Mort recap

Mort, a gawky farm boy, is apprenticed to Death and learns to collect the souls of the dying, living in Death's timeless domain with the servant Albert and Death's adopted daughter, Ysabell. When Death steps back to experience ordinary human life, he leaves the Duty to Mort, who is sent to gather the soul of Princess Keli of Sto Lat, marked for assassination. Smitten, Mort kills the assassin and saves her, but reality insists she should be dead and starts erasing her, sealing her kingdom inside a shrinking dome of altered history. With the wizard Cutwell and with Ysabell, Mort struggles to keep Keli alive and set history right, even as the work slowly turns him into something like Death himself. In the end Mort must fight Death to resolve it. Death spares him and repairs reality by his own hand, then dismisses him kindly: Mort marries Ysabell and is made Duke of Sto Helit, Keli keeps her throne, and Death returns to his solitary work.

At a hiring fair, the awkward, over-thoughtful farm boy Mort is taken on as an apprentice by Death, the robed skeleton who gathers the souls of the dying. Death brings him to his strange domain, a black house set in an ageless landscape with a garden of bone-white flowers, kept by the dry old servant Albert and shared with Death's adopted daughter, Ysabell. Mort learns the work: riding out on Death's horse, Binky, to be present at deaths and see souls safely on. Death, increasingly curious about living things, begins handing more of the duty to his apprentice so that he can go and explore what it is to be alive.

Left to perform the Duty alone while Death samples ordinary life, Mort is sent to collect the soul of Princess Keli of Sto Lat, who is fated to be murdered. Unable to stand by, he kills the assassin and saves her instead. This is a grave mistake: history knows Keli should be dead, and reality begins trying to correct itself, closing over her as people forget she exists. Mort seeks out the young wizard Cutwell, one of the few who can still perceive the princess, to help keep her alive while a shrinking dome of altered reality creeps in around her kingdom. Meanwhile Death throws himself into human pursuits, taking odd jobs and drinking, trying to feel what mortals feel.

The consequences of Mort's choice deepen. The pocket of true reality around Keli keeps contracting, and it becomes clear the wrong will not simply heal on its own. At the same time Mort himself is changing: performing Death's work is making him colder and more like his master, his eyes taking on a faint glow and his voice sometimes carrying Death's weight. Mort, Ysabell, and Cutwell search for a way to set history right without letting Keli die, while Death, having tasted mortality, proves oddly reluctant to resume his post. Thrown together by the crisis, Mort and Ysabell grow closer.

The reckoning arrives. To restore reality, Mort must confront Death directly, and the two duel with scythes. Death overcomes his apprentice but chooses to spare him, and rather than let the correction claim Keli's life he takes the burden onto himself and puts history right by his own means, dismissing Mort from his service in the process. The parting is generous: Death gives Mort and Ysabell his blessing to marry, and Keli, secure again on her throne, makes Mort a duke, granting him the dukedom of Sto Helit, while keeping Cutwell on as her royal recognizer. Mort and Ysabell leave to begin their life together, and Death, briefly touched by what he learned of living, returns alone to his endless duty.

Mort ends with the tangle of altered reality resolved by Death rather than by his apprentice. Mort challenges Death and they fight; Death wins but spares Mort's life. Instead of allowing history's correction to claim Princess Keli, Death sets things right himself, absorbing the cost of Mort's interference. He then releases Mort from the apprenticeship, but sends him off well: Death gives Mort and Ysabell, his adopted daughter, leave to marry and a generous send-off. Keli, secure once more on the throne of Sto Lat, rewards Mort by making him Duke of Sto Helit, and keeps the wizard Cutwell as her royal recognizer, one of the few who never lost sight of her. Mort and Ysabell depart to begin married life as duke and duchess. Death, changed by his brief taste of living, of food, drink, and feeling, returns to his domain and resumes the unending duty of collecting souls, once again alone but no longer quite unmoved by the mortals he gathers.