On A Pale Horse (37 page)

Suddenly Zane was choking. He was breathing, but suffocating. There seemed to be no oxygen in the air!

Mortis turned his head, aware that something was wrong. “You have been hit by a suffocation-spell!”

“Yes!” Zane gasped. He could speak, for there was atmospheric pressure, but he couldn't breathe!

“The scythe! Use the scythe!”

Bewildered, Zane wrenched the folded scythe from its holster on the horse. Through tear-blurred eyes he saw a hole in the end of the handle. He put his mouth to it—and sucked in oxygenated air.

“It's a small-diameter suffocation-spell,” Mortis explained. “Doesn't reach to my head. So the scythe tube is out of its range. The spell is bound to you, therefore you can't run away from it—but it loses power a meter out. In a few minutes it will dissipate; these things don't usually need much duration.”

Zane could appreciate why. If he hadn't had horse and scythe to extricate him—!

In due course the spell dissipated as predicted, and Zane was able to put away the scythe and breathe freely. “Why is there a tube in the scythe handle?”

“This sort of thing must have happened before,” Mortis said. “My former master once used it to blow a dart; that's how I knew.”

Had attempts been made on Death's life before by supernatural agencies? It made a certain sordid sense. Surely Death had not universally pleased all parties at all times in the course of Eternity, and Satan was obviously one to try any means to get his way. So some Death officeholder along the line had had the scythe handle hollowed. Very nice.

If Death had been under siege before, it seemed he had survived it. Otherwise he would not have been able to modify the scythe handle. That was a positive sign.

No, maybe it was intended as a drinking straw, when water was available only from some well without a bucket, too deep to reach directly. He would probably never know. So he had no certainty. Were there other little things about this office that he ought to find out? His continuation as Death might depend on his information.

“What other resources do I have?” he asked Mortis.

“I hardly know,” the horse confessed. “I have the impression that the powers of the office are far greater than normally employed, but your predecessor did not employ them.”

It did make sense. Death should not be balked or intimidated by others, not even by Satan. Otherwise the office would soon become meaningless. But what powers did the office retain, once its magic had been turned off? Had Death ever gone on strike before? If so, how had that been resolved?

Mortis snorted. “Monster intercepting. I don't think I can avoid it.”

“Don't try,” Zane said. “It's my quarrel, not yours. Set me down in the monster's vicinity.”

“You have courage.”

“No. I'm just doing what has to be done. I'm walled in by circumstance, like water in a channel. If I had choices, I'd flow away into the ground and be lost. I'm nothing by myself.”

“You have a choice. You can resign the office.”

“No.”

“Any Incarnation can resign without prejudice. I think that's how the others usually change personnel. They get tired or bored and make way for a successor.”

“Without prejudice?”

“Reverting to the state of the soul when that person ended formal life. For you, this means balance.”

“So I would go to Heaven or Hell, exactly as I would have, had I not killed my predecessor. Nothing would have changed for me.”

“Yes. Of course, after your initiation period is done, your balance of good and evil will change, and your resignation would be on different terms.”

“Interesting.” Zane considered. “No, I can't resign. My successor would take Luna, and Satan would win. I can't allow that to happen.”

“Then you do have courage. You have an easy way out that you do not accept.”

“No, if I had any acceptable way out, I would take it. That's not the same.”

Mortis halted at a green golf course. “The monster from Hell has intercepted us. You would have a better chance against it if you rode me.”

“You need to survive for my successor. You have not betrayed your office; I will not involve you further in my problem.” Zane dismounted, took the scythe, and stepped forward. Then he paused and turned back. “What type of monster is it?”

“A preying mantis.”

“Praying mantis? They're small.”

“Prey-ing mantis. A minion of Hell never prays, but does prey. They're large.”

Now the monster appeared. It was shaped like a praying mantis, but it was five meters tall. Its huge pincer legs looked capable of crushing a man in one fell squeeze. Its small head peered down at Zane from its awful height, judging at what point to pounce.

