Hogfather 3 страница

The tube creatures didn't notice him go.

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

 

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

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

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

'Here, you get down, I ain't allowed to give li...'

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

'Sorry?' said Teatime, smiling brightly.

'Er - there ain't nothing valuable, y'know, nothing valuable, only a few bags of...'

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

'Ernie. Er. Ernie,' said Ernie. 'Yes. Ernie. Er... '

Teatime turned his head slightly.

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

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

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

'Where to, mister?'

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

The knife was withdrawn.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

'Er...'

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

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

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

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

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

'You be quiet, Banjo.'

'Our mam said...'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was a murmur of agreement.

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

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

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

'This is Mr Brown, Banjo. You smarten up.'

'He dint ort to tork about our mam!'

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What's up with your mouth, Banjo?'

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

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

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

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

'Bloody wizards,' muttered Ernie, automatically.

'I beg your pardon?' said Teatime.

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

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

'Yeah, well, warning signs in Ankh-Morpork might as well have "Good firewood" written on them,' said someone else.

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

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

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

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

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

The horse turned a corner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'But if'n I take you through-'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'SO... you don't need any special training or anything?'

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

'Really? May I try?'

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

... twing.

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

'Yeah.'

'All pretty sparkles...'

'And then you just drive forward?' said Teatime.

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Well, said one, we are frankly impressed.

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

He is certainly a resourceful human, said a third.

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

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

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

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

There was a dreadful pause.

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

You said 'me', said one.

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

The robe vanished in a little puff of smoke.

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

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

It stopped. A dark shape was approaching through the snow.

It's him, it said.

They faded hurriedly - not simply vanishing, but spreading out and thinning until they were just lost in the background.

 

The dark figure stopped by the dead carter and reached down.

COULD I GIVE YOU A HAND?

Ernie looked up gratefully.

'Cor, yeah,' he said. He got to his feet, swaying a little. 'Here, your fingers're cold, mister!'

SORRY.

'What'd he go and do that for? I did what he said. He could've killed me.'

Ernie felt inside his overcoat and pulled out a small and, at this point, strangely transparent silver flask.

'I always keep a nip on me these cold nights,' he said. 'Keeps me spirits up.'

YES INDEED. Death looked around briefly and sniffed the air.

'How'm I going to explain all this, then, eh?' said Ernie, taking a pull.

SORRY? THAT WAS VERY RUDE OF ME. I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION.

'I said what'm I going to tell people? Letting some blokes ride off with my cart neat as you like... That's gonna be the sack for sure, I'm gonna be in big trouble...'

All. WELL. THERE AT LEAST I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS, ERNEST. AND, THEN AGAIN, I HAVE SOME BAD NEWS.

Ernie listened. Once or twice he looked at the corpse at his feet. He looked smaller from the outside. He was bright enough not to argue. Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.

'So I'm dead, then,' he concluded.

CORRECT.

'Er... The priest said that... you know. after you're dead... it's like going through a door and on one side of it there's... He... well, a terrible place...?'

Death looked at his worried, fading face.

THROUGH A DOOR...

'That's what he said..

I EXPECT IT DEPENDS ON THE DIRECTION YOU'RE WALKING IN.

 

When the street was empty again, except for the fleshy abode of the late Ernie, the grey shapes came back into focus.

Honestly, he gets worse and worse, said one.

He was looking for us, said another. Did you notice? He suspects something. He gets so... concerned about things.

Yes... but the beauty of this plan, said a third, is that he can't interfere.

He can go everywhere, said one.

No, said another. Not quite everywhere.

And, with ineffable smugness, they faded into the foreground.

It started to snow quite heavily.

 

It was the night before Hogswatch. All through the house...

...one creature stirred. It was a mouse.

And someone, in the face of all appropriateness, had baited a trap. Although, because it was the festive season, they'd used a piece of pork crackling. The smell of it had been driving the mouse mad all day but now, with no one about, it was prepared to risk it.

The mouse didn't know it was a trap. Mice aren't good at passing on information. Young mice aren't taken up to famous trap sites and told, 'This is where your Uncle Arthur passed away.' All it knew was that, what the hey, here was something to eat. On a wooden board with some wire round it.

A brief scurry later and its jaw had closed on the rind.

Or, rather, passed through it.

The mouse looked around at what was now lying under the big spring, and thought, 'Oops...'

Then its gaze went up to the black-clad figure that had faded into view by the wainscoting.

'Squeak?' it asked.

SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats.

And that was it, more or less.

Afterwards, the Death of Rats looked around with interest. In the nature of things his very important job tended to take him to brickyards and dark cellars and the inside of cats and all the little dank holes where rats and mice finally found out if there was a Promised Cheese. This place was different.

It was brightly decorated, for one thing. Ivy and mistletoe hung in bunches from the bookshelves. Brightly coloured streamers festooned the walls, a feature seldom found in most holes or even quite civilized cats.

