blackcurrant, if I’m any judge . . .’
‘Oh, me . . .’ moaned the oh god.
‘These young women, now–‘ the Lecturer in Recent Runes began.
‘I can see there’s some bottles on the table,’ Ridcul y continued. ‘That one, hmm,
yes, could be scumble which, as you know, is made from apple.-,
‘ Mainly apples,’ the Dean volunteered. ‘Now, about these poor mad girls-‘
The oh god slumped to his knees.
‘. . . and there’s … that drink, you know, there’s a worm in the bottle . . .’
‘Oh, me . . .’
‘. . . and … there’s an empty glass, a big one, can’t quite see what it contained, but there’s a paper umbrel a in it. And some cherries on a stick. Oh, and an amusing little
monkey.’
‘ ooohhh . . .’
‘…of course, there’s a lot of other bottles too,’
said Ridcul y, cheerful y. ‘Different coloured drinks, mainly. The sort made from
melons and coconuts and chocolate and suchlike, don’tcherknow. Funny thing is, al
the glasses on the table are pint mugs . . .’
Bilious fel forward.
‘Al right,’ he murmured. ‘I’l drink the wretched stuff.’
‘It’s not quite ready yet,’ said Ridcul y. ‘Ah, thank you, Modo.’
Modo tiptoed in, pushing a trol ey. There was a large metal bowl on it, in which a
smal bottle stood in the middle of a heap of crushed ice.
‘Only just made this for Hogswatch dinner,’ said Ridcul y. ‘Hasn’t had much time to
mature
yet.’
He put down the crystal and fished a pair of heavy gloves out of his hat.
The wizards spread like an opening flower. One moment they were gathered around
Ridcul y, the next they were standing close to various items of heavy furniture.
Susan felt she was present at a ceremony and hadn’t been told the rules.
‘What’s that?’ she said, as Ridcul y careful y lifted up the bottle.
‘Wow-Wow Sauce,’ said Ridcul y. ‘Finest condiment known to man. A happy
accompaniment to meat, fish, fowl, eggs and many types of vegetable dishes. It’s not
safe to drink it when sweat’s stil condensing on the bottle, though.’ He
peered at the bottle, and then rubbed at it, causing a glassy, squeaky noise. ‘On the
other hand,’ he said brightly, ‘if it’s a kil -or-cure remedy then we are, given that the
patient is practical y immortal, probably on to a winner.’
He placed. a thumb over the cork and shook the bottle vigorously. There was a crash
as the Chair of Indefinite Studies and the Senior Wrangler tried to get under the same
table.
‘And these fel ows seem to have taken against it for some reason,’ he said,
approaching the beaker.
‘I prefer a sauce that doesn’t mean you mustn’t make any jolting movements for half
an hour after using it,’ muttered the Dean.
‘And that can’t be used for breaking up smal rocks,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘Or getting rid of tree roots,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
‘And which isn’t actual y outlawed in three cities,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcul y cautiously uncorked the bottle. There was a brief hiss of indrawn air.
He al owed a few drops to splash into the beaker. Nothing happened.
A more generous helping was al owed to fal . The mixture remained irredeemably
inert.
Ridcul y sniffed suspiciously at the bottle.
‘I wonder if I added enough grated wahooni?’ he said, and then upturned the sauce
and let most of it slide into the mixture.
It merely went gloop.
The wizards began to stand up and brush themselves off, giving one another the
rather embarrassed grins of people who know that they’ve just been part of a
synchronized makinga-fool-of-yourself team.
‘I know we’ve had that asafoetida rather a long time,’ said Ridcul y. He turned the
bottle round, peering at it sadly.
Final y he tipped it up for the last time and thumped it hard on the base.
A trickle of sauce arrived on the lip of the bottle and glistened there for a moment.
Then it began to form a bead.
As if drawn by invisible strings, the heads of the wizards turned to look at it.
Wizards wouldn’t be wizards if they couldn’t see a little way into the future.
As the bead swel ed and started to go pearshaped they turned and, with a surprising
turn .of speed for men so wealthy in years and waistline, began to dive for the floor.
The drop fen.
It went gloop.
And that was al .
