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"But dinna get carried awa'," Rob added. As Roland swung the airy blade, the bogles parted like spiderwebs. There were more, always more, but the silver line always found them, cutting him free. They backed away, tried new shapes, recoiled from the heat of the anger in his head. The sword hummed. Bogles curled around the blade and squealed, and sizzled into nothingness on the floor— —and someone was banging on his helmet. They'd been doing so for quite a while. "Huh?" he said, opening his eyes. "Ye've run oot," said Rob Anybody. His chest heaving, Roland looked around. Eyes open or shut, the caves were empty of orange streaks. The not-Tiffany was watching him with a strange smile on her face. "Either we get oot noo," said Rob, "or ye can hang aroond and wait for some more, mebbe?"
"An' here they come," said Billy Bigchin. He pointed across the river. A pure mass of orange was pouring into the cave, so many bogles that there was no space between them. Roland hesitated, still fighting for breath. "I'll tell ye whut," said Rob Anybody soothingly. "If ye are a guid boy an' rescue the lady, we'll bring ye doon here another time, wi' some sandwiches so's we can make a day o' it." Roland blinked. "Er, yes," he said. "Um…sorry. I don't know what happened just then…."
"Offski time!" yelled Big Yan. Roland grabbed the hand of the not-Tiffany. "An' don't look back until we're well oot o' here," said Rob Anybody. "It's kind of traditional." On the top of the tower, the ice crown appeared in the Wintersmith's pale hands. It shone more than diamonds could, even in the pale sunlight. It was purest ice, without bubbles, lines, or flaw. "I made this for you," he said. "The Summer Lady will never wear it," he added sadly. It fit perfectly. It didn't feel cold. He stepped back. "And now it is done," said the Wintersmith. "There is something I have to do, too," said Tiffany. "But first there's something I have to know. You found the things that make a man?"
"Yes!"
"How did you find out what they were?" The Wintersmith proudly told her about the children, while Tiffany breathed carefully, forcing herself to relax. His logic was very…logical. After all, if a carrot and two pieces of coal can make a heap of snow a snowman, then a big bucket of salts and gases and metal should certainly make him a human. It made…sense. At least, sense to the Wintersmith. "But, you see, you need to know the whole song," said Tiffany. "It is mostly only about what humans are made of. It isn't about what humans are."
"There were some things that I could not find," said the Wintersmith. "They made no sense. They had no substance."
"Yes," said Tiffany, nodding sadly. "The last three lines, I expect, which are the whole point. I'm really sorry about that."
"But I will find them," said the Wintersmith. "I will!"
"I hope you do, one day," said Tiffany. "Now, have you ever heard of Boffo?"
"What is this Boffo? It was not in the song!" said the Wintersmith, looking uneasy. "Oh, Boffo is how humans change the world by fooling themselves," said Tiffany. "It's wonderful. And Boffo says that things have no power that humans don't put there. You can make things magical, but you can't magically make a human out of things. It's just a nail in your heart. Only a nail." And the time has come and I know what to do, she thought dreamily. I know how the Story has to end. I must end it in the right kind of way. She pulled the Wintersmith toward her and saw the look of astonishment on his face. She felt light- headed, as though her feet weren't touching the floor. The world became…simpler. It was a tunnel, leading to the future. There was nothing to see but the Wintersmith's cold face, nothing to hear but her own breathing, nothing to feel but the warmth of the sun on her hair. It wasn't the fiery globe of summer, but it was still much bigger than any bonfire could ever be. Where this takes me, there I choose to go, she told herself, letting the warmth pour into her. I choose. This I choose to do. And I'm going to have to stand on tiptoe, she added. Thunder on my right hand. Lightning in my left hand. Fire above me…. "Please," she said, "take the winter away. Go back to your mountains. Please." Frost in front of me…. "No. I am Winter. I cannot be anything else."
"Then you cannot be human," said Tiffany. "The last three lines are: 'Strength enough to build a home, Time enough to hold a child, Love enough to break a heart.'" Balance…and it came quickly, out of nowhere, lifting her up inside. The center of the seesaw does not move. It feels neither upness nor downness. It is balanced. Balance…and his lips were like blue ice. She'd cry, later, for the Wintersmith who wanted to be human. Balance…and the old kelda had once told her: "There's a little bitty bit inside ye that willna melt and flow." Time to thaw. She shut her eyes and kissed the Wintersmith… …and drew down the sun. Frost to fire. The entire top of the ice palace melted in a flash of white light that cast shadows on walls a hundred miles away. A pillar of steam roared up, stitched with lightning, and spread out above the world like an umbrella, covering the sun. Then it began to fall back as a soft, warm rain that punched little wormholes in the snow. Tiffany, her head usually so full of thoughts, hadn't got a thought to spare. She lay on a slab of ice in the soft rain and listened to the palace collapse around her. There are times when everything that you can do has been done and there's nothing for it now but to curl up and wait for the thunder to die down. There was something else in the air, too, a golden glint that vanished when she tried to look at it and then turned up again in the corner of her eye. The palace was melting like a waterfall. The slab she lay on half slid and half floated down a staircase that was turning into a river.
