On a Pale Horse

Chapter 5 LUNA

His horse still grazed outside. "Hey, Mortis!" Zane called, and the gallant Death steed trotted across to him. What a beautiful animal!

He mounted. "Take me home, wherever that is." The horse trotted to the edge of the green plain and stopped before a handsome funeral home with white columns on a spacious front porch. The name on the mailbox was DEATH.

It Figured. Where else would Death live but in a mortuary?

Zane looked at the horse. "Is it okay for me to stay here a while? At least long enough to familiarize myself with the premises?"

Mortis flicked an ear forward affirmatively.

"Do you have a stable or something here? Do I need to provide you with feed, gasoline, or anything?"

The horse told him neigh, and wandered away to graze some more. The pasture looked exceedingly rich; it was probably all Mortis needed. There was a small lake nearby, so water was also available. This was a nice region.

So Death had a mailbox! Who would be writing to this office? Zane walked to the box and opened it. There were four letters inside. He took them out, noting that the return addresses were Earthly. Interesting.

He turned to the front entrance of the Death house.

Should he ring the bell? Not if this drear mansion was now his home. Still, he was new here. He rang.

A toll like that of doom sounded inside. In a moment the door opened. A black-clad butler stood there. "So good to see you again, sir. Let me take your cloak." He moved around to ease off the garment.

"I — I've changed," Zane said somewhat awkwardly. "I'm not the same man."

"Of course, sir. We serve the office, not the man." The butler hung the cloak in the hall closet and bent to touch Zane's feet. Zane realized the man intended to remove his protective shoes. Well, if he wasn't safe here, where else could he be safe? He acquiesced, and soon shoes and gloves joined the cloak, while Zane stood in comfortable robe and house slippers.

He smelled something strange. "What is that odor?"

"That is myrrh, sir," the butler replied. "This mansion is scented with it traditionally."

"The House of Death has to be scented?"

"Myrrh is associated with the office, sir."

Now Zane remembered lines from a Christmas carol:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume Spells a life of gathering doom. Suffering, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in this stone-cold tomb.

"Well, substitute something more pleasant," Zane said. "And change that death-knell doorbell. If I have any real influence, Death is going to develop a new image."

The butler conducted him to a pleasant sitting room deep in the building. "Please make yourself at ease, sir. Do you care for an aperitif? Television? A restoration spell?"

Zane sank down heavily in the overstuffed chair. He did not feel at ease. "All of the above," he said.

"Presently," the butler agreed. "And shall I take the mail, sir?"

"The mail? What for?"

"For destruction, sir, according to normal policy."

Zane clutched the letters to his breast defensively. "Absolutely not! I don't care if it's all junk mail, I'll look at it first."

"Of course, sir," the butler said smoothly, as if pacifying a child. The television set came on in front of Zane as the man departed.

"Two changes in Purgatory personnel," the nondescript newscaster said. "The office of Death has a new occupant. The former Death, having acquitted himself satisfactorily, improved the balance of his soul and went to Heaven. Death is dead; long live Death! The policies of his replacement are not yet clear; he is running behind schedule, has allowed two clients to escape, and is annoying the staff of his mansion by demanding petty changes in routine. An anonymous, highly placed source conjectures that a Reprimand may be issued if improvement does not occur soon."

Zane whistled. The Purgatory News was really current and specific!

"One infant has been added to the staff," the newscaster continued. "He will be trained as a file clerk, once he grows to cognizance. He will, of course, be permitted to choose which age to fix for eternity. This will help relieve the congestion caused by increasing numbers of clients being processed, owing to the general increase in human population."

Zane was becoming suspicious. Why was the news so directly related to his own involvement?

The butler reappeared, setting a glass of red wine before him. "The spell is included in the formula, sir."

"Why is the news so relevant to my interests?" Zane demanded. "It can't be coincidence."

"This is Purgatory, sir. There is no coincidence. All news relates to the listener."

"Purgatory? I thought that was the building complex across the way."

"This entire region, sir. The larger building is merely the Administration and Testing Center. All of us in the intangible zone of Purgatory are lost souls."

"But I'm here, and I'm not even dead yet!"

"No, sir. You five are not, technically. The rest of us are."

"Five? Who?"

"The Incarnations, sir."

"Oh. You mean Death, Time, Fate — "

"War and Nature, sir," the butler finished "These are the living residents of Eternity. All others are dead, except, of course, the Eternals."

"The Eternals?"

"God and Satan, sir. They are not subject to ordinary rules."

Zane took a gulp of the wine. It was excellent and did indeed invigorate him. "I see. You yourself are dead?"

"Yes, sir. I was collected by the holder of your office twice removed. I have served here for seventy-two Earthly years."

"So you watch Deaths come and go, every thirty years or so! Doesn't it get dull for you?"

"It certainly is better than Hell, sir."

There was that. Anything was better than Hell! "Maybe you'd better introduce me to the remaining staff. I presume a mansion like this has several employees?"

"True, sir. Whom do you prefer to see first?"

"Who is here?"

"The gardener, the cook, the maids, the concubine — "

"The what?"

"The living have needs, sir," the butler reminded him delicately.

"And those needs can be served by the dead?"

"Indubitably, sir."

Zane shook his head, repelled. He gulped the last of his drink. "I have changed my mind. I'll meet the staff another time. I'm sure I have clients accumulating. Earthside."

"Certainly, sir," the butler agreed, as Zane got to his feet, and hurried to fetch his office accouterments. In moments Zane was back in uniform and striding outside.

Mortis was waiting, having anticipated his master's need. Zane mounted and discovered the four letters still in his hand. He had maintained a death grip on them since being challenged by the butler. "I should read these," he muttered.

He found himself in the Death car. No, it was a small airplane, on automatic pilot. The remarkabilities of his steed were still manifesting!

Zane tore open the first letter. Dear Death, it said. Why did you have to take my mother? I think you stink. And it was signed Love, Rose.

Zane considered that. Obviously a child. Probably Death had not even serviced that account personally, as the odds were that the girl's mother had been strongly enough oriented to find her own way to Heaven or Hell. But how could the child know that? Perhaps he should tell her.

Answer her letter? Did Death correspond with children? Obviously that had not been the case in the past.

Well, why not? If Rose's letter could reach him, his letter could reach her. Only — what difference would it make to her? Her mother would still be dead.

