Hogfather v1.0 18/11/2000 scanned and spellcheked with Word2000 by 4i Publications 

Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.

But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things.

They wonder aloud how the snowplough driver gets to work, or how the makers of dictionaries look up the spelling of the words. Yet there is the constant desire to find some point in the twisting, knotting, ravelling nets of space-time on which a metaphorical finger can be put to indicate that here, here, is the point where it all began...

Something began when the Guild of Assassins enrolled Mister Teatime, who saw things differently from other people, and one of the ways that he saw things differently from other people was in seeing other people as things (later, Lord Downey of the Guild said, 'We took pity on him because he'd lost both parents at an early age. I think that, on reflection, we should have wondered a bit more about that.'

) But it was much earlier even than that when most people forgot that the very oldest stories are, sooner or later, about blood. Later on they took the blood out to make the stories more acceptable to children, or at least to the people who had to read them to children rather than the children themselves (who, on the whole, are quite keen on blood provided it's being shed by the deserving[1]), and then wondered where the stories went.

And earlier still when something in the darkness of the deepest caves and gloomiest forests thought: what are they, these creatures? I will observe them.

And much, much earlier than that, when the Discworld was formed, drifting onwards through space atop four elephants on the shell of the giant turtle, Great A'Tuin.

Possibly, as it moves, it gets tangled like a blind man in a cobwebbed house in those highly specialized little spacetime strands that try to breed in every history they encounter, stretching them and breaking them and tugging them into new shapes.

Or possibly not, of course. The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative hypothesis as 'Things just happen. What the hell.'

The senior wizards of Unseen University stood and looked at the door.

There was no doubt that whoever had shut it wanted it to stay shut. Dozens of nails secured it to the door frame. Planks had been nailed right across. And finally it had, up until this morning, been hidden by a bookcase that had been put in front of it.

'And there's the sign, Ridcully,' said the Dean. 'You have read it, I assume.

You know? The sign which says "Do not, under any circumstances, open this door"?'

'Of course I've read it,' said Ridcully. 'Why d'yer think I want it opened?'

'Er ... why?'

said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'To see why they wanted it shut, of course.`[2] He gestured to Modo, the University's gardener and oddjob dwarf, who was standing by with a crowbar.

'Go to it, lad.'

The gardener saluted. 'Right you are, sir.'

Against a background of splintering timber, Ridcully went on: 'It says on the plans that this was a bathroom. There's nothing frightening about a bathroom, for gods' sake. I want a bathroom. I'm fed up with sluicing down with you fellows. It's unhygienic. You can catch stuff. My father told me that. Where you get lots of people bathing together, the Verruca Gnome is running around with his little sack.'

'Is that like the Tooth Fairy?'

said the Dean sarcastically.

'I'm in charge here and I want a bathroom of my own,' said Ridcully firmly. 'And that's all there is to it, all right? I want a bathroom in time for Hogswatchnight, understand?'

And that's a problem with beginnings, of course. Sometimes, when you're dealing with occult realms that have quite a different attitude to time, you get the effect a little way before the cause.

From somewhere on the edge of hearing came a glingleglingleglingle noise, like little silver bells.

At about the same time as the Archchancellor was laying down the law, Susan Sto-Helit was sitting up in bed, reading by candlelight.

Frost patterns curled across the windows.

She enjoyed these early evenings. Once she had put the children to bed she was more or less left to herself. Mrs Gaiter was pathetically scared of giving her any instructions even though she paid Susan's wages.

Not that the wages were important, of course. What was important was that she was being her Own Person and holding down a Real job. And being a governess was a real job. The only tricky bit had been the embarrassment when her employer found out that she was a duchess, because in Mrs Gaiter's book, which was a rather short book with big handwriting, the upper crust wasn't supposed to work.

It was supposed to loaf around. It was all Susan could do to stop her curtseying when they met.

A flicker made her turn her head.

The candle flame was streaming out horizontally, as though in a howling wind.

She looked up. The curtains billowed away from the window, which- -flung itself open with a clatter.

But there was no wind. At least, no wind in this world.

Images formed in her mind. A red ball ... The sharp smell of snow... And then they were gone, and instead there were...

'Teeth?'

said Susan, aloud. 'Teeth, again?'

She blinked. When she opened her eyes the window was, as she knew it would be, firmly shut. The curtain hung demurely. The candle flame was innocently upright.

Oh, no, not again. Not after all this time. Everything had been going so well 'Thusan?'

She looked around. Her door had been pushed open and a small figure stood there, barefoot in a nightdress.

She sighed. 'Yes, Twyla?'

'I'm afwaid of the monster in the cellar, Thusan. It's going to eat me up.'

Susan shut her book firmly and raised a warning finger.

'What have I told you about trying to sound ingratiatingly cute, Twyla?'

she said.

The little girl said, 'You said I mustn't. You said that exaggerated lisping is a hanging offence and I only do it to get attention.'

'Good. Do you know what monster it is this time?'

'It's the big hairy one wif-' Susan raised the finger. 'Uh?'

she warned.

'-with eight arms,' Twyla corrected herself.

'What, again? Oh, all right.'

She got out of bed and put on her dressing gown, trying to stay quite calm while the child watched her. So they were coming back. Oh, not the monster in the cellar. That was all in a day's work. But it looked as if she was going to start remembering the future again.

She shook her head. However far you ran away, you always caught yourself up.

But monsters were easy, at least. She'd learned how to deal with monsters. She picked up the poker from the nursery fender and went down the back stairs, with Twyla following her.

The Gaiters were having a dinner party. Muffled voices came from the direction of the dining room.

Then, as she crept past, a door opened and yellow light spilled out and a voice said, 'Ye gawds, there's a gel in a nightshirt out here with a poker!' She saw figures silhouetted in the light and made out the worried face of Mrs Gaiter.

'Susan? Er ... what are you doing?'

Susan looked at the poker and then back at the woman. 'Twyla said she's afraid of a monster in the cellar, Mrs Gaiter.'

'And yer going to attack it with a poker, eh?'

said one of the guests. There was a strong atmosphere of brandy and cigars.

'Yes,' said Susan simply.

'Susan's our governess,' said Mrs Gaiter. 'Er ... I told you about her.'

There was a change in the expression on the faces peering out from the dining room. It became a sort of amused respect.

'She beats up monsters with a poker?'

said someone.

'Actually, that's a very clever idea,' said someone else. 'Little gel gets it into her head there's a monster in the cellar, you go in with the poker and make a few bashing noises while the child listens, and then everything's all right.

Good thinkin', that girl. Ver' sensible. Ver' modem.'

'Is that what you're doing Susan?'

said Mrs Gaiter anxiously.

'Yes, Mrs Gaiter,' said Susan obediently.

'This I've got to watch, by Io! It's not every day you see monsters beaten up by a gel,' said the man behind her. There was a swish of silk and a cloud of cigar smoke as the diners poured out into the hall.

Susan sighed again and went down the cellar stairs, while Twyla sat demurely at the top, hugging her knees.

A door opened and shut.

There was a short period of silence and then a terrifying scream. One woman fainted and a man dropped his cigar.

'You don't have to worry, everything will be all right,' said Twyla calmly. 'She always wins. Everything will be all right.'

There were thuds and clangs, and then a whirring noise, and finally a sort of bubbling.

Susan pushed open the door. The poker was bent at right angles. There was nervous applause.

'Ver' well done,' said a guest. 'Ver' persykological. Clever idea, that, bendin' the poker. And I expect you're not afraid any more, eh, little girl?'

'No,' said Twyla 'Ver' persykological.'

'Susan says don't get afraid, get angry,' said Twyla.

'Er, thank you, Susan,' said Mrs Gaiter, now a trembling bouquet of nerves.

'And, er, now, Sir Geoffrey, if you'd all like to come back into the parlour - I mean, the drawing room-' The party went back up the hall. The last thing Susan heard before the door shut was 'Dashed convincin', the way she bent the poker like that-' She waited.

'Have they all gone, Twyla?'

'Yes, Susan.'

'Good.'

Susan went back into the cellar and emerged towing something large and hairy with eight legs. She managed to haul it up the steps and down the other passage to the back yard, where she kicked it out. It would evaporate before dawn.

'That's what we do to monsters,' she said.

Twyla watched carefully.

'And now it's bed for you, my girl,' said Susan, picking her up.

'C'n I have the poker in my room for the night?'

'All right.'

'It only kills monsters, doesn't it...?'

the child said sleepily, as Susan carried her upstairs.

'That's right,' Susan said. 'All kinds.'

She put the girl to bed next to her brother and leaned the poker against the toy cupboard.

The poker was made of some cheap metal with a brass knob on the end. She would, Susan reflected, give quite a lot to be able to use it on the children's previous governess.

'G'night.'

'Goodnight.'

She went back to her own small bedroom and got back into bed, watching the curtains suspiciously.

It would be nice to think she'd imagined it. It would also be stupid to think that, too. But she'd been nearly normal for two years now, making her own way in the real world, never remembering the future at all... Perhaps she had just dreamed things (but even dreams could be real...).

She tried to ignore the long thread of wax that suggested the candle had, just for a few seconds, streamed in the wind.

As Susan sought sleep, Lord Downey sat in his study catching up on the paperwork.

Lord Downey was an assassin. Or, rather, an Assassin. The capital letter was important. It separated those curs who went around murdering people for money from the gentlemen who were occasionally consulted by other gentlemen who wished to have removed, for a consideration, any inconvenient razorblades from the candyfloss of life.

The members of the Guild of Assassins considered themselves cultured men who enjoyed good music and food and literature. And they knew the value of human life. To a penny, in many cases.

Lord Downey's study was oak-panelled and well carpeted. The furniture was very old and quite worn, but the wear was the wear that comes only when very good furniture is carefully used over several centuries. It was matured furniture.

A log fire burned in the grate. In front of it a couple of dogs were sleeping in the tangled way of large hairy dogs everywhere.

Apart from the occasional doggy snore or the crackle of a shifting log, there were no other sounds but the scratching of Lord Downey's pen and the ticking of the longcase clock by the door ... small, private noises which only served to define the silence.

At least, this was the case until someone cleared their throat.

The sound suggested very clearly that the purpose of the exercise was not to erase the presence of a troublesome bit of biscuit, but merely to indicate in the politest possible way the presence of the throat.

Downey stopped writing but did not raise his head.

Then, after what appeared to be some consideration, he said in a businesslike voice, 'The doors are locked. The windows are barred. The dogs do not appear to have woken up. The squeaky floorboards haven't. Other little arrangements which I will not specify seem to have been bypassed. That severely limits the possibilities. I really doubt that you are a ghost and gods generally do not announce themselves so politely. You could, of course, be Death, but I don't believe he bothers with such niceties and, besides, I am feeling quite well.

Hmm!' Something hovered in the air in front of his desk.

'My teeth are in fine condition so you are unlikely to be the Tooth Fairy. I've always found that a stiff brandy before bedtime quite does away with the need for the Sandman. And, since I can carry a tune quite well, I suspect I'm not likely to attract the attention of Old Man Trouble. Hmm.'

The figure drifted a little nearer.

