On a Pale Horse ioi-1

by Piers Anthony

  This was as elegant and comfortable an automobile as he had ever encountered. Somber quality emanated from every part of it. The upholstery was genuine alligator leather and the metalwork was solid chrome. It was probably worth thirty-five thousand dollars in stock condition before the expensive options were added. He wasn't sure he dared try to drive it.

  His watch flashed, calling attention to itself. It was mechanical, but it had a magic way about it. The glowing hands indicated 8:05 P.M., the correct time of day. But the red sweep hand was moving. It hadn't been before; the seconds were marked by a miniature inset dial on the left, opposite the day-date windows on the right. This little hand was still moving, so he knew that function had not been usurped by the sweep. What was the red hand doing?

  As he watched, the sweep passed the noon spot — and the hand in the little thirty-minute dial just below it clicked back from 9 to 8. The stopwatch function was operating — and now he realized it was running backward. The sweep hand was moving counterclockwise. What kind of stopwatch was that?

  A countdown timer, he realized. This watch was telling him he had less than eight minutes to do something, or to get somewhere. But what, or where?

  A cold shiver crawled down his back. He was Death, or some poor facsimile thereof. He had to go and collect his first soul!

  Zane rebelled. He had not sought this office! Only the purest coincidence had brought him to this incredible pass.

  Coincidence? He had touched on that before. If the woman who had explained things really had been Fate, then she must have measured the thread of his life; she had guided him to his damnable destiny. She had put him here deliberately. In so doing she had in effect killed his predecessor. Why had she done that?

  The watch was blinking insistently. He now had six minutes. He wasn't sure what would happen if he missed whatever appointment he had, but knew already that these supernatural entities played hardball politics. Maybe his predecessor had balked, and so Fate had arranged to eliminate him. Certainly she had evinced no grief at his demise. If Zane balked, she could do the same to him. He wasn't sure how he felt about this office, but knew he wasn't ready for that. So he had better get on with the job, trying to buy time to figure out his real feelings about it, and to ascertain what his real options might be.

  Where was the instruction manual Fate had mentioned? He didn't see it, and didn't have time to look for it. The thing could have been lost a century ago by his predecessor.

  Zane put his hands on the steering wheel of the car named Mortis and touched his right foot to the accelerator. Where was the ignition key? He had none. Maybe it was back on the body of the former Death.

  Zane shuddered. He had been propelled into this misadventure, but he didn't want to go back to its starting point! He checked the panel, hoping for an alternative. After all, many vehicles operated by magic in minor ways, just as many magic things had mechanical controls. A simple touch switch was marked ON/OFF. He flicked it to ON — and the car came to life. The front panel lighted, the radio came on, and the seat harness clasped him protectively. The motor thrummed with muted power. Oh, yes, this was some car!

  Well, so be it. Zane found the reverse control and supersonic velocity across the terrain of the world. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the blurring stopped.

  Zane looked around, startled. He knew immediately that he was in a different city. He guessed it was one a significant distance northwest of Kilvarough — perhaps all the way across the continent. Maybe even the great port city of Anchorage. But he had no time to be concerned about that. The cat's eye had grown abruptly and significantly larger, the two dots on the gridstone had merged, and his watch was down to a single minute. He was very close to his object.

  With this assurance, Zane proceeded with greater confidence. He was beginning to get the hang of the use of Death's instruments. He now understood that the eye grew until it covered the stone, and that would be when he arrived. When the direction arrow started shifting, though he was driving in a straight line, Zane knew he was there. Just in time, too; his watch's red hand showed only thirty seconds and counting.

  The eye was maximal, and the arrow spun in a full circle. He had to be right at the scene — but there was nothing here. He was passing through an ordinary intersection. Was this a false alarm?

  He slowed and drew to the side of the street, perplexed. He had thought he had it, and now it seemed he did not. The arrow steadied, pointing back the way he had come. Pointing at nothing.

