'Toga, sandals ... he looks a bit like you,' said Susan, as the fruit victim swayed heavily.

'Was I that green colour?'

'Close.'

'Is ... is there a privy nearby?' mumbled their burden, through clammy lips.

'I believe it's through that arch over there,' said Susan. 'I've heard it's not very pleasant, though.'

'That's not a rumour, that's a forecast,' said the fat figure, and lurched off. 'And then can I please have a glass of water and one charcoal biscuit. . .'

They watched him go.

'Friend of yours?' said Susan.

'God of Indigestion, I think. Look ... I ... er ... I think I do remember something,' said the oh god- 'Just before I, um, incarnated. But it sounds stupid. .

'Well?'

'Teeth,' said the oh god.

Susan hesitated.

'You don't mean something attacking you, do you?' she said flatly.

'No. Just ... a sensation of toothiness. Probably doesn't mean much. As God of Hangovers I see a lot worse, I can tell you.'

`Just teeth. Lots of teeth. But not horrible teeth. just lots and lots of little teeth. Almost ... sad?'

'Yes! How did you know?'

'Oh, I ... maybe I remember you telling me

before you told me. I don't know. How about a big shiny red globe?'

The oh god looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, 'No, can't help you there, I'm afraid. It's just teeth. Rows and rows of teeth.'

'I don't remember rows,' said Susan. 'I just felt ... teeth were important.'

'Nah, it's amazing what you can do with a beak,' said the raven, who'd been investigating the laden table and had succeeded in levering a lid off a jar.

'What have you got there?' said Susan wearily.

'Eyeballs,' said the raven. 'Hah, wizards know how to live all right," eh? They don't want for nothing around here, I can tell you.'

'They're olives,' said Susan.

'Tough luck,' said the raven. 'They're mine now.'

'They're a kind of fruit! Or a vegetable or something!'

'You sure?' The raven swivelled one doubtful eye on the jar and the other on her.

'Yes!'

The eyes swivelled again.

'So you're an eyeball expert all of a sudden?'

'Look they're green, you stupid bird!'

'They could be very old eyeballs,' said the raven defiantly. 'Sometimes they go like that---'

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats, who was halfway through a cheese.

',And not so much of the stupid,' said the raven. 'Corvids are exceptionally bright with reasoning

and, in the case of some forest species, tool-using abilities!'

'Oh, so you are an expert on ravens, are you?' said Susan.

'Madam, I happen to be a---'

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats again.

They both turned. It was pointing at its grey teeth.

'The Tooth Fairy?' said Susan. 'What about her?'

SQUEAK.

`Rows of teeth,' said the oh god again. 'Like . . . rows, you know? What's the Tooth Fairy?'

'Oh, you see her around a lot these days,' said Susan. 'Or them, rather. Its a sort of franchise operation. You get the ladder, the moneybelt and the pliers and you're set up.'

'Pliers?'

'If she can't make change she has to take an extra tooth on account. But, look, the tooth fairies are harmless enough. I've met one or two of them. They're just working girls. They don't menace anyone.'

SQUEAK.

'I just hope Grandfather doesn't take it into his head to do their job as well. Good grief, the thought of it---'

'They collect teeth?'

'Yes. Obviously.'

'Why?'

'Why? It's their job.'

'I meant why, where do they take the teeth after they collect them?'

'I don't know! They just ... well, they just take the teeth and leave the money,' said Susan. 'What sort of question is that - 'Where do they take the teeth?'?'

'I just wondered, that's all. Probably all humans know, I'm probably very silly for asking, it's probably a wellknown fact.'

Susan looked thoughtfully at the Death of Rats.

'Actually ... where do they take the teeth?'

SQUEAK?

'He says search him,' said the raven. 'Maybe they sell 'em?' It pecked at another jar. 'How about these, these look nice and wrinkl---'

'Pickled walnuts,' said Susan absently. 'What do they do with the teeth? What use is there for a lot of teeth? But ... what harm can a tooth fairy do?'

'Have we got time to find one and ask her?' said the oh god.

'Time isn't the problem,' said Susan.

There are those who believe knowledge is something that is acquired - a precious ore hacked, as it were, from the grey strata of ignorance.

There are those who believe that knowledge can only be recalled, that there was some Golden Age in the distant past when everything was known and the stones fitted together so you could hardly put a knife between them, you know, and

it's obvious they had flying machines, right, because of the way the earthworks can only be seen from above, yeah? and there's this museum I read about where they found a pocket calculator under the altar of this ancient temple, you know what I'm saying? but the government hushed it up ... [18]

Mustrum Ridcully believed that knowledge could be acquired by shouting at people, and was endeavouring to do so. The wizards were sitting around the Uncommon Room table, which was piled high with books.

'It is Hogswatch, Archchancellor,' said the Dean reproachfully, thumbing through an ancient volume.

'Not until midnight,' said Ridcully. 'Sortin' this out will give you fellows an appetite for your dinner.'

'I think I might have something, Archchancellor,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'This is Woddeley's Basic Gods. There's some stuff here about lares and penates that seems to it the bill.'

'Lares and penates? What were they when they were at home?' said Ridcully.

'Hahaha,' said the Chair.

'What?' said Ridcully.

'I thought you were making a rather good joke, Archchancellor,' said the Chair.

'Was I? I didn't mean to,' said Ridcully.

'Nothing new there,' said the Dean, under his breath.

'What was that, Dean?'

'Nothing, Archchancellor.'

'I thought you made the reference "at home" because they are, in fact, household gods. Or were, rather. They seemed to have faded away long ago. They were ... little spirits of the house, like, for example---'

Three of the other wizards, thinking quite fast for wizards, clapped their hands over his mouth.

'Careful!' said Ridcully. 'Careless talk creates lives! That's why we've got a big fat God of Indigestion being ill in the privy. By the way,. where's the Bursar?'

'He was in the privy, Archchancellor,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'What, when the-?'

'Yes, Archchancellor.'

'Oh, well, Im sure he'll be all right,' said Ridcully, in the matter-of-fact voice of someone contemplating something nasty that was happening to someone else out of earshot. 'But we don't want any more of these ... what're they, Chair?'

'Lares and penates, Archchancellor, but I wasn't suggesting---'

'Seems dear to me. Something's gone wrong and these little devils are coming back. All we have to do is find out what's gone wrong and put it right.'

'Oh, well, I'm glad that's all sorted out,' said the Dean.

'Household gods,' said Ridcully. 'That's what they are, Chair?' He opened the drawer in his hat and took out his pipe.

'Yes, Archchancellor. It says here they used to be the ... local spirits, I suppose. They saw to it that the bread rose and the butter churned properly.'

'Did they eat pencils? What was their attitude in the socks department?'

'This was back in the time of the First Empire,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Sandals and togas and so on.'

'Ah. Not noticeably socked?'

'Not excessively so, no. And it was nine hundred years before Osric Pencillium first discovered, in the graphiterich sands of the remote island of Sumtri, the small bush which, by dint

of careful cultivation, he induced to produce the long-'

'Yes, we can all see you've got the encyclopaedia open under the table, Chair,' said Ridcully. 'But I daresay things have changed a bit. Moved with the times. Bound to have been a few developments. Once they looked after the bread rising, now we have things that eat pencils and socks and see to it that you can never find a dean towel when you want one-'

There was a distant tinkling.

