Hogfather (10 page)

“Y’know, that could’ve been done with a bit more ceremony,” said the raven, who’d perched on a snow-encrusted twig.

“Shut up.”

“’s good, though. Better than most women could do.”

“Shut up.”

They waited.

“Why have you stolen that piece of red paper from a little girl’s present?” said Susan.

“I’ve got plans,” said the raven darkly.

They waited again.

She wondered what would happen if it didn’t work. She wondered if the rat would snigger. It had the most annoying snigger in the world.

Then there were hoofbeats and the floating snow burst open and the horse was there.

Binky trotted round in a circle, and then stood and steamed.

He wasn’t saddled. Death’s horse didn’t let you fall.

If I get on, Susan thought, it’ll all start again. I’ll be out of the light and into the world beyond this one. I’ll fall off the tightrope.

But a voice inside her said, You want to, though…don’t you…?

Ten seconds later there was only the snow.

The raven turned to the Death of Rats.

“Any idea where I can get some string?”

SQUEAK.

She was watched.

One said, Who is she?

One said, Do we remember that Death adopted a daughter? The young woman is her daughter.

One said, She is human?

One said, Mostly.

One said, Can she be killed?

One said, Oh, yes.

One said, Well, that’s all right, then.

One said, Er…we don’t think we’re going to get into trouble over this, do we? All this is not exactly…authorized. We don’t want questions asked.

One said, We have a duty to rid the universe of sloppy thinking.

One said, Everyone will be grateful when they find out.

Binky touched down lightly on Death’s lawn.

Susan didn’t bother with the front door but went around the back, which was never locked.

There had been changes. One significant change, at least.

There was a cat-flap in the door.

She stared at it.

After a second or two a ginger cat came through the flap, gave her an I’m-not-hungry-and-you’re-not-interesting look and padded off into the gardens.

Susan pushed open the door into the kitchen.

Cats of every size and color covered every surface. Hundreds of eyes swiveled to watch her.

It was Mrs. Gammage all over again, she thought. The old woman was a regular in Biers for the company and was quite gaga, and one of the symptoms of those going completely yo-yo was that they broke out in chronic cats. Usually cats who’d mastered every detail of feline existence except the whereabouts of the dirt box.

Several of them had their noses in a bowl of cream.

Susan had never been able to see the attraction in cats. They were owned by the kind of people who liked puddings. There were actual people in the world whose idea of heaven would be a chocolate cat.

“Push off, the lot of you,” she said. “I’ve never known him to have pets.”

The cats gave her a look to indicate that they were intending to go somewhere else in any case and strolled off, licking their chops.

The bowl slowly filled up again.

They were obviously living cats. Only life had color here. Everything else was created by Death. Color, along with plumbing and music, were arts that escaped the grasp of his genius.

She left them in the kitchen and wandered along to the study.

There were changes here, too. By the look of it, he’d been trying to learn to play the violin again. He’d never been able to understand why he couldn’t play music.

The desk was a mess. Books lay open, piled on one another. They were the ones Susan had never learned to read. Some of the characters hovered above the pages or moved in complicated little patterns as they read you while you read them.

Intricate devices had been scattered across the top. They looked vaguely navigational, but on what oceans and under which stars?

Several pages of parchment had been filled up with Death’s own handwriting. It was immediately recognizable. No one else Susan had ever met had handwriting with serifs.

It looked as though he’d been trying to work something out.

NOT KLATCH. NOT HOWONDALAND. NOT THE EMPIRE.

LET US SAY 20 MILLION CHILDREN AT 2 LB OF TOYS PER CHILD.
EQUALS 17,857 TONS. 1,785 TONS PER HOUR.

MEMO: DON’T FORGET THE SOOTY FOOTPRINTS. MORE

PRACTICE ON THE HO HO HO.

CUSHION.

She put the paper back carefully.

Sooner or later it’d get to you. Death was fascinated by humans, and study was never a one-way thing. A man might spend his life peering at the private life of elementary particles and then find he either knew who he was or where he was, but not both. Death had picked up…humanity. Not the real thing, but something that might pass for it until you examined it closely.

