Satan was waiting for him again as he returned. “Did you enjoy yourself?” the Prince of Evil inquired politely.
Norton looked at him narrowly. “You don’t know?”
“My dear associate! How could I?”
“You sent me there. You ought to be able to tell how things are. Otherwise how could you be sure you weren’t sending me to my doom?”
“One Incarnation can not harm another.”
“Without the other’s consent. If you placed me in a challenging situation and I failed to meet that challenge, would that constitute my consent for harm?”
“There is no danger to you in the fantasy scheme! It is nothing but a living adventure.”
“I thought that was rather convenient,” Norton said. “I arrive just in time for a classic fantasy adventure, complete with Damsel in Distress, Enchanted Sword, sturdy Elf, Evil Sorceress, Dragon, and Alicorn. True chance would have had me land in a barren wilderness. And my prior trip, too-with spaceman, Bern, psi powers, shape changing, and wreck on an alien planet. Another arranged adventure.”
“Well, My clients would not be interested in dull vacations,” Satan pointed out. “I try to reward them well for their services to Me. Heaven, you know, is a pretty dull place; My settings have the excitement of challenge and success.”
“So others have interacted with Bat Dursten and his Bems, and with Excelsia and her Alicorn?”
Satan looked modestly uncomfortable. “Or reasonable facsimiles thereof,” he agreed. “There is no harm in it, and a scripted adventure is, after all, an aspect of My specialty: an interesting and amusing fabrication.”
“Yes, I remember. You are the Father of Lies.”
“Certainly. Fiction is but an accepted lie, and so it is My business. People have been brainwashed into supposing that there can be no benefit in lies, but lies of this nature can be exceptionally rewarding. If you would care to visit other settings, such as the Wild West, or Mystery Sleuth, or Complex Historical, or Torrid Romance- “
“The antimatter frame has quite a spread of habitats!”
“Indeed. Plenty of room for all My favored friends.” Satan leaned forward persuasively. “There are many scenarios within each setting, too. If, for example, you found Excelsia attractive. We could arrange for her to- “
“Never mind that.” Norton had indeed found her attractive, but didn’t care to have Satan know it. “If you have such an excellent way to reward your minions, why do you need to bother with me?-Your friend in your past- “
“Ah, you checked him? Did you discover any flaw in the life I contemplate for him?”
“No. I just don’t follow your motive. Why not send him to delights in the globular cluster or the Magic-Lantern Cloud, instead of taking all this trouble with me?”
Satan shrugged. “I suppose I could. But I have promised him a happy life in this world and I always keep My promises.”
Norton hesitated. He did not trust the Father of Lies, yet this particular case did seem to check out. “I’ll give it further consideration.”
Satan stood. “As you wish, Chronos.” He turned about in place and, somehow, by the time he completed the turn, he was gone.
Norton took a meal and a snooze. He wasn’t sure how much objective time had passed, in whatever direction, or what day it might now be beyond his mansion, but he himself had been quite active.
In due course Clotho showed up. She stepped into his arms immediately and kissed him, then hesitated. “Or is this too soon for you now, in your lifeline?”
Norton realized that there had been, or would be- depending on viewpoint-a romance between them. He still loved Orlene but knew that was over. He had been intrigued by Excelsia, but did not want to get involved in such fashion with a creature who played roles for Satan. Clotho he trusted. “I think it is right for me now,” he said. “But it’s newer to me than to you.”
“There was a time when it was otherwise,” she said, smiling. “This will be my pleasure.”
Indeed, she led him through a quite satisfactory liaison, for she was conversant with what pleased him, including some things he hadn’t known before would please him. He realized he was going to enjoy experiencing the other encounters she remembered. His separation from his past was now virtually complete. Clotho was excellent medicine ... except for those knowing eyes.
Then they set up for the day’s work. For this, Clotho shifted to Lachesis, who glanced at him obliquely while pretending to be ignorant of what her other aspect had just been doing. Then she put her spread-fingered hands together to draw out the first cat’s cradle of crossed threads. She paused. “That’s odd.”
“You have a tangle?”
“A crossed set, where there shouldn’t be.” She frowned, trying to make it out.
“That reminds me. Satan wants a favor, and I checked it, and it seems all right. But maybe I should consult with you, just in case it disturbs your threads.”
She looked up from her network. “That would be wise. Satan must never be trusted. He builds deceit upon deceit, until reality disappears.”
“It’s a favor for a man about twenty years in your past. He had a chance to meet and marry a lovely and wealthy young woman, but missed it and committed suicide instead. Satan wants to reverse that so the man can have a good life.”
“Suicide,” she said. She shifted to Atropos. “That’s my department,” the old woman said. “And Thanatos’. I schedule the terminations, he executes them.” She moved her fingers in intricate patterns, conjuring threads. “Specific space-time address?”
Norton gave it. She zeroed in. “Got it. There’s the severed thread. He-great Heaven!”
“What’s the matter?”
“That’s Thanatos!”
“Yes, he would have collected the soul.”
“Not that. This life-it’s the mortal man who assumed the current office of Thanatos, just as you assumed the office of Chronos. He didn’t suicide; he killed the prior officeholder. That’s how that office changes hands.”
“They murder their predecessors?” Norton asked with horror.
