'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 tilework 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 backwards 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 sledge and climbed in after it.

'You're doing well, master,' said Albert.

THIS 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.'

YOU THINK SO?

'Sure.'

AND I MADE SURE SOME OF THEM SAW ME. I KNOW IF THEY ARE PEEPING, Death added proudly.

'Well done, sir.'

YES.

'Though here's a tip, though. Just "Ho. Ho. Ho,- will do. Don't say, "Cower, brief mortals" unless you want them to grow up to be moneylenders or some such.'

HO. HO. HO.

'Yes, you're really getting the hang of it.' Albert looked down hurriedly at his notebook so that Death wouldn't see his face. 'Now, I got to tell you, master, what'll really do some good is a public appearance. Really.'

OH. I DON'T NORMALLY DO THEM.

'The Hogfather's more've a public figure, master. And one good public appearance'll do more good than any amount of letting kids see you by accident. Good for the old belief muscles.'

REALLY? HO. HO. HO.

'Right, right, that's really good, master. Where was I ... yes ... the shops'll be open late. Lots of kiddies get taken to see the Hogfather, you see. Not the real one, of course. just some ole geezer with a pillow up his jumper, saving yer presence, master.'

NOT REAL? HO. HO. HO.

'Oh, no. And you don't need-'

THE CHILDREN KNOW THIS? HO. HO. HO.

Albert scratched his nose. 'S'pose so, master.'

THIS SHOULD NOT BE. NO WONDER THERE HAS BEEN . . . THIS DIFFICULTY. BELIEF WAS COMPROMISED? HO. HO. HO.

'Could be, master. Er, the "ho, ho-"'

WHERE DOES THIS TRAVESTY TAKE PLACE? HO. HO. HO.

Albert gave up. 'Well, Crumley's in The Maul, for one. Very popular, the Hogfather Grotto. They always have a good Hogfather, apparently.'

LET'S GET THERE AND SLEIGH THEM. HO. HO. HO.

'Right you are, master.'

THAT WAS A PUNE OR PLAY ON WORDS, ALBERT. I DON'T KNOW IF YOU NOTICED.

'I'm laughing like hell deep down, sir.'

HO. HO. HO.

Archchancellor Ridcully grinned.

He often grinned. He was one of those men who grinned even when they were annoyed, but right now he grinned because he was proud. A little sore still, perhaps, but still proud.

'Amazing bathroom, ain't it?' he said. 'They had it walled up, you know. Damn silly thing to do. I mean, perhaps there were a few teething troubles,' he shifted gingerly, 'but that's only to be expected. It's got everything, d'you see? Foot baths in the shape of clam shells, look. A whole wardrobe for dressing gowns. And that tub over there's got a big blower thingy so's you get bubbly water without even havin' to eat starchy food. And this thingy here with the mermaids holdin' it up's a special pot for your toenail clippings. It's got everything, this place.'

'A special pot for nail clippings?' said the Verruca Gnome.

'Oh, can't be too careful,' said Ridcully, lifting the lid of an ornate jar marked BATH SALTS and pulling out a bottle of wine. 'Get hold of something like someone's nail clipping and you've got ' em under your control. That's real old magic. Dawn of time stuff.'

He held the wine bottle up to the light.

'Should be cooled nicely by now,' he said, extracting the cork. 'Verrucas, eh?'

'Wish I knew why,' said the gnome.

'You mean you don't know?'

'Nope. Suddenly I wake up and I'm the Verruca Gnome.'

'Puzzling, that,' said Ridcully. 'My dad used to say the Verruca Gnome turned up if you walked around in bare feet but I never knew you existed. I thought he just made it up. I mean, tooth fairies, yes, and them little buggers that live in flowers, used to collect 'em myself as a lad, but can't recall anything about verrucas.' He drank thoughtfully. 'Cot a distant cousin called Verruca, as a matter of fact. It's quite a nice sound, when you come to think of it.'

He looked at the gnome over the top of his glass.

You didn't become Archchancellor without a feeling for subtle wrongness in a situation. Well, that wasn't quite true. It was more accurate to say that you didn't remain Archchancellor for very long.

'Good job, is it?' he said thoughtfully.

'Dandruff'd be better,' said the gnome. 'At least I'd be out in the fresh air.'

'I think we'd better check up on this,' said Ridcully. 'Of course, it might be nothing.'

'Oh, thank you,' said the Verruca Gnome, gloomily.

It was a magnificent Grotto this year, Vernon Crumley told himself. The staff had worked really hard. The Hogfather's sleigh was a work of art in itself, and the pigs looked really real and a wonderful shade of pink.

The Grotto took up nearly all of the first floor. One of the pixies had been Disciplined for smoking behind the Magic Tinkling Waterfall and the clockwork Dolls of All Nations showing how We Could All Get Along were a bit jerky and giving trouble but all in all, he told himself, it was a display to Delight the Hearts of Kiddies everywhere.

The kiddies were queueing up with their parents and watching the display owlishly.

And the money was coming in. Oh, how the money was coming in.

So that the staff would not be Tempted, Mr Crumley had set up an arrangement of overhead wires across the ceilings of the store. In the middle of each floor was a cashier in a little cage. Staff took money from customers, put it in a little clockwork cable car, sent it whizzing overhead to the cashier, who'd make change and start it rattling back again. Thus there was no possibility of Temptation, and the little trolleys were shooting back and forth like fireworks.

Mr Crumley loved Hogswatch. It was for. the Kiddies, after all.

He tucked his fingers in the pockets of his waistcoat and beamed.

'Everything going well, Miss Harding?'

'Yes, Mr Crumley,' said the cashier, meekly.

'Jolly good.' He looked at the pile of coins.

A bright little zig-zag crackled off them and earthed itself on the metal grille.

Mr Crumley blinked. In front of him sparks flashed off the steel rims of Miss Harding's spectacles.

The Grotto display changed. For just a fraction of a second Mr Crumley had the sensation of speed, as though what appeared had screeched to a halt. Which was ridiculous.

