Wyrd Sisters

Meanwhile King Verence, monarch of Lancre, was making a discovery.

Like most people – most people, at any rate, below the age of sixty or so – Verence hadn't exercised his mind much about what happened to you when you died. Like most people since the dawn of time, he assumed it all somehow worked out all right in the end.

And, like most people since the dawn of time, he was now dead.

He was in fact lying at the bottom of one of his own stairways in Lancre Castle, with a dagger in his back.

He sat up, and was surprised to find that while someone he was certainly inclined to think of as himself was sitting up, something very much like his body remained lying on the floor.

It was a pretty good body, incidentally, now he came to see it from outside for the first time. He had always been quite attached to it although, he had to admit, this did not now seem to be the case.

It was big and well-muscled. He'd looked after it. He'd allowed it a moustache and long- flowing locks. He'd seen it got plenty of healthy outdoor exercise and lots of red meat. Now, just when a body would have been useful, it had let him down. Or out.

On top of that, he had to come to terms with the tall, thin figure standing beside him. Most of it was hidden in a hooded black robe, but the one arm which extended from the folds to grip a large scythe was made of bone.

When one is dead, there are things one instinctively recognises.

HALLO.

Verence drew himself up to his full height, or what would have been his full height if that part of him to which the word 'height' could have been applied was not lying stiff on the floor and facing a future in which only the word 'depth' could be appropriate.

'I am a

king, mark you,' he said.

WAS,

YOUR MAJESTY.

'What?' Verence barked.

I SAID WAS. IT'S CALLED THE PAST TENSE. YOU'LL SOON GET USED TO IT.

The tall figure tapped its calcareous fingers on the scythe's handle. It was obviously upset about something.

If it came to that, Verence thought, so am I. But the various broad hints available in his present circumstances were breaking through even the mad brave stupidity that made up most of his character, and it was dawning on him that whatever kingdom he might currently be in, he wasn't king of it.

'Are you Death, fellow?' he ventured.

I HAVE MANY NAMES.

'Which one are you using at present?' said Verence, with a shade more deference. There were people milling around them; in fact, quite a few people were milling through them, like ghosts.

'Oh, so it was Felmet,' the king added vaguely, looking at the figure lurking with obscene delight at the top of the stairs. 'My father said I should never let him get behind me. Why don't I feel angry?'