It took Norton a moment to figure out the nature of the change, for it was subtle, but he did know it was horrendously significant. He remained in the vacant lot, and the other two figures remained also, and the wind still blew the flag at the top of a nearby building. All ordinary things.
Yet the two figures did not seem to be looking at him, but rather through him. He glanced down at himself and found himself solid, though surrounded by the diaphanous white robe, which seemed to be more mist than material. What was the matter with those people?
Then he realized one aspect of what bothered him: one figure was Gawain the Ghost-but who was the other? A man in a Martian hiking costume-
Himself! Standing and watching-what?
“Hi!” he said, somewhat tremulously, but the figures did not respond.
It was coming clear. This was himself-as he had been a minute ago, waiting for Chronos to appear. Himself- moving backward in time. Evidently the former Norton, oriented toward the future, could not perceive the present Norton, oriented toward the past.
And that flag on the building-Norton could feel the wind and knew in which direction it was blowing. But the flag was extending in the opposite direction. Either the wind at the top of the building differed from the wind below-or the flag was blowing into the wind.
Norton fished in his pocket for a fragment of paper. He held it up to the wind. It tugged directly into the wind-the opposite of what it should have done. He let it go-and it fluttered windward like a salmon forging upstream. Strange!
He stretched his arm so that his wrist slid out from the sleeve of his new white cloak and he looked at his watch.
It was running backward.
So it was true! Chronos lived backward. The course of his life was opposite to that of the rest of the universe. The flag tugged into the wind because he was perceiving it backward. He felt the wind going back toward its source-but that did not change its actual effect.
He could not communicate with his former self, because he was now in a different frame. People were geared to perceive things of their own frame; they simply could not relate to something outside it. He himself had not seen what there was there to see, standing on the spot marked X: himself as Chronos. So now he knew how it was. In fact, he reminded himself, that was no stranger out there; it was Norton-normal. He had followed normal time until he took the Hourglass and turned it over to start the sand of his term of office. Now he followed the new time. He could relate to the rest of the world, perceiving it clearly, because he understood it. His new life continued forward-in reverse.
But what was he supposed to do now? Surely there was more to this job than merely existing!
His eye fell on the ring Orlene had given him. Maybe this could help. “Sning, are you still functioning?”
Squeeze.
“That’s a relief! Do you know anything about this time reversal effect?”
Squeeze. Excellent. Now all he needed to do was figure out the right questions. Sning’s presence was an enormous comfort to him at the moment! “Is it true that I am living backward, so am seeing the world like a holoshow played in reverse?”
Squeeze.
“But how can I relate to normal people, then?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Of course; he had phrased his question improperly. “Can I relate to normals?”
Squeeze.
“Is there something I can do to effect this interaction? So they can relate to me, too? So they can see me?”
Squeeze.
“Does it have anything to do with the Hourglass?”
Squeeze!
So the Hourglass was important; that was hardly a surprise! Norton contemplated the instrument. The thin line of sand was still gently glowing, off-white in color, a steady thread connecting top and bottom.
Very well. This flow measured time, and it was evident that, though the instrument was called an Hourglass, it actually measured his full career. He had about thirty-nine years ahead of him-behind him-until the date of his birth, when presumably the sand would run out and he would have to pass the thing on to someone who had lived before him. That much he understood and accepted now, albeit grudgingly.
But obviously there was more to this office than merely living backward. Surely Chronos had a job to do-and surely, then, Chronos had to relate to the real world. The Hourglass enabled him to do that-if he only could figure out how.
He studied the instrument. There were no visible controls on it. He turned it over-and suffered an abrupt wrenching of his being. Hastily he turned it back, and normality was restored. What had happened?
In a moment he worked it out; if the Hourglass measured his life, reversing the instrument would reverse his life. He would be undoing what he had just been doing; he would be returning to the moment of his assumption of the office, a few minutes hence. The wrenching was because living backward biologically was not normal; his blood would be reversing its flow, and his digestion-just so. He would lose his free will, unraveling the just-made skein-and to what point? To renege on the commitment he had made when he took the Hourglass? That was not his way! So he would not do that again! He could continue his natural course, though that was now opposite to that of the rest of the universe. He would see this office through-whatever that might mean.
