He looked at their faces. 'And it's very secure because anyone trying to tamper with it will get stung to death and Adrian believes that when we shut it down in the summer holidays we should get a nice lot of honey, too.' He coughed again. 'For our ... sand ... wiches,' he said.

He felt himself getting smaller and hotter under their gazes.

Hex came to his rescue. The hourglass bounced away and the quill pen was jerked in and out of its inkwell.

+++ Yes. Sloshing Around. Accreting +++

'That means forming around new centres, Archchancellor,' said Ponder helpfully.

'I know that,' said Ridcully. 'Blast. Remember when we had all that life force all over the place? A man couldn't call his trousers his own! So ... there's spare belief sloshing around, thank you, and these little devils are taking advantage of it? 'Coming back? Household gods?'

+++ This Is Possible +++

'All right, then, so what are people not believing in all of a sudden?'

+++ Out Of Cheese Error +++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Redo From Start +++

'Thank you. A simple "I don't know" would have been sufficient,' said Ridcully, sitting back.

'One of the major gods?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

'Hah, we'd soon know about it if one of those vanished.'

'It's Hogswatch,' said the Dean. 'I suppose the Hogfather is around, is he?'

'You believe in him?' said Ridcully.

'Well, he's for kids, isn't he?' said the Dean. 'But I'm sure they all believe in him. I certainly did. It wouldn't be Hogswatch when I was a kid without a pillowcase hanging by the fire--.-'

'A pillowcase?' said the Senior Wrangler, sharply.

'Well, you can't get much in a stocking,' said the Dean.

'Yes, but a whole pillowcase?' the Senior Wrangler insisted.

'Yes. What of it?'

'Is it just me, or is that a rather greedy and selfish way to behave? In my family we just hung up very small socks,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'A sugar pig, a toy soldier, a couple of oranges and that was it. Hah, turns out people with whole pillowcases were cornering the market, eh?'

'Shut up and stop squabbling, both of you,' said Ridcully. 'There must be a simple way to check up. How can you tell if the Hogfather exists?'

'Someone's drunk the sherry, there's sooty footprints on the carpet, sleigh tracks on the roof and your pillowcase is full of presents,' said the Dean.

'Hah, pillowcase,' said the Senior Wrangler darkly. 'Hah. I expect your family were the

stuck-up sort that didn't even open their presents until after Hogswatch dinner, eh? One of them with a big snooty Hogswatch tree in the hall?'

'What if---' Ridcully began, but he was too late.

'Well?' said the Dean. 'Of course we waited until after lunch---'

'You know, it really used to wind me right up, people with big snooty Hogswatch trees. And I just bet you had one of those swanky fancy nutcrackers like a big thumbscrew,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Some people had to make do with the coal hammer out of the outhouse, of course. And had dinner in the middle of the day instead of lah-di-dah posh dinner in the evening.'

'I can't help it if my family had money,' said the Dean, and that might have defused things a bit had he not added, 'and standards.'

'And big pillowcases!' shouted the Senior Wrangler, bouncing up and down in rage. 'And I bet you bought your holly, eh?'

The Dean raised his eyebrows. 'Of course! We didn't go creeping around the country pinching it out of other people's hedges, like some people did,' he snapped.

'That's traditional! That's part of the fun!'

'Celebrating Hogswatch with stolen greenery?'

Ridcully put his hand over his eyes.

The word for this, he had heard, was 'cabin fever'. When people had been cooped up for too long in the dark days of the winter, they always tended to get on one another's nerves, although there was probably a school of thought that

would hold that spending your time in a university with more than five thousand known rooms, a huge library, the best kitchens in the city, its own brewery, dairy, extensive wine cellar, laundry, barber shop, cloisters and skittle alley was testing the definition of 'cooped up' a little. Mind you, wizards could get on one another's nerves in opposite corners of a very large field.

'Just shut up, will you?' he said. 'It's Hogswatch! That's not the time for silly arguments, all right?'

'Oh, yes it is,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies glumly. 'It's exactly the time for silly arguments. In our family we were lucky to get through dinner without a reprise of What A Shame Henry Didn't Go Into Business With Our Ron. Or Why Hasn't Anyone Taught Those Kids To Use A Knife? That was another favourite.'

'And the sulks,' said Ponder Stibbons.

'Oh, the sulks,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Not a proper Hogswatch without everyone sitting staring at different walls.'

'The games were worse,' said Ponder.

'Worse than the kids hitting one another with their toys, do you think? Not a proper Hogswatch afternoon without wheels and bits of broken dolly everywhere and everyone whining. Assault and battery included.'

'We had a game called Hunt the Slipper,' said Ponder. 'Someone hid a slipper. And then we had to find it. And then we had a row.'

'It's not really bad,' said the Lecturer in Recent

Runes. 'I mean, not proper Hogswatch bad, unless everyone's wearing a paper hat. There's always that bit, isn't there, when someone's horrible great-aunt puts on a paper hat and smirks at everyone because she's being so bohemian.'

'I'd forgotten about the paper hats,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Oh, dear.'

'And then later on someone'll suggest a board game,' said Ponder.

'That's right. Where no one exactly remembers all the rules.'

'Which doesn't stop someone suggesting that you play for pennies.'

'And five minutes later there's two people not speaking to one another for the rest of their lives because of tuppence.'

'And some horrible little kid--'

'I know, I know! Some little kid who's been allowed to stay up wins everyone's money by being a nasty little cut-throat swot!'

'Right!'

'Er . . .' said Ponder, who rather suspected that he had been that child.

'And don't forget the presents,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as if reading off some internal list of gloom. 'How ... how full of potential they seem in all that paper, how pregnant with possibilities ... and then you open them and basically the wrapping paper was more interesting and you have to say "How thoughtful, that will come in handy!' It's not better to give than to receive, in my opinion, it's just less embarrassing.'

'I've worked out,' said the Senior Wrangler, 'that over the years I have been a net exporter of Hogswatch presents--'

'Oh, everyone is,' said the Chair. 'You spend a fortune on other people and what you get when all the paper is cleared away is one slipper that's the wrong colour and a book about earwax.'

Ridcully sat in horrified amazement. He'd always enjoyed Hogswatch, every bit of it. He'd enjoyed seeing ardent relatives, he'd enjoyed the food, he'd been good at games like Chase My Neighbour Up The Passage and Hooray Jolly Tinker. He was always the first to don a paper hat. He felt that paper hats lent a special festive air to the occasion. And he always very carefully read the messages on Hogswatch cards and found time for a few kind thoughts about the sender.

Listening to his wizards was like watching someone kick apart a doll's house.

'At least the Hogswatch cracker mottoes are fun...?' he ventured.

They all turned to look at him, and then turned away again.

'If you have the sense of humour of a wire coathanger,' said the Senior Wrangler.

'Oh dear,' said Ridcully. 'Then perhaps there isn't a Hogfather if all you chaps are sitting around with long faces. He's not the sort to let people go around being miserable!'

'Ridcully, he's just some old winter god,' said the Senior Wrangler wearily. 'He's not the Cheerful Fairy or anything.'

