Bearing an Hourglass

By Piers Anthony

Chapter 1

Norton threw down his knapsack and scooped up a double handful of water. He drank, delighting in the chill that struck his teeth and stiffened his palate. It was easy to forget that this was an artificial spring, magically cooled; it seemed natural.

He had hiked twenty miles through the cultivated wilderness of the city park and was ready to camp for the night. He had food for one more meal; in the morning he would have to restock. That could be awkward, for he was out of credit. Well, he would worry about that tomorrow.

He gathered dry sticks and leaves, careful not to disturb any living plants, and structured his collection for a small fire in a dirt hollow. He found some desiccated moss and set it within his pyramid- Then he muttered an incendiary-spell, and the flame burst into existence.

He fetched three rocks, set them against the expanding fire, and unfolded his little fry-pan. He unpacked his Spanish rice mix and poured it in the pan, shaking the mix to keep the rice turning as the heat increased. When it browned, he added handfuls of water, evoking a strenuous protest of steam, until satisfied. Then he rested the pan on the stones and left it to sizzle nicely alone.

"Can you spare a bite?"

Norton looked up, surprised. Ordinarily he was alert for other creatures, especially people, even when concentrating on his cooking, for he was attuned to the sounds of nature. But this one seemed to have appeared from nowhere. "This is what I have," he replied. "I'll share it." Actually, that meant he would be hungry on a half ration, but he never liked saying no.

The man stepped closer, his feet making no noise. He was evidently in his mid-to-late twenties, about a decade younger than Norton, and in unusually fit condition. He was well dressed in upper-class city style, but had the calloused palms of a highly physical man. Wealthy, but no effete recluse. "You're an independent sort," he remarked.

It took one to know one! "Wanderlust, mostly," Norton clarified. "Somehow I always want to see the other side of the mountain. Any mountain."

"Even when you know the mountain is artificial?" The man's eyes flicked meaningfully about the landscape.

Norton laughed easily. "I'm just that kind of a fool!"

The man pursed his lips. "Fool? I don't think so." He shrugged. "Ever think about settling down with a good woman?"

This fellow got right down to basics! "All the time. But seldom for more than a week or two."

"Maybe you never encountered one who was good enough for a year or two."

"Maybe," Norton agreed without embarrassment. "I prefer to think of it as a distinction of philosophy. I am a traveling man; most women are stay-at-homes. If I ever found one who wanted to share my travels-" He paused, struck by a new thought. "In that sense, they are leaving me as much as I am leaving them. They prefer their location to my company, much as cats do. I move, they remain-but we know each other's natures at the start. So no expectations are violated."

"Man does, woman is," the man agreed.

Norton sniffed his rice. "This is about done; it's spelled for quick cooking. Have you a dish? I can make one of wood-" He touched his sturdy hunting knife. "I won't need one." The man smiled as Norton glanced askance. "I don't eat, actually. I was just verifying your hospitality. You were ready to go hungry to share."

"No man can live long without eating, and I can see you're no ascetic. I'll carve you a dish-"

"My name is Gawain. I'm a ghost."

"Norton, here," Norton said, noticing how the man accented the first syllable: GOW-an. "I'm a jack of any trade, expert at none, except maybe tale telling." Then he did a double take. "Pardon?"

"A ghost," Gawain repeated. "Here, I'll demonstrate." He extended his strong hand.

Norton clasped it, expecting a crunching grip-and encountered air. He brought his hand back and touched Gawain's arm. There was nothing; his hand passed through, suit and arm without resistance, disappearing into the man's body. "You certainly are!" he agreed ruefully. "No wonder I didn't hear you approaching! You look so solid-"

"Do I?" Gawain asked, becoming translucent.

"I never met a real, live-uh-"

Gawain laughed. "Real, at any rate." He firmed up to solid semblance again, having made his point. "Norton, I like you. You're independent, self-sufficient, unconceited, generous, and open. I know I'd have enjoyed your company when I was alive. I think I have a favor to ask of you."

"I'll do any man a favor-any woman, too!-but I don't think there's very much I can do for a ghost. I presume you're not much interested in physical things."

"Interested, but not able," the ghost said. "Sit down, eat your supper. And listen, if you will, to my story. Then the nature of the favor will be apparent."

"Always glad for company, real or imaginary," Norton said, sitting down on a conveniently placed rock.

"I'm no hallucination," the ghost assured him. "I'm a genuine person who happens to be dead."

And while Norton ate, the specter made his presentation. "I was born into a wealthy and noble family," Gawain said. "I was named after Sir Gawain of the ancient Round Table of King Arthur's Court; Sir Gawain is a distant ancestor, and great things were expected of me from the outset. Before I could walk I could handle a knife; I shredded my mattress and crawled out to stalk the household puk-"

"Puck?"

"Puk-a small household dragon. Ours was only half a yard long. I gave it an awful scare; it had been napping in a sunbeam. My folks had to put me in a steel playpen after that. At age two I fashioned a rope out of my blanket and scaled the summit of the playpen wall and went after the cat. I vivisected her after she scratched me for cutting off her tail. So they brought in a werecat who changed into the most forbidding old shrew when I bothered her. She certainly had my number; when I toasted her feline tail with a hotfoot, she wered human and toasted my tail with a belt. I developed quite an aggravation for magical animals."

"I can imagine," Norton said politely. He himself was always kind to animals, especially wild ones, though he would defend himself if attacked. There were things about Gawain he was not fully comfortable with.

"I was sent to gladiator school," the ghost continued. "I wanted to go, and for some reason my family preferred to have me out of the house. I graduated second in my class. I would have been first, but the leading student had enchanted armor, even at night, so I couldn't dispatch him. Canny character! After that, I bought a fine outfit of my own, proof against any blade or bullet or magic bolt. Then I set out to make my fortune.

"There are not many dragons around, compared to mundane animals, and most of them are protected species. Actually, I respect dragons; they are a phenomenal challenge. It's too bad that it took so long for man really to master magic; only in the last fifty years or so has it become a formidable force. I suppose it was suppressed by the Renaissance, when people felt there had to be rational explanations for everything. As a result of that ignorance, dragons and other fantastic creatures had a much harder time of it than they had during the medieval age in Europe. Some masqueraded as mundane animals- unicorns cutting off their horns to pass for horses, griffins shearing their wings and donning lion-head masks, that sort of thing-and some were kept hidden on private estates by conservationists who cared more for nature than for logic. A number developed protective illusion so they looked a good deal more mundane than they were, and Satan salvaged a few, though most of His creatures are demonic. But now at last the supernatural is back in fashion, and fantastic creatures are becoming unextinct.

"But some creatures do get obstreperous. Most bleeding-heart liberal, modem governments have bent the other way so far they've gone off the deep end and outlawed poisoning or shooting or using magic to kill these monsters. So the bad dragons have to be dispatched the old-fashioned way, by sword."

"Why not just move the bad ones to reservations?" Norton asked, appalled at the notion of slaying dragons. He was one of the bleeding hearts the ghost described; he knew dragons were ornery and dangerous, but so were alligators and tigers. All of them had their right to exist as species, and the loss of any species was an incalculable loss to the world. Many highly significant aspects of magic had been derived from once-suppressed creatures, such as potency-spells from unicorn horns and invulnerable scale armor from dragon hides. But he realized it would be pointless to argue such cases with this fortune-hunting warrior.

Gawain snorted. "Mister, you can't move a dragon! They're worse than cats! Once a drag stakes out his territory, he defends it. Enchant the monster and move it to a reservation, it just breaks out and returns, twice as ornery as before, killing innocent people along the way. No, I respect dragons as opponents, but the only really good dragon is a dead one."

Norton sighed inwardly. Perhaps it was a good thing for the world that Gawain was now a ghost.

'That was my specialty," Gawain continued. "The hand slaying of dragons. It was dangerous work, to be sure- but the rewards were considerable. Because it was quasilegal, fees were high. I estimated that five or six years of dragon slaying would make me independently wealthy. That was the point: to prove that I wasn't simply inheriting wealth, but could produce it on my own. I knew my family would be pleased; every man in it increased the fortune, if he lived long enough."

Gawain meditated for a moment, and Norton did not interrupt him. What would be the point? Norton had on occasion spotted the traces of dragons in the parks and had always given the monsters a wide berth. He might be an environmentalist, but he was no fool. It was said that some dragons in parks were halfway tame and would not attack a person if he gave them food or jewelry, but Norton had never trusted such folklore. The best way to deal with a dragon was to stay clear of it, unless a person had a really competent pacification-spell.

"I know what you're thinking," Gawain said. "Obviously I met one dragon too many! But in my defense, I do want to say that I was successful for five years and had almost amassed my target level in bonus money. I would be alive today if that last dragon I faced had been genuine. But you see, it wasn't; it had been mislabeled. Oh, I don't blame the natives-not much, anyway; they were a fairly primitive tribe in South America and they spoke a mixture of Amerind and Spanish, while I spoke the language of champions, English. Normally language is not much of a barrier; my armor and sword bespoke my profession, with the dragon design on my shield; and as for the women-a man never needs a language of the tongue to speak his use for them, especially when he's a warrior. These things are fairly standard, anyway; the conquering hero always gets his pick of the local virgins. After all, it's better for them than getting chomped by the dragon!"

He paused a moment, his lips twitching. "Funny that some of those girls don't seem to see it that way."

He shrugged and returned to the main theme. "But I think they were honestly ignorant of the nature of their monster. Of course, I should have checked it out in the Dragon Registry-but I had traveled a long way, and the nearest civilized outpost was a half day's trek distant- couldn't use a standard flying carpet for this, of course, since those things are coded into the tour computers, and that would have given away my business-it would have delayed me a day just to do that, and maybe alerted the Dragon Patrol. So I tackled that dragon blind, as it were. I'll never do that again! I was cocky and foolish, I know- but I was familiar with the specs on just about every type of dragon in the world; I figured I was okay this one time.

"So there I was, afoot and armed with sword and shield, as is proper for such encounters, and I boldly braved the lair of the monster. And monster it was! I could see claw marks on the big trees some ten feet up. A real challenge! I marched up to its cave and bellowed out my challenge, and the monster came charging out, no fire, just growling-and then I realized my mistake. That was no dragon-it was a dinosaur! A largely bipedal carnivorous reptile-allosaurus, to be specific; I looked it up after it was too late. It was supposed to be extinct; I think Satan revived it, just to take me down a peg."

Now Norton spoke. "Isn't a dinosaur much like a dragon?"

"Yes and no," Gawain said seriously. This was his field of expertise. "It should be as easy to slay one as the other, as they are of similar nature. Dragons have fire and better armor, and some are unbecomingly smart, while the ancient camosaurs-well, they have to do it all by tooth and claw and power, so they're both more single-minded and desperate. I was geared and trained for dragons; I knew their typical foibles. A dragon, for example, will always try to scorch you with its fire or steam first; dodge that jet, and you can often get in a lethal stroke while it's recovering its breath. It's blast-oriented, you see, not thinking about what comes next. But the allosaurus-that monster didn't even pause to see how it scored, because it had no attack heat. It simply charged, catching me off guard. I had been ready to dodge to the side, and that was no good this time. I stabbed it in the neck with my sword, but it didn't seem to notice. That's another difference-a dragon will roar with pain and rage when injured-they are inordinately proud of their roars-and whip about to snap at the wound. I've seen a dragon get stabbed with a knife and reach about and bite that knife right out of its body, along with a few pounds of its own flesh, and toast the wound afterward to cauterize it. This camosaur just kept going for me. Its system was more primitive. You know how a snake's tail will keep twitching after you cut it off? True reptiles are slow to die, even when hacked to pieces. So again I misjudged it-and again I paid. The brute knocked me down and took a chomp of my body, armor and all. I didn't even try to scramble free; I knew a body-chomp would only dent the monster's teeth.

"That was my third error. Apparently enchantment has a sizable psychological component; people believe in its power, so it has power. A dragon would have known the armor was impermeable, since the smell of the spell was on it, and protected its teeth by easing up. The crunch would have been more show than serious; just testing, as it were. But this allosaurus dated from before the time of true magic and it gave a full-hard chomp, the kind that crunches bones."

"But magic isn't all psychological!" Norton protested. "When I lighted this fire, the wood didn't need to believe in magic; it was ignited anyway."

"True. My armor was impervious to the teeth of the monster," Gawain agreed. "But the mail was flexible, so I could wear it with comfort and not be restricted when fighting. That reptile had very powerful jaws. When it crunched, no tooth penetrated-but I was squished to death. A dragon never would have done that, for fear of hurting its teeth against the magical hardness of the armor-but that stupid reptile did. It broke a number of its teeth and put itself in dire straits-but it wiped me out in the process." The ghost sounded disgusted.

"Now I understand," Norton said. "I regret meeting you in such circumstance." That was polite; Norton might have regretted meeting Gawain alive, too.

"No fault of yours," Gawain said. "You are a courteous listener. Many people fear ghosts or ignore them."

"Many people are more settled than I am," Norton said. "Perhaps that applies to their minds as well as their bodies. Since you profess no anger toward me, I accept you as a well-meaning companion and hope I may in some way help you." For, ironic as it seemed, he found himself liking the ghost. Gawain alive stood for nothing Norton stood for, but as a ghost, he was an interesting companion. Maybe that was because his evil was safely behind him.

"I like your manners," Gawain said. "I can see we don't see eye-to-eye on everything and I think it's because you're a gentler man than I was. Be assured I offer recompense for the favor I ask. Would you like to learn how to slay dragons?"

"Oh, I do not require pay for any favor!" Norton protested. "Then it wouldn't be a favor."

"This is not really a minor matter. I would prefer to pay. The favor is in merely agreeing to do it."

"Why, then, I should be happy to learn how to slay dragons, though I hope never to have to use such knowledge." That was an understatement; he would never knowingly go near a wild dragon without defensive magic-and with that magic he would not have to slay it. "But what is this favor?"

Gawain frowned. "I prefer to provide more background first, lest you be unable to accept the request."

Norton was growing quite curious about this. The ghost was a tough, direct sort, with quite alien values, but he was also a gentleman by his own reckoning. Why was he being so circumspect about this? "By all means, sir."

"When I died, I had amassed a fair fortune, in addition to my inheritance," the ghost continued. "Actually, the inheritance has not yet come down to me, as my father lives, but I am the only heir. It is important that the estate remain in the family. Therefore, my surviving family arranged for a ghost marriage. That is, they married me to an excellent and healthy young woman of proper lineage who-"

"Pardon," Norton said. "Forgive the interruption, but you have lost me. How can a ghost marry?"

