Chapter 3: In Which Riddick Meets Death's Boyfriend, Learns of the Eternal Return, and Takes a Nap.

"So can this horse go anywhere?" Riddick asked once they were galloping up the sky.

"Pretty much." She didn't seem inclined to elaborate.

Interesting. He filed that away, changed the subject, hoping she wouldn't notice. "So that girl was the old one's what, great grand daughter?"

"What? No. Just . . . an arrangement."

"Did she kill the old lady?"

"What? No! Why would you think a thing like that?"

"'Cause she got the house, didn't she?"

Susan snorted. "Yeah. No. This isn't some stupid kingdom where whoever kills the king becomes the king." She gave him a suspicious look over her shoulder. He carefully did not respond. Finally, Susan continued. "Witches do sometimes do that, when one goes wrong, but they usually do it quietly. Matilda probably apprenticed to the old witch for years. Learned the art. Learned the community. She should be the town's witch now."

"She was real pissed off with me."

"Witches like to be infallible. You messed that up, Riddick."

"How do you know my name, anyway?"

"The rat told me."

Oh, great. He decided not to pursue the issue. "Did you kill that old lady?"

She took a sharp breath as if she was going to furiously deny that she had. Then she let it out slowly. "In a way. The soul has to separate from the body before someone can die. Normally, it just happens. Sometimes, Death him – her – self has to personally cut the cord."

He considered that solemnly. "So me being here messed that up? How?"

Susan's sigh seemed to sink into the very air around them, making it heavier. "Look, I know things are organized differently on round worlds. Here, witches know when they are going to die, and they are entitled to Death's personal attention. But Grandfather missed the call because of you, and I didn't know about it. I probably should have asked Lobsang to take me back, but I didn't think about it, and time travel is tricky."

Lobsang? So much in what she said made no sense. He picked a place to start. "So your granddad went AWOL. I still don't get what it has to do with me."

"You really should because he went to fix what you broke," she snapped. Binky nickered, soothingly. At least the horse likes me. She softened. "Think of it as a story. There are rules. Narrative causality will out. You can muck it up, but once you start mucking . . . well, I had to save the winter king once, or the sun wouldn't have risen. I had to save the day." She grunted. "I had to save this kid so he could die at the right time."

For several beats, there was only the sound of the air streaming past them on the back of a flying horse. Her voice dropped so low he could scarcely hear. "I watched him die. I watched him come back."

Just like that witch. There was something important in that, but he couldn't figure it out. Another reason to hang out for a while. Susan kept talking. "Look, once you step in the story, you have to follow it through or you wreck havoc. You stepped into a story. I'm going to make it right, and you're going to help."

He thought about it. Crazy, but at least I'm not surrounded by Necros any more. "How do you figure into this? And where did you go when you disappeared?"

"I told you. I'm Death's granddaughter. Genetic destiny. When he leaves the Disc, the Pale Horse comes for me."

"So Death has a kid."

"Adopted one. I'm her daughter"

"Genetics don't work that way."

"They do here." She stopped abruptly.

Granddaughter. Adopted. She's doing this, not her mother. No way her mother died of old age. Suddenly, he felt a pang of sympathy for this queer girl. "What happened to your mother, Susan?" he asked, softly.

Her voiced was withering. "She died."

Death took your mother. Your grandfather took your mother. His kid. "You didn't just cut the cord. You went somewhere."

"I took her to the threshold."

"The threshold." The word abruptly banished all his warm and fuzzy feelings. "What's that?"

She shrugged, irritated. "What, you know that word?"

"Heard it somewhere."

"What, on a vocabulary list?"

What is it with this girl? I could kill- oh, wait, that's right. Maybe I can't. He couldn't think of any reason to keep the secrets of the Underverse from her. "The Necros – the people I 'sent into the dungeon dimension' – believed in something they called the Underverse, some glorious place on the other side of 'the threshold. What you call death.'" Oh god, I sounded like Zyhlaw. "My job as the Lord Marshal was to take them all there. That's what I did. They would have loved you."

