From time to time Niobe checked on her mortal family. The rawness of the tragedy of the wedding eased. Her son the Magician seemed to be quite happy with his bride Blenda. She was a schoolteacher, disdaining to exploit her beauty by going into show business. Blenda visited her father, Pacian, often, making sure he took care of himself during his bereavement. It was her bereavement too, but she used a spellstone her husband provided to damp its misery. This was not, Niobe knew, from any selfishness. It was simply that, with a husband and a father to attend to, and a class to teach, she could not afford to be incapacitated at this time. This was one of the benefits of modern magic; it did make it easier for people to survive such crises. Pes' :ps it was for similar reasons Blenda postponed starting her own family.
But Pacian was not doing as well. He refused to use magic to ameliorate his misery, and his suffering did not appear to ease with time. He maintained himself with solemn dignity, meeting his commitments, keeping up his health, but he seemed to be aging too rapidly.
Niobe was concerned. As the mother of the Magician whom Satan had sought to strike down, she felt a guilty responsibility for the tragedy of the wedding. Also, as an Aspect of Fate, she knew she should have been able to balk Satan more effectively than she had. So it was at least in part her fault. Pacian had been her son's best friend in youth, virtually his brother; it was not right to let him suffer.
She visited him in her own form and apologized. At first he hardly listened, but then he remembered. "You— you are the Magician's relative! The one who posed with my daughter."
Niobe wrestled briefly with her sense of propriety and decided it didn't matter. "I am related to the Magician," she reminded him. "Closely."
"He has no little sister," he said. "I am his only cousin, once-removed, so you cannot be related that way. Yet you are strangely familiar. Exactly how are you related?"
She delayed a moment more, hesitating before the plunge. "You have met me before."
"I'm sure I have—or someone like you. It nags me every time I see you! But I can't place the connection."
"Certainly you can. I am the Magician's mother."
He laughed. "Sure, and you're sixty years old!"
"Closer to sixty-two."
"I knew his mother when I was a boy. She was the prettiest woman extant! But after she left Junior with us, she visited for a while, then disappeared. She had some kind of important job that took all her time. I think she just couldn't stand to stay around where cousin Cedric had died." Suddenly his animation deflated. "I know the feeling."
"I am Niobe Kaftan," she said firmly. "What you say is true; I could not remain. I loved my baby son, but I knew I could not raise him as well as your family could, so I gave him up. I have never truly regretted that decision; your folks did a fine job with him—and with you."
"He was always a good boy," he agreed. "I was so pleased when he took an interest in my daughter. Of course they are second cousins, but it reunified a family that had been drifting apart." Then he refocused on her. "The irony is that you do resemble her. But you are no older than my daughter."
"I never aged, physically," Niobe explained. "I am still the physical age I was when you were twelve. When I kissed you and departed."
"That kiss..." he murmured, remembering.
But he was still unable to accept it. Blenda, being younger, had readily acclimatized to the truth and kept her mouth shut, but Pacian at age fifty was too adult to swallow the impossible readily. "The Magician, perhaps, has a spell for eternal youth—but he has never used it, and certainly he did not have it in time for his mother's use."
"I became an Aspect of Fate," she said. "An Incarnation. They are physically frozen; they are Incarnations oflmmortality—forawhile. So, asClotho, I never aged."
He looked at her again. "You are beautiful," he said as if yielding a point. "Probably as lovely as she was. I had a crush on her—"
"I know."
He sighed. "Very well. I will entertain the notion that you are she, unaged. I'm sure the matter can be verified readily enough; the Magician will know."
"He does."
"But I require proof of my own. As I recall. Fate has three Aspects—"
"Yes. I assumed the Aspect of Atropos to continue visiting Junior—and you."
"Atropos?"
"The oldest Aspect of Fate. She—"
"You can change—just like that?"
"Yes."
"Do so."
She gave the body to Atropos.
Pacian shook his head. "No, you are not she."
"Of course I'm not," Atropos said. "The Atropos you knew retired to be with you and the boy until she died;
I am her successor." She gave the body back to Niobe.
"And you were there, too, in the body—all the time?"
"Yes," Niobe said.
"There is something that happened—"
"The prophecy."
"Which I voided. I married Blanche. She was the finest woman—"
"But not the loveliest of her generation," Niobe finished.
"Correct. You were that."
She laughed. "So I have been told. And Blenda is the one of her generation. She honored the prophecy by marrying—"
She broke off, suddenly making a connection. She stared at Pacian. He stared back with similar astonishment.
Then he turned away. Niobe got up quickly and departed.
