Hogfather

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.

There was a dreadful pause.

The consensus beings that called themselves the Auditors did not believe in anything, except possibly immortality. And the way to be immortal, they knew, was to avoid living. Most of all they did not believe in personality. To be a personality was to be a creature with a beginning and an end. And since they reasoned that in an infinite universe any life was by comparison unimaginably short, they died instantly. There was a flaw in their logic, of course, but by the time they found this out it was always too late. In the meantime, they scrupulously avoided any comment, action or experience that set them apart …

You said ‘me’, said one.

Ah. Yes. But, you see, we were quoting, said the other one hurriedly. Some religious person said that. About educating children. And so would logically say ‘me’. But I wouldn't use that term of myself, of — damn!

The robe vanished in a little puff of smoke.

Let that be a lesson to us, said one of the survivors, as another and totally indistinguishable robe popped into existence where the stricken colleague had been.

Yes, said the newcomer. Well, it certainly appears—