The Day Before Tomorrow (26 page)

‘Yes sir.’

‘Hmm,’ Crispin calmed down suddenly. ‘I wonder if … is it possible.  Even she wouldn’t do that, would she?’

‘Sir?’

‘Get me a communicator; we need to tell the top floor about this.’

‘Um, sir, we
are
the top floor.’

Crispin gave him a wry look.  ‘That’s what
you
think,’ he said.

* * *

The Fates were not easy to find. Tamar, remembering her mythology, knew that they were likely to be well guarded, by a giant spider woman, if memory served.  She decided not to impart this particular piece of information to Denny just yet, forgetting that he was considerably better informed on these matters than she was and probably already knew.  In fact, it was Denny who found them in the end.  A large cave entrance decorated with large cobwebs suggested itself. 

Denny inclined his head toward it. ‘In there?’ he muttered. 

Tamar shrugged wryly. She should have known.

‘Watch out for Arachne,’ said Denny. 

‘Thank you!’ breathed Tamar.  ‘That’s been driving me crazy –
Arachne
!’

‘Got any bug-bomb?’

Click, click, click.

‘Pardon?’

Click, click!  Clickclickclickclickclick!

‘Uh oh!’

Tamar turned in exasperation.  ‘Say “oh shit!” like a normal person will you!’

Clickclickclickclickclick!

‘Oh shit!  There, happy now?’

‘Uh oh.’

It was not exactly a spider.  Neither was it a woman, but the term “spider-woman” was not totally accurate either.  It was more of a woman-spider-scorpion.  Spider body, but with an outrageous sting at the back, woman’s head, but, on closer inspection – and only Tamar would have had the nerve at this point to make a closer inspection – the face was kind of spidery.  But the main point about her, the thing you really noticed, was that she was absolutely gargantuan.

Denny felt his knees actually knocking together. Nevertheless he whipped out the Athame.  ‘I’ll deal with this,’ he said, trying to hold his voice steady.  ‘You go and find the Fates.’

‘Oh?’ said Arachne, sarcastically.  ‘A hero!’

This was almost too much for Denny, if it had not been for his recent training, he would have cut and run.  Never, since he had met Tamar, had he felt so much like his old, frightened self. 

Arachne sighed.  ‘I’m getting too old for this,’ she said.

‘I know what you mean,’ said Tamar. 

‘I mean I’m not a monster, you know,’ whined Arachne.  ‘Just because I look – how I look.  Can I help it?’ she looked at Denny plaintively. 

‘Er…no?’

‘Right!  I mean
you
look like an upended broomstick,’ she said unflatteringly.  ‘S’not your fault though.  I don’t hold it against you.’ 

Tamar was starting to laugh.  Wasn’t it always the way?  You enter a scary cave expecting to do battle with a horrible monster and end up holding a counselling session.  She filed the broomstick remark away for future use. 

‘Oh well,’ sighed Arachne.  ‘Better get on with it, I suppose. What’s the password?’ 

This was unexpected.  Denny floundered.  ‘Swordfish?’ he hazarded and shut his eyes. 

‘Probably,’ said Arachne surprisingly.  ‘Sounds right, doesn’t it?  Sounds like a proper password to me.  Okay then that’ll do.’ She laughed at their stunned faces.  ‘I can’t remember what the password is,’ she confided.  ‘I’ve been here for a – a – well a very long time anyway. What do they think I am, an elephant?  I mean nobody’s ever challenged me before, not that I can remember anyway – so …’ she shrugged multiple shoulders expressively.

Tamar and Denny looked at each other in bewilderment. 

‘So … we can just go in?’ asked Denny.  ‘And you won’t – you won’t
…?’

‘Won’t what?’

‘Let’s go,’ said Tamar firmly, ‘before she changes her mind,’ she added
sotto voce
.  And she dragged Denny past Arachne into the inner cave. 

* * *

‘Where’d they go?’ asked Cindy bewilderedly. 

‘Into Hell of course,’ Death told her.

Stiles narrowed his eyes shrewdly. ‘To find the Fates,’ he said.  ‘And you know why, don’t you?  And you know something they don’t too, don’t you? Are you going to tell us or what?’

Death looked a little puzzled at Stiles’s dictatorial attitude.  He had never been subjected to a suspect interrogation before. Stiles only wanted a table to thump intimidatingly to be completely in his element.

‘I suppose they’ve gone to try and change Askphrit’s fate, like he did to us,’ mused Stiles.  ‘But it’s not that simple is it?’ he added challengingly.  ‘Why?  What’s going to happen?’

