ment'ly.'

'Damned if I've ever worked that out,' said Nanny. 'But I reckon she sees there's a new three here. That bloody invitation must've been the last straw. So she's gone.' She poked at her pipe. 'Can't say I fancy being a crone. I ain't the right shape and anyway I don't know what sound they make.'

Agnes had a sudden and very clear and horrible mental image of the broken cup.

'But Granny isn't a . . . wasn't a . . . I mean, she didn't look like a-' she began.

'There's no point in lookin' at a dog an' sayin' that's not a dog 'cos a dog don't look like that,' said Nanny simply.

Agnes fell silent. Nanny was right, of course. Nanny was someone's mum. It was written all over her. If you cut her in half, the word 'Ma' would be all the way through. Some girls were just naturally ... mothers. And some, Perdita added, were cut out to be professional maidens. As for the third, Agnes went on, ignoring her own interruption, perhaps it wasn't so odd that people generally called Nanny out for the births and Granny for the deaths.

'She thinks we don't need her any more?'

'I reckon so.'

'What is she going to do, then?'

'Dunno. But if you had three, and now there's four . . . well, something's got to go, hasn't it?'

'What about the vampires? The two of us can't cope with them!'

'She's been telling us there's three of us,' said Nanny.

'What? Magrat? But she's-' Agnes stopped herself. 'She's no Nanny Ogg,' she said.

'Well, I sure as hell ain't an Esme Weatherwax, if it comes to that,' said Nanny. 'The ment'I stuff is meat and drink to her. Getting inside other heads, puttin' her mind somewhere else . . . that's her for-tay, right enough. She'd wipe the smile off that Count's face for him. From the inside, if I know Esme.'

They sat and stared glumly at the cold fireplace.

'Maybe we weren't always very nice to her,' said Agnes. She kept thinking of the broken cup. She was sure Granny Weatherwax hadn't done that accidentally. She may have thought she'd done it accidentally, but maybe everyone had a Perdita inside. She'd walked around this gloomy cottage, which was as much in tune with her thoughts by now as a dog is with its master, and she'd had three on her mind. Three, three, three . . .

'Esme doesn't thrive on nice,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Take her an apple pie and she'll complain about the pastry.'

'But people don't often thank her. And she does do a lot.'

'She's not set up for thanks, neither. Ment'ly. To tell you the honest truth, there's always been a bit of the dark in the Weatherwaxes, and that's where the trouble is. Look at old Alison Weatherwax.'

'Who was she?'

'Her own granny. Went to the bad, they say, just packed up one day and headed for Uberwald. And as for Esme's sister . . .' Nanny stopped, and restarted. 'Anyway, that's why she's always standin' behind herself and criticizin' what she's doing. Sometimes I reckon she's terrified she'll go bad without noticin'.'

'Granny? But she's as moral as-'

'Oh, yes, she is. But that's because she's got Granny Weatherwax glarin' over her shoulder the whole time.'

Agnes took another look around the spartan room. Now the rain was leaking steadily through the ceiling. She fancied she could hear the walls settling into the clay. She fancied she could hear them thinking.

'Did she know Magrat was going to call the baby Esme?' she said.

'Probably. It's amazin' what she picks up.'

'Maybe not tactful, when you think about it,' said Agnes.

'What do you mean? I'd have been honoured, if it was me.'

'Perhaps Granny thought the name was being passed on. Inherited.'

'Oh. Yes,' said Nanny. 'Yes, I can just imagine Esme workin' it up to that, when she's in one of her gloomy moods.'

'My granny used to say if you're too sharp you'll cut yourself,' said Agnes.

They sat in grey silence for a while, and then Nanny Ogg said: 'My own granny has an old country sayin' she always trotted out at times like this. . .'

'Which was.. .?'

' "Bugger off, you little devil, or I'll chop off your nose and give it to the cat." Of course, that's not so very helpful at a time like this, I'll admit.'

There was a tinkle behind them.

Nanny turned her head and looked down at the table.

'There's a spoon gone . . .'

There was another jangle, this time by the door.

A magpie paused in its attempt to pick the stolen spoon off the doorstep, cocked its head and glared at them with a beady eye. It just managed to get airborne before Nanny's hat, spinning like a plate, bounced off the doorjamb.

'The devils'll pinch anything that damn well shines-'she began.

The Count de Magpyr looked out of the window at the glow that marked the rising sun.

'There you are, you see?' he said, turning back to his family. 'Morning, and here we are.'

'You've made it overcast,' said Lacrimosa sullenly. 'It's hardly sunny.'

'One step at a time, dear, one step at a time,' said the Count cheerfully. 'I just wished to make the point. Today, yes, it is overcast. But we can build on it. We can acclimatize. And one day . . . the beach. . .'

'You really are very clever, dear,' said the Countess.

'Thank you, my love,' said the Count, nodding his private agreement. 'How are you doing with that cork, Vlad?'

'Is this such a good idea, Father?' said Vlad, struggling with a bottle and a corkscrew. 'I thought we did not drink. . . wine.'

'I believe it's time we started.'

'Yuck,' said Lacrimosa. 'I'm not touching that, it's squeezed from vegetables!'

'Fruit, I think you'll find,' said the Count calmly. He took the bottle from his son and removed the cork. 'A fine claret, I understand. You'll try some, my dear?'

His wife smiled nervously, supporting her husband but slightly against her better judgement.

'Do we, er, are we, eh, supposed to warm it up?' she said.

'Room temperature is suggested.'

'That's sickening,' said Lacrimosa. 'I don't know how you can bear it!'

'Try it for your father, dear,' said the Countess. 'Quickly, before it congeals.'

'No, my dear. Wine stays runny.'

'Really? How very convenient.'

'Vlad?' said the Count, pouring a glass. The son watched nervously.

'Perhaps it would help if you think of it as grape blood,' said his father, as Vlad took the wine. 'And you, Lacci?'

She folded her arms resolutely. 'Huh!'

'I thought you'd like this sort of thing, dear,' said the Countess. 'It's the sort of thing your crowd does, isn't it?'

'I don't know what you're talking about!' said the girl.

'Oh, staying up until gone noon and wearing brightly coloured clothes, and giving yourselves funny names,' said the Countess.

'Like Gertrude,' sneered Vlad. 'And Pam. They think it's cool.'

Lacrimosa turned on him furiously, nails out. He caught her wrist, grinning.

'That's none of your business!'

'Lady Strigoiul said her daughter has taken to calling herself Wendy,' said the Countess. 'I can't imagine why she'd want to, when Hieroglyphica is such a nice name for a girl. And if I was her mother I'd see to it that she at least wore a bit of eyeliner-'

'Yes, but no one drinks wine,' said Lacrimosa. 'Only real weirdos who file their teeth blunt drink wine-'

'Maladora Krvoijac does,' said Vlad. 'Or "Freda", I should say-'

'No she doesn't!’

'What? She wears a silver corkscrew on a chain round her neck and sometimes there's even a cork on it!'

'That's just a fashion item! Oh, I know she says she's partial to a drop of port, but really it's just blood in the glass. Henry actually brought a bottle to a party and she fainted at the smell!’

'Henry?' said the Countess.

Lacrimosa looked down sulkily. 'Graven Gierachi,' she said.

'The one who grows his hair short and pretends he's an accountant,' said Vlad.

'I just hope someone's told his father, then,' said the Countess.

'Be quiet,' said the Count. 'This is all just cultural conditioning, you understand? Pleasel I've worked hard for this! All we want is a piece of the day. Is that too much to ask? And wine is just wine. There's nothing mystical about it. Now, take up your glasses. You too, Lacci. Please? For Daddy?'

'And when you tell "Cyril" and "Tim" they'll be so impressed,' said Vlad to Lacrimosa.

'Shut up!' she hissed. 'Father, it'll make me sick!’

'No, your body will adapt,' said the Count. 'I've tried it myself. A little watery, perhaps, somewhat sour, but quite palatable. Please?'

'Oh, well. . .'

'Good,' said the Count. 'Now, raise the glasses-'

' Le sang nouveau est arrive,' said Vlad.

'Carpe diem,' said the Count.

'By the throat,' said the Countess.

'People won't believe me when I tell them,' said Lacrimosa.

They swallowed.

'There,' said Count Magpyr. 'That wasn't too bad, was it?'

'A bit chilly,' said Vlad.

'I'll have a wine warmer installed,' said the Count. 'I'm not an unreasonable vampire. But within a year, children, I think I can have us quite cured of phenophobia and even capable of a little light salad-'

Lacrimosa turned her back theatrically and made throwing-up noises into a vase.

'-and then, Lacci, you'll be free. No more lonely days. No more-'

Vlad was half expecting it, and kept an entirely blank expression as his father whipped a card from his pocket and held it up.

'That is the double snake symbol of the Djelibeybian water cult,' he said calmly.

'You see?' said the Count excitedly. 'You barely flinched! Sacrephobia can be beaten! I've always said so! The way may have been hard at times-'

'I hated the way you used to leap out in corridors and flick holy water on us,' said Lacrimosa.

'It wasn't holy at all,' said her father. 'It was strongly diluted. Mildly devout at worst. But it made you strong, didn't it?'

'I caught colds a lot, I know that.'

The Count's hand whipped out of his pocket.

Lacrimosa gave a sigh of theatrical weariness. 'The All-Seeing Face of the Ionians,' she said wearily.

The Count very nearly danced a jig.

'You see? It has worked! You didn't even wince! And apparently as holy symbols go it's pretty strong. Isn't it all worth it?'

'There'll have to be something really good to make up for those garlic pillows you used to make us sleep on.'

Her father took her by the shoulder and turned her towards the window.

'Will it be enough to know that the world is your oyster?'

Her forehead wrinkled in perplexity. 'Why should I want it to be some nasty little sea creature?' she said.

'Because they get eaten alive,' said the Count. 'Unfortunately I doubt if we can find a slice of lemon five hundred miles long, but the metaphor will suffice.'

She brightened up, grudgingly. 'We-ell. . .' she said.

'Good. I like to see my little girl smile,' said the Count. 'Now . . . who shall we have for breakfast?'

'The baby.'

'No, I think not.' The Count pulled a bellpull beside the fireplace. 'That would be undiplomatic. We're not quite there yet.'

'Well, that apology for a queen looks pretty bloodless. Vlad should have hung on to his fat girl,' said Lacrimosa.

'Don't you start,' Vlad warned. 'Agnes is a . . . very interesting girl. I feel there is a lot in her.'

'A lot of her,' said Lacrimosa. 'Are you saving her for later?'

'Now, now,' said the Count. 'Your own dear mother wasn't a vampire when I met her-'

'Yes, yes, you've told us a million times,' said Lacrimosa, rolling her eyes with the impatience of someone who'd been a teenager for eighty years. 'The balcony, the nightdress, you in your cloak, she screamed-'

'Things were simpler then,' said the Count. 'And also very, very stupid.' He sighed. 'Where the hell's Igor?'

'Ahem. I've been meaning to talk to you about him, dear,' said the Countess. 'I think he'll have to go.,

'That's right!' snapped Lacrimosa. 'Honestly, even my friends laugh at him!'

'I find his more-gothic-than-thou attitude extremely irritating,' said the Countess. 'That stupid accent . . . and do you know what I found him doing in the old dungeons last week?'

'I'm sure I couldn't guess,' said the Count.

'He had a box of spiders and a whip! He was forcing them to make webs all over the place.'

'I wondered why there were always so many, I must admit,' said the Count.

'I agree, Father,' said Vlad. 'He's all right for Uberwald, but you'd hardly want something like him opening the door in polite society, would you?'

'And he smells,' said the Countess.

'Of course, parts of him have been in the family for centuries,' said the Count. 'But I must admit he's getting beyond a joke.' He yanked the bellpull again.

'Yeth, marthter?' said Igor, behind him.

The Count spun round. 'I told you not to do that!'

'Not to do what, marthter?'

'Turn up behind me like that!'

'It'th the only way I know how to turn up, marthter.'

'Go and fetch King Verence, will you? He's joining us for a light meal.'

'Yeth, marthter.'

They watched the servant limp off. The Count shook his head.

'He'll never retire,' said Vlad. 'He'll never take a hint.'

'And it's so old fashioned having a servant called Igor,' said the Countess. 'He really is too much.'

'Look, it's simple,' said Lacrimosa. 'Just take him down to the cellars, slam him in the Iron Maiden, stretch him on the rack over a fire for a day or two, and then slice him thinly from the feet upwards, so he can watch. You'll be doing him a kindness, really.'

'I suppose it's the best way,' said the Count sadly.

'I remember when you told me to put my cat out of its misery,' said Lacrimosa.

'I really meant you to stop what you were doing to it,' said the Count. 'But . . . yes, you are right, he'll have to go-'

Igor ushered in King Verence, who stood there with the mildly bemused expression of someone in the presence of the Count.

'Ah, your majesty' said the Countess, advancing. 'Do join us in a light meal.'

Agnes's hair snagged in the twigs. She managed to get one boot on a branch while holding on for dear life to the branch above, but that left her other foot standing on the broomstick, which was beginning to drift sideways and causing her to do what even ballerinas can't do without some training.

'Can you see it yet?' Nanny cried, from far too far below.

'I think this is an old nest as well- Oh, no. . .'

'What's happened?'

'I think my drawers have split. . .'

'I always go for roomy, myself,' said Nanny.

Agnes got the other leg on to the branch, which creaked.

Lump, said Perdita. I could have climbed this like a gazelle!

'Gazelles don't climb!' said Agnes.

'What's that?' said the voice from below.

'Oh, nothing...'

Agnes inched her way along, and suddenly her vision was full of black and white wings. A magpie landed on a twig a foot from her face and screamed at her. Five others swooped in from the other trees and joined in the chorus.

She didn't like birds, in any case. They were fine

when they were flying, and their songs were nice, but close to they were mad little balls of needles with the intelligence of a housefly.

She tried to swat the nearest one, and it fluttered on to a higher branch while she struggled to get her balance back. When the branch stopped rocking she moved further along, gingerly, trying to ignore the enraged birds, and looked at the nest.

It was hard to tell if it was the remains of an old one or the start of a new one, but it did contain a piece of tinsel, a shard of broken glass and, gleaming even under this sullen sky, something white . . . with a gleaming edge.

'"Five for silver . . . six for gold . . ."' she said, half to herself.

'It's "five for heaven, six for hell",' Nanny called up.

'I can just reach it, anyway. . .'

The bough broke. There were plenty of others below it, but they merely served as points of interest on the way down. The last one flipped Agnes into a holly bush.

Nanny took the invitation from her outflung hand. Rain had made the ink run, but the word 'Weatherwax' was still very readable. She scratched at the gold edging with her thumb.

'Too much gold,' she said. 'Well, that explains the invite. I told you them birds will steal anything that glitters.'