“Sning, are there other ways to affect my status?” he asked the ring.
Squeeze.
“Even though there are no physical controls on the Hourglass?”
Squeeze.
Whatever would he have done without the little snake! Orlene had given him a greater gift than he had realized at the time-and there, of course, had been the earliest true indication other love. She would always be with him while Sning was with him-and he had no intention of parting with the ring, ever.
But back to business! “But how? Do I just will it to do what I want?”
Squeeze. Oh. Well, he would find out. Let me travel swiftly in time! he thought grandly.
The sand in the Hourglass turned bright blue. The world outside became a gray void. He was traveling-somewhere. Swiftly.
Stop! he thought, alarmed.
Abruptly the scene was stationary. The sand in the Hourglass was now black.
He stood in a dusky glade. Before him was something like a large cabbage-palm, and monstrous ferns were everywhere. There were bottle-brush things, but no grass. This was definitely not familiar territory!
He walked, examining the scenery. The only really familiar thing he spied was a distant fir tree. He saw no animal life-though of course any animals would hide from a strange creature like himself, so that was not in itself abnormal. He listened, but heard no buzzing of insects. Where was he? Had he moved in space rather than in time?
“Sning, did the Hourglass malfunction?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“It moved me in time?”
Squeeze.
“Which direction? Forward?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Hmm, a problem there. Had his question been imprecise? Perhaps so. Which direction was “forward” ? The way he lived, or the way the world went?
“Did it move me into the world’s future?” That worried him, because it was evident that human life had been eliminated, or at least greatly restricted here, and perhaps all mammalian life too. War or other disaster?
But Sning reassured him: squeeze, squeeze.
“Into my future-the world’s past?”
Squeeze.
Back on track! He had it now. Forward, to the Hourglass, had to be his forward. Since he hadn’t specified direction in his thought command, the Hourglass had simply accelerated him in the direction he had been going. Instead of moving backward at the rate of one minute per minute, or one year per year, he had moved much faster and farther. Obviously years, for the city was gone; it had not yet been built. How long had this spot been inhabited by man? Decades, surely! In fact, it could be centuries, for even the local vegetation had changed radically. “How many years into Earth’s past have I gone?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. “That’s not three years, is it?”
Squeeze.
Norton smiled. That meant yes-that it was not three years. The three squeezes had been the signal of Sning’s inability to answer.
“Is the answer better expressed in centuries?”
Squeeze-squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
That was a new one! Four squeezes, for a yes-no answer. But there had been a pause after the first. That translated to yes-can not answer.
“Centuries are better than years-but still not enough?”
Squeeze. He was getting better at this! “How about millennia?”
Four squeezes, with the pause after the first. This was getting serious. “Units of a million years?”
Four squeezes. Serious indeed! “Units of a billion years?”
Squeeze, squeeze. “So it’s not a billion years back-but a lot of millions?”
Squeeze. “How many hundred million-to the nearest unit?”
Squeeze, squeeze.
“What do you mean,‘ No’? That was a numbers question!”
Squeeze. Oh. “Two hundred million, approximately?”
Squeeze. “The time of the dinosaurs?”
Squeeze.
“Then how come I don’t see any dinosaurs? No, cancel that; like most naturalists, I have a passing interest in paleontology. This is obviously along about the Triassic period; I should have recognized it before. No grasses, no flowering plants, but plenty of palms and pines and cycads. I’ll rephrase my question: are there dinosaurs here-or rather, the pre-dinosaurs, the developing lines?”
Squeeze. “But not right at this spot. I’d see some if I walked around enough, or waited here long enough, if my appearance or smell or noise didn’t keep them away?”
Squeeze.
Now Norton noticed that there was no wind, no movement of fern or frond, not even when he brushed against them. In fact, he had no contact with them; his hand passed right through them. “Ah, I get it-time is frozen! The way Thanatos froze it-I’m Chronos now, so I can do that trick too! I ordered the Hourglass to stop, so it stopped me-absolutely, right where I was at the moment.” He contemplated the black sand in the Hourglass. It still flowed from upper to lower chamber, measuring out his life with its silken thread of motion; he was not frozen, just the world. “So black is the color of absolute stasis-of everything except me.”
