On a Pale Horse (16 page)

“I’m sorry. This thing is not of my choosing.”

“I guess I knew it. I never really believed those doctors. The drugs and spells made me feel good, but my deepest dreams were screaming. I’d be screaming now, but they’ve got me so doped up on optimism magic I can’t really feel depressed at all. You don’t seem half bad, you know. At least you stayed to talk with me.”

“I am half bad,” Zane said. “Fifty percent evil. But you—” He paused. “Is there some great sin on your conscience?”

“Well, I stole a yo-yo from a store once—”

“That’s minor evil. I mean something like murder.”

“I wished my aunt was dead once, when she punished me for bad language.”

“Wishes are minor, unless acted upon. Did you ever actually try to kill her?”

Tad was horrified. “Never! I wouldn’t even think of doing a thing like that!” Then he smiled ruefully. “Well, I guess I did think of it, but I knew I never really wanted to.”

“Perhaps you told a terrible lie that got someone else in very bad trouble or caused a death. There has to be something very bad, some great sin on your conscience, as I said. Something you know is really wrong.”

The boy considered. “There’re some I’d have liked to get on it, but I never got the chance. I’m really pretty clean, I think. I’m sorry I haven’t anything better to offer.”

Something was amiss here. Zane brought out the two diagnostic gems “This will not hurt,” he said reassuringly.

“That’s what all the nurses with needles say.”

“No, really. It’s painless. I’m merely toting up the evil in you.”

The yellow stone brightened into brilliance as Zane passed it near the boy, while the brown one darkened only slightly. “You’re ninety percent good,” Zane said, surprised.

“I told you I wasn’t much.”

“But I only come personally for those in balance, whose souls can’t get free by themselves. There’s been a mistake.”

“You mean I’m not going to die?”

Zane sighed. “I don’t know, but I doubt that’s the nature of the mistake. I think you were slated to die alone, and somehow a wire got crossed and I was summoned. Purgatory is short-handed at the moment; mistakes will happen. I’m sorry I intruded on you. It was not necessary for you ever to know what was awaiting you—until it happened.”

“Oh, no! I may be artificially happy, but I’m still lonely. I’m glad you came. It was a good glitch. If I’ve got to go, I’d like to go with company. May I have a ride on your fine horse?”

Zane smiled. “Indeed you may, Tad.”

“Then I guess I’m ready.”

Zane pushed the button on his watch, and the dread countdown resumed. In fifteen seconds a sudden seizure
shook the boy, and Zane reached out and drew forth his soul before there could be more than momentary pain.

He carried the soul outside to where the horse waited. Zane had arrived in the limousine, but Mortis had somehow anticipated his need. Zane mounted, holding the soul before him. The stallion leaped into the night sky.

At the top of the arc, Zane let the soul go. It continued to float up toward Heaven, while the horse fell back toward Earth. “Farewell, Tad,” Zane murmured. “You go to a better place than that which you left.”

Zane wrapped up his remaining collections, classifying most of the souls and delivering the rest to Purgatory. Then he went to Death’s mansion in the sky for a meal and some sleep. The doorbell now played light classical music, and the scent of the house was of lilies. He might deal in death, but he was alive and had to maintain himself.

He was preoccupied with Tad’s case, even after it was over. Had he done the right thing, talking to the boy while other clients waited, telling him the truth that had been denied him? Would this be another bad mark on Zane’s record for the television news to announce gleefully? It seemed Death was becoming the butt of much Purgatory humor because of his erratic ways. This time he did not turn on the TV set.

The staff of the Deathhouse seemed alive and solid to him, though Zane knew he was the only living person there. He wasn’t certain whether the office of Death made him eligible to interact with the dead, or whether the dead were spelled to seem more physical than they really were. Regardless, when he shook a spirit’s hand here in Purgatory, that hand was solid and warm. But he remained keenly aware that these people were not of his world. They were dead and he was alive. He did not feel comfortable in Purgatory.

