The Wee Free Men d(-2 Read online

  But her Second Thinking said: He’s mine. My place, my home, my brother! How dare anything touch what’s mine!

  She’d been brought up not to be selfish. She knew she wasn’t, not in the way people meant. She tried to think of other people. She never took the last slice of bread. This was a different feeling.

  She wasn’t being brave or noble or kind. She was doing this because it had to be done, because there was no way that she could not do it. She thought of:

  …Granny Aching’s light, weaving slowly across the downs, on freezing, sparkly nights or in storms like a raging war, saving lambs from the creeping frost or rams from the precipice. She froze and struggled and tramped through the night for idiot sheep that never said thank you and would probably be just as stupid tomorrow, and get into the same trouble again. And she did it because not doing it was unthinkable.

  There had been the time when they met the pedlar and the donkey in the lane. It was a small donkey and could hardly be seen under the pack he‘d piled on it. And he was thrashing it because it had fallen over.

  Tiffany had cried to see that, and Granny had looked at her and then said something to Thunder and Lightning…

  The pedlar had stopped when he heard the growling. The sheepdogs had taken up position on either side of the man, so that he couldn’t quite see them both at once. He raised his stick as if to hit Lightning, and Thunder’s growl grew louder.

  ‘I’d advise ye not to do that,’ said Granny.

  He wasn’t a stupid man. The eyes of the dogs were like steel balls. He lowered his arm.

  ‘Now throw down the stick,’ said Granny. The man did so, dropping it into the dust as though it had suddenly grown red-hot.

  Granny Aching walked forward and picked it up. Tiffany remembered that it was a willow twig, long and whippy.

  Suddenly, so fast that her hand was a blur, Granny sliced it across the man’s face twice, leaving two long red marks. He began to move and some desperate thought must have saved him, because now the dogs were almost frantic for the command to leap.

  ‘Hurts, don’t it,’ said Granny, pleasantly. ‘Now, I knows who you are, and I reckon you knows who I am. You sell pots and pans and they ain’t bad, as I recall. But if I put out the word you’ll have no business in my hills. Be told. Better to feed your beast than whip it. You hear me?’

  With his eyes shut and his hands shaking, the man nodded.

  ‘That’ll do,’ said Granny Aching, and instantly the dogs became, once more, two ordinary sheepdogs, who came and sat either side of her with their tongues hanging out.

  Tiffany watched the man unpack some of the load and strap it to his own back and then, with great care, urge the donkey on along the road. Granny watched him go while filling her pipe with Jolly Sailor. Then, as she lit it, she said, as if the thought had just occurred to her:

  ‘Them as can do, has to do for them as can’t. And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.’

  Tiffany thought: Is this what being a witch is? It wasn’t what I expected! When do the good bits happen?

  She stood up. ‘Let’s keep going,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t ye tired?’ said Rob.

  ‘We’re going to keep going!’

  ‘Aye? Weel, she’s probably headed for her place beyond the wood. If we dinnae carry ye, it’ll tak’ aboout a coupla hours—’

  ‘I’ll walk!’ The memory of the huge dead face of the drome was trying to come back into her mind, but fury gave it no space. ‘Where’s the frying pan? Thank you! Let’s go!’

  She set off through the strange trees. The hoof-prints almost glowed in the gloom. Here and there other tracks crossed them, tracks that could have been birds’ feet, rough round footprints that could have been made by anything, squiggly lines that a snake might make, if there were such things as snow snakes.

  The pictsies were running in line with her on either side.

  Even with the edge of the fury dying away, it was hard looking at things here without her head aching. Things that seemed far off got closer too quickly, trees changed shape as she passed them…

  Almost unreal, William had said. Nearly a dream. The world didn’t have enough reality in it for distances and shapes to work probably. Once again the magic artist was painting madly. If she looked hard at a tree it changed, and became more tree-like and less like something drawn by Wentworth with his eyes shut.

  This is a made-up world, Tiffany thought. Almost like a story. The trees don’t have to be very detailed because who looks at trees in a story?

