‘I thought cats could find their own way home,’ the Fool muttered.
He cursed himself under his breath. It would have been easy to take this wretched creature back to Nanny Ogg’s house, which was only a few streets away, almost in the shadow of the castle. But then he’d had the idea of delivering it to Magrat. It would impress her, he thought. Witches were very keen on cats. And then she’d be bound to ask him in, for a cup of tea or something …
He put his foot in another water-filled hole. Something wriggled underneath it. The Fool groaned, and stepped back on to a tumescent mushroom.
‘Look, cat,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to come down, right? And then you can find your way home and I’ll follow you. Cats are good at seeing in the dark and finding their own way home,’ he added hopefully.
He reached up. Greebo sank his claws into his arm as a friendly warning, and found to his surprise that this had no effect on chain mail.
‘There’s a good cat,’ said the Fool, and lowered him to the ground. ‘Go on, find your way home. Any home will do.’
Greebo’s grin gradually faded, until there was nothing left but the cat. This was nearly as spooky as the opposite way round.
He stretched and yawned to hide his embarrassment. Being called a good cat in the middle of one of his favourite stalking grounds wasn’t going to do anything for his prowl-credibility. He disappeared into the undergrowth.
The Fool peered into the gloom. It dawned on him that while he liked forests, he liked them at one remove, as it were; it was nice to know that they were there, but the forests of the mind were not quite the same as real forests that, for example, you got lost in. They had more mighty oaks and fewer brambles. They also tended to be viewed in daylight, and the trees didn’t have malevolent faces and long scratchy branches. The trees of the imagination were proud giants of the forest. Most of the trees here appeared to be vegetable gnomes, mere trellises for fungi and ivy.
The Fool was vaguely aware that you could tell which direction the Hub lay by seeing which side of the trees the moss grew on. A quick inspection of the nearby trunks indicated that, in defiance of all normal geography, the Hub lay everywhere.
Greebo had vanished.
The Fool sighed, removed his chain mail protection, and tinkled gently through the night in search of high ground. High ground seemed a good idea. The ground he was on at the moment appeared to be trembling. He was sure it shouldn’t do that.
Some kind of Change spell was probably in order.
Magrat concentrated.
Well, that seemed to work.
Nothing in the sight of mortal man had in fact changed. What Magrat had achieved was a mere adjustment of the mental processes, from a bewildered and slightly frightened woman gliding inexorably towards the inhospitable ground to a clear-headed, optimistic and positive thinking woman who had really got it together, was taking full responsibility for her own life and in general knew where she was coming from although, unfortunately, where she was
There are three thousand known major gods on the Disc, and research theologians discover more every week. Apart from the minor gods of rock, tree and water, there are two that haunt the Ramtops—Hoki, half a man, half a goat, and entirely a bad practical joker, who was banished from Dunmanifestin for pulling the old exploding mistletoe joke on Blind Io, chief of all the gods; and also Herne the Hunted, the terrified and apprehensive deity of all small furry creatures whose destiny it is to end their lives as a brief, crunchy squeak …
Either could have been candidates for the small miracle which then occurred, for—in a forest full of cold rocks, jagged stumps and thorn bushes—Magrat landed on something soft.
Granny, meanwhile, was accelerating towards the mountains on the second leg of the journey. She consumed the regrettably tepid cocoa and, with proper environmental consideration, dropped the bottle as she passed over an upland lake.
It turned out that Magrat’s idea of sustaining food was two rounds of egg and cress sandwiches with the crusts cut off and, Granny noticed before the wind whipped it away, a small piece of parsley placed with consideration and care on top of each one. Granny regarded them for some time. Then she ate them.
A chasm loomed, still choked with winter snow. Like a tiny spark in the darkness, a dot of light against the hugeness of the Ramtops, Granny tackled the maze of the mountains.
Back in the forest, Magrat sat up and absent-mindedly pulled a twig from her hair. A few yards away the broomstick dropped through the trees, showering leaves.
A groan and a small, half-hearted tinkle caused her to peer into the gloom. An indistinct figure was on its hands and knees, searching for something.
‘Did I land on you?’ said Magrat.
‘Someone did,’ said the Fool.
They crawled nearer to one another.
‘You?’
‘You!’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Marry, I was walking along the ground,’ said the Fool. ‘A lot of people do, you know. I mean, I know it’s been done before. It’s not original. It probably lacks imagination but, well, it’s always been good enough for me.’