Hogfather (30 page)

“I’m not going to,” said the head waiter, firmly.

“Look, I’ll buy you a better pair after Hogswatch—”

“There’s two more Shoe Pastry, one for
Purée de la Terre
and three more
Tourte à la Boue
,” said a waiter, hurrying in.

“Mud pies!” moaned the waiter. “I can’t believe we’re selling mud pies. And now you want
my
boots!”

“With cream and sugar, mind you. A real taste of Ankh-Morpork. And we can get at least four helpings off those boots. Fair’s fair. We’re all in our socks—”

“Table seven says the steaks were lovely but a bit tough,” said a waiter, rushing past.

“Right. Use a larger hammer next time and boil them for longer.” The manager turned back to the suffering head waiter. “Look, Bill,” he said, taking him by the shoulder. “This isn’t food. No one expects it to be food. If people wanted food they’d stay at home, isn’t that so? They come here for ambiance. For the experience. This isn’t cookery, Bill. This is
cuisine
. See? And they’re coming back for more.”

“Yeah, but
old boots
…”

“Dwarfs eat rats,” said the manager. “And trolls eat rocks. There’s folks in Howondaland that eat insects and folks on the Counterweight Continent eat soup made out of bird spit. At least the boots have been on a cow.”

“And mud?” said the head waiter, gloomily.

“Isn’t there an old proverb that says a man must eat a bushel of dirt before he dies?”

“Yes, but not all at once.”

“Bill?” said the manager, kindly, picking up a spatula.

“Yes, boss?”

“Get those damn boots off right now, will you?”

When Chickenwire reached the bottom of the tower he was trembling, and not just from the effort. He headed straight for the door until Medium Dave grabbed him.

“Let me out! It’s after me!”

“Look at his
face
,” said Catseye. “Looks like he’s seen a ghost!”

“Yeah, well, it
ain’t
a ghost,” muttered Chickenwire. “It’s
worse’n
a ghost—”

Medium Dave slapped him across the face.

“Pull yourself together! Look around! Nothing’s chasing you! Anyway, it’s not as though we couldn’t put up a fight, right?”

Terror had had time to drain away a little. Chickenwire looked back up the stairs. There was nothing there.

“Good,” said Medium Dave, watching his face. “Now…What happened?”

Chickenwire looked at his feet.

“I thought it was the wardrobe,” he muttered. “Go on, laugh…”

They didn’t laugh.

“What wardrobe?” said Catseye.

“Oh, when I was a kid…” Chickenwire waved his arms vaguely. “We had this big ole wardrobe, if you must know. Oak. It had this…this…on the door there was this…sort of…
face
.” He looked at their faces, which were equally wooden. “I mean, not an actual face, there was…all this…decoration round the keyhole, sort of flowers and leaves and stuff, but if you looked at it in the…right way…it was a face and they put it in my room ’cos it was so big and in the night…in the night…in the night—”

They were grown men or at least had lived for several decades, which in some societies is considered the same thing. But you had to stare at a man so creased up with dread.

“Yes?” said Catseye hoarsely.

“…it whispered things,” said Chickenwire, in a quiet little voice, like a vole in a dungeon.

They looked at one another.

“What things?” said Medium Dave.

“I don’t
know
! I always had my head under the pillow! Anyway, it’s just something from when I was a kid, all right? Our dad got rid of it in the finish. Burned it. And I
watched
.”

They mentally shook themselves, as people do when their minds emerge back into the light.

“It’s like me and the dark,” said Catseye.

“Oh, don’t you start,” said Medium Dave. “Anyway, you
ain’t
afraid of the dark. You’re famed for it. I been working with you in all kinds of cellars and stuff. I mean, that’s how you got your
name
. Catseye. Sees like a cat.”

“Yeah, well…you try an’ make up for it, don’t you?” said Catseye. “’Cos when you’re grown you know it’s just shadows and stuff. Besides, it ain’t like the dark we used to have in the cellar.”

“Oh, they had a special kind of a dark when you was a lad, did they?” said Medium Dave. “Not like the kind of dark you get these days, eh?”

Sarcasm didn’t work.