“Thanatos deals in death,” she said grimly. “Nevertheless, the current Thanatos is a good one-perhaps one of the best. He cares for his clients in a way that others of his office did not; and he did balk Satan in a critical situation, thereby preserving the scheme of the world as we know it. It would be disastrous to allow Satan to eliminate him!”
“I thought Satan couldn’t harm other Incarnations!”
She collapsed her network of threads and put one withered hand on his. “Dear boy,” Atropos said. “Satan never allows himself to be bound by any law he can circumvent, and he is the ultimate master of circumvention. There are ways and ways.”
“But how-?”
“If you take his minion to that nexus and the minion persuades the man named Zane to buy the Lovestone and win the lovely young woman- “Her old eyes seemed to sparkle. “You young men do like lovely young women, don’t you! I can’t imagine what for.” When he did not respond, she resumed making her point. “Then he will indeed be happy. He will have an excellent life. But he will, by the same token, not assume the office of Thanatos. Then Thanatos will not save the Magician’s daughter Luna from Satan’s mischief, and she will not be on hand to balk him in that most critical political nexus not far hence.”
“I don’t remember any- “
“It is, I believe, beyond your assumption of the office. Satan thought to use your ignorance to facilitate his ploy. Since you also have not met Thanatos- “
“I met him-before I become Chronos. But his face was a skull; I wouldn’t know him in mundane life.”
Atropos pondered momentarily. “I think you must meet him formally now-and Luna, too, so that Satan can not again deceive you about them.”
Norton’s head was spinning. What a disaster he had almost precipitated! The elimination of the Thanatos he had encountered, who had so kindly explained to him about the baby. Thanatos had cared about him; it would have been the crudest irony to remove him from his office in return!
Atropos spun threads in her hands and manipulated them. “This way,” she said. “Adjust your time; we’ll be entering the normal world.”
Norton brought out the Hourglass to turn the sand green. He was surprised to discover that it was already green. That didn’t make any difference here in his mansion, but he didn’t remember putting the Glass on that setting. “It is ready.”
Suddenly they were sliding along cables strung through chaos. Norton’s eyes could not follow any one of them to its end; all seemed to extend to infinity. They filled the universe in a multidimensional splay of colored lines. He felt somewhat as a tiny bug might, caught in an endless array of tumbled pickup sticks.
Then the universe firmed again. They were at the entrance to a wealthy estate. “He’s visiting her now,”
Atropos explained. “I dislike interrupting their tryst, but this is important.” She knocked on one of the bars of the gate with a wrinkled knuckle,
Immediately two griffins charged to the gate from the other side. They had muscular lions’bodies and fierce eagles’heads and wings. But their savagery abated as they spied Atropos; evidently they had encountered her before. “This is a friend,” she told them, much as Excelsia had told the Alicorn. “Show us in.”
They turned their beaks toward Norton. Nervously he held up the shining Hourglass. Immediately they relaxed; this, too, they had seen before.
Now Atropos opened the gate, and Norton followed her in. The two griffins paced them, forming an escort. “Actually, neither of us is in any danger; it is to protect the griffins that I introduced you.”
“To protect them!’
“Your cloak, as an extension of the Hourglass, will instantly age-to-oblivion anything that attacks you. Only your good will deactivates it.” She smiled toothily. “Fortunately for those who might happen to touch you.”
Such as Clotho, who had touched him most intimately. He had not realized his misty cloak had such power; it would have been terrible if he had inadvertently aged Clotho to Atropos during their liaison!
They approached the door to the house. It opened. Thanatos stood there, with a comely woman of perhaps forty beside him. “Welcome, Incarnations!” Thanatos said.
“Perhaps you did not realize,” Atropos told him, “that there has been a change. This is the new Chronos.”
Thanatos looked at Norton. “You jest, Thread-Cutter! This is the Master of Time I have known twenty years, since he helped me understand my own office.”
“Uh-whom you will know,” Norton said. “That is- “
Thanatos laughed and took his hand. “Of course, friend! You live backward. So this is when you meet me! Twenty years after I met you.”
“Yes,” Norton agreed. “But we also met when I was, uh, mortal. You came to collect a baby- “
Thanatos peered at him more closely. “Oh, yes! I remember now! The demon ring! I did not make the connection; you appear different in your robe of office.”
“Not more so than you do,” Norton said.
They all laughed. “I am hoist in my own petard, as Mars would say.” Thanatos drew back his dark hood, and now the features of the customer at the Mess o’Pottage shop emerged. “Well, welcome to the office, old friend!”
Atropos took Norton’s arm and drew him toward the other occupant of the house. “And this is Luna Kaftan.”
The woman smiled. “I, too, am glad to have you meet me at last, Chronos, though we have been friends all this time. You saved my life, long ago.”
“Uh-I’m really not clear what- “
“Of course you don’t remember! I had been slain by -a dragon, and you turned time back to unslay me.”
As he had done for Excelsia. “Uh, good,” he said inadequately.
“Come in, friend,” Luna said, taking his arm and drawing him to the center of the room. “We realize we owe you explanations. We have grown accustomed to your knowledge, forgetting it needs an origin. You have been an excellent friend to all of us, and it is time for us to clarify things for you.”
