Hogfather Part 49

THIS TIME IT IS OTHERS WHO ARE DOING IT. AND THEY THEY HAVE NO RIGHT HAVE NO RIGHT.

"What others?"

THEY HAVE NO NAME. CALL THEM THE AUDITORS. THEY RUN THE UNIVERSE. THEY SEE TO IT THAT GRAVITY WORKS AND THE ATOMS SPIN, OR WHATEVER IT IS ATOMS DO. AND THEY HATE LIFE.

"Why?"

IT IS...IRREGULAR. IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. THEY LIKE STONES, MOVING IN CURVES. AND THEY HATE HUMANS MOST OF ALL. Death sighed. IN MANY WAYS, THEY LACK A SENSE OF HUMOR.

"Why the Hog-"

IT IS THE THINGS YOU BELIEVE WHICH MAKE YOU HUMAN. GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS, IT'S ALL THE SAME.

The mists parted. Sharp peaks were around them, lit by the glow off the snow.

"These look like the mountains where the Castle of Bones was," she said.

THEY ARE, said Death. IN A SENSE. HE HAS GONE BACK TO A PLACE HE KNOWS. AN EARLY PLACE...

Binky cantered low over the snow.

"And what are we looking for?" said Susan.

YOU WILL KNOW WHEN YOU SEE IT.

"Snow? Trees? I mean, could I have a clue? What are we here for?"

I TOLD YOU TOLD YOU. TO ENSURE THAT THE SUN COMES UP.

"Of course course the sun will come up!" the sun will come up!"

NO.

"There's no magic that'll stop the sun coming up!"

I WISH I WAS AS CLEVER AS YOU WISH I WAS AS CLEVER AS YOU.

Susan stared down out of sheer annoyance, and saw something below.

Small dark shapes moved across the whiteness, running as if they were in pursuit of something.

"There's...some sort of chase..." she conceded. "I can see some sort of animals but I can't see what they're after-"

Then she saw movement in the snow, a blurred, dark shape dodging and skidding and never clear. Binky dropped until his hooves grazed the tops of the pine trees, which bent in his wake. A rumble followed him across the forest, dragging broken branches and a smoke of snow behind it.

Now they were lower she could see the hunters clearly. They were large dogs. Their quarry was indistinct, dodging among snowdrifts, keeping to the cover of snow-laden bushes- A drift exploded. Something big and long and blue-black rose through the flying snow like a sounding whale.

"It's a pig!"

A BOAR BOAR. THEY DRIVE IT TOWARD THE CLIFF. THEY'RE DESPERATE NOW.

She could hear the panting of the creature. The dogs made no sound at all.

Blood streamed onto the snow from the wounds they had already managed to inflict.

"This...boar," said Susan. "...It's..."

YES.

"They want to kill kill the Hogf-" the Hogf-"

NOT KILL. HE KNOWS HOW TO DIE. OH, YES...IN THIS SHAPE, HE KNOWS HOW TO DIE. HE'S HAD A LOT OF EXPERIENCE. NO, THEY WANT TO TAKE AWAY HIS REAL LIFE, TAKE AWAY HIS SOUL, TAKE AWAY EVERYTHING. THEY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO BRING HIM DOWN.

"Well, stop them!"

YOU MUST MUST. THIS IS A HUMAN THING.

The dogs moved oddly. They weren't running but flowing, crossing the snow faster than the mere movement of their legs would suggest.

"They don't look like real dogs..."

NO.

"What can can I do?" I do?"

Death nodded his head toward the boar. Binky was keeping level with it now, barely a few feet away.

Realization dawned.

"I can't ride ride that!" said Susan. that!" said Susan.

WHY NOT? YOU HAVE HAD AN EDUCATION EDUCATION.

"Enough to know that pigs don't let people ride them!"

MERE ACc.u.mULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF.

Susan glanced ahead. The snow field had a cut-off look.

YOU MUST, said her grandfather's voice in her head. WHEN HE REACHES THE EDGE THERE HE WILL STAND AT BAY. HE MUST NOT. UNDERSTAND? THESE ARE NOT REAL DOGS. IF THEY CATCH HIM HE WON'T JUST DIE, HE WILL...NEVER BE...

Susan leapt. For a moment she floated through the air, dress streaming behind her, arms outstretched...

Landing on the animal's back was like hitting a very, very firm chair. It stumbled for a moment and then righted itself.

Susan's arms clung to its neck and her face was buried in its sharp bristles. She could feel the heat under her. It was like riding a furnace. And it stank of sweat, and blood, and pig. A lot of pig.

