The startled dragoness whipped her head about. The serpentine neck was supple; she had no trouble biting at her own back.
Then Luna got her hands on the egg. She ripped it free and held it like a football, close to her body. "Now sear me with your fire!" she screamed.
Of course the dragoness did not dare do that; she would roast her own precious offspring. She froze for a moment, paralyzed by indecision; she was smart enough to see the problem but not smart enough to figure out a solution. Luna had made an amazing move and gained the advantage.
Luna slid off the dragoness' back, holding the egg tucked under one arm. Still the reptile could not attack; the egg was hostage.
The Dragoons saw what Luna had done. "Put down that egg!" the man in charge cried. "It's invaluable! So few dragons reproduce - "
Luna backed away from the dragoness, holding the egg before her as a shield. The Smokeress switched her tail and snorted dense smoke, but did not attack.
"The reckless use of pesticides has damaged the wilderness environment," the Dragoon called. "Dragons' eggs have relatively fragile shells because of this, and many break before hatching time. Until the pesticide residue clears - and that may take decades - the species is flirting with extinction! Virgin, spare that egg!"
Luna looked down at the egg, considering. She nodded. She set the egg down on the sand and moved away from it.
How did this count? Zane wondered. Had Luna defeated the creature, discharging her obligation? If so -
Luna charged the dragoness again, brandishing the silver knife. The fierce head whipped about automatically, the jaws opening.
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What madness was this? Luria didn't have a chance! But it happened so fast that Zane couldn't act in time to prevent it.
The dragoness wafted out a gust of smoke, not having time to pump up another good fire. The smoke engulfed Luna for a moment.
She screamed, and the sound tore at Zane's being. In a moment the smoke cleared, blown away by an idle breeze, and Zane realized to his added horror how hot that smoke had been. Luna's lovely hair and fine clothing were scorched, her skin blistered. She had been blinded and partially flayed by the heat.
The dragoness limped forward and took the reeling woman in her jaws. The teeth crunched down, and rich red blood welled into her mouth and dripped from her chin.
With wild surmise, Zane looked at his watch. The countdown stood at zero. His gems were pointing to Luna.
"You were my client all along!" he cried to the horribly mangled body. "Your good deeds - saving the designated virgin, sparing the valuable dragon's egg, feeding the dragoness - they squared your balance! You are dying even!"
He ran up to take her soul, for she could not truly die until he claimed it. The flames of Hell could not be worse torture for her than this! But as he came to the terrible scene and saw her body bleeding in the dragoness'jaws, her head rolled toward him. Her burned eyes opened partway, the tatters of eyelids rising. Somehow she felt his presence. "Take me. Death!" she rasped in agony.
Suddenly Zane rebelled. This was the woman he loved!
He looked into Luna's suffering face. He had never imagined that he would ever choose to extend such agony by even one second, but now he had to. "No," he said. He put the Deathwatch on hold.
Then the entire scene froze, for he had punched the button that stopped time itself, not just the countdown. Punched? Unconsciously he had done the opposite, pulling it out. The clouds stopped moving in the sky, the leaves on the stunted bushes stopped quivering in the wind, and the Dragoons were statues. The dragoness remained with her teeth clamped in Luna's body. Even the smoke hung motionless.
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Zane turned about. Sure enough, Chronos stood behind him. "I thought you would come to investigate," Zane said. "I want you to move us back to just before Luna got - "
Chronos shook his head. "I can do that. Death, but it will not help you. Luna has been designated to die on this day; only the manner of it is optional."
Zane was grim. "Her death is now in my province. I love her. I know her early demise is illicit, and I will not take her soul."
A woman walked across the sand. It was Fate, in her middle guise. "You must take her soul, Death, or there will literally be Hell to pay."
"To Hell with Hell!" Zane exploded. "I will not take her on this basis. You may have been directed to set this up. Fate, but you can not move her soul. Only I can do that, and I will not. Undo your mischief, for I will not let her die."
