"Just a supplicant for a favor."
"Please wait in the foyer."
She entered and waited, while the butler departed for the interior. There was a scenic mural on the wall that looked almost real enough for her to walk into. The furniture was comfortable, and the floor was polished hardwood. You're right. Vita thought. This seems awfully real and solid!
Don't be deceived; its reality is on a different plane from that of the living host.
The butler returned. "Chronos will see you now."
She followed the man to the main chamber. Her breath caught in her throat. There stood Norton, exactly as she had known him in life!
He turned and looked at her. "May I ask who you are?"
He did not recognize her—because she wore Vita's body! Her appearance was that of a pretty teenage black girl. "I will tell you—but first let me plead my case. Thanatos took me to see how he drew out souls, and he had to borrow time from you to do it. I hope you will approve this, for I did learn something significant."
"Thanatos was kind to me before I assumed this office," Chronos said. "I have no quarrel with his use of time, and will not question it."
"And—And I am told I need from you one grain of sand from—"
"What?" he asked, astonished and dismayed.
"I—I know it is very valuable, but I really need it. You see, I lost my baby, and the Incarnation of Night told me that I could only cure his malady by getting something from each Incarnation, and—"
"If I knew a way to cure a baby's malady, I would have cured that of my own baby before he died, and so saved his mother, whom I loved. Certainly one grain of sand will not—"
This was getting awkward! She should have told him her identity at the outset. "I know. It was a terrible mistake, and I made it worse. I see you still wear Sning."
He glanced at the ring he wore, which was in the form of a tiny snake curled around the finger. "How could you know about that?" he asked, surprised. "The only one who knows is dead. Not only that—"
"Dead," she agreed. "And trying to save her baby."
He was not a stupid or unperceptive man. "Can it be you, Orlene?" he asked, amazed. "In other form? I mistook you for a mortal!"
"Oh, Norton," she said, her tears starting. "I did not mean to deceive you! I just forgot that you would not know my mortal host, and then I thought I shouldn't try to influence you by—oh, how I wronged you when I died! I didn't think of you at all, just the baby, and if it were possible to undo that evil, believe me I would, but I can't! I loved you, Norton, and love you still, but was blinded by my folly! I can't ask your forgiveness, I can only proffer my apology for what cannot be undone. I shouldn't have come here!"
He came to her as she spoke and took her in his arms. "Have you come to stay with me, Orlene, this time?"
She was taken aback. "Stay—here? Oh, Norton, I cannot! This host is a living girl who must return to the mortal realm. I am here with her, and with Jolie, who is—"
"Ah, Jolie, Satan's consort. I have my differences with Satan, but she is a nice woman."
"Yes. So I'm not here alone, and can't remain."
"But you are a spirit. The mortal girl could return, and Jolie is already a ghost, and you could remain, assuming your natural likeness here. If you do not leave this mansion, the problem of time will not exist, and we can be together for decades, never aging."
Orlene was wildly tempted. This possibility had never occurred to her. To be back with Norton, in seeming life and comfort, indefinitely!
Then she remembered Gaw-Two. "My baby—could he be here too?"
"No. A person can exist here only during the span of his natural life. In thirty-seven years I will fade out and have to pass the Hourglass on to my successor, in mortal terms my predecessor, for I will then be passing beyond the time of my birth. Gaw-Two would come up against his limit in mere days."
"And then have to exist forward," she concluded. "Oh, Norton, I cannot give him up! I do love you, but I love him, too, and his need is greater. I must rid him of that terrible malady of the soul and see him safely on the way to Heaven before I can rest." She felt terribly guilty saying this, but it was the truth.
"But if you could save him, and be with me?"
"Then I would be at peace, and nothing else would matter."
He nodded. "I learned from Sning—the demon ring you gave me—that you were yourself given up for adoption as a baby. I can see that it would be very important for you not to do that to your own baby."
