Notes: Written for Rimedio for Yuletide 2013.
Certainties
It's common knowledge that to summon Death, you need skulls, rams' horns, dribbly candles, an octogram and a great deal of chanting. It's slightly less common knowledge that all you actually need are a few sticks and four cc of mouse blood, or possibly a fresh egg.
Which just goes to show that neither common nor uncommon knowledge are very closely related to their less popular cousin, common sense.
You don't need to summon Death at all.
Death is everywhere.(1)
(1) Theoretically, at least. Research into the matter was curtailed by interference from the Wizardly Importance Principle, which states that the presence of any observer with the ability to see Death automatically makes a death significant enough to require Death's attendance, and also because the researchers received a politely worded letter from the palace asking would they please stop killing things, it was making people nervous.
As a student at the Guild of Assassins, Havelock Vetinari was required to be familiar with death. He considered that a rather foolish notion. 'Familiar' was for things you didn't bother to pay close attention to, because you thought you already knew what they looked like. Much better, then, to be a careful scrutiniser of death.
And by extension, of Death.
The grim reaper was easy enough to see; you just had to look anywhere that his presence might conceivably be required. The real trick was holding back the part of your mind that bustled to intercept the vision like an overbearing aunt, drawing curtains over it before you could see anything too unpleasant.
Havelock had trained himself in the art of standing very still and watching until he saw everything, not just the details his mind wanted to designate as relevant.
Long before he was old enough for the Guild to send him out on the delicate work of inhumation, he'd taken to shadowing the older members out on their jobs to observe them and the mistakes they made. They were never very hard to spot; the romantic vision of Assassins dressed all in black failed to take into account the fact that true blackness drew the eye just as much as bright white.
Everybody looked at a lurking shadow. Nobody cared whether a particular patch of a grey wall might be a little more or less grey than the patches beside it.
So even the fellow Assassin in question didn't spot Havelock on the day that he witnessed his first Guild assassination, a rather unnecessarily theatrical affair involving a flaming crossbow bolt fired to sever a pair of oxen from their cart and crush the unfortunate target standing behind. The incident raised a great hue and cry among those loudly declaiming how awful it was while shuffling closer to look, and much agreement that Somebody Should Do Something, although obviously a different somebody than any of those in the crowd.
The Assassin who'd fired the crossbow bolt made a relatively neat exit amid the confusion - Master Darcel would have given it a six - but Havelock remained behind, and turned himself around, very solemnly, to hang upside-down from the edge of the rooftop. It was a technique that his tutors wouldn't have approved or indeed even recognised, but his copy of The Art of Seeing and the Seeing of Art assured him that it was an invaluable aid in discouraging the brain from identifying shapes that it expected, allowing it instead to see what was actually there.
So Havelock watched the scene upside-down, and did not identify shapes, and observed that one of the shapes that he was not identifying might well, to those of a more identifying mindset, look an awful lot like a seven-foot skeleton holding a scythe.
He swung himself back the right way up, and looking again, saw nothing - but much studying like one of those pictures that was perhaps a vase or perhaps a pair of faces, having seen the other image once it was easy to switch his way of looking and see it again.
Wizards and witches, it was said, could always see Death. Havelock, it seemed, had to make a deliberate effort to look before he could do the same.
But then, he'd always been very good at deliberately looking.
Havelock glimpsed Death several more times during his training as an Assassin, most notably at the inhumation of Lord Winder where he'd had, as it were, something of a front row seat. He most curiously did not see any sign of said anthropomorphic personification at the death of John Keel... or rather, at the transition of the live John Keel into a dead man who must also be John Keel, since he was in John Keel's place wearing John Keel's armour, and even if, perhaps, to the discerning eye, he didn't look quite the same after his death - well, who else could he have been?
So Havelock had become quite accustomed to training his eyes to see Death when the spectre was likely to be near. Nonetheless, his first personal brush with Death came as something as a surprise, since, as is the nature of such brushes, he was somewhat distracted at the time.
It started with a dog.
Madam had always kept cats. Indeed, his aunt could be said to have an almost irrational fondness for the creatures, to the point of seeing the most malevolent and flatulent of battered old street toms as her sweet little innocent babies. Hence, as a boy, Havelock had once discovered one of his aunt's loveable fluffy kittens attempting to dig out a petrified wire-haired terrier it had chased down into a rat hole.
Havelock had rescued the poor dog from the evil attentions of Mittens, and soon discovered he had acquired a wheezy little tail-wagging shadow that greeted his every action with boundless enthusiasm, regardless of whether it was solitary, peculiar, or not sufficiently useful to the interests of his aunt. It was strangely cheering.
So he might have to admit to having developed a fondness of his own, and perhaps it was that as much as annoyance at the sloppiness that moved him to intervene when he spotted a small dog in danger of being overcome by a classmate's overzealous use of poison gas. Havelock had calculated that he should have time to retrieve the creature before he himself breathed enough gas to be rendered unconscious. However, he'd quite unforgivably failed to take into account that a classmate who couldn't be trusted to judge how much gas to use probably couldn't be trusted to mix the components in the correct proportions either.
