The New Death and others (11 page)

"Oh, who is down there?" Gloria shouted
down.

"A prince of this land," said the prince.

"Ho now prince, why don't you come up here?
I'm so lonely," said Gloria.

"Well now I would," said the prince, "but
this stone down here tells me I can't come in, for not being a
true-born man."

"I know!" said Gloria. "Why don't I send down
a lock of my hair? You show that to the guards, and they'll think
you're a true-born man."

The prince thought this was a fine idea. So
Gloria cut off some of her hair, and threw it down, through the
clouds, and down to the prince. And the prince saw this hair, which
was like gold, and he thought that if her hair was this beautiful
then Gloria herself must be the most beautiful woman in the
world.

So the prince went into the tower, and he saw
the never-dying guards. But he just held up a fistful of Gloria's
hair, and they let him go right on through. Up, up and up went the
prince, higher than the birds, higher than the clouds, high as the
sun almost. And at last he came to Gloria's room. He opened the
door, and when he saw her...

Oh! She was so ugly. Both her middle limbs
were missing. There was no hair on her body at all--and yet hair
covered her head! The prince realised where the lock of hair he
held had come from. He was so disgusted he couldn't even
breathe.

"Don't you come near me!" he said, and he was
so sick he didn't want to live any more. He jumped right out of the
tower! Down he went, down past the clouds and the birds, and at
last he landed in a thorn-bush, and that bush scratched out his
eyes, and he was blind.

Now Gloria was scared that the only person
she'd ever seen would die. So she ran all the way down the stairs,
and there he saw the prince, all bloody and blind.

"Oh woe is me! No one's going to want me with
no eyes! I won't even be able to find food for myself!" the prince
said. But Gloria replied,

"Well now, you were damn rude to me prince.
But I guess I don't want you die." So Gloria gathered berries and
mushrooms for the prince to eat.

The prince stayed with Gloria. And since he
couldn't see her, it didn't matter that she was so ugly. And as for
Gloria, she'd never seen anyone else. So after a while they got
married, and they had children. And that's where we all come from;
you and I, and everyone else, and all the true-born men and women
that ever have been and ever will be. So I guess that shows that
Dokka was the cleverest crone that ever there was, and that even
great evils will be beaten in the end.

(back to contents)

++++

The New
Death

Death was enjoying a cigarette and some
powdered baby formula ('more pure than mother's milk!') when the
phone rang.

"Death speaking. Oh, hi Pestilence. How's
your cold?"

"It's going great, thanks. It's turned into
pneumonia."

"How's everyone?"

"Oh," Pestilence gave a wet, rattling sigh.
"The usual. War cooked a big bunch of civilians for Famine, but
Famine was all like 'I'm on a diet'. So of course War had to have a
big fight about it. Luckily War hasn't been around much. His
brother Commerce is visiting. Anyway, I rang to tell you that a new
Death is coming to Earth."

"What? How come?"

"Aliens have landed."

Death grinned in annoyance. It was the nature
of things that each thinking species must have its own Death. It
would be confusing for the deceased if he visited souls who had no
idea what a scythe was, and who could not recognize a human
skeleton.

"Ah man. Thanks for letting me know. Anyway
look, I've gotta go. I'm collecting Robert McNamara's soul."

"Really? I didn't think he was due for
years."

"There's a new refer-a-friend program; each
thousand people gets you a discount."

The alien Death arrived a few days later. It
appeared as a floating series of equations which proved the
inevitability of increasing entropy in a closed system.

"My mortals do not anthropomorphize death,"
it explained. Death would have raised an eyebrow.

"There may be some residual superstition," it
conceded.

"I thought you'd be a bug or something."

"A bug? My mortals do not resemble the
insects of your planet."

"Sorry. I hope that wasn't racist. This
science stuff is just so overwhelming you know? Like, we have
aliens--
real aliens, right next to normal stuff like
shopping malls and the secret vampire world government. Anyway, do
you have...um, a ray-gun?" Death indicated his scythe.

"Your agricultural implement? I understood
that humans had invented the combine harvester."

"It's more of a symbol. You know, to strike
fear into the hearts of the dying?"

"My mortals do not fear dying."

"Oh, wow. You poor thing." Death was
genuinely moved.

Over the next few months the Death of Earth
encouraged the alien Death to become more frightening. He showed it
the finest Iron Maiden posters for inspiration.

"Try and make your voice deeper," he
suggested. "And maybe laugh a bit. That's frightening for humans.
Although you shouldn't tell jokes; I'm not really sure why one and
not the other, just trust me. But don't go totally copying me OK?
In the 80s I had this guy who used to follow me around called
Skeletor...anyway, just get your own style."

The alien Death gradually learned the ways of
Earth. Although it did not take much of Death's advice, it seemed
to warm to Death himself.

"Death of humans, there is something I must
tell you," said the alien Death after several months.

"OK, what?"

"Since coming to your planet I have learned
much about your customs and outlook. I owe this new knowledge to
you. I feel that we have entered into the human relationship of
friendship. However, my feelings have developed further. In short,
I have come to feel towards you the emotion that humans
call...love."

"Well, I don't call it love," Death replied.
"I call it 'till I do you part'. Ha ha, I totally say that every
time I come for someone who's been married for like 50 years.
Sorry, I'm babbling. But usually the people who fall in love with
me are either samurai or something, or they're fifteen year olds
who write about me in their poetry journal. Woo, it's hot in here
huh?"