"Huh," she said, her voice withering. "Usually, people like that just want death for other people."

"These guys were different."

She didn't say anything. Skepticism was running off her. He persisted. "What is the threshold?"

"It's a door. When you die, you go through it."

"Where does it go?"

She shrugged. "Where ever. I just make sure people can get there; what happens next is outside my jurisdiction." After a long moment, she continued, "Grandfather says – Grandfather says it goes different places. Takes some people to their next life. Takes others to some giant eternal. Some people end up in demon dimensions. Some people just . . . fade."

"Am I dead?" Riddick asked, abruptly.

"No." She paused, then continued thoughtfully, "well, not yet. I'm pretty sure I'd know."

They landed lightly in death's dream kingdom, and dismounted. Albert was waiting for them. "Things are working again." He took Binky's reigns, gave the pale horse an affectionate pat.

"Thanks, Albert," she said, wearily. "Any word from Grandfather?"

"Not yet," the man said, grimly.

She shook herself, squared her shoulders. "Okay. You take care of Binky?" The old man nodded, led the horse away. She fixed Riddick with a look. "Come on. Let's try to figure out why you're here." She led him into something that looked like a stylized child's drawing of a cottage.

It was much bigger on the inside. She took him to a comfortable study. There was a roaring fire in the fireplace, albeit one with black flames. He stared at it, unused to being able to look directly at a light source.

"Wait here." She headed through a door he could have sworn was just another part of the wall until she touched it. He sat in an overstuffed chair and closed his eyes. Dozed lightly.

After not all that long, she came back with a stack of books. He watched as she sat at the desk and started to page through them grimly. Not finding this interesting, he closed his eyes and dozed again.

He had a good doze on when there was a sharp rap on the door. Albert poked his head in. "Lobsang's here, ma'am."

She stood fast, and the first completely genuine smile he'd seen captured Susan's face. For an instant, she was beautiful. "Lobsang?" she called. A boy walked in.

The boy swept Susan up in his arms, and everything stopped making sense. Riddick felt like he was watching the universe swirl down into a black hole; the universe explode from an infinitely small point, be born, die –

And then it was just a boy and a girl, smiling at each other in that special way boys and girls smiled at each other. Like I looked at Jack when she was there in front of me in Cremetoria, suddenly all grown up. He derailed that train of thought.

"Lobsang," she whispered again, her eyes shining in a way that made him feel distinctly uncomfortable. "It's been too long."

Skinny kid. Could break him with one hand. Though that black hole trick was pretty good.

"We have all the time in the world," he whispered. Then he shook his head. "Well, we don't. Is he the one?" He jerked his head towards Riddick.

"Yes. I think so."

Like so many people he'd met recently, Lobsang looked at Riddick and sighed. Completely uncowed. Am I losing my touch? "He's caused a big problem. The structural matrix of his dungeon dimension can't handle the strain of so many people but sucked in all at once. Things are popping out all over the multiverse. Especially here."

"What?" Riddick broke in, nettled at being treated like a problem rather than . . . well, a problem. Wrong sort of problem. He snorted at himself.

Lobsang sighed, again. But the boy did look at him. "You're from a different universe. And you opened a door to yet another universe and pushed a whole lot of . . . stuff into it. It was a pocket universe; not big enough to contain it all. So it's . . . call it bulging out into other parts of the multiverse. Like here. Breaking boundaries. Pushing . . . things from one universe into the next. Dragons. Armies of the undead."

Incongruously, Susan giggled. "We're gonna be overrun by armies of the undead? What, they are going to try to petition us to death?"

Lobsang looked nettled. "Well, okay, yes of course the undead as such aren't the problem, especially since they are decamping near Ankh-Morpork. But it's not just them. Plenty of undead around there. Even the organized undead have found a place. It's the organized undead who are fanatically devoted to recruitment that pose the problem."

"Librarian poo."

