Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett [52]
The lower parts of the planks extended questing white roots, which slithered across the damp stone to the nearest crack and began to auger in. Knotholes bulged, burst and thrust out branches which hit the stones of the doorway and tumbled them aside. And all the time there was a low groan, the sound of the cells of the wood trying to contain the surge of raw life pounding through them.
“If it had been me,” said Granny Weatherwax, as part of the ceiling caved in further along the passage, “I wouldn’t have done it like that. Not that I’m objecting, mind you,” she said, as Magrat opened her mouth. “It’s a reasonable job. I think you might have overdone it a bit, that’s all.”
“Excuse me,” said the Fool.
“I can’t do rocks,” said Magrat.
“Well, no, rocks is an acquired taste—”
“Excuse me.”
The two witches stared at him, and he backed away.
“Weren’t you supposed to be rescuing someone?” he said.
“Oh,” said Granny. “Yes. Come on, Magrat. We’d better see what she’s been getting up to.”
“There were screams,” said the Fool, who couldn’t help feeling they weren’t taking things seriously enough.
“I daresay,” said Granny, pushing him aside and stepping over a writhing taproot. “If anyone locked me in a dungeon, there’d be screams.”
There was a lot of dust inside the dungeon, and by the nimbus of light around its one torch Magrat could dimly make out two figures cowering in the furthest corner. Most of the furniture had been overturned and scattered across the floor; it didn’t look as though any of it had been designed to be the last word in comfort. Nanny Ogg was sitting quite calmly in what appeared to be a sort of stocks.
“Took your time,” she observed. “Let me out of this, will you? I’m getting cramp.”
And there was the dagger.
It spun gently in the middle of the room, glinting when the turning blade caught the light.
“My own dagger!” said the ghost of the king, in a voice only the witches could hear. “All this time and I never knew it! My own dagger! They bloody well did me in with my own bloody knife!”
He took another step toward the royal couple, waving the dagger. A faint gurgle escaped from the lips of the duke, glad to be out of there.
“He’s doing well, isn’t he,” said Nanny, as Magrat helped her out of her prison.
“Isn’t that the old king? Can they see him?”
“Shouldn’t think so.”
King Verence staggered slightly under the weight. He was too old for such poltergeist activity; you had to be an adolescent for this…
“Let me just get a grip on this thing,” he said. “Oh, damn…”
The knife dropped from the ghost’s tenuous grasp and clattered to the floor. Granny Weatherwax stepped forward smartly and put her foot on it.
“The dead shouldn’t kill the living,” she said. “It could be a dangerous wossname, precedent. We’d all be outnumbered, for one thing.”
The duchess surfaced from her terror first. There had been knives swooping through the air and exploding doors, and now these women were defying her in her own dungeons. She couldn’t be sure how she was supposed to react to the supernatural items, but she had very firm ideas about how she should tackle the last one.
Her mouth opened like the gateway to a red hell. “Guards!” she yelled, and spotted the Fool hovering near the door. “Fool! Fetch the guards!”
“They’re busy. We were just leaving,” said Granny. “Which one of you is the duke?”
Felmet stared pink-eyed up at her from his half-crouch in the corner. A thin dribble of saliva escaped from the corner of his mouth, and he giggled.
Granny looked closer. In the center of those streaming eyes something else looked back at her.
“I’m going to give you no cause,” she said quietly. “But it would be better for you if you left this country. Abdicate, or whatever.”
“In favor of whom?” said the duchess icily. “A witch?”
“I won’t,” said the duke.
“What did you