The Man Who Twice Killed Death

“Death dogged your heels but did not catch you. When it leapt, you killed it. And now you are Death.”

Screech turned and saw the source of the omen, a decrepit old woman whose 120 years of life had rendered her toothless and conspiratorial. The lutist drew his weapon and attacked the strings with mighty fervour, summoning such a hideous racket that the hag covered her ears and howled as she retreated. Screech beamed at his own perspicacity.

Dusting off his jerkin, the bard strutted along the promenade, chaining chords so devoid of melody that they evoked joy in the local children and ire in anyone past the age at which mischief is permitted. He grinned devilishly, with reckless delight, and addressed the crowds of passersby.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls!” he yelled, his eyes glistening in the winter sunlight. “Although my fame precedes me, decorum dictates that a poet must always introduce himself to the audience whom he graces with his presence. It is I, Screech, the world’s most esteemed bard, eminent among his confreres and illustrious from the bottom of the ocean to the stars in the sky. And now listen, for I have an announcement! I shall shatter history and rebuild it in art’s image!”

“Oi, poetaster!” A burly man in a blue tunic slung a sack over his shoulder and locked eyes with the bard. “Put a sock in it before I sock you one!”

Screech whirred around as a falcon might rebound before reaching the earth, teeth flashing, eyes shimmering with a bliss only achievable after one has embraced abandon and sold their soul to it.

“Good sir!” he squawked. “Noble knight! To lay hands on a man in the service of art… Base! Unthinkable! But fear not, for I bear no grudges against my fellow countrymen. Sit down and stay awhile, for the ballad of our time is finally complete! And at long last, my true name shall be revealed for all to remember…”

The bard stroked the neck of his lute and gazed at the cobbles from beneath half-closed eyelids. He took a breath, exhaled with exaggerated vigour. And sang.

No one heard the ballad in its entirety. Screech lost consciousness before the first chorus.

“Ha! I win again! Now jump in the lake with your trousers on your head!”

The loser, a child of no more than 12 years old, looked at his friend with weighty sullenness. He did not speak, though his sour expression spoke for him. Betrayal. He thought. Judas Iscariot.

The betrayed was rescued from his fate by a strange sound, sort of like a cat being strangled as heard through a seashell. He turned and saw a boy a little older than him but much scrawnier, with great, bulging fish eyes protruding from beneath an oversized beret with more holes than a wheel of cheese used for archery practice. The child brandished a lute with a mangled neck and a few less than a few strings. It looked more fit for gravedigging than balladry.

“Hallo, chaps,” the newcomer said. “Want to hear a tune?”

The winner of the game was on him in a flash. The lute, already barely an instrument, was snapped in two and demonstrated a whole new capacity for music as the ribs clashed with the head beneath the beret, the collision percussive and penetrating. The singer buried his head in his hands and curled up to absorb the blows with his forearms, still bruised from yesterday’s thrashing. He felt his wrist fracture and decided between pangs of pain that he would learn to play with his teeth. As long as he had his arms, they’d never get his teeth.

“Stop that! Stop it, you swine!” The voice of the loser, frenzied and rising, rising, modulating into a mighty roar. He tore his friend from the young bard and hit him once, twice, three times square in the nose, a nose that exploded in an ocean of crimson.

The bass, the stentorian intonation that boomed like a waterfall hidden at the heart of a mountain.

“This is not befitting,” said the man, frowning beneath hazel eyes and a mess of tousled brown curls. “Such contemptible conduct must be punished.”

The loser stared at his knuckles, then at the floor. And snapped his head up in utter disbelief.

“It was my fault,” said the boy with the broken lute. “They beat me at conkers so I told them to sniff a rat’s arse. They said I was bad at singing so I hit them with my lute. Look, it’s all smashed up to bits. And I’d bash them again if I could put it back together.”

The strike was far crueller than what any urchin could have deserved. It was aimed precisely at the lower jaw and intended to dislocate. Bones cracked, skin was severed. The cry. The desperate, piercing cry.

