The Deathcar phased south, emerging in dense jungle.
The rutted mud trail here was too difficult for the
mechanical vehicle, so it shifted to the stallion Mortis and
trotted readily through the steamy growth.
"Halt!" someone cried in Spanish, the translation
sounding in Zane's left ear. He looked around and spied
a camouflaged soldier whose rifle was pointed menacingly.
Zane halted, drawing cloak and hood close about him,
just in case. "Where is this?"
"I'll ask the questions!" the soldier snapped. "Who are
you and what is your business?"
Should he tell the truth? Zane knew that could
complicate things. Yet he was increasingly disinclined to deal
in falsehood for any reason. "I am Death, come to collect
a soul."
"Oh. Yes, sir," the soldier said, snapping to attention.
Surely he had not heard what Zane had said! The words
must have come across as the recognition code for a high
officer of this army. Well, if that was the way of it, he
would play the part, as he didn't want to get lost in a
region of violence. "Identify yourself and your mission,"
Zane said curtly.
"Sir, I am Femando of the Loyal Niqueldimea Army,
on patrol to rout out the Seventh Communist renegades."
Zane remembered now: Niqueldimea was a banana
republic, where guerrilla infiltration had been occurring
for some years as the Communists sought to topple its
unpopular autocratic government. Naturally there would
be many killings here, and some would require Death's
personal service.
His watch showed thirty seconds. "Carry on, Fernando,"
he said, and urged Mortis on toward the rendezvous.
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In a moment he entered a rather pretty jungle clearing.
But as he did so, small-arms fire erupted. A bullet bounced
off his impervious cloak. There was a scream beside him,
and a Niqueldimean soldier jumped up, stiffened, and
spun to the ground. Zane needed only a glimpse before
the man was buried in the brush below to see that the
right side of his head was gone. He was definitely dead —
in fact, it was amazing that he had been able to jump —
but this was not Zane's client. This soldier could make it
to Eternity on his own.
More government soldiers charged into the clearing,
intent on obliterating the sniper. The ground gave way
under three of them, and they fell, screaming, into a pit.
Yet the surface of the ground remained unbroken. Zane
realized that this trap was concealed by a spell of illusion.
In one sense, illusion wasn't real, but it could be just as
deadly as tangible magic. Enchantment was countering
bullets quite effectively.
Zane looked at his orientation stone. His client was in
that pit, it seemed. Zane dismounted and stepped forward
cautiously, following his gem-arrow as his watch
countdown swung to zero.
His foot found the edge. He squatted, then sat, putting
his feet down into the invisible hole, leaning forward, and
getting his head inside the spelled region. Now he could
see reality.
It wasn't pretty. It was a large, open cavity, with a
dozen sharpened wooden stakes set upright in the bottom.
The three soldiers were skewered on these. Two were
dead, the third dying. The third was his client.
Zane slid carefully down the steep side of the pit and
landed on his feet. This required only a few seconds, but
in that time he became aware how the man was suffering.
The soldier had somehow turned as he fell, and the cruel
spike had penetrated his back and emerged from the side
of his abdomen. He had been impaled excruciatingly, his
head and feet dangling down to the ground. His blood
was hardly flowing; the stake filled the puncture.
Zane tried to retch, but clamped his mouth shut. He
lurched across and hooked out the soldier's soul, relieving
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him of his agony. Then he turned and leaned against the
pit wall, breathing in long, shuddering efforts.
"You're new at this, aren't you?" someone said.
Zane turned about, still feeling dizzy and sick. A large
man stood between the stakes. He wore brief, polished
armor, a short, woven-metal skirt, and sported an ornate
golden helmet, just like the picture of a Greek god of —
"War!" Zane exclaimed.
"Death!" the man returned sardonically.
"I didn't know —"
"That I existed?" War made an imperious gesture. "And
who but Mars do you suppose should supervise this
altercation?"
"No one else," Zane acknowledged, relaxing.
"I just didn't think it through."
"I have been meaning to meet you," Mars said. "After
all, we must often associate closely."
"Yes," Zane agreed distastefully. "I'm still breaking
in. I've got the routine down well enough, but scenes like
this —"
"This is a good scene," Mars said. "Small, but intense.
It is the best that offers between major engagements."