The house even imitated human houses. Death had created a bedroom for himself, despite the fact that he never slept. If he really picked things up from humans, had he tried insanity? It was very popular, after all.

Perhaps, after all these millennia, he wanted to be nice.

She let herself into the Room of Lifetimers. She’d liked the sound of it, when she was a little girl. But now the hiss of sand from millions of hourglasses, and the little
pings
and
pops
as full ones vanished and new empty ones appeared, was not so enjoyable.
Now
she knew what was going on. Of course, everyone died sooner or later. It just wasn’t right to be listening to it happening.

She was about to leave when she noticed the open door in a place where she had never seen a door before.

It was disguised. A whole section of shelving, complete with its whispering glasses, had swung out.

Susan pushed it back and forth with a finger. When it was shut, you’d have to look hard to see the crack.

There was a much smaller room on the other side. It was merely the size of, say, a cathedral. And it was lined floor to ceiling with more hourglasses that Susan could just see dimly in the light from the big room. She stepped inside and snapped her fingers.

“Light,” she commanded. A couple of candles sprang into life.

The hourglasses were…wrong.

The ones in the main room, however metaphorical they might be, were solid-looking things of wood and brass and glass. But
these
looked as though they were made of highlights and shadows with no real substance at all.

She peered at a large one.

The name in it was: OFFLER.

“The crocodile god?” she thought.

Well, gods had a life, presumably. But they never actually died, as far as she knew. They just dwindled away to a voice on the wind and a footnote in some textbook on religion.

There were other gods lined up. She recognized a few of them.

But there were smaller lifetimers on the shelf. When she saw the labels she nearly burst out laughing.

“The Tooth Fairy? The Sandman? John Barleycorn? The Soul Cake Duck? The God of—
what
?”

She stepped back, and something crunched under her feet.

There were shards of glass on the floor. She reached down and picked up the biggest. Only a few letters remained of the name etched into the glass—

HOGFA…

“Oh,
no
…it’s
true
. Granddad, what have you
done
?”

When she left, the candles winked out. Darkness sprang back.

And in the darkness, among the spilled sand, a faint sizzle and a tiny spark of light…

Mustrum Ridcully adjusted the towel around his waist.

“How’re we doing, Mr. Modo?”

The University gardener saluted.

“The tanks are full, Mr. Archchancellor, sir!” he said brightly. “And I’ve been stoking the hot water boilers all day!”

The other senior wizards clustered in the doorway.

“Really, Mustrum, I really think this is
most
unwise,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “It was surely sealed up for a purpose.”

“Remember what it said on the door,” said the Dean.

“Oh, they just wrote that on it to keep people out,” said Ridcully, opening a fresh bar of soap.

“Well, yes,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “That’s right. That’s what people do.”

“It’s a
bathroom
,” said Ridcully. “You are all acting as if it’s some kind of a torture chamber.”

“A bathroom,” said the Dean, “designed by Bloody Stupid Johnson. Archchancellor Weatherwax only used it once and then had it sealed up! Mustrum, I beg you to reconsider! It’s a
Johnson
!”

There was something of a pause, because even Ridcully had to adjust his mind around this.

The late (or at least severely delayed) Bergholt Stuttley Johnson was generally recognized as the worst inventor in the world, yet in a very specialized sense. Merely
bad
inventors made things that failed to operate. He wasn’t among these small fry. Any fool could make something that did absolutely nothing when you pressed the button. He scorned such fumble-fingered amateurs. Everything he built worked. It just didn’t do what it said on the box. If you wanted a small ground-to-air missile, you asked Johnson to design an ornamental fountain. It amounted to pretty much the same thing. But this never discouraged him, or the morbid curiosity of his clients. Music, landscape gardening, architecture—there was no start to his talents.

Nevertheless, it was a little bit surprising to find that Bloody Stupid had turned to bathroom design. But, as Ridcully said, it was known that he had designed and built several large musical organs and, when you got right down to it, it was all just plumbing, wasn’t it?

