Strandpiel, Book Two

by A.A. Pessimal

The continuation of the saga of interlocking families and friends, spread across at least two continents.

37. Rekenskap?

Second Strandpiel 37

V0.04: tidying and the inevitable typos

We're back, the saga of my cardiac operation status rumbles on unresolved, so I'm taking my mind off it with a bit of writing.

I have a failing keyboard that needs replacing (when I can get round to it) and that's like a metaphor for my heart valves – also operating intermittently and skipping a beat every so often!

Progress report while I've got the energy and the inclination!

Just back from hospital.

Spent an interesting inpatient morning in "Nuclear Medicine" being hooked up to various pieces of machinery and having nameless slightly radioactive fluids and drips and things, injected into me so that the fine details of passage of blood around my system could be tracked, monitored and analysed. Apparently, my "un-usually low blood pressure" is still a concern and could be a complicating factor in any surgery. Cheering. And I get to go back for more next week.

Sadder news: parted company with TV Tropes as an editor. It's a long story. But there's going to be no ongoing update of the AA Pessimal page nor any of the Works pages. They're now frozen in time. No bar on any other troper adding tropes and links, but for various irksome reasons it can't be me any more. And that's all I can reasonably say, at least here. (As the saga continues and I'm kind of at the heart of it, I can't talk about it yet. Other people chose to make it into something bigger and more acrimonious, it developed into one almighty clusterfuck of a situation, and I don't think anyone's come out of it with too much credit or glory – if I'm honest, that includes me. I have promised myself I will tell all, though. When it's all over and the dust settles. The tale will be told.) Shame. And, on with the story.

---

The Vulga Steppe, near the city of Astrakhan Peren.

The Witch knelt by the side of her patient in the open field and cleared her mind, so as to better assess what needed doing. As she was also a Shamanka to her people, and she instinctively knew the value of what other witches called boffo, she half-sang, half-chanted, a litany in honour of the Horse Goddess Devana while she worked. It would do no harm, it would express at least a surface reverence, as you never knew, and it was best to stay on the right side of the Gods. Crucially, it was also impressing the early-rising Cossacks, who had gathered at a respectful and reverential distance.

She used the time to assess, to work out what the problem was with the stricken mare and how she should treat it, while another track in her mind was wondering about the confused impressions she'd received from her night's sleep. That was the problem with dreams, for a shamanka: you didn't need to take the Preparations, but you could still find yourself Walking The Planes anyway and going on a Vision Quest even if you had no particular intention to, and you just wanted to get your head down for eight hours. Dreams, for those who walked the magic-user's path, were hardly ever just dreams. It had been a relief to be woken by the knocking on the door of her taranta, and a plea to come to the paddock, ved'ma, a mare is failing.

"Nichevo." she said, incorporating the word into her chant. She stroked the swollen flank of the ailing mare and tried to send reassurance and calm to the horse. Then she frowned and sought to remember the details of a conversation with the foreign Witch, the one called Sofia, who had a deep and pleasing knowledge of and love for horses. What had she said, what had she called it... the word emerged. Эклампсия. Yeklampsya. It had been relayed through an interpreter, one of the Rodinian Air Witches who rode the flying white horses.

The Witch knew it as the milk-sickness, the muscle cramps, that could fell a strong horse. Especially one with a young foal, one being gently restrained and held back, for now, from its dam. She shook her head, reflecting on different approaches to the Craft around the Disc. Sophia had raised a vein in the neck and had injected a remedy directly into the blood. The witch here did not know how to do this. Instead, she beckoned Klimenti Bogdanovich, whose horse it was, and explained her remedy. She also conscientiously and respectfully tried, without success, to set aside a picture forming in her head of the Horse-Goddess Devana.

Devana was currently taking the form of a tall girl of about seventeen, broad about shoulders and hips, with a wide honest homely face and a no-nonsense attitude to life. She moved with intent and purpose and was wearing the tight riding trousers known in the Turnwise as jodphurs, with high familiar riding boots to the knee with rondel spurs. She wore a baggy shapeless tunic and an absurd-looking, but practical, piece of headwear known in Morporkian as the hard hat, more of a domed helmet with a brim and a chinstrap, over a short sensible haircut.

Xenia Galena shook her head. Of course the patron Goddess of the Cossack horse-herds might choose to manifest in the earthly form of Sophie Rawlinson, the gifted horse-witch from the Turnwise. Why should she be surprised?

"You know, that's jolly bad eclampsia. Absolutely classic case. Text-book symptoms." Devana said, in strangely accented Rodinian punctuated with strange idiosyncrasies and stresses in the wrong places. Xenia listened, fascinated, knowing she was the only person who was seeing the Goddess just now. She wasn't even sure if this was happening inside or outside her own head, or if this Devana was just a construct of her own mind, like the Second or Third or Fourth Thoughts. She listened, fascinated by what she guessed was a Morporkian accent in Rodinian. Shape dictates form, and if Devana chose this particular avatar, who is Morporkian... then she will speak the language strangely. Ouch, these Morporkians just cannot get the right guttural back-of-the-throat sound on "k" and "g". And the damage they can do to "r" and "rh-". So horribly flat.

"That chap's been over-working her." Devana said, sternly, glaring at Klimenti. "Over-exercising her, anyway. You've got to be so careful with nursing mares. We can fix this and get this good mare up on her hooves again." she said. "Or else we end up with an orphaned foal, and that won't do. How were you proposing to fix this, Xenia?"

Xenia Galena acknowledged the picture of her Goddess, then looked gravely at Klimenti.

"You are young. You have not built experience yet, as one who tends to a herd." she said to him, as the Goddess watched. "No blame. A mare after foaling needs some exercise. But allow her to do what she needs. She will know. Not even a leading rein, Klimenti Bogdanovich. And certainly not saddling her up and riding her. Do not do that for at least eight weeks. Do not hurry these things. Take time."

She sensed the Goddess nodding approvingly.

"Mix some bonemeal into her feed." Xenia said. "There is a substance missing from her diet that she needs to replenish. The lack of this is causing her weakness and muscle cramps. Bonemeal, but not in excess, mixed into the oats, will provide this. Also, feed her milk."

"Good-oh." Devana said. "My avatar would do that with an injection, but you don't know how to do this, and there probably isn't a single syringe for miles in any direction. Let alone the potion with the right sort of oomph in it, so you'll have to improvise. I took this look straight out of your memories, by the way. I reckoned you'd sit up straight and pay attention. Impressive young gel, isn't she? Knows her horses, too!"

Xenia tried to look impassive. She wondered how Sophie Rawlinson would react if she knew a Horse Goddess had noticed her. And if she, Xenia Galena, should at any point actually tell her.

"She will get no worse now we have identified the cause." Xenia said. "Within a day she will be better and able to stand. Within three days, cured."

She looked to the foal.

"In this time. You will provide milk to the foal and feed... her... manually. Is there a mother elsewhere with a spare teat who could be persuaded? A mare who is about to wean her foal, but still producing milk? That would help too."

Xenia watched her Goddess move over to the mare's head and rest both hands on her neck. The mare picked up her head and whinnied, paying more attention to her surroundings.

"Jolly good." Devana said. "Divine blessing applied. She'll feel better for that. Well, emergency over, and I'd best be pushing off."

She considered Xenia Galena, thoughtfully.

"I understand Olga Anastacia or Irena Yannesovna are coming over here within the next day or two." she said. "Talk to them about getting you over to Howondaland, would you? Look in on the people there and see how they're getting on. Do the shamanka stuff for them, buck their morale up? You should get to meet the Black Tsarina too. Interesting lady."

Devana turned to go, and paused.

"Talk to them about the other thing too. You know, what you saw in your dreams last night. That other thing in Howondaland is coming to a head. Firebird saw the boil last night, and it needs bursting. She didn't quite manage that, more's the pity. Tell her to watch out, if you can? There's a lot more going on than people have worked out, and you might be advised to take more care in the Otherworlds right now. Some nasty vermin are stirring. Like ticks on a good horse. Well, nice to meet you, don't be a stranger!"

Devana nodded, and dematerialised.

Xenia smiled slightly, and reflected that a Goddess who dealt with horses had to be practical and down-to earth, with no time to be the sort of fluttering airhead you got in Dunmanifestin. She couldn't see Astoria, for instance, taking a pitchfork and mucking out a stable. Then again, did Dunmanifestin actually have horses? Or even stables?

She did what needed to be done with mare and foal, and gave good advice to Klimenti, a boy of barely seventeen, being careful to encourage and educate him as to what to look out for in a nursing mare, and assured herself the mare would live, with no lingering ill-effects.

Eventually, she saddled one of her own horses and went for an early morning ride, to clear her head and get her thoughts in the right order, choosing to ride a solitary route on the Steppe. Cossacks greeted her respectfully but understood her need to ride alone: their shamanka, dressed all in black, her long black hair streaming behind her, riding an all-black mare. This too was boffo. It ensured she would get respect.

Xenia still wasn't sure if that had been Devana materialising to her in person, or if it was just a deeper layer of Xenia Galena. Or maybe a little of both. The Goddess, using Xenia's own mind to communicate. Nothing she didn't already know had emerged, after all. The girl Sofia Rawlinson was known to her, and had impressive qualities. It would appeal to the sense of humour of a Goddess to manifest in her form, and probably wouldn't take too much effort. Like calling to like.

She remembered Irena Yannesovna had remarked that where possible, Sofia – Sophie – was being taught a little conversational Rodinian, so as to make her more effective in her assignment to travel by sea with the Cossacks who had enlisted in the Black Tsarina's army. The standard necessary vocabulary: hello, goodbye, good morning, please, thank you, very good, can't be helped, then the professional terms for all things equine, and, crucially, whole phrases like "Thank you for your interest and I'm flattered, but I do not wish to get married to anybody, just yet."

Xenia permitted herself a laugh. A young woman with those skills would inevitably attract suitors. And she was, at this moment, on a boat with lots of interested men. Irena Yannesovna had said she was being chaperoned. People like Serafima Dospanova and Nadezhda Veranovna and Vasilisa Danutovna were being rotated out to the ships for two or three days each, to act as liaison between the ships' crews and the Cossacks, to ease Sophie's passage and interpret for her, while giving her tuition in Rodinian on the fly. Also, Irena suspected, to stop somebody of Sophie's build and increasingly vexed embarrassment from physically throwing any persistent suitors over the side.

So I see her, either inside or outside my mind - as if there's a difference - as an avatar of the Goddess, speaking the most heavily and strangely accented Rodinian, because this is exactly how she is learning to speak our language. Makes sense.

Appreciating the early-morning breeze on her face and in her hair, Xenia Galena rode on, sorting the other things out in her mind. While she was better at remembering her dreams than most people (1), last night's memories were confused and unclear. She made her mind placid and still, knowing the worst thing to do was to try and force the memories.

I was talking to Firebird. She was in a dangerous place. That was obvious. I wondered how much she understood. But the rules are different in the Otherworlds. I spoke in Rodinian. It is possible she heard me speaking in Morporkian, or perhaps in her other language, Worse-Than-Morporkian. I was looking down from a high place, in a room. There was blue light around me. Things seen dimly, things I felt rather than saw.

Xenia frowned.

I wish I could remember completely. But something was attacking her. Something that reeked of swamp and dead water... Sophia would have given that horse an injection, like a human doctor to an ailing person. That is her Witchcraft. It draws inevitably from science and medicine. She is a, what is the word, a practitioner of health care for horses. Firebird is a practitioner of healthcare for people. But both are still Witches, in the Turnwise tradition.

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place as Xenia let her thoughts flow freely. A fragment of memory awoke.

Now I remember. I reminded her she is a witch and told her to think like a witch. And now I also know the meaning of the scissors. I saw them.

Xenia tried not to shudder. Somebody might see her shuddering, for one thing.

She also remembered something else, something fundamental. It explained, to a witch of her inclinations, why walking in the dream-path the previous night had taken her to a country several thousand miles away on the very Rim of the world, a place she'd visited with Olga Anastacia, certainly, but never for longer than a couple of days. The place where Worse-Than-Morporkian was widely spoken.

She knew now what had drawn her there, the link. She also wondered if Firebird had worked it out yet. She also had a growing suspicion as to why the Thing had wanted to take Firebird's hair. She resolved to raise this, also, with Olga Anastacia or one of the others. This was important. It was a key to the puzzle.

She rode on, but no more recollections happened concerning her dreams, a woman in black, on a black horse, on what felt like endless largely flat grassland. Other Cossacks out exercising horses recognised her body language and what it meant, and very carefully and scrupulously gave her a lot of personal space. She rode on at a fast canter, a dwindling black dot on an eternal green Steppe.

The Air Station, Ankh-Morpork.

Captain Olga Romanoff had a resigned feeling that this was going to be One Of Those Days. It had begun well enough, back at around half-past-five. She had got out of bed, got ready for work, donned her uniform, and trusted that Eddie was dealing with the kids. He didn't need to be at Unseen University till later in the morning: Wizards could roll in to work when they chose, and senior Wizards and Visiting Fellows got Privileges. Eddie would walk into a University where early-rising grad students, the resident dogsbodies who had to get up early and do the chores(2), would have been at work for several hours.

In the meantime, he got the husbandly equivalent of grad student chores, with what could be viewed as the Long-Term Research Project undertaken on a latitudinal chronological scale of, oh, the rest of our lives. (3)

Olga, realising her private time in the bathroom was going to be truncated, had returned to the bedroom to don the last of her uniform, wondering how the kids could go from "fast asleep" to "manic" in about fifteen seconds. She was pleased, as always, that Eddie had got this part of the routine down to perfection. Kids up, breakfast on, toast cooking, and crucially, the morning mug of tea for Mummy. Olga always appreciated this.

She was pleased that Experimental Subject Number One (male, five years old, called Vassily) and Experimental Subject Number Two (female, five years old, known to the Project as Valentina) were settled down at the kitchen table, feeding on milk and breakfast cereal, with mugs of warm milky tea to hand. Olga reflected that the current status of the Project involved the monitored separation of twin siblings who up until now had been inseparable, despite the inevitable manifestations of sibling rivalry and friction that could crop up even between very close twins. It was, she reflected, inevitable and best they get used to it now. It was all part of the System...

"You really do not need to get up so early." Olga remarked, accepting hot tea. "School doesn't start properly till nine. You could sleep in a little later."

"But then we wouldn't see you, mamya." Vassily said. "You start your work so much earlier."

Olga felt warmed.

"Pravda." she said. "The Air Watch day begins at seven-thirty. It is a chargeable offence to be late on duty, even and especially for its commanding officer. Duties are important. Most so for the people in command."

She smiled, pleased that Vassily understood this. The idea that responsibilities and obligations especially applied to those at the top was something she was keen for her son to understand at a bone-deep level. As, one day, if only by an accident of birth, he would be the man at the top.

She smiled again. Eddie was busy at the stove; a familiar smell was rising.

"Guryevskaya greschka." Valla said, "I hope there's jam!"

Vassily snorted.

"Mieliepap." he corrected her. "And the jam's here, look!"

"You're both right." Olga said. "Mieliepap greschka."

And that was the other thing about her family. Meals round the table involved an indoor language that could bounce in any or all of three directions.(4) It was part of their unique System. Daddy explained to the children that Mummy needed help with learning Vondalaans. Mummy would take no offence and suggest the children were good at helping Daddy improve his Rodinian. The children, growing up fluent in three languages, were unstinting in their help. Little debates about whether morning hot porridge was called greschka or mieliepap were a part of this.

She discussed the coming schoolday with Eddie and the kids. Vassily was in a junior class at the Penelope Frout Academy For Inquiring Young Minds. At least, for part of his week. Olga sighed resignedly. In normal circumstances she'd rather have taken an acid bath than send a son there. But his teacher, at least till July, was Susan Sto Helit. That made a difference and added an extra insurance policy that the eventual Grand Duke Vassily Romanoff would come into adulthood as a reasonable, decent, ruler of the fates of many thousands of people. He'd remember Miss Susan.(5) From September, however, he'd need to be transferred to a good boys' school, one that would prepare him for transition to the Assassins' Guild School. People like Johanna Smith-Rhodes were making inquiries and would recommend their choice of prep school to her.

Valentina had moved from the reception class at Frouts to the first proper class at the Convent School of Seven-Handed Sek's. At least, for part of her week. Johanna had recommended Seven-Handed Sek's. They had good working links with the world of Witchcraft, Johanna had reminded her. Miss Perspicacia Tick was a visiting consultant, and Mother Superior's teaching nuns had long practice in educating girls with a potential for Witchcraft. They had experience. Mother Superior and the concerned teaching nuns also knew about the System and the Arrangement and facilitated it, in this case with a sort of enthralled curiosity as to how it worked.

Olga sighed a resigned Rodinian sigh. It meant that in both cases she and Eddie were paying full-time school fees for part-time education,(6) but nichevo, there was no help for some things.

"Got your Handover Books?" Olga asked. "Khoroscho. Let me see them? Thank you."

The Handover Books were a part of the System. Olga and Eddie had the unique, unbelievable, privilege of having a home and a life in two countries separated by thousands of miles. They also had a means of commuting over those thousands of miles, within an hour. This cut out a five-week sea voyage. She flew for the Pegasus Service. Eddie was a Doctor of Wizardry who had achieved the Holy Grail of Academia, the Philosopher's Stone that turned things into gold. (7) Marriage to Olga having made it possible, he was now a full-time Fellow of two magical colleges, pulling down a full-time wage from each for what, with careful management, was part-time hours at each.

While this had earned him a lot of envious Wizard-cred, the down side was that he had to be seen working at both Unseen University (Junior Reader in Howondalandian Studies and Magical Traditions) and Witwatersrand University. (Fakulteit Towenaarskunde, Doktor in Disoriëntasie as gevolg van Magiese Translokasies en Algemene Assistent-leser in Onbepaalde Studies en Skakelbeampte met Daardie Bloedige Towenaars in Ankh-Morpork (8) )

His family had another home in an outlying satellite town of Pratoria, a relatively new urban development now called Johannasburg.(9) It was necessary for the children to be where at least one of their parents were, and, by degrees, the Arrangement had been made and the System evolved. The Handover Books were a part of this. The unique situation for her children was that they went where their parents went. Two or three days a week were spent at school in Rimwards Howondaland; two or three days were spent at school in Ankh-Morpork.

Olga reflected that the kids had adapted wonderfully to this and were growing up seeing commuting between continents as no big deal. Both of them – and their father – knew it was because of Mummy being what she was and Raduga Desh being what he is. (10) When Daddy was at Witwatersrand, the kids stayed at their home there and attended the Laerskool. When his working week took him to Ankh-Morpork, Mummy flew them all over and they attended local schools here. Two homes, two schools, different teachers and two sets of friends. They loved it.

Olga reflected that the kids were growing up and fitting two adults and two growing kids, plus a Navigator, onto a Pegasus that already had its equipment burden, was not going to be practical for much longer. She wondered about the logistics of this. Maybe ask – I can't reasonably command – one of the girls to help out. Yulia, perhaps. Howondaland fascinates her too, after her recent visits. We could fit in an overnight guest stay. Show her a few of the sights. There is some culture in Pratoria, for instance, musical concerts do happen now and again. Or if it's practical and the weekdays coincide, to ask Firebird if she can divert over to Joburg on her way Out, to take a passenger...

Olga frowned again. The thought of Rebecka Smith-Rhodes had nudged something in her mind, just the slightest ripple of unease. She pushed this from her mind. If it's important, I'll find out.

She paid attention to the Handover Books for both the kids. The idea had been Susan Sto Helit's. Susan had pointed out that it would be good to have continuity in these things and had appropriated a Frout's Academy student exercise book to briefly explain what Vassily had learnt in his days in her class. Susan had introduced herself and asked if the teacher in Howondaland – I'm sorry, I don't know your name yet and I don't speak Vondalaans – could keep her informed as to what he learnt in her classes. This way we can co-ordinate better.

Miss Raslouw at the Laerskool had responded, and suggested the same thing might usefully be opened up for Valentina at her school. She had sent back not only Vassily's Handover Book, with meticulous notes as to her lessons delivered, but a second book from the Laerskool Generaal Koos de la Rey, JohannaSmith-Rhodesburg, Pratoria, Oranje-Vrystaadt, S-H., detailing what Valentina de Kokamainje had learnt.

Sister Paedophobia Herodias (11), who was in charge of Valla's class at Seven-Handed Sek's, had seen the value of this immediately.

Olga read the notes, and reflected that a spinster schoolmistress in Howondaland and a teaching nun in Ankh-Morpork were developing a lively and amicable penfriend arrangement, through the medium of Valentina's Handover Book. She also noted Miss Raslouw's carefully expressed concern that while both were bright children, they were only in a Vondalaans-speaking environment for part of the week, and this might present problems further down the line.

She reflected that on Friday night, her family would be dinner guests at Johanna's, and winced slightly, suspecting Johanna Smith-Rhodes did things like this on purpose. She, Olga Romanoff, would be totally immersed in a Vondalaans-speaking environment herself with no concessions given, so as to improve her command of that language.

How hard can it be, she told herself. I grew up learning Rodinian, Quirmian and Morporkian. I took lessons in basic conversational Fistulan so as to speak to Father's estate workers who are of that ethnicity. My Überwaldean is passable, even though Hanna von Strafenburg says there is room for improvement. A sixth language, my husband's, should be straightforward. Shouldn't it?

Olga got to the bit where Miss Raslouw and Sister Paedophobia Herodias were sharing stories about their domestic pets, and smiled to herself. Incidentally, she learnt that Monday had been spent in Vondalaans Story-Telling, Song and Music, Elementary Mathematics, and World Geography.

She passed the Handover Books back to the children, telling them to keep them safely and not fail to pass them over to their teachers.

A little after that, her working day began with the short flight across the City to the Air Station, Eddie and the kids seeing her off.

Olga wondered on the flight about the little prompt, the nudge in the back of her mind where her Second Thoughts had brought up Rebecka Smith-Rhodes. She shrugged. She was a Witch. Every Witch got such nudges. No doubt she'd find out later. Probably nothing much. But you never know. She'd also slept extraordinarily well and had woken from blissful oblivion with no remembered dreams. That was also a bonus to a Witch. Witch-dreams could be full of lively incident with full sound and colour. Usually, the grind of Steading work meant you slept well, but Dreams had a habit of intruding.

One thought led to another. She remembered eavesdropping old Natalya's words of advice and prophecy to her children. The Babayaga had been emphatic.

I sees what you both did. Clever. But your mum and your dad ain't going to be in the dark forever. Best you think on and tell them.

Olga frowned. Whatever it was, Mummy and Daddy didn't know, and the kids hadn't told. Eddie had been mystified too. And that had been back in January. It was early May, now.

