She had to tell him, of course. She did so on the next visit. Cedric was amazed at what he had wrought, and pleased. "I'll be a father!" he exclaimed, as if this were a completely unique experience.
"Well, it isn't as if you didn't try for it," she reminded him.
"I guess that will have to stop now," he said regretfully.
"No, not yet. Just—carefully."
They were careful. The winter passed, and the baby expanded within her. When Niobe reached the eighth month, her mother came to stay with her and midwife the birth if it occurred early, for there was no convenient hospital. Cedric was ready to quit college and come home, but Niobe made him remain to complete his courses; he had gone too far to throw it away now. So it was that, before he turned eighteen and just before he made it home for the summer, Cedric became the father of a healthy son.
He was pleased—but he knew there was a price. Niobe had been able to make do alone, but she would no longer be able to do that. Cedric had to retire from college and become a full-time family man. He was ready—but she knew he also regretted it. It had been clear that if he had continued his program at the college, he could have become a professional, perhaps even a professor in due course. He could still be one—but now there would be a delay, and by the time he could return, years hence, the situation could have changed. So it was a calculated risk for Cedric's career. Almost, she wished she had not conceived so quickly.
"It doesn't matter," Cedric said. "A man's got to do what he's got to do in the time he has, and I want to be with you."
"That's sweet," she said, and rewarded him with a kiss. Still, she felt guilty.
"Prof told me that if he'd had a wife who looked like you, she would have had a baby just as fast," he added.
"Still, you have such a good career awaiting you; you must return to it as soon as possible."
"We'll see," he said.
But when she thought of the baby, her mood swung the other way. Junior was an absolute joy! She knew from the first hour that he would be a genius like his father— and he would have proper schooling from the outset. Oh, she had such dreams for Junior!
Cedric took care of things, pretty well running the household until she was back on her feet. Then, as time opened up, he began spending time in the swamp. He was making a chart of the local ecology—the trees, the smaller vegetation, the animals, the insects, the algae, the waterflows, and the observable interactions between them.
Hunters roamed the forest, in and out of hunting season, poaching game. Cedric came across the remains and grew angry. "If the deer shot back, the hunters would be less bold!" he exclaimed. Then he paused in realization. "Maybe I can arrange for the deer to shoot back!"
Niobe laughed—but he was serious. He was a wetlands major, not a magic major, but he got a tome of spells and searched through it, trying to find one that could be adapted to his purpose. If magic could bounce an arrow or a bullet back on its origin, so that the hunter in effect shot himself—
But magic was no subject for amateurs, any more than science was. It required years of study to master the basic precepts and stem discipline; even then it had its special hazards. Cedric was smart, but more than intelligence was needed. "I just don't have the time!" he exclaimed, frustrated.
"You're welcome to take all the time you want, dear," Niobe said. She was nursing Junior and hated to see Cedric upset. When he was annoyed, she tended to echo the feeling involuntarily, and it seemed to change the milk and make Junior colicky, and if there was one thing worse than an upset husband, it was a colicky baby.
Cedric paused as if weighing something momentous. "Of course," he agreed, and went outside. Had she somehow offended him? Her husband seemed more nervous, irritable, and generally tense than he had been. Maybe she should try to hire a maid for the chores so that Cedric could, after all, return to college. She knew what a sacrifice he was making and she wanted to set things right. Their love was so wonderful that she hated to have any strains put on it.
But when she broached the matter, later in the day, Cedric would have none of it. "I'm through with college!" he declared. "My destiny is here."
"But the Prof said you have such potential! I think he wants you to become a—"
He put his big hand on hers. She felt a stirring of the music in him, but this time it was a strange, discordant, disturbing sound. "It would not be worth the cost," he said. "Prof understands."
She experienced a kind of dread, but could not fathom its cause. The flickering image of a demonic face came to her, and one of the water oak, three of whose views were positive, the fourth an unglimpsed horror. What cost? Separation from her? Yet Cedric had endured that before and prospered. Why had he changed his mind?
"Cedric—is something wrong?"
"Of course not," he said quickly.
She didn't believe him, but realized that he would not tell her the truth. That disturbed her further, and she had to stop nursing Junior. She was sure it wasn't any fault in Cedric's love for her; that was unfailing. He was a father new, a proven man, yet sometimes even now she would be working at the loom, and would look up to discover him watching her with a touching expression of adoration. No, he loved her and wanted to be with her. Still she laid Junior in the crib. "Cedric, we could move closer to the college so you could commute—"
He took her in his arms and kissed her. "This is our home. I love you—and the wetlands. My life is here."
So it seemed. She did not try to argue further, and indeed their life together was good. They resumed making love as she recovered from childbearing, and Cedric was enormously gentle and, he sang to her, and in those moments it seemed that nothing else mattered.
