Mort glanced sideways at the top of Ysabell's dress, which contained enough puppy fat for two litters of Rotweilers, and forbore to comment.
'My eyebrows don't look like a pair of mating caterpillars,' he hazarded.
ought so.'
Cutwell patted her ineptly on the hand, and Keli was too preoccupied even to notice such flagrant lesè majesté.
'You see, everything's fixed. History is all worked out, from start to finish. What the facts actually are is beside the point; history just rolls straight over the top of them. You can't change anything because the changes are already part of it. You're dead. It's fated. You'll just have to accept it.'
He gave an apologetic grin. 'You're a lot luckier than most dead people, if you look at it objectively,' he said. 'You're alive to enjoy it.'
'I don't want to accept it. Why should I accept it? It's not my fault!'
'You don't understand. History is moving on. You can't get involved in it any more. There isn't a part in it for you, don't you see? Best to let things take their course.' He patted her hand again. She looked at him. He withdrew his hand.
'What am I supposed to do then?' she said. 'Not eat, because the food wasn't destined to be eaten by me? Go and live in a crypt somewhere?'
'Bit of a poser, isn't it?' agreed Cutwell. 'That's fate for you, I'm afraid. If the world can't sense you, you don't exist. I'm a wizard. We know —'
'Don't say it.'
Keli stood up.
Five generations ago one of her ancestor had halted his band of nomadic cutthroats a few miles from the mound of Sto Lat and had regarded the sleeping city with a peculiarly determined expression that said: This'll do. Just because you're born in the saddle doesn't mean you have to die in the bloody thing.
Strangely enough, many of his distinctive features had, by a trick of heredity, been bequeathed to his descendant[3], accounting for her rather idiosyncratic attractiveness. They were never more apparent than now. Even Cutwell was impressed. When it came to determination, you could have cracked rocks on her jaw.
In exactly the same tone of voice that her ancestor had used when he addressed his weary, sweaty followers before the attack[4], she said:
'No. No, I'm not going to accept it. I'm not going to dwindle into some sort of ghost. You're going to help me, wizard.'
Cutwell's subconscious recognised that tone. It had harmonics in it that made even the woodworm in the floorboards stop what they were doing and stand to attention. It wasn't voicing an opinion, it was saying: things will be thus.
'Me, madam?' he quavered, 'I don't see what I can possibly—'
He was jerked off his chair and out into the street, his robes billowing around him. Keli marched towards the palace with her shoulders set determinedly, dragging the wizard behind her like a reluctant puppy. It was with such a walk that mothers used to bear down on the local school when their little boy came home with a black eye; it was unstoppable; it was like the March of Time.
'What is it you intend?' Cutwell stuttered, horribly aware that there was going to be nothing he could do to resist, whatever it was.
'It's your lucky day, wizard.'
'Oh. Good,' he said weakly.
'You've just been appointed Royal Recogniser.'
'Oh. What does that entail, exactly?'
'You're going to remind everyone I'm alive. It's very simple. There's three square meals a day and your laundry done. Step lively, man.'
'Royal?'
'You're a wizard. I think there's something you ought to know,' said the princess.
THERE is? said Death.
(That was a cinematic trick adapted for print. Death wasn't talking to the princess. He was actually in his study, talking to Mort. But it was quite effective, wasn't it? It's probably called a fast dissolve, or a crosscut/zoom. Or something. An industry where a senior technician is called a Best Boy might call it anything.)
AND WHAT IS THAT? he added, winding a bit of black silk around the wicked hook in a little vice he'd clamped to his desk.