'I suppose a gnome could get through a mousehole, but I have traps down,' Downey went on. 'Bogeymen can walk through walls but would be very loath to reveal themselves. Really, you have me at a loss. Hmm?'

And then he looked up.

A grey robe hung in the air. It appeared to be occupied, in that it had a shape, although the occupant was not visible.

The prickly feeling crept over Downey that the occupant wasn't invisible, merely not, in any physical sense, there at all.

'Good evening,' he said.

The robe said, Good evening, Lord Downey.

His brain registered the words. His ears swore they hadn't heard them.

But you did not become head of the Assassins' Guild by taking fright easily.

Besides, the thing wasn't frightening. It was, thought Downey, astonishingly dull. If monotonous drabness could take on a shape, this would be the shape it would choose.

'You appear to be a spectre,' he said.

Our nature is not a matter for discussion, arrived in his head. We offer you a commission.

'You wish someone inhumed?'

said Downey.

Brought to an end.

Downey considered this. It was not as unusual as it appeared. There were precedents. Anyone could buy the services of the Guild. Several zombies had, in the past, employed the Guild to settle scores with their murderers. In fact the Guild, he liked to think practised the ultimate democracy. You didn't need intelligence, social position, beauty or charm to hire it. You just needed money which, unlike the other stuff, was available to everyone. Except for the poor, of course, but there was no helping some people.

'Brought to an end...'

That was an odd way of putting it.

'We can-' he began.

The payment will reflect the difficulty of the task.

'Our scale of fees-' The payment will be three million dollars.

Downey sat back. That was four times higher than any fee yet earned by any member of the Guild, and that had been a special family rate, including overnight guests.

'No questions asked, I assume?'

he said, buying time.

No questions answered.

'But does the suggested fee represent the difficulty involved? The client is heavily guarded?'

Not guarded at all. But almost certainly impossible to delete with conventional weapons.

Downey nodded. This was not necessarily a big problem, he said to himself. The Guild had amassed quite a few unconventional weapons over the years. Delete? An unusual way of putting it ...

'We like to know for whom we are working, he said.

We are sure you do.

'I mean that we need to know your name. Or names. In strict client confidentiality, of course. We have to write something down in our files.'

You may think of us as ... the Auditors.

'Really? What is it you audit?'

Everything.

'I think we need to know something about you.'

We are the people with three million dollars.

Downey took the point, although he didn't like it. Three million dollars could buy a lot of no questions.

'Really?'

he said. 'In the circumstances, since you are a new client, I think we would like payment in advance.'

As you wish. The gold is now in your vaults.

'You mean that it will shortly be in our vaults,' said Downey.

No. It has always been in your vaults. We know this because we have just put it there.

Downey watched the empty hood for a moment, and then without shifting his gaze he reached out and picked up the speaking tube.

'Mr Winvoe?'

he said, after whistling into it. 'Ah. Good. Tell me, how much do we have in our vaults at the moment? Oh, approximately. To the nearest million, say.'

He held the tube away from his ear for a moment, and then spoke into it again. 'Well, be a good chap and check anyway, will you?'

He hung up the tube and placed his hands flat on the desk in front of him.

'Can I offer you a drink while we wait?'

he said.

Yes. We believe so.

Downey stood up with some relief and walked over to his large drinks cabinet.

His hand hovered over the Guild's ardent and valuable tantalus, with its labelled decanters of Mur, Nig, Trop and Yksihw.[3] 'And what would you like to drink?'

he said, wondering where the Auditor kept its mouth. His hand hovered for just a moment over the smallest decanter, marked Nosiop.

We do not drink.

'But you did just say I could offer you a drink ... ' Indeed. We judge you fully capable of performing that action.

'Ah.'

Downey's hand hesitated over the whisky decanter, and then he thought better of it. At that point, the speaking tube whistled.

'Yes, Mr Winvoe? Really? Indeed? I myself have frequently found loose change under sofa cushions, it's amazing how it mou ... No, no, I wasn't being ... Yes, I did have some reason to ... No, no blame attaches to you in any ... No, I could hardly see how it ... Yes, go and have a rest, what a good idea. Thank you.'

He hung up the tube again. The cowl hadn't moved.

'We will need to know where, when and, of course, who,' he said, after a moment.

The cowl nodded. The location is not on any map. We would like the task to be completed within the week. This is essential. As for the who...

A drawing appeared on Downey's desk and in his head arrived the words: Let us call him the Fat Man.

'Is this a joke?'

said Downey.

We do not joke.

No, you don't, do you, Downey thought. He drummed his fingers.

'There are many who would say this... person does not exist,' he said.

He must exist. How else could you so readily recognize his picture? And many are in correspondence with him.

'Well, yes, of course, in a sense he exists... In a sense everything exists. It is cessation of existence that concerns us here.

'Finding him would be a little difficult.'

You will find persons on any street who can tell you his approximate address.

'Yes, of course,' said Downey, wondering why anyone would call them 'persons'.

It was an odd usage. 'But, as you say, I doubt that they could give a map reference. And even then, how could the . . . the Fat Man be inhumed? A glass of poisoned sherry, perhaps?'

The cowl had no face to crack a smile.

You misunderstand the nature of employment, it said in Downey's head.

He bridled at this. Assassins were never employed. They were engaged or retained or commissioned, but never employed. Only servants were employed.

'What is it that I misunderstand, exactly?'

he said.

We pay. You find the ways and means.

The cowl began to fade.

'How can I contact you?'

said Downey.

We will contact you. We know where you are. We know where everyone is.

The figure vanished. At the same moment the door was flung open to reveal the distraught figure of Mr Winvoe, the Guild Treasurer.

'Excuse me, my lord, but I really had to come up!' He flung some discs on the desk. 'Look at them!' Downey carefully picked up a golden circle. It looked like a small coin, but - 'No denomination!' said Winvoe. 'No heads, no tails, no milling! It's just a blank disc! They're all just blank discs!' Downey opened his mouth to say, 'Valueless?'

He realized that he was half hoping that this was the case. If they, whoever they were, had paid in worthless metal then there wasn't even the glimmering of a contract. But he could see this wasn't the case. Assassins learned to recognize money early in their careers.

'Blank discs,' he said, 'of pure gold.'

Winvoe nodded mutely.

'That,' said Downey, 'will do nicely.'

'It must be magical!' said Winvoe. 'And we never accept magical money!' Downey bounced the coin on the desk a couple of times. It made a satisfyingly rich thunking noise. It wasn't magical. Magical money would look real, because its whole purpose was to deceive. But this didn't need to ape something as human and adulterated as mere currency. This is gold, it told his fingers. Take it or leave it.

Downey sat and thought, while Winvoe stood and worried.

'We'll take it,' he said.

'But-' 'Thank you, Mr Winvoe. That is my decision,' said Downey. He stared into space for a while, and then smiled. 'Is Mister Teatime still in the building?'

Winvoe stood back. 'I thought the council had agreed to dismiss him,' he said stiffly. 'After that business with-' 'Mister Teatime does not see the world in quite the same way as other people,' said Downey, picking up the picture from his desk and looking at it thoughtfully.

'Well, indeed, I think that is certainly true.'

'Please send him up.'

The Guild attracted all sorts of people, Downey reflected. He found himself wondering how it had come to attract Winvoe, for one thing. It was hard to imagine him stabbing anyone in the heart in case he got blood on the victim's wallet. Whereas Mister Teatime...

The problem was that the Guild took young boys and gave them a splendid education and incidentally taught them how to kill, cleanly and dispassionately, for money and for the good of society, or at least that part of society that had money, and what other kind of society was there? But very occasionally you found you'd got someone like Mister Teatime, to whom the money was merely a distraction. Mister Teatime had a truly brilliant mind, but it was brilliant like a fractured mirror, all marvellous facets and rainbows but, ultimately, also something that was broken.

Mister Teatime enjoyed himself too much. And other people, also.

Downey had privately decided that some time soon Mister Teatime was going to meet with an accident. Like many people with no actual morals, Lord Downey did have standards, and Teatime repelled him. Assassination was a careful game, usually played against people who knew the rules themselves or at least could afford the services of those who did. There was considerable satisfaction in a clean kill. What there wasn't supposed to be was pleasure in a messy one. That sort of thing led to talk.

On the other hand, Teatime's corkscrew of a mind was exactly the tool to deal with something like this. And if he didn't ... well, that was hardly Downey's fault, was it? He turned his attention to the paperwork for a while. It was amazing how the stuff mounted up. But you had to deal with it. It wasn't as though they were murderers, after all...

There was a knock at the door. He pushed the paperwork aside and sat back.

'Come in, Mister Teatime,' he said. It never hurt to put the other fellow slightly in awe of you.

In fact the door was opened by one of the Guild's servants, carefully balancing a tea tray.

'Ah, Carter,' said Lord Downey, recovering magnificently. 'Just put it on the table over there, will you?'

'Yes, sir,' said Carter. He turned and nodded. 'Sorry, sir, I will go and fetch another cup directly, sir.'

'What?'

'For your visitor, sir.'

'What visitor? Oh, when Mister Teati-' He stopped. He turned.

There was a young man sitting on the hearthrug, playing with the dogs.

'Mister Teatime!' 'It's pronounced Teh-ah-tim-eh, sir,' said Teatime, with just a hint of reproach. 'Everyone gets it wrong, sir.'

'How did you do that?'

'Pretty well, sir. I got mildly scorched on the last few feet, of course.'

There were some lumps of soot on the hearthrug. Downey realized he'd heard them fall, but that hadn't been particularly extraordinary. No one could get down the chimney. There was a heavy grid firmly in place near the top of the flue.

'But there's a blocked-in fireplace behind the old library,' said Teatime, apparently reading his thoughts. 'The flues connect, under the bars. It was really a stroll, sir.'

'Really . . .'

'Oh, yes, sir.'

Downey nodded. The tendency of old buildings to be honeycombed with sealed chimney flues was a fact you learned early in your career. And then, he told himself, you forgot. It always paid to put the other fellow in awe of you, too.

He had forgotten they taught that, too.

'The dogs seem to like you,' he said.

'I get on well with animals, sir.'

Teatime's face was young and open and friendly. Or, at least, it smiled all the time. But the effect was spoiled for most people by the fact that it had only one eye. Some unexplained accident had taken the other one, and the missing orb had been replaced by a ball of glass. The result was disconcerting. But what bothered Lord Downey far more was the man's other eye, the one that might loosely be called normal. He'd never seen such a small and sharp pupil. Teatime looked at the world through a pinhole.

He found he'd retreated behind his desk again. There was that about Teatime. You always felt happier if you had something between you and him.

'You like animals, do you?'

he said. 'I have a report here that says you nailed Sir George's dog to the ceiling.'

'Couldn't have it barking while I was working, sir.'

'Some people would have drugged it.'

'Oh.'

Teatime looked despondent for a moment, but then he brightened. 'But I definitely fulfilled the contract, sir. There can be no doubt about that, sir. I checked Sir George's breathing with a mirror as instructed. It's in my report.'

'Yes, indeed.'

Apparently the man's head had been several feet from his body at that point. It was a terrible thought that Teatime might see nothing incongruous about this.