As Niobe grew stronger, she started taking Junior for walks outdoors, for fresh air was good for babies. He seemed to like the wetlands, especially the huge water oak. Niobe would sit at the foot of the tree and sing, and Junior would listen. The hamadryad got used to the new arrival and came to like Junior. She didn't quite trust Niobe, for adults had a long and bad history of cynicism toward wild magic, but when Niobe set the baby in his carrier by the tree and retreated a reasonable distance, the dryad would come down and play with him. Niobe was thrilled; very few mortals could approach any of the wilderness creatures, either natural or supernatural, and it was a mark of special favor when one could. Maybe Junior would grow up to be a world-famous naturalist! Certainly there was no threat from the dryad; Cedric had assured her of that, and she believed it. In the dryad's presence Junior was always alert and smiling.
Events elsewhere were not as sanguine. A developer bought a large tract of land that included their swamp. It was theirs in proximity and spirit, not in the eyes of geographic law. The company planned to drain the swamp, cut down the trees, and build a number of identical houses there.
Cedric exploded. He trekked to all the residents for miles around and so impressed them with the need to preserve the wetlands that they formed a citizen's committee to oppose the development. They wrote letters to newspapers and the county authorities; when these failed to halt the project, they set about constructing deadfalls for bulldozers. They filed suit in court to stop it. When the company lawyer tried to suggest the swamp was nothing more than a murky waste that posed a public health threat as a breeding ground for disease-carrying mosquitoes, Cedric argued persuasively that those mosquitoes carried no diseases in this region, being the wrong species for that, served as food for pretty birds, and wouldn't even bite people who were sensibly protected by repellent or a spell. Then he spoke of the other aspects of the wetlands—the fish and amphibians, the foxes and deer, the trees that could grow nowhere else, the special interactive magic these living things had developed to get along. "There is no bad water coming from this region," he concluded, and he had documentation to prove it: studies the college had made. "No erosion, no bad flooding. The wetlands keep the water pure and contained, so that we who live near it can live at peace with nature. Too little of this kind of natural paradise remains; how can we pave it over with another foul city!" And such was the nature of his eloquence that the spectators in the courtrooms applauded. Few had really cared about the wetlands before; now they all did.
But man's law remained on the side of the developer, and the judge, with open regret, ruled in favor of the company. The bulldozers would be allowed to forage in the swamp.
"I'm so sorry," Niobe told him, but Cedric only shrugged. "They will be stopped," he said grimly. But he didn't say how.
One foggy morning Cedric kissed her with special tenderness and lifted Junior out of his crib. "I'm taking him for a walk down to the oak," he said.
She was pleased—but somehow alarmed too. There seemed to be an edge to his final words: "We'll be there." Yet they were innocent words, and the water oak was the safest kind of place for the baby; the hamadryad was virtually a babysitter now. In fact, the nymph had begun to teach the baby some wild magic—and if there was one thing rarer than the company of a dryad, it was the sharing of the magic of a dryad. Junior, too young to walk or talk, nevertheless did seem to understand and almost seemed to be able to do a spell. So why should there be any concern? Niobe knew she was being foolish. There was, she reminded herself firmly, absolutely no threat to Junior.
She labored at the loom, forming a fine picture of that very tree, and as her hands moved, largely of their own volition, she daydreamed. The image of the tree fogged out and was replaced by that of the saturnine face. "Today I come for you!" it said, grinning evilly. "My emissary is on its way and cannot be stopped. You are doomed, mistress of the skein!"
Niobe screamed. The image vanished, and there was only the forming tapestry. She was shuddering with reaction. This was the vision other lovemaking rapture, but it was quite foreign to love. Cedric had banished it by his music, but now it was terrorizing her directly! What did it mean?
Then she heard a shot. She jumped. That was the sound of a gun—and it was from the direction of the swamp— and Cedric was there with Junior. He had no gun!
Horribly alarmed, she rushed outside and ran headlong down the winding path to the oak. As she approached, she heard a thin screaming from the tree. It was the dryad, hanging by a branch, shrieking with all her frail strength. Below her was the carrier, overturned.
"Junior!" Niobe cried, her horror magnifying. She scrambled to the tree and took hold of the carrier.
Junior was in it, his body smudged with dirt, and now he bawled lustily. But he seemed to be unhurt. He had overturned and that had alarmed him; that was all.
She glanced up at the dryad. No, of course she wouldn't have tried to hurt the baby! In fact the nymph was still screaming, one little hand pointing away from the tree, to the dark lower side where the gloom of the swamp was strong.
Niobe looked in that direction—and saw Cedric's body sprawled in the bushes. Suddenly her premonition of dread had a sharp new focus. Not her baby—her husband!
She ran to him. He was face down, and blood welled from the wound in his belly. He had been shot! He was unconscious, but his heart still beat.
She looked up—and the dryad was there, for the moment away from her tree. "What—who—?" Niobe asked, forgetting that dryads do not talk.
The nymph took a stick and held it like a rifle, then shook it to suggest its firing. But Niobe already knew he had been shot. "Have you any magic—for his wound?" she demanded.
