Mort (19 page)

At about the time Albert was in The Mended Drum arguing with the landlord over a yellowing bar tab that had been handed down carefully from father to son through one regicide, three civil wars, sixty-one major fires, four hundred and ninety robberies and more than fifteen thousand bar-room brawls to record the fact that Alberto Malich still owed the management three copper pieces plus interest currently standing at the contents of most of the Disc’s larger strongrooms, which proved once again that an Ankhian merchant with an unpaid bill has the kind of memory that would make an elephant blink…at about this time, Binky was leaving a vapor trail in skies above the great mysterious continent of Klatch.

Far below drums sounded in the scented, shadowy jungles and columns of curling mist rose from hidden rivers where nameless beasts lurked under the surface and waited for supper to walk past.

“There’s no more cheese, you’ll have to have the ham,” said Ysabell. “What’s that light over there?”

“The Light Dams,” said Mort. “We’re getting closer.” He pulled the hourglass out of his pocket and checked the level of the sand.

“But not close enough, dammit!”

The Light Dams lay like pools of light hubwards of their course, which is exactly what they were; some of the tribes constructed mirror walls in the desert mountains to collect the Disc sunlight, which is slow and slightly heavy. It was used as currency.

Binky glided over the campfires of the nomads and the silent marshes of the Tsort river. Ahead of them dark, familiar shapes began to reveal themselves in the moonlight.

“The Pyramids of Tsort by moonlight!” breathed Ysabell. “How romantic!”

M
ORTARED WITH THE BLOOD OF THOUSANDS OF SLAVES
, observed Mort.

“Please don’t.”

“I’m sorry, but the practical fact of the matter is that these—”

“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” said Ysabell irritably.

“It’s a lot of effort to go to to bury a dead king,” said Mort, as they circled above one of the smaller pyramids. “They fill them full of preservative, you know, so they’ll survive into the next world.”

“Does it work?”

“Not noticeably.” Mort leaned over Binky’s neck. “Torches down there,” he said. “Hang On.”

A procession was winding away from the avenue of pyramids, led by a giant statue of Offler the Crocodile God borne by a hundred sweating slaves. Binky cantered above it, entirely unnoticed, and performed a perfect four-point landing on the hard-packed sand outside the pyramid’s entrance.

“They’ve pickled another king,” said Mort. He examined the glass again in the moonlight. It was quite plain, not the sort normally associated with royalty.

“That can’t be him,” said Ysabell. “They don’t pickle them when they’re still alive, do they?”

“I hope not, because I read where, before they do the preserving, they, um, cut them open and remove—”

“I don’t want to hear it—”

“—all the soft bits,” Mort concluded lamely. “It’s just as well the pickling doesn’t work, really, just imagine having to walk around with no—”

“So it isn’t the king you’ve come to take,” said Ysabell loudly. “Who is it, then?”

Mort turned towards the dark entrance. It wouldn’t be sealed until dawn, to give time for the dead king’s soul to leave. It looked deep and foreboding, hinting at purposes considerably more dire than, say, keeping a razor blade nice and sharp.

“Let’s find out,” he said.

“Look out! He’s coming back!”

The University’s eight most senior wizards shuffled into line, tried to smooth out their beards and in general made an unsuccessful effort to look presentable. It wasn’t easy. They had been snatched from their workrooms, or a postprandial brandy in front of a roaring fire, or quiet contemplation under a handkerchief in a comfy chair somewhere, and all of them were feeling extremely apprehensive and rather bewildered. They kept glancing at the empty pedestal.

Only one creature could have duplicated the expressions on their faces, and that would be a pigeon who has heard not only that Lord Nelson has got down off his column but has also been seen buying a 12-bore repeater and a box of cartridges.

“He’s coming up the corridor!” shouted Rincewind, and dived behind a pillar.

The assembled mages watched the big double doors as if they were about to explode, which shows how prescient they were, because they exploded. Matchstick-sized bits of oak rained down among them and a small thin figure stood outlined against the light. It held a smoking staff in one hand. The other held a small yellow toad.

“Rincewind!” bawled Albert.

“Sir!”

“Take this thing away and dispose of it.”

The toad crawled into Rincewind’s hand and gave him an apologetic look.

“That’s the last time that bloody landlord gives any lip to a wizard,” said Albert with smug satisfaction. “It seems I turn my back for a few hundred years and suddenly people in this town are encouraged to think they can talk back to wizards, eh?”

One of the senior wizards mumbled something.

“What was that? Speak up, man!”

“As the bursar of this university I must say that we’ve always encouraged a good neighbor policy with respect to the community,” mumbled the wizard, trying to avoid Albert’s gimlet stare. He had an upturned chamber pot on his conscience, with three cases of obscene graffiti to be taken into consideration.

Albert let his mouth drop open. “Why?” he said.

“Well, er, a sense of civic duty, we feel it’s vitally important that we show an examp—arrgh!”

The wizard tried desperately to beat out the flames in his beard. Albert lowered his staff and looked slowly along the row of mages. They swayed away from his stare like grass in a gale.

