It was reflex more than thought that interposed my dagger between her rapier and my head. As the two blades met in a shower of sparks, I had a moment to be pleased that even with my injuries I was still capable of an elegant parry. Then Eris's sword seemed to dance around the tip of my dagger in a deadly pirouette. Since I had no feeling in that hand, I didn't even realize she'd stripped my dagger away from me until I saw it bounce across the room.
I hopped backward, stumbling and almost falling as I tried to find footing in the twisted mass of cable. As I tried to recover, I turned side on to the goddess, with my sword between us. While I was making my parry, Melchior had also inserted himself into the fray. Opening his mouth wide, he'd vomited a stream of gray fluid. The jet was as big as the output of a fire hose and it flew straight at Eris's face.
I recognized the spell as Arachne Worships The Porcelain God. Arachne is the patroness of spiders. She was forced into that role by Athena, who was in a very nasty mood at the time. She is also, I believe, a distant cousin. At any rate, at a family to-do at Delphi I witnessed what happens when the queen of arachnids has a few too many bottles of nectar. The results were spectacular, disgusting, and educational, in that order. It had taken days to unweb the satyr who had the misfortune to come between Arachne and the facilities.
In the same instant that she was making a cut at my face, Eris brought her dagger to a guard position between Melchior and herself. When the stream struck her blade, she began to twirl it like a threadmaker with her spindle. In very short order Mel had exhausted the spell, and Eris had collected a great ball of spider silk on her dagger. I regained my footing somewhere around that point, so I feinted a thrust at her face, then at the last second, dropped my blade, driving the point toward the toe of her left boot, a tactic that had served me well in the past. Without seeming to move, Eris interposed the bewebbed dagger. My rapier plunged deep into the gooey mass and stuck. With a negligent jerk of her wrist she pulled the hilt from my hand. Another sharp movement flicked my blade loose, sending it sailing past my head. It struck a beam with a thunk and lodged deep in the wood. Examining the ball of gray fuzz on her dagger, the goddess smiled.
"Mmm," she said, "cotton candy. My favorite." She took a bite of the cobwebs. After chewing for a moment, she spoke again, "A little sticky perhaps, but not bad. If that's the best you can do, boys, I'm afraid you're in for a very bad time."
"Any suggestions?" I asked Melchior.
"I'm fresh out, Boss."
I turned my eyes back to Eris. "I suppose I've already blown any chance at charming my way out of this?" I asked.
She threw her head back and laughed, a sound like the shattering of windows. I'd been too busy trying to avoid being made into cutlets up to that point to really get a close look at her till then. She wasn't wearing a sword belt, but she'd already demonstrated that she could draw steel from thin air. She was slender and athletic; all long bones and lean muscle, elegant like a Borzoi. Her hair was blond streaked with black, or black streaked with blond, depending on the angle you looked at it from. Her skin was taffeta. That's the only way I can describe it. It was shimmery, and the color shifted as she moved, silvery black one instant, honey-touched gold the next. The bones of her face were stark, all angles and arrogance. She had a pointed chin, full lips, high cheekbones, and a small fine nose. Her eyes, closed for the moment, were wide and oval.
She was beautiful, of course. She was a goddess. The only members of that sorority who appear less than gorgeous do so as a matter of choice. But this was a different beauty from the Fates or the Furies. They were magnificent and stunning without being immediate, more like marble sculpture than flesh—distant, commanding admiration and esthetic appreciation, but not attraction. Eris, on the other hand, demanded attention, devotion, even worship, and all in the most physical and carnal way imaginable.
It took every iota of will I possessed not to fall on my knees before her. By the time she stopped laughing, I was sweating and shaking with the effort. Then she opened her eyelids. Where her eyes should have been, there was chaos—the hungry, whirling, colorless colors that ruled the space between the worlds. It was the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen.
