'Mort' tells the story of Death hiring an apprentice. Mort (short for Mortimer) is the one boy left in the town without an apprenticeship, when, at the stroke of midnight, Death himself appears and offers to take the boy under his wing.

Mort is ensconced in Death’s abode, introduced to Death’s adopted daughter Isabelle and, as his first lesson in the secrets of time and space, cleans out the stable of Death’s horse, Binkie. Mort accompanies his mentor on the ‘rounds,’ until eventually Death decides that the young apprentice is ready to do a round by himself.

As one might expect, Mort’s first round does not go according to plan when he takes the wrong person to the afterlife. Here, the plot becomes even more surreal as history splits into two separate microcosms, in which events have happened slightly differently, and one version of events closes in on the other as history tries to heal itself. It says something about Pratchett’s style that the audience accepts this twist as if it made perfect sense.