Reaper Man - Terry Pratchett [7]
The Bursar looked surreptitiously at his watch. It was now twenty minutes past nine.
Windle Poons made a speech. It was long and rambling and disjointed and went on about the good old days and he seemed to think that most of the people around him were people who had been, in fact, dead for about fifty years, but that didn’t matter because you got into the habit of not listening to old Windle.
The Bursar couldn’t tear his eyes away from his watch. From inside came the squeak of the treadle as the demon patiently pedalled his way toward infinity.
Twenty-five minutes past the hour.
The Bursar wondered how it was supposed to happen. Did you hear—I think we’re going to have a very special visitor—hoofbeats outside?
Did the door actually open or did He come through it? Silly question. He was renowned for His ability to get into sealed places—especially into sealed places, if you thought about it logically. Seal yourself in anywhere and it was only a matter of time.
The Bursar hoped He’d use the door properly. His nerves were twanging as it was.
The conversational level was dropping. Quite a few other wizards, the Bursar noticed, were glancing at the door.
Windle was at the center of a very tactfully widening circle. No one was actually avoiding him, it was just that an apparent random Brownian motion was gently moving everyone away.
Wizards can see Death. And when a wizard dies, Death arrives in person to usher him into the Beyond. The Bursar wondered why this was considered a plus—
“Don’t know what you’re all looking at,” said Windle, cheerfully.
The Bursar opened his watch.
The hatch under the 12 snapped up.
“Can you knock it off with all this shaking around?” squeaked the demon. “I keeps on losing count.”
“Sorry,” the Bursar hissed. It was nine twenty-nine.
The Archchancellor stepped forward.
“’Bye, then, Windle,” he said, shaking the old man’s parchment-like hand. “The old place won’t seem the same without you.”
“Don’t know how we’ll manage,” said the Bursar, thankfully.
“Good luck in the next life,” said the Dean. “Drop in if you’re ever passing and happen to, you know, remember who you’ve been.”
“Don’t be a stranger, you hear?” said the Archchancellor.
Windle Poons nodded amiably. He hadn’t heard what they were saying. He nodded on general principles.
The wizards, as one man, faced the door.
The hatch under the 12 snapped up again.
“Bing bing bong bing,” said the demon. “Bingely-bingely bong bing bing.”
“What?” said the Bursar, jolted.
“Half past nine,” said the demon.
The wizards turned to Windle Poons. They looked faintly accusing.
“What’re you all looking at?” he said.
The seconds hand on the watch squeaked onward.
“How are you feeling?” said the Dean loudly.
“Never felt better,” said Windle. “Is there anymore of that, mm, rum left?”
The assembled wizards watched him pour a generous measure into his beaker.
“You want to go easy on that stuff,” said the Dean nervously.
“Good health!” said Windle Poons.
The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on the table.
“Mr. Poons,” he said, “are you quite sure?”
Windle had gone off at a tangent. “Any more of these toturerillas? Not that I call it proper food,” he said, “dippin’ bits of hard bikky in sludge, what’s so special about that? What I could do with right now is one of Mr. Dibbler’s famous meat pies—”
And then he died.
The Archchancellor glanced at his fellow wizards, and then tiptoed across to the wheelchair and lifted a blue-veined wrist to check the pulse. He shook his head.
“That’s the way I want to go,” said the Dean.
“What, muttering about meat pies?” said the Bursar.
“No. Late.”
“Hold on. Hold on,” said the Archchancellor. “This isn’t right, you know. According to tradition, Death himself turns up for the death of a wiz—”
“Perhaps He was busy,” said the Bursar hurriedly.
“That’s right,” said the Dean. “Bit of a serious flu epidemic over Quirm way, I’m told.”
“Quite a storm last night, too. Lots of shipwrecks, I daresay,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“And of course it’s springtime, when you get a great many