‘I thought you always had time. I mean… whatever it is you want to stop, you can go
back in time and-
AND MEDDLE
‘You’ve done it before .
THIS TIME IT IS OTHERS WHO ARE DOING IT. AND THEY 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 SENS+
OF HUMOUR
‘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 GON+
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. TO ENSURE THAT THE SUN COMES UP
‘Of course the sun wil come up!
NO
‘There’s no magic that’l stop the sun coming up!
I WISH I WAS AS CLEVER AS YOU
Susan stared down out of sheer annoyance, and saw something below
Smal 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 fol owed 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
bushe
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. THEY DRIVE IT TOWARDS THE CLIFF. THEY’RE DESPERATE NOW
She could hear the panting of the creature. The dogs made no sound at al
Blood streamed onto the snow from the wounds they had already managed to inflict
‘This… boar,’ said Susan. It’s .
YES
‘They want to kil 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
‘Wel , stop them!
YOU 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 I do?
Death nodded his head towards the boar. Binky was keeping level with it now, barely
a few feet away
Realization dawned
‘I can’t ride that!’ said Susan
WHY NOT? YOU HAVE HAD AN EDUCATION
‘Enough to know that pigs don’t let people ride them!
MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF
Susan glanced ahead. The snowfield 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 ploughed 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 fol ow
This was a plateau. From here it seemed to be al 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 grey, Sightless 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 hil s beyond.
It was sharp and narrow, a thin line of snow with chil y 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’l catch me if I fal he’l catch me if I fal , he’l catch me if I fal ..
Powdered ice made her eyes sting. A flailing trotter almost slammed against her
head
An older voice said, No, he won’t. If I fal 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 al 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 stil 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 pul ed herself upright. The spur here had widened out into a hil , with a few
frosted trees on it
The dogs had reached the gap and were mil ing 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!
One did. The branch caught it as it landed, and then Susan spun and brought the
branch around on the upswing, lifted 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.
Final y, after one or two nervous attempts, they managed to turn, stil sliding, and tried