Back in her Purgatory Abode, Niobe tried to concentrate on her spinning, but the others wouldn't let her. "I wasn't there," Atropos said. "But what's wrong with Pacian?"
"He's my husband's cousin!" Niobe retorted.
"Your husband died almost forty years ago, didn't he?" Lachesis asked. "And Pacian's wife four years ago. You are both free, now."
"But we never thought of each other in that way!"
"But he had a crush—" Lachesis said.
"And you are the most beautiful—" Atropos put in.
"To Hell with the prophecy!" Niobe cried.
"That is what Satan would like," Lachesis said snidely.
"To Hell with Satan!"
"Exactly how did that prophecy go?"
"Each boy would possess the most beautiful woman of her generation," Niobe said, concentrating to remember it accurately." Each would bear a most talented daughter. One girl would love an Incarnation, and the other would become one. No, wait—there were two prophecies; I've got them mixed."
"That's all right," Lachesis said. "Remember all you can."
"Both would stand athwart the tangled skein," Niobe said.
"That's us!" Atropos said.
"One may marry Death, the other Evil," Niobe said, fishing another fillip from her memory. "One to be the savior of man—the daughter of the savior of deer. I think that's all of it."
"Then it's the Magician's daughter who will save man," Lachesis said.
"But he has no daughter," Atropos pointed out.
"And Pacian's daughter certainly didn't marry Thanatos or Satan!" Niobe said. "So it remains a mishmash;it doesn't—"
"Unless you marry Pacian," Lachesis said. "And give him another daughter."
"That's preposterous!"
"You are leaving us within a year," Atropos said. "That would be a fine way to do it."
"You damned matchmaker! I don't love Pacian!"
"Yet," both other Aspects said together with her mouth.
It was a month before Niobe could bring herself to face Pacian again. He looked at her with a certain resignation. "Prophecies are difficult to void," he said.
"And often not understood until too late," Niobe answered. It was a familiar dialogue.
"I want you to understand that I never—"
"Of course. I'm over sixty years old."
"And you look younger than my daughter. In addition, your love was Cedric, mine Blanche. I am sure you would not wish to be untrue to your love any more than I would to mine. So we really should dispense with this foolishness—"
Untrue to her love. Niobe sighed. She had been physically untrue to Cedric a thousand times! Yet that had provided her with a better perspective. She had entered a new life, a new role, after Cedric's death, and it would have been wrong not to fulfill that life and that role in the requisite manner. Her private love had remained sacred, and that was what counted.
"Pace, I'm not sure it is foolishness. Those prophecies have not been voided after all. When you married Blanche—"
"I generated the most beautiful woman my cousin was destined to marry," he finished. "The skein was more tangled than I realized. But that doesn't necessarily mean—"
"There have been other signals. It seems I am to leave my office soon. I think I must at least explore the possibility that it is to marry you." There—she had said it.
"Niobe, you owe nothing to me! That prophecy dates from when I was a teenager!"
"But you see, Satan has evil plans for the world. I suspect that if the prophecy can be voided, that means that the child of my son and your daughter will not be the savior of man. Maybe she will never be bom—unless the full prophecy is honored."
"That's ridiculous! Prophecies don't hold parts of themselves hostage for the performance of the rest."
"I am Fate," she said slowly. "A prophecy is a signal of Fate. The threads of our lives run true, and we try to interfere with them at our peril—and perhaps the peril of man. I'm not sure we have the right to toy with such destiny. Pace—I must know!"
He shrugged. "It is not that I have any aversion to you, Niobe. Far from it! I loved you in my secret heart until I came to know Blanche, and I think that feeling remains. But I always knew you were never to be mine. I simply would not tread upon my cousin's grave."
"Nor I on your wife's! But if the prophecy is voided, and there is no savior of man—" She spread her hands. "Pace, I married once because it was destined to be, not for love. Love came after. I would do it again—if I were sure."
"How can anyone ever be sure about a thing like this?"
"I would like to consult with—an acquaintance. Perhaps she will know."
"And who is that?"
"Gaea. You would call her the Incarnation of Nature."
"Nature." He nodded. "Yes—such an entity might know."
"I want you to be with me, so she can see us both."
He laughed tensely. "Niobe, I can't enter your realm!"
"Yes, you can—if I take you. Will you do it?"
He pondered, then shrugged. "I agree that this should be settled, one way or another. If you can take me, I will go."
She held out her hand. "Then we shall do it."
He was startled. "Now?"
"I have time available now. Don't you?"
"It's the weekend."
