Hogfather

‘Er … you know whenever there was another magical appearance you heard the sound of, er, bells?’ it said. Its expression suggested it was owning up to something it just knew was going to get it a smack.

‘Yes?’

The gnome held up some rather small handbells and waved them nervously. They went glingleglingleglingle, in a very sad way.

‘Good, eh? That was me. I’m the Glingleglingleglingle Fairy.’

‘Get out.’

‘I also do sparkly fairy dust effects that go twing too, if you like … ‘

‘Go away!’

‘How about “The Bells of St Ungulant’s”?’ said the gnome desperately, ‘Very seasonal. Very nice. Why not join in? It goes: “The bells [clong] of St [clang] …”’

Ridcully scored a direct hit with the rubber duck, and the gnome escaped through the bath overflow. Cursing and spontaneous handbell ringing echoed away down the pipes.

In perfect peace at last, the Archchancellor pulled off his robe.

The organ’s storage tanks were wheezing at the rivets by the time the Librarian had finished pumping. Satisfied, he knuckled his way up to the seat and paused to survey, with great satisfaction, the keyboards in front of him.

Bloody Stupid Johnson’s approach to music was similar to his approach in every field that was caressed by his genius in the same way that a potato field is touched by a late frost. Make it loud, he said. Make it wide. Make it all-embracing. And thus the Great Organ of Unseen University was the only one in the world where you could play an entire symphony scored for thunderstorm and squashed toad noises.

Warm water cascaded off Mustrum Ridcully’s pointy bathing cap.

Mr Johnson had, surely not on purpose, designed a perfect bathroom — at least, perfect for singing in. Echoes and resonating pipeways smoothed out all those little imperfections and gave even the weediest singer a rolling, dark brown voice.

And so Ridcully sang.

‘—as I walked out one dadadadada for to something or other and to take the dadada, I did espy a fair pretty may-ay-den I think it was, and I—’

The organ pipes hummed with pent-up energy. The Librarian cracked his knuckles. This took some time. Then he pulled the pressure release valve.

The hum became an urgent thrumming.

Very carefully, he let in the clutch.

Ridcully stopped singing as the tones of the organ came through the wall.

Bathtime music, eh? he thought. Just the job.

It was a shame it was muffled by all the bathroom fixtures, though.

It was at this point he espied a small lever marked ‘Musical pipes’.

Ridcully, never being a man to wonder what any kind of switch did when it was so much easier and quicker to find out by pulling it, did so. But instead of the music he was expecting he was rewarded simply with several large panels sliding silently aside, revealing row upon row of brass nozzles.

The Librarian was lost now, dreaming on the wings of music. His hands and feet danced over the keyboards, picking their way towards the crescendo which ended the first movement of Bubbla’s Catastrophe Suite.

One foot kicked the ‘Afterburner’ lever and the other spun the valve of the nitrous oxide cylinder.^{97}

Ridcully tapped the nozzles.