“No,” said Catseye, simply. “It wasn’t. In our cellar, it wasn’t.”

“Our mam used to wallop us if we went down to the cellar,” said Medium Dave. “She had her still down there.”

“Yeah?” said Catseye, from somewhere far off. “Well,
our
dad used to wallop us if we tried to get out. Now shut up talking about it.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs.

There was an absence of anybody. And any body.

“He couldn’t have survived that, could he?” said Medium Dave.

“I saw him as he went past,” said Catseye. “Necks aren’t supposed to bend that way—”

He squinted upward.

“Who’s that moving up there?”

“How are their
necks
moving?” quavered Chickenwire.

“Split up!” said Medium Dave. “And this time all take a stairway. Then they can’t come back down!”

“Who’re they? Why’re they here?”

“Why’re
we
here?” said Peachy. He started, and looked behind him.

“Taking our money? After us putting up with
him
?”

“Yeah…” said Peachy distantly, trailing after the others.

“Er…did you hear that noise just then?”

“What noise?”

“A sort of clipping, snipping…?”

“No.”

“No.”

“No. You must have imagined it.”

Peachy nodded miserably.

As he walked up the stairs, little shadows raced through the stone and followed his feet.

Susan darted off the stairs and dragged the oh god along a corridor lined with white doors.

“I think they saw us,” she said. “And if they’re tooth fairies there’s been a really
stupid
equal opportunities policy…”

She pushed open a door.

There were no windows to the room, but it was lit perfectly well by the walls themselves. Down the middle of the room was something like a display case, its lid gaping open. Bits of card littered the floor.

She reached down and picked one up and read: “Thomas Ague, aged 4 and nearly three quarters, 9 Castle View, Sto Lat.” The writing was in a meticulous rounded script.

She crossed the passage to another room, where there was the same scene of devastation.

“So now we know where the teeth were,” she said. “They must’ve taken them out of everywhere and carried them downstairs.”

“What for?”

She sighed. “It’s such old magic it isn’t even magic any more,” she said. “If you’ve got a piece of someone’s hair, or a nail clipping, or a tooth—you can control them.”

The oh god tried to focus.

“That heap’s controlling millions of children?”

“Yes. Adults, too, by now.”

“And you…you could make them think things and do things?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“You could get them to open Dad’s wallet and post the contents to some address?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought of
that
, but yes, I suppose you could…”

“Or go downstairs and smash all the bottles in the drinks cabinet and promise never to take a drink when they grow up?” said the oh god hopefully.

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s all right for you. You don’t wake up every morning and see your whole life flush before your eyes.”

Medium Dave and Catseye ran down the passage and stopped where it forked.

“You go that way, I’ll—”

“Why don’t we stick together?” said Catseye.

“What’s got into everyone? I saw you bite the throats out of a coupla guard dogs when we did that job in Quirm! Want me to hold your hand? You check the doors down there, I’ll check them along here.”

He walked off.

Catseye peered down the other passage.

There weren’t many doors down there. It wasn’t very long. And, as Teatime had said, there was nothing dangerous here that they hadn’t brought with them.

He heard voices coming from a doorway and sagged with relief.

He could
deal
with humans.

As he approached, a sound made him look round.

Shadows were racing down the passage behind him. They cascaded down the walls and flowed over the ceiling.

Where shadows met they became darker. And darker.

And rose. And leapt.

“What was that?” said Susan.

“Sounded like the start of a scream,” said Bilious.

Susan threw open the door.

There was no one outside.

There was movement, though. She saw a patch of darkness in the corner of a wall shrink and fade, and another shadow slid around the bend of the corridor.

And there was a pair of boots in the center of the corridor.

She hadn’t remembered any boots there before.

She sniffed. The air tasted of rats, and damp, and mold.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

“How’re we going to find this Violet in all these rooms?”

“I don’t know. I should be able to…sense her, but I can’t.” Susan peered around the end of the corridor. She could hear men shouting, some way off.

They slipped out onto the stairs again and managed another flight. There were more rooms here, and in each one a cabinet that had been broken open.

