Reaper Man

  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.

  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 and 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.

  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 gray 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 onto the moving stair. Behind them, the trolleys moved in to block their return.

  The wizards were on the floor below. They were 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 colored 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:

  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 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.

  “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 upward.

  They looked upward.

  “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!”

  “What
ever 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 around black thing up there?” said Arthur.

  “Where?”

  “There.” Arthur pointed.

  “Okay, 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 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 why—”

  “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.

  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 groan 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.

  “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 upward. A heavy gray vapor 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, Arthur. 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 living tissue that had powered them. The walls pulsed and caved inward, 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 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 onto 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 defense 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 toward 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.

  AH. MORE DRAMA.

  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 glo
w 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 gray watchers. There were ranks of them now.

  “Binky’s still in the yard. Come on!”

  NO.

  The Combination Harvester accelerated toward 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 again.

  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.

  PROBABLY.

  And then…

  …something in the machinery went clonk.

  Then the Harvester was still traveling, 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 toward 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.