Loss (13 page)

Kings do not cry
, he tells himself. And so Mita, king of Phrygia, does not cry as he tucks his daughter into her deathbed. He touches her face, once ivory perfection and now mottled with reds and yellows. Her eyes will remain forever sealed; her mouth will never again pull into a delighted grin. She will never smell her favorite roses in her garden, or feel the grass wiggle between her toes. Never laugh; never sing. Never grow up.

So many nevers, all for his daughter, who will never see her ninth birthday.

Kings do not cry.

Her skin is cool beneath his fingers, but he knows she had burned fiercely within, burned enough to cook her very flesh and turn her fingertips a purple so bruised it looked black.

“Plums,” he says softly. The disease turned her fingers the color of plums.

“A sweet fruit,” a cold voice says from behind him, “with a pit that can be poisonous.”

(And Billy shivers.)

Mita stiffens, but he does not turn to face the speaker. He would be furious, if only he could summon the strength. Instead, he feels hollow. Perhaps at one point, fury will fill those empty places within him, but for now, all he manages is a bitter sigh.

“You have done a noble thing, you who were Mita.”

“My daughter is dead.”

“But your kingdom survives. What is the life of one, when you have saved thousands?”

Mita’s lip twitches once, pulling into a snarl before his mouth presses into a thin line. He looks over his shoulder at the tall man wrapped in a plain woolen
chiton
from neck to knee, a simple
fibule
fastening the fabric at the left shoulder. His legs, as his arms, are bare, and no sandals adorn his feet. The inelegant clothing and unkempt yellow hair make the figure seem unimportant, perhaps even a slave, but Mita knows better. The thin limbs, the pale flesh—that is just as much a costume as the
chiton
. Only the man’s eyes hint at the truth, but Mita cannot meet that cold gaze for long.

“She was my
daughter
,” he growls. “She was everything to me.”

The pale man’s face is impossible to read; if he feels any emotion at all, it does not show in his eyes or his mouth. He is blank. Cold. “Everything to the mortal known as King Mita, perhaps. But you are no longer he. You are the White Rider.”

The words are like punches to his chest. “I’m still a father!”

“Even when your child is dead?”

Mita turns back to his daughter. His left hand still rests on her cheek, but now there’s a fine tremor in his fingers that he cannot quell. Beneath his shaking fingers, her skin flakes like ash. “One doesn’t stop being a parent.”

“Why do you still touch her?” asks the pale man. “That is nothing more than empty flesh. The spark that had been your daughter is gone.”

Mita squeezes his eyes shut, as if that would take away the sting of the man’s words. “You would not understand.”

“Your people are calling you Mita with the golden touch,” says the man that is not a man. “They are saying one touch from the king is all it takes to heal them from the great pestilence that walks the land. Is that why you are touching her? Are you trying to heal her from death?”

“One such as you can
never
understand,” Mita says through clenched teeth. “To you, people are as ants. Just ants. All alike, all so easily crushed underfoot.”

“There are more than twenty thousand different types of ants. They live and die, as do all mortal things.”

“But whether ants or humans, parents should not outlive their children.” Mita’s voice cracks, and he tells himself again that kings do not cry.

The pale figure does not reply.

In a hoarse whisper, Mita asks, “Can you bring her back?”

A long pause, and then the Pale Rider asks, “Why?”

Mita bows over his daughter’s deathbed. “Because she’s everything to me. My child, my life. My light. Everything that makes this world worth living is all because of her. Please,” he begs, “please, bring her back.”

“Her
psyche
is gone, you who were Mita. Mourn your daughter, in the way of your kind, and then forget her.”

“
Forget
her?” Hollow no longer, Mita whirls to face the embodiment of Thanatos. Enraged, he lifts his chin high. “ ‘And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven.’ ”

“Hesiod,” says the pale man. “ ‘Theogony.’ Trite creation stories. I prefer the works of Homer.”