Gawain smiled. "Yes, I thought that would throw you. It threw me, first blush. It is a device used when a noble family wishes to preserve its line-when the heir is defunct. They marry the ghost to a suitable girl-one he would have approved of in life-who then bears his heir."

"But-"

"But a ghost can't impregnate a living woman. That is indeed a problem."

"Yes. I really don't see how-"

"I'm coming to that. My wife may associate with any man she chooses-but she is my wife, by the ghost marriage, and her child is mine. He will inherit my estate and carry on my line."

"But then she's being unfaithful to you!" Norton protested.

"I had trouble with that concept, too, at first. But I came to terms with it. She knows she must provide the heir and that I can not do it personally. But I am involved, for I am choosing the man. With her consent, of course; marriage is a partnership. She has refused several good prospects."

"Are yon sure she really wants to-?"

"Oh, I'm sure," Gawain said confidently. "She is a good and honest woman. She is not trying to renege. She merely wants to do it exactly properly. She has this magic talent: she can tell by looking at a man how good a consort he would make. That's one reason my family selected her. They didn't want the heir sired by some ne'er-do-well bum with poor heredity. She really is special. If I had met her in life, I surely would have loved her, though I wouldn't have had much patience with her views about dragons. She can't bear to hurt any living creature. So 'f I bring her a man she deems good enough to-"

Realization struck Norton. "This favor-"

The ghost nodded. "Precisely. I want you to meet my wife, and if she likes you-"

"Wait!" Norton spluttered. "I take my women where I find them, when they are amenable, but never a married one! That wouldn't be right."

"I like you, Norton. You have the right instincts. I was afraid out here in the park I'd find only wishy-washy sentimentalists, but you've got style. I think my wife would like you, when she didn't like the warrior types I sent before. Look at it this way: I have no physical body and I need an heir. I'm asking you to substitute for me in this one respect. After that you can go your way, with no further commitment. It's like repairing my house for me, and I'll pay you for the service-"

"Some service!"

"Literally." The ghost chuckled. "I realize this is hard for you to accept right away and I like that in you. But at least come to meet Orlene. Maybe she'll reject you."

From the way the ghost spoke, Norton had no certainty of that. Gawain thought this girl, Orlene, would like him. If he went, expecting to be rejected, and then... "I don't know-"

"Please, Norton! You're a good man-and I must have that heir."

"I understand that part. But to cuckold you-that's against my philosophy."

"I am, after all, a ghost. You can consider her a widow. If it helps, you can remember that you will have no rights over her at all. You can not marry her, and your part will be forever unrecognized. Legally there is no adultery here. So this is the ultimate chance to sow wild oats-"

"Complete irresponsibility! That's not what I-"

"Well, then, think of it as artificial insemination, and you're the donor. Hell, man, that's done all the time, in life, when the living husband is infertile."

This was haywire, but the concept helped. The ghost did have a case. "All right-I'll meet her," Norton said guardedly.

"And I'll teach you how to slay dragons!"

"Oh, you don't really need to-"

"Yes, I do. I insist on paying for it!"

Norton realized that what a man paid for belonged to him. Gawain had to have his personal, private claim on the heir. "Yes. But first we had better find out whether she's even interested. This may all be for nothing." He wondered what this fine girl who had sold her body in such fashion for security actually looked like. Quality and lineage could normally net a girl a good husband, unless she was ugly or had a vile temper. That latter kind might be the sort who would settle for a ghost.

"We can go right now," Gawain said eagerly. "There's an elevator not far from here."

Norton thought to protest, but remembered that he was broke, so would not be able to camp out much longer anyway. A stay with a good woman, even an ugly one, was at least worth considering. He really could not claim to have anything better to do.

He doused the fire and cleaned up the area so that future hikers would not be annoyed. Wilderness hiking and camping were privileges, not rights, and were strictly licensed. He was always careful not to mistreat the cultivated wilds. He burned only deadwood, left the animals alone, and tried not to harm even caterpillars and worms. He never littered. It was not that anyone was watching; it was that Norton had genuine respect for the heritage of nature and for the parks that sought to emulate it.

They walked a quarter mile to a giant blazed oak tree. Norton touched the lowest branch and stepped inside the chamber that opened in the trunk. The elevator descended to the residential level, where they stepped out and took a conveyor belt to the ghost's address. Gawain, of course, could simply have popped across directly, but he preferred to honor the living conventions among the living.

This was an affluent section of the city, as befitted the ghost's description of his family's status. Poor people did not worry much about preservation of their estates.

They stepped off the belt, took a smaller side-passage belt, and moved into the really refined region of the Who's Who lineages. A uniformed guard barred the way as they stepped off. "Identity?" he asked Norton sternly.

"It's all right, Trescott," Gawain said. "He's with me."

Trescott eyed Norton's somewhat sweaty and worn hiking outfit disapprovingly. "Very good, sir," he muttered.

"The guards don't always let themselves see me," Gawain explained. "Unless I take pains to manifest to them. Ghosts are not much in fashion here; the management worries about property values."

"Or about scruffy-looking characters like me," Norton said. "I feel out of place here."

"Um, there's a point," Gawain agreed. "We really ought to spruce you up a bit to make a good impression."

"I am what I am," Norton said. "If she has the power to judge a man's true worth at a glance, what difference does clothing or polish make?"

"There is that. Very well, we'll try it this way. But if she accepts you, you'll have to dress the part."

"First things first," Norton said, not totally pleased.

They arrived at the door. "Now I can't go in," Gawain said. "Rules of the cosmos. Everyone can see a ghost like me except the one most concerned. You'll introduce yourself."

"What, smile toothily and say, 'Hi, girl, I'm here to-'?"

"Tell her Gawain sent you. She'll understand."

"Sure," Norton said glumly. How had he gotten into this? He felt like a traveling salesman about to approach the farmer's daughter.

"Good luck," Gawain said.

Norton wasn't sure whether "good luck" would mean acceptance or rejection. He nerved himself and touched the door's call button.

Chapter 2 - VERIFICATION

A panel became translucent after a moment. "Yes?" a soft-voiced woman inquired. He could not quite make out her features; the glass was, of course, designed to pass a clear image only one way.

"Uh, Gawain sent me." Idiocy!

The door slid aside, and she stood framed within. She had hair the hue of honey and eyes the same. Her figure was adorably proportioned, and her face was cute. She was the loveliest creature he had met.

Orlene studied Norton. Her &yes seemed to shine. "Oh, I was afraid this would happen someday," she said.

"This wasn't exactly my idea," Norton said. "I'll go."

"No," she said quickly. "No fault in you! I just was not prepared."

"Since I'm unsuitable, I won't bother you further." He felt quite awkward, sorry he had come here, yet also deeply regretful. He had been braced to meet a different sort of woman; for one like this, he would do almost anything.

"No, wait," she said quickly. "I didn't mean to-please, sit down, have some tea."

"That's not necessary, thank you. I'm intruding. This whole business-" He turned away-and paused. Gawain was right there behind him, spreading his arms to block his retreat. He did not want to walk through the ghost.

Orlene came up and took his arm. Her touch was light and gentle and utterly right; he had a momentary mental picture of a porcelain statuette, a work of art, inconceivably delicate, precious, and cool. "Please," she repeated. "He set it up," Norton said, indicating Gawain. "You don't have to say that," Orlene said, sounding just a bit nettled. "You don't have to justify yourself."

"Yes, I do! He's your husband! I can't simply-even if I were satisfactory, I mean, it would still be wrong."

"My husband is dead," she said. "I know. That's why-" Norton shrugged, confused about his own emotions, wishing he were back in the forest. "How can you face him like this and-?"

"Me?" she flared. She was one of those few women who really did seem as pretty angry as happy. "How can you men exchange stories, and use a great warrior's death to try to-to-!"

"But he told me!" Norton said. "Gawain brought me here! Ask him! He'll tell you!"

She looked into Norton's face, then turned away, hurt. He felt like a monster who had just pulled the wings off a dozen beautiful butterflies.

"She can't see me," Gawain said. "She can't hear me. I told you that. She doesn't really believe in me."

Norton was shocked. "You mean she thinks this is just a scheme to-to hit on-?"

"I told you you'd have to handle the introduction yourself," the ghost reminded him. "She's ready to accept you; don't mess it up."

Norton turned to Orlene again. "You really can't see or hear-Gawain?"

"Of course I can't," she said, her face still hurt. "Only his picture." She gestured to a framed painting on the wall inside.

Norton turned around to get a better view. It was Gawain, garbed in his armor, with a dragon painted on his shield and X'd out. The bold killer of dragons.

Norton shook his head. "This is all wrong. I think I have insulted you, Orlene. I misunderstood-the situation. I apologize and I'll leave."

"Oh, you mustn't leave!" she protested. "I don't care what brought you here, really. You glow so brightly! I never expected to see-"

"I glow?"

"Her magic power," Gawain said from outside. "The right man glows. You're it, all right."

"It's hard to explain," Orlene said. "It doesn't mean I like a man, or want to. It just means that, objectively, he is-" She spread her hands helplessly.

"I think I understand," Norton said. He had thought he would be rejected, once he saw how lovely she was; now he was unable to turn down what was offered, though he remained disturbed by the situation. "Perhaps I will accept your tea after all." He stepped back into the apartment.

Orlene closed the door behind him, shutting out the ghost. That was a small relief. Norton sat in a comfortable chair while she bustled in her kitchenette, dialing the tea.

The problem was that she was too pretty, too obviously nice. Norton felt subjectively as if his touch would despoil her. This was no one-night-stand woman, and it would be a crime to treat her that way. Especially since she herself was not aware of the ghost's active participation. She would think that he, Norton, was simply a man taking advantage of a widow. Well, not exactly a widow. But it bothered him.

Except for one thing-she saw him glow. She had no need to accept him; she could tell him to go and he would go. Why should she claim he was right for the purpose? Was her magic real, or was it a pretext to pick and choose? Was she in fact any better than she took him to be? She seemed like the ideal woman, but appearances could be deceptive. Especially when a ghost was involved.

Oriene brought the tea in an old-fashioned pot and poured cups for them both. This wasn't tea time, but time was not of the essence here. What was required was something to occupy their hands and eyes and nominal attention-a pretext to be somewhat at ease together. That was, Norton suspected, the true basis of tea; it was a social amenity.

But it wasn't enough. There was only so long a person could nurse along a cup of beverage, and it was necessary to make small talk meanwhile. How long could they postpone getting down to the subject?

Norton's desperately wandering eyes spotted a large, pretty, parlor-style book, the kind with phenomenal illustrations and very little text, as befitted the fashionable, wealthy nonreaders of the day. He reached for it.

"Oh, that's the picture-puzzle guide," Orlene said quickly. "Magic technology art. I haven't gotten into the puzzle, though I've been meaning to. I understand it's very difficult."

"I like puzzles." Norton opened the book. The first picture was of a section of the city park, with its tall trees seeming almost alive. Almost? Now he saw their leaves fluttering in the wind. It was a moving picture and it was three-dimensional; his eyes shifted focus as he peered into its background. He had heard of books like this, with holographic illustrations, but never handled one before.

Experimentally he poked his forefinger at the picture, for his eyes had lost track of the surface of the page. His finger penetrated beyond that surface, finding no resistance. Startled, he drew back.

"It's a window to the park," she explained. "You could climb through it, if you could fit."

Impressive magic! Intrigued, Norton turned the page. The next was of the nether transport center, with the escalator belts leading down to the matter transmitters. People were stepping off the belts, inserting their talismans in the MT slots, and moving through to their destinations. A big clock on the wall showed the present time and date; this was live! He wondered whether, if he should somehow squeeze into that picture, he would then be able to take a matter-mit window to another city or planet. No-he lacked the necessary token and lacked credit to buy one. Too bad; he really loved to explore, and if he had ever been able to afford interplanetary travel-

He turned another page. This picture-window showed another planet directly: the blazing sunside surface of Mercury, so bright that the heat seemed to radiate out from the sheet. He touched his finger to the nearest baked rock-and drew it back quickly. That was hot!

"You say this one is merely a puzzle guide?" he asked, perplexed.

Orlene rose gracefully and went to a cupboard. Her dress rustled, and for the first time he became aware of what she was wearing: a kind of golden-tan wraparound affair, obviously intended for convenience rather than for presentation, but it fitted her marvelously. He suspected she would look wonderful in anything, however.

She brought down a box. "To the jigsaw puzzle," she explained. "Of course, it's been decades since they actually cut them out with saws, but the name sticks." She cleared away the pot and cups and set the box down.

Norton opened it. It was filled with bright, curly, flat fragments, indeed very much like the pieces of a jig-sawed puzzle. But these glittered with animation. Moving images here?

He picked one up and squinted at it. Sure enough, it showed several leaves of a tree, and they did indeed flutter in whatever wind there was. It was a section of the first illustration in the book.

"But there are a number of scenes in the book," he said.

Orlene touched a button on the side of the box. Abruptly the image on the piece Norton held changed. Now it appeared to be part of the wall of the subterranean transport station. He looked at the other pieces in the box and saw one that displayed part of the face of the station clock. Its minute hand showed exactly the minute that Norton's own watch did. It was now only a fragment, but it kept accurate time.

"All the scenes are available," Orlene said. "You just set it for the one you want to do-or change it in the middle. There's another button to change the shapes of the pieces so they don't get too familiar. I understand it's a lot of fun, especially since the completed puzzle is large enough for a person to step through and enter the scene."

"Science and magic are merging faster than I knew!" Norton exclaimed, impressed.

"Well, they always were pretty much the same thing," she pointed out. "Once the Unified Field Theorem merged the five basic forces, including magic-"

"I think I've been spending too much time in the wilderness!"

"The wilderness is nice too," she said. "We mustn't sacrifice the old values for the new."

He glanced at her with fresh appreciation. "You like the wilderness?" He remembered Gawain's remark about her affinity for animals.

"Oh, yes! The estate has a section of the park; I go there often. Somehow it seems less lonely than the city."

What a delight she was! But still he wasn't sure. He was not able to view people with a magic glow. "Let's do this puzzle," he suggested. "The park picture."

Orlene smiled with glad acquiescence. "Let's!"

And that finessed the main issue nicely. She did want him to stay, for otherwise she would not have agreed to get into a project like this that could take days. And-he did want to stay. Not necessarily to honor the ghost's request, but to explore the possibility. The notion of helping Gawain in this fashion no longer seemed so unreasonable.

They labored on the puzzle, first sorting the colors of the park scene, then aligning the straight-edge pieces, getting the border done. Norton was an old hand at this sort of thing, except that his experience had been with the old-fashioned kind of jigsaw. This magic-picture variety was new, but the fundamental principles of strategy and matching remained. A picture was like a story, with rules of structure that were vulnerable to exploitation in a case like this.

