And Eternity

by Piers Anthony

  "The what?"

  "That man's been beating you nigh to death! Think I don't see those scars? Tonight he's going to beat you too hard and kill you—only I'm going to free you from him."

  "But—" Then the man returned. He had been drinking, and he staggered, but he had plenty of energy remaining for belligerence. "Get out here, woman!" he yelled.

  The woman started forward, but ex-Atropos blocked her. "He's going to kill you this time!" she warned. "He's going to hit you too hard and then claim you fell. You'll be better off free of him—and you will be, once he's in jail for manslaughter. Stay back." Then she marched out to meet her son-in-law. "You good-for-nothing drunken bum! You crazy wife-beater! You cheat on her, you treat her like dirt, and then you come home and mess her up some more! I always knew you were no good, and now you're worse! Now pack up your things and get your tail out of here, you slime!" She continued, getting more specific and more insulting, making it quite clear where he stood with her and how far away she wanted him to get from her daughter.

  He hit her, of course. Ex-Atropos was old, and deprived of the protection she had enjoyed as an Incarnation, she went down without a sound.

  "Time to go," Lachesis said sadly. "But we must help her!" Orlene protested. "No. She is dead. That was her own thread she cut." Then Orlene understood. Atropos had substituted her own thread of life for that of her daughter—so that she would not have to cut her daughter's thread. Now the man would pay the penalty for murdering her, while her daughter survived to make a better life.

  Vita had been correct: that old lady didn't fool around. They arrived back in the webbed Abode. "You have seen more than outsiders usually do," Lachesis said. "You have seen our challenge and our pain. But you have also helped us in a significant manner, and you have earned your thread. We will hold it for you until you have the acquiescence of the other Incarnations. Now you must go, for we have much to resolve, and we prefer to do it by ourselves."

  Orlene could well understand! That saucer hijacking, and that change of Aspects—and the sudden death of the woman who had been Atropos. "Thank you, grandmother," she said, and left immediately.

  I think we'd better take a break, Jolie thought.

  That's for sure! Vita agreed. Those Incarnations—they've got real jobs to do! It isn't all peaches and cream for them, any more than for us!

  "Amen," Orlene agreed, shaken.

  Chapter 9 - COSMOS

  In the morning they caught the Hellevator back to the mortal realm, careful to get off at the right stop. They didn't want to get carried on down to Hell by accident!

  They emerged in Mock Hell and made their way out, ignoring the temptations on the way. They took a carpet to the rocketport—and discovered that it had been replaced by a saucerport.

  I don't want to get on a saucer! Vita protested. Jolie laughed. "This one isn't going to the Moon! It should be safe enough."

  The girl was not completely reassured, but didn't argue. Jolie bought a ticket by charging it to Luna's account, as she had been told to do, and the charge was accepted.

  The saucer was really preferable to the rocket, because it had no need for acceleration restraints and its quarters were generous. Indeed, they sat in an easy chair and watched through a genuine window as it took off, lifting from the pavement without a jolt and sailing over the city.

  A man came over. "Looking for company?" he inquired in a tone that all three of them recognized.

  Jolie turned the body over to Vita. "I'm underage, vacuumhead!" she snapped.

  The man moved on. It was evident that he had judged her age correctly, but hadn't been bothered by that detail. However, he did not want the kind of scene she threatened to make.

  "But you know, I don't feel underage when I'm with Roque," she remarked.

  It is because he respects you as a person, Orlene thought. He disagrees with the letter of the law, feeling that the maturity and discretion of those concerned should be the determinant, rather than an arbitrary figure. Your experience and judgment indicated—

  "Oh, pooh! He was just too hot for me to hold back!"

  That too, Jolie thought. The girl did not want reason, she wanted passion. But the Judge would never have done it for passion alone.

  "Anyway, he knew one of you two would scream if you thought it was wrong," Vita concluded. "And you didn't scream, did you!"

  Not loud enough, Orlene agreed, laughing.

