Mort

had the heavy, stolid look of those thugs whose appearance in any narrative means that it’s time for the hero to be menaced a bit, although not too much, because it’s also obvious that they’re going to be horribly surprised.
    They were leering. They were good at it.
    One of them had drawn a knife, which he waved in little circles in the air. He advanced slowly towards Mort, while the other two hung back to provide immoral support.
    “Give us the money,” he rasped.
    Mort’s hand went to the bag on his belt.
    “Hang on a minute,” he said. “What happens then?”
    “What?”
    “I mean, is it my money or my life?” said Mort. “That’s the sort of thing robbers are supposed to demand. Your money or your life. I read that in a book once,” he added.
    “Possibly, possibly,” conceded the robber. He felt he was losing the initiative, but rallied magnificently. “On the other hand, it could be your money and your life. Pulling off the double, you might say.” The man looked sideways at his colleagues, who sniggered on cue.
    “In that case—” said Mort, and hefted the bag in one hand preparatory to chucking it as far out into the Ankh as he could, even though there was a reasonable chance it would bounce.
    “Hey, what are you doing,” said the robber. He started to run forward, but halted when Mort gave the bag a threatening jerk.
    “Well,” said Mort, “I look at it like this. If you’re going to kill me anyway, I might as well get rid of the money. It’s entirely up to you.” To illustrate his point he took one coin out of the bag and flicked it out across the water, which accepted it with an unfortunate sucking noise. The thieves shuddered.
    The leading thief looked at the bag. He looked at his knife. He looked at Mort’s face. He looked at his colleagues.
    “Excuse me,” he said, and they went into a huddle.
    Mort measured the distance to the end of the alley. He wouldn’t make it. Anyway, these three looked as though chasing people was another thing they were good at. It was only logic that left them feeling a little stretched.
    Their leader turned back to Mort. He gave a final glance at the other two. They both nodded decisively.
    “I think we kill you and take a chance on the money,” he said. “We don’t want this sort of thing to spread.”
    The other two drew their knives.
    Mort swallowed. “This could be unwise,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “Well, I won’t like it, for one.”
    “You’re not supposed to like it, you’re supposed to—die,” said the thief, advancing.
    “I don’t think I’m due to die,” said Mort, backing away. “I’m sure I would have been told.”
    “Yeah,” said the thief, who was getting fed up with this. “Yeah, well, you have been, haven’t you? Great steaming elephant turds!”
    Mort had just stepped backwards again. Through a wall.
    The leading thief glared at the solid stone that had swallowed Mort, and then threw down his knife.
    “Well,----me,” he said. “A----ing wizard. I hate ----ing wizards!”
    “You shouldn’t----them, then,” muttered one of his henchmen, effortlessly pronouncing a row of dashes.
    The third member of the trio, who was a little slow of thinking, said, “Here, he walked through the wall!”
    “And we bin following him for ages, too,” muttered the second one. “Fine one you are, Pilgarlic. I said I thought he was a wizard, only wizards’d walk round here by themselves. Dint I say he looked like a wizard? I said—”
    “You’re saying a good deal too much,” growled the leader.
    “ I saw him, he walked right through the wall there —”
    “Oh, yeah?”
    “Yeah!”
    “ Right through it, dint you see? ”
    “Think you’re sharp, do you?”
    “Sharp enough, come to that!”
    The leader scooped his knife out of the dirt in one snaky movement.
    “Sharp as this?”
    The third thief lurched over to the wall and kicked it hard a few times, while behind him there were the sounds of scuffle and some damp bubbling noises.
    “Yep, it’s a wall okay,” he said. “That’s a wall if ever I saw one. How d’you think they do it, lads?”
    “Lads?”
    He tripped over the prone bodies.
    “Oh,” he said. Slow as his mind was, it was quick enough to realize something very important. He was in a back alley in The Shades, and he was alone. He ran for it, and got quite a long way.

Death walked slowly across tiles in the lifetimer room, inspecting the serried rows of busy hourglasses. Albert followed