Welcome to the Discworld & Pratchett Wiki. Have fun, contribute and be warned articles may contain nuts and spoilers to the plots of the books.
Mort
From Discworld & Pratchett Wiki
This article is about the character. For the book of the same name see Mort.
| Mort | |
 | |
| Name | Mortimer |
| Age | |
| Race | Human
(Briefly became an Anthropomorphic personification) |
| Occupation | Duke of Sto Helit, formerly apprenticed to Death |
| Looks | Tall, red haired and possessing more than the usual allotment of knees. |
| Residence | |
| Death | |
| Parents | Lezek(father) |
| Relatives | Hamesh (Uncle) |
| Children | Susan (daughter) |
| Marital Status | Married to Ysabell |
| Books | Mort |
| Cameos | |
Mort (short for Mortimer) is a young boy from the Ramtops, son of Lezek. He was very thin during his childhood, and he lived at his father's farm until he was old enough to go to apprenticeship, becaming Death's apprentice at the stroke of midnight. There he learned about the fabrics of time and space, the thin line between life and death, and how to clean out Binky's stable. During the course of his apprenticeship, Mort acquired some of Death's special abilities, such as the ability to see the dead and to walk through walls.
As the book progresses, Mort develops more and more Death-like traits: he learns to speak with the voice , and Ysabell is alarmed to notice his brown eyes have turned to Death's icy blue. Correspondingly, Death himself becomes more human, as if the roles are shifting, and for the first and only time, His voice is rendered in lowercase.
However, the first time Mort does the job by himself, he saves someone instead of collecting their soul, causing a rift in time and space, between what actually happened and what was supposed to happen. In attempting to maintain the reality that he created, Mort rebelled against his Master, resulting in a swordfight in Death's own home. Mort lost, but Death changed his mind about killing him, perhaps due to what Mort said, or perhaps Death saw Susan witnessing the fight, and realised that it was necessary to keep his apprentice alive. It should be mentioned that during Mort's apprenticeship, his father never knew what Mort was doing; he thought Mort was an apprentice to an undertaker, because of his subconscious unwillingness to see Death.
Mort married Ysabell and became the Duke of Sto Helit. Both were killed in a coach accident in Soul Music, even though Death offered them an immortality of sorts in his own realm. Their daughter Susan Sto Helit inherited some of her father's special abilities, including the slap mark Death left on Mort's face.
Annotations
The motto of the Sto Helit family is Non Timetus Messor, which is translated in the article concerning links with the Roundworld heavy rock band Blue Öyster Cult, whose biggest hit record on Roundworld was....
