Pratchett Terry David John. Mort

   THERE. THAT WASN'T SO HARD, WAS IT?
   Mort looked up and down the length of the corridor, and slapped the wall experimentally. He must have walked through it, but it felt solid enough now. Little specks of mica glittered at him.
   'How do you do that stuff?' he said. 'How do I do it? Is it magic?'
   MAGIC IS THE ONE THING IT ISN'T, BOY. WHEN YOU CAN DO IT BY YOURSELF, THERE WILL BE NOTHING MORE THAT I CAN TEACH YOU.
   The king, who was considerably more diffuse now, said, 'It's impressive, I'll grant you. By the way, I seem to be fading.'
   IT'S THE MORPHOGENETIC FIELD WEAKENING, said Death.
   The king's voice was no louder than a whisper. 'Is that what it is?'
   IT HAPPENS TO EVERYONE. TRY TO ENJOY IT.
   'How?' Now the voice was no more than a shape in the air.
   JUST BE YOURSELF.
   At that moment the king collapsed, growing smaller and smaller in the air as the field finally collapsed into a tiny, brilliant pinpoint. It happened so quickly that Mort almost missed it. From ghost to mote in half a second, with a faint sigh.
   Death gently caught the glittering thing and stowed it away somewhere under his robe.
   'What's happened to him?' said Mort.
   ONLY HE KNOWS, said Death. COME.
   'My granny says that dying is like going to sleep,' Mort added, a shade hopefully.
   I WOULDN'T KNOW. I HAVE DONE NEITHER.
   Mort took a last look along the corridor. The big doors had been flung back and the court was spilling out. Two older women were endeavouring to comfort the princess, but she was striding ahead of them so that they bounced along behind her like a couple of fussy balloons. They disappeared up another corridor.
   ALREADY A QUEEN, said Death, approvingly. Death liked style.
   They were on the roof before he spoke again.
   You TRIED TO WARN HIM, he said, removing Binky's nosebag.
   'Yes, sir. Sorry.'
   YOU CANNOT INTERFERE WITH FATE. WHO ARE YOU TO JUDGE WHO SHOULD LIVE AND WHO SHOULD DIE?
   Death watched Mort's expression carefully.
   ONLY THE GODS ARE ALLOWED TO DO THAT, he added. To TINKER WITH THE FATE OF EVEN ONE INDIVIDUAL COULD DESTROY THE WHOLE WORLD. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
   Mort nodded miserably. 'Are you going to send me home?' he said. Death reached down and swung him up behind the saddle. BECAUSE YOU SHOWED COMPASSION? NO. I MIGHT HAVE DONE IF YOU HAD SHOWN PLEASURE. BUT YOU MUST LEARN THE COMPASSION PROPER TO YOUR TRADE.
   'What's that?'
   A SHARP EDGE.
 
   Days passed, although Mort wasn't certain how many. The gloomy sun of Death's world rolled regularly across the sky, but the visits to mortal space seemed to adhere to no particular system. Nor did Death visit only kings and important battles; most of the personal visits were to quite ordinary people.
   Meals were served up by Albert, who smiled to himself a lot and didn't say anything much. Ysabell kept to her room most of the time, or rode her own pony on the black moors above the cottage. The sight of her with her hair streaming in the wind would have been more impressive if she was a better horse-woman, or if the pony had been rather larger, or if her hair was the sort that streams naturally. Some hair has got it, and some hasn't. Hers hadn't.
   When he wasn't out on what Death referred to as THE DUTY Mort assisted Albert, or found jobs in the garden or stable, or browsed through Death's extensive library, reading with the speed and omnivorousness common to those who discover the magic of the written word for the first time.
   Most of the books in the library were biographies, of course.
   They were unusual in one respect. They were writing themselves. People who had already died, obviously, filled their books from cover to cover, and those who hadn't been born yet had to put up with blank pages. Those in between . . . Mort took note, marking the place and counting the extra lines, and estimated that some books were adding paragraphs at the rate of four or five every day. He didn't recognize the handwriting.
   And finally he plucked up his courage.
 
   A WHAT? said Death in astonishment, sitting behind his ornate desk and turning his scythe-shaped paperknife over and over in his hands.
   'An afternoon off,' repeated Mort. The room suddenly seemed to be oppressively big, with himself very exposed in the middle of a carpet about the size of a field.
