Mort remembered the woodcut in his grand-mother's almanack, between the page on planting times and the phases of the moon section, showing Dethe thee Great Levyller Comes to Alle Menne. He'd stared at it hundreds of times when learning his letters. It wouldn't have been half so impressive if it had been generally known that the flame-breathing horse the spectre rode was called Binky.

If there's anything more frightening than Death, it's the spectre of Death trying to have FUN. Even anthropomorphic personifications occasionally need a bit of company, and maybe some time off as well...

Mort is the son of a pre-annual wine grower, on a piece of unreal estate up in the Ramtops. He's not really particularly good at anything much; his father decides to send him off to learn a trade, by dropping him off at the Hogswatch apprentice fair. Unfortunately, there are no takers - they're left sitting there until the stroke of midnight (Mort is pretty stubborn about these things), when a rather skinny gentleman in a dark robe and riding a pale horse appears through the mist. Death looking for an apprentice? Mort seems to be in luck. After all, it's not a very demanding job. Pick up the life-timers, take the scythe, and let Binky do the rest.

  'Er,' he began, 'I don't have to die to get the job, do I?'
  BEING DEAD IS NOT COMPULSORY.
  'And...the bones...?'
  NOT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.
  Mort breathed out again. It had been starting to prey on his mind.
  'If my father says it's all right,' he said.
  They looked at Lezek, who was scratching his beard.
  'How do you feel about this, Mort?' he said, with the brittle brightness of a fever victim. 'It's not what I had in mind, I admit. But they do say that undertaking is an honoured profession. It's your choice.'
  'Undertaking? said Mort. Death nodded, and raised his finger to his lips in a conspiratorial gesture.

Death adopted a daughter, who has been sixteen for the last decade. Ysabel is therefore not really all that happy about her, er, un-life. Mort is just an extra irritant. But as Mort grows into his job, Death withdraws from his domain more and more. Mort gets a little cocky, in fact. An error of judgement leads to a temporal inconsistency, and Mort is in trouble. Death might find out ... but Death has disappeared. Death is trying to find out the meaning of fun. This could get creepy.... Now it's up to Mort to fix the whole mess before Death does find out, and demands a reckoning from his errant apprentice.