He holds it so that the light lints off it, and stares at the little point of reflected brilliance. Scientists have calculated that the chance of anything so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one.īut magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.ĭeath clicks across the black and white tiled floor on toes of bone, muttering inside his cowl as his skeletal fingers count along the rows of busy hourglasses.įinally he finds one that seems to satisfy him, lifts it carefully from its shelf and carries it across to the nearest candle. This is the Death whose particular sphere of operations is, well, not a sphere at all, but the Discworld, which is flat and rides on the back of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the enormous star turtle Great A'Tuin, and which is bounded by a waterfall that cascades endlessly into space. This is the owner of the room, stalking through it with a preoccupied air. The accumulated hiss of the falling grains makes the room roar like the sea. This is the bright candlelit room where the life-timers are stored – shelf upon shelf of them, squat hourglasses, one for every living person, pouring their fine sand from the future into the past.
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