Witches Abroad (Discworld 12)

'Oh, bugger!'

. . . bong. . .

. . . bong. . .

. . . bong. . .

Mist rolled through the swamp. And shadows moved with it, their shapes indistinct on this night when the difference between the living and the dead was only a matter of time.

Mrs Gogol could feel them among the trees. The homeless. The hungry. The silent people. Those forsaken by men and gods. The people of the mists and the mud, whose only strength was somewhere on the other side of weakness, whose beliefs were as rickety and homemade as their homes. And the people from the city — not the ones who lived in the big white houses and went to balls in fine coaches, but the other ones. They were the ones that stories are never about. Stories are not, on the whole, interested in swineherds who remain swineherds and poor and humble shoe-makers whose destiny is to die slightly poorer and much humbler.

These people were the ones who made the magical kingdom work, who cooked its meals and swept its floors and carted its night soil and were its faces in the crowd and whose wishes and dreams, undemanding as they were, were of no consequence. The invisibles.

And me out here, she thought. Building traps for gods.

There are various forms of voodoo in the multiverse, because it's a religion that can be put together from any ingredients that happen to be lying around. And all of them try, in some way, to call down a god into the body of a human being.

That was stupid, Mrs Gogol thought. That was dangerous.

Mrs Gogol's voodoo worked the other way about. What was a god? A focus of belief. If people believed, a god began to grow. Feebly at first, but if the swamp taught anything, it taught patience. Anything could be the focus of a god. A handful of feathers with a red ribbon around them, a hat and coat on a couple of sticks . . . anything. Because when all people had was practically nothing, then anything could be almost everything. And then you fed it, and lulled it, like a goose heading for pate, and let the power grow very slowly, and when the time was ripe you opened the path . . . backwards. A human could ride the god, rather than the other way around. There would be a price to pay later, but there always was. In Mrs Gogol's experience, everyone ended up dying.

She took a pull of rum and handed the jug to Saturday.

Saturday took a mouthful, and passed the jug up to something that might have been a hand.

'Let it begin,' said Mrs Gogol.

The dead man picked up three small drums and began to beat out a rhythm, heartbeat fast.

After a while something tapped Mrs Gogol on the shoulder and handed her the jug. It was empty.

Might as well begin . . .

'Lady Bon Anna smile on me. Mister Safe Way protect me. Stride Wide Man guide me. Hotaloga Andrews catch me.

'I stand between the light and the dark, but that no matter, because I am between.

'Here is rum for you. Tobacco for you. Food for you. A home for you.

'Now you listen to me good . . .'

. . . bong.

For Magrat it was like waking from a dream into a dream. She'd been idly dreaming that she was dancing with the most handsome man in the room, and . . . she was dancing with the most handsome man in the room.

Except that he wore two circles of smoked glass over his eyes.

Although Magrat was soft-hearted, a compulsive daydreamer and, as Granny Weatherwax put it, a wet hen, she wouldn't be a witch if she didn't have certain instincts and the sense to trust them. She reached up and, before his hands could move, tweaked the things away.

Magrat had seen eyes like that before, but never on something walking upright.

Her feet, which a moment before had been moving gracefully across the floor, tripped over themselves.

'Er . . .' she began.

And she was aware that his hands, pink and well-manicured, were also cold and damp.

Magrat turned and ran, knocking the couples aside in her madness to get away. Her legs tangled in the dress. The stupid shoes skittered on the floor.