Orlene turned out to have a good eye for color and shape and was able to locate pieces he needed. She was assisted by her magic, she said; the particular piece she looked for tended to glow. He saw no such effect, but her accuracy in drawing pieces from the great mixed pile lent credence to the claim. The two of them were working well together.

Norton glanced at the clock and discovered that three hours had flown by. They had completed the border and much of the forest path and were working on two trees, but there was a long way to go. Edges and paths filled in deceptively rapidly; the solid masses of single-color regions would be much slower. "Maybe we'd better let it rest for the night," he said.

"Yes. Let me get you some pajamas." They both understood that he would be staying here indefinitely. The agreement had formed, unvoiced, as the outline of the puzzle took form. Like the puzzle, the details remained inchoate.

Norton did not ordinarily use pajamas, but he didn't argue. He was a guest of this estate, and it was no place to flop in his clothes. Except-"Pajamas? Do you have male clothing here?"

"They were Gawain's," she said delicately. "You're close enough to his size, and I'm sure he would have wanted them to be used."

Surely so. Norton squelched his misgivings and accepted the pajamas. Orlene showed him to a well appointed room, separate from hers; their relationship had not progressed to the critical stage. As he had known from the moment he first saw her, she was no one-nightstand girl. And he, abruptly, was no love-'em-and-leave'em guy. He was committed for the full route, whatever it might be.

He discovered that he was quite tired; it had indeed been a long day. He undressed, stepped into the sonic cleaner, stepped out dry and tingly clean, then got into Gawain's pajamas, reluctantly accepting their symbolism. They hung on him somewhat baggily.

He got into bed and realized that this was not the ordinary flophouse bunk he was used to. It was an oil sponge couch. His weight caused the sponge oil to give way and shift, but not instantly; it was more like sinking into thick mud. The truth was, mud was excellent stuff, as children instinctively knew, despite the bad press provided by their mothers. It offered enough support to prevent drowning, while being malleable enough for freedom of action. It was also fascinating stuff in itself, suitable for splashing or mudballs and body-paintings. Of course this bed was not mud and would not splash or separate, but the feel was similar. Norton let himself descend into its enfoldment with sheer bliss.

"How did it work out?" a voice asked.

Norton opened his eyes, annoyed. Gawain the Ghost was there, standing expectantly beside the bed. "I had almost forgotten you," he said.

"I certainly hadn't forgotten you!" the ghost replied. "Three hours-did you beget my offspring?"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Norton demanded. "I thought you couldn't enter this apartment."

"You misunderstood. I can't enter the room in which my wife stays, and she can't directly perceive me regardless of where we are. But I can enter my own residence when she's absent. I do it all the time."

"She's absent? I thought she was in her bedroom."

"She is. She's absent from this room," Gawain clarified. "If she entered it, I'd have to vanish. I'd Just step through the wall until she was gone."

Norton thought of something else. "I understood it was death to see a ghost. That's why people don't like it! Does this mean I am going to die?"

Gawain laughed. "Yes, in a manner of thinking. You will die-in due course. Maybe fifty years hence. Every living person will. But seeing me won't hasten your demise one whit, unless you should happen to die of fright." He put his forefingers in the corners of his mouth and pulled his lips open in a grotesque face. Because he was insubstantial, he was able to stretch his mouth entirely beyond the borders of his face. "I'm not that kind of ghost. You're thinking of Molly Malone of Kilvarough. She's a nice and lovely ghost indeed; if I weren't already married-" He left it unfinished.

"Well, to answer your question," Norton said shortly, "I did not have any intimate relation with Orlene. She's not that kind of woman, any more than you're that kind of ghost. And I can't guarantee that I will have that kind of relation, or when."

"Now look, sport," Gawain said indignantly. "You're here accepting the hospitality of my estate. You owe it to me to deliver!"

"To cuckold you?" Norton demanded, again expressing his inner irresolution. "To seduce your pristine, faithful wife?"

"It's not like that, and you know it. You're here to perform a service."

"I thought I was here to do you a favor."

"Same thing. Once you do it, you can leave. Except I still have to teach you how to slay dragons."

"Well, Orlene is no dragon! The fact is, she is really a nice person, not a gold digger at all. If she decides not to-to want the favor, I'm not going to force it on her."

"What do you think she's here for?" Gawain demanded. "She's a guest of my estate too!"

"She's your wife!" Norton shouted. "She has a perfect right to be here!"

"Not if she doesn't produce! Listen, Norton, I'm locked in this state until I have a proper heir. She owes it to me to generate him promptly."

"Well, then, why didn't you marry some slut who spreads her legs for any man who looks at her? Why inflict this on a nice girl?"

"I told you," the ghost responded hotly. "There are standards to maintain. Our family is of noble lineage."

"Well, I have standards to maintain, too-and so does she."

"Anyway, I didn't select her; my family did. They-"

The ghost vanished in mid-sentence. Norton looked about, startled-and saw Orlene at the doorway.

"Are you all right, Norton?" she asked worriedly. "I heard you shouting-"

And she couldn't hear the ghost! He'd have to watch that. What had she heard? He felt a slow flush nudging up his neck and cheeks as he considered that. "I-I don't suppose you would believe I was talking to the ghost?"

"I really wish you wouldn't-"

"Call it a bad dream, then. I'm sorry I disturbed you."

She looked doubtful. "You're such a good man. Do you really suffer from-"

Norton laughed, somewhat too heartily. "How can you know I'm a good man? I'm an ordinary man, perhaps less than ordinary, since I have never had much success in life. Not like you."

"Oh, no! I am nothing!" she protested. "You glow!" Norton studied her. She was in a pinkish-white peignoir, and her honey-golden hair hung loose about her shoulders. There was something enormously appealing about her, and it was not mere beauty or sensuality. But he resisted that appeal, choosing instead to challenge her. "You refuse to believe I can see a ghost, but you expect me to believe you see a glow? When the ghost and the glow say the same thing?"

She smiled wanly. "I suppose it is inconsistent. But so many men have come with stories about the ghost of my husband, I know it's a crude male game. I would like to believe you are different."

Somehow Norton felt rather small. "I did see the ghost-but I don't necessarily agree with what he said."

"I do see the glow," she said. "But I don't-" She smiled. "Good night, Norton."

"Good night, Orlene."

She retreated and closed the door.

Gawain reappeared. "I see the problem," he said. "Neither of you is a dragon slayer; you don't like to go at it directly. But if she says you glow, she'll accept you. It's just a matter of time. All you need to do is stay here and-"

"And be supported by a woman," Norton finished. "I find that hard to accept."

"It's my estate, damn it!" Gawain swore. "She doesn't have a thing of her own. It's all mine. She won't inherit; only the son she bears will. She knows that."

"Suppose it's a daughter?"

The ghost looked blank. "A what?"

Norton was beginning to appreciate the fact that Gawain's purpose did not align perfectly with Orlene's purpose. He wanted to preserve the estate; she wanted a proper personal situation. He wanted a son to inherit and carry on the line; the personality of that son was not a concern. She surely wanted a fine child who would be a joy to her and to Gawain's family and to the world and a credit to the estate. He was concerned about money and power, she about quality and love. She would prefer to have an attractive, intelligent, and sweet girl-like herself-while he would be outraged by anything less than a strapping, bold boy-like himself. Norton's sympathy was sliding toward the woman's view.

But he was here at the ghost's behest, and there was merit in Gawain's position. "I'll try to accomplish your purpose. But I won't rush it. It's not that I want to sponge off your estate, it's that I think you have a better wife than you appreciate, and I want it to be right."

"I want it to be right, too," Gawain said, sounding aggrieved. "I want my son to have the best of everything."

Norton didn't comment. As he came to understand the forces operating here, he did not feel more at ease. But there seemed to be no better way through this than to remain here, get to know Orlene, and do what the ghost wanted when the occasion was propitious. Then move on quickly, lest he become too much attached. How much easier this would have been if the girl had been a gold digger or a slut!

He closed his eyes, and Gawain did not speak again.

Soon Norton was asleep, drowned in the comfort of the mudbath bed.

He dreamed he was back at the puzzle-window, trying to place a piece. As he stared at it, assessing its contours, those contours changed, coming to resemble the outline of a nude woman-and the woman had hair like honey, and breasts the same. He tried to avert his eyes from that ineffable sweetness, embarrassed. It was not that he had any aversion to such a body; it was that he felt he was violating Orlene's modesty.

But the shape expanded to life size, showing more detail, becoming the living, breathing woman, naked and appallingly desirable. He tried to set her down-for his hand was still on the piece, grasping it where he had no right to grasp-but found himself drawn in toward her. In a moment he would fall through the piece, into the world of the puzzle-and where would he be then? Desperately he pushed her away-and she fell to the floor and broke into a thousand puzzle fragments, and he knew these could never be reassembled, no matter how hard he tried to fit every bit together.

He woke-and Orlene was there, her arm about his shoulders as she sat on the bed. Her warm breast pressed against his upper arm, soft through the material of her apparel and his. "Wake, wake, Norton, it's all right!" she soothed.

If she had a baby and it screamed in the night, even so would she comfort it-and what baby could be better off?

"I'm awake," he said. "You don't need to-you shouldn't be here."

"I couldn't let you suffer," she said. "Was it the ghost again?"

"No, not this time. Just a bad dream. I'm afraid I'm not very good company."

"You were glowing so brightly!"

He coughed. "That's a false glow! I dreamed of you- that I destroyed you, without meaning to."

"No, the glow isn't wrong," she insisted. "I know you are right for me. In fact, if I weren't already married-" She broke off, out of sorts. "Oh, I shouldn't have said that!"

"I think I shouldn't stay here any longer," Norton said. "You are so nice-I would never want to be the instrument of-of any problem for you."

"You won't be," she said confidently. "I know."

She believed in her glow. But his dream had been compelling. In past times supposedly sensible men had disparaged dreams as mere visions of internal events, but recent research had verified their magical properties. He could not be sure this dream was prophetic, but he didn't want to take the chance. "All the same, I think it would be better if I left."

"Oh, please, Norton, don't do that!" she exclaimed. "It's so difficult to be alone all the time! You're the first who's right. I'll do anything you want-"

"Orlene, I'm not trying to coerce you! I'm trying to protect you. From me, maybe. And I think I can do that best by leaving you."

"It's morning," she said abruptly. "I'll fix us breakfast."

"Thank you. Then I'll go."

She disengaged, stood, and hurried out. Norton got up, used the various facilities of the bathroom-and discovered that his clothes were gone. Orlene had evidently taken them for cleaning. The perfect housewife! "What do I do now?" he asked himself rhetorically.

"You use my clothing," Gawain replied. "It will fit you well enough. I had more muscle, but our frames are similar."

Norton realized he had no choice. Assisted by the ghost, he donned trousers, shirt, slippers, and an elegant robe. All of the clothing was of fine material and well made, and little golden dragons were embroidered on each item. "You are rich, aren't you!" he muttered.

"Definitely," Gawain agreed. "I'm not in the Five Hundred, but I was a candidate. If I had lived long enough-" The ghost broke off, looking momentarily pensive. "My son will never lack for material things. He'll be able to buy himself a Senatorial seat, if he wants to. I understand politics is more lucrative than dragon slaying."

"Good for your child," Norton said shortly. "I'm not sure I'm going to sire it."

"Orlene won't let you go," the ghost warned. "She knows you're the one."

"How can she stop me from leaving?"

Gawain pursed his lips. "You've got something to learn about the wiles of women!"

Norton brushed on out to rejoin Orlene, in no fit temper.

She had breakfast ready: bright green pancakes fresh from the Venusian fungus farm, and what appeared to be genuine beehive honey. That figured. He had to smile, and his mood abated. He joined her at the cozy dinette table.

Suddenly it seemed very domestic. He had never been the domestic type, but it was nice enough now. Orlene was very fetching in a green housecoat, her hair tied back with a scarlet ribbon. Green coat, honey hair, matching the pancakes and honey; did she do that unconsciously? But the ribbon-

Scarlet? "You know, there's an old song about scarlet ribbons-"

"Yes," she agreed. "I'll play it for you after breakfast."

"You have it on tape?"

She smiled obscurely. "No."

After breakfast she showed him to another room. There was a baby grand piano there. She sat down before it and played beautifully.

"How did you come by talent like that?" he asked, impressed, as she finished the piece.

"It's not talent. I've been practicing since I was six years old, and more since I've been married. It helps to wile away the time; I don't feel so much alone when I'm playing. Anyway, musical skill is the fashion for debutantes."

"You were a debutante? How did you get into-this?"

"The ghost marriage? My family arranged it, but I didn't object. Gawain's family is very well connected, and I want the best for my children too. This was the best marriage I could make."

"But to a dead man!"

"Well, a ghost doesn't make many demands on a girl. I think of it as like being widowed early, except there's no grief. I never knew him in life."

"But to-you have to-"

"I always did want a family. That would be the same if he were alive."

"If he were alive, you would have known what you were getting. This way-"

"I do know," she said. "This way I have a choice. The best possible father for my children, regardless of the accidents of lineage or wealth."

"The glow? Frankly, I doubt-"

She grimaced prettily. "You prove the ghost exists, and I'll prove the glow does."

Actually, he believed she saw the glow; he had noticed it at work on the puzzle. But he also remembered his nightmare. The two might cancel out, her positive vision and his negative one, leaving the future in serious doubt. "Why don't you just give me back my own clothes so I can leave? Then neither of us will have to prove anything."

"Do you really want to leave?"

"No. That's why I'd better."

"And they talk about female logic!"

He had to smile. "I'm trying to do the right thing, as I see it, though I admit I'm not seeing it very well right now. It would be too easy to like you too well. I don't think that's what I'm here for."

"Like me too well for what?"

"To love you and leave you."

She was silent a moment, looking at him, and he feared he had spoken too directly. She had married a ghost; what could she know of the intimate way of man and woman? "Do you have to leave?"

"Of course I have to! I'm only here for a-"

"But it will take some time to know that the job is- done."

He hadn't thought of that. "You would want me to stay-after?"

"I think so."

"You're that sure of me? When you hardly know me?"

"Yes. The glow doesn't lie."

"Then I guess we'd better exchange our proofs." He had no doubt that both ghost and glow would be verified to the other party's satisfaction; this was really an excuse to change his mind. Orlene had conquered him without using wiles.

"I really don't want the proof," she said. 'Too many other people have claimed to see the ghost. I was only making a point."

Norton sighed. "I'm afraid I do need proof. To justify myself. The ghost of Gawain asked me to come here, and I want you to believe that. That has become important to me-that I'm not an imposter or opportunist. I don't care how much I glow; it's my motive I'm establishing."

