Mort (13 page)

Mort stared at the picture.

“Tell me,” he said quietly, “did the statue have a drip on the end of its nose?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” said Cutwell. “It was marble. But I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up about. Lots of people know what he looked like. He’s famous.”

“He lived a long time ago, did he?”

“Two thousand years, I think. Look, I don’t know why—”

“I bet he didn’t die, though,” said Mort. “I bet he just disappeared one day. Did he?”

Cutwell was silent for a moment.

“Funny you should say that,” he said slowly. “There was a legend I heard. He got up to some weird things, they say. They say he blew himself into the Dungeon Dimensions while trying to perform the Rite of AshkEnte backwards. All they found was his hat. Tragic, really. The whole city in mourning for a day just for a hat. It wasn’t even a particularly attractive hat; it had burn marks on it.”

“Alberto Malich,” said Mort, half to himself. “Well. Fancy that.”

He drummed his fingers on the table, although the sound was surprisingly muted.

“Sorry,” said Cutwell. “I can’t get the hang of treacle sandwiches, either.”

“I reckon the interface is moving at a slow walking pace,” said Mort, licking his fingers absentmindedly. “Can’t you stop it by magic?”

Cutwell shook his head. “Not me. It’d squash me flat,” he said cheerfully.

“What’ll happen to you when it arrives, then?”

“Oh, I’ll go back to living in Wall Street. I mean, I never will have left. All this won’t have happened. Pity, though. The cooking here is pretty good, and they do my laundry for free. How far away did you say it was, by the way?”

“About twenty miles, I guess.”

Cutwell rolled his eyes heavenwards and moved his lips. Eventually he said: “That means it’ll arrive around midnight tomorrow, just in time for the coronation.”

“Whose?”

“Hers.”

“But she’s queen already, isn’t she?”

“In a way, but officially she’s not queen until she’s crowned.” Cutwell grinned, his face a pattern of shade in the candlelight, and added, “If you want a way of thinking about it, then it’s like the difference between stopping living and being dead.”

Twenty minutes earlier Mort had been feeling tired enough to take root. Now he could feel a fizzing in his blood. It was the kind of late-night, frantic energy that you knew you would pay for around midday tomorrow, but for now he felt he had to have some action or else his muscles would snap out of sheer vitality.

“I want to see her,” he said. “If you can’t do anything, there might be something I can do.”

“There’s guards outside her room,” said Cutwell. “I mention this merely as an observation. I don’t imagine for one minute that they’ll make the slightest difference.”

It was midnight in Ankh-Morpork, but in the great twin city the only difference between night and day was, well, it was darker. The markets were thronged, the spectators were still thickly clustered around the whore pits, runners-up in the city’s eternal and byzantine gang warfare drifted silently down through the chilly waters of the river with lead weights tied to their feet, dealers in various illegal and even illogical delights plied their sidelong trade, burglars burgled, knives flashed starlight in alleyways, astrologers started their day’s work and in the Shades a nightwatchman who had lost his way rang his bell and cried out: “Twelve o’clock and all’s arrrrrgghhhh….”

However, the Ankh-Morpork Chamber of Commerce would not be happy at the suggestion that the only real difference between their city and a swamp is the number of legs on the alligators, and indeed in the more select areas of Ankh, which tend to be in the hilly districts where there is a chance of a bit of wind, the nights are gentle and scented with habiscine and Cecillia blossoms.

On this particular night they were scented with saltpeter, too, because it was the tenth anniversary of the accession of the Patrician
*
and he had invited a few friends round for a drink, five hundred of them in this case, and was letting off fireworks. Laughter and the occasional gurgle of passion filled the palace gardens, and the evening had just got to that interesting stage where everyone had drank too much for their own good but not enough actually to fall over. It is the kind of state in which one does things that one will recall with crimson shame in later life, such as blowing through a paper squeaker and laughing so much that one is sick.