  The sweep hand on the Deathwatch closed on noon.

  There was a crash in the intersection. A small truck had made a preemptive left turn into the right-of-way of a tiny Japanese subcompact, and the two had collided violently.

  Zane turned off his motor and got out of the Death mobile, not caring whether it was legally parked. He hurried to the scene of the accident.

  The man in the truck was half-stunned. The woman in the little car had an enormous sliver of supposedly unbreakable glass through her neck. Blood was gushing out of her, flooding the dashboard, but she was not dead.

  Zane hesitated, appalled. He saw no way to save the woman — but what was he to do? Cars were screeching to halts, carpets were landing, and people were converging.

  The woman's glazing eyes clarified, momentarily. She saw Zane. Her pupils contracted to pinpoints. She tried to scream, but the blood cut off her breath, keeping her silent.

  Someone nudged Zane's elbow. He jumped. Fate stood beside him. "Don't torture her, Death," Fate said. "Finish it."

  "But she isn't dead!"

  "She can't die — quite — until you take her soul. She must remain in terrible agony until you put an end to it. She and all the others who are trying to die during this hold period. Do your duty, Death."

  Zane stumbled toward the wreckage. The woman's terrified eyes tracked his progress. She might see nothing else, but she saw him — and Zane knew from his own recent experience how horrible the oncoming specter of Death was. But he did not know how he was supposed to finish ending her life.

  The victim's dress was torn, showing how the glass had sliced all the way down across her right breast, leaving her front a mass of gore. There was absolutely nothing pretty or merciful about this demise. It had to be terminated quickly. Yet the woman tried to resist his approach. She wrenched her left hand up to fend him off, the hand hanging from a broken wrist. Zane had never before seen such physical and emotional pain, not even when his mother had — He reached for her, still uncertain what to do. Her wrist blocked his hand, but his flesh passed through hers without resistance. His hooked fingers caught in something that felt like a cobweb, there inside her head. He wrenched his hand out — and it trailed a festoon of transient film, like the substance of a soap bubble. Disgusted, he tried to shake it off, but it clung like a string of spittle. He brought his other hand up, holding the jeweled bracelet, and tried to scrape the stuff away. The thin film tore, but clung to his other hand.

  "This does not become you. Death," Fate said reprovingly. "This is her soul you are brutalizing."

  Her soul! Zane's eyes tried to glaze like those of his victim. He stepped back — and the tattered soul moved with him, stretching out from her destroyed body as if reluctant to separate from it.

  Then the silken strand snapped free and contracted. He held it dangling limply, like the discarded skin of a molting snake.

  The woman in the car was dead at last, the horror and anguish frozen on her face. Death had taken her soul and ended her suffering.

  Or had he? "What happens now?" he asked Fate. His body was shaking, and he felt unpleasantly faint.

  "You fold the soul, pack it in your pouch, and go on to the next client," she answered. "When you have a break in the schedule, you will analyze the soul, to determine to which sphere it should be relegated."

  "Which sphere?" His mind refused to focus, as if his very thoughts were blinded by the client's blood.

  "Heaven or Hell."

  "But I'm no judg
e of souls!" he protested.

  "Yes, you are — now. Try not to make too many mistakes." Fate turned and walked away.

  Zane stared at the dangling shreds of the soul. People passed him, but no one noticed him. He might as well have been alone.

  Awkwardly, he brought his hands together, folding the gossamer material like a sheet. It bent in the wrong places and creased horizontally, and the torn edges flopped out of place, but he muscled it together stage by stage. Finally he had a very small, light package; the soul had hardly any physical mass. He fished in his pockets again and found a cloth bag; he stuffed the wadded soul into this. Then he tried to retch, but his empty stomach lacked the wherewithal to complete the job. What a mess he had made of his first case!