'I'm not hurt at all,' said Agnes pointedly. 'The holly quite cushioned my fall.'

'I'll wring their necks,' said Nanny. The magpies

in the trees around the cottage screamed at her.

'I think I may have dislocated my hat, however,' said Agnes, pulling herself to her feet. But it was useless angling for sympathy in a puddle, so she gave up. 'All right, we've found the invitation. It was all a terrible mistake. No one's fault. Now let's find Granny.'

'Not if she don't want to be found,' said Nanny, rubbing the edge of the card thoughtfully.

'You can do Borrowing. Even if she left early, some creatures will have seen. her-'

'I don't Borrow, as a rule,' said Nanny firmly. 'I ain't got Esme's self-discipline. I gets . . . involved. I was a rabbit for three whole days until our Jason went and fetched Esme and she brought me back. Much longer and there wouldn't have been a me to come back.'

'Rabbits sound dull.'

'They have their ups and downs.'

'All right, then, have a look in the buoy's glass ball,' said Agnes. 'You're good at that, Magrat told me.' Across the clearing a crumbling brick fell out of the cottage's chimney.

'Not here, then,' said Nanny, with some reluctance. 'It's giving me the willies- Oh no, as if we didn't have enough . . . What's he doing here?'

Mightily Oats was advancing through the wood. He walked awkwardly, as city people do when traversing real, rutted, leaf-mouldy, twig-strewn soft, and had the concerned look of someone who was expecting to be attacked at any moment by owls or beetles.

In his strange black and white clothing he looked like a human magpie himself.

The magpies screamed from the trees.

' "Seven for a secret never to be told,"' said Agnes.

' "Seven's a devil, his own sel',"' said Nanny darkly. 'You've got your rhyme, I've got mine.'

When Oats saw the witches he brightened up very slightly and blew his nose at them.

'What a waste of skin,' muttered Nanny.

'Ah, Mrs Ogg . . . and Miss Nitt,' said Oats, inching around some mud. 'Er . . . I trust I find you well?'

'Up till now,' said Nanny.

'I had, er, hoped to see Mrs Weatherwax.'

For a moment the only sound was the chattering of the ravens.

'Hoped?' said Agnes.

'Mrs Weatherwax?' said Nanny.

'Er, yes. It is part of my . . . I'm supposed to . . . one of the things we . . . Well, I heard she might be ill, and visiting the elderly and infirm is part, er, of our pastoral duties . . . Of course I realize that technically I have no pastoral duties, but still, while I'm here . . .'

Nanny's face was a picture, possibly one painted by an artist with a very strange sense of humour.

'I'm really sorry she ain't here,' she said, and Agnes knew she was being altogether honest and absolutely nasty.

'Oh dear. I was, er, going to give her some . . . I was going . . . er . . . Is she well, then?'

'I'm sure she'd be all the better for a visit from you,' said Nanny, and once again there was a strange, curvy sort of truth to this. 'It'd be the sort of thing she'd talk about for days. You can come back any time you want.'

Oats looked helpless. 'Then I suppose I'd better, er, be getting back to my, er, tent,' he said. 'May I accompany you ladies down to the town? There are, er, some dangerous things in the woods. . .'

' We got broomsticks,' said Nanny firmly. The priest looked crestfallen, and Agnes made a decision.

'A broomstick,' she said. 'I'll walk you-.I mean, you can walk me back. If you like.'

The priest looked relieved. Nanny sniffed. There was a certain Weatherwax quality to the sniff.

'Back at my place, then. An' no dilly-dallyin',' she said.

'I don't dilly-dally,' said Agnes.

'Just see you don't start,' said Nanny, and went to find her broomstick.

Agnes and the priest walked in embarrassed silence for a while. At last Agnes said, 'How's the headache?'

'Oh, much better, thank you. It went away. But her majesty was kind enough to give me some pills anyway.'

'That's nice,' said Agnes. She ought to have given him a needle! Look at the size of that boil! said Perdita, one of nature's born squeezers. Why doesn't he do something about it?

'Er . . . you don't like me very much, do you?' said Oats.

'I've hardly met you.' She was becoming aware of an embarrassing draughtiness in the nether regions.

'A lot of people don't like me as soon as they've met me,' said Oats.

'I suppose that saves time,' said Agnes, and cursed. Perdita had got through on that one, but Oats didn't seem to have noticed. He sighed.

'I'm afraid I have a bit of a difficulty with people,' he went on. 'I fear I'm just not cutout for pastoral work.'

Don't get involved with this twerp, said Perdita. But Agnes said, 'You mean sheep and so on?'

'It all seemed a lot clearer at college,' said Oats, who like many people seldom paid much attention to what others said when he was unrolling his miseries, 'but here, when I tell people some of the more accessible stories from the Book of Om they say things like, "That's not right, mushrooms wouldn't grow in the desert," or, "That's a stupid way to run a vineyard." Everyone here is so very . . . literal.'

Oats coughed. There seemed to be something preying on his mind. 'Unfortunately, the Old Book of Om is rather unyielding on the subject of witches,' he said.

'Really.'

'Although having studied the passage in question in the original Second Omnian IV text, I have advanced the rather daring theory that the actual word in question translates more accurately as -cockroaches".'

'Yes?'

'Especially since it goes on to say that they can be killed by fire or in "traps of treacle". It also says later on that they bring lascivious dreams.'

'Don't look at me,' said Agnes. 'All you're getting is a walk home.'

To her amazement, and Perdita's crowing delight, he blushed as red as she ever did.

'Er, er, the word in question in that passage might just as easily be read in context as `boiled lobsters",' he said hurriedly.

'Nanny Ogg says Omnians used to burn witches,' said Agnes.

'We used to burn practically everybody,' said Oats gloomily. 'Although some witches did get pushed into big barrels of treacle, I believe.'

He had a boring voice, too. He did appear, she had to admit, to be a boring person. It was almost too perfect a presentation, as if he was trying to make himself seem boring. But one thing had piqued Agnes's curiosity.

'Why did you come to visit Granny Weatherwax?'

'Well, everyone speaks very . . . highly of her,' said Oats, suddenly picking his words like a man pulling plums from a boiling pot. 'And they said she hadn't turned up last night, which was very strange. And I thought it must be hard for an old lady living by herself. And. . .'

'Yes?'

'Well, I understand she's quite old and it's never too late to consider the state of your immortal soul,' said Oats. 'Which she must have, of course.'

Agnes gave him a sideways look. 'She's never mentioned it,' she said.

'You probably think I'm foolish.'

'I just think you are an amazingly lucky man, Mr Oats.'

On the other hand ... here was someone who'd been told about Granny Weatherwax, and had still walked through these woods that scared him stiff to see her, even though she was possibly a cockroach or a boiled lobster. No one in Lancre ever came to see Granny unless they wanted something. Oh, sometimes they came with little presents (because one day they'd want something again), but they generally made sure she was out first. There was more to Mr Oats than met the eye. There had to be.

A couple of centaurs burst out of the bushes ahead of them and cantered away down the path. Oats grabbed a tree.

'They were running around when I came up!' he said. 'Are they usual?'

'I've never seen them before,' said Agnes. 'I think they're from Uberwald.'

'And the horrible little blue goblins? One of them made a very unpleasant gesture at me!'

'Don't know about them at all.'

'And the vampires? I mean, I knew that things were different here, but really-'

'Vampires?!' shouted Agnes. 'You saw the vampires? Last night?'

'Well, I mean, yes, I studied them at length at the seminary, but I never thought I'd see them standing around talking about drinking blood and things, really, I'm surprised the King allows it-'

'And they didn't . . . affect your mind?'

'I did have that terrible migraine. Does that count? I thought it was the prawns.'

A cry rang through the woods. It seemed to

have many components, but mostly it sounded as though a turkey was being throttled at the other end of a tin tube.

'And what the heck was that?' shouted Oats.

Agnes looked around, bewildered. She'd grown up in the Lancre woods. Oh, you got strange things sometimes, passing through, but generally they contained nothing more dangerous than other people. Now, in this tarnished light, even the trees were starting to look suspicious.

'Let's at least get down to Bad Ass,' she said, tugging at Oats's hand.

'You what?'

Agnes sighed. 'It's the nearest village.'

'Bad Ass?'

'Look, there was a donkey, and it stopped in the middle of the river, and it wouldn't go backwards or forwards,' said Agnes, as patiently as possible. Lancre people got used to explaining this. 'Bad Ass. See? Yes, I know that "Disobedient Donkey" might have been more . . . acceptable, but-'

The horrible cry echoed around the woods again. Agnes thought of all the things that were rumoured to be in the mountains, and dragged Oats after her like a badly hitched cart.

Then the sound was right in front of them and, at a turn in the lane, a head emerged from a bush.

Agnes had seen pictures of an ostrich.

So ... start with one of them, but make the head and neck in violent yellow, and give the head a huge ruff of red and purple feathers and two big round eyes, the pupils of which jiggled drunkenly as the head moved back and forth . . .

'Is that some sort of local chicken?' warbled Oats.

'I doubt it,' said Agnes. One of the long feathers had a tartan pattern.

The cry started again, but was strangled halfway through when Agnes stepped forward, grabbed the thing's neck and pulled.

A figure rose from the undergrowth, dragged up by his arm.

'Hodgesaargh?'

He quacked at her.

'Take that thing out of your mouth,' said Agnes. 'You sound like Mr Punch.'

He removed the whistle. 'Sorry, Miss Nitt.'

'Hodgesaargh, why – and I realize I might not like the answer – why are you hiding in the woods with your arm dressed up like Hetty the Hen and making horrible noises through a tube?'

'Trying to lure the phoenix, miss.'

'The phoenix? That's a mythical bird, Hodgesaargh.'

'That's right, miss. There's one in Lancre, miss. It's very young, miss. So I thought I might be able to attract it.'

She looked at the brightly coloured glove. Oh, yes – if you raised chicks, you had to let them know what kind of bird they were, so you used a sort of glove-puppet. But. . .

'Hodgesaargh?'

'Yes, miss?'

'I'm not an expert, of course, but I seem to recall that according to the commonly accepted

legend of the phoenix it would never see its parent. You can only have one phoenix at a time. It's automatically an orphan. You see?'

'Um, may I add something?' said Oats. 'Miss Nitt is right, I have to say. The phoenix builds a nest and bursts into flame and the new bird arises from the ashes. I've read that. Anyway, it's an allegory.'

Hodgesaargh looked at the puppet phoenix on his arm and then looked bashfully at his feet.

'Sorry about that, miss.'

'So, you see, a phoenix can never see another phoenix,' said Agnes.

'Wouldn't know about that, miss,' said Hodgesaargh, still staring at his boots.

An idea struck Agnes. Hodgesaargh was always out of doors. 'Hodgesaargh?'

'Yes, miss?'

'Have you been out in the woods all morning?'

'Oh, yes, miss.'

'Have you seen Granny Weatherwax?'

'Yes, miss.'

'You have?'

'Yes, miss.'

'Where?'

'Up in the woods over towards the border, miss. At first light, miss.'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'Er . . . did you want to know, miss?'

'Oh. Yes, sorry . . . What were you doing up there?'

Hodgesaargh blew a couple of quacks on his phoenix lure by way of explanation.

Agnes grabbed the priest again.

'Come on, let's get to the road and find Nanny-'

Hodgesaargh was left with his glove puppet and his lure and his knapsack and a deeply awkward feeling. He'd been brought up .to respect witches, and Miss Nitt was a witch. The man with her hadn't been a witch, but his manner fitted him into that class of people Hodgesaargh mentally pigeonholed as 'my betters', although in truth this was quite a large category. He wasn't about to disagree with his betters. Hodgesaargh was a one-man feudal system.

On the other hand, he thought, as he packed up and prepared to move on, books that were all about the world tended to be written by people who knew all about books rather than all about the world. All that stuff about birds hatching from ashes must have been written by someone who didn't know anything about birds. As for there only ever being one phoenix, well, that'd obviously been written down by a man who ought to get out in the fresh air more and meet some ladies. Birds came from eggs. Oh, the phoenix was one of those creatures that had learned to use magic, had built it right into its very existence, but magic was tricky stuff and nothing used any more of it than it needed to. So there'd be an egg, definitely. And eggs needed warmth, didn't they?

Hodgesaargh had been thinking about this a lot during the morning, as he tramped through damp bushes making the acquaintance of several disappointed ducks. He'd never bothered much

about history, except the history of falconry, but he did know that there were once places – and in some cases still were – with a very high level of background magic, which made them rather exciting and not a good place to raise your young.

Maybe the phoenix, whatever it really looked like, was simply a bird who'd worked out a way of making incubation work very, very fast.

Hodgesaargh had actually got quite a long way, and if he'd had a bit more time he'd have worked out the next step, too.

It was well after noon before Granny Weatherwax came off the moor, and a watcher might have wondered why it took such a long time to cross a little patch of moorland.

They'd have wondered even more about the little stream. It had cut a rock-studded groove in the peat that a healthy woman could have leapt across, but someone had placed a broad stone across it for a bridge.

She looked at it for a while and then reached into her sack. She took out a long piece of black material and blindfolded herself. Then she walked out across the stone, taking tiny steps with her arms flung. out wide for balance. Halfway across she fell on to her hands and knees and stayed there, panting, for several minutes. Then she crawled forward again, by inches.

A few feet below, the peaty stream rattled happily over the stones.

The sky glinted. It was a sky with blue patches and bits of cloud, but it had a strange look, as though a picture painted on glass had been fractured and then the shards reassembled wrongly. A drifting cloud disappeared against some invisible line and began to emerge in another part of the sky altogether.

Things were not what they seemed. But then, as Granny always said, they never were.

Agnes practically had to pull Oats into Nanny Ogg's house, which was in fact so far away from the concept of a witch's cottage that it, as it were, approached it from the other side. It tended towards jolly clashing colours rather than black, and smelled of polish. There were no skulls or strange candles, apart from the pink novelty one that Nanny had once bought in Ankh-Morpork and only brought out to show to guests with the right sense of humour. There were lots of tables, mainly in order to display the vast number of drawings and iconographs of the huge Ogg clan. At first sight these looked randomly placed, until you worked out the code. In reality, pictures were advanced or retarded around the room as various family members temporarily fell in or out of favour, and anyone ending up on the small wobbly table near the cat's bowl had some serious spadework to do. What made it worse was that you could fall down the pecking order not because you'd done something bad, but because everyone else had done something better. This was why what space wasn't taken up with family pictures was occupied by ornaments, because no Ogg who travelled more than ten miles from Ankh-Morpork would dream of returning without a present. The Oggs loved Nanny Ogg and, well, there were even worse places than the wobbly table. A distant cousin had once ended up in the hall.

