Hogfather

out an hourglass.
    T URN THE SLEIGH AROUND , A LBERT . D UTY CALLS .
    “Which one?”
    A MORE POSITIVE ATTITUDE WOULD ASSIST AT THIS POINT, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH .

    “Fascinatin’. Anyone got another pencil?” said Ridcully.
    “It’s had four already,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Right down to the stub, Archchancellor. And you know we buy our own these days.”
    It was a sore point. Like most people with no grasp whatsoever of real economics, Mustrum Ridcully equated “proper financial control” with the counting of paper clips. Even senior wizards had to produce a pencil stub to him before they were allowed a new one out of the locked cupboard below his desk. Since of course hardly anyone retained a half-used pencil, the wizards had been reduced to sneaking out and buying new ones with their own money.
    The reason for the dearth of short pencils was perched in front of them, whirring away as it chewed an HB down to the eraser on the end, which it spat at the Bursar.
    Ponder Stibbons had been making notes.
    “I think it works like this,” he said. “What we’re getting is the personification of forces, just like Hex said. But it only works if the thing is…well, logical.” He swallowed. Ponder was a great believer in logic, in the face of all the local evidence, and he hated having to use the word in this way. “I don’t mean it’s logical that there’s a creature that eats socks, but it…a…it makes a sort of sense…I mean it’s a working hypothesis.”
    “Bit like the Hogfather,” said Ridcully. “When you’re a kiddie, he’s as good an explanation as any, right?”
    “What’s not logical about there being a goblin that brings me huge bags of money?” said the Dean sulkily. Ridcully fed the Stealer of Pencils another pencil.
    “Well, sir…firstly, you’ve never mysteriously received huge bags of money and needed to find a hypothesis to explain them, and secondly, no one else would think it at all likely.”
    “Huh!”
    “Why’s it happening now?” said Ridcully. “Look, it’s hopped onto my finger! Anyone got another pencil?”
    “Well, these…forces have always been here,” said Ponder. “I mean, socks and pencils have always inexplicably gone missing, haven’t they? But why they’re suddenly getting personified like this…I’m afraid I don’t know.”
    “Well, we’d better find out, hadn’t we?” said Ridcully. “Can’t have this sort of thing going on. Daft anti-gods and miscellaneous whatnots being created just because people’ve thought about ’em? We could have anything turn up, anyway. Supposing some idiot says there must be a god of indigestion, eh?”
    Glingleglingleglingle .
    “Er…I think someone just did, sir,” said Ponder.

    “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” said the oh god. He took Susan by the shoulders.
    They felt bony under his hands.
    “D AMN ,” said Susan. She pushed him away and steadied herself on the table, taking care that he didn’t see her face.
    Finally, with a measure of the self-control she’d taught herself over the last few years, she managed to get her own voice back.
    “He’s slipping out of character,” she muttered, to the hall in general. “I can feel him doing it. And that drags me in. What’s he doing it all for ?”
    “Search me,” said the oh god, who’d backed away hurriedly. “Er…just then…before you turned your face away…it looked as though you were wearing very dark eye shadow…only you weren’t…”
    “Look, it’s very simple,” said Susan, spinning round. She could feel her hair restyling itself, which it always did when it was anxious. “You know how stuff runs in families? Blue eyes, buck teeth, that sort of thing? Well, Death runs in my family.”
    “Er…in everybody’s family, doesn’t it?” said the oh god.
    “Just shut up, please, don’t gabble,” said Susan. “I didn’t mean death, I meant Death with a capital D. I remember things that haven’t happened yet and I can TALK THAT TALK and stalk that stalk and…if he gets sidetracked, then I’ll have to do it. And he does get sidetracked. I don’t know what’s really happened to the real Hogfather or why Grandfather’s doing his job, but I know a bit about how he thinks and he’s got no…no mental shields like we have. He doesn’t know how to forget things or ignore things. He takes everything liter ally and logically and doesn’t understand why that doesn’t always work—”
    She