Yet who was more deserving of an answer than an orphaned child? Zane decided to respond. He would find out where her mother had gone, hoping it was Heaven — that seemed likely, since there was evidently love between them — and inform the little girl. Maybe he could get a message from the mother to relay.

He opened the next letter.

No need to answer that one. No wonder the old goat cheated!

A light was blinking in the Deathplane's control panel. There was a word there: WATCH.

Startled, Zane glanced at his watch. It remained frozen. "Thanks for reminding me. Mortis!" he said, restarting the timer. He put the letters in the dash compartment. He had clients to attend to.

Death traveled all over the world, harvesting souls, and managed to get current on his schedule. Along the way he encountered another obnoxious Hellfire sign series commercial: WINTER IS COLD YOUR LIFE IS SHOT; GO TO WHERE IT'S REALLY HOT! When he had spare time, Zane answered his fan mail, explaining to Rose that her mother had a terminal ailment and had been in great pain, until finally it had been kindest to send her on to Heaven, where there was no pain. He had gone to Purgatory to look up the records, so he knew this was true. The child's mother had been a good woman. He had not been able to get any answer from her in Heaven, however; apparently those who went there lost all interest in Earthly things. Other letters he answered as appropriate, trying to keep the tone polite. He asked himself why he bothered, in some cases, and could only conclude that it was the right thing to do. The fact of death was so significant to the average person that any ameliorating factor was worthwhile.

The job of collecting and handling souls got easier as he gained experience, but still he did not like aspects of it. People died for such foolish reasons! A man made himself a cup of coffee while his wife was out and used rat poison instead of sugar; he was half-blind and forgetful and ignorant of the layout of the kitchen, but this remained an avoidable folly. At least he should have been warned by the taste! A child got out her mother's collection of curses, invoked them all at once, and was cursed to death before her screams were heard. If only those curses had been stored securely in a locked safe! A teenager went joy riding on a stolen witch's broom, naturally the joystick threw him off — half a mile above the ground. A young man, seeking to impress his girlfriend, jousted with a zoo's fire-breathing dragon and got fried. An old woman, grocery shopping in her car, made a thoughtless left turn into a cement truck. Five souls, three doomed to Hell — when all could have gone to Heaven at a later date, had those people lived more carefully and tried to do more good. And these were only a fraction of the total — that tiny fraction that was so nearly in balance that it required Death's personal attention. What of the vast majority who went to Eternity by themselves, requiring no more than Death's tacit approval? How many of them had ignored their salvation until it was too late and suffered the early demise they should have avoided? Was mankind a hopelessly muddled species?

Morbidly curious, Zane ordered a computer printout from Purgatory and checked it over. Now he had the exact statistics, and they confirmed his suspicions. Millions of people were dying from heart and circulatory complications that could have been abated by simple diet and exercise. Millions were dying from cancer because they had not had it checked or diagnosed until too late and refused to desist from their carcinogenic ways, such as smoking tobacco even when it was fatal for them. A huge number were lost to traumatic causes — car crashes, carpet crashes, falls, firearms — it was horrible how many were shot by their own guns, or murdered by their own supposedly captive demons!

Yet what could he. Death, do about it? He lacked Satan's enormous publicity budget and doubted people would change much, even if clearly warned. By the time he was called in, the damage was in most cases too far progressed to be reversed. People really needed to reorder their lives from the start — and he knew that very few would do that voluntarily. They were aware that their lifestyles were at best silly and at worst suicidal, yet they continued unchanged. Exactly as he himself had continued, until he actually saw the face of Death.

If this was a contest between God and Satan, it was evident that Satan was winning. Of course, Satan was constantly campaigning, with periodic Hellethons on television urging people to GET FIRED' and making the ludicrous promise that HELL BUILDS MEN! and offering group plans for families. According to the Covenant, neither Eternal was supposed to interfere in the affairs of living people, but God was the only party to honor it. What good was a pact of noninterference that one party violated freely? Yet if God were to act like Satan, He would be no better than Satan..!

Zane didn't know the answer, but still he felt the need. Perhaps, he chided himself, if a more competent man had assumed the office, he would have been able to do something really positive. But as long as the office of Death was passed along almost randomly, the officeholders would be mediocre, like himself. What could be expected of someone who had to murder his predecessor to obtain the position? He, Zane, was probably typical of the breed. He could not expect his successor to be much better. If any good were to be done, he would have to do it himself, inadequate though he might be.

Oddly, that realization gave him a new kind of strength. Probably he would fail, but at least he would try. He didn't know what he would do or could do or should do, but hoped he would acquit himself appropriately when the chance came.

He glanced up. He happened to have parked in a northern latitude, during a break between cases, where snow lay on the ground. There was yet another of Satan's ubiquitous billboards: HELLO! IT'S WARM BELOW! SIGN UP EARLY FOR PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT. The picture showed a luscious female demon in a half-open bed, beckoning with her middle finger. In the corner, the miniature female Dee was restraining the male Dee from leaping into the bed.

Zane was tempted to knock down the billboard by driving the Death mobile through it, but checked himself. This was a free cosmos; Satan had a right to advertise. Decent folk had to let the indecent folk do their thing; that was the paradox of decency. Was it worth it?

He continued his routine. Several more cases turned out to be optional, so that he was able to arrange to spare them. He still didn't know whether this was proper, according to the rules of the job, but the Purgatory television reporting did not take more than routine gossipy notice of them, with a "Look at what the bad boy's done this time!" attitude, so he assumed that, while it might be considered bad form, it was in fact one of his prerogatives: to take or not to take, at a given time. It was possible that a soul that might have squeezed through to Heaven if taken on schedule would later degenerate and go to Hell, but he thought it more likely to be the other way around. What person, confronted with the specter of Death, would not hasten to reform his ways to some extent? Whoever was fool enough to ignore that type of warning and descended to Hell probably deserved his fate.

Still, Zane's underlying misgiving was sharpened by what started out as a routine case. It was a boy of perhaps fifteen, victim of a rare form of cancer. He was resting comfortably at home, thanks in large part to potent medication and an optimism-spell. He looked up in surprise when Zane entered.

"I haven't seen you before, though you seem somehow familiar," the boy said. "Are you a doctor?"