Then he remembered the Magician’s daughter, Luna. Luna Kaftan. He had made a date with her, and her father had been insistent that he keep it. His curiosity had been aroused—and as his memory of his fleeting acquaintance with Angelica, the woman he should have romanced, the one he had sold for the worthless Wealthstone—as that
impression faded, his image of Luna sharpened. She had been amazingly attractive in clothing! Why
not
get to know her better? She, at least, was living.

He drove the Deathmobile to Luna’s house. But as he arrived in Kilvarough, he suffered an attack of misgiving. Was it proper to involve the office of Death in a personal matter? In fact, hadn’t he intended to meet Luna as himself, rather than as Death? He decided to present himself incognito, as Zane.

He stripped away his cloak and gloves and shoes. That left him vulnerable physically, but more secure socially. There was a lot to be said for anonymity.

He rang the bell. It occurred to him, belatedly, that she might not be home. He had not set a particular date; in fact, he was not certain what day this was. A glance at his watch could tell him, of course. It was just that the things of the living world had not been much in his awareness these past few days.

In a moment she answered. She was in a yellow housecoat, her hair bound under a net. She was neither lovely nor plain, but in a somewhat formless, in-between state that was apparently the female neutral condition. Grief was evidently taking its toll; she seemed to have lost some weight, small lines were forming about her face, and her eyes were shadowed. He did not need to inquire what she had been doing for the past few days; she had been home suffering.

Luna looked askance at him, and he realized how strange he must look in shirt, worn trousers, and stocking feet. “My name’s Zane,” he said. “I would like to be with you this evening.”

Now her glance was piercing. She did not recognize him. “I believe you have the wrong address, stranger. How did you get past the griffins?”

“It’s the right address, but perhaps the wrong uniform. You have met me before in the guise of Death. The griffins gave me wide clearance when they recognized me by smell. We have a date.”

She was quick to reappraise him. “Then come in.” She opened the door.

Zane stepped inside—and something like a heavy talon
fell on his left shoulder. He craned his neck to look at his attacker, but there was nothing. Yet his nose was wrinkling with the heavy, musky odor of something animalistic or insectoid or worse.

“My invisible guardian,” Luna explained. “A trained moon moth. If you had some notion of robbing this house—”

Zane smiled with a certain difficulty. “I should have known you would not be defenseless. But I am who I say I am. I can summon the Deathsteed and don my cloak if necessary; then I think your invisible monster would not find me as easy to handle. But words should suffice; I came last week to take your father, the Magician Kaftan, and he told me I should, er, make your acquaintance if I would talk with him a while. I saw you nude, and then dressed up, and after I took his soul, you offered to—”

“Let him go,” Luna murmured, and the claw at Zane’s shoulder relaxed. Just as well, for the grip had been increasingly painful.

“Thank you,” Zane said. “It doesn’t have to be today. I just came when it was convenient for me; I’m afraid I didn’t think of your own convenience. I forgot about your grief.”

“Today will do,” she said, somewhat curtly. “I find I don’t enjoy being alone at this time. Let me change and pick up the grief-nullifying stone—”

“No, please!” he cut in. “I prefer to know you exactly as you are. It is right to experience grief; I’m sure your father warrants it. Artificial abatement of a natural feeling—I don’t want that.”

She considered him, head held slightly askew. “You don’t want to be impressed?”

“You impress me as you are. Human.”

She smiled quickly, and her beauty flashed into being with the expression. “I think you mean it, and that flatters me. That’s almost as good as a spell. What is your pleasure, Zane?”

“Just to honor your father’s wish. To talk with you, get to know you. He was most insistent, in Purgatory, when—”

“Purgatory?”

“He is figuring out the balance of his soul there. It will be a tedious task.”

She shrugged. “He is good at tedious tasks. He is not in pain?”

“None.”

“Then I can let him rest for a while. What were you saying?”

“Just that I came to talk with you. It—I don’t see it going any farther than that.”

“Why not?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh, it’s not that you’re not attractive. You showed me before! It’s—I don’t—”

“Attractive,” she muttered darkly, apparently not flattered this time. “You refer to my body, of course, not to my mind or soul.”

“Yes,” he said, feeling awkward. “I don’t know your mind, though I do know a good portion of the evil on your soul is not truly yours. But I said it wasn’t that. I know you can make yourself as beautiful as you want to be. But even if you were ugly, you’re—you’re someone, and I’m
no
one, so—”

She laughed. “Death tells me this?”

