But she would play along, just to get a better picture of his intent before she balked it. The three prior Aspects had chosen her to return because they had known Satan was plotting something devious; they had chosen better than they knew! But she wanted to be certain she knew the whole plot.
"There must be several women with that surname," Niobe said, feigning perplexity. "What's her lineage?"
"Oh, not much. One of My minions spotted her some time back. Two girls who look like twins, but a generation apart. I want the one who's descended from the former Incarnation. The one with the darker hair."
Again Niobe stiffened. Had Satan made a mistake? Her granddaughter Luna was destined to save man; Niobe's daughter Orb was destined to become an Incarnation, if the prophecy was correct. Of course Satan was a busy entity; he probably hadn't paid much attention to Niobe's mortal affairs. Obviously he did not recognize her now. For the first time she blessed the loss of her youthful beauty! Perhaps the demon who had sneaked into the Hall of the Mountain King and activated the thief defense had confused the two girls—easy enough to do!—and reported Luna as the buckwheat-honey girl, and Satan had never thought to verify the identification. Luna was in fact the clover-honey girl, slightly lighter in hair hue. "You find this unreasonable?" Satan asked, noting her silence.
Niobe sighed. "Gaea told me not to trust you. You're up to something."
"My dear associate, there is no call to trust Me! You can handle it yourself! Simply give Me your word that if no bomb goes off at the UN, you will modify the girl's thread to shunt her away from politics."
Niobe tried to decide whether Satan was confused, or had some double devious plot in mind. "No harm will come to the girl?"
"I promise never to harm the girl whose thread you change," Satan said magnanimously.
"But your promise is worthless!"
"That is true. I am the Father of Lies," he agreed with pride. "But My word is sacred when properly given."
"How is it properly given?"
"In blood, of course."
"You have blood?"
He laughed. "Of course I have blood! I'm an Incarnation, like you!"
Niobe remembered. In her prior Incarnation she had learned things about the other Incarnations, and one of them was this: that Satan's blood did bind him, and that the word of one Incarnation to another was inviolate. In this particular case, she could trust even the Father of Lies.
"Then we shall swear on blood," she decided.
Are you crazy, woman? Atropos demanded, like a conscience. That's your flesh and blood you're sacrificing in that girl!
And the salvation of man, Clotho added. The two of them had picked up the information from Niobe's strong conscious thoughts.
"Excellent," Satan said. He held up his hand, and Niobe drew a needle from a reserve in her clothing and pricked his thumb so that a drop of blood welled out. Then she did the same for her own hand. The blood of Incarnations could not be shed by anyone, mortal or immortal, without consent, except perhaps in the case of Thanatos' change of office. Satan had agreed to have his blood shed, and so had she—for this occasion only.
"An oath between Incarnations," Niobe said. "Sealed in blood. You will spare the UN and respect the life of that woman, and I will adjust the thread of the life of the darker-haired descendent of Niobe Kaftan so that she never enters politics."
"An oath, agreed," Satan said. They shook their bloodied hands.
"I hope it's worth it," Niobe muttered, worrying what mischief Satan might try to do to Orb, despite his oath. There were ways to make a person miserable without doing actual harm. Yet the language was broad and the term "respect" covered a lot—especially considering the relevance of the prophecy. This oath was merely a step in the implementation of that prophecy. She was not completely easy about it, but thought she had done right in a difficult situation.
"It is for Me," Satan said. "Considering that the matter is academic anyway."
"Academic?"
"Chronos, curse his backward hide, acted on his own, and warned the UN security police about the bomb. They are installing psychic shields already."
"You knew that?" she demanded, outraged. "You cheated!"
"Hardly. I agreed to spare the UN, and Niobe's nonpolitical offspring. They will be spared." Then Satan did a double-take. "How did you know that name 'Niobe'? I never uttered it."
"Satan, it is my business to know. The threads—"
But he was already making the connection. "You—I thought you looked faintly familiar! You are Niobe—once Clotho!"
Niobe shrugged. "Now I am Lachesis. But I will see that my mortal daughter Orb never enters politics. An oath is an oath."
"Orb? I meant Luna!"
"Oh, is the matter academic?" she asked sweetly. "I swore to keep my darker-haired descendent free of politics."
Satan considered. "You came back—to deceive Me!"
"Close enough." Niobe shrugged. "Had you specified that it was Luna whom you—"
She expected an explosion, but Satan only nodded. "Sometimes the Father of Deceit is hoist with his own petard. I congratulate you, Niobe, on an excellent counterploy."
"That is a compliment indeed, coming from you."
"But now I know you, and I shall not be deceived again. There are other ways." He vanished.
Niobe was not reassured. That had been too easy. Yet how else could she have played it? She extended a thread and slid toward home.
Chapter 14 - BRIBE
Back in the Abode, they rested, then returned to the routine. They had indeed foiled Satan, for the UN was not bombed. Perhaps, as Satan had claimed, the matter was academic—but only because Chronos had been alerted by their reaction and joined in himself. Since he lived backward, his subsequent action would have occurred before their conversation, but—well, that problem had been dealt with. Niobe's daughter and granddaughter would continue their lives unobstructed; the existing course of their threads was unchanged.