"Not exactly," Zane said, realizing that the boy did not recognize his nature. He was uncertain whether to inform him.

"A psychologist, then, come to try to cheer me up?"

"No, just a person come to take you on a journey."

"Oh, a chauffeur! But I don't feel like riding around the park again."

"It's a longer trip than that."

"Can't you just sit down and talk a while? I get lonely," The boy ran his fingers through his tousled yellow hair, as if to clear his head of loneliness.

Zane sat on the edge of the bed. His watch showed fifteen seconds on the countdown; he froze it there. This boy was dying — and would no one keep him company? Probably because his family and friends knew what the victim didn't. That was one of the ironic cruelties of the situation. "I will talk with you."

The boy smiled quickly, gratefully. "Oh, I'm so glad! You will be my friend, I know." He put forth his hand with some difficulty, for he was weak and it took muscle to hold the hand horizontally from the body. "How do you do. I'm Tad."

Zane took the boy's hand carefully. "Pleased to meet you. Tad. I am — " Here he stopped. The boy did not know he was going to die. What kindness would it be to tell him now? Yet to conceal the information was to lie. A lie by default was still a lie. What should he do?

Tad smiled. "You've forgotten? Or you're here to give me a shot and you're afraid I'll scream?"

"No shot!" Zane said quickly.

"Let me guess, then. You're a bill collector? My dad handles that department. I guess these happiness-spells are costing him a bundle, but I don't think they're worth it, because I still get depressed some. I think he should use those spells on himself, because he's looking pretty peaked these days. Must be due to the cost of all my medication and stuff. I feel guilty because of that, and sometimes I wish it could just end, right now, and stop costing him so much."

It was going to — but Zane knew that would not make the boy's father happy. "I'm not a bill collector," Zane said. "Though I suppose my job is related."

"Maybe you're a salesman, then. You've got a product I can use. A new home-computer program that will keep me riveted for forty-eight hours straight."

"Longer than that," Zane muttered uncomfortably.

"Aw, I don't care. I've played those games till I can't stand any of them any more. And the magic games, too; I've conjured more harmless mythological animals than I ever knew existed. There's a pink elephant under my bed right now. See?" He pulled up the trailing coverlet, and Zane saw the pink trunk of an elephant. "What I really want is to go out in the sun and wind and just run, and feel the dry leaves under my feet, crackling. I've been in this bed so long!"

Of course the boy was too weak to run. Even if Zane took him alive out of the building, it wouldn't work. How much did Tad actually know or suspect of his condition? "What's the matter with you?" Zane asked.

"Oh, it's something to do with my spine. It hurts, so they invoke a local antipain spell and give me a spinal shot, but then my legs get numb and I can't walk. I wish they'd get it fixed; I'm missing a lot of school, and I don't want to repeat a grade. I had a B average. All my friends will be moving on up, you know, and I'd look pretty silly."

So they had actually told him he would get better. Zane found himself turning angry. What right did they have to deceive him so?

"What's the matter?" Tad asked.

Now Zane had to make a decision. Should he tell the truth — or continue the lie? If he avoided the issue, he would in fact be lying by inaction. "I am on the horns of a dilemma," he admitted.

"Watch how you sit on them," the boy advised.

Zane smiled. Trust a youth to make a pun of the horns! "I'd rather be astride my good horse."

"You have a horse? I always wanted one! What breed?"

"I don't know his breed: I'm not expert on that sort of thing. I inherited him. He's a big, pale stall ion, very powerful, and he can fly."

"What's his name?"

"Mortis."

"A Morgan? That's a good breed."

"Mortis."

"Moms?"

"Mortis, with a T. He's a — "

Tad was not stupid. "Mortis means death," he said. "I made a B plus in Latin."

Zane felt a sinking sensation. He had given away more than intended, not being a student of Latin. "He is a Death horse."

"But no living man can ride a Death horse!"

"Unless the horse permits," Zane said, knowing what was coming. Why hadn't he had the courage to state his business honestly?

The boy turned his head to stare at Zane. "That cloak!" he said. "That black hood. Your face — I see it more clearly now. It's just a skull!"

"So it appears. But I am a man. A man performing an office."

"You must be — " Tad took a shuddering breath. "I'll never see school again, will I?"

"I'm sorry. This thing is not of my choosing."

"I guess I knew it. I never really believed those doctors. The drugs and spells made me feel good, but my deepest dreams were screaming. I'd be screaming now, but they've got me so doped up on optimism magic I can't really feel depressed at all. You don't seem half bad, you know. At least you stayed to talk with me."

"I am half bad," Zane said. "Fifty percent evil. But you — " He paused. "Is there some great sin on your conscience?"

"Well, I stole a yo-yo from a store once — "

"That's minor evil. I mean something like murder."

"I wished my aunt was dead once, when she punished me for bad language."

"Wishes are minor, unless acted upon. Did you ever actually try to kill her?"

Tad was horrified. "Never! I wouldn't even think of doing a thing like that!" Then he smiled ruefully. "Well, I guess I did think of it, but I knew I never really wanted to."

"Perhaps you told a terrible lie that got someone else in very bad trouble or caused a death. There has to be something very bad, some great sin on your conscience, as I said. Something you know is really wrong."

The boy considered. "There're some I'd have liked to get on it, but I never got the chance. I'm really pretty clean, I think. I'm sorry I haven't anything better to offer."

Something was amiss here. Zane brought out the two diagnostic gems "This will not hurt," he said reassuringly.

"That's what all the nurses with needles say."

"No, really. It's painless. I'm merely toting up the evil in you."

The yellow stone brightened into brilliance as Zane passed it near the boy, while the brown one darkened only slightly. "You're ninety percent good," Zane said, surprised.

"I told you I wasn't much."

"But I only come personally for those in balance, whose souls can't get free by themselves. There's been a mistake."

"You mean I'm not going to die?"

Zane sighed. "I don't know, but I doubt that's the nature of the mistake. I think you were slated to die alone, and somehow a wire got crossed and I was summoned. Purgatory is short-handed at the moment; mistakes will happen. I'm sorry I intruded on you. It was not necessary for you ever to know what was awaiting you — until it happened."

"Oh, no! I may be artificially happy, but I'm still lonely. I'm glad you came. It was a good glitch. If I've got to go, I'd like to go with company. May I have a ride on your fine horse?"

