Mort (25 page)

‘It’s a family heirloom. It’s got real diamonds on the bodice.’

‘Which bit’s the bodice?’

‘This bit.’

Cutwell shuddered. ‘It’s very impressive,’ he said, when he could trust himself to speak. ‘You don’t think it’s perhaps a bit mature, though?’

‘It’s queenly.’

‘Yes, but perhaps it won’t allow you to move very fast?’

‘I have no intention of running. There must be dignity.’ Once again the set of her jaw traced the line of her descent all the way to her conquering ancestor, who preferred to move very fast at all times and knew as much about dignity as could be carried on the point of a sharp spear.

Cutwell spread his hands.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Fine. We all do what we can. I just hope Mort has come up with some ideas.’

‘It’s hard to have confidence in a ghost,’ said Keli. ‘He walks through walls!’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Cutwell. ‘It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? He walks through things only if he doesn’t know he’s doing it. I think it’s an industrial disease.’

‘What?’

‘I was nearly sure last night. He’s becoming real.’

‘But we’re all real! At least, you are, and I suppose I am.’

‘But he’s becoming more real. Extremely real. Nearly as real as Death and you don’t get much realler. Not much realler at all.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Albert, suspiciously.

‘Of course,’ said Ysabell. ‘Work it out yourself if you like.’

Albert looked back at the big book, his face a portrait of uncertainty.

‘Well, they could be about right,’ he conceded with bad grace, and copied out the two names on a scrap of paper. ‘There’s only one way to find out, anyway.’

He pulled open the top drawer of Death’s desk and extracted a big iron keyring. There was only one key on it.

W
HAT HAPPENS NOW
? said Mort.

‘We’ve got to fetch the lifetimers,’ said Albert. ‘You have to come with me.’

‘Mort!’ hissed Ysabell.

‘What?’

‘What you just said—’ She lapsed into silence, and then added, ‘Oh, nothing. It just sounded . . . odd.’

‘I only asked what happens now,’ said Mort.

‘Yes, but – oh, never mind.’

Albert brushed past them and sidled out into the hallway like a two-legged spider until he reached the door that was always kept locked. The key fitted perfectly. The door swung open. There wasn’t so much as a squeak from its hinges, just a swish of deeper silence.

And the roar of sand.

Mort and Ysabell stood in the doorway, transfixed, as Albert stamped off between the aisles of glass. The sound didn’t just enter the body via the ears, it came up through the legs and down through the skull and filled up the brain until all that it could think of was the rushing, hissing grey noise, the sound of millions of lives being lived. And rushing towards their inevitable destination.

They stared up and out at the endless ranks of lifetimers, every one different, every one named. The light from torches ranged along the walls picked highlights off them, so that a star gleamed on every glass. The far walls of the room were lost in the galaxy of light.

Mort felt Ysabell’s fingers tighten on his arm.

When she spoke, her voice was strained.

‘Mort, some of them are so
small
.’

I
KNOW
.

Her grip relaxed, very gently, like someone putting the top ace on a house of cards and taking their hand away gingerly so as not to bring the whole edifice down.

‘Say that again,’ she said quietly.

‘I said I know. There’s nothing I can do about it. Haven’t you been in here before?’

‘No.’ She had withdrawn slightly, and was staring at his eyes.

‘It’s no worse than the library,’ said Mort, and almost believed it. But in the library you only read about it; in here you could see it happening.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he added.

‘I was just trying to remember what colour your eyes were,’ she said, ‘because—’

‘If you two have quite had enough of each other!’ bellowed Albert above the roar of the sand. ‘This way!’

‘Brown,’ said Mort to Ysabell. ‘They’re brown. Why?’

‘Hurry up!’

‘You’d better go and help him,’ said Ysabell. ‘He seems to be getting quite upset.’

Mort left her, his mind a sudden swamp of uneasiness, and stalked across the tiled floor to where Albert stood impatiently tapping a foot.

‘What do I have to do?’ he said.

‘Just follow me.’