"Nichevo." she said, firmly. She took a deep breath and became Captain Romanoff, Air Watch Commander. She activated her communicator.

"Syren to control. I am on my way in, Red Star. Expect me in five minutes. Syren out."

Olga arrived at the Air Station, to what was already becoming an Interesting Day.

Spa Lane, Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork.

Breakfast at the Smith-Rhodes-Stibbons household was what it usually was: informal and relaxed, with just three family members at the table. Professor Sir Ponder Stibbons, in the company of his wife and youngest daughter, ate what for him was a full Wizard breakfast. (12) He felt quite happy and contented with life and was quite looking forward to starting his working day.

Johanna, who was dressed and already had her bags packed for work, smiled at him and they compared their working days.

"Oh, hopefully we'll be working on the theoretical and practical problem concerning how Bugarup University and Witwatersrand can link their Thinking Engines to the Web."(13) Ponder said. "The sheer distances involved. Some of the grads have been coming up with bright ideas, so we can evaluate them. That should take up most of the day."

Johanna snorted.

"You hope." she said. "That depends on Mustrum and the Faculty. You never know with them."

Ponder accepted this, He asked about Johanna's coming day. She winced slightly.

"I've got to cover a lesson at short notice." she said. "Two Raven for Elementary Biology. Normally the protocol means I don't take Two Raven for classes. But Mr Lavernum has reported sick."

"Two Raven." Ponder said. Then the penny dropped. "Oh..."

Johanna nodded, grimly.

"She knows the procedure." she said, firmly. "She sits up straight, behaves, and understands that she's just another pupil. And if she dares call me anything other than "Doctor" or "Ma'am"... well, Miss is acceptable - then she's in trouble."

A horrible suspicion crossed Ponder's mind.

"Johanna, you don't think Famke might have had something to do with her regular teacher going on sick leave?"(14)

Johanna scowled.

"If she did, then look at the substitute teacher she's wished on herself." she said. "Besides, she's on probation for six months after the last escapade. Evvie Glynnie tells me she's behaving herself."

"It's got to be odd, Mummy." Ruth said. "Going to school and getting your mummy as the teacher. I'm not sure how I'd behave if that happened."

Johanna looked kindly at her.

"That's a thoughtful thing to say, sweetheart." she said. "It happens, and we try to find ways to make it work for everyone. Normally I wouldn't teach Famke. We try to make that a sort of a rule, as far as we can, when a teacher has a child at the school. But just sometimes. It's inevitable."

Ruth smiled and changed the subject.

"Daddy, something really odd happened during the night. Can I tell you?"

Ponder and Johanna listened. She saw her husband frown and look worried.

"And you didn't come to wake me up when it happened?" he asked, gently.

Ruth shook her head and bit her lip, uncertainly.

"Well. When it stopped and nothing else happened. I thought it wasn't fair to come and tell you then, and it could wait for morning."

Her lip trembled.

"Daddy, am I in trouble?"

Ponder gave her a reassuring smile. Johanna reached across and patted her back.

"Not at all, sweetheart. You did the right thing. A lot of the time at the University, that's pretty much what we do."

Ruth, reassured, smiled uncertainly.

"I fell asleep again." she said. "I had this really really odd dream where the old Witch appeared and talked to me. I couldn't get what she was saying, but I remember she was dressed like one of the stacking dollies, only in darker colours. Err."

Ponder frowned.

"She had this way of talking. Her accent. She sounded a little like Auntie Irena." Ruth said, helpfully. "But stronger. Like Sergeant Nadezhda who was here the other week. She's nice."

Ponder pushed his chair back.

"Could you show me the dollies, Ruth?" he asked. "I don't think I've seen them finished and completely painted up."

"That would interest me too, Ruth." Johanna said. She stood up, leaving a half-finished slice of toast. She considered, and took her mug of tea with her.

Ruth led her parents upstairs to her bedroom and proudly showed off the five matryoschka dolls, lined up in rank from largest to smallest. Johanna said "Wow...", captivated by the beauty of the red and gold and the occasional green and blue. She'd only ever seen the five anonymous grey blanks that had come out of the oven. The finished pieces were gloriously beautiful, with life and character. Ponder stepped closer, and stretched out a hand as if considering picking one up. Then he flinched, withdrew his hand hurriedly and stepped back. Johanna looked at him sharply.

"Ponder?" she asked.

He looked wide-eyed and surprised.

"I'm wondering where all the magic came from." he said, soberly. "I felt it. It's strong. For one thing, I've put some very strong magical defences on this house. But whatever's in those dolls just walked straight through the wards as if they weren't there."

Johanna shrugged.

"Maybe your sort of magic only works on other Wizards." she said, reasonably. "I'm getting that the dolls don't want a wizard touching them, and gave you a little warning justnow."

She added an extra prompt, in the manner of a teacher and a slower-witted pupil.

"Which makes this?"

Ponder sighed, getting it. Witch-magic.

"Ruth, the old Witch in your dream?" he prompted her.

Ruth added a few more fragments that she could recall, such as the witch cackling and telling her "You're a clever one, ain't you?" and giving the impression her sister Rebecka was involved in this somehow.

Johanna frowned. She was comparing details on the dolls with the iconographic prints on Ruth's worktop.

"The original dolls are with Rebecka in Howondaland." she said. "And these are exact copies."

Ponder winced. His own dream-fragments were coming back into memory now. Of being in a place where he was in a halo of clear blue light. A certainty that other minds were there too. Sensing some sort of threat. Of urgently reminding Bekki of the need to set up defences. Then a sudden explosion of pink light in the dark... a suspicion arose. A worrying one.

He heard the scurrying on the floor, of long toenails scratching on wood and carpet, and smelt Goblin.

"Good morning, Mister Groaning of Wagon-Wheels." Ruth said, politely. The goblin grinned and wished good morning to Human Girl, Almost Unggue-Maker, then passed the clacks flimsy up.

"From Un'v'rs'ty, Pr'ffs-sore." he said. "Is urgent."

Ponder winced.

***DROP EVERYTHING, GET OVER HERE, LAD! URGENT! NOW! RIDCULLY.***

"I bet he's mislaid a file again." Johanna snorted. Ponder shook his head.

"Can't assume that. This feels like he's actually worried." he said. "Ah..."

More goblin-smell heralded Stonefall On The Coffin with another clacks.

***I MEAN IT, LAD. *** BIG BANG LAST NIGHT*** THAUMO-SEISMIC EXPLOSION. *** IN HOWONDALAND SOMEWHERE.*** IF WE FELT IT FROM HERE, IT'S BIG.***

Ponder sighed deeply.

"Got to go." he said. "Big display of magic, that people actually felt here, from a few thousand miles away. We don't know what it is yet, so it needs attending to."

Johanna nodded.

"I understand. You need an answer quickly, to give to Vetinari. If you can't find one, he'll get ironic. At least."

He kissed wife and daughter quickly, and asked the goblins to acknowledge Ridcully, and to get him a coach. Half an hour ago, it was just another day...

Wes-Sandrift, Rimwards Howondaland.

Rebecka Smith-Rhodes awoke from deep dreamless sleep, and groaned. She'd appreciated the few hours of deep dreamless sleep. It was just that there hadn't been nearly enough of it. She accepted the mug of tea from Jona the maid, and shook her head at the suggestion that she woke up Miss Ellie.

Bekki looked down at, and envied, a girl still in deep solid sleep, utterly untroubled by the night's events.

"Leave her for now." she said. "Leave the other mug where she can see it, and perhaps look in again in an hour's time? It's kinder to leave her sleeping justnow. Dankie."

She had gone to deliver the morning therapy to Mevrou Hendricka, wondering what to tell her about the night's disturbance. To her relief, Aunt Mariella was present and had already delivered a version. Hendricka took the news calmly and listened intently.

"So this thing isn't just tied to Haartebeeste." Hendricka said. "It is linked to the people. Where the girl goes, it goes. And when conditions are right, such as the lightning storm, it has the power to appear and make itself known."

Bekki felt a sense of relief that Hendricka had summed things up clearly and calmly. It could have been worse.

"The only damage was a broken mirror, Mevrou." Mariella said. "I'll replace that. Luckily, Bekki was able to banish it before anyone got hurt."

Hendricka nodded and smiled slightly.

"Advanced healthcare practitioner skills." she said, drily. "Of the sort taught in Lancre."

"Lancre delivers a very thorough training." Mariella agreed. She was watching delivery of the morning therapy with a keen interest. The bucket of water near the bed was already beginning to heat up, with no apparent heat source nearby.

"Anna is involved too." Mariella said, in a low quiet voice. "We're both sure of that, although we're not sure yet as to exactly how. She was sleepwalking during the night at exactly the same time, and the mirror somehow broke. And Bekki says that at the very same moment that she sort of inhumed the thing, Anna screamed. As if the magic or the supernatural or whatever it was blew straight back at her. I'm betting that's the moment the mirror smashed. And then the lightning storm died off as if it had run out of energy. Four coincidences too many."

They both looked at Bekki, who was focusing her attention on transferring the pain and discomfort from Hendricka into the water. Both knew it was best not to disturb a Witch while she was doing this.

"So. It's best not to have the van Jaasvelds as house-guests if a tropical storm is predicted." Hendricka said. "At any other time, it's safe."

"Ja, they're good people." Mariella agreed. "Anna's been under some unbelievable pressures in that place and it's beginning to crack her up. She's basically pretty decent. But people can do bad things and make wrong choices under pressure."

They watched Bekki together, as with one hand on Hendrika's left hip and another resting on the water bucket, she directed the pain and discomfort into the water. Both knew that this couldn't be hurried. Hendricka, feeling the immobility leaving her and aware mobility and freedom was returning to her lower body, smiled contentedly.

"Jan's a good man, and justnow he's feeling bewildered and out of his depth." Mariella said. "As for the girl Ellie, she's a nice kid. No great brain, no great beauty, just a typical girl of thirteen. But whatever this is, it's moving through her."

Mariella considered.

"They didn't teach much about magic and witchcraft at school." she said. "What they did teach boiled down to telling us to stay well out of it, and not to make enemies out of Witches and Wizards. And that didn't take too much boiling."

"Your family chose to make friends instead." Hendricka observed. "Your sister married one. And their daughter..."

They looked over at Bekki.

"Anyway, Hendricka. You've met Nottie Garlick? She once told me there's a kind of truth in the old saying, that if a witch throws a curse at you, and if you manage to stop it hitting, it bounces back three times as hard. Wizards call this the Law of Threefold Return and they dress it up with lots of extra words like kinetic energy, potential energy and accelerating inertia, but if you ask a Witch like Nottie, she'll tell you that the energy and the magic have to go somewhere, and it's like a rubber ball with nails and razor-blades in it. When it gets returned to sender, it's like you've taken a crockett bat to it, and it hits hard. I'm wondering if that's what happened to Anna during the night. She was..." Mariella tried to shape the thought. "She was the finger on the trigger. Ellie was the crossbow, loaded up with whatever she's got. Bekki said the thing materialised through her. The lightning storm was the bowstring, or something. Except when the bow started shooting, the quarrel bounced off Bekki's shield and ricocheted back at Anna. Crossbow quarrels can do strange random things sometimes."

They looked over to where Bekki was coming out of whichever place she'd just been to. She picked up a small cup, part full of salt, and tipped it into the water, which stopped roiling.

"All done." she said, standing up. She wobbled slightly. "We can call Martha back in now, to get rid of the water. It's safe."

Hendricka looked at her with sympathetic concern.