“Let this be a lesson,” said the man, his voice stony and righteous. “You will never be a singer, for you screech like a banshee. And yet you do not deserve the name of those noble creatures who foretell death and thus serve a purpose. And so we shall not call you a banshee, we shall call you Screech.”

The man appeared to hesitate, as if deep in thought. He frowned once more, turned on his heel, and was gone.

Screech… The young bard thought to himself. I’ll screech until they cut my tongue out.

Screech was roused from his stupor by the soft pattering of rain. His audience had resumed their chores and not a soul paid any attention to him. He pulled himself up onto his knees and tried to stand, but slipped on the slurry and plummeted face-first into the mud and blood beneath him. Had this been a few years prior, the people around him would have pointed and laughed. Nobody even looked in his direction.

The bard stood successfully on his second attempt. He picked up his lute and followed a general course toward the tavern, which is to say that he would have walked directly toward it if not for the fact he was heavily concussed and stumbling all over the place. By the time he reached it, he was soaked to the bone and in desperate need of a whole other kind of liquid.

“Ale!” he exclaimed as he half-walked, half-fell through the door. “Ale for an aching head and heart… Ale for he who takes pain for art…”

The innkeeper looked at him with neither respect nor contempt. He finished polishing the glass he was holding and leaned wearily over the counter.

“I have told you every day for who knows how long that you are not to come here,” he drawled. “I do not wish to serve you and my patrons do not wish to associate with you. I have said it time and time again — you’re barred, subject to a lifetime ban with no option for rescindment. Please, for both of our sakes, turn your head where your arse is facing and walk until you forget this place exists.”

“Ha!” Screech discarded concern for his wounded head so completely that one might have sworn it was he who had delivered the fateful blow to someone else. “And if I forgot about this place, where would I go for a good pint of ale? Excuse me? Precisely, your silence is the correct answer. Nowhere. What would you have me drink instead? Milk? As if!”

The bard pulled a stool over to the counter and sat down heavily, so heavily that he almost missed the seat and added yet another injury to an already impressive collection. He drew out a small purse and emptied its contents onto the tabletop: a couple of rocks, a button, and a small, oddly shaped twig.

“I have no conventional currency, for it does not befit an artist to concern himself with matters as mundane as banal custom,” the bard said superciliously. “I shall trade you one of these trinkets for, let’s say, eight pints of ale tonight, as well as another six tomorrow. Paid in advance, of course. I am sure that you, noble bartender with the eyes of an eagle, can recognise their value. These are treasures, dear friend. Priceless. Or, in this case, approximately the price of 14 pints, which in my opinion could quite possibly be the bargain of a lifetime…”

“One pint,” the innkeeper said, and he looked a little more kindly on the man known as Screech as he said it. “One and that’s all, you drink it and you get lost. And you can keep your treasures — I have no desire to make a pauper even poorer.”

Screech’s eyes lit up like wildfire as the innkeeper once more wondered how such a strange creature ever succeeded in being born. Exceptional, really. He thought to himself. Damned shame everyone wishes he’d croak.

“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in.” A man deep in his cups stumbled toward the bar and thumped the wooden counter with both hands. “Do my eyes deceive me, or is this the infamous Screech? I heard my old man gave you a sound thrashing this morning. Dropped you well and good before you could vex anyone with your hooting. Enlighten me, poet, about how one is supposed to become a bard if one has no talent? If one can neither sing nor play an instrument? If one can only emit sounds so odious that if not for their opposable thumbs they’d be drowned in a lake? It seems to me that someone with these specific qualities is as likely to become a poet as a cat is to become a dog.”

Screech rose and assumed what he imagined was a haughty stance, although it was somewhat difficult for a person to exude pride with a jaw that could house a small rodent and more ale on their jerkin than in their glass.

“A musician does not need talent to succeed but spirit,” the bard said. “And I was born so that one day I would die and become the Holy Spirit itself. So while I thank you for your concern, you are wasting your breath, which, by the way, stinks of onions and decrepitude.”