  The police had arrived, and an ambulance, and people were extracting the mangled remains of the victim from the wreckage of her car. Witnesses were being interviewed, but no one thought to question Zane. He was coming to understand how this operated; he was not invisible, but he was unnoticeable. Except when it counted.

  He had collected his first soul. No one needed to tell him that he had pretty well bungled it. He had frightened the woman unnecessarily, extended her torment while he dallied, and ripped her soul forth most unkindly. This certainly was not an auspicious commencement of his new duties!

  His watch was flashing again. The sweep hand was moving. He had seven minutes to make his next appointment.

  "I'd rather die myself!" he muttered. But he wasn't quite sure of that. Life could be ugly, and his present office was also ugly, but dying was worse yet. What a torment the human condition could be!

  What alternative did he have? Zane hurried to the Death mobile. He did not know what the normal frequency of clients was, but supposed a backlog had accumulated during the transition, if such a thing were possible. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe Fate had timed the changeover to occur during a lapse in other clients.

  He oriented on the next case and drove toward it. As the green grid flashed, he touched the button on the dash panel — and launched toward the location on hyper drive. This one was far south, probably well below the equator. But as the car stabilized in the new city, the guide-gems functioned normally, and no one seemed to notice his sudden appearance on the street.

  Zane was not at all sure he liked this business of collecting souls, but still was hesitant about balking. How long would the woman in the wrecked car have suffered if he, Death, had not been there to relieve her other soul? He didn't care to think about that.

  The car ran smoothly, maneuvering through traffic expertly. It was a real pleasure to drive. He followed the arrow and eye and closed quickly on his destination.

  Where was he? Maybe in Brazilia, in the bosom of the southern continent. But no — now he saw the Phoenix General Hospital. This was the Arizona of the country. He had not hyped south of the equator at all; he had severely misjudged his progress. Well, he would learn with experience.

  He parked in the visitors' lot, drew his cloak about him, and proceeded to the appropriate ward, feeling nervous. He had never liked hospitals, especially since his mother had been confined to one. Yet he realized that Death would have a number of calls at hospitals, since many terminally ill people would expire in them.

  No one challenged him, though he had not arrived during visiting hours. Evidently they took him for a doctor or hospital functionary. Perhaps he was; his function was the most basic of them all.

  He found his client. It was an old man in a ward of four. All of them had tubes and apparatus connected to their bodies in awkward ways and all seemed to be terminally ill. Oh, he hated this! He wanted to flee, but could not.

  Zane was concerned that his appearance would terrify the client, as it had before, but there was no way to sneak up on him anonymously. In addition. Death was early; two minutes remained on the countdown.

  He decided to be forthright. After all, that couldn't be any worse than the previous case. He marched up to the bed. "Hello." His spoken word sounded strange; there seemed to be an echo from his pocket.

  None of the four patients reacted at first. This gave Zane a moment to ferret out the mystery. He reached in the pocket and found the earring he had taken from Death. Had the echo come from it? Why?

  "Hello," he repeated — and this time was sure the sound reacted with the gamete.

  The client's eyes turned slowly on him. The sagging mouth formed words. "About time you got here. Death!"

  The client was speaking in a foreign language — but Zane understood him, because a translation emanated from the gem he held. He realized that this was a magic translation device, another enchanted stone. Naturally Death had duties all over the world and had to be able to handle any language. He jammed the gem into his left ear; later he would get it attached in a more normal fashion.

  The novelty of the language and the stone had distracted him from the business at hand; the client was looking at him expectantly. Zane was taken aback. "You were expecting me? You're not afraid?"

  "Expecting you? I've been seeking you for six months! Afraid? I thought I'd never get out of this prison!"

  "This hospital? It seems nice enough."

  "This body."

  Oh. And it seemed the translation worked both ways, for the man understood Zane's words, though there was no noise in his ear. "You want to — ?"

  The client squinted at him. "You're new at this job, aren't you?"

  Zane choked. "How did you know?"

