Hogfather

Death’s house. If he abandoned it for too long all those things that had been suspended, like time and physics, would roll over it. It would be like a dam bursting.
    She turned to leave and heard the groan again. It wasn’t dissimilar to the tortured sounds being made by the ice, except that ice, afterward, didn’t moan. “Oh, me …”
    There was a figure lying in a snowdrift. She’d almost missed it because it was wearing a long white robe. It was spread-eagled, as though it had planned to make snow angels and had then decided against it.
    And it wore a little crown, apparently of vine leaves.
    And it kept groaning.
    She looked up. The roof was open here, too. But no one could have fallen that far and survived.
    No one human, anyway.
    He looked human and, in theory, quite young. But it was only in theory because, even by the secondhand light of the glowing snow, his face looked like someone had been sick with it.
    “Are you all right?” she ventured.
    The recumbent figure opened its eyes and stared straight up.
    “I wish I was dead…” it moaned. A piece of ice the size of a house fell down in the far depths of the building and exploded in a shower of sharp little shards.
    “You may have come to the right place,” said Susan. She grabbed the boy under his arms and hauled him out of the snow. “I think leaving would be a very good idea around now, don’t you? This place is going to fall apart.”
    “Oh, me …”
    She managed to get one of his arms around her neck.
    “Can you walk?”
    “Oh, me …”
    “It might help if you stopped saying that and tried walking.”
    “I’m sorry, but I seem to have…too many legs. Ow.”
    Susan did her best to prop him up as, swaying and slipping, they made their way back to the exit.
    “My head,” said the boy. “My head. My head. My head. Feels awful. My head. Feels like someone’s hitting it. My head. With a hammer.”
    Someone was. There was a small green and purple imp sitting amid the damp curls and holding a very large mallet. It gave Susan a friendly nod and brought the hammer down again.
    “Oh, me …”
    “That wasn’t necessary!” said Susan.
    “You telling me my job?” said the imp. “I suppose you could do it better, could you?”
    “I wouldn’t do it at all!”
    “Well, someone’s got to do it,” said the imp.
    “He’s part. Of the. Arrangement,” said the boy.
    “Yeah, see?” said the imp. “Can you hold the hammer while I go and coat his tongue with yellow gunk?”
    “Get down right now!”
    Susan made a grab for the creature. It leapt away, still clutching the hammer, and grabbed a pillar.
    “I’m part of the arrangement, I am!” it yelled.
    The boy clutched his head.
    “I feel awful,” he said. “Have you got any ice?”
    Whereupon, because there are conventions stronger than mere physics, the building fell in.

    The collapse of the Castle of Bones was stately and impressive and seemed to go on for a long time. Pillars fell in, the slabs of the roof slid down, the ice crackled and splintered. The air above the tumbling wreckage filled with a haze of snow and ice crystals.
    Susan watched from the trees. The boy, who she’d leaned against a handy trunk, opened his eyes.
    “That was amazing,” he managed.
    “Why, you mean the way it’s all turning back into snow?”
    “The way you just picked me up and ran. Ouch!”
    “Oh, that .”
    The grinding of the ice continued. The fallen pillars didn’t stop moving when they collapsed, but went on tearing themselves apart.
    When the fog of ice settled there was nothing but drifted snow.
    “As though it was never there,” said Susan, aloud. She turned to the groaning figure.
    “All right, what were you doing there?”
    “I don’t know. I just opened my. Eyes and there I was.”
    “Who are you?”
    “I… think my name is Bilious. I’m the…I’m the oh God of Hangovers.”
    “There’s a God of Hangovers?”
    “An oh god ,” he corrected. “When people witness me, you see, they clutch their head and say, ‘ Oh God …’ How many of you are standing here?”
    “What? There’s just me!”
    “Ah. Fine. Fine.”
    “I’ve never heard of a God of Hangovers…”
    “You’ve heard of Bibulous, the God of Wine? Ouch.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    “Big fat man, wears vine leaves round his head, always pictured with a glass in his hand…Ow. Well, you know why he’s so cheerful? Him and his big face? It’s because he knows he’s going to feel good in the morning!