Piers Anthony: On a Pale Horse

And he saw how the Love stone faded to dull-dark blue. That girl had been his prospective romance — and was no longer. He had traded her away for the Wealth stone.

The two carpets continued down the spiral channel to the carpetport in the center of the city. There Zane and the proprietor turned in their carpets, and faced each other. "Meet Angelica," the proprietor said proudly, showing off the lovely girl. Obviously their acquaintance had blossomed during the brief flight down. The man had saved her life, and she was the kind to be duly grateful. "She is the heiress to the Twinklestar fortune. She has invited me to her downtown penthouse for a snack of caviar and nectar. So we'd better exchange stones now and call it even." He held out the Wealth stone.

There was nothing Zane could do except trade stones. The deal had been honored. The Love stone glowed brightly again as the other man took it; he had found his romance, outwitting fate. The Wealth stone, in contrast, was huge and dull and ugly, with the star hardly showing.

Zane could not repress the feeling that he had made a colossal error. He should have mortgaged his whole life to buy the Love stone. For evidently this heiress-girl Angelica had the resources and willingness to pay off such a debt offhandedly, and was a very fine creature in her own right. Love and wealth: he could have had it all.

The girl was drawing with loving possessiveness on the proprietor's arm, and she was all soft and eager in her new emotion. "Must go," the Mess o' Pottage man said, delivering to Zane a kind of salute. Then they were gone, walking toward the chauffeured limousine that awaited them.

Zane stood watching the elegant contours of the girl's backside, experiencing an awful, helpless regret. What kind of fool had he been, to throw away romance untried? Somehow he knew he would never again have an opportunity like this. Such things occurred only once in a lifetime, if that often, and he had thrown his chance away. A kind of grief suffused him, like that for a cruelly dead lover.

Well, it was hardly the first time he had blundered disastrously! His soul was weighted with evil he should have avoided, and his life blighted with foolish error. At least he possessed the Wealth stone, and with proper management he would soon be a rich man, able to attract and hold whatever type of woman he craved, or to buy a compliant female android or a luscious magical nymph.

He didn't need Angelica! He had to believe that, for it was his only present buffer against overwhelming despair.

Zane knew himself to be a headstrong young idiot with delusions of artistry and literacy, whose good impulses were too often mismanaged into liabilities. Thus he had lost his dear mother, and his loving girlfriend long ago, and had sunk himself in debt. Good intentions were not enough; they had to be rationally implemented.

He could not even afford the fare for the subway home. He had the penny from his shoe, but that was not enough. He had the Wealth stone, but he refused to use it here on the darkening street; some criminal would mug him for it. Zane stuck his hands deep in his pockets, clasping the stone out of sight, and walked toward the dingy quarter where his sleazy apartment lurked.

Walking was a good time for thinking; it took a person's mind off the drudgery of the feet. But Zane's thoughts were not uplifting. Here he was, in the ultimate age of magic and science, where jet planes vied with flying carpets, and he was traveling afoot, without the benefit of either.

Magic had always existed, of course, as had science, however limited the benefits of either might be for those who were broke. But it hadn't been until the time of Newton that the basic principles of the twin disciplines had been seriously explored. Newton had made great strides in formulating the fundamental laws of science in his early years, contributing more than perhaps any other man. In his later years he had performed similarly for magic.

But for reasons not clear to Zane — he had never been an apt scholar — greater progress had been made at first in science. Only recently had the enormous explosion in applied magic come. Of course, neither science nor magic had affected history much until the past century, as there had been a popular prejudice against both, but science had broken out first. Now, however, the rapidly increasing sophistication of magic had brought back supposedly extinct monsters of many types, especially dragons. Whether science or magic would win out in the end was anybody's guess.

A fine drizzle developed, perhaps condensation from the cloud-mall above: not enough moisture to clean air or street, just enough to turn the dust to grease and make his footing treacherous. Cars skidded through stoplights, narrowly avoiding collisions; probably only the mandatory anti-wreck charms saved their fenders from harm.

Now it was dusk. The street had gradually become deserted. No one walked through this section of town at this hour if he could avoid it. The buildings were old, and age had weathered them from their original Technicolor to their present monochrome. This region had come to be known as Ghost town, and at twilight sometimes the ghost appeared. But it was best not to look, because —

In fact, there she was now. Zane heard the wooden wheel of the wheelbarrow first, and stepped into a grimy doorway alcove so as not to disturb the apparition. A person could see the ghost, and even photograph her, but if the ghost saw the person — Molly Malone came down the street, her wheelbarrow piled with shellfish. She was a sweet-faced young woman, pretty despite her ragged garments and heavy clogs. Women thought spiked heels and nylon stockings made their legs pretty, but legs like Molly's needed no such enhancements. "Cockles and mussels!" she cried sweetly. "Alive! Alive O!"

Zane smiled, his black mood lightening somewhat. The shellfish might be alive, but surely Molly was not. Her ghost had been conjured from Ireland a century ago to honor Kilvarough, though this city had no seacoast. It had been a publicity stunt that soon palled; ghosts were a dime a dozen. The city fathers had not then been aware of this ghost's special property. But the conjuration-spell had never been canceled, so Molly still wheeled her wheelbarrow through the streets of Kilvarough when conditions were right.

"This is a stickup," a gruff voice called. Molly emitted a faint little shriek of surprise and dismay. "Do not molest me, kind sir," she said.

"Naw, I just want your wheelbarrow," the holdup man said. "It'll fetch a few dollars on the antique market. Enough to buy me a two-day happiness-spell." He used one boot to shove the wheelbarrow over, so that its shellfish fell into the grimy gutter.

"But, sir!" she protested. "Those cockles and mussels are my sole sustenance, and without my wheelbarrow to carry them, I will surely perish!" Molly's quaint Irish accent had faded during the past century as she picked up the contemporary idiom; but for her costume, one would hardly know her from a local lass.

"You've already perished, you stinking slut!" the man snapped, shoving her rudely out of his way.

This was too much for Zane. He had no special feelings about ghosts and he was slightly wary of this particular one, but he did not like to see any woman abused. He strode out of the alcove. "Leave Molly alone!" he cried.

The robber swung about, bringing his pistol to bear on Zane. Zane reacted automatically, striking at the gun. It was not that he was especially brave or skilled in combat, but that once he was caught in such a situation he knew he had little choice but to carry through with sufficient dispatch to extricate himself. His hotheadedness substituted nicely for courage.

One shot was fired, and Molly screamed. Then Zane got his hands on the weapon and wrenched it away from the robber.