   BUT WHY? said Death. IT CANT BE TO ATTEND YOUR GRANDMOTHER'S FUNERAL, he added. I WOULD KNOW.
   'I just want to, you know, get out and meet people,' said Mort, trying to outstare that unflinching blue gaze.
   BUT YOU MEET PEOPLE EVERY DAY, protested Death.
   'Yes, I know, only, well, not for very long,' said Mort. 'I mean, it'd be nice to meet someone with a life expectancy of more than a few minutes. Sir,' he added.
   Death drummed his fingers on the desk, making a sound not unlike a mouse tap-dancing, and gave Mort another few seconds of stare. He noticed that the boy seemed rather less elbows than he remembered, stood a little more upright and, bluntly, could use a word like 'expectancy'. It was all that library.
   ALL RIGHT, he said grudgingly. BUT IT SEEMS TO ME YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED RIGHT HERE. THE DUTY IS NOT ONEROUS, IS IT?
   'No, sir.'
   AND YOU HAVE GOOD FOOD AND A WARM BED AND RECREATION AND PEOPLE YOUR OWN AGE.
   'Pardon, sir?' said Mort.
   MY DAUGHTER, said Death. YOU HAVE MET HER, I BELIEVE.
   'Oh. Yes, sir.'
   SHE HAS A VERY WARM PERSONALITY WHEN YOU GET TO KNOW HER.
   'I am sure she has, sir.'
   NEVERTHELESS, YOU WISH — Death launched the words with a spin of distaste — AN AFTERNOON OFF? 'Yes, sir. If you please, sir.'
   VERY WELL. So BE IT. You MAY HAVE UNTIL SUNSET.
   Death opened his great ledger, picked up a pen, and began to write. Occasionally he'd reach out and flick the beads of an abacus.
   After a minute he looked up.
   YOU'RE STILL HERE, he said. AND IN YOUR OWN TIME, TOO, he added sourly.
   'Um,' said Mort, 'will people be able to see me, sir?'
   I IMAGINE SO, I'M SURE, said Death. Is THERE ANYTHING ELSE I MIGHT BE ABLE TO ASSIST YOU WITH BEFORE YOU LEAVE FOR THIS DEBAUCH?
   'Well, sir, there is one thing, sir, I don't know how to get to the mortal world, sir,' said Mort desperately.
   Death sighed loudly, and pulled open a desk drawer.
   JUST WALK THERE.
   Mort nodded miserably, and took the long walk to the study door. As he pulled it open Death coughed.
   BOY! he called, and tossed something across the room.
   Mort caught it automatically as the door creaked open.
   The doorway vanished. The deep carpet underfoot became muddy cobbles. Broad daylight poured over him like quick-silver.
   'Mort,' said Mort, to the universe at large.
   'What?' said a stallholder beside him. Mort stared around. He was in a crowded market place, packed with people and animals. Every kind of thing was being sold from needles to (via a few itinerant prophets) visions of salvation. It was impossible to hold any conversation quieter than a shout.
   Mort tapped the stallholder in the small of the back.
   'Can you see me?' he demanded.
   The stallholder squinted critically at him.
   'I reckon so,' he said, 'or someone very much like you.'
   Thank you,' said Mort, immensely relieved.
   'Don't mention it. I see lots of people every day, no charge. Want to buy any bootlaces?'
   'I don't think so,' said Mort. 'What place is this?'
   'You don't know?'
   A couple of people at the next stall were looking at Mort thoughtfully. His mind went into overdrive.
   'My master travels a lot,' he said, truthfully. 'We arrived last night, and I was asleep on the cart. Now I've got the afternoon off.'
   'Ah,' said the stallholder. He leaned forward conspiratorially. 'Looking for a good time, are you? I could fix you up.'
   'I'd quite enjoy knowing where I am,' Mort conceded.
   The man was taken aback.
   'This is Ankh-Morpork,' he said. 'Anyone ought to be able to see that. Smell it, too.'
   Mort sniffed. There was a certain something about the air in the city. You got the feeling that it was air that had seen life. You couldn't help noting with every breath that thousands of other people were very close to you and nearly all of them had armpits.
   The stallholder regarded Mort critically, noting the pale face, well-cut clothes and strange presence, a sort of coiled spring effect.
   'Look, I'll be frank,' he said. 'I could point you in the direction of a great brothel.'
   'I've already had lunch,' said Mort, vaguely. 'But you can tell me if we're anywhere near, I think it's called Sto Lat?'