"Yes. I knew I was adopted, but I didn't know my true parentage until after I died. I think it does affect my attitude. I always wanted to be the very best mother I could possibly be, and I still want to, even though my son and I be ghosts. I want my baby to know me, even after death."
Chronos paused, thinking, then came to a decision. "Orlene, I can take you to see your adoption, if you wish. I never went back that far in your life myself, as my concern was to forget you, not enhance my awareness of you, but now I think it would be appropriate. You are younger than I; your adoption will be within my tenure of office. Would you like to see it?"
Orlene was amazed. "I can go see that? But wouldn't there be paradox or something?"
"My activities are normally immune from paradox, a necessary concomitant of the Office. But in this case there will be an extra precaution: we will not be visible or audible to the folk of that time, or able to affect them in any way. We will merely watch."
"Oh, yes, then!" Orlene exclaimed. "I would love to go back to that scene! Even earlier—I would like to see my mother give me away. Can we do that?"
Chronos glanced at his ring, which had been hers, and she knew he was asking Sning and being answered by yes-no squeezes. "Yes, Sning can direct us there; he was present throughout. I will follow his guidance and show you your life from the outset. Take my hand."
She took his hand, feeling strange. They had been lovers, and now she was dead and he was an immortal of a sort, but still there was that love between them. What memories lay in that simple contact of hands!
He lifted his great Hourglass. The fine flowing sand within it changed color, becoming an intense blue. Then he tilted it slightly—and the mansion misted out. There was a flickering, almost too rapid to detect, which she realized was the cycle of days and nights, going backwards, hundreds of them, thousands of them.
Then they were floating across an unfamiliar landscape. Chronos questioned Sning, using a "twenty questions" technique he had evidently refined with practice. "India," he announced. "A traveling circus, or something similar."
"A circus in India?" Orlene asked. "I originated there?"
"So it seems."
Now they came to a caravan of wagons drawn by dragons. Indeed, it was a traveling show! One wagon held a mermaid in a tank, and another a giant serpent, and there were assorted other animals and freaks and performers.
They entered one of the better wagons, which was closed in like a house. There a man and woman lay together, evidently lovers.
"War! Nature!" Chronos exclaimed, astonished.
"What?"
"I recognize these two! He is the Incarnation of War, called Ares or Mars. She is the Incarnation of Nature, called Gaea, when she assumes her natural likeness."
He's right, of course, Jolie thought. They are your natural parents, Orlene.
Orlene stared at the two figures, her emotions churning. These shocks of discovery were coming at her with cruel suddenness! But in a moment she rallied, showing more courage and control than Jolie had seen in her before. She was definitely learning to cope.
"Yes, I learned of this after my death," Orlene said, omitting the crucial detail of the timing of her learning. "But this must be before they became Incarnations."
"I think so, for certainly they are not together now."
"Oh, why did they separate and give me away?" Orlene cried, feeling the pain of it in a way she had not before.
There was a sound of horses, and a commotion out
side. The to-be Incarnation of War got up to see what it was—and was met outside by an elaborately garbed officer. "Prince, we have come for you!" the officer called. "The Prince, your brother, is dead."
"He was a prince?" Orlene asked, amazed.
Indeed it turned out to be so. Not only that, he stuttered, avoiding it only by going into a singsong mode of expression. The officer had come to fetch him back, and would not be denied, though the Prince even threatened to behead him. They gave the to-be Incarnation of Nature a bag of precious gems and told her never to seek the Prince again, for the Prince would marry a Princess of his father's choosing.
But before he left, the Prince gave her the ring: Sning. Then he departed—and she fainted.
They carried her into her wagon, and a snake charmer tended to her. When she woke, the snake charmer said, "My dear, you are with child."
"She hadn't known!" Orlene exclaimed. "None of them knew!"
"None of them knew," Chronos agreed, verifying it with the ring. "That child was you."