What a stroke of luck it had been that Niobe had returned as Lachesis to deal with this particular matter! No one else would have known about the two fair moons, and been able to divert Satan's thrust into a harmless channel.
Yet was it coincidence—or was there a deeper current of Fate that transcended the efforts even of the Incarnations? If so, what was the origin of that current?
"God," Atropos said.
There it was. God honored the Covenant by not interfering in the affairs of mortals, while Satan chronically cheated. Evidently Satan had not signed that one in blood. But if God guided the larger pattern, all of Satan's machinations would became—academic.
Was her return merely part of God's will—or was it true coincidence?
"We'll never know, for sure," Clotho said.
With that, Niobe had to be satisfied.
Niobe now worked with Chronos more than she had as Clotho. True, she had had a long-term backward affair with the earlier Chronos, but that had been on a different level. She suspected, by the way this Chronos glanced at this Clotho, that there would be something of the sort again, but not for some time, and perhaps not with this particular Clotho. The youngest Aspect of Fate seemed to be a magnet for male attentions, whoever and whenever. But the main business was between Chronos and Lachesis. Only he could locate the specific chronology for the complex interactions of the threads. His staff and Fate's staff coordinated the great majority of events competently enough, but there was a constant development of situations that required the attention of the Incarnations themselves.
It was during one such session that Chronos mentioned another thing that alerted her. "Periodically Satan has opportunity to free a few demons from Hell," he remarked. "I don't know what governs this, and it happens infrequently, but when a demon is freed, there is always mischief in the mortal realm."
"Even the spirit of a demon is bad," Niobe agreed.
"Ah, then you know the nature of the problem! I remember when I had to run the world backward to eliminate—but o
f course that hasn't happened yet, for you. But it seems that such an occasion is about to happen again—has already happened, in your frame. I suspect it behooves us to verify exactly what mischief is being done, this time."
"Can't you tell, from your past?"
"That's the odd thing. There doesn't seem to be any effect. Yet Satan never lets such an opportunity pass unfulfilled."
"No mischief?" she asked. "That is suspicious! What mischief could Satan do that you would not be aware of?"
"Something of limited scope," he said. "Or something subtle."
"If it's too limited or subtle to affect the balance of good and evil in the world, it's too limited to be worth his while," Niobe said. "I'm sure he wouldn't waste a valuable demon on anything genuinely minor." She remembered the various demonic attacks on her own family. "There has to be something."
"Perhaps something that manifests after my term began," Chronos said. "That way I would not know of it. Satan is adept at sleepers."
"Yes! Luna is supposed to be the salvation of man some time in the future, perhaps twenty years hence. Satan has enormous cunning and patience; he can afford to wait, to nullify your perception. There must be something the demon does now that will show up then."
"He has done that sort of thing," Chronos agreed. "Never that long-term, in my experience, but of course I foiled the shorter-term efforts. With difficulty, I confess. It was quite wearing; if it hadn't been for your support and Clotho's—I mean this one's successor—I might have given up."
Niobe chose to ignore the remark about Clotho's successor, and hoped Clotho had not picked it up; none of them wanted to know the times of their departures from office, voluntary as they might be. "That must be it. What could a demon do today, that wouldn't take effect for twenty years? A time bomb?"
"Such devices are notoriously unreliable. More likely it would be some kind of change in personnel somewhere, so that someone would not be available to do something to oppose Satan in that time."
"We have pretty well safeguarded Luna," Niobe said. "So I don't think the demon can touch her. She's the only truly critical person I know of."
"At one point, Satan sent a demon to nullify the accidental poisoning of the senator she replaced, so that—"
"Wait, wait, Chronos! You're talking of the future! I wish you wouldn't do that. Just speak in generalities, if you please."
"Sorry. My point is that if Satan can affect people Luna interacts with, he can affect her indirectly. If she is to be pivotal in a political sense, the change of other personnel might transfer the pivot to another person."
"Now I understand. You say she's to become a senator?"
"Yes, if you don't mind that information. A good one."
"So the Senate is the likely arena for—whatever it is?"
"I would say so."
"Then I'd-better check potential changes in the makeup of the Senate. I'm learning how to read the threads better, so I should be able to do this more efficiently than I did for the stink-bomb carriers. Did I thank you for your effort there?"
"Stink bomb? Oh, there was something in an alternate reality. The UN?"
"That's right—if I thanked you last month, you wouldn't know it now!"
"I'm sure you did what was proper—and I will too."
"Well, thank you anyway—for that and this."
She left the mansion and, as usual, took time out before returning to her Abode, so as not to meet her self of the immediate past; that was always unsettling. She had done it on occasion by prearrangement during the time of the child-Chronos, and that had been interesting, but she was too busy for that sort of thing now. She slid her thread down to pay a brief call on Luna, just to advise her of the current situation. She hadn't seen the young woman since assuming the Aspect of Lachesis, so it really was time.
She landed at the door of what turned out to be a rather elegant fenced estate guarded by two fierce griffins. When they menaced her, she slid through them on a thread, showing them what they were dealing with.
