Reaper Man (17 page)

He replaced it carefully.

Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.

To Bill Door, he realized, it was so much horse elbows.

O
H
,
DAMN
, he said.

And walked into the fire.

“Um. It’s me, Librarian,” said Windle, trying to shout through the keyhole. “Windle Poons.”

He tried hammering some more.

“Why won’t he answer?”

“Don’t know,” said a voice behind him.

“Schleppel?”

“Yes, Mr. Poons.”

“Why are you behind me?”

“I’ve got to be behind something, Mr. Poons. That’s what being a bogeyman is all about.”

“Librarian?” said Windle, hammering some more.

“Oook.”

“Why won’t you let me in?”

“Oook.”

“But I need to look something up.”

“Oook oook!”

“Well, yes. I am. What’s that got to do with it?”

“Oook!”

“That’s—that’s unfair!”

“What’s he saying, Mr. Poons?”

“He won’t let me in because I’m dead!”

“That’s typical. That’s the sort of thing Reg Shoe is always going on about, you know.”

“Is there anyone else that knows about life force?”

“There’s always Mrs. Cake, I suppose. But she’s a bit weird.”

“Who’s Mrs. Cake?” Then Windle realized what Schleppel had just said. “Anyway, you’re a
bogeyman
.”

“You never heard of Mrs. Cake?”

“No.”

“I don’t suppose she’s interested in magic…Anyway, Mr. Shoe says we shouldn’t talk to her. She exploits dead people, he says.”

“How?”

“She’s a medium. Well, more a small.”

“Really? All right, let’s go and see her. And…Schleppel?”

“Yes?”

“It’s creepy, feeling you standing behind me the whole time.”

“I get very upset if I’m not behind something, Mr. Poons.”

“Can’t you lurk behind something else?”

“What do you suggest, Mr. Poons?”

Windle thought about it. “Yes, it might work,” he said quietly, “if I can find a screwdriver.”

Modo the gardener was on his knees mulching the dahlias when he heard a rhythmic scraping and thumping behind him, such as might be made by someone trying to move a heavy object.

He turned his head.

“’Evening, Mr. Poons. Still dead, I see.”

“’Evening, Modo. You’ve got the place looking very nice.”

“There’s someone moving a door along behind you, Mr. Poons.”

“Yes, I know.”

The door edged cautiously along the path. As it passed Modo it pivoted awkwardly, as if whoever was carrying it was trying to keep as much behind it as possible.

“It’s a kind of security door,” said Windle.

He paused. There was something wrong. He couldn’t quite be certain what it was, but there was suddenly a lot of wrongness about, like hearing one note out of tune in an orchestra. He audited the view in front of him.

“What’s that you’re putting the weeds into?” he said.

Modo glanced at the thing beside him.

“Good, isn’t it?” he said. “I found it by the compost heaps. My wheelbarrow’d broke, and I looked up, and there—”

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Windle. “Who’d want to make a big basket out of wire? And those wheels don’t look big enough.”

“But it pushes along well by the handle,” said Modo. “I’m amazed that anyone would want to throw it away. Why would anyone want to throw away something like this, Mr. Poons?”

Windle stared at the trolley. He couldn’t escape the feeling that it was watching him.

He heard himself say, “Maybe it got there by itself.”

“That’s right, Mr. Poons! It wanted a bit of peace, I expect!” said Modo. “You are a one!”

“Yes,” said Windle, unhappily. “It rather looks that way.”

He stepped out into the city, aware of the scraping and thumping of the door behind him.

If someone had told me a month ago, he thought, that a few days after I died I’d be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door…why, I’d have laughed at them.

No, I wouldn’t. I’d have said “eh?” and “what?” and “speak up!” and wouldn’t have understood anyway.

Beside him, someone barked.

A dog was watching him. It was a very large dog. In fact, the only reason it could be called a dog and not a wolf was that everyone knew you didn’t get wolves in cities.

It winked. Windle thought: no full moon last night.

“Lupine?” he ventured.

The dog nodded.

“Can you talk?”

The dog shook its head.

“So what do you do now?”

Lupine shrugged.

“Want to come with me?”

There was another shrug that almost vocalized the thought: why not? What else have I got to do?

If someone had told me a month ago, Windle thought, that a few days after I died I’d be walking along the road followed by a bashful bogeyman hiding behind a door and accompanied by a kind of negative version of a werewolf…why, I probably
would
have laughed at them. After they’d repeated themselves a few times, of course. In a loud voice.

