Hogfather Part 13

Well, G.o.ds had a life, presumably. But they never actually died, as far as she knew. They just dwindled away to a voice on the wind and a footnote in some textbook on religion.

There were other G.o.ds lined up. She recognized a few of them.

But there were smaller lifetimers on the shelf. When she saw the labels she nearly burst out laughing.

"The Tooth Fairy? The Sandman? John Barleycorn? The Soul Cake Duck? The G.o.d of-what?"

She stepped back, and something crunched under her feet.

There were shards of gla.s.s on the floor. She reached down and picked up the biggest. Only a few letters remained of the name etched into the gla.s.s- HOGFA...

"Oh, no no...it's true true. Granddad, what have you done done?"

When she left, the candles winked out. Darkness sprang back.

And in the darkness, among the spilled sand, a faint sizzle and a tiny spark of light...

Mustrum Ridcully adjusted the towel around his waist.

"How're we doing, Mr. Modo?"

The University gardener saluted.

"The tanks are full, Mr. Archchancellor, sir!" he said brightly. "And I've been stoking the hot water boilers all day!"

The other senior wizards cl.u.s.tered in the doorway.

"Really, Mustrum, I really think this is most most unwise," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "It was surely sealed up for a purpose." unwise," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. "It was surely sealed up for a purpose."

"Remember what it said on the door," said the Dean.

"Oh, they just wrote that on it to keep people out," said Ridcully, opening a fresh bar of soap.

"Well, yes," said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. "That's right. That's what people do."

"It's a bathroom bathroom," said Ridcully. "You are all acting as if it's some kind of a torture chamber."

"A bathroom," said the Dean, "designed by b.l.o.o.d.y Stupid Johnson. Archchancellor Weatherwax only used it once and then had it sealed up! Mustrum, I beg you to reconsider! It's a Johnson Johnson!"

There was something of a pause, because even Ridcully had to adjust his mind around this.

The late (or at least severely delayed) Bergholt Stuttley Johnson was generally recognized as the worst inventor in the world, yet in a very specialized sense. Merely bad bad inventors made things that failed to operate. He wasn't among these small fry. Any fool could make something that did absolutely nothing when you pressed the b.u.t.ton. He scorned such fumble-fingered amateurs. Everything he built worked. It just didn't do what it said on the box. If you wanted a small ground-to-air missile, you asked Johnson to design an ornamental fountain. It amounted to pretty much the same thing. But this never discouraged him, or the morbid curiosity of his clients. Music, landscape gardening, architecture-there was no start to his talents. inventors made things that failed to operate. He wasn't among these small fry. Any fool could make something that did absolutely nothing when you pressed the b.u.t.ton. He scorned such fumble-fingered amateurs. Everything he built worked. It just didn't do what it said on the box. If you wanted a small ground-to-air missile, you asked Johnson to design an ornamental fountain. It amounted to pretty much the same thing. But this never discouraged him, or the morbid curiosity of his clients. Music, landscape gardening, architecture-there was no start to his talents.

Nevertheless, it was a little bit surprising to find that b.l.o.o.d.y Stupid had turned to bathroom design. But, as Ridcully said, it was known that he had designed and built several large musical organs and, when you got right down to it, it was all just plumbing, wasn't it?

The other wizards, who'd been there longer than the Archchancellor, took the view that if b.l.o.o.d.y Stupid Johnson had built a fully functional bathroom he'd actually meant it to be something else.

"Y'know, I've always felt that Mr. Johnson was a much maligned man," said Ridcully, eventually.

"Well, yes, of course course he was," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, clearly exasperated. "That's like saying that jam attracts wasps, you see." he was," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, clearly exasperated. "That's like saying that jam attracts wasps, you see."

"Not everything he made worked badly," said Ridcully stoutly, flouris.h.i.+ng his scrubbing brush. "Look at that thing they use down in the kitchens for peelin' the potatoes, for example."

"Ah, you mean the thing with the bra.s.s plate on it saying 'Improved Manicure Device,' Archchancellor?"

"Listen, it's just water," snapped Ridcully. "Even Johnson couldn't do much harm with water. Modo, open the sluices!"

The rest of the wizards backed away as the gardener turned a couple of ornate bra.s.s wheels.

"I'm fed up with groping around for the soap like you fellows!" shouted the Archchancellor, as water gushed through hidden channels. "Hygiene. That's the ticket!"

"Don't say we didn't warn you," said the Dean, shutting the door.

"Er, I still haven't worked out where all the pipes lead, sir," Modo ventured.

"We'll find out, never you fear," said Ridcully happily. He removed his hat and put on a shower cap of his own design. In deference to his profession, it was pointy. He picked up a yellow rubber duck.

"Man the pumps, Mr. Modo. Or dwarf them, of course, in your case."

"Yes, Archchancellor."

Modo hauled on a lever. The pipes started a hammering noise and steam leaked out of a few joints.

Ridcully took a last look around the bathroom.

It was a hidden treasure, no doubt about it. Say what you like, old Johnson must sometimes have got it right, even if it was only by accident. The entire room, including the floor and ceiling, had been tiled in white, blue and green. In the center, under its crown of pipes, was Johnson's Patent "Typhoon" Superior Indoor Ablutorium with Automatic Soap Dish, a sanitary poem in mahogany, rosewood and copper.