"You're tired." she said. "And you should be, it's not stopped for you since yesterday morning. Nobody would think any the worse of you if you went back to bed."

Bekki shook her head and smiled. Practically every Witch she had known, starting with Irena and Olga, had said that when you worked on a Steading, you'd get insanely busy periods where the days would be long, the challenges would not be straightforward and the problems time-consuming to resolve, sleep would be short, unhurried meals would become a fond memory, and this could go on for days on end without relenting or letting up. "This is where you find out how good a witch you are, devyuschka." Godsmother Irena had said. (16)

"I think I can manage, Mevrou." she said, privately hoping for a quiet morning. "Dertein can do some of the simpler things. And I have my reports to finish. For Olga."

"That reminds me." Mariella said. "I took a few notes when were talking during the night. You know, just to fix things on paper. You can add those to your report."

Hendricka considered this, and nodded.

"That fight on the plaas yesterday." she said. It all sounded like ancient history now. "What will you tell Olga about that?"

Bekki sighed. This bit would be tricky. She explained that as a part-time officer of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, who had been caught up in a criminal investigation in another country, she was absolutely obligated to tell her commanding officer. "I've written that report, Mevrou. Olga might take the point of view that you should know what it says, just to reassure yourself?"

Hendricka shook her head and smiled. "No need, Rebecka. I trust Olga, and I trust you. Thank you for the offer, anyway."

An hour and a half later, Bekki was sitting at her desk in the surgery, reviewing and worrying over the wording of her reports. At least it was a quiet morning. Young Jan had woken up, and Uncle Horst was keeping him occupied around the plaas with the sort of odd jobs that needed two pairs of hands. Ellie and Anna had been allowed to sleep in. Bekki had looked in on Anna, and satisfied herself that the combination of exhaustion and mild sedative would keep her under for a few hours yet. The housemaids had been instructed to send word if either or both awoke, and Bekki had suggested Ellie could usefully be sent to her to assist. There was really no way the van Jaasvelds could set off for home until Anna was fit to mount a horse and ride; Aunt Mariella had sent a message out on the Bush Clacks to explain Anna had had a slight accident, nothing serious, but this would delay her return to Haartebeeste and nobody was to get too concerned about that.

She was also pleased that talk among the blacks was still about the terrible fight and police arrests the previous day. Events during the night had apparently not been noticed. She reflected on the irony that sometimes apartheid worked, albeit in unintended ways. No black people, excluded from a whites-only area in the night hours, had been near enough to see the show. It must have gone un-noticed.

And there was also the stunning news that the red-haired sangoma, Miss Rebecka, had magically manifested the ability to understand every word they said to each other in Xhosa. Therefore, she is a Witch, a sangoma, and while Miss Rebecka is pleasant and kindly and one who heals, it is not wise to anger her, as she is a sangoma, and a sangoma is also one who can direct and use black terrible muti.

"Just see my teacup's full, Dertein." she advised her assistant. "Three sugars, and that keeps me kindly and staves off the terrible black muti."

Her orderly had grinned.

"As you wish, sangoma." he said.

Just before breakfast, by local time, the Pegasi arrived in the sky.

Unseen University, Ankh-Morpork

Ponder hurried to the High Energy Magic Building, aware from long experience he was likely to find Mustrum Ridcully there. He winced. It was never a good idea to have an unchaperoned Arch-Chancellor poking around in the HEM, asking things like "So what's this for, then?" or "And how much is THIS costin' the University, hey?"

He also wondered how many Faculty members had turned up, attracted by an as yet unspecified drama. Either way, his presence was called for. He squared his shoulders and walked in.

It was a bad omen, he decided, that the Arch-Chancellor was actually being quiet. He was also sitting down, reading print-outs from HEX, ocassionally breaking off to glare at a wobegone-looking grad student. Ponder recognised the grad as one of the overnight attendants for HEX.

"You're here, lad." Ridcully said, in a tired voice. "Good. Now where's me Doctor of Disorientation? Bloody man should be here, all this rubbish is happenin' in his bloody country."

Ponder took a deep breath.

"About this time of day, sir, I imagine he'll be on the school run." he said. "One at Frouts, and one at Seven-Handed Sek's."

Ridcully shook his head. Ponder sighed, grasping that the whole idea of Wizards actually being allowed to marry was still less than two decades old. Wizards with childcare responsibilities? That was a wholly alien concept, that might take a lot longer to settle in.

"The same things I had to do when the girls were smaller." Ponder reminded him, trying not to be pointed about it. "Fortunately, Johanna's dropping Ruth off today, as I've had to rush in urgently."

There was a long silence. Then Ridcully smiled, sheepishly.

"Taken and understood, lad. Now come over here and look at some of this rubbish, will you? Geo-thaumal readings went off the bloody scale at about one o'clock in the mornin', our time. They stayed off the bloody scale for three quarters of a bloody hour. Serious magic, lad. HEX fella's narrowed it down to Howondaland."

Ponder went to read the printouts. His frown progressively deepened.

"Turnwise Caarp." he remarked, at one point. "Hubwards of Caarp Town, the city."

He looked down at the printout again and looked up, sharply.

"HEX? Is there any doubt at all? This exact location?"

+++I have double-checked all the available data, Professor Stibbons.+++ HEX replied, with just a hint of irritation. +++The geo-thaumal and geo-seismic surges were cross-referenced with the best available geodesic data against political maps of the Disc.+++The epicentre of the disturbance is some miles outside the minor city of Bitterfontein in the Turnwise Caarp.+++There was a serious discharge of magic, measured at several kilothaums.+++And all the indications are that Malignity was involved.+++

Ponder's brain suddenly began working at speed as he made a few appalling associations. It was probably bad luck for the overnight grad that he chose to speak at this point.

"Wow. I never knew bad coal could go up like that." he said, in wonderment. "But if you've got a lot of it, all in the same place..."

He broke off, wondering why the normally easy-going Professor Stibbons was looking at him like that. It was uncomfortable.

"Tell me." Ponder said, with ominous icy calm. "What exactly do you understand when you hear the word "malignity"?"

Shortly after that, Ponder began shouting. People who witnessed it would later describe it, with awe, as "impressive."

Even Mustrum Ridcully felt the need to say "Steady on, lad!".

Ponder calmed, feeling a little bit sheepish and embarrassed for losing his temper.

"Feelin' better now, lad?" Ridcully asked, affably. He patted Ponder on the shoulder. "Impressive bit of shoutin' there. You know, if you could do that more often, you could do my job!" (17)

Ridcully stood up. He nodded, briskly, and picked up his staff.

"There's only one magic-user we know of in that place, lad." he remarked. "And we've established she can do serious magic. In this very University, in fact."

Ridcully's eyes misted over for a second, in nostalgic remembrance of a grand-daughter doing something for the first time that he could feel pride in.

"Remember her first fireballs?"

Ponder remembered. Specifically, he remembered the after-images that had danced on his retinas for far too uncomfortably long a time.

"Sir, you're not helping..." he mumbled, everyday Ponder Stibbons again.

Ridcully gave his shoulder another reassuring pat.

"Our girl's in trouble." Ridcully said, half to himself. "Best go and talk to people."

He turned to the hapless and trembling grad student.

"You." he said. "Chance to redeem yourself, laddie. Simple task, one you'll be hard put to foul up."

Ridcully scribbled a message. He handed this over.

"Bledlows' office, now. Get this clacksed. From me, destination Captain Olga Romanoff, Air Watch. That's Pseudopolis Yard, in case you don't know. Wait for a reply, bring it straight to me. You hear? Good."

Ridcully nodded at Ponder.

"I'd be surprised if those bright young girls ain't felt it." he remarked. "And they can have somebody in Howondaland inside half an hour. Probably faster, as our girl Rebecka's one of their own. Any suspicion there's a Watchwoman down and in trouble, they'll pile in like bloody Harpies to get her out."

The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork.

Olga made her way to the Control Room to confer with Irena and Nottie about the overnight shift. She was met by a worried-looking Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom. Olga sighed a deep resigned sigh, accepting that this wasn't normal.

"Err.. She came straight in, ma'am. I was trying to get her to go to a waiting room and we'd get somebody from the Air Watch to come and see her there, but she wasn't having it... errr..."

Olga gave Cheery a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Completely understood." she said, registering Mrs Evadne Cake standing to one side of the gathering Air Watch contingent, looking furious, impatient, and puce in the face. The Air Witches had all the signs of a typical Ankh-Morporkian audience gathered to appreciate a bit of street theatre, and while the necessary Respect was there for the local Spirit Small, there was also muted amusement, the anticipation of entertainment.

And relief that they're not the ones who'll have to deal with her directly.

"She's hard to stop." Olga reassured Cheery, in a lower voice.

Captain Romanoff gathered herself and welcomed the self-propelled hat, trying not to think of Mrs Cake as an over-sized fruit salad with a small determined woman underneath. She wondered if the Hat was a version of Vetinari's To The World's Greatest Boss mug, or the clock in the waiting room, a deliberate disorientation tactic.

"Mrs Cake." Olga said, welcoming her. "I see you've been offered hospitality."

She nodded to the tea-tray, then looked over to Lieutenant Irena Politek, who looked tired but determined.

"I asked if we could wait for you, ma'am." Irena said, after an exchange of necessary salutes. "There's a Situation."

Olga nodded.

"Emergency, or can it wait until after shift handover and Briefing?" she asked. When in doubt, grasp the essential points.

Irena frowned. Both glanced sideways to the agitated woman in the Hat. She seemed as if she was bursting to speak, but something was preventing her.

"I've stopped her clock for the moment." Irena said, in Rodinian. "She knows I did it deliberately, but until I say the right words, she can't say a thing. She'll be mad, I warn you."

Olga digested this, then went poker-faced.

"Oh. She hasn't switched her premonition off?"

Irena nodded.

"Da. She's on pause."

Olga gave Mrs Cake a benevolent smile and reverted to Morporkian.

"We'll be with you in a moment, Mrs Cake. I'm sure you appreciate we also have the everyday business of the Air Watch to deal with and right now, we're handing command over from the Night Witches to the Day Shift. That's important too."

Olga and Irena concluded a very fast handover and the Night Witches were dismissed. None of them seemed in a hurry to depart, she noted.

"Come to the office, Mrs Cake? We can talk more privately in there. Thank you. You too, Lieutenant Politek, Sergeant Garlick. Corporal Matlock? If we aren't out in time, march everyone downstairs for Morning Prayers. Thank you."

Olga composed herself behind the C/O's desk. She nodded to Irena, who took a deep breath and said

"How may we help you, Mrs Cake?"

Mrs Evadne Cake suddenly deflated.

"Just let me turn it off... you done that deliberately, din't you, young Irena? You knows when I got it switched on, that if you don't say the right words, I'm stuck, and I can't move on till somebody says it!"

She glared at Irena in a "this will not be forgotten" sort of way.

"Now I'm here, Mrs Cake?" Olga suggested, still in the dark as to what the emergency was.

"I seen it all!" Mrs Cake said, triumphantly. "Clear as if I was there! That young girl of yours, the red-haired one, young Rebecka. This big dirty slug sort of thing wavin' scissors in the air come for her. She's in trouble, Olga, you got to get out there and help!"

Olga tried not to wince.

"Did a name that sounded like Hearty-beast-err get spoken at any point, Mrs Cake?" she asked.

"Don't know about that, Olga, love." Mrs Cake said, calming down now in the glow of important people prepared to take her seriously. "But that thing bloody stank, and young Rebecka din't seem to know the trick about throwin' salt on the filthy things..."

