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

by Terry Pratchett

“People round here don’t so much die as pass on,” said Nanny. “What goeth around cometh around,” said Igor.

He rubbed his forehead. The Count prided himself on his mind, and tended it carefully. But right now it felt exposed, as though someone was looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t certain he was thinking right. She couldn’t have got into his head, could she? He’d had hundreds of years of experience. There was no way some village witch could get past his defenses.

His throat felt parched. At least he could obey the call of his nature. But this time it was an oddly disquieting one. “Do we have any . . . tea?” he said. “What is tea?” said the Countess.

“I think you should try to get a grip, dear,” said the Countess. “This . . . tea,” said Lacrimosa. “Is it . . . brown?” “. . . yes . . .” whispered the Count. “Because when we were in Escrow I was going to put the bite on one of them and I had this horrible mental picture of a cup full of the wretched stuff,”

“It’s not a magic amulet, Mistress Weatherwax! Please! A magic amulet is a symbol of primitive and mechanistic superstition, whereas the Turtle of Om is . . . is . . . is . . . well, it’s not, do you understand?”

“But the holy words are: do what I tell you or get smitten. They should do the trick.”

You can’t have just one of anything.”

“It was born among hawks, so it looks like a hawk. If it was hatched in a hen roost it’d be a chicken.

Hodgesaargh was right. A phoenix is of the nature of birds. Bird first, myth second.”

“It knows what they did,” said Granny. “It was hatched knowing. Phoenixes share their minds. And they don’t tolerate evil.”

Nanny raced up some stairs, a couple of vampires at her heels. They were hampered because they hadn’t got to grips with not being able to fly, but there was something else wrong with them as well. “Tea!” one screamed. “I must have . . . tea!”

“Granny’s somewhere here,” she panted. “Don’t ask me how. But those two were craving a cup of tea, and I reckon only Esme could mess up someone’s head like that—”

male birds are always ones for the big display, aren’t they?”

“It doesn’t burn itself?” Oats said, weakly. “Shouldn’t think so,” said Granny, stepping over the wreckage. “Wouldn’t be much point.”

“They say that whether it burns you or not is up to you,” said Granny. “I used to watch them as a kid. My granny told me about ’em. Some cold nights you see them dancin’ in the sky over the Hub, burnin’ green and gold . . .” “Oh, you mean the aurora coriolis,”

“Dunno what it’s caused by,” said Granny sharply, “but what it is, is the phoenix dancin’.”

“And to think I thought it was an allegorical creature,” said the priest. “Well? Even allegories have to live,”

There’s no point in having underlings if you don’t let them be the first to go through suspicious doors.

“What have you done to us?!” Lacrimosa screamed. “You’ve taught us how to see hundreds of the damned holy things! They’re everywhere! Every religion has a different one! You taught us that, you stupid bastard! Lines and crosses and circles . . . oh my . .

“Oh, I just said she wasn’t a bloodsucker. I didn’t say she was a nice person,” said Granny. “She didn’t mind shedding blood, but she drew the line at drinking it. You don’t have to, neither.”

I ain’t been vampired. You’ve been Weatherwaxed. All of you. And you’ve always listened to your blood, haven’t you?”

Time goes so quickly when you’re dead.”

Don’t trust the cannibal just ’cos he’s usin’ a knife and fork!

evil might come animal sharp in the night, or grayly by day on a list

You don’t live, Count. The phoenix lives. You just don’t know you’re dead.

“Oh, some people’ll kill anything for the fun of it.”

“Don’t go spilling allegory all down your shirt.”

“The world is . . . different.” Oats’s gaze went out across the haze, and the forests, and the purple mountains. “Everywhere I look I see something holy.”

Holiness is where you find it,”

He was interested in how annoyed you could make Nanny by speaking calmly to her, and wondered if Granny Weatherwax had tried it.

But Lancre people had never got the hang of accents and certainly didn’t agree with trying to balance two dots on another letter, where they’d only roll off and cause unnecessary punctuation.