The Discworld Series (№20) - Hogfather

'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?'

'Here, 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.'