Piers Anthony - On a Pale Horse

Zane ripped out wires and tubes. Fluid spurted.

Now the nurse became aware of him. "You did it!" she cried, horrified. "You must stop!"

Zane caught her in his arms and kissed her on the lips. She felt the skeletal embrace and fainted. He set her down carefully on the floor.

He saw that automatic failsafes were stopping the leaks in the torn tubes. The bleep-bleep alarm was more strident; soon other nurses would hear and come. He could not be sure the job was done.

Zane picked up a chair and smashed it into the stand supporting the bottles of life-preserving fluids. Glass shattered, and colored liquids coursed across the floor. He put his foot against a console and shoved it over, indulging in an orgy of destruction that was the overt expression of his long-suppressed emotion.

At last he stood over the old woman, chair raised to bash in her skull if need be — but he saw that now the job had been done.

He set down the chair and lifted out her soul, gently. There was a smattering of applause from the other patients as he put away the soul and walked out through the ward. All these people were on artificially extended time, so were able to perceive him for what he was.

"But I am a murderer — again," Zane protested weakly, now suffering reaction. Never before had he actually killed — in his role of Death. There had been grim satisfaction in the act — but surely he had added an awful burden of sin to his soul.

"I wish it was me you come for," one of the others muttered.

"You can't murder yur kind," the old-man said. "Any more'n you can rape a willing gal."

Zane paused. "How many of you feel that way?" he asked. "How many really want to die now?"

A murmur traveled along the ward, like a ripple of water. "We all do," the old man said, and the others agreed.

Zane pondered briefly. He heard the running footsteps of others in the bowels of the hospital, becoming aware that something was wrong. Time was limited.

He had done his assigned job; he had collected the old woman's soul and in his fashion had redeemed his murder of his mother. He had now done openly what he had done covertly before. He had shown that even Death himself would have made the same decision Zane had, long ago. But had he done his human job? These people were being denied their most fundamental right: the right to let life go.

"You know it would be mass murder," he said.

"It would be mercy," the old man said. "My grandchild is going broke paying for me, because the doctor says she must — and for what? For this? For eternity in a hospital ward, too sick to move, let alone enjoy life? Hell can't be worse than this — and if it is, I'll take it anyway! At least there maybe I'll have a chance to fight back. Cut me loose, Death! There's more'n just us patients suffering here; it's our families, too. They'll cry a while, but soon they'll heal — and maybe they'll still have a little something left to live on."

Zane decided. He was already doomed to Hell for his violations of the standards of his office. What did he have to lose? He wanted to do what was right, regardless of the consequence. These were his clients, too.

He went to the service area of the ward. There was the main circuit box. He yanked down all the handles.

Power died in the ward. Darkness closed in. The machinery stopped running.

There was an immediate outcry. Hospital personnel rushed in. Someone groped her way to the circuit box, but Zane stood before it. The nurse felt a skeletal Hand close on hers, pushing her away from the box. She screamed in sheerest terror.

'That is the horror you have been visiting on these patients," Zane told her. "Death-in-life."

No one could reverse what he had done, this time.

A few days later, once more caught up on his schedule, Zane paid Luna another call. This time she smiled when she saw him. "Come in, Zane; I'll be ready in a minute."

"Ready?"

"You're taking me out on a date, remember? Somewhere interesting, so we won't be bored with each other."

Zane had really had more talking in mind, for their last dialogue had affected him profoundly, but he didn't care to say that. True, aspects of their talk had been uncomfortably candid, and the notion of her paying off the demon still bothered him. But a portion of his self-doubt and disgust had eased significantly after their last meeting, and he hoped for similar positive impact in future. After all, how could he object to anything about her, after what he had done at the hospital? That had made ugly headlines on Earth as well as in Purgatory!

He looked at Luna's paintings as he waited for her. They were beautiful. She was much more of an artist than he had been. The colors were clear and true, and the auras realistic. It was hard to believe that a person whose soul was presently slated for damnation in Hell could do such excellent work. He was getting to like Luna better — and that realization caused him to wonder again why the Magician had wanted the two of them to know each other. Surely it was not merely because they were compatible or had a common interest in auras.

Luna reappeared — and this time she was stunning. Before, clothes had converted her most of the way from neutral to attractive; this time they had completed the transition. Bright blue topaz glinted from a band placed in her hair, and green emerald was set in her slippers; the rest of her between these two made the beauty of the gems pale.

"How do you like me now?" she inquired archly. He was cautious. "I thought you didn't really care for me. Why are you making yourself so lovely?"

She grimaced prettily. "I told you my deepest sins, and you didn't reject me. That's worth something."

"Because I'm no better!" he replied. "How can I condemn you? You were helping your father, while I — "

"Was helping your mother," she finished, completing the rehearsal of their excuse for being together, which somehow seemed necessary for each of them. "We're both well tainted. Anyway, until we know what my father had in mind, there's no sense in letting it go. I confess you're not the man I would have chosen on my own — "

"And you aren't the woman I was slated for — "

"Do you think Fate had her fickle finger in this?"

"I know she did. She put me in the office of Death by arranging the thread of my life to terminate right when my predecessor was getting careless. I suppose Fate even steered me past Molly Malone, where I got the gun I used. Whether Fate would have done this without the behest of your father, I don't know."

"Never trust a woman," Luna said seriously. "Fate least of all."

Zane smiled. "I'm a fool. I do trust Fate. She helped me get started as Death. The truth is, my life was hardly worth it before. Of course, I know I'm nothing special as Deaths go."

"I would hate to encounter something special in Deaths, then," she murmured. "That episode at the hospital — and I think I recognize your touch in that Miami riot, too."

Zane smiled. "It was no riot. But it illustrated the point. I let too many clients go free, when I can, and I take some I'm not supposed to, and I waste time talking to others, trying to make it easier for them. The Purgatory News Center is having a field day with my exploits. I don't know what Purgatory did for humor in the news before I came along."

"You're too well-meaning, and too trusting."

Zane looked at her, and was daunted again by her sheer beauty. "Surely I can trust you, though!"

"No."

"No? I don't understand."

"Put on your Death cape," Luna said abruptly.

Zane glanced at her again, startled. "I don't know. This is personal, and I don't like to mix — "

"I want a date with Death," she insisted. She turned her face to him and looked him in the eyes and smiled, and her eyes seemed lambent. He could not deny her, though he knew it was deliberate artifice.