On A Pale Horse

by Piers Anthony

Again Zane delivered the Death stare. Young punks like this were more resistant to it, since they did not believe they were ever going to die. "One hymn. Holy, Holy, Holy." His bony, square eye sockets bore into the fleshed orbs before him.

  Again the kid was fazed. "Sure, well, I guess we could try. Like, it's only one tune. But our singer's out, she's zonked on magic H, and anyway, we'll have to rehearse. It'd take two, maybe three days, you know, just to start."

  "Now," Zane said. "Within the hour. I will find you a singer."

  "But we don't have no music or nothing!" the youth protested desperately.

  "That, too, I will provide," Zane said, controlling his ire. Had he ever been this age himself? "Go now to the nursing home next door and set up your gear. I will rejoin you with a singer presently."

  "Yeah, sure, man," the kid said faintly. "We'll be ready in half an hour. But you know, this ain't exactly our bag. It ain't going to be too sharp."

  "It will suffice." Zane left them and strode to the church on the other side of the nursing home.

  He was in luck. The church choir was rehearsing for the coming weekend service. Several black girls were present, doing what to Zane's ear was a mishmash of notes and ululations.

  The preacher spotted him immediately. "Hey, don't you go takin' none of mine, Death!" he protested. "We're good folk here. We don't want no trouble with you!"

  Zane realized that this church might be poor and backward, but the preacher was a true man of God, able to discern a supernatural manifestation instantly. That would help. "I only want a hymnbook and a singer," Zane said.

  "Hymnbooks we got," the old man said eagerly. "This white do-gooder group, they raise money, bought us books, don't know nothin' 'bout our music. Got a big pile of 'em under dust in the closet. But one of my girls—Death, I won't stand by and—"

  "Not to die," Zane said quickly. "To sing one hymn for the folk next door. For a man who is about to die."

  The preacher nodded. "Man's got a right to one last melody. What's it called?"

  "Holy, Holy, Holy."

  "That's in the book, but we don't sing it. Not our style."

  "Find a singer willing to try."

  The preacher addressed the practicing choir. "Anyone sing white music? Hymnbook stuff?"

  There was a murmur of confused negation.

  "Listen," the preacher said. "You don't know this person in the hood, and you don't want to. But I know him. The eye of the Lord is on him, and he needs one hymn, and we've got to help him any way we can. So if any of you can even try to oblige him, come on."

  At length one rather pretty girl in her teens spoke. "Sometime I sing 'long on the radio stuff, jus' for fun. I guess I could try, if I got the words."

  The preacher rummaged in the closet and brought out an armful of hymnbooks. "You got the words, sister. Come on, we'll go help this person. Won't be long."

  Zane took some of the books and led the way to the nursing home, where the Livin' Sludge was setting up, to the considerable entertainment of the inmates and the non-protesting nurse. Probably there had not been an event like this here in decades. Cables and loudspeakers and instruments seemed to fill the main room. "Hey, don't set those big speakers in here," the nurse was saying. "Small place like this, that noise'll deafen these old folk, and they've got problems enough already. Face those monsters out the windows." And it was done, for it seemed the Livin' Sludge was constitutionally unable to function without full-volume amplification.

  The young singer eyed the Sludge, and the Sludge eyed her. Each evinced a certain morbid fascination with an alien life form, but neither evinced approval. Zane realized it had probably been a mistake to involve the instrumental group; the girl would have done better a cappella. Too late now;

  The preacher stepped in, seeing the need. "You boys don' know hymn music, okay? This is Lou-Mae; she don' know junk music, so you're even. So let's try her doing the hymn, you follow, okay?" He was more or less speaking pigeon, in order to get his meaning across to these foreigners. He passed out the hymnbooks.

  The musicians leafed through the books, bewildered. "This scene's worse'n bad-spelled H!" one muttered. Zane knew that H was bad, enchanted H was worse, and badly enchanted H was a horror. But addicts had to take what they could get. "We'll never live this down."

  "You boys getting high on S-H?" the preacher asked, frowning. "That'll put you in H!" He pointed down, signaling the change in meaning. "You better find some better interest before it's too late."

