Wintersmith (Discworld #35)

Wintersmith (Discworld #35) Page 27

"Giant rocks can't stay up in the sky, miss!" said Shawn. "I expect that's why this one fell down, lad," said Nanny briskly. "If you want to do something useful, you can stand guard and make sure nobody comes near it."

"What shall I do if it explodes, Mum?"

"Come and tell me, will you?" said Nanny. She hurried Tiffany into the cottage, shut the door behind them, and said: "I'm a dreadful ol' liar, Tiff, and it takes one to know one. What's down there?"

"Well, I don't think it's going to explode," said Tiffany. "And if it did, I think the worse that'd happen is that we'd be covered in coleslaw. I think it's the Cornucopia." There was the sound of voices outside and the door was flung open. "Blessings be upon this house," said Granny Weatherwax, stamping snow off her boots. "Your boy said I shouldn't come in, but I think he was wrong. I came as quick as I could. What's happened?"

"We've got cornucopias," said Nanny Ogg, "whatever they are." It was later that evening. They'd waited until it was dark before pulling the Cornucopia out of the hole. It was a lot lighter than Tiffany had expected; in fact it had an air about it of something very, very heavy which, for reasons of its own, had become light just for a while. Now it was on the kitchen table, wiped clean of mud and cabbages. Tiffany thought it looked vaguely alive. It was warm to the touch and seemed to vibrate slightly under her fingers. "According to Chaffinch," she said, with the Mythology open on her lap, "the god Blind Io created the Cornucopia from a horn of the magical goat Almeg to feed his two children by the Goddess Bisonomy, who was later turned into a shower of oysters by Epidity, God of Things Shaped like Potatoes, after insulting Resonata, Goddess of Weasels, by throwing a mole at her shadow. It is now the badge of office of the summer goddess."

"I always said there used to be far too much of that sort of thing in the old days," said Granny Weatherwax. The witches stared at the thing. It did look a bit like a goat horn, but much larger. "How does it work?" said Nanny Ogg. She stuck her head inside it and shouted "Hello!" Helloes came back, echoing for a long time, as if they had gone much farther than you would expect them to. "Looks like a great big seashell to me," was the opinion of Granny Weatherwax. The kitten You padded around the giant thing, sniffing daintily at it. (Greebo was hiding behind the saucepans on the top shelf. Tiffany checked.) "I don't think anyone knows," she said. "But the other name for it is The Horn of Plenty."

"A horn? Can you play a tune on it?" asked Nanny. "I don't think so," said Tiffany. "It contains…er…things."

"What sort of things?" said Granny Weatherwax. "Well, technically…everything," said Tiffany. "Everything that grows." She showed them the picture in the book. All sorts of fruits, vegetables, and grain were spilling from the Cornucopia's wide mouth. "Mostly fruit, though," said Nanny. "Not many carrots, but I suppose they're up in the pointy end. They'd fit better there."

"Typical artist," said Granny. "He just painted the showy stuff in the front. Too proud to paint an honest potato!" She poked at the page with an accusing finger. "And what about these cherubs? We're not going to get them too, are we? I don't like to see little babies flying through the air."

"They turn up a lot in old paintings," said Nanny Ogg. "They put them in to show it's Art and not just naughty pictures of ladies with not many clothes on."

"Well, they're not fooling me," said Granny Weatherwax. "Go on, Tiff, give it a go," said Nanny Ogg, walking around the table. "I don't know how!" said Tiffany. "There aren't any instructions!" And then, too late, Granny shouted: "You! Come out of there!" But with a flick of her tail the white kitten trotted inside. They banged on the horn. They held it upside down and shook it. They tried shouting down it. They put a saucer of milk in front of it and waited. The kitten didn't return. Then Nanny Ogg prodded gently inside the Cornucopia with a mop, which to no one's great surprise went farther inside the Cornucopia than there was Cornucopia on the outside. "She'll come out when she's hungry," she said reassuringly. "Not if she finds something to eat in there," said Granny Weatherwax, peering into the dark. "I shouldn't think she'll find cat food," said Tiffany, examining the picture closely. "There may be milk, though."

"You! Come out of there this minute!" Granny commanded in a voice fit to shake mountains. There was a distant meep. "Perhaps she's got stuck?" said Nanny. "I mean, it's like a spiral, growing smaller at the end, right? Cats ain't very big at goin' backward." Tiffany saw the look on Granny's face and sighed. "Feegles?" she said to the room in general. "I know there are some of you in this room. Come out, please!" Feegles appeared from behind every ornament. Tiffany tapped the Cornucopia. "Can you get a little kitten out of here?" she asked. "Just that? Aye, nae problemo," said Rob Anybody. "I wuz hopin' it was gonna be something difficult!" The Nac Mac Feegles disappeared into the Horn at a trot. Their voices died away. The witches waited. They waited some more. And some more. "Feegles!" shouted Tiffany into the hole. She thought she heard a very distant, very faint "Crivens!"

"If it can produce grain, they might have found beer in there," said Tiffany. "And that means they'll only run out when the beer runs out too!"