The dryad ran back to her tree, ran up it as a squirrel might, and disappeared into the foliage. She returned in a moment with a small branch.
Niobe took this and touched it to the wound. The flow of blood abated. The nymph's magic was helping! "Thank you," Niobe said.
But how was she to get Cedric back to the cabin—and what was she to do with him there? He weighed far more than she and would be almost impossible to drag, and the movement could kill him. And there was the baby! The dryad pointed to the tree. "You'll help?" Niobe asked. "He'll be safe, there, for a while?"
The nymph nodded yes. So Niobe struggled to drag Cedric the short distance to the tree and there she propped him against its healing trunk. "I'll bring help!" she told the dryad as she picked Junior up and hurried away.
Some hours later, that phase of the nightmare was done. Cedric was in the distant hospital, receiving the best care, and his family and hers had been notified. Both were quick to respond. But that was as far as the good news extended. Cedric was on the critical list and sinking. The bullet had damaged his spinal nerve, paralyzing him, and it had evidently carried an unidentified infection that was now spreading through his weakened system. "We can keep him alive for perhaps a week," the doctor said grimly. "He has a fine constitution; otherwise he would be dead already. Even if we could save him, he would be crippled below the waist and in constant pain, and there is a chance of brain damage. It would, I regret to say, be kinder to let him die."
"No!" Niobe cried. "I love him!"
"We all love him," the doctor said. "He was doing a great thing for the land. But we cannot save him."
"But we may be able to avenge him," the wetlands lawyer said. "Obviously the developer arranged to have him assassinated so he could no longer rally the people against the building project."
"But they had already won!" Niobe protested. "Why should they do this now?"
"They must have been afraid he was planning something new."
Niobe remembered Cedric's confidence that the developer would be stopped. Indeed, he must have been planning something! But that was no comfort to her now; she wanted him alive and whole.
"How can I save him?" she asked, clinging to that hope.
The doctor and the lawyer looked at each other. "You must appeal to a higher court," the lawyer said.
"What court is that?"
"The Incarnation of Death," the doctor said. "If Thanatos will agree to spare him, he will live."
She was ready to grasp at any straw. "Then I will appeal to Death! Where can I find him?"
Both men spread their hands. They did not know. "We do not go to Death," the doctor said. "Death comes to us, at the moment of his choosing, not ours."
Niobe took Junior and traveled hastily to the college. There she sought the old Prof. "How can I find Death?" she pleaded.
The Prof gazed at her unhappily. "Lovely woman, you do not want to do this."
"Don't tell me that!" she blazed at him. "I love him!"
He did not misunderstand. It was Cedric she loved, not Death. "And do you also love your baby?"
She froze. "You mean—I must choose between them?"
"In a manner. You, perhaps, might reach Thanatos— but your baby is beneath the age of discretion. He would die. If you insist on making this terrible journey, you must in fairness leave him behind."
She looked at Junior, horrified. "But—I can recover him, after—?"
"If you are successful," he said. "But, Mrs. Kaftan, you have no guarantee of success. This is no ordinary person you seek; he is a supernatural entity. You may never return from such a journey."
"Suppose—I place my baby with a good family?" she asked with difficulty. "So that if I don't—don't return— he will be well cared for?"
"That would be an expedient course," he agreed. "Of course you would have to take a lactation-abatement spell, and arrange to have him fed from a bottle while—"
"Then you will tell me how to reach Death?"
"Then I will do that," he agreed reluctantly. "I did, after all, make you a promise to help you when you asked."
She drove her carriage hastily to the farm of Cedric's cousin, Pacian. Pacian himself was twelve years old, six years younger than Cedric, but his parents were kindly folk with a strong sense of family loyalty. Yes, they would board Junior; he was, after all, their kin, a Kaftan. Pacian, a pleasant-faced lad who reminded her eerily of Cedric, welcomed Junior as a little brother.
Then, with confused emotion and more than a tear or two, she returned to the college, where the Prof would show her the way to Death.
There was a small lake beside the college, and they had taken an old, unseaworthy sailboat and spruced it up for the event. Its leaks had been temporarily caulked, and its sail was lashed in position. This craft could proceed only one way: directly before the wind. But physical direction didn't matter; spiritual impulse was what counted.
The small deck was piled with kerosene-soaked brush. A single spark would render the boat into a bonfire in an instant. The sail was charcoal black and painted with a picture of a bleached skull and crossbones: not the symbol of piracy, in this case, but that of Death. Indeed, this was a deathboat.
Niobe stepped onto the pier. She wore her most elegant black evening gown, with black gloves and slippers, and her flowing honey hair was bound by a black ribbon. There was a murmur of awe from the assembled college students, male and female,as she appeared, and she knew that she had never been more beautiful. The anti-lac spell had halted her production of mother's milk, but her breasts remained quite well developed.
