Reaper Man

a fresh cigarette with a trembling hand, and started to walk hurriedly toward the Watch headquarters.
    “That face,” he told himself. “And those eyes…just like whatsisname…who’s that bloody dwarf who runs the delicatessen on Cable Street…”
    “Sergeant!”
    Colon froze. Then he looked down. A face was staring up at him from ground level. When he’d got a grip on himself, he made out the sharp features of his old friend Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, the Discworld’s walking, talking argument in favor of the theory that mankind had descended from a species of rodent. C.M.O.T. Dibbler liked to describe him as a merchant adventurer; everyone else liked to describe him as an itinerant pedlar whose moneymaking schemes were always let down by some small but vital flaw, such as trying to sell things he didn’t own or which didn’t work or, sometimes, didn’t even exist. Fairy gold is well known to evaporate by morning, but it was a reinforced concrete slab by comparison to some of Throat’s merchandise.
    He was standing at the bottom of some steps that led down to one of Ankh-Morpork’s countless cellars.
    “Hallo, Throat.”
    “Would you step down here a minute, Fred? I could use a bit of legal aid.”
    “Got a problem, Throat?”
    Dibbler scratched his nose.
    “Well, Fred…Is it a crime to be given something? I mean, without you knowing it?”
    “Someone been giving you things, Throat?”
    Throat nodded. “Dunno. You know I keep merchandise down here?” he said.
    “Yeah.”
    “You see, I just come down to do a bit of stocktaking, and…” He waved a hand helplessly. “Well…take a look…”
    He opened the cellar door.
    In the darkness something went plop .

    Windle Poons lurched aimlessly along a dark alley in the Shades, arms extended in front of him, hands hanging down at the wrists. He didn’t know why. It just seemed the right way to go about it.
    Jumping off a building? No, that wouldn’t work, either. It was hard enough to walk as it was, and two broken legs wouldn’t help. Poison? He imagined it would be like having a very bad stomach ache. Noose? Hanging around would probably be more boring than sitting on the bottom of the river.
    He reached a noisome courtyard where several alleys met. Rats scampered away from him. A cat screeched and scurried off over the rooftops.
    As he stood wondering where he was, why he was, and what ought to happen next, he felt the point of a knife against his backbone.
    “Okay, grandad,” said a voice behind him, “it’s your money or your life.”
    In the darkness Windle Poons’ mouth formed a horrible grin.
    “I’m not playing about, old man,” said the voice.
    “Are you Thieves’ Guild?” said Windle, without turning around.
    “No, we’re…freelances. Come on, let’s see the color of your money.”
    “Haven’t got any,” said Windle. He turned around. There were two more muggers behind him.
    “Ye gods, look at his eyes, ” said one of them.
    Windle raised his arms above his head.
    “Ooooooooh,” he moaned.
    The muggers backed away. Unfortunately, there was a wall behind them. They flattened themselves against it.
    “OoooOOOOoooobuggeroffoooOOOooo” said Windle, who hadn’t realized that the only way of escape lay through him. He rolled his eyes for better effect.
    Maddened by terror, the would-be attackers dived under his arms, but not before one of them had sunk his knife up to the hilt in Windle’s pigeon chest.
    He looked down at it.
    “Hey! That was my best robe!” he said. “I wanted to be buried in—will you look at it? You know how difficult it is to darn silk? Come back here this—Look at it, right where it shows—”
    He listened. There was no sound but the distant and retreating scurry of footsteps.
    Windle Poons removed the knife.
    “Could have killed me,” he muttered, tossing it away.

    In the cellar, Sergeant Colon picked up one of the objects that lay in huge drifts on the floor.
    “There must be thousands of ’em,” said Throat, behind him. “What I want to know is, who put them there?” *
    Sergeant Colon turned the object around and around in his hands.
    “Never seen one of these before,” he said. He gave it a shake. His face lit up. “Pretty, ain’t they?”
    “The door was locked and everything,” said Throat. “And I’m paid up with the Thieves’ Guild.”
    Colon shook the thing again.
    “Nice,” he said.
    “Fred?”
    Colon, fascinated, watched the little snowflakes fall inside