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One side-effect of using magic is that one tends to have realistic and disturbing dreams. There is a reason for this, but even thinking about it is enough to give a wizard nightmares.
The fact is that the minds of wizards can give thoughts a shape. Witches normally work with what actually exists in the world, but a wizard can, if he's good enough, put flesh on his imagination. This wouldn't cause any trouble if it wasn't for the fact that the little circle of candlelight loosely called “the universe of time and space” is adrift in something much more unpleasant and unpredictable. Strange Things circle and grunt outside the flimsy stockades of normality; there are weird hootings and howlings in the deep crevices at the edge of Time. There are things so horrible that even the dark is afraid of them.
Most people don't know this and this is just as well because the world could not really operate if everyone stayed in bed with the blankets over their head, which is what would happen if people knew what horrors lay a shadow's width away.
The problem is people interested in magic and mysticism spend a lot of time loitering on the very edge of the light, as it were, which gets them noticed by the creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions who then try to use them in their indefatigable efforts to break into this particular Reality.
Most people can resist this, but the relentless probing by the Things is never stronger than when the subject is asleep.
Bel-Shamharoth, C'hulagen, the Insider - the hideous old dark gods of the Necrotelicomnicon, the book known to certain mad adepts by its true name of Liber Paginarum Fulvarum, are always ready to steal into a slumbering mind. The nightmares are often colourful and always unpleasant.
Esk had got used to them ever since that first dream after her first Borrowing, and familiarity had almost replaced terror. When she found herself sitting on a glittering, dusty plain under unexplained stars she knew it was time for another one.
“Drat,” she said. “All right, come on then. Bring on the monsters. I just hope it isn't the one with his winkle on his face.”
But this time it seemed that the nightmare had changed. Esk looked around and saw, rearing up behind her, a tall black castle. Its turrets disappeared among the stars. Lights and fireworks and interesting music cascaded from its upper battlements. The huge double doors stood invitingly open. There seemed to be quite an amusing party going on in there.
She stood up, brushed the silver sand off her dress, and set off for the gates.
She had almost reached them when they slammed. They didn't appear to move; it was simply that in one instant they were lounging ajar, and the next they were tight shut with a clang that shook the horizons.
Esk reached out and touched them. They were black, and so cold that ice was beginning to form on them.
There was a movement behind her. She turned around and saw the staff, without its broomstick disguise, standing upright in the sand. Little worms of light crept around its polished wood and crept around the carvings no one could ever quite identify.
She picked it up and smashed it against the doors. There was a shower of octarine sparks, but the black metal was unscathed.
Esk's eyes narrowed. She held the staff at arm's length and concentrated until a thin line of fire leapt from the wood and burst against the gate. The ice flashed into steam but the darkness - she was sure now that it wasn't metal - absorbed the power without so much as glowing. She doubled the energy, letting the staff put all its stored magic into a beam that was now so bright that she had to shut her eyes /and could still see it as a brilliant line in her mind/.
Then it winked out.
After a few seconds Esk ran forward and touched the doors gingerly. The coldness nearly froze her fingers off.
And from the battlements above she could hear the sound of sniggering. Laughter wouldn't have been so bad, especially an impressive demonic laugh with lots of echo, but this was just -sniggering.
It went on for a long time. It was one of the most unpleasant sounds Esk had ever heard.
She woke up shivering. It was long after midnight and the stars looked damp and chilly; the air was full of the busy silence of the night, which is created by hundreds of small furry things treading very carefully in the hope of finding dinner while avoiding being the main course.
A crescent moon was setting and a thin grey glow towards the rim of the world suggested that, against all probability, another day was on the cards.
Someone had wrapped Esk in a blanket.
“I know you're awake,” said the voice of Granny Weatherwax. “You could make yourself useful and light a fire. There's damn all wood in these parts.”
Esk sat up, and clutched at the juniper bush. She felt light enough to float away.
“Fire?” she muttered.
“Yes. You know. Pointing the finger and whoosh,” said Granny sourly. She was sitting on a rock, trying to find a position that didn't upset her arthritis.
“I - I don't think I can.”
“You tell me?” said Granny cryptically.
The old witch leaned forward and put her hand on Esk's forehead; it was like being caressed by a sock full of warm dice.
“You're running a bit of a temperature,” she added. “Too much hot sun and cold ground. That's forn parts for you.”
