'Cower now, Brief Mortals,' he said. 'For I am Death, 'Gainst Whom No . . . no . . . no . . . Hwel, 'gainst whom no?'
'Oh, good grief, Dafe. “ 'Gainst whom no lock will hold nor fasten'd portal bar”, I really don't see why you have difficulty with . . . not that way up, you idiots!' Hwel strode off through the backstage melee in pursuit of a pair of importunate scene shifters.
'Right,' said Death, to no-one in particular. He turned back to the mirror.
' 'Gainst Whom No . . . Tumpty-Tum . . . nor Tumpty-Tumpty bar,' he said, uncertainly, and flourished his scythe. The end fell off.
'Do you think I'm fearsome enough?' he said, as he tried to fix it on again.
Tomjon, who was sitting on his hump and trying to drink some tea, gave him an encouraging nod.
'No problem, my friend,' he said. 'Compared to a visit from you, even Death himself would hold no fears. But you could try a bit more hollowness.'
'How d'you mean?'
Tomjon put down his cup. Shadows seemed to move across his face; his eyes sank, his lips drew back from his teeth, his skin stretched and paled.
'I HAVE COME TO GET YOU, YOU TERRIBLE ACTOR,' he intoned, each syllable falling into place like a coffin lid. His features sprang back into shape.
'Like that,' he said.
Dafe, who had flattened himself against the wall, relaxed a bit and gave a nervous giggle.
'Gods, I don't know how you do it,' he said. 'Honestly, I'll never be as good as you.'
'There really isn't anything to it. Now run along, Hwel's fit to be tied as it is.'
Dafe gave him a look of gratitude and ran off to help with the scene shifting.
black and midnight hags!'
'Are you scheming?'
'Yeah!'
'Are you secret?'
'Yeah!'
Hwel drew himself to his full height, such as it was.
'What-are-you?' he screamed.
'We're scheming evil secret black and midnight hags!'
'Right!' He pointed a vibrating finger towards the stage and lowered his voice and, at that moment, a dramatic inspiration dived through the atmosphere and slammed into his creative node, causing him to say, 'Now I want you to get out there and give 'em hell. Not for me. Not for the goddam captain.' He shifted the butt of an imaginary cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, and pushed back a non-existent tin helmet, and rasped, 'But for Corporal Walkowski and his little dawg.'
They stared at him in disbelief.
On cue, someone shook a sheet of tin and broke the spell.
Hwel rolled his eyes. He'd grown up in the mountains, where thunderstorms stalked from peak to peak on legs of lightning. He remembered thunderstorms that left mountains a different shape and flattened whole forests. Somehow, a sheet of tin wasn't the same, no matter how enthusiastically it was shaken.
Just once, he thought, just once. Let me get it right just once.
He opened his eyes and glared at the witches.
'What are you hanging around here for?' he yelled. 'Get out there and curse them!'