  The saucer arrived in remarkably short order. Its velocity was deceptive; without inertia, it could travel at very high velocity without seeming to.

  They took another carpet to Luna's estate. Luna was there to greet them. "Tomorrow is Saturday," she said. "I will be out for the morning, but I have asked Judge Scott to look in on you. Meanwhile, I am sure you can use a good night's rest, after your extended tour."

  They discovered that they were indeed tired, emotionally as much as physically. They greeted the griffins, who seemed for a moment not to recognize them, and settled down.

  They were, of course, ravenous; they had seemingly spent two days without food. Actually, only the time they had spent traveling to and from the Hellevator, here in the mortal realm, counted; still, there was a psychological effect.

  "One thing I must be sure you understand," Luna said. "You may have been absent longer than you thought."

  Vita was in charge at the moment. "Two days," she said. "But you know, in that short time they had changed from a rocket to a saucer. It—It was okay, but we'd rather have ridden the rocket."

  "Two years," Luna said gently.

  "What?"

  "Unless special dispensation is made, the time that a mortal spends in Purgatory differs from that of the mortal realm. It may be extended or compressed, but normally seems to be a year here for a day there. I regret I did not think to warn you before; certainly I should have."

  She's right! Jolie thought. I knew that—but I forgot, because it doesn't happen to immortals. Only to mortals who go physically into Purgatory, which seldom happens. What an oversight!

  What an oversight! Orlene echoed, appalled. What have we done to Vita?

  "But I feel the same," Vita said.

  "You are the same, dear," Luna said. "You have aged only a few hours—the time you spent in traveling—for the aging process in the Afterlife is so slow as to be meaningless in mortal terms. But the time has passed here, and you are now legally two years older."

  "You mean I'm still fifteen—but the law says I'm seventeen?"

  "True, Vita. You are now that much closer to the age of consent, if that is important to you."

  Vita chewed on a mouthful, knowing that Luna knew her situation with the Judge, and also knowing that it must not be spoken. "So if I went back to Purgatory for another couple of days, I'd be nineteen, and—"

  "And legally of age to make your own decisions, in this region of the mortal realm," Luna said with the faintest of smiles.

  "Gee." Vita's notions were stirring up like the winds of a tropical storm.

  They had trouble falling asleep, because of amazement over the passage of two years and horrified reflections on the recent (or was it recent?) events of the saucer-jacking and Atropos' change of personnel. So they turned on the commercial holo, and satisfied themselves that the news was indeed two years later. Then it went into a rather soupy romance, and they soon became oblivious.

  In the morning, true to her word, Luna left on her errand, and they changed into something nice in anticipation of Roque's arrival. But not too nice, because Vita was determined that it not remain on her long.

  There was a chime, and Vita sailed to the door. There he was, and indeed he looked a bit older. Vita didn't care. She leaped into his arms. "Oh, Roque!" she exclaimed between ardent kisses, "I didn't know it was so long! Can you forgive me?"

  "Do I have a choice?"

  She looked at him archly. "Have you found someone else?"

  "No. It has been a legal and lonely period."

  "Then you don't have a choice
! Oh, my love, my honey, my grand man, I'm so sorry, I thought it was only two days, I never would have done it if I'd realized, I don't want you to suffer!" She paused. "You did suffer?"

  "Horribly!"

  "Then we have two years to make up in one terrific splurge of passion! Get your hands in gear—can you feel me while you're carrying me to the bedroom?"

  "I can try." He picked her up, and she virtually curled around him, trying to get everything into play at once.

  Talk of nymphets! Jolie thought.

  One would think she was the one who had been waiting two years! Orlene agreed.

  Roque staggered into the bedroom with the squirming Vita, who was kissing him all over his face and neck and shirt collar while she ran her hands around his body, pulling out his shirttail. His thinning hair was hopelessly mussed. They fell on the bed and indulged in a scramble of undressing in which Vita's hands did more feeling than Roque's did. Before it was complete, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and scrambled into the position of mergence, kissing him hungrily all the while.

