Hogfather

‘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.

HEX? WHAT IS HEX?

‘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 favour of unliving things that thought.

MR HEX WAS REMARKABLY ASTUTE. THE HOGFATHER HAS BEEN… Death paused. THERE IS NO SENSIBLE HUMAN WORD. DEAD, IN A WAY, BUT NOT EXACTLY… A GOD CANNOT BE KILLED. NEVER COMPLETELY KILLED. HE HAS BEEN, SHALL WE SAY, SEVERELY REDUCED.

‘Ye gods!’ said Ridcully. ‘Who'd want to kill off the old boy?’

HE HAS ENEMIES.

‘What did he do? Miss a chimney?’

EVERY LIVING THING HAS ENEMIES.

‘What, everything?’

YES. EVERYTHING. POWERFUL ENEMIES. BUT THEY HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME. NOW THEY ARE USING PEOPLE.

‘Who are?’

THOSE WHO THINK THE UNIVERSE SHOULD BE A LOT OF ROCKS MOVING IN CURVES. HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THE AUDITORS?

‘I suppose the Bursar may have done—’

NOT AUDITORS OF MONEY. AUDITORS OF REALITY. THEY THINK OF LIFE AS A STAIN ON THE UNIVERSE. A PESTILENCE. MESSY. GETTING IN THE WAY.

‘In the way of what?’

THE EFFICIENT RUNNING OF THE UNIVERSE.

‘I thought it was run for us… Well, for the Professor of Applied Anthropics, actually, but we're allowed to tag along,’ said Ridcully. He scratched his chin. ‘And I could certainly run a marvellous university here if only we didn't have to have these damn students underfoot all the time.’

QUITE SO.

‘They want to get rid of us?’

THEY WANT YOU TO BE… LESS… DAMN, I'VE FORGOTTEN THE WORD. UNTRUTHFUL? THE HOGFATHER IS A SYMBOL OF THIS… Death snapped his fingers, causing echoes to bounce off the walls, and added, WISTFUL LYING?

‘Untruthful?’ said Ridcully. ‘Me? I'm as honest as the day is long! Yes, what is it this time?’

Ponder had tugged at his robe and now he whispered something in his ear. Ridcully cleared his throat.

‘I am reminded that this is in fact the shortest day of the year,’ he said. ‘However, this does not undermine the point that I just made, although I thank my colleague for his invaluable support and constant readiness to correct minor if not downright trivial errors. I am a remarkably truthful man, sir. Things said at University council meetings don't count.’

I MEAN HUMANITY IN GENERAL. ER… THE ACT OF TELLING THE UNIVERSE IT IS OTHER THAN IT IS?

‘You've got me there,’ said Ridcully. ‘Anyway, why're you doing the job?’

SOMEONE MUST. IT IS VITALLY IMPORTANT. THEY MUST BE SEEN, AND BELIEVED. BEFORE DAWN, THERE MUST BE ENOUGH BELIEF IN THE HOGFATHER.

‘Why?’ said Ridcully.

SO THAT THE SUN WILL COME UP.

The two wizards gawped at him.

I SELDOM JOKE, said Death.

At which point there was a scream of horror.

‘That sounded like the Bursar,’ said Ridcully. ‘And he's been doing so well up to now.’

The reason for the Bursar's scream lay on the floor of his bedroom.

It was a man. He was dead. No one alive had that kind of expression.

Some of the other wizards had got there first. Ridcully pushed his way through the crowd.

‘Ye gods,’ he said. ‘What a face! He looks as though he died of fright! What happened?’

‘Well,’ said the Dean, ‘as far as I can tell, the Bursar opened his wardrobe and found the man inside.’

‘Really? I wouldn't have said the poor old Bursar was all that frightening.’

‘No, Archchancellor. The corpse fell out on him.’

The Bursar was standing in the corner, wearing his old familiar expression of good-humoured concussion.

‘You all right, old fellow?’ said Ridcully. ‘What's eleven per cent of 1,276?’

‘One hundred and forty point three six,’ said the Bursar promptly.

‘Ah, right as rain,’ said Ridcully cheerfully.

‘I don't see why,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘Just because he can do things with numbers doesn't mean everything else is fine.’

‘Doesn't need to be,’ said Ridcully. ‘Numbers is what he has to do. The poor chap might be slightly yoyo, but I've been reading about it. He's one of these idiot servants.’

‘Savants,’ said the Dean patiently. ‘The word is savants, Ridcully.’

‘Whatever. Those chaps who can tell you what day of the week the first of Grune was a hundred years ago —’

‘—Tuesday—’ said the Bursar.

‘—but can't tie their bootlaces,’ said Ridcully. ‘What was a corpse doing in his wardrobe? And no one is to say “Not a lot,” or anythin' tasteless like that. Haven't had a corpse in a wardrobe since that business with Archchancellor Buckleby.’

‘We all warned Buckleby that the lock was too stiff,’ said the Dean.

‘Just out of interest, why was the Bursar fiddling with his wardrobe at this time of night?’ said Ridcully.

The wizards looked sheepish.

‘We were… playing Sardines, Archchancellor,’ said the Dean.

‘What's that?’

‘It's like Hide and Seek, but when you find someone you have to squeeze in with them,’ said the Dean.

‘I just want to be clear about this,’ said Ridcully. ‘My senior wizards have spent the evening playing Hide and Seek?’

‘Oh, not the whole evening,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘We played Grandmother's Footsteps and I Spy for quite a while until the Senior Wrangler made a scene just because we wouldn't let him spell chandelier with an S.’

‘Party games? You fellows?’

The Dean sidled closer.

‘It's Miss Smith,’ he mumbled. ‘When we don't join in she bursts into tears.’

‘Who's Miss Smith?’

‘The Cheerful Fairy,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes glumly. ‘If you don't say yes to everything her lip wobbles like a plate of jelly. It's unbearable.’

‘We just joined in to stop her weeping,’ said the Dean. ‘It's amazing how one woman can be so soggy.’

‘If we're not cheerful she bursts into tears,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. ‘The Senior Wrangler's doing