Mort

looked as though it hadn’t enjoyed it much.
    A bead curtain on the far wall was flung aside with a dramatic gesture and a hooded figure stood revealed.
    “Beneficent constellations shine on the hour of our meeting!” it boomed.
    “Which ones?” said Mort.
    There was a sudden worried silence.
    “Pardon?”
    “Which constellations would these be?” said Mort.
    “Beneficent ones,” said the figure, uncertainly. It rallied. “Why do you trouble Igneous Cutwell, Holder of the Eight Keys, Traveler in the Dungeon Dimensions, Supreme Mage of—”
    “Excuse me,” said Mort, “are you really?”
    “Really what?”
    “Master of the thingy, Lord High Wossname of the Sacred Dungeons?”
    Cutwell pushed back his hood with an annoyed flourish. Instead of the gray-bearded mystic Mort had expected he saw a round, rather plump face, pink and white like a pork pie, which it somewhat resembled in other respects. For example, like most pork pies, it didn’t have a beard and, like most pork pies, it looked basically good-humored.
    “In a figurative sense,” he said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “Well, it means no,” said Cutwell.
    “But you said—”
    “That was advertising,” said the wizard. “It’s a kind of magic I’ve been working on. What was it you were wanting, anyway?” He leered suggestively. “A love philter, yes? Something to encourage the young ladies?”
    “Is it possible to walk through walls?” said Mort desperately. Cutwell paused with his hand already halfway to a large bottle full of sticky liquid.
    “Using magic?”
    “Um,” said Mort, “I don’t think so.”
    “Then pick very thin walls,” said Cutwell. “Better still, use the door. The one over there would be favorite, if you’ve just come here to waste my time.”
    Mort hesitated, and then put the bag of gold coins on the table. The wizard glanced at them, made a little whinnying noise in the back of his throat, and reached out. Mort’s hand shot across and grabbed his wrist.
    “I’ve walked through walls,” he said, slowly and deliberately.
    “Of course you have, of course you have,” mumbled Cutwell, not taking his eyes off the bag. He flicked the cork out of the bottle of blue liquid and took an absent-minded swig.
    “Only before I did it I didn’t know that I could, and when I was doing it I didn’t know I was, and now I’ve done it I can’t remember how it was done. And I want to do it again.”
    “Why?”
    “Because,” said Mort, “if I could walk through walls I could do anything.”
    “Very deep,” agreed Cutwell. “Philosophical. And the name of the young lady on the other side of this wall?”
    “She’s—” Mort swallowed. “I don’t know her name. Even if there is a girl,” he added haughtily, “and I’m not saying there is.”
    “Right,” said Cutwell. He took another swig, and shuddered. “Fine. How to walk through walls. I’ll do some research. It might be expensive, though.”
    Mort carefully picked up the bag and pulled out one small gold coin.
    “A down payment,” he said, putting it on the table.
    Cutwell picked up the coin as if he expected it to go bang or evaporate, and examined it carefully.
    “I’ve never seen this sort of coin before,” he said accusingly. “What’s all this curly writing?”
    “It’s gold, though, isn’t it?” said Mort. “I mean, you don’t have to accept it—”
    “Sure, sure, it’s gold,” said Cutwell hurriedly. “It’s gold all right. I just wondered where it had come from, that’s all.”
    “You wouldn’t believe me,” said Mort. “What time’s sunset around here?”
    “We normally manage to fit it in between night and day,” said Cutwell, still staring at the coin and taking little sips from the blue bottle. “About now.”
    Mort glanced out of the window. The street outside already had a twilight look to it.
    “I’ll be back,” he muttered, and made for the door. He heard the wizard call out something, but Mort was heading down the street at a dead run.
    He started to panic. Death would be waiting for him forty miles away. There would be a row. There would be a terrible—
    A H, BOY .
    A familiar figure stepped out from the flare around a jellied eel stall, holding a plate of winkles.
    T HE VINEGAR IS PARTICULARLY PIQUANT . H ELP YOURSELF , I HAVE AN EXTRA PIN .
    But, of course, just because he was forty miles away didn’t mean he wasn’t here as well….
    And in his untidy room Cutwell turned the gold coin