Hogfather

‘No one!’ snapped Peachy, trying to pull himself together. ‘There's no such thing as the Scissor Man, all right?’

‘Ah… yes. When you were little, did you suck your thumb?’ said Susan. ‘Because the only Scissor Man I know is the one people used to frighten children with. They said he'd turn up and—’

‘Shutupshutupshutup!’ said Peachy, prodding her with the crossbow. ‘Kids believe all kinds of crap! But I'm grown up now, right, and I can open beer bottles with other people's teeth an— oh, gods…’

Susan heard the snip, snip. It sounded very close now.

Peachy had his eyes shut.

‘Is there anything behind me?’ he quavered.

Susan pushed the others aside and waved frantically towards the bottom of the stairs.

‘No,’ she said, as they hurried away.

‘Is there anything standing on the stairs at all?’

‘No.’

‘Right! If you see that one-eyed bastard you tell him he can keep the money!’

He turned and ran.

When Susan turned to go up the stairs the Scissor Man was there.

It wasn't man-shaped. It was something like an ostrich, and something like a lizard on its hind legs, but almost entirely like something made out of blades. Every time it moved a thousand blades went snip, snip.

Its long silver neck curved and a head made of shears stared down at her.

‘You're not looking for me,’ she said. ‘You're not my nightmare.’

The blades tilted this way and that. The Scissor Man was trying to think.

‘I remember you came for Twyla,’ said Susan, stepping forward. ‘That damn governess had told her what happens to little girls who suck their thumbs, remember? Remember the poker? I bet you needed a hell of a lot of sharpening afterwards…’

The creature lowered its head, stepped carefully around her in as polite a way as it could manage, and clanked on down the stairs after Peachy.

Susan ran on towards the top of the tower.

Sideney put a green filter over his lantern and pressed down with a small silver rod that had an emerald set on its tip. A piece of the lock moved. There was a whirring from inside the door and something went click.

He sagged with relief. It is said that the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully, but it was Valium compared to being watched by Mister Teatime.

‘I, er, think that's the third lock,’ he said. ‘Green light is what opens it. I remember the fabulous lock of the Hall of Murgle, which could only be opened by the Hubward wind, although that was—’

‘I commend your expertise,’ said Teatime. ‘And the other four?’

Sideney looked up nervously at the silent bulk of Banjo, and licked his lips.

‘Well, of course, if I'm right, and the locks depend on certain conditions, well, we could be here for years…’ he ventured. ‘Supposing they can only be opened by, say, a small blond child holding a mouse? On a Tuesday? In the rain?’

‘You can find out what the nature of the spell is?’ said Teatime.

‘Yes, yes, of course, yes.’ Sideney waved his hands urgently. ‘That's how I worked out this one. Reverse thaumaturgy, yes, certainly. Er. In time.’

‘We have lots of time,’ said Teatime.

‘Perhaps a little more time than that,’ Sideney quavered. ‘The processes are very, very, very… difficult.’

‘Oh, dear. If it's too much for you, you've only got to say,’ said Teatime.

‘No!’ Sideney yipped, and then managed to get some self-control. ‘No. No. No, I can… I'm sure I shall work them out soon—’

‘Jolly good,’ said Teatime.

The student wizard looked down. A wisp of vapour oozed from the crack between the doors.

‘Do you know what's in here, Mister Teatime?’

‘No.’

‘Ah. Right.’ Sideney stared mournfully at the fourth lock. It was amazing how much you remembered when someone like Teatime was around.

He gave him a nervous look. ‘There's not going to be any more violent deaths, are there?’ he said. ‘I just can't stand the sight of violent deaths!’

Teatime put a comforting arm around his shoulders. ‘Don't worry,’ he said. ‘I'm on your side. A violent death is the last thing that'll happen to you.’

‘Mister Teatime?’

He turned. Medium Dave stepped onto the landing.

‘Someone else is in the tower,’ he said. ‘They've got Catseye. I don't know how. I've got Peachy watching the stairs and I ain't sure where Chickenwire is.’

Teatime looked back to Sideney, who started prodding at the fourth lock again in a feverish attempt not to die.

‘Why are you telling me? I thought I was paying you big strong men a lot of money to deal with this sort of thing.’

Medium Dave's lips framed some words, but when he spoke he said, ‘All right, but what are we up against here? Eh? Old Man Trouble or the bogeyman or what?’

Teatime sighed.

‘Some of the Tooth Fairy's employees, I assume,’ he said.

‘Not if they're like the ones that were here,’ said Medium Dave. ‘They were just civilians. It looks like the ground opened and swallowed Catseye up.’ He thought about this. ‘I mean the ceiling,’ he corrected himself. A horrible image had just passed across his under-used imagination.

Teatime walked across to the stairwell and looked down. Far below, the pile of teeth looked like a white circle.

‘And the girl's gone,’ said Medium Dave.

‘Really? I thought I said she should be killed.’

Medium Dave hesitated. The boys had been brought up by Ma Lilywhite to be respectful to women as delicate and fragile creatures, and were soundly thrashed if disrespectful tendencies were perceived by Ma's incredibly sensitive radar. And it was truly incredibly sensitive. Ma could hear what you were doing three rooms away, a terrible thing for a growing lad.

That sort of thing leaves a mark. Ma Lilywhite certainly could. As for the others, they had no objections in practice to the disposal of anyone who got between them and large sums of money, but there was a general unspoken resentment at being told by Teatime to kill someone just because he had no further use for them. It wasn't that it was unprofessional. Only Assassins thought like that. It was just that there were things you did do, and things you didn't do. And this was one of the things you didn't do.

‘We thought… well, you never know…’

‘She wasn't necessary,’ said Teatime. ‘Few people are.’

Sideney thumbed hurriedly through his notebooks.

‘Anyway, the place is a maze—’ Medium Dave said.

‘Sadly, this is so,’ said Teatime. ‘But I am sure they will be able to find us. It's probably too much to hope that they intend something heroic.’

Violet and the oh god hurried down the stairs.

‘Do you know how to get back?’ said Violet.

‘Don't you?’

‘I think there's a… a kind of soft place. If you walk at it knowing it's there you go through.’