Lords And Ladies

something silver and wriggly in its beak.

'Kept going on about everything happening at the same time,' Ridcully went on morosely. 'Like there's no such thing as a choice. You just decide which leg you're heading for. He says that we did get married, see. He says all the things that might have been have to be. So there's thousands of me out there who never became a wizard, just like there's thousands of you who, oh, answered letters. Hah! To them, we're something that might have been. Now, d'you call that proper thinking for a growing lad? When I started wizarding, old 'Tudgy' Spold was Archchancellor, and if any young wizard'd even mentioned that sort of daft thing, he'd feel a staff across his backside. Hah!'

Somewhere far below, a frog plopped off a stone. 'Mind you, I suppose we've all passed a lot of water since then.'

It dawned gently on Ridcully that the dialogue had become a monologue. He turned to Granny, who was staring round-eyed at the river as if she'd never seen water before.

'Stupid, stupid, stupid,' she said.

'I beg your pardon? I was only-'

'Not you. I wasn't talking to you. Stupid! I've been stupid. But I ain't been daft! Hah! And I thought it was my memory going! And it was, too. It was going and fetching!'

'What?'

'I was getting scared! Me! And not thinking clear!

Except I was thinking clear!'

'What!'

'Never mind! Well, I won't say this hasn't been . . . nice,' said Granny. 'But I've got to get back. Do the thing with the fingers again. And hurry.'

Ridcully deflated a little.

'Can't,' he said.

'You did it just now.'

'That's the point. I wasn't joking when I said I couldn't do it again. It takes a lot out of you, transmigration.'

'You used to be able to do it all the time, as I recall,' said Granny. She risked a smile. 'Our feet hardly touched the ground.'

'I was younger then. Now, once is enough.' Granny's boots creaked as she turned and started to walk quickly back toward the town. Ridcully lumbered after her.

'What's the hurry?'

'Got important things to do,' said Granny, without turning around. 'Been letting everyone down.'

'Some people might say this is important.'

'No. It's just personal. Personal's not the same as important. People just think it is.'

'You're doing it again!'

'What?'

'I don't know what the other future would have been like,' said Ridcully, 'but I for one would have liked to give it a try.'

Granny paused. Her mind was crackling with relief. Should she tell him about the memories? She opened her mouth to do so, and then thought again. No. He'd get soppy.

'I'd have been crabby and bad-tempered,' she said, instead.

'That goes without saying.'

'Hah! And what about you? I'd have put up with all your womanizing and drunkenness, would I?'

Ridcully looked bewildered.

'What womanizing?'

'We're talking about what might have been.'

'But I'm a wizard! We hardly ever womanize. There's laws about it. Well. . . rules. Guidelines, anyway.'

'But you wouldn't have been a wizard then.'

'And I'm hardly ever drunk.'

'You would have been if you'd been wedded to me.'

He caught up with her.

'Even young Ponder doesn't think like this,' he said. 'You've made up your mind that it would have been dreadful, have you?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'Why'd you think?'

'I asked you!'

'I'm too busy for this,' said Granny. 'Like I said, personal ain't the same as important. Make yourself useful, Mr. Wizard. You know it's circle time, don't you?'

Ridcully's hand touched the brim of his hat.

'Oh, yes.'

'And you know what that means?'

'They tell me it means that the walls between realities get weaker. The circles are . . . what's the word Stibbons uses? Isoresons. They connect levels of, oh, something daft . . . similar levels of reality. Which is bloody stupid. You'd be able to walk from one universe to another.'

'Ever tried it?'

'No!'

'A circle is a door half open. It doesn't need much to open it up all the way. Even belief'll do it. That's why they put the Dancers up, years ago. We got the dwarfs to do it. Thunderbolt iron, those stones. There's something special about 'em. They've got the love of iron. Don't ask me how it works. Elves hate it even more than ordinary iron. It . . . upsets their senses, or something. But minds can get through. . .'

'Elves? Everyone knows elves don't exist anymore. Not proper elves. I mean, there's a few folk who say they're elves-'

'Oh, yeah. Elvish ancestry. Elves and humans breed all right, as if that's anything to be proud of. But you just get a race o'skinny types with pointy ears and a tendency to giggle and burn easily in sunshine. I ain't talking about them. There's no harm in them. I'm talking about real wild elves, what we ain't seen here for-'

The road from the bridge to the town curved between high banks, with the forest crowding in on either side and in places even meeting overhead. Thick ferns, already curling like green breakers, lined the clay banks.

They rustled.

The unicorn leapt on the road.

Thousands of universes, twisting together like a rope being plaited from threads . . .

There's bound to be leakages, a sort of mental equivalent of the channel breakthrough on a cheap hi-fi that gets you the news in Swedish during quiet bits in the music. Especially if you've spent your life using your mind as a receiver.

Picking up the thoughts of another human being is very hard, because no two minds are on the same, er, wavelength.

But somewhere out there, at the point where the parallel universes tangle, are a million minds just like yours. For a very obvious reason.

Granny Weatherwax smiled.

Millie Chillum and the king and one or two hangers-on were clustered around the door to Magrat's room when Nanny Ogg arrived.

'What's happening?'