He'd got Modo to polish every pipe and bra.s.s tap until they gleamed. It had taken ages.

Ridcully shut the frosted door behind him.

The inventor of the ablutionary marvel had decided to make a mere shower a fully controllable experience, and one wall of the large cubicle held a marvelous panel covered with bra.s.s taps cast in the shape of mermaids and sh.e.l.ls and, for some reason, pomegranates. There were separate feeds for salt water, hard water and soft water and huge wheels for accurate control of temperature. Ridcully inspected them with care.

Then he stood back, looked around at the tiles and sang, "Mi, mi, mi!"

His voice reverberated back at him.

"A perfect echo!" said Ridcully, one of nature's bathroom baritones.

He picked up a speaking tube that had been installed to allow the bather to communicate with the engineer.

"All cisterns go, Mr. Modo!"

"Aye, aye, sir!"

Ridcully opened the tap marked "Spray" and leapt aside, because part of him was still well aware that Johnson's inventiveness didn't just push the edge of the envelope but often went across the room and out through the wall of the sorting office.

A gentle shower of warm water, almost a caressing mist, enveloped him.

"My word!" he exclaimed, and tried another tap.

"Shower" turned out to be a little more invigorating. "Torrent" made him gasp for breath and "Deluge" sent him groping to the panel because the top of his head felt that it was being removed. "Wave" sloshed a wall of warm salt water from one side of the cubicle to the other before it disappeared into the grating that was set into the middle of the floor.

"Are you all right, sir?" Modo called out.

"Marvelous! And there's a dozen k.n.o.bs I haven't tried yet!"

Modo nodded, and tapped a valve. Ridcully's voice, raised in what he considered to be song, boomed out through the thick clouds of steam.

"Oh, IIIIIII knew a...er...an agricultural worker of some description, possibly a thatcher...

And I knew him well, and he-he was a farmer, now I come to think of it-and he had a daughter and her name I can't recall at the moment, And...Where was I? Ah yes. Chorus: Something something, a humorously shaped vegetable, a turnip, I believe, something something and the sweet and the sweet nightingaleeeeaarggooooooh-ARRGHH oh oh oh-"

The song shut off suddenly. All Modo could hear was a ferocious gus.h.i.+ng noise.

"Archchancellor?"

After a moment a voice answered from near the ceiling. It sounded somewhat high and hesitant.

"Er...I wonder if you would be so very good as to shut the water off from out there, my dear chap? Er...quite gently, if you wouldn't mind..."

Modo carefully spun a wheel. The gus.h.i.+ng sound gradually subsided.

"Ah. Well done," said the voice, but now from somewhere nearer floor level. "Well. Jolly good job. I think we can definitely call it a success. Yes, indeed. Er. I wonder if you could help me walk for a moment. I inexplicably feel a little unsteady on my feet..."

Modo pushed open the door and helped Ridcully out and onto a bench. He looked rather pale.

"Yes, indeed," said the Archchancellor, his eyes a little glazed. "Astoundingly successful. Er. Just a minor point, Modo-"

"Yes, sir?"

"There's a tap in there we perhaps should leave alone for now," said Ridcully. "I'd esteem it a service if you could go and make a little sign to hang on it."

"Yes, sir?"

"Saying 'Do not touch at all,' or something like that."

"Right, sir."

"Hang it on the one marked 'Old Faithful.'"

"Yes, sir."

"No need to mention it to the other fellows."

"Yes, sir."

"Ye G.o.ds, I've never felt so clean clean."

From a vantage point among some ornamental tile work near the ceiling a small gnome in a bowler hat watched Ridcully carefully.

When Modo had gone, the Archchancellor slowly began to dry himself on a big fluffy towel. As he got his composure back, so another song wormed its way under his breath.

"On the second day of Hogswatch I...sent my true love back A nasty little letter, hah, yes indeed, and a partridge in a pear tree-"

The gnome slid down onto the tiles and crept up behind the briskly shaking shape.

Ridcully, after a few more trial runs, settled on a song which evolves somewhere on every planet where there are winters. It's often dragooned into the service of some local religion and a few words are changed, but it's really about things that have to do with G.o.ds only in the same way that roots have to do with leaves.

"-the rising of the sun, and the running of the deer-"

Ridcully spun. A corner of wet towel caught the gnome on the ear and flicked it onto its back.

"I saw you creeping up!" roared the Archchancellor. "What's the game, then? Small-time thief, are you?"

The gnome slid backward on the soapy surface.

"'ere, what's your your game, mister, you ain't supposed to be able to see me!" game, mister, you ain't supposed to be able to see me!"

"I'm a wizard! We can see things that are really there, you know," said Ridcully. "And in the case of the Bursar, things that aren't there, too. What's in this bag?"

"You don't wanna open the bag, mister! You really don't wanna open the bag!"

"Why? What have you got in it?"

The gnome sagged. "It ain't what's in it, mister. It's what'll come out. I has to let 'em out one at a time, no knowin' what'd happen if they all gets out at once!"

Ridcully looked interested, and started to undo the string.

"You'll really wish you hadn't, mister!" the gnome pleaded.

"Will I? What're you doing here, young man?"

The gnome gave up.

"Well...you know the Tooth Fairy?"

"Yes. Of course," said Ridcully.

"Well...I ain't her. But...it's sort of like the same business..."

"What? You take things away?"

"Er...not take away, as such. More sort of...bring..."