On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

individual stones.”
    “True,” Zane agreed, drawing the Deathhood close about his face so his flush would not show.
    “Still, as a cheap novelty item, it’s not bad. Once in a while a stone like this will take a better spell and locate dollar bills. But it’s axiomatic that such a rock will never produce the value paid for it.”
    Zane thought again, painfully, of the beautiful, rich, romantic Angelica. “True.”
    “Well, you won’t need money now, unless you spend a lot of time out of uniform and get hungry. Better to acquire a small cornucopia and use it for such occasions.Your job should keep you too busy for that, until you develop proficiency.”
    “I still don’t see how—”
    “Oh, yes, I was about to explain. Only a small percentage of people need Death’s personal attention. The vast majority handle the transition themselves—though, of course, this is via the extended ambience of Death’s will.”
    “Death’s will?”
    “Oh, my, you
are
a novice! Let me see, I need an analogy. You know how your body goes on breathing when you’re not paying attention, even when you’re sleeping? It’s a bit like that. Death’s power is immediate and personal, but it is also distant and impersonal. When Death attends to a client personally, it is like consciously breathing; when Death merely permits a soul to depart its host unattended, that is like your autonomic system, the automatic functioning of your body. But when you die, these functions cease, both the conscious and the unconscious. When Death dies, all deaths in the world cease, until the new Death commences the office. The former Death, for example, is not really dead yet; his soul remains pinned in his body. He can not die until you act, though his body will never again be animate. That is why it is so important that the transition be facilitated. Imagine the havoc if no one ever died!”
    “I don’t know. If people lived forever—”
    “I haven’t time to argue foolishness!” she snapped. “Just be satisfied that the first soul you personally attend to will free all the rest to depart naturally, on their private schedules, as my threads have dictated. Up to half an hour can be tolerated; I have arranged for this. But beyond that, there will be one atrocious tangle.”
    “What souls do I—does Death have to attend to personally? I really don’t understand—”
    “It relates to the nature of souls and the balance within each soul of good and evil. Every good thought and deed lightens the burden, and every bad deed or thought weights it down. A newborn infant, generally, is about as close as we come to true innocence; only when self-discretion comes can evil be indulged in. As William Henley put it:
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul
. So the younger the person is at death, the more likely his soul is to remain innocent, and to float to Heaven when released. As William Wordsworth put it:
Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
With age and self-discretion, the evil tends to accumulate, weighting the soul, until the balance is negative. Such souls plummet like lead sinkers when released. But a few souls are in balance, with equal freighting of good and evil; these have no dominant affiliation and tend to cling to their familiar housing. These are the ones who need assistance.”
    “That’s what Death does!” Zane exclaimed, catching on at last. “Collects ambiguous souls!”
    “And sorts them out carefully, determining their proper destination,” Fate concluded. “Those few that are in perfect balance must be delivered to Purgatory for professional treatment.”
    “This is really to be my job?” Zane asked. “To collect balanced souls?”
    “And to facilitate the progress of all the others,” Fate agreed. “It