And Eternity (23 page)

“You’re Luna’s father!” Jolie exclaimed. “You spent a lifetime opposing Satan, only to finish in Hell! What an irony!”

“I did what I had to do,” the Magician said. “Black magic is less limited than white magic, and the task was great, so I knowingly garnered evil on my soul in order to serve the greater good. I succeeded in guaranteeing the continued life of my daughter, so that she will be able to balk Satan’s final ploy of this sequence, and I am satisfied to pay the price.”

“But all that you did was for the cause of Good! To have you confined to Hell for that-”

“The end does not justify the means. I used unauthorized means. I do not protest my fate.”

“I think I’d better put Orlene on,” Jolie said. “She was left as a baby, to be adopted by others, and only after her death did she learn of her natural ancestry.” She turned the body over to Orlene.

“So you were left as a baby,” he remarked, interested. “So was I. It must run in the family.”

“Magician, if you are Luna’s father, what are you to me?” Orlene asked, flustered.

“I am in a manner your uncle,” he replied. “And Luna is in a manner your cousin, despite the differential in your ages. You see, your mother Orb and I had the same mother Niobe, who is now Lachesis, the central Aspect of Fate. Orb and Luna thought of each other as sisters or cousins, but they were of different generations. Orb’s parents were Luna’s grandparents: Niobe and Pacian. Certainly we are close kin.”

“Uncle,” Orlene said, fastening on that. “Then you will give me apt advice, though you are damned?”

“I will. What is it you intend to ask of Fate?”

“I need a thread of life, so that my baby’s Afterlife can be changed and he will no longer have his malaise.”

“You ask for a lot!” the Magician said. “She may be your grandmother, but she will not give you that without excellent reason. You will have to persuade her that it is somehow in me interest of the larger framework to do it.”

“But it is only in my personal interest!”

He frowned, thinking. “You ask for this, for your baby? I think she will understand that, having had to leave her own baby and then having seen her daughter leave her baby. You represent the third generation in the family with problems with babies. Perhaps she will be moved.” But he did not look confident.

“Thank you. Magician,” Orlene said.

“I am glad to have seen you, Orlene, however late.”

He clicked off.

The announcer reappeared. “There is an interesting development in the case of Orlene, who it seems is unashamed to contact Hell itself to-”

The screen went blank as Jolie took over the body. “Why don’t we retire now? We don’t need to sleep here, but we can if we choose, and I think it would help. We may have a big day tomorrow.”

The other two agreed.

They did sleep, unnecessary as it might be here, and were refreshed in the morning, pointless as that designation might be, here. Then they set out on foot for Fate’s Abode.

Jolie was familiar with it, of course, but it was new to the others. It was in the form of a huge spider web, with the residence fashioned like a cocoon of webbing.

“Fate is a triple entity,” Jolie reminded them. “I believe that Lachesis would not try to interfere with any person’s thread of life for purely personal reasons, and probably neither told the other Aspects which thread yours was nor paid any special attention to it herself. So the chances are that she won’t recognize either Orlene or Vita.’’

So do we make our identities clear at the outset, or wait?
Orlene asked.

“I’d better identify myself first, and explain why I’m in a living host,” Jolie said. “Then I’ll introduce the two of you and turn the body over to Orlene.”

They approached the structure, treading carefully on the huge web. Vita had nervous thoughts about big spiders, but Jolie reassured her: any spiders here were sure to be manifestations of Fate.

Jolie knocked on the web door. The surface yielded and sprang back as her knuckle touched it, but there was a sound, and in a moment the door was opened from inside.

A voluptuous black-haired girl stood there, her lustrous hair literally sparkling. “Oh, you’re not an Incarnation!” she exclaimed, surprised.

“No, I’m Jolie,” Jolie said. “In a mortal host. Hello, Clotho! Do you have time to-”

“Oh, Jolie! I didn’t recognize you, but now I do! No, actually this isn’t a good time; we have an emergency and are just about to go to the mortal realm.”

