With a Tangled Skien

  Niobe stepped onto the pier. She wore her most elegant black evening gown, with black gloves and slippers, and her flowing honey hair was bound by a black ribbon. There was a murmur of awe from the assembled college students, male and female, as she appeared, and she knew that she had never been more beautiful. The anti-lac spell had halted her production of mother's milk, but her breasts remained quite well developed.

  The Prof stood at the end of the pier by the boat. He looked old and hunched, and his face was as pale as bone. "Ah, lovely woman, it is a horror you face!" he murmured. "Are you quite, quite sure—?"

  "If Cedric dies, what life is there for me?" she asked rhetorically. She braced herself against his arm and stepped onto the boat. It wobbled in the water, and she hastily sat down.

  "Perhaps we shall meet again," the Prof said.

  "Of course we shall," she said and blew him a kiss. She knew he had done his best and she trusted his magic. But her expression of confidence papered over a monstrous dread within her, akin to that of the fourth face of the water oak tree. She felt like a deer stepping out before the rifle of the hunter. It was in this sense a season for the shooting of deer, and the huntsman was Death himself.

  "Remember," the Prof cautioned her, "you can jump off, and a swimmer will rescue you." He gestured to three husky young men in swimsuits standing alertly at the shore.

  "And forfeit my love?" she asked disdainfully. "I shall not jump."

  "Then God be with you," he said, and it was no casual expression. He closed his hands together in an attitude of prayer and lifted them toward the cloudy sky.

  Where was God when Cedric was shot? she wondered.

  But she smiled. "Cast off, please."

  The Prof bent down and lifted the rope from its mooring. The breeze caught the sail and the craft moved out into the lake. Left to its own devices, it would in due course bump into the far shore—but she had a different plan for it.

  She turned and waved to the folk on the shore behind.

  Then she reached into her purse, brought out a big wooden match, and struck it against the hard surface of the deck. It burst into life.

  For a moment she held the little flame before her. Then she clamped her lower lip between her teeth, closed her eyes, and flung the match forward into the brush. If it did not ignite this tinder, would she have the courage to try it again?

  But it caught, and in a moment there was the crackle of spreading fire. She opened her eyes, and saw the flame and smoke pouring up. The fire did not spread instantly; it took several seconds to infuse the full pile. Then it intensified, and the sudden heat of it smote her body. The sail caught, and became a bright column.

  Now was the time to jump, before fire surrounded her. She was tempted. Then she thought of Cedric, lying critically ill on the hospital bed, and her resolve solidified. She stood, held her breath, and walked directly into the conflagration.

  Cedric! Cedric! she thought as the flame engulfed her. I love you!

  Her dress caught fire, and her hair shriveled, but she took one more step, bracing herself against the pain she knew was coming.

  It came indeed. All her world became fire. She inhaled, and the fire was inside her, searing her lungs and heart. The agony was exquisite, but she endured it, refusing to collapse or even to scream. Death, I am coming for you!

  The boat was formed of flame, now. The caulking popped out and water spurted in, drenching her feet. But the flame danced above it, and the smoke roiled about, as if fighting the water for this living prize. Niobe stood amidst it, her flesh burning, waiting for Death.

  A figure came. It was a great stallion, galloping across the surface of the water, bearing a cloaked and hooded man. The horse came to the boat and stopped, standing on the lake. The man dismounted and brought forth a scythe. He scythed the flames as he would a field of tall grass, and the flames were cut off at their bases, their tops falling to one side. A path was cleared through the conflagration, leading to Niobe. Death had arrived.

  Thanatos paused beside her and extended his skeletal hand. Niobe took it in her own, feeling the cold bones of his fingers.

  Abruptly the pain of the fire abated. Thanatos led her along the scythed path to the pale horse and boosted her up into the saddle, then mounted behind her. The horse leaped into the remaining column of smoke—and through it, up into the sky.

  Soon the stallion was galloping through the clouds above, his hooves sending little divots of fog flying back. Then they emerged to a scene above, where the grass was green and the sun shone warmly. Ahead was a mansion. They came to it, dismounted, and Thanatos guided her inside.

