Reaper Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

dead, though.”
    “Yeah? Makes sense.”
    “ Running water,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes suddenly. “It’s running water. Sorry. They can’t cross over it.”
    “Well, I can’t cross running water, either,” said the Dean.
    “Undead! Undead!” The Bursar was becoming a little unglued.
    “Oh, stop teasing him,” said the Lecturer, patting the trembling man on the back.
    “Well, I can’t,” said the Dean. “I sink.”
    “Undead can’t cross running water even on a bridge .”
    “And is he the only one, eh? Are we going to have a plague of them, eh?” said the Lecturer.
    The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on his desk.
    “Dead people walking around is unhygienic,” he said.
    This silenced them. No one had ever looked at it that way, but Mustrum Ridcully was just the sort of man who would.
    Mustrum Ridcully was, depending on your point of view, either the worst or the best Archchancellor that Unseen University had had for a hundred years.
    There was just too much of him, for one thing. It wasn’t that he was particularly big, it was just that he had the kind of huge personality that fits any available space. He’d get roaring drunk at supper and that was fine and acceptable wizardly behavior. But then he’d go back to his room and play darts all night long and leave at five in the morning to go duck hunting. He shouted at people. He tried to jolly them along . And he hardly ever wore proper robes. He’d persuaded Mrs. Whitlow, the University’s dreaded housekeeper, to make him a sort of baggy trouser suit in garish blue and red; twice a day the wizards stood in bemusement and watched him jog purposefully around the University buildings, his pointy wizarding hat tied firmly on his head with string. He’d shout cheerfully up at them, because fundamental to the make-up of people like Mustrum Ridcully is an iron belief that everyone else would like it, too, if only they tried it.
    “Maybe he’ll die,” they told one another hopefully, as they watched him try to break the crust on the river Ankh for an early morning dip. “All this healthy exercise can’t be good for him.”
    Stories trickled back into the University. The Archchancellor had gone two rounds bare-fisted with Detritus, the huge odd-job troll at the Mended Drum. The Archancellor had arm-wrestled with the Librarian for a bet and, although of course he hadn’t won, still had his arm afterward. The Archchancellor wanted the University to form its own football team for the big city game on Hogswatchday.
    Intellectually, Ridcully maintained his position for two reasons. One was that he never, ever, changed his mind about anything. The other was that it took him several minutes to understand any new idea put to him, and this is a very valuable trait in a leader, because anything anyone is still trying to explain to you after two minutes is probably important and anything they give up after a mere minute or so is almost certainly something they shouldn’t have been bothering you with in the first place.
    There seemed to be more Mustrum Ridcully than one body could reasonably contain.

    Plop. Plop
    In the dark cupboard in the cellar, a whole shelf was already full.

    There was exactly as much Windle Poons as one body could contain, and he steered it carefully along the corridors.
    I never expected this, he thought. I don’t deserve this. There’s been a mistake somewhere.
    He felt a cool breeze on his face and realized he’d tottered out into the open air. Ahead of him were the University’s gates, locked shut.
    Suddenly Windle Poons felt acutely claustrophobic. He’d waited years to die, and now he had, and here he was stuck in this—this mausoleum with a lot of daft old men, where he’d have to spend the rest of his life being dead. Well, the first thing to do was to get out and make a proper end to himself—
    “’Evening, Mr. Poons.”
    He turned around very slowly and saw the small figure of Modo, the University’s