Mort (15 page)

Now it really was dawn, that cusp of the day that belonged to no one except the seagulls in Morpork docks, the tide that rolled in up the river, and a warm turnwise wind that added a smell of spring to the complex odor of the city.

Death sat on a bollard, looking out to sea. He had decided to stop being drunk. It made his head ache.

He’d tried fishing, dancing, gambling and drink, allegedly four of life’s greatest pleasures, and wasn’t sure that he saw the point. Food he was happy with—Death liked a good meal as much as anyone else. He couldn’t think of any other pleasures of the flesh or, rather, he could, but they were, well,
fleshy
, and he couldn’t see how it would be possible to go about them without some major bodily restructuring, which he wasn’t going to contemplate. Besides, humans seemed to leave off doing them as they grew older, so presumably they couldn’t be that attractive.

Death began to feel that he wouldn’t understand people as long as he lived.

The sun made the cobbles steam and Death felt the faintest tingling of that little springtime urge that can send a thousand tons of sap pumping through fifty feet of timber in a forest.

The seagulls swooped and dived around him. A one-eyed cat, down to its eighth life and its last ear, emerged from its lair in a heap of abandoned fish boxes, stretched, yawned, and rubbed itself against his legs. The breeze, cutting through Ankh’s famous smell, brought a hint of spices and fresh bread.

Death was bewildered. He couldn’t fight it. He was actually feeling glad to be alive, and very reluctant to be Death.

I
MUST BE SICKENING FOR SOMETHING
, he thought.

Mort eased himself up the ladder alongside Ysabell. It was shaky, but seemed to be safe. At least the height didn’t bother him; everything below was just blackness.

Some of Albert’s earlier volumes were very nearly falling apart. He reached out for one at random, feeling the ladder tremble underneath them as he did so, brought it back and opened it somewhere in the middle.

“Move the candle this way,” he said.

“Can you read it?”

“Sort of—”

—’turnered hys hand, butt was sorelie vexed that alle menne at laste comme to nort, viz. Deathe, and vowed hymme to seke Imortalitie yn his pride. “Thus,” he tolde the younge wizzerds, “we may take unto ourselfes the mantel of Goddes.” Thee next day, yt being raining, Alberto’—

“It’s written in Old,” he said. “Before they invented spelling. Let’s have a look at the latest one.”

It was Albert all right. Mort caught several references to fried bread.

“Let’s have a look at what he’s doing now,” said Ysabell.

“Do you think we should? It’s a bit like spying.”

“So what? Scared?”

“All right.”

He flicked through until he came to the unfilled pages, and then turned back until he found the story of Albert’s life, crawling across the page at surprising speed considering it was the middle of the night; most biographies didn’t have much to say about sleep, unless the dreams were particularly vivid.

“Hold the candle properly, will you? I don’t want to get grease on his life.”

“Why not? He likes grease.”

“Stop giggling, you’ll have us both off. Now look at this bit….

—“He crept through the dusty darkness of the Stack—” Ysabell read—“his eyes fixed on the tiny glow of candlelight high above. Prying, he thought, poking away at things that shouldn’t concern them, the little devils”—

“Mort! He’s—”

“Shut up! I’m reading!”

—“soon put a stop to this. Albert crept silently to the foot of the ladder, spat on his hands, and got ready to push. The master’d never know; he was acting strange these days and it was all that lad’s fault, and”—

Mort looked up into Ysabell’s horrified eyes.

Then the girl took the book out of Mort’s hand, held it at arm’s length while her gaze remained fixed woodenly on his, and let it go.

Mort watched her lips move and then realized that he, too, was counting under his breath.

Three, four—

There was a dull thump, a muffled cry, and silence.

“Do you think you’ve killed him?” said Mort, after a while.

“What,
here!
Anyway, I didn’t notice any better ideas coming from you.”

“No, but—he is an old man, after all.”

“No, he’s not,” said Ysabell sharply, starting down the ladder.

“Two thousand years?”

“Not a day over sixty-seven.”

“The books said—”

“I told you, time doesn’t apply here. Not
real
time. Don’t you listen, boy?”

“Mort,” said Mort.

“And stop treading on my fingers, I’m going as fast as I can.”

“Sorry.”

“And don’t act so wet. Have you any idea how boring it is living here?”

“Probably not,” said Mort, adding with genuine longing, “I’ve heard about boredom but I’ve never had a chance to try it.”

“It’s dreadful.”

“If it comes to that, excitement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Anything’s got to be better than this.”

There was a groan from below, and then a stream of swearwords.

Ysabell peered into the gloom.

“Obviously I didn’t damage his cursing muscles,” she said. “I don’t think I ought to listen to words like that. It could be bad for my moral fiber.”

They found Albert slumped against the foot of the bookshelf, muttering and holding his arm.

“There’s no need to make that kind of fuss,” said Ysabell briskly. “You’re not hurt; father simply doesn’t allow that kind of thing to happen.”

