Hogfather - Terry Pratchett [47]
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 all turning back into snow?”
“The way you just picked me up and ran. Ouch!”
“Oh, that.”
The grinding of the ice continued. The fallen pillars didn’t stop moving when they collapsed, 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.
“All 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? Ouch.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Big fat man, wears vine leaves round his head, always pictured with a glass in his hand…Ow. Well, 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 skull 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 bell’?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Bastards! That’s because I was the one who woke up groaning in a pile of recycled chili. 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-colored 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 I’m 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.
“Ouch! 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 wistfully. “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 trying 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 carefully.
“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 tell you. So I don’t usually 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.