   'About twenty miles Hubwards, but there's nothing there for a young man of your kidney,' said the trader hurriedly. 'I know,
   you're out by yourself, you want new experiences, you want excitement, romance —'
   Mort, meanwhile, had opened the bag Death had given him. It was full of small gold coins, about the size of sequins.
   An image formed again in his mind, of a pale young face under a head of red hair who had somehow known he was there. The unfocused feelings that had haunted his mind for the last few days suddenly sharpened to a point.
   'I want,' he said firmly, 'a very fast horse.'
 
   Five minutes later, Mort was lost.
   This part of Ankh-Morpork was known as The Shades, an inner-city area sorely in need either of governmental help or, for preference, a flamethrower. It couldn't be called squalid because that would be stretching the word to breaking point. It was beyond squalor and out the other side, where by a sort of Einsteinian reversal it achieved a magnificent horribleness that it wore like an architectural award. It was noisy and sultry and smelled like a cowshed floor.
   It didn't so much have a neighbourhood as an ecology, like a great land-based coral reef. There were the humans, all right, humanoid equivalents of lobsters, squid, shrimps and so on. And sharks.
   Mort wandered hopelessly along the winding streets. Anyone hovering at rooftop height would have noticed a certain pattern in the crowds behind him, suggesting a number of men converging nonchalantly on a target, and would rightly have concluded that Mort and his gold had about the same life expectancy as a three-legged hedgehog on a six-lane motorway.
   It is probably already apparent that The Shades was not the sort of place to have inhabitants. It had denizens. Periodically Mort would try to engage one in conversation, to find the way to a good horse dealer. The denizen would usually mutter something and hurry away, since anyone wishing to live in The Shades for longer than maybe three hours developed very specialized senses indeed and would no more hang around near Mort than a peasant would stand near a tall tree in thundery weather.
   And so Mort came at last to the river Ankh, greatest of rivers. Even before it entered the city it was slow and heavy with the silt of the plains, and by the time it got to The Shades even an agnostic could have walked across it. It was hard to drown in the Ankh, but easy to suffocate.
   Mort looked at the surface doubtfully. It seemed to be moving. There were bubbles in it. It had to be water.
   He sighed, and turned away.
   Three men had appeared behind him, as though extruded from the stonework. They had the heavy, stolid look of those thugs whose appearance in any narrative means that it's time for the hero to be menaced a bit, although not too much, because it's also obvious that they're going to be horribly surprised.
   They were leering. They were good at it.
   One of them had drawn a knife, which he waved in little circles in the air. He advanced slowly towards Mort, while the other two hung back to provide immoral support.
   'Give us the money,' he rasped.
   Mort's hand went to the bag on his belt.
   'Hang on a minute,' he said. 'What happens then?'
   'What?'
   'I mean, is it my money or my life?' said Mort. 'That's the sort of thing robbers are supposed to demand. Your money or your life. I read that in a book once,' he added.
   'Possibly, possibly,' conceded the robber. He felt he was losing the initiative, but rallied magnificently. 'On the other hand, it could be your money and your life. Pulling off the double, you might say.' The man looked sideways at his colleagues, who sniggered on cue.
   'In that case —' said Mort, and hefted the bag in one hand preparatory to chucking it as far out into the Ankh as he could, even though there was a reasonable chance it would bounce.
   'Hey, what are you doing,'said the robber. He started to run forward, but halted when Mort gave the bag a threatening jerk.
   'Well,' said Mort, 'I look at it like this. If you're going to kill me anyway, I might as well get rid of the money. It's entirely up to you.' To illustrate his point he took one coin out of the bag and flicked it out across the water, which accepted it with an unfortunate sucking noise. The thieves shuddered.
   The leading thief looked at the bag. He looked at his knife. He looked at Mort's face. He looked at his colleagues.
   'Excuse me,' he said, and they went into a huddle.
   Mort measured the distance to the end of the alley. He wouldn't make it. Anyway, these three looked as though chasing people was another thing they were good at. It was only logic that left them feeling a little stretched.
   Their leader turned back to Mort. He gave a final glance at the other two. They both nodded decisively.
   'I think we kill you and take a chance on the money,' he said. 'We don't want this sort of thing to spread.'
   The other two drew their knives.
   Mort swallowed. 'This could be unwise,' he said.
   'Why?'
   'Well, I won't like it, for one.'