Above her, huge pillars fell but went from ice to a gush of warm water in midair, so that what crashed down was spray. Good-bye to the glittering crown, Tiffany thought with a touch of regret. Good-bye to the dress made of dancing light, and good-bye to the ice roses and the snowflakes. Such a shame. Such a shame. And then there was grass under her, and so much water pouring past her that it was a case of get up or drown. She managed to get to her knees, at least, and waited until it was possible to stand up without being knocked over. "You have something of mine, child," said a voice behind her. She turned, and golden light rushed into a shape. It was her own shape, but her eyes were… odd, like a snake's. Right here and now, with the roaring of the heat of the sun still filling her ears, this didn't seem very amazing. Slowly, Tiffany took the Cornucopia out of her pocket and handed it over. "You are the Summer Lady, aren't you?" she asked. "And you are the sheep-girl who would be me?" There was a hiss to the words. "I didn't want to be!" said Tiffany hurriedly. "Why do you look like me?" The Summer Lady sat down on the turf. It is very strange to watch yourself, and Tiffany noticed she had a small mole on the back of her neck. "It's called resonance," she said. "Do you know what that is?"
"It means 'vibrating with,'" said Tiffany. "How does a sheep-girl know that?"
"I have a dictionary," said Tiffany. "And I'm a witch, thank you."
"Well, while you were picking up things from me, I've been picking up things from you, clever sheep- witch," said the Summer Lady. She was beginning to remind Tiffany a lot of Annagramma. That was actually a relief. She didn't sound wise, or nice…she was just another person, who happened to be very powerful but not frighteningly smart and was, frankly, a bit annoying. "What's your real shape?" Tiffany asked. "The shape of heat on a road, the shape of the smell of apples." Nice reply, Tiffany thought, but not helpful, as such. Tiffany sat down next to the goddess. "Am I in trouble?" she asked. "Because of what you did to the Wintersmith? No. He has to die every year, as do I. We die, and sleep and wake. Besides…you were entertaining."
"Oh? I was entertaining, was I?" said Tiffany, her eyes narrowing. "What is it you want?" asked the Summer Lady. Yes, thought Tiffany, just like Annagramma. Wouldn't spot a hint a mile high. "Want?" said Tiffany. "Nothing. Just the summer, thank you." The Summer Lady looked puzzled. "But humans always want something from gods."
"But witches don't accept payment. Green grass and blue skies will do."
"What? You'll get those anyway!" The Summer Lady sounded both confused and angry, and Tiffany was quite happy about this, in a small and spiteful way. "Good," she said. "You saved the world from the Wintersmith!"
"Actually, I saved it from a silly girl, Miss Summer. I put right what I put wrong."
"One simple mistake? You'd be a silly girl not to accept a reward."
"I'd be a sensible young woman to refuse one," said Tiffany, and it felt good to say that. "Winter is over. I know. I've seen it through. Where it took me, there I chose to go. I chose when I danced with the Wintersmith." The Summer Lady stood up. "Remarkable," she said. "And strange. And now we part. But first, some more things must be taken. Stand up, young woman." Tiffany did so, and when she looked into the face of Summer, golden eyes became pits that drew her in. And then the summer filled her up. It must have been for only a few seconds, but inside them it went on for much longer. She felt what it was like to be the breeze through green corn on a spring day, to ripen an apple, to make the salmon leap the rapids—the sensations came all at once and merged into one great big, glistening, golden-yellow feeling of summer… …that grew hotter. Now the sun turned red in a burning sky. Tiffany drifted through air like warm oil into the searing calm of deep deserts, where even camels die. There was no living thing. Nothing moved except ash. She drifted down a dried-up riverbed, with pure white animal bones on the banks. There was no mud, not one drop of moisture in this oven of a land. This was a river of stones—agates banded like a cat's eye, garnets lying loose, thunder eggs with their rings of color, stones of brown, orange, creamy white, some with black veins, all polished by the heat.
"Here is the heart of the summer," hissed the voice of the Summer Lady. "Fear me as much as the Wintersmith. We are not yours, though you give us shapes and names. Fire and ice we are, in balance. Do not come between us again…." And now, at last, there was movement. From out of gaps between the stones they came like stones brought alive: bronze and red, umber and yellow, black and white, with harlequin patterns and deadly gleaming scales. The snakes tested the boiling air with their forked tongues and hissed triumphantly. The vision vanished. The world came back. The water had poured away. The everlasting wind had teased the fogs and steams into long streamers of cloud, but the unconquered sun was finding its way through. And, as always happens, and happens far too soon, the strange and wonderful becomes a memory and a memory becomes a dream. Tomorrow it's gone. Tiffany walked across the grass where the palace had been. There were a few pieces of ice left, but they would be gone in an hour. There were the clouds, but clouds drifted away.