  She stopped in a small clearing, and stared hard at a tree. It seemed to know it was being watched. It became more real. The bark roughened, and proper twigs grew on the end of the branches.

  The snow was melting around her feet, too. Although ‘melting’ was the wrong word. It was just disappearing, leaving leaves and grass.

  If I was a world that didn’t have enough reality to go around, Tiffany thought, then snow would be quite handy. It doesn’t take a lot of effort. It’s just white stuff. Everything looks white and simple. But I can make it complicated. I’m more real than this place.

  She heard a buzzing overhead, and looked up.

  And suddenly the air was filling with small people, smaller than a Feegle, with wings like dragonflies. There was a golden glow around them. Tiffany, entranced, reached out a hand—

  At the same moment what felt like the entire clan of Nac Mac Feegle landed on her back and sent her sliding into a snowdrift.

  When she struggled out, the clearing was a battlefield. The pictsies were jumping and slashing at the flying creatures which were buzzing around them like wasps. As she stared two of them dived onto Rob Anybody and lifted him off his feet by his hair.

  He rose in the air, yelling and struggling. Tiffany leaped up and grabbed him around the waist, flailing at the creatures with her other hand. They let go of the pictsie and dodged easily, zipping through the air as fast as hummingbirds. One of them bit her on the finger before buzzing away.

  Somewhere a voice went: ‘Ooooooooooooo-eeerrrrrr…’

  Rob struggled in Tiffany’s grip. ‘Quick, put me doon!’ he yelled. ‘There’s gonna be poetry!’

  Chapter 9

  Lost Boys

  The moan rolled around the clearing, as mournful as a month of Mondays.

  ‘…rrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaoooooooo…’

  It sounded like some animal in terrible pain. But it was, in fact, Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock, who was standing on a snowdrift with one hand pressed to his heart and the other outstretched, very theatrically.

  He was rolling his eyes, too.

  ‘…oooooooooooooooooooooo…’

  ‘Ach, the muse is a terrible thing to have happen to ye,’ said Rob Anybody, putting his hands over his ears.

  ‘…oooooiiiiiit is with grreat lamentation and much worrying dismay,’ the pictsie groaned, ‘that we rrregard the doleful prospect of Fairyland in considerrrable decay.’

  In the air, the flying creatures stopped attacking and began to panic. Some of them flew into one another.

  ‘With quite a large number of drrrrrrreadful incidents happening everrry day,’ Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock recited. ‘Including, I am sorrrry to say, an aerial attack by the otherwise quite attractive fey…’

  The flyers screeched. Some crashed into the snow, but the ones still capable of flight swarmed off amongst the trees.

  ‘Witnessed by all of us at this time, And celebrated in this hasty rhyme!’ Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock shouted after them.

  And they were gone.

  Feegles were picking themselves up off the ground. Some were bleeding’ where the fairies had bitten them. Several were lying curled up and groaning.

  Tiffany looked at her own finger. The bite of the fairy had left two tiny holes.

  ‘It isnae too bad,’ Rob Anybody shouted up from below. ‘No one taken by them, just a few
cases where the lads didnae put their hands o’er their ears in time.’

  ‘Are they all right?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll be fine wi’ counsellin’.’

  On the mound of snow, William clapped Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock on the shoulder in a friendly way.

  ‘That, lad,’ he said proudly, ‘was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul. The last couple of lines need some work but ye has the groanin’ off fiiine. A in a’, a verrry commendable effort! We’ll make a gonnagle out of ye’ yet!’

  Not-as-big-as-Medium-Sized-Jock-but-bigger-than-Wee-Jock-Jock blushed happily.

  In Fairyland words really have power, Tiffany thought. And I am more real. I’ll remember that.

  The pictsies assembled into battle order again, although it was pretty disorderly, and set off. Tiffany didn’t rush too far ahead this time.

  ‘That’s yer little people wi’ wings,’ said Rob, as Tiffany sucked at her finger. ‘Are ye happier now?’

  ‘Why were they trying to carry you away?’

