It took a few days for Niobe to get into the routine. She learned how to travel on threads she flung out magically at will so that she could slide quickly to any portion of the globe. These were travel-threads, not the same as the threads of life; they appeared when needed and vanished when done. She learned how to generate the "Read Only" threads between her fingers for spot checks on individual lives, though she could obtain only a fraction of the definition that Lachesis could; it was a skill that went with the Aspect and experience. She learned how to change into spider form for special occasions. As Fate, she had an affinity for the web weavers, and no spider would protest her presence in its web or her intrusion onto its hunting ground. In fact, spiderwebs were convenient landing places when she traveled; she could slip to one much faster as an arachnid, then change to human form for whatever task required her attention.
She gained confidence: she might appear to be a weak woman, but an invisible net of web surrounded her, making her invulnerable to any mortal attack. She learned where the Purgatory Administration Building was, and who the key personnel were. These were not Incarnations, but lost souls—people whose balance between good and evil was so exactly even that they could not be relegated to either supernatural realm. They seemed like ordinary folk, which of course they were, and quite solid, which they were not. They were really ghosts, able to act only here in Purgatory. And she learned to spin souls.
But first she had to fetch the raw stuff of souls, and that was no easy task. "It's in the Void," Lachesis explained.
"The Void?"
"In the beginning, the earth was without form and void. God created the world from the stuff of the Void, and reality as we know it came into being. But not all of the Void was used. What remains of it occurs at the edge of Purgatory, and no one can go there except you."
"Me?"
"As Clotho. Not even we two other Aspects of Fate can go there; we become tuned out. This is the one journey you must make alone."
"But I'm so new here! I know so little about any of this! I can't—"
"There is no one else," Lachesis said. "Do not be unduly concerned; it is not a dangerous trip. It is merely a unique one."
She had to do it; it was a duty of the office. But she dreaded it. Her nightmare visions of what was to happen at the water oak had proved to be well-founded; now she hesitated to go into any truly challenging situation alone.
Lachesis took her to the edge of Purgatory. It looked quite normal and it was—but it was the boundary beyond which it was unsafe for any other person to go.
"And you and Atropos won't be with me, even in my mind?" Niobe asked uncertainly. She had found she liked their company; it abated the grief in her memory.
We will be with you—but unconscious, Lachesis replied in thought, for they were no longer at the Abode. It would have seemed strange if any other person overheard her talking to herself. Our minds cannot face the Void. But we know yours can, for Daphne went many times. She told us it became easier each time.
"The first, the worst," Niobe agreed wanly. "And I must seek the heart of it?"
Yes. Only there is the essence pure. Don't forget to play out the skein.
So she could find her way back. This time a temporary, vanishing travel-thread would not do; she had to be guided by the Thread of Life itself. She certainly would not ignore that detail!
She walked on along the road. If no one could go beyond this point, for whom was the road?
Some do go beyond, Lachesis replied, more faintly. Tolerances differ. But you must go where no other goes.
"Oh? Who else uses this road?"
Some of the other Incarnations. Now Niobe had to strain to pick up the fading thought. Mars, Gaea.... It was gone.
Niobe walked on, and the road dwindled into a footpath through a dense forest. Evidently the vegetable kingdom did not feel limited! "The Incarnation of War," she murmured. "And of Nature. I wonder what business they have here?" But there was of course no answer. She was on her own.
The forest darkened and the path narrowed until it was a vague ribbon through the gloom. The trees became oppressively large and close, as if seeking to encroach on the path and squeeze whatever was on it. She did not recognize their types; they were simply walls of rough bark, extending up until the branching foliage closed overhead, sealing off the light. But her eyes adjusted, and she could still see. It was mostly her apprehension that was affected.
Nervously, she looked back. Her thread glowed behind, marking the way she had come. She was surprised to see that it soon curved out of sight; she had thought she was going straight. But it was a comfort to know she could not get lost, and she continued to hold the distaff so as to let the thread unwind. It was a thin thread, and she worried about its breaking. But she reminded herself that no one except Atropos could sever the Thread of Life and that there was no one else out here to interfere with it anyway.