"You like your work?" Zane asked, hardly concealing
his revulsion. "What is accomplished by combat and
bloodshed?"
"I'm glad you asked that question," Mars said
expansively, and suddenly Zane was sorry he had asked it.
Speeches of self-justification were seldom worthwhile for
any but the speaker. "War is the final refuge against
oppression and wrongdoing. You have another client on
your watch. I'll walk with you while you attend to him."
Zane saw that it was so. Now he lacked even the
excuse to quit the company of this grim warrior.
Mars walked to a corner of the pit where an earthen
ramp led to the jungle floor. Zane glanced again at his
watch, verifying that he had five minutes to reach another
client close by, and followed.
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"What refuge do these dead soldiers have?" Zane asked,
discomfited. "How did this battle help them?"
"They have glory," Mars explained. "All men must die
sometime, and most go ignominiously from age or illness
or mishap. Only in war do large numbers get to expire in
decent glory."
"Glory?" Zane thought of his recent client, impaled
agonizingly on a wooden stake. "Seems more like gory
to me."
Mars bellowed out his laughter. "Cute, Death! You
perceive only the instant of discomfort; I perceive the
eternal reputation. A moment of pain for eternal fame!
These men are sacrificing their blood on the altar of
righteousness. This is the termination that renders their entire
mundane lives sublime."
"But what about those who die fighting for the wrong
cause?"
"There is no wrong cause! There are only alternate
avenues to glory and honor."
"Alternate avenues!" Zane exclaimed. "It's pointless
brutality!"
"You speak of brutality," Mars said, as if pleased to
meet the challenge of opposition. "You are as brutal in
your own office, I believe. How many of your clients go
sweetly to Eternity on blithe wings of song? I will answer
that—damned few! Even your reforms are savage things,
less defensible than what I offer my clients."
"Your clients are my clients!" Zane protested.
"Your clients, my clients," Mars said, shrugging. He
had excellently broad shoulders, making the shrug im-
pressive. "Some coincide. Most don't. Consider the mode
of executions. Do you approve of stoning a person to
death, regardless of his crime, which may have been
simply making time with a willing woman? Of crucifying him
for his religious beliefs? Of breaking his body on the wheel
because he stole a loaf of bread to keep himself from
starving, or pulling his limbs off by means of chains
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attached to six horses because he refused to pay sufficient
graft to get out of it, or burning him at the stake on a false
charge of witchcraft?"
"No, of course not!" Zane said, taken aback by this
savage catalogue. Mars had a rough-and-ready tongue!
"But execution has been reformed."
"Reformed!" Mars snorted. "I remember the French
reform. Doctor Guillotine invented a huge humane blade
to sever necks quickly and cleanly. No more of this messy
and sometimes inaccurate chopping that could cut into
the shoulder or lop off the top part of the head or even
take out the hands of the innocent person holding the
condemned head in place. This modem method brought
elitism to the poor, for before then only nobles had
warranted execution by the sword. But do you remember
what they did with that invention? I will inform you. They
discovered that it could bring mass production to political
murder! They could kill thousands in a day, chop-chop!
The French Revolution became notorious for that humane
reform!"
Zane didn't answer. Mars was too ready to fight.
They came to a ramshackle peasant house. A
government soldier was passing it. Suddenly a child of about
ten, a little girl, dashed out. The soldier swung his rifle
around, but paused when he saw it wasn't a guerrilla. The
girl rushed up to him, carrying something in her hands.
As she reached him, she did something to the object.
"Hey — that's a grenade!" the soldier exclaimed,
aghast.
The girl flung her arms about him, still clutching the
grenade. The soldier tried to get hold of it, but she clung
like a leech, her thin frame possessing the strength of
fanaticism. Then the grenade detonated. She had armed
it as she approached.
Pieces of the two of them sprayed outward. Blood
splatted against the side of the house. "That was
beautiful," Mars said. "That child brings great honor on her
family."
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"Honor!" Zane cried, outraged. "I call it horror!"
"That, too," Mars agreed equably. "They do tend to
associate on such occasions. That's part of what makes
even a minor fracas intriguing."
Another soldier appeared. He had heard the explosion
and now saw the carnage. This one had a hand-held flame
thrower. He ignited it and swung the flame around toward
the house.
