Chapter Eleven

"Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground." -Dumbledore

The mixed bunch of weary adventurers was spotted long before they reached the bottom. There were shouts, and people gathered, staring at the strangers unashamedly.

Getting down had proved to be a hit and miss affair: one missed one's footing, was hit by something falling from above, and mis-stepped once again. Only Draco, sitting on moderately well-balanced Luggage, reached the grassy lower slope without falling over at all.

At the bottom, they assembled in a little group, which was quickly surrounded by villagers—dark-faced, weather-beaten men and women who looked more curious than frightened.

"Translation charm, I used to know, err…" Hermione muttered. She tried a few spell-words; the third one transformed the random babble around them into a random babble in which they could understand the occasional word.

The villagers stopped talking to each other and stared at him. One of them steeped a little closer. "Hello?" he said, and then touched his mouth, frowning. "I am… speaking your tongue? By magic?"

Harry nodded. "So we understand each other," he said. He knew that was what he'd said, but he was aware that there was magic wrapped around the words, magic that would make them clear to whoever listened. He'd used the charm before. The strangeness of the sensation didn't fade, and neither did the sense that he was in a dubbed Muggle film, in which people's lips didn't move in time with the words they spoke.

"I am Degyel," the man said. "You and your friends are magicians, yes? You have a walking box."

Slightly helplessly, Harry nodded. Behind him, he heard Ponder hiss, "Not *magicians*. *Wizards*."

"Yes, that's right," Harry agreed. "But we've, ah, lost our way. If you could…"

Degyel nodded proudly, and Harry reached up, to brush the hair from his forehead and reveal his scar. But Degyel was pointing, and it wasn't at him.

"Err—yes," Harry said, glancing at the blond man on the walking box. "Yes, that's Draco Malfoy." He bit his tongue before he added, 'my lover', thinking that it was best to give them the information one step at a time.

Degyel looked puzzled. "Draco Malfoy?" he repeated, and then shook his head. "Lucius Malfoy."

Outraged, Draco stood up. Harry noticed—because years with Draco taught one to notice such things—that he took his weight on his supposedly injured ankle without so much as a flinch.

Degyel and the other villagers recoiled from the fierce attack, and Harry laid a hand on Draco's arm. "Not now, Draco," he said, quietly. "Let me sort this out."

Harry held out his hands again, in what he hoped was a friendly and reassuring way. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid you've got the wrong person there. Is there another—ah—magic worker around here?"

The villagers looked at each other. Eventually, Degyel looked Harry in the eye, and nodded. "Not here," he said. "We're just a hunting party. In the proper village, over the next mountain, there is magic man."

"End the magic," Degyel said suddenly, making a chopping motion across his chest. "Stop it."

The villagers huddled again, talking quickly in low voices, though they kept casting nervous glances at the strangers.

Harry shrugged. "Experience suggests that almost anywhere you go, there's a little group of wizards there if you ask around enough. And if they've heard of Lucius Malfoy…"

"… they're real, if not exactly up-to-date with the latest news," Draco said wryly. "That is to say, about fifty years behind."

"It can't be easy to get newspapers up here," Hermione said. "Besides, I suspect they thought you were Lucius reincarnated or as a zombie or something, not really him. And—don't take this the wrong way, Draco—I'm a little concerned about how pleased they were to see you."

Draco was about to take it the wrong way, when Harry spun around suddenly, away from the group.

Degyel had tapped his shoulder, and said something clearly in his native language.

"Oops," Hermione said, then cast the translation charm again. "That should help."

"Thank you," Degyel said to her. To Harry, he said, "We will give you a guide. My son and my sister's son know the way and are of an age; they will accompany you the day's walk to see the magician, and introduce you to him. We help you," he cast a glance at Draco, "because we have no choice. You have power."

His look took in the others, too: Ponder, just behind Harry and trying to be as brave; Gytha, standing close to Hermione; Hermione herself, apparently deep in thought but also attentive to the situation; and Rincewind, now sitting on the Luggage at the back of the group, glancing nervously around in the process of plotting his escape route. Two of them were armed with six-foot staffs, Draco had his wand out, and everyone had seen the walking box. They were quite the frightening sight to unknowing eyes.

"That's very kind of you," Harry said. "Can we…" he hesitated. He wanted to offer to help them somehow, probably with magic, but he was well aware that the Ministry considered that against the rules. He had, after all, written the rules.

"Not for me to say." One of the women, who had bustled off after the villager's huddle, returned, carrying a basket of food. She handed it to a young man with a striking resemblance to Degyel before pushing him forward. "This is my son, Yinpar," Degyel said, and then waved to another young man, "and this is my sister-son, Potrul. They will go with you."

"I don't bite," Harry said, grinning at them and ignoring Draco's muttering. "Shall we be going?"

They pointed south-east, into the mountains, an exercise slightly defeated by the fact that there were mountains all around them, and they all looked the same.

"Right," Harry said. He took a deep breath and then started off in the direction they had indicated.

“He thinks that when the spell went wrong, only the wizards were contributing enough power to be swept away by it,” explained Angua. “Magrat and Mrs Ogg were left behind because of their being witches.”

Angua nodded. “Yes, sir. The Librarian also says that the wizards have probably been taken to the same place as the giant. They’ll have to make their own way back."

“Oh.” Vimes thought about it. “They’re wizards. They’ll turn up, they always do. Ah, Carrot.”

“Reporting, sir,” said Carrot, who was on horseback. “The Queen insisted on accompanying me.”

“Commander Vimes.” Magrat was looking and sounding a monarch. “The Librarian has just been attempting to explain things to Mrs Ogg. She’s a little panicky about Gytha. I’m sorry everything didn’t go as well as expected.”

