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“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?”
“Never knew wood that didn't.”
“It doesn't seem right!”
Granny Weatherwax swung shut the big doors and turned to him angrily.
“Now you listen to me, Gordo Smith!” she said. “Female wizards aren't right either! It's the wrong kind of magic for women, is wizard magic, it's all books and stars and jommetry. She'd never grasp it. Whoever heard of a female wizard?”
“There's witches,” said the smith uncertainly. “And enchantresses too, I've heard.”
“Witches is a different thing altogether,” snapped Granny Weatherwax. “It's magic out of the ground, not out of the sky, and men never could get the hang of it. As for enchantresses,” she added. “They're no better than they should be. You take it from me, just burn the staff, bury the body and don't let on it ever happened.”
Smith nodded reluctantly, crossed over to the forge, and pumped the bellows until the sparks flew. He went back for the staff.
