Carpe Jugulum

'Yeah,' said Nanny, in what Agnes thought was an odd tone of voice. 'Just as well, really. Let's go. Oh, I thought we might need these...'

She fumbled in the bottomless storeroom of her knickerleg and produced a couple of pairs of socks so thick that they could have stood up by themselves.

'Lancre wool,' she said. 'Our Jason knits 'em of an evenin' and you know what strong fingers he's got. You could kick your way through a wall.'

The heather ripped fruitlessly at the wire-like wool as the women hurried over the moor. There was still a sun here, or at least a bright spot in the overcast, but darkness seemed to come up from beneath the ground.

Agnes... said Perdita's voice, in the privacy of her shared brain.

What? thought Agnes.

Nanny's worried about something to do with the baby and Granny. Have you noticed?

Agnes thought: I know Nanny keeps looking at little Esme as if she's trying to make up her mind about something, if that's what you mean.

Well, l think it's to do with Borrowing...

She thinks Granny's using the baby to keep an eye on us?

I don't know. But something's happening...

The roar ahead grew louder.

'There's a little stream, isn't there?' said Agnes.

'That's right,' said Nanny. 'Just here.'

The moor fell away. They stared into the abyss, which didn't stare back. It was huge. White water was just visible far below. Cold, damp air blew past their faces.

'That can't be right,' said Magrat. 'That's wider and deeper than Lancre Gorge!'

Agnes looked down into the mist. It's a couple of feet deep, Perdita told her. I can see every pebble.

'Perdita thinks it's a... well, an optical illusion,' Agnes said aloud.

'She could be right,' said Nanny. 'Gnarly ground, see? Bigger on the inside.'

Magrat picked up a rock and tossed it in. It bounced off the wall a few times, tumbling end over end, and then nothing was left but a stony echo. The river was too far down even to see the splash.

'It's very realistic, isn't it?' she said weakly.

'We could use the bridge,' said Nanny, pointing.

They regarded the bride. It had a certain negative quality. That is to say, while it was possible at the limits of probability that if they tried to cross the chasm by walking out over thin air this might just work — because of sudden updraughts, or air molecules suddenly all having a crazy idea at the same time — trying to do the same thing via

the bridge would dearly be laughable.

There was no mortar in it. The pillars had been piled up out of rocks laid like a drystone wall, and then a series of big flat stones dropped across the top. The result would have been called primitive even by people who were too primitive to have a word yet for 'primitive'. It creaked ominously in the wind. They could hear stone grind against stone.

'That's not right,' said Magrat. 'It wouldn't stand up to a gale.'

'It wouldn't stand up to a dead calm,' said Agnes. 'I don't think it's really real.'

'Ah, I can see where that'd make crossing it a bit tricky, then,' said Nanny.

It's just a slab laid over a ditch, Perdita insisted. I could cartwheel over it. Agnes blinked.

'Oh, I understand,' she said. 'This is some sort of test, is it? It is, isn't it? We're worried, so fear makes it a deep gorge. Perdita's always confident, so she hardly notices it...'

'I'd like to notice it's there,' said Magrat. 'It's a bridge.'

'We're wasting time,' said Agnes. She strode out over the slabs of stone and stopped halfway.

'Rocks a bit, but it's not too bad,' she called back. 'You just have to-'

The slab shifted under her, and tipped her off.

She flung out her hands and caught the edge of the stone by sheer luck. But, strong though her fingers were, a lot of Agnes was penduluming underneath.

She looked down. She didn't want to, but it was a direction occupying a lot of the world.

The water's about a foot below you, it really is, said Perdita. All you have to do is drop, and you'd be good at that...

Agnes looked down again. The drop was so long that probably no one would hear the splash. It didn't just look deep, it felt deep. Clammy air rose around her. She could feel the sucking emptiness under her feet.

'Magrat threw a stone down there!' she hissed.

Yes, and I saw it fall a few inches.

'Now, I'm lyin' flat and Magrat's holdin' on to my legs,' said Nanny Ogg conversationally, right above her. 'I'm going to grab your wrists and, you know, I reckon if you swings a little sideways you ought to get your foot on one of the stone pillars and you'll be right as ninepence.'

'You don't have to talk to me as if I'm some kind of frightened idiot!' snapped Agnes.

'Just tryin' to be pleasant.'

'I can't move my hands!'

'Yes, you can. See, I've got your arm now.'

'I can't move my hands!'

'Don't rush, we've got all day,' said Nanny. 'Whenever you're ready.'

Agnes hung for a while. She couldn't even sense her hands now. That presumably meant that she wouldn't feel it when her grip slipped.

The stones groaned.

'Br... Nanny?'

,Yep?,

'Can you talk to me a bit more as if I'm some kind of frightened idiot?'

'Okay.'