Mort

The change was remarkable. The cleaver was lowered and the family broke into broad smiles.

'There is much luck to us if a demon visits,' beamed the father. 'What is your wish, O foul spawn of Offler's loins?'

'Sorry?' said Mort.

'A demon brings blessing and good fortune on the man that helps it,' said the man. 'How may we be of assistance, O evil dog's-breath of the nether pit?'

'Well, I'm not very hungry,' said Mort, 'but if you know where I can get a fast horse, I could be in Sto Lat before sunset.'

The man beamed and bowed. 'I know the very place, noxious extrusion of the bowels, if you would be so good as to follow me.'

Mort hurried out after him. The ancient ancestor watched them go with a critical expression, its jowls rhythmically chewing.

'That was what they call a demon around here?' it said. 'Offler rot this country of dampness, even their demons are third-rate, not a patch on the demons we had in the Old Country.'

The wife placed a small bowl of rice in the folded middle pair of hands of the Offler statue (it would be gone in the morning) and stood back.

'Husband did say that last month at the CurryGardens he served a creature who was not there,' she said. 'He was impressed.'

Ten minutes later the man returned and, in solemn silence, placed a small heap of gold coins on the table. They represented enough wealth to purchase quite a large part of the city.

'He had a bag of them,' he said.

The family stared at the money for some time. The wife sighed.

'Riches bring many problems,' she said. 'What are we to do?'

'We return to Klatch,' said the husband firmly, 'where our children can grow up in a proper country, true to the glorious traditions of our ancient race and men do not need to work as waiters for wicked masters but can stand tall and proud. And we must leave right now, fragrant blossom of the date palm.'

'Why so soon, O hard-working son of the desert?'

'Because,' said the man, 'I have just sold the Patrician's champion racehorse.'

The horse wasn't as fine or as fast as Binky, but it swept the miles away under its hooves and easily outdistanced a few mounted guards who, for some reason, appeared anxious to talk to Mort. Soon the shanty suburbs of Morpork were left behind and the road ran out into rich black earth country of the Sto plain, constructed over eons by the periodic flooding of the great slow Ankh that brought to the region prosperity, security and chronic arthritis.

It was also extremely boring. As the light distilled from silver to gold Mort galloped across a flat, chilly landscape, chequered with cabbage fields from edge to edge. There are many things to be said about cabbages. One may talk at length about their high vitamin content, their vital iron contribution, the valuable roughage and commendable food value. In the mass, however, they lack a certain something; despite their claim to immense nutritional and moral superiority over, say, daffodils, they have never been a sight to inspire the poet's muse. Unless he was hungry, of course. It was only twenty miles to Sto Lat, but in terms of meaningless human experience it seemed like two thousand.

There were guards on the gates of Sto Lat, although compared to the ones that patrolled Ankh they had a sheepish, amateurish look. Mort trotted past; and one of them, feeling a bit of a fool, asked him who went there.

'I'm afraid I can't stop,' said Mort.

The guard was new to the job, and quite keen. Guarding wasn't what he'd been led to expect. Standing around all day in chain mail with an axe on a long pole wasn't what he'd volunteered for; he'd expected excitement and challenge and a crossbow and a uniform that didn't go rusty in the rain.

He stepped forward, ready to defend the city against people who didn't respect commands given by duly authorized civic employees. Mort considered the pike blade hovering a few inches from his face. There was getting to be too much of this.