There was a lack of landscape in front of her.

The boar plowed into the snow on the edge of the drop, almost flinging her off, and turned to face the hounds.

There were a lot of them. Susan was familiar with dogs. They'd had them at home like other houses had rugs. And these weren't that big floppy sort.

She rammed her heels in and grabbed a pig's ear in each hand. It was like holding a pair of hairy shovels.

"Turn left!" she screamed, and hauled.

She put everything into the command. It promised tears before bedtime if disobeyed.

To her amazement the boar grunted, pranced on the lip of the precipice and scrambled away, the hounds floundering as they turned to follow.

This was a plateau. From here it seemed to be all edge, with no way down except the very simple and terminal one.

The dogs were flying at the boar's heels again.

Susan looked around in the gray, lightless air. There had to be somewhere, some way...

There was.

It was a shoulder of rock, a giant knife edge connecting this plain to the hills beyond. It was sharp and narrow, a thin line of snow with chilly depths on either side.

It was better than nothing. It was nothing with snow on it.

The boar reached the edge and hesitated. Susan put her head down and dug her heels in again.

Snout down, legs moving like pistons, the beast plunged out onto the ridge. Snow sprayed up as its trotters sought for purchase. It made up for lack of grace by sheer manic effort, legs moving like a tap dancer climbing a moving staircase that was heading down.

"That's right, that's right, that's-"

A trotter slipped. For a moment the boar seemed to stand on two, the others scrabbling at icy rock. Susan flung herself the other way, clinging to the neck, and felt the dragging abyss under her feet.

There was nothing there.

She told herself, He'll catch me if I fall, he'll catch me if I fall, he'll catch me if I fall He'll catch me if I fall, he'll catch me if I fall, he'll catch me if I fall...

Powdered ice made her eyes sting. A flailing trotter almost slammed against her head.

An older voice said, No, he won't. If I fall now I don't deserve to be caught No, he won't. If I fall now I don't deserve to be caught.

The creature's eye was inches away. And then she knew...

...Out of the depths of eyes of all but the most unusual of animals comes an echo. Out of the dark eye in front of her, someone looked back...

A foot caught the rock and she concentrated her whole being on it, kicking herself upward in one last effort. Pig and woman rocked for a moment and then a trotter caught a footing and the boar plunged forward along the ridge.

Susan risked a look behind.

The dogs still moved oddly. There was a slight jerkiness about their movements, as if they flowed from position to position rather than moved by ordinary muscles.

Not dogs, she thought. Dog shapes.

There was another shock underfoot. Snow flew up. The world tilted. She felt the shape of the boar change when its muscles bunched and sent it soaring as a slab of ice and rock came away and began the long slide into darkness.

Susan was thrown off when the creature landed, and tumbled into deep snow. She flailed around madly, expecting at any minute to begin sliding.

Instead her hand found a snow-encrusted branch. A few feet away the boar lay on its side, steaming and panting.

She pulled herself upright. The spur here had widened out into a hill, with a few frosted trees on it.

The dogs had reached the gap and were milling round, struggling to prevent themselves slipping.

They could easily clear the distance, she could see. Even the boar had managed it with her on its back. She put both hands around the branch and heaved; it came away with a crack, like a broken icicle, and she waved it like a club.

"Come on," she said. "Jump! Just you try it! Come on on!"

One did. The branch caught it as it landed, and then Susan spun and brought the branch back on the upswing, lifting the dazed animal off its feet and out over the edge.

For a moment the shape wavered and then, howling, it dropped out of sight.

She danced a few steps of rage and triumph.

"Yes! Yes! Who wants some? Anyone else?"

The other dogs looked her in the eye, decided that no one did, and that there wasn't. Finally, after one or two nervous attempts, they managed to turn, still sliding, and tried to make it back to the plateau.

A figure barred their way.

It hadn't been there a moment ago but it looked permanent now. It seemed to have been made of snow, three b.a.l.l.s of snow piled on one another. It had black dots for eyes. A semicircle of more dots formed the semblance of a mouth. There was a carrot for the nose.

And, for the arms, two twigs.

At this distance, anyway.

One of them was holding a curved stick.

A raven wearing a damp piece of red paper landed on one arm.

"Bob bob bob?" it suggested. "Merry Solstice? Tweetie tweet? What are you waiting for? Hogswatch?"

The dogs backed away.

The snow broke off the snowman in chunks, revealing a gaunt figure in a flapping black robe.

Death spat out the carrot.

HO. HO. HO.

The gray bodies smeared and rippled as the hounds sought desperately to change their shape.