Zane looked up at the mantis and was terrified. Courage? He had none of it! But he thought of Luna dying and Satan prevailing on Earth, and stood firm. “All right, move out,” he told Mortis. “Fast!”

The horse bolted—and the mantis struck. Its body launched forward so rapidly it blurred, and its massive forearms unbent and clapped together again like those of the insect monster it mimicked.

It missed. Its pincer arms crunched together empty. Almost empty—there were a few strands of horsehair in that grasp.

The mantis had been going for Mortis, the moving target. Zane had not moved at all, so had not triggered the monster's attack response. Blind luck! The horse had moved suddenly and so rapidly that he had escaped—but that episode was enough to demonstrate the blinding speed of the monster. Zane knew he could not outrun it. He could not even bring his scythe into play before the creature grabbed him; his reflexes simply were not fast enough.

The lofty, tiny triangular head tilted as if trying to discover what had become of the prey. Then the mantis got back to its feet, poising for a new launch. It had four legs besides the heavy front set, and four huge wings now folded along the back of the long body. The preying mantis looked clumsy, like a wooden branch propped on stilts but Zane had seen that creature move. It was no more clumsy than was Satan's tongue!

Zane had had some notion of standing his ground and swinging the scythe, but now knew this was hopeless. All he could cut with the scythe was the middle pair of legs—and long before he got there, the front legs would catch him and crunch him. In fact, he couldn't move at all without getting pounced on; he had been warned by Mortis' departure. What, then, could he do?

Well, he could wait. It seemed the mantis would not pounce as long as there was no motion. Probably it wasn't sure whether Zane was alive and, like the Hot Smoke dragon, did not feed on carrion. When he moved, it would know he was alive and would act accordingly, rendering him dead. What chance did he have? He couldn't wait forever, could he?

He was a man, with a man's brain. He was much smarter than the monster; he was sure of that. But how could he outsmart it when he couldn't move?

He conjured the five matchsticks to his mind's eye. Did ||||| offer any way out? It didn't seem to. How about <^>? Nothing there either. Try creative thinking: *.

How could he outsmart a monster who would destroy him the moment he moved? Standing still and thinking smart thoughts wouldn't suffice; the mantis could surely outwait him. So if he moved, he lost, and if he stood still, he lost. What creative thought could alleviate the squeeze?

Nevertheless, his thoughts played about the creative formation. Suppose he died where he stood, and his ghost haunted the preying mantis? That might serve it right, but meanwhile Satan would win. He needed to remain unmoving and alive at the same time his ghost haunted the monster and drove it away. A nonsense notion.

Nonsense? Not necessarily. He had departed his body briefly in order to visit Hell; why not do it again, to confound the mantis?

He tried, but nothing happened. He had no ghost to help draw him out, and probably his loss of magic also had something to do with it. His soul was now firmly fastened to his living body. It would depart only when his life did, and that was not the way he wanted to go.

Too bad he couldn't divide into two physical people, one to stay here under the watchful, faceted eyes of the mantis, while the other—

Suddenly it clicked. Maybe he could do just that! The mantis was attuned to motion—rapid or jerky motion, like that of a potential prey attempting to escape. That was why it had pounced at the moving horse, rather than at Zane. But it had not pursued Mortis, for after pouncing, it had realized that this was not the specific prey it had been sent for. That prey was Zane—but the mantis couldn't properly perceive him until he moved like prey. That was the problem with using an animal to hunt a man; the animal could not surmount its perceptive limitations. It was easier for a man to spot a moving object than a still one; the mantis' eyes were even more specialized, so that it was effectively blind while the target was still, and it lacked the brains to figure out that it could take a stab at a still form and make it move.

Zane moved, but not like prey. He hunched slowly within his voluminous robe, getting it off his body. He removed his black shoes and used them to form a tripod with the handle of the scythe, which he propped upright, supporting cloak and hood. It was awkward business, for he had to unfold the blade to help stabilize it, and nervous, for the mantis could surely perceive the activity. But the creature did not understand that activity, since it was not within the ordinary prey parameter. That limitation of intelligence was hurting the monster again.