"But how can you prove a ghost that only you can see?"

"For one thing, others can see him too. We have only to ask them."

"No, I know they all tell the same story, to tease me. Women are supposed to be so credulous!"

Norton considered. "Very well. Since this is Gawain's estate, he should be conversant with every detail of it. He should be able to tell me things I would have no other way of knowing. Ask me questions only he could answer."

She frowned. "Do you really insist on this, Norton?"

"I really do. I must prove to you what brought me here. I don't want you to take my word."

She considered, cocking her head to one side so that her tresses fell partway across her face. That was, he thought, a fetching effect, making a partial mystery other features that enhanced their appeal. "I haven't been into everything here yet and I'm sure you haven't. Suppose he calls off the items in-" She glanced about. "In that storage chest?" She indicated an ornate chest beside the piano.

"I'll ask him," Norton agreed. "I'll have to go to another room, though, to talk to him, because Gawain says he can't be in the same room with you."

"I doubt he's in the same world with me!"

"Maybe I can stand in the doorway and talk to you both. Will that be all right?"

"Whatever you wish." She obviously expected nothing to come of this.

Norton went to the doorway between the two rooms. Orlene remained at the piano.

"Hey, Gawain!" Norton called. "Will you appear?" He was afraid the ghost would embarrass him by avoiding this test.

Gawain popped into sight. "Good notion, Norton! I'll be happy to prove my existence to her!"

"Good enough. Orlene, he's here. Ask a question."

"You can see him?" she asked, rising and approaching the doorway.

"Yes. But don't go into the other room; he'll vanish."

She stopped at the doorway. "I don't see him."

"But he can see you," Norton said.

"Even when you're not looking?"

"Certainly," Gawain said.

"He says yes," Norton reported.

"Very well. Let's try this: you close your eyes and face away from me, and let him tell you what I'm doing."

"All right." Norton faced the ghost and closed his eyes.

"She's holding her right hand above her head," Gawain said.

"He says you're holding your right hand over your head."

"Now she's writing in the air, script-I can't read it, it's backward."

Norton relayed that.

"Oh," Orlene said, startled.

"Okay, she's turned around," the ghost said. "Now I can read over her shoulder. THIS pause I S pause R I D I C U L O U S."

"This is ridiculous," Norton repeated.

She was silent, but he heard rustling.

"Say!" Gawain exclaimed. "She's stripping!"

"She is?" Norton asked, startled in his turn.

"Great galumphing dragons!" the ghost said. "I'm sorry I'm not alive! I had no idea she had architecture like that!"

"He says you're-undressing," Norton said. "He says you have an excellent figure."

"Oops, that did it," Gawain said regretfully. "She covered up in a hurry. Man, I wish I was in your shoes!"

"He says-"

"I can guess!" Orlene snapped.

"Well, he is your husband," Norton said. "And since he can't share a room with you, he has not before had an opportunity to see-"

"Unladylike remark," she said. "What's in that chest by the piano?"

Norton lowered his hands; he had unconsciously brought them up to cover his closed eyes. "Gawain, will you tell us-"

The ghost shrugged. "The truth is, I don't remember. I was mostly out slaying dragons. A housekeeper took care of the apartment."

"He says he doesn't remember," Norton reported.

"I thought as much!"

"But I could check," Gawain said. "Let her leave that room, and I'll tally the contents now."

"He says he'll check now," Norton said, "if you'll just step into the other room."

Orlene passed him and entered the other room. As she did so, the ghost vanished-and reappeared in the room she had vacated. Gawain walked to the chest and plunged his hand in through the polished wood. "What do you know," he remarked brightly. "My old trophies! Best dragon kill of the year-that sort of thing. These should be up on the mantel on full display!"

Norton relayed that. "Oh?" Orlene asked. "Let me see." She walked back into the room, switching places with the ghost, and tried to lift the lid. It didn't budge. "It's locked."

"The key's in my bedroom," Gawain said. "In the left dresser drawer, if the fool maid hasn't moved it."

Norton told Orlene, who went and fetched the key, then unlocked the chest. Inside were trophies, exactly as described. "It's true!" she said. "You couldn't have known, Norton! I didn't know! Unless you got the key last night and-but no, the chest is undisturbed."

"Ask anything else," Norton suggested. "I'm sure we can satisfy you."

"I'll try one other thing," she decided. "What's Gawain's sister's name?"

"I have no sister," Gawain said.

"He says he has no-"

"What's his mother's maiden name?"

"Thrimbly."

"Thrimbly," Norton said.

"When did she get married?"

"June fourteenth," Gawain said. "Three-thirty in the afternoon, in a private ceremony. The minister was the Reverend Q. Lombard. The wedding cake had a dragon rampant on it, breathing a column of firewater. All the guests got tanked on that water, including my father; he passed out, and my mother didn't speak to him for the first week of the honeymoon. I was lucky to get conceived!"

Norton repeated the continuing details. Orlene raised her hands in surrender. "You see the ghost! I've got to concede that! Now it's my turn to prove the glow."

"Just what is the glow?" Norton asked. "Do I light the shadows?"

"No, not like that. It's-well, have you heard of the animal-spell people? The ones who can shake hands, and the hand of the one they meet feels like the appendage of the animal he most closely resembles? A wolf's paw, a barracuda's fin, or a snake's scale? Actually, that's figurative; animals aren't like that, not with the bad qualities. But with this magic, the person can tell if another is vicious, greedy, sneaky, or whatever. Well, with me it's vision. I can tell who is the perfect companion, for me or for someone else. I see the aura illuminate. I have to set my mind to tune in to one person, then view the others through his situation, if you see what I mean."

Norton shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't. I know I'm not special; there have to be many better marriage prospects than I."

"But you aren't a marriage prospect. You're a-"

"Never mind what I am! I begin to see your point. You actually do need a love-'em-and-leave-'em guy."

"A non-marrying guy. And most of those aren't worth much as persons. You are. Of course, if I weren't married, and wanted a husband, my situation would be different. I would want not only a good lover but also a good provider. You might not glow so strongly then."

"I'm sure I wouldn't! I'm broke!"

"So it does require some tuning in. When I first saw you, you glowed so brightly I knew you were the one-and I wasn't ready. I thought I might have tuned in inaccurately. I mean, I knew what I had to do, but it was so sudden. I knew my life had changed and that the time to conceive the heir had come. Now I'm getting used to it; I think those hours on the puzzle helped, and soon-"

"Why don't we take a walk outside, and you can show me how your glow works on others," Norton suggested.

"All right. Let me get into street clothes." She hurried to her bedroom.

Gawain reappeared. "Now you're making progress!" the ghost said with satisfaction. "I was able to listen through the wall this time; I can't always do that."

"Damn it, must you see it as Just that one thing?"

"Certainly. That's what you're both here for, isn't it? To beget my heir?"

"I don't know. If I go through with this, I'm afraid I'll leave more than my seed behind."

"Oh, don't get maudlin about it," Gawain said. "You've probably had almost as many women as I have! Think of it as one more dragon to be slain."

"She's no dragon!"

"Oh, I don't know. Women and dragons-I'd call them two of a kind."

"You don't love her?"

"Of course not! I'm dead!"

"I could love her. I don't want to hurt her."

"Then don't hurt her! Give her what she needs-a son."

"I had a dream that I destroyed her. I worry about that."

"You can't hurt her if you leave her after it's done."

"Some people are hurt worse by being left," Norton muttered.

"Don't worry. She'll have the very best care money can buy, courtesy of my estate."

"I wasn't thinking of physical hurt, necessarily. She's a young, vibrant girl. I don't think she can give herself to a man without giving all of herself. She-"

He paused, for Gawain had vanished. Orlene stood in the doorway. She was dressed in a modest green street skirt with matching jacket and hat and shoes, and now looked very businesslike. Her fair hair was pinned back with green barrettes. Somehow all that green reminded him of the breakfast pancakes, of the park scene in the puzzle, and of the lovely wilderness itself. "The ghost again?" she asked.

Embarrassed, Norton nodded. "He has only one thing on his mind."

She cocked her head at him again. "And you don't?"

"I have a care for the damage I may do to others."

"I think that's why you glow so brightly." He shrugged. "Maybe. But maybe I want more than I have a right to want."

She touched his hand. "I told you before, Norton. You don't have to go after it's done."

"I think I do. You are a married woman." She looked at him so intently that he became nervous.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm visualizing you as a prospective husband, to compare the glow."

"Don't do that! I'm not your-can never be your-"

"That's odd," she said. "That hasn't happened before."

"What hasn't happened?"

"The glow seems to have split. Part of it is extremely intense, but part of it is dim. As if you would be both a very good husband and a not-very-good husband."

"How can that be?"

"I'm not sure. You see, the glow doesn't figure character per se. It includes the total person, the total situation. How good a person is, how loyal, how effective a provider, how lucky or unlucky-the perfect man might be downgraded because an unfortunate accident will cripple him in five years, making him worse through no fault of his own."

Norton felt a chill. "I might have an accident?"

"No. I don't think it's that. Maybe it's that you could be the perfect husband, but you won't be, because I can't marry you. You're too good for the job-overqualified. So you suffer."

"Overqualified!" Norton exclaimed incredulously. "I don't know," she said quickly. "That's just a conjecture. I don't understand all the aspects of the glow. I just see its brightness."

"Well, stop considering me as-as the impossible. It's time to go out."

"Of course." She took his arm, and they went out. Travel on the fast belts took them to this floor's nearest mall, where shoppers thronged in the fashion they had done so for millennia at such centers. This could be a market at Babylon or in a medieval city. The stores had changed somewhat in detail in the ensuing interval, however. Today they were holographic images, each in its alcove, the goods being displayed with lifelike realism, each tagged with its price. The shopper had only to touch the image of the item he wanted; it would be shipped directly from the warehouse to his home, and his account as identified by his fingerprint patterns would be debited accordingly. Of course, these were mostly standard items whose details were generally known; the more individual ones required a different type of shopping. Marked containers of food in set units did not need to be physically verified, while specially fitted clothing did. There were booths for fitting via holo imaging, but that still required undressing.

They stopped at an ice cream stall, where the holograph of a chef stood by a chart of a thousand different flavors and types. Orlene touched the panels for their choices-honey flavor, of course-and the cones snapped into the adjacent holders, to be taken physically. The account of Gawain would be debited. Norton, of course, couldn't order; he had no account. In the vernacular of the day, he was of no account.

Orlene also saw a popular book that looked interesting, so she touched its holo too; in a moment it was printed for her on the machine's supply of paper. It was a historical novel, set in the fascinating time when people believed in neither magic nor science, so had wretched lives. She put the book in her purse.

They sat on a bench, licking their cones in nominal fashion, and watched the people passing by. Orlene called out the brightnesses of each one. The problem, she explained, was that any person's suitability as a partner varied greatly, depending on whom he was partnered with. Thus she could get several readings with different matchups.

Norton was intrigued, but remained uncertain whether the glows she perceived were really magic or only imagination. He wanted to verify some cases, but did not feel right about walking up to strangers and asking how their interpersonal relations were. Orlene surely perceived the glows-but just how accurate were they?

Then the proof came, abruptly. Orlene called out an older couple, walking hand in hand, evidently still much attached to each other. They were well dressed and handsome for their age. Yet Orlene called out a striking difference in their glows. The woman's glow was strong; she was almost perfect for the man. But his glow was absent. In fact, it was negative: a dark shadow. "He's completely wrong for her!" Orlene whispered.

"I can't believe that," Norton protested. "Look how well they relate to each other! Even if he has a mistress on the side, he's got to be good for this woman. She's well eared for and contented."

"The glow is absent," Orlene insisted. "He's bad for her!"

"That just doesn't make sense!"

Then they had to be quiet, for the couple was approaching. In fact, they sat down nearby on the bench. Norton wrestled with himself, trying to decide whether to speak to them, to try to resolve the discrepancy.

"Just a little tired," the man was saying.

"Yes, of course," the woman agreed.

Then the man fell off the bench.

Norton jumped up to help him, for he knew something about emergency aid. But he realized as he saw the man's staring face that he was dead. "Resuscitation unit!" Norton snapped, and a machine burst out of the nearest wall and rolled over to attend to the man.

It took the machine only a moment to confirm Norton's diagnosis. "Unit failure-beyond repair," it clicked.

The ambulance unit came and loaded the body aboard, taking also the shocked widow. It was all accomplished so swiftly and neatly that many shoppers never realized anything had happened-which was, of course, the point. People did not like shopping where death occurred, with good reason; sometimes vengeful ghosts remained.

"Oh, that's so horrible!" Orlene said shudderingly. "Must we stay here?"

"Of course not." They walked to the moving belt.

But as they were carried back toward the apartment, Norton realized that the glow had been confirmed. The man had been a poor partner for the woman, not because of any failure of resources or personality or loyalty, but because he was not going to be with her very long and, in fact, had been about to bring her crushing grief. Thus the glow, instead of being absent, was black. The glow had known-before the fact.

He had to accept the glow; it was legitimate magic. That meant he had to accept its verdict on him: he was right for Orlene. But what, then, of his dream? That suggested he was wrong for her-perhaps in the fashion of the man they had just seen die. Which was he to believe?

"Your glow is wavering," Orlene murmured. "Are you thinking of leaving me?"

Norton started guiltily. "I don't know what is right." She held his arm tightly. "Oh, please, Norton! I couldn't spend a night alone after seeing-that."

He realized that she had never been exposed to violence or death, so was not equipped to handle it. Of course she would be severely shaken. This would be the worst time to leave her.

They arrived at the apartment. As the door closed,

Orlene turned to him, flung her arms about him, buried her head in his shoulder, and sobbed. She had been fairly well controlled in public, but now she was letting down. He held her; there was nothing else to do. Norton had always liked to help people and he could not refuse her his companionship and support now. Or was he, he had to ask himself, rationalizing?

After a time she relaxed. She disengaged and went to the bathroom to put herself in order. "I'll never eat ice cream again," she said as she disappeared.

Ice cream. Guilt by association. She had eaten it just before the tragedy. An illogical connection, but valid emotionally. He did not feel much appetite for ice cream now himself. Or for shopping mails.

"You fighting with her?" Gawain demanded, popping into sight. "I heard her crying."

"Couldn't you see?" Norton demanded irritably.

"No. You weren't visible from the other room. I can walk through walls, but I can't see through them. All I could do was listen to the muffled sounds."

"We weren't fighting."

"What, then?"

"What business is it of yours?"

"Listen, mortal, it is my business!" Gawain retorted.