'And ... the servants...?'

he said.

'Couldn't have them bursting in, sir.'

Downey nodded, half hypnotized by the glassy stare and the pinhole eyeball. No, you couldn't have them bursting in. And an Assassin might well face serious professional opposition, possibly even by people trained by the same teachers.

But an old man and a maidservant who'd merely had the misfortune to be in the house at the time...

There was no actual rule, Downey had to admit. It was just that, over the years, the Guild had developed a certain ethos and members tended to be very neat about their work, even shutting doors behind them and generally tidying up as they went. Hurting the harmless was worse than a transgression against the moral fabric of society, it was a breach of good manners. It was worse even than that.

It was bad taste. But there was no actual rule...

'That was all right, wasn't it, sir?'

said Teatime, with apparent anxiety.

'It, uh ... lacked elegance,' said Downey.

'Ah. Thank you, sir. I am always happy to be corrected. I shall remember that next time.'

Downey took a deep breath.

'It's about that I wish to talk,' he said. He held up the picture of ... what had the thing called him? ... the Fat Man? 'As a matter of interest,' he said, 'how would you go about inhuming this ...

gentleman?'

Anyone else, he was sure, would have burst out laughing. They would have said things like 'Is this a joke, sir?'

Teatime merely leaned forward, with a curious intent expression.

'Difficult, sir.'

'Certainly,' Downey agreed.

'I would need some time to prepare a plan, sir,' Teatime went on.

'Of course, and-' There was a knock at the door and Carter came in with another cup and saucer. He nodded respectfully to Lord Downey and crept out again.

'Right, sir,' said Teatime.

'I'm sorry?'

said Downey, momentarily distracted.

'I have now thought of a plan, sir,' said Teatime, patiently.

'You have?'

'Yes, sir.'

'As quickly as that?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Ye gods!' 'Well, sir, you know we are encouraged to consider hypothetical problems.

'Oh, yes. A very valuable exercise' Downey stopped, and then looked shocked.

'You mean you have actually devoted time to considering how to inhume the Hogfather?'

he said weakly. 'You've actually sat down and thought out how to do it? You've actually devoted your spare time to the problem?'

'Oh, yes, sir. And the Soul Cake Duck. And the Sandman. And Death.'

Downey blinked again. 'You've actually sat down and considered how to-' 'Yes, sir. I've amassed quite an interesting file. In my own time, of course.'

'I want to be quite certain about this, Mister Teatime. You ... have ... applied ... yourself to a study of ways of killing Death?'

'Only as a hobby, sir.'

'Well, yes, hobbies, yes, I mean, I used to collect butterflies myself,' said Downey, recalling those first moments of awakening pleasure at the use of poison and the pin, 'but-' .

'Actually, sir, the basic methodology is exactly the same as it would be for a human. Opportunity, geography, technique . . . You just have to work with the known facts about the individual concerned. Of course, with this one such a lot is known.'

'And You've worked it all out, have you?'

said Downey, almost fascinated.

'Oh, a long time ago, sir.'

'When, may I ask?'

'I think it was when I was lying in bed one Hogswatchnight, sir.'

My gods, thought Downey, and to think that I just used to listen for sleigh bells.

'My word,' he said aloud.

'I may have to check some details, sir. I'd appreciate access to some of the books in the Dark Library. But, yes, I think I can see the basic shape.'

'And yet ... this person ... some people might say that he is technically immortal.'

Everyone has their weak point, sir.'

Even Death?'

'Oh, yes. Absolutely. Very much so.'

'Really?'

Downey drummed his fingers on the desk again. The boy couldn't possibly have a real plan, he told himself. He certainly had a skewed mind - skewed? It was a positive helix - but the Fat Man wasn't just another target in some mansion somewhere. It was reasonable to assume that people had tried to trap him before.

He felt happy about this. Teatime would fail, and possibly even fail fatally if his plan was stupid enough. And maybe the Guild would lose the gold, but maybe not.

'Very well,' he said. 'I don't need to know what your plan is.'

'That's just as well, sir.'

'What do you mean?'

'Because I don't propose to tell you, sir. You'd be obliged to disapprove of it.'

'I am amazed that you are so confident that it can work, Teatime.'

'I just think logically about the problem, sir,' said the boy. He sounded reproachful.

'Logically?'

said Downey.

'I suppose I just see things differently from other people,' said Teatime.

It was a quiet day for Susan, although on the way to the park Gawain trod on a crack in the pavement. On purpose.

One of the many terrors conjured up by the previous governess's happy way with children had been the bears that waited around in the street to eat you if you stood on the cracks.

Susan had taken to carrying the poker under her respectable coat. One wallop generally did the trick. They were amazed that anyone else saw them.

'Gawain?'

she said, eyeing a nervous bear who had suddenly spotted her and was now trying to edge away nonchalantly.

'Yes?'

'You meant to tread on that crack so that I'd have to thump some poor creature whose only fault is wanting to tear you limb from limb.'

'I was just skipping-' 'Quite. Real children don't go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs.'

He grinned at her.

'If I catch you being twee again I will knot your arms behind your head,' said Susan levelly.

He nodded, and went to push Twyla off the swings.

Susan relaxed, satisfied. It was her personal discovery. Ridiculous threats didn't worry them at all, but they were obeyed. Especially the ones in graphic detail.

The previous governess had used various monsters and bogeymen as a form of discipline. There was always something waiting to eat or carry off bad boys and girls for crimes like stuttering or defiantly and aggravatingly persisting in writing with their left hand. There was always a Scissor Man waiting for a little girl who sucked her thumb, always a bogeyman in the cellar. Of such bricks is the innocence of childhood constructed.

Susan's attempts at getting them to disbelieve in the things only caused the problems to get worse.

Twyla had started to wet the bed. This may have been a crude form of defence against the terrible clawed creature that she was certain lived under it.

Susan had found out about this one the first night, when the child had woken up crying because of a bogeyman in the closet.

She'd sighed and gone to have a look. She'd been so angry that she'd pulled it out, hit it over the head with the nursery poker, dislocated its shoulder as a means of emphasis and kicked it out of the back door.

The children refused to disbelieve in the monsters because, frankly, they knew damn well the things were there.

But she'd found that they could, very firmly, also believe in the poker.

Now she sat down on a bench and read a book. She made a point of taking the children, every day, somewhere where they could meet others of the same age. If they got the hang of the playground, she thought, adult life would hold no fears. Besides, it was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far enough away not to hear what they were actually saying.

There were lessons later on. These were going a lot better now she'd got rid of the reading books about bouncy balls and dogs called Spot. She'd got Gawain on to the military campaigns of General Tacticus, which were suitably bloodthirsty but, more importantly, considered too difficult for a child. As a result his vocabulary was doubling every week and he could already use words like 'disembowelled' in everyday conversation. After all, what was the point of teaching children to be children? They were naturally good at it.

And she was, to her mild horror, naturally good with them. She wondered suspiciously if this was a family trait. And if, to judge by the way her hair so readily knotted itself into a prim bun, she was destined for jobs like this for the rest of her life.

It was her parents' fault. They hadn't meant it to turn out like this. At least, she hoped charitably that they hadn't.

They'd wanted to protect her, to keep her away from the worlds outside this one, from what people thought of as the occult, from ... well, from her grandfather, to put it bluntly. This had, she felt, left her a little twisted up.

Of course, to be fair, that was a parent's job. The world was so full of sharp bends that if they didn't put a few twists in you, you wouldn't stand a chance of fitting in. And they'd been conscientious and kind and given her a good home and even an education.

It had been a good education, too. But it had only been later on that she'd realized that it had been an education in, well, education. It meant that if ever anyone needed to calculate the volume of a cone, then they could confidently call on Susan Sto-Helit. Anyone at a loss to recall the campaigns of General Tacticus or the square root of 27.4 would not find her wanting. If you needed someone who could talk about household items and things to buy in the shops in five languages, then Susan was at the head of the queue. Education had been easy.

Learning things had been harder.

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.

She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.

After tea she read them a story. They liked her stories. The one in the book was pretty awful, but the Susan version was well received. She translated as she read.

'... and then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you're a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions. And now,' she closed the book with a snap, 'it's time for bed.'

The previous governess had taught them a prayer which included the hope that some god or other would take their soul if they died while they were asleep and, if Susan was any judge, had the underlying message that this would be a good thing.

one day, Susan averred, she'd hunt that woman down.

'Susan,' said Twyla, from somewhere under the blankets.

'Yes?'

'You know last week we wrote letters to the Hogfather?'

'Yes?'

'Only ... in the park Rachel says he doesn't exist and it's your father really.

And everyone else said she was right.'

There was a rustle from the other bed. Twyla's brother had turned over and was listening surreptitiously.

Oh dear, thought Susan. She had hoped she could avoid this. It was going to be like that business with the Soul Cake Duck all over again.

'Does it matter if you get the presents anyway?'

she said, making a direct appeal to greed.

' ' es.'

Oh dear, oh dear. Susan sat down on the bed, wondering how the hell to get through this. She patted the one visible hand.

'Look at it this way, then,' she said, and took a deep mental breath. 'Wherever people are obtuse and absurd ... and wherever they have, by even the most generous standards, the attention span of a small chicken in a hurricane and the investigative ability of a one-legged cockroach ... and wherever people are inanely credulous, Pathetically attached to the certainties of the nursery and, in general, have as much grasp of the realities of the physical universe as an oyster has of mountaineering ...

yes, Twyla: there is a Hogfather.'

There was silence from under the bedclothes, but she sensed that the tone of voice had worked. The words had meant nothing. That, as her grandfather might have said, was humanity all over.

'G' night.'

'Good night,' said Susan.

It wasn't even a bar. It was just a room where people drank while they waited for other people with whom they had business. The business usually involved the transfer of ownership of something from one person to another, but then, what business doesn't? Five businessmen sat round a table, lit by a candle stuck in a saucer. There was an open bottle between them. They were taking some care to keep it away from the candle flame.

' ' s gone six,' said one, a huge man with dreadlocks and a beard you could keep goats in. 'The clocks struck ages ago. He ain't coming. Let's go.

'Sit down, will you? Assassins are always late. 'cos of style, right?'

'This one's mental.'

'Eccentric.'

'What's the difference?'

'A bag of cash.'

The three that hadn't spoken yet looked at one another.

'What's this? You never said he was an Assassin,' said Chickenwire. 'He never said the guy was an Assassin, did he, Banjo?'

There was a sound like distant thunder. It was Banjo Lilywhite clearing his throat.

'Dat's right,' said a voice from the upper slopes. 'Youse never said.'

The others waited until the rumble died away. Even Banjo's voice hulked.

'He's' - the first speaker waved his hands vaguely, trying to get across the point that someone was a hamper of food, several folding chairs, a tablecloth, an assortment of cooking gear and an entire colony of ants short of a picnic -'mental. And he's got a funny eye.'

'It's just glass, all right?'

said the one known as Catseye, signalling a waiter for four beers and a glass of milk. 'And he's paying ten thousand dollars each.

I don't care what kind of eye he's got.'

