On a Pale Horse ioi-1

by Piers Anthony

  "But I'm here, and I'm not even dead yet!"

  "No, sir. You five are not, technically. The rest of us are."

  "Five? Who?"

  "The Incarnations, sir."

  "Oh. You mean Death, Time, Fate — "

  "War and Nature, sir," the butler finished "These are the living residents of Eternity. All others are dead, except, of course, the Eternals."

  "The Eternals?"

  "God and Satan, sir. They are not subject to ordinary rules."

  Zane took a gulp of the wine. It was excellent and did indeed invigorate him. "I see. You yourself are dead?"

  "Yes, sir. I was collected by the holder of your office twice removed. I have served here for seventy-two Earthly years."

  "So you watch Deaths come and go, every thirty years or so! Doesn't it get dull for you?"

  "It certainly is better than Hell, sir."

  There was that. Anything was better than Hell! "Maybe you'd better introduce me to the remaining staff. I presume a mansion like this has several employees?"

  "True, sir. Whom do you prefer to see first?"

  "Who is here?"

  "The gardener, the cook, the maids, the concubine — "

  "The what?"

  "The living have needs, sir," the butler reminded him delicately.

  "And those needs can be served by the dead?"

  "Indubitably, sir."

  Zane shook his head, repelled. He gulped the last of his drink. "I have changed my mind. I'll meet the staff another time. I'm sure I have clients accumulating. Earthside."

  "Certainly, sir," the butler agreed, as Zane got to his feet, and hurried to fetch his office accouterments. In moments Zane was back in uniform and striding outside.

  Mortis was waiting, having anticipated his master's need. Zane mounted and discovered the four letters still in his hand. He had maintained a death grip on them since being challenged by the butler. "I should read these," he muttered.

  He found himself in the Death car. No, it was a small airplane, on automatic pilot. The remarkabilities of his steed were still manifesting!

  Zane tore open the first letter. Dear Death, it said. Why did you have to take my mother? I think you stink. And it was signed Love, Rose.

  Zane considered that. Obviously a child. Probably Death had not even serviced that account personally, as the odds were that the girl's mother had been strongly enough oriented to find her own way to Heaven or Hell. But how could the child know that? Perhaps he should tell her.

  Answer her letter? Did Death correspond with children? Obviously that had not been the case in the past.

  Well, why not? If Rose's letter could reach him, his letter could reach her. Only — what difference would it make to her? Her mother would still be dead.

  Yet who was more deserving of an answer than an orphaned child? Zane decided to respond. He would find out where her mother had gone, hoping it was Heaven — that seemed likely, since there was evidently love between them — and inform the little girl. Maybe he could get a message from the mother to relay.

  He opened the next letter.

  Dear Death — Last night I caught my old goat cheating again. I want you should take him right away tomorrow so I can get the insurance.

  Sincerely, Outraged Wife.

  P.S. Make sure it hurts!

  No need to answer that one. No wonder the old goat cheated!

  A light was blinking in the Deathplane's control panel. There was a word there: WATCH.

  Startled, Zane glanced at his watch. It remained frozen. "Thanks for reminding me. Mortis!" he said, restarting the timer. He put the letters in the dash compartment. He had clients to attend to.

  Death traveled all over the world, harvesting souls, and managed to get current on his schedule. Along the way he encountered another obnoxious Hellfire sign series commercial: WINTER IS COLD YOUR LIFE IS SHOT; GO TO WHERE IT'S REALLY HOT! When he had spare time, Zane answered his fan mail, explaining to Rose that her mother had a terminal ailment and had been in great pain, until finally it had been kindest to send her on to Heaven, where there was no pain. He had gone to Purgatory to look up the records, so he knew this was true. The child's mother had been a good woman. He had not been able to get any answer from her in Heaven, however; apparently those who went there lost all interest in Earthly things. Other letters he answered as appropriate, trying to keep the tone polite. He asked himself why he bothered, in some cases, and could only conclude that it was the right thing to do. The fact of death was so significant to the average person that any ameliorating factor was worthwhile.