  ‘Ach, they carries their victims off to their nest, where their young ones—’

  ‘Stop!’ said Tiffany. This is going to be horrible, right?’

  ‘Oh, aye. Gruesome,’ said Rob, grinning.

  ‘And you used to live here?’

  ‘Ah, but it wasnae so bad then. It wasnae perfect, mark you, but the Quin wasnae as cold in them days. The King was still aroound. She was always happy then.’

  ‘What happened? Did the King die?’

  ‘No. They had words, if ye tak’ my meanin’,’ said Rob.

  ‘Oh, you mean like an argument—’

  ‘A bit, mebbe,’ said Rob. ‘But they was magical words. Forests destroyed, mountains explodin’, a few hundred deaths, that kind of thing. And he went off to his own world. Fairyland was never a picnic, ye ken, even in the old days. But it was fine if you kept alert, an’ there was flowers and burdies and summertime. Now there’s the dromes and the hounds and the stinging fey and such stuff creepin’ in from their own worlds, and the whole place has gone doon the lawy.’

  Things taken from their own worlds, thought Tiffany, as she tramped through the snow. Worlds all squashed together like peas in a sack, or hidden inside one another like bubbles inside other bubbles.

  She had a picture in her head of things creeping out of their own world and into another, in the same way that mice invaded the larder. Only, there were worse things than mice.

  What would a drome do if it got into our world? You’d never know it was there. It’d sit in the corner and you’d never see it, because it wouldn’t let you. And it’d change the way you saw the world, give you nightmares, make you want to die…

  Her Second Thoughts added: I wonder how many have got in already and we don’t know?

  And I’m in Fairyland, where dreams can hurt. Somewhere all stories are real, all songs are true. I thought that was a strange thing for the kelda to say…

  Tiffany’s Second Thoughts said: Hang on, was that a First Thought?

  And Tiffany thought: No, that was a Third Thought. I’m thinking about how I think about what I’m thinking. At least, I think so.

  Her Second Thoughts said: Let’s all calm down, please, because this is quite a small head.

  The forest went on. Or perhaps it was a small forest and, somehow, moved around them as they walked. This was Fairyland, after all. You couldn’t trust it.

  And the snow still vanished where Tiffany walked, and she only had to look at a tree for it to smarten up and make an effort to look like a real tree.

  The Queen is… well, a queen, Tiffany thought. She’s got a world of her own. She could do anything with it. And all she does is steal things, mess up people’s lives…

  There was the thud of hoofbeats in the distance.

  It’s her! What shall I do? What shall I say?

  The Nac Mac Feegles leaped behind the trees.

  ‘Come away oot o’ the path!’ hissed Rob Anybody.

  ‘She might still have him!’ said Tiffany, gripping the pan handle nervously and staring at the blue shadows between the trees.

  ‘So? We’ll find a wa’ to steal him! She’s the Quin! Ye cannae beat the Quin face to face!’

  The hoofbeats were louder, and now it sounded as though there was more than one animal.

  A stag appeared through the trees, steam pouring off it. It stared at Tiffany with wild red eyes and then, bunching up, leaped over her. She smelled the stink of it as she ducked, she felt its sweat on her neck.

  It was a real animal. You couldn’t imagine a reek like that.

  And here came the dogs—

  The first one she caught with the edge of the pan, bowling it over. The other turned to snap at her, then looked down in amazement as pictsies erupted from the snow under each paw. It was hard to bite anyone when all four of your feet were moving away in different directions, and then other pictsies landed on its head and biting anything ever again soon became… impossible. The Nac Mac Feegle hated grimhounds.

  Tiffany looked up at a white horse. That was real, too, as far as she could tell. And there was a boy on it.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said. He made it sound like ‘What sort of thing are you?’

  ‘Who are you?’ said Tiffany, pushing her hair out of her eyes. It was the best she could do right now.

  ‘This is my forest,’ said the boy. ‘I command you to do what I say!’

  Tiffany peered at him. The dull, second-hand light of Fairyland was not very good, but the more she looked, the more certain she was. ‘Your name is Roland, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘You will not speak to me like that!’