He stopped.

'I just said that, didn't P' he said.

The wizards nodded glumly.

'And this is the first time anyone's mentioned it?'

The wizards nodded again.

'Well, dammit, it's amazing, you can never find a dean towel when---'

There was a rising wheeee noise. A towel went by at shoulder height. There was a suggestion of many small wings.

'That was mine,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes reproachfully. The towel disappeared in the direction of the Great Hall.

'Towel Wasps,' said the Dean. 'Well done, Archchancellor.'

'Well, I mean, dammit, it's human nature, isn't it?' said Ridcully hotly. 'Things go wrong, things get lost, it's natural to invent little creatures that - All right, all right, I'll be careful. I'm just saying man is naturally a mythopoeic creature.'

'What's that mean?' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Means we make things up as we go along,' said the Dean, not looking up.

'Um ... excuse me, gentlemen,' said Ponder Stibbons, who had been scribbling thoughtfully at the end of the table. 'Are we suggesting that things are coming back? Do we think that's a viable hypothesis?'

The wizards looked at one another around the table.

'Definitely viable.'

`Viable, right enough.' - 'Yes, that's the stuff to give the troops.'

'What is? Whats the stuff to give the troops?'

'Well ... tinned rations? Decent weapons, good boots ... that sort of thing.'

'What's that got to do with anything?'

'Don't ask me. He was the one who started talking about giving stuff to the troops.'

'Will you lot shut up? No one's giving anything to the troops!'

'Oh, shouldn't they have something? It's Hogswatch, after all.'

'Look it was just a figure of speech, all right? I just meant I was. fully in agreement. It's just colourful language. Good grief, you surely can't think I'm actually suggesting giving stuff to the troops, at Hogswatch or any other time!'

'You weren't?'

'No!"

'That's a bit mean, isn't it?'

Ponder just let it happen. It's because their

minds are so often involved with deep and problematic matters, he told himself, that their mouths are allowed to wander around making a nuisance of themselves.

'I don't hold with using that thinking machine,' said the Dean. 'I've said this before. It's meddling with the Cult. The occult has always been good enough for me, thank you very much.'

'On the other hand it's the only person round here who can think straight and it does what it's told,' said Ridcully.

The sleigh roared through the snow, leaving rolling trails in the sky.

'Oh, what fun,' muttered Albert, hanging on tightly.

The runners hit a roof near the University and the pigs trotted to a halt.

Death looked at the hourglass again.

ODD, he said.

'It's a scythe job, then?' said Albert. 'You won't be wanting the false beard and the jolly laugh?' He looked around, and puzzlement replaced sarcasm. 'Hey ... how could anyone be dead up here?

Someone was. A corpse lay in the snow.

It was dear that the man had only just died. Albert squinted up at the sky.

'There's nowhere to fall from and there's no footprints in the snow,' he said, as Death swung his scythe. 'So where did he come from? Looks

like someone's personal guard. Been stabbed to death. Nasty knife wound there, see?'

'It's not good,' agreed the spirit of the man, looking down at himself.

Then he stared from himself to Albert to Death and his phantom expression went from shock to concern.

'They got the teeth! All of them! They just walked in ... and ... they ... no, wait. .

He faded and was gone.

'Well, what was that all about?' said Albert.

I HAVE MY SUSPICIONS.

'See that badge on his shirt? Looks like a drawing of a tooth.'

YES. IT DOES.

'Where's that come from?'

A PLACE I CANNOT GO.

Albert looked down at the mysterious corpse and then back up at Deaths impassive skull.

'I keep thinking it was a funny thing, us bumping into your grand-daughter like that,' he said.

YES.

Albert put his head on one side. 'Given the large number of chimneys and kids in the world, ekcetra.'

INDEED…

'Amazing coincidence, really.'

IT JUST GOES TO SHOW.

'Hard to believe, you might say.'

LIFE CERTAINLY SPRINGS A FEW SURPRISES.

'Not just life, I reckon,' said Albert. 'And she

got real worked up, didn't she? Flew right off the ole handle. Wouldn't be surprised if she started asking questions.'

THAT'S PEOPLE FOR YOU.

'But Rat is hanging around, ain't he? He'll probably keep an eye socket on her. Guide her path, prob'ly.'

HE IS A LITTLE SCAMP, ISN'T HE?

Albert knew he couldn't win. Death had the ultimate poker face.

I'M SURE SHE'LL ACT SENSIBLY.

'Oh, yeah,' said Albert, as they walked back to the sleigh. 'It runs in the family, acting sensibly.'

Like many barmen, Igor kept a club under the bar to deal with those little upsets that occurred around closing time, although in fact Biers never closed and no one could ever remember not seeing Igor behind the bar. Nevertheless, things sometimes got out of hand. Or paw. Or talon.

Igor's weapon of choice was a little different. It was tipped with silver (for werewolves), hung with garlic (for vampires) and wrapped around with a strip of blanket (for bogeymen). For everyone else the fact that it was two feet of solid bog-oak usually sufficed.

He'd been watching the window. The frost was creeping across it. For some reason the creeping fingers were forming into a pattern of three little dogs looking out of a boot.

Then someone had tapped him on the

shoulder. He spun around, club already in his hand, and relaxed.

'Oh ... it's you, miss. I didn't hear the door.'

There hadn't been the door. Susan was in a hurry.

'Have you seen Violet lately, Igor?'

'The tooth girl?' Igor's one eyebrow writhed in concentration. 'Nah, haven't seen her for a week or two.`

The eyebrow furrowed into a V of annoyance as he spotted the raven, which tried to shuffle behind a halfempty display card of beer nuts.

'You can get that out of here, miss,' he said. 'You know the rule 'bout pets and familiars. If it can't turn back into human on demand, it's out.'

'Yeah, well, some of us have more brain cells than fingers,' muttered a voice from behind the beer nuts.

'Where does she live?'

'Now, miss, you know I never answers questions like that--'

‘WHERE DOES SHE LIVE, IGOR?'

'Shamlegger Street, next to the picture framers,' said Igor automatically. The eyebrow knotted in anger as he realized what he'd said.

'Now, miss, you know the rules! I don't get bitten, I don't get me froat torn out and no one hides behind me door! And you don't try your granddad's voice on me! I could ban you for messin' me about like that!'

'Sorry, it's important,' said Susan. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the raven had

crept on to the shelves and was pecking the top off a jar.

'Yeah, well, suppose one of the vampires decides it's important he's missed his tea?' grumbled Igor, putting the club away.

There was a plink from the direction of thee pickled egg jar. Susan tried hard not to look.

' Can we go?' said the oh god. 'All this alcohol makes me nervous.'

Susan nodded and hurried out.

Igor grunted. Then he went back to watching the frost, because Igor never demanded much out of life. After a while he heard a muffled voice say:

'I 'ot 'un! I 'ot 'un!'

It was indistinct because the raven had speared a pickled egg with its beak.

Igor sighed, and picked up his club. And it would have gone very hard for the raven if the Death of Rats hadn't chosen that moment to bite Igor on the ear.

DOWN THERE, said Death.

The reins were hauled so sharply so quickly that the hogs ended up facing the other way.

Albert fought his way out of a drift of teddy bears, where he'd been dozing.

