- Albert (originally known as Alberto Malich), Death’s manservant, butler, and cook, was once a wizard and founder of Unseen University; he attempted to gain immortality by reciting the Rite of AshkEnte (a ritual to summon Death) backwards, believing this would force Death to stay away from him. Instead it brought him directly to Death’s Domain. Since time in Death’s Domain does not flow in the same way as it does on the Discworld, Albert succeeded, in a way, in gaining immortality. Before he returned to the world in Mort, “Albert” had 91 days, three hours and five minutes of time left on the Disc, most of which he spent shopping and using the soap and baths at the “Young Men’s Reformed Cultist of the Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth’s Association” (Death is not very good at plumbing). After Soul Music, he had only a few seconds left, and could no longer leave Death’s Domain. Albert was a highly idiosyncratic cook, who believed everything needed to be fried to get rid of the germs, including porridge.
- In the next place, I perceived that there was nothing at all in these demonstrations which could assure me of the existence of their object: thus, for example, supposing a triangle to be given, I distinctly perceived that its three angles were necessarily equal to two right angles, but I did not on that account perceive anything which could assure me that any triangle existed: while, on the contrary, recurring to the examination of the idea of a Perfect Being, I found that the existence of the Being was comprised in the idea in the same way that the equality of its three angles to two right angles is comprised in the idea of a triangle, or as in the idea of a sphere, the equidistance of all points on its surface from the centre, or even still more clearly; and that consequently it is at least as certain that God, who is this Perfect Being, is, or exists, as any demonstration of Geometry can be.