The innkeeper shot up and was between the two men in an instant. He raised his hands placatingly, but the insult had been dealt with far too much fervour. And the man who bore it was far too drunk.

“You scrawny little shit,” the drunkard said, enunciating his words to the best of his ability. “You who brought ruin on this town. You who ought to have been smothered in your sleep as an infant. You who deprived us of death, therefore depriving us of life. You induced this plague of life, this accursed scourge that knows no end. Oh, to draw and quarter you would not suffice, vile poet. The Seven Circles of Hell would be too kind a fate.”

“Oh?” Screech offered, poking his head around the innkeeper’s shoulder. “A philosopher, is he? A brilliant academic who knows something about life and death? Let me tell you something, churl, and listen well for maybe you might glean some scrap of intelligence from my words, putting you somewhere on par with the average ant. Many of the world’s most esteemed philosophers were shameless hacks. And you mentioned a plague? Well, allow me to offer you some sorely needed education on that subject as well. It should be clear to anyone smarter than a senile chicken that the majority of doctors who have gone down in history were obviously quacks on account of the fact that despite their science and reason they never bothered to find a cure for eternal life. What say you to that, O Mighty Philosopher? Hey! Speak when you are spoken to! To think such bad manners exist in the world…”

The drunkard did not speak, at least not with his mouth and tongue. His method of communication was similar to that of the man in the blue tunic.

“Hey, er… Screech? I’m Harry. Are you okay?”

The young poet opened his eyes and looked around him. There were two lakes, two paths, dozens of trees, and a pair of twins offering a hand each to help him up. The world shimmered as if viewed through a kaleidoscope.

“A-ha!” Screech shot up without the aid of either hand. “I have lost a tooth and gained a sense! Thank you for your kindness, good sirs, although I shan’t require it. I see them now, all of the true names and colours, the gestalts that elude the primitive human mind… I am more than okay, dear friends! And now I shall immortalise the zeitgeist in the epic of our generation... Right, I’m off.”

The loser scrunched up his eyes and looked askance at nothing, desperately trying to puzzle out what on earth this weird little idiot was talking about.

“Zeit-what?” Harry asked, mostly to himself. “Immortinalise? I reckon that box in the chops might have went straight to the brain… Look, er… Screech. Tell me, do you see two of everything? And colours? And stars?”

Screech pivoted so rapidly that the earth seemed to turn on its axis. He lunged at one of the Harrys and grabbed both of his shoulders with inhuman speed, shaking him violently while emitting a dreadful racket that was somewhere between a scream and a ghostly wail. It took him nearly five minutes to calm down.

“So,” he said, eyeing the twins known as Harry with intense suspicion. “You also have first-order contact with the primordial forces. Second sight. The ability to open your third eye. In fact, it appears you had all of these great powers before I did. So tell me… Harrys, you conniving scoundrels who share a face and name. Why have you not done anything with this? How did you get thrashed at conkers if you have gained omniscience? Speak, little humans with the eyes of gods!”

“Primordinal… Connivering… Omniseesance… Look, Screech. That man, the blacksmith. Bjorn is his name. He hit you pretty hard… I don’t know much about second sight, but I think you’re seeing double right now because you got whacked in the head by a man who whacks things for a living. There’s only one of me, see? I’m Harry. There’s another Harry, the miller’s boy, but he’s not here. Plus he’s two years older than me and much fatter. Look, how many fingers am I holding up.”

“20.”

“Screech…”

“16 and four thumbs. Do not challenge me at riddles or you will regret it, rascals. I am the riddle master.”

Harry shook his head in disbelief. Never in his 12 years of life had he encountered such a total moron.

“I’m not challenging you to anything, Screech. Sit down and in a few minutes you’ll see things normally again. Listen, I’ll sit with you. We can chat. First of all, I wanted to say thank you for saving me. Bjorn lashed me with his belt when he caught me robbing apples from the orchard last year. I couldn’t sit right for a week. You didn’t have to do that, you know. My friend…”

Screech grimaced and looked at the twins, who were slowly merging into one person. He gritted his teeth and shuddered, surprised by the taste of anger. And calmed down.