'What's up? What's up? Did we hit something?' he said.

 Death pointed downwards. An endless white snowfield lay below, only the occasional glow of

a window candle or a half-covered hut indicating the presence on this world of brief mortality.

Albert squinted, and then saw what Death had spotted.

' 's some old bugger trudging through the snow,' he said. 'Been gathering wood, by the look of it. A bad night to be out,' he said. 'And I'm out in it too, come to that. Look, master, I'm sure you've done enough now to make sure----'

SOMETHING'S HAPPENING DOWN THERE. HO. HO. HO.

'Look, he's all right,' said Albert, hanging on as the sleigh tumbled downwards. There was a brief wedge of light below as the wood-gatherer opened the door of a snow-drifted hovel. 'See, over there, there's a couple of blokes catching him up, look they're weighed down with parcels and stuff, see? He's going to have a decent Hogswatch after all, no problem there. Now can we go-'

Death's glowing eye sockets took in the scene in minute detail.

IT'S WRONG.

'Oh, no ... here we go again.'

The oh god hesitated.

'What do you mean, you can't walk through the door?' said Susan. 'You walked through the door in the bar.'

'That was different. I have certain god-like powers in the presence of alcohol. Anyway,

we've knocked and she hasn't answered and

whatever happened to Mr Manners?'

Susan shrugged, and walked through the

cheap woodwork. She knew she probably shouldn't. Every time she did something like this she used up a certain amount of, well, normal. And sooner or later she'd forget what doorknobs were for, just like Grandfather.

Come to think of it, he'd never found out what doorknobs were for.

She opened the door from the inside. The oh god stepped in and looked around. This did not take long. It was not a large room. It had been subdivided from a room that itself hadn't been all that big to start with.

'This is where the Tooth fairy lives?' Bilious said. 'It's a bit ... poky, isn't it? Stuff all over the floor ... What're these things hanging from this line?'

'They're . . . women's clothes,' said Susan, rummaging through the paperwork on a small rickety table.

'They're not very big,' said the oh god. 'And a bit thin . . .'

'Tell me,' said Susan, without looking up. 'These memories you arrived here with ... They weren't very complicated, were they ... ? Ah...'

He looked over her shoulder as she opened a small red notebook.

'I've only talked to Violet a few times,' she said. 'I think she delivers the teeth somewhere and gets a percentage of the money. It's not a highly paid

line of work. You know, they say you can Earn $$$ in Your Spare Time but she says really she could earn more money waiting on tables - All, this looks right

'What's that?'

'She said she gets given the names every week.'

'What, of the children where going to lose teeth?'

'Yes. Names and addresses,' said Susan, flicking through the pages.

'That doesn't sound very likely.'

`Pardon me, but are you the God of Hangovers? Oh, look here's Twyla's tooth last month.' She smiled at the neat grey writing. 'She practically hammered it out because she needed the half-dollar.'

'Do you like children?' said the oh god.

She gave him a look. 'Not raw,' she said. `Other people's are OK. Hold on . . .'

She flicked some pages back and forth.

'There's just blank days,' she said. 'Look, the last few days, all unticked. No names. But if you go back a week or two, look they're all properly marked off and the money added up at the bottom of the page, see? And ... this can't be right, can it?'

There were only five names entered on the first unticked night, for the previous week. Most children instinctively knew when to push their luck and only the greedy or dentally improvident called out the Tooth Fairy around Hogswatch.

'Read the names,' said Susan.

‘William Wittles, a.k.a. Willy (home), Tosser (school),

 2nd flr bck bdrm, 68 Kicklebury Street;

Sophie Langtree, a.k.a. Daddy's Princess, attic bdrm,

5 The Hippo;

The Hon. Jeffrey Bibbleton, a.k.a. Trouble in Trousers

(home), Foureyes (school), 1st fir bck, Scrote

Manor, Park Lane-'

He stopped. 'I say, this is a bit intrusive, isn't it?'

' It's a whole new world,' said Susan. 'You haven't got there yet. Keep going.'

'Nuhakme Icta, a.k.a. Little Jewel, basement, The Laughing Falafel, Klatchistan Take-Away and All

Nite Grocery, cnr. Soake and Dimwell;

Reginald Lilywhite, a.k.a. Banjo, The Park Lane Bully,

Have You Seen This Man? , The Goose Gate

Grabber, The Nap Hill Lurker, Rm 17, YMPA.

'YMPA?'

'It's what we generally call the Young-Men's-ReformedCultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-ShamharothAssociation,' said Susan. 'Does that sound to you like someone who'd expect a visit from a tooth fairy?'

4 No.'

'Me neither. He sounds like someone who'd expect a visit from the Watch.'

Susan looked around. It really was a crummy room, the sort rented by someone who probably took it never intending to stay Iong, the sort where walking across the floor in the middle of the night would be accompanied by the crack of cockroaches in a death flamenco. It was

amazing how many people spent their whole fives in places where they never intended to stay.

Cheap, narrow bed, crumbling plaster, tiny window

 She opened the window and fished around

below the ledge, and felt satisfied when her

questing fingers dosed on a piece of string

which was attached to an oilcloth bag. She hauled

it in.

'What's that?' said the oh god, as she opened it on the table.

'Oh, you see them a lot,' said Susan, taking out some packages wrapped in second-hand waxed paper. 'You live alone, mice and roaches eat everything, there's nowhere to store food - but outside the window it's cold and safe. More or less safe. It's an old trick. Now ... look at this. Leathery bacon, a green loaf and a bit of cheese you could shave. She hasn't been back home for some time, believe me.'

'Oh dear. What now?'

'Where would she take the teeth?' said Susan, to the world in general but mainly to herself. 'What the hell does the Tooth Fairy do with---'

There was a knock at the door. Susan opened it.

Outside was a small bald man in a long brown coat. He was holding a clipboard and blinked nervously at the sight of her.

'Er. . .' he began.

'Can I help you?' said Susan.

'Er, I saw the light, see. I thought Violet was

in,' said the little man. He twiddled the pencil that was attached to his clipboard by a piece of string. 'Only she's a bit behind with the teeth and there's a bit of money owing and Ernie's cart ain't come back and it's got to go in my report and I come round in case ... in case she was W or something, it not being nice being alone and ill at Hogswatch-'

'She's not here,' said Susan.

The man gave her a worried look and shook his head sadly.

'There's nearly thirteen dollars in pillow money, see. I'll have to report it.'

'Who to?'

'It has to go higher up, see. I just hope it's not going to be like that business in Quirm where the girl started robbing houses. We never heard the end of that one-'

'Report to who?'

'And there's the ladder and the pliers,' the man went on, in a litany against a world that had no understanding of what it meant to have to fill in an AF17 report in triplicate. 'How can I keep track of stocktaking if people go around taking stock?' He shook his head. 'I dunno, they get the job, they think it's all nice sunny nights, they get a bit of sharp weather and suddenly it's goodbye Charlie I'm off to be a waitress in the warm. And then there's Emie. I know him. It's a nip to keep out the cold, and then another one to keep it company, and then a third in case the other two get lost ... It's all going to have to go down in

my report, you know, and who's going to get the blame? M tell you---'

'It's going to be you, isn't it?' said Susan. She was almost hypnotized. The man even had a fringe of worried hair and a small, worried moustache. And the voice suggested exactly that here was a man who, at the end of the world, would worry that it would be blamed on him.

