'This is a shop,' said Mr Crumley, finally getting to the root of the problem. 'We do not give Merchandise away. How can we expect people to buy things if some Person is giving them away? Now please go and get him out of here.'
'Arrest the Hogfather, style of thing?'
'Yes!'
'On Hogswatchnight?'
'Yes!'
'In your shop?'
'Yes!'
'In front of all those kiddies?'
'Y...' Mr Crumley hesitated. To his horror, he realized that Corporal Nobbs, against all expectation, had a point. 'You think that will look bad?' he said.
'Hard to see how it could look good, sir.'
'Could you not do it surreptitiously?' he said.
'Ah, well, surreptition, yes, we could give that a try,' said Corporal Nobbs. The sentence hung in the air with its hand out.
'You won't find me ungrateful,' said Mr Crumley, at last.
'Just you leave it to us,' said Corporal Nobbs, magnanimous in victory. 'You just nip down to your office and treat yourself to a nice cup of tea and we'll sort this out in no time. You'll be ever so grateful.'
Crumley gave him a look of a man in the grip of serious doubt, but staggered away nonetheless. Corporal Nobbs rubbed his hands together.
'You don't have Hogswatch back where you come from do you, Washpot?' he said, as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. 'Look at this carpet, you'd think a pig'd pissed on it ...'
'We call it the Fast of St Ossory,' said Visit, who was from Omnia. 'But it is not an occasion for superstition and crass commercialism. We simply get together in family groups for a prayer meeting and a fast.'
'What, turkey and chicken and that?'
'A fast, Corporal Nobbs. We don't eat anything.'
'Oh, right. Well, each to his own, I s'pose. And at least you don't have to get up early in the morning and find that the nothing you've got is too big to fit in the oven. No presents neither?'
They stood aside hurriedly as two children scuttled down the stairs carrying a large toy boat between them.
'It is sometimes appropriate to exchange new religious pamphlets, and of course there are usually copies of the Book of Ossory for the children,' said Constable Visit. 'Sometimes with illustrations,' he added, in the guarded way of a man hinting at licentious pleasures.
A small girl went past carrying a teddy bear larger than herself. It was pink.
'They always gives me bath salts,' complained Nobby. 'And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?'
'Abominable, I call it,' said Constable Visit.
The first floor was a mob.
'Huh, look at them. Mr Hogfather never brought me anything when I was a kid,' said Corporal Nobbs, eyeing the children gloomily. 'I used to hang up my stocking every Hogswatch, regular. All that ever happened was my dad was sick in it once.' He removed his helmet.
Nobby was not by any measure a hero, but there was the sudden gleam in his eye of someone who'd seen altogether too many empty stockings plus one rather full and dripping one. A scab had been knocked off some wound in the corrugated little organ of his soul.
'I'm going in,' he said.
In between the University's Great Hall and its main door is a rather smaller circular hall or vestibule known as Archchancellor Bowell's Remembrance, although no one now knows why, or why an extant bequest pays. for one small currant bun and one copper penny to be placed on a high stone shelf on one wall every second Wednesday.[15] Ridcully stood in the middle of the floor, looking upwards.
'Tell me, Senior Wrangler, we never invited any women to the Hogswatchnight Feast, did we?'
'Of course not, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler. He looked up in the dust-covered rafters, wondering what had caught Ridcully's eye. 'Good heavens, no. They'd spoil everything. I've always said so.'
'And all the maids have got the evening off until midnight?'
'A very generous custom, I've always said,' said the Senior Wrangler, feeling his neck crick.
'So why, every year, do we hang a damn great bunch of mistletoe up there?'
The Senior Wrangler turned in a circle, still staring upwards.
'Welt er ... it's ... well, it's ... it's symbolic, Archchancellor.'
'Ah?'
The Senior Wrangler felt that something more was expected. He groped around in the dusty attics of his education.
'Of ... the leaves, d'y'see ... they're symbolic of ... of green, d'y'see whereas the berries, in fact, yes, the berries symbolize ... symbolize white. Yes. White and green. Very ... symbolic.'
He waited. He was not, unfortunately, disappointed.
'What of?'
The Senior Wrangler coughed.
'I'm not sure there has to be an of,' he said.
'Ah? So,' said the Archchancellor, thoughtfully,
'It could be said that. the white and green symbolize a small parasitic plant?'
'Yes, indeed,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'So mistletoe, in fact, symbolizes mistletoe?'
'Exactly, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler, who was now just hanging on.
'Funny thing, that,' said Ridcully, in the same thoughtful tone of voice. 'That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?'
'It could be both,' said the Senior Wrangler desperately.
'And that comment,' said Ridcully, 'is either very perceptive, or very trite.'
'It might be bo...'
'Don't push it, Senior Wrangler.'
There was a hammering on the outer door.
'Ah, that'll be the wassailers,' said the Senior Wrangler, happy for the distraction. 'They call on us first every year. I personally have always liked "The Lily-white Boys", you know.'
The Archchancellor glanced up at the mistletoe, gave the beaming man a sharp look, and opened the little hatch in the door.
'Well, now, wassailing you fellows ...' he began. 'Oh. Well, I must say you might've picked a better time ...'
A hooded figure stepped through the wood of the door, carrying a limp bundle over its shoulder.
The Senior Wrangler stepped backwards quickly.
'Oh ... no, not tonight ...'
And then he noticed that what he had taken for a robe had lace around the bottom, and the hood, while quite definitely a hood, was nevertheless rather more stylish than the one he had first mistaken it for.
'Putting down or taking away?' said Ridcully.
Susan pushed back her hood.
'I need your help, Mr Ridcully,' she said.
'You're ... aren't you Death's granddaughter?' said Ridcully. 'Didn't I meet you a few ...'
'Yes,' sighed Susan.
'And ... are you helping out?' said Ridcully. His waggling eyebrows indicated the slumbering figure over her shoulder.
'I need you to wake him up,' said Susan.
'Some sort of miracle, you mean?' said the Senior Wrangler, who was a little behind.
'He's not dead,' said Susan. 'He's just resting.'
'That's what they all say,' the Senior Wrangler quavered.
Ridcully, who was somewhat more practical, lifted the oh god's head. There was a groan.
'Looks a bit under the weather,' he said.
'He's the God of Hangovers,' said Susan. 'The Oh God of Hangovers.'
'Really?' said Ridcully. 'Never had one of those myself. Funny thing, I can drink all night and feel as fresh as a daisy in the morning.'
The oh god's eyes opened. Then he soared towards Ridcully and started beating him on the chest with both fists.
'You utter, utter bastard! I hate you hate you hate you hate you-'
His eyes shut, and he slid down to the floor.
'What was all that about?' said Ridcully.
'I think it was some kind of nervous reaction,' said Susan diplomatically. 'Something nasty's happening tonight. I'm hoping he can tell me what it is. But he's got to be able to think straight first.'
'And you brought him here?' said Ridcully.
HO. HO. HO. YES INDEED, HELLO, SMALL CHILD CALLED VERRUCA LUMPY, WHAT A LOVELY NAME, AGED SEVEN, I BELIEVE? GOOD. YES, I KNOW IT DID. ALL OVER THE NICE CLEAN FLOOR, YES. THEY DO, YOU KNOW. THAT's ONE OF THE THINGS ABOUT REAL PIGS. HERE WE ARE, DON'T MENTION IT. HAPPY HOGSWATCH AND BE GOOD. I WILL KNOW IF YOU'RE GOOD OR BAD, YOU KNOW. HO. HO. HO.
'Well, you brought some magic into that little life,' said Albert, as the next child was hurried away.
IT'S THE EXPRESSION ON THEIR LITTLE FACES I LIKE, said the Hogfather.
'You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?'
YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.
The oh god was carried into the Great Hall and laid out on a bench. The senior wizards gathered round, ready to help those less fortunate than themselves remain that way.
'I know what's good for a hangover,' said the Dean, who was feeling in a party mood.
They looked at him expectantly.
'Drinking heavily the previous night!' he said.
He beamed at them.
'That was a good word joke,' he said, to break the silence.
The silence came back.
'Most amusing,' said Ridcully. He turned back and stared thoughtfully at the oh god.
'Raw eggs are said to be good ...' he glared at the Dean '...I mean bad for a hangover,' he said. 'And fresh orange juice.'
— 'Klatchian coffee,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, firmly.
'But this fellow hasn't just got his hangover, he's got everyone's hangover,' said Ridcully.
'I've tried it,' mumbled the oh god. 'It just makes me feel suicidal and sick.'
'A mixture of mustard and horseradish?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'In cream, for preference. With anchovies.'
'Yoghurt' said the Bursar.
Ridcully looked at him, surprised.
'That sounded almost relevant,' he said. 'Well done. I should leave it at that if I were you, Bursar. Hmm. Of course, my uncle always used to swear at Wow-Wow Sauce,' he added.
'You mean swear by, surely?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Possibly both,' said Ridcully. 'I know he once drank a whole bottle of it as a hangover cure and it certainly seemed to cure him. He looked very peaceful when they came to lay him out.'
'Willow bark' said the Bursar.
'That's a good idea,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'It's an analgesic.'
'Really? Well, possibly, though it's probably better to give it to him by mouth,' said Ridcully. 'I say, are you feeling yourself, Bursar? You seem somewhat coherent.'
The oh god opened his crusted eyes.
