Maskerade

anything could be, and was filled with cold, hard points of light.
    “I asked you a question!”
    T HREE QUESTIONS, IN FACT .
    The words turned up on the inside of Salzella’s ears with no suggestion that they had had to travel like normal sound.
    “You didn’t answer me!”
    S OME THINGS YOU HAVE TO WORK OUT FOR YOURSELF, AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM, BELIEVE ME .
    “Who are you? You’re not a member of the cast, I know that! Take off that mask!”
    A S YOU WISH . I DO LIKE TO GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF THE THING .
    The figure removed its mask.
    “And now take off that other mask!” said Salzella, as the frozen fingers of dread rose through him.
    Death touched a secret spring on the stick. A blade shot out, so thin that it was transparent, its edge glittering blue as air molecules were sliced into their component atoms.
    A H , he said, raising the scythe. T HERE I THINK YOU HAVE ME .

    It was dark in the cellars, but Nanny Ogg had walked alone in the strange caverns under Lancre and through the nighttime forests with Granny Weatherwax. Darkness held no fears for an Ogg.
    She struck a match.
    “Greebo?”
    People had been tramping to and fro for hours. The darkness wasn’t private anymore. It had taken quite a lot of people to carry all the money, for a start. Up until the end of the opera, there had been something mysterious about these cellars. Now they were just…well…damp underground rooms. Something that had lived here had moved on.
    Her foot rattled a piece of pottery.
    She grunted as she went down on one knee. Spilled mud and shards of broken pot littered the floor. Here and there, unrooted and snapped, were some unheeded pieces of dead twig.
    Only some kind of fool would have stuck bits of wood in pots of mud far underground and expected anything to happen.
    Nanny picked one up and sniffed it tentatively. It smelled of mud. And nothing else.
    She’d have liked to have known how it had been done. Just professional interest, of course. And she knew she never would, now. Walter was a busy man now, up in the light. And, for something to begin, other things had to end.
    “We all wears a mask of one sort or another,” she said to the damp air. “No sense in upsetting things now, eh…”

    The coach didn’t leave until seven o’clock in the morning. By Lancre standards that was practically midday. The witches got there early.
    “I was hoping to shop for a few souvenirs,” said Nanny, stamping her feet on the cobbles to keep warm. “For the kiddies.”
    “No time,” said Granny Weatherwax.
    “Not that it would have made any difference on account of me not having any money to buy ’em with,” Nanny went on.
    “Not my fault if you fritter your money away,” said Granny.
    “I don’t recall having a single chance to frit.”
    “Money’s only useful for the things it can do.”
    “Well, yes. I could’ve done with having some new boots, for a start.”
    Nanny jiggled up and down a bit, and whistled around her tooth.
    “Nice of Mrs. Palm to let us stay there gratis,” she said.
    “Yes.”
    “O’ course, I helped out playin’ the piano and tellin’ jokes.”
    “An added bonus,” said Granny, nodding.
    “An’ of course there was all those little nibbles I prepared. With the Special Party Dip.”
    “Yes indeed,” said Granny, poker-faced. “Mrs. Palm was saying only this morning that she’s thinking of retiring next year.”
    Nanny looked up and down the street again.
    “I ’spect young Agnes’ll be turning up any minute now,” she said.
    “I really couldn’t say,” said Granny haughtily.
    “Not as though there’s much for her here, after all.”
    Granny sniffed. “That’s up to her, I’m sure.”
    “Everyone was very impressed, I reckon, when you caught that sword in your hand…”
    Granny sighed. “Hah! Yes, I expect they were. They didn’t think clearly, did they? People’re just lazy. They never think: maybe she had something in her hand, a bit of metal or something. They don’t think for a minute it was just a trick. They don’t think there’s always a perfectly good explanation if you look for it. They probably think it was some kind of magic.”
    “Yeah, but…you didn’t have anything in your hand, did you?”
    “That’s not the point. I might have done.” Granny looked up and down the square. “Besides, you can’t magic iron.”
    “That’s very true. Not iron. Now, someone like ole Black Aliss, they could make their skin tougher than steel…but