'That's right,' he said, but in a slightly grudging voice. He was not about to allow a bit of understanding to lighten his day. 'And the girls all go on about the job but I tell them they've got it easy, it's just basic'ly ladder work, they don't have to spend their evenings knee-deep in paper and making shortfalls good out of their own money, I might add---'

'You employ the tooth fairies?' said Susan quickly. The oh god was still vertical but his eyes had glazed over.

The little man preened slightly. 'Sort of,' he said. 'Basic'Iy I run Bulk Collection and Despatch---'

'Where to?'

He stared at her. Sharp, direct questions weren't his forte.

'I just sees to it they gets on the cart,' he mumbled. 'When they're on the cart and Ernie's signed the CV19 for 'em, that's it done and finished, only like I said he ain't turned up this week and-'

'A whole cart for a handful of teeth?'

'Well, there's the food for the guards, and -

'ere, who are you, anyway? What're you doing here?'

Susan straightened up. 'I don't have to put up with this,' she said sweetly, to no one in particular. She leaned forward again.

WHAT CART ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE, CHARLIE?' The oh god jolted away. The man m the brown coat shot backwards and splayed against the corridor wall as Susan advanced.

'Comes Tuesdays,' he panted. "ere, what---'

' AND WHERE DOES IT GO?'

'Dunno! Like I said, when he's--'

'Signed the GV19 for them it's you done and finished,' said Susan, in her normal voice. 'Yes. You said. What's Violet's full name? She never mentioned it.'

The man hesitated.

' I SAID-'

'Violet Bottler!'

'Thank you.'

'An' Emie's gorn too,' said Charlie, continuing more or less on auto-pilot. 'I call that suspicious. I mean, he's got a wife and everything. Won't be the first man to get his head turned by thirteen dollars and a pretty ankle and, o' course, no one thinks about muggins who has to carry the can, I mean, supposing we was all to get it in our heads to run off with young wimmin?'

He gave Susan the stem look of one who, if it was not for the fact that the world needed him, would even now be tiring of painting naked young ladies on some tropical island somewhere.

' What happens to the teeth?' said Susan.

He blinked at her. A bully, thought Susan. A very small, weak, very dull bully, who doesn't manage any real bullying because there's hardly anyone smaller and weaker than him, so he just makes everyone's lives just that little bit more difficult ...

'What sort of question is that?' he managed, in the face of her stare.

'You never wondered?' said Susan, and added to herself, I didn't. Did anyone?

'Well, 's not my job, I just-'

'Oh, yes. You said,' said Susan. 'Thank you. You've been very helpful. Thank you very much.'

The man stared at her, and then turned and ran down the stairs.

'Drat,' said Susan.

'That's a very unusual swearword,' said the oh god nervously.

'It's so easy,' said Susan. 'If I want to, I can find anybody. It's a family trait.'

'Oh. Good.'

'No. Have you any idea how hard it is to be normal? The things you have to remember? How to go to sleep? How to forget things? What doorknobs are for?'

Why ask him, she thought, as she looked at his shocked face. All that's normal for him is remembering to throw up what someone else drank.

'Oh, come on,' she said, and hurried towards the stairs.

It was so easy to slip into immortality, to ride

the horse, to know everything. And every time you did, it brought closer the day when you could never get off and never forget.

Death was hereditary.

You got it from your ancestors.

'Where are we going now?' said the oh god.

'Down to the YMPA,' said Susan.

The old man in the hovel looked uncertainly at the feast spread in front of him. He sat on his stool as curled up on himself as a spider in a flame.

'I'd got a bit of a mess of beans cooking,' he mumbled, looking at his visitors through filmy eyes.

'Good heavens, you can't eat beans at Hogswatch,', said the king, smiling hugely. 'That's terribly unlucky, eating beans at Hogswatch. My word, yes!'

'Di'nt know that,' the old man said, looking down desperately at his lap.

'We've brought you this magnificent spread. Don't you think so?'

'I bet you're incredibly grateful for it, too,' said the page, sharply.

'Yes, well, o' course, it's very kind of you gennelmen,' said the old man, in a voice the size of a mouse. He blinked, uncertain of what to do next.

'The turkey's hardly been touched, still plenty of meat on it,' said the king. 'And do have some

of this cracking good widgeon stuffed with swan's liver.’

'-only I'm partial to a bowl of beans and I've never been beholden to no one nor nobody,' the old man said, still staring at his lap.

'Good heavens, man, you don't need to worry about that,' said the king heartily. 'It's Hogswatch! I was only just now looking out of the window and I saw you plodding through the snow and I said to young Jermain here, I said, `Who's that chappie?" and he said, "Oh, he's some peasant fellow who lives up by the forest," and I said, "Well, I couldn't eat another thing and it's Hogswatch, after all," and so we just bundled everything up and here we are!'

'And I expect you're pathetically thankful,' said the page. 'I expect we've brought a ray of light into your dark tunnel of a life, hmm?'

'---yes, well, o' course, only I'd been savin' 'em for weeks, see, and there's some bakin' potatoes under the fire, I found 'em in the cellar 'n' the mice'd hardly touched 'em.' The old man never raised his eyes from knee level. 'W our dad brought me up never to ask for--'

'Listen,' said the king, raising his voice a little, 'I've walked miles tonight and I bet you've never seen food like this in your whole life, eh?'

Tears of humiliated embarrassment were rolling down the old man's face.

'-well, I'm sure it's very kind of you fine gennelmen but I ain't sure I knows how to eat

swans and suchlike, but if you want a bit o' my beans you've only got to say--'

'Let me make myself absolutely clear,' said the king sharply. 'This is some genuine Hogswatch charity, d'you understand? And we're going to sit here and watch the smile on your grubby but honest face, is that understood?'

'And what do you say to the good king?' the page prompted.

The peasant hung his head.

' 'nk you.'

'Right,' said the king, sitting back. 'Now, pick up your fork---'

The door burst open. An indistinct figure strode into the room, snow swirling around it in a cloud.

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

The page started to stand up, drawing his sword. He never worked out how the other figure could have got behind him, but there it was, pressing him gently down again.

'Hello, son, my name is Albert,' said a voice by his ear. 'Why don't you put that sword back very slowly? People might get hurt.'

A finger prodded the king, who had been too shocked to move.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, SIRE?

The king tried to focus on the figure. There was an impression of red and white, but black, too.

To Albert's secret amazement, the man managed to get to his feet and draw himself up as regally as he could.

'What is going on here, whoever you are, is some fine old Hogswatch charity! And who---'

NO, IT'S NOT.

'What? How dare you-'

WERE YOU HERE LAST MONTH? WILL YOU BE HERE NEXT WEEK? NO. BUT TONIGHT YOU WANTED TO FEEL ALL WARM INSIDE. TONIGHT YOU WILL WANT THEM TO SAY: WHAT A GOOD KING HE IS.

'Oh, no, he's going too far again-' muttered Albert under his breath. He pushed the page down again. "No, you stay still, sonny. Else you'll just be a paragraph.'

'Whatever it is, it's more than he's got!' snapped the king. 'And all we've had from him is ingratitude---'

YES, THAT DOES SPOIL IT, DOESN'T IT? Death leaned forward. GO AWAY.