“ ‘And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea’s broad back and is kindly to men. But the other,’” declares Mita, pointing at the Pale Rider, “ ‘has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze! Whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast, and he is hateful even to the deathless gods!’”

Mita’s last words echo in the cold, cold chamber.

“You speak out of grief,” Thanatos says. “Because of that, I forgive your outburst.” A flash of a smile. “You see, little king? One such as I can understand. Sometimes.”

At his sides, Mita’s hands open and clench, open and clench.

“Bury your child, you who were Mita. And then continue doing the job you agreed to do.”

“No.”

The pale man stills. He neither blinks nor breathes as he waits for Mita to speak again.

“No, I won’t do it.” Mita’s lips peel back in a snarl. “I will not work for a creature that tells me to forget my daughter! Take back your Crown!” His fingers move to the circlet on his brow.

“It is not mine to take,” says Thanatos. “You are the Horseman of Pestilence, not I.”

“Then I will be a Horseman no more!”

The silence echoes in the small chamber. When the Pale Rider finally speaks, his voice is flat and dead.

“Would you undo all the benefits to your kingdom, you who were Mita? Would you undo your golden touch of health and plunge Phrygia back into the depths of plague? Because that is the choice you are making.”

A tremor works its way up Mita’s spine.

“Do you really think you have eradicated the sickness from your kingdom for all time?” A smile quirks Thanatos’s lips, a flash of bemusement that does not touch his empty eyes. “It will return. It always does. Whether that is in five weeks’ time or five centuries’ time is completely up to you.”

“No,” Mita whispers.

“The choice is yours. Refuse the Conqueror’s Crown, and watch thousands of your people sicken and die, or keep your Crown and do your duty. It makes no difference to me.”

“It doesn’t, does it?” Mita wraps the folds of his
himation
around himself, but it does nothing to stave off his sudden chill. “You are the lord of life and death, and you don’t care which one we choose, do you? You walk like a man, but beneath the skin, you’re inhuman.”

“I never claimed to be human.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I am nothing you have ever seen,” says Thanatos. “But this is not about me. Tell me, you who were Mita. Are you a Horseman? Or are you a little king who will condemn his kingdom to death?”

Mita bows his head, defeated. “I am the Conqueror of Disease,” he says bitterly.

“For what it is worth, you have chosen wisely.”

He cannot bring himself to look upon the Horseman of Death. When he speaks, his voice is that of an old man, broken by loss. “Can you at least tell me that her
psyche
is content? That she rests in the Underworld? That her suffering is over?”

“Her physical suffering is past,” says Thanatos, and for a moment, Mita feels a weight lift off his chest. Then Thanatos adds, “Her body is dead; it feels no pain.” And with those words, the Pale Rider disappears.

Mita’s eyes burn, and this time he allows the tears to fall.

Kneeling next to his daughter’s deathbed, he strokes her cheek once more, then pulls his hand away. He knows he should summon his slaves and have them lay out his daughter’s body properly, to begin the lamentation for the dead, but the thought exhausts him. Gazing at her ruined form, he decides that there has been too much of death on display for his taste; he’ll not add his child to the spectacle of grief. Instead, he will bury her in her beloved garden. He’ll give her a blanket of flowers and a pillow of blossoms.

Mita leans down and kisses his little girl goodnight one final time. His tears land on her cheeks, and there they shine like diamonds.

Yes, he will cover her in roses, thorns and all, so that her sickness will be hidden in a bed of blushing petals and lush green leaves/

/he drapes her in a white
chiton
, her favorite, even though he’s always preferred her in green and violet—

***

Billy pulled himself away as soon as the memory began to replay. Once again on the surface of the White, he caught his breath.

The Conqueror was King Midas.

He thought of the Greek myth about the man with the golden touch. According to the story, Midas had done something nice and scored a boon from one of the gods—he could have anything he wished. So the greedy king wished for everything he touched to be turned to gold. And the wish worked, but as in the way of such stories, it worked too well. Midas couldn’t eat without the food turning to gold, which was a hell of a choking hazard. Even worse, when his young daughter ran up to hug Midas, she transformed into a golden statue.