The four pink papier-mache pigs exploded. A cardboard snout bounced off Mr Crumley's head.

There, sweating and grunting in the place where the little piggies had been, were . . . well, he assumed they were pigs, because hippopotamuses didn't have pointy ears and rings through their noses. But the creatures were huge and grey and bristly and a cloud of acrid mist hung over each one.

And they didn't look sweet. There was nothing charming about them. One turned to look at him with small, red eyes, and didn't go 'oink', which was the sound that Mr Crumley, born and raised in the city, had always associated with pigs.

It went 'Ghnaaarrrwnnkh?'

The sleigh had changed, too. He'd been very pleased with that sleigh. It had delicate silver curly bits on it. He'd personally supervised the gluing on of every twinkling star. But the splendour of it was lying in glittering shards around a sledge that looked as though it had been built of crudely sawn tree trunks laid on two massive wooden runners. It looked ancient and there were faces carved on the wood, nasty crude grinning faces that looked quite out of place.

Parents were yelling and trying to pull their children away, but they weren't having much luck. The children were gravitating towards it like flies to jam.

Mr Crumley ran towards the terrible thing, waving his hands.

'Stop that! Stop that!' he screamed. 'You'll frighten the Kiddies!'

He heard a small boy behind him say, 'They 've got tusks! Cool!'

His sister said, 'Hey, look, that one's doing a wee!' A tremendous cloud of yellow steam arose. 'Look, it's going all the way to the stairs! All those who can't swim hold onto the banisters!'

'They eat you if you're bad, you know,' said a small girl with obvious approval. 'All up. Even the bones. They crunch them.'

Another, older, child opined: 'Don't be childish. They're not real. They've just got a wizard in to do the magic. Or it's all done by clockwork. Everyone knows they're not really r---'

One of the boars turned to look at him. The boy moved behind his mother.

Mr Crumley, tears of anger streaming clown his face, fought through the milling crowd until he reached the Hogfather's Grotto. He grabbed a frightened pixie.

'It's the Campaign for Equal Heights that've done this, isn't it!' he shouted. 'They're out to ruin me! And they're ruining it for all the Kiddies! Look at the lovely dolls!'

The pixie hesitated. Children were clustering around the pigs, despite the continued efforts of their mothers. The small girl was giving one of them an orange.

But the animated display of Dolls of All Nations was definitely in trouble. The musical box underneath was still playing 'Wouldn't It Be Nice If Everyone Was Nice' but the rods that animated the figures had got twisted out of shape, so that the Klatchian boy was rhythmically hitting the Omnian girl over the head with his ceremonial spear, while the girl in Agatean national costume was kicking a small Llamedosian druid repeatedly in the ear. A chorus of small children was cheering them on indiscriminately.

'There's, er, there's more trouble in the Grotto, Mr Crum' the pixie began.

A red and white figure pushed its way through the crush and rammed a false beard into Mr Crumley's hands.

'That's it,' said the old man in the Hogfather costume. 'I don't mind the smell of oranges and the damp trousers but I ain't putting up with this.'

He stamped off through the queue. Mr Crumley heard him add, 'And he's not even doin' it right!'

Mr Crumley forced his way onward.

Someone was sitting in the big chair. There was a child on his knee. The figure was ... strange.

It was definitely in something like a Hogfather costume but Mr Crumley's eye kept slipping, it wouldn't focus, it skittered away and tried to put the figure on the very edge of vision. It was like trying to look at your own ear.

'What's going on here? What's going on here?' Crumley demanded.

A hand took his shoulder firmly. He turned round and looked into the face of a Grotto Pixie. At least, it was wearing the costume of a Grotto Pixie, although somewhat askew, as if it had been put on in a hurry.

'Who are you?'

The pixie took the soggy cigarette end out of its mouth and leered at him.

'Call me Uncle Heavy,' he said.

'You're not a pixie!'

'Nah, I'm a fairy cobbler, mister.'

Behind Crumley, a voice said:

AND WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR HOGSWATCH, SMALL HUMAN?

Mr Crumley turned in horror.

In front of - well, he had to think of it as the usurping Hogfather - was a small child of indeterminate sex who seemed to be mostly woollen bobble hat.

Mr Crumley knew how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to go like this: the child was always struck dumb and the attendant mother would lean forward and catch the Hogfather's eye and say very pointedly, in that voice adults use when they're conspiring against children:

'You want a Baby Tinkler Doll, don't you, Doreen? And the Just Like Mummy Cookery Set you've got in the window. And the Cut-Out Kitchen Range Book. And what do you say?'

And the stunned child would murmur "nk you' and get given a balloon or an orange.

This time, though, it didn't work like that.

Mother got as far as 'You want a---’

WHY ARE YOUR HANDS ON BITS OF STRING, CHILD?

The child looked down the length of its arms to the dangling mittens affixed to its sleeves. It held them up for inspection.

'Clubs,' it said.

I SEE. VERY PRACTICAL.

'Are you weal?' said the bobble hat.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

The bobble hat sniggered. 'I saw your piggie do a wee!' it said, and implicit in the tone was the suggestion that this was unlikely to be dethroned as the most enthralling thing the bobble hat had ever seen.

OH. ER ... GOOD.

'It had a gwate big-'

WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR HOGSWATCH? said the Hogfather hurriedly.

Mother took her economic cue again, and said briskly: 'She wants a-'

The Hogfather snapped his fingers impatiently. The mother's mouth slammed shut.

The child seemed to sense that here was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and spoke quickly.

'I wanta narmy. Anna big castle wif pointy bits,' said the child. 'Anna swored.'

WHAT DO YOU SAY? prompted the Hogfather.

'A big swored?' said the child, after a pause for deep cogitation.

THAT'S RIGHT.

Uncle Heavy nudged the Hogfather.

'They're supposed to thank you,' he said.

ARE YOU SURE? PEOPLE DON'T, NORMALLY.

