The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

“But that’s just dream treasure, surely?” said Tiffany. “Fairy gold! It’ll turn into rubbish in the morning!”

“Aye?” said Rob Anybody. He glanced at the horizon. “Okay, ye heard the kelda, lads! We got mebbe half an hour to sell it to someone! Permission to go offski?” he added to Tiffany.

“Er…oh, yes. Fine. Thank you—”

They were gone, in a split-second blur of blue and red.

But William the gonnagle remained for a moment. He bowed to Tiffany.

“Ye didna do at all badly,” he said. “We’re proud o’ ye. So would yer grrranny be. Remember that. Ye are not unloved.”

Then he vanished too.

There was a groan from Roland, lying on the turf. He began to move.

“Weewee men all gone,” said Wentworth sadly in the silence that followed. “Crivens all gone.”

“What were they?” muttered Roland, sitting up and holding his head.

“It’s all a bit complicated,” said Tiffany. “Er…do you remember much?”

“It all seems like…a dream…” said Roland. “I remember…the sea, and we were running, and I cracked a nut which was full of those little men, and I was hunting in this huge forest with shadows—”

“Dreams can be very funny things,” said Tiffany carefully. She went to stand up and thought: I must wait here awhile. I don’t know why I know, I just know. Perhaps I knew and have forgotten. But I must wait for something.

“Can you walk down to the village?” she said.

“Oh, yes. I think so. But what did—?”

“Then will you take Wentworth with you, please? I’d like to…rest for a while.”

“Are you sure?” said Roland, looking concerned.

“Yes. I won’t be long. Please? You can drop him off at the farm. Tell my parents I’ll be down soon. Tell them I’m fine.”

“Weewee men,” said Wentworth. “Crivens! Want bed.”

Roland was still looking uncertain.

“Off you go!” Tiffany commanded, and waved him away.

When the two of the them had disappeared below the brow of the hill, with several backward glances, she sat between the four iron wheels and hugged her knees.

She could see, far off, the mound of the Nac Mac Feegle. Already they were a slightly puzzling memory, and she’d seen them only a few minutes ago. But when they’d gone, they’d left the impression of never having been there.

She could go to the mound and see if she could find the big hole. But supposing it wasn’t there? Or supposing it was, but all there was down there was rabbits?

No, it’s all true, she said to herself. I must remember that, too.

A buzzard screamed in the dawn grayness. She looked up as it circled into sunlight, and a tiny dot detached itself from the bird.

That was far too high up even for a pictsie to stand the fall.

Tiffany scrambled to her feet as Hamish tumbled through the sky. And then—something ballooned above him, and the fall became just a gentle floating, like thistledown.

The bulging shape above Hamish was Y-shaped. As it got bigger, the shape become more precise, more…familiar.

He landed, and a pair of Tiffany’s pants, the long-legged ones with the rosebud pattern, settled down on top of him.