The Mountain of Youth
A Tale From the Discworld by Australis
Spring in Lancre was its sharp and crusty self. Snow still lay in deep drifts , but the roads were mainly clear and some of the hardier plants had put forth a few leaves to suck up the sun. The locals were saying how warm it was, with barely a coating of ice in their washbowls in the mornings. They breed them tough in the Ramtops, but even the toughest people have their limits.
"Dear me," Nanny Ogg said gently, "you should have got this seen to earlier."
"Er. Yes. Er." Tom O'Pandemonium was, as Lancrastians say, a big lad. Trolls called him a big lad. Dwarves didn't; he was too big for them to see, he'd speak and they'd wonder where the voice was coming from, probably from behind this huge thing they couldn't see round. He couldn't fit into her cottage, so they were in Jason Ogg's workshop, with him sitting on the floor and her up on her toes looking at the wound on his shoulder. While it didn't look like much on him, up close Nanny realised it was the size of a dinner plate. "What have you been playing with?" Tom shifted uncomfortably. Poor man must be in pain, she thought.
"A bear. Up on Razorback." She thought for a moment.
"That wouldn't be Mad Bruce, would it?"
"Yeah." Mad Bruce. How to describe him? There were cottages smaller than Mad Bruce. There were bridges smaller than Mad Bruce. There were castles the same size as Mad Bruce, and they would have been easier to knock down.
"You should pick on someone your own-- Oh. I suppose Mad Bruce is your size. Does it hurt?"
"Yeah," he said, with such a sad face. She prodded it gently. He didn't flinch. She prodded again, harder. No flinch. She hit it. Nothing.
"You sure it hurts?"
"Yeah. No." He gazed at his hands, clenching and unclenching. "Not the cut. The ointment." And now his tone was desperate.
"You've already got ointment for this?"
"And it hurts when you put it on?"
"Yeah!"
"Got it with you?" He produced a stone jar, and Nanny took it and gave it a small sniff. Her eyes rolled in her head and she knew she wouldn't have to blow her nose for weeks. She held it and arms' length and sniffed ever so slightly. It was quite recognisable. She thought for a moment before turning to Tom.
"Hurts, does it?"
"Yeah."
"Then I know what you need."
People passing the blacksmith's heard a whang! They hurried away when they saw Tom O'Pandemonium stagger out with a steel bar and a dazed expression wrapped around his head, followed by that rare sight, an angry Nanny Ogg.
"You came to me for a second opinion after you'd already got some ointment from Granny Weatherwax?! I can't do that! If she found out, she'd be cranky! She'd certainly say something cutting!"
"But it stings!," said the man who'd been bitten by a bear and was in more pain over the cure.
"Well, go and tell heryou want new ointment!"
They breed them tough in the Ramtops, and Tom O'Pandemonium was one of the toughest. But there are limits.
"I'll use the ointment what she gave me," he said miserably.
"Good. Be a big boy. Granny's ointment might hurt, but you won't get any better, not even from me. Now get that bar off your head, and I'll get our Jason to straighten it out. You go on home." She patted his arm.
"Be brave."
A lot of what gets done in any world, for good or bad, is brought about by will, that your belief in the course of action you embark upon is correct and must be seen through to the end. The only problem with that is that sometimes your views don't coincide with anyone else's, which means you're either mad or a Conservative politician. Or both.
The Discworld, moving through a second-hand set of dimensions, on the back of four elephants, themselves on the back of Great A'Tuin, has a lot of raw magic wrapped in fields around it like an industrial-strength mummy. The Ramtops experiences that magic in its most potent forms.
Will and magic are a powerful combination. It can, in the wrong person, transcend the most terminal of conditions.
While Lancre people didn't have a single organised religion, they did have graveyards. Small, neat, quiet memorials to loved ones lost, with the occasional bad man or woman in the corner that was always overgrown. Tansy Streed had come down to see her mother, but as she cleared the weeds away, she kept glancing around nervously. There was something on the edge of hearing… It was gone. She returned to her thoughts.
Husband gone, children living in Ankh-Morpork, she had been alone for a long time, and kept her life ticking over with the small rituals, like keeping her mother company. That was how life…
There it was again. Like a sigh on the wind. "Tansy…" She rose from her knees and peered cautiously into the weeds
"Who's there?"
"Tansy…"
"No, I'm Tansy, who are you?"
"Need… you…" Little more than a breathless murmur.
"What for?"
"Help… me…"
Her children had told her about the time the alchemists had made moving pictures in Holy Wood, and how some of the scarier stories had people going into room to meet something nasty. At 72, however, she thought that nasty creatures probably preferred something younger and tastier (at least, they did in the moving pictures). So with brave heart she moved into the dark corner.
"Where are you?"