Squeeze...squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Another qualified yes. He had better run it down; Sning did not squeeze just for the fun of it. “The world is in stasis?”
Four squeezes.
“The world seems in stasis?”
Squeeze.
Fair enough. He was way out of his own time; he couldn’t go around stopping the clock of the universe incidentally. Probably Thanatos hadn’t really stopped the world, either-but the appearance was as useful as the reality. Perhaps Norton was in a special state of acceleration, so that the world seemed still by comparison. He stretched out his arm to view his watch-and saw that it had stopped.
Now, wait! He had not stopped, and he was wearing his watch. Was it broken? He brought it close to his eyes- and found it was moving, after all, forward.
He stretched out his arm again-and the watch stopped. Experimenting, he discovered that when the watch was more than a foot out from his torso, it reflected the world’s time; when it was closer, it kept his own personal time. That was a worthwhile discovery! His ambience was limited, so that he himself could reach out of it. And of course that had to be; otherwise he would be carrying chunks of the world backward with him, and that wouldn’t do. He verified by further experiment that his time frame stopped at the level of the soles of his feet and the top of his head, and spread out like an aura between; actually, the white cloak pretty well defined it.
Then he remembered that his watch had been running backward when he had checked it before. But he had been holding it out from his body then, so that was the world’s time. His time was forward.
“So black sand means stasis-that can affect me also, if I so choose,” he said aloud. “Partially, anyway; my blood flow does not reverse in my hand when I reach out, but my watch does change. So it’s a kind of compromise state.”
Squeeze.
“Thank you for alerting me about this, Sning. I’m awfully glad to have your advice.”
The little snake did not squeeze, but turned a darker shade of green, evidently with pleasure.
Norton reviewed another aspect. “And when the sand is blue-that’s the color of accelerated motion in time?”
Squeeze.
“So I can tell what’s going on by the color-coding of the sand. But how can I be here at all? This is far outside my timeline! No, don’t give me three squeezes; I’ll figure it out in a moment. I’m here-but not solidly. I’m like a ghost here. I can’t touch anything, and probably no creature can touch me or even perceive me. So it’s like looking at a holo-the world is a holograph, less real for me than it seems, and it is not aware of me at all.”
He paced along the paleontological terrain. “I can travel anywhere in time, probably, forward and back. But I can’t do anything; it’s just a visit, a sightseeing tour. Only in my own time span-the span of my living life-can I actually affect the world. Once I figure out how.”
Squeeze.
“Good enough. Let’s go home now.” He concentrated. Back to starting point-but not as fast.
The Hourglass glowed a little more brightly. The black sand changed color, becoming pink. The world moved.
The sun traveled across the sky, picking up speed as the sand darkened. Night came-and passed in a minute. Day and night, of course! He saw an animal, in the day, but it was gone so quickly he had only a fleeting impression of something reptilian. The creature might have taken half an hour to pass, but that would have been mere seconds to Norton. Rain came, making the herbiage sparkle momentarily.
The pace picked up. Now it was like an old-fashioned motion picture, the frames flickering; he was able to tune out the dark intervals and see the land as a continuing thing, the plants growing and aging and disappearing. The seasons passed, but there seemed to be no winter here, just a browning of some plants; this was before the day of deciduous trees. Overall, there was very little change.
Faster, he thought. The sand became a brighter red, and the world buzzed through its paces at accelerated velocity. A fir tree sprouted near him, grew in seconds to a robust specimen, stabilized-and was abruptly gone. A bolt of lightning? Root rot? Life ended so suddenly for plants! But, of course, a century or more had passed.
A hundred million years, he discovered, was a long time, even at the rate of a century a minute; he would have to watch, at this rate, for a couple of years, his time. Full speed, he directed, and the grayness of impossible temporal velocity returned.
Then he remembered: he had changed his position! He had walked away from his starting point, looking at vegetation. He would land a similar distance away-perhaps in the middle of a building. In the middle of a wall!