  The man smiled. "I had a close encounter with Death once before. He was older than you. More wrinkles in his skull. The sight of him so fazed me that I surged right back into life. I had been dying on the operating table, but the operation became a success. That time."

  "I know how that is," Zane agreed, thinking once more of his mother.

  "Then I had a reserve will to live that manifested when challenged. But my condition is farther gone now. Neither science nor magic can abate the pain any more. Not without dulling my intellect, and I don't want that. In any event, I suspect that death is merely a translation to a similar existence without the burden of the body. Some people don't even realize when they're dead. I don't mind if I realize, just as long as the pain abates. So my will has eased, and I'm ready to lay life down. I hope you are competent."

  Zane looked at the Deathwatch. He was a minute overdue! "I hope so, too," he said. "I talked with you too long."

  The man smiled again. "It was a pleasure, Death. It provided me a brief respite. If you ever discover a person truly being kept alive beyond his will, you must use force if necessary to ease him. I think you will do that."

  Again Zane thought of his mother. "I have done that," he agreed in a whisper. "A person has a right to die in his turn. I believe that. But some would call it murder."

  "Some would," the client agreed. "But some are fools." Then his face tightened with a spasm of intense pain. "Ah, it is time!" he gasped. "Do it now, Death!"

  Zane reached for the man's soul. His fingers passed through the client's body and caught the web of the soul. He drew it carefully out, not tearing it. The man's eyes glazed; he was dead and satisfied to be so.

  The three other patients in the room paid no attention. They did not realize the nature of the visitor, or know that their companion had died.

  Zane folded the soul and put it in his bag with the other. He was getting better at this, fortunately. He felt better about it, too, for he knew he had done right by this particular client, sparing him further futile pain. Perhaps this office was not as dreadful as he had thought.

  He looked at his watch. The countdown was running again, but showed almost half an hour. The cat's eye was large; the location was close. For once he wouldn't have to hurry.

  He drove to a park area beyond Phoenix and pulled off the street. He opened his bag of souls, put in his hand, and drew one out. He unfolded it carefully, spreading it out as well as he could against the inside of the windshield. It was a whole soul, untorn, so he knew it was the most recent on
e he had collected.

  The soul, silhouetted against the glare of oncoming headlights, showed patterns of translucency and opacity, like a convoluted Rorschach blob. It was fascinating in its intricate detail, but he had no way to judge its overall nature. Should this one be relegated to Heaven or Hell?

  Something glimmered in his mind, almost like a memory from a prior existence. Zane reached around the soul, his arm crumpling it slightly in passing, and punched open the dashboard compartment. Sure enough, inside it were several more gemstones. He had gone from paucity to plethora when he assumed this office!

  Two stones were gently flashing. Zane drew them out. They were more cabochons, half-rounded-polished hemispheres. One was a dull brown, the other a dull yellow. He set their flat faces together, and the two formed a sphere, a little like the dark and light faces of the moon. Perhaps they were moonstones. They were a matched set — but what was their purpose?

  He let the stones separate and brought the brown one near the spread soul. The stone flickered as if hungry. He slid it across the surface of the soul, and it flickered whenever it crossed a dark patch.

  Aha! Zane brought the yellow stone near. It flickered as it passed the light portions.

  If dark equated with evil and light with good, he had here his analytic mechanism. One stone responded to each aspect of the soul. He could perform the magic analysis scientifically. But how was the final balance to be ascertained?

  Maybe the stones gained weight as they absorbed the readings from the soul. Was there a set of scales?

  He checked in the compartment, but found no scales. Well, maybe the mechanism would become apparent at the right moment. He really did not have time to ponder at length.

  Zane passed the brown gem across the length of the edge of the soul, then down a swath just in from the edge. The dark items flashed into the stone. Where he ran over a portion already covered, there was no response; the gem only picked up any given sin once. As it did so, it gradually darkened, but did not seem heavier in Zane's hand. Of course, the change might be too small for him to detect.