Piers Anthony - On a Pale Horse

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 judge 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.