Shadows moved in the corners. The effect was as though some invisible light source was gently shifting.

“This reminds me a lot of your…um…of your grandfather’s place,” said the oh god.

“I know,” said Susan. “There aren’t any rules except the ones he makes up as he goes along. I can’t see
him
being very happy if someone got in and started pulling the library apart—”

She stopped. When she spoke again her voice had a different tone.

“This is a children’s place,” she said. “The rules are what children believe.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“You think so? Things aren’t going to be
right
. In the Soul Cake Duck’s country ducks
can
lay chocolate eggs, in the same way that Death’s country is black and somber because that’s what people believe. He’s very conventional about that sort of thing. Skull and bone decorations all over the place. And
this
place—”

“Pretty flowers and an odd sky.”

“I think it’s going to be a lot worse than that. And very odd, too.”

“More odd than it is now?”

“I don’t think it’s possible to die here.”

“That man who fell down the stairs looked pretty dead to
me
.”

“Oh, you die. But not here. You…let’s see…yes…you go somewhere else. Away. You’re just not seen any more. That’s about all you understand when you’re three. Grandfather said it wasn’t like that fifty years ago. He said you often couldn’t see the bed for everyone having a good cry. Now they just tell the child that Grandma’s gone. For three weeks Twyla thought her uncle’d been buried in the sad patch behind the garden shed along with Buster and Meepo and all three Bulgies.”

“Three Bulgies?”

“Gerbils. They tend to die a lot,” said Susan. “The trick is to replace them when she’s not looking. You really don’t know
anything
, do you?”

“Er…hello?”

The voice came from the corridor.

They worked their way round to the next room.

There, sitting on the floor and tied to the leg of a white display case, was Violet. She looked up in apprehension, and then in bewilderment, and finally in growing recognition.

“Aren’t you—?”

“Yes, yes, we see each other sometimes in Biers, and when you came for Twyla’s last tooth you were so shocked that I could see you I had to give you a drink to get your nerves back,” said Susan, fumbling with the ropes. “I don’t think we’ve got a lot of time.”

“And who’s he?”

The oh god tried to push his lank hair into place.

“Oh, he’s just a god,” said Susan. “His name’s Bilious.”

“Do you drink at all?” said the oh god.

“What sort of quest—”

“He needs to know before he decides whether he hates you or not,” said Susan. “It’s a god thing.”

“No, I don’t,” said Violet. “What an idea. I’ve got the blue ribbon!”

The oh god raised his eyebrows at Susan.

“That means she’s a member of Offler’s League of Temperance,” said Susan. “They sign a pledge not to touch alcohol. I can’t think why. Of course, Offler’s a crocodile. They don’t go in bars much. They’re into water.”

“Not touch alcohol at all?” said the oh god.

“Never!” said Violet. “My dad’s very strict about that sort of thing!”

After a moment Susan felt forced to wave a hand across their locked gaze.

“Can we get on?” she said. “Good. Who brought you here, Violet?”

“I don’t know! I was doing the collection as usual, and then I thought I heard someone following me, and then it all went dark, and when I came to we were…Have you seen what it’s like outside?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we were there. The big one was carrying me. The one they call Banjo. He’s not bad, just a bit…odd. Sort of…slow. He just watches me. The others are thugs. Watch out for the one with the glass eye. They’re all afraid of him. Except Banjo.”

“Glass eye?”

“He’s dressed like an Assassin. He’s called Teatime. I think they’re trying to steal something…They spent
ages
carting the teeth out. Little teeth everywhere…It was horrible! Thank you,” she added to the oh god, who had helped her onto her feet.

“They’ve piled them up in a magic circle downstairs,” said Susan.

Violet’s eyes and mouth formed three Os. It was like looking at a pink bowling ball.

“What for?”

“I think they’re using them to control the children. By magic.”

Violet’s mouth opened wider.

“That’s
horrid
.”

Horrible, thought Susan. The word is “horrible.” “Horrid” is a childish word selected to impress nearby males with one’s fragility, if I’m any judge. She knew it was unkind and counter-productive of her to think like that. She also knew it was probably an accurate observation, which only made it worse.