The Lecturer in Recent Runes raised his chin from his hands. 'What Cheerful Fairy?'

'Oh, its just something my granny used to go on about if it was a wet afternoon and we were getting on her nerves,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'She'd say "I'll call the Cheerful Fairy if you're. . ." ' He stopped, looking guilty.

The Archchancellor held a hand to his ear in a theatrical gesture denoting 'Hush. What was that I heard?'

'Someone tinkled,' he said. 'Thank you, Senior Wrangler.'

'Oh no,' the Senior Wrangler moaned. 'No, no, no!'

They listened for a moment.

'We might have got away with it,' said Ponder. 'I didn't hear anything - . .'

'Yes, but you can just imagine her, can't you?' said the Dean. 'The moment you said it, I had this picture in my mind. She's going to have a whole bag of word games, for one thing. Or she'll suggest we go outdoors for our health.'

The wizards shuddered. They weren't against the outdoors, it was simply their place in it they objected to.

'Cheerfulness has always got me down,' said the Dean.

'Welt if some wretched little ball of cheerfulness turns up I shan't have it for one,' said the Senior Wrangler, folding his arms. 'I've put up with monsters and trolls and big green things with teeth, so I'm not sitting still for any kind of--'

'Hello!! Hello !!'

The voice was the kind of voice that reads suitable stories to children. Every vowel was beautifully rounded. And they could hear the extra exclamation marks, born of a sort of desperate despairing jollity, slot into place. They turned.

The Cheerful Fairy was quite short and plump in a tweed skirt and shoes so sensible they could do their own tax returns, and was pretty much like the first teacher you get at school, the one who has special training in dealing with nervous incontinence and little boys whose contribution to the wonderful world of sharing consists largely of hitting a small girl repeatedly over the head with a wooden horse. In fact, this picture was helped by the whistle on a string around her neck and a general impression that at any moment she would clap her hands.

The tiny gauzy wings just visible on her back were probably just for show, but the wizards kept on staring at her shoulder.

'Hello--' she said again, but a lot more uncertainly. She gave them a suspicious look. 'You're rather big boys,' she said, as if they'd become so in order to spite her. She blinked. 'It's my job to chase those blues away,' she added, apparently following a memorized script. Then she seemed to rally a bit and went on. 'So chins up, everyone, and lets see a lot of bright shining faces!!'

Her gaze met that of the Senior Wrangler, who had probably never had a bright shining face in

his entire life. He specialized in dull, sullen ones. The one he was wearing now would have won prizes.

'Excuse me, madam,' said Ridcully. 'But is that a chicken on your shoulder?'

'It's, er, its, er, it's the Blue Bird of Happiness,' said the Cheerful Fairy. Her voice now had the slightly shaking tone of someone who doesn't quite believe what she has just said but is going to go on saying it anyway, just in case saying it will eventually make it true.

'I beg your pardon, but it is a chicken. A live chicken,' said Ridcully. 'It just went cluck.'

'It is blue,' she said hopelessly.

'Well, that at least is true,' Ridcully conceded, as kindly as he could manage. 'Left to myself, I expect I'd have imagined a slightly more streamlined Blue Bird of Happiness, but I can't actually fault you there.'

The Cheerful Fairy coughed nervously and fiddled with the buttons on her sensible woolly jumper.

'How about a nice game to get us all in the mood?' she said. 'A guessing game, perhaps? Or a painting competition? There may be a small prize for the winner.'

'Madam, we're wizards,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'We don't do cheerful.'

'Charades?' said the Cheerful Fairy. 'Or perhaps you've been playing them already? How about a sing-song? Who knows "Row Row Row Your Boat"?'

Her bright little smile hit the group scowl of the assembled wizards. 'We don't want to be Mr Grumpy, do we?' she added hopefully.

'Yes,' said the Senior Wrangler.

The Cheerful Fairy sagged, and then patted frantically at her shapeless sleeves until she tugged out a balled-up handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes.

'It's all going wrong again, isn't it?' she said, her chin trembling. 'No one ever wants to be cheerful these days, and I really do try. I've made a Joke Book and I've got three boxes of clothes for charades and ... and ... and whenever I try to cheer people up they all look embarrassed ... and really I do make an effort . .

She blew her nose loudly.

Even the Senior Wrangler had the grace to look embarrassed.

'Er . . .' he began.

'Would it hurt anyone just occasionally to try to be a little bit cheerful?' said the Cheerful Fairy.

'Er ... in what way?' said the Senior Wrangler, feeling wretched.

'Well, there's so many nice things to be cheerful about,' said the Cheerful Fairy, blowing her nose again.

'Er ... raindrops and sunsets and that sort of thing?' said the Senior Wrangler, managing some sarcasm, but they could tell his heart wasn't in it. 'Er, would you like to borrow my handkerchief? It's nearly fresh.'

'Why don't you get the lady a nice sherry?'

said Ridcully. 'And some corn for her chicken . . .' 'Oh, I never drink alcohol,' said the Cheerful Fairy, horrified.

'Really?' said Ridcully. 'We find it's something to be cheerful about. Mr Stibbons ... would you be so kind as to step over here for a moment?'

He beckoned him up close.

'There's got to be a lot of belief sloshing around to let her be created,' he said. 'She's a good fourteen stone, if I'm any judge. If we wanted to contact the Hogfather, how would we go about it? Letter up chimney?'

'Yes, but not tonight, sir,' said Ponder. 'He'll be out delivering.'

'No telling where he'll be, then,' said Ridcully. 'Blast.'

'Of course, he might not have come here yet,' said Ponder.

'Why should he come here?' said Ridcully.

The Librarian pulled the blankets over himself and curled up.

As an orang-utan he hankered for the warmth of the rainforest. The problem was that he'd never even seen a rainforest, having been turned into an orang-utan when he was already a fully grown human. Something in his bones knew about it, though, and didn't like the cold of winter at all. But he was also a librarian in those same bones and he flatly refused to allow fires to be lit in the library. As a result, pillows and blankets

went missing everywhere else in the University and ended up in a sort of cocoon in the reference section, in which the ape lurked during the worst of the winter.

He turned over and wrapped himself in the Bursar's curtains.

There was a creaking outside his nest, and some whispering.

'No, don't fight the lamp.'

'I wondered why I hadn't seen him all evening.'

'Oh, he goes to bed early on Hogswatch Eve, sir. Here we are . . .'

There was some rustling.

'We're in luck. It hasn't been filled,' said Ponder. 'Looks like he's used one of the Bursar's.'

'He puts it up every year?'

'Apparently.'

'But it's not as though he's a child. A certain child-like simplicity, perhaps.'

'It might be different for orang-utans, Archchancellor.'

'Do they do it in the jungle, d'you think?'

'I don't imagine so, sir. No chimneys, for one thing.'

'And quite short legs, of course. Extremely underfunded in the sock area, orang-utans. They'd be quids in if they could hang up gloves, of course. Hogfather'd be on double shifts if they could hang up their gloves. On account of the length of their arms.'

'Very good, Archchancellor.'

'I say, what's this on the... my word, a glass of sherry. Well, waste not, want not.' There was a damp glugging noise in the darkness.