“Death is merely the office. I’m just the man who happened to blunder into that office. I don’t think I deserve it, but I’m trying to do it properly. Maybe in time I’ll become a good Death, instead of making mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” she inquired. “Sit down, Zane.” She took his arm, guided him to the couch, and sat down beside him at an angle, so that her right knee touched his left. “How is it going?”

“You don’t want to hear about that sort of thing,” he demurred, though he did want to talk about it.

“Listen, Zane,” she said earnestly. “My father picked you for that office. To you it may have been a blunder, but—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to criticize your father! I meant—”

“He believed you were the proper person for it. I don’t know exactly why, but I have faith in his judgment. There must be some quality in you that makes you best for the position. So don’t question your fitness for the office.”

“Your father picked me for Death—and for you,” Zane said. “I don’t see the wisdom of either choice.”

She removed her net and began adjusting her rich brown hair. “I don’t see it either,” she admitted with a smile. “Which simply means I have more to discover. My father always, always makes sense, and he never mistreated me in any way. He’s a great man! So I’ll try to ascertain the meaning of his will. You show me some of your mind, and I’ll show you some of mine. Then perhaps we’ll both understand why my father wanted us to interact.”

“I suppose he did have some reason,” Zane agreed. He hardly objected to improving his acquaintance with this increasingly lovely young woman—for she was growing prettier by the moment as she fixed herself up—but didn’t like the feeling of being accepted by her only because she had been ordered to do it. “He was a Magician, after all.”

“Yes.” She did not belabor the obvious, and now he felt foolish for having done so himself. This was an odd sort of date, and he was hardly easy with it.

“I can see why a man like me would be interested in a woman like you, but not why a man like him would want—I mean, surely you are destined for better things, and he would want those things for you.”

“Surely,” she agreed, shaking out her glistening locks.

That did not help. Luna was not only turning beautiful again, she was becoming more poised, her gaze level.

“Well,” he began. “I was just going to tell you about mistakes. Like one of my last cases, in the office of Death—a boy, a teenager—only no one had told him he was going to die. But he knew it when he recognized me. I don’t know whether it was right to lie to him, as they did, or tell the truth, as I finally did. Either way, I think I mishandled it, so it’s a mistake.”

“You regard an indecision as a mistake?”

“I don’t know. I guess so. How can you do what’s right if you don’t
know
what’s right?”

She made a moue. “Score a point for you! I suppose you just have to learn from experience, hoping you don’t do too much harm in the process.”

“I never really appreciated the significance of death
before,” he said, troubled. “Now that I’m directly involved in it, the force of it becomes much greater, almost overwhelming. Death is no minor thing.”

“How do you mean?” Luna asked gently. Her eyes were nacreous.

“I know every living creature must eventually die; otherwise the world would be intolerably crowded. Even on an individual basis, death is necessary. Who would really want to live forever on Earth? Life would be like a game grown overfamiliar and stale, and what pleasures it offered would be overwhelmed by the intolerable burden of minutiae. Only a fool would carry on regardless. But here I’m not necessarily dealing with the normal course of full lives and the terminations of old age. I’m talking to people who aren’t ready to die and taking their souls out of turn. Their full lives have not been lived, their roles have not been played out. Their threads have been cut short through no fault of their own.”

“No fault?” She was leading him, in effect interrogating him, but he didn’t mind.

“Consider my recent clients. One was a seven-year-old boy. He was having lunch at a school cafeteria, and a valve malfunctioned and caused a water heater to explode. It brought down the ceiling, and five children and a teacher died. My client had a difficult home environment, which was why his soul was balanced between good and evil—but he should have had a full life ahead to put his soul in better order. Through sheer random chance, he was denied that life. And the five others who died, not needing my personal attention—maybe they all went directly to Heaven. I hope so. But this was still grossly unfair to them, for they might have gone to Heaven sixty years later, after having their full chances on Earth. The world might have benefited by their lives; certainly they deserved their chances. What possible meaning can there by in such catastrophe?”