Most of the ornaments were cheapjack stuff bought from fairs, but Nanny Ogg never minded, provided they were colourful and shiny. So there were a lot of cross-eyed dogs, pink shepherdesses and mugs with badly spelled slogans like 'To the Wordl's Best Mum' and 'We Luove Our Nanny'. A huge gilded china beer stein that played 'Ich Bin Ein Rattarsedschwein' from The Student Horse was locked in a glass-fronted cabinet as a treasure too great for common display, and had earned Shirl Ogg's picture a permanent place on the dresser.

Nanny Ogg had already cleared a space on the table for the green ball. She looked up sharply when Agnes entered.

'You were a long time. Been dallyin'?' she said, in an armour-piercing voice.

'Nanny, Granny would have said that,' said Agnes reproachfully.

Nanny shivered. 'You're right, gel,' she said. 'Let's find her quickly, eh? I'm too cheerful to be a crone.'

'There's odd creatures everywhere!' said Agnes. 'There's loads of centaurs! We had to dive into the ditch!'

'Ah, I did notice you'd got grass and leaves on your dress,' said Nanny. 'But I was too polite to mention it.'

'Where're they all coming from?'

'Down out of the mountains, I suppose. Why did you bring Soapy Sam back with you?'

'Because he's covered in mud, Nanny,' said Agnes sharply, 'and I said he could have a wash down here.'

'Er . . . is this really a witch's cottage?' said Oats, staring at the assembled ranks of Oggery.

'Oh dear,' said Nanny.

'Pastor Melchio said they are sinks of depravity and sexual excess.' The young man took a nervous step backwards, knocking against a small table and causing a blue clockwork ballerina to begin a jerky pirouette to the tune of 'Three Blind Mice'.

'Well, we've got a sink all right,' said Nanny. 'What's your best offer?'

'I suppose we should be grateful that was a Nanny Ogg comment,' said Agnes. 'Don't wind him up, Nanny. It's been a busy morning.'

'Er, which way's the pump?' said Oats. Agnes pointed. He hurried out, gratefully.

'Wetter than a thunderstorm sandwich,' said Nanny, shaking her head.

'Granny was seen up above the long lake,' said Agnes, sitting down at the table.

Nanny looked up sharply. 'On that bit of moor?' she said.

'Yes.'

'That's bad. That's gnarly country up there.'

'Gnarly?'

'All scrunched up.'

'What? I've been up there. It's just heather and gorse and there's a few old caves at the end of the valley.'

'Oh, really? Looked up at the clouds, did you? Oh well, let's have a go. . .'

When Oats came back, scrubbed and shining, they were arguing. They looked rather embarrassed when they saw him.

'I said it'd need three of us,' said Nanny, pushing the glass ball aside. 'Especially if she's up there. Gnarly ground plays merry hell with scrying. We just ain't got the power.'

'I don't want to go back to the castle!'

'Magrat's good at this sort of thing.'

'She's got a little baby to look after, Nanny!'

'Yeah, in a castle full of vampires. Think about that. No knowing when they'll get hungry again. Better for 'em both to be out of it.'

'But-'

'You get her out now. I'd come myself, but you said I just sit there grinnin'.'

Agnes suddenly pointed a finger at Oats. 'You!'

'Me?' he quavered.

'You said you could see they were vampires, didn't you?'

'I did?'

'You did.'

'That's right, I did. Er . . . and?'

'You didn't find your mind becoming all pink and happy?'

'I don't think my mind has ever been pink and happy,' said Oats.

'So why didn't they get through to you?'

Oats smiled uneasily and fished in his jacket.

'I am protected by the hand of Om,' he said.

Nanny inspected the pendant. It showed a figure trussed across the back of a turtle.

'You say?' she said. 'That's a good wheeze, then.'

'Just as Om reached out his hand to save the prophet Brutha from the torture, so will he spread his wings over me in my time of trial,' said Oats, but he sounded as though he was trying to reassure himself rather than Nanny. He went on: 'I've got a pamphlet if you would like to know more,' and this time the tone was much more positive, as if the existence of Om was a little uncertain whereas the existence of pamphlets was obvious to any open-minded, rational-thinking person.

'Don't,' said Nanny. She let the medallion go. 'Well, Brother Perdore never needed any magic jewellery for fighting off people, that's all I can say.'

'No, he just used to breathe alcohol all over them,' said Agnes. 'Well, you're coming with me, Mr Oats. I'm not facing Prince Slime again alone! And you can shut up!'

'Er, I didn't say anything-'

'I didn't mean you, I meant- Look, you said you've studied vampires, didn't you? What's good for vampires?'

Oats thought for a moment. 'Er . . . a nice dry coffin, er, plenty of fresh blood, er, overcast skies.. .' His voice trailed off when he saw her expression. 'Ah . . . well, it depends exactly where they're from, I remember. Uberwald is a very big place. Er, cutting off the head and staking them in the heart is generally efficacious.'

'But that works on everyone,' said Nanny.

'Er . . . in Splintz they die if you put a coin in their mouth and cut their head off . . .'

'Not like ordinary people, then,' said Nanny, taking out a notebook.

'Er . . . in Klotz they die if you stick a lemon in their mouth-'

'Sounds more like it.'

'-after you cut their head off. I believe that in Glitz you have to fill their mouth with salt, hammer a carrot into both ears, and then cut off their head.'

'I can see it must've been fun finding that out.'

'And in the valley of the Ah they believe it's best to cut off the head and boil it in vinegar.'

'You're going to need someone to carry all this stuff, Agnes,' said Nanny Ogg.

'But in Kashncari they say you should cut off their toes and drive a nail through their neck.'

'And cut their head off?'

'Apparently you don't have to.'

'Toes is easy,' said Nanny. 'Old Windrow over in Bad Ass cut off two of his with a spade and he weren't even trying.'

'And then, of course, you can defeat them by stealing their left sock,' said Oats.

'Sorry?' said Agnes. 'I think I misheard you there.'

'Um, they're pathologically meticulous, you see. Some of the gypsy tribes in Borogravia say that if you steal their sock and hide it somewhere they'll spend the rest of eternity looking for it. They can't abide things to be out of place or missing.'

'I wouldn't have put this down as a very widespread belief,' said Nanny.

'Oh, they say in some villages that you can even slow them down by throwing poppyseed at them,' said Oats. 'Then they'll have a terrible urge to count every seed. Vampires are very analretentive, you see?'

'I shouldn't like meeting one that was the opposite,' said Nanny.

'Yes, well, I don't think we're going to have time to ask the Count for his precise address,' said Agnes quickly. 'We're going to go in, fetch Magrat and get back here, all right? Why are you such a vampire expert, Oats?'

'I told you, I studied this sort of thing at college. We have to know the enemy if we're to combat evil forces ... vampires, demons, wit-' He stopped.

'Do go on,' said Nanny Ogg, as sweet as arsenic.

'But with witches I'm just supposed to show them the error of their ways.' Oats coughed nervously.

'That's something to look forward to, then,' said Nanny. 'What with me not havin' my fireproof corsets on. Off you go, then . . . all three of you.'

'There's three of us?' said Oats.

Agnes felt her left arm tremble. Against every effort of will her wrist bent, her palm curled up and she felt two fingers straining to unfold. Only Nanny Ogg noticed.

'Like having your own chaperon all the time, ain't it?' she said.

'What was she talking about?' said Oats, as they headed for the castle.

'Her mind's wandering,' said Agnes, loudly.

There were covered ox-carts rumbling up the street to the castle. Agnes and Oats stood to one side and watched them.

The drivers didn't seem interested in the bystanders. They wore drab, ill-fitting clothing, but an unusual touch was the scarf each one had wrapped around his neck so tightly that it might have been a bandage.

'Either there's a plague of sore throats in Uberwald or there will be nasty little puncture wounds under those, I'll bet,' said Agnes.

'Er . . . I do know a bit about the way they're supposed to control people,' said Oats.

'Yes?'

'It sounds silly, but it was in an old book.'

'Well?'

'They find single-minded people easier to control.'

'Single-minded?' said Agnes suspiciously. More carts rolled past.

'It doesn't sound right, I know. You'd think strongminded people would be harder to affect. I suppose a big target is easier to hit. In some of the villages, apparently, vampire hunters get roaring drunk first. Protection, you see? You can't punch fog.'

So we're fog? said Perdita. So's he, by the look of him...

Agnes shrugged. There was a certain bucolic look to the faces of the cart drivers. Of course, you got that in Lancre too, but in Lancre it was overlaid by a mixture of guile, common sense and stubborn rock-headedness. Here the eyes behind the faces had a switched-off look.

Like cattle, said Perdita.

'Yes,' said Agnes.

'Pardon?' said Oats.

'Just thinking aloud. . .'

And she thought of the way one man could so easily control a herd of cows, any one of which could have left him as a small damp depression in the ground had it wanted to. Somehow, they never got around to thinking about it.

Supposing they are better than us, she thought. Supposing that, compared to them, we're just-

You're too close to the castle! snapped Perdita. You're thinking cow thoughts.

Then Agnes realized that there was a squad of men marching behind the carts. They didn't look at all like the carts' drivers.

And these, said Perdita, are the cattle prods.

They had uniforms, of a sort, with the black and white crest of the Magpyrs, but they weren't a body of men that looked smart in a uniform. They looked very much like men who killed other people for money, and not even for a lot of money. They looked, in short, like men who'd cheerfully eat a puppy sandwich. Several of them leered at Agnes when they went past, but it was only a generic leer that was simply leered on the basis that she had a dress on.

More wagons came up behind them.

'Nanny Ogg says you must take time by the foreskin,' Agnes said, and darted forward as the last wagon rumbled past.

'She does?'

'I'm afraid so. You get used to it.'

She caught the back of the cart and pulled herself up, beckoning him hastily to follow.

'Are you trying to impress me?' he said as she hauled him on board.

'Not you,' she said. And realized, at this point, that what she was sitting on was a coffin.

There were two of them in the back of the cart, packed around with straw.

'Are they moving the furniture in?' said Oats.

'Er . . . I think . . . it might . . . be occupied,' said Agnes.

She almost shrieked when he removed the lid. The coffin was empty.

'You idiot! Supposing there was someone in there!'

'Vampires are weak during the day. Everyone knows that,' said Oats reproachfully.

'I can . . . feel them here . . . somewhere,' said Agnes. The rattling of the cart changed as it rumbled on to the cobblestones of the courtyard.

'Get off the other one and I'll have a look.'

'But supposing-'

He pushed her off and raised the lid before she could protest further. 'No, no vampire in here, either,' he said.

'Supposing one'd just reached out and grabbed you by the throat!'

'Om is my shield,' said Oats.

'Really? That's nice.'

'You may chortle-'

'I didn't chortle.'

'You can if you want to. But I'm sure we are doing the right thing. Did not Sonaton defeat the Beast of Batrigore in its very cave?'

'I don't know.'

'He did. And didn't the prophet Urdure vanquish the Dragon of Sluth on the Plain of Gidral after three days' fighting?'

'I don't know that we've got that much time-'

'And wasn't it true that the Sons of Exequial beat the hosts of Myrilom?'

'Yes?'

'You've heard of that?'

'No. Listen, we've stopped. I don't particularly want us to be found, do you? Not right now. And not by those guards. They didn't look like nice men at all.'

They exchanged a meaningful glance over the coffins, concerning a certain inevitability about the immediate future.

'They'll notice they're heavier, won't they?' said Oats.

'Those people driving the carts didn't look as though they notice anything very much.'

Agnes stared at the coffin beside her. There was some dirt in the bottom, but it was otherwise quite clean and had a pillow at the head end. There were also some side pockets in the lining.

'It's the easiest way in,' she said. 'You get into this one, I'll get into that one. And, look . . . those people you just told me about . . . Were they real historical characters?'

'Certainly. They-'

'Well, don't try to imitate them yet, all right? Otherwise you'll be a historical character too.'

She shut the lid, and still felt there was a vampire around.

Her hand touched the side pocket. There was something soft yet spiky there. Her fingers explored it in fascinated horror and discovered it to be a ball of wool with a couple of long knitting needles stuck through it, suggesting either a very domesticated form of voodoo or that someone was knitting a sock.

Who knitted socks in a coffin? On the other hand, perhaps even vampires couldn't sleep sometimes, and tossed and turned all day.

She braced herself as the coffin was picked up and tried to occupy her mind by working out where it was being taken. She heard the sound of footsteps on the cobbles, and then the ring of the flagstones on the main steps, echoing in the great hall, a sudden dip

That meant the cellars. Logical, really, but not good.

You're doing this to impress me, said Perdita. You're doing it to try to be extrovert and dynamic.

Shut up, Agnes thought.

A voice outside said, 'Put them down there and puth off.'

That was the one who called himself Igor.

Agnes wished she'd thought of- a weapon.

'Get rid of me, would they?' the voice went on, against a background of disappearing footsteps. 'Thith ith all going to end in tearth. It'th all very well for them, but who hath to go and thweep up the dutht, eh? That'th what I'd like to know. Who'th it hath to pull their headth out of the pickle jarth? Who'th it hath to find them under the ithe? I mutht've pulled out more thtaketh than I've had wriggly dinnerth . . .'

Light flooded in as the coffin lid was removed.

Igor stared at Agnes. Agnes stared at Igor.

Igor unfroze first. He smiled – he had a geometrically interesting smile, because of the row of stitches right across it – and said, 'Dear me, thomeone'th been lithening to too many thtorieth. Got any garlic?'

'Masses,' Agnes lied.

'Won't work. Any holy water?'

'Gallons.'

'It–'

A coffin lid smacked down on Igor's head, making an oddly metallic sound. He reached up slowly to rub the spot, and then turned around. This time the lid smacked into his face.

'Oh ... thit,' he said, and folded up. Oats appeared, face aglow with adrenaline and righteousness.

'I smote him mightily!'

'Good, good, let's get out of here! Help me up!'

'My wrath descended upon him like-'

'It was a heavy lid and he's not that young,' said Agnes. 'Look, I used to play down here, I know how to get to the back stairs-'

'He's not a vampire? He looks like one. First time I've ever seen a patchwork man . . .'

'He's a servant. Now, please come-' Agnes paused. 'Can you make holy water?'

'What, here?'

'I mean bless it, or dedicate it to Om, or. . . boil the hell out of it, perhaps,' said Agnes.

'There is a small ceremony I can-' He stopped. 'That's right! Vampires can be stopped by holy water!'

'Good. We'll go via the kitchens, then.'

The huge kitchens were almost empty. They never bustled these days, since the royal couple were not the sort who demanded three meat courses with every meal, and at the moment there was only Mrs Scorbic the cook in there, calmly rolling out pastry.

'Afternoon, Mrs Scorbic,' said Agnes, deciding the best course was to march past and rely on the authority of the pointy hat. 'We've just dropped in for some water, don't worry, I know where the pump is, but if you've got a couple of empty bottles that would be helpful.'