When Zane had his scarecrow figure standing reasonably firm, he got slowly down on the ground and commenced crawling in caterpillar style toward the mantis. Both his speed and his direction deceived the monster; prey usually ran rapidly away from the predator, not slowly toward it.

The high, triangular head remained still, but Zane could feel the individual facets of the near eye bearing on him. He was now stripped to black shirt and trousers and socks, a dark blob inching along. If he had miscalculated, he would pay instantly with his life.

Something about that thought bothered him, and it wasn't exactly the fear of death. He wasn't afraid to die now. He just didn't want to do it in a manner that would give Satan the victory. Yet there was something else about his potential dying that nagged him, something significant—if only he could figure out what it was.

At the moment, he could not really concentrate on that. He had to pay attention to his snaillike progress, nudging a fraction of an inch at a time toward the mantis.

As he drew away from the propped cloak and the mantis did not strike, Zane breathed a slow, shuddering sigh of relief. He accelerated—but slowed again when he caught the slight motion of the monster's distant head. He was playing it very close.

After that, progress became drudgery. He nudged onward steadily, his nervous system in constant agitation. After an hour he began to suffer hallucinations. He seemed to be a blob of molasses, flowing along, and the faceted eye of the mantis seemed like the sun, sending down its pitiless rays to dry him up. He found himself looking down on that molasses, wondering when it would start crazing and cracking.

Zane caught himself. That could be his soul drifting free of his body, looking down! He could die from exposure as readily as from the bite of the monster! There was still more than one way Satan could get him.

But he wasn't dying yet; he was just dreaming. He refocused on his immediate task and continued moving forward, picking up speed. The mantis, perhaps no longer associating this, blob with its prey, did not react.

The left middle leg of the preying mantis was looming near. Zane angled for it, fearful that it would move before he got there. He forced himself to maintain a steady pace, as the minutes dragged on. The foot, no more than a greenish and ridged bend in the end of the leg, remained in place. The leg's cross section was no more than that of Zane's own wrist, but its length was more than his whole body. That was actually the length of one segment of it; above the knee was a similar length, extending horizontally, thicker in diameter. The legs tied into the torso just below the forward set of wings.

At last the target was within reach. Slowly Zane extended his two hands until they were almost touching the thin leg. He paused, gathering his nerve. This was about to become most uncomfortable!

Then, suddenly, he grasped the leg in a firm double grip.

Now the mantis reacted. It hauled its leg away—carrying Zane with it. It shook the limb, but Zane jackknifed and wrapped his legs about the leg. He had emulated the tactic of the mantis itself and had pounced by surprise.

The mantis might not be able to see a stationary target very well, but it could feel what was on its leg. It tried to brush Zane off by rubbing the leg against its abdomen. This was ineffective, for Zane's grip was too tight.

Now the monster planted its foot on the ground and angled its head to look. It didn't understand this type of attack. Zane hung on, certain that he was safe from the giant foreleg pincers here. The mantis would have to crush its own leg along with Zane, and it was unlikely to do that. He had nullified its primary weapon.

However, he had not yet won his freedom, for he did not dare let go. He had gained an impasse, no more. What next?

The mantis lifted its leg forward, setting it down as far in front as possible. Then it brought down its head. The long body was more flexible than Zane had supposed.

Oops! Now the insectile jaws could reach Zane. He could not afford to remain in place.

The head loomed close. It was about a third as long as Zane's body, and dominated by the huge, faceted eyes that seemed to take up about a quarter of the surface area of its face. The long antennae sprouted from anchorages just inside each eye placement, and three tiny eyes no larger than Zane's own looked out from between the antennae. Zane had not before appreciated so clearly exactly how alien the insect type of life was from human life. Five eyes, of two different sizes—yet it did make sense. Obviously the small eyes were “finders,” scanning the world in a general way, so that the big, specialized eyes could be oriented on their targets.