Zane smiled. "Indeed you may, Tad."

"Then I guess I'm ready."

Zane pushed the button on his watch, and the dread countdown resumed. In fifteen seconds a sudden seizure shook the boy, and Zane reached out and drew forth his soul before there could be more than momentary pain.

He carried the soul outside to where the horse waited. Zane had arrived in the limousine, but Mortis had somehow anticipated his need. Zane mounted, holding the soul before him. The stallion leaped into the night sky.

At the top of the arc, Zane let the soul go. It continued to float up toward Heaven, while the horse fell back toward Earth. "Farewell, Tad," Zane murmured. "You go to a better place than that which you left."

Zane wrapped up his remaining collections, classifying most of the souls and delivering the rest to Purgatory. Then he went to Death's mansion in the sky for a meal and some sleep. The doorbell now played light classical music, and the scent of the house was of lilies. He might deal in death, but he was alive and had to maintain himself.

He was preoccupied with Tad's case, even after it was over. Had he done the right thing, talking to the boy while other clients waited, telling him the truth that had been denied him? Would this be another bad mark on Zane's record for the television news to announce gleefully? It seemed Death was becoming the butt of much Purgatory humor because of his erratic ways. This time he did not turn on the TV set.

The staff of the Death house seemed alive and solid to him, though Zane knew he was the only living person there. He wasn't certain whether the office of Death made him eligible to interact with the dead, or whether the dead were spelled to seem more physical than they really were. Regardless, when he shook a spirit's hand here in Purgatory, that hand was solid and warm. But he remained keenly aware that these people were not of his world. They were dead and he was alive. He did not feel comfortable in Purgatory.

Then he remembered the Magician's daughter, Luna. Luna Kaftan. He had made a date with her, and her father had been insistent that he keep it. His curiosity had been aroused — and as his memory of his fleeting acquaintance with Angelica, the woman he should have romanced, the one he had sold for the worthless As — as that impression faded, his image of Luna sharpened. She had been amazingly attractive in clothing! Why not get to know her better? She, at least, was living.

He drove the Death mobile to Luna's house. But as he arrived in Kilvarough, he suffered an attack of misgiving. Was it proper to involve the office of Death in a personal matter? In fact, hadn't he intended to meet Luna as himself, rather than as Death? He decided to present himself incognito, as Zane.

He stripped away his cloak and gloves and shoes. That left him vulnerable physically, but more secure socially. There was a lot to be said for anonymity.

He rang the bell. It occurred to him, belatedly, that she might not be home. He had not set a particular date; in fact, he was not certain what day this was. A glance at his watch could tell him, of course. It was just that the things of the living world had not been much in his awareness these past few days.

In a moment she answered. She was in a yellow housecoat, her hair bound under a net. She was neither lovely nor plain, but in a somewhat formless, in-between state that was apparently the female neutral condition. Grief was evidently taking its toll; she seemed to have lost some weight, small lines were forming about her face, and her eyes were shadowed. He did not need to inquire what she had been doing for the past few days; she had been home suffering.

Luna looked askance at him, and he realized how strange he must look in shirt, worn trousers, and stocking feet. "My name's Zane," he said. "I would like to be with you this evening."

Now her glance was piercing; She did not recognize him. "I believe you have the wrong address, stranger. How did you get past the griffins?"

"It's the right address, but perhaps the wrong uniform. You have met me before in the guise of Death. The griffins gave me wide clearance when they recognized me by smell. We have a date."

She was quick to reappraise him. "Then come in." She opened the door.

Zane stepped inside — and something like a heavy talon fell on his left shoulder. He craned his neck to look at his attacker, but there was nothing. Yet his nose was wrinkling with the heavy, musky odor of something animalistic or insectoid or worse.

"My invisible guardian," Luna explained. "A trained moon moth. If you had some notion of robbing this house — "

Zane smiled with a certain difficulty. "I should have known you would not be defenseless. But I am who I say I am. I can summon the Death steed and don my cloak if necessary; then I think your invisible monster would not find me as easy to handle. But words should suffice; I came last week to take your father, the Magician Kaftan, and he told me I should, er, make your acquaintance if I would talk with him a while. I saw you nude, and then dressed up, and after I took his soul, you offered to — "

"Let him go," Luna murmured, and the claw at Zane's shoulder relaxed. Just as well, for the grip had been increasingly painful.

"Thank you," Zane said. "It doesn't have to be today. I just came when it was convenient for me; I'm afraid I didn't think of your own convenience. I forgot about your grief."

"Today will do," she said, somewhat curtly. "I find I don't enjoy being alone at this time. Let me change and pick up the grief-nullifying stone — "

"No, please!" he cut in. "I prefer to know you exactly as you are. It is right to experience grief; I'm sure your father warrants it. Artificial abatement of a natural feeling — I don't want that."

She considered him, head held slightly askew. "You don't want to be impressed?"

"You impress me as you are. Human."

She smiled quickly, and her beauty flashed into being with the expression. "I think you mean it, and that flatters me. That's almost as good as a spell. What is your pleasure, Zane?"

"Just to honor your father's wish. To talk with you, get to know you. He was most insistent, in Purgatory, when — "

"Purgatory?"

"He is figuring out the balance of his soul there. It will be a tedious task."

She shrugged. "He is good at tedious tasks. He is not in pain?"

"None."

"Then I can let him rest for a while. What were you saying?"

"Just that I came to talk with you. It — I don't see it going any farther than that."

"Why not?" she asked, frowning.

"Oh, it's not that you're not attractive. You showed me before! It's — I don't — "

"Attractive," she muttered darkly, apparently not flattered this time. "You refer to my body, of course, not to my mind or soul."

"Yes," he said, feeling awkward. "I don't know your mind, though I do know a good portion of the evil on your soul is not truly yours. But I said it wasn't that. I know you can make yourself as beautiful as you want to be. But even if you were ugly, you're — you're someone, and I'm no one, so — "

She laughed. "Death tells me this?"

"Death is merely the office. I'm just the man who happened to blunder into that office. I don't think I deserve it, but I'm trying to do it properly. Maybe in time I'll become a good Death, instead of making mistakes."

"Mistakes?" she inquired. "Sit down, Zane." She took his arm, guided him to the couch, and sat down beside him at an angle, so that her right knee touched his left. "How is it going?"