'I think that was supposed to be for the Hogfather, sir.'

'And the banana?'

'I imagine that's been left out for the pigs, sir.'

'Pigs?'

'Oh, you know, sir. Tusker and Snouter and Gouger and Rooter. I mean,' Ponder stopped, conscious that a grown man shouldn't be able to remember this sort of thing, 'that's what children believe.'

'Bananas for pigs? That's not traditional, is it? I'd have thought acorns, perhaps. Or apples or swedes.'

'Yes, sir, but the Librarian likes bananas, sir.'

'Very nourishin' fruit, Mr Stibbons.'

'Yes, sir. Although, funnily enough it's not actually a fruit, sir.'

'Really?'

'Yes, sir. Botanically, it's a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it's cladistically associated with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals.'

'And lives in trees?'

'Well, not usually, sir. The banana is obviously exploiting a new niche.'

'Good heavens, really? It's a funny thing, but I've never much liked bananas and I've always been a bit suspicious of fish, too. That'd explain it.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do they attack swimmers?'

'Not that I've heard, sir. Of course, they may be clever enough to only attack swimmers who're far from land.'

'What, you mean sort of... high up? In the trees, as it were?'

'Possibly, sir.'

'Cunning, eh?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, we might as well make ourselves comfortable, Mr Stibbons.'

'Yes, sir.'

A match flared in the darkness as Ridcully lit his pipe.

The Ankh-Morpork wassailers had practised for weeks.

The custom was referred to by Anaglypta Huggs, organizer of the best and most select group of the city's singers, as an occasion for fellowship and good cheer.

One should always be wary of people who talk unashamedly of 'fellowship and good cheer' as if it were something that can be applied to life like a poultice. Turn your back for a moment and they may well organize a Maypole dance and, frankly, there's no option then but to try and make it to the treeline.

The singers were halfway down Park Lane now, and halfway through 'The Red Rosy Hen'

in marvellous harmony.[19] Their collecting tins were already full of donations for the poor of the city, or at least those sections of the poor who in Mrs Huggs' opinion were suitably picturesque and not too smelly and could be relied upon to say thank you. People had come to their doors to listen. Orange light spilled on to the snow. Candle lanterns glowed among the tumbling flakes. If you could have taken the lid off the scene, there would have been chocolates inside. Or at least an interesting biscuit assortment.

Mrs Huggs had heard that wassailing was an ardent ritual, and you didn't need anyone to tell you what that meant, but she felt she'd carefully removed all those elements that would affront the refined ear.

And it was only gradually that the singers became aware of the discord.

Around the corner, slipping and sliding on the ice, came another band of singers.

Some people march to a different drummer. The drummer in question here must have been trained elsewhere, possibly by a different species on another planet.

In front of the group was a legless man on a small wheeled trolley, who was singing at the top of his voice and banging two saucepans together. His name was Arnold Sideways. Pushing him along was Coffin Henry, whose croaking progress through an entirely different song was punctuated by bouts of off-the-beat coughing. He was accompanied by a perfectly ordinary-looking man in torn, dirty and yet expensive clothing, whose pleasant tenor voice was drowned out by the quacking of a duck on his head. He answered to the name of Duck Man, although he never seemed to understand why, or why he was always surrounded by people who seemed to see ducks where no ducks could be. And finally, being towed along by a small grey dog on a string, was Foul Ole Ron, generally regarded in AnkhMorpork as the deranged beggars' deranged beggar. He was probably incapable of singing, but at least he was attempting to swear in time to the beat, or beats.

The wassailers stopped and watched them in horror.

Neither party noticed, as the beggars oozed and ambled up the street, that little smears of black and grey were spiralling out of drains and squeezing out from under tiles and buzzing off into the night. People have always had the urge to sing and clang things at the dark stub of the year, when all sorts of psychic nastiness has taken advantage of the long grey days and the deep shadows to lurk and breed. Lately people had

taken to singing harmoniously, which rather lost the effect. Those who really understood just clanged something and shouted.

The beggars were not in fact this well versed in folkloric practice. They were just making a din in the wellfounded hope that people would give them money to stop.

It was just possible to make out a consensus song in there somewhere.

'Hogswatch is coming,

The pig is getting fat,

Please put a dollar in the old man's hat

If you ain't got a dollar a penny will do-'

'And if you ain't got a penny,' Foul Ole Ron yodelled, solo, 'then - fghfgh yffg mftnfmf...'

The Duck Man had, with great presence of mind, damped a hand over Ron's mouth.

'So sorry about this,' he said, 'but this time I'd like people not to slam their doors on us. And it doesn't scan, anyway.'

The nearby doors slammed regardless. The other wassailers fled hastily to a more salubrious location. Goodwill to all men was a phrase coined by someone who hadn't met Foul Ole Ron.

The beggars stopped singing, except for Arnold Sideways, who tended to live in his own small world.

' -nobody knows how good we can live, on boots three times a day...'

Then the change in the air penetrated even his consciousness.

Snow thumped off the trees as a contrary wind brushed them. There was a whirl of flakes and it was just possible, since the beggars did not always have their mental compasses pointing due Real, that they heard a brief snatch of conversation.

'It just ain't that simple, master, that's all I'm saying-'

IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE, ALBERT.

'No, master, it's just a lot more expensive. You can't just go around-'

Things rained down on the snow.

The beggars looked at them. Arnold Sideways carefully picked up a sugar pig and bit its nose off. Foul Ole Ron peered suspiciously into a cracker that had bounced off his hat, and then shook it against his ear.

The Duck Man opened a bag of sweets.

'Ah, humbugs?' he said.

Coffin Henry unlooped a string of sausages from around his neck.

'Buggrit?' said Foul Ole Ron.

'It's a cracker,' said the dog, scratching its ear. 'You pull it.'

Ron waved the cracker aimlessly by one end.

'Oh, give it here,' said the dog, and gripped the other end in its teeth.

'My word,' said the Duck Man, fishing in a snowdrift. 'Here's a whole roast pig! And a big dish of roast potatoes, miraculously uncracked!

And... look... isn't this caviar in the jar? Asparagus! Potted shrimp! My goodness! What were we going to have for Hogswatch dinner, Arnold?'

'Old boots,' said Arnold. He opened a fallen box of cigars and licked them.

'Just old boots?'

'Oh, no. Stuffed with mud, and with roast mud. 's good mud, too. I bin saving it up.'

'Now we can have a merry feast of goose!'

'All right. Can we stuff it with old boots?'

There was a pop from the direction of the cracker. They heard Foul Ole Ron's thinkingbrain dog growl.

'No, no, no, you put the hat on your head and you read the hum'rous mottar.'

'Millennium hand and shrimp?' said Ron, passing the scrap of paper to the Duck Man. The Duck Man was regarded as the intellectual of the group.

He peered at the motto.

'Ah, yes, let's see now... It says "'Help Help Help Ive Fallen in the Crakker Machine I Cant Keep Runin on this Roller Please Get me Ou-".' He turned the paper over a few times. 'That appears to be it, except for the stains.'