And clarify they did. Luna, born the daughter of a powerful Magician who had foreseen the first of Satan’s current series of efforts to subvert the system, was now a Senator, influential in Congress; it was understood that she would in the near future be instrumental in balking Satan’s plan to take over the government and influence the nation and the world enough to swing the total balance toward evil and make him the final victor over God. No one knew exactly what Satan planned to do, but all knew that Luna was the key to stopping it. She had to be protected. There had already been horrendous episodes. But Chronos’role was to be critical, for he alone could literally change history. Everything else that had happened could become invalid, and all their memories and experiences could change-if Chronos did not hold firm against the wiles and guiles of Satan. What Chronos had done- would do-to balk Satan was not clear to any of them; evidently much of it had been erased by changes in reality already. But if he won, they would remain as they were now, ready to defeat Satan.
“But I must have won,” he said. “Since you are here!”
Luna shook her head. “No. We are at the moment only a theoretical present; our reality is subject to your action. We sincerely hope you will prevail, but we are largely helpless to assist you in that effort.”
Atropos told Thanatos and Luna of Satan’s latest trick- trying to get Thanatos vacated before he even assumed the office. “Because Chronos didn’t know-at his beginning,” she concluded. “Satan was striking at the outset- and he almost bypassed us all.”
“The last shall be first,” Luna agreed. “We have been napping in that respect, but it seems that ploy was foiled because Chronos did not take the minion there, and now knows better. Yet my stones indicate that Satan is not through with him, and the issue remains in serious doubt.”
How blithely she talked of her own potential defeat or nonexistence! “What can Satan do, now that I am alert?” Norton asked.
“I’m not sure,” Luna said. “But there is something.”
“It is impossible for any of us to be sure,” Atropos said, “when our own history is being changed.”
“But I haven’t changed any!” Norton protested. “I won’t- “
Atropos shook her head. “There is something,” she said, repeating Luna’s words. She brought forth her threads. “That strange crossing-and now I think it’s not coincidental.” She concentrated, peering closely at her network. “Can’t seem to spot it specifically.”
“Satan couldn’t have done anything in any past time without Chronos’cooperation,” Luna said. “And Chronos has not cooperated-and as he progresses into our past, he’ll be increasingly careful, so Satan will have no opportunity to fool him. If Satan hasn’t managed anything yet, he’ll never have the chance-as well he knows.”
Now Thanatos turned his hollow-skull gaze on Norton. Even though Norton knew this was merely the effect of the hood, which the man had drawn close again, it remained disconcerting. “Are you certain Satan’s minion did not accompany you to the past?”
“No demon went with me,” Norton said. “Unless you mean Sning?” He held up his hand, showing the snake ring.
“He is not of Satan,” Thanatos said. “I meant something Satan might have given you, that you accepted. You have to accept it; that is the nature of this. Evil can never touch the person who refuses to accept it. But evil can be subtle. Satan might have concealed the minion’s nature and purpose.”
“All Satan gave me was a scroll with the address, which I didn’t keep-I memorized it-and an amulet to- “Norton stiffened. “Oh, no!”
“The demon!” Luna agreed. “Satan knew you would want to investigate, and once you carried his minion there- “
“How could I have been such a fool!” Norton cried in an agony of conscience. “Sning tried to warn me, but I didn’t understand. Satan said it was just a little horn- “
Thanatos nodded. “The horn of a demon.” he said. “Do not blame yourself unduly, Chronos; all of us have been deceived by the guiles of the Father of Lies. All of us have learned the hard way. Once he almost convinced me my magic was gone.”
“But your life is not changed, Thanatos,” Atropos said. “I checked that first; the snarl is not there.”
The Deathhead grinned. “Obviously.”
“No, I didn’t take the horn there,” Norton said. His knees felt weak. “I could have eliminated you, Thanatos, without ever realizing! You who were so kind to me when you took the baby! When you took the time to explain. I feel terrible! It was just blind luck that I didn’t- “
“You two met before?” Luna asked. “Perhaps, then, it wasn’t luck. Paradox may have been brought into play.”
“I thought I was immune,” Norton said.
“You are. But there are special cases. When did you meet Thanatos-in our time?”
“About a year and a half ago, maybe less. Before I became Chronos. It was partly because of Thanatos that I took the office. I knew, because of him, that it was possible for a good person to function as an Incarnation.”
“He is a good person, isn’t he?” Luna said, bestowing on Thanatos a momentary gaze of such love and respect that her beauty was intensified. Then she turned back to Norton. “Had you had no connection with Thanatos, you could have eliminated him without consequence to yourself. But you met him and were influenced by him; thus your elimination of him would have constituted a variety of paradox, even though the result occurred later in your own life. He had to be there to talk with you in your normal life-and I know from my own experience why he did it and that a different man in that office would not have done it.” She smiled at the Death-figure.
“Well, he noticed my ring- “
“I have a houseful of similar enchantments.” She turned and reached to a shelf, picking up a tiny elephant formed from a single blue topaz stone. In her hand the elephant came to life and trumpeted faintly. “He would not have found your ring remarkable.”
Norton looked at Thanatos, who did not react. “Then why-?”
Luna took Thanatos’bone-arm, showing no aversion to its form. “Because he saw that you were suffering, and he had compassion. Few in his office have had that quality, and of course Satan doesn’t comprehend it.” She turned again to Thanatos. “I went with him first because I was required to, but when I grasped his inner nature I loved him. He saved my life-as all the Incarnations have- but I would have loved him anyway.”
“That other woman,” Norton said. “The one he would have married, had he not become Thanatos instead-she was beautiful and wealthy and good-but so are you! He lost nothing!”
“Nothing!” Thanatos agreed.