To the kings's own surprise his body took over and marched him out of the door.

Albert patted the page on the shoulder. 'And you can run along too,' he said.

'-I didn't mean to go upsetting anyone, its just that I never asked no one for nothing---' mumbled the old man, in a small humble world of his own, his hands tangling themselves together out of nervousness.

'Best if you leave this one to me, master, if you don't mind,' said Albert. 'I'll be back in just a tick.' Loose ends, he thought, that's my job. Tying up loose ends. The master never thinks things through.

He caught up with the king outside.

'Ah, there you are, your sire,' he said. 'Just before you go, won't keep you a minute, just a minor point---' Albert leaned dose to the stunned monarch. 'If anyone was thinking about making a mistake, you know, like maybe sending the guards down here tomorrow, tipping the old man out of his hovel, chuckin' him in prison, anything like that ... werrlll ... that's the kind of mistake he ought to treasure on account of it being the last mistake he'll ever make. A word to the wise men, right?' He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. 'Happy Hogswatch.'

Then he hurried back into the hovel.

The feast had vanished. The old man was looking blearily at the bare table.

HALF-EATEN LEAVINGS, said Death. WE COULD CERTAINLY DO BETTER THAN THIS. He reached into the sack.

Albert grabbed his arm before he could withdraw his hand.

'Mind taking a bit of advice, master? I was brung up in a place like this.'

DOES IT BRING TEARS TO YOUR EYES?

'A box of matches to me hand, more like. Listen

The old man was only dimly aware of some whispering. He sat hunched up, staring at nothing.

WELL, IF YOU ARE SURE ...

'Been there, done that, chewed the bones,' said Albert. 'Charity ain't giving people what you wants to give, it's giving people what they need to get.'

VERY WELL.

Death reached into the sack again.

HAPPY HOGSWATCH. HO. HO. HO.

There was a string of sausages. There was a side of bacon. And a small tub of salt pork. And a mass of chitterlings wrapped up in greased paper. There was a black pudding. There were several other tubs of disgusting yet savoury porkadjacent items highly prized in any pig-based economy. And, laid on the table with a soft thump, there was

'A pig's head,' breathed the old man. 'A whole one! Ain't had brawn in years! And a basin of pig knuckles! And a bowl of pork dripping!'

HO. HO. HO.

'Amazing,' said Albert. 'How did you get the head's expression to look like the king?'

I THINK THAT's ACCIDENTAL.

Albert patted the old man on the back.

'Have yourself a ball,' he said. 'In fact, have two. Now I think we ought to be going, master.'

They left the old man staring at the laden board.

WASN'T THAT NICE? said Death, as the hogs accelerated.

'Oh, yes,' said Albert, shaking his head. 'Poor old devil. Beans at Hogswatch? Unlucky, that. Not a night for a man to find a bean in his bowl.'

I FEEL I WAS CUT OUT FOR THIS SORT OF THING, YOU KNOW.

'Really, master?'

IT'S NICE TO DO A JOB WHERE PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.

'Ah,' said Albert glumly.

THEY DON'T NORMALLY LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ME.

'Yes, I expect so.'

EXCEPT IN SPECIAL AND RATHER UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES.

'Right, right.'

AND THEY SELDOM LEAVE A GLASS OF SHERRY OUT.

'I expect they don't, no.'

I COULD GET INTO THE HABIT OF DOING THIS, IN FACT.

'But you won't need to, will you, master?' said Albert hurriedly, with the horrible prospect of being a permanent Pixie Albert looming in his mind again. 'Because we'll get the Hogfather back.. right? That's what you said we were going to do, right? And young Susan's probably bustling around ...

YES. OF COURSE.

'Not that you asked her to, of course.'

Albert's jittery ears didn't detect any enthusiasm.

Oh dear, he thought.

I HAVE ALWAYS CHOSEN THE PATH OF DUTY.

'Right, master.'

The sleigh sped on.

I AM THOROUGHLY IN CONTROL AND FIRM OF PURPOSE.

'No problem there, then, master.' said Albert.

NO NEED TO WORRY AT ALL.

'Pleased to hear it, master.'

IF I HAD A FIRST NAME, 'DUTY' WOULD BE MY MIDDLE NAME.

'Good.'

NEVERTHELESS ...

Albert strained his ears and thought he heard, just on the edge of hearing, a voice whisper sadly.

HO. HO. HO.

There was a party going on. It seemed to occupy the entire building.

'Certainly very energetic young men,' said the oh god carefully, stepping over a wet towel. 'Are women allowed in here?'

'No,' said Susan. She stepped through a wall into the superintendent's office.

A group of young men went past, manhandling a barrel of beer.

'You'll feel bad about it in the morning,' said Bilious. 'Strong drink is a mocker, you know.'

They set it up on a table and knocked out the bung.

'Someone's going to have to be sick after all that,' he said, raising his voice above the hubbub. 'I hope you realize that. You think it's clever, do you, reducing yourself to the level of the beasts of the field ... er ... or the level they'd sink to if they drank, I mean.'

They moved away, leaving one mug of beer by the barrel.

The oh god glanced at it, and picked it up and sniffed at it.

'Ugh.'

Susan stepped out of the wall.

'He hasn't been back for- What're you doing?'

'I thought Id see what beer tastes like,' said the oh god guiltily.

'You don't know what beer tastes like?'

'Not on the way down, no. It's ... quite different by the time it gets to me,' he said sourly. He took another sip, and then a longer one. 'I can't see what all the fuss is about,' he added.

He tipped up the empty pot.

'I suppose it comes out of this tap here,' he said. 'You know, for once in my existence I'd like to get drunk.'

'Aren't you always?' said Susan, who wasn't really paying attention.

'No. I've always been drunk. I'm sure I explained.'

'He's been gone a couple of days,' said Susan. 'That's odd. And he didn't say where he was going. The last night he was here was the night he was on Violet's list. But he paid for his room for the week, and I've got the number.'

'And the key?' said the oh god.

'What a strange idea.'

Mr Lilywhite's room was small. That wasn't surprising. What was surprising was how neat it was, how carefully the little bed had been made, how well the floor had been swept. It was hard to imagine anyone living in it, but there were a

few signs. On the simple table by the bed was a small, rather crude portrait of a bulldog in a wig, although on closer inspection it might have been a woman. This tentative hypothesis was borne out by the inscription 'To a Good Boy, from his Mother' on the back.

A book lay next to it. Susan wondered what kind of reading someone with Mr Banjo's background would buy.

It turned out to be a book of six pages, one of those that were supposed to enthral children with the magic of the printed word by pointing out that they could See Spot Run.

There were no more than ten words on each page and yet, carefully placed between pages four and five, was a bookmark.

She turned back to the cover. The book was called Happy Tales. There was a blue sky and trees and a couple of impossibly pink children playing with a jollylooking dog.

It looked as though it had been read frequently, if slowly.

And that was it.

A dead end.

No. Perhaps not ...

On the floor by the bed, as if it had been accidentally dropped, was a small, silvery halfdollar piece.

Susan picked it up and tossed it idly. She looked the oh god up and down. He was swilling a mouthful of beer from cheek to cheek and looking thoughtfully at the ceiling.

