Hogfather

No one human, anyway.

He looked human and, in theory, quite young. But it was only in theory because, even by the second-hand light of the glowing snow, his face looked like someone had been sick with it.

‘Are you all right?’ she ventured.

The recumbent figure opened its eyes and stared straight up.

‘I wish I was dead …’ it moaned. A piece of ice the size of a house fell down in the far depths of the building and exploded in a shower of sharp little shards.

‘You may have come to the right place,’ said Susan. She grabbed the boy under his arms and hauled him out of the snow. ‘I think leaving would be a very good idea around now, don’t you? This place is going to fall apart.’

‘Oh, me …’

She managed to get one of his arms around her neck.

‘Can you walk?’

‘Oh, me …’

‘It might help if you stopped saying that and tried walking.’

‘I’m sorry, but I seem to have … too many legs. Ow.’

Susan did her best to prop him up as, swaying and slipping, they made their way back to the exit.

‘My head,’ said the boy. ‘My head. My head. My head. Feels awful. My head. Feels like someone’s hitting it. My head. With a hammer.’

Someone was. There was a small green and purple imp sitting amid the damp curls and holding a very large mallet. It gave Susan a friendly nod and brought the hammer down again.

‘Oh, me …’

‘That wasn’t necessary!’ said Susan.

‘You telling me my job?’ said the imp. ‘I suppose you could do it better, could you?’

‘I wouldn’t do it at all!’

‘Well, someone’s got to do it,’ said the imp.

‘He’s part. Of the. Arrangement,’ said the boy.

‘Yeah, see?’ said the imp. ‘Can you hold the hammer while I go and coat his tongue with yellow gunk?’

‘Get down right now!’

Susan made a grab for the creature. It leapt away, still clutching the hammer, and grabbed a pillar.

‘I’m part of the arrangement, I am!’ it yelled.

The boy clutched his head.

‘I feel awful,’ he said. ‘Have you got any ice?’

Whereupon, because there are conventions stronger than mere physics, the building fell in.

The collapse of the Castle of Bones was stately and impressive and seemed to go on for a long time. Pillars fell in, the slabs of the roof slid down, the ice crackled and splintered. The air above the tumbling wreckage filled with a haze of snow and ice crystals.

Susan watched from the trees. The boy, who she’d leaned against a handy trunk, opened his eyes.

‘That was amazing,’ he managed.

‘Why, you mean the way it’s all turning back into snow?’

‘The way you just picked me up and ran. Ouch!’

‘Oh, that.’

The grinding of the ice continued. The fallen pillars didn’t stop moving when they collapsed, but went on tearing themselves apart.

When the fog of ice settled there was nothing but drifted snow.

‘As though it was never there,’ said Susan, aloud. She turned to the groaning figure.

‘All right, what were you doing there?’

‘I don’t know. I just opened my. Eyes and there I was.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I … think my name is Bilious. I’m the … I’m the oh God of Hangovers.’

‘There’s a God of Hangovers?’

‘An oh god,’ he corrected. ‘When people witness me, you see, they clutch their head and say, “Oh God …” How many of you are standing here?’

‘What? There’s just me!’

‘Ah. Fine. Fine.’

‘I’ve never heard of a God of Hangovers …’

‘You’ve heard of Bibulous, the God of Wine? Ouch.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Big fat man, wears vine leaves round his head, always pictured with a glass in his hand … Ow. Well, you know why he’s so cheerful? Him and his big face? It’s because he knows he’s going to feel good in the morning! It’s because it’s me that—’

‘—gets the hangovers?’ said Susan.

‘I don’t even drink! Ow! But who is it who ends up head down in the privy every morning? Arrgh,’ He stopped and clutched at his head. ‘Should your skull feel like it’s lined with dog hair?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Ah.’ Bilious swayed. ‘You know when people say “I had fifteen lagers last night and when I woke up my head was clear as a bell”?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Bastards! That’s because I was the one who woke up groaning in a pile of recycled chilli. Just once, I mean just once, I’d like to open my eyes in the morning without my head sticking to something.’ He paused. ‘Are there any giraffes in this wood?’

‘Up here? I shouldn’t think so.’

He looked nervously past Susan’s head.

‘Not even indigo-coloured ones which are sort of stretched and keep flashing on and off?’

‘Very unlikely.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’ He swayed back and forth. ‘Excuse me, I think I’m about to throw up my breakfast.’

‘It’s the middle of the evening!’

‘Is it? In that case, I think I’m about to throw up my dinner.’

He folded up gently in the snow behind the tree.

‘He’s a long streak of widdle, isn’t he?’ said a voice from a branch. It was the raven. ‘Got a neck with a knee in it.’

The oh god reappeared after a noisy interlude.

‘I know I must eat,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s just that the only time I remember seeing my food it’s always going the other way …’

‘What were you doing in there?’ said Susan.