Terry Pratchett - Reaper Man

"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.

He felt a cool breeze on his face and realised he'd tottered out into the open air. Ahead of him were the University's gates, locked shut.

Suddenly Windle Poons felt acutely claustrophobic.

He'd waited years to die, and now he had, and here he was stuck in this - this mausoleum with a lot of daft old men, where he'd have to spend the rest of his life being dead. Well, the first thing to do was get out and make a proper end to himself -

"Evening, Mr. Poons."

He turned around very slowly and saw the small figure of Modo, the University's dwarf gardener, who was sitting in the twilight smoking his pipe.

"Oh. Hallo, Modo."

"I ‘eard you was took dead, Mr. Poons."

"Er. Yes. I was. "

"See you got over it, then."

Poons nodded, and looked dismally around the walls. The University gates were always locked at sunset every evening, obliging students and staff to climb over the walls. He doubted very much that he'd be able to manage that.

He clenched and unclenched his hands. Oh, well...

"Is there any other gateway around here, Modo?" he said.

"No, Mr. Poons."

"Well, where shall we have one?"

"Sorry, Mr. Poons?"

There was the sound of tortured masonry, followed by a vaguely Poons-shaped hole in the wall. Windle's hand reached back in and picked up his hat.

Modo relit his pipe. You see a lot of interesting things in this job, he thought.

In an alley, temporarily out of sight of passers-by, someone called Reg Shoe, who was dead, looked both ways, took a brush and a paint tin out of his pocket, and painted on the wall the words:

DEAD YES! GONE NO!

... and ran away, or at least lurched off at high speed.

The Archchancellor opened a window on to the night.

"Listen," he said.

The wizards listened.

A dog barked. Somewhere a thief whistled, and was from a neighbouring rooftop. In the distance people were having the kind of quarrel that caused inhabitants of the surrounding streets to open their windows and listen in and make notes. But these were by major themes against the continuous hum and buzz of the city. Ankh-Morpork purred through the night, en route for the dawn, like a huge living creature although, of course, this was only a metaphor.

"Well?" said the Senior Wrangler. "I can't hear anything special."

"That's what I mean. Dozens of people die in Ankh-Morpork every day. If they'd all started coming back like poor old Windle, don't you think we'd know about it? The place'd be in uproar. More uproar than usual, I mean."

"There's always a few undead around," said the Dean, doubtfully. "Vampires and zombies and banshees and so on."

"Yes, but they're more naturally undead," said the Archchancellor. "They know how to carry it off. They're born to it."

"You can't be born to be undead," the Senior Wrangler pointed out.

"I mean it's traditional," the Archchancellor snapped. "There were some very respectable vampires where I grew up. They'd been in their family for centuries."

"Yes, but they drink blood," said the Senior Wrangler. "That doesn't sound very respectable to me."

"I read where they don't actually need the actual blood," said the Dean, anxious to assist. "They just need something that's in blood. Hemogoblins, I think it's called."

The other wizards looked at him.

The Dean shrugged. "Search me," he said. "Hemo-goblins. That's what it said. It's all to do with people having iron in their blood."

"I'm damn sure I've got no iron goblins in my blood," said the Senior-Wrangler.

"At least they're better than zombies," said the Dean. "A much better class of people. Vampires don't go shuffling around the whole time."

"People can be turned into zombies, you know," said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, in conversational tones. "You don't even need magic. Just the liver of a certain rare fish and the extract of a particular kind of root. One spoonful, and when you wake up, you ‘re a zombie."

"What type of fish?" said the Senior Wrangler.

"How should I know?"

"How should anyone know, then?" said the Senior Wrangler nastily. "Did someone wake up one morning and say, hey, here's an idea, I'll just turn someone into a zombie, all I'll need is some rare fish liver and a piece of root, it's just a matter of finding the right one? You can see the queue outside the hut, can't you? No. 94, Red Stripefish liver and Maniac root... didn't work. No. 95, Spikefish liver and Dum-dum root... didn't work. No. 96 -"