The spider descended before her on a thread of silk, then transformed into a comely young woman with hair so light it was almost white. "We must talk with you," the woman said. "Do not utter the name of him who must not know." She had an accent, but was intelligible.
"Clotho!" Niobe said, suddenly remembering that moment a quarter-century before when she had drawn a refugee girl from a line in Budapest. "Lisa!"
The woman smiled. "You have changed; I have not." Then she patted her hair. "Except cosmetically. I am eternally grateful for what you did, rescuing me from that city. It gave me a new existence, and I was able to help my troubled friends. They never knew I had—changed."
"I understand," Niobe said. "It is nice of you to let me know."
"But this is not a social call," Lisa said quickly. "We— have something very important to ask of you."
Niobe smiled. Privately she was dismayed by the contrast between them. When she had selected Lisa to be her replacement, Niobe herself had been a slender beauty, while Lisa had been attractive but less stunning. Now, a quarter-century later, Niobe knew herself to be lined and dumpy; she hadn't seen any reason to maintain herself, the last two years especially. Lisa had remained exactly as she had been. What a terrible scourge mortal aging was!
"If your question is whether the—unnamed one—has been interfering in my life since I turned mortal, I'm not sure. I can think of only one instance, when I took my girls to—"
"No, no," Lisa said quickly. "Not a question. I—I have been selected to ask you this, because I am the only one of us who has met you. Lachesis and Atropos have changed—"
"Terms are getting shorter these days!" Niobe remarked. "I was an Aspect for thirty-eight years!"
"Yes, you were one of the great ones, and you dealt well with—the anonymous. I—we—had a difficult time. He twisted the threads without license, he confused us—"
"He does that," Niobe agreed. "If I was proof against him later, it was because I had some hard lessons early! I'm sure I was no better than—"
"Yes, you have had much experience. More than any other mortal. That is why we must ask this thing of you."
This sounded serious! "Exactly what is this thing?"
"You must come back."
"What?"
"To be an Aspect of Fate. We need you again."
Niobe was so surprised she stuttered. "To—to be—I, I—Lisa, I'm forty-eight years old, in mortal terms! Only a young woman can—"
Lisa shook her head. "Not to be Clotho. To be Lachesis. That is the key Aspect—the one who governs the Tapestry."
Lachesis—of course. Niobe was now middle-aged in body, and looked it. Lachesis was the middle-aged Aspect. Yet—
"Lisa, I never dreamed—it's never been done before! Once an Aspect returns to mortality—once any Incarnation leaves the office—"
"True. That is one reason we believe it must be done this time. The unnamed will never suspect."
To fool Satan. That was one way to do it, certainly! "Lisa, I'm flattered that you should think of me for this! But I've had my turn at immortality, and don't really deserve—"
"It is much to ask of you, we know," Lisa said hurriedly. "But you are the only one who can do it. Otherwise—"
"Now wait. Lisa! New women come into the office all the time! Everyone leams on the job, and Fate is more fortunate than the other Incarnations, because there are always two experienced Aspects to guide the new one. So you certainly don't have to—"
"Please," the woman said. "Perhaps I do not make myself clear. I could speak better in my native tongue—"
"You are speaking perfectly! I'm just trying to say—"
"Please, I must explain. We—we must depart our Aspects—all together."
"All at once? That's impossible! There would be no—"
"Yes, we think the unnamed has arranged it. There has been much trouble, and your son's child Luna is central. All of us have had to help intervene to save her. He tried to make her die, but Thanatos would not permit it—"
Something clicked in Niobe's mind. "That period last year, when people mysteriously stopped dying—?"
"Yes. Thanatos stopped taking souls so he would not have to take hers, because he loves her. Finally he faced the unnamed down. Luna was spared, and Thanatos went back to work. We—Lachesis arranged to select him for the office, so that would happen."
"You interfered in the selection of another Incarnation?" Niobe asked, horrified.
