Read On a Pale Horse for Free Online Page A

“Help me, please; we do not have excessive time and we don’t want to get blood on the uniform.”
    “Who are you?” Zane demanded, getting half a grip on himself despite the overwhelming unreality of the scene.
    “At the moment I am Lachesis. You can see I am of middle age without much sex appeal.” She was quite correct; her face had the lines of solid maturity, and her hair was nondescript under a tight bun. She was comfortably overweight, but moved efficiently. “I determine the length of the threads. Now lift his body; I don’t want to tear the cloak.”
    Distastefully, Zane put his hands on Death’s corpse and lifted. “Who is Lachesis? What threads? What are you doing here?”
    She sighed as she worked the cloak off the body. “I suppose you do deserve some minimal explanation. Very well; you keep working, and I will tell you some of what you need to know. Not all of it, for some secrets are reserved to me, just as some, you will discover, are reserved to you. Lachesis is the middle aspect of Fate. She—”
    “Fate?”
    “You will not learn very much if you insist on interrupting,” she said with some asperity.
    “Sorry,” Zane mumbled. This felt unreal!
    “Now get his shoes. They’re invulnerable to heat, cold, penetration, radiation, et cetera, just as is the cloak. You must always be properly garbed when making a collection, or you become vulnerable. It is essential that you not be vulnerable. Your predecessor here was careless; had he closed his hood across his face, the bullet would not have harmed him. See that you are more careful; you will have greater need to be on guard than he did.”
    “But—”
    “I believe that interjection constitutes an interruption.”
    Zane was silent. There was an eerie power about this woman that had nothing to do with her appearance. She could be the mother of any rebellious teenager.
    “I am Fate, with three aspects,” she continued after just enough of a pause to verify her command of the situation. “I determine the threads of the tapestry of life. I am here to ensure that you change roles expeditiously. It is very important that you perform better as Death than you have as a living person, and I believe you do have the potential. Now stand up so I can fit the cloak to you.”
    Zane stood, and she set the cloak on his shoulders. It was not heavy, but it carried a peculiar mass. She had spoken of magic; this item of apparel reeked of it. “Yes, it is close enough. Go ahead and don the shoes; and don’t forget the gloves. The shoes will, among other things, enable you to walk on water. Your rounds must not be balked by mundane trifles.”
    “But this is preposterous!” Zane protested. “I was about to kill myself and now I’m a murderer!”
    “Certainly. I had to measure your thread very carefully. Technically, your life just ended; see, Death’s body will be taken for yours.” She turned over the body, and Zane saw that it looked uncomfortably familiar. It now resembled his own—with a bullet hole in the face. “You will fill the office until you, too, grow careless and permit a client to turn on you.”
    “Or until I die of old age,” Zane said, not really believing any of this.
    “Old age will never come to you. Neither will death, if you perform well. If you ask the average person what he most desires, he will answer, ‘Never to die.’ That is, of course, an absolutely foolish wish; in due time you will be better able to appreciate the importance of dying. It is not the right to
live
, but the right to
die
that is most important.”
    “I don’t see—”
    “What is life, except an ongoing instinct for survival? Nature uses that instinct to make us perform; otherwise we would all relax, and the species would disappear. Nature is a cruel green mother. The survival instinct is a goad, not a privilege.”
    “But if I don’t age—”
    “Time holds all supernatural agents, especially the several Incarnations, in abeyance. You will live