Terry Pratchett
REAPER MAN


The Morris dance is common to all inhabited worlds in the multiverse. It is 
danced under blue skies to celebrate the quickening of the soil and under 
bare stars because it's springtime and with any luck the carbon dioxide will 
unfreeze again. The imperative is felt by deep-sea beings who have never 
seen the sun and urban humans whose only connection with the cycles of 
nature is that their Volvo once ran over a sheep.
It is danced innocently by raggedy-bearded young mathematicians to an 
inexpert accordion rendering of "Mrs Widgery's Lodger" and ruthlessly by 
such as the Ninja Morris Men of New Ankh, who can do strange and terrible 
things with a simple handkerchief and a bell. And it is never danced properly.
Except on the Discworld, which is flat and supported on the backs of four 
elephants which travel through space on the shell of Great A'Tuin, the world 
turtle. And even there, only in one place have they got it right. It's a small 
village high in the Ramtop Mountains, where the big and simple secret is 
handed down across the generations.
There, the men dance on the first day of spring, backwards and forwards, 
bells tied under their knees, white shirts flapping. People come and watch. 
There's an ox roast afterwards, and it's generally considered a nice day out 
for all the family.
But that isn't the secret.
The secret is the other dance.
And that won't happen for a while yet.

There is a ticking, such as might be made by a clock. And, indeed, in the 
sky there is a clock, and the ticking of freshly minted seconds flows out from 
it.


5




At least, it looks a clock. But it is in fact exactly the opposite of a clock, 
and the biggest hand goes around just once. There is a plain under a dim 
sky. It is covered with gentle rolling curves that might remind you of 
something else if you saw it from a long way away, and if you did see it from 
a long way away you'd be very glad that you were, in fact, a long way away.
Three grey figures floated just above it. Exactly what they were can't be 
described in normal language. Some people might call them cherubs, 
although there was nothing rosycheeked about them. They might be 
numbered among those who see to it that gravity operates and that time 
stays separate from space.
Call them auditors. Auditors of reality.
They were in conversation without speaking. They didn't need to speak. 
They just changed reality so that they had spoken.
One said, It has never happened before. Can it be done?
One said, It will have to be done. There is a personality. Personalities 
come to an end. Only forces endure. It said this with a certain satisfaction.
One said, Besides... there have been irregularities. Where you get 
personality, you get irregularities. Well-known fact.
One said, He has worked inefficiently?
One said, No. We can't get him there.
One said, That is the point. The word is him. Becoming a personality is 
inefficient. We don't want it to spread. Supposing gravity developed a 
personality? Supposing it decided to like people?
One said, Got a crush on them, sort of thing?
One said, in a voice that would have been even chillier if it was not 
already at absolute zero, No.
One said, Sorry. Just my little joke.
One said, Besides, sometimes he wonders about his job. Such 
speculation is dangerous.
One said, No argument there.
One said, Then we are agreed?


6




One, who seemed to have been thinking about something, said, Just one 
moment. Did you not just use the singular pronoun, 'my'? Not developing a 
personality, are you?
One said, guiltily, Who? Us?
One said. Where there is personality, there is discord.
One said. Yes. Yes. Very true.
One said, All right. But watch it in future.
One said, Then we are agreed?

They looked up at the face of Azrael, outlined against the sky. In fact, it 
?loas? the sky.
Azrael nodded, slowly.
One said, Very well. Where is this place?
One said, It is the Discworld. It rides through space on the back of a giant 
turtle.
One said, Oh, one of that sort. I hate them.
One said, You're doing it again. You said 'I'.
One said, No! No! I didn't! I never said 'I'! . . . oh, bugger . . .
It burst into flame ?iyld? burned in the same way that a small cloud of 
vapour burns, quickly and with no residual mess. Almost immediately, 
another one appeared. It was identical in appearance to its vanished sibling.
One said, Let that be a lesson. To become a personality is to end. And 
now . . . let us go.
Azrael watched them skim away.

It is hard to fathom the thoughts of a creature so big that, in real space, 
his length would be measured only in terms of the speed of light. But he 
turned his enormous bulk and, with eyes that stars could be lost in, sought 
among the myriad worlds for a flat one.
On the back of a turtle. The Discworld - world and mirror of worlds.
It sounded interesting. And, in his prison of a billion years, Azrael was 
bored.

And this is the room where the future pours into the past via the pinch of 
the now.
Timers line the walls. Not hour-glasses, although they have the same 
shape. Not egg-timers, such as you might buy 


7




as a souvenir attached to a small board with the name of the holiday 
resort of your choice jauntily inscribed on it by someone with the same 
sense of style as a jelly doughnut. It's not even sand in there. It's seconds, 
endlessly turning the maybe into the was. And every lifetimer has a name on 
it. And the room is full of the soft hissing of people living.
Picture the scene . . .
And now add the sharp clicking of bone on stone, getting closer. 
A dark shape crosses the field of vision and moves up the endless 
shelves of sibilant glassware. Click, click. Here's a glass with the top bulb 
nearly empty. Bone fingers rise and reach out. Select. And another. Select. 
And more. Many, many more. Select, Select.
It's all in a day's work. Or it would be, if days existed here.
Click, click, a~, the dark shape moves patiently along the rows.
And stops.
And hesitates.
Because here's a small gold timer, not much bigger than a watch. It 
wasn't there yesterday, or wouldn't have been if yesterdays existed here.
Bony fingers close around it and hold it up to the light. It's got a name on 
it, in small capital letters.
The name is DEATH.
Death put down the timer, and then picked it up again. The sands of time 
were already pouring through. He turned it over experimentally, just in case. 
The sand went on pouring, only now it was going upwards. He hadn't really 
expected anything else.
It meant that, even if tomorrows could exist here, there weren't going to 
be any. Not any more.
There was a movement in the air behind him. Death turned slowly, and 
addressed the figure that wavered indistinctly in the gloom.


8




WHY?
It told him.
BUT THAT IS . . . NOT RIGHT.
It told him that No, it was right.
Not a muscle moved on Death's face, because he hadn't got any.
I SHALL APPEAL.
It told him, he should know that there was no appeal. Never any appeal. 
Never any appeal.
Death thought about this, and then he said:
I HAVE ALWAYS DONE MY DUTY AS I SAW FIT.
The figure floated closer. It looked vaguely like a grey-robed and hooded 
monk.
It told him, We know. That is why we're letting you keep the horse.

The sun was near the horizon.
The shortest-lived creatures on the Disc were mayflies, which barely make 
it through twenty-four hours. Two of the oldest zigzagged aimlessly over the 
waters of a trout stream, discussing history with some younger members of 
the evening hatching.
'You don't get the kind of sun now that you used to get, ' said one of 
them.
'You're right there. We had proper sun in the good old hours. It were all 
yellow. None of this red stuff.'
'It were higher, too.'
'It was. You're right.'
'And nymphs and larvae showed you a bit of respect.'
'They did. They did,' said the other mayfly vehemently.
'I reckon, if mayflies these hours behaved a bit better, we'd still be having 
proper sun.'
The younger mayflies listened politely.
'I remember, ' said one of the oldest mayflies, 'when all this was fields, as 
far as you could see.'


9




The younger mayflies looked around.
'It's still fields,' one of them ventured, after a polite interval.
'I remember when it was better fields,' said the old mayfly sharply.
'Yeah, ' said his colleague.'And there was a cow.'
'That's right! You're right! I remember that cow! Stood right over there for, 
oh, forty, fifty minutes. It was brown, as I recall.'
'You don't get cows like that these hours.'
'You don't get cows at all.'
'What's a cow?' said one of the hatchlings.
'See?' said the oldest mayfly triumphantly.'That's modern Ephemeroptera 
for you.' It paused.'What were we doing before we were talking about the 
sun?'
'Zigzagging aimlessly over the water,' said one of the young flies; This 
was a fair bet in any case.
'No, before that.'
'Er . . . you were telling us about the Great Trout.'
'Ah. Yes. Right. The Trout. Well, you see, if you've been a good mayfly, 
zigzagging up and down properly -' '- taking heed of your elders and betters -
'
'- yes, and taking heed of your elders and betters,
then eventually the Great Trout -'
Clop
Clop
'Yes?' said one of the younger mayflies.
There was no reply.
'The Great Trout what?' said another mayfly, nervously.
They looked down at a series of expanding concentric rings on the water.
'The holy sign!' said a mayfly.'I remember being told about that! A Great 
Circle in the water! Thus shall be the sign of the Great Trout!'
The oldest of the young mayflies watched the water


10




thoughtfully. It was beginning to realise that, as the most senior fly 
present, it now had the privilege of hovering closest to the surface.
 'They say, ' said the mayfly at the top of the zigzagging crowd, 'that when 
the Great Trout comes for you, you go to a land flowing with . . . flowing with 
. . .'
Mayflies don't eat. It was at a loss.'Flowing with water, ' it finished lamely.
'I wonder, ' said the oldest mayfly.
'It must be really good there, ' said the youngest.
'Oh? Why?'
' 'Cos no-one ever wants to come back.'

Whereas the oldest things on the Discworld were the famous Counting 
Pines, which grow right on the permanent snowline of the high Ramtop 
Mountains.
The Counting Pine is one of the few known examples of borrowed 
evolution.
Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which 
is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in 
tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there's 
nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a 
species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone.
This is probably fine from the species' point of view, but from the 
perspective of the actual individuals involved it can be a real pig, or at least a 
small pink root-eating reptile that might one day evolve into a real pig.
So the Counting Pines avoided all this by letting other vegetables do their 
evolving for them. A pine seed, coming to rest anywhere on the Disc, 
immediately picks up the most effective local genetic code via morphic 
resonance and grows into whatever best suits the soil and climate, usually 
doing much better at it than the native trees themselves, which it usually 
usurps.


11




What makes the Counting Pines particularly noteworthy, however, is the 
way they count.
Being dimly aware that human beings had learned to tell the age of a tree 
by counting the rings, the original Counting Pines decided that this was why 
humans cut trees down.
Overnight every Counting Pine readjusted its genetic code to produce, at 
about eye-level on its trunk, in pale letters, its precise age. Within a year they 
were felled almost into extinction by the ornamental house number plate 
industry, and only a very few survive in hard-to-reach areas. 
The six Counting Pines in this clump were listening to the oldest, whose 
gnarled trunk declared it to be thirty-one thousand, seven hundred and thirty-
four years old. The conversation took seventeen years, but has been 
speeded up.
'I remember when all this wasn't fields.'
The pines stared out over a thousand miles of landscape. The sky 
flickered like a bad special effect from a time travel movie. Snow appeared, 
stayed for an instant, and melted.
'What was it, then?' said the nearest pine. 
'Ice. If you can call it ice. We had proper glaciers in those days. Not like 
the ice you get now, here one season and gone the next. It hung around for 
ages.'
'What happened to it, then?'
'It went.'
'Went where?'
'Where things go. Everything's always rushing off.'
'Wow. That was a sharp one.'
'What was?' 
'That winter just then.'
'Call that a winter? When I was a sapling we had winters -'
Then the tree vanished.
After a shocked pause for a couple of years, one of the


12




clump said: 'He just went! Just like that! One day he was here, next he 
was gone!'
If the other trees had been humans, they would have shuffled their feet.
'It happens, lad,' said one of them, carefully.'He's been taken to a Better 
Place,' you can be sure of that. He was a good tree.'
The young tree, which was a mere five thousand, one hundred and eleven 
years old, said: 'What sort of Better Place?'
'We're not sure, ' said one of the clump. It trembled uneasily in a week-
long gale.'But we think it involves . . . sawdust.'
Since the trees were unable even to sense any event that took place in 
less than a day, they never heard the sound of axes.

Windle Poons, oldest wizard in the entire faculty of Unseen University - 
home of magic, wizardry and big dinners - was also going to die.
He knew it, in a frail and shaky sort of way.
 Of course, he mused, as he wheeled his wheel-chair over the flagstones 
towards his ground-floor study, in a general sort of way everyone knew they 
were going to die, even the common people. No-one knew where you were 
before you were born, but when you were born, it wasn't long before you 
found you'd arrived with your return ticket already punched.
But wizards really knew. Not if death involved violence or murder, of 
course, but if the cause of death was simply a case of running out of life then 
. . . well, you knew. You generally got the premonition in time to return your 
library books and make sure your best
'In this case, three better places. The front gates of Nos 31, 7, and 34 Elm 
Street. Ankh-Morpork.


13




suit was clean and borrow quite large sums of money from your friends.
He was one hundred and thirty. It occurred to him that for most of his life 
he'd been an old man. Didn't seem fair, really.
And no-one had said anything. He'd mentioned it in the Uncommon Room 
last week, and no-one had taken the hint. And at lunch today they'd hardly 
spoken to him. Even his old so-called friends seemed to be avoiding him, 
and he wasn't even trying to borrow
money.
It was like not having your birthday remembered, only worse.
He was going to die all alone, and no-one cared.
He bumped the door open with the wheel of the chair and fumbled on the 
table by the door for the tinder box.
That was another thing. Hardly anyone used tinder boxes these days. 
They bought the big smelly yellow matches the alchemists made. Windle 
disapproved. Fire was important. You shouldn't be able to switch it on just 
like that, it didn't show any respect. That was people these days, always 
rushing around and . . . fires. Yes, it had been a lot warmer in the old days, 
too.
The kind of fires they had these days didn't warm you up unless you were 
nearly on top of them. It was something in the wood . . . it was the wrong sort 
of wood.
Everything was wrong these days. More thin. More fuzzy. No real life in 
anything. And the days were shorter. Mmm. Something had gone wrong with 
the days. They were shorter days. Mmm. Every day took an age to go by, 
which was odd, because days plural went past like a stampede. There 
weren't many things people wanted a 130-year-old wizard to do, and Windle 
had got into the habit of arriving at the dining-table up to two hours before 
each meal, simply to pass the time.
Endless days, going by fast. Didn't make sense.


14




Mmm. Mind you, you didn't get the sense now that  you used to get in the 
old days.
And they let the University be run by mere boys now. In the old days it had 
been run by proper wizards, great big men built like barges, the kind of 
wizards you could look up to. Then suddenly they'd all gone off somewhere 
and Windle was being patronised by these boys who still had some of their 
own teeth. Like that Ridcully lad. Windle remembered him clearly. Thin lad, 
sticking-out ears, never wiped his nose properly, cried for his mother in the 
dorm on the first night. Always up to mischief. Someone had tried to tell 
Windle that Ridcully was Archchancellor now.
Mmm. They must think he was daft.
Where was that damn tinder box? Fingers . . . you used to get proper 
fingers in the old days . . .
Someone pulled the covers off a lantern. Someone else pushed a drink 
into his groping hand.
'Surprise!'

 In the hall of the house of Death is a clock with a pendulum like a blade 
but with no hands, because in the house of Death there is no time but the 
present. (There was. of course. a present before the present now, but that 
was also the present. It was just an older one.)
The pendulum is a blade that would have made Edgar Allan Poe give it all 
up and start again as a stand-up comedian on the scampi-in-a-casket circuit. 
It swings with a faint whum-whum noise, gently slicing thin rashers of 
interval from the bacon of eternity.
Death stalked past the clock and into the sombre gloom of his study. 
Albert, his servant, was waiting for him with the towel and dusters.
'Good morning, master.'
Death sat down silently in his big chair. Albert draped the towel over the 
angular shoulders.
'Another nice day,' he said, conversationally.
Death said nothing.


15




Albert flapped the polishing cloth and pulled back Death's cowl.
ALBERT.

Death pulled out the tiny golden timer.
DO YOU SEE THIS?
'Yes, sir. Very nice. Never seen one like that before. Whose is it?'
MINE.
Albert's eyes swivelled sideways. On one corner of Death's desk was a 
large timer in a black frame. It contained no sand.
'I thought that one was yours, sir?' he said.
IT WAS. NOW THIS IS. A RETIREMENT PRESENT. FROM AZRAEL 
HIMSELF.
Albert peered at the thing in Death's hand.
'But . . . the sand, sir. It's pouring.'
QUITE SO.
'But that means . . . I mean . . . ?'
IT MEANS THAT ONE DAY THE SAND WILL ALL BE POURED, ALBERT.
'I know that, sir, but . . . you . . . I thought Time was something that 
happened to other people, sir. Doesn't it? Not to you, sir.' By the end of the 
sentence Albert's voice was beseeching.
Death pulled off the towel and stood up.
COME WITH ME.
'But you're Death, master,' said Albert, running crab-legged after the tall 
figure as it led the way out into the hall and down the passage to the stable.
'This isn't some sort of joke, is it?' he added hopefully. 
I AM NOT KNOWN FOR MY SENSE OF FUN.
'Well, of course not, no offense meant. But listen, you can't die. because 
you're Death, you'd have to happen to yourself, it'd be like that snake that 
eats its own tail -'
NEVERTHELESS, I AM GOING TO DIE. THERE IS NO APPEAL.
'But what will happen to me?' Albert said. Terror glittered


16




on his words like flakes of metal on the edge of a knife.
THERE WILL BE A NEW DEATH.
Albert drew himself up.
'I really don't think I could serve a new master,' he said.
THEN GO BACK INTO THE WORLD. I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY. YOU HAVE 
BEEN A GOOD SERVANT, ALBERT.
'But if I go back -'
YES, said Death. YOU WILL DIE.

In the warm, horsey gloom of the stable, Death's pale horse looked up 
from its oats and gave a little whinny of greeting. The horse's name was 
Binky. He was a real horse. Death had tried fiery steeds and skeletal horses 
in the past, and found them impractical, especially the fiery ones, which 
tended to set light to their own bedding and stand in the middle of it looking 
embarrassed.

Death took the saddle down from its hook and glanced at Albert, who was 
suffering a crisis of conscience.
Thousands of years before, Albert had opted to serve Death rather than 
die. He wasn't exactly immortal. Real time was forbidden in Death's realm. 
There was only the ever-changing now, but it went on for a very long time. He 
had less than two months of real time left; he hoarded his days like bars of 
gold.
'I, er . . .' he began.'That is -'
YOU FEAR TO DIE?
'It's not that I don't want . . . I mean, I've always . . . it's just that life is a 
habit that's hard to break . . .'
Death watched him curiously, as one might watch a beetle that had landed 
on its back and couldn't turn over.
Finally Albert lapsed into silence.
I UNDERSTAND, said Death, unhooking Binky's bridle.
'But you don't seem worried! You're really going to die?'
YES. IT WILL BE A GREAT ADVENTURE.
'It will? You're not afraid?'
I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BE AFRAID.
'I could show you, if you like,' Albert ventured.
NO. I SHOULD LIKE TO LEARN BY MYSELF. I SHALL HAVE


17




EXPERIENCES. AT LAST.
'Master . . . if you go, will there be -?'
A NEW DEATH WILL ARISE FROM THE MINDS OF THE LIVING, ALBERT.
'Oh.' Albert looked relieved.'You don't happen to know what he'll be like, 
do you?'
NO.
'Perhaps I'd better, you know, clean the place up a bit, get an inventory 
prepared, that sort of thing?'
GOOD IDEA, said Death, as kindly as possible. WHEN I SEE THE NEW 
DEATH, I SHALL HEARTILY RECOMMEND YOU.
'Oh. You'll see him, then?'
OH. YES. AND I MUST LEAVE NOW.
'What. so soon?'
CERTAINLY. MUSTN'T WASTE TIME!
Death adjusted the saddle, and then turned and held the tiny hour-glass 
proudly in front of Albert's hooked nose.
SEE! I HAVE TIME. AT LAST, I HAVE TIME
Albert backed away nervously.
'And now that you have it, what are you going to do with it?' he said.
Death mounted his horse.
I AM GOING TO SPEND IT.

The party was in full swing. The banner with the legend 'Goodebye Windle 
130 Gloriouse Years' was dripping a bit in the heat. Things were getting to 
the point where there was nothing to drink but the punch and nothing to eat 
but the strange yellow dip with the highly suspicious tortillas and nobody 
minded. The wizards chatted with the forced jolliness of people who see one 
another all day and are now seeing one another all evening.
In the middle of it all Windle Poons sat with a huge glass of rum and a 
funny hat on his head. He was almost in tears.
'A genuine Going-Away party!' he kept muttering.'Haven't had one of them 
since old "Scratcher"


18




 He Went Away, ' the capital letters fell into place easily, 'back in, mm, the 
Year of the Intimidating, mm, Porpoise. Thought everyone had forgotten 
about 'em.'
'The Librarian looked up the details for us, ' said the Bursar, indicating a 
large orangutan who was trying to blow into a party squeaker.'He also made 
the banana dip. I hope someone eats it soon.'
He leaned down.
'Can I help you to some more potato salad?' he said, in the loud 
deliberate voice used for talking to imbeciles and old people.
Windle cupped a trembling hand to his ear. 
'What? What?'
'More! salad! Windle?'
'No, thank you.'
'Another sausage, then?' 
'What?'
'Sausage!'
'They give me terrible gas all night,' said Windle.
He considered this for a moment, and then took five.
'Er,' shouted the Bursar, 'do you happen to know what time -?'
'Eh?'
'What! Time?'
'Half past nine,' said Windle, promptly if indistinctly.
'Well, that's nice, ' said the Bursar.'It gives you the rest of the evening, er, 
free.'
Windle rummaged in the dreadful recesses of his wheelchair, a graveyard 
for old cushions, dog-eared books and ancient, half-sucked sweets. He 
flourished a small green-covered book and pushed it into the Bursar's 
hands.
The Bursar turned it over. Scrawled on the cover were the words: Windle 
Poons Hys Dyary. A piece of bacon rind marked today's date.


19




Under Things to Do, a crabbed hand had written: Die.
The Bursar couldn't stop himself from turning the page.
Yes. Under tomorrow's date, Things to Do: Get Born.
His gaze slid sideways to a small table at the side of the room. Despite the 
fact that the room was quite crowded, there was an area of clear floor around 
the table, as if it had some kind of personal space that no-one was about to 
invade.
There had been special instructions in the Going Away ceremony 
concerning the table. It had to have a black cloth, with a few magic sigils 
embroidered on it.
It had a plate, containing a selection of the better ?canal's?. It had a glass 
of wine. After considerable discussion among the wizards, a funny paper hat 
had been added as well.
They all had an expectant look.
The Bursar took out his watch and flicked open the ???
It was one of the ?new-fanged? pocket watches, with hands. They pointed 
to a quarter past nine. He shook it. A small hatch opened under the 12 and a 
very small demon poked its head out and said, 'Knock it off, guv'nor, I 'm 
pedalling as fast as I can.'
He closed the watch again and looked around desperately. No-one else 
seemed anxious to come too near Windle Poons. The Bursar felt it was up to 
him to make polite conversation. He surveyed possible topics. They all 
presented problems.
Windle Poons helped him out.
'I'm thinking of coming back as a woman,' he said conversationally.
The Bursar opened and shut his mouth a few times.
'I'm looking forward to it,' Poons went on.'I think it might, mm, be jolly 
good fun.'
The Bursar riffled desperately through his limited


20




repertoire of small talk relating to women. He leaned down to Windle's 
gnarled ear.
'Isn't there rather a lot of, ' he struck out aimlessly, 'washing things? And 
making beds and cookery and all that sort of thing?'
'Not in the kind of, mm, life I have in mind,' said Windle firmly.
The Bursar shut his mouth. The Archchancellor banged on a table with a 
spoon.
'Brothers -' he began, when there was something approaching silence. 
This prompted a loud and ragged chorus of cheering.
'- As you all know we are here tonight to mark the, ah, retirement' - 
nervous laughter - 'of our old friend and colleague Windle Poons. You know, 
seeing old Windle sitting here tonight puts me in mind, as luck would have it, 
of the story of the cow with three wooden legs. It appears that there was this 
cow, and -' 
The Bursar let his mind wander. He knew the story.
The Archchancellor always mucked up the punch line, and in any case he 
had other things on his mind. 
He kept looking back at the little table.
The Bursar was a kindly if nervous soul, and quite enjoyed his job. Apart 
from anything else, no other wizard wanted it. Lots of wizards wanted to be  
Archchancellor, for example, or the head of one of the eight orders of magic, 
but practically no wizards wanted to spend lots of time in an office shuffling 
bits of paper and doing sums. All the paperwork of the University tended to 
accumulate in the Bursar's office, which meant that he went to bed tired at 
nights but at least slept soundly and didn't have to check very hard for 
unexpected scorpions in his night-shirt.
Killing off a wizard of a higher grade was a recognised way of getting 
advancement in the orders.
However, the only person likely to want to kill the Bursar was someone 
else who derived a quiet pleasure from columns of numbers, all neatly 
arranged, and


21




people like that don't often go in for murder. *
He recalled his childhood, long ago, in the Ramtop Mountains. He and his 
sister used to leave a glass of wine and a cake out every Hogswatchnight for 
the Hogfather. Things had been different, then. He'd been a lot younger and 
hadn't known much and had probably been a lot happier.
For example, he hadn't known that he might one day be a wizard and join 
other wizards in leaving a glass of wine and a cake and a rather suspect 
chicken vol-au-vent and a paper party hat for . . .
 . . . someone else.
There'd been Hogswatch parties, too, when he was a little boy. They'd 
always follow a certain pattern.
Just when all the children were nearly sick with excitement, one of the 
grown-ups would say, archly, 'I think we're going to have a special visitor!' 
and, amazingly ?oq cue?, there'd be a suspicious ringing of hog bells 
outside the window and in would come . . .
 . . . in would come . . .
The Bursar shook his head. Someone's granddad in false whiskers, of 
course. Some jolly old boy with a sack of toys, stamping the snow off his 
boots. Someone who gave you something.
Whereas tonight . . .
Of course, old Windle probably felt different about it. After one hundred 
and thirty years, death probably had a certain attraction. You probably 
became quite interested in finding out what happened next.
The Archchancellor's convoluted anecdote wound jerkily to its close. The 
assembled wizards laughed dutifully, and then tried to work out the joke.
The Bursar looked surreptitiously at his watch. It was now twenty minutes 
past nine.

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  At least, until the day they suddenly pick up a paper-knife and carve 
their way out through Cost Accounting and into forensic history.


22




Windle Poons made a speech. It was long and rambling and disjointed 
and went on about the good old days and he seemed to think that most of 
the people around him were people who had been, in fact, dead for about 
fifty years, but that didn't matter because you
got into the habit of not listening to old Windle.
The Bursar couldn't tear his eyes away from his watch. From inside came 
the squeak of the treadle as the demon patiently pedalled his way towards 
infinity.
Twenty-five minutes past the hour.
The Bursar wondered how it was supposed to happen. Did you hear - I 
think we're going to have a very special visitor - hoofbeats outside?
Did the door actually open or did He come through it? Silly question. He 
was renowned for His ability to get into sealed places - especially into sealed 
places, if you thought about it logically. Seal yourself in anywhere and it was 
only a matter of time.
The Bursar hoped He'd use the door properly. His nerves were twanging 
as it was.
The conversational level was dropping. Quite a few other wizards, the 
Bursar noticed, were glancing at the door.
Windle was at the centre of a very tactfully widening circle. No-one was 
actually avoiding him, it was just that an apparent random Brownian motion 
was gently moving everyone away.
Wizards can see Death. And when a wizard dies, Death arrives in person 
to usher him into the Beyond. The Bursar wondered why this was considered 
a plus -
'Don't know what you're all looking at,' said Windle, cheerfully.
The Bursar opened his watch.
The hatch under the 12 snapped up.
'Can you knock it off with all this shaking around?' squeaked the demon.'I 
keeps on losing count.'
'Sorry, ' the Bursar hissed. It was nine twenty-nine.
The Archchancellor stepped forward.


23




"Bye, then, Windle,' he said, shaking the old man's parchment-like 
hand.'The old place won't seem the same without you.'
'Don't know how we'll manage,' said the Bursar, thankfully.
'Good luck in the next life,' said the Dean.'Drop in if you're ever passing 
and happen to, you know, remember who you've been.'
'Don't be a stranger, you hear?' said the Archchancellor.
Windle Poons nodded amiably. He hadn't heard what they were saying. He 
nodded on general principles.
The wizards, as one man, faced the door.
The hatch under the 12 snapped up again.
'Bing bing bong bing,' said the demon.'Bingely-bingely bong bing bing.'
'What?' said the Bursar, jolted.
'Half past nine, ' said the demon.
The wizards turned to Windle Poons. They looked faintly accusing.
'What're you all looking at?' he said.
The seconds hand on the watch squeaked onwards.
'How are you feeling?' said the Dean loudly.
'Never felt better,' said Windle.'Is there any more of that, mm, rum left?'
The assembled wizards watched him pour a generous measure into his 
beaker.
'You want to go easy on that stuff,' said the Dean nervously.
'Good health!' said Windle Poons.
The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on the table.
'Mr Poons, ' he said, 'are you quite sure?'
Windle had gone off at a tangent.'Any more of these toturerillas? Not that 
I call it proper food,' he said, 'dippin' bits of hard bikky in sludge, what's so 
special


24




about that? What I could do with right now ?is? one of Mr Dibbler's 
famous meat pies -'
And then he died.
The Archchancellor glanced at his fellow wizards, and then tiptoed across 
to the wheelchair and lifted a blueveined wrist to check the pulse. He shook 
his head.
'That's the way I want to go, ' said the Dean.
'What, muttering about meat pies?' said the Bursar.
'No. Late.'
'Hold on. Hold on,' said the Archchancellor.'This isn't right, you know. 
According to tradition, Death himself turns up for the death of a wiz - '
'Perhaps He was busy, ' said the Bursar hurriedly.
'That's right,' said the Dean.'Bit of a serious flu epidemic over Quirm way, 
I'm told.'
'Quite a storm last night, too. Lots of shipwrecks, I daresay, ' said the 
Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'And of course it's springtime, when you get a great many avalanches in 
the mountains.'
'And plagues.'
The Archchancellor stroked his beard thoughtfully.
'Hmm, ' he said.

Alone of all the creatures in the world, trolls believe that all living things 
go through Time backwards. If the past is visible and the future is hidden, 
they say, then it means you must be facing the wrong way. Everything alive 
is going through life back to front. And this is a very interesting idea. 
considering it was invented by a race who spend most of their time hitting 
one another on the head with rocks.
Whichever way around it is, Time is something that living creatures 
possess.
Death galloped down through towering black clouds.
And now he had Time, too.
The time of his life.

Windle Poons peered into the darkness.


25




'Hallo?' he said.'Hallo. Anyone there? What ho?'
There was a distant, forlorn soughing, as of wind at the end of a tunnel.
'Come out. come out, wherever you are,' said Windle, his voice trembling 
with mad cheerfulness.'Don't worry. I'm quite looking forward to it, to tell the 
truth.'
He clapped his spiritual hands and rubbed them together with forced 
enthusiasm.
'Get a move on. Some of us have got new lives to go to,' he said.
The darkness remained inert. There was no shape, no sound. It was void, 
without form. The spirit of Windle Poons moved on the face of the darkness.
It shook its head.'Blow this for a lark,' it muttered.'This isn't right at all.'
It hung around for a while and then, because there didn't seem anything 
else for it, headed for the only home it had ever known. 
It was a home he'd occupied for one hundred and thirty years. It wasn't 
expecting him back and put up a lot of resistance. You either had to be very 
determined or very powerful to overcome that sort of thing, but Windle 
Poons had been a wizard for more than a century. Besides, it was like 
breaking into your own house, the old familiar property that you'd lived in for 
years. You knew where the metaphorical window was that didn't shut 
properly.
In short, Windle Poons went back to Windle Poons.

Wizards don't believe in gods in the same way that most people don't find 
it necessary to believe in, say, tables. They know they're there, they know 
they're there for a purpose, they'd probably agree that they have a place in a 
well-organised universe, but they wouldn't see the point of believing, of 
going around saying, 'O great table, without whom we are as naught'. 
Anyway, either the gods are there whether you believe or not, or exist only as 
a function of the belief, so either way you might as well ignore the


26




whole business and, as it were, eat off your knees.
Nevertheless, there is a small chapel off the University's Great Hall, 
because while the wizards stand right behind the philosophy as outlined 
above, you don't become a success~ wizard by getting up gods' noses even 
if those noses only exist in an ethereal or metaphorical sense. Because while 
wizards don't believe in gods they know for a fact that gods believe in gods.
And in this chapel lay the body of Windle Poons.
The University had instituted twenty-four hours ???'ting-in-state ever 
since the embarrassing affair thirty years previously with the late Prissal 
'Merry Rankster' Teatar.
The body of Windle Poons opened its eyes. Two coins jingled on to the 
stone floor.
The hands, crossed over the chest, unclenched.
Windle raised his head. Some idiot had stuck a lily in his stomach.
His eyes swivelled sideways. There was a candle on either side of his 
head.
He raised his head some more.
There were two more candles down there, too.
Thank goodness for old Teatar, he thought. Otherwise I'd already be 
looking at the underside of a rather cheap pine lid.
Funny thing, he thought. I'm thinking. Clearly.
Wow.
Windle lay back, feeling his spirit refilling his body like gleaming molten 
metal ?filling? through a mould.
White-hot thoughts seared across the darkness of his brain, fired 
sluggish neurones into action.
It was never like this when I was alive.
But I'm not dead.
Not alive and not dead.
Sort of non-alive.
Or un-dead.
Oh dear . . .


27




He swung himself upright. Muscles that hadn't worked properly for 
seventy or eighty years jerked into overdrive. For the first time in his entire 
life, he corrected himself, better make that 'period of existence', Windle 
Poons' body was entirely under Windle Poons' control. And Windle Poons ' 
spirit wasn't about to take any lip from a bunch of muscles.
Now the body stood up. The knee joints resisted for a while, but they were 
no more able to withstand the onslaught of will-power than a sick mosquito 
can withstand a blowtorch.
The door to the chapel was locked. However, Windle found that the 
merest pressure was enough to pull the lock out of the woodwork and leave 
fingerprints in the metal of the door handle.
'Oh, goodness, ' he said.
He piloted himself out into the corridor. The distant clatter of cu~~ery and 
the buzz of voices suggested that one of the University's four daily meals 
was in progress.
He wondered whether you were allowed to eat when you were dead. 
Probably not, he thought.
And could he eat, anyway? It wasn't that he wasn't hungry. It was just that 
. . . well, he knew how to think, and walking and moving were just a matter of 
twitching some fairly obvious nerves, but how exactly did your stomach 
work?
It began to dawn on Windle that the human body is not run by the brain, 
despite the brain's opinion on the matter. In fact it's run by dozens of 
complex automatic systems, all whirring and clicking away with the kind of 
precision that isn't noticed until it breaks down.
He surveyed himself from the control room of his skull. He looked at the 
silent chemical factory of his liver with the same sinking feeling as a canoe 
builder might survey the controls of a computerised super-tanker. The 
mysteries of his kidneys awaited Windle's mastery of renal control. What, 
when you got right down to it, was a spleen? And how did you make it go?


28




His heart sank.
Or, rather, it didn't.
'Oh, gods,' muttered Windle, and leaned against the wall. How did it work, 
now? He prodded a few, likely-looking nerves. Was it systolic . . . diastolic . . 
. systolic . . . diastolic . . .? And then there were the lungs, too . . .
Like a conjurer keeping eighteen plates spinning at the same time - like a 
man trying to programme a video recorder from an instruction manual 
translated from Japanese into Dutch by a Korean rice-husker - like, in fact, a 
man finding out what total self-control really means, Windle Poons lurched 
onwards.

The wizards of Unseen University set great store by big, solid meals. A 
man couldn't be expected to get down to some serious wizarding, they held, 
without soup, fish, game, several huge plates of meat, a pie or two, 
something big and wobbly with cream on it, little
savoury things on toast, fruit, nuts and a brick-thick mint with the coffee. 
It gave him a lining to his stomach. It was also important that the meals were 
served at regular times. It was what gave the day shape, they said.
Except for the Bursar, of course. He didn't eat much, but lived on his 
nerves. He was certain he was anorectic, because every time he looked in a 
mirror he saw a fat man. It was the Archchancellor, standing behind him and 
shouting at him.
And it was the Bursar's unfortunate fate to be sitting opposite the doors 
when Windle Poons smashed them in because it was easier than fiddling 
with the handles.
He bit through his wooden spoon.
The wizards revolved on their benches to stare.
Windle Poons swayed for a moment, assembling control of vocal chords, 
lips and tongue, and then said:
'I think I may be able to metabolise alcohol.'


29




The Archchancellor was the first one to recover.
'Windle!' he said.'We thought you were dead!'
He had to admit that it wasn't a very good line. You didn't put people on a 
slab with candles and lilies all round them because you think they've got a 
bit of a headache and want a nice lie down for half an hour.
Windle took a few steps forward. The nearest wizards fell over themselves 
in an effort to get away.
'I am dead, you bloody young fool,' he muttered.'Think I go around 
looking like this all the time? Good grief.' He glared at the assembled 
wizardry.'Anyone here know what a spleen is supposed to do?'
He reached the table, and managed to sit down.
'Probably something to do with the digestion,' he said.'Funny thing, you 
can go through your whole life with the bloody thing ticking away or 
whatever it does, gurgling or whatever, and you never know what the hell it's 
actually for. It's Like when you're lying in
bed of a night and you hear your stomach or something go pripple-ipple-
goinnng. It's just a gurgle to you, but who knows what marvellously complex 
chemical exchange processes are really going -'
'You're an undead?' said the Bursar, managing to get the words out at 
last.
'I didn't ask to be,' said the late Windle Poons irritably looking at the food 
and wondering how the blazes one went about turning it into Windle Poons.'I 
only came back because there was nowhere else to go. Think I want to be 
here?'
'But surely,' said the Archchancellor, 'didn't . . . you know the fella, the 
one with the skull and the scythe -'
'Never saw him,' said Windle, shortly, inspecting the nearest 
dishes.'Really takes it out of you, this un-dyin'.'
The wizards made frantic signals to one another over his head. He looked 
up and glared at them.
'And don't think I can't see all them frantic signals,' he said. And he was 
amazed to realise that this


30




was true. Eyes that had viewed the past sixty years trough a pale, fuzzy 
veil had been bullied into operating like the finest optical machinery.
In fact two main bodies of thought were occupying the minds of the 
wizards of Unseen University.
What was being thought by most of the wizards was: this is terrible, is it 
really old Windle in there, he was such a sweet old buffer, how can we get rid 
of it?
How can we get n'd ofit?
What was being thought by Windle Poons, in the humming, flashing 
cockpit of his brain, was: well, it's bye. There is life after death. And it's the 
same one. Just my luck.
'Well, ' he said, ' what're you going to do about it?'

It was five minutes later. Half a dozen of the most senior wizards scurried 
along the draughty corridor in the wake of the Archchancellor, whose robes 
billowed ?out? behind him.
The conversation went like this:
'It's got to be Windle! It even talks like him!'
'It's not old Windle. Old Windle was a lot older!'
'Older? Older than dead?'
'He's said he wants his old bedroom back, and I don't see why I should 
have to move out -'
'Did you see his eyes? Like gimlets !'
'Eh? What? What d'you mean? You mean like that dwarf who runs the 
delicatessen on Cable Street?'
'I mean like they bore into you!'
'- it's got a lovely view of the gardens and I've had all my stuff moved in 
and it's not fair -'
'Has this ever happened before?'
'Well, there was old Teatar -'
'Yes, but he never actually died, he just used to put green paint on his 
face and push the lid off the coffin and shout "Surprise, surprise -" '
'We've never had a zombie here.'
'He's a zombie?'


31




'I think so -'
'Does that mean he'll be playing kettle drums and doing that bimbo 
dancing all night, then?'
'Is that what they do?'
'Old Windle? Doesn't sound like his cup of tea. He never liked dancing 
much when he was alive -'
'Anyway, you can't trust those voodoo gods. Never trust a god who grins 
all the time and wears a top hat, that's my motto.'
'- I'm damned if I'm going to give up my bedroom to a zombie after waiting 
years for it -'
 'Is it? That's a funny motto.'

Windle Poons strolled around the inside of his own head again.
Strange thing, this. Now he was dead, or not living any more, or whatever 
he was, his mind felt clearer than it had ever done.
And control seemed to be getting easier, too. He hardly had to bother 
about the whole respiratory thing, the spleen seemed to be working after a 
fashion, the senses were operating at full speed. The digestive system was 
still a bit of a mystery, though.
He looked at himself in a silver plate.
He still looked dead. Pale face, red under the eyes. A dead body. 
Operating but still, basically, dead. Was that fair? Was that justice? Was that 
a proper reward for being a firm believer in reincarnation for almost 130 
years? You come back as a corpse?
No wonder the undead were traditionally considered to be very angry.

Something wonderful, if you took the long view, was about to happen.
If you took the short or medium view, something horrible was about to 
happen.
It's like the difference between seeing a beautiful new star in the winter 
sky and actually being close to


32




the supernova. It's the difference between the beauty  of morning dew on 
a cobweb and actually being a fly.
It was something that wouldn't normally have happened for thousands of 
years.
It was about to happen now.
It was about to happen at the back of a disused cupboard in a tumble-
down cellar in the Shades, the oldest and most disreputable part of Ankh-
Morpork.
Plop.
It was a sound as soft as the first drop of rain on a century of dust. 

 'Maybe we could get a black cat to walk across his coffin.'
'He hasn't got a coffin!' wailed the Bursar, whose grip on sanity was 
always slightly tentative.
'OK, so we buy him a nice new coffin and then we get a black cat to walk 
across it?'
'No, that's stupid. We've got to make him pass water.'
'What?'
'Pass water. Undeads can't do it.'
The wizards, who had crowded into the Archchancellor's study, gave this 
statement their full, fascinated attention.
'You sure?' said the Dean.
'Well-known fact,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes flatly.
'He used to pass water all the time when he was alive, ' said the Dean 
doubtfully.
'Not when he's dead, though.'
'Yeah? Makes sense.'
'Running water, ' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes suddenly.'It's running 
water. Sorry. They can't cross over it.'
'Well, I can't cross ?liling? water, either,' said the Dean.


33




'Undead! Undead!' The Bursar was becoming a little unglued.
'Oh, stop teasing him, ' said the Lecturer, patting the trembling man on 
the back.
'Well, I can't, ' said the Dean.'I sink.'
'Undead can't cross running water even on a bridge.'
'And is he the only one, eh? Are we going to have a plague of them, eh?' 
said the Lecturer.
The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on his desk.
'Dead people walking around is unhygienic, ' he said.
This silenced them. No-one had ever looked at it that way, but Mustrum 
Ridcully was just the sort of man who would.
Mustrum Ridcully was, depending on your point of view, either the worst 
or the best Archchancellor that Unseen University had had for a hundred 
years.
There was too much of him, for one thing. It wasn't that he was 
particularly big, it was just that he had the kind of huge personality that fits 
any available space. He'd get roaring drunk at supper and that was fine and 
acceptable wizardly behaviour. But then he'd go back to his room and play 
darts all night and leave at five in the morning to go duck hunting. He 
shouted at people. He tried to jolly them along. And he hardly ever wore 
proper robes. He'd persuaded Mrs Whitlow, the University's dreaded 
housekeeper, to make him a sort of baggy trouser suit in garish blue and 
red; twice a day the wizards stood in bemusement and watched him jog 
purposefully around the University buildings, his pointy wizarding hat tied 
firmly on his head with string. He'd shout cheerfully up at them, because 
fundamental to the make-up of people like ??? Mustrum Ridcully is an iron 
belief that everyone else would like it, too, if only they tried it.
'Maybe he'll die, ' they told one another hopefully, as they watched him try 
to break the crust on the river Ankh for an early morning dip.'All this healthy 
exercise can't be good for him.'


34




Stories trickled back into the University. The Archchancellor had gone 
two rounds bare-fisted with Detritus, the huge odd-job troll at the Mended 
Drum. The Archchancellor had arm-wrestled with the Librarian for a bet and, 
although of course he hadn't won, still had his arm afterwards.
The Archchancellor wanted the University to form its own football team 
for the big city game on Hogswatchday.
Intellectually, Ridcully maintained his position for two reasons. One was 
that he never, ever, changed his mind about anything. The other was that it 
took him several minutes to understand any new idea put to him, and this is 
a very valuable trait in a leader, because anything anyone is still trying to 
explain to you after two minutes is probably important and anything they 
give up after a mere minute or so is almost certainly something they 
shouldn't have been bothering you with in the first place.
There seemed to be more Mustrum Ridcully than one body could 
reasonably contain.

Plop. Plop.
In the dark cupboard in the cellar, a whole shelf was already full.

There was exactly as much Windle Poons as one body could contain, and 
he steered it carefully along the corridors.
I never expected this, he thought. I don't deserve this. There's been a 
mistake somewhere.
He felt a cool breeze on his face and realised he'd tottered out into the 
open air. Ahead of him were the University's gates, locked shut.
Suddenly Windle Poons felt acutely claustrophobic.
He'd waited years to die, and now he had, and here he was stuck in this - 
this mausoleum with a lot of daft old men, where he'd have to spend the rest 
of his life


35




being dead. Well, the first thing to do was get out and make a proper end 
to himself -
' 'Evening, Mr Poons.'
He turned around very slowly and saw the small figure of Modo, the 
University's dwarf gardener, who was sitting in the twilight smoking his pipe.
'Oh. Hallo, Modo.'
'I 'eard you was took dead, Mr Poons.'
'Er. Yes. I was.' 
'See you got over it, then.'
Poons nodded, and looked dismally around the walls. The University 
gates were always locked at sunset every evening, obliging students and 
staff to climb over the walls. He doubted very much that he'd be able to 
manage that.
He clenched and unclenched his hands. Oh, well . . .
'Is there any other gateway around here, Modo?' he said. 
'No, Mr Poons.'
'Well, where shall we have one?'
'Sorry, Mr Poons?'
There was the sound of tortured masonry, followed by a vaguely Poons-
shaped hole in the wall. Windle's hand reached back in and picked up his 
hat.
Modo relit his pipe. You see a lot of interesting things in this job, he 
thought.

In an alley, temporarily out of sight of passers-by, someone called Reg 
Shoe, who was dead, looked both ways, took a brush and a paint tin out of 
his pocket, and painted on the wall the words:
DEAD YES! GONE NO!
. . . and ran away, or at least lurched off at high speed.

The Archchancellor opened a window on to the night.
'Listen, ' he said.
The wizards listened.
A dog barked. Somewhere a thief whistled, and was


36




???  from a neighbouring rooftop. In the dis-
???  people were having the kind of quarrel that
???  t of the surrounding streets to open their
???  d listen in and make notes. But these were by major themes against 
the continuous hum and buzz of the city. Ankh-Morpork purred through the 
night, en route for the dawn, like a huge living creature although, of course, 
this was only a metaphor.
'Well?' said the Senior Wrangler.'I can't hear anything special.'
'That's what I mean. Dozens of people die in Ankh-Morpork every day. If 
they'd all started coming back like poor old Windle, don't you think we'd 
know about it? The place'd be in uproar. More uproar than usual, I mean.'
'There's always a few undead around,' said the Dean, 
doubtfully.'Vampires and zombies and banshees and so on.'
'Yes, but they're more naturally undead,' said the Archchancellor.'They 
know how to carry it off. They're born to it.'
'You can't be born to be undead,' the Senior Wrangler * pointed out.
'I mean it's traditional,' the Archchancellor snapped.'There were some 
very respectable vampires where I grew up. They'd been in their family for 
centuries.'
'Yes, but they drink blood,' said the Senior Wrangler.'That doesn't sound 
very respectable to me.'
'I read where they don't actually need the actual blood,' said the Dean, 
anxious to assist.'They just

_______________________________________________________________
*  The post of Senior Wrangler was an unusual one, as was the name 
itself. In some centres of learning, the Senior Wrangler is a leading 
philosopher; in others, he's merely someone who looks after horses. The 
Senior Wrangler at Unseen University was a philosopher who looked like a 
horse, thus neatly encapsulating all definitions. 


37




need something that's in blood. Hemogoblins, I think it's called.'
The other wizards looked at him.
The Dean shrugged.'Search me,' he said.'Hemo-goblins. That's what it 
said. It's all to do with people having iron in their blood.'
'I'm damn sure I've got no iron goblins in my blood,' said the Senior-
Wrangler.
'At least they're better than zombies,' said the Dean.'A much better class 
of people. Vampires don't go shuffling around the whole time.'
'People can be turned into zombies, you know,' said the Lecturer in 
Recent Runes, in conversational tones.'You don't even need magic. Just the 
liver of a certain rare fish and the extract of a particular kind of root. One 
spoonful, and when you wake up, you 're a zombie.'
'What type of fish?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'How shauld I know?'
'How should anyone know, then?' said the Senior Wrangler nastily.'Did 
someone wake up one morning and say, hey, here's an idea, I'll just turn 
someone into a zombie, all I'll need is some rare fish liver and a piece of root, 
it's just a matter of finding the right one? You can see the queue outside the 
hut, can't you? No. 94, Red Stripefish liver and Maniac root . . . didn't work. 
No. 95, Spikefish liver and Dum-dum root . . . didn't work. No. 96 -'
'What are you talking about?' the Archchancellor demanded.
'I was simply pointing out the intrinsic unlikelihood of -'
'Shut up,' said the Archchancellor, matter-of-factly.'Seems to me . . . 
seems to me . . . look, death must be going on, right? Death has to happen. 
That's what bein' alive is all about. You're alive, and then you're dead. It can't 
just stop happening.'
'But he didn't turn up for Windle, ' the Dean pointed out.


38




???  on all the time, ' said Ridcully, ignoring him.
?Most? of things die all the time. Even vegetables.'
?You? won't think Death ever came for a potato,' ?said? Dean doubtfully.
'Death comes for everything,' said the Archchancellor, firmly. 
The wizards nodded sagely.
After a while the Senior Wrangler said, 'Do you know, I read the other day 
that every atom in your body is changed every seven years? New ones keep 
getting attached and old ones keep on dropping off. It goes on all the time. 
Marvellous, really.' 
?e_? The Senior Wrangler could do to a conversation ?that? it takes quite 
thick treacle to do to the pedals of a precision watch. 
'Yes? What happens to the old ones?' said Ridcully, interested despite 
himself. 
'Dunno. They just float around in the air, I suppose, until they get attached 
to someone else.'
The Archchancellor looked affronted.
'What, even wizards?'
'Oh, yes. Everyone. It's part of the miracle of existence.'
'Is it? Sounds like bad hygiene to me,' said the Archchancellor.'I suppose 
there's no way of stopping ?it?
'I shouldn't think so,' said the Senior Wrangler, doubtfully.'I don't think 
you're supposed to stop miracles of existence.' 
'But that means everythin' is made up of everythin' else, ' said Ridcully. 
'Yes. Isn't it amazing?' 
'It's disgusting, is what it is, ' said Ridcully, shortly. 
'Anyway, the point I'm making . . . the point I'm making . . .' He paused, 
trying to remember.'You can't just abolish death, that's the point. Death can't 
die. That's like asking a scorpion to sting itself.' 
'As a matter of fact,' said the Senior Wrangler,


39 




always ready with a handy fact.'you can get a scorpion to -'
'Shut up, ' said the Archchancellor.
'But we can't have an undead wizard wandering around,' said the 
Dean.'There's no telling what he might take it into his head to do. We've got 
to . . . put a stop to him. For his own good.'
'That's right,' said Ridcully.'For his own good. Shouldn't be too hard. 
There must be dozens of ways to deal with an undead.'
'Garlic,' said the Senior Wrangler flatly.'Undead don't like garlic.'
'Don't blame them. Can't stand the stuff,' said the Dean.
'Undead! Undead!' said the Bursar, pointing an accusing finger. They 
ignored him.
'Yes, and then there's sacred items,' said the Senior Wrangler.'?~your? 
basic undead chunkles into dust as soon as look at 'em. And they don't like 
daylight. And if the worst comes to the worst, you bury them at a crossroads. 
That's surefire, that is. And you stick a stake in them to make sure they don't 
get up again.'
'With garlic on it,' said the Bursar.
'Well, yes. I suppose you could put garlic on it,' the Senior Wrangler 
conceded, reluctantly.
'I don't think you should put garlic on a good steak,' said the Dean. 'Just a 
little oil and seasoning.'
'Red pepper is nice,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, happily.
'Shut up,' said the Archchancellor.

Plop.
The cupboard door's hinges finally gave way, spilling its contents into the 
room.

Sergeant Colon of the Ankh-Morpork City Guard was on duty. He was 
guarding the Brass Bridge, the main link between Ankh and Morpork. From 
theft.


40




???  came to crime prevention, Sergeant Colon
???  ~fest to think big.
???  ras a school of thought that believed the 
???  to get recognised as a keen guardian of the law in Ankh-Morpork 
would be to patrol the streets and alleys, bribe informants, follow suspects 
and so on.
Sergeant Colon played truant from this particular school. Not, he would, 
hasten to say, because trying to keeping down crime in Ankh-Morpork was 
like trying to keep down salt in the sea and the only recognition ?~ony? keen 
guardian of the law was likely to get was the ?eort? that goes, 'Hey, that 
body in the gutter, isn't that ?ald? Sergeant Colon?' but because the 
modern, go-ahead, intelligent law officer ought to be ?at least? one jump 
ahead of the contemporary criminal. One day someone was bound to try to 
steal the Brass Bridge, and then they'd find Sergeant Colon right there 
waiting for them.
In the meantime, it offered a quiet place out of the wind where he could 
have a relaxing smoke and probably not see anything that would upset him.
He leaned with his elbows on the parapet, wondering vaguely about Life.
A figure stumbled out of the mist. Sergeant Colon recognised the familiar 
pointy hat of a wizard. 
'Good evening, officer, ' its wearer croaked.
'Morning, y'honour.'
'Would you be kind enough to help me up on to the parapet, officer?'
Sergeant Colon hesitated. But the chap was a wizard. A man could get 
into serious trouble not helping wizards.
'Trying out some new magic, y'honour?' he said, brightly, helping the 
skinny but surprisingly heavy body up on to the crumbling stonework.
'No.'


41




Windle Poons stepped off the bridge. There was a squelch. *
Sergeant Colon looked down as the waters of the Ankh closed again, 
slowly.
Those wizards. Always up to something.
He watched for a while. After several minutes there was a disturbance in 
the scum and debris near the base of one of the pillars of the bridge, where a 
flight of greasy stairs led down to the water.
A pointy hat appeared.
Sergeant Colon heard the wizard slowly climb the stairs, swearing under 
his breath.
Windle Poons reached the top of the bridge again. He was soaked.
'You want to go and get changed,' Sergeant Colon volunteered.'You could 
catch your death, standing around like that.'
'Hah!'
'Get your feet in front of a roaring fire, that's what I'd do.'
'Hah!'
Sergeant Colon looked at Windle Poons in his own private puddle.
'You been trying some special kind of underwater magic, y'honour?' he 
ventured.
'Not exactly, officer.'
'I've always wondered about what it's like under water,' said Sergeant 
Colon, encouragingly.'The myst'ries of the deep, strange and wonderful 
creatures . . . my mum told me a tale once, about this little boy what turned 
into a mermaid, well, not a mermaid, and he had all these adventures under 
the s -'

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  It is true that the undead cannot cross running water. However, the 
naturally turbid river Ankh, already heavy with the mud of the plains, does 
not, after having passed through the city (pop. 1,000,000) necessarily qualify 
under the term "running" or, for that matter, "water".


42




???  ~ained away under Windle Poons' dread-
???  g,' said Windle. He turned and started to
???  into the mist.'Very, very boring. Very
???  d.'
???  Colon was left alone. He lit a fresh ?cigarette with a ? trembling 
hand, and started to walk hur- ~edly towards the Watch headquarters.
'That face, ' he told himself.'And those eyes . . . just whatsisname . . . 
who's that bloody dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street . . .'
'Sargeant!'
Colon froze. Then he looked down. A face was starring up at him from 
ground level. When he'd got a grip ?on? himself, he made out the sharp 
features of his old ?Qd? Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Discworld's 
?Buling?, talking argument in favour of the theory that mankind had 
descended from a species of rodent.
C.M.O.T. Dibbler ?liked? to describe himself as a merchant adventurer; 
everyone else liked to describe him as an itinerant pedlar whose money-
making shemes were always let down by some small but vital ?w?, such as 
trying to sell things he didn't own or which didn't work or, sometimes, didn't 
even exist.
Fairy gold is well known to evaporate by morning, but it was a reinforced 
concrete slab by comparison to some of Throat's merchandise.
He was standing at the bottom of some steps that led down to one of 
Ankh-Morpork's countless cellars.

'Hallo, Throat.'
'Would you step down here a minute, Fred? I could use a bit of legal aid.'
'Got a problem, Throat?'
Dibbler scratched his nose.
'Well, Fred . . . Is it a crime to be given something? I mean, without you 
knowing it?'
'Someone been giving you things, Throat?'


43




Throat nodded.'Dunno. You know I keep merchandise down here?' he 
said.
'Yeah.'
'You see, I just come down to do a bit of stock-taking, and . . .' He waved a 
hand helplessly.'Well . . . take a look . . .'
He opened the cellar door.
In the darkness something went plop.

Windle Poons lurched aimlessly along a dark alley in the Shades, arms 
extended in front of him, hands hanging down at the wrists. He didn't know 
why. It just seemed the right way to go about it.
Jumping off a building? No, that wouldn't work, either. It was hard enough 
to walk as it was, and two broken legs wouldn't help. Poison? He imagined it 
would be like having a very bad stomach ache. Noose? Hanging around 
would probably be more boring than sitting on the bottom of the river.
He reached a noisome courtyard where several alleys met. Rats 
scampered away from him. A cat screeched and scurried off over the 
rooftops.
As he stood wondering where he was, why he was, and what ought to 
happen next, he felt the point of a knife against his backbone.
'OK, grandad,' said a voice behind him, 'it's your money or your life.'
In the darkness Windle Poons' mouth formed a horrible grin.
'I 'm not playing about, old man, ' said the voice.
'Are you Thieves' Guild?' said Windle, without turning around.
'No, we're . . . freelances. Come on, let's see the colour of your money.'
'Haven't got any,' said Windle. He turned around. There were two more 
muggers behind him.
'Ye gods, look at his eyes,' said one of them.
Windle raised his arms above his head.


44




'Ooooooooh,' he moaned.
The muggers backed away. Unfortunately, there was a wall behind them. 
They flattened themselves against it.
'OoooOOOOoooobuggeroffoooOOOooo, ' said Windle, who hadn't 
realised that the only way of escape lay through him. He rolled his eyes for 
better effect.
Maddened by terror, the would-be attackers dived under his arms, but not 
before one of them had sunk his knife up to the hilt in Windle's pigeon chest.
He looked down at it.
'Hey! That was my best robe!' he said.'I wanted to be buried in - will you 
look at it? You know how difficult it is to darn silk? Come back here this - 
Look at it, right where it shows -'
He listened. There was no sound but the distant and retreating scurry of 
footsteps.
Windle Poons removed the knife.
'Could have killed me,' he muttered, tossing it away.

In the cellar, Sergeant Colon picked up one of the objects that lay in huge 
drifts on the floor.
'There must be thousands of 'em,' said Throat, behind him.'What I want to 
know is, who put them there?' *

_______________________________________________________________
*  Although not common on the Discworld there are, indeed, such things 
as anti-crimes, in accordance with the fundamental law that everything in the 
multiverse has an opposite. They are, obviously, rare. Merely giving someone 
something is not the opposite of robbery; to be an antierime, it has to be 
done in such a way as to cause outrage ?Pn~Uor? humiliation to the victim. 
So there is breaking-and-decorating, proffering-with-embarrassment (as in 
most retirement presentations) and whitemailing (as in threatening to reveal 
to his enemies a mobster's secret donations, for example, to charity). Anti-
crimes have never really caught on.


45




Sergeant Colon turned the object round and round in his hands.
'Never seen one of these before, ' he said. He gave a shake. His face lit 
up.'Pretty, ain't they?'
'The door was locked and everything,' said Throat 'And I 'm paid up with 
the Thieves' Guild.'
Colon shook the thing again.
' Nice,' he said.
'Fred?'
Colon, fascinated, watched the little snowflakes far inside the tiny glass 
globe.'Hmm?'
'What am I supposed to do?'
'Dunno. I suppose they're yours, Throat. Can imagine why anyone'd want 
to get rid of 'em, though.
He turned towards the door. Throat stepped into his path.
'Then that'll be twelve pence, ' he said smoothly.
'What for?
'For the one you just put in your pocket, Fred.'
Colon fished the globe out of his pocket.
'Come on!' he protested.'You just found them ?heh? They didn't cost you 
a penny!'
'Yes, but there's storage . . . packing . . . handling . .
'Tuppence, ' said Colon desperately.
'Tenpence.'
'Threepence.'
'Sevenpence - and that's cutting my own throat ??? mark you.'
'Done,' said the sergeant, reluctantly. He gave the globe another shake.
'Nice, ain't they?' he said.
'Worth every penny,' said Dibbler. He rubbed his hands together 
hopefully.'Should sell like hot cake' he said, picking up a handful and 
shoving them into box.
He locked the door behind them when they left.
In the darkness something went plop.


46




Ankh-Morpork has always had a fine tradition of welcoming people of all 
races, colours and shapes, if they have money to spend and a return ticket.
According to the Guild of Merchants ' famous publication, Welkome to 
Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises, `you the visitor will be 
asurred of a Warm Wellcome in the countless Ins and hostelries of this 
Ancient Citie, where many specialise in catering for the taste of guest from 
distant part. So if you a Manne, Trolle, Dwarfe, Goblin or Gnomm, Ankh-
Morpork will raise your Glass convivial and say: Cheer! Here looking, you 
Kid! Up, You Bottom!'
Windle Poons didn't know where undead went for a good time. All he 
knew, and he knew it for a certainty, was that if they could have a good time 
anywhere then they could probably have it in Ankh-Morpork.
His laboured footsteps led him deeper into the Shades. Only they weren't 
so laboured now.
For more than a century Windle Poons had lived inside the walls of 
Unseen University. In terms of accumulated years, he may have lived a long 
time. In terms of experience, he was about thirteen.
He was seeing, hearing and smelling things he'd never seen, heard or 
smelled before.
The Shades was the oldest part of the city. If you could do a sort of relief 
map of sinfulness, wickedness and all-round immorality, rather like those 
representations of the gravitational field around a Black Hole, then even in 
Ankh-Morpork the Shades would be represented by a shaft. In fact the 
Shades was remarkably like the aforesaid well-known astronomical 
phenomenon: it had a certain strong attraction, no light escaped from it, and 
it could indeed become a gateway to another world. The next one.
The Shades was a city within a city.
The streets were thronged. Muffled figures slunk past on errands of their 
own. Strange music wound up


47




from sunken stairwells. So did sharp and exciting smells.
Poons passed goblin delicatessens and dwarf bars from which came the 
sounds of singing and fighting which dwarfs traditionally did at the same 
time. And there were trolls, moving through the crowds like . . . like big 
people moving among little people. They weren't shambling, either.
Windle had hitherto seen trolls only in the more select parts of the city, 
where they moved with exaggerated caution in case they accidentally 
clubbed someone to death and ate them. In the Shades they strode, unafraid, 
heads held so high they very nearly rose above their shoulder-blades.
Windle Poons wandered through the crowds like random shot on a pinball 
table. Here a blast of smoky sound from a bar spun him back into the street, 
there a discreet doorway promising unusual and forbidden delights attracted 
him like a magnet. Windle Poons' life hadn't included even very many usual 
an approved delights. He wasn't even certain what they were. Some sketches 
outside one pink-lit, inviting doorway left him even more mystified but 
incredible anxious to learn.
He turned  around  and  around in pleased astonishment.
This place! Only ten minutes walk or fifteen minutes * lurch from the 
University! And he'd never known it was there! All these people! All this 
noise. All this life!
Several people of various shapes and species jostle him. One or two 
started to say something, shut their mouths quickly, and hurried off.
They were thinking . . . his eyes! Like gimlets!
And then a voice from the shadows said: 'Hallo, bigboy. You want a nice 
time?'

_________________________________
*  i.e., everywhere outside the Shades.


48




'Oh, yes!' said Windle Poons, lost in wonder.'Oh, yes! Yes!'
He turned around.
'Bloody hell!' There was the sound of someone hurrying away down an 
alley.
Windle's face fell.
Life, obviously, was only for the living. Perhaps this back-to-your-body 
business had been a mistake after all. He'd been a fool to think otherwise.
He turned and, hardly bothering to keep his own heart beating, went back 
to the University.

Windle trudged across the quad to the Great Hall.
The Archchancellor would know what to do 
'There he is!'
'It's him!'
'Get him!'
Windle's trained thought ran over a cliff. He looked around at five red, 
worried, and above all familiar faces.
'Oh, hallo, Dean,' he said, unhappily.'And is that the Senior Wrangler? Oh, 
and the Archchancellor, this is -' 
'Grab his arm!'
'Don't look at his eyes!'
'Grab his other arm!'
'This is for your own good, Windle!'
'It's not Windle! It's a creature of the Night!'
'I assure you -'
'Have you got his legs?'
'Grab his leg!'
'Grab his other leg!'
'Have you grabbed everything?' roared the Archchancellor.
The wizards nodded.
Mustrum Ridcully reached into the massive recesses of his robe.
'Right, fiend in human shape,' he growled, what d'you think of this, then? 
Ah-ha!'


49




Windle squinted at the small object that was thrust triumphantly under his 
nose.
'Well, er . . .' he said diffidently, 'I'd say . . . yes . . . hmm . . . yes, the smell 
is very distinctive, isn't it . . . yes, quite definitely. Allium sativum. The 
common domestic garlic. Yes?'
The wizards stared at him. They stared at the little white clove. They 
stared at Windle again.
'I am right, aren't I?' he said, and made an attempt at a smile.
'Er,' said the Archchancellor.'Yes. Yes, that's right.' Ridcully cast around 
for something to add.
'Well done, ' he said.
'Thank you for trying,' said Windle.'I really appreciate it.' He stepped 
forward. The wizards might as well have tried to hold back a glacier.
'And now I 'm going to have a lie down, ' he said.' It's been a long day.'
He lurched into the building and creaked along the corridors until he 
reached his room. Someone else seemed to have moved some of their stuff 
into it, but Windle dealt with that by simply picking it all up in one sweep of 
his arms and throwing it out into the corridor.
Then he lay down on the bed.
Sleep. Well, he was tired. That was a start. But sleeping meant letting go 
of control, and he wasn't too certain that all the systems were fully functional 
yet.
Anyway, when you got right down to it, did he have to sleep at all? After 
all, he was dead. That was supposed to be just like sleeping, only even more 
so. They said that dying was just like going to sleep, although of course if 
you weren't careful bits of you could rot and drop off.
What were you supposed to do when you slept, anyway? Dreaming . . . 
wasn't that all to do with sorting out your memories, or something? How did 
you go about it?
He stared at the ceiling.


50




'I never thought being dead would be so much trouble, ' he said aloud.
After a while a faint but insistent squeaking noise made him turn his head.
Over the fireplace was an ornamental candlestick, fixed to a bracket on 
the wall. It was such a familiar piece of furniture that Windle hadn't really 
seen it for fifty years.
It was coming unscrewed. It spun around slowly, squeaking once a turn. 
After half a dozen turns it fell off and clattered to the floor.
Inexplicable phenomena were not in themselves unusual on the 
Discworld. * It was just that they normally had more point, or at least were a 
bit more interesting.
Nothing else seemed to be about to move. Windle relaxed, and went back 
to organising his memories. There was stuff in there he'd completely 
forgotten about.
There was a brief whispering outside, and then the door burst open -
'Get his legs! Get his legs!'
'Hold his arms!'
Windle tried to sit up.'Oh, hallo, everyone, ' he said. 'What's the matter?'
The Archchancellor, standing at the foot of the bed, fumbled in a sack and 
produced a large, heavy object.
He held it aloft.
'Ah-ha!' he said.
Windle peered at it.
'Yes?' he said, helpfully.

_______________________________________________________________
*  Rains of fish. for example, were so common in the little landlocked 
village of Pine Dressers that it had a flourishing smoking, canning and 
kipper-filleting industry. And in the mountain regions of Syrrit many sheep, 
left out in the fields all night, would be found in the morning to be facing the 
other ulay, without the apparent intervention of any human agency.


51




'Ah-ha,' said the Archchancellor again, but with slightly less conviction.
'It's a symbolic double-handled axe from the cult of Blind Io,' said Windle.
The Archchancellor gave him a blank look.
'Er, yes,' he said, 'that's right.' He threw it over his shoulder, almost 
removing the Dean's left ear, and fished in the sack again.
'Ah-ha!'
'That's a rather fine example of the Mystic Tooth of Offler the Crocodile 
God, ' said Windle.
'Ah-ha!'
'And that's a . . . let me see now . . . yes, that's the matched set of sacred 
Flying Ducks of Ordpor the Tasteless. I say, eh ?it? is fun!'
'Ah-ha.'
'That's . . . don't tell me, don't tell me . . . that's the holy linglongrrf the 
notorious Sootee cult, isn't it?'
'Ah-ha?' 
'I think that one's the three-headed fish of the Howanda three-headed fish 
religion,' said Windle.
'This is ridiculous,' said the Archchancellor. dropping the fish.
The wizards sagged. Religious objects weren't such a surefire undead 
cure after all.
'I'm really sorry to be such a nuisance, ' said Windle.
The Dean suddenly brightened up.
'Daylight!' he said excitedly.'That'll do the trick!'
'Get the curtain!'
'Get the other curtain!'
'One, two, three . . . now!'
Windle blinked in the invasive sunlight.
The wizards held their breath.
'I 'm sorry,' he said.'It doesn't seem to work.'
They sagged again.
'Don't you feel anything?' said Ridcully.
'No sensation of crumbling into dust and blowing away?' said the Senior 
Wrangler hopefully.


52




'My nose tends to peel if I 'm out in the sun too long,' said Windle.'I don 't 
know if that's any help.' He tried to smile.
The wizards looked at one another and shrugged.
'Get out,' said the Archchancellor. They trooped out.
Ridcully followed them. He paused at the door and waved a finger at 
Windle.
'This uncooperative attitude, Windle, is not doing you any good,' he said, 
and slammed the door behind him.
After a few seconds the four screws holding the door handle very slowly 
unscrewed themselves. They rose up and orbited near the ceiling for a while, 
and then fell.
Windle thought about this for a while.
Memories. He had lots of them. One hundred and thirty years of 
memories. When he was alive he hadn't been able to remember one-
hundredth of the things he knew but now he was dead, his mind uncluttered 
with everything except the single silver thread of his thoughts, he could feel 
them all there. Everything he'd ever read, everything he'd ever seen, 
everything he'd ever heard. All there, ranged in ranks. Nothing forgotten. 
Everything in its place.
Three inexplicable phenomena in one day. Four, if you included the fact of 
his continued existence. That was really inexplicable.
It needed explicating.
Well, that was someone else's problem. Everything was someone else's 
problem now.

The wizards crouched outside the door of Windle's room.
'Got everything?' said Ridcully.
'Why can't we get some of the servants to do it?' muttered the Senior 
Wrangler.'It's undignified.'
'Because I want it done properly and with dignity,' snapped she 
Archchancellor. 'If anyone's going to


53




bury a wizard at a crossroads with a stake hammered through him, then 
wizards ought to do it. After all, we're his friends.'
'What is this thing, anyway?' said the Dean, inspecting the implement in 
his hands.
'It's called a shovel, ' said the Senior Wrangler.'I've seen the gardeners 
use them. You stick the sharp end in the ground. Then it gets a bit technical.'
Ridcully squinted through the keyhole.
'He's lying down again,' he said. He got up, brushing the dust off his 
knees, and grasped the door handle.'Right,' he said.'Take your time from me.
One...two...'
Modo the gardener was trundling a barrow load of hedge trimmings to a 
bonfire behind the new High Energy Magic research building when about half 
a dozen wizards went past at, for wizards, high speed.
Windle Poons was being borne aloft between them.
Modo heard him to say, 'Really, Archchancellor, are you quite sure this 
one will work -?'
'We've got your best interests at heart,' said Ridcully.
'I'm sure, but -'
'We'll soon have you feeling your old self again,' said the Bursar.
'No, we won't,' hissed the Dean.'That's the whole point!'
'We'll soon have you not feeling your old self again, that's the whole 
point,' stuttered the Bursar, as they rounded the corner.
Modo picked up the handles of the barrow again and pushed it 
thoughtfully towards the secluded area where he kept his bonfire, his 
compost heaps, his leaf-mould pile, and the little shed he sat in when it 
rained.
He used to be assistant gardener at the palace, but this job was a lot more 
interesting. You really got to see life.


54




Ankh-Morpork society is street society. There is always something 
interesting going on. At the moment, the driver of a two-horse fruit wagon 
was holding the Dean six inches in the air by the scruff of the Dean's robe 
and was threatening to push the Dean's face through the back of the Dean's 
head.
'It's peaches, right?' he kept bellowing.'You know what happens to 
peaches what lies around too long?
They get bruised. Lots of things round here are going to get bruised.'
'I am a wizard, you know, ' said the Dean, his pointy shoes dangling.'If it 
wasn't for the fact that it would be against the rules for me to use magic in 
anything except a purely defensive manner, you would definitely be in a lot 
of trouble.'
'What you doing, anyway?' said the driver, lowering the Dean so he could 
look suspiciously over his shoulder.
'Yeah,' said a man trying to control the team pulling a lumber wagon, 
'what's going on? There's people here being paid by the hour, you know!'
'Move along at the front there!'
The lumber driver turned in his seat and addressed the queue of carts 
behind him.'I'm trying to, ' he said.
'It's not my fault, is it? There's a load of wizards digging up the godsdamn 
street!'
The Archchancellor's muddy face peered over the edge of the hole.
'Oh, for heaven's sake, Dean, ' he said, 'I told you to sort things out!'
'Yes, I was just asking this gentleman to back up and go another way,' 
said the Dean, who was afraid he was beginning to choke.
The fruiterer turned him around 90 that he could see along the crowded 
streets.'Ever tried to back up sixty carts all at once?' he demanded.'It's not 
easy. Especially when everyone can't move because you guys have got it 
so's the carts are backed up all round


55




the block and no-one can move because everyone's in someone else's 
way, right?'
The Dean tried to nod. He had wondered himself about the wisdom of 
digging the hole at the junction of the Street of Small Gods and Broad Way, 
two of the busiest streets in Ankh-Morpork. It had seemed logical at the time. 
Even the most persistent undead ought to stay decently buried under that 
amount of traffic. The only problem was that no-one had thought seriously 
about the difficulty of digging up a couple of main streets during the busy 
time of day.
'All right, all right, what's going on here?'
The crowd of spectators opened to admit the bulky figure of Sergeant 
Colon of the Watch. He moved through the people unstoppably, his stomach 
leading the way. When he saw the wizards, waist deep in a hole in the middle 
of the road, his huge red face brightened up.
'What's  this,  then?'  he said.  'A gang of international crossroads 
thieves?'
He was overjoyed. His long-term policing strategy was paying off!
The Archchancellor tipped a shovelful of Ankh-Morpork loam over his 
boots.
'Don't be stupid, man,' he snapped.'This is vitally important.'
'Oh, yes. That's what they all say,' said Sergeant Colon, not a man to be 
easily steered from a particular course of thought once he'd got up to mental 
speed. 'I bet there's hundreds of villages in heathen places like Klatch that'd 
pay good money for a nice prestigious crossroads like this, eh?'
Ridcully looked up at him with his mouth open.
'What are you gabbling about, officer?' he said. He pointed irritably to his 
pointy hat.'Didn't you hear me? We're wizards. This is wizard business. So if 
you could just sort of direct the traffic around us, there's a good chance -'


56




'- these peaches bruise as soon as you even look at 'em -' said a voice 
behind Sergeant Colon.
'The old idiots have been holding us up for half an hour,' said a cattle 
drover who had long ago lost control of forty steers now wandering 
aimlessly around the nearby streets.'I wants 'em arrested.'
It dawned on the sergeant that he had inadvertently placed himself centre 
stage in a drama involving hundreds of people, some of them wizards and all 
of them angry.
'What are you doing, then?' he said weakly.
'We're burying our colleague. What does it look like?' said Ridcully.
Colon's eyes swivelled to an open coffin by the side of the road. Windle 
Poons gave him a little wave.
'But . . . he's not dead . . . is he?' he said, his forehead wrinkling as he 
tried to get ahead of the situation.
'Appearances ,,Can  be  deceptive, '  said  the Archchancellor.
'But he just waved to me,' said the sergeant, desperately.
'So?'
'Well, it's not normal for -'
'It's all right, sergeant, ' said Windle.
Sergeant Colon sidled closer to the coffin.
'Didn't I see you throw yourself into the river last night?' he said, out of 
the corner of his mouth.
'Yes. You were very helpful, ' said Windle.
'And then you threw yourself sort of out again,' said the sergeant.
'I'm afraid so.'
'But you were down there for ages.'
'Well, it was very dark, you see. I couldn't find the steps.'
Sergeant Colon had to concede the logic of this.
'Well, I suppose you must be dead, then,' he said. 'No-one could stay 
down there who wasn't dead.'
'This is it,' Windle agreed.


57




'Only why are you waving and talking?' said Colon.
The Senior Wrangler poked his head out of the hole.
'It's not unknown for a dead body to move and make noises after death, 
Sergeant,' he volunteered.'It's all down to involuntary muscular spasms.'
'Actually, Senior Wrangler is right,' said WindlePoons.'I read that 
somewhere.'
'Oh.' Sergeant Colon looked around.'Right, ' he said, uncertainly.'Well . . . 
fair enough, I suppose . . .'
'OK, we're done,' said the Archchancellor, scrambling out of the hole, 'it's 
deep enough. Come on, Windle, down you go.'
'I really am very touched, you know,' said Windle, lying back in the coffin. 
It was quite a good one, from the mortuary in Elm Street. The Archchancellor 
had let him choose it himself.
Ridcully picked up a mallet.
Windle sat up again. 
'Everyone's going to so much trouble -'
'Yes, right,' said Ridcully, looking around.
'Now - who's got the stake?'
Everyone looked at the Bursar.
The Bursar looked unhappy.
He fumbled in a bag. 
'I couldn't get any, ' he said.
The Archchancellor put his hand over his eyes.
'All right,' he said quietly.'You know, I'm not surprised? Not surprised at 
all. What did you get? Lamb chops? A nice piece of pork?'
'Celery, ' said the Bursar.
'It's his nerves, ' said the Dean, quickly.
'Celery,' said the Archchancellor, his self-control rigid enough to bend 
horseshoes around.' Right.'
The Bursar handed him a soggy green bundle.
Ridcully took it.
'Now, Windle, ' he said, 'I 'd like you to imagine that what I have in my 
hand -'


58




'It's quite all right, ' said Windle.
'I'm not actually sure I can hammer -'
'I don't mind, I assure you, ' said Windle.
'You don't?'
'The principle is sound,' said Windle.'If you just hand me the celery but 
think hammering a stake, that's probably sufficient.'
'That's very decent of you,' said Ridcully.'That shows a very proper spirit.'
'Esprit de corpse,' said the Senior Wrangler.
Ridcully glared at him, and thrust the celery dramatically towards Windle.
'Take that!' he said.
'Thank you,' said Windle.
'And now let's put the lid on and go and have some lunch,' said 
Ridcully.'Don't worry, Windle. It's bound to work. Today is the last day of the 
rest of your life.'
Windle lay in the darkness, listening to the hammering. There was a 
thump and a muffled imprecation against the Dean for not holding the end 
properly.
And then the patter of soil on the lid, getting fainter and more distant.
After a while a distant rumbling suggested that the commerce of the city 
was being resumed. He could even hear muffled voices.
He banged on the coffin lid.
'Can you beep it down?' he demanded.'There's people down here trying 
to be dead!'
He heard the voices stop. There was the sound of feet hurrying away.
Windle lay there for some time. He didn't know how long. He tried 
stopping all functions, but that just made things uncomfortable. Why was 
dying so difficult? Other people seemed to manage it, even without practice.
Also, his leg itched.
He tried to reach down to scratch it, and his hand


59




touched something small and irregularly shaped. He managed to get his 
fingers around it.
It felt like a bundle of matches.
In a coffin? Did anyone think he'd smoke a quiet cigar to pass the time?
After a certain amount of effort he managed to push one boot off with the 
other boot and ease it up until he could just grasp it. This gave him a rough 
surface to strike the match on.
Sulphurous light filled his tiny oblong world.
There was a tiny scrap of cardboard pinned to the inside of the lid.
He read it. 
He read it again. 
The match went out.
He lit another one, just to check that what he had read really did exist.
The message was still as strange, even third time round:

Dead? Depressed?
Feel like starting it all again?
Then why not come along to the 
FRESH START CLUB 
Thursdays, 12 pm. 668 Elm Street 
EVERY BODY WELCOME

The second match went out, taking the last of the oxygen with it.
Windle lay in the dark for a while, considering his next move and finishing 
off the celery.
Who'd have thought it?
And it suddenly dawned on the late Windle Poons that there was no such 
thing as somebody else's problem, and that just when you thought the world 
had pushed you aside it turned out to be full of


60




strangeness. He knew from experience that the living never found out half 
of what was really happening, because they were too busy being the living. 
The onlooker sees most of the game, he told himself.
It was the living who ignored the strange and wonderful, because life was 
too full of the boring and mundane. But it was strange. It had things in it like 
screws that unscrewed themselves, and little written messages to the dead.
 He resolved to find out what was going on. And then . . . if Death wasn't 
going to come to him, he'd go to Death. He had his rights, after all. Yeah. 
He'd lead the biggest missing-person hunt of all time.
Windle grinned in the darkness.
Missing - believed Death.
Today was the first day of the rest of his life.
And Ankh-Morpork lay at his feet. Well, metaphorically. The only way was 
up.
He reached up, felt for the card in the dark, and pulled it free. He stuck it 
between his teeth.
Windle Poons braced his feet against the end of the box, pushed his 
hands past his head, and heaved.
The soggy loam of Ankh-Morpork moved slightly.
Windle paused out of habit to take a breath, and realised that there was 
no point. He pushed again. The end of the coffin splintered.
Windle pulled it towards him and tore the solid pine like paper. He was left 
with a piece of plank which would have been a totally useless spade for 
anyone with un-zombie-like strength.
Turning on to his stomach, tucking the earth around him with his 
impromptu spade and ramming it back with his feet, Windle Poons dug his 
way towards a fresh start.

Picture a landscape, a plain with rolling curves.
It's late summer in the octarine grass country below the towering peaks of 
the high Ramtops, and the predominant


61




colours are umber and gold. Heat sears the landscape. Grasshoppers 
sizzle, as in a frying pan. Even the air is too hot to move. It's the hottest 
summer in living memory and, - in these parts, that's a long, long time.
Picture a figure on horseback, moving slowly along a road that's an inch 
deep in dust between fields of corn that already promise an unusually rich 
harvest.
Picture a fence of baked, dead wood. There's a notice pinned to it. The 
sun has faded the letters, but they are still readable.
Picture a shadow, falling across the notice. You can almost hear it reading 
both the words.
There's a track leading off the road, towards a small group of bleached 
buildings.
Picture dragging footsteps.
Picture a door, open.
Picture a cool, dark room, glimpsed through the open doorway. This isn't 
a room that people live in a lot. It's a room for people who live outdoors but 
have to come inside sometimes, when it gets dark. It's a room for harnesses 
and dogs, a room where oilskins are hung up to dry. There's a beer barrel by 
the door. There are flagstones on the floor
and, along the ceiling beams, hooks for bacon. There's a scrubbed table 
that thirty hungry men could sit down at.
There are no men. There are no dogs. There is no beer.
There is no bacon.

There was silence after the knocking, and then the flap flap of slippers on 
flagstones. Eventually a skinny old woman with a face the colour and texture 
of a walnut peered around the door.
'Yes?' she said.
THE NOTICE SAID 'MAN WANTED'.
'Did it? Did it? That's been up there since before last winter!'
I AM SORRY? YOU NEED NO HELP?
The wrinkled face looked at him thoughtfully. 
'I can't pay more'n sixpence a week, mind,' it said.


62




The tall figure looming against the sunlight appeared to consider this.
YES. it said, eventually.
'I wouldn't even know where to start you workin', either. We haven't had 
any proper help here for three years. I just hire the lazy goodfornothin's from 
the village when I want 'em.'
YES?
'You don't mind, then?'
I HAVE A HORSE.
The old woman peered around the stranger. In the yard was the most 
impressive horse she'd ever seen. Her eyes narrowed.
'And that's your horse. is it?'
YES.
'With all that silver on the harness and everything?'
YES.
'And you want to work for sixpence a week?'
YES. 
The old woman pursed her lips. She looked from the stranger to the horse 
to the dilapidation around the farm.
She appeared to reach a decision, possibly on the lines that someone 
who owned no horses probably didn't have much to fear from a horse thief.
'You're to sleep in the barn, understand?' she said.
SLEEP? YES. OF COURSE. YES, I WILL HAVE TO SLEEP.
'Couldn't have you in the house anyway. It wouldn't be right.'
THE BARN WILL BE QUITE ADEQUATE, I ASSURE YOU.
'But you can come into the house for your meals.'
THANK YOU.
'My name's Miss Flitworth.'
YES.
She waited.
'I expect you have a name, too,' she prompted.
YES. THAT'S RIGHT.
She waited again.


63




I'M SORRY?
'What is your name?'
The stranger stared at her for a moment, and then looked around wildly.
'Come on,' said Miss Flitworth.'l ain't employing no-one without no name. 
Mr . . . ?'
The figure stared upwards.
MR SKY?
'No-one's called Mr Sky.'
MR . . . DOOR?
She nodded.
'Could be. Could be Mr Door. There was a chap called Doors I knew once. 
Yeah. Mr Door. And your first name? Don't tell me you haven't got one of 
those, too. You've got to be a Bill or a Tom or a Bruce or one of those 
names.'
YES.
'What?'
ONE OF THOSE.
'Which one?' 
ER. THE FIRST ONE?
'You're a Bill?'
YES?
Miss Flitworth rolled her eyes.
'All right, Bill Sky . . .' she said.
DOOR.
'Yeah. Sorry. All right, Bill Door . . .'
CALL ME BILL.
'And you can call me Miss Flitworth. I expect you want some dinner?'
I WOULD? AH. YES. THE MEAL OF THE EVENING. YES.
'You look half starved, to tell the truth. More than half, really.' She 
squinted at the figure. Somehow it was very hard to be certain what Bill Door 
looked like, or even remember the exact sound of his voice. Clearly he was 
there, and clearly he had spoken - otherwise why did you remember anything 
at all?
'There's a lot of people in these parts as don't use the name they were 
born with,' she said. 'l always say there's


64 




nothing to be gained by going around asking pers'nal questions. I 
suppose you can work, Mr Bill Door? I'm still getting the hay in off the high 
meadows and there'll be a lot of work come harvest. Can you use a scythe?'
Bill Door seemed to meditate on the question for some time. Then he said, 
I THINK THE ANSWER TO THAT IS A DEFINITE 'YES', MISS FLITWORTH.

Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler also never saw the sense in asking personal 
questions, at least insofar as they applied to him and were on the lines of 
'Are these things yours to sell?' But no-one appeared to be coming forward 
to berate him for selling off their property, and that was good enough for 
him. He'd sold more than a thousand of the little globes this morning, and 
he'd had to employ a troll to keep up a flow from the mysterious source of 
supply in the cellar.
People loved them.
The principle of operation was laughably simple and easily graspable by 
the average Ankh-Morpork citizen after a few false starts.
If you gave the globe a shake, a cloud of little white snowflakes swirled up 
in the liquid inside and settled, delicately, on a tiny model of a famous Ankh-
Morpork landmark. In some globes it was the University, or the Tower of Art, 
or the Brass Bridge, or the Patrician's Palace. The detail was amazing.
And then there were no more left. Well, thought Throat, that's a shame. 
Since they hadn't technically belonged to him - although morally, of course, 
morally they were his - he couldn't actually complain.
Well, he could complain, of course, but only under his breath and not to 
anybody specific. Maybe it was all for the best, come to think of it. Stack 'em 
high, sell 'em cheap. Get 'em off your hands - it made it much  easier to 
spread them in a gesture of injured innocence when you said 'Who, me?'
They were really pretty, though. Except, strangely


65




enough, for the writing. It was on the bottom of each globe, in shaky, 
amateurish letters, as if done by someone who had never seen writing before 
and was trying to copy some down. On the bottom of every globe, below the 
intricate little snowflake-covered building, were the words:

~fo r~3
 4h~ MorPor'
2

Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, was a shameless 
autocondimentor. * He had his own special cruet put in front of him at every 
meal. It consisted of salt, three types of pepper, four types of mustard, four 
types of vinegar, fifteen different kinds of chutney and his special favourite: 
Wow-Wow Sauce, a mixture of mature scumble, pickled cucumbers, capers, 
mustard, mangoes, figs, grated wahooni, anchovy essence, asafetida and, 
significantly, sulphur and saltpetre for added potency.
Ridcully inherited the formula from his uncle who, after half a pint of 
sauce on a big meal one evening, had a charcoal biscuit to settle his 
stomach, lit his pipe and disappeared in mysterious circumstances, although 
his shoes were found on the roof the following summer.
There was cold mutton for lunch. Mutton went well with Wow-Wow Sauce; 
on the night of Ridcully

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  Someone who will put certainly salt and probably pepper on any meal 
you put in front of them whatever it is and regardless of how much it's got on 
it already and regardless of how it tastes. Behavioural psychiatrists working 
for fast-food outlets around the universe have saved billions of whatever the 
local currency is by noting the autocondimenting phenomenon and advising 
their employers to leave seasoning out in the first place. This is really true.


66




senior's death, for example, it had gone at least three miles.
Mustrum tied his napkin behind his neck, rubbed his hands together, and 
reached out.
The cruet moved.
He reached out again. It slid away.
Ridcully sighed.
'All right, you fellows,' he said.'No magic at Table, you know the rules. 
Who's playing silly buggers?'
The other senior wizards stared at him.
'I, I, I don't think we can play it any more, ' said the Bursar, who at the 
moment was only occasionally bouncing off the sides of sanity, 'I, I, I think 
we lost some of the pieces . . .'
He looked around, giggled, and went back to trying to cut his mutton with 
a spoon. The other wizards were keeping knives out of his way at present.
The entire cruet floated up into the air and started to spin slowly. Then it 
exploded.
The wizards, dripping vinegar and expensive spices, watched it owlishly.
'It was probably the sauce,' the Dean ventured.'It was definitely going a bit 
critical last night.'
Something dropped on his head and landed in his lunch. It was a black 
iron screw, several inches long.
Another one mildly contused the Bursar.
After a second or two, a third landed point down on the table by the 
Archchancellor's hand and stuck there.
The wizards turned their eyes upwards.
The Great Hall was lit in the evenings by one massive chandelier, 
although the word so often associated with glittering prismatic glassware 
seemed inappropriate for the huge, heavy, black, tallow-encrusted thing that 
hung from the ceiling like a threatening overdraft. It could hold a thousand 
candles. It was directly over the senior wizards' table.
Another screw tinkled on to the floor by the fireplace.
The Archchancellor cleared his throat.


67




'Run?' he suggested.
The chandelier dropped.
Bits of table and crockery smashed into the walls.
Lumps of lethal tallow the size of a man's head whirred through the 
windows. A whole candle, propelled out of the wreckage at a freak velocity, 
was driven several inches into a door.
The Archchancellor disentangled himself from the remains of his chair.
'Bursar!' he yelled.
The Bursar was exhumed from the fireplace.
'Um, yes, Archchancellor?' he quavered.
'What was the meanin' of that?'
Ridcully's hat rose from his head.
It was a basic floppy-brimmed, pointy wizarding hat, but adapted to the 
Archchancellor's outgoing lifestyle. Fishing flies were stuck in it. A very 
small pistol crossbow was shoved in the hatband in case he saw something 
to shoot while out jogging, and Mustrum Ridcully had found that the pointy 
bit was just the right size for a small bottle of Bentinck's Very Old Peculiar 
Brandy. He was quite attached to his hat.
But it was no longer attached to him.
It drifted gently across the room. There was a faint but distinct gurgling 
noise.
The Archchancellor leapt to his feet.'Bugger that,' he roared.'That stuff's 
nine dollars a fifth!' He made a leap for the hat, missed, and kept on going 
until he drifted to a halt several feet above the ground.
The Bursar raised a hand, nervously.
'Possibly woodworm?' he said.
'If there is any more of this,' growled Ridcully, 'anymore at all, d'you hear, 
I shall get very angry!'
He was dropped to the floor at the same time as the big doors opened. 
One of the college porters bustled in, followed by a squad of the Patrician's 
palace guard.
The guard captain looked the Archchancellor up and down with the 
expression of one to whom the


68




word 'civilian' is pronounced in the same general tones as 'cockroach'.
'You the head chap?' he said.
The Archchancellor smoothed his robe and tried to straighten his beard.
'I am the Archchancellor of this university, yes,' he said.
The guard captain looked curiously around the hall.
The students were all cowering down the far end. Splashed food covered 
most of the walls to ceiling height. Bits of furniture lay around the wreckage 
of the chandelier like trees around ground zero of a meteor strike.
Then he spoke with all the distaste of someone whose own further 
education had stopped at age nine, but who'd heard stories . . .
'Indulging in a bit of youthful high spirits, were we?' he said.'Throwin' a 
few bread rolls around, that kind of thing?'
'May I ask the meaning of this intrusion?' said Ridcully, coldly.
The guard captain leaned on his spear.
'Well,' he said, 'it's like this. The Patrician is barricaded in his bedroom on 
account of the furniture in the palace is zooming around the place like you 
wouldn't believe, the cooks won't even go back in the kitchen on account of 
what's happening in there . . .'
The wizards tried not to look at the spear's head. It was starting to 
unscrew itself.
'Anyway,' the captain went on, oblivious to the faint metallic noises, 'the 
Patrician calls through the keyhole, see, and says to me, "Douglas, I wonder 
if you wouldn't mind nipping down to the University and asking the head man 
if he would be so good as to step up here, if he's not too busy?" But I can 
always go back and tell him you're engagin' in a bit of student humour, if you 
like.'
The spearhead was almost off the shaft.


69




'You listening to me?' said the captain suspiciously.
'Hmm? What?' said the Archchancellor, tearing his eyes away from the 
spinning metal.'Oh. Yes. Well, I can assure you, my man, that we are not the 
cause of -'
'Aargh!'
'Pardon?'
'The spearhead fell on my foot!'
'Did it?' said Ridcully, innocently.
The guard captain hopped up and down.
'Listen, are you bloody hocus-pocus merchants coming or not?' he said, 
between bounces.'The boss is not very happy. Not very happy at all.'

A great formless cloud of Life drifted across the Discworld, like water 
building up behind a dam when the sluice gates are shut. With no Death to 
take the life force away when it was finished with, it had nowhere else to go.
 Here and there it earthed itself in random poltergeist activity, like flickers 
of summer lightning before a big storm. Everything that exists, yearns to 
Live. That's what the cycle of life is all about. That's the engine that drives 
the great biological pumps of evolution. Everything tries to inch its way up 
the tree, clawing or tentacling or sliming its way up to the next niche until it 
gets to the very top - which, on the whole, never seems to have been worth 
all that effort.
Everything that exists, yearns to live. Even things that are not alive. 
Things that have a kind of sub-life, a metaphorical life, an almost life. And 
now, in the same way that a sudden hot spell brings forth unnatural and 
exotic blooms . . .
There was something about the little globes. You had to pick them up and 
give them a shake, watch the pretty snowflakes swirl and glitter. And then 
take them home and put them on the mantelpiece.
And then forget about them.


70




The relationship between the University and the Patrician, absolute ruler 
and nearly benevolent dictator of Ankh-Morpork, was a complex and subtle 
one.
The wizards held that, as servants of a higher truth, they were not subject 
to the mundane laws of the city.
The Patrician said that, indeed, this was the case, but they would bloody 
well pay their taxes like everyone else.
The wizards said that, as followers of the light of wisdom, they owed 
allegiance to no mortal man.
The Patrician said that this may well be true but they also owed a city tax 
of two hundred dollars per head per annum, payable quarterly.
The wizards said that the University stood on magical ground and was 
therefore exempt from taxation and anyway you couldn't put a tax on 
knowledge.
The Patrician said you could. It was two hundred dollars per capita; if per 
capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged.
The wizards said that the University had never paid taxes to the civil 
authority.
The Patrician said he was not proposing to remain civil for long.
The wizards said, what about easy terms?
The Patrician said he was talking about easy terms. They wouldn't want to 
know about the hard terms.
The wizards said that there was a ruler back in, oh, it would be the 
Century of the Dragonfly, who had tried to tell the University what to do. The 
Patrician could come and have a look at him if he liked.
The Patrician said that he would. He truly would.
In the end it was agreed that while the wizards of course paid no taxes, 
they would nevertheless make an entirely voluntary donation of, oh, let's say 
two hundred dollars per head, without prejudice, mutatis mutandis, no 
strings attached, to be used strictly for non-militaristic and environmentally-
acceptable purposes.


71




It was this dynamic interplay of power blocs that made Ankh-Morpork 
such an interesting, stimulating and above all bloody dangerous place in 
which to live. *

Senior wizards did not often get out and about on what Welkome to Ankh-
Morporke probably called the thronged highways and intimate byways of the 
city, but it was instantly obvious that something was wrong. It wasn't that 
cobblestones didn't sometimes fly through the air. but usually someone had 
thrown them. They didn't normally float by themselves.
A door burst open and a suit of clothes came out, a pair of shoes dancing 
along behind it, a hat floating a few inches above the empty collar. Close 
behind them came a skinny man endeavouring to do with a hastily-snatched 
flannel what normally it took a whole pair of trousers to achieve.
'You come back here!' he screamed, as they rounded the corner.'I still 
owe seven dollars for you!'
A second pair of trousers scurried out into the street and hurried after 
them.
The wizards clustered together like a frightened animal with five pointed 
heads and ten legs, wondering who was going to be the first to comment.
'That's bloody amazing!' said the Archchancellor.
'Hmm?' said the Dean, trying to imply that he saw more amazing things 
than that all the time, and that in drawing attention to mere clothing running 
around by itself the Archchancellor was letting down the whole tone of 
wizardry.
'Oh, come on. I don't know many tailors round here

_______________________________________________________________
*  Many songs have been written about the bustling metropolis, the most 
famous of course being: 'Ankh-Morpork! Ankh-Morpork! So good they named 
it Ankh-Morpork!', but others have included 'Carry Me Away From Old Ankh-
Morpork', 'I Fear I'm Going Back to Ankh-Morpork' and the old favourite, 
'Ankh-Morpork Malady'.


72




who'd throw in a second pair of pants for a seven dollar suit,' said 
Ridcully.
'Oh, ' said the Dean.
'If it comes past again, try to trip it up so's I can have a look at the label.'
A bedsheet squeezed through an upper window and flapped away across 
the rooftops.
'Y'know,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, trying to keep his voice calm 
and relaxed, 'I don't think this is magic. It doesn't feel like magic.'
The Senior Wrangler fished in one of the deep pockets of his robe. There 
was a muffled clanking and rustling and the occasional croak. Eventually he 
produced a dark blue glass cube. It had a dial on the front.
'You carry one of them around in your pocket?' said the Dean.'A valuable 
instrument like that?'
'What the hell is it?' said Ridcully.
'Amazingly sensitive magical measuring device,' said the Dean.'Measures 
the density of a magical field. A thaumometer.'
The Senior Wrangler proudly held the cube aloft and pressed a button on 
the side. A needle on the dial wobbled around a little bit and stopped.
'See?' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Just natural background, representing 
no hazard to the public.'
'Speak up,' said the Archchancellor.'I can't hear you above the noise.'
Crashes and screams rose from the houses on either side of the street.

Mrs Evadne Cake was a medium, verging on small.
It wasn't a demanding job. Not many people who died in Ankh-Morpork 
showed much inclination to chat to their surviving relatives. Put as many 
mystic dimensions between you and them as possible, that was their motto. 
She filled in between engagements with dressmaking and church work - any 
church.


73




Mrs Cake was very keen on religion, at least on Mrs Cake's terms.
Evadne Cake was not one of those bead-curtain-and-incense mediums, 
partly because she didn't hold with incense but mainly because she was 
actually very good at her profession. A good conjurer can astound you with a 
simple box of matches and a perfectly ordinary deck of cards, if you would 
care to examine them, sir, you will see they are a perfectly ordinary deck of 
cards - he doesn't need the finger-nipping folding tables and complicated 
collapsible top hats of lesser prestidigitators. And, in the same way, Mrs 
Cake didn't need much in the way of props. Even the industrial-grade crystal 
ball was only there as a sop to her customers. Mrs Cake could actually read 
the future in a bowl of porridge. * She could have a revelation in a panful of 
frying bacon. She had spent a lifetime dabbling in the spirit world, except 
that in Evadne's case dabbling wasn't really apposite. She wasn't the 
dabbling kind. It was more a case of stamping into the spirit world and 
demanding to see the manager.
And, while making her breakfast and cutting up dogfood for Ludmilla, she 
started to hear voices. They were very faint. It wasn't that they were on the 
verge of hearing, because they were the kind of voices that ordinary ears 
can't hear. They were inside her head.
. . . watch what you're doing . . . where am I. . . quit shoving, there. . .
And then they faded again.
They were replaced by a squeaking noise from the next room. She pushed 
aside her boiled egg and waddled through the bead curtain.
The sound was coming from under the severe, no-

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  It would say, for example, that you would shortly undergo a painful 
bowel movement.


74




nonsense hessian cover of her crystal ball.
Evadne went back into the kitchen and selected a heavy frying pan. She 
waved it through the air once or twice, getting the heft of it, and then crept 
towards the crystal under its hood.
Raising the pan ready to swat anything unpleasant, she twitched aside the 
cover.
The ball was turning slowly round and round on its stand.
Evadne watched it for a while. Then she drew the curtains, eased her 
weight down on the chair, took a deep breath and said, ' Is there anybody 
there?'
Most of the ceiling fell in. 
After several minutes and a certain amount of struggle Mrs Cake managed 
to get her head free.
'Ludmilla!'
There were soft footsteps in the passageway and then something come in 
from the back yard. It was clearly, even attractively female, in general shape, 
and wore a perfectly ordinary dress. It was also apparently suffering from a 
case of superfluous hair that not all the delicate pink razors in the world 
could erase. Also, teeth and fingernails were being worn long this season. 
You expected the whole thing to growl, but it spoke in a pleasant and 
definitely human voice.
'Mother?'
'Oi'm under 'ere.'
The fearsome Ludmilla lifted up a huge joist and tossed it lightly 
aside.'What happened? Didn't you have your premonition switched on?'
'Oi turned it off to speak to the baker. Cor, that gave me a turn.'
'I'll make you a cup of tea, shall I?'
'Now then, you know you always crushes teacups when it's your Time.' 
'I'm getting better at it, ' said Ludmilla. 
'There's a good girl, but I'll do it myself, thanks all the same.'


75




Mrs Cake stood up, brushed the plaster dust off her apron, and said: 
'They shouted! They shouted! All at once!'

Modo the University gardener was weeding a rose bed when the ancient, 
velvet lawn beside him heaved and sprouted a hardy perennial Windle 
Poons, who blinked in the light.
'Is that you, Modo?'
'That's right, Mr Poons,' said the dwarf. 'Shall I give you a hand up?'
'I think I can manage, thank you.'
'I've got a shovel in the shed, if you like.'
'No, it's perfectly all right.' Windle pulled himself out of the grass and 
brushed the soil off the remains of his robe.'Sorry about your lawn,' he 
added, looking down at the hole.
'Don't mention it, Mr Poons.'
'Did it take long to get it looking like that?'
'About five hundred years, I think.'
'Gosh, I am sorry. I was aiming for the cellars, but I seem to have lost my 
bearings.'
'Don't you worry about that, Mr Poons,' said the dwarf 
cheerfully.'Everything's growing like crazy anyway. I'll fill it in this afternoon 
and put some more seed down and five hundred years will just zoom past, 
you wait and see.'
'The way things are going, I probably will,' said Windle moodily. He 
looked around. 'Is the Archchancellor here?' he said.
'I saw them all going up to the palace,' said the gardener.
'Then I think I'll just go and have a quick bath and a change of clothes. I 
wouldn't want to disturb anyone.'
'I heard you wasn't just dead but buried too, ' said the gardener, as Windle 
lurched off.
'That's right.'
'Can't keep a good man down, eh?'


76




indle turned back.
'By the way . . . where's Elm Street?'
Modo scratched an ear.'Isn't it that one off Treacle Mine Road?'
'Oh, yes. I remember.'
Modo went back to his weeding.
The circular nature of Windle Poons' death didn't bother him much. After 
all, trees looked dead in the winter, burst forth again every spring. Dried up 
old seeds went in the ground, fresh young plants sprang up. Practically 
nothing ever died for long. Take compost, for example.
Modo believed in compost with the same passion that other people 
believed in gods. His compost heaps heaved and fermented and glowed 
faintly in the dark, perhaps because of the mysterious and possibly illegal 
ingredients Modo fed them, although nothing had ever been pried and, 
anyway, no-one was about to dig into one to see what was in it.
All dead stuff, but somehow alive. And it certainly grew roses. The Senior 
Wrangler had explained to Modo that his roses grew so big because it was a 
miracle of existence, but Modo privately thought that they just wanted to get 
as far away from the compost as possible.
The heaps were in for a treat tonight. The weeds were really doing well. 
He'd never known plants to grow so fast and luxuriantly. It must be all the 
compost, Modo thought.

By the time the wizards reached the palace it was in uproar. Pieces of 
furniture were gliding across the ceiling. A shoal of cutlery, like silvery 
minnows in mid-air, flashed past the Archchancellor and dived away down a 
corridor. The place seemed to be in the grip of a selective and tidy-minded 
hurricane.
Other people had already arrived. They included a group dressed very like 
the wizards in many ways,


77




although there were important differences to the trained eye.
'Priests?' said the Dean.'Here? Before us?'
The two groups began very surreptitiously to adopt positions that left 
their hands free.
'What good are they?' said the Senior Wrangler.
There was a noticeable drop in metaphorical temperature.
A carpet undulated past.
The Archchancellor met the gaze of the enormous Chief Priest of Blind Io 
who, as senior priest of the senior god in the Discworld's rambling pantheon, 
was the nearest thing Ankh-Morpork had to a spokesman on religious affairs.
'Credulous fools,' muttered the Senior Wrangler.
'Godless tinkerers,' said a small acolyte, peering out from behind the 
Chief Priest's bully.
'Gullible idiots !'
'Atheistic scum!'
'Servile morons !'
'Childish conjurors!'
'Bloodthirsty priests!'
'Interfering wizards!'
Ridcully raised an eyebrow. The Chief Priest nodded very slightly.
They left the two groups hurling imprecations at each other from a safe 
distance and strolled nonchalantly towards a comparatively quiet part of the 
room where, beside a statue of one of the Patrician's predecessors, they 
turned and faced one another again.
'So . . . how are things in the godbothering business?' said Ridcully.
'We do our humble best. How is the dangerous meddling with things man 
was not meant to understand?'
'Pretty fair. Pretty fair.' Ridcully removed his hat and fished inside the 
pointy bit.'Can I offer you a drop of something?'


78




'Alcohol is a snare for the spirit. Would you care for a cigarette? I believe 
you people indulge.'
'Not me. If I was to tell you what that stuff does to your lungs -'
Ridcully unscrewed the very tip of his hat and poured a generous 
measure of brandy into it. 
'So, ' he said, 'what's happening?'
'We had an altar float up into the air and drop on us.'
'A chandelier unscrewed itself. Everything's unscrewing itself. You know, 
I saw a suit of clothes run past on the way here? Two pairs of pants for 
seven dollars!'
'Hmm. Did you see the label?'
'Everything's throbbing, too. Notice the way everything's throbbing?'
'We thought it was you people.'
'It's not magic. Suppose the gods aren't more than usually unhappy?'
'Apparently not.'
Behind them, the priests and the wizards were screaming chin to chin.
The Chief Priest moved a little closer.
'I think I could be strong enough to master and defeat just a little snare,' 
he said. 'I haven't felt like this since Mrs Cake was one of my flock.'
'Mrs Cake? What's a Mrs Cake?'
'You have . . . ghastly Things from the Dungeon. Dimensions and things, 
yes? Terrible hazards of your ungodly profession?' said the Chief Priest.
'Yes.'
'We have someone called Mrs Cake.'
Ridcully gave him an enquiring look.
'Don't ask,' said the priest, shuddering.'Just be grateful you'll never have 
to find out.'
Ridcully silently passed him the brandy.
'Just between the two of us,' said the priest, 'have you got any ideas 
about all this? The guards are


79




trying to dig his lordship out. You know he'll want answers. I 'm not even 
certain I know the questions.'
'Not magic and not gods,' said Ridcully.'Can I have the snare back? Thank 
you. Not magic and not gods. That doesn't leave us much, does it?'
'I suppose there's not some kind of magic you don't know about?'
'If there is, we don't know about it.'
'Fair enough, ' the priest conceded.
'I suppose it's not the gods up to a bit of ungodliness on the side?' said 
Ridcully, clutching at one last straw. 'A couple of 'em had a bit of a tiff or 
something? Messing around with golden apples or something?'
'It's very quiet on the god front right now, ' said the Chief Priest. His eyes 
glazed as he spoke, apparently reading from a script inside his 
head.'Hyperopia, goddess of shoes, thinks that Sandelfon, god of corridors, 
is the long-lost twin brother of Grune, god of unseasonal fruit. Who put the 
goat in the bed of Offler, the Crocodile God? Is Offler forging an alliance with 
Seven-handed Sek? Meanwhile, Hoki the Jokester is up to his old tricks -'
'Yes, yes, all right,' said Ridcully.'I've never been able to get interested in 
all that stuff, myself.'
Behind them, the Dean was trying to prevent the Lecturer in Recent Runes 
from attempting to turn the priest of Offler the Crocodile God into a set of 
matching suitcases, and the Bursar had a bad nosebleed from a lucky blow 
with a thurible.
'What we've got to present here, ' said Ridcully, 'is a united front. Right?'
'Agreed, ' said the Chief Priest.
'Right. For now.'
A small rug sinewaved past at eye level. The Chief Priest handed back the 
brandy bottle.
'Incidentally, mother says you haven't written lately, ' he said.
'Yeah . . .' The other wizards would have been


80




surprised at their Archchancellor's look of contrite embarrassment.'I've 
been busy. You know how it is.'
'She said to be sure to remind you she's expecting both of us over for 
lunch on Hogswatchday.'
'I haven't forgotten,' said Ridcully, glumly. 'I'm looking forward to it.' He 
turned to the melee behind them.
'Cut it out, you fellows,' he said.
'Brethren! Desist!' bellowed the Chief Priest.
The Senior Wrangler released his grip on the head of the high priest of the 
Cult of Hinki. A couple of curates stopped kicking the Bursar. There was a 
general adjustment of clothing, a finding of hats and a bout of embarrassed 
coughing.
'That's better,' said Ridcully.'Now then, his Eminence the Chief Priest and 
myself have decided -'
The Dean glowered at a very small bishop.
'He kicked me! He kicked me!'
'Ooo! I never did, my son.'
'You bloody well did,' the Dean hissed. 'Sideways, so they wouldn't see!'
'- have decided -' repeated Ridcully, glaring at the Dean, 'to pursue a 
solution to the current disturbances in a spirit of brotherhood and goodwill 
and that includes you, Senior Wrangler.'
'I couldn't help it! He pushed me.'
'Well! May you be forgiven!' said the Archdeacon of Thrume, stoutly.
There was a crash from above. A chaise-longue cantered down the stairs 
and smashed through the hall door.
'I think perhaps the guards are still trying to free the Patrician,' said the 
High Priest. 'Apparently even his secret passages locked themselves.'
'All of them? I thought the sly devil had 'em everywhere,' said Ridcully.
'All locked,' said the High Priest. 'All of them.'
'Almost all of them,' said a voice behind him.


81




Ridcully's tones did not change as he turned around, except that a slight 
extra syrup was added.
A figure had apparently stepped out of the wall. It was human, but only by 
default. Thin, pale, and clad all in dusty black, the Patrician always put 
Ridcully in mind of a predatory flamingo, if you could find a flamingo that 
was black and had the patience of a rock.
'Ah, Lord Vetinari,' he said, 'I am so glad you are unhurt.'
'I will see you gentlemen in the Oblong Office, ' said the Patrician. Behind 
him, a panel in the wall slid back noiselessly.
'I, um, I believe there are a number of guards upstairs trying to free -' the 
Chief Priest began.
The Patrician waved a thin hand at him.'I wouldn't dream of stopping 
them,' he said. 'It gives them something to do and makes them feel 
important. Otherwise they just have to stand around all day looking fierce 
and controlling their bladders. Come this way.'

The leaders of the other Ankh-Morpork Guilds turned up in ones and 
twos, gradually filling the room.
The Patrician sat gloomily staring at the paper-work on his desk as they 
argued.
'Well, it's not us,' said the head of the Alchemists.
'Things are always flying through the air when you fellows are around,' 
said Ridcully.
'Yes, but that's only because of unforeseen exothermic reactions, ' said 
the alchemist.
'Things keep blowing up,' translated the deputy-head alchemist, without 
looking up.
'They may blow up, but they come down again.They don't flutter around 
and, e.g., start unscrewing themselves,' said his chief, giving him a warning 
frown. 'Anyway, why'd we do it to ourselves? I tell you, it's hell in my 
workshop! There's stuff whizzing everywhere! Just before I came out, a huge 
and very expensive piece of glassware broke into splinters !'


82




'Marry, 'twas a sharp retort, ' said a wretched voice.
The press of bodies moved aside to reveal the General Secretary and 
Chief Butt of the Guild of Fools and Joculators. He flinched under the 
attention, but he generally flinched all the time anyway. He had the look of a 
man whose face has been Ground Zero for one custard pie too many, whose 
trousers have been too often awash with whitewash, whose nerves would 
disintegrate completely at the sound of just one more whoopee-cushion. The 
other Guild leaders tried to be nice to him, in the same way that people try to 
be kind to other people who are standing on the ledges of very high 
buildings.
'What do you mean, Geoffrey?' said Ridcully, as kindly as he could.
The Fool gulped. 'Well, you see,' he mumbled, 'we have sharp as in 
splinters, and retort as in large glass alchemical vessel, ~~d thus we get a 
pun on "sharp retort" which also means, well, a scathing answer. Sharp 
retort. You see? It's a play on words. Um. It's not very good, is it.'
The Archchancellor looked into eyes like two runny eggs.
'Oh, apun,' he said.'Of course. Hohoho.' He waved a hand encouragingly 
at the others.
'Hohoho, ' said the Chief Priest.
'Hohoho, ' said the leader of the Assassins' Guild.
'Hohoho,' said the head Alchemist. 'And, you know, what makes it even 
funnier is that it was actually an alembic.'
'So what you're telling me,' said the Patrician, as considerate hands led 
the Fool away, 'is that none of you are responsible for these events?'
He gave Ridcully a meaningful look as he spoke.
The Archchancellor was about to answer when his eye was caught by a 
movement on the Patrician's desk.
There was a little model of the Palace in a glass globe. And next to it was 
a paperknife.


83




The paperknife was slowly bending.
'Well?' said the Patrician.
'Not us,' said Ridcully, his voice hollow. The Patrician followed his gaze.
The knife was already curved like a bow.
The Patrician scanned the sheepish crowd until he found Captain Doxie of 
the City Guard Day Watch.
'Can't you do something?' he said.
'Er. Like what, sir? The knife? Er. I suppose I could arrest it for being 
bent.'
Lord Vetinari threw his hands up in the air.
'So! It's not magic! It's not gods! It's not people! What is it? And who's 
going to stop it? Who am I going to call?'
Half an hour later the little globe had vanished.
No-one noticed. They never do.

Mrs Cake knew who she was going to call.
'You there, One-Man-Bucket?' she said.
Then she ducked, just in case.
A reedy and petulant voice oozed out of the air.
where have you been I can't move in here!
Mrs Cake bit her lip. Such a direct reply meant her spirit guide was 
worried. When he didn't have anything on his mind he spent five minutes 
talking about buffaloes and great white spirits, although if One-Man-Bucket 
had ever been near white spirit he'd drunk it and it was anyone's guess what 
he'd do to a buffalo. And he kept putting 'ums' and 'hows ' into the 
conversation.
'What d'you mean?'
- there been a catastrophe or something, some kind of ten-second 
plague?
'No. Don't think so.'
- there's real pressure here, you know. what's hokeing everything up?
'What do you mean?'
- shutupshutupshutup I'm trying to talk to the lady!


84




- you lot over there, keep the noise down! oh yeaha sez you -
Mrs Cake was aware of other voices trying to drown him out.
'One-Man-Bucket!'
- heathen savage, am I? so you know what this heathen savage says to 
youa yeah? listen, I've been over here for a hundred years, me! I don't have 
to take talk like that from someone who's still warm! Tight - that does it, you . 
. .
His voice faded.
Mrs Cake set her jaw.
His voice came back.
- oh yeah? oh yeaha well, maybe you was big when you was alive, friend, 
but here and now you're just a bedsheet with holes in it! Oh, so you don't like 
that, eh -
'He's going to start fighting again, mum,' said Ludmilla, who was curled 
up by the kitchen stove.'He always calls people "friend" just before he hits 
them.'
Mrs Cake sighed.
'And it sounds as if he's going to fight a lot of people,' said Ludmilla.
'Oh, all right. Go and fetch me a vase. A cheap one, mind.'
It is widely suspected, but not generally known, that everything has an 
associated spirit form which, upon its demise, exists briefly in the draughty 
gap between the worlds of the living and the dead. This is important.
 'No, not that one. That belonged to your granny.'
This ghostly survival does not last for long without a consciousness to 
hold it together, but depending on what you have in mind it can last for just 
long enough.
'That one'll do. I never liked the pattern.'
Mrs Cake took an orange vase with pink peonies on it from her daughter's 
paws.


85




'Are you still there, One-Man-Bucket?' she said.
- I'll make you regret the day you ever died, you whining -
'Catch.'
She dropped the vase on to the stove. It smashed.
A moment later, there was a sound from the Other Side. If a discorporate 
spirit had hit another discorporate spirit with the ghost of a vase, it would 
have sounded just like that.
- right, said the voice of One-Man-Bucket, and there's more where that 
came from, OK?
The Cakes, mother and hairy daughter, nodded at each other.
When One-Man-Bucket spoke again, his voice dripped with smug 
satisfaction.
- just a bit of an altercation about seniority here, he said. just sorting out a 
bit of personal space. got a lot of problems here, Mrs Cake. it's like a waiting 
room -
There was a shrill clamour of other disembodied voices.
- could you get a message, please, to Mr -
- tell her there's a bag of coins on the ledge up the chimney -
- Agnes is not to have the silverware after what she said about our Molly -
- I didn't have time to feed the cat, could someone go - shutupshutup! 
That was One-Man-Bucket again. you've got no idea have you? this is ghost 
talk, is it? feed the cat? whatever happened to 'I am very happy here, and 
waiting for you to join me'?
- listen, if anyone else joins us, we'll be standing on one another's heads -
- that's not the point. that's not the point, that's all I'm saying. when you're 
a spirit, there's things you gotta say. Mrs Cake?
'Yes?'
- you got to tell someone about this.
Mrs Cake nodded.


86




'Now you all go away,' she said. 'I'm getting one of my headaches.'
The crystal ball faded.
'Well!' said Ludmilla.
'I ain't going to tell no priests,' said Mrs Cake firmly.
It wasn't that Mrs Cake wasn't a religious woman.
She was, as has already been hinted, a very religious woman indeed. 
There wasn't a temple, church, mosque or small group of standing stones 
anywhere in the city that she hadn't attended at one time or another, as a 
result of which she was more feared than an Age of Enlightenment; the mere 
sight of Mrs Cake's small fat body on the threshold was enough to stop most 
priests dead in the middle of their invocation.
Dead. That was the point. All the religions had very strong views about 
talking to the dead. And so did Mrs Cake. They held that it was sinful. Mrs 
Cake held that it was only common courtesy.
This usually led to a fierce ecclesiastical debate which resulted in Mrs 
Cake giving the chief priest what she called 'a piece of her mind'. There were 
so many pieces of Mrs Cake's mind left around the city now that it was quite 
surprising that there was enough left to power Mrs Cake but, strangely 
enough, the more pieces of her mind she gave away the more there seemed 
to be left.
There was also the question of Ludmilla. Ludmilla was a problem. The late 
Mr Cake, gods rest his soul, had never so much as even whistled at the full 
moon his whole life, and Mrs Cake had dark suspicions that Ludmilla was a 
throwback to the family's distant past in the mountains, or maybe had 
contracted genetics as a child. She was pretty certain her mother had once 
alluded circumspectly to the fact that Great-uncle Erasmus sometimes had 
to eat his meals under the table. Either way, Ludmilla was a decent upright 
young woman for three weeks in every four and a


87




perfectly well-behaved hairy wolf thing for the rest of the time.
Priests often failed to see it that way. Since by the time Mrs Cake fell out 
with whatever priests * were currently moderating between her and the gods, 
she had usually already taken over the flower arrangements, altar dusting, 
temple cleaning, sacrificial stone scrubbing, honorary vestigial virgining, 
hassock repairing and every other vital religious support role by sheer force 
of personality, her departure resulted in total chaos.
Mrs Cake buttoned up her coat.
'It won't work,' said Ludmilla.
'I'll try the wizards. They ought to be tole,' said Mrs Cake. She was 
quivering with self-importance, like a small enraged football.
'Yes, but you said they never Listen,' said Ludmilla.
'Got to try. Byway, what are you doing out of your room?'
'Oh, mother. You know I hate that room. There's no need -'
'You can't be too careful. Supposin' you was to take it into your head to 
go and chase people's chickens? What would the neighbours say?'
'I've never felt the least urge to chase a chicken, mother,' said Ludmilla 
wearily.
'Or run after carts, barkin'.'
'That's dogs, mother.'
'You just get back in your room and lock yourself in and get on with some 
sewing like a good girl.'

_______________________________________________________________
*  Mrs Cake was aware that some religions had priestesses. What Mrs 
Cake thought about the ordination of women was unprintable. The religions 
with priestesses in Ankh-Morpork tended to attract a large crowd of plain-
clothes priests from other denominations who were looking for a few hours' 
respite somewhere where they wouldn't encounter Mrs Cake.


88




'You know I can't hold the needles properly, mother.'
'Try for your mother.'
' Yes, mother,' said Ludmilla.
'And don't go near the window. We don't want people upset.'
'Yes, mother. And you make sure you put your premonition on, mum. You 
know your eyesight isn't what it was.'
Mrs Cake watched her daughter go upstairs. Then she locked the front 
door behind her and strode towards Unseen University where, she'd heard, 
there was too much nonsense of all sorts.
 Anyone watching Mrs Cake's progress along the street would have 
noticed one or two odd details.
Despite her erratic gait, no-one bumped into her. They weren't avoiding 
her, she just wasn't where they were.
At one point she hesitated, and stepped into an alleyway. A moment later 
a barrel rolled off a cart that was unloading outside a tavern and smashed on 
the cobbles where she would have been. She stepped out of the alley and 
over the wreckage, grumbling to herself.
 Mrs Cake spent a lot of the time grumbling. Her mouth was constantly 
moving, as if she was trying to dislodge a troublesome pip from somewhere 
in the back of her teeth.
She reached the high black gates of the University and hesitated again, as 
if listening to some inner voice.
Then she stepped aside and waited.

Bill Door lay in the darkness of the hayloft and waited.
Below, he could hear the occasional horsey sounds of Binky - a soft 
movement, the champ of a jaw.
Bill Door. So now he had a name. Of course, he'd always had a name, but 
he'd been named for what he embodied, not for who he was. Bill Door. It had 
a good solid ring to it.
Mr Bill Door. William Door, Esq. Billy D - no. Not Billy.


89




Bill Door eased himself further into the hay. He reached into his robe and 
pulled out the golden timer. There was, quite perceptibly, less sand in the 
top bulb. He put it back.
And then there was this "sleep". He knew what it was. People did it for 
quite a lot of the time. They lay down and sleep happened. Presumably it 
served some purpose. He was watching out for it with interest. He would 
have to subject it to analysis.

Night drifted across the world, coolly pursued by a new day.
There was a stirring in the henhouse across the yard.
'Cock-a-doo . . . er.'
Bill Door stared at the roof of the barn.
'Cock-a-doodle . . . er.'
Grey light was filtering in between the cracks.
Yet only moments ago there had been the red light of sunset!
Six hours had vanished.
Bill hauled out the timer. Yes. The level was definitely down. While he had 
been waiting to experience sleep, something had stolen part of his . . . of his 
life. He'd completely missed it, too -
'Cock...cock-a...er...'
He climbed down from the loft and stepped out into the thin mist of dawn.
The elderly chickens watched him cautiously as he peered into their 
house. An ancient and rather embarrassed-looking cockerel glared at him 
and shrugged.
There was a clanging noise from the direction of the house. An old iron 
barrel hoop was hanging by the door, and Miss Flitworth was hitting it 
vigorously with a ladle.
He stalked over to investigate.
WHAT FOR ARE YOU MAKING THE NOISE, MISS FLITWORTH?
She spun around, ladle half-raised.
'Good grief, you must walk like a cat!' she said.
I MUST?


90




'I meant I didn't hear you.' She stood back and looked him up and down.
'There's still something about you I can't put my finger on, Bill Door,' she 
said. 'Wish I knew what it was.'
The seven-foot skeleton regarded her stoically. He felt there was nothing 
he could say.
'What do you want for breakfast?' said the old woman.
'Not that it'll make any difference, 'cos it's porridge.'
Later she thought: he must have eaten it, because the bowl is empty. Why 
can't I remember?
And then there was the matter of the scythe. He looked at it as if he'd 
never seen one before. She pointed out the grass nail and the handles. He 
looked at them politely.
HOW DO YOU SHARPEN IT, MISS FLITWORTH?
'It's sharp enough, for goodness sake.'
HOW DO YOU SHARPEN IT MORE?
'You can't. Sharp's sharp. You can't get sharper than that.'
He'd swished it aimlessly, and made a disappointed hissing noise.
And there was the grass, too.
The hay meadow was high on the hill behind the farm, overlooking the 
cornfield. She watched him for a while.
It was the most interesting technique she had ever witnessed. She 
wouldn't even have thought that it was technically possible.
Eventually she said: 'It's good. You've got the swing and everything.'
THANK YOU, MISS FLITWORTH.
'But why one blade of grass at a time?'
Bill Door regarded the neat row of stalks for some while.
THERE IS ANOTHER WAY?
'You can do lots in one go, you know.'
NO. NO. ONE BLADE AT A TIME. ONE TIME, ONE BLADE.
'You won't cut many that way,' said Miss Flitworth.
EVERY LAST ONE, MISS FLITWORTH.
'Yes?'
TRUST ME ON THIS.


91




Miss Flitworth left him to it and went back to the farm-house. She stood at 
the kitchen window and watched the distant dark figure for a while, as it 
moved over the hillside.
I wonder what he did? she thought. He's got a Past. He's one of them Men 
of Mystery, I expect. Perhaps he did a robbery and is Lying Low.
He's cut a whole row already. One at a time, but somehow faster than a 
man cutting swathe by swathe . . .
Miss Flitworth's only reading matter was the Farmer's Almanac and Seed 
Catalogue, which could last a whole year in the privy if no-one was ill. In 
addition to sober information about phases of the moon and seed sowings it 
took a certain grisly relish in recounting the various mass murders, vicious 
robberies and natural disasters that befell mankind, on the lines of 'June 15, 
Year of the Impromptu Stoat: On this Day 150 yrs. since, a Man killed by 
Freak shower of ?Goul~.h? in Quirm' or '14 die at hands of Chume, the 
Notorious Herring Thrower.'
The important thing about all these was that they happened a long way 
away, possibly by some kind of divine intervention. The only things that 
usually happened locally were the occasional theft of a chicken, and the 
occasional wandering troll. Of course, there were also robbers and bandits in 
the hills but they got on well with the actual residents and were essential to 
the local economy. Even so, she felt she'd certainly feel safer with someone 
else about the place.
The dark figure on the hillside was well into the second row. Behind it, the 
cut grass withered in the sun.
I HAVE FINISHED, MISS FLITWORTH.
'Go and feed the pig, then. She's called Nancy.'
NANCY, said Bill, turning the word around in his mouth as though he was 
trying to see it from all sides.
'After my mother.'
I WILL GO AND FEED THE PIG NANCY, MISS FLITWORTH.
It seemed to Miss Flitworth that mere seconds went by.


92




I HAVE FINISHED, MISS FLITWORTH.
She squinted at him. Then, slowly and deliberately, she wiped her hands 
on a cloth, stepped out into the yard and headed for the pigsty.
Nancy was eyeball-deep in the swill trough.
Miss Flitworth wondered exactly what comment she should make. Finally 
she said, 'Very good. Very good. You, you, you certainly work . . . fast.'
MISS FLITWORTH, WHY DOES NOT THE COCKEREL CROW PROPERLY?
'Oh, that's just Cyril. He hasn't got a very good memory. Ridiculous, isn't 
it? I wish he'd get it right.'
Bill Door found a piece of chalk in the farm's old smithy, located a piece 
of board among the debris, and wrote very carefully for some time. Then he 
wedged the board in front of the henhouse and pointed Cyril towards it.
THIS YOU WILL READ he said.
Cyril peered myopically at the 'Cock-A-Doodle-Doo' in heavy gothic script. 
Somewhere in his tiny mad chicken mind a very distinct and chilly 
understanding formed that he'd better learn to read very, very quickly.
Bill Door sat back among the hay and thought about the day. It seemed to 
have been quite a full one. He'd cut hay and fed animals and mended a 
window. He'd found some old overalls hanging in the barn. They seemed far 
more appropriate for a Bill Door than a robe woven of absolute darkness, so 
he'd put them on. And Miss Flitworth had given him a broad-brimmed straw 
hat.
And he'd ventured the half-mile walk into the town. It wasn't even a one 
horse town. If anyone had a horse, they'd have eaten it. The residents 
appeared to make a living by stealing one another's washing.
There was a town square, which was ridiculous. It was really only an 
enlarged crossroads, with a clock tower.
And there was a tavern. He'd gone inside.


93




After the initial pause while everyone's mind had refocused to allow him 
room, they'd been cautiously hospitable; news travels even faster on a vine 
with few grapes.
'You'd be the new man up at Miss Flitworth's,' said the barman.'A Mr 
Door, I did hear.'
CALL ME BILL.
'Ah? Used to be a tidy old farm, once upon a time. We never thought the 
old girl'd stay on.'
'Ah,' agreed a couple of old men by the fireplace.
AH.
'New to these parts, then?' said the barman.
The sudden silence of the other men in the bar was like a black hole.
NOT PRECISELY.
'Been here before, have you?'
JUST PASSING THROUGH.
'They say old Miss Flitworth's a loony,' said one of the figures on the 
?t~inches? around the smoke-blackened walls.
'But sharp as a knife, mind,' said another hunched drinker.
'Oh, yes. She's sharp all right. But still a loony.'
'And they say she's got boxes full of treasure in that old parlour of hers.'
'She's tight with money, I know that.'
'That proves it. Rich folk are always tight with money.'
'All right. Sharp and rich. But still a loony.'
'You can't be loony and rich. You've got to be eccentric if you're rich.'
The silence returned and hovered. Bill Door sought desperately for 
something to say. He had never been very good at small talk. He'd never had 
much occasion to use it.
What did people say at times like this? Ah. Yes.
I WILL BUY EVERYONE A DRINK, he announced.
Later on they taught him a game that consisted of a table with holes and 
nets around the edge, and balls carved expertly out of wood, and apparently 
balls had to bounce
off one another and into the holes. It was called Pond. He played it well. In 
fact, he played it perfectly. At the start, he


94


didn't know how not to. But after he heard them gasp a few times he 
corrected himself and started making mistakes with painstaking precision; 
by the time they taught him darts he was getting really good at them. The 
more mistakes he made, the more people liked him. So he propelled the little 
feathery darts with cold skill, never letting one drop within a foot of the 
targets they urged on him. He even sent one ricocheting off a nail head and a 
lamp so that it landed in someone's beer, which made one of the older men 
laugh so much he had to be taken outside into the fresh air.
They'd called him Good Old Bill.
No-one had ever called him that before.
What a strange evening.
There had been one bad moment, though. He'd heard a small voice say: 
'That man is a skelington,' and had turned to see a small child in a 
nightdress watching him over the top of the bar, without terror but with a sort 
of fascinated horror.
The landlord, who by now Bill Door knew to be called Lifton, had laughed 
nervously and apologised.
'That's just her fancy,' he said.'The things children say, eh? Get on with 
you back to bed, Sal. And say you're sorry to Mr Door.'
'He's a skelington with clothes on,' said the child.'Why doesn't all the 
drink fall through?'
He'd almost panicked. His intrinsic powers were fading, then. People 
could not normally see him - he occupied a blind spot in their senses, which 
they filled in some- where inside their heads with something they preferred 
to encounter. But the adults' inability to see him clearly wasn't proof against 
this sort of insistent declaration, and he could feel the puzzlement around 
him. Then, just in time, its mother had come in from the back room and had 
taken the child away. There'd been muffled complaints on the lines of ' - a 
skelington, with all bones on -' disappearing around the bend in the stairs.
And all the time the ancient clock over the fireplace had been ticking, 
ticking, chopping seconds off his life. There'd seemed so many of them, not 
long ago . . .


95




There was a faint knocking at the barn door, below the hayloft. He heard it 
pushed open.
'Are you decent, Bill Door?' said Miss Flitworth's voice in the darkness.
Bill Door analysed the sentence for meaning within context.
YES? he ventured.
'I've brought you a hot milk drink.'
YES?
'Come on, quick now. Otherwise it'll go cold.'
Bill Door cautiously climbed down the wooden ladder.
Miss Flitworth was holding a lantern, and had a shawl around her 
shoulders.
'It's got cinnamon on it. My Ralph always liked cinnamon.' She sighed.
Bill Door was aware of undertones and overtones in the same way that an 
astronaut is aware of weather patterns below him; they're all visible, all 
there, all laid out for study and all totally divorced from actual experience.
THANK YOU, he said.
Miss Flitworth looked around.
'You've really made yourself at home here,' she said brightly.
YES.
She pulled the shawl around her shoulders.
'I'll be getting back to the house, then,' she said.'You can bring the mug 
back in the morning.'
She sped away into the night.
Bill Door took the drink up to the loft. He put it on a low beam and sat and 
watched it long after it grew cold and the candle had gone out.
After a while he was aware of an insistent hissing. He took out the golden 
timer and put it right at the other end of the loft, under a pile of hay.
 It made no difference at all.

Windle Poons peered at the house numbers - a hundred Counting Pines 
had died for this street alone -


96




and then realised he didn't have to. He was being short-sighted out of 
habit. He improved his eyesight.
Number 668 took some while to find because it was in fact on the first 
floor above a tailor's shop. Entrance was via an alleyway. There was a 
wooden door at the end of the alley. On its peeling paintwork someone had 
pinned a notice which read, in optimistic lettering:
'Come in! Come in! ! The Fresh Start Club.
Being Dead is only the Beginning! ! !'

The door opened on to a flight of stairs that smelled of old paint and dead 
flies. They creaked even more than Windle's knees.
Someone had been drawing on the walls. The phraseology was exotic but 
the general tone was familiar enough: Spooks of the World Arise, You have 
Nothing to lose but your Chains and The Silent Majority want DeadRights 
and End vitalism now!?!
At the top was ?dolanding?, with one door opening off it.
Once upon a time someone had hung an oil lamp from the ceiling, but it 
looked as though it had never been lit for thousands of years. An ancient 
spider, possibly living on the remains of the oil, watched him warily from its 
eyrie.
Windle looked at the card again, took a deep breath out of habit, and 
knocked.

The Archchancellor strode back into College in a fury, with the others 
trailing desperately behind him.
'Who is he going to call! We're the wizards around here!'
'Yes, but we don't actually know what's happening, do we?' said the 
Dean.
'So we're going to find out!' Ridcully growled. 'I don't know who he's 
going to call, but I'm damn sure who I'm going to call.'
He halted abruptly. The rest of the wizards piled into him.


97




'Oh, no,' said the Senior Wrangler.'Please, not that!'
'Nothing to it,' said Ridcully.'Nothing to worry about. Read up on it last 
night, 's'matterofact. You can do it with three bits of wood and -'
'Four cc of mouse blood,' said the Senior Wrangler mournfully.'You don't 
even need that. You can use two bits of wood and an egg. It has to be a fresh 
egg, though.'
'Why?'
'I suppose the mouse feels happier about it.'
'No, I mean the egg.'
'Oh, who knows how an egg feels?'
'Anyway,' said the Dean, 'it's dangerous. I've always felt that he only stays 
in the octogram for the look of the thing. I hate it when he peers at you and 
seems to be counting.'
'Yes,' said the Senior Wrangler.'We don't need to do that. We get over 
most things. Dragons, monsters. Rats. Remember the rats last year? Seemed 
to be everywhere. Lord Vetinari wouldn't listen to us, oh no. He paid that glib 
bugger in the red and yellow tights a thousand gold pieces to get rid of 'em.'
'It worked, though,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Of course it bloody worked,' said the Dean.'It worked in Quirm and Sto 
Lat as well. He'd have got away with it in Pseudopolis as well if someone 
hadn't recognised him. Mr so-called Amazing Maurice and His Educated 
Rodents!'
'It's no good trying to change the subject,' said Ridcully.'We're going to 
do the Rite of AshKente. Right?'
'And summon Death, ' said the Dean.'Oh, dear.'
'Nothing wrong with Death,' said Ridcully.'Professional fellow. Job to do. 
Fair and square. Play a straight bat, no problem. He'll know what's 
happening.'


98




'Oh, dear, ' said the Dean again.
They reached the gateway. Mrs Cake stepped forward, blocking the 
Archchancellor's path.
Ridcully raised his eyebrows.
The Archchancellor was not the kind of man who takes a special pleasure 
in being brusque and rude to women. Or, to put it another way, he was 
brusque and rude to absolutely everyone, regardless of sex, which was 
equality of a sort. And if the following conversation had not been taking 
place between someone who listened to what people said several seconds 
before they said it, and someone who didn't listen to what people said at all, 
everything might have been a lot different. Or perhaps it wouldn't.
Mrs Cake led with an answer.
'I'm not your good woman!' she snapped.
'And who are you, my good woman?' said the Archchancellor.
'Well, that's no way to talk to a respectable person,' said Mrs Cake.
'There's no need to be offended, ' said Ridcully.
'Oh blow, is that what I'm doin'?' said Mrs Cake.
'Madam, why are you answering me before I've even said something?'
'What?'
'What d'you mean?'
'What do you mean?'
'What?'
They stared at one another, fixed in an unbreakable conversational 
deadlock. Then Mrs Cake realised.
'O I'm prematurely premoniting again,' she said.
 She stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled it around with a squelching 
noise.'It's all alright now. Now, the reason -'
But Ridcully had had enough.
'Bursar,' he said, 'give this woman a penny and send her about her 
business, will you?'


99




'What?' said Mrs Cake, suddenly enraged beyond belief.
'There's too much of this sort of thing these days,' said Ridcully to the 
Dean, as they strolled away.
'It's the pressures and stresses of living in a big city,' said the Senior 
Wrangler.'I read that somewhere. It takes people in a funny way.'
They stepped through the wicket gate in one of the big doors and the 
Dean shut it in Mrs Cake's face.
'He might not come,' said the Senior Wrangler, as they crossed the 
quadrangle. 'He didn't come for poor old Windle's farewell party.'
'He'll come for the Rite,' said Ridcully.'It doesn't just send him an 
invitation, it puts a bloody RSVP on

'Oh, good. I like sherry,' said the Bursar.
'Shut up, Bursar.'

There was an alley, somewhere in the Shades, which was the most alley-
ridden part of an alley-ridden city.
Something small and shiny rolled into it, and vanished in the darkness.
After a while, there were faint metallic noises.

The atmosphere in the Archchancellor's study was very cold.
Eventually the Bursar quavered: 'Maybe he's busy?'
'Shut up,' said the wizards, in unison.
Something was happening. The floor inside the chalked magic octogram 
was going white with frost.
'It's never done that before,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'This is all wrong, you know,' said the Dean. 'We should have some 
candles and some cauldrons and some stuff bubbling in crucibles and some 
glitter dust and some coloured smoke -'


100




'The Rite doesn't need any of that stuff,' said Ridcully sharply.
'It might not need them, but I do,' muttered the Dean.'Doing it without the 
right paraphernalia is like taking all your clothes off to have a bath.'
'That's what I do,' said Ridcully.
'Humph. Well, each to his own, of course, but some of us like to think that 
we're maintaining standards.'
'Perhaps he's on holiday?' said the Bursar.
'Oh, yes,' sneered the Dean.'On a beach somewhere? A few iced drinks 
and a Kiss Me Quick hat?'
'Hold on. Hold on. Someone's coming,' hissed the Senior Wrangler.
The faint outlines of a hooded figure appeared above the octogram. It 
wavered constantly, as if it was being seen through superheated air.
'That's him, ' said the Dean.
'No it isn't, ' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.'It's just a grey ?ro? - 
there's nothing in -'
He stopped.
It turned, slowly. It was filled out, suggesting a wearer, but at the same 
time had a feeling of hollowness, as if it was merely a shape for something 
with no shape of its own. The hood was empty.
The emptiness watched the wizards for a few seconds and then focused 
on the Archchancellor.
It said, Who are you?
Ridcully swallowed. 'Er. Mustrum Ridcully. Archchancellor.'
The hood nodded. The Dean stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it 
around. The robe wasn't talking.
Nothing was being heard. It was just that, afterwards, you had a sudden 
memory of what had just failed to be said and no knowledge of how it had 
got there.
The hood said, You are a superior being on this world?
Ridcully looked at the other wizards. The Dean glared.


101




'Well . . . you know . . . yes . . . first among equals and all that sort of thing 
. . . yes . . .' Ridcully managed.
He was told, We bring good news.
'Good news? Good news?' Ridcully squirmed under the gazerless 
gaze.'Oh, good. That is good news.'
He was told, Death has retired.
'Pardon?'
He was told, Death has retired.
'Oh? That is . . . news . . .' said Ridcully uncertainly.
'Uh. How? Exactly . . . how?'
He was told, We apologise for the recent lapse in standards.
'Lapse?' said the Archchancellor, now totally mystified.'Well, uh. I'm not 
sure there's been a . . . I mean, of course the fella was always knockin' 
around, but most of the time we hardly . . .'
He was told, It has all been most irregular.
'It has? Has it? Oh, well, can't have irregularity,'said the Archchancellor.
He was told, It must have been terrible.
'Well, I . . . that is . . . I suppose we . . . I'm not sure . . . must it?'
He was told, But now the burden is removed. Rejoice. That is all. There 
will be a short transitional period before a suitable candidate presents itself, 
and then normal service will be resumed. In the meantime, we apologise for 
any unavoidable inconvenience caused by superfluous life effects.
The figure wavered and began to fade.
The Archchancellor waved his hands desperately.
'Wait!' he said.'You can't just go like that! I command you to stay! What 
service? What does it all mean? Who are you?'
The hood turned back towards him and said, We are nothing.
'That's no help! What is your name?'
We are oblivion.
The figure vanished.


102




The wizards fell silent. The frost in the octogram began to sublime back 
into air.
'Oh-oh, ' said the Bursar.
'Short transitional period? Is that what this is?' said the Dean.
The floor shook.
'Oh-oh, ' said the Bursar again.
'That doesn't explain why everything is Living a life of its own,' said the 
Senior Wrangler.
'Hold on . . . hold on,' said Ridcully, 'If people are coming to the end of 
their life and leaving their bodies and everything, but Death isn't taking them 
away -'
'Then that means they're queuing up here,' said the Dean.
'With nowhere to go.'
'Not just people,' said the Senior Wrangler.'It must be everything. Every 
thing that dies.'
'Filling up the wadd with life force,' said Ridcully.
The wizards were speaking in a monotone, everyone's mind running 
ahead of the conversation to the distant horror of the conclusion.
'Hanging around with nothing to do,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Ghosts.'
'Poltergeist activity.'
'Good grief.'
'Hang on, though,' said the Bursar, who had managed to catch up with 
events.'Why should that worry us? We don't have anything to fear from the 
dead, do we? After all, they're just people who are dead.
They're just ordinary people. People like us.'
The wizards thought about this. They looked at one another. They started 
to shout, all at once.
No-one remembered the bit about suitable candidates.

Belief is one of the most powerful organic forces in the multiverse. It may 
not be able to move mountains,


103




exactly. But it can create someone who can.
People get exactly the wrong idea about belief. They think it works back 
to front. They think the sequence is, first object, then belief. In fact, it works 
the other way.
Belief sloshes around in the firmament like lumps of clay spiralling into a 
potter's wheel. That's how gods get created, for example. They clearly must 
be created by their own believers, because a brief resume of the lives of 
most gods suggests that their origins certainly couldn't be divine. They tend 
to do exactly the things people would do if only they could, especially when 
it comes to nymphs, golden showers, and the smiting of your enemies.
Belief creates other things.
It created Death. Not death, which is merely a technical term for a state 
caused by prolonged absence of life, but Death ?as? the personality. He 
evolved, as it were, along with life. As soon as a living thing was even dimly 
aware of the concept of suddenly becoming a non-living thing, there was 
Death. He was Death long before humans ever considered him; they only 
added the shape and all the scythe and robe business to a personality that 
was already millions of years old.
And now he had gone. But belief doesn't stop. Belief goes right on 
believing. And since the focal point of belief had been lost, new points 
sprang up. Small as yet, not very powerful. The private deaths of every 
species, no longer united but specific.
In the stream, black-scaled, swam the new Death of Mayflies. In the 
forests, invisible, a creature of sound only, drifted the chop-chop-chop of the 
Death of Trees.
Over the desert a dark and empty shell moved purposefully, half an inch 
above the ground . . . the Death of Tortoises.
The Death of Humanity hadn't been finished yet.
Humans can believe some very complex things.


104




It's like the difference between off-the-peg and bespoke.

The metallic sounds stopped coming from the alley. 
Then there was a silence. It was the particularly wary silence of something 
making no noise.
And, finally, there was a very faint jangling sound, disappearing into the 
distance.

