Enchantress 3 - The Last Elf

"No, the other soldiers," insisted Jia. "The ones we found on the road, the one the bird caught."

The King and Queen looked questioningly at Nick. A soldier on the road does not bode well for Lancre. Guards and watchmen were modeled on Ankh-Morpork's Night Watch and wear a chest plate and helmet but carry no arms other than a truncheon. "Did he confuse a watchman with a soldier?"

"Your majesty, these were armed soldiers, mercenaries I believe," answered Nick.

"We were warned that they were lying in wait for the duke, so we disguised ourselves and rode past them, then Nick went back and scattered them," said Octavia.

"I convinced two of them to come here with us and explain what they were doing laying on the side of a mountain road with full armor, swords and shields," added Nick.

"It's so cute how they finish each other's sentences," sighed Queen Magrat. "But armed soldiers inside our borders raise questions..."

"I'm sure Mister Morose will provide some answers for us," said King Verance, finishing his queen's sentence. King Verance tries to be a kind, caring king, unfortunately certain situations require a more "old school" form of governance, which is why Mister Morose exists. The words "I don't know" and "I don't remember" don't exist when Mister Morose starts to reveal his instruments. He's willing to cut the truth out of the prisoner and hold it up for the prisoner to look at and has done so on many occasions.

Octavia wanted to tear that information out of their heads all the way to the castle. However, she allowed Virga to "soften them up" filling their heads with the desire to tell the truth when asked by the kingdom's questioner.

They decided that Ning and Jia were to remain at the castle and become acquainted with the life of royals outside of the Agatean Palace. Jia was enrolled in classes with Exavier and if he did a good job in class, he could come down to Wægn Manor and play with Gaspode. As Nick and Octavia walked out to the carriage house to get Octavia's Ralli cart, Ning followed at Nick's request. "Ning honey," said Octavia, "We need a prime minister."

"What is that?" she asked.

"In other governments, they're like the assistant king. They fill in for the king when the king is otherwise engaged," said Nick. "A Prime Minister is allowed by the constitution and with our case having to come back and forth between kingdoms, a prime minister would come in handy."

"Almost all countries do it," said Octavia, "the Shì Pha dynasty didn't use it, but your family, the Hau Chung's did."

Ning smiled and said, "I will draw up a list of potential candidates for you."

"Put your name on the top of the list," said Nick. "No one else knows the seat of power like you and Lung Mist do," and saying that, he suddenly became a horse to pull the cart home.

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Creel Springs, Lancre

The sign on the door of the Nick and Octavia's bookstore said, "Thee Wytch is IN" and even though it was a dark and stormy day, Nick was on an appointment at the Taggart farm. Grandma Taggart was close to passing on, and she wanted a witch there to comfort her and her family. Octavia sat in the bookstore studying a translated copy of the Agatean constitution. She was looking for the legality of turning the throne over to Jia as soon as he could run the country.

The clouds got darker, and it was getting harder to read, and Octavia sighed. She was going to have to get out the crystal lantern. The crystal lantern contains two magically charged crystals and you turn a knob to bring them closer to each other. The magical fields interact with each other and produce light. The closer the crystals, the brighter the light, however it was a jittery purple light, and it also creates a ringing sound that causes headaches and homicidal tendencies, but it's safe for the books.

Just as she reached for the lantern, the surrounding area got brighter and it was easier to read. Soon an autumn storm broke outside and it got even darker, but the little pool of light that Octavia was sitting in got brighter. Turning her head, Octavia realized that the source of the light was sitting on her shoulder. "Studying Agatean politics?" said a tiny voice in her right ear.

"This is a pretty poor translation," said a voice in her left ear.

Octavia twisted her neck around and saw that she had a fairy sitting on each shoulder. "Who are you two, and what are you doing here?"

"I'm Starbell," said the fairy on her left shoulder.

"I'm Moonpuff," said the fairy on her right shoulder. "The duke hired us to light up the bookstore."

"Did the duke name you also?" asked Octavia.

"Uh huh!"

"He's so dreamy..."

"I know," said Octavia more sternly than needed. "I married him."

"Duchess? The baby!" cried four tiny voices and suddenly Octavia had four fairies fluttering around her stomach, chattering to the baby in her womb.