   'You're not supposed to like it, you're supposed to — die,' said the thief, advancing.
   'I don't think I'm due to die,' said Mort, backing away. 'I'm sure I would have been told.'
   'Yeah,' said the thief, who was getting fed up with this. 'Yeah, well, you have been, haven't you? Great steaming elephant turds!'
   Mort had just stepped backwards again. Through a wall.
   The leading thief glared at the solid stone that had swallowed Mort, and then threw down his knife.
   'Well, f… me,' he said. 'A f…ing wizard. I hate f…ing wizards!'
   'You shouldn't f… them, then,' muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes.
   The third member of the trio, who was a little slow of thinking, said, 'Hey, he walked through the wall!'
   'And we bin following him for ages, too,' muttered the second one. 'Fine one you are, Pilgarlic. I said I thought he was a wizard, only wizards'd walk round here by themselves. Dint I say he looked like a wizard? I said —'
   'You're saying a good deal too much,' growled the leader.
   'I saw him, he walked right through the wall there —'
   'Oh, yeah?'
   'Yeah!'
   'Right through it, dint you see?'
   'Think you're sharp, do you?'
   'Sharp enough, come to that!'
   The leader scooped his knife out of the dirt in one snaky movement.
   'Sharp as this?'
   The third thief lurched over to the wall and kicked it hard a few times, while behind him there were the sounds of scuffle and some damp bubbling noises.
   'Yep, it's a wall okay,' he said. That's a wall if ever I saw one. How d'you think they do it, lads?'
   'Lads?'
   He tripped over the prone bodies.
   'Oh,' he said. Slow as his mind was, it was quick enough to realize something very important. He was in a back alley in The Shades, and he was alone. He ran for it, and got quite a long way.
 
   Death walked slowly across tiles in the life-timer room, inspecting the serried rows of busy hourglasses. Albert followed dutifully behind with the great ledger open in his arms.
   The sound roared around them, a vast grey waterfall of noise.
   It came from the shelves where, stretching away into the infinite distance, row upon row of hourglasses poured away the sands of mortal time. It was a heavy sound, a dull sound, a sound that poured like sullen custard over the bright roly-poly pudding of the soul.
   VERY WELL, said Death at last. I MAKE IT THREE. A QUIET NIGHT.
   'That'd be Goodie Hamstring, the Abbott Lobsang again, and this Princess Keli,' said Albert.
   Death looked at the three hourglasses in his hand.
   I WAS THINKING OF SENDING THE LAD OUT, he said.
   Albert consulted his ledger. 'Well, Goodie wouldn't be any trouble and the Abbott is what you might call experienced,' he said. 'Shame about the princess. Only fifteen. Could be tricky.'
   YES. IT IS A PITY.
   'Master?'
   Death stood with the third glass in his hand, staring thoughtfully at the play of light across its surface. He sighed.
   ONE SO YOUNG. . . .
   'Are you feeling all right, master?' said Albert, his voice full of concern.
   TIME LIKE AN EVER-ROLLING STREAM BEARS ALL ITS. . . .
   'Master!'
   WHAT? said Death, snapping out of it.
   'You've been overdoing it, master, that's what it is—'
   WHAT ARE YOU BLATHERING ABOUT, MAN?
   'You had a bit of a funny turn there, master.'
   NONSENSE. I HAVE NEVER FELT BETTER. NOW, WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT?
   Albert shrugged, and peered down at the entries in the book.
   'Goodie's a witch,' he said. 'She might get a bit annoyed if you send Mort.'
   All practitioners of magic earned the right, once their own personal sands had run out, of being claimed by Death himself rather than his minor functionaries.
   Death didn't appear to hear Albert. He was staring at Princess Keli's hourglass again.
   WHAT IS THAT SENSE INSIDE YOUR HEAD OF WISTFUL REGRET THAT THINGS ARE THE WAY THEY APPARENTLY ARE?
   'Sadness, master. I think. Now —'
   I AM SADNESS.
   Albert stood with his mouth open. Finally he got a grip on himself long enough to blurt out, 'Master, we were talking about Mort!'
   MORT WHO?
   'Your apprentice, master,' said Albert patiently. Tall young lad.'
   OF COURSE. WELL, WE'LL SEND HIM.
   'Is he ready to go solo, master?' said Albert doubtfully.
