Mort
Chapters - Terry Pratchett
Section: The Hiring Fair
In the lifetimer room, Death examines an hourglass and turns his gaze towards the Ramtops, settling on a boy running awkwardly through the fields. Mort is the youngest son of a reannual grape-farming family in the octarine grass country - tall, red-haired, freckled, and dangerously curious about the underlying logic of the universe. His father Lezek, despairing of the boy's absent-minded uselessness on the farm, takes him to the hiring fair at Sheepridge on Hogswatch Eve to be apprenticed.
One by one every other boy is claimed by a master, but no one will take Mort. As the clock strikes midnight, a great white horse rides into the square bearing a tall cloaked figure. Death has come to the hiring fair seeking an apprentice. He freezes time to speak with Mort privately, and the boy - driven by curiosity and the humiliation of the day - agrees to the position. Lezek, perceiving Death merely as a respectable undertaker, gives his blessing. Death takes Mort up on his horse Binky and they ride into the sky, leaving Lezek waving goodbye in the frosty square, unable to quite remember what was odd about the handshake.
Section: Midnight
Death and Mort fly through the night sky above the Disc, marvelling at the golden light streaming from the Rim. They stop in Ankh-Morpork for a curry, where Mort observes that people instinctively avoid Death without consciously seeing him. In a dark alley, Death rescues three drowned kittens' souls from a water butt, revealing an unexpected tenderness. Mort asks how Death can eat, prompting the skeleton to explain that mortals simply refuse to see him.
After buying Mort new clothes and a haircut, Death takes him to his domain - an otherworldly house built in shades of black, where Mort meets Ysabell, Death's adopted daughter, a silver-haired girl about his own age who has been sixteen for thirty-five years thanks to time standing still in Death's realm. She is haughty and dismissive, calling him 'Boy'. He also meets Albert, Death's elderly manservant and cook, who seems curiously at ease with his master. Death sets Mort to mucking out the stables as his first task, and when Mort correctly deduces the practical rather than philosophical reason for this, Death is pleased. That evening, Death takes Mort out on the Duty for the first time.
Section: The Night Journey
Death takes Mort to the castle of Sto Lat for the assassination of King Olerve the Bastard by a crossbow bolt hired by his cousin, the Duke of Sto Helit. Mort watches helplessly as Death draws his sword - kings get the sword, not the scythe - and severs the king's soul from his body. The ghostly king accepts his fate with dignity, noting his poisoning cousin will now take power.
During the assassination, Mort catches sight of Princess Keli, the king's daughter - a slim, red-haired, freckled girl whose appearance sends a shock through him. She alone seems to see him in the shadow world. The king's ghost fades and collapses into a tiny pinpoint that Death catches and stores away. Mort tries desperately to warn the king beforehand, but Death stops time to prevent his interference and lectures him that compassion is natural but one cannot alter fate. On the roof afterwards, Death tells Mort he will not be sent home for showing compassion - he might have done so had Mort shown pleasure instead.
POV: Mort·On page: Death, King Olerve the Bastard, The Duke of Sto Helit, Princess Keli
Section: Death's Domain
Days pass in Death's domain. Mort accompanies Death on more duties, assists Albert in the garden, and devours books in Death's extensive library, where every person's biography writes itself in real time. Ysabell rides her pony on the black moors and keeps to herself. Death grows increasingly distracted and moody, showing unfamiliar emotions - sadness about young lives ending, wistfulness about mortality.
Mort asks for an afternoon off and Death reluctantly grants it. He finds himself transported to Ankh-Morpork, where he visits The Shades, narrowly escapes three robbers by accidentally walking through a wall, and lands in a Klatchian family's home where they mistake him for a demon and helpfully sell him the Patrician's champion racehorse. He rides to Sto Lat, driven by his memory of Princess Keli, but cannot gain entry to the castle. He seeks out Igneous Cutwell, a young, untidy wizard living in Wall Street, hoping to learn how to walk through walls. He pays Cutwell with one of Death's gold coins and promises to return, then meets Death at a winkle stall, who casually reveals he can be in multiple places at once.