The Death of Rats rounded up the last of his clients, many of whom had been in the thatch, and led the way through the flames toward wherever it was that good rats went.

He was surprised to pass a burning figure forcing its way through the incandescent mess of collapsed beams and crumbling floorboards. As it mounted the blazing stairs it removed something from the disintegrating remains of its clothing and held it carefully in its teeth.

The Death of Rats did not wait to see what happened next. While it was, in some respects, as ancient as the first proto-rat, it was also less than a day old and still feeling its way as a Death, and it was possibly aware that a deep, thumping noise that was making the building shake was the sound of brandy starting to boil in its barrels.

The thing about boiling brandy is that it doesn’t boil for long.

The fireball dropped bits of the inn half a mile away. White-hot flames erupted from the holes where the doors and windows had been. The walls exploded. Burning rafters whirred overhead. Some buried themselves in neighboring roofs, starting more fires.

What was left was just an eye-watering glow.

And then little pools of shadow, within the glow.

They moved and ran together and formed the shape of a tall figure striding forward, carrying something in front of it.

It passed through the blistered crowd and trudged up the cool dark road toward the farm. The people picked themselves up and followed it, moving through the dusk like the tail of a dark comet.

Bill Door climbed the stairs to Miss Flitworth’s bedroom and laid the child on the bed.

S
HE SAID THERE WAS AN APOTHECARY SOMEWHERE NEAR HERE
.

Miss Flitworth pushed her way through the crowd at the top of the stairs.

“There’s one in Chambly,” she said. “But there’s a witch over Lancre way.”

N
O WITCHES
. N
O MAGIC
. S
END FOR HIM
. A
ND EVERYONE ELSE, GO AWAY
.

It wasn’t a suggestion. It wasn’t even a command. It was simply an irrefutable statement.

Miss Flitworth waved her skinny arms at the people.

“Come on, it’s all over! Shoo! You’re all in my bedroom! Go on, get out!”

“How’d he do it?” said someone at the back of the crowd. “No one could have got out of there alive! We saw it all blow up!”

Bill Door turned around slowly.

W
E HID
, he said,
IN THE CELLAR
.

“There! See?” said Miss Flitworth. “In the cellar. Makes sense.”

“But the inn hasn’t got—” the doubter began, and stopped. Bill Door was glaring at him.

“In the cellar,” he corrected himself. “Yeah. Right. Clever.”

“
Very
clever,” said Miss Flintworth. “Now get along with the lot of you.”

He heard her shoo them down the stairs and back into the night. The door slammed. He didn’t hear her come back up the stairs with a bowl of cold water and a flannel. Miss Flitworth could walk lightly, too, when she had a mind to.

She came in and shut the door behind her.

“Her parents’ll want to see her,” she said. “Her mum’s in a faint and Big Henry from the mill knocked her dad out when he tried to run into the flames, but they’ll be here directly.”

She bent down and ran the flannel over the girl’s forehead.

“Where was she?”

S
HE WAS HIDING IN A CUPBOARD
.

“From a fire?”

Bill Door shrugged.

“I’m amazed you could find anyone in all that heat and smoke,” she said.

I
SUPPOSE YOU WOULD CALL IT A KNACK
. “And not a mark on her.”

Bill Door ignored the question in her voice.

D
ID YOU SEND SOMEONE FOR THE APOTHECARY
? “Yes.”

H
E MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING AWAY
.

“What do you mean?”

S
TAY HERE WHEN HE COMES
. Y
OU MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING OUT OF THIS ROOM
.

“That’s silly. Why should he take anything? What would he want to take?”

I
T IS VERY IMPORTANT
. A
ND NOW
I
MUST LEAVE YOU
.

“Where are you going?”

T
O THE BARN
. T
HERE ARE THINGS
I
MUST DO
. T
HERE MAY NOT BE MUCH TIME NOW
.

Miss Flitworth stared at the small figure on the bed. She felt far out of her depth, and all she could do was tread water.

“She just looks as if she’s sleeping,” she said helplessly. “What’s wrong with her?”

Bill Door paused at the top of the stairs.

S
HE IS LIVING ON BORROWED
T
IME
, he said.

There was an old forge behind the barn. It hadn’t been used for years. But now red and yellow light spilled out into the yard, pulsing like a heart.

And like a heart, there was a regular thumping. With every crash the light flared blue.

Miss Flitworth sidled through the open doorway. If she was the kind of person who would swear, she would have sworn that she made no noise that could possibly be heard above the crackle of the fire and the hammering, but Bill Door spun around in a half-crouch, holding a curved blade in front of him.