'That's right, dear,' said Mrs Scorbic.

Agnes stopped and turned.

Mrs Scorbic was famously acerbic, especially on the subject of soya, nut cutlets, vegetarian meals and any vegetable that couldn't be boiled until it was yellow. Even the King hesitated to set foot in her kitchen but, whereas he only got an angry silence, lesser mortals got the full force of her generalized wrath. Mrs Scorbic was permanently angry, in the same way that mountains are permanently large.

Today she was wearing a white dress, a white apron, a big white mob cap and a white bandage around her throat. She also looked, for want of any better word, happy.

Agnes urgently waved Oats towards the pump. 'Find something to fill up,' she hissed, and then said brightly, 'How are you feeling, Mrs Scorbic?'

'All the better for you asking, miss.'

'I expect you're busy with all these visitors?'

'Yes, miss.'

Agnes coughed. 'And, er, what did you give them for breakfast?'

The cook's huge pink brow wrinkled. 'Can't remember, miss.'

'Well done.'

Oats nudged her. 'I've filled up a couple of empty bottles and I said the Purification Rite of Om over them.'

'And that will work?'

'You must have faith.'

The cook was watching them amiably.

'Thank you, Mrs Scorbic,' said Agnes. 'Please get on with . . . whatever you were doing.'

'Yes, miss.' The cook turned back to her rolling pin.

Plenty of meals on her, said Perdita. Cook and larder all in one.

'That was tasteless!' said Agnes.

'What was?' said the priest.

'Oh . . . just a thought I had. Let's go up the back stairs.'

They were bare stone, communicating with the public bits of the keep via a door at every level. On the other side of those doors it was still bare stone, but a better class of masonry altogether and with tapestries and carpets. Agnes pushed open a door.

A couple of the Uberwald people were ambling along the corridor beyond, carrying something covered in a cloth. They didn't spare the newcomers a glance as Agnes led the way to the royal apartments.

Magrat was standing on a chair when they came in. She looked down at them while little painted wooden stars and animals tangled themselves around her upraised arm.

'Wretched things,' she said. 'You'd think it would be easy, wouldn't you? Hello, Agnes. Could you hold the chair?'

'What are you doing?' said Agnes. She looked carefully. There was no bandage round Magrat's neck.

'Trying to hook this mobile on to the chandelier,' said Magrat. 'Uh . . . that's done it. But it tangles up all the time! Verence says it's very good for young children to see lots of bright colours and shapes. It speeds development, he says. But I can't find Millie anywhere.'

There's a castle full of vampires, and she's decorating the playroom, said Perdita. What's wrong with this woodcut?

Somehow, Agnes couldn't bring herself to blurt out a warning. Apart from anything else, the chair looked wobbly.

'Little Esme's only two weeks old,' said Agnes.

'Isn't that a bit young for education?'

'Never too early to start, he says. What can I do for you?'

'We need you to come with us. Right now.'

'Why?' said Magrat, and to Agnes's relief she stepped down from the chair.

'Why? Magrat, there's vampires in the castle! The Magpyr family are vampires!'

'Don't be silly, they're very pleasant people. I was talking to the Countess only this morning-'

'What about?' Agnes demanded. 'I bet you can't remember!’

'I am Queen, Agnes,' said Magrat reproachfully.

'Sorry, but they affect people's minds-'

'Yours?'

'Um, no, not mine. I have- I'm- It seems I'm immune,' Agnes lied.

'And his?' said Magrat sharply.

'I am protected by my faith in Om,' said Oats.

Magrat raised her eyebrows at Agnes. 'Is he?'

Agnes shrugged. 'Apparently.'

Magrat leaned closer. 'He's not drunk, is he? He's holding two beer bottles.'

'They're full of holy water,' Agnes whispered.

'Verence said Omnianism seemed a very sensible and stable religion,' hissed Magrat.

They both looked at Oats, mentally trying the words on him for size.

'Are we leaving?' he said.

'Of course not!’  snapped Magrat, straightening up. 'Thus is silly, Agnes. I'm a married woman, I'm Queen, I've got a little baby. And you come in here telling me we've got vampiresl I've got guests here and-'

'The guests are vampires, your majesty,' said Agnes. 'The King invited them!'

'Verence says we have to learn to deal with all sorts of people-'

'We think Granny Weatherwax is in very bad trouble,' said Agnes.

Magrat stopped. 'How bad?' she said.

'Nanny Ogg is very worried. Quite snappish. She says it needs three of us to find Granny.'

'Well, I-

'And Granny's taken the box, whatever that means,' said Agnes.

'The one she keeps in the dresser?'

'Yes. Nanny wouldn't tell me much about what was in it.'

Magrat opened up her hands like an angler measuring a medium-sized fish.

'The polished wooden box? About this size

'I don't know, I've never seen it. Nanny seemed to think it was important. She didn't say what was in it,' Agnes repeated, just in case Magrat hadn't got the hint.

Magrat clasped her hands together and looked down, biting her knuckles. When she looked up her face was set with purpose. She pointed at Oats.

'You find a bag or something and empty into it all the stuff in the top drawer over there, and take the potty, and the little truck, oh, and the stuffed animals, and the bag of nappies, and the bag for used nappies, and the bath, and the bag with the towels, and the box of toys, and the wind-up things, and the musical box, and the bag with the little suits, oh, and the woolly hat, and you, Agnes, find something we can make into a sling. You came up the back stairs? We'll go down the same way.'

'What do we need a sling for?'

Magrat leaned over the crib and picked up the baby, wrapped in a blanket.

'I'm not going to leave her here, am I?' she said.

There was a clatter from the direction of Mightily Oats. He already had both arms full, and a large stuffed rabbit in his teeth.

'Do we need all of that?' said Agnes.

'You never know,' said Magrat.

'Even the box of toys?'

'Verence thinks she might be an early developer,' said Magrat.

'She's a couple of weeks old!'

'Yes, but stimulus at an early age is vital to the development of the growing brain,' said Magrat, laying baby Esme on the table and shuffling her into a romper suit. 'Also, we have to get on top of her hand-eye co-ordination as soon as possible. It's no good just letting things slide. Oh, yes . . . If you can bring the little slide, too. And the yellow rubber duck. And the sponge in the shape of a teddy bear. And the teddy bear in the shape of a sponge.'

There was another crash from the mound around Oats.

'Why's the box so important?' said Agnes.

'Not important as such,' said Magrat. She looked over her shoulder. 'Oh, and put in that rag doll, will you? I'm sure she's focusing on it. Oh, blast . . . the red bag has got the medicines in it, thank you . . . What was it you asked me?'

'Granny's box,' Agnes hinted.

'Oh, it's . . . just important to her.'

'It's magical?'

'What? Oh, no. Not as far as I know. But everything in it belongs to her, you see. Not to the cottage,' said Magrat, picking up her daughter. 'Who's a good girl, then? You are!' She looked around. 'Have we forgotten anything?'

Oats spat out the rabbit. 'Possibly the ceiling,' he said.

'Then let's go.'

Magpies flocked around the castle tower. Most magpie rhymes peter out at around ten or twelve, but here were hundreds of birds, enough to satisfy any possible prediction. There are many rhymes about magpies, but none of them is very reliable because they are not the ones the magpies know themselves.

The Count sat in the darkness below, listening to their minds. Images flashed behind his eyes. This was the way to run a country, he reflected. Human minds were so hard to read, unless they were so close that you could see the words just hovering below actual vocalization. But the birds could get everywhere, see every worker in the fields and hunter in the forest. They were good listeners, too. Much better than bats or rats.

Once again, tradition was overturned.

No sign of Granny, though. Some trick, perhaps. It didn't matter. Eventually she'd find him. She wouldn't hide for long. It wasn't in her nature. Weatherwaxes would always stand and fight, even when they knew they would be beaten. So predictable.

Several of the birds had seen a busy little figure trudging across the kingdom, leading a donkey laden with falconry gear. The Count had taken a look at Hodgesaargh, found a mind crammed end to end with hawks, and dismissed him. He and his silly birds would have to go eventually, of course, because he made the magpies nervous. He made a note to mention this to the guards.

'Ooaauooow!'

. . . but there was probably no combination of vowels that could do justice to the cry Nanny Ogg made on seeing a young baby. It included sounds known only to cats.

'Isn't she a little precious?' Nanny crooned. 'I've probably got a sweetie somewhere-'

'She's not on solids,' said Magrat.

'Still keeping you up at nights?'

'And days. But she's slept well today, thank goodness. Nanny, give her to Mr Oats and let's sort this out right away.'

The young priest took the baby nervously, holding it, as some men do, as if it would break or at least explode.

'There, there, there,' he said, vaguely.

'Now ... what's this about Granny?' said Magrat.

They told her, interrupting one another at important points.

'The gnarly ground over towards the top of the forest?' said Magrat, when they were nearly finished.

'That's right,' said Nanny.

'What is gnarly ground?' said Agnes.

'There's a lot of magic in these mountains, right?' said Nanny. 'And everyone knows mountains get made when lumps of land bang together, right? Well, when the magic gets trapped you . . . sort of . . . get a bit of land where the space is . . . sort of . . . scrunched up, right? It'd be quite big if it could but it's like a bit of gnarly wood in an of tree. Or a used hanky . . . all folded up small but still big in a different way.'

'But I've been up there and it's just a bit of moorland!'

'You've got to know the right direction,' said Nanny. 'Damn hard to scry into a place like that. It goes all wobbly. It's like tryin' to look at something close up and a long way away at the same time. It makes your crystal ball water.'

She pulled the green ball towards her.

'Now, you two push an' I'll steer-'

'Er, are you going to do some magic?' said Oats, behind them.

'What's the problem?' said Nanny.

'I mean, does it involve, er . . .' he coloured up, ,er ... removing your garments and dancing around and summoning lewd and salacious creatures? Only I'm afraid I couldn't be a party to that. The Book of Om forbids consorting with false enchanters and deceitful soothsayers, you see.'

'I wouldn't consort with false enchanters neither,.' said Nanny. 'Their beards fall off.'

'We're real,' said Magrat.

'And we certainly don't summon lewd and salacious creatures,' said Agnes.

'Unless we want to,' said Nanny Ogg, almost under her breath.

'Well . . . all right, then,' said Oats.

As they unwound the power, Agnes heard Perdita think I don't like Magrat. She's not like she used to be. Well, of course she's not. But she's taking charge, she's not cringing slightly like she used to, she's not WET. That's because she's a mother, Agnes thought. Mothers are only slightly damp.

She was not, herself, hugely in favour of motherhood in general. Obviously it was necessary, but it wasn't exactly difficult. Even cats managed it. But women acted as if they'd been given a medal that entitled them to boss people around. It was as if, just because they'd got the label which said 'mother', everyone else got a tiny part of the label that said 'child' . . .

She gave a mental shrug, and concentrated on the craft in hand.

Light grew and faded inside the green globe. Agnes had only scryed a few times before, but she didn't remember the light pulsing like this. Every time it dissolved into an image the light flickered and bounced to somewhere else . . . a patch of heather . . . a tree . . . boiling clouds . . .

And then Granny Weatherwax came and went. The image appeared and was gone in an instant, and the glow that rolled in with a finality told Agnes that this was all, folks.

'She was lying down,' said Magrat. 'It was all fuzzy.'

'Then she's in one of the caves. She said once she goes up there to be alone with her thoughts,' said Nanny. 'And did you catch that little twitch? She's trying to keep us out.'

'The caves up there are just scoops in the rock,' said Agnes.

'Yes . . . and no,' said Nanny. 'Did I see her holding a card in her hands?'

'The "I ate'nt dead' card?' said Magrat.

'No, she'd left that in the cottage.'

'Just when we really need her, she goes away into a cave?'

'Does she know we need her? Did she know about the vampires?' said Agnes.

'Can't we go and ask her?' said Magrat.

'We can't fly all the way,' said Nanny, scratching her chin. 'Can't fly prop'ly over gnarly ground. The broomsticks act funny.'

'Then we'll walk the rest,' said Magrat. 'It's hours to sunset.'

'You're not corning, are you?' said Agnes, aghast.

'Yes, of course.'

'But what about the baby?'

'She seems to like it in the sling and it keeps her warm and it's not as if there's monsters up there,' said Magrat. 'Anyway, I think it's possible to

combine motherhood and a career.'

'I thought you'd given up witchcraft,' said Agnes.

'Yes . . . well . . . yes. Let's make sure Granny's all right and get this sorted out, and then obviously I'll have other things to do . . .'

'But it could be dangerous!' said Agnes. 'Don't you think so, Nanny?'

Nanny Ogg turned her chair and looked at the baby.

'Cootchie-cootchie?' she said.

The small head looked around and Esme opened her blue eyes.

Nanny Ogg stared thoughtfully.

'Take her with us,' she said at last. 'I used to take our Jason everywhere when he was tiny. They like being with their mum.'

She gave the baby another long hard look.

'Yes,' she went on, 'I think that'd be a damn good idea.'

'Er . . . I feel perhaps there is little that I'd be able to do,' Oats said.

'Oh, it'd be too dangerous to take you,' said Nanny dismissively.

'But of course my prayers will go with you.'

'That's nice.' Nanny sniffed.

Drizzling rain soaked Hodgesaargh as he trudged back to the castle. The damp had got into the lure, and the noise it made now could only attract some strange, lost creature, skulking in ancient estuaries. Or possibly a sheep with a very sore throat.

And then he heard the chattering of magpies.

He tied the donkey to a sapling and stepped out into a clearing. The birds were screaming in the trees around him, but erupted away at the sight of King Henry on her perch on the donkey.

Crouched against a mossy rock was . . .

... a small magpie. It was bedraggled and wrong, as if put together by someone who had seen one but didn't know how it was supposed to work. It struggled when it saw him, there was a fluffing of feathers and, now, a smaller version of King Henry was trying to unfold its tattered wings.

He backed away. On her perch, the hooded eagle had its head turned to the strange bird . . .

... which was now a pigeon. A thrush. A wren . . .

A sudden intimation of doom made Hodgesaargh cover his eyes, but he saw the flash through the skin of his fingers, felt the thump of the flame, and smelled the scorched hairs on the back of his hand.

A few tufts of grass smouldered on the edge of a circle of scorched earth. Inside it a few pathetic bones glowed red hot and then crumbled into fine ash.

Away in the forest, the magpies screamed.

Count Magpyr stirred in the darkness of his room and opened his eyes. The pupils widened to take in more light.

'I think she has gone to ground,' he said.

'That was remarkably quick,' said the Countess. 'I thought you said she was quite powerful.'

'Oh, indeed. But human. And she's getting older. With age comes doubt. It's so simple. All alone in that barren cottage, no company but the candlelight . . . it's so simple to open up all the little cracks and let her mind turn in on itself. It's like watching a forest fire when the wind changes and suddenly it's roaring down on all the houses you thought were built so strongly.'

