Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

'No dress, no footmen, no horses and no coach," said Granny. 'I'd like to see her get out of that one. Stories? Hah!'

'So what're we going to do now?' said Magrat, as they crept out of the yard.

'It's Fat Lunchtime!' said Nanny. 'Hot diggety pig!' Greebo wandered out of the darkness and rubbed against her legs.

'I thought Lily was trying to stamp it out,' said Magrat.

'May as well try to stamp out a flood,' said Nanny. 'Kick out a jam!'

'I don't agree with dancing in the streets,' said Granny. 'How much of that rum did you drink?'

'Oh, come on, Esme,' said Nanny. 'They say if you can't have a good time in Genua you're probably dead.' She thought about Saturday. 'You can probably have a bit of quiet fun even if you are dead, in Genua.'

' Hadn't we better stay here, though?' said Magrat. 'Just to make sure?'

Granny Weatherwax hesitated.

'What do you think, Esme?' said Nanny Ogg. 'You think she's going to be sent to the ball in a pumpkin, eh? Get a few mice to pull it, eh? Heheh!'

A vision of the snake women floated across Granny Weathenvax's mind, and she hesitated. But, after all, it had been a long day. And it was ridiculous, when you came to think about it...

'Well, all right,' she said. 'But I'm not going to kick any jam, you understand.'

'There's dancing and all sorts,' said Nanny.

'And banana drinks, I expect,' said Magrat.

'It's a million to one chance, yes,' said Nanny Ogg happily.

Lilith de Tempscire smiled at herself in the double mirror.

'Oh deary me,' she said. 'No coach, no dress, no horses. What is a poor old godmother to do? Deary me. And probably lawks.'

She opened a small leather case, such as a musician might use to carry his very best piccolo.

There was a wand in there, the twin of the one carried by Magrat. She took it out and gave it a couple of twists, moving the gold and silver rings into a new position.

The clicking sounded like the nastiest pump-action mechanism.

'And me with nothing but a pumpkin, too,' said Lilith.

And of course the difference between sapient and non-sapient things was that while it was hard to change the shape of the former it was not actually impossible. It was just a matter of changing a mental channel. Whereas a non-sapient thing like a pumpkin, and it was hard to imagine anything less sapient than a pumpkin, could not be changed by any magic short of sourcery.

Unless its molecules remembered a time when they weren't a pumpkin . . .

She laughed, and a billion reflected Liliths laughed with her, all around the curve of the mirror universe.

Fat Lunchtime was no longer celebrated in the centre of Genua. But in the shanty town around the high white buildings it strutted its dark and torchlit stuff. There were fireworks. There were dancers, and fire-eaters, and feathers, and sequins. The witches, whose idea of homely entertainment was a Morris dance, watched open-mouthed from the crowded sidewalk as the parades strutted by.

'There's dancing skeletons!' said Nanny, as a score of bony figures whirred down the street.

'They're not,' said Magrat. 'They're just men in black tights with bones painted on.'

Someone nudged Granny Weatherwax. She looked up into the large, grinning face of a black man. He passed her a stone jug.

'There you go, honey.'

Granny took it, hesitated for a moment, and then took a swig. She nudged Magrat and passed on the bottle.