Equal Rites

“Where are young Simon and the girl? What have you done with them?” Granny demanded.

“They—we put them over here,” said the wizard, backing away. “Um—”

“Show us,” said Cutangle. “And stop stuttering, man, you’d think you’d never seen a woman before.”

The wizard swallowed hard and nodded vigorously.

“Certainly. And—I mean—please follow me—um—”

“You weren’t going to say anything about the lore, were you?” asked Cutangle.

“Um—no, Archchancellor.”

“Good.”

They followed hard on his trodden-down heels as he scurried between the toiling wizards, most of whom stopped working to stare as Granny strode past.

“This is getting embarrassing,” said Cutangle, out of the corner of his mouth. “I shall have to declare you an honorary wizard.”

Granny stared straight ahead and her lips hardly moved.

“You do,” she hissed, “and I will declare you an honorary witch.”

Cutangle’s mouth snapped shut.

Esk and Simon were lying on a table in one of the side readingrooms, with half a dozen wizards watching over them. They drew back nervously as the trio approached, with the librarian swinging along behind.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Cutangle. “Surely it would be better to give the staff to Simon? He is a wizard, and—”

“Over my dead body,” said Granny. “Yours, too. They’re getting their power through him, do you want to give them more?”

Cutangle sighed. He had been admiring the staff, it was one of the best he had seen.

“Very well. You’re right, of course.”

He leaned down and laid the staff on Esk’s sleeping form, and then stood back dramatically.

Nothing happened.

One of the wizards coughed nervously.

Nothing continued to happen.

The carvings on the staff appeared to be grinning.

“It’s not working,” said Cutangle, “is it?”

“Ook.”

“Give it time,” said Granny.

They gave it time. Outside the storm strode around the sky, trying to lift the lids off houses.

Granny sat down on a pile of books and rubbed her eyes. Cutangle’s hands strayed towards his tobacco pocket. The wizard with the nervous cough was helped out of the room by a colleague.

“Ook,” said the librarian.

“I know!” said Granny, so that Cutangle’s half-rolled homemade shot out of his nerveless fingers in a shower of tobacco.

“What?”

“It’s not finished!”

“What?”

“She can’t use the staff, of course,” said Granny, standing up.

“But you said she swept the floors with it and it protects her and—” Cutangle began.

“Nonono,” said Granny. “That means the staff uses itself or it uses her, but she’s never been able to use it, d’you see?”

Cutangle stared at the two quiet bodies. “She should be able to use it. It’s a proper wizard’s staff.”

“Oh,” said Granny. “So she’s a proper wizard, is she?”

Cutangle hesitated.

“Well, of course not. You can’t ask us to declare her a wizard. Where’s the precedent?”

“The what?” asked Granny, sharply.

“It’s never happened before.”

“Lots of things have never happened before. We’re only born once.”

Cutangle gave her a look of mute appeal. “But it’s against the I—”

He began to say “lore", but the word mumbled into silence.

“Where does it say it?” said Granny triumphantly. “Where does it say women can’t be wizards?”

The following thoughts sped through Cutangle’s mind:

… It doesn’t say it anywhere, it says it everywhere.

… But young Simon seemed to say that everywhere is so much like nowhere that you can’t really tell the difference .

… Do I want to be remembered as the first Archchancellor to allow women into the University? Still . . . I’d be remembered, that’s for sure .

… She really is a rather impressive woman when she stands in that sort of way .

… That staff has got ideas of its own .

… There’s a sort of sense to it .

… I would be laughed at .

… It might not work .

… It might work.

She couldn’t trust them. But she had no choice.

Esk stared at the terrible faces peering down at her, and the lanky bodies, mercifully cloaked.

Her hands tingled.

In the shadow-world, ideas are real. The thought seemed to travel up her arms.

It was a buoyant sort of thought, a thought full of fizz. She laughed, and moved her hands apart, and the staff sparkled in her hands like solid electricity.

The Things started to chitter nervously and one or two at the back started to lurch away. Simon fell forward as his captors hastily let go, and he landed on his hands and knees in the sand.

“Use it!” he shouted. “That’s it! They’re frightened!”

Esk gave him a smile, and continued to examine the staff. For the first time she could see what the carvings actually were.

Simon snatched up the pyramid of the world and ran towards her.

“Come on!” he said. “They hate it!”

“Pardon?” said Esk.

“Use the staff,” said Simon urgently, and reached out for it. “Hey! It bit me!”

“Sorry,” said Esk. “What were we talking about?” She looked up and regarded the keening Things as it were for the first time.

“Oh, those. They only exist inside our heads. If we didn’t believe in them, they wouldn’t exist at all.”

Simon looked around at them.

“I can’t honestly say I believe you,” he said.

“I think we should go home now,” said Esk. “People will be worrying. ”