Mort

They stared up and out at the endless ranks of lifetimers, every one different, every one named. The light from torches ranged along the walls picked highlights off them, so that a star gleamed on every glass. The far walls of the room were lost in the galaxy of light.

Mort felt Ysabell's fingers tighten on his arm.

When she spoke, her voice was strained. 'Mort, some of them are so small.'

I KNOW.

Her grip relaxed, very gently, like someone putting the top ace on a house of cards and taking their hand away gingerly so as not to bring the whole edifice down.

'Say that again?' she said quietly.

'I said I know. There's nothing I can do about it. Haven't you been in here before?'

'No.' She had withdrawn slightly, and was staring at his eyes.

'It's no worse than the library,' said Mort, and almost believed it. But in the library you only read about it; in here you could see it happening.

'Why are you looking at me like that?' he added.

'I was just trying to remember what colour your eyes were,' she said, 'because —'

'If you two have quite had enough of each other!' bellowed Albert above the roar of the sand. 'This way!'

'Brown,' said Mort to Ysabell. 'They're brown. Why?'

'Hurry up!'

'You'd better go and help him,' said Ysabell. 'He seems to be getting quite upset.'

Mort left her, his mind a sudden swamp of uneasiness, and stalked across the tiled floor to where Albert stood impatiently tapping a foot.

'What do I have to do?' he said.

'Just follow me.'

The room opened out into a series of passages, each one lined with the hourglasses. Here and there the shelves were divided by stone pillars inscribed with angular markings. Albert glanced at them occasionally; mainly he strode through the maze of sand as though he knew every turn by heart.

'Is there one glass for everyone, Albert?'

'Yes.'

'This place doesn't look big enough.'

'Do you know anything about m-dimensional topography?'

'Um. No.'

Then I shouldn't aspire to hold any opinions, if I was you,' said Albert.

He paused in front of a shelf of glasses, glanced at the paper again, ran his hand along the row and suddenly snatched up a glass. The top bulb was almost empty.

'Hold this,' he said. 'If this is right, then the other should be somewhere near. Ah. Here.'

Mort turned the two glasses around in his hands. One had all the markings of an important life, while the other one was squat and quite unremarkable.

Mort read the names. The first seemed to refer to a nobleman in the Agatean Empire regions. The second was a collection of pictograms that he recognized as originating in Turnwise Klatch.