  ‘Yes, it is. You’re the Baron’s son!’

  ‘I demand that you stop talking!’ The boy’s expression was strange now, creased up and pink, as if he was trying not to cry. He raised his hand with a riding whip in it—

  There was a very faint ‘thwap’. Tiffany glanced down. The Nac Mac Feegles had formed a pile under the horse’s belly and one of them, climbing up on their shoulders, had just cut through the saddle girth.

  She held up a hand quickly. ‘Stand still!’ she shouted, trying to sound commanding. ‘If you move you’ll fall off your horse!’

  ‘Is that a spell? Are you a witch?’ The boy dropped the whip and pulled a long dagger from his belt. ‘Death to witches!’

  He urged the horse forward with a jerk and then there was one of those long moments, a moment when the whole universe said ‘uh-oh’, and, still holding the dagger, the boy swivelled around the horse and landed in the snow.

  Tiffany knew what would happen next. Rob Anybody’s voice echoed among the trees:

  ‘You’re in trouble noo, pal! Get him!’

  ‘No!’ Tiffany yelled. ‘Get away from him!’

  The boy scrambled backwards, staring at Tiffany in horror.

  ‘I do know you,’ she said. ‘Your name is Roland. You’re the Baron’s son. They said you’d died in the forest—’

  ‘You mustn’t talk about that!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Bad things happen!’

  ‘They’re already happening,’ said Tiffany. ‘Look, I’m here to rescue my—’

  But the boy had got to his feet and was running back through the forest. He turned and shouted, ‘Get away from me!’

  Tiffany ran after him, jumping over snow-covered logs, and saw him ahead, dodging from tree to tree. Then he paused, and looked back.

  She ran up to him saying, ‘I know how to get you out—‘

  –and danced.

  She was holding the hand of a parrot, or at least someone with the head of a parrot.

  Her feet moved under her, perfectly. They twirled her around, and this time her hand was caught by a peacock, or at least someone with the head of a peacock. She glanced over his shoulder and saw that she was now in a room, no, a ballroom full of masked people, dancing.


  Ah, she thought. Another dream. I should have looked where I was going…

  The music was strange. There was a kind of rhythm to it, but it sounded muffled and odd, as if it was being played backwards, underwater, by musicians who’d never seen their instruments before.

  And she hoped the dancers were wearing masks. She realized she was looking through the eyeholes of one, and wondered what she was. She was also wearing a long dress, which glittered.

  O-K, she thought carefully. There was a drome there, and I didn’t stop to look. And now I’m in a dream. But it’s not mine. It must make use of what it finds in your head, and I’ve never been to anything like this…

  ‘Fwa waa fwah waa wha?’ said the peacock. The voice was like the music. It sounded almost like a voice, but it wasn’t.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Tiffany. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fwaa?’

  ‘Oh. Er… wuff fawf fwaff?’

  This seemed to work. The peacock-headed dancer bobbed a little bow, said, ‘Mwa waf waf sadly, and wandered off.

  Somewhere in here is the drome, said Tiffany to herself. And it must be a pretty good one. This is a big dream.

  Little things were wrong, though. There were hundreds of people in the room, but the ones in the distance, although they were moving about in quite a natural way, seemed the same as the trees—blobs and swirls of colour. You had to look hard to notice this, though.

  First Sight, Tiffany thought.

  People in brilliant costumes and still more masks walked arm in arm past her, as if she were just another guest. Those that weren’t joining the new dance were heading for the long tables at one side of the hall, which were piled with food.

  Tiffany had only seen such food in pictures. People didn’t starve on the farm, but even when food was plentiful, at Hogswatch or after harvest, it never looked like this. The farm food was mostly shades of white or brown. It was never pink and blue, and never wobbled.

  There were things on sticks, and things that gleamed and glistened in bowls. Nothing was simple. Everything had cream on it, or chocolate whirls, or thousands of little coloured balls. Everything was spun or glazed or added to or mixed up. This wasn’t food; it was what food became if it had been good and had gone to food heaven.