Reaper Man

Windle's trained thought ran over a cliff. He looked around at five red, worried, and above all familiar faces.

"Oh, hallo, Dean," he said, unhappily. "And is that the Senior Wrangler? Oh, and the Archchancellor, this is -"

"Grab his arm!"

"Don't look at his eyes!"

"Grab his other arm!"

"This is for your own good, Windle!"

"It's not Windle! It's a creature of the Night!"

"I assure you -"

"Have you got his legs?"

"Grab his leg!"

"Grab his other leg!"

"Have you grabbed everything?" roared the Archchancellor.

The wizards nodded.

Mustrum Ridcully reached into the massive recesses of his robe.

"Right, fiend in human shape," he growled, "what d'you think of this, then? Ah-ha!"

Windle squinted at the small object that was thrust triumphantly under his nose.

"Well, er... " he said diffidently, "I'd say... yes... hmm... yes, the smell is very distinctive, isn't it... yes, quite definitely. Allium sativum. The common domestic garlic. Yes?"

The wizards stared at him. They stared at the little white clove. They stared at Windle again.

"I am right, aren't I?" he said, and made an attempt at a smile.

"Er," said the Archchancellor. "Yes. Yes, that's right. " Ridcully cast around for something to add.

"Well done, " he said.

"Thank you for trying," said Windle. "I really appreciate it. " He stepped forward. The wizards might as well have tried to hold back a glacier.

"And now I'm going to have a lie down," he said. " It's been a long day."

He lurched into the building and creaked along the corridors until he reached his room. Someone else seemed to have moved some of their stuff into it, but Windle dealt with that by simply picking it all up in one sweep of his arms and throwing it out into the corridor.

Then he lay down on the bed.

Sleep. Well, he was tired. That was a start. But sleeping meant letting go of control, and he wasn't too certain that all the systems were fully functional yet.

Anyway, when you got right down to it, did he have to sleep at all? After all, he was dead. That was supposed to be just like sleeping, only even more so. They said that dying was just like going to sleep, although of course if you weren't careful bits of you could rot and drop off.

What were you supposed to do when you slept, anyway? Dreaming... wasn't that all to do with sorting out your memories, or something? How did you go about it?

He stared at the ceiling.

"I never thought being dead would be so much trouble, " he said aloud.

After a while a faint but insistent squeaking noise made him turn his head.

Over the fireplace was an ornamental candlestick, fixed to a bracket on the wall. It was such a familiar piece of furniture that Windle hadn't really seen it for fifty years.

It was coming unscrewed. It spun around slowly, squeaking once a turn. After half a dozen turns it fell off and clattered to the floor.

Inexplicable phenomena were not in themselves unusual on the Discworld. It was just that they normally had more point, or at least were a bit more interesting.

Nothing else seemed to be about to move. Windle relaxed, and went back to organising his memories. There was stuff in there he'd completely forgotten about.

There was a brief whispering outside, and then the door burst open -

"Get his legs! Get his legs!"

"Hold his arms!"

Windle tried to sit up. "Oh, hallo, everyone, " he said. ‘What's the matter?"

The Archchancellor, standing at the foot of the bed, fumbled in a sack and produced a large, heavy object.

He held it aloft.

"Ah-ha!" he said.

Windle peered at it.

"Yes?" he said, helpfully.

"Ah-ha," said the Archchancellor again, but with slightly less conviction.

"It's a symbolic double-handled axe from the cult of Blind Io," said Windle.

The Archchancellor gave him a blank look.

"Er, yes," he said, "that's right." He threw it over his shoulder, almost removing the Dean's left ear, and fished in the sack again.

"Ah-ha!"

"That's a rather fine example of the Mystic Tooth of Offler the Crocodile God, " said Windle.

"Ah-ha!"

"And that's a... let me see now... yes, that's the matched set of sacred Flying Ducks of Ordpor the Tasteless. I say, eh, this is fun!"

"Ah-ha."

"That's... don't tell me, don't tell me... that's the holy linglon of the notorious Sootee cult, isn't it?"

"Ah-ha?"

"I think that one's the three-headed fish of the Howanda three-headed fish religion," said Windle.

"This is ridiculous," said the Archchancellor, dropping the fish.

The wizards sagged. Religious objects weren't such a surefire undead cure after all.

"I'm really sorry to be such a nuisance, " said Windle.

The Dean suddenly brightened up.

"Daylight!" he said excitedly. "That'll do the trick!"

"Get the curtain!"

"Get the other curtain!"

"One, two, three... now!"

Windle blinked in the invasive sunlight.

The wizards held their breath.

"I'm sorry," he said. "It doesn't seem to work."

They sagged again.

"Don't you feel anything?" said Ridcully.

"No sensation of crumbling into dust and blowing away?" said the Senior Wrangler hopefully.