Wyrd Sisters

difference if you look closely. It doesn’t have as many sharp edges.”
    “ Good fool,” said the duke, vaguely.
    Totally mad, the Fool thought. Several bricks short of a bundle. So far around the twist you could use him to open wine bottles.
    “Kneel beside me, my Fool.”
    The Fool did so. The duke laid a soiled bandage on his shoulder.
    “Are you loyal, Fool?” he said. “Are you trustworthy?”
    “I swore to follow my lord until death,” said the Fool hoarsely.
    The duke pressed his mad face close to the Fool, who looked up into a pair of bloodshot eyes.
    “I didn’t want to,” he hissed conspiratorially. “They made me do it. I didn’t want—”
    The door swung open. The duchess filled the doorway. In fact, she was nearly the same shape.
    “Leonal!” she barked.
    The Fool was fascinated by what happened to the duke’s eyes. The mad red flame vanished, was sucked backward, and was replaced by the hard blue stare he had come to recognize. It didn’t mean, he realized, that the duke was any less mad. Even the coldness of his sanity was madness in a way. The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.
    Lord Felmet looked up calmly.
    “Yes, my dear?”
    “What is the meaning of all this?” she demanded.
    “Witches, I suspect,” said Lord Felmet.
    “I really don’t think—” the Fool began. Lady Felmet’s glare didn’t merely silence him, it almost nailed him to the wall.
    “That is clearly apparent,” she said. “You are an idiot.”
    “A Fool, my lady.”
    “As well,” she added, and turned back to her husband.
    “So,” she said, smiling grimly. “Still they defy you?”
    The duke shrugged. “How should I fight magic?” he said.
    “With words,” said the Fool, without thinking, and was instantly sorry. They were both staring at him.
    “What?” said the duchess.
    The Fool dropped his mandolin in his embarrassment.
    “In—in the Guild,” said the Fool, “we learned that words can be more powerful even than magic.”
    “Clown!” said the duke. “Words are just words. Brief syllables. Sticks and stones may break my bones—” he paused, savoring the thought—“but words can never hurt me.”
    “My lord, there are such words that can,” said the Fool. “Lair! Usurper! Murderer!”
    The duke jerked back and gripped the arms of the throne, wincing.
    “Such words have no truth,” said the Fool, hurriedly. “But they can spread like fire underground, breaking out to burn—”
    “It’s true! It’s true!” screamed the duke. “I hear them, all the time!” He leaned forward. “It’s the witches!” he hissed.
    “Then, then, then they can be fought with other words,” said the Fool. “Words can fight even witches.”
    “What words?” said the duchess, thoughtfully.
    The Fool shrugged. “Crone. Evil eye. Stupid old woman.”
    The duchess raised one thick eyebrow.
    “You are not entirely an idiot, are you,” she said. “You refer to rumor.”
    “Just so, my lady.” The Fool rolled his eyes. What had he got himself into?
    “It’s the witches,” whispered the duke, to no one in particular. “We must tell the world about the witches. They’re evil. They make it come back, the blood. Even sandpaper doesn’t work.”

    There was another tremor as Granny Weatherwax hurried along the narrow, frozen pathways in the forest. A lump of snow slipped off a tree branch and poured over her hat.
    This wasn’t right, she knew. Never mind about the—whatever it was—but it was unheard of for a witch to go out on Hogswatchnight. It was against all tradition. No one knew why, but that wasn’t the point.
    She came out onto the moorland and pounded across the brittle heather, which had been scoured of snow by the wind. There was a crescent moon near the horizon, and its pale glow lit up the mountains that towered over her. It was a different world up there, and one even a witch would rarely venture into; it was a landscape left over from the frosty birth of the world, all green ice and knife-edge ridges and deep, secret valleys. It was a landscape never intended for human beings—not hostile, anymore than a brick or cloud is hostile, but terribly, terribly uncaring.
    Except that, this time, it was watching her. A mind quite unlike any other she had ever encountered was giving her a great deal of its attention. She glared up at the icy slopes, half expecting to see a mountainous shadow move against the stars.
    “Who are