Reaper Man

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.

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? 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 holding everything up?

‘What do you mean?’

shutupshutupshutup I’m trying to talk to the lady! you lot over there, keep the noise down! oh yeah? 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 you? 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! right — that does it, you …

His voice faded.

Mrs Cake set her jaw.

His voice came back.

— oh yeah? oh yeah? 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.

‘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—