Eventuating Balls
A short based on events slightly preceding the new Discworld novel, "Raising Steam"
The rural silence over the bucolic Chalk town of Sheepridge had been broken by bangs and explosions before. Everyone remembered the fire at the local pub some years before, and the pretty conclusive way the barrels of 80% proof brandy had responded to the addition of lots of heat.
But this was louder...
Tiffany Aching, twenty miles away on the High Chalk, stood up from the sheep she was tending and looked in the direction of the thunderous sound.
YOU HAVE SAVED THE EWE. said a voice only she could hear. WELL DONE. IF YOU WILL EXCUSE ME, I AM NEEDED IN SHEEPRIDGE.
Tiffany glared into what the shepherd, Mr Dawes, mistook for empty space. And she spoke to it.
"If there are deaths in Sheepridge, don't you think I need to know about them?" she demanded. "I am their Witch!"
Death paused and consulted a lifetimer. Wizards would do a Rite of Ash'Kente on him. Witches were more direct.
OW! he said, as a shard of glass scraped a fingerbone. Tiffany could see the glass of the lifetimer seemed to have bulged out of its frame and shattered, as if some sort of explosion had happened that it could not contain.
NED SIMNEL. Death said. DID YOU KNOW HIM? NOW I REALLY MUST BE GOING...
Tiffany sighed. There was a wife and son...
Mr Dawes was now placidly looking at the mushroom cloud rising over the town of Sheepridge. The town was invisible from here. But the pink mushroom rose higher into the early spring air.
"You've got two fine lambs, Mr Dawes." the young witch said, packing her working tools. "And I was able to deliver them without damage to the ewe. I did worry about that."
"Aye." Dawes said. "Birthing twins is difficult. You did good, miss."
Tiffany reached for her alleged broomstick.
"But then, you're an Aching."
The broomstick shuddered and lurched into the air.
""Allus good with sheep, Aching women..." he said, to nobody in particular. He watched as the two new lambs found their blind and instinctive way to the teats.
"It beats me as how the little buggers know". he said to himself, contendedly. If he'd lost the ewe, there'd have been no milk... Explosion and mushroom cloud forgotten, he settled back to the important things in a shepherd's life.
Ned Simnel sat up, feeling groggy. He also felt a bit light-headed and insubstantial. That had been a close one...
"Hey, aren't you Bill Doors?" he asked the tall figure. "Haven't seen you round here for a long time!"
The tall spare figure nodded. He was wearing some sort of black cloak over the faded blue dungarees.
GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, NED.
Ned grinned. Then the scales fell away.
"Oh." he said. "Didn't you leave the night Miss Flitworth died? You give her that big bit of glass, I recall. Put it in the forge for safekeeping. The lad used to play with it. Then that visiting wizard told us what it was..."
YOUR WIFE AND SON WILL NOT WANT, NED. TIFFANY WILL SEE TO THAT. SHE KNOWS PEOPLE WHO CAN GET A GOOD PRICE FOR THE DIAMOND. NOW COME AWAY WITH ME. LIFE IS FOR THE LIVING.
Death was given to introspection. He had seen a Dawes bring new life into the world. Now a Doors had to take life out of it. Everything balanced...
"Young Dick?" Ned said, as his spirit faded.
HE WILL CARRY ON YOUR WORK. YOU WOULD BE SURPRISED. NOW COME WITH ME...
And the shade of Ned Simnel faded, with a little regret.
"It was the three-eighths Gripley, wasn't it? It didn't ride up the piston cam and reciprocate..."
WITH DISATROUS RESULTS, AS YOU MAY WELL IMAGINE.