'Will all that stuff help?' he mumbled.
'It'll probably kill you,' said Susan.
'Oh. Good.'
'We could add Englebert's Enhancer,' said the Dean. 'Remember when Modo put some on his peas? We could only manage one each!'
'Can't you do something more, well, magical?' said Susan. 'Magic the alcohol out of him or something?'
'Yes, but it's not alcohol by this time, is it?' said Ridcully. 'It'll have turned into a lot of nasty little poisons all dancin' round on his liver.'
'Spold's Unstirring Divisor would do it,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Very simply, too. You'd end up with a large beaker full of all the nastiness. Not difficult at all, if you don't mind the side effects.'
'Tell me about the side effects,' said Susan, who had met wizards before.
'The main one is that the rest of him would end up in a somewhat larger beaker,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Alive?'
The Lecturer in Recent Runes screwed up his face and waggled his hands. 'Broadly, yes,' he said. 'Living tissue, certainly. And definitely sober.'
'I think we had in mind something that would leave him the same shape and still breathing,' said Susan.
'Well, you might've said . . .'
Then the Dean repeated the mantra that has had such a marked effect on the progress of knowledge throughout the ages.
'Why don't we just mix up absolutely everything and see what happens?' he said.
And Ridcully responded with the traditional response.
'It's got to be worth a try,' he said.
The big glass beaker for the cure had been placed on a pedestal in the middle of the floor. The wizards liked to make a ceremony of everything in any case, but felt instinctively that if they were going, to cure the biggest hangover in the world it needed to be done with style.
Susan and Bilious watched as the ingredients were added. Round about halfway the mixture, which was an orange— brown colour, went gloop. 'Not a lot of improvement, I feel,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Englebert's Enhancer was the penultimate ingredient. The Dean dropped in a greenish ball of light that sank under the surface. The only apparent effect was that it caused purple bubbles to creep over the sides of the beaker and drip onto the floor.
'That's it?' said the oh god.
'I think the yoghurt probably wasn't a good idea,' said the Dean.
'I'm not drinking that,' said Bilious firmly, and then clutched at his head.
'But gods are practically unkillable, aren't they?' said the Dean.
'Oh, good,' muttered Bilious. 'Why not stick my legs in a meat grinder, then?'
'Well, if you think it might help ...'
'I anticipated a certain amount of resistance from the patient,' said the Archchancellor. He removed his hat and fished out a small crystal ball from a pocket in the lining. 'Let's see what the God of Wine is up to at the moment, shall we? Shouldn't be too difficult to locate a funloving god like him on an evening like this ...'
He blew on the glass and polished it. Then he brightened up.
'Why, here he is, the little rascal! On Dunmanifestin, I do believe. Yes ... yes ... reclining on his couch, surrounded by naked maenads.'
'What? Maniacs?' said the Dean.
'He means ... excitable young women,' said Susan. And it seemed to her that there was a general ripple of movement among the wizards, a sort of nonchalant drawing towards the glittering ball.
'Can't quite see what he's doing said
Ridcully.
'Let me see if I can make it out,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies hopefully. Ridcully half turned to keep the ball out of his reach.
'Ah., yes,' he said. 'It looks like he's drinking ... yes, could very wen be lager and blackcurrant, if I'm any judge ...'
'Oh, me . . .' moaned the oh god.
'These young women, now—' the Lecturer in Recent Runes began.
'I can see there's some bottles on the table,' Ridcully continued. 'That one, hmm, yes, could be scumble which, as you know, is made from apple ...'
'Mainly apples,' the Dean volunteered. 'Now, about these poor mad girls ...'
The oh god slumped to his knees.
'... and there's ... that drink, you know, there's a worm in the bottle ...'
'Oh, me ...'
'... and ... there's an empty glass, a big one, can't quite see what it contained, but there's a paper umbrella in it. And some cherries on a stick. Oh, and an amusing little monkey.'
'ooohhh ...'
'... of course, there's a lot of other bottles too,' said Ridcully, cheerfully. 'Different coloured drinks, mainly. The sort made from melons and coconuts and chocolate and suchlike, don'tcherknow. Funny thing is, all the glasses on the table are pint mugs ...'
Bilious fell forward.
'All right,' he murmured. 'I'll drink the wretched stuff.'
'It's not quite ready yet,' said Ridcully. 'Ah, thank you, Modo.'
Modo tiptoed in, pushing a trolley. There was a large metal bowl on it, in which a small bottle stood in the middle of a heap of crushed ice.
'Only just made this for Hogswatch dinner,' said Ridcully. 'Hasn't had much time to mature yet.'
He put down the crystal and fished a pair of heavy gloves out of his hat.
The wizards spread like an opening flower. One moment they were gathered around Ridcully, the next they were standing close to various items of heavy furniture.
Susan felt she was present at a ceremony and hadn't been told the rules.
'What's that?' she said, as Ridcully carefully lifted up the bottle.
'Wow-Wow Sauce,' said Ridcully. 'Finest condiment known to man. A happy accompaniment to meat, fish, fowl, eggs and many types of vegetable dishes. It's not safe to drink it when sweat's still condensing on the bottle, though.' He peered at the bottle, and then rubbed at it, causing a glassy, squeaky noise. 'On the other hand,' he said brightly, 'if it's a kill-or-cure remedy then we are, given that the patient is practically immortal, probably on to a winner.'
He placed. a thumb over the cork and shook the bottle vigorously. There was a crash as the Chair of Indefinite Studies and the Senior Wrangler tried to get under the same table.
'And these fellows seem to have taken against it for some reason,' he said, approaching the beaker.
'I prefer a sauce that doesn't mean you mustn't make any jolting movements for half an hour after using it,' muttered the Dean.
'And that can't be used for breaking up small rocks,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Or getting rid of tree roots,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'And which isn't actually outlawed in three cities,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcully cautiously uncorked the bottle. There was a brief hiss of indrawn air.
He allowed a few drops to splash into the beaker. Nothing happened.
A more generous helping was allowed to fall. The mixture remained irredeemably inert.
Ridcully sniffed suspiciously at the bottle.
'I wonder if I added enough grated wahooni?' he said, and then upturned the sauce and let most of it slide into the mixture.
It merely went gloop.
The wizards began to stand up and brush themselves off, giving one another the rather embarrassed grins of people who know that they've just been part of a synchronized makinga-fool-of-yourself team.
'I know we've had that asafoetida rather a long time,' said Ridcully. He turned the bottle round, peering at it sadly.
Finally he tipped it up for the last time and thumped it hard on the base.
A trickle of sauce arrived on the lip of the bottle and glistened there for a moment. Then it began to form a bead.
As if drawn by invisible strings, the heads of the wizards turned to look at it.
Wizards wouldn't be wizards if they couldn't see a little way into the future.
As the bead swelled and started to go pearshaped they turned and, with a surprising turn of speed for men so wealthy in years and waistline, began to dive for the floor.
The drop fen.
It went gloop.
And that was all.
Ridcully, who'd been standing like a statue, sagged in relief.
'I don't know,' he said, turning away, 'I wish you fellows would show some backbone ...'
The fireball lifted him off his feet. Then it rose to the ceiling where it spread out widely and vanished with a pop, leaving a perfect chrysanthemum of scorched plaster.
Pure white light filled the room. And there was a sound.
TINKLE. TINKLE. FIZZ.
The wizards risked looking around.
The beaker gleamed. It was filled with a liquid glow, which bubbled gently and sent out sparkles like a spinning diamond.
'My word ...' breathed the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcully picked himself up off the floor. Wizards tended to roll well, or in any case are well. padded enough to bounce.
Slowly, the flickering. brilliance casting their long shadows on the walls, the wizards gravitated towards the beaker.
'Well, what is it?' said the Dean.
'I remember my father tellin' me some very valuable advice about drinks,' said Ridcully. 'He said, "Son, never drink any drink with a paper umbrella in it, never drink any drink with a humorous name, and never drink any drink that changes colour when the last ingredient goes in. And never, ever, do this ..." '
He dipped his finger into the beaker.
It came out with one glistening drop on the end.
'Careful, Archchancellor,' warned the Dean. 'What you have there might represent pure sobriety.'
Ridcully paused with the finger halfway to his lips.
'Good point,' he said. 'I don't want to start being sober at my time of life.' He looked around. 'How do we usually test stuff?'
'Generally we ask for student volunteers,' said the Dean.
'What happens if we don't get any?'
'We give it to them anyway.'
'Isn't that a bit unethical?'
'Not if we don't tell them, Archchancellor.'
'Ah, good point.'
'I'll try it,' the oh god mumbled.
'Something these clo— gentlemen have cooked up?' said Susan. 'It might kill you!'
'You've never had a hangover, I expect,' said the oh god. `Otherwise you wouldn't talk such rot.'
He staggered up to the beaker, managed to grip it on the second go, and drank the lot.
'There'll be fireworks now,' said the raven, from Susan's shoulder. 'Flames coming out of the mouth, screams, clutching at the throat, lying down under the cold tap, that sort of thing ...'
Death found, to his amazement, that dealing with the queue was very enjoyable. Hardly anyone had ever been pleased to see him before.
NEXT! AND WHAT'S YOUR NAME, LITTLE ... He hesitated, but rallied, and continued ... PERSON?
'Nobby Nobbs, Hogfather,' said Nobby. Was it him, or was this knee he was sitting on a lot bonier than it should be? His buttocks argued with his brain, and were sat on.