"This is my estate, and she's my wife."

"A wife you never knew in life and don't love now."

"Well, I'm a ghost! What use to love her?"

The ghost had a point. Perversely, that made it easier for Norton. Whatever he did with Orlene would not be treading on Gawain's sensibilities. "We saw a man die. That shook her."

Gawain snorted. "I've seen many men die. I'm dead myself."

In more than one sense. "I think I see now why she had so much trouble believing in you. She doesn't like death and doesn't want it near her."

"She should have thought of that before she married me!"

"It wasn't entirely her choice, any more than it was yours. Men usually marry for sex appeal, but women marry for security. It's the nature of the human species, or of our economy. If women were the prime money earners, they might marry for other reasons, and if men had no better way to gain security than through women, so would they. I'm sure she would have married a living man if that had been feasible."

"Well, she didn't! And now she has a job to do-and so do you. I don't want to wait in limbo forever. Tell her you won't stay unless she puts out now, today. She'll move it along for sure, since she doesn't want to be alone."

"I'll do nothing of the kind!" Norton responded angrily. "She's no piece of meat!"

"She's the breeder for my heir! She's not here to pussyfoot around. She's vulnerable now; you can make her perform in the next hour, if you-"

"Listen, Gawain, I never pressured a woman in my life! And I would never take advantage of a situation like this!"

"No, you'd just sit around interminably, sponging off my estate!"

"To Hell with your estate!" Norton shouted. "You asked me for a favor! I never had any intention of taking anything of yours!"

"Then do what you came to do and get gone!" the ghost shouted back.

"I'll get gone right now, if that makes you happier! You can find another man to do your favor!"

The ghost backed off, literally and figuratively. "I told you, she's choosy. It's got to be you."

"I am not at all certain of that. In any event, it will be of her choosing, not yours or mine."

But Gawain was gone again. Orlene stood in the doorway, in a gray housecoat. "Gawain again?"

Norton nodded. "I shouldn't let him provoke me."

"I suppose he has a case. He wants his heir."

"Yes. But he neglects the social aspect." She glided to him. "Norton, at first, I confess, I was suspicious, despite the glow. You glowed, but you weren't committed, and the ghost-" She shrugged. "But since then I've watched you glow as you talk with him. It flickers as you react. It is not a lie detector, but the glow is not under your control, so it suggests to me how you really feel. When you spoke just now of leaving, it damped right down. You weren't bluffing."

"I'm not a bluffer," Norton agreed ruefully. "He wants me to perform like a hired stud and get out. I thought I could, before I met you, but now I can't."

"I know," she said softly. "You really want to do the right thing."

"Yes. And that may be to move out right now."

"No!" she cried. "Please, Norton, no! I told you I couldn't stand to be-"

"But you'd be alone tomorrow if I did it his way."

"Gawain's an idiot," she snapped. "He doesn't know the first thing about siring an heir. I couldn't get pregnant today if they inseminated me artificially. It's not that time of the month. And if it were, there's no guarantee that one time would do it. The only way to be sure is to remain until a test establishes the pregnancy-and that could take several months."

Norton spread his hands. "You're right, of course. I'm as foolish as he."

"You tell him that now," she said. "His efforts are only delaying things. I'll give you two minutes."

"But that means I would have to stay for-"

"Months," she said. "Do you object?"

"No!" he said, his feeling surprising him. "Then tell him. Then he won't nag you about that any more, and we can be in peace." She turned and left.

Gawain reappeared. "I heard," he said. "The vixen is right. Okay already, I'll take a tour around the world. You stay here until you're sure."

"What about all my sponging off your estate?"

"I said that in anger. I apologize. I want you to stay. Will you?"

Norton sighed. "Yes."

"But first I'll teach you how to slay dragons."

"That was to be my payment," Norton said. "But we didn't realize how long it would take me to deliver. Let's consider the room and board as payment instead."

Gawain smiled, waved, and disappeared.

Orlene returned. "All right?"

"Yes. He agrees. He's gone."

"You're sure?"

"Well, I can't be sure. But he said he was going on a tour of the world. I think he realized that his purpose will be fulfilled better if he butts out for a white."

"Yes. I never liked the idea of his watching. After all-"

"He can't share a room with you and he can't see through walls. So if you close things up-"

"That's a relief," she said. "I-that is, I'm not good at saying this-do you want to do it now?"

That was all the invitation Norton needed. He surprised himself by declining. "There's no point. Wrong time of the-"

"You don't want to-to do it just for the fun?"

Norton hesitated. "With any other woman-who looked like you-I would be glad to. I have-before. But this is not for fun. It's business. I can't justify it any other way."

"Why not?"

Norton stared at the floor. "I can never marry you."

"You want too much."

"Yes, I suppose I do. I never did before, but now-"

She walked around the room. "I think that's what turned me off the other men who came. Oh, it's true their glows were low-but if one of them had had a high glow, I wouldn't have liked it, because all any of them wanted was free sex. I'm not a prostitute, and if I were I wouldn't give it away free. I can't really be with a man unless he cares."

"But a man who cares-wouldn't want to have it this way."

"Look," she said abruptly. "Lots of men have mistresses who last through several wives. Because the mistresses are true love interests. What is legal is not always actual. Why would you have to leave-ever?"

"I'm a wanderer. I have never stayed long in one place."

"But if a woman were willing to travel with you?"

"None has been, so far. And you are bound to the estate."

"No. I am bound to produce an heir to the estate. Then I can travel with whom I want to."

What joy! "We've known each other less than a day."

"Oh, of course it might not work out," she said quickly. "I am merely making the point that you can love me if you want to. I know I can love you."

"May the Lord have mercy on me," he said slowly. "I think I want to."

She held something out to him. "Let me give you this, as a token of our illicit potential love."

He looked. It was a ring in the form of a small green snake. The head was slightly raised, serving in lieu of a precious stone. The eyes shone; perhaps they were gems.

"But I have nothing to give you in return!"

"Yes, you do. Give me yourself."

It made a certain sense. She, as a married woman, could not truly give herself to him. But he could give himself to her, as companion or whatever. She had a dead husband; now she wanted a living man. One who cared.

He accepted her ring and put it on his left middle finger. It fitted perfectly and comfortably, as if made just for him.

"Now-" Orlene said.

"This has very little logic," he warned her.

"I know. Do what you will with me."

He laughed. He picked her up and carried her into sitting room. He kissed her and set her down by the puzzle. "I want a piece, woman!"

She smiled. "Yes, sir!"

They got to work on the puzzle.

Chapter 3 - THANATOS

What followed was very much like a honeymoon. They made love often at first, then settled down to a pleasant routine. They finished the puzzle and started on another. They toured the estate, which was vast and rich, with apartments on several levels of the city, a marked section of penthouse park, and a private matter transmitter in the basement level. There was even a section of a posh sports club; Gawain owned an enclosed tennis court and a table in the restaurant. Gawain had never played tennis; it was only an investment to him, handled by the anonymous experts who ran his financial affairs. But Norton knew tennis, and so did Orlene. Neither of them was professional level, but both were adequate, and they enjoyed playing each other. Norton was a healthy man, and Orlene was a fine figure of a woman, especially when exerting herself physically.

There was no discernible point of demarcation, but it was not long at all before Norton knew he was thoroughly in love. Orlene never said she actually loved him, but he understood that; she was loyal to her technical marriage to the ghost. In every other respect she was Norton's. She fixed his meals like a housewife; she hiked with him in the park, being thrilled when she caught a new bird on camera; and she shared his sleeping bag at night. If he had found a woman like her before, he certainly would have married her. They even had quarrels-but never, now, was there any mention of his leaving. They were wedded in all but name.

The ring she had given him turned out to be no minor trinket. It was magic. She refused to tell him how it was magic. "A woman needs some secrets," she said teasingly. "Since my body has none remaining for you, the mysteries of the ring will have to do."

That intrigued him mightily-but several things prevented him from cracking that riddle promptly. First, Orlene kept him busy with a whirlwind of joint activities. They viewed the latest top-grade holoflicks together, went null-gravity swimming, and visited the estate's outlet on the planet Venus-no wonder Orlene was able to get delicious, fresh, Venusian fungus for meals!-which was less impressive than he had expected, because the Venus apartment was merely another chamber with a single thick lensed viewport opening onto the perpetually murky storm of the surface. It would have been hard to tell it was another planet if it hadn't been for the changed gravity. When nothing else offered, Orlene would teasingly display portions of her perfect body, and duty as well as inclination compelled him to pursue it. But there came a moment when she slept and he was awake, and he remembered the ring. Now was his chance!

He took hold of the ring with thumb and forefinger to pull it off-and discovered the second problem. It would not budge. It was not tight on his finger; in fact, it was so comfortable that he was never aware of it unless he focused on it-but it seemed to constrict itself when he drew on it. The harder he pulled the tighter it was. It was also invulnerable to twisting. He went to the bathroom and soaped his finger-the bars of soap were an affectation, since the sonic shower made them unnecessary, but affectations had a long shelf life-yet his efforts made no difference. He tried to pull the skin of the finger tight so it couldn't bunch up under the ring, but that, too, was ineffective. "This thing must have an adhesive-spell!"

"No, it doesn't," Orlene said behind him. He jumped guiltily; he hadn't been aware of her waking. Spying his discomfort, she laughed merrily and proffered a kiss; it was three more days before he thought of the ring again.

This time she was visiting the estate doctor for her routine weekly checkup. Part of the condition of her marriage to the ghost was that she remain healthy so she could bear a healthy heir. She was fastidious about all her duties. Thus Norton had a little time to himself in the doctor's lounge.

He contemplated the ring. The tiny gem eyes of the metallic serpent seemed to look back at him. "So you stay with your owner," he remarked. "Is that the extent of your magic?"

Then he almost leaped out of his chair. The ring had pulsed twice, gently squeezing his finger!

Norton was alone, but was aware that doctors' premises had ways to observe their occupants. Therefore, he acted as if he were in public and subdued his reaction. Perhaps, anyway, he had imagined those pulses. "Did you do that, ring?" he asked it in a low voice. There was a single squeeze, firm but not painful. He was onto something here! "You understand me?" One squeeze, constriction and release, brief but definite.

"And you respond to questions by squeezing?"

One squeeze. "One squeeze for yes, two for no?"

Squeeze. "Do you ever do three squeezes?"

Squeeze.

"When?"

This time there were three squeezes.

"That doesn't answer my question!" he whispered. "What does it mean when you do three?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Norton pondered. "Let's see-you answer yes or no. Would three squeezes mean you can't answer yes or no?"

Squeeze.

"So three means either you don't know the answer or you can't phrase it as a yes or no?"

Squeeze. "When I ask you a non-yes-no question, the answer has to be three squeezes?"

Squeeze, squeeze. Two? What did that mean? It was "No," but was it for the answer to a non-yes-no question having to be three Squeezes? Norton pondered, then saw what he had missed. "When I ask you a question whose answer is a number, then your squeezes indicate the number?"

Squeeze. "Such as: what is the product of three times seven?"

Squeeze. Oops. "I meant, please give me the answer to that question."

There was a pause, then three squeezes. "That's not the answer, ring! What happened?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

"Oh-you mean you aren't good at math?"

Squeeze!

Norton smiled. "We all have our weaknesses. No shame in that! But you can count?"

Squeeze.

"How many fingers do I have?"

There were ten squeezes.

Norton smiled again. "Ring, I think I understand you now! Have you other properties?"

Squeeze.

"But you can't tell me outright what they are?"

Squeeze. "But if I guess, you'll tell me?"

Squeeze.

"Very good!" Norton pondered again. Twenty Questions had never been his best game, but he was sure he could get the information he wanted, given unlimited questions. This was exciting!

Then Orlene reappeared, and he had to stop.

"Well, I'm not pregnant yet," she said. "Despite your efforts. I don't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. The doctor will see you next."

"Me?" he asked, startled.

Squeeze.

That startled him again. Apparently, now that he had evoked the ring, it answered any questions it heard.

"To make sure you're fertile," Orlene said.

"Oh." Of course that would be a requirement of the ghost-bride's consort. Suppose he were infertile? That might be the end of their relationship.

"Go on in," she said. "She's waiting for you."

"She?"

Squeeze.

Orlene smiled. "You don't think I'd trust this to a male doctor, do you?"

"But I'd rather see a male!"

"Too bad," she said wickedly. She leaned forward and kissed him briefly on the lips. "Enjoy yourself."

"Yeah, sure," he agreed, disgruntled.

The doctor was a stern, middle-aged woman. "Strip, son."

"Look, I-"

She cracked a cold smile. "Would you prefer to have a male orderly present to safeguard your virtue?"

"Oh, no, thanks. But-"

"This is routine. Believe me, young man, I've seen it before."

Surely true! Norton did not consider himself, in his latening thirties, as young, but didn't care to make an issue of that at the moment. He bowed to necessity and stripped to his trunks.

She ran him through the normal paces, checking his temperature, blood pressure, ears, eyes, tongue, muscle tone, and whatever else her instruments were set for. Then came the awkward part. "Now the trunks, please."

He clenched his teeth and obeyed. After all, women had to suffer examination by male doctors; this could be considered turnabout. She hooked a finger into his crotch. "Cough."

He coughed, and repeated it for the other side. Then she donned a plastic glove. "Bend over, son. Put your hands against the support."

"Don't you have some more modem way to-?"

"It's much more fun this way," she assured him. He obeyed instructions again, and she greased her glove and did what doctors always did to men, physically. "Hey!"

"Hold still. I'm securing the specimen." Evidently so. In a moment she took a glass smear off to her lab, and he was permitted to clean off the grease and redress. All this indignity just to verify-

"Ring," he asked, suffering a belated inspiration, "am I fertile?"

Squeeze.

To think of the awkwardness he could have spared himself! But the doctor probably wouldn't have believed the ring.

As it turned out, the ring was correct; he was fertile. Then he wondered how the ring had known. The fact that it could respond to a person's questions did not guarantee that it was omniscient. Magic came in many forms and degrees.

He rejoined Oriene, who was suppressing a smirk. "You knew I was fertile!" he accused her.

"Of course. Otherwise you wouldn't have glowed."

"Then why did you send me in to the doctor?" She tried valiantly to contain it, but her giggle managed to escape. Why, indeed! Even nice girls liked to turn the tables on men on occasion. He would find a way to get even.

They returned to the whirl of activities, including more efforts to complete the ghost's mission. It was another week before Norton had a moment to question the ring again. By then he had figured out how to make his questions count. Orlene was taking an old-fashioned bubble bath. The estate had sonic showers for each bedroom, but there was something about bubbles and bathing that delighted women. Actually, he wouldn't have minded taking one himself, but his masculine image forbade it.