Before he could correct his error, the world firmed. He stood in the vacant lot, on the X. The two figures remained nearby.
“But I moved!” he protested, relieved.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Again he worked it out. He had moved-but he had been outside his bailiwick, unable to affect that world. So apparently he had not affected himself, either. It might have been a different story, had he traveled only a year or two and walked about. He would have to be very careful in future. Past. Or whatever. This time the nature of the system had saved him from his own folly, but that might not always be so.
“Well, at least I’m learning how to use this thing!”
Squeeze.
“But I still don’t know my job or how to relate to people here. Do you know?”
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
“That’s what I thought. You know a lot, but you’ve had no experience with the Hourglass itself. Well, I’ll figure it out.” He smiled. “In time.” Actually, this challenge appealed to his wanderlust; what better form of travel could there be than through time? The horizons were unlimited!
He studied the Hourglass again. The sand was now dull white. He had learned what white, blue, and black meant-and red. Red meant traveling backward, or opposite his normal route. It was like the red shift in astronomy. Now, if he could just find the other colors and understand what they signified-
The two figures began to move. They retreated from the X spot, walking backward. Surprised, Norton watched them until they were out of sight. Now he was alone.
Of course-Norton-normal and Gawain the Ghost had arrived about fifteen minutes before the rendezvous. That time had now expired, backward. His jaunt to the distant past had taken several minutes, his time, which might have passed here, too; he wasn’t sure yet how that worked. But what was he to do, now that he was alone?
He found it awkward carrying the Hourglass constantly, so he set it on the ground. Then he locked his hands behind him and paced in a circle, much the way Gawain had done. Did he really want to take on the immense complexities of this office? He had agreed to it almost casually, but he saw now that it was a most unusual commitment. The chance of a lifetime, as the ghost had said-but also the challenge of a lifetime. It was not too late to reverse the Hourglass and travel back to the time of acquisition; presumably someone else would turn up to take the office if he bounced it. Did he want that?
He turned to look back at the parked Hourglass-and found it right behind him, exactly in the position he had left it-except that it was within easy reach, not several paces behind. Had he paced in a full circle and returned to it? He didn’t think so.
He walked straight away from the Hourglass and turned again. There it was, right in reach.
He paced backward next, watching the Hourglass. It slid along with him, not rolling or jumping, just remaining exactly in position relative to him.
“You mean I can’t leave it behind?” he asked aloud.
Squeeze.
The question had been rhetorical, but Suing had answered.
Norton picked up the Hourglass, held it a foot above the ground, and let it go. It hung there in the air. When he stepped away, it followed him. When he stepped into it, it retreated. Only when he moved it directly with his hand did it change its position with respect to himself. It was like a satellite, except it did not rotate.
Suddenly frustrated and rebellious, he grasped it and hurled it violently from him. But the moment it left his hand, it stopped, remaining in the air at shoulder height. It had no inertia, no momentum.
He could not, literally, lose it.
“But I don’t want the thing following me all the time like a hatchling,” he remarked aloud. “People will stare.”
Sning squeezed three times, not having any suggestions.
Then a new figure appeared. It was a middle-aged woman. She was walking forward, toward him, from the opposite direction in which the other two figures had departed. She carried a roll of paper.
Forward? Could she be in his time frame?
She waved to him. She saw him! Excited, Norton waved back-but there was no reaction from the woman. Why was that?
“Hello,” Norton said cautiously.
The woman came to stand a few feet from him. She unrolled her scroll. There were words printed on it. HELLO, CHRONOS.
“Hello,” he said again. “Can’t we talk verbally?”
She passed her arm across the scroll, and it went blank. Then new words appeared. WE CAN INTERACT-BUT YOU MUST LEARN HOW.
“I’m trying to!” he exclaimed. “But no one perceives me!”
She changed her sign again. I AM LACHESIS-AN ASPECT OF FATE.
Fate! Gawain had mentioned her. This was an important contact! “How can I talk to you?” he asked. “Can you understand me?”
Her new sign explained, I AM DOING THIS BACKWARD. FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS, AND WE SHALL RELATE.