'I meant they thank the Hogfather,' Albert hissed. 'Which is you, right?'

YES, OF COURSE. AHEM. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SAY THANK YOU.

 ' 'nk you.'

AND BE GOOD. THIS IS PART OF THE ARRANGEMENT.

' 'es.'

THEN WE HAVE A CONTRACT. The Hogfather reached into his sack and produced

-a very large model castle with, as correctly interpreted, pointy blue cone roofs on turrets suitable for princesses to be locked in

-a box of several hundred assorted knights and warriors

-and a sword. It was four feet long and glinted along the blade.

The mother took a deep breath.

'You can't give her that!' she screamed. 'It's not safe!'

IT'S A SWORD, said the Hogfather. THEY'RE NOT

MEANT TO BE SAFE.

'She's a child!' shouted Crumley.

IT'S EDUCATIONAL.

'What if she cuts herself?'

THAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON.

Uncle Heavy whispered urgently.

REALLY? OH, WELL. IT'S NOT FOR ME TO ARGUE, I SUPPOSE.

The blade went wooden.

'And she doesn't want all that other stuff!' said Doreen's mother, in the face of previous testimony. 'She's a girl! Anyway, I can't afford big posh stuff like that!'

I THOUGHT I GAVE IT AWAY, said the Hogfather, sounding bewildered.

'You do?' said the mother.

'You do?' said Crumley, who'd been listening in horror. 'You don't! That's our Merchandise! You can't give it away! Hogswatch isn't about giving it all away! I mean ... yes, of course, of course things are given away,' he corrected himself, aware that people were watching, 'but first they have to be bought, d'you see, I mean ... haha.' He laughed nervously, increasingly aware of the strangeness around him and the rangy look of Uncle Heavy. 'It's not as though the toys are made by little elves at the Hub, ahaha . - .'

'Damn right,' said Uncle Heavy sagely. 'You'd have to be a maniac even to think of giving an elf a chisel, less'n you want their initials carved on your forehead.'

'You mean this is all free?' said Doreen's mother sharply, not to be budged from what she saw as the central point.

Mr Crumley looked helplessly at the toys. They certainly didn't look like any of his stock.

Then he tried to look hard at the new Hogfather. Every cell in his brain was telling him that here was a fat jolly man in a red and white suit.

Well ... nearly every cell. A few of the sparkier ones were saying that his eyes were reporting something else, but they couldn't agree on what. A couple had shut down completely.

The words escaped through his teeth.

'It ... seems to be,' he said.

Although it was Hogswatch the University buildings were bustling. Wizards didn't go to bed early in any case,[14] and of course there was the Hogswatchnight Feast to look forward to at midnight.

It would give some idea of the scale of the Hogswatchnight Feast that a light snack at UU consisted of a mere three or four courses, not counting the cheese and nuts.

Some of the wizards had been practising for weeks. The Dean in particular could now lift a twenty-pound turkey on one fork. Having to wait until midnight merely put a healthy edge on appetites already professionally honed.

There was a general air of pleasant expectancy about the place, a general sizzling of salivary glands, a general careful assembling of the pills and powders against the time, many hours ahead, when eighteen courses would gang up somewhere below the ribcage and mount a counterattack.

Ridcully stepped out into the snow and turned up his collar. The lights were all on in the High Energy Magic Building.

'I don't know, I don't know,' he muttered. 'Hogswatchnight and they're still working. It's just not natural. When I was a student I'd have been sick twice by now-'

In fact Ponder Stibbons and his group of research students had made a concession to Hogswatchnight. They'd draped holly over Hex and put a paper hat on the big glass dome containing the main ant heap.

Every time he came in here, it seemed to Ridcully, something -more had been done to the ... engine, or thinking machine, or whatever it was. Sometimes stuff turned up overnight. Occasionally, according to Stibbons, Hex hims--- itself would draw plans for extra bits that he - it needed. It all gave Ridcully the willies, and an additional willy was engendered right now when he saw the Bursar sitting in front of the thing. For a moment, he forgot all about verrucas.

'What're you doing here, old chap?' he said. 'You should be inside, jumping up and down to make more room for tonight.'

'Hooray for the pink, grey and green,' said the Bursar.

'Er ... we thought Hex might be of . . .  you

know . . . help, sir,' said Ponder Stibbons, who liked to think of himself as the University's token sane person.

'With the Bursar's problem. We thought it might be a nice Hogswatch present for him.'

'Ye gods, Bursar's got no problems,' said Ridcully, and patted the aimlessly smiling man on the head while mouthing the words 'mad as a spoon'. 'Mind just wanders a bit, that's all. I said MIND WANDERS A BIT, eh? Only to be expected, spends far too much time addin' up numbers. Doesn't get out in the fresh air. I said, YOU DON'T GET OUT IN THE FRESH AIR, OLD CHAP!'

'We thought, er, he might like someone to talk to,' said Ponder.

'What? What? But I talk to him all the time! I'm always trying to take him out of himself,' said Ridcully. 'It's important to stop him mopin' around the place.'

'Er ... yes ... certainly,' said Ponder diplomatically. He recalled the Bursar as a man whose idea of an exciting time had once been a soft-boiled egg. 'So ... er ... well, let's give it another try, shall we? Are you ready, Mr Dinwiddie?'

'Yes, thank you, a green one with cinnamon if it’s not too much trouble.'

'Can't see how he can talk to a machine,' said Ridcully, in a sullen voice. 'The thing's got no damn ears.'

'Ah, well, in fact we made it one ear,' said Ponder. 'Er. . .'

He pointed to a large drum in a maze of tubes.

'Isn't that old Windle Poons' ear trumpet sticking out of the end?' said Ridcully suspiciously.

