The Lord of Death

There was once a highway on which every traveler died. Some blamed a snake, some a scorpion, yet the deaths never stopped.

A very aged wanderer grew weary, sat on a stone, and suddenly noticed beside him a scorpion the size of a rooster. As he stared, the thing became a hideous serpent. Amazed, he resolved to trail it from a safe distance and learn its true nature.

Night and day the serpent glided on; the old man kept pace like a second shadow. It entered a wayside inn and left several guests dead. It slipped into a royal house and struck down the king. Climbing a drainpipe to the women’s quarters, it killed the king’s youngest girl. Wherever it passed, mourning rose—and still the old man followed without a word.

The path came to a wide, deep, rushing river. Poor travelers sat on the bank without money for the ferry. The serpent became a handsome buffalo with a brass necklace and bells. Hoping it would carry them across, the travelers climbed on its back and held its tail. In midstream it kicked them off, and they drowned. The old man crossed in a boat. On the far bank he found that the creature had become an ox. A peasant, eager to own it, took it home and tied it with his cattle. At midnight it became a snake again, bit the herds, killed the sleeping household and slipped away. The old man still followed, quiet as a shade.

At another river the creature took the shape of a lovely jewelled girl. Two soldier brothers came by, saw her weeping alone, and asked why someone so young and fair sat there without company.

She said her husband had been escorting her home, gone down to look for the boat, slipped while washing his face, and drowned—leaving her without kin.

The elder brother, already struck by her beauty, told her not to fear; he would marry her himself.

“On one condition,” she answered. “You must never set me to do housework, and you must give me whatever I ask.”

He swore to do whatever she asked.

“Then fetch me a cup of water from the well at once,” she said. “Your brother can stay here with me.”

The moment the elder had gone, she turned to the younger. “Run away with me—I love you!” she said. “My promise to your brother was only a trick to send him off!”

“No,” said the younger. “You are promised to my brother, and I look on you as a sister.”

Furious, she sobbed until the elder returned, then cried that his brother had begged her to abandon him. Rage filled the elder. He drew steel and challenged. They fought from morning until evening, when both lay dead. The girl became a snake again, and the old man followed on.

Finally the creature wore the face of a white-bearded elder. Seeing someone like himself, the follower dared grip the beard and ask who this was.

The figure smiled. “Some call me the Lord of Death,” he said, “for I carry death through the world.”

“Then give me death!” pleaded the traveler. “I have followed you far in silence, and I am worn out.”

Death shook his head. “I give it only to those whose years are finished,” he said, “and you still have sixty years to live.”

The white-bearded shape vanished—whether truly Death, or a devil, no one can say.

About this story

“The Lord of Death” comes from Flora Annie Steel’s Tales of the Punjab (1894). R. C. Temple’s note explains that Maliku’l-maut is the Muslim name for this figure and Kâl the Hindu one, and records a belief that each living being has its own Lord of Death attached to it.

Temple also describes festival portrayals in which a keeper holds the figure on a chain; loosening it permits the death assigned to him. This is the commentator’s historical report of a belief and performance tradition, not a claim about all Hindu or Muslim understandings of death. The many deaths in this tale are told quickly, without detail.

Read the original: Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab, 1894 (Project Gutenberg #6145)

Reading guidance: for mature readers. This unsettling tale includes repeated killings, drowning, a fatal fight between brothers and an exhausted man’s request to die.

A closer reading

The creature does not always kill through a bite. As a buffalo it exploits the need to cross a river; as an ox it attracts someone who wants valuable cattle; as a young woman it sets the brothers against each other. The changes connect death with vulnerability, desire and anger, rather than giving it one easily recognized form.

The follower can watch all these events but cannot command their outcome. Only when the creature looks like another old man does he ask a direct question. Its answer claims a fixed lifespan, yet the narrator immediately questions whether the speaker is Death or a deceiving spirit. The uncertainty prevents the final speech from functioning as a reliable rule about real life.

Try this with the story

Make a sequence of the creature’s forms and write what draws people toward each one. At the end, place the creature’s claim about sixty years beside the narrator’s doubt. Explain why a character’s confident statement and a narrator’s confirmed fact are different kinds of evidence.

Talk about it

• Why do you think the old man followed the creature for so long without saying a word?
• Why did the younger brother refuse to run away with the girl?
• The Lord of Death says the old man still has sixty years to live. How do you think the old man felt about that, and why?

Related stories

• The Wrestlers: A Story of Heroes — a Punjabi giant tale that Temple thought might be an old creation story
• The Snake-Woman and King Ali Mardan — a Punjabi tale of a deadly creature disguised as a beautiful woman
• The Soothsayer’s Son — an Indian tale about fate and how long a life is meant to last