In fact some two hundred of the Patrician’s guests were now staggering and kicking their way through the Serpent Dance, a quaint Morporkian folkway which consisted of getting rather drunk, holding the waist of the person in front, and then wobbling and giggling uproariously in a long crocodile that wound through as many rooms as possible, preferably ones with breakables in, while kicking one leg vaguely in time with the beat, or at least in time with some other beat. This dance had gone on for half an hour and had wound through every room in the palace, picking up two trolls, the cook, the Patrician’s head torturer, three waiters, a burglar who happened to be passing and a small pet swamp dragon.

Somewhere around the middle of the dance was fat Lord Rodley of Quirm, heir to the fabulous Quirm estates, whose current preoccupation was with the thin fingers gripping his waist. Under its bath of alcohol his brain kept trying to attract his attention.

“I say,” he called over his shoulder, as they oscillated for the tenth hilarious time through the enormous kitchen, “not so tight, please.”

I
AM MOST TERRIBLY SORRY
.

“No offense, old chap. Do I know you?” said Lord Rodley, kicking vigorously on the back beat.

I
THINK IT UNLIKELY
. T
ELL ME, PLEASE, WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS ACTIVITY
?

“What?” shouted Lord Rodley, above the sound of someone kicking in the door of a glass cabinet amid shrieks of merriment.

W
HAT IS THIS THING THAT WE DO
? said the voice, with glacial patience.

“Haven’t you been to a party before? Mind the glass, by the way.”

I
AM AFRAID
I
DO NOT GET OUT AS MUCH AS
I
WOULD LIKE TO
. P
LEASE EXPLAIN THIS
. D
OES IT HAVE TO DO WITH SEX
?

“Not unless we pull up sharp, old boy, if you know what I mean?” said his lordship, and nudged his unseen fellow guest with his elbow.

“Ouch,” he said. A crash up ahead marked the demise of the cold buffet.

No. “What?”

I
DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN
.

“Mind the cream there, it’s slippery—look, it’s just a dance, all right? You do it for fun.”

F
UN
.

“That’s right. Dada, dada, da—kick!” There was an audible pause.

W
HO IS THIS FUN
?

“No, fun isn’t anybody, fun is what you have.”

W
E ARE HAVING FUN
?

“I thought I was,” said his lordship uncertainly. The voice by his ear was vaguely worrying him; it appeared to be arriving directly into his brain.

W
HAT IS THIS FUN
?

“This is!”

T
O KICK VIGOROUSLY IS FUN
?

“Well, part of the fun. Kick!”

T
O HEAR LOUD MUSIC IN HOT ROOMS IS FUN
?

“Possibly.”

H
OW IS THIS FUN MANIFEST
?

“Well, it—look, either you’re having fun or you’re not, you don’t have to ask me, you just know, all right? How did you get in here, anyway?” he added. “Are you a friend of the Patrician?”

L
ET US SAY, HE PUTS BUSINESS MY WAY
. I
FELT
I
OUGHT TO LEARN SOMETHING OF HUMAN PLEASURES
.

“Sounds like you’ve got a long way to go.”

I
KNOW
. P
LEASE EXCUSE MY LAMENTABLE IGNORANCE
. I
WISH ONLY TO LEARN
. A
LL THESE PEOPLE, PLEASE—THEY ARE HAVING FUN
?

“Yes!”

T
HEN THIS IS FUN
.

“I’m glad we’ve got that sorted out. Mind the chair,” snapped Lord Rodley, who was now feeling very unfunny and unpleasantly sober.

A voice behind him said quietly: T
HIS IS FUN
. T
O DRINK EXCESSIVELY IS FUN
. W
E ARE HAVING FUN. HE IS HAVING FUN. THIS IS SOME FUN
.

W
HAT FUN
.

Behind Death the Patrician’s small pet swamp dragon held on grimly to the bony hips and thought: guards or no guards, next time we pass an open window I’m going to run like buggery.

Keli sat bolt upright in bed.

“Don’t move another step,” she said. “Guards!”

“We couldn’t stop him,” said the first guard, poking his head shame-facedly around the doorpost.

“He just pushed in…” said the other guard, from the other side of the doorway.

“And the wizard said it was all right, and we were told everyone must listen to him because….”

