And Eternity Part 19

"True and false. We handle the lives of mortals, but we operate within a framework of rules that greatly limits our leeway. We must also be careful of the interactions within the Tapestry; if, for example, we carelessly remove one thread, that may affect others, which in turn affect others, in the end damaging the larger pattern and requiring spot correction. We also may be subject to the interference of Satan. We also on occasion do make errors-of which you may be an example. But this particular emergency relates to none of these. Atropos is retiring."

"Your-One of your three components?" Orlene asked, surprised.

"Our eldest Aspect, yes. She who cuts the threads of life." Lachesis was abruptly replaced by Atropos, a large grandmotherly black woman. "As Fate, we don't play favorites," Atropos said. "But we do watch. Lachesis refused to watch you, but I see it differently, and I watched my friends. Suddenly one is in trouble, because of a distant thread I had to cut, and I feel responsible. I can't ethically help her as Fate, but I can step down and then help her all I want as a mortal, and that's what I have to do. So there has to be a replacement for me. This business came up so quickly, I hadn't lined up a successor-but if I don't step down before today is out, it will be too late for my friend. So we're in a real hurry."

Orlene was coming to appreciate the fact that not even the powerful Incarnations had easy existences. Their responsibilities expanded with their powers, and the complexities of their Offices could lead to hectic moments.

The Tapestry of Life was looming closer. Now the individual strands looked like cables, stretching from horizon to horizon (though there wasn't any horizon here), sometimes brus.h.i.+ng by others, sometimes spanning regions alone. The network had looked flat from a distance, but now was clearly three dimensional, with many layers of threads, and the weave was increasingly intricate.

"Jolie might have a candidate," Orlene suggested. "She has been observing prospects for Incarnations."

"Any smart grandmothers who want to leave the mortal realm?" Atropos asked.

No, Jolie thought. Mine are all younger.

"No," Orlene echoed.

"Well, we do have a couple of prospects," Atropos said. "There's a woman who has had an immense amount of life experience and we think could do an excellent job, if she wants to. We're going to ask her now."

They had reached the Tapestry of Life and were flying between the huge cables. They oriented on one that extended a long way back. It had been twined closely with several others, but those had terminated, and now it continued in isolation.

They flew right up to it-but as they came within touching range it changed, and became a woman, in a dusky room, sitting alone, crocheting.

Atropos came to stand before her. "May I talk to you, Mrs. Forester?" she inquired politely.

"Why not?" the woman replied. "I can't see you well, but I can hear you. You're supernatural, aren't you?"

"Yes. How did you know?"

"Because you never came in the door. I never heard it open, or the floors creak. You coming to take me out of Mortality?"

"Maybe. Mrs. Forester, I am an Aspect of Fate. I cut the threads of life. I need to step down, and I would like you to take my place. I have observed you, and believe you are qualified to handle this Office."

"You are the one who ends lives?"

"Who sets their limits, yes. It is, of course, not a casual decision; I spend as much time as I need to determine the appropriate point for each."

"I can't see well enough to read, which is why I'm not looking at a book now or watching a holo. How do you think I could see a life well enough to judge when it should be stopped?"

"You will a.s.sume a new body," Atropos said. "Then you will be able to see perfectly. You will also be in perfect health and invulnerable to physical injury. You will be immortal, as long as you want to be. But you will be one of three, never alone, never completely in charge."

Mrs. Forester sat for a while and thought about it. Finally she looked up. "I don't want it."

"Do you know that you do not have long to live, as you are? This would effectively extend your thread of life indefinitely."

"I know it. But it's my turn to go, and I'm ready for it. You have cut the lives of my husband and my children and my friends, so that now I am alone. All of them should have had more time to live. Maybe you had reason-but I know I don't want to do that to anyone else. I'd rather just finish my term and rejoin my folks in Heaven. I will not serve as judge on any other person's life."

Atropos nodded. "Mrs. Forester, I thought you would feel that way. I am stepping down because I am needed in the mortal realm, and will not interfere with the lives of those who don't deserve it, for my own personal reasons. I will not live long after I step down, but I will do what has to be done. I came to offer you this position because I knew you were competent and not power hungry. But it is true that Fate makes decisions on the lives and deaths of mortals, and you can not avoid these decisions if you a.s.sume the Office. I thank you for your time, and I respect your decision."

Mrs. Forester picked up her crocheting. "Come and see me, when your business is done and you are mortal."

"I will try to." Atropos faded out.

