Hogfather

hand that fed it - this time. Wherever the Hogfather was - dead, alive, somewhere - he wanted to be left alone ... She eyed the Death of Rats. His little eye sockets flared blue in a disconcertingly familiar way. SQUEAK. EEK? 'The rat says, if he wanted to find out about the Hogfather, he'd go to the Castle of 'Oh, that's just a nursery tale,' said Susan. 'That's where the letters are supposed to go that are posted up the chimney. That's just an old story.' She turned. The rat and the raven were staring at her. And she realized that she'd been too normal. SQUEAK? 'The rat says, “What d'you mean, just?”' said the raven. Chickenwire sidled towards Medium Dave in the garden. If you could call it a garden. It was the land round the ... house. If you could call it a house. No one said much about it, but every so often you just had to get out. It didn't feel right, inside. He shivered. 'Where's himself?' he said. 'Oh, up at the top,' said Medium Dave. 'Still trying to open that room.'

'The one with all the locks?'

'Yeah.' Medium Dave was rolling a cigarette. Inside the house ... or tower, or both, or whatever ... you couldn't smoke, not properly. When you smoked inside it tasted horrible and you felt sick. 'What for? We done what we came to do, didn't we? Stood there like a bunch of kids and watched that wet wizard do all his chanting it was all I could do to keep a straight face. What's he after now?'

'He just said if it was locked that bad he wanted to see inside.'

'I thought we were supposed to do what we came for and go!'

'Yeah? You tell him. Want a roll-up?' Chickenwire took the bag of tobacco and relaxed. 'I've seen some bad places in my time, but this takes the serious biscuit.'

'Yeah.'

'It's the cute that wears you down. And there's got to be something else to eat than apples.'

'Yeah.'

'And that damn sky. That damn sky is really getting on my nerves.'

'Yeah.' They kept their eyes averted from that damn sky. For some reason, it made you feel that it was about to fall on you. And it was worse if you let your eyes stray to the gap where a gap shouldn't be. The effect was like getting toothache in your eyeballs. In the distance Banjo was swinging on a swing. Odd, that, Dave thought. Banjo seemed perfectly happy here. 'He found a tree that grows lollipops yesterday,' he said moodily. 'Well, I say yesterday, but how can you tell? And he follows the man around like a dog. No one ever laid a punch on Banjo since our mam died. He's just like a little boy, you know. Inside. Always has been. Looks to me for everything. Used to be, if I told him “punch someone”, he'd do it.'

'And they stayed punched.'

'Yeah. Now he follows him around everywhere. It makes me sick.'

'What are you doing here, then?'

'Ten thousand dollars. And he says there's more, you know. More than we can imagine.' He was always Teatime. 'He ain't just after money.'

-7 'Yeah, well, I didn't sign up for world domination,' said Medium Dave. 'That sort of thing gets you into trouble.'

'I remember your mam saying that sort of thing,' said Chickenwire. Medium Dave rolled his eyes. Everyone remembered Ma Lilywhite. 'Very straight lady, was your ma. Tough but fair.'

'Yeah ... tough.'

'I recall that time she strangled Glossy Ron with his own leg,' Chickenwire went on. 'She had a wicked right arm on her, your mam.'

'Yeah. Wicked.'

'She wouldn't have stood for someone like Teatime.'

'Yeah,' said Medium Dave. 'That was a lovely funeral you boys gave her. Most of the Shades turned up. Very respectful. All them flowers. An' everyone looking so . . .' Chickenwire floundered'... happy. In a sad way, o' course.'

'Yeah.'

'Have you got any idea how to get back home?' Medium Dave shook his head. 'Me neither. Find the place again, I suppose.' Chickenwire shivered. 'I mean, what he did to that carter ... I mean, well, I wouldn't even act like that to me own dad---'

'Yeah.'

'Ordinary mental, yes, I can deal with that. But he can be talking quite normal, and then-'

'Yeah.'

'Maybe the both of us could creep up on him and----'

'Yeah, yeah. And how long'll we live? In seconds! 'We could get lucky --- ' Chickenwire began. 'Yeah? You've seen him. This isn't one of those blokes who threatens you. This is one of those blokes who'd kill you soon as look at you. Easier, too. We got to hang on, right? It's like that saying about riding a tiger.'

'What saying about riding a tiger?' said Chickenwire suspiciously. 'Well . . .' Medium Dave hesitated. 'You ... well, you get branches slapping you in the face, fleas, that sort of thing. So you got to hang on. Think of the money. There's bags of it in there. You saw it.'

