Lords And Ladies Part 46

"And now someone comes," she said, "with armor that doesn't fit and a sword she cannot use and an axe she can hardly even lift, because it is so romantic romantic, is it not? What is her name?"

"Magrat Garlick," said Granny.

"She is a mighty enchantress, is she?"

"She's good with herbs."

The Queen laughed.

"I could kill her from here."

"Yes," said Granny, "but that wouldn't be much fun, would it? Humiliation is the key."

The Queen nodded.

"You know, you think very much like an elf."

"I think it will soon be dawn," said Granny. "A fine day. Clear light."

"Not soon enough." The Queen stood up. She glanced at King Verence for a moment, and changed. Her dress went from red to silver, catching the torchlight like glittering fish scales. Her hair unraveled and reshaped itself, became corn blond. And a subtle ripple of alterations flowed across her face before she said, "What do you think?"

She looked like Magrat. Or, at least, like Magrat wished she looked and maybe as Verence always thought of her. Granny nodded. As one expert to another, she recognized accomplished nastiness when she saw it.

"And you're going to face her like that," she said.

"Certainly. Eventually. At the finish. But don't feel sorry for her. She's only going to die. Would you like me to show you what you you might have been?" might have been?"

"No."

"I could do it easily. There are other times than this. I could show you grandmother grandmother Weatherwax." Weatherwax."

"No."

"It must be terrible, knowing that you have no friends. That no one will care when you die. That you never touched a heart."

"Yes."

"And I'm sure you think about it...in those long evenings when there's no company but the ticking of the clock and the coldness of the room and you open the box and look at-"

The Queen waved a hand vaguely as Granny tried to break free.

"Don't kill her," she said. "She is is much more fun alive." much more fun alive."

Magrat stuck the sword in the mud and hefted the battleaxe.

Woods pressed in on either side. The elves would have to come this way. There looked like hundreds of them and there was only one Magrat Garlick.

She knew there was such a thing as heroic odds. Songs and ballads and stories and poems were full full of stories about one person single-handedly taking on and defeating a vast number of enemies. of stories about one person single-handedly taking on and defeating a vast number of enemies.

Only now was it dawning on her that the trouble was that they were songs and ballads and stories and poems because they dealt with things that were, not to put too fine a point on it, untrue.

She couldn't, now she had time to think about it, ever remember an example from history history.

In the woods to one side of her an elf raised its bow and took careful aim.

A twig snapped behind it. It turned.

The Bursar beamed.

"Whoopsy daisy, old trouser, my bean's all runny."

The elf swung the bow.

A pair of prehensile feet dropped out of the greenery, gripped it by the shoulders, and pulled it upward sharply. There was a crack as its head hit the underside of a branch.

"Oook."

"Move right along!"

On the other side of the path another elf took aim. And then its world flowed away from it...

This is the inside of the mind of an elf: Here are the normal five senses but they are all subordinate to the sixth sense. There is no formal word for it on the Discworld, because the force is so weak that it is only ever encountered by observant blacksmiths, who call it the Love of Iron. Navigators might have discovered it were it not that the Disc's standing magical field is much more reliable. But bees sense it, because bees sense everything. Pigeons navigate by it. And everywhere in the multiverse elves use it to know exactly where they are.

It must be hard for humans, forever floundering through inconvenient geography. Humans are always slightly lost. It's a basic characteristic. It explains a lot about them.

Elves are never lost at all. It's a basic characteristic. It explains a lot about them.

Elves have absolute position. The flow of the silvery force dimly outlines the landscape. Creatures generate small amounts of it themselves, and become perceptible in the flux. Their muscles crackle with it, their minds buzz with it. For those who learn how, even thoughts can be read by the tiny local changes in the flow.

For an elf, the world is something to reach out and take. Except for the terrible metal that drinks the force and deforms the flux universe like a heavy weight on a rubber sheet and blinds them and deafens them and leaves them rudderless and more alone than most humans could ever be...

The elf toppled forward.

Ponder Stibbons lowered the sword.

Almost everyone else would not have thought much about it. But Ponder's wretched fate was to look for patterns in an uncaring world.

"But I hardly touched him," he said, to no one except himself.

"'And I kissed her in the shrubbery where the nightingales'-sing it, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Two, three!"

They didn't know where they were. They didn't know where they'd been. They were not fully certain who they were. But the Lancre Morris Men had reached some sort of state now where it was easier to go on than stop. Singing attracted elves, but singing also fascinated them...