The Prof stood at the end of the pier by the boat. He looked old and hunched, and his face was as pale as bone. "Ah, lovely woman, it is a horror you face!" he murmured. "Are you quite, quite sure—?"
"If Cedric dies, what life is there for me?" she asked rhetorically. She braced herself against his arm and stepped onto the boat. It wobbled in the water, and she hastily sat down.
"Perhaps we shall meet again," the Prof said.
"Of course we shall," she said and blew him a kiss. She knew he had done his best and she trusted his magic. But her expression of confidence papered over a monstrous dread within her, akin to that of the fourth face of the water oak tree. She felt like a deer stepping out before the rifle of the hunter. It was in this sense a season for the shooting of deer, and the huntsman was Death himself.
"Remember," the Prof cautioned her, "you can jump off, and a swimmer will rescue you." He gestured to three husky young men in swimsuits standing alertly at the shore.
"And forfeit my love?" she asked disdainfully. "I shall not jump."
"Then God be with you," he said, and it was no casual expression. He closed his hands together in an attitude of prayer and lifted them toward the cloudy sky.
Where was God when Cedric was shot? she wondered.
But she smiled. "Cast off, please."
The Prof bent down and lifted the rope from its mooring. The breeze caught the sail and the craft moved out into the lake. Left to its own devices, it would in due course bump into the far shore—but she had a different plan for it.
She turned and waved to the folk on the shore behind.
Then she reached into her purse, brought out a big wooden match, and struck it against the hard surface of the deck. It burst into life.
For a moment she held the little flame before her. Then she clamped her lower lip between her teeth, closed her eyes, and flung the match forward into the brush. If it did not ignite this tinder, would she have the courage to try it again?
But it caught, and in a moment there was the crackle of spreading fire. She opened her eyes, and saw the flame and smoke pouring up. The fire did not spread instantly; it took several seconds to infuse the full pile. Then it intensified, and the sudden heat of it smote her body. The sail caught, and became a bright column.
Now was the time to jump, before fire surrounded her. She was tempted. Then she thought of Cedric, lying critically ill on the hospital bed, and her resolve solidified. She stood, held her breath, and walked directly into the conflagration.
Cedric! Cedric! she thought as the flame engulfed her. I love you!
Her dress caught fire, and her hair shriveled, but she took one more step, bracing herself against the pain she knew was coming.
It came indeed. All her world became fire. She inhaled, and the fire was inside her, searing her lungs and heart. The agony was exquisite, but she endured it, refusing to collapse or even to scream. Death, I am coming for you!
The boat was formed of flame, now. The caulking popped out and water spurted in, drenching her feet. But the flame danced above it, and the smoke roiled about, as if fighting the water for this living prize. Niobe stood amidst it, her flesh burning, waiting for Death.
A figure came. It was a great stallion, galloping across the surface of the water, bearing a cloaked and hooded man. The horse came to the boat and stopped, standing on the lake. The man dismounted and brought forth a scythe. He scythed the flames as he would a field of tall grass, and the flames were cut off at their bases, their tops falling to one side. A path was cleared through the conflagration, leading to Niobe. Death had arrived.
Thanatos paused beside her and extended his skeletal hand. Niobe took it in her own, feeling the cold bones of his fingers.
Abruptly the pain of the fire abated. Thanatos led her along the scythed path to the pale horse and boosted her up into the saddle, then mounted behind her. The horse leaped into the remaining column of smoke—and through it, up into the sky.
Soon the stallion was galloping through the clouds above, his hooves sending little divots of fog flying back. Then they emerged to a scene above, where the grass was green and the sun shone warmly. Ahead was a mansion. They came to it, dismounted, and Thanatos guided her inside.
A motherly maid hurried up. "You brought a mortal!" she exclaimed with surprise and perhaps indignation. "See to her restoration," Thanatos ordered gruffly.
"She is not one of mine."
The pain returned when Niobe lost contact with Thanatos, but the maid hastened to bring salve. Niobe's skin was charred black, but where the salve touched, the normal flesh was instantly restored. The maid applied it to Niobe's entire body and made her inhale its fumes, and then no pain remained. Niobe stood naked and whole.
"My dear, you are beautiful!" the maid exclaimed, spraying something on the frizzled hair. The hair grew rapidly until it too had been restored to its former golden splendor. "Why should a creature like you try to suicide?"
"I love him," Niobe repeated.
"Ah, love," the maid breathed, understanding. She brought a bathrobe and new slippers. It seemed that the salve could not heal Niobe's incinerated clothing. "Thanatos awaits you," she said and showed Niobe to a sitting room.
Death—Thanatos—did indeed await her. He was like a stern father in his manner, despite his skull-face and skeletal hands. "You have done a very brave and foolish thing, young woman," he informed her disapprovingly. "You were not on my list. I had to make an emergency call for you."
"It—it was the only way to get your attention," she said, taking the seat indicated. "Thank you for coming." And she smiled.
