Reaper Man (Discworld 11)

Death adjusted Binky’s bridle, and mounted up. He paused for a moment to watch the two figures by the avalanche. They had faded almost to invisibility, their voices no more than textured air.

“All he said was ‘WHEREVER YOU GO, YOU GO TOGETHER.’ I said where? He said he didn’t know. What’s happened?”

“Rufus—you’re going to find this very hard to believe, my love—”

“And who was that masked man?”

They both looked around.

There was no one there.

In the village in the Ramtops where they understand what the Morris dance is all about, they dance it just once, at dawn, on the first day of spring. They don’t dance it after that, all through the summer. After all, what would be the point? What use would it be?

But on a certain day when the nights are drawing in, the dancers leave work early and take, from attics and cupboards, the other costume, the black one, and the other bells. And they go by separate ways to a valley among the leafless trees. They don’t speak. There is no music. It’s very hard to imagine what kind there could be.

The bells don’t ring. They’re made of octiron, a magic metal. But they’re not, precisely, silent bells. Silence is merely the absence of noise. They make the opposite of noise, a sort of heavily textured silence.

And in the cold afternoon, as the light drains from the sky, among the frosty leaves and in the damp air, they dance the other Morris. Because of the balance of things.

You’ve got to dance both, they say. Otherwise you can’t dance either.

Windle Poons wandered across the Brass Bridge. It was the time in Ankh-Morpork’s day when the night people were going to bed and the day people were waking up. For once, there weren’t many of either around.

Windle had felt moved to be here, at this place, on this night, now. It wasn’t exactly the feeling he’d had when he knew he was going to die. It was more the feeling that a cogwheel gets inside a clock—things turn, the spring unwinds, and this is where you’ve got to be…

He stopped, and leaned over. The dark water, or at least very runny mud, sucked at the stone supports. There was an old legend…what was it, now? If you threw a coin into the Ankh from the Brass Bridge you’d be sure to return? Or was it if you just threw up into the Ankh? Probably the former. Most of the citizens, if they dropped a coin into the river, would be sure to come back if only to look for the coin.

A figure loomed out of the mist. He tensed.

“Morning, Mr. Poons.”

Windle let himself relax.

“Oh. Sergeant Colon? I thought you were someone else.”

“Just me, your lordship,” said the watchman cheerfully. “Turning up like a bad copper.”

“I see the bridge has got through another night without being stolen, sergeant. Well done.”

“You can’t be too careful, I always say.”

“I’m sure we citizens can sleep safely in one another’s beds knowing that no one can make off with a five-thousand-ton bridge overnight,” said Windle.

Unlike Modo the dwarf, Sergeant Colon did know the meaning of the word “irony.” He thought it meant “sort of like iron.” He gave Windle a respectful grin.

“You have to think quick to keep ahead of today’s international criminal, Mr. Poons,” he said.

“Good man. Er. You haven’t, er, seen anyone else around, have you?”

“Dead quiet tonight,” said the sergeant. He remembered himself and added, “No offense meant.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll be moving along, then,” said the sergeant.

“Fine. Fine.”

“Are you all right, Mr. Poons?”