Reaper Man

individuals trying to smash them, but the trolleys were practically indestructible—they bent but didn’t break, and if they had even one wheel left they’d make a valiant attempt to keep going.
    “Look at that one!” said the Archchancellor. “It’s got my laundry in it! My actual laundry! Darn that for a lark!”
    He pushed his way through the crowds and rammed his staff into the trolley’s wheels, toppling it over.
    “We can’t get a clear shot at anything with all these civilians around,” complained the Dean.
    “There’s hundreds of trolleys!” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “It’s just like vermine! * Get away from me, you—you basket !”
    He flailed at an importunate trolley with his staff.
    The tide of wheeled baskets was flowing out of the city. The struggling humans gradually dropped out or fell under the wobbling wheels. Only the wizards stayed in the flowing tide, shouting at one another and attacking the silvery swarm with their staves. It wasn’t that magic didn’t work. It worked quite well. A good zap could turn a trolley into a thousand intricate little wire puzzles. But what good did that do? A moment later two others would trundle over their stricken sibling.
    Around the Dean trolleys were being splashed into metal droplets.
    “He’s really getting the hang of it, isn’t he?” said the Senior Wrangler, as he and the Bursar levered yet another basket onto its back.
    “He’s certainly saying Yo a lot,” said the Bursar.
    The Dean himself didn’t know when he’d been happier. For sixty years he’d been obeying all the self-regulating rules of wizardry, and suddenly he was having the time of his life. He’d never realized that, deep down inside, what he really wanted to do was make things go splat.
    Fire leapt from the tip of his staff. Handles and bits of wire and pathetically spinning wheels tinkled down around him. And what made it even better was that there was no end to the targets. A second wave of trolleys, crammed into a tighter space, was trying to advance over the tops of those still in actual contact with the ground. It wasn’t working, but they were trying anyway. And trying desperately, because a third wave was already crunching and smashing its way over the top of them. Except that you couldn’t use the word “trying.” It suggested some sort of conscious effort, some sort of possibility that there might also be a state of “not trying.” Something about the relentless movement, the way they crushed one another in their surge, suggested that the wire baskets had as much choice in the matter as water has about flowing downhill.
    “Yo!” shouted the Dean. Raw magic smacked into the grinding tangle of metal. It rained wheels.
    “Eat hot thaumaturgy, you m—”, the Dean began.
    “Don’t swear! Don’t swear!” shouted Ridcully above the noise. He tried to swat a Silly Bugger that was orbiting his hat. “There’s no telling what it might turn into!”
    “Bother!” screamed the Dean.
    “It’s no good. We might as well be trying to hold back the sea,” said the Senior Wrangler. “I vote we head back to the University and pick up some really tough spells.”
    “Good idea,” said Ridcully. He looked up at the advancing wall of twisted wire. “Any idea how?” he said.
    “Yo! Scallywags!” said the Dean. He aimed his staff again. It made a sad little noise that, if it was written down, could only be spelled pfffft . A feeble spark fell off the end and onto the cobbles.

    Windle Poons slammed another book shut. The Librarian winced.
    “Nothing! Volcanoes, tidal waves, wrath of gods, meddling wizards…I don’t want to know how other cities have been killed , I want to know how they ended…”
    The Librarian stacked another pile of books on the reading desk. Another plus about being dead, Windle was finding, was an ability with languages. He could see the sense in the words without knowing the actual meaning. Being dead wasn’t like falling asleep after all. It was like waking up.
    He glanced across the Library to where Lupine was having his paw bandaged.
    “Librarian?” he said softly.
    “Oook?”
    “You’ve changed species in your time…what would you do if, for the sake of argument, you found a couple of people who…well, suppose there was a wolf that changed into a wolfman at the full moon, and a woman that changed into a wolfwoman at the full moon…you know, approaching the same shape but from opposite directions? And