He’d never heard the version where Midas’s golden touch was one of healing.

He remembered Mita’s crushing sorrow, his bone-numbing grief over the loss of his only child. The king had given up everything to save his kingdom, only to lose his daughter.

“You are the lord of life and death,” said Mita, “and you don’t care which we choose, do you?”

Floating in the White, Billy shuddered as he thought of Thanatos, the Pale Rider. Was that
his
Death, the grunger god who had a penchant for guitars and flying horses? They didn’t look alike, and clearly, Horsemen could change over the years. Even so, Billy knew, just
knew
, that it was the same person.

No, not a person. A monster, as Mita had said.

“I am nothing you have ever seen,” said the pale man.

And on the heels of that, Billy heard Death once more, and he imagined he saw wings unfurling as the Pale Rider declared:
None is like me.

Billy was suddenly very, very glad that he’d met a more laid-back version of Death. He wouldn’t have lasted two minutes with Thanatos.

A voice like liquid fire:
You don’t know yourself. Yet.

He blew out a breath, then looked down. At the bottom of the White, memories waited for him to scoop them up. Pestilence waited to be found.

All right,
Billy thought.
Ready or not, here I come.

He took a breath and dove down.

Chapter 13

The White Gave Way . . .

. . . to green as Billy dove deep.

***

/he is surrounded by lush greens and earthy browns, here in the heart of the Greenwood, where the very ground thrums with life. There is no whiff of sickness, no pulse of disease to distract him from the simple majesty of nature. A welcome change. The illness is still there, of course, if he were to look for it; trees and foliage sicken just as all living things do. But today he is willfully blind to all maladies. Let the insistence of decay come on the morrow; today he will relish the false appearance of good health of the world around him.

The White Rider breathes deeply, pretending he’s still completely human, and the smells of dirt and resin sting his nostrils. It’s a pleasant sting, a reminder that life brings its own sort of pain. Only lepers feel no pain.

Be a leper
, he tells himself as he weaves around massive oaks and unobtrusive ashes.
Feel no pain. Feel no fear
.

But how could he not be afraid? He’d seen the end of the world. How does one return from that unscathed?

He blinks—

(and Billy stumbles)

—and the natural wonder of the forest gives way to white, a massive sheet of white, empty of color, barren of life, and it yawns forward—

No.
No
. Whether memory or harbinger of the future, it is not
now
.
Be in the now,
he tells himself, even though he’s watching as the gaping white advances and he feels a scream building in his chest,
be in the now!

A flash of white, and then it’s back to soft greens and calming browns, and he sinks to his knees.

(And Billy catches his breath.)

Beneath him, the groundcover of dead leaves and fallen twigs crunch under his weight, reminding him that he’s truly
here
, that he has substance. Above him, hidden somewhere in the leaf canopy, birds squawk and scold and gossip. His shoulders loosen, and he allows himself a relieved sigh. He’s in the forest, not at the end of the world. He’s here.

There’s still time.

He has to think. If only he knew what to do. A lifetime ago, he had wise men at his side to advise him before he made any decisions that affected his kingdom. But now? Who understands the plight of a Horseman? He thinks of Famine, the dark lady wrapped in shadow, and he wishes he could turn to her. But no, he can’t chance it—for though they are close, she stands by the Pale Rider completely. He certainly cannot approach War, not unless he wants to see her double over with laughter.

All that remained was Death.

He lets out a bitter laugh. No, he learned his lesson about Thanatos’s understanding of humanity centuries ago. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he still sees his daughter’s ruined face, imagines he’s holding her violet-tinged hand.

“Plums,” he whispers, the word like a sigh.

If not the other Horsemen, then who? He’d talk to his steed, but he can’t trust it; for all that it’s been faithful to him, the white horse answers to the pale, and he has no doubt about
that
particular creature’s loyalty. When the end comes, Death will ride his pale horse; in his wake, the world will wither and die.