“I’ll follow them!” Norton agreed. He realized now that she was only partially aware of him, perhaps could not see him at all, but knew he was there. So she was following a routine to help him, trusting that he was responding. Once they managed to establish a genuine interaction, he would find out why Fate, in whatever aspect, was doing this. For now, he was grateful for her help.
YOU ARE LIVING BACKWARD. I AM LIVING FORWARD. WE ARE BOTH INCARNATIONS, BUT WE DO DIFFER IN THIS AND OTHER RESPECTS. WE MUST ALIGN.
“I agree!” he said uselessly.
THE HOURGLASS IS THE TOOL. YOU CONTROL IT WITH YOUR WILL.
“I realize that,” he said as she changed the page.
IT IS VERY STRONG MAGIC. MIS JUDGMENT CAN WREAK HAVOC.
“So I discovered! I’ve been to the Age of Dinosaurs!”
THE COLOR OF THE SAND IS THE KEY.
“That, too, I have already ascertained.”
WILL IT TO BE BLUE FOR AN INSTANT, THEN GREEN.
“Okay,” he agreed. He concentrated. Blue briefly, then green. It hadn’t occurred to him before to control the Hourglass by orienting directly on the sand color.
The grayness closed as the sand changed color, but altered almost immediately. Now the sand was green.
“Congratulations, Chronos,” Lachesis said.
“Hey, this time I hear you!” he exclaimed.
She smiled. She was perhaps in her forties, her hair nondescript brown and bound in a bun, her face developing lines. She was somewhat heavy-set and generally unimpressive, but her eyes had a timeless, colorless quality that made him know that this was indeed a creature of incalculable power and subtlety. “And I hear you, Chronos, and see you clearly at last. We are now in phase.”
“Because the sand is green?”
“Come with me, Chronos, and I’ll explain.” She stepped forward and took his arm. “It’s the least I can do, after what we’ve been to each other.”
He suffered himself to be drawn along with her. “We have?”
She laughed. “Of course you don’t remember! It’s in your future. My past. I envy you! But I mustn’t hold you in phase too long this time; no sense wasting your magic. Ah, here we are.” She paused at a piece of string dangling by a building. “Take my hand, Chronos.”
He obeyed. She tugged on the string-and suddenly they were in a comfortable room, with elegant scenic murals on the walls that looked almost real enough to step into. He remembered Orlene’s puzzle pictures with sharp nostalgia. This was the kind of apartment he would have liked for himself. “Nice place you have, Lachesis.”
“Oh, it isn’t my place,” she said quickly. “It’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“This is your mansion in Purgatory. Here in this edifice time travels your way always; no need to strain the Hourglass. Let it go normal again.”
“Normal?” But as he looked at it, the falling sand turned from green to white.
“When you turned the sand blue for a moment, you jumped backward, in real-world terms, a couple of days.” She glanced at him alertly. “You did do that? It will be two days before the office changes hands, and I have every intention of being there with my signs to get you started, but that’s in my future.”
“You were there, and I did it,” he agreed.
“Good. And when you turned the sand green, you aligned yourself with universal time. You normally live backward, compared to the rest of us, but green turns you about so that your forward matches ours. It is a temporary state for you, requiring magical energy, so you don’t do it unless you need to interact with a normal person. In this case, the need existed. But it isn’t wise to do it too long, because of a possible three-person-limit complication.”
“A what?”
“We’ll go into that technical matter at another time; I don’t want to confuse you at the outset.”
“I’m already confused! Why did you have me turn the sand blue for an instant? Couldn’t I have green-phased at the outset?”
“You could have, Chronos. But that would have carried you on beyond your term of office, since you were so close to its edge. I preferred to give you a couple of days’ leeway to avoid that risk. You see, you can’t travel physically beyond your term; you become insubstantial, unable to interact with us.”
“So I have discovered,” he agreed ruefully.
“Had you turned the sand green then, I would have been leading you here-and you would have vanished from my ken before arriving. You see, to you this is the beginning, but to the rest of us it is the end. To us, your term will expire and that of your successor will commence. Suddenly we will have a vastly experienced Chronos replacing the old novice. He’ll have us all stepping smartly! He will know all our futures in a way none of us can.” She fixed him with her disconcerting gaze again. “Time is power, Norton. You will learn to do things Satan Himself can not handle. No one can touch Chronos in his area of expertise. You will be able to change reality itself. See that you do not abuse that power.”