'So graphically put.'

'Thank you.'

'You were so successful in Escrow, I know. . .'

'A model for the future. Vampires and humans in harmony at last. There is no need for this animosity, just as I have always said.'

The Countess walked over to the window and gingerly pulled aside the curtain. Despite the overcast sky, grey light filtered in.

'There's no requirement to be so cautious about this, either,' said her husband, coming up behind her and jerking the curtain aside. The Countess shuddered and turned her face away.

'You see? Still harmless. Every day, in every way, we get better and better,' said Count Magpyr cheerfully. 'Self help. Positive thinking. Training. Familiarity. Garlic? A pleasant seasoning. Lemons? Merely an acquired taste. Why, yesterday I mislaid a sock and I simply don't care. I have lots of socks. Extra socks can be arranged!' His smile faded when he saw his wife's expression.

'The word "but" is on the tip of your tongue,' he said flatly.

'I was just going to say that there were no witches in Escrow.'

'And the place is all the better for it!'

'Of course, but-'

'There you go again, my dear. There is no room for 'but' in our vocabulary. Verence was right, oddly enough. There's a new world coming, and there won't be any room in it for those ghastly little gnomes or witches or centaurs and especially not for the firebirds! Away with theml Let us progress! They are unfitted for survival!'

'You only wounded that phoenix, though.'

'My point exactly. It allowed itself to be hurt, and therefore extinction looms. No, my dear, if we won't fade with the old world we must make shift in the new. Witches? I'm afraid witches are all in the past now.'

The broomsticks in the present landed just above the treeline, on the edge of the moor. As Agnes had said, it was barely big enough to deserve the term. She could even hear the little mountain brook at the far end.

'I can't see anything gnarly-looking,' said Agnes. She knew it was a stupid thing to say, but the presence of Magrat was getting on her nerves.

Nanny looked up at the sky. The other two followed her gaze.

'You've got to get your eye in, but you'll see it if you watch,' she said. 'You can only see it if you stands on the moor.'

Agnes squinted at the overcast.

'Oh . . . I think I can,' said Magrat.

I bet she doesn't, said Perdita, I can't.

And then Agnes did. It was tricky to spot, like a join between two sheets of glass, and it seemed to move away whenever she was certain she could see it, but there was an . . . inconsistency, flickering in and out on the edge of vision.

Nanny licked a finger and held it up to the wind. Then she pointed.

'This way. An' shut your eyes.'

'There's no path,' said Magrat.

'That's right. You hold on to my hand, Agnes will hold on to yours. I've been this way a few times. It ain't hard.'

'It's like a children's story,' said Agnes.

'Yes, we're down to the bone now, all right,' said Nanny. 'And . . . off we go. . .'

Agnes felt the heather brush her feet as she stepped forward. She opened her eyes.

Moorland stretched away on every side, even behind them. The air was darker, the clouds heavier, the wind sharper. The mountains looked a long way away. There was a distant thunder of water.

'Where are we now?' said Magrat.

'Still here,' said Nanny. 'I remember my dad saying sometimes a deer or somethin' would run into gnarly ground if it was bein' hunted.'

'It'd have to be pretty desperate,' said Agnes. The heather was darker here, and scratched so much it was almost thorny. 'Everything's so . . . nasty-looking.'

'Attitude plays a part,' said Nanny. She tapped something with her foot.

It was . . . well, it had been a standing stone, Agnes thought, but now it was a lying stone. Lichen grew thickly all over it.

'The marker. Hard to get out again if you don't know about it,' said Nanny. 'Let's head for the mountains. Esme all wrapped up, Magrat? Little Esme, I mean.'

'She's asleep.'

'Yeah,' said Nanny, in what Agnes thought was an odd tone of voice. 'Just as well, really. Let's go. Oh, I thought we might need these . . .'

She fumbled in the bottomless storeroom of her knickerleg and produced a couple of pairs of socks so thick that they could have stood up by themselves.

'Lancre wool,' she said. 'Our Jason knits 'em of an evenin' and you know what strong fingers he's got. You could kick your way through a wall.'

The heather ripped fruitlessly at the wire-like wool as the women hurried over the moor. There was still a sun here, or at least a bright spot in the overcast, but darkness seemed to come up from beneath the ground.

Agnes . . . said Perdita's voice, in the privacy of her shared brain.

What? thought Agnes.

Nanny's worried about something to do with the baby and Granny. Have you noticed?

Agnes thought: I know Nanny keeps looking at little Esme as if she's trying to make up her mind about something, if that's what you mean.

Well, l think it's to do with Borrowing . . .

She thinks Granny's using the baby to keep an eye on us?

I don't know. But something's happening . . .

The roar ahead grew louder.

'There's a little stream, isn't there?' said Agnes.

'That's right,' said Nanny. 'Just here.'

The moor fell away. They stared into the abyss, which didn't stare back. It was huge. White water was just visible far below. Cold, damp air blew past their faces.

'That can't be right,' said Magrat. 'That's wider and deeper than Lancre Gorge!’

Agnes looked down into the mist. It's a couple of feet deep, Perdita told her. I can see every pebble.

'Perdita thinks it's a . . . well, an optical illusion,' Agnes said aloud.

'She could be right,' said Nanny. 'Gnarly ground, see? Bigger on the inside.'

Magrat picked up a rock and tossed it in. It bounced off the wall a few times, tumbling end over end, and then nothing was left but a stony echo. The river was too far down even to see the splash.

'It's very realistic, isn't it?' she said weakly.

'We could use the bridge,' said Nanny, pointing.

They regarded the bride. It had a certain negative quality. That is to say, while it was possible at the limits of probability that if they tried to cross the chasm by walking out over thin air this might just work – because of sudden updraughts, or air molecules suddenly all having a crazy idea at the same time – trying to do the same thing via

the bridge would dearly be laughable.

There was no mortar in it. The pillars had been piled up out of rocks laid like a drystone wall, and then a series of big flat stones dropped across the top. The result would have been called primitive even by people who were too primitive to have a word yet for 'primitive'. It creaked ominously in the wind. They could hear stone grind against stone.

'That's not right,' said Magrat. 'It wouldn't stand up to a gale.'

'It wouldn't stand up to a dead calm,' said Agnes. 'I don't think it's really real.'

'Ah, I can see where that'd make crossing it a bit tricky, then,' said Nanny.

It's just a slab laid over a ditch, Perdita insisted. I could cartwheel over it. Agnes blinked.

'Oh, I understand,' she said. 'This is some sort of test, is it? It is, isn't it? We're worried, so fear makes it a deep gorge. Perdita's always confident, so she hardly notices it . . .'

'Pd like to notice it's there,' said Magrat. 'It's a bridge.'

'We're wasting time,' said Agnes. She strode out over the slabs of stone and stopped halfway.

'Rocks a bit, but it's not too bad,' she called back. 'You just have to-'

The slab shifted under her, and tipped her off.

She flung out her hands and caught the edge of the stone by sheer luck. But, strong though her fingers were, a lot of Agnes was penduluming underneath.

She looked down. She didn't want to, but it was a direction occupying a lot of the world.

The water's about a foot below you, it really is, said Perdita. All you have to do is drop, and you'd be good at that . . .

Agnes looked down again. The drop was so long that probably no one would hear the splash. It didn't just look deep, it felt deep. Clammy air rose around her. She could feel the sucking emptiness under her feet.

'Magrat threw a stone down there!' she hissed.

Yes, and I saw it fall a few inches.

'Now, I'm lyin' flat and Magrat's holdin' on to my legs,' said Nanny Ogg conversationally, right above her. 'I'm going to grab your wrists and, you know, I reckon if you swings a little sideways you ought to get your foot on one of the stone pillars and you'll be right as ninepence.'

'You don't have to talk to me as if I'm some kind of frightened idiot!' snapped Agnes.

'Just tryin' to be pleasant.'

'I can't move my hands!’

'Yes, you can. See, I've got your arm now.'

'I can't move my hands!'

'Don't rush, we've got all day,' said Nanny. 'Whenever you're ready.'

Agnes hung for a while. She couldn't even sense her hands now. That presumably meant that she wouldn't feel it when her grip slipped.

The stones groaned.

'Br. . . Nanny?'

,Yep?,

'Can you talk to me a bit more as if I'm some kind of frightened idiot?'

'Okay.'

'Er . . . why do they say right as ninepence"? As opposed to, say, tenpence?'

'Interestin'. Maybe it's-'

'And can you speak up? Perdita's shouting at me that if I drop eighteen inches I'll be standing in the stream!'

'Do you think she's right?'

'Not about the eighteen inches!'

The bridge creaked.

'People seldom are,' said Nanny. 'Are you getting anywhere, dear? Only I can't lift you up, you see. And my arms are going numb, too.'

'I can't reach the pillar!'

'Then let go,' said Magrat, from somewhere behind Nanny.

'Magrat!' snapped Nanny.

'Well, perhaps it is only a little stream to Perdita. Gnarly ground can be two things at the same time, can't it? So if that's how she sees it . . . well, can't you let her get on with it? Let her sort it out. Can't you let her take over?'

'She only does that when I'm really under stress! Shut up!'

'I only-'

'Not you, her! Oh, no–'

Her left hand, white and almost numb, pulled itself off the stone and out of Nanny's grip.

'Don't let her do this to us!' Agnes shrieked. 'I'll fall hundreds of feet on to sharp rocks!'

'Yes, but since you're going to do that anyway, anything's worth a try, isn't it?' said Nanny. 'I should shut your eyes, if I was you-'

The right hand came loose.

Agnes shut her eyes. She fell.

Perdita opened her eyes. She was standing in the stream.

'Damn!' And Agnes would never say 'damn', which was why Perdita did so at every suitable occasion.

She reached up to the slab just above her, got a grip, and hauled herself up. Then, catching sight of Nanny Ogg's expression, she jerked her hands around into a new position and kicked her legs up.

That stupid Agnes never realizes how strong she is, Perdita thought. There's all these muscles she's afraid of using . . .

She pushed gently until her toes pointed at the sky and she was doing a handstand on the edge. The effect, she felt, was spoilt by her skirt falling over her eyes.

'You've still got that tear in yer knickers,' said Nanny sharply.

Perdita flicked herself on to her feet.

Magrat had her eyes tight shut. 'She didn't do a handstand on the edge, did she?'

'She did,' said Nanny. 'Now then, A- Perdita, stop that showing off, we've wasted too much time. Let Agnes have the body back, you know it's hers really.'

Perdita did a cartwheel. 'This body's wasted on her,' she said. 'And you should see the stuff she eats! Do you know she's still got two shelves full of soft toys? And dolls? And she wonders why she can't get along with boys!'

'Nothing like being stared at by a teddybear to put a young man off his stroke,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Remember old Mrs Sleeves, Magrat? Used to need two of us when she had one of her nasty turns.'

'What's that got to do with toys?' said Perdita suspiciously.

'And what's it- Oh, yes,' said Magrat.

'Now, I recall that old bellringer down in Ohulan,' said Nanny, leading the way. 'He had no fewer than seven personalities in his head. Three of 'em were women and four of 'em were men. Poor old chap. He said he was always the odd one out. He said they let him get on with all the work and the breathin' and eatin' and they had all the fun. Remember? He said it was hellish when he had a drink and they all started fightin' for a tastebud. Sometimes he couldn't hear himself think in his own head, he said- Now! Now! Now!'

Agnes opened her eyes. Her jaw hurt.

Nanny Ogg was peering at her closely, while rubbing some feeling back into her wrist. From a couple of inches away her face looked like a friendly pile of elderly laundry.

'Yes, that's Agnes,' she said, standing back. 'Her face goes sharper when it's the other one. See? I told you she'd be the one that came back. She's got more practice.'

Magrat let go of her arms. Agnes rubbed her chin.

'That hurt,' she said reproachfully.

'Just a bit of tough love,' said Nanny. 'Can't have that Perdita running around at a time like this.'

'You just sort of grabbed the bridge and came right back up,' said Magrat.

'I felt her stand on the ground!' said Agnes.

'And that too, then,' said Nanny. 'Come on. Not far now. Sometimes. And let's just take it easy, shall we? Some of us might have further to fall than others.'

They edged forward, despite an increasingly insistent voice in Agnes's head that kept telling her she was being a stupid coward and of course she wouldn't be hurt. She tried to ignore it.

The caves that Agnes remembered hadn't been much more than rock overhangs. These were caverns. The difference is basically one of rugged and poetic grandeur. These had a lot of both.

'Gnarly ground's a bit like icebergs,' said Nanny, leading them up a little gully to one of the largest.

'Nine-tenths of it is under water?' said Agnes. Her chin still hurt.

'There's more to it than meets the eye, I mean.'

'There's someone there!' said Magrat.

'Oh, that's the witch,' said Nanny. 'She's not a problem.'

Light from the entrance fell on a hunched figure, sitting among pools of water. Closer to, it looked like a statue, and perhaps not quite as human as the eye at first suggested. Water glistened on it; drops formed on the end of the long hooked nose and fell into a pool with the occasional plink.

'I come up here with a young wizard once, when I was a girl,' said Nanny. 'He liked nothing so much as bashing at rocks with his little

hammer . . . well, almost nothing,' she added, with a smile towards the past and then a happy sigh. 'He said the witch was just a lot of of stuff from the rocks, left there by the water drippin'. But my granny said it was a witch that sat up here to think about some big spell, and she turned to stone. Person'ly, I keep an open mind.'

'It's a long way to bring someone,' said Agnes.

'Oh, there was a lot of us kids at home and it was rainin' a lot and you need a lot of privacy for really good geology,' said Nanny vaguely. 'I think his hammer's still around here somewhere. He quite forgot about it after a while. Mind how you tread, the rocks is very slippery. How's young Esme doing, Magrat?'

'Oh, gurgling away. I'll have to feed her soon.'

'We've got to look after her,' said Nanny.

'Well, yes. Of course.'

Nanny clapped her hands together and pulled them apart gently. The glow between them wasn't the showy light that wizards made, but a grainy graveyard glimmer. It was just enough to ensure that no one fell down a hole.

'Probably some dwarfs in a place like this,' said Magrat, as they picked their way along a tunnel.

'Shouldn't think so. They don't like places that don't stay the same. No one comes up here now but animals and Granny when she wants to be alone with her thoughts.'

'And you when you were banging rocks,' said Magrat.

'Hah! But it was different then. There was flowers on the moor and the bridge was just stepping stones. That's 'cos I was in love.'

'You mean it really does change because of the way you feel?' said Agnes.

'You spotted it. It's amazing how high and rocky the bridge can be if you're in a bad mood, I know that.'

'I wonder how high it was for Granny, then?'

'Probably clouds could go underneath, girl.'

Nanny stopped where the path forked, and then pointed.