"Stop!" cried Octavia, "you're scaring him! I can feel him shaking in me."

"He is laughing!" cried Starbell.

"He thinks we're funny," said Sundrop, the brunette male.

"Let him rest," Octavia insisted. The fairies stopped chattering and started singing and soon the baby had calmed down inside of Octavia who sighed, "thank you."

"Why are you reading this?" asked Starbell as she examined the document.

"I'm trying to find a way to appoint a prime minister."

"It's not in this version of their constitution, this is from the Shì Pha dynasty... they didn't like Prime Ministers. They used evil Grand Viziers."

"Evil, evil, evil!" agreed Moonpuff

"Damnit," Octavia muttered under her breath.

"Besides, they did not ratify this constitution. That's what the top line says in Agatean."

"How do you fairies know how to read Agatean?"

"Because you need us to."

Octavia jumped up and turned the sign around on the door to read "No Wytches Here." She rolled up the document and said, "I'll be back shortly. Tell Nick to wait for me." She dashed into the library stacks to talk to Lung Mist.

"Should have told her about Nick's book," said Moonpuff, who now had neon green hair. "He needs his book."

It looked like the first snows of winter were getting ready to sputter, but the dark clouds didn't release anything but a few moments of icy rain. Trei Metzgar finished erecting the shed over the forge and anvil before the winter weather set in. As he worked, he saw a large white owl land on the bookstore roof, then sat there for a while. It looked like it was having an internal argument. It was twitching and twisting, then reluctantly it spread its wings and glided to the ground where it returned to twitching and twisting then suddenly it became Nick who fell over on his back.

"Yer grace!" shouted Trei as he ran to help a sprawled Nick get up. "Are you ok, your grace?"

"This power I got from the elves," said Nick as he gasped for breath when he stood up. "Lately I can get into an animal, but getting out has been difficult. The last smooth transition was the rok I did a few days ago."

"If you don't mind my saying, your grace, but this is the animal we need you to be."

"I may end up buying a proper horse," frowned Nick. Another expense they hadn't counted on. Those sheets that Octavia got were a godsend, but a horse is going to eat up any savings they got from that windfall and more. Nick noticed that Octavia was waving at him from inside the bookstore so he thanked Trei and went in to talk to her about this magical issue. Maybe she could fix it.

"Look what I found!" Octavia was excited and out of breath as she started to unroll a large handwritten document. "The real constitution in Morporkian! Remember, we couldn't find provisions for a Prime Minister or letting advisors live for more than a year? That's because it was the wrong constitution."

"What do you mean wrong constitution?"

"We were looking at the constitution drawn up by the Shì Pha dynasty. They did not ratify it. They used it illegally for over ninety years."

"So, this is the original?" asked Nick.

"Drawn up at the dawn of the Hau Chung dynasty," said Octavia, nodding brightly.

"That is incredible!" said Nick. "You truly are a super librarian."

"Your little friends pointed that out. They know a lot about the Agatean empire. By the way, how did," her voice softened respectfully, "how did Grandma Taggart fare?"

Nick sighed and said, "She was in a lot of pain. She was sure it was the end. The family was getting ready to bicker, then I checked her abdomen and said the magic words, 'When was your last bowel movement?' and she said two or three weeks ago. I loaded her up with a potion Nanny Ogg gave me and one tremendous bowel movement later, she's good for a few more family gatherings."

After a lot of laughter and kisses, they decided to pack up the fairies and study the document in their cottage and make plans. The fairies have a little traveling cottage all of their own {a small box with a couple of windows cut in the sides} so they packed up the fairies and documents then stepped outside and stepped between the traces of Octavia's Ralli cart and without a second thought transformed into a Ramtops walking pony and Octavia quickly buckled him in.

Soon Nick was trotting to the cottage, barely noticing Octavia's tugs on the reins. They were halfway to the cottage when Nick realized that, out of habit, he had changed into a horse. "Oh no," he gasped, and his thoughts rang in Octavia's mind.

"What's the matter, honey?"

"It's wrong, something is wrong!" Nick trotted up to the cottage and went past the porch, ignoring Octavia's tug on the reins. They stopped at the shed out back and Octavia heard Nick's voice in her head saying, "I can't do it, I can't get out."

