Hogfather tds-20

by Terry David John Pratchett

  If he had a virtue, it was a tendency to pick his time. Medium Dave's fingers tucked the tobacco into the paper and raised it to his lips.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  Chickenwire tried to defrost the conversation. ‘He's not what you'd call bright, but he's always useful. He can lift two men in each hand. By their necks.’

  ‘Yur,’ said Banjo.

  ‘He looks like a volcano,’ said Teatime.

  ‘Really?’ said Medium Dave Lilywhite. Chickenwire reached out hastily and pushed him back down in his seat.

  Teatime turned and smiled at him.

  ‘I do so hope we're going to be friends, Mr Medium Dave,’ he said. ‘It really hurts to think I might not be among friends.’ He gave him another bright smile. Then he turned back to the rest of the table.

  ‘Are we resolved, gentlemen?’

  They nodded. There was some reluctance, given the consensus view that Teatime belonged in a room with soft walls, but ten thousand dollars was ten thousand dollars, possibly even more.

  ‘Good,’ said Teatime. He looked Banjo up and down. ‘Then I suppose we might as well make a start.’

  And he hit Banjo very hard in the mouth.

  Death in person did not turn up upon the cessation of every life. It was not necessary. Governments govern, but prime ministers and presidents do not personally turn up in people's homes to tell them how to run their lives, because of the mortal danger this would present. There are laws instead.

  But from time to time Death checked up to see that things were functioning properly or, to put it another and more accurate way, properly ceasing to function in the less significant areas of his jurisdiction.

  And now he walked through dark seas.

  Silt rose in clouds around his feet as he strode along the trench bottom. His robes floated out around him.

  There was silence, pressure and utter, utter darkness. But there was life down here, even this far below the waves. There were giant squid, and lobsters with teeth on their eyelids. There were spidery things with their stomachs on their feet, and fish that made their own light. It was a quiet, black nightmare world, but life lives everywhere that life can. Where life can't, this takes a little longer.

  Death's destination was a slight rise in the trench floor. Already the water around him was getting warmer and more populated, by creatures that looked as though they had been put together from the bits left over from everything else.

  Unseen but felt, a vast column of scalding hot water was welling up from a fissure. Somewhere below were rocks heated to near incandescence by the Disc's magical field.

  Spires of minerals had been deposited around this vent. And, in this tiny oasis, a type of life had grown up. It did not need air or light. It did not even need food in the way that most other species would understand the term.

  It just grew at the edge of the streaming column of water, looking like a cross between a worm and a flower.

  Death kneeled down and peered at it, because it was so small. But for some reason, in this world without eyes or light, it was also a brilliant red. The profligacy of life in these matters never ceased to amaze him.

  He reached inside his robe and pulled out a small roll of black material, like a jeweller's toolkit. With great care he took from one of its pouches a scythe about an inch long, and held it expectantly between thumb and forefinger.

  Somewhere overhead a shard of rock was dislodged by a stray current and tumbled down, raising little puffs of silt as it bounced off the tubes.

  It landed just beside the living flower and then rolled, wrenching it from the rock.

  Death flicked the tiny scythe just as the bloom faded …

  The omnipotent eyesight of various supernatural entities is often remarked upon. It is said they can see the fall of every sparrow.

  And this may be true. But there is only one who is always there when it hits the ground.

  The soul of the tube worm was very small and uncomplicated. It wasn't bothered about sin. It had never coveted its neighbour's polyps. It had never gambled or drunk strong liquor. It had never bothered itself with questions like “Why am I here?” because it had no concept at all of “here” or, for that matter, of “I”.

  Nevertheless, something was cut free under the surgical edge of the scythe and vanished in the roiling waters.

  Death carefully put the instrument away and stood up. All was well, things were functioning satisfactorily, and —

  — but they weren't.

  In the same way that the best of engineers can hear the tiny change that signals a bearing going bad long before the finest of instruments would detect anything wrong, Death picked up a discord in the symphony of the world. It was one wrong note among billions but all the more noticeable for that, like a tiny pebble in a very large shoe.

