The Light Fantastic

‘Why not?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps the view isn’t very good. Are you a hero, actually?’

‘Um, no. Not as such. Not at all, really. Even less than that, in fact. I just came to look for a friend of mine,’ he said wretchedly. ‘I suppose you haven’t seen him? Little fat man, talks a lot, wears eyeglasses, funny sort of clothes?’

As he spoke he was aware that he may have missed something vital. He shut his eyes and tried to recall the last few minutes of conversation. Then it hit him like a sandbag.

‘Daddy?’

She looked down demurely. ‘Adopted, actually,’ she said. ‘He found me when I was a little girl, he says. It was all rather sad.’ She brightened. ‘But come and meet him—he’s got his friends in tonight, I’m sure he’ll be interested to see you. He doesn’t meet many people socially. Nor do I, actually,’ she added.

‘Sorry,’ said Rincewind. ‘Have I got it right? We’re talking about Death, yes? Tall, thin, empty eye-sockets, handy in the scythe department?’

She sighed. ‘Yes. His looks are against him, I’m afraid.’

While it was true that, as has already been indicated, Rincewind was to magic what a bicycle is to a bumblebee, he nevertheless retained one privilege available to practitioners of the art, which was that at the point of death it would be Death himself who turned up to claim him (instead of delegating the job to a lesser mythological anthropomorphic personification, as is usually the case). Owing largely to inefficiency Rincewind had consistently failed to die at the right time, and if there is one thing that Death does not like it is unpunctuality.

‘Look, I expect my friend has just wandered off somewhere,’ he said. ‘He’s always doing that, story of his life, nice to have met you, must be going—’

But she had already stopped in front of a tall door padded with purple velvet. There were voices on the other side—eldritch voices, the sort of voices that mere typography will remain totally unable to convey until someone can make a linotype machine with echo-reverb and, possibly, a typeface that looks like something said by a slug.

This is what the voices were saying:

WOULD YOU MIND EXPLAINING THAT AGAIN?

‘Well, if you return anything except a trump, South will be able to get in his two ruffs, losing only one Turtle, one Elephant and one Major Arcana, then—’

‘That’s Twoflower!’ hissed Rincewind. ‘I’d know that voice anywhere!’

JUST A MINUTE—PESTILENCE IS SOUTH?

‘Oh, come on, Mort, He explained that. What if Famine had played a—what was it—a trump return!’ It was a breathy, wet voice, practically contagious all by itself.

‘Ah, then you’d only be able to ruff one Turtle instead of two,’ said Twoflower enthusiastically.

‘But if War had chosen a trump lead originally, then the contract would have gone two down?’

‘Exactly!’

I DIDN’T QUITE FOLLOW THAT. TELL ME ABOUT PSYCHIC BIDS AGAIN, I THOUGHT I WAS GETTING THE HANG OF THAT. It was a heavy, hollow voice, like two large lumps of lead smashing together.

‘That’s when you make a bid primarily to deceive your opponents, but of course it might cause problems for your partner—’

Twoflower’s voice rambled on in its enthusiastic way. Rincewind looked blankly at Ysabell as words like ‘rebiddable suit’, ‘double finesse’ and ‘grand slam’ floated through the velvet.

‘Do you understand any of that?’ she asked.

‘Not a word,’ he said.

‘It sounds awfully complicated.’

On the other side of the door the heavy voice said: ‘DID YOU SAY HUMANS PLAY THIS FOR FUN?’

‘Some of them get to be very good at it, yes. I’m only an amateur, I’m afraid.’

BUT THEY ONLY LIVE EIGHTY OR NINETY YEARS!

‘You should know, Mort,’ said a voice that Rincewind hadn’t heard before and certainly never wanted to hear again, especially after dark.

‘It’s certainly very—intriguing.’

DEAL AGAIN AND LET’S SEE IF I’VE GOT THE HANG OF IT.

‘Do you think perhaps we should go in?’ said Ysabell. A voice behind the door said, I BID… THE KNAVE OF TERRAPINS.

‘No, sorry, I’m sure you’re wrong, let’s have a look at your—’

Ysabell pushed the door open.

It was, in fact, a rather pleasant study, perhaps a little on the sombre side, possibly created on a bad day by an interior designer who had a headache and a craving for putting large hourglasses on every flat surface and also a lot of large, fat, yellow and extremely runny candles he wanted to get rid of.

The Death of the Disc was a traditionalist who prided himself on his personal service and spent most of the time being depressed because this was not appreciated. He would point out that no-one feared death itself, just pain and separation and oblivion, and that it was quite unreasonable to take against someone just because he had empty eye-sockets and a quiet pride in his work. He still used a scythe, he’d point out, while the Deaths of other worlds had long ago invested in combined harvesters.

Death sat at one side of a black baize table in the centre of the room, arguing with Famine, War and Pestilence. Twoflower was the only one to look up and notice Rincewind.

‘Hey, how did you get here?’ he said.

‘Well, some say the Creator took a handful—oh, I see, well, it’s hard to explain but I—’

‘Have you got the Luggage?’

The wooden box pushed past Rincewind and settled down in front of its owner, who opened its lid and rummaged around inside until he came up with a small, leatherbound book which he handed to War, who was hammering the table with a mailed fist.

‘It’s “Nosehinger on the Laws of Contract”,’ he said. ‘It’s quite good, there’s a lot in it about double finessing and how to—’

Death snatched the book with a bony hand and flipped through the pages, quite oblivious to the presence of the two men.

RIGHT, he said, PESTILENCE, OPEN ANOTHER PACK OF CARDS. I’M GOING TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS IF IT KILLS ME, FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING OF COURSE.

Rincewind grabbed Twoflower and pulled him out of the room: As they jogged down the corridor with the Luggage galloping behind them he said:

‘What was all that about?’

‘Well, they’ve got lots of time and I thought they might enjoy it,’ panted Twoflower.

‘What, playing with cards?’

‘It’s a special kind of playing,’ said Twoflower. ‘It’s called—’ he hesitated. Language wasn’t his strong point. ‘In your language it’s called a thing you put across a river, for example,’ he concluded, ‘I think.’

‘Aqueduct?’ hazarded Rincewind. ‘Fishing line? Weir? Dam?’

‘Yes, possibly.’

They reached the hallway, where the big clock still shaved the seconds off the lives of the world.

‘And how long do you think that’ll keep them occupied?’

Twoflower paused. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Probably until the last trump—what an amazing clock…’

‘Don’t try to buy it,’ Rincewind advised. ‘I don’t think they’d appreciate it around here.’

‘Where is here, exactly?’ said Twoflower, beckoning the Luggage and opening its lid.

Rincewind looked around. The hall was dark and deserted, its tall narrow windows whorled with ice. He looked down. There was the faint blue line stretching away from his ankle. Now he could see that Twoflower had one too.

‘We’re sort of informally dead,’ he said. It was the best he could manage.

‘Oh.’ Twoflower continued to rummage.

‘Doesn’t that worry you?’

‘Well, things tend to work out in the end, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m a firm believer in reincarnation. What