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"I don't quite understand."
"Of course you don't! You have just stepped into one of the most complex offices of the firmament; it
will take you years to get the full hang of it. Fortunately, you have time-literally. You are Time."
"I think you'd better explain the whole thing," he said. "I'm pretty much baffled."
"That's what I'm here for-this time." She glanced at him slyly, as if making an off-color allusion. "And I
will; I owe it to you, as I said. Only first I'd better introduce myself completely."
Norton nodded agreement, somewhat in awe of this unprepossessing figure with the knowing attitude
and hypnotic eyes. Lachesis walked to the center of the room. She shimmered-and in her place was an
old woman. Her hair was gray and curly, her dress conservative-a long dark skirt, antique feminine
boots, a frilly but unsuggestive blouse, and a small archaic hat. "Atropos," she announced, accenting it
on the first syllable. "I cut the Thread of Life."
"I thought Death did that," Norton said, startled by more than one thing.
"Thanatos collects the souls. I determine when those souls will become available."
Norton nodded. He was not yet certain of the distinction, but did not feel ready to question it more
closely. He had encountered Thanatos in the performance of his office and developed an abiding respect
for that entity. In fact, it was really the example of Thanatos that had moved him to accept this perhaps-
similar office of Chronos.
Thanatos had shown that human concern and caring did not disappear, even in so awful a chore as
taking the life of a baby. Death had stopped being a specter to Norton with that encounter.
Atropos whirled-and became Lachesis again, in her dowdy, middle-aged outfit, her suit helping mask
her somewhat portly figure. Her hair was now free of the bun, longer than Atropos', with less curl and
more color. "I am Lachesis," she announced, pronouncing it with a hard C, accented on the first syllable-
LAK-e-sis. "I measure the length of the Threads of Life."
"I thought Chronos was supposed to-"
"Chronos controls time, not life," she corrected him.
Again this distinction was not fully clear to Norton; again he kept his mouth shut.
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Lachesis made a little leap-and landed as a voluptuous, bouncy young woman whose hair was long,
loose, and midnight black with stars sparkling in it. Her gown was low-cut in front and high-cut below,
showing breast and thigh to advantage. She wore an intoxicating perfume. "And Clotho," she concluded,
again accenting the first syllable. "Who spins the Thread of Human Life." She stretched a fine thread
between her delicate hands.
Norton hoped his eyes hadn't popped too obviously when this creature appeared. "I thought maybe
Nature-"
"Gaea determines the way things are," she said. "Not the courses of individual lives. But all the
Incarnations interact to some extent." She gave him a sultry smile, aware of her impact on him. Had
Gawain's second wife looked like this at the time he saw her, what might have happened?
"Are you really three people?" he asked. "You look quite different in each-"
"You may have heard it said," she said gravely, "that a woman is a young man's mistress-" She twirled
so that her skirt flared, showing her thighs to a naughty height. "-a middle-aged man's companion-" She
ceased her motion, and she was Lachesis again, sedate. "-and an old man's nurse." She shimmered into
Atropos, who now wore a nurse's uniform and looked formidable. "It seems I am all three. Which are
you?"
Norton was startled again. "Uh-middle, I suppose. At the moment."
Lachesis reappeared. "So I suspected. Now I am your companion, though I have been other to you in the
past."
"I-you mean Clotho-in my future?" he asked awkwardly.
"Yes indeedy! You have not yet experienced what I remember." She grinned. "Naughty boy!"
Norton blushed to think of what he might be fated to do with Clotho that Lachesis already remembered
so intimately. "I haven't yet gotten the hang of living backward," he confessed. "It seems quite awkward,
especially when people, normal people, apparently don't see me at all."
"You can change that at will," she assured him. "The Hourglass is your emblem and your tool, and an
excellent one it is."
"By willing the sand green?"
"That's it. That phases you in to the normal course. Didn't I tell you about that-or am I about to? You do
that when you want to talk to a normal person or an Incarnation."
"So I can move to the beginning of my original life, almost forty years ago, turn the sand green, and live
a normal term as an Incarnation?"
She smiled tolerantly. "Hardly, Chronos, for several reasons. First, that would fatigue the magic, and
you'd lose cohesion in a few days; green mode is a short-term thing for you, as I understand it. Second,
you have a job to do, and you can do it effectively only by living your normal course. Third, you aren't
going to do that, even if you could; I ought to know." For an instant, sultry Clotho glanced at him from
beneath lowered lashes.
Norton found that unnerving. If Clotho was also the old Atropos, which one of Fate's three minds was
analyzing him as he performed what he supposed was private? All three of them had those disturbing
eyes. A man who played games of any kind with one of these women was apt to become the object
rather than the subject.
"No, you can't remember, can you!" she teased him. "Oh, I am enjoying this! After what you did to me
in the halcyon bloom of my innocence-oh, yes!"
"My job," he said doggedly. "You said you'd tell me what I am supposed to do and how to do it."
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She sighed with mock resignation. "Yes, you always were somewhat single-minded about that, and on
the whole I believe you have done a decent job. Very well, I will start you off. You work most closely
with me anyway." She paused as if organizing her thoughts. "It is the business of Chronos to establish
the chronology of every event in the human section of the universe. Effect must always follow cause,
age must follow youth, action must usually follow thought. Evidently your backward existence
facilitates such timings. Without Time, all would be without form and void."
"But I thought that was automatic!" Norton protested. "A function of the universe, the way things are!"
"Now you know better, Chronos. Nothing in the universe is happenstance; everything is determined by
the sum of the fundamental forces. Your art is to fit it all together so neatly that it seems automatic.
Timing is critical, and Chronos is responsible."
"But I'm only one person! I can't possibly keep track of every event in-in the human section of the
universe!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]