“I’m not sure that will be a good idea,” said Mort.
“Well, goodbye, lad,” said Lezek. “You’re to do what you’re told, you understand? And—excuse me, sir, do you have a son?”
Death looked rather taken aback.
NO, he said, I HAVE NO SONS.
“I’ll just have a last word with my boy, if you’ve no objection.”
THEN I WILL GO AND SEE TO THE HORSE, said Death, with more than normal tact.
Lezek put his arm around his son’s shoulders, with some difficulty in view of their difference in height, and gently propelled him across the square.
“Mort, you know your uncle Hamesh told me about this prenticing business?” he whispered.
“Yes?”
“Well, he told me something else,” the old man confided. “He said it’s not unknown for an apprentice to inherit his master’s business. What do you think of that, then?”
“Uh. I’m not sure,” said Mort.
“It’s worth thinking about,” said Lezek.
“I am thinking about it, father.”
“Many a young lad has started out that way, Hamesh said. He makes himself useful, earns his master’s confidence, and, well, if there’s any daughters in the house… did Mr, er, Mr say anything about daughters?”
“Mr who?” said Mort.
“Mr… your new master.”
“Oh. Him. No. No, I don’t think so,” said Mort slowly. “I don’t think he’s the marrying type.”
“Many a keen young man owes his advancement to his nuptials,” said Lezek.
“He does?”
“Mort, I don’t think you’re really listening.”
“What?”
Lezek came to a halt on the frosty cobbles and spun the boy around to face him.
“You’re really going to have to do better than this,” he said. “Don’t you understand, boy? If you’re going to amount to anything in this world then you’ve got to listen. I’m your father telling you these things.”
Mort looked down at his father’s face. He wanted to say a lot of things: he wanted to say how much he loved him, how worried he was; he wanted to ask what his father really thought he’d just seen and heard. He wanted to say that he felt as though he stepped on a molehill and found that it was really a volcano. He wanted to ask what ‘nuptials’ meant.
What he actually said was, “Yes. Thank you. I’d better be going. I’ll try and write you a letter.”
“There’s bound to be someone passing who can read it to us,” said Lezek. “Goodbye, Mort.” He blew his nose.
“Goodbye, dad. I’ll come back to visit,” said Mort. Death coughed tactfully, although it sounded like the pistol-crack of an ancient beam full of death-watch beetle.
WE HAD BETTER BE GOING, he said. HOP UP, MORT.
As Mort scrambled behind the ornate silver saddle Death leaned down and shook Lezek’s hand.
THANK YOU, he said.
“He’s a good lad at heart,” said Lezek. “A bit dreamy, that’s all. I suppose we were all young once.”
Death considered this.
NO, he said, I DON’T THINK SO.
He gathered up the reins and turned the horse towards the Rim road. From his perch behind the black-robed figure Mort waved desperately.
Lezek waved back. Then, as the horse and its two riders disappeared from view, he lowered his hand and looked at it. The handshake… it had felt strange. But, somehow, he couldn’t remember exactly why.
Mort listened to the clatter of stone under the horse’s hooves. Then there was the soft thud of packed earth as they reached the road, and then there was nothing at all.
He looked down and saw the landscape spread out below him, the night etched with moonlight silver. If he fell off, the only thing he’d hit was air.
He redoubled his grip on the saddle.
Then Death said, ARE YOU HUNGRY, BOY?
“Yes, sir.” The words came straight from his stomach without the intervention of his brain.
Death nodded, and reined in the horse. It stood on the air, the great circular panorama of the Disc glittering below it. Here and there a city was an orange glow; in the warm seas nearer the Rim there was a hint of phosphorescence. In some of the deep valleys the trapped daylight of the Disc, which is slow and slightly heavy[1], was evaporating like silver steam.
But it was outshone by the glow that rose towards the stars from the Rim itself. Vast streamers of light shimmered and glittered across the night. Great golden walls surrounded the world.
“It’s beautiful,” said Mort softly. “What is it?”
THE SUN IS UNDER THE DISC, said Death.
“Is it like this every night?”
EVERY NIGHT, said Death. NATURE’S LIKE THAT.
“Doesn’t anyone know?”
ME. YOU. THE GODS. GOOD, IS IT?
“Gosh!”
Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms of the world.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
Although it was well after midnight the twin city of Ankh-Morpork was roaring with life. Mort had thought Sheepridge looked busy, but compared to the turmoil of the street around him the town was, well, a morgue.
Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it’s the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it’s just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let’s just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.
There were temples, their doors wide open, filling the streets with the sounds of gongs, cymbals and, in the case of some of the more conservative fundamentalist religions, the brief screams of the victims. There were shops whose strange wares spilled out on to the pavement. There seemed to be rather a lot of friendly young ladies who couldn’t afford many clothes. There were flares, and jugglers, and assorted sellers of instant transcendence.
And Death stalked through it all. Mort had half expected him to pass through the crowds like smoke, but it wasn’t like that at all. The simple truth was that wherever Death walked, people just drifted out of the way.
It didn’t work like that for Mort. The crowds that gently parted for his new master closed again just in time to get in his way. His toes got trodden on, his ribs were bruised, people kept trying to sell him unpleasant spices and suggestively-shaped vegetables, and a rather elderly lady said, against all the evidence, that he looked a well set-up young lad who would like a nice time.
He thanked her very much, and said that he hoped he was having a nice time already.
Death reached the street corner, the light from the flares raising brilliant highlights on the polished dome of his skull, and sniffed the air. A drunk staggered up, and without quite realising why made a slight detour in his erratic passage for no visible reason.
THIS IS THE CITY, BOY, said Death. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
“It’s very big,” said Mort, uncertainly. “I mean, why does everyone want to live all squeezed together like this?”
Death shrugged.
I LIKE IT, he said. IT’S FULL OF LIFE.
“Sir?”
YES?
“What’s a curry?”
The blue fires flared deep in the eyes of Death.
HAVE YOU EVER BITTEN A RED-HOT ICE CUBE?
“No, sir,” said Mort.
CURRY’S LIKE THAT.
“Sir?”
YES?
Mort swallowed hard. “Excuse me, sir, but my dad said, if I don’t understand, I was to ask questions, sir?”
VERY COMMENDABLE, said Death. He set off down a side street, the crowds parting in front of him like random molecules.
1
Practically anything can go faster than Disc light, which is lazy and tame, unlike ordinary light. The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy,{35} according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can’t have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir