Lords and Ladies (Discworld 14)

“But all them things exist,” said Nanny Ogg.

“That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.”

Granny Weatherwax slowed to a walk.

“What about her?” she said.

“What exactly about her do you mean?” - “You felt the power there?”

“Oh, yeah. Made my hair stand on end.”

“Someone gave it to her, and I know who. Just a slip of a gel with a head full of wet ideas out of books, and suddenly she's got the power and don't know how to deal with it. Cards! Candles! That's not witchcraft, that's just party games. Paddlin' with the occult. Did you see she'd got black fingernails?”

“Well, mine ain't so clean-”

“I mean painted.”

“I used to paint my toenails red when I was young,” said Nanny, wistfully.

“Toenails is different. So's red. Anyway,” said Granny, “you only did it to appear allurin'.”

“It worked, too.”

“Hah!”

They walked along in silence for a bit.

“I felt a lot of power there,” Nanny Ogg said, eventually.

“Yes. I know.”

iamanda had read books. She knew about stuff. Raising power at the stones, for one thing. It really worked.

Currently she was showing them the cards.

The wind had got up again tonight. It rattled the shutters and made soot fall down the chimney. It seemed to Perdita that it had blown all the shadows into the comers of the room-

“Are you paying attention, sister?” said Diamanda coldly.

That was another thing. You had to call one another 'sister,' out of fraternity.

“Yes, Diamanda,” she said, meekly.

“This is the Moon,” Diamanda repeated, “for those who weren't paying attention.” She held up the card. “And what do we see here - you, Muscara?”

“Um . . . it's got a picture of the moon on it?” said Muscara (nee Susan) in a hopeful voice.

“Of course it's not the moon. It's a nonmimetic convention, not tied to a conventional referencing system, actually,” said Diamanda.

“Ah.”

A gust rocked the cottage. The door burst open and slammed back against the wall, giving a glimpse of cloud-wracked sky in which a non-mimetic convention was showing a crescent.

Diamanda waved a hand. There was a brief flash of octarine light. The door jerked shut. Diamanda smiled in what Perdita thought of as her cool, knowing way.

She placed the card on the black velvet cloth in front of her.

Perdita looked at it gloomily It was all very pretty, the cards were coloured like little pasteboard jewels, and they had interesting names. But that little traitor voice whispered: how the hell can they know what the future holds? Cardboard isn't very bright.