“What did you have to go and do that for?” he moaned. “I didn’t mean any harm.”

“You were going to push us off,” said Mort, trying to help him up. “I read it. I’m surprised you didn’t use magic.”

Albert glared at him.

“Oh, so you’ve found out, have you?” he said quietly. “Then much good may it do you. You’ve no right to go prying.”

He struggled to his feet, shook off Mort’s hand, and stumbled back along the hushed shelves.

“No, wait,” said Mort, “I need your help!”

“Well, of course,” said Albert over his shoulder. “It stands to reason, doesn’t it? You thought, I’ll just go and pry into someone’s private life and then I’ll drop it on him and then I’ll ask him to help me.”

“I only wanted to find out if you were really you,” said Mort, running after him.

“I am. Everyone is.”

“But if you don’t help me something terrible will happen! There’s this princess, and she—”

“Terrible things happen all the time, boy—”

“—Mort—”

“—and no one expects me to do anything about it.”

“But you were the greatest!”

Albert stopped for a moment, but did not look around.

“
Was
the greatest,
was
the greatest. And don’t you try to butter me up. I ain’t butterable.”

“They’ve got statues to you and everything,” said Mort, trying not to yawn.

“More fool them, then.” Albert reached the foot of the steps into the library proper, stamped up them and stood outlined against the candlelight from the library.

“You mean you won’t help?” said Mort. “Not even if you can?”

“Give the boy a prize,” growled Albert. “And it’s no good thinking you can appeal to my better nature under this here crusty exterior,” he added, “’cos my interior’s pretty damn crusty too.”

They heard him cross the library floor as though he had a grudge against it, and slam the door behind him.

“Well,” said Mort, uncertainly.

“What did you expect?” snapped Ysabell. “He doesn’t care for anyone much except father.”

“It’s just that I thought someone like him would help if I explained it properly,” said Mort. He sagged. The rush of energy that had propelled him through the long night had evaporated, filling his mind with lead. “You know he was a famous wizard?”

“That doesn’t mean anything, wizards aren’t necessarily nice. Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards because a refusal often offends, I read somewhere.” Ysabell stepped closer to Mort and peered at him with some concern. “You look like something left on a plate,” she said.

“’M okay,” said Mort, walking heavily up the steps and into the scratching shadows of the library.

“You’re not. You could do with a good night’s sleep, my lad.”

“M’t,” murmured Mort.

He felt Ysabell slip his arm over her shoulder. The walls were moving gently, even the sound of his own voice was coming from a long way off, and he dimly felt how nice it would be to stretch out on a nice stone slab and sleep forever.

Death’d be back soon, he told himself, feeling his unprotesting body being helped along the corridors. There was nothing for it, he’d have to tell Death. He wasn’t such a bad old stick. Death would help; all he needed to do was explain things. And then he could stop all this worrying and go to slee….

“And what was your previous position?”

I
BEG YOUR PARDON
?

“What did you do for a living?” said the thin young man behind the desk.

The figure opposite him shifted uneasily.

I
USHERED SOULS INTO THE NEXT WORLD
. I
WAS THE GRAVE OF ALL HOPE
. I
WAS THE ULTIMATE REALITY
. I
WAS THE ASSASSIN AGAINST WHOM NO LOCK WOULD HOLD
.

“Yes, point taken, but do you have any particular skills?” Death thought about it.

I
SUPPOSE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF EXPERTISE WITH AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS
? he ventured after a while.

The young man shook his head firmly.

N
O
?

“This is a city, Mr.—” he glanced down, and once again felt a faint unease that he couldn’t quite put his finger on—“Mr.—Mr.—Mr., and we’re a bit short of fields.”

He laid down his pen and gave the kind of smile that suggested he’d learned it from a book.

Ankh-Morpork wasn’t advanced enough to possess an employment exchange. People took jobs because their fathers made room for them, or because their natural talent found an opening, or by word-of-mouth. But there was a call for servants and menial workers, and with the commercial sections of the city beginning to boom the thin young man—a Mr. Liona Keeble—had invented the profession of job broker and was, right at this moment, finding it difficult.

“My dear Mr.—” he glanced down—“Mr., we get many people coming into the city from outside because, alas, they believe life is richer here. Excuse me for saying so, but you seem to me to be a gentleman down on his luck. I would have thought you would have preferred something rather more refined than—” he glanced down again, and frowned—“‘something nice working with cats or flowers.’”

I’
M SORRY. I FELT IT WAS TIME FOR A CHANGE
.

“Can you play a musical instrument?”

N
O
.

“Can you do carpentry?”

I
DO NOT KNOW
, I
HAVE NEVER TRIED
. Death stared at his feet. He was beginning to feel deeply embarrassed.

Keeble shuffled the paper on his desk, and sighed.