"You don't want to hear about that sort of thing," he demurred, though he did want to talk about it.

"Listen, Zane," she said earnestly. "My father picked you for that office. To you it may have been a blunder, but — "

"Oh, I didn't mean to criticize your father! I meant — "

"He believed you were the proper person for it. I don't know exactly why, but I have faith in his judgment. There must be some quality in you that makes you best for the position. So don't question your fitness for the office."

"Your father picked me for Death — and for you," Zane said. "I don't see the wisdom of either choice."

She removed her net and began adjusting her rich brown hair. "I don't see it either," she admitted with a smile. "Which simply means I have more to discover. My father always, always makes sense, and he never mistreated me in any way. He's a great man! So I'll try to ascertain the meaning of his will. You show me some of your mind, and I'll show you some of mine. Then perhaps we'll both understand why my father wanted us to interact."

"I suppose he did have some reason," Zane agreed. He hardly objected to improving his acquaintance with this increasingly lovely young woman — for she was growing prettier by the moment as she fixed herself up — but didn't like the feeling of being accepted by her only because she had been ordered to do it, "He was a Magician, after all."

"Yes." She did not belabor the obvious, and now he felt foolish for having done so himself. This was an odd sort of date, and he was hardly easy with it.

"I can see why a man like me would be interested in a woman like you, but not why a man like him would want — I mean, surely you are destined for better things, and he would want those things for you."

"Surely," she agreed, shaking out her glistening locks.

That did not help. Luna was not only turning beautiful again, she was becoming more poised, her gaze level.

"Well," he began. "I was just going to tell you about mistakes. Like one of my last cases, in the office of Death — a boy, a teenager — only no one had told him he was going to die. But he knew it when he recognized me. I don't know whether it was right to lie to him, as they did, or tell the truth, as I finally did. Either way, I think I mishandled it, so it's a mistake."

"You regard an indecision as a mistake?"

"I don't know. I guess so. How can you do what's right if you don't know what's right?"

She made a move. "Score a point for you! I suppose you just have to learn from experience, hoping you don't do too much harm in the process."

"I never really appreciated the significance of death before," he said, troubled. "Now that I'm directly involved in it, the force of it becomes much greater, almost overwhelming. Death is no minor thing."

"How do you mean?" Luna asked gently. Her eyes were nacreous.

"I know every living creature must eventually die; otherwise the world would be intolerably crowded. Even on an individual basis, death is necessary. Who would really want to live forever on Earth? Life would be like a game grown over familiar and stale, and what pleasures it offered would be overwhelmed by the intolerable burden of minutiae. Only a fool would carry on regardless. But here I'm not necessarily dealing with the normal course of full lives and the terminations of old age. I'm talking to people who aren't ready to die and taking their souls out of turn. Their full lives have not been lived, their roles have not been played out. Their threads have been cut short through no fault of their own."

"No fault?" She was leading him, in effect interrogating him, but he didn't mind.

"Consider my recent clients. One was a seven-year old boy. He was having lunch at a school cafeteria, and a valve malfunctioned and caused a water heater to explode. It brought down the ceiling, and five children and a teacher died. My client had a difficult home environment, which was why his soul was balanced between good and evil — but he should have had a full life ahead to put his soul in better order. Through sheer random chance, he was denied that life. And the five others who died, not needing my personal attention — maybe they all went directly to Heaven. I hope so. But this was still grossly unfair to them, for they might have gone to Heaven sixty years later, after having their full chances on Earth. The world might have benefited by their lives; certainly they deserved their chances. What possible meaning can there by in such catastrophe?"

"Fate might know," Luna said.

"And there was a giant flying carpet taking off from Washington, carrying seventy-nine people south. Ice formed on its forward fringe and interfered with its levitation-spell, and it grazed a bridge and crashed into the Potomac River, killing ninety percent of the passengers. I was there for a client and saw the crash — and it was so unnecessary. The simplest deicing spell would have prevented — "

"I thought they always deiced large carpets in winter."

"They do. But they used a weak one this time, and the ice built up again more rapidly than expected, and no one checked. All those innocent people killed — and I thought why, why? If it made any sense at all, maybe I could accept it. But this was mere caprice! All those people subjected to the indignity of meaningless termination, their families saddened — I don't know whether I can continue to be a part of this."

"I would justify it if I could," Luna said. "My father believed there was a purpose in death, however untimely it might seem. He said there was always a rationale, if we could only see it."

"What possible rationale for children killed by an explosion, or families smashed in a carpet crash?" he demanded bitterly. "Can God have any hand in this?"

"I don't know. My father had a dream of a benevolent universe, wherein Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell are all necessary aspects of a Divinely functioning whole. He would have believed that there was a specific reason for every out-of-turn death, and that Fate had directed each person to be on that particular carpet."

"Do you believe that?"

She sighed. "My soul is burdened with evil, and my faith is weak. I don't have the information my father had."

"You are mortal, like me," he said. "You are not provided with ready answers."

"All too true. But I still think we can work out a rationale, if we try. How, exactly, did you get to be Death?"

"I shot my predecessor," Zane admitted. "I was going to suicide, because I'd been gypped out of a girl — a girl like you, beautiful and wealthy and loyal — but when I saw Death, I killed him instead. Then Fate came and told me I had to be the new Death. So I was."

"A girl like me," Luna said. She had continued adjusting herself and now was verging from lovely to ravishing, approaching the physical appeal she had had on their last meeting.

"Yes. Not only pretty, but pure — "

Luna choked on a fit of laughter. "How little you know about women!" Zane shrugged. "I've known ordinary women. But — "

"Death came for you personally," she cut in with a feminine non sequitur. "That means you were half evil."

"Yes. I never claimed — "

"If you were to pass your definition gems near me, you would find me much the same. My outer form is as fair as nature and cosmetic magic can make it; my inner personality is suspect. Don't put me on any pedestal, Zane. I can match you evil for evil."

"Oh, I'm sure — "

"No, you aren't. But you might as well find out. That should settle whatever my father had in mind." She got up and strode across the room, lithe and purposeful. Her housecoat seemed to have changed along with her attitude and now looked more like a gown. Whatever magic she had wasn't all magic, he realized. "Come to the stone chamber."

