On A Pale Horse (29 page)

At any rate, he deeply regretted taking this lad, who had only responded to the urges Nature had provided him. The Green Mother could do it to anyone; Zane knew that from recent personal experience. So the lad's burden of sin was a technical thing, not really reflecting badness. The definition ought to be changed, to be more realistic. But of course there was nothing Zane could do about it. He was only Death, performing his own office.

“Damn the office!” he swore abruptly. “Why should I participate in what I believe is wrong?”

Nature had shown him another aspect of her power by enabling the left-footed dancing girl to revive. That death had not been final. Could this one be similarly negated? He thought of the condition of the body, its skin largely burned away, and shuddered. There was no point in returning the soul to that!

But what about Chronos? Maybe the Incarnation of Time could enable him to go back to the moment before ' the fire broke out, and warn the boy, so that—

“Take me to Chronos,” Zane directed Mortis, stopping his countdown, The gallant Death steed slowed to a stop at a passing I field and started to graze. Zane looked around, perplexed, “I don't see—”

“Then turn about, Death,” the voice of Time came. It had a certain echoing quality, with a trace of grit, as if some sand had leaked into it from the hourglass.

Zane turned. There stood Chronos, in his white robe.

He had surely not been there a moment ago. He must have come when Zane asked for him.

“I would like to have your help,” Zane said. “A demonstration of your power, if it does not lead to paradox.”

“I have power, and I love paradox,” Chronos said.

“I have just taken the soul of this boy,” Zane explained, showing the soul. “I want to return it so he can have a proper chance to redress his balance in life. Could you, with my concurrence, arrange that?”

“Take me to the place, and I will take you to the time,” Chronos said equably. “It is true one Incarnation may not safely interfere with another, but since you will it, I can assist. We do cooperate, at need.”

Just like that! Chronos mounted Mortis behind Zane, and the horse took off.

“Now, while we are isolated by the ambience of the Death steed,” Chronos said, “there is another matter you wish to ask of me.”

“Isolated?” Zane asked. “You mean no one can overhear us here, even—?”

“Speak not his name, lest you summon him,” Chronos warned. “Mortis protects you better than you know, but nothing protects against folly.”

“Uh, yes, of course,” Zane agreed, disgruntled.

“Naturally you found a pretext to contact me, so that he would not have cause for suspicion.”

Zane hadn't thought of it that way. But he did have something else to talk about. “The Purgatory computer flashed your symbol on its screen when I questioned it about the status of Luna Kaftan.”

“A most interesting case,” Chronos said, after a pause as if to recollect the details. “Fate alerted me to it, for she notes the significant threads. Circa twenty years from this moment, Luna Kaftan will be instrumental in—”

“But she's going to die within the month!” Zane protested.

“That, too,” Chronos agreed.

“Then how can she—?”

“History is mutable, of course. If she lives, she will go into politics—”

“But she is an artist!”

“So was Winston Churchill, and Adolf Hitler studied to be one. Artistic temperament is no necessary bar to political achievement.”

Zane thought of Churchill and Hitler, opposing leaders in the great Second World War between the Allies and the Axis, where both magic and science had run rampant until it all terminated in the first detonation of nuclear fission. He didn't like the association. Nuclear fission could destroy the realm of the living! “So if she lives, there may be a chance of that—she will go into politics and—?”

“And be instrumental in balking the Nameless in his attempt to install his most hateful minion in the highest political office of the United States of America.”

“Why would—that Entity—want political power?” Zane asked, bewildered. “His realm is Below.”

“And the other Entity's realm is Above. Neither controls the battleground that is the living world, but each draws sustenance from it. Expressed in monetary terms, the world is the principal, and the souls departing it are the interest. The Eternals split the interest, but each would like a share of the principal. The proportion of souls each receives is critical. At this moment the apex has the upper hand, but a substantial change in the orientation of the living folk, followed by a massive exodus to Eternity, could shift the balance of power to the nadir. Then—”

“I don't care to think about it,” Zane said with a shudder. “And you say Luna will prevent that from happening?”