“Anyone else want to show a sense of civic duty?” he said. “Good neighbors, anybody?” He drew himself up to his full height. “You spineless maggots! I didn’t found this University so you could lend people the bloody lawnmower! What’s the use of having the power if you don’t wield it? Man doesn’t show you respect, you don’t leave enough of his damn inn to roast chestnuts on, understand?”

Something like a soft sigh went up from the assembled wizards. They stared sadly at the toad in Rincewind’s hand. Most of them, in the days of their youth, had mastered the art of getting rascally drunk at the Drum. Of course, all that was behind them now, but the Guild of Merchants’ annual knife-and-fork supper would have been held in the Dram’s upstairs room the following evening, and all the Eighth Level wizards had been sent complimentary tickets; there would have been roast swan and two kinds of trifle and lots of fraternal toasts to “Our esteemed, nay, distinguished guests” until it was time for the college porters to turn up with the wheelbarrows.

Albert strutted along the row, poking the occasional paunch with his staff. His mind danced and sang. Go back? Never! This was power, this was living; he’d challenge old boniface and spit in his empty eye.

“By the Smoking Mirror of Grism, there’s going to be a few changes around here!”

Those wizards who had studied history nodded uncomfortably. It would be back to the stone floors and getting up when it was still dark and no alcohol under any circumstances and memorizing the true names of everything until the brain squeaked.

“
What’s that man doing
!”

A wizard who had absent-mindedly reached for his tobacco pouch let the half-formed cigarette fall from his trembling fingers. It bounced when it hit the floor and all the wizards watched it roll with longing eyes until Albert stepped forward smartly and squashed it.

Albert spun round. Rincewind, who had been following him as a sort of unofficial adjutant, nearly walked into him.

“You! Rincething! D’yer smoke?”

“No, sir! Filthy habit!” Rincewind avoided the gaze of his superiors. He was suddenly aware that he had made some lifelong enemies, and it was no consolation to know that he probably wouldn’t have them for very long.

“Right! Hold my staff. Now, you bunch of miserable back-sliders, this is going to stop, d’yer hear? First thing tomorrow, up at dawn, three times round the quadrangle and back here for physical jerks! Balanced meals! Study! Healthy exercise! And that bloody monkey goes to a circus, first thing!”

“Oook?”

Several of the older wizards shut their eyes.

“But first,” said Albert, lowering his voice, “you’ll oblige me by setting up the Rite of AshkEnte.”

“I have some unfinished business,” he added.

Mort strode through the cat-black corridors of the pyramid, with Ysabell hurrying along behind him. The faint glow from his sword illuminated unpleasant things; Offler the Crocodile God was a cosmetics advert compared to some of the things the people of Tsort worshipped. In alcoves along the way were statues of creatures apparently built of all the bits God had left over.

“What are they here for?” whispered Ysabell.

“The Tsortean priests say they come alive when the pyramid is sealed and prowl the corridors to protect the body of the king from tomb robbers,” said Mort.

“What a horrible superstition.”

“Who said anything about superstition?” said Mort absently.

“They really come alive?”

“All I’ll say is that when the Tsorteans put a curse on a place, they don’t mess about.”

Mort turned a corner and Ysabell lost sight of him for a heart-stopping moment. She scurried through the darkness and cannoned into him. He was examining a dog-headed bird.

“Urgh,” she said. “Doesn’t it send shivers up your spine?”

“No,” said Mort flatly.

“Why not?”

B
ECAUSE
I
AM
M
ORT
. He turned, and she saw his eyes glow like blue pinpoints.

“Stop it!”

I—
CAN’T
.

She tried to laugh. It didn’t work. “You’re not Death,” she said. “You’re only doing his job.”

D
EATH IS WHOEVER DOES
D
EATH’S JOB
.

The shocked pause that followed this was broken by a groan from further along the dark passage. Mort turned on his heel and hurried towards it.

He’s right, thought Ysabell. Even the way he moves….

But the fear of the darkness that the light was dragging towards her overcame any other doubts and she crept after him, around another corner and into what appeared, in the fitful glow from the sword, to be a cross between a treasury and a very cluttered attic.

“What’s this place?” she whispered. “I’ve never seen so much stuff!”

T
HE KING TAKES IT WITH HIM INTO THE NEXT WORLD
, said Mort.

“He certainly doesn’t believe in traveling light. Look, there’s a whole boat. And a gold bathtub!”

D
OUBTLESS HE WILL WISH TO KEEP CLEAN WHEN HE GETS THERE
.

“And all those statues!”

T
HOSE STATUES
, I’
M SORRY TO SAY, WERE PEOPLE
. S
ERVANTS FOR THE KING, YOU UNDERSTAND
.

Ysabell’s face set grimly.

T
HE PRIESTS GIVE THEM POISON
.