Another figure appeared. It was Mars, the Incarnation of War. "Fate set it up, but as you surmise, it was at the behest of the Powers that Be. She had and has no choice."
"At the cheating behest of Satan!" Zane cried.
"That may be true," Mars said. "But you can not war with him."
"Satan cheated!" Zane repeated. "I have put in a petition for redress that shall surely be granted when the facts are known. Until that petition is heard, I shall not indulge in any tacit collusion with the Prince of Evil. Luna shall not die."
One more figure arrived, also immune to the stasis of time. It was Nature, wearing her dress of mist. "Desist this foolishness, Thanatos," she urged. "You have gotten away with breaking little rules, but this time you are in deeper than you know."
Zane glared at them. "Are you all against me? Then all of you be damned! I know I am right, I know my power, and I shall not be moved."
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Nature smiled grimly. "We are at the crisis point. It is the occasion to speak plainly."
"I have heard you speak plainly!" Zane retorted. "But you can not overrule me in my bailiwick. This woman shall not die!"
Fate smiled. "Relax, Death. We are on your side."
Suddenly Zane had a mental vision of parallel lines, one of the five formations of thought Nature had described to him at their prior meeting:
It was as if each Incarnation was one of the matchsticks, and all were going the same way. "You're all in this! You all conspired to put me in this hole!"
"We all conspired," Chronos agreed. "Satan has to be balked, and God won't intervene. We Incarnations are all that remains to enforce the Covenant of nonintervention."
Zane spun about, his angry gaze brushing past each of them. "The way I assumed the office of Death - my meeting with Luna, so carefully arranged by her father, who was in on this - my innocent, seemingly coincidental encounters with each of you other Incarnations - Luna's present agony - all arranged beforehand!"
"Known, not necessarily arranged," Chronos said.
"But the details adapted where necessary," Fate added. "Because we had to have the office filled by a person of the appropriate nature," Nature said.
"So that he could lead the battle against Satan," Mars concluded.
"Damn you! Damn you all!" Zane cried. "I never asked for this onus! What right did any of you have to meddle in my life?"
"The right of necessity," Nature said. "All mankind will be damned if we don't meddle."
"Exactly how can my pain and Luna's death do anyone any good?" he demanded.
"Her life," Fate corrected. "It is her life we need, not her death."
"I showed you that," Chronos said. "In twenty years, Luna will balk Satan's political takeover of the United States of America, thus preventing him from instituting policies that will render the nation and the world decidedly unamicable and send much of the living species of man directly to Hell. But Luna can not balk him if she dies prematurely."
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Zane's understanding was coalescing, but he was not pleased. "So you arranged to install a man in the office of Death who you knew would not take her," he said bitterly. "Because he was fool enough to love what was thrust at him for that purpose. And Magician Kaftan did that to his own daughter - "
"It is a terrible thing we do," Chronos said. "But the privations any of us face today are but an eyeblink to those we shall face in a generation if the Prince of Evil wins. We sacrifice the now for the sake of the hence. I am in a position to know."
"But you used me - and her!" Zane cried in continuing anguish. "Where is your morality?"
"It is our business to use people," Fate said. "Have you yourself hesitated to employ your power to change the circumstances of your clients?" Of course she was scoring there, for Zane was in deep trouble for doing just that. He had hardly hesitated to impose his own view of what was right, sparing some clients, taking some, and changing the manner of the dying of others. Holy, Holy, Holy!
"Now, in the hour of crisis, we are using ourselves," Fate continued. "We have made it possible for you to save the living world by saving the life of the woman you love. You were ready to oppose us, though you knew our power, when we tested you on this just now. Now you can aid us, to your own advantage."
It was, of course, true. They had spun him into an inextricable commitment. Without Fate's intervention in his life, he would probably have shot himself and - no, of course she had also set up his need to shoot himself by denying him his romance with Angelica - or had she set that up, too? How far back did this go? Probably, left to his own devices, he would have looked at the stones in the Mess o' Pottage shop, been able to afford none, and returned to his dreary former existence. He would at this moment be scrounging for back rent by selling pornographic photographs of unsuspecting women. Instead, he had been launched into a fantastic new realm of death and love...