"Here… over here." Shadows bent down over the old graves. She moved closer. The whisper seemed to come from a gravestone. She stoped next to it and read it. Her eyes widened and she tensed for flight…
The ground at her feet erupted. Something rose up, all dirty rags and grey-green flesh, the smell of…roasted meat? Two limbs reached for Tansy, the crushed eyes in the twisted face flashed glowing blue, hungry and triumphant…
Death sat at his desk, pen scratching as he updated his ledgers, While he knew he wasn't wicked, there was no rest.
He raised his head. There was a sound, a discordant note in the normal sounds of his home. It wasn't the great Clock in the hall. It wasn't the wheat rustling in the rolling fields outside. It wasn't Albert frying his porridge. Something else.
He stood, and walked down to the hall to the room that held the lifetimers, and paused outside it. It was in there. He swung the doors open, and the long susurration of a million passing moments washed over him. But there was definitely something else, a note that didn't fit. He moved up and down the shelves slowly, then reached an ivory hand up and took one down. The sound was even more definite now, a whine like a mosquito in the dark you know has your name and blood type. It was glowing slightly. And the sand was running backward. And he could see the name on the base had once said 'Tansy Streed', but was now overlaid with another in spidery, glowing blue script. The blue dots in Death's eyes flashed red for a moment.
This was wrong.
It wasn't much, being the witch in Skund these days, thought Alice Spratt, shelling peas in her chair by the stove. Not since she had been here. The people roundabout kept very much to themselves or went elsewhere. Her own name didn't help. But it was the right thing to do; a witch had to be here for the time she was needed, and over time trust could be rebuilt. She wished the cottage could be rebuilt. It had a tendency to crumble in the rain, and had seen better days, and its design was decidedly stale.
There was a knock at the door, brisk. Challenging, even. Alice got up from the chair brushing crumbs off, and crossed the small room to answer it. A woman was standing there in rough rags, like something she'd been buried in.
"Can I help you?" she asked in that tone Ramtops witches employ, half solicitation, half battle cry. The visitor turned to face Alice with hard, blue eyes, more than a little mad. They had never met, but there are some things witches know.
"You!… You!…" Alice gasped, stepping back in shock.
That was all she had time to say.
Granny Weatherwax had a variable view of children. That was normal for people who didn't have any of their own, but as was her nature, she was the reverse of everyone else. She found children less interesting the older they became. She liked them for their clarity of mind, if not understanding, as soon as they could get up and explore the world. But as the fogs of worry and embarrassment and expectations and responsibility settled in, the person that had once been clear would fade into the grey. Granny preferred directness, but just a little caution too, as sometimes they saw things too clearly. and expressed it in a voice that usually needed to have its nose blown.
"You've got a big nose."
"And you've got a spotty face. And you'll soon have a thick ear."
"Oh dear, is that a new disease?"
"No, just a promise."
Roslen Pew wrung her hands. Her boy Jarry had been desperately ill, and the only person who could really help him had just been told by him that she was significantly enhanced in the nasal region. And she had just promised trouble to him. Yet… yet… her hands were gentle and skilled as she probed his joints and brushed his skin. She turned away for a moment, then turned back with a small bottle in her hand.
"Go to Mr Carter's down the road. Tell him I asked if you could borrow his donkey. Take him straight home and put him to bed."
"The donkey?" asked Jarry
"You and the donkey if you're not careful, and he kicks in his sleep," she snapped, but her eyes were vigilant, knowing how serious the child's condition was. She turned her attention to Roslen. "Put the boy to bed. He needs plenty of rest, and this will get worse before it gets better. Give him half a teaspoon of this when he becomes feverish."
"Is it a long walk to Carter's?"
"About half an hour" Granny said. Not close, she thought, and he needs to rest now.
"Then I'll carry him there, and borrow the donkey." The witch looked at the mother, saw the determination on her face.
"That's good. Blessings be upon you… good mother." The woman gave her a grateful smile, picked up the child, and without another word headed off into the dusk. Granny watched them as they disappeared amongst the trees. She has never been a mother but she knew the bond. Roslen would carry that child as far as was needed. And then carry him further.
As she turned back to her cottage, there was a movement at the eye's corner, and she turned to face it, as it faded out of the foreground. A magnificent white horse caparisoned in black leather with silver facings, being ridden by a lean, hooded and robed figure.
"Good evening," Granny said. There was no fear, he wasn't there for her. Yet.
GOOD EVENING
"'Tis a lovely one, this time of year."
YES. THEY USUALLY ARE. They both paused to admire the view, which stretched all the way to the Rim, glowing as the sun set under it. Death climbed down from Binky, put a nosebag on him, and approached her.
"Well, you're not here for me. And you don't normally make social calls."
