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
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 dogsbreath 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
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.”
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 authorised 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 you 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 fbetter 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 bootfcraper’s day off.”
The big low room inside was dark and shadowy and smelled mainly of incense but slightly of boiled cabbage and 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’.
THINK YOU CAN DO IT?
“Well, sir. Yes. I think.”
THAT’S THE SPIRIT. I’VE LEFT BINKY 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.
A gap opened up beneath them. Binky slowed again, wheeled around and descended towards a clearing that was white with drifted snow. It was circular, with a tiny cottage in the exact middle. If the ground around it hadn’t been covered in snow, Mort would have noticed that there were no tree stumps to be seen; the trees hadn’t been cut down in the circle, they’d simply been discouraged from growing there. Or had moved away.
Candlelight spilled from one downstairs window, making a pale orange pool on the snow.
Binky touched down smoothly and trotted across the freezing crust without sinking. He left no hoofprints, of course.
Mort dismounted and walked towards the door, muttering to himself and making experimental sweeps with the scythe.
The cottage roof had been built with wide eaves, to shed snow and cover the logpile. No dweller in the high Ramtops would dream of starting a winter without a logpile on three sides of the house. But there wasn’t a logpile here, even though spring was still a long way off.
There was, however, a bundle of hay in a net by the door. It had a note attached, written in big, slightly shaky capitals: FOR THEE HORS.
It would have worried Mort if he’d let it. Someone was expecting him. He’d learned in recent days, though, that rather than drown in uncertainty it was best to surf right over the top of it. Anyway, Binky wasn’t worried by moral scruples and bit straight in.
It did leave the problem of whether to knock. Somehow, it didn’t seem appropriate. Supposing no-one answered, or told him to go away?
So he lifted the thumb latch and pushed at the door. It swung inwards quite easily, without a creak.