The normal world pressed in on her, with its dull little songs. She was walking on a stage after the play was over, and who now could say it had ever happened? Something sizzled on the grass. Tiffany reached down and picked up a piece of metal. It was still warm with the last of the heat that had twisted it out of shape, but you could see that it had once been a nail. No, I won't take a gift to make the giver feel better, she thought. Why should I? I'll find my own gifts. I was…"entertaining" to her, that's all. But him—he made me roses and icebergs and frost and never understood…. She turned suddenly at the sound of voices. The Feegles came bounding over the slope of the downs, at a speed just fast enough for a human to keep up. And Roland was keeping up, panting a little, his overlarge chain mail making him run like a duck. She laughed. Two weeks later Tiffany went back to Lancre. Roland took her as far as Twoshirts, and the pointy hat took her the rest of the way. That was a bit of luck. The driver remembered Miss Tick, and since there was a spare space on the roof of the coach, he wasn't prepared to go through all that again. The roads were flooded, the ditches gurgled, the swollen rivers sucked at the bridges. First she visited Nanny Ogg, who had to be told everything. That saved some time, because once you've told Nanny Ogg, you've more or less told everyone else. When she heard exactly what Tiffany had done to the Wintersmith, she laughed and laughed. Tiffany borrowed Nanny's broomstick and flew slowly across the forests to Miss Treason's cottage.
Things were going on. In the clearing, several men were digging the vegetable area, and lots of people were hanging around the door, so she landed back in the woods, shoved the broom into a rabbit hole and her hat under a bush, and walked back on foot. Stuck in a birch tree where the track entered the clearing was…a doll, maybe, made out of lots of twigs bound together. It was new, and a bit worrying. That was probably the idea. No one saw her raise the catch on the scullery door or slip inside the cottage. She leaned against the kitchen wall and went quiet. From the next room came the unmistakable voice of Annagramma at her most typically Annagrammatical. "—only a tree, do you understand? Cut it up and share the wood. Agreed? And now shake hands. Go on. I mean it. Properly, or else I'll get angry! Good. That feels better, doesn't it? Let's have no more of this silliness—" After ten minutes of listening to people being scolded, grumbled at, and generally prodded, Tiffany crept out again, cut through the woods, and walked into the clearing via the track. There was a woman hurrying toward her, but she stopped when Tiffany said: "Excuse me, is there a witch near here?"
"Ooooh, yes," said the woman, and gave Tiffany a hard stare. "You're not from around here, are you?"
"No," said Tiffany, and thought: I lived here for months, Mrs. Carter, and I saw you most days. But I always wore the hat. People always talk to the hat. Without the hat, I'm in disguise. "Well, there's Miss Hawkin," said Mrs. Carter, as if reluctant to give away a secret. "Be careful, though." She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "She turns into a terrible monster when she's angry! I've seen her! She's all right with us, of course," she added. "Lots of young witches have been coming to learn things from her!"
"Gosh, she must be good!"
"She's amazing," Mrs. Carter went on. "She'd only been here five minutes and she seemed to know all about us!"
"Amazing," said Tiffany. You'd think that somebody wrote it all down. Twice. But that wouldn't be interesting enough, would it? And who would believe that a real witch bought her face from Boffo? "And she's got a cauldron that bubbles green," Mrs. Carter said with great pride. "All down the sides. That's proper witching, that is."
"It sounds like it," said Tiffany. No witch she'd met had done anything with a cauldron apart from make stew, but somehow people believed in their hearts that a witch's cauldron should bubble green. And that must be why Mr. Boffo sold Item #61 Bubbling Green Cauldron Kit, $14, extra sachets of Green, $1 each. Well, it worked. It probably shouldn't, but people were people. She didn't think Annagramma would be particularly interested in a visit right now, especially from someone who'd read all the way through the Boffo catalogue, so she retrieved her broom and headed on to Granny Weatherwax's cottage. There was a chicken run out in the back garden now. It had been carefully woven out of pliable hazel, and contented werks were coming from the other side. Granny Weatherwax was coming out of the back door. She looked at Tiffany as if the girl had just come back from a ten-minute stroll. "I've got business down in the town right now," she said. "It wouldn't worry me if you came, too." That was, from Granny, as good as a brass band and an illuminated scroll of welcome. Tiffany fell in alongside her as she strode off along the track. "I hope I find you well, Mistress Weatherwax?" she said, hurrying to keep up. "I'm still here after another winter, that's all I know," said Granny. "You look well, girl."
