"...Death walks abroad," said Nijel.
"Abroad I don't mind," said Rincewind. "They're all foreigners. It's Death walking around here I'm not looking forward to."
-- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

Kilan awoke to the smell of freshly-brewed coffee. At once he went from a sound sleep to being completely alert. In theory there was nothing wrong with waking up to the smell of coffee. In practice it was deeply disturbing for the simple reason that he never had any sort of drink brought into his bedroom. An unfortunate incident involving a cup of hot tea and a freshly-laundered coat ready to be worn to an official meeting had made him decide that was the wisest course of action. None of the kitchens were close enough to his rooms for the smell to reach him. So there was only one possibility. Whoever had made that coffee had no right to be there.

He kept his eyes closed and tried not to move too much. Slowly, imperceptibly, he reached under his pillow and grasped the dagger he always kept there. Taking care not to make any noise he pulled it out of its sheath. He prepared to sit up and confront the intruder.

"Kilan. I know you're awake. Stop pretending you're not and have something to drink."

It was Death's voice. A wave of embarrassment washed over him. He should have known no ordinary intruder would get past the guards. Still, it wasn't as if she made a habit of bringing him coffee early in the morning. It was quite a waste of time and effort when his servants would have coffee waiting for him at breakfast.

He sat up. For a minute he wondered if he was still asleep or if he'd been transported to the Land of the Dead without noticing it. Yes, Death was there. Yes, a coffee pot was there. Yes, most of his room looked exactly as it had last night when he fell asleep. It was everything else that was unexpected. The coffee pot itself, for one thing.

The palace had no shortage of them, ranging in size from small ones meant to make only one cup to enormous ones used for banquets and to supply the guards on night duty with enough coffee for an entire army. Yet he'd never seen any that looked like this one. It was made of a bright blue material that looked suspiciously like precious gems, for one thing. It was merrily boiling away even though it was floating in mid-air with no source of heat under it, for another. And strangest of all, it was hopping around like a rabbit. While still in mid-air. With no one holding it.

Death herself sat in the armchair beside the fireplace. A glass cup -- stained glass, something Kilan had only ever seen on his royal visit to Nirne, and even there it was never used for cups -- hovered beside her. Unlike the coffee pot it stayed in one place and didn't jump around the room.

In front of Death was a curious spider's web of lights and coloured lines. It looked like a map, if a map could be conjured out of thin air instead of being printed on paper. Blue dots appeared and disappeared around the lines. Once a flashing red light appeared. When that happened a whole crowd of blue lights popped into existence around it. Within seconds the red light vanished and the blue ones dispersed. The lines kept changing shape and direction.

It was by far the strangest thing Kilan had seen in the last two days. Unfortunately, considering how strange an emperor's life was in general and how even stranger his was in particular, it wasn't nearly the most peculiar thing he'd seen in his life. Or even this week. He stared at it for a minute then decided he was still too tired to deal with this.

"Is that really coffee?" he asked, looking at the very lively pot.

Now it was dancing a jig in front of the window. He could only hope no one out in the gardens happened to be looking up at this moment. If they were they would have questions he'd find it impossible to answer.

Death nodded absently. She didn't take her eyes off the cat's-cradle in front of her. "Yes. I found that pot in Forvitni. It was making a nuisance of itself there, so I brought it home with me."

You make it sound like a troublesome pet, Kilan thought.

He eyed the pot dubiously. How exactly was he supposed to catch it and hold it long enough to pour a cup of coffee? With the way it was acting he'd more likely splash the stuff all over himself, the carpet, and anything unfortunate enough to be nearby.

"What's that?" he asked instead, looking at the lights and lines.

"A map." Well, that confirmed his first thoughts. "I'm afraid I have some bad news." ...What a cheerful thing to hear first thing in the morning. "Have some coffee. You'll need it."

With a wave of her hand Death made the coffee pot float obediently over to Kilan. A cup appeared out of thin air. The pot poured coffee into it without so much a single jump. Then it floated away again and went back to its acrobatics. Kilan took a sip of the coffee -- he was relieved to note it tasted just like ordinary coffee and wasn't as bizarre as the pot -- and waited for Death to explain.

"You remember those escaped souls?" she asked.

Rather an unnecessary question, in Kilan's mind. No one could possibly forget that awful incident. He'd gotten thirty different reports on it. All of them differed in every possible detail. No two sounded like descriptions of the same event. Qihadal's and Gialma's were the most reliable ones, and both were only short overviews of what happened with no in-depth explanation of why the situation got so wildly out of hand.

Death paused. She looked as if she wished she was a thousand miles away. "The ringleader has escaped again."

Kilan stared at her, then at what was left in his cup. He drank the rest of his coffee in one go and wished it was something stronger.

"Why is it so easy to escape from your realm? Are the Reapers not doing their jobs?" he demanded, unknowingly echoing Gialma.

