The wizards made frantic signals to one another over his head. He looked up and glared at them.
‘And don’t think I can’t see all them frantic signals,’ he said. And he was amazed to realise that this
was true. Eyes that had viewed the past sixty years trough a pale, fuzzy veil had been bullied into operating like the finest optical machinery.
In fact two main bodies of thought were occupying the minds of the wizards of Unseen University.
What was being thought by most of the wizards was: this is terrible, is it really old Windle in there, he was such a sweet old buffer, how can we get rid of it?
How can we get n’d ofit?
What was being thought by Windle Poons, in the humming, flashing cockpit of his brain, was: well, it’s bye. There is life after death. And it’s the same one. Just my luck.
‘Well, ‘ he said, ‘ what’re you going to do about it?’
It was five minutes later. Half a dozen of the most senior wizards scurried along the draughty corridor in the wake of the Archchancellor, whose robes billowed ?out? behind him.
The conversation went like this:
‘It’s got to be Windle! It even talks like him!’
‘It’s not old Windle. Old Windle was a lot older!’
‘Older? Older than dead?’
‘He’s said he wants his old bedroom back, and I don’t see why I should have to move out -‘
‘Did you see his eyes? Like gimlets !’
‘Eh? What? What d’you mean? You mean like that dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street?’
‘I mean like they bore into you!’
‘- it’s got a lovely view of the gardens and I’ve had all my stuff moved in and it’s not fair -‘
‘Has this ever happened before?’
‘Well, there was old Teatar -‘
‘Yes, but he never actually died, he just used to put green paint on his face and push the lid off the coffin and shout “Surprise, surprise -” ‘
‘We’ve never had a zombie here.’
‘He’s a zombie?’
‘I think so -‘
‘Does that mean he’ll be playing kettle drums and doing that bimbo dancing all night, then?’
‘Is that what they do?’
‘Old Windle? Doesn’t sound like his cup of tea. He never liked dancing much when he was alive -‘
‘Anyway, you can’t trust those voodoo gods. Never trust a god who grins all the time and wears a top hat, that’s my motto.’
‘- I’m damned if I’m going to give up my bedroom to a zombie after waiting years for it -‘
‘Is it? That’s a funny motto.’
Windle Poons strolled around the inside of his own head again.
Strange thing, this. Now he was dead, or not living any more, or whatever he was, his mind felt clearer than it had ever done.
And control seemed to be getting easier, too. He hardly had to bother about the whole respiratory thing, the spleen seemed to be working after a fashion, the senses were operating at full speed. The digestive system was still a bit of a mystery, though.
He looked at himself in a silver plate.
He still looked dead. Pale face, red under the eyes. A dead body. Operating but still, basically, dead. Was that fair? Was that justice? Was that a proper reward for being a firm believer in reincarnation for almost 130 years? You come back as a corpse?
No wonder the undead were traditionally considered to be very angry.
Something wonderful, if you took the long view, was about to happen.
If you took the short or medium view, something horrible was about to happen.
It’s like the difference between seeing a beautiful new star in the winter sky and actually being close to
the supernova. It’s the difference between the beauty of morning dew on a cobweb and actually being a fly.
It was something that wouldn’t normally have happened for thousands of years.
It was about to happen now.
It was about to happen at the back of a disused cupboard in a tumble-down cellar in the Shades, the oldest and most disreputable part of Ankh-Morpork.
Plop.
It was a sound as soft as the first drop of rain on a century of dust.
‘Maybe we could get a black cat to walk across his coffin.’
‘He hasn’t got a coffin!’ wailed the Bursar, whose grip on sanity was always slightly tentative.
‘OK, so we buy him a nice new coffin and then we get a black cat to walk across it?’
‘No, that’s stupid. We’ve got to make him pass water.’
‘What?’
‘Pass water. Undeads can’t do it.’
The wizards, who had crowded into the Archchancellor’s study, gave this statement their full, fascinated attention.
‘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 ?liling? 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.