Death (Discworld) - Rite of AshkEnte

The Rite of AshkEnte (also Ashk'Ente or Ash'Kente) is the ancient magic ritual that summons and binds Death into a circle and prevents him from leaving until invited to do so by the summoning wizard. However this may be wishful thinking on the part of the wizards as, in Eric, Death appears outside the circle, behind the wizards, and in Reaper Man a wizard comments that he believes Death only stays in the circle for the look of the thing. The Rite is not tuned to Death himself, but rather whoever happened to be doing the job; Mort (then Death's apprentice) was almost forced to respond to the summons, and Susan Sto Helit (his granddaughter) was summoned and subsequently bound. This does not, however, appear to apply to Death himself, although he may do so out of politeness.

Since Death is professionally involved in almost everything that is going on everywhere, the Rite is usually performed so that he can be questioned on otherwise inexplicable phenomena. This is usually done only when all other avenues have been exhausted as most powerful wizards are quite old and therefore unwilling to attract the attention of Death. Death hates being summoned because he is always summoned at the worst possible time, such as when he is at a party.

There are twelve ways of performing the Rite, but eight of them cause instant death, and so might just be considered to summon Death in the "usual" manner, and the ninth is very hard to remember. This leaves three ways to safely summon death: Although the Rite can be performed by a couple of people with three small sticks and 4 cc of mouse blood or even with a fresh egg and two small sticks, the wizards (Ridcully excepted) prefer to do it the old fashioned way, with heavy equipment consisting of numerous drippy candles, octograms written on the floor, thuribles, and similar paraphernalia. They feel it's not "proper" wizardry if it's not showy enough.

In the Discworld books, the Rite has been used a number of times:

• In The Light Fantastic, Death was summoned to be asked about the imminent destruction of the Disc, and later returned to collect one of the high ranking wizards whose time had run out. (The wizard, realising his time was near, locked himself in a room sealed both magically and physically against all ills. In a later book, it is noted doing so probably makes you more likely to be found by Death.
• In Mort, Albert, briefly returned to the world, summoned Death, who was having a holiday, to let him know that Mort, his apprentice, was doing a terrible job as replacement. While the Rite was being performed, it almost summoned Mort instead.
• In Eric, Death was asked about an occult disturbance that turned out to be Rincewind.
• In Reaper Man, when Death had been forced to retire by the Auditors, an Auditor appeared in Death's place to inform the wizards about the situation when they attempted to ask him about the sudden abundance of life force, assuring them that 'normal service' would resume shortly.
• In Soul Music, when Death had again taken a break from work, the Rite instead summoned his granddaughter Susan, who was filling in.
• The Rite is also used in the computer game Discworld 2. However, the game requires the player to find not only the three small sticks (of equal length) and 4 cc of mouse blood mentioned above, but also dribbly candles, a vile stench, and some glitter. During the ritual, the wizards perform an off-key version of "Day-O (Banana Boat Song)" and Death appears behind them, fresh from vacation, wearing a cork hat.