'Yes, Archchancellor.' Ponder cleared his throat. 'Sound, you see, comes in waves-'

He stopped. Wizardly premonitions rose in his mind. He just knew Ridcully was going to assume he was talking about the sea. There was going to be one of those huge bottomless misunderstandings that always occurred whenever anyone tried to explain anything to the Archchancellor. Words like 'surf, and probably 'ice cream' and 'sand' were just ...

'It's all done by magic, Archchancellor,' he said, giving up.

'Ah. Right,' said Ridcully. He sounded a little disappointed. 'None of that complicated business with springs and cogwheels and tubes and stuff, then.'

'That's right, sir,' said Ponder. 'Just magic. Sufficiently advanced magic.'

'Fair enough. What's it do?'

'Hex can hear what you say.'

'Interesting. Saves all that punching holes in bits of cards and hitting keys you lads are forever doing, then-'

'Watch this, sir,' said Ponder. 'All right, Adrian, initialize the GBU

'How do you do that, then?' said Ridcully, behind him.

'It ... it means pull the great big lever,' Ponder said, reluctantly.

'Ah. Takes less time to say.'

Ponder sighed. 'Yes, that's right, Archchancellor.'

He nodded to one of the students, who pulled a large red lever marked 'Do Not Pull'. Gears spun, somewhere inside Hex. Little trap-doors opened in the ant farms and millions of ants began to scurry along the networks of glass tubing. Ponder tapped at the huge wooden keyboard.

'Beats me how you fellows remember how to

do all this stuff,' said Ridcully, still watching him with what Ponder considered to be amused interest.

'Oh, it's largely intuitive, Archchancellor,' said Ponder. 'Obviously you have to spend a lot of time learning it first, though. Now, then, Bursar,' he added. 'If you'd just like to say something. . .'

'He says, SAY SOMETHING, BURSAAAR!' yelled Ridcully helpfully, into the Bursar's ear.

'Corkscrew? It's a tickler, that's what Nanny says,' said the Bursar.

Things started to spin inside Hex. At the back of the room a huge converted waterwheel covered with sheep skulls began to turn, ponderously.

And the quill pen in its network of springs and guiding arms started to write:

+++ Why Do You Think You Are A Tickler? +++

For a moment the Bursar hesitated. Then he said, 'I've got a spoon of my own, you know.'

+++ Tell Me About Your Spoon +++

'Er ... it's a little spoon. . .'

+++ Does Your Spoon Worry You? +++

The Bursar frowned. Then he seemed to rally. 'Whoops, here comes Mr Jelly,' he said, but he didn't sound as though his heart was in it.

+++ How Long Have You Been Mr Jelly? +++

The Bursar glared.'Are you makingfun of me?' he said.

'Amazin'!' said Ridcully. 'It's got him stumped! 's better than dried frog pills! How did you work it out?'

'Er said Ponder. 'It sort of just happened

'Amazin',' said Ridcully. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe on Hex's 'Anthill Inside' sticker, causing Ponder to wince. 'This thing's a kind of big artificial brain, then?'

'You could think of it like that,' said Ponder, carefully. 'Of course, Hex doesn't actually think. Not as such. It just appears to be thinking.'

'Ah. Like the Dean,' said Ridcully. 'Any chance of fitting a brain like this into the Dean's head?'

'It does weigh ten tons, Archchancellor.'

'Ah. Really? Oh. Quite a large crowbar would be in order, then.' He paused, and then reached into his pocket. 'I knew I'd come here for something,' he added. 'This here chappie is the Verruca Gnome-'

'Hello,' said the Verruca Gnome shyly.

-who seems to have popped into existence to be with us here tonight. And, you know, I thought: this is a bit odd. Of course, there's always something a bit unreal about Hogswatchnight,' said Ridcully. 'Last night of the year and so on. The Hogfather whizzin' around and so forth. Time of the darkest shadows and so on. All the old year's occult rubbish pilin' up. Anythin' could happen. I just thought you fellows might check up on this. Probably nothing to worry about.'

'A Verruca Gnome?' said Ponder.

The gnome clutched his sack protectively.

'Makes about as much sense as a lot of things, I suppose,' said Ridcully. 'After all, there's a Tooth Fairy, ain' there? You might as well wonder why we have a God of Wine and not a God of Hangovers---'

He stopped.

'Anyone else hear that noise just then?' he said.

'Sorry, Archchancellor?'

'Sort of glingleglingleglingle? Like little tinkly bells?'

'Didn't hear anything like that, sir.'

'Oh.' Ridcully shrugged. 'Anyway ... what was I saying ... yes ... no one's ever heard of a Verruca Gnome until tonight.'

'That's right,' said the gnome. 'Even I've never heard of me until tonight, and I'm me.'

'We'll see what we can find out, Archchancellor,' said Ponder diplomatically.

'Good man.' Ridcully put the gnome back in his pocket and looked up at Hex.

'Amazin',' he said again. 'He just looks as though he's thinking, right?'

'Er ... yes.'

'But he's not actually thinking?'

'Er ... no.'

'So ... he just gives the impression of thinking but really it's just a show?'

'Er ... yes.'

'Just like everyone else, then, really,' said Ridcully.

something,' he added. 'This here chappie is the Verruca Gnome-'

'Hello,' said the Verruca Gnome shyly.

' -who seems to have popped into existence to be with us here tonight. And, you know, I thought: this is a bit odd. Of course, there's always something a bit unreal about Hogswatchnight,' said Ridcully. 'Last night of the year and so on. The Hogfather whizzin' around and so forth. Time of the darkest shadows and so on. All the old year's occult rubbish pilin' up. Anythin' could happen. I just thought you fellows might check up on this. Probably nothing to worry about.'

'A Verruca Gnome?' said Ponder.

The gnome clutched his sack protectively.

'Makes about as much sense as a lot of things, I suppose,' said Ridcully. 'After all, there's a Tooth Fairy, ain' there? You might as well wonder why we have a God of Wine and not a God of Hangovers---'

He stopped.

'Anyone else hear that noise just then?' he said.

'Sorry, Archchancellor?'