The room opened out into a series of passages, each one lined with the hourglasses. Here and there the shelves were divided by stone pillars inscribed with angular markings. Albert glanced at them occasionally; mainly he strode through the maze of sand as though he knew every turn by heart.

‘Is there one glass for everyone, Albert?’

‘Yes.’

‘This place doesn’t look big enough.’

‘Do you know anything about m-dimensional topography?’

‘Um. No.’

‘Then I shouldn’t aspire to hold any opinions, if I was you,’ said Albert.

He paused in front of a shelf of glasses, glanced at the paper again, ran his hand along the row and suddenly snatched up a glass. The top bulb was almost empty.

‘Hold this,’ he said. ‘If this is right, then the other should be somewhere near. Ah. Here.’

Mort turned the two glasses around in his hands. One had all the markings of an important life, while the other was squat and quite unremarkable.

Mort read the names. The first seemed to refer to a nobleman in the Agatean Empire regions. The second was a collection of pictograms that he recognized as originating in Turnwise Klatch.

‘Over to you,’ Albert sneered. ‘The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be finished. I’ll bring Binky round to the front door.’

‘Do my eyes look all right to you?’ said Mort, anxiously.

‘Nothing wrong with them that I can see,’ said Albert. ‘Bit red round the edges, bit bluer than usual, nothing special.’

Mort followed him back past the long shelves of glass, looking thoughtful. Ysabell watched him take the sword from the rack by the door and test its edge by swishing it through the air, just as Death did, and grinning mirthlessly at the satisfactory sound of the thunderclap.

She recognized the walk. He was
stalking
.

‘Mort?’ she whispered.

Y
ES
?

‘Something’s happening to you.’

I
KNOW
, said Mort. ‘But I think I can control it.’

They heard the sound of hooves outside, and Albert pushed the door open and came in rubbing his hands.

‘Right, lad, no time to—’

Mort swung the sword at arm’s length. It scythed through the air with a noise like ripping silk and buried itself in the doorpost by Albert’s ear.

O
N YOUR KNEES
, A
LBERTO
M
ALICH
.

Albert’s mouth dropped open. His eyes rolled sideways to the shimmering blade a few inches from his head, and then narrowed to tight little lines.

‘You surely wouldn’t dare, boy,’ he said.

M
ORT
. The syllable snapped out as fast as a whiplash and twice as vicious.

‘There was a pact,’ said Albert, but there was the barest gnat-song of doubt in his voice. ‘There was an agreement.’

‘Not with me.’

‘There was an agreement! Where would we be if we could not honour an agreement?’

‘I don’t know where I would be,’ said Mort softly. B
UT
I
KNOW WHERE YOU WOULD GO
.

‘That’s not fair!’ Now it was a whine.

T
HERE’S NO JUSTICE
. T
HERE’S JUST ME
.

‘Stop it,’ said Ysabell. ‘Mort, you’re being silly. You can’t kill anyone here. Anyway, you don’t really want to kill Albert.’

‘Not here. But I could send him back to the world.’

Albert went pale.

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘No? I can take you back and leave you there. I shouldn’t think you’ve got much time left, have you?’ H
AVE YOU
?

‘Don’t talk like that,’ said Albert, quite failing to meet his gaze. ‘You sound like the master when you talk like that.’

‘I could be a lot worse than the master,’ said Mort evenly. ‘Ysabell, go and get Albert’s book, will you?’

‘Mort, I really think you’re—’

S
HALL
I
ASK YOU AGAIN
?

She fled from the room, white-faced.

Albert squinted at Mort along the length of the sword, and smiled a lop-sided, humourless smile.

‘You won’t be able to control it for ever,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to. I just want to control it for long enough.’

‘You’re receptive now, see? The longer the master is away, the more you’ll become just like him. Only it’ll be worse, because you’ll remember all about being human and—’

‘What about you, then?’ snapped Mort. ‘What can you remember about being human? If you went back, how much life have you got left?’

‘Ninety-one days, three hours and five minutes,’ said Albert promptly. ‘I knew he was on my trail, see? But I’m safe here and he’s not such a bad master. Sometimes I don’t know what he’d do without me.’

