Mort

doorknob.
    S HE IS A VERY PLEASANT GIRL , said Death, B UT I THINK SHE QUITE LIKES HAVING SOMEONE OF HER OWN AGE AROUND TO TALK TO .
    “Sir?”
    A ND, OF COURSE, ONE DAY ALL THIS WILL BELONG TO HER .
    Something like a small blue supernova flared for a moment in the depths of his eyesockets. It dawned on Mort that, with some embarrassment and complete lack of expertise, Death was trying to wink.

In a landscape that owed nothing to time and space, which appeared on no map, which existed only in those far reaches of the multiplexed cosmos known to the few astrophysicists who have taken really bad acid, Mort spent the afternoon helping Albert plant out broccoli. It was black, tinted with purple.
    “He tries, see,” said Albert, flourishing the dibber. “It’s just that when it comes to color, he hasn’t got much imagination.”
    “I’m not sure I understand all this,” said Mort. “Did you say he made all this?”
    Beyond the garden wall the ground dropped towards a deep valley and then rose into dark moorland that marched all the way to distant mountains, jagged as cats’ teeth.
    “Yeah,” said Albert. “Mind what you’re doing with that watering can.”
    “What was here before?”
    “I dunno,” said Albert, starting a fresh row. “Firmament, I suppose. That’s the fancy name for raw nothing. It’s not a very good job of work, to tell the truth. I mean, the garden’s okay, but the mountains are downright shoddy. They’re all fuzzy when you get up close. I went and had a look once.”
    Mort squinted hard at the trees nearest him. They seemed commendably solid.
    “What’d he do it all for?” he said.
    Albert grunted. “Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?”
    Mort thought for a moment.
    “No,” he said eventually, “what?”
    There was silence.
    Then Albert straightened up and said, “Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve ’em right.”
    “He said I could go out with him tonight,” said Mort.
    “You’re a lucky boy then, aren’t you,” said Albert vaguely, heading back for the cottage.
    “Did he really make all this?” said Mort, tagging along after him.
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “I suppose he wanted somewhere where he could feel at home.”
    “Are you dead, Albert?”
    “Me? Do I look dead?” The old man snorted when Mort started to give him a slow, critical look. “And you can stop that. I’m as alive as you are. Probably more.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Right.” Albert pushed open the back door, and turned to regard Mort as kindly as he could manage.
    “It’s best not to ask all these questions,” he said, “it upsets people. Now, how about a nice fry-up?”

The bell rang while they were playing dominoes. Mort sat to attention.
    “He’ll want the horse made ready,” said Albert. “Come on.”
    They went out to the stable in the gathering dusk, and Mort watched the old man saddle up Death’s horse.
    “His name’s Binky,” said Albert, fastening the girth. “It just goes to show, you never can tell.”
    Binky tried to eat his scarf in an affectionate way.
    Mort remembered the woodcut in his grandmother’s almanack, between the page on planting times and the phases of the moon section, showing Dethe thee Great Levyller Comes To Alle Menne. He’d stared at it hundreds of times when learning his letters. It wouldn’t have been half so impressive if it had been generally known that the flame-breathing horse the specter rode was called Binky.
    “I would have thought something like Fang or Sabre or Ebony,” Albert continued, “but the master will have his little fancies, you know. Looking forward to it, are you?”
    “I think so,” said Mort uncertainly. “I’ve never seen Death actually at work.”
    “Not many have,” said Albert. “Not twice, at any rate.”
    Mort took a deep breath.
    “About this daughter of his—” he began.
    A H . G OOD EVENING , A LBERT, BOY .
    “Mort,” said Mort automatically.
    Death strode into the stable, stooping a little to clear the ceiling. Albert nodded, not in any subservient way, Mort noticed, but simply out of form. Mort had met one or two servants, on the rare occasions he’d been taken into town, and Albert wasn’t like any of them. He seemed to act as though the house really belonged to him and its owner was just a passing guest, something to be tolerated like peeling paintwork or spiders in the lavatory. Death put up with it too, as though he and Albert had said everything