Norton did not feel powerful at all. He noticed that now she called him by his given name; obviously she did know him from her past, his new future. “I will try to handle the office properly,” he said. “Uh, about Purgatory- “
“Purgatory is not part of the physical world,” she explained. “When you want an extended interaction with a person, bring that person here, and there will be no problem.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Of course you don’t! You have just stepped into one of the most complex offices of the firmament; it will take you years to get the full hang of it. Fortunately, you have time-literally. You are Time.”
“I think you’d better explain the whole thing,” he said. “I’m pretty much baffled.”
“That’s what I’m here for-this time.” She glanced at him slyly, as if making an off-color allusion. “And I will;
I owe it to you, as I said. Only first I’d better introduce myself completely.”
Norton nodded agreement, somewhat in awe of this unprepossessing figure with the knowing attitude and hypnotic eyes. Lachesis walked to the center of the room. She shimmered-and in her place was an old woman. Her hair was gray and curly, her dress conservative-a long dark skirt, antique feminine boots, a frilly but unsuggestive blouse, and a small archaic hat. “Atropos,” she announced, accenting it on the first syllable. “I cut the Thread of Life.”
“I thought Death did that,” Norton said, startled by more than one thing.
“Thanatos collects the souls. I determine when those souls will become available.”
Norton nodded. He was not yet certain of the distinction, but did not feel ready to question it more closely. He had encountered Thanatos in the performance of his office and developed an abiding respect for that entity. In fact, it was really the example of Thanatos that had moved him to accept this perhaps-similar office of Chronos;
Thanatos had shown that human concern and caring did not disappear, even in so awful a chore as taking the life of a baby. Death had stopped being a specter to Norton with that encounter.
Atropos whirled-and became Lachesis again, in her dowdy, middle-aged outfit, her suit helping mask her somewhat portly figure. Her hair was now free of the bun, longer than Atropos’, with less curl and more color. “I am Lachesis,” she announced, pronouncing it with a hard C, accented on the first syllable-LAK-e-sis. “I measure the length of the Threads of Life.”
“I thought Chronos was supposed to- “
“Chronos controls time, not life,” she corrected him.
Again this distinction was not fully clear to Norton; again he kept his mouth shut.
Lachesis made a little leap-and landed as a voluptuous, bouncy young woman whose hair was long, loose, and midnight black with stars sparkling in it. Her gown was low-cut in front and high-cut below, showing breast and thigh to advantage. She wore an intoxicating perfume. “And Clotho,” she concluded, again accenting the first syllable. “Who spins the Thread of Human Life.” She stretched a fine thread between her delicate hands.
Norton hoped his eyes hadn’t popped too obviously when this creature appeared. “I thought maybe Nature- “
“Gaea determines the way things are,” she said. “Not the courses of individual lives. But all the Incarnations interact to some extent.” She gave him a sultry smile, aware of her impact on him. Had Gawain’s second wife looked like this at the time he saw her, what might have happened?
“Are you really three people?” he asked. “You look quite different in each- “
“You may have heard it said,” she said gravely, “that a woman is a young man’s mistress- “She twirled so that her skirt flared, showing her thighs to a naughty height. “-a middle-aged man’s companion- “She ceased her motion, and she was Lachesis again, sedate. “-and an old man’s nurse.” She shimmered into Atropos, who now wore a nurse’s uniform and looked formidable. “It seems I am all three. Which are you?”
Norton was startled again. “Uh—middle, I suppose. At the moment.”
Lachesis reappeared. “So I suspected. Now I am your companion, though I have been other to you in the past.”
“I-you mean Clotho-in my future?” he asked awkwardly.
“Yes indeedy! You have not yet experienced what I remember.” She grinned. “Naughty boy!”
Norton blushed to think of what he might be fated to do with Clotho that Lachesis already remembered so intimately. “I haven’t yet gotten the hang of living backward,” he confessed. “It seems quite awkward, especially when people, normal people, apparently don’t see me at all.”
