Page 10 (1/2)

'You're staying here, sir?' Death looked up and down the street His eye-sockets flared

I THOUGHT I MIGHT STROLL AROUND A BIT, he said mysteriously I DON'T SEEM TO FEEL QUITE RIGHT I COULD DO WITH THE FRESH AIR He see, reached into the lasses ALL STRAIGHTFORWARD, he said ENJOY YOURSELF

He turned and strode off down the street, hu

'Ulasses up to the light, noting the one that was on its very last few grains of sand

'Does this e?' he called, but Death had turned the corner

Binky greeted hinition Mortwith apprehension and responsibility His fingers worked auto and locking the blade (which flashed steely blue in the night, slicing the starlight like sala at the stab fro a pillow As an afterthought, drunk with delegated authority, he pulled Death's riding cloak out of its saddlebag and fastened it by its silver brooch

He took another look at the first hourglass, and nudged Binky with his knees The horse sniffed the chilly air, and began to trot

Behind the down the frosty street with his robes flying out behind hi the distance between its hooves and the cobbles With a swish of its tail it cleared the housetops and floated up into the chilly sky

Cutwell ignored it He hadleap and landed full length in the freezing waters of the horsetrough, lying back gratefully aan to steam Mort kept low for the sheer exhilaration of the speed The sleeping countryside roared soundlessly underneath Binkyunder his skin as easily as alligators off a sandbank, his ht swirled away fro halves

They sped under the ht as silent as a shadow, visible only to cats and people who dabbled in things men were not meant to wot of

Mort couldn't rehed

Soon the frosty plains gave way to the broken lands around theranks of the Ramtops themselves raced across the world towards the for a pass between two ht Somewhere a wolf howled

Mort took another look at the hourglass Its frame was carved with oak leaves and ht, was pale gold By turning the glass this way and that, he could just ' etched in the faintest of lines

Binky slowed to a canter Mort looked down at the roof of a forest, dusted with snow that was either early or very, very late; it could have been either, because the Ramtops hoarded their weather and doled it out with no real reference to the tiap opened up beneath theain, wheeled around and descended towards a clearing that hite with drifted snow It was circular, with a tiny cottage in the exact round around it hadn't been covered in snow, Mort would have noticed that there were no tree stumps to be seen; the trees hadn't been cut down in the circle, they'd si there Or had ht spilled froe pool on the snow

Binky touched down s He left no hoofprints, of course

Mort dis to hi experie roof had been built ide eaves, to shed snow and cover the logpile No dweller in the high Rapile on three sides of the house But there wasn't a logpile here, even though spring was still a long way off

There was, however, a bundle of hay in a net by the door It had a note attached, written in big, slightly shaky capitals: FOR THEE HORS

It would have worried Mort if he'd let it Soh, that rather than drown in uncertainty it was best to surf right over the top of it Anyway, Binky wasn't worried by ht in

It did leave the problem of whether to knock So no-one answered, or told hio away?

So he lifted the thu inwards quite easily, without a creak

There was a low-ceilinged kitchen, its beaht fro dresser and flagstones that had been scrubbed and polished into iridescence The fire in the cave-like inglenook didn't add ht, because it was noMort kneithout being told, that it was the last log

An elderly lady was sitting at the kitchen table, writing furiously with her hooked nose only a few inches frorey cat curled on the table beside her blinked calmly at Mort

The scythe bumped off a beam The woman looked up

'Be with you in a minute,' she said She frowned at the paper 'I haven't put in the bit about being of sound mind and body yet, lot of foolishness anyway, no-one sound in mind and body would be dead Would you like a drink?'

'Pardon?' said Mort He recalled himself, and repeated 'PARDON?'

'If you drink, that is It's raspberry port On the dresser You ht as well finish the bottle'

Mort eyed the dresser suspiciously He felt he'd rather lost the initiative He pulled out the hourglass and glared at it There was a little heap of sand left

There's still a fewup

'How, I nored him, and dried the ink in front of the candle, sealed the letter with a drip of wax, and tucked it under the candlestick Then she picked up the cat

'Granny Beedle will be around directly too with her, understand? And see she lets Gammer Nutley have the pink marble washstand, she's had her eye on it for years'

The cat yawped knowingly

'I haven't, that is, I HAVEN'T GOT ALL NIGHT, YOU KNOW,' said Mort reproachfully

'You have, I haven't, and there's no need to shout,' said the witch She slid off her stall and then Mort sa bent she was, like a bow With some difficulty she unhooked a tall pointed hat from its nail on the wall, skewered it into place on her white hair with a battery of hatpins, and grasped talking sticks

She tottered across the floor towards Mort, and looked up at hiht as blackcurrants