The path ended ahead. She stopped, dismayed, then realized that, though a sullen tree blocked the way, it was possible to go around it. She squeezed on by—and found another tree blocking her off. It was just as if they were stepping in front of her, like aggressive men. A false impression, surely! She squeezed around that one, too. Because the trees took up more volume of space above, they could not stand trunk-to-trunk at ground level.
They tried, however. Their roots spread out of the ground and interlocked, and their lower branches reached down. But there was always a way through, however tortuous. The trees might try to balk Fate, but could not succeed. Probably this path was so devious because it fitted through the avenue of least resistance, no straighter or broader than it had to be.
Then the trees seemed to lose cohesion. They became misshapen, with trunks either swollen or shrunken, and their foliage—
She paused to blink and stare. The foliage was wrong! It was no longer green, but purple, and the individual leaves were formed into the shapes of stars or squares or triangles. How could that be?
Obviously it could be, because it was. She moved on. The forest retreated from the path, the trees becoming stranger yet. Now they were multicolored blobs of wood and brush, and some were floating. Apparently the laws of reality were weakening.
The path led her to a slope, and the slope became steep. She walked along the contour, and on her left a mountain stretched until the peak was lost in the brightness of the sun, and on her right the slope continued down into a valley so deep as to give her vertigo. As she proceeded, the slope increased until it was almost vertical—but her feet held the path, which was a level niche cut into the slope. Then the slope above actually passed the vertical, and overhung the path, while that below became undercut, so that the path was no more than a ledge cut into a horrendously leaning cliff. One misstep would send her hurtling down!
Niobe had never been timid about heights or depths, but this daunted her. Still, she saw no reasonable alternative other than to continue on. It was, after all, supposed to be safe, and Lachesis and Atropos, her better two-thirds, would not have sent her to her doom. Their own identities were in similar peril.
But what did they really know? Apparently Daphne had never told them exactly what she had faced here. Maybe it wasn't possible to convey the full effect—or maybe the attempt would cause needless alarm. After all, the soul substance had to be gathered, and this was where it was, so there was no choice.
She walked on. The slope became more extreme, until the upper wall curved down over the path and the lower wall seemed -to curve up under it; she was walking in a notch or groove cut in the roof of a cave. There was no floor, just cloudy vagueness.
Then the upper wall curved down until it was below the path, and the lower seemed to curve above. She was walking in the eye of a pinwheel! Who could believe geography like this?
At length she emerged from the strange configuration. Ahead was a river—no, it was the path, but—
She stopped and looked back. Behind her was the vertical pinwheel, its walls spiraling outward from the center, which was her path, and expanding in ever-greater sweeps, until she was unable to trace them with her eye. To the sides was open space, with a few faint stars winking. Before her was—well, it started like a path, but continued like a stream. She kept trying to focus on it, but kept not succeeding.
One way to find out. She resumed her walk—and the path softened. Soon she was sloughing through muck. So she removed her yellow cloak—there was no mandatory color-coding, but it seemed that Clotho traditionally wore yellow, Lachesis brown, and Atropos gray—and laid it on the path. Then she stepped into it, trying to bring as little mud along as possible. There was no problem; the mud did not adhere to her shoes at all. It was like soft plastic, slimy and flexible but cohesive, sticking only to itself.
She settled down cross-legged, feeling exposed in her under-clothing, though there really wasn't anyone to see. She set the distaff in her lap, stretched her hands out to either side, and set her fingers in the stuff. She pushed off—and the cloak moved slightly forward. She pushed again, and it slid farther forward. After several pushes, the cloak was sliding along well enough.
