"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 rounded 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 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 ¨C" 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."
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?"
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 ¨C" she began, and paused. Her fingers moved on the bone of his arm. They pulled away for a moment, and then closed again.
Bill Door shivered.
Miss Flitworth didn't hesitate for long. In seventy-five years she had dealt with wars, famine, innumerable sick animals, a couple of epidemics and thousands of tiny, everyday tragedies. A depressed skeleton wasn't even in the top ten Worst Things she had seen.
"So it is you," she said.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
"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 surf on the boiling interface between night and day.
If one of them had been carried thousands of miles inland on the dawn, he might have seen, as the light thundered over the high plains, a stick figure toiling up a low hill in the path of the morning.
It reached the top a moment before the light arrived, took a breath, and then spun around in a crouch, grinning.
It held a long blade upright between extended arms.
Light struck... split... slid...
Not that the wizard would have paid much attention, because he'd be too busy worrying about the five-thousand-mile walk back home.
Miss Flitworth panted up as the new day streamed past.
Bill Door was absolutely still, only the blade moving between his fingers as he angled it against the light. Finally he seemed satisfied.
He turned around and swished it experimentally through the air.
Miss Flitworth stuck her hands on her hips. "Oh, come on," she said, "No-one can sharpen a blade on daylight! How can you sharpen something..."
She paused.
He waved the blade again.
"Good grief."
Down in the yard. Cyril stretched his bald neck for another 90. Bill Door grinned, and swung the blade towards the sound.
"Su-doodle-riod!"
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 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 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."
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.