"We—it was necessary. This is—we think it is the major battle of the war. I do not like war." Lisa paused, and Niobe knew she was remembering Budapest. "But when the tyranny of Evil advances, it must be fought by whatever means. The battles are terrible, but... "
Now Niobe saw the tangle of the skein. Her granddaughter was indeed standing athwart it—and the reason for her astonishing association with Thanatos was apparent. Only Thanatos could stop a person from dying, once that thread had been cut. Still—!
"How did you know about the plot against Luna?"
"The Magician, her father, he knew. He studied magic all his life and knew of a prophecy that the unnamed intended to void. The Magician planned everything and gave up his life to introduce Luna to Thanatos in a manner that would deceive the—"
"So that's why he died young! They never told me!"
"They could not, lady. No one could know until it was done. The Magician knew he had to protect his daughter beyond his own time, for the fate of mankind depends on her."
"So little I knew!" Niobe lamented. "I thought he was burying himself in magic just for—for a hobby. Or business. But he must have understood the prophecy far better than—"
"Yes. Then there was something strange. We think Chronos was involved, and that he stopped the unnamed from doing something else, but he won't say. He knows the future, but if he said, it would change, so—"
"So the Incarnations are all involved in—in a major engagement," Niobe concluded.
"A twenty-year engagement," Lisa agreed. "The unnamed means to take political power on Earth. His agents are at work in every nation, but America is difficult because its politics are so chaotic anyway. If he prevails there, the rest will fall in line, he believes, because of the economic leverage. So he must be stopped there, and Luna will cast the key vote against him—if she survives."
"And she wanted to be an artist!" Niobe exclaimed.
"Now we believe that we, the three Aspects of Fate, are at the center," Lisa continued. "The unnamed means to be rid of Luna, and we know that—"
"That I would give my life, happiness, and honor to protect her!" Niobe finished. "Of course I will do it— will become the Aspect of Lachesis—if that's what it takes! But I never performed in that Aspect before, and— what's this business about all three of you changing together? If the unnamed is pressing you as you suggest, that would be absolute folly! Three novices together—"
"Yes. Folly. That is why we come to you. You have experience—"
"That part I see! But you other two would have to remain, at least for a year or two—"
"We cannot," Lisa said. "We must change now—this week."
"That's preposterous, girl! You know what's at stake!"
"We know. But we have opportunities that come only once in a lifetime, if ever. We cannot turn those down, any more than you could have turned down your second love. The chance to have your daughter—"
Niobe held up her hand. "You make your point. We are all frail human creatures! Yet if you know, or suspect, that these opportunities have been arranged by—"
"He has, as you say, sweetened the pot to the point where we cannot desist. But it is more than that. You see, we do not know what he plans—and if we retain our Aspects, he will know we cannot be fooled, and he will do something else. Something we perhaps cannot prevent. So this trap of his—we decided it was better to fall into it—"
"With one experienced Aspect he doesn't know about!" Niobe concluded. "To spring his trap—and destroy it!"
Lisa smiled. "I knew you would understand."
Niobe mulled it over. She had sworn to have her reckoning with Satan for Cedric's death, but somehow she had never had a satisfying denouement. She had told herself that just doing her job, as an Aspect of Fate, had been sufficient, and seeing to the upbringing of Luna and Orb was sufficient, since they were integral to the foiling of the Prince of Evil. But how much better it would be to foil Satan directly, personally!
Her mortal life was over anyway. She had nothing left to live for. It was really no contest. "I'll do it."
Lisa smiled. "We're so pleased. We know you will do what has to be done. We know that our mortal situations will be protected from evil, with you in charge." She extended her hand.
Niobe was taken aback. "Wait! I didn't mean right this instant! I have to put my mortal affairs in order—"
"Lachesis will do that for you," Lisa assured her. "Before she moves on to her own situation."
Surely she could trust an Aspect of Fate to know the importance of the proper disposition of Earthly affairs! Especially when it was vital that Satan not know of the change.
