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Death arrived on time, naturally. The storm had ravaged its way across the Great Nef, sending great waves across the Dehydrated Ocean and seriously rattling the unusual fish that swam in its silvery depths. Travelers often crossed the Nef in their great cart-boats, scudding gracefully across the expanse in search of something better on the other side. This cart-boat, not lucky enough to reach the other side, lay dashed to splinters from the storm, which was already moving on as Death collected two sparks in his saddlebags, a neat end to the night's work.
He heard a baby crying in the wreckage.
Death wasn't foolish. He knew babies needed attention. A child left out here in the lonely wilderness would not survive long without its parents. The calculations had been clear that he was meant to collect two souls from this wreck tonight but perhaps he had another appointment here tomorrow. With a gesture, he called another lifetimer into his bony hand, expecting a few days or hours of sand to remain, but the top bulb was full as it hissed. He gave it an experimental shake but the sand remained. The baby cried again.
He easily moved aside the remains of the cart and within found a compartment miraculously still intact. Inside was a cradle, tipped at an angle against the wall. He peered inside. Babies at this age were sexless lumps. He had noticed some parents would tie a bow to the heads of the little girls as if to remind themselves what to watch out for at the next nappy change. No bow on this one. The lifetimer scrawled the name "Ysabell" across itself in an invisible hand as he watched.
She stilled her cries, watching Death with huge eyes, unafraid and curious. Children saw what was really there, not yet sculpted by life into believing reality was less interesting than it was.
She reached out her arms, wanting up. Death had no instincts, which tended to be hard-wired in the brain by generations of ancestors who'd survived long enough to become ancestors. Death had existed since shortly after the first living thing came into being and started the entire "ancestor" process, and had no such wiring. Nevertheless he reached in and lifted her into his arms and did not know why. They stared at one another for a long moment. Then, as if coming to an important conclusion, Ysabell shoved her thumb into her mouth.
Death stood there. If another human came along, or a friendly mother hippo, he would leave the child to them. Fate enjoyed that sort of thing; if he listened closely he sometimes heard the dice rattling as the gods played their games. For miles around the cart, he heard only the silence of the desert after a storm. Not even the few insects that could survive out here were ready to emerge.
No one would come for her.
She blinked at him. Far too young for words, the meaning was clear: someone had already come. What he did about it would be his choice.
Binky snuffled at him, curious, while Death mounted with one hand. The other held Ysabell in a safe embrace.
HOME, BINKY.
She let out a happy squeal as they galloped away together.
Albert was not pleased when Death arrived. "Master, how are we going to feed her? Or take care of her? We don't have a nursery."
GO INTO THE WORLD AND PURCHASE SOME WARM MILK FOR HER. Death handed Albert some corroded coins. BLANKETS, NAPPIES, THAT SORT OF THING. He stood there perplexed, realizing that "milk, blankets, nappies" summarized the entire list of things he knew about living babies. He suspected Albert knew even less. Warm milk tended to be a regular item for babies. A COW? he asked with some dread.
"Right, Master," Albert said with a sigh.
By the time he returned, Death's mansion had grown again, adding more interior rooms and an entire staircase, as well as a second stall next to Binky's for the cow. Death had created a black cradle which was, aside from the tasteful skull and crossbones motif adorning the headpiece, twin to the cradle he'd plucked Ysabell from. She wouldn't have anything to do with it, preferring to clutch his dark robe with one hand while the fingers of her other hand crammed into her mouth. Explaining to her that this was her bed now appeared to do no good. She wanted to be held while he walked, so he walked through the strange corridors of his mansion and introduced her to her new home.
THIS IS THE STUDY. Her eyes swiveled to look all around her. If she understood, she gave no sign. THIS IS THE KITCHEN. ALBERT FRIES THINGS IN HERE.
"Will she age?"
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
"You know exactly what I mean, Master." Albert had been one of the greatest wizards the Disc had ever known. He extended his hand and pulled up his own lifetimer, an astonishing trick from anyone else but the easiest magic he could perform. His hourglass was more empty than full but unlike all the other lifetimers in Death's domain, his remained silent, paused at the edge of the spill of a single grain. Time could pass here but for Albert all these centuries they'd spent together were counted in less than the blink of an eye.