  "Wish we could," the drummer confessed. "But you know, we're locked into the scene. S-H don't let nobody go."

  "Neither does H," the preacher said, with a dark glance down. "Nobody hooked on either H in my church."

  "Yeah, sure," the drummer said wearily.

  Zane got them on the page with Holy, Holy, Holy. "Play this," he said.

  They tried. They were, underneath, reasonably competent musicians. The tune did not adapt well to drum and guitar, but the electric organ picked it up easily enough.

  The phone rang, the sound almost lost amidst the noise of preparations. "But I can't sing into a mike," Lou-Mae protested. "It's in my way, and it looks funny."

  "I'll tell you what it looks like!" the Sludge drummer said, grinning.

  "Jus' ignore it, sister," the preacher advised quickly. "Jus' sing your way."

  "There are people gathering outside," a nursing home inmate cried gleefully by the window. "Gawking at the loudspeakers!"

  "Hey, they must think we have a party in here!" another said. "Cutting the mustard!"

  "Sure we are! You can tell by the smell!" Laughter burbled around the inmate sector. This was turning into the biggest event of these old people's lives.

  "Hey, mister," the male nurse called through the din. "That was my boss on the line. For once he checked with his answering service. I told him I couldn't stop the music, so he's calling the police. Better do that song and get out of here soon." It was fair warning, but obviously the nurse was enjoying the ongoing event.

  The Sludge was still getting organized, piecing out bits of melody, trying to integrate unfamiliar elements. "I can't do this," Lou-Mae complained. "Singing a hymn to a drum roll?"

  "Listen, black doll, we don't like it either," the drummer said. "But we got to have a beat."

  "You jus' do your best," the preacher said soothingly to both. "The Lord will make it right."

  "Man, He better!" the drummer muttered. "This whole thing's crazier than a double-bum trip!"

  "Still worth doing right," the preacher said.

  Zane heard the sound of a siren. He went to the door where the other choir singers clustered, peering in. They gave way nervously before him, and Zane saw the police cars arriving. The vehicles screeched up to the nearest corner and disgorged helmeted riot police. These were tough cops armed with billy clubs, hefty side arms, teargas bombs, and disorientation-spells, accustomed to breaking heads in the lawful performance of their duty. That nursing home owner had really made a complaint!

  Zane turned to face inside. "Do the hymn now," he said.

  Lou-Mae, suddenly nervous, dropped her book and had to scramble to recover it. " 'Sokay, chick," the drummer said sympathetically. "First-night jitters. We all get 'em. We'll start without you, a preamble, and you catch your place and signal when you're ready. Like Uncle Tom says, we'll merge."

  She flashed him a fleeting smile. The music started, drum roll leading into guitar, the beat of it blasting like developing thunder out the windows as the police charged up the steps, billies in hand. The choir girls crowded back fearfully, not liking any close contact with the big, brutal men in uniform.

  Zane drew his cloak close about him and stepped out to meet the lead cop skull-to-face. "Do we have business?" he asked.

  The policeman's eyes and mouth rounded out as he stared into the aspect of Death. He fell back, literally, and had to be caught by the two behind him. The urgency of the intrusion of the law abruptly abated.

  Now Lou-Mae found her p
lace. The drum faded to a background beat, and the song proper began. "Holy, holy holy! Lord God Almighty!" she sang, starting tremulously but gaining courage as she sounded the name of the Lord. Somehow the amplification provided resonance and authority that her voice might otherwise have lacked. The drum roll behind her growled like the rising wrath of Deity, and the guitar punctuated the theme with an inspired extemporaneous counterpoint.

  "Early in the morning, our song shall rise to Thee!" And the electric organ swelled in an urge of joyous worship, sounding exactly like the monstrous pipes of a towering cathedral.

  The crowd in the street was being rapidly augmented. Some of the police were trying to hold the people back. It was already late morning, but the height of the surrounding buildings sheltered the street from direct sunlight. Now that light angled down, a broad beam that splashed across the pale helmets of the police and faces of the people, illuminating them, as if it were indeed the break of day or of a new era.

