Carpe Jugulum (Discworld, #23; Witches, #6)

by Terry Pratchett

books that were all about the world tended to be written by people who knew all about books rather than all about the world.

magic was tricky stuff and nothing used any more of it than it needed to.

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.

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 humor.

“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.”

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

“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 strong minded 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.”

Here the eyes behind the faces had a switched-off look.

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.

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

Mrs. Scorbic was permanently angry, in the same way that mountains are permanently large.

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.

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.

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 ol’ tree. Or a used hanky . . . all folded up small but still big in a different way.”

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

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.

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.”

Why, yesterday I mislaid a sock and I simply don’t care. I have lots of socks. Extra socks can be arranged!”

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.

“The marker. Hard to get out again if you don’t know about it,”

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.

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

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

“Gnarly ground, see? Bigger on the inside.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

Some of us might have further to fall than others.”

“Oh, that’s the witch,” said Nanny. “She’s not a problem.”

“He said the witch was just a lot of ol’ 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.”

“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,”

“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.”

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!”

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.”

“Weatherwaxes don’t let ’em-selves get beaten. It’s something in the blood, like I’ve always said.”

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.”

“I knows you was listenin’. You wouldn’t be witches if you wasn’t listenin’ somehow.”

“Aren’t you worried?” said Agnes. “She’s . . . giving up . . .” “Then it’s up to us to carry on, isn’t it?” said Nanny.

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.

If we was men, we’d be talking about layin’ down our lives for the country. As women, we can talk about laying down.”

“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 wile she can lay her hands on,” said Nanny. “I don’t care what Granny said, there’s always a way.

“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—”

And if he gets too much, let Perdita take over, ’cos I reckon there’s some things she’s better at!”

“No,” she said, “I don’t reckon Granny’d be thinking like that, because that’s soppy garbage.

“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.”

“You don’t organize a mob, Nanny,” said Agnes. “A mob is something that happens spontaneously.”

“There’s seventy-nine Oggs in these parts,” she said. “Spontaneous it is, then.”

“Is it flaming torches or, you know, scythes and stuff?” “That’s always tricky,” said Nanny. “But I’d say both.”