  A motherly maid hurried up. "You brought a mortal!" she exclaimed with surprise and perhaps indignation. "See to her restoration," Thanatos ordered gruffly. "She is not one of mine."

  The pain returned when Niobe lost contact with Thanatos, but the maid hastened to bring salve. Niobe's skin was charred black, but where the salve touched, the normal flesh was instantly restored. The maid applied it to Niobe's entire body and made her inhale its fumes, and then no pain remained. Niobe stood naked and whole.

  "My dear, you are beautiful!" the maid exclaimed, spraying something on the frizzled hair. The hair grew rapidly until it too had been restored to its former golden splendor. "Why should a creature like you try to suicide?"

  "I love him," Niobe repeated.

  "Ah, love," the maid breathed, understanding. She brought a bathrobe and new slippers. It seemed that the salve could not heal Niobe's incinerated clothing. "Thanatos awaits you," she said and showed Niobe to a sitting room.

  Death—Thanatos—did indeed await her. He was like a stern father in his manner, despite his skull-face and skeletal hands. "You have done a very brave and foolish thing, young woman," he informed her disapprovingly. "You were not on my list. I had to make an emergency call for you."

  "It—it was the only way to get your attention," she said, taking the seat indicated. "Thank you for coming." And she smiled.

  The skull itself seemed to heighten its color, showing that Death himself was not immune to beauty. "It had to be done," he said gruffly. "When an unscheduled death occurs, the threads of Fate tangle."

  That was what the Prof had told her. There was a certain order in the universe, and the Incarnations saw to its preservation. "I—where am I? In Heaven?"

  Thanatos made a derisive snort, despite having no flesh in his nose. "Purgatory," he said. "The place of indecision—and of decision. All the Incarnations are here."

  "Oh. I—haven't been beyond life before." She was somewhat intimidated by all this.

  "And what brought you, ravishing mortal maiden?"

  "Oh, I am no maiden! I—my husband Cedric—I have come to beg for his life. I love him!"

  "Without doubt," Thanatos agreed. He snapped his bone-fingers, and a servant hurried in with a file box. Thanatos opened the box and riffled through the cards. "Cedric Kaftan, age eighteen, to go to Heaven five days hence," he remarked. "A good man, not requiring my personal attention." His square eye-sockets seemed to squint at the card. "A very good man! He loves you well indeed."

  "Yes. I must save him. You must—"

  Thanatos gazed at her through the midnight frames of his eyes, and suddenly she felt a chill not of death. It had not occurred to her before that the Incarnation might require a price for the favor she asked—and what did she have to offer?

  Then she thought again of Cedric, lying in the hospital, and knew that there was no price she would not pay to have him whole again.

  But when Thanatos spoke again, he surprised her. "Good and lovely mortal, I cannot do the thing you request. I do not cause folk to die; I merely see to the proper routing of the souls of those who are fated to die. It is true that I have some discretion; on occasion I will postpone a particular demise. But your husband is beyond postponement; to extend his life would be only to extend his pain. He will neither walk nor talk again."

  "No!" Niobe cried. It was literal; her tears wet he
r robe. "He's so young, so bonnie! I love him!"

  Even Death softened before that beauteous plea. "I would help you if I could," Thanatos said. "To be Incarnated is not to be without conscience. But the remedy you seek is not within my province."

  "Then whose province is it in?" she demanded brokenly.

  "At this point, I suspect only Chronos can help him."

  "Who?"

  "The Incarnation of Time. He can travel in time, when he chooses, and change mortal events by acting before they occur. Therefore if he—"

  "Before the shot was fired!" she exclaimed. "So that Cedric is never hurt!"

  The cowled skull nodded. "That is what Chronos can do."

  The strangeness of talking to the Incarnation of Death was fading. The renewed chance to save Cedric recharged her. "Where—how—can I find Chronos?"

  "You could search all Purgatory and not find him," Thanatos said. "He travels in time. But if he cares to meet you, he will do so."

  "But I must meet with him! I have so little time—"

  There was a chime that sounded like a funeral gong. "That will be Chronos now," Thanatos said.

  "Now? But how—?"