Niobe took Lisa's hand. There was the odd jolt she had experienced twice before.
Then she was inside Lisa, looking out out through her eyes. A nondescript middle-aged woman stood before her: the old Lachesis.
Good-bye, mortal situation! Niobe thought with abrupt nostalgia. No life was easy to leave, even a completed one.
"Take the body," Lisa said, and turned it over to her.
Niobe stood again in her own form, in different flesh. Her original flesh had been lost when she had become Clotho, so long ago, and when she had returned to mortality she had taken Lisa's flesh. Her pattern, even to the genes of reproduction, had carried across. Now that flesh was subject to the will and image of the prior Lachesis. Surely Lisa, too, felt nostalgia, knowing that the flesh that had been hers had just passed to a third identity. It was a familiar yet strange business.
Niobe shook hands with the woman who had been Lachesis. "I think you already know anything I would say. Go to your situation and be happy."
"I can never thank you enough—Lachesis," the woman said. "Do you know what mortality offers for me now?"
"It's really not my business—"
"A title," the woman exclaimed. "I am in a position to inherit a title and a grand estate in Europe, and be a lady of quality with servants and functions and responsibilities. I always longed for this and feared it could never come about. As Lachesis I indulged my propensity for managing things—"
"That's a quality of those suitable for that Aspect," Niobe agreed.
"But now it can be real. I mean, mortal. And the estate needs me; without a person of the blood, it will fall prey to greedy distant claimants and taxes—it would be destroyed. But now it has come to me, if I claim it in time, and I know so well how to manage it! If I die of some disfiguring disease within twenty years, still I shall be well satisfied!"
Obviously so. Different folk had different dreams, and the right dream was worth one's life. "Bless you, and prosper," Niobe told her warmly.
"Bless you, wonderful woman!" the other responded. Niobe returned the body to Lisa so that she and Atropos could bid farewell to their companion. It was strange, sharing Fate with the woman who had succeeded her as Clotho, but evidently she had chosen correctly, on that day a quarter-century ago. Lisa had done the job.
When the other two were done, they changed to spider form and slid up the web to Purgatory. How quickly it all came back! Niobe did not for a moment regret her second tenure as a mortal, and she felt a lingering pang for that suddenly lost life—but she also felt an abiding joy for her return as an Incarnation. To be an Immortal—there was no mortal experience to match it!
The Abode was unchanged: a cocoon, a house made of silk, the most comfortable retreat for the spinner and handler of threads. Still there was no staff, for the three women of Fate remained too independent to be waited on. There was a reasonable supply of Void-substance for Clotho. Everything was in order.
"Now it is my turn," Lisa said, and started out again.
"Already?" Niobe asked. "But we just got here!"
"Yes—to be sure you had your bearings. As you can see, I have arranged things for my replacement; it will be a fortnight before she has to visit the Void." She paused. "What an experience, that first time!"
Niobe shrugged, mentally. It was essentially the business of each Aspect to choose her successor, and the time other own return to mortality. Niobe had become Clotho, in large part, because the prior Clotho had liked her, and now was Lachesis because the three Aspects had agreed she was needed. She would go along with what had been decided.
Clotho descended a thread toward the western coast of America. "To what situation are you going?" Niobe asked.
"True love," Lisa answered raptly. "One day last month I was hiking in the mountains when a young man floated down on a flying carpet to ask directions. He had an accent I recognized. 'You're from Hungary!' I cried. He was taken aback. 'My parents were,' he said. 'My mother was carrying me when they fled during the—' and he shrugged, for in America few understand how it was in Budapest. 'I'm from there too,' I told him, and I spoke to him in our language. 'Wait!' he cried. 'I am not good at it! All my life has been here.' But he understood enough. Now he wants to marry me. He understands about how I am, almost twice his age. We did not tell his mother about that—she would not understand—so I told her my own mother had told me how it was with her when she fled, and then I told her in our tongue my own experience as if it were my mother's—and I think it could have been my mother's, if she hadn't died in the invasion of our homeland—and his mother cried with the memories, and she reminded me so much of mine, I cried too! I think she wants me to marry her son twice as much as he does! I will move in with them, and I know I will never have trouble with my in-laws!"