She took his hand. "This will be a trip to remember."
"That is my fear." But he smiled.
She flung a strand to Purgatory and slid along it, bringing him with her. They passed through the walls and the foliage of a tree, then up into the sky. Pace watched with the wonder only a mortal could have, and that restored some of the wonder for her, too. She had become jaded in thirty-eight years, as was natural enough, and it was good to be reminded of the phenomenal nature other powers. She was not eager to give them up!
They slid through the cloudbank underlying Purgatory and stopped before Fate's Abode. "This is where I live, now."
"A giant spiderweb?"
She shifted to her arachnid form, and back to human. "I am no longer an ordinary woman."
"You were never that," he said.
"Now I will take you to Gaea's green mansion." She flung another strand, took his hand again, and slid the two of them across the pleasant landscape of Purgatory. She remembered how Chronos had taken her from Incarnation to Incarnation, so long ago—his parting favor for her, laying the basis for her eventual understanding. In the interim since then, a significant segment of the Tapestry had moved by!
They arrived at the edge of the Green Mother's demesne. Before them a hillside slope dropped into a broad valley covered with waving grain. On the far slope of the valley stood Gaea's vegetable palace. All they had to do was cross.
They started down. "You can't fling a web across?" Pacian inquired.
"Not here. Ge protects her environment, so it can be a challenge to reach her."
"You have not been here before?"
"Oh, yes, many times. We often consult. But this time I'm bringing you along, so her defense system has been activated. It's just her way."
"Nature does have her way," he agreed.
"All the Incarnations do."
He shook his head with mock wonder. "All this—up in the clouds!"
"This is not in the clouds; it just seems that way. Purgatory is between Heaven and Hell, but it is impossible to define their locations. For convenience, we think of Heaven as above. Hell below, and Purgatory between."
"And I suppose this isn't really physical, either."
"It's indeterminate. You and I are alive and solid, but many of the others who seem that way are neither."
He paused and turned to her. "Niobe, I am glad after all these years to learn where you have been. I can appreciate now why you had so little time for mortal matters."
"I had time for mortal matters!" she said defensively. "I was spinning the threads of life!"
"Of course," he agreed, and she felt guilty for her sharp comment. He was a good and decent man, not looking for any quarrel. It was hardly his fault that she still thought of him, in a sense, as a twelve-year-old boy. She had not changed, physically, but he had.
They reached the level floor of the valley and waded into the grass. At the first step it was knee-high; at the second, waist-high; at the third, chest-high.
They stopped. "Oh-oh," Niobe said. "I forgot about the challenge. It's not a matter of just walking across. There's no telling how deep this valley really is."
"It could be a V-shaped valley—concealed by level grass?"
"It could be. Ge can do anything she wants with plants."
"Then we can walk under the grass," he said. "It's not far."
"We'll have to," she agreed uncertainly.
They proceeded. The slope continued, while the height of the grass rose until it was taller than they were. Soon it was twice their height, the long, thin stems giving way elastically before them so that the broader blades at the top were undisturbed. The light dimmed as they went deeper; it was like descending into an ocean, toward the utter dark at the bottom.
Niobe put her foot down—and found nothing. "Oh!" she exclaimed as she lost her balance.
Pacian's strong hand caught her windmilling arm, and he drew her back. Then he squatted to check the ground. "There is a dropoff," he reported. "About a yard, here— but I suspect that is only the beginning. We need a light."
Niobe extended a glowing strand of web. Its light was not great, but it was enough. It showed that the even slope was converting to a treacherous pattern of rocks and crevices.
They moved on down, now holding hands for safety. When they reached a dropoff of more than six feet, Niobe spun a strong thread and looped it about Pacian's waist. Then he braced himself to support her weight while she lowered herself down. After that, he knotted the web to the stout base of a grass-stem and let himself down. She was unable to dematerialize, here.
Now the gloom was Stygian indeed! She had to extend several glowing strands to illuminate the ground clearly, for even a small hole could trap a foot and break an ankle. Even so, it was no fun.
Then the ground shuddered.
They paused. "What's that?" Niobe whispered nervously.
"The tread of a monster," he whispered back. "Now I believe in live and let live; I value the wilderness as my cousin did, as the Magician does now. But the denizens do not necessarily feel the same way."
"No, they don't!" she agreed. "And we are in some kind of channel or ledge, here in the gloom, without defensive means. Pace, let's get out of here!"
"Agreed!"