The other wizards, who’d been there longer than the Archchancellor, took the view that if Bloody Stupid Johnson had built a fully functional bathroom he’d actually meant it to be something else.

“Y’know, I’ve always felt that Mr. Johnson was a much maligned man,” said Ridcully, eventually.

“Well, yes, of
course
he was,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, clearly exasperated. “That’s like saying that jam attracts wasps, you see.”

“Not everything he made worked badly,” said Ridcully stoutly, flourishing his scrubbing brush. “Look at that thing they use down in the kitchens for peelin’ the potatoes, for example.”

“Ah, you mean the thing with the brass plate on it saying ‘Improved Manicure Device,’ Archchancellor?”

“Listen, it’s just water,” snapped Ridcully. “Even Johnson couldn’t do much harm with water. Modo, open the sluices!”

The rest of the wizards backed away as the gardener turned a couple of ornate brass wheels.

“I’m fed up with groping around for the soap like you fellows!” shouted the Archchancellor, as water gushed through hidden channels. “Hygiene. That’s the ticket!”

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” said the Dean, shutting the door.

“Er, I still haven’t worked out where all the pipes lead, sir,” Modo ventured.

“We’ll find out, never you fear,” said Ridcully happily. He removed his hat and put on a shower cap of his own design. In deference to his profession, it was pointy. He picked up a yellow rubber duck.

“Man the pumps, Mr. Modo. Or dwarf them, of course, in your case.”

“Yes, Archchancellor.”

Modo hauled on a lever. The pipes started a hammering noise and steam leaked out of a few joints.

Ridcully took a last look around the bathroom.

It was a hidden treasure, no doubt about it. Say what you like, old Johnson must sometimes have got it right, even if it was only by accident. The entire room, including the floor and ceiling, had been tiled in white, blue and green. In the center, under its crown of pipes, was Johnson’s Patent “Typhoon” Superior Indoor Ablutorium with Automatic Soap Dish, a sanitary poem in mahogany, rosewood and copper.

He’d got Modo to polish every pipe and brass tap until they gleamed. It had taken ages.

Ridcully shut the frosted door behind him.

The inventor of the ablutionary marvel had decided to make a mere shower a fully controllable experience, and one wall of the large cubicle held a marvelous panel covered with brass taps cast in the shape of mermaids and shells and, for some reason, pomegranates. There were separate feeds for salt water, hard water and soft water and huge wheels for accurate control of temperature. Ridcully inspected them with care.

Then he stood back, looked around at the tiles and sang, “Mi, mi, mi!”

His voice reverberated back at him.

“A perfect echo!” said Ridcully, one of nature’s bathroom baritones.

He picked up a speaking tube that had been installed to allow the bather to communicate with the engineer.

“All cisterns go, Mr. Modo!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

Ridcully opened the tap marked “Spray” and leapt aside, because part of him was still well aware that Johnson’s inventiveness didn’t just push the edge of the envelope but often went across the room and out through the wall of the sorting office.

A gentle shower of warm water, almost a caressing mist, enveloped him.

“My word!” he exclaimed, and tried another tap.

“Shower” turned out to be a little more invigorating. “Torrent” made him gasp for breath and “Deluge” sent him groping to the panel because the top of his head felt that it was being removed. “Wave” sloshed a wall of warm salt water from one side of the cubicle to the other before it disappeared into the grating that was set into the middle of the floor.

“Are you all right, sir?” Modo called out.

“Marvelous! And there’s a dozen knobs I haven’t tried yet!”

Modo nodded, and tapped a valve. Ridcully’s voice, raised in what he considered to be song, boomed out through the thick clouds of steam.

“
Oh, IIIIIII knew a…er…an agricultural worker of some description, possibly a thatcher
…

And I knew him well, and he—he was a farmer, now I come to think of it—and he had a daughter and her name I can’t recall at the moment
,

And…Where was I? Ah yes. Chorus
:

Something something, a humorously shaped vegetable, a turnip, I believe, something something and the sweet and the sweet nightingale
eeeaarggooooooh-ARRGHH oh oh oh—”

The song shut off suddenly. All Modo could hear was a ferocious gushing noise.