Norton was theoretically watching a news program on holo, but he tuned that out mentally and talked to the ring instead.

"Parliamentary procedure," the holo announcer was saying, his head appearing to be right in the room, talking directly to Norton. "The Satanic forces admit they don't have the votes to override the expected veto this time, but they hope to show substantial strength. Any break in the ranks of-"

"Ring, what shall I call you?" Norton asked. "Do you have a name?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

"Would you like one?"

Squeeze.

"Then suppose I make up a name? You are my Snake Ring; I'll call you Sning, for SNake rING. How's that?"

Squeeze! Evidently the ring was enthusiastic.

"Good enough, Sning. Are you of Evil Magic?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

"Good Magic?"

Squeeze.

The ring could be lying, for Evil lied, but he didn't think so. Orlene would never have sought an evil artifact. That meant he could trust it.

It? "Um, Sning, are you male or female?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. . ,

"Sorry. I'll rephrase that. Male?"

Squeeze.

"Okay, you're a he. Now, I believe you said you have other abilities?"

Squeeze.

He zeroed in on the answer. "What else you have- is it something you do or something you are? Do?"

Squeeze. "Are?" Squeeze. "So it's both?" Squeeze. This sounded good! "Are you animate or inanimate?" Again he got yes to both. "You can change?" Squeeze. "When I ask you to?" Squeeze. "In fact," he concluded triumphantly, "you can be a live snake!" Squeeze.

Now he had to figure out what advantage this might be to the owner of the ring. In due course he established that Sning could come alive, slither off his finger-all he had ever had to do was ask Sning to come off, and removal would have been easy; he had stupidly tried force instead- scout the local territory, return, and report via squeezes what was going on.

Norton pondered only momentarily before grinning wickedly. "Go scout Orlene," he ordered. "Very closely."

The ring turned a brighter green, slid off his finger, dropped to the floor, and slithered rapidly toward the bathroom. Sning, extended, was only five or six inches long, but lively enough.

A minute passed. Then there was a scream. A few seconds later Sning zipped back, trailing some bubble froth. Norton put down his hand, and the tiny snake wrapped around his finger and went metallic.

"She saw you?"

A wet squeeze.

"Close?"

Squeeze.

"She screamed?"

Squeeze.

"And threw bubbles at you?"

Squeeze.

"Anything else to report?"

At this point Orlene appeared, half-clothed in bubbles. "Don't you dare!" she snapped at the ring.

Norton laughed, his revenge complete-until she pounced on him, glistening wet and slippery, and doused his hair with bubbles. "So you found out how to use the ring!" she exclaimed severely. "I gave you too much time to yourself!" She jammed bubbles in his eyes, but they were the non-sting kind. "Send him after me again, and I'll drown you both in bubbles!" She stalked off, leaving a trail of dying bubbles.

"I only wish it could have been that female doctor," Norton muttered rebelliously.

One other thing he learned about Sning: he was poisonous. His fangs were tiny, of course, but his venom was potent. A single bite could not kill a creature the size of a man, but could make him very sick for several hours, so that he might think he was dying. Suing would bite on order, but then would require a day to restock his poison.

"That's all right," Norton said. "I have no enemies; you don't need to bite anyone for me." But it was perhaps just as well that he had not known about Sning's poison when encountering the doctor.

Later, after Orlene had calmed down-her annoyance had been mostly because he had unraveled the secrets of the ring so quickly-he asked her where she had gotten it. It turned out to have been in the family for generations, passed from parent to child or from spouse to spouse.

"But then it should go to your child!" he said. "I'm not technically your spouse."

"It's not a technical thing," she said. "I-care for you, Norton. I want you to have it."

"Then I'm glad to have it." He kissed her.

The following month she was verified pregnant. Then she changed; her interest in entertainments diminished, and she oriented increasingly on the family-to-be. "But don't go away, Norton," she cautioned him. "I need you more than ever now."

Norton wasn't sure of that, but certainly he needed her. He hoped that after the baby was born and the estate heir established, he and Orlene could travel again. But if not, then not. He was bound to her regardless. The baby would never legally be his, but the blood was his. However unconnected officially, he still cared. He had never figured himself to be a family man before, but it seemed he was. Orlene made it clear that she continued to need his presence and support, and he was glad to comply. He was a kept man-but, like many a kept woman, he had no interest in breaking free.

Time passed, and Orlene's girth grew. Norton started handling some of the household chores, simple as they were. It was surprising how readily he had been domesticated-but it seemed the glow had spoken truly. He was good at this. And she did need him-not for the routine, but for his continuing emotional and physical support.

The ghost stayed away, to Norton's relief. His other association with magic, Sning, was entertaining for a time, but he really had no reason to spy on anyone and had no questions in pressing need of answers, so he didn't use the snake ring for much except decoration. As Orlene's condition advanced, his romantic activity with her diminished and finally ceased; she wanted nothing to interfere in any way with the developing baby. He would have liked to resume his hikes in the park, but she could no longer come along, and he didn't care to leave her alone for any extended period.

As a result, he took to viewing historical holographs. He had grown tired of contemporary entertainment programs, but the historicals enabled him to indulge his urge to explore in time as well as space. His wanderlust was balked by his commitment to Orlene, but this was a fair sublimation. He also took holo courses in a number of subjects, improving his array of background skills. He learned the geography of the world in greater detail, and of Mars, Venus, and Mercury; he studied that of the Milky Way Galaxy itself, though, of course, most of it was well out of reach. Oh, to explore those farthest stars...!

In due time the baby arrived. Orlene was radiant. She had done her job; she had produced the heir. He was a robust boy who seemed to resemble Gawain more than Norton and was named Gawain II. Norton was glad for her, but felt somewhat out of sorts. His own service had now been performed, but he couldn't bring himself to leave, and Orlene didn't want him to. "We'll start doing things again," she promised him. "As soon as Gaw-Two is ready for baby-sitting."

But she didn't use any baby-sitters, human, robot, or golem. She was too attentive a mother for that. That was, of course, one reason she had been selected for the ghost marriage. She paid attention to Norton in a dutiful manner, and very sweet attention it was, but she paid more attention to the baby. She insisted on personally breastfeeding Gaw, because that was nature's way, and on washing his soiled diapers by hand, because she didn't want to risk the chemicals of mechanized washing. She wouldn't put him in the sonic shower, concerned that the sonics could injure his undeveloped nervous system. She supervised every aspect of his little life with loving concern, because that was what she deemed a good mother was for.

Norton could hardly quarrel with this; he believed in nature. Yet aspects of it bothered him. For he was largely excluded from the process; officially he had nothing to do with the baby. The comprehensive equipment of the estate went mostly unused, and he was part of the equipment. Orlene also took Gaw to visit his legal grandparents, who, she reported, exclaimed in pleased wonder at his resemblance to his ghost-father. Norton, of course, was not invited on that trip.

He sank into a pointless depression. He was glad for Orlene's success and he had known the nature of his position from the outset. But still he found it difficult to accept. He had somehow supposed that the arrival of the baby would free Orlene to be with him, Norton, as she had been before the conception; now it was apparent that the baby had pre-empted whatever attention she might have been ready to bestow on him. He wished that somehow all this could have been his to share, estate, baby, and Orlene. He had become accustomed to the luxurious lifestyle of Gawain's means and to the constant attentions of a lovely young woman. In fact, he realized, he had been spoiled. He wanted, as Orlene had said at the outset, too much.

In the midst of one such reverie, the ghost reappeared.

Norton was almost glad to see him. "Well, sport, you've had a year," Gawain said. "How's it going?"

"Successfully," Norton said. "You now have your heir."

"Ah, yes!" Gawain was so delighted he sailed into the air. "I can finally go to Heaven!"

Gawain was going to Heaven? Norton shrugged. "Only you can decide that. Take a look at your son. He's sleeping in the crib in the bedroom."

"But I can't go near Orlene."

"She's in the kitchen now, I believe, taste testing new baby food. She wants Gaw's first solid food to be just right."

The ghost popped out. In a few minutes he popped back, looking worried. "He resembles me too much."

"You object to that?"

Gawain paced the floor. "Something I should tell you, Norton. On my travels this past year I met some interesting people."

"Why not? I certainly have no objection, and if I did, it wouldn't matter. I like to travel myself."

"I met some of the Incarnations."

"The whats?"

"The Incarnations. Two of them, anyway. War and Nature."

"I'm not sure I follow you, Gawain."

"They are personifications of fundamental concepts or forces. There are a lot of them, but only a few major ones. They sort of supervise their functions-Well, my point is, I talked with Nature, the Green Mother Gaea, and she promised to put my essence in my heir."

Norton wasn't sure how serious or relevant this was. "There can't be a literal blood connection-"

"Yes, there can be-if Nature so decrees. I saw some of her power-I tell you, I wouldn't want to cross that creature!-and as a favor to me, she-"

"You mean there is a literal Incarnation of Nature, who can change-?"

"That's exactly what I mean."

"So Gaw-Two really is of your bloodline-by magic?"

"I think so. I didn't stick around to watch; I just took Gaea's word. She scared me some; I mean, I'm a ghost, but the things she can do, that any of them can do-it's a completely different kind of power." Gawain wiped his brow, looking pale. "But there's one aspect I forgot."

"The baby certainly resembles you! I thought it was coincidence."

"No. Gaea did it. I think she's the strongest of the earthly Incarnations, but I wouldn't want to cross any of them."

Norton didn't quite believe this, but did have respect for nature. A literal Incarnation of Nature should indeed be formidable. "So why are you worried? She delivered, didn't she?"

The ghost paced faster. Had he been solid, he would have stirred up dust from the aseptic rug. "There's a family malady, one of those recessive things, that tends to skitter sidewise across generations. My older brother died of it; that's why the estate devolved to me. It usually takes them out young-before age ten, sometimes sooner. And it's getting worse."

"But you were taken out by a dragon!"

"An allosaur."

"Whatever. You didn't die of the malady."

"No. But I carry it in my genes."

Norton began to get an ugly suspicion. "You don't mean-?"

"Yes. I think the baby shows the stigma."

"But Caw-Two is healthy! Orlene had that checked out thoroughly!"

"This malady doesn't show at birth. It's a semipsychic thing that starts as a corruption of the soul and spreads to the physical body. The victim is literally damned-to a short life and a long hereafter in Hell. A doctor wouldn't be equipped to recognize it; even in this modem age, they tend to be skeptical of the supernatural. They think they know everything and that what doesn't show on their charts doesn't exist. But-" He shrugged wearily. Evidently he knew, or supposed he knew, the signs.

"You say it kills the victims young or not at all?" Norton asked, dismayed despite his uncertainty. "So if you're wrong about the stigma, then Gaw will make it through without getting it later?"

"Young, yes. Always. Once the stigma becomes evident to a doctor, it's way too late. It's probably too late when the baby is born; it's an incurable, nonreversible progression, like a tree rotting at the core. The victim just wastes away and dies."

"Surely modem science or magic can-"

Gawain shook his head. "No. They tried everything to save my brother, but he died at age seven. I was only four at the time, but I remember-" He shook his head. "Oh, I should have kept my finger out of the pie! I've ruined it! There will be no heir! Oh, woe, woe!" He tore his insubstantial hair.

This looked serious. But Norton had an idea. "Maybe Sning knows."

"Sning?"

"A friend of mine." Norton touched the ring, to wake it, though he wasn't sure the little snake ever slept. "Sning, go check Gaw-Two. I want to know if he's got the fateful malady that runs in Gawain's family."

Sning came to life, slithered off his finger, and zipped across the floor. Gawain stared. "Where did you get that? That's not part of my estate!"

"Your wife gave it to me. In return for your baby."

The ghost shrugged. "Oh, well. I'm nervous about reptiles now, since one killed me. Will it hurt the baby?"

"No. Sning will just check."

In a moment Sning came back. Norton put his hand down and the snake curled back into ring form. "Does Gaw have the malady?" Norton asked.

Squeeze.

Norton felt cold. "You're sure?"

Squeeze.

"How long will he live? How many years?"

Squeeze.

"Only one year?" Norton asked, appalled.

Squeeze.

"It says only one year?" Gawain demanded tightly.

"That's what he says," Norton agreed heavily. "Of course, Sning could be wrong. He's not good at math."

"No, it's not wrong. I saw the stigma. It doesn't matter whether it's one year or seven; it's inevitable." The ghost paced in another ragged circle. "That Green Mother! She must have known! No wonder she granted me that 'favor' so readily!"

"These Incarnations you describe-are they evil creatures?"

"Well, Satan is the Incarnation of Evil. But God is the Incarnation of Good. Most are neutral, though I think they favor God, or at least the existing order. But Nature- Gaea, the Earth-Mother-if you cross her, she's real trouble, and you don't always know when you cross her. She can be nice, real nice, but she can be real mean too. Oh, she's cost me everything!"

Norton didn't comment. It seemed to him that even if a personified Nature existed, it would be hard for her to keep track of every detail of the heredity of every baby born on Earth. It had probably been an oversight. But Gawain did not seem to be in any mood at the moment to concede that.

"We should have this verified medically," Norton said after a pause. "Even though this may be beyond medical competence. There are always breakthroughs, so that what is terminal in one generation becomes curable in the next. Can you direct the estate doctor to investigate your brother's history and compare symptoms?"

"I'd better," Gawain agreed glumly. "But you'll have to tell Orlene."

"The doctor can do that."

"Sure-his way. Look, Norton, I may be crude, but even I can see that's no good. Some of those doctors get their kicks needling people. Better it be done your way."

Norton thought of the doctor who had tested him for fertility. He sighed. "Yes."

The ghost vanished. With dread in his soul, Norton went to tell Orlene.

First she refused to believe it. But when the estate doctor conducted his investigation, using as thorough a program of scientific and magical tests as existed, guided by the case histories of others in the family, and verified the condition, Orlene had to believe. Then she was angry- at Gawain, Nature, Norton, herself-everything. She concocted desperate schemes to undo the damage, to bargain for her baby's life, to arrange somehow divine intervention to save Gaw-Two. But, of course, all this came to nothing, and she sank into a terrible depression. Nothing could console her.

Norton was helpless, as the baby's health declined. Gawain had been right; the malady had become worse in recent generations, and its course was savage. He could not comfort Orlene, for now it was apparent that her love for Norton was definitely secondary to her love for the baby. He could only accept her as she was, the perfect mother rather than the perfect partner. Gawain the Ghost disappeared.

The end came with seeming suddenness, though most of a year had passed since the baby's birth. Orlene was sitting, garbed in black, by the crib where the failing infant lay. She was only a shadow of her former self, looking almost as wasted as Gaw-Two. Both science and magic had failed; all they could do was leave the baby alone. It was a death watch.

