Equal Rites Part 26

Granny gave him a withering look.

"Do you mean in the absolute sense?" she asked. "Or, say, compared with staying behind on a melting ice floe?"

"This is the first time I have ever ridden on a broomstick," said Cutangle.

"Really."

"I thought you just had to get on them and they flew," said the wizard. "I didn't know you had to do all that running up and down and shouting at them."

"It's a knack," said Granny.

"I thought they went faster," Cutangle continued, "and, to be frank, higher."

"What do you mean, higher?" asked Granny, trying to compensate for the wizard's weight on the pillion as they turned back upriver. Like pillion pa.s.sengers since the dawn of time, he persisted in leaning the wrong way.

"Well, more sort of above above the trees," said Cutangle, ducking as a dripping branch swept his hat away. the trees," said Cutangle, ducking as a dripping branch swept his hat away.

"There's nothing wrong with this broomstick that you losing a few stone wouldn't cure," snapped Granny. "Or would you rather get off and walk?"

"Apart from the fact that half the time my feet are touching the ground anyway," said Cutangle. "I wouldn't want to embarra.s.s you. If someone had asked me to list all the perils of flying, you know, it would never have occurred to me to include having one's legs whipped to death by tall bracken."

"Are you smoking?" said Granny, staring grimly ahead. "Something's burning."

"It was just to calm my nerves what with all this headlong plunging through the air, madam."

"Well, put it out this minute. And hold on."

The broomstick lurched upward and increased its speed to that of a geriatric jogger.

"Mr. Wizard."

"Hallo?"

"When I said hold on-"

"Yes?"

"I didn't mean there."

There was a pause.

"Oh. Yes. I see. I'm terribly sorry."

"That's all right."

"My memory isn't what it was...I a.s.sure you...no offense meant."

"None taken."

They flew in silence for a moment.

"Nevertheless," said Granny thoughtfully, "I think that, on the whole, I would prefer you to move your hands."

Rain gushed across the leads of Unseen University and poured into the gutters where ravens' nests, abandoned since the summer, floated like very badly built boats. The water gurgled along ancient, crusted pipes. It found its way under tiles and said hallo to the spiders under the eaves. It leapt from gables and formed secret lakes high amongst the spires.

Whole ecologies lived in the endless rooftops of the University, which by comparison made Gormenghast look like a toolshed on a railway allotment; birds sang in tiny jungles grown from apple pips and weed seeds, little frogs swam in the upper gutters, and a colony of ants were busily inventing an interesting and complex civilization.

One thing the water couldn't do was gurgle out of the ornamental gargoyles ranged around the roofs. This was because the gargoyles wandered off and sheltered in the attics at the first sign of rain. They held that just because you were ugly it didn't mean you were stupid.

It rained streams. It rained rivers. It rained seas. But mainly it rained through the roof of the Great Hall, where the duel between Granny and Cutangle had left a very large hole, and Treatle felt that it was somehow raining on him personally.

He stood on a table organizing the teams of students who were taking down the paintings and ancient tapestries before they got soaked. It had to be a table, because the floor was already several inches deep in water.

Not rainwater, unfortunately. This was water with real personality, the kind of distinctive character water gets after a long journey through silty countryside. It had the thick texture of authentic Ankh water-too stiff to drink, too runny to plough.

The river had burst its banks and a million little water-courses were flowing backward, bursting in through the cellars and playing peek-a-boo under the flagstones. There was the occasional distant boom as some forgotten magic in a drowned dungeon shorted out and surrendered up its power; Treatle wasn't at all keen on some of the unpleasant bubblings and hissings that were escaping to the surface.

He thought again how nice it would be to be the sort of wizard who lived in a little cave somewhere and collected herbs and thought significant thoughts and knew what the owls were saying. But probably the cave would be damp and the herbs would be poisonous and Treatle could never be sure, when all was said and done, exactly what thoughts were really significant.

He got down awkwardly and paddled through the dark swirling waters. Well, he had done his best. He'd tried to organize the senior wizards into repairing the roof by magic, but there was a general argument over the spells that could be used and a consensus that this was in any case work for artisans.

That's wizards for you, he thought gloomily as he waded between the dripping arches, always probing the infinite but never noticing the definite, especially in the matter of household ch.o.r.es. We never had this trouble before that woman came.

He squelched up the steps, lit by a particularly impressive flash of lightning. He had a cold certainty that while of course no one could possibly blame him for all this, everybody would. He seized the hem of his robe and wrung it out wretchedly, then he reached for his tobacco pouch.

It was a nice green waterproof one. That meant that all the rain that had got into it couldn't get out again. It was indescribable.

He found his little clip of papers. They were fused into one lump, like the legendary pound note found in the back pockets of trousers after they have been washed, spun, dried and ironed.