"Cats can't feed on beer!" snapped Granny Weatherwax. "Well, I'm fed up with waiting," said Nanny. "Look, there's a little hole in the pointy end, too. I'm going to blow into it!" She tried to, at least. Her cheeks went big and red and her eyes bulged, and it was pretty clear that if the horn didn't blow, then she would—at which point, the horn gave up. There was a distant and unmistakably curly rumbling noise, which got louder and louder. "I can't see anything yet," said Granny, looking into the wide mouth of the horn. Tiffany pulled her away just as You galloped out of the Cornucopia with her tail straight out and her ears flattened. She skidded across the table, leaped onto Granny Weatherwax's dress, scrambled onto her shoulder, and turned and spat defiance. With a cry of "Crivvvvvvvvens!" Feegles poured out of the horn. "Behind the sofa, everyone!" yelled Nanny. "Run!" Now the rumble was like thunder. It grew and grew and then— —stopped. In the silence, three pointy hats rose from behind the sofa. Small blue faces rose from behind everything. Then there was a noise very similar to pwat! and something small and wizened rolled out of the mouth of the Horn and dropped onto the floor. It was a very dried-up pineapple. Granny Weatherwax brushed some dust off her dress. "You'd better learn to use this," she said to Tiffany. "How?"

"Don't you have any idea?"

"No!"

"Well, it's turned up for you, madam, and it's dangerous!" Tiffany gingerly picked up the Cornucopia, and again there was that definite feeling of some hugely heavy thing pretending, very successfully, to be light. "Maybe it needs some magic word," suggested Nanny Ogg. "Or there's somewhere special that you press…." As Tiffany turned it in the light, something gleamed for a moment. "Hold on, these look like words," she said. She read: All that you desire, I give upon a name, murmured the memory of Dr. Bustle. The next line said: I grow, I shrink, Dr. Bustle translated. "I think I might have an idea," she said, and in memory of Miss Treason she declared: "Ham sandwich!" Nothing happened. Then Dr. Bustle lazily translated, and Tiffany said: With a fwlap a ham sandwich sailed out of the mouth of the Cornucopia and was expertly caught by Nanny, who bit into it. "Not bad at all!" she announced. "Try a few more." said Tiffany, and there was the kind of sound you get when you disturb a cave full of bats. "Stop!" she yelled, but nothing stopped. Then Dr. Bustle whispered and she shouted: There were a…lot of sandwiches. The pile reached the ceiling, in fact. Only the tip of Nanny Ogg's hat was visible, but there were some muffled noises farther down the heap. An arm thrust out, and Nanny Ogg forced her way through the wall of bread and sliced pig, chewing thoughtfully. "No mustard, I notice. Hmm. Well, we can see that everyone around here has a good supper tonight," she said. "And I can see I'm going to have to make an awful lot of soup, too. Best not to try it again in here, though, all right?"

"I don't like it at all," snapped Granny Weatherwax. "Where does all that stuff come from, eh? Magic food never fed anyone properly!"

"It's not magic, it's a god thing," said Nanny Ogg. "Like manners from heaven, that sort of stuff. I expect it's made out of raw firmament." In fact it's merely a living metaphor for the boundless fecundity of the natural world, whispered Dr. Bustle in Tiffany's head. "You don't get manners from heaven," said Granny. "This was in foreign parts, a long time ago," said Nanny, turning to Tiffany. "If I was you, dear, I'd take it out into the woods tomorrow and see what it can do. Although, if you don't mind, I could really do with some fresh grapes right now."

"Gytha Ogg, you can't use the Cornucopia of the Gods as a…a larder!" said Granny. "The feet business was bad enough!"

"But it is one," said Nanny Ogg innocently. "It's the larder. It's, like, everything waiting to grow next spring." Tiffany put it down very carefully. There was something…alive about the Cornucopia. She wasn't at all sure that it was just some magical tool. It seemed to be listening. As it touched the tabletop, it began to shrink until it was the size of a small vase. "'Scuse me?" said Rob Anybody. "But does it do beer?"

"Beer?" said Tiffany, without thinking. There was a trickling noise. All eyes turned to look at the vase. Brown liquid was foaming over the lip. Then all the eyes turned to Granny Weatherwax, who shrugged. "Don't look at me," she said sourly. "You're going to drink it anyway!" It is alive, Tiffany thought, as Nanny Ogg hurried off to find some more mugs. It learns. It's learned my language…. Around midnight, Tiffany woke up because a white chicken was standing on her chest. She pushed it off and reached down for her slippers, and found only chickens. When she got the candle alight, she saw half a dozen chickens on the end of the bed. The floor was covered in chickens. So were the stairs. So was every room down below. In the kitchen, chickens had overflowed into the sink. They weren't making much noise, just the occasional werk a chicken makes when it's a bit uncertain about things, which is more or less all the time. The chickens were shuffling along patiently to make room. Werk. They were doing this because the Cornucopia, now grown just a bit bigger than a full-grown chicken, was gently firing out a chicken every eight seconds. Werk. As Tiffany watched, another one landed on the mountain of ham sandwiches. Werk. Marooned on top of the Cornucopia was You, looking very puzzled. Werk. And in the middle of the floor Granny Weatherwax snored gently in the big armchair, surrounded by fascinated hens. Werk. Apart from the snoring, the chorus of werks, and the rustle of shuffling chickens, it was all very peaceful in the candlelight. Werk. Tiffany glared at the kitten. She rubbed up against things when she wanted to be fed, didn't she? Werk. And made meep noises? Werk. And the Cornucopia could work out languages, couldn't it? Werk. Now she whispered: "No more chickens," and after a few seconds the flow of chickens ceased. Werk. But she couldn't really leave it like that. She shook Granny by the shoulder and, as the old woman awoke, she said: "The good news is a lot of the ham sandwiches have gone…er…." Werk.