Witches Abroad

"Will you come on, Gytha? Magrat's getting my broom started for me."

P.P.S. Granny sends her Love.

Nanny Ogg sat back, content in the knowledge of a job well done.*

Magrat reached the end of the town square and stopped to rest.

Quite an audience had gathered to see a woman with legs. They were very polite about it. Somehow, that made it worse.

"It doesn't fly unless you run really fast," she explained, aware even as she spoke how stupid this sounded, especially if you were listening in a foreign language. "I think it's called hump starting."

She took a deep breath, scowled in concentration, and ran forward again.

This time it started. It jolted in her hands. The bristles rustled. She managed to slip it into neutral before it could drag her along the ground. One thing about Granny Weatherwax's broomstick - it was one of the very old-fashioned ones, built in the days when broomsticks were built to last and not fall apart with woodworm after ten years - was that while it might take some starting, when it went it didn't hang about.

Magrat had once considered explaining the symbolism of the witches' broomstick to Granny Weatherwax, and decided not to. It would have been worse than the row about the significance of the maypole.

Departure took some time. The villagers insisted on giving them little gifts of food. Nanny Ogg made a speech which no-one understood but which was generally cheered. Greebo, hiccuping occasionally, oozed into his accustomed place among the bristles of Nanny's broomstick.

As they rose above the forest a thin plume of smoke also rose from the castle. And then there were flames.

"I see people dancing in front of it," said Magrat.

"Always a dangerous business, rentin' property," said Granny Weatherwax. "I expect he was a bit lax when it came to redecoratin' and repairin' the roof and suchlike. People take against that kind of thing. My landlord hasn't done a hand's turn on my cottage the whole time I've been there," she added. "It's shameful. And me an old woman, too."

"I thought you owned your place," said Magrat, as the broomsticks set off over the forest.

"She just ain't paid no rent for sixty years," said Nanny Ogg.

"Is that my fault?" said Granny Weatherwax. "It's not my fault. I'd be quite willin' to pay." She smiled a slow, self-confident smile. "All he has to do is ask," she added.

This is the Discworld, seen from above, its cloud formations circling in long curved patterns.

Three dots emerged from the cloud layer.

"I can see why travellin' doesn't catch on. I call this boring. Nothing but forest for hours and hours."

"Yes, but flying gets you to places quickly, Granny."

"How long've we been flying, anyway?"

"About ten minutes since you last asked, Esme."

"You see? Boring."

"It's sitting on the sticks I don't like. I reckon there ought to be a special broomstick for going long distances, right? One you could stretch out on and have a snooze."

They all considered this.

"And have your meals on," added Nanny. "Proper meals, I mean. With gravy. Not just sandwiches and stuff." An experiment in aerial cookery on a small oil burner had been hastily curtailed after it threatened to set fire to Nanny's broomstick.

"I suppose you could do it if you had a really big broomstick," said Magrat. "About the size of a tree, perhaps. Then one of us could do the steering and another one could do the cooking."

"It'd never happen," said Nanny Ogg. "The reason being, the dwarfs would make you pay a fortune for a stick that big."

"Yes, but what you could do," said Magrat, warming to her subject, "is get people to pay you to give them rides. There must be lots of people fed up with highwaymen and... and being seasick and that sort of thing."

"How about it, Esme?" said Nanny Ogg. "I'll do the steering and Magrat'll do the cooking."

"What shall I do, then?" said Granny Weatherwax suspiciously.

"Oh... well... there ought to be someone to, you know, welcome people onto the stick and give them their meals," said Magrat. "And tell them what to do if the magic fails, for example."

"If the magic fails everyone'll crash into the ground and die," Granny pointed out.

"Yes, but someone will have to tell them how to do that," said Nanny Ogg, winking at Magrat. "They won't know how to, not being experienced in flying."

"And we could call ourselves..." she paused. As always on the Discworld, which was right on the very edge of unreality, little bits of realness crept in whenever someone's mind was resonating properly. This happened now.

"... Three Witches Airborne," she said. "How about that?"

"Broomsticks Airborne," said Magrat. "Or Pan... air..."

"There's no need to bring religion into it," sniffed Granny.

Nanny Ogg looked slyly from Granny to Magrat.

"We could call it Vir - " she began.

A gust of wind caught all three sticks and whirled them up. There was a brief panic as the witches brought them under control.

"Load of nonsense," muttered Granny.

"Well, it passes the time," said Nanny Ogg.

Granny looked morosely at the greenery below.