"All had to end sometime," Riddick rumbled. A favorite line of his. Usually made everyone worried. But it just pissed off Susan, who rounded on him.

"You telling me that because you think I don't know? I am Death, again, because of you. Yes, everything ends. That's not the problem."

"So what is the problem? People popping out of the Necroverse? Where's Ankh Morpork? I've got a girl I'd like to see again. Happy to kill the rest of them for you again."

Susan's eyes narrowed. "Oh, you got a dead girlfriend? How'd I miss that?"

Her voice was caustic, and the scythe was tapping again in that special, meaningful way that was making small part of Riddick's mammalian brain gibber. He sternly instructed it to man up. "She was not my girlfriend!" He was surprised at the heat in his voice. Despite himself, he found himself speaking words he had never said out loud before. "Look, I'm not a good guy."

"And another big surprise there."

He gave her a dark look. "I'm not a good guy. But seven years ago, I tried to be."

She snorted. He glared at her, but kept going. "Ship crashed on some crazy planet. It got dark. The monsters came out. Started picking off survivors. I tried to help. I really did."

"Help the monsters, or help the survivors?"

He smiled. "Tried to help the survivors. One was just a kid. 13, 14, all alone. I tried to help her special."

Susan was suspicious. "Why?"

"Liked her. Saved her, took her some place safe and well lit, left her with good people."

Susan's expression softened slightly, perhaps at the thought of him not being there. "Didn't work. She came after me. I was hiding in an ice cave, trying to lay low so no one would use her to get to me, and she was out there being shredded by monsters."

Some of that caustic look was back. "So you're an ice giant? Then what? You found out someone was messing with your little girl; swept out of the north, ate the sun, and brought down Ragnarok? "

He had no idea what she was talking about. Decided he didn't care. "Found her. Saved her."

"And now she's dead."

"Died saving my life."

Susan nodded, as if that was expected. "So, you tried to destroy a universe to get your self sacrificing dead not-girlfriend back."

"No!" he snapped. "Most people I meet die." Another perfectly good threat flopped on the ground like a dying fish. "I just figured the Necros wanted to go to the Underverse; I'd help them out. A good deed."

She snorted contemptuously. "Right, because you're such a Small Gods Scout."

They glared at each other in the undarkness of death's dream kingdom.

Lobsang broke in. "So how did you get to a place where you could send a universe into a dungeon dimension?"

Riddick shrugged. "Came with the territory. You keep what you kill. They had my girl; there was a lot of them, I went straight to the top. Challenged the top dog. Turns out that's how they pick their leaders."

Lobsang and Susan stared goggle eyed at him. And then Susan started to laugh. She laughed so hard she had tears running down her cheeks. Riddick's growing, growling rage had no effect. Finally, she managed to gasp, "Old magic! You're the King of the Golden Bough! Kill the king, become the king! You made yourself part of their story!"

"And now the old king has your girl," Lobsang said slowly.

"They're both dead--" Riddick started, then broke off. "Shit. They are both in the Underverse. You're saying that it's real. A place."

Susan got a strange look at her face, took a deep breath. But Lobsang had already nodded.

"It's a place. How do I get there?"

Susan shook her head looked at him with something like compassion. "You can't. I'm sorry."

His eyes narrowed. "But you said things were popping out of there. That means there's a door. And your horse can go anywhere."

She hesitated. "Grandfather kept you from going there. I think. He had to have a reason."

Fuck that. Time to go horseback riding. He turned around, started walking. Susan grabbed his arm with a surprisingly strong hand. "Where do you think you are going?"

"Sightseeing."

"You're going after your girlfriend."

"Fuck off."

She let him go. But the door slammed in front of him. He turned around, furious. But he kept his voice calm. "Hasn't been a prison yet that could hold me."

"That doesn't surprise me." She looked slightly regretful, glanced over at Lobsang. "Nine minutes?"

Lobsang nodded. "Do it."

Susan swung the scythe. Riddick never had a chance. His lifeless body hit the ground hard.