A moment later two sparklers spluttered fitfully into life and sizzled away on either side of the word: MALIGNITY.
Death nodded. It was just as he’d suspected.
He crossed his study, the Death of Rats scampering ahead of him, and reached a full-length mirror. It was dark, like the bottom of a well. There was a pattern of skulls and bones around the frame, for the sake of appearances; Death could not look himself in the skull in a mirror with cherubs and roses around it.
The Death of Rats climbed the frame in a scrabble of claws and looked at Death expectantly from the top. Quoth fluttered over and pecked briefly at his own reflection, on the basis that anything was worth a try.
SHOW ME, said Death. SHOW ME… MY THOUGHTS.
A chessboard appeared, but it was triangular, and so big that only the nearest point could be seen. Right on this point was the world – turtle, elephants, the little orbiting sun and all. It was the Discworld, which existed only just this side of total improbability and, therefore, in border country. In border country the border gets crossed, and sometimes things creep into the universe that have rather more on their mind than a better life for their children and a wonderful future in the fruit-picking and domestic service industries.
On every other black or white triangle of the chessboard, all the way to infinity, was a small grey shape, rather like an empty hooded robe.
Why now? thought Death.
He recognized them. They were not life forms. They were… non-life forms. They were the observers of the operation of the universe, its clerks, its auditors. They saw to it that things spun and rocks fell.
And they believed that for a thing to exist it had to have a position in time and space. Humanity had arrived as a nasty shock. Humanity practically was things that didn’t have a position in time and space, such as imagination, pity, hope, history and belief. Take those away and all you had was an ape that fell out of trees a lot.
Intelligent life was, therefore, an anomaly. It made the filing untidy. The Auditors hated things like that. Periodically, they tried to tidy things up a little.
The year before, astronomers across the Discworld had been puzzled to see the stars wheel gently across the sky as the world-turtle executed a roll. The thickness of the world never allowed them to see why, but Great A’Tuin’s ancient head had snaked out and down and had snapped right out of the sky the speeding asteroid that would, had it hit, have meant that no one would have needed to buy a diary ever again.
No, the world could take care of obvious threats like that. So now the grey robes preferred more subtle, cowardly skirmishes in their endless desire for a universe where nothing happened that was not completely predictable.
The butter-side-down effect was only a trivial but telling indicator. It showed an increase in activity. Give up, was their eternal message. Go back to being blobs in the ocean. Blobs are easy.
But the great game went on at many levels, Death knew. And often it was hard to know who was playing.
EVERY CAUSE HAS ITS EFFECT, he said aloud. SO EVERY EFFECT HAS ITS CAUSE.
He nodded at the Death of Rats. SHOW ME, said Death. SHOW ME … A BEGINNING.
Tick
It was a bitter winter’s night. The man hammered on the back door, sending snow sliding off the roof.
The girl, who had been admiring her new hat in the mirror, tweaked the already low neckline of her dress for slightly more exposure, just in case the caller was male, and went and opened the door.
A figure was outlined against the freezing starlight. Flakes were already building up on his cloak.
‘Mrs Ogg? The midwife?’ he said.
‘It’s Miss, actually,’ she said proudly. ‘And witch, too, o’course.’ She indicated her new black pointy hat. She was still at the stage of wearing it in the house.
‘You must come at once. It’s very urgent.’
The girl looked suddenly panic-stricken. ‘Is it Mrs Weaver? I didn’t reckon she was due for another couple of we-‘
‘I have come a long way,’ said the figure. ‘They say you are the best in the world.’
‘What? Me? I’ve only delivered one!’ said Miss Ogg, now looking hunted. ‘Biddy Spective is a lot more experienced than me! And old Minnie Forthwright! Mrs Weaver was going to be my first solo, ‘cos she’s built like a wardro-‘
‘I do beg your pardon. I will not trespass further on your time.’
The stranger retreated into the flake-speckled shadows.
‘Hello?’ said Miss Ogg. ‘Hello?’
But there was nothing there, except footprints. Which stopped in the middle of the snow-covered path…
Tick
There was a hammering on the door. Mrs Ogg put down the child that had been sitting on her knee and went and raised the latch.
A dark figure stood outlined against the warm summer evening sky, and there was something strange about its shoulders.
‘Mrs Ogg? You are married now?’
‘Yep. Twice,’ said Mrs Ogg cheerfully. ‘What can I do for y-‘
‘You must come at once. It’s very urgent.’
‘I didn’t know anyone was-‘
‘I have come a long way,’ said the figure.
Mrs Ogg paused. There was something in the way he had pronounced long. And now she could see that the whiteness on the cloak was snow, melting fast. Faint memory stirred.
‘Well, now,’ she said, because she’d learned a lot in the last twenty years or so, ‘that’s as may be, and I’ll always do the best I can, ask anyone. But I wouldn’t say I’m the best. Always learnin’ something new, that’s me.’
‘Oh. In that case I will call at a more convenient… moment.’
‘Why’ve you got snow on-?’
But, without ever quite vanishing, the stranger was no longer present…
Tick
There was a hammering on the door. Nanny Ogg carefully put down her brandy nightcap and stared at the wall for a moment. Now a lifetime of edge witchery[4] had honed senses that most people never really knew they had, and something in her head went ‘click’.
On the hob the kettle for her hot-water bottle was just coming to the boil.
She laid down her pipe, got up and opened the door on this springtime midnight.
‘You’ve come a long way, I’m thinking,’ she said, showing no surprise at the dark figure.
‘That is true, Mrs Ogg.’
‘Everyone who knows me calls me Nanny.’
She looked down at the melting snow dripping off the cloak. It hadn’t snowed up here for a month.
‘And it’s urgent, I expect?’ she said, as memory unrolled.
‘Indeed.’
‘And now you got to say, “You must come at once.”‘
‘You must come at once.’
‘Well, now,’ she said. ‘I’d say, yes, I’m a pretty good midwife, though I do say it myself. I’ve seen hundreds into the world. Even trolls, which is no errand for the inexperienced. I know birthing backwards and forwards and damn near sideways at times. Always been ready to learn something new, though.’ She looked down modestly. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m the best,’ she said, ‘but I can’t think of anyone better, I have to say.’
‘You must leave with me now.’
‘Oh, I must, must I?’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘Yes!’
An edge witch thinks fast, because edges can shift so quickly. And she learns to tell when a mythology is unfolding, and when the best you can do is put yourself in its path and run to keep up.
‘I’ll just go and get-‘
‘There is no time.’
‘But I can’t just walk right out and-‘
‘Now.’
Nanny reached behind the door for her birthing bag, always kept there for just such occasions as this, full of the things she knew she’d want and a few of the things she always prayed she’d never need.
‘Right,’ she said.
She left.
Tick
The kettle was just boiling when Nanny walked back into her kitchen. She stared at it for a moment and then moved it off the fire.
There was still a drop of brandy left in the glass by her chair. She drained that, then refilled the glass to the brim from the bottle.
She picked up her pipe. The bowl was still warm. She pulled on it, and the coals crackled.
Then she took something out of her bag, which was now a good deal emptier, and, brandy glass in her hand, sat down to look at it.
‘Well,’ she said at last. ‘That was… very unusual…’
Tick
Death watched the image fade. A few flakes of snow that had blown out of the mirror had already melted on the floor, but there was still a whiff of pipe smoke in the air.
AH, I SEE, he said. A BIRTHING, IN STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES. BUT IS THAT WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS OR WAS THAT WHAT THE SOLUTION WILL BE?