"I really don't see how I can be so important," she said, getting to her feet as the wound in her leg disappeared. That was one potent Healstone! "It must be something my father set up. Then he arranged to have Death himself guard me… "
"You're worth guarding," Zane said — "Now I must go. You have already been hurt because you were near me; I don't want that to happen again. I can protect you best by staying away from you."
"But Satan can attack me regardless!" she protested. "He just proved that!"
"It will do him no good while I retain the office. He must deal with me first."
The thug Zane had downed groaned. They looked at him. Luna gasped and Zane stiffened.
No wonder the man had given up the fight so readily. One of his eyes was a mass of blood and fluid. The other — "I must have forked him in the eyes with my fingers," Zane said. "I wasn't even conscious of — "
Luna handed him the Healstone. Zane brought it to the man's face, near the punctured eye. In a moment the eye healed and cleared. Then he put it near the other. The eyeball was drawn up by its dangling nerve like a yoyo until it popped back into its socket and firmed in place.
"I'm sorry," Zane told the man. "I acted without thinking."
The man felt his face tentatively. "You fixed me up!" he exclaimed. "I can see again! The pain's gone!"
"Yes. I shouldn't have struck you like that. I was angry."
"I don't like you when you're angry!" the man said, scrambling to his feet. "Just let me out of here! I won't tangle with you again!" He stumbled out.
"He thinks you healed him in a gesture of contempt," Luna said. "That makes him twice as wary of you. He doesn't know what you will do to him next time, or whether you will bother to fix it."
Zane shook his head. "I never dreamed there was such a beast in me! To spike out a man's eyes — "
"Just because he wanted to kill you and take your place and then kill me — "
Zane smiled, grimly rueful. "I guess I did mean it. When I saw him shoot you, a fuse blew in my brain. All my civilized restraints puffed away like so much fog in a furnace." He shook his head. "I'll leave you now. I can't blame you for being horrified."
She came to him, taking his hands in hers. "Zane, you have said you love me, and I have not replied. I feel I owe you a — a statement. I do like you, more than I have liked any other man except my father, but the situation — "
"I value your candor," he said carefully. "Of course you are not in a position to — "
"What I'm trying to say is that you can prevent me from dying, but love is on another schedule. So soon after my father, tangled in grief — I just can't — "
"I understand." And he believed he did. Luna loved her father, and that man had died. Could she afford to love Zane, too, when Satan was trying to assassinate him? When she herself was slated for early demise?
"Oh, Zane, take care of yourself!" she cried, flinging her arms about him and kissing him.
There was a neigh outside. Mortis was sounding the alarm. Zane disengaged hastily and hurried out.
"Trouble?" he asked, checking the translation stone in his ear.
"Other assassins," the horse said. "Some I can outrun, Some I can't. It is best to keep on the move, so that we encounter them singly."
Zane mounted and Mortis moved down the street, his hooves striking the pavement silently. Still Zane found he was not afraid. He was in a battle whose outcome he did not know, and he simply had to fight it through and hope he prevailed. It was as if there were some emotional spell on him, blocking out incapacitating fear. But there was no magic, simply his virtual certainty that he was right. This belief did indeed provide a kind of strength, without depriving him of his realistic cynicism about the outcome. He knew his cause was in doubt and perhaps hopeless, but he would not let it go.
"Is this campaign against me legal?" Zane asked. "Won't there be an investigation if I am dispatched?"
"Satan honors few rules that are not convenient for him. By the time his foul play is revealed, he will have had his way. Justice may pursue him, but he is the most elusive entity in the cosmos."
Which meant that Satan was cheating again, and could probably get away with it. Accomplishment was ninetenths of the law, in Eternity as well as on Earth. Zane wasn't even angry; he knew he had to deal with reality rather than with idealism. He might be in the right, but without his defensive Deathmagic, he was fairly helpless.
Still, he recalled how rapidly, efficiently, and viciously he had acted when Luna had been directly threatened and when the Hellhounds had come for him. There was a lot of evil in him yet, being turned to good use against the greater evil of Satan's minions. Now that he had something to fight for, a new aspect of his personality was manifesting, making him more like Mars. He might be far from Heaven, but he wasn't entirely helpless.
Mortis swerved. "There is one ahead," the horse explained. He galloped down a side alley. "Oops!" came a neigh of dismay.
Even as the horse tried to dodge, Zane saw it. A tattered beggarman stood close, intercepting them, his arm swinging in a throwing motion.
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."