"I have decided to adopt a form that will be
more pleasing to you."

"Look, I don't care what you look like,
I...oh." He had no breath to be taken away, no heart to skip a
beat.

"Oh," Death said again. "You look like a
cartoon of Elvira drawn by Tim Burton. I...I haven't seen anything
that beautiful since the siege of Stalingrad. Oh man...maybe I'm
thinking with a part that I don't actually have, but..." Then there
were no words, and no sounds save sighs, and the clack of bone
sliding against bone.

It was a great blasphemy that a Death, let
alone two, should enter into that which is the opposite of death.
It would be like a dryad getting into carpentry, or a satyr wanting
to get to know you first. Therefore the two beings agreed to keep
their affair secret. They fell ever more deeply in love. They
planned to unlive together. The alien Death would have to commute
back to her home planet, but that was a small price to pay, and she
would be going back and forth anyway. They even talked about
getting married and killing some children. Alas, workplace romances
are always more obvious than the lovers think. The gods soon
learned of their treachery, and summoned them.

"Thy insolence is beyond measure!" thundered
one of the gods.

"Repent, and do penance!" another demanded.
The two Deaths trembled, but

"We will not," was their reply.

"This being so, we put a great doom upon you.
Since we cannot sentence you to death until new Deaths are trained
to replace you, we pronounce the next harshest sentence."

"You mean-"

"Yes. We sentence you to life."

That is why, if you see a skinny couple who
wear all black even in the summer, who have staring eyes and
constant grins, and who you suspect might be wearing toupees, you
must not make fun of them. The two ex-Deaths are still friends with
War, Pestilence and Famine, and you might find yourself drafted,
sick and hungry. This is especially true if the couple is in town
to buy a new combine harvester.

(back to contents)

++++

The Garden of Adompha

Based on the story of the same name by Clark
Ashton Smith.

"What portion?" asked the sorcerer

just as he always did

his voice as harsh and grating as

a rusty coffin-lid.

Within the garden of the king

where no one else could see

he gestured to the golden maid

who lay there silently.

No record showed the fatal crime

that she was guilty of.

She may have laughed or failed to laugh

or loved, or failed to love.

No record showed her fatal crime

no law, or judge, or pardon

but sentence passed of living death

within this secret garden.

Her name alone has come to us

and few names come that far.

Adompha was the wicked king

and she, Thuloneah.

And she was bound for living death

for in this wicked place

one plant displayed a hazel eye

and one an eyeless face

and others mouths and tongues and hands

that mocked the gods' good will.

All grafted by the sorcerer

from those that he had killed.

The poison in Thuloneah's veins

at last had claimed her life.

"What portion?" asked the sorcerer

and drew his shining knife.

---

"Her hands," the king replied, "were
deft.

They knew each carnal art.

Preserve them both, up to the wrist

but not one other part."

The wizard bowed and cleanly cut

her soft and supple hands.

He chanted in the tongue of djinns

proclaiming strange commands.

He summoned spirits of the earth

that all not damned would shun.

He pressed his trophies to the vines

and plant and hands were one.

Though orphaned from their guiding mind

they beckoned nonetheless

towards the king as if they sought

to give a last caress.

Their fingers rippled languidly

like seaweed in the tide.

Remembering debaucheries

now past, Adompha sighed.

---

The wizard took the golden corpse

into his arms and stood

impassively as if he carried

naught but rocks or wood.

Such beauty borne by ugliness

as if he had become

the scarab that the priests declared

the bearer of the sun.

The king had long since lost his soul

for that is kingship's cost

but now he felt the faintest ghost

of that which he had lost.

He felt a thing he could not name

that others know as guilt.

When such as he feels self-disgust

then others' blood is spilled.

The wizard turned his back to bear

his burden to the pit.

Adompha lifted up a rock

and struck a blow with it.

The wizard's skull caved in as if

no thicker than a shell.

His soul went howling to the void

its wretched dwelling fell.

---

For many months Adompha let

the ghoulish blossoms wave

in darkness and in silence over

fair Thuloneah's grave.

He looked for other ways to fill

the endless, listless days.

No cruel, malignant lechery

stayed hidden from his gaze.

Like one who travels many paths

to reach the same abyss

the jaded king found tedium

in each purported bliss.

One night Adompha lay asleep

and had a dream wherein

he stood before the garden and

it opened up for him.

Each plant seemed poised to offer up

itself to him alone

as eager as a virgin yet

as worldly as a crone.

He woke consumed with ardor for

those thaumaturgic blooms

that bore the parts of women whom

a royal whim had doomed.

---

The city lay cocooned in dreams

of evil and deceit.

He hurried to the garden through

the silent midnight streets.

The king unlocked the hidden door

now known to only one.

A hellish heat assaulted him

as of an alien sun.

Half-maddened with his dreaming lust

Adompha scarcely paused

but entered in like one who walks

into a demon's jaws.

Each plant had grown to twice its
height.

The air hung thick with scent

that mesmerized the king into

a fearless wonderment.

He saw Thuloneah's shapely hands

that lived though she lay dead.

Her nails were painted bright as birds

in shades from green to red.

He stumbled forward and held her hands.

The nails shone sharp as spurs.

They seemed to yearn for his embrace.

Adompha longed for hers.

---

Thuloneah's fingers grew like trees