'I keep thinking of. that glass eye watching me. I keep thinking it can see right in my head.'

'Don't worry, he doesn't suspect you of anything., 'How d'you know?'

'You're still alive, yeah?' In the Grotto of the Hogfather, a round-eyed child. HAPPY HOGSWATCH. HO. HO. HO. AND YOUR NAME IS ... EUPHRASIA COAT, CORRECT? 'Go on, dear, answer the nice man.' ‘ ‘s.’ AND YOU ARE SIX YEARS OLD. 'Go on, dear. They're all the same at this age, aren't they . . .’ ‘ ‘s.’ AND YOU WANT A PONY '

's.' A small hand pulled the Hogfather's hood down to mouth level. Heavy Uncle Albert heard a ferocious whispering. Then the Hogfather leaned back. YES, I KNOW. WHAT A NAUGHTY PIG IT WAS, INDEED.

His shape flickered for a moment, and then a hand went into the sack. HERE IS A BRIDLE FOR YOUR PONY, AND A SADDLE, AND A RATHER STRANGE HARD HAT AND A PAIR OF THOSE TROUSERS THAT MAKE YOU LOOK AS THOUGH YOU HAVE A LARGE RABBIT IN EACH POCKET. 'But we can't have a pony, can we, Euffie, because we live on the third floor . . OH, YES. IT'S IN THE KITCHEN. 'I'm sure you're making a little joke, Hogfather,' said Mother, sharply. HO. HO. YES. WHAT A JOLLY FAT MAN I AM. IN THE KITCHEN? WHAT A JOKE. DOLLIES AND SO ON WILL BE DELIVERED LATER AS PER YOUR LETTER. 'What do you say, Euffie?' ‘ ' nk you.'

' 'ere, you didn't really put a pony in their kitchen, did you?' said Heavy Uncle Albert as the line moved on. DON'T BE FOOLISH, ALBERT. I SAID THAT TO BE JOLLY. 'Oh, right. Hah, for a minute--' IT'S IN THE BEDROOM. 'Ah . . MORE HYGIENIC. 'Well, it'll make sure of one thing,' said Albert. 'Third floor? They're going to believe all right.' YES. YOU KNOW, I THINK I'M GETTING THE HANG OF THIS. HO. HO. HO. At the Hub of the Discworld, the snow burned blue and green. The Aurora Corealis hung in the sky, curtains of pale cold fire that circled the central mountains and cast their spectral light over the ice. They billowed, swirled and then trailed a ragged arm on the end of which was a tiny dot that became, when the eye of imagination drew nearer, Binky. He trotted to a halt and stood on the air. Susan looked down. And then found what she was looking for. At the end of a valley of snow-mounded trees something gleamed brightly, reflecting the sky. The Castle of Bones. Her parents had sat her down one day when she was about six or seven and explained how such things as the Hogfather did not really exist, how they were pleasant little stories that it was fun to know, how they were not real. And she had believed it. All the fairies and bogeymen, all those stories from the blood and bone of humanity, were not really real. They'd lied. A seven-foot skeleton had turned out to be her grandfather. Not a flesh and blood grandfather, obviously. But a grandfather, you could say, in the bone. Binky touched down and trotted over the snow. Was the Hogfather a god? Why not? thought Susan. There were sacrifices, after all. All that sherry and pork pie. And he made commandments and rewarded the good and he knew what you were doing. If you believed, nice things happened to you. Sometimes you found him 'm a grotto, and sometimes he was up there in the sky ... The Castle of Bones loomed over her now. It certainly deserved the capital letters, up this close. She'd seen a picture of it in one of the children's books. Despite its name, the woodcut artist had endeavoured to make it look ... sort of jolly. It wasn't jolly. The pillars at the entrance were hundreds of feet high. Each of the steps leading up was taller than a man. They were the greygreen of old ice. Ice. Not bone. There were faintly familiar shapes to the pillars, possibly a suggestion of femur or skull, but it was made of ice.