  "He knows our future. He is surely responding to the notice I will send him shortly."

  A servant ushered Chronos in. He was a tall, thin man in a white cloak, bearing an Hourglass. "Ah, Clotho," he said.

  "Who?" she asked, confused.

  Chronos looked at her again. "Oh, has it come to that? My apology; it is happening sooner than I hoped. In that case, you must introduce yourself."

  He had evidently mistaken her for someone else. "I— I am Niobe Kaftan—a, a mortal woman," she said.

  "Niobe," Chronos repeated as if getting it straight. "Yes, of course. And you are here to—?"

  "Here to save my husband, Cedric."

  He nodded. "That, too. But that really is not wise."

  "Not wise!" she exclaimed indignantly. "I love him!"

  It was almost as if she had struck the Incarnation. He blanched, but then recovered. "Love is mortal," Chronos said sadly. "It passes, in the course of time."

  "I don't care, so long as it passes naturally! Cedric is dying and he's not yet nineteen!"

  Chronos shook his head. "I could travel to the moment before his problem commenced and change the event— but I hesitate. The interactions can extend far, and we interfere at peril to the larger fabric."

  "But I love him!" she cried. "I must save him!"

  Chronos glanced at Thanatos, who shrugged. They might be Incarnations, but they seemed very much like mortal men, baffled by the hysteria of a mortal woman.

  "But you see," Chronos said reasonably, "to change an event, especially this one, could lead to consequences that none of us would wish."

  Niobe began to cry. She put her face in her hands, and the tears streamed in little rivulets through her spread fingers.

  "Perhaps a female Incarnation would handle this better," Thanatos said, evidently feeling awkward. Men tended to, in such situations; they didn't understand about crying. Niobe didn't like this situation much herself, but she couldn't help her reaction.

  "I will take her to Fate," Chronos agreed quickly.

  He came to Niobe and drew diffidently on her elbow. "Please come with me, ma'am."

  At the sound of "ma'am," the term Cedric had used early in their relationship, Niobe burst into a fresh surge of tears. She was hardly aware of Chronos taking firm hold other with his left hand and raising his glowing Hourglass with his right. But suddenly the two of them were zooming through the air and substance of the mansion as if they had become phantoms. That so startled her that her tears ceased.

  They phased across a variegated landscape that was not the world she had known. Then they homed in on the most monstrous web Niobe could have imagined, its pattern of silken strands extending out for hundreds of feet in a spherical array. In the center the web thickened, forming a level mat, and on this they came to rest. "How—what?" she said, amazed and daunted.

  "My Hourglass selectively nullifies aspects of the chronological counterspell," Chronos explained. "Enabling me to travel—oh, you refer to the web? Do not be concerned; this is the Abode of Fate."

  "Fate!" she exclaimed, realizing how this might relate to her. "It was Fate who determined that Cedric—"

  "Indeed," he agreed as they walked to the huge cocoon in the middle of this resilient plane. "She should be more competent to satisfy you than I am."

  "But—this is a gigantic spider's nest!" she said.

  He smiled. "I assure you, good and lovely woman, that Fate will not consume you in that manner. She is—much like you."

  Now they were at the entrance. Chronos reached up, took hold of a dangling thread, and pulled on it. A bell sounded in the silk-shrouded interior, and in a moment a middle-aged woman clambered out of the hole, very spry for her age. "Why, Chronos!" she exclaimed. "How nice to see you, my backward associate!" Her gaze turned on Niobe. "And a mortal woman who shines like the moon!" She glanced slyly back at Chronos. "What are you up to, sir?"

  "Lachesis, this is Niobe," he said. "She comes to plead for the life of her husband, who suffered a recent accident. I—am unable to assist her in this."

  Lachesis' eyes narrowed as if he had said something of special significance. Then she studied Niobe with a certain surmise. "Come in, child," she said at last. "We shall examine your thread." She glanced once more at Chronos. "You, too, honored associate."

  They followed her through the hole, which was a finely woven mesh-tunnel that opened into a comfortable interior. Everything was made of web, but it was so thick and cleverly crafted that it was solid. In fact, it was the ultimate in web—silk. The walls were woven in a tapestry that was a mural, showing scenes of the world, and the floor was a rug so smooth a person could have slept on it without a mattress.