'Always the same ole mottars,' said the dog. 'Someone slap Ron on the back, will you? If he laughs any more he'll - oh, he has. Oh well, nothing new about that.'

The beggars spent a few more minutes picking

up hams, jars and bottles that had settled on the snow. They packed them around Arnold on his trolley and set off down the street.

'How come we got all this?'

' 's Hogswatch, right?'

'Yeah, but who hung up their stocking?'

'I don't think we've got any, have we?'

'I hung up an old boot.'

'Does that count?'

'Dunno. Ron ate it.'

I'm waiting for the Hogfather, thought Ponder Stibbons. I'm in the dark waiting for the Hogfather. Me. A believer in Natural Philosophy. I can find the square root of 27.4 in my head.[20] I shouldn't be doing this.

It's not as if I've hung a stocking up. There'd be some point if...

He sat rigid for a moment, and then pulled off his pointy sandal and rolled down a sock. It helped if you thought of it as the scientific testing of an interesting hypothesis.

From out of the darkness Ridcully said, 'How long, do you think?'

'It's generally believed that all deliveries are completed well before midnight,' said Ponder, and tugged hard.

'Are you all right, Mr Stibbons?'

'Fine. sir. Fine. Er... do you happen to have a drawing pin about you? Or a small nail, perhaps?'

'I don't believe so.'

'Oh, it's all right. I've found a penknife.'

After a while Ridcully heard a faint scratching noise in the dark.

'How do you spell "electricity", sir?'

Ridcully thought for a while. 'You know, I don't think I ever do.'

There was silence again, and then a clang. The Librarian grunted in his sleep.

'What are you doing?'

'I just knocked over the coal shovel.'

'Why are you feeling around on the mantelpiece?'

'Oh, just... you know, just... just looking. A little... experiment. After all, you never know.'

'You never know what?'

'Just... never know, you know.'

'Sometimes you know,' said Ridcully. 'I think I know quite a lot that I didn't used to know. It's amazing what you do end up knowing, I sometimes think. I often wonder what new stuff I'll know.'

'Well, you never know.'

'That's a fact.'

High over the city Albert turned to Death, who seemed to be trying to avoid his gaze.

'You didn't get that stuff out of the sack! Not cigars and peaches in brandy and grub with fancy foreign names!'

YES, IT CAME OUT OF THE SACK.

Albert gave him a suspicious look.

'But you put it in the sack in the first place, didn't you?'

NO.

'You did, didn't you?' Albert stated.

NO.

'You put all those things in the sack.'

NO.

'You got them from somewhere and put them in the sack.'

NO.

'You did put them in the sack, didn't you?'

NO.

'You put them in the sack.'

YES.

'I knew you put them in the sack. Where did you get them?'

THEY WERE JUST LYING AROUND.

'Whole roast pig does not, in my experience, just lie around.'

NO ONE SEEMED TO BE USING THEM, ALBERT.

'Couple of chimneys ago we were over that big posh restaurant...'

REALLY? I DON'T REMEMBER.

'And it seemed to me you were down there a bit longer than usual, if you don't mind me saying so.'

REALLY.

'How exactly were they just inverted comma lying around inverted comma?'

JUST... LYING AROUND. YOU KNOW. RECUMBENT.

'In a kitchen?'

THERE WAS A CERTAIN CULINARINESS ABOUT THE PLACE, I RECALL.

Albert pointed a trembling finger.

'You nicked someone's Hogswatch dinner, master!'

IT'S GOING TO BE EATEN, said Death defensively. ANYWAY, YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA WHEN I SHOWED THAT KING THE DOOR.

'Yeah, well, that was a bit different,' said Albert, lowering his voice. 'But, I mean, the Hogfather doesn't drop down the chimney and pinch people's grub!'

THE BEGGARS WILL ENJOY IT, ALBERT.

'Well, yes, but-'

IT WASN'T STEALING. IT WAS JUST... REDISTRIBUTION. IT WILL BE A GOOD DEED IN A NAUGHTY WORLD.

'No, it won't!'

THEN IT WILL BE A NAUGHTY DEED IN A NAUGHTY WORLD AND WILL PASS COMPLETELY UNNOTICED.

'Yeah, but you might at least have thought about the people whose grub you pinched.'

THEY HAVE BEEN PROVIDED FOR, OF COURSE. I AM NOT COMPLETELY HEARTLESS. IN A METAPHORICAL SENSE. AND NOW - ONWARDS AND UPWARDS.

'We're heading down, master.'

ONWARDS AND DOWNWARDS, THEN.

There were... swirls. Binky galloped easily through them, except that he did not seem to move. He might have been hanging in the air.

'Oh, me,' said the oh god weakly.

'What?' said Susan.

'Try shutting your eyes--'

Susan shut her eyes. Then she reached up to touch her face.

'I'm still seeing. .

'I thought it was just me. It's usually just me.' The swirls vanished.

There was greenery below.

And that was odd. It was greenery. Susan had flown a few times over countryside, even swamps and jungles, and there had never been a green as green as this. If green could be a primary colour, this was it.

And that wiggly thing

'That's not a river!' she said.

'Isn't it?'

'It's blue!'

The oh god risked a look down.

'Water's blue,' he said.

'Of course it's not!'

'Grass is green, water's blue... I can remember that. It's some of the stuff I just know.'

'Well, in a way...' Susan hesitated. Everyone knew grass was green and water was blue. Quite

often it wasn't true, but everyone knew it in the same way they knew the sky was blue, too.

She made the mistake of looking up as she thought that.

There was the sky. It was, indeed, blue. And down there was the land. It was green.

And in between was nothing. Not white space. Not black night. Just... nothing, all round the edges of the world. Where the brain said there should be, well, sky and land, meeting neatly at the horizon, there was simply a void that sucked at the eyeball like a loose tooth.

And there was the sun.

It was under the sky, floating above the land.

And it was yellow.

Buttercup yellow.

Binky landed on the grass beside the river. Or at least on the green. It felt more like sponge, or moss. He nuzzled it.

Susan slid off, trying to keep her gaze low. That meant she was looking at the vivid blue of the water.

There were orange fish in it. They didn't look quite right, as if they'd been created by someone who really did think a fish was two curved lines and a dot and a triangular tail. They reminded her of the skeletal fish in Death's quiet pool. Fish that were... appropriate to their surroundings. And she could see them, even though the water was just a block of colour which part of her insisted ought to be opaque...

She knelt down and dipped her hand in. It felt

like water, but what poured through her fingers was liquid blue.

And now she knew where she was. The last piece clicked into place and the knowledge bloomed inside her. She knew if she saw a house just how its windows would be placed, and just how the smoke would come out of the chimney.

There would almost certainly be apples on the trees. And they would be red, because everyone knew that apples were red. And the sun was yellow. And the sky was blue. And the grass was green.

But there was another world, called the real world by the people who believed in it, where the sky could be anything from off-white to sunset red to thunderstorm yellow. And the trees would be anything from bare branches, mere scribbles against the sky, to red flames before the frost. And the sun was white or yellow or orange. And water was brown and grey and green...

The colours here were springtime colours, and not the springtime of the world. They were the colours of the springtime of the eye.

