'You see?'

     'Um ... I assume that most humans can't do that?'

     'No!"

     'You don't have to shout. I'm not very experienced about  humans, am I? Apart from around the point the sun shines through the gap in the curtains. And  then they're mainly wishing that the ground would  open up  and swallow them. I mean the humans, not the curtains.'

     Susan leaned back in her chair - and knew that a tiny part of her brain was  saying, yes, there is a  chair here, it's  a real thing, you can sit on it.

     'There's other things,'  she said.  'I can remember things. Things that haven't happened yet.'

     'Isn't that useful?'

     'No! Because I never know what  they -  look, it's like  looking at the future through a keyhole. You see bits of  things  but you never really know what they mean until you  arrive where they are  and  see where the bit fits in.'

     'That could be a problem,' said the oh god politely.

     'Believe  me. Its the waiting that's  the worst part. You keep watching out for one of the bits to go past. I mean I don't usually remember anything useful  about  the future, just twisted  little  dues that don't  make sense until it's too late.  Are  you sure you don't know why you turned  up at the Hogfather's castle?'

     'No. I just remember being a ... well, can you      understand what I mean by a disembodied mind?'

     'Oh, yes.'

     'Good. Now  can you understand what I mean by a  disembodied headache? And  then, next moment, I was lying on a back I didn't used to have in a lot of cold white stuff I'd never  seen before. But I suppose if you're going to pop into existence, you've got to do it somewhere.'

     'Somewhere where someone else,  who should have existed, didn't,'  said Susan, half to herself.

     'Pardon?'

     'The Hogfather wasn't there.' said Susan. 'He shouldn't have been there anyway, not tonight,  but  this time  he wasn't there  not  because  he  was somewhere else but  because he wasn't anywhere any more. Even his castle was vanishing.'

     'I  expect I  shall  get the hang of  this incarnation business as I go along,' said the oh god.

     'Most  people ...' Susan began. A shudder ran through her body. 'Oh, no. What's he doing? WHAT'S HE DOING?'

A JOB WELL DONE, I FANCY.

     The sleigh thundered across the night. Frozen fields passed underneath.

     'Hmph,' said Albert. He sniffed.

     WHAT DO YOU CALL THAT WARM FEELING YOU GET INSIDE;

     'Heartburn!' Albert snapped.

DO I DETECT A NOTE OF UNSEASONAL

     GRUMPINESS? said Death. NO SUGAR PIGGYWIGGY FOR YOU, ALBERT.

     'I don't want  any present,  master.' Albert sighed.  'Except  maybe to wake up and find it's all back  to normal. Look, you know  it  always  goes, wrong when you start changing things...'

BUT  THE  HOGFATHER CAN CHANGE  THINGS.  LITTLE  MIRACLES ALL  OVER THE PLACE,  WITH MANY  A MERRY HO,  HO, HO. TEACHING PEOPLE THE REAL MEANING  OF HOGSWATCH, ALBERT.

     'What, you mean  that the pigs and cattle have all been slaughtered and with any luck everyone's got enough food for the winter?'

WELL, WHEN I SAY THE REAL MEANING

     'Some wretched devil's had his head  chopped  off in a  wood  somewhere 'cos he found a bean in his dinner and now the summer's going to come back?'

NOT EXACTLY THAT, BUT ...

     'Oh, you  mean that they've chased down some poor beast and shot arrows up into their apple trees and now the shadows are going to go away?'

THAT IS DEFINITELY A MEANING, BUT I ...

     'Ah, then you're  talking about the one  where they light  a bloody big bonfire to give the sun a hint and tell it to stop lurking under the horizon and do a proper day's work?'

     Death paused, while the hogs hurtled over a range of hills.

     YOU'RE NOT HELPING, ALBERT.

     'Well, they're all the real meanings that I know.'

I THINK YOU COULD WORK WITH ME ON THIS.

     'It's all about the sun, master. White snow and red blood  and the sun. Always has been.'

VERY  WELL, THEN. THE HOGFATHER CAN TEACH  PEOPLE THE UNREAL MEANING OF HOGSWATCH.

     Albert spat over the side of the sleigh. 'Hah! "Wouldn't It Be  Nice If Everyone Was Nice", eh?

THERE ARE WORSE BATTLE CRIES.

     'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear ...

EXCUSE ME ...

     Death reached into his robe and pulled out an hourglass.

TURN THE SLEIGH AROUND, ALBERT. DUTY CALLS.

     'Which one?'

A  MORE POSITIVE ATTITUDE WOULD ASSIST AT THIS POINT, THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH.

     'Fascinatin'. Anyone got another pencil?' said Ridcully.

     'It's had four already,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Right down to the stub, Archchancellor. And you know we buy our own these days.'

     It was a sore  point. Like most people with no grasp whatsoever of real economics, Mustrum  Ridcully  equated  'proper financial  control' with  the counting of paperclips. Even senior  wizards had to produce a pencil stub to him before they were allowed a  new one out of the locked cupboard below his desk. Since of course hardly anyone retained a half-used pencil, the wizards      had been reduced  to  sneaking out and  buying  new ones with their own money.

     The  reason for  the dearth of short  pencils was  perched in  front of them, whirring away as it chewed an HB down to the eraser on the end,  which it spat at the Bursar.

     Ponder Stibbons had been making notes.

     'I think  it works like  this,' he  said. 'What  we're getting  is  the personification  of forces,  just  like Hex  said. But it only  works if the thing is  ... well, logical.' He swallowed. Ponder was a  great believer  in logic, in the face of all the local evidence, and he hated having to use the word  in this  way. 'I don't mean it's logical that there's a  creature that eats  socks,  but  it ... a ... it makes a sort of sense . . . I mean it's a working hypothesis.'

     'Bit like the Hogfather,' said Ridcully. 'When you're a kiddie, he's as good an explanation as any, right?'

     'What's not logical about there being a goblin that brings me huge bags of  money?' said  the  Dean  sulkily. Ridcully  fed the  Stealer of  Pencils another pencil.

     'Welt sir ... firstly, you've never  mysteriously received huge bags of money and needed to find a hypothesis to  explain them, and secondly, no one else would think it at all likely.'

     'Huh!'

     'Why's  it happening now?'  said  Ridcully. 'Look its  hopped  onto  my finger! Anyone got another pencil?'

     'Well, these ... forces have always been here,' said  Ponder.  'I mean, socks and  pencils  have always inexplicably gone missing, haven't they? But why they're suddenly getting personified like  this  ... I'm afraid I  don't know.'

     'Well, we'd better find out,  hadn't  we?'  said Ridcully.  'Can't have this sort of thing going on. Daft anti-gods and miscellaneous whatnots being created  just because  people've  thought about  'em? We could have anything turn  up, anyway.  Supposing  some  idiot  says  there  must  be  a  god  of indigestion, eh?'

     Glingleglingleglingle.

     'Er . . . I think someone just did, sir,' said Ponder.

     'What's the matter? What's the matter?' said the oh  god. He took Susan by the shoulders.

     They felt bony under his hands.

     'DAMN,' said Susan. She  pushed him away and  steadied herself  on  the table, taking care that he didn't see her face.

     Finally, with a  measure of the self-control she'd taught herself  over the last few years, she managed to get her own voice back.

     'He's slipping out of character,' she muttered, to the hall in general. 'I can feel him doing it. And that drags me in. What's he doing it all for?'