Hogfather

Ridcully.
    “Let me see if I can make it out,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies hopefully. Ridcully half turned to keep the ball out of his reach.
    “Ah, yes,” he said. “It looks like he’s drinking…yes, could very well be lager and black-currant, if I’m any judge…”
    “Oh, me …” moaned the oh god.
    “These young women, now—” the Lecturer in Recent Runes began.
    “I can see there’s some bottles on the table,” Ridcully continued. “That one, hmm, yes, could be scumble which, as you know, is made from apples—”
    “ Mainly apples,” the Dean volunteered. “Now, about these poor mad girls—”
    The oh god slumped to his knees.
    “…and there’s…that drink, you know, there’s a worm in the bottle…”
    “Oh, me …”
    “…and…there’s an empty glass, a big one, can’t quite see what it contained, but there’s a paper umbrella in it. And some cherries on a stick. Oh, and an amusing little monkey.”
    “… ooohhh …”
    “…of course, there’s a lot of other bottles, too,” said Ridcully, cheerfully. “Different colored drinks, mainly. The sort made from melons and coconuts and chocolate and such like, don’tcherknow. Funny thing is, all the glasses on the table are pint mugs…”
    Bilious fell forward.
    “All right,” he murmured. “I’ll drink the wretched stuff.”
    “It’s not quite ready yet,” said Ridcully. “Ah, thank you, Modo.”
    Modo tiptoed in, pushing a trolley. There was a large metal bowl on it, in which a small bottle stood in the middle of a heap of crushed ice.
    “Only just made this for Hogswatch dinner,” said Ridcully. “Hasn’t had much time to mature yet.”
    He put down the crystal and fished a pair of heavy gloves out of his hat.
    The wizards spread like an opening flower. One moment they were gathered around Ridcully, the next they were standing close to various items of heavy furniture.
    Susan felt she was present at a ceremony and hadn’t been told the rules.
    “What’s that?” she said, as Ridcully carefully lifted up the bottle.
    “Wow-Wow Sauce,” said Ridcully. “Finest condiment known to man. A happy accompaniment to meat, fish, fowl, eggs and many types of vegetable dishes. It’s not safe to drink it when sweat’s still condensing on the bottle, though.” He peered at the bottle, and then rubbed at it, causing a glassy, squeaky noise. “On the other hand,” he said brightly, “if it’s a kill-or-cure remedy then we are, given that the patient is practically immortal, probably onto a winner.”
    He placed a thumb over the cork and shook the bottle vigorously. There was a crash as the Chair of Indefinite Studies and the Senior Wrangler tried to get under the same table.
    “And these fellows seem to have taken against it for some reason,” he said, approaching the beaker.
    “I prefer a sauce that doesn’t mean you mustn’t make any jolting movements for half an hour after using it,” muttered the Dean.
    “And that can’t be used for breaking up small rocks,” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “Or getting rid of tree roots,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
    “And which isn’t actually outlawed in three cities,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    Ridcully cautiously uncorked the bottle. There was a brief hiss of indrawn air.
    He allowed a few drops to splash into the beaker. Nothing happened.
    A more generous helping was allowed to fall. The mixture remained irredeemably inert.
    Ridcully sniffed suspiciously at the bottle.
    “I wonder if I added enough grated wahooni?” he said, and then upturned the sauce and let most of it slide into the mixture.
    It merely went gloop .
    The wizards began to stand up and brush themselves off, giving one another the rather embarrassed grins of people who know that they’ve just been part of a synchronized making-a-fool-of-yourself team.
    “I know we’ve had that asafoetida rather a long time,” said Ridcully. He turned the bottle round, peering at it sadly.
    Finally he tipped it up for the last time and thumped it hard on the base.
    A trickle of sauce arrived on the lip of the bottle and glistened there for a moment. Then it began to form a bead.
    As if drawn by invisible strings, the heads of the wizards turned to look at it.
    Wizards wouldn’t be wizards if they couldn’t see a little way into the future.
    As the bead swelled and started to go pear-shaped they turned and, with a surprising turn of speed for men so wealthy in years and