Another child, a boy, younger than the first, ran from
the house toward the soldier. But the man played the
flame thrower directly on him, and in an instant the child
was a mass of fire. Then the soldier concentrated on the
house, starting it burning.
There was a whimper from the smoking mass on the
ground. "Your client, I believe," Mars reminded Zane.
How could he have overlooked this! The Deathwatch
stood at zero and the arrow pointed at the boy. Zane
hurried over and took the child's soul. The whimpering
ceased. "What honor was there for this child?" he
demanded.
"Not much," Mars admitted. "He failed in his mission.
Failure does not deserve reward."
"That wasn't my point! Without this war, there would
have been no deaths at all! I would never have been
summoned. All this horror would never have existed!"
"On the contrary," Mars responded tolerantly.
"Without this war, the oppression of this populace would have
continued indefinitely, grinding the people down,
dispossessing them of their property, starving them out. They
would have died later, it is true, but in a worse manner —
that of sheep led to the slaughter. Now they are learning
to die in the manner of wolves defending their territory.
Violence is but the most visible aspect of a necessary
correction, much as an earthquake is a release of
enormous subterranean pressures. Blame not the symptom,
my good associate; blame the fundamental social
inequities that stifle innovation and freedom and can be
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corrected in no other way. I come to right wrongs, not to
wrong rights. I am the surgeon's scalpel that removes the
cancer. My edge may hurt for a moment, and some blood
may flow, but my cause is just, as is yours."
Zane found himself unable to refute the ready and roughhewn
logic of Mars. But as he looked at the still-smoking
little corpse of the child whose soul he had harvested, he
feared it was not God whom Mars served so much as Satan.
"I think in due course you will find yourself at war,"
Mars continued. "I recommend that you prepare yourself
for that occasion by familiarizing yourself with your
weapon."
"My only weapon is the scythe," Zane muttered.
"And an excellent one it is," Mars agreed.
"Mortis!" Zane called, and the good Deathsteed
appeared. Zane mounted and departed, without speaking
again to Mars.
He arrived early, as he was doing more often now. The
address was a rundown nursing home in a slum district
in the resort city of Miami, wedged between a rickety
dance hall and an old evangelistic church. The interior
was gloomy and stank of urine. Old people sat unmoving,
perhaps asleep. There were no games or magazines, and
no conversations. The general mood was hopelessness.
Zane didn't like such places and had fought to keep his
mother out of one — too successfully.
His client was an old man with a white shock of hair
and a dribble of brown where the comer of his mouth
leaked. Zane walked toward him, but paused as he saw
the rope. "You're tied to your chair!" he exclaimed.
The man looked up. "Otherwise I'd fall," he explained.
Zane realized that adequate facilities and competent
attendants were beyond the means of this establishment.
The poor and homeless could not afford a luxurious
retirement.
"One favor," the man said. "If it is not too much to ask."
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"If I can grant it," Zane said guardedly. "You know I
can not grant a reprieve if it is a terminal illness that — "
"I'd like to have a hymn, to see me out."
Zane was surprised. "A hymn?"
"Holy, Holy, Holy. It's my favorite. I haven't heard it
in years, and I miss it."
Zane wrestled with perplexity. "You want someone to
sing a song?"
"Oh, a recording would be fine," the old man said.
"Just to hear the sound. It's a great hymn! But I know
my wish is foolish."
Zane considered. "It seems simple enough."
The man shook his head, now ready to argue the other
side. "They don't allow music here."
Another man spoke up. "We get enough noise from
the neighbors, though! That infernal racket from the dance
hall, so we can't sleep at night, and those screaming
sermons and rehearsals from the other side, that 'gelical
church."
Now there was general interest, as the others in the
room came to life. Zane's appearance was a novelty,
relieving the utter boredom they were accustomed to.
"Everyone else gets to do his thing — why not us? What's
wrong with one hymn?"
"I think you should have it," Zane said. "All we need
is a phonograph, or a cassette player, or a magic music
box."
There was a murmur ofdemurral. "They won't let us
have it," another man said.
