Mort

And a hand grabbed his hair and dragged him to the surface,which was suddenly full ofpain. Ghastly blue and black blotches swam in front of his eyes. His lungs were on fire. His throat was a pipe of agony.

Hands – cold hands, freezing hands, hands that felt like a glove full of dice – towed him through the water and threw him down on to the bank where, after some game attempts to get on with drowning, he was eventually bullied back into what passed for his life.

Terpsic didn't often get angry, because Gwladys didn't hold with it. But he felt cheated. He'd been born without being consulted, he'd been married because Gwladys and her father had seen to it, and the only major human achievement that was uniquely his had been rudely snatched away from him. A few seconds ago it had all been so simple. Now it was all complicated again.

Not that he wanted to die, of course. The gods were very firm on the subject of suicide. He just hadn't wanted to be rescued.

Through red eyes in a mask of slime and duckweed he peered at the blurred form above him, and shouted, 'Why did you have to save me?'

The answer worried him. He thought about it as he squelched all the way home. It sat at the back of his mind while Gwladys complained about the state of his clothes. It squirrelled around in his head as he sat and sneezed guiltily by the fire, because being ill was another thing Gwladys didn't hold with. As he lay shivering in bed it settled in his dreams like an iceberg. In the midst of his fever he muttered, 'What did he mean, "FOR LATER"?'

Torches flared in the city of Sto Lat. Whole squads of men were charged with the task of constantly renewing them. The streets glowed. The sizzling flames pushed back shadows that had been blamelessly minding their own business every night for centuries. They illuminated ancient corners where the eyes of bewildered rats glittered in the depths of their holes. They forced burglars to stay indoors. They glowed on the night mists, forming a nimbus of yellow light that blotted out the cold high flames streaming from the Hub. But mainly they shone on the face of Princess Keli.

It was everywhere. It plastered every flat surface. Binky cantered along the glowing streets between Princess Keli on doors, walls and gable ends. Mort gaped at posters of his beloved on every surface where workmen had been able to make paste stick.

Even stranger, no one seemed to be paying them much attention. While Sto Lat's night life was not as colourful and full of incident as that of Ankh-Morpork, in the same way that a wastepaper basket ca

He eventually dismounted and led the horse along Wall Street, searching in vain for Cutwell's house. He found it only because a lump on the nearest poster was making muffled swearing noises.

He reached out gingerly and pulled aside a strip of paper.

'Thanks very much,' said the gargoyle doorknocker. 'You wouldn't credit it, would you? One minute life as normal, nexft minute a mouthful of glue.'

'Where's Cutwell?'

'He's gone off to the palace.' The knocker leered at him and winked a cast-iron eye. 'Some men came and took all his fstuff away. Then some ovver men started pasting pictures of his girlfriend all over the place. Barftuds,' it added.

Mort coloured.

'His girlfriend?'

The doorknocker, being of the demonic persuasion, sniggered at his tone. It sounded like fingernails being dragged over a file.

'Yeff,' it said. They feemed in a bit of a hurry, if you ask me.'

Mort was already up on Binky's back.

'I fay!' shouted the knocker at his retreating back. 'I fay! Could you unftick me, boy?'

Mort tugged on Binky's reins so hard that the horse reared and danced crazily backwards across the cobbles, then reached out and grabbed the ring of the knocker. The gargoyle looked up into his face and suddenly felt like a very frightened doorknocker indeed. Mort's eyes glowed like crucibles, his expression was a furnace, his voice held enough heat to melt iron. It didn't know what he could do, but felt that it would prefer not to find out.

'What did you call me?' Mort hissed.

The doorknocker thought quickly. 'Fir?' it said.

'What did you ask me to do?'

'Unftick me?'

'I don't intend to.'

'Fine,' said the doorknocker, 'fine. That's okay by me. I'll just ftick around, then.'

It watched Mort canter off along the street and shuddered with relief, knocking itself gently in its nervousness.

'A naaaarrow sqeeeak,' said one of the hinges.

'Fut up!'

Mort passed night watchmen, whose job now appeared to consist of ringing bells and shouting the name of the Princess, but a little uncertainly, as if they had difficulty remembering it. He ignored them, because he was listening to voices inside his head which went:

She's only met you once, you fool. Why should she bother about you?

Yes, but I did save her life.

That means it belongs to her. Not to you. Besides, he's a wizard.

So what? Wizards aren't supposed to – to go out with girls, they're celebrate. . . .

Celebrate?

They're not supposed to, you know. . . .

What, never any you know at all? said the internal voice, and it sounded as if it was gri

It's supposed to be bad for the magic, thought Mort bitterly.

Fu

Mort was shocked. Who are you? he demanded.

I'm you, Mort. Your i

Well, I wish I'd get out of my head, it's quite crowded enough with me in here.

Fair enough, said the voice, I was only trying to help. But remember, if you ever need you, you're always around.

The voice faded away.

Well, thought Mort bitterly, that must have been me. I'm the only one that calls me Mort.

The shock of the realization quite obscured the fact that, while Mort had been locked into the monologue, he had ridden right through the gates of the palace. Of course, people rode through the gates of the palace every day, but most of them needed the things to be opened first.

The guards on the other side were rigid with fear, because they thought they had seen a ghost. They would have been far more frightened if they had known that a ghost was almost exactly what they hadn't seen.

The guard outside the doors of the great hall had seen it happen too, but he had time to gather his wits, or such that remained, and raise his spear as Binky trotted across the courtyard.

'Halt,' he croaked. 'Halt. What goes where?'

Mort saw him for the first time.

'What?' he said, still lost in thought.