On A Pale Horse Read online

  "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 spi
n 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."

  "But has he any chance at Heaven?"

  "Of course he has! He's a good man!"

  She smiled. "You are kind to say so."

  In due course he left her, more than ever determined to save her, more than ever uncertain how to do it. He was only Death, a functionary; he could not dictate the identity of his clients—and Luna was not his client. Not directly.

  But, damn it, Satan was cheating! It wasn't right! Was there no justice in Eternity? Some court of appeal, to set the record straight—

  There had to be! Zane turned off his timer. Mortis leaped for Purgatory without directive, knowing the will of his master.

  "Why, yes, Death, you may file a petition," the Purgatory Administration annex desk girl said. "It will be reviewed by the Immortal Board at the next meeting, and a committee assigned—"

  "When's the next meeting?"

  She checked her perpetual calendar. "In ten Earthly days."

  "But the wrong is in process now!" he protested. "Ten days may be too late!"

  "I don't make the rules," she said, with just that edge of irritability that public servants knew, from millennia of experience, that they could get away with.

  Zane sighed. Bureaucracy was the same everywhere! He filled out the form and left it. Maybe there would be time. Luna's death had been omened within a month, of which five days were now gone; it could happen any time within the next twenty-five. That gave him ten out of twenty-five chances to lose, and fifteen out of twenty-five to win, or odds in his favor by a three or two margin. But he distrusted that, fearing what Satan would do.

  Chapter 10 - HOT SMOKE

  Zane slept at his Death house, accepting the routine services of his staff without noticing, then got to work early next day. Since it seemed he couldn't do anything to help Luna before the petition was considered, he tried to put the matter from his mind by working harder.

  As luck would have it, his case load was small at the moment. He took two clients in rapid order, then found himself with the maximum time of thirty minutes for the third. It seemed pointless to go early, but he had to distract himself some way, so he oriented and rode the Death horse to the address.

  This was an isolated spot in the western state of Nevada, the least populated region of the United States, because it was the least habitable. Zane's gems guided him to one of the desert areas, a barren wasteland.

  This was dragon country. The scenic Hot Smoke Mountains—renamed in honor of the beasts—were riddled with the warrens of the fierce reptiles. Few plants survived, but that hardly mattered to the dragons, who were carnivorous, preying on tender virgins. Mostly the creatures ranged aloft, questing for virginal animals, but they had a gourmet appetite for the rare human variety when it could be obtained. In fact—

  In fact, he now remembered that this was the locale of the Dragoons, a cult dedicated to the welfare of this exotic species. The Dragoons had lobbied vigorously to prevent the construction of resorts, irrigated farm sites, and missile silos in the region, pleading that the Hot Smoke species of dragon had no other habitat and would, if not left free, suffer the extinction that had almost claimed them before their discovery. Fortunately, that discovery had been made by a man interested in rare life forms, who had used some elementary magic to track them down. Had the original trappers and settlers in this region discovered them, they would have been totally exterminated, and no one would have believed they had ever existed.

  The Dragoons had won several legal suits, for the general public was in a phase of environmental consciousness, so the Hot Smokers remained largely unmolested. But they still needed to eat, and virgins of any type were in short supply. The Dragoons were constantly looking for new sacrifices. Human sacrifices were generally illegal, but it was difficult to keep constant watch, and the state authorities were chronically short of personnel.

  Sure enough, as Zane arrived at the site for his client, he spied a lovely but terrified young woman, barely nubile, in a cage. It was afternoon here, and men were setting up a smudge pot, evidently planning to use the smoke to summon a dragon. How the Dragoons had captured this virgin, Zane did not know, but she was surely doomed. He would have to collect her soul as the dragon consumed her, twenty five minutes hence, unless he figured out a way to rescue her.

  He walked to the cage and spoke to the girl. "How did they bring you here?" he inquired, suspecting that she would turn out to have been drugged.