'Don't stand in the doorway, friend. Don't block up the hall. Come on in.'
Windle Poons blinked in the gloom. 
When his eyes became accustomed to it, he realised that there was a 
semicircle of chairs in an otherwise rather bare and dusty room. They were 
all occupied. 
In the centre - at the focus, as it were, of the half circle - was a small table 
at which someone had been seated. They were now advancing towards him, 
with their hand out and a big smile on their face.
'Don't tell me, let me guess,' they said.'You're a zombie, right?'
'Er.' Windle Poons had never seen anyone with such a pallid skin, such as 
there was of it, before. Or wearing clothes that looked as if they'd been 
washed in razor blades and smelled as though someone had not only died in 
them but was still in them. Or sporting a Glad To Be Grey badge.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I suppose so. Only they buried me, you see, and 
there was this card -' He held it out, Like a shield.
''Course there was.'Course there was,' said the figure.
He's going to want me to shake hands, Windle thought. If I do, I just know 
I'm going to end up with more fingers than I started with. Oh, my goodness.
Will I end up like that?
'And I 'm dead, ' he said, lamely.
'And fed up with being pushed around, eh?' said the


105




greenish-skinned one. Windle shook his hand very carefully.
'Well, not exactly fed -'
'Shoe's the name. Reg Shoe.'
'Poons. Windle Poons,' said Windle.'Er -'
'Yeah, it's always the same, ' said Reg Shoe bitterly.
'Once you're dead, people just don't want to know, right? They act as if 
you've got some horrible disease. Dying can happen to anyone, right?'
'Everyone, I should have thought,' said Windle.
 'Yeah, I know what it's like. Tell someone you're dead and they look at 
you as if they've seen a ghost,'
Mr Shoe went on.
Windle realised that talking to Mr Shoe was very much like talking to the 
Archchancellor. It didn't actually matter what you said, because he wasn't 
listening. Only, in Mustrum Ridcully's case it was because he just wasn't 
bothering, while Reg Shoe was in fact supplying your side of the 
conversation somewhere inside his own head.
'Yeah, right, ' said Windle, giving in.
'We were just finishing off, in fact,' said Mr Shoe.
'Let me introduce you. Everyone, this is -' He hesitated.
'Poons. Windle Poons.'
'Brother Windle,' said Mr Shoe.'Give him a big Fresh Start welcome!'
There was an embarrassed chorus of 'hallos'. A large and rather hairy 
young man at the end of the row caught Windle's eye and rolled his own 
yellow eyes in a theatrical gesture of fellow feeling.
'This is Brother Arthur Winkings -'
'Count Notfaroutoe, ' said a female voice sharply.
'And Sister Doreen - I mean Countess Notfaroutoe, of course -'
'Charmed, I'm sure,' said the female voice, as the small dumpy woman 
sitting next to the small dumpy


106


shape of the Count extended a beringed hand. The Count himself gave 
Windle a worried grin. He seemed to be wearing opera dress designed for a 
man several sizes larger.
'And Brother Schleppel -'
The chair was empty. But a deep voice from the darkness underneath it 
said, 'Evenin'.'
'And Brother Lupine.' The muscular, hairy young man with the long 
canines and pointy ears gave
Windle's hand a hearty shake.
'And Sister Drull. And Brother Gorper. And Brother Ixolite.'
Windle shook a number of variations on the theme of hand.
Brother Ixolite handed him a small piece of yellow paper. On it was written 
one word: OoooEeeeOoooEeeeOoooEEEee.
'I'm sorry there aren't more here tonight,' said Mr Shoe.'I do my best, but 
I'm afraid some people just don't seem prepared to make the effort.'
'Er . . . dead people?' said Windle, still staring at the note.
'Apathy, I call it,' said Mr Shoe, bitterly.'How can the movement make 
progress if people are just going to lie around the whole time?'
Lupine started making frantic 'don't get him started' signals behind Mr 
Shoe's head, but Windle wasn't able to stop himself in time.
'What movement?' he said.
'Dead Rights, ' said Mr Shoe promptly. 'I'll give you one of my leaflets.'
'But, surely, er, dead people don't have rights?' said Windle. In the corner 
of his vision he saw Lupine put his hand over his eyes.
'You're dead right there, ' said Lupine, his face absolutely straight. Mr 
Shoe glared at him.
'Apathy,' he repeated.'It's always the same. You do your best for people, 
and they just ignore you. Do


107




you know people can say what they like about you and take away your 
property, just because you're dead? And they -'
'I thought that most people, when they died, just . . . you know . . . died, ' 
said Windle.
'It's just laziness,' said Mr Shoe.'They just don't want to make the effort.'
Windle had never seen anyone look so dejected. Reg Shoe seemed to 
shrink several inches.
'How long have you been undead, Vindle?' said Doreen, with brittle 
brightness.
'Hardly any time at all, ' said Windle, relieved at the change of tone.'I must 
say it's turning out to be different than I imagined.'
'You get used to it,' said Arthur Winkings, alias Count Notfaroutoe, 
gloomily.'That's the thing about being undead. It's as easy as falling off a 
cliff. We're all undead here'
Lupine coughed.
'Except Lupine, ' said Arthur.
'I'm more what you might call honorary undead,' said Lupine.
'Him being a werewolf, ' explained Arthur.
'I thought he was a werewolf as soon as I saw him, 'said Windle, nodding.
'Every full moon,' said Lupine. 'Regular.'
'You start howling and growing hair, ' said Windle.
They all shook their heads.
'Er, no,' said Lupine.'I more sort of stop howling and some of my hair 
temporarily falls out. It's bloody embarrassing.'
'But I thought at the full moon your basic werewolf always -'
'Lupine's problem,' said Doreen, 'is that he approaches it from ze ozzer 
way, you see.'
'I'm technically a wolf,' said Lupine.'Ridiculous, really. Every full moon I 
turn into a wolfman. The rest of the time I 'm just a . . . wolf.'


108




'Good grief,' said Windle.'That must be a terrible problem.'
'The trousers are the worst part, ' said Lupine.
'Er . . . they are?'
'Oh, yeah. See, it's all right for human werewolves. They just keep their 
own clothes on. I mean, they might get a bit ripped, but at least they've got 
them handy on, right? Whereas if I see the full moon, next minute I'm walking 
and talking and I'm definitely in big trouble on account of being very 
deficient in the trousery vicinity. So I have to keep a pair stashed 
somewhere. Mr Shoe -'
'- call me Reg -'
'- lets me keep a pair where he works.'
'I work at the mortuary on Elm Street,' said Mr Shoe.'I'm not ashamed. It's 
worth it to save a brother or sister.'
'Sorry?' said Windle.'Save?'
'It's me that pins the card on the bottom of the lid,' said Mr Shoe. 'You 
never know. It has to be worth a try.'
'Does it often work?' said Windle. He looked around the room. His tone 
must have suggested that it was a reasonably large room, and had only eight 
people in it; nine if you included the voice from under the chair, which 
presumably belonged to a person.
Doreen and Arthur exchanged glances.
'It vorked for Artore, ' said Doreen.
'Excuse me,' said Windle, 'I couldn't help wondering . . . are you two . . . er 
. . . vampires, by any chance?'
''S'right,' said Arthur.'More's the pity.'
'Hah! You should not valk like zat,' said Doreen haughtily. 'You should be 
prout of your noble lineage.'
'Prout?' said Arthur.
'Did you get bitten by a bat or something?' said Windle quickly, anxious 
not to be the cause of any family friction.


109




'No, ' said Arthur, 'by a lawyer. I got this letter, see? With a posh blob of 
wax on it and everything. Blahblah-blah . . . great-great-uncle . . . 
blahblahblah . . . only surviving relative . . . blahblahblah . . . may we be the 
first to offer our heartiest . . . blahblahblah. One minute I'm Arthur Winkings, 
a coming man in the wholesale fruit and vegetable business, next minute I 
find I'm Arthur, Count Notfaroutoe, owner of fifty acres of cliff face a goat'd 
fall off of and a castle that even the cockroaches have abandoned and an 
invitation from the burgomaster to drop in down at the village one day and 
discuss three hundred years of back taxes.'
'I hate lawyers, ' said the voice from under the chair. It had a sad, hollow 
sound. Windle tried to move his legs a little closer to his own chair.
'It voss quite a good castle, ' said Doreen.
'A bloody heap of mouldering stone is what it was,' said Arthur.
'It had nice views.'
'Yeah, through every wall, ' said Arthur, dropping a portcullis into that 
avenue of conversation.'I should have known even before we went to look at 
it. So I turned the carriage around, right? I thought, well, that's four days 
wasted, right in the middle of our busy season. I don't think any more about 
it. Next thing, I wake up in the dark, I'm in a box, I finally find these matches, I 
light one, there's this card six inches from my nose. It said - '
' "You Don't Have to Take this Lying Down",' said Mr Shoe proudly.'That 
was one of my first ones.'
'It vasn't my fault,' said Doreen, stiffly.'You had been Iyink rigid for tree 
dace.'
'It gave the priest a shock, I can tell you,' said Arthur.
'Huh! Priests!' said Mr Shoe.'They're all the same. Always telling you that 
you 're going to live again after you're dead, but you just try it and see the 
look on their faces!'
'Don't like priests, either, ' said the voice from under


110




the chair. Windle wondered if anyone else was hearing it.
'I won't forget the look on the Reverend Welegare's face in a hurry, ' said 
Arthur gloomily.'I've been going to that temple for thirty years. I was 
respected in the community. Now if I even think of setting foot in a religious 
establishment I get a pain all down my leg.'
'Yes, but there was no need for him to say what he said when you pushed 
the lid off,' said Doreen. 'And him a priest, too. They shouldn't know those 
kind of  words.'
'I enjoyed that temple,' said Arthur, wistfully. 'It was something to do on a 
Wednesday.'
It dawned on Windle Poons that Doreen had miraculously acquired the 
ability to use her double-yous.
'And you're a vampire too, Mrs Win . . . I do beg your pardon . . . Countess 
Notfaroutoe?' he enquired politely.
The Countess smiled. 'My vord, yes, ' she said.
'By marriage,' said Arthur.
'Can you do that? I thought you had to be bitten,' said Windle.
The voice under the chair sniggered.
'I don't see why I should have to go around biting my wife after thirty 
years of marriage, and that's flat,' said the Count.
'Every voman should share her husband's hobbies,' said Doreen.'It iss vot 
keeps a marriage intervesting.'
'Who wants an interesting marriage? I never said I wanted an interesting 
marriage. That's what's wrong with people today, expecting things like 
marriage to be interesting. And it's not a hobby, anyway,' moaned Arthur. 
'This vampiring's not all it's cracked up to be, you know. Can't go out in 
daylight, can't eat garlic, can't have a decent shave -'
'Why can't you have a -' Windle began.
'Can't use a mirror,' said Arthur.'I thought the


111




turning-into-a-bat bit would be interesting, but the owls round here are 
murder. And as for the . . . you know . . . with the blood . . . well . . .' His voice 
trailed off.
'Artore's never been very good at meetink people,' said Doreen.
'And the worst part is having to wear evening dress the whole time,' said 
Arthur. He gave Doreen a side-ways glance.'I 'm sure it's not really 
compulsory.'
'It iss very important to maintain standerts,' said Doreen. Doreen, in 
addition to her here-one-minute-and-gone-the-next vampire accent, had 
decided to complement Arthur's evening dress with what she considered 
appropriate for a female vampire: figure-hugging black dress, long dark hair 
cut into a widow's peak, and very pallid makeup. Nature had designed her to 
be small and plump with frizzy hair and a hearty complexion. There were 
definite signs of conflict.
'I should have stayed in that coffin,' said Arthur.
'Oh, no, ' said Mr Shoe.'That's taking the easy way out. The movement 
needs people like you, Arthur. We had to set an example. Remember our 
motto.'
'Which motto is that, Reg?' said Lupine wearily. 'We have so many.'
'Undead yes - unperson no!' Reg said.
'You see, he means well,' said Lupine, after the meeting had broken up.
He and Windle were walking back through the grey dawn. The 
Notfaroutoes had left earlier to be back home before daylight heaped even 
more troubles on Arthur, and Mr Shoe had gone off, he said, to address a 
meeting.
'He goes down to the cemetery behind the Temple of Small Gods and 
shouts,' Lupine explained. 'He calls it consciousness raising but I don't 
reckon he's on to much of a certainty.'
'Who was it under the chair?' said Windle.


112




'That was Schleppel,' said Lupine.'We think he's a bogeyman.'
'Are bogeymen undead?'
'He won 't say.'
'You've never seen him? I thought bogeymen hid under things and, er, 
behind things and sort of leapt out at people.'
'He's all right on the hiding. I don't think he likes the leaping out, ' said 
Lupine. 
Windle thought about this. An agoraphobic bogey-man seemed to 
complete the full set.
'Fancy that, ' he said, vaguely.
'We only go along to the club to keep Reg happy,' said Lupine.'Doreen 
said it'd break his heart if we stopped. You know the worst bit?'
'Go on, ' said Windle.
'Sometimes he brings a guitar along and makes us sing songs like 
"Streets of Ankh-Morpork" and "We Shall Overcome". * It's terrible.'
'Can't sing, eh?' said Windle. 
'Sing? Never mind sing. Have you ever seen a zombie try to play a guitar? 
It's helping him find his fingers afterwards that's so embarrassing.' Lupine 
sighed. 'By the way, Sister Drull is a ghoul. If she offers you any of her meat 
patties, don't accept.'
Windle remembered a vague, shy old lady in a shapeless grey dress.
'Oh, dear,' he said.'You mean she makes them out of human flesh?'
'What? Oh. No. She just can't cook very well.'
'Oh.'
'And Brother Ixolite is probably the only banshee in

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  A song which, in various languages, is common on every known world 
in the multiverse. It is always sung by the same people, viz., the people who, 
when they grow up, will be the people who the next generation sing "We 
Shall Overcome" at.


113




the world with a speech impediment, so instead of sitting on roofs and 
screaming when people are about to die he just writes them a note and slips 
it under the door-'
Windle recalled a long, sad face.' He gave me one, too.'
'We try to encourage him,' said Lupine.'He's very self-conscious.'
His arm shot out and flung Windle against a wall.
'Quiet!'
'What?'
Lupine's ears swivelled. His nostrils flared.
Motioning Windle to remain where he was, the wereman slunk silently 
along the alley until he reached its junction with another, even smaller and 
nastier one. He paused for a moment, and then thrust a hairy hand around 
the corner.
There was a yelp. Lupine's hand came back holding a struggling mop. 
Huge hairy muscles moved under Lupine's torn shirt as the man was hoisted 
up to fang level.
'You were waiting to attack us, weren't you,' said Lupine.
'Who, me -?'
'I could smell you, ' said Lupine, evenly.
'I never -'
Lupine sighed. 'Wolves don't do this sort of thing, you know, ' he said.
The man dangled.
'Hey, is that a fact, ' he said.
'It's all head-on combat, fang against fang, claw against claw,' said 
Lupine.'You don't find wolves lurking behind rocks ready to mug a passing 
badger.'
'Get away?'
'Would you like me to tear your throat out?'
The man stared eye to yellow eye. He estimated his chances against a 
seven-foot man with teeth like that. 
'Do I get a choice?' he said.


114




'My friend here,' said Lupine, indicating Windle, 'is a zombie -'
'Well, I don 't know about actual zombie, I think you have to eat some sort 
of fish and root to be a zom -'
'- and you know what zombies do to people, don't you?'
The man tried to nod, even though Lupine's fist was right under his neck.
'Yeggg, ' he managed.
'Now, he's going to take a very good look at you, and if he ever sees you 
again -'
'I say, hang on,' murmured Windle.
'- he'll come after you. Won't you, Windle?'
'Eh? Oh, yes. That's right. Like a shot, ' said Windle, unhappily. 'Now run 
along, there's a good chap. OK?'
'OggAy,' said the prospective mugger. He was thinking: 'Is eyes! Ike 
imlets!'
Lupine let go. The man hit the cobbles, gave Windle one last terrified 
glance, and ran for it.
'Er, what do zombies do to people?' said Windle. 'I suppose I'd better 
know.'
'They tear them apart like a sheet of dry paper, ' said Lupine.
'Oh? Right,' said Windle. They strolled on in silence.
Windle was thinking: why me? Hundreds of people must die in this city 
every day. I bet they don't have this trouble. They just shut their eyes and 
wake up being born as someone else, or in some sort of heaven or, I 
suppose, possibly some sort of hell. Or they go and feast with the gods in 
their hall, which has never seemed a particularly great idea - gods are all 
right in their way, but not the kind of people a decent man would want to 
have a meal with. The Yen buddhists think you just become very rich. Some 
of the Klatchian religions say you go to a lovely garden full of young women, 
which doesn't sound very religious to me . . .
Windle found himself wondering how you applied for Klatchian nationality 
after death.


115




And at that moment the cobblestones came up to meet him.
This is usually a poetic way of saying that someone fell flat on their face. 
In this case, the cobblestones really came up to meet him. They fountained 
up, circled silently in the air above the alley for a moment, and then dropped 
like stones.
Windle stared at them. So did Lupine.
'That's something you don't often see,' said the wereman, after a while.'I 
don't think I've ever seen stones flying before.'
'Or dropping like stones,' said Windle. He nudged one with the toe of his 
boot. It seemed perfectly happy with the role gravity had chosen for it.
'You're a wizard -'
'Were a wizard,' said Windle.
'You were a wizard. What caused all that?'
'I think it is probably an inexplicable phenomenon,' said Windle. 'There's a 
lot of them about, for some reason. I wish I knew why.'
He prodded a stone again. It showed no inclination to move.
'I'd better be getting along,' said Lupine.
'What's it like, being a wereman?' said Windle.
Lupine shrugged. 'Lonely,' he said.
'Hmm?'
'You don't fit in, you see. When I'm a wolf I remember what it's like to be a 
man, and vice versa. Like . . . I mean . . . sometimes . . . sometimes, right, 
when I'm wolf-shaped, I run up into the hills . . . in the winter, you know, when 
there's a crescent moon in the sky and a crust on the snow and the hills go 
on for ever . . . and the other wolves, well, they feel what it's like, of course, 
but they don't know like I do. To feel and know at the same time. No-one else 
knows what that's like. No-one else in the whole world could know what 
that's like. That's the bad part. Knowing there's no-one else . . .'


116




Windle became aware of teetering on the edge of a pit of sorrows. He 
never knew what to say in moments like this.
Lupine brightened up. 'Come to that . . . what's it like, being a zombie?'
'It's OK. It's not too bad.'
Lupine nodded.
'See you around,' he said, and strode off.
The streets were beginning to fill up as the population of Ankh-Morpork 
began its informal shift change between the night people and the day people.
All of them avoided Windle. People didn't bump into a zombie if they 
could help it.
He reached the University gates. which were now open, and made his way 
to his bedroom.
He'd need money, if he was moving out. He'd saved quite a lot over the 
years. Had he made a will? He'd been fairly confused the past ten years or 
so. He might have made one. Had he been confused enough to leave all his 
money to himself? He hoped so. There'd been practically no known cases of 
anyone successfully challenging their own will -
He levered up the floorboard by the end of his bed, and lifted out a bag of 
coins. He remembered he'd been saving up for his old age.
There was his diary. It was a five-year diary, he recalled, so in a technical 
sense Windle had wasted about - he did a quick calculation - yes, about 
three-fifths of his money.
Or more, when you came to think about it. After all, there wasn't much on 
the pages. Windle hadn't done anything worth writing down for years, or at 
least anything he'd been able to remember by the evening.
There were just phases of the moon, lists of religious festivals, and the 
occasional sweet stuck to a page.
There was something else down there under the floor, too. He fumbled 
around in the dusty space and found a couple of smooth spheres. He pulled 
them out


117




and stared at them, mystified. He shook them, and watched the tiny 
snowfalls. He read the writing, noting how it wasn't so much writing as a 
drawing of writing. He reached down and picked up the third object; it was a 
little bent metal wheel. Just one little metal wheel. And, beside it, a broken 
sphere.
Windle stared at them.
Of course, he had been a bit non-compos mentis in his last thirty years or 
so, and maybe he'd worn his underwear outside his clothes and dribbled a 
bit, but . . . he'd collected souvenirs? And little wheels?
There was a cough behind him.
Windle dropped the mysterious objects back into the hole and looked 
around. The room was empty, but there seemed to be a shadow behind the 
open door.
'Hallo?' he said.
A deep, rumbling, but very diffident voice said,
'S'only me, Mr Poons.'
Windle wrinkled his forehead with the effort of recollection.
'Schleppel?' he said.
'That's right.'
'The bogeyman?'
'That's right?'
'Behind my door?'
'That's right.'
'Why?'
' It's a friendly door.'
Windle walked over to the door and gingerly shut it.
There was nothing behind it but old plaster, although he did fancy that he 
felt an air movement.
'I'm under the bed now, Mr Poons,' said Schleppel's voice from, yes, 
under the bed. 'You don't mind, do you?'
'Well, no. I suppose not. But shouldn't you be in a closet somewhere? 
That's where bogeymen used to hide when I was a lad.'
'A good closet is hard to find, Mr Poons.'


118




Windle sighed.'All right. The underside of the bed's yours. Make yourself 
at home, or whatever.'
'I'd prefer going back to lurking behind the door, Mr Poons, if it's all the 
same to you.'
'Oh, all right.'
'Do you mind shutting your eyes a moment?'
Windle obediently shut his eyes.
There was another movement of air.
'You can look now, Mr Poons.'
Windle opened his eyes.
'Gosh,' said Schleppel's voice, 'you've even got a coat hook and 
everything behind here.'
Windle watched the brass knobs on the end of his bedstead unscrew 
themselves.
A tremor shook the floor.
'What's going on, Schleppel?' he said.
'Build up of life force, Mr Poons.'
'You mean you-now?'
'Oh, yes. Hey, wow, there's a lock and a handle and a brass finger plate 
and everything behind here -'
'What do you mean, a build up of life force?'
'- and the hinges, there's a really good rising butts here, never had a door 
with -'
'Schleppel!' 
'Just life force, Mr Poons. You know. It's a kind of force what you get in 
things that are alive? I thought you wizards knew about this sort of thing.'
Windle Poons opened his mouth to say something like 'Of course we do,' 
before proceeding diplomatically to find out what the hell the bogeyman was 
talking about, and then remembered that he didn't have to act like that now. 
That's what he would have done if he was alive, but despite what Reg Shoe 
proclaimed, it was quite hard to be proud when you were dead. A bit stiff, 
perhaps, but not proud.
'Never heard of it,' he said.'What's it building up for?'


119




'Don't know. Very unseasonal. It ought to be dying down around now,' 
said Schleppel.
The floor shook again. Then the loose floorboard that had concealed 
Windle's little fortune creaked, and started to put out shoots.
'What do you mean, unseasonal?' he said.
'You get a lot of it in the spring,' said the voice from behind the door. 
'Shoving the daffodils up out of the ground and that kind of stuff.'
'Never heard of it, ' said Windle, fascinated.
'I thought you wizards knew everything about everything.'
Windle looked at his wizarding hat. Burial and tunnelling had not been 
kind to it, but after more than a century of wear it hadn't been the height of 
haute couture to start with.
'There's always something new to learn, ' he said.

It was another day. Cyril the cockerel stirred on his perch.
The chalked words glowed in the half light.
He concentrated.
He took a deep breath.
'Dock-a-loodle-fod!'
Now that the memory problem was solved, there was only the dyslexia to 
worry about.

Up in the high fields the wind was strong and the sun was close and 
strong. Bill Door strode back and forth through the stricken grass of the 
hillside like a shuttle across a green weave.
He wondered if he'd ever felt wind and sunlight before.
Yes, he'd felt them, he must have done. But he'd never experienced them 
like this; the way wind pushed at you, the way the sun made you hot. The 
way you could feel Time passing.
Carrying you with it.

There was a timid knocking at the barn door.


120




YES?
'Come on down here, Bill Door.'
He climbed down in the darkness and opened the door cautiously.
Miss FIitworth was shielding a candle with one hand.
'Um.' she said.
I AM SORRY?
'You can come into the house, if you like. For the evening. Not for the 
night, of course. I mean, I don't like to think of you all alone out here of an 
evening, when I've got a fire and everything.'
Bill Door was no good at reading faces. It was a skill he'd never needed. 
He stared at Miss Flitworth's frozen, worried, pleading smile like a baboon 
looking for meaning in the Rosetta Stone.
I THANK YOU, he said.
She scuttled off.
When he arrived at the house she wasn't in the kitchen.
He followed a rustling, scraping noise out into a narrow hallway and 
through a low doorway. Miss Flitworth was down on her hands and knees in 
the little room beyond, feverishly lighting the fire.
She looked up, flustered, when he rapped politely on the open door.
'Hardly worth putting a match to it for one,' she mumbled, by way of 
embarrassed explanation.'Sit down. I'll make us some tea.'
Bill Door folded himself into one of the narrow chairs by the fire, and 
looked around the room.
It was an unusual room. Whatever its functions were, being lived in wasn't 
apparently one of them. Whereas the kitchen was a sort of roofed over 
outside space and the hub of the farm's activities, this room resembled 
nothing so much as a mausoleum.
Contrary to general belief, Bill Door wasn't very familiar with funereal 
decor. Deaths didn't normally take place in tombs, except in rare and 
unfortunate cases. The open air,


121




the bottoms of rivers, halfway down sharks, any amount of bedrooms, yes 
- tombs, no.
His business was the separation of the wheatgerm of the soul from the 
chaff of the mortal body, and that was usually concluded long before any of 
the rites associated with, when you got right down to it, a reverential form of 
garbage disposal.
But this room looked like the tombs of those kings who wanted to take it 
all with them.
Bill Door sat with his hands on his knees, looking around.
First, there were the ornaments. More teapots than one might think 
possible. China dogs with staring eyes. Strange cake stands. Miscellaneous 
statues and painted plates with cheery little messages on them: A Present 
from Quirm, Long Life and Happiness. They covered every flat surface in a 
state of total democracy, so that a rather valuable antique silver candlestick 
was next to a bright coloured china dog with a bone in its mouth and an 
expression of culpable idiocy.
Pictures hid the walls. Most of them were painted in shades of mud and 
showed depressed cattle standing on wet moorland in a fog.
In fact the ornaments almost concealed the furniture, but this was no loss. 
Apart from two chairs groaning under the weight of accumulated 
antimacassars, the rest of the furniture seemed to have no use whatsoever 
apart from supporting ornaments. There were spindly tables everywhere. The 
floor was layered in rag rugs. Someone had really liked making rag rugs. 
And, above all, and around all, and permeating all, was the smell.
It smelled of long, dull afternoons.
On a cloth-draped sideboard were two small wooden chests flanking a 
larger one. They must be the famous boxes full of treasure, he thought.
He became aware of ticking.
There was a clock on the wall. Someone had once had what they must 
have thought was the jolly idea of making


122




 a clock like an owl. When the pendulum swung, the owl's eyes went 
backwards and forwards in what the seriously starved of entertainment 
probably imagined was a humorous way. After a while. your own eyes started 
to oscillate in sympathy.
Miss Flitworth bustled in with a loaded tray. There was a blur of activity as 
she performed the alchemical ceremony of making tea, buttering scones, 
arranging biscuits, hooking sugar tongs on the basin . . .
She sat back. Then, as if she had been in a state of repose for twenty 
minutes, she trilled slightly breathlessly: 'Well . . . isn't this nice.'
YES, MISS FLITWORTH.
'Don't often have occasion to open up the parlour these days.'
NO.
'Not since I lost my dad.'
For a moment Bill Door wondered if she'd lost the late Mr Flitworth in the 
parlour. Perhaps he'd taken a wrong turning among the ornaments. Then he 
recalled the funny little ways humans put things.
AH.
'He used to sit in that very chair, reading the almanac.'
Bill Door searched his memory.
A TALL MAN, he ventured. WITH A MOUSTACHE? MISSING THE TIP OF 
THE LITTLE FINGER ON HIS LEFT HAND?
Miss Flitworth stared at him over the top of her cup.
'You knew him?' she said.
I THINK I MET HIM ONCE.
'He never mentioned you,' said Miss FIitworth archly. 'Not by name. Not as 
Bill Door.'
I DON'T THINK HE WOULD HAVE MENTIONED ME, said Bill Door slowly.
'It's all right,' said Miss Flitworth.'I know all about it. Dad used to do a bit 
of smuggling, too. Well, this isn't a big farm. It's not what you'd call a living. 
He always said a body has to do what it can. I expect you were in his line of


123




business. I've been watching you. That was your business, right enough.'
Bill Door thought deeply.
GENERAL TRANSPORTATION, he said.
'That sounds like it, yes. Have you got any family, Bill?'
A DAUGHTER.
'That's nice.'
I'M AFRAID WE'VE LOST TOUCH.
'That's a shame,' said Miss Flitworth, and sounded as though she meant 
it. 'We used to have some good times here in the old days. That was when 
my young man was alive, of course.'
YOU HAVE A SON? said Bill, who was losing track.
She gave him a sharp look.
'I invite you to think hard about the word "Miss",' she said.'We takes 
things like that seriously in these parts.'
MY APOLOGIES.
'No, Rufus was his name. He was a smuggler, like dad. Not as good. 
though. I got to admit that. He was more artistic. He used to give me all sorts 
of things from foreign parts, you know. Bits of jewelry and suchlike. And we 
used to go dancing. He had very good calves, I remember. I like to see good 
legs on a man.'
She stared at the fire for a while.
'See . . . he never come back one day. Just before we were going to be 
wed. Dad said he never should have tried to run the mountains that close to 
winter, but I know he wanted to do it so's he could bring me a proper 
present. And he wanted to make some money and impress dad, because dad 
was against -'
She picked up the poker and gave the fire a more ferocious jab than it 
deserved.
'Anyway, some folk said he ran away to Farferee or Ankh-Morpork or 
somewhere, but I know he wouldn't have done something like that.'
The penetrating look she gave Bill Door nailed him to the chair.
'What do you think, Bill Door?' she said sharply.


124




He felt quite proud of himself for spotting the question within the 
question.
MISS FLITWORTH, THE MOUNTAINS CAN BE VERY TREACHEROUS IN 
THE WINTER.
She looked relieved. 'That's what I've always said,' she said.'And do you 
know what, Bill Door? Do you know what I thought?'
NO, MISS FLITWORTH.
'It was the day before we were going to be wed, like I said. And then one 
of his pack ponies came back by itself and then the men went and found the 
avalanche . . . and you know what I thought? I thought, that's ridiculous. 
That's stupid. Terrible, isn't it? Oh, I thought other things afterwards, 
naturally, but the first thing was that the world shouldn't act as if it was some 
kind of book. Isn't that a terrible thing to have thought?'
I MYSELF HAVE NEVER TRUSTED DRAMA, MISS FLITWORTH.
She wasn't really listening.
'And I thought, what life expects me to do now is moon around the place 
in the wedding dress for years and go completely doodly. That's what it 
wants me to do. Hah! Oh, yes! So I put the dress in the ragtag and we still 
invited everyone to the wedding breakfast, because it's a crime to let good 
food go to waste.'
She attacked the fire again, and then gave him another megawatt stare.
'I think it's always very important to see what's really real and what isn't, 
don't you?'
MISS FLITWORTH?
'Yes?'
DO YOU MIND IF I STOP THE CLOCK?
She glanced up at the boggle-eyed owl.
'What? Oh. Why?'
I AM AFRAID IT GETS ON MY NERVES.
'It's not very loud, is it?'
Bill Door wanted to say that every tick was like the hammering of iron 
clubs on bronze pillars.
H'S JUST RATHER ANNOYING, MISS FLITWORTH.


125




'Well, stop it if you want to, I'm sure. I only keep it wound up for the 
company.'
Bill Door got up thankfully, stepped gingerly through the forest of 
ornaments, and grabbed the pinecone shaped pendulum. The wooden owl 
glared at him and the ticking stopped. at least in the realm of common 
sound. He was aware that, elsewhere, the pounding of Time continued none 
the less. How could people endure it? They allowed Time in their houses, as 
though it was a fiend.
He sat down again .
Miss Flitworth had started to knit, ferociously.
The fire rustled in the grate.
Bill Door leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.
'Your horse enjoying himself?'
PARDON?
'Your horse. He seems to be enjoying himself in the meadow,' prompted 
Miss Flitworth.
OH. YES.
'Running around as if he's never seen grass before.'
HE LIKES GRASS.
'And you like animals. I can tell.'
Bill Door nodded. His reserves of small talk, never very liquid, had dried 
up.
He sat silently for the next couple of hours, hands gripping the arms of 
the chair, until Miss Flitworth announced that she was going to bed. Then he 
went back to the barn, and slept.

Bill Door hadn't been aware of it coming. But there it was, a grey figure 
floating in the darkness of the barn.
Somehow it had got hold of the golden timer.
It told him, Bill Door, there has been a mistake.
The glass shattered. Fine golden seconds glittered in the air, for a 
moment, and then settled.
It told him, Return. You have work to do. There has been a mistake.
The figure faded.
Bill Door nodded. Of course there had been a mistake.


126




Anyone could see there had been a mistake. He'd known all along it had 
been a mistake.
He tossed the overalls in a corner and took up the robe of absolute 
blackness.
Well, it had been an experience. And, he had to admit, one that he didn't 
want to relive. He felt as though a huge weight had been removed.
Was that what it was really like to be alive? The feeling of darkness 
dragging you forward?
How could they live with it? And yet they did, and even seemed to find 
enjoyment in it, when surely the only sensible course would be to despair. 
Amazing. To feel you were a tiny living thing, sandwiched between two cliffs 
of darkness. How could they stand to be alive?
Obviously it was something you had to be born to.
Death saddled his horse and rode out and up over the fields. The corn 
rippled far below, like the sea. Miss Flitworth would have to find someone 
else to help her gather in the harvest.
That was odd. There was a feeling there. Regret? Was that it? But it was 
Bill Door's feeling, and Bill Door was . . . dead. Had never lived. He was his 
old self again, safe where there were no feelings and no regrets.
Never any regrets.
And now he was in his study, and that was odd, because he couldn't quite 
remember how he'd got there. One minute on horseback, the next in the 
study, with its ledgers and timers and instruments.
And it was bigger than he remembered. The walls lurked on the edge of 
sight.
That was Bill Door's doing. Of course it would seem big to Bill Door. and 
there was probably just a bit of him still hanging on. The thing to do was 
keep busy. Throw himself into his work.
There were already some lifetimers on his desk. He didn't remember 
putting them there, but that didn't matter, the important thing was to ?get? 
on with the job . . .
He picked up the nearest one, and read the name.


127




'Lod-a-foodle-wok!'

Miss Flitworth sat up in bed. On the edge of dreams she'd heard another 
noise, which must have woken the cockerel.
She fiddled with a match until she got a candle alight, and then felt under 
the bed and her fingers found the hilt of a cutlass that had been much 
employed by the late Mr Flitworth during his business trips across the 
mountains.
She hurried down the creaking stairs and out into the chill of the dawn.
She hesitated at the barn door, and then pulled it open just enough to slip 
inside.
'Mr Door?'
There was a rustle in the hay, and then an alert silence.
MISS FLITWORTH?
'Did you call out? I'm sure I heard someone shout my name.'
There was another rustle, and Bill Door's head appeared over the edge of 
the loft.
MISS FLITWORTH.
'Yes. Who did you expect? Are you all right?'
ER. YES. YES, I BELIEVE SO.
'You sure you're all right? You woke up Cyril.'
YES. YES. IT WAS JUST A - I THOUGHT THAT - YES.
She blew out the candle. There was already enough pre-dawn light to see 
by.
'Well, if you're sure . . . Now I'm up I may as well put the porridge on.'
Bill Door lay back on the hay until he felt he could trust his legs to carry 
him, and then climbed down and tottered across the yard to the farmhouse.
He said nothing while she ladled porridge into a bowl in front of him. and 
drowned it with cream. Finally, he couldn't contain himself any longer. He 
didn't know how to ask the
 questions, but he really needed the answers.
MISS FLITWORTH?
'Yes?'
WHAT IS IT . . . IN THE NIGHT . . . WHEN YOU SEE THINGS,


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BUT THEY ARE NOT THE REAL THINGS?
She stood, porridge pot in one hand and ladle in the other.
'You mean dreaming?' she said.
IS THAT WHAT DREAMING IS?
'Don't you dream? I thought everyone dreamed.'
ABOUT THINGS THAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN?
'That's premonitions, that is. I've never believed in 'em myself. You're not 
telling me you don't know what dreams are?'
NO. NO. OF COURSE NOT.
'What's worrying you, Bill?'
I SUDDENLY KNOW THAT WE ARE GOING TO DIE.   
She watched him thoughtfully.
'Well, so does everyone,' she said.'And that's what you've been dreaming 
about, is it? Everyone feels like this sometimes. I wouldn't worry about it, if I 
was you. The best thing to do is keep busy and act cheerful, I always say.'
BUT WE WILL COME TO AN END!
'Oh, I don't know about that,' said Miss Flitworth.'It all depends on what 
kind of life you've led. I suppose.'
I'M SORRY?
'Are you a religious man?'
YOU MEAN THAT WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU WHEN YOU DIE IS WHAT YOU 
BELIEVE WILL HAPPEN?
'It would be nice if that was the case, wouldn't it?' she said brightly.
BUT, YOU SEE, I KNOW WHAT I BELIEVE. I BELIEVE . . . NOTHING.
'We are gloomy this morning, aren't we?' said Miss Flitworth.'Best thing 
you could do right now is finish off that porridge. It's good for you. They say 
it builds healthy bones.'
Bill Door looked down at the bowl.
CAN I HAVE SOME MORE?

Bill Door spent the morning chopping wood. It was pleasantly 
monotonous. Get tired. That was important. He must have slept before last 
night, but he must have been so tired that he didn't


129




dream. And he was determined not to dream again. The axe rose and fell 
on the logs like clockwork.
No! Not like clockwork!
Miss Flitworth had several pots on the stove when he came in.
IT SMELLS GOOD, Bill volunteered. He reached for a wobbling pot lid. 
Miss Flitworth spun around.
'Don't touch it! You don't want that stuff! It's for the rats.'
DO RATS NOT FEED THEMSELVES?
'You bet they do. That's why we're going to give them a little extra 
something before the harvest. A few dollops of this around the holes and - 
no more rats.'
It took a little while for Bill Door to put two and two together, but when 
this took place it was like megaliths mating.
THAT IS POISON?
'Essence of spikkle, mixed with oatmeal. Never fails.'
AND THEY DIE?
'Instantly. Straight over and legs in the air. We're having bread and 
cheese,' she added. 'I ain't doing big cooking twice in one day, and we're 
having chicken tonight. Talking of chicken, in fact . . . come on . . .'
She took a cleaver off the rack and went out into the yard. Cyril the 
cockerel eyed her suspiciously from the top of the midden. His harem of fat 
and rather elderly hens, who had been scratching up the dust, bounded 
unsteadily towards Miss Flitworth in the broken-knicker-elastic run of hens 
everywhere. She reached down quickly and picked one up.
It regarded Bill Door with bright, stupid eyes.
'Do you know how to pluck a chicken?' said Miss Flitworth.
Bill looked from her to the hen.
BUT WE FEED THEM, he said helplessly.
'That's right. And then they feed us. This one's been off lay for months. 
That's how it goes in the chicken world. Mr Flitworth used to wring their 
necks but I never got the knack of that; the cleaver's messy and they run 
around a


130




bit afterwards, but they're dead all right, and they know it.'
Bill Door considered his options. The chicken had focused one beady eye 
on him. Chickens are a lot more stupid than humans, and don't have the 
sophisticated mental filters that prevent them seeing what is truly there. It 
knew where it was and who was looking at it.
He looked into its small and simple life and saw the last few seconds 
pouring away.
He'd never killed. He'd taken life, but only when it was finished with. There 
was a difference between theft and stealing by finding.
NOT THE CLEAVER, he said wearily. GIVE ME THE CHICKEN.
He turned his back for a moment, then handed the limp body to Miss 
Flitworth.
'Well done.' she said, and went back to the kitchen.
Bill Door felt Cyril's accusing gaze on him.
He opened his hand. A tiny spot of light hovered over his palm. He blew 
on it, gently, and it faded away.
After lunch they put down the rat poison. He felt like a murderer.

A lot of rats died.
Down in the runs under the barn - in the deepest one, one tunnelled long 
ago by long-forgotten ancestral rodents - something appeared in the 
darkness.
It seemed to have difficulty deciding what shape it was going to be.
It began as a lump of highly-suspicious cheese. This didn't seem to work.
Then it tried something that looked very much like a small, hungry terrier. 
This was also rejected.
For a moment it was a steel-jawed trap. This was clearly unsuitable.
It cast around for fresh ideas and much to its surprise one arrived 
smoothly, as if travelling from no distance at all. Not so much a shape as a 
memory of a shape.


131




It tried it and found that, while totally wrong for the job, in some deeply 
satisfying way it was the only shape it could possibly be.
It went to work.

That evening the men were practising archery on the green. Bill Door had 
carefully ensured a local reputation as the worst bowman in the entire 
history of toxophily; it had never occurred to anyone that putting arrows 
through the hats of bystanders behind him must logically take a lot more 
skill than merely sending them through a quite large target a mere fifty yards 
away.
It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things. 
provided you were bad enough to be funny.
So he was allowed to sit on a bench outside the inn, with the old men.
Next door, ?s~uks? poured from the chimney of the village smithy and 
spiralled up into the dusk. There was a ferocious hammering from behind its 
closed doors. Bill Door wondered why the smithy was always shut. Most 
smiths worked with their doors open, so that their forge became an unofficial 
village meeting room. This one was keen on his work -
'Hallo, skelington.'
He swivelled round.
The small child of the house was watching him with the most penetrating 
gaze he had ever seen.
'You are a skelington, aren't you,' she said. 'l can tell, because of the 
bones.'
YOU ARE MISTAKEN, SMALL CHILD.
'You are. People turn into skelingtons when they're dead. They're not 
supposed to walk around afterwards.'
HA. HA. HA. WILL YOU HARK AT THE CHILD.
'Why are you walking around, then?'
Bill Door looked at the old men. They appeared engrossed in the sport.
I'LL TELL YOU WHAT, he said desperately, IF YOU WILL


132




GO AWAY, I WILL GIVE YOU A HALF-PENNY.
'I've got a skelington mask for when we go trickle-treating on Soul Cake 
Night,' she said.'It's made of paper. You get given sweets.'
Bill Door made the mistake millions of people had tried before with small 
children in slightly similar circumstances.
He resorted to reason.
LOOK, he said, IF I WAS REALLY A SKELETON, LITTLE GIRL, I'M SURE 
THESE OLD GENTLEMEN HERE WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT 
IT.
She regarded the old men at the other end of the bench.
'They're nearly skelingtons anyway,' she said. 'l shouldn't think they'd 
want to see another one.'
He gave in.
I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT YOU ARE RIGHT ON THAT POINT.
'Why don't you fall to bits?'
I DON'T KNOW. I NEVER HAVE.
'I've seen skelingtons of birds and things and they all fall to bits.'
PERHAPS IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE WHAT SOMETHING WAS. WHEREAS 
THIS ?IS? WHAT I AM.
'The apothecary who does medicine over in Chambly's got a skelington 
on a hook with all wire to hold the bones together,' said the child, with the air 
of one imparting information gained after diligent research.
I DON'T HAVE WIRES.
'There's a difference between alive skelingtons and dead ones?'
YES. 
'It's a dead skelington he's got then, is it?'
YES.
'What was inside someone?'
YES.
'Ur. Yuk.'
The child stared distantly at the landscape for a while and then said, 'I've 
got new socks.'
YES?
'You can look, if you like.'


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A grubby foot was extended for inspection.
WELL, WELL. FANCY THAT. NEW SOCKS.
'My mum knitted them out of sheep.'
MY WORD.
The horizon was given another inspection.
'D'you know,' she said, 'd'you know . . . it's Friday.'
YES.
'I found a spoon.'
Bill Door found he was waiting expectantly. He was not familiar with 
people who had an attention span of less than three seconds.
'You work along of Miss Flitworth's?'
YES.
'My dad says you've got your feet properly under the table there.'
Bill Door couldn't think of an answer to this because he didn't know what 
it meant. It was one of those many flat statements humans made that were 
really just a disguise for something more subtle. which was often conveyed 
merely by the tone of voice or a look in the eyes, neither of which was being 
done by the child.
'My dad says she said she's got boxes of treasure.'
HAS SHE?
'I've got tuppence.'
MY GOODNESS.
'Sal!'
They both looked up as Mrs Lifton appeared on the doorstep.
'Bedtime for you. Stop worrying Mr Door.'
OH, I ASSURE YOU SHE IS NOT -
'Say goodnight, now.'
'How do skelingtons go to sleep? They can't close their eyes because -'
He heard their voices, muffled. inside the inn.
'You mustn't call Mr Door that just because . . . he's . . . very . . . he's very 
thin . . .'
'It's all right. He's not the dead sort.'
Mrs Lifton's voice had the familiar worried tones of


134




someone who can't bring themselves to believe the evidence of their own 
eyes.'Perhaps he's just been very 'I should think he's just about been as ill 
as he can be ever.'
Bill Door walked back home thoughtfully.
There was a light on in the farmhouse kitchen, but he went straight to the 
barn, climbed the ladder to the hay-loft, and lay down.
He could put off dreaming, but he couldn't escape remembering.
He stared at the darkness.
After a while he was aware of the pattering of feet. He turned.
A stream of pale rat-shaped ghosts skipped along the roof beam above 
his head, fading as they ran so that soon there was nothing but the sound of 
the scampering.
They were followed by a . . . shape.
It was about six inches high. It wore a black robe. It held a small scythe in 
one skeletal paw. A bone-white nose with brittle grey whiskers protruded 
from the shadowy hood.
Bill Door reached out and picked it up. It didn't resist, but stood on the 
palm of his hand and eyed him as one professional to another.
Bill Door said: AND YOU ARE -?
The Death of Rats nodded.
SQUEAK.
I REMEMBER, said Bill Door, WHEN YOU WERE A PART OF ME.
The Death of Rats squeaked again.
Bill Door fumbled in the pockets of his overall. He'd put some of his lunch 
in there. Ah, yes.
I EXPECT, he said, THAT YOU COULD MURDER A PIECE OF CHEESE?
The Death of Rats took it graciously.
Bill Door remembered visiting an old man once - only once - who had 
spent almost his entire life locked in a cell in a tower for some alleged crime 
or other, and had tamed


135




little birds for company during his life sentence. They crapped on his 
bedding and ate his food, but he tolerated them and smiled at their flight in 
and out of the high barred
windows. Death had wondered, at the time, why anyone would do 
something like that. 
I WON'T DELAY YOU, he said. I EXPECT YOU'VE GOT THINGS TO DO. 
RATS TO SEE. I KNOW HOW IT IS.
And now he understood.
He put the figure back on the beam, and lay down in the hay.
DROP IN ANY TIME YOU'RE PASSING.
Bill Door stared at the darkness again.
Sleep. He could feel her prowling around. Sleep, with a pocketful of 
dreams.
He lay in the darkness and fought back.

Miss Flitworth's shouting jolted him upright and, to his momentary relief 
still went on.
The barn door slammed open.
'Bill! Come down quick!'
He swung his legs on to the ladder.
WHAT IS HAPPENING. MISS FLITWORTH?
'Something's on fire!'
They ran across the yard and out on to the road. The sky over the village 
was red.
'Come on!'
BUT IT IS NOT OUR FIRE.
'It's going to be everyone's! It spreads like crazy on thatch!'
They reached the apology for a town square. The inn was already well 
alight, the thatch roaring starwards in a million twisting sparks.
'Look at everyone standing around,' snarled Miss Flitworth.'There's the 
pump, buckets are everywhere, why don't people think?'
There was a scuffle a little way away as a couple of his customers tried to 
stop Lifton from running into the building. He was screaming at them.


136




'The girl's still in there,' said Miss Flitworth. 'Is that what he said?'
YES.
Flames curtained every upper window.
'There's got to be some way,' said Miss Flitworth. 'Maybe we could find a 
ladder -'
WE SHOULD NOT.
'What? We've got to try. We can't leave people in there!'
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, said Bill Door. TO TINKER WITH THE FATE 
OF ONE INDIVIDUAL COULD DESTROY THE WHOLE WORLD.
Miss FIitworth looked at him as if he had gone mad.
'What kind of garbage is that?'
I MEAN THAT THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYONE TO DIE.
She stared. Then she drew her hand back. and gave him a ringing slap 
across the face.
He was harder than she'd expected. She yelped and sucked at her 
knuckles.
'You leave my farm tonight, Mr Bill Door,' she growled. 'Understand?' 
Then she turned on her heel and ran towards the pump.
Some of the men had brought long hooks to drag the burning thatch off 
the roof. Miss Flitworth organised a team to get a ladder up to one of the 
bedroom windows but, by the time a man was persuaded to climb it behind 
the steaming protection of a damp blanket, the top of the ladder was already 
smouldering.
Bill Door watched the flames.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden timer. The firelight 
glowed redly on the glass. He put it away again.
Part of the roof fell in.
SQUEAK.
Bill Door looked down. A small robed figure marched between his legs 
and strutted into the flaming doorway.
Someone was yelling something about barrels of brandy.
Bill Door reached back into his pocket and took out the


137




timer again. Its hissing drowned out the roar of the flames.
The future flowed into the past, and there was a lot more past than there 
was future, but he was struck by the fact that what it flowed through all the 
time was now.
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 realised, it was so much horse elbows.
OH, 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.'


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'Who's Mrs Cake?' Then Windle realised 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


139




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.


140




'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 vocalised 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 ?rabhnded? up the last of his clients, many of whom 
had been in the thatch, and led the way through the flames towards 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


141




whirred overhead. Some buried themselves in neighbouring 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 
towards 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.
SHE SAID THERE WAS AN APOTHECARY SOMEWHERE NEAR HERE.
Miss FIitworth 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 Lancrew~.'
NO WITCHES. NO MAGIC. SEND FOR HIM. AND 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.
WE 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 Flitworth. 'Now get along with the lot of you.'