“All right, all right. People could get murdered around here,” said Keli testily, and put the crossbow back on the bedside table without, unfortunately, operating the safety catch.

There was a click, the thwack of sinew against metal, a zip of air, and a groan. The groan came from Cutwell. Mort spun round to him.

“Are you all right?” he said. “Did it hit you?”

“No,” said the wizard, weakly. “No, it didn’t. How do you feel?”

“A bit tired. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing. No draughts anywhere? No slight leaking feelings?”

“No. Why?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Cutwell turned and looked closely at the wall behind Mort.

“Aren’t the dead allowed any peace?” said Keli bitterly. “I thought one thing you could be sure of when you were dead was a good night’s sleep.” She looked as though she had been crying. With an insight that surprised him, Mort realized that she knew this and that it was making her even angrier than before.

“That’s not really fair,” he said. “I’ve come to help. Isn’t that right, Cutwell?”

“Hmm?” said Cutwell, who had found the crossbow bolt buried in the plaster and was looking at it with deep suspicion. “Oh, yes. He has. It won’t work, though. Excuse me, has anyone got any string?”

“Help?” snapped Keli. “Help? If it wasn’t for you—”

“You’d still be dead,” said Mort. She looked at him with her mouth open.

“I wouldn’t know about it, though,” she said. “That’s the worst part.”

“I think you two had better go,” said Cutwell to the guards, who were trying to appear inconspicuous. “But I’ll have that spear, please. Thank you.”

“Look,” said Mort, “I’ve got a horse outside. You’d be amazed. I can take you anywhere. You don’t have to wait around here.”

“You don’t know much about monarchy, do you,” said Keli.

“Um. No?”

“She means better to be a dead queen in your own castle than a live commoner somewhere else,” said Cutwell, who had stuck the spear into the wall by the bolt and was trying to sight along it. “Wouldn’t work, anyway. The dome isn’t centered on the palace, it’s centered on her.”

“On
who?
” said Keli. Her voice could have kept milk fresh for a month.

“On her Highness,” said Cutwell automatically, squinting along the shaft.

“Don’t you forget it.”

“I won’t forget it, but that’s not the point,” said the wizard. He pulled the bolt out of the plaster and tested the point with his finger.

“But if you stay here you’ll die!” said Mort.

“Then I shall have to show the Disc how a queen can die,” said Keli, looking as proud as was possible in a pink knitted bed jacket.

Mort sat down on the end of the bed with his head in his hands.

“I know how a queen can die,” he muttered. “They die just like other people. And some of us would rather not see it happen.”

“Excuse me, I just want to look at this crossbow,” said Cutwell conversationally, reaching across them. “Don’t mind me.”

“I shall go proudly to meet my destiny,” said Keli, but there was the barest flicker of uncertainty in her voice.

“No you won’t. I mean, I know what I’m talking about. Take it from me. There’s nothing proud about it. You just die.”

“Yes, but it’s how you do it. I shall die nobly, like Queen Ezeriel.”

Mort’s forehead wrinkled. History was a closed book to him.

“Who’s she?”

“She lived in Klatch and she had a lot of lovers and she sat on a snake,” said Cutwell, who was winding up the crossbow.

“She meant to! She was crossed in love!”

“All I can remember was that she used to take baths in asses’ milk. Funny thing, history,” said Cutwell reflectively. “You become a queen, reign for thirty years, make laws, declare war on people and then the only thing you get remembered for is that you smelled like yogurt and were bitten in the—”

“She’s a distant ancestor of mine,” snapped Keli. “I won’t listen to this sort of thing.”

“Will you both be quiet and listen to me!” shouted Mort.

Silence descended like a shroud.

Then Cutwell sighted carefully and shot Mort in the back.

The night shed its early casualties and journeyed onwards. Even the wildest parties had ended, their guests lurching home to their beds, or someone’s bed at any rate. Shorn of these fellow travelers, mere daytime people who had strayed out of their temporal turf, the true survivors of the night got down to the serious commerce of the dark.

This wasn’t so very different from Ankh-Morpork’s daytime business, except that the knives were more obvious and people didn’t smile so much.