Zane followed her, anticipating some kind of crypt hewn out of bedrock, but the chamber turned out to be a bright wood-paneled room arranged like a museum, with small stones of every type set out on shelves and in cabinets. "These — are magic?" he asked, amazed.

"Certainly. That was my father's business-enchanting stones. Some of the most intricate magic in the world is concentrated here. The stones you use to analyze souls may have been Crafted by my father, as he was one of perhaps only four living people capable of that precision of magic. He surely knew more about you than you knew about yourself. That's why we need to get to the bottom of this. I confess I'm not keen on any relationship with you, and your interests obviously would have preferred to focus elsewhere, but my father selected you and me for reasons we are bound to fathom before we part. We can't afford to take the risk of rejecting what he set up unless we first understand the reason for it. If we discover a continuing relationship is necessary, we can grit our teeth and use the Love stone to facilitate — "

"I doubt I need a Love stone," Zane said. "All I need is to look at you closely."

She shrugged that off as if irrelevant. "But first we must separate reality from illusion. My father said that a person is best defined by the nature of his evil. His own evil was in dealing with Satan for the sake of increased magic power. Without demonic help, he would have been merely a world-class Magician instead of a grand master. So he is defined by his lust for complete professionalism, and I know that damned him, but I also respect him for it."

"Yes," Zane agreed, impressed. He had heard that a world-class Magician could virtually demolish a city with a single fission-spell. What could a grand master do? Zane didn't know and suspected no one else knew, because of the secretive nature of such Magicians.

"Now you and I will exchange evils in the presence of these stones and see what we shall see." Luna lifted several gems from their casings.

"I really don't understand — "

"Hold this stone in your right hand; it glows only when you tell a lie." She handed him a dusky diamond. "And this in your left; it is a Sinstone, like the one you use to evaluate souls."

Zane held the stones, not at all certain he liked this. Luna took similar stones in her hands. "I will lead the way, so you can see how it's done," she said.

"Urn," Zane said noncommittally.

"My name is Venus," she announced. Her Truthstone flashed warningly. "I mean Luna." The stone remained dark. "I only did that to prove it's working," she explained, and the stone did not object. "Now test yours."

"My name is Jehosephat," Zane said, and saw his own Truthstone flash. "Zane." The glow faded.

Luna took a deep breath that did things for her torso. She looked pained. "Oh, I don't like this! Why am I doing it?" she asked rhetorically.

"Let's not do it," Zane said. "I don't want to know your secrets." But his Truthstone flashed.

"I have fornicated with a demon of Hell," Luna announced.

Zane's jaw dropped.

She faced him defiantly. "There, I did it. Note that my Truthstone did not glow — but my Sinstone brightened." She gestured with her left hand, showing how the stone had come to life. "Whose Sinstone gets brightest — that's the most evil one of us."

Zane swallowed. How had he gotten into this? But Luna's sincere discomfiture made her prettier than ever, and somehow he felt he had to prove she was better than he. "I embezzled funds from my employer," he said. His Sinstone brightened, but not as much as hers.

"I am worse than you," Luna said, like a child teasing.

"I never had the opportunity to make it with a lady demon," he pointed out. But he remained shaken by her revelation. She looked so innocent!

"And I never had an employer from whom to embezzle. Opportunity is only part of it." She took another breath. "I practiced black magic."

"I thought that was your father, not you." But he saw that her right stone was dark, while her left one had brightened another notch. She was guilty, all right, though he, personally, didn't care about black magic. Magic was magic, wasn't it? What did it really matter what color it was?

She was waiting for his second confession. "I gambled away almost everything I had, including friendships."

"Gambling is not really evil," she said. But his Sinstone had brightened significantly.

"I need to clarify that," he said grimly. He understood why Luna had found this so difficult! "There was a girl who loved me — who said she did — but I wouldn't marry her, because she wasn't beautiful and because she was poor. I wanted to marry wealth. She — later I learned she committed suicide. That was the main friendship I gambled away — gambling on a richer one."

"That's bad," Luna agreed. "Did you know she was going to kill herself?"

"I never thought of it — until after the fact. Then I realized I should have seen it coming. I should have married her."

"Though you didn't love her?"

"She was a good girl! It would have been much better to marry her than to kill her!" But his Truthstone flickered, for he knew he had not really killed her.

"We tend to assume more evil than is our due, after the fact," Luna said, spying that flicker. "You think she died because you didn't marry her — but that's no basis for marriage. Maybe the money you hoped for was just a pretext for you to turn off a relationship that you knew wouldn't have worked anyway."

"I don't think so." But his Truthstone fluttered again. "I thought about it a lot, after. I decided I had not considered her feelings enough, only my own. I resolved not to be that way any more. I should have realized she was pregnant. If she had told me — "

Luna smiled briefly. "Some girls don't. You would have done what you deemed to be right, but you didn't know. I wouldn't try to trap a man by telling him I was pregnant."

"You wouldn't have needed to! But she really was!"

Still, he appreciated the point. The girl had wanted his love, not his baby.

It was her turn again. "I deceived my father. He thought I knew no creative magic myself."

"You claim to be evil," Zane chided her. "You've done black magic and hidden it from your father, himself a black Magician. That's not much."

"Apart from prostituting myself to a demon," she reminded him sharply.

There was that. Zane found it very hard to accept the notion of her being intimate with a demon, but the Truthstone had confirmed her statement. "Why did you do that?"

"To learn the black magic. My father wouldn't teach me, of course. He wanted to keep me clean. The man I respect most — and I deliberately deceived him! Now what do you have to beat that?"

It was Zane's turn to breathe deeply. "I killed my mother."

Now she gaped. "You can't mean that!"

Zane held up his Truthstone, which remained dark. "I did it. Then I wasted my inheritance gambling, and tried to replace it by embezzlement." And now his Sinstone glowed more brightly than hers.

"You have made your case," Luna said. "But I still have more total evil than you, because —

"Because you took some of your father's burden of evil," he said quickly. "He thought you were in balance, including his evil, but you're not. Where does that put you?"

"Destined for Hell," she admitted. "Of course he didn't know about my other evil. He thought I was pristine, so a twenty-five percent share of evil from him would not imperil my status."

"And, in fact, you are about seventy-five percent evil — or at least, that's what's charged against your soul," he said.

"Close enough."