NO. IT IS ABOUT THE WORK.
"Yes? Been offered a better position?" He gave her an old-fashioned look.
NO. I HAVE BEEN PRESENTED WITH SOMETHING... UNNATURAL. AND I CANNOT TAKE IT INTO MY OWN HANDS.
"You'd better tell me."
In reply, Death reached into his robe and pulled out a lifetimer. Two lifetimers. No, she saw, two twisted into one, wrapped around each other to make something different, filled with octarine light and the sand flowing backwards. She peered at it intently. This was all wrong, warped. Evil.
"Alice Spratt? She's the witch over at Skund. She's a bit vague and depressed, but not… like this."
NO. THAT IS THE OLD NAME. THESE... HAVE ANOTHER NAME NOW. He turned the strange thing around, showed her the name glowing there.
She drew in a sharp, hard breath.
This was bad.
Unbelievably bad.
Agnes Nitt hurried through the dark. She had been reading through some of Goodie Whemper's notes on some of the rarer fungi of Lancre when she was realised she was late for the coven's meeting at Nanny Ogg's. She realised they would be waiting for her, impatiently, if Agnes knew Granny Weatherwax. Probably to make tea, Perdita added sourly. Everyone has voices in their head, some have them a little louder than others. Perdita was Agnes' voice and she had a megaphone and was not afraid to use it. Agnes told her to shut up, and left the cottage.
And now the woods were close around her. She pulled her shawl about her and hurried through the near dark. There was a sudden movement on the path in front of her, she slowed cautiously.
"Hello!" The voice was cheerful, ironic, and male in a very undisputed way, but built on a structure of menace and bad intent. "A young lady should not be out walking these lonely woods by herself."
"Why not?" Agnes was learning not to fear, and she had two excellent teachers.
"Because you might meet someone like…me."
In the starlight, he was tall and well-muscled, and had the insouciant leer of someone who would take pleasure where he found it. Yum, said Perdita.
"I am a witch, you know, " Agnes said. She was amazed at how steady her voice was even as she felt the flush of embarrassment rising from her knees, and hoped she didn't glow.
"What I see is a young woman, large but nonetheless pretty, who might like to be shown a thing or two by a lonely traveller." Yes please! Perdita leapt up in Agnes' mind, and as usual at the wrong moment. Agnes suppressed her.
"Traveller. You're not from around here?"
"No. And in the morning I'll be on my way. All I need for tonight is a warm bed… and you." He reached for her. And she thought: large but nonetheless pretty. Maybe he'll add I have a good personality and nice hair…
"Sorry, I don't have time for this." She did something.
Two minutes later, he was lying alone on the path, eyes open, shivering and incoherent. In the distance could be heard half an argument.
"We didn't have time! And you know the rules! Scared? It's the rules! You are such a sl—Me? A prig? You called me a prig?! I'd give you a piece of my mind, if you didn't already have it! And you're more than two brain cells?…"
Nanny had her pipe lit and a glass of scumble close to hand. Granny sat stiff and quiet by the fire, staring into the flames. Her old friend could tell she was deep in some serious thinking.
"Can't you just tell me what it is?"
"No. Agnes should be here as well. " She looked at Nanny, then looked away.. "Should have been here before now."
"What? You mean like asking other witches?" Nanny was shocked; this wasn't like her friend at all. But Granny arched an eyebrow.
"I don't think we need to go that far. Probably."
"Look, Esme, what's this all about?"
There was a knock at the door. Nanny gestured impatiently and the door opened. Normally she'd stand and do it or shout "It's open!" but she had other things on her mind. A worried Weatherwax for one.
"Hah! About time. We'll need tea," said Granny sharply as Agnes entered.
Well you could have made it yourself, said Perdita, but only from the safety of Agnes' mind. The water was already on the boil and within minutes they each had a cup in front of them, with some sort of raisin cake made by one of Nanny's nameless daughter-in-law.
"Had a visitor this evening," Granny said without preamble, and described what happened (Nanny: "You mean that tall chap, rather thin, carries a scythe?" Granny: "Yes, Gytha") and the lifetimer he'd shown her. Agnes wondered what it would be like to have Death make a social call. Do you offer him a cuppa and a digestive?
"Whose names were on there?" she asked.
"I could make out Tansy Streed on one."
"Nice woman, lives over at Skund," said Nanny, "helps the elderly."
"And the other was Alice Spratt."
Nanny ground her pipe between her gums. "Oh dear, oh dear. Not good. The Skund witch. What do you think? Did a spell go wrong? Can we separate them out?" Granny shook her head.
"No." She sighed. "Another name had been added over the top, nearly blotted out the other two." She stared into the fire for a moment, then turned to Nanny. "It was Aliss Demurrage."