Little by little, more detail came out concerning the magical fight as Mrs Cake had seen it in her not-a-dream, and could interpret it.

"And I tell you another thing, Olga, love. There was some serious magic bein' used there if I got to see it from Ankh-Morpork an' she's in Howondaland, but you'd expect that, that young woman's father bein' who he is, an'... not now, Bucket! I'm busy!"

Mrs Cake's voice and, to an extent, her face, changed. Her voice now sounded male and worried.

"Err... Mrs Cake? About last night. Err... lady over here wants a word and I'd be obliged... OW!"

The new voice was elderly, female and spoke Rodinian. And there was a sudden un-Cakian cackle.

"Bet you weren't expectin' to hear from me again, devyushkii." she said.

Olga and Irena looked at each other as they realised, then smiled.

"Well. Maybe not this soon, Babayaga." Irena said.

Mrs Cake's face smiled.

"I wasn't, neither." Natalya Svetlanovna admitted. "One minute, I'm finding me feet in the Afterlife. You know, workin' out who's who and where's where. Touring a bit. Meetin' people. Then, I gets the pull back. Firebird only went and activated them bloody dolls, din't she?"

"But isn't that why you gave them to her, Natalya?" Olga asked. "I know she wouldn't just put them on a shelf somewhere and forget about them."

Natalya cackled again.

"Not that girl. Bright. Anyway, I gets called back when them dolls switched themselves on, and I can see it's first thing in the mornin', Firebird's going to get into some bother involvin' a mad bugger with a big knife. So I warns her to be on her guard. Or, the dolls switch on for her then, while I'm tryin' to get her attention. Glowin' eyes, see? I think, well, that's the end of it, I gets called to where them dolls are, to try to warn the girl. Warning duly given. Then something else happens. She must have sorted the business out concernin' the crazy man with the knife, 'cos I comes back to see it's the next night, and there's a fight goin' on. With one of THEIR creations."

Irena, who had been translating the gist for Nottie Garlick, suddenly stopped dead.

"Their?" she asked.

"Them." Natalya confirmed.

Olga frowned. Natalya's voice was wavering a little, going in some indefinable way out of focus, as if a connection was breaking...

"Oh, she won that round, Olga. Tough girl in a fight. Gets that from her mother. But it won't be the last. I got to see. So much bloody magic in the air, it was leakin' all over the place. Pullin' people in from all over. They're involved. Be on your guard..."

Mrs Evadne Cake resurfaced.

"I keeps on tellin' em." she grumbled. "You're using my voice. Speak Morporkian, will you? But they never listens."

She stopped, as if listening to an inner voice.

"Mrs Filipovna's got to go, now the connection's broke." she said. "But she says she had to rescue that little blue bugger from a hard place. You're to give him either a medal, or a bottle of vodka, she sez, whichever he prefers. He'd have found his way out regardless, she sez. But the long way round might have been trickier. Also. Go to the place where the new dolls are, the matrozhikka things. There's somebody who's learnt to Make 'em. Mrs Filipovna's right impressed by that. She reckons you've got a Maker and a Shaper. Rare sort of a witch, apparently."

Irena looked at Olga.

"I don't like the sound of Them." she said.

"Me neither." Olga agreed.

"Code Twenty-Three?" Nottie asked.

"Code Twenty-Three." Olga agreed. "Get me Vorona, would you? She's reserve Pegasus pilot for today. I hope she wasn't anticipating a quiet morning. And get her Pegasus saddled up so she's flight-ready after she's briefed. Wee Mad Arthur to navigate, her regular navigator to learn the route from him. Thank you."

Olga thought quickly, assessing her available resources.

"Also, get Nadezhda. I know it's her day off, but sometimes there's no helping it. I want somebody going with Vorona who's been before and knows the place and the people. And the problem."

She paused again and reached for her communicator.

"Best I tell her, I think. I can ask about her holiday plans, too."

Mrs Evadne Cake shifted in her chair. She took a sip of her tea.

"That's what I like about you girls." she said. "No messing. The bloody Wizards would still be sittin' there arguin'. And speakin' of Wizards, you're goin' to start getting' clackses from them about now. Mark my words."

Olga sighed. One of those days.

Irrisory Street, Ankh-Morpork.

Nadezhda Popova sighed a deep resigned sigh and said "Nichevo."

She acknowledged Olga's communication and confirmed she'd be right over, agreeing that this couldn't wait.

Her husband Yuri sighed a resigned sigh. He knew about Watch practice. Nadezhda had been with the Air Watch almost since the beginning, and he was aware that at busy times, or emergencies, concepts like days off and rostered shifts could become very elastic indeed. He tried to think like a Watchman, about what was most important to the Watch. He'd had practice.

"This is to do with the girl called Firebird?" he asked, seeking to grasp the important. "She is in trouble in her faraway land, and somehow the Air Watch is aware."

"Da." Nadezhda said, reaching for her broomstick. "Olga Anastacia is sending a patrol out to check and take reports and fly back. Because I have attended this place before and I know the concern there, I must go. It is a Code Twenty-Three."

"Ah." said Yuri. He knew the significance of Code Twenty-Three. It meant, in this case, Sorry about the day off you thought you had, Sergeant Popova. But you're needed. Everything took second place to a Code Twenty-Three when it became active.

Nadezhda checked the set of her sword-belt. Worn over everyday civilian clothing, it looked both incongruous and somehow threatening. She nodded, and looked stern.

"And she was a Fledgling." she added. The spill-words said She is my chick. And I am Mother Hen.

She quickly kissed Yuri.

"See the children get to their schools, and I will see you again later in the day. I can tell you how it went."

Morning-rising neighbours in Irrisory Street wished her a good morning as she took off and headed Widdershins-by-Hubwards across the City. An Air Watch sergeant living on the street was considered to be, most of the time, a Good Neighbour.(18) Her Witch talent came in useful in emergencies. That she flew to work on a broomstick was an exotic bonus and made for minor street theatre.

The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard.

Pegasus pilot Serafima Dospanova, known as Vorona to the Air Watch, had been rostered as reserve pilot for that morning. Most of the time it meant whoever was on Reserve got a quiet day. Olga Anastacia was bound, if only by the need to be prudent, to always have an extra Pegasus pilot on call who wasn't rostered for any scheduled duties. It meant the Service wouldn't be embarrassed if Vetinari suddenly called for an extra mission to somewhere. It was known to happen.

Serafima knew this well enough. She also took it philosophically that the emergency flight was happening almost the very instant she had walked in through the door to start her shift. It was, she reflected, what the Reserve Pilot was for.

Captain Romanoff broke off during the briefing to receive the Clacks from the University. Serafima could tell it was significant from the way she winced.

"Tell him we're on the case." she said, tersely. "And I'm just about to send a flight over to investigate."

Olga laid the clacks on the desktop with all the care due to an unexploded bomb.

"Bloody wizards." she said. "Always too many words."

Irena Politek picked the message up and read it. She winced too.

"So they felt it as well." she remarked. "How big is a kilothaum, anyway?"

"Too big." Olga said. "Eddie tells me if it gets into megathaums, or past that into gigathaums, you get Chernobyloko."

"So a full kilothaum is a small crater in the ground." Irena remarked. "Got it now."

"So I am to look for craters in the ground where previously there were none." Serafima said. "Will these be house-sized? Small town sized?"

Olga took a deep breath.

"You've been on the firing ranges when Firebird threw one of her special fireballs." she said. Hoping that Rebecka had refrained from that. (19)

Serafima nodded, sagely.

"That sort of crater. I see."

Even Hanna von Strafenburg had said with a talent like that, Flying Officer Smith-Rhodes could be excused for not applying pinpoint accuracy. Exact pinpoint accuracy became irrelevant.

"It might not be that bad." Nottie Garlick said, optimistically. "If I understand the scale correctly, this magical display went on for the best part of an hour, and a full kilothaum expended slowly and steadily over sixty minutes is still spectacular, but less drastic. Kind of a controlled release. You only get the full Loko if it all goes off bang all at once." (20)

"That's what you'll be there to find out, Vorona." Olga said. "Priority: establish that Firebird and her Pegasus are undamaged and healthy. Take witness statements. Establish what exactly has happened. Be discreet. You aren't in Ankh-Morpork any more. Then report back, as soon as you can. You're taking a passenger, by the way. Sergeant Popova's been before and the key people locally know her. Let me brief you about Mistress Hendricka Lensen..."

A little later, Sergeant Nadezhda Popova reported in.

"I have a uniform in my locker. Shall I change?" she asked. Olga shook her head.

"It might be better if you attended in civilian clothes." she said. "I want this to be as discreet as possible, and too many people in Watch uniforms walking around the place would be noticed and commented on. In ones or twos, we can get away with it, as the people in Ves-Sand-Rift have seen me, for instance, visiting, and know my calls are mainly social ones to friends. They're used to it. And for the same reason, only one Pegasus. That attracts no special interest, and is not unusual."

She gave Irena Politek a sympathetic look.

"I know you want to get over there too." she remarked. "But you've been on shift all night. I want fresh people attending this situation. Nadezhda is the ideal person. She knows the situation, and any casual attention to her will resolve in knowing she is soon to be on a family holiday there. Next week, Nadezhda, during the school holiday? Khorosho. You can explain your presence by giving the impression you are agreeing final details with your hostess Mistress Hendricka Lensen, and Vorona was able to give you a lift. So we're agreed, then. Can you both move to flight readiness? Thank you."

Olga waited for them to leave and then kindly said to Irena:

"Get a few hours sleep. We've agreed Rebecka is most likely safe and well. Reports, such as Mrs Cake's observations, as well as your own guided intuition, support this. If I can advise you, get some sleep for a few hours. Freshen up. I'll wake you when Vorona and Mother Hen come back, you can sit in on their report, and then I'd have no objections to your flying over later in the day. If what we suspect is true, I do not want the possible suspects to be alerted to our interest. Too many Pegasi in the sky at one time will be hard to conceal. If they're watching, I want them to only see routine."

Irena reluctantly accepted that Olga was right. She also noticed Olga reflexively touching iron.

"Add on-call time and overtime to your pay docket for today." Olga said. "Reason: ongoing Code Twenty-Three investigation."

"Spassibo." Irena said, acknowledging she'd now been on shift for nearly thirteen hours. Tiredness was nagging at her. She went to find a crash-bed without arguing about it.

She heard the special unscheduled flight to Howondaland taking off, then shrugged and pulled a blanket over herself. Nadezhda probably was the ideal person, an experienced officer and a Mother Hen to her chicks.

Irena Politek sank gratefully into sleep. It had been a long night. Her last thought before drifting into sleep was a perplexing one: Natalya's odd unconnected words relayed through Mrs Cake. Mad bugger with a big knife? That didn't seem to relate to anything else. Maybe a variation on scissors? Ah well. We'll find out.

Wes-Sandrift, Rimwards Howondaland.

Ellie Meyer had awoken and had been sent to Bekki so that somebody could keep an eye on her. Bekki accepted this, and carefully stowed her completed reports where curious eyes could not find them. For want of anything else to do on a quiet morning, and not feeling up to going over to the staff quarters to check the condition of her abominable patient there, Bekki had Dertein supervise her in mixing up some of the simpler preparations and decoctions, reasoning that he could be trusted to get the mix right, and Ellie's curiosity could be occupied by allowing her a go on the pill press. And as a bonus, she would be restocked in things like beech-bark pills for headaches and pain relief, without having to do the hard boring work herself.

