Tiffany Aching Complete Collection, page 50
Mort
Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.
Sourcery
There was an eighth son of an eighth son. Naturally, he was a wizard. He had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son . . . a wizard squared . . . a source of magic . . . a Sourceror.
Wyrd Sisters
Even Granny Weatherwax finds that meddling in royal politics is a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe.
Pyramids
Teppic inherited the throne of Djelibeybi rather earlier than he expected (his father wasn’t too happy about it either) . . . but that was only the beginning of his problems.
Guards! Guards!
A huge dragon appears in Ankh-Morpork, charbroiling everything in its path, and it’s the valiant (mostly) Captain Sam Vimes and the brave (well, sort of) Night Watch to the rescue!
Eric
A would-be Faust attempts to conjure a powerful demon—and gets Rincewind instead!
Moving Pictures
When the glamour of far-off Holy Wood threatens the stability of a starstruck Discworld, Victor and Gaspode the Wonder Dog must restore order—and they’re definitely not ready for their close-up!
Reaper Man
They say there are only two things you can count on. But that was before Death started pondering the existential.
Witches Abroad
Granny Weatherwax must stop a powerful fairy godmother from forcing Princess Emberella into a fate worse than death: Living happily ever after!
Small Gods
What do you do when your cup runneth over with little intelligence and a lot of faith, and your small but bossy god proclaims you the Chosen One?
Lords and Ladies
A group of not-so-cute elves invades the kingdom of Lancre—giving Granny Weatherwax the delightful task of taking out the Faerie Trash.
Men at Arms
Sam Vimes and the City Watch are up against the Discworld’s first gun. Think guns don’t kill people? This one does.
Soul Music
Sure, there are skeletons in every family’s closet. Just ask Susan Sto Helit, who is about to mind the family store while dear old Grandpa Death takes a holiday.
Feet of Clay
A killer with fiery eyes is stalking Ankh-Morpork, leaving behind lots of corpses and a major headache for City Watch Captain Sam Vimes.
Interesting Times
The Counterweight Continent is in urgent need of a Great Wizard. They get the incapable wizard Rincewind instead. See him run away from war, revolution, and fortune cookies.
Maskerade
Ankh-Morpork’s newest diva (and wannabe witch) must flush out a ghost in the Opera House with the help of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.
Hogfather
When the jolly Hogfather vanishes on the eve of Hogswatchnight, the grim specter of Death acts as an unlikely stand-in, delivering holiday presents to the children of Discworld. HO HO HO.
Jingo
Hostilities break out when rival cities Ankh-Morpork and Al-Khali both stake a claim to the same island. Can Sam Vimes and the City Watch police a war?
The Last Continent
Rincewind turns up on the Last Continent (currently under construction) where the senior wizards from Unseen University are searching for a missing colleague. No worries, mate.
Carpe Jugulum
The vampires of Überwald have come out of the casket, and Granny Weatherwax and the witches must figure out how put them back in!
The Fifth Elephant
Everyone knows the world is flat, and supported on the backs of four elephants. But weren’t there supposed to be five? And why does a missing elephant mean Sam Vimes must play the diplomat?
The Truth
The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret: Starting Ankh-Morpork’s first newspaper is hard work—even after the dwarves involved have figured out how to turn lead into gold.
Thief of Time
Time stops for no man—but it may stop for Discworld unless Susan Sto Helit acts fast!
Night Watch
This morning Sam Vimes thought longingly of the good old days. Tonight he’s in them. . . .
Monstrous Regiment
War has come to Discworld . . . again. And sometimes—in war as in everything else—the best man for the job is a woman.
Discworld for Young Readers
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Winner of the Carnegie Medal
A streetwise alley cat, a pack of talking rats, and a stupid-looking kid with a flute devise the perfect Pied-Piper scam—until they try to con the wrong town at the wrong time, and suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives.
The Wee Free Men
Armed with a frying pan and a copy of Diseases of the Sheep, Tiffany Aching braves the horrors of Fairyland to find her kidnapped baby brother. Her allies? The six-inch high, sword-wielding, sheep-stealing Wee Free Men. Crivens!
Terry Pratchett’s Other Books for Young Readers
Truckers
Hundreds of four-inch-high Nomes have lived under the floorboards of a department store for so long they believe the Store is the whole world—until a group of nomes arrives from the Outside and delivers shocking news: the Store is going to be destroyed!
Diggers
The nomes attempt to settle into a new home in a seemingly abandoned quarry, only to find the humans who created it want to come back. . . .
Wings
Lead by young Masklin, a trio of nomes must cross the Atlantic Ocean, find the space shuttle, and hijack a communications satellite. Success means the survival of the nomes: failure is not an option. Fortunately the nomes don’t know that their quest is impossible!
The Bromeliad Trilogy
The story of the nomes: Truckers, Diggers, and Wings, published together in one volume!