"If she's staying, she can't stay a baby forever. We'll be buried in soiled nappies." That was an unpleasant consideration.
Death juggled her into one arm and pulled up her lifetimer. For now, grains of sand hushed past one another, sending seconds into the past. TIME WILL PASS FOR HER.
Death counted six teeth in her tiny mouth with two more about to break through as he fed her. He was not certain fried porridge with runny eggs was good for babies but she seemed to enjoy the tentative bites from the spoon Death held to her mouth. After her belly was full she began to yawn with tiny stretches. He placed her into the cradle with the blankets Albert had found, and he rocked it with his foot, watching her in a silence only Death could manage.
"Again!" Ysabell demanded.
I HAVE ALREADY READ THE BOOK TWO TIMES TONIGHT, Death said reasonably.
"Again!"
ALBERT? he asked pleadingly.
"I read it three times last night while you were busy with the Duty."
Death returned the book to the first page. He'd bought the book from a shop in Ankh-Morpork one day when the Assassin's Guild had been running a two-for-one special and it had hardly been worth leaving the city. Now his daughter wanted the story read to her multiple times every single night before bed.
ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WERE THREE LITTLE DUCKLINGS NAMED BINGO, BONGO, AND SALLY.
"Quack!" demanded Ysabell.
Death looked over to where Albert waited in the doorway but there was no help there.
QUACK QUACK QUACK, said Death, like the collapse of galaxies. If he had to read it again tomorrow, he was going to start reading autobiographies from the library to her. He would even do the voices.
The girl grew in spurts. Albert seemed to think this was normal. Death traditionally only saw humans one day of their lives and they did not grow afterwards. Before he knew it, Ysabell was running through the dark grass of their strange country, could write her name in shaky block letters with straggling serifs, could count to one hundred and insisted on demonstrating this whenever possible.
"Forty-seven, forty-eight...."
"It's those books, Master. When I was a lad, no one would have let a little gel learn to read. Puts ideas in their heads." Death's skull was famously inexpressive but Albert had lived with Death a very long time and knew his expressions better than anyone. He added, "It's long overdue if you ask me."
"Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four...."
SHE WILL LEARN MATHEMATICS. WHAT ELSE IS APPROPRIATE FOR A YOUNG GIRL?
Albert paused, out of his depth when dealing with the nuances of fifty percent of the human population. He'd had a mother once, centuries ago, and he still had a vague memory of a sister, but his time on the mortal plane had been primarily spent at Unseen University surrounded by the company of other men. He'd spent the rest of his not-exactly-life here with Death as his only companion.
Little girls played with dolls, he seemed to recall, but Ysabell already owned several dolls. In Albert's limited experience that ought to mean rocking them like babies or making pretend tea parties but Ysabell draped her dolls in black blanket scraps like robes. She fashioned little makeshift scythes out of lost straws from the broom while intoning in her deepest voice, "Cower, brief mortals!" before having them collect each other's souls. Possibly this was normal play for gels her age. He really couldn't say.
"Dancing? Sewing? Cooking?"
"Seventy-eight...."
I WILL BRING HER MORE BOOKS.
Albert did all the cooking in the household and had no use for the cookbooks Death had brought home. Ysabell stood next to him at the great black stove to observe as he talked her through the best way to deep-fry a pudding. Her experiments with this were less than successful. Albert finally banished her after hastily patting out the small grease fire spattering over his trousers and frizzling her hair.
"I'll do the cooking, and you can eat your dinner, and we'll all be happier for that division of labor." But he wasn't truly angry with her, and later that same evening he fried up an entire batch of chocolates just for her.
Ysabell took to sewing reluctantly but with the understanding that mending and making her own clothes was preferable to asking her father to create or bring her new ones. He could imagine fabric and thread in choice of black or bone white. She could prick her fingers through making dresses and play clothes and underthings too embarrassing to request.