Away from the thread, Atropos vented her spleen. "d.a.m.n it! Some of these white women have too much pride! It's hard to get the best, because they aren't moved by the idea of power or immortality.''

They were moving through the cables, toward another prospect. Lachesis remanifested. "Why did you come to me now, Orlene?"

"When I met Thanatos, I prevailed on him to spare the life of a newborn baby. We took it to a hospital instead. Thanatos said you would have to adjust its thread. I-"

"I have already remeasured it," Lachesis said. "Thanatos has compa.s.sion, and I would not second-guess it. I handled that the moment it occurred, without investigating the case, because I knew he would have reason."

"Thank you," Orlene said, relieved. "The other thing-I went to Nox to recover my own baby, but she said I had to have an item from each Incarnation. From you, a new thread, to-"

Lachesis was replaced by Clotho, the lovely, youngest Aspect. "That is my department; I spin the threads of life. But this is no minor thing you ask! For one thing, what is the point, if your baby is already dead?"

"My baby died because he had come upon an incurable malaise of the soul. That malaise continues after his death and will prevent him from ever being a truly good spirit. I toss't free him from that."

Clotho looked at her. "I sympathize with your need, but each thread I spin represents a potential life. I cannot sacrifice any one of them without excellent reason. I know you are the granddaughter of Niobe-I mean, Lachesis but we cannot do favors merely because of such a relations.h.i.+p."

"If there is any way I can earn it," Orlene said. "Any thing I can do-"

"We really do not stand in need of anything a mortal might offer, and even less of anything a ghost could do.

Certainly we can consider the matter, and if anything occurs-" She shrugged.

Orlene felt the weight of defeat. She knew she had nothing to offer but her plea. Clotho was treating her fairly: she could not claim otherwise.

They reached the next thread. This one was amidst several others; it was evident that no close a.s.sociates of this person had died recently.

They approached-and were in the presence of an old woman on a convoluted carpet. "Miss Ember," Atropos said, reappearing.

The woman jumped! "Oh, I didn't see you coming!

What can I do for you? I have some nice knickknacks for sale-"

"I am Atropos, an Aspect of Fate. I have watched you, and know that you are a good woman. I want you to take my Office and cut the threads of life."

"Is this a joke? I may be old and crippled, but my mind is sound. What are you trying to pull?"

"I can prove my ident.i.ty, if you wish. This is not a joke."

"Very well: prove it."

Atropos flung a line of web. It settled around the woman. Then Atropos flung another line, up through the roof of the house. She became a giant spider. She hooked onto the line that secured Mazie Ember's carpet with one leg, and used the others to climb the other line.

The climb was rapid. In a moment they were pa.s.sing through the roof and rising up into the sky. Atropos/spider hauled the cargo up to a local cloud. Then, perched on the top of the cloud, Atropos resumed her human form. "This is part of the power of an Incarnation. Do you wish to see more?"

Mazie was evidently shaken, but not convinced.

"Yes."

Lachesis reappeared. "I am the central Aspect of Fate, Lachesis. I measure the threads of life." Then Clotho; "And I spin them. The three of us share this body, and you would share it, too, being immortal until you chose to leave."

Mazie was becoming persuaded. "I never thought that I would ever be offered such a job! But I can't move my limbs at all; that's why I use a medical carpet. I would be useless."

"No," Clotho said. "You would join our body, leaving yours behind. Atropos would a.s.sume your body, and it would a.s.sume her likeness and mortal capabilities, and she would use your carpet to fly away to her pressing business among the mortals. You would regain full use of your limbs."

"Oh, my!" Mazie exclaimed, astonished. "What a dream!"

"But you would have to share time with the other two," Clotho said. "Lachesis and I would be your constant companions. Our duties are pressing; it is no holiday we offer you. Merely a new mode of existence."

Mazie shrugged. "No."

Atropos reappeared. "You do not wish to take the Office?"

"Oh, I would love the Office! But not the responsibility. I could not ever trust myself to decide when a life should end. I am sure I would make mistakes, and that is too important to allow mistakes. So I know I must not do it."

"We all have had to learn our Offices," Atropos said. "We all have made mistakes. But we keep striving to do better."

"But I don't trust my own judgment," Mazie said. "I have always been dependent on the decisions of others. To be suddenly free of pain, of paralysis, and to be making decisions for others-no, I know I would make a mess of it. So I thank you for the offer, and I make the one decision whose correctness I can be sure of: not to take what you offer."

Atropos gazed at her, then faded out. The carpet slid back down the line, into the house, and resumed its former position, no harm done, "We can't force a person to take the Office," Atropos said. "But it leaves us up the crick. I don't have any more good prospects."

