The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett [83]
Twoflower watched him in amazement until Rincewind snatched at his shoulder and indicated a likely looking passage. They hurried down it, leaving the remaining hydrophobe writhing on the floor and snatching at his damp hand.
For a while there was some shouting behind them, but they scuttled along a cross corridor and another courtyard and soon left the sounds of pursuit behind. Finally Rincewind picked a safe looking door, peered around it, found the room beyond to be unoccupied, dragged Twoflower inside, and slammed it behind him. Then he leaned against it, wheezing horribly.
“We’re totally lost in a palace on an island we haven’t a hope of leaving,” he panted. “And what’s more we—hey!” he finished, as the sight of the contents of the room filtered up his deranged optic nerves.
Twoflower was already staring at the walls.
Because what was so odd about the room was, it contained the whole universe.
Death sat in His garden, running a whetstone along the edge of His scythe. It was already so sharp that any passing breeze that blew across it was sliced smoothly into two puzzled zephyrs, although breezes were rare indeed in Death’s silent garden. It lay on a sheltered plateau overlooking the Discworld’s complex dimensions, and behind it loomed the cold, still, immensely high and brooding mountains of Eternity.
Swish! went the stone. Death hummed a dirge, and tapped one bony foot on the frosty flagstones.
Someone approached through the dim orchard where the nightapples grew, and there came the sickly sweet smell of crushed lilies. Death looked up angrily, and found Himself staring into eyes that were black as the inside of a cat and full of distant stars that had no counterpart among the familiar constellations of the Realtime universe.
Death and Fate looked at each other. Death grinned—He had no alternative, of course, being made of implaccable bone. The whetstone sang rhythmically along the blade as He continued His task.
“I have a task for you,” said Fate. His words drifted across Death’s scythe and split tidily into two ribbons of consonants and vowels.
I HAVE TASKS ENOUGH THIS DAY, said Death in a voice as heavy as neutronium. THE WHITE PLAGUE ABIDES EVEN NOW IN PSEUDOPOLIS AND I AM BOUND THERE TO RESCUE MANY OF ITS CITIZENS FROM HIS GRASP. SUCH A ONE HAS NOT BEEN SEEN THESE HUNDRED YEARS. I AM EXPECTED TO STALK THE STREETS, AS IS MY DUTY.
“I refer to the matter of the little wanderer and the rogue wizard,” said Fate softly, seating himself beside Death’s black-robed form and staring down at the distant, multifaceted jewel which was the Disc universe as seen from this extra-dimensional vantage point.
The scythe ceased its song.
“They die in a few hours,” said Fate. “It is fated.”
Death stirred, and the stone began to move again.
“I thought you would be pleased,” said Fate.
Death shrugged, a particularly expressive gesture for someone whose visible shape was that of a skeleton.
I DID INDEED CHASE THEM MIGHTILY, ONCE, he said, BUT AT LAST THE THOUGHT CAME TO ME THAT SOONER OR LATER ALL MEN MUST DIE. EVERYTHING DIES IN THE END. I CAN BE ROBBED BUT NEVER DENIED, I TOLD MYSELF. WHY WORRY?
“I too cannot be cheated,” snapped Fate.
SO I HAVE HEARD, said Death, still grinning.
“Enough!” shouted Fate, jumping to his feet. “They will die!” He vanished in a sheet of blue fire.
Death nodded to Himself and continued at His work. After some minutes the edge of the blade seemed to be finished to His satisfaction. He stood up and leveled the scythe at the fat and noisome candle that burned on the edge of the bench and then, with two deft sweeps, cut the flame into three bright slivers. Death grinned.
A short while later he was saddling his white stallion, which lived in a stable at the back