Niobe hated to raise the question, but felt she had to. "Yet you believe this is the work of—of the anonymous one—to get you out of the way?"
"Yes. Lachesis—the one before you—verified how that one had nudged that thread to place him flying where I was hiking, so we would meet. So little a thing—but though there was manipulation, the person is genuine. There is no great evil in him. The unnamed knows I would not take an evil man. An Aspect of Fate cannot be deceived by fool's gold! So the intent may be evil, but the offering is good. It is not for me the evil is intended, but for you."
Yes, surely so. The ways of Satan were devious but effective. But maybe this time the Father of Lies would find himself outmaneuvered, for the Incarnation of Fate was no innocent mortal to be fooled by manipulations of chance. Especially not with a former Aspect returning, with her firsthand knowledge of Satan's ways. You have a surprise coming, O Evil One! she thought.
They came to ground in an unsettled area. A young woman was walking at dusk toward the high cliff that descended to the crashing sea. She was Oriental and quite pretty.
Lisa intercepted her. "Where do you go, solitary maiden?"
"What does it matter? My life is over."
"But you are young and pretty and intelligent," Lisa protested. "You have much to live for!" Obviously Fate had researched this woman's thread.
"No, I have nothing to live for," the girl demurred. "My family has cast me out for not following the old ways, for being too willful and violent, and now I have no family."
Niobe knew that the Oriental cultures could be very strict about their traditions, and that there were sometimes conflicts with the ways of the Occidental world. The girl had probably refused to marry the man the family had chosen for her. Niobe could understand, even though her own arranged marriage had been a good one. She disliked admitting it, but parental judgment did seem to be as good as that of the participants. But America touted itself as the land of the free, and it had become unacceptable for girls to heed the judgment of their elders. There was more to tragedy than lost romance.
Amen! Atropos agreed.
"And now you are ready to depart this world?" Lisa asked.
The girl glanced at the cliff. A gust of sea breeze ruffled her black hair. "If I have the courage."
"I have an alternative." And Lisa explained about Fate and the role of Clotho.
It took the young woman a while to grasp it, understandably, but when she peered over the dark and savage ocean, she decided that this was a better alternative. Atropos took over the body, extended her hand, and it was done. Clotho had changed.
Lisa now stood in her physical form, just like herself; all traces of Oriental heritage had vanished. Niobe had never quite understood the magic that did this, but of course that wasn't necessary. Welcome, Clotho, she thought, and the process of education began.
They returned to the Abode and relaxed for a few hours. Niobe, as Lachesis, took over the body and contemplated the Tapestry, while Atropos continued to explain things internally to Clotho. The prior Lachesis had left the Tapestry in good order, considering the troubled times, so there was nothing urgent to do at the moment. Niobe had seen the job performed during her prior tenure as an Aspect, but now the responsibility was hers, and that was different. She hoped Satan would leave them alone for a few weeks while she got into it—and knew he wouldn't.
Next day it was Atropos' turn. There had been an accident, and her mortal great-grandchildren had become orphans. They would become wards of the state and be assigned to separate foster homes unless she, their only remaining blood relative, assumed control. They were eleven and nine years old; Atropos believed she had enough mortal years left in her to get the older one to the age of discretion before she died. She had to do it; they were her blood kin. Satan did not seem to have arranged this; rather, he had foreseen the opportunity and arranged for the other two Aspects to leave at the same time Atropos did. If Lachesis had not caught the hint in the Tapestry, Satan's ploy would have been effective. As it was, no easy time was coming, Niobe was sure, but at least they had a chance to win.
