by Pam Crane
~ a Discworld Prequel ~
(Please note: Death, as frequent flyers to Discworld will be all too aware, habitually conducts His conversations in CAPITALS. In deference to the gentle reader I have lowered His Voice a little to bold. )
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
Death’s current right-hand man (they were all of course relatively short-lived) was unsure how seriously to take his grave Master’s abrupt exclamation. He stared uneasily into the diamond-bright orbits; he had thought his position secure.
“You surely cannot mean that, Sire?”
“Tod, My young friend, I see you are yet unacquainted with the immortal words of The Bard.”
“Bard, sire?”
“The Swan of Avon, Tod. Lived briefly on an alien Ballworld, and known only by his pugnacious family name of Shake-Spear. He was a prolific writer of dramas which have achieved in that exotic culture a measure of immortality, and are hence deserving of respect.”
“Sire, I am unsure what You mean by ‘horse.’ Nor, surely, can You risk the surrender of Your exclusive Kingdom to anyone other than ... to anyone ... even in exchange for this... ?...”
“... Horse, Tod. No, no; My cry was rhetorical. Were you ever to visit that Ballworld you would understand the habits of its denizens. Among such habits is the tendency to quote lines from their Bard and even others less gifted. To their credit they invoke their holy beings also, with great frequency and passionate emphasis. My kingdom - which of course I shall never relinquish - intersects very slightly with that of My cousin Oblivion whose responsibility it is to assist these distant beings in breathing their last. Thus I am familiar with the Ballworld and - to My undying satisfaction - its literature.”
Death and Tod, heavily cloaked, were making their way at a painfully funereal pace toward the rapidly sprawling, already cosmopolitan city of Ankh-Morpork where a number of residents were for a variety of personal reasons on their last legs and anticipating an imminent evening visit.
“But why do You want a ... horse, sire?”
“Because, dear Tod, your feet are aching, My feet are worn to the bone,” (Death, You are nothing but bone! thought Tod ) “and to be perfectly honest, arriving on foot for the most significant event in a client’s life is to say the least somewhat infra dig.”
“So a ... horse ... is a kind of vehicle?”
“A horse is an animal, Tod.”
“I have never seen one!”
“Of course not, boy. They are native only to the Ballworld, where they are held in such regard that all four Agents of Ultimate Retribution arrive at the end of days on horseback. No less a dignity should surely be afforded to Me; for I am the Fate of all creatures, I am the Grim Reaper, the Final Reckoning, universally feared, revered and honoured. Aren’t I ...?”
Tod was now deep in thought.
How might a horse be acquired for his august Master, if there were none to be had in the whole of Discworld? Even the rulers of the Agatean Empire and the Kingdom of Überwald would have no horses. Nor even the Third Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, who - when they weren’t escaping and terrifying the local populace - kept in the Palace Zoo the finest collection of wild and domesticated beasts on the Disc.
“Sire, where will You find a horse? And what does it look like?”
“Ah, My young friend, horses are the distant cousins of our unicorns! Like them they have a graceful head and neck, a flying mane and a flowing tail ... But their feet are each a single solid hoof, not cloven, and most significantly they have no horn spiralling from the centre of the forehead.”
“Then why can You not ride a unicorn?”
A shudder rattled the dry bones of Death’s ancient frame. Bitter memories stirred along with a little cloud of cemetery dust.
“Once, a long time ago, I tried. First I neatly removed the horn so that the snowy creature more resembled the horse I longed for. In so doing I inadvertently robbed it of its very life-force and instantly it died. Once the Scalbies had picked its skeleton clean in the Ramtops I was able to return the delicate bones to life, wired together into a quasi-equine frame - but I was too heavy for My fragile mount and it constantly needed mending. Those bones now rest at the bottom of the Ankh where it meets the ocean.”
He paused. Tod - feeling a little queasy - sensed that there was more to come.
“What happened next, Sire?”
“Next, my cousin Oblivion offered Me a Fire Horse. These, Tod, are only found between the worlds, born in the heart of stellar nurseries to guard supernovae and black holes. A considerable number were drawn to the higher dimensions of the Ballworld to inspire and guide select members of its largest ethnic group. Unseen, of course.”
