Bill Door paused at the top of the stairs.
SHE IS LIVING ON BORROWED TIME, he said.
There was an old forge behind the barn. It hadn’t been used for years. But now red and yellow light spilled out into the yard, pulsing like a heart.
And like a heart, there was a regular thumping. With every crash the light flared blue.
Miss Flitworth sidled through the open doorway. If she was the kind of person who would swear, she would have sworn that she made no noise that could possibly be heard above the crackle of the fire and the hammering, but Bill Door spun around in a halfcrouch, holding a curved blade in front of him.
‘It’s me!’
He relaxed, or at least moved into a different level of tension.
‘What the hell’re you doing?’
He looked at the blade in his hands as if he was seeing it for the first time.
I THOUGHT I WOULD SHARPEN THIS SCYTHE, MISS FLITWORTH.
‘At one o’clock in the morning?’
He looked at it blankly.
IT’S JUST AS BLUNT AT NIGHT, MISS FLITWORTH.
Then he slammed it down on the anvil.
AND I CAN’T SHARPEN IT ENOUGH!
‘I think perhaps the heat has got to you,’ she said, and reached out and took his arm.
‘Besides, it looks sharp enough to -‘ she began, and paused. Her fingers moved on the bone of his arm. They pulled away for a moment, and then closed again.
Bill Door shivered.
Miss Flitworth didn’t hesitate for long. In seventy-five years she had dealt with wars, famine, innumerable sick animals. a couple of epidemics and thousands of tiny, everyday tragedies. A depressed skeleton wasn’t even in the top ten Worst Things she had seen.
‘So it is you,’ she said.
MISS FLITWORTH, I –
‘I always knew you would come one day.’
I THINK PERHAPS THAT –
‘You know, I spent most of my life waiting for a knight on a white charger.’ Miss Flitworth grinned.‘The joke’s on me, eh?’
Bill Door sat down on the anvil.
‘The apothecary came.’ she said.‘He said he couldn’t do anything. He said she was fine. We just couldn’t wake her up. And. you know, it took us ages to get her hand open. She had it closed so tightly.’
I SAID NOTHING WAS TO BE TAKEN!
‘It’s all right. It’s all right. We left her holding it.’
GOOD.
‘What was it?’
MY TIME.
‘Sorry?’
MY TIME. THE TIME OF MY LIFE.
‘It looks like an eggtimer for very expensive eggs.’
Bill Door looked surprised. YES. IN A WAY. I HAVE GIVEN HER SOME OF MY TIME.
‘How come you need time?’
EVERY LIVING THING NEEDS TIME. AND WHEN IT RUNS OUT, THEY DIE. WHEN IT RUNS OUT, SHE WILL DIE. AND I WILL DIE, TOO. IN A FEW HOURS.
‘But you can’t -‘
I CAN. IT’S HARD TO EXPLAIN.
‘Move up.’
WHAT?
‘I said move up. I want to sit down.’
Bill Door made space on the anvil. Miss Flitworth sat down.
‘So you’re going to die,’ she said.
YES.
‘And you don’t want to.’
NO.
‘Why not?’
He looked at her as if she was mad.
BECAUSE THEN THERE WILL BE NOTHING. BECAUSE I WON’T EXIST.
‘Is that what happens for humans, too?’
I DON’T THINK SO. IT’S DIFFERENT FOR YOU. YOU HAVE IT ALL BETTER ORGANISED.
They both sat watching the fading glow of the coals in the forge.
‘So what were you working on the scythe blade for?’ said Miss Flitworth.
I THOUGHT PERHAPS I COULD … FIGHT BACK …
‘Has it ever worked? With you, I mean.’
NOT USUALLY. SOMETIMES PEOPLE CHALLENGE ME TO A GAME. FOR THEIR LIVES, YOU KNOW.
‘Do they ever win?’
NO. LAST YEAR SOMEONE GOT THREE STREETS AND ALL THE UTILITIES.
‘What? What sort of game is that?’
I DON’T RECALL.‘EXCLUSIVE POSSESSION’, I THINK. I WAS THE BOOT.
‘Just a moment.’ said Miss Flitworth. If you’re you, who will be coming for you?’
DEATH. LAST NIGHT THIS WAS PUSHED UNDER THE DOOR.
Death opened his hand to reveal a small grubby piece of paper, on which Miss Flitworth could read. with some difficulty, the word: OOoooEEEeeOOOoooEEeeeOOOoooEEeee.
I HAVE RECEIVED THE BADLY-WRITTEN NOTE OF THE BANSHEE.
