Reaper Man (Discworld, #11; Death, #2)

by Terry Pratchett

“Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week,” said the low priest.

“There’s no way it could be—” The footsteps got nearer. The priests clutched at one another in terror. “Mrs. Cake!”

I HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ALL THIS. “You have? Where to?” Death hadn’t thought this far.

My head knows how to think young, but my knees aren’t that good at it. Or my back. Or my teeth. Try telling my knees they’re as old as they think they are and see what good it does you. Or them.”

I DON’T KNOW THAT ONE. “It’s the last waltz. I SUSPECT THERE’S NO SUCH THING.

YOU KNOW WHEN YOU SAID THAT SEEING ME GAVE YOU QUITE A START? “Yes?” IT GAVE YOU QUITE A STOP.

The landscape was snow and green ice on broken mountains. These weren’t old mountains, worn down by time and weather and full of gentle ski slopes, but young, sulky, adolescent mountains. They held secret ravines and merciless crevices. One yodel out of place would attract, not the jolly echo of a lonely goatherd, but fifty tons of express-delivery snow.

The bells don’t ring. They’re made of octiron, a magic metal. But they’re not, precisely, silent bells. Silence is merely the absence of noise. They make the opposite of noise, a sort of heavily textured silence.

I’ve really got to know who Windle Poons is.” WHO IS HE, THEN? “Windle Poons.” I CAN SEE WHERE THAT MUST HAVE COME AS A SHOCK. “Well, yes.” ALL THESE YEARS AND YOU NEVER SUSPECTED.

WINDLE POONS? “Yes?” THAT WAS YOUR LIFE. And, with great relief, and general optimism, and a feeling that on the whole everything could have been much worse, Windle Poons died.

I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY MYSELF.

SQUEAK. Death looked down. A small figure was standing by his feet. He reached down and picked it up, held it up to an investigative eye socket. I KNEW I’D MISSED SOMEONE. The Death of Rats nodded.

SQUEAK? Death shook his head. NO, I CAN’T LET YOU REMAIN, he said. IT’S NOT AS THOUGH I’M RUNNING A FRANCHISE OR SOMETHING. SQUEAK? ARE YOU THE ONLY ONE LEFT? The Death of Rats opened a tiny skeletal hand. The tiny Death of Fleas stood up, looking embarrassed but hopeful. NO. THIS SHALL NOT BE. I AM IMPLACABLE. I AM DEATH . . . ALONE. He looked at the Death of Rats. He remembered Azrael in his tower of loneliness. ALONE . . . The Death of Rats looked back at him. SQUEAK?

Picture a tall, dark figure, surrounded by cornfields . . . NO, YOU CAN’T RIDE A CAT. WHO EVER HEARD OF THE DEATH OF RATS RIDING A CAT? THE DEATH OF RATS WOULD RIDE SOME KIND OF DOG. Picture more fields, a great horizon-spanning network of fields, rolling in gentle waves . . . DON’T ASK ME I DON’T KNOW. SOME KIND OF TERRIER, MAYBE. . . . fields of corn, alive, whispering in the breeze . . . RIGHT, AND THE DEATH OF FLEAS CAN RIDE ...