'I heard it was made of the same stuff they make them fortune-telling crystals out of. You can't tell me that's right. And he looks at you with it,' said the first speaker. He was known as Peachy, although no one had ever found out why[4].

Catseye sighed. Certainly there was something odd about Mister Teatime, there was no doubt about that. But there was something weird about all Assassins. And the man paid well. Lots of Assassins used informers and locksmiths. It was against the rules, technically, but standards were going down everywhere, weren't they? Usually they paid you late and sparsely, as if they were doing the favour. But Teatime was OK. True, after a few minutes talking to him your eyes began to water and you felt you needed to scrub your skin even on the inside, but no one was perfect, were they? Peachy leaned forward. 'You know what?'

he said. 'I reckon he could be here already. In disguise! Laughing at us! Well, if he's in here laughing at us-' He cracked his knuckles.

Medium Dave Lilywhite, the last of the five, looked around. There were indeed a number of solitary figures in the low, dark room. Most of them wore cloaks with big hoods. They sat alone, in corners, hidden by the hoods. None of them looked very friendly.

'Don't be daft, Peachy,' Catseye murmured.

'That's the sort of thing they do,' Peachy insisted. 'They're masters of disguise!' 'With that eye of his?'

'That guy sitting by the fire has got an eye patch,' said Medium Dave. Medium Dave didn't speak much. He watched a lot.

The others turned to stare.

'He'll wait till we're off our guard then go ahahaha,' said Peachy.

'They can't kill you unless it's for money,' said Catseye. But now there was a soupcon of doubt in his voice.

They kept their eyes on the hooded man. He kept his eye on them.

If asked to describe what they did for a living, the five men around the table would have said something like 'This and that' or 'The best I can', although in Banjo's case he'd have probably said 'Dur?'

They were, by the standards of an uncaring society, criminals, although they wouldn't have thought of themselves as such and couldn't even spell words like 'nefarious'. What they generally did was move things around. Sometimes the things were on the wrong side of a steel door, say, or in the wrong house. Sometimes the things were in fact people who were far too unimportant to trouble the Assassins' Guild with, but who were nevertheless inconveniently positioned where they were and could much better be located on, for example, a sea bed somewhere[5]. None of the five belonged to any formal guild and they generally found their clients among those people who, for their own dark reasons, didn't want to put the guilds to any trouble, sometimes because they were guild members themselves. They had plenty of work.

There was always something that needed transferring from A to B or, of course, to the bottom of the C.

'Any minute now,' said Peachy, as the waiter brought their beers.

Banjo cleared his throat. This was a sign that another thought had arrived.

'What I don' unnerstan,' he said, 'is...' 'Yes?'

said his brother.[6] 'What I don' unnerstan is, how longaz diz place had waiters?'

'Good evening,' said Teatime, putting down the tray.

They stared at him in silence.

He gave them a friendly smile.

Peachy's huge hand slapped the table.

'You crept up on us, you little- he began.

Men in their line of business develop a certain prescience. Medium Dave and Catseye, who were sitting on either side of Peachy, leaned away nonchalantly.

'Hi!' said Teatime. There was a blur, and a knife shuddered in the table between Peachy's thumb and index finger.

He looked down at it in horror.

'My name's Teatime,' said Teatime.'

Which one are you?'

'I'm ... Peachy,' said Peachy, still staring at the vibrating knife.

'That's an interesting name,' said Teatime. 'Why are you called Peachy, Peachy?'

Medium Dave coughed.

Peachy looked up into Teatime's face. The glass eye was a mere ball of faintly glowing grey. The other eye was a little dot in a sea of white. Peachy's only contact with intelligence had been to beat it up and rob it whenever possible, but a sudden sense of selfpreservation glued him to his chair.

' cos I don't shave,' he said.

'Peachy don't like blades, mister,' said Catseye.

'And do you have a lot of friends, Peachy?'

said Teatime.

'Got a few, yeah.'

With a sudden whirl of movement that made the men start, Teatime spun away, grabbed a chair, swung it up to the table and sat down on it. Three of them had already got their hands on their swords.

'I don't have many,' he said, apologetically. 'Don't seem to have the knack. On the other hand ... I don't seem to have any enemies at all. Not one. Isn't that nice?'

Teatime had been thinking, in the cracking, buzzing firework display that was his head. What he had been thinking about was immortality.

He might have been quite, quite insane, but he was no fool. There were, in the Assassins' Guild, a number of paintings and busts of famous members who had, in the past, put ... no, of course, that wasn't right. There were paintings and busts of the famous clients of members, with a noticeably modest brass plaque screwed somewhere nearby, bearing some unassuming little comment like 'Departed this vale of tears on Grune 3, Year of the Sideways Leech, with the assistance of the Hon. K. W. Dobson (Viper House)'. Many fine old educational establishments had dignified memorials in some hall listing the Old Boys who had laid down their lives for monarch and country. The Guild's was very similar, except for the question of whose life had been laid.

Every Guild member wanted to be up there somewhere. Because getting up there represented immortality. And the bigger your client, the more incredibly discreet and restrained would be the little brass plaque, so that everyone couldn't help but notice your name.

In fact, if you were very, very renowned, they wouldn't even have to write down your name at all...

The men around the table watched him. It was always hard to know what Banjo was thinking, or even if he was thinking at all, but the other four were thinking along the lines of: bumptious little tit, like all Assassins.

Thinks he knows it all. I could take him down one-handed, no trouble. But ...

you hear stories. Those eyes give me the creeps...

'So what's the job?'

said Chickenwire.

'We don't do jobs,' said Teatime. 'We perform services. And the service will earn each of you ten thousand dollars.'

'That's a lot more'n Thieves' Guild rate,' said Medium Dave.

'I've never liked the Thieves' Guild,' said Teatime, without turning his head.

'Why not?'

'They ask too many questions.'

'We don't ask questions,' said Chickenwire quickly.

'We shall suit one another perfectly,' said Teatime. 'Do have another drink while we wait for the other members of our little troupe.'

Chickenwire saw Medium Dave's lips start to frame the opening letters 'Who-' These letters he deemed inauspicious at this time. He kicked Medium Dave's leg under the table.

The door opened slightly. A figure came in, but only just. It inserted itself in the gap and sidled along the wall in a manner calculated not to attract attention. Calculated, that is, by someone not good at this sort of calculation.

It looked at them over its turned-up collar.

'That's a wizard,' said Peachy.

The figure hurried over and dragged up a chair.

'No I'm not!' it hissed. 'I'm incognito!' 'Right, Mr Gnito,' said Medium Dave. 'You're just someone in a pointy hat. This is my brother Banjo, that's Peachy, this is Chick-' The wizard looked desperately at Teatime.

'I didn't want to come!' 'Mr Sideney here is indeed a wizard,' said Teatime. 'A student, anyway. But down on his luck at the moment, hence his willingness to join us on this venture.'

'Exactly how far down on his luck?'

said Medium Dave.

The wizard tried not to meet anyone's gaze.

'I made a misjudgement to do with a wager,' he said.

'Lost a bet, you mean?'

said Chickenwire.

'I paid up on time,' said Sideney.

'Yes, but Chrysoprase the troll has this odd little thing about money that turns into lead the next day,' said Teatime cheerfully. 'So our friend needs to earn a little cash in a hurry and in a climate where arms and legs stay on.'

'No one said anything about there being magic in all this,' said Peachy.

'Our destination is ... probably you should think of it as something like a wizard's tower, gentlemen,' said Teatime.

'It isn't an actual wizard's tower, is it?'

said Medium Dave. 'They got a very odd sense of humour when it comes to booby traps.'

'No.'

'Guards?'

'I believe so. According to legend. But nothing very much.'

Medium Dave narrowed his eyes. 'There's valuable stuff in this ... tower?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Why ain't there many guards, then?'

'The ... person who owns the property probably does not realize the value of what ... of what they have.'

'Locks?'

said Medium Dave.

'On our way we shall be picking up a locksmith.'

'Who?'

'Mr Brown.'

They nodded. Everyone - at least, everyone in 'the business', and everyone in 'the business' knew what 'the business' was, and if you didn't know what 'the business' was you weren't a businessman - knew Mr Brown. His presence anywhere around a job gave it a certain kind of respectability. He was a neat, elderly man who'd invented most of the tools in his big leather bag. No matter what cunning you'd used to get into a place, or overcome a small army, or find the secret treasure room, sooner or later you sent for Mr Brown, who'd turn up with his leather bag and his little springy things and his little bottles of strange alchemy and his neat little boots. And he'd do nothing for ten minutes but look at the lock, and then he'd select a piece of bent metal from a ring of several hundred almost identical pieces, and under an hour later he'd be walkingaway with a neat ten per cent of the takings. Of course, you didn't have to use Mr Brown's services. You could always opt to spend the rest of your life looking at a locked door.

'All right. Where is this place?'

said Peachy.

Teatime turned and smiled at him. 'If I'm paying you, why isn't it me who's asking the questions?'

Peachy didn't even try to outstare the glass eye a second time.

'Just want to be prepared, that's all,' he mumbled.

'Good reconnaissance is the essence of a successful operation,' said Teatime. He turned and looked up at the bulk that was Banjo and added, 'What is this?'

'This is Banjo,' said Medium Dave, rolling himself a cigarette.

'Does it do tricks?'

Time stood still for a moment. The other men looked at Medium Dave. He was known to Ankh-Morpork's professional underclass as a thoughtful, patient man, and considered something of an intellectual because some of his tattoos were spelled right. He was reliable in a tight spot and, above all, he was honest, because good criminals have to be honest. If he had a fault, it was a tendency to deal out terminal and definitive retribution to anyone who said anything about his brother.

If he had a virtue, it was a tendency to pick his time. Medium Dave's fingers tucked the tobacco into the paper and raised it to his lips.

'No,' he said.

Chickenwire tried to defrost the conversation. 'He's not what you'd call bright, but he's always useful. He can lift two men in each hand. By their necks.'

'Yur,' said Banjo.

'He looks like a volcano,' said Teatime.

'Really?'

said Medium Dave Lilywhite. Chickenwire reached out hastily and pushed him back down in his seat.

Teatime turned and smiled at him.

'I do so hope we're going to be friends, Mr Medium Dave,' he said. 'It really hurts to think I might not be among friends.'

He gave him another bright smile.

Then he turned back to the rest of the table.

'Are we resolved, gentlemen?'

They nodded. There was some reluctance, given the consensus view that Teatime belonged in a room with soft walls, but ten thousand dollars was ten thousand dollars. possibly even more.

'Good,' said Teatime. He looked Banjo up and down. 'Then I suppose we might as well make a start.'

And he hit Banjo very hard in the mouth.

Death in person did not turn up upon the cessation of every life. It was not necessary. Governments govern, but prime ministers and presidents do not personally turn up in people's homes to tell them how to run their lives, because of the mortal danger this would present. There are laws instead.

But from time to time Death checked up to see that things were functioning properly or, to put it another and more accurate way, properly ceasing to function in the less significant areas of his jurisdiction.

And now he walked through dark seas.

Silt rose in clouds around his feet as he strode along the trench bottom. His robes floated out around him.