'Sort of glingleglingleglingle? Like little tinkly bells?'

'Didn't hear anything like that, sir.'

'Oh.' Ridcully shrugged. 'Anyway ... what was I saying ... yes ... no one's ever heard of a Verruca Gnome until tonight.'

'That's right,' said the gnome. 'Even I've never heard of me until tonight, and I'm me.'

'We'll see what we can find out, Archchancellor,' said Ponder diplomatically.

'Good man.' Ridcully put the gnome back in his pocket and looked up at Hex.

'Amazin',' he said again. 'He just looks as though he's thinking, right?'

'Er ... yes.'

'But he's not actually thinking?'

'Er ... no.'

'So ... he just gives the impression of thinking but really it's just a show?'

'Er ... yes.'

'Just like everyone else, then, really,' said Ridcully.

The boy gave the Hogfather an appraising stare as he sat down on the official knee.

'Let's be absolutely clear. I know you're just someone dressed up,' he said. 'The Hogfather is a biological and temporal impossibility. I hope we understand one another.'

AH. SO I DON'T EXIST?

'Correct. This is just a bit of seasonal frippery and, I may say, rampantly commercial. My mother's already bought my presents. I instructed her as to the right ones, of course. She often gets things wrong.'

The Hogfather glanced briefly at the smiling, worried image of maternal ineffectiveness hovering nearby.

HOW OLD ARE YOU, BOY?

The child rolled his eyes. 'You're not supposed to say that,' he said. 'I have done this before, you know. You have to start by asking me my name.'

AARON FIDGET, 'THE PINES', EDGEWAY ROAD, ANKHMORPORK.

'I expect someone told you,' said Aaron. 'I expect these people dressed up as pixies get the information from the mothers.'

AND YOU ARE EIGHT, GOING ON ... OH, ABOUT FORTY-FIVE, said the Hogfather.

'There's forms to fill in when they pay, expect,' said Aaron.

AND YOU WANT WALNUT'S INOFFENSIVE REPTILES OF THE STO PLAINS, A DISPLAY CABINET, A COLLECTOR'S ALBUM, A KILLING JAR AND A LIZARD PRESS. WHAT IS A LIZARD PRESS?

'You can't glue them in when they're still fat, or didn't you know that? I expect she told you about them when I was momentarily distracted by the display of pencils. Look, shall we end this charade? just give me my orange and we'll say no more about it.'

I CAN GIVE FAR MORE THAN ORANGES.

'Yes, yes, I saw all that. Probably done in collusion with accomplices to attract gullible customers. Oh dear, you've even got a false beard. By the way, old chap, did you know that your pig----'

YES.

'All done by mirrors and string and pipes, I expect. It all looked very artificial to me.'

The Hogfather snapped his fingers.

'That's probably a signal, I expect,' said the boy, getting down. 'Thank you very much.'

HAPPY HOGSWATCH, said the Hogfather as the boy walked away.

Uncle Heavy patted him on the shoulder.

'Well done, master,' he said. 'Very patient. I'd have given him a clonk athwart the earhole, myself.'

OH, I'M SURE HE'LL SEE THE ERROR OF HIS WAYS. The red hood turned so that only Albert could see into its depths. RIGHT AROUND THE TIME

HE OPENS THOSE BOXES HIS MOTHER WAS CARRYING ...

HO. HO. HO.

'Don't tie it so tight! Don't tie it so tight!'

SQUEAK.

There was a bickering behind Susan as she sought along the shelves in the canyons of Death's huge library, which was so big that clouds would form in it if they dared.

'Right, right,' said the voice she was trying to ignore. 'That's about right. I've got to be able to move my wings, right?'

SQUEAK.

'Ah,' said Susan, under her breath. 'The Hogfather. . .'

He had several shelves, not just one book. The first volume seemed to be written on a roll of animal skin. The Hogfather was old.

`OK, OK. How does it look?'

SQUEAK.

'Miss?' said the raven, seeking a second opinion.

Susan looked up. The raven bounced past, its breast bright red.

'Twit, twit,' it said. 'Bobbly bobbly bob. Hop hop hopping along . . .'

'You're fooling no one but yourself,' said Susan. 'I can see the string.'

She unrolled the scroll.

'Maybe I should sit on a snowy log,' mumbled the raven behind her. 'Thats probably the trick, right enough.'

'I can't read this!' said Susan. 'The letters are all ... odd. . .'

'Ethereal runes,' said the raven. 'The Hogfather ain't human, after all.'

Susan ran her hands over the thin leather. The ... shapes flowed around her fingers.

She couldn't read them but she could feel them. There was the sharp smell of snow, so vivid that her breath condensed in the air. There were sounds, hooves, the snap of branches in a freezing forest

A bright shining ball . . .

Susan jerked awake and thrust the scroll aside. She unrolled the next one, which looked as though it was made of strips of bark. Characters hovered over the surface. Whatever they were, they had never been designed to be read by the eye; you could believe they were a Braille for the touching mind. Images ribboned across her senses - wet fur, sweat, pine, soot, iced air, the tang of damp ash, pig ... manure, her governess mind hastily corrected. There was blood ... and the taste of . . ..beans? It was all images without words. Almost ... animal.

'But none of this is right! Everyone knows he's a jolly old fat man who hands out presents to kids!' she said aloud.

'Is. Is. Not was. You know how it is,' said the raven.

'Do I?'

'It's like, you know, industrial re-training,' said the bird. 'Even gods have to move with the times, am I right? He was probably quite different thousands of years ago. Stands to reason. No one wore stockings, for one thing.' He. scratched at his beak.

'Yersss,' he continued expansively, 'he was probably just your basic winter demi-urge. You know ... blood on the snow, making the sun come up. Starts off with animal sacrifice, y'know, hunt some big hairy animal to death, that kind of stuff. You know there's some people up on the Ramtops who kill a wren at Hogswatch and walk around from house to house singing about it? With a whack-fol-oh-diddle-dildo. Very folkloric, very myffic.'