"The guard admitted he wasn't watching her this time," Death agreed. "He's being punished for it. I've sent search parties everywhere. Half the souls have joined in the search -- though I think they're just looking for ways to escape themselves. By now it's clear that she isn't in my realm any more, so I've sent the Reapers to keep an eye out all around the universe. I have this--" She gestured to the tangle of lights, "--to show me where any irregularities appear in the fabric of reality. The sort of thing that might happen with a long-dead soul coming back to life. So far I've only found a few bumbling magicians and stubborn souls. She might as well have disappeared into another world entirely."

Kilan felt the beginnings of a headache. "Is she likely to come back here?"

Death shrugged with an attempt at casualness. He could see through her pretence and knew she was really furious, confused, and humiliated by yet another fiasco. "I don't know. It depends on how she got out of my realm. If she had another mirror hidden somewhere it will probably have brought her somewhere to this planet. If she had an accomplice she might be on the far side of the universe by now."

When things went wrong Kilan had learnt there was one person usually responsible. "Has Fate got something to do with this?"

Death pursed her lips. "I'd like to think not even she would be stupid enough to take a risk that could permanently open a pathway between my realm and this one. But--" Her grim expression became several degrees more grim, "--I've been wrong before."

~~~~

There were some things that were just impossible to stop. A river flowing downhill. The tide coming in and going out. The sun rising and setting every day. No matter how many people wanted a river to flow uphill, no matter how loudly they shouted at it, they would never get what they wanted.

Unfortunately trying to stop Kiroshnoy was practically the same thing. Never before had Hailanyu felt so much like a man trying to stop a force of nature simply by telling it not to do something.

"We can't split up! It's a terrible idea! We'd all be caught, and no one would know where anyone is, and we have no way of contacting each other. We'd get lost the minute we got into the palace."

Having a discussion in whispers was never very practical. But neither of them dared raise their voices any louder. Not when they were near so many houses, and certainly not when the rest of the group might overhear and interrupt. So they had no choice but to whisper emphatically at each other. If whispering wasn't forceful enough they added sweeping arm gestures to show how serious they were.

It was almost like being an actor on a stage. Hailanyu would have found it more amusing if he was less alarmed by Kiroshnoy's latest idiotic idea.

Kiroshnoy herself refused to listen to reason. "I just think it would save a lot of time."

So would jumping off the palace roof, Hailanyu thought with a scowl. And that would have the same result.

At his wits' end he threatened, "I'm going to tell Nimetath."

Never had there been a more ineffectual threat. From what he could see of her expression Kiroshnoy didn't even flinch. "Go ahead. She'll agree with me."

That left Hailanyu in a quandary. On the one hand he was almost certain Nimetath would do nothing of the sort. But on the other hand, what if she did? What if she took leave of her senses and decided Kiroshnoy's scheme was actually a very good, sensible course of action?

Kiroshnoy herself solved his dilemma for him. "Actually I'll go and ask her myself!"

Hailanyu watched with a sinking feeling in his chest as she sprinted ahead. The other assassins yelped and reached for their weapons as she passed them. They relaxed, muttering imprecations under their breath, when they realised it wasn't an ambush or attacker. Hailanyu grimaced. He might as well follow her, if only to try to make it clear he wanted no part of this madness.

By the time he reached Nimetath at the very head of the group, Kiroshnoy was already there and babbling about her plan at far too high a volume for a secret mission. Nimetath listened with an air of gravity that suggested she really was considering it. The sinking feeling returned in full force.

"It's a good idea," she said. Hailanyu felt as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him. "But!" She held up her hand to silence Kiroshnoy. "You aren't going."

Naturally Kiroshnoy just had to protest. "But I thought of it! I can do it--"

"You most certainly will not," Nimetath interrupted. "You're a child. This is a matter for adults. You and Hailanyu and those other two youngsters are going to stay in a safe place, out of harm's way. The rest of us will reconnoiter. I dare say we aren't going to attack tonight. We'll find out how the palace is laid out, where the guards are, and then we'll come back here and make plans. No one uses this path regularly. Look at how overgrown it was."

It was so dark that Hailanyu couldn't see the path at all. He could tell it had grass growing in the middle; that was easy enough to spot. But he would never have thought it was noticeably overgrown.

Nimetath continued talking. "We'll reach the palace in about ten minutes. You four won't even come into the grounds. You'll stay on this path and only raise the alarm if you're in imminent danger of capture or injury. Is that clear?"

~~~~

Meanwhile a group of policemen were staring down at the oily water.

"It's hair-dye," one of them reported after examining it.

The sergeant puffed his pipe in silence. They waited for whatever he had to say. At last he took the pipe out of his mouth and squinted at the river.

"Now why 'ud anyone throw dye in the river?" he asked rhetorically. "There's laws agin that. Only makes sense if ye thenk they dan't wan' ter be seen. And why 'ud anyone wan' ter hide dye? If they're up ter summing."

His underlings nodded and pretended they understood his line of thought.

"'Tis black dye. So 'tis a person wi'out black hair. Now where do ye get people wi'out black hair? In forrin places. There's a forriner about 'ere somewhere. They dan't wan' ter be foond so we know they're hidin' summing."

Again the underlings nodded.

"Start searchin' for them. Mebbe they've summing ter do wi' the boat thefts. And clear up this dreedfool mess! We cain't have the river lookin' like a swamp!"