Reaper Man

  “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 his 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.

  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 up-bringing 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.”

  “Darn?”.

  “Yes, or maybe poot.”

  “Poot? 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 swear-words 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.

  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 realized 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 toward the hedge.

  Iago Peedbury’s big field was right on the other side. His 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-honored 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 toward 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.

&nb
sp; Simnel climbed back into the Harvester and nodded to the man leading the horse.

  “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—”

  “It’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 Flitworth. 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 it’s head and squinted muzzily at Miss Flitworth.

  “Don’t know what come over him,” said Duke Bottomley.

  “He’s a devil for working,” said William 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.

  “Up and down the field like a madman, trying to better that contraption of Ned Simnel’s. Took four of us to do the binding. He nearly beat it, too.”

  “Put him down on the sofa.”

  “He 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 Flitworth eclipsed his view.

  “I’m sure you did. Thank you. Now I expect you’ll be wanting to be off home.”

  “If 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 Door?”

  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.

  “It’s all part of being alive.”

  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.

  AARGH.

  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!

  “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, gray 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 shimmered 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.

  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 ENOUGH.

  “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. Even 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 THERE IS SUCH A THING AS RIGHT. OR WRONG. JUST PLACES TO STAND.

  “No, right’s right and wrong’s wrong,” said Miss Flitworth. “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 thunderclap rocked the house; a few bricks from the chimney rattled into the grate. Then the windows shook to a fierce pounding.

  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.

  “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 tarpa
ulin 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 specialized 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 drafts in the room driving luckless air molecules to their severed death.

  Ned Simnel picked it up with great care.

  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 materialized 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.