They hastened up the slope the way they had come. Pacian gave her a boost up the line they had left, though she didn't need it; she climbed her threads magically. But he was being unconsciously chivalrous, and she appreciated the gesture. In a moment he followed, climbing up hand over hand. The thread, so thin it was almost invisible, was spelled not to cut flesh, and he was in good condition for his age. He had no trouble.
The ground shuddered again; the monster was coming closer.
They rejoined hands and hurried up the slope, following the line she had left. There was no way to tell how close the monster was; the shuddering was everywhere. Panting, they scrambled out of the grass and into the sunshine.
"Oh!" Niobe gasped. "I was so frightened!"
"Aren't you invulnerable, as an Incarnation?"
She laughed. "Of course I am! How silly of me to forget!" Then she frowned. "But you aren't."
He smiled, reminding her fleetingly of Cedric. They were, of course blood kin; if Cedric had lived to this age... "Just as well we hurried, then," he said. Somehow they both knew that they were safe in the bright light;
the monster would not leave the shelter of the deep grass.
She looked across at Gaea's treehouse, so near and yet so far away. "But we still need to get across."
Pacian considered. "You know, that looks like a roving ocean. The surface ripples in waves under the wind."
"Too bad we can't sail across it," she joked.
"Can't we? If this is a magic challenge—"
Her mouth dropped open. "It could be!"
He looked about. "Perhaps a raft. I see some driftwood." He walked over to the bonelike branches of a dead tree and began collecting them. "This wood is strong and light. If we lash pieces together—"
"I have threads," she said. "They'll work for that. Do you really think it will float—on grass?"
"With magic, anything is possible," he said cheerfully. It was evident that he liked a challenge. He was more animated now than she had seen him in the past two years.
As Pacian worked, he commented on a river-crossing riddle that this effort brought to mind. Niobe remembered that one from her days with Cedric. "All right," Pacian said, smiling. "Then try this one: A coin dealer has twelve coins, one of which is counterfeit..." He defined the problem for her, and she struggled without success until he explained the key step in the solution. He had the same joy in such puzzles that Cedric had had.
As they talked, he arranged the larger branches to make a framework, which she bound together with lengths of her thread. Then they tied smaller branches on until they had a raft about six feet square. They saved two long, thin branches to use as poles, and several more for paddles. "But a sail would be better," he said.
That reminded her of her voyage across the college lake, on the patched-up sailboat. She was not reassured.
There was no suitable material for a sail. With time and a loom she could have woven one from her threads, but of course she had no loom here. They heaved the raft onto the surface of the thick grass—and it floated. "That's it!" Pacian exclaimed. "It would never work without magic; this isn't real water. But your friend Nature has enchanted it as a challenge, and we have found the key."
Had they? Niobe hoped so. Pacian helped her aboard, and they shoved off. The raft floated somewhat uncertainly, and the feel was not the same as for water, but they were on their way.
Poling got them well into it, but then they went beyond the depth the poles could reach. Pacian sat down, hooked his feet into the twisted planking, and set up the two longest paddles as oars. "Um, we need to anchor them," he said. Niobe saw the problem. She knelt and tied the oars to the edges with more loops of thread, so that they swung on crude fulcrums. Then Pacian started rowing—and the raft moved. The oars tended to slide past the leaves of grass, but there was enough friction to make it work. They were on their way, again.
There was a jet of vapor down the valley. "There she blows!" Niobe exclaimed. Then she had a second thought. What kind of whale would swim in grass?
Pacian had the same thought. He accelerated his rowing, but the clumsy raft moved slowly, while a second plume erupted, closer. The whale was coming toward them!
"Is that coincidence?" Niobe asked worriedly.
"Here? I doubt it," he puffed. "I don't think we can outrun it." She was alarmed. Pacian ceased rowing. His face was red from his effort. "Another challenge?" he gasped. "I'm—afraid so. And this time we can't retreat. It would catch us in a moment."
He hefted a paddle, pondering. "I suppose I could try to fend it off," he said. "If it's big enough to take a bite of us, it's big enough to get a paddle or a pole wedged edgewise in its mouth. But I don't like molesting wildlife. After all, we are intruders on its preserve."
"You're a soft-hearted fool!" she chided him.
"It runs in the family," he agreed without rancor.
She was stricken. He was right. Once Cedric had taken to the wilderness, he had refused to harm any of it. And Junior's long association with the hamadryad of the water oak had left him with a profound appreciation of the magic of the wetlands. She herself felt the same. Pacian was very much in that mold.
The leviathan drew near. Its huge snout broke the surface of the grass. The thing was big enough to swallow them whole, raft and all!