"You shall have it," Zane said firmly. He walked up
to the nurses' station, where a male nurse was reading a
popular magazine. There was a full-page color ad on the
back: HELL—IT ISN'T JUST FOR BADNESS ANY
MORE. Bright orange flames surrounded a scene of
enthusiastic debauchery, and the Dee & Dee trademark
devils were doing something that made Zane wince.
"Nurse," he said.
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The nurse glanced up. "No music allowed. House rule,"
he said, and returned to his page.
"We can make an exception," Zane said. "A man is
about to die, tied to a chair like a condemned criminal.
His last wish shall be honored."
"Are you for real? Get out of here." The man's eyes
remained on the page.
Zane, annoyed, reached out and lifted the magazine
from the nurse's hands. He leaned forward, gazing into
the man's face. "There shall be music," he said.
The man started to protest, but froze as he met the
hollow eye of Death. "There's nothing here," he
mumbled, fazed. "I would get fired if — "
"Then we shall do it without you," Zane said. "You
may register your protest for the record — but take care
that it is not too vigorous. We are going to have one hymn
here, with or without your cooperation." He pointed his
finger at the man's nose; in the Deathglove it looked
skeletal. "Do you understand?"
The nurse blanched. "You aren't going to hurt anyone?
I only follow rules, I don't want trouble, but I don't want
anyone hurt."
So the man did have some meager conscience. He was
lazy and indifferent, but not evil. "One man will die, as
he was fated to. No one will be hurt."
The nurse considered that, evidently having a bit of
trouble reconciling death with not hurting. He swallowed.
"Then I'll call in my protest to the owner's answering
service. It usually takes them forever to get back to me,
especially when there's an emergency." He scowled.
"Emergencies cost money." He reached for the phone.
"But there's no stuff here to use, not even a radio. My
boss says silence is golden, and he does love gold."
Zane turned away, disgusted with that owner. Perhaps
one day that character would discover himself grubbing
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for gold in Hell. "I shall tend to this," he told his client,
turning off his countdown timer. "You will not feel
discomfort until you have had your hymn." He walked out
of the nursing home.
First he tried the dance hall next door. The entry foyer
was crowded with machines dispensing candy bars, two-
bit love potions—"Slip her this, and she'll promise you
anything!"—and spot dressings for blisters. The main hall
was empty, for this was the dead morning shift. Several
shaggy teenagers were on the stage, working out with
drums, guitars, and an electric organ, bashing out
dissonance with a deafening beat. This was rehearsal time,
though Zane could not see how such noise could profit
from practice.
Zane approached and put his hand on the largest drum,
the fingers of the glove causing its sound to die immediately.
"I require a performance," he said.
He had their instant attention, though they did not
recognize his nature. "Hey, a gig? How much?"
"One song, for charity, next door."
They laughed. "Charity! Go soak your snoot in battery
acid, mister!" the drummer said. "We don't do nothing
for nothing!"
Zane turned his potent gaze on the kid. "One song."
Like the nurse before him, the youth blanched. People
seldom saw Death when they were not clients or closely
attached to clients, but Death could indeed force his
awareness on them when he wished. Hardly ever did a
person face Death directly without feeling the impact.
"Uh, yeah, sure. Guess we can do one song, like for
practice."
"A hymn," Zane said.
The laugh was louder, though somewhat uncertain.
"Man, we don't do church junk! We're the Livin' Sludge!
We boom, we flow, we fester; we don't damn well hymn!"
Again Zane delivered the Deathstare. Young punks like
this were more resistant to it, since they did not believe
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they were ever going to die. "One hymn. Holy, Holy,
Holy." His bony, square eye sockets bore into the fleshed
orbs before him.
Again the kid was fazed. "Sure, well, I guess we could
try. Like, it's only one tune. But our singer's out, she's
zonked on magic H, and anyway, we'll have to rehearse.
It'd take two, maybe three days, you know, just to start."
"Now," Zane said. "Within the hour. I will find you a
singer."
"But we don't have no music or nothing!" the youth
protested desperately.
"That, too, I will provide," Zane said, controlling his
ire. Had he ever been this age himself? "Go now to the
nursing home next door and set up your gear. I will rejoin
you with a singer presently."
"Yeah, sure, man," the kid said faintly. "We'll be ready
in half an hour. But you know, this ain't exactly our bag.