“It went as well as I expected, ma’am,” replied Vimes frankly, and swung himself up on his horse. On his other side, Angua did the same, and the Librarian clambered up behind Carrot. “Thank you very much for your hospitality.”

“It was no trouble at all, commander. Please, give my regards to the Patrician, and have a safe journey.”

“I certainly shall. Thank you again.” With a nod for her and a click of his tongue, Vimes jerked into motion. He wasn’t a natural horseman, unlike Angua, who had a werewolf’s natural seat[1], and Carrot, who had a king’s. Vimes had grown up in the gutter and was more accustomed to the under surface of a horse.

Magrat bid goodbye to Carrot, Angua and the Librarian, and watched them go, riding in triangular formation across the rocky ground, across the icy stream and down towards the flat country. From this vantage point, she could see them getting more and more distant until they were three small moving blurs, raising dust on the spreading expanse of the Sto plains. It would take them three days to reach Ankh-Morpork, riding fast.

High above the twin cities of Ankh and Morpork, young Sam Vimes was sitting at his window. The river was downwind of him, which meant he could enjoy the morning air in some comfort. He let his legs dangle from the windowsill, and stared dreamily into the distance. Beyond the city gates stretched the plains, with its traders and merchants, bandits and highwaymen, raising dust as they rode through the clear air.

Sam sighed and swung his feet from side to side. And something prodded him, hard. He turned indignantly to see a large black bird. It had its head thoughtfully inclined to one side, and it was better-fed than the average city bird, with longer, glossier feathers. Sam wasn’t altogether surprised when it prodded him again and asked, “What’s up with you, then?”

“You’re from the University, aren’t you?” Sam said. “That’s why you can talk.”

“That’s right, kid.” It hopped neatly onto the windowsill to sit beside him. “Genuine talking bird, me. A Tower of Art raven, if you want to be precise. Bloody wizards. Throwing magical waste out all over the place. I hatched from my egg on the Tower of Art, nested there my whole life, and then I wake up one morning and I’m only friggin’ conscious, ain’t I? Suddenly aware of my shallow meaningless existence and my insignificant place in the multiverse. Gets right up your nose, that does. Metaphorically speaking, o’ course. Enough about me.” It prodded him again. “What’s up with you?”

“Come off it, kid.” The raven peered at him. “It’s eight o’clock in the morning and you’re hanging out the bloody window. Why aren’t you out in the Mended Drum, terrorising the elderly, that kind of thing?”

“Well…” Sam looked at the raven curiously. “Do you… do you have a girlfriend?”

“Oh.” Sam stared, and realisation dawned. “You’re a girl, aren’t you?”

“Bloody human way of putting it, but yeah, I am. You, on the other claw, are not. So who’s the lucky girl? Has she gone off and left you?”

“Not in the way you mean,” Sam replied, suddenly conscious of the fact he was discussing his problems with a talking raven. The raven herself seemed to realise what he was thinking.

“Tell me all about it,” she said, still as hoarsely as ever but somehow kindly. “It’s not like I have anything better to do. I’m as useless as a talking bird, as they say.”

“It’s like this.” Sam hesitated, but plunged on. “She’s apprenticed to a wizard at the University.”

“And now she’s gone off on some kind of quest,” said Sam desperately, “because the wizard she’s apprenticed to, yeah, his long-lost father, or something, turned up in the fireplace, and then they went off with a giant somewhere with my dad and the Watch, and Lord Vetinari, he came to tell Mum that my dad’s coming back but Gytha, that’s the girl, she isn’t, ‘cause she got accidentally sent to another world, and I don’t think she’s ever coming back!”

“I mean it,” she continued. “I live at the University, right? You overhear a bit. Wizards never learn to keep their voices down. Well, it’s, like, what makes the Disc go round? Stories. It’s all wossname, narrativium.”

“Sure. Million-to-one chances? Happen nine times out of ten. It’s all got to come out right in the end, don’t it?”

“Look at this way. What’s the wizard called? Ain’t Ridcully, is it? That man shouts too much.”

“His name’s Professor Stibbons. He works with their thinking machine thingy.”

“Oh, you mean Ponder,” said the raven. “Not bad for a human, him. Anyway, yeah… so, out of all the people who could have turned up in the fireplace, it’s his long-lost father? And this happens the same day as a giant turning up in Ankh-Morpork? Million-to-one chances – nine times out of ten. So the girl’s in another world, big deal. She’ll find her way back. Maybe more long-lost relatives will turn up. It’s the story.”

“Not necessarily,” Sam argued. “It only has to happen that way if you’re royalty. The third son of a king, or something.”

“Well, yes.” Sam looked honestly surprised. “I just never think of him that way. My dad’s a copper. And” – something else had just occurred to him – “how do you know who I am?”

The raven preened and fluffed her feathers with a sound like someone riffling through a pack of cards. “Who doesn’t? You’re young Sam, aren’t you?”

Sam, long since resigned to the fact he would be ‘young Sam’ in his dotage, nodded.

“There you go, then. Your girl will come back, don’t you worry.” She prodded him with her beak again. “Be good. And if you can’t be good, sonkies are a penny a packet.”

“T’wasn’t no trouble. Look after yourself, kid.” She took a step towards the edge of the windowsill and then walked straight off it, falling like a stone for a few metres before she spread her wings and soared towards the sky. Sam waved, and then swung his legs back round into the room. As he did so, there came a knock at the door. Lady Sybil’s head appeared round it. “Sam? Oh, you’re up.”

[1] Despite what one might otherwise think, a werewolf's natural seat does not consist of bloody long claws dug into the horse's back, a lot of frothing at the mouth and horsy screams, at least not when the werewolf isn't, err, a wolf.