'This is a child's painting,' she said.

The oh god slumped onto the green.

'Every time I look at the gap my eyes water,' he mumbled. 'I feel awful.'

'I said this is a child's painting,' said Susan.

'Oh, me... I think the wizards' potion is wearing off...'

'I've seen dozens of pictures of it,' said Susan,

ignoring him. 'You put the sky overhead because the sky's above you and when you are a couple of feet high there's not a lot of sideways to the sky in any case. And everyone tells you grass is green and water is blue. This is the landscape you paint. Twyla paints like that. I painted like that. Grandfather saved some of-'

She stopped.

'All children do it, anyway,' she muttered. 'Come on, let's find the house.'

'What house?' the oh god moaned. 'And can you speak quieter, please?'

'There'll be a house,' said Susan, standing up. 'There's always a house. With four windows. And the smoke coming out of the chimney all curly like a spring. Look, this is a place like gr--- Death's country. It's not really geography.'

The oh god walked over to the nearest tree and banged his head on it as if he hoped it was going to hurt.

'Feels like geo'fy,' he muttered.

'But have you ever seen a tree like that? A big green blob on a brown stick? It looks like a lollipop!' said Susan, pulling him along.

'Dunno. Firs' time I ever saw a tree. Arrgh. Somethin' dropped on m'head.' He blinked owlishly at the ground. ' 's red.'

'It's an apple,' she said. She sighed. 'Everyone knows apples are red.'

There were no bushes. But there were flowers, each with a couple of green leaves. They grew individually, dotted around the rolling green.

And then they were out of the trees and there, by a bend in the river, was the house.

It didn't look very big. There were four windows and a door. Corkscrew smoke curled out of the chimney.

'You know, it's a funny thing,' said Susan, staring at it. 'Twyla draws houses like that. And she practically lives in a mansion. I drew houses like that. And I was born in a palace. Why?'

'P'raps it's all this house,' muttered the oh. god miserably.

'What? You really think so? Kids' paintings are all of this place? It's in our heads?'

'Don't ask me, I was just making conversation,' said the oh god.

Susan hesitated. The words What Now? loomed. Should she just go and knock?

And she realized that was normal thinking...

In the glittering, clattering, chattering atmosphere a head waiter was having a difficult time. There were a lot of people in, and the staff should have been fully stretched, putting bicarbonate of soda in the white wine to make very expensive bubbles and cutting the vegetables very small to make them cost more.

Instead they were standing in a dejected group in the kitchen.

'Where did it all go?' screamed the manager. 'Someone's been through the cellar, too!'

'William said he felt a cold wind,' said the

waiter. He'd been backed up against a hot plate, and now knew why it was called a hot plate in a way he hadn't fully comprehended before.

'I'll give him a cold wind! Haven't we got anything?'

'There's odds and ends. .

'You don't mean odds and ends, you mean des curieux et des bouts,' corrected the manager.

'Yeah, right, yeah. And, er, and, er . .

'There's nothing else?'

'Er... old boots. Muddy old boots.'

'Old-?'

'Boots. Lots of 'em,' said the waiter. He felt he was beginning to singe.

'How come we've got... vintage footwear?'

'Dunno. They just turned up, sir. The oven, s full of old boots. So's the pantry.'

'There's a hundred people booked in! All the shops'll be shut! Where's Chef?'

'William's trying to get him to come out of the privy, sir. He's locked himself in and is having one of his Moments.'

'Something's cooking. What's that I can smell?'

'Me, sir.'

'Old boots muttered the manager. 'Old boots... old boots... Leather, are they? Not clogs or rubber or anything?'

'Looks like... just boots. And lots of mud, sir.'

The manager took off his jacket. 'All right. Cot any cream, have we? Onions? Garlic? Butter? Some old beef bones? A bit of pastry?'

'Er, yes...'

The manager rubbed his hands together. 'Right,' he said, taking an apron off a hook. 'You there, get some water boiling! Lots of water! And find a really large hammer! And you, chop some onions! The rest of you, start sorting out the boots. I want the tongues out and the soles off. We'll do them... let's see... Mousse de la Boue dans une Panier de la Pate de Chaussures...'

'Where're we going to get that from, sir?'

'Mud mousse in a basket of shoe pastry. Get the idea? It's not our fault if even Quirmians don't understand restaurant Quirmian. It's not like lying, after all.'

'Well, it's a bit like-' the waiter began. He'd been cursed with honesty at an early stage.

'Then there's Brodequin rôti Façon Ombres . .

The manager sighed at the head waiter's panicky expression. 'Soldier's boot done in the Shades fashion,' he translated.

'Er... Shades fashion?'

'In mud. But if we cook the tongues separately we can put on Languette braisée, too.'

'There's some ladies' shoes, sir,' said an underchef.

'Right. Add to the menu... Let's see now... Sole d'une Bonne Femme... and... yes... Servis dans un Coulis de Terre en I'Eau. That's mud, to you.'

'What about the laces, sir?' said another underchef.

'Good thinking. Dig out that recipe for Spaghetti Carbonara.'

'Sir?' said the head waiter.

'I started off as a chef,' said the manager, picking up a knife. 'How do you think I was able to afford this place? I know how it's done. Get the look and the sauce right and you're threequarters there.'

'But it's all going to be old boots!' said the waiter.

'Prime aged beef,' the manager corrected him. 'It'll tenderize in no time.'

'Anyway... anyway... we haven't got any soup

'Mud. And a lot of onions.'

'There's the puddings---'

'Mud. Let's see if we can get it to caramelize, you never know.'

'I can't even find the coffee... Still, they probably won't last till the coffee...'

'Mud. Cafe de Terre,’ said the manager firmly. 'Genuine ground coffee.'

'Oh, they'll spot that, sir!'

'They haven't up till now,' said the manager darkly.

'We'll never get away with it, sir. Never.'

In the country of the sky on top, Medium Dave Lilywhite hauled another bag of money down the stairs.

'There must be thousands here,' said Chickenwire.

'Hundreds of thousands,' said Medium Dave.

'And what's all this stuff?' said Catseye, opening a box. ' 's just paper.' He tossed it aside.

Medium Dave sighed. He was all for class solidarity, but sometimes Catseye got on his nerves.

'They're title deeds,' he said. 'And they're better than money.'

Taper's better'n money?' said Catseye. 'Hah, if you can burn it you can't spend it, that's what I say.'

'Hang on,' said Chickenwire. 'I know about them. The Tooth Fairy owns property?'

'Cot to raise money somehow,' said Medium Dave. 'All those half-dollars under the pillow.'

'If we steal them, do they become ours?'

'Is that a trick question?' said Catseye, smirking.

'Yeah, but... ten thousand each doesn't sound such a lot, when you see all this.'

'He won't miss a--

'Gentlemen...'

They turned. Teatime was in the doorway.

'We were just... we were just piling up the stuff,' said Chickenwire.

'Yes. I know. I told you to.'

'Right. That's right. You did,' said Chickenwire gratefully.

'And there's such a lot,' said Teatime. He gave them a smile. Catseye coughed.

