Death - morts room

His searching hands reached up to his cropped hair, and down to sheets of some smooth slippery
material. It was much finer than the wool he was used to at home, which was coarse and always
smelled of sheep; it felt like warm, dry ice.

He swung out of the bed hastily and stared around the room.

First of all it was large, larger than the entire house back home, and dry, dry as old tombs under
ancient deserts. The air tasted as though it had been cooked for hours and then allowed to cool. The
carpet under his feet was deep enough to hide a tribe of pygmies and crackled electrically as he
padded through it. And everything had been designed in shades of purple and black.

He looked down at his own body, which was wearing a long white nightshirt. His clothes had
been neatly folded on a chair by the bed; the chair, he couldn’t help noticing, was delicately carved
with a skull-and-bones motif.

Mort sat down on the edge of the bed and began to dress, his mind racing.
He eased open the heavy oak door, and felt oddly disappointed when it failed to creak
ominously.

There was a bare wooden corridor outside, with big yellow candles set in holders on the far
wall. Mort crept out and sidled along the boards until he reached a staircase. He negotiated that
successfully without anything ghastly happening, arriving in what looked like an entrance hall full of
doors. There were a lot of funereal drapes here, and a grandfather clock with a tick like the heartbeat
of a mountain. There was an umbrella stand beside it.
It had a scythe in it.

Mort looked around at the doors. They looked important. Their arches were carved in the now familiar bones motif. He went to try the nearest one, and a voice behind him said:

“You mustn’t go in there, boy.”

***

Mort p22-23