Witches Abroad

Granny,” said Magrat.
    Granny hesitated. But under all the revulsion was the little treacherous flame of fascination with the idea. Besides, she and Greebo had hated one another cordially for years. Almost human, eh? Give him a taste of it, then, and see how he likes it…She felt a bit ashamed of the thought. But not much.
    “Oh, all right.”
    They concentrated.
    As Lily knew, changing the shape of an object is one of the hardest magics there is. But it’s easier if the object is alive. After all, a living thing already knows what shape it is. All you have to do is change its mind.
    Greebo yawned and stretched. To his amazement he went on stretching.
    Through the pathways of his feline brain surged a tide of belief. He suddenly believed he was human. He wasn’t simply under the impression that he was human; he believed it implicitly. The sheer force of the unshakable belief flowed out into his morphic field, overriding its objections, rewriting the very blueprint of his self.
    Fresh instructions surged back.
    If he was human, he didn’t need all this fur. And he ought to be bigger…
    The witches watched, fascinated.
    “I never thought we’d do it,” said Granny.
    …no points on the ears, the whiskers were too long…
    …he needed more muscle, all these bones were the wrong shape, these legs ought to be longer…
    And then it was finished.
    Greebo unfolded himself and stood up, a little unsteadily.
    Nanny stared, her mouth open.
    Then her eyes moved downward.
    “Cor,” she said.
    “I think,” said Granny Weatherwax, “that we’d better imagine some clothes on him right now .”
    That was easy enough. When Greebo had been clothed to her satisfaction Granny nodded and stood back.
    “Magrat, you can open your eyes,” she said.
    “I hadn’t got them closed.”
    “Well, you should have had.”
    Greebo turned slowly, a faint, lazy smile on his scarred face. As a human, his nose was broken and a black patch covered his bad eye. But the other one glittered like the sins of angels, and his smile was the downfall of saints. Female ones, anyway.
    Perhaps it was pheromones, or the way his muscles rippled under his black leather shirt. Greebo broadcast a kind of greasy diabolic sexuality in the megawatt range. Just looking at him was enough to set dark wings fluttering in the crimson night.
    “Uh, Greebo,” said Nanny.
    He opened his mouth. Incisors glittered.
    “Wrowwwwl,” he said.
    “Can you understand me?”
    “Yessss, Nannyyy.”
    Nanny Ogg leaned against the wall for support.
    There was the sound of hooves. The coach had turned into the street.
    “Get out there and stop that coach!”
    Greebo grinned again, and darted out of the alley.
    Nanny fanned herself with her hat.
    “Whoo-eee,” she said. “And to think I used to tickle his tummy…No wonder all the lady cats scream at night.”
    “Gytha!”
    “Well, you’ve gone very red, Esme.”
    “I’m just out of breath,” said Granny.
    “Funny, that. It’s not as if you’ve been running.”

    The coach rattled down the street.
    The coachmen and footmen were not at all sure what they were. Their minds oscillated wildly. One moment they were men thinking about cheese and bacon rinds. And the next they were mice wondering why they had trousers on.
    As for the horses…horses are a little insane anyway, and being a rat as well wasn’t any help.
    So none of them were in a very stable frame of mind when Greebo stepped out of the shadows and grinned at them.
    He said, “Wrowwwl.”
    The horses tried to stop, which is practically impossible with a coach still piling along behind you. The coachmen froze in terror.
    “Wrowwwl?”
    The coach skidded around and came up broadside against a wall, knocking the coachmen off. Greebo picked one of them up by his collar and bounced him up and down while the maddened horses fought to get out of the shafts.
    “Run awayy, furry toy?” he suggested.
    Behind the frightened eyes man and mouse fought for supremacy. But they needn’t have bothered. They would lose either way. As consciousness flickered between the states it saw either a grinning cat or a six-foot, well-muscled, one-eyed grinning bully.
    The coachmouse fainted. Greebo patted him a few times, in case he was going to move…
    “Wake up, little mousy…”
    …and then lost interest.
    The coach door rattled, jammed, and then opened.
    “What’s happening?” said Ella.
    “Wrow wwwl !”
    Nanny Ogg’s boot hit Greebo on the back of his