“You can change that at will,” she assured him. “The Hourglass is your emblem and your tool, and an excellent one it is.”
“By willing the sand green?”
“That’s it. That phases you in to the normal course. Didn’t I tell you about that-or am I about to? You do that when you want to talk to a normal person or an Incarnation.”
“So I can move to the beginning of my original life, almost forty years ago, turn the sand green, and live a normal term as an Incarnation?”
She smiled tolerantly. “Hardly, Chronos, for several reasons. First, that would fatigue the magic, and you’d lose cohesion in a few days; green mode is a short-term thing for you, as I understand it. Second, you have a job to do, and you can do it effectively only by living your normal course. Third, you aren’t going to do that, even if you could; I ought to know.” For an instant, sultry Clotho glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes.
Norton found that unnerving. If Clotho was also the old Atropos, which one of Fate’s three minds was analyzing him as he performed what he supposed was private? All three of them had those disturbing eyes. A man who played games of any kind with one of these women was apt to become the object rather than the subject.
“No, you can’t remember, can you!” she teased him. “Oh, I am enjoying this! After what you did to me in the halcyon bloom of my innocence-oh, yes!”
“My job,” he said doggedly. “You said you’d tell me what I am supposed to do and how to do it.”
She sighed with mock resignation. “Yes, you always were somewhat single-minded about that, and on the whole I believe you have done a decent job. Very well, I will start you off. You work most closely with me anyway.” She paused as if organizing her thoughts. “It is the business of Chronos to establish the chronology of every event in the human section of the universe. Effect must always follow cause, age must follow youth, action must usually follow thought. Evidently your backward existence facilitates such timings. Without Time, all would be without form and void.”
“But I thought that was automatic!” Norton protested. “A function of the universe, the way things are!”
“Now you know better, Chronos. Nothing in the universe is happenstance; everything is determined by the sum of the fundamental forces. Your art is to fit it all together so neatly that it seems automatic. Timing is critical, and Chronos is responsible.”
“But I’m only one person! I can’t possibly keep track of every event in-in the human section of the universe!”
“You have a competent staff, of course. Your office personnel here in Purgatory handles the routine. Naturally, you don’t do it all personally. This is the twenty-first century, after all! You make the major decisions, and your staff implements them immediately. A significant number of people remain in the annex here at the mansion, matching your time flow, so as to provide continuity. I’m sure your predecessor left you highly skilled and dedicated personnel, knowing the office would pretty much have to run itself while you got broken in. But you do have the authority now; if you choose to do something foolish like reversing the course of time for the whole world, your staff will dutifully arrange to put effect before cause and keep the rest consistent.”
“I can do that? Reverse time for everyone?”
She nodded. “This is no minor office you hold, Chronos, as I have hinted. Your power is unique. But don’t let that go to your head.”
“I hope not!” He shook his head, trying to clear it, as if some of that power had already messed it up. “What, specifically, should I be doing now?”
“First, perhaps you should put away your Hourglass when you’re not actively using it. That will free your hands.”
“Yes. But I don’t want the thing trailing me in space, either.”
“I suppose it would do that, if you let it. The Hourglass is the symbol and essence of your office; it can never leave your presence. Not until you pass it along to the next or prior Chronos. But meanwhile, all you have to do is squeeze it down to size and put it in your pocket.”
“I can do that?”
“Try it.”
He tried it. He put his hands on the top and bottom of the Hourglass and squeezed; it compressed smoothly, becoming a smaller replica of itself, then collapsed into a mere disk. “It’s not broken?”
“It is eternal. Impossible to break.”
“But how can the sand- “
“As I understand it, the Hourglass has not actually changed its form, merely its presentation. Just as folding a paper does not change its real dimensions or the nature of the writing on it, the Hourglass retains all its properties. To it, your world has squeezed down to two dimensions. All is relative.”
Norton shrugged, not trying to grasp that, and put the disk in his pocket. “Will it still work in that shape? I mean, if I will the sand to change color-?”
“It should. Your contact with it can never be severed, as I said, so it should respond to your directive.”
“Anything else I should do?”
