'I don't intend to. But it strikes me that you don't get to be a powerful wizard by telling the truth all the time. Ysabell, read out what's being written.'
' “Albert looked at him uncertainly”,' Ysabell read.
'You can't believe everything writ down there —'
'— “he burst out, knowing in the flinty pit of his heart that Mort certainly could”,' Ysabell read.
'Stop it!'
' “he shouted, trying to put at the back of his mind the knowledge that even if Reality could not be stopped it might be possible to slow it down a little”.'
HOW?
' “intoned Mort in the leaden tones of Death”,' began Ysabell dutifully.
'Yes, yes, all right, you needn't bother with my bit,' snapped Mort irritably.
'Pardon me for living, I'm sure.'
NO-ONE GETS PARDONED FOR LIVING.
'And don't talk like that to me, thank you. It doesn't frighten me,' she said. She glanced down at the book, where the moving line of writing was calling her a liar.
Tell me how, wizard,' said Mort.
'My magic's all I've got left!' wailed Albert.
'You don't need it, you old miser.'
'You don't frighten me, boy —'
LOOK INTO MY FACE AND TELL ME THAT.
Mort snapped his fingers imperiously. Ysabell bent her head over the book again.
' “Albert looked into the blue glow of those eyes and the last of his defiance drained away”,' she read, ' “for he saw not just Death but Death with all the human seasonings of vengeance and cruelty and distaste, and with a terrible certainty he knew that this was the last chance and Mort would send him back into Time and hunt him down and take him and deliver him bodily into the dark Dungeon Dimensions where creatures of horror would dot dot dot dot dot”,' she finished. 'It's just dots for half a page.'
That's because the book daren't even mention them,' whispered Albert. He tried to shut his eyes but the pictures in the darkness behind his eyelids were so vivid that he opened them again. Even Mort was better than that.
'All right,' he said. There is one spell. It slows down time over a little area. I'll write it down, but you'll have to find a wizard to say it.'
'I can do that.'
Albert ran a tongue like an old loofah over his dry lips.
There is a price, though,' he added. 'You must complete the Duty first.'
'Ysabell?' said Mort. She looked at the page in front of her.
'He means it,' she said. 'If you don't then everything will go wrong and he'll drop back into Time anyway.'
All three of them turned to look at the great clock that dominated the hallway. Its pendulum blade sawed slowly through the air, cutting time into little pieces.
Mort groaned.
'There isn't enough time!' he groaned. 'I can't do both of them in time!'
'The master would have found time,' observed Albert.