Wyrd Sisters

As a king he was used to treating servants as if they were not there, and running through them as a ghost was almost the same. The only difference was that they didn't stand aside.

Verence reached the nursery, saw the broken door, the trailed sheets . . .

Heard the hoofbeats. He reached the window, saw his own horse go full tilt through the open gateway in the shafts of the coach. A few seconds later three horsemen followed it. The sound of hooves echoed for a moment on the cobbles and died away.

The king thumped the sill, his fist going several inches into the stone.

Then he pushed his way out into the air, disdaining to notice the drop, and half flew, half ran down across the courtyard and into the stables.

It took him a mere twenty seconds to learn that, to the great many things a ghost cannot do, should be added the mounting of a horse. He did succeed in getting into the saddle, or at least in straddling the air just above it, but when the horse finally bolted, terrified beyond belief by the mysterious things happening behind its ears, Verence was left sitting astride five feet of fresh air.

He tried to run, and got about as far as the gateway before the air around him thickened to the consistency of tar.

'You can't,' said a sad, old voice behind him. 'You have to stay where you were killed. That's what haunting means. Take it from me. I know.'

Granny Weatherwax paused with a second scone halfway to her mouth.

'Something comes,' she said.

'Can you tell by the pricking of your thumbs?' said Magrat earnestly. Magrat had learned a lot about witchcraft from books.

'The pricking of my ears,' said Granny. She raised her eyebrows at Nanny Ogg. Old Goodie Whemper had been an excellent witch in her way, but far too fanciful. Too many flowers and romantic notions and such.

The occasional flash of lightning showed the moorland stretching down to the forest, but the rain on the warm summer earth had filled the air with mist wraiths.

'Hoofbeats?' said Nanny Ogg. 'No-one would come up here this time of night.'

Magrat peered around timidly. Here and there on the moor were huge standing stones, their origins lost in time, which were said to lead mobile and private lives of their own. She shivered.

'What's to be afraid of?' she managed.

'Us,' said Granny Weatherwax, smugly.

The hoofbeats neared, slowed. And then the coach rattled between the furze bushes, its horses hanging in their harnesses. The driver leapt down, ran around to the door, pulled a large bundle from inside and dashed towards the trio.

He was halfway across the damp peat when he stopped and stared at Granny Weatherwax with a look of horror.

'It's all right,' she whispered, and the whisper cut through the grumbling of the storm as clearly as a bell.

She took a few steps forward and a convenient lightning flash allowed her to look directly into the man's eyes. They had the peculiarity of focus that told those who had the Know that he was no longer looking at anything in this world.

With a final jerking movement he thrust the bundle into Granny's arms and toppled forward, the feathers of a crossbow bolt sticking out of his back.

Three figures moved into the firelight. Granny looked up into another pair of eyes, which were as chilly as the slopes of Hell.

Their owner threw his crossbow aside. There was a glimpse of chain mail under his sodden cloak as he drew his sword.

He didn't flourish it. The eyes that didn't leave Granny's face weren't the eyes of one who bothers about flourishing things. They were the eyes of one who knows exactly what swords are for. He reached out his hand.