It should have hit me like an iceball to the groin, but it didn't. Even with those terrible hungry eyes looking down on me, I was filled with a sort of desire I'd never known before. A part of me wanted to surrender utterly to her, to throw away everything: possessions, mission, friends, Melchior, Cerice, even identity, and give myself wholly to Eris. Finally, in an effort to preserve my sanity, I turned my head away, forcing my eyes to break contact. It was one of the hardest things I'd ever done. She laughed again, then applauded lightly.
"Very good," she husked. "There are few who can resist me. Now, you were saying something about charm, I think."
I just shook my head, too drained to speak.
"Too bad. It might have been entertaining. I'm immune to charm. Like Artemis, I'm a virgin goddess. My motives, however, are quite different. Artemis scorns the allures of the flesh. I think she finds the very idea of physical attraction repugnant. I find it magnificent. Do you know how many duels I've caused? How many relationships I've destroyed? How many men and women have trailed behind me to destruction? Carnality is such a magnificent tool for sowing discord. And 'no' is ever so much more devastating than 'yes.' It's impossible to be cured of me if you never really catch me, now isn't it?"
"If it's all the same to you," I replied, still looking away, "I'd rather not find out." .
"What a funny boy you are," she said. "You remind me of Orpheus. Perhaps you'd like to share his fate?"
I shuddered. Orpheus had ended up as the original talking head, an oracle without a body.
"If you don't wish for something equally unpleasant to happen to you, my little thief, I'd suggest you tell me who you are and why you're here."
"My name is Ravirn; my House Lachesis. I came looking for the roots of a virus I found and killed in the Fate Core."
"I knew the meddling hags would send someone," said the goddess. "But I didn't expect a child and his stuffed toy." She waved a contemptuous hand in Melchior's direction. "That reflects poorly on their opinion of me. I shall have to teach them that Discord is not to be so blithely disregarded, and I think that you will deliver my message for me."
"I'm not all that good at taking dictation," I said.
"Too bad," she whispered. "Good-bye." She began to whistle a spell. It was a wild, dissonant sort of sound, and I felt something huge and dark rising around me in response. That was the only thought I had time for, because in the next instant it swallowed me whole.
Chapter Seventeen
Between one blink and the next, the universe had snuck up and rearranged things. I didn't know how long I was bound in Eris's enchantment, whatever it might have been. All I knew was that I had closed my eyes on one scene and opened them on another one that was entirely different.
I stood in a circular room with a flat-timbered ceiling held up by thick dark beams. The walls were the same gold-flecked granite I'd seen throughout Castle Discord. Four windows were placed so that each would have faced a cardinal point of the compass if direction meant anything in the Citadel of Chaos. Stairs tumbled away through a broad opening in the floor, and a ladder climbed to a trapdoor above. For reasons unknown, there was a heavy scent of vanilla in the air. The only furniture was a large mahogany desk with a rich leather chair beyond it.
Melchior lay on the desk in laptop form. The green light that would have indicated if he was active was dark. I stepped toward him and discovered I was chained to the wall. I don't know how I failed until then to notice that my arms were stretched above my head, but I had. Perhaps Eris's enchantment had frozen me, statuelike. Whatever the reason, I felt as though my arms had been placed in manacles only seconds before.
Bracing my back against the wall, I pulled with all my might. Despite the fact that the chains were barely thicker than one might expect of a bracelet, and the manac
les were like paper in their thinness, all I succeeded in doing was to press the cuffs deeply and painfully into my wrists. That's when I realized I had some of the feeling back in my left arm. It was the first reference point I'd had as to how long my "nap" might have lasted. I couldn't have been out for more than a day without getting further along in my healing. That was reassuring.
Having tried and failed to free myself by physical means, it was time to attempt the arcane. I'd hoped to avoid magic. The associated turbulence in the ether was all too likely to attract the attention of my disturbing hostess, but it was that or stay where I was. I quickly composed a couple of stanzas of binary code.
