Reaper Man

He looked at himself in a silver plate.

He still looked dead. Pale face, red under the eyes. A dead body. Operating but still, basically, dead. Was that fair? Was that justice? Was that a proper reward for being a firm believer in reincarnation for almost 130 years? You come back as a corpse?

No wonder the undead were traditionally considered to be very angry.

Something wonderful, if you took the long view, was about to happen.

If you took the short or medium view, something horrible was about to happen.

It's like the difference between seeing a beautiful new star in the winter sky and actually being close to the supernova. It's the difference between the beauty of morning dew on a cobweb and actually being a fly.

It was something that wouldn't normally have happened for thousands of years.

It was about to happen now.

It was about to happen at the back of a disused cupboard in a tumble-down cellar in the Shades, the oldest and most disreputable part of Ankh-Morpork.

Plop.

It was a sound as soft as the first drop of rain on a century of dust.

"Maybe we could get a black cat to walk across his coffin."

"He hasn't got a coffin!" wailed the Bursar, whose grip on sanity was always slightly tentative.

"OK, so we buy him a nice new coffin and then we get a black cat to walk across it?"

"No, that's stupid. We've got to make him pass water."

"What?"

"Pass water. Undeads can't do it."

The wizards, who had crowded into the Archchancellor's study, gave this statement their full, fascinated attention.

"You sure?" said the Dean.

"Well-known fact," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes flatly.

"He used to pass water all the time when he was alive, " said the Dean doubtfully.

"Not when he's dead, though."

"Yeah? Makes sense."

"Running water, " said the Lecturer in Recent Runes suddenly. "It's running water. Sorry. They can't cross over it."

"Well, I can't cross running water, either," said the Dean.

"Undead! Undead!" The Bursar was becoming a little unglued.

"Oh, stop teasing him, " said the Lecturer, patting the trembling man on the back.

"Well, I can't, " said the Dean. "I sink."

"Undead can't cross running water even on a bridge."

"And is he the only one, eh? Are we going to have a plague of them, eh?" said the Lecturer.

The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on his desk.

"Dead people walking around is unhygienic, " he said.

This silenced them. No-one had ever looked at it that way, but Mustrum Ridcully was just the sort of man who would.

Mustrum Ridcully was, depending on your point of view, either the worst or the best Archchancellor that Unseen University had had for a hundred years.

There was too much of him, for one thing. It wasn't that he was particularly big, it was just that he had the kind of huge personality that fits any available space. He'd get roaring drunk at supper and that was fine and acceptable wizardly behaviour. But then he'd go back to his room and play darts all night and leave at five in the morning to go duck hunting. He shouted at people. He tried to jolly them along. And he hardly ever wore proper robes. He'd persuaded Mrs. Whitlow, the University's dreaded housekeeper, to make him a sort of baggy trouser suit in garish blue and red; twice a day the wizards stood in bemusement and watched him jog purposefully around the University buildings, his pointy wizarding hat tied firmly on his head with string. He'd shout cheerfully up at them, because fundamental to the make-up of people like Mustrum Ridcully is an iron belief that everyone else would like it, too, if only they tried it.

"Maybe he'll die, " they told one another hopefully, as they watched him try to break the crust on the river Ankh for an early morning dip. "All this healthy exercise can't be good for him."

Stories trickled back into the University. The Archchancellor had gone two rounds bare-fisted with Detritus, the huge odd-job troll at the Mended Drum. The Archchancellor had arm-wrestled with the Librarian for a bet and, although of course he hadn't won, still had his arm afterwards.

The Archchancellor wanted the University to form its own football team for the big city game on Hogswatchday.

Intellectually, Ridcully maintained his position for two reasons. One was that he never, ever, changed his mind about anything. The other was that it took him several minutes to understand any new idea put to him, and this is a very valuable trait in a leader, because anything anyone is still trying to explain to you after two minutes is probably important and anything they give up after a mere minute or so is almost certainly something they shouldn't have been bothering you with in the first place.

There seemed to be more Mustrum Ridcully than one body could reasonably contain.

Plop. Plop.

In the dark cupboard in the cellar, a whole shelf was already full.

There was exactly as much Windle Poons as one body could contain, and he steered it carefully along the corridors.

I never expected this, he thought. I don't deserve this. There's been a mistake somewhere.