Read Online On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony - Free Book Online

you will analyze the soul, to determine to which sphere it should be relegated.”
    “Which sphere?” His mind refused to focus, as if his very thoughts were blinded by the client’s blood.
    “Heaven or Hell.”
    “But I’m no judge of souls!” he protested.
    “Yes, you are—now. Try not to make too many mistakes.” Fate turned and walked away.
    Zane stared at the dangling shreds of the soul. People passed him, but no one noticed him. He might as well have been alone.
    Awkwardly, he brought his hands together, folding the gossamer material like a sheet. It bent in the wrong places and creased horizontally, and the torn edges flopped out of place, but he muscled it together stage by stage. Finally he had a very small, light package; the soul had hardly any physical mass. He fished in his pockets again and found a cloth bag; he stuffed the wadded soul into this. Then he tried to retch, but his empty stomach lacked the wherewithal to complete the job. What a mess he had made of his first case!
    The police had arrived, and an ambulance, and people were extracting the mangled remains of the victim from the wreckage of her car. Witnesses were being interviewed, but no one thought to question Zane. He was coming to understand how this operated; he was not invisible, but he was unnoticeable. Except when it counted.
    He had collected his first soul. No one needed to tell him that he had pretty well bungled it. He had frightened the woman unnecessarily, extended her torment while he dallied, and ripped her soul forth most unkindly. This certainly was not an auspicious commencement of his new duties!
    His watch was flashing again. The sweep hand was moving. He had seven minutes to make his next appointment.
    “I’d rather die myself!” he muttered. But he wasn’t quite sure of that. Life could be ugly, and his present office was also ugly, but dying was worse yet. What a torment the human condition could be!
    What alternative did he have? Zane hurried to the Deathmobile. He did not know what the normal frequency of clients was, but supposed a backlog had accumulated during the transition, if such a thing were possible. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Fate had timed the changeover to occur during a lapse in other clients.
    He oriented on the next case and drove toward it. As the green grid flashed, he touched the button on the dash panel—and launched toward the location on hyperdrive. This one was far south, probably well below the equator. But as the car stabilized in the new city, the guide-gems functioned normally, and no one seemed to notice his sudden appearance on the street.
    Zane was not at all sure he liked this business of collecting souls, but still was hesitant about balking. How long would the woman in the wrecked car have suffered if he, Death, had not been there to relieve her of her soul? He didn’t care to think about that.
    The car ran smoothly, maneuvering through traffic expertly. It was a real pleasure to drive. He followed the arrow and eye and closed quickly on his destination.
    Where was he? Maybe in Brazilia, in the bosom of the southern continent. But no—now he saw the Phoenix General Hospital. This was the Arizona of the country. He had not hyped south of the equator at all; he had severely misjudged his progress. Well, he would learn with experience.
    He parked in the visitors’ lot, drew his cloak abouthim, and proceeded to the appropriate ward, feeling nervous. He had never liked hospitals, especially since his mother had been confined to one. Yet he realized that Death would have a number of calls at hospitals, since many terminally ill people would expire in them.
    No one challenged him, though he had not arrived during visiting hours. Evidently they took him for a doctor or hospital functionary. Perhaps he was; his function was the most basic of them all.
    He found his client. It was an old man in a ward of four. All of them had tubes and apparatus connected to their bodies in awkward ways and