And nor had he counted on the intractability of a small dog with a patch of territory under a dresser that it considered its own to defend.
This would be a valuable learning experience, he reflected, assuming he made it out alive to take the lessons to heart. One, never bet on other people's basic competence, and two, never rely on either humans or animals to act in their own obvious self-interest.
For instance, here was he, not escaping the building as was almost certainly sensible, but rather wrapping a towel around his gloved hands for round two of his attempts to extract a yipping, growling dog that was resolute in its determination to savage the fingers of The Enemy.
"This is extremely unwise," he said out loud, with a certain fascination. He'd seen people behave in ridiculous, counter-intuitive ways many times before, and now here was that very decision-making process in action.
PROBABLY, agreed a voice like a gravestone being dropped on concrete. Havelock didn't jump. The startle reflex was not one that Assassins were encouraged to maintain. But nonetheless, he did feel a certain... inner chill. Death's presence had a way of leading one to question the veracity of one's calculations.
He made another attempt to reach for the dog, which barked and retreated behind the rear leg of the dresser.
I'VE ALWAYS BEEN MORE OF A CAT PERSON, MYSELF, Death said conversationally.
"So, should I assume this is the occasion of my demise?" Havelock said, crawling further under the dresser.
IT'S THE OCCASION OF YOUR DEATH IN ONE LEG OF THE TROUSERS OF TIME, Death said. IT'S QUANTUM.
"Ah. So, we're currently still in the... crotch area?" He his hand grasped something warm and furry, which whuffled at him indignantly. "Do you officiate at all potential deaths, or is this one significant?"
ALL DEATHS ARE SIGNIFICANT, TO THE DECEASED.
Havelock crawled back out with the dog wrapped in the towel, its stubby legs flailing in impotent desire for vengeance.
"And are all lives significant, to the living?" he mused philosophically. The dog tried to twist itself round in a circle to bite his wrist.
THAT'S NOT REALLY MY DEPARTMENT.
"They say the object of living is to be able to look back and know that you've led a meaningful life," Havelock said, as he moved to the window. "But given the opportunity, nobody actually wants to lead one." They wanted security and comfort, and to do the same things as they'd done yesterday, as their parents and grandparents had done before them. He poised on the windowledge. "When people say that they want a meaningful life, what they really want is to be told the life that they already lead is meaningful."
And if you understood that, you understood everything that you needed to know about people.
He jumped down from the window with the dog tucked under his arm. His appointment with Death would have to wait for some future day.
His closest brush with Death was also in another way his most remote. That was the thing about the Gonne: not looming, lurking death, but death from afar. He'd been aware of the danger, risen when he'd seen the Watchmen running towards him, but the spectre of the grim reaper was too distant to spot.
-And then not distant at all, but in the carriage with him, as a strange heat bloomed through his thigh that did not, initially, seem very much like pain. Havelock wasn't sure if the crack he'd heard had been that shot or the next one, and if there was a moment of time between that and the carriage being collapsed on its side and Corporal Carrot sprawled across his lap, his memory had failed to record it.
Faintly disturbing, in a distant sort of way, to know that his mind couldn't always be trusted in moments of adversity.
When he opened his eyes, a familiar face had appeared beside the carriage. "Ah, Captain Vimes," he said, but his gaze had already slid past to the shadowy figure standing behind. "And what happens now?" he asked.
Death raised an hourglass to study it in the light, but Havelock's eyes were too hazed to tell how much sand there might be still remaining.
PEOPLE WILL DIE, he said. IT'S INEVITABLE, REALLY. THE NAMES AND NUMBERS MIGHT CHANGE, BECAUSE OF ALL THE QUANTUM. BUT PEOPLE ALWAYS DIE.
The blood staining the upholstery of the carriage seemed to be very bright. "I appear... to be losing a lot of blood," he noted. Odd. You'd think that it would hurt much more. Perhaps it was someone else's. Vimes, whenever he'd arrived, was bleeding too, and he was fairly sure that Carrot had been hit.
He wondered which of them it was that Death was here for.
"Is it time to move on?" he asked. A most unfortunate one if so; he had long-term plans in place to take care of the city after he was gone, but they were still in progress, and right now too many critical pieces were out of their usual places.
"Well, he's out of those lead pellets, so it's the best we're going to get," Vimes said in place of any answer from Death. Just hold on tight, sir - and try not to bleed too much."
As Vimes hefted him up over his shoulder to run, the last thing Havelock saw behind them was Death replacing the first hourglass inside his robes and drawing out another to examine.
Havelock's next encounter with Death was a far more leisurely affair.
It hadn't taken him long to realise something was amiss. He was not unaccustomed to headaches, but drowsiness wasn't something that he'd suffered from before - indeed, quite the opposite affliction - and difficulty taking in the words that he was reading was utterly unheard of. He was, it was safe to venture, being poisoned. And quite creatively too, he had to assume, given that he had food testers and several other systems to ensure the loyalty of those who handled his belongings.
