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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. OH, DAMN, he said. And walked into the fire.
The thing about boiling brandy is that it doesn’t boil for long.
“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. SHE IS LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, he said.
“So you’re going to die,” she said. YES. “And you don’t want to.” No.
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!”
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. Then he lowered the blade. THAT’S SHARP.
In my father’s day, any Revenooer came around here prying around by himself, we used to tie weights to their feet and heave ’em into the pond.” BUT THE POND IS ONLY A FEW INCHES DEEP, MISS FLITWORTH. “Yeah, but it was fun watching ’em find out.
Dwarfs do not know the meaning of the word “irony.”
and then the compost heap exploded. It wasn’t a bang or a boom. It was the dampest, most corpulent eruption in the history of terminal flatulence. Dark red flame, fringed with black, roared up to the ceiling. Pieces of heap rocketed across the hall and slapped wetly into the walls.
Bill Door had never paid a great deal of attention to the names and faces of people, beyond that necessary for business. Corn stretched over the hillside; it was made up of individual stalks, and to the eye of one stalk another stalk might be quite an impressive stalk, with a dozen amusing and distinctive little mannerisms that set it apart from all other stalks. But to the reaper man, all stalks start off as . . . just stalks. Now he was beginning to recognize the little differences.
NO! “Er—” Simnel hesitated. The last “No” contained a threat more certain than the creak of thin ice on a deep river. It said that going any further could be the most foolhardy thing Simnel would ever do.
“Mr. Poons here wants to ask you a question, One-Man-Bucket,” said Mrs. Cake. she is happy here and waiting for you to join her, said One-Man-Bucket. “Who is?” said Windle. This seemed to fox One-Man-Bucket. It was a line that generally satisfied without further explanation.
The Librarian hadn’t always been an ape. A magical library is a dangerous place to work, and he’d been turned into an orangutan as a result of a magical explosion.
Arguing over petty details at times of dimensional emergency was a familiar wizardly trait.
She returned with a damp flannel and a glass of water. THERE’S A NEWT IN IT! “Shows it’s fresh,” said Miss Flitworth,
Bill Door looked out into the storm. Straws whirred past, tumbling on the gale. RUINED? MY HARVEST? He straightened up. BUGGER THAT.
There was a faint violet corona around the blade, caused by the drafts in the room driving luckless air molecules to their severed death.
The rat was crestfallen. The Death of Rats laid a bony but not entirely unkind paw on its shoulder. SQUEAK. The rat nodded sadly.
A third sheet seared across the sky. And this time there was no doubt about it. There was a mounted figure on the nearest hilltop. Hooded. Holding a scythe as proudly as a lance. POSING. Bill Door turned toward Miss Flitworth. POSING. I NEVER DID ANYTHING LIKE THAT. WHY DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT? WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE?
“Well, think of something! Didn’t anything ever work against you?” NO, said Bill Door, with a tiny touch of pride.
IF PEOPLE KNEW WHEN THEY WERE GOING TO DIE, I THINK THEY PROBABLY WOULDN’T LIVE AT ALL.
“Have you got any last words?” YES. I DON’T WANT TO GO.
Windle shook his head sadly. Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.
Arthur sighed. It was no life, or half-life or after-life or whatever it was, being a lower-middle-class wholesale fruit and vegetable merchant with an upper-class condition.
It was, as he was wonderfully well placed to know, merely putting off the inevitable. But wasn’t that what living was all about?
Bill Door was already rising and unfolding like the wrath of kings. He reached behind him, growling, living on loaned time, and his hands closed around the harvest scythe. The crowned Death saw it coming and raised its own weapon but there was very possibly nothing in the world that would stop the worn blade as it snarled through the air, rage and vengeance giving it an edge beyond any definition of sharpness. It passed through the metal without slowing. No CROWN, said Bill Door, looking directly into the smoke. No CROWN. ONLY THE HARVEST.
Of course, thought a tiny calm part of Windle’s mind, none of this is really real. Buildings aren’t really alive. It’s just a metaphor, only at the moment metaphors are like candles in a firework factory.
“Are you sure we’ll be all right?” Death nodded. “Well. That’s all right then.” The Harvester’s wheels were a blur. PROBABLY.