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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?'
SHE 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.
DID YOU SEND SOMEONE FOR THE APOTHECARY?
'Yes.'
HE MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING AWAY.
'What do you mean?'
STAY HERE WHEN HE COMES. YOU MUST NOT TAKE ANYTHING OUT OF 
THIS ROOM.
'That's silly. Why should he take anything? What would he want to take?'
IT'S VERY IMPORTANT. AND NOW I MUST LEAVE YOU.
'Where are you going?'
TO THE BARN. THERE ARE THINGS I MUST DO. THERE 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?'


143




Bill Door paused at the top of the stairs.
SHE IS LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, 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 halfcrouch, 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're 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, MISS FLITWORTH.
'At one o'clock in the morning?'
He looked at it blankly.
IT'S JUST AS BLUNT AT NIGHT, MISS FLITWORTH.
Then he slammed it down on the anvil.
AND 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.


144




'So it is you,' she said.
MISS FLITWORTH, 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.'
GOOD.
'What was it?'
MY TIME.
'Sorry?' 
MY TIME. THE TIME OF MY LIFE.
'It looks like an eggtimer for very expensive eggs.'
Bill Door looked surprised. YES. IN A WAY. I HAVE GIVEN HER SOME OF 
MY TIME.
'How come you need time?'
EVERY LIVING THING NEEDS TIME. AND WHEN IT RUNS OUT, THEY DIE. 
WHEN IT RUNS OUT, SHE WILL DIE. AND I WILL DIE, TOO. IN A FEW HOURS.
'But you can't -'
I CAN. IT'S HARD TO EXPLAIN.
'Move up.'
WHAT?
'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.
YES.
'And you don't want to.'
NO.
'Why not?'


145




He looked at her as if she was mad.
BECAUSE THEN THERE WILL BE NOTHING. BECAUSE I WON'T EXIST.
'Is that what happens for humans, too?'
I DON'T THINK SO. IT'S DIFFERENT FOR YOU. YOU HAVE IT ALL BETTER 
ORGANISED.
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.'
NOT USUALLY. SOMETIMES PEOPLE CHALLENGE ME TO A GAME. FOR 
THEIR LIVES, YOU KNOW.
'Do they ever win?'
NO. LAST YEAR SOMEONE GOT THREE STREETS AND ALL THE 
UTILITIES.
'What? What sort of game is that?'
I DON'T RECALL.'EXCLUSIVE POSSESSION', I THINK. I WAS THE BOOT.
'Just a moment.' said Miss Flitworth. If you're you, who will be coming for 
you?'
DEATH. LAST 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 BANSHEE.
Miss Flitworth looked at him with her head on one side.
'But . . . correct me if I'm wrong, but . . .'
THE NEW DEATH.
Bill Door picked up the blade.
HE WILL BE TERRIBLE.
The blade twisted in his hands. Blue light flickered along its edge.
I WILL BE THE FIRST.


146


Miss Flitworth stared at the light as if fascinated.
'Exactly how terrible?'
HOW TERRIBLE CAN YOU IMAGINE? 
'Oh.'
EXACTLY AS TERRIBLE AS THAT.
The blade tilted this way and that.
'And for the child, too,' said Miss Flitworth.
YES.
'I don't reckon I owe you any favours, Mr Door. I don't reckon anyone in 
the whole world owes you any favours.'
YOU MAY BE RIGHT.
'Mind you, life's got one or two things to answer for too. Fair's fair.'
I CAN'T SAY. 
Miss FIitworth 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. IT MAY NEVER BE SHARP ENOUGH.
'Come on, man. No sense in giving in,' said Miss Flitworth.'Where there's 
life, eh?'
WHERE THERE'S LIFE EH WHAT?
'There's hope?'
IS THERE?
'Right enough.'
Bill Door ran a bony finger along the edge.
HOPE?
'Got anything else left to try?'
Bill shook his head. He'd tried a number of emotions. but this was a new 
one.
COULD YOU FETCH ME A STEEL?

It was an hour later.


147




Miss Flitworth sorted through her rag-bag.
'What next?' she said. 
WHAT 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.
YES?
'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.
THANK 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?'
AND STILL BLUNT.
Bill Door looked around the dark forge, and then darted into a corner.
'What have you found?'
COBWEB.
There was a long thin whine, like the torturing of ants.
'Any good?'
STILL 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?'
IT 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.


148




'Floo-acockle-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 on to 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 the~~urf 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.


149




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

'No-one can )     ) 9ny- )   )on day )
) sharpen )   ) thing) 
She paused.
He waved the blade again.
'Go /   )ief.'
) od gr)

Down in the yard. Cyril stretched his bald neck for another 90~ Bill Door 
grinned, and sivung the blade towards the sound.
'Sudl  )oodle-riod!'
)-a~n)

Then he lowered the blade.
THAT'S SHARP.
His grin faded, or at least faded as much as it was able to.
Miss Flitworth turned, following the line of his gaze until it intersected a 
?kint? haze over the cornfields.
It looked like a pale grey robe, empty but still somehow maintaining the 
shape of its wearer, as if a garment on a washing line was catching the 
breeze.
It wavered for a moment, and then vanished.
'I saw it,' said Miss Flitworth.
THAT WASN'T IT. THAT WAS THEM.
'Them who?'
THEY'RE LIKE - Bill Door waved a hand vaguely - SERVANTS. 
WATCHERS. AUDITORS. INSPECTORS.
Miss Flitworth's eyes narrowed.
'Inspectors? You mean like the Revenoo?' she said.
I SUPPOSE SO-
Miss Flitworth's face lit up.
'Why didn't you say?'
I'M SORRY?
'My father always made me promise never to help the Revenoo. Even just 
thinking about the Revenoo, he said, made him want to go and have a lie 
down. He said that there was death and taxes, and taxes was worse, because 
at least death didn't happen to you every year. We had to


150




go out of the room when he really got started about the Revenoo. Nasty 
creatures. Always poking around asking what you've got hidden under the 
woodpile and behind the secret panels in the cellar and other stuff which is 
no concern whatsoever of anyone.'
She sniffed.
Bill Door was impressed. Miss Flitworth could actually give the word 
"revenue", which had two vowels and one diphthong, all the peremptoriness 
of the word "scum".
'You should have said that they were after you right from the start.' said 
Miss Flitworth.'The Revenoo aren't popular in these parts, you know. 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. You should have said. 
Everyone thought you were to do with taxes.'
NO. NOT TAXES. 
'Well, well. I didn't know there was a Revenoo Up There, too.'
YES. IN A WAY.
She sidled closer.
'When will he come?'
TONIGHT. I CANNOT BE EXACT. TWO PEOPLE ARE LIVING ON THE 
SAME TIMER. IT MAKES THINGS UNCERTAIN.
'I didn't know people could give people some of their life.'
IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME.
'Are you're sure about tonight?'
YES.
'And that blade will work, will it?'
I DON'T KNOW. IT'S A MILLION TO ONE CHANCE.
'Oh.' She seemed to be considering something.'So you've got the rest of 
the day free, then?'
YES? 
'Then you can start getting the harvest in.'


151




WHAT?
It'll keep you busy. Keep your mind off things. Besides, I'm paying you 
sixpence a week. And sixpence is sixpence.'

Mrs Cake's house was also in Elm Street. Windle knocked on the door.
After a while a muffled voice called out, 'Is there anybody there?'
'Knock once for yes,' Schleppel volunteered.
Windle levered open the letter-box.
'Excuse me? Mrs Cake?'
The door opened.
Mrs Cake wasn't what Windle had expected. She was big, but not in the 
sense of being fat. She was just built to a scale slightly larger than normal; 
the sort of person who goes through life crouching slightly and looking 
apologetic in case they inadvertently loom.
And she had magnificent hair. It crowned her head and flowed out behind 
her like a cloak. She also had slightly pointed ears and teeth which, while 
white and quite beautiful, caught the light in a disturbing way. Windle was 
amazed at the speed at which his heightened zombie senses reached a 
conclusion. He looked down.
Lupine was sitting bolt upright, too excited even to wag his tail.
'I don't think you could be Mrs Cake,' said Windle.
'You want mother,' said the tall girl. 'Mother! There's a gentleman!'
A distant muttering became a closer muttering, and then Mrs Cake 
appeared around the side of her daughter like a small moon emerging from 
planetary shadow.
'What d'yew want?' said Mrs Cake.
Windle took a step backwards. Unlike her daughter, Mrs Cake was quite 
short, and almost perfectly circular. And still unlike her daughter, whose 
whole


152




stance was dedicated to making herself look small, she loomed 
tremendously. This was largely because of her hat, which he later learned 
she wore at all times with the dedication of a wizard. It was huge and black 
and had things on it, like bird wings and wax cherries and hatpins; Carmen 
Miranda could have worn that hat to the funeral of a continent. Mrs Cake 
travelled underneath it as the basket travels under a balloon.
People often found themselves talking to her hat. 
'Mrs Cake?' said Windle, fascinated.
'Oim down 'ere,' said a reproachful voice.
Windle lowered his gaze. 
'That's 'oo I am, ' said Mrs Cake.
'Am I addressing Mrs Cake?' said Windle.
'Yes, oi, know,' said Mrs Cake.
'My name's Windle Poons.'
'Oi knew that, too.'
'I'm a wizard, yoysee -'
'All right, but see you wipes your feet.'
'May I come in?'
Windle Poons paused. He replayed the last few lines of conversation in 
the clicking control room of his brain. And then he smiled.
'That's right, ' said Mrs Cake.
'Are you by any chance a natural clairvoyant?'
'About ten seconds usually, Mr Poons.' 
Windle hesitated.
'You gotta ask the question,' said Mrs Cake quickly.
'I gets a migraine if people goes and viciously not asks questions after 
I've already foreseen 'em and answered 'em.'
'How far into the future can you see, Mrs Cake?'
She nodded.
'Roight, then,' she said, apparently mollified, and led the way through the 
hall into a tiny sitting-room.
'And the bogey can come in, only he's got to leave 'is door outside and go 
in the cellar. I don't hold with bogeys wanderin' around the house.'


153




'Gosh, it's ages since I've been in a proper cellar,' said Schleppel.
'It's got spiders in it,' said Mrs Cake.
'Wow!'
'And you'd like a cup of tea,' said Mrs Cake to Windle. Someone else 
might have said 'I expect you'd like a cup of tea', or 'Do you want a cup of 
tea?' But this was a statement.
'Yes, please, ' said Windle. 'I 'd love a cup of tea.'
 'You shouldn't,' said Mrs Cake.'That stuff rots your teeth.'
Windle worked this one out.
'Two sugars, please,' he said.
' It's all right.'
'This is a nice place you have here, Mrs Cake,' said Windle, his mind 
racing. Mrs Cake's habit of answering questions while they were still forming 
in your mind taxed the most active brain.
'He's been dead for ten years,' she said.
'Er,' said Windle, but the question was already there in his larynx, 'I trust 
Mr Cake is in good health?'
'It's OK. Oi speaks to him occasional,' said Mrs Cake.
'I'm sorry to hear that,' said Windle.
'All right, if it makes you feel any better.'
'Um, Mrs Cake? I'm finding it a little confusing. Could you . . . switch off . . 
. your precognition . . . ?'
She nodded.
'Sorry. Oi gets into the habit of leavin' it on,' she said, 'what with there 
only bein' me an' Ludmilla and One-Man-Bucket. He's a ghost,' she added.'Oi 
knew you was goin' to ask that.'
'Yes, I had heard that mediums have native spirit guides,' said Windle.
' 'Im 'E 's not a guide, 'e's a sort of odd-job ghost,' said Mrs Cake.'I don't 
hold with all that stuff with cards and trumpets and Oo-jar boards, mind you. 
An' I think ectoplasm's disgustin'. Oi won't have it in the


154




'ouse. Oi won't. You can't get it out of the carpets, you know. Not even 
with vinegar.'
'My word, ' said Windle Poons.
'Or wailin'. I don't hold with it. Or messin' around with the supernatural. 
It's unnatural, the supernatural. I won't have it.'
'Um,' said Windle cautiously.'There are those who might think that being a 
medium is a bit . . . you know . . . supernatural?'
'What? What? Nothing supernatural about dead people. Load of 
nonsense. Everyone dies sooner or later.'
'I do hope so, Mrs Cake.'
'So what is it you'd be wanting, Mr Poons? I'm not precognitin', so you 
have to tell me.'
'I want to know what's happening, Mrs Cake.'
There was a muted thump from under their feet and the faint, happy sound 
of Schleppel.
'Oh, wow! Rats, too!'
'I went up and tried to tell you wizards,' said Mrs Cake, primly.'An' no-one 
listened. I knew they weren't going to, but I 'ad to try, otherwise I wouldn't 
'ave known.'
'Who did you speak to?'
'The big one with the red dress and a moustache like he's trying to 
swallow a cat.'
'Ah. The Archchancellor, ' said Windle, positively.
'And there was a huge fat one. Walks like a duck.'
'He does, doesn't he? That was the Dean,' said Windle.
'They called me their good woman, ' said Mrs Cake.
'They told me to be about my business. Don't see why I should go around 
helpin' wizards who call me a good woman when I was only trying to help.'
'I'm afraid wizards don't often listen,' said Windle. 'I never listened for one 
hundred and thirty years.'
'Why not?'
'In case I heard what rubbish I was saying, I


155




expect. What's happening, Mrs Cake? You can tell me. I may be a wizard, 
but I 'm a dead one.'
'Schleppel told me it was all due to life force.'
'It's buildin' up, see?'
'What does that mean?'
'There's more'f it than there should be. You get' - she waved her hands 
vaguely - 'when things are like in a scales only not the same on both sides . . 
.'
'Imbalance?'
Mrs Cake, who looked as though she was reading a distant script, 
nodded.
'One of them things, yeah . . . see, sometimes it just happens a little bit, 
and you get ghosts, because the life is not in the body any more but it hasn't 
gone . . . and you get less of it in the winter, because it sort of drains away, 
and it comes back in the spring . . . and some things concentrate it . . .'

Modo the University gardener hummed a little tune as he wheeled the 
strange trolley into his private little area between the Library and the High 
Energy Magic * building, with a load of weeds bound for composthood.

_______________________________________________________________
*  The only building on the campus less than a thousand years old. The 
senior wizards have never bothered much about what the younger, skinnier 
and more bespectacled wizards get up to in there, treating their endless 
requests for funding for thaumic particle accelerators and radiation shielding 
as one treats pleas for more pocket money, and listening with amusement to 
their breathless accounts of the search for the elementary particles of magic 
itself. This may one day turn out to be a major error on the part of the senior 
wizards, especially if they do let the younger wizards build whatever that 
blasted thing is they keep wanting to build in the squash court. The senior 
wizards know that the proper purpose of magic is to form a social pyramid 
with the wizards on top of it,


156




There seemed to be a lot of excitement around at the moment. It was 
certainly interesting, working with all these wizards.
Teamwork, that's what it was. They looked after the cosmic balance, the 
universal harmonies and the dimensional equilibriums, and he saw to it that 
the aphids stayed off the roses.
There was a metallic tinkle. He peered over the top of the heap of weeds.
'Another one?'
A gleaming metal wire basket on little wheels sat on the path.
Maybe the wizards had bought it for him? The first one was quite useful, 
although it was a little bit hard to steer; the little wheels seemed to want to 
go in different directions. There was probably a knack.
Well, this one would be handy for carrying seed trays in. He pushed the 
second trolley aside and heard, behind him, a sound which, if it had to be 
written down, and if he could write, he would probably have written down as: 
glop.
He turned around, saw the biggest of the compost heaps pulsating in the 
dark, and said, 'Look what I brought you for your tea!'
And then he saw that it was moving.

'Some places, too . . .' said Mrs Cake.
'But why should it build up?' said Windle.

_______________________________________________________________
________
eating big dinners, but in fact the HEM building has helped provide one of 
the rarest foods in the universe - antipasta. Ordinary pasta is prepared some 
hours before being eaten. Antipasta is created some hours after the meal, 
whereupon it then exists backwards in time, and if properly prepared should 
arrive on the taste buds at exactly the same moment, thus creating a true 
taste explosion. It costs five thousand dollars a forkful, or a little more if you 
include the cost of cleaning the tomato sauce off the walls afterwards.


157




'It's like a thunderstorm, see? You know how you get that prickly feelin' 
before a storm? That's what's happening now.'
'Yes, but why, Mrs Cake?'
'Well . . . One-Man-Bucket says nothing's dying.'
'What?'
'Daft, isn't it? He says lots of lives are ending, but not going away. They're 
just staying here.'
'What, like ghosts?'
'Not just ghosts. Just - it's like puddles. When you get a lot of puddles, 
it's like the sea. Anyway, you only get ghosts from things like people. You 
don't get ghosts of cabbages.'
Windle Poons sat back in his chair. He had a vision of a vast pool of life, a 
lake being fed by a million short-lived tributaries as living things came to the 
end of their span. And life force was leaking out as the pressure built up. 
Leaking out wherever it could.
'Do you think I could have a word with One -' he began, and then stopped.
He got up and lurched over to Mrs Cake's mantel-piece.
'How long have you had this, Mrs Cake?' he demanded, picking up a 
familiar glassy object.
'That? Bought it yesterday. Pretty, ain't it?'
Windle shook the globe. It was almost identical to the ones under his 
floorboards. Snowflakes whirled up and settled on an exquisite model of 
Unseen University.
It reminded him strongly of something. Well, the building obviously 
reminded him of the University, but the shape of the whole thing, there was a 
hint of, it made him think of . . . 
. . . breakfast?
'Why is it happening?' he said, half to himself.
'These damn things are turning up everywhere.'

The wizards ran down the corridor.


158




'How can you kill ghosts?'
'How should I know? The question doesn't usually arise!'
'You exorcise them, I think.'
'What? Jumpin' up and down, runnin' on the spot, that kind of thing?'
The Dean had been ready for this.'It's spelled with an "O", Archchancellor. 
I don't think one is expected to subject them to, er, physical exertion.'
'Should think not, man. We don't want a lot of healthy ghosts buzzin' 
around.'
There was a blood-curdling scream. It echoed around the dark pillars and 
arches, and was suddenly cut off.
The Archchancellor stopped abruptly. The wizards cannoned into him.
'Sounded like a blood-curdlin' scream, ' he said.'Follow me!' 
He ran around the corner. 
There was a metallic crash, and a lot of swearing.
Something small and striped red and yellow, with tiny dripping fangs and 
three pairs of wings, flew around the corner and shot over the Dean's head 
making a noise like a miniature buzzsaw. 
'Anyone know what that was?' said the Bursar, faintly. The thing orbited 
the wizards and then disappeared into the darkness of the roof. 'And I wish 
he wouldn't swear so.'
'Come on,' said the Dean. 'We'd better see what's happened to him.'
'Must we?' said the Senior Wrangler. 
They peered around the corner. The Archchancellor was sitting up, 
rubbing his ankle.
'What idiot left this here?' he said.
'Left what?' said the Dean.
'This blasted wire baskety wheely thing,' said the Archchancellor. Beside 
him, a tiny purple spider-like creature materialised out of the air and scuttled


159




towards a crevice. The wizards didn't notice it.
'What wire baskety wheely thing?' said the wizards, in unison.
Ridcully looked around him.
'I could have sworn -' he began.
There was another scream.
Ridcully scrambled to his feet.
'Come on, you fellows!' he said, limping heroically onwards.
'Why does everyone run towards a blood-curdling scream?' mumbled the 
Senior Wrangler.'It's contrary to all sense.'
They trotted out through the cloisters and into the quadrangle.
A rounded, dark shape was squatting in the middle of the ancient lawn. 
Steam was coming out of it in little, noisome wisps.
'What is it?'
'It can't be a compost heap in the middle of the lawn, can it?'
'Modo will be very upset.'
The Dean peered closer.'Er . . . especially because, I do believe, that's his 
feet poking out from under it . . .'
The heap swivelled towards the wizards and made a glop, glop noise.
Then it moved.
'Right, then,' said Ridcully, rubbing his hands together hopefully, 'which 
of you fellows has got a spell about them at the moment?'
The wizards patted their pockets in an embarrassed fashion.
'Then I shall attract its attention while the Bursar and the Dean try to pull 
Modo out,' said Ridcully.
'Oh, good, ' said the Dean faintly.
'How can you attract a compost heap's attention?' said the Senior 
Wrangler.'I shouldn't think it's even got one.'


160




Ridcully removed his hat and stepped gingerly forward.
'Load of rubbish !' he roared.
The Senior Wrangler groaned and put his hand over his eyes.
Ridcully flapped his hat in front of the heap.
'Biodegradable garbage!'
'Poor green trash?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes helpfully.
'That's the ticket,' said the Archchancellor.'Try to infuriate the bugger.' 
(Behind him, a slightly different variety of mad waspy creature popped out of 
the air and buzzed away.)
The heap lunged at the hat.
'Midden!' said Ridcully.
'Oh, I say,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, shocked.
The Dean and the Bursar crept forward, grabbed a gardener's foot each, 
and pulled. Modo slid out of the heap.
'It 's eaten through his clothes !' said the Dean.
'But is he all right?'
'He's still breathing,' said the Bursar.
'And if he's lucky, he's lost his sense of smell, ' said the Dean.
The heap snapped at Ridcully's hat. There was a glop. The point of the hat 
had vanished.
'Hey, there was still almost half a bottle in there!' Ridcully roared. The 
Senior Wrangler grabbed his arm.
' Come on, Archchancellor !'
The heap swivelled and lunged towards the Bursar.
The wizards backed away.
' It can't be intelligent, can it?' said the Bursar.
'All it's doing is moving around slowly and eating things, ' said the Dean.
'Put a pointy hat on it and it'd be a faculty member,' said the 
Archchancellor.
The heap came after them. 


161




'I wouldn't call that moving slowly,' said the Dean.
They looked expectantly at the Archchancellor.
'Run!'
Portly though most of the faculty were, they hit a fair turn of speed up the 
cloisters, fought one another through the door, slammed it behind them and 
leaned on it. Very soon afterwards, there was a damp, heavy thud on the far 
side.
'We're well out of that,' said the Bursar.
The Dean looked down.
'I think it's coming through the door, Archchancellor,' he said, in a tiny 
voice.
'Don't be daft, man, we're all leanin' on it.'
'I didn't mean through, I mean . . . through . . .'
The Archchancellor sniffed.
'What's burnin'?'
'Your boots, Archchancellor,' said the Dean.
Ridcully looked down. A greenish-yellow puddle was spreading under the 
door. The wood was charring, the flagstones were hissing, and the leather 
soles of his boots were definitely in trouble. He could feel himself getting 
lower.
He fumbled with the laces, and then took a standing jump on to a dry 
flagstone.
'Bursar!'
'Yes, Archchancellor?'
'Give me your boots!'
'What?'
'Dammit, man, I command you to give me your blasted boots!'
This time, a long creature with four pairs of wings, two at each end, and 
three eyes, popped into existence over Ridcully's head and dropped on to 
his hat.
'But -'
'I am your Archchancellor!'
'Yes, but -'
'I think the hinges are going,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.


162




Ridcully looked around desperately.
'We'll regroup in the Great Hall,' he said.'We'll . . . strategically withdraw 
to previously prepared positions.'
'Who prepared them?' said the Dean.
'We'll prepare them when we get there,' said the Archchancellor through 
gritted teeth.'Bursar! Your boots! Now!'
They reached the double doors of the Great Hall just as the door behind 
them half-collapsed, half-dissolved. The Great Hall's doors were much 
sturdier.
Bolts and bars were dragged into place.
'Clear the tables and pile them up in front of the door,' snapped Ridcully
'But it eats through wood, ' said the Dean.
There was a moan from the small body of Modo, which had been propped 
against a chair. He opened his eyes. 
'Quick!' said Ridcully. 'How can we kill a compost heap?'
'Um. I don't think you can, Mr Ridcully, sir,' said the gardener.
'How about fire? I could probably manage a small fireball, ' said the Dean.
'It wouldn't work. Too soggy,' said Ridcully.
'It's right outside! It's eating away at the door! It's eating away at the 
door,' sang the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
The wizards backed further away down the length of the hall.
'I hope it doesn't eat too much wood,' said the dazed Modo, radiating 
genuine concern.'They're a devil, excuse my Klatchian, if you get too much 
carbon in
 them. It's far too heating.'
'You know, this is exactly the right time for a lecture on the dynamics of 
compost making, Modo, ' said the Dean.
Dwarfs do not know the meaning of the word "irony".


163




'Well, all right. Ahem. The correct balance of materials, correctly layered 
according to -'
'There goes the door,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, lumbering 
towards the rest of them.
The mound of furniture started to move forward.
The Archchancellor stared desperately around the hall, at a loss. Then his 
eyes were drawn to a familiar, heavy bottle on one of the sideboards.
'Carbon,' he said. 'That's like charcoal, isn't it?'
'How should I know? I'm not an alchemist,' sniffed the Dean.
The compost heap emerged from the debris. Steam poured off it.
The Archchancellor looked longingly at the bottle of Wow-Wow Sauce. He 
uncorked it. He took a deep sniff.
'The cooks here just can't make it properly, you know,' he said. It'll be 
weeks before I can get any more from home.'
He tossed the bottle towards the advancing heap.
It vanished into the seething mass.
'Stinging nettles are always useful,' said Modo, behind him. 'They add 
iron. And comfrey, well, you can never get enough comfrey. For the minerals, 
you know. Myself, I've always reckoned that a small quantity of wild yarrow -'
The wizards peered over the top of an overturned table.
The heap had stopped moving.
'Is it just me, or is it getting bigger?' said the Senior Wrangler.
'And looking happier,' said the Dean.
'It smells awful,' said the Bursar.
'Oh, well. And that was nearly a full bottle of sauce, too,' said the 
Archchancellor sadly. 'I'd hardly opened ?it?.'
'Nature's a wonderful thing, when you come to think


164




about it,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'You don't all have to glare at me like 
that, you know. I was only passing a remark.'
'There are times when -' Ridcully began, 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.
The wizards peered out from their barricade, which was now thick with 
tea-leaves.
A cabbage stalk dropped softly on to the Dean's head.
He looked at a small, bubbling patch on the flagstones.
His face split slowly into a grin. 
'Wow,' he said.
The other wizards unfolded themselves. Adrenaline backwash worked its 
seductive spell. They grinned, too, and started playfully punching one 
another on the shoulder.
'Eat hot sauce!' roared the Archchancellor. 'Up against the hedge, 
fermented rubbish!'
'Can we kick ass, or can we kick ass?' burbled the Dean happily.
'You mean can't the second time, not can. And I'm not sure that a 
compost heap can be said to have an -' the Senior Wrangler began, but the 
tide of excitement was flowing against him.
'That's one heap that won't mess with wizards again,' said the Dean, who 
was getting carried away.
'We're keen and mean and -'
'There's three more of them out there, Modo says,' said the Bursar.
They fell silent.
'We could go and pick up our staffs, couldn't we?' said the Dean.


165




The Archchancellor prodded a piece of exploded heap with the toe of his 
boot.
'Dead things coming alive,' he murmured.'I don't like that. What's next? 
Walking statues?'
The wizards looked up at the statues of dead Archchancellors that lined 
the Great Hall and, indeed, most of the corridors of the University. The 
University had been in existence for thousands of years and the average 
Archchancellor remained in office for about eleven months, so there were 
plenty of statues.
'You know, I really wish you hadn't said that, ' said the Lecturer in Recent 
Runes.
'It was just a thought,' said Ridcully.'Come on, let's have a look at the rest 
of those heaps.'
'Yeah!' said the Dean, now in the grip of a wild, unwizardly 
machismo.'We're mean! Yeah! Are we mean?'
The Archchancellor raised his eyebrows, and then turned to the rest of the 
wizards.
'Are we mean?' he said.
'Er. I'm feeling reasonably mean,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'I'm definitely very mean, I think,' said the Bursar.
'It's having no boots that does it,' he added.
'I'll be mean if everyone else is,' said the Senior Wrangler.
The Archchancellor turned back to the Dean.
'Yes,' he said, 'it appears that we are all mean.'
'Yo!' said the Dean.
'Yo what?' said Ridcully.
'It's not a yo what, it's just a yo,' said the Senior Wrangler, behind him.'It's 
a general street greeting and affirmative with convivial military ingroup and 
masculine bonding-ritual overtones.'
'What? What? Like "jolly good"?' said Ridcully.
'I suppose so,' said the Senior Wrangler, reluctantly.
Ridcully was pleased. Ankh-Morpork had never offered very good 
prospects for hunting. He'd never


166




thought it was possible to have so much fun in his own university.
'Right, ' he said. 'Let's get those heaps !'
'Yo!'
'Yo!'
'Yo!'
'Yo-yo.'
Ridcully sighed. 'Bursar?'
'Yes, Archchancellor?'
'Just try to understand, all right?'

Clouds piled up over the mountains. Bill Door strode up and down the 
first field, using one of the ordinary farm scythes; the sharpest one had been 
temporarily stored at the back of the barn, in case it was blunted by air 
convection. Some of Miss Flitworth's tenants followed behind him, binding 
the sheaves and stacking them. Miss Flitworth had never employed more 
than one man full time, Bill Door learned; she bought in other help as she 
needed it, to save pennies.
'Never seen a man cut corn with a scythe before,' said one of them.'It's a 
sickle job.'
They stopped for lunch. and ate it under the hedge.
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 recognise the little differences.
There was William Spigot and Gabby Wheels and Duke Bottomley. All old 
men, as far as Bill Door could judge, with skins like leather. There were 
young men and women in the village, but at a certain age they seemed to flip 
straight over to being old, without passing through any intermediate stage. 
And then they stayed old for a long time. Miss Flitworth had said that before 
they could start a graveyard in


167




these parts they'd had to hit someone over the head with the shovel.
William Spigot was the one that sang when he worked, breaking into that 
long nasal whine which meant that folk song was about to be perpetrated. 
Gabby Wheels never said anything; this, Spigot had said. was why he had 
been called Gabby. Bill Door had failed to understand the logic of this, 
although it seemed transparent to the others.
And Duke Bottomley had been named by parents with upwardly-mobile if 
rather simplistic ideas about class structure; his brothers were Squire, Earl 
and King.
Now they sat in a row under the hedge, putting off the moment when 
they'd need to start work again. A glugging noise came from the end of the 
row.
'It's not been a bad old summer, then,' said Spigot. 'And good harvest 
weather for a change.'
'Ah . . . many a slip 'twixt dress and drawers,' said Duke.'Last night I saw 
a spider spinnin' its web backwards. That's a sure sign there's going to be a 
dretful storm.'
'Don't see how spiders know things like that.'
Gabby Wheels passed a big earthenware jug to Bill Door. Something 
sloshed.
WHAT IS THIS?
'Apple juice,' said Spigot. The others laughed.
AH, said Bill Door. STRONG DISTILLED SPIRITS, GIVEN HUMOROUSLY 
TO THE UNSUSPECTING NEWCOMER, THUS TO AFFORD SIMPLE 
AMUSEMENT WHEN HE BECOMES INADVERTENTLY INEBRIATED.
'Cor,' said Spigot. Bill Door took a long swig.
'And I saw swallows flying low,' said Duke.'And partridges are heading for 
the woods. And there's a lot of big snails about. And -'
'I don't reckon any of them buggers knows the first thing about 
meteorology,' said Spigot. 'l reckon you goes around telling 'em. Eh, lads? 
Big storm comin', Mr Spider, so get on and do somethin' folklorish.'
Bill Door took another drink.


168




WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE BLACKSMITH IN THE VILLAGE?
Spigot nodded. 'That's Ned Simnel, down by the green. O'course, he's 
real busy about now, what with the harvest and all.'
I HAVE SOME WORK FOR HIM.
Bill Door got up and strode away towards the gate.

He stopped. YES?
'You can leave the brandy behind, then.'

The village forge was dark and stifling in the heat. But Bill Door had very 
good eyesight.
Something moved among a complicated heap of metal. It turned out to be 
the lower half of a man. His upper body was somewhere in the machinery, 
from which came the occasional grunt.
A hand shot out as Bill Door approached.
'Right. Give me three-eighths Gripley.'
Bill looked around. A variety of tools were strewn around the forge.'Come 
on, come on,' said a voice from somewhere in the machine.
Bill Door selected a piece of shaped metal at random, and placed it in the 
hand. It was drawn inside. There was metallic noise, and a grunt.
'I said a Gripley. This isn't a' - there was the scringeing noise of a piece of 
metal giving way - 'my thumb, my thumb, you made me' - there was a clang - 
'aargh. That was my head. Now look what you've made me do. And the 
ratchet spring's snapped off the trunnion armature again, do you realise?'
NO. I AM SORRY.
There was a pause.
'Is that you, young Egbert?'
NO. IT IS ME, OLD BILL DOOR.
There was a series of thumps and twanging noises as the top half of the 
human extricated itself from the machinery, and turned out to belong to a 
young man with black curly hair, a black face, black shirt, and black apron. 
He wiped a


169





cloth across his face, leaving a pink smear, and blinked the sweat out of 
his eyes.
'Who're you?'
GOOD OLD BILL DOOR? WORKING FOR MISS FLITWORTH?
'Oh, yes. The man in the fire? Hero of the hour, I heard. Put it there.'
He extended a black hand. Bill Door looked at it blankly.
I AM SORRY. I STILL DO NOT KNOW WHAT A THREE-EIGHTHS GRIPLEY 
IS.
'I mean your hand, Mr Door.'
Bill Door hesitated, and then put his hand in the young man's palm. The 
oil-rimmed eyes glazed for a moment. as the brain overruled the sense of 
touch, and then the smith smiled.
'The name's Simnel. What do you think, eh?'
IT'S A GOOD NAME.
'No, I mean the machine. Pretty ingenious, eh?'
Bill Door ?regiy~,ded? it with polite incomprehension. It looked, at first 
sight, like a portable windmill that had been attacked by an enormous insect, 
and at second sight like a touring torture chamber for an Inquisition that 
wanted to get out and about a bit and enjoy the fresh air. Mysterious jointed 
arms stuck out at various angles. There were belts, and long springs. The 
whole thing was mounted on spiked metal wheels.
'Of course, you're not seeing it at its best when it's standing still,' said 
Simnel.'It needs a horse to pull it. At the moment, anyway. I've got one or two 
rather radical ideas in that direction.' he added dreamily.
IT'S A DEVICE OF SOME SORT?
Simnel looked mildly affronted.
'I prefer the term machine,' he said.'It will revolutionise farming methods, 
and drag them kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat. My 
folk have had this forge for three hundred years, but Ned Simnel doesn't 
intend to spend the rest of his life nailing bits of bent metal on to horses, I 
call tell you.'
Bill looked at him blankly. Then he bent down and


170





glanced under the machine. A dozen sickles were bolted to a big 
horizontal wheel. Ingenious linkages took power from the wheels, via a 
selection of pulleys, to a whirligig arrangement of metal arms.
He began to experience a horrible feeling about the thing in front of him, 
but he asked anyway.
'Well, the heart of it all is this cam shaft,' said Simnel, gratified at the 
interest. 'The power comes up via the pulley here, and the cams move the 
swaging arms - that's these things - and the combing gate, which is operated 
by the reciprocating mechanism, comes down just as the gripping shutter 
drops in this slot here, and of course at the same time the two brass balls go 
round and round and the flatting sheets carry off the straw while the grain 
drops with the aid of gravity down the riffling screw and into the hopper. 
Simple.'
AND THE THREE-EIGHTHS GRIPLEY?
'Good job you reminded me.' Simnel fished around among the debris on 
the floor, picked up a small knurled object, and screwed it on to a protruding 
piece of the mechanism.'Very important job. It stops the elliptical cam 
gradually sliding up the beam shaft and catching on the flange rebate, with 
disastrous results as you can no doubt imagine.'
Simnel stood back and wiped his hands on a cloth, making them slightly 
more oily.
'I'm calling it the Combination Harvester,' he said.
Bill Door felt very old. In fact he was very old. But he'd never felt it as 
much as this. Somewhere in the shadow of his soul he felt he knew, without 
the blacksmith explaining, what it was that the Combination Harvester was 
supposed to do.
OH.
'We're going to give it a trial run this afternoon up in old Peedbury's big 
field. It looks very promising, I must say. What you're looking at now, Mr 
Door, is the future.'
YES.


171




Bill Door ran his hand over the framework.
AND THE HARVEST ITSELF?
'Hmm? What about it?'
WHAT WILL IT THINK OF IT? WILL IT KNOW?
Simnel wrinkled his nose.'Know? Know? It won't know anything. Corn's 
corn.'
AND SIXPENCE IS SIXPENCE. 
'Exactly.' Simnel hesitated.'What was it you were wanting?'
The tall figure ran a disconsolate finger over the oily mechanism.
'Mr Door?'
PARDON? OH. YES. I HAD SOMETHING FOR YOU TO DO -
He strode out of the forge and returned almost immediately with 
something wrapped in silk. He unwrapped it carefully.
He'd made a new handle for the blade - not a straight one, such as 
?these? used in the mountains, but the heavy doublecurved handle of the 
plains.
'You want it beaten out? A new grass nail? Metalwork replacing?'
Bill Door shook his head.
I WANT IT KILLED.
'Killed?'
YES. TOTALLY. EVERY BIT DESTROYED. SO THAT IT IS ABSOLUTELY 
DEAD.
'Nice scythe,' said Simnel. 'Seems a shame. You've kept a good edge on it 
-'
DON'T TOUCH IT!
Simnel sucked his finger.
'Funny,' he said, 'I could have sworn I didn't touch it. My hand was inches 
away. Well, it's sharp, anyway.'
He swished it through the air.
'Yes. Pretty sharp
He paused, stuck his little finger in his ear and swivelled it around a bit.


172




'You sure you know what you want?' he said.
Bill Door solemnly repeated his request. down ???
Simnel shrugged.'Well, I suppose I could melt it and burn the handle,' he 
said.
YES.
'Well, OK. It's your scythe. And you're basically right, of course. This is 
old technology now. Redundant.'
I FEAR YOU MAY BE RIGHT.
Simnel jerked a grimy thumb towards the Combination Harvester. Bill 
Door knew it was made only of metal and canvas, and therefore couldn't 
possibly lurk. But it was lurking. Moreover, it was doing so with a chilling, 
metallic smugness.
'You could get Miss Flitworth to buy you one of these, Mr Door. It'd be just 
the job for a one-man farm like that. I can see you now, up there, up in the 
breeze, with the belts clacking away and the sparge arms oscillating -' 
NO.
'Go on. She could afford it. They say she's got boxes full of treasure from 
the old days.' 
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.
'I'm sure you know your own mind best,' he mumbled. 
YES.
'Then it'll just be, oh, call it a farthing for the scythe,' Simnel gabbled. 
'Sorry about that. but it'll use a lot of coals, you see, and those dwarfs keep 
winding up the price of -'
HERE. IT MUST BE DONE BY TONIGHT.
Simnel didn't argue. Arguing would mean that Bill Door remained in the 
forge, and he was getting quite anxious that this should not be so.
'Fine, fine.'
YOU UNDERSTAND?
'Right. Right.'


173




FAREWELL, said Bill Door solemnly, and left.
Simnel shut the doors after him, and leaned against them. Whew. Nice 
man. of course, everyone was talking about him, it was just that after a 
couple of minutes in his presence you got a pins-and-needles sensation that 
someone was walking over your grave and it hadn't even been dug yet.
He wandered across the oily floor, filled the tea kettle and wedged it on a 
corner of the forge. He picked up a spanner to do some final adjustments to 
the Combination Harvester, and spotted the scythe leaning against the wall.
He tiptoed towards it, and realised that tiptoeing was an amazingly stupid 
thing to do. It wasn't alive. It couldn't hear. It just looked sharp.
He raised the spanner, and felt guilty about it. By Mr Door had said - well, 
Mr Door had said something very odd, using the wrong sort of words to use 
in talking about a mere implement. But he could hardly object to this.
Simnel brought the spanner down hard.
There was no resistance. He would have sworn, again, that the spanner 
sheared in two, as though it was made of bread, several inches from the 
edge of the blade.
He wondered if something could be so sharp that it began to possess, not 
just a sharp edge, but the very essence of sharpness itself, a field of 
absolute sharpness that actually extended beyond the last atoms of metal.
'Bloody hell '
And then he remembered that this was sloppy and superstitious thinking 
for a man who knew how to bevel a three eighths Gripley. You knew where 
you were with a reciprocating linkage. It either worked or it didn't. It certainly 
didn't present you with mysteries.
He looked proudly at the Combination Harvester. Of course, you needed a 
horse to pull it. That spoiled things a bit. Horses belonged to Yesterday; 
Tomorrow belonged to the Combination Harvester and its descendants, 
which would make the world a cleaner and better place. It was


174




just a matter of taking the horse out of the equation. He'd tried clockwork. 
and that wasn't powerful enough. Maybe if he tried winding a - 
Behind him, the kettle boiled over and put the fire out.
Simnel fought his way through the steam. That was the bloody trouble, 
every time. Whenever someone was trying to do a bit of sensible thinking, 
there was always some pointless distraction.

Mrs Cake drew the curtains.
'Who exactly is One-Man-Bucket?' said Windle.
She lit a couple of candles and sat down.
' 'e belonged to one of them heathen Howondaland tribes,' she said 
shortly.
'Very strange name, One-Man-Bucket,' said Windle.
'It's not 'is full name.' said Mrs Cake darkly. 'Now, we've got to 'old 'ands.' 
She looked at him speculatively.'We need someone else.'
'I could call Schleppel,' said Windle.
'I ain't 'aving no bogey under my table trying to look up me drawers,' said 
Mrs Cake. 'Ludmilla!' she shouted. After a moment or two the bead curtain 
leading into the kitchen was swept aside and the young woman who had 
originally opened the door to Windle came in.
'Yes mother?'
'Sit down, girl. We need another one for the seancing.'
'Yes, mother.'
The girl smiled at Windle.
'This is Ludmilla,' said Mrs Cake shortly.
'Charmed, I'm sure,' said Windle. Ludmilla gave him the bright, crystalline 
smile perfected by people who had long ago learned not to let their feelings 
show.
'We have already met,' said Windle. It must be at least a day since full 
moon, he thought. All the signs are nearly gone. Nearly. Well, well, well . . .


175




'She's my shame,' said Mrs Cake.
'Mother, you do go on,' said Ludmilla, without rancour.
'Join hands, ' said Mrs Cake.
They sat in the semi-darkness. Then Windle felt Mrs Cake's hand being 
pulled away.
'Oi forgot about the glass,' she said.
'I thought, Mrs Cake, that you didn't hold with ouija boards and that sort 
of -' Windle began.
There was a glugging noise from the sideboard. Mrs Cake put a full glass 
on the tablecloth and sat down again.
'Oi don't,' she said.
Silence descended again. Windle cleared his throat nervously.
Eventually Mrs Cake said, 'All right, One-Man-Bucket, oi knows you're 
there.'
The glass moved. The amber liquid inside sloshed gently.
A bodiless voice quavered, greetings, pale face, from the happy hunting 
ground -
'You stop that,' said Mrs Cake. 'Everyone knows you got run over by a 
cart in Treacle Street because you was drunk, One-Man-Bucket.'
s'not my fault. not my fault. is it my fault my great-grandad moved here? 
by rights I should have been mauled to death by a mountain lion or a giant 
mammoth or something. I bin denied my deathright.
'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.
who would you like? he asked cautiously. can I have that ?cerink? now?


176




'Not yet, One-Man-Bucket,' said Mrs Cake.
well, I need it. it's bloody crowded in here. 
'What?' said Windle quickly. 'With ghosts, you mean?' 
there's hundreds of 'em, said the voice of One-Man-Bucket. 
Windle was disappointed.
'Only hundreds?' he said.'That doesn't sound a lot.'
'Not many people become ghosts,' said Mrs Cake. 'To be a ghost, you got 
to have, like, serious unfinished business, or a terrible revenge to take, or a 
cosmic purpose in which you are just a pawn.'
or a cruel thirst, said One-Man-Bucket.
'Will you hark at him,' said Mrs Cake.
I wanted to stay in the spirit world. or even wire and beer. hngh. hngh. 
hngh.
'So what happens to the life force if things stop living?' said Windle. 'Is 
that what's causing all this trouble?'
'You tell the man,' said Mrs Cake, when One-Man-Bucket seemed reluctant 
to answer.
what trouble you talking about?
'Things unscrewing. Clothes running around by themselves. Everyone 
feeling more alive. That sort of thing.'
that? that's nothilng. see, the life force leaks back where it can. you don't 
need to worry about that. 
Windle put his hand over the glass.
'But there's something I should be worrying about, isn't there,' he said 
flatly. 'It's to do with the little glass souvenirs.'
don't like to say.
'Do tell him.'
It was Ludmilla's voice - deep but, somehow, attractive. Lupine was 
watching her intently.
Windle smiled. That was one of the advantages about being dead. You 
spotted things the living ignored.


177




One-Man-Bucket sounded shrill and petulant.
what's he going to do if I tell him, then? I could get into heap big trouble 
for that sort of thing.
'Well, can you tell me if I guess right?' said Windle.
ye-ess. maybe.
'You don't have to say anythin',' said Mrs Cake. 'Just knock twice for yes 
and once for no, like in the old days.'
oh, all right.
'Go on, Mr Poons,' said Ludmilla. She had the kind of voice Windle 
wanted to stroke.
He cleared his throat.
'I think,' he began, 'that is, I think they're some sort of eggs. I thought . . . 
why breakfast? and then I thought ...eggs...'
Knock.
'Oh. Well, perhaps it was a rather silly idea . . .'
sorry, was it once for yes or twice for yes ?
' 'voice !' snapped the medium.
KNOCK. KNOCK.
'Ah,' breathed Windle. 'And they hatch into something with wheels on?'
twice for yes, was it?
'Roight!'
KNOCK. KNOCK.
'I thought so. I thought so ! I found one under my floor that tried to hatch 
where there wasn't enough room!' crowed Windle. Then he frowned.
'But hatch into what?'

Mustrum Ridcully trotted into his study and took his wizard's staff from its 
rack over the fireplace. He licked his finger and gingerly touched the top of 
the staff.
There was a small octarine spark and a smell of greasy tin.
He headed back for the door.
Then he turned around slowly, because his brain had just had time to 
analyse the study's cluttered contents and spot the oddity.


178




'What the hell's that doin' there?' he said. 
He prodded it with the tip of the staff. It gave a jingling noise and rolled a 
little way.
It looked vaguely, but not very much, like the sort of thing the maids 
trundled around loaded with mops and fresh linen and whatever it was maids 
pushed around. Ridcully made a mental note to take it up with the 
housekeeper. Then he forgot about it.
'Damn wire wheely things are gettin' everywhere,' he muttered.
Upon the word "damn", something like a large blue-bottle with cat-sized 
dentures flopped out of the air, fluttered madly as it took stock of its 
surroundings, and then flew after the unheeding Archchancellor.
The words of wizards have power. And swearwords have power. And with 
life force practically crystallising out of the air, it had to find outlets wherever 
it could.

cities. said One-Man-Bucket. I think they're city eggs.

The senior wizards gathered again in the Great Hall.
Even the Senior Wrangler was feeling a certain excitement. It was 
considered bad form to use magic against fellow wizards, and using it 
against civilians was unsporting. It did you good to have a really righteous 
zap occasionally.
The Archchancellor looked them over. 
'Dean, why have you got stripes all over your face?' he enquired.
'Camouflage, Archchancellor.'
'Camouflage, eh?'
'Yo, Archchancellor.'
'Oh, well. So long as you feel happy in yourself, that's what matters.'
They crept out towards the patch of ground that had been Modo's little 
territory. At least, most of


179




them crept. The Dean advanced in a series of spinning leaps, occasionally 
flattening himself against the wall, and saying 'Hut! Hut! Hut!' under his 
breath.
He was absolutely crestfallen when the other heaps turned out to be still 
where Modo had built them. The gardener, who had tagged along behind and 
had twice nearly been flattened by the Dean, fussed around them for a while.
'They're just lying low,' said the Dean. 'I say we blow up the godsdamn -'
'They're not even warm yet,' said Modo.'That one must have been the 
oldest.'
'You mean we haven't got anything to fight?' said the Archchancellor.
The ground shook underfoot. And then there was a faint jangling noise, 
from the direction of the cloisters.
Ridcully frowned.
'Someone 's pushing those damn wire baskety things around again,' he 
said. 'There was one in my study tonight.'
'Huh,' said the Senior Wrangler.'There was one in my bedroom. I opened 
the wardrobe and there it was.'
'In your wardrobe? What'd you put it in there for?' said Ridcully.
'I didn't. I told you. It was probably the students. It's their kind of humour. 
One of them put a hairbrush in my bed once.'
'I fell over one earlier,' said the Archchancellor, 'and then when I looked 
round for it, someone had taken it away.'
The jingling noise got closer.
'Right, Mr So-called Clever Dick Young-fella-me-lad,' said Ridcully, 
tapping his staff once or twice on his palm in a meaningful way.
The wizards backed up against the wall.
The phantom trolley pusher was almost on them.


180




Ridcully snarled, and leapt out of hiding.
'Aha, my fine young - bloody hellfire!'