"I'm surprised he didn't check your balance and catch you at it."

Her smile was wan. "Men are easy to deceive."

Zane studied her with new appreciation. "You seem pretty good to me."

"Your Truthstone is glimmering," she advised him.

So it was. "I guess that's a half-truth. You do seem good to me, but that business about the demon — " He paused, watching the stone. It was dim. "Wasn't there some other way to learn the magic you wanted? Study a book, or something?"

"A book!" she exclaimed scathingly. "Black-magic texts are illegal!"

"But you can find them on the black market."

"My father would have known. Only black magic could counter his black magic, even to the limited extent of concealing this information from him."

It would indeed require special measures to hide something from a magical grand master, Zane realized. So maybe she had required input from Hell. Still — "Why did you want black magic if your father said no? You always obeyed him in other things, didn't you?"

She winced. This betrayal of her father was evidently an extremely sensitive matter to her. "It always fascinated me. I knew the power my father had, and I wanted — " She broke off, for her Truthstone was glimmering. "Oh, fudge! I should have set that stone down." She took another breath. "I was afraid for my father. Some of those minions of Hell — they frightened me. I don't mean little child-bugaboo- type frights; these things were truly, fundamentally evil and they had such power, such malign awareness — you really can't appreciate such horror unless you find it near. I knew they regarded my father as a rare prize, and though I also knew he was smarter than they, still he was riding the tiger. I didn't want to see my father damned, and I knew he would be, but there was no way I could help him unless I learned more about his business. So I learned all I could, legitimately — and some of the things in the legitimate, unexpurgated texts gave me screaming nightmares — then finally I had to move on into — you know, and the only coin I had to offer was — you know." This time her stone was quiescent.

Zane considered. "I think I could get to like you pretty well. I know I'm nothing special, but — well, can we set another date?"

She seemed surprised. "Date?"

"Go out for a walk, or to eat — a pretext for being together, for talking some more."

"You can have what you want right now," she said, her voice sharpening. "You don't have to clothe it in romance."

"I don't think so."

"It's true! Try me. After the demon, nothing you want will be so bad."

Zane cringed inside to think of her opinion of the needs of men. She really had not had much experience in this regard, and no doubt thought of the demon as nothing more than an exaggerated man. "I want your respect."

She tilted her head, peering at him quizzically. "My what?"

"Your respect. You have mine. Your father was right; you are a good person. I don't care how the sin ledger stands. There seem to be a number of artificial standards of good and evil that don't really relate to true merit or demerit. Maybe the official system of classification has failed to keep up with the changing nature of our society. You haven't done anything I consider really wrong, except — well, even the demon, if you only did it to help your father — and you did help your father, because without your help he would have gone directly to Hell without passing Purgatory. So it was more like a sacrifice."

"A virgin sacrifice," she agreed, glancing at Zane with a new appraisal. "It's the only type that kind accepts. It was horrible."

"So I suppose after that, no ordinary man represents a threat to you. Certainly I don't. But a woman who would do that to protect her father — I'd just like to know you better, that's all."

"Yet you killed your mother," she pointed out. "What do you care about anyone's parent?"

"I cared about her," he said, somewhat stiffly. "But she was dying anyway, and in pain, and she knew it was hopeless; when she asked me to — I just had to do it, that's all, even though I knew it was a crime and a sin that would damn me. It wasn't right to let her suffer any longer."

Luna's eyes narrowed. "Just what happened?"

"Oh, you wouldn't care to hear — "

"Yes, I would."

Zane closed his eyes, suffering in retrospect. "She was in the hospital, and her hair was falling out and her skin turning rough like that of a lizard, and there were tubes and wires and things going into her and coming out of her in a continuous violation of her body, and different colored fluids bubbling, and gauges pulsing with every breath she took and every beat other heart, so that any stranger passing by could read at a glance the most intimate secrets other functioning. She would have died long since, from mortification as much as physical failure, but the artificial heart and kidney and stomach wouldn't let her. She had periods of disorientation, and these were getting longer. I think sometimes she hallucinated. But on occasion she was lucid, and that was when the horror of it was clear.

"One time when I was visiting and she saw the nurses were away, she whispered to me the truth. She was hurting physically and mentally and emotionally, she felt degraded by all the paraphernalia, and she just wanted to die before she ran down her estate entirely with the medical bills, so I would have something to inherit. I didn't tell her that all the money was already gone and that the debt was mounting horrendously; even her life insurance would hardly cover it. She begged me to make them let her die so she could be in peace at last. She had come to hate life. She was in such misery and so urgent about it that I promised. Then she lapsed into more hallucinations — I think she was reliving something that happened a long time ago, in her childhood — and talked of picking flowers and getting stung by a bee — and I had to go. I knew the doctors would never let her die in peace; it was part of their code to make a patient suffer as long as humanly possible. So I bought a penny curse — it was all I could afford — and set it on the heart machine where it wouldn't be seen and left. Two hours later I had the call: she was dead because of equipment failure.

"The hospital thought it was at fault and offered to settle out of court, and I let them think that, because it eased the medical bill considerably. But I knew I had killed my mother and that my soul was damned. I tried to pay off the remaining bill by gambling, hoping to multiply the money I was supposed to use for those debts, but I lost it all and tried to steal from my employer to gamble into enough to square everything, but I was caught, so I lost my job and had still more sin on my soul and debts on my account. I skipped town, went to Kilvarough, set up a new identity, and sort of scraped along for several years with my guilt and grief, still hoping for some source of money to square things, hoping maybe to marry money, until this other business — "

He stopped. "I think I've said too much."

Luna was watching him intently. "That Truthstone never flickered."

"Why should it?" Zane asked, glancing at the gem in his hand. "This is the gutter of my life. I have had nightmares about it, until the dreams become more real than reality, and I try to wash off the blood on my arm or to blind myself so I can no longer see my mother's face as she died."

"But you weren't there when she died!"

"In my dreams I was there." Zane rubbed his arm, feeling the blood again, the horrible dream-blood.

"Your mother — it was a mercy killing."

"Killing is a sin. I know that now; I knew it then. All else is rationalization."

"That's not the way you were judging me a moment ago."

"Why should I judge you? I hardly know you."

Luna set down her stones, then took his stones and put them away. "I think you have earned the privilege of making my acquaintance, Zane. Come this way."

