Reaper Man

Dean.
    “This blasted wire baskety wheely thing,” said the Archchancellor. Beside him, a tiny purple spider-like creature materialized out of the air and scuttled toward a crevice. The wizards didn’t notice it.
    “What wire baskety wheely thing?” said the wizards, in unison.
    Ridcully looked around him.
    “I could have sworn—” he began.
    There was another scream.
    Ridcully scrambled to his feet.
    “Come on, you fellows!” he said, limping heroically onward.
    “Why does everyone run toward a blood-curdling scream?” mumbled the Senior Wrangler. “It’s contrary to all sense.”
    They trotted out through the cloisters and into the quadrangle.
    A rounded, dark shape was squatting in the middle of the ancient lawn. Steam was coming out of it in little, noisome wisps.
    “What is it?”
    “It can’t be a compost heap in the middle of the lawn, can it?”
    “Modo will be very upset.”
    The Dean peered closer. “Er…especially because, I do believe, that’s his feet poking out from under it…”
    The heap swiveled toward the wizards and made a glop, glop noise.
    Then it moved.
    “Right, then,” said Ridcully, rubbing his hands together hopefully, “which of you fellows has got a spell about them at the moment?”
    The wizards patted their pockets in an embarrassed fashion.
    “Then I shall attract its attention while the Bursar and the Dean try to pull Modo out,” said Ridcully.
    “Oh, good,” said the Dean faintly.
    “How can you attract a compost heap’s attention?” said the Senior Wrangler. “I shouldn’t think it’s even got one.”
    Ridcully removed his hat and stepped gingerly forward.
    “Load of rubbish!” he roared.
    The Senior Wrangler groaned and put his hand over his eyes.
    Ridcully flapped his hat in front of the heap.
    “Biodegradable garbage!”
    “Poor green trash?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes helpfully.
    “That’s the ticket,” said the Archchancellor. “Try to infuriate the bugger.” (Behind him, a slightly different variety of mad waspy creature popped out of the air and buzzed away.)
    The heap lunged at the hat.
    “Midden!” said Ridcully.
    “Oh, I say,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, shocked.
    The Dean and the Bursar crept forward, grabbed a gardener’s foot each, and pulled. Modo slid out of the heap.
    “It’s eaten through his clothes!” said the Dean.
    “But is he all right?”
    “He’s still breathing,” said the Bursar.
    “And if he’s lucky, he’s lost his sense of smell,” said the Dean.
    The heap snapped at Ridcully’s hat. There was a glop . The point of the hat had vanished.
    “Hey, there was still almost half a bottle in there!” Ridcully roared. The Senior Wrangler grabbed his arm.
    “Come on, Archchancellor!”
    The heap swiveled and lunged toward the Bursar.
    The wizards backed away.
    “It can’t be intelligent, can it?” said the Bursar.
    “All it’s doing is moving around slowly and eating things,” said the Dean.
    “Put a pointy hat on it and it’d be a faculty member,” said the Archchancellor.
    The heap came after them.
    “I wouldn’t call that moving slowly,” said the Dean.
    They looked expectantly at the Archchancellor.
    “Run!”
    Portly though most of the faculty were, they hit a fair turn of speed up the cloisters, fought one another through the door, slammed it behind them and leaned on it. Very soon afterward, there was a damp, heavy thud on the far side.
    “We’re well out of that ,” said the Bursar.
    The Dean looked down.
    “I think it’s coming through the door, Archchancellor,” he said, in a tiny voice.
    “Don’t be daft, man, we’re all leanin’ on it.”
    “I didn’t mean through, I mean… through …”
    The Archchancellor sniffed.
    “What’s burnin?”
    “Your boots, Archchancellor,” said the Dean.
    Ridcully looked down. A greenish-yellow puddle was spreading under the door. The wood was charring, the flagstones were hissing, and the leather soles of his boots were definitely in trouble. He could feel himself getting lower.
    He fumbled with the laces, and then took a standing jump onto a dry flagstone.
    “Bursar!”
    “Yes, Archchancellor?”
    “Give me your boots!”
    “What?”
    “Dammit, man, I command you to give me your blasted boots!”
    This time, a long creature with four pairs of wings, two at each end, and three eyes, popped into existence over Ridcully’s head and dropped onto his hat.
    “But—”
    “I am your Archchancellor!”
    “Yes,