“You did nothing wrong,” the bard muttered. “That friend of yours, oh, he deserved a throttling. But you stepped in when he broke my lute and tried to rip my arms off. You’re good, you know, a truly decent person. I can’t comprehend why you choose to associate with barbarians and dolts.”

Harry’s smile emanated kindness and warmth. He wasn’t used to being complimented. Usually he was the one shielding himself with his forearms.

“You’d’ve done the same for me,” he said in a small voice, barely more audible than a whisper. “In fact, you already did. I was just returning the favour. But Screech, I have a question — several, actually. Why do you insist on carrying that gnarled lute everywhere? Why do you keep singing when people bash you for it? Why don’t you just give up and start an apprenticeship with one of the tradesmen, all of whom are always on the lookout for workers, urchins included?”

Harry blanched and stared at the ground.

“Not urchins… Orph — no, I mean — ”

“It’s quite alright,” Screech said, finally returning the smile bestowed on him. “I know who I am and I bear no shame for it. I shall answer your question with a question. Do you have a dream, Harry?”

It should have been impossible for Harry’s face to have paled further, and yet somehow it did. Then went bright red.

“Well, I’ve always wanted to… Maybe if I could muster up some funds… It’s always been a dream of mine…”

“Yes, Harry?”

The boy’s face resumed its regular colour as he looked up at the young bard. His newest — and, as time would tell, most enduring — friend.

“I’d like to run an inn.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Harry mumbled as he patched up Screech’s latest wound. “You really ought to shut up sometimes. That’s five thrashings in as many days… You’ll wind up dead…”

“Me?” Screech asked, braving the crude stitchwork with admirable composure. “Dead? Why, I am the man who killed Death. Who could kill me?”

The bard’s composure was indeed admirable. That is, until it ran its course and he passed out.

Screech and Harry parted after a long conversation about their hopes and dreams. The bard felt somehow altered, as if his life had been suddenly transformed and would never be the same again.

He had made a friend.

As Screech walked home — a dusty old shack on the edge of town that was shared with varied livestock who had escaped their pens — he whistled and was quite shocked. It didn’t sound half-bad.

As he walked through the square and over the bridge, he felt a ghastly presence behind him. He turned cautiously and observed his surroundings. There was no one there.

A tap on the shoulder. A world of cold.

Hello, little bard. I have come to collect you.

Screech whirled around against his better judgment and saw a robed figure wielding a scythe. His shape was not that of an ordinary human — he was much too tall and far too slight. While his face was obscured by a black hood, his skeletal hands confirmed Screech’s fears.

Beneath the hood was a skull. The skull of Death.

Let us make haste, little bard. I promise it is not as scary as you think.

“‘Not as scary as you think?’” Screech parroted, summoning courage from deep within himself. “And how do you know what I think, mister? How on earth could you know that?”

The figure did not reply right away. He hesitated, as if stunned.

Well, of course I know what you think. You know who I am, you know of the power I wield. It is but a trifle to interpret the thoughts of a young human. It is not worth bragging about, thus I shall not explain and you will not ask further questions. Now come on, let us be off. Time is short — yours, especially so.

“My time is mine and mine alone,” Screech hissed. “Who are you to take the life of a child? Who are you to decide who gets to live and who gets to die? What, just because you have a funny hood and a big stick you get to choose? To judge? To pronounce and deliver death, the grim finality that awaits us all? No, mister, no thank you. Now go away, I have a ballad to write.”

Screech turned on his heel and resumed his course home. Death followed him, struggling to keep up, nervously flitting about like a lost puppy.

You do not know of what you speak, little bard. You must understand, this is not what I desire… It is my duty, you see. You must not view me with contempt… I am merely doing a job that is required as per the laws of the universe… You mustn’t hate me…

“Of course I hate you, you swine!” Screech yelled, growing more and more brave as Death became less and less certain. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for trying to take a poet-in-the-making before his time. Oh, the baseness of chasing a child with scythe in hand! Maybe you ought to walk a day in my shoes before deciding that my time is up? Because I have decided that it’s not up, and that’s that. Now get lost. Off with you, I said!”