“It’s me!”

He relaxed, or at least moved into a different level of tension.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He looked at the blade in his hands as if he was seeing it for the first time.

I
THOUGHT
I
WOULD SHARPEN THIS SCYTHE
, M
ISS
F
LITWORTH
.

“At one o’clock in the morning?”

He looked at it blankly.

I
T’S JUST AS BLUNT AT NIGHT
, M
ISS
F
LITWORTH
.

Then he slammed it down on the anvil.

A
ND
I
CAN’T SHARPEN IT ENOUGH
!

“I think perhaps the heat has got to you,” she said, and reached out and took his arm.

“Besides, it looks sharp enough to—” she began, and paused. Her fingers moved on the bone of his arm. They pulled away for a moment, and then closed again.

Bill Door shivered.

Miss Flitworth didn’t hesitate for long. In seventy-five years she had dealt with wars, famine, innumerable sick animals, a couple of epidemics and thousands of tiny, everyday tragedies. A depressed skeleton wasn’t even in the top ten Worst Things she had seen.

“So it
is
you,” she said.

M
ISS
F
LITWORTH
, I—

“I always knew you would come one day.”

I
THINK PERHAPS THAT
—

“You know, I spent most of my life waiting for a knight on a white charger.” Miss Flitworth grinned. “The joke’s on me, eh?”

Bill Door sat down on the anvil.

“The apothecary came,” she said. “He said he couldn’t do anything. He said she was fine. We just couldn’t wake her up. And, you know, it took us ages to get her hand open. She had it closed so tightly.”

I
SAID NOTHING WAS TO BE TAKEN
!

“It’s all right. It’s all right. We left her holding it.”

G
OOD
.

“What was it?”

M
Y TIME
.

“Sorry?”

M
Y TIME
. T
HE TIME OF MY LIFE
.

“It looks like an eggtimer for very expensive eggs.”

Bill Door looked surprised. Y
ES
. I
N A WAY
. I
HAVE GIVEN HER SOME OF MY TIME
. “How come you need time?”

E
VERY LIVING THING NEEDS TIME
. A
ND WHEN IT RUNS OUT
,
THEY DIE
.
WHEN IT RUNS OUT
,
SHE WILL DIE
. A
ND
I
WILL DIE
,
TOO
. I
N A FEW HOURS
.

“But you can’t—”

I
CAN
. I
T’S HARD TO EXPLAIN
.

“Move up.”

W
HAT
?

“I said move up. I want to sit down.”

Bill Door made space on the anvil. Miss Flitworth sat down.

“So you’re going to die,” she said.

Y
ES
.

“And you don’t want to.”

No.

“Why not?”

He looked at her as if she was mad.

B
ECAUSE THEN THERE WILL BE NOTHING
.
BECAUSE
I
WON’T EXIST
.

“Is that what happens for humans, too?”

I
DON’T THINK SO
. I
T’S DIFFERENT FOR YOU
. Y
OU HAVE IT ALL BETTER ORGANIZED
.

They both sat watching the fading glow of the coals in the forge.

“So what were you working on the scythe blade for?” said Miss Flitworth.

I
THOUGHT PERHAPS
I
COULD
…
FIGHT BACK
…

“Has it ever worked? With you, I mean.”

N
OT USUALLY
. S
OMETIMES PEOPLE CHALLENGE ME TO A GAME
. F
OR THEIR LIVES
,
YOU KNOW
.

“Do they ever win?”

N
O
. L
AST YEAR SOMEONE GOT THREE STREETS AND ALL THE UTILITIES
.

“What? What sort of game is that?”

I
DON’T RECALL
. “E
XCLUSION
P
OSSESSION
,” I
THINK
. I
WAS THE BOOT
.

“Just a moment,” said Miss Flitworth. “If
you’re
you, who will be coming for you?”

D
EATH
. L
AST NIGHT
THIS
WAS PUSHED UNDER THE DOOR
.

Death opened his hand to reveal a small grubby piece of paper, on which Miss Flitworth could read, with some difficulty, the word: OOoooEEEeeOOOoooEEeeeOOOoooEEeee.

I
HAVE RECEIVED THE BADLY-WRITTEN NOTE OF THE
B
ANSHEE
.

Miss Flitworth looked at him with her head on one side.

“But…correct me if I’m wrong, but…”

T
HE
NEW
DEATH
.

Bill Door picked up the blade.

H
E WILL BE TERRIBLE
.

The blade twisted in his hands. Blue light flickered along its edge.

I
WILL BE THE FIRST
.