Jolie hadn’t anticipated this. Of course, she couldn’t interfere with the business of an Incarnation. Yet it was in her mind, and the minds of her companions, that after this interview they should return to the mortal realm, to eat and to assimilate what they had learned. It would be awkward to come here a second time. “Maybe if I state my business quickly?”

The woman blinked into middle age. “Jolie, we really are too pressed for courtesy at the moment. I am sorry.”

“I bring your granddaughter, Lachesis.”

The Incarnation did a double-take. “Oh, my! Very well, come inside while we prepare. We can talk while I orient on the appropriate threads.”

Jolie entered. The Abode inside was fashioned of web also, with floor, walls, ceiling and even furniture all of the grayish material. She turned the body over to Orlene.

“Hello, I am Orlene,” Orlene said awkwardly. “I lost my baby, and died, and now-”

Lachesis spun on her. “You what?”

“You didn’t know?” Orlene asked, taken aback. “I assumed I was only reminding you.”

“My dear, I know nothing of your activities. This is deliberate, so that I will not play favorites with mortal threads. I did know that Jolie was keeping track of you, and though she associates with Satan, she also associates with your mother, who likewise does not follow your activities. We have been satisfied that Jolie would notify us if something important came up in your case, and I assumed that this visit represented such a notification. But… you died?’

“Yes. When my baby died,
I-I
committed suicide. I realize I shouldn’t have, but-”

Lachesis plumped into a chair, appalled. “I hoped I had misheard or misunderstood. Where was Jolie while this was going on?”

“She was observing a candidate for a future Incarnation, and I was doing well, there was no indication, because it happened fairly quickly, and-”

“So now she brought you here, in an effort to make up for the oversight that allowed you to die?”

“I don’t blame her!” Orlene exclaimed. “I was responsible for what I did. Now she is helping me seek my baby, and I thank her for that.”

Lachesis paused, as if listening to an inner voice. Then she stood. “I can see this is going to be complicated, but we really are busy, and can’t take the time to investigate your thread. We shall simply have to take you along with us and discuss your situation as we go.” She made a curious motion with her hand, and a length of thread flung out, lassoing Orlene. “This will keep you close; don’t be concerned if strange things happen.”

“Oh, I have already seen some pretty strange-” Orlene started. But she broke off as Lachesis became a huge spider.

The spider jumped through the wall of the Abode, and Orlene followed, drawn by the thread. There was no jerk or vertigo, just an abrupt change of setting, as they passed through the wall without resistance and hovered over a giant tapestry in another chamber. The tapestry was fashioned of many thousands of brightly colored threads, and each of these followed its own course without regard to the patterning of the tapestry as a whole. Yet, overall, it was a marvelously unified construction, and beautiful in its variety and depth.

“This is the Tapestry of Life,” Lachesis explained.

“We are about to search out several particular threads, each of which represents the life of one mortal person.” They floated down-and instead of landing on the Tapestry, they approached it as if from an enormous distance, and it seemed to grow larger with changing perspective.

Awed by this vision, Orlene for the moment forgot her own quest. “If I may inquire-what is the emergency you are in? I thought Fate controlled the destiny of all things, so would be the last to suffer a problem.”

“True and false. We handle the lives of mortals, but we operate within a framework of rules that greatly limits our leeway. We must also be careful of the interactions within the Tapestry; if, for example, we carelessly remove one thread, that may affect others, which in turn affect others, in the end damaging the larger pattern and requiring spot correction. We also may be subject to the interference of Satan. We also on occasion do make errors-of which you may be an example. But this particular emergency relates to none of these. Atropos is retiring.”

“Your, one of your three components?” Orlene asked, surprised.

“Our eldest Aspect, yes. She who cuts the threads of life.” Lachesis was abruptly replaced by Atropos, a large grandmotherly black woman. “As Fate, we don’t play favorites,” Atropos said. “But we do watch. Lachesis refused to watch you, but I see it differently, and I watched my friends. Suddenly one is in trouble, because of a distant thread I had to cut, and I feel responsible. I can’t ethically help her as Fate, but I can step down and then help her all I want as a mortal, and that’s what I have to do. So there has to be a replacement for me. This business came up so quickly, I hadn’t lined up a successor, but if I don’t step down before today is out, it will be too late for my friend. So we’re in a real hurry.”