  The job of collecting and handling souls got easier as he gained experience, but still he did not like aspects of it. People died for such foolish reasons! A man made himself a cup of coffee while his wife was out and used rat poison instead of sugar; he was half-blind and forgetful and ignorant of the layout of the kitchen, but this remained an avoidable folly. At least he should have been warned by the taste! A child got out her mother's collection of curses, invoked them all at once, and was cursed to death before her screams were heard. If only those curses had been stored securely in a locked safe! A teenager went joy riding on a stolen witch's broom, naturally the joystick threw him off — half a mile above the ground. A young man, seeking to impress his girlfriend, jousted with a zoo's fire-breathing dragon and got fried. An old woman, grocery shopping in her car, made a thoughtless left turn into a cement truck. Five souls, three doomed to Hell — when all could have gone to Heaven at a later date, had those people lived more carefully and tried to do more good. And these were only a fraction of the total — that tiny fraction that was so nearly in balance that it required Death's personal attention. What of the vast majority who went to Eternity by themselves, requiring no more than Death's tacit approval? How many of them had ignored their salvation until it was too late and suffered the early demise they should have avoided? Was mankind a hopelessly muddled species?

  Morbidly curious, Zane ordered a computer printout from Purgatory and checked it over. Now he had the exact statistics, and they confirmed his suspicions. Millions of people were dying from heart and circulatory complications that could have been abated by simple diet and exercise. Millions were dying from cancer because they had not had it checked or diagnosed until too late and refused to desist from their carcinogenic ways, such as smoking tobacco even when it was fatal for them. A huge number were lost to traumatic causes — car crashes, carpet crashes, falls, firearms — it was horrible how many were shot by their own guns, or murdered by their own supposedly captive demons!

  Yet what could he. Death, do about it? He lacked Satan's enormous publicity budget and doubted people would change much, even if clearly warned. By the time he was called in, the damage was in most cases too far progressed to be reversed. People really needed to reorder their lives from the start — and he knew that very few would do that voluntarily. They were aware that their lifestyles were at best silly and at worst suicidal, yet they continued unchanged. Exactly as he himself had continued, until he actually saw the face of Death.

  If this was a contest between God and Satan, it was evident that Satan was winning. Of course, Satan was constantly campaigning, with periodic Hellethons on television urging people to GET FIRED' and making the ludicrous promise that HELL BUILDS MEN! and offering group plans for families. According to the Covenant, neither Eternal was supposed to interfere in the affairs of living people, but God was the only party to honor it. What good was a pact of noninterference that one party violated freely? Yet if God were to act like Satan, He would be no better than Satan..!

  Zane didn't know the answer, but still he felt the need. Perhaps, he chided himself, if a more competent man had assumed the office, he would have been able to do something really positive. But as long as the office of Death was passed along almost randomly, the officeholders would be mediocre, like himself. What could be expected of someone who had to murder his predecessor to obtain the position? He, Zane, was probably typical of t
he breed. He could not expect his successor to be much better. If any good were to be done, he would have to do it himself, inadequate though he might be.

  Oddly, that realization gave him a new kind of strength. Probably he would fail, but at least he would try. He didn't know what he would do or could do or should do, but hoped he would acquit himself appropriately when the chance came.

  He glanced up. He happened to have parked in a northern latitude, during a break between cases, where snow lay on the ground. There was yet another of Satan's ubiquitous billboards: HELLO! IT'S WARM BELOW! SIGN UP EARLY FOR PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT. The picture showed a luscious female demon in a half-open bed, beckoning with her middle finger. In the corner, the miniature female Dee was restraining the male Dee from leaping into the bed.

  Zane was tempted to knock down the billboard by driving the Death mobile through it, but checked himself. This was a free cosmos; Satan had a right to advertise. Decent folk had to let the indecent folk do their thing; that was the paradox of decency. Was it worth it?

  He continued his routine. Several more cases turned out to be optional, so that he was able to arrange to spare them. He still didn't know whether this was proper, according to the rules of the job, but the Purgatory television reporting did not take more than routine gossipy notice of them, with a "Look at what the bad boy's done this time!" attitude, so he assumed that, while it might be considered bad form, it was in fact one of his prerogatives: to take or not to take, at a given time. It was possible that a soul that might have squeezed through to Heaven if taken on schedule would later degenerate and go to Hell, but he thought it more likely to be the other way around. What person, confronted with the specter of Death, would not hasten to reform his ways to some extent? Whoever was fool enough to ignore that type of warning and descended to Hell probably deserved his fate.

  Still, Zane's underlying misgiving was sharpened by what started out as a routine case. It was a boy of perhaps fifteen, victim of a rare form of cancer. He was resting comfortably at home, thanks in large part to potent medication and an optimism-spell. He looked up in surprise when Zane entered.