Then the current caught it, and she was floating on down the stream. Her cloak formed into a saucer-shape;
it made a decent if somewhat clumsy boat. She wasn't sure why it didn't collapse in on her, but she wasn't sure about much else in this region, either. She took hold of her distaff before it could spin out of her lap, and played out the lifeline of thread.
The stream carried her by a floating tree, which now seemed more like an island, and on through the starry sky. Perhaps it was a reflection in the water—except that the only water was the stream that the path had become.
Then the islands became big puffs of nondescript matter, which fell apart into lesser blobs that in turn sundered, until she was in a great cloud of pebbles, and then motes, and then smoke. The smoke dissolved, and she found herself drifting in nothingness.
She glanced at her distaff, and discovered that her thread had almost run out. But the stream had not yet run its course; it was carrying her somewhere, which meant that she had not yet gotten where she was going. She couldn't stop now, but if she didn't, she would leave her thread behind, and she was pretty certain that would not be expedient. She had to have more thread!
She considered a moment, then dipped her hand over the side and scooped up a handful of substance. It was like thin jelly or thick water. She stretched it between her hands, and it thinned into a taffy like strand. Could she fashion a thread of this? Why not; it was part of the stuff of the Void. It might not be pure, but it might do for this temporary purpose.
It was awkward doing it barehanded; she really needed a spinning wheel. Most yarn or thread was spun into fibers, ranging from the half-inch long cotton to the infinitely long silk; each type required its own special technique. The object was to render the fibers into a continuous thread that could then be worked into whatever fabric was required. The essential process in this conversion was spinning—which, very simply, was the winding of fibers together so that they became the thread. It could be done by hand, and she knew how to do it. She was, after all, a woman.
She had her distaff and spindle, but nothing to card or comb out the fibers. But this stuff of the Void didn't seem to be fiber; it was more akin to taffy. Presumably she could stretch it out into whatever diameter and length she wanted, and fix it in that form by spinning.
She experimented. She stretched some out between her hands, then used the distaff to take up a crude skein. When she had what she wanted, she used the spindle to twist the line, and she wound it fairly tightly on the spindle. The trick was to stretch and twist and coil in just the right manner to produce an even, strong, and fine thread. This stuff was unlike any she had worked before, but Niobe had excellent coordination and experience. If anyone could do it, she could.
Indeed she could. Her body looked and felt exactly like the mortal one she had left behind, but she was Clotho now, and had magic. Under her will and guidance the stuff of the void spun into crude thread, and this she spun onto the end of the thread she had brought with her, extending it. Now she could safely continue.
At last the cloak drifted to a halt. At least, so she judged; she had no external reference points, but she no longer had to play out the thread. This, evidently, was the heart of the Void, where she had to collect her month's supply of soul substance.
She had no container, so she used her skill again. She took a handful of the stuff she floated in, and processed it in the way she had the river. This was almost intangible, so she seemed to be going through the motions, spinning in a vacuum. But she felt a slight resistance and had faith she was succeeding. Soon she had some crude substance on her distaff: her skein of soul. She didn't know how much she needed, but knew she could come back for more when she ran out. This had not been as bad as it might have been.
Now she had to get back. She had drifted to this region, as it was the natural direction; things always drifted toward entropy. Now she had to go against the current— and how was she to do that?
First she tried the obvious—and it worked. She hauled on her lifeline thread. She and her makeshift boat moved readily forward as she hauled; she seemed to have no inertia, no resistance. And she realized now that in the Void inertia was as baseless as matter; the rules of matter were unformed, here. Her thread was now her only connection to the material frame—if it was fair to call Purgatory that—so she was actually hauling herself in to her anchor. She hadn't needed the thread for finding her way, but for making her way.
The floating blobs reappeared, and the river became more evident; it was a runofffrom organized matter, flowing from the organized to the disorganized. She had had to get beyond it, because the river was polluted by some aspects of organization. For new souls, the substance had to be as pure as she could make it; Lachesis had stressed that.
She reached the mucky portion of the stream, and finally had to get out and slough to the solid path. She was reentering contemporary reality.