  "Only Thou art holy; all the saints adore Thee!" The sound pealed out, flooding the neighborhood, reverberating amidst the buildings. Instruments and voice had integrated perfectly, as if from years of devoted practice.

  "Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea!" And the police, stunned despite their cynicism by the magnificence of it, buffeted by the booming sound, began to remove their sunlight-golden helmets. The people followed, compelled by a feeling they did not comprehend. In a moment every head in the crowd was bare.

  "Cherubim and seraphim, falling down before Thee!" And one of the impressionable choir girls by the door screamed in rapture and fell to the sidewalk.

  Once triggered, the effect spread explosively. All around, people in the crowd screamed and fell, and a few of the policemen, too.

  The music surged to thunderous authority, drums and organ shaking the very buildings, sweeping through the crowd, making the entire block a place of worship. Some people stood; some knelt; some lay on the street. All were gazing raptly toward the nursing home and listening to the amazing sound.

  "Who wert and art and evermore shall be!" Then the hymn ended, and the music died away in a fading roll of the drum and a trailing organ note, as if God were moving on to another station. Half the crowd and all the choir girls were on the ground, and the policemen stared wide-eyed at whatever personal visions they had. No one made a sound.

  Zane turned to face inside again. The inmates were sitting dazed, as was the male nurse. The drummer and Lou-Mae were exchanging an awed glance. The preacher was gazing toward Heaven, his hands steepled before him, in silent prayer.

  "Jeez," the guitarist murmured. "We been wasting our time, all our life!"

  "Who the H needs H!" the organist agreed. "I never been on a trip like that!"

  Zane walked across to his client. "Now it is time," he said, restarting his timer. "Are you satisfied?"

  The old man was smiling, "I sure am, Death! I just had a vision of the Lord God Almighty! Anything else in life would be anticlimactic after that. I saw two of my friends here go already." He collapsed, and Zane reached out quickly to catch his soul.

  A slow recovery was beginning as he walked back toward the door. The preacher caught Zane's eye. "Some folk think the Lord don't intervene," he remarked gently, as if aware of Zane's own doubts.

  Zane couldn't answer. He walked on out, past the choir girls as they righted themselves, and through the quiet crowd to his horse.

  A new vehicle was pulling up, with the emblem of the State Social Services on its side. It seemed the commotion had attracted the notice of the relevant authorities, and there was about to be an inspection of the nursing home facility and operation.

  Zane allowed himself a private smile. They would discover one or more dead men, tied to their chairs, in a room reeking of urine where no music or entertainment was permitted—these strictures so absolute that the police had been summoned to enforce them. Zane doubted that would make a favorable impression on the inspectors. Substantial reform was about to come to one nursing home, and the lot of the surviving inmates would be improved.

  He glanced once more around the neighborhood before he left. There stood the church, nursing home, and dance hall in a row. Surely the fate of all three would improve, now that they had interacted in this fashion and discovered what each had to offer the others, and there would be music for everyone! Maybe the entire city of Miami would experience a gradual renovation as the spirit of this hour spread.

  His next client was in the country. Mortis changed to Deathmobile form and drove along the superhighway, as they were not pinched for time. Zane read the billboards and realized there was an ad war on here.

  WHY DRIVE A LANDBOUND CAR WHEN YOU CAN RIDE A CARPET? the first billboard demanded in huge, shining print. The picture was of a car struggling through a traffic jam, while a magic carpet sailed blithely over, its handsome family smiling.

  Zane also smiled. He was at the moment car bound—but he would never be trapped in a traffic jam. Not with Mortis! "Did you show me this just to make me appreciate you properly?"

  The car did not answer, but the motor purred.

  The next billboard proclaimed DRIVE IN COMFORT. The picture was of a family huddled on a flying carpet in a rainstorm. The man looked grim and uncomfortable, the woman's once-elegant hairdo was a wet mess plastered about her ears, and one child was sliding off the rear, about to fall. The material was evidently wrinkling and shrinking in the rain, heightening the family's discomfort and peril. Below, the same family could be seen happily in a closed car, safely seat-belted, untouched by the rain.

  "So the car fights back," Zane remarked. "I can see it." He glanced at his watch. Still several minutes to go.