“So you could not readily eliminate Thanatos,” Luna concluded. “Paradox did help there.”
“Not-readily?”
“It is possible,” she explained. “Paradox is not absolute for you. You will tend to avoid it, rather than confront it head-on, even when only mortals are involved. Incarnations are much more difficult to change, so paradox is stronger with them. But if you do meet it directly, it can not stop you. So you could have eliminated Thanatos without consequence to yourself, but it would have required a more specific effort.”
“I made no effort!” Norton said.
“Yes. So you avoided eliminating him, for a reason Satan was not equipped to understand. Satan’s ruse malfunctioned by seeming coincidence. That is the way such things operate; without your will, paradox will not be abused, even when only normal people are involved. What happened to Satan’s horn?”
“I visited-the woman I loved,” Norton said, abruptly aware that Atropos was merely another form of Clotho, with whom he had so recently made love. “She made me destroy the thing.”
“There is the seeming coincidence,” Luna said.
Atropos shook her head. “Still, there is something. Did you go anywhere before then?”
“Yes. I visited her when she was a child. And, you know, somewhere along the way part of the horn was lost- “
“Not lost,” Luna said. “Departed. The part that was the messenger-demon took off to do its mischief.”
“When?” Atropos demanded of Norton.
“When Orlene was ten years old-or maybe seven- that’s the first stop I made-call it about fifteen years ago, your time. No, more like seventeen. I entered normal time to chat with her in a park. That could be where it left.”
Atropos explored her threads. “Nothing in that period.”
“Actually, I paused at a number of places in her life. But I didn’t phase in to normal time- “
“Probably that wasn’t necessary. The demon could have dropped off while you were traveling.” She continued to check. “There does seem to be something eight or nine years ago.” She put her old eye close. “Yes, threads I never crossed, in that general range.”
“The minion, for sure,” Luna said. “It made a change. It couldn’t get to the primary target, so took a secondary one. Now we must discover what that is.”
“A change in the past, to get rid of you-without touching Thanatos?” Norton asked.
“Or to nullify me,” Luna said. “I am the real target, not Thanatos-and in this case I am easier to get at, since I am mortal and you never before interacted with me. In any event, Satan does not care how he gets his way-as long as he does.”
“But you are the same-I mean, you haven’t changed, have you? Or would you know if you had changed?”
Luna smiled. “I understand your concern, Chronos. But no, I don’t believe I have changed-yet. My stones indicate that Good retains the advantage over Evil, and that would not be the case if Satan had his way. Still, mischief is in the making. We should be able to undo it if we act correctly and promptly.”
“First we must discover what the damage is,” Thanatos said. “Perhaps this is merely a diversion.”
“It’s oddly minor,” Atropos said, still peering in perplexity at her threads. “Nothing significant, really. No one was killed, harmed, or even frightened.”
“Keep looking,” Luna said. “Satan is devious, but we can be sure he knows how to score.”
“I’m afraid I still don’t understand,” Norton said. “If the demon did something to change the future-our present-why isn’t it finished now? And if it isn’t, why can’t I simply go back to fix it? If Atropos can just pinpoint the moment- “
“It’s the three-person limit,” Atropos said, still tracing her threads. “An aspect of the paradox resistance.” She glanced up to spy Norton’s look of bafflement. “Thanatos, you understand it, don’t you? Explain it to him, for Chronos certainly has the need to know.”
Both Thanatos and Luna chuckled. “Indeed, he explained it to me many years ago, when I was new in office,” Thanatos said. He opened his cloak and removed it; with that action, he became a completely ordinary young man, the one called Zane. Twenty years had not aged him at all; evidently Incarnations did not age the way normal people did. That aligned with Norton’s observation of the prior Chronos: it had been an adult man, not a newborn baby, who brought the Hourglass. So he himself would probably remain his present physiological age until his term expired. “Chronos was kind to me,” Zane continued. “Now I shall be kind to him at his commencement.” And he settled down and explained it so that Norton could understand.
The reason no change had occurred in the present was that it had not yet occurred in the past. Whatever the demon of Satan had done was quiescent, evoking no change in the life of any human being. But that was merely a delayed implementation, a literal time bomb that would in due course have its effect on human events. The moment it did, the future from that point on would change, in whatever manner the initial alteration determined. That would surely include Luna; if she were not eliminated as a person, she would certainly be nullified as a force to balk Satan. So they had to locate and nullify that change before it touched the human fabric; only in that manner could they be assured of success.
“But how long-?” Norton asked.
“Atropos is trying to determine that,” Thanatos said. “She can trace living threads readily, but inanimate threads are more devious. It could be five more minutes-or five more years.”
Norton felt another chill. Time bomb indeed! “Maybe I can go back and destroy the demon before it escapes. It was in my possession, after all.”
Thanatos shook his head. “You can not. That is the other aspect of Satan’s mischief. The three-person limit prevents you.” And he explained about that.
Chronos was the only entity who could travel in time and he was largely immune from paradox-but there were limits. His easiest way was simply to proceed along his natural life course, backward to the date of his birth. It required magical effort to reverse his direction and match that of ordinary people, as he was doing now, more effort to travel through historical time, and more yet to take physical form and act in such a time. But the magic of the Hourglass made it possible, and he could indeed change reality by changing the past. But in such cases, he was there in two persons-himself in his original, normal life, and himself in his return as Chronos. Doubling himself was in his power; it had to be, for him to use his power effectively. But tripling himself was another matter; then he was making a third appearance at a given time, interfering with himself as Chronos, and the potential for paradox magnified exponentially.
