Mort

HE’S QUITE KINDLY DISPOSED TO PEOPLE . Death snapped the thread and started to unwind the vice.
    P UT SUCH THOUGHTS OUT OF YOUR MIND , he added. A T LEAST THE THIRD ONE SHOULDN’T HAVE GIVEN YOU ANY TROUBLE .
    This was the moment. Mort had thought about it for a long time. There was no sense in concealing it. He’d upset the whole future course of history. Such things tend to draw themselves to people’s attention. Best to get it off his chest. Own up like a man. Take his medicine. Cards on table. Beating about bush, none of. Mercy, throw himself on.
    The piercing blue eyes glittered at him.
    He looked back like a nocturnal rabbit trying to outstare the headlights of a sixteen-wheeled artic whose driver is a twelve-hour caffeine freak outrunning the tachometers of hell.
    He failed.
    “No, sir,” he said.
    G OOD . W ELL DONE . N OW THEN, WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS ?
    Anglers reckon that a good dry fly should cunningly mimic the real thing. There are the right flies for morning. There are different flies for the evening rise. And so on.
    But the thing between Death’s triumphant digits was a fly from the dawn of time. It was the fly in the primordial soup. It had bred on mammoth turds. It wasn’t a fly that bangs on window panes, it was a fly that drills through walls. It was an insect that would crawl out from between the slats of the heaviest swat dripping venom and seeking revenge. Strange wings and dangling bits stuck out all over it. It seemed to have a lot of teeth.
    “What’s it called?” said Mort.
    I SHALL CALL IT —D EATH’S G LORY . Death gave the thing a final admiring glance and stuck it into the hood of his robe. I FEEL INCLINED TO SEE A LITTLE BIT OF LIFE THIS EVENING , he said. Y OU CAN TAKE THE DUTY, NOW THAT YOU’VE GOT THE HANG OF IT . A S IT WERE .
    “Yes. Sir,” said Mort, mournfully. He saw his life stretching out in front of him like a nasty black tunnel with no light at the end of it.
    Death drummed his finger on the desk, muttered to himself.
    A H YES , he said. A LBERT TELLS ME SOMEONE’S BEEN MEDDLING IN THE LIBRARY .
    “Pardon, sir?”
    T AKING BOOKS OUT, LEAVING THEM LYING AROUND . B OOKS ABOUT YOUNG WOMEN . H E SEEMS TO THINK IT IS AMUSING .
    As has already been revealed, the Holy Listeners have such well developed hearing that they can be deafened by a good sunset. Just for a few seconds it seemed to Mort that the skin on the back of his neck was developing similar strange powers, because he could see Ysabell freeze in mid-stitch. He also heard the little intake of breath that he’d heard before, among the shelves. He remembered the lace handkerchief.
    He said, “Yes, sir. It won’t happen again, sir.”
    The skin on the back of his neck started to itch like fury.
    S PLENDID . N OW, YOU TWO CAN RUN ALONG . G ET ALBERT TO DO YOU A PICNIC LUNCH OR SOMETHING . G ET SOME FRESH AIR . I’ VE NOTICED THE WAY YOU TWO ALWAYS AVOID EACH OTHER . He gave Mort a conspiratorial nudge—it was like being poked with a stick—and added, A LBERT’S TOLD ME WHAT THAT MEANS .
    “Has he?” said Mort gloomily. He’d been wrong, there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was a flamethrower.
    Death gave him another of his supernova winks.
    Mort didn’t return it. Instead he turned and plodded towards the door, at a general speed and gait that made Great A’Tuin look like a spring lamb.
    He was halfway along the corridor before he heard the soft rush of footsteps behind him and a hand caught his arm.
    “Mort?”
    He turned and gazed at Ysabell through a fog of depression.
    “Why did you let him think it was you in the library?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “It was…very…kind of you,” she said cautiously.
    “Was it? I can’t think what came over me.” He felt in his pocket and produced the handkerchief. “This belongs to you, I think.”
    “Thank you.” She blew her nose noisily.
    Mort was already well down the corridor, his shoulders hunched like vulture’s wings. She ran after him.
    “I say,” she said.
    “What?”
    “I wanted to say thank you.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “It’d just be best if you don’t take books away again. It upsets them, or something.” He gave what he considered to be a mirthless laugh. “Ha!”
    “Ha what?”
    “Just ha!”
    He’d reached the end of the corridor. There was the door into the kitchen, where Albert would be leering knowingly, and Mort decided he couldn’t face that. He stopped.
    “But I only took