Atropos slid down a thread to the one she had selected. This brought her to a slum area where an old black woman sat in her rocking chair on a rickety porch, watching children play handball in the street. She looked up as Atropos appeared before her. "'Bout time you got here," she remarked.
Even Atropos was taken aback by this. "You know me?"
"I know you. I was expecting Death, though, not Fate."
"I have come to ask you to take my place. If you do, you will meet Death only as a business associate."
"I thought he already was. I've buried more kin than I can count on my hands." She held up her gnarled spread fingers.
"If you take this office, you will cut the threads on the lives of a million times that number."
"Somebody's got to do it."
Atropos turned the body over to Niobe. "Then take my hand," Niobe said. "But do not think the job is always easy."
The old woman hardly blinked. "No job worth doing is." She took the hand.
Then the old Atropos was sitting in the rocker, and the new one was with Fate.
At that point a child dashed up. "Grandma! I made a score!" Then, seeing a stranger in the chair, he skidded to a halt.
Niobe gave the body to the new Atropos. "It's okay, Jimmy," she said. "She's just visiting."
"Oh." Suddenly shy, the boy backed away.
"Jimmy, it's time for me to go away," the new Atropos said. "You do me a big favor, now, and show this lady to the bus stop. Tell the folks I'm gone."
"Gone where?"
"Just gone. Jimmy. They'll understand."
"Okay." The boy, given an important job to do, led the old Atropos away down the street.
Niobe took over the body again, changed to spider form, and mounted a thread. Now that's some trick! the new Atropos thought. I always squish bugs.
"Not anymore," Niobe said in her spider's voice. "You will master this trick too."
She brought them to the Abode and resumed her human form. "In fact, we had better practice the basic motions right now," she said. "Because things may get hectic soon."
Hectic? both others inquired.
Quickly Niobe explained how Satan had conspired to get three new Aspects of Fate together. "Now I am a retread," she concluded. "I had several decades experience as Clotho, ending twenty-five years ago. We hope Satan doesn't know that." She felt free to name the Prince of Evil, here in the Abode, because it was secure from uninvited intrusion. Each Incarnation was supreme within his or her home. "So we can afford to fumble about at first; that will reassure him, and he may be careless. But we have to take care that we don't do too much damage. These are human lives we are manipulating, remember."
They practiced using the mouth to speak, assuming the spider form, climbing the web, and using the travelthreads to move about rapidly, so that any of the three could get about well enough. Then Niobe explained the three jobs: how Clotho spun the threads of life, Lachesis measured them, and Atropos cut them to their lengths. "I hardly know my own job," she confessed. "So I really am learning too. I'm likely to mismeasure the lengths I need for particular parts of the Tapestry, which will result in some of what the mortals take to be odd coincidences. We won't have to pretend, to make thinks look awkward."
"But we could use a real bad blunder to start off," Atropos concluded. She seemed to have a ready grasp of the essentials; the prior Atropos had chosen well.
Clotho tried some spinning. She had no mortal experience at this, so was clumsy. She had been selected as much for availability and militant spirit as for dexterity, for the notice had been short. Niobe had to guide her carefully, and even so, the thread was somewhat loose and irregular. But she could do it, however slowly.
Now it was Atropos' turn to try some cutting. Niobe measured a thread, then turned the body over to the old woman. Atropos took the little scissors and snipped one end, then the other. "Oops," she said. "I cut it too long!" She cut a small bit off the end. "There—that's about right, now."
They prepared about twenty threads, snipping freely to trim them down to size. "When we get more experienced," Niobe said as she took them to the Tapestry for placement, "we'll do them wholesale. There are far too many lives on Earth for us to handle individually." She set the threads in—and they fell out.
That was funny. "They always seemed to grow right in place for the Lachesis I knew in the old days." She recovered a thread and set it in place again—and it fell out again. "I don't remember her having to tie them in."
"Maybe I spun them wrong," Clotho said nervously. "I don't think so. But we can try some new ones." Clotho spun some more, and Niobe measured, and Atropos snipped, still having trouble getting the lengths exactly right; more snippets fell to the floor. But the new threads also refused to stay in place.