  He waved a finger in the waters. For a moment a blue, door-shaped outline appeared He stepped through it and was gone.

  The tube creatures didn't notice him go.

  They hadn't noticed him arrive. They never ever noticed anything.

  A cart trundled through the freezing foggy streets, the driver hunched in his seat. He seemed to be all big thick brown overcoat.

  A figure darted out of the swirls and was suddenly on the box next to him.

  ‘Hi!’ it said. ‘My name's Teatime. What's yours?’

  ‘'ere, you get down, I ain't allowed to give li—’

  The driver stopped. It was amazing how Teatime had been able to thrust a knife through four layers of thick clothing and stop it just at the point where it pricked the flesh.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Teatime, smiling brightly.

  ‘Er — there ain't nothing valuable, y'know, nothing valuable, only a few bags of—’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Teatime, his face a sudden acre of concern. ‘Well, we'll just have to see, won't we… What is your name, sir?’

  ‘Ernie. Er. Ernie,’ said Ernie. ‘Yes. Ernie. Er… ’

  Teatime turned his head slightly.

  ‘Come along, gentlemen. This is my friend Ernie. He's going to be our driver for tonight.’

  Ernie saw half a dozen figures emerge from the fog and climb into the cart behind him. He didn't turn to look at them. By the pricking of his kidneys he knew this would not be an exemplary career move. But it seemed that one of the figures, a huge shambling mound of a creature, was carrying a long bundle over its shoulder. The bundle moved and made muffled noises.

  ‘Do stop shaking, Ernie. We just need a lift,’ said Teatime, as the cart rumbled over the cobbles.

  ‘Where to, mister?’

  ‘Oh, we don't mind. But first, I'd like you to stop in Sator Square, near the second fountain.’

  The knife was withdrawn. Ernie stopped trying to breathe through his ears.

  ‘Er…’

  ‘What is it? You do seem tense, Ernie. I always find a neck massage helps.’

  ‘I ain't rightly allowed to carry passengers, see Charlie'll give me a right telling-off…’

  ‘Oh, don't you worry about that,’ said Tea time, slapping him on the back. ‘We're all friends here!’

  ‘What're we bringing the girl for?’ said a voice behind them.

  ‘'s not right, hittin' girls,’ said a deep voice. ‘Our mam said no hittin' girls. Only bad boys do that, our mam said!

  ‘You be quiet, Banjo.’

  ‘Our mam said—’

  ‘Shssh! Ernie here doesn't want to listen to our troubles,’ said Teatime, not taking his gaze off the driver.

  ‘Me? Deaf as a post, me,’ burbled Ernie, who in some ways was a very quick learner. ‘Can't hardly see more'n a few feet, neither. Got no recollection for them faces that I do see, come to that. Bad memory? Hah! Talk about bad memory. Cor, sometimes I can be like as it were on the cart, talking to people, hah, just like I'm talking gone, hah, remember anything about them or how many they were or what they were carrying or anything about any to you now, and then when they're try as I might, do you think I car girl or anythin
g?’ By this time his voice was a highpitched wheeze. ‘Hah! Sometimes I forget me own name!’

  ‘It's Ernie, isn't it?’ said Teatime, giving him a happy smile. ‘Ah, and here we are. Oh dear. There seems to be some excitement.’

  There was the sound of fighting somewhere ahead, and then a couple of masked trolls ran past with three Watchmen after them. They all ignored the cart.

  ‘I heard the De Bris gang were going to have a go at Packley's strongroom tonight,’ said a voice behind Ernie.

  ‘Looks like Mr Brown won't be joining us, then,’ said another voice. There was a snigger.

  ‘Oh, I don't know about that, Mr Lilywhite, I don't know about that at all,’ said a third voice, and this one was from the direction of the fountain. ‘Could you take my bag while I climb up, please? Do be careful, it's a little heavy.’

  It was a neat little voice. The owner of a voice like that kept his money in a shovel purse and always counted his change carefully. Ernie thought all this, and then tried very hard to forget that he had.