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Nature smiled. "Mars grasped the essentials of the battle between God and Satan," she said. "Chronos spotted the key episode to come. I defined the qualities of the person who could and would do what had to be done, and Pate arranged to put him - you - in the proper situation. We collaborated, and touched your life as you looked at the Deathstone, and now the matter is in your hands. We can not fight this battle without your acquiescence."
"But you didn't tell me!"
"Had we set it up openly, Satan would have known," Fate reminded him. "He would have acted to prevent this encounter, just as he acted to eliminate Luna before her turn. The Prince of Evil has no civilized limits; he seeks only his own aggrandizement, and his craft and power are enormous. But now the deed is done, and even he can not rescind it, though he is surely listening to us now. The time for secrecy is past."
"What deed?" Zane demanded, exasperated. "I have not saved Luna's life; I have only refused to take her soul."
"And will you take that soul hereafter if Satan asks you to?" Nature asked cannily.
"No! And not if you ask me to. Green Mother! I love Luna; I don't care by what machinations the rest of you arranged this thing, or whom I might have loved otherwise, or whom she might have loved; I'll not betray her myself."
"We thought you would feel that way," Nature said. "We never wished you evil, Thanatos; we always wished you success. We deeply regret having to plot against your predecessor, who was a decent officeholder - but he would not have balked at taking Luna. He was too experienced with the mischief of opposing the status quo and would not try to thwart God or Satan. We had to have a head- strong, emotional Death, new enough and young enough not to be jaded by experience, and alive enough to respond to an attractive and intelligent young woman. We chose you and we used you, and for that we apologize - but we believe we had no choice. We could not do the job ourselves. The brunt must be yours. Satan wants Luna dead, but only you can complete that death. As long as you hold out, Satan is foiled."
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Zane looked at Luna's body, the welling and dripping blood frozen in place. "Much good may it do her or the world," he muttered. "She is not dead, but neither is she alive."
Chronos raised his hourglass. "Now I can act." He turned his hand, reversing the glass without inverting it, so that the sand flowed upward. Outside their circle, time ran backward, as it had on the night of the fire.
The dragoness' mouth opened. Blood welled into Luna's body, rising in swift drops from the ground and coursing in rivulets to closing wounds as the monster's teeth withdrew. The dragoness' head jerked back and Luna sprang out, blind and flayed. She reeled backward - into a coalescing cloud of smoke. She screamed. In a moment the smoke squeezed into the reptile's mouth, and Luna backed away unharmed.
Chronos gestured with the hourglass, and time refroze. "Now you can take her back, on temporary license. But there are some cautions. Satan can not make you take her soul, but he can make you wish you had. You will have to be brutally steadfast."
Zane looked at the restored Luna, suddenly so healthy. He blinked. The horror had unhappened! "I shall be."
"But you can not decline this client without declining all," Nature said. "On others you could choose tefore, for you were merely juggling their situations when no other supernatural entity was concerned. But in this case the issue has been joined. Satan will hold you to the technicality of the law, for all that he honors no technicalities himself. You will not be permitted to take any soul without first taking Luna's. You must take none - or all."
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"Then I'm on strike," Zane said. "I will take none - until Luna is released from this wrongful schedule of demise."
"Yet Satan will press his case," Mars warned. "Never in your life or death have you waged such a campaign against an Eternal. We do not know whether you will be able to prevail."
"I won't take Luna's soul," Zane insisted. "No matter what. You conspired to put me into love with her, and I know that and resent it, but I never betrayed one I loved, though my own soul be in peril."
"Yes, we know," Nature said. "That was your prime qualification for our purpose. You are intemporately loyal to your loves and your beliefs." She kissed him on the cheek.
