Equal Rites Read online

Page 10

  “Showme. ”

  With a scream Esk spun around. Fire flared from her fingertips and arced across the room. The kindling exploded with a force that hurled the furniture around the room and a ball of fierce green light spluttered on the hearth.

  Changing patterns sped across it as it spun sizzling on the stones, which cracked and then flowed. The iron fireback resisted bravely for a few seconds before melting like wax; it made a final appearance as a red smear across the fireball and then vanished. A moment later the kettle went the same way.

  Just when it seemed that the chimney would follow them the ancient hearthstone gave up, and with a final splutter the fireball sank from view.

  The occasional crackle or puff of steam signaled its passage through the earth. Apart from that there was silence, the loud hissing silence that comes after an ear-splattering noise, and after the actinic glare the room seemed pitch dark.

  Eventually Granny crawled out from behind the table and crept as closely as she dared to the hole, which was still surrounded by a crust of lava. She jerked back as another cloud of superheated steam mushroomed up.

  “They say there's dwarf mines under the Ramtops,” she said inconsequentially. “My, but them little buggers is in for a surprise. ”

  She prodded the little puddle of cooling iron where the kettle had been, and added, “Shame about the fireback. It had owls on it, you know. ”

  She patted her singed hair gingerly with a shaking hand. “I think this calls for a nice cup of, a nice cup of cold water. ”

  Esk sat looking in wonder at her hand.

  “That was real magic. ” she said at last, “And I did it. ”

  “One type of real magic,” corrected Granny. “Don't forget that. And you don't want to do that all the time, neither. If it's in you, you've got to learn to control it. ”

  “Can you teach me?”

  “Me? No!”

  “How can I learn if no one will teach me?”

  “You've got to go where they can. Wizard school. ”

  “But you said -”

  Granny paused in the act of filling a jug from the water bucket.

  “Yes, yes,” she snapped, “Never mind what I said, or common sense or anything. Sometimes you just have to go the way things take you, and I reckon you're going to wizard school one way or the other. ”

  Esk considered this.

  “You mean it's my destiny?” she said at last.

  Granny shrugged. “Something like that. Probably. Who knows? ”

  That night, long after Esk had been sent to bed, Granny put on her hat, lit a fresh candle, cleared the table, and pulled a small wooden box from its secret hiding place in the dresser. It contained a bottle of ink, an elderly quill pen, and a few sheets of paper.

  Granny was not entirely happy when faced with the world of letters. Her eyes protruded, her tongue stuck out, small beads of sweat formed on her forehead, but the pen scratched its way across the page to the accompaniment of the occasional quiet “drat” or “bugger the thing”.

  The letter read as follows, although this version lacks the candlewax, blots, crossings-out and damp patches of the original.

  To then Hed blizzard, Unsene Universety, Greatings, I hop you ar well, I am sending to you won Escarrina Smith, shee bath thee maekings of wizzardery but whot may be ferther dun wyth hyr I knowe not slice is a gode worker and clene about hyr person allso skilled in diuerse arts of thee howse, I will send Monies wyth hyr May you liv longe and ende youre days in pese, And oblije, Esmerelder Weatherwaxe (Mss/ wytch.

  Granny held it up to the candlelight and considered it critically. It was a good letter. She had got “diuerse” out of the Alm anack, which she read every night. It was always predicting “diuerse plagues” and “diuerse ill-fortune”. Granny wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but it was a damn good word all the same.

  She sealed it with candle-wax and put it on the dresser. She could leave it for the carrier to take when she went into the village tomorrow, to see about a new kettle.

  Next morning Granny took some pains over her dress, selecting a black dress with a frog and bat motif, a big velvet cloak, or at least a cloak made of the sort of stuff velvet looks like after thirty years of heavy wear, and the pointed hat of office which was crucified with hatpins.

  Their first call was to the stonemason, to order a replacement hearthstone. Then they called on the smith.

  It was a long and stormy meeting. Esk wandered out into the orchard and climbed up to her old place in the apple tree while from the house came her father's shouts, her mother's wails and long silent pauses which meant that Granny Weatherwax was speaking softly in what Esk thought of as her “just so” voice. The old woman had a flat, measured way of speaking sometimes. It was the kind of voice the Creator had probably used. Whether there was magic in it, or just headology, it ruled out any possibility of argument. It made it clear that whatever it was talking about was exactly how things should be.

  The breeze shook the tree gently. Esk sat on a branch idly swinging her legs.

  She thought about wizards. They didn't often come to Bad Ass, but there were a fair number of stories about them. They were wise, she recalled, and usually very old and they did powerful, complex and mysterious magics and almost all of them had beards. They were also, without exception, men.

  She was on firmer ground with witches, because she'd trailed off with Granny to visit a couple of villages' witches further along the hills, and anyway witches figured largely in Ramtop folklore. Witches were cunning, she recalled, and usually very old, or at least they tried to look old, and they did slightly suspicious, homely and organic magics and some of them had beards. They were also, without exception, women.