  "I haven't seen you before, though you seem somehow familiar," the boy said. "Are you a doctor?"

  "Not exactly," Zane said, realizing that the boy did not recognize his nature. He was uncertain whether to inform him.

  "A psychologist, then, come to try to cheer me up?"

  "No, just a person come to take you on a journey."

  "Oh, a chauffeur! But I don't feel like riding around the park again."

  "It's a longer trip than that."

  "Can't you just sit down and talk a while? I get lonely," The boy ran his fingers through his tousled yellow hair, as if to clear his head of loneliness.

  Zane sat on the edge of the bed. His watch showed fifteen seconds on the countdown; he froze it there. This boy was dying — and would no one keep him company? Probably because his family and friends knew what the victim didn't. That was one of the ironic cruelties of the situation. "I will talk with you."

  The boy smiled quickly, gratefully. "Oh, I'm so glad! You will be my friend, I know." He put forth his hand with some difficulty, for he was weak and it took muscle to hold the hand horizontally from the body. "How do you do. I'm Tad."

  Zane took the boy's hand carefully. "Pleased to meet you. Tad. I am — " Here he stopped. The boy did not know he was going to die. What kindness would it be to tell him now? Yet to conceal the information was to lie. A lie by default was still a lie. What should he do?

  Tad smiled. "You've forgotten? Or you're here to give me a shot and you're afraid I'll scream?"

  "No shot!" Zane said quickly.

  "Let me guess, then. You're a bill collector? My dad handles that department. I guess these happiness-spells are costing him a bundle, but I don't think they're worth it, because I still get depressed some. I think he should use those spells on himself, because he's looking pretty peaked these days. Must be due to the cost of all my medication and stuff. I feel guilty because of that, and sometimes I wish it could just end, right now, and stop costing him so much."

  It was going to — but Zane knew that would not make the boy's father happy. "I'm not a bill collector," Zane said. "Though I suppose my job is related."

  "Maybe you're a salesman, then. You've got a product I can use. A new home-computer program that will keep me riveted for forty-eight hours straight."

  "Longer than that," Zane muttered uncomfortably.

  "Aw, I don't care. I've played those games till I can't stand any of them any more. And the magic games, too; I've conjured more harmless mythological animals than I ever knew existed. There's a pink elephant under my bed right now. See?" He pulled up the trailing coverlet, and Zane saw the pink trunk of an elephant. "What I really want is to go out in the sun and wind and just run, and feel the dry leaves under my feet, crackling. I've been in this bed so long!"

  Of course the boy was too weak to run. Even if Zane took him alive out of the building, it wouldn't work. How much did Tad actually know or suspect of his condition? "What's the matter with you?" Zane asked.

  "Oh, it's something to do with my spine. It hurts, so they invoke a local antipain spell and give me a spinal shot, but then my legs get numb and I can't walk. I wish they'd get it fixed; I'm missing a lot of school, and I don't want to repeat a grade. I had a B average. All my friends will be moving on up, you know, and I'd look pretty silly."

  So they had actually told him he would get better. Zane found himself turning angry. What right did they have to deceive him so?

  "What's the matter?" Tad asked.

  Now Zane had to make a decision. Should he tell the truth — or continue the lie? If he avoided the issue, he would in fact be lying by inaction. "I am on the horns of a dilemma," he admitted.

  "Watch how you sit on them," the boy advised.

  Zane smiled. Trust a youth to make a pun of the horns! "I'd rather be astride my good horse."

  "You have a horse? I always wanted one! What breed?"

  "I don't know his breed: I'm not expert on that sort of thing. I inherited him. He's a big, pale stall ion, very powerful, and he can fly."

  "What's his name?"

  "Mortis."

  "A Morgan? That's a good breed."

  "Mortis."

  "Moms?"

  "Mortis, with a T. He's a — "

  Tad was not stupid. "Mortis means death," he said. "I made a B plus in Latin."

  Zane felt a sinking sensation. He had given away more than intended, not being a student of Latin. "He is a Death horse."

  "But no living man can ride a Death horse!"

  "Unless the horse permits," Zane said, knowing what was coming. Why hadn't he had the courage to state his business honestly?

  The boy turned his head to stare at Zane. "That cloak!" he said. "That black hood. Your face — I see it more clearly now. It's just a skull!"

  "So it appears. But I am a man. A man performing an office."

  "You must be — " Tad took a shuddering breath. "I'll never see school again, will I?"

  "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 neve
r 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."