Fighting off a need for sleep and trying to push an inconvenient conscience to one side – she'd have to go over to the staff accommodation sometime to check on that bloody man Siphale, but he's stable, it can wait for an hour or two, the staff aren't too pleased having him there but they say his health is giving no cause for concern – she busied herself with routine admin and paperwork.

It was a relief to get back to some sort of normality after the previous day and night. She appreciated this.

Remembering there was a more mundane chore to do with regard to the previous night, she set about writing up her entry in the Weather Log about the last night's thunder and lightning storm. Forcing herself to concentrate, she missed the arriving Pegasus almost completely.

---

"Bloody hell, they're quick off the mark." Grindguts the Destroying Demon said, looking up.

"Aye". Wee Archie Aff The Midden agreed. He looked up.

"And that's no' the usual caller." he remarked, standing up. "'Tis Sergeant Nasedka on the pillion, Green Yin. Almost didnae recognise her in civvie clothes, ye ken. An' the pilot's Mistress Stormcrow. We'd best be lookin' sharp."

---

From above, Serafima Dospanova looked down on miles of verdant green over red-brown earth. The undulating landscape had a sort of stark beauty to it, underneath a brilliant sunny blue sky. The petrichor smell of a landscape just after rain hung in the air. It was, she thought, an attractive place showing its best side to the world.

She was also relieved that there was a complete absence of the sort of smouldering black crater you'd expect to see after a massive uncontrolled eruption of random magic.

"We're here, ma'ams." Wee Mad Arthur said, from the mane. He nodded to the junior navigator.

"Ye reckon ye has the route now, laddie?"

Serafima's regular navigator nodded fervent assent and perked up with great excitement.

"Aye, weel, Sergeant." he said, sniffing the air. "Any of us could find our way tae a place like this wi' the nose alone!"

He took an appreciative sniff.

"And yon wee bauchle scunner Wee Archie gets tae live here..." he added, disbelievingly. "Some Feegle gets a' the luck!"

"Remember the briefing." Serafima's passenger said. "Feegle visiting this place only get to visit distillery by invitation. The human mistresses here keep watchful eye. May not be Witches, but are terrible in their wrath."

Nadezhda resumed a visual search downwards. In front of her, Serafima began to move to a landing.

"No obvious signs of damage." she said, in Rodinian. "Nothing visual, anyway."

The complex of buildings below showed a complete absence of any sort of damage. A mixture of smells and scents were rising to meet them, farm animals grazed and foraged in the usual way in their pens and paddocks, and humans were tending them and going about the usual range of tasks.

"Da." Nadezhda agreed. "But you can feel it. The place stinks of recent magic. Lots of it. Whatever it was, it happened here."

Serafima focused on the landing, noting lots of puddles and therefore the presence of mud. This required focus and concentration when landing a fully-laden Pegasus. Underneath them, humans, farmhands and labourers, were beginning to look up. Serafima noted the majority had black skins. This was strange and new to her: she saw black people in the streets in Ankh-Morpork, certainly, but they were very much a minority. And in her homeland in the Baikal, on the shores of the Great Mouldavian Sea, there were none at all. If there was an ethnicity there, it was the Rehigreedians, a people related to the Agateans.(21) The Baikal Host, while being mainly Rodinian, had a distinct Rehigreedian streak to it.

This, she reflected, as her Pegasus came into land, was a completely new place to her. She'd never visited before. She waited for Воробей to fold her wings back, and for Nadezhda to dismount and pat her skirts down into place, then dismounted herself. They waited for somebody to come and receive them. Nadezhda had explained it was likely to be the Mistress of the place, or one of them. Perhaps both together.

"Aye, laddie." Wee Mad Arthur said to the junior Feegle. "Mistress Hendricka, ye ken. I meet her whenever Mistress Olga flies oot here. She is as near tae a Hag as ye will ever see, withoot bein' a Hag hersel'. An' in this place, tae her people, she is a Kelda. So ye minds your manners."

Serafima looked around her. A contraption was approaching, looking like a stripped-down sedan chair, borne by two large well-build black men. A woman sat in state, with two walking sticks resting across her lap. Serafima recognised that she had status here, and instinctively made the Witch-bow, even though the woman wasn't, she realised, actually a Witch.

"I saw you coming into land." the woman said, in accented Morporkian. "Mrs Pop-over. So nice to see you again so soon."

Handshakes were exchanged. Nadezhda leaned in for the cheek kiss.

Hendricka Lensen looked up at Serafima.

"I don't think I've met you before?" she said. "You'd be another of Olga's girls?"

"Da, dama." Serafima said, politely, and introduced herself.

Hendricka graciously welcomed her.

"Excuse me for not standing up." she said. "But the ground is muddy and slippery after rain."

She indicated the walking-sticks.

"Mariella thought it would be prudent for me to use the bakkie." she explained. "These days, I find less need for it, but I see her point about mud on the ground."

She indicated her bearers.

"And, vorbei, these fellows need exercise. I'd only have to find something else for them to do. Isn't that right. Hokie?"

The black bearers grinned appreciatively. Hokie, the lead bearer, grinned back.

"Driving Mevrou Hendricka." he said, thoughtfully. "There could be worse jobs, and at least she leaves the whip in the huis."

Serafima grinned. This wasn't what she'd heard about Rimwards Howondaland, not at all. It hadn't surprised her to see a white woman being carried in state by two black people. It sort of fitted in, really. The easy mutual respect and informality had surprised her. That didn't fit in with what she'd heard. But she reasoned that back in Ankh-Morpork, coach-drivers and chauffeurs could get similar informal privileges from their employers. So, why not here.

"I'd be surprised if Mariella didn't see you landing." Hendricka remarked. "Reckon she'll be along justnow."

She looked appraisingly at the two Witches.

"So what brings you here?" she asked. "Usually, if it isn't Olga calling by socially, it's to do with Rebecka."

"We are here to speak to Firebird." Nadezhda said, getting that whatever had happened, Bekki was safe and well. That was reassuring. "But first, is there place where we can speak?"

Hendricka considered this.

"Here's Mariella now. Thought she wouldn't be long."

She indicated the younger red-haired woman who was approaching.

"There's the huis. Mariella can sort out a groom to tend to your mount, we can go and have a cup of tea, and I can send word for Rebecka to come and join us. It'll soon be breakfast time, anyway. Have you both eaten?"

"By your kindness, Mrs Lensen." Nadezhda said. "Tea is always welcome."

Without turning her head, she added

"You two. Come out where I can see you. I will need you to report."

Wee Archie and Grindguts sheepishly came out of cover and reported for duty. Mariella silently reflected that there was nothing like a Feegle for being inobtrusive and able to go into concealment. It's rubbed off on the Demon, too. She also noted their very respectful demeanour around Nadezhda Popova.

"Mr Wee Mad Arthur and the other little fellow are welcome to breakfast with us, too." Hendricka said, amicably. "Mariella, when you've got grooms to attend to this mount, come and join us? I have a feeling as to what this is about, and you saw more of it than I did."

Mariella grinned.

"I've got to say, Olga doesn't mess around and she isn't slow." she remarked. "So you're the response? Well, you'll want to speak to Bekki. She saw most of all."

The bakkie and its attendant party moved in the direction of the huis. Out of interest, and wanting to see more of this interesting place, Serafima explained that as her bonded Witch, she had a duty to see Воробей (22) to the stable, so as to report she was being looked after. Hendricka accepted this.

The one called Mariella, who from the briefing was identified as Rebecka's aunt, grinned at her.

"We can call in at the surgery on the way." she said. "Pick up Bekki. I'm guessing you want to see she's okay, after last night? She wondered how far it was going to get, when the business happened. Must have reached as far as Ankh-Morpork."

"Ah" Serafima said, none the wiser. She tried not to show this in her face.

---

"Да будет благословенно это место!"(23)

Bekki, aware she was drooping over her desk, picked up straight. It wouldn't do to be seen dozing. She was aware Dertein and Ellie, who were engaged in counting finished pills into dispensary bottles, stopping and looking at the newcomer, who was being politely ushered in by Aunt Mariella. Serafima Dospanova was distinctive and couldn't look inconspicuous if she tried; long, slender, just over six feet tall with the slightly hunched-over look many tall thin people lapse into when they aren't making a conscious effort. In her middle twenties, she was one of the older pilots in a Service where the average age was nineteen or at most twenty. Relative maturity made her stand out, too. Her very long black hair was tied back into a loose practical braid hanging down her back. Bekki reflected she usually tidied it away inside her tunic, or else piled it into more formal braiding or a bun when on Watch duty. Anything else offered a difficult customer something to grab and pull on, if they wanted to evade arrest or generally be difficult.

Bekki frowned. That loose hair-tie suggested Serafima hadn't anticipated being sent out this morning, and had only had time for last-minute tidying of her hair. Therefore, unscheduled flight?

But the thing, the obvious and first thing about Serafima Dospanova, was her face. A long lugubrious oval, with a prominent pointy chin and a long pointed nose in a usually unsmiling face. Add in the big black eyebrows and the deep-set shadowed eyes, and she was Witch Classic. There was no doubt about this. There was also no way she could be called "beautiful", except by a very confident liar. Striking, yes. Distinguished, yes. Beautiful, not.

Other Witches envied her that face, It commanded attention and respect. Bekki also knew appearances could deceive. Serafima had a well-honed sense of humour and could laugh as loudly and as joyously as anybody, possibly when she was reasonably sure nobody was watching. Her regular wingmate Yulia Vishzinsky, the joker of the Air Watch, brought the best out of her. Bekki was also vaguely aware Serafima had a sort of family connection to the Fledgling, Alexandra Mumorovka. She wasn't sure of the exact details, but had realised there was a sort of family resemblence, yes. However it worked out, the thing between Serafima and Lexi had a sort of aunt-niece dynamic about it, like herself and Mariella.

"Vorona." Bekki said, lapsing into Air Watch practice.

"Firebird." Serafima replied. She smiled, her face softening. "I'm glad to see you, devyuschka."

Bekki frowned.

"Were you not expecting to see me?" she asked, in her best Rodinian. Something was nudging her: do not say too much in front of Ellie Meyer. Serafima's face conveyed the barest hint of surprise, then she followed Bekki's sideways glance towards Ellie.

"I should introduce you." Bekki said, reverting to Morporkian. "This is Dertein, my assistant and orderly. And this is a guest, who stayed overnight at this plaas last night. Miss Ellie Meyer, from Haartebeeste, a small town possibly twenty miles away."

Serafima greeted Ellie warmly, remarking that she had a cousin of the same age in Ankh-Morpork and making small talk about how this placed a family duty on her. Two Rodinian girls together, you understand, from the same part of Rodinia, in a foreign city. And your Aunt Anna is currently staying at the big house? And she had an accident last night and you are concerned for her, but Rebecka says she is healing well and needs a long sleep? Well, I can look in on her, as a practitioner of healthcare myself.

"And no, I am not one who trained Rebecka, but one who had to do with both our training arrived with me, and she is currently at the house herself. Your aunt is in safe hands, Miss Ellie Meyer."

"Sometimes, my, err, tutors, like to check in on me to see if I'm getting it right." Bekki said. "This is a duty visit, I suppose. I'd clean forgotten about that." Bekki added, improvising. She looked at Aunt Mariella, who was leaning on the doorpost with her arms folded.

"The senior tutor who arrived with Serafima is Nadezhda Popova." Mariella informed her. "She's up at the huis now, having tea with Mevrou Hendricka, and no doubt going over your school report with her. You know, about how well your work placement is going."