AND HAVE YOU BEEN A GOOD BO ... A GOOD DWA ... A GOOD GNO ... A GOOD INDIVIDUAL?
And suddenly Nobby found he had no control at all of his tongue. Of its own accord, gripped by a terrible compulsion, it said:
' 's.'
He struggled for self-possession as the great voice went on: SO I EXPECT YOU'LL WANT A PRESENT FOR A GOOD MON ... A GOOD HUM ... A GOOD MALE?
Aha, got you bang to rights, you'll be coming along with me, my old chummy, I bet you don't remember the cellar at the back of the shoelace maker's in Old Cobblers, eh, all those Hogswatch mornings with a little hole in my world, eh?
The words rose in Nobby's throat but were overridden by something ardent before they reached his voice box, and to his amazement were translated into:
' 's.'
SOMETHING NICE?
' 's.'
There was hardly anything left of Nobby's conscious will now. The world consisted of nothing but his naked soul and the Hogfather, who filled the universe.
AND YOU WILL OF COURSE BE GOOD FOR ANOTHER YEAR?
The tiny remnant of basic Nobbyness wanted to say, 'Er, how exactly do you define "good", mister? Like, suppose there was just some stuff that no one'd miss, say? Or, f 'r instance, say a friend of mine was on patrol, sort of thing, and found a shopkeeper had left his door unlocked at night. I mean, anyone could walk in, right, but suppose this friend took one or two things, sort of like, you know, a gratuity, and then called the shopkeeper out and got him to lock up, that counts as "good", does it?'
Good and bad were, to Nobby's way of thinking, entirely relative terms. Most of his relatives, for example, were criminals. But, again, this invitation to philosophical debate was ambushed somewhere in his head by sheer dread of the big beard in the sky.
' 's,' he squeaked.
NOW, I WONDER WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE?
Nobby gave up, and sat mute. Whatever was going to happen next was going to happen, and there was not a thing he could do about it . . . Right now, the light at the end of his mental tunnel showed only more tunnel.
AH, YES ...
The Hogfather reached into his sack and pulled out an awkwardly shaped present wrapped in festive Hogswatch paper which, owing to some slight confusion on the current Hogfather's part, had merry ravens on it. Corporal Nobbs took it in nervous hands.
WHAT DO YOU SAY?
' nk you.'
OFF YOU GO.
Corporal Nobbs slid down gratefully and barged his way through the crowds, stopping only when he was fielded by Constable Visit.
'What happened? What happened? I couldn't see!'
'I dunno,' mumbled Nobby. 'He gave me this.'
'What is it.'
'I dunno . .
He clawed at the raven-bedecked paper.
'This is disgusting, this whole business,' said Constable Visit. 'It's the worship of idols ...'
'It's a genuine Burleigh and Stronginthearm doubleaction triple-cantilever crossbow with a polished walnut stock and engraved silver facings!'
'... a crass commercialization of a date which is purely of astronomical significance,' said Visit, who seldom paid attention when he was in mid-denounce. 'If it is to be celebrated at all, then ...'
'I saw this in Bows and Ammo! It got Editor's Choice in the 'What to Buy When Rich Uncle Sidney Dies" category! They had to break both the reviewer's arms to get him to let go of it!'
' ...ought to be commemorated in a small service of...'
'It must cost more'n a year's salary! They only make 'em to order! You have to wait ages!'
'...religious significance.' It dawned on Constable Visit that something behind him was amiss.
'Aren't we going to arrest this impostor, corporal?' he said.
Corporal Nobbs looked blearily at him through the mists of possessive pride.
'You're foreign, Washpot,' he said. 'I can't expect you to know the real meaning of Hogswatch.'
The oh god blinked.
'Ah,' he said. 'That's better. Oh, yes. That's a lot better. Thank you.'
The wizards, who shared the raven's belief in the essential narrative conventions of life, watched him cautiously.
'Any minute now,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes confidently, 'it'll probably start with some kind of amusing yell...'
'You know,' said the oh god, 'I think I could just possibly eat a soft-boiled egg.'
'...or maybe the cars spinning round...'
'And perhaps drink a glass of milk' said the oh god.
Ridcully looked nonplussed.
'You really feel better?' he said.
'Oh, yes,' said the oh god. 'I really think I could risk a smile without the top of my head falling off.'
'No, no, no,' said the Dean. 'This can't be right. Everyone knows that a good hangover cure has got to involve a lot of humorous shouting, ekcetra.'
'I could possibly tell you a joke,' said the oh god carefully.
'You don't have this pressing urge to run outside and stick your head in a water butt?' said Ridcully.
'Er ... not really,' said the oh god. 'But I'd like some toast, if that helps.'
The Dean took off his hat and pulled a thaumameter out of the point. 'Something happened,' he said. 'There was a massive thaumic surge.'
'Didn't it even taste a bit ... well, spicy?' said Ridcully.
'It didn't taste of anything, really,' said the oh god.
'Oh, look, it's obvious,' said Susan. 'When the God of Wine drinks, Bilious here gets the aftereffects, so when the God of Hangovers drinks a hangover cure then the effects must jump back across the same link.'
'That could be right,' said the Dean. 'He is, after all, basically a conduit.'
'I've always thought of myself as more of a tube,' said the oh god.
'No, no, she's right,' said Ridcully. 'When he drinks, this lad here gets the nasty result. So, logically, when our friend here takes a hangover cure the side effects should head back the same way—'
'Someone mentioned a crystal ball just now,' said the oh god in a voice suddenly clanging with vengeance. 'I want to see this ...'
It was a big drink. A very big and a very long drink. It was one of those special cocktails where each very sticky, very strong ingredient is poured in very slowly, so that they layer on top of one another. Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow's Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Goodbye, Mr Brain Cell.
In addition, this drink had some lettuce floating in it. And a slice of lemon and a piece of pineapple hooked coquettishly on the side of the glass, which had sugar frosted round the rim. There were two paper umbrellas, one pink and one blue, and they each had a cherry on the end.
And someone had taken the trouble to freeze ice cubes in the shape of little elephants. After that, there's no hope. You might as well be drinking in a place called the Cococobana.
The God of Wine picked it up lovingly. It was his kind of drink.
There was a rumba going on in the background. There were also a couple of young ladies snuggling up to him. It was going to be a good night. It was always a good night.
'Happy Hogswatch, everyone!' he said, and raised the glass.
And then: 'Can anyone hear something?'
Someone blew a paper squeaker at him.
'No, seriously ... like a sort of descending note
Since no one paid this any attention he shrugged, and nudged one of his fellow drinkers.
'How about we have a couple more and go to this club I know?' he said.
And then.......
The wizards leaned back, and one or two of them grimaced.
Only the oh god stayed glued to the glass, face contorted in a vicious smile.
'We have eructation!' he shouted, and punched the air. 'Yes! Yes! Yes! The worm is on the other boot now, eh? Hah! How do you like them apples, huh?'
'Well, mainly apples—' said the Dean.
'Looked like a lot of other things to me,' said Ridcully. 'It seems we have reversed the cause-effect flow . . .'
'Will it be permanent?' said the oh god hopefully.
'I shouldn't think so. After all, you are the God of Hangovers. It'll probably just reverse itself again when the potion wears off.'
'Then I may not have much time. Bring me ... let's see ... twenty pints of lager, some pepper vodka and a bottle of coffee liqueur! With an umbrella in it! Let's see how he enjoys that, Mr You've Cot Room For Another One In There!'
Susan grabbed his hand and pulled him over to a bench.
'I didn't have you sobered up just so you could go on a binge!' she said.
He blinked at her. 'You didn't?'
'I want you to help me!'
'Help you what?'
'You said you'd never been human before, didn't you?'
'Er ...' The oh god looked down at himself. 'That's right,' he said. 'Never.'
'You've never incarnated?' said Ridcully.
'Surely that's a rather personal question, isn't it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'That's ... right,' said the oh god. 'Odd, that. I remember always having headaches ... but never having a head. That can't be right, can it?'
'You existed in potentia?' said Ridcully.
'Did what?'
'Did he?' said Susan.
Ridcully paused. 'Oh dear,' he said. 'I think I did it, didn't I? I said something to young Stibbons about drinking and hangovers, didn't I ... ?'
'And you created him just like that?' said the Dean. 'I find that very hard to believe, Mustrum. Hah! Out of thin air? I suppose we can all do that, can we? Anyone care to think up some new pixie?'
'Like the Hair Loss Fairy?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The other wizards laughed.
'I am not losing my hair!' snapped the Dean. 'It is just very finely spaced.'
'Half on your head and half on your hairbrush,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'No sense in bein' bashful about goin' bald,' said Ridcully evenly. 'Anyway, you know what they say about bald men, Dean.'
'Yes, they say, "Look at him, he's got no hair,"' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The Dean had been annoying him lately.
'For the last time,' shouted the Dean, 'I am not...'
He stopped.
There was a glingleglingleglingle noise.
'I wish I knew where that was coming from,' said Ridcully.
'Er . . .' the Dean began. 'Is there ... something on my head?'
The other wizards stared.
Something was moving under his hat.
Very carefully, he reached up and removed it.
The very small gnome sitting on his head had a chimp of the Dean's hair in each hand. It blinked guiltily in the light.
'Is there a problem?' it said.