  "A moment."

  One might have thought it impossible for either to pause at this point, but this was a peculiarly compelling presence.

  They paused.

  "Who the hell are you?" Vita demanded.

  That's Nox, the Incarnation of Night! Jolie thought.

  "True, ghost-woman" the Incarnation responded. "Orlene must assume the body."

  But Vita's in the middle of— Orlene protested.

  "Then I will change the form of that body to the masculine aspect." Indeed, as she spoke, the change began.

  Give me the body! Orlene thought desperately.

  Vita, feeling the ghost's horror, yielded the body.

  Suddenly it was Orlene in conjunction with him.

  "What?" Roque asked, aware of the change, and dismayed.

  "It is Nox!" Orlene exclaimed. "She threatens ultimate horror! Oh, what an awful time for her to—"

  "An Incarnation?" he asked. "What possible—"

  "Now enter my dream." Nox said.

  "She is sheer mischief!" Orlene said. "I need her help, and she makes me suffer for it! I must do what she demands!"

  Then the dream surrounded them. It was chaos.

  "And the Earth was without form, and void," Roque said, actually sounding relieved to be in a changed situation. "We seem to be in the beginning of things."

  "I'm sorry," Orlene said. "Nox does these things. I never would have gotten you involved if I had realized—"

  "What is that you hold?"

  Orlene checked. She was floating separately, with a sphere in her hands. It glowed, showing a scene of swirling chaos similar to the one outside, but with a single speck amidst it. "I don't know; it just appeared. A crystal ball?"

  "Let me look at it." He drifted toward her and bent to put his face close to the ball. "The scene within seems to reflect our present situation, but not quite. There are two specks, and one of them is of two children, no, two people, a man and a woman—why, that's us! Our image is in there!"

  "We're locked in a crystal ball?" Orlene asked, dismayed.

  "I think the ball represents the vision we are in, in the manner an inset represents the scale of the larger picture. This shows where we are." He tried to touch the ball, to turn it, but his hands passed through it without effect. "The other speck—it is hard to see—seems to be a house, enclosed by a metal fence..."

  Luna's estate! Jolie thought. That's where we want to return!

  Yeah, I've got pressing business there! Vita thought. We were just getting into it, when—

  "Could it be Luna's estate?" Orlene inquired. "Where we wish to return?"

  "Yes! Yes, that is it!" he exclaimed. "Nox is showing us where we are relative to where we wish to go. Now I see a faint line, a thread—a connection between the two. But it winds all around the globe; it is a devious path, if that is what it is."

  "Nox does not yield her secrets readily," Orlene agreed grimly. "I don't know why she sought me out this time, but I am sure we had better follow her directives, or we shall be most uncomfortable."

  WHAT directives? Vita demanded. There I was, just getting into it with—

  That would have become awkward, if she had changed you into a man, Jolie pointed out.

  She can do THAT?

  She can. That's why Orlene had to take over and learn her will. It would have been difficult if you had changed while—

  I got the picture! Vita thought, appalled.

  "It is apparent that Incarnations are not to be taken lightly," Roque agreed. "Even those we thought did not involve themselves in current affairs."

  Such as MY affair! Vita thought violently.

  "But what does she want of us?" Orlene asked. "She wouldn't take this trouble with us for nothing!"

  Roque considered. "She has your baby, as I understand it. Is it possible that she thought you would not succeed in meeting the requirements for redeeming your son, and when you made progress, she decided to interfere?"

  Now Orlene considered. "It is possible. But I doubt it. She has only to tell me no, and I will be helpless. Instead she told me how to go about it. I don't think she wishes me ill. She may not have wanted to talk to me at first, so put the awful reverse mountain in my way, but when I won through that, she decided to help. Maybe this is her way of helping me further."

  In the middle of my turn with Roque?! Vita thought indignantly.