   Death thought about it. HE CAN DO IT, he said at last. HE'S KEEN, HE'S QUICK TO LEARN AND, REALLY, he added, PEOPLE CAN'T EXPECT TO HAVE ME RUNNING AROUND AFTER THEM ALL THE TIME.
 
   Mort stared blankly at the velvet wall hangings a few inches from his eyes.
   I've walked through a wall, he thought. And that's impossible.
   He gingerly moved the hangings aside to see if a door was lurking somewhere, but there was nothing but crumbling plaster which had cracked away in places to reveal some dampish but emphatically solid brickwork.
   He prodded it experimentally. It was quite clear that he wasn't going back out that way.
   'Well,' he said to the wall. 'What now?'
   A voice behind him said, 'Um. Excuse please?'
   He turned around slowly.
   Grouped around a table in the middle of the room was a Klatchian family of father, mother and half a dozen children of dwindling size. Eight pairs of round eyes were fixed on Mort. A ninth pair belonging to an aged grandparent of indeterminate sex weren't, because their owner had taken advantage of the interruption to get some elbow room at the communal rice bowl, taking the view that a boiled fish in the hand was worth any amount of unexplained manifestations, and the silence was punctuated by the sound of determined mastication.
   In one corner of the crowded room was a little shrine to Offler, the six-armed Crocodile God of Klatch. It was grinning just like Death, except of course Death didn't have a flock of holy birds that brought him news of his worshippers and also kept his teeth clean.
   Klatchians prize hospitality above all other virtues. As Mort stared the woman took another plate off the shelf behind her and silently began to fill it from the big bowl, snatching a choice cut of catfish from the ancient's hands after a brief struggle. Her kohl-rimmed eyes remained steadily on Mort, however.
   It was the father who had spoken. Mort bowed nervously.
   'Sorry,' he said. 'Er, I seem to have walked through this wall.' It was rather lame, he had to admit.
   'Please?' said the man. The woman, her bangles jangling, carefully arranged a few slices of pepper across the plate and sprinkled it with a dark green sauce that Mort was afraid he recognized. He'd tried it a few weeks before, and although it was a complicated recipe one taste had been enough to know that it was made out of fish entrails marinated for several years in a vat of shark bile. Death had said that it was an acquired taste. Mort had decided not to make the effort.
   He tried to sidle around the edge of the room towards the bead-hung doorway, all the heads turning to watch him. He tried a grin.
   The woman said: 'Why does the demon show his teeth, husband of my life?'
   The man said: 'It could be hunger, moon of my desire. Pile on more fish!'
   And the ancestor grumbled: 'I was eating that, wretched child. Woe unto the world when there is no respect for age!'
   Now the fact is that while the words entered Mort's ear in their spoken Klatchian, with all the curlicues and subtle diphthongs of a language so ancient and sophisticated that it had fifteen words meaning 'assassination' before the rest of the world had caught on to the idea of bashing one another over the head with rocks, they arrived in his brain as clear and understandable as his mother tongue.
   'I'm no demon! I'm a human!' he said, and stopped in shock as his words emerged in perfect Klatch.
   'You're a thief?' said the father. 'A murderer? To creep in thus, are you a tax-gatherer?' His hand slipped under the table and came up holding a meat cleaver honed to paper thinness. His wife screamed and dropped the plate and clutched the youngest children to her.
   Mort watched the blade weave through the air, and gave in.
   'I bring you greetings from the uttermost circles of hell,' he hazarded.
   The change was remarkable. The cleaver was lowered and the family broke into broad smiles.
   'There is much luck to us if a demon visits,' beamed the father. 'What is your wish, O foul spawn of Offler's loins?'
   'Sorry?' said Mort.
   'A demon brings blessing and good fortune on the man that helps it,' said the man. 'How may we be of assistance, O evil dog's-breath of the nether pit?'
   'Well, I'm not very hungry,' said Mort, 'but if you know where I can get a fast horse, I could be in Sto Lat before sunset.'
   The man beamed and bowed. 'I know the very place, noxious extrusion of the bowels, if you would be so good as to follow me.'
   Mort hurried out after him. The ancient ancestor watched them go with a critical expression, its jowls rhythmically chewing.
   'That was what they call a demon around here?' it said. 'Offler rot this country of dampness, even their demons are third-rate, not a patch on the demons we had in the Old Country.'
   The wife placed a small bowl of rice in the folded middle pair of hands of the Offler statue (it would be gone in the morning) and stood back.
   'Husband did say that last month at the CurryGardens he served a creature who was not there,' she said. 'He was impressed.'