She wondered about his likelihood of survival incarnate in Ankh-Morpork at Hogswatch, especially if the cure wore off. After all, the only purpose of his existence was to have a headache and throw up. There were not a great many postgraduate jobs for which these were the main qualifications.

'Tell me,' she said. 'Have you ever ridden a horse?'

'I don't know. What's a horse?'

In the depths of the library of Death, a squeaking noise.

It was not loud, but it appeared louder than mere decibels would suggest in the furtive, scribbling hush of the books.

Everyone, it is said, has a book inside them. In this library, everyone was inside a book.

The squeaking got louder. It had a rhythmical, circular quality.

Book on book, shelf on shelf ... and in every one, at the page of the ever-moving now, a scribble of handwriting following the narrative of every life ...

The squeaking came round the corner.

It was issuing from what looked like a very rickety edifice, several storeys high. It looked rather like a siege tower, open at the sides. At the base, between the wheels, was a pair of geared treadles which moved the whole thing.

Susan dung to the railing of the topmost platform.

'Can't you hurry up?' she said. 'We're only at the Bi's at the moment.'

'I've been pedalling for ages!' panted the oh god.

'Well, "A" is a very popular letter.'

Susan stared up at the shelves. A was for Anon, among other things. All those people who, for one reason or another, never officially got a name.

They tended to be short books.

'M ... Bo ... Bod ... Bog ... turn left . .

The library tower squeaked ponderously around the next corner.

'Ah, Bo ... blast, the Bots are at least twenty shelves up.'

'Oh, how nice,' said the oh god grimly.

He heaved on the lever that moved the drive chain from one sprocket to another, and started to pedal again.

Very ponderously, the creaking tower began to telescope upwards.

'Right, we're there,' Susan shouted down, after a few minutes of slow rise. 'Here's ... let's see ... Aabana Bottler. . .'

 'I expect Violet will be a lot further,' said the oh god, trying out irony.

'Onwards!'

Swaying a little, the tower headed down the Bs until.

'Stop!’

It rocked as the oh god kicked the brake block against a wheel.

'I think this is her,' said a voice from above. 'OK, you can lower away.'

A big wheel with ponderous lead weights on it spun slowly as the tower concertina'd back, creaking and grinding. Susan climbed down the last few feet.

'Everyone's in here?' said the oh god, as she thumbed through the pages.

'Yes.'

'Even gods?'

'Anything that's alive and self-aware,' said Susan, not looking up. 'This is ... odd. It looks as though she's in some sort of ... prison. Who'd want to lock up a tooth fairy?'

'Someone with very sensitive teeth?'

Susan flicked back a few pages. 'It's all ... hoods over her head and people carrying her and so on. But . . .' she turned a page '. . . it says the last job she did was on Banjo and ... yes, she got the tooth ... and then she felt as though someone was behind her and ... there's a ride on a cart ... and the hood's come off ... and there's a causeway ... and. . .'

'All that's in a book?'

'The autobiography. Everyone has one. It writes down your life as you go along.'

'I've got one?'

'I expect so.'

'Oh, dear. "Got up, was sick, wanted to die." Not a gripping read, really.'

Susan turned the page.

'A tower,' she said. 'She's in a tower. From

what she saw, it was tall and white inside ... but not outside? It didn't look real. There were apple trees around it, but the trees, the trees didn't look right. And a river, but that wasn't right either. There were goldfish in it ... but they were on top of the water.'

'Ah. Pollution,' said the oh god.

'I don't think so. It says here she saw them swimming!

'Swimming on top of the water?'

'That's how she thinks she saw it.'

'Really? You don't think she'd been eating any of that mouldy cheese, do you?'

'And there was blue sky but ... she must have got this wrong ... it says here there was only blue sky above . . .'

'Yep. Best place for the sky,' said the oh god. 'Sky underneath you, that probably means trouble.'

Susan flicked a page back and forth. 'She means ... sky overhead but not around the edges, I think No sky on the horizon.'

'Excuse me,' said the oh god. 'I'm not long in this world, I appreciate that, but I think you have, to have sky on the horizon. That's how you can

tell it's the horizon.'

A sense of familiarity was creeping up on Susan, but surreptitiously, dodging behind things whenever she tried to concentrate on it.

'I've seen this place,' she said, tapping the page. 'If only she'd looked harder at the trees ... She says they've got brown trunks and green leaves

and it says here she thought they were odd. And ... She concentrated on the next paragraph. 'Flowers. Growing in the grass. With big round petals.'

She stared unseeing at the oh god again.

'This isn't a proper landscape,' she said.

'It doesn't sound too unreal to me,' said the oh god. 'Sky. Trees. Flowers. Dead fish.'

'Brown tree trunks? Really they're mostly a sort of greyish mossy colour. You only ever see brown tree trunks in one place,' said Susan. 'And it's the same place where the sky is only ever overhead. The blue never comes down to the ground.'

She looked up. At the far end of the corridor was one of the very tall, very thin windows. It looked out on to the black gardens. Black bushes, black grass, black trees. Skeletal fish cruising 'm the black waters of a pool, under black water lilies.

There was colour, in a sense, but it was the kind of colour you'd get if you could shine a beam of black through a prism. There were hints of tints, here and there a black you might persuade yourself was a very deep purple or a midnight blue. But it was basically black, under a black sky, because this was the world belonging to Death and that was all there was to it.

The shape of Death was the shape people had created for him, over the centuries. Why bony? Because bones were associated with death. He'd got a scythe because agricultural people could

spot a decent metaphor. And he lived in a sombre land because the human imagination would be rather stretched to let him live somewhere nice with flowers.

People like Death lived in the human imagination, and got their shape there, too. He wasn't the only one ...

... but he didn't like the script, did he? He'd started to take an interest in people. Was that a thought, or just a memory of something that hadn't happened yet?

The oh god followed her gaze.

'Can we go after her?' said the oh god. 'I say we, I think I've just got drafted in because I was in the wrong place.'

'She's alive. That means she is mortal,' said Susan. 'That means I can find her, too.' She turned and started to walk out of the library.

'If she says the sky is just blue overhead, what's between it and the horizon?' said the oh god, running to keep up.

'You don't have to come,' said Susan. 'It's not your problem.'

'Yes, but given that my problem is that my whole purpose in life is to feel rotten, anything's an improvement.'

'It could be dangerous. I don't think she's there of her own free will. Would you be any good in a fight?'

'Yes. I could be sick on people.'

It was a shack, somewhere out on the outskirts of the Plains town of Scrote. Scrote had a lot of outskirts, spread so widely - a busted cart here, a dead dog there that often people went through it without even knowing it was there, and really it only appeared on the maps because cartographers get embarrassed about big empty spaces.

Hogswatch came after the excitement of the cabbage harvest when it was pretty quiet in Scrote and there was nothing much to look forward to until the fun of the sprout festival.

This shack had an iron stove, with a pipe that went up through the thick cabbage-leaf thatch.

Voices echoed faintly within the pipe.

THIS IS REALLY, REALLY STUPID.

'I think the tradition got started when everyone had them big chimneys, master.' This voice sounded as though it was coming from someone standing on the roof and shouting down the pipe.

INDEED? IT'S ONLY A MERCY IT'S UNLIT.

There was some muffled scratching and banging, and then a thump from within the pot belly of the stove.

DAMN.

'What's up, master?'