“Yes—if she lives.”

“Now I understand why Someone wants her dead!”

“So it would seem.”

Mortis had arrived at the site of the burning building in New York, which was now a smoldering mass. The firemen had come too late, as was typical for this area of the city where the tax base was small, and doused it with a suffocation-spell; now they were picking through the ruin for bodies. The survivors stood staring, half in shock. It was a grim scene.

Chronos lifted his hourglass. Abruptly time froze, as it had when Zane used the center knob of the Deathwatch. The rising smoke hovered in place, and the people formed a tableau, standing like statues. Only Chronos, Zane, and Mortis remained animate.

Then the fine sand streamed upward from the lower segment of the hourglass to the upper. It was not as if the glass had been inverted, set in an antigravity field, or spelled to levitate; it was a literal reversal of time, as sand rose from the mound below, squeezed through the tight neck, and shoved the upper sand higher in an even pattern. Zane was fascinated.

The flow of sand accelerated, moving faster than any natural cause could account for. The level in the upper chamber climbed visibly. But Zane's eye was caught by events beyond.

The standing people milled rapidly about, walking backward at running speed. The firemen backed hastily to their trucks and accelerated away in reverse. The fire abruptly blazed up, out of control. But it was no ordinary conflagration; the great orange-yellow flames were plunging downward into the apertures of the structure. Smoke roiled down to feed those flames, drawing in from the broad night sky. People backed closer to the building, carrying in items of furniture and apparel and food. Other people fled the fire, backward, their faces illuminated by the flames in postures of excitement. Everything happened at triple or quadruple velocity.

Soon the flames diminished, squeezing into the clarifying building. The last of the smoke sucked in, too. Windows restored themselves, their fragments of glass flying up to become whole panes, and the fire was out.

Time slowed, than paused, then reversed. Once more the sand trickled from top to bottom, at normal velocity. “You have two minutes, Death,” Chronos said, dismounting. “Use it as you please.”

Zane stared a moment, amazed by the power Chronos had shown. How could anything oppose an Incarnation with the ability to reverse finished events?

He jumped down and ran to the door. It was locked, but opened at his touch. He charged up the stairs to the boy's room, feeling in his bag for the soul. Did he still have it, or had the reversal of time restored it to the boy? He, Zane, had been insulated from the reversal; none of his experience had been subtracted. But the boy had been a participant, so should have recovered his soul. Which version was fact, now?

He reached deeper into the bag and found the soul. But as he drew it out, it tugged from his hand and flitted forward. When Zane came in sight of the sleeping boy, the soul plunged in and disappeared.

Zane reasoned it out as he moved. Time had reversed, but his personal isolation from the effect had prevented the soul in his possession from zipping back in its turn. Similarly, he had not seen himself attend to the boy during the fire. Of course, this time he had been outside the building, so wasn't really in a position to see himself in action. The reversal had been imperfect because he had stood separate, instead of racing backward through his own involvement. Interesting, but apparently not critical; here he was, just before the fire erupted. Evidently there was no paradox.

He stood over the bed. “Wake!” he cried. “Wake, lest you die!”

The boy woke. He saw the specter of Death looming over him. He screamed and rolled, tumbling, from the bed. He scrambled to his feet and started for the open window.

Zane leaped to intercept him. What use to save the lad from the fire, only to scare him into a suicidal plunge through the window? He was trying to interfere with the handiwork of Fate, and that was problematical—unless she also knew of this matter and was amenable.

He spread his skeletal hands, barring the way. “Give up the woman,” he said, remembering the burden of sin that had brought the lad to this pass. “Go and live righteously. You are spared from Death to do this.” The boy stared, then backed away, terrified. Then the first whiff of smoke came. The fire was starting. “Wake the house!” Zane cried. “Go outside. Live—and remember.”

The boy fled. In moments his screams were waking the others. “Get up! Get up! I saw Death! Live right! Go outside!”