'I reckon she's gone this way. Hold on-'

She thrust out an arm. Stone groaned, and a slab of roof thudded down, throwing up spray and pebbles.

'So we'll just have to climb over this bit, then,' Nanny went on, in the same matter-of-fact tone of voice.

'Something's trying to push us out,' said Agnes.

'But it won't,' said Nanny. 'And I don't think it'll harm us.'

'That was a big slab!' said Agnes.

'Yeah. But it missed us, didn't it?'

There was an underground river further on, sheer white water blurred with speed. It poured around and almost over a dam of driftwood, topped by an inviting long log.

'Look, this isn't safe for the baby!’  said Agnes. 'Do you both see that? You're her mother, Magrat!’

'Yes, I know, I was there,' said Magrat, with infuriating calm. 'But this doesn't feel,unsafe. Granny's here somewhere.'

'That's right,' said Nanny. 'Really close now, I think.'

'Yes, but she can't control rivers and rocks-' Agnes began.

'Here? Dunno. Very . . . responsive place, this.'

They inched their way across the log, passing the baby from one to the other.

Agnes leaned against the stone wall. 'How much further?'

'Well, technic'ly a few inches,' said Nanny. 'That's helpful to know, isn't it?'

'Is it just me,' said Magrat, 'or is it getting warmer?'

'Now that,' said Agnes, pointing ahead, 'I don't believe.'

At the end of a slope a crevasse had opened in the rock. Red light spilled out. As they stared at it, a ball of flame rolled up and burst across the ceiling.

'Oh deary deary me,' said Nanny, who had taken a turn to carry the baby. 'An' it's not even as if there's any volcanoes anywhere near here. What can she be thinking?' She headed purposefully towards the fire.

'Careful!' Agnes shouted. 'Perdita says it's real!’

'What's that got to do with the price of fish?' said Nanny, and stepped into the fire.

The flames snapped out.

The other two stood in the chilly, damp gloom.

Magrat shuddered. 'Nanny, you are carrying the baby.'

'The harm you come to here is what you brings with you,' said Nanny. 'And it's Granny's thoughts that are shaping this place. But she wouldn't raise a hand to a child. Couldn't do it. Hasn't got it in her.'

'This place is reacting to what she's thinking?' said Agnes.

'I reckon so,' said Nanny, setting off again.

'I'd hate to be inside her head!'

'You nearly are,' said Nanny. 'Come on. We've passed the fire. I don't think there'll be anything else.'

They found her in a cavern. It had sand on the floor, smooth and unmarked by anything except one set of footprints. Her hat had been placed neatly beside her. Her head rested on a rolled-up sack. She held a card in stiff hands.

It read:

GOE AWAY

'That's not very helpful,' said Magrat, and sat down with the baby across her lap. 'After all this, too.'

'Can't We wake her up?' said Agnes.

'That's dangerous,' said Nanny Ogg. 'Trying to call her back when she ain't ready to come? Tricky.'

'Well, can we at least take her out of here?'

'She won't bend round corners but, hah, maybe we could use her as a bridge,' said Nanny. 'No, she came here for a reason . . .'

She pulled the sack out from under Granny's head, which did not move, and opened it.

'Wrinkly apple, bottle of water and a cheese sandwich you could bend horseshoes round,' she said. 'And her old box.'

She set it down on the floor between them.

'What is in there?' said Agnes.

'Oh, keepsakes. Memorororabiliha, like I said. That sort of thing,' said Nanny. 'She always says it's full of things she's got no further use for.' She drummed her fingers on the box as if accompanying a thought on the piano, and then picked it up.

'Should you do that?' said Agnes.

'No,' said Nanny. She lifted out a bundle of papers tied with ribbon and put them on one side.

They all saw the light shining up from underneath. Nanny reached in and took out a small glass medicine bottle, tightly corked, and held it up. A little glow inside was quite bright in the gloom of the cave.

'Seen this bottle before,' said Nanny. 'She's got all kinds of odds and ends in here. Never noticed it glowing, though.'

Agnes took the bottle. Inside there was what looked like a piece of fern, or . . . no, it was a feather, quite black except for the very tip, which was as yellow and bright as a candle flame.

'Do you know what it is?'

'No. She's always pickin' up stuff. She's had the bottle a long time, 'cos I've seen it in there-'

'I faw her fick it uff-' Magrat removed a safetypin from her mouth. 'I saw her pick that thing up years ago,' she tried again. 'It was around this time of year, too. We were walking back through the woods and there was a shooting star and this sort of light fell off it and we went to look and there it was. It looked like a flame but she was able to pick it up.'

'Sounds like a firebird feather,' said Nanny. 'There used to be old stories about them. They pass through here. But if you touch their feathers you'd better be damn sure of yourself, because the old stories say they burn in the presence of evil-'

'Firebird? You mean a phoenix?' said Agnes. 'Hodgesaargh was going on about one.'

'Haven't seen one go over for years,' said Nanny. 'Sometimes you'd see two or three at a time when I was a girl, just lights flying high up in the sky.'

'No, no, the phoenix . . . there's only one of it, that's the whole point,' said Agnes.

'One of anything's no bloody use,' said Nanny.

Granny Weatherwax smacked her lips, like someone emerging from a very deep sleep. Her eyelids flickered.

'Ah, I knew opening her box'd work,' said Nanny happily.

Granny Weatherwax's eyes opened. She stared straight up for a moment, and then swivelled them towards Nanny Ogg.

'W't'r,' she mumbled. Agnes hastily passed her the water bottle. She touched Granny's fingers, and they were as chilly as stone.

The old witch took a gulp.

'Oh. It's you three,' she whispered. 'Why did you come here?'

'You told us to,' said Agnes.

'No, I didn't!' Granny snapped. 'Wrote you a note, did I?'

'No, but the stuff-' Agnes stopped. 'Well, we thought you wanted us to.'

'Three witches?' said Granny. 'Well, no reason why not. The maiden, the mother and the-'

'Go carefully,' Nanny Ogg warned.

'-the other one,' said Granny. 'That's up to you, I'm sure. It's not something about which I would venture any sort of opinion. So I expect you've got some dancin' to be doing, and good day to you. I'll have my pillow back, thank you very much.'

'You know there's vampires in Lancre?' Nanny demanded.

'Yes. They got invited.'

'You know they're taking over?'

'Pest'

'So why did you run away up here?' said Agnes.

The temperature of a deep cave should remain constant, but suddenly this one was a lot colder.

'I can go where I like,' said Granny.

'Yes, but you ought-' Agnes began. She wished she could bite the word back, but it was too late.

'Oh, ought, is it? Where does it say ought? I don't remember it saying ought anywhere. Anyone going to tell me where it says ought? There's lots of things that ought, I dare say. But they ain't.'

'You know a magpie stole your invite?' said Nanny. 'Shawn delivered it okay, but them thieving devils had it away and into a nest.'

She flourished the crumpled, smudged yet goldladen invitation.

In the moment of silence Agnes fancied she could hear the stalactites grow.

'Yes, of course I did,' said Granny. 'Worked that out first thing.' But the moment had been just slightly too long, and just slightly too quiet.

'And you know Verence got an Omnian

priest in to do the Naming of young Esme?'

Again . . . fractionally too long, infinitesimally too silent.

'You know I put my mind to business,' said Granny. She glanced at the baby sitting on Magrat's lap.

'Why's she got a pointy head?' she said.

'It's the little hood Nanny knitted for her,' said Magrat. 'It's meant to look like that. Would you like to hold her?'

'She looks comfortable where she is,' said Granny diffidently.

She didn't know the baby's name! Perdita whispered. I told you! Nanny thinks Granny's been in the baby's mind, l can tell by the way she's been looking at her, but if she had she'd know the name and she doesn't, I swear. She wouldn't do anything that might hurt a child. . .

Granny shook herself. 'Anyway, if there's a problem, well, you've got your three witches. It doesn't say anywhere that one of them ought,' she nodded at Agnes, 'to be Granny Weatherwax. You sort it out. I've been witching in these parts for altogether too long and it's time to . . . move on . . . do something else. . .'

'You're going to hide up here?' said Magrat.

'I'm not going to keep on repeating myself, my girl. People aren't going to tell me what I ought to do no more. I know what's ought and what's not. Your husband invited vampires into the country, did he? That's modern for you. Well, everyone else knows that a vampire don't have no power over you 'less you invite it in, and if it's a king as does the inviting, then they've got their teeth into the whole country. And I'm an ol' woman living in the woods and I've got to make it all better? When there's three of you? I've had a lifetime of ought from can to can't and now it's over, and I'll thank you for gettin' out of my cave. And that's an end of it.'

Nanny glanced at the other two and shrugged.

'Come on, then,' she said. 'If we get a wiggle on we can be back at the broomsticks before dark.'

'Is that all?' said Magrat.

'Things come to an end,' said Granny. 'I'm going to rest up here and then I'm on my way. Plenty of places to go.'

Now get her to tell you the truth, said Perdita. Agnes bit down. Ought had been bad enough.

'So we'll be getting along,' said Nanny. 'Come on.'

'But-'

'But me no buts,' said Nanny. 'As Granny would have said.'

'That's right!' said Granny, lying back.

As they filed back into the caves Agnes heard Perdita start counting.

Magrat patted her pockets. Nanny patted her knickerlegs.

Magrat said, 'Oh, I must have le-'

'Blow, I left my pipe back there,' said Nanny, so quickly that the sentence overtook the one in front.

Five seconds, said Perdita. 'I didn't see you take it out,' said Agnes.

Nanny gave her a piercing look. 'Really? Then I'd

better go and leave it there, hadn't I? Was there something you'd left too, Magrat? Never mind, I'll be sure to look for it, whatever it was going to be.'

'Well!' said Magrat, as Nanny darted back.

'Granny was certainly not telling the truth,' said Agnes.

'Of course she wasn't, she never does,' said Magrat. 'She expects you to work it out for yourself.'

'But she's right about us being three witches.'

'Yes, but I never intended to come back to it, I've got other things to do. Oh, perhaps when Esme's older I thought, maybe, a bit of part-time aromatherapy or something, but not serious full-time witching. This powerof-three business is . . . well, it's very old fashioned . . .'

And what have we got now? Perdita chimed in. The knowing but technically inexperienced young woman, the harassed young mother and the silver-haired golden alter ... doesn't exactly sound mythic, does it? But Magrat just bundled up her little baby as soon as she heard Granny was in trouble and she didn't even stop to worry about her husband . . .

'Wait a moment . . . listen,' said Agnes.

'What for?'

'Just listen ... the sound echoes in these caves. . .'

Nanny Ogg sat down on the sand and wriggled slightly to settle in firmly. She took out her pipe.

'So,' she said to the recumbent figure, 'apart from all that, how are you feeling?'

There was no reply.

'Saw Mrs Patternoster this morning,' Nanny went on chattily. 'Her from over in Slice. Just passed the time of day. Mrs ivy is bearing up well, she says.'

She blew out a cloud of smoke.

'I put her right about a few things,' she said.

There was still silence from the shadowy figure.

'The Naming went off all right. The priest's as wet as a snow omelette, though.'

'I can't beat 'em, Gytha,' said Granny. 'I can't beat 'em, and that's a fact.'

One of Nanny Ogg's hidden talents was knowing when to say nothing. It left a hole in the conversation that the other person felt obliged to fill.

'They've got minds like steel. I can't touch 'em. I've been tryin' everything. Every trick I've got! They've been searching for me but they can't focus right when I'm in here. The best one nearly got to me at the cottage. My cottage!’

Nanny Ogg understood the horror. A witch's cottage was her fortress.

'I've never felt anything like it, Gytha. He's had hundreds of years to get good. You noticed the magpies? He's using 'em as eyes. And he's clever, too. He's not going to fall to a garlic sandwich, that one. I can pick up that much. These vampires has learned. That's what they've never done before. I can't find a way into 'em anywhere. They're more powerful, stronger, they think quick . . . I tell you, going mind to mind with him's like spittin' at a thunderstorm.'

'So what're you going to do?'

'Nothing! There's nothing I can do! Can't you understand what I've been tellin' you? Don't you know I've been lying here all day tryin' to think of something? They know all about magic, Borrowing's second nature to them, they're fast, they think we're like cattle that can talk . . . I never expected anything like this, Gytha. I've thought about it round and round and there's not a thing I can see to do.'

'There's always a way,' said Nanny.

'I can't see it,' said Granny. 'This is it, Gytha. I might as well lie here until the water drips on me and I go into stone like the ol' witch at the door.'

'You'll find a way,' said Nanny. 'Weatherwaxes don't let 'emselves get beaten. It's something in the blood, like I've always said.'

'I am beaten, Gytha. Even before I start. Maybe someone else has a way, but I haven't. I'm up against a mind that's better'n mine. I just about keep it away from me but I can't get in. I can't fight back.'

The chilly feeling crept over Nanny Ogg that Granny Weatherwax meant it.

'I never thought I'd hear you say that,' she muttered.

'Off you go. No sense in keepin' the baby out in the cold.'

'And what are you going to do?'

'Maybe I shall move on. Maybe I'll just stop here.'

'Can't stop here for ever, Esme.'

'Ask her that is by the door.'

That seemed to be all there was going to be. Nanny walked out, found the others looking slightly too innocent in the next cave, and led the way to the open air.

'Found your pipe, then,' said Magrat.

'Yes, thank you.'

'What's she going to do?' said Agnes.

'You tell me,' said Nanny. 'I knows you was listenin'. You wouldn't be witches if you wasn't listenin' somehow.'

'Well, what can we do that she can't? If she's beaten, then so are we, aren't we?'

'What did Granny mean, "from can to can't"?' said Magrat.

'Oh, from the first moment in the morning when you can see to the last moment in the evenin' when you can't,' said Nanny.

'She's really feeling low, isn't she?'

Nanny paused by the stone witch. Her pipe had gone out. She struck a match on the hooked nose.

'There's three of us,' she said. 'The right number. So we'll start by having a proper coven meetin' . . .'

'Aren't you worried?' said Agnes. 'She's ... giving up. . . '

'Then it's up to us to carry on, isn't it?' said Nanny.

Nanny had placed the cauldron in the middle of the floor for the look of the thing, although an indoor coven meeting didn't feel right, and one without Granny Weatherwax felt worse.

Perdita said it made them look like soppy girls playing at it. The only fire in the room was in the huge black iron range, the very latest model, recently installed for Nanny by her loving sons. On it, the kettle began to boil.

'rll make the tea, shall I?' said Magrat, getting up.

'No, you sit down. It's Agnes's job to make the tea,' said Nanny. 'You're the mother, so it's your job to pour.'

'What's your job, Nanny?' said Agnes.

'I drinks it,' said Nanny promptly. 'Right. We've got to find out more while they're still actin' friendly. Agnes, you go back to the castle with Magrat and the baby. She needs extra help anyway.'