There was silence, pressure and utter, utter darkness. But there was life down here, even this far below the waves. There were giant squid, and lobsters with teeth on their eyelids. There were spidery things with their stomachs on their feet, and fish that made their own light. It was a quiet, black nightmare world, but life lives everywhere that life can. Where life can't, this takes a little longer.

Death's destination was a slight rise in the trench floor. Already the water around him was getting warmer and more populated, by creatures that looked as though they had been put together from the bits left over from everything else.

Unseen but felt, a vast column of scalding hot water was welling up from a fissure. Somewhere below were rocks heated to near incandescence by the Disc's magical field.

Spires of minerals had been deposited around this vent. And, in this tiny oasis, a type of life had grown up. It did not need air or light. It did not even need food in the way that most other species would understand the term.

It just grew at the edge of the streaming column of water, looking like a cross between a worm and a flower.

Death kneeled down and peered at it, because it was so small. But for some reason, in this world without eyes or light, it was also a brilliant red. The profligacy of life in these matters never ceased to amaze him.

He reached inside his robe and pulled out a small roll of black material, like a jeweller's toolkit. With great care he took from one of its pouches a scythe about an inch long, and held it expectantly between thumb and forefinger.

Somewhere overhead a shard of rock was dislodged by a stray current and tumbled down, raising little puffs of silt as it bounced off the tubes.

It landed just beside the living flower and then rolled, wrenching it from the rock.

Death flicked the tiny scythe just as the bloom faded ...

The omnipotent eyesight of various supernatural entities is often remarked upon.

It is said they can see the fall of every sparrow.

And this may be true. But there is only one who is always there when it hits the ground.

The soul of the tube worm was very small and uncomplicated. It wasn't bothered about sin. it had never coveted its neighbour's polyps. It had never gambled or drunk strong liquor. It had never bothered itself with questions like 'Why am I here?'

because it had no concept at all of 'here' or, for that matter, of 'I'.

Nevertheless, something was cut free under the surgical edge of the scythe and vanished in the roiling waters.

Death carefully put the instrument away and stood up. All was well, things were functioning satisfactorily, and -but they weren't.

In the same way that the best of engineers can hear the tiny change that signals a bearing going bad long before the finest of instruments would detect anything wrong, Death picked up a discord in the symphony of the world. It was one wrong note among billions but all the more noticeable for that, like a tiny pebble in a very large shoe.

He waved a finger in the waters. For a moment a blue, door-shaped outline appeared He ste pped through it and was gone.

The tube creatures didn't notice him go.

They hadn't noticed him arrive. They never ever noticed anything.

A cart trundled through the freezing foggy streets, the driver hunched in his seat. He seemed to be all big thick brown overcoat.

A figure darted out of the swirls and was suddenly on the box next to him 'Hi!' it said. 'My name's Teatime. What's yours?'

''ere, you get down, I ain't allowed to give li-' The driver stopped. It was amazing how Teatime had been able to thrust a knife through four layers of thick clothing and stop it just at the point where it pricked the flesh.

'Sorry?'

said Teatime, smiling brightly.

'Er - there ain't nothing valuable, y'know, nothing valuable, only a few bags of-' 'Oh, dear,' said Teatime, his face a sudden acre of concern. 'Well, we'll just have to see, won't we ... What is your name, sir?'

'Ernie. Er. Ernie,' said Ernie. 'Yes. Ernie. Er... ' Teatime turned his head slightly.

'Come along, gentlemen. This is my friend Ernie. He's going to be our driver for tonight.'

Ernie saw half a dozen figures emerge from the fog and climb into the cart behind him. He didn't turn to look at them. By the pricking of his kidneys he knew this would not be an exemplary career move. But it seemed that one of the figures, a huge shambling mound of a creature, was carrying a long bundle over its shoulder. The bundle moved and made muffled noises.

'Do stop shaking, Ernie. We just need a lift said Teatime, as the cart rumbled over the cobbles.

'Where to, mister?'

'Oh, we don't mind. But first, I'd like you to stop in Sator Square, near the second fountain.'

The knife was withdrawn. Ernie stopped trying to breathe through his ears.

'Er . . .'

'What is it? You do seem tense, Ernie. I always find a neck massage helps.'

'I ain't rightly allowed to carry passengers, see Charlie'll give me a right telling-off . . .'

'Oh, don't you worry about that,' said Tea time, slapping him on the back.

'We're all friends here!' 'What're we bringing the girl for?'

said a voice behind them.

''s not right, hittin' girls,' said a deep voice. 'Our mam said no hittin' girls. Only bad boys do that, our mam said! 'You be quiet, Banjo.'

'Our mam said-' 'Shssh! Emie here doesn't want to listen to our troubles,' said Teatime, not taking his gaze off the driver.

'Me? Deaf as a post, me,' burbled Ernie, who in some ways was a very quick learner. 'Can't hardly see more'n a few feet, neither. Cot no recollection for them faces that I do see, come to that. Bad memory? Hah! Talk about bad memory.

Cor, sometimes I can be like as it were on the cart, talking to people, hah, just like I'm talking gone, hah, remember anything about them or how many they were or what they were carrying or anything about any to you now, and then when they're try as I might, do you think I car girl or anything?'

By this time his voice was a highpitched wheeze. 'Hah! Sometimes I forget me own name!' 'It's Ernie, isn't it?'

said Teatime, giving him a happy smile. 'Ah, and here we are. Oh dear. There seems to be some excitement.'

There was the sound of fighting somewhere ahead, and then a couple of masked trolls ran past with three Watchmen after them. They all ignored the cart.

'I heard the De Bris gang were going to have a go at Packley's strongroom tonight,' said a voice behind Ernie.

' Looks like Mr Brown won't be joining us, then,' said another voice. There was a snigger.

'Oh, I don't know about that, Mr Lilywhite, I don't know about that at all,' said a third voice, and this one was from the direction of the fountain. 'Could you take my bag while I climb up, please? Do be careful, it's a little heavy.'

It was a neat little voice. The owner of a voice like that kept his money in a shovel purse and always counted his change carefully. Ernie thought all this, and then tried very hard to forget that he had.

'On you go, Ernie,' said Teatime. 'Round behind the University, I think.'

As the cart rolled on, the neat little voice said, 'You grab all the money and then you get out very smartly. Am I right?'

There was a murmur of agreement.

'Learned that on my mother's knee, yeah.'

'You learned a lot of stuff across your ma's knee, Mr Lilywhite.'

'Don't you say nuffin' about our mam!' The voice was like an earthquake.

'This is Mr Brown, Banjo. You smarten up.'

'He dint ort to tork about our mam!' 'All right! All right! Hello, Banjo ... I think I may have a sweet somewhere ...

Yes, there you' are. Yes, your ma knew the way all right. You go in quietly, you take your time, you get what you came for and you leave smartly and in good order. You don't hang around at the scene to count it out and tell one another what brave lads you are, am I right?'

'You seem to have done all right, Mr Brown.'

The cart rattled towards the other side of the square.

'Just a little for expenses, Mr Catseye. A little Hogswatch present, you might say. Never take the lot and run. Take a little and walk. Dress neat. That's my motto. Dress neat and walk away slowly. Never run. Never run. The Watch'Il always chase a running man. They're like terriers for giving chase. No, you walk out slow, you walk round the corner, you wait till there's a lot of excitement, then you turn around and walk back. They can't cope with that, see. Half the time they'll stand aside to let you walk past. "Good evening, officers," you say, and then you go home for your tea.'

'Wheee! Gets you out of trouble, I can see that. If you've got the nerve.'

'Oh, no, Mr Peachy. Doesn't get you out of. Keeps You out of.'

It was like a very good schoolroom, Ernie thought (and immediately tried to forget). Or a back-street gym when a champion prizefighter had just strolled in.

'What's up with your mouth, Banjo?'

'He lost a tooth, Mr Brown,' said another voice, and sniggered.

'Lost a toot, Mr Brown,' said the thunder that was Banjo.

'Keep your eyes on the road, Ernie,' said Teatime beside him. 'We don't want an accident, do we. . .'

The road here was deserted, despite the bustle of the city behind them and the bulk of the University nearby. There were a few streets, but the buildings were abandoned. And something was happening to the sound. The rest of AnkhMorpork seemed very far away, the sounds arriving as if through quite a thick wall. They were entering that scorned little corner of AnkhMorpork that had long been the site of the University's rubbish pits and was now known as the Unreal Estate.

'Bloody wizards,' muttered Ernie, automatically.

'I beg your pardon?'

said Teatime.

'My great-grandpa said we used t'own prop'ty round here. Low levels of magic, my arse! Hah, it's all right for them wizards, they got all kindsa spells to protect 'em. Bit of magic here, bit of magic there... Stands to reason it's got to go somewhere, right?'

'There used to be warning signs up,' said the neat voice from behind.

'Yeah, well, warning signs in Ankh-Morpork might as well have "Good firewood" written on them,' said someone else.

'I mean, stands to reason, they chuck out an old spell for exploding this, and another one for twiddlin' that, and another one for making carrots grow, they finish up interfering with one another, who knows what they'll end up doing?'

said Ernie. 'Great-grandpa said sometimes they'd wake up in the morning and the cellar'd be higher than the attic. And that weren't the worst,' he added darkly.

'Yeah, I heard where it got so bad you could walk down the street and meet yourself coming the other way,' someone supplied. 'It got so's you didn't know it was bum or breakfast time, I heard.'

'The dog used to bring home all kinds of stuff,' said Ernie. 'Great-grandpa said half the time they used to dive behind the sofa if it came in with anything in its mouth. Corroded fire spells startin' to fizz, broken wands with green smoke coming out of 'em and I don't know what else ... and if you saw the cat playing with anything, it was best not to try to find out what it was, I can tell you.'

He twitched the reins, his current predicament almost forgotten in the tide of hereditary resentment.

'I mean, they say all the old spell books and stuff was buried deep and they recycle the used spells now, but that don't seem much comfort when your potatoes started walkin' about,' he grumbled. 'My great-grandpa went to see the head wizard about it, and he said' - he put on a strangled nasal voice which was his idea of how you talked when you'd got an education - ' " Oh, there might be some temp'ry inconvenience now, my good man, but just you come back in fifty thousand years."

Bloody wizards.'

The horse turned a corner.

This was a dead-end street. Half-collapsed houses, windows smashed, doors stolen, leaned against one another on either side.

'I heard they said they were going to clean up this place,' said someone.

'Oh, yeah,' said Ernie, and spat. When it hit the ground it ran away. 'And you know what? You get loonies coming in all the time now, poking around, pulling things about' 'Just at the wall up ahead,' said Teatime conversationally. 'I think you generally go through just where there's a pile of rubble by the old dead tree, although you wouldn't see it unless you looked closely. But I've never seen how you do it ... ' '' ere, I can't take you lot through,' said Ernie. 'Lifts is one thing, but not taking people through- ' Teatime sighed. 'And we were getting on so well. Listen, Ernie ... Ern ... you will take us through or, and I say this with very considerable regret, I will have to kill you. You seem a nice man. Conscientious. A very serious overcoat and sensible boots.'

