On A Pale Horse (36 page)

Zane's knees felt weak. He had done it! He had bluffed them out!

Bluffed them? No, he had destroyed them, by drawing on a power of his office he had not consciously exploited before. His practice with the scythe, long ago in life, had proved well worthwhile!

Mortis trotted back, nickering. “That was a credit to the office, Death,” the translation said.

Zane shrugged. “It was necessary. A desperate man does what he has to do. If I had had any escape, I would have taken it; since I had to fight, I fought as well as I knew how.” For once his temper had served him well! “Satan underestimated me this time; I dare say he will not do so again. But I hope in time to serve the office with distinction. It's not that I regard myself as any superior person, for I am not; it's that the office of Death deserves the best that I can give it.”

He mounted, and they started toward Earth. “Why didn't you tell me about the scythe?” Zane asked.

“I did not know it could be used against Hellhounds,” Mortis admitted. “My former master never employed it in that manner.”

But Mars had known! “So there are powers of the office that are inherent, regardless of the officeholder or the amount such powers have been used before,” Zane concluded. “Could there be others?”

“I am not the first Death steed,” Mortis neighed. “My predecessors may have seen things that are now clouded. But I understand the office of Death varies considerably with each officeholder. Interpretation is critical. At his height, Death is balked by no force in the firmament.”

“I've been balked at every turn!” Zane protested.

“Not when you held the Deathscythe!”

“I was desperate,” Zane repeated. But already he looked back at that episode with a certain grim pride. He had been foolish, but he had destroyed the enemy. Death did indeed have power, when Death chose to exert it. Nature had intimated as much. Had he remained confused, in effect acquiescing in his own slaying by the Hellhounds, that would have occurred; but he had not—and they had been helpless against him. Had his predecessor not cooperated in his own murder by being careless, he would have survived and Zane would be in Eternity.

“My own immediate predecessor in the office—what kind of Death was he?” Zane knew the man had gone to Heaven, but that did not necessarily speak well for his competence.

“A mediocre one, or he would not have lost the office.”

“I mean how did he perform? I know he was careless at the end, but that does not mean he wasn't a good worker. Did he keep up with his schedule? Did you like him?”

“He kept his schedule better than you keep yours,” the horse said. “I can not afford to become emotionally attached to any specific person.”

“So you will not miss me when I'm gone,” Zane said. “That's best. I appreciate the loyal and competent service you have given me from the outset and know you will be a great help to my successor.”

Mortis did not answer.

They landed in the city of Kilvarough. Mortis converted to the Death mobile and drove Zane to Luna's address.

She met him at the door. “Oh, I worried about you, Zane,” she said, relieved. “The consequence of opposing Satan—”

“I can handle it,” he said, not wanting to burden her with the knowledge that his life was now seriously in jeopardy. Satan would surely bring more potent forces to bear—but if Luna knew that, she might try to do something foolish, such as removing herself from life. “I just came to ask you to stand firm no matter what happens. And to remind you that I love you.”

Her relief was turning quickly to social concern. “You have gone on strike! Do you realize what this means?”

“I am being rapidly educated,” he admitted. “People are suffering grievously. But—”

“They are stacking up in the hospitals,” she said severely. “The terminal cases just won't die, and new patients keep coming in at the normal rate—it's been only a few hours. Can you imagine what it will be after a few days'! The world can't go on this way!”

“I know it is hard,” Zane said. “But the alternative—”

“Aren't you the one who smashed up a hospital room to free one client from a pointless and painful life? You believe in death!”

“I believe in death,” Zane agreed, seeing it as a revelation. “I really do! Death is the most sacred right of the living; it is the one thing that should never be denied. Yet in this case—”

“It's not as if they can be saved,” she continued relentlessly. “The fact that these poor people don't die does not mean they live productive lives. It only means a dreadful prolongation of terminal suffering.”

