With a Tangled Skein (11 page)

Wrong ticket? Why should she receive a ticket at all?

Who was Daphne Morgan? Had she received something intended for Niobe? From whom? Why? This seemed like total confusion.

Yet someone had prepared the envelope, and mailed it. It could not be a complete mistake.

She thought about it. She nodded. "Of course!"

She bid farewell to the hamadryad, explaining that she would be going away for a while and would not be able to bring Junior to the tree. The dryad didn't answer, but looked so sad that Niobe felt terrible. But this was a thing she had to do. "Maybe the family who will be keeping him-maybe they will bring him here," she said. "I'll ask them to."

The dryad smiled, and Niobe felt better. She turned Junior over to Cedric's cousin's family. She had taken a null-grief spell, but still it hurt. "Once before," she told them, "I boarded my baby with you, uncertain whether I would return. I am uncertain again. I have arranged for regular money to cover his expenses-'' She could not continue.

"He is kin," Pacian's father said gravely as his wife took Junior. That said it all for these good folk. The Kaftans would do anything for kin and do it generously, without asking any return. Niobe could tell by Junior's reaction to them that he had had loving care here. Wise indeed had Niobe's parents been when they had her marry into such a family.

Niobe felt her tears starting again. She kissed her baby farewell and kissed the good man and good woman, too, and Cousin Pace, who seemed stunned. At age twelve, he had never been kissed by a truly beautiful woman before. "There is a tree, a water oak near our cabin," she said. "If-well. Junior has befriended the hamadryad there, and-"

"We will take him there," Pacian said eagerly, and the others nodded.

Then Niobe turned quickly away and returned to her carriage.

She rode directly to the train station, bought a ticket, waited for the train's arrival, boarded, and settled into her seat. She was on her way. She sobbed silently into her hanky.

In due course she was at the port city of Dublin. She presented the ticket she had been sent, the one made out to Daphne Morgan, and it was honored without question. She was provided a first-class cabin, and her meals were covered. As Miss Morgan, she traveled in style. But what would happen when she arrived at Miss Morgan's destination?

The ship got up steam and set sail. As it got out on the larger swells of the open sea, the captain invoked the proper spells and the wind manifested and filled the sails. Some of the passengers turned greenish as the continual sway got to them and lost their appetite, but Niobe had sensibly brought along a spell against motion sickness and had no trouble.

There were men aboard, of several generations, who seemed to view her as approachable; she declined politely. "I am a recent widow," she explained-and then had to retreat to her cabin as the tears welled up again. 0 Cedric!

Thus it was that, five days into the voyage, she had not made any genuine acquaintances. She spent much of her time alone, reading. She missed her loom and her baby and she tried not to think about Cedric, without success.

She looked up from her book to discover a spider descending by its thread. It reached the floor, then shimmered and became a human woman. "Lachesis!" Niobe cried.

"Niobe, do you understand what we ask of you?" Lachesis asked.

"To become-part of you," she replied. "To be an Aspect of Fate. I am ready."

"But we must be sure you understand completely, for this is no simple thing. We are three, but we have only one body. If you join us, you will never be alone."

"I have lived too long alone!" Niobe exclaimed.

"Because we are three in one, there is no privacy or separate identity," Lachesis continued. "No individual rights. Each must do what is needful for the whole, without exception. If, for instance, it is needful to dally with a man-"

"Oh. You mean-my body might have to-"

"To indulge with my man," Lachesis finished. "The most youthful Aspect generally bears the onus of such endeavors, because of the nature of men, just as the middle Aspect bears the onus of household chores, and the oldest performs grandmotherly functions."

This set Niobe back. She had never imagined having physical relations with any man other than Cedric and hesitated even to commence such imagination. "But what of the spinning of the threads of life?"

