On A Pale Horse Read Online Free PDF

it protestingly out from the wall. The star dropped down to the floor. Zane stretched one arm into the crevice between dresser and wall, reaching to the star—and his questing forefinger found a cold coin. He scooted it across the floor toward him, awkwardly.
    It was a worn nickel. Good enough; the magic stone was performing as specified. The nickel happened to be closest, so was spotted first.
    The star returned to the Wealth stone. “Find,” Zane ordered it, envisioning a bank vault bursting with silver.
    The star lifted more slowly than before, as if tired from its prior effort. It floated in leisurely fashion across the room, then descended to a crack in the floor. There, embedded edgewise, was a dime. Zane used a kitchen knife to pry it out. The thing was caked with grime; it must have been there for years. The star hovered until he actually got the coin in his hand, then snapped back to its home-stone. That meant he couldn't afford to give up on the job; he could not invoke the Wealth stone again until he cleared its last entry. That would be an inconvenience if there happened to be a fabulous forgotten buried cache a few feet beyond a dozen minor coins, but he could live with it.
    He tried again. “Find. Something better this time, like a gold doubloon or a fantastically rare and valuable coin. Enough of this nickel-and-dime stuff.”
    The star pulled itself slowly from the stone and drifted toward the door to the apartment. There was no doubt about it: the star lost energy with each use. Probably it needed a set time to recharge its magic, like several hours or a day. That, too, was inconvenient—but of course, all he needed was to find one real treasure. That would be worth a week of slow questing. Then the gem could have as long a rest as it needed.
    The star drifted up against the door and hesitated. Zane opened the door and let it out. At least the six-legged light-bug didn't zoom away, out of sight; that could have made it useless, for it would be as lost as the coin it identified. But the spell did seem to be underpowered. He had now been at it twenty minutes, and had only fifteen cents to show for it. Plus the penny he had found at the shop. That would hardly make a dent in his overdue rent.
    The star sank to the floor of the hall. There, embedded in the packed dirt, was a battered and weathered penny. Zane pried it up, and the star wended its way tiredly to the stone Zane carried. Some fortune!
    Zane returned to his apartment and considered. The Wealth stone performed—but so far at strictly penny-ante level. At the present rate, he could labor all night for a mere dollar or two in change—and the star was obviously too tired to go the night.
    The Wealth stone worked—but now he perceived certain inherent limits. It always went to the nearest unattached money, of whatever denomination, and the vast majority of lost money was of the picayune category. No doubt if there were a five-thousand-dollar gold piece near, the star would find it—but none was near, while there were endless pennies. People simply did not let a heavy gold piece fall into a crack and be lost, though they did let pennies go. So while it was true that the Wealth stone could find thousands of dollars, this was like the gold in sea water; it cost more in time and effort to recover that one part per million than it was worth.
    Zane's eye traveled around the room. It was cluttered with his photographic equipment. He had artistic aspirations and the nefarious artistic temperament, but lacked the talent to make it as a painter or sculptor, so had gone into photography instead. He could appreciate art when he saw it, and the camera enabled him to capture the incidental art of the environment. The trouble was, there was not much in the city of Kilvarough that was worthwhile that hadn't already been photographed. Even the ghost Molly Malone had been pictured many times; it was not true that a ghost could not be photographed, and she loved to