The dancers whirled and hopped, gyrated and skipped along the paths. They pranced through isolated hamlets, where elves left whoever they were torturing to draw closer in the light of the burning buildings...

"'With a WACK foladiddle-di-do, sing too-rahli-ay!'"

Six sticks did their work, right on the beat.

"Where're we goin', Jason?"

"I reckon we've gone down Slippery Hollow and're circling back toward the town," said Jason, hopping past Baker. "Keep goin', Carter!"

"The rain's got in the keys, Jason!"

"Don't matter! They don't know the difference! It's good enough for folk music!"

"I think I broke my stick on that last one, Jason!"

"Just you keep dancing, Tinker! Now, lads...how about Gathering Peasecods Gathering Peasecods? We might as well get some practice in, since we're here..."

"There's some people up ahead," said Tailor, as he skipped past, "I can see torches an' that."

"Human, two, three, or more elves?"

"Dunno!"

Jason spun and danced back.

"Is that you, our Jason?"

Jason cackled as the voice echoed among the dripping trees.

"It's our mam! And our Shawn. And-and lots of people! We've made it, lads!"

"Jason," said Carter.

"Yes?"

"I ain't sure I can stop!"

The Queen examined her face in a mirror attached to the tent pole.

"Why?" said Granny. "What is it you you see?" see?"

"Whatever I want to see," said the Queen. "You know that. And now...let us ride to the castle. Tie her hands together. But leave her legs free."

It rained again, gently, although around the stones it turned to sleet. The water dripped off Magrat's hair and temporarily unraveled the tangles.

Mist coiled out from among the trees where summer and winter fought.

Magrat watched the elven court mount up. She made out the figure of Verence, moving like a puppet. And Granny Weatherwax, tied behind the Queen's horse by a long length of rope.

The horses splashed through the mud. They had silver bells on their harness, dozens of them.

The elves in the castle, the night of ghosts and shadows, all of this was just a hard knot in her memory. But the jingling of the bells was like a nailfile rubbed across her teeth.

The Queen halted the procession a few yards away.

"Ah, the brave girl," she said. "Come to save her fiance, all alone? How sweet. Someone kill her."

An elf spurred its horse forward, and raised its sword. Magrat gripped the battleaxe.

Somewhere behind her a bowstring slammed against wood. The elf jerked. So did one behind it. The arrow kept going, curving a little as it pa.s.sed over one of the fallen Dancers.

Then Shawn Ogg's ragbag army charged out from under the trees, except for Ridcully, who was feverishly trying to rewind his crossbow.

The Queen did not look surprised.

"And there's only about a hundred of them," she said. "What do you think, Esme Weatherwax? A valiant last stand? It's so beautiful, isn't it? I love the way humans think. They think like songs."

"You get down off that horse!" Magrat shouted.

The Queen smiled at her.

Shawn felt it. Ridcully felt it. Ponder felt it. The glamour swept over them.

Elves feared iron, but they didn't need to go near it.

You couldn't fight elves, because you were so much more worthless than them. It was right right that you should be so worthless. And they were so beautiful. And you weren't. You were always the one metaphorically picked last for any team, even after the fat kid with one permanently blocked runny nostril; you were always the one who wasn't told the rules until you'd lost, and then wasn't told the that you should be so worthless. And they were so beautiful. And you weren't. You were always the one metaphorically picked last for any team, even after the fat kid with one permanently blocked runny nostril; you were always the one who wasn't told the rules until you'd lost, and then wasn't told the new new rules; you were the one who always knew that everything interesting was happening to other people. All those hot self-consuming feelings were rolled together. You couldn't fight an elf. Someone as useless as you, as stolid as you, as rules; you were the one who always knew that everything interesting was happening to other people. All those hot self-consuming feelings were rolled together. You couldn't fight an elf. Someone as useless as you, as stolid as you, as human human as you, could never win; the universe wasn't built like that- as you, could never win; the universe wasn't built like that- Hunters say that, just sometimes, an animal will step out of the bushes and stand there waiting for the spear...

Magrat managed to half-raise the axe, and then her hand slumped to her side. She looked down. The correct att.i.tude of a human before an elf was one of shame. She had shouted so coa.r.s.ely coa.r.s.ely at something as beautiful as an elf... at something as beautiful as an elf...

The Queen dismounted and walked over to her.

"Don't touch her," said Granny.

The Queen nodded.

"You can resist," she said. "But you see, it doesn't matter. We can take Lancre without a fight. There is nothing you can do about it. Look at the brave little army, standing like sheep. Humans are so enthusiastic enthusiastic."

Granny looked at her boots.