Terry Pratchet

'It was the Egg,' corrected another voice. 'I distinctly remember. The Great Egg of the Universe. Slightly rubbery.'

'You're both wrong, in fact. I'm sure it was the primordial slime.'

A voice by Rincewind's knee said: 'No, that came afterwards. There was firmament first. Lots of firmament. Rather sticky, like candyfloss. Very syrupy, in fact—.'

'In case anyone's interested,' said a crackly voice on Rincewind's left, 'you're all wrong. In the beginning was the Clearing of the Throat—'

'—then the word—'

'Pardon me, the slime—'

'Distinctly rubbery, I thought—'

There was a pause. Then a voice said carefully, 'Anyway, whatever it was, we remember it distinctly.'

'Quite so.'

'Exactly.'

‘Put it like this, lanceconstable,’ as they turned the corner. 'Would you let a murderer off for a thousand dollars?'

'No, sir!'

'A thousand dollars'd set your mum up in a nice place in a good part of town, though.'

'Knock it off, sarge, I'in not like that.'

The new sergeant-at-arms picked up his badge with care and saluted yet again. ‘Oath, sir,’ he said.

‘Oh, er, that thing? Er, I believe I’ve got it written down somewh—’

Vimes took a deep breath. This probably wasn’t a good idea, but he was flying now.

"We did the Rite stuff," said Ridcully. "And this is what we got."

[...] "She's just some girl messing about," said Skazz.

Susan stared at them.

"She hasn't even got a scythe," said Tez.

Susan concentrated. The scythe appeared in her hands, its blue-edged blade making a noise like a finger dragged around the rim of a glass.

The students straightened up.

"But I've always thought it was time for a change," said Tez.

"Right. It's about time girls got a chance in the professions," said Skazz.

"Don't you dare patronize me!"

"That's right," said Ponder. "There's no reason why Death has to be male. A woman could be almost as good as a man in the job."

"You're doing it very well," said Ridcully.

He gave Susan an encouraging smile.

She rounded on him. I'm Death, she thought -- technically, anyway -- and this is a fat old man who has no right to give me any kind of orders. I'll glare at him, and he'll soon realize the gravity of the situation. She glared.

"Young lady," said Ridcully. "Would you care for breakfast?"

The night was as black as the inside of a cat. It was the kind of night, you could believe, on which gods moved men as though they were pawns on the chessboard of fate. In the middle of this elemental storm a fire gleamed among the dripping furze bushes like the madness in a weasel's eye. It illuminated three hunched figures. As the cauldron bubbled an eldritch voice shrieked: "When shall we three meet again?"

There was a pause.

Finally another voice said, in far more ordinary tones: "Well, I can do next Thursday."

"Because, Mister Lipwig, you'd pay a king's ransom in order to say that you fought on the roof of a train and I've seen you, you're a bastard in close combat, worse than Nobby and he tends to bite their knees. I saw the corpses of the grags from that incident at the Quirm railhead. You can fight, if only in terror, but it's true that the coward can often be the best fighter of all."

Discworld Textposts III