Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online Page A

penny!”
    “Yes, but there’s storage…packing…handling…”
    “Tuppence,” said Colon desperately.
    “Tenpence.”
    “Threepence.”
    “Sevenpence—and that’s cutting my own throat, mark you.”
    “Done,” said the sergeant, reluctantly. He gave the globe another shake.
    “Nice, ain’t they?” he said.
    “Worth every penny,” said Dibbler. He rubbed his hands together hopefully. “Should sell like hot cakes,” he said, picking up a handful and shoving them into a box.
    He locked the door behind them when they left.
    In the darkness something went plop .

    Ankh-Morpork has always had a fine tradition of welcoming people of all races, colors and shapes, if they have money to spend and a return ticket.
    According to the Guild of Merchants’ famous publication, Wellcome to Ankh-Morporke, Citie of One Thousand Surprises , “you the visitor will be assured of a Warm Wellcome in the countles Ins and hostelries of this Ancient Citie, where many specialize in catoring for the taste of guest from distant part. So if you a Manne, Trolle, Dwarfe, Goblin or Gnomm, Annk-Morporke will raise your Glass convivial and say: Cheer! Here looking, you Kid! Up, You Bottom!”
    Windle Poons didn’t know where undead went for a good time. All he knew, and he knew it for a certainty, was that if they could have a good time anywhere then they could probably have it in Ankh-Morpork.
    His labored footsteps led him deeper into the Shades. Only they weren’t so labored now.
    For more than a century Windle Poons had lived inside the walls of Unseen University. In terms of accumulated years, he may have lived a long time. In terms of experience, he was about thirteen.
    He was seeing, hearing and smelling things he’d never seen, heard or smelled before.
    The Shades was the oldest part of the city. If you could do a sort of relief map of sinfulness, wickedness and all-around immorality, rather like those representations of the gravitational field around a Black Hole, then even in Ankh-Morpork the Shades would be represented by a shaft. In fact the Shades was remarkably like the aforesaid well-known astronomical phenomenon: it had a certain strong attraction, no light escaped from it, and it could indeed become a gateway to another world. The next one.
    The Shades was a city within a city.
    The streets were thronged. Muffled figures slunk past on errands of their own. Strange music wound up from sunken stairwells. So did sharp and exciting smells.
    Poons passed goblin delicatessens and dwarf bars, from which came the sounds of singing and fighting, which dwarfs traditionally did at the same time. And there were trolls, moving through the crowds like…like big people moving among little people. They weren’t shambling, either.
    Windle had hitherto seen trolls only in the more select parts of the city, * where they moved with exaggerated caution in case they accidentally clubbed someone to death and ate them. In the Shades they strode, unafraid, heads held so high they very nearly rose above their shoulder-blades.
    Windle Poons wandered through the crowds like a random shot on a pinball table. Here a blast of smoky sound from a bar spun him back into the street, there a discreet doorway promising unusual and forbidden delights attracted him like a magnet. Windle Poons’ life hadn’t included even very many usual and approved delights. He wasn’t even certain what they were. Some sketches outside one pink-lit, inviting doorway left him even more mystified but incredibly anxious to learn.
    He turned around and around in pleased astonishment.
    This place! Only ten minutes’ walk or fifteen minutes’ lurch from the University! And he’d never known it was there! All these people! All this noise! All this life !
    Several people of various shapes and species jostled him. One or two started to say something, shut their mouths quickly, and hurried off.
    They were thinking…his eyes! Like gimlets!
    And then a voice from the shadows