"That, too," Lachesis said. "But you will have no trouble there. A woman is not a single-purpose creature, and most purposes you are already prepared for. Our use of the distaff is merely more sophisticated than what you have known before." And in her hand appeared a glowing distaff, the short staff on which thread or yarn was wrapped, "We have only to keep the skein orderly; it is the social aspect that can be difficult."

Difficult indeed. The idea of being with another man- another woman's man-appalled her. Yet she could see that it did have to be a consequence of joining with other women, when there were not enough bodies to go around.

"Suppose-I decline?" "My dear, we do not force anyone to join us! It may be different with a couple of the male Incarnations- though of course there is no law about that, only custom- but we women are more accommodating. If you elect to remain mortal, you will return to your prior life, and we will select another woman for the exchange. But I confess that we do like you, and not merely for your beauty; seldom does a mortal person have the courage to approach Thanatos as you did."

"I have no courage!" Niobe protested. "I had to do it!"

"Oh? Why?"

"To save my husband, the man I love!"

"And for love you went literally into the fire. If that is not courage, it remains a quality we deeply respect."

"And it was all for nothing!"

"Yes, it is an irony. We could not give you what you desired, then, and we offer you some of what you do not desire now. Yet there are compensations."

Niobe knew she would burst into tears again if they remained longer on the subject of what she had desired; she had to focus on new things. "Compensations?"

"Immortality-as long as you choose. Power-as much as you can manage. Purpose-for you will spin the ultimate threads of man's existence. We are Fate."

Niobe thought about returning to her former life-without Cedric. Then she thought of immortality, power, and purpose-and the opportunity to seek to settle her score with Satan. She would rather have had Cedric, but she really had no choice-as Chronos had known. She was destined to accept this role. "How do I join?"

"Take my hand," Lachesis said, extending it. Niobe took her hand. There was an odd sensation of flux. She felt simultaneous loss and gain. Then she saw that Lachesis had changed to the form of the young, pretty woman who had appeared momentarily in her Purgatory Abode.

Their hands separated. "Farewell, Daphne," Lachesis said. "And welcome, Niobe."

What? Niobe looked down at herself-and discovered she looked like Lachesis.

Yes-you are with us now, Lachesis said silently to her. Your body has gone to Daphne-the former Clotho. Be silent; your day is coming, while hers is done.

Niobe was silent. She watched and listened and felt, while Daphne turned about, verifying her new separateness, then faced them. "Farewell, old friends," Daphne said, and her own eyes were bright with tears. "And thank you, Niobe. You have given me back my life." She opened her arms, and Lachesis embraced her; this time there was no transfer of personality.

Tell her she is welcome, Niobe thought, feeling an almost overwhelming surge of nostalgia. Her body~- changed to that other form-gone forever!

You tell her, Lachesis replied. Something shifted-and Niobe was back in her own form. Except that two other minds were with her.

She glanced in the cabin's mirror-and there she was, as lovely as ever, standing beside Daphne. Fate had assumed her likeness!

"You are welcome. Daphne," Niobe said.

Then, suddenly, she was crying uncontrollably. Daphne opened her arms to her, and they hugged each other, the tears streaming down both their faces.

At last they pulled apart, looked at each other, two comely young women, smiled-and burst into tears again. For pity's sake! the third mind in her body grumbled. That was, Niobe realized, Atropos, the oldest Aspect.

Eventually Niobe and Daphne ran dry. "I can see you resemble me," Niobe said tearfully. "I hope you have the very best of lives ahead of you."

"I surely do," Daphne replied. "Fate pulled a thread."

They had to laugh at that. Then Niobe turned the body back to Lachesis, who turned it into the spider, and they climbed nimbly up the thread to the cabin ceiling, on through the ceiling, and up out of the steamship and into the sky, suddenly cruising with great velocity along a cable extending across the world. In a moment they slid into their web-home in Purgatory and resumed human form.

"You will not need to learn the way things are by yourself," Lachesis said. "We will guide you when you need it-and routine homelife is mostly my department anyway. But you will need to spin the threads."

