Disclaimer: Discworld belongs to Terry Pratchett, but as this story is somewhat of a prequel, all of the characters (with the exception of the Queen and Death) are mine, as is the idea of this story.

AN: I would like to note before I start that I intend this to be a serious fic (weird in Discworld-land I know), so humor will probably be at a minimum. Thought I should let you know.


Circle Time by shrinni

Chapter 1

In the mountains that were just becoming known as the Ramtops, on a hill otherwise completely covered in trees and associated bracken, there was a clearing. If a person were to look at it, they would notice nothing special, aside from the odd suddenness by which the clearing appeared the forest. Normally the boundary between forest and grass wasn't so... clear. But that is all a person would notice, because humans spend the majority of their time ignoring their senses. It is the amazing ability of the human mind to turn the extraordinary into something mundane.

Animals though, animals noticed the clearing. You could tell they noticed because no animal went near the clearing. Birds wouldn't fly over its airspace. Only the most desperate animal, like a cornered deer, would attempt to jump across it. So far they had always made it all the way across, but they weren't going to push their luck.

A witch might notice the strangeness about the clearing, if she was particularly powerful and she was paying attention. But even the most awkward of witches would notice the sharp smell of snow that always hung around the clearing, even at the height of summer.

The strange clearing had never been important, because no one had ever gone up this particular hill. The settlements in the Ramtops were still relatively new; people were still claiming land, building castles. They didn't have time to go up this hill and poke around. Hunters didn't even come up there, because the game avoided it.

If no one had ever come up to the clearing, then this story couldn't have happened. A door is exactly the same as a wall... until someone turns the handle.


Also in the Ramtop mountains there were the beginnings of a castle. Just the foundations and perhaps the basements were completed, but castle building is a lengthy business, and the basements were enough to host the king and his family and servants. The rest of the people that lived around the castle did so in small huts or rough houses, depending mostly on how much time they had on their hands.

One house among the cluster, a large one with real thatching instead of the skins many people were still using, was home to the formidable Mistress Ogg (Charity to her friends). She wasn't the oldest person in the village, but she was the leader. The men assumed that this was because she was related too and matriarch over most of the population, but most of the women knew better. Mistress Ogg was head of the village because she was head of the witches.

Maybe a third of the women in the village were witches. Mothers taught their daughters, and if they had no daughters or none of their own were magically inclined they would take in a likely girl from an unknowing family 'to help with the chores, and get her out and meeting people', and teach her witching. The women in non-magical families didn't tell their husbands, because they knew the witches were needed. When your child is burning with fever, and it's beyond your skill to heal, you don't find the cure by setting fire to the doctor.

Mistress Ogg was as powerful a witch as the village had ever seen. She had four daughters, all of whom had grown up to be respectable witches in their own right, and more importantly were married and had many children of their own. Mistress Ogg taught them all.

Given the number of girls she had in her care each day while the menfolk were away hunting and building and plowing and other important manly things, it was surprising that she had also taken in a girl from a non-magical family to teach. But one day Mistress Ogg had shown up at the Weatherwax home and asked Mrs. Weatherwax if her daughter Sadie would like some work. Sadie had moved in with the Oggs immediately.

Sadie wasn't exceptional in any way; her family was persistently as non-magical as a log. Sadie was a decent doctor, but she was only mediocre at the more magical aspects of witching. she wasn't beautiful either. The most anyone could say about her was that she was striking. They probably wouldn't say it, because Sadie had a sharp tongue and enjoyed staring at people with her disconcertingly blue eyes.

Sadie didn't have any friends, she had competitors. She had never bothered to get along, she preferred to get ahead. This perhaps, was the only reason she had any talent with magic at all. She also had a stubborn streak, which many said only Mistress Ogg could match. Sadie had decided she wanted to be a witch and she refused to give up until she learned everything.

People whispered that she had gone up the mountain to speak with the dwarfs and the trolls, but only very quietly. There were some things too ridiculous to even whisper about, no matter how strange and eager that Sadie girl was.

As quiet as the whispers were, Sadie heard them. She didn't care what they thought about her now, because she knew that one day she would be the most powerful witch in King Lancre's land. She had vowed to herself when she began learning witchcraft that one day the whole world would know who she was, that her name would be famous.

Or infamous, it didn't really matter to Sadie.