  Roque smiled. "I might question her timing, but perhaps it is so. Let's assume, then, that this is a necessary and helpful thing on her part, this isolation of us here. We must make every effort to ascertain what she wishes us to learn or experience, and to return to our starting point. This globe is certainly a hint. Presumably if we move, we shall be able to follow the line and return to the mortal realm, and resume our mortal activities."

  "Nicely put," Orlene said. "But how do we move?"

  "We shall have to experiment. Perhaps we can walk."

  He moved his legs, but his body did not progress. "That's odd; I was able to move before."

  "You didn't walk, before; you drifted."

  "So I did. It was my will that moved me, not my legs.

  So I shall will myself to move along that line toward our destination." He faced to the side, looking serious, but still he didn't move. "I'm afraid not."

  "You moved unconsciously before," Orlene pointed out.

  "So I did. But it is difficult to see how an unconscious act could be duplicated consciously." Try a sneeze! Vita thought.

  That's not unconscious, that's involuntary, Jolie thought.

  "Maybe—Maybe it isn't what we want, but what Nox wants," Orlene suggested. "If she wanted you to look at the crystal ball, then you could."

  "Perhaps. But what does she want me to do next?"

  Orlene shook her head, baffled. "I suppose we just have to keep guessing until we come across it."

  "That notion bothers me. We should be able to work it out logically." He stood for a moment, thinking. "If the globe is an accurate indicator of our position—that is, if we interpret it properly—we are far from home, and must trace a convoluted route there. If the journey is not physical, it may be mental. If we form the appropriate attitudes, we may make progress—"

  He broke off, for they had both seen the globe flash. But that was all; the scene inside it was unchanged.

  "I think that was a yes," Orlene said after a moment.

  "I agree. That certainly is progress. We must see if we can make it flash again."

  "I had a ring once," Orlene said. "I gave it to my lover Norton, who named it Sning. Sning would answer questions by squeezing once for yes, twice for no, and three times if neither answer was appropriate. Do you think the crystal reacts similarly?"

  "I don't think so, because it didn't flash at all before, when we were evidently not doing what the Incarnation wished. I suspect it merely remains inert unless triggered by our progress toward Nox's goal. But this remains useful; no re
action is an indication that we are not making progress."

  "And when you said that our attitude was the key, it flashed," she agreed. "Does that mean we shall have to change our attitudes on—"

  The globe had flashed again.

  "I believe we do have the key!" Roque said. "Now we shall have to determine to which attitudes it is attuned. Legal? Social? Political?" There was no flash.

  "Ethical?" Orlene supplied, with no better success.

  "Practical? Mathematical?"

  Sexual? Vita thought.

  "Vocational?" Orlene inquired.

  Religious? Jolie thought.

  The globe flashed.

  They looked at each other. "That was Jolie," Orlene said. "She suggested 'Religious.' That seems to be it."

  "Surely she does not expect us to change our religions!"

  There was no flash. "Nox is from the old order, from the dawn of time," Orlene said. "I don't think religion means much to her. Maybe the subject just happens to offer the key to what she wants us to understand." And the globe flashed.

  You're getting warm! Vita thought, her interest quickening. And that bulb can hear Jolie and me too; it's pretty smart. Want me to think about how I don't think much of God because of what He let me get into? I mean, that sure didn't help my mother any, or Luna with her research, and that research was to support God!

  "The crystal didn't flash," Orlene said. "It must be looking for something else."

  Should I think about how the world was made in six days? Jolie thought.

  The globe flashed.

  "Jolie thought of the Biblical creation of the universe," Orlene explained to Roque. "So that must be—"

  That's crap! Vita thought. It took millions, maybe billions of years to make the world!

  The globe flashed again.

  "Don't tell me, let me guess!" Roque said, growing animated. "Vita thought of science! And what Nox seeks is a resolution of the debate between Creationism and Evolution!"

  The globe flickered. "You may be warm, but I think not quite there," Orlene said.

  "Then let's make it broader. Does Nox seek our exploration into the nature of ultimate reality?"