Orlene was coming to appreciate the fact that not even the powerful Incarnations had easy existences. Their responsibilities expanded with their powers, and the complexities of their Offices could lead to hectic moments.

The Tapestry of Life was looming closer. Now the individual strands looked like cables, stretching from horizon to horizon (though there wasn’t any horizon here), sometimes brushing by others, sometimes spanning regions alone. The network had looked flat from a distance, but now was clearly three dimensional, with many layers of threads, and the weave was increasingly intricate.

“Jolie might have a candidate,” Orlene suggested. “She has been observing prospects for Incarnations.”

“Any smart grandmothers who want to leave the mortal realm?” Atropos asked.

No
, Jolie thought.
Mine are all younger.

“No,” Orlene echoed.

“Well, we do have a couple of prospects,” Atropos said. “There’s a woman who has had an immense amount of life experience and we think could do an excellent job, if she wants to. We’re going to ask her now.”

They had reached the Tapestry of Life and were flying between the huge cables. They oriented on one that extended a long way back. It had been twined closely with several others, but those had terminated, and now it continued in isolation.

They flew right up to it, but as they came within touching range it changed, and became a woman, in a dusky room, sitting alone, crocheting.

Atropos came to stand before her. “May I talk to you, Mrs. Forester?” she inquired politely.

“Why not?” the woman replied. “I can’t see you well, but I can hear you. You’re supernatural, aren’t you?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Because you never came in the door. I never heard it open, or the floors creak. You coming to take me out of Mortality?”

“Maybe. Mrs. Forester, I am an Aspect of Fate. I cut the threads of life. I need to step down, and I would like you to take my place. I have observed you, and believe you are qualified to handle this Office.”

“You are the one who ends lives?”

“Who sets their limits, yes. It is, of course, not a casual decision; I spend as much time as I need to determine the appropriate point for each.”

“I can’t see well enough to read, which is why I’m not looking at a book now or watching a holo. How do you think I could see a life well enough to judge when it should be stopped?”

“You will assume a new body,” Atropos said. “Then you will be able to see perfectly. You will also be in perfect health and invulnerable to physical injury. You will be immortal, as long as you want to be. But you will be one of three, never alone, never completely in charge.”

Mrs. Forester sat for a while and thought about it. Finally she looked up. “I don’t want it.”

“Do you know that you do not have long to live, as you are? This would effectively extend your thread of life indefinitely.”

“I know it. But it’s my turn to go, and I’m ready for it. You have cut the lives of my husband and my children and my friends, so that now I am alone. All of them should have had more time to live. Maybe you had reason, but I know I don’t want to do that to anyone else. I’d rather just finish my term and rejoin my folks in Heaven. I will not serve as judge on any other person’s life.”

Atropos nodded. “Mrs. Forester, I thought you would feel that way. I am stepping down because I am needed in the mortal realm, and will not interfere with the lives of those who don’t deserve it, for my own personal reasons. I will not live long after I step down, but I will do what has to be done. I came to offer you this position because I knew you were competent and not power hungry. But it is true that Fate makes decisions on the lives and deaths of mortals, and you can not avoid these decisions if you assume the Office. I thank you for your time, and I respect your decision.”

Mrs. Forester picked up her crocheting. “Come and see me, when your business is done and you are mortal.”

“I will try to.” Atropos faded out.

Away from the thread, Atropos vented her spleen. “Damn it! Some of these white women have too much pride! It’s hard to get the best, because they aren’t moved by the idea of power or immortality.’’

They were moving through the cables, toward another prospect. Lachesis remanifested. “Why did you come to me now, Orlene?”

“When I met Thanatos, I prevailed on him to spare the life of a newborn baby. We took it to a hospital instead. Thanatos said you would have to adjust its thread. I-”

“I have already remeasured it,” Lachesis said. “Thanatos has compassion, and I would not second-guess it. I handled that the moment it occurred, without investigating the case, because I knew he would have reason.”