'Get it off me!' the Dean yelled.
The wizards hesitated. They were all vaguely aware of the theory that very small creatures could pass on diseases, and while the gnome was larger than such creatures were generally thought to be, no one wanted to catch Expanding Scalp Sickness.
Susan grabbed it.
'Are you the Hair Loss Fairy?' she said.
`Apparently,' said the gnome, wriggling in her grip.
The Dean ran his hands desperately through his hair.
'What have you been doing with my hair?' he demanded.
'Welt some of it I think I have to put on hairbrushes,' said the gnome, 'but sometimes I think I weave it into little mats to block up the bath with.'
'What do you mean, you think?' said Ridcully.
'Just a minute,' said Susan. She turned to the oh god. 'Where exactly were you before I found you in the snow?'
'Er ... sort of ... everywhere, I think,' said the oh god. 'Anywhere where drink had been consumed in beastly quantities some time previously, you could say.'
'Ah-ha,' said Ridcully. 'You were an immanent vital force, yes?'
'I suppose I could have been,' the oh god conceded.
'And when we joked about the Hair Loss Fairy it suddenly focused on the Dean's head,' said Ridcully, 'where its operations have been noticeable to all of us in recent months although of course we have been far too polite to pass comment on the subject.'
'You're calling things into being,' said Susan.
'Things like the Give the Dean a Huge Bag of Money Goblin?' said the Dean, who could think very quickly at times. He looked around hopefully. 'Anyone hear any fairy tinkling?'
'Do you often get given huge bags of money, sir?' said Susan.
'Not on what you'd call a daily basis, no,' said the Dean. 'But if...'
'Then there probably isn't any occult room for a Huge Bags of Money Goblin,' said Susan.
'I personally have always wondered what happens to my socks,' said the Bursar cheerfully. 'You know how there's always one missing? When I was a lad I always thought that something was taking them . . .'
The wizards gave this some thought. Then they all heard it — the little crinkly tinkling noise of magic taking place.
The Archchancellor pointed dramatically skywards.
'To the laundry!' he said.
'It's downstairs, Ridcully,' said the Dean.
'Down to the laundry!'
'And you know Mrs Whitlow doesn't like us going in there,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'And who is Archchancellor of this University, may I ask?' said Ridcully. 'Is it Mrs Whitlow? I don't think so! Is it me? Why, how amazing, I do believe it is!'
'Yes, but you know what she can be like,' said the Chair.
'Er, yes, that's true...' Ridcully began.
'I believe she's gone to her sister's for the holiday,' said the Bursar.
'We certainly don't have to take orders from any kind of housekeeper!' said the Archchancellor. 'To the laundry!'
The wizards surged out excitedly, leaving Susan, the oh god, the Verruca Gnome and the Hair Loss Fairy.
'Tell me again who those people were,' said the oh god.
'Some of the cleverest men in the world,' said Susan.
'And I'm sober, am I? But I'm not getting...'
'Clever isn't the same as sensible,' said Susan, 'and they do say that if you wish to walk the path to wisdom then for your first step you must become as a small child.'
'Do you think they've heard about the second step?'
Susan sighed. 'Probably not, but sometimes they fall over it while they're running around shouting.'
'Ah.' The oh god looked around. 'Do you think they have any soft drinks here?' he said.
The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step.
Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it. They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe, and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak-butter tea that would give it any kind of meaning. While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they're probably all on first steps.
The Dean was always at his best at times like this. He led the way between the huge, ardent copper vats, prodding with his staff into dark corners and going 'Hut! Hut!' under his breath.
'Why would it turn up here?' whispered the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Point of reality instability,' said Ridcully, standing on tiptoe to look into a bleaching cauldron. 'Every damn thing turns up here. You should know that by now.'
'But why now?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'No talking!' hissed the Dean, and leapt out into the next alleyway, staff held protectively in front of him.
'Hall!' he screamed, and then looked disappointed
' Er, how big would this sock-stealing thing be?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Don't know,' said Ridcully. He peered behind a stack of washboards. 'Come to think of it, I must've lost a ton of socks over the years.'
'Me too,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'So ... should we be looking in small places or very large places?' the Senior Wrangler went on, in the voice of one whose train of thought has just entered a long dark tunnel.
'Good point,' said Ridcully. 'Dean, why do you keep referring to sheds all the time?'
'It's "hut", Mustrum,' said the Dean. 'It means ... it means...'
'Small wooden building?' Ridcully suggested.
'Welt sometimes, agreed, but other times ... well, you just have to say "hut".'
'This sock creature ... does it just steal them, or does it eat them?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Valuable contribution' that man,' said Ridcully, giving tip on the Dean. 'Right, pass the word along: no one is to look like a sock, understand?'
'How can you...' the Dean began, and stopped.
They all heard it.
... grnf, grnf, grnf ...
It was a busy sound, the sound of something with a serious appetite to satisfy.
'The Eater of Socks,' moaned the Senior Wrangler, with his eyes shut.
'How many tentacles would you expect it to have?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'I mean, roughly speaking?'
'It's a very large sort of noise, isn't it?' said the Bursar.
'To the nearest dozen, say,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, edging backwards.
... grnf, grnf, grnf ...
'It'd probably tear our socks off as soon as look at us ...' wailed the Senior Wrangler.
'Ah. So at least five or six tentacles, then, would you say?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Seems to me it's coming from one of the washing engines,' said the Dean.
The engines were each two storeys high, and usually only used when the University's population soared during term time. A huge treadmill connected to a couple of big bleached wooden paddles in each vat, which were heated via the fireboxes underneath. In full production the washing engines needed at least half a dozen people to manhandle the loads, maintain the fires and oil the scrubbing arms. Ridcully had seen them at work once, when it had looked like a picture of a very dean and hygienic Hell, the kind of place soap might go to when it died.
The Dean stopped by the door to the boiler area.
'Something's in here,' he whispered. 'Listen!'
..grnf...
It's stopped! It knows we're here!' he hissed. "All right? Ready? Hut!'
'No!' squeaked the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'I'll open the door and you be ready to stop it! One ... two ... three! Oh ...'
The sleigh soared into the snowy sky.
ON THE WHOLE, I THINK THAT WENT VERY WELL, DON'T YOU?
'Yes, master,' said Albert.
I WAS RATHER PUZZLED BY THE LITTLE BOY IN THE CHAIN MAIL, THOUGH.
'I think that was a Watchman, master.'
REALLY? WELL, HE WENT AWAY HAPPY, AND THAT's THE MAIN THING.
'Is it, master?' There was worry in Albert's voice. Death's osmotic nature tended to pick up new ideas altogether too quickly. Of course, Albert understood why they had to do all this, but the master ... well, sometimes the master lacked the necessary mental equipment to work out what should be true and what shouldn't ...
AND I THINK I'VE GOT THE LAUGH WORKING REALLY WELL NOW. HO. HO. HO.
'Yeah, sir, very jolly,' said Albert. He looked down at the list. 'Still, work goes on, eh? The next one's pretty dose, master, so I should keep them down low if I was you.'
JOLLY GOOD. HO. HO. HO.
'Sarah the little match girl, doorway of Thimble's Pipe and Tobacco Shop, Money Trap Lane, it says here.'
AND WHAT DOES SHE WANT FOR HOGSWATCH? HO. HO. HO.
'Dunno. Never sent a letter. By the way, just a tip, you don't have to say "Ho, ho, ho, " all the time, master. Let's see ... It says here...' Albert's lips moved as he read.
I EXPECT A DOLL IS ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE. OR A SOFT TOY OF SOME DESCRIPTION. THE SACK SEEMS TO KNOW. WHAT'VE WE GOT FOR HER, ALBERT? HO. HO. HO.
Something small was dropped into his hand.
'This,' said Albert.
OH.
There was a moment of horrible silence as they both stared at the lifetimer.
'You're for life, not just for Hogswatch,' prompted Albert. 'Life goes on, master. In a manner of speaking.'
BUT THIS IS HOGSWATCHNIGHT.
'Very traditional time for this sort of thing, I understand,' said Albert.
I THOUGHT IT WAS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY, said Death.
'Ah, well, yes, you see, one of the things that makes folks even more jolly is knowing there're people who ain't,' said Albert, in a matter-of-fact voice. 'That's how it goes, master. Master?'
NO.
Death stood up.
THIS IS HOW IT SHOULDN'T GO.
The University's Great Hall had been set for the Hogswatchnight Feast. The tables were already groaning under the weight of the cutlery, and it would be hours before any real food was put on them. It was hard to see where there would be space for any among the drifts of ornamental fruit bowls and forests of wine glasses.
The oh god picked up a menu and turned to the fourth page.
'Course four: molluscs and crustaceans. A medley of lobster, crab, king crab, prawn, shrimp, oyster, clam, giant mussel, green-lipped mussel, thin-lipped mussel and Fighting Tiger Limpet. With a herb and butter dipping sauce. Wine: "Three Wizards" Chardonnay, Year of the Talking Frog. Beer: Winkles' Old Peculiar.' He put it down. 'That's one course?' he said.
'They're big men in the food department,' said Susan.
He turned the menu over. On the cover was the University's coat of arms and, over it, three large letters in ardent script: "E B P"
'Is this some sort of magic word?'
'No.' Susan sighed. 'They put it on all their menus. You might call it the unofficial motto of the University.'
'What's it mean?'
