Carpe Jugulum

it goes on to say that they can be killed by fire or in ‘traps of treacle.’ It also says later on that they bring lascivious dreams.”
    “Don’t look at me,” said Agnes. “All you’re getting is a walk home.”
    To her amazement, and Perdita’s crowing delight, he blushed as red as she ever did.
    “Er, er, the word in question in that passage might just as easily be read in context as ‘boiled lobsters,’” he said hurriedly.
    “Nanny Ogg says Omnians used to burn witches,” said Agnes.
    “We used to burn practically everybody,” said Oats gloomily. “Although some witches did get pushed into big barrels of treacle, I believe.”
    He had a boring voice, too. He did appear, she had to admit, to be a boring person. It was almost too perfect a presentation, as if he was trying to make himself seem boring. But one thing had piqued Agnes’s curiosity.
    “Why did you come to visit Granny Weatherwax?”
    “Well, everyone speaks very…highly of her,” said Oats, suddenly picking his words like a man pulling plums from a boiling pot. “And they said she hadn’t turned up last night, which was very strange. And I thought it must be hard for an old lady living by herself. And…”
    “Yes?”
    “Well, I understand she’s quite old and it’s never too late to consider the state of your immortal soul,” said Oats. “Which she must have, of course.”
    Agnes gave him a sideways look. “She’s never mentioned it,” she said.
    “You probably think I’m foolish.”
    “I just think you are an amazingly lucky man, Mr. Oats.”
    On the other hand…here was someone who’d been told about Granny Weatherwax, and had still walked through these woods that scared him stiff to see her, even though she was possibly a cockroach or a boiled lobster. No one in Lancre ever came to see Granny unless they wanted something. Oh, sometimes they came with little presents (because one day they’d want something again), but they generally made sure she was out first. There was more to Mr. Oats than met the eye. There had to be.
    A couple of centaurs burst out of the bushes ahead of them and cantered away down the path. Oats grabbed a tree.
    “They were running around when I came up!” he said. “Are they usual ?”
    “I’ve never seen them before,” said Agnes. “I think they’re from Uberwald.”
    “And the horrible little blue goblins? One of them made a very unpleasant gesture at me!”
    “Don’t know about them at all.”
    “And the vampires? I mean, I knew that things were different here, but really—”
    “Vampires?!” shouted Agnes. “You saw the vampires? Last night?”
    “Well, I mean, yes , I studied them at length at the seminary, but I never thought I’d see them standing around talking about drinking blood and things, really, I’m surprised the King allows it—”
    “And they didn’t…affect your mind?”
    “I did have that terrible migraine. Does that count? I thought it was the prawns.”
    A cry rang through the woods. It seemed to have many components, but mostly it soundly as though a turkey was being throttled at the other end of a tin tube.
    “And what the heck was that?” shouted Oats.
    Agnes looked around, bewildered. She’d grown up in the Lancre woods. Oh, you got strange things sometimes, passing through, but generally they contained nothing more dangerous than other people. Now, in this tarnished light, even the trees were starting to look suspicious.
    “Let’s at least get down to Bad Ass,” she said, tugging at Oats’s hand.
    “You what?”
    Agnes sighed. “It’s the nearest village.”
    “Bad Ass?”
    “Look, there was a donkey, and it stopped in the middle of the river, and it wouldn’t go backward or forward,” said Agnes, as patiently as possible. Lancre people got used to explaining this. “Bad Ass. See? Yes, I know that ‘Disobedient Donkey’ might have been more… acceptable , but—”
    The horrible cry echoed around the woods again. Agnes thought of all the things that were rumored to be in the mountains, and dragged Oats after her like a badly hitched cart.
    Then the sound was right in front of them and, at a turn in the lane, a head emerged from a bush.
    Agnes had seen pictures of an ostrich.
    So…start with one of them, but make the head and neck in violent yellow, and give the head a huge ruff of red and purple feathers and two big round eyes, the pupils of which jiggled drunkenly as the head moved back and forth…
    “Is that some