The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

There was a sugary yellow teddy bear in the snow, made of 100% Artificial Additives.

And the snow, all around Tiffany, was melting away.

Two pictsies carried Tiffany easily. She skimmed across the snow, the clan running beside her.

No sun in the sky. Even on the dullest days you could generally see where the sun was, but not here. And there was something else that was strange, something she couldn’t quite give a name to. This didn’t feel like a real place. She didn’t know why she felt that, but something was wrong with the horizon. It looked close enough to touch, which was silly.

And things were not…finished. Like the trees in the forest they were heading toward, for example. A tree is a tree, she thought. Close up or far away, it’s a tree. It has bark and branches and roots. And you know they’re there, even if the tree is so far away that it’s a blob.

The trees here, though, were different. She had a strong feeling that they were blobs, and were growing the roots and twigs and other details as she got closer, as if they were thinking, “Quick, someone’s coming! Look real!”

It was like being in a painting where the artist hadn’t bothered much with the things in the distance, but quickly rushed a bit of realness anywhere you were looking.

The air was cold and dead, like the air in old cellars.

The light grew dimmer as they reached the forest. In between the trees it became blue and eerie.

No birds, she thought.

“Stop,” she said.

The pictsies lowered her to the ground, but Rob Anybody said: “We shouldna hang aroound here too long. Heids up, lads.”

Tiffany lifted out the toad. It blinked at the snow.

“Oh, shoap,” it muttered. “This is not good. I should be hibernating.”

“Why is everything so…strange?”

“Can’t help you there,” said the toad. “I just see snow, I just see ice, I just see freezing to death. I’m listening to my inner toad here.”

“It’s not that cold!”

“Feels cold…to…me….” The toad shut his eyes. Tiffany sighed and lowered him into her pocket.

“I’ll tell ye where ye are,” said Rob Anybody, his eyes still scanning the blue shadows. “Ye ken them wee bitty bugs that cling on to the sheeps and suck theirsel’ full o’ blood and then drop off again? This whole world is like one o’ them.”

“You mean like a, a tick? A parasite? A vampire?”

“Oh, aye. It floats aroound until it finds a place that’s weak on a world where no one’s payin’ attention, and opens a door. Then the Quin sends in her folk. For the stealin’, ye ken. Raidin’ o’ barns, rustlin’ of cattle—”

“We used to like stealin’ the coo beasties,” said Daft Wullie.

“Wullie,” said Rob Anybody, pointing his sword, “you ken I said there wuz times you should think before opening yer big fat gob?”

“Aye, Rob.”

“Weel, that wuz one o’ them times.” Rob turned and looked up at Tiffany rather bashfully. “Aye, we wuz wild champion robbers for the Quin,” he said. “People wouldna e’en go a-huntin’ for fear o’ little men. But ’twas ne’er enough for her. She always wanted more. But we said it’s no’ right to steal an ol’ lady’s only pig, or the food from them as dinna ha’ enough to eat. A Feegle has nae worries about stealin’ a golden cup from a rich bigjob, ye ken, but takin’ awa’ the—”

—cup an old man kept his false teeth in made them feel ashamed, they said. The Nac Mac Feegle would fight and steal, certainly, but who wanted to fight the weak and steal from the poor?

Tiffany listened, at the end of the shadowy wood, to the story of a little world where nothing grew, where no sun shone, and where everything had to come from somewhere else. It was a world that took, and gave nothing back except fear. It raided—and people learned to stay in bed when they heard strange noises at night, because if anyone gave her trouble, the Queen could control their dreams.

Tiffany couldn’t quite pick up how she did this, but that’s where things like the grimhounds and the headless horseman came from. These dreams were…more real. The Queen could take dreams and make them more…solid. You could step inside them and vanish. And you didn’t wake up just as the monsters caught up with you.

The Queen’s people wouldn’t just take food. They’d take people, too—

“—like pipers,” said William the gonnagle. “Fairies can’t make music, ye ken. She’ll steal a man awa’ for the music he makes.”