The Wee Free Men

I remember…

This is the million-year rain under the sea, this is the new land being born underneath an ocean. It’s not a dream. It’s… a memory. The land under wave. Millions and millions of tiny shells…

This land was alive.

All the time there was the warm, comforting smell of the shepherding hut, and the feeling of being held in invisible hands.

The whiteness below her rose up and over her head, but it didn’t seem uncomfortable. It was like being in a mist.

Now I’m inside the chalk, like a flint, like a calkin…

She wasn’t sure how long she spent in the warm deep water, or if indeed any time really had passed, or if the millions of years went past in a second, but she felt movement again, and a sense of rising.

More memories poured into her mind.

There’s always been someone watching the borders. They didn’t decide to. It was decided for them. Someone has to care. Sometimes, they have to fight. Someone has to speak for that which has no voice…

She opened her eyes. She was still lying in the mud, and the Queen was laughing at her and, overhead, the storm still raged.

But she felt warm. In fact, she felt hot, red-hot with anger… anger at the bruised turf, anger at her own stupidity, anger at this beautiful creature whose only talent was control.

This… creature was trying to take her world.

All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

I have a duty!

The anger overflowed. She stood up clenched her fists and screamed at the storm, putting into the scream all the rage that was inside her.

Lightning struck the ground on either side of her. It did so twice.

And it stayed there, crackling, and two dogs formed.

Steam rose from their coats, and blue light sparked from their ears as they shook themselves. They looked attentively at Tiffany.

The Queen gasped, and vanished.

‘Come by, Lightning!’ shouted Tiffany. ‘Away to me, Thunder!’ And she remembered the time when she’d run across the downs, falling over, shouting all the wrong things, while the two dogs had done exactly what needed to be done…

Two streaks of black and white sped away across the turf and up towards the clouds.

They herded the storm.

Clouds panicked and scattered, but always there was a comet streaking across the sky and they were turned. Monstrous shapes writhed and screamed in the boiling sky, but Thunder and Lightning had worked many flocks; there was an occasional snap of lightning-sparked teeth, and a wail. Tiffany stared upwards, rain pouring off her face, and shouted commands that no dog could possibly have heard.

Jostling and rumbling and screaming, the storm rolled off the hills and away towards the mountains, where there were deep canyons that could pen it.

Out of breath, glowing with triumph, Tiffany watched until the dogs came back and settled, once again, on the turf. And then she remembered something else: it didn’t matter what orders she gave those dogs. They were not her dogs. They were working dogs.

Thunder and Lightning didn’t take orders from a little girl.

And the dogs weren’t looking at her.

They were looking just behind her.

She’d have turned if someone had told her a horrible monster was behind her. She’d have turned if they’d said it had a thousand teeth. She didn’t want to turn round now. Forcing herself was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

She was not afraid of what she might see. She was terribly, mortally frightened, afraid to the centre of her bones of what she might not see. She shut her eyes while her cowardly boots shuffled her round and then, after a deep breath, she opened them again.

There was a gust of Jolly Sailor tobacco, and sheep, and turpentine.

Sparkling in the dark, light glittering off the white shepherdess dress and every blue ribbon and silver buckle of it, was Granny Aching, smiling hugely, glowing with pride. In one hand she held the huge ornamental crook, hung with blue bows.

She pirouetted slowly, and Tiffany saw that while she was a brilliant, glowing shepherdess from hat to hem, she still had her huge old boots on.

Granny Aching took her pipe out of her mouth, and gave Tiffany the little nod that was, from her, a round of applause. And then—she wasn’t.

Real starlit darkness covered the turf, and the night-time sounds filled the air. Tiffany didn’t know if what had just happened was a dream or had happened somewhere that wasn’t quite here or had only happened in her head. It didn’t matter. It had happened. And now—

‘But I’m still here,’ said the Queen, stepping in front of her. ‘Perhaps it was all a dream. Perhaps you have gone a little mad, because you are after all a very strange child. Perhaps you had help. How good are you? Do you really think that you can face me alone? I can make you think whatever I please—’

‘Crivens!’

‘Oh no, not them,’ said the Queen, throwing up her hands.

It wasn’t just the Nac Mac Feegles, but also Wentworth, a strong smell of seaweed, a lot of water and a dead shark. They appeared in mid-air and landed in a heap between Tiffany and the Queen. But a pictsie was always ready for a fight, and they bounced, rolled and came up drawing their swords and shaking sea water out of their hair.

‘Oh, ‘tis you, izzut?’ said Rob Anybody, glaring up at the Queen. ‘Face to face wi’ ye at last, ye bloustie ol’ callyack that ye are! Ye canna’ come here, unnerstand? Be off wi’ ye! Are ye goin’ to go quietly?’

The Queen stamped heavily on him. When she took her foot away, only the top of his head was visible above the turf.

‘Well, are ye?’ he said, pulling himself out as if nothing had happened. ‘I don’t wantae havtae lose my temper wi’ ye! An’ it’s no good sendin’ your pets against us, ‘cos you ken we can take ‘em tae the cleaners!’ He turned to Tiffany, who hadn’t moved. ‘You just leave this tae us, Kelda. Us an’ the Quin, we go way back!’

The Queen snapped her fingers. ‘Always leaping into things you don’t understand,’ she hissed. ‘Well, can you face these?’

Every Nac Mac Feegle sword suddenly glowed blue.

Back in the crowd of eerily lit pictsies a voice that sounded very much like that of Daft Wullie said:

‘Ach, we’re in real trouble noo…’

Three figures had appeared in the air, a little way away. The middle one, Tiffany saw, had a long red gown, a strange long wig and black tights with buckles on his shoes. The others were just ordinary men, it seemed, in ordinary grey suits.

‘Oh, ye are a harrrrrd wumman, Quin,’ said William the gonnagle, ‘to set the lawyers ontae us…’

‘See the one on the left there,’ whimpered a pictsie. ‘See, he’s got a briefcase! It’s a