A young man named Mоr was beginning to get bored on his father’s farm. But then, unexpectedly, luck smiled on him. He is hired to work as an apprentice—and it turns out that his employer is none other than Death himself. By shifting part of his own responsibilities onto the student, Death— for the first time in all his existence—takes a day off. Meanwhile, Mor grows more and more like his master, but Death’s next assignment forces him to challenge his mentor.
In this room, lit by bright flames of candles, there are life-measurers. Shelf after shelf holds squat hourglasses—one glass vessel for each living person. They work without ceasing, requiring no winding: they keep pouring and pouring their fine sand from the future into the past. Each falling grain adds an inconspicuous silky sound to the overall whistling, so that it seems the room is filled with the sound of a sea tide.
And here is the owner of this strange room—he walks slowly and majestically along the shelves. His look is troubled. His name is Death.
But not just Death as some abstract, general idea. The sphere of activity of this official, to tell the truth, is not a sphere at all, but rather a plane. This plane’s sphere of activity includes the Flat World. As the name suggests, this world is completely flat and rests (more precisely, rides) on the backs of four huge elephants. The disk is encircled by a waterfall whose foaming cascades fall into space like an endless avalanche.
Scientists calculated that the odds of a real existence of such openly absurd a world are one in a million.
However, wizards calculated that the chance of “one in a million” comes up in nine cases out of ten.