It was effective. Soon the people were trooping down the stairs and out, escaping the fire with armfuls of their possessions. Others who had died in the first play of this scene were surviving in the replay. Truly, the boy had saved them.

Zane walked among them, unnoticed. He returned to his horse, ready to thank Chronos, but Chronos was gone.

Well, Time probably had other business. He would thank Chronos when they next met. Perhaps he would have occasion to return the favor. Now he had business himself. He started his timer, reorienting on the client he had set aside.

He worked for a day, his time, catching up the backlog. His mind was increasingly on Luna and her fate. Now he knew Satan had engineered her termination so she could not later balk his will, and Zane realized that the other Incarnations were aware of this. But none of them had offered to do anything about it! Either they were powerless against the will of Satan, or they simply didn't care.

And why should they care? This was his own concern. If anyone was to do anything, he was the one. Yet he could think of nothing. He would not even be involved in her transition, directly, for her soul was weighted for Hell. If only she had more time in life to redeem her soul, to redress the balance—

Could he appeal to God? Zane doubted it, for God seldom seemed to involve Himself in the affairs of living man. God still honored the Covenant of nonintervention. Satan was the one who was cheating—and Satan would hardly consider any appeal to negate his effort.

Zane grew angry about that. Was Satan to win the celestial war because he cheated while God did not? Yet if God could only counter Satan by cheating Himself, He would become evil, and evil would still prevail. God had to be incorruptible! Therefore—there would be no action from God.

Zane wrapped up his schedule and went to call on Luna.

She had not been using her relief stones. The knowledge of death and damnation was taking its grim toll; her face was pale, and the lines on it were etched more deeply. Her tresses hung in lank masses. Her eyes were heavily shadowed. She wore no makeup; that would have been pointless, for she had evidently been crying considerably.

Zane's breast experienced a soft explosion of love for her. He took her into his embrace and held her close, wanting to reassure her yet knowing there was nothing he could offer except his own pain.

He kissed her, but she held back. “We must not,” she said, knowing where this was leading.

“Not?”

“The stones say no.”

He hardly cared about the will of the stones, but he did not want to oppose her own will in any way. “Then let me hold your hand.”

In response she hummed a little tune.

Zane's brow furrowed. “Am I missing something?”

She smiled fleetingly, and a bit of her beauty showed. “A folk song. I'm sorry; I'm distracted, and didn't realize I was doing it aloud. I'm in poor shape, because the stones don't abolish grief, they only postpone it, so I have to suffer it all sometime; in any event, I do want to experience natural emotion for my father, and for myself.”

“What folk song?”

She made an “I'll show you” sign, then moved to the center of the room and posed. She sang: “It looms so long, I'll miss you, miss; I've got to take your hand.... I've got to dance with you.... We all will dance with you. Oh.”

He might never see her again, because she would be dead. A catchy tune, but a macabre mental connection for hand-holding. She certainly was upset, and he could not alleviate her distress.

“It looms so long, I'll miss you, miss, Luna sang again. So let me spin and turn.” And she spun prettily, her skirt flaring. But the image that came to Zane's mind was that of the left-footed girl, prisoned in the magic slippers. There was no joy in Luna's dance, however lovely it made her.

He walked toward her, still uncertain what to do. She sang the first line again, then continued: “We all shall spin and turn.” This time Zane turned with her, joining her dance.

Then he caught her hand and led her to the couch.

They sat for the better part of an hour in silence, holding hands, and in that time the burgeoning love he felt for her suffused every crevice of his awareness. The girl the Love stone had directed him to had been a dream; Luna was reality. How could he live without her? “I will go with you,” he said suddenly.

Luna smiled wanly. “Few would make that offer, and I thank you for it. But you will not be going to Hell!”

“Surely I will, because I have been breaking the rules of my office!”

“You have been breaking them in good ways. But even if you do die soon and go to Hell, Satan would not let us be together there, any more than he would let me see my father. Hell is for suffering.”

“Your father is not in Hell. He is in Purgatory, working out his account.”