Death shook his head, but it was a gesture of sympathy rather than negation. 

Stiles was subtle; he recognised the difference and was alarmed.  ‘Tell us,’ he implored.  ‘What harm can it do now?’

‘They can only move him into another destiny which was already his,’ Death explained.  ‘And by doing so, they will alter their own fate – quite dramatically I’m afraid.  I can say no more.’

‘But – that can’t be right,’ objected Stiles.  ‘He invented a whole new fate for Tamar – didn’t he?  I mean, that whole thing about her being – normal, and only being twenty odd years old and all that, it’s impossible!  Unless …’  He stopped.  Death was shaking his head. 

‘I don’t get it,’ said Stiles.  ‘It’s impossible,’ he repeated stubbornly.  ‘She never could have had that fate.’

‘She could, if she chose it,’ said Death.

‘But she wouldn’t choose it,’ said Stiles. 

‘The possibility existed,’ said Death.

‘How?  Who would offer her such a choice?’

‘I did,’ said Death.

* * *

The Fates greeted Tamar and Denny equably enough.  ‘We have been expecting you,’ said Atropos, the eldest and the one who deals with the future. 

‘Of course you have,’ said Tamar impatiently.  ‘And I expect you know why I’m here.’

‘Of course.’

‘You destroyed us,’ said Clotho a little resentfully, she deals with the past.

‘You’re looking well,’ said Tamar brusquely. 

‘I see your point,’ said Clotho. 

‘And now to the present,’ said Lachesis.  ‘You wish us to find that fate where the Djinn Askphrit, did
not
find Pandora’s Box?’  

‘And combine it with all other of his destinies to make them as one,’ said Atropos.  ‘You wish for the Box to remain lost.’

Denny whistled through his teeth.  ‘Bloody hell, that’s clever,’ he muttered.  The Fates shared a strange smile between them.

‘Can you do it?’ asked Tamar.

Again, the Fates shared that strange smile.  They were beginning to get on Tamar’s nerves. Sooner or later, everybody got on Tamar’s nerves. 

‘Can you?’ she reiterated. 

‘We can, of course,’ said Clotho.  ‘But!  You must understand the consequences of your choice, before you make it.  Askphrit obtained the Box a long, long time ago.’

‘I thought you found it for him,’ said Denny.

‘That does not change the fact that he has had the Box in his possession for many thousands of years,’ said Clotho.  We are the Fates. Perhaps you do not understand our power.’ 

‘I understand,’ said Tamar.  ‘This changes things a bit.’

‘It does indeed,’ agreed Atropos. 

‘We will show you the destiny that you propose to harness all of his destinies to, and you will see all the ramifications thereof.  And then you will make your choice.’

* * *

Tamar was clearly in shock Denny could see that. 

‘As long as that?’ she whispered.  ‘He’s had it all that time?’

‘It was the only way for him to secure possession,’ said Clotho.  ‘Before the Box was lost forever you see.’

Tamar nodded miserably.  ‘I see.’  She was avoiding looking at Denny for some reason and this was making him nervous. 

‘And,’ she faltered, ‘this is the only way?’

The Fates nodded. 

‘I see,’ she said again, numbly.  ‘He was clever,’ she surmised.  ‘He was protecting himself against me doing this very thing.  How did he know?’  She laughed bitterly.  Of course,’ she said.  ‘
You
told him.  Well, he’s misjudged me,’ she said fiercely.  ‘If he thought that I wouldn’t pull his house down just because I’d have to pull down my own at the same time, he was wrong!’

She looked at the Fates, still avoiding Denny’s eye.  ‘But you knew that too, didn’t you?’ 

The Fates nodded. 

‘We surmised it, yes,’ said Lachesis. 

‘Okay,’ Tamar squared her shoulders.  ‘What do I have to do?’

‘Just pull the thread,’ said Atropos.

Tamar grasped the proffered thread in her hand and hesitated for a second. 

Now she looked at Denny.  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said and pulled.

* * *

Jamie faced his enemy, who was looking at him with an air of bewilderment. 

‘What are you?’ it asked. 

‘What you made me,’ said Jamie and pulled a dagger from his belt.  ‘But I can change that,’ 

‘I haven’t made anything,’ protested the creature.

‘Not yet,’ said Jamie, ‘and I aim to see that you never do.’

‘You can’t kill me with that.’  

‘Oh yes I can, one god can kill another you know.’

