Page 10 (1/2)

Particles of raw inspiration sleet through the universe all the time Every once in a while one of them hits a receptive mind, which then invents DNA or the flute sonata forht bulbs wear out in half the tih their lives without being hit by even one

Soet theh inspirations to equip a co arts poured continuously into a s more spectacular than be remarkably resistant to axe blows

He licked his quill and looked bashfully around the ca He carefully lifted up the Wizard and revealed another stack of paper

It was another potboiler Every page was stained with sweat and the words themselves scrawled across the s-out and tiny scribbled insertions Hwel stared at it for a moment, alone in a world that consisted of hi voices that haunted his dreaan to write

Free of Hwel's never-too-stringent attention Tomjon pushed open the lid of the props haan to unpack the crowns

The dwarf stuck out his tongue as he piloted the errant quill across the ink-speckled page He'd found rooers andIt was the cats and the roller skates that were currently giving hile oodness sake, lad,' he said 'It hardly fits Put it back'

The Disc rolled into winter

Winter in the Raical frosty wonderland, each twig laced with confections of brittle ice Winter in the Rah to the primeval coldness that lived before the creation of the world Winter in the Ramtops was several yards of snow, the forests a reen tunnels under the drifts Winterof the lazy wind, which couldn't be bothered to blow around people and blew right through them instead The idea that Winter could actually be enjoyable would never have occurred to Rahteen different words for snow[5]

The ghost of King Verence prowled the battlery, and stared out across his beloved forests and waited his chance

It was a winter of portents Coht Clouds shaped ons drifted over the land by day In the village of Razorback a cat gave birth to a two-headed kitten, but since Greebo, by dint of considerable effort, was every enerations this probably wasn't all that portentous

However, in Bad Ass a cockerel laid an egg and had to put up with so personal questions In Lancre town a man swore he'd et up and walk There was a short sharp shower of shrihts in the sky Geese walked backwards Above all of this flared the great curtains of cold fire that were the Aurora Coriolis, the Hublights, whose frosty tints illuht snows

There was nothing the least unusual about any of this The Raical standing wave like an iron bar dropped innocently across a pair of subway rails, were so saturated withitself into the environht, o back to sleep

Hogswatchnight ca the start of another year And, with alar happened

The skies were clear, the snow deep and crisped like icing sugar

The freezing forests were silent and ss that fell from the sky were the occasional fresh showers of snow

A man walked across the le hostly coach or coiven a drink to unsteady his nerves

The stoicisn resistance to the thauical chaos, found itself unable to cope with the sudden change It was like a noise which isn't heard until it stops

Granny Weatherwax heard it now as she lay snug under a pile of quilts in her freezing bedrooht of the Disc's long year itches are expected to stay at ho of apples and a stone hotwater bottle But so had awoken her from her doze

An ordinary person would have crept downstairs, possibly ared her knees and let her mind wander

It hadn't been in the house She could feel the soats as they lay in their cosy flatulence in the outhouse A hunting oas a sudden dagger of alertness as it glided over the rooftops

Granny concentrated harder, until herof the insects in the thatch and the or of interest there

She snuggled down and let herself drift out into the forest, which was silent except for the occasional muffled thump as snow slid off a tree Even inin burrows or hibernating in the middle of trees

All as usual She spread herself further, to the high moors and secret passes where the wolves ran silently over the frozen crust; she touched theirin the snowfields but packs of ver was as it should be, with the exception that nothing was right There was so alive out there, so and ancient and

Granny turned over the feeling in herlost And

Feelings were never simple, Granny knew Strip them away and there were others underneath

So lost and forlorn very soon, was going to get angry

And still she couldn't find it She could feel the tiny minds of chrysalises down under the frozen leafrated below the frost line She could even sense a few people, ere hardest of all – huhts all at the same time that they were nearly i to the wall

Nothing there Nothing there The feeling was all around her, and there was nothing to cause it She'd gone down about as far as she could, to the s there

Granny Weatherwax sat up in bed, lit a candle and reached for an apple She glared at her bedroo beaten There was sorowing, so dial seemed so alive it was all around the house, and she couldn't find it