Hogfather

creak.
    Chickenwire’s face was a few inches from Bilious. The oh god saw his expression change.
    The man’s eyes rolled. His lips said “…nur…”
    Bilious risked stepping back. Chickenwire’s sword didn’t move. He stood there, trembling slightly, like a man who wants to turn round to see what’s behind him but doesn’t dare to in case he does.
    As far as Bilious was concerned, it had just been a creak.
    He looked up at the thing on the landing above.
    “Who put that there?” said Violet.
    It was just a wardrobe. Dark oak, a bit of fancy woodwork glued on in an effort to disguise the undisguisable fact that it was just an upright box. It was a wardrobe.
    “You didn’t, you know, try to cast a thunderbolt and go on a few letters too many?” she went on.
    “Huh?” said Bilious, looking from the stricken man to the wardrobe. It was so ordinary it was…odd.
    “I mean, thunderbolts begin with T and wardrobes…”
    Violet’s lips moved silently. Part of Bilious thought: I’m attracted to a girl who actually has to shut down all other brain functions in order to think about the order of the letters of the alphabet. On the other hand, she’s attracted to someone who’s wearing a toga that looks as though a family of weasels have had a party in it, so maybe I’ll stop this thought right here.
    But the major part of his brain thought: why’s this man making little bubbling noises? It’s just a wardrobe , for my sake!
    “No, no,” mumbled Chickenwire. “I don’t wanna !”
    The sword clanged on the floor.
    He took a step backward up the stairs, but very slowly, as if he was doing it despite every effort his muscles could muster.
    “Don’t want to what?” said Violet.
    Chickenwire spun round. Bilious had never seen that happen before. People turned round quickly, yes, but Chickenwire just revolved as if some giant hand had been placed on his head and twisted a hundred and eighty degrees.
    “No. No. No,” Chickenwire whined. “No.”
    He tottered up the steps.
    “You got to help me,” he whispered.
    “What’s the matter?” said Bilious. “It’s just a wardrobe, isn’t it? It’s for putting all your old clothes in so that there’s no room for your new clothes.”
    The doors of the wardrobe swung open.
    Chickenwire managed to thrust out his arms and grab the sides and, for a moment, he stood quite still.
    Then he was pulled into the wardrobe in one sudden movement and the doors slammed shut.
    The little brass key turned in the lock with a click.
    “We ought to get him out,” said the oh god, running up the steps.
    “Why?” Violet demanded. “They are not very nice people! I know that one. When he brought me food he made…suggestive comments.”
    “Yes, but…” Bilious hadn’t ever seen a face like that, outside of a mirror. Chickenwire had looked very, very sick.
    He turned the key and opened the doors.
    “Oh dear…”
    “I don’t want to see! I don’t want to see!” said Violet, looking over his shoulder.
    Bilious reached down and picked up a pair of boots that stood neatly in the middle of the wardrobe’s floor.
    Then he put them back carefully and walked around the wardrobe. It was plywood. The words “Dratley and Sons, Phedre Road, Ankh-Morpork” were stamped in one corner in faded ink.
    “Is it magic?” said Violet nervously.
    “I don’t know if something magic has the maker’s name on it,” said Bilious.
    “There are magic wardrobes,” said Violet nervously. “If you go into them, you come out in a magic land.”
    Bilious looked at the boots again.
    “Um…yes,” he said.

    I THINK I MUST TELL YOU SOMETHING , said Death.
    “Yes, I think you should,” said Ridcully. “I’ve got little devils running round the place eating socks and pencils, earlier tonight we sobered up someone who thinks he’s a God of Hangovers and half my wizards are trying to cheer up the Cheerful Fairy. We thought something must’ve happened to the Hogfather. We were right, right?”
    “ Hex was right, Archchancellor,” Ponder corrected him.
    H EX ? W HAT IS H EX ?
    “Er…Hex thinks—that is, calculates —that there’s been a big change in the nature of belief today,” said Ponder. He felt, he did not know why, that Death was probably not in favor of unliving things that thought.
    M R . H EX WAS REMARKABLY ASTUTE . T HE H OGFATHER HAS BEEN …Death paused. T HERE IS NO SENSIBLE HUMAN WORD . D EAD, IN A WAY, BUT NOT EXACTLY …A GOD CANNOT BE KILLED . N EVER