"Hi, babe."
Niobe jumped. Someone was there, standing in the path, where no person could be!
"I see you are surprised, sweets," the figure said. He was hazy in outline, but seemed familiar.
"No one—can be here," she faltered. "Except Mars, or Gaea, or—"
"Or Satan," the figure concluded. "Where God can go, so can His Nemesis."
Her whole body stiffened. This was the Prince of Evil— the one who had arranged for her death! The one she intended to punish—somehow. "I hate you!" she exclaimed.
The figure laughed. "Of course, you phenomenally lovely creature! I am the Incarnation of all Evil, and hate is far from the least of evils! Did you realize they have issued a postage stamp in My name? It says HATE-HATE-HATE-HATE-HATE! Already you are coming into My bailiwick!"
This gave her pause. It was true; when she indulged herself in hate, she drew closer to Satan, even though it was Satan she hated. A treacherous situation indeed! She really couldn't afford to hate him.
She realized ruefully that Satan had scored against her at the outset. It was his advantage. "What are you doing here?"
"I need to clarify certain matters, sugar, as we shall doubtless be interacting henceforth."
She couldn't help herself. "Why don't you clarify why you killed my husband!"
"That is precisely why I have come here, luscious plum," Satan said. "It is known to Me that you have some misunderstanding about that matter, and it is not meet for confusion to exist between Incarnations."
"I have no misunderstanding! You interfered in my life!"
"Not so, sweet rose! I specialize in evil; I understand its workings better than any other entity does. Evil is everywhere, to greater or lesser degree, except perhaps in God, who is, frankly, naive in this matter. Let me show you the evil that is in the other Incarnations."
Niobe hurried along the path, poking her distaff forward to move Satan out of the way, but he floated back without moving his legs. He was simply fixed in place in relation to her, like a mirage. She could not escape his attention. "I—won't listen to this!" she exclaimed. "The other Incarnations aren't evil!"
"Evil is as evil does, love," Satan said. "From your contaminated thread on, evil lurks in every mortal creature, and it is not necessarily expunged by Incarnation."
"Contaminated thread!" Niobe exclaimed. "I just fetched it from the purest essence of the Void!"
"Purity does not exist in the Void, delicious thing," Satan said. "Only chaos. What you have is virtually pure entropy—that is, complete disorder. When you spin it, you are imposing order—your brand of order—on the purest chaos you can obtain. That is because you want to define its order completely, with no contamination by order from any other source. But because chaos is complete, it excludes nothing, not even a smidgeon of order. You are necessarily working with imperfect substance, O heart's desire; in fact it is that contamination of order that enables you to spin it. Without that, you would not be able to get a grip on it. But that is only part of it. That substance is a mixture of good, neutral, and evil, and it is impossible to tell which will prevail in the end. Therefore we run it through the ultimate test for its bias: animated free will."
Niobe was trying not to listen, but not succeeding. The voice of Evil was insidiously compelling. "I'm making this thread for life!"
"Exactly, darling. Animated free will—otherwise known as life. By the time each modicum of this soul substance runs its course, the nature of its individual balance between good and evil is known, and final order can be achieved. Eventually the last of the Void will have been processed, and the entropy of the universe will have been reduced to zero. All good will be in Heaven, and all evil in Hell. The job will done, and the system will be shut down."
Niobe was appalled. "All—life—just a—a laboratory to classify the substance of the Void?"
"Indeed. Beautiful, isn't it? Just like you, cutie. On that day of final reckoning we shall at last know which is dominant: God or Satan. The score will tell."
"Then what am I doing here?" she demanded, feeling dizzy.
"You are initiating the sequence, honey," Satan said. "You are taking another spoonful of chaos out of the Void. It is a good and necessary task. But evil is in your thread of life; were it not so, we would not need life at all."
"Well, the Incarnations aren't evil!" she said stoutly. "You said yourself that this task I'm doing is good."