   Ten minutes later the man returned and, in solemn silence, placed a small heap of gold coins on the table. They represented enough wealth to purchase quite a large part of the city.
   'He had a bag of them,' he said.
   The family stared at the money for some time. The wife sighed.
   'Riches bring many problems,' she said. 'What are we to do?'
   'We return to Klatch,' said the husband firmly, 'where our children can grow up in a proper country, true to the glorious traditions of our ancient race and men do not need to work as waiters for wicked masters but can stand tall and proud. And we must leave right now, fragrant blossom of the date palm.'
   'Why so soon, O hard-working son of the desert?'
   'Because,' said the man, 'I have just sold the Patrician's champion racehorse.'
 
   The horse wasn't as fine or as fast as Binky, but it swept the miles away under its hooves and easily outdistanced a few mounted guards who, for some reason, appeared anxious to talk to Mort. Soon the shanty suburbs of Morpork were left behind and the road ran out into rich black earth country of the Sto plain, constructed over eons by the periodic flooding of the great slow Ankh that brought to the region prosperity, security and chronic arthritis.
   It was also extremely boring. As the light distilled from silver to gold Mort galloped across a flat, chilly landscape, chequered with cabbage fields from edge to edge. There are many things to be said about cabbages. One may talk at length about their high vitamin content, their vital iron contribution, the valuable roughage and commendable food value. In the mass, however, they lack a certain something; despite their claim to immense nutritional and moral superiority over, say, daffodils, they have never been a sight to inspire the poet's muse. Unless he was hungry, of course. It was only twenty miles to Sto Lat, but in terms of meaningless human experience it seemed like two thousand.
   There were guards on the gates of Sto Lat, although compared to the ones that patrolled Ankh they had a sheepish, amateurish look. Mort trotted past; and one of them, feeling a bit of a fool, asked him who went there.
   'I'm afraid I can't stop,' said Mort.
   The guard was new to the job, and quite keen. Guarding wasn't what he'd been led to expect. Standing around all day in chain mail with an axe on a long pole wasn't what he'd volunteered for; he'd expected excitement and challenge and a crossbow and a uniform that didn't go rusty in the rain.
   He stepped forward, ready to defend the city against people who didn't respect commands given by duly authorized civic employees. Mort considered the pike blade hovering a few inches from his face. There was getting to be too much of this.
   'On the other hand,' he said calmly, 'how would you like it if I made yon a present of this rather fine horse?'
   It wasn't hard to find the entrance to the castle. There were guards there, too, and they had crossbows and a considerably more unsympathetic outlook on life and, in any case, Mort had run out of horses. He loitered a bit until they started paying him a generous amount of attention, and then wandered disconsolately away into the streets of the little city, feeling stupid.
   After all this, after miles of brassicas and a backside that now felt like a block of wood, he didn't even know why he was there. So she'd seen him even when he was invisible? Did it mean anything? Of course it didn't. Only he kept seeing her face, and the flicker of hope in her eyes. He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all right. He wanted to tell her about himself and everything he wanted to be. He wanted to find out which was her room in the castle and watch it all night until the light went out. And so on.
   A little later a blacksmith, whose business was in one of the narrow streets that looked out on to the castle walls, glanced up from his work to see a tall, gangling young man, rather red in the face, who kept trying to walk through the walls.
   Rather later than that a young man with a few superficial bruises on his head called in at one of the city's taverns and asked for directions to the nearest wizard.
   And it was later still that Mort turned up outside a peeling plaster house which announced itself on a blackened brass plaque to be the abode of Igneous Cutwell, DM (Unseen), Marster of the Infinit, Illuminartus, Wyzard to Princes, Gardian of the Sacred Portalls, If Out leave Maile with Mrs Nugent Next Door.
   Suitably impressed despite his pounding heart, Mort lifted the heavy knocker, which was in the shape of a repulsive gargoyle with a heavy iron ring in its mouth, and knocked twice.
   There was a brief commotion from within, the series of hasty domestic sounds that might, in a less exalted house, have been made by, say, someone shovelling the lunch plates into the sink and tidying the laundry out of sight.
   Eventually the door swung open, slowly and mysteriously.
   'You'd better pretend to be impreffed,' said the doorknocker conversationally, but hampered somewhat by the ring. 'He does it with pulleys and a bit of ftring. No good at opening-fpells, fee?'