POV: Mort·On page: Death, Albert, Ysabell, Igneous Cutwell
Section: An Afternoon Off
Death decides to send Mort out alone on the Duty for the first time, entrusting him with three hourglasses: the witch Goodie Hamstring, the Abbot Lobsang (a serial reincarnator), and Princess Keli. Death himself heads off into the night, humming, overcome by an unfamiliar urge to experience life.
Mort flies Binky to the Ramtops and handles Goodie Hamstring's death competently despite his nervousness - the elderly witch is gracious and prepared, and her freed soul transforms into a beautiful young woman who kisses him and fades into the forest. He then races to the monastery of the Listeners near the Hub, where the 88th Abbot dies cheerfully, explaining he has a 'season ticket' for reincarnation and asking to be dropped off at the nearest village where he is being conceived.
Then Mort reads the name on the third hourglass - Princess Keli. He flies to Sto Lat and crashes through her bedroom window on Binky just as an assassin raises a knife over her bed. Instead of performing the Duty, he kills the assassin and saves the princess. They spend the rest of the night talking, but Keli's hourglass is empty - she should be dead. Mort has altered the course of history.
POV: Mort·On page: Death, Albert, Princess Keli, Goodie Hamstring
Section: Sto Lat
Mort returns to Death's domain and reads Princess Keli's biography in the library, discovering with horror that her assassination was supposed to lead to the Duke uniting the city states and a hundred years of peace. He has derailed the entire future of the Sto Plains. Meanwhile, reality begins to reassert itself: Keli is alive but the universe considers her dead. Courtiers find themselves unable to see or acknowledge her, the chamberlain orders black bunting without knowing why, and dogs howl.
Keli, increasingly desperate as people look through her, seeks out Igneous Cutwell, the only person besides wizards who can perceive her. The young wizard examines her with cards, yarrow stalks and palm reading, and all methods confirm the same thing: she is dead in every sense except the actual. He explains that history has been decided and her existence is simply being ignored by reality. Keli, channelling the determination of her warrior ancestor, refuses to accept this and dragoons Cutwell into service as her Royal Recognizer - his job is to follow her around reminding everyone she exists. Back at Death's house, Mort confesses to Ysabell about what he has done, but she is too preoccupied with her own trapped existence to pay attention.
POV: Princess Keli·On page: Mort, Igneous Cutwell, Ysabell, Death, Albert·Mentioned: The Duke of Sto Helit
Section: Solo Duty
Death gives Mort another night of solo duty and goes off into Ankh-Morpork to explore human pleasures. He joins the Patrician's anniversary party, dancing the Serpent Dance and earnestly quizzing Lord Rodley about the concept of 'fun'. Later he haunts Cripple Wa's floating crap game in The Shades, winning effortlessly with all the eights, terrifying the gamblers when they try to threaten him. He wanders the city trying to understand drinking, gambling, and parties.
Mort meanwhile handles his duties but notices the shimmering dome of altered reality around Sto Lat - a crescent of faint silver mist creeping across the cabbage fields, slowly shrinking as history heals itself. He stops at an inn called The Queen's Head, which he watches transform before his eyes into The Duke's Head as the interface passes through, changing reality around him. The patrons are horrified when Mort sees things they cannot and runs through the door without opening it. He rides back to Sto Lat and confronts Cutwell at the palace, consumed with jealousy over the wizard's proximity to the princess. Cutwell explains his campaign of posters and town criers to keep Keli in people's consciousness, and reveals that Mort himself is becoming dangerously 'real' - walking through walls and pillars without noticing.
POV: Mort·On page: Death, Igneous Cutwell, Princess Keli
Section: The Invisible Princess
Mort, Cutwell and Princess Keli debate what to do as the dome of reality contracts. Cutwell shoots Mort with a crossbow to prove his theory - the bolt passes harmlessly through him because he is becoming more real than reality itself. Mort recognises Alberto Malich's portrait in one of Cutwell's magic books and realises that Albert, Death's manservant, is actually the legendary founder of Unseen University who vanished two thousand years ago.
Death, meanwhile, concludes his night in Ankh-Morpork at The Mended Drum, drinking his way through the entire stock of exotic liqueurs without effect, mournfully concluding that no one likes him and he has no friends. He tries to get a job through an employment broker, fails to walk through a wall, and eventually finds work as a cook at Harga's House of Ribs, where he discovers something close to happiness frying eggs and feeding stray cats.