'But if'n I take you through-' 'What's the worst that can happen?'

said Teatime. 'You'll lose your job. Whereas if you don't, you'll die. So if you look at it like that, we're actually doing you a favour. Oh, do say yes.'

'Er . . .'

Ernie's brain felt twisted up. The lad was definitely what Ernie thought of as a toff, and he seemed nice and friendly, but it didn't all add up.

The tone and the content didn't match.

'Besides,' said Teatime, 'if you've been coerced, it's not your fault, is it? No one can blame you. No one could blame anyone who'd been coerced at knife point.'

'Oh, well, I s'pose, if we're talking coerced...' Ernie muttered. Going along with things seemed to be the only way.

The horse stopped and stood waiting with the patient look of an animal that probably knows the route better than the driver.

Ernie fumbled in his overcoat pocket and took out a small tin, rather like a snuff box. He opened it. There was glowing dust inside.

'What do you do with that?'

said Teatime, all interest.

'Oh, you just takes a pinch and throws it in the air and it goes twing and it opens the soft place,' said Ernie.

'SO ... you don't need any special training or anything?'

'Er... you just chucks it at the wall there and it goes twing,' said Ernie.

'Really? May I try?'

Teatime took the tin from his unresisting hand and threw a pinch of dust into the air in front of the horse. It hovered for a moment and then produced a narrow, glittering arch in the air. It sparkled and went... ... twing.

'Aw,' said a voice behind them. 'Innat nice, eh, our Davey?'

'Yeah.'

'All pretty sparkles...'

'And then you just drive forward?'

said Teatime.

'That's right,' said Ernie. 'Quick, mind. It only stays open for a little while.'

Teatime pocketed the little tin. 'Thank you very much, Ernie. Very much indeed.'

His other hand lashed out. There was a glint of metal. The carter blinked, and then fell sideways off his seat.

There was silence from behind, tinted with horror and possibly just a little terrible admiration.

'Wasn't he dull?'

said Teatime, picking up the reins.

Snow began to fall. It fell on the recumbent shape of Ernie, and it also fell through several hooded grey robes that hung in the air.

There appeared to be nothing inside them. You could believe they were there merely to make a certain point in space.

Well, said one, we are frankly impressed.

Indeed, said another. We would never have thought of doing it this way.

He is certainly a resourceful human, said a third.

The beauty of it all, said the first - or it may have been the second, because, absolutely nothing distinguished the robes - is that there is so much else we will control.

Quite, said another. It is really amazing how they think. A sort of ...

illogical logic.

Children, said another. Who would have thought it? But today the children, tomorrow the world.

Give me a child until he is seven and he's mine for life, said another.

There was a dreadful pause.

The consensus beings that called themselves the Auditors did not believe in anything, except possibly immortality. And the way to be immortal, they knew, was to avoid living. Most of all they did not believe in personality. To be a personality was to be a creature with a beginning and an end. And since they reasoned that in an infinite universe any life was by comparison unimaginably short, they died instantly. There was a flaw in their logic, of course, but by the time they found this out it was always too late. In the meantime, they scrupulously avoided any comment, action or experience that set them apart ...

You said 'me', said one.

Ah. Yes. But, you see, we were quoting, said the other one hurriedly. Some religious person said that. About educating children. And so would logically say 'me'. But I wouldn't use that term of myself, of - damn! The robe vanished in a little puff of smoke.

Let that be a lesson to us, said one of the survivors, as another and totally indistinguishable robe popped into existence where the stricken colleague had been.

Yes, said the newcomer. Well, it certainly appears- It stopped. A dark shape was approaching through the snow.

It's him, it said.

They faded hurriedly - not simply vanishing, but spreading out and thinning until they were just lost in the background.

The dark figure stopped by the dead carter and reached down.

COULD I GIVE YOU A HAND? Ernie looked up gratefully.

'Cor, yeah,' he said. He got to his feet, swaying a little. 'Here, your fingers're cold, mister!' SORRY.

'What'd he go and do that for? I did what he said. He could've killed me.'

Ernie felt inside his overcoat and pulled out a small and, at this point, strangely transparent silver flask.

'I always keep a nip on me these cold nights,' he said. 'Keeps me spirits up.'

YES INDEED. Death looked around briefly and sniffed the air.

'How'm I going to explain all this, then, eh?'

said Ernie, taking a pull.

SORRY? THAT WAS VERY RUDE OF ME. I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION.

'I said what'm I going to tell people? Letting some blokes ride off with my cart neat as you like ... That's gonna be the sack for sure, I'm gonna be in big trouble . . .'

All. WELL. THERE AT LEAST I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS, ERNEST. AND, THEN AGAIN, I HAVE SOME BAD NEWS.

Ernie listened. Once or twice he looked at the corpse at his feet. He looked smaller from the outside. He was bright enough not to argue. Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.

'So I'm dead, then,' he concluded.

CORRECT.

'Er ... The priest said that ... you know. after you're dead . . . it's like going through a door and on one side of it there's ... He. . . well, a terrible place ... ?'

Death looked at his worried, fading face.

THROUGH A DOOR...

'That's what he said . .

I EXPECT IT DEPENDS ON THE DIRECTION YOU'RE WALKING IN.

When the street was empty again, except for the fleshy abode of the late Ernie, the grey shapes came back into focus.

Honestly, he gets worse and worse, said one.

He was looking for us, said another. Did you notice? He suspects something. He gets so ... concerned about things.

Yes ... but the beauty of this plan, said a third, is that he can't interfere.

He can go everywhere, said one.

No, said another. Not quite everywhere.

And, with ineffable smugness, they faded into the foreground.

It started to snow quite heavily.

It was the night before Hogswatch. All through the house...

...one creature stirred. It was a mouse.

And someone, in the face of all appropriateness, had baited a trap. Although, because it was the festive season, they'd used a piece of pork crackling. The smell of it had been driving the mouse mad all day but now, with no one about, it was prepared to risk it.

The mouse didn't know it was a trap. Mice aren't good at passing on information.

Young mice aren't taken up to famous trap sites and told, 'This is where your Uncle Arthur passed away.'

All it knew was that, what the hey, here was something to eat. On a wooden board with some wire round it.

A brief scurry later and its jaw had closed on the rind.

Or, rather, passed through it.

The mouse looked around at what was now lying under the big spring, and thought, 'Oops . . .'

Then its gaze went up to the black-clad figure that had faded into view by the wainscoting.

'Squeak?'

it asked.

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.

And that was it, more or less.

Afterwards, the Death of Rats looked around with interest. In the nature of things his very important job tended to take him to brickyards and dark cellars and the inside of cats and all the little dank holes where rats and mice finally found out if there was a Promised Cheese. This place was different.

It was brightly decorated, for one thing. Ivy and mistletoe hung in bunches from the bookshelves. Brightly coloured streamers festooned the walls, a feature seldom found in most holes or even quite civilized cats.

The Death of Rats took a leap onto a chair and from there on to the table and in fact right into a glass of amber liquid, which tipped over and broke. A puddle spread around four turnips and began to soak into a note which had been written rather awkwardly on pink writing paper.

It read: Dere Hogfather, For Hogswatch I would like a drum an a dolly an a teddybear an a Gharstley Omnian Inquisision Torchure Chamber with Wind-up Rack and Nearly Real Blud You Can Use Again, you can get it From the toyshoppe in Short Strete, it is $5.99p. I have been good an here is a glars of Sherre an a Pork pie for you and turnips for Gouger an Rooter an Snot Snouter. I hop the Chimney is big enough but my friend Willaim Says you are your father really.

Yrs. Virginia Prood The Death of Rats nibbled a bit of the pork pie because when you are the personification of the death of small rodents you have to behave in certain ways. He also piddled on one of the turnips for the same reason, although only metaphorically, because when you are a small skeleton in a black robe there are also some things you technically cannot do.

Then he leapt down from the table and left sherryflavoured footprints all the way to the tree that stood in a pot in the corner. It was really only a bare branch of oak, but so much shiny holly and mistletoe had been wired onto it that it gleamed in the fight of the candles.

There was tinsel on it, and glittering ornaments, and small bags of chocolate money.

The Death of Rats peered at his hugely distorted reflection in a glass ball, and then looked up at the mantelpiece.

He reached it in one jump, and ambled curiously through the cards that had been ranged along it. His grey whiskers twitched at messages like 'Wifhin you Joye and all Goode Cheer at Hogswatchtime & All Through The Yeare'. A couple of them had pictures of a big jolly fat man carrying a sack. In one of them he was riding in a sledge drawn by four enormous pigs.

The Death of Rats sniffed at a couple of long stockings that had been hung from the mantelpiece, over the fireplace in which a fire had died down to a few sullen ashes.

He was aware of a subtle tension in the air, a feeling that here was a scene that was also a stage, a round hole, as it were, waiting for a round peg There was a scraping noise. A few lumps of soot thumped into the ashes.

The Grim Squeaker nodded to himself.

The scraping became louder, and was followed by a moment of silence and then a clang as something landed in the ashes and knocked over a set of ornamental fire irons.

The rat watched carefully as a red-robed figure pulled itself upright and staggered across the hearthrug, rubbing its shin where it had been caught by the toasting fork.

It reached the table and read the note. The Death of Rats thought he heard a groan.

The turnips were pocketed and so, to the Death of Rats' annoyance, was the pork pie. He was pretty sure it was meant to be eaten here, not taken away.

The figure scanned the dripping note for a moment, and then turned around and approached the mantelpiece. The Death of Rats pulled back slightly behind 'Seafon's Greetings!' A red-gloved hand took down a stocking. There was some creaking and rustling and it was replaced, looking a lot fatter - the larger box sticking out of the top had, just visible, the words 'Victim Figures Not Included. 3-10 yrs'.

The Death of Rats couldn't see much of the donor of this munificence. The big red hood hid all the face, apart from a long white beard.

Finally, when the figure finished, it stood back and pulled a list out of its pocket. It held it up to the hood and appeared to be consulting it. It waved its other hand vaguely at the fireplace, the sooty footprints, the empty sherry glass and the stocking. Then it bent forward, as if reading some tiny print.

AH, YES, it said. ER... HO. HO. HO.

With that, it ducked down and entered the chimney. There was some scrabbling before its boots gained a purchase, and then it was gone.

The Death of Rats realized he'd begun to knaw his little scythe's handle in sheer shock.

SQUEAK? He landed in the ashes and swarmed up the sooty cave of the chimney. He emerged so fast that he shot out with his legs still scrabbling and landed in the snow on the roof.

There was a sledge hovering in the air by the gutter.

The red-hooded figure had just climbed in and appeared to be talking to someone invisible behind a pile of sacks.

HERE'S ANOTHER PORK PIE.

'Any mustard?'

said the sacks. 'They're a treat with mustard.'

IT DOES NOT APPEAR SO.

'Oh, well. Pass it over anyway.'

IT LOOKS VERY BAD.

'Nah, 's just where something's nibbled it-' I MEAN THE SITUATION. MOST OF THE LETTERS ... THEY DON'T REALLY BELIEVE. THEY PRETEND TO BELIEVE, JUST IN CASE[7]. I FEAR IT MAY BE TOO LATE. IT HAS SPREAD SO FAST AND BACK IN TIME, TOO.