  The next billboard showed the carpet sailing blithely over the rain cloud that largely obscured the traffic jam below. BABYLON CARPETS OUTPERFORM ANY LANDBOUND VEHICLE! it proclaimed. MORE DISTANCE PER SPELL.

  But the auto maker came right back with a picture of the family gasping for air aboard the high-flying carpet, while the car zoomed along the open highway. KEEP SAFE, KEEP COZY, it advised. USE A CAR INSTEAD OF A CARPET.

  Perhaps the ad war continued, but Zane had to turn off to approach his client. This was a residential enclave in the countryside; the houses were very similar to one another, the lawn manicured. Zane wondered why people bothered to live in the country when all they did was take the city with them. He turned into the appropriate drive and parked in the limited shade of a medium pine tree. He noticed there was a disabled sticker on the owner's car; evidently the disablement was terminal.

  Zane entered and made his way to the bathroom. There was a young, fairly muscular man taking a deep bath. He looked relaxed.

  The man did not react to Zane's appearance and did not seem to be in trouble, yet the gem-arrow identified him as the client. "Hello," Zane said, uncertain how to proceed.

  The man glanced up languidly. "Please leave," he said, his voice mild.

  "First I must do my job," Zane said.

  "Job? Perhaps you are in uniform, and assume I recognize your business. I can not see you, for I am blind."

  Oh. That accounted for the disabled sticker. But mere sightlessness wouldn't kill this man, unless some bad accident were coming up. "I suspect you will be able to see me, if you try," Zane said.

  "You are a faith healer? Go away. I am an atheist, and have no traffic with your kind."

  An atheist! One who did not believe in God or Satan, or in their related artifacts. How could Death have been summoned for a nonbeliever?

  Two answers offered. It was possible that this man was not as cynical as he professed—and really did believe in Eternity perhaps unconsciously. Or it could be that there had been another glitch, and that the Powers that Be had not realized that no service was required for this particular client.

  Well, Zane was here, and the case would have to be played through to whatever conclusion was fated. He looked at the water in the bath and saw that it was discolored by a cloud of darkn
ess. "You are committing suicide," he stated.

  "Yes, and I must ask you not to interfere. My folks are away for two days, so will not know until it is safely done. I have slashed veins in my ankles and am pleasantly bleeding to death in this hot water. There is no greater kindness you can do me than to let nature take its course."

  "I am here for that," Zane said. "I am Death."

  The man laughed, becoming more animated as his attention focused. "An actual, physical personification of Death? You're crazy!"

  "You don't believe in Death?"

  "I believe in death, and, obviously. I am about to experience it. Certainly I don't believe in a spook with skull and crossbones and scythe."

  "Would you like to touch my hand and face?" Zane asked.

  "You persist in this nonsense? Very well, while I still command my faculties, let me touch you." The man lifted an arm from the water with some visible effort and extended it toward Zane.

  Zane clasped that hand in his own gloved one, curious how the man would perceive it. He was hardly disappointed in the reaction.

  "It's true!" the man exclaimed. "A skeleton!"

  "A glove," Zane said, not wanting to deceive him. "And my face is a skull-mask generated by magic. Nevertheless, I am Death, and I have come to collect your soul."

  The man touched Zane's face. "A mask? It could fool me! That's a skull!"

  Zane had been uncertain before whether his skull-face was tactile as well as visual; now he knew. "I am a living man performing an office. I wear a costume and have certain necessary powers, but I am alive and have the flesh and feelings of a man."

  The client took his hand again. "Yes, now I perceive the flesh, faintly, the way I do my own when my foot is asleep. Strange! Perhaps I do believe in you, or in your belief in the office. But I don't believe in the soul, so your effort is wasted."

  "What do you believe happens when you die?" Zane asked, genuinely curious. This man seemed to have a good mind.

  "My body will be inert and in time will dissolve into its chemical components. But that is not what you mean, is it? You want to know about my supposed soul. And I will answer. There is no soul. Death is simply the end of consciousness. After death, there is nothing. Like the flame of a candle snuffed out, the animation is gone. Extinction."