'Eta Beta Pi.'
Bilious gave her an expectant look.
'Arrest the Hogfather, style of thing?'
'Yes!'
'On Hogswatchnight?'
'Yes!'
'In your shop?'
'Yes!'
'In front of all those kiddies?'
'Y...' Mr Crumley hesitated. To his horror, he realized that Corporal Nobbs, against all expectation, had a point. 'You think that will look bad?' he said.
'Hard to see how it could look good, sir.'
'Could you not do it surreptitiously?' he said.
'Ah, well, surreptition, yes, we could give that a try,' said Corporal Nobbs. The sentence hung in the air with its hand out.
'You won't find me ungrateful,' said Mr Crumley, at last.
'Just you leave it to us,' said Corporal Nobbs, magnanimous in victory. 'You just nip down to your office and treat yourself to a nice cup of tea and we'll sort this out in no time. You'll be ever so grateful.'
Crumley gave him a look of a man in the grip of serious doubt, but staggered away nonetheless. Corporal Nobbs rubbed his hands together.
'You don't have Hogswatch back where you come from do you, Washpot?' he said, as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. 'Look at this carpet, you'd think a pig'd pissed on it ...'
'We call it the Fast of St Ossory,' said Visit, who was from Omnia. 'But it is not an occasion for superstition and crass commercialism. We simply get together in family groups for a prayer meeting and a fast.'
'What, turkey and chicken and that?'
'A fast, Corporal Nobbs. We don't eat anything.'
'Oh, right. Well, each to his own, I s'pose. And at least you don't have to get up early in the morning and find that the nothing you've got is too big to fit in the oven. No presents neither?'
They stood aside hurriedly as two children scuttled down the stairs carrying a large toy boat between them.
'It is sometimes appropriate to exchange new religious pamphlets, and of course there are usually copies of the Book of Ossory for the children,' said Constable Visit. 'Sometimes with illustrations,' he added, in the guarded way of a man hinting at licentious pleasures.
A small girl went past carrying a teddy bear larger than herself. It was pink.
'They always gives me bath salts,' complained Nobby. 'And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I hardly ever has a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?'
'Abominable, I call it,' said Constable Visit.
The first floor was a mob.
'Huh, look at them. Mr Hogfather never brought me anything when I was a kid,' said Corporal Nobbs, eyeing the children gloomily. 'I used to hang up my stocking every Hogswatch, regular. All that ever happened was my dad was sick in it once.' He removed his helmet.
Nobby was not by any measure a hero, but there was the sudden gleam in his eye of someone who'd seen altogether too many empty stockings plus one rather full and dripping one. A scab had been knocked off some wound in the corrugated little organ of his soul.
'I'm going in,' he said.
In between the University's Great Hall and its main door is a rather smaller circular hall or vestibule known as Archchancellor Bowell's Remembrance, although no one now knows why, or why an extant bequest pays. for one small currant bun and one copper penny to be placed on a high stone shelf on one wall every second Wednesday.[15] Ridcully stood in the middle of the floor, looking upwards.
'Tell me, Senior Wrangler, we never invited any women to the Hogswatchnight Feast, did we?'
'Of course not, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler. He looked up in the dust-covered rafters, wondering what had caught Ridcully's eye. 'Good heavens, no. They'd spoil everything. I've always said so.'
'And all the maids have got the evening off until midnight?'
'A very generous custom, I've always said,' said the Senior Wrangler, feeling his neck crick.
'So why, every year, do we hang a damn great bunch of mistletoe up there?'
The Senior Wrangler turned in a circle, still staring upwards.
'Welt er ... it's ... well, it's ... it's symbolic, Archchancellor.'
'Ah?'
The Senior Wrangler felt that something more was expected. He groped around in the dusty attics of his education.
'Of ... the leaves, d'y'see ... they're symbolic of ... of green, d'y'see whereas the berries, in fact, yes, the berries symbolize ... symbolize white. Yes. White and green. Very ... symbolic.'
He waited. He was not, unfortunately, disappointed.
'What of?'
The Senior Wrangler coughed.
'I'm not sure there has to be an of,' he said.
'Ah? So,' said the Archchancellor, thoughtfully,
'It could be said that. the white and green symbolize a small parasitic plant?'
'Yes, indeed,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'So mistletoe, in fact, symbolizes mistletoe?'
'Exactly, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler, who was now just hanging on.
'Funny thing, that,' said Ridcully, in the same thoughtful tone of voice. 'That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?'
'It could be both,' said the Senior Wrangler desperately.
'And that comment,' said Ridcully, 'is either very perceptive, or very trite.'
'It might be bo...'
'Don't push it, Senior Wrangler.'
There was a hammering on the outer door.
'Ah, that'll be the wassailers,' said the Senior Wrangler, happy for the distraction. 'They call on us first every year. I personally have always liked "The Lily-white Boys", you know.'
The Archchancellor glanced up at the mistletoe, gave the beaming man a sharp look, and opened the little hatch in the door.
'Well, now, wassailing you fellows ...' he began. 'Oh. Well, I must say you might've picked a better time ...'
A hooded figure stepped through the wood of the door, carrying a limp bundle over its shoulder.
The Senior Wrangler stepped backwards quickly.
'Oh ... no, not tonight ...'
And then he noticed that what he had taken for a robe had lace around the bottom, and the hood, while quite definitely a hood, was nevertheless rather more stylish than the one he had first mistaken it for.
'Putting down or taking away?' said Ridcully.
Susan pushed back her hood.
'I need your help, Mr Ridcully,' she said.
'You're ... aren't you Death's granddaughter?' said Ridcully. 'Didn't I meet you a few ...'
'Yes,' sighed Susan.
'And ... are you helping out?' said Ridcully. His waggling eyebrows indicated the slumbering figure over her shoulder.
'I need you to wake him up,' said Susan.
'Some sort of miracle, you mean?' said the Senior Wrangler, who was a little behind.
'He's not dead,' said Susan. 'He's just resting.'
'That's what they all say,' the Senior Wrangler quavered.
Ridcully, who was somewhat more practical, lifted the oh god's head. There was a groan.
'Looks a bit under the weather,' he said.
'He's the God of Hangovers,' said Susan. 'The Oh God of Hangovers.'
'Really?' said Ridcully. 'Never had one of those myself. Funny thing, I can drink all night and feel as fresh as a daisy in the morning.'
The oh god's eyes opened. Then he soared towards Ridcully and started beating him on the chest with both fists.
'You utter, utter bastard! I hate you hate you hate you hate you-'
His eyes shut, and he slid down to the floor.
'What was all that about?' said Ridcully.
'I think it was some kind of nervous reaction,' said Susan diplomatically. 'Something nasty's happening tonight. I'm hoping he can tell me what it is. But he's got to be able to think straight first.'
'And you brought him here?' said Ridcully.
HO. HO. HO. YES INDEED, HELLO, SMALL CHILD CALLED VERRUCA LUMPY, WHAT A LOVELY NAME, AGED SEVEN, I BELIEVE? GOOD. YES, I KNOW IT DID. ALL OVER THE NICE CLEAN FLOOR, YES. THEY DO, YOU KNOW. THAT's ONE OF THE THINGS ABOUT REAL PIGS. HERE WE ARE, DON'T MENTION IT. HAPPY HOGSWATCH AND BE GOOD. I WILL KNOW IF YOU'RE GOOD OR BAD, YOU KNOW. HO. HO. HO.
'Well, you brought some magic into that little life,' said Albert, as the next child was hurried away.
IT'S THE EXPRESSION ON THEIR LITTLE FACES I LIKE, said the Hogfather.
'You mean sort of fear and awe and not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?'
YES. NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL BELIEF.
The oh god was carried into the Great Hall and laid out on a bench. The senior wizards gathered round, ready to help those less fortunate than themselves remain that way.
'I know what's good for a hangover,' said the Dean, who was feeling in a party mood.
They looked at him expectantly.
'Drinking heavily the previous night!' he said.
He beamed at them.
'That was a good word joke,' he said, to break the silence.
The silence came back.
'Most amusing,' said Ridcully. He turned back and stared thoughtfully at the oh god.
'Raw eggs are said to be good ...' he glared at the Dean '...I mean bad for a hangover,' he said. 'And fresh orange juice.'
— 'Klatchian coffee,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, firmly.
'But this fellow hasn't just got his hangover, he's got everyone's hangover,' said Ridcully.
'I've tried it,' mumbled the oh god. 'It just makes me feel suicidal and sick.'
'A mixture of mustard and horseradish?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'In cream, for preference. With anchovies.'
'Yoghurt' said the Bursar.
Ridcully looked at him, surprised.
'That sounded almost relevant,' he said. 'Well done. I should leave it at that if I were you, Bursar. Hmm. Of course, my uncle always used to swear at Wow-Wow Sauce,' he added.
'You mean swear by, surely?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Possibly both,' said Ridcully. 'I know he once drank a whole bottle of it as a hangover cure and it certainly seemed to cure him. He looked very peaceful when they came to lay him out.'
'Willow bark' said the Bursar.
'That's a good idea,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'It's an analgesic.'
'Really? Well, possibly, though it's probably better to give it to him by mouth,' said Ridcully. 'I say, are you feeling yourself, Bursar? You seem somewhat coherent.'
The oh god opened his crusted eyes.
'Will all that stuff help?' he mumbled.
'It'll probably kill you,' said Susan.