No one could interfere with an Incarnation with impunity-not even if that Incarnation was himself. That strained the power of the Hourglass, for it was itself being doubled and was opposing itself. It was theoretically possible for this to occur, but so awkward that it was hardly worthwhile to try. If he did try, most likely he would bounce off and land in a time when there was no duplication, possibly doing incidental mischief in the process. In short, the risks were probably greater than the likely benefits; mischief in time was the most awkward to undo-because of the three-person limit. Chronos could do damage that Chronos could not correct.
“And Satan knew that!” Norton exclaimed. “He knew I could not change my mind once I changed the past- even if it was inadvertent.”
“True,” Thanatos agreed. “Had you taken the demon to the Mess o’Pottage shop, you would have nullified the best efforts of Atropos and myself, for in such interactions Chronos is more powerful than Thanatos. The rest of us can double only by your action-and we can be rendered nonexistent by your action, too. Only God and Satan, the true Eternals, are exempt from that.”
Something about this explanation bothered Norton, but he was not able to pin it down. “Then there is no way to stop what Satan’s minion has done?” he asked. “If I can’t return to stop the demon- “
“There should be a way,” Luna said. “Satan’s minions do not endure long apart from him. That demon must have done its deed and expired. If we can identify what he did and nullify it before it impinges on human events, then the victory will be ours. We probably have time, because Satan sought to distract you; he would not have bothered, had the deed been truly irrevocable.”
“It was some distraction!” Norton admitted ruefully. “He said he was showing me the nature of his bribe to encourage me to take his minion to the Mess o’Pottage. All the time he knew this was pointless or impossible. He was certainly angry when he learned I’d destroyed the horn, though; he must have thought the mission had been a complete failure.”
“We were lucky,” Luna said. “We could have been lost before we had a chance to fight back. But that secondary mission can still destroy us. How is it coming, Atropos?”
“I have almost pinpointed the time and place,” Atropos said. “But not the deed. I only know that when it manifests, it will give Satan the victory. My threads have tension on them that threatens haywire shifting. I need to comprehend it further.”
Norton’s mind had been running back over his recent experiences with Satan. The globular cluster, the Magic Lantern Cloud, and his adventures there-suddenly the thing that had bothered him came clear. He had doubled himself in those adventures, rescuing himself from the Bern and saving Excelsia from the Alicorn. It had been not only possible but easy. How, then, could the three person limit be such a formidable force? Did it exist at all?
“Gaea,” Luna said.
“I will take Atropos to her,” Thanatos said, rising and resuming his cloak.
“Take us all,” Luna said. “Chronos must meet her, too.”
“Gaea-another Incarnation?” Norton asked. It seemed to him he had heard that name before; Gawain the Ghost had said-
“The Green Mother,” Luna explained. “Nature.”
Yes, that was it; Gaea had changed the baby for Gawain and thereby had caused terrible mischief. The memory of that banished Norton’s three-person speculation from his attention; he wanted to meet this powerful yet fallible entity.
The four of them walked out to the estate parking lot, paced by the guardian griffins. They were certainly beautiful animals! Beside the parking lot there was a small, verdant pasture. A handsome stallion of pale hue grazed there.
“Mortis,” Thanatos called.
The pale horse perked up his ears and trotted over. He was a truly splendid animal, with a sleek hide and firm muscles; had he had wings and a horn, he could have passed for another Alicorn. This was, Norton remembered, the Death horse-the steed who carried Thanatos to his appointments.
“We need transportation for four-to the Green Mother,” Thanatos said to the horse.
Mortis stepped onto the pavement-and shifted into the form of a pale limousine. Norton gaped. “That-but that’s a machine!” he protested.
Thanatos drew his cloak about him more tightly; as the hood closed, the skull-face manifested with its gruesome grin. “Mortis is an excellent steed-but perhaps no more remarkable than your little ring.” He opened a door for the ladies.
Squeeze. Sning liked that comparison. He was another creature who converted from living to dead, or vice versa.
Norton walked around the car, noting that the tag in back said, MORTIS. And he had thought the Alicorn was remarkable! When magic and science were one, such miracles were commonplace. He opened a door and climbed in.
He found himself in the back seat beside Clotho. She shrugged at his startled glance. “I want to be presentable for Ge,” she explained.
Of course. Fate changed bodies the way others changed clothes. This made it seem like a double date, for Thanatos and Luna were companions, while he and Clotho- well, what did it matter? His old existence as a mortal was behind him.
The car started smoothly, driving itself. It turned about-and abruptly it was zooming through space and matter. The world was rushing past in a smear of color. Then this slowed, and they were driving into the gate of a truly sumptuous estate with luxuriant trees of many varieties and a sparkling lake. It was the kind of place that could charge tourists for visits.
A huge shape loomed in the sky ahead. Norton peered through the windshield. “That-that’s a- “
“A roc,” Luna said calmly. “The largest of birds. Ge has made her estate into a preserve for rare and magical creatures. It’s hard to imagine how she salvaged the rocs.”
The roc swooped toward them, its wings seeming to span the whole horizon. It pounced on the car, its monstrous talons poking into the windows and vents, and picked up the vehicle together with its occupants as if this were no more than a mouse. In moments they were dangling high in the air.