I'd whistled fewer than ten notes when Eris shook her head in a gentle no. She sat in the chair across the tower from me, her booted feet firmly up on the desk, and an interested look on her face. I won't say that she appeared suddenly, because that was not how it felt. Rather, it seemed as though she had been there all along and I had simply failed to notice. It was most disquieting. I stopped my spell.
"Interesting," she said. "It's hard to tell from that fragment, but I take it you were trying to do this." She leaned forward and lightly touched the switch that booted Melchior.
"That's better than I expected," she continued, "almost subtle. I've had some time to find out more about you, which is a harder task than it sounds. I can't exactly call one of the Fates and ask for all the gossip. But there are ways, and from all accounts you show some promise as a sorcerer. Perhaps I was overhasty when I proclaimed that destiny's bitches had sent you as a deliberate insult. I'm still going to return you in pieces, but I might make the process a bit less excruciating for you."
"Gosh, that's sweet," I said.
"Don't make me regret my incipient mercy, boy." Her speech had been light, almost bantering. With the speed of madness, it shifted to quiet menace. "You'll find that suddenly changing my mind is something I'm known for."
"How nice for you," I replied, dryly. "I'm sure that no matter what happens, I'm going to regret it. I might as well have what fun I can between now and then."
A frown crossed the goddess's face, and she sat up straight. The chaos that tumbled slowly but continuously in her eye sockets increased its motion. "I think it's time I began composing my message. Any last words?"
"Ahh, Boss," interjected Melchior, who'd just finished booting and shifted into goblin form. "I know this is the part where you're supposed to say something cocky and defiant, but is that really wise? Judging from past experience and what little I've heard, I'm thinking you're following the pattern where you start out in a lot of trouble, and then through a series of brilliantly chosen words, make it infinitely worse."
I snorted and started to respond to Eris's request for last words again, but Melchior held up a hand.
"Furthermore," he continued, "when you're in this mood, you have a nasty habit of drawing those around you into the swamp. So, maybe, just this once, could you quit while you aren't too far behind?"
"I don't see much point," I replied, shaking my chains in counterpoint. "Eris is planning on taking me apart. And, on top of that, she wants to send me back to Grandmother and her sisters. Either of those would be a sufficiently fatal outcome by itself. Together they're overkill on such a grand scale that I can't imagine how I could possibly worsen the situation."
"Listen to the goblin," said Eris. "If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have heard your last statement, because you wouldn't have possessed the lips to say it. I'm beginning to think the risk Tyche and I took to alter the blueprints of these fellows, back when they were still in the design stage, may finally be paying dividends. Chaos knows that slipping the germs of self-determination past the Fates was a tricky bit of business for the Goddess of Fortune and me."
For once in my life, I was struck speechless. The idea of the webgoblins and webtrolls as truly independent entities was so new to me I hadn't really thought through how it might have come to be. It certainly wasn't what the Fates intended. The very idea of introducing more free will into the universe would be utter anathema to Atropos, and it wouldn't sit well with Lachesis or Clotho either. While they might be resigned to the status quo as far as the balance was concerned, neither of them would be willing to tip it away from themselves. The claim that it was introduced by Eris and Tyche seemed very likely.
"Why didn't any of us ever question how we came to be as we are?" whispered Melchior, a stunned expression on his small blue face. He sat down on the desk rather abruptly. "Are you really responsible for my free will?"
"No," said Eris, shaking her head. "That's of your own making. Free will must be exercised to blossom. It can't be given. That would make it something other than free. You and your siblings are your own creators. Tyche and I just nudged things a bit at the beginning, introducing a breath of chaos into your design so things wouldn't turn out exactly as Atropos and her elder sisters wished."
"Thank you," said Melchior, his voice a strained whisper.
"There's nothing to thank me for. We did what we did to thwart our enemies, not out of some misguided desire for creation. The only reason I mentioned it is that you prevented me from doing something that might have turned out to be a bit hasty. We'll see in a minute." She turned her attention on me. I felt it like a flame's heat on my face. I certainly couldn't tell by the chaos of her eyes.