  ‘On you go, Ernie,’ said Teatime. ‘Round behind the University, I think.’

  As the cart rolled on, the neat little voice said, ‘You grab all the money and then you get out very smartly. Am I right?’

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  ‘Learned that on my mother's knee, yeah.’

  ‘You learned a lot of stuff across your ma's knee, Mr Lilywhite.’

  ‘Don't you say nuffin' about our mam!’ The voice was like an earthquake.

  ‘This is Mr Brown, Banjo. You smarten up.’

  ‘He dint ort to tork about our mam!’

  ‘All right! All right! Hello, Banjo… I think I may have a sweet somewhere… Yes, there you are. Yes, your ma knew the way all right. You go in quietly, you take your time, you get what you came for and you leave smartly and in good order. You don't hang around at the scene to count it out and tell one another what brave lads you are, am I right?’

  ‘You seem to have done all right, Mr Brown.’ The cart rattled towards the other side of the square.

  ‘Just a little for expenses, Mr Catseye. A little Hogswatch present, you might say. Never take the lot and run. Take a little and walk. Dress neat. That's my motto. Dress neat and walk away slowly. Never run. Never run. The Watch'll always chase a running man. They're like terriers for giving chase. No, you walk out slow, you walk round the corner, you wait till there's a lot of excitement, then you turn around and walk back. They can't cope with that, see. Half the time they'll stand aside to let you walk past. “Good evening, officers,” you say, and then you go home for your tea.’

  ‘Wheee! Gets you out of trouble, I can see that. If you've got the nerve.’

  ‘Oh, no, Mr Peachy. Doesn't get you out of. Keeps You out of.’

  It was like a very good schoolroom, Ernie thought (and immediately tried to forget). Or a back-street gym when a champion prizefighter had just strolled in.

  ‘What's up with your mouth, Banjo?’

  ‘He lost a tooth, Mr Brown,’ said another voice, and sniggered.

  ‘Lost a toot, Mr Brown,’ said the thunder that was Banjo.

  ‘Keep your eyes on the road, Ernie,’ said Teatime beside him. ‘We don't want an accident, do we…’

  The road here was deserted, despite the bustle of the city behind them and the bulk of the University nearby. There were a few streets, but the buildings were abandoned. And something was happening to the sound. The rest of Ankh-Morpork seemed very far away, the sounds arriving as if through quite a thick wall. They were entering that scorned little corner of Ankh-Morpork that had long been the site of the University's rubbish pits and was now known as the Unreal Estate.

  ‘Bloody wizards,’ muttered Ernie, automatically.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Teatime.

  ‘My great-grandpa said we used t'own prop'ty round here. Low levels of magic, my arse! Hah, it's all right for them wizards, they got all kindsa spells to protect 'em. Bit of magic here, bit of magic there… Stands to reason it's got to go somewhere, right?’

  ‘There used to be warning signs up,’ said the neat voice from behind.

  ‘Yeah, well, warning signs in Ankh-Morpork might as well have “Good firewood” written on them,’ said someone else.

  ‘I mean, stands to reason, they chuck out an old spell for exploding this, and another one for twiddlin' that, and another one for making carrots grow, they finish up interfering with one another, who knows what they'll end up doing?’ said Ernie. ‘Great-grandpa said sometimes they'd wake up in the morning and the cellar'd be higher than the attic. And that weren't the worst,’ he added darkly.

  ‘Yeah, I heard where it got so bad you could walk down the street and meet yourself coming the other way,’ someone supplied. ‘It got so's you didn't know it was bum or breakfast time, I heard.’

  ‘The dog used to bring home all kinds of stuff,’ said Ernie. ‘Great-grandpa said half the time they used to dive behind the sofa if it came in with anything in its mouth. Corroded fire spells startin' to fizz, broken wands with green smoke coming out of 'em and I don't know what else… and if you saw the cat playing with anything, it was best not to try to find out what it was, I can tell you.’

  He twitched the reins, his current predicament almost forgotten in the tide of hereditary resentment.