One talon was near Norton’s face, projecting from the top of the window to the ceiling of the car. The talon was like fine blue steel, an inch in diameter at the window and tapering to a needle point. What a bird!
Luna turned to Thanatos, unruffled. “Ge is testing us,” she remarked. “Perhaps you had better perform a token, just to reassure her.”
“Gently,” Clotho cautioned him. “We are fairly high at the moment.”
“Gently,” Thanatos agreed. He reached up and touched a talon with a skeletal finger.
The bird shuddered-and so did the car. The roc had felt the touch of Death, and that was a touch no creature ignored. The roc spiraled down to the ground and set the car gently back on the road. Then it hastily departed.
Norton realized why caution had been advisable. Thanatos could have stunned or killed the big bird-but that would have led to a crash landing. So he had merely given warning-and the roc, recognizing a power more sinister than its own, had yielded.
But a new problem loomed. A cloud formed, and rain slanted down from it, turning rapidly to sleet and then snow. From the right puffed smoke and steam; then a vent opened and molten rock poured out. The lava was not moving rapidly, but it was hideously hot; the vegetation it touched burst instantly into flame. The snow, on the other side, was already piling so deep that the ear could not plow through it.
Clotho shook her head. “Ge.” She sighed as if addressing a naughty child. “Mortis, follow my thread.” She flicked a finger, and a thread flew out, passing through the windshield without touching it and extending in front of the car, glowing.
Mortis followed it. The thread wound through the slush melted by the lava, left the road, traveled along a ridge that held the lava temporarily at bay, and went across a narrow channel that concentrated the lava. The car speeded up to hurdle the ditch, then slued about to follow the curving thread toward the main mass of lava. This seemed hazardous indeed to Norton, particularly since the traction was treacherous and the visibility almost nil, but the thread of Fate knew exactly where to go. That, of course, was part of Fate’s business-to know the intricacies of man’s interaction with Nature. They threaded their way successfully between snow and lava, sometimes with each close enough to touch on either side from a window, sometimes pausing, then scooting forward, avoiding a minor avalanche, and emerged onto a firm, dry road. Fate had foiled Nature.
Then Norton experienced an urgent need to relieve himself. His gut knotted and his bladder swelled. “Uh, if we could stop a moment...” he said.
Luna fidgeted. “Ge again; we all feel it. No way to avoid it, and stopping won’t relieve it. It’s her specialty for intruders: instant flu.” Her cheek seemed greenish.
Indeed, now Norton’s stomach roiled. Beside him, Clotho looked seasick, and Thanatos seemed about as sick as a skeleton could be.
Clotho turned to him. “Your turn, Chronos.”
Oh. Norton lifted the Hourglass, turned the sand blue, and willed the immediate region to be included in a short hop. There was a small jump, and the discomfort abated.
He had brought the car and occupants five minutes into the past, which was his future, before the illness commenced.
Clotho took a deep breath. “Thank you, Chronos. A girl doesn’t like to look sick in public.” She brought out a small mirror and checked her young and pretty face.
He had not violated the three-person rule, since he had not duplicated himself. Well, perhaps he had, because he had been phased in to real-world time. The others and the car would be duplicated for five minutes, but by the time the other earful of them caught up to this spot on the road, this car would be gone, and so there should be no problem. The other earful would fade out, leaving this one.
Or could the other earful have been retroactively erased? That would avoid the three-person problem. There was still a lot he did not understand about his office.
Now the mansion of the Green Mother Nature was before them. It seemed to be formed of vegetation, its thick wood alive and leafy, with a streamlet flowing from level to level in the manner of a fountain. Animals peeped from crannies-bunnies, wrens, lizards, and perhaps an elf or two. This was indeed the handiwork of the Earth Mother.
The car parked, they got out, and Mortis reconverted to equine form and set about grazing beside the mansion. Had they really been inside a horse all this time? Norton shook his head, filing the matter as another wonder to be pondered at leisure at such time as he was alone with a campfire. The four walked up to the entrance.
Gaea met them there. She was a stoutish woman of middle age with a crown of woven leaves and vines and a dress of leaves and pine needles; green was certainly her color. She seemed to Norton to possess an aura of competence and power; this was no innocuous creature.
If green was Nature’s color, he reflected, then surely black was Thanatos’, and white his own. But what would be Fate’s color?
“We’re in trouble, Ge,” Clotho said without preamble. “Satan tricked Chronos into taking a demon back in time to eliminate Luna. That was partly balked by paradox, but there’s a sleeper. I can’t quite track it down.”
Gaea glanced at Norton. “My apology for my error,” she murmured.
No confusion there! She was referring to the problem with Oriene’s baby. “Accepted,” he said. He knew she had helped facilitate his present office as compensation for that error.
Gaea turned to Clotho. “Let me see it.”
Clotho held out her hands, the network of threads between them. Gaea peered. “May I?” she asked.
“You may,” Clotho replied.
Gaea made a little gesture with a hand near the threads. They changed-and the environment changed. The threads became curling green vines with sprouting leaves- and the five human figures in the mansion seemed to be standing in an enormous garden, existing on the scale of insects.
The vine-threads wove through the fabric of this new reality in an amazingly complex scheme. Everything seemed to relate, in some obvious or devious fashion, to everything else. Of course, that was the nature of reality, or the reality of nature, and of fate, and this manifestation was hardly surprising, since these were the very Incarnations of Nature and Fate.
