A Wild Ride Through The Night (16 page)

‘Not exactly. Go on.’

‘Very well, so I went to heaven, for how can I put it?
There really is a horses’ heaven!
I’ve even got wings—I’ve become an equine angel, so to speak. Great, isn’t it? I’d never have thought horses rated so highly up here, but there are whole constellations named after them! There’s even a huge nebula shaped like a horse’s head, did you know?’

‘Yes,’ said Gustave, ‘I did.’

Pancho looked astonished. ‘You know plenty!’

‘I’ve been around a lot lately,’ Gustave explained. ‘But how come you know Dante?’

‘Oh, that was pure chance. A place in his team fell vacant. I saw his advert on the blackboard, and—’

‘What blackboard?’

‘The cosmic blackboard, of course. We’ve got everything up here, you know. Blackboards, black holes, galactic gullies—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Gustave broke in. ‘So you’ve become a servant of Death too.’

‘Not quite,’ said Pancho. ‘We made a deal. Each of us can
terminate
my contract of employment at a million years’ notice.’ He bared his equine teeth in a broad grin.

‘But what brings you to this remote part of the universe?’

‘Oh, I was giving the horses a bit of exercise, Cap’n,’ said Dante. ‘All we normally do is the short-haul flight between the sun and the moon, which gets boring after a while. We like to look at other galaxies during the lunch break.’

A miniature comet zoomed over their heads, hissing and crackling like a sparkler. Gustave drew another deep breath before he put his last question. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be on your way to the moon to collect some more soul-coffins, would you?’

‘Yes, we are!’ Pancho exclaimed. ‘How did you know?’

‘I’m good at guessing games, you know that,’ said Gustave. ‘Remember the giants?’

‘That was the tops, that business with the giants!’ Pancho said reminiscently.

‘A little too gory for my taste, but they started it. Would you mind if I came too? I’ve got an appointment with Death.’

‘Of course, Cap’n,’ cried Dante. ‘Get in and we’ll take you to the moon, that goes without saying.’

Gustave boarded the chariot and took his place beside Dante. He was about to give the order to set off, if only from force of habit, when something occurred to him. ‘But how can we get to the moon before daybreak? The Time Pig calculated that it would take several billion years.’

‘Oh, the Time Pig,’ Pancho said derisively. ‘
That
fat hog with his mouse’s wings!
Our
wings are in the Pegasus class, my friend, and
the
chariot wheels are made of compressed comet dust. As for the suspension—’

‘That’s enough, Pancho!’ cried Dante. He tugged at the reins and Pancho relapsed into silence.

‘I could tell you my story during the flight,’ Gustave suggested. ‘It’ll pass the time.’

‘No need, Cap’n. This contraption is rather different from a sailing ship. Hold on tight, won’t you?’

Gustave gripped the seat cushions tight.

‘Gee-up!’ cried Dante, shaking the reins. There was a whirring sound as the horses flapped their wings. The chariot set off with a jerk, throwing Gustave back into his seat.

‘Whoa!’ cried Dante. ‘We’re there.’

Gustave had barely had time to blink. He leant over the side of the chariot and looked down, almost unable to believe his eyes. Floating beneath him was the moon, a big white sphere sprinkled with craters. Further away he could see the earth with its blue seas, and much further away the blazing, dazzling sun. They really were back home in their own solar system.

‘Phew,’ he said in astonishment, ‘that was quick.’

‘Yes,’ said Dante, ‘we’ve got all the most modern technological equipment here. We need it, the way demand keeps on growing.’

They came in to land, and the chariot touched down gently in a crater.

‘The Sea of Tranquillity, Cap’n—end of the line. That’s Death’s house straight ahead.’ Dante jerked his head at a gloomy, two-storeyed building on the edge of the crater. There was a light on upstairs. The tall double doors, which were shut, had a bust over the lintel. ‘Strange,’ thought Gustave. ‘Why do those doors seem so familiar?’

A big raven was circling above the sinister building, its hoarse cries reverberating around the walls of the crater.

‘There’s a light on,’ Dante remarked, ‘so they must be at home. They could also be fluttering around somewhere—they do that every night—but they can’t be far away.’

Gustave eyed the raven with surprise. ‘So there are birds on the moon?’

‘Yes, Death brought a few earth creatures with him to make the place seem more homely. There are ravens, owls, rats, bats and spiders. And worms, lots of worms. Ants too, of course, but they were here already.’

‘What do you think of Death—as an employer, I mean?’ Gustave asked as he dismounted from the chariot. The surface was as soft and yielding as rubber.

‘I honestly can’t complain. I mean, he’s not the type of person you’d care to go on vacation with, but we don’t have much to do with each other in any case. His sister fills the soul-coffins with fresh souls inside the house, so they say. He stacks them in the backyard and I collect them, that’s all. He and his crazy sister squabble a lot indoors—I sometimes hear them at it.’

Dante looked up, distracted by a fluttering sound too loud to be made by ravens.

‘Oh, here he comes,’ he said in a subdued voice. ‘Your appointment. We’d better get on with our work right away. The boss doesn’t like his employees dilly-dallying.’

Gustave followed Dante’s gaze. Death and his sister, both attired
in
billowing robes, were coming in to land. Death, who was clasping Dementia tightly in his arms, had reassumed the skeletal appearance Gustave remembered from their first encounter.

