Mort

heap of copper in a puddle of the stuff it immediately began to froth.
    Mort sniffed his drink, and then took a sip. It tasted something like apples, something like autumn mornings, and quite a lot like the bottom of a logpile. Not wishing to appear disrespectful, however, he took a swig.
    The crowd watched him, counting under its breath.
    Mort felt something was being demanded of him.
    “Nice,” he said, “very refreshing.” He took another sip. “Bit of an acquired taste,” he added, “but well worth the effort, I’m sure.”
    There were one or two mutters of discontent from the back of the crowd.
    “He’s been watering the scumble, that’s what ’tis.”
    “Nay, thou knows what happens if you lets a drop of water touch scumble.”
    The landlord tried to ignore this. “You like it?” he said to Mort, in pretty much the same tone of voice people used when they said to St. George, “You killed a what ?”
    “It’s quite tangy,” said Mort. “And sort of nutty.”
    “Excuse me,” said the landlord, and gently took the mug out of Mort’s hand. He sniffed at it, then wiped his eyes.
    “Uuunnyag,” he said. “It’s the right stuff all right.”
    He looked at the boy with something verging on admiration. It wasn’t that he’d drunk a third of a pint of scumble in itself, it was that he was still vertical and apparently alive. He handed the pot back again: it was as if Mort was being given a trophy after some incredible contest. When the boy took another mouthful several of the watchers winced. The landlord wondered what Mort’s teeth were made of, and decided it must be the same stuff as his stomach.
    “You’re not a wizard by any chance?” he inquired, just in case.
    “Sorry, no. Should I be?”
    Didn’t think so, thought the landlord, he doesn’t walk like a wizard and anyway he isn’t smoking anything. He looked at the scumble pot again.
    There was something wrong about this. There was something wrong about the boy. He didn’t look right. He looked—
    —more solid than he should do.
    That was ridiculous, of course. The bar was solid, the floor was solid, the customers were as solid as you could wish for. Yet Mort, standing there looking rather embarrassed and casually sipping a liquid you could clean spoons with, seemed to emit a particularly potent sort of solidness, an extra dimension of realness. His hair was more hairy, his clothes more clothy, his boots the epitome of bootness. It made your head ache just to look at him.
    However, Mort then demonstrated that he was human after all. The mug dropped from his stricken fingers and clattered on the flagstones, where the dregs of scumble started to eat its way through them. He pointed at the far wall, his mouth opening and shutting wordlessly.
    The regulars turned back to their conversations and games of shovel-up, reassured that things were as they should be; Mort was acting perfectly normal now. The landlord, relieved that the brew had been vindicated, reached across the bar top and patted him companionably on the shoulder.
    “It’s all right,” he said. “It often takes people like this, you’ll just have a headache for a few weeks, don’t worry about it, a drop of scumble’ll see you all right again.”
    It is a fact that the best remedy for a scumble hangover is a hair of the dog, although it should more accurately be called a tooth of the shark or possibly a tread of the bulldozer.
    But Mort merely went on pointing and said, in a trembling voice, “Can’t you see it? It’s coming through the wall! It’s coming right through the wall!”
    “A lot of things come through the wall after your first drink of scumble. Green hairy things, usually.”
    “It’s the mist! Can’t you hear it sizzling?”
    “A sizzling mist, is it?” The landlord looked at the wall, which was quite empty and unmysterious except for a few cobwebs. The urgency in Mort’s voice unsettled him. He would have preferred the normal scaly monsters. A man knew where he stood with them.
    “It’s coming right across the room! Can’t you feel it?”
    The customers looked at one another. Mort was making them uneasy. One or two of them admitted later that they did feel something, rather like an icy tingle, but it could have been indigestion.
    Mort backed away, and then gripped the bar. He shivered for a moment.
    “Look,” said the landlord, “a joke’s a joke, but—”
    “You had a green shirt on before!”
    The landlord looked down. There