They stepped through the wicket gate in one of the big doors and the Dean shut it in Mrs Cake’s face.
‘He might not come,’ said the Senior Wrangler, as they crossed the quadrangle. ‘He didn’t come for poor old Windle’s farewell party.’
‘He’ll come for the Rite,’ said Ridcully. ‘It doesn’t just send him an invitation, it puts a bloody RSVP on it!’
‘Oh, good. I like sherry,’ said the Bursar.{20}
‘Shut up, Bursar.’
There was an alley, somewhere in the Shades, which was the most alley-ridden part of an alley-ridden city.
Something small and shiny rolled into it, and vanished in the darkness.
After a while, there were faint metallic noises.
The atmosphere in the Archchancellor’s study was very cold.
Eventually the Bursar quavered: ‘Maybe he’s busy?’
‘Shut up,’ said the wizards, in unison.
Something was happening. The floor inside the chalked magic octogram was going white with frost.
‘It’s never done that before,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘This is all wrong, you know,’ said the Dean. ‘We should have some candles and some cauldrons and some stuff bubbling in crucibles and some glitter dust and some coloured smoke—’
‘The Rite doesn’t need any of that stuff,’ said Ridcully sharply.
‘It might not need them, but I do,’ muttered the Dean. ‘Doing it without the right paraphernalia is like taking all your clothes off to have a bath.’
‘That’s what I do,’ said Ridcully.
‘Humph. Well, each to his own, of course, but some of us like to think that we’re maintaining standards.’
‘Perhaps he’s on holiday?’ said the Bursar.
‘Oh, yes,’ sneered the Dean. ‘On a beach somewhere? A few iced drinks and a Kiss Me Quick hat?’
‘Hold on. Hold on. Someone’s coming,’ hissed the Senior Wrangler.
The faint outlines of a hooded figure appeared above the octogram. It wavered constantly, as if it was being seen through superheated air.
‘That’s him,’ said the Dean.
‘No it isn’t,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘It’s just a grey ro— there’s nothing in—’
He stopped.
It turned, slowly. It was filled out, suggesting a wearer, but at the same time had a feeling of hollowness, as if it was merely a shape for something with no shape of its own. The hood was empty.
The emptiness watched the wizards for a few seconds and then focused on the Archchancellor.
It said, Who are you?
Ridcully swallowed. ‘Er. Mustrum Ridcully. Archchancellor.’
The hood nodded. The Dean stuck a finger in his ear and waggled it around. The robe wasn’t talking. Nothing was being heard. It was just that, afterwards, you had a sudden memory of what had just failed to be said and no knowledge of how it had got there.
The hood said, You are a superior being on this world?
Ridcully looked at the other wizards. The Dean glared.
‘Well … you know … yes … first among equals and all that sort of thing … yes …’ Ridcully managed.
He was told, We bring good news.
‘Good news? Good news?’ Ridcully squirmed under the gazerless gaze. ‘Oh, good. That is good news.’
He was told, Death has retired.
‘Pardon?’
He was told, Death has retired.
‘Oh? That is … news …’ said Ridcully uncertainly. ‘Uh. How? Exactly … how?’
He was told, We apologise for the recent lapse in standards.
‘Lapse?’ said the Archchancellor, now totally mystified. ‘Well, uh, I’m not sure there’s been a … I mean, of course the fella was always knockin’ around, but most of the time we hardly …’
He was told. It has all been most irregular.
‘It has? Has it? Oh, well, can’t have irregularity,’ said the Archchancellor.
He was told, It must have been terrible.
‘Well, I …that is …I suppose we … I’m not sure … must it?’
He was told, But now the burden is removed. Rejoice. That is all. There will be a short transitional period before a suitable candidate presents itself, and then normal service will be resumed. In the meantime, we apologise for any unavoidable inconvenience caused by superfluous life effects.
The figure wavered and began to fade.
The Archchancellor waved his hands desperately.
‘Wait!’ he said. ‘You can’t just go like that! I command you to stay! What service? What does it all mean? Who are you?’
The hood turned back towards him and said, We are nothing.
‘That’s no help! What is your name?’
We are oblivion.
The figure vanished.
The wizards fell silent. The frost in the octogram began to sublime back into air.
‘Oh-oh,’ said the Bursar.
‘Short transitional period? Is that what this is?’ said the Dean.
The floor shook.
‘Oh-oh,’ said the Bursar again.
‘That doesn’t explain why everything is living a life of its own,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘Hold on … hold on,’ said Ridcully, ‘If people are coming to the end of their life and leaving their bodies and everything, but Death isn’t taking them away—’
‘Then that means they’re queueing up here,’ said the Dean.
‘With nowhere to go.’
‘Not just people,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘It must be everything. Every thing that dies.’
‘Filling up the world with life force,’ said Ridcully. The wizards were speaking in a monotone, everyone’s mind running ahead of the conversation to the distant horror of the conclusion.
‘Hanging around with nothing to do,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
‘Ghosts.’
‘Poltergeist activity.’
‘Good grief.’
‘Hang on, though,’ said the Bursar, who had managed to catch up with events. ‘Why should that worry us? We don’t have anything to fear from the dead, do we? After all, they’re just people who are dead. They’re just ordinary people. People like us.’
The wizards thought about this. They looked at one another. They started to shout, all at once.
No-one remembered the bit about suitable candidates.
Belief is one of the most powerful organic forces in the multiverse. It may not be able to move mountains, exactly. But it can create someone who can.
People get exactly the wrong idea about belief. They think it works back to front. They think the sequence is, first object, then belief. In fact, it works the other way.
Belief sloshes around in the firmament like lumps of clay spiralling into a potter’s wheel. That’s how gods get created, for example. They clearly must be created by their own believers, because a brief résumé of the lives of most gods suggests that their origins certainly couldn’t be divine. They tend to do exactly the things people would do if only they could, especially when it comes to nymphs, golden showers, and the smiting of your enemies.
Belief creates other things.
It created Death. Not death, which is merely a technical term for a state caused by prolonged absence of life, but Death, the personality. He evolved, as it were, along with life. As soon as a living thing was even dimly aware of the concept of suddenly becoming a non-living thing, there was Death. He was Death long before humans ever considered him; they only added the shape and all the scythe and robe business to a personality that was already millions of years old.
And now he had gone. But belief doesn’t stop. Belief goes right on believing. And since the focal point of belief had been lost, new points sprang up. Small as yet, not very powerful. The private deaths of every species, no longer united but specific.