‘It’s not her fault,’ said Granny. ‘It’s all them grimmers she was bought.’ She turned to Magrat.
‘You don’t need none of that,’ she said. ‘You need headology.’ She looked around the ancient washroom.
‘You just use whatever you’ve got,’ she said.
She picked up the bleached copper stick, and weighed it thoughtfully in her hand.
‘
The waters in the boiler rippled gently.
‘
‘Silence! Now you, Gytha.’
‘
‘Honesty is all very well,’ whispered Magrat, wretchedly, ‘but somehow it isn’t the same.’
‘You listen to me, my girl,’ said Granny. ‘Demons don’t care about the outward shape of things. It’s what
Magrat tried to imagine that the bleached and ancient bar of lye soap was the rarest of scented whatever, ungulants or whatever they were, from distant Klatch. It was an effort. The gods alone knew what kind of demon would respond to a summoning like this.
Granny was also a little uneasy. She didn’t much care for demons in any case, and all this business with incantations and implements whiffed of wizardry. It was pandering to the things, making them feel important. Demons ought to come when they were called.
But protocol dictated that the host witch had the choice, and Nanny quite liked demons, who were male, or apparently so.
At this point Granny was alternately cajoling and threatening the nether world with two feet of bleached wood. She was impressed at her own daring.
The waters seethed a little, became very still and then, with a sudden movement and a little popping noise, mounded up into a head. Magrat dropped her soap.
It was a good-looking head, maybe a little cruel around the eyes and beaky about the nose, but nevertheless handsome in a hard kind of way. There was nothing surprising about this; since the demon was only extending an image of itself into this reality, it might as well make a good job of it. It turned slowly, a gleaming black statue in the fitful moonlight.
‘
‘Who’re you?’ said Granny, bluntly.
The head revolved to face her.
‘
‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ warned Granny, and added, ‘Don’t you call me woman.’
‘
‘Where were you when the vowels were handed out? Behind the door?’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘Well, Mr—’ Granny hesitated only fractionally —’WxrtHltl-jwlpklz, I expect you’re wondering why we called you here tonight.’
‘
‘Shut up. We have the sword of Art and the octogram of Protection, I warn you.’
‘
Granny glanced sideways. The corner of the washroom was stacked with kindling wood, with a big heavy sawhorse in front of it. She stared fixedly at the demon and, without looking, brought the stick down hard across the thick timber.
The dead silence that followed was broken only by the two perfectly-sliced halves of the sawhorse teetering backwards and forwards and folding slowly into the heap of kindling.
The demon’s face remained impassive.
‘
‘Is there something strange at large in the kingdom?’ said Granny.
It appeared to think about it.
‘And no lying,’ said Magrat earnestly. ‘Otherwise it’ll be the scrubbing brush for you.’
‘
‘Get on with it,’ said Nanny. ‘My feet are freezing out here.’
‘
‘But we felt it—’ Magrat began.
‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Granny. Her lips moved soundlessly. Demons were like genies or philosophy professors—if you didn’t word things
‘Is there something in the kingdom that wasn’t there before?’ she hazarded.
‘
Tradition said that there could be only three questions. Granny tried to formulate one that couldn’t be deliberately misunderstood. Then she decided that this was playing the wrong kind of game.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ she said carefully. ‘And no mucking about trying to wriggle out of it, otherwise I’ll boil you.’
The demon appeared to hesitate. This was obviously a new approach.