With a Tangled Skein (20 page)

Niobe entered the chamber, hesitated, turned-and Self Three waved her on. So she walked to the center, where the child stood with the other woman. "Hello," she said.

",olleH" Self Two replied.

Then Self Two suddenly stepped backward into Niobe. There was a mild jolt, and Niobe stumbled forward.

"Hello," Niobe said.

",olleH" the other replied. But the other was backing away.

"I guess you know I reversed you, Obe," the child said.

Startled, she looked at him. He was about eight years old, with tousled sunbleached hair and eyes as blue as her own. He was indeed Chronos, for he carried the glowing Hourglass.

"Yes," she agreed. "You-want company. For-the change."

"I've never died before," he confided. "I just didn't want to do it alone."

Niobe glanced about, seeing Self Three escorting Self One out-or rather in, as they were moving backward. She was Self Two, now. She had exchanged greetings with her other self, coming and going. To each, it had seemed that the other had spoken second, because of the reversed perspective. Now she had another job to do. "It's not death," she said reassuringly.

"It's the same thing, for me," he said. "I'll be in Heaven-or Hell."

Niobe shifted to Lachesis, who checked her threads. His was obscurely looped back on itself, but seemed otherwise unsullied. "Heaven, I'm sure." She changed back.

There were two chairs by the wall. "I hope," he said as they sat. "I know I shouldn't worry, but I'm just a kid. I'm scared!" Then his eyes brimmed over, and he was crying.

Niobe reached across and pulled him in to her bosom. She had never in her life been able to resist a person who required comforting, and she understood tears about as well as anyone could. "Of course you are, dear, of course you are!" she said soothingly. "Not one of us is sanguine about-that."

Soon his tears abated, but she continued to hold him, much as she had held his successor. There were times when men of any age needed the special favor of a woman's embrace. It was too bad that people of either sex tended to confuse this with sex.

"You know, Obe," he said, "when you came in, three years ago I guess it was, maybe two, I was mad; I liked Lisa. But when I got to know you, I liked you even better. You're prettier."

Lisa, evidently, was her successor-two or three years hence. Niobe stifled her shock. She had had no idea her own term was ending. "Beauty is no indication of merit," she said. "I'm sure Lisa was a fine woman."

"Oh, sure. And when she got mad at me, she'd tease me with that gibberish language others. But you-"

Niobe changed the subject. "How did you come to be Chronos?" she asked, glancing at the glowing Hourglass which floated before them. He had set it there when he started crying, and it remained.

"Oh, you know." He straightened up, shrugging.

"I don't know," she reminded him. "I wasn't there, remember? Lisa was."

"Oh, yeah. Well, the Glass was going to be changed, but the guy coming for it chickened out." He smiled toothily. "He saw it, and he ran! He just got the hoorah out of there. I was playing in the park, and I just knew someone had to take it, so I just stepped up and grabbed. I was too young to know any better. And here I am, eight years after. Before, I mean."

"I'm surprised you were able to handle the job," she murmured.

"Aw, Maw Cheese showed me how. I got the hang."

"Maw Cheese?"

"You know, Obe. Your middle third."

Oh. Lachesis. The accent was properly on the first syllable, and the ch was hard: LAK-e-sis. But obviously the child didn't take names seriously. Maw Cheese! Lachesis snorted mentally. This whipper-snapper-

"But I always liked you best, Obe, after Lisa went, though Atta-pose is okay too. If I coulda growed up, I'da married you."

"Immortality does have its liabilities," Niobe said, smiling.

And so they talked, and Chronos was comforted, and as the hour ended he was ready for the Afterlife. In the final minute he lifted the Hourglass, and Niobe bent to kiss him, and backed off. As the Hourglass was taken by the shadowy other Chronos, the spell of reversal left her, and she moved toward again.

Quickly she intercepted the confused Self One. "Come with me, Niobe, I'll explain." She led the woman' out before their presence could interfere with the backward dialogue of Self Two and the juvenile Chronos. "I am yourself, two hours later," she explained, and went on to clarify the situation. Her prior self was duly impressed. It was fun, now that she knew what she was doing.

In due course she guided her other self back into the chamber, and waved her on when she hesitated. She watched as Self One and Self Two merged-and suddenly they were both gone. There was only the child Chronos, waiting nervously for his company.

How had he known she would come to him am to be reversed for that hour? Obviously she had to she would do it when the time came. Nevertheless a good thing that Chronos was immune to parade

She departed quietly. She had had enough of this it was time to get back to her regular business.

One thing stayed in her mind, though. Three or two-until she left her office! To be replaced by Lisa

SECOND LOVE

From time to time Niobe checked on her mortal family. The rawness of the tragedy of the wedding eased. Her son the Magician seemed to be quite happy with his bride Blenda. She was a schoolteacher, disdaining to exploit her beauty by going into show business. Blenda visited her father, Pacian, often, making sure he took care of himself during his bereavement. It was her bereavement too, but she used a spellstone her husband provided to damp its misery. This was not, Niobe knew, from any selfishness. It was simply that, with a husband and a father to attend to, and a class to teach, she could not afford to be incapacitated at this time. This was one of the benefits of modern magic; it did make it easier for people to survive such crises. Perhaps it was for similar reasons Blenda postponed starting her own family.

But Pacian was not doing as well. He refused to use magic to ameliorate his misery, and his suffering did not appear to ease with time. He maintained himself with solemn dignity, meeting his commitments, keeping up his health, but he seemed to be aging too rapidly.

Niobe was concerned. As the mother of the Magician whom Satan had sought to strike down, she felt a guilty responsibility for the tragedy of the wedding. Also, as an Aspect of Fate, she knew she should have been able to balk Satan more effectively than she had. So it was at least in part her fault. Pacian had been her son's best friend in youth, virtually his brother; it was not right to let him suffer.