  ‘I mean, they say all the old spell books and stuff was buried deep and they recycle the used spells now, but that don't seem much comfort when your potatoes started walkin' about,’ he grumbled. ‘My great-grandpa went to see the head wizard about it, and he said’ — he put on a strangled nasal voice which was his idea of how you talked when you'd got an education — ‘“Oh, there might be some temp'ry inconvenience now, my good man, but just you come back in fifty thousand years.” Bloody wizards.’

  The horse turned a corner.

  This was a dead-end street. Half-collapsed houses, windows smashed, doors stolen, leaned against one another on either side.

  ‘I heard they said they were going to clean up this place,’ said someone.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Ernie, and spat. When it hit the ground it ran away. ‘And you know what? You get loonies coming in all the time now, poking around, pulling things about—’

  ‘Just at the wall up ahead,’ said Teatime conversationally. ‘I think you generally go through just where there's a pile of rubble by the old dead tree, although you wouldn't see it unless you looked closely. But I've never seen how you do it… ’

  ‘'ere, I can't take you lot through,’ said Ernie. ‘Lifts is one thing, but not taking people through— ’

  Teatime sighed. ‘And we were getting on so well. Listen, Ernie… Ern… you will take us through or, and I say this with very considerable regret, I will have to kill you. You seem a nice man. Conscientious. A very serious overcoat and sensible boots.’

  ‘But if'n I take you through—’

  ‘What's the worst that can happen?’ said Teatime. ‘You'll lose your job. Whereas if you don't, you'll die. So if you look at it like that, we're actually doing you a favour. Oh, do say yes.’

  ‘Er…’ Ernie's brain felt twisted up. The lad was definitely what Ernie thought of as a toff, and he seemed nice and friendly, but it didn't all add up. The tone and the content didn't match.

  ‘Besides,’ said Teatime, ‘if you've been coerced, it's not your fault, is it? No one can blame you. No one could blame anyone who'd been coerced at knife point.’

  ‘Oh, well, I s'pose, if we're talking coerced…’ Ernie muttered. Going along with things seemed to be the only way.

  The horse stopped and stood waiting with the patient look of an animal that probably knows the route better than the driver.

  Ernie fumbled in his overcoat pocket and took out a small tin, rather like a snuff box. He opened it. There was glowing dust inside.

  ‘What do you do with that?’ said Teatime, all interest.

  ‘Oh, you just takes a pinch and throws it in the air and it goes twing and it
opens the soft place,’ said Ernie.

  ‘SO… you don't need any special training or anything?’

  ‘Er… you just chucks it at the wall there and it goes twing,’ said Ernie.

  ‘Really? May I try?’

  Teatime took the tin from his unresisting hand and threw a pinch of dust into the air in front of the horse. It hovered for a moment and then produced a narrow, glittering arch in the air. It sparkled and went…

  …twing.

  ‘Aw,’ said a voice behind them. ‘Innat nice, eh, our Davey?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘All pretty sparkles…’

  ‘And then you just drive forward?’ said Teatime.

  ‘That's right,’ said Ernie. ‘Quick, mind. It only stays open for a little while.’

  Teatime pocketed the little tin. ‘Thank you very much, Ernie. Very much indeed.’

  His other hand lashed out. There was a glint of metal. The carter blinked, and then fell sideways off his seat.

  There was silence from behind, tinted with horror and possibly just a little terrible admiration.

  ‘Wasn't he dull?’ said Teatime, picking up the reins.

  Snow began to fall. It fell on the recumbent shape of Ernie, and it also fell through several hooded grey robes that hung in the air.

  There appeared to be nothing inside them. You could believe they were there merely to make a certain point in space.

  Well, said one, we are frankly impressed.

  Indeed, said another. We would never have thought of doing it this way.

  He is certainly a resourceful human, said a third.

  The beauty of it all, said the first — or it may have been the second, because, absolutely nothing distinguished the robes — is that there is so much else we will control.

  Quite, said another. It is really amazing how they think. A sort of… illogical logic.

  Children, said another. Who would have thought it? But today the children, tomorrow the world.

  Give me a child until he is seven and he's mine for life, said another.