'A wren? Why?'

'I dunno. Maybe someone said, hey, how'd you like to hunt this evil bastard of an eagle with his big sharp beak and great ripping talons, sort of thing, or how about instead you hunt this wren, which is basically about the size of a pea and goes "twit"? Go on, you choose. Anyway, then later on it sinks to the level of religion and then they start this business where some poor bugger finds a special bean in his tucker, oho, everyone says, you're king, mate, and he thinks "This is a bit of all right" only they don't say it wouldn't be a good idea to start any long books, 'cos next thing he's legging it over the snow with a dozen other buggers chasing him with holy sickles so's the earth'll come to life again and all this snow'll go away. Very, you know ... ethnic. Then some bright spark thought, hey, looks like that damn sun comes up anyway, so how come we're giving those druids all this free grub? Next thing you know, there's a job vacancy. That's the thing about gods. They'll always find a way to, you know ... hang on.'

'The damn sun comes up anyway,' Susan repeated. 'How do you know that?'

'Oh, observation. It happens every morning. I seen it.'

'I meant all that stuff about holy sickles and things.'

The raven contrived to look smug.

'Very occult bird, your basic raven,' he said. 'Blind Io the Thunder God used to have these myffic ravens that flew everywhere and told him everything that was going on.'

'Used to?'

'WeeeW ... you know how he's not got eyes in his face, just these, like, you know, free-floating eyeballs that go and zoom around . . .' The raven coughed in species embarrassment. 'Bit of an accident waiting to happen, really.'

'Do you ever think of anything except eyeballs?'

'Well ... there's entrails.'

SQUEAK.

'He's right, though,' said Susan. 'Gods don't die. Never completely die . . .'

There's always somewhere, she told herself. Inside some stone, perhaps, or the words of a song, or riding the mind of some animal, or maybe in a whisper on the wind. They never entirely go, they hang on to the world by the tip of a fingernail, always fighting to find a way back. Once a god, always a god. Dead, perhaps, but only like the world in winter

'All right,' she said. 'Let's see what happened to him . . .'

She reached out for the last book and tried to open it at random ...

The feeling lashed at her out of the book, like a whip ...

... hooves, fear, blood, snow, cold, night . . .

She dropped the scroll. It slammed shut.

SQUEAK?

'I'm. . . all right.'

She looked down at the book and knew that she'd been given a friendly warning, such as a pet animal might give when it was crazed with pain but just still tame enough not to claw and bite the 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.'

'Oh, me . . .'

She managed to get one of his arms around her neck.

'Can you walk?'

'Oh, me ...’

'It might help if you stopped saying that and tried walking.'

'I'm sorry, but I seem to have too many legs. Ow.'

Susan did her best to prop him up as, swaying and slipping, they made their way back to the exit.

'My head,' said the boy. 'My head. My head. My head. Feels awful. My head. Feels like someone's hitting it. My head. With a hammer.'

Someone was. There was a small green and purple imp sitting amid the damp curls and holding a very large mallet. It gave Susan a friendly nod and brought the hammer down again.

'Oh, me . . .’

'That wasn't necessary!' said Susan.

'You telling me my job?' said the imp. 'I suppose you could do it better, could you?'

'I wouldn't do it at all!'

'Well, someone's got to do it,' said the imp.

'He's part. Of the. Arrangement,' said the boy.

'Yeah, see?' said the imp. 'Can you hold the hammer while I go and coat his tongue with yellow gunk?'

'Get down right now!'

Susan made a grab for the creature. It leapt away, still clutching the hammer, and grabbed a pillar.

'I'm part of the arrangement, I am!' it yelled.

The boy clutched his head.

'I feel awful,' he said. 'Have you got any ice?' Whereupon, because there are conventions stronger than mere physics, the building fell in.

The collapse of the Castle of Bones was stately and impressive and seemed to go on for a long time. Pillars fell in, the slabs of the roof slid down, the ice crackled and splintered. The air above the tumbling wreckage filled with a haze of snow and ice crystals.

Susan watched from the trees. The boy, who she'd leaned against a handy trunk, opened his eyes.

'That was amazing,' he managed.

'Why, you mean the way it's all turning bark into snow?'

'The way you just picked me up and ran.

'Oh, that.'

The grinding of the ice continued. The fallen pillars didn't stop moving when they collapsed, but went on tearing themselves apart.

When the fog of ice settled there was nothing but drifted snow.

'As though it was never there,' said Susan, aloud. She turned to the groaning figure.

'All right, what were you doing there?'

'I don't know. I just opened my. Eyes and there I was.'

'Who are you?'

'I ... think my name is Bilious. I'm the ... I'm the oh God of Hangovers.'

'There's a God of Hangovers?'

'An oh god,' he corrected. 'When people witness me, you see, they clutch their head and say, "Oh God . . ." How many of you are standing here?'

'What? There's just me!'

'Ah. Fine. Fine.'

'I've never heard of a God of Hangovers . . .'

'You've heard of Bibulous, the God of Wine?

'Oh. yes.'

'Big fat man, wears vine leaves round his head, always pictured with a glass in his hand ... Ow. Well, you know why he's so cheerful? Him and his big face? It's because he knows he's going to feel good in the morning! It's because it's me that---'

'-gets the hangovers?' said Susan.

'I don't even drink! Ow! But who is it who ends up head down in the privy every morning? Arrgh.' He stopped and clutched at his head. 'Should your skull feel like it's lined with dog hair?'

'I don't think so.'

'Ah.' Bilious swayed. 'You know when people say ''I had fifteen lagers last night and when I woke up my head was clear as a bell''?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Bastards! That's because I was the one who woke up groaning in a pile of recycled chill Just once, I mean just once, I'd like to open my eyes in the morning without my head sticking to something.' He paused. 'Are there any giraffes in this wood?'

'Up here? I shouldn't think so.'

He looked nervously past Susan's head.