Mathematics was far more interesting. She was still young enough to sit on her father's bony lap as he showed her the calculations her performed each day, identifying the important nodes for the collection of souls to keep the rest ticking along. GOOD, he told her when she traced the curve of spacetime with one finger.
"Klatch," she said, triangulating the location on the map of the Disc. Then she beamed up with pride at him. Death always smiled but today he smiled in his eyes as well as his permanent grin, proud of her.
And then there was the dancing.
Death occasionally attempted human things such as playing the violin or the harpsichord, but rhythm and tempo were beyond him. Albert could manage a tune with wax paper and a comb as long as that tune was a drinking song he remembered from his rowdy student days long ago. (Music was one of the two things wizards allegedly never partook of. The truth was that music was something they were merely bad at, and the other was discouraged on the risk of accidentally contracting sourcerors. Albert had never worried about the latter as that was an ailment a wizard could only catch from women.)
With so little music available in his own country, Death took Ysabell into the world instead. She'd sewn her dress for the occasion, learning by trial and error how to make ruffles and bows from the silky material at her disposal. She alternated colours for the pleats and gores. He thought she looked like a black and white checkerboard as she twirled her skirt but she appeared to enjoy the effect. He'd chosen an event in Genua, trusting they'd fit in with the easy ebb and flow of the tourists mingling with the local population. Everyone stood out in Genua thus no one did.
Girls ranged in age from a few years younger than Ysabell to nearly seventeen or eighteen. Some clearly knew one another, clumping in high-pitched groups impressed by each other's clothes, while others lurked at the sides, flitting their eyes from face to face in hope of finding someone known. The music kicked in, and the older girls went to the dance floor first in their gowns. Most of the fabric here was bright like tropical birds. As Ysabell edged out among them, the stark black and white of her own dress stood out before she began to spin and sway, raising more than a few titters from the other girls.
Death had brought her books about dancing per Albert's advice, and had read to her the autobiographies of the greatest dancers who had ever lived: the holy rain dancers from the Lost City of Ee. Ysabell was easily the best-read dancer in the room. Her gyrations were quite unlike the rest, and to his great pride, she quickly summoned a small thundercloud in the middle of the room.
"Why did they cancel the dance?" she asked as everyone was shoved out the door in their wet silks.
IT MUST BE SOME GENUAN THING.
They found another party, this one in the less brightly lit but more energetic part of the city. This time Ysabell dragged Death to the dance floor with her while the other dancers desperately tried not to see either of them. When the music slowed, she grasped onto his robe like she'd done as a baby, and stood atop his feet as they moved together in something like a waltz.
Later, after she'd gone off to marry Mort and become a Duchess, Death occasionally found himself thinking back to that night in Genua. He hoped she was as happy every day in her new life as she'd been that one day in damp silks, laughing with glee.
Death was busy with his calculations when a stray thought struck. He was alone in his office, a cup of tea steaming on his desk beside him. At a snap of his fingers, Ysabell's lifetimer was in his hand. He looked at the top bulb. Sand had poured through, as the sand always did. He noticed that the bulb was now nearly half empty, showing the wisps of steam emerging from his teacup as he looked through the glass. Time went on for mortals, unless it was unnaturally stopped the way Albert's life was held in stasis. He gave the hourglass a little shake but the sands continued to fall exactly as they were designed to fall.
She was currently out in the stables rubbing Binky down after a ride. Death was everywhere, including in the stables. He watched his daughter. Ysabell was sixteen now, not yet an adult, no longer a little child, and already halfway through her time. He'd allowed her to age but aging was a choice here in his realm. She could grow older or she could remain forever as young as she was today, no different from Albert or Binky. Time did not rule this land and passed only at his discretion.
He watched more grains of sand slip through, counting out the seconds of his daughter's life. Love was something Death had no capacity for just like instinct or companionship or anything else he would swear was beyond him. But Ysabell had lived here for sixteen years, and Albert for centuries, and he did not wish to imagine his existence without either.
He touched the top bulb. The sand stopped. FOR NOW, Death promised himself. In his domain the eternal "now" could last as long as it needed to.
He returned to work.