"The task is good, to be sure, doll. But the Incarnations are human—which is to say, imperfect. They have human ambitions, weaknesses, and lusts."
"Lusts!" she exclaimed indignantly. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm so glad you asked, precious." They were passing through the pinwheel now, the Incarnation of Evil still drifting before her like a specter, unavoidable. He was becoming clearer, and more eerily familiar. "Indeed the Incarnations do have lusts! They indulge them on occasion with mortals, but this is problematical. You see, ravishing one, the Incarnations do not age, physically—but mortals do. It is difficult for an Incarnation to maintain a relationship with one who constantly ages, particularly a romantic connection. So it is better to do it with another of his kind."
It had not occurred to Niobe that that sort of thing existed in Purgatory. Still, Lachesis had mentioned the possible use of the body; perhaps that was not merely an extreme occasion. She herself retained her grief for Cedric and her anger at Satan for his connivance in that. She knew from her personal experience already that much of what Satan told her was true: Incarnations did retain human passions.
"Unfortunately, scrumptious," Satan continued relentlessly, "there are relatively few Incarnations, and most are male."
"Chronos, Thanatos, and Mars," Niobe said shortly. "And you."
"Those are the major ones. Some would consider God to be male too, though that really doesn't matter. God is indifferent to mortal passions other than power."
"The major Incarnations? There are others?" She was still trying to ignore him, but he kept intriguing her curiosity.
"Didn't you know, sweet-buns? There's Hypnos, who is in charge of sleep, and Eros, in charge of—"
"Never mind. What's your point?"
"My point, fair creature, is that there is a severe scarcity of Incarnate young flesh. Gaea can of course assume any form she wishes, and she can be a lusty wench indeed, but she lacks one quality that most males prize in a female."
He paused, as if inviting her query—and Niobe was hooked. She had to ask. "What quality is that?"
"Innocence," he replied succinctly.
Niobe mulled that over. She could think of only one relatively innocent female in Purgatory: the newest one. Herself. "Surely you don't mean—"
"Consider Chronos, beautiful," Satan said. "He lives backward. He remembers the future, and doesn't know the past. Association with a mortal woman is, if you will excuse the expression, hellish for him. They just don't understand."
"But he can change time to coincide—"
"For short periods, cutie. Not for long-term. Which means that if he wishes to have a liaison once a week without a hassle, he must find a woman who understands his situation and is willing to accommodate him. That means another Incarnation. Gaea, or—" Again he paused, artfully.
"Are you implying that I—?" she demanded indignantly. Again she remembered how solicitous Chronos had been, and how understanding the other Incarnations had been during her first visit. And how closemouthed. That gave her an abiding disquiet.
"Chronos surely remembers," Satan said. "What is to be, has been, for him."
She was becoming outraged. "And you claim he—I— we—that I'm here because Chronos wants—"
"And the other Incarnative males," Satan agreed. "Fate is known as an accommodating woman. But of course those males prefer her youngest and firmest Aspect, as perhaps your better two-thirds have already explained to you."
Niobe could not answer. She had been told. Now that notion was becoming much less theoretical.
"You see, honeypot," Satan continued inexorably, "we Incarnations have to get along with each other. We are too small a group, and our duties overlap; if we do not cooperate, the world will revert to chaos and all will be lost. We are not antagonists; we are the several Aspects of the job. Fate cannot operate without Time—so it behooves her to keep him satisfied, and she has one exceedingly potent mechanism therefor."
"I can't believe that!" she cried, beginning to believe. "You may verify it very simply, round-heels. Ask Chronos. He remembers."
"No!" she said. "I love Cedric! I will never—" But she had already agreed when she assumed the office. What had she thoughtlessly gotten herself into?
"Ah, yes, Cedric. Your sacrificial husband, the boy wonder. Allow me to clarify the story on that."
"No!" she said, turning her face away. But she continued to listen.
