Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett [4]
Where was that damn tinder box? Fingers…you used to get proper fingers in the old days…
Someone pulled the covers off a lantern. Someone else pushed a drink into his groping hand.
“Surprise!”
In the hall of the house of Death is a clock with a pendulum like a blade but with no hands, because in the house of Death there is no time but the present. (There was, of course, a present before the present now, but that was also the present. It was just an older one.)
The pendulum is a blade that would have made Edgar Allan Poe give it all up and start again as a stand-up comedian on the scampi-in-a-casket circuit. It swings with a faint whum-whum noise, gently slicing thin rashers of interval from the bacon of eternity.
Death stalked past the clock and into the somber gloom of his study. Albert, his servant, was waiting for him with the towel and dusters.
“Good morning, master.”
Death sat down silently in his big chair. Albert draped the towel over the angular shoulders.
“Another nice day,” he said, conversationally.
Death said nothing.
Albert flapped the polishing cloth and pulled back Death’s cowl.
ALBERT.
“Sir?”
Death pulled out the tiny golden timer.
DO YOU SEE THIS?
“Yes, sir. Very nice. Never seen one like that before. Whose is it?”
MINE.
Albert’s eyes swiveled sideways. On one corner of Death’s desk was a large timer in a black frame. It contained no sand.
“I thought that one was yours, sir?” he said.
IT WAS. NOW THIS IS. A RETIREMENT PRESENT. FROM AZRAEL HIMSELF.
Albert peered at the thing in Death’s hand.
“But…the sand, sir. It’s pouring.”
QUITE SO.
“But that means…I mean…?”
IT MEANS THAT ONE DAY THE SAND WILL ALL BE POURED, ALBERT.
“I know that, sir, but…you…I thought Time was something that happened to other people, sir. Doesn’t it? Not to you, sir.” By the end of the sentence Albert’s voice was beseeching.
Death pulled off the towel and stood up.
COME WITH ME.
“But you’re Death, master,” said Albert, running crab-legged after the tall figure as it led the way out into the hall and down the passage to the stable. “This isn’t some sort of joke, is it?” he added hopefully.
I AM NOT KNOWN FOR MY SENSE OF FUN.
“Well, of course not, no offense meant. But listen, you can’t die, because you’re Death, you’d have to happen to yourself, it’d be like that snake that eats its own tail—”
NEVERTHELESS, I AM GOING TO DIE. THERE IS NO APPEAL.
“But what will happen to me?” Albert said. Terror glittered on his words like flakes of metal on the edge of a knife.
THERE WILL BE A NEW DEATH.
Albert drew himself up.
“I really don’t think I could serve a new master,” he said.
THEN GO BACK INTO THE WORLD. I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY. YOU HAVE BEEN A GOOD SERVANT, ALBERT.
“But if I go back—”
YES, said Death. YOU WILL DIE.
In the warm, horsey gloom of the stable, Death’s pale horse looked up from its oats and gave a little whinny of greeting. The horse’s name was Binky. He was a real horse. Death had tried fiery steeds and skeletal horses in the past, and found them impractical, especially the fiery ones, which tended to set light to their own bedding and stand in the middle of it looking embarrassed.
Death took the saddle down from its hook and glanced at Albert, who was suffering a crisis of conscience.
Thousands of years before, Albert had opted to serve Death rather than die. He wasn’t exactly immortal. Real time was forbidden in Death’s realm. There was only the ever-changing now, but it went on for a very long time. He had less than two months of real time left; he hoarded his days like bars of gold.
“I, er…” he began. “That is—”
YOU FEAR TO DIE?
“It’s not that I don’t want…I mean, I’ve always…it’s just that life is a habit that’s hard