Mort

“Thank you,” said Keli, who had been lying underneath him. “And why did you jump on top of me?”

“My first instinct was to protect you, your Majesty.”

“Yes, instinct it may have been, but—” She started to say that maybe the elephant would have weighed less, but the sight of his big, serious and rather flushed face stopped her.

“We will talk about this later,” she said, sitting up and brushing the dust off her. “In the meantime, I think we will dispense with the sacrifice. I’m not your Majesty yet, just your Highness, and now if someone will fetch the crown—”

There was the snick of a safety catch behind them.

“The wizard will put his hands where I can see them,” said the duke.

Cutwell stood up slowly, and turned around. The duke was backed by half a dozen large serious men, the type of men whose only function in life is to loom behind people like the duke. They had a dozen large serious crossbows, whose main purpose was to appear to be on the point of going off.

The princess sprang to her feet and launched herself at her uncle, but Cutwell grabbed her.

“No,” he said, quietly. “This isn’t the kind of man who ties you up in a cellar with just enough time for the mice to eat your ropes before the flood-waters rise. This is the kind of man who just kills you here and now.”

The duke bowed.

“I think it can be truly said that the gods have spoken,” he said. “Clearly the princess was tragically crushed by the rogue elephant. The people will be upset. I will personally decree a week of mourning.”

“You can’t do that, all the guests have seen—!” the princess began, nearly in tears.

Cutwell shook his head. He could see the guards moving through the crowds of bewildered guests.

“They haven’t,” he said. “You’ll be amazed at what they haven’t seen. Especially when they learn that being tragically crushed to death by rogue elephants can be catching. You can even die of it in bed.”

The duke laughed pleasantly.

“You really are quite intelligent for a wizard,” he said. “Now, I am merely proposing banishment—”

“You won’t get away with this,” said Cutwell. He thought for a bit, and added, “Well, you will probably get away with it, but you’ll feel bad about it on your deathbed and you’ll wish—”

He stopped talking. His jaw dropped.

The duke half turned to follow his gaze.

“Well, wizard? What have you seen?”

“You won’t get away with it,” said Cutwell hysterically. “You won’t even be here. This is going to have never happened, do you realise?”

“Watch his hands,” said the duke. “If he even moves his fingers, shoot them.”

He looked around again, puzzled. The wizard had sounded genuine. Of course, it was said wizards could see things that weren’t there…

“It doesn’t even matter if you kill me,” Cutwell babbled, “because tomorrow I’ll wake up in my own bed and this won’t have happened anyway. It’s come through the wall!”

———

Night rolled onwards across the Disc. It was always there, of course, lurking in shadows and holes and cellars, but as the slow light of day drifted after the sun the pools and lakes of night spread out, met and merged. Light on the Discworld moves slowly because of the vast magical field.

Light on the Discworld isn’t like light elsewhere. It’s grown up a bit, it’s been around, it doesn’t feel the need to rush everywhere. It knows that however fast it goes darkness always gets there first, so it takes it easy.

Midnight glided across the landscape like a velvet bat. And faster than midnight, a tiny spark against the dark world of the Disc, Binky pounded after it. Flames roared back from his hooves. Muscles moved under his glistening skin like snakes in oil.

They moved in silence. Ysabell took one arm from around Mort’s waist and watched sparks glitter around her fingers in all eight colours of the rainbow. Little crackling serpents of light flowed down her arm and flashed off the tips of her hair.

Mort took the horse down lower, leaving a boiling wake of cloud that extended for miles behind them.

“Now I know I’m going mad,” he muttered.

“Why?”

“I just saw an elephant down there. Whoa, boy. Look, you can see Sto Lat up ahead.”

Ysabell peered over his shoulder at the distant gleam of light.

“How long have we got?” she said nervously.

“I don’t know. A few minutes, perhaps.”

“Mort, I hadn’t asked you before—”

“Well?”

“What are you going to do when we get there?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was sort of hoping something would suggest itself at the time.”

“Has it?”

“No. But it isn’t time yet. Albert’s spell may help. And I—”

The dome of reality squatted over the palace like a collapsing jellyfish. Mort’s voice trailed into horrified silence. Then Ysabell said, “Well, I think it’s nearly time. What are we going to do?”

“Hold tight!”

Binky glided through the smashed gates of the outer courtyard, slid across the cobbles in a trail of sparks and leapt through the ravaged doorway of the hall. The pearly wall of the interface loomed up and passed like a shock of cold spray.