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny Maxwell is playing his favorite computer game when the alien fleet on his screen suddenly announces: We surrender. They’re not supposed to surrender—they’re supposed to die! But then, it’s only a game. Isn’t it?
Johnny and the Dead
The spectral inhabitants of a local cemetery recruit the help of Johnny Maxwell and his friends when their home is threatened by a scheming developer’s plans.
Johnny and the Bomb
Time travel throws Johnny and his friends back to the night in World War II when a stray bomb exploded on a quiet street. With his knowledge of history, can Johnny save the lives of the innocent victims? Should he try?
CREDITS
Cover art and design © 2015
by Jim Tierney
COPYRIGHT
“You Are My Sunshine” by Jimmie Davis
© 1940 by Peer International Corporation
Copyright Renewed. International Copyright Secured.
Used By Permission. All Rights Reserved.
A HAT FULL OF SKY. Copyright © 2004 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pratchett, Terry.
A hat full of sky / by Terry Pratchett.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Tiffany Aching, a young witch-in-training, learns about magic and responsibility as she battles a disembodied monster with the assistance of the six-inch-high Wee Free Men and Mistress Weatherwax, the greatest witch in the world.
ISBN 0-06-058660-5 — ISBN 0-06-058661-3 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 0-06-058662-1 (pbk.)
EPub Edition © May 2015 ISBN 9780061975189
[1. Witches—Fiction. 2. Fairies—Fiction. 3. Monsters—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7. P8865Hat 2004 2003021443
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
First Harper edition, 2005
Visit us on the World Wide Web!
www.harperteen.com
*She had to say that because she was a witch and a teacher, and that’s a terrible combination. They want things to be right. They like things to be correct. If you want to upset a witch, you don’t have to mess around with charms and spells—you just have to put her in a room with a picture that’s hung slightly crooked and watch her squirm.
*First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.
*Knowing the dictionary all the way through does have some uses.
*Tiffany knew what psychology was, but it hadn’t been a pronunciation dictionary.
*One Hundred and One Things a Wizard Can Do
**The Monster Book of Monsters
*The hermit elephant of Howondaland has a very thin hide, except on its head, and young ones will often move into a small mud hut while the owners are out. It is far too shy to harm anyone, but most people quit their huts pretty soon after an elephant moves in. For one thing, it lifts the hut off the ground and carries it away on its back across the veldt, settling it down over any patch of nice grass that it finds. This makes housework very unpredictable. Nevertheless, an entire village of hermit elephants moving across the plains is one of the finest sights on the continent.
*If anyone knew what this meant, they’d know a lot more about the Nac Mac Feegle’s way of traveling.
CONTENTS
Introduction A Feegle Glossary
Chapter 1 The Big Snow
Chapter 2 Miss Treason
Chapter 3 The Secret of Boffo
Chapter 4 Snowflakes
Chapter 5 Miss Treason’s Big Day
Chapter 6 Feet and Sprouts
Chapter 7 On with the Dance
Chapter 8 The Horn of Plenty
Chapter 9 Green Shoots
Chapter 10 Going Home
Chapter 11 Even Turquoise
Chapter 12 The Pike
Chapter 13 The Crown of Ice
Author’s Note
Credits
Copyright
Introduction
A Feegle Glossary,
adjusted for those of a delicate disposition
(A Work in Progress by Miss Perspicacia Tick)
Bigjobs: Human beings.
Big Man: Chief of the clan (usually the husband of the kelda).
Blethers: Rubbish, nonsense.
Boggin’: To be desperate, as in “I’m boggin’ for a cup of tea.”
Bunty: A weak person.
Cack yer kecks: Er, to put it delicately . . . to be very, very frightened. As it were.
Carlin: Old woman.
Cludgie: The privy.
Crivens!: A general exclamation that can mean anything from “My goodness!” to “I’ve just lost my temper and there is going to be trouble.”
Dree your/my/his/her weird: Face the fate that is in store for you/me/him/her.
Een: Eyes.
Eldritch: Weird, strange. Sometimes means oblong, too, for some reason.
Fash: Worry, upset.
Geas: A very important obligation, backed up by tradition and magic. Not a bird.
Gonnagle: The bard of the clan, skilled in musical instruments, poems, stories, and songs.
Hag: A witch of any age.
Hag o’ hags: A very important witch.
Hagging/Haggling: Anything a witch does.
Hiddlins: Secrets.
Kelda: The female head of the clan, and eventually the mother of most of it. Feegle babies are very small, and a kelda will have hundreds in her lifetime.
Lang syne: Long ago.
Last World: The Feegles believe that they are dead. This world is so nice, they argue, that they must have been really good in a past life and then died and ended up here. Appearing to die here means merely going back to the Last World, which they believe is rather dull.
Mudlin: Useless person.
Pished: I am assured that this means “tired.”
