Hogfather

Susan tried to make herself unseen, and failed. Usually it was so easy to do that that it happened automatically, usually with embarrassing results. She could be idly reading a book while people searched the room for her. But here, despite every effort, she seemed to remain obstinately visible.

‘You don’t own this place,’ she said, stepping back.

‘No, but you see this crossbow? I own this crossbow. So you just walk ahead of me, right, and we’ll all go and see Mister Teatime.’

‘Excuse me, I just want to check something,’ said Bilious. To Susan’s amazement he leaned over and touched the point of the arrow.

‘Here! What did you do that for?’ said Peachy, stepping back.

‘I felt it, but of course a certain amount of pain sensation would be part of normal sensory response,’ said the oh god. ‘I warn you, there’s a very good chance that I might be immortal.’

‘Yes, but we probably aren’t,’ said Susan.

‘Immortal, eh?’ said Peachy. ‘So if I was to shoot you inna head, you wouldn’t die?’

‘I suppose when you put it like that … I do know I feel pain …’

‘Right. You just keep moving, then.’

‘When something happens,’ said Susan, out of the corner of her mouth, ‘you two try to get downstairs and out, all right? If the worst comes to the worst, the horse will take you out of here.’

‘If something happens,’ whispered the oh god.

‘When,’ said Susan.

Behind them, Peachy looked around. He knew he’d feel a lot better when any of the others turned up. It was almost a relief to have prisoners.

Out of the corner of her eye Susan saw something move on the stairs on the opposite side of the shaft. For a moment she thought she saw several flashes like metal blades catching the light.

She heard a gasp behind her.

The man with the crossbow was standing very still and staring at the opposite stairs.

‘Oh, noooo,’ he said, under his breath.

‘What is it?’ said Susan.

He stared at her. ‘You can see it too?’

‘The thing like a lot of blades clicking together?’ said Susan.

‘Oh, noooo …’

‘It was only there for a moment,’ said Susan. ‘It’s gone now,’ she said. ‘Somewhere else,’ she added.

‘It’s the Scissor Man …’

‘Who’s he?’ said the oh god.

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

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

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

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

Peachy had his eyes shut.

‘Is there anything behind me?’ he quavered.

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

‘No,’ she said, as they hurried away.

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

‘No.’

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

He turned and ran.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Susan ran on towards the top of the tower.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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