She visited him in her own form and apologized. At first he hardly listened, but then he remembered. "You- you are the Magician's relative! The one who posed with my daughter."

Niobe wrestled briefly with her sense of propriety and decided it didn't matter. "I am related to the Magician," she reminded him. "Closely."

"He has no little sister," he said. "I am his only cousin, once-removed, so you cannot be related that way. Yet you are strangely familiar. Exactly how are you related?"

She delayed a moment more, hesitating before the plunge. "You have met me before."

"I'm sure I have-or someone like you. It nags me every time I see you! But I can't place the connection."

"Certainly you can. I am the Magician's mother."

He laughed. "Sure, and you're sixty years old!"

"Closer to sixty-two."

"I knew his mother when I was a boy. She was the prettiest woman extant! But after she left Junior with us, she visited for a while, then disappeared. She had some kind of important job that took all her time. I think she just couldn't stand to stay around where cousin Cedric had died." Suddenly his animation deflated. "I know the feeling."

"I am Niobe Kaftan," she said firmly. "What you say is true; I could not remain. I loved my baby son, but I knew I could not raise him as well as your family could, so I gave him up. I have never truly regretted that decision; your folks did a fine job with him-and with you."

"He was always a good boy," he agreed. "I was so pleased when he took an interest in my daughter. Of course they are second cousins, but it reunified a family that had been drifting apart." Then he refocused on her. "The irony is that you do resemble her. But you are no older than my daughter."

"I never aged, physically," Niobe explained. "I am still the physical age I was when you were twelve. When I kissed you and departed."

"That kiss ..." he murmured, remembering.

But he was still unable to accept it. Blenda, being younger, had readily acclimatized to the truth and kept her mouth shut, but Pacian at age fifty was too adult to swallow the impossible readily. "The Magician, perhaps, has a spell for eternal youth-but he has never used it, and certainly he did not have it in time for his mother's use."

"I became an Aspect of Fate," she said. "An Incarnation. They are physically frozen; they are Incarnations oflmmortality-forawhile. So, asClotho, I never aged."

He looked at her again. "You are beautiful," he said as if yielding a point. "Probably as lovely as she was. I had a crush on her-"

"I know."

He sighed. "Very well. I will entertain the notion that you are she, unaged. I'm sure the matter can be verified readily enough; the Magician will know."

"He does."

"But I require proof of my own. As I recall. Fate has three Aspects-"

"Yes. I assumed the Aspect of Atropos to continue visiting Junior-and you."

"Atropos?"

"The oldest Aspect of Fate. She-"

"You can change-just like that?"

"Yes."

"Do so."

She gave the body to Atropos.

Pacian shook his head. "No, you are not she."

"Of course I'm not," Atropos said. "The Atropos you knew retired to be with you and the boy until she died; I am her successor." She gave the body back to Niobe.

"And you were there, too, in the body-all the time?"

"Yes," Niobe said.

"There is something that happened-"

"The prophecy."

"Which I voided. I married Blanche. She was the finest woman-"

"But not the loveliest of her generation," Niobe finished.

"Correct. You were that."

She laughed. "So I have been told. And Blenda is the one of her generation. She honored the prophecy by marrying-"

She broke off, suddenly making a connection. She stared at Pacian. He stared back with similar astonishment.

Then he turned away. Niobe got up quickly and departed.

Back in her Purgatory Abode, Niobe tried to concentrate on her spinning, but the others wouldn't let her. "I wasn't there," Atropos said. "But what's wrong with Pacian?"

"He's my husband's cousin!" Niobe retorted.

"Your husband died almost forty years ago, didn't he?" Lachesis asked. "And Pacian's wife four years ago. You are both free, now."

"But we never thought of each other in that way!"

"But he had a crush-" Lachesis said.

"And you are the most beautiful-" Atropos put in.

"To Hell with the prophecy!" Niobe cried.

"That is what Satan would like," Lachesis said snidely.

"To Hell with Satan!"

"Exactly how did that prophecy go?"

"Each boy would possess the most beautiful woman of her generation," Niobe said, concentrating to remember it accurately.'' Each would bear a most talented daughter. One girl would love an Incarnation, and the other would become one. No, wait-there were two prophecies; I've got them mixed."

"That's all right," Lachesis said. "Remember all you can."

"Both would stand athwart the tangled skein," Niobe said.

"That's us!" Atropos said.

"One may marry Death, the other Evil," Niobe said, fishing another fillip from her memory. "One to be the savior of man-the daughter of the savior of deer. I think that's all of it."

"Then it's the Magician's daughter who will save man," Lachesis said.

"But he has no daughter," Atropos pointed out,

"And Pacian's daughter certainly didn't marry Thanatos or Satan!" Niobe said. "So it remains a mishmash; it doesn't-"

"Unless you marry Pacian," Lachesis said. "And give him another daughter."

"That's preposterous!"

"You are leaving us within a year," Atropos said. "That would be a fine way to do it."

"You damned matchmaker! I don't love Pacian!"

"Yet," both other Aspects said together with her mouth.

It was a month before Niobe could bring herself to face Pacian again. He looked at her with a certain resignation. "Prophecies are difficult to void," he said.

"And often not understood until too late," Niobe answered. It was a familiar dialogue.

"I want you to understand that I never-"

"Of course. I'm over sixty years old."

"And you look younger than my daughter. In addition, your love was Cedric, mine Blanche. I am sure you would not wish to be untrue to your love any more than I would to mine. So we really should dispense with this foolishness-"