Squeeze.
Now he had it straight. But one thing still bothered him. "If Sning knows the Word, the Evil Sorceress must have known it, too. I mean, she was a Sorceress and she had magical sources of information. Yet she never used the Word. She must have had reason."
Excelsia had stood silently all the while, adoring the Alicorn through the hole in the fence. Now she looked at Norton. "She surely would have used it if she could!"
"True, Sning?"
Squeeze.
"She knew it and could not say it?"
Squeeze.
"There's no actual danger in using the Word—apart from making sure the right person uses it?"
Squeeze.
"And once that person uses it, it can't be used again, so no one else can take away the Alicorn's loyalty?"
Squeeze.
Until, perhaps, that person died, leaving the Alicorn free again. It was a firm commitment.
Squeeze.
Norton shook his head. "The Evil Sorceress certainly would have wanted to use it. Was she physically incapable of pronouncing it?"
Squeeze, squeeze.
"Emotionally incapable?"
Squeeze.
"Ah!" Excelsia exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I can guess what Word she could not say! The one that countered her nature!"
"She was a creature of hate," the Elf agreed. Norton thought back to the moment of Sning's first warning on this subject. He had been commenting about Sning, who had been given to him by Orlene, the one he—
Excelsia marched up to the Alicorn. The beast braced, ready for his devastating attack. "Love!" she cried. The Alicorn shuddered. Then he furled his wings and bowed his head until the terrible horn touched the battered earth.
"It could be a ruse!" Norton warned.
Squeeze, squeeze.
Excelsia approached the stallion and put her small fair hand on his muscular shoulder near where one of his wings sprouted. "Love," she repeated softly. He lifted his head and brought his nose around to nuzzle her neck. He had indeed been tamed.
She stooped to untie the knotted silver chain from his hind leg. Her human hands could do what neither his hooves nor his horn could. In a moment he was free—but he did not move. He waited for her directive.
The Elf walked toward them. Instantly the Alicorn was alert. His wings unfurled and his horn took a bead on the intruder. A small puff of fire showed at his nostrils.
"It's all right, Alicorn," Excelsia said. "These are my friends."
The creature relaxed. If she said it was all right, it was all right, for her word was his law. But woe betide the one she did not speak for!
Excelsia jumped up on the steed's back, managing to achieve a sidesaddle position though there was no saddle. Norton knew how difficult it could be to mount a standing horse without the aid of a stirrup. Perhaps she had a little magic of her own—the magic of Damsel with Equine.
"Oh, I'm so happy!" Excelsia cried, waving to Norton and the Elf. "Onward and upward, Alicorn!"
The Alicorn spread his great white wings, pumped them, and launched himself into the air. There was hardly any downdraft; most of his impetus was magic. In moments Damsel and stallion were high aloft.
"Well, the job's done, the adventure complete," the Elf remarked. He held out his hand. "You won't be needing the Enchanted Sword any more."
Norton stared at the diminishing speck in the sky. Somehow he had expected more thanks for his effort than this. "I suppose not." He handed the Sword over.
The Elf took it by mid-blade and held it up over his head, horizontally. A mud-puddle began to form around his feet. Slowly he sank into it.
"But I thought you didn't like mud!" Norton protested.
"I don't," the Elf agreed, sinking further. "But that's fantasy for you. The Damsel gets to fly, while the Elf gets stuck in the mud."
Something caught the corner of Norton's eye. He looked around. The slain Dragon was reviving!
"Hey, wait, Elf! I have further use for that Sword!"
The Elf's descent into the widening puddle paused. "What for? You're finished with the Quest."
"The Dragon! He's not quite dead!"
"Of course he's not quite dead! He's immortal! He dies only for an hour, then he resumes his post. Naturally he'll be somewhat irritated by the loss of the Alicorn he guarded—but that's a new Quest."
"But that means I need a weapon!"
"Nah. You won't be staying long. Otherwise you'd be worrying about when the Evil Sorceress revives. It takes her two hours, 'cause she's worse; but when she does, hoo man!"
Norton looked wildly at the fallen castle. Sure enough, it was beginning to re-form from the mound of slime. "None of this destruction was permanent? It's all coming back?"
There was no response. He looked—and the Elf was gone. Only his hat and the Enchanted Sword remained above the mud, and in a moment they, too, sank out of sight.
Norton felt very much alone. Now he was without weapon or companions—and the Dragon was climbing to its fourteen or sixteen pairs of legs, larger than ever and quite annoyed. Norton would have to cross the Dragon's path to escape this region.
Squeeze.
Suddenly he felt better. "Sning! I've still got you!" Then he drifted from the planet and zoomed back toward his own realm. This visit was over—none too soon.
Chapter 10 - GAEA
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, Bem, 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-Lan
tern 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."
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