'Never say die, master. That's our motto, eh?'

said the sacks, apparently with their mouth full.

I CAN'T SAY IT'S EVER REALLY BEEN MINE.

'I meant we're not going to be intimidated by the certain prospect of complete and utter failure, master.'

AREN'T WE? OH, GOOD. WELL, I SUPPOSE WE'D BETTER BE GOING. The figure picked up the reins. UP, GOUGER! UP, ROOTER! UP, TUSKER! UP, SNOUTER! GIDDYUP! The four large boars harnessed to the sledge did not move.

WHY DOESN'T THAT WORK? said the figure in a puzzled, heavy voice.

'Beats me, master,' said the sacks.

IT WORKS ON HORSES.

'You could try "Pig-hooey! "' PIG-HOOEY. They waited. NO ... DOESN'T SEEM TO REACH THEM.

There was some whispering.

REALLY? YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK? 'It'd bloody well work on me if I was a pig, master.'

VERY WELL, THEN.

The figure gathered up the reins again.

APPLE! SAUCE! The pigs' legs blurred. Silver light flicked across them, and exploded outwards.

They dwindled to a dot, and vanished.

SQUEAK? The Death of Rats skipped across the snow, slid down a drainpipe and landed on the roof of a shed.

There was a raven perched there. It was staring disconsolately at something.

SQUEAK! 'Look at that, willya?'

said the raven rhetorically. It waved a claw at a bird table in the garden below. 'They hangs up half a bloody coconut, a lump of bacon rind, a handful of peanuts in a bit of wire and they think they're the gods' gift to the nat'ral world. Huh. Do I see eyeballs? Do I see entrails? I think not. Most intelligent bird in the temperate latitudes an' I gets the cold shoulder just because I can't hang upside down and go twit, twit. Look at robins, now. Stroppy little evil buggers, fight like demons, but all they got to do is go bob-bob-bobbing along and they can't move for breadcrumbs. Whereas me myself can recite poems and repeat many hum'rous phrases' SQUEAK! 'Yes? What?'

The Death of Rats pointed at the roof and then the sky and jumped up and down excitedly. The raven swivelled one eye upwards.

'Oh, yes. Him,' he said. 'Turns up at this time of year. Tends to be associated distantly with robins, which-' SQUEAK! SQUEE IK IR IK! The Death of Rats pantomimed a figure landing in a grate and walking around a room. SQUEAK EEK IK IK, SQUEAK 'HEEK HEEK HEEK'! IK IK SQUEAK! 'Been overdoing the Hogswatch cheer, have you? Been rustling around in the brandy butter?'

SQUEAK? The raven's eyes revolved.

'Look, Death's Death. It's a full-time job right? it's not as though you can run, like, a window cleaning round on the side or nip round after work cutting people's lawns.'

SQUEAK! 'Oh, please yourself.'

The raven crouched a little to allow the tiny figure to hop on to its back, and then lumbered into the air.

'Of course, they can go mental, your occult types,' it said, as it swooped over the moonlit garden. 'Look at Old Man Trouble, for one-' SQUEAK.

'Oh, I'm not suggestin-' Susan didn't like Biers but she went there anyway, when the pressure of being normal got too much. Biers, despite the smell and the drink and the company, had one important virtue. In Biers no one took any notice. Of anything. Hogswatch was traditionally supposed to be a time for families but the people who drank in Biers probably didn't have families; some of them looked as though they might have had litters, or clutches. Some of them looked as though they'd probably eaten their relatives, or at least someone's relatives.

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor.

The regular customers didn't ask questions, and not only because some of them found anything above a growl hard to articulate. None of them was in the answers business. Everyone in Biers drank alone. even when they were in groups. Or packs.

Despite the decorations put up inexpertly by Igor the barman to show willing,[8] Biers was not a family place.

Family was a subject Susan liked to avoid.

Currently she was being aided in this by a gin and tonic. In Biers, unless you weren't choosy, it paid to order a drink that was transparent because Igor also had undirected ideas about what you could stick on the end of a cocktail stick.

If you saw something spherical and green, you just had to hope that it was an olive.

She felt hot breath on her ear. A bogeyman had sat down on the stool beside her.

'Woss a normo doin' in a place like this, then?'

it rumbled, causing a cloud of vaporized alcohol and halitosis to engulf her. 'Hah, you fink it's cool comin' down here an' swannin' around in a black dress wid all the lost boys, eh? Dabblin' in a bit of designer darkness, eh?'

Susan moved her stool away a little. The bogeyman grinned.

'Want a bogeyman under yer bed, eh?'

'Now then, Shlimazel,' said Igor, without looking up from polishing a glass.

'Well, woss she down here for, eh?'

said the bogeyman. A huge hairy hand grabbed Susan's arm. 'O' course, maybe what she wants is-' 'I ain't telling you again, Shlimazel,' said Igor.

He saw the girl turn to face Shlimazel.

Igor wasn't in a position to see her face fully, but the bogeyman was. He shot back so quickly that he fell off his stool.

And when the girl spoke, what she said was only partly words but also a statement, written in stone, of how the future was going to be.

' GO AWAY AND STOP BOTHERING ME.'

She turned back and gave Igor a polite and slightly apologetic smile. The bogeyman struggled frantically out of the wreckage of his stool and loped towards the door.

Susan felt the drinkers turn back to their private preoccupations. It was amazing what you could get away with in Biers.

Igor put down the glass and looked up at the window. For a drinking den that relied on darkness it had rather a large one but, of course, some customers did arrive by air.

Something was tapping on it now.

Igor lurched over and opened it.

Susan looked up.

'Oh, no . . . ' The Death of Rats leapt down onto the counter, with the raven fluttering after it.

SQUEAK SQUEAK EEK! EEK! SQUEAK IK IK 'HEEK HEEK HEEK'! SQ 'Go away,' said Susan coldly. 'I'm not interested. You're just a figment of my imagination.'

The raven perched on a bowl behind the bar and said, 'Ah, great.'

SQUEAK! 'What're these?'

said the raven, flicking something off the end of its beak.

'Onions? Pfah!' 'Go on, go away, the pair of you,' said Susan.

'The rat says your granddad's gone mad,' said the raven. 'Says he's pretending to be the Hogfather.'

'Listen, I just don't- What?'

'Red cloak, long beard-' HEEK! HEEK! HEEK! -going "Ho, ho, ho", driving around in the big sledge drawn by the four piggies, the whole thing . . .'

'Pigs? What happened to Binky?'

'Search me. O' course, it can happen, as I was telling the rat only just now-' Susan put her hands over her ears, more for desperate theatrical effect than for the muffling they gave.

'I don't want to know! I don't have a grandfather!' She had to hold on to that.

The Death of Rats squeaked at length.

'The rat says you must remember, he's tall, not what you'd call fleshy, he carries a scythe-' 'Go away! And take the ... the rat with you!' She waved her hand wildly and, to her horror and shame, knocked the little hooded skeleton over an ashtray.

EEK? The raven took the rat's cowl in its beak and tried to drag him away, but a tiny skeletal fist shook its scythe.

EEK IK EEK SQUEAK! 'He says, you don't mess with the rat,' said the raven.

In a flurry of wings they were gone.

Igor dosed the window. He didn't pass any comment.

'They weren't real,' said Susan, hurriedly. 'Well, that is ... the raven's probably real, but he hangs around with the rat' 'Which isn't real,' said Igor.

'That's right!' said Susan, gratefully. 'You probably didn't see a thing.'

'That's right,' said Igor. 'Not a thing.'

'Now ... how much do I owe you?'

said Susan.

Igor counted on his fingers.

'That'll be a dollar for the drinks,' he said, 'and fivepence because the raven that wasn't here messed in the pickles.'

It was the night before Hogswatch.

In the Archchancellor's new bathroom Modo wiped his hands on a piece of rag and looked proudly at his handiwork. Shining porcelain gleamed back at him. Copper and brass shone in the lamplight.

He was a little worried that he hadn't been able to test everything, but Mr Ridcully had said, 'I'll test it when I use it,' and Modo never argued with the Gentlemen, as he thought of them. He knew that they all knew a lot more than he knew, and was quite happy knowing this. He didn't meddle with the fabric of time and space, and they kept out of his greenhouses. The way he saw it, it was a partnership.

He'd been particularly careful to scrub the floors. Mr Ridcully had been very specific about that.

'Verruca Gnome,' he said to himself, giving tap a last polish. 'What an imagination the Gentlemen do have.'

Far off, unheard by anyone, was a faint little noise, like the ringing of tiny silver bells.

Glingleglingleglingle...

And someone landed abruptly in a snowdrift and said, 'Bugger!', which is a terrible thing to say as your first word ever.

Overhead, heedless of the new and somewhat angry life that was even now dusting itself off, the sledge soared onwards through time and space.

I'M FINDING THE BEARD A BIT OF A TRIAL, said Death.

'Why've you got to have the beard?'

said the voice from among the sacks. 'I thought you said people see what they expect to see.'

CHILDREN DON'T. TOO OFTEN THEY SEE WHAT'S THERE.

'Well, at least it's keeping you in the right frame of mind, master. In character, sort of thing.'

BUT GOING DOWN THE CHIMNEY? WHERE'S THE SENSE IN THAT? I CAN JUST WALK THROUGH THE WALLS.

'Walking through the walls is not right, neither,' said the voice from the sacks.

IT WORKS FOR ME.

'It's got to be chimneys. Same as the beard, really.'

A head thrust itself out from the pile. It appeared to belong to the oldest, most unpleasant pixie in the universe. The fact that it was underneath a jolly little green hat with a bell on it did not do anything to improve matters.

It waved a crabbed hand containing a thick wad of letters, many of them on pastel-coloured paper, often with bunnies and teddy bears on them, and written mostly in crayon.

'You reckon these little buggers'd be writing to someone who walked through walls?'

it said. 'And the "Ho, ho, ho" could use some more work, if you don't mind my saying so.'

HO. HO. HO.

'No, no, no!' said Albert. 'You got to put a bit of life in it, sir, no offence intended. It's got to be a big fat laugh. You got to ... you got to sound like you're pissing brandy and crapping plum pudding, sir, excuse my Klatchian.'

REALLY? HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL THIS? 'I was young once, sir. Hung up my stocking like a good boy every year. For to get it filled with toys, just like you're doing. Mind you, in those days basically it was sausages and black puddings if you were lucky. But you always got a pink sugar piglet in the toe. It wasn't a good Hogswatch unless you'd eaten so much you were sick as a pig, master.'

Death looked at the sacks.

It was a strange but demonstrable fact that the sacks of toys carried by the Hogfather, no matter what they really contained, always appeared to have sticking out of the top a teddy bear, a toy soldier in the kind of colourful uniform that would stand out in a disco, a drum and a red-and-white candy cane.

The actual contents always turned out to be something a bit garish and costing $5.99.

Death had investigated one or two. There had been a Real Agatean Ninja, for example, with Fearsome Death Grip, and a Captain Carrot One-Man Night Watch with a complete wardrobe of toy weapons, each of which cost as much as the original wooden doll in the first place.