THE DOOR HAS NO HANDLE ON THE INSIDE. I CALL THAT INCONSIDERATE.

There were some more bumps, and then a scrape as the stove lid was lifted up and pushed sideways. An arm came out and felt around the front of the stove until it found the handle.

It played with it for a while, but it was obvious that the hand did not belong to a person used to opening things.

In short, Death came out of the stove. Exactly how would be difficult to describe without folding the page. Time and space were, from Death's point of view, merely things that he'd heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.

'Let us in, master,' a pitiful voice echoed down from the roof. 'It's brass monkeys out here.'

Death went over to the door. Snow was blowing underneath it. He peered nervously at the woodwork. There was a thump outside and Albert's voice sounded a lot closer.

'What's up, master?'

Death stuck his head through the wood of the door.

THERE'S THESE METAL THINGS

'Bolts, master. You slide them,' said Albert, sticking his hands under his armpits to keep them warm.

AH.

Death's head disappeared. Albert stamped his feet and watched his breath cloud in the air while he listened to the pathetic scrabbling on the other side of the door.

Death's head appeared again.

ER ...

'It's the latch, master,' said Albert wearily.

RIGHT. RIGHT.

'You put your thumb on it and push it down.'

RIGHT.

The head disappeared. Albert jumped up and down a bit, and waited.

The head appeared.

ER ... I WAS WITH YOU UP TO THE THUMB...

Albert sighed. 'And then you press down and pull, master.'

AH. RIGHT. GOT YOU.

The head disappeared.

Oh dear, thought Albert. He just can't get the hang of them, can he ... ?

The door jerked open. Death stood behind it, beaming proudly, as Albert staggered in, snow blowing in with him.

'Blimey, it's getting really parky,' said Albert. 'Any sherry?' he added hopefully.

IT APPEARS NOT.

Death looked at the sock hooked on to the side of the stove. It had a hole in it.

A letter, in erratic handwriting, was attached to it. Death picked it up.

THE BOY WANTS A PAIR OF TROUSERS THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO SHARE, A HUGE MEAT PIE, A SUGAR MOUSE, 'A LOT OF TOYS' AND A PUPPY CALLED SCRUFF.

'Ah, sweet,' said Albert. 'I shall wipe away a tear, 'cos what he's gettin', see, is this little wooden toy and an apple.' He held them out.

BUT THE LETTER CLEARLY

'Yes, well, it's socio-economic factors again,

right?' said Albert 'The world'd be in a right mess if everyone got what they asked for, eh?'

I GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTED IN THE STORE . . .

'Yeah, and that's gonna cause a lot of trouble, master. All them "toy pigs that really work". I didn't say nothing 'cos it was getting the job done but you can't go on like that. What good's a god who gives you everything you want?'

YOU HAVE ME THERE.

‘It’s the hope that's important. Big part of belief, hope. Give people jam today and they'll just sit and eat it. jam tomorrow, now - that'll keep them going for ever.'

AND YOU MEAN THAT BECAUSE OF THIS THE POOR GET POOR THINGS AND THE RICH GET RICH THINGS?

' 's right,' said Albert. 'That's the meaning of Hogswatch.'

Death nearly wailed.

BUT I'M THE HOGFATHER! He looked embarrassed. AT THE MOMENT, I MEAN.

'Makes no difference,' said Albert, shrugging. 'I remember when I was a nipper, one Hogswatch I had my heart set on this huge model horse they had in the shop . . .' His face creased for a moment in a grim smile of recollection. 'I remember I spent hours one day, cold as charity the weather was, I spent hours with my nose pressed up against the window . . . until they heard me callin', and unfroze me. I saw them take it out of the window, someone was in there buying it, and, y'know, just for a second I thought it really was going to be

for me ... Oh. I dreamed of that toy horse. It were red and white with a real saddle and everything. And rockers. I'd've killed for that horse.' He shrugged again. 'Not a chance, of course, 'cos we didn't have a pot to piss in and we even `ad to spit on the bread to make it soft enough to eat---'

PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME. WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT ABOUT HAVING A POT TO PISS IN?

'It's ... it's more like a figure of speech, master. It means you're as poor as a church mouse.'

ARE THEY POOR?

'Well ... yeah.'

BUT SURELY NOT MORE POOR THAN ANY OTHER MOUSE? AND, AFTER ALL, THERE TEND TO BE LOTS OF CANDLES AND THINGS THEY COULD EAT.

'Figure of speech again, master. It doesn't have to make sense.'

OH. I SEE. DO CARRY ON.

'O' course, I still hung up my stocking on Hogswatch Eve, and in the morning, you know, you know what? Our dad had put in this little horse he'd carved his very own self . . .'

AH, said Death. AND THAT WAS WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE EXPENSIVE TOY HORSES IN THE WORLD,EH?

Albert gave him a beady look. 'No!' he said. 'It weren't. All I could think of was it wasnt the big horse in the window.'

Death looked shocked.

BUT HOW MUCH BETTER TO HAVE A TOY CARVED WITH---

'No. Only grown-ups think like that,' said

Albert. 'You're a selfish little bugger when you're seven. Anyway, Dad got ratted after lunch and trod on it.'

LUNCH?

'All right, mebbe we had a bit of pork chipping tor the bread . . .'

EVEN SO, THE SPIRIT OF HOGSWATCH---

Albert sighed. 'If you like, master. If you like.'

Death looked perturbed.

BUT SUPPOSING THE HOGFATHER HAD BROUGHT YOU THE WONDERFUL HORSE---

'Oh, Dad would've flogged it for a couple of bottles,' said Albert.

BUT WE HAVE BEEN INTO HOUSES WHERE THE CHILDREN HAD MANY TOYS AND BROUGHT THEM EVEN MORE TOYS, AND IN HOUSES LIKE THIS THE CHILDREN GET PRACTICALLY NOTHING.

'Huh, we'd have given anything to get practically nothing when I were a lad,' said Albert.

BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU'VE GOT, IS THAT THE IDEA?

'That's about the size of it, master. A good god line, that. Don't give 'em too much and tell 'em to be happy with it. jam tomorrow, see.'

THIS IS WRONG. Death hesitated. I MEAN ... IT'S RIGHT to BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU'VE GOT. BUT YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE SOMETHING TO BE HAPPY ABOUT HAVING. THERE'S NO POINT IN BEING HAPPY ABOUT HAVING NOTHING.

Albert felt a bit out of his depth in this new tide of social philosophy.

'Dunno,' he said. 'I suppose people'd say

they've got the moon and the stars and suchlike.'

I'M SURE THEY WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO PRODUCE THE PAPERWORK.

'All I know is, if Dad'd caught us with a big bag of pricey toys wed just have got a ding round the earhole for nicking 'em.'

IT IS ... UNFAIR.

'That's life, master.'

BUT I'M NOT.

'I meant this is how it's supposed to go, master,' said Albert.

NO. YOU MEAN THIS IS HOW IT GOES.

Albert leaned against the stove and rolled himself one of his horrible thin cigarettes. It was best to let the master work his own way through these things. He got over them eventually. It was like that business with the violin. For three days there was nothing but twangs and broken strings, and then he'd never touched the thing again. That was the trouble, really. Everything the master did was a bit like that. When things got into his head you just had to wait until they leaked out again.