Little bard… Please, I beg you… I acknowledge the cruelty of fate — hell, I abhor it! But alas it is not up to me, I am but a servant, a —

“Yes, yes, ‘I have a job to do.’ Spare me the spiel, mister. Kill me if you want, but don’t expect me to come willingly. What, you have a scythe and arms to swing it. Go ahead, lop my head off and be done with it. I’m waiting, mister. I’m waiting very patiently.”

To… walk a day in your shoes. I understand, little bard, I know how wretched it is to be sentenced for naught, to be judged and executed by a force beyond your control. I can empathise with these feelings, for I too am plagued by them… Oh, to a walk a day in your shoes… To walk a day —

“What are you, some sort of chatterbox?” Screech bristled now, faced with his fate and determined to get it over with. “Some sort of babbling dunce? Look, it’s so easy!”

Screech snatched a small, oddly shaped twig from the path. He held it up to Death and changed his grip on it.

Death saw it. And lost it.

No! Put that down, fool! You know not the powers you meddle with! You know not the burden, the weighty toll that exacts wicked vengeance at every waking moment and every gap between them… Look, I have put away my scythe! I will… try to explain, try to reason with them. Go home and write your ballad! Now put that down and stamp on it until it is dust!

Screech grinned as he wielded the twig. Like some sort of scythe.

And smote.

“And how was I to know?” Screech groaned, still dazed from drink and blood loss. “I was 14 years old. How was I to know that a little twig could kill Death?”

“Well,” Harry answered. The bard’s friend busied himself by wiping down the counter as the last customer other than Screech exited the tavern, thumping the poet in the gut as he passed him. “He did warn you.”

“I thought he was being tricksy! A sly little fox, full of guile and invention… Who knew Death was such a dolt? Not me.”

Screech poured himself another ale. Harry glanced at him but said nothing. The innkeeper always told the bard that he couldn’t have a drink, couldn’t have a bed, couldn’t even have a bowl of soup. But of course he could have all of those things. He was his best friend, after all.

Harry tried to lighten the mood. Talk of Screech’s burden always exposed a pit in his belly, through which his stomach and all of his other organs plummeted, weighing him down with sadness on an anatomical level.

“Did you hear about old Palamon?” he asked, feigning a smirk as he asked it. “Apparently he fell down the well yesterday. Awful business altogether, but everyone had a good laugh about it. They say his plate rapped out the rhythm of ‘The Soldier’s Song’ as it smacked off the stones on the inside.”

“Ha!” Screech roared. “A much-needed bath. Good for him.”

Palamon didn’t have it easy after Death died. A knightly executioner, he was simply unable to deal with the fact that criminals — and, by extension, crime — had become immortal overnight. He eventually fashioned himself as a sort of vigilante, deigning to enact his own justice by switching his sights from death to pain.

His first victim was also his last. After catching a man stealing bread from the bakery, Palamon pulled him out onto the street by the scruff of his neck. He unsheathed his sword, a great big two-handed behemoth of a claymore, and smote viciously. The thief’s body fell as his head dropped beside him, while Palamon delivered the beginning of a prepared speech about the importance of virtue in this new and eternal life.

He was interrupted by the detached head of the decapitated robber. Apparently, his body felt light as a feather now that it no longer bore the burden of a head full of sin, while his head decided to dedicate itself to philosophy and learning given its newfound lack of appendages with which to do crime. Palamon flew into a fury and stabbed 17 people, then lopped off his own head as atonement for such base behaviour.

In the years that followed, he became a sort of wandering monk, convinced that his retention of sight without eyes was a product of devout holiness. His rationale was based on the fact that not once had he bumped into another person since the day of his beheading by his own hand. In reality, the gaping cavity in his neck stank to high heavens and everyone took great pains to steer clear of him. Palamon never noticed. His head, which he carried with him everywhere, was too busy saying prayers and singing hymns to consider the idea of other people having anything worth talking about.

