Mort

'I dunno,' said Albert, starting a fresh row. 'Firmament, I suppose. That's the fancy name for raw nothing. It's not a very good job of work, to tell the truth. I mean, the garden's okay, but the mountains are downright shoddy. They're all fuzzy when you get up close. I went and had a look once.'

Mort squinted hard at the trees nearest him. They seemed commendably solid.

'What'd he do it all for?' he said.

Albert grunted. 'Do you know what happens to lads who ask too many questions?'

Mort thought for a moment.

'No,' he said eventually, 'what?'

There was silence.

Then Albert straightened up and said, 'Damned if I know. Probably they get answers, and serve 'em right.'

'He said I could go out with him tonight,' said Mort.

'You're a lucky boy then, aren't you,' said Albert vaguely, heading back for the cottage.

'Did he really make all this?' said Mort, tagging along after him.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I suppose he wanted somewhere where he could feel at home.'

'Are you dead, Albert?'

'Me? Do I look dead?' The old man snorted when Mort started to give him a slow, critical look, 'and you can stop that. I'm as alive as you are. Probably more.'

'Sorry.'

'Right.' Albert pushed open the back door, and turned to regard Mort as kindly as he could manage.

'It's best not to ask all these questions,' he said, 'it upsets people. Now, how about a nice fry-up?'

The bell rang while they were playing dominoes. Mort sat to attention.

'He'll want the horse made ready,' said Albert. 'Come on.'

They went out to the stable in the gathering dusk, and Mort watched the old man saddle up Death's horse.

'His name's Binky,' said Albert, fastening the girth. 'It just goes to show, you never can tell.'

Binky tried to eat his scarf in an affectionate way.

Mort remembered the woodcut in his grandmother's almanack, between the page on planting times and the phases of the moon section, showing Dethe the Great Levyller Comes To Alle Menne. He'd stared at it hundreds of times when learning his letters. It wouldn't have been half so impressive if it had been generally known that the flame-breathing horse the spectre rode was called Binky.

'I would have thought something like Fang or Sabre or Ebony,' Albert continued, 'but the master will have his little fancies, you know. Looking forward to it, are you?'

'I think so,' said Mort uncertainly. 'I've never seen Death actually at work.'

'Not many have,' said Albert. 'Not twice, at any rate.'