"Nick, baby, what's wrong?" Octavia stroked the horse's withers as it started to twitch and kick a little, but Nick was starting to panic. He spent months trapped in an eagle's body and eventually decided to starve to death to escape that nightmare, and now it's happening all over again. Octavia hurried to unfasten the belts and soon the horse was free from the cart, but Nick's voice kept saying, "I can't do it!" Octavia tried to reach out to Nick with her magic, but his magic was so different, so ancient, it would take her weeks to understand how it worked.

The horse got more hysterical and began kicking and its last kick hit her Ralli cart. "Hey! That's my cart!" shouted Octavia, and she gave the horse a hard swat on the rump and suddenly it was gone, and Nick was laying in the straw panting and shaking.

"Nick needs his book," a tiny voice said from the box.

"I'm sorry," said Nick, shuddering in the straw. "I forgot, I was thinking of that constitution, and I wanted to get you home." Octavia helped him to his feet, and he told her how after the dragon bowed to Jia it was getting a little harder each time to get out of the animal's body.

"Papa needs his book," said a fairy in the box. "He needs it in his castle."

"What castle? And what book?"

"Axemir, Gaspode and I found a complex that we think was built by the Mountain Ergonian Elves. They wrote the book about their power, the Vanemate Rasside Jõud." He lifted the box and looked in on the fairies. "Are you saying that I should move the book to the castle?" The fairies all nodded in unison. "And that will fix me?" this time the fairies nodded, but not as enthusiastically. "How do you know this?"

"You got the magic from the book; you get the magic fixed from the book." Sometimes fairies know things.

"That castle sent me to the Agatean throne room," said Gaspode from the porch.

Octavia looked at him oddly, then at Nick, who said, "As soon as I opened the castle I felt your call and saw the throne room. I could see you and how scared you were and as I walked into the castle, I decided to show them a dragon."

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" asked Octavia.

"We've been busy with real people, real problems. That old thing isn't going anywhere." They entered the cottage and Nick sat at the table and Octavia gave him a hot bowl of stew, then sat down next to him with a bowl of her own. "How come the stew that you make with magic tastes better than the stew I worry over for five hours?"

Octavia just smiled and said, "because I made it."

Nick looked around, then placed his hand over hers and said, "When was the last time it was just you and me?" It was true, they always had someone there with them, one of their reformed crooks like Alfie or Carl, or the dwarven love birds, Axemir and Eryri. There was always somebody there.

"It's kind of nice, just the three of us here for dinner," said Gaspode, looking up from his bowl.

"ESSS!" agreed the house gargoyle Gula from her position on the chimney as the house fairies fluttered around her.

"Where is the book?" asked Octavia.

"It's in Brazeneck College. I figure I'll just L-Space over there and check it out."

"Ummm... there's a problem with that..." said Octavia, blushing with embarrassment.

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Slice, Lancre

Slice is more of a concept rather than a village; it lies within the borders of Lancre in a deep forested cleft in the mountains far out of the reach of inquiring minds. Slice contains the exact location between the original Rock and the first Hard Place, and the Place Where the Sun Does Not Shine is there in Slice. It also contains The Dancers. These are eight stones arranged in a circle, each stone being approximately man's height and none being any bigger around than a fat man. Each stone is made of Thunder Iron and all look like they were melted into what they look like now. It is said that they created a gateway that the Elves used to leave the discworld.

In the center of the circle crackled a small fire and around it, several women gathered. All were wearing black, with black shawls and black wide brimmed pointed hats. Each carried a broom as a conveyance and a symbol of office. "What are we going to do about him?" cackled one witch.

"Do? What is there to do?" cackled another. "We're not a guild, we don't charge dues, he's done nothing wrong."

"He's a HE and HE claims to be a witch!" screeched the eldest.

"That magic he practices!" cried a young witch. "He turns into other creatures. He doesn't borrow like a proper witch, mind you, but he changes shape!"

"He's got a DOG for a familiar!" shrieked a witch who was disgusted with the idea.

"His broom has no bristles, and he SHARES it with a WIZARD!" screamed an old hag whose broom had few bristles itself.

"As if the broom's not bad enough 'e shares 'is BED WITH A WIZARD!" squawked a witch and with a "Whoomp!" the flames in the fire leaped up ten feet in the air at her words, brightening the faces of everyone there.