Gaea walked along a vine. “Here it is,” she said. “Here is where the threads were crossed.”
The others crowded close. Norton saw that a tiny stem, something like a section of fine straw, had been moved, so that it crossed the main vine in a slightly different place. The change hardly seemed significant.
Clotho concentrated-and the vines expanded, until the large vine seemed to be the diameter of the height of a man and the small stem was three inches through. “I will analyze the small one,” Gaea said.‘ That one’s dead, but I believe it holds the key.” She gestured. A glow formed about the small vine and the place from which it had been moved. Colored light radiated from that region, separating into prismatic components, bathing them all in rainbow hues.
“There,” Gaea said, pointing to a dark band amidst the colored light. “The spectrograph shows it. Contamination.”
“Dangerous?” Clotho asked.
Gaea frowned. “No. It’s cyanide, but that was there before the interference. It has been chemically nullified, so that its effect on a human being would be minimal. A few hours of queasiness, no more.”
“Why should Satan act to nullify an existing poison?” Thanatos asked.
Clotho inspected the larger vine. “Oops,” she said. “Now at last I fathom it. What an insidious plot!”
Gaea looked at her expectantly. “You had slated a poisoning?”
“Not exactly,” Clotho said. “Here, Lachesis can explain it better.” She shifted to middle-aged form. “I do not slate people for doom any more than Thanatos kills them,” Lachesis said. “I merely weave the threads in necessary patterns. Some mortals must prosper and some must decline, and there is no guaranteed personal justice in this. My concern is not for individuals, but for the pattern as a whole. In this case, a certain older man of indifferent qualities had to be woven out in order to make way for a young woman of superior qualities. So-he was accidentally poisoned, mostly by his own carelessness. He swallowed a pill contaminated by cyanide and died at the age of sixty-two. It was small loss for the world, though he was politically prominent.”
“Cyanide,” Luna said thoughtfully. “I remember- “
“The same,” Lachesis agreed.
“I don’t understand,” Norton said.
Lachesis faced him. “This remains in your future- but you do need to know now. The senior Senator from Luna’s state died in office, so a special election was scheduled. Luna ran for that office with the support of the Forces of Good and won. This is the office she now holds.”
“Luna is a Senator?” Norton asked, surprised. He might have heard about it before, but it hadn’t sunk in.
“And an excellent one,” Thanatos said with a certain possessive pride. “At the moment, the Senate isn’t in session, so she’s not in the news, but normally she is. She was first elected eight years ago and is now well established with a firm base of support. She may one day become our first female President.”
“I haven’t decided to run yet!” Luna protested, embarrassed.
Norton was embarrassed too. He had been so much out of touch with contemporary affairs that he had never heard of Senator Kaftan during his ordinary life.
“But after you balk Satan in that critical showdown, you will be the front runner,” Lachesis said. “I see it in the threads.”
No wonder Satan didn’t like Luna! A powerful female political figure, allied with the Incarnations themselves, possessed of a legacy of magic from her Magician father-she would be in an excellent position to balk any political ploy the Prince of Evil tried! Obviously he had something in mind and needed her out of office so she couldn’t interfere. “Then the demon I took back in time— “
“Went and nullified the contaminated capsule that the original Senator was destined to take,” Lachesis concluded. “So when he takes it, he won’t die and will remain in office, and there will be no special election for Luna to win. She will remain a lesser officeholder and not become a Senator, and will not be in a position to foil him politically at the critical moment.”
Subtle indeed! “But couldn’t she win the office in a normal election?”
“Against an incumbent? No chance! The Senator has to be dead before giving up his seat.” Lachesis grimaced. “And even if she did manage to oust him, it wouldn’t be the same. Taking office four years later, she wouldn’t have the same seniority. That’s important for key committees and influence-especially the committee chairmanship that will give her the specific authority she needs. No, Luna has to win that seat when she did-which means we have to restore that capsule before the Senator takes it.”
“But this is murder!” Norton cried, aghast.
“We do deal in life and death,” Gaea said, with a significant glance at Thanatos.
“But in their proper pattern,” Lachesis said. “Is it really murder to restore the events of the past to their original settings?”
Norton was confused and unhappy. “To poison a person knowingly- “
“Have you any notion,” Lachesis asked grimly, “how many people will knowingly be poisoned-and tortured, murdered, and literally damned to Hell-if the minions of Satan win political power on Earth?”
“No,” Norton said.
“With political power, Satan can and will make the worship of God a crime punishable by torture until recantation. Thus all those who are not good enough or strong enough to resist such torture-and that is the majority- will become worshipers of Satan, and the balance of power will shift to Him. He will have His way with both Life and Afterlife, and there will be no reprieve from Evil. On that day, the death of one corrupt Senator will not even be noticed, for Good itself will be dead.”
“But-you are saying the end justifies the means!” Norton was still deeply troubled. “If we do evil in the name of good- “
“Why don’t you step into Hell and see what Satan’s power is like?” Gaea asked him. Her eyes were like blue skies with roiling clouds in the background.
“I can do that? Visit Hell?”
“You are an Incarnation. You can do what you choose. Even Satan can not deny you that.”
