| On A Pale Horse | |
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On a Pale Horse paperback book cover |
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| Author(s) | Piers Anthony |
| Country | US |
| Language | English |
| Series | Incarnations of Immortality |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy |
| Publisher | Del Rey Books |
| Publication date | 1983-10-12 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 325 |
| ISBN | 9780345309242 |
| OCLC Number | 9393093 |
| Dewey Decimal | 813/.54 19 |
| LC Classification | PS3551.N73 O5 1983 |
| Followed by | Bearing an Hourglass |
On a Pale Horse is a fantasy novel by Piers Anthony, first published in 1983. It is the first of eight books in the Incarnations of Immortality series. The book focuses on Zane, a photographer about to commit suicide, but who instead kills Death and must assume his office.
The title is derived from the sixth chapter of Book of Revelation, in which one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death, rides upon a pale horse.
The book also spawned a 5-issue comic series. It was released by Innovation in 1993.
Contents |
The book focuses on Zane, a desperate and lonely man who decides to commit suicide. As he is about to shoot himself, he sees the figure of Death walking towards him and, panicking, Zane shoots and kills Death instead. Zane learns that deities such as Death, Time and the Fates are roles performed by human beings. Further, having killed Death, Zane must himself become Death. Death's role is to send the souls of the dead to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory depending upon the good and evil gathered by the soul during their life. Where a soul is in fine balance, Death must attend personally to make the final determination and send the soul to its appropriate destination.
In performing his role, Zane attends the death of a powerful magician, Cedric Kaftan Jr.. Cedric tells Zane that he manipulated fate to ensure that Zane became Death. Cedric believes that Zane will fall in love with his daughter, Luna Kaftan, and will guard her life. Luna is threatened by Satan due to a prophecy which states that she is destined to thwart Satan's schemes.
On Cedric's final wishes, Luna and Zane spend time together and quickly fall in love as predicted. Zane also learns that Luna took on some of her father's sin to ensure that his soul was in balance when he died so that he would receive a personal visitation from Death. Cedric assumed his daughter was innocent and that this excess sin would not burden her soul but she had performed black magic without telling him and her soul is now destined for Hell should she die.
Satan succeeds in manipulating fate to ensure that Luna will die before she can fulfill the prophecy. Believing her death to be inevitable, Luna chooses to die in the place of a young woman. This final good deed places Luna's soul in balance and Zane must personally attend to her death, but he refuses to take her soul because of his love for her. By refusing to take her soul, no other souls can make their journeys to the afterlife and dying mortals remain in agony, unable to die. Satan appeals to Zane to end his strike, and tries to bribe him and then intimidate him into taking Luna's soul to end the deadlock.
Zane, however, has come to realize that, as Death, he has absolute power over his own sphere of influence and that Satan cannot force him to take a soul. With no souls being released and, in particular, no souls going to Hell, Satan admits defeat. His plot to kill Luna before her time is exposed and she is able to return to life.
Death's Cloak provides significant protection against the elements and nearly all physical harm. It is magical in nature and allows Death to appear "socially" invisible to any who may observe Death, i.e. he may appear as a policeman when an accident takes place. When the cowl of his cloak is pulled up a skeletal mask is generated. Death also has the ability ,,to generate an unnerving presence to anyone who looks directly at Death, "Death Stare". This is part of the costume of death.
Death's Gloves and Shoes complete the costume. Magical in nature, they give Death the power to open doors and walk on water, while protecting the wearer from harm. In addition, they also generate the skeletal look typical for the incarnation of death.
Death carries a heavy well made chronometer (watch) with several functions, the watch is also attuned to Chronos and has the ability to stop time. The first is to show a countdown, this countdown is how much time a person has before their soul requires death's attention. The second function shows the backlog whenever Death takes a break. The watch can also be use to recycle some time to gain more travel time between "clients."
Death has a magical scythe that grants the user the ability of cutting through any substance, including flames. The scythe has the ability to destroy supernatural creatures as well.
Death has several magical Jewels and Gems, such as his earring, which allows Death to speak and understand any language. The most notable of these Gems are a matched pair that Death uses to "weigh" a soul's good and bad deeds to determine whether it is destined for heaven or hell.
Mortis, is an intelligent creature whose typical form is a pale stallion is Death's primary means of transportation. Based on the needs of Death, Mortis can become any number of forms, i.e. car, plane or boat. Mortis is immune to physical harm and when Death is astride the horse the 'presence' of Death is amplified.
In his book Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination, author Richard Mathews says that On a Pale Horse "explores fantasy's (and Anthony's) unique ability to embody abstractions. In the novel, an incarnation of Death engages in symbolic interactions written with the goal of helping readers come to terms with the inevitable end of life."[1]