far depths of the building and exploded in a shower of sharp little shards.
‘You may have come to the right place,’ said Susan. She grabbed the boy under his
arms and hauled him out of the snow. ‘I think leaving would be a very good idea
around now, don’t you? This place is going to fal apart.’
‘Oh, me . . .’
She managed to get one of his arms around her neck.
‘Can you walk?’
‘Oh, me …’
‘It might help if you stopped saying that and tried walking.’
‘I’m sorry, but I seem to have too many legs. Ow.’
Susan did her best to prop him up as, swaying and slipping, they made their way
back to the exit.
‘My head,’ said the boy. ‘My head. My head. My head. Feels awful. My head. Feels
like someone’s hitting it. My head. With a hammer.’
Someone was. There was a smal green and purple imp sitting amid the damp curls
and holding a very large mal et. It gave Susan a friendly nod and brought the hammer
down again.
‘Oh, me . . .’
‘That wasn’t necessary!’ said Susan.
‘You tel ing me my job?’ said the imp. ‘I suppose you could do it better, could you?’
‘I wouldn’t do it at al !’
‘Wel , someone’s got to do it,’ said the imp.
‘He’s part. Of the. Arrangement,’ said the boy.
‘Yeah, see?’ said the imp. ‘Can you hold the hammer while I go and coat his tongue
with yel ow gunk?’
‘Get down right now!’
Susan made a grab for the creature. It leapt away, stil clutching the hammer, and
grabbed a pil ar.
‘I’m part of the arrangement, I am!’ it yel ed.
The boy clutched his head.
‘I feel awful,’ he said. ‘Have you got any ice?’ Whereupon, because there are
conventions stronger than mere physics, the building fel in.
The col apse of the Castle of Bones was stately and impressive and seemed to go
on for a long time. Pil ars fel in, the slabs of the roof slid down, the ice crackled and
splintered. The air above the tumbling wreckage fil ed with a haze of snow and ice
crystals.
Susan watched from the trees. The boy, who she’d leaned against a handy trunk,
opened his eyes.
‘That was amazing,’ he managed.
‘Why, you mean the way it’s al turning bark into snow?’
‘The way you just picked me up and ran.
‘Oh, that.’
The grinding of the ice continued. The fal en pil ars didn’t stop moving when they
col apsed, but went on tearing themselves apart.
When the fog of ice settled there was nothing but drifted snow.
‘As though it was never there,’ said Susan, aloud. She turned to the groaning figure.
‘Al right, what were you doing there?’
‘I don’t know. I just opened my. Eyes and there I was.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I … think my name is Bilious. I’m the … I’m the oh God of Hangovers.’
‘There’s a God of Hangovers?’
‘An oh god,’ he corrected. ‘When people witness me, you see, they clutch their head
and say, ” Oh God . . .” How many of you are standing here?’
‘What? There’s just me!’
‘Ah. Fine. Fine.’
‘I’ve never heard of a God of Hangovers . . .’
‘You’ve heard of Bibulous, the God of Wine?
‘Oh. yes.’
‘Big fat man, wears vine leaves round his head, always pictured with a glass in his
hand … Ow. Wel , you know why he’s so cheerful? Him and his big face? It’s because
he knows he’s going to feel good in the morning! It’s because it’s me that—‘
‘-gets the hangovers?’ said Susan.
‘I don’t even drink! Ow! But who is it who ends up head down in the privy every
morning? Arrgh.’ He stopped and clutched at his head. ‘Should your skul feel like it’s
lined with dog hair?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Ah.’ Bilious swayed. ‘You know when people say ‘ I had fifteen lagers last night and
when I woke up my head was clear as a bel ‘ ?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Bastards! That’s because I was the one who woke up groaning in a pile of recycled
chil Just once, I mean just once, I’d like to open my eyes in the morning without my
head sticking to something.’ He paused. ‘Are there any giraffes in this wood?’
‘Up here? I shouldn’t think so.’
He looked nervously past Susan’s head.