Mind you, the stuff for the girls was just as depressing. It seemed to be nearly all horses. Most of them were grinning. Horses, Death felt, shouldn't grin- Any horse that was grinning was planning something.

He sighed again.

Then there was this business of deciding who'd been naughty or nice. He'd never had to think about that sort of thing before. Naughty or nice, it was ultimately all the same.

Still, it had to be done right. Otherwise it wouldn't work.

The pigs pulled up alongside another chimney.

'Here we are, here we are,' said Albert. 'James Riddle, aged eight.'

HAH, YES. HE ACTUALLY SAYS IN HIS LETTER, 'I BET YOU DON'T EXIST 'COS EVERYONE KNOWS ITS YORE PARENTS.'

OH YES, said Death, with what almost sounded like sarcasm, I'M SURE HIS PARENTS ARE JUST IMPATIENT TO BANG THEIR ELBOWS IN TWELVE FEET OF NARROW UNSWEPT CHIMNEY, I DON'T THINK. I SHALL TREAD EXTRA SOOT INTO HIS CARPET.

'Right, sir. Good thinking. Speaking of which - down you go, sir.'

HOW ABOUT IF I DON'T GIVE HIM ANYTHING AS A PUNISHMENT FOR NOT BELIEVING? 'Yeah, but what's that going to prove?'

Death sighed. I SUPPOSE YOU'RE RIGHT.

'Did you check the list?'

YES. TWICE. ARE YOU SURE THAT'S ENOUGH? 'Definitely.'

COULDN'T REALLY MAKE HEAD OR TAIL OF IT, TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH. HOW CAN I TELL IF HE'S BEEN NAUGHTY OR NICE, FOR EXAMPLE? 'Oh, well ... I don't know ... Has he hung his clothes up, that sort of thing. ' AND IF HE HAS BEEN GOOD I MAY GIVE HIM THIS KLATCHIAN WAR CHARIOT WITH REAL SPINNING SWORD BLADES? 'That's right.'

AND IF HE'S BEEN BAD? Albert scratched his head. 'When I was a lad, you got a bag of bones. 's'mazing how kids got better behaved towards the end of the year.'

OH DEAR. AND NOW? Albert held a package up to his ear and rustled it. 'Sounds like socks.'

SOCKS.

'Could be a woolly vest.'

SERVE HIM RIGHT, IF I MAY VENTURE TO EXPRESS AN OPINION...

Albert: looked across the snowy rooftops and sighed. This wasn't right. He was helping because, well, Death was his master and that's all there was to it, and if the master had a heart it would be in the right place. But...

'Are you sure we ought to be doing this, master?'

Death stopped, halfway out of the chimney.

CAN YOU THINK OF A BETTER ALTERNATIVE, ALBERT? And that was it. Albert couldn't.

Someone had to do it.

There were bears on the street again.

Susan ignored them and didn't even make a point of not treading on the cracks.

They just stood around, looking a bit puzzled and slightly transparent, visible only to children and Susan. News like Susan gets around. The bears had heard about the poker. Nuts and berries, their expressions seemed to say. That's what we're here for. Big sharp teeth? What big shar- Oh, these big sharp teeth? They're just for, er, cracking nuts. And some of these berries can be really vicious.

The city's clocks were striking six when she got back to the house. She was allowed her own key. It wasn't as if she was a servant, exactly.

You couldn't be a duchess and a servant. But it was all right to be a governess.

It was understood that it wasn't exactly what you were, it was merely a way of passing the time until you did what every girl, or gel, was supposed to do in life, i.e., marry some man. It was understood that you were playing.

The parents were in awe of her. She was the daughter of a duke whereas Mr Gaiter was a man to be reckoned with in the wholesale boots and shoes business. Mrs Gaiter was bucking for a transfer into the Upper Classes, which she currently hoped to achieve by reading books on etiquette. She treated Susan with the kind of worried deference she thought was due to anyone who'd known the difference between a serviette and a napkin from birth.

Susan had never before come across the idea that you could rise in Society by, as it were, gaining marks, especially since such noblemen as she'd met in her father's house had used neither serviette nor napkin but a state of mind, which was 'Drop it on the floor, the dogs'll eat it.'

When Mrs Gaiter had tremulously asked her how one addressed the second cousin of a queen, Susan had replied without thinking, 'We called him Jamie, usually,' and Mrs Gaiter had had to go and have a headache in her room.

Mr Gaiter just nodded when he met her in a passage and never said very much to her. He was pretty sure he knew where he stood in boots and shoes and that was that.

Gawain and Twyla, who'd been named by people who apparently loved them, had been put to bed by the time Susan got in, at their own insistence. It's a widely held belief at a certain age that going to bed early makes tomorrow come faster.

She went to tidy up the schoolroom and get things ready for the morning, and began to pick up the things the children had left lying around. Then something tapped at a window pane.

She peered out at the darkness, and then opened the window. A drift of snow fell down outside.

In the summer the window opened into the branches of a cherry tree. In the winter dark, they were little grey fines where the snow had settled on them.

'Who's that?'

said Susan.

Something hopped through the frozen branches.

'Tweet tweet tweet, would you believe?'

said the raven.

'Not you again?'

'You wanted maybe some dear little robin? Listen, your grand-' 'Go away! ' Susan slammed the window and pulled the curtains across. She put her back to them, to make sure, and tried to concentrate on the room. It helped to think about ... normal things.

There was the Hogswatch tree, a rather smaller version of the grand one in the hall. She'd helped the children to make paper decorations for it. Yes. Think about that.

There were the paperchains. There were the bits of holly, thrown out from the main rooms for not having enough berries on them, and now given fake modelling clay berries and stuck in anyhow on shelves and behind pictures.

There were two stockings hanging from the mantelpiece of the small schoolroom grate. There were Twyla's paintings, all blobby blue skies and violently green grass and red houses with four square windows. There were ...

Normal things ...

She straightened up and stared at them, her fingernails beating a thoughtful tattoo on a wooden pencil case.

The door was pushed open. It revealed the tousled shape of Twyla, hanging onto the doorknob with one hand.

'Susan, there's a monster under my bed again . . .'

The click of Susan's fingernails stopped.

'. . . I can hear it moving about . . .'

Susan sighed and turned towards the child.

'All right, Twyla. I'll be along directly.'

The girl nodded and went back to her room, leaping into bed from a distance as a precaution against claws.

There was a metallic tzing as Susan withdrew the poker from the little brass stand it shared with the tongs and the coal shovel.

She sighed. Normality was what you made it.

She went into the children's bedroom and leaned over as if to tuck Twyla up.

Then her hand darted down and under the bed. She grabbed a handful of hair. She pulled.

The bogeyman came out like a cork but before it could get its balance it found itself spreadeagled against the wall with one arm behind its back. But it did manage to turn its head, to see Susan's face glaring at it from a few inches away.

Gawain bounced up and down on his bed.

'Do the Voice on it! Do the Voice on it!' he shouted.

'Don't do the Voice, don't do the Voice!' pleaded the bogeyman urgently.

'Hit it on the head with the poker!' 'Not the poker! Not the poker!' 'It's you, isn't it,' said Susan. 'From this afternoon . . .'

'Aren't you going to poke it with the poker?'

said Gawain.

'Not the poker!' whined the bogeyman.

'New in town?'

whispered Susan.

'Yes!' The bogeyman's forehead wrinkled with puzzlement. 'Here, how come you can see me?'

'Then this is a friendly warning, understand? Because it's Hogswatch.'

The bogeyman tried to move. 'You call this friendly?'

'Ah, you want to try for unfriendly?'

said Susan, adjusting her grip.

'No, no, no, I like friendly!' 'This house is out of bounds, right?'

'You a witch or something?'

moaned the bogeyman.

' I'm just ... something. Now ... you won't be around here again, will you? Otherwise it'll be the blanket next time.'

'No!' 'I mean it. We'll put your head under the blanket.'

'No!' 'It's got fluffy bunnies on it. ' 'No!' 'Off you go, then.'

The bogeyman half fell, half ran towards the door.

i's not right,' it mumbled. 'You're not s'posed to see us if you ain't dead or magic. 's not fair. . .'

'Try number nineteen,' said Susan, relenting a little. 'The governess there doesn't believe in bogeymen.'

'Right?'

said the monster hopefully.

'She believes in algebra, though.'

'Ah. Nice.'

The bogeyman grinned hugely. It was amazing the sort of mischief that could becaused in a house where no one in authority thought you existed.

'I'll be off, then,' it said. 'Er. Happy Hogswatch.'

'Possibly,' said Susan, as it slunk away.

'That wasn't as much fun as the one last month,' said Gawain, getting between the sheets again. 'You know, when you kicked him in the trousers-' 'Just you two get to sleep now,' said Susan.

'Verity said the sooner we got to sleep the sooner the Hogfather would come,' said Twyla conversationally.

'Yes,' said Susan. 'Unfortunately, that might be the case.'

The remark passed right over their heads. She wasn't sure why it had gone through hers, but she knew enough to trust her senses.

She hated that kind of sense. It ruined your life. But it was the sense she had been born with.

The children were tucked in, and she closed the door quietly and went back to the schoolroom.

Something had changed.

She glared at the stockings, but they were unfulfilled. A paperchain rustled.

She stared at the tree. Tinsel had been twined around it, badly pasted-together decorations had been hung on it. And on top was the fairy made of She crossed her arms, looked up at the ceiling, and sighed theatrically.

'It's you, isn't it?'

she said.

SQUEAK? 'Yes, it is. You're sticking out your arms like a scarecrow and you've stuck a little star on your scythe, haven't you...?'

The Death of Rats hung his head guiltily.

SQUEAK.

'You're not fooling anyone.'

SQUEAK.

'Get down from there this minute!' SQUEAK.

'And what did you do with the fairy?'

'It's shoved under a cushion on the chair,' said a voice from the shelves on the other side of the room. There was a clicking noise and the raven's voice added, 'These damn eyeballs are hard, aren't they?'

Susan raced across the room and snatched the bowl away so fast that the raven somersaulted and landed on its back.

'They're walnuts!' she shouted, as they bounced around her. 'Not eyeballs! This is a schoolroom! And the difference between a school and a-a-a raven delicatessen is that they hardly ever have eyeballs lying around in bowls in case a raven drops in for a quick snack! Understand? No eyeballs! The world is full of small round things that aren't eyeballs! OK?'

The raven's own eyes revolved.

' ' n' I suppose a bit of warm liver's out of the question-' 'Shut up! I want both of you out of here right now! I don't know how you got in here-' 'There's a law against coming down the chimney on Hogswatchnight?'

'-but I don't want you back in my life, understand?'

'The rat said you ought to be warned even if you were crazy,' said the raven sulkily. 'I didn't want to come, there's a donkey dropped dead just outside the city gates, I'll be lucky now if I get a hoof-' 'Warned?'

said Susan.

There it was again. The change in the weather of the mind, a sensation of tangible time ...

The Death of Rats nodded.

There was a scrabbling sound far overhead. A few flakes of soot dropped down the chimney.