Hogfather

bag of pricey toys we’d just have got a ding round the ear hole for nicking ’em.”
    I T IS…UNFAIR .
    “That’s life, master.”
    B UT I’ M NOT .
    “I meant, this is how it’s supposed to go, master,” said Albert.
    N O . Y OU MEAN THIS IS HOW IT GOES .
    Albert leaned against the stove and rolled himself one of his horrible thin cigarettes. It was best to let the master work his own way through these things. He got over them eventually. It was like that business with the violin. For three days there was nothing but twangs and broken strings, and then he’d never touched the thing again. That was the trouble, really. Everything the master did was a bit like that. When things got into his head you just had to wait until they leaked out again.
    He’d thought that Hogswatch was all…plum pudding and brandy and ho ho ho, and he didn’t have the kind of mind that could ignore all the other stuff. And so it hurt him.
    I T IS H OGSWATCH , said Death, AND PEOPLE DIE ON THE STREETS . P EOPLE FEAST BEHIND LIGHTED WINDOWS AND OTHER PEOPLE HAVE NO HOMES . I S THIS FAIR ?
    “Well, of course, that’s the big issue—” Albert began.
    T HE PEASANT HAD A HANDFUL OF BEANS AND THE KING HAD SO MUCH HE WOULD NOT EVEN NOTICE THAT WHICH HE GAVE AWAY . I S THIS FAIR ?
    “Yeah, but if you gave it all to the peasant then in a year or two he’d be just as snooty as the king—” began Albert, jaundiced observer of human nature.
    N AUGHTY AND NICE ? said Death. B UT IT’S EASY TO BE NICE IF YOU’RE RICH . I S THIS FAIR ?
    Albert wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Really? In that case, how come so many of the rich buggers is bastards? And being poor don’t mean being naughty, neither. We was poor when I were a kid, but we was honest. Well, more stupid than honest, to tell the truth. But basically honest.
    He didn’t argue, though. The master wasn’t in any mood for it. He always did what needed to be done.
    “You did say we just had to do this so’s people’d believe—” he began, and then stopped and started again. “When it comes to fair , master, you yourself—”
    I AM EVENHANDED TO RICH AND POOR ALIKE , snapped Death. B UT THIS SHOULD NOT BE A SAD TIME . T HIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY . He wrapped his red robe around him. A ND OTHER THINGS ENDING IN OLLY , he added.

    “There’s no blade,” said the oh god. “It’s just a sword hilt.”
    Susan stepped out of the light and her wrist moved. A sparkling blue line flashed in the air, for a moment outlining an edge too thin to be seen.
    The oh god backed away.
    “What’s that ?”
    “Oh, it cuts tiny bits of the air in half. It can cut the soul away from the body, so stand back, please.”
    “Oh, I will, I will.”
    Susan fished the black scabbard out of the umbrella stand.
    Umbrella stand! It never rained here, but Death had an umbrella stand. Practically no one else Susan knew had an umbrella stand. In any list of useful furniture, the one found at the bottom would be the umbrella stand.
    Death lived in a black world, where nothing was alive and everything was dark and his great library only had dust and cobwebs because he’d created them for effect and there was never any sun in the sky and the air never moved and he had an umbrella stand . And a pair of silver-backed hairbrushes by his bed. He wanted to be something more than just a bony apparition. He tried to create these flashes of personality but somehow they betrayed themselves, they tried too hard, like an adolescent boy going out wearing an after-shave called “Rampant.”
    Grandfather always got things wrong. He saw life from outside and never quite understood.
    “That looks dangerous,” said the oh god.
    Susan sheathed the sword.
    “I hope so,” she said.
    “Er…where are we going? Exactly?”
    “Somewhere under an overhead sky,” said Susan. “And…I’ve seen it before. Recently. I know the place.”
    They walked out to the stable yard. Binky was waiting.
    “I said you don’t have to come,” said Susan, grasping the saddle. “I mean, you’re a…an innocent bystander.”
    “But I’m a god of hangovers who’s been cured of hangovers,” said the oh god. “I haven’t really got any function at all.”
    He looked so forlorn when he said this that she relented.
    “All right. Come on, then.”
    She pulled him up behind her.
    “Just hang on,” she said. And then she said, “Hang on somewhere differently, I mean.”
    “I’m sorry, was that a