Nanny's pipe was fine, seasoned briar, tough as teak. But she bit the stem in two.
High up in the mountains overlooking Lancre, a figure stood silhouetted against the black, limned by a faint blue glow. She raised her arms and stretched luxuriously. An ordinary person would have remarked on the darkness. A romantic would have expounded on the unparalleled view to the edge of the world, the faint lights of towns and cities twinkling in the distance. A more conventionally deceased person would have taken a deep breath and exclaimed in surprise at doing so. But this person didn't have any of that. All that was in her mind was bright words and images. And how to use them.
Below, the Forest of Skund groaned as it felt the power. And because forests live on a different time scale, it sounded like a low wind through the trees.
"I thought all this happened a long time ago," Agnes said. "Old history. Before your time."
"Hah! History isn't as long ago as people think. It's all safe in the past, they say. They want to remember it as forgotten. But the past has a way of reaching round the corner and ripping your head off." Granny was staring into the fire again.
"She was good. And I don't mean the opposite of bad. She was one of the best, if not the best the Ramtops had ever seen. I remember when Nanny and I were girls, and just new to witching. She knew the past. Knew the future. Could move her house. Could move the forest, and it don't like being moved. Stopped a plague cold in its tracks just by drawing a line in the dirt. That's what we got from her, the idea that a witch had to make choices and stick with them. And to stick to them, they had to be right first time around. We learnt some good stuff from her. But she got too strange. And one day her head was so filled with witching there was room for nothing else. She stopped being human right then, it all went away And when you've got only one thing you use it and use it and use it, don't matter how. Stones would dance, animals fly, houses breathe, storms and floods fill the valleys. People would die. Not just by getting in the way. She practiced on them. And she loved little children."
"She took care of them?" Agnes asked.
"No. She believed, the craft made her believe, that by… that you could take strength from a person." She looked at the young witch's expression. "Like those fellows on the islands around the Rim! A cannibal!"
"She believed that eating others gave her their strength. And would keep her young," said Nanny, as she examined the wreck of her pipe.
"That can't be true!" Agnes exclaimed, then watched the way the other two carefully avoided eye contact with each other. So that's the way of it, breathed Perdita. Sometimes there really is something out there in the dark.
"'Fraid so," Nanny said. "Then those two kiddies from Uberwald came along." And that was the ironic end for the epitome of evil, thought Perdita, done in your own gravy in a moderate oven. Seemed an almost modern way to go.
Wearily Agnes told her to shut it, and hurried on. "Anyway, it doesn't matter what she does, it's how we stop her. Isn't it?"
That flicker in Granny's eye, was it doubt? Perdita wondered. If it was, it's gone, replied Agnes. I'm scared, thought Perdita. You're scared? I'm terrified, Agnes thought back. Sometimes it was good to have that other voice to talk to. If only it wasn't as scared as she was…
But Agnes took heart as Granny Weatherwax raised her head, as if hearing the sounds of a coming war, narrowed her eyes and muttered her battle cry: "I can't be having with this," and turned to the other two. "We go at midday tomorrow. I want to check out some things first. Be ready."
Sometimes, men and women forget what has gone before, but a village can remember, in stories passed down as folktales and scaled-down versions of urban myth. Stories of the strange, the violent, the evil…
The Forest of Skund rustled in a restless way, like a wind no one else could feel was sweeping through it, Dran Finglethought. He was out collecting wood for the evening fire, and felt the uneasiness all around him. It was no time to be out, and the sooner he collected a few logs and got home, and a stout door between him and the rest of the world, the happier he'd be.
He heard a faint sound. It echoed down the valley, wound through the trees, made the leaves tremble. Fingle saw a squirrel run out of the forest stop, frozen, then run back again, faster than an arrow. The sound rose and rose, bouncing back and forth across the hills. Fingle finally realised what it was: laughter. But laughter tuned to the pitch of a scream. And he remembered the old stories, told by his mother and grandmother, and the only one his father told him, history and cautionary tale. The laughter cut into his soul. He threw down the wood he had in his arms, and he ran all the way back to the village, shouting his warning.
"She's back! She's back! She's coming back!"
The grave was an open wound on the earth, the grave marker toppled over. Granny could see two sets of footprints, one set that walked to the grave… and a different set that walked away. She bent down and ran a handful of the earth through her hands. It was typical of Aliss, Granny thought. Only she could have attempted something like this. How had she waited for this moment? How had she known when it arrived? She held the earth tight in her hand, and thought what to do.
Three figures dressed in black and riding brooms descended on the weathered cottage in the Forest of Skund. Agnes hated travelling by broom, she thought she looked like a black moon, but time was of the essence. The cottage was the strangest she'd ever seen, like a birthday party centrepiece someone had left out in the rain. She landed close and touched it carefully. It crumbled slightly under her fingers and she tasted a crumb.