Guided by Sning, they skipped ahead. The woman, then known as Orb, left the traveling show and went to France, where she settled and hired the service of a blind, maimed, yet beautiful Gypsy girl as a maid. The girl was Tinka, and Orb had known her before; indeed, she had taught Orb the Gypsy language of Calo, and Orb had helped the girl to find a husband, so they were fast friends. They sang together, for Tinka had similar magic, making the music wonderful, and practiced the wicked Gypsy dance the tanana.
Will you look at that! Vita thought. I thought I'd seen some sexy dancing, but that is the granddaddy of sex! God, I wish Roque was here!
Even Jolie herself was impressed. I knew that Satan helped save the Gypsies; now maybe I know why! I never saw a more expressively erotic dance!
The two women visited Tinka's father, the old Gypsy Nicolai, a man of distinction in the town. It seemed that Orb had done his daughter a favor by teaching her how to use her power of music and by making her beautiful despite her truncated fingers and club feet. Nicolai did not forget favors, and now Orb was treated with respect by the villagers. No word of her pregnancy escaped; the Gypsies protected their own from scandal.
Nicolai danced the tanana with his blind daughter, and the impact of the dance was doubled. He was a master, and it showed in his every glance and gesture. I'd give anything to learn that dance! Vita thought. What a man!
Jolie had to agree. There could be art to eroticism, and the tanana was that art, and Nicolai was the master of the dance. He looked to be about sixty years old, but it didn't matter; he was ageless when he danced. He also played the fiddle, beautifully; Orb brought out her little harp and they played together, and it was awe-inspiring.
Chronos skipped ahead again, and the baby was born. Orb was unable to use medication to alleviate the pain, because she had a protective amulet that fought the medicine, but a Gypsy midwife helped her instead with a Spell of Analogy. She gave birth and named the baby as a variant of herself: not Orb, but Orlene.
Soon, advised by the ring. Orb had to leave. Her father was dying, and she had little time to see him. She left the baby with Tinka, with instructions to give her for adoption to a well-to-do tourist family. She removed Sning. "When you find the right family, put this ring on Orlene's finger." She also gave the Gypsy girl a great ruby, from the bag the Prince's people had given her, so that she would never be poor again. Then she left, tearfully.
Tinka took perfect care of the baby. She was married, but her husband spent much time away, so she rejoined her father. Nicolai, evidently remembering Tinka's babyhood, was good with Orlene; he held her and talked with her and sang to her and danced with her, holding her aloft while his feet moved cleverly. The baby loved it; she seldom cried when Nicolai was near.
"This child has magic," he said. "A rare and good talent, fit for a Romani soul! She can see and judge auras."
"He knew!" Chronos exclaimed, astonished. "The glow you can see—he knew, even then!"
Orlene, grown now, watched, the tears streaming down her face. "I always liked dance and music," she said. "Now I know why. I almost remember—that marvelous man—that wonderful, blind Gypsy girl! Surely I saw them glowing brightly and was reassured."
Then the ring guided Tinka to intercept a passing tourist couple. She was blind, but she could get around, especially with Sning's help. She spoke only Calo, while the tourists spoke English, but it didn't matter. She showed them the baby, and they were smitten, and it was done. She put Sning on the baby's finger, where it fit magically well, and departed, trying to hide her tears.
"Oh, Tinka, I didn't know!" Orlene said, watching. "You wanted to keep me and could not!"
Orb returned, as Gaea, and cured her blindness, Jolie thought. And made it possible for her to bear children.
"I'm glad! My life was good; my adoptive parents treated me very well, and I was never in want. But this discovery of the people in my past—how it joys and hurts!"
"I wish I had known this about you," Chronos said. "You were so much more than I guessed. But I loved you regardless, and had I known what was to happen—"
"I acted foolishly," she said. "Orb could not keep me, so she did what she had to and went on. Tinka could not keep me, so she, too, did what was right. But I—when I could not keep my own baby—oh, I failed you, and myself, and all of those who sacrificed so much to give me my good life! I am ashamed!"
"Orlene, you may lack the power to undo the past, but this is a power I now possess. Come with me." He put out his elbow.