'Don't be pullin' moi leg,' said Mrs Cake.'Cities ain't alive. I know people 
says they are, but they don't mean really.'
Windle Poons turned one of the snowballs around in his hand.
'It must be laying thousands of them,' he said.'But they wouldn't all 
survive, of course. Otherwise we'd be up to here in cities, yes?'
'You telling us that these little balls hatch out into huge places?' said 
Ludmilla.
not straight away. there's the mobile stage first.
'Something with wheels on,' said Windle.
that's right. i can see you know already.
'I think I knew,' said Windle Poons, 'but I didn't understand. And what 
happens after the mobile stage?'
'Don't know.'
Windle stood up.
'Then it's time to find out, ' he said.
He glanced at Ludmilla and Lupine. Ah. Yes. And why not? If you can help 
somebody as you pass this way, Windle thought, then your living, or 
whatever, shall not be in vain.
He let himself fall into a stoop and let a little crackle enter his voice.
'But I 'm rather unsteady on my legs these days,' he quavered. 'It would 
really be a great favour if someone could help me along. Could you see me 
as far as the University, young lady?'
'Ludmilla doesn't go out much these days because her health -' Mrs Cake 
began briskly.
'Is absolutely fine,' said Ludmilla. 'Mother, you know it's been a whole day 
since full moo -'
'Ludmilla!'
'Well, it has.'


181




'It's not safe for a young woman to walk the streets these days,' said Mrs 
Cake.
'But Mr Poons' wonderful dog would frighten away the most dangerous 
criminal,' said Ludmilla.
On cue, Lupine barked helpfully and begged. Mrs Cake regarded him 
critically.
'He's certainly a very obedient animal,' she said, reluctantly.
'That's settled, then,' said Ludmilla. 'I'll fetch my shawl.'
Lupine rolled over. Windle nudged him with a foot.
'Be good, ' he said.
There was a meaningful cough from One-Man-Bucket.
'All right, all right,' said Mrs Cake. She took a bundle of matches from the 
dresser, lit one absent-mindedly with her fingernail, and dropped it into the 
whisky glass. It burned with a blue flame, and somewhere in the spirit world 
the spectre of a stiff double lasted just long enough.
As Windle Poons left the house, he thought he could hear a ghostly voice 
raised in song.

The trolley stopped. It swivelled from side to side, as if observing the 
wizards. Then it did a fast three-point turn and trundled off at high speed.
'Get it!' bellowed the Archchancellor.
He aimed his staff and got off a fireball which turned a small area of 
cobblestones into something yellow and bubbly. The speeding trolley rocked 
wildly but kept going, with one wheel rattling and squeaking.
'It's from the Dungeon Dimensions!' said the Dean.
'Cream the basket!'
The Archchancellor laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.'Don't be daft. 
Dungeon Things have a lot more tentacles and things. They don't look 
made.'
They turned at the sound of another trolley. It rattled unconcernedly down 
a side passage, stopped when


182




it saw or otherwise perceived the wizards, and did a creditable impression 
of a trolley that had just been left there by someone.
The Bursar crept up to it.
'It's no use you looking like that,' he said. 'We know you can move.'
'We all seed you,' said the Dean.
The trolley maintained a low profile.
'It can't be thinking,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.'There's no room 
for a brain.'
'Who says it's thinking?' said the Archchancellor. 'All it does is move. 
Who needs brains for that?  Prawns move.'
He ran his fingers over the metalwork.
'Actually, prawns are quite intell -' the Senior Wrangler began.
'Shut up,' said Ridcully. 'Hmm. Is this made, though?'
'It's wire,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Wire's something that you have to 
make. And there's wheels. Hardly anything natural's got wheels.'
'It's just that up close, it looks -' 
'- all one thing, ' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who had knelt down 
painfully to inspect it the better. 
'Like one unit. Made all in one lump. Like a machine that's been grown. 
But that's ridiculous.'
'Maybe. Isn't there a sort of cuckoo in the Ramtops that builds clocks to 
nest in?' said the Bursar.
'Yes, but that's just courtship ritual,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes 
airily. 'Besides, they keep lousy time.'
The trolley leapt for a gap in the wizards and would have made it except 
that the gap was occupied by the Bursar, who gave a scream and pitched 
forward into the basket. The trolley didn't stop but rattled onwards, towards 
the gates.
The Dean raised his staff. The Archchancellor grabbed it.


183




'You might hit the Bursar,' he said.
'Just one small fireball?'
'It's tempting, but no. Come on. After it.'
'Yo!'
'If you like.'
The wizards lumbered in pursuit. Behind them, as yet unnoticed, a whole 
flock of the Archchancellor's swearwords fluttered and buzzed. And Windle 
Poons was leading a small deputation to the Library.

The Librarian of Unseen University knuckled his way hurriedly across the 
floor as the door shook to a thunderous knocking.
'I know you're in there,' came the voice of Windle Poons.'You must let us 
in. It's vitally important.'
'Oook.'
'You won't open the doors?'
'Oook!' 
'Then you leave me no choice . . .'
Ancient blocks of masonry moved aside slowly.
Mortar crumbled. Then part of the wall fell in, leaving Windle Poons 
standing in a Windle Poons-shaped hole. He coughed on the dust.
'I hate having to do that,' he said. 'I can't help feeling it's pandering to 
popular prejudice.'
The Librarian landed on his shoulders. To the orangutan's surprise, this 
made very little difference.
A 300-pound orangutan usually had a noticeable effect on a person's rate 
of progress, but Windle wore him like a collar.
'I think we need Ancient History,' he said. 'I wonder, could you stop trying 
to twist my head off?'
The Librarian looked around wildly. It was a technique that normally never 
failed.
Then his nostrils flared.
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


184




explosion. He'd been a quite inoffensive human, although by now so 
many people had come to terms with his new shape that few people 
remembered it.
But with the change had come the key to a whole bundle of senses and 
racial memories. And one of the deepest, most fundamental, most borne-in-
the-bone of all of them was to do with shapes. It went back to the dawn of 
sapience. Shapes with muzzles, teeth and four legs were, in the evolving 
simian mind, definitely filed under Bad News.
A very large wolf had padded through the hole in the wall, followed by an 
attractive young woman. The Librarian's signal input was temporarily fused.
'Also,' said Windle, 'it is just possible that I could knot your arms behind 
you.'
'Eeek!'
'He's not an ordinary wolf. You'd better believe it.'
'Oook?'
Windle lowered his voice. 'And she might not technically be a woman,' he 
added.
The Librarian looked at Ludmilla. His nostrils flared again. His brow 
wrinkled.
'Oook ?'
'All right, I may have put that rather clumsily. Do let go, there's a good 
fellow.'
The Librarian released his grip very cautiously and sank to the floor, 
keeping Windle between himself and Lupine.
Windle brushed mortar fragments off the remains of his robe.
'We need to find out,' he said, 'about the lives of cities. Specifically, I need 
to know -'
There was a faint j angling noise.
A wire basket rolled nonchalantly around the massive stack of the nearest 
bookcase. It was full of books. It stopped as soon as it realised that it had 
been seen and contrived to look as though it had never moved at all.


185




'The mobile stage,' breathed Windle Poons.
The wire basket tried to inch backwards without appearing to move. 
Lupine growled.
'Is that what One-Man-Bucket was talking about?' said Ludmilla. The 
trolley vanished. The Librarian grunted, and went after it.
'Oh, yes. Something that would make itself useful,' said Windle, suddenly 
almost maniacally cheerful. 'That's how it'd work. First, something that you'd 
want to keep, and put away somewhere. Thousands wouldn't get the right 
conditions, but that wouldn't matter, because there would be thousands. And 
then the next stage would be something that would be handy, and get 
everywhere, and no-one would ever think it had got there by itself. But it's all 
happening at the wrong time!'
'But how can a city be alive? It's only made up of dead parts !' said 
Ludmilla.
'So're people. Take it from me. I know. But you are right, I think. This 
shouldn't be happening. It's all this extra life force. It's . . . it's tipping the 
balance. It's turning something that isn't really real into a reality. And it's 
happening too early, and it's happening too
'Oh, the poor thing! Look at him!'
Ludmilla rushed across the floor and knelt down by the stricken wolf.
'It went right over his paws, look!'
'And he's probably lost a couple of teeth,' said Windle. He helped the 
Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape's eyes. It had tried to steal his 
books.
This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the 
trolleys were brainless.
He reached down and wrenched the wheels off the trolley.
'Ole,' said Windle.
'Oook?'
'No, Not "with milk",' said Windle.
Lupine was having his head cradled in Ludmilla's lap. He had lost a tooth, 
and his fur was a mess. He opened one eye and fixed Windle with a 
conspiratorial yellow stare while ?ubis? ears were stroked. There's a lucky 
dog, thought Windle, who's going to push his luck and hold up a paw and 
whine.
'Right,' said Windle. 'Now, Librarian . . . you were about to help us, I think.'
'Poor brave dog,' said Ludmilla.
Lupine raised a paw pathetically, and whined.

Burdened by the screaming form of the Bursar, the other wire basket 
couldn't get up to the speed of its departed comrade. One wheel also trailed 
uselessly. It canted recklessly from side to side and nearly fell over as it shot 
through the gates, moving sideways.
'I can see it clear! I can see it clear!' screamed the Dean.
'Don't! You might hit the Bursar!' bellowed Ridcully. 'You might damage 
University property!'
But the Dean couldn't hear for the roar of unaccustomed testosterone. A 
searing green fireball struck the skewing trolley. The air was filled with flying 
wheels.


187




Ridcully took a deep breath.
'You stupid !' he screamed.
The word he uttered was unfamiliar to those wizards who had not had his 
robust country upbringing and knew nothing of the finer points of animal 
husbandry. But it plopped into existence a few inches from his face; it was 
fat, round, black and glossy, with horrible eyebrows. It blew him an insectile 
raspberry and flew up to join the little swarm of curses. 
'What the hell was that?'
A smaller thing flashed into existence by his ear.
Ridcully snatched at his hat.
'Damn!' - the swarm increased by one - 'Something just bit me!'
A squadron of newly-hatched Blasteds made a valiant bid for freedom. He 
swatted at them ineffectually.
'Get away, you b -' he began.
'Don't say it!' said the Senior Wrangler.'Shut up!'
People never told the Archchancellor to shut up. Shutting up was 
something that happened to other people. He shut up out of shock.
'I mean, every time you swear it comes alive,' said the Senior Wrangler 
hurriedly. 'Ghastly little winged things pop out of the air.'
'Bloody hellfire!' said the Archchancellor.
Pop. Pop.
The Bursar crawled dazed out of the tangled wreckage of the wire trolley. 
He found his pointy hat, dusted it off, tried it on, frowned, and took a wheel 
out of it. His colleagues didn't seem to be paying him much attention.
He heard the Archchancellor say, 'But I've always done it! Nothing wrong 
with a good swear, it keeps the blood flowing. Watch out, Dean, one of the 
bug -'
'Can't you say something else?' shouted the Senior Wrangler, above the 
buzz and whine of the swarm.
'Like what?'
'Like...oh...like...darn.'


188




'Darn?'
'Yes, or maybe poot.'
'What? You want me to say poot?'
The Bursar crept up to the group. Arguing over petty details at times of 
dimensional emergency was a familiar wizardly trait.
'Mrs Whitlow the housekeeper always says "Sugar !" ' when she drops 
something,' he volunteered.
The Archchancellor turned on him.
'She may say sugar,' he growled, 'but what she means, is shi-'
The wizards ducked. Ridcully managed to stop himself.
'Oh, darn,' he said miserably. The swearwords settled amiably on his hat.
'They like you,' said the Dean.
'You're their daddy,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Ridcully scowled.'You b- boys can stop being silly at your 
Archchancellor's expense and da-jolly well find out what's going on,' he 
said.
The wizards looked expectantly at the air. Nothing appeared.
'You're doing fine,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.'Keep it up.'
'Darn darn darn,' said the Archchancellor.'Sugar sugar sugar. Pooty 
pootity poot.' He shook his head.
'It's no good, it doesn't relieve my feelings one bit.'
'It's cleared the air, at any rate,' said the Bursar.
They noticed his presence for the first time.
They looked at the remains of the trolley.
'Things zooming around,' said Ridcully.'Things coming alive.'
They looked up at a suddenly familiar squeaking noise. Two more 
wheeled baskets rattled across the square outside the gates. One was full of 
fruit. The other was half full of fruit and half full of small screaming child.


189




The wizards watched open-mouthed. A stream of people were galloping 
after the trolleys. Slightly in the lead, elbows scything through the air, a 
desperate and determined woman pounded past the University gates.
The Archchancellor grabbed a heavy-set man who was lumbering along 
gamely at the back of the crowd.
'What happened?'
'I was just loading some peaches into that basket thing when it upped and 
ran away on me!'
'What about the child?'
'Search me. This woman had one of the baskets and she bought some 
peaches off of me an' then -'
They all turned. A basket rattled out of the mouth of an alleyway, saw 
them, turned smartly and shot off across the square.
'But why?' said Ridcully. 
'They're so handy to put things in, right?' said the man.'I got to get them 
peaches. You know how they bruise.'
'And they're all going in the same direction,' said the Lecturer in Recent 
Runes.'Anyone else notice that?'
'After them!' screamed the Dean. The other wizards, too bewildered to 
argue, lumbered after him.
'No -' Ridcully began, and realised that it was hopeless. And he was 
losing the initiative. He carefully formulated the most genteel battle cry in the 
history of bowdlerism.
'Darn them to Heck!' he yelled, and ran after the Dean.

Bill Door worked through the long heavy afternoon. at the head of a trail 
of binders and stackers.
Until there was a shout, and the men ran towards the hedge.
?lago? Peedbury's big field was right on the other side. His


190




farmhands were wheeling the Combination Harvester through the gate.
Bill joined the others leaning over the hedge. The distant figure of Simnel 
could be seen, giving instructions. A frightened horse was backed into the 
shafts. The blacksmith climbed into the little metal seat in the middle of the 
machinery and took up the reins.
The horse walked forward. The sparge arms unfolded.
The canvas sheets started to revolve, and probably the riffling screw was 
turning, but that didn't matter because something somewhere went 'clonk' 
and everything stopped.
From the crowd at the hedge there were shouts of 'Get out and milk it!', 
'We had one but the end fell off!', 'Tuppence more and up goes the donkey!' 
and other time-honoured witticisms.
Simnel got down, held a whispered conversation with Peedbury and his 
men, and then disappeared into the machinery for a moment.
'It'll never fly!'
'Veal will be cheap tomorrow!'
This time the Combination Harvester got several feet before one of the 
rotating sheets split and folded up.
By now some of the older men at the hedge were doubled up with 
laughter.
'Any old iron, sixpence a load!'
'Fetch the other one, this one's broke!'
Simnel got down again. Distant catcalls drifted towards him as he untied 
the sheet and replaced it with a new one; he ignored them.
Without moving his gaze from the scene in the opposite field, Bill Door 
pulled a sharpening stone out of his pocket  and began to hone his scythe, 
slowly and deliberately.
Apart from the distant clink of the blacksmith's tools, the schip-schip of 
stone on metal was the only sound in the heavy air.
Simnel climbed back into the Harvester and nodded to the man leading 
the horse.


191




'Here we go again!'
'Any more for the Skylark?'
'Put a sock in it . . .'
The cries trailed off.
Half a dozen pairs of eyes followed the Combination Harvester up the 
field, stared while it was turned around on the headland, watched it come 
back again.
It clicked past, reciprocating and oscillating. 
At the bottom of the field it turned around neatly. 
It whirred by again.
After a while one of the watchers said, gloomily, 'It'll never catch on, you 
mark my words.'
'Right enough. Who's going to want a gadget like that?' said another.
'Sure and it's only like a big clock. Can't do anything more than go up and 
down a field -'
'- very fast -'
'- cutting the corn like that and stripping the grain off -'
'lt's done three rows already.'
'Bugger me!' 
'You can't hardly see the bits move! What do you think of that, Bill? Bill?'
They looked around. 
He was halfway up his second row, but accelerating.

Miss Flitworth opened the door a fraction.
'Yes?' she said, suspiciously. 
'It's Bill Door, Miss FIitworth. We've brought him home.'
She opened the door wider.
'What happened to him?'
The two men shuffled in awkwardly, trying to support a figure a foot taller 
than they were. It raised its head and squinted muzzily at Miss Flitworth.
??? Duke Bottomley.
'He's a devil for working,' said Willi~ ???
'Don't know what come over him,' said'm Spigot. 'You're getting your 
money's worth out of him all right, Miss Flitworth.'
'It'll be the first time, then, in these parts,' she said sourly.


192




'Up and down the field like a madman, trying to better ?that? contraption 
of Ned Simnel's. Took four of us to do the ~inding. He nearly beat it, too.'
'Put him down on the sofa.'
'We tole him he was doing too much in all that sun -'
Duke craned his neck to see around the kitchen, just in case jewels and 
treasure were hanging out of the dresser drawers.
Miss FIitworth eclipsed his view.
'I'm sure you did. Thank you. Now I expect you'll be wanting to be off 
home.'
'lf there's anything we can do -'
'I know where you live. And you ain't paid no rent there for five years, too. 
Goodbye. Mr Spigot.'
She ushered them to the door and shut it in their faces, then she turned 
around.
'What the hell have you been doing, Mr So-Called Bill ?
I AM TIRED AND IT WON'T STOP.
Bill Door clutched at his skull.
ALSO SPIGOT GAVE ME A HUMOROUS APPLE JUICE FERMENTED 
DRINK BECAUSE OF THE HEAT AND NOW I FEEL ILL.
'I ain't surprised. He makes it up in the woods. Apples isn't the half of it.'
I HAVE NEVER FELT ILL BEFORE. OR TIRED.
'lt's all part of being alive.'
AND HOW DO HUMANS STAND IT?
'Well, fermented apple juice can help.'
Bill Door sat staring gloomily at the floor.
BUT WE FINISHED THE FIELD, he said, with a hint of triumph. ALL 
STACKED IN STOOKS, OR POSSIBLY THE OTHER-WAY AROUND.
He clutched at his skull again.
AARCH.
Miss Flitworth disappeared into the scullery. There was the creaking of a 
pump. She returned with a damp flannel and a glass of water.
THERE'S A NEWT IN IT!


193




'Shows it's fresh,' said Miss Flitworth,* fishing the amphibian out and 
releasing it on the flagstones, where it scuttled away into a crack.
Bill Door tried to stand up.
NOW I ALMOST KNOW WHY SOME PEOPLE WISH TO DIE. he said. I HAD 
HEARD OF PAIN AND MISERY BUT I HAD NOT HITHERTO FULLY 
UNDERSTOOD WHAT THEY MEANT.
Miss Flitworth peered through the dusty window. The clouds that had 
been piling up all afternoon towered over the hills, grey with a menacing hint 
of yellow. The heat pressed down like a vice.
'There's a big storm coming.'
WILL IT SPOIL MY HARVEST?
'No. It'll dry out after.'
HOW IS THE CHILD?
 Bill Door unfolded his palm. Miss Flitworth raised her eyebrows. The 
golden glass was there, the top bulb almost empty. But it simmered in and 
out of vision.
'How come you've got it? It's upstairs! She was holding it like,' - she 
floundered - 'like someone holds something very tightly.'
SHE STILL IS. BUT IT IS ALSO HERE. OR ANYWHERE. IT IS ONLY A 
METAPHOR. AFTER ALL.
'What she's holding looks real enough.'
JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING IS A METAPHOR DOESN'T MEAN IT CAN'T 
BE REAL.
Miss Flitworth was aware of a faint echo in the voice, as though the words 
were being spoken by two people almost, but not quite, in sync.
'How long have you got?'
A MATTER OF HOURS.
'And the scythe?'
I GAVE THE BLACKSMITH STRICT INSTRUCTIONS.

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  People have believed for hundreds of years that newts in a well mean 
that the water's fresh and drinkable, and in all that time never asked 
themselves whether the newts got out to go to the lavatory.


194




She frowned. 'I'm not saying young Simnel's a bad lad, but are you sure 
he'll do it? It's asking a lot of a man like him to destroy something like that.'
I HAD NO CHOICE. THE LITTLE FURNACE HERE ISN'T GOOD ?TOUGH?.
'It's a wicked sharp scythe.'
I FEAR IT MAY NOT BE SHARP ENOUGH.
'And no-one ever tried this on you?'
THERE IS A SAYING: YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU?
'Yes.'
HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE SERIOUSLY BELIEVED IT?
'I remember reading once,' said Miss Flitworth.'about these heathen kings 
in the desert somewhere who build huge pyramids and put all sorts of stuff 
in them. Even boats. ?~en? gels in transparent trousers and a couple of 
saucepan lids. You can't tell me that's right.'
I'VE NEVER BEEN VERY SURE ABOUT WHAT IS RIGHT, said Bill Door. I 
AM NOT SURE ?WHERE? IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST 
PLACES TO STAND.
'No, right's right and wrong's wrong,' said Miss FIitworth. 'I was brought 
up to tell the difference.'
BY A CONTRABANDISTOR.
'A what?'
A MOVER OF CONTRABAND.
'There's nothing wrong with smuggling!'
I MERELY POINT OUT THAT SOME PEOPLE THINK OTHERWISE.
'They don't count!'
BUT -
Lightning struck, somewhere on the hill. The thunder-clap rocked the 
house; a few bricks from the chimney rattled into the grate. Then the 
windows shook to a fierce ?~unding?.
Bill Door strode across the room and threw open the door.
Hailstones the size of hens' eggs bounced off the doorstep and into the 
kitchen.
OH. DRAMA.
'Oh. hell!'
Miss Flitworth ducked under his arm.


195




'And where's the wind come from?'
THE SKY? said Bill Door, surprised at the sudden excitement.
'Come on!' She whirled back into the kitchen and scrabbled on the 
dresser for a candle lantern and some matches.
BUT YOU SAID IT WOULD DRY.
'In a normal storm, yes. In this lot? It's going to be ruined! We'll find it 
spread all over the hill in the morning!'
She fumbled the candle alight and ran back again.
Bill Door looked out into the storm. Straws whirred past, tumbling on the 
gale.
RUINED? MY HARVEST? He straightened up. BUGGER THAT.

The hail rumbled on the roof of the smithy.
Ned Simnel pumped the furnace bellows until the heart of the coals was 
white with the merest hint of yellow.
It had been a good day. The Combination Harvester had worked better 
than he'd dared to hope; old Peedbury had insisted on keeping it to do 
another field tomorrow, so it had been left out with a tarpaulin over it, 
securely tied down. Tomorrow he could teach one of the men to use it, and 
start work on a new improved model. Success was assured. The future 
definitely lay ahead.
Then there was the matter of the scythe. He went to the wall where it had 
been hung. A bit of a mystery, that. Here was the most superb instrument of 
its kind he'd ever seen. You couldn't even blunt it. Its sharpness extended 
well beyond its actual edge. And yet he was supposed to destroy it. Where 
was the sense in that? Ned Simnel was a great believer in sense, of a certain 
specialised kind.
Maybe Bill Door just wanted to be rid of it. and that was understandable, 
because even now when it hung innocuously enough from the wall it seemed 
to radiate sharpness. There was a faint violet corona around the blade, 
caused by the draughts in the room driving luckless air molecules to their 
severed death.
Ned Simnel picked it up with great care.


196




Weird fellow, Bill Door. He'd said he wanted to be sure it was absolutely 
dead. As if you could kill a thing.
Anyway, how could anyone destroy it? Oh, the handle would burn and the 
metal would calcine and, if he worked hard enough, eventually there'd be 
nothing more than a little heap of dust and ashes. That was what the 
customer wanted.
On the other hand, presumably you could destroy it just by taking the 
blade off the handle . . . After all, it wouldn't be a scythe if you did that. It'd 
just be, well . . . bits. Certainly, you could make a scythe out of them, but you 
could probably do that with the dust and ashes if you knew how to do it. 
Ned Simnel was quite pleased with this line of argument.
And, after all. Bill Door hadn't even asked for proof that the thing had 
been. er, killed.
He took sight carefully and then used the scythe to chop the end off the 
anvil. Uncanny. Total sharpness.
He gave in. It was unfair. You couldn't ask someone like him to destroy 
something like this. It was a work of art.
It was better than that. It was a work of craft.
He walked across the room to a stack of timber and thrust the scythe well 
out of the way behind the heap. There was a brief, punctured squeak.
Anyway, it would be all right. He'd give Bill his farthing back in the 
morning.

The Death of Rats materialised behind the heap in the forge, and trudged 
to the sad little heap of fur that had been a rat that got in the way of the 
scythe.
Its ghost was standing beside it, looking apprehensive. It didn't seem very 
pleased to see him.
'Squeak? Squeak?'
SQUEAK. the Death of Rats explained.
'Squeak?'
SQUEAK, the Death of Rats confirmed.
'[Preen whiskers] [twitch nose]?'
The Death of Rats shook its head.


197




SQUEAK.
The rat was crestfallen. The Death of Rats laid a bony but not entirely 
unkind paw on its shoulder.
Squeak.
Tile rat nodded sadly. It had been a good life in the forge. Ned's 
housekeeping was almost non-existent, and he was probably the world 
champion absent-minded-leaver of unfinished sandwiches. It shrugged, and 
trooped after the small robed figure. It wasn't as if it had any choice.
People were streaming through the streets. Most of them were chasing 
trolleys. Most of the trolleys were full of whatever people had found a trolley 
useful to carry - firewood, children, shopping.
And they were no longer dodging, but moving blindly, all in the same 
direction.
You could stop a trolley by turning it over, when its wheels spun madly 
and uselessly. The wizards saw a number of enthusiastic individuals trying 
to smash them, but the trolleys were practically indestructible - they bent but 
didn't break, and if they had even one wheel left they'd make a valiant 
attempt to keep going.
'Look at that one!' said the Archchancellor. 'It's got my laundry in it! My 
actual laundry! Darn that for a lark!'
He pushed his way through the crowds and rammed his staff into the 
trolley's wheels, toppling it over.
'We can't get a clear shot at anything with all these civilians around,' 
complained the Dean.
'There's hundreds of trolleys!' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'It's just 
like vermine! * Get away from me, you - you basket!'

_______________________________________________________________
_
*  Vermine are small black-and-white rodents found in the Ramtop 
Mountains. They are ancestors of the lemming, which as is well known 
throws itself over cliffs and drowns in lakes on a regular basis. Vermine used 
to do that, too. The point is, though, that dead animals don't breed, and over 
the 


198




He flailed at an importunate trolley with his staff. 
The tide of wheeled baskets was flowing out of the city. The struggling 
humans gradually dropped out or fell under the wobbling wheels. Only the 
wizards stayed in the flowing tide, shouting at one another and attacking the 
silvery swarm with their staves. It wasn't that magic didn't work. It worked 
quite well.
A good zap could turn a trolley into a thousand intricate little wire puzzles. 
But what good did that do? A moment later two others would trundle over 
their stricken sibling.
Around the Dean trolleys were being splashed into metal droplets.
'He's really getting the hang of it, isn't he?' said the Senior Wrangler, as 
he and the Bursar levered yet another basket on to its back.
'He's certainly saying Yo a lot, ' said the Bursar.
The Dean himself didn't know when he'd been happier. For sixty years 
he'd been obeying all the self-regulating rules of wizardry, and suddenly he 
was having the time of his life. He'd never realised that, deep down inside, 
what he really wanted to do was make things go splat.
Fire leapt from the tip of his staff. Handles and bits of wire and 
pathetically spinning wheels tinkled down around him. And what made it 
even better was that there was no end to the targets. A second wave of 
trolleys, crammed into a tighter space, was trying to advance over the tops 
of those still in actual contact with the ground. It wasn't working, but they 
were trying anyway. And trying desperately, because a

_______________________________________________________________
_________
millennia more and more vermine were descendants of those vermine 
who, when faced with a cliff edge, squeaked the rodent equivalent of Blow 
that for a Game of Soldiers. Vermine now abseil down cliffs, and build small 
boats to cross lakes. When their rush leads them to the seashore they sit 
around avoiding one another's gaze for a while, and then leave early to get 
home before the rush.


199




third wave was already crunching and smashing its way over the top of 
them. Except that you couldn't use the word "trying". It suggested some sort 
of conscious effort, some sort of possibility that there might also be a state 
of 'not trying'. Something about the relentless movement, the way they 
crushed one another in their surge, suggested that the wire baskets had as 
much choice in the matter as water has about flowing downhill.
'Yo!' shouted the Dean. Raw magic smacked into the grinding tangle of 
metal. It rained wheels.
'Eat hot thaumaturgy, you m-,' the Dean began.
'Don't swear! Don't swear!' shouted Ridcully above the noise. He tried to 
swat a Silly Bugger that was orbiting his hat.'There's no telling what it might 
turn into!'
'Bother!' screamed the Dean.
'It's no good. We might as well be trying to hold back the sea,' said the 
Senior Wrangler. 'I vote we head back to the University and pick up some 
really tough spells.'
'Good idea,' said Ridcully. He looked up at the advancing wall of twisted 
wire. 'Any idea how?' he said.
'Yo! Scallywags!' said the Dean. He aimed his staff again. It made a sad 
little noise that, if it was written down, could only be spelled pfffft. A feeble 
spark fell off the end and on to the cobbles.

Windle Poons slammed another book shut. The Librarian winced.
'Nothing! Volcanoes, tidal waves, wrath of gods, meddling wizards . . . I 
don't want to know how other cities have been killed, I want to know how 
they ended . . .'
The Librarian stacked another pile of books on the reading desk. Another 
plus about being dead, Windle was finding, was an ability with languages. He 
could


200




see the sense in the words without knowing the actual meaning. Being 
dead wasn't like falling asleep after all. It was like waking up.
He glanced across the Library to where Lupine was having his paw 
bandaged.
'Librarian?' he said softly.
'Oook?'
'You've changed species in your time . . . what would you do if, for the 
sake of argument, you found a couple of people who . . . well, suppose there 
was a wolf that changed into a wolfman at the full moon, and a woman that 
changed into a wolfwoman at the full moon . . . you know, approaching the 
same shape but from opposite directions? And they'd met. What do you tell 
them? Do you let them sort it out for themselves?'
'Oook, ' said the Librarian, instantly.
'It's tempting.'
'Oook.'
'Mrs Cake wouldn't like it, though.'
'Eeek oook.'
'You're right. You could have put it a little less coarsely, but you're right. 
Everyone has to sort things out for themselves.'
He sighed, and turned the page. His eyes widened.
'The city of Kahn Li,' he said. 'Ever heard of it? What's this book? 
"Stripfettle's Believe-It-Or-Not Grimoire." Says here . . . "little carts . . . none 
knew from where they came . . . of such great use, men were employed to 
herd them and bring them into the city . . . of a sudden, like unto a rush of 
creatures . . . men followed them and behold, there was a new city outside 
the walls, a city as of merchants' booths wherein the carts ran" . . .'
He turned the page.
'It seems to say . . .'
I still haven't understood it properly, he told himself. One-Man-Bucket 
thinks we're talking


201




about the breeding of cities. But that doesn't feel right.
A city is alive. Supposing you were a great slow giant, like a Counting 
Pine, and looked down at a city?
You'd see buildings grow; you'd see attackers driven off; you'd see fires 
put out. You'd see the city was alive but you wouldn't see people, because 
they'd move too fast. The life of a city, the thing that drives it, isn't some sort 
of mysterious force. The life of a city is people.
He turned the pages absently, not really looking . . .
So we have the cities - big, sedentary creatures, growing from one spot 
and hardly moving at all for thousands of years. They breed by sending out 
people to colonise new land. They themselves just lie there. They're alive, 
but only in the same way that a jelly fish is alive. Or a fairly bright vegetable. 
After all, we call Ankh-Morpork the Big Wahooni . . .
And where you get big slow living things, you get small fast things that 
eat them . . .
Windle Poons felt the brain cells firing. Connections were made. Thought 
gushed along new channels. Had he ever really thought properly when he 
was alive? He doubted it. He'd just been a lot of complicated reactions 
attached to a lot of nerve endings, with everything from idle rumination about 
the next meal to random, distracting memories getting between him and real 
thought.
It'd grow inside the city, where it's warm and protected. And then it'd 
break out, outside the city, and build . . . something, not a real city, a false 
city . . . that pulls the people, the life, out of the host . . .
The word we're looking for here is predator.

The Dean stared at his staff in disbelief. He gave it a shake, and aimed it 
again.
This time the sound would be spelled pfwt.
He looked up. A curling wave of trolleys, rooftop high, was poised to fall 
on him.


202




'Oh . . . shucks,' he said, and folded his arms over his head.
Someone grabbed the back of his robe and pulled him away as the 
trolleys crashed down.
'Come on,' said Ridcully. 'If we run we can keep ahead of 'em.'
'I'm out of magic! I'm out of magic!' moaned the Dean.
'You'll be out of a lot more if you don't hurry, ' said the Archchancellor.
Trying to keep together, bumping into one another, the wizards staggered 
ahead of the trolleys. Streams of them were surging out of the city and 
across the fields.
'Know what this reminds me of?' said Ridcully, as they fought their way 
through.
'Do tell, ' muttered the Senior Wrangler.
'Salmon run, ' said the Archchancellor.
'What?' 
'Not in the Ankh, of course,' said Ridcully.'I don't reckon a salmon could 
get upstream in our river - '
'Unless it walked,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'- but I've seen 'em thick as milk in some rivers,' said Ridcully. 'Fightin ' to 
get ahead. The whole river just a mass of silver.'
'Fine, fine,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'What'd they do that for?'
'Well . . . it's all to do with breeding.'
'Disgusting. And to think we have to drink water,' said the Senior 
Wrangler.
'Right, we're in the open now, this is where we out-flank 'em,' said 
Ridcully. 'We'll just aim for a clear space and - '
'I don't think so,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
Every direction was filled with an advancing, grinding, fighting wall of 
trolleys.
'They're coming to get us ! They're coming to get us !' wailed the Bursar. 
The Dean snatched his staff.
'Hey, that's mine!'


203




The Dean pushed him away and blew off the wheels of a leading trolley.
'That's my staff!'
The wizards stood back to back in a narrowing ring of metal.
'They're not right for this city, ' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'I know what you mean, ' said Ridcully. 'Alien.'
'I suppose no-one's got a flying spell on them today?' the Senior Wrangler 
enquired.
The Dean took aim again and melted a basket.
'That's my staff you're using, you know.'
'Shut up, Bursar,' said the Archchancellor. 'And, Dean, you're getting 
nowhere picking them off one by one like that. OK, lads? We want to do them 
all as much damage as possible. Remember - wild, uncontrolled bursts . . .'
The trolleys advanced. 

Ow. Ow. 
Miss Flitworth staggered through the wet, rattling gloom. Hailstones 
crunched underfoot. Thunder cannonaded around the sky.
'They sting, don't they,' she said.
THEY ECHO.
Bill Door fielded a stook as it was blown past, and stacked it with the 
others. Miss Flitworth scuttled past him, bent double under a load of corn.* 
The two of them worked steadily, crisscrossing the field in the teeth of the 
storm to snatch up the harvest before the wind and hail stole it away. 
Lightning flickered around the sky. It wasn't a normal storm. It was war.

_______________________________________________________________
*  The ability of skinny old ladies to carry huge loads is phenomenal. 
Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, 
but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-
year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.


204




'It's going to pour with rain in a minute.' screamed Miss Flitworth, above 
the noise. 'We'll never get it down to the barn! Go and fetch a tarpaulin or 
something! That'll do for tonight!'
Bill Door nodded, and ran through the squelching darkness towards the 
farm buildings. Lightning was striking so many times around the fields that 
the air itself was sizzling, and a corona danced along the top of the hedge.
And there was Death.
He saw it looming ahead of him, a crouched skeletal shape poised to 
spring, its robe flapping and rattling behind it in the wind.
Tightness gripped him, trying to force him to run while at the same time 
rooting him to the spot. It invaded his mind and froze there, blocking all 
thought save for the innermost, tiny voice which said, quite calmly: SO THlS 
IS TERROR.
Then Death vanished as the lightning glow faded, reappeared as a 
?fres~~~rc? was struck on the next hill.
Then the quiet, internal voice added: BUT WHY DOESN'T IT MOVE?
Bill Door let himself inch forward slightly. There was no response from 
the hunched thing.
Then it dawned on him that the thing on the other side of the hedge was 
only a robed assemblage of ribs and femurs and vertebrae if viewed from 
one point of view but, if looked at slightly differently, was equally just a 
complexity of sparging arms and reciprocating levers that had been covered 
by a tarpaulin which was now blowing off.
The Combination Harvester was in front of him.
Bill Door grinned horribly. Un-Bill Door thoughts rose up in his mind. He 
stepped forward.

The wall of trolleys surrounded the wizards.
The last flare from a staff melted a hole, which was instantly filled up by 
more trolleys.
Ridcully turned to his fellow wizards. They were red in the face, their 
robes were torn, and several over-


205




enthusiastic shots had resulted in singed beards and burnt hats.
'Hasn't anyone got any more spells on them?' he said.
They thought feverishly.
'I think I can remember one,' said the Bursar hesitantly.
'Go on, man. Anything's worth trying at a time like this.'
The Bursar stretched out a hand. He shut his eyes. He muttered a few 
syllables under his breath.
There was a brief flicker of octarine light and -
'Oh, ' said the Archchancellor. 'And that's all of it?'
' "Eringyas' Surprising Bouquet",' said the Bursar, bright eyed and 
twitching. 'I don't know why, but it's one I've always been able to do. Just a 
knack, I suppose.'
Ridcully eyed the huge bunch of flowers now gripped in the Bursar's fist.
'But not, I venture to point out, entirely useful at this time,' he added.
The Bursar looked at the approaching walls and his smile faded.
'I suppose not,' he said.
'Anyone else got any ideas?' said Ridcully.
There was no reply.
'Nice roses, though,' said the Dean.

'That was quick,' said Miss Flitworth, when Bill Door arrived at the pile of 
stooks dragging a tarpaulin behind him.
YES, WASN'T IT, he mumbled noncommittally, as she helped him drag it 
over the stack and weigh it down with stones. The wind caught at it and tried 
to drag it out of his hands; it might as well have tried to blow a mountain 
over.
Rain swept over the fields, among shreds of mist that shimmered with 
blue electric energies.


206




'Never known a night like it,' Miss Flitworth said.
There was another crack of thunder. Sheet lightning fluttered around the 
horizon.
Miss Flitworth clutched Bill Door's arm.
'Isn't that . . . a figure on the hill?' she said. 'Thought I saw a...shape.'
NO, IT'S MERELY A MECHANICAL CONTRIVANCE.
There was another flash.
'On a horse?' said Miss Flitworth.
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 towards Miss Flitworth. POSING. I NEVER DID 
ANYTHING LIKE THAT. WHY DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT? WHAT PURPOSE 
DOES IT SERVE?
He opened his palm. The gold timer appeared.
'How much longer have you got?'
PERHAPS AN HOUR. PERHAPS MINUTES.
'Come on, then!'
Bill Door remained where he was, looking at the timer.
'I said, come on!'
IT WON'T WORK. I WAS WRONG TO THINK THAT IT WOULD. BUT IT 
WON'T. THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT YOU CANNOT ESCAPE. YOU 
CANNOT LIVE FOR EVER.
'Why not?'
Bill Door looked shocked. WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
'Why can't you live for ever?'
I DON'T KNOW. COSMIC WISDOM?
'What does cosmic wisdom know about it? Now, will you come on?'
The figure on the hill hadn't moved.
The rain had turned the dust into a fine mud. They slithered down the 
slope and hurried across the yard and into the house.
I SHOULD HAVE PREPARED MORE. I HAD PLANS -
'But there was the harvest.'
YES.


207




'Is there any way we can barricade the doors or something?'
DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?
'Well, think of something! Didn't anything ever work against you?'
NO, said Bill Door. with a tiny touch of pride.
Miss Flitworth peered out of the window, and then flung herself 
dramatically against the wall on one side of it.
'He's gone!'
IT, said Bill Door. IT WON'T BE A HE YET.
'It's gone. It could be anywhere.'
IT CAN COME THROUGH THE WALL.
She darted forward, and then glared at him.
VERY WELL. FETCH THE CHILD. I THINK WE SHOULD LEAVE HERE. A 
thought struck him. He brightened up a little bit.
WE DO HAVE SOME TIME. WHAT IS THE HOUR?
'I don't know. You go around stopping the clocks the whole time.'
BUT IT IS NOT YET MIDNIGHT?
'I shouldn't think it's more than a quarter past eleven.'
THEN WE HAVE THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR.
'How can you be sure?'
BECAUSE OF DRAMA, MISS FLITWORTH. THE KIND OF DEATH WHO 
POSES AGAINST THE SKYLINE AND GETS LIT UP BY LIGHTNING FLASHES, 
said Bill Door, disapprovingly, DOESN'T TURN UP AT FIVE. AND-TWENTY 
PAST ELEVEN IF HE CAN POSSIBLY TURN UP AT MIDNIGHT.
She nodded, white-faced, and disappeared upstairs. After a minute or two 
she returned, with Sal wrapped up in a blanket.
'Still fast asleep,' she said.
THAT'S NOT SLEEP.
The rain had stopped, but the storm still marched around the hills. The air 
sizzled, still seemed oven-hot.
Bill Door led the way past the henhouse, where Cyril and his elderly harem 
were crouched back in the darkness, all trying to occupy the same few 
inches of perch.


208




There was a pale green glow hovering around the farmhouse chimney.
'We call that Mother Carey's Fire,' said Miss Flitworth. 'It's an omen.'
AN OMEN OF WHAT?
'What? Oh, don't ask me. Just an omen, I suppose. Just basic omenery. 
Where are we going?'
INTO THE TOWN.
'To be near the scythe?'
YES.
He disappeared into the barn. After a while he came out leading Binky, 
saddled and harnessed. He mounted up, then leaned down and pulled both 
her and the sleeping child on to the horse in front of him.
IF I'M WRONG, he added, THIS HORSE WILL TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU 
WANT TO GO.
'I shan't want to go anywhere except back home!'
WHEREVER. 
Binky broke into a trot as they turned on to the road to the town. Wind 
blew the leaves off the trees, which tumbled past them and on up the road. 
The occasional flash of lightning still hissed across the sky.
Miss Flitworth looked at the hill beyond the farm.
I KNOW.
'- it's there again -'
I KNOW.
'Why isn't it chasing us?'
WE'RE SAFE UNTIL THE SAND RUNS OUT.
'And you die when the sand runs out?'
NO. WHEN THE SAND RUNS OUT IS WHEN I SHOULD DIE. I WILL BE IN 
THE SPACE BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTERLIFE.
'Bill, it looked as though the thing it was riding . . . I thought it was a 
proper horse, just very skinny, but . . .'
IT'S A SKELETAL STEED. IMPRESSIVE BUT IMPRACTICAL. I HAD ONE 
ONCE BUT THE HEAD FELL OFF.
'A bit like flogging a dead horse, I should think.'
HA. HA. MOST AMUSING, MISS FLITWORTH.


209




'I think that at a time like this you can stop calling me Miss Flitworth,' said 
Miss Flitworth.
RENATA?
She looked startled. 'How did you know my name? Oh. You've probably 
seen it written down, right?'
ENGRAVED.
'On one of them hourglasses?'
YES.
'With all them sands of time pouring through?'
YES.
'Everyone's got one?'
YES.
'So you know how long I've -'
YES.
'It must be very odd, knowing . . . the kind of things you know . . .'
DO NOT ASK ME.
'That's not fair, you know. If we knew when we were going to die, people 
would live better lives.'
IF PEOPLE KNEW WHEN THEY WERE GOING TO DIE, I THINK THEY 
PROBABLY WOULDN'T LIVE AT ALL.
'Oh, very gnomic. And what do you know about it, Bill Door?'
EVERYTHING.
Binky trotted up one of the town's meagre handful of streets and over the 
cobbles of the square. There was no-one else around. In cities like Ankh-
Morpork midnight was just late evening, because there was no civic night at 
all, just evenings fading into dawns. But here people regulated their lives by 
things like sunsets and mispronounced cockcrows. Midnight meant what it 
said.
Even with the storm stalking the hills, the square itself was hushed. The 
ticking of the clock in its tower, unnoticeable at midday, now seemed to echo 
off the buildings.
As they approached, something whirred deep in its cogwheeled innards. 
The minute hand moved with a clonk, and shuddered to a halt on the 9. A 
trapdoor opened in the clock face and two little mechanical figures whirred


210




out self-importantly and tapped a small bell with great apparent effort.
Ting-ting-ling.
The figures lined up and wobbled back into the clock.

'They've been there ever since I was a girl. Mr Simnel's great-great-
grandad made them,' said Miss Flitworth. 'l always wondered what they did 
between chimes, you know. I thought they had a little house in there, or 
something.'
I DON'T THINK SO. THEY'RE JUST A THING. THEY'RE NOT ALIVE.
'Hmm. Well, they've been there for hundreds of years. Maybe life is 
something you sort of acquire?'
YES.
They waited in silence, except for the occasional thud as the minute hand 
climbed the night.
'It's been quite nice having you around the place, Bill Door.'
He didn't reply. 
'Helping me with the harvest and everything.'
IT WAS . . . INTERESTING.
'It was wrong of me to delay you, just for a lot of corn.'
NO. THE HARVEST IS IMPORTANT.
Bill Door unfolded his palm. The timer appeared.
'I still can't work out how you do that.'
IT IS NOT DIFFICULT.
The hiss of the sand grew until it filled the square.
'Have you got any last words?'
YES. I DON'T WANT TO GO.
'Well. Succinct, anyway.'
Bill Door was amazed to find she was trying to hold his hand.
Above him. the hands of midnight came together. There was a whirring 
from the clock. The door opened. The automata marched out. They clicked to 
a halt on either side of the hour bell, bowed to one another, and raised their 
hammers.
Dong.


211




And then there was the sound of a horse trotting.
Miss Flitworth found the edge of her vision filling with purple and blue 
blotches, like the flashes of after-image with no image to come after.
If she jerked her head quickly and peered out of the tail of her eye, she 
could see small greyclad shapes hovering around the walls.
The Revenooers, she thought. They've come to make sure it all happens.
'Bill?' she said.
He closed his palm over the gold timer.
NOW IT STARTS.
The hoofbeats grew louder, and echoed off the buildings behind them.
REMEMBER: YOU ARE IN NO DANGER.
Bill Door stepped back into the gloom.
Then he reappeared momentarily.
PROBABLY, he added, and retreated into the darkness.
Miss Flitworth sat down on the steps of the clock, cradling the body of the 
girl across her knees.
'Bill?' she ventured.
A mounted figure rode into the square.
It was, indeed. on a skeletal horse. Blue flame crackled over the creature's 
bones as it trotted forward; Miss Flitworth found herself wondering whether 
it was a real skeleton, animated in some way, something that had once been 
the inside of a horse, or a skeletal creature in its own right. It was a 
ridiculous chain of thought to follow, but it was better than dwelling on the 
ghastly reality that was approaching.
Did it get rubbed down, or just given a good polish?
Its rider dismounted. It was much taller than Bill Door had been, but the 
darkness of its robe hid any details; It held something that wasn't exactly a 
scythe but which might have had a scythe in its ancestry. in the same way 
that even the most cunningly-fashioned surgical implement has a stick 
somewhere in its past. It was a long way from any implement that ever 
touched a straw.
The figure stalked towards Miss Flitworth, scythe


212




over its shoulder, and stopped.
Where is He?
'Don't know who you're talking about,' said Miss Flitworth. 'And if I was 
you, young man, I'd feed my horse.'
The figure appeared to have trouble digesting this information, but finally 
it seemed to reach a conclusion. It unshipped the scythe and looked down at 
the child.
I will find Him, it said. But first -
It stiffened.
A voice behind it said:
DROP THE SCYTHE. AND TURN AROUND SLOWLY.

Something within the city, Windle thought. Cities grow up full of people, 
but they're also full of commerce and shops and religions and . . .
This is stupid, he told himself. They're just things. They're not alive.
Maybe life is something you acquire.
Parasites and predators, but not like the sort affecting animals and 
vegetables. They were some kind of big, slower, metaphorical lifeform, living 
off cities. 
But they incubate in the cities, like those, what are they? those icky 
newman wasp things. He could remember now, just as he could remember 
everything, reading as a student about creatures that laid their eggs inside 
other creatures. For months after he'd refused omelettes and caviar, just in 
case.
And the eggs would . . . look like the city, in a way, so that citizens would 
carry them home. Like cuckoo eggs.
I wonder how many cities died in the past? Ringed by parasites, like a 
coral reef surrounded by starfish. 
They'd just become empty, they'd lose whatever spirit they had.
He stood up.
'Where's everyone gone, Librarian?'
'Oook oook.'
'Just like them. I'd have done that. Rush off without thinking. May the 
gods bless them and help them, if


213




they can find the time from their eternal family squabbles.'
And then he thought: well, what now? I've thought, and what am I going to 
do? Rush off, of course. But slowly.