“It’s like that miller,” Screech said, still laughing as he pictured Palamon plummeting down the well. “He tried to stab himself in the gut with a knife just for it to bend impossibly backwards against all known laws of physics. Ha! To think such idiots exist in our midst. Maybe one day I’ll write an ode to their stupidity.”

Harry grimaced at the words “one day.” Those words used to mean something. A person had a very limited time on Earth, and to say they would do something “one day” meant they would try their damnedest to get around to it.

Now they had too many days. And nothing, not one thing, seemed worth doing at all.

“Ah, to all hell with it!” Screech suddenly yelled. The bard stood up, wobbled a little, and straightened his jerkin. “Pour yourself one, Harry. I have a confession to make.”

Harry did as he was told. He did not say a word.

“I know how to fix this,” Screech muttered. He shuffled awkwardly and drained half his pint in a couple of gulps. And shook it all off, regaining his composure.

“Good ale will always settle the nerves,” the bard continued, somewhat tangentially. “Okay, jig’s up. My dear Harry, my one and only friend in this death-forsaken world. Will you do me the honour of ending my life?”

Harry knew it was coming. He had always known it would come one day. But “one day” had seemed an eternity away.

“Screech, I… You don’t have to — ”

“Yes, yes, I don’t have to die. Except I do. I know it, you know it, hell, everyone in the village knows it and has known it for quite some time. If looks could kill I’d have died ten thousand deaths by now. But nothing can kill in this village. Nothing but me.”

Harry watched as his friend finished his ale and wiped his mouth. He did not respond. The innkeeper already knew this for what it was: a monologue, stubborn and, whether he liked it or not, final.

“There have been many attempts on my life,” Screech continued, gaining momentum and confidence as he spoke. “All have failed because none can kill me unless I agree to it. Until now, not once have I agreed to it. But neither out of selfishness nor self-preservation.

“When Death looked on me…” Screech broke off for a moment, searching for the words. “He smiled, a very sad smile. And I knew fear, which is not to say I felt scared. I saw and understood the very origins of terror and dread. It was as if fear was the only thing I had ever known and ever would know. Fear. Helplessness.

“Ironically, it was that fear — and not courage — that spurred me to act. I did not know I would kill Death. I did not even consider it an option, for it is a ridiculous notion. And yet… And yet I killed him.

“I never wanted anyone else to know that fear. Yes, the people here have mistreated me. True, I have had half as many broken bones as breakfasts. And of course, I would very much like for those miscreants to sample a taste of their own medicine one day. But to inflict that fear on them… To reveal to them what I have seen…”

Harry felt a forlorn tear trickle down his cheek. He had never heard his friend speak of such things. And all he could think about was how Screech had shouldered this burden for years, all alone with no one to talk to.

“I see now that was a mistake.” Screech took his monologue back up and Harry was stupefied by his friend’s strength, his ability to convert such terrifying thoughts into words and deliver them with fluidity, without flinching. “It was a mistake to deprive people of that. Eternal life means nothing if the shell housing the soul still shatters. Only in death can these crones and cadavers break their shackles. I am ready.”

“But…” Harry murmured, trying desperately not to stammer. “But what about your ballad, Screech? What about your dream?”

Screech looked on his friend and smiled, a very sad smile.

“I can neither sing nor play an instrument,” Screech said. His voice was soft yet somehow powerful, like the foam lining a titanic tidal wave, beautiful and commanding and teeming with the sublime. “For years I have composed ballads and failed to see that my greatest piece is not something I have written, for I have lived it. I am my epic, Harry. I am my masterpiece.”

Harry no longer concealed his tears. He wept openly and very grossly, to the extent that Screech had to rip off a shirt-sleeve and offer it to him as a tissue.

This man. Harry thought, concentrating hard between bouts of sobbing. On Death’s doorstep and still he thinks only of others.