'Oh. Good.'
'We could add Englebert's Enhancer,' said the Dean. 'Remember when Modo put some on his peas? We could only manage one each!'
'Can't you do something more, well, magical?' said Susan. 'Magic the alcohol out of him or something?'
'Yes, but it's not alcohol by this time, is it?' said Ridcully. 'It'll have turned into a lot of nasty little poisons all dancin' round on his liver.'
'Spold's Unstirring Divisor would do it,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Very simply, too. You'd end up with a large beaker full of all the nastiness. Not difficult at all, if you don't mind the side effects.'
'Tell me about the side effects,' said Susan, who had met wizards before.
'The main one is that the rest of him would end up in a somewhat larger beaker,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Alive?'
The Lecturer in Recent Runes screwed up his face and waggled his hands. 'Broadly, yes,' he said. 'Living tissue, certainly. And definitely sober.'
'I think we had in mind something that would leave him the same shape and still breathing,' said Susan.
'Well, you might've said . . .'
Then the Dean repeated the mantra that has had such a marked effect on the progress of knowledge throughout the ages.
'Why don't we just mix up absolutely everything and see what happens?' he said.
And Ridcully responded with the traditional response.
'It's got to be worth a try,' he said.
The big glass beaker for the cure had been placed on a pedestal in the middle of the floor. The wizards liked to make a ceremony of everything in any case, but felt instinctively that if they were going, to cure the biggest hangover in the world it needed to be done with style.
Susan and Bilious watched as the ingredients were added. Round about halfway the mixture, which was an orange— brown colour, went gloop. 'Not a lot of improvement, I feel,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Englebert's Enhancer was the penultimate ingredient. The Dean dropped in a greenish ball of light that sank under the surface. The only apparent effect was that it caused purple bubbles to creep over the sides of the beaker and drip onto the floor.
'That's it?' said the oh god.
'I think the yoghurt probably wasn't a good idea,' said the Dean.
'I'm not drinking that,' said Bilious firmly, and then clutched at his head.
'But gods are practically unkillable, aren't they?' said the Dean.
'Oh, good,' muttered Bilious. 'Why not stick my legs in a meat grinder, then?'
'Well, if you think it might help ...'
'I anticipated a certain amount of resistance from the patient,' said the Archchancellor. He removed his hat and fished out a small crystal ball from a pocket in the lining. 'Let's see what the God of Wine is up to at the moment, shall we? Shouldn't be too difficult to locate a funloving god like him on an evening like this ...'
He blew on the glass and polished it. Then he brightened up.
'Why, here he is, the little rascal! On Dunmanifestin, I do believe. Yes ... yes ... reclining on his couch, surrounded by naked maenads.'
'What? Maniacs?' said the Dean.
'He means ... excitable young women,' said Susan. And it seemed to her that there was a general ripple of movement among the wizards, a sort of nonchalant drawing towards the glittering ball.
'Can't quite see what he's doing said
Ridcully.
'Let me see if I can make it out,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies hopefully. Ridcully half turned to keep the ball out of his reach.
'Ah., yes,' he said. 'It looks like he's drinking ... yes, could very wen be lager and blackcurrant, if I'm any judge ...'
'Oh, me . . .' moaned the oh god.
'These young women, now—' the Lecturer in Recent Runes began.
'I can see there's some bottles on the table,' Ridcully continued. 'That one, hmm, yes, could be scumble which, as you know, is made from apple ...'
'Mainly apples,' the Dean volunteered. 'Now, about these poor mad girls ...'
The oh god slumped to his knees.
'... and there's ... that drink, you know, there's a worm in the bottle ...'
'Oh, me ...'
'... and ... there's an empty glass, a big one, can't quite see what it contained, but there's a paper umbrella in it. And some cherries on a stick. Oh, and an amusing little monkey.'
'ooohhh ...'
'... of course, there's a lot of other bottles too,' said Ridcully, cheerfully. 'Different coloured drinks, mainly. The sort made from melons and coconuts and chocolate and suchlike, don'tcherknow. Funny thing is, all the glasses on the table are pint mugs ...'
Bilious fell forward.
'All right,' he murmured. 'I'll drink the wretched stuff.'
'It's not quite ready yet,' said Ridcully. 'Ah, thank you, Modo.'
Modo tiptoed in, pushing a trolley. There was a large metal bowl on it, in which a small bottle stood in the middle of a heap of crushed ice.
'Only just made this for Hogswatch dinner,' said Ridcully. 'Hasn't had much time to mature yet.'
He put down the crystal and fished a pair of heavy gloves out of his hat.
The wizards spread like an opening flower. One moment they were gathered around Ridcully, the next they were standing close to various items of heavy furniture.
Susan felt she was present at a ceremony and hadn't been told the rules.
'What's that?' she said, as Ridcully carefully lifted up the bottle.
'Wow-Wow Sauce,' said Ridcully. 'Finest condiment known to man. A happy accompaniment to meat, fish, fowl, eggs and many types of vegetable dishes. It's not safe to drink it when sweat's still condensing on the bottle, though.' He peered at the bottle, and then rubbed at it, causing a glassy, squeaky noise. 'On the other hand,' he said brightly, 'if it's a kill-or-cure remedy then we are, given that the patient is practically immortal, probably on to a winner.'
He placed. a thumb over the cork and shook the bottle vigorously. There was a crash as the Chair of Indefinite Studies and the Senior Wrangler tried to get under the same table.
'And these fellows seem to have taken against it for some reason,' he said, approaching the beaker.
'I prefer a sauce that doesn't mean you mustn't make any jolting movements for half an hour after using it,' muttered the Dean.
'And that can't be used for breaking up small rocks,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Or getting rid of tree roots,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'And which isn't actually outlawed in three cities,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcully cautiously uncorked the bottle. There was a brief hiss of indrawn air.
He allowed a few drops to splash into the beaker. Nothing happened.
A more generous helping was allowed to fall. The mixture remained irredeemably inert.
Ridcully sniffed suspiciously at the bottle.
'I wonder if I added enough grated wahooni?' he said, and then upturned the sauce and let most of it slide into the mixture.
It merely went gloop.
The wizards began to stand up and brush themselves off, giving one another the rather embarrassed grins of people who know that they've just been part of a synchronized makinga-fool-of-yourself team.
'I know we've had that asafoetida rather a long time,' said Ridcully. He turned the bottle round, peering at it sadly.
Finally he tipped it up for the last time and thumped it hard on the base.
A trickle of sauce arrived on the lip of the bottle and glistened there for a moment. Then it began to form a bead.
As if drawn by invisible strings, the heads of the wizards turned to look at it.
Wizards wouldn't be wizards if they couldn't see a little way into the future.
As the bead swelled and started to go pearshaped they turned and, with a surprising turn of speed for men so wealthy in years and waistline, began to dive for the floor.
The drop fen.
It went gloop.
And that was all.
Ridcully, who'd been standing like a statue, sagged in relief.
'I don't know,' he said, turning away, 'I wish you fellows would show some backbone ...'
The fireball lifted him off his feet. Then it rose to the ceiling where it spread out widely and vanished with a pop, leaving a perfect chrysanthemum of scorched plaster.
Pure white light filled the room. And there was a sound.
TINKLE. TINKLE. FIZZ.
The wizards risked looking around.
The beaker gleamed. It was filled with a liquid glow, which bubbled gently and sent out sparkles like a spinning diamond.
'My word ...' breathed the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcully picked himself up off the floor. Wizards tended to roll well, or in any case are well. padded enough to bounce.
Slowly, the flickering. brilliance casting their long shadows on the walls, the wizards gravitated towards the beaker.
'Well, what is it?' said the Dean.
'I remember my father tellin' me some very valuable advice about drinks,' said Ridcully. 'He said, "Son, never drink any drink with a paper umbrella in it, never drink any drink with a humorous name, and never drink any drink that changes colour when the last ingredient goes in. And never, ever, do this ..." '
He dipped his finger into the beaker.
It came out with one glistening drop on the end.
'Careful, Archchancellor,' warned the Dean. 'What you have there might represent pure sobriety.'
Ridcully paused with the finger halfway to his lips.
'Good point,' he said. 'I don't want to start being sober at my time of life.' He looked around. 'How do we usually test stuff?'
'Generally we ask for student volunteers,' said the Dean.
'What happens if we don't get any?'
'We give it to them anyway.'
'Isn't that a bit unethical?'
'Not if we don't tell them, Archchancellor.'
'Ah, good point.'
'I'll try it,' the oh god mumbled.
'Something these clo— gentlemen have cooked up?' said Susan. 'It might kill you!'
'You've never had a hangover, I expect,' said the oh god. `Otherwise you wouldn't talk such rot.'
He staggered up to the beaker, managed to grip it on the second go, and drank the lot.
'There'll be fireworks now,' said the raven, from Susan's shoulder. 'Flames coming out of the mouth, screams, clutching at the throat, lying down under the cold tap, that sort of thing ...'
Death found, to his amazement, that dealing with the queue was very enjoyable. Hardly anyone had ever been pleased to see him before.
NEXT! AND WHAT'S YOUR NAME, LITTLE ... He hesitated, but rallied, and continued ... PERSON?
'Nobby Nobbs, Hogfather,' said Nobby. Was it him, or was this knee he was sitting on a lot bonier than it should be? His buttocks argued with his brain, and were sat on.