The Death of Rats took a leap onto a chair and from there on to the table and in fact right into a glass of amber liquid, which tipped over and broke. A puddle spread around four turnips and began to soak into a note which had been written rather awkwardly on pink writing paper.

It read:

 

Dere Hogfather,

For Hogswatch I would like a drum an a dolly an a teddybear an a Gharstley Omnian Inquisision Torchure Chamber with Wind-up Rack and Nearly Real Blud You Can Use Again, you can get it From the toyshoppe in Short Strete, it is $5.99p. I have been good an here is a glars of Sherre an a Pork pie for you and turnips for Gouger an Rooter an Snot Snouter. I hop the Chimney is big enough but my friend Willaim Says you are your father really.

Yrs. Virginia Prood

 

The Death of Rats nibbled a bit of the pork pie because when you are the personification of the death of small rodents you have to behave in certain ways. He also piddled on one of the turnips for the same reason, although only metaphorically, because when you are a small skeleton in a black robe there are also some things you technically cannot do.

Then he leapt down from the table and left sherryflavoured footprints all the way to the tree that stood in a pot in the corner. It was really only a bare branch of oak, but so much shiny holly and mistletoe had been wired onto it that it gleamed in the fight of the candles.

There was tinsel on it, and glittering ornaments, and small bags of chocolate money.

The Death of Rats peered at his hugely distorted reflection in a glass ball, and then looked up at the mantelpiece.

He reached it in one jump, and ambled curiously through the cards that had been ranged along it. His grey whiskers twitched at messages like 'Wifhin you Joye and all Goode Cheer at Hogswatchtime & All Through The Yeare'. A couple of them had pictures of a big jolly fat man carrying a sack. In one of them he was riding in a sledge drawn by four enormous pigs.

The Death of Rats sniffed at a couple of long stockings that had been hung from the mantelpiece, over the fireplace in which a fire had died down to a few sullen ashes.

He was aware of a subtle tension in the air, a feeling that here was a scene that was also a stage, a round hole, as it were, waiting for a round peg

There was a scraping noise. A few lumps of soot thumped into the ashes.

The Grim Squeaker nodded to himself.

The scraping became louder, and was followed by a moment of silence and then a clang as something landed in the ashes and knocked over a set of ornamental fire irons.

The rat watched carefully as a red-robed figure pulled itself upright and staggered across the hearthrug, rubbing its shin where it had been caught by the toasting fork.

It reached the table and read the note. The Death of Rats thought he heard a groan.

The turnips were pocketed and so, to the Death of Rats' annoyance, was the pork pie. He was pretty sure it was meant to be eaten here, not taken away.

The figure scanned the dripping note for a moment, and then turned around and approached the mantelpiece. The Death of Rats pulled back slightly behind ' Seafon's Greetings! '

A red-gloved hand took down a stocking. There was some creaking and rustling and it was replaced, looking a lot fatter - the larger box sticking out of the top had, just visible, the words ' Victim Figures Not Included. 3-10 yrs '.

The Death of Rats couldn't see much of the donor of this munificence. The big red hood hid all the face, apart from a long white beard.

Finally, when the figure finished, it stood back and pulled a list out of its pocket. It held it up to the hood and appeared to be consulting it. It waved its other hand vaguely at the fireplace, the sooty footprints, the empty sherry glass and the stocking. Then it bent forward, as if reading some tiny print.

AH, YES, it said. ER... HO. HO. HO.

With that, it ducked down and entered the chimney. There was some scrabbling before its boots gained a purchase, and then it was gone.

The Death of Rats realized he'd begun to knaw his little scythe's handle in sheer shock.

SQUEAK?

 

He landed in the ashes and swarmed up the sooty cave of the chimney. He emerged so fast that he shot out with his legs still scrabbling and landed in the snow on the roof.

There was a sledge hovering in the air by the gutter.

The red-hooded figure had just climbed in and appeared to be talking to someone invisible behind a pile of sacks.

HERE'S ANOTHER PORK PIE.

'Any mustard?' said the sacks. 'They're a treat with mustard.'

IT DOES NOT APPEAR SO.

'Oh, well. Pass it over anyway.'

IT LOOKS VERY BAD.

'Nah, 's just where something's nibbled it---'

I MEAN THE SITUATION. MOST OF THE LETTERS... THEY DON'T REALLY BELIEVE. THEY PRETEND TO

BELIEVE, JUST IN CASE[7]. I FEAR IT MAY BE TOO LATE. IT HAS SPREAD SO FAST AND BACK IN TIME, TOO.

'Never say die, master. That's our motto, eh?' said the sacks, apparently with their mouth full.

I CAN'T SAY IT'S EVER REALLY BEEN MINE.

'I meant we're not going to be intimidated by the certain prospect of complete and utter failure, master.'

