Hogfather

‘Yes, yes, of course, yes.’ Sideney waved his hands urgently. ‘That’s how I worked out this one. Reverse thaumaturgy, yes, certainly. Er. In time.’

‘We have lots of time,’ said Teatime.

‘Perhaps a little more time than that,’ Sideney quavered. ‘The processes are very, very, very … difficult.’

‘Oh, dear. If it’s too much for you, you’ve only got to say,’ said Teatime.

‘No!’ Sideney yipped, and then managed to get some self-control. ‘No. No. No, I can … I’m sure I shall work them out soon—’

‘Jolly good,’ said Teatime.

The student wizard looked down. A wisp of vapour oozed from the crack between the doors.

‘Do you know what’s in here, Mister Teatime?’

‘No.’

‘Ah. Right.’ Sideney stared mournfully at the fourth lock. It was amazing how much you remembered when someone like Teatime was around.

He gave him a nervous look. ‘There’s not going to be any more violent deaths, are there?’ he said. ‘I just can’t stand the sight of violent deaths!’

Teatime put a comforting arm around his shoulders. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m on your side. A violent death is the last thing that’ll happen to you.’

‘Mister Teatime?’

He turned. Medium Dave stepped onto the landing.

‘Someone else is in the tower,’ he said. ‘They’ve got Catseye. I don’t know how. I’ve got Peachy watching the stairs and I ain’t sure where Chickenwire is.’

Teatime looked back to Sideney, who started prodding at the fourth lock again in a feverish attempt not to die.

‘Why are you telling me? I thought I was paying you big strong men a lot of money to deal with this sort of thing.’

Medium Dave’s lips framed some words, but when he spoke he said, ‘All right, but what are we up against here? Eh? Old Man Trouble or the bogeyman or what?’

Teatime sighed.

‘Some of the Tooth Fairy’s employees, I assume,’ he said.

‘Not if they’re like the ones that were here,’ said Medium Dave. ‘They were just civilians. It looks like the ground opened and swallowed Catseye up.’ He thought about this. ‘I mean the ceiling,’ he corrected himself. A horrible image had just passed across his under-used imagination.

Teatime walked across to the stairwell and looked down. Far below, the pile of teeth looked like a white circle.

‘And the girl’s gone,’ said Medium Dave.

‘Really? I thought I said she should be killed.’

Medium Dave hesitated. The boys had been brought up by Ma Lilywhite to be respectful to women as delicate and fragile creatures, and were soundly thrashed if disrespectful tendencies were perceived by Ma’s incredibly sensitive radar. And it was truly incredibly sensitive. Ma could hear what you were doing three rooms away, a terrible thing for a growing lad.

That sort of thing leaves a mark. Ma Lilywhite certainly could. As for the others, they had no objections in practice to the disposal of anyone who got between them and large sums of money, but there was a general unspoken resentment at being told by Teatime to kill someone just because he had no further use for them. It wasn’t that it was unprofessional. Only Assassins thought like that. It was just that there were things you did do, and things you didn’t do. And this was one of the things you didn’t do.

‘We thought … well, you never know …’

‘She wasn’t necessary,’ said Teatime. ‘Few people are.’

Sideney thumbed hurriedly through his notebooks.

‘Anyway, the place is a maze—’ Medium Dave said.

‘Sadly, this is so,’ said Teatime. ‘But I am sure they will be able to find us. It’s probably too much to hope that they intend something heroic.’

Violet and the oh god hurried down the stairs.

‘Do you know how to get back?’ said Violet.

‘Don’t you?’

‘I think there’s a … a kind of soft place. If you walk at it knowing it’s there you go through.’

‘You know where it is?’

‘No! I’ve never been here before! They had a bag on my head when we came! All I ever did was take the teeth from under the pillows!’ Violet started to sob. ‘You just get this list and about five minutes’ training and they even dock you ten pence a week for the ladder and I know I made that mistake with little William Rubin^{82} but they should of said, you’re supposed to take any teeth you—’

‘Er … mistake?’ said Bilious, trying to get her to hurry.

‘Just because he slept with his head under the pillow but they give you the pliers anyway and no one told me that you shouldn’t—’

She certainly did have a pleasant voice, Bilious told himself. It was just that in a funny way it grated, too. It was like listening to a talking flute.

‘I think we’d just better get outside,’ he said. ‘In case they hear us,’ he hinted.

‘What sort of godding do you do?’ said Violet.

‘Er … oh, I … this and that … I … er …’ Bilious tried to think through the pounding headache. And then he had one of those ideas, the kind that only sound good after a lot of alcohol. Someone else may have drunk the drinks, but he managed to snag the idea.

‘I’m actually self-employed,’ he said, as brightly as he could manage.

‘How can you be a self-employed god?’