Equal Rites

there are unpleasant Things on the other side. Do you understand?”
    The smith nodded. He didn’t really understand, but he correctly surmised that if he revealed this fact Granny would start going into horrible details.
    “She’s strong in her mind and it might take a while,” said Granny. “But sooner or later they’ll challenge her.”
    Smith picked up a hammer from his bench, looked at it as though he had never seen it before, and put it down again.
    “But,” he said, “if it’s wizard magic she’s got, learning witchery won’t be any good, will it? You said they’re different.”
    “They’re both magic. If you can’t learn to ride an elephant, you can at least learn to ride a horse.”
    “What’s an elephant?”
    “A kind of badger,” said Granny. She hadn’t maintained forest-credibility for forty years by ever admitting ignorance.
    The blacksmith sighed. He knew he was beaten. His wife had made it clear that she favored the idea and, now that he came to think about it, there were some advantages. After all, Granny wouldn’t last forever, and being father to the area’s only witch might not be too bad, at that.
    “All right,” he said.
    And so, as the winter turned and started the long, reluctant climb toward spring, Esk spent days at a time with Granny Weatherwax, learning witchcraft.
    It seemed to consist mainly of things to remember.
    The lessons were quite practical. There was cleaning the kitchen table and Basic Herbalism. There was mucking out the goats and The Uses of Fungi. There was doing the washing and The Summoning of the Small Gods. And there was always tending the big copper still in the scullery and The Theory and Practice of Distillation. By the time the warm Rim winds were blowing, and the snow remained only as little streaks of slush on the Hub side of trees, Esk knew how to prepare a range of ointments, several medicinal brandies, a score of special infusions, and a number of mysterious potions that Granny said she might learn the use of in good time.
    What she hadn’t done was any magic at all.
    “All in good time,” repeated Granny vaguely.
    “But I’m supposed to be a witch!”
    “You’re not a witch yet. Name me three herbs good for the bowels.”
    Esk put her hands behind her back, closed her eyes, and said: “The flowering tops of Greater Peahane, the root pith of Old Man’s Trousers, the stems of the Bloodwater Lily, the seedcases of—”
    “All right. Where may water gherkins be found?”
    “Peat bogs and stagnant pools, from the months of—”
    “Good. You’re learning.”
    “But it’s not magic!”
    Granny sat down at the kitchen table.
    “Most magic isn’t,” she said. “It’s just knowing the right herbs, and learning to watch the weather, and finding out the ways of animals. And the ways of people, too.”
    “That’s all it is!” said Esk, horrified.
    “All? It’s a pretty big all,” said Granny, “But no, it isn’t all . There’s other stuff.”
    “Can’t you teach me?”
    “All in good time. There’s no call to go showing yourself yet.”
    “Showing myself? Who to?”
    Granny’s eyes darted toward the shadows in the corners of the room.
    “Never you mind.”
    Then even the last lingering tails of snow had gone and the spring gales roared around the mountains. The air in the forest began to smell of leaf mold and turpentine. A few early flowers braved the night frosts, and the bees started to fly.
    “Now bees,” said Granny Weatherwax, “is real magic.”
    She carefully lifted the lid of the first hive.
    “Your bees,” she went on, “is your mead, your wax, your bee gum, your honey. A wonderful thing is your bee. Ruled by a queen, too,” she added, with a touch of approval.
    “Don’t they sting you?” said Esk, standing back a little. Bees boiled out of the comb and overflowed the rough wooden sides of the box.
    “Hardly ever,” said Granny. “You wanted magic. Watch.”
    She put a hand into the struggling mass of insects and made a shrill, faint piping noise at the back of her throat. There was a movement in the mass, and a large bee, longer and fatter than the others, crawled on to her hand. A few workers followed it, stroking it and generally ministering to it.
    “How did you do that?” said Esk.
    “Ah,” said Granny, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
    “Yes. I would. That’s why I asked, Granny,” said Esk, severely.
    “Do you think I used magic?”
    Esk looked down at the queen bee. She