He jumped up on to the wall and flapped his sheet.
WAITING.
'Wait forever, bone face!' said the duke triumphantly. 'I shall hover in the twilight world, I shall find some chains to shake, I shall—'
He stepped backwards, lost his balance, landed heavily on the wall and slid. For a moment the remnant of his right hand scrabbled ineffectually at the stonework, and then it vanished.
Death is obviously potentially everywhere at the same time, and in one sense it is no more true to say that he was on the battlements, picking vaguely at non-existent particles of glowing metal on the edge of his scythe blade, than that he was waist-deep in the foaming, rock-toothed waters in the depths of Lancre gorge, his calcareous gaze sweeping downwards and stopping abruptly at a point where the torrent ran a few treacherous inches over a bed of angular pebbles.
After a while the duke sat up, transparent in the phosphorescent waves.
'I shall haunt their corridors,' he said, 'and whisper under the doors on still nights.' His voice grew fainter, almost lost in the ceaseless roar of the river. 'I shall make basket chairs creak most alarmingly, just you wait and see.'
Death grinned at him.
NOW YOU'RE TALKING.
It started to rain.
Ramtop rain has a curiously penetrative quality which makes ordinary rain seem almost arid. It poured in torrents over the castle roofs, and somehow seemed to go right through the tiles and fill the Great Hall with a warm, uncomfortable moistness.[21]
The hall was crowded with half the population of Lancre. Outside, the rushing of the rain even drowned out the distant roar of the river. It soaked the stage. The colours ran and mingled in the painted backdrop, and one of the curtains sagged away from its rail and flapped sadly into a puddle.
are all lying,' said the duke, in tranquil tones. 'Telling lies is naughty.'
He stabbed several of the nearest actors in a dreamy, gentle way, and then held up the blade.
'You see?' he said. 'No blood! It wasn't me.' He looked up at the duchess, towering over him now like a red tsunami over a small fishing village.
'It was her,' he said. 'She did it.'
He stabbed her once or twice, on general principles, and then stabbed himself and let the dagger drop from his fingers.
After a few seconds reflection he said, in a voice far nearer the worlds of sanity, 'You can't get me now.'
He turned to Death. 'Will there be a comet?' he said. 'There must be a comet when a prince dies. I'll go and see, shall I?'
He wandered away. The audience broke into applause.
'You've got to admit he was real royalty,' said Nanny Ogg, eventually. 'It only goes to show, royalty goes eccentric far better than the likes of you and me.'
Death held the hourglass to his skull, his face radiating puzzlement.
Granny Weatherwax picked up the fallen dagger and tested the blade with her finger. It slid into the handle quite easily, with a faint squeaking noise.
She passed it to Nanny.
'There's your magic sword,' she said.
Magrat looked at it, and then back at the Fool.
'Are you dead or not?' she said.
'I must be,' said the Fool, his voice slightly muffled. 'I think I'm in paradise.'
'No, look, I'm serious.'
'I don't know. But I'd like to breathe.'