Equal Rites

He peered down gloomily at the oily waters, and wondered which particular oily waters they were. Judging by the salty smell they were out in the bay now.

What really terrified him about the sea was that the only thing between him and the horrible things that lived at the bottom of it was water. Of course, he knew that logically the only thing that separated him from, say, the man-eating tigers in the jungles of Klatch was mere distance, but that wasn’t the same thing at all. Tigers didn’t rise up out of the chilly depths, mouths full of needle teeth…

He shivered.

“Can’t you feel it?” asked Granny. “You can taste it in the air. Magic! It’s leaking out from something.”

“It’s not actually water soluble,” said Cutangle. He smacked his lips once or twice. There was indeed a tinny taste to the fog, he had to admit, and a faint greasiness to the air.

“You’re a wizard,” said Granny, severely. “Can’t you call it up or something?”

“The question has never arisen,” said Cutangle. “Wizards never throw their staffs away.”

“It’s around here somewhere,” snapped Granny. “Help me look for it, man!”

Cutangle groaned. It had been a busy night, and before he tried any more magic he really needed twelve hours’ sleep, several good meals, and a quiet afternoon in front of a big fire. He was getting too old, that was the trouble. But he closed his eyes and concentrated.

There was magic around, all right. There are some places where magic naturally accumulates. It builds up around deposits of the transmundane metal octiron, in the wood of certain trees, in isolated lakes, it sleets through the world and those skilled in such things can catch it and store it. There was a store of magic in the area.

“It’s potent,” he said. “Very potent.” He raised his hands to his temples.

“It’s getting bloody cold,” said Granny. The insistent rain had turned to snow.

There was a sudden change in the world. The boat stopped, not with a jar, but as if the sea had suddenly decided to become solid. Granny looked over the side.

The sea had become solid. The sound of the waves was coming from a long way away and getting farther away all the time.

She leaned over the side of the boat and tapped on the water.

“Ice,” she said. The boat was motionless in an ocean of ice. It creaked ominously.

Cutangle nodded slowly.

“It makes sense,” he said. “If they are… where we think they are, then it’s very cold. As cold as the night between the stars, it is said. So the staff feels it too.”

“Right,” said Granny, and stepped out of the boat. “All we have to do is find the middle of the ice and there’s the staff, right?”

“I knew you were going to say that. Can I at least put my boots on?”

They wandered across the frozen waves, with Cutangle stopping occasionally to try and sense the exact location of the staff. His robes were freezing on him. His teeth chattered.

“Aren’t you cold?” he said to Granny, whose dress fairly crackled as she walked.

“I’m cold,” she conceded, “I just ain’t shivering.”

“We used to have winters like this when I was a lad,” said Cutangle, blowing on his fingers. “It doesn’t snow in Ankh, hardly.”

“Really,” said Granny, peering ahead through the freezing fog.

“There was snow on the tops of the mountains all year round, I recall. Oh, you don’t get temperatures like you did when I was a boy.

“At least, until now,” he added, stamping his feet on the ice. It creaked menacingly, reminding him that it was all that lay between him and the bottom of the sea. He stamped again, as softly as possible.

“What mountains were these?” asked Granny.

“Oh, the Ramtops. Up towards the Hub, in fact. Place called Brass Neck.”

Granny’s lips moved. “Cutangle, Cutangle,” she said softly. “Any relation to old Acktur Cutangle? Used to live in a big old house under Leaping Mountain, had a lot of sons.”

“My father. How on Disc d’you know that?”

“I was raised up there,” said Granny, resisting the temptation merely to smile knowingly. “Next valley. Bad Ass. I remember your mother. Nice woman, kept brown and white chickens, I used to go up there to buy eggs for me mam. That was before I was called to witching, of course.”

“I don’t remember you,” said Cutangle. “Of course, it was a long time ago. There was always a lot of children around our house.” He sighed. “I suppose it’s possible I pulled your hair once. It was the sort of thing I used to do.”

“Maybe. I remember a fat little boy. Rather unpleasant.”

“That might have been me. I seem to recall a rather bossy girl, but it was a long time ago. A long time ago.”

“I didn’t have white hair in those days,” said Granny.

“Everything was a different colour in those days.”

“That’s true.”

“It didn’t rain so much in the summer time.”

“The sunsets were redder.”

“There were more old people. The world was full of them,” said the wizard.

“Yes, I know. And now it’s full of young people. Funny, really. I mean, you’d expect it to be the other way round.”