‘So long, partner,’ Pancho called hurriedly. ‘It was an honour to ride with you.’ And he put out his right forehoof.

‘Mind how you go in that crazy contraption of yours,’ said Gustave.

‘Don’t worry,’ Pancho replied. ‘I told you:
If Death supplies you with something, he quality-controls it himself
.’

Dante cracked his whip, the horses flapped their wings, and the chariot took off.

‘Oh yes,’ Pancho called from above, ‘one more thing.’

Gustave looked up at him.

‘That business with the stupid crocodile—it’s just between the two of us, right?’

‘Right!’ Gustave called back, waving goodbye.

The chariot quickly gained height. Gustave heard Dante ask a question in the distance—‘
What was that you said about a crocodile?
’—and then it disappeared among the twinkling stars.

At that moment the weird pair made a silent landing on the surface of the moon. Dementia stepped aside as soon as her brother released her. Sitting down on the soft ground, she started singing to herself and playing with moon pebbles. Death turned his pale face in Gustave’s direction. Up here in the cold light of space he looked even more unreal than he had on earth. His tone was cold and businesslike.

‘You’ve performed all your tasks to date, I hear. Do you have the tooth?’

‘Yes,’ Gustave replied diplomatically, without producing his trophy. ‘I do.’

‘Then hand it over!’ The skeleton’s voice betrayed a mixture of impatience and greed.

‘Not so fast,’ said Gustave. ‘What do you plan to do with it?’

‘None of your business!’

Dementia giggled. ‘He wants to kill himself with it!’

‘
Dementia!
’ snarled Death.

‘The Time Pig’s tooth is the only weapon Death can commit suicide with,’ Dementia continued implacably. ‘You’ve no idea how badly he wants it!’

‘Just a minute,’ said Gustave. ‘Death longs for death? Are you saying that, if he kills himself with the Time Pig’s tooth, no one else will have to die?’

‘That’s it.’ Dementia giggled again. ‘Before long, thanks to you, there won’t be any more funerals. You’re a regular hero, my lad.’

Gustave produced the tooth from his breastplate and handed it to Death, who eagerly snatched it from him, then held it up and examined it at length in the moonlight.

‘Well, go on,’ cried Dementia. ‘Kill yourself!’

Death lowered the tooth.

‘It’s the wrong one,’ he sighed. ‘It should have been an incisor. This is a molar.’

Dementia rounded on Gustave. ‘The wrong tooth!’ she jeered. ‘You got the wrong tooth!’ And she threw a moon pebble at him.

‘Then you haven’t completed your tasks after all,’ the skeleton said grimly.

‘How was I to know?’ Gustave protested angrily. ‘I’ve brought you a tooth from the Most Monstrous of All Monsters. That was the task you set me. You never said anything about an incisor.’

Dementia backed him up. ‘I’m afraid the boy’s right, brother dear. It’s your own fault for not being more specific.’

‘Very well,’ Death said sulkily, ‘but he still hasn’t completed all his tasks. There’s still one to go.’

‘I know,’ said Gustave, ‘that’s why I’m here. I’m waiting.’

‘Right,’ Death murmured, ‘your last task … er, your last task …’

‘Well?’ Dementia cut in.

‘Er … your last task, er … Tell me, my boy, what do you want to be when you grow up?
If
you survive, that is.’

‘I want to be an artist,’ Gustave replied firmly. ‘I want to draw and paint.’

‘I see,’ said Death. ‘So you want to be an artist, eh? Good, then this will be your final task: You’re to make a portrait of me. Depending on how it turns out, I shall decide whether or not you’ve performed the task satisfactorily.’

Death clicked his fingers, and Gustave suddenly found himself holding a sheet of paper and a silver pencil.

He examined the paper. It was of excellent quality—rough, heavy cartridge paper—and the pencil fitted his hand like a glove. He couldn’t have wished for a better task. If there was one thing he was good at, it was drawing. He sat down on a big white moonstone and got started.

Gustave drew as if his life depended on it—which it did. He made his drawing an allegorical composition: the Grim Reaper seated on a globe with a scythe and an hourglass in his bony hands.

He had never drawn better in all his days. Proportions, hatching, shadows, drapery, the anatomical depiction of the skull—all were handled with absolute perfection. Gustave had always longed to be able to draw like that: so quickly, so unerringly, so
printably
! Yes indeed, the drawing was fit to be printed as it stood; there was no need to make a woodcut or etching of it. It was the best piece of work he had ever produced.

‘Finished?’ Death asked impatiently. ‘Give it here!’

Gustave handed him the sheet of paper. Death submitted it to long and careful scrutiny. Then he cleared his throat.

‘This is the lousiest drawing ever! Nothing’s the way it should be! The proportions are all wrong, the hatching’s amateurish, the drapery’s an utter flop. The chiaroscuro effects are, er, totally lacking in subtlety. You can’t even handle perspective properly, and you’ve botched the outlines. As for the anatomical depiction of the skull, I’ve never looked like that in my life!’

Gustave was shattered. It was the most scathing verdict that had ever been passed on a drawing of his.

‘And what about the golden mean?’ Death pursued. ‘All good drawings have to be composed in accordance with the golden mean. I can see no sign of it.’