Witches Abroad

Witches Abroad Read Free

Book: Witches Abroad Read Free
Author: Terry Pratchett
Ads: Link
ain’t easy, with people like them. Got to use headology. Got to make ’em send ’emselves. Tell Esme Weatherwax she’s got to go somewhere and she won’t go out of contrariness, so tell her she’s not to go and she’ll run there over broken glass. That’s the thing about the Weatherwaxes, see. They don’t know how to be beaten.’
    Something seemed to strike her as funny.
    â€˜But one of ’em’s going to have to learn .’
    Death said nothing. From where he sat, Desiderata reflected, losing was something that everyone learned.
    She drained her tea. Then she stood up, put on her pointy hat with a certain amount of ceremony, and hobbled out of the back door.
    There was a deep trench dug under the trees a little way from the house, down into which someone had thoughtfully put a short ladder. She climbed in and, with some difficulty, heaved the ladder on to the leaves. Then she lay down. She sat up.
    â€˜Mr Chert the troll down at the sawmill does a very good deal on coffins, if you don’t mind pine.’
    I SHALL DEFINITELY BEAR IT IN MIND .
    â€˜I got Hurker the poacher to dig the hole out for me,’ she said conversationally, ‘and he’s goin’ to come along and fill it in on his way home. I believe in being neat. Take it away, maestro.’
    W HAT ? O H . A FIGURE OF SPEECH .
    He raised his scythe.
    Desiderata Hollow went to her rest.
    â€˜Well,’ she said, ‘that was easy. What happens now?’
    And this is Genua. The magical kingdom. The diamond city. The fortunate country.
    In the centre of the city a woman stood between two mirrors, watching herself reflected all the way to infinity.
    The mirrors were themselves in the centre of an octagon of mirrors, open to the sky on the highest tower of the palace. There were so many reflections, in fact, that it was only with extreme difficulty that you could tell where the mirrors ended and the real person began.
    Her name was Lady Lilith de Tempscire, although she had answered to many others in the course of a long and eventful life. And that was something you learned to do early on, she’d found. If you wanted to get anywhere in this world – and she’d decided, right at the start, that she wanted to get as far as it was possible to go – you wore names lightly, and you took power anywhere you found it. She had buried three husbands, and at least two of them had been already dead.
    And you moved around a lot. Because most people didn’t move around much. Change countries and your name and, if you had the right manner, the world was your mollusc. For example, she’d had to go a mere hundred miles to become a Lady.
    She’d go to any lengths now . . .
    The two main mirrors were set almost, but not quite, facing one another, so that Lilith could see over her shoulder and watch her images curve away around the universe inside the mirror.
    She could feel herself pouring into herself , multiplying itself via the endless reflections.
    When Lilith sighed and strode out from the Space between the mirrors the effect was startling. Images of Lilith hung in the air behind her for a moment, like three-dimensional shadows, before fading.
    So . . . Desiderata was dying. Interfering old baggage. She deserved death. She’d never understood the kind of power she’d had. She was one of those people afraid to do good for fear of doing harm, who took it all so seriously that they’d constipate themselves with moral anguish before granting the wish of a single ant.
    Lilith looked down and out over the city. Well, there were no barriers now. The stupid voodoo woman in the swamp was a mere distraction, with no understanding.
    Nothing stood in the way of what Lilith liked more than anything else.
    A happy ending.
    Up on the mountain, the sabbat had settled down a bit.
    Artists and writers have always had a rather exaggerated idea about what goes on at a

Similar Books

Ian Mackenzie Jeffers The Grey

Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

Lily's Cowboys

S. E. Smith

Falling for Autumn

Heather Topham Wood

A Case of Doubtful Death

Linda Stratmann

In the Court of the Yellow King

Tim Curran, Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, C.J. Henderson, William Meikle, T.E. Grau, Laurel Halbany, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris

Better to rest

Dana Stabenow

The Scent of Jasmine

Jude Deveraux

Fade to Red

Willow Aster