   Mort looked at the grinning metal face. I work for a skeleton who can walk through walls, he told himself. Who am I to be surprised at anything?
   'Thank you,' he said.
   'You're welcome. Wipe your feet on the doormat, it's the boot-fcraper's day off.'
   The big low room inside was dark and shadowy and smelled mainly of incense but slightly of boiled cabbage arid elderly laundry and the kind of person who throws all his socks at the wall and wears the ones that don't stick. There was a large crystal ball with a crack in it, an astrolabe with several bits missing, a rather scuffed octogram on the floor, and a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling. A stuffed alligator is absolutely standard equipment in any properly-run magical establishment. This one looked as though it hadn't enjoyed it much.
   A bead curtain on the far wall was flung aside with a dramatic gesture and a hooded figure stood revealed.
   'Beneficent constellations shine on the hour of our meeting!' it boomed.
   'Which ones?' said Mort.
   There was a sudden worried silence.
   'Pardon?'
   'Which constellations would these be?' said Mort.
   'Beneficent ones,' said the figure, uncertainly. It rallied. 'Why do you trouble Igneous Cutwell, Holder of the Eight Keys, Traveller in the Dungeon Dimensions, Supreme Mage of —'
   'Excuse me,' said Mort, 'are you really?'
   'Really what?'
   'Master of the thingy, Lord High Wossname of the Sacred Dungeons?'
   Cutwell pushed back his hood with an annoyed flourish. Instead of the grey-bearded mystic Mort had expected he saw a round, rather plump face, pink and white like a pork pie, which it somewhat resembled in other respects. For example, like most pork pies, it didn't have a beard and, like most pork pies, it looked basically good-humoured.
   'In a figurative sense,' he said.
   'What does that mean?'
   'Well, it means no,' said Cutwell.
   'But you said —'
   'That was advertising,' said the wizard. 'It's a kind of magic I've been working on. What was it you were wanting, anyway?' He leered suggestively. 'A love philtre, yes? Something to encourage the young ladies?'
   'Is it possible to walk through walls?' said Mort desperately. Cutwell paused with his hand already halfway to a large bottle full of sticky liquid.
   'Using magic?'
   'Um,' said Mort, 'I don't think so.'
   Then pick very thin walls,' said Cutwell. 'Better still, use the door. The one over there would be favourite, if you've just come here to waste my time.'
   Mort hesitated, and then put the bag of gold coins on the table. The wizard glanced at them, made a little whinnying noise in the back of his throat, and reached out, Mort's hand shot across and grabbed his wrist.
   'I've walked through walls,' he said, slowly and deliberately.
   'Of course you have, of course you have,' mumbled Cutwell, not taking his eyes off the bag. He flicked the cork out of the bottle of blue liquid and took an absent-minded swig.
   'Only before I did it I didn't know that I could, and when I was doing it I didn't know I was, and now I've done it I can't remember how it was done. And I want to do it again.'
   'Why?'
   'Because,' said Mort, 'if I could walk through walls I could do anything.'
   'Very deep,' agreed Cutwell. 'Philosophical. And the name of the young lady on the other side of this wall?'
   'She's —' Mort swallowed. 'I don't know her name. Even if there is a girl,' he added haughtily, 'and I'm not saying there is.'
   'Right,' said Cutwell. He took another swig, and shuddered. 'Fine. How to walk through walls. I'll do some research. It might be expensive, though.'
   Mort carefully picked up the bag and pulled out one small gold coin.
   'A down payment,' he said, putting it on the table.
   Cutwell picked up the coin as if he expected it to go bang or evaporate, and examined it carefully.
   'I've never seen this sort of coin before,' he said accusingly. 'What's all this curly writing?'
   'It's gold, though, isn't it?' said Mort. 'I mean, you don't have to accept it —'
   'Sure, sure, it's gold,' said Cutwell hurriedly. 'It's gold all right. I just wondered where it had come from, that's all.'
   'You wouldn't believe me,' said Mort. 'What time's sunset around here?'
   'We normally manage to fit it in between night and day,' said Cutwell, still staring at the coin and taking little sips from the blue bottle. 'About now.'
   Mort glanced out of the window. The street outside already had a twilight look to it.
   'I'll be back,' he muttered, and made for the door. He heard the wizard call out something, but Mort was heading down the street at a dead run.
   He started to panic. Death would be waiting for him forty miles away. There would be a row. There would be a terrible —
   AH, BOY.