AND HAVE YOU BEEN A GOOD BO ... A GOOD DWA ... A GOOD GNO ... A GOOD INDIVIDUAL?
And suddenly Nobby found he had no control at all of his tongue. Of its own accord, gripped by a terrible compulsion, it said:
' 's.'
He struggled for self-possession as the great voice went on: SO I EXPECT YOU'LL WANT A PRESENT FOR A GOOD MON ... A GOOD HUM ... A GOOD MALE?
Aha, got you bang to rights, you'll be coming along with me, my old chummy, I bet you don't remember the cellar at the back of the shoelace maker's in Old Cobblers, eh, all those Hogswatch mornings with a little hole in my world, eh?
The words rose in Nobby's throat but were overridden by something ardent before they reached his voice box, and to his amazement were translated into:
' 's.'
SOMETHING NICE?
' 's.'
There was hardly anything left of Nobby's conscious will now. The world consisted of nothing but his naked soul and the Hogfather, who filled the universe.
AND YOU WILL OF COURSE BE GOOD FOR ANOTHER YEAR?
The tiny remnant of basic Nobbyness wanted to say, 'Er, how exactly do you define "good", mister? Like, suppose there was just some stuff that no one'd miss, say? Or, f 'r instance, say a friend of mine was on patrol, sort of thing, and found a shopkeeper had left his door unlocked at night. I mean, anyone could walk in, right, but suppose this friend took one or two things, sort of like, you know, a gratuity, and then called the shopkeeper out and got him to lock up, that counts as "good", does it?'
Good and bad were, to Nobby's way of thinking, entirely relative terms. Most of his relatives, for example, were criminals. But, again, this invitation to philosophical debate was ambushed somewhere in his head by sheer dread of the big beard in the sky.
' 's,' he squeaked.
NOW, I WONDER WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE?
Nobby gave up, and sat mute. Whatever was going to happen next was going to happen, and there was not a thing he could do about it . . . Right now, the light at the end of his mental tunnel showed only more tunnel.
AH, YES ...
The Hogfather reached into his sack and pulled out an awkwardly shaped present wrapped in festive Hogswatch paper which, owing to some slight confusion on the current Hogfather's part, had merry ravens on it. Corporal Nobbs took it in nervous hands.
WHAT DO YOU SAY?
' nk you.'
OFF YOU GO.
Corporal Nobbs slid down gratefully and barged his way through the crowds, stopping only when he was fielded by Constable Visit.
'What happened? What happened? I couldn't see!'
'I dunno,' mumbled Nobby. 'He gave me this.'
'What is it.'
'I dunno . .
He clawed at the raven-bedecked paper.
'This is disgusting, this whole business,' said Constable Visit. 'It's the worship of idols ...'
'It's a genuine Burleigh and Stronginthearm doubleaction triple-cantilever crossbow with a polished walnut stock and engraved silver facings!'
'... a crass commercialization of a date which is purely of astronomical significance,' said Visit, who seldom paid attention when he was in mid-denounce. 'If it is to be celebrated at all, then ...'
'I saw this in Bows and Ammo! It got Editor's Choice in the 'What to Buy When Rich Uncle Sidney Dies" category! They had to break both the reviewer's arms to get him to let go of it!'
' ...ought to be commemorated in a small service of...'
'It must cost more'n a year's salary! They only make 'em to order! You have to wait ages!'
'...religious significance.' It dawned on Constable Visit that something behind him was amiss.
'Aren't we going to arrest this impostor, corporal?' he said.
Corporal Nobbs looked blearily at him through the mists of possessive pride.
'You're foreign, Washpot,' he said. 'I can't expect you to know the real meaning of Hogswatch.'
The oh god blinked.
'Ah,' he said. 'That's better. Oh, yes. That's a lot better. Thank you.'
The wizards, who shared the raven's belief in the essential narrative conventions of life, watched him cautiously.
'Any minute now,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes confidently, 'it'll probably start with some kind of amusing yell...'
'You know,' said the oh god, 'I think I could just possibly eat a soft-boiled egg.'
'...or maybe the cars spinning round...'
'And perhaps drink a glass of milk' said the oh god.
Ridcully looked nonplussed.
'You really feel better?' he said.
'Oh, yes,' said the oh god. 'I really think I could risk a smile without the top of my head falling off.'
'No, no, no,' said the Dean. 'This can't be right. Everyone knows that a good hangover cure has got to involve a lot of humorous shouting, ekcetra.'
'I could possibly tell you a joke,' said the oh god carefully.
'You don't have this pressing urge to run outside and stick your head in a water butt?' said Ridcully.
'Er ... not really,' said the oh god. 'But I'd like some toast, if that helps.'
The Dean took off his hat and pulled a thaumameter out of the point. 'Something happened,' he said. 'There was a massive thaumic surge.'
'Didn't it even taste a bit ... well, spicy?' said Ridcully.
'It didn't taste of anything, really,' said the oh god.
'Oh, look, it's obvious,' said Susan. 'When the God of Wine drinks, Bilious here gets the aftereffects, so when the God of Hangovers drinks a hangover cure then the effects must jump back across the same link.'
'That could be right,' said the Dean. 'He is, after all, basically a conduit.'
'I've always thought of myself as more of a tube,' said the oh god.
'No, no, she's right,' said Ridcully. 'When he drinks, this lad here gets the nasty result. So, logically, when our friend here takes a hangover cure the side effects should head back the same way—'
'Someone mentioned a crystal ball just now,' said the oh god in a voice suddenly clanging with vengeance. 'I want to see this ...'
It was a big drink. A very big and a very long drink. It was one of those special cocktails where each very sticky, very strong ingredient is poured in very slowly, so that they layer on top of one another. Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow's Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Goodbye, Mr Brain Cell.
In addition, this drink had some lettuce floating in it. And a slice of lemon and a piece of pineapple hooked coquettishly on the side of the glass, which had sugar frosted round the rim. There were two paper umbrellas, one pink and one blue, and they each had a cherry on the end.
And someone had taken the trouble to freeze ice cubes in the shape of little elephants. After that, there's no hope. You might as well be drinking in a place called the Cococobana.
The God of Wine picked it up lovingly. It was his kind of drink.
There was a rumba going on in the background. There were also a couple of young ladies snuggling up to him. It was going to be a good night. It was always a good night.
'Happy Hogswatch, everyone!' he said, and raised the glass.
And then: 'Can anyone hear something?'
Someone blew a paper squeaker at him.
'No, seriously ... like a sort of descending note
Since no one paid this any attention he shrugged, and nudged one of his fellow drinkers.
'How about we have a couple more and go to this club I know?' he said.
And then.......
The wizards leaned back, and one or two of them grimaced.
Only the oh god stayed glued to the glass, face contorted in a vicious smile.
'We have eructation!' he shouted, and punched the air. 'Yes! Yes! Yes! The worm is on the other boot now, eh? Hah! How do you like them apples, huh?'
'Well, mainly apples—' said the Dean.
'Looked like a lot of other things to me,' said Ridcully. 'It seems we have reversed the cause-effect flow . . .'
'Will it be permanent?' said the oh god hopefully.
'I shouldn't think so. After all, you are the God of Hangovers. It'll probably just reverse itself again when the potion wears off.'
'Then I may not have much time. Bring me ... let's see ... twenty pints of lager, some pepper vodka and a bottle of coffee liqueur! With an umbrella in it! Let's see how he enjoys that, Mr You've Cot Room For Another One In There!'
Susan grabbed his hand and pulled him over to a bench.
'I didn't have you sobered up just so you could go on a binge!' she said.
He blinked at her. 'You didn't?'
'I want you to help me!'
'Help you what?'
'You said you'd never been human before, didn't you?'
'Er ...' The oh god looked down at himself. 'That's right,' he said. 'Never.'
'You've never incarnated?' said Ridcully.
'Surely that's a rather personal question, isn't it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'That's ... right,' said the oh god. 'Odd, that. I remember always having headaches ... but never having a head. That can't be right, can it?'
'You existed in potentia?' said Ridcully.
'Did what?'
'Did he?' said Susan.
Ridcully paused. 'Oh dear,' he said. 'I think I did it, didn't I? I said something to young Stibbons about drinking and hangovers, didn't I ... ?'
'And you created him just like that?' said the Dean. 'I find that very hard to believe, Mustrum. Hah! Out of thin air? I suppose we can all do that, can we? Anyone care to think up some new pixie?'
'Like the Hair Loss Fairy?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The other wizards laughed.
'I am not losing my hair!' snapped the Dean. 'It is just very finely spaced.'
'Half on your head and half on your hairbrush,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'No sense in bein' bashful about goin' bald,' said Ridcully evenly. 'Anyway, you know what they say about bald men, Dean.'
'Yes, they say, "Look at him, he's got no hair,"' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The Dean had been annoying him lately.
'For the last time,' shouted the Dean, 'I am not...'
He stopped.
There was a glingleglingleglingle noise.
'I wish I knew where that was coming from,' said Ridcully.
'Er . . .' the Dean began. 'Is there ... something on my head?'
The other wizards stared.
Something was moving under his hat.
Very carefully, he reached up and removed it.
The very small gnome sitting on his head had a chimp of the Dean's hair in each hand. It blinked guiltily in the light.
'Is there a problem?' it said.
'Get it off me!' the Dean yelled.