Norton considered-and found that he did not need to visit Hell to know that Satan was evil. He did not like killing, but it was true that the ethics of his revising the past were problematical. Was he guilty of murder if he did not set about revising history to eliminate every death that had occurred during his projected term of office? If he decided to let history stand as it was, deaths included, was it right to allow Satan to make the decision about which person should be spared by a spot revision? Viewed that way, the sacrifice of the Senator seemed to be the lesser of evils. He did not like becoming the instrument of the Senator’s demise, but he preferred that to the evil Satan would generate if the Senator lived. It seemed he had to choose among flawed means to achieve the smallest total evil for the society, cutting one thread for the benefit of the majority. He had to respect the judgment of the other Incarnations, who had been in office longer than he had and who had had more experience with the machinations of Satan. “No, I will help you to restore the original past. I will take you back to when the demon changed- “He broke off, remembering the three-person barrier. “Except you tell me I can’t go back there, having been there once before as Chronos.”
“There is a way,” Gaea said. “But it is not easy.”
“None of this is easy,” Norton said.
“None of it is,” Gaea agreed. “You can not return directly to that time. But you can return to a spot on the timeline that is no closer than your elapsed personal time, and anchor yourself then, and- “
“Wait! Wait! I’m hopelessly confused! No closer than what?”
Luna came and took his hand. “You are new in office, however long we have known you in it. We keep forgetting, because you have been so knowledgeable in our past. I will explain, while they narrow down the precise coordinates of the demon’s interference.” She guided him to another huge vine, and they sat down on its resilient surface. She had a remarkably compelling presence and a quiet air of authority and she was, despite her age, a beautiful woman. Norton could understand how Death himself loved her.
“Time is objective,” Luna said, “and subjective. It passes in the world and it passes for you-and though your normal course is opposite to that of the world, time is equally real for both of you. When you live a day, the world lives a day, and this ratio holds regardless of direction. So, since it has been about six hours from when you loosed Satan’s minion on Earth, in terms of your life, the same amount of time has passed on Earth since the change. You can no more return to a spot within that six hours than you can duplicate yourself; it is an aspect of the same limit.”
Norton shook his head. “It almost seems to make sense when you say it.”
She smiled. “Almost! It will make more sense to you as you mature in office.”
“Nonetheless, I can’t accept all of it.”
“What can’t you accept?”
“First, I can duplicate myself; I have already done so more than once. So- “
“Duplicate once, yes; it is the second duplication that is the barrier.”
“Yes. But since my original life counts as one, and my present backward life as another— “
“Did we say that? That was a misunderstanding. Your prior, mortal life is excluded. Only your present Incarnation relates. You have no further connection with your mortal existence; that is one reason you are immune from any paradox involving it. So your normal backward course is one, and your jump to our past is another.”
“But I have doubled up, and interfered with my prior Chronos self-in fact, once I rescued my prior self from destruction.”
She pursed her lips. “That’s interesting! But it does not violate the three-person rule. It does not matter whether your doubles are together or far apart; you can not conveniently go triple.”
He nodded. “Yes, I see how it applies now. But the other thing is this business of six hours. It has been a lot longer than that since- “
“I calculated it,” Lachesis called, overhearing him. “Your time in Satan’s frame doesn’t count for this, only your time in this one. You slept for three hours, talked with Satan for half an hour, and spoke with me for an hour and a half before we realized the problem and went to join the other Incarnations an hour ago. Six hours total.”
“I see,” Norton said, surprised at the accuracy of her assessment. But, of course, she was Fate, the Mistress of the Threads of Life; this was her business.
“At the moment,” Luna said gently, “it is enough for you to know that these six hours are barred to you by direct effort, but that you can penetrate them by an extraordinary measure.”
“I land seven hours later and-what?”
“And turn back the clock,” she said. “You must reverse time and take the whole world with you. That will put you in the same category as you were-would be-will be, for you-when you live through that period as Chronos. You will pre-empt that period.”
“You mean, by that device I’ll actually erase whatever I was doing in my normal course then?”
“We believe so. There is a risk, if that normal course covers something important, but Lachesis sees no problem in her threads. Perhaps that period has never happened for you, because of your pre-emption, so nothing is lost.”
Norton’s head was spinning again. “How do you know my so-called normal Chronos self will go?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll actually be tripling myself. That’s theoretically possible, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is,” she agreed with a certain reservation. “There may be an infinite progression, like a picture within a picture, or mirrors facing each other. But it is convenient for us to call it the three-person limit. Our understanding is more restricted than yours will be; perhaps we understand only part of your nature. At any rate, we are reasonably certain that if you reverse time for the world, for those six or seven hours, you will be able to reach the moment the demon acted, despite your prior trip there, and to nullify the demon just before it acts. Then you can relax, with the world returned to its original course, the damage undone-and protected by the same three-person limit that at the moment is causing us so much difficulty. Reversing Satan’s ploy.”
“But what, when-?”
“When you come to that period in your normal life? I believe you will simply jump over it, having already lived it preemptively. The three-person limit should not harm you, but merely cause you that inconvenience-if we judge it correctly.”
“It seems reasonable enough to me,” he said. “Thank you. Senator- “
“Luna.”
“Luna. Now I think I know what I’m doing.”
“Thank you,” she said, touching the back of his hand with her cool, delicate fingers. “It is my career you are preserving.”
Norton looked across at the others. Lachesis was facing him. “We have now pinpointed it exactly,” she said. “We can give you precise coordinates. Are you ready to save the world from Satan, Chronos?”
Norton breathed deeply. “I hope so,” he said.