Mort

“Mort,” said Mort automatically. The sound of their talking washed around him, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the scene around them. He felt real. Death looked solid. The king looked surprisingly fit and well for someone who was dead. But the rest of the world was a mass of sliding shadows. Figures were bent over the slumped body, moving through Mort as if they were no more substantial than a mist.

The girl was kneeling down, weeping.

“That’s my daughter,” said the king. “I ought to feel sad. Why don’t I?”

EMOTIONS GET LEFT BEHIND. IT’S ALL A MATTER OF GLANDS.

“Ah. That would be it, I suppose. She can’t see us, can she?”

NO.

“I suppose there’s no chance that I could—?”

NONE, said Death.

“Only she’s going to be queen, and if I could only let her—”

SORRY.

The girl looked up and through Mort. He watched the duke walk up behind her and lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. A faint smile hovered around the man’s lips. It was the sort of smile that lies on sandbanks waiting for incautious swimmers.

I can’t make you hear me, Mort said. Don’t trust him!

She peered at Mort, screwing up her eyes. He reached out, and watched his hand pass straight through hers.

COME ALONG, BOY. NO LALLYGAGGING.

Mort felt Death’s hand tighten on his shoulder, not in an unfriendly fashion. He turned away reluctantly, following Death and the king.

They walked out through the wall. He was halfway after them before he realised that walking through walls was impossible.

The suicidal logic of this nearly killed him. He felt the chill of the stone around his limbs before a voice in his ear said:

LOOK AT IT THIS WAY. THE WALL CAN’T BE THERE. OTHERWISE YOU WOULDN’T BE WALKING THROUGH IT. WOULD YOU, BOY?

“Mort,” said Mort.

WHAT?

“My name is Mort. Or Mortimer,” said Mort angrily, pushing forward. The chill fell behind him.

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.^{7}

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.