“True,” Zane acknowledged weakly. “Death is certainly a necessary service to those whose life is finished. It is best that it be prompt and painless. Yet—”

“I have been painting a picture,” she said. She gestured to an easel she had set up in her living room. On it was a partially completed representation of a child whose lower body had been crushed by a car. Nearby was the tangled remnant of a bicycle or miniature magic carpet that the child had evidently been riding carelessly. Zane noted how artistically the elements of both carpet and machine had been integrated to make the device unidentifiable; this was a symbolic example, not a literal one. It had also been hastily done, for Luna had been home only a few hours.

The most compelling thing was the aura of the child. It looked very like a soul half out of the suffering body, and its agony was manifest. What a terrible image this would be when complete!

It was, of course, also a representation of Luna's own state. She had died violently, yet lived—and knew that she was at least in part responsible for the torment of all the people who could not die.

“But if Satan takes over Earth, because you are not there to stop him,” Zane said, “millions of souls who might have gone to Heaven will instead be damned to just this type of torture in Hell! I must prevent—”

“I can't believe that!” Luna cried. “Hell is only the place where bad souls are punished. In time, when these souls reform, they are freed—”

“No, they're not! I checked with the Purgatory computer—”

“Zane, I have decided. I want you to end your—” The door crashed open. A brutal-looking man charged in, pointing a handgun at Zane. “Now shall you die, Death, and I shall take your place!” he bellowed.

“How did he get past my griffins?” Luna demanded indignantly. “Where's my moon moth?”

“My Lord Satan spelled them off,” the intruder said with an evil grin. “You will be the first booty I take, gorgeous creature, once I have the office.”

Zane drew his cloak and hood more closely about him. “Beware, oaf! I am invulnerable to mortal weapons.”

“Not any more, Death!” the thug cried. “You have been declared in violation of your office, and your magic has been turned off.” He sighted along the barrel of his weapon, aiming at Zane's heart.

“No!” Luna screamed, lunging at the man.

The gun fired. Blood spattered from Luna's right leg, where the bullet from the deflected gun struck. She crumpled.

Zane had never been much of a fighter, but his berserker temper was invoked again. The red of Luna's blood magnified before his eyes like an exploding star. He launched himself at the intruder as the gun swept back toward him. One of Zane's gloved hands shoved the barrel aside; the other reached for the thug's face.

The man screamed and fell back, dropping the gun. Zane turned to Luna, who was sprawled in her own blood. “I must get you to a doctor!”

“No good!” she gasped. “The hospitals are overcrowded with the undead. No room for minor cases.”

“But you could bleed to death!”

She flashed him a smile through her pain. “Then you'd have to take my soul, Death, wouldn't you! And that would—would free all the others.”

With renewed horror, Zane realized that this was a two-pronged trap. If he had been assassinated, his replacement would have ended the Deathstrike and taken Luna. If Luna had been mortally hurt, Zane himself might have had to take her, for he could not bear to see her suffer. Either way, Satan won.

“But now that I've seen—” Luna paused to gasp, catching up with necessary breathing, then resumed. “—seen how eager Satan is to get rid of you, I'm not sure I ought to go.”

“Some medical attention—I don't even know how to stop the bleeding—”

“Just fetch me the white gem from the mantel there,” she said, her voice losing force. “It's a—healing stone—”

Zane leaped to fetch the stone. Luna took it with trembling fingers and touched it to her leg, and the bleeding slowed and stopped. The flesh began visibly to mend around the edge of the wound. “I'm adding more burden to my soul, using this black magic,” she said. “But I don't care about me. I think maybe you're doing more than I thought, Zane, and I should support you.”

“It's true,” he said somewhat ungraciously. “But it's you Satan wants dead; I'm only blocking that. In a few days my petition will be heard, and the matter of your scheduling should be corrected. Then you will be free to live your life, and I can return to the duties of my office.”

“I really don't see how I can be so important,” she said, getting to her feet as the wound in her leg disappeared. That was one potent Healstone! “It must be something my father set up. Then he arranged to have Death himself guard me...”

“You're worth guarding,” Zane said—“Now I must go. You have already been hurt because you were near me; I don't want that to happen again. I can protect you best by staying away from you.”

“But Satan can attack me regardless!” she protested. “He just proved that!”