“Of course, Sire. ... do I sense a ‘but’? ...”
“Alas you do. A fire horse is sadly out of keeping with an environment which is, on the whole, combustible. I Myself cannot burn - but every dwelling We approached at speed caught fire from picket to thatch, and Our client was given an unscheduled and slightly premature cremation.”
“Which meant that You had to exchange Your fiery steed for another?”
“Would that it were so! There were none to be had.” Death sighed with the joyless echo of immemorial caverns. “ I have had to plod from sickbed to murder to cockup to martyrdom from that day to this, with or without assistance, and rarely on time. Because I cannot make a dramatic entrance I often go unrecognised - which is unhelpful for the person expiring, and extremely bad for My self-esteem.”
The dank dawn saw Tod curled up against a gravestone under one of Ankh-Morpork’s Even-Yews after a long and dispiriting night’s despatching. Lack of sleep had opened his mind to the whisperings of the not-quite-dead around him ... and he found to his surprise that he had an Idea.
Death had gone back to His Dominion so his time was his own. Clutching his black cloak around him against the chill from the river he made his way past the Patrician’s Palace, through the Plaza of Broken Moons to the forbidding gates of recently-founded Unseen University. He yanked what appeared to be a bell-pull - there was a soul-splitting shriek from everywhere at once and a distant casement was flung open.
“What is your business here, whippersnapper?”
Tod raised terrified eyes from the dirt by the ornate gatepost.
“I need to talk to a wizard ... please ... Sir.” He had difficulty shouting against a gale of magic rushing from the window.
“Need references. ID.”
“I’m Death’s Assistant. Erm ... here ...”
The owner of the voice had vanished from the small square of occult violet light and rematerialised a foetid breath away from Tod behind the octiron bars. A hand wavered between visibility and invisibility as it stretched through the gate to take the visiting card Tod now proffered.
“Ah. You on business? Not much dying going on here, y’know.”
“I need to see a wizard about a horse.”
“A what?”
“It’s like a ... please find me someone I can talk to!”
“You better come in.”
The huge gates creaked and clanked apart. Magic crackled from every surface and under Tod’s feet as he followed the cranky concierge to the hallowed doors. Then he was inside. Walls and ceilings, at first present as ideas, melted away leaving him in a vertiginous space full of something that muttered and spun, fingered him, drew away, breathed on him again, making him more and more dizzy.
At last a figure appeared, reassuringly solid.
“Good Morning. Tod?” Bright eyes bored into his brain, but remained friendly.
“A horse, you say?”
“Sir, my Master - Death - is ... extremely old. As you must be aware. He finds Himself lacking ... impact. What He really needs is ...”
“I know exactly what He needs, young man! What He needs is the Ballworld’s Fourth Horse. Unfortunately it is in increasing use as that benighted world continues - to coin a phrase - to shoot itself in the foot. However ...” conspirat
orially, “... their once inspirational First Rider is about to take early retirement. Frankly, he became redundant. Which means ...”
“... that his horse is going spare?”
“Indeed! The most perfect creature, as close to a unicorn as you can imagine but with the power of a Dragon and the speed of a deer. Now, a little bird - in actual fact Quoth the Raven - told me that your Master has a birthday coming up. How about Unseen University honouring Death’s birthday with a very special present?”
“You can do that?”
“We have the power.”
“Sir! How can I thank you?” Tod was quite overwhelmed, his glasses fogged with grateful tears.
“Just keep it a secret. Now off you go.”
Death was always too embarrassed to celebrate His Birthday. But several Watches after Tod’s felicitous visit He woke from a doze to find Himself staring into the kind eyes of a very large and very white horse.
“Happy Birthday, Death,” said the horse. “My name is Binky.”
And that is how horses first came to Discworld; and how Death, arriving in a glory of flying hooves, was never again late for an appointment.
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THE STORY OF CATS
One evening Eliot and I were sitting by the fire, trying to find animals in the embers, when suddenly I said ...
“Look! There’s a lion!”
Eliot saw it too; and then a piece of coal collapsed, sparks flew up, and it turned into a very small cat. Eliot’s eyes were shining deep gold in the firelight, with a distant sort of expression. I knew he was