' 's got to be thousands,' said Medium Dave. 'And what about all these deeds and so on? Look, this one's for that pipe shop in Honey Trap Lane!

In Ankh-Morpork! I buy my tobacco there! Old Thimble is always moaning about the rent, too!'

'Ah. So you opened the strongboxes,' said Teatime pleasantly.

'Well... yes...'

'Fine. Fine,' said Teatime. 'I didn't ask you to, but... fine, fine. And how did you think the Tooth Fairy made her money? Little gnomes in some mine somewhere? Fairy gold? But that turns to trash in the morning!'

He laughed. Chickenwire laughed. Even Medium Dave laughed. And then Teatime was on him, pushing him irresistibly backwards until he hit the wall.

There was a blur and he tried to blink and his left eyelid was suddenly a rose of pain.

Teatime's good eye was close to him, if you could call it good. The pupil was a dot. Medium Dave could just make out his hand, right by Medium Dave's face.

It was holding a knife. The point of the blade could only be the merest fraction of an inch from Medium Dave's right eye.

'I know people say I'd kill them as soon as look at them,' whispered Teatime. 'And in fact I'd much rather kill you than look at you, Mr Lilywhite. You stand in a castle of gold and plot to steal pennies. Oh, dear. What am I to do with you?'

He relaxed a little, but his hand still held the knife to Medium Dave's unblinking eye.

'You're thinking that Banjo is going to help

you,' he said. 'That's how it's always been, isn't it? But Banjo likes me. He really does. Banjo is my friend.'

Medium Dave managed to focus beyond Teatime's ear. His brother was just standing there, with the blank face he had while he waited for another order or a new thought to turn up.

'If I thought you were feeling bad thoughts about me I would be so downcast,' said Teatime. 'I do not have many friends left, Mr Medium Dave.'

He stood back and smiled happily. 'All friends now?' he said, as Medium Dave slumped down. 'Help him, Banjo.'

On cue, Banjo lumbered forward.

'Banjo has the heart of a little child,' said Teatime, the knife disappearing somewhere about his clothing. 'I believe I have, too.'

The others were frozen in place. They hadn't moved since the attack. Medium Dave was a heavy-set man and Teatime was a matchstick model, but he'd lifted Medium Dave off his feet like a feather.

'As far as the money goes, in fact, I really have no use for it,' said Teatime, sitting down on a sack of silver. 'It is small change. You may share it out amongst yourselves, and no doubt you'll squabble and doublecross one another more tiresomely. Oh, dear. It is so awful when friends fall out.'

He kicked the sack. It split. Silver and copper fell in an expensive trickle.

'And you'll swagger and spend it on drink and women,' he said, as they watched the coins roll into every corner of the room. 'The thought of investment will never cross your scarred little minds---'

There was a rumble from Banjo. Even Teatime waited patiently until the huge man had assembled a sentence. The result was:

'I gotta piggy bank.'

'And what would you do with a million dollars, Banjo?' said Teatime.

Another rumble. Banjo's face twisted up.

'Buy... a... bigger piggy bank?'

'Well done.' The Assassin stood up. 'Let's go and see how our wizard is getting on, shall we?'

He walked out of the room without looking back. After a moment Banjo followed.

The others tried not to look at one another's faces. Then Chickenwire said, 'Was he saying we could take the money and go?'

'Don't be bloody stupid, we wouldn't get ten yards,' said Medium Dave, still clutching his face. 'Ugh, this hurts. I think he cut the eyelid... he cut the damn eyelid...'

'Then let's just leave the stuff and go! I never joined up to ride on tigers!'

'And what'll you do when he comes after you?'

'Why'd he bother with the likes of us?'

'He's got time for his friends,' said Medium Dave bitterly. 'For gods' sakes, someone get me a clean rag or something...

'OK, but... but he can't look everywhere.'

Medium Dave shook his head. He'd been through AnkhMorpork's very own university of the streets and had graduated with his life and an intelligence made all the keener by constant friction. You only had to look into Teatime's mismatched eyes to know one thing, which was this: that if Teatime wanted to find you he would not look everywhere. He'd look in only one place, which would be the place where you were hiding.

'How come your brother likes him so much?'

Medium Dave grimaced. Banjo had always done what he was told, simply because Medium Dave had told him. Up to now, anyway.

It must have been that punch in the bar. Medium Dave didn't like to think about it. He'd always promised their mother that he'd look after Banjo,[21] and Banjo had gone back like a falling tree. And when Medium Dave had risen from his seat to punch Teatime's unbalanced lights out he'd suddenly found the Assassin already behind him, holding a knife. In front of everyone. It was humiliating, that's what it was

And then Banjo had sat up, looking puzzled, and spat out a tooth

'If it wasn't for Banjo going around with him all the time we could gang up on him,' said Catseye.

Medium Dave looked up, one hand clamping a handkerchief to his eye.

'Gang up on him?' he said.

'Yeah, it's all your fault,' Chickenwire went on.

'Oh, yeah? So it wasn't you who said, wow, ten thousand dollars, count me in?'

Chickenwire backed away. 'I didn't know there was going to be all this creepy stuff! I want to go home!'

Medium Dave hesitated, despite his pain and rage. This wasn't normal talk for Chickenwire, for all that he whined and grumbled. This was a strange place, no lie about that, and all that business with the teeth had been very... odd, but he'd been out with Chickenwire when jobs had gone wrong and both the Watch and the Thieves' Guild had been after them and he'd been as cool as anyone. And if the Guild had been the ones to catch them they'd have nailed their ears to their ankles and thrown them in the river. In Medium Dave's book, which was a simple book and largely written in mental crayon, things didn't get creepier than that.

'What's up with you?' he said. 'All of you you're acting like little kids!'

'Would he deliver to apes earlier than humans?'

'Interesting point, sir. Possibly you're referring to my theory that humans may have in fact descended from apes, of course,' said Ponder. 'A bold hypothesis which ought to sweep away the

ignorance of centuries if the grants committee

could just see their way clear to letting me hire a

boat and sail around to the islands of --- '

'I just thought he might deliver alphabetically,' said Ridcully.

There was a patter of soot in the cold fireplace.

'That's presumably him now, do you think?' Ridcully went on. 'Oh, well, I thought we should check---'

Something landed in the ashes. The two wizards stood quietly in the darkness while the figure picked itself up. There was a rustle of paper.

LET ME SEE NOW

There was a click as Ridcully's pipe fell out of his mouth.

'Who the hell are you?' he said. 'Mr Stibbons, light a candle!'

Death backed away.

I'M THE HOGFATHER, OF COURSE. ER. HO. HO. HO. WHO WOULD YOU EXPECT TO COME DOWN A CHIMNEY ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS, MAY I ASK?

'No, you're not!'

I AM. LOOK, I'VE GOT THE BEARD AND THE PILLOW AND EVERYTHING!

'You look extremely thin in the face!'

I'M... I... I'M NOT WELL. IT'S ALL... YES,

IT'S ALL THIS SHERRY. AND RUSHING AROUND. I AM A BIT ILL.

'Terminally, I should say.' Ridcully grabbed the beard. There was a twang as the string gave way.