"They say that music has charms to soothe the savage breast," Pacian said. "That is most often misquoted as 'savage beast.' It just may be worth a try, rather than futile force."
Niobe liked the way his mind worked, but the leviathan terrified her. Already its ponderous jaws were cranking open. "You mean—sing it a song?"
"Sounds silly, I know—but it's harmless, at least. I have sung to the animals on the farm with some success. We can always try to fight, as a last resort. Have you any idea what it might like?"
Doing requests, for a monster? Niobe found her mind largely blank. "I—maybe a round—"
He nodded agreement. He faced the leviathan as if about to deliver a speech. He sang, crudely but adequately:
"Have you seen the ghost of Tom?
Round white bones with the flesh all gone!
O - O - O - O - O - O - O!
Wouldn't it be chilly with no skin on!"
Niobe started to laugh, hysterically. To sing a Halloween song to a monster!
The leviathan paused in place. The jaws stopped opening. It was listening, and like some animals, it could not focus its attention on two things at once.
"Have you seen the ghost of Tom?" Pacian sang, with greater volume and confidence. This time Niobe picked up on it, repeating the first line as Pacian continued with the second line, for it was indeed a round. It worked out rather prettily, despite the macabre and foolish words.
They went through it three times, and the leviathan did not move. Whether it liked the song was uncertain; perhaps mere curiosity held it. But that was certainly preferable to an attack.
When they stopped, the jaws slowly resumed motion. Quickly Pacian started another song, one long beloved in his culture:
"O Danny-Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,
From glen to glen and down the mountainside..."
Niobe joined in, making the harmony. She had not sung like this since her mortal days, and had almost forgotten how grand it was.
"The summer's gone, and all the leaves are falling..."
Pacian turned while singing, and reached to take her hand.
"'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide."
And Niobe was transfixed as the song abruptly expanded to magnificent sound. He had the magic! The same phantom orchestra that Cedric had had when he sang. The same phenomenal magnification of the music!
Of course! This, too, ran in the family! Not in every member, for her son did not have it. But here and there. She had never guessed! No wonder Pace could pacify animals!
The leviathan was aware of it too. Slowly, now, its jaws subsided, no longer menacing the raft. They had indeed found a way to soothe the beast.
But Niobe's attention was only partly on that. She had thought she would never love again, after Cedric. Now, suddenly, amazingly, she knew it was possible. The prophecy had not been based on what she knew, but on what she would discover.
They finished the song, and the internal music faded. The leviathan did not resume its aggression, but Niobe now had need of more music. She clung to Pacian's hand, and started a song.
"In the gloaming, O my darling, when the lights are dim and low..."
He joined the song and the music rose in them and surrounded them.
"Will you think of me, and love me, as you did once long ago?"
Even as she sang, Niobe felt the love expanding from her long-isolated heart, encompassing her being. The beginning of her love for Cedric had come with the magic music. She had not seized upon it, then, and so had wasted much of the scant time they had had together. She was much older, and perhaps wiser now—and she found herself entering into it as into a primeval sea, gladly giving herself to its tide. O my darling...
When the song ended and the music faded again, the leviathan was satisfied. It backed off slowly and turned about, and swam away.
"It seems we have navigated the crisis," Pacian said. "Now we can go to meet Mother Nature." He reached for the oars.
Niobe put her hand on his arm again. "Pace—do we need to?"
He considered, then laughed. Then he drew her in to him, and they kissed. The grand music encompassed them.
They reversed course and returned to her Abode, and then to the realm of the mortals. As they landed back in his house, he said: "I don't think I'm going to be lonely anymore. But let's not act precipitously."
"This is very sudden," she agreed. "We can afford time to be sure it's real." But she already knew it was.
He nodded. "And if it is—"
"Then I will retire on schedule, to become mortal— and be your wife."
"Fulfilling the prophecy," he agreed.
She left him without further comment. The moment she was alone, a babble broke out among her Aspects. Did you feel that music? He's a rare one! If that's what your first love was like, no wonder you waited for his like! We'll have to locate your successor, whatshername. Lisa. When's the wedding?
"Enough, you hens!" Niobe exploded. "It's tentative!"
Lachesis snorted. As tentative as a pregnancy, girl! Indeed, all that developed over the course of the following months was certainty. Niobe visited Pacian several times, and each time it was as if another layer of love was added. "I do love you. Pace," she said. "I must marry you."
"I thought I would never be whole again, after I lost Blanche," he said. "But it is no denigration of her to confess that now I love you as I did her. When I was a child I adored you hopelessly; now I am a man I have reason to live again. It is as if you were saved for the time in my life when I would most need you." He paused. "Is that coincidence?"
