Reaper Man (Discworld #11)

Reaper Man (Discworld #11) Page 20

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 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.

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 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. 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 runny mud, sucked at the stone supports.

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 wood 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."

"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."

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 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."

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.

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