"The Incarnations—and not just Chronos—wanted a new face and body and innocence in Purgatory," he said. "I mean, even the sexiest and most accommodating young woman—and Daphne was certainly that!—palls after a few years or decades, especially when her body doesn't change at all. Especially when her mind gets too knowing. She's a good one to visit—don't I know!—but not to stay with. The novelty is gone, and novelty is chronically in short supply in Purgatory. So when Clotho found a compatible situation among the mortals, she took it. She was bored out of her gourd, as the saying will one day go, and—"
"How can you know what a future saying will be?"
"Chronos uses expressions he remembers from the future, and some of them are apt. At any rate, trixie, the Incarnations did an informal survey of mortal flesh, and you were the prettiest innocence they found, and your ability with loom and distaff made it even better. The perfect unliberated, docile sex object! So they arranged to bring you in. That meant eliminating your man."
This was appalling. She had to deny it—yet could not. Satan might be the personification of evil, but he was making sense. Still, she tried to fight, weakly. "But it was me they—you tried to kill, not Cedric."
"So they told you, cheesecake. But that was a ruse, to shift the blame to Me. After all, they could hardly have found a better surrogate for blame! So that you would agree to join. It does, in that limited sense, have to be voluntary; you have to think you want it. They have to remove the one you love, to leave you no further reason to remain mortal. They conveyed to your innocent bonnie boy that you were the target, thus very cleverly tricking him into doing exactly what they wanted—"
"No!" Niobe cried like a drowning woman.
"And it worked perfectly, as you know, trophy-piece. Now the most desirable and innocent morsel of a young woman on Earth is in Purgatory and available for duty. The Incarnations are already champing at the nether bit. I could hardly have done it better Myself—but of course such evil is Mine anyway, by definition. I suggest you relax and enjoy it, toots."
"Relax, hell!" she screamed.
Satan smiled. "Exactly."
She peered at him more closely. His image had been slowly clarifying as they progressed, and now at the verge of the forest he was at last recognizable. He had assumed Cedric's form.
"You utter cad!" she screamed, trying to push him into a tree. "You have no right to—to—"
He caught her hand. "Shall I kiss you, sweetlips?" he asked in Cedric's voice. "I, too, find you desirable, and I can make you forget—"
She struck at him with the distaff she had been rewinding. He ducked, and the thread sprang out and settled about him in a tangle. "Get out! Get out!" she screamed.
Satan resumed his normal form, and sighed. "Another time, perhaps, when you have been suitably broken in." He faded away, leaving her with the tangle.
Niobe stood and cried in rage and grief for some time. Damn Satan! He had changed her promising new existence into a torment of savage emotion.
But after a while she reasserted such cynicism as she could muster. She detached the tangled mass of threads, as they were from the borrowed section of the river, spun the ends together, and resumed her walk. She was not a plaything of Fate; she had free will, and she could leave this position if she wanted to. They had explained that each Incarnation, except perhaps Chronos, had a trial period in office, after which he or she was granted indefinite tenure if suitable. She would simply declare herself to be unsuitable and return to mortality. Certainly she would not serve in the—the capacity they wanted!
She wended her way through the trees, her tears drying on her face. What a monstrous conspiracy she had fallen into! To think that Cedric had died in order to make her available for—
She was still furious as the forest retreated and thinned, and the path straightened and became a road. She was back in structured reality, now—and not one bit pleased.
What's the matter, Clotho?
They were back! "You should know, you hypocrites!" she flared.
She was met by a thought of amazement. Why do you say that?
Niobe let loose a torrent of why.
Wait! Wait! We can't assimilate all that! We can feel your anger, but you will have to vocalize to clarify the reason.
"Cedric!" Niobe shouted. "You conspired to kill Cedric, so I would—would—" Her tears started up again, and her emotion was a confusion of love, sorrow, and fury reminiscent of the chaos of the Void she had just departed. Perhaps, she thought in an isolated flash of humor, she had brought the Void with her—in her head.