She shook her head. "I am an Aspect of Fate—but my power is limited. Lachesis handles the disposition of the threads of life I spin—but her power too is limited. It was Satan's interference that caused me to lose my spouse, and you yours. Fate never planned those horrors, and now the Tapestry is healing."
"Yet the prophecy—"
She sighed. "Yes, there must be a deeper current of Fate, beyond our awareness, that the seers drew from. Maybe our manipulations of the Threads of Life are only to restore the pattern Satan sought to disrupt. It has made for a tangled skein!"
"Which our daughter—and granddaughter—will stand athwart," he agreed. "But for the moment, there is only our love."
They kissed, and there was music. He was right; their offspring might be destined for horrendous adventures, but at the moment love made all that beside the point.
In due course, as the time of her departure from office neared, Niobe made it a point to bid adieu to her friends, the other Incarnations. First she went to the Green Mother. This time she had no trouble reaching the domicile of Nature. "You knew, didn't you?" she charged the woman. "You arranged that challenge course!"
"Love is one of my Aspects," Gaea admitted. "I knew your heart and his. I only facilitated what was inevitable."
"So we never even consulted you!"
"Not overtly."
"You are devious, Ge."
"Coming from Fate, that is indeed a compliment."
They embraced, and Niobe cried a little, and they parted. Gaea's face was serene—but when Niobe stepped outside the domicile, she discovered a gentle rain falling, and knew that Ge was crying too.
A few days later, in the course of routine business, she visited Thanatos. Fate worked most intimately with Chronos, but she also had considerable interaction with Thanatos, for the threads had to be terminated as well as started. "I am soon to return to mortality," she said. "I pray you do not come too soon for me or the man I love."
The death's-head smiled. "I will postpone it as long as your successor permits. Who is she to be?"
"I don't know. We are conducting a search, but no suitable prospect named Lisa has shown up."
"Will Lisa be as pretty as you?"
"Not quite. But you are sure to like her."
"I envy you, Clotho. You are able to step down voluntarily, returning to life. I will be assassinated by my successor, even as I assassinated my predecessor."
"Yet it was to Heaven you sent your predecessor, and to Heaven you will go."
"That is a comfort," he agreed.
She embraced him, not repulsed by his skeletal hands, and she kissed his grinning skull-face. His business was grim, but he was a decent person. He was not the same one she had first met, but the office had made him similar.
Her supply of yam ran low, and she made her monthly trip to the Void for more. She wondered, as she often did, whether this monthly cycle stood in lieu of the feminine cycle that had abated when she became immortal. There were, indeed, patterns she did not understand.
"So you are quitting, cutie," Satan said, appearing before her.
"Go to Hell," she told him shortly.
"You have been a delectable thorn in My side for too long," he continued blithely. "It will be an excellent riddance."
"Go damn yourself."
"I really will enjoy working over your successor, scrumptious."
She paused. "Why so positive. Lord of Flies? Can it be that you don't want me to go?"
He puffed smoke. "Of course I want you to go!" he said.
She nodded. "Because I am fated to produce a mortal child who will be a real pain in the tail for you."
He did not respond with the derogatory or cynical exclamation she expected. Instead he was oddly pensive. "There are currents of destiny that perhaps only God comprehends," he said. "Our glimpses of the future are fleeting and imperfect. I have taken a reading on your daughter and I see only a terrible storm perhaps forty years hence, and she is caught up in it—and so am I. I do not know the outcome."
Niobe suffered a chill. "And one may marry Death, the other Evil," she said, again recalling the prophecy.
"I am the Incarnation of Evil!" he said. "Why should I ever bind Myself to a mortal woman?"
"She is to be an Incarnation."
Satan turned and paced in air, his gaze downcast. He was almost handsome in that moment of reflection. "And what woman, whether mortal or Incarnation, would ever bind herself to Me?"
It was a serious question. "Only an evil one," Niobe said.
"Are you about to birth and raise an evil woman?"
"Of course not!"
"Of course not," he agreed. "For you are indeed a good woman, as well as a lovely one. She can only oppose Me. Yet the prophecy—"
He was genuinely disturbed! "Satan, what are you getting at?"
He faced her without any sign of cruelty or mockery. "Simply this: there is a tangle coming in your skein that neither of us understands. Never would I bind Myself to a good woman, nor would she to Me. Something very strange is brewing. Let us avoid the whole issue, and oppose each other on conventional grounds. Keep your present office, O lovely woman! Do not generate that child."