'It's a false beard!'

NO IT'S NOT, said Death desperately.

'Here's the hooks for the ears, which must have given you a bit of trouble, I must say!'

Ridcully flourished the incriminating evidence.

'What were you doing coming down the chimney?' he continued. 'Not in marvellous taste, I think.'

Death waved a small grubby scrap of paper defensively.

OFFICIAL LETTER TO THE HOGFATHER. SAYS HERE... he began, and then looked at the paper again. WELL, QUITE A LOT, IN FACT. IT'S A LONG LIST. LIBRARY STAMPS, REFERENCE BOOKS, PENCILS, BANANAS...

'The Librarian asked the Hogfather for those things?' said Ridcully. 'Why?'

I DON'T KNOW, said Death. This was a diplomatic answer. He kept his finger over a reference to the Archchancellor. The orang-utan for 'duck's bottom' was quite an interesting squiggle.

'I've got plenty in my desk drawer,' mused Ridcully. 'I'm quite happy to give them out to any chap provided he can prove he's used up the old one.'

THEY MUST SHOW YOU AN ABSENCE OF PENCIL?

'Of course. If he needed essential materials he need only have come to me. No man can tell you I'm an unreasonable chap.'

Death checked the list carefully.

THAT IS PRECISELY CORRECT, he confirmed, with anthropological exactitude.

'Except for the bananas, of course. I wouldn't keep fish in my desk.'

Death looked down at the list and then back up at Ridcully.

GOOD? he said, in the hope that this was the right response.

Wizards know when they are going to die.[22] Ridcully had no such premonitions, and to Ponder's horror prodded Death in the cushion.

'Why you?' he said. 'What's happened to the other fellow?'

I SUPPOSE I MUST TELL YOU.

In the house of Death, a whisper of shifting sand and the faintest chink of moving glass, somewhere in the darkness of the floor...

And, in the dry shadows, the sharp smell of snow and a thud of hooves.

Sideney almost swallowed his tongue when Teatime appeared beside him.

'Are we making progress?'

'Gnk-'

'I'm sorry?' said Teatime.

Sideney recovered himself. 'Er... some,' he said. 'We think we've worked out... er... one lock.'

Light gleamed off Teatime's eye.

'I believe there are seven of them?' said the Assassin.

'Yes, but... they're half magic and half real and half not there... I mean... there's parts of them that don't exist all the time-'

Mr Brown, who had been working at one of the locks, laid down his pick.

' 't's no good, mister,' he said. 'Can't even get a purchase with a crowbar. Maybe if I went back to the city and got a couple of dragons we could do something. You can melt through steel with them if you twist their necks right and feed 'em carbon.'

'I was told you were the best locksmith in the city,' said Teatime.

Behind him, Banjo shifted position.

Mr Brown looked annoyed...

'Well, yes,' he said. 'But locks don't generally alter 'emselves while you're working on 'em, that's what I'm saying.'

'And I thought you could open any lock anyone ever made,' said Teatime.

'Made by humans,' said Mr Brown sharply. 'And most dwarfs. I dunno what made these. You never said anything about magic.'

'That's a shame,' said Teatime. 'Then really I have no more need of your services. You may as well go back home.'

'I won't be sorry.' Mr Brown started putting things back into his tool bag. 'What about my money?'

'Do I owe you any?'

'I came along with you. I don't see it's my fault that this is all magic business. I should get something.'

'Ah, yes, I see your point,' said Teatime. 'Of course, you should get what you deserve. Banjo?'

Banjo lumbered forward, and then stopped.

Mr Brown's hand had come out of the bag holding a crowbar.

'You must think I was born yesterday, you slimy little bugger,' he said. 'I know your type. You think it's all some kind of game. You make little jokes to yourself and you think no one else notices and you think you're so smart. Well, Mr Teacup, I'm leaving, right? Right now. With what's coming to me. And you ain't stopping me. And Banjo certainly ain't. I knew old Ma Lilywhite back in the good old days. You think you're nasty? You think you're mean? Ma Lilywhite'd tear your ears off and spit 'em in your eye, you cocky little devil. And I worked with her, so you don't scare me and nor does little Banjo, poor sod that he is.'

Mr Brown glared at each of them in turn, flourishing the crowbar. Sideney cowered in front of the doors.

He saw Teatime nod gracefully, as if the man had made a small speech of thanks.

'I appreciate your point of view,' said Teatime. 'And, I have to repeat, it's Teh-ah-tim-eh. Now, please, Banjo.'

Banjo loomed over Mr Brown, reached down and lifted him up by the crowbar so sharply that his feet came out of his boots.

'Here, you know me, Banjo!' the locksmith croaked, struggling in mid-air. 'I remembers you when you was little, I used to sit you on my knees, I often used to work for your ma-'

'D'you like apples?' Banjo rumbled.

Brown struggled.

'You got to say yes,' Banjo said.

'Yes!'

'D'You like pears? You got to say yes.'

'All right, yes!'

'D'you like falling down the stairs?'

Medium Dave held up his hands for quiet.

He glared at the gang.

'This place is getting to you, right? But we've all been in bad places before, right?'

'Not this bad,' said Chickenwire. 'I've never been anywhere where it hurts to look at the sky. It give me the creeps.'

'Chick's a little baby, nyer nyer nyer,' sang Careers.

They looked at him. He coughed nervously.

'Sorry... don't know why I said that. .

'If we stick together we'll be fine-'

'Teeny meeny minty me...' mumbled Catseye.

'What? What are you talking about?'

'Sorry... it just sort of slipped out...'

'What I'm trying to say,' said Medium Dave, 'is that if--'

'Peachy keeps making faces at me!'

'I didn't!'

'Liar, liar, pants on fire!'

Two things happened at this point. Medium Dave lost his temper, and Peachy screamed.

A small wisp of smoke was rising from his trousers.

He hopped around, beating desperately at himself.

'Who did that? Who did that?' demanded Medium Dave.

'I didn't see anyone,' said Chickenwire. 'I mean, no one was near him. Catseye said "pants on fire" and next minute-'

'Now he's sucking his thumb!' Catseye jeered. Nyer nyer nyer! Crying for Mummy! You know what happens to kids who suck their thumbs, there's this big monster with scissors all---'

'Will you stop talking like that!' shouted Medium Dave. 'Blimey, it is like dealing with a bunch of-'

Someone screamed, high above. It went on for a while and seemed to be getting nearer, but then it stopped and was replaced by a rush of thumping and an occasional sound like a coconut being bounced on a stone floor.

Medium Dave got to the door just in time to see the body of Mr Brown the locksmith tumble past, moving quite fast and not at all neatly. A moment later his bag somersaulted around the curve of the stairs. It split as it bounced and there

was a jangle as tools and lockpicks bounced out and followed their late owner.

He'd been moving quite fast. He'd probably roll all the way to the bottom.

Medium Dave looked up. Two turns above him, on the opposite side of the huge shaft, Banjo was watching him.

Banjo didn't know right from wrong. He'd always left that sort of thing to his brother.

'Er... poor guy must've slipped,' Medium Dave mumbled.

'Oh, yeah... slipped,' said Peachy.