"The fate of humanity depends, however deviously, on your resolve," Fate said, kissing his other cheek. "Never forget that."
Mars and Chronos nodded grave agreement. Then there was a swirl of mixed impressions, and the others were gone. Zane was left with Luna and the Hot Smoke dragoness.
Zane touched his watch, and the motion resumed. Luna moved toward the dragoness. But she stopped, for there was already an offering before the monster.
Evidently Nature had procured a sacrificial lamb for the occasion. The poor lamb gave one terrified bleat before getting chomped. For an instant Zane wondered how it could die, if no souls could be collected, then remembered that the collectors of animal souls were not on strike.Only human souls were at issue.
In moments the dragoness consumed the virgin lamb, wool and all. She licked off her chops, burped, and limped over to rescue her precious egg. She picked it up carefully in her mouth, breathed just enough fire to melt a spot on the shell, and stuck it to her back. Then she unfuried her wings, scrambled along the sand runway, headed into the wind, got up velocity, and took off. Soon she was a diminishing speck in the sky.
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Zane strode across the sand and intercepted the leader of the Dragoons, who was staring as if at a miracle. "Are you satisfied? Then release the virgin."
The man nodded. "Did you see that?" he asked raptly. "Suddenly a lamb! It must be an Act of God!"
"The virgin's onus is abated," Zane said insistently.
"Oh, yes," the man said absently. "We shall transport her to our base-city to the south of Nevada, Las Vegas, and purchase a carpet ticket to her home. You have my word."
And the word of this dedicated man was good. Zane turned to the virgin. "When you get home, miss, I suggest you - "
"Oh, yes, sir!" she exclaimed. "I will marry the boy next door immediately!"
Good enough. She would no longer be at risk as dragon bait. Her job was done.
His own, however, was just beginning. Zane walked up to Luna and took her by the arm, leading her toward his horse. Mortis had simply faded out of the picture and faded back in now that he was needed again. Luna seemed dazed. "I was scorched, crushed - " she said, putting her free hand where her wounds had been.
So she remembered! "Time - that's Chronos, another Incarnation - reversed your sacrifice. You have been spared because I refused to take your soul."
"But you should not have been summoned for me!" she protested. "My sin outweighs my good. I should have gone directly to Hell!"
"So we thought," he agreed. "But you chose a good way to meet your transformation, seeking and expecting no reward. Your soul is now in balance, as the other Incarnations knew it would be, and you are my direct client. Your life would still have been forfeit, because of Satan's cheating, but I have gone on strike. No one will die until your case is settled."
"But then what is my status?" she asked, perplexed. She seemed bemused to find herself alive and without physical pain, as well she might be.
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"Limbo, 1 believe." He considered and realized that the other Incarnations had not told him much. They had simply set the scene, and now he had to play it out. "1 think you can go about your normal life, on bail, as it were, until this business with Satan is settled."
"My normal life!" she exclaimed incredulously.
"At least I can take you home, where you will be safe with your griffins and moon moth."
She formed a wry smile. "I hope you know what you are doing, Zane, because I am not at all sure at the moment where reality lies. I expected to be dead."
"I'm righting a wrong," he said. "Satan conspired against you, and I mean to foil him. It would be the proper thing to do, even if I had not been led into this situation like a puppet on a string, and even if I didn't love you."
"I hardly think I'm worth it, dead or alive," she murmured as they reached Mortis.
"Worth saving, or worth loving?"
"Either. I'm just not that important a person. I know I couldn't stand up to Satan, or even to one of his demons." She shuddered, remembering the demon she had encountered. "And I doubt that love - "
Mortis leaped into the sky. "Your doubt doesn't matter, " Zane said. "Your soul will remain on Earth."
She hugged him uncertainly from behind, not speaking again. He delivered her to her home and left her there with the admonition to stay indoors and sleep. He would check on her frequently.
"Home, Mortis," he said, suddenly very tired. The Deathsteed plunged into the sky.
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END OF CHAPTER TEN