Bewildered, excited, she took his arm. With his free hand he lifted the great Hourglass that suddenly appeared. The flowing sand in it turned bright red as he tilted it.
Then they slid through the wall of the room and out of the village, much the way Mortis moved through substance. The flickering came again.
They approached a megabuilding Orlene recognized: it was the one containing Gawain's apartment—the one she had occupied in life, as the wife of the ghost. It had not been long in objective time since she had left it, by dying, but it had been an eternity subjectively.
They came to rest immediately outside her door. "We are in that period when you were gravid," Norton said. "But before Gawain obtained Gaea's gift. You must approach your prior self and warn her of the danger. She will then warn my prior self, who will warn the ghost. That should do it."
"And the malaise will never come upon Gaw-Two!" she exclaimed, suddenly seeing it. "He will not sicken and die, and I will not suicide, and we will be together in life!"
He merely waited.
"Yet I hesitate," she said. "I made such a bad mistake before, I don't want to make another. I must not be hasty. If I do this, and Gaw-Two is saved, and we are happy, what happens to Jolie?"
"Jolie? She merely returns to Satan; she has no problem here."
True, Jolie thought. I would much prefer to see you alive and happy, Orlene! It would relieve me of enormous guilt, and I would not have to tell Gaea how her daughter was lost.
"And Vita—that's the mortal girl, my host—what of her?"
"Why she would return to whatever her life was before you joined her. Probably the two of you would never interact, since you encountered her after you died."
"But Vita was on the street! A— She was subject to the sexual appetites of strange men, and getting hooked on a bad drug. She would most likely have proceeded in a descending spiral to depravity and death if Jolie and I hadn't come to pull her out of it!"
"I am afraid that would be the case."
Roque! Vita thought. You mean I wouldn't meet Roque?
"Oh, Norton, I don't think I can do this!" Orlene said. "I couldn't let that other baby die, when Thanatos took me there, and I can't do this to Vita, who is my friend. There has to be some other way!"
"If you live, what you did in death will not occur," he said. "That cannot be altered. You must live or die, not both."
But you could leave yourself a message! Jolie thought. Vita's address, so you coul
d go and... But she lost it, the ramifications and complications becoming an impenetrable thicket. How could a white stranger with a baby go and rescue a black prostitute in a stupor from H? How could Vita be introduced to Judge Scott and go to live with him? What had been feasible from within hardly seemed so from without!
"And if I live, then what of you?" Orlene continued. "Will you go on to become the Incarnation of Time?"
"And there you have it, Orlene: paradox. I cannot do a thing that changes my own past, in that fashion, for if I did, I would not obtain the Office and therefore could not do that thing. In all other matters I am immune from paradox, but in this one I am not."
"So it is impossible, after all!"
"It is impossible. But I wanted you to understand in your own fashion, so you would not think I was being argumentative or callous. Our relationship is finished, because you must go forward, even as a ghost, and I must live backwards as an Incarnation. Now let me judge your plea on its merits." He lifted the Hourglass again, angling it as the sand turned pink.
They sailed up through the building, ghostlike, and into the sky. Chronos needed no magic elevator for his conversions! Soon they were back in his mansion.
"How did you come to assume this Office?" Orlene asked, partly from curiosity, partly because she wasn't quite ready to discuss the merits of her case.
"After you died, Gawain felt guilty, and he tried to find some better setup for me. He remarried and invited me to impregnate his new wife, but I thought of you and would not. Later he learned of the coming vacancy of this Office and persuaded me to assume it. I admit I was moved by the notion that this might provide me the power to do what we have seen I could not do: change your past and mine so that you would survive. I discovered better, but by that time I was committed. And I admit this is no ill existence. And, lest you feel guilt for depriving me of love life, I am accommodated there too."
"You have a lover?" Orlene asked, relieved but not completely pleased. "Then why did you suggest that I remain here with you?"
"I would prefer your company. I don't love the other woman. She merely accommodates a particular need."
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