He looked up, too.

It was funny. He hadn't noticed them before. The white tower had seemed to glow from within. But now there were shadows, moving across the stone. In the stone.

'What was that?' he said. 'That sound...

'What sound?'

'It sounded... like knives scraping,' said Peachy. 'Really close.'

'There's only us here!' said Medium Dave. 'What're you afraid of? Attack by daisies? Come on... let's go and help him...'

She couldn't walk through the door. It simply resisted any such effort. She ended up merely bruised. So Susan turned the doorknob instead.

She heard the oh god gasp. But she was used to the idea of buildings that were bigger on the

inside. Her grandfather had never been able to get a handle on dimensions.

The second thing the eye was drawn to were the staircases. They started opposite one another in what was now a big round tower, its ceiling lost in the haze. The spirals circled into infinity.

Susan's eyes went back to the first thing.

It was a large conical heap in the middle of the floor.

It was white. It glistened in the cool light that shone down from the mists.

'It's teeth,' she said.

'I think I'm going to throw up,' said the oh god miserably.

'There's nothing that scary about teeth,' said Susan. She didn't mean it. The heap was very horrible indeed.

'Did I say I was scared? I'm just hung over again... Oh, me...'

Susan advanced on the heap, moving warily.

They were small teeth. Children's teeth. Whoever had piled them up hadn't been very careful about it, either. A few had been scattered across the floor. She knew because she trod on one, and the slippery little crunching sound made her desperate not to tread on any more.

Whoever had piled them up had presumably been the one who'd drawn the chalk marks around the obscene heap.

'There're so many,' whispered Bilious.

'At least twenty million, given the size of the

average milk tooth,' said Susan. She was shocked to find that it came almost automatically.

'How can you possibly know that?'

'Volume of a cone,' said Susan. 'Pi times the square of the radius times the height divided by three. I bet Miss Butts never thought it'd come in handy in a place like this.'

'That's amazing. You did it in your head?'

'This isn't right,' said Susan quietly. 'I don't think this is what the Tooth Fairy is all about. All that effort to get the teeth, and then just to dump them like this? No. Anyway, there's a cigarette end on the floor. I don't see the Tooth Fairy as someone who rolls her own.'

She stared down at the chalk marks.

Voices high above her made her look up. She thought she saw a head look over the stair rail, and then draw back again. She didn't see much of the face, but what she saw didn't look fairylike.

She glanced back at the circle of chalk around the teeth. Someone had wanted all the teeth in one place and had drawn a circle to show people where they had to go.

There were a few symbols scrawled around the circle.

She had a good memory for small details. It was another family trait. And a small detail stirred in her memory like a sleepy bee.

'Oh, no,' she breathed. 'Surely no one would try to-'

Someone shouted, someone up in the whiteness.

A body rolled down the stairs nearest her. It

had been a skinny, middle-aged man. Technically it still was, but the long spiral staircase had not been kind.

It tumbled across the white marble and slid to a boneless halt.

Then, as she hurried towards the body, it faded away, leaving nothing behind but a smear of blood.

A jingle noise made her look back up the stairs. Spinning over and over, making salmon leaps in the air, a crowbar bounded over the last dozen steps and landed point first on a flagstone, staying upright and vibrating.

Chickenwire reached the top of the stairs, panting.

'There's people down there, Mister Teatime!' he wheezed. 'Dave and the others've gone down to catch them, Mister Teatime!'

'Teh-ah-tim-eh,' said Teatime, without taking his eyes off the wizard.

'That's right, sir!'

'Well?' said Teatime. 'Just... do away with them.'

'Er... one of them's a girl, sir.'

Teatime still didn't look round. He waved a hand vaguely.

'Then do away with them politely.'

'Yes, Mister... yes, right...' Chickenwire coughed. 'Don't you want to find out why they're here, sir?'

'Good heavens, no. Why should I want to do that? Now go away.'

Chickenwire stood there for a moment, and then hurried off.

As he scurried down the stairs he thought he heard a creak, as of an ancient wooden door.

He went pale.

It was just a door, said the sensible bit in front of his brain. There were hundreds of them in this place, although, come to think of it, none of them had creaked.

The other bit, the bit that hung around in dark places nearly at the top of his spinal column, said: But it's not one of them, and you know it, because you know which door it really is...

He hadn't heard that creak for thirty years.

He gave a little yelp and started to take the stairs four at a time.

In the hollows and corners, the shadows grew darker.

Susan ran up a flight of stairs, dragging the oh god behind her.

'Do you know what they've been doing?' she said. 'You know why they've got all those teeth in a circle? The power... oh my...'

'I'm not going to,' said the head waiter, firmly.

'Look, I'll buy you a better pair after Hogswatch-'

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

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

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

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

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

'Yeah, but old boots . . . '

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

'And mud?' said the head waiter, gloomily.

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

'Yes, but not all at once.'

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

'Yes, boss?'

'Get those damn boots off right now, will you?'

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

'Let me out! It's after me!'

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

'Yeah, well, it ain't a ghost,' muttered Chickenwire. 'It's worse'n a ghost-'

Medium Dave slapped him across the face.

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

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

'Good,' said Medium Dave, watching his face. 'Now... What happened?'

Chickenwire looked at his feet.

'I thought it was the wardrobe,' he muttered. 'Go on, laugh...'

They didn't laugh.

'What wardrobe?' said Catseye.

'Oh, when I was a kid...' Chickenwire waved his arms vaguely. 'We had this big ole wardrobe, if you must know. Oak. It had this... this...

on the door there was this... sort of... face.' He looked at their faces, which were equally wooden. 'I mean, not an actual face, there was... all this... decoration round the keyhole, sort of flowers and leaves and stuff, but if you looked at it in the... right way... it was a face and they put it in my room 'cos it was so big and in the night... in the night... in the night-'

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

'Yes?' said Catseye hoarsely.

 '...it whispered things,' said Chickenwire, in a quiet little voice, like a vole in a dungeon.

They looked at one another.

'What things?' said Medium Dave.

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

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

'It's like me and the dark,' said Catseye.

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

'Yeah, well... you try an' make up for it, don't you?' said Catseye. "Cos when you're grown you know it's just shadows and stuff.

Besides, it ain't like the dark we used to have in the cellar.'

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

Sarcasm didn't work.

'No,' said Catseye, simply. 'It wasn't. In our cellar, it wasn't.'

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

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

They reached the bottom of the stairs.

There was an absence of anybody. And any body.

'He couldn't have survived that, could he?' said Medium Dave.

'I saw him as he went past,' said Catseye. 'Necks aren't supposed to bend that way-'

He squinted upwards.

'Who's that moving up there?'

'How are their necks moving?' quavered Chickenwire.

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

'Who're they? Why're they here?'

'Why're we here?' said Peachy. He started, and looked behind him.

'Taking our money? After us putting up with him?'

'Yeah...' said Peachy distantly, trailing after the others. 'Er... did you hear that noise just then?'

'What noise?'

'A sort of clipping, snipping... ?'

'No.'

'No.'

'No. You must have imagined it.'

Peachy nodded miserably.

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