'What good will that do?'

'You told me yourself,' said Nanny. 'Vampires don't affect you. As soon as they try to see Agnes's mind it sinks down and up pops Perdita like a seesaw. Just when they're looking at Perdita, here comes Agnes again. Young Vlad's definitely got his eye on you, ain't he?'

'Certainly not!'

'Yeah, right,' said Nanny. 'Men always like women that've got a bit of mystery to 'em. They like a challenge, see? And while he's got his eye on you keeping your eye on Magrat, you've got your other eye on him, understand? Everyone's got a weakness. Maybe we'll not see the back of these vampires by going over to the curtains and saying, "My, isn't it stuffy in here?" but there's got to be some other way.'

'And if there isn't?'

'Marry him,' said Nanny firmly. Magrat gasped. The teapot rattled in her hand.

'That's horrible!' she said.

'I'd rather kill myself,' said Agnes. In the morning, said Perdita.

'Dun't have to be a long marriage,' said Nanny. 'Put a pointy stake in your garter and our lad'll be getting cold even before they've finished cutting up the wedding cake.'

'Nanny!'

'Or maybe you could just sort of . . . make him change his ways a bit,' Nanny went on. 'It's amazing what a wife can do if she knows her own mind, or minds in your case, course. Look at King Verence the First, for one. He used to toss all his meat bones over his shoulder until he was married and the Queen made him leave them on the side of the plate. I'd only bin married to the first Mr Ogg for a month before he was getting out of the bath if he needed to pee. You can refine a husband. Maybe you could point him in the direction of blutwurst and black puddings and underdone steak.'

'You really haven't got any scruples, have you, Nanny?' said Agnes.

'No,' said Nanny simply. 'This is Lancre we're talkin' about. If we was men, we'd be talking about layin' down our lives for the country. As women, we can talk about laying down.'

'I just don't want to hear this,' said Magrat.

'I ain't asking her to do what I wouldn't do,' said Nanny.

'Really? Then why-'

'Because no one wants me to do it,' said Nanny. 'But if I was fifty years younger I reckon I could have Sonny Jim bitin' turnips by midsummer.'

'You mean just because she's a woman she should use sexual wiles on him?' said Magrat. 'This is so . . . so . . . well, it's so Nanny Ogg, that's all I can say.'

'She should use any vale she can lay her hands on,' said Nanny. 'I don't care what Granny said, there's always a way. Like the hero in Tsort or wherever it was, who was completely invincible except for his heel and someone stuck a spear in it and killed him. . .'

'What are you expecting her to do, prod him all over?'

' 'I never understood that story, anyway,' said Nanny. 'I mean, if I knew I'd got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I'd go into battle wearing very heavy boots-'

'You don't know what he's like,' said Agnes, ignoring the diversion. 'He looks at me as if he's undressing me with his eyes.'

'Eyes is allowed,' said Nanny.

'And he's laughing at me all the time! As if he knows I don't like him and that adds to the fun!'

'Now you get into that castle!’  Nanny growled. 'For Lancre! For the Kingl For everyone in the country! And if he gets too much, let Perdita take over, 'cos I reckon there's some things she's better at!'

In the shocked silence there was a faint clinking noise from Nanny's sideboard.

Magrat coughed. 'J-just like the old days,' she said. 'Arguing all the time.'

Nanny stood up and unhooked a cast-iron saucepan from the beam over the kitchen range.

'You can't treat people like this,' said Agnes sullenly.

'I can,' said Nanny, tiptoeing in the direction of the sideboard. 'I'm the other one now, see?'

Ornaments flew and shattered as she brought the saucepan down hard, bottom upwards.

'Got you, you little blue devil!' she shouted. 'Don't think I didn't see you!'

The saucepan rose. Nanny leaned her weight on the handle but it still moved slowly along the dresser, rocking slightly from side to side, until it reached the edge.

Something red and blue dropped on to the floor and started moving towards the closed door.

At the same time Greebo shot past Agnes, accelerating. And then, just as he was about to spring, he changed his mind. All four feet extended their claws at the same time and bit into the floorboards. He rolled, sprang on to his feet, and started to wash himself.

The red and blue blur hit the door and picked itself up, becoming a blue man, six inches tall, with red hair. He carried a sword about the same size as himself.

'Ach, hins tak yer scaggie, yer dank yowl callyake!' he screamed.

'Oh, it's you,' said Nanny, relaxing. 'Do you want a drink?'

The sword was lowered slightly, but with a

definite hint that it could be raised again at a moment's notice.

"tazit?'

Nanny reached down to the crate by her chair and sorted through the bottles.

'Scumble? My best. Vintage,' she said.

The wee man's tiny eyes lit up. 'Las' Tuesda?'

'Right. Agnes, open that sewing box and pass me a thimble, will you? Come away here, man,' said Nanny, uncorking the bottle well away from the fire and filling up the thimble. 'Ladies, this here's ... let's see them tattoos ... yeah, this here's one of the Nac mac Feegle. The little bastards comes down and raids my still about once a year. I reckon I recognize the pattern.'

'Pings, yow graley yinl Suz ae rikt dheu,' said the blue man, taking the thimble.

'What is he?' said Magrat.

'They're gnomes,' said Nanny.

The man lowered the thimble. 'Pictsies!'

'Pixies, if you insist,' said Nanny. 'They live up on the high moors over towards Uberwald–'

'Ach! Bae, yon snae rikt speel, y'ol behennit! Feggersl Yon ken sweal boggin bludsuckers owl dhu tae-'

Nanny nodded while she listened. Halfway through the little man's rant she topped up his thimble.

'Ah, right,' she said, when he seemed to have finished. 'Well, he says the Nac mac Feegle have been forced out by the vampires, see? They've been driving out all the...' her lips

moved as she tried out various translations '. . . old people. . .'

'That's very cruel!’  said Magrat.

'No . . . I mean . . . old races. The people that live in . . . the corners. You know, the ones you don't see around a lot ... centaurs, bogeys, gnomes-'

'Pictsies!'

'Yeah, right . . . driving 'em out of the country.'

'Why should they do that?'

'Probably not fashionable any more,' said Nanny.

Agnes looked hard at the pixie. On a scale of ethereal from one to ten he looked as if he was on some other scale, probably one buried in deep ocean sludge. The blueness of his skin, she could see now, was made up of tattoos and paint. His red hair stuck out at all angles. His sole concession to the temperature was a leather loincloth. He saw her looking at him.

'Yist, awa' fra' yeeks, ye stawking gowt that'ya! Bigjobs!'

'Er, sorry,' said Agnes.

'Good language, ain't it?' said Nanny. 'A hint o' heather and midden. But when you've got the Nac mac Feegle on your side you're doing okay.'

The pixie waved the empty thimble at Nanny.

'Ghail o' bludy "lemonade", callyake I'

'Ah, no foolin' you, you want the real stuff,' said Nanny. She pulled back a chair cushion, and produced a black glass bottle with its cork held on by wire.

'You're not giving him that, are you?' said Magrat. 'That's your medicinal whisky!'

'And you always tell people it's strictly for extemal use only,' said Agnes.

'Ah, the Nac mac Feegle are a hard-headed race,' said Nanny, handing it down to the tiny man. To Agnes's amazement, he grasped a bottle bigger than himself with insolent ease. 'There you go, man. Share it with your mates, 'cos I know they're around here somewhere.'

There was a clink from the dresser. The witches looked up. Hundreds of pixies had simply appeared among the ornaments. Most of them wore pointed hats that curved so that the point was practically pointing down, and they all carried swords.

'Amazin' how they can just fade into the foreground like that,' said Nanny. 'That's what's kept 'em so safe all these years. That and killin' most people who saw 'em, of course.'

Greebo, very quietly, went and sat under her chair.

'So . . . you gentlemen have been turned out by the vampires, have ye?' said Nanny, as the bottle bobbed through the throng. A roar went up.

'Blaznet!'

'Ach, yon weezit fash' deveel!'

'Arnoch, a hard tickut!'

'Bigjobs!'

'I daresay you can stop in Lancre,' said Nanny, above the din.

'Just a moment, Nanny–' Magrat began.

Nanny waved a hand at her hurriedly. 'There's that island up on the lake,' she went on, raising her voice. 'It's where the herons nest. Just the place, eh? Lots of fish, lots of hunting up the valley.'

The blue pixies went into a huddle. Then one of them looked up.

'Priznae? Yowl's nae brennit, moy ghail!'

'Oh, you'd be left to yourself,' said Nanny. 'But no stealing cattle, eh?'

'These steal cattle?' said Agnes. 'Full-size cattle? How many of them does it take?'

'Four.'

'Four?'

'One under each foot. Seen 'em do it. You see a cow in a field, mindin' its own business, next minute the grass is rustlin', some little bugger shouts, "Hup, hup, hup," and the poor beast goes past voom! without its legs movin',' said Nanny. 'They're stronger'n cockroaches. You step on a pixie, you'd better be wearing good thick soles.'

'Nanny, you can't give them the island! It doesn't belong to you!' said Magrat.

'It doesn't belong to anyone,' said Nanny.

'It belongs to the King!’

'Ah. Well, what's his is yours, so give 'em the island and Verence can sign a bit o' paper later on. It's worth it,' Nanny added. 'A rent of not stealing our cows is well worth it. Otherwise you'll see cows zippin' around very fast. Backwards, sometimes.'

'Without their legs moving?' said Agnes.

'Right!'

'Well–' Magrat began.

'And they'll be useful,' Nanny added, lowering her voice. 'Fighting's what they like best.'

'Whist, yon fellaight fra' aquesbore!'

'Drinkin's what they like best,' Nanny corrected herself.

'Nae, boon a scullen!'

'Drinkin' and fightin's what they like best,' said Nanny.

'An' snaflin' coobeastie.'

'And stealing cows,' said Nanny. 'Drinkin', fightin' and stealin' cows is what they like best. Listen, Magrat, I'd rather have 'em in here pissin' out than outside pissin' in. There's more of them and they'll make your ankles all wet.'

'But what can they do?' said Magrat.

'Well ... Greebo's frightened of 'em,' said Nanny.

Greebo was two worried eyes, one yellow, one pearly white, in the shadows. The witches were impressed. Greebo had once brought down an elk. There was practically nothing that he wouldn't attack, including architecture.

'I'd have thought they'd have no trouble with vampires, then,' said Agnes.

'Ach, c'na flitty-flitty! Ye think we're flowers o' the forest fairies?' sneered a blue man.

'They can't fly,' said Nanny.

'It's quite a nice island, even so . . .' Magrat mumbled.

'Gel, your husband was messin' around with politics, which is why we're in this trouble, and to get you've got to give. Now he's ill and you're Queen so you can do as you like, right? There's no one who can tell you what to do, isn't that so?'

'Yes, I suppos-'

'So damn well give 'em the island and then

they've got somethin' here to fight for. Otherwise they'll just push on through anyway and nick all our livestock on the way. Dress that up in fancy talk, and you've got politics.'

'Nanny?' said Agnes.

'Yup?'

'Don't get angry, but you don't think Granny's doing this on purpose, do you? Keeping back, I mean, so that we have to form a three and work together?'

'Why'd she do that?'

'So we develop insights and pull together and learn valuable lessons,' said Magrat.

Nanny paused with her pipe halfway to her lips. 'No,' she said, 'I don't reckon Granny'd be thinking like that, because that's soppy garbage. Here, you blokes ... here's the key to the drinks cupboard in the scullery. Bugger off and have fun, don't touch the stuff in the green bottles because it's– Oh, I expect you'll be all right.'

There was a blue blur, and the room was cleared.

'We got things Granny ain't got,' said Nanny.

'Yes?' said Agnes.

'Magrat's got a baby. I've got no scruples. And we've both got you.'

'What good will I be?'

'Well, for one thing . . . you're in two minds about everything-'

There was a tinkle of glass from the scullery, and a scream of 'Ach, ya skivens! Yez lukin' at a faceful o' heid!'

'Crives! Sezu? Helweit! Summun hol' me cote! Gude! Now, summun hol' his arms!'

'Stitch this, f'ra ma brinnit goggel!' Some more glass broke.

'We'll all go back into the castle,' said Nanny. 'On our terms. Face this count down. And we'll take garlic and lemons and all the other stuff. And some of Mr Oats's holy water. You can't tell me all that stuff together won't work.'

'And they'll let us in, will they?' said Agnes.

'They'll have a lot to think about,' said Nanny. 'What with a mob at the gates. We can nip in round the back.'

'What mob?' said Magrat.

'We'll organize one,' said Nanny.

'You don't organize a mob, Nanny,' said Agnes. 'A mob is something that happens spontaneously.'

Nanny Ogg's eyes gleamed.

'There's seventy-nine Oggs in these parts,' she said. 'Spontaneous it is, then.'

Her gaze fell for a moment on the forest of familial pictures, and then she removed a boot and hammered on the wall beside her. After a few seconds they heard a door bang and footsteps pass in front of the window.

Jason Ogg, blacksmith and head male of the Ogg clan, poked his head around the front door.

'Yes, Mum?'

'There's going to be a spontaneous mob stormin' the castle in, oh, half an hour,' said Nanny. 'Put the word out.'

'Yes, Mum.'

'Tell everyone I said it ain't compuls'ry for them to be there, of course,' Nanny added. Jason glanced at the hierarchy of Oggs. Nanny didn't have to add anything more to that sentence. Everyone knew the cat's box sometimes needed lining.

'Yes, Mum. I'll tell 'em you said they didn't have to come if they don't want to.'

'Good boy.'

'Is it flaming torches or, you know, scythes and stuff?'

'That's always tricky,' said Nanny. 'But I'd say both.'

'Battering ram, Mum?'

'Er . . . no, I don't think so.'

'Good! It is my door, after all,' said Magrat.

'Anythin' special for people to yell, Mum?'

'Oh, general yellin', I think.'

'Anything to throw?'

'Just rocks on this occasion,' said Nanny.

'Not large ones!’  said Magrat. 'Some of the stonework around the main gate is quite fragile.'

'Okay, nothin' harder than sandstone, understand? And tell our Kev to roll out a barrel of my Number Three beer,' said Nanny. 'Better pour a bottle of brandy in it to keep out the chill. It can really strike right through your coat when you're hanging around outside a castle chantin' and wavin'. And get our Nev to run up to Poorchick's and say Mrs Ogg presents her compliments and we want half a dozen big cheeses and ten dozen eggs, and tell Mrs Carter will she be so good as to let us have a big jar of those pickled onions she does so well. It's a shame that we've not time to roast something, but I suppose you have to put up with that sort of inconvenience when you're being spontaneous.' Nanny Ogg winked at Agnes.

'Yes, Mum.'

'Nanny?' said Magrat, when Jason had hurried away.

'Yes, dear?'