Mariella nodded at the desk as she said report.

Bekki remembered.

"I've prepared the paperwork for her." she said. "About ongoing issues and a need for further guidance in some areas."

"Kiff. Bring it along." Mariella said.

Bekki retrieved the two reports for the Watch.

"Dertein? I might be gone for a while." she said. "Keep Ellie occupied, would you, and if any emergencies show up that can't wait, send word. Anything you can deal with, the simpler things, please do, but send word if you're stuck. Dankie."

She wasn't surprised to see a Pegasus waiting outside, engaged in a nose-bag. The forward panniers carried the image of a raven, black on a yellow ground, with Ворона underneath in Cyrillic script. Serafima took the reins and led her along, at Mariella's direction.

"The roads here are going to be all mud and even bigger ruts and potholes." Mariella remarked. "Unless it really can't wait, reckon you'll have a quiet day. Nobody's going to come out with a cut finger or a grazed knee."

Serafima nodded agreement.

"Da. Saw that when I was Steading witch in stanitsa in the Baikal." she said. "Before Lancre. Before Pegasus. Before Air Watch, in spring and autumn rasputitsa. Nothing moves in mud unless it has to."

Mariella and Serafima bonded in a friendly argument about how bad the mud gets in the rainy seasons. On the one hand, when riding horses gets so tricky even Cossacks care not to, you know is muddy. Mariella countered by saying that when the rain and mud get so bad, the fifteen-a-side gets called off on a Saturday – that's mud season.

"Cossacks who cannot ride – grumpy. Hard to deal with."

Mariella hmmph'd.

"Try a husband who's at a loose end on a Saturday afternoon just because the game's been postponed. Hard to live with."

They laughed.

Serafima grew serious again.

"I will not hide it from you. Only had briefing before I flew out. Nadezhda knows more." She looked around her to check if anybody was listening.

"Miss Ellie Meyer, who I met. She is centre of investigation, in situation you are having here?"

Mariella nodded, unsmiling.

"Ja. Caused a little stir during the night. And previously, when I stayed at Haartebeeste. Also, her aunt, who you have not met yet."

Serafima nodded.

"Echoes were felt as far as Ankh-Morpork." Serafima said, in a low voice. "Lieutenant Irena Politeka felt them strongly. She was concerned. University, and other magical people, felt them too. Was traced to here. So Mother Hen, who knows this situation, and myself to fly her, were sent here to investigate."

Bekki paid attention.

"It reached that far?" she said.

Serafima patted her shoulder.

"Firebird, would not surprise me if they felt it in Lancre." she said. "Was strong. Like one of your special fireballs, but bigger."

"So Irena authorised a mission..." Bekki said.

Serafima laughed, not unkindly.

"Nyet, Firebird. Olga Anastacia authorised a mission. Ankh-Morpork Air Watch in country which is not Ankh-Morpork? Needs Olga Anastacia to authorise."

"Especially this country." Mariella observed. "I know the local Wizards are aware, but something tells me I'd rather not have them descending in force on my plaas."

"Very wise, Mistress Lensen." Serafima said, with a completely straight face. "Better off with Witches. Or is perhaps safer to say, Practitioners of Healthcare."

Mariella grinned.

"Remind me to offer you a great big drink when you're off duty." she said. "Reckon I'd like that."

"Me also." Serafima said. "Large bottle, two glasses."

They arrived at the stables. Mariella smoothly changed the subject.

"Speaking of great big drink reminds me of something." she remarked. "If you and Nadezhda have got time, I'd like to show you both the distillery. Idea I had for all-year-round production at capacity, to make the most of what we've got. I'd like your opinions as to whether we're on the right track and if it needs more work. Send you home with a bottle or two each, maybe..."

Mariella introduced the grooms, explaining they knew what to do because of Boetjie. Bekki saw they were trained up to deal with the unusual things for horses. As the two Pegasi greeted each other, Serafima reassured herself her mount was in good hands, and the three of them proceeded to the huis together.

---

Hendricka and Nadezhda sat together in the kitchen, drinking tea and talking about children and families, for now. Around them, the duty housemaids busied themselves with setting up for breakfast. Nadezhda appreciated the big issue would be spoken of in due course, and knowing Bekki was safe and well, decided there was now no great hurry. She also intuited that some things were not discussed in front of the servants, who seemed completely oblivious to the fact strange things had happened here overnight.

On the other hand, she could feel exactly how much magic had been expended here overnight. It was weighing on her, demanding her attention.

"I am sorry to hear of your oldest son." Nadezhda said, meaning it. "Perhaps it is the case that sometimes, things do not work out as you would like and you have to stand back so as to prevent more hurt and damage to yourself. You have perhaps done all you can, and he is big boy now, adult."

Nadezhda reached over and took her hand.

"He is over thirty and he is making his own mistakes. As mother, you have to accept that and stand back. Is possible he may find his correct path and learn from mistakes made. Is always hope. As mother, you have to hope for that."

"Thank you." Hendricka said. "You know, Nadezhda, it's a relief to be able to talk about this to somebody. Somebody older. And the wonder of it is, I've only met you twice, but I can talk to you, about these private things!"

Nadezhda smiled. Many years previously, she'd been taught, by older Witches, of the value of being a good listener. People tended to talk more, to fill the gaps, and as Nanny Ogg had said, the older you get, the more they will talk about things they don't want to say to a young girl who's still got the shop's price-tag on her pointy hat. Bein' married and havin' kids yourself is a good opener. Gets you credit.

Hendricka suddenly became herself again.

"The girls are here. Good. I'm guessing you wish to discuss events last night. I'm no help, I slept through it all. But some very odd things happened."

Mariella, Rebecka and Serafima let themselves into the kitchen. Sanna, the senior housemaid, poured three more mugs of tea. Two people at the table became five.

"Err..." Bekki said, uncertainly. She reached into a pocket. "I wrote reports for Captain Romanoff concerning recent events here. I get that she sent you here to check things?"

She passed the two reports to Nadezhda, who looked first to Hendricka and then to Mariella. Both nodded.

"Go ahead." Hendricka said. "I trust Rebecka. I also trust Olga. To do what is right."

Nadezhda turned the reports in her hands. She nodded to Serafima.

"Addressed to Olga Anastacia." Nadezhda said. "But she is not here. I am her representative here. We should read these, I think. To save time."

She began with the shorter report, about the fight in the yard and the police investigation. Her face impassive, she passed it along to Serafima. She read it intently, at one point looking up to grin at Bekki.

"Well handled." Nadezhda said. "Local police, they are not as good as they could be?"

Mariella suppressed a snicker. Hendricka looked sterner.

"Rather have you people here." she said, frankly. "And I don't care if Oskar Verdraainer gets to hear that. It's truth."

Mariella quickly explained who Oskar Verdraainer was. Serafima made a look of complete understanding.

"We had Okhrana." she remarked. "The Cheka."

"Da." Nadezhda agreed. "Kommittee of General Benevolence. Our nation was not short of Oskar Fer-dray-ners."

"They happen, like itching red rash in sensitive place." Serafima said. "The Militsyta in Blondograd still has the Third Section."

"Like the Cable Street Particulars in Ankh-Morpork?" Mariella said, in an ingenuous voice that fooled nobody.

Nadezhda smiled slightly.

"Da, but they are the good guys."

"Only because Mr Vimes will not let them be anything else." Serafima remarked. "Ones to watch are Dark Clerks of Palace Secretariat. Who do not report to Mr Vimes."

She and Nadezhda then paid closer attention to the second report. Nadezhda frowned and looked up at the busy maids and in the direction of the breakfast cook. She switched to Rodinian. Bekki tried to follow this as well as she could, getting the sense of what was said.

"Something the Firebird's mother told me about black people in her country." Nadezhda said. "I saw it in her servants, and I suspect it is pravda. They are frightened of magic. To them, all magic is dark. Even though they work for a Wizard and his daughter is a Witch."

"I agree." Serafima said. "They have no knowledge of what happened here last night. The report says so, as no black people are allowed to be here at night in this strange country. None were here to see and they are still gossiping only of the fight in the stanitsa yesterday. It would not be a good idea to discuss this in front of them."

Mariella looked questioningly at Bekki, knowing she understood Rodinian, Bekki thought quickly.

"I understand you." she said, in Rodinian, then switched codes back to Vondalaans rather than Morporkian, wondering if she was doing this to make a point.

"Mevrou, Mariella, they were talking about a need for greater privacy in discussing certain matters." she said. Bekki glanced at the maids. Hendricka quickly grasped the spill-words. She stood up uncertainly, reaching for her walking-sticks.

"Mrs Pop-over... Nadezhda – Officer Dospanova. Should we move to the plaas office, perhaps? We'll be out of the way of the domestic staff, then, and they can set for breakfast without our getting in the way. Besides, more people are expected for breakfast and we will need greater privacy."

Serafima folded the last page of the report back into its place.

"There is much to discuss." she said, agreeing. "Mrs Lensen, would we be able to see the locations where these events happened? Rebecka's bedroom, and also guest room where your visitor injured herself?"

"Fair request." Hendricka agreed. "Glad you didn't bring a search warrant with you and you're only asking."

"I'll go with them." Mariella agreed. "Bekki, can you see there are enough chairs in the office? Dankie."

"Sanna? There will be four little people at breakfast." Hendricka said, on her way out. "Set the table accordingly."

---

"A tale indeed, laddie." Sergeant Wee Mad Arthur remarked, as he heard the story from Wee Archie and Grindguts. "And ye say the bogle swallowed ye whole?"

"True as I stand here, sergeant." Wee Archie said. "Miss Rebecka will testify. And also the Green Yin."

Senior Navigating Sergeant Wee Mad Arthur shook his head.

"Aye, weel. Ye defended your Hag, even unto being sent tae the Last World." he remarked. "Maybe ye couldnae navigate your way there and ye ended up back in this one again. Wouldnae surprise me."

He extended a hand.

"I'm forced tae conclude that ye will do as a Navigator, laddie. And I never thought I'd say that."

He extended a hand. Wee Archie Aff the Midden swelled with pride.

"Daft little bugger." Grindguts said. But with warmth.

I'm going to see if I can get this up there so there's some sort of a continuation – it's been along time since the last one.

The story is continuing and the next chapter will not be too long.

Heart operation now booked for the Ist November 2023. It's routine for them, like taking a car in for an MOT. So I hope to be back and writing soon!

---

(1) For a Shamaness, this is a professional responsibility and a basic proficiency. Because you never know.

(2) Because you're no longer an undergraduate who can sleep in late and bunk off lectures. You stay on at a university, you do the long slog and get Duties and Responsibilities thrust upon you, if you want that degree, laddie. Got the Masters? Well done, pleased with you. Now let's talk about what getting a PhD entails, shall we? Extra chores, mainly. And no clever ideas, it eases off a bit IF you do well enough to get tenure.

(3) An interdisciplinary study involving Zoology, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology and one or two others, involving raising two specimens of the genus Homo Sapiens from birth to hopefully maturity and independence. This necessarily involves raising sufficient finance to cover the study of two experimental specimens (at least, to begin with) over a period of no less than eighteen years and maybe longer.

(4) Four languages now, as Quirmian was involved, at the express command of Grand Duke Nikolas, the childrens' grandfather. He and Countess Ekatarinya were insistent the grandchildren of a Grand Duchy became fluent in the court language of nobility the Disc over, and especially that of the Rodinian nobility.

