Death and the Lady

Lily stood in front of her closed bedroom door. It was weeks since she’d been released from the hospital. She still walked with a crutch and brace and still winced when something hit her ribs, but the worst of the pain was gone. She looked down at the skull key that she held in her hand.

She drew a deep breath and pressed the key against the door. A small black hole appeared at the place where the key touched and steadily grew, engulfing the whole door. It boiled and moved like hot tar for a few moments before it changed and became an old steel door.

There was a skull and bones motif around the borders of the door and a two crossed scythes in the middle. The polished metal over the blades glinted blue in the light. Here and there were patches of black tarnish and the doorknob was in the shape of the top half of a skull.

Lily stared. “Completely not creepy,” she muttered and pocketed the key.

Without giving herself time to chicken out she reached out and touched the knob. It was cold and smooth under her fingers and turned easily. The door swung open without a creak and somehow the absence was worse than the actual presence of a creak. One instinctively felt that a door with a skull and bones motif should creak like a death-rattle.

Lily stepped forward, over the threshold. She stopped and looked around with a frown. She’d stepped out into a long, wide corridor lined with doors. There were several other people coming and going through the doors and no one paid her any attention.

The walls were what she liked to think of as ‘asylum white’ and the floor was tiled in black and white squares. There was a click behind her and she looked over her shoulder to see that the skull and bones door had disappeared. Instead it was replaced by an ordinary looking oak door. Over the lintel of the door were deeply etched words.

When the Reaper comes the Harvest must obey

“Well, isn’t that dramatic?” Lily said and there was a chuckle behind her.

She swung around and lost her balance when pain shot up her leg. She toppled forward and gasped when someone caught her, causing another stab of pain to rush through her chest.

“You’re not fully recovered yet,” the person said and Lily’s head snapped up.

Ryo grinned at her and helped her stand upright again. He looked her carefully up and down.

“You definitely look better than the last time I saw you.”

“I haven’t seen you since you gave me this,” Lily said as she flourished the key.

Ryo smiled. “Well, let’s get going then. We can’t keep the Master waiting.”

He gestured for Lily to start walking and fell into step beside her. They walked in silence for a while and Ryo cheerfully acknowledged every person they passed with a nod and a smile. Everyone seemed to know him and Lily received several inquisitive glances.

“Who are all these people?” Lily asked eventually and Ryo chuckled.

“They are all Reapers.”

“Reapers?”

Ryo smiled at her. “Patience, all will become clear after you’ve spoken to the Master.”

“I’m going to see Death again, aren’t I?”

“Quite observant of you. Yes, I am taking you to see Master Death.”

Lily glanced at the doors as they passed them. All the doors were engraved with the same heavy lettering and she spotted phrases here and there.

Be thee a king or the lowliest sweeper; all must dance with the Reaper

Before the blade of the Reaper all will fall, be they great and rich, or poor and small

Ignore the slender excuses; Reapers must take all that is due

Reapers take no bribe, no gold or pearls, for none can buy an extension of years

“What are those?” Lily asked as she pointed to the phrases.

Ryo looked around. “You can see them?”

Lily looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. “Of course I can see them. What are they?”

“Reminders.”

“Of what?”

“To be humble. All must submit to the Reapers, and then the Reapers must submit to the Master.”

Lily fell silent as she thought about this. She knew that Death was also called the Grim Reaper, which is why he carried a scythe. Traditionally the reaper reaped the harvest and it was a decent metaphor. To the Grim Reaper, lives were the harvest.

They stopped before a pair of massive double doors. Lily tipped her head back to stare up at the heavy lettering etched deeply into the stone over the door. She laughed when she recognised it. Another quote from Death and the Lady.

To those of either high or low degree, the great submit to Death, as well as we

Ryo stepped up to the doors and knocked politely. He waited a few moments before pushed at the doors, which swung aside with surprising ease. Lily stepped into the massive study and stared at the figure seated behind the desk, writing in a massive ledger.

She knew that she was five foot four, but he towered over her disconcertingly. She judged him about seven feet tall. Even Ryo, under whose arm she could be tucked, looked up at him.

Death paused in his writing and lifted his polished skull to regard them. Then he stood up from his chair and rose to his impressive height.

Ryo bowed deeply to the skeleton. “Master,” he said solemnly.

Leave us, Ryo, Death said in his heavy, rich voice.

Ryo bowed again to Death, turned to Lily and gave her a nod before turning and leaving the study. When the massive doors closed behind him Lily became aware of the fact that she was alone with Death himself. Strangely she felt no fear.

So you have come to repay your debt, Lilith Valleyscape, Death said solemnly as he strode around the desk.

His bony feet made soft click-click sounds on the tiles. Lily followed his movements, but became aware of how heavily she was leaning on the crutch. Maybe she should have waited a little longer.

