Hogfather (29 page)

“You look
extremely
thin in the face!”

I’
M
…I…I’
M NOT WELL
. I
T’S ALL
…Y
ES, IT’S ALL THIS SHERRY
. A
ND RUSHING AROUND
. I
AM A BIT ILL
.

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

“It’s a false beard!”

N
O, IT’S NOT
, said Death desperately.

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

Ridcully flourished the incriminating evidence.

“What were you doing coming down the chimney?” he continued. “Not in marvelous taste, I think.”

Death waved a small grubby scrap of paper defensively.

O
FFICIAL LETTER TO THE
H
OGFATHER
. S
AYS HERE
…he began, and then looked at the paper again. W
ELL, QUITE A LOT, IN FACT
. I
T’S A LONG LIST
. L
IBRARY STAMPS, REFERENCE BOOKS, PENCILS, BANANAS
…

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

I
DON’T KNOW
, said Death. This was a diplomatic answer. He kept his finger over a reference to the Archchancellor. The orangutan for “duck’s bottom” was quite an interesting squiggle.

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

T
HEY MUST SHOW YOU AN ABSENCE OF PENCIL
?

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

Death checked the list carefully.

T
HAT IS PRECISELY CORRECT
, he confirmed, with anthropological exactitude.

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

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

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

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

“Why
you
?” he said. “What’s happened to the other fellow?”

I
SUPPOSE
I
MUST TELL YOU
.

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

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

Sideney almost swallowed his tongue when Teatime appeared beside him.

“Are we making progress?”

“Gnk—”

“I’m sorry?” said Teatime.

Sideney recovered himself. “Er…some,” he said. “We think we’ve worked out…er…one lock.”

Light gleamed off Teatime’s eye.

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

“Yes, but…they’re half magic and half real and half not there…I mean…there’s parts of them that don’t exist all the time—”

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

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

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

Behind him, Banjo shifted position.

Mr. Brown looked annoyed…

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

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

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

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

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

“Do I owe you any?”

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

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

Banjo lumbered forward, and then stopped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Here, you know me, Banjo!” the locksmith croaked, struggling in midair. “I remembers you when you was little, I used to sit you on my knee, I often used to work for your ma—”

“D’you like apples?” Banjo rumbled.

Brown struggled.

“You got to say yes,” Banjo said.

“Yes!”

“D’you like pears? You got to say yes.”

“All right, yes!”

“D’you like falling down the stairs?”

Medium Dave held up his hands for quiet.

He glared at the gang.

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

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

“Chick’s a little baby, nyer nyer nyer,” sang Catseye.

They looked at him. He coughed nervously.

“Sorry…don’t know why I said that…”

“If we stick together we’ll be fine—”

“Eeeny meeny miney mo…” mumbled Catseye.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Sorry…it just sort of slipped out…”

“What I’m trying to say,” said Medium Dave, “is that if—”

“Peachy keeps making faces at me!”

“I didn’t!”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

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

A small wisp of smoke was rising from his trousers.

He hopped around, beating desperately at himself.

“Who did that? Who did that?” demanded Medium Dave.

“I didn’t see anyone,” said Chickenwire. “I mean, no one was
near
him. Catseye said ‘pants on fire’ and next minute—”

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

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

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

Medium Dave got to the door just in time to see the body of Mr. Brown the locksmith tumble past, moving quite fast and not at all neatly. A moment later his bag somersaulted around the curve of the stairs. It split as it bounced and there was a jangle as tools and lock picks bounced out and followed their late owner.

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

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

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

“Er…poor guy must’ve slipped,” Medium Dave mumbled.

“Oh, yeah…slipped,” said Peachy.

He looked up, too.

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

“What was that?” he said. “That sound…”

“What sound?”

“It sounded…like knives scraping,” said Peachy. “Really close.”

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

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

She heard the oh god gasp. But she was used to the idea of buildings that were bigger on the inside. Her grandfather had never been able to get a handle on dimensions.

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

Susan’s eyes went back to the first thing.

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

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

“It’s teeth,” she said.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” said the oh god miserably.

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

“Did I say I was scared? I’m just hung over again…Oh,
me
…”

Susan advanced on the heap, moving warily.

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

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

“There’re so
many
,” whispered Bilious.

“At least twenty million, given the size of the average milk tooth,” said Susan. She was shocked to find that it came almost automatically.

“How can you possibly know that?”

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

“That’s amazing. You did it in your head?”

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

She stared down at the chalk marks.

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

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

There were a few symbols scrawled around the circle.

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

“Oh,
no
,” she breathed. “Surely no one would try to—”

Someone shouted, someone up in the whiteness.

A body rolled down the stairs nearest her. It had been a skinny, middle-aged man. Technically it still was, but the long spiral staircase had not been kind.

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

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

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

Chickenwire reached the top of the stairs, panting.

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

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

“That’s right, sir!”

“Well?” said Teatime. “Just…do away with them.”

“Er…one of them’s a girl, sir.”

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

“Then do away with them
politely
.”

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

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

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

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

He went pale.

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

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

He hadn’t heard that creak for thirty years.

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

In the hollows and corners, the shadows grew darker.

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

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