"It's gingerbread! It's actually gingerbread!"
"Yes, well, Black Aliss was never one for practicality, it got the kiddies in, see?" Nanny glanced around. "Mind you, I've seen cakes decorated better than this place."
Granny stopped at the door. "See? Scorch marks. And signs of a struggle, scuff marks in the marzipan," she added, pointing at the doorstep.
"She never was much of a cook," said Nanny, who hadn't cooked in years. "Goodness knows how she got something this big in the oven anyway."
"No!" snapped Granny. "Keep your mind on the job, Gytha! It's nothing to do with her cooking. Signs of violence. I always said they never should have put Alice Spratt here. Alice and Aliss. No good was going to come of it."
Agnes looked in one of the fractured toffee windows. "There's crumbs everywhere! How are you supposed to keep it clean?"
"Let the rats do it. They take care of the bones too," Nanny muttered.
"Gytha! The girl already has a bad enough idea about the old days already, don't go adding to it." Pause. "Anyway, it's wild dogs gets the bones."
Children have a secular religion, that they follow each day and night, like the mysterious Agatean followers of the Way of Mrs Cosmopolite, with her mystic dustpan and holy washing line. One of children's commandments is: when four or more of you are gathered together you shall split into two gangs and throw rocks at each other1. On this day was a particularly lively example of this credo. the air was filled with a mix of occasional yelps of pain and the happy laughter of children on the attack.
"Ahhhh, the sweetness of youth." A woman had appeared at the edge of the clearing and was admiring them, and they stopped in confusion. Normally adults said things like "Stop that before someone gets hurt!" or "It'll all end in tears!" or "Get me a box of snails, a hip bath and a flannel sock!" (though that was usually Old Zroger, who wore his underpants on his head). None had said how sweet they were. She beckoned them closer, and their curiosity drew them in.
"Would you like to visit my cottage? It has gingerbread walls and liquorice doorhandles and lemonade in the well."
"You've got a big nose." said Norry Pew, Jarry's brother, proving tendencies toward danger can run in a family. An icy blue glare washed over him, accompanied by a forced chuckle.
"Oh ho ho, how funny you are. Come with me and you'll get just what you deserve."
"You've got a black pointy hat, you look like a witch," another observed.
"Oh yes, that's right. Like a witch. You're very clever"
"You look my nanny," said a third.
"Yes, and I'll look after you just like her. And I have sweeties…"
The children looked at one another. Don't go into the woods, their parents said. But sweeties were sweeties. Cautiously they followed her, and the forest closed around them.
In the flickering light under the branches, as they walked, the woman' hair seemed darker, and the children taller. And taller. But one of them was happy to go. Pewsey Ogg always liked an adventure.
"Someone's coming." Agnes was looking through one of the windows and saw the movement deep in the forest. The setting sun had lengthened the shadows until they were long sticks jerking across the trees in puppet-like movements.
"Stand over here," Granny commanded, and the three of them lined up across the room from the door, Agnes absently brushing crumbs from her clothes while Perdita berated her for tasting the mantelpiece. "It's going to take the three of us combined," she continued. "Whatever happens, don't move!" She flexed her hands, then cracked her knuckles. "Been a long time since I've had to do something like this."
"What?" Agnes asked.
"Witch against witch," Nanny replied, nonchalant like a cool gunslinger waiting for Hole-In-The-Head Gang to come to town. "Doesn't happen much. We usually learn to sort it out, or keep our distance."
"This one's going to be up close and personal," Perdita said aloud before Agnes could clamp her down.
"Hah! barked Granny. "You got that right, Perdita." Agnes stared at her.
The door opened. But it wasn't an elderly witch. It was a group of children. Well, almost teenagers.
Nanny stared at one of them. "Pewsey? Pewsey?! But, Agnes thought, Pewsey's only eight. He can't be this great hulk of a lad… but she saw something in his eyes.
Pewsey Ogg blinked. He felt dizzy and tired. His Nanny was here, but she seemed so short… He stumbled toward her and the others followed, fear and fatigue etched on their faces. Nanny stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, then stretched to embrace the others.
"Gytha, no!" Granny snapped, but the line was broken.
"Ah, isn't this nice, visitors." Aliss stepped through the door, and Agnes blinked. This wasn't what she expected, she seemed too young for this fierce ancient of legend, a sprightly fifty or sixty year old..
"Nanny! Nanny!" the terrified Pewsey cried, and his friends huddled in close, trying to get away from the woman with the awful smile.
"Gytha! Hide them! As Agnes watched, Nanny and the children… went away. But she could hear their breathing, short, tense gasps, Nanny shushing them to be quiet.
