'Goodbye, dad. I'll come back to visit,' said Mort. Death coughed tactfully, although it sounded like the pistol-crack of an ancient beam full of death-watch beetle.
WE HAD BETTER BE GOING, he said. HOP UP, MORT.
As Mort scrambled behind the ornate silver saddle Death leaned down and shook Lezek's hand.
THANK YOU, he said.
'He's a good lad at heart,' said Lezek. 'A bit dreamy, that's all. I suppose we were all young once.'
Death considered this.
No, he said, I DON'T THINK so.
He gathered up the reins and turned the horse towards the Rim road. From his perch behind the black-robed figure Mort waved desperately.
Lezek waved back. Then, as the horse and its two riders disappeared from view, he lowered his hand and looked at it. The handshake . . . it had felt strange. But, somehow, he couldn't remember exactly why.
Mort listened to the clatter of stone under the horse's hooves. Then there was the soft thud of packed earth as they reached the road, and then there was nothing at all.
He looked down and saw the landscape spread out below him, the night etched with moonlight silver. If he fell off, the only thing he'd hit was air.
He redoubled his grip on the saddle.
Then Death said, ARE YOU HUNGRY, BOY?
'Yes, sir.' The words came straight from his stomach without the intervention of his brain.
Death nodded, and reined in the horse. It stood on the air, the great circular panorama of the Disc glittering below it. Here and there a city was an range glow; in the warm seas nearer the Rim there was a hint of phosphorescence. In some of thedeep valleys the trapped daylight of the Disc, which is slow and slightly heavy[1], was evaporating like silver steam.
But it was outshone by the glow that rose towards the stars from the Rim itself. Vast streamers of light shimmered and glittered across the night. Great golden walls surrounded the world.
'It's beautiful,' said Mort softly. 'What is it?'
THE SUN is UNDER THE Disc, said Death.
'Is it like this every night?'
EVERY NIGHT, said Death. NATURE'S LIKE THAT.
'Doesn't anyone know?'
ME. You. THE GODS. GOOD, IS IT?
'Gosh!'
Death leaned over the saddle and looked down at the kingdoms of the world.
I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, he Said, BUT I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
Although it was well after midnight the twin city of Ankh-Morpork was roaring with life. Mort had thought Sheepridge looked busy, but compared to the turmoil of the street around him the town was, well, a morgue.
Poets have tried to describe Ankh-Morpork. They have failed. Perhaps it's the sheer zestful vitality of the place, or maybe it's just that a city with a million inhabitants and no sewers is rather robust for poets, who prefer daffodils and no wonder. So let's just say that Ankh-Morpork is as full of life as an old cheese on a hot day, as loud as a curse in a cathedral, as bright as an oil slick, as colourful as a bruise and as full of activity, industry, bustle and sheer exuberant busyness as a dead dog on a termite mound.
There were temples, their doors wide open, filling the streets with the sounds of gongs, cymbals and, in the case of some of the more conservative fundamentalist religions, the brief screams of the victims. There were shops whose strange wares spilled out on to the pavement. There seemed to be rather a lot of friendly young ladies who couldn't afford many clothes. There were flares, and jugglers, and assorted sellers of instant transcendence.
And Death stalked through it all. Mort had half expected him to pass through the crowds like smoke, but it wasn't like that at all. The simple truth was that wherever Death walked, people just drifted out of the way.
It didn't work like that for Mort. The crowds that gently parted for his new master closed again just in time to get in his way. His toes got trodden on, his ribs were bruised, people kept trying to sell him unpleasant spices and suggestively-shaped vegetables, and a rather elderly lady said, against all the evidence, that he looked a well set-up young lad who would like a nice tune.