'Not even indigo-coloured ones which are sort of stretched and keep flashing on and off?'

'Very unlikely.'

'Thank goodness for that.' He swayed back and forth. 'Excuse me, I think Im about to throw up my breakfast.'

'It's the middle of the evening!'

'Is it? In that case, I think I'm about to throw up my dinner.'

He folded up gently in the snow behind the tree.

'He's a long streak of widdle, isn't he?' said a

voice from a branch. It was the raven. 'Got a neck with a knee in it.'

The oh god reappeared after a noisy interlude.

'I know I must eat,' he mumbled. 'It's just that the only time I remember seeing my food it's always going the other way . . .'

'What were you doing in there?' said Susan.

`Ouch! Search me,' said the oh god. 'It's only a mercy I wasn't holding a traffic sign and wearing a-----' he winced and paused '---having some kind of women's underwear about my person.' He sighed. 'Someone somewhere has a lot of fun,' he said wistfully. 'I wish it was me.'

'Get a drink inside you, that's my advice,' said the raven. 'Have a hair of the dog that bit someone else.'

'But why there?' Susan insisted.

The oh god stopped h-ling to glare at the raven. 'I don't know, where was there exactly?'

Susan looked back at where the castle had been. It was entirely gone.

'There was a very important building there a moment ago,' she said.

The oh god nodded carefully.

'I often see things that weren't there a moment ago,' he said. 'And they often aren't there a moment later. Which is a blessing in most cases, let me tell you. So I don't usually take a lot of notice.'

He folded up and landed in the snow again.

There's just snow now, Susan thought. Nothing but snow and the wind. There's not even a ruin.

The certainty stole over her again that the Hogfather's castle wasn't simply not there any more. No ... it had never been there. There was no ruin, no trace.

It had been an odd enough place. It was where the Hogfather lived, according to the legends. Which was odd, when you thought about it. It didn't look like the kind of place a cheery old toymaker would live in.

The wind soughed in the trees behind them. Snow slid off branches. Somewhere in the dark there was a flurry of hooves.

A spidery little figure leapt off a snowdrift and landed on the oh gods head. It turned a beady eye up towards Susan.

'All right by you, is it?' said the imp, producing its huge hammer. 'Some of us have a job to do, you know, even if we are of a metaphorical, nay, folkloric persuasion.'

'Oh, go away.'

'If you think I'm bad, wait until you see the little pink elephants,' said the imp.

'I don't believe you.'

'They come out of his ears and fly around his head making tweeting noises.'

'Ah,' said the raven, sagely. 'That sounds more like robins. I wouldn't put anything past them.'

The oh god grunted.

Susan suddenly felt that she didn't want to leave him. He was human. Well, human shaped.

Well, at least he had two arms and legs. He'd freeze to death here. Of course, gods, or even oh gods, probably couldn't, but humans didn't think like that. You couldn't just leave someone. She prided herself on this bit of normal thinking.

Besides, he might have some answers, if she could make him stay awake enough to understand the questions.

From the edge of the frozen forest.. animal eyes watched them go.

Mr Crumley sat on the damp stairs and sobbed. He couldn't get any nearer to the toy department. Every time he tried he got lifted off his feet by the mob and dumped at the edge of the crowd by the current of people.

Someone said, 'Top of the evenin', squire,' and he looked up blearily at the small yet irregularly formed figure that had addressed him thusly.

'Are you one of the pixies?' he said, after mentally exhausting all the other possibilities.

'No, sir. I am not in fact a pixie, sir, I am in fact Corporal Nobbs of the Watch. And this is Constable Visit, sir.' The creature looked at a piece of paper in its paw. 'You Mr Crummy?'

'Crumley!'

'Yeah, right. You sent a runner to the Watch House and we have hereby responded with commendable speed, sir,' said Corporal Nobbs. 'Despite it being Hogswatchnight and there being a lot of strange things happening and most

importantly it being the occasion of our Hogswatchly piss-up, sir. But this is all right because Washpot, that's Constable Visit here, he doesn't drink, sir, it being against his religion, and although I do drink, sir, I volunteered to come because it is my civic duty, sir.' Nobby tore off a salute, or what he liked to believe was a salute. He did not add, 'And turning out for a rich bugger such as your good self is bound to put the officer concerned in the way of a seasonal bottle or two or some other tangible evidence of gratitude,' because his entire stance said it for him Even Nobby's ears could look suggestive.

Unfortunately, Mr Crumley wasn't in the right receptive frame of mind. He stood up and waved a shaking finger towards the top of the stairs.

'I want you to go up there,' he said, 'and arrest him!'

'Arrest who, sir?' said Corporal Nobbs.

'The Hogfather!'

'What for, sir?'

'Because he's sitting up there as bold as brass in his Grotto, giving away presents!'

Corporal Nobbs thought about this.

'You haven't been having a festive drink, have you, sir?' he said hopefully.

'I do not drink!'

'Very wise, sir,' said Constable Visit. 'Alcohol is the tarnish of the soul. Ossory, Book Two, Verse Twentyfour.'

'Not quite up to speed here, sir,' said Corporal Nobbs, looking perplexed. 'I thought the

Hogfather is s'posed to give away stuff, isn't he?' This time Mr Crumley had to stop and think. Up until now he hadn't quite sorted things out in his head, other than recognizing their essential wrongness.

'This one is an Impostor!' he declared. 'Yes, that's right! He smashed his way into here!'

'Y'know, I always thought that,' said Nobby. 'I thought, every year, the Hogfather spends a fortnight sitting in a wooden grotto in a shop in Ankh-Morpork? At his busy time, too? Hah! Not likely! Probably just some old man in a beard, I thought.'

'I meant ... he's not the Hogfather we usually have,' said Crumley, struggling for firmer ground. 'He just barged in here"

'Oh, a different impostor? Not the real impostor at all?'

'Well ... yes ... no. . .'

'And started giving stuff away?' said Corporal Nobbs.