The Shades were silent, save only for the whistled signals of thieves and the velvety hush of dozens of people going about their private business in careful silence.

And, in Ham Alley, Cripple Wa’s famous floating crap game was just getting under way. Several dozen cowled figures knelt or squatted around the little circle of packed earth where Wa’s three eight-sided dice bounced and spun their misleading lesson in statistical probability.

“Three!”

“Tuphal’s Eyes, by Io!”

“He’s got you there, Hummok! This guy knows how to roll his bones!”

I
T’S A KNACK
.

Hummok M’guk, a small flat-faced man from one of the Hublandish tribes whose skill at dice was famed wherever two men gathered together to fleece a third, picked up the dice and glared at them. He silently cursed Wa, whose own skill at switching dice was equally notorious among the cognoscenti but had, apparently, failed him, wished a painful and untimely death on the shadowy player seated opposite and hurled the dice into the mud.

“Twenty-one the hard way!”

Wa scooped up the dice and handed them to the stranger. As he turned to Hummok one eye flickered ever so slightly. Hummok was impressed—he’d barely noticed the blur in Wa’s deceptively gnarled fingers, and he’d been watching for it.

It was disconcerting the way the things rattled in the stranger’s hand and then flew out of it in a slow arc that ended with twenty-four little spots pointing at the stars.

Some of the more streetwise in the crowd shuffled away from the stranger, because luck like that can be very unlucky in Cripple Wa’s floating crap game.

Wa’s hand closed over the dice with a noise like the click of a trigger.

“All the eights,” he breathed. “Such luck is uncanny, mister.”

The rest of the crowd evaporated like dew, leaving only those heavy-set, unsympathetic-looking men who, if Wa had ever paid tax, would have gone down on his return as Essential Plant and Business Equipment.

“Maybe it’s not luck,” he added. “Maybe it’s wizarding?”

I
MOST STRONGLY RESENT THAT
.

“We had a wizard once who tried to get rich,” said Wa. “Can’t seem to remember what happened to him. Boys?”

“We give him a good talking-to—”

“—and left him in Pork Passage—”

“—and in Honey Lane—”

“—and a couple other places I can’t remember.”

The stranger stood up. The boys closed in around him.

T
HIS IS UNCALLED FOR
. I
SEEK ONLY TO LEARN
. W
HAT PLEASURE CAN HUMANS FIND IN A MERE REITERATION OF THE LAWS OF CHANCE
?

“Chance doesn’t come into it. Let’s have a look at him, boys.”

The events that followed were recalled by no living soul except the one belonging to a feral cat, one of the city’s thousands, that was crossing the alley en route to a tryst. It stopped and watched with interest.

The boys froze in mid-stab. Painful purple light flickered around them. The stranger pushed his hood back and picked up the dice, and then pushed them into Wa’s unresisting hand. The man was opening and shutting his mouth, his eyes unsuccessfully trying not to see what was in front of them. Grinning.

T
HROW
.

Wa managed to look down at his hand.

“What are the stakes?” he whispered.

I
F YOU WIN, YOU WILL REFRAIN FROM THESE RIDICULOUS ATTEMPTS TO SUGGEST THAT CHANCE GOVERNS THE AFFAIRS OF MEN
.

“Yes. Yes. And…if I lose?”

Y
OU WILL WISH YOU HAD WON
.

Wa tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry. “I know I’ve had lots of people murdered—”

T
WENTY-THREE, TO BE PRECISE
.

“Is it too late to say I’m sorry?”

S
UCH THINGS DO NOT CONCERN ME
. N
OW THROW THE DICE
.

Wa shut his eyes and dropped the dice on to the ground, too nervous even to try the special flick-and-twist throw. He kept his eyes shut.

A
LL THE EIGHTS. THERE, THAT WASN’T TOO DIFFICULT, WAS IT
?

Wa fainted.

Death shrugged and walked away, pausing only to tickle the ears of an alley cat that happened to be passing. He hummed to himself. He didn’t quite know what had come over him, but he was enjoying it.