I
CAN WALK THROUGH WALLS
, Death volunteered, aware that the conversation had reached an impasse.

Keeble looked up brightly. “I’d like to see that,” he said. “That could be quite a qualification.”

R
IGHT
.

Death pushed his chair back and stalked confidently towards the nearest wall.

O
UCH
.

Keeble watched expectantly. “Go on, then,” he said.

U
M
. T
HIS IS AN ORDINARY WALL, IS IT
?

“I assume so. I’m not an expert.”

I
T SEEMS TO BE PRESENTING ME WITH SOME DIFFICULTY
.

“So it would appear.”

W
HAT DO YOU CALL THE FEELING OF BEING VERY SMALL AND HOT
?

Keeble twiddled his pencil.

“Pygmy?”

B
EGINS WITH AN M
.

“Embarrassing?”

“Yes,” said Death, I
MEAN YES
.

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever,” he said. “Have you thought of going into teaching?”

Death’s face was a mask of terror. Well, it was always a mask of terror, but this time he meant it to be.

“You see,” said Keeble kindly, putting down his pen and steepling his hands together, “it’s very seldom I ever have to find a new career for an—what was it again?”

A
NTHROPOMORPHIC PERSONIFICATION
.

“Oh, yes. What is that, exactly?”

Death had had enough.

T
HIS
, he said.

For a moment, just for a moment, Mr. Keeble saw him clearly. His face went nearly as pale as Death’s own. His hands jerked convulsively. His heart gave a stutter.

Death watched him with mild interest, then drew an hourglass from the depths of his robe and held it up to the light and examined it critically.

S
ETTLE DOWN
, he said,
YOU’VE GOT A GOOD FEW YEARS YET
.

“Bbbbbbb—”

I
COULD TELL YOU HOW MANY IF YOU LIKE
.

Keeble, fighting to breathe, managed to shake his head.

D
O YOU WANT ME TO GET YOU A GLASS OF WATER, THEN
?

“nnN—nnN.”

The shop bell jangled. Keeble’s eyes rolled. Death decided that he owed the man something. He shouldn’t be allowed to lose custom, which was clearly something humans valued dearly.

He pushed aside the bead curtain and stalked into the outer shop, where a small fat woman, looking rather like an angry cottage loaf, was hammering on the counter with a haddock.

“It’s about that cook’s job up at the University,” she said. “You told me it was a good position and it’s a disgrace up there, the tricks them students play, and I demand—I want you to—I’m not….”

Her voice trailed off.

“’Ere,” she said, but you could tell her heart wasn’t in it, “you’re not Keeble, are you?”

Death stared at her. He’d never before experienced an unsatisfied customer. He was at a less. Finally he gave up.

B
EGONE, YOU BLACK AND MIDNIGHT HAG
, he said.

The cook’s small eyes narrowed.

“’Oo are you calling a midnight bag?” she said accusingly, and hit the counter with the fish again. “Look at this,” she said. “Last night it was my bedwarmer, in the morning it’s a fish. I ask you.”

M
AY ALL THE DEMONS OF HELL REND YOUR LIVING SPIRIT IF YOU DON’T GET OUT OF THE SHOP THIS MINUTE
, Death tried.

“I don’t know about that, but what about my bedwarmer? It’s no place for a respectable woman up there, they tried to—”

I
F YOU WOULD CARE TO GO AWAY
, said Death desperately, I
WILL GIVE YOU SOME MONEY
.

“How much?” said the cook, with a speed that would have outdistanced a striking rattlesnake and given lightning a nasty shock.

Death pulled out his coin bag and tipped a heap of verdigrised and darkened coins on the counter. She regarded them with deep suspicion.

N
OW LEAVE UPON THE INSTANT
, said Death, and added,
BEFORE THE SEARING WINDS OF INFINITY SCORCH THY WORTHLESS CARCASS
.

“My husband will be told about this,” said the cook darkly, as she left the shop. It seemed to Death that no threat of his could possibly be as dire.

He stalked back through the curtains. Keeble, still slumped in his chair, gave a kind of strangled gurgle.

“It was true!” he said. “I thought you were a nightmare!”

I
COULD TAKE OFFENSE AT THAT
, Said Death.

“You really are Death?” said Keeble.

YES.

“Why didn’t you say?”

P
EOPLE USUALLY PREFER ME NOT TO
.

Keeble scrabbled among his papers, giggling hysterically.

“You want to do something else?” he said. “Tooth fairy? Water sprite? Sandman?”

D
O NOT BE FOOLISH
. I
SIMPLY—FEEL I WANT A CHANGE
.

Keeble’s frantic rustling at last turned up the paper he’d been searching for. He gave a maniacal laugh and thrust it into Death’s hands.

Death read it.

T
HIS IS A JOB
? P
EOPLE ARE PAID TO DO THIS
?

“Yes, yes, go and see him, you’re just the right type. Only don’t tell him I sent you.”