The storm was resting. It didn't want to be, but it was. It had spent a fortnight understudying a famous anticyclone over the Circle Sea, turning up every day, hanging around in the cold front, grateful for a chance to uproot the occasional tree or whirl a farmhouse to any available emerald city of its choice. But the big break in the weather had never come.
It consoled itself with the thought that even the really great storms of the past – the Great Gale of 1789, for example, or Hurricane Zelda and Her Amazing Raining Frogs – had gone through this sort of thing at some stage in their career. It was just part of the great tradition of the weather.
Besides, it had had a good stretch in the equivalent of pantomime down on the plains, bringing seasonal snow and terminal frostbite to millions. It just had to be philosophical about being back up here now with nothing much to do except wave the heather about. If weather was people, this storm would be filling in time wearing a cardboard hat in a hamburger hell.
Currently it was observing three figures moving slowly over the moor, converging with some determination on a bare patch where the standing stone stood, or usually stood, though just at the moment it wasn't visible.
It recognised them as old friends and connoisseurs, and conjured up a brief unseasonal roll of thunder as a form of greeting. This was totally ignored.
'The bloody stone's gone,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'However many there is of it.'
Her face was pale. It might also have been drawn; if so, then it was by a very neurotic artist. She looked as though she meant business. Bad business.
'Light the fire, Magrat,' she added automatically.
'I daresay we'll all feel better for a cup of tea,' said Nanny Ogg, mouthing the words like a mantra. She fumbled in the recesses of her shawl. 'With something in it,' she added, producing a small bottle of applejack.
'Alcohol is a deceiver and tarnishes the soul,' said Magrat virtuously.
'I never touch the stuff,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'We should keep a clear head, Gytha.'
'Just a drop in your tea isn't drinking,' said Nanny. 'It's medicine. It's a chilly old wind up here, sisters.'
'Very well,' said Granny. 'But just a drop.'
They drank in silence. Eventually Granny said, 'Well, Magrat. You know all about the coven business. We might as well do it right. What do we do next?'
Magrat hesitated. She wasn't up to suggesting dancing naked.
'There's a song,' she said. 'In praise of the full moon.'
'It ain't full,' Granny pointed out. 'It's wossname. Bulging.'
'Gibbous,' said Nanny obligingly.
'I think it's in praise of full moons in general,' Magrat hazarded. 'And then we have to raise our consciousness. It really ought to be full moon for that, I'm afraid. Moons are very important.'
Granny gave her a long, calculating look.
'That's modern witchcraft for you, is it?' she said.
'It's part of it, Granny. There's a lot more.'
Granny Weatherwax sighed. 'Each to her own, I suppose. I'm blowed if I'll let a ball of shiny rock tell me what to do.'
'Yes, bugger all that,' said Nanny. 'Let's curse somebody.'
The Fool crept cautiously along the nighttime corridors. He wasn't taking any chances either. Magrat had given him a graphic account of Greebo's general disposition, and the Fool had borrowed a couple of gloves and a sort of metal wimple from the castle's store of hereditary chain mail.
He reached the lumber room, lifted the latch cautiously, pushed the door and then flung himself against the wall.
The corridor became slightly darker as the more intense darkness inside the room spilled out and mingled with the rather lighter darkness already there.
Apart from that, nothing. The number of spitting, enraged balls of murderous fur pouring through the door was zero. The Fool relaxed, and slipped inside.
Greebo dropped on his head.
It had been a long day. The room did not offer the kind of full life that Greebo had come to expect and demand. The only point of interest had been the discovery, around mid-morning, of a colony of mice who had spent generations eating their way through a priceless tapestry history of Lancre and had just got as far as King Murune (709-745), who met a terrible fate[14], when they did, too. He had sharpened his claws on a bust of Lancre's only royal vampire, Queen Grimnir the Impaler (1514-1553, 1553-1557, 1557-1562, 1562-1567 and 1568-1573). He had performed his morning ablutions on a portrait of an unknown monarch, which was beginning to dissolve. Now he was bored, and also angry.