"b.u.g.g.e.r," he said, with feeling.

"I say! Treatle!"

Treatle looked around. He had been the last to leave the hall, where even now some of the benches were beginning to float. Whirlpools and patches of bubble marked the spots where magic was leaking from the cellars, but there was no one to be seen.

Unless, of course, one of the statues had spoken. They had been too heavy to move, and Treatle remembered telling the students that a thorough wash would probably do them good.

He looked at their stern faces and regretted it. The statues of very powerful dead mages were sometimes more lifelike than statues had any right to be. Maybe he should have kept his voice down.

"Yes?" he ventured, acutely aware of the stony stares.

"Up here, you fool!"

He looked up. The broomstick descended heavily through the rain in a series of swoops and jerks. About five feet above the water it lost its few remaining aerial pretensions, and flopped noisily into a whirlpool.

"Don't stand there, idiot!"

Treatle peered nervously into the gloom.

"I've got to stand somewhere," he said.

"I mean give us a hand!" snapped Cutangle, rising from the wavelets like a fat and angry Venus. "The lady first, of course."

He turned to Granny, who was fishing around in the water.

"I've lost my hat," she said.

Cutangle sighed. "Does that really matter at a time like this?"

"A witch has got to have a hat, otherwise who's to know?" said Granny. She made a grab as something dark and sodden drifted by, cackled triumphantly, tipped out the water and rammed the hat on her head. It had lost its stiffening and flopped rather rakishly over one eye.

"Right," she said, in a tone of voice that suggested the whole universe had just better watch out.

There was another brilliant flash of lightning, which shows that even the weather G.o.ds have a well-developed sense of theater.

"It rather suits you," said Cutangle.

"Excuse me," said Treatle, "but isn't she the w-"

"Never mind that," said Cutangle, taking Granny's hand and helping her up the steps. He flourished the staff.

"But it's against the lore to allow w-"

He stopped and stared as Granny reached out and touched the damp wall by the door. Cutangle tapped him on the chest.

"Show me where it's written down," said Cutangle.

"They're in the library," Granny interrupted.

"It was the only dry place," said Treatle, "but-"

"This building is frightened of thunderstorms," said Granny. "It could do with comforting."

"But the lore-" repeated Treatle desperately.

Granny was already striding down the pa.s.sage, with Cutangle hopping along behind. He turned.

"You heard the lady," he said.

Treatle watched them go, with his mouth hanging open. When their footsteps had died away in the distance he stood silently for a moment, thinking about life and where his could have gone wrong.

However, he wasn't going to be accused of disobedience.

Very carefully, without knowing exactly why, he reached out and gave the wall a friendly pat.

"There, there," he said.

Strangely enough, he felt a lot better.

It occurred to Cutangle that he ought to lead the way in his own premises, but Granny in a hurry was no match for a near-terminal nicotine addict and he kept up only by a sort of crabwise leaping.

"It's this way," he said, splashing through the puddles.

"I know. The building told me."

"Yes, I was meaning to ask about that," said Cutangle, "because you see it's never said anything to me and I've lived here for years."

"Have you ever listened to it?"

"Not exactly listened, no," Cutangle conceded. "Not as such."

"Well then," said Granny, edging past a waterfall where the kitchen steps used to be (Mrs. Whitlow's washing would never be the same again). "I think it's up here and along the pa.s.sage, isn't it?"

She swept past a trio of astonished wizards, who were surprised by her and completely startled by her hat.

Cutangle panted after her and caught her arm at the doors to the library.

"Look," he said desperately, "No offense, Miss-um, Mistress-"

"I think Esmerelda will suffice now. What with us having shared a broomstick and everything."

"Can I go in front? It is is my library," he begged. my library," he begged.

Granny turned around, her face a mask of surprise. Then she smiled.

"Of course. I'm so sorry."

"For the look of the thing, you see," said Cutangle apologetically. He pushed the door open.

The library was full of wizards, who care about their books in the same way that ants care about their eggs and in time of difficulty carry them around in much the same way. The water was getting in even here, and turning up in rather odd places because of the library's strange gravitational effects. All the lower shelves had been cleared and relays of wizards and students were pilling the volumes on every available table and dry shelf. The air was full of the sound of angry rustling pages, which almost drowned out the distant fury of the storm.

This was obviously upsetting the librarian, who was scurrying from wizard to wizard, tugging ineffectually at their robes and shouting "ook."

He spotted Cutangle and knuckled rapidly toward him. Granny had never seen an orangutan before, but wasn't about to admit it, and remained quite calm in the face of a small pot-bellied man with extremely long arms and a size 12 skin on a size 8 body.

"Ook," it explained, "ooook." "ooook."