“There’s no rush,” Harry said to his friend, no longer crying but still sniffling a little. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. For tonight, you’ll take a bed here and rest, and we’ll have pork for breakfast in the morning. Don’t take out that kitschy little purse. It’s my treat. Now go on, get you to sleep.”

Screech didn’t have to be told twice — or told at all, for that matter. He was already dozing in the chair.

Not a single villager was absent from the square when they arrived. Harry, as instructed, had spread the word to a few well-known and not-well-liked gossips, who in turn had ensured everyone and their grandmother knew about Screech’s decision. The bard was a little surprised when he wasn’t greeted by stone-throwing. Maybe they hadn’t seen him yet.

“Good citizens!” he yelled, taking up his typical manner, although it was slightly less assured than usual. “It is I, Screech, the greatest bard history has ever known! And now listen, for I have an announcement! I… I’m…”

Screech hesitated. But did not let himself down.

“I am going to die today!”

The audience responded with an almighty roar, with cheers and applause that couldn’t have been mustered by an army ten-thousand strong. Harry looked at his friend and wondered how it might have felt to have so many people receive news of your death with such delight, such spirited rapture.

His concerns were quelled when Screech turned to face him. The bard was beaming.

“I told you, dear friend,” he said. “I am my masterpiece.”

People visited Screech on the podium, expressing their gratitude by saying things like, “I’m sorry for breaking your arm that time, you’re not a half-bad lad,” and, “I never meant to snap your ankle, it was supposed to be in jest — you had a laugh, didn’t you?” The bard didn’t know most of them, nor did he really care. He was just happy with the attention.

At least, until two faces he recognised showed up.

A man in a blue tunic approached the bard, his arms linked with those of a decrepit old woman whose 120 years of life had rendered her toothless and conspiratorial. They shuffled toward the podium and looked at one another. And bowed low.

“We, and all of us here gathered, have been mighty unkind to you,” said the man. “I… I called you a poetaster and knocked you out. For that I am sorry.”

“And I,” the old woman added, her lack of teeth making the words a little difficult to discern. “I did not treat you properly. I was riled by anger… No, I shall not make excuses. I am truly sorry, Screech.”

Harry glanced at his friend, curious about how the poet would react. Never in a million years could he have expected what came next.

“Ha!” Screech yelled, leaping off the podium and scattering the crowd. “Tricked you! Hahaha! You fools! You stupid sons-of-bitches!”

Mumbling could be heard from the crowd. No one appeared to understand what was happening.

“You mean…” a voice finally broke the silence. “You mean you’re not going to die?”

“Me? Die? As if!”

The crowd erupted. Fights broke out, stalls were torn to shreds, and half of the village’s livestock escaped their pens as some of the more animated scrapes spilled into them. Screech tried to explain that it was a double-trick — he did, in fact, intend to die, but not until he had successfully executed a perfect ruse — but to no avail.

The bass, the stentorian intonation that boomed like a waterfall hidden at the heart of a mountain.

“Silence, all of you!” A man with hazel eyes and a mess of tousled white curls appeared as if from nowhere. “This is not befitting. Let the bard speak.”

Screech cleared his throat, stunned by the appearance of a man he had not seen since the day he met and killed Death. The day he was changed, changed utterly. The day a terrible beauty was born.

“It was…” Screech started, failing to find the words for just the second time in his life. “It was… a joke. You all played jokes on me for years. You there, you said you snapped my ankle in jest. Well, now I’ve had my revenge, you sons-of-bitches! Hahaha!”

A few sporadic peals of fake laughter could be heard from the crowd. Then all was silent.

“I…” Screech continued. “I have not prepared anything to say. I decided that it would be better to speak from the heart, to let Poetry speak through me in Her own words. And so I will take my leave momentarily. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Say hello to Poetry.”

Some of the more outgoing members of the audience offered half-hearted “Hello, Poetry”s. One man, probably drunk, said “Poetry is a woman? I have two questions: What does she look like and is she single?” There wasn’t much to say for the rest of the response.