Niobe was astonished. "You are pleading with me to do you a favor—by abrogating the fulfillment of my love?"
"I suppose I am, Clotho. I can proffer inducement if you prefer. I could assume the likeness and manner of your—"
"You're crazy!"
Satan sighed. "No, I am evil, not crazy. I have merely confirmed that no decent woman would accept Me if she knew My nature, however I might clothe Myself. You know Me, therefore you will not do for Me what you did for Chronos."
Niobe stared at him. "You—desire my favor?"
"I do desire it."
Almost, she felt sorry for him. Then the memory of Cedric surged back, and the emotion became anger. "Well, you will never have it!"
"That I know. Still I would have you remain in office."
"You should know better!"
"You will not do it?"
"I will not do it!"
Now he flared brightly with his abrupt fury. "I tried to be reasonable! To be honest, though it pains Me! I'm not good at it, I know, but I did try. Now you will feel the brunt of My wrath!"
"Go to Hell, Satan," she repeated mildly.
"And your child will suffer too!" he cried as he faded out. "You and yours will rue this hour!"
He was gone—and Niobe found herself shivering with reaction. Had she made a mistake by refusing to deal with Satan? He had seemed oddly pensive, and his expression of desire for her had seemed honest. Satan, of course, had all the women he wanted, in all the forms he wanted, in Hell—yet none of them were good, by definition. Did he have a hankering for the opposite type? Was there some good even in the Prince of Evil?
Surely not! Satan's designs were always evil, also by definition. If she opposed him, she was probably correct. If he was angry, she should be pleased. She was fulfilling the vengeance she had so long sought against him.
Yet Satan was also devious. The Father of Lies knew how to deceive by indirection as well as by direction. Why had he come to her to make his plea and why had he shown such obvious anger when she declined it? That suggested that it was an act, and that she was in fact doing exactly what he wanted.
She shook her head. Her safest course was to pursue her course as she intended, not allowing herself to be influenced in any way by Satan. Still, it bothered her. She brooded on it throughout her business in the Void. Would she—and her daughter—be vulnerable to Satan's wrath, as mortals?
She visited Chronos next. Mindful of his reversed timeline, she phrased her farewell carefully. "Hello, Chronos. I thought I would introduce myself, as we shall be working together for the next two or three years. I am Clotho, an Aspect of Fate."
"Oh, go on!" the child snapped. "You aren't Lisa!"
"Of course I'm not. Lisa has gone mortal. I am Niobe." She smiled.
Chronos was eight years old, physically and emotionally. He melted like ice cream in the radiance of that smile. "Gee, you sure are pretty, Obe! I guess you're okay!"
"I guess I am," she agreed. "I know you and I will get along well." She tousled his hair.
"Hey, wait a minute!" he protested. "You live forward, not backward like me! You've already been through it!"
She smiled again, daunting him. "Smart lad! Yes, I know you a good deal better than you know me, though that will change as you advance into my past. But when your tenure comes to a close, and you are afraid, I will come to you and hold your hand. So don't annoy me, okay?"
"Geez, it's weird having you come in like this, knowing so much! Lisa was sorta timid and sweet, specially at the end when she forgot my language. I'll sure miss her."
Forgot his language? How could that be? But Niobe preferred not to discuss it with him. "Just remember, sport—I chose her."
"Yeah, I know. Yesterday. Funny thing, you coming up with her."
"What's so funny about bringing in a woman who can do the job?"
He stared at her a moment, then laughed teasingly. "That's right! You don't know her yet. You'll find out, Obe!"
"I'll find out," she agreed, kissed him on the forehead, shifted to spider form, and climbed out of his sight. He always enjoyed that trick.
This was getting stranger. First Satan's pointless offer and threat, then Chronos' reaction. Chronos knew something she didn't, of course. They had been searching diligently for Lisa, and still had not found her, one day before the event.
What would happen if they failed to find her? Would there be another snarl in the threads, pinching the Tapestry, and could Niobe find herself stranded in office, unable to turn mortal and marry Pacian? Was that the mischief Satan contemplated?
No, it couldn't be, for the change to Lisa had occurred tomorrow; Chronos remembered it, and Chronos was no tool of Satan's. She really didn't need to worry about it;
what would be would be—and she would be mortal, tomorrow.
But tomorrow came with no further illumination. There was no sign of Lisa even as the hour approached. Niobe's better two-thirds were as mystified as she was. "The thread has to be here in the Tapestry," Lachesis said. "But nothing distinguishes it. So it is lost until we find it. There simply is no signal that Lisa is to step out of life and into Fate."