They couldn't figure out what was wrong. The floor of the Abode was littered with snippets, but no threads had been successfully emplaced in the Tapestry.
There was a peremptory knock on the door. Niobe took the body and went to answer it.
Thanatos stood there, more forbidding in his hooded cloak and skull than she recalled him. The off-white bones of his fingers clenched spasmodically. Truly, he was Death Incarnate. "What are you up to?" he demanded.
Niobe was taken aback. "I'm just trying to do my job," she said.
Thanatos' square and bony eye-sockets stared darkly at her. "You have changed."
"We have all changed," Niobe said, and had Clotho and Atropos show their forms briefly. "But we're having some trouble—"
"Trouble!" Thanatos exclaimed, striding into the Abode. Beyond him, outside, Niobe saw his fine pale horse, the one she had ridden on, back at the outset. "Twenty-six babies needlessly dead!"
"Babies—dead?" Niobe asked. "I haven't emplaced any threads, let alone cut them short!"
"No? What do you think these are?" Thanatos demanded, stooping to pick up a handful of snippets. He was angry, and he frightened her even though she knew he was no threat to her.
"Just the trimmings—"
"Trimmings!" Thanatos roared. "You don't trim lives from the front ends!"
Niobe fell back against the silken wall, stunned. "The—the front ends?"
Thanatos held up one of the full-length threads. "Here is a Thread of Life," he said scathingly. "Here is the front, here the rear. When you cut off a segment from the rear—" he made a snipping motion with two bone-fingers—"you shorten that life by that amount. When you cut it off at the front, you shorten that life by this amount." And he dropped the whole thread to the floor.
"Leaving only this." He held up two fingers, almost touching each other.
"Oh, no!" Niobe exclaimed with horror. "We cut them off after days—or hours!"
"And twenty-six babies died, poisoned in the hospital," Thanatos continued grimly. "Because a dietician got the wrong container and put salt in their formulas instead of sugar! The mortals think that's a tragic accident, but I knew it was your handiwork. I had to take those babies!" His fury fairly shook the Abode.
Niobe burst into tears. She was middle-aged, but it made no difference. She was too appalled to react any other way.
It was Atropos who took over the body and the situation. "Don't chew her out, Death," she snapped, "I did it, and I'm mortified. I didn't know—and I sure as hell won't do it again!"
Thanatos looked at her, their situation registering. "All three—new?" he asked. "No experience?"
"Not exactly," Atropos began.
Don't tell him! Niobe urged. If he knows, Satan will know!
"But all three of us have changed in the last few days," Atropos said. "And as you can plainly see, not one of us is experienced in her role."
"How could all three of you change at once?" Thanatos asked. "You lose your continuity!"
"Now he tells us," Atropos said. "This morning I was sitting in my rocker, waiting for you to come haul my soul away. Now I'm apologizing to you for messing up."
Thanatos relaxed. "I was new, too, last year, and your forerunners helped me greatly. I know how it is; I made mistakes too. I'm sorry I ranted at you. Let's see if we can work this out." He sat on the silk couch and drew back his hood. The face of a rather ordinary young man emerged.
Atropos did a double take. "You're a living man!"
Thanatos smiled. "They didn't tell you? I suppose they didn't think of it, with all of you changing so rapidly. Yes, all the Incarnations are living people, frozen at the ages when they assumed their offices. We are the temporary Immortals."
"You mean I won't grow older?"
"Not until you return to mortality—which you will do only by your own choice, unlike me."
"You're different?" There was a lot Niobe had not yet told the other two, owing to the press of time. She kept quiet; this was actually convenient, as she did not have to finesse any questions about herself.
"I continue until my successor kills me. Then he will assume my office."
"But then you're not immortal!"