  There was some fundamental problem in all that which she couldn't quite resolve. Why wouldn't. . . .

  Cern and Gulta hurtled down the path and came to a pushing, shoving halt under the tree. They peered up at their sister with a mixture of fascination and scorn. Witches and wizards were objects of awe, but sisters weren't. Somehow, knowing your own sister was learning to be a witch sort of devalued the whole profession.

  “You can't really do spells,” said Cern. “Can you?”

  “Course you can't,” said Gulta. “What's this stick?”

  Esk had left the staff leaning against the tree. Cern prodded it cautiously.

  “I don't want you to touch it,” said Esk hurriedly. “Please. It's mine. ”

  Cern normally had all the sensitivity of a ballbearing, but his hand stopped in mid-prod, much to his surprise.

  “I didn't want to anyway,” he muttered to hide his confusion. “It's only an old stick. ”

  “Is it true you can do spells?” asked Gulta. “We heard Granny say you could. ”

  “We listened at the door,” added Cern.

  “You said I couldn't,” said Esk, airily.

  “Well, can you or can't you?” said Gulta, his face reddening.

  “Perhaps. ”

  “You can't!”

  Esk looked down at his face. She loved her brothers, when she reminded herself to, in a dutiful sort of way, although she generally remembered them as a collection of loud noises in trousers. But there was something awfully pig-like and unpleasant about the way Gulta was staring up at her, as though she had personally insulted him.

  She felt her body start to tingle, and the world suddenly seemed very sharp and clear.

  “I can,” she said.

  Gulta looked from her to the staff, and his eyes narrowed. He kicked it viciously.

  “Old stick!”

  He looked, she thought, exactly like a small angry pig.

  Cern's screams brought Granny and his parents first to the back door and then running down the cinder path.

  Esk was perched in the fork of the apple tree, an expression of dreamy contemplation on her face. Cern was hiding behind the tree, his face a mere rim a
round a red, tonsil-vibrating bawl.

  Gulta was sitting rather bewildered in a pile of clothing that no longer fitted him, wrinkling his snout.

  Granny strode up to the tree until her hooked nose was level with Esk's.

  “Turning people into pigs is not allowed,” she hissed. “Even brothers. ”

  “I didn't do it, it just happened. Anyway, you must admit it's a better shape for him,” said Esk evenly.

  “What's going on?” said Smith. “Where's Gulta? What's this pig doing here?”

  “This pig”, said Granny Weatherwax, “is your son. ”

  There was a sigh from Esk's mother as she collapsed gently backwards, but Smith was slightly less unprepared. He looked sharply from Gulta, who had managed to untangle himself from his clothing and was now rooting enthusiastically among the early windfalls, to his only daughter.

  “She did this?”

  “Yes. Or it was done through her,” said Granny, looking suspiciously at the staff.

  “Oh. ” Smith looked at his fifth son. He had to admit that the shape suited him. He reached out without looking and fetched the screaming Cern a thump on the back of his head.

  “Can you turn him back again?” he asked. Granny spun around and glared the question at Esk, who shrugged.

  “He didn't believe I could do magic,” she said calmly.

  “Yes, well, I think you've made the point,” said Granny. “And now you will turn him back, madam. This instant. Do you hear?”

  “Don't want to. He was rude. ”

  “I see. ”

  Esk gazed down defiantly. Granny glared up sternly. Their wills clanged like cymbals and the air between them thickened. But Granny had spent a lifetime bending recalcitrant creatures to her bidding and, while Esk was a surprisingly strong opponent, it was obvious that she would give in before the end of the paragraph.

  “Oh, all right,” she whined. “I don't know why anyone would bother turning him into a pig when he was doing such a good job of it all by himself. ”

  She didn't know where the magic had come from, but she mentally faced that way and made a suggestion. Gulta reappeared, naked, with an apple in his mouth.

  “Awts aughtning?” he said.

  Granny spun around on Smith.

  “Now will you believe me?” she snapped. “Do you really think she's supposed to settle down here and forget all about magic? Can you imagine her poor husband if she marries?”

  “But you always said it was impossible for women to be wizards,” said Smith. He was actually rather impressed. Granny Weatherwax had never been known to turn anyone into anything.

  “Never mind that now,” said Granny, calming down a bit. “She needs training. She needs to know how to control. For pity's sake put some clothes on that child. ”

  “Gulta, get dressed and stop grizzling,” said his father, and turned back to Granny.

  “You said there was some sort of teaching place?” he hazarded.

  “The Unseen University, yes. It's for training wizards. ”

  “And you know where it is?”

  “Yes,” lied Granny, whose grasp of geography was slightly worse than her knowledge of sub-atomic physics.

  Smith looked from her to his daughter, who was sulking.

  “And they'll make a wizard of her?” he said.

  Granny sighed.

  “I don't know what they'll make of her,” she said.