Carpe Jugulum

mountain,” said Granny. “I wouldn’t be one to tell people where they should be.”
    “I’ll go if you want me to,” said Oats.
    “I never asked you to come,” said Granny simply.
    “You’d be dead if I hadn’t!”
    “That’s no business of yours.”
    “My god, Mistress Weatherwax, you try me sorely.”
    “Your god, Mister Oats, tries everyone. That’s what gods generally do, and that’s why I don’t truck with ’em. And they lays down rules all the time.”
    “There have to be rules, Mistress Weatherwax.”
    “And what’s the first one that your Om requires, then?”
    “That believers should worship no other god but Om,” said Oats promptly.
    “Oh yes? That’s gods for you. Very self-centered, as a rule.”
    “I think it was to get people’s attention,” said Oats. “There are many commandments about dealing well with other people, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
    “Really? And ’spose someone doesn’t want to believe in Om and tries to live properly?”
    “According to the prophet Brutha, to live properly is to believe in Om.”
    “Oho, that’s clever! He gets you coming and going,” said Granny. “It took a good thinker to come up with that. Well done. What other clever things did he say?”
    “He doesn’t say things to be clever,” said Oats hotly. “But, since you ask, he said in his Letter to the Simonites that it is through other people that we truly become people.”
    “Good. He got that one right.”
    “And he said that we should take light into dark places.”
    Granny didn’t say anything.
    “I thought I’d mention that,” said Oats, “because when you were…you know, kneeling, back in the forge…you said something very similar…”
    Granny stopped so suddenly that Oats nearly fell over.
    “I did what ?”
    “You were mumbling and—”
    “I was talkin’ in my…sleep?”
    “Yes, and you said something about darkness being where the light needs to be, which I remember because in the Book of Om —”
    “You listened ?”
    “No, I wasn’t listening, but I couldn’t help hearing, could I? And you sounded as if you were having an argument with someone…”
    “Can you remember everything I said?”
    “I think so.”
    Granny staggered on a little, and stopped in a puddle of black water that began to rise over her boots.
    “Can you forget?” she said.
    “Pardon?”
    “You wouldn’t be so unkind as to pass on to anyone else the ramblings of a poor ol’ woman who was probably off her head, would you?” said Granny, slowly.
    Oats thought for a moment. “What ramblings were these, Mistress Weatherwax?”
    Granny seemed to sag with relief.
    “Ah. Good thing you asked, really, bein’ as there weren’t any.”
    Black bubbles arose from the bog around Granny Weatherwax as the two of them watched each other. Some sort of truce had been declared.
    “I wonder, young man, if you would be so good as to pull me out?”
    This took some time and involved a branch from a nearby tree and, despite Oats’s best efforts, Granny’s first foot came out of its boot. And once one boot has said goodbye in a peat bog, the other one is bound to follow out of fraternal solidarity.
    Granny ended up on what was comparatively dry and comparatively land wearing a pair of the heaviest-looking socks Oats had ever seen. They looked as if they could shrug off a hammer blow.
    “They was good boots,” said Granny, looking at the bubbles. “Oh well, let’s get on.”
    She staggered a little as she set off again, but to Oats’s admiration managed to stay upright. He was beginning to form yet another new opinion of the old woman, who caused a new opinion to arise about once every half hour, and it was this: she needed someone to beat. If she didn’t have someone to beat, she’d probably beat herself.
    “Shame about your little book of holy words…” she said, when she was farther down the track.
    There was a long pause before Oats replied.
    “I can easily get another,” he said levelly.
    “Must be hard, not having your book of words.”
    “It’s only paper.”
    “I shall ask the King to see about getting you another book of words.”
    “I wouldn’t trouble him.”
    “Terrible thing to have to burn all them words, though.”
    “The worthwhile ones don’t burn.”
    “You’re not too stupid, for all that you wear a funny hat,” said Granny.
    “I know when I’m being pushed, Mistress Weatherwax.”
    “Well done.”
    They walked on it silence. A