"Oh, I am immortal—until I grow careless. No person or creature can harm me, not even Satan himself, as long as I am careful. The only one who can kill me is my successor—and even he will fail unless I let him. My cloak is invulnerable to natural attack, and my person to supernatural menace. But I cannot step down alive, unlike you."
"That must be a horror!" Atropos exclaimed.
"No, it's all right. Much better than the suicide I contemplated as a mortal." At this Clotho perked up, mentally; she knew about that sort of thing.
"But isn't your life sterile?" Atropos asked. "No hell-raising, no gambling, no women?"
He laughed. "You don't think much of young men, do you!"
"I think a lot of them! I've known a few myself, when I was young and sexy. But I know their nature. A man without a woman is hell-bent for trouble."
Thanatos smiled. "Well, I have a woman. She's mortal, but she knows my nature. Her name is Luna Kaftan. I love her and I guarantee she will not die before her time. I can't marry her, because I have no legal mortal identity; I'm listed as deceased. But I'll always be with her."
Niobe was glad she didn't have the body now; she would have given herself away. She had forgotten, in these last few hours, that Luna had taken up with Thanatos! As a mortal, she had disapproved; now, suddenly, she approved. This seemed to be a fine young man, committed to his role. He could indeed protect Luna from death itself. That portion of the prophecy had turned out to be much more positive than anticipated.
But Atropos was learning rapidly. "Suppose I—I never would, mind you—suppose I cut your girl friend's thread short?"
Thanatos' hood was away from his head, but a shadow of the skull seemed to pass across his features, and his skin took on the hue of bone. He was, indeed. Death. "You did that once before—your prior person did. Satan had forced it. I refused to take her. You do not end the lives, you merely schedule them. Only when I take their souls do they actually die. As I took the souls of those twenty-six babies. I had to do it; their bodies were ravaged and they would have suffered had they lived, so I stood aside and let them drift to Heaven. But I am the one in charge of that, and by my decree a dying person can live indefinitely, regardless of his suffering. We Incarnations have to cooperate, or it becomes untenable."
Atropos nodded. "I thought it was something like that. We won't kill any more babies, that's for sure! Let's run through it now and make sure we've got it right."
Clotho took the body and spun more thread. Then Niobe measured it, and Atropos cut it carefully, only once at each end. Then Niobe took it to the Tapestry and laid it in the place where she knew it belonged.
This time it took. The thread anchored, and extended into the fuzzy future portion of the Tapestry.
"That's the way," Thanatos agreed. He drew his hood back into place. "I must go; I have business elsewhere. If you have doubts about anything, check with me or another Incarnation, and we'll try to help. Chronos, especially, must work with you closely; he lives backward, so he knows the future, not the past."
Thanatos departed, riding into the sky on his pale horse. The three Aspects of Fate collapsed onto the couch. That had been some session!
But Clotho had a question: if Chronos knew the future, wouldn't he know about Niobe's prior experience in office?
"Not if we don't tell him—some time in the future," Niobe said. "I think we had better just forget about my past and carry on in the present. But about Chronos— there may be something else you should know, Clotho."
"What's that?"
"He—in the past—he has been very close to us. Especially to Clotho."
"Friendship is good, isn't it?" the girl asked, perplexed.
"Lovers."
Clotho was silent. Niobe was not sure what was going through her mind, for the three did not share their thoughts when they chose not to.
"The way I see it," Atropos said, "this isn't our mortal body anymore. This body must have been through a lot we don't know about."
"Yes," Niobe agreed.
"So maybe it doesn't matter too much what we do with it, as long as we do our jobs right."
Still Clotho didn't comment. Niobe remembered how difficult this particular aspect of being an Aspect had been for her, at first. Well, an accommodation would be achieved, in time. Time? Chronos!
They fixed themselves a meal from the available supplies and lay down for a rest. Then they worked out a regular schedule of operations—which Aspect would take what shift, which would be backup, and which would sleep. The body itself was indefatigable; it needed neither rest nor sleep, but the minds within it did.
Fate, however tenuously, was back in business.