“I do have a few glitches to correct. I spin my threads carefully, but nothing in this cosmos is perfect, and sometimes they unravel. If you are ready to assume the harness, we can tackle them now.”
“Just tell me what to do.”
She conjured a tiny notebook from the air and riffled through the pages. “This one will do. Two threads got crossed, so that each person will experience the fate of the other. Since one is scheduled to suffer a grievous accident soon, that is an error of consequence.” She closed the notebook and it vanished. Then she put her two hands together, fingers extended and splayed, and drew them apart. Several scintillating threads stretched between them. “Take me back to where they cross,” she said.
“Wait! You said one person must suffer a grievous accident! Why allow that to happen? Why not make both threads smooth, both lives pleasant?”
She shook her head. “That is not the way the cosmos operates, Norton. We do not live in a simple or peaceful universe. The eddy currents of violence swirl constantly, and consequence follows consequence. If I attempted to simplify this particular life-which I could indeed accomplish-it would only lead to a greater mischief for other lives. God and Satan are at war-have been since time began-and the fallout from their strife is with us always. It is not for me to dictate on whom that fallout shall fall; it is only for me to mesh it properly. I am the servant, not the master-and so are you. We both must do what we must do, implementing the rules that exist.”
Norton did not agree with that at all, but realized that he lacked a basis from which to argue. So he dropped it for the time being.
He peered at the threads she held between her spread fingers. Most went from finger to finger, but two were crossed. “How-?”
“This is analogy, of course,” she said. “Or a convenient facsimile thereof. If I had the real crossing in my hands, I could unsnarl it here. You must take me to the actual space-time site.”
“Yes, but- “
“Oh, I keep forgetting! You’ve never done this before. Very well-I will talk you through it, step by step. First orient your Glass.”
“This?” Norton brought out the Hourglass and drew it back into shape. It remained functioning perfectly; the sand was still falling, and more of it had accumulated in the nether chamber.
“Yes, that. Expand its ambience to include me. You can tell by the brightness.”
Confused, Norton willed the Hourglass: Expand ambience.
The glow intensified. Lachesis brightened, literally; she glowed like the Glass. “That’s enough, Chronos. Ease off a little; you don’t want to take your entire mansion with you.”
He diminished his thought and the glow faded slightly.
“That’s good. Hold it there. Now turn the sand blue- but only slightly, only briefly. We’re going back just a little way.”
He concentrated, and the sand shifted color, turning faintly blue.
“Now travel along the threads till we come to the crossing.”
“How-?”
“Oops! Too far. Back up a bit.”
He turned the sand ever so faintly pink. Suddenly he saw the threads between her fingers expand, perhaps in his mind’s eye, until they were veritable cables. The Hourglass seemed to have become a cable car, cruising along the cables, carrying Norton and Lachesis with it. In the distance Norton could see other cables, extending from horizon to horizon. Then another cable closed with the first, and the two touched.
He concentrated, fading the pink almost to white, and the Hourglass coasted to a halt just at the crossing.
“Excellent,” Lachesis said. “You’re developing the touch already! Soon you’ll be the expert I remember.” She stepped forward, put her two hands on the cables, and lifted them apart. Norton was amazed by two things: first, her ability to separate such monstrous and solid cables so readily; and second, the fact that he knew these cables were mere threads stretched between her fingers. How could she do any of this?
“That’s it,” she said, returning. “You may revert us to normal now.”
“Norton relaxed-and abruptly the cables were gone and the two of them were back in the mansion in Purgatory. “That was it?” he asked dazedly.
“Yes. You did very well.” She glanced at him appraisingly. “But I think this is enough for you now. Relax, explore your mansion, get acquainted with your household staff. I will return tomorrow, your time, so that we can wrap up the other snarls; none of them are as critical as this one was.”
His tomorrow-her yesterday! “But I don’t- “
“You’ll find out.” She changed form again, becoming a large spider. The spider shrank to normal spider size, ascended a thread, and disappeared. He realized that this was the type of thread he had taken to be a string when she brought him here from the empty lot. She traveled by threads.
Norton was alone again. He still had only the faintest notion of what he was supposed to do.