Death came, personified. He was a hooded figure garbed in black. Orlene saw him first, issued a stifled scream, and flung her emaciated arms protectively about her baby. The dark intruder paused-and now Norton was able to perceive him more clearly. At first Death had been no more than a shadow, but now he was solid.

"Must you do this?" Norton demanded of the figure. "Who are you, that you bring such grief?"

The figure turned to face him. Under his hood was a skull, bare of hair or skin or flesh. His eyes were hollow squares. "I regret the necessity," he said, his voice oddly soft. "I am Thanatos, and it is my duty to collect the souls of those who expire in balance."

"You are-the Incarnation of Death?"

"I am."

"And you get your kicks from stealing innocent babies?"

Thanatos' dark hood turned toward Orlene, then toward the crib, and finally back to face Norton. He drew back one sleeve to expose a heavy black watch. One skeletal finger touched that timepiece. "Come with me a few minutes, mortal, and we shall talk."

Norton experienced a chilling awe of this somber figure. He had not believed in the so-called Incarnations, despite the ghost's assurances, except possibly as mock presentations. Now conviction was growing. Thanatos was no joke; neither was he callous or indifferent.

They walked out of the room. Orlene did not move. She stood by the crib, her thin arms extended in a futile gesture of protection. Her face was drawn, her hair dull, with only her eyes still large and beautiful. She did not even breathe. Time seemed to have halted.

Outside the apartment, in the hall, a gallant pale horse stood. Somehow this did not seem surprising. Norton got up behind Thanatos on the horse. Then the horse leaped.

They passed through the levels of the city as if these were holograph images. Halls, apartments, service areas- all shot past like so many segments of a cutaway dollhouse as the horse sailed up. In a moment they reached the park at the surface. The animal's gleaming hooves landed without jarring, and now they were riding through the forest.

They came to a glade where the sun angled warmly down, and the horse halted and the two riders dismounted. The horse fell to grazing while Thanatos and Norton sat on a fallen log and talked. Somehow it no longer seemed strange to be talking with a skeleton in a cloak.

"I wish to explain about the baby," Thanatos said. "He is not innocent, odd as that may appear to you. He is in balance. Do you comprehend the term?"

"Balance? Not the way you must intend it. Do you weigh him?"

Perhaps the skull-face smiled; it was hard to tell, through the fleshless grin it always had. "In my fashion. I have devices with which to measure souls, determining whether the accumulated evil overbalances the good. If the balance favors good, that soul is sent to Heaven; if evil. Hell. A person really does determine the nature of his afterlife by the nature of his life, by exercising his free will. But some souls are in perfect balance between good and evil at the time of the client's demise, and these must remain in Purgatory."

"You mean there really are places called Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory? I thought they were mere constructs of human imagination."

"That, too," Thanatos agreed. "They are not precisely places so much as states of being. They exist for our culture, as do the several Incarnations, for here there is sufficient belief in them. In other cultures, other frameworks exist. I have very few clients in those cultures where other beliefs obtain."

"But I never believed in Heaven, Hell, or Incarnations!" Norton said.

"Not consciously, perhaps. Do you believe in Good, Evil, and personal choice?"

Telling point! "The baby-how can there be evil on his soul? He has not harmed anyone. In fact, he's a victim of circumstances manipulated by others."

"True. Gaea is very sorry about that; she had not been paying full attention, so her gift to Gawain was flawed. By the time she discovered that, it was too late for her to correct it. Ge must obey Ge's laws, too."

"Gaea-Ge-you mean Mother Nature?"

"The Green Earth-Mother, yes. She is extremely powerful, but also extremely busy. She thought it a simple favor to one who was trying to do better in death than he had done in life, and she did not look deeply. Even Incarnations make errors-and such errors can be worse than those of mortals."

"This error destroyed a man's line!" Norton cried.

"Gawain will be given a second chance," Thanatos said. "Gaea has interceded with Clotho for that. This is her manner of apology."

"The baby will be cured?"

"No. That case is lost. Gawain will have the opportunity to remarry, more successfully."

Norton felt another chill. "Remarry? He's going to divorce Orlene?"

"No."

"She'll bear another baby for him? But why, then, should he remarry?"

"Orlene will have no other baby. This is the major portion of this first baby's accumulation of evil-responsibility for his mother's untimely demise."

"His mother's demise!" Norton repeated, shocked.

"I regret to inform you of this. But it will be easier for you if you understand. You bear no share of the guilt for this disaster. The blame is the baby's."

"But the baby has done nothing!"

"The baby is about to die. That destroys the mother."

"But the baby didn't choose to die!"

"In this case, I regret, the sin of the father is visited on the son. Had Gaea not interfered, the baby would have been healthy. You are of excellent genetic stock."

"Oh, certainly," Norton agreed. "My family has always been healthy. But still-this transferal of guilt-I was the one who sired the baby! I had a dream-had I not-"

"I do not profess to agree with every aspect of the system," Thanatos said gently. "I only assure you that it is so. You are blameless, in the case of the son and the case of the mother. You must understand that, while the fate of the baby is in doubt, that of the mother is not; she will proceed directly to Heaven. She is a good woman, as pure in her distress as she was in her happiness, and insufficient evil attaches to her for the manner of her demise to deny her, her destiny. I will not be present for her; you will be. I hope your knowledge of the full situation will abate your discomfort. You are a good man and can have a good life, if you can pass this crisis without being corrupted."

"The concern of Death for my welfare is touching," Norton said bitterly. "You tell me my-Gawain's baby must die, and the woman I love must die, but I should ignore all that and enjoy myself? Why do you bother?"

"Because I dislike unnecessary pain," Thanatos replied seriously. "Death is a necessary thing and it comes to all living creatures in its proper time; it is right that this be so, for a proper death is the greatest gift to follow a proper life, but the manner of its occurrence differs. I prefer that the transition be accomplished with as little unpleasantness as possible and that no extraordinary measures be taken either to extend the agony of demise or to shorten the natural term decreed by Atropos."

"Atropos?"

"An aspect of Fate, who is another Incarnation. Atropos cuts the threads of life. When a person dies, the primary burden always falls on the living; therefore much of my own concern is with the living, as it is with you. I feel compassion for mortals, for their lot is often difficult."

"Compassion!" Norton exclaimed.

"I realize this is difficult for you to understand or accept, but it is so."

Norton stared into the hooded skull-face and discovered that he believed. This Death-specter, Thanatos, really did care. Thanatos was trying to help Norton bear what it seemed had to be borne. "That's all? You use your valuable time just to ease my concern?"

"No time is passing," Thanatos said. He lifted his arm, showing the solid black watch. "I used the Deathwatch to suspend time so that I could converse with you at ease."

"Thank you," Norton said, finding it simplest to accept this additional incredibility. He remembered how Orlene had frozen in place and he saw now that nothing in the forest moved, except themselves and the horse. Even the clouds were frozen in the sky, and the shadows had not budged. Truly, a supernatural power was in operation! "Must be nice, having a device like that. To control time itself, at need."

"You have a similar artifact," Thanatos said. "That may be the other reason I paused for you."

"Other reason? What is the first reason?"

"The fact that you were able to perceive me. Few people not directly involved with death can sense my presence."

"I love Orlene!" Norton said. "Anything that affects her welfare affects mine!"

"Demonstrably true. And so you saw me-and I saw your ring."

Norton glanced at his left hand. "Oh, Sning. Orlene gave him to me."

"Excellent magic can be incorporated in small things," Thanatos said. "Sning, as you call him, is of demonic origin, and almost as old as Eternity."

"But he's not evil! How can he be a demon?"

"Demons, like people, differ. He is good-as long as he remains bound to the service of Good. You are fortunate to command his loyalty."

This turn of conversation was so surprising that it distracted Norton from the horror of the main topic. "Sning," he asked the ring, "is Thanatos genuine?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

"How can you verify this? Do you need to touch him?"

Squeeze.

"You object?" he asked the specter.

Thanatos shook his skull, no.

"Do it, then, Sning."

Sning slithered off Norton's finger, into his palm, and toward the hooded figure. Thanatos pulled at the bone fingers of his left hand, and they slid off-in the form of a glove. Beneath it was a human hand, fully fleshed, complete with a smidgeon of dirt under the nails. He extended his hand, and Sning touched it with his tongue. Then the little snake curled back around Norton's finger, while Thanatos donned his glove and the hand became bone again. When in place, the glove did not show at all; the hand seemed to be genuinely fleshless, and Norton was sure it would feel that way.

"He's genuine?" Norton asked Sning again.

Squeeze.

"And all that he tells me is true?"

Squeeze.

"You are a good demon?"

Squeeze.

It was enough. "You have amazed me," Norton said to Thanatos. "I did not believe in you, but now I do. I appreciate your courtesy-but I'm going to try to save Orlene."

"Naturally. It is your way. The world is better for your concern." Thanatos stood and gravely extended his hand.

Bemused, Norton stood also, accepting the hand. It did indeed feel like bare bones.

"Mortis!" Thanatos called. The magnificent stallion trotted back, and they mounted. Then the animal ran a short distance and plunged down through the ground and the occupied levels of the city. This time Norton could see that all the people there were as still as statues. One, in a rec-room, was caught in mid-leap, hovering half a foot above the floor. Time was indeed frozen.

All by the mere touch of a bone finger on the Deathwatch! What dreadful power this Incarnation possessed, to be thus casually employed for the sake of a private interview. If this was an adjunct to Death, what power did the Incarnation of Time possess? Norton's imagination failed.

They landed on the floor of Gawain's level, dismounted, and reentered the apartment. Orlene remained frozen by the baby. Thanatos reached again for his watch.

"Uh, thanks," Norton said, somewhat awkwardly. He was not resigned to what was happening, but he no longer blamed Thanatos. The somber figure nodded. Then time resumed.

Thanatos stepped to the crib and reached for the baby. Orlene stared at him and screamed: "No! No! Go away, Death! You shall not have him!"

Thanatos paused. "He is in pain. I will relieve him of that."

"No! We have medicine!" She shoved at Thanatos, but her hands passed through him without resistance, as if he were a ghost. He had been solid for Norton, but not for her.

"There is a time to die, and his time has come," Thanatos said sadly. "You would not want him to suffer longer." He reached down and drew out the baby's soul, like translucent tissue. Gaw-Two's labored breathing stopped and he relaxed, looking strangely comfortable in death. His travail was over.

Orlene sank to the floor in a faint.

Thanatos faced Norton again. "I regret," he repeated. "Yet it is a necessary thing I do." He folded the soul and put it in a black bag he had brought forth. He walked out.

Norton felt numb. He went to Orlene and lifted her to the couch. She felt horribly light; she had lost even more weight than he had thought. This ordeal was destroying her!

Then he used the phone. "There has been a natural death," he told the face that came on the screen. "Please send appropriate service to this unit."

The girl nodded. This was routine to her; she did not feel the horror of it. He held the connection long enough for her to get a fix on the address, then disconnected. He went to attend to Orlene.

Now, he knew, came the hard part. He was numb, but not insensitive. What would he do when she woke?

She woke, and he did it. He told her the baby was gone. This was not the occasion for euphemism.

"I know it, Norton," she said. "Please excuse me. I have some things to attend to." She went to the bedroom.

Was that all? He could hardly believe it!

She was that way for several days, calmly going about her business. Norton did not know what to make of it. She had been so desperate and, now that the worst had happened, was so composed. Had Thanatos misjudged her? Perhaps, after a suitable period, the two of them could enjoy each other's company again and generate another baby, a healthy one, for the estate. Slowly, Norton's hope strengthened.

Then, ten days after the death of the baby, when Orlene had set all her affairs in proper order, including careful instructions for the disposition of her few individual belongings and her body so that there would be no awkwardness, she took poison. Norton found her slumped at the piano and knew as he saw her that it was too late, that her last note had been played. She had, of course, arranged it that way. She had not even said good-bye- and in that she had not been cruel but sensible, knowing he never would have let her do it, had he known.

Chapter 4 - CHRONOS

Orlene had not truly loved him, Norton now knew. She had not been free to, so she had transferred it all to the baby. She had loved Gaw-Two-nothing else. Norton had been a means to the end of the accomplishment of her contract and good company along the way. Perhaps she had thought she loved him, but now the truth was shown. Had she loved him, she would not have left him like this.

It was ironic, he thought, how she had used her magic perception, the glow, to determine the best prospect for a consort-and then been defeated by a problem in another area. The liability had not been in her consort, but in her husband, who had interfered with the process and subverted it, with the best of intentions. And perhaps the liability had also been in Orlene herself, for she had proved unable to survive the first great disappointment. Another woman would have cried and suffered, then gone on to conceive another baby, one who would redeem the effort and restore love and happiness.

Norton himself had been an almost coincidental figure, as intended by the ghost-and now was in love with a dead woman. What recourse did he have?

He doused his fire and retreated to the lean-to he had  were parked on top in the twenty-first century; it was one of man's necessary compromises with nature. Some cities featured natural wildernesses; others had magic gardens or alien landscapes. Many stocked exotic creatures in special habitats. From space, it was hard to tell the planet Earth was still inhabited by man-and that, Norton felt, was the way it should be.

The ghost fell in beside him as he walked. "I've got her, Norton," Gawain said without preamble. "Lovely beyond belief! Sexy as a woman can be without driving every nearby man to madness. Name's Lila. Just come see her, and you'll-"

"Go away," Norton said. "I told you before, I'm not interested in any other woman."

"But you can't go on moping forever! It's been four months, and you're a healthy, living man. You have natural urges. And Lila is ready for you; she's seen your picture. She likes you, Norton! In her arms you'll forget-"

Norton swung his fist furiously through Gawain's body.

"Can't you understand? I don't want to forget Orlene! I love her! I always will!"

"This isn't healthy, Norton," the ghost remonstrated. "Your body's fine, but your mind is in an unreasonable depression. I know how it is; I would be in a funk for days after I let a dragon escape. It would really be better if-"

"Never!" Norton cried. "Go find another stud! I'm out of this!"

Gawain shook his head. "You don't know what you're missing. Lila, when she walks-"

"Away! Begone, foul spirit!"

Daunted at last, the ghost vanished.

But every month or so, Gawain returned, insisting on pestering Norton with reports. Another man had been found-Lila had accepted him-she had not been given a choice-the two were going at it like professionals- Lila was pregnant-the man had skipped town, good riddance!-the fetus seemed to be developing normally-the heir seemed assured.