“Yes,” she said and Death nodded.

Yet you come to me still injured.

“I don’t like being in debt.”

Alas your injuries were vast and severe. I may have been foolish to choose you.

“Do you ever make mistakes?”

Death’s permanent grin seemed to widen for a moment before he continued. Not as a habit.

“Why did you choose me then if my injuries were so great?”

Within you flows the blood of some of the strongest and noble swordsmen. That lineage will become invaluable in time. One that will make a very powerful reaper, the likes of which even I have encountered merely a handful of times before.

“I don’t think the Templars were such wonderful swordsmen.”

Later, when their time came to an end, they had lost much of their honour and power, but at their infancy they were powerful and fierce warriors. Skilled in swordplay and tactics. Proud men driven by their belief and sense of justice. They trained in many ways to make both their minds and bodies strong.

Lily stood for a while with her head bowed and seemingly in deep thought. Death stood silent as well, calmly watching her.

Finally Lily lifted her face and looked him squarely in the socket. She stared at those pinpoints of blue light deep inside the dark depths and drew a slow breath. Death made a sound of anticipation when she marshalled her features. There was a heavy thud as her crutch hit the ground and she clasped her hands together as though praying.

“No,” she said, her voice echoing slightly in the empty room, “I defy all counsel, all redress but that which ends all counsel, true redress – Death! Death! O, amiable, lovely Death! Thou odoriferous stench! Sound rottenness!”

It was Constance’s monologue from ‘The Issue Of Your Peace’, one she had practiced over and over for one of her classes, which now seemed an age ago. She knew she’d pitched her voice right and had schooled her expression correctly. Death was watching her stoically as she spoke.

“Arise forth from the couch of lasting night, thou hate and terror to prosperity, and I will kiss they detestable bones and put my eyeballs in thy vaulty brows, and ring these fingers with thy household worms, and stop this gap of breath with fulsome dust, and be a carrion monster like thyself!”

Lily didn’t move her eyes from his ivory face as she spoke the words. She felt her throat begin to tighten with fear as she fell into that blue gaze, but she pressed on, feeling that these words, old compared to her, needed to be said. Death had recited Deaht and the Lady at her, now she would play her hand as well. She spread her arms wide in a seemingly beckoning embrace.

“Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smilest and buss thee as thy wife. Misery’s love, o, come to me!”

Shakespeare, Death said solemnly, and you have the nerve to name me dramatic? Dear child, you appear before me barely able to stand, and dare to quote such lines?

“You have to agree that he was quite creative in portraying your image.”

Death moved past her and she nearly lost her balance. She turned awkwardly and saw him stoop to retrieve her crutch where it had fallen. He turned it over and over in his hands, regarding it thoughtfully.

What justification do you give for coming to stand before me as you are, then? he asked.

“Curiosity,” Lily admitted and Death turned to her.

Oh? he asked coldly. Yes, humans are infinitely curious. As well as stupid.

Lily shrugged to that. “To a being as old as time we may seem very stupid. We circle around the same petty disputes and wars; make the same mistakes time and time again.”

I have often speculated to why your race have not died out centuries ago.

“We are tenacious, curious, arrogant and unpredictable.”

So you say.

Death watched Lily and then held out the crutch to her. She looked at it thoughtfully and then reached out. To his surprise she ignored the crutch and clasped his bony forearm. She twisted her hand around the sleeve of his robe and smiled grimly up at him.

“For sweetest fruits turn sourest by our deeds: lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”

Death looked down at the hand on his robe and back to her paling face. He saw the pain that filled Lily’s eyes and saw the struggle she put up to remain upright.

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94, although you are incorrect. ‘For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds’ you will find is the correct phrase. Come, child, sit down before you fall down.

Death guided Lily to a low chair in front of the desk and allowed her to sit down. She was breathing hard and her face was pale from pain. He handed her the crutch and walked around the desk to sit in his own chair. He steeped his fingers together and tapped them against his front teeth.

Are you willing to pay the toll as you are now?

“I’m here now,” Lily managed to say.

It may kill you even so.

“I’m not afraid to die.”

Death regarded Lily for several long minutes before he laid his hands flat on the desktop.

No, you are not. You have told me this before.

Death rose from his chair with strange grace and walked his clicking walk across the study to the far wall. There he picked up a curved staff and with an audible snick sound the blade sprang out. He walked back to her and held out the scythe to her.

Take it, he instructed.

Lily started to reach out, but hesitated a hair’s breadth from touching it. She looked up at the hollow eyes as she took hold of the smooth, polished handle. Pain exploded all the way up her arm and she started screaming as the flesh started to tear. She tried to make her fingers let go of the shaft, but she couldn’t make them uncurl.

