Witches Abroad

point that silly wand at me, Miss Garlick. Old Desiderata would have defeated me long ago if she could. People have no understanding.”
    “We ought to go down there,” said Magrat. “She might be lying there—”
    “That’s it. Be good. It’s what you’re good at,” said Lily, as they ran to the stairwell.
    “But we’ll be back,” snarled Nanny Ogg. “Even if we have to live in the swamp with Mrs. Gogol and eat snakes’ heads!”
    “Of course,” said Lily, arching an eyebrow. “That’s what I said. One needs people like you around. Otherwise one is never quite sure one is still working. It’s a way of keeping score.”
    She watched them disappear down the steps.
    A wind blew over the tower. Lily gathered up her skirts and walked to the end, where she could see the shreds of mist streaming over the rooftops far below. There were the faint strains of music from the distant carnival dance as it wound its way through the streets.
    It would soon be midnight. Proper midnight, not some cut-price version caused by an old woman crawling around in a clock.
    Lily tried to see through the murk to the bottom of the tower.
    “Really, Esme,” she murmured, “you did take losing hard.”

    Nanny reached out and restrained Magrat as they ran down the spiral stairs.
    “Slow down a bit, I should,” she said.
    “But she could be hurt—!”
    “So could you, if you trip. Anyway,” said Nanny, “I don’t reckon Esme is lyin’ in a crumpled heap somewhere. That’s not the way she’d go. I reckon she did it just to make sure Lily forgot about us and wouldn’t try anything on us. I reckon she thought we were—what was that Tsortean bloke who could only be wounded if you hit ’im in the right place? No one ever beat ’im until they found out about it. His knee, I think it was. We’re her Tsortean knee, right?”
    “But we know you have to run really fast to get her broomstick going!” shouted Magrat.
    “Yeah, I know,” said Nanny. “That’s what I thought. And now I’m thinking…how fast do you go when you’re dropping? I mean, straight down?”
    “I…don’t know,” said Magrat.
    “I reckon Esme thought it was worth findin’ out,” said Nanny. “That’s what I reckon.”
    A figure appeared around the bend in the stairs, plodding upward. They stood aside politely to let it pass.
    “Wish I could remember what bit of him you had to hit,” Nanny said. “That’s going to be nagging at me all night, now.”
    T HE HEEL .
    “Right? Oh, thanks.”
    A NY TIME .
    The figure continued onward and upward.
    “He had a good mask on, didn’t he,” said Magrat, eventually.
    She and Nanny sought confirmation in each other’s face.
    Magrat went pale. She looked up the stairs.
    “I think we should run back up and—” she began.
    Nanny Ogg was much older. “I think we should walk,” she said.

    Lady Volentia D’Arrangement sat in the rose garden under the big tower and blew her nose.
    She’d been waiting for half an hour and she’d had enough.
    She’d hoped for a romantic tête-à-tête: he’d seemed such a nice man, sort of eager and shy at the same time. Instead, she’d nearly been hit on the head when an old woman on a broom and wearing what looked, as far as she could see through the blur of speed, like Lady Volentia’s own dress, had screamed down out of the mist. Her boots had plowed through the roses before the curve of her flight took her up again.
    And some filthy smelly tomcat kept brushing up against her legs.
    And it had started off as such a nice evening…
    “’ullo, your Ladyship?”
    She looked around at the bushes.
    “My name’s Casanunda,” said a hopeful voice.

    Lily Weatherwax turned when she heard the tinkle of glass from within the maze of mirrors.
    Her brow wrinkled. She ran across the flagstones and opened the door into the mirror world.
    There was no sound but the rustle of her dress and the soft hiss of her own breathing. She glided into the place between the mirrors.
    Her myriad selves looked back at her approvingly. She relaxed.
    Then her foot struck something. She looked down and saw on the flagstones, black in the moonlight, a broomstick lying in shards of broken glass.
    Her horrified gaze rose to meet a reflection.
    It glared back at her.
    “Where’s the pleasure in bein’ the winner if the loser ain’t alive to know they’ve lost?”
    Lilith backed away, her mouth opening and shutting.
    Granny Weatherwax stepped through the empty frame. Lily