Miss Flitworth stared at the light as if fascinated.

“Exactly how terrible?”

H
OW TERRIBLE CAN YOU IMAGINE
?

“Oh.”

E
XACTLY AS TERRIBLE AS THAT
.

The blade tilted this way and that.

“And for the child, too,” said Miss Flitworth.

Y
ES
.

“I don’t reckon I owe you any favors, Mr. Door. I don’t reckon anyone in the whole world owes you any favors.”

Y
OU MAY BE RIGHT
.

“Mind you, life’s got one or two things to answer for too. Fair’s fair.”

I
CANNOT SAY
.

Miss Flitworth gave him another long, appraising look.

“There’s a pretty good grindstone in the corner,” she said.

I’
VE USED IT
.

“And there’s an oilstone in the cupboard.”

I’
VE USED THAT
,
TOO
.

She thought she could hear a sound as the blade moved. A sort of faint whine of tensed air.

“And it’s still not sharp enough?”

Bill Door sighed. I
T MAY NEVER BE SHARP ENOUGH
.

“Come on, man. No sense in giving in,” said Miss Flitworth. “Where there’s life, eh?”

W
HERE THERE’S LIFE EH WHAT
?

“There’s hope?”

I
S THERE
?

“Right enough.”

Bill Door ran a bony finger along the edge.

H
OPE
?

“Got anything else left to try?”

Bill shook his head. He’d tried a number of emotions, but this was a new one.

C
OULD YOU FETCH ME A STEEL
?

It was an hour later.

Miss Flitworth sorted through her rag-bag.

“What next?” she said.

W
HAT HAVE WE HAD SO FAR
?

“Let’s see…hessian, calico, linen…how about satin? Here’s a piece.”

Bill Door took the rag and wiped it gently along the blade.

Miss Flitworth reached the bottom of the bag, and pulled out a swatch of white cloth.

Y
ES
?

“Silk,” she said softly. “Finest white silk. The real stuff. Never worn.”

She sat back and stared at it.

After a while he took it tactfully from her fingers.

T
HANK YOU
.

“Well now,” she said, waking up. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

When he turned the blade, it made a noise like
whommmm
. The fires of the forge were barely alive now, but the blade glowed with razor light.

“Sharpened on silk,” said Miss Flitworth. “Who’d believe it?”

A
ND STILL BLUNT
.

Bill Door looked around the dark forge, and then darted into a corner.

“What have you found?”

C
OBWEB
.

There was a long thin whine, like the torturing of ants.

“Any good?”

S
TILL TOO BLUNT
.

She watched Bill Door stride out of the forge, and scuttled after him. He went and stood in the middle of the yard, holding the scythe blade edge-on to the faint, dawn breeze.

It hummed.

“How sharp can a blade get, for goodness’ sake?”

I
T CAN GET SHARPER THAN THIS
.

Down in his henhouse, Cyril the cockerel awoke and stared blearily at the treacherous letters chalked on the board. He took a deep breath.

“Floo-a-cockle-dod!”

Bill Door glanced at the rimward horizon and then, speculatively, at the little hill behind the house.

He jerked forward, legs clicking over the ground.

The new daylight sloshed onto the world. Discworld light is old, slow and heavy; it roared across the landscape like a cavalry charge. The occasional valley slowed it for a moment and, here and there, a mountain range banked it up until it poured over the top and down the far slope.

It moved across a sea, surged up the beach and accelerated over the plains, driven by the lash of the sun.

On the fabled hidden continent of Xxxx, somewhere near the rim, there is a lost colony of wizards who wear corks around their pointy hats and live on nothing but prawns. There, the light is still wild and fresh as it rolls in from space, and they surf on the boiling interface between night and day.

If one of them had been carried thousands of miles inland on the dawn, he might have seen, as the light thundered over the high plains, a stick figure toiling up a low hill in the path of the morning.

It reached the top a moment before the light arrived, took a breath, and then spun around in a crouch, grinning.

It held a long blade upright between extended arms.

Light struck…split…slid…

Not that the wizard would have paid much attention, because he’d be too busy worrying about the five-thousand-mile walk back home.

Miss Flitworth panted up as the new day streamed past. Bill Door was absolutely still, only the blade moving between his fingers as he angled it against the light.

Finally he seemed satisfied.

He turned around and swished it experimentally through the air.

Miss Flitworth stuck her hands on her hips. “Oh, come
on
,” she said.

She paused.

He waved the blade again.

Down in the yard, Cyril stretched his bald neck for another go. Bill Door grinned, and swung the blade toward the sound.