With a Tangled Skein (15 page)

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 co-operate.

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.

GENEALOGY

Niobe's life as Clotho settled in comfortably enough, now that she had made the necessary emotional decisions. Each Aspect slept for six or eight hours, and they generally staggered these, so that at any given moment one Aspect would be dominant-would have the body-and another would be keeping her conscious company, while the third would be tuned out or asleep. For convenience they generally proceeded from sleep, to company, to dominant, so that an Aspect could be fully alert and ready the moment she took over the body. Thus Niobe, as Clotho, would sleep, then keep Atropos company for her shift, then assume the office while Atropos slept and Lachesis kept her company. Sometimes they varied it, and special circumstances caused them all to wake or sleep together, but normally the routine held.

Niobe liked the other two. They talked with each other a lot, comparing notes on experiences and feelings. The other two had eavesdropped on Niobe's first engagement with Chronos, for this was as novel to them as to her. They had indeed not conspired to put her in that position; they had not been having an affair with Chronos. Evidently he, in the progress of his life toward their past, had not been interested in the to-him new Clotho.

"But the body is only the body," Lachesis said philosophically, as Niobe spun her Thread of Life from the supply of yarn she had fetched from the Void. "You are young, you like to think that there is only one man for each woman and one woman for each man, but any combination can occur, and couple, and love. In this office we are forced to be less romantic and more pragmatic."

"Yes," Niobe agreed sadly. "And Chronos is a good person. But I'll always love Cedric."

"There is no love like the first," Lachesis agreed, taking over the lips again. "I remember mine ..." And she recounted her own first romance. It was not as immediate as Niobe's experience, but it had its own poignancy, and it did show that the older woman understood. Men tended to think in terms of the physical, while woman related to the social; men focused on bodies and action, while women focused on character and feeling. They agreed that woman's way was more sensible, but on occasion man's way had merit, and it was possible for the two to relate.

They learned each other's jobs, to a certain extent. Niobe normally slept while Lachesis measured the threads, but not always, and of course she was alert while Atropos cut them. The cutting was not merely at the terminal end; the threads had to be started, too. So after Lachesis had analyzed, measured, and marked each potential life, on the endless thread Clotho spun, Atropos would cut and place it. The beginning of a cut thread was the conception of a baby; it had to be tied in to the threads of its parents before moving out onto its own course in the Tapestry.

The physical, mental, and emotional qualities of a life were determined by heredity, provided by the parental tie-in, and its development was influenced considerably by environment. But its circumstance-the odd coincidences that governed every life-was arranged by Fate. Some excellently endowed lives were doomed to disappointment and failure, while some seemingly weak strands were destined for greatness.

Lachesis planned these threads with an eye to the esthetics of the larger picture. Some she regretted, as when a thread had to be measured short, meaning that a child would die. But it had to be done, for stresses in the fabric of the Tapestry could distort the whole, and lead to the damage of many more innocent threads unless the correction was made in the key region. It would not have been easy to explain to the average mortal why he should suffer, as the stresses were cumulative and subtle; indeed, there were generally several ways in which a given stress could be alleviated. But it was Lachesis' job to select a course and implement it, and this she did.

Cedric's early death had not really been Lachesis' doing. Satan had stretched the fabric in such a way that only the truncation of a specific thread would alleviate it-and Niobe had been that thread until Cedric abruptly switched places with her. Lachesis had had to mark it for elimination, and Atropos had had to cut it-but that had been in the nature of emergency surgery. They were still adjusting for the distortion in the fabric caused by that unscheduled removal; it tended to buckle, and several more distant threads had had to be cut short, and new ones added elsewhere. Now Niobe, tracing the pattern and grasping the stresses on it, understood how complex the matter of Fate was. Fate was not all-powerful or capricious; she merely had to accomplish a purpose that mortal man was not properly equipped to appreciate. It would make as much sense for an individual soldier in battle to break ranks and demand of the general why he should be subjected to this danger.

But Niobe was no longer a foot soldier. She had become an Aspect of an Incarnation. She was now in a position to grasp the larger picture-and to understand just what Satan had done to her. She still had a score to settle with him!

The problem was, she didn't see how. Satan had no Tapestry; she could not mess up his threads. She concluded that whatever it was that made Satan object to her presence as Clotho had not yet manifested and that she was on the way to gaining her satisfaction merely by retaining her office. Eventually her chance would come- and then she would take it with a will. Meanwhile, she just had to be patient.