He'd thought that Hogswatch was all ... plum pudding and brandy and ho ho ho and he didn't have the kind of mind that could ignore all the other stuff. And so it hurt him.

IT IS HOGSWATCH, said Death, AND PEOPLE DIE ON THE STREETS. PEOPLE FEAST BEHIND LIGHTED WINDOWS AND OTHER PEOPLE HAVE NO HOMES. IS THIS FAIR?

'Well, of course, that's the big issue---' Albert began.

THE PEASANT HAD A HANDFUL OF BEANS AND THE KING HAD SO MUCH HE WOULD NOT EVEN NOTICE THAT WHICH HE GAVE AWAY. IS THIS FAIR?

'Yeah, but if you gave it all to the peasant then in a year or two he'd be just as snooty as the king---' began Albert, jaundiced observer of human nature.

NAUGHTY AND NICE? said Death. BUT IT'S EASY

TO BE NICE IF YOU'RE RICH. IS THIS FAIR?

Albert wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Really? In that case, how come so many of the rich buggers is bastards? And being poor don't mean being naughty, neither. We was poor when I were a kid, but we was honest. Well, more stupid than honest, to tell the truth. But basically honest.

He didn't argue, though. The master wasn't in any mood for it. He always did what needed to be done.

'You did say we just had to do this so's people'd believe-' he began, and then stopped and started again. 'When it comes to fair, master, you yourself-'

I AM EVEN-HANDED TO RICH AND POOR ALIKE, snapped Death. BUT THIS SHOULD NOT BE A SAD TIME. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY. He wrapped his red robe around him. AND OTHER THINGS ENDING IN OLLY, he added.

'There's no blade,' said the oh god. 'It's Just a sword hilt.'

Susan stepped out of the light and her wrist moved. A sparkling blue line flashed in the air, for a moment outlining an edge too thin to be seen.

The oh god backed away.

'What's that?'

'Oh, it cuts tiny bits of the air in half. It can cut the soul away from the body, so stand back, please.'

'Oh, I will, I will.'

Susan fished the black scabbard out of the umbrella stand.

Umbrella stand! It never rained here, but Death had an umbrella stand. Practically no one else Susan knew had an umbrella stand. In any list of useful furniture, the one found at the bottom would be the umbrella stand.

Death lived in a black world, where nothing was alive and everything was dark and his great library only had dust and cobwebs because he'd created them for effect and there was never any sun in the sky and the air never moved and he had an umbrella stand. And a pair of silverbacked hairbrushes by his bed. He wanted to be something more than just a bony apparition. He tried to create these flashes of personality but somehow they betrayed themselves, they tried too hard, like an adolescent boy going out wearing an aftershave called 'Rampant'.

Grandfather always got things wrong. He saw life from outside and never quite understood.

'That looks dangerous,' said the oh god.

Susan sheathed the sword.

'I hope so,' she said.

'Er ... where are we going? Exactly?'

'Somewhere under an overhead sky,' said Susan. 'And ... I've seen it before. Recently. I know the place.'

They walked out to the stable yard. Binky was waiting.

'I said you don't have to come,' said Susan, grasping the saddle. 'I mean, you're a ... an innocent bystander.'

'But I'm a god of hangovers who's been cured of hangovers,' said the oh god. 'I haven't really got any function at all.'

He looked so forlorn when he said this that she relented.

'All right. Come on, then.'

She pulled him up behind her.

'Just hang on,' she said. And then she said, `Hang on somewhere differently, I mean.'

'I'm sorry, was that a problem?' said the oh god, shifting his grip.

'It might take too long to explain and you probably don't know all the words. Around the waist, please.'

Susan took out Violet's hourglass and held it up. There was a lot of sand left to run, but she couldn't be certain that was a good sign.

All she could be certain of was that the horse of Death could go anywhere.

The sound of Hex's quill as it scrabbled across the paper was like a frantic spider trapped in a matchbox.

Despite his dislike of what was going on, there was a part of Ponder Stibbons that was very, very impressed.

In the past, when Hex had been recalcitrant about its calculations, when it had got into a mechanical sulk and had started writing things like'+++ Out of Cheese Error +++'and'+++ Redo From Start +++' Ponder had tried to sort things out calmly and logically.

It had never, ever occurred to him to contemplate hitting Hex with a mallet. But this was, in fact, what Ridcully was threatening to do.

What was impressive, and also more than a little worrying, was that Hex seemed to understand the concept.

'Right,' said Ridcully, putting the mallet aside. 'Let's have no more of this "Insufficient dates" business, shallwe? There's boxes of the damn things back in the Great Hall. You can have the lot as far as Im concerned---'

'It's data, not dates,' said Ponder helpfully.

'What? You mean like ... more than dates? Extra sticky?'

'No, no, data is Hex's word for ... well, facts,' said Ponder.

'Ridiculous way to behave,' said Ridcully brusquely. 'If he's stumped for an answer, why can't he write "You've got me there" or "Damned if I know," or "That's a bit of a puzzler and no

mistake"? All this "Insufficient data" business is just pure contrariness, to my mind. It's just swank-' He turned back to Hex. 'Right, you. Hazard a guess.'

The quill started to write '+++ Insuff ' and then stopped. After quivering for a moment it went down a line and started again.

+++ This Is Just Calculating Aloud, You Understand +++

'Fair enough,' said Ridcully.

.+++ The Amount Of Belief In The World Must Be Subject To An Upper Limit +++

'What an odd question,' said the Dean.

'Sounds sensible,' said Ridcully. 'I suppose people just ... believe in stuff. Obviously there's a limit to what you can believe in. I've always said so. So what?'

.+++ Creatures Have Appeared That Were Once Believed In +++

'Yes. Yes, you could put it like that.'

+++ They Disappeared Because They Were Not Believed In +++

'Seems reasonable,' said Ridcully.

+++ People Were Believing In Something Else Query? +++

Ridcully looked at the other wizards. They shrugged.

'Could be,' he said guardedly. 'People can only believe in so many things.'

... It Follows That If A Major Focus Of Belief Is Removed, There Will Be Spare Belief ...

Ridcully stared at the words.

'You mean ... sloshing around?'

The big wheel with the ram skulls on it began to turn ponderously. The scurrying ants in the .glass tubes took on a new urgency.

'What's happening?' said Ridcully, in a loud whisper.

'I think Hex is looking up the word "sloshing",' said Ponder. 'It may be in long-term storage.'

A large hourglass came down on the spring.

'What's that for?' said Ridcully.

'Er ... it shows Hex is working things out.'

'Oh. And that buzzing noise? Seems to be coming from the other side of the wall.'

Ponder coughed.

'That is the long-term storage, Archchancellor.'

'And how does that work?'

'Er ... well, if you think of memory as a series of little shelves or, or, or holes, Archchancellor, in which you can put things, well, we found a way of making a sort of memory which, er, interfaces neatly with the ants, in fact, but more importantly can expand its size depending on how much we give it to remember and, er, is possibly a bit slow but----'

'It's a very loud buzzing,' said the Dean. 'Is it going wrong.

'No, that shows it's working,' said Ponder. 'It's, er, beehives.'

He coughed.

'Different types of pollen, different thicknesses of honey, placement of the eggs ... It's actually

amazing how much information you can store on one honeycomb.'