Mort rushes back to Death's domain and enlists Ysabell's help searching the library's deep Stack for Albert's biography. They discover an entire shelf of volumes spanning two thousand years. Albert catches them and tries to push them off the ladder, but Ysabell drops a book on his head.
POV: Mort·On page: Igneous Cutwell, Princess Keli, Death, Ysabell, Albert
Section: The Interface
Mort confronts Albert with the knowledge that he is Alberto Malich, the greatest wizard who ever lived. Albert refuses to help, clinging to his safe existence in Death's domain where time does not pass and he need not face the enemies awaiting him in the afterlife. Ysabell reads aloud from Albert's biography as it writes itself in real time, exposing his thoughts and breaking his resistance.
Albert reveals there is one spell that could slow reality's advance, but insists Mort must first complete the Duty - two deaths that need attending before he can go to Sto Lat. The deaths are on opposite sides of the Disc. Mort is becoming more like Death - speaking IN CAPITAL LETTERS, his eyes glowing blue, his personality splitting between human Mort and the persona of Death taking hold of him. He threatens Albert with the sword, channelling Death's authority, and forces the old wizard to write down the spell.
Mort and Ysabell ride Binky across the world at impossible speed. In the Agatean Empire, Mort collects the soul of the Grand Vizier Nine Turning Mirrors, who has been tricked into eating poisoned puff eel by the young Sun Emperor. Cutwell meanwhile prepares for Keli's coronation, racing against the approaching interface.
POV: Mort·On page: Albert, Ysabell, Igneous Cutwell, Princess Keli, Death, Rincewind
Section: The Duel
In the Tsortean pyramids, Mort collects the soul of a young servant girl buried alive with her king, while the Death persona grows ever stronger within him. He stops breathing and speaks entirely IN CAPITALS. Ysabell realises he is losing himself. When the wizards at Unseen University perform the Rite of AshkEnte - summoned by Albert, who has returned to the University, blasted his own statue, terrorised the faculty, and turned the landlord of The Mended Drum into a toad - the spell tries to pull Mort instead of Death. Ysabell tackles Mort and punches him in the jaw, breaking the Death persona's grip.
The Rite succeeds in summoning Death himself from Harga's kitchen, still wearing an apron and holding a kitten. Albert begs for his staff to break free of Death's grip, but the Librarian - an orangutan - hides it. Death is furious at Mort's interference with reality and takes Albert back with him.
Mort recovers his own personality but realises it is midnight - too late to save Keli. Then he remembers: it is midnight here in Tsort, but the Disc is flat. Light travels slowly. Midnight has not yet reached Sto Lat. He and Ysabell race Binky westward, chasing the night across the Disc.
POV: Mort·On page: Ysabell, Death, Albert·Mentioned: Igneous Cutwell
Section: The Wedding
At Sto Lat, Cutwell has arranged a rushed coronation for Keli, complete with a sacrificial elephant that gets drunk on ceremonial wine, goes berserk, destroys the altar, and charges off towards Klatch. The Duke of Sto Helit seizes the moment, surrounding Keli and Cutwell with armed men, but Mort crashes through the gates on Binky just in time. The dome of reality has shrunk to the palace itself.
Death is waiting for them at his domain, angrier than any of them have ever seen. He strikes Mort and declares that the gods will demand the lives of all involved. Mort challenges Death to single combat - whoever wins decides the fate of Keli, Cutwell, and Ysabell. They fight with sword and scythe through the Long Room, accidentally destroying several hourglasses and killing people across the Disc. Mort fights brilliantly but tires; Death's hourglass has no sand because he is eternal, while Mort's last grains are running out.
Mort refuses to strike the killing blow. Death kicks him down. But Ysabell confronts her father, slapping him and demanding justice. Death hesitates - then turns Mort's hourglass over, granting him a new life. He intervenes with the gods, who reshape reality to accommodate everyone. Mort and Ysabell marry and become the Duke and Duchess of Sto Helit. Keli is crowned queen. Cutwell becomes the real power behind the throne. Albert returns to Death's service. And Death attends the wedding reception, giving Mort a pearl of congealed reality - the seed of a new universe - as a present.
POV: Mort·On page: Ysabell, Death, Albert, Igneous Cutwell, Princess Keli, The Duke of Sto Helit