"Cleena, honey, could you stand back from the fire when you're pontificating with a cup of your 'special' tea?"

"I'll tell you what we're going to do about him!" boomed one of the younger witches. "We're going to support him. We're going to help him just like any other witch."

"Matilda Potts, have you lost your senses?" asked Agnes Dempsey, the oldest witch at the gathering.

"The second child he ever birthed was a pair of twins and one was stillborn, and he brought it back to living!" shouted Matilda. "And none of us has yet to thank him for that child!" Witches believe that all children in Lancre are their responsibility and saving one like that is the greatest gift a witch can give to their sisterhood.

"Where was he when Mortimer Pick fell down and broke his ankle?" demanded a witch in the shadows.

"Mortimer Pick lives here in Slice. Where were you, sister?" continued Matilda. "That male witch paid the taxes of every family in Tallywiffle county out of his own pocket so everyone could have some money for Hogswatch this year."

The circle was silent for a long time, then a small voice spoke up. "He handed Granny McAlister's girl a gemstone when she had her first child, a naggate. Pure green it was, as green as her baby's eyes," said Sabia Gulch.

"He kept those dwarves from gutting Bear Mountain," said Derdrui Wintersmith.

"He teaches readin' and writin' at his bookstore, a penny a lesson I hear," said a Agrona Knith.

"He invented Messenger Candles for his expectin' wimmin," said Neas Forelock, a senior witch. "If she needs him, she lights the candle. The other end of that candle is in Nana Partridge's cottage and it lights up, letting him know he's needed, and he heads out."

"When needed, he doesn't lollygag along," said Agnes Dempsey, who was demanding his head moments ago, "he changes to a racehorse, or a falcon and he's there in moments."

"Most important, he makes her happy," said Matilda Potts softly. "The last time her rage was up, she launched fire balls from the top o' Bear mountain and hit Pseudopolis she did. They say she hit the throne room in Hunghung in the Agatean Empire, fired from right over there. What's gonna happen the next time her rage is up? Only he calms her, only he can save us. We need to give him our support."

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Brazeneck College, Pseudopolis

Nick led the way through L-Space to Brazeneck College. In his hand was Virga who was lighting the path ahead of them, and behind him, clutching his hand, was Octavia. They entered the bookstore connection to L-Space at 6:30 PM and when they got to the last turn to enter Brazeneck College it was 2:00 AM. It's not a long journey, maybe fifteen minutes at the most, but the trip via the time and space warping power of the collected knowledge, known as L-Space, took an interesting turn that evening, they traveled through space and time. And when they got to the Brazeneck College library, Nick found the passage blocked. A large bookcase was turned sideways in the aisle, and it appeared to be cemented in place.

"Can you... unglue this bookcase?" whispered Nick.

"I don't think so, I was pretty angry when I did that."

"YOU did that?"

Octavia nodded sadly, indicating that she did. When she found out a student of Brazeneck college captured Nick and sold him to the Agatean emperor, Octavia turned the bookcase sideways, then cemented it in position, so Brazeneck College could no longer access L-Space. The impressive part is that she did it from a mountain top well over one hundred miles away. They looked up and saw a very inferior repair to the ceiling directly above this bookcase. "I didn't do that patch though," she said. Octavia held Virga up and pointed it at the base of the bookcase and a ray of light shot out from Virga's eyeball. The cement churned and moved a little but did nothing else.

"Anything?" asked Nick, hoping the shelf would turn.

"Nothing," said Octavia sadly.

"We had the power of an entire mountain assisting us when we sealed this passage," Virga reminded Octavia.

"Well, can I shoot a hole through the bookcase without getting caught?" He aimed Virga at the bookcase and looked hopefully at his wife. Octavia gave him a withering look, so Nick said, "I'll just do it the hard way," and he began climbing up the shelves of books like a ladder. The top of the bookcase was a good four feet from the ceiling, so he slid across the top, climbed down the other side, and entered the Brazeneck College Library.

All was dark and silent in the library, but many of the books recognized him and started to applaud a welcome in thanks for all the work he did here a year ago. "Thanks guys but shhhh!" and he went looking for Vanemate Rasside Jõud, the Power of the Elder Races, with Virga lighting the way.