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There was a loud crack, and a thud.
They found him out cold on the floor. Afterwards he always maintained that he'd hit his head on the doorway. Which was odd, because he wasn't very tall and there had always been plenty of room before, but he was certain that whatever happened had nothing to do with the blur of movement from the forge's darkest corner.
Somehow the events set the seal on the day. It became a broken crockery day, a day of people getting under each other's feet and being peevish. Esk's mother dropped a jug that had belonged to her grandmother and a whole box of apples in the loft turned out to be moldy. In the forge the furnace went sullen and refused to draw. Jaims, the oldest son, slipped on the packed ice in the road and hurt his arm. The white cat, or possibly one of its descendants, since the cats led a private and complicated life of their own in the hayloft next to the forge, went and climbed up the chimney in the scullery and refused to come down. Even the sky pressed in like an old mattress, and the air felt stuffy, despite the snow.
hesitated.
YOU WOULDN'T LIKE IT, he said. TAKE IT FROM ME.
“I've heard that some people do it all the time.”
YOU'VE GOT TO BE TRAINED TO IT. YOU'VE GOT TO START OFF SMALL AND WORK UP. YOU'VE NO IDEA HOW HORRIBLE IT IS TO BE AN ANT.
“It's bad?”
YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE IT. AND WITH YOUR KARMA AN ANT IS TOO MUCH TO EXPECT.
The baby had been taken back to its mother and the smith sat disconsolately watching the rain.
Drum Billet scratched the cat behind its ears and thought about his life. It had been a long one, that was one of the advantages of being a wizard, and he'd done a lot of things he hadn't always felt good about. It was about time that ....
I HAVEN'T GOT ALL DAY, YOU KNOW, said Death, reproachfully.
The wizard looked down at the cat and realized for the first time how odd it looked now.
The living often don't appreciate how complicated the world looks when you are dead, because while death frees the mind from the straitjacket of three dimensions it also cuts it away from Time, which is only another dimension. So while the cat that rubbed up against his invisible legs was undoubtedly the same cat that he had seen a few minutes before, it was also quite clearly a tiny kitten and a fat, half-blind old moggy and every stage in between. All at once. Since it had started off small it looked like a white, catshaped carrot, a description that will have to do until people invent proper four-dimensional adjectives.
Death's skeletal hand tapped Billet gently on the shoulder.
COME AWAY, MY SON.
“There's nothing I can do?”
LIFE IS FOR THE LIVING. ANYWAY, YOU'VE GIVEN HER YOUR STAFF.
“Yes. There is that.”
The midwife's name was Granny Weatherwax. She was a witch. That was quite acceptable in the Ramtops, and no one had a bad word to say about witches. At least, not if he wanted to wake up in the morning the same shape as he went to bed.
The smith was still staring gloomily at the rain when she came back down the stairs and clapped a warty hand on his shoulder.
He looked up at her.
“What shall I do, Granny?” he said, unable to keep the pleading out of his voice.
“What have you done with the wizard?”
“I put him out in the fuel store. Was that right?”
“It'll do for now,” she said briskly. “And now you must burn the staff.”
They both turned to stare at the heavy staff, which the smith had propped in the forge's darkest corner. It almost appeared to be looking back at them.
“But it's magical,” he whispered.
“Well?”
“Will it burn?”