‘Yes, no one dies in Death’s own kingdom. And you’re pleased with that?’ said Mort.

‘I’m more than two thousand years old, I am. I’ve lived longer than anyone in the world.’

Mort shook his head.

‘You haven’t, you know,’ he said. ‘You’ve just stretched things out more. No one really lives here. The time in this place is just a sham. It’s not real. Nothing changes. I’d rather die and see what happens next than spend eternity here.’

Albert pinched his nose reflectively. ‘Yes, well, you might,’ he conceded, ‘but I was a wizard, you know. I was pretty good at it. They put up a statue to me, you know. But you don’t live a long life as a wizard without making a few enemies, see, ones who’ll . . . wait on the Other Side.’

He sniffed. ‘They ain’t all got two legs, either. Some of them ain’t got legs at all. Or faces. Death don’t frighten me. It’s what comes after.’

‘Help me, then.’

‘What good will that do me?’

‘One day you might need some friends on the Other Side,’ said Mort. He thought for a few seconds and added, ‘If I were you, it wouldn’t do any harm to give my soul a bit of a last-minute polish. Some of those waiting for you might not like the taste of that.’

Albert shuddered and shut his eyes.

‘You don’t know about that what you talk about,’ he added, with more feeling than grammar, ‘else you wouldn’t say that. What do you want from me?’

Mort told him.

Albert cackled.

‘Just that? Just change Reality? You can’t. There isn’t any magic strong enough any more. The Great Spells could of done it. Nothing else. And that’s it, so you might as well do as you please and the best of luck to you.’

Ysabell came back, a little out of breath, clutching the latest volume of Albert’s life. Albert sniffed again. The tiny drip on the end of his nose fascinated Mort. It was always on the point of dropping off but never had the courage. Just like him, he thought.

‘You can’t do anything to me with the book,’ said the old wizard warily.

‘I don’t intend to. But it strikes me that you don’t get to be a powerful wizard by telling the truth all the time. Ysabell, read out what’s being written.’

‘“Albert looked at him uncertainly”,’ Ysabell read.

‘You can’t believe everything writ down there—’

‘—“he burst out, knowing in the flinty pit of his heart that Mort certainly could”,’ Ysabell read.

‘Stop it!’

‘“he shouted, trying to put at the back of his mind the knowledge that even if Reality could not be stopped it might be possible to slow it down a little”.’

How?

‘“intoned Mort in the leaden tones of Death”,’ began Ysabell dutifully.

‘Yes, yes, all right, you needn’t bother with my bit,’ snapped Mort irritably.

‘Pardon me for living, I’m sure.’

N
O ONE GETS PARDONED FOR LIVING
.

‘And don’t talk like that to me, thank you. It doesn’t frighten me,’ she said. She glanced down at the book, where the moving line of writing was calling her a liar.

‘Tell me how, wizard,’ said Mort.

‘My magic’s all I’ve got left!’ wailed Albert.

‘You don’t need it, you old miser.’

‘You don’t frighten me, boy—’

L
OOK INTO MY FACE AND TELL ME THAT
.

Mort snapped his fingers imperiously. Ysabell bent her head over the book again.

‘“Albert looked into the blue glow of those eyes and the last of his defiance drained away”,’ she read, ‘“for he saw not just Death but Death with all the human seasonings of vengeance and cruelty and distaste, and with a terrible certainty he knew that this was the last chance and Mort would send him back into Time and hunt him down and take him and deliver him bodily into the dark Dungeon Dimensions where creatures of horror would dot dot dot dot dot”,’ she finished. ‘It’s just dots for half a page.’

‘That’s because the book daren’t even mention them,’ whispered Albert. He tried to shut his eyes but the pictures in the darkness behind his eyelids were so vivid that he opened them again. Even Mort was better than that.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘There is one spell. It slows down time over a little area. I’ll write it down, but you’ll have to find a wizard to say it.’

‘I can do that.’

Albert ran a tongue like an old loofah over his dry lips.

‘There is a price, though,’ he added. ‘You must complete the Duty first.’

‘Ysabell?’ said Mort. She looked at the page in front of her.