‘Not even indigo-coloured ones which are sort of stretched and keep flashing on and
off?’
‘Very unlikely.’
‘Thank goodness for that.’ He swayed back and forth. ‘Excuse me, I think Im about to
throw up my breakfast.’
‘It’s the middle of the evening!’
‘Is it? In that case, I think I’m about to throw up my dinner.’
He folded up gently in the snow behind the tree.
‘He’s a long streak of widdle, isn’t he?’ said a
voice from a branch. It was the raven. ‘Got a neck with a knee in it.’
The oh god reappeared after a noisy interlude.
‘I know I must eat,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s just that the only time I remember seeing my
food it’s always going the other way . . .’
‘What were you doing in there?’ said Susan.
Òuch! Search me,’ said the oh god. ‘It’s only a mercy I wasn’t holding a traffic sign
and wearing a—–‘ he winced and paused ‘—having some kind of women’s underwear
about my person.’ He sighed. ‘Someone somewhere has a lot of fun,’ he said wistful y.
‘I wish it was me.’
‘Get a drink inside you, that’s my advice,’ said the raven. ‘Have a hair of the dog that
bit someone else.’
‘But why there?’ Susan insisted.
The oh god stopped h-ling to glare at the raven. ‘I don’t know, where was there
exactly?’
Susan looked back at where the castle had been. It was entirely gone.
‘There was a very important building there a moment ago,’ she said.
The oh god nodded careful y.
‘I often see things that weren’t there a moment ago,’ he said. ‘And they often aren’t
there a moment later. Which is a blessing in most cases, let me tel you. So I don’t
usual y take a lot of notice.’
He folded up and landed in the snow again.
There’s just snow now, Susan thought. Nothing but snow and the wind. There’s not
even a ruin.
The certainty stole over her again that the Hogfather’s castle wasn’t simply not there any more. No … it had never been there. There was no ruin, no trace.
It had been an odd enough place. It was where the Hogfather lived, according to the
legends. Which was odd, when you thought about it. It didn’t look like the kind of place
a cheery old toymaker would live in.
The wind soughed in the trees behind them. Snow slid off branches. Somewhere in
the dark there was a flurry of hooves.
A spidery little figure leapt off a snowdrift and landed on the oh gods head. It turned a
beady eye up towards Susan.
‘Al right by you, is it?’ said the imp, producing its huge hammer. ‘Some of us have a
job to do, you know, even if we are of a metaphorical, nay, folkloric persuasion.’
‘Oh, go away.’
‘If you think I’m bad, wait until you see the little pink elephants,’ said the imp.
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘They come out of his ears and fly around his head making tweeting noises.’
‘Ah,’ said the raven, sagely. ‘That sounds more like robins. I wouldn’t put anything
past them.’
The oh god grunted.
Susan suddenly felt that she didn’t want to leave him. He was human. Wel , human
shaped.
Wel , at least he had two arms and legs. He’d freeze to death here. Of course, gods,
or even oh gods, probably couldn’t, but humans didn’t think like that. You couldn’t just
leave someone. She prided herself on this bit of normal thinking.
Besides, he might have some answers, if she could make him stay awake enough to
understand the questions.
From the edge of the frozen forest.. animal eyes watched them go.
Mr Crumley sat on the damp stairs and sobbed. He couldn’t get any nearer to the toy
department. Every time he tried he got lifted off his feet by the mob and dumped at the
edge of the crowd by the current of people.
Someone said, ‘Top of the evenin’, squire,’ and he looked up blearily at the smal yet
irregularly formed figure that had addressed him thusly.
‘Are you one of the pixies?’ he said, after mental y exhausting al the other
possibilities.
‘No, sir. I am not in fact a pixie, sir, I am in fact Corporal Nobbs of the Watch. And
this is Constable Visit, sir.’ The creature looked at a piece of paper in its paw. ‘You Mr
Crummy?’
‘Crumley!’
‘Yeah, right. You sent a runner to the Watch House and we have hereby responded