The skull itself seemed to heighten its color, showing that Death himself was not immune to beauty. "It had to be done," he said gruffly. "When an unscheduled death occurs, the threads of Fate tangle."
That was what the Prof had told her. There was a certain order in the universe, and the Incarnations saw to its preservation. "I—where am I? In Heaven?"
Thanatos made a derisive snort, despite having no flesh in his nose. "Purgatory," he said. "The place of indecision—and of decision. All the Incarnations are here."
"Oh. I—haven't been beyond life before." She was somewhat intimidated by all this.
"And what brought you, ravishing mortal maiden?"
"Oh, I am no maiden! I—my husband Cedric—I have come to beg for his life. I love him!"
"Without doubt," Thanatos agreed. He snapped his bone-fingers, and a servant hurried in with a file box. Thanatos opened the box and riffled through the cards. "Cedric Kaftan, age eighteen, to go to Heaven five days hence," he remarked. "A good man, not requiring my personal attention." His square eye-sockets seemed to squint at the card. "A very good man! He loves you well indeed."
"Yes. I must save him. You must—"
Thanatos gazed at her through the midnight frames of his eyes, and suddenly she felt a chill not of death. It had not occurred to her before that the Incarnation might require a price for the favor she asked—and what did she have to offer?
Then she thought again of Cedric, lying in the hospital, and knew that there was no price she would not pay to have him whole again.
But when Thanatos spoke again, he surprised her. "Good and lovely mortal, I cannot do the thing you request. I do not cause folk to die; I merely see to the proper routing of the souls of those who are fated to die. It is true that I have some discretion; on occasion I will postpone a particular demise. But your husband is beyond postponement; to extend his life would be only to extend his pain. He will neither walk nor talk again."
"No!" Niobe cried. It was literal; her tears wet her robe. "He's so young, so bonnie! I love him!"
Even Death softened before that beauteous plea. "I would help you if I could," Thanatos said. "To be Incarnated is not to be without conscience. But the remedy you seek is not within my province."
"Then whose province is it in?" she demanded brokenly.
"At this point, I suspect only Chronos can help him."
"Who?"
"The Incarnation of Time. He can travel in time, when he chooses, and change mortal events by acting before they occur. Therefore if he—"
"Before the shot was fired!" she exclaimed. "So that Cedric is never hurt!"
The cowled skull nodded. "That is what Chronos can do."
The strangeness of talking to the Incarnation of Death was fading. The renewed chance to save Cedric recharged her. "Where—how—can I find Chronos?"
"You could search all Purgatory and not find him," Thanatos said. "He travels in time. But if he cares to meet you, he will do so."
"But I must meet with him! I have so little time—"
There was a chime that sounded like a funeral gong. "That will be Chronos now," Thanatos said.
"Now? But how—?"
"He knows our future. He is surely responding to the notice I will send him shortly."
A servant ushered Chronos in. He was a tall, thin man in a white cloak, bearing an Hourglass. "Ah, Clotho," he said.
"Who?" she asked, confused.
Chronos looked at her again. "Oh, has it come to that? My apology; it is happening sooner than I hoped. In that case, you must introduce yourself."
He had evidently mistaken her for someone else. "I— I am Niobe Kaftan—a, a mortal woman," she said.
"Niobe," Chronos repeated as if getting it straight. "Yes, of course. And you are here to—?"
"Here to save my husband, Cedric."
He nodded. "That, too. But that really is not wise."
"Not wise!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I love him!"
It was almost as if she had struck the Incarnation. He blanched, but then recovered. "Love is mortal," Chronos said sadly. "It passes, in the course of time."
"I don't care, so long as it passes naturally! Cedric is dying and he's not yet nineteen!"
Chronos shook his head. "I could travel to the moment before his problem commenced and change the event— but I hesitate. The interactions can extend far, and we interfere at peril to the larger fabric."
"But I love him!" she cried. "I must save him!"
Chronos glanced at Thanatos, who shrugged. They might be Incarnations, but they seemed very much like mortal men, baffled by the hysteria of a mortal woman.
"But you see," Chronos said reasonably, "to change an event, especially this one, could lead to consequences that none of us would wish."
Niobe began to cry. She put her face in her hands, and the tears streamed in little rivulets through her spread fingers.
"Perhaps a female Incarnation would handle this better," Thanatos said, evidently feeling awkward. Men tended to, in such situations; they didn't understand about crying. Niobe didn't like this situation much herself, but she couldn't help her reaction.
"I will take her to Fate," Chronos agreed quickly.
He came to Niobe and drew diffidently on her elbow. "Please come with me, ma'am."
At the sound of "ma'am," the term Cedric had used early in their relationship, Niobe burst into a fresh surge of tears. She was hardly aware of Chronos taking firm hold other with his left hand and raising his glowing Hourglass with his right. But suddenly the two of them were zooming through the air and substance of the mansion as if they had become phantoms. That so startled her that her tears ceased.
