LET ME GO, he intoned. I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED.
'Not you, idiot!'
She stared into the blue, pupil-less pools of his eyes. It was like looking down a rushing tunnel.
Mort arched his back and screamed a curse so ancient and virulent that in the strong magical field it actually took on a form, flapped its leathery wings and slunk away. A private thunderstorm crashed around the sand dunes.
His eyes drew her again. She looked away before she dropped like a stone down a well made of blue light.
I COMMAND YOU. Mort's voice could have cut holes in rock.
'Father tried that tone on me for years,' she said calmly. 'Generally when he wanted me to clean my bedroom. It didn't work then, either.'
Mort screamed another curse, which flopped out of the air and tried to bury itself in the sand.
THE PAIN —
'It's all in your head,' she said, bracing herself against the force that wanted to drag them towards that flickering doorway. 'You're not Death. You're just Mort. You're whatever I think you are.'
In the centre of the blurred blueness of his eyes were two tiny brown dots, rising at the speed of sight.
The storm around them rose and wailed. Mort screamed.
The Rite of AshkEnte, quite simply, summons and binds Death. Students of the occult will be aware that it can be performed with a simple incantation, three small bits of wood and 4cc of mouse blood, but no wizard worth his pointy hat would dream of doing anything so unimpressive; they knew in their hearts that if a spell didn't involve big yellow candles, lots of rare incense, circles drawn on the floor with eight different colours of chalk and a few cauldrons around the place then it simply wasn't worth contemplating.
The eight wizards at their stations on the points of the great ceremonial octogram swayed and chanted, their arms held out sideways so they were just touching the fingertips of the mages on either side.
But something was going wrong. True, a mist had formed in the very centre of the living octogram, but it was writhing and turning in on itself, refusing to focus.
'More power!' shouted Albert. 'Give it more power!'
A figure appeared momentarily in the smoke, black-robed and holding a glittering sword. Albert swore as he caught a glimpse of the pale face under the cowl; it wasn't pale enough.
'No!' Albert yelled, ducking into the octogram and flailing at the flickering shape with his hands. 'Not you, not you. . . .'
And, in faraway Tsort, Ysabell forgot she was a lady, bunched her fist, narrowed her eyes and caught Mort squarely on the jaw. The world around her exploded. . . .
In the kitchen of Harga's House of Ribs the frying pan crashed to the floor, sending the cats scurrying out of the door. . . .
In the great hall of the Unseen University everything happened at once.[9]
The tremendous force the wizards had been exerting on the shadow realm suddenly had one focus. Like a reluctant cork from a bottle, like a dollop of fiery ketchup from the upturned sauce bottle of Infinity, Death landed in the octogram and swore.
Albert realised just too late that he was inside the charmed ring and made a dive for the edge. But skeletal fingers caught him by the hem of his robe.
The wizards, such of them who were still on their feet and conscious, were rather surprised to see that Death was wearing an apron and holding a small kitten.
'Why did you have' TO SPOIL IT ALL?
'Spoil it all? Have you seen what the lad has done?' snapped Albert, still trying to reach the edge of the ring.
Death raised his skull and sniffed the air.
The sound cut through all the other noises in the hall and forced them into silence.
It was the kind of noise that is heard on the twilight edges of dreams, the sort that you wake from in a cold sweat of mortal horror. It was the snuffling under the door of dread. It was like the snuffling of a hedgehog, but if so then it was the kind of hedgehog that crashes out of the verges and flattens lorries. It was the kind of noise you wouldn't want to hear twice; you wouldn't want to hear it once.
t strutted along the row, poking the occasional paunch with his staff. His mind danced and sang. Go back? Never! This was power, this was living; he'd challenge old boniface and spit in his empty eye.