Hogfather

     'Well ...' Medium Dave hesitated.  'You ...  well,  you get branches slapping you in the face, fleas, that sort of thing. So you got to  hang on. Think of the money. There's bags of it in there. You saw it.'

     'I keep thinking of. that glass eye watching me. I keep thinking it can see right in my head.'

     'Don't worry, he doesn't suspect you of anything.,

     'How d'you know?'

     'You're still alive, yeah?'

     In the Grotto of the Hogfather, a round-eyed child.

HAPPY  HOGSWATCH. HO.  HO.  HO.  AND  YOUR NAME IS ...  EUPHRASIA COAT, CORRECT?

     'Go on, dear, answer the nice man.'

     ' 's.'

AND YOU ARE SIX YEARS OLD.

     'Go on, dear. They're all the same at this age, aren't they . . .'

     ' 's.'

AND YOU WANT A PONY

     ' 's.' A  small hand pulled  the Hogfather's hood  down to mouth level. Heavy Uncle Albert heard a  ferocious whispering. Then  the Hogfather leaned back.

YES, I KNOW. WHAT A NAUGHTY PIG IT WAS, INDEED.

     His shape flickered for a moment, and then a hand went into the sack.

HERE IS A BRIDLE FOR YOUR PONY, AND A SADDLE, AND A RATHER STRANGE HARD HAT  AND  A PAIR OF  THOSE TROUSERS THAT MAKE  YOU LOOK AS THOUGH YOU HAVE A LARGE RABBIT IN EACH POCKET.

     'But we can't have a pony, can we, Euffie, because we live on the third floor . .

     OH, YES. IT'S IN THE KITCHEN.

     'I'm  sure  you're  making  a  little  joke, Hogfather,'  said  Mother, sharply.

HO. HO. YES.  WHAT  A JOLLY FAT  MAN I AM. IN THE KITCHEN? WHAT A JOKE. DOLLIES AND SO ON WILL BE DELIVERED LATER AS PER YOUR LETTER.

     'What do you say, Euffie?'

     ' ' nk you.'

     ' 'ere, you didn't really put a pony in their  kitchen, did you?'  said Heavy Uncle Albert as the line moved on.

     DON'T BE FOOLISH, ALBERT. I SAID THAT TO BE JOLLY.

     'Oh, right. Hah, for a minute ...'

     IT'S IN THE BEDROOM.

     'Ah . .

MORE HYGIENIC.

     'Well,  it'll  make  sure of  one  thing,'  said  Albert. 'Third floor?

They're going to believe all right.'

     YES. YOU KNOW, I THINK I'M GETTING THE HANG OF THIS. HO. HO. HO.

     At the Hub of the Discworld, the snow burned blue and green. The Aurora Corealis  hung in  the sky,  curtains of  pale  cold fire  that circled  the central mountains and cast their spectral light over the ice.

     They billowed,  swirled and then trailed  a  ragged arm on  the  end of which  was  a tiny dot that became, when the eye of imagination drew nearer, Binky.

     He trotted to a halt and stood on the air. Susan looked down.

     And then found what  she was  looking  for.  At the end of a valley  of snow-mounded trees something gleamed brightly, reflecting the sky.

     The Castle of Bones.

     Her  parents had sat her down one day when she  was about  six or seven and explained  how  such things  as the Hogfather did not  really exist, how they were pleasant little stories that it was fun to know, how they were not real. And she had believed it. All the fairies and bogeymen, all those stories from the  blood and bone of humanity, were not really real.

     They'd  lied.  A  seven-foot  skeleton   had  turned  out   to  be  her grandfather.  Not   a  flesh  and  blood  grandfather,  obviously. But  a grandfather, you could say, in the bone.

     Binky touched down and trotted over the snow.

     Was the Hogfather a god? Why not? thought Susan. There were sacrifices, after all. All that  sherry  and  pork pie.  And  he made  commandments  and rewarded the  good  and he  knew what  you were doing. If you believed, nice things happened to you. Sometimes you found  him 'm a grotto, and  sometimes he was up there in the sky ...

     The  Castle  of  Bones loomed over her now.  It certainly deserved  the capital letters, up this close.

     She'd  seen a picture of it in one of the children's books. Despite its name, the woodcut artist had endeavoured to make it look ... sort of jolly.      It  wasn't  jolly. The pillars  at the entrance  were hundreds  of feet high.  Each  of the  steps leading up was taller than a man. They  were  the greygreen of old ice.

     Ice. Not  bone. There  were  faintly familiar  shapes  to the  pillars, possibly a suggestion of femur or skull, but it was made of ice.

     Binky was not challenged by the high stairs. It wasn't that he flew. It was simply that he walked on a ground level of his own devising.

     Snow  had  blown over the  ice. Susan looked down  at the drifts. Death left no tracks, but there were the faint outlines of booted footprints. She'd be prepared to bet they belonged to Albert. And ... yes, half obscured by the  snow ... it looked as though a sledge had stood here. Animals had milled around. But the snow was covering everything.

     She dismounted.  This was  certainly  the place described, but it still wasn't  right.  It  was  supposed to  be a blaze  of  light and  abuzz  with activity, but it looked like a giant mausoleum.

     A little way beyond the  pillars was a very large slab of  ice, cracked into pieces.  Far above, stars were visible through the hole  it had left in the  roof. Even as  she stared up, a few small  lumps of ice thumped into  a snowdrift.

     The raven popped into existence and fluttered wearily  on to a stump of ice beside her.