The centre of the heap of trolleys was no longer visible. Something was 
going on. A pale blue glow hung over the huge pyramid of twisted metal, and 
there were occasional flashes of lightning deep within the pile. Trolleys 
slammed into it like asteroids accreting around the core of a new planet, but 
a few arrivals did something else. They headed for tunnels that had opened 
within the structure, and disappeared into the glittering core.
Then there was a movement at the tip of the mountain and something 
thrust its way up through the broken metal. Et, was a glistening spike, 
supporting a globe about two metres across. It did nothing very much for a 
minute or two and then, as the breeze dried it out, it split and crumbled.
White objects cascaded out, were caught by the wind, and fountained 
over Ankh-Morpork and the watching crowds.
One of them zig-zagged gently down across the rooftops and landed at 
the feet of Windle Poons as he lurched outside the Library.
It was still damp, and there was writing on it. At least, an attempt at 
writing. It looked like the strange organic inscription of the snowflake balls - 
words created by something that was not at all at home with words:

So\le   S~l~ I I  solre !~~
d        b,
S~Q~--%S to/70rro~*-,


214




Windle reached the University gateway. People were streaming past.
Windle knew his fellow citizens. They'd go to look at anything. They were 
suckers for anything written down with more than one exclamation mark 
after it.
He felt someone looking at him, and turned. A trolley was watching from 
an alleyway; it backed up and whizzed away.
'What's happening, Mr Poons?' said Ludmilla.
There was something unreal about the expression of the passers-by. They 
wore an expression of unbudgeable anticipation.
You didn't have to be a wizard to know that something was wrong. And 
Windle's senses were whining like a dynamo.
Lupine leapt at a drifting sheet of paper and brought it to him.

~\M,..i\09  recloctio~s ir)~l
J             ~ooo, 

Windle shook his head sadly. Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an 
insane mind.
And then he heard the music.
Lupine sat back on his haunches and howled.

In the cellar under Mrs Cake's house, Schleppel the bogeyman paused 
halfway through his third rat and listened.
Then he finished his meal and reached for his door.

Count Arthur Winkings Notfaroutoe was working on the crypt.
Personally, he could have lived, or re-lived, or un-lived, or whatever it was 
he was supposed to be doing, without a crypt. But you had to have a crypt. 
Doreen


215




had been very definite about the crypt. It gave the place ton, she said. You 
had to have a crypt anal a vault, otherwise the rest of vampire society would 
look down their teeth at you.
They never told you about that sort of thing when you started vampiring. 
They never told you to build your own crypt out of some cheap two-by-four 
from Challry the Troll's Wholesale Building Supplies. It wasn't something 
that happened to most vampires, Arthur reflected. Not your proper vampires. 
Your actual Count Jugular, for example. No, a toff like him'd have someone 
for it. When the villagers came to burn the place down, you wouldn't catch 
the Count his own self whipping down to the gate to drop the draw-bridge. 
Oh, no. He'd just say, 'Igor' - as it might be - 'Igor, just svort it out, chop 
chop'.
Huh. Well, they'd had an advert in Mr Keeble's job shop for months now. 
Bed, three meals a day, and hump provided if necessary. Not so much as an 
enquiry. And people said there was all this unemployment around. It made 
you livid.
He picked up another piece of wood and measured it, grimacing as he 
unfolded the ruler.
Arthur's back ached from digging the moat. And that was another thing 
your posh vampire didn't have to worry about. The moat came with the job, 
style of thing. And it went all the way round, because other vampires didn't 
have the street out in front of them and old Mrs Pivey complaining on one 
side and a family of trolls Doreen wasn't speaking to on the other and 
therefore they didn't end up with a moat that just went across the back yard. 
Arthur kept falling in it.
And then there was the biting the necks of young women. Or rather, there 
wasn't. Arthur was always prepared to see the other person's point of view, 
but he felt certain that young women came into the vampiring somewhere, 
whatever Doreen said. In


216




diaphanous pegnoyers. Arthur wasn't quite certain what a diaphanous 
pegnoyer was, but he'd read about them and he definitely felt that he'd like to 
see one before he died . . . or whatever . . .
And other vampires didn't suddenly find their wives talking with Vs 
instead of Ws. The reason being, your natural vampire talked like that 
anyway.
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.
And then the music filtered in through the hole in the wall that he'd 
knocked out to put in the barred window.
'Ow,' he said, and clutched at his jaw. 'Doreen?'

Reg Shoe thumped his portable podium.
'- and, let me see, we shall not lie back and let the grass grow over our 
heads,' he bellowed.'So what is your seven-point plan for Equal 
Opportunities with the living, I hear you cry?'
The wind blew the dried grasses in the cemetery.
The only creature apparently paying any attention to Reg was a solitary 
raven.
Reg Shoe shrugged and lowered his voice. 'You might at least make some 
effort,' he said, to the next world at large.'Here's me wearing my fingers to 
the bone' - he flexed his hands to demonstrate - 'and do I hear a word of 
thanks?'
He paused, just in case.
The raven, which was one of the extra large, fat ones that infested the 
rooftops of the University, put its head on one side and gave Reg Shoe a 
thoughtful look.
'You know,' said Reg, 'sometimes I just feel like giving up -'
The raven cleared its throat.
Reg Shoe spun around.
'You say one word, ' he said, 'just one bloody word . . .'


217




And then he heard the music.

Ludmilla risked removing her hands from her ears.
'It's horrible! What is it, Mr Poons?'
Windle tried to pull the remains of his hat over his ears.
'Don't know,' he said. 'It could be music. If you'd never heard music 
before.'
There weren't notes. There were strung-together noises that might have 
been intended to be notes, put together as one might draw a map of a 
country that one had never seen.
Hnyip. Ynyip. Hulyomp.
'It's coming from outside the city,' said Ludmilla. 'Where all the people . . . 
are . . . going . . . They can't like it, can they?'
'I can't imagine why they should,' said Windle.
'It's just that, . . you remember the trouble with the rats last year? That 
man who said he had a pipe that played music only rats could hear?'
'Yes, but that wasn't really true, it was all a fraud, it was just the Amazing 
Maurice and his Educated Rodents -'
'But supposing it could have been true?'
Windle shook his head.
'Music to attract humans? Is that what you're getting at? But that can't be 
true. It's not attracting us. Quite the reverse, I assure you.'
'Yes, but you're not human . . . exactly,' said Ludmilla.'And -' She stopped, 
and went red in the face.
Windle patted her on the shoulder.
'Good point. Good point,' was all he could think of to say.
'You know, don't you,' she said, without looking up.
'Yes. I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of, if that's any help.'


218




Mother said it would be dreadful if anyone ever found out!'
'That probably depends on who it is,' said Windle, glancing at Lupine.
'Why is your dog staring at me like that?' said Ludmilla.
'He's very intelligent,' said Windle.
Windle felt in his pocket, tipped out a couple of handfuls of soil, and 
unearthed his diary. Twenty days to next full moon. Still, it'd be something to 
look forward to.

The metal debris of the heap started to collapse. Trolleys whirred around 
it, and a large crowd of Ankh-Morpork's citizens were standing in a big circle, 
trying to peer inside. The unmusical music filled the ???
'There's Mr Dibbler,' said Ludmilla, as they pushed their way through the 
unresisting people.
'What's he selling this time?'
'I don't think he's trying to sell anything, Mr Poons.'
'It's that bad? Then we're probably in lots of trouble.'
Blue light shone out from one of the holes in the heap. Bits of broken 
trolley tinkled to the ground like metal leaves.
Windle bent down stiffly and picked up a pointy hat. It was battered and 
had been run over by a lot of trolleys, but it was still recognisable as 
something that by rights should be on someone's head.
'There's wizards in there,' he said.
Silver light glittered off the metal. It moved like oil.
Windle reached out and a fat spark jumped across and grounded itself on 
his fingers.
'Hmm,' he said. 'Lot of potential, too -'
Then he heard the cry of the vampires.
'Coo-ee, Mr Poons!'


219




He turned. The Notfaroutoes were bearing down on him.
'We - I mean, Ve vould have been here sooner, only -'
'- I couldn't find the blasted collar stud,' muttered Arthur, looking hot and 
flustered. He was wearing a collapsible opera hat, which was fine on the 
collapsible part but regrettably lacking in hatness, so that Arthur appeared to 
be looking at the world from under a concertina.
'Oh, hallo,' said Windle. There was something dreadfully fascinating 
about the Winkings' dedication to accurate vampirism.
'Unt who iss the yunk laty?' said Doreen, beaming at Ludmilla.
'Pardon?' said Windle.
'Vot?'
'Doreen - I mean, the Countess asked who she is,' Arthur supplied, 
wearily.
'I understood what I said,' snapped Doreen, in the more normal tones of 
one bon and brought up in Ankh-Morpork rather than some tran-sylvanian 
fastness.'Honestly, if I left it to you, we'd have no standards at all -'
'My name's Ludmilla, ' said Ludmilla.
'Charmed,' said the Countess  Notfaroutoe graciously, extending a hand 
that would have been thin and pale if it had not been pink and stubby. 
'Alvays nice to meet fresh blood. If you ever fancy a dog biscuit when you're 
out and about, our door iss alwace open.'
Ludmilla turned to Windle Poons.
'It's not written on my forehead, is it?' she said.
'These are a special kind of people.' said Windle gently.
'I should think so,' said Ludmilla, levelly. 'I hardly know anyone who wears 
an opera cloak the whole time.'


220




'You've got to have the cloak,' said Count Arthur. 'For the wings, you see. 
Like -'
He spread the cloak dramatically. There was a brief, implosive noise, and 
a small fat bat hung in the air. It looked down, gave an angry squeak, and 
nosedived on to the soil. Doreen picked it up by its feet and dusted it off.
'It's having to sleep with the window open all night that I object to,' she 
said vaguely. 'I wish they'd stop that music! I 'm getting a headache.'
There was another whoomph. Arthur reappeared upside down and landed 
on his head.
'It's the drop, you see,' said Doreen. 'It's like a run-up, sort of thing. If he 
doesn't get at least a onestorey start he can't get up a proper airspeed.'
'I can't get a proper airspeed,' said Arthur, struggling to his feet.
'Excuse me, ' said Windle, 'The music doesn't affect you?'
'It puts my teeth on edge is what it does,' said Arthur.'Which is not a good 
thing for a vampire, I prob'ly don't have to tell you.'
'Mr Poons thinks it does something to people, ' said Ludmilla.
'Sets everyone's teeth on edge?' said Arthur.
Windle looked at the crowd. No-one was taking any notice of the Fresh 
Starters.
'They look as though they're waiting for something,' said Doreen. 'Vaiting, 
I mean.'
'It's scary, ' said Ludmilla.
'Nothing wrong with scary,' said Doreen.'We're scary.'
'Mr Poons wants to go inside the heap,' said Ludmilla.
'Good idea. Get them to turn that damn music off,' said Arthur.
'But you could get killed!' said Ludmilla.


221




Windle clapped his hands together, and rubbed them thoughtfully.
'Ah,' he said, 'that's where we're ahead of the game.'
He walked into the glow.
He'd never seen such bright light. It seemed to emanate from everywhere, 
hunting down every last shadow and eradicating it ruthlessly. It was much 
brighter than daylight without being anything like it - there was a blue edge 
to it that cut vision like a knife.
'You all right, Count?' he said.
'Fine, fine,' said Arthur.
Lupine growled.
Ludmilla pulled at a tangle of metal.
'There's something under this, you know. It looks like . . . marble. Orange-
coloured marble.' She ran her hand over it. 'But warm. Marble shouldn't be 
warm, should it?'
'It can't be marble. There can't be this much marble in the whole world . . . 
vorld, ' said Doreen. 'We tried to get marble for the vault,' she tasted the 
sound of the word and nodded to herself, 'the vault, yes. Those dwarfs 
should be shot, the prices they charge. It's a disgrace.'
'I don't think dwarfs built this,' said Windle. He knelt down awkwardly to 
examine the floor.
'I shouldn't think so, the lazy little buggers. They wanted nearly seventy 
dollars to do our vault. Didn't they, Arthur?'
'Nearly seventy dollars,' said Arthur.
'I don't think anyone built it,' said Windle quietly.
Cracks. There should be cracks, he thought. Edges and things, where one 
slab joins another. It shouldn't be all one piece. And slightly sticky.
'So Arthur did it himself.'
'I did it myself.'
Ah. Here was an edge. Well, not exactly an edge.


222




The marble became clear, like a window, looking into another brightly lit 
space. There were things in there, indistinct and melted-looking, but no way 
in to them.
The chatter of the Winkings flowed over him as he crepe forward.
'- more of a vaultette, really. But he got a dungeon in, even if you have to 
go out into the hall to shut the door properly -'
Gentility meant all sorts of things, Windle thought.
To some people it was not being a vampire. To others it was a matched 
set of flying plaster bats on the wall.
He ran his fingers over the clear substance. The world here was all 
rectangles. There were corners, and the corridor was lined on both sides 
with the clear panels. And the non-music played all the time.
It couldn't be alive, could it? Life was . . . more rounded.
'What do you think, Lupine?' he said.
Lupine barked.
'Hmm. Not a lot of help.'
Ludmilla knelt down and put her hand on Windle's shoulder.
'What did you mean, no-one built it?' she said.
Windle scratched his head.
'I'm not sure . . . but I think maybe it was . . . secreted.'
'Secreted? From what? By what?'
They looked up. A trolley whirred out of the mouth of a side corridor and 
skidded away down another on the opposite side of the passage.
'Them?' said Ludmilla.
'I shouldn't think so. I think they're more like servants. Like ants. Bees in a 
hive, maybe.'
'What's the honey?'
'Not sure. But it's not ripe yet. I don't think things are quite finished. No-
one touch anything.'
They walked onward. The passage opened up into a wide, bright, domed 
area. Stairways led up and down


223




to different floors, and there was a fountain and a grove of potted plants 
that looked too healthy to be real.
'Isn't it nice?' said Doreen.
'You keep thinking there should be people,' said Ludmilla. 'Lots of 
people.'
'There should at least be wizards,' muttered Windle Poons. 'Half a dozen 
wizards don't just disappear.'
The five of them moved closer. Passages the size of the one they'd just 
walked down could have accommodated a couple of elephants walking 
abreast.
'Do you think it might be a good idea to go back outside?' said Doreen.
'What good would that do?' said Windle.
'Well, it'd get us out of here.'
Windle turned, counting. Five of the passages radiated equidistantly-out 
of the domed area.
'And presumably it's the same above and below, ' he said aloud.
'It's very clean here, ' Doreen said nervously. 'Isn't it clean, Arthur?'
'It's very clean.'
'What's that noise?' said Ludmilla.
'What noise?'
'That noise. Like someone sucking something.'
Arthur looked around with a certain amount of interest.
'It's not me.'
'It's the stairs,' said Windle.
'Don't be silly, Mr Poons. Stairs don't suck.'
Windle looked down.
'These do.'
They were black, like a sloping river. As the dark substance flowed out 
from under the floor it humped itself into something resembling steps, which 
travelled up the slope until they disappeared under the floor again, 
somewhere above. When the steps emerged they made a slow, rhythmic 
shlup-shlup noise, like someone investigating a particularly annoying dental 
cavity.


224




'Do you know,' said Ludmilla, 'that's quite possibly  the most unpleasant 
thing I've ever seen?'
'I've seen worse,' said Windle. 'But it's pretty bad.
Shall we go up or down?'
'You want to stand on them?'
'No. But the wizards aren't on this floor and it's that or slide down the 
handrail. Have you looked closely at the handrail?'
They looked at the handrail.
'I think,' said Doreen nervously, 'that down is more us.'
They went down in silence. Arthur fell over at the point where the 
travelling stairs were sucked into the floor again.
'I had this horrible feeling it was going to drag me under,' he said 
apologetically, and then looked around him.
'It's big,' he concluded.'Roomy. I could do wonders down here with some 
stone-effect wallpaper.'
Ludmilla wandered over to the nearest wall.
'You know,' she said, 'there's more glass than I've seen before, but these 
clear bits look a bit like shops. Does that make sense? A great big shop full 
of shops?'
'And not ripe yet,' said Windle.
'Sorry?'
'Just thinking aloud. Can you see what the merchandise is?'
Ludmilla shaded her eyes.
'It just looks like a lot of colour and glitter.'
'Let me know if you see a wizard.'
Someone screamed.
'Or hear one, for example,' Windle added. Lupine bounded off down a 
passageway. Windle lurched swiftly after him.
Someone was on their back, trying desperately to fight off a couple of the 
trolleys. They were bigger than the ones Windle had seen before, with a 
golden sheen to them.


225




'Hey!' he yelled.
They stopped trying to gore the prone figure and three-point-turned 
towards him.
'Oh, ' he said, as they got up speed.
The first one dodged Lupine's jaws and butted Windle full in the knees, 
knocking him over. As the second passed over him he reached up wildly, 
grabbed randomly at the metal, and pulled hard. A wheel spun off and the 
trolley cartwheeled into the wall.
He scrambled up in time to see Arthur hanging grimly on to the handle of 
the other trolley as the two of them whirred around in a mad centrifugal 
waltz.
'Let go! Let go!' Doreen screamed.
'I can't! I can't!'
'Well, do something!'
There was a pop of inrushing air. The trolley was suddenly not straining 
against the weight of a middle-aged wholesale, fruit and vegetable 
entrepreneur but only against a small terrified bat. It rocketed into a marble 
pillar, bounced off, hit a wall and landed on its back, wheels spinning.
'The wheels!' shouted Ludmilla.'Pull the wheels off!'
'I'll do that,' said Windle.'You help Reg.'
'Is that Reg down there?' said Doreen.
Windle jerked his thumb towards the distant wall. The words "Better late 
than nev" ended in a desperate streak of paint.
'Show him a wall and a paint pot and he doesn't know what world he's in,' 
said Doreen.
'He's only got a choice of two,' said Windle, throwing the trolley wheels 
across the floor. 'Lupine, keep a look-out in case there's any more.'
The wheels had been sharp, like ice skates. He was definitely feeling 
tattered around the legs. Now, how did healing go?
Reg Shoe was helped into a sitting position.
'What's happening?' he said.'No-one else was


226




coming in, and I came down here to see where the music was coming 
from, and the next thing, there's these wheels -'
Count Arthur returned to his approximately human form, looked around 
proudly, realised that no-one was paying him any attention, and sagged.
'They looked a lot tougher than the others,' said Ludmilla.'Bigger and 
nastier and covered in sharp edges.'
'Soldiers,' said Windle. 'We've seen the workers. And now there's 
soldiers. Just like ants.'
'I had an ant farm when I was a lad,' said Arthur, who had hit the floor 
rather heavily and was having temporary trouble with the nature of reality.
'Hang on,' said Ludmilla. 'I know about ants. We have ants in the back 
yard. If you have workers and soldiers, then you must also have a -'
'I know. I know,' said Windle.
'- mind you, they called it a farm, I never saw them doing any farming -'
Ludmilla leaned against the wall.
'It'll be somewhere close,' she said.
'I think so, ' said Windle.
'What does it look like, do you think?'
'- what you do is, you get two bits of glass and some ants -'
'I don't know. How should I know? But the wizards will be somewhere 
near it.'
'I don't see vy you're bothering about them,' said Doreen. 'They buried 
you alive just because you vere dead.'
Windle looked up at the sound of wheels. A dozen warrior baskets turned 
the corner and pulled up in formation.
'They thought they were doing it for the best,' said Windle.'People often 
do. It's amazing, the things that seem a good idea at the time.'


227




The new Death straightened up.
Or?
AH.
ER.
Bill Door stepped back, turned round, and ran for it.
It was, as he was wonderfully well placed to know, merely putting off the 
inevitable. But wasn't that what living was all about?
No-one had ever run away from him after they were dead. Many had tried it 
before they were dead, often with great ingenuity. But the normal reaction of 
a spirit, suddenly pitched from one world into the next, was to hang around 
hopefully. Why run, after all? It wasn't as if you knew where you were running 
to.
The ghost Bill Door knew where he was running to.
Ned Simnel's smithy was locked up for the night, although this did not 
present a problem. Not alive and not dead, the spirit Bill Door dived through 
the wall.
The fire was a barely-visible glow, settling in the forge.
The smithy was full of warm darkness.
What it didn't contain was the ghost of a scythe.
Bill Door looked around desperately.
SQUEAK?
There was a small. dark-robed figure sitting on a beam above him. It 
gestured frantically towards the corner.
He saw a dark handle sticking out from the load of timber. He tried to pull 
at it with fingers now as substantial as a shadow.
HE SAID HE WOULD DESTROY IT FOR ME!
The Death of Rats shrugged sympathetically.
The new Death stepped through the wall, scythe held in both hands.
It advanced on Bill Door.
There was a rustling. The grey robes were pouring into the smithy.
Bill Door grinned in terror.
The new Death stopped, posing dramatically in the glow from the forge.


228




It swung.
It almost lost its balance.
You 're not supposed to duck!
Bill Door dived through the wall again and pounded across the square. 
skull down, spectral feet making no noise on the cobbles. He reached the 
little group by the clock.
ON THE HORSE! GO!
'What's happening? What's happening!'
IT HASN'T WORKED!
Miss Flitworth gave him a panicky look but put the unconscious child on 
Binky's back and climbed up after her. Then Bill Door brought his hand down 
hard on the horse's flank. There at least there was contact - Binky existed in 
all worlds.
Go!
He didn't look around but darted on up the road towards the farm.
A weapon!
Something he could hold!
The only weapon in the undead world was in the hands of the new Death.
As Bill Door ran he was aware of a faint, higher-pitched clicking noise. He 
looked down. The Death of Rats was keeping pace with him.
It gave him an encouraging squeak.
He skidded through the farm gate and flung himself against the wall.
There was the distant rumble of the storm. Apart from that, silence.
He relaxed slightly, and crept cautiously along the wall towards the back 
of the farmhouse.
He caught a glimpse of something metallic. Leaning against the wall 
there. where the men from the village had left it when they brought him back, 
was his scythe; not the one he'd carefully prepared. but the one he'd used 
for the harvest. What edge it had had been achieved only by the whetstone 
and the caress of the stalks, but it was a familiar


229




shape and he made a tentative grab at it. His hand passed right through.
The further you run, the closer you get.
The new Death stepped unhurriedly out of the shadows.
You should know that, it added.
Bill Door straightened up.
We will enjoy this.
ENJOY?
The new Death advanced. Bill Door backed away.
Yes. The lacking of one Death is the same as achieving the end of a billion 
lesser lives.
LESSER LIVES? THIS IS NOT A GAME!
The new Death hesitated. What is a game?
Bill Door felt the tiny flicker of hope.
I COULD SHOW YOU -
The end of the scythe handle caught him under the chin and knocked him 
against the wall, where he slid to the ground. 
We ?deed? a Crick. We do not listen. The reaper does not listen to the 
harvest.
Bill Door tried to get up.
The scythe handle struck him again.
We will not make the same mistakes.
Bill Door looked up. The new Death was holding the golden timer; the top 
bulb was empty. Around both of them the landscape shifted, reddened, 
began to take on the unreal appearance of reality seen from the other side . . 
.
You 're out of Time, Mr Bill Door.
The new Death raised his cowl.
There was no face there. There was not even a skull.
Smoke curled formlessly between the robe and a golden crown.
Bill Door raised himself on his elbows.
A CROWN? His voice shook with rage. I NEVER WORE A CROWN!
You never wanted to rule.
The Death swung the scythe back.


230




And then it dawned on the old Death and the new Death that the hissing of 
passing time had not, in fact, stopped.
The new Death hesitated, and took out the golden glass.
It shook it.
Bill Door looked into the empty face under the crown. There was an 
expression of puzzlement there, even with no features actually to wear it; the 
expression hung in the air all by itself.
He saw the crown turn.
Miss Flitworth stood with her hands held a foot apart and her eyes closed. 
Between her hands, in the air in front of her hovered the faint outline of a 
lifetimer, its sand pouring away in a torrent.
The Deaths could just make out, on the glass. the spidery name: Renata 
Flitworth.
The new Death's featureless expression became one of terminal 
puzzlement. It turned to Bill Door.
For YOU?
But 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 arid 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.
The robe folded up around his blade. There was a thin wail, rising beyond 
the peak of hearing. A black column, like the negative of lightning, flashed up 
from the ground and disappeared into the clouds.
Death waited for a moment, and then gingerly gave the robe a prod with 
his foot. The crown, bent slightly out of shape, rolled out of it a little way 
before evaporating.
OH, he said, dismissively. DRAMA.


231


He walked over to Miss Flitworth and gently pressed her hands together. 
The image of the lifetimer disappeared.
The blue-and-violet fog on the edge of sight faded as solid reality flowed 
back.
Down in the town, the clock finished striking midnight.
The old woman was shivering. Death snapped his fingers in front of her 
eyes.
MISS FLITWORTH? RENATA?
'I - I didn't know what to do and you said it wasn't difficult and -'
Death walked into the barn. When he came out, he was wearing his black 
robe.
She was still standing there.
'I didn't know what to do,' she repeated, possibly not to him.'What 
happened? Is it all over?'
Death looked around. The grey shapes were pouring into the yard. 
POSSIBLY NOT, he said.

More trolleys appeared behind the row of soldiers. They looked like the 
small silvery workers with the occasional pale golden gleam of a warrior.
'We should retreat back to the stairs,' said Doreen.
'I think that's where they want us to go,' said Windle.
'Then that's fine by me. Anyway, I vouldn't think those wheels could 
manage steps, could they?'
'And you can't exactly fight to the death,' said Ludmilla. Lupine was 
keeping close to her, yellow eyes fixed on the slowly advancing wheels.
'Chance would be a fine thing,' said Windle. They reached the moving 
stairs. He looked up. Trolleys clustered around the top of the upward stair, 
but the way to the floor below looked clear.
'Perhaps we could find another way up?' said Ludmilla hopefully.
They shuffled on to the moving stair. Behind them, the trolleys moved in 
to block their return.
The wizards were on the floor below. They were


232


standing so still among the potted plants and fountains that Windle 
passed them at first, assuming that they were some sort of statue or piece of 
esoteric furniture.
The Archchancellor had a false red nose and was holding some balloons. 
Beside him, the Bursar was juggling coloured balls, but like a machine, his 
eyes staring blankly at nothing.
The Senior Wrangler was standing a little way off, wearing a pair of 
sandwich boards. The writing on them hadn't fully ripened yet, but Windle 
would have bet his afterlife that it would eventually say something like SALE 
! ! ! !
The other wizards were clustered together like dolls whose clockwork 
hadn't been wound up. Each one had a large oblong badge on his robe. The 
familiar organic-looking writing was growing into a word that looked like: 

I K Y

although why it was doing so was a complete mystery. The wizards 
certainly didn't look very secure.
Windle snapped his fingers in front of the Dean's pale eyes. There was no 
response.
'He's not dead,' said Reg.
'Just resting,' said Windle. 'Switched off.'
Reg gave the Dean a push. The wizard tottered forward, and then 
staggered to a precarious, swaying halt.
'Well, we'll never get them out,' said Arthur. 'Not like that. Can't you wake 
them up?'
'Light a feather under their nose,' Doreen volunteered.
'I don't think that will work, ' said Windle. He based the statement on the 
fact that Reg Shoe was very


233




nearly under their noses, and anyone whose nasal equipment failed to 
register Mr Shoe would certainly not react to a mere burning feather. Or a 
heavy weight dropped from a great height, if it came to that.
'Mr Poons,' said Ludmilla.
'I used to know a golem looked like him,' said Reg Shoe. 'Just like him. 
Great big chap, made out of clay. That's what your typical golem basically is. 
You just have to write a special holy word on 'em to start 'em up.'
'What, like "security"?'
'Could be.'
Windle peered at the Dean. 'No,' he said at last, 'no-one's got that much 
clay.' He looked around them. 'We ought to find out where that blasted 
music's coming from.'
'Where the musicians are hidden, you mean?'
'I don't think there are musicians.'
'You've got to have musicians, brother,' said Reg. 'That's why it's called 
music.'
'Firstly, this isn't like any music I've ever heard, and secondly I always 
thought you've got to have oil lamps or candles to make light and there 
aren't any and there's still light shining everywhere,' said Windle.
'Mr Poons?' said Ludmilla again, prodding him.
'Yes?'
'Here come some trolleys again.'
They were blocking all five passages leading off the central space.
'There's no stairs down,' said Windle.
'Maybe it's - she's - in one of the glassy bits,' said Ludmilla. 'The shops?'
'I don't think so. They don't look finished. Anyway, that feels wrong - '
Lupine growled. Spikes glistened on the leading trolleys, but they weren't 
rushing to attack.
'They must have seen what we did to the others,' said Arthur.


234




'Yes. But how could they? That was upstairs,' said Windle.
'Well, maybe they talk to each other.'
'How can they talk? How can they think? There can't be any brains in a lot 
of wire, ' said Ludmilla.
'Ants and bees don't think, if it comes to that,' said Windle.'They're just 
controlled -'
He looked upwards.
They looked upwards.
'It's coming from somewhere in the ceiling, ' he said. 'We've got to find it 
right now!'
'There's just panels of light,' said Ludmilla.
'Something else! Look for something it could be coming from!'
'It's coming from everywhere!'
'Whatever you're thinking of doing,' said Doreen, picking up a potted 
plant and holding it like a club, 'I hope you do it fast.'
'What's that round black thing up there?' said Arthur.
'Where?'
'There.' Arthur pointed.
'OK, Reg and me will help you up, come on -'
'Me? But I can't stand heights!'
'I thought you could turn into a bat?'
'Yeah, but a very nervous one!'
'Stop complaining. Right - one foot here, now your hand here, now put 
your foot on Reg's shoulder -'
'And don't go through,' said Reg.
'I don't like this!' Arthur moaned, as they hoisted him up.
Doreen stopped glaring at the creeping trolleys.
'Artor! Nobblyesse obligay!'
'What? Is that some sort of vampire code?' Reg whispered.
'It means something like: a count's gotta do what a count's gotta do,' said 
Windle.
'Count!' snarled Arthur, swaying dangerously. 'I


235




never should have listened to that lawyer! I should have known nothing 
good ever comes in a long brown envelope! And I can't reach the bloody 
thing anyway!'
'Can 't you jump?' said Windle.
'Can't you drop dead?'
'No.'
'And I'm not jumping!'
'Fly, then. Turn into a bat and fly.'
'I can't get the airspeed!'
'You could throw him up,' said Ludmilla. 'You know, like a paper dart.'
'Blow that! I'm a count!'
'You just said you didn't want to be,' said Windle mildly.
'On the ground I don't want to be, but when it comes to being chucked 
around like a frisbee -'
'Arthur! Do what Mr Poons says!'
'I don't see way -'
'Arthur!'
Arthur as a bat was surprisingly heavy. Windle held him by the ears like a 
misshapen bowling ball and tried to take aim.
'Remember - I'm an endangered species!' the Count squeaked, as Windle 
brought his arm back.
It was an accurate throw. Arthur fluttered to the disc in the ceiling and 
gripped it in his claws.
'Can you move it?'
'No!'
'Then hang on tight and change back.'
'No!'
'We'll catch you.'
'No!'
'Arthur!' screamed Doreen, prodding an advancing trolley with her 
makeshift club.
'Oh, all right.'
There was a momentary vision of Arthur Winkings clinging desperately to 
the ceiling, and then he dropped on Windle and Reg, the disc clasped to his 
chest.


236




The music stopped abruptly. Pink tubing poured out of the ravaged hole 
above them and coiled upon Arthur, making him look like a very cheap plate 
of spaghetti and meatballs. The fountains seemed to operate in reverse for a 
moment, and then dried  up.
The trolleys halted. The ones at the back ran into the ones at the front, 
and there was a chorus of pathetic clanking noises.
Tubing still poured out of the hole. Windle picked up a bit. It was an 
unpleasant pink, and sticky.
'What do you think it is?' said Ludmilla.
'I think,' said Windle, 'that we'd better get out of here now.'
The floor trembled. Steam gushed from the fountain.
'If not sooner,' Windle added.
There was a ?graah? from the Archchancellor. The Dean slumped 
forward. The other wizards remained upright, but only just.
'They're coming out of it,' said Ludmilla. 'But I don't think they'll manage 
the stairs.'
'I don't think anyone should even think about trying to manage the stairs,' 
said Windle. 'Look at them.'
The moving stairs weren't. The black steps glistened in the shadowless 
light.
'I see what you mean,' said Ludmilla. 'I 'd rather try and walk on 
quicksand.'
'It'd probably be safer,' said Windle.
'Maybe there's a ramp? There must be some way for the trolleys to get 
around.'
'Good idea.'
Ludmilla eyed the trolleys. They were milling around aimlessly.'I think I 
might have an even better one . . .' she said, and grabbed a passing handle.
The trolley fought for a moment and then, lacking any contrary 
instructions, settled down docilely.


237




'The ones that can walk'll walk, and the ones that can't walk'll get pushed. 
Come on, grandad.' This was to the Bursar, who was persuaded to flop 
across the trolley. He said 'yo', faintly, and shut his eyes again.
The Dean was manhandled on top of him.'
'And now where?' said Doreen.
A couple of floor tiles buckled upwards. A heavy grey vapour started to 
pour out.
'It must be somewhere at the end of a passage,' said Ludmilla. 'Come on.'
Arthur looked down at the mists coiling around his feet.
'I wonder how you can do that?' he said. 'It's amazingly difficult to get 
stuff that does that. We tried it, you know, to make our crypt more . . . more 
cryptic, but it just smokes up the place and sets fire to the curtains -'
'Come on, Artor. We are going.'
'You don't think we've done too much damage, do you? Perhaps we 
should leave a note -'
'Yeah, I could write something on the wall if you like,' said Reg.
He picked up a struggling worker trolley by its handle and, with some 
satisfaction, smashed it against a pillar until its wheels dropped off.
Windle watched the Fresh Start Club head up the nearest passage, 
pushing a bargain assortment of wizardry.
'Well, well, well,' he said.'As simple as that. That's all we had to do. Hardly 
any drama at all.'
He went to move forward, and stopped.
Pink tubes were forcing their way through the floor and were already 
coiled tightly around his legs. More floor tiles leapt into the air. The 
stairways shattered, revealing the dark, serrated and above all
'It is traditional, when loading wire trolleys, to put the most fragile items at 
the bottom.


238




living tissue that had powered them. The walls pulsed and caved inwards, 
the marble cracking to reveal purple and pinkness underneath.
Of course, thought a tiny calm part of Windle's mind, none of this is really 
real. Buildings aren't really alive. It's all just a metaphor, only at the moment 
metaphors are like candles in a firework factory.
That being said, what sort of creature is the Queen? Like a queen bee, 
except she's also the hive. Like a caddis fly, which builds, if I'm not 
mistaken, a shell out of bits of stone and things, to camouflage itself. Or like 
a nautilus, which adds on to its shell as it gets bigger. And very much, to 
judge by the way the floors are ripping up, like a very angry starfish.
I wonder how cities would defend themselves against this sort of thing? 
Creatures generally evolve some sort of defence against predators. Poisons 
and stings and spikes and things.
Here and now, that's probably me. Spiky old Windle Poons.
At least I can try to see to it that the others get out all right. Let's make my 
presence felt . . .
He reached down, grabbed a double handful of pulsating tubes, and 
heaved.
The Queen's screech of rage was heard all the way to the University.

The storm clouds sped towards the hill. They piled up in a towering mass, 
very fast. Lightning flashed, somewhere in the core.
THERE'S TOO MUCH LIFE AROUND, said Death. NOT THAT I'M ONE TO 
COMPLAIN. WHERE'S THE CHILD?
'I put her to bed. She's sleeping now. Just ordinary sleep.'
Lightning struck on the hill, like a thunderbolt. It was followed by a 
clanking, grinding noise, somewhere in the middle distance.
Death sighed.


239




AH. MORE ?DIWMA?.
 He walked around the barn, so that he could command a good view of the 
dark fields. Miss Flitworth followed very closely on his heels, using him as a 
shield against whatever terrors were out there.
A blue glow crackled behind a distant hedge. It was moving.
'What is it?'
IT WAS THE COMBINATION HARVESTER.
'Was? What is it now?'
Death glanced at the clustering watchers.
A POOR LOSER.
The Harvester tore across the soaking fields, cloth arms whirring, levers 
moving inside an electric blue nimbus. The shafts for the horse waved 
uselessly in the air.
'How can it go without a horse? It had a horse yesterday!'
IT DOESN'T NEED ONE.
He looked around at the grey watchers. There were ranks of them now.
'Binky's still in the yard. Come on!'
No.
The Combination Harvester accelerated towards them. The schip-schip of 
its blades became a whine.
'Is it angry because you stole its tarpaulin?'
THAT'S NOT ALL I STOLE.
Death grinned at the watchers. He picked up his scythe, turned it over in 
his hands and then, when he was sure their gaze was fixed upon it, let it fall 
to the ground.
Then he folded his arms.
Miss Flitworth dragged at him.
'What do you think you're doing?'
DRAMA.
The Harvester reached the gate into the yard and came through in a cloud 
of sawdust.
'Are you sure we'll be all right?'
Death nodded.
'Well. That's all right then.'
The Harvester's wheels were a blur.


240




PROBABLY.
And then . . .
. . . something in the machinery went clonk.
Then the Harvester was still travelling, but in pieces. Sparks fountained 
up from its axles. A few spindles and arms managed to hold together, jerking 
madly as they spun away from the whirling, slowing confusion. The circle of 
blades tore free, smashed up through the machine, and skimmed away 
across the fields.
There was a jangle, a clatter, and then the last isolated boing, which is the 
audible equivalent of the famous pair of smoking boots.
And then there was silence.
Death reached down calmly and picked up a complicated-looking spindle 
as it pinwheeled towards his feet. It had been bent into a right-angle.
Miss Flitworth peered around him.
'What happened?'
I THINK THE ELLIPTICAL CAM HAS GRADUALLY SLID UP THE BEAM 
SHAFT AND CAUGHT ON THE FLANGE REBATE. WITH DISASTROUS 
RESULTS.
Death stared defiantly at the grey watchers. One by one, they began to 
disappear.
He picked up the scythe.
AND NOW I MUST GO, he said.
Miss FIitworth 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.
Death pulled up his robe and reached into the pocket of his Bill Door 
overall, which he was still wearing underneath.
WHEN MR SIMNEL COMES TO COLLECT THE BITS IN THE MORNING HE 
WILL PROBABLY BE LOOKING FOR THIS, he said, and dropped something 
small and bevelled into her hand.
'What is it?'
A THREE-EIGHTHS GRIPLEY.


241




Death walked over to his horse, and then remembered something.
AND HE OWES ME A FARTHING, TOO.

Ridcully opened one eye. People were milling around. There were lights 
and excitement. Lots of people were talking at once.
He seemed to be sitting in a very uncomfortable pram, with some strange 
insects buzzing around him.
He could hear the Dean complaining, and there were groans that could 
only be coming from the Bursar, and the voice of a young woman. People 
were being ministered to, but no-one was paying him any attention. Well, if 
there was ministering going on, he was damn well going to get ministered to 
as well.
He coughed loudly.
'You could try,' he said, to the cruel world in general, 'forcing some 
brandy between m'lips.'
An apparition appeared above him holding a lamp over its head. It was a 
size five face in a size thirteen skin; it said 'Oook?' in a concerned way.
'Oh, it's you,' said Ridcully. He tried to sit up quickly. just in case the 
Librarian tried the kiss of life.
Confused memories wobbled across his brain. He could remember a wall 
of clanking metal, and then pinkness, and then . . . music. Endless music, 
designed to turn the living brain to cream cheese.
He turned around. There was a building behind him, surrounded by 
crowds of people. It was squat and clung to the ground in a strangely animal 
way, as if it might be possible to lift up a wing of the building and hear the 
pop-pop-pop of suckers letting go.
Light streamed out of it, and steam curled out of its doors.
'Ridcully's woken up!'
More faces appeared. Ridcully thought: it's not Soul Cake Night, so 
they're not wearing masks. Oh, blast.


242




Behind them he heard the Dean say, 'I vote we work ?lp? Herpetty's 
Seismic Reorganiser and lob it through the door. No more problem.'
'No! We're too close to the city walls! We just need to drop Quondum's 
Attractive Point in the right place -'
'Or Sumpjumper's Incendiary Surprise, perhaps?' this was the Bursar's 
voice. 'Burn it out, it's the best way -'
'Yeah? Yeah? And what do you know about military tactics? You can't 
even say "yo" properly!'
Ridcully gripped the sides of the trolley.
'Would anyone mind tellin' me,' he said, 'what the - what the heck is goin' 
on?'
Ludmilla pushed her way through the members of the Fresh Start Club.
'You've got to stop them, Archchancellor!' she said. 'They're talking about 
destroying the big shop!'
More nasty recollections settled on Ridcully's mind.
'Good idea,' he said.
'But Mr Poons is still in there!'
Ridcully tried to focus on the glowing building.
'What, dead Windle Poons?'
'Arthur flew back when we realised he wasn't with us and he said Windle 
was fighting something that'd come out of the walls! We saw lots of trolleys 
but they weren't bothered about us! He let us get out!'
'What, dead Windle Poons?'
'You can't magic the place to bits with one of your wizards in there!'
'What, dead Windle Poons?'
'Yes!'
'But he's dead,' said Ridcully. 'Isn't he? He said he was.'
'Ha!' said someone who had much less skin than Ridcully would have 
liked him to have. 'That's typical.


243




That's naked vitalism, that is. I bet they'd rescue someone in there if they 
happened to be alive.'
'But he wanted . . . he wasn't keen on . . . he . . .' Ridcully hazarded. A lot 
of this was beyond him, but to people like Ridcully this didn't matter for very 
long. Ridcully was simple-minded. This doesn't mean stupid. It just meant 
that he could only think properly about things if he cut away all the 
complicated bits around the edges.
He concentrated on the single main fact. Someone who was technically a 
wizard was in trouble. He could relate to that. It struck a chord. The whole 
dead-or-alive business could wait.
There was another minor point that nagged at him, though.
'. . . Arthur? . . . flew? . . .'
'Hallo.'
Ridcully turned his head. He blinked slowly.
'Nice teeth YOU got there,' he said.
'Thank you,' said Arthur Winkings.
'All your own, are they?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Amazing. Of course, I expect you brush regularly.'
'Yes?'
'Hygienic. That's the important thing.'
'So what are you going to do?' said Ludmilla.
'Well, we'll just go and fetch him out, ' said Ridcully.
What was it about the girl? He felt a strange urge to pat her on the 
head.'We'll get some magic and get him out. Yes. Dean !'
'Yo!'
'We 're just going to go in there to get Windle out.'
'Yo!'
'What?' said the Senior Wrangler. 'You must be out of your mind!'
Ridcully tried to look as dignified as possible, given his situation.
'Remember that I am your Archchancellor,' he snapped.


244




'Then you must be out of your mind, Archchancellor!' said the Senior 
Wrangler. He lowered his  voice. 'Anyway, he's an undead. I don't see how 
you can save undeads. It's a sort of contradiction in terms.'
'A dichotomy, ' said the Bursar helpfully.
'Oh, I don't think surgery is involved.'
'Anyway, didn't we bury him?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'And now we dig him up again,' said the Archchancellor. 'It's probably a 
miracle of existence.'
'Like pickles,' said the Bursar, happily.
Even the Fresh Starters went blank.
'They do that in parts of Howondaland,' said the Bursar.'They make these 
big, big jars of special pickles and then they bury them in the ground for 
months to ferment and they get this lovely piquant -'
'Tell me,' Ludmilla whispered to Ridcully, 'is this how wizards usually 
behave?'
'The Senior Wrangler is an amazingly fine example,' said Ridcully. 'Got 
the same urgent grasp of reality as a cardboard cut-out. Proud to have him 
on the team.' He rubbed his hands together.'OK, lads. Volunteers?'
'Yo! Hut!' said the Dean, who was in an entirely different world now.
'I would be remiss in my duty if I failed to help a brother,' said Reg Shoe.
'Oook.'
'You? We can't take you,' said the Dean, glaring at the Librarian. 'You don 
't know a thing about guerrilla warfare.'
'Oook!' said the Librarian, and made a surprisingly comprehensive 
gesture to indicate that, on the other hand, what he didn't know about 
orangutan warfare could be written on the very small pounded-up remains of, 
for example, the Dean.


245




'Four of us should be enough,' said the Archchancellor.
'I've never even heard him say "Yo",' muttered the Dean.
He removed his hat, something a wizard doesn't ordinarily do unless he's 
about to pull something out of it, and handed it to the Bursar. Then he tore a 
thin strip off the bottom of his robe, held it dramatically in both hands, and 
tied it around his forehead.
'It's part of the ethos,' he said, in answer to their penetratingly unspoken 
question. 'That's what the warriors on the Counter-weight Continent do 
before they go into battle. And you have to shout -' He tried to remember 
some far-off reading.'- er, bonsai. Yes. Bonsai!'
'I thought that meant chopping bits off trees to make them small,' said the 
Senior Wrangler.
The Dean hesitated. He wasn't too sure himself, if it came to it. But a good 
wizard never let uncertainty stand in his way.
'No, it's definitely got to be bonsai,' he said. He considered it some more 
and then brightened up. 'On account of it all being part of bushido. Like . . . 
small trees. Bush-i-do. Yeah. Makes sense, when you think about it.'
'But you can't shout "bonsai!" here,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 
'We've got a totally different cultural background. It'd be useless. No-one will 
know what you mean.'
'I'll work on it,' said the Dean.
He noticed Ludmilla standing with her mouth open.
'This is wizard talk,' he said.
'It is, isn't it,' said Ludmilla. 'I never would have guessed.'
The Archchancellor had got out of the trolley and was wheeling it 
experimentally back and forth. It usually took quite a long time for a fresh 
idea to fully lodge in Ridcully's mind, but he felt instinctively that


246




there were all sorts of uses for a wire basket on four wheels.
'Are we going or are we standin' around all night bandagin' our heads?' 
he said.
'Yo!' snapped the Dean.
'Yo?' said Reg Shoe.
'Oook!'
'Was that a yo?' said the Dean, suspiciously.
'Oook.'
'Well . . . all right, then.'

Death sat on a mountaintop. It wasn't particularly high, or bare, or sinister. 
No witches held naked sabbats on it; Discworld witches, on the whole, didn't 
hold with taking off any more clothes than was absolutely necessary for the 
business in hand. No spectres haunted it. 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 haemorrhoids 
but frostbitten haemorrhoids.
Occasionally people would climb the mountain and add a stone or two to 
the cairn at the top, if only to prove that there is nothing really damn stupid 
that humans won't do.
Death sat on the cairn and ran a stone down the blade of his scythe in 
long, deliberate strokes.
There was a movement of air. Three grey servants popped into existence.
One said, You think you have won?
One said, You think you have triumphed?
Death turned the stone in his hand, to get a fresh surface. and brought it 
slowly down the length of the blade.
One said, We will inform Azrael.
One said, You are only, after all, a little Death.
Death held the blade up to the moonlight, twisting it this way and that, 
noting the play of light on the tiny flecks of metal on its edge.


247




Then he stood up, in one quick movement. The servants backed away 
hurriedly.
He reached out with the speed of a snake and grasped a robe, pulling its 
empty hood level with his eye sockets.
DO YOU KNOW WHY THE PRISONER IN THE TOWER WATCHES THE 
FLIGHT OF BIRDS? he said.
It said, Take your hands off me . . . oops . . .
Blue flame flared for a moment.
Death lowered his hand and looked around at the other two.
One said, You haven't heard the last of this.
They vanished.
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 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. Except for -
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.

Windle Poons brought both feet down heavily on a tentacle snaking out 
from under the tiles, and lurched off through the steam. A slab of marble 
smashed down, showering him with fragments. Then he kicked the wall, 
savagely.


248




There was very probably no way out now, he realised, and even if there 
was he couldn't find it. Anyway, he was already inside the thing. It was 
shaking its own walls down in an effort to get at him. At least he could give it 
a really bad case of indigestion.
He headed towards an orifice that had once been the entrance to a wide 
passage, and dived awkwardly through it just before it snapped shut. Silver 
fire crackled over the walls. There was so much life here it couldn't be 
contained.
There were a few trolleys still here, skittering madly across the shaking 
floor, as lost as Windle.
He set off along another likely-looking corridor, although most corridors 
he'd been down in the last one hundred and thirty years hadn't pulsated and 
dripped so much.
Another tentacle thrust through the wall and tripped him up.
Of course, it couldn't kill him. But it could make him bodiless. Like old 
One-Man-Bucket. A fate worse than death, probably.
He pulled himself up. The ceiling bounced down on him, flattening him 
against the floor.
He counted under his breath and scampered forward. Steam washed over 
him.
He slipped again, and thrust out his hands.
He could feel himself losing control. There were too many things to 
operate. Never mind the spleen, just keeping heart and lungs going was 
taking too much effort...
'Topiary !'
'What the heck do you mean?'
'Topiary! Get it? Yo!'
'Oook!'
Windle looked up through foggy eyes.
Ah. Obviously he was losing control of his brain, too.
A trolley came sideways out of the steam with shadowy figures clinging 
on to its sides. One hairy arm and


249




one arm that was barely an arm any more reached down, picked him up 
bodily and dumped him into the basket. Four tiny wheels skidded on the 
floor, the trolley bounced off the wall, and then it righted itself and rattled 
away.
Windle was only vaguely aware of voices.
'Off you go, Dean. I know you've been looking forward to it.' That was the 
Archchancellor.
'Yo!'
'You'll kill it totally? I don't think we want it ending up at the Fresh Start 
Club. I don't think it's a joiner.' That was Reg Shoe.
'Oook!' That was the Librarian.
'Don't you worry, Windle. The Dean is going to do something military, 
apparently, ' said Ridcully.
'Yo! Hut!'
'Oh, good grief.'
Windle saw the Dean's hand float past with something glittering in it.
'What are you going to use?' said Ridcully, as the trolley rocketed through 
the steam.'The Seismic Reorganiser, the Attractive Point or the Incendiary 
Surprise?'
'Yo, ' said the Dean, with satisfaction.
'What, all three at once?'
'Yo!'
'That's going a bit far, isn't it? 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.'
'Y -' The Dean caught Ridcully's eye.'Yes. Yes? Oh, go on, 
Archchancellor. What's the good of having mastery over cosmic balance and 
knowing the secrets of fate if you can't blow something up? Please? I've got 
them all ready. You know how it upsets the


250




inventory if you don't use them after you've got them ready -'
The trolley whirred up a trembling slope and cornered on two wheels.
'Oh, all right, ' said Ridcully. 'If it means that much to you.'
'Y - sorry.'
The Dean started to mutter urgently under his breath, and then screamed.
'I've gone blind!'
'Your bonsai bandage has slipped over your eyes, Dean.' Windle groaned.
'How are you feeling, brother Poons?' Reg Shoe's ravaged features 
occluded Windle's view.
'Oh, you know, ' said Windle. 'Could be better, could be worse.'
The trolley ricocheted off a wall and jerked away in another direction.
'How are those spells coming along, Dean?' said Ridcully, through gritted 
teeth.'I'm having real difficulties controlling this thing.'
The Dean muttered a few more words, and then waved his hands 
dramatically. Octarine flame spurted from his fingertips and earthed itself 
somewhere in the mists.
'Yee-haw!' he crowed.
'Dean?'
'Yes, Archchancellor?'
'The comment I made recently about the Y-word . . .'
'Yes? Yes?'
'You can definitely include Yee-haw, too.'
The Dean hung his head.
'Oh. Yes. Archchancellor.'
'And why hasn't everythin' gone boom?'
'I put a slight delay on it, Archchancellor. I thought perhaps we ought to 
get out before things happened.'
'Good thinking, that man.'