   A familiar figure stepped out from the flare around a jellied eel stall, holding a plate of winkles.
   THE VINEGAR IS PARTICULARLY PIQUANT. HELP YOURSELF, I HAVE AN EXTRA PIN.
   But, of course, just because he was forty miles away didn't mean he wasn't here as well. . . .
   And in his untidy room Cutwell turned the gold coin over and over in his fingers, muttering 'walls' to himself, and draining the bottle.
   He appeared to notice what he was doing only when there was no more to drink, at which point his eyes focused on the bottle and, through a rising pink mist, read the label which said 'Granny Weatherwax's Ramrub Invigoratore and Passion's Philtre, Onne Spoonful Onlie before bed and that Smalle'.
 
   'By myself?' said Mort.
   CERTAINLY. I HAVE EVERY FAITH IN YOU.
   'Gosh!'
   The suggestion put everything else out of Mort's mind, and he was rather surprised to find that he didn't feel particularly squeamish. He'd seen quite a few deaths in the last week or so, and all the horror went out of it when you knew you'd be speaking to the victim afterwards. Most of them were relieved, one or two of them were angry, but they were all glad of a few helpful words.
   THINK YOU CAN DO IT?
   'Well, sir. Yes. I think.'
   THAT'S THE SPIRIT. I'VE LEFT BlNKY BY THE HORSETROUGH ROUND THE CORNER. TAKE HIM STRAIGHT HOME WHEN YOU'VE FINISHED.
   'You're staying here, sir?' Death looked up and down the street. His eye-sockets flared.
   I THOUGHT I MIGHT STROLL AROUND A BIT, he said mysteriously. I DON'T SEEM TO FEEL QUITE RIGHT. I COULD DO WITH THE FRESH AIR. He seemed to remember something, reached into the mysterious shadows of his cloak, and pulled out three hourglasses. ALL STRAIGHTFORWARD, he said. ENJOY YOURSELF.
   He turned and strode off down the street, humming.
   'Um. Thank you,' said Mort. He held the hourglasses up to the light, noting the one that was on its very last few grains of sand.
   'Does this mean I'm in charge?' he called, but Death had turned the corner.
   Binky greeted him with a faint whinny of recognition. Mort mounted up, his heart pounding with apprehension and responsibility. His fingers worked automatically, taking the scythe out of its sheath and adjusting and locking the blade (which flashed steely blue in the night, slicing the starlight like salami). He mounted carefully, wincing at the stab from his saddlesores, but Binky was like riding a pillow. As an afterthought, drunk with delegated authority, he pulled Death's riding cloak out of its saddlebag and fastened it by its silver brooch.
   He took another look at the first hourglass, and nudged Binky with his knees. The horse sniffed the chilly air, and began to trot.
   Behind them Cutwell burst out of his doorway, accelerating down the frosty street with his robes flying out behind him.
   Now the horse was cantering, widening the distance between its hooves and the cobbles. With a swish of its tail it cleared the housetops and floated up into the chilly sky.
   Cutwell ignored it. He had more pressing things on his mind. He took a flying leap and landed full length in the freezing waters of the horsetrough, lying back gratefully among the bobbing ice splinters. After a while the water began to steam. Mort kept low for the sheer exhilaration of the speed. The sleeping countryside roared soundlessly underneath. Binky moved at an easy gallop, his great muscles sliding under his skin as easily as alligators off a sandbank, his mane whipping in Mort's face. The night swirled away from the speeding edge of the scythe, cut into two curling halves.
   They sped under the moonlight as silent as a shadow, visible only to cats and people who dabbled in things men were not meant to wot of.
   Mort couldn't remember afterwards, but very probably he laughed.
   Soon the frosty plains gave way to the broken lands around the mountains, and then the marching ranks of the Ramtops themselves raced across the world towards them. Binky put his head down and opened his stride, aiming for a pass between two mountains as sharp as goblins' teeth in the silver light. Somewhere a wolf howled.
   Mort took another look at the hourglass. Its frame was carved with oak leaves and mandrake roots, and the sand inside, even by moonlight, was pale gold. By turning the glass this way and that, he could just make out the name 'Ammeline Hamstring' etched in the faintest of lines.
   Binky slowed to a canter. Mort looked down at the roof of a forest, dusted with snow that was either early or very, very late; it could have been either, because the Ramtops hoarded their weather and doled it out with no real reference to the time of year.