Clotho reappeared. "Are you sure you have to go, Atropos? You know we'd rather have you stay with us."

"I have to go," Atropos said, manifesting again. "What I have to do, no other can do for me. I guess we'll just have to shop for any woman who'll take the job, even if she isn't the best. I hate this, but that's the way it is."

Lachesis manifested. "It is your prerogative to end your tenure when you choose. We must support you in this, just as we supported Clotho's predecessor when she decided to marry the j.a.panese martial artist. It will work out somehow: it always has. It is not as if your successor will be alone or unguided." But she did not look happy.

"If I may ask-" Orlene said hesitantly.

Lachesis glanced at her. "Oh, Orlene-I forgot you were with us! Of course we shall return you to the Abode!"

"No, I mean, I have a question about your change of Aspect. Does it have to be a woman?"

Lachesis paused. "Why no, of course not," she said. "No Incarnation is fixed by s.e.x. But during both my tenures-no, it doesn't have to be a woman."

"I think I know a man who might be good, and who might accept it," Orlene said. "If you were willing to consider him-"

Jolie and Vita, hitherto satisfied to leave it to Orlene, came alive together. You don't mean- Jolie started. Roque? Vita concluded, with horrendously mixed emotions. "Who is this man?" Lachesis asked sharply.

"His name is Nicolai," Orlene said. Jolie and Vita relaxed, amazed. Orlene, pretty much lost at her death and after the encounter with Nox, was now really taking hold! "He's an old Gypsy widower, whose only daughter is married and gone. I don't know if he is still alive, actually, but-"

Lachesis spread her hands. Between them a webbing appeared: a section of the Tapestry of Life. She peered closely into it. "He is alive." She put her hands together and the webbing vanished, except for a single strand.

Then they were moving rapidly along that strand. All else blurred past.

They came to rest in a village in southern France. The old Gypsy man's refuse hovel remained almost unchanged-and so did he. He had been about sixty years old; now he was eighty, and slower, but still doing for himself in the Gypsy way.

Atropos appeared to him. "Nicolai," she said.

The old man's gaze swung to fasten on her.' 'I hear you, Mistress of threads! What do you want with me?"

"How are you at judging folk?"

"Excellent!" he said. "I can tell almost at a glance how much money a man is worth and how much he will yield for a trinket."

Atropos smiled. "All Gypsies can. But suppose you had to make decisions on their lives?"

"A man does what he has to. But we do not like to kill. That is seldom necessary."

"I will be direct. I am Fate. I have three Aspects, one of which I must replace before the day is out. We are considering you to replace that Aspect, but we are uncertain whether we want a male, and whether you should be that male. If you are interested, you must persuade all three of us, and we may not be kind in the investigation. We can not give you time to consider; our deadline is hard upon us, and if you do not wish to be considered, we must go elsewhere immediately."

Nicolai hardly blinked. "The Romani are quick to a.s.sess any situation. Answer me three questions, and I will answer yours."

"Ask."

"Which Aspect?"

Atropos touched her ample bosom. "Me-Atropos. I cut the threads of life."

"Will I have complete discretion about which threads to cut?"

"No. You must always consider the benefit of the entire Tapestry of Life, and the interests of the other Aspects and the other Incarnations. The cutting is never random or careless. But within those guidelines, you do have discretion. No one else will second-guess you."

"Will there be occasion for music or dancing or storytelling?"

"If you wish."

"Then I am interested."

Atropos gazed at him. "You didn't ask about magic or immortality or power."

"I didn't need to. I know what Incarnations are. I know the power they wield. I know they are immortal as long as they want to be. I know they can choose their forms and that at least one aspect of Fate is always young and lovely."

"That won't do you any good," Atropos warned. "Only one Aspect can a.s.sume form at a time, the other two becoming mere thoughts. You will never be able to touch Clotho."

"But what joy to be near her!"

"Then let her be the first to question you," Atropos said grimly.

Clotho appeared, deceptively young and bouncy. "So you like to dance," she said. "How can you reconcile that with the serious business of cutting threads?"

"What is life worth without merriment? Serious matters constantly beset every mortal person. We can seek reprieve only in the innocent pleasures of life, such as music and dance and the appreciation of luscious flesh like yours."

Clotho was not much moved. "If you faced death tomorrow, would you dance today?"

"Yes! I face death every moment of my life, especially now that my years are almost done, so every moment I make the most of it. There can be no better death than with a fiddle in my hands and a song in my throat and beauty in my eye."