Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

'It's a nice little castle,' said Magrat. 'Can't we just call in? I'm fed up with inns.'

Granny looked down. She had very good night vision.

'Are you sure that's a castle?' she said.

'I can see the turrets and everything,' said Magrat. 'Of course it's a castle.'

'Hmm. I can see more than turrets,' said Granny. 'I think we'd better have a look at this, Gytha.'

There was never any noise in the sleeping castle, except in the late summer when ripe berries fell off the bramble vines and burst softly on the floor. And sometimes birds would try to nest in the thorn thickets that now filled the throne room from floor to ceiling, but they never got very far before they, too, fell asleep. Apart from that, you'd need very keen hearing indeed to hear the growth of shoots and the opening of buds.

It had been like this for ten years. There was no sound in the -

'Open up there!'

'Bony fidy travellers seeking sucker!'

- no sound in the -

'Here, give us a leg up, Magrat. Right. Now . . .'

There was a tinkle of broken glass.

'You've broken their window!'

- not a sound in the -

'You'll have to offer to pay for it, you know.'

The castle gate swung open slowly. Nanny Ogg peered around it at the other two witches, while pulling thorns and burrs from her hair.

'It's bloody disgusting in here,' she said. 'There's people asleep all over the place with spiders' webs all over 'em. You were right, Esme. There's been magic going on.'

The witches pushed their way through the overgrown castle. Dust and leaves had covered the carpets. Young sycamores were making a spirited attempt to take over the courtyard. Vines festooned every wall.

Granny Weatherwax pulled a slumbering soldier to his feet. Dust billowed off his clothes.

'Wake up,' she demanded.

'Fzhtft,' said the soldier, and slumped back.

' It's like that everywhere,' said Magrat, fighting her way through a thicket of bracken that was growing up from the kitchen regions. 'There's the cooks all snoring and nothing but mould in the pots! There's even mice asleep in the pantry!'

'Hmm,' said Granny. 'There'll be a spinning wheel at the bottom of all this, you mark my words.'

'A Black Aliss job?' said Nanny Ogg.

'Looks like it,' said Granny. Then she added, quietly, 'Or someone like her.'

'Now there was a witch who knew how stories worked,' said Nanny. 'She used to be in as many as three of 'em at once.'

Even Magrat knew about Black Aliss. She was said to have been the greatest witch who ever lived - not exactly bad, but so powerful it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. When it came to sending palaces to sleep for a hundred years or getting princesses to spin straw into Glod,* no-one did it better than Black Aliss.

'I met her once,' said Nanny, as they climbed the castle's main staircase, which was a cascade of Old Man's Trousers. 'Old Deliria Skibbly took me to see her once, when I was a girl. Of course, she was getting pretty . . . eccentric by then. Gingerbread houses, that kind of thing.' She spoke sadly, as one might talk about an elderly relative who'd taken to wearing her underwear outside her clothes.

'That must have been before those two children shut her up in her own oven?' said Magrat, untangling her sleeve from a briar.

'Yeah. Sad, that. I mean, she didn't really ever eat anyone,' said Nanny. 'Well. Not often. I mean, there was talk, but. . .'