Piers Anthony - On a Pale Horse

"No one but me?" Zane's head seemed to be spinning. "One encounter, seen three ways? You are saying I was the driver — and the cyclist — and the pedestrian — only when I was the cyclist I saw it as the hot-water bottle ride, and when I was the pedestrian I saw it as the swimming? You changed the view so I wouldn't catch on? I got in my own way three times?"

"You comprehend rapidly and well, once you get into it," Nature agreed, and her compliment pleased him despite his underlying anger.

"I comprehend that you put me on a track through a Mobius strip with a cross section of a prism, so I had to traverse the loop three times. But why Seven?"

"We answered that before. A mortal could not have passed; the equipment is not spelled to work for mortals. An immortal could not have passed either; an angel would not have needed the equipment, and the true path exists only for that equipment. A demon would have fought himself to death at the first encounter, for that is the way of demons."

"I felt like fighting," Zane admitted. "That arrogant idiot in the power boat — " He grinned ruefully. "Who was me. It seemed so different in the car! I thought I owned the road and that the others were intruding on my surface. As a walker or swimmer, I wasn't paying attention to anything except getting myself along. As a cyclist or bottlist or whatever, I was caught in the middle, between the arrogant power driver and the ignorant self-mover. Both seemed wrong. I'm not proud of my performance, in retrospect."

Nature shrugged, making an interesting ripple in the mist about her. At times she seemed fat, but at other times she seemed voluptuous; the fog never quite betrayed the truth. "You will have leisure to ponder the implications. You did get through, as only a true Incarnation would, blundering as it may have appeared. We Incarnations are not quite living and not quite dead; we are a unique category, with unique powers. We occupy our offices, but sometimes we are our offices. Like light, we are both wave and particle." She gestured, dismissing the matter. "Now we have privacy."

"Wait," Zane said, remembering something. "How can a demon fight himself to death? He's already dead."

"It may be true that the dead can not die — but if you do to a demon's corporate body what would kill a living creature, that demon loses the use of that body and must return directly to Hell. So it is much the same, in practice."

Zane returned to another matter. "What's so important about privacy? Do we have secrets to exchange?"

"Indeed we do. We are the mortal immortals; we can't have our secrets known to mortal mortals, lest we lose respect. We can't tell all to the Eternals, lest we lose our power."

"What secrets?" Zane asked. "I'm just doing my job."

"As you perceive it."

"Is there something I don't know about it?"

"Perhaps." She settled into a livewood chair, her ambience of mist spreading to fog much of it out. "I can make a small and not entirely comfortable demonstration."

She gestured, and suddenly Zane felt a tremendous concupiscence. He wanted sex, and he wanted it now. He found himself standing, in more than one manner, and approaching her.

"No!" he gritted, knowing this was not his own desire, but one imposed from without. Nature only smiled.

He reached for her — but forced himself to grasp for her soul, not her body. His gloved hand passed through the mist and her flesh, and his fingers hooked into her soul. He drew on it, stretching part of it out of her body.

She stiffened as if in sudden pain. Then Zane's erotic feeling left him as quickly as it had come. Her spell was off. He relaxed his hold on her soul and withdrew his hand from her flesh.

Nature took a deep and somewhat shuddering breath, and the mist about her fluctuated in intensity. She had lost some of her composure. "I have shown you part of my power," she gasped. "And you have shown me part of yours."

Again Zane suffered an illumination. "I do have power over the living — to a degree!" He remembered how his client in the hospital, the old woman like his mother, had reacted when he had tried the first time to take her soul. It had to be a terrible shock to have the soul pulled from a living body.

"You do indeed, Thanatos. No one can balk an Incarnation in his specialty — not even another Incarnation. There is no profit in opposing each other, ever. Nature governs all of life — but she doesn't govern Death. The individual powers each of us has are inviolate. No one — "

Here she paused, giving him a straight glance of enigmatic significance, her eyes like the swirlings of a tempest at night. "No one can interfere with any one of us with impunity."

Zane was shaken by her revelation. He had not realized before how directly and specifically she could affect him, or how he could affect her. His own power had surprised him as much as hers. But he got himself organized and returned to the subject. "So you summoned me here to tell me something and show me something, putting difficulties in my way. What is really on your mind?"

She shrugged again, seeming to like the motion. She had recovered her composure. She was, of course, an exceedingly tough creature. "You have met the others."

"I presume you mean the other special figures — Time, Fate, War. Yes, briefly."

"We really are special, Thanatos, we mortal immortals. We differ from one another, but we interact in devious yet essential ways, exerting our vectors."

"Vectors?"

"Well, you don't suppose any of us are completely free, do you? We don't do what we do frivolously. Just as the vectors offered, elevation, wind, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and landscape interact to determine exactly where a thrown ball will fall, so do the relevant factors determine how a war shall proceed, or how a cold front shall move, or when a given life will end. It may seem like chance or caprice, but that is only because no mortal person and few immortal entities comprehend the nature of the operative forces. We are not free — no one is absolutely free — yet we do have some leeway, and in this we individualize our offices. Each Incarnation can counter another to a limited degree, if that other permits, but we prefer not to do that unless there is sufficient reason."

Zane was curious. "How can Death be countered, even if Death permits?"

"Fate could arrange for a replacement, cutting off a thread."

Now he felt a chill, for he knew this had been done before. "Fate — why should Fate ever want to do that?"

"Chronos could halt the approach of an appointment."

"Yes, but why — "

"Mars could fashion a social disruption that could change the entire picture."

She was avoiding his question. Still, this seemed worth pursuing. "And what of Nature? What cute little trick do you have up your fog, aside from the doubtlessly convenient ability to inflict instant lust?"

"Show me your soul," she said.

"My — !" Then he made the connection, and brought out the soul of the left-footed dancing girl. He had stuffed his soul-bag automatically in his pocket and forgotten it until this moment.

Nature wafted a ball of mist at the soul. "Do not misjudge the power of any Incarnation, Thanatos. When you leave me, go to the crypt and try this soul. Then you will comprehend."

Zane put the soul away. It seemed unchanged. Was she bluffing? What could she really do with a soul? "You brought me here only for this?"

She laughed, causing little puffs of mist to spin off and float free. "By no means. I merely make my point with that soul so you learn proper respect and pay attention to my implication."

"Well, make your implication!" Zane exclaimed impatiently.

"What do you suppose is the most ancient profession of the human species?" Nature asked.

What was this distaff dog up to now? "It's a female profession," he said guardedly.