On the way up to the palace she crossed the bridge over Lancre Gorge and tossed the sack into the river.
It bobbed for a moment in the strong current, and then sank.
She'd secretly hoped for a string of multicoloured bubbles, or even a hiss. But it just sank. Just as if it wasn't anything very important.
Another world, another castle. . .
The elf galloped over the frozen moat, steam billowing from its black horse and from the thing it carried over its neck.
It rode up the steps and into the hall itself, where the Queen sat amidst her dreams. . .
“My lord Lankin?”
“A stag!”
It was still alive. Elves were skilled at leaving things alive, often for weeks.
“From out of the circle?”
“Yes, lady!”
“It's weakening. Did I not tell you?”
“How long? How long?”
“Soon. Soon. What went through the other way?”
The elf tried to avoid her face.
“Your . . . pet, lady.”
“No doubt it won't go far.” The Queen laughed. “No doubt it will have an amusing time. . .”
It rained briefly at dawn.
There's nothing nastier to walk through than shoulder-high wet bracken. Well, there is. There are an uncountable number of things nastier to walk through, especially if they're shoulder-high. But here and now, thought Nanny Ogg, it was hard to think of more than one or two.
They hadn't landed inside the Dancers, of course. Even birds detoured rather than cross that airspace. Migrating spiders on gossamer threads floating half a mile up curved around it. Clouds split in two and flowed around it.
Mist hung around the stones. Sticky, damp mist.
Nanny hacked vaguely at the clinging bracken with her sickle.
“You there, Esme?” she muttered.
Granny Weatherwax's head rose from a clump of bracken a few feet away.
“There's been things going on,” she said, in a cold and deliberate tone.
“Like what?”
“All the bracken and weeds is trampled around the stones. I reckon someone's been dancing.”
Nanny Ogg gave this the same consideration as would a nuclear physicist who'd just been told that someone was banging two bits of sub-critical uranium together to keep warm.
“They never,” she said.
“They have. And another thing. . .” It was hard to imagine what other thing there could be, but Nanny Ogg said “Yes?” anyway.