“It will do him no good while I retain the office. He must deal with me first.”

The thug Zane had downed groaned. They looked at him. Luna gasped and Zane stiffened.

No wonder the man had given up the fight so readily. One of his eyes was a mass of blood and fluid. The other—

“I must have forked him in the eyes with my fingers,” Zane said. “I wasn't even conscious of—”

Luna handed him the Healstone. Zane brought it to the man's face, near the punctured eye. In a moment the eye healed and cleared. Then he put it near the other. The eyeball was drawn up by its dangling nerve like a yoyo until it popped back into its socket and firmed in place.

“I'm sorry,” Zane told the man. “I acted without thinking.”

The man felt his face tentatively. “You fixed me up!” he exclaimed. “I can see again! The pain's gone!”

“Yes. I shouldn't have struck you like that. I was angry.”

“I don't like you when you're angry!” the man said, scrambling to his feet. “Just let me out of here! I won't tangle with you again!” He stumbled out.

“He thinks you healed him in a gesture of contempt,” Luna said. “That makes him twice as wary of you. He doesn't know what you will do to him next time, or whether you will bother to fix it.”

Zane shook his head. “I never dreamed there was such a beast in me! To spike out a man's eyes—”

“Just because he wanted to kill you and take your place and then kill me—”

Zane smiled, grimly rueful. “I guess I did mean it. When I saw him shoot you, a fuse blew in my brain. All my civilized restraints puffed away like so much fog in a furnace.” He shook his head. “I'll leave you now. I can't blame you for being horrified.”

She came to him, taking his hands in hers. “Zane, you have said you love me, and I have not replied. I feel I owe you a—a statement. I do like you, more than I have liked any other man except my father, but the situation—”

“I value your candor,” he said carefully. “Of course you are not in a position to—”

“What I'm trying to say is that you can prevent me from dying, but love is on another schedule. So soon after my father, tangled in grief—I just can't—”

“I understand.” And he believed he did. Luna loved her father, and that man had died. Could she afford to love Zane, too, when Satan was trying to assassinate him? When she herself was slated for early demise?

“Oh, Zane, take care of yourself!” she cried, flinging her arms about him and kissing him.

There was a neigh outside. Mortis was sounding the alarm. Zane disengaged hastily and hurried out.

“Trouble?” he asked, checking the translation stone in his ear.

“Other assassins,” the horse said. “Some I can outrun, some I can't. It is best to keep on the move, so that we encounter them singly.”

Zane mounted and Mortis moved down the street, his hooves striking the pavement silently. Still Zane found he was not afraid. He was in a battle whose outcome he did not know, and he simply had to fight it through and hope he prevailed. It was as if there were some emotional spell on him, blocking out incapacitating fear. But there was no magic, simply his virtual certainty that he was right. This belief did indeed provide a kind of strength, without depriving him of his realistic cynicism about the outcome. He knew his cause was in doubt and perhaps hopeless, but he would not let it go.

“Is this campaign against me legal?” Zane asked. “Won't there be an investigation if I am dispatched?”

“Satan honors few rules that are not convenient for him. By the time his foul play is revealed, he will have had his way. Justice may pursue him, but he is the most elusive entity in the cosmos.”

Which meant that Satan was cheating again, and could probably get away with it. Accomplishment was nine-tenths of the law, in Eternity as well as on Earth. Zane wasn't even angry; he knew he had to deal with reality rather than with idealism. He might be in the right, but without his defensive Deathmagic, he was fairly helpless.

Still, he recalled how rapidly, efficiently, and viciously he had acted when Luna had been directly threatened and when the Hellhounds had come for him. There was a lot of evil in him yet, being turned to good use against the greater evil of Satan's minions. Now that he had something to fight for, a new aspect of his personality was manifesting, making him more like Mars. He might be far from Heaven, but he wasn't entirely helpless.

Mortis swerved. “There is one ahead,” the horse explained. He galloped down a side alley. “Oops!” came a neigh of dismay.

Even as the horse tried to dodge, Zane saw it. A tattered beggarman stood close, intercepting them, his arm swinging in a throwing motion.