It ain't going to be too sharp."
"It will suffice." Zane left them and strode to the church
on the other side of the nursing home.
He was in luck. The church choir was rehearsing for
the coming weekend service. Several black girls were
present, doing what to Zane's ear was a mishmash of
notes and ululations.
The preacher spotted him immediately. "Hey, don't
you go takin' none of mine. Death!" he protested. "We're
good folk here. We don't want no trouble with you!"
Zane realized that this church might be poor and
backward, but the preacher was a true man of God, able to
discern a supernatural manifestation instantly. That would
help. "I only want a hymnbook and a singer," Zane said.
"Hymnbooks we got," the old man said eagerly. "This
white do-gooder group, they raise money, bought us books,
don't know nothin' 'bout our music. Got a big pile of 'em
under dust in the closet. But one of my girls — Death, I
won't stand by and—"
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"Not to die," Zane said quickly. "To sing one hymn
for the folk next door. For a man who is about to die."
The preacher nodded. "Man's got a right to one last
melody. What's it called?"
"Holy, Holy, Holy."
"That's in the book, but we don't sing it. Not our style."
"Find a singer willing to try."
The preacher addressed the practicing choir. "Anyone
sing white music? Hymnbook stuff?"
There was a murmur of confused negation.
"Listen," the preacher said. "You don' know this
person in the hood, and you don' want to. But / know him.
The eye of the Lord is on him, and he needs one hymn,
and we've got to help him any way we can. So if any of
you can even try to oblige him, come on."
At length one rather pretty girl in her teens spoke.
"Sometime I sing 'long on the radio stuff, jus' for fun. I
guess I could try, if I got the words."
The preacher rummaged in the closet and brought out
an armful ofhymnbooks. "You got the words, sister. Come
on, we'll go help this person. Won't be long."
Zane took some of the books and led the way to the
nursing home, where the Livin' Sludge was setting up, to
the considerable entertainment of the inmates and the
non-protesting nurse. Probably there had not been an event
like this here in decades. Cables and loudspeakers and
instruments seemed to fill the main room. "Hey, don't
set those big speakers in here," the nurse was saying.
"Small place like this, that noise'll deafen these old folk,
and they've got problems enough already. Face those
monsters out the windows." And it was done, for it seemed
the Livin' Sludge was constitutionally unable to function
without full-volume amplification.
The young singer eyed the Sludge, and the Sludge eyed
her. Each evinced a certain morbid fascination with an
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alien life form, but neither evinced approval. Zane
realized it had probably been a mistake to involve the
instrumental group; the girl would have done better a cappella.
Too late now;
The preacher stepped in, seeing the need. "You boys
don' know hymn music, okay? This is Lou-Mae; she don'
know junk music, so you're even. So let's try her doing
the hymn, you follow, okay?" He was more or less
speaking pigeon, in order to get his meaning across to these
foreigners. He passed out the hymnbooks.
The musicians leafed through the books, bewildered.
"This scene's worse'n bad-spelled H!" one muttered. Zane
knew that H was bad, enchanted H was worse, and badly
enchanted H was a horror. But addicts had to take what
they could get. "We'll never live this down."
"You boys getting high on S-H?" the preacher asked,
frowning. "That'll put you in H!" He pointed down,
signaling the change in meaning. "You better find some
better interest before it's too late."
"Wish we could," the drummer confessed. "But you
know, we're locked into the scene. S-H don't let nobody
go."
"Neither does H," the preacher said, with a dark glance
down. "Nobody hooked on either H in my church."
"Yeah, sure," the drummer said wearily.
Zane got them on the page with Holy, Holy, Holy.
"Play this," he said.
They tried. They were, underneath, reasonably competent
musicians. The tune did not adapt well to drum
and guitar, but the electric organ picked it up easily enough.
The phone rang, the sound almost lost amidst the noise
of preparations. "But I can't sing into a mike," Lou-
Mae protested. "It's in my way, and it looks funny."
"I'll tell you what it looks like!" the Sludge drummer said, grinning.
"Jus' ignore it, sister," the preacher advised quickly.
"Jus' sing your way."
"There are people gathering outside," a nursing home
inmate cried gleefully by the window. "Gawking at the
loudspeakers!"
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