They phased across a variegated landscape that was not the world she had known. Then they homed in on the most monstrous web Niobe could have imagined, its pattern of silken strands extending out for hundreds of feet in a spherical array. In the center the web thickened, forming a level mat, and on this they came to rest. "How—what?" she said, amazed and daunted.
"My Hourglass selectively nullifies aspects of the chronological counterspell," Chronos explained. "Enabling me to travel—oh, you refer to the web? Do not be concerned; this is the Abode of Fate."
"Fate!" she exclaimed, realizing how this might relate to her. "It was Fate who determined that Cedric—"
"Indeed," he agreed as they walked to the huge cocoon in the middle of this resilient plane. "She should be more competent to satisfy you than I am."
"But—this is a gigantic spider's nest!" she said.
He smiled. "I assure you, good and lovely woman, that Fate will not consume you in that manner. She is—much like you."
Now they were at the entrance. Chronos reached up, took hold of a dangling thread, and pulled on it. A bell sounded in the silk-shrouded interior, and in a moment a middle-aged woman clambered out of the hole, very spry for her age. "Why, Chronos!" she exclaimed. "How nice to see you, my backward associate!" Her gaze turned on Niobe. "And a mortal woman who shines like the moon!" She glanced slyly back at Chronos. "What are you up to, sir?"
"Lachesis, this is Niobe," he said. "She comes to plead for the life of her husband, who suffered a recent accident. I—am unable to assist her in this."
Lachesis' eyes narrowed as if he had said something of special significance. Then she studied Niobe with a certain surmise. "Come in, child," she said at last. "We shall examine your thread." She glanced once more at Chronos. "You, too, honored associate."
They followed her through the hole, which was a finely woven mesh-tunnel that opened into a comfortable interior. Everything was made of web, but it was so thick and cleverly crafted that it was solid. In fact, it was the ultimate in web—silk. The walls were woven in a tapestry that was a mural, showing scenes of the world, and the floor was a rug so smooth a person could have slept on it without a mattress.
Niobe took a seat on a plush web couch, while Lachesis stood before her, set her hands together, drew them apart, and looked at the lines of web that had appeared magically between her fingers. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "That is a strange one!"
Niobe's brow furrowed. "Do you mean—me?"
"In a moment, dear," Lachesis said, preoccupied. She looked at Chronos. "Tell me, friend, is this—?" she asked. Then she shimmered—and in her place was a woman of perhaps twenty, quite pretty, with a nimbus of black hair, and cleavage showing. Her dress was yellow, and very short. Then she changed again, and was the middle-aged woman in brown.
Chronos nodded slowly, affirmatively.
Lachesis seemed dizzy. She plumped into another couch. "Oh, my dear!" she exclaimed. "This is a pretty snarl!"
"I don't understand," Niobe said.
"Of course you don't, dear," Lachesis agreed. "Neither did I. But Chronos knew, of course." She mopped her forehead with a bright silk handkerchief. "What am I to tell her, sir?"
"I suppose the truth, to the present," he said.
Niobe was increasingly bothered by their attitude. "Of course the truth!" she exclaimed.
Lachesis came to join her on the couch, taking her hand. "My dear, truth can be a complex skein, and often painful. I have looked at your thread, and—"
"Look at my husband's thread!" Niobe exclaimed. "I must save him!"
Lachesis disengaged, put her hands together, and stretched another gossamer thread between them. "Cedric Kaftan," she said as if reading from a text. "His thread—" She clapped her hands together, causing the thread to disappear. "Oh, my dear, my dear!"
"You really are Fate? You can save him?"
Lachesis shook her head. "I am Fate—an Aspect thereof. I determine the length and placement of the threads of human lives. I arrange for what befalls each person, in a general way. But this is a special case—a very special case. I cannot do what you ask."
Now Niobe's sorrow turned to anger. "Why not?" she demanded. "You—you arranged his death, didn't you?"
"I arranged his death; I did not decree it," Lachesis agreed sadly. "I remember the case now. I did not want to do it, but I had to. Now, thanks to Chronos, I begin to understand why."
"Then tell me why!" Niobe cried. "I love him!"
"And he loves you," the woman returned. "More than you can know. My dear, it would only bring you further grief to know more. Some deer must die, that the herd prosper."
Some deer! That hurt her anew, for Cedric had tried to protect the deer. "You refuse to tell me?"
Lachesis sighed. "I know how difficult it is for you to understand, Niobe. You are a brave and good woman, and your love is great, but you are mortal. I would help you if I could, but I cannot." She raised a hand to forestall Niobe's objection."To a child, life seems a series of arbitrary constraints; the child longs for the freedom of adult existence. But when the child becomes adult, she finds that the constraints remain; they only change their nature, becoming more complex and subtle. Even so, we Incarnations appear to have greater freedom of action than do mortals—but our constraints exist also, of a nature few mortals are equipped to comprehend. I can only assure you that a situation beyond your control and mine decrees that your husband must die. I can only say I'm sorry."
