Magrat sagged against the faintly jingling body, and felt triumphant. She had done it! And with no artificial aids! If only the others could have seen this . . .
'Don't go near it,' she mumbled. 'I think I gave it rather . . . a lot.' The Fool was still holding her toastrack body in his arms and was too overcome to utter a word, but she still got a reply.
'I reckon you did,' said Granny Weatherwax, stepping out of the shadows. 'I never would have thought of it myself.'
Magrat peered at her.
'You've been here all the time?'
'Just a few minutes.' Granny glanced at the door. 'Good technique,' she said, 'but it's old wood. Been in a fire, too, I reckon. Lot of iron nails and stuff in there. Can't see it working, I'd have tried the stones if it was me, but—'
She was interrupted by a soft 'pop'.
There was another, and then a whole series of them together, like a shower of meringues.
Behind her, very gently, the door was breaking into leaf.
Granny stared at it for a few seconds, and then met Magrat's terrified gaze.
'Run!' she yelled.
They grabbed the Fool and scurried into the shelter of a convenient buttress.
The door gave a warning creak. Several of its planks twisted in vegetable agony and there was a shower of rock splinters when nails were expelled like thorns from a wound, ricocheting off the stonework. The Fool ducked as part of the lock whirred over his head and smashed into the opposite wall.
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 towards the royal couple, waving the dagger. A faint gurgle escaped from the lips of the duke, glad to be out of there.