(5) Miss Susan also knew about, and completely approved of, the Arrangement and the System. Susan implicitly understood these things.

(6) Mother Superior had said that regrettably, Lady Romanoff, in some respects we're not as flexible as all that...

(7) In a limited but much-envied and coveted sort of way.

(8) Eddie's job description: Faculty of Wizardry: Doctor of Disorientation Due To Magical Translocations, and Liaison Officer With Those Bloody People in Ankh-Morpork.

(9) Named after a National Heroine, or perhaps a family line of them. JohannaSmith-Rhodesburg had become, by laconic degrees, Johannasburg and looked like settling down as Jo'burg. Lots of places in Howondaland had been named for the Smith-Rhodes family in its various generations. Johanna had been philosophical about this, accepting it was only a matter of time before she got one too. (9a)

(9a) There was also, these days, a new hamlet out in the Transvaal, close to a new water-spring a visiting Wizard from Ankh-Morpork had discovered in previously arid land. By vote of its residents, the new place was to be named (Ponder)Stibbonsfontein after its Founder. Ponder did not know this yet. It happens in my tale "Gap Year Adventures", getting Ponder a very big slap on the back from Barbarossa Smith-Rhodes. Thirteen years on, a small thriving settlement and new farms have been established around the water source, and the people living there consider it's time they got a name.

(10) Vassily and Valentina also respected Mummy's bonded Feegle Navigator, Mr Wee Mad Arthur, who was kind and funny and who had been Mummy's Navigator ever since the Pegasus Service began.

(11) A sweet and kindly nun in her forties who loved, and was adored in return, by the children she taught, seeing them as surrogate family. Naming conventions in the Spiteful Sisterhood Of Seven-Handed Sek are time-honoured and perplexing to outsiders.

(12) Other Wizards tended to look at his plate in disbelief and kindly advise him he was positively bloody anorexic, lad. Eating that little just isn't good for you.

(13) Witwatersrand University was working on a Thinking Engine too, but progress on HEKS was necessarily slow and had the extra consideration that the Bureau of State Security had found out and wasn't greatly happy about a University (which by definition was a hotbed of pinko liberals and subversive intellectuals) having an unmonitored channel of communication with the outside world. Negotiations proceeded.

(14) Mr Robert Lavernum was a fairly new teacher who only had Associate Guild Membership certification. He had hopes of instilling the joy of knowledge and a quiet intellectual satisfaction in problem-solving to his pupils. Other teachers in the Assassins' School staffroom were laying bets on how long he'd last.

(15) The Goblins who served Johanna and Ponder were a family who had originally been enslaved on a tobacco farm in Howondaland (15a), who had been liberated, and who now wanted to serve Red Fox-Hair, Liberator of Goblins, of their own free will. They had names like Groaning of Wagon-Wheels, Clink of Wedding Bells, Answering Echo and Sun's Warmth of Summer.

(15a) To my tale Bungle in the Jungle.

(16) Shortly after arriving on the Vulga Steppe to offer their services as Steading Witches, Olga and Irena had dealt with an outbreak of Zabolevania Fever in a stanitsa community, on top of the accepted regular Witch work with horses, other livestock, and people. Irena had been speaking from experience.

(17) Ponder Stibbons bit back a temptation, at this point, to make a remark along the lines of "You know, sir, I think I already do!"

(18) Except for Mr Jimmy Threadneedle at Number 32 Irrisory Street, who had a thriving business dealing in second-hand goods, no questions asked, squire. A police sergeant and her family moving in down the street meant he had to be even more discreet and not to offer her any opportunity to look too closely.

(19) Bekki had a talent for fireballs. Irena put it down to magical potential inherited from her father, plus a good dose of her mother's genetics. Johanna had a reputation for making things explode through completely unmagical affinity with Exothermic Alchemy. Either way, it helped explain why there had been absolutely no dissent in the Air Watch about her getting the call-sign "Firebird". Anyone who had been on the firing ranges with her was not inclined to argue.

(20) Known among magic users as "Going Loko", a reference to events in antiquity at a place formerly called Chernobyloko. Wizards get all shifty and start to mumble if asked about what exactly happened there. "Going loco down in Chernobyloko... if you stay too long..."

(21) Rehigreed is canonically a province of Agatea, right on the edge of the Central Continent. Elsewhere I've speculated this is the Discworld Mongolia, a previously disregarded wasteland populated by nomadic horsetribes, who were on our world overlooked – until they conquered China. Russian Cossacks carry the memory of their horseriding skills and the further East you go into Siberia, the more Cossack is tinged with Mongol.

(22) Wondering what to name Serafima's Pegasus. Picking up that the Russian word for "sparrow" might set up a whimsical name in the best traditions of the Service, I've just relsied it sets up a sort of misunderstanding with a word in Afrikaans/Dutch. A dialogue:

"Your Pegasus is called Vorbei?" Mariella said, interested. "It must mean something different in Rodinian."

"Vorebiy". Serafima corrected her. "Is name of kind of bird, in Morporkian." (actually "sparrow). "Vorbei" (English archaic, still used in Scots, "forbye"), means "besides", "as well as", "in addition to".

(23) "Да будет благословенно это место!" As you've probably guessed in context... it roughly translates as "Blessings be upon this place." I'm sure you got it, but one never knows.

---

Notes Dump:

The place in Feegle Space where hazy illusions of plots and fragments of storylines are placed for safekeeping in the realm of the Trickster-God Topacxi, where a sympathetic Shamanka might go on a Vision Quest to retrieve them, if she is so inclined and hasn't taken too many of the Sacred Infusions.

A chapter or two ago, Bekki and an assistant dealt with what the patient described as The World's Biggest Pimple, and performed a simple but messy surgical procedure. Wondering if I might be overdoing it in the description, I looked up videos and explanations of some of the things that might happen and how to deal. One or two were obviously staged – YouTube and Facebook Reels should be approached cautiously, and any video should be watched with one eye on the possibility of special effects, CGI or simply stage makeup/prosthetics.

However, there are valid and unsensational medical vids out there. "Doctor Pimple-Popper" and her ilk might be showbiz and picking the best cases for TV: but these tend to be relatively unsensationalised and what is shown is what you get.

And today I read of a medical condition called "primary/secondary psoas abscess", where aggressive bacteria get into the subcutaneous fascia and even the underlying muscles, causing massive abscessing and truly enormous boils. The villains are bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus or Escherichia coli, and the end result may even be fatal if not detected in time. If the abscess is drained, damaged tissue is removed, antibiotics prescribed and a regime of cleanliness followed, the patient will recover full health and there will be no recurrence. As I'm not claiming genius-level medical knowledge for Bekki, I'm happy for her to log it as "Very large boil lanced, drained, sterilised, and silverskin cyst body removed, three stitches to site, dressing applied."

Also, the Jerusalem Post has headlined on the intriguing "Asteroid The Size Of Eighteen Walruses To Pass By Earth On Sunday..."

This inspired a flight of whimsy on an FB Facebook page - "We Aten't Members" this time, recommended. I wrote:

"But that's the Jerusalem Post. So is the "walrus" one of those obscure weights and measures listed in Leviticus or Deuteronomy, which got revived when Hebrew was resurrected in the 19th century as a spoken language? (Google Translate gives "ניבתן", which you then have to do several more searches on to find it's pronounced "nivtan", as GT just gives you the Hebrew script... thus a quick thirty-second reply on FB occupies fifteen minutes of fact checking)"

I am now wondering if the "nivtan" will be a valid unit of weight/mass in Istanzia-Cenotia!

And the research you have to do for even small points of detail... it's amazing how the small things take the most time. Trying to get a handle on how Russian people might perceive, and affectionately mock, British people speaking Russian. (usually, there's a generosity of spirit about it when Russians correct how we try to use their language: as I know from introducing "Russian" characters and settings here and getting occassional feedback, always appreciated! Spassibo.)

We all know the many ways a Russian accent in English is perceived by English-speakers. TV Tropes devotes a lot of space to both the best and the worst examples in creative works. But how does it work the other way around? How would a Russian comedy work mark that "This person is English. Make allowances for the abominable way they mangle our language, but let's have a friendly dig at them for it. Because it's funny."

Trying to get clues to see if this can be (convincingly) used in my writings. Hard slog. I got as far as "lack of rhoticity and an inability to get the glottal and guttural qualities right."

From an FB conversation on misleading or inaccurate film titles and how those of a pedantic mind could correct them.

Black Beauty. "As anyone who has been educated about horses will tell you, and frankly we're surprised you do not know this, it's ELEMENTARY, for goodness' sake. Pure black horses are RARE and require thorough professional examination and pedigree certification before you can call them that, and certainly before you advertise them for stud. What you are likely to have, and that bloody damned film name needs changing, is a False Black horse. That means if you look closely enough at an apparently solid black horse, you will find brown or grey hairs or even patches of non-black hair in both mane, tail and coat. PAY ATTENTION! This is important! Is she beautiful? Good God, man! She's a horse! Of course she's a beauty! So... False Black Beauty, please?"

I actually had this conversation. Big horsy women in jodphurs are terrifying when they get intense. I copy it much as I remember it. Sophie Rawlinson lives. I've encountered her.

Got to incorporate this. As part of my ongoing quest to get better in Afrikaans, I heard what sounded like a folk-saying, in context implying somewhere incredibly remote and hard to get to. "Go to Pofadder" summed it up. It had also appeared in a "Madam and Eve" cartoon, with a sort of "Go to Land's End and keep on walking" implication.

I asked. Then looked the place up on Wikipedia. It exists. In the inaccessible north of the Cape, close to the border with Namibia. Wikipedia says:

"Pofadder (Afrikaans for "puff adder") is a minuscule town in the Northern Cape province

of South Africa. In spite of its small size, it is an important local centre in the region known in South Africa as Bushmanland. The surrounding districts are arid, sparsely populated, rugged and picturesque. There is little in the way of cropping and local farmers run sheep or goats for a living.

"Like Kalamazoo and Timbuktu, the name "Pofadder" is used to represent somewhere very remote, far away and out of the mainstream of the world. This usage is most common in South Africa, while Timbuktu is used in most of the Commonwealth for this purpose and Kalamazoo in the United States. Putsonderwater is used in a similar way."

This must now become a place in the Bitterfontein rurality. A remote and hard-to-get-to place for a Healthcare Practitioner on a mission. "Putonderswater" is a location I've already referenced, as being in the Piemberg locality and uncomfortably close to the Zulu border.

South African Cape region slang: the lovely word "mampara", meaning fool, buffoon, idiot, irksome person.

"Inkhomo" - and I don't know if or where I'd use it – is isiZulu for "vagina" (but not in the pejorative sense). Logging it here so it's recorded somewhere.

"Did you get a girl in trouble?" - Nice foreshadowing there. (Context: In "Young Sheldon", George Cooper Junior's put-upon School Principal, assessing why one of his problem pupils has been sent to the office, and leaping to a conclusion based on what he knows about Georgie. A couple of seasons later, this becomes horribly true).

Another "before I forget" note – the actual names assigned to the Valkyries by Wagner. (the performer names are from a BBC Proms adaptation)

Sieglinde — Waltraud Meier

Brünnhilde — Lisa Gasteen

Fricka — Rosalind Plowright

Gerhilde — Geraldine McGreevy

Ortlinde — Elaine McKrill

Waltraute — Claire Powell

Schwertleite — Rebecca de Pont Davies

Helmwige — Iréne Theorin

Siegrune — Sarah Castle

Grimgerde — Claire Shearer

Roßweiße — Elizabeth Sikora