He could, of course, have changed rooms and ordered everything in his environment destroyed, but it was better to have these things pursued in public by the Watch. Vimes did have rather a gift for avoiding the difficulties involved in navigating the political climate, mainly by stubbornly ignoring it existed.
Havelock summoned his secretary.
"I'm being poisoned, Drumknott," he said. "Do cancel a few appointments and tell people I'm unwell." That should enthuse the guilty parties, and leave the others vaguely nervous as to why he'd really cancelled.
"Yes, my lord. Should I summon Commander Vimes?" he asked.
"No, just make sure he keeps our regular weekly appointment." Vimes always did pursue cases that much more doggedly when he was under the impression he'd stumbled over them himself.
"Yes, sir." The secretary withdrew, and Havelock began the business of narrowing down the possible sources of poisoning. Vimes would get there eventually, of course, but still, best to limit his exposure in the meantime.
The search proved to take longer than anticipated, perhaps because of the very foggy-headedness that was a symptom. It had to be something he was exposed to in the evenings, because he always felt recovered after a stint in the Oblong Office. He examined the bedsheets, his nightclothes, his writing desk and writing implements, the wallpaper, the carpet... He balanced easily on the back of a chair to inspect the top of the curtains.
How, precisely, he went from there to lying on his back on the floor, he was afterwards unable to recall.
"How many people, I wonder, have died in the course of attempting to avert their death?" he mused aloud.
DO YOU WANT EXACT FIGURES?
"Ah," he said carefully. "So, either I'm hallucinating, or this is a closer brush with mortality than I'd first assumed." Perhaps he wouldn't get up from the carpet just yet. It did seem to be exerting a greater gravity than usual.
TECHNICALLY, YOUR MORTALITY IS ALWAYS CLOSE.
"Indeed." He supposed it was a matter of perspective - and right now his was a distinctly unusual one, staring up what should have been the nose of a glowing-eyed skeleton. "I've heard it said there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes," he said. "Of course, some might argue I'm exempt from one of those, but that's because they're under the misapprehension that the certainty applies to paying taxes."
THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE UNCERTAIN ABOUT PAYING THEIR TAXES, Death said. I MEET QUITE A LOT OF THEM.
Havelock smiled faintly at the ceiling. "Yes. They rebel, or they resent, because they see at the top a man who they believe to be outside the system. After all, they reason, if they are paying taxes, and he is collecting taxes, then taxes are clearly not so certain for him. The ambitious believe that if they can only make it to the top, the point to which all of their taxes flow, then they will be above it all, free from the endless cycle. But do you know what I see, from my position?"
THE CEILING, I'D IMAGINE.
"The waterfall on the other side," he said. "What flows up must flow down. Only fools think they can build a dam that will let them keep their accumulated wealth at the top forever. The real trick is to arrange things so it flows down the right channels to ensure it will come back again." Any idiot could hold a city hostage, for a time. It took true skill to make a city work. The very act of trying to poison him was a sign that his challenger didn't have the necessary acumen to take his place.
THE REAPER MAN HARVESTS THE CORN SO THAT NEXT YEAR'S CROP CAN BE PLANTED, said Death.
"Quite so." No harvest meant no growth, and that meant total stagnation. Someone had to be the one to wield the scythe; their role was not to be lenient and let the fields in their care go untended, but only to be conscientious in wielding it well.
Too many metaphors. Perhaps he was rather more dazed by his exposure to the poison than he thought. Or else he'd hit his head on the way down.
"My lord?" The next face to appear in his vision was not quite so skeletal, although thin and pale enough to leave some room for doubt at first.
Havelock made the effort to sit up. "Ah, Drumknott. It appears I may have temporarily lost my balance."
"Yes, sir," he said, with studious neutrality. He didn't offer a hand up, but managed to project without moving a muscle that should one be required it would appear without comment.
"I suppose you may be curious as to who I was talking to before you entered?" Havelock said as he stood up; unassisted, but not, perhaps, entirely as steadily as usual.
"Not at all, sir." Drumknott had quite perfected the art of seeming exhibit no curiosity whatsoever.
Havelock dusted himself off. "It seems my would-be assassin has taken the words of our old schoolmasters to heart," he said. "Conceal your poison, not in the last place one would look, but where no one will think to look at all." It vexed him that his interrupted search had yet to find anything. His would-be poisoner shouldn't be allowed to succeed simply because his choice of poison clouded the mind of the target. "What do you do, Drumknott, when you're unable to see something?" he asked.
"I strike a light, my lord."
"Of course you do. Drumknott, you are, in your own way, delightfully straightforward," he said.
"Thank you, my lord," Drumknott said politely.
"That will be all."
When his secretary was gone, Havelock lifted the candle in its holder from the writing desk and studied it intently. What did no one ever look at? That which allowed you to look.
He snuffed the candle out.
No doubt he would encounter Death again at some future point - but his enemies would have to try much harder than this if they planned to make his next meeting his last.
End