The door opened, and there stood Luna. "My dear!" Niobe exclaimed. "What have you done with your hair?"
"Grandma!" Luna exclaimed. "Come in!"
They had a nice visit, in the course of which Niobe learned that Luna had used a spell when she moved to America to darken her hair to chestnut brown. "My father insisted," she said. "I really don't know why."
Niobe remembered Satan's confusion, supposing Luna was the one with the darker hair. Satan had seen her more recently than Niobe had! "I believe I understand why," she murmured. Her son theMagician had really been on the job!
In due course she kissed her granddaughter adieu and slid home. She had serious business to attend to.
She checked the skein, searching out the threads of current senators. Of course there would be many changes in twenty years, so nothing much should show. But—
She was disappointed. She started with the youngest, who would be most likely to remain for another twenty years or more, therefore the most likely targets for Satan's effort. After all, what use to corrupt a senator who would not be there for the payoff? But one after the other, the threads were normal. None of them had been touched by the distinctive stigmatum of Satan's influence.
"Well, it was worth checking," she said. "It was just a wild guess anyway."
"Why not check the old ones?" Atropos asked.
"They'd be replaced anyway, by then."
"Check them anyway. I've got a hunch."
Niobe shrugged and checked the thread of the oldest senator. She stared. There was the kink of Satan!
She checked another old one. There was another stigmatum. Satan had definitely influenced these men!
"But it doesn't make sense!" Niobe protested. "One of these men is seventy-six years old now, and in failing health; there's no way he's going to make it another twenty years!"
"Unless he gets a youth potion," Atropos replied.
"A youth potion!" Suddenly it made sense! Trust an old woman to think of that! An old, corrupt man would gladly give his soul for that, figuring he was going to Hell anyway. Satan, in effect, could be offering these men twenty more years of life, in exchange for their support at the critical moment. Since they would otherwise be replaced by younger and perhaps more God-fearing men, it was to Satan's interest to do this.
Luna was being bypassed. That could not be allowed.
She checked more threads. The four oldest senators were kinked; the fifth and sixth weren't. "The demon hasn't finished making the bribes!" she said. "We're not too late to cut short its activity!"
"I don't know about tangling with a demon," Clotho said. "Samurai's teaching me self-defense, but he says it won't work against magic, and a demon can't be killed by mortal means."
"Of course it can!" Atropos said. "Just sprinkle some holy water on it."
Niobe agreed. "And of course we are invulnerable to injury, as an Incarnation. Neither mortal nor demon can shed our blood unless we concur."
They fetched a vial of holy water, then slid down to the senator's residence. As seemed to be customary, the senator had feathered his own nest considerably; it was an elegant estate, with a broad expanse of green lawn, sculptured bushes, and assorted outbuildings surrounding the central mansion.
There was no physical barrier to admission, but a yellow line had been painted around the senator's property. Magic, Atropos thought darkly.
Niobe walked on along the walk, knowing that no magic could harm an Incarnation. This was one of the greatest advantages of her prior experience: she could proceed with confidence because she knew her powers. Had there been three new Aspects of Fate, Satan would surely have convinced them that they were physically and magically vulnerable, and gained considerable advantage. Thanatos had mentioned being worked over that way by the Father of Lies, until at last he had realized the truth. Niobe remembered how close Satan had come to convincing her to resign her office, the first time in the Void. There were so many forms a lie could take, and Satan prac
ticed them all!
As she crossed the yellow line, there was an alarm. A cloud of birds took off from the roof of the house and came toward her. They seemed to recognize her as an intruder, for they didn't hesitate; they folded their wings and dived like little hunting-hawks.
Ooo! Clotho thought, mentally ducking. But Niobe merely flung out a loop of thread, and another intersecting it at right angles, defining a sphere about her body. The birds darted into this sphere and abruptly slowed. They lost strength, being unable to penetrate to her body, no matter how hard they flew.
Like the tatami! Clotho thought. She had been picking up martial-arts terms during her association with Samurai. The mat is soft, but it breaks the fall without injury.
"Exactly," Niobe murmured. "There is nothing more subtle but certain than the web of Fate. No mortal creature can avoid it or nullify it." She walked on, and after a while the birds gave up and returned to their roosts on the roof.
Nice estate, Atropos thought. I wouldn't mind working in a place like this.
You're no servant! Clotho thought angrily. You're a free woman!
Of course I am, girl—in my mind, Atropos agreed. But in the real world, I always did have to earn my living and I never was ashamed of that.
Niobe smiled ruefully. She had been neither liberated nor servant, but had partaken somewhat of both. Unlike Clotho, she had married the man her father chose for her; unlike Atropos, she had never had to go to work for another person. Yet had she rebelled a little more, initially, she might readily have gone Clotho's route—and then would have had to follow Atropos' route. It was still basically a man's world.
But we still spin the threads of life! Clotho put in.
And we still cut them! Atropos added.
"Well, we are Woman," Niobe said, smiling. "We possess the sort of power no man can deny."
As she approached the house, there was a scream from a tree. It was partly like that of a great bird, partly like that of a shrewish woman, and wholly horrible. Then a great, dark shape rose from the tree, flapping ponderous wings.
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