AND NOW I MUST GO, he said. Miss Flitworth looked horrified. “What? Just like that?” YES. EXACTLY LIKE THAT. I HAVE A LOT OF WORK TO DO. “And I won’t see you again? I mean—” OH, YES. SOON. He sought for the right words, and gave up. THAT’S A PROMISE.
No naked little men sat on the summit dispensing wisdom, because the first thing the truly wise man works out is that sitting around on mountaintops gives you not only hemorrhoids but frostbitten hemorrhoids.
Death brushed a speck of ash off his robe, and then planted his feet squarely on the mountaintop. He raised the scythe over his head in both hands, and summoned up all the lesser Deaths that had arisen in his absence. After a while they streamed up the mountain in a faint black wave. They flowed together like dark mercury. It went on for a long time and then stopped. Death lowered the scythe, and examined himself. Yes, all there. Once again, he was the Death, containing all the deaths of the world.
For a moment he hesitated. There was one tiny area of emptiness somewhere, some fragment of his soul, something unaccounted for . . . He couldn’t be quite certain what it was. He shrugged. Doubtless he’d find out. In the meantime, there was a lot of work to be done . . . He rode away. Far off, in his den under the barn, the Death of Rats relaxed his determined grip on a beam.
And incidentally, if you say ‘yo’ one more time, Dean, I will personally have you thrown out of the University, pursued to the rim of the world by the finest demons that thaumaturgy can conjure up, torn into extremely small pieces, minced, turned into a mixture reminiscent of steak tartare, and turned out into a dog bowl.”
The big store exploded and imploded at the same time, something it is almost impossible to achieve without a huge special effects budget or three spells all working against one another.
It was never too late to have a good life.
“Pog-a-grodle-fig!”
“Please, Miss Flitworth, there’s a skeleton of a horse walking around in the barn! It’s eating hay!” “How?” “And it’s all falling through!” “Really? We’ll keep it, then. At least it’ll be cheap to feed.”
Mrs. Cake always assumed that an invitation to Ludmilla was an invitation to Ludmilla’s mother as well. Mothers like her exist everywhere, and apparently nothing can be done about them.
In the hall outside, the great clock ticked on, killing time.
Death had always wondered why people put flowers on graves. It made no sense to him. The dead had gone beyond the scent of roses, after all. But now . . . it wasn’t that he felt he understood, but at least he felt that there was something there capable of understanding.
There was never anything to be gained from observing what humans said to one another—language was just there to hide their thoughts.
There are a billion Deaths, but they are all aspects of the one Death: Azrael, the Great Attractor, the Death of Universes, the beginning and end of time. Most of the universe is made up of dark matter, and only Azrael knows who it is.
Three of the servants of oblivion slid into existence alongside him. One said, Do not listen. He stands accused of meddling. One said, And morticide. One said, And pride. And living with intent to survive. One said, And siding with chaos against good order.
LORD, WE KNOW THERE IS NO GOOD ORDER EXCEPT THAT WHICH WE CREATE . . . Azrael’s expression did not change. THERE IS NO HOPE BUT US. THERE IS NO MERCY BUT US. THERE IS NO JUSTICE. THERE IS JUST US. The dark, sad face filled the sky. ALL THINGS THAT ARE, ARE OURS. BUT WE MUST CARE. FOR IF WE DO NOT CARE, WE DO NOT EXIST. IF WE DO NOT EXIST, THEN THERE IS NOTHING BUT BLIND OBLIVION. AND EVEN OBLIVION MUST END SOME DAY. LORD, WILL YOU GRANT ME JUST A LITTLE TIME? FOR THE PROPER BALANCE OF THINGS. TO RETURN WHAT WAS GIVEN. FOR THE SAKE OF PRISONERS AND THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS.
LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?
And Death returned home with a handful of Time.
YES. EVERYTHING. WITH A RIBBON. When the shop bell had jangled the purchaser out, Druto looked at the coins in his hand. Many of them were corroded, all of them were strange, and one or two were golden.
To deliver a box of chocolates like this, dark strangers drop from chairlifts and abseil down buildings. The dark stranger peered at the lettering. “DARK ENCHANTMENTS,” he said. I LIKE IT.
They glittered like bits of starlight on a black velvet sky. “This one,” said the merchant, “is a particularly excellent stone, don’t you think? Note the fire, the exceptional—” HOW FRIENDLY IS IT?