251




'Soon have you out, Windle,' said Reg Shoe. 'We don't leave our people in 
there. Isn't this -'
And then the floor erupted ahead of them.
And then, behind them.
The thing that arose from the shattered tiles was either formless or many 
forms at once. It writhed angrily, snapping its tubing at them.
The trolley skewed to a halt.
'Got any more magic, Dean?'
'Er . . . no, Archchancellor.'
'And the spells you just said will go off . . . ?'
'Any second now, Archchancellor.'
'So . . . whatever's going to happen . . . is going to happen to us?'
'Yes, Archchancellor.'
 idcully patted Windle on the head.
'Sorry about this,' he said.
Windle turned awkwardly to look down the passageway.
There was something behind the Queen. It looked like a perfectly ordinary 
bedroom door, advancing in a series of small steps, as though someone was 
carefully pushing it along in front of them.
'What is it?' said Reg.
Windle raised himself as far as he could.
'Schleppel!'
'Oh, come on,' said Reg.
'It's Schleppel!' shouted Windle. 'Schleppel! It's us! Can you help us out?'
The door paused. Then it was flung aside.
Schleppel unfolded himself to his full height.
'Hallo, Mr Poons. Hallo, Reg,' he said.
They stared at the hairy shape that nearly filled the passageway.
'Er, Schleppel . . . er . . . could you clear the way for us?' Windle quavered.
'No problem, Mr Poons. Anything for a friend.'
A hand the size of a wheelbarrow glided through the


252




steam and tore into the blockage, ripping it out with incredible ease.
'Hey, look at me!' said Schleppel. 'You're right. A bogeyman needs a door 
like a fish needs a bicycle! Say it now and say it loud, I'm -'
'And now could you get out of the way, please?'
'Sure. Sure. Wow!' Schleppel took another swipe at the Queen.
The trolley shot forward.
'And you'd better come with us!' Windle shouted, as Schleppel 
disappeared in the mists.
'No he shouldn't,' said the Archchancellor, as they sped along. 'Believe 
me. What was it?'
'He's a bogeyman,' said Windle.
'I thought you only get them in closets and things?' shouted Ridcully.
'He's come out of the closet,' said Reg Shoe proudly. 'And he's found 
himself.'
'Just so long as we can lose him.'
'We can't just leave him -'
'We can! We can!' snapped Ridcully.
There was a sound behind them like an eruption of swamp gas. Green 
light streamed past.
'The spells are starting to go off!' shouted the Dean. 'Move it!'
The trolley whirred out of the entrance and soared up into the cool of the 
night, wheels screaming.
'Yo!' bellowed Ridcully, as the crowd scattered ahead of them.
'Does that mean I can say yo too?' said the Dean.
'All right. Just once. Everyone can say it just once.'
'Yo!'
'Yo!' echoed Reg Shoe.
'Oook!'
'Yo!' said Windle Poons.
'Yo!' said Schleppel.
(Somewhere in the darkness, where the crowd was


253




thinnest, the gaunt shape of Mr Ixolite, the world's last surviving banshee, 
sidled up to the shaking building and bashfully shoved a note under the 
door. It said: OOOOeeeOOOeeeOOOeee.)
The trolley ploughed to a very definitive stop. No-one turned around. Reg 
said, slowly: 'You're behind us, right?'.
'That's right, Mr Shoe, ' said Schleppel happily.
'Should we worry when he's in front of us?' said Ridcully, 'Or is it worse 
because we know he's behind us?'
'Hah! No more closets and cellars for this bogey,' said Schleppel.
'That's a shame, because we've got some really big cellars at the 
University,' said Windle Poons quickly.
Schleppel was silent for a while. Then he said, in an exploratory tone of 
voice, 'How big?'
'Huge.'
'Yeah? With rats?'
'Rats aren't the half of it. There's escaped demons and all sorts down 
there. Infested, they are.'
'What are you doing?' hissed Ridcully. 'That's our cellars you're talking 
about!'
'You'd prefer him under your bed, would you?' murmured Windle. 'Or 
walking around behind you?'
Ridcully nodded briskly.
'Wow, yes, those rats are getting really out of hand down there,' he said 
loudly. 'Some of them - oh, about two feet long, wouldn't you say, Dean?'
'Three feet, ' said the Dean. 'At least.'
'Fat as butter, too,' said Windle.
Schleppel gave this some thought. 'Well, all right,' he said reluctantly. 
'Maybe I'll just wander in and have a look at them.'
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. There was the


254




impression of a vast cloud expanding but at the same time moving away 
so rapidly that the overall effect was of a shrinking point. Walls buckled and 
were sucked in. Soil ripped up from the ravaged fields and spiralled into the 
vortex. There was a violent burst of non-music, which died almost instantly.
And then nothing, except a muddy field.
And, floating down from the early morning sky like snow, thousands of 
white flakes. They slid silently through the air and landed lightly on the 
crowd.
'It's not seeding, is it?' said Reg Shoe.
Windle grabbed one of the flakes. It was a crude rectangle, uneven and 
blotchy. It was just about possible, with a certain amount of imagination, to 
make out the words:

C)OS ~I'~ ~o~~o S\ae.
v
~3VQr~~hnia t7u~, O9 ,l
c/         J o

'No, ' said Windle. 'Probably not.'
He lay back and smiled. It was never too late to have a good life.
And when no-one was looking, the last surviving trolley on the Discworld 
rattled off sadly into the oblivion of the night, lost and alone. *

_______________________________________________________________
*  It is generally thought, on those worlds where the mall lifeform has 
seeded, that people take the wire baskets away and leave them in strange 
and isolated places, so that squads of young men have to be employed to 
gather them together and wheel them back. This is exactly the opposite of 
the truth. In reality the men are hunters. stalking their rattling prey across the 
landscape, trapping them, breaking their spirit, taming them and herding 
them to a life of slavery. Possibly.


255




'Pog-a-grodle-fig!'
Miss Flitworth sat in her kitchen.
Outside, she could hear the despondent clanking as Ned Simnel and his 
apprentice picked up the tangled remains of the Combination Harvester. A 
handful of other people were theoretically helping, but were really taking the 
opportunity to have a good look around. She'd made a tray of tea, and left 
them to it.
Now she sat with her chin in her hands, staring at nothing.
There was a knock at the open door. Spigot poked his red face into the 
room.
'Please, Miss Flitworth -'
'Hmm?'
'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.'
Spigot hung around for a while, twisting his hat in his hands.
'You all right. Miss Flitworth?'

'You all right, Mr Poons?'
Windle stared at nothing.
'Windle?' said Reg Shoe.
'Hmm?'
'The Archchancellor just asked if you wanted a drink.'
'He'd like a glass of distilled water,' said Mrs Cake.
'What, just water?' said Ridcully.
'That's what he wants,' said Mrs Cake.
'I'd Like a glass of distilled water, please,' said Windle.
Mrs Cake looked smug. At least, as much of her as was visible looked 
smug, which was that part between the Hat and her handbag, which was a 
sort of


256




counterpart of the hat and so big that when she sat clasping it on her lap 
she had to reach up to hold the handles. When she'd heard that her daughter 
had been invited to the University she'd come too. 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.
The Fresh Starters were being entertained by the wizards, and trying to 
look as though they were enjoying it. It was one of those problematical 
occasions with long silences, sporadic coughs, and people saying isolated 
things like, 'Well, isn't this nice.'
'You looked a bit lost there, Windle, for a moment,' said Ridcully.
'I'm just a bit tired, Archchancellor.'
'I thought you zombies never slept.'
'I'm still tired,' said Windle.
'You 're sure you wouldn't like us to have another go with the burial and 
everything? We could do it properly this time.'
'Thank you all the same, but no. I'm just not cut out for the undead life, I 
think.' Windle looked at Reg Shoe. 'Sorry about that. I don't know how you 
manage it.' He grinned apologetically.
'You've got every right to be alive or dead, just as you choose,' said Reg 
severely.
'One-Man-Bucket says people are dying properly again,' said Mrs Cake. 
'So you could probably get an appointment.'
Windle looked around.
'She's taken your dog for a walk,' said Mrs Cake.
'Where's Ludmilla?' he said.
Windle smiled awkwardly. Mrs Cake's premonitions could be very 
wearing. 
'It'd be nice to know that Lupine was being looked after if I . . . went,' he 
said. 'I wonder, could you take him in?'


257


'Well . . .' said Mrs Cake uncertainly.
'But he's -' Reg Shoe began, and then saw Windle's expression.
'I must admit it'd be a relief to have a dog around the place,' said Mrs 
Cake. 'I'm always worrying about Ludmilla. There's a lot of strange people 
around.'
'But your dau -' Reg began again.
'Shut up, Reg,' said Doreen.
'That's all settled, then,' said Windle.'And have you got any trousers?'
'What?'
'Any trousers in the house?'
'Well, I suppose I've got some that belonged to the late Mr Cake, but why -
'
'Sorry,' said Windle. 'My mind was wandering. Don't know what I 'm 
saying, half the time.'
'Ah,' said Reg, brightly, 'I see. What you're saying is that when he -'
Doreen nudged him viciously.
'Oh,' said Reg. 'Sorry. Don't mind me. I'd forget my own head if it wasn't 
sewn on.'
Windle leaned back, and shut his eyes. He could hear the occasional 
scrap of conversation. He could hear Arthur Winkings asking the 
Archchancellor who did his decorating, and where the University got its 
vegetables. He heard the Bursar moaning about the cost of exterminating all 
the curse-words, which had somehow survived the recent changes and had 
taken up residence in the darkness of the roof. He could even, if he strained 
his perfect hearing, hear the whoops of Schleppel in the distant cellars.
They didn't need him. At last. The world didn't need Windle Poons.
He got up quietly and lurched to the door.
'I'm just going out,' he said. 'I may be some time.'
Ridcully gave him a half-hearted nod, and concentrated on what Arthur 
had to say about how the Great


258




Hall could be entirely transformed with some pine-effect wallpaper.
Windle shut the door behind him and leaned against the thick, cool wall.
Oh, yes. There was one other thing.
'Are you there, One-Man-Bucket?' he said softly.
how did you know?
'You're generally around.'
heh heh, you've caused some real trouble there! you know what's going to 
happen next full moon ?
'Yes, I do. And I think, somehow, that they do too.'
but he'll become a wolfman.
'Yes. And she'll become a wolfwoman.'
all Tight, but what kind of relationship can people have one week in four?
'Maybe at least as good a chance of happiness as most people get. Life 
isn't perfect, One-Man-Bucket.'
you're telling me?
'Now, can I ask you a personal question?' said Windle. 'I mean I've just 
got to know . . .'
huh.
'After all, you've got the astral plane to yourself again.'
oh, all right.
'Why are you called One -'
is that all? I thought you could work that one out, a clever man like you. in 
my tribe we're traditionally named after the First thing the mother sees when 
she looks out of the teepee after the birth. it's short for One-Man-Pouring-a-
Bucket-of- Water-over-Two-Dogs.
'That's pretty unfortunate, ' said Windle.
it's not too bad, said One-Man-Bucket. it was my twin brother you had to 
feel sorry for. she looked out ten seconds before me to give him his name.
Windle Poons thought about it.
'Don't tell me, let me guess,' he said. 'Two-Dogs-Fighting?'


259




Two-Dogs-Fighting a Two-Dogs-Fighting? said One-Man-Bucket. Wow, 
he'd have given his right arm to be called Two-Dogs-Fighting.

It was later that the story of Windle Poons really came to an end, if "story" 
means all that he did and caused and set in motion. In the Ramtop village 
where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no-
one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away - until 
the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its 
ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone's life, 
they say, is only the core of their actual existence.
As he walked through the foggy city to an appointment he had been 
awaiting ever since he was born, Windle felt that he could predict that final 
end.
It would be in a few weeks ' time, when the moon was full again. A sort of 
codicil or addendum to the life of Windle Poons - born in the year of the 
Significant Triangle in the Century of the Three Lice (he'd always preferred 
the old calendar with its ancient names to all this new-fangled numbering 
they did today) and died in the year of the Notional Serpent in the Century of 
the Fruitbat, more or less.
There'd be two figures running across the high moorland under the moon. 
Not entirely wolves, not entirely human. With any luck, they'd have best of 
both worlds. Not just feeling . . . but knowing.
Always best to have both worlds.

Death sat in his chair in his dark study, his hands steepled in front of his 
face.
Occasionally he'd swivel the chair backwards and forwards.
Albert brought him in a cup of tea and exited with diplomatic 
soundlessness.


260




There was one lifetimer left on Death's desk. He stared at it.
Swivel, swivel. Swivel, swivel.
In the hall outside, the great clock ticked on, killing time.
Death drummed his skeletal fingers on the desk's scarred woodwork. In 
front of him, stacked up with impromptu bookmarks in their pages, were the 
lives of some of the Discworld's great lovers.* Their fairly repetitive 
experiences hadn't been any help at all.
He got up and stalked to a window and stared out at his dark domain, his 
hands clenching and unclenching behind his back.
Then he snatched up the lifetimer and strode out of the room.
Binky was waiting in the warm fug of the stables. Death saddled him 
quickly and led him out into the courtyard, and then rode up into the night, 
towards the distant glittering jewel of the Discworld.
He touched down silently in the farmyard, at sunset.
He drifted through a wall.
He reached the foot of the stairs.
He raised the hourglass and watched the draining of Time.
And then he paused. There was something he had to know. Bill Door had 
been curious about things, and he could remember everything about being 
Bill Door. He could look at emotions laid out like trapped butterflies, pinned 
on cork, under glass.
Bill Door was dead, or at least had ceased his brief existence. But - what 
was it? - someone's actual life was only the core of their real existence? Bill 
Door had gone, but he had left echoes. The memory of Bill Door was owed 
something.

_______________________________________________________________
*  The most enthusiastic of these was the small but persistent and 
incredibly successful Casanunder the Dwarf, a name mentioned with respect 
and awe wherever stepladder owners are gathered together.


261




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.
In the curtained blackness of Miss Flitworth's parlour a darker shape 
moved through the darkness, heading towards the three chests on the 
dresser.
Death opened one of the smaller ones. It was full of gold coins. They had 
an untouched look about them. He tried the other small chest. It was also full 
of gold.
He'd expected something more from Miss Flitworth, although probably 
not even Bill Door would have known what.
He tried the large chest.
There was a layer of tissue paper. Under the paper, some white silky 
thing, some sort of a veil, now yellowed and brittle with age. He gave it an 
uncomprehending stare
and laid it aside. There were some white shoes. Quite impractical for farm 
wear, he felt. No wonder they'd been packed away.
There was more paper; a bundle of letters tied together.
He put them on top of the veil. There was never anything to be gained 
from observing what humans said to one another - language was just there 
to hide their thoughts.
And then there was, right at the bottom, a smaller box.
He pulled it out and turned it over and over in his hands.
Then he unclicked the little latch and lifted the lid.
Clockwork whirred.
The tune wasn't particularly good. Death had heard all the music that had 
ever been written, and almost all of it had been better than this tune. It had a 
plinkety plonkety quality. a tinny little one-two-three rhythm.
In the musical box, over the busily spinning gears, two wooden dancers 
jerked around in a parody of a waltz.
Death watched them until the clockwork ran down.
Then he read the inscription.
It had been a present.


262




Beside him, the lifetimer poured its grains into the bottom bulb. He 
ignored it.
When the clockwork ran down, he wound it up again.
Two figures, spinning through time. And when the music stopped, all you 
needed was to turn the key.
When it ran down again, he sat in the silence and the dark, and reached a 
decision.
There were only seconds left. Seconds had meant a lot to Bill Door, 
because he'd had a limited supply. They meant nothing at all to Death, who'd 
never had any.
He left the sleeping house, mounted up, and rode away.
The journey took an instant that would have taken mere light three 
hundred million years, but Death travels inside that space where Time has no 
meaning. Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No 
matter how fast light travels it finds the darkness has always got there first, 
and is waiting for it.
There was company on the ride - galaxies, stars, ribbons of shining 
matter, streaming and eventually spiralling towards the distant goal.
Death on his pale horse moved down the darkness like a bubble on a 
river.
And every river flows somewhere.
And then, below, a plain. Distance was as meaningless here as time. but 
there was a sense of hugeness. The plain could have been a mile away, or a 
million miles; it was marked by long valleys or rills which flowed away to 
either side as he got closer.
And landed.
He dismounted, and stood in the silence. Then he went down on one 
knee.
Change the perspective. The furrowed landscape falls away into immense 
distances, curves at the edges, becomes a fingertip.
Azrael raised his finger to a face that filled the sky, lit by the faint glow of 
dying galaxies.
There are a billion Deaths, but they are all aspects of


263




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.
Eyes so big that a supernova would be a mere suggestion of a gleam on 
the iris turned slowly and focused on the tiny figure on the immense whorled 
plains of his fingertips. Beside Azrael the big Clock hung in the centre of the 
entire web of the dimensions, and ticked onward. Stars glittered in Azrael's 
eyes.
The Death of the Discworld stood up.
LORD, I ASK FOR -
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 ?~ding? with chaos against good order.
Azrael raised an eyebrow.
The servants drifted away from Death, expectantly.
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.
Death took a step backwards.
It was impossible to read expression in Azrael's features.
Death glanced sideways at the servants.
LORD, WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF 
THE REAPER MAN?


264




He waited.
LORD? said Death.
In the time it took to answer, several galaxies unfolded, whirled around 
Azrael like paper streamers, impacted, and were gone.
Then Azrael said:

T

1 

l~                  ~C) I

And another finger reached out across the darkness towards the Clock.
There were faint screams of rage from the servants, and then screams of 
realisation, and then three brief, blue flames.
All other clocks, even the handless clock of Death, were reflections of the 
Clock. Exactly reflections of the Clock; they told the universe what the time 
was, but the Clock told Time what time is. It was the mainspring from which 
all time poured.
And the design d the Clock was this: that the biggest hand only went 
around once.
The second hand whirred along a circular path that even light would take 
days to travel, forever chased by the minutes, hours, days, months, years, 
centuries and ages.
But the Universe hand went around once.
At least, until someone wound up the clockwork.
And Death returned home with a handful of Time.


265




A shop bell jangled.
Druto Pole, florist, looked over a spray of floribunda Mrs Shooer. 
Someone was standing among the vases of flowers. They looked slightly 
indistinct; in fact. even afterwards, Druto was never sure who had been in his 
shop and how his words had actually sounded.
He oiled forward, rubbing his hands.
'How may I hel -'
FLOWERS.
Druto hesitated only for a moment.
'And the, er, destination for these -'
A LADY.
'And do you have any pref -'

'Ah? Are you sure that lilies are -?'
I LIKE LILIES.
'Um . . . it's just that lilies are a little bit sombre -'
I LIKE SOMB -
The figure hesitated.
WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND?
Druto slipped smoothly into gear.'Roses are always very well received,' 
he said. 'Or orchids. Many gentlemen these days tell me that ladies find a 
single specimen orchid more acceptable than a bunch of roses -'
GIVE ME LOTS.
'Would that be orchids or roses?'
BOTH.
Druto's fingers twined sinuously, like eels in grease.
'And I wonder if I could interest you in these marvellous sprays of 
Neroousa GIoriosa -'
LOTS OF THEM.
'And if Sir's budget would stretch, may I suggest a single specimen of the 
extremely rare -'
YES.
'And possibly -'
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


266


corroded, all of them were strange, and one or two were golden.
'Um,' he said. 'That will do nicely . . .'
He became aware of a soft pattering sound.
Around him, all over the shop, petals were falling like rain.

AND THESE?
'That's our De Luxe assortment,' said the lady in the chocolate shop. It 
was such a highclass establishment that it sold, not sweets. but 
confectionery - often in the form of individual gold-wrapped swirly things 
that made even larger holes in a bank balance than they did in a tooth.
The tall dark customer picked up a box that was about two feet square. 
On a lid like a satin cushion it had a picture of a couple of hopelessly cross-
eyed kittens looking out of a boot.
WHAT FOR IS THIS BOX PADDED? IS IT TO BE SAT ON? CAN IT BE THAT 
IT IS CAT-FLAVOURED? he added, his tone taking on a definite menace, or 
rather more menace than it had already.
'Um, no. That's our Supreme Assortment.'
The customer tossed it aside.
No.
The shopkeeper looked both ways and then pulled open a drawer under 
the counter, at the same time lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 
'Of course,' she said, 'for that very special occasion . . .'
It was quite a small box. It was also entirely black, except for the name of 
the contents in small white letters; cats, even in pink ribbons, wouldn't be 
allowed within a mile of a box like this. 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 ?WKEIT?.
'For those intimate moments,' said the lady.
The customer appeared to consider the relevance of this.
YES. THAT SEEMS APPROPRIATE.


267




The shopkeeper beamed.
'Shall I wrap them up, then?'
YES. WITH A RIBBON.
'And will there be anything else, sir?'
The customer seemed to panic.
ELSE? SHOULD THERE BE ANYTHING ELSE? IS THERE SOMETHING 
ELSE? WHAT IS IT THAT SHOULD BE DONE?
'I'm sorry, sir?'
A PRESENT FOR A LADY.
The shopkeeper was left a little adrift by this sudden turning of the tide of 
conversation. She swam towards a reliable cliche.
'Well, they do say, don't they, that diamonds are a girl's best friend?' she 
said brightly.
DIAMONDS? OH. DIAMONDS. IS THAT SO?

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?
The merchant hesitated. He knew about carats, about adamantine lustre, 
about "water" and "make" and "fire", but he'd never before been called upon 
to judge gems in terms of general affability.
'Quite well-disposed?' he hazarded.
NO.
The merchant's fingers seized on another splinter of frozen light.
'Now this,' he said, confidence flowing back into his voice, 'is from the 
famous Shortshanks mine. May I draw your attention to the exquisite -' 
He felt the penetrating stare drill through the back of his head.
'But not, I must admit, noted for its friendliness,' he said lamely.
The dark customer looked disapprovingly around the shop. In the gloom, 
behind troll-proof bars, gems glowed like the eyes of dragons in the back of 
a cave.


268




ARE ANY OF THESE FRIENDLY? he said.
'Sir, I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that we have never 
based our purchasing policy on the amiability of the stones in question,' said 
the merchant. He was uncomfortably aware that things were wrong, and that 
somewhere in the back of his mind he knew what was wrong with them, and 
that somehow his mind was not letting him make that final link. And it was 
getting on his nerves.
WHERE IS THE BIGGEST DIAMOND IN THE WORLD?
'The biggest? That's easy. It's the Tear of Offler, it's in the innermost 
sanctuary of the Lost Jewelled Temple of Doom of Offler the Crocodile God 
in darkest Howandaland, and it weighs eight hundred and fifty carats. And, 
sir, to forestall your next question, I personally would go to bed with it.'

One of the nice things about being a priest in the Lost Jewelled Temple of 
Doom of Offler the Crocodile God was that you got to go home early most 
afternoons. This was because it was lost. Most worshippers never found 
their way there. They were the lucky ones.
Traditionally, only two people ever went into the innermost sanctuary. 
They were the High Priest and the other priest who wasn't High. They had 
been there for years, and took turns at being the high one. It was an 
undemanding job, given that most prospective worshippers were impaled, 
squashed, poisoned or sliced by booby-traps even before making it as far as 
the little box and the jolly drawing of a thermometer' outside the vestry.
They were playing Cripple Mr Onion on the high altar, beneath the very 
shadow of the jewel-encrusted statue of Offler Himself, when they heard the 
distant creak of the main door.
The High Priest didn't look up.
''Lost Jewelled Temple Roof Repair Fund! Only 6,000 gold pieces to go!! 
Please Give Generously!! Thank you!!!'


269


'Heyup.' he said. 'Another one for the big rolling ball, then.'
There was a thump and a rumbling, grinding sound. And then a very final 
bang.
'Now,' said the High Priest. 'What was the stake?'
'Two pebbles,' said the low priest.
'Right.' The High Priest peered at his cards.'OK, I'll see your two peb-'
There was the faint sound of footsteps.
'Chap with a whip got as far as the big sharp spikes last week,' said the 
low priest.
There was a sound like the flushing of a very old dry lavatory. The 
footsteps stopped.
The High Priest smiled to himself.
'Right,' he said.'See your two pebbles and raise you two pebbles.'
The low priest threw down his cards.
'Double Onion' he said.
The High Priest looked down suspiciously.
The low priest consulted a scrap of paper.
'That's three hundred thousand, nine hundred and sixty-four pebbles you 
owe me,' he said.
There was the sound of footsteps.
The priests exchanged glances.
'Haven't had one for poisoned dart alley for quite some time,' said the 
High Priest.
'Five says he makes it,' said the low priest.
'You're on.'
There was a faint clatter of metal points on stone.
'It's a shame to take your pebbles.'
There were footsteps again.
'All right, but there's still the -' a creak, a splash ' - the crocodile tank.'
There were footsteps.
'No-one's ever got past the dreaded guardian of the portals -'
The priests looked into one another's horrified faces.


270




'Hey,' said the one who was not High. 'You don't think it could be -'
'Here? Oh, come on. We're in the middle of a godsdamn jungle.' The High 
Priest tried to smile. 'There's no way it could be -'
The footsteps got nearer.
The priests clutched at one another in terror.
'Mrs Cake!'
The doors exploded inwards. A dark wind drove into the room, blowing 
out the candles and scattering the cards like polka~~ of snow.
The priests heard the chink of a very large diamond being lifted out of its 
socket.
THANK YOU.
After a while, when nothing else seemed to be happening. the priest who 
wasn't High managed to find a tinder box and, after several false starts, got a 
candle alight.
The two priests looked up through the dancing shadows at the statue, 
where a hole now gaped that should have contained a very large diamond.
After a while, the High Priest sighed and said, 'Well, look at it like this: 
apart from us, who's going to know?'
'Yeah. Never thought of it like that. Hey, can I be High Priest tomorrow?'
'It's not your turn until Thursday.'
'Oh. come on.'
The High Priest shrugged, and removed his High Priesting hat.
'It's very depressing, this kind of thing,' he said, glancing up at the 
ravaged statue. 'Some people just don't know how to behave in a house of 
religion.'

Death sped across the world, landing once again in the farmyard. The sun 
was on the horizon when he knocked on the kitchen door.
Miss Flitworth opened it, wiping her hands on her apron. She grimaced 
short-sightedly at the visitor, and then took a step back.


271




'Bill Door? You gave me quite a start -'
I HAVE BROUGHT YOU SOME FLOWERS.
She stared at the dry, dead stems.
ALSO SOME CHOCOLATE ASSORTMENT, THE SORT LADIES LIKE.
She stared at the black box.
ALSO HERE IS A DIAMOND TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU.
It caught the last rays of the setting sun.
Miss Flitworth finally found her voice.
'Bill Door, what are you thinking of?'
I HAVE COME TO TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ALL THIS.
'You have? Where to?'
Death hadn't thought this far.
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE?
'I ain't proposing to go anywhere tonight except to the dance,' said Miss 
Flitworth firmly.
Death hadn't planned for this, either.
WHAT IS THIS DANCE?
'Harvest dance. You know? It's tradition. When the harvest is in. It's a sort 
of celebration, and like a thanksgiving.'
THANKSGIVING TO WHO?
'Dunno. No-one in particular, I reckon. Just general thankfulness, I 
suppose.'
I HAD PLANNED TO SHOW YOU MARVELS. FINE CITIES. ANYTHING YOU 
WANTED.
'Anything?'
YES.
'Then we're going to the dance, Bill Door. I always go every year. They 
rely on me. You know how it is.'
YES. MISS FLITWORTH.
He reached out and took her hand.
'What, you mean now?' she said, 'I'm not ready -'
LOOK.
She looked down at what she was suddenly wearing.
'That's not my dress. It's got all glitter on it.'
Death sighed. The great lovers of history had never encountered Miss 
Flitworth. Casanunder would have handed in his stepladder.
THEY'RE DIAMONDS. A KING'S RANSOM IN DIAMONDS.


272




'Which king?'
ANY KING.
'Coo.'

Binky walked easily along the road to the town. After the length of infinity, 
a mere dusty road was a bit of a relief.
Sitting side-saddle behind Death, Miss Flitworth explored the rustling 
contents of the box of Dark Enchantments.
'Here,' she said, 'someone's had all the rum truffles.'
There was another crackle of paper. 'And from the bottom layer, too. I 
hate that, people starting the bottom layer before the top one's been properly 
finished. And I can tell you've been doing it because there's a little map in 
the lid and by rights there should be rum truffles. Bill Door?'
I'M SORRY, MISS FLITWORTH.
'This big diamond's a bit heavy. Nice, though,' she added, 
grudgingly.'Where'd you get it?'
FROM PEOPLE WHO THOUGHT IT WAS THE TEAR OF A GOD.
'And is it?'
NO. GODS NEVER WEEP. IT IS COMMON CARBON THAT HAS BEEN 
SUBJECT TO GREAT HEAT AND PRESSURE. THAT IS ALL.
'Inside every lump of coal there's a diamond waiting to get out. right?'
YES, MISS FLITWORTH.
There was no sound for a while, except the clipclop of Binky's hoofs. 
Then Miss Flitworth said, archly:
'I do know what's going on, you know. I saw how much sand there was. 
And so you thought "She's not a bad old stick, I'll show her a good time for a 
few hours, and then  when she's not expecting it, it'll be time for the old cut-
de-grass", am I right?'
Death said nothing.
'I am right, aren't I?'
I CAN'T HIDE ANYTHING FROM YOU, MISS FLITWORTH.
'Huh. I suppose I should be flattered. Yes? I expect you've got a lot of 
calls on your time.'
MORE THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE, MISS FLITWORTH.


273




'In the circumstances, then, you might as well go back to calling me 
Renata again.'
There was a bonfire in the meadow beyond the archery field. Death could 
see figures moving in front of it. An occasional tortured squeak suggested 
that someone was tuning up a fiddle.
'I always come along to the harvest dance,' said Miss Flitworth, 
conversationally. 'Not to dance, of course. I generally look after the food and 
so on.'
WHY?
'Well. someone's got to look after the food.'
I MEANT WHY DON'T YOU DANCE?
' 'Cos I'm old, that's why.'
YOU ARE AS OLD AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.
'Huh! Yeah? Really? That's the kind of stupid thing people always say. 
They always say, My word, you're looking well. They say, There's life in the 
old dog yet. Many a good ?tu~5e? played on an old fiddle. That kind of stuff. 
It's all stupid. As if being old was some kind of thing you should be glad 
about! As if being philosophical about it will earn you marks! 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.'
IT MAY BE WORTH A TRY.
More figures moved in front of the firelight. Death could see striped poles 
strung with bunting.
'The lads usually bring a couple of barn doors down here and nail 'em 
together for a proper floor,' observed Miss Flitworth. 'Then everyone can join 
in.'
FOLK DANCING? said Death, wearily.
'No. We have some pride, you know.'
SORRY.
'Hey, it's Bill Door, isn't it?' said a figure looming out of the dusk.
'It's good old Bill!'
'Hey, Bill!'
Death looked at a circle of guileless faces.


274




HALLO. MY FRIENDS.
'We heard you'd gone away,' said Duke Bottomley. He glanced at Miss 
Flitworth, as Death helped her down from the horse. His voice faltered a bit 
as he tried to analyse the situation.
'You're looking very . . . sparkly . . . tonight, Miss Flitworth,' he finished, 
gallantly.
The air smelled of warm, damp grass. An amateur orchestra was still 
setting up under an awning.
There were trestle tables covered with the kind of food that's normally 
associated with the word "repast" - pork pies like varnished military 
fortifications, vats of demonical pickled onions, jacket potatoes wallowing in 
a cholesterol ocean of melted butter. Some of the local elders had already 
established themselves on the benches provided, and were chewing 
stoically if toothlessly through the food with the air of people determined to 
sit there all night, if necessary.
'Nice to see the old people enjoying themselves,' said Miss Flitworth. 
Death looked at the eaters. Most of them were younger than Miss Flitworth.
There was a giggle from somewhere in the scented darkness beyond the 
firelight.
'And the young people,' Miss Flitworth added, evenly. 'We used to have a 
saying about this time of year. Let's see . . . something like "Corn be ripe, 
nuts be brown, petticoats up . . ." something.' She sighed. 'Don't time fly, 
eh?'
YES.
'You know, Bill Door, maybe you were right about the power of positive 
thinking. I feel a lot better tonight.'
YES?
Miss Flitworth looked speculatively at the dance floor. 'I used to be a 
great dancer when I was a gel. I could dance anyone off their feet. I could 
dance down the moon. I could dance the sun up.'
She reached up and removed the bands that held her hair in its tight bun, 
and shook it out in a waterfall of white.
'I take it you do dance, Mr Bill Door?'
FAMED FOR IT, MISS FLITWORTH.


275




Under the band's awning, the lead fiddler nodded to his fellow musicians, 
stuck his fiddle under his chin, and pounded on the boards with his foot -
'Hwun! Htwo! Hwun htwo three four . . .'

Picture a landscape. with the orange light of a crescent moon drifting 
across it. And, down below, a circle of fire-light in the night.
There were the old favourites - the square dances, the reels, the whirling, 
intricate measures which, if the dancers had carried lights, would have 
traced out topological complexities beyond the reach of ordinary physics, 
and the sort of dances that lead perfectly sane people to shout out things 
like 'Do-si~~o!' and 'Och-aye!' without feeling massively ashamed for quite a 
long time.
When the casualties were cleared away the survivors went on to polka, 
mazurka, fox-trot, turkey-trot and trot a variety of other ?4Lds? and beasts, 
and then to those dances where people form an arch and other people dance 
down it, which are incidentally generally based on folk memories of 
executions, and other dances where people form a circle, which are generally 
based on folk memories of plagues.
Through it all two figures whirled as though there was no tomorrow.
The lead fiddler was dimly aware that, when he paused for breath, a 
spinning figure tapdanced a storm out of the ?mtICe? and a voice by his ear 
said:
YOU WILL CONTINUE, I PROMISE YOU.
When he flagged a second time a diamond as big as his fist landed on the 
boards in front of him. A smaller figure sashayed out of the dancers and 
said:
'If you boys don't go on playing, William Spigot. I will personally make 
sure your life becomes absolutely foul.'
And it returned to the press of bodies.
The fiddler looked down at the diamond. It could have ransomed any five 
kings the world would care to name. He kicked it hurriedly behind him.


276




'More power to your elbow, eh?' said the drummer, grinning.
'Shut up and play!'
He was aware that tunes were turning up at the ends of his fingers that his 
brain had never known. The drummer and the piper felt it too. Music was 
pouring in from somewhere. They weren't playing it. It was playing them.
IT IS TIME FOR A NEW DANCE TO BEGIN.
'Duurrrump-da-dum-dum,' hummed the fiddler, the sweat running off his 
chin as he was caught up in a different tune.
The dancers milled around uncertainly, unsure about the steps. But one 
pair moved purposefully through them at a predatory crouch, arms clasped 
ahead of them like the bowsprit of a killer galleon. At the end of the floor they 
turned in a flurry of limbs that appeared to defy normal anatomy and began 
the angular advance back through the crowd.
'What's this one called?'
TANGO.
'Can you get put in prison for it?'
I DON'T BELIEVE SO.
'Amazing.'
The music changed.
'I know this one! It's the Quirmish bullfight dance! Oh-lay!'
'WITH MILK'?
A high-speed fusillade of hollow snapping noises suddenly kept time with 
the music.
'Who's playing the maracas?'
Death grinned.
MARACAS? I DON'T NEED . . . MARACAS.
And then it was now.
The moon was a ghost of itself on one horizon. On the other there was 
already the distant glow of the advancing day.
They left the dance floor.
Whatever had been propelling the band through the


277




hours of the night drained slowly away. They looked at one another. 
Spigot the fiddler glanced down at the jewel.
It was still there.
The drummer tried to massage some life back into his wrists.
Spigot stared helplessly at the exhausted dancers.
'Well, then . . .' he said, and raised the fiddle one more time.

Miss Flitworth and her companion listened from the mists that were 
threading around the field in the dawn light.
Death recognised the slow, insistent beat. It made him think of wooden 
figures, whirling through Time until the spring unwound.
I DON'T KNOW THAT ONE.
'It's the last waltz.'
I SUSPECT THERE'S NO SUCH THING.
'You know,' said Miss Flitworth, 'I've been wondering all evening how it's 
going to happen. How you're going to do it. I mean, people have to die of 
something, don't they? I thought maybe it was going to be of exhaustion, but 
I've never felt better. I've had the time of my life and I'm not even out of 
breath. In fact it's been a real tonic, Bill Door. And I -'
She stopped.
'I'm not breathing, am I.' It wasn't a question. She held a hand in front of 
her face and huffed on it.
NO.
'I see. I've never enjoyed myself so much in all my life . . . ha! So . . . when 
-?'
YOU KNOW WHEN YOU SAID THAT SEEING ME GAVE YOU QUITE A 
START?
'Yes?'
I GAVE YOU QUITE A STOP.
Miss Flitworth didn't appear to hear him. She kept turning her hand 
backwards and forwards, as if she'd never seen it before.
'I see you made a few changes, Bill Door,' she said.


278




NO. IT IS LIFE THAT MAKES MANY CHANGES.
'I mean that I appear to be younger.'
THAT'S WHAT I MEANT ALSO.
He snapped his fingers. Binky stopped his grazing by the hedge and 
trotted over.
'You know,' said Miss Flitworth, 'I've often thought . . . I often thought that 
everyone has their, you know, natural age. You see children of ten who act as 
though they're thirty-five. Some people are born middle-aged, even. It'd be 
nice to think I've been . . .' she looked down at herself, 'oh, let's say eighteen 
. . . all my life. Inside.'
Death said nothing. He helped her up on to the horse.
'When I see what life does to people, you know, you don't seem so bad.' 
she said nervously.
Death made a clicking noise with his teeth. Binky walked forward.
'You've never met Life, have you?'
I CAN SAY IN ALL HONESTY THAT I HAVE NOT.
'Probably some great white crackling thing. Like an electric storm in 
trousers,' said Miss Flitworth.
I THINK NOT.
Binky rose up into the morning sky.
'Anyway . . . death to all tyrants,' said Miss FIitworth.
YES.
'Where are we going?'
Binky was galloping, but the landscape did not move.
'That's a pretty good horse you've got there,' said Miss Flitworth. her 
voice shaking.
YES.
'But what is he doing?'
GETTING UP SPEED.
'But we're not going anywhere -'
They vanished.

They reappeared.
The landscape was snow and green ice on broken mountains. These 
weren't old mountains, worn down by


279




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 goat herd, but 
fifty tons of express-delivery snow.
The horse landed on a snowbank that should not, by rights, have been 
able to support it.
Death dismounted and helped Miss Flitworth down.
They walked over the snow to a frozen muddy track that hugged the 
mountain side.
'Why are we here?' said the spirit of Miss Flitworth.
I DO NOT SPECULATE ON COSMIC MATTERS.
'I mean here on this mountain. Here on this geography,' said Miss 
Flitworth patiently.
THAT IS NOT GEOGRAPHY.
'What is it, then?'
HISTORY.
They rounded a bend in the track. There was a pony there, eating a bush, 
with a pack on its back. The track ended in a wall of suspiciously clean 
snow.
Death removed a lifetimer from the recesses of his robe.
Now, he said, and stepped into the snow.
She watched it for a moment, wondering if she could have done that too. 
Solidity was an awfully hard habit to give up.
And then she didn't have to.
Someone came out.

Death adjusted Binky's bridle, and mounted up. He paused for a moment 
to watch the two figures by the avalanche.
They had faded almost to invisibility, their voices no more than textured 
air.
'All he said was "WHEREVER YOU GO, YOU GO TOGETHER." I said 
where? He said he didn't know. What's happened?'
'Rufus - you're going to find this very hard to believe, my love -'
'And who was that masked man?' They both looked around.


280


There was no-one there.

In the village in the Ramtops where they understand what the Morris 
dance is all about, they dance it just once, at dawn, on the first day of spring. 
They don't dance it after that, all through the summer. After all, what would 
be the point? What use would it be?
But on a certain day when the nights are drawing in, the dancers leave 
work early and take, from attics and cupboards, the other costume, the black 
one, and the other bells. And they go by separate ways to a valley among the 
leafless trees. They don't speak. There is no music. It's very hard to imagine 
what kind there could be.
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.
And in the cold afternoon, as the light drains from the sky, among the 
frosty leaves and in the damp air, they dance the other Morris. Because of 
the balance of things.
You've got to dance both, they say. Otherwise you can't dance either.

Windle Poons wandered across the Brass Bridge. It was the time in Ankh-
Morpork's day when the night people were going to bed and the day people 
were waking up. For once, there weren't many of either around.
Windle had felt moved to be here, at this place, on this night, now. It 
wasn't exactly the feeling he'd had when he knew he was going to die. It was 
more the feeling that a cogwheel gets inside a clock - things turn, the spring 
unwinds, and this is where you've got to be . . .
He stopped, and leaned over. The dark water, or at least very ?n~nny? 
mud, sucked at the stone supports.


281




There was an old legend . . . what was it, now? If you threw a coin into the 
Ankh from the Brass Bridge you'd be sure to return? Or was it if you just 
threw ?11~D? into the Ankh? Probably the former. Most of the citizens, if 
they dropped a coin into the river, would be sure to come back if only to look 
for the coin.
A figure loomed out of the mist. He tensed.
'Morning, Mr Poons.'
Windle let himself relax.
'Oh. Sergeant Colon? I thought you were someone else.'
'Just me, your lordship,' said the watchman cheerfully. 'Turning up like a 
bad copper.'
'I see the bridge has got through another night without being stolen, 
sergeant. Well done.'
'You can't be too careful, I always say.'
'I'm sure we citizens can sleep safely in one another's beds knowing that 
no-one can make off with a five-thousand-ton bridge overnight, ' said Windle.
Unlike Modo the dwarf, Sergeant Colon did know the meaning of the word 
'irony'. He thought it meant "sort of like iron". He gave Windle a respectful 
grin.
'You have to think quick to keep ahead of today's international criminal, 
Mr Poons,' he said.
'Good man. Er. You haven't, er, seen anyone else around, have you?'
'Dead quiet tonight,' said the sergeant. He remembered himself and 
added, 'No offence meant.'
'Oh.'
'I'll be moving along, then,' said the sergeant.
'Fine. Fine.'
'Are you all right, Mr Poons?'
'Fine. Fine.'
'Not going to throw yourself in the river again?'
'No.'
'Sure?'
'Yes.'


282




'Oh. Well. Good night, then.' He hesitated. 'Forget my own head next,' he 
said. 'Chap over there asked me to give this to you.' He held out a grubby 
envelope.
Windle peered into the mists.
'What chap?'
'That ch- oh, he's gone. Tall chap. Bit odd-looking.'
Windle unfolded the scrap of paper, on which was written: 
OOoooEeeeOooEeeeOOOeee.
'Ah,' he said.
'Bad news?' said the sergeant.
'That depends,' said Windle, 'on your point of view.'
'Oh. Right. Fine. Well . . . good night, then.'
'Goodbye.'
Sergeant Colon hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged and strolled 
on.
As he wandered away, the shadow behind him moved and grinned.
WINDLE POONS?
Windle didn't look around.
'Yes?'
Out of the corner of his eye Windle saw a pair of bony arms rest 
themselves on the parapet. There was the faint sound of a figure trying to 
make itself comfortable, and then a restful silence.
'Ah,' said Windle. 'I suppose you'll want to be getting along?'
NO RUSH.
'I thought you were always so punctual.'
IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, A FEW MINUTES MORE WILL NOT MAKE A 
LOT OF DIFFERENCE.
Windle nodded. They stood side by side in silence, while around them 
was the muted roar of the city.
'You know,' said Windle, 'it's a wonderful afterlife. Where were you?'
I WAS BUSY.
Windle wasn't really listening. 'I've met people I never even knew existed. 
I've done all sorts of things. I've really got to know who Windle Poons is.'


283




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 did know exactly what irony meant, and he could spot 
sarcasm too.
'It's all very well for you,' he mumbled.
PERHAPS.
Windle looked down at the river again.
'It's been great,' he said.'After all this time. Being needed is important.'
YES. BUT WHY?
Windle looked surprised.
'I don't know. How should I know? Because we're all in this together, I 
suppose. Because we don't leave our people in ?there?. Because you're a 
long time dead. Because anything is better than being alone. Because 
humans are human.'
AND SIXPENCE IS SIXPENCE. BUT CORN IS NOT JUST CORN.
'It isn't?'
NO.
Windle leaned back. The stone of the bridge was still warm from the day's 
heat.
To his surprise, Death leaned back as well.
BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL YOU'VE GOT, said Death.
'What? Oh. Yes. That as well. It's a great big cold universe out there.'
YOU'D BE AMAZED.
'One lifetime just isn't enough.'
OH, I DON'T KNOW.
'Hmm?'
WINDLE POONS?
'Yes?'
THAT WAS YOUR LIFE.
And, with great relief, and general optimism, and a


284




feeling that on the whole everything could have been much worse, Windle 
Poons died.

Somewhere in the night, Reg Shoe looked both ways, took a furtive 
paintbrush and small pot of paint from inside his jacket, and painted on a 
handy wall: Inside Every Living Person is a Dead Person Waiting to Get Out...
And then it was all over. The end.

Death stood at the window of his dark study, looking out on to his garden. 
Nothing moved in that still domain. Dark lilies bloomed by the trout pool, 
where little plaster skeleton gnomes fished. There were distant mountains.
It was his own world. It appeared on no map.
But now, somehow, it lacked something.
Death selected a scythe from the rack in the huge hall. He strode past the 
huge clock without hands and went outside. He stalked through the black 
orchard, where Albert was busy about the beehives, and on until he climbed 
a small mound on the edge of the garden.
Beyond, to the mountains, was unformed land - it would bear weight, it 
had an existence of sorts, but there had never been any reason to define it 
further.
Until now, anyway.
Albert came up behind him, a few dark bees still buzzing around his head.
'What are you doing, master?' he said.
REMEMBERING.
'Ah?'
I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WAS STARS.
What was it? Oh, yes . . .
He snapped his fingers. Fields appeared, following the gentle curves of 
the land.
'Golden,' said Albert. 'That's nice. I've always thought we could do with a 
bit more colour around here.'


285




Death shook his head. It wasn't quite right yet.
Then he realised what it was. The lifetimers, the great room filled with the 
roar of disappearing lives, was efficient and necessary; you needed 
something like that for good order. But . . .
He snapped his fingers again and a breeze sprang up. The cornfields 
moved, billow after billow unfolding across the slopes.
ALBERT?
'Yes, master?'
HAVE YOU NOT GOT SOMETHING TO DO? SOME LITTLE JOB?
'I don't think so,' said Albert.
AWAY FROM HERE, IS WHAT I MEAN.
'Ah. What you mean is, you want to be alone,' said Albert.
I AM ALWAYS ALONE. BUT JUST NOW I WANT TO BE ALONE BY 
MYSELF.
'Right. I'll just go and, uh, do some little jobs back at the house, then,' 
said Albert.
YOU DO THAT.
Death stood alone, watching the wheat dance in the wind. Of course, it 
was only a metaphor. People were more than corn. They whirled through tiny 
crowded lives, driven literally by clock work, filling their days from edge to 
edge with the sheer effort of living. And all lives were exactly the same 
length. Even the very long and very short ones. From the point of view of 
eternity, anyway.
Somewhere, the tiny voice of Bill Door said: from the point of view of the 
owner, longer ones are best.
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.


286




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 IT TOO. THAT WAY YOU 
KILL TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.
. . . awaiting the clockwork of the seasons.
METAPHORICALLY.

And at the end of all stories Azrael, who knew the secret, thought:
I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WILL BE AGAIN.


THE END

287