Miss Flitworth looked at him with her head on one side.
‘But … correct me if I’m wrong, but …’
THE NEW DEATH.
Bill Door picked up the blade.
HE WILL BE TERRIBLE.
The blade twisted in his hands. Blue light flickered along its edge.
I WILL BE THE FIRST.
Miss Flitworth stared at the light as if fascinated.
‘Exactly how terrible?’
HOW TERRIBLE CAN YOU IMAGINE?
‘Oh.’
EXACTLY AS TERRIBLE AS THAT.
The blade tilted this way and that.
‘And for the child, too,’ said Miss Flitworth.
YES.
‘I don’t reckon I owe you any favours, Mr Door. I don’t reckon anyone in the whole world owes you any favours.’
YOU MAY BE RIGHT.
‘Mind you, life’s got one or two things to answer for too. Fair’s fair.’
I CAN’T SAY.
Miss FIitworth gave him another long, appraising look.
‘There’s a pretty good grindstone in the corner,’ she said.
I’VE USED IT.
‘And there’s an oilstone in the cupboard.’
I’VE USED THAT, TOO.
She thought she could hear a sound as the blade moved. A sort of faint whine of tensed air.
‘And it’s still not sharp enough?’
Bill Door sighed. IT MAY NEVER BE SHARP ENOUGH.
‘Come on, man. No sense in giving in,’ said Miss Flitworth.‘Where there’s life, eh?’
WHERE THERE’S LIFE EH WHAT?
‘There’s hope?’
IS THERE?
‘Right enough.’
Bill Door ran a bony finger along the edge.
HOPE?
‘Got anything else left to try?’
Bill shook his head. He’d tried a number of emotions. but this was a new one.
COULD YOU FETCH ME A STEEL?
It was an hour later.
Miss Flitworth sorted through her rag-bag.
‘What next?’ she said.
WHAT HAVE WE HAD SO FAR?
‘Let’s see … hessian, calico, linen … how about satin? Here’s a piece.’
Bill Door took the rag and wiped it gently along the blade.
Miss Flitworth reached the bottom of the bag, and pulled out a swatch of white cloth.
YES?
‘Silk,’ she said softly. ‘Finest white silk. The real stuff. Never worn.’
She sat back and stared at it.
After a while he took it tactfully from her fingers.
THANK YOU.
‘Well now,’ she said, waking up. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’
When he turned the blade, it made a noise like whommmm. The fires of the forge were barely alive now, but the blade glowed with razor light.
‘Sharpened on silk,’ said Miss Flitworth. ‘Who’d believe it?’
AND STILL BLUNT.
Bill Door looked around the dark forge, and then darted into a corner.
‘What have you found?’
COBWEB.
There was a long thin whine, like the torturing of ants.
‘Any good?’
STILL TOO BLUNT.
She watched Bill Door stride out of the forge, and scuttled after him. He went and stood in the middle of the yard, holding the scythe blade edge-on to the faint, dawn breeze.
It hummed.
‘How sharp can a blade get, for goodness’ sake?’
IT CAN GET SHARPER THAN THIS.
Down in his henhouse, Cyril the cockerel awoke and stared blearily at the treacherous letters chalked on the board. He took a deep breath.
‘Floo-acockle-dod!’
Bill Door glanced at the rimward horizon and then, speculatively, at the little hill behind the house.
He jerked forward, legs clicking over the ground.
The new daylight sloshed on to the world. Discworld light is old, slow and heavy; it roared across the landscape like a cavalry charge. The occasional valley slowed it for a moment and. here and there, a mountain range banked it up until it poured over the top and down the far slope.
It moved across a sea, surged up the beach and accelerated over the plains, driven by the lash of the sun.
On the fabled hidden continent of Xxxx, somewhere near the rim, there is a lost colony of wizards who wear corks around their pointy hats and live on nothing but prawns. There, the light is still wild and fresh as it rolls in from space, and the~~urf on the boiling interface between night and day.
If one of them had been carried thousands of miles inland on the dawn. he might have seen, as the light thundered over the high plains, a stick figure toiling up a low hill in the path of the morning.
It reached the top a moment before the light arrived, took a breath, and then spun around in a crouch, grinning.
It held a long blade upright between extended arms.
Light struck … split … slid …
Not that the wizard would have paid much attention, because he’d be too busy worrying about the five-thousand-mile walk back home.
Miss Flitworth panted up as the new day streamed past.
Bill Door was absolutely still, only the blade moving between his fingers as he angled it against the light. Finally he seemed satisfied.