AREN'T WE? OH, GOOD. WELL, I SUPPOSE WE'D BETTER BE GOING. The figure picked up the reins. UP, GOUGER! UP, ROOTER! UP, TUSKER! UP, SNOUTER! GIDDYUP!

The four large boars harnessed to the sledge did not move.

WHY DOESN'T THAT WORK? said the figure in a puzzled, heavy voice.

'Beats me, master,' said the sacks.

IT WORKS ON HORSES.

'You could try "Pig-hooey! "'

PIG-HOOEY. They waited. NO... DOESN'T SEEM TO REACH THEM.

There was some whispering.

REALLY? YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK?

'It'd bloody well work on me if I was a pig, master.'

VERY WELL, THEN.

The figure gathered up the reins again.

APPLE! SAUCE!

The pigs' legs blurred. Silver light flicked across them, and exploded outwards. They dwindled to a dot, and vanished.

 

SQUEAK?

The Death of Rats skipped across the snow, slid down a drainpipe and landed on the roof of a shed.

There was a raven perched there. It was staring disconsolately at something.

SQUEAK!

'Look at that, willya?' said the raven rhetorically. It waved a claw at a bird table in the garden below. 'They hangs up half a bloody coconut, a lump of bacon rind, a handful of peanuts in a bit of wire and they think they're the gods' gift to the nat'ral world. Huh. Do I see eyeballs? Do I see entrails? I think not. Most intelligent bird in the temperate latitudes an' I gets the cold shoulder just because I can't hang upside down and go twit, twit. Look at robins, now. Stroppy little evil buggers, fight like demons, but all they got to do is go bob-bob-bobbing along and they can't move for breadcrumbs. Whereas me myself can recite poems and repeat many hum'rous phrases...'

SQUEAK!

'Yes? What?'

The Death of Rats pointed at the roof and then the sky and jumped up and down excitedly. The raven swivelled one eye upwards.

'Oh, yes. Him,' he said. 'Turns up at this time of year. Tends to be associated distantly with robins, which-'

SQUEAK! SQUEE IK IR IK! The Death of Rats pantomimed a figure landing in a grate and walking around a room. SQUEAK EEK IK IK, SQUEAK 'HEEK HEEK HEEK'! IK IK SQUEAK!

'Been overdoing the Hogswatch cheer, have you? Been rustling around in the brandy butter?'

SQUEAK?

The raven's eyes revolved.

'Look, Death's Death. It's a full-time job right?

it's not as though you can run, like, a window cleaning round on the side or nip round after work cutting people's lawns.'

SQUEAK!

'Oh, please yourself.'

The raven crouched a little to allow the tiny figure to hop on to its back, and then lumbered into the air.

'Of course, they can go mental, your occult types,' it said, as it swooped over the moonlit garden. 'Look at Old Man Trouble, for one...'

SQUEAK.

'Oh, I'm not suggestin...'

 

Susan didn't like Biers but she went there anyway, when the pressure of being normal got too much. Biers, despite the smell and the drink and the company, had one important virtue. In Biers no one took any notice. Of anything. Hogswatch was traditionally supposed to be a time for families but the people who drank in Biers probably didn't have families; some of them looked as though they might have had litters, or clutches. Some of them looked as though they'd probably eaten their relatives, or at least someone's relatives.

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor.

The regular customers didn't ask questions, and not only because some of them found anything above a growl hard to articulate. None of them was in the answers business. Everyone in Biers drank alone. even when they were in groups. Or packs.

Despite the decorations put up inexpertly by Igor the barman to show willing,[8]Biers was not a family place.

Family was a subject Susan liked to avoid.

Currently she was being aided in this by a gin and tonic. In Biers, unless you weren't choosy, it paid to order a drink that was transparent because Igor also had undirected ideas about what you could stick on the end of a cocktail stick. If you saw something spherical and green, you just had to hope that it was an olive.

She felt hot breath on her ear. A bogeyman had sat down on the stool beside her.

'Woss a normo doin' in a place like this, then?' it rumbled, causing a cloud of vaporized alcohol and halitosis to engulf her. 'Hah, you fink it's cool comin' down here an' swannin' around in a black dress wid all the lost boys, eh? Dabblin' in a bit of designer darkness, eh?'

Susan moved her stool away a little. The bogeyman grinned.

'Want a bogeyman under yer bed, eh?'

'Now then, Shlimazel,' said Igor, without looking up from polishing a glass.

'Well, woss she down here for, eh?' said the bogeyman. A huge hairy hand grabbed Susan's arm. 'O' course, maybe what she wants is-'

'I ain't telling you again, Shlimazel,' said Igor.

He saw the girl turn to face Shlimazel.

Igor wasn't in a position to see her face fully, but the bogeyman was. He shot back so quickly that he fell off his stool.

And when the girl spoke, what she said was only partly words but also a statement, written in stone, of how the future was going to be.

' GO AWAY AND STOP BOTHERING ME.'