Ridcul y, who’d been standing like a statue, sagged in relief.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, turning away, ‘I wish you fel ows would show some backbone-
-‘ The firebal lifted him off his feet. Then it rose to the ceiling where it spread out
widely and vanished with a pop, leaving a perfect chrysanthemum of scorched plaster.
Pure white light fil ed the room. And there was a sound.
TINKLE. TINKLE
FIZZ.
The wizards risked looking around.
The beaker gleamed. It was fil ed with a liquid glow, which bubbled gently and sent
out sparkles like a spinning diamond.
‘My word . . .’ breathed the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcul y picked himself up off the floor. Wizards tended to rol wel , or in any case are
wel . padded enough to bounce.
Slowly, the flickering. bril iance casting their long shadows on the wal s, the wizards
gravitated towards the beaker.
‘Wel , what is it?’ said the Dean.
‘I remember my father tel in’ me some very valuable advice about drinks,’ said
Ridcul y. ‘He said, “Son, never drink any drink with a paper umbrel a in it, never drink
any drink with a humorous name, and never drink any drink that changes colour when
the last ingredient goes in. And never, ever, do this—” ‘
He dipped his finger into the beaker.
It came out with one glistening drop on the end.
‘Careful, Archchancel or,’ warned the Dean. ‘What you have there might represent
pure sobriety.’
Ridcul y paused with the finger halfway to his lips.
‘Good point,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to start being sober at my time of life.’ He looked
around. ‘How do we usual y test stuff?’
‘General y we ask for student volunteers,’ said the Dean.
‘What happens if we don’t get any?’
‘We give it to them anyway.’
‘Isn’t that a bit unethical?’
‘Not if we don’t tel them, Archchancel or.’
‘Ah, good point.’
‘I’l try it,’ the oh god mumbled.
‘Something these clo- gentlemen have cooked up?’ said Susan. ‘It might kil you!’
‘You’ve never had a hangover, I expect,’ said the oh god. Òtherwise you wouldn’t talk such rot.’
He staggered up to the beaker, managed to grip it on the second go, and drank the
lot.’There’l be fireworks now,’ said the raven, from Susan’s shoulder. ‘Flames coming
out of the mouth, screams, clutching at the throat, lying down under the cold tap, that
sort of thing-‘
Death found, to his amazement, that dealing with the queue was very enjoyable.
Hardly anyone had ever been pleased to see him before.
NEXT! AND WHAT’S YOUR NAME, LITTLE … He hesitated, but ral ied, and
continued … PERSON?
‘Nobby Nobbs, Hogfather,’ said Nobby. Was it him, or was this knee he was sitting
on a lot bonier than it should be? His buttocks argued with his brain, and were sat on.
AND HAVE YOU BEEN A GOOD BO … A GOOD DWA … A GOOD GNO … A
GOOD INDIVIDUAL?
And suddenly Nobby found he had no control at al of his tongue. Of its own accord,
gripped by a terrible compulsion, it said:
‘ ‘s.’
He struggled for -self-possession as the great voice went on: SO I EXPECT YOU’LL
WANT A PRESENT FOR A GOOD MON … A GOOD HUM … A GOOD MALE?
Aha, got you bang to rights, you’l be coming along with me, my old chummy, I bet
you don’t remember the cel ar at the back of the shoelace maker’s in Old Cobblers, eh,
al those Hogswatch mornings with a little hole in my world, eh?
The words rose in Nobby’s throat but were overridden by something ardent before
they reached his voice box, and to his amazement were translated into:
‘ ‘s.’
SOMETHING NICE?
‘ ‘s.’
There was hardly anything left of Nobby’s conscious wil now. The world consisted of
nothing but his naked soul and the Hogfather, who fil ed the universe.
AND YOU WILL OF COURSE BE GOOD FOR ANOTHER YEAR?
The tiny remnant of basic Nobbyness wanted to say, ‘Er, how exactly do you define
“good”, mister? Like, suppose there was just some stuff that no one’d miss, say? Or, f
‘r instance, say a
friend of mine was on patrol, sort of thing, and found a shopkeeper had left his door
unlocked at night. I mean, anyone could walk in, right, but suppose this friend took one