In due course the routine became dull. Then the interactions with the other Incarnations, including Satan, became more interesting. Niobe did not love Chronos, but he was so grateful for the particular favors she rendered that it became a kind of pleasure for her. She did have to work with him quite a bit, or rather Lachesis did, for only Chronos could accurately locate the timing of the key events in each life-the kinks in each thread. The Tapestry would not be right if the threads were too loose or tight, or crossed each other in the wrong places. It was especially important that Atropos inform Chronos of the precise end of each thread, for Chronos programmed the watch that Thanatos carried. If Thanatos was not present for particular terminations-the souls in close balance between good and evil-those souls could escape and drift back to the Void, causing the whole effort to be wasted. No one approved of wasted lives.

But this, too, became dull. Therefore the Aspects of Fate were wont to visit the mortals directly when slacktime was available. They would merge anonymously with the throngs of people, and pretend to be going home from work, or taking a vacation, or performing some business. People tended not to perceive the Incarnations as such, and to forget them, so it was simple enough to do. Each Aspect had her favorite region of the mortal world to visit. It was a kind of holiday.

Lachesis liked to go to special restaurants and enjoy good meals. The Incarnations did have natural functions, including the need to eat. If they did not eat, they would not starve, because of their immortality, but they would become increasingly uncomfortable. They had everything provided in Purgatory, but there was something special about doing it among the mortals. The male Incarnations, Lachesis confided wickedly, sometimes indulged other appetites with mortal women, though they had to be careful not to change the lie of any particular thread.

An Incarnation could not sire a baby, because of the freeze on aging-a baby would never develop beyond the single-cell stage-but that was not the only way to affect a mortal. Once Mars had formed a relationship with a mortal Amazon-he had a weakness for violent women-and her thread had changed its course. This affair superseded one she would otherwise have had with a mortal man that would have generated offspring.

Lachesis had had to bail him out; she had measured that thread but found no way to attach it to start the baby. The necessary interaction had not taken place. She had spoken sharply to Mars about that, requiring him to break off the affair so that the natural order could reassert itself; then she had tied in the new thread a little farther down the line. Clotho had had to sweeten the pot for Mars until he found a new mortal to dally with. It was a private scandal.

Atropos preferred to go to orchestral recitals, operas, and plays. Indeed, she had a reserved box at one prominent playhouse. Niobe got to watch these too, and learned to enjoy them. In this manner she was able to acquire some culture. Once, however, a gentleman had challenged Atropos' credentials; it seemed they had not been able to verify her social credentials and suspected she was a commoner in disguise. At this point Niobe had taken over the body, smiled, and asked the man what he meant. He blinked, for she was young and beautiful instead of old and homely; he had apologized for the confusion and departed. Atropos resumed form and watched the opera in peace.

Niobe herself went to visit her son. At first she went as she was, but she soon realized that this could not continue. For one thing, she did not age; she was locked at the physical age of twenty-three, and before long this would be noticed. Also, she did not want Junior to be accustomed to her presence; it was better that he forget her and orient entirely on his new family. It would be easier on him, in the long run. And-it was evident that young Cousin Pacian was smitten by her. This sort of thing happened with adolescents; it was a liability of beauty. She deemed it best simply to absent herself.

Still, she wanted some personal interaction with her son. So she asked Atropos to pose as a grandmotherly friend who visited relatives in the area and liked children. Atropos, with Niobe's silent advice, cultivated the lad's acquaintance, and in time Pace, ever on guard for any threat to his little friend's welfare, came to accept her also. As the years passed, and Junior became an active child and Pace a tall and surprisingly handsome teenager, Atropos took them to light operas and plays of interest to all ages. Because Atropos had a wide knowledge of the form, she knew which ones were appropriate, and it worked nicely. Both boys enjoyed it, and Pace's parents looked with favor on it. Atropos herself found this to be a rewarding experience, so it was good all around.

But there was one experience that shook them all. It happened when Junior was six years old and Pace eighteen. It was the day of the annual fair, and everyone went-but the old folks soon got separated from the young folks in the press of the throng. Atropos counted as a young folk; Pace hardly needed supervision, but little Junior did, and anyway they had long been a threesome for such jaunts. They cruised the fair, trying the games of pseudo-skill, eating candy, and riding the small captive sphinx.

They watched a magic show that was somewhat faked up to make the magic appear more impressive that it was, and sat through two choruses of the Nymph-vs.Satyr dance. But though it was suggestive, it wasn't potent; the participants were authentic, but in the course of a dozen shows a day they lost their ardor. Nevertheless, little Junior's eyes almost bugged; he wasn't supposed to be in here, but enforcement was lax and he had promised not to tell the folks. Niobe herself had grave reservations, but Atropos had pooh-poohed them: "The lad's interested in magic, and this is an aspect of magic. It isn't as if he's never seen a nymph before." Of course that was true, because of the hamadryad of the water oak.