4
" It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I saw it raised against me I was overwhelmed with a sense of my own mortality, which I had never experienced before in this fashion. It was as though a layer had been stripped from the world and I had a sudden, full understanding of death itself. "
― Roger Zelazny , The Guns of Avalon (The Chronicles of Amber #2)
9
" On the flat expanse of pancake ice, War stood by the Pale Rider’s side. Though their forms did not touch, their shadows intertwined, black on black, in a smoky caress.“Knew you’d come,” Death said cheerfully.She smiled, and that slow motion of her lips hinted at many things. “The White Rider divided, and the world on the brink of destruction. How could I stay away?”“I could set my watch by you.”“You don’t have a watch.” Her smile broadened into a grin. “An hourglass, maybe . . .”“Please, not another joke about a scythe . . .”She mimed zipping her mouth shut.A pause, as they listened to the sounds of the boy healing and the man summoning doom.“I like him,” War said.Even though she hadn’t specified whether she meant the boy or the man, Death smiled and nodded. “Me too.”“You like everyone.”“Well, yes.”The two shared a quiet laugh, their voices mingling in perfect harmony.A longer pause, and then War asked, “What of Famine?”“What of her? She’s not mine. Not yet, anyway. She will be soon enough.”The Red Rider slid him a look. “That’s cold, even for you.”“Eh, just practical.” A shrug. “Everyone comes to me eventually. It’s the journey that makes it interesting.”“Such a people person!”He flashed her a grin. “My best quality.”“Oh,” said War, sliding her gloved hand into his pale one, “I can think of others that are better. "