Mort

'Usual fellow?' said Mort, bewildered.

'Tall chap. Black cloak. Doesn't get enough to eat, by the look of him,' said the abbot.

'Usualfellow? You mean Death?' said Mort.

'That's him,' said the abbot, cheerfully. Mort's mouth hung open.

'Die a lot, do you?' he managed.

'A fair bit. A fair bit. Of course,' said the abbot, 'once you get the hang of it, it's only a matter of practice.'

'It is?'

'We must be off,' said the abbot. Mort's mouth snapped shut.

'That's what I've been trying to say,' he said.

'So if you could just drop me off down in the valley,' the little monk continued placidly. He swept past Mort and headed for the courtyard. Mort stared at the floor for a moment, and then ran after him in a way which he knew to be extremely unprofessional and undignified.

'Now look —' he began.

'The other one had a horse called Binky, I remember,' said the abbot pleasantly. 'Did you buy the round off him?'

The round?' said Mort, now completely lost.

'Or whatever. Forgive me,' said the abbot, 'I don't really know how these things are organized, lad.'

'Mort,' said Mort, absently. 'And I think you're supposed to come back with me, sir. If you don't mind,' he added, in what he hoped was a firm and authoritative ma

'I wish I could,' he said. 'Perhaps one day. Now, if you could give me a lift as far as the nearest village, I imagine I'm being conceived about now.'

'Conceived? But you've just died!' said Mort.

'Yes, but, you see, I have what you might call a season ticket,' the abbot explained.

Light dawned on Mort, but very slowly.

'Oh,' he said, 'I've read about this. Reincarnation, yes?'

'That's the word. Fifty-three times so far. Or fifty-four.'

Binky looked up as they approached and gave a short neigh of recognition when the abbot patted his nose. Mort mounted up and helped the abbot up behind him.

'It must be very interesting,' he said, as Binky climbed away from the temple. On the absolute scale of small talk this comment must rate minus quite a lot, but Mort couldn't think of anything better.

'No, it mustn't,' said the abbot. 'You think it must be because you believe I can remember all my lives, but of course I can't. Not while I'm alive, anyway.'

'I hadn't thought of that,' Mort conceded.

'Imagine toilet training fifty times.'

'Nothing to look back on, I imagine,' said Mort.

'You're right. If I had my time all over again I wouldn't reincarnate. And just when I'm getting the hang of things, the lads come down from the temple looking for a boy conceived at the hour the old abbot died. Talk about unimaginative. Stop here a moment, please.'

Mort looked down.

'We're in mid-air,' he said doubtfully.

'I won't keep you a minute.' The abbot slid down from Binky's back, walked a few steps on thin air, and shouted.

It seemed to go on for a long time. Then the abbot climbed back again.

'You don't know how long I've been looking forward to that,' he said.

There was a village in a lower valley a few miles from the temple, which acted as a sort of service industry. From the air it was a random scattering of small but extremely well-soundproofed huts.

'Anywhere will do,' the abbot said. Mort left him standing a few feet above the snow at a point where the huts appeared to be thickest.

'Hope the next lifetime improves,' he said. The abbot shrugged.

'One can always hope,' he said. 'I get a nine-month break, anyway. The scenery isn't much, but at least it's in the warm.'

'Goodbye, then,' said Mort. 'I've got to rush.'

'Au revoir,' said the abbot, sadly, and turned away.

The fires of the Hub Lights were still casting their flickering illumination across the landscape. Mort sighed, and reached for the third glass.

The container was silver, decorated with small crowns. There was hardly any sand left.

Mort, feeling that the night had thrown everything at him and couldn't get any worse, turned it around carefully to get a glimpse of the name. . . .

Princess Keli awoke.

There had been a sound like someone making no noise at all. Forget peas and mattresses – sheer natural selection had established over the years that the royal families that survived longest were those whose members could distinguish an assassin in the dark by the noise he was clever enough not to make, because, in court circles, there was always someone ready to cut the heir with a knife.

She lay in bed, wondering what to do next. There was a dagger under her pillow. She started to slide one hand up the sheets, while peering around the room with half-closed eyes in search of unfamiliar shadows. She was well aware that if she indicated in any way that she was not asleep she would never wake up again.

Some light came into the room from the big window at the far end, but the suits of armour, tapestries and assorted paraphernalia that littered the room could have provided cover for an army.

The knife had dropped down behind the bed head. She probably wouldn't have used it properly anyway.

Screaming for the guards, she decided, was not a good idea. If there was anyone in the room then the guards must have been overpowered, or at least stu

There was a warming pan on the flagstones by the fire. Would it make a weapon?

There was a faint metallic sound.

Perhaps screaming wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. . . .

The window imploded. For an instant Keli saw, framed against a hell of blue and purple flames, a hooded figure crouched on the back of the largest horse she had ever seen.

There was someone standing by the bed, with a knife half raised.

In slow motion, she watched fascinated as the arm went up and the horse galloped at glacier speed across the floor. Now the knife was above her, starting its descent, and the horse was rearing and the rider was standing in the stirrups and swinging some sort of weapon and its blade tore through the slow air with a noise like a finger on the rim of a wet glass —

The light vanished. There was a soft thump on the floor, followed by a metallic clatter.

Keli took a deep breath.

A hand was briefly laid across her mouth and a worried voice said, 'If you scream, I'll regret it. Please? I'm in enough trouble as it is.'

Anyone who could get that amount of bewildered pleading into their voice was either genuine or such a good actor they wouldn't have to bother with assassination for a living. She said, 'Who are you?'

'I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you,' said the voice. 'You are still alive, aren't you?'

She bit down the sarcastic reply just in time. Something about the tone of the question worried her.

'Can't you tell?' she said.

'It's not easy. . . .' There was a pause. She strained to see in the darkness, to put a face around that voice. 'I may have done you some terrible harm,' it added.