Binky was not challenged by the high stairs. It wasn't that he flew. It was simply that he walked on a ground level of his own devising. Snow had blown over the ice. Susan looked down at the drifts. Death left no tracks, but there were the faint outlines of booted footprints. She'd be prepared to bet they belonged to Albert. And ... yes, half obscured by the snow ... it looked as though a sledge had stood here. Animals had milled around. But the snow was covering everything. She dismounted. This was certainly the place described, but it still wasn't right. It was supposed to be a blaze of light and abuzz with activity, but it looked like a giant mausoleum. A little way beyond the pillars was a very large slab of ice, cracked into pieces. Far above, stars were visible through the hole it had left in the roof. Even as she stared up, a few small lumps of ice thumped into a snowdrift. The raven popped into existence and fluttered wearily on to a stump of ice beside her. 'This place is a morgue,' said Susan. '

's got to be mine, if I do ... any more flyin' tonight,' panted the raven, as the Death of Rats got off its back'I never signed up for all this long-distance, faster'n time stuff. I should be back in a forest somewhere, making excitingly decorated constructions to attract females.'

'That's bower birds,' said Susan. 'Ravens don't do that.'

'Oh, so it's type-casting now, is it?' said the raven. 'I'm missing meals here, you do know that?' It swivelled its independently sprung eyes. 'So where's all the lights?' it said. 'Where's all the noise? Where's all the jolly little buggers in pointy hats and red and green suits, hitting wooden toys unconvincingly yet rhythmically with hammers?'

'This is more like the temple of some old thunder god,' said Susan. SQUEAK. 'No' I read the map right. Anyway, Albert's been here too. There's fag ash all over the place.' The rat jumped down and walked around for a moment, bony snout near the ground. After a few moments of snuffling it gave a squeak and hurried off into the gloom. Susan followed. As her eyes grew more accustomed to the faint blue-green light she made out something rising out of the floor. It was a pyramid of steps, with a big chair on top. Behind her, a pillar groaned and twisted slightly. SQUEAK. 'That rat says this place reminds him of some old mine,' said the raven. 'You know, after it's been deserted and no one's been paying attention to the roof supports and so on? We see a lot of them.' At least these steps were human sized, Susan thought, ignoring the chatter. Snow had come in through another gap in the roof. Albert's footprints had stamped around quite a lot here. 'Maybe the old Hogfather crashed his sleigh,' the raven suggested. SQUEAK? 'Well, it could've happened. Pigs are not notably aerodynamic, are they? And with all this snow, you know, poor visibility, big cloud ahead turns out too late to be a mountain, there's buggers in saffron robes looking down at you, poor devil tries to remember whether you're supposed to shove someone's head between your legs, then WHAM, and it's all over bar some lucky mountaineers making an awful lot of sausages and finding the flight recorder.' SQUEAK! 'Yes, but he's an old man. Probably shouldn't be in the sky at his time of life.' Susan pulled at something half buried in the snow. It was a red-and-white-striped candy cane.

She kicked the snow aside elsewhere and found a wooden toy soldier in the kind of uniform that would only be inconspicuous if you wore it in a nightclub for chameleons on hard drugs. Some further probing found a broken trumpet. There was some more groaning in the darkness. The raven cleared its throat. 'What the rat meant about this place being like a mine,' he said, 'was that abandoned mines tend to creak and groan in the same way, see? No one looking after the pit props. Things fall in. Next thing you know you're a squiggle in the sandstone. We shouldn't hang around is what I'm saying.' Susan walked further in, lost in thought. This was all wrong. The place looked as though - it had been deserted for years, which couldn't be true. The column nearest her creaked and twisted slightly. A fine haze of ice crystals dropped from the roof. Of course, this wasn't exactly a normal place. You couldn't build an ice palace this big. It was a bit like Death's house. If he abandoned it for too long all those things that had been suspended, like time and physics, would roll over it. It would be like a dam bursting. She turned to leave and heard the groan again. It wasn't dissimilar to the tortured sounds being made by the ice, except that ice, afterwards, didn't moan. 'Oh, me . . .' There was a figure lying in a snowdrift. She'd almost missed it because it was wearing a long white robe. It was spreadeagled, as though it had planned to make snow angels and had then decided against it. And it wore a little crown, apparently of vine leaves. And it kept groaning. She looked up. The roof was open here, too. But no one could have fallen that far and survived. No one human, anyway. He looked human and, in theory, quite young. But it was only in theory because, even by the second-hand light of the glowing snow, his face looked like someone had been sick with it. 'Are you all right?' she ventured. The recumbent figure opened its eyes and stared straight up. 'I wish I was dead . . .' it moaned. A piece of ice the size of a house fell down in the far depths of the building and exploded in a shower of sharp little shards. 'You may have come to the right place,' said Susan. She grabbed the boy under his arms and hauled him out of the snow. 'I think leaving would be a very good idea around now, don't you? This place is going to fall apart.'