'That's what I said! That's got to be a Crime, hasn't it?'

Corporal Nobbs rubbed his nose.

'Well, nearly,' he conceded, not wishing to totally relinquish the chance of any festive remuneration. Realization dawned. 'He's giving away your stuff, sir?'

'No! No, he brought it in with him!'

'Ah? Giving away your stuff, now, if he was doing that, yes, I could see the problem. That's a sure sign of crime, stuff going missing. Stuff

turning up, weerlll, that's a tricky one. Unless it's stuff like arms and legs, o' course. We'd be on safer ground if he was nicking stuff, sir, to tell you the truth.'

'This is a shop,' said Mr Crumley, finally getting to the root of the problem. 'We do not give Merchandise away. How can we expect people to buy things if some Person is giving them away? Now please go and get him out of here.'

'Arrest the Hogfather, style of thing?'

'Yes!'

'On Hogswatchnight?'

'Yes!'

'In your shop?'

'Yes!'

'In front of all those kiddies?'

'Y--' Mr Crumley hesitated. To his horror, he realized that Corporal Nobbs, against all expectation, had a point. 'You think that will look bad?' he said.

'Hard to see how it could look good, sir.'

'Could you not do it surreptitiously?' he said.

'Ah, well, surreptition, yes, we could give that a try,' said Corporal Nobbs. The sentence hung in the air with its hand out.

'You won't find me ungrateful,' said Mr Crumley, at last.

'Just you leave it to us,' said Corporal Nobbs, magnanimous in victory. 'You just nip down to your office and treat yourself to a nice cup of tea and we'll sort this out in no time. You'll be ever so grateful.'

Crumley gave him a look of a man in the grip of serious doubt, but staggered away nonetheless. Corporal Nobbs rubbed his hands together.

'You don't have Hogswatch back where you come from do you, Washpot?' he said, as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. 'Look at this carpet, you'd think a pig'd pissed on it . . .'

'We call it the Fast of St Ossory,' said Visit, who was from Omnia. 'But it is not an occasion for superstition and crass commercialism. We simply get together in family groups for a prayer meeting and a fast.'

'What, turkey and chicken and that?'

'A fast, Corporal Nobbs. We don't eat anything.'

'Oh, right. Well, each to his own, I s'pose. And at least you don't have to get up early in the morning and find that the nothing you've got is too big to fit in the oven. No presents neither?'

They stood aside hurriedly as two children scuttled down the stairs carrying a large toy boat between them.

'It is sometimes appropriate to exchange new religious pamphlets, and of course there are usually copies of the Book of Ossory for the children,' said Constable Visit. 'Sometimes with illustrations,' he added, in the guarded way of a man hinting at licentious pleasures.

A small girl went past carrying a teddy bear larger than herself. It was pink.

'They always gives me bath salts,' complained Nobby. 'And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I

can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?'

'Abominable, I call it,' said Constable Visit.

The first floor was a mob.

'Huh, look at them. Mr Hogfather never brought me anything when I was a kid,' said Corporal Nobbs, eyeing the children gloomily. 'I used to hang up my stocking every Hogswatch, regular. All that ever happened was my dad was sick in it once.' He removed his helmet.

Nobby was not by any measure a hero, but there was the sudden gleam in his eye of someone who'd seen altogether too many empty stockings plus one rather full and dripping one. A scab had been knocked off some wound in the corrugated little organ of his soul.

'I'm going in,' he said.

In between the University's Great Hall and its main door is a rather smaller circular hall or vestibule known as Archchancellor Bowell's Remembrance, although no one now knows why, or why an extant bequest pays. for one small currant bun and one copper penny to be placed on a high stone shelf on one wall every second Wednesday.[15] Ridcully stood in the middle of the floor, looking upwards.

'Ten me, Senior Wrangler, we never invited any women to the Hogswatchnight Feast, did we?'

'Of course not, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler. He looked up in the dust-covered rafters, wondering what had caught Ridcully's eye. 'Good heavens, no. They'd spoil everything. I've always said so.'

'And all the maids have got the evening off until midnight?'

'A very generous custom, I've always said,' said the Senior Wrangler, feeling his neck crick.

'So why, every year, do we hang a damn great bunch of mistletoe up there?'

The Senior Wrangler turned in a circle, still staring upwards.

'Welt er ... it's ... well, it's ... it's symbolic, Archchancellor.'

'Ah?'

The Senior Wrangler felt that something more was expected. He groped around in the dusty attics of his education.

'Of ... the leaves, d'y'see ... they're symbolic of ... of green, d'y'see whereas the berries, in fact, yes, the berries symbolize . . . symbolize white. Yes. White and green. Very ... symbolic.'

He waited. He was not, unfortunately, disappointed.

'What of?'

The Senior Wrangler coughed.

'I'm not sure there has to be an of,' he said.

'Ah? So,' said the Archchancellor, thoughtfully,

'it could be said that. the white and green symbolize a small parasitic plant?'

'Yes, indeed,' said the Senior Wrangler.

'So mistletoe, in fact, symbolizes mistletoe?'

'Exactly, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler, who was now just hanging on.

'Funny thing, that,' said Ridcully, in the same thoughtful tone of voice. 'That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?'

'It could be both,' said the Senior Wrangler desperately.

'And that comment,' said Ridcully, 'is either very perceptive, or very trite.'

'It might be bo--'

'Don't push it, Senior Wrangler.'

There was a hammering on the outer door.

'Ah, that'll be the wassailers,' said the Senior Wrangler, happy for the distraction. 'They call on us first every year. I personally have always liked "The Lily-white Boys", you know.'

The Archchancellor glanced up at the mistletoe, gave the beaming man a sharp look, and opened the little hatch in the door.

'Well, now, wassailing you fellows-' he began. 'Oh. Well, I must say you might've picked a better time . . .'

A hooded figure stepped through the wood of the door, carrying a limp bundle over its shoulder.

The Senior Wrangler stepped backwards quickly.