Aliss turned a brittle, glowing-blue smile on Granny. "Esme! No word of greeting for an old friend and sister?"
"This isn't your time, Aliss." Granny's eyes were steely, the voice a whipcrack. "You should never have come back."
"Oh, but I am back, Esme. Do you think Gytha can hide those children from me in my own house?"
"You'll have to go through me first." Granny leaned forward, in a crouch she seemed about to spring.
"Oh, that won't be hard – "
Another voice interrupted the oncoming battle, harsh, nasal, a voice that could scale fish.
"Aliss Demurrage, do you remember this?!" CLANG! A discordant metallic slam. "Do you want to hear it again?!" CLANG!
As Granny watched, Aliss' face froze. Her eyes darted left and right.
"Remember the oven, Aliss?!" CLANG!
"Noooooo!" The wild witch turned and fled, bursting clean through a wall of her house, leaving a humorous outline of a running person with their arms in the air.
"Did it work?" Agnes' normal voice came from the kitchen. Granny drew in a ragged breath, straightened up from her crouch, massaged the magic out of her fingers. They'd gone stiff with the pent up energy.
"You didn't need to do that! I could have taken her!"
"But probably a good thing you didn't have to try." Nanny's voice came from nowhere and everywhere.
"Yes," Granny finally conceded. "Good use of the voice, that girl."
Agnes entered from the kitchen just as Nanny and the children… faded in. Agnes had no idea Nanny could do things like that. She had no idea she could do anything except bicker with Granny, drink scumble and sing the Hedgehog Song.
"Sorry, Esme. but I couldn't leave the children with her here."
Granny sniffed. "I daresay you're right. Probably." She strode over to Pewsey and examined him critically. "Well, at least you're not as sticky as you normally are, Pewsey Ogg. Did she hurt you?"
"N-no," stammered young Ogg. "But I feel strange. Like I want to wear a hat… backwards… and go… and… hang out somewhere…"
"You will soon if you don't get those pants fixed." He blushed crimson, mumbled, and hid behind his grandmother. Nanny was embarrassed for him, but couldn't resist slipping in her own pungent comment.
"Esme! Don't pick on a growing boy!" Granny glared at her, then looked at the other children, and Agnes stood beside her.
"What's going on? I don't get it."
"Use your eyes, girl!" the old witch snapped. "They were young children only a few hours ago!"
"Yes, I know that, but –"
"Look at them. Use your sight." Agnes squinted a little. And she could suddenly see what Granny meant. At the same moment they were looming, frightened teenagers… and little frightened children. And there was something missing from them, a hole in their lives...
"She's stealing time from them!" she exclaimed.
"No, but close. Gytha, take the children to the village, we'll meet you at the crossroads. I know where she's going. I think you do too."
Nanny nodded once, then, making clucking noises and offering sympathy and quiet comfort to the children, she herded them in the direction of the village of Skund.
"Rather her than me. Can't stand teenagers."
"Yes. But they are children." Granny gave Agnes a sharp glance, while the young witch suppressed her inner voice. Again.
"S'pose so." The old woman gave her dismissive sniff. "Just a wossname, the shape of things to come. Imagining the kind of trouble they'll get into when they're really that age." Agnes decided to change the subject.
"So where do you think she's going?"
"There's a mountain between here and the Fifteen Mountains."
"And what's there?"
"A way to be young."
Aliss scrabbled at the rocks and bushes on the steep slope, eyes glowing. She'd show them. She'd win. She had been the best, she would be again. These new witches were too soft, had no idea of what they could have in their hands… she looked at her nails. They were black again, but not for much longer.
The summit. She pulled herself upright, felt he energy course through her again. How young the world was! How young she felt! She raised her eyes.
Three black silhouettes waited for her, a tall skinny one between two round ones. They thought they could stop her… she nearly laughed.
Agnes shivered as the harsh wind whipped down from the Core, over the Ramtops and right through her. Aliss could be seen clearly in the shimmer from the distant Hublights. She looked even younger than she had at the cottage, in her thirties or forties, and as she stepped forward more years seemed to slide away.
"You cannot hope to defeat me, old woman. You and your lackeys are no match. Do you know where we are?"
"Yes," Granny replied evenly, her voice calm, but Agnes could see the air shimmering around her.
"I don't," said Perdita aloud. "She wouldn't tell us on the way here." Granny didn't bother to turn, but Agnes was angry with Perdita, and hissed at her inner voice, now she'll be sarcastic with us when we get out of this. If we get out of this, Perdita replied. Great source of comfort you are, Agnes snapped back.