Cedric? We explained about him!
"Well, Satan explained it better! I'll not stay in this job! You had no right to—"
Satan! Lachesis' thought came.
That explains it! Atropos agreed.
"Yes, Satan!" Niobe agreed. "He really understands evil! He was there in the Void, and he—"
And he told you an intricate lie, Lachesis continued.
And you believed him, Atropos concluded.
"Yes, I believe him!" Niobe cried. "And I want to go back to mortality! At least there my body is my own!"
You believed the Father of Lies, Atropos thought.
It is your right to return, Lachesis agreed. But first we must hash this out. You must know the truth before you act, lest Satan lead you to tragedy.
"Why should he do that?"
He does not want you in the office. He knows that somehow you will cause him great trouble. That is why he tried to kill you before you could become Clot ho.
Niobe suffered doubt. Satan had been persuasive—but he was the Incarnation of Evil, and certainly he would lie to suit his purposes. She should not believe him without establishing the case thoroughly. "How can I verify this?"
Perhaps Chronos knows.
"Chronos!" Niobe exclaimed indignantly. "All he wants is—"
That is a half-truth.
"You admit to half of it?" Niobe demanded.
Lachesis made a mental sigh. Satan has poisoned your mind. You must cleanse it yourself. Go to Chronos, challenge him. We will be silent until you address us.
That, of course, was the answer. Chronos was at the heart of this. She would give him ajagged fragment other mind!
She returned to the Abode, deposited her new batch of yarn—she would reprocess that into much finer thread later, as she spun out the lives of new mortals—assuming she remained in office that long—and set off along the line that connected to Chronos' mansion. She was awkward in her use of the travel-thread; it would have been faster and smoother if one of the other Aspects had handled it, but she needed to master the techniques herself in order to—
To what? Be a good Clotho? When she had no intention of retaining the position? Unlikely chance!
She made it to the mansion. She had learned that time reversed when a person entered Chronos' residence, so that she would actually depart before she arrived. She found that aspect of it intriguing. It existed so that others could converse comfortably with Chronos; otherwise each would be talking backward at the other.
She knocked on the door, and was admitted immediately. Chronos met her, wearing a pure white robe; he stepped right up, smiling, and took her in his arms and kissed her.
Niobe was so surprised that she simply froze for a moment. Then she recovered, jerked back her head, brought up her arm, and slapped him smartly across the cheek. "What kind of nerve do you have, trying a thing like that?" she cried.
He turned her loose, a look of astonishment on his face. "Why, Clotho—what happened?"
"What happened?" she repeated furiously. "You just grabbed me and kissed me!"
"But of course! As I have always done, here at home."
"Always done!" she screamed. "Then it's true!"
Now a look of realization spread across his countenance. "The time—are you just beginning your cycle?"
"My what?"
"Have you just begun your office? As Clotho?"
"Of course I have, as you well know! And if you think I—"
"But I don't know!" he protested. "That's in my future, and you have never said exactly when—"
Because he lived backward. Now she understood. "You—you couldn't have conspired to—because it hasn't happened yet, for you!"
"I would never conspire against you, Clotho," he said.
"I love you."
She felt as if a demonic hand had squeezed her heart. She reeled, and sank onto a couch. It was true—they were going to have an affair! This man she didn't know, and certainly didn't love!
"Ah, Clotho," he said. "I didn't realize. You have not done this before. You don't—remember. Had I realized—I'm sorry. I should have known. Long ago you told me the date of your origin. I had forgotten. I apologize for—"
"What do you remember?" Niobe asked dully.
He took a seat opposite her. "When I assumed my office, thirty-five years hence in your view, I was bewildered by everything. I did not know what to do, or how to do it—even the Hourglass was a mystery to me. But you, in your three guises, came to me, and took me in hand, and set me straight. It was as if you had known me all along, though we had never before met. You did so much for me, and I was grateful, and then you—"
He broke off, putting his face in his hands. "Oh, Clotho! It's over at last, and so abruptly! I owe you so much and I will miss you so much!"