“Archchancellor?”

After a moment a voice answered from near the ceiling. It sounded somewhat high and hesitant.

“Er…I wonder if you would be so very good as to shut the water off from out there, my dear chap? Er…quite gently, if you wouldn’t mind…”

Modo carefully spun a wheel. The gushing sound gradually subsided.

“Ah. Well done,” said the voice, but now from somewhere nearer floor level. “Well. Jolly good job. I think we can definitely call it a success. Yes, indeed. Er. I wonder if you could help me walk for a moment. I inexplicably feel a little unsteady on my feet…”

Modo pushed open the door and helped Ridcully out and onto a bench. He looked rather pale.

“Yes, indeed,” said the Archchancellor, his eyes a little glazed. “Astoundingly successful. Er. Just a minor point, Modo—”

“Yes, sir?”

“There’s a tap in there we perhaps should leave alone for now,” said Ridcully. “I’d esteem it a service if you could go and make a little sign to hang on it.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Saying ‘Do not touch at all,’ or something like that.”

“Right, sir.”

“Hang it on the one marked ‘Old Faithful.’”

“Yes, sir.”

“No need to mention it to the other fellows.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ye gods, I’ve never felt so
clean
.”

From a vantage point among some ornamental tile work near the ceiling a small gnome in a bowler hat watched Ridcully carefully.

When Modo had gone, the Archchancellor slowly began to dry himself on a big fluffy towel. As he got his composure back, so another song wormed its way under his breath.

“
On the second day of Hogswatch I…sent my true love back

A nasty little letter, hah, yes indeed, and a partridge in a pear tree
—”

The gnome slid down onto the tiles and crept up behind the briskly shaking shape.

Ridcully, after a few more trial runs, settled on a song which evolves somewhere on every planet where there are winters. It’s often dragooned into the service of some local religion and a few words are changed, but it’s really about things that have to do with gods only in the same way that roots have to do with leaves.

“—
the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer
—”

Ridcully spun. A corner of wet towel caught the gnome on the ear and flicked it onto its back.

“I saw you creeping up!” roared the Archchancellor. “What’s the game, then? Small-time thief, are you?”

The gnome slid backward on the soapy surface.

“’ere, what’s
your
game, mister, you ain’t supposed to be able to see me!”

“I’m a wizard! We can see things that are really there, you know,” said Ridcully. “And in the case of the Bursar, things that aren’t there, too. What’s in this bag?”

“You don’t wanna open the bag, mister! You really don’t wanna open the bag!”

“Why? What have you got in it?”

The gnome sagged. “It ain’t what’s in it, mister. It’s what’ll come out. I has to let ’em out one at a time, no knowin’ what’d happen if they all gets out at once!”

Ridcully looked interested, and started to undo the string.

“You’ll really wish you hadn’t, mister!” the gnome pleaded.

“Will I? What’re you doing here, young man?”

The gnome gave up.

“Well…you know the Tooth Fairy?”

“Yes. Of course,” said Ridcully.

“Well…I ain’t her. But…it’s sort of like the same business…”

“What? You take things away?”

“Er…not take away, as such. More sort of…bring…”

“Ah…like new teeth?”

“Er…like new verrucas,” said the gnome.

Death threw the sack into the back of the sleigh and climbed in after it.

“You’re doing well, master,” said Albert.

T
HIS CUSHION IS STILL UNCOMFORTABLE
, said Death, hitching his belt. I
AM NOT USED TO A BIG FAT STOMACH
.

“Just
a
stomach’s the best I could do, master. You’re starting off with a handicap, sort of thing.”

Albert unscrewed the top off a bottle of cold tea. All the sherry had made him thirsty.

“Doing well, master,” he repeated, taking a pull. “All the soot in the fireplace, the footprints, them swigged sherries, the sleigh tracks all over the roofs…it’s got to work.”