She showed him into what appeared to be an artist's studio. There were a number of professional paintings and several half-finished ones on easels. The subjects were ordinary people, places, and things — but the treatment was extraordinary. Each outline was fuzzed by a faint wash of color, as if each person stood within his own private fog. "What do you make of this?" Luna asked.

Zane felt a growing excitement as he gazed at the paintings. "These are yours?"

"My father wanted me to be an artist," she said. "Now I know why he brought me to you!" Again she cocked her head, prettily. "Why?"

"He surely knew my interest! You said he must have researched me and known a lot about me. And he arranged to die, at half-and-half, when I was Death. He could have lived longer if he had wanted to, couldn't he?"

"Yes," she agreed. "He told me the timing was important, but he wouldn't say why."

"To summon me, not the prior Death! Because I have artistic aspirations. I am an aural photographer — or was, or tried to be, before I became Death. I really didn't have the proper equipment. That's why I needed money right then — but that's another dull story."

"You recognize my theme?" she asked, brightening.

"Of course I recognize it! I've been photographing auras all my life! Most people can't see them, but I can, with my equipment, and now I know you can. Your paintings are beautiful! I never was able to get the full effect on film. When I tried to sell my pictures, the best offers I got were from the porn publishers, because my technique fuzzed out the clothing of women, but that wasn't the point at all."

"Not the point at all," she concurred. "But this still doesn't add up. If my father knew about you, he could have invited you to visit, or simply conjured you here, and dosed you with a spell of amnesia if not satisfied. He hardly needed to die."

Zane's revelation collapsed. "That's right! But he must have had some reason."

"He must have," she agreed soberly. "He was a most intelligent and sensible man. There is obviously more here than we know."

"You — you said you have gone into black magic. Could you find out?"

Luna considered. "I have learned to use many of the stones my father crafted. Some do enable the user to ascertain the motives of others. But black magic is the power of Satan, and Satan knows when any of it is used. I don't want his baleful eye on me unless there is no other way."

"Don't you have any white-magic stones?"

"The beatific eye of God is on white magic. I'm not sure I want that gaze either. Not when I'm investigating my father, whose Eternal fate remains uncertain."

"What's the difference, really? Isn't magic the same, whether it's black or white?"

"The power is the same, but the aspect differs. Magic is like magnetism, with a white pole and a black pole. If you orient on the white pole, you are aligning with God; the black pole draws you to Satan."

"Then why doesn't everyone stick to white magic?"

"Only good people can do that. Evil people relate more to the black pole. It's — this is not exact, of course, as the science of magic is as complex as the magic of electronics — it's like traveling past a mountain. The white pole is at the apex, and it is an exhilarating height, but it takes a lot of work and few missteps to ascend to it. The black pole is at the nadir, and it is easy to walk downhill; sometimes you can just sit down and slide or roll and, if you fall, you can get there very fast indeed. If you don't pay attention to where you're going, you'll tend to go down, because it is the course of least resistance. Since the average person has only the vaguest notion where he is going and tends to shut out awareness of the consequence of evil, he inevitably drifts downward. There is much more space at the base of the mountain than at the peak! Even those of us who know the situation can find ourselves in difficulty, as you did when you had to use bad means to do something good for your mother. When I became evil, white magic lost its effectiveness, while black magic became proportionately stronger. Remember the magnetic poles: the closer you get to one, the more strongly it attracts. So it is much harder for an evil person to become good than for a good person to stay good. Now I can accomplish much more through the black."

"But if black magic draws you to Satan — "

"Precisely. Evil facilitates evil, accelerating the slide. I don't dare use any more black magic, if I want to achieve eventual salvation. I'm almost too deep already."

"So you can't use magic to find out what your father really wanted."

"I already know that — to introduce the two of us to each other. I don't know why."

Zane nodded agreement. "It's a puzzle. Let's meet again; maybe we can figure it out."

She smiled. "Yes. I think we understand each other better now. We have plumbed the depths of each other's evil and not been repelled."

How true that was! Zane had told no one before of his guilty secret of murder and he was sure Luna had not let any other person know hers. As it had turned out, there was a certain similarity in those secrets, for each of them had descended into evil in order to help a respected parent. No, there would not be condemnation from either. That, and the aural art, showed affinity between them. Still, it did not seem to warrant the extraordinary measure the Magician had taken in sacrificing his own life.

Zane turned to leave. "I need to get back to my business."

She looked up at him, her gray eyes seeming larger and brighter than before, like moons. But it was no longer her physical beauty he saw so much as the character of a person who had sacrificed herself for a parent. "Yes, of course. Life is art, and your art is now in your office. When do you wish to visit again?"

"I'm hardly aware of the calendar now. I can't tell how crowded my schedule will be. Does it have to be a set date?"

"Naturally not! Come when you can. I will be here."

She glided close and kissed him.

Zane found himself in the Death mobile, driving out of town, before he was able to focus on the significance of that abrupt act. He had held his emotion in abeyance during their discussion, uncertain whether he would be seeing Luna again. She was, after all, hardly the type of woman Angelica was — well, no, he had to qualify that, for now Angelica was misty in memory, while Luna was preternaturally clear, as if outlined by some Divine retouching pen. And if Luna was no pristine creature, she certainly had more character than he suspected the other woman had.

Luna's very impurities matched his. How could a soiled, sullied person like him expect to win the love of an angel? Only a fallen angel could be within his grasp! Luna's artistry attracted him, for it was exactly the talent he had tried to evoke in himself without sufficient success — and her abrupt kiss had stunned him, because now she knew him for what he was — a man who had gambled and embezzled and killed his mother — yet found him worthy of this mark of favor. True, she had offered him more than that, and he could have used the Love stone to compel her feeling as well as her physical cooperation, but he had never been one to seek the favor of a woman under duress. He wanted to be loved for himself alone, unworthy as he knew himself to be, and the significance of the kiss was the suggestion that this was possible. Still, that business with the demon — he had heard horrendous things about the sexual appetites of demons and the uses to which they put acquiescent or unacquiescent girls. Especially pretty girls. Some were no longer pretty, after the demons finished with them. To fall into the power of a demon was to be ravaged in more than the physical sense. Luna had not suffered loss of beauty, however.

Zane punched his watch. Six minutes on the countdown. He had a client to attend to.