Suddenly he reminded her of Cedric, as he had been at the outset of their marriage. So forlorn and lost and unable to come to grips with what he knew had to be. She, in her naivete and insensitivity, had only exacerbated his problem. How much she regretted that now!
And the magnitude of Satan's lie was manifest: Chronos had never, could never conspire. She had initiated their romance—thirty-five years hence. And now she was blaming him!
If she had known, at the outset other marriage to Cedric, what was to be, she would have been far more understanding and careful. Now she faced a roughly similar situation. She did not love this man—but neither had she loved Cedric, at first. The lesson was there.
Did she really want to return to mortality? Cedric still would not be there. If she had to live without him, wouldn't it be better to do it with the power of the Incarnation of Fate, rather than as a simple mortal? Chances were that this job would offer her many distractions. She could keep herself busy—and she could leave whenever she chose to. She didn't have to make a decision yet. Yet—
Satan had tried to talk her into leaving. He wouldn't have bothered if she were not destined to cause him some grief.
Chronos remembered three and a half decades' association with her. That showed her decision and her future. What point to rail against it? Better to take herself in hand and do what had to be done. Cedric was dead; he would never live again. She had to face reality, and the sooner the better. This was her moment of commitment. She did not relish the prospect, but she had to put the past firmly behind her.
She dried her face, arranged her hair, and stood. Chronos sat with his face covered. He was not pretending; he was a decent, vulnerable man, and he was mourning a relationship he knew was past. Indeed it was, for him. It was an emotion she understood.
She crossed over to him and put one hand on his shoulder. "Chronos, I understand. But this—is the last time."
He looked up. "The first—for you."
"For me. I do not—love you, but—" She shrugged. "I misjudged you, Chronos, and I'm sorry. I—I give you this. There is only now, for us. Such as it is."
"Such as it is," he agreed, lifting his hand to her. She took it. "When next we meet, it will be different. I will not remember—this. Or know of it."
"I will not speak of it." He drew her down to him. She tried to conceal her aversion to being handled by any man not Cedric. She felt guilty and unclean—but, perversely, she was sure she was doing right. She was no longer married, no longer mortal, and she had a job to do here and a role to fill. It turned out that Chronos' long experience with her future self gave him a special touch, and it became easier to cooperate.
When it was done, she dressed and departed, using an exit opposite to the entrance she had used so that there was no chance of encountering her arriving self. She did not want to try to explain or justify what she had done to that self!
Then, because she also did not wish to return to her web Abode before she had left it, she elected to spend an hour elsewhere. That would allow for the half hour she had spent in Chronos' mansion, and carry her another half hour beyond. The net effect would be the same as if her half hour within had been composed of normal, forward time.
Where would she go in that period? Where else! She went to Earth. She slid down a thread—this was good practice!—to the farm where Junior was. She walked up to the door and knocked.
They were surprised and pleased to see her, with masked concern. "I am only visiting. My other business is not yet done; I must still leave Junior with you."
She saw relief in them, and it gratified her. They really wanted to keep Junior, and she knew it wasn't for the support stipend. This was certainly the place for him.
She picked him up and held him and kissed him, then set him down. In a moment he was back playing with Cousin Pace.
"That's a very nice water oak," the woman remarked. "The dryad came right down to join him when we retreated."
They were doing it! At least the dryad was not being deprived. "She is teaching him magic," she said with a wink.
"If he can learn it, he'll be some magician!" the man said.
Yes—she had done right here. The loss of her baby hurt her, but she could adapt to this, just as she could adapt to the affair with Chronos. She was a different person, now, with new and different commitments. Even her body wasn't her own, but a construct from the flesh of Fate, as if formed from the substance of the Void.
But she was no creature of the Void! She had a new kind of life to live. She hoped it would turn out better than the old one.
