#4 'Mort': Death Comes to Us All Quiz

Answer: No

Although Mort spent most of his time away from the land of the living, he didn't actually have to die to get the job. He even checked with Death before he agreed to take the position. Mort's father willfully misheard the whole conversation, believing that his son was going to become an undertaker.

Answer: Cats

It turned out that Death had a fondness for cats. Like wizards, they were one of the few creatures that could always see Death, even when he wasn't coming for them. It angered him when people killed cats, and he stroked a variety of them on numerous occasions in the story. When Mort saw the ghostly figures of the drowned kittens in Ankh-Morpok he guessed that they were souls.

Answer: Albert and Ysabell

All of the options were famous Discworld duos, but it was Ysabell and Albert who lived in Death's house. Ysabell was Death's adopted daughter who spent her time reading the biographies of young people in love. Albert had made an agreement with Death towards the end of his life. Instead of dying, he spent thousands of years outside of time and became Death's servant.

Answer: King Olerve

King Olerve's power-hungry cousin, the Duke of Sto Helit, was moving himself up the line of succession by taking out the competition. He hired an assassin from Ankh-Morpork to kill the king during a party. Mort tried to save the king. He argued with Death about how unfair it was: a good man would die and the evil man behind the assassination would live for decades more.

But in the end, there was nothing Mort could do to stop the murder. When someone's time was up, they had to die.

Answer: A witch called Goodie Hamstring

Goodie Hamstring didn't want to move on to the next world. She wanted her ghost to stay on the Disc until she fizzled out. On Mort's next job, the abbot's soul wanted to be taken into the village so that he could be reincarnated. Even though, after being reborn thirty-odd times, he was sort of fed up with the idea.

Mort realised that souls went wherever they were expecting to go after death. He reasoned that it was unfair because bad people might expect a reward but some good people might think they deserve punishment for minor sins they had committed. Death told him that there was no justice, only himself.

Answer: Princess Keli

After taking the abbot into the town, Mort checked the name on his third and final timer of the night. An assassin had ben sent by the Duke to kill Princess Keli while she was asleep. She became queen after the assassination of her father, King Olerve, but the coronation ceremony was yet to take place. If the uncrowned queen died, the Duke of Sto Helit would become king. Mort didn't want that to happen, so he used Death's weapon on the assassin instead. Mort had interfered with time and destiny, so things started to go wrong for the princess.

Answer: Her parents

Ysabell's parents were killed while crossing the Great Nef in a storm. Death found her and, because he couldn't have real feelings (skeletons don't have glands), he 'thought' sorry for her. She had lived in Death's domain ever since.

Answer: Death

If a wizard needed to speak to Death (before their time was up) they would use the Rite of AshkEnte to summon him. The wizards liked to go overboard with octograms and magical paraphenalia, but the incantation was actually fairly simple. Death hated it when wizards summoned him using the Rite.

Their timing was always inconvenient for him. As Mort had taken on the role of Death, he felt the call, but Ysabell managed to make him stay put.

Answer: An elephant

The High Priest at the Temple of Blind Io had problems with his vision. The elephant was led to the altar where the priest was standing but he still couldn't see it. As the time bubble was closing in on Princess Keli, there wasn't much time for the coronation and the Priest was complicating everything.

When he finally brought the knife down, it grazed the elephant's trunk, enraging the animal and bringing an abrupt end to the coronation ceremony.

Answer: Death turned it over.

After spending most of the story experimenting with living while Mort took over the Duty, Death decided that being alive wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was interfering with his judgement for a start. A number of lifetimers were broken during the fight, including the one belonging to the Duke of Sto Helit. Mort's sand ran out, but Death turned it over so that the sand continued to run.

He sent Mort and Ysabell back to the Disc, where they married and became the Duke and Duchess of Sto Helit.