"My dear, you don't need to worry yet! This is the Mountain of Youth. It is, at once, a real place, and a metaphor." She gestured behind her, at the lights of Skund and Lancre and all the places beyond. " Look down there. All the little people and all their little plans. They waste life. They scale the Mountain of Youth in their minds, climbing slowly, learning, having spots, putting up with hard emotions, all the time to climb higher and see clearer and further. Then they reach here, the summit, and it's all here, everything they wanted to see or achieve. They have immortality. But only for such a short time. They let the worries of the everyday get to them, and let it all slip away, and they slide down the other side, stumbling and crashing down the slope, hoping the avalanche of their past deeds doesn't catch them, as they run to hide in the valley of old age, with its narrow views and gasping fogs. But not me. I will stand on the summit forever."
"Is that it?" Granny's voice cracked out. "You want to live forever? If you don't age, you don't learn. Remember Synthia Smerdon, her parents had a castle up in Uberwald? She wanted to be young forever, so she dressed like she was twenty and made eyes at young men, until she couldn't take it any more, trying to hide the liver spots. Bad end she came to, as well. You said it yourself. We can only have immortality for a little while. Let it go. We go back to the way things were. You stole from those kiddies, and I know you. You'll do it again, because you like it."
"Esme, are you being obtuse?" Aliss' voice had a singsong quality to it. "All the energy people waste on growing up ends up here, in this Mountain anyway. I'll not give it back, unless it amuses me to take it away again. And it will all be here. I'm going to tap it like a spring." Her voice changed to an evil rasp. "And I will live to see you in your grave."
She pointed downward. An octarine bolt shot from her finger and tore into the earth. A deeper light danced around her.
"Is it true?" Agnes hissed at Nanny.
"That all the energy of youth ends up here? Oh yes. Must have contributed a fair bit myself," Nanny replied. "Me and a few young men."
Granny stepped forward, drawing the other two behind her. She raised a hand and gestured at Aliss. A wave of fierce light washed over the wild witch, but she brushed it off, and turned it back on its creator. Agnes felt a thump in the pit of her stomach as the other two harnessed her strength with their own and fought back.
"Withdraw, Esmerelda, and I might show you mercy!" screamed Aliss.
"Never wanted mercy, 'cos I've never given it!" Granny shouted. The lights shot back and forth, bright and hot and sharp edged. Agnes could see Aliss getting younger, her skin glowing, her figure returning, her teeth growing back. She could see how beautiful she had been and was becoming again. And something rose up in Agnes, that said: she gave away this for… what? Power? Strength? The right to take whatever she wanted and not care who she hurt, while people like fat Agnes just had to go along? Accept her ways? Be laughed at for not being like her?
How dare she!
She focused her anger into one tight ball and flung it at Aliss. It was deflected, but in that distracted moment, Granny got in.
The colour of the light changed, and Agnes could now see Aliss was even younger. And younger. And at the same time there was now a shadow, of the old woman she had been; Agnes could sense time going in two directions at once.
Granny held a tight focus on Aliss, reached into her pocket and brought out… a handful of earth.
"You came from the grave. Return to it!"
Aliss screamed. Now she was only about five years old, while the shadow was aging, aging, almost mummified, and both were losing ground quickly. Two voices came out of the maelstrom "You howwid old woman! No! I am not a child! I will not be this! I wan' Mummy! No! I will win!" But she was now four years old, and skin and bone as well, and she stumbled and fell in the loose clothing, the child's voice clamouring with the evil old witch's A baby... then a flash as she disappeared into the twinkle of her father's eye and at the same time crumbled to dust.
The light faded, and Agnes waited for the spots to stop dancing before her eyes. All that remained was a pile of clothing, which Granny stirred with her foot.
"Good one there, young Agnes," said Nanny encouragingly. "Never knew you could do the focusing anger thing. Magrat never managed it. Kept wanting to be nice. Needs some work, mind. Well, we'd better get back and see to those kiddies."
"Wait." Granny's voice brought them both up sharp. "It ain't over. She saved herself, I can feel it. Those children aren't free. She's still got the power, and she'll use the Mountain, and come back again only stronger. It has to end tonight."
They arrived at the graveyard. Granny's eyes narrowed as the approached the grave. It was filled in, looking like it had never been disturbed.
"She thinks people will forget again. Not this time."
She gestured to the night. There was a swirl at the edge of vision, but when Agnes turned to look at it, it was somewhere else. Then it gathered itself, black on black, became a faint outline, a stronger one. The outline of Aliss, now a crone again.
"Esme, did you do that for me? You didn't need to do that. I was prepared to wait a hundred years. Because, you know, one day it will all be mine. And you can't kill a ghost. How will you get rid of me now?"
"Like this." Granny's hand shot out. And grabbed Aliss. By the throat.
The wild witch's eyes bulged in shock, and she writhed, trying to become smoke, but Granny held her tight.