  Niobe took a seat on a plush web couch, while Lachesis stood before her, set her hands together, drew them apart, and looked at the lines of web that had appeared magically between her fingers. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "That is a strange one!"

  Niobe's brow furrowed. "Do you mean—me?"

  "In a moment, dear," Lachesis said, preoccupied. She looked at Chronos. "Tell me, friend, is this—?" she asked. Then she shimmered—and in her place was a woman of perhaps twenty, quite pretty, with a nimbus of black hair, and cleavage showing. Her dress was yellow, and very short. Then she changed again, and was the middle-aged woman in brown.

  Chronos nodded slowly, affirmatively.

  Lachesis seemed dizzy. She plumped into another couch. "Oh, my dear!" she exclaimed. "This is a pretty snarl!"

  "I don't understand," Niobe said.

  "Of course you don't, dear," Lachesis agreed. "Neither did I. But Chronos knew, of course." She mopped her forehead with a bright silk handkerchief. "What am I to tell her, sir?"

  "I suppose the truth, to the present," he said.

  Niobe was increasingly bothered by their attitude. "Of course the truth!" she exclaimed.

  Lachesis came to join her on the couch, taking her hand. "My dear, truth can be a complex skein, and often painful. I have looked at your thread, and—"

  "Look at my husband's thread!" Niobe exclaimed. "I must save him!"

  Lachesis disengaged, put her hands together, and stretched another gossamer thread between them. "Cedric Kaftan," she said as if reading from a text. "His thread—" She clapped her hands together, causing the thread to disappear. "Oh, my dear, my dear!"

  "You really are Fate? You can save him?"

  Lachesis shook her head. "I am Fate—an Aspect thereof. I determine the length and placement of the threads of human lives. I arrange for what befalls each person, in a general way. But this is a special case—a very special case. I cannot do what you ask."

  Now Niobe's sorrow turned to anger. "Why not?" she demanded. "You—you arranged his death, didn't you?"

  "I arranged his death; I did not decree it," Lachesis agreed sadly. "I remember the case now. I
did not want to do it, but I had to. Now, thanks to Chronos, I begin to understand why."

  "Then tell me why!" Niobe cried. "I love him!"

  "And he loves you," the woman returned. "More than you can know. My dear, it would only bring you further grief to know more. Some deer must die, that the herd prosper."

  Some deer! That hurt her anew, for Cedric had tried to protect the deer. "You refuse to tell me?"

  Lachesis sighed. "I know how difficult it is for you to understand, Niobe. You are a brave and good woman, and your love is great, but you are mortal. I would help you if I could, but I cannot." She raised a hand to forestall Niobe's objection. "To a child, life seems a series of arbitrary constraints; the child longs for the freedom of adult existence. But when the child becomes adult, she finds that the constraints remain; they only change their nature, becoming more complex and subtle. Even so, we Incarnations appear to have greater freedom of action than do mortals—but our constraints exist also, of a nature few mortals are equipped to comprehend. I can only assure you that a situation beyond your control and mine decrees that your husband must die. I can only say I'm sorry."

  "Sorry!" Niobe flared. "Sorry! What possible justification can you have for arranging the death of a man as noble as Cedric?"

  "I have two," Lachesis said. "One I may not tell you, and the other I will not."

  "Then send me to someone who will tell me!"

  Lachesis shrugged. "Perhaps Mars; he is aggressive—"

  "I will take her to him," Chronos said.

  Lachesis glanced at him sidelong again. "You have a special interest, Chronos?"

  "I owe—Clotho," he said.

  Lachesis nodded, knowingly. "It is a tangled skein we work from," she said. "A tangled tapestry we weave. Thank you for informing me, Chronos."

  Chronos nodded and stood, and Lachesis stood, and they kissed briefly. This startled Niobe, but she was too distracted by the frustration of her own situation to ponder theirs.

  Chronos took her elbow again, lifted his Hourglass, tilted it—and they were moving again, in their immaterial fashion.