"Sorry!" Niobe flared. "Sorry! What possible justification can you have for arranging the death of a man as noble as Cedric?"
"I have two," Lachesis said. "One I may not tell you, and the other I will not."
"Then send me to someone who will tell me!"
Lachesis shrugged. "Perhaps Mars; he is aggressive—"
"I will take her to him," Chronos said.
Lachesis glanced at him sidelong again. "You have a special interest, Chronos?"
"I owe—Clotho," he said.
Lachesis nodded, knowingly. "It is a tangled skein we work from," she said. "A tangled tapestry we weave. Thank you for informing me, Chronos."
Chronos nodded and stood, and Lachesis stood, and they kissed briefly. This startled Niobe, but she was too distracted by the frustration of her own situation to ponder theirs.
Chronos took her elbow again, lifted his Hourglass, tilted it—and they were moving again, in their immaterial fashion.
They came to a mighty stone fortress, with armored turrets and embrasures and battlements and massive walls. It stood on a mountaintop in Purgatory and looked impregnable—but Chronos landed lightly before its main gate. "Ho, Mars!" he called.
A tiny window opened. "He's at work," a helmeted head said. "Down in France, you know."
"Oh, yes, the war," Chronos agreed. He tilted his Hourglass again, and they slanted down through the ground and the cloud and the air beneath. Looking down, Niobe saw lands and waters passing by at supernatural velocity; she felt dizzy, and had to close her eyes. Chronos might be a man, but he had astonishing power!
As did Thanatos, she reflected. That business with the scything of the flames, and that magnificent horse, and a body made of bones without flesh that nevertheless had voice and strength. Lachesis, too—that business with the threads, and the way she had changed momentarily to another woman—no mortal talent, that! They were all phenomenal beings—yet strangely helpless to aid her. She sensed that all three of them really wanted to help her, but were unable—and could not tell her why.
They slowed as they approached the landscape of France. At last they landed at the edge of a great trench, part of a messy series of fortifications that seemed to extend endlessly. This was the frontline of the war, she knew—the war that had drawn away most of the eligible young men and left her to marry a sixteen-year-old youth. She had cursed that war; now, perversely, she blessed it, for without it she would not have known Cedric.
A man in Greek or Roman armor—she was not enough of a military scholar to distinguish between them—stood between the trenches. This was evidently Mars.
"Ah, Chronos," Mars said, waving his red sword in greeting. "What brings you here—with such a lovely creature?"
"This is Niobe, a mortal. She came to see Thanatos, to plead for her husband's life, but the matter is complex and we are able neither to help her nor to explain it to her."
"Naturally not," Mars agreed as a shell detonated nearby. Shrapnel shot through the area, but none of them were hit. Niobe realized that there was a spell to protect them from such incidental mischief. Power, indeed! "Mortals are not equipped to understand."
"Of course I don't understand!" Niobe said hotly. "Fate pulled her string to seal my husband's doom, and Death will come to take him, and Time refuses to change it! I can't say I expect anything better from you!"
If she had thought to shame him into some favorable action, she failed. Mars merely smiled. "A woman after my own heart!" he said, pleased. "A fighter. All right, Chronos, I'm curious too. I obliterate thousands in a single battle, and there is scant justice in their passing, and often great irony, and you other Incarnations tend to glance askance at my work. So why are you killing in seemingly arbitrary fashion now? That is not normally your way. I should think that if this woman had the courage to brave Thanatos himself, she deserves some consideration. Where is your chivalry?"
Suddenly Niobe liked this gruff man better.
Chronos touched his Hourglass—and the world blinked. Now he and Mars were standing in different positions, and the sun shone from farther along in the sky.
"You did something!" she accused Chronos. "You changed time! Why?"
"I had to explain to Mars," he said. "I merely set you forward half an hour, while we talked."
"Why not explain to we?"
"Do not blame him," Mars told her. "He has reason, as has Lachesis. It turns out to be an unusual case."
"Then you won't tell me either. Mars?" she demanded. "You Incarnations must feel pretty big, teasing mortals—" She was overtaken by tears of frustration, a sudden torrent.
"She does that," Chronos murmured, embarrassed.
"Oh, come on, woman," Mars said. "I have delivered similar tears to tens of thousands of women, though none as pretty as you. What are you made of?"
A blind fury took her then. "And tens of thousands of similar griefs to you, you unfeeling ilk!" she cried. "I hope you choke on your own sword!"
Mars smiled. "Lovely!" Then he sighed. "I will try to clarify it for you, in a general manner. You see. God and Satan are at war, and there are countless skirmishes, occasional major engagements, and some devious nexuses. We Incarnations favor God, who is the Incarnation of Good. At times it is necessary to make small sacrifices in the pursuit of eventual victory, and it seems that your husband is such a case. Therefore, in the larger picture—"
"A small sacrifice? Cedric?" she demanded. "I love him!" She had said that many times, and would say it many more, if it could get him back.