“As you all know,” Screech began, and his voice vibrated sonorously with new confidence. “I am the man who killed Death. And now none of you can die, as evidenced by that old lady who has more bones than skin on display.”

The old woman whose 120 years of life had rendered her toothless and conspiratorial wagged a skeletal and malevolent finger, but was placated by the man in the blue tunic, who was probably her great-grandson.

“Today I will kiss this life goodbye and all shall be well again,” Screech continued. “It is true that I killed Death, and in doing so put an end to dying. But I am also, in a way, Death’s successor. It stands to reason that when I die, all shall be reverted to how it once was, and how it always ought to be. I killed Death and people stopped dying. When I am killed, people will stop living — or, to be more specific, stop living eternally. By my death, you will all theoretically be able to once more lead normal lives and die normal deaths. Does anyone object?”

The crowd was silent. One woman hawked and said “Oops, sorry about that — no objections over here.”

“Well, good,” Screech said, somewhat anti-climactically. “That’s very good. Well done, folks, thanks a lot for the gorgeous send-off. Okay Harry, let’s go to the lake.”

Screech and Harry led the way to the lake — the very one where they had met as children — and approached the little boat docked there. The bard clambered in and lay down. After a moment’s hesitation, he sat up and looked at his friend. And smiled, a very happy smile.

“Farewell, dear friend,” Screech said. “Knowing you was a blessing.”

“Wait,” Harry said, grabbing the bard by his shoulder. “You never finished your ballad. All these years I have been calling you Screech because you wouldn’t reveal your true name. Well, as you said yourself, this is your epic — this is your masterpiece. So tell me, Screech… What is your name?”

“My name?” Screech asked. The bard looked into the distance, pondering his next words very carefully. “Yes, my name. A trifling thing! To be honest, I can’t rightly recall.”

Harry stared at his friend, the man who was about to kill Death for the second time, and was amazed.

“You… don’t recall,” he muttered. “You don’t even know your own name.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Screech replied. “Just call me Screech.”

“I refuse.”

“You refuse?”

“I refuse.”

“Listen, Harry, this is the last wish of the first man to die here in over ten years. If you don’t honour it the grandson of your grandson’s grandson will be born a toad and sire a newt.”

“I refuse.”

“Ugh, fine!” Screech rose from the boat and turned to address the crowd. “Don’t worry, good folks, I am not going to play another trick. I will be on my way shortly. But now listen, for I have an announcement! I am The Man Who Twice Killed Death. And you needn’t mourn me, for I am going to live forever.”

Screech once more lay down in the boat. He peeked over the edge at Harry and winked at him.

“Happy now?” he asked.

“Very much so,” said Harry, smiling weakly, trying very hard to stop the tears from coming. “I couldn’t think of a more fitting name for your epic.”

“Fantastic. Now push the boat out. And please don’t miss.”

Harry waited until the boat was a couple of dozen yards out, then quickly lit his arrow and loosed it. He watched as it climbed and saw it fall, gracefully hitting its mark.

The Man Who Twice Killed Death. He thought. Not bad, Screech. Not bad at all.

After Screech’s death, new life burst into the village. The old men and women accepted their fates and lay down willingly, without kicking up a fuss, with great big smiles on their faces. The young and strong villagers thought of the future with hope as the term “one day” crept its way back into the vernacular. Those not yet ready to face death began to look on dying not with fear but with great reverence, realising that death was not the end of life but the finishing touch on a painting that will never fade, not one bit, not in one million years.

And everything was okay.

Valhalla II

“I don’t understand,” said Harald. “Screech fixed everything. ‘The Man Who Twice Killed Death.’ He figured it out. He did the right thing. He saved the village and quite possibly the world. So what went wrong?”

Well, there are a few details you haven’t yet considered. First of all, death — and Death, as in the proper noun, which is to say me — is a bit more complicated than that. Secondly, and somewhat more importantly, Screech was an idiot. A kind-hearted, selfless, and quite extraordinary idiot. But an idiot all the same.