Now there was another figure in the graveyard with them. Agnes gasped, stepped back in horror, but Nanny took hold of her arm and held her still.
"Don't be impolite to the old gentleman. He's OK when you get used to him."
Aliss struggled to turn her gaze on the new one. "He cannot take me! He has no right!" The tall shape stood next to Granny.
NO, I CANNOT KILL. BUT SOMETIMES THERE HAS TO BE AN END. AND SOMETIMES THERE HAS TO BE JUSTICE. He handed Granny something, and in the faint light Agnes could see what it was. A misshapen lifetimer.
"No!" hissed the ghost as Granny held it up in her hand. And "No!" as Granny crushed it with one squeeze. And "Nooo!" as two other figures appeared on either side of her, an old woman and a younger one. As Granny let the ghost go, and let the shards of glass tumble to the ground, the other ghosts turned into something Agnes hoped she'd never see again. And then-
They were gone. The young witch turned to Nanny "What?" she said faintly.
"Oh, that was the two she'd taken. They'd been inside her long enough to learn a few of the old ways themselves. It has been my experience that if you make some women angry, they'll take the biggest revenge they can. And Aliss knew the kind of justice Esme would show her."
Granny turned to Death. "Thank you. I had to hope you'd come." Death shook his head slightly and gave her his characteristic grin.
YOU DIDN'T HOPE. YOU KNEW GOOD EVENING, MISTRESS WEATHERWAX, MRS OGG, MISS NITT. There was a swirl, and he was gone.
Death called me by name, Agnes thought. No, replied Perdita, that was just exchanging pleasantries.
"What about the kiddies, Esme?" Nanny asked quietly. "Pewsey's too young to learn about the birds and the bees yet."
"Yes, he's sticky enough as it is."
"Esme!"
Granny waved a hand at Nanny. "With Aliss gone, all what she took from them children will be returned to them. They'll be fine in the morning. But if Pewsey starts looking up Beti Weaver's dress you'd better clip him about the ear sharpish."
"Oh, he won't do that!"
"I don't mean in a few days, I mean tonight!"
In a few moments, all that remained in the graveyard was the wind, a scorch on the grass, the remains of those who would never wake again, and some shards of lifetimer glass, fading like dew at sunrise.
It was a few days later. Nanny was accompanying Granny on a mysterious errand. "Little job I got to do" was all she'd say. Being a curious creature Nanny went along.
The trees on Razorback were tall and lush, though there were a lot of branches on the ground. In the last few minutes a thought had been trying to surface in Nanny's mind, but it refused to come until she heard a low growl like a volcano getting up close and personal.
"Um. Esme. Have you heard of Mad Bruce?"
"Yep."
"You know he lives up here?"
"Yep."
"Do you think that noise was him?"
"Maybe"
"I mean we could probably stop him but-"
The forest floor rose up in front of them. A carpet of pine needles and branches gave way to fur, thick, oily and bristly. It covered a head the size of a bathtub, which had two hot, red eyes staring out like the bow of an Ephebian ship.
"Oh, crikey! You run left and I'll-" Nanny stopped as Granny stepped forward and rapped Mad Bruce on the nose. Before Nanny could wonder about how the hell she was going to floss her friend out of those teeth, the big bear cowered slightly and sat on its haunches. Granny looked up at him and scowled.
"Bad boy! Very bad! Here I come to help you and all you can do is try to frighten nice Mrs Ogg. Well, frighten Mrs Ogg anyway. Bend down." As the huge creature lowered itself onto its stomach, Nanny could see one of the tree trunk legs had a bandage around it.
"Is that where Tom O'Pandemonium hit him?"
"Yep."
"And you're healing him?"
"Yep." Granny's brief tone could have been used on a dozen frontiers, and won them. "Was out Borrowing when I saw the fight. That drunken lout came up here looking for trouble. Bruce was just minding his business."
"Yes, but his business was old Snarkey's hencoop if I remember."
"Don't matter. Bear is as bear does. He didn't pick the fight. And anyway, don't want him trying to eat something I've Borrowed. He'll know when I'm there now." The balm seemed to soothe the animal, and he even gave Granny's hand a little lick with his rasp of a tongue.
On the way back, Nanny pieced it together. "So you knew when Tom came to you why he needed the ointment?"
"Yep."
"I thought so. But that extra chilli was a mean trick."
"Can't abide cruelty. Just stupid. If he'd gone to kill Mad Bruce because he'd killed someone I'd have sharpened his axe for him. What he did was just alcohol and conceit. So he got the ointment he needed, something to think about every time he put it on." She glanced at Nanny. "It wouldn't have been any good if someone had prescribed something gentler for him." Nanny kept her face still.
"No, I don't suppose it would." There was a companionable silence of agreement as they strolled down the hill toward Lancre town
The End