"And he loves you," Mars agreed. "Indeed, he has proved it. And it may be that because of this sacrifice, our side will win the war. You should be proud."
Suddenly she remembered how Cedric had been before the shooting. Almost as if he had anticipated what was to come. "He—knew?"
"He knew," Mars agreed. "He went voluntarily to that mission, and great glory accrues to him therefore. I salute him!" And he raised his red sword.
Cedric had known he was going to die! Stunned by this realization, she hardly knew what to do next. Then she stabilized. "Then I will take his place!" she said.
"You cannot," Mars and Chronos said together.
"Can't I? What do you care? One way or another I will save my husband, despite all of you!"
Mars shook his head. "You had better take her to Ge," he told Chronos. "She will know what to do."
Chronos took her elbow. Niobe jerked it away, but he caught it on the second try. Then they were flying again, leaving the trenches of France below.
"I think you're all a bunch of—" she started, but couldn't think of a suitable conclusion. These Incarnations seemed to be in a conspiracy of silence! Yet she remained shaken by what she had learned about Cedric, confirmed by her memory. He had known, or suspected. But why should he have gone, then? It didn't make sense!
They came to a dense copse of small trees. They passed through it in immaterial fashion and came to rest in a pleasant interior glade.
An ample woman sat on a chair shaped like a toadstool. No, it was a toadstool, huge and sturdy. There were flowers in the woman's hair and they too were alive, their little leaves and roots showing. The woman's dress was green, formed of overlapping leaves, and her shoes were formed of earth that somehow flexed with her feet without crumbling. This was surely the Incarnation of Nature!
"So you bring her at last to me, you nefarious timetraveler," Nature said to Chronos. "Begone, you callous male; I will do what you could not."
"As you wish, Gaea," Chronos said, seeming relieved. He tilted his Hourglass and disappeared.
"You—you knew I was coming here?" Niobe asked.
"Mortal woman, you have generated quite a stir in Purgatory," Gaea said. "I suspected those men would muff it."
"But Fate—Lachesis—"
"Lachesis knows—but cannot tell. And I will not tell either; trust the Green Mother to have some discretion! In time you will understand. But I will explain to you what you need to know at this time, and with that you will have to be satisfied."
"Gaea, I want to take my husband's place!" Niobe exclaimed. "Let him survive, healthy, so he can have his career, and I will die!"
The Green Mother gazed at her with understanding. "Yes, of course you feel that way, Niobe. You are a woman in love. But that cannot be."
"It must be! I would do anything to save him!"
Gaea shook her head. "Niobe, you cannot—because he has already sacrificed himself for you."
"He—what?"
"You were the one Satan slated for early demise, Niobe. Your husband asked the Professor about your bad visions, and the Prof, who is a pretty fair magician, investigated. He was grooming the young man to assume a chair at the college and wanted to be sure the background was stable. He discovered the plot and informed your husband. Cedric never hesitated; he went in your place."
Again, Niobe was stunned. She remembered her visions of dread. "He went—for me?"
"It seems that you are destined to be a real thorn in Satan's side. None of us can know the details, of course, not even Satan, but he moved to eliminate you. Satan has terrible power, and he is subtle and methodical; we other Incarnations did not realize. Almost before we knew, it was done. The envoy of Hell was loosed—but Cedric took the shot intended for you."
"How—?"
"The assassin was a hunter possessed temporarily by a demon spirit. The demon's orders were to shoot the mortal who was singing at a particular oak tree, with a baby. Satan presumed that would be you. That was the loophole."
"It would have been!" Niobe agreed faintly. "If Cedric had not—"
"He loved you," Gaea agreed. "And he knew that Satan wanted you dead. So he saved you and balked Satan at one stroke. Seldom has a nobler deed been done."
"But if I—"
"You cannot make a mockery of your husband's gallant sacrifice," Gaea said. "You must accept the gift he gave you, and do what he has enabled you to do."
"I—but I don't know what—"
"That is what we may not tell you, though it is little enough we know ourselves. But it is enough for you to know, now, that Satan himself regards you as a dangerous enemy, and surely he is correct. Live—and you will discover your destiny in due course."
Niobe realized that her quest had come to nothing. Cedric had already done for her what she had thought to do for him. She had no choice, now, but to accept.
She stumbled out of the glade, through the thickly growing saplings, and emerged—beside the water oak near her home. The hamadryad recognized her and waved.
"Oh, Cedric!" Niobe exclaimed. "I was the deer to be shot—and how great was your love for me! Now I must let you die!"
Then she lifted her tear-streaked face to the sky. "But I will avenge you, Cedric!" she swore. "Somehow I will make Satan pay!"
She sank down beside the tree, and cried against its trunk, while the dryad wrung her hands. O Cedric!