"I'll bid farewell to Mars," Niobe decided. "Then it will be time, and we'll see."
She sailed down a thread to the spot on Earth where Mars was working. This was the great double city of Budapest, at the moment torn by strife. Huge Soviet tanks were moving in the streets, and buildings were burning.
She landed on a street beside him. Mars, too, was different from the one who had been in office when she first came to Purgatory. She wasn't certain what the mechanism for his changing was, but it seemed to occur irregularly and without warning. But this one had been in office for several years, and she liked him well enough, considering the differences in their philosophies. "Mars, I came to say good-bye."
He glanced at her. "Ah, so soon, lass? There'll never be a sweeter or prettier Clotho than you! Give me a buss!"
She submittted to his embrace and hugged him back. She had had liaisons with him on occasion, as appropriate, and so had Lachesis. "How's it going. Warrior?"
He released her. "Always a novelty! See that line of refugees?"
She looked where he pointed. A seemingly endless line of bedraggled civilians were walking along the side of the street, going north. Obviously they had been bombed out of their homes and were fleeing to whatever safety they could find.
Now he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face the other way. "And those?"
She looked dutifully. Another line of refugees was traveling south. "But they're each going where the other's coming from!" she exclaimed.
"True. What do you make of that?"
"It has to be a tragedy! No hope for either group!"
"Now you have it, lass," he agreed gruffly. "War is hell." She knew better, but she couldn't help herself. She challenged his rationale: "How can you encourage such an appalling situation. Mars? Those are living, feeling people there, surely innocent of the causes of this war!"
Mars, always ready for combat, answered without hesitation. "Aye, lass, that they are, by your definition. But not by mine! They sought freedom, so brought this consequence on their heads!"
"Freedom?"
He nodded. "Freedom to speak, to assemble, to read, to choose their own work. They forgot they were a satellite nation. Those tanks are here to remind them."
"And you approve of this?" she demanded incredulously.
"To be sure! Freedom is the most precious thing man can grasp, and its price is commensurate. These people suffer to prove that they are worthy of what they seek, and I'm proud of them!"
"And what of the tanks?"
"I am proud of them, too."
"Oh, Mars, you're impossible! I wish I could save even one of those poor souls!"
Mars made a gesture that included both lines of refugees. "Take your pick, Clotho."
"What?"
"If you are exchanging your office in a few minutes, you can do it with one of these. She, at least, can be spared."
The incredible boor! Lachesis thought.
But it may be true, Atropos replied. "All right, I will!" Niobe walked out to the line going north and stopped the first young woman she spied who seemed to be traveling alone. She was a dark-haired, pretty girl of perhaps twenty, toting a large suitcase. She stared at Niobe.
"Would you like to become Fate?" Niobe asked. The woman's large eyes looked at her blankly. "To exchange places with me and be forever free of this?"
The woman spoke unintelligibly. Of course! Atropos thought. She's Hungarian! Doesn't Mars speak all tongues? Lachesis thought. "Yes!" Niobe said. She took the woman by the hand and tugged her across the street toward the Incarnation of War. The woman seemed to have been stunned by the horror of the violence around her. Perhaps she thought Niobe was offering her a place to stay in safety for the night.
"Mars, tell her," Niobe ordered. "Ask her to exchange."
Mars spoke to the woman in her language, gesturing to Niobe. The woman shook her head, not believing it. Then a shell landed nearby, blowing out part of a building, and the woman changed her mind. She nodded affirmation. "Any port in a storm," Mars translated. It was Atropos' turn to handle the change. She assumed the body. "Farewell, Niobe," she said. "It has been a pleasure working with you."
Good-by, sister Aspect, Lachesis thought, giving her a mental kiss.
Atropos took the woman's hand—and Niobe found herself standing separately, in her own body, facing Atropos. "Farewell, sister Aspects!" she cried—and as always, tears flowed.
Mars touched one of his pockets and brought out a fragment of reddish stone. "Take this, Niobe," he said gruffly. "It is from my planet. It will guard you from harm until you can reach your destination." Niobe took the stone. She opened her mouth to thank him. Another shell burst, close by, momentarily blinding her and causing her to cower. When she straightened up, both Mars and Fate were gone. She was on her own. Deprived of her two alternate Aspects, she felt abruptly naked. They—and immortality—were no longer part of her. Her tears continued.
But she could not remain here, crying in the street of the war-torn city. She knew where she was going. She hefted the suitcase and started walking.