'A couple of months ago, when Verence suggested that tax on liquor exports, there was a big crowd protesting in the courtyard and he said, "Oh, well, if that's the will of the people . . ."'

'Well, it was the will of the people,' said Nanny.

'Oh. Right. Good.'

'Only sometimes they temp'ry forget what their will is,' said Nanny. 'Now, you can leave young Esme next door with Jason's wife . . .'

'I'm keeping her with me,' said Magrat. 'She's happy enough on my back.'

'You can't do that!' said Agnes.

'Don't you dare argue with me, Agnes Nitt,' said Magrat, drawing herself up. 'And not a word out of you, Nanny.'

'Wouldn't dream of it,' said Nanny. 'The Nac mac Feegle always take their babies into battle, too. Mind you, for use as a weapon if it comes to it.'

Magrat relaxed a little. 'She said her first word this morning,' she said, looking proud.

'What, at fourteen days?' said Nanny doubtfully.

'Yes. It was "blup".'

'Blup?'

'Yes. It was . . . more of a bubble than a word, I suppose.'

'Let's get the stuff together,' said Nanny, standing up. 'We're a coven, ladies. We're a trio. I miss Granny as much as you do, but we've got to deal with things as she would.' She took a few deep breaths. 'I can't be having with this.'

'It sounds better the way she says it,' said Agnes.

'I know.'

Hodgesaargh ate his meal in the servants' dining room off the kitchen, and ate alone. There were new people around, but Hodgesaargh generally didn't pay much attention to non-falconers. There were always other people in the castle, and they had jobs to do, and if pressed Hodgesaargh would vaguely acknowledge the fact that if he left his laundry in a sack by the kitchen door every week it'd be washed and dried two days later. There were his meals. The game he left on the cold slab in the long pantry got dealt with. And so on.

He was returning to the mews when one of the shadows pulled him into the darkness, with a hand damped over his mouth.

'Mph?'

'It's me. Mrs Ogg,' said Nanny. 'You all right, Hodgesaargh?'

'Mph,' and by this Hodgesaargh contrived to indicate that he was fine except for someone's thumb blocking his breathing.

'Where are the vampires?'

'Mph?'

Nanny released her grip.

'Vampires?' the falconer panted. 'They the ones that walk around slowly?'

'No, that's the . . . food,' said Nanny. 'Any swishlooking buggers about as well? Any soldiers?'

There was a soft thud from somewhere in the shadows, and someone said, 'Blast, I've dropped the nappy bag. Did you see where it rolled?'

'Er, there's some new ladies and gentlemen,' said Hodgesaargh. 'They're hanging around the kitchens. There's some men in chainmail, too.'

'Damn!' said Nanny.

'There's the little door off the main hall,' said Magrat. 'But that's always locked on the inside.'

Agnes swallowed. 'All right. I'll go in and unlock it, then.'

Nanny tapped her on the shoulder. 'You'll be all right?' .

'Well, they can't control me. . .'

'They can grab you, though.'

Wad won't want you hurt, said Perdita. You saw the way he looked at us . . .

'I . . . think I'll be all right,' said Agnes.

'You know your own minds best, I'm sure,' said Nanny. 'Got the holy water?'

'Let's hope it works better than the garlic,' said Agnes.

'Good luck.' Nanny coded her head. 'Sounds like the mob is spontaneously arriving at the gate. Go!'

Agnes ran off into the rain, around the castle to the doors of the kitchen. They were wide open. She made it to the corridor beyond the kitchens when a hand grabbed her shoulder, and then in a blur of speed two young men were standing in front of her.

They were dressed something like the young opera-goers she'd seen in Ankh-Morpork, except that their fancy waistcoats would have been considered far too fast by the staider members of the community, and they wore their hair long like a poet who hopes that romantically flowing locks will make up for a wretched inability to find a rhyme for 'daffodil'.

'Why are you in such a hurry, girl?' one said.

Agnes sagged. 'Look,' she said, 'I'm very busy. Can we speed this up? Can we dispense with all the leers and "I like a girl with spirit" stuff? Can we get right to the bit where I twist out of your grip and kick you in the-'

One of them struck her hard across the face.

'No,' he said.

'I'll tell Vlad of you!' Perdita screamed in Agnes's voice.

The other vampire hesitated.

'Hah! Yes, he knows me!' said Agnes and Perdita together. 'Hah!'

One of the vampires looked her up and down.

'What, you?' he said.

'Yes, her,' said a voice.

Vlad strolled towards them, thumbs hooked into the pockets of his waistcoat.

'Demone? Crimson? To me, please?'

The two went and stood meekly in front of him. There was a blur, and then his thumbs were back in his waistcoat and the two vampires were in mid-crumple and sinking to the floor.

'This is the kind of thing we don't do to our guests,' said Vlad, stepping over Demone's twitching body and holding out his hands to Agnes. 'Did they hurt you? Say the word and I'll turn them over to Lacrimosa. She's just discovered you have a torture chamber here. And to think we thought Lancre was backward!'

'Oh, that old thing,' said Agnes weakly. Crimson was making bubbling noises. I didn't even see his hands move, said Perdita. 'Er . . . it's been there for centuries . . .'

'Oh, really? She did say there weren't enough straps and buckles. Still, she is . . . inventive. Just say the word.'

Say the word, Perdita prompted. That'd be two less of them.

'Er . . . no,' said Agnes. Ah . . . moral cowardice from the fat girl. 'Er.. . who are they?'

'Oh, we brought some of the clan in on the carts. They can make themselves useful, Father said.'

'Oh? They're relatives?' Granny Weatherwax would've said yes, Perdita whispered.

Vlad coughed gently. 'By blood,' he said. 'Yes. In a way. But . . . subservient. Do come this way.'

He gently took her arm and led her back up the passage, treading heavily on Crimson's twitching hand as he did so.

'You mean vampirism is like . . . pyramid selling?' said Agnes. She was alone with Vlad. Admittedly this had the edge over being alone with the other two, but somehow at a time like this it seemed vital to hear the sound of her own

voice, if only to remind herself that she was alive.

'I'm sorry?' said Vlad. 'Who sells pyramids?'

'No, I mean . . . you bite five necks, and in two months' time you get a lake of blood of your very own?'

He smiled, but a little cautiously. 'I can see we will have a lot to learn,' he said. 'I understood every word fn that sentence, but not the sentence itself. I'm sure there is a lot you could teach me. And, indeed, I could teach you. . .'

'No,' said Agnes, flatly.

'But when we- Oh, what is that moron doing now?'

A cloud of dust was advancing from the direction of the kitchens. In the middle of it, holding a bucket and a shovel, was Igor.

'Igor!'

'Yeth, marthter?'

'You're putting down dust again, aren't you?'

'Yeth, marthter.'

'And why are you putting down dust, Igor?' said Vlad icily.

'You've got to have dutht, marthter. It'th tradi-'

'Igor, Mother told you. We don't want dust. We don't want huge candlesticks. We don't want eyeholes cut in all the pictures, and we certainly don't want your wretched box of damn spiders and your stupid little whip!'

In the ringing, red-hot silence Igor looked down at his feet.

'. . . thpiderth webth ith what people ecthpect, marthter . . .' he mumbled.

'We don't want them!'

'. . . the old Count liked my thpiderth. . .' said Igor, his voice like some little insect that would nevertheless not be squashed.

'It's ridiculous, Igor.'

'... he uthed to thay, "Good webth today, Igor . . ."'

'Look, just . . . just go away, will you? See if you can't sort out that dreadful smell from the garderobe. Mother says it makes her eyes water. And stand up straight and walk properly!’  Vlad called after him. 'No one's impressed by the limp!'

Agnes saw Igor's retreating back pause for a moment, and she expected him to say something. But then he continued his wobbly walk.

'He's such a big baby,' said Vlad, shaking his head. 'I'm sorry you had to see that.'

'Yes, I think I'm sorry too,' said Agnes.

'He's going to be replaced. Father's only been keeping him on out of sentiment. I'm afraid he came with the old castle, along with the creaking roof and the strange smell halfway up the main stairs which, I have to say, is not as bad as the one we've noticed here. Oh dear. . . look at this, will you? We turn our back for five minutes . . .'

There was a huge and very dribbly candle burning in a tall black candlestick.

'King Verence had all those oil lamps put in, a lovely modern light, and Igor's been going around replacing them with candles again! We don't even know where he gets them from. Lacci thinks he saves his earwax . . .'

They were in the long room beside the great hall now. Vlad lifted the candlestick up so that the flame's glow lit the wall.

'Ah, they've put the pictures up. You ought to get to know the family . . .'

The light fell on a portrait of a tall, thin, greyhaired man in evening dress and a red-lined cloak. He looked quite distinguished in a distant, aloof sort of way. There was the glimmer of a lengthened canine on his lower lip.

'My great-uncle,' said Vlad. 'The last ... incumbent.'

'What's the sash and star he's wearing?' said Agnes. She could hear the sounds of the mob, far off but growing louder.

'The Order of Gvot. He built our family home. Don'tgonearthe Castle, we call it. I don't know whether you've heard of it?'

'It's a strange name.'

'Oh, he used to laugh about it. The local coachmen used to warn visitors, you see. "Don't go near the castle," they'd say. "Even if it means spending a night up a tree, never go up there to the castle," they'd tell people. "Whatever you do, don't set foot in that castle." He said it was marvellous publicity. Sometimes he had every bedroom full by 9 p.m. and people would be hammering on the door to get in. Travellers would go miles out of their way to see what all the fuss was about. We won't see his like again, with any luck. He did rather play to the crowd, I'm afraid. Rose from the grave so often that he had a coffin with a revolving lid. Ah . . . Aunt Carmilla . . .'

Agnes stared at a very severe woman in a figure-hugging black dress and deep-plum lipstick.

'She was said to bathe in the blood of up to two hundred virgins at a time,' Vlad said. 'I don't believe that. Use more than eighty virgins and even quite a large bath will overflow, Lacrimosa tells me.'

'These little details are important,' said Agnes, buoyed up by the excitement of terror. 'And, of course, it is so hard to find the soap.'

'Killed by a mob, I'm afraid.'

'People can be so ungrateful.'

'And this. . .' the light passed along the hall '. . . is my grandfather . . .'

A bald head. Dark-rimmed, staring eyes. Two teeth like needles, two ears like batwings, fingernails that hadn't been trimmed for years . . .

'But half the picture's just bare canvas,' said Agnes.

'The family story is that old Magyrato got hungry,' said Vlad. 'A very direct approach to things, my grandfather. See the reddish-brown stains just here? Very much in the old style. And here . . . well, some distant ancestor, that's all I know.'

This picture was mostly dark varnish. There was a suggestion of a beak on a hunched figure.

Vlad turned away, quickly. 'We've come a long way, of course,' he said. 'Evolution, Father says.'

'They look very . . . powerful,' said Agnes.

'Oh, yes. So very powerful, and yet so very, very dumb,' said Vlad. 'My father thinks stupidity is somehow built into vampirism, as if the desire for fresh blood is linked to being as thick as a plank: Father is a very unusual vampire. He and Mother raised us . . . differently.'

'Differently,' said Agnes.

'Vampires aren't very family orientated. Father says that's natural. Humans are raising their successors, you see, but we live for a very long time so a vampire is raising competitors. There's not a lot of family feeling, you could say.'

'Really.' In the depths of her pocket Agnes's fingers closed around the bottle of holy water.

'But Father said self-help was the only way out. Break the cycle of stupidity, he said. Little traces of garlic were put into our food to get us used to it. He tried early exposure to various religious symbols – oh dear, we must have had the oddest nursery wallpaper in the world, never mind the jolly frieze of Gertie the Dancing Garlic – and I have to say that their efficacy isn't that good in any case. He even made us go out and play during the day. That which does not kill us, he'd say, makes us strong-'

Agnes's arm whirled. The holy water spiralled out of the bottle and hit Vlad full in the chest.

He threw his arms wide and screamed as water cascaded down and poured into his shoes.

She'd never expected it to be this easy.

He raised his head and winked at her.

'Look at this waistcoat! Will you look at this waistcoat? Do you know what water does to silk? You just never get it out! No matter what you do, there's always a mark.' He looked at her frozen expression and sighed.

'I suppose we'd better get some things off our chest, hadn't we?' he said. He looked up at the wall and took down a very large and spiky axe. He thrust it at her.

'Take this and cut my head off, will you?' he said. 'Look, I'll loosen my cravat. Don't want blood on it, do we? There. See?'

'Are you trying to tell me that you were brought up with this, too?' she said hotly. 'What was it, a little light hatchet practice after breakfast? Cut your head off a little bit every day and the real thing won't hurt?'

Vlad rolled his eyes. 'Everyone knows that cutting off a vampire's head is internationally acceptable,' he said. 'I'm sure Nanny Ogg would be swinging right now. Come along, there's a lot of muscle in those rather thick arms, I'm-'

She swung.

He reached around from behind her and whisked the axe out of her arms.

'–sure,' he finished. 'We are also very, very fast.'

He tested the blade with his thumb. 'Blunt, I notice. My dear Miss Nitt, it may just be more trouble than it's worth to try to get rid of us, do you see? Now, old Magyrato there would not have made the kind of offer we are making to Lancre. Dear me, no. Are we ravaging across the country? No? Forcing our way into bedrooms? Certainly not. What's a little blood, for the good of the community? Of course Verence will have to be demoted a little but, let's face it, the man is rather more of a clerk than a king. And . . . our friends may find us grateful. What is the point of resisting?'

'Are vampires ever grateful?'

'We can learn.'

'You're just saying that in exchange for not actually being evil you'll simply be bad, is that it?'

'What we are saying, my dear, is that our time has come,' said a voice behind them.

They both turned.

The Count had stepped into the gallery. He was wearing a smoking jacket. There was an armed man strolling on either side of him.

'Oh dear, Vlad . . . Playing with your food? Good evening, Miss Nitt. We appear to have a mob at the gates, Vlad.'

'Really? That's exciting. I've never seen a real mob.'

'I wish your first could have been a better one,' said the Count, and sniffed. 'There's no passion in it. Still, it'd be too tiresome to let it go on all through dinner. I shall tell them to go away.'

The doors of the hall swung open without apparent aid.

'Shall we go and watch?' said Vlad.

'Er, I think I'll go and powder my, I'll just go and . . . I'll just be a minute,' said Agnes, backing away.

She darted down the little corridor that led to the small door, and drew the bolts.

'About time,' said Nanny, hurrying in. 'It's really clammy out here.'

'They've gone to look at the mob. But there's other vampires here, not just the guards! The rest must've come in on the carts! They're like . . . not quite servants but they take orders.'

'How many are there?' said Magrat.

'I haven't found out! Vlad is trying to get to know me better!'

'Good plan,' said Nanny. 'See if he talks in his sleep.'

'Nanny!'