GIVE IT TO US.
“But ideas can't hurt anyone!”
“I turned things into numbers to understand them, but they just want to control,” Simon said bitterly. “They burrowed into my numbers like -”
He screamed.
GIVE IT TO US OR WE WILL TAKE HIM TO BITS.
Esk looked up at the nearest nightmare face.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she said.
YOU CAN'T TRUST US. BUT YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.
Esk looked at the ring of faces that not even a necrophile could love, faces put together from a fishmonger's midden, faces picked randomly from things that lurked in deep ocean holes and haunted caves, faces that were not human enough to gloat or leer but had all the menace of a suspiciously v-shaped ripple near an incautious bather.
She couldn't trust them. But she had no choice.
Something else was happening, in a place as far away as the thickness of a shadow.
The student wizards had run back to the Great Hall, where Cutangle and Granny Weatherwax were still locked in the magical equivalent of Indian arm wrestling. The flagstones under Granny were halfmelted and cracked and the table behind Cutangle had taken root and already bore a rich crop of acorns.
One of the students had earned several awards for bravery by daring to tug at Cutangle's cloak ....
And now they were crowded into the narrow room, looking at the two bodies.
Cutangle summoned doctors of the body and doctors of the mind, and the room buzzed with magic as they got to work.
Granny tapped him on the shoulder.
“A word in your ear, young man,” she said.
“Hardly young, madam,” sighed Cutangle, “hardly young.” He felt drained. It had been decades since he'd duelled in magic, although it was common enough among students. He had a nasty feeling that Granny would have won eventually. Fighting her was like swatting a fly on your own nose. He couldn't think what had come over him to try it.
Granny led him out into the passage and around the corner to a window-seat. She sat down, leaning her broomstick against the wall. Rain drummed heavily on the roofs outside, and a few zigzags of lightning indicated a storm of Ramtop proportions approaching the city.
“That was quite an impressive display,” she said: “You nearly won once or twice there.”
“Oh,” said Cutangle, brightening up. “Do you really think so?”
Granny nodded.
Cutangle patted at various bits of his robe until he located a tarry bag of tobacco and a roll of paper. His hands shook as he fumbled a few shreds of second-hand pipeweed into a skinny homemade. He ran the wretched thing across his tongue, and barely moistened it. Then a dim remembrance of propriety welled up in the back of his mind.
“Um,” he said, “do you mind if I smoke?”
Granny shrugged. Cutangle struck a match on the wall and tried desperately to navigate the flame and the cigarette into approximately the same position. Granny gently took the match from his trembling hand and lit it for him.
Cutangle sucked on the tobacco, had a ritual cough and settled back, the glowing end of the rollup the only light in the dim corridor.
“They've gone Wandering,” said Granny at last.
“I know,” said Cutangle.
“Your wizards won't be able to get them back.”
“I know that, too.”