Using the staff Death pulled Lily to her feet. She couldn’t stop screaming as the flesh tore and rotted all the way to her shoulder. To her horror she saw pale bone through the rotting flesh.

“What are you doing to me?” she screamed and he thrust his face close to hers.

The toll is that you must become something between human and Death.

Lily screamed again as the crawling tears and rot moved across her chest and she saw, through the dripping strands of what remained of her clothing, the barely healed fractures of her ribs. Slowly the tears crawled over her face and her one eye went blind. The pain was all around her, searing and white hot, cutting right into her bones.

Suddenly Lily couldn’t breathe anymore as the rot reached her lungs and other organs. She could no longer scream as Death held her aloft by her hand. With her remaining eye she could see him standing over her, face impassive and grinning at the same time. She could feel her life ebbing from her as she gasped and fought for breath. After everything she’d been through, after all the injuries and pain, she was going to die.

No!

The thought raced through her body, dulling the pain and giving her strength. She was not going to die here, not after everything she’d had to live through. She’d defeated Death once; she would do it again and again and again and again! A thousand times over! Every time he dared challenge her she would stand her ground firm and defeat him all over again!

Death threw back his skull and laughed. It was the strangest sound she’d ever heard. She watched in fascination as his lower jaw jerked in time with the ponderous laughter.

Lily felt the white-hot flames of pain start to ebb and fade. Even as she watched new flesh formed on her bony, wasted arm and ran up towards her chest, faster and faster, over her face until she could once again see through both eyes. Breath surged into her lungs and the pain flowed down to the knot in her leg. Even there it sped and faded, flowing down into the floor through her feet.

She looked down and saw the pool bubbling around her feet, as though the tiles themselves were boiling with the pain. When she finally looked up Death seemed to be regarding her with what looked like pride. Suddenly her fingers uncurled from around the shaft of the scythe and she dropped to her knees. She braced herself for the stab of pain, that didn’t come.

Congratulations, Death said as he stepped back.

Lily patted her body quickly, as though searching for evidence of the torn and rotting flesh. Then her eyes snapped up to Death’s and she surged to her feet on a cloud of fury.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded and Death went to lean the scythe back against the wall.

You are now something between human and Death.

“And what is that?”

You have now become a Reaper.

Lily hesitated before snapping out at him again. She thought for a moment about what Ryo had said to her.

“They are all Reapers.”

“What exactly are Reapers?” she asked slowly.

Reapers are my servants. They go into the world and retrieve the souls of those who have died.

“And what exactly do you do?”

I ensure that the right people die at the allotted time. I rarely go out on the Duty other than on very important occasions and the selection of new Reapers.

“So now what do I do?”

You must stay here for a time in order to learn the duties of a Reaper as well as ways in which to defend yourself. There are those who seek the downfall of the Reapers.

“Who are they?”

They call themselves the Clerics. They feel that the Reapers are an abominable, nay, a demonic form of life. Because Reapers are created from the bodies of those who are already dead they are now a sin unto their god.

“And they kill Reapers?”

That is correct. Reapers are extremely hard to kill once they have paid their dues, but the Clerics have developed weapons which can harm and even kill my Reapers.

“Can’t you do something about them?”

Death looked surprised. I do not kill; I merely take what has been spent. I visit the fallen Reapers and usher them to whatever paradise they believe in.

He gave Lily a pitying look before walking back to his chair. With a heavy sigh he sat down and pulled a heavy ledger towards him.

You have already met a Cleric, he said heavily and Lily blinked.

“I have?”

His name is Johannes Eisenberg.

Lily looked shocked. “The paramedic that’s been bugging me? He’s a Cleric? Why didn’t he kill me yet?”

You have not completed the change from human to Reaper. That would have been murder.

“Don’t they murder us anyway?”

I think they few it more as extermination.

Death rang a bell that stood on his desk and the doors opened. Ryo walked in and bowed respectfully to the tall skeleton behind the desk.

“You called, Master?” he asked and Lily pointed to him.

“I don’t have to call you Master, do I?” she asked and Death grinned.

One could point out that he did not have any choice in the matter but it seemed like he meant it this time.

Not particularly.

Lily chose to ignore the glare Ryo shot at her and kept her attention on Death. He was looking at her quizzically. Then he turned his attention back to Ryo.

Take Lily to her room and acquaint her with the premises. She will begin her training immediately. He paused thoughtfully for a moment, staring at her again. Although I doubt whether she will need it.

Ryo bowed again. “Yes, Master.”

Lily followed the young man out of the room, but paused at the doorway to look back at Death where he sat behind his massive desk. He was already deeply at work again.

“Take care,” she called over her shoulder and he looked up in surprise.

Pardon? he asked and she smiled.

“Take care,” Lily repeated and waved at Death. “I’ll see you around.”