- a continuing celebration of
-
Fifty Years of Pratchett
© 2023 Duleigh Lawrence-Townshend. All rights reserved. The author asserts the right to be identified as the author of this story for all portions not previously copyrighted by Terry Pratchett. This story or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review or commentary. If you see this story on any website other than Literotica.com, it has been copied without the author's permission.
This is a work of love, a fan fiction. Many of these characters are the creation of Sir Terry Pratchett, as is the multiverse in which they live. If you would like to find out which of these characters is or is not a creation of Terry please contact this author. This tale was not written to steal the fame that Sir Terry rightfully earned, but to enjoy one more romp in the shadow of Cori Celesti and remind the world of what we lost on March 12, 2015.
"One day I'll be dead and THEN you'll all be sorry."
-
Terry Pratchett, 28 Nov 1992 on alt.fan.pratchett
______________________________________________
ENCHANTRESS
The Warrior Duchess
{
With parenthetical annotations
}
Prologue
:
In our Previous Story
a young man named Pommeraie de la Montesquieu "Nick" Stein
{
He was named after a type of cheese. His nick name Nick comes from his previous job where he was hired to steal bricks
}
was hired by Octavia Worblehat to assist her in her next big project. Octavia is a trained Senior Master Librarian and fully qualified wizard and earned a doctorate in Multi-theistic Amphibology before returning to her home 16 years in her past where she occasionally bumps into her 8 year old self. She returned home and hired Nick to help her save the Discworld and eight other discworlds from entire annihilation.
Along the way, Nick loses an eye, but gains enough magical energy to become a witch, and they settle down in a small mountain town to live out their days in peace and quiet. However, the couple has the discworld in a turmoil, on the discworld
women
are witches,
men
are wizards and no one accepts them in their reversed roles except the people that know them.
However, Octavia is not a wizard, she's an enchantress, and it's not the same thing. This distinction is something the discworld is about to discover.
<><><><><>֎<><><><><>
She approaches, the Queen of the Interstellar Pathways, watch in awe as she swims into view, Great A'Tuin, the grandest of the giant Star Turtles (
Chelys galactica
), enormous and magnificent. She swims through the multiverse following migratory paths that were written into her genome by the greatest prankster of all, The Creator. Free of the drag of her children she is hungry and now she is hunting. Her eyes, each the size of a sea, look forward to a destination known only to her. She possesses a brain the size of a small planet that moves at a speed that makes glaciers look downright spry. Her immense flippers propel her through the nothingness that is open space with massive strokes that take generations to complete. Her carapace is frosted with frozen methane, scarred with meteor craters, and coated with the intergalactic dust of eons of travel.
On her back stand four tremendous elephants, Berilia, Tubul, Great T'Phon, and Jerakeen, the World Elephants (
Elephantidae Kosmosea
). Tail to tail they stand patiently watching the stars drift by as they bear the weight of the world on their shoulders. As we watch, Berilia must raise one of her feet to give the tiny sun that orbits the disc room to pass beneath him.
Ten thousand miles in diameter the discworld is the marvel of the multiverse, around the circumference of the disk is the eternal waterfall that is the Rimfall. At the center of the discworld is the hub, a mountain that stands ten miles in height, the name of the peak is Cori Celesti, which at the top is the palace complex named Dunmanifestin, the home of the Disc's many gods. Most of them are completely mad. {
the rest are utterly mad
}
On the disc, the hard working honest citizens of the different principalities, kingdoms, fiefdoms, countries, and empires sleep hoping that their place of employment still requires their labor in the morning. It's late, the tiny moon rules the sky and the night shift now rules the disc. In the desert kingdom of Djelibeybi the followers of the sun god Cephnet surround the temple of the competing sun god Thrrp and crouch, waiting, and sharpening their knives. Come sunrise the true sun god will be crowned. Meanwhile the followers of Thrrp won't be there to defend their temple as they're too busy preparing their attack on the temple of Cephnet. {
In the Djelibeybi pantheon the supreme god
Ptooie
makes banged grains
{
discworld popcorn
}
for his guests, the gods
Net, Set, Sot
, and
Orexis-Nupt
. The show starts at sunrise
}
In Ankh-Morpork the oldest city on the discworld the night shift is in full swing, murderers, thieves, assassins, rapists, muggers, buggerers and night soil salesmen are out in force working hard to fill their quotas. As they labor, in the former Palace of the Seventeen Kings, now known as The Patrician's Palace, the ruler of the city, the Patrician Havelock Vetinari was puzzling over a dilemma. A young, good-looking couple, both Ankh-Morpork born and raised, just saved the world,
just saved nine worlds
so Political Hay must be made. The problem was that they now reportedly live in the Kingdom of Lancre and have disappeared from sight, so now the question arises, how does Ankh-Morpork profit from all of their hard work and sacrifice? He took quill in hand and scratched out a few ideas, signed a few execution orders and filled out a request for the assassin's guild, then called for his secretary...
In the tiny mountain kingdom of Lancre there rests the small village of Bad Ass {
named for a stubborn mule
} and in a small steading outside of the village, in the ancient cabin lies the body of Esmirelda Weatherwax. She's not dead, in fact in her cold hands is clutched a handwritten sign that says "I ATE'NT DEAD"
She truly was not dead, she was borrowing. Borrowing is a magical technique used almost exclusively by witches {
because most wizards think it's lame and refuse to try
} where a witch leaves her body behind in a deep, deep sleep and enters the mind of an animal and tonight Granny was in an owl. Borrowing is the art of convincing an animal to allow your conscience into its mind, and then gently steering it, convincing it to go where you want, and do what you want without losing connection to your own mind when the exercise is over.
<><><><><>֎<><><><><>
In the tiny Lancre mountain village of Creel Springs, Nick Stein dreamed that he awoke hungry and thirsty, and he found himself back on a tiny island where there was nothing to eat or drink, the only thing on the island with him was Death. And Death was reclining in a wood and canvas beach lounger wearing black shrouds and sandals and was reading the Sunday Times. "
THREE TIMES LUCKY, I AM IMPRESSED
," said the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death.
Nick shuddered thinking of his recent near brushes with death, he was stomped bloody by a flock of stampeding sheep, then he was almost eaten by a dingaroo, then most recently he was almost swallowed by a planet eating beast. Only his ability to change forms through the magic of
Vanemate Rasside Jõud,
an ancient book of power saved his life. "I'm not a wizard, why am I seeing you?" gasped Nick as he spit sand out of his mouth and tried to drag his aching body toward the water line to maybe rinse the sand out with salt water. He didn't need to do that, because as the sun rose, the island was disappearing under the rising tide, the water line would soon come to him.
Without looking up from his paper, Death said, "