The creature hesitated.  It was the last thing it ever did, as Jamie, with a cold fury in his heart plunged the dagger into its breast, and Ran-Kur died instantly before he ever had a chance to create his race of vampires.  Thus did the prophecy made by Askphrit come true, and vampires become nothing more than a story to frighten children – and adults too, if they were of a susceptible nature.  Because everything that has ever existed or could possibly exist has to continue to exist somewhere, even if it is only in the mind.  And mainframe had another deleted file to clutter up its hard drive.

Two deleted files.  Jamie smiled contentedly as he ceased to exist.

~ Chapter Thirty ~

T
amaria sat under a tree, slipped off her sandals and dangled her feet in the cool water.  ‘Ahhh – OUCH!’  She jumped up.  Something extremely solid and heavy had crashed into her ankle. 

‘By Zeus!’  She cursed and then clapped her hand over her mouth and waited for the thunderbolt.  Her mother had warned her about blasphemy, ‘You can’t be too careful,’ she had said, ‘seems like there’s a god behind every tree these days.’

When nothing happened to her, she said it again. Then she bent over the water.  ‘Rather like Narcissus,’ she thought, although with, she had to admit, little chance of the same result.  Her own face having what is charitably called an “unfortunate aspect”.

She fished out what turned out to be a large, unusual looking bottle, (unusual to Tamaria that is).  In the Far East, where it had come from, it was a perfectly ordinary oil bottle such as you would find a dozen of in every household. 

To Tamaria, however, it was an intriguing curiosity.  She turned it over a few times, shook it and pulled out the cork.

A piece of parchment slid out as she tipped the bottle up.  Curiously Tamaria unrolled it and gasped with surprise as she read the words:

Tamaria of the house of Meneleus, greetings,

Go immediately to the Temple of Artemis.  There you will learn what is to your advantage.  Bring this bottle with you and come alone, do not be afraid. 

A friend.

And that was all. 

* * *

There was nothing on the TV, and Denny could not settle.  The bottle on the mantelpiece kept drawing his attention.  He wondered what was in it.  He tried to ignore it, it was just an old bottle, but he kept finding his eyes drawn to it.  It was making him fidgety.  Eventually he gave up.  He switched off the TV with a snarl and flung himself off the bed and grabbed the bottle intending to hurl it into the box it had come from, which he would then take out to the bin.  But when he had it in his hand, curiosity overcame him.  It was very heavy for such a small bottle.  It could not hurt just to have a look inside; maybe there was something valuable in it.  Its previous owner had been something of a kook in Denny’s opinion.  Anything was possible.  He pulled out the cork.

He was somewhat disappointed to find only a rolled up piece of paper, somehow he had been expecting – what?  He had a vague image in his mind of a lovely girl with a sharp tongue – obviously, he was going mad. 

This opinion was confirmed when he unrolled the paper and found that it was addressed to himself.

* * *

Tamaria’s curiosity was roused by the cryptic message, and she half suspected anyway, that one of her friends was behind it.  She had no notion of being afraid. She was, in fact, aware of a vague hope that the message sprung from a certain young man who had been paying her some attention lately.  After considering for only a few minutes, she put on her sandals and hurried off to the temple.

She was slightly disappointed to find only a small and rather old looking man waiting for her there. 

He hurried forward.  ‘Tamaria?’ he asked, somewhat doubtfully.

‘Yes.’

‘My goodness, what a plain mien,’ he exclaimed.  ‘No wonder you
… ahem I apologise.  Now to business.’

‘What do you want?’ asked Tamaria suspiciously.  She ignored the remark about her looks; she was used to that.  ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Clive,’ said the man.

‘Clive?’ said Tamar savouring the curious word.  ‘What a ridiculous name.  And what do you want with me – Clive?’  Tamaria had always been rude and she saw no reason to placate the little man, he had not been all that polite to her, after all.

‘Have you the bottle?’

Tamaria fished it out of her dress and looked expectantly at him. 

‘Good, good,’ he said.  ‘Now then, you are going to take a …’ he hesitated, ‘a fairly long trip up memory lane.  Are you ready?’

Tamaria tried this phrase in her head and frowned.  Although it was an unfamiliar saying to her, still she felt that there was something wrong with it. 

‘Shouldn’t that be “a trip
down
memory lane?’ she ventured after some thought.

Clive seemed delighted by the question.  ‘Ah,’ he said, happily, ‘you always were a sharp one, you.  A clever girl no matter what your faults.  You don’t miss much do you?’ he winked at her.  ‘And you’re right, yes.  But you see, yours is a rather unusual case,’ he said, suddenly serious.  ‘Your past, you see, lies in the future.’