The wizards hesitated. They were all vaguely aware of the theory that very small creatures could pass on diseases, and while the gnome was larger than such creatures were generally thought to be, no one wanted to catch Expanding Scalp Sickness.
Susan grabbed it.
'Are you the Hair Loss Fairy?' she said.
`Apparently,' said the gnome, wriggling in her grip.
The Dean ran his hands desperately through his hair.
'What have you been doing with my hair?' he demanded.
'Welt some of it I think I have to put on hairbrushes,' said the gnome, 'but sometimes I think I weave it into little mats to block up the bath with.'
'What do you mean, you think?' said Ridcully.
'Just a minute,' said Susan. She turned to the oh god. 'Where exactly were you before I found you in the snow?'
'Er ... sort of ... everywhere, I think,' said the oh god. 'Anywhere where drink had been consumed in beastly quantities some time previously, you could say.'
'Ah-ha,' said Ridcully. 'You were an immanent vital force, yes?'
'I suppose I could have been,' the oh god conceded.
'And when we joked about the Hair Loss Fairy it suddenly focused on the Dean's head,' said Ridcully, 'where its operations have been noticeable to all of us in recent months although of course we have been far too polite to pass comment on the subject.'
'You're calling things into being,' said Susan.
'Things like the Give the Dean a Huge Bag of Money Goblin?' said the Dean, who could think very quickly at times. He looked around hopefully. 'Anyone hear any fairy tinkling?'
'Do you often get given huge bags of money, sir?' said Susan.
'Not on what you'd call a daily basis, no,' said the Dean. 'But if...'
'Then there probably isn't any occult room for a Huge Bags of Money Goblin,' said Susan.
'I personally have always wondered what happens to my socks,' said the Bursar cheerfully. 'You know how there's always one missing? When I was a lad I always thought that something was taking them . . .'
The wizards gave this some thought. Then they all heard it — the little crinkly tinkling noise of magic taking place.
The Archchancellor pointed dramatically skywards.
'To the laundry!' he said.
'It's downstairs, Ridcully,' said the Dean.
'Down to the laundry!'
'And you know Mrs Whitlow doesn't like us going in there,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'And who is Archchancellor of this University, may I ask?' said Ridcully. 'Is it Mrs Whitlow? I don't think so! Is it me? Why, how amazing, I do believe it is!'
'Yes, but you know what she can be like,' said the Chair.
'Er, yes, that's true...' Ridcully began.
'I believe she's gone to her sister's for the holiday,' said the Bursar.
'We certainly don't have to take orders from any kind of housekeeper!' said the Archchancellor. 'To the laundry!'
The wizards surged out excitedly, leaving Susan, the oh god, the Verruca Gnome and the Hair Loss Fairy.
'Tell me again who those people were,' said the oh god.
'Some of the cleverest men in the world,' said Susan.
'And I'm sober, am I? But I'm not getting...'
'Clever isn't the same as sensible,' said Susan, 'and they do say that if you wish to walk the path to wisdom then for your first step you must become as a small child.'
'Do you think they've heard about the second step?'
Susan sighed. 'Probably not, but sometimes they fall over it while they're running around shouting.'
'Ah.' The oh god looked around. 'Do you think they have any soft drinks here?' he said.
The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step.
Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it. They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe, and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak-butter tea that would give it any kind of meaning. While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they're probably all on first steps.
The Dean was always at his best at times like this. He led the way between the huge, ardent copper vats, prodding with his staff into dark corners and going 'Hut! Hut!' under his breath.
'Why would it turn up here?' whispered the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Point of reality instability,' said Ridcully, standing on tiptoe to look into a bleaching cauldron. 'Every damn thing turns up here. You should know that by now.'
'But why now?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
'No talking!' hissed the Dean, and leapt out into the next alleyway, staff held protectively in front of him.
'Hall!' he screamed, and then looked disappointed
' Er, how big would this sock-stealing thing be?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Don't know,' said Ridcully. He peered behind a stack of washboards. 'Come to think of it, I must've lost a ton of socks over the years.'
'Me too,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'So ... should we be looking in small places or very large places?' the Senior Wrangler went on, in the voice of one whose train of thought has just entered a long dark tunnel.
'Good point,' said Ridcully. 'Dean, why do you keep referring to sheds all the time?'
'It's "hut", Mustrum,' said the Dean. 'It means ... it means...'
'Small wooden building?' Ridcully suggested.
'Welt sometimes, agreed, but other times ... well, you just have to say "hut".'
'This sock creature ... does it just steal them, or does it eat them?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Valuable contribution' that man,' said Ridcully, giving tip on the Dean. 'Right, pass the word along: no one is to look like a sock, understand?'
'How can you...' the Dean began, and stopped.
They all heard it.
... grnf, grnf, grnf ...
It was a busy sound, the sound of something with a serious appetite to satisfy.
'The Eater of Socks,' moaned the Senior Wrangler, with his eyes shut.
'How many tentacles would you expect it to have?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'I mean, roughly speaking?'
'It's a very large sort of noise, isn't it?' said the Bursar.
'To the nearest dozen, say,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, edging backwards.
... grnf, grnf, grnf ...
'It'd probably tear our socks off as soon as look at us ...' wailed the Senior Wrangler.
'Ah. So at least five or six tentacles, then, would you say?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Seems to me it's coming from one of the washing engines,' said the Dean.
The engines were each two storeys high, and usually only used when the University's population soared during term time. A huge treadmill connected to a couple of big bleached wooden paddles in each vat, which were heated via the fireboxes underneath. In full production the washing engines needed at least half a dozen people to manhandle the loads, maintain the fires and oil the scrubbing arms. Ridcully had seen them at work once, when it had looked like a picture of a very dean and hygienic Hell, the kind of place soap might go to when it died.
The Dean stopped by the door to the boiler area.
'Something's in here,' he whispered. 'Listen!'
..grnf...
It's stopped! It knows we're here!' he hissed. "All right? Ready? Hut!'
'No!' squeaked the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'I'll open the door and you be ready to stop it! One ... two ... three! Oh ...'
The sleigh soared into the snowy sky.
ON THE WHOLE, I THINK THAT WENT VERY WELL, DON'T YOU?
'Yes, master,' said Albert.
I WAS RATHER PUZZLED BY THE LITTLE BOY IN THE CHAIN MAIL, THOUGH.
'I think that was a Watchman, master.'
REALLY? WELL, HE WENT AWAY HAPPY, AND THAT's THE MAIN THING.
'Is it, master?' There was worry in Albert's voice. Death's osmotic nature tended to pick up new ideas altogether too quickly. Of course, Albert understood why they had to do all this, but the master ... well, sometimes the master lacked the necessary mental equipment to work out what should be true and what shouldn't ...
AND I THINK I'VE GOT THE LAUGH WORKING REALLY WELL NOW. HO. HO. HO.
'Yeah, sir, very jolly,' said Albert. He looked down at the list. 'Still, work goes on, eh? The next one's pretty dose, master, so I should keep them down low if I was you.'
JOLLY GOOD. HO. HO. HO.
'Sarah the little match girl, doorway of Thimble's Pipe and Tobacco Shop, Money Trap Lane, it says here.'
AND WHAT DOES SHE WANT FOR HOGSWATCH? HO. HO. HO.
'Dunno. Never sent a letter. By the way, just a tip, you don't have to say "Ho, ho, ho, " all the time, master. Let's see ... It says here...' Albert's lips moved as he read.
I EXPECT A DOLL IS ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE. OR A SOFT TOY OF SOME DESCRIPTION. THE SACK SEEMS TO KNOW. WHAT'VE WE GOT FOR HER, ALBERT? HO. HO. HO.
Something small was dropped into his hand.
'This,' said Albert.
OH.
There was a moment of horrible silence as they both stared at the lifetimer.
'You're for life, not just for Hogswatch,' prompted Albert. 'Life goes on, master. In a manner of speaking.'
BUT THIS IS HOGSWATCHNIGHT.
'Very traditional time for this sort of thing, I understand,' said Albert.
I THOUGHT IT WAS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY, said Death.
'Ah, well, yes, you see, one of the things that makes folks even more jolly is knowing there're people who ain't,' said Albert, in a matter-of-fact voice. 'That's how it goes, master. Master?'
NO.
Death stood up.
THIS IS HOW IT SHOULDN'T GO.
The University's Great Hall had been set for the Hogswatchnight Feast. The tables were already groaning under the weight of the cutlery, and it would be hours before any real food was put on them. It was hard to see where there would be space for any among the drifts of ornamental fruit bowls and forests of wine glasses.
The oh god picked up a menu and turned to the fourth page.
'Course four: molluscs and crustaceans. A medley of lobster, crab, king crab, prawn, shrimp, oyster, clam, giant mussel, green-lipped mussel, thin-lipped mussel and Fighting Tiger Limpet. With a herb and butter dipping sauce. Wine: "Three Wizards" Chardonnay, Year of the Talking Frog. Beer: Winkles' Old Peculiar.' He put it down. 'That's one course?' he said.
'They're big men in the food department,' said Susan.
He turned the menu over. On the cover was the University's coat of arms and, over it, three large letters in ardent script: "E B P"
'Is this some sort of magic word?'
'No.' Susan sighed. 'They put it on all their menus. You might call it the unofficial motto of the University.'
'What's it mean?'
'Eta Beta Pi.'
Bilious gave her an expectant look.