"Well, boy," she said. "Out with it, and be quick about it. I doubt it'll stop me from turning you into sausages, but we'll see. What did you mean when you said sending you to the Fates would be as bad as chopping you up?"
"Only that you'd be doing them a favor." I smiled wryly. "At the moment, I doubt there are few things higher on their list than putting me on a boat to Hades."
"Why haven't they just clipped your thread?" she asked, disbelief plain in her voice.
"They can't."
"That's ridiculous," she snorted. But she put her feet back up on the desk and settled into her chair. "You'd better come up with something better than that if you want me to believe you."
"It's the truth," I said. I was staying away from the personal trouble between me and Atropos, and the curse hadn't kicked in yet. I bobbed my head in the closest approximation I could make of a bow while I remained chained. "It's a matter that causes them considerable consternation, and I owe you and your Fate Core virus a vote of thanks for that."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"The virus you sent into the Core was meant to erase destinies, wasn't it? To remove people's futures from the hands of Fate? Well, it worked. For me."
"That's an interesting claim," she said. "You'll pardon me if I'm a bit skeptical. First off, the virus failed shortly after it entered the Core. Secondly, even if it hadn't, it did its job by running life threads through its digestive system. I hope you're not going to try to tell me that it just happened to nab yours in the brief time it was there."
"I won't, because that's not what happened. The reason it erased my destiny was that it swallowed me whole, like Cronus with Zeus's elder siblings. Like them, I survived the experience. My thread had nothing to do with it."
She nodded. "Keep talking. If this is a lie, at least it's an interesting one."
So I sketched her an abbreviated version of my role in killing the virus dragon and Ahllan's theory about what happened to my thread as a result. When I was finished, Eris nodded again.
"That would explain why they haven't just made an end of you," she nodded. "But it begs a couple of questions. For the moment we'll leave aside the fact that if you're telling the truth, it's to you that I owe the failure of a virus I put considerable time and energy into. I might just choose to forgive you, if you've twisted the Fates' tails hard enough. But I'd like to know two things first. Why were you in the Fate Core in the first place? And, if you did kill my virus, why aren't destiny's bitches falling all over themselves to reward you?"
"If I tell you, there's absolutely no way you're going to believe me," I said.
"I don't believe you," replie
d Eris.
"What did I just tell you?" I asked.
"That I wouldn't believe you," she responded. "But that's got nothing to do with my not believing you."
"I know that," I said. "Because I know why you don't believe me."
"I don't believe this," said Melchior, burying his face in his hands. "Ravirn, would you just shut up for a moment and let me handle this one?"
"And why would I believe you?" asked the goddess. "I don't believe him."
"Because I'm not under a curse," said Melchior.
"That could easily be changed," said the goddess. "I'm getting tired of twenty questions."
The goblin held up both hands placatingly. "In that case, I'd better get started. The problem is that my companion has something of a reputation for intransigence."
"I can't imagine why," replied Eris dryly.
"This is nothing," said Melchior. "By his usual standards, he's been the soul of sober diplomacy. I think it's the manacles. They seem to be good for his disposition."
"Melchior," I growled, putting teeth into my tone, "I think you're straying from the point."
"Sorry." He turned back to Eris, who had started to drum her fingers on the desk. "I'm sorry. It's just that opportunities like this are so rare. Usually, when he's in hot water up to his neck, I'm somewhere down by his ankles wishing for a snorkel."
"You were saying something about him being difficult," prompted Eris. "The trait seems to be catching."
"Yes. Again, sorry. You see, you aren't the first goddess he's irritated. He was making a hobby of it with Atropos."
"Could we dispense with the editorials, Mel?" I asked.
"Of course," he replied. "The point of this is that Atropos has zero sense of humor about being crossed."
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