There was another groan, from the other side of the cluttered room. Mort followed it to its source, stepping awkwardly over rolls of carpet, bunches of dates, crates of crockery and piles of gems. The king obviously hadn’t been able to decide what he was going to leave behind on his journey, so had decided to play safe and take everything.

O
NLY IT DOESN’T ALWAYS WORK QUICKLY
, Mort added somberly.

Ysabell clambered gamely after him, and peered over a canoe at a young girl sprawled across a pile of rugs. She was wearing gauze trousers, a waistcoat cut from not enough material, and enough bangles to moor a decent-sized ship. There was a green stain around her mouth.

“Does it hurt?” said Ysabell quietly.

No. T
HEY THINK IT TAKES THEM TO PARADISE
.

“Does it”?

M
AYBE
. W
HO KNOWS
? Mort took the hourglass out of an inner pocket and inspected it by the gleam of the sword. He seemed to be counting to himself, and then with a sudden movement tossed the glass over his shoulder and brought the sword down with his other hand.

The girl’s shade sat up and stretched, with a clink of ghostly jewelry. She caught sight of Mort, and bowed her head.

“My lord!”

N
O ONE’S LORD
, said Mort. N
OW RUN ALONG TO WHEREVER YOU BELIEVE YOU’RE GOING
.

“I shall be a concubine at the heavenly court of King Zetesphut, who will dwell among the stars forever,” she said firmly.

“You don’t have to be,” said Ysabell sharply. The girl turned to her, wide-eyed.

“Oh, but I must. I’ve been training for it,” she said, as she faded from view. “I’ve only managed to be a handmaiden up till now.”

She vanished. Ysabell stared with dark disapproval at the space she had occupied.

“Well!” she said, and, “Did you see what she had on?”

L
ET’S GET OUT OF HERE
.

“But it can’t be true about King Whosis dwelling among the stars,” she grumbled as they found their way out of the crowded room. “There’s nothing but empty space up there.”

I
T’S HARD TO EXPLAIN
, said Mort. H
E’LL DWELL AMONG THE STARS IN HIS OWN MIND
.

“With slaves?”

I
F THAT’S WHAT THEY THINK THEY ARE
.

“That’s not very fair.”

T
HERE’S NO JUSTICE
, said Mort. J
UST US
.

They hurried back along the avenues of waiting ghouls and were nearly running when they burst out into the desert night air. Ysabell leaned against the rough stonework and panted for breath.

Mort wasn’t out of breath.

He wasn’t breathing.

I
WILL TAKE YOU WHEREVER YOU WANT
, he Said,
AND THEN I MUST LEAVE YOU
.

“But I thought you wanted to rescue the princess!”

Mort shook his head.

I
HAVE NO CHOICE. THERE ARE NO CHOICES
.

She ran forward and grabbed his arm as he turned towards the waiting Binky. He removed her hand gently.

I
HAVE FINISHED MY APPRENTICESHIP
.

“It’s all in your own mind!” yelled Ysabell. “You’re whatever you think you are!”

She stopped and looked down. The sand around Mort’s feet was beginning to whip up in little spurts and twirling dust devils.

There was a crackle in the air, and a greasy feel. Mort looked uneasy.

S
OMEONE IS PERFORMING THE RITE OF
A
SH
—

It hit like a hammer, a force from out of the sky that blew the sand into a crater. There was a low buzzing and the smell of hot tin.

Mort looked around himself in the gale of rushing sand, turning as if in a dream, alone in the calm center of the gale. Lightning flashed in the whirling cloud. Deep inside his own mind he struggled to break free, but something had him in its grip and he could no more resist than a compass needle can ignore the compulsion to point towards the Hub.

At last he found what he was searching for. It was a doorway edged in octarine light, leading to a short tunnel. There were figures at the other end, beckoning to him.

I
COME
, he said, and then turned as he heard the sudden noise behind him. Eleven stone of young womanhood hit him squarely in the chest, lifting him off the ground.

Mort landed with Ysabell kneeling on him, holding on grimly to his arms.

L
ET ME GO
, he intoned. I
HAVE BEEN SUMMONED
.

“Not you, idiot!”

She stared into the blue, pupil-less pools of his eyes. It was like looking down a rushing tunnel.

Mort arched his back and screamed a curse so ancient and virulent that in the strong magical field it actually took on a form, flapped its leathery wings and slunk away. A private thunderstorm crashed around the sand dunes.

His eyes drew her again. She looked away before she dropped like a stone down a well made of blue light.

I
COMMAND YOU
. Mort’s voice could have cut holes in rock.

“Father tried that tone on me for years,” she said calmly. “Generally when he wanted me to clean my bedroom. It didn’t work then, either.”

Mort screamed another curse, which flopped out of the air and tried to bury itself in the sand.

T
HE PAIN
—

“It’s all in your head,” she said, bracing herself against the force that wanted to drag them towards that flickering doorway. “You’re not Death. You’re just Mort. You’re whatever I think you are.”

In the center of the blurred blueness of his eyes were two tiny brown dots, rising at the speed of sight.

The storm around them rose and wailed. Mort screamed.