Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett Page A

something to say, I tole ’em Mistress Weatherwax’d get her knic—would definitely be sarcastic when she found out,” said Jason. “But they just laughs. They said they could teach ’emselves witching.”
    Nanny nodded. Actually, they were quite right. You could teach yourself witchcraft. But both the teacher and the pupil had to be the right kind of person.
    “Diamanda?” she said. “Don’t recall the name.”
    “Really she’s Lucy Tockley,” said Jason. “She says Diamanda is more…more witchy.”
    “Ah. The one that wears the big floppy felt hat?”
    “Yes, Mum.”
    “She’s the one that paints her nails black, too?”
    “Yes, Mum.”
    “Old Tockley sent her off to school, didn’t he?”
    “Yes, Mum. She came back while you was gone.”
    “Ah.”
    Nanny Ogg lit her pipe from the forge. Floppy hat and black nails and education. Oh, dear.
    “How many of these gels are there, then?” she said.
    “Bout half a dozen. But they’m good at it, Mum.”
    “Yeah?”
    “And it ain’t as if they’ve been doing anything bad.”
    Nanny Ogg stared reflectively at the glow in the forge.
    There was a bottomless quality to Nanny Ogg’s silences. And also a certain directional component. Jason was quite clear that the silence was being aimed at him.
    He always fell for it. He tried to fill it up.
    “And that Diamanda’s been properly educated,” he said. “She knows some lovely words.”
    Silence.
    “And I knows you’ve always said there weren’t enough young girls interested in learnin’ witching these days,” said Jason. He removed the iron bar and hit it a few times, for the look of the thing.
    More silence flowed in Jason’s direction.
    “They goes and dances up in the mountains every full moon.”
    Nanny Ogg removed her pipe and inspected the bowl carefully.
    “People do say,” said Jason, lowering his voice, “that they dances in the altogether.”
    “Altogether what?” said Nanny Ogg.
    “You know, Mum. In the nudd.”
    “Cor. There’s a thing. Anyone see where they go?”
    “Nah. Weaver the thatcher says they always gives him the slip.”
    “Jason?”
    “Yes, Mum?”
    “They bin dancin’ around the stones.”
    Jason hit his thumb.

    There were a number of gods in the mountains and forests of Lancre. One of them was known as Herne the Hunted. He was a god of the chase and the hunt. More or less.
    Most gods are created and sustained by belief and hope. Hunters danced in animal skins and created gods of the chase, who tended to be hearty and boisterous with the tact of a tidal wave. But they are not the only gods of hunting. The prey has an occult voice too, as the blood pounds and the hounds bay. Herne was the god of the chased and the hunted and all small animals whose ultimate destiny is to be an abrupt damp squeak.
    He was about three feet high with rabbit ears and very small horns. But he did have an extremely good turn of speed, and was using it to the full as he tore madly through the woods.
    “They’re coming! They’re coming! They’re all coming back! ”

    “Who are?” said Jason Ogg. He was holding his thumb in the water trough.
    Nanny Ogg sighed.
    “Them,” she said. “You know. Them . We ain’t certain, but…”
    “Who’s Them?”
    Nanny hesitated. There were some things you didn’t tell ordinary people. On the other hand, Jason was a blacksmith, which meant he wasn’t ordinary. Blacksmiths had to keep secrets. And he was family; Nanny Ogg had had an adventurous youth and wasn’t very good at counting, but she was pretty certain he was her son.
    “You see,” she said, waving her hands vaguely, “them stones…the Dancers…see, in the old days…see, once upon a time…”
    She stopped, and tried again to explain the essentially fractal nature of reality.
    “Like…there’s some places that’re thinner than others, where the old doorways used to be, well, not doorways, never exactly understood it myself, not doorways as such, more places where the