He looked up.

His shadow twisted on the wall where it had been pinned. It writhed for a moment, trying to dutch at the arrow with insubstantial hands, and then faded.

Verence raised his hand. There seemed to be a shadow there, too, but at least this one looked as if it was the regular kind.

The old pixie hobbled over to him.

'All fine now,' he said.

'You shot my shadow?' said Verence.

'Aye, ye could call it a shade,' said the pixie. 'It's the 'fluence they put on ye. But ye'll be up and aboot in no time.'

'A boot?'

'Aboot the place,' said the pixie evenly. 'All hail, your kingy. I'm Big Aggie's Man. Ye'd call me the prime minister, I'm hazardin'. Will ye no' have a huge dram and a burned bannock while yer waitin'?'

Verence rubbed his face. He did feel better already. The fog was drifting away.

'How can I ever repay you?' he said.

The pixie's eyes gleamed happily.

'Oh, there's a wee bitty thing the carlin' Ogg said you could be givin' us, hardly important at all,' he said.

'Anything,' said Verence.

A couple of pixies came up staggering under a rolled-up parchment, which was unfolded in front of Verence. The old pixie was suddenly holding a quill pen.

'It's called a signature,' he said, as Verence stared at the tiny handwriting. 'An' make sure ye initial all the subclauses and codicils. We of the Nac mac Feegle are a simple folk,' he added, 'but we write verra comp-lic-ated documents.'

Mightily oats blinked at Granny over the top of his praying hands. She saw his gaze slide sideways to the axe, and then back to her.

'You wouldn't reach it in time,' said Granny, without moving. 'Should've got hold of it already if you were goin' to use it. Prayer's all very well. I can see where it can help you get your mind right. But an axe is an axe no matter what you believes.'

Oats relaxed a little. He'd expected a leap for the throat.

'If Hodgesaargh's made any tea, I'm parched,' said Granny. She leaned against the anvil, panting. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his hand move slowly.

'I'll get- I'll ask- I'll-'

'Man with his head screwed on properly, that falconer. A biscuit wouldn't come amiss.'

Oats's hand reached the axe handle.

'Still not quick enough,' said Granny. 'Keep hold of it, though. Axe first, pray later. You look like a priest. What's your god?'

'Er... Om.'

'That a he god or a she god?'

'A he. Yes. A he. Definitely a he.' It was one thing the Church hadn't schismed over, strangely. 'Er... you don't mind, do you?'

'Why should I mind?'

'Well... your colleagues keep telling me the Omnians used to burn witches...'

'They never did,' said Granny.

'I'm afraid I have to admit that the records show-'

'They never burned witches,' said Granny. 'Probably they burned some old ladies who spoke up or couldn't run away. I wouldn't look for witches bein' burned,' she added, shifting position. 'I might look for witches doin' the burning, though. We ain't all nice.'

Oats remembered the Count talking about contributing to the Arca Instrumentorum...

Those books were ancient! But so were vampires, weren't they? And they were practically canonical! The freezing knife of doubt wedged itself deeper in his brain. Who knew who really wrote anything? What could you trust? Where was the holy writ? Where was the truth?

Granny pulled herself to her feet and tottered over to the bench, where Hodgesaargh had left his jar of flame. She examined it carefully.

Oats tightened his grip on the axe. It was, he had to admit, slightly more comforting than prayer at that moment. Perhaps you could start with the small truths. Like: he had an axe in his hand.

'I wa- want to be certain,' he said. 'Are you... are you a vampire?'

Granny Weatherwax appeared not to hear the question.

'Where's Hodgesaargh with that tea?' she said.

The falconer came in with a tray.

'Nice to see you up and about, Mistress Weatherwax.'

'Not before time.'

The tea slopped as she took the proffered cup. Her hand was shaking.

'Hodgesaargh?'

'Yes, mistress?'

'So you've got a firebird here, have you?'

'No, mistress.'

'I saw you out huntin' it.'

'And I found it, miss. But it had been killed.

There was nothing but burnt ground, miss.'

'You'd better tell me all about it.'

'Is this the right time?' said Oats.

'Yes,' said Granny Weatherwax.

Oats sat and listened. Hodgesaargh was an original storyteller and quite good in a very specific way. If he'd had to recount the saga of the Tsortean War, for example, it would have been in terms of the birds observed, every cormorant noted, every pelican listed, every battlefield raven taxonomically placed, no tern unturned. Some men in armour would have been involved at some stage, but only because the ravens were perching on them.

'The phoenix doesn't lay eggs,' said Oats, at one point. This was a point a few points after the point where he asked the falconer if he'd been drinking.

'She's a bird,' said Hodgesaargh. 'That's what birds do. I've never seen a bird that doesn't lay eggs. I collected the eggshell.'

He scuttled off into the mews. Oats smiled nervously at Granny Weatherwax.

'Probably a bit of chicken shell,' he said. 'I've read about the phoenix. It's a mythical creature, a symbol, it-'

'Can't say for sure,' said Granny. 'I've never seen one that close to.'

The falconer returned, clutching a small box. It was full of tufts of fleece, in the middle of which was a pile of shell fragments. Oats picked up a couple. They were a silvery grey and very light.

'I found them in the ashes.'

'No one's ever claimed to have found phoenix eggshell before,' said Oats accusingly.

'Didn't know that, sir,' said Hodgesaargh innocently. 'Otherwise I wouldn't have looked.'

'Did anyone else ever look, I wonder?' said Granny. She poked at the fragments. 'Ah...' she said.

'I thought p'raps the phoenixes used to live somewhere very dangerous-' Hodgesaargh began.

'Everywhere's like that when you're newborn,' said Granny. 'I can see you've been thinking, Hodgesaargh.'

'Thank you, Mistress Weatherwax.'

'Shame you didn't think further,' Granny went on.

'Mistress?'

'There's the bits of more than one egg here.'

'Mistress?'

'Hodgesaargh,' said Granny patiently, 'this phoenix laid more than one egg.'

'What? But it can't! According to mythology-' Oats said.

'Oh, mythology,' said Granny. 'Mythology's just the folktales of people who won 'cos they had bigger swords. They're just the people to spot the finer points of ornithology, are they? Anyway, one of anything ain't going to last for very long, is it? Firebirds have got enemies, same as everything else. Give me a hand up, Mister Oats. How many birds in the mews, Hodgesaargh?'

The falconer looked at his fingers for a moment.

'Fifty.'

'Counted 'em lately?'

They stood and watched while he walked from post to post. Then they stood and watched while he walked back and counted them again. Then he spent some time looking at his fingers.

'Fifty-one?' said Granny helpfully.

'I don't understand it, mistress.'

'You'd better count them by types, then.'

This produced a count of nineteen lappet-faced worriers where there should have been eighteen.

'Perhaps one flew in because it saw the others,' said Oats. 'Like pigeons.'

'It doesn't work like that, sir,' said the falconer.

'One of 'em won't be tethered,' said Granny. 'Trust me.'

They found it at the back, slightly smaller than the other worriers, hanging meekly from its perch.

Fewer birds could sit more meekly than the Lancre wowhawk, or lappet-faced worrier, a carnivore permanently on the lookout for the vegetarian option. It spent most of its time asleep in any case, but when forced to find food it tended to sit on a branch out of the wind somewhere and wait for something to die. When in the mews the worriers would initially perch like other birds and then, talons damped around the pole, doze off peacefully upside down. Hodgesaargh bred them because they were found only in Lancre and he liked the plumage, but all reputable falconers agreed that for hunting purposes the only way you could reliably bring down prey with a wowhawk was by using it in a slingshot.