First Lachesis introduced her to Atropos. The body assumed the form, and the old woman went to stand before the mirror so that Niobe could see her clearly through their eyes. Atropos was in her sixties physically, with iron-gray hair, deep wrinkles, and an overlarge nose; she looked like anybody's grandmother. "I lived a routine life on a goat farm," she said. "I helped my husband milk the goats and I cooked and washed and bore four children-one of them died of smallpox when he was eight- but my two girls and remaining son grew up and married and moved away.

I felt put out when they made it on their own; I had, I confess, enjoyed running their lives. So I concentrated on my husband and made him sell the farm-the market for goat's milk was declining as the big cow-dairies got established, though of course their milk could not compare in quality to what we produced-and invest the proceeds in a furniture factory. But we had been deceived about its prospects; it went bankrupt, and we lost our life savings. My husband took sick, got consumption, got pneumonia, and died broken-hearted, and I knew it was my fault; I should have left well enough alone. But meddling in other people's lives was always my predilection, and when Fate came to me and asked whether I wanted a real chance to meddle-well, here I am! I've been at it fifteen years, and I'm satisfied. And, I trust, I am not ending people's lives frivolously."

But doesn't Death-Thanatos-end people's lives? Niobe asked in thought. She couldn't talk aloud when she didn't have the body.

"Thanatos sees to it that the souls of those who die go to their proper appointments-Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. He must judge the balance of good and evil in each soul, and tend to the difficult cases personally. But I determine when each life shall end; I cut the threads."

You cut the thread of Cedric's life?

"I had to. He had arranged to take the place of the thread I was supposed to cut short, so I had no choice. I do not have complete autonomy, especially when there are changes in the existing tapestry. I do not act capriciously. I must operate within parameters so that no thread extends beyond its proper position, or ends too soon. Otherwise the tapestry would be distorted."

But why any thread? Niobe demanded. Why not let good folk live?

Atropos formed a weary smile. "Child, that is a common fallacy of mortals. They assume that Death is the enemy and that everything would be all right if only they could live forever. It's just not true; the old must pass that the young may come into being. None of us would exist today if our elders had not made place for us. So each thread of life is given its appropriate term, some being longer than others, and each must end as it begins, according to the pattern of the tapestry. I simply tailor the individual threads for the good of the whole tapestry, facilitating the greatest good. It is not for any single thread to decide its own place in the tapestry! It would be disaster to live forever!"

What about the Incarnations? Niobe still felt guilty that she should have such a future reserved for her, while Cedric, the one with the most promise, had been cut short.

"The Incarnations are immortal, but not forever," Atropos explained patiently. "We maintain our lives without aging, as long as we hold our offices-but we do not hold them for all time. We have variable terms. Your predecessor, Daphne, served for twenty-six years, doubling her mortal life-until she spied a situation that was too tempting to resist. She found a good man-there's much to be said for a good man!-and he needed a good woman he would not otherwise obtain-and she simply had to have him. So she has left the office. Now she will age normally, until I or my successor cuts her thread, and she will move on to the Afterlife. Similarly, the other Incarnations change office, all in their own fashions. Thanatos dies when he becomes careless and is slain by his successor; Chronos assumes office as an adult and lives backward until the hour of his birth or conception-I have never quite been certain which-"

Backward? This was confirmation of what she had suspected. How can he associate with others?

"When you want to talk, here in the Abode, just take over the mouth," Atropos advised. "When we are in the company of others, we maintain separation of identities, but we can relax here at home. But to address your question: Chronos controls time. He can reverse himself in order to converse with others, or he can reverse them to align with him, for brief periods. At any rate, immortality is not perfection, and we Incarnations do eventually become bored or tired, and so we leave office. Only in mortality can the true guts of existence be experienced. Theoretically one of us might continue forever, but it has never happened, except in the case of God and Satan, and I'm not entirely sure about Satan."