  She paused in her weeping and looked up at him, not recognizing him. That was odd, for his clients were normally attuned to his presence. "By truck, sir."

  "I mean, was it coercion? Did they kidnap you? If so—"

  Her lip trembled. "No, sir. I come of my own fr-free will."

  "Do you know what they plan for you?"

  "To be gobbled by the dragon," she said, her eyes brimming over again. "I can't even take a mind-zonk drug, 'cause that changes the taste for the monster."

  So the dragons were sensitive even to the virginity of the mind! This was a cruel denouncement indeed. "But why do you accede to your murder?"

  "My—my family—in debt—" Now she broke down entirely and was unable to continue.

  So it was legal after all, because it was technically voluntary. She had sold herself to abate her family's debt. Such contracts had legal status, provided there was no deception. He understood that the Dragoons had an excellent credit rating, so there was no reason to doubt they had paid a fair price, redeeming this poor girl's family's debts. There was nothing he could do.

  At least he could get her out of the cage; that was unnecessarily degrading. But as he started to use his power on the lock, the maiden protested. "Sir, I am confined to guarantee no one deflowers me before the—the—"

  The Dragoons had everything figured! Of course, that would be a way to make her ineligible for the sacrifice, so they made quite sure no such mercy would occur at the last moment.

  There was a shimmer. A cloaked figure appeared beside the cage. "I will take your place, dear," the woman said.

  Zane jumped. He knew that voice. "Luna!" She turned to him. "Oh—I did not realize you would attend this one."

  "It's my job!" Zane said. "To harvest the soul of this undeflowered girl when—" He cut that off. "You can't take her place! You're not—"

  Luna turned a level gaze on him. "Not what?"

  "The Hot Smoke dragons are an endangered species because they consume only virgins," he said, somewhat lamely.

  She smiled grimly. "I am a virgin, physically."

  "But—"

  "The demon had his will of my mind and soiled my soul," she explained. "I would have suffered less had he been able to ravage me physically instead, but he can not do that until my soul enters his realm. I am damned, the victim of psychic rape, but my body is chaste."

  Za
ne was not comforted by this clarification. "I put in a petition to review your scheduled demise. It's a put-up job; the Unnamed wants you out of the way. I'm sure the review board will reverse it—but it will be ten days before it meets. If you go into this now—"

  Luna shook her head sadly. "My stones indicate that my time falls within this day. So I decided at least to make my passing useful to someone. I inquired at the Good Deeds Exchange, and they sent me here. This poor, innocent girl—" She glanced at the maiden in the cage, who was taking all this in wide-eyed silence. "—who has offered her good life in sacrifice for the benefit of her family—she should be sent to Heaven, but not yet. She has too many people to make happy on Earth."

  "She is hardly assured of Heaven," Zane said.

  "Check her yourself. She's a good girl, I'm sure."

  Zane oriented his soul-verification stones. The Sinstone remained dull, while the other glowed brightly. "She's not burdened with sin!" he exclaimed. "But how, then, could I have been summoned to collect her soul personally?"

  "Someone else must be going to die," Luna said with a knowing quirk of her lips. "You assumed it was the caged sacrifice, but—"

  He looked at her with burgeoning horror. "You are taking her place! You—"

  "Don't be silly. I'm going to Hell in my own handbasket. It's sheer coincidence that you're here; my soul will not need you. In fact, I had hoped to handle this without your knowledge, quickly and cleanly."

  Zane oriented the stones on Luna. The reading was, of course, incomplete, but the Sinstone was brighter. She was right; she could not be his client. But she was going to die.

  Now the Dragoons approached. "The occasion is at hand," a well-dressed older man announced. "Our radar has located an approaching Smoker." He produced a key and unlocked the cage, releasing the girl.

  "I will substitute," Luna said. "The Good Deeds Exchange sent me. Let this girl go, her onus abated."

  "How do we know you are eligible?" the man demanded. "The dragons get very disturbed when offered used goods."