Hogfather

‘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 GOAT, 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^{44} 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 in 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 grey-green 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.