Schemie: An unpleasant person.
Scuggan: A really unpleasant person.
Scunner: A generally unpleasant person.
Ships: Woolly things that eat grass and go baa. Easily confused with the other kind.
Spavie: See Mudlin.
Special Sheep Liniment: Probably moonshine whisky, I am very sorry to say. No one knows what it’d do to sheep, but it is said that a drop of it is good for shepherds on a cold winter’s night and for Feegles at any time at all. Do not try to make this at home.
Spog: A leather pouch, worn on the front of his belt, where a Feegle keeps his valuables and uneaten food, interesting insects, useful bits of twig, lucky dirt, and so on. It is not a good idea to fish around in a spog.
Steamie: Found only in the big Feegle mounds in the mountains, where there’s enough water to allow regular bathing; it’s a kind of sauna. Feegles on the Chalk tend to rely on the fact that you can get only so much dirt on you before it starts to fall off of its own accord.
Waily: A general cry of despair.
CHAPTER 1
The Big Snow
When the storm came, it hit the hills like a hammer. No sky should hold as much snow as this, and because no sky could, the snow fell, fell in a wall of white.
There was a small hill of snow where there had been, a few hours ago, a little cluster of thorn trees on an ancient mound. This time last year there had been a few early primroses; now there was just snow.
Part of the snow moved. A piece about the size of an apple rose up, with smoke pouring out around it. A hand no larger than a rabbit’s paw waved the smoke away.
A very small but very angry blue face, with the lump of snow still balanced on top of it, looked out at the sudden white wilderness.
“Ach, crivens!” it grumbled. “Will ye no’ look at this? ’Tis the work o’ the Wintersmith! Noo there’s a scunner that willna tak’ ‘no’ fra’ an answer!”
Other lumps of snow were pushed up. More heads peered out.
“Oh waily, waily, waily!” said one of them. “He’s found the big wee hag again!”
The first head turned toward this head, and said, “Daft Wullie?”
“Yes, Rob?”
“Did I no’ tell ye to lay off that waily business?”
“Aye, Rob, ye did that,” said the head addressed as Daft Wullie.
“So why did ye just do it?”
“Sorry, Rob. It kinda bursted oot.”
“It’s so dispiritin’.”
“Sorry, Rob.”
Rob Anybody sighed. “But I fear ye’re right, Wullie. He’s come for the big wee hag, right enough. Who’s watchin’ over her doon at the farm?”
“Wee Dangerous Spike, Rob.”
Rob looked up at clouds so full of snow that they sagged in the middle.
“Okay,” he said, and sighed again. “It’s time fra’ the Hero.”
He ducked out of sight, the plug of snow dropping neatly back into place, and slid down into the heart of the Feegle mound.
It was quite big inside. A human could just about stand up in the middle, but would then bend double with coughing because the middle was where there was a hole to let smoke out.
All around the inner wall were tiers of galleries, and every one of them was packed with Feegles. Usually the place was awash with noise, but now it was frighteningly quiet.
Rob Anybody walked across the floor to the fire, where his wife, Jeannie, was waiting. She stood straight and proud, like a kelda should, but close up it seemed to him that she had been crying. He put his arm around her.
“All right, ye probably ken what’s happenin’,” he told the blue-and-red audience looking down on him. “This is nae common storm. The Wintersmith has found the big wee hag—noo then, settle doon!”
He waited until the shouting and sword rattling had died down, then went on: “We canna fight the Wintersmith for her! That’s her road! We canna walk it for her! But the hag o’ hags has set us on another path! It’s a dark one, and dangerous!”
A cheer went up. Feegles liked the idea of this, at least.
“Right!” said Rob, satisfied. “Ah’m awa’ tae fetch the Hero!”
There was a lot of laughter at this, and Big Yan, the tallest of the Feegles, shouted, “It’s tae soon. We’ve only had time tae gie him a couple o’ heroing lessons! He’s still nae more than a big streak o’ nothin’!”
“He’ll be a Hero for the big wee hag and that’s an end o’ it,” said Rob sharply. “Noo, off ye go, the whole boilin’ o’ ye! Tae the chalk pit! Dig me a path tae the Underworld!”
It had to be the Wintersmith, Tiffany Aching told herself, standing in front of her father in the freezing farmhouse. She could feel it out there. This wasn’t normal weather even for midwinter, and this was springtime. It was a challenge. Or perhaps it was just a game. It was hard to tell, with the Wintersmith.
Only it can’t be a game because the lambs are dying. I’m only just thirteen, and my father, and a lot of other people older than me, want me to do something. And I can’t. The Wintersmith has found me again. He is here now, and I’m too weak.
It would be easier if they were bullying me, but no, they’re begging. My father’s face is gray with worry and he’s begging. My father is begging me.
Oh no, he’s taking his hat off. He’s taking off his hat to speak to me!