Meanwhile, Gawain insisted on giving Norton the lessons in dragon fighting he had originally promised. Norton finally relented to that extent. It was evident that the ghost was trying diligently to stay away from his second wife and incipient baby, observing but not interfering in any way, but still lacked confidence to depart this world entirely. Thus he used Norton as a companion to keep himself out of mischief. Too many fingers spoiled the pie. So Norton studied dragon slaying, though he never expected to make use of this skill.

"First you have to have a good sword," Gawain said. "Preferably an enchanted one, but it's best to learn on a mundane one, to be sure you have the basic skill. My old sword will be excellent, and I'm sure the estate will release it to you."

"I don't want a sword!" Norton protested. But in the end he had to concede it necessary for this training and he accepted Gawain's sword, which was shipped to the park for him. The weapon was enchanted, but they pretended it wasn't, and he made progress in handling it and developing stamina.

The months passed, and Norton's depression eased without entirely dissipating, like a mountain slowly weathering down. There was indeed pleasure in companionship, even that of a ghost, and in activity, even practice in swordplay. And at one point the sword was useful: two anti-wilderness thugs, enraged by Norton's stern challenge to their despoilment of the park-they had not only littered, they had cut a live sapling down-attacked him with their knives and were brought up short when Norton calmly drew his sword and demonstrated his growing proficiency with it. He cut a lock of hair off each, using swings that somehow seemed to be heading for their necks, and they fled, fearing that an ear or a nose would be next. Norton was not generally a violent man, but he did indeed feel like a hero in that instance. If there was one thing that really set him off, it was abuse of the wilderness; there was so little of it remaining, and what there was, was so carefully cultivated. He deposited the locks of hair in the police box; the authorities would analyze it and have the identities of the culprits in an hour. Unless this happened to be a first offense, which was doubtful considering their attitude, they would be arrested and penalized before the day was out. A wilderness-phobia-spell or litter-eating-enchantment was just the punishment that type needed!

Gawain, indulging in his periodic checks on the status of his heir, reported in due course that Lila had birthed a fine, healthy daughter. Not as good as a son, of course, but at least it was proof that this pie had been finger-free. "And the next should be a boy, who shall inherit the estate. Primogenitor, you know-the first-born male."

Norton shrugged. This really wasn't his business.

"There's no man on the estate now," Gawain said as if just thinking of it. "You could still go and-you know."

"No," Norton said, but without the force of his prior refusals. After all, over a year had passed, and there was only so much wilderness to discover. The pleasures of a comfortable apartment and a voluptuous woman...

Gawain pounced on his hesitation with the practiced expertise of a warrior. "At least come see her! I swear, you never saw architecture like hers! And she's a passionate creature, too. She gets bored, you know, alone on the estate."

"But there are surely other men-"

"Ah, but none as good as you, Norton! I really would prefer to have my son sired by you! He may grow up to protect the wilderness..."

Norton wavered and lost. "All right."

They took the nearest elevator to the basement, then matter-mitted to the city of Gawain's estate. Mattermission was not cheap transport, but the estate was paying for it. Then they took the belts to the address. Soon they were there. It was just as Norton remembered it; the mere sight of the door was a shock to his system. Here he had first seen Orlene...

"Oh," Gawain said apologetically. "I can't-"

"I remember. You can't share a room with her. She can't see or hear you, and may doubt you exist." Norton wondered what power determined the ghost's imperceptibility. Could the woman have seen him before she married him? Would he have vanished the moment she said, "I do"? What was the point in this loss of awareness? The supernatural did not seem to make a great deal of sense at times.

He knocked on the door, feeling like a teenage suitor, though he was now nearing forty. In a moment its viewer scanned him; then it opened. Lila stood there. "Oh, you're Norton!" she exclaimed breathily. "I know you from your picture!"

Norton looked at her. Voluptuous she was indeed. Too much so; she had evidently put on weight during her pregnancy and not bothered to take it off after. Now she reminded him somewhat of a cow. Orlene had always been trim, even during her gravid period; she had not deposited flab on her thighs or chin. Lila had. She was still voluptuous rather than fat, but before long that distinction would become academic.

But it was more than that. Lila, in his eyes, was an imposter here. He knew she was legitimate; she had done the job she was supposed to do. She had succeeded where Orlene had failed, delivering a fully healthy baby, and she deserved credit. But his emotion refused to concede that. He could not touch this woman without feeling unfaithful to Orlene.

Sick at heart, he turned away. He knew he would never return here.

He was on Mars when Gawain caught up to him again. He was trekking across the cold, red sands, wearing a planet-suit and respirator. The ghost fell in beside him, as he had done in the park on Earth. Gawain, of course, needed no respirator; he was in shirt sleeves. At times Norton wondered about that, too. Surely Gawain had been killed in armor; why wasn't he still wearing that? Did ghosts have phantom wardrobes? Could they change clothing at will? Evidently so.

"There's really not much to see here," Gawain said. "Just sand, sand, and more sand. Why are you here?"

"Because it's far from Earth," Norton replied crossly. "I like to see new things."

"And it makes it harder for me to find you?"

"That, too."

"I bet you thought I wouldn't be able to get here, since magic is not an interplanetary force."

"True."

"But you forgot I have access to the estate mattermitter. It was science, not magic, that brought me here."

"Live and learn."

"And now I have found you again."

"So I noticed. Now go away."

"Not quite yet."

"Gawain, you have your baby! If there's no male heir, a female qualifies. Why don't you retire to Heaven now?"

"Well, actually. Heaven is not quite assured."

"Wherever. It can't be worse than impotence on Earth, can it?"

Gawain shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. But I'm not going yet, because my business on Earth isn't quite finished. I need a male heir. This is not a legal matter, it's personal."

"Then don't waste your energy with me! Go find another bull for your cow."

"Oh, I have, I have! But these things take time."

"You mean I'm stuck with you for another nine months?"

"Not exactly. But I do feel responsible for you."

"You-for me?"

"Yes, me for you. After all, I got you into this. I brought you to Orlene and I messed with the heir's bloodline. So I set you up and pulled you down. I can't blame you for being upset."

"That's over now," Norton said grimly. "You meant no harm."

"Still, it's a burden on my soul."

"How can a ghost have a burden on his soul? I thought a ghost was a soul."

"Yes. So the burden has strong leverage. I feel the weight of it, pulling me down toward Hell."

"But you were destined for Heaven!"

"Yes, I was, at the time of my death," Gawain agreed. "But the balance was close. You know the bit; it's as easy for a rope to pass through the eye of a needle as for a rich man to go to Heaven. Because I was a man of honor, even though my employment was not the kind you approve, I was more good than evil-barely. Then when I messed up your life, my balance shifted to negative."

"I thought a person's earthly account was fixed at the moment of death. After all, if damned souls could change their status after death, they'd all be scrambling to tilt themselves back toward Heaven, after sinning freely in life."

"You're right; it's fixed at death," Gawain agreed. "Or at least the initial setting is fixed; those who go to Hell will eventually win their way to Heaven, but they have a few centuries or millennia of misery before they expiate their sins sufficiently. A dead man has only a millionth of the leverage a live man has; that's why it's so much better to set your course correctly in life. But ghosts are borderline cases, as are the Incarnations. They aren't yet completely committed to Heaven or Hell, you see. If they interfere with the affairs of the living, they must answer for it, and the charge goes on their account. That was the risk I took, trying to arrange for my heir. Most people won't risk it, which is why there are so few real ghosts around, but I'm a fool for lineage. So now I'd better undo the damage I've done to your life, or it's Hell for me, literally."

At last Norton grasped the nature of the ghost's concern. "I'm sorry if you are doomed to Hell, but the damage is done. If I could rejoin Orlene-I mean, if I could get to know her before any of this happened, I surely would. But that's impossible."

"No, no, it's not!" Gawain said eagerly. "There is a way! I knew you'd be interested. I talked to Clotho about it, and she agreed to arrange it-if you wanted."

"Arrange what?"

Now the ghost was diffident. "Well, I assumed you'd like to travel back to see Orlene, before I married her. Of course, there is a small complication-"

"I don't trust your small complications!"

"But it's an opportunity that comes only once in a lifetime! What future on Earth have you got, anyway?"

"Not much," Norton admitted. "That's why I'm touring Mars."

"I mean, as a living man?"

Norton halted abruptly, stirring up a swirl of red dust. It settled about his boots more slowly than he was used to, because of the reduced Martian gravity. That dust could really be something in the storm season! "My life will end?"

"Well, not exactly," Gawain said, shuffling his feet without raising any dust.

"Maybe you'd better tell me just precisely exactly what the hell you have in mind, to save your soul from Hell."

"Nice phrasing, that," the ghost said uncomfortably. "You see, I discovered there is one person, one entity, who can travel back in time, and he's just about to vacate his office. So if you get there before then, you can assume it. You're a good man; Clotho says you qualify and she should know."

"Who is this Clotho you keep mentioning?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? She's another aspect of Fate. There are three, you see; she's the spinner. So if you take that job, you'll have the power to travel in time and you can do anything you want, any time you want. You can go meet Orlene when she's a child or when she's seventeen. Maybe you can spare her the whole problem that caused her death and live with her the rest of her life. It's all right with me; I've got Lila now and a son in the making."

"You're talking paradox! It's impossible to change the past!"

"Not for this office. This is the one person who is immune from paradox, because he controls time."

"What's this about an office?"

"The office of Chronos. The Incarnation of Time."

"The Incarnation of-you mean, like Thanatos?"

"Exactly. In fact, Thanatos was the one who suggested it. He talked with you, remember. He likes you. He recommended you for the position, and the Green Mother endorsed it-I tell you, Norton, it's yours if you want it. You can be the new Chronos!"

Norton was stunned. "What-what happened to the old Chronos?"

"Nothing bad. He's getting born, or maybe conceived-I'm not sure when it counts-so he has to step down. He'll go to Heaven; his account is in good order."

"Getting born? But his whole life should be ahead of him!"

"No, it's behind him."

"I don't-"

"Well, that's the complication. You see, Chronos lives backward. He has to, to know when everything has happened-I mean, when it will happen. That's his job-to time things. So when you assume the office, you'll proceed backward in time, until the date of your birth or whatever; then you'll have to step down, because you won't exist any more. But since you're close to forty, you have about as much life behind you as ahead of you; you'll come out even that way. Time is no office for a young man! And you'll be able to be with Orlene again! Just think of that!"

"My head is spinning! There are so many questions-"

"Well, come and take a look! If you change your mind, you don't have to take the Hourglass."

"The Hourglass?"

"The symbol of Chronos' power. When you take that, you assume the office, till birth do you part. But we must hurry; we have a long way to go, and I promised Clotho you'd be there today."

"Today! But I need time to think! A decision like this- I never even heard of the office of Chronos before! I-"

"You can think on the way. Come on-summon a dunescooter; it will take too long by foot."

Bemused, Norton obeyed. He spoke into his suit radio, and in a moment the scooter was on the way to his coordinates.

While they waited for it, Norton pondered his decision.

To live backward-to see Orlene again, alive and happy- yet he knew it would be impossible to interact with her, for that would change history. If he went to her before she married Gawain, so that she never became the ghost bride, then Gawain would not summon Norton to sire the heir, so Norton would never meet her and love her- paradox. It just made no sense! It was impossible. Obviously he would not be able to interact with her, but only to watch her invisibly, the way Gawain had; Norton would be no more than a ghost to her. And yet even that was tempting, as the only way he could see her at all.

They reached the nearest transport station, then mattermitted to Mars City and from there to Earth. Gawain faded into invisibility during this part of the journey, because not everyone understood about ghosts, especially customs inspectors. But he faded back in when they were alone, continuing to direct Norton to the correct address. This, as it turned out, was in a rundown section of a declining city. There were no pleasant levels here, no wilderness park topping; just a single level of decrepit pavement and foam-concrete apartment buildings. It was the kind of place a stranger was apt to get mugged.

Sure enough, a group of young toughs spotted him and spread out to cut him off. Norton was weaponless; he had, after all, been exploring Mars until recently, and it would have been pointless to carry Gawain's enchanted sword there.

"Don't worry about it," Gawain said. "I'll see you through safely."

"But you can't touch anyone!" Norton muttered. Gawain smiled. Suddenly he was in the uniform of a riot cop, cattleprod at the ready. "Set me up," he murmured.

Norton caught on. "Hey, sir," he said loudly to his companion. "This ain't a bust; we're just checking for draft dodgers."

Gawain waved the prod. "Anybody I catch is a dodger. I guarantee it. I never missed a quota yet. A few pricks on max with this and he'll confess. 'Specially if I ram it up the-here, I'll prove it! Wanna make book on whether I can net one within one minute?" He veered to head toward the biggest of the approaching toughs. "Hey, you- c'mere! Got something to show you." He gestured with the prod, smirking.

The tough slipped between two buildings and vanished. The others faded back warily.

Gawain brought a phantom radio to his face. "Hey, Snorkel-spread the net; we've got some live meat here!"

Suddenly the street was empty. Norton smiled; the ghost did have his uses.

They came to a halt in a rubble-strewn vacant lot. Norton was surprised, because space was precious. Gawain looked at his watch, and that, too, surprised Norton; how could a ghost have a functioning timepiece? "Fifteen minutes to spare; he'll be along soon."

"Chronos?"

"Sure. He has chosen this treasured spot to pass on the Hourglass."

"You mean this is where he was born, so this is where-?"

"Oh, no, of course he wasn't born here! That address is far away."

"But you said he lived backward, so-"

"He does-and you will too. But it's not a literal retracing of his life. That would be pointless."

"I think it's impossible! The paradox involved-"

"I told you-Incarnations are exempt from paradox. His life proceeds forward, for him; it just seems backward to us."

"I'm not sure I like this at all! It doesn't make sense!" Gawain's mien became serious. "Believe me, it does make sense; you just have to learn to appreciate the manner it makes sense. Now Fate has gone to some trouble to set up this excellent deal for you. Note that no one else is here to take the Hourglass. The chance of a lifetime is being handed to you on a platter-all because the Incarnations are sorry about that little mistake with the baby. They help one another out in cases like that, you see. You would be ungracious indeed to turn it down at this late hour."

"But I never asked for it!" Norton protested. "I'm not sure I could handle it! I know nothing about time! All this is so-I mean, why here?'

"Because this is where they erected a fine monument to Chronos, savior of the world, or something like that. It's a very significant spot for him. For the office."

Norton looked around. "What monument, where? I think we have the wrong address."

"In the future, of course," Gawain explained patiently. "He comes from the future, remember. This whole region will be renovated and formed into a splendid park, dominated by the monument. People will throng to visit it. Naturally he feels close to this spot."

Norton was becoming increasingly nervous. "