The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

“How can you survive that?” Tiffany asked.

The very small pilot tried to look her up and down, but only managed to look her up and farther up.

“Who’s the wee bigjob who knows sich a lot aboot aviation?” he said.

Rob Anybody coughed. “She’s the hag, Hamish. Spawn o’ Granny Aching.”

Hamish’s expression changed to a look of terror. “I didna mean to speak out o’ turn, mistress,” he said, backing away. “O’ course, a hag’d have the knowing of anythin’. But ’tis nae as bad as it looks, mistress. I allus make sure I lands on my heid.”

“Aye, we’re very resilient in the heid department,” said Rob Anybody.

“Have you seen a woman with a small boy?” Tiffany demanded. She hadn’t much liked being called “spawn.”

Hamish gave Rob Anybody a panicky look, and Rob nodded.

“Aye, I did,” said Hamish. “Onna black horse. Riding up from the lowlan’s goin’ hell for—”

“We dinna use bad language in front o’ a hag!” Rob Anybody thundered.

“Begging your pardon, mistress. She was ridin’ heck for leather,” said Hamish, looking more sheepish than the sheep. “But she kenned I was spyin’ her and called up a mist. She’s gone to the other side, but I dinna ken where.”

“’Tis a perilous place, the other side,” said Rob Anybody slowly. “Evil things there. A cold place. Not a place to tak’ a wee babbie.”

It was hot on the downs, but Tiffany felt a chill. However bad it is, she thought, I’m going to have to go there. I know it. I don’t have a choice.

“The other side?” she said.

“Aye. The magic world,” said Rob Anybody. “There’s…bad things there.”

“Monsters?” said Tiffany.

“As bad as ye can think of,” said Rob Anybody. “Exactly as bad as ye can think of.”

Tiffany swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Worse than Jenny? Worse than the headless horseman?” she said.

“Oh, aye. They were wee pussycats compared to the scunners over there. ’Tis an ill-fared country that’s come callin’, mistress. ’Tis a land where dreams come true. That’s the Quin’s world.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too—” Tiffany began. Then she remembered some of the dreams she’d had, the ones where you were so glad to wake up…. “We’re not talking about nice dreams, are we?” she said.

Rob Anybody shook his head. “Nay, mistress. The other kind.”

And me with my frying pan and Diseases of the Sheep, thought Tiffany. And she had a mental picture of Wentworth among horrible monsters. They probably wouldn’t have any sweeties at all.

She sighed. “All right,” she said. “How do I get there?”

“Ye dinna ken the way?” said Rob Anybody.

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting. What she had been expecting was more like “Ach, ye canna do that, a wee lass like you, oh deary us no!” She wasn’t so much expecting that as hoping it, in fact. But, instead, they were acting as if it was a perfectly reasonable idea….

hen there were the weird places, like Old Man’s Forge, which was just four big flat rocks placed so they made a kind of half-buried hut in the side of a mound. It was only a few feet deep. It didn’t look like anything special, but if you shouted your name into it, it was several seconds before the echo came back.

There were signs of people everywhere. The Chalk had been important.

Tiffany left the shearing sheds way behind. No one was watching. Sheared sheep took no notice at all of a girl moving without her feet touching the ground.

The lowlands dropped away behind her, and now she was properly on the downs. Only the occasional baa of a sheep or scream of a buzzard disturbed a busy silence, made up of bee buzzes and breezes and the sound of a ton of grass growing every minute.

On either side of Tiffany the Nac Mac Feegle ran in a spread out ragged line, staring grimly ahead.