Lords and Ladies (Discworld 14)

Nanny Ogg winked at Magrat.

“You did well there, girl. Didn't think you had it in you to survive an attack like that. It fairly had me widdling myself.”

“I've had practice,” said Magrat darkly.

Nanny Ogg raised her eyebrows, but made no further comment. Instead she nudged Granny with her boot.

“Wake up, Esme,” she said. “Well done. We won.”

“Esme?”

Ridcully knelt down stiffly and picked up one of Granny's arms.

“It must have taken it out of her, all that effort,” burbled Nanny. “Freeing Magrat and everything-”

Ridcully looked up.

“She's dead,” he said.

He thrust both arms underneath the body and got unsteadily to his feet.

“Oh, she wouldn't do a thing like that,” said Nanny, but in the voice of someone whose mouth is running on automatic because their brain has shut down.

“She's not breathing and there's no pulse,” said the wizard.

“She's probably just resting.”

“Yes.”

Bees circled, high in the blue sky.

* * *

Ponder and the Librarian helped drag the stones back into position, occasionally using the Bursar as a lever. He was going through the rigid phase again.

They were unusual stones. Ponder noticed - quite hard, and with a look about them that suggested that once, long ago, they had been melted and cooled.

Jason Ogg found him standing deep in thought by one of them. He was holding a nail on a piece of string. But, instead of hanging from the string, the nail was almost at right angles, and straining as if desperate to reach the stone. The string thrummed. Ponder watched it as though mesmerized.

Jason hesitated. He seldom encountered wizards and wasn't at all sure how you were supposed to treat them.

He heard the wizard say: “It sucks. But why does it suck?”

Jason kept quiet.

He heard Ponder say: “Maybe there's iron and . . . and iron that loves iron? Or male iron and female iron? Or common iron and royal iron? Some iron contains something else? Some iron makes a weight in the world and other iron rolls down the rubber sheet?”

The Bursar and the Librarian joined him, and watched the swinging nail.

“Damn!” said Ponder, and let go of the nail. It hit the stone with a plink.

He turned to the others with the agonized expression of a man who has the whole great whirring machinery of the Universe to dismantle and only a bent paper clip to do it with.

“What ho, Mr. Sunshine!” said the Bursar, who was feeling almost cheerful with the fresh air and lack of shouting.

“Rocks! Why am I messing around with lumps of stone? When did they ever tell anyone anything?” said Ponder. “You know, sir, sometimes I think there's a great ocean of truth out there and I'm just sitting on the beach playing with . . . with stones.”

He kicked the stone.