Piers Anthony - On a Pale Horse

It was completely dark, but Zane could see well enough. It seemed his office imbued him with magic vision, so that mere blackness could not stay him from his appointed rounds. The men were lying against a wall of rubble, conserving their strength and breath; they knew there was no way out.

"Hello," Zane said, feeling awkward.

One of the miners turned his head. The pupils of his eyes were enormous as they tried to see — and, of course, Zane became apparent, magically. "Don't look now," the man murmured, "but I think we're about to cash in our green stamps."

Of course the other looked and saw. The caped skull!

"That's Death!"

"Yes," Zane said. "I have come for one of you. "You've come for us both," the first miner said. "We've only got air for an hour, maybe less."

Zane glanced at his watch. "Less," he said.

"God, I don't want to die!" the second miner said.

"But I knew when I heard the cave-in start that it was hopeless. We were living on borrowed time anyway, with all the safety violations the company wouldn't fix. If I'd been smart, I'da gotten out of this business!"

"Where would you have gone?" the first miner asked.

The other sighed. "Nowhere. I'm fooling myself; this is the only job I can handle." He looked again at Zane. "How much time?"

"Nine minutes," Zane replied.

"Time enough to shrive me."

"What?"

"Confess me. You know, my religion, final rites. I never was a good churchman, but I want to go to Heaven!"

The second miner laughed harshly. "I know I'm not going there!"

Zane brought the Sinstone near. "You are bound for Heaven," he told the first. "You are in doubt," he told the second. "That is why I must take your soul personally."

"In doubt? What does that mean?"

"Your soul is balanced between good and evil, so it is uncertain whether you will go to Heaven or to Hell, or abide awhile in Purgatory."

The man laughed. "That's a relief!"

"A relief?"

"As long as I do go to one place or another. I don't care if it's Hell. I know I deserve it. I've cheated on my wife, stolen from the government — you name it, I've done it, and I'm ready to pay."

"You don't fear Hell?"

"Only one thing I fear, and that is being in a cramped box like this, with the air running out and me helpless — for eternity. For an hour I can stand it, but not forever. I don't care what else happens to me, as long as it isn't that."

"I care!" the first miner said. "I'm so scared, I'm near gibbering!"

Zane considered. He realized that the dying needed someone to hold their hands, not to shun them. It was hard enough for any person to relate to the unrelatable. Zane had to try to help. "I came for the one in balance, but I think the other needs my service more."

"Sure, help him," the balanced client said. "I won't say I like dying, but I can handle it, I guess. I knew the odds when I signed up for this job. Maybe I'll like Hell."

Zane sat beside the other. "How can I help you?"

"Shrive me, I told you; that will help some."

"But I'm no priest; I'm not even of your religion."

"You are Death; you'll do!"

That must be true. "Then I will listen and judge — but I know already your sin is not great."

"One thing," the man said, troubled. "One thing's haunted me for decades. My mother — "

"Your mother!" Zane said, feeling a familiar shock.

"I think I killed her. I — " The miner paused. "Are you all right. Death? You look pale, even for you."

"I understand about killing mothers," Zane said.

"That's good. She — I was just a teenager when — well, she was in this wing of the hospital, and — "

"I understand," Zane repeated. He reached out and took the man's hand. He knew his own gloved fingers felt like bare bones, but the miner did not shy away.

"She had cancer, and I knew she was in pain, but — "

Zane squeezed his hand. Reassured, the miner continued: "I visited her, and one day she asked me to step outside the room and read what it said on the — you know, above the door, what kind of word it was. So I went out and looked, and there was something written there, but I couldn't read it. It was in Latin, I think. I went back and told her that, and she asked whether it was — she spelled it out, letter by letter, and you know, she was right, that's what it was. So I agreed that was it, wondering how she had known it, and she thanked me. I thought she was pleased."

The miner took a shuddering breath. "And next morning she was dead. The doctor said she seemed just to have given up and died in the night. No one knew why, because she had been fighting so hard to live before. But I — I checked into it and found out that that word in Latin I had spelled for her — it meant incurable. I had told her there was no hope, and so she quit trying. I guess I killed her."

"But you didn't know!" Zane protested.

"I should have known. I should have — "

"Then you did her a favor," Zane said. "The others were hiding the truth from her, keeping her alive and in pain. You released her from doubt." He was speaking for himself as much as for the miner. "There is no sin on your soul for that."

"No, I shouldn't have let her know!"

"Would it have been right to preserve her life by a lie?" Zane asked. "Would your soul have been cleaner then?"

"It wasn't my place to — "

"Come off it!" the other miner said. "You were guilty of ignorance. Nothing else. I wouldn't have known what those Latin words were either."

"How would you know?" the first one snapped. "You weren't there!"

"I guess not," the second miner admitted wryly. "I don't even know who my mother was."

The first miner paused, set back. "There is that," he conceded. Somehow it seemed that in making that technical concession, he was also accepting the human point. At least he had known his mother and cared about her. "Now, I'm no philosopher," the second said. "I'm a sinner from way back. But maybe if I'd had a mother like yours, a good woman, I would have turned out better. So take it from one who hasn't any right to say it: you should remember your mother, not with guilt or grief, but with gratitude — for the pleasure she gave you while she lived, for the way she steered you toward Heaven instead of Hell."

"For a sinner, you've got quite an insight! But if I could only have helped her live longer — "

"Longer in a box with the air turning bad?" the other asked.

"No, I agree," Zane said. "It was time to end it. These things are scheduled in ways no mortal comprehends. She knew that, though you did not. If there had been a chance for survival, she might have been willing to fight on through, for the sake of her family, for the things she had to do on Earth. But there wasn't, so it was best that she not torture herself any longer. She put aside life as you would put aside a piece of equipment going bad, and she went out of the gloom of the depths of the mine and on up to the brightness of Heaven."

"I don't know." The man was breathing shallowly now, not finding enough oxygen in the air. He seemed to be more sensitive to this deprivation than his companion was. Zane had no problem; evidently his magic helped him this way, too. He was still discovering things about his office. "You will join her there," Zane concluded. "There in Heaven. She will thank you herself." The miner did not answer, so Zane released his hand and turned to the other, his true client. "Are you sure there is nothing I can do for you?" The man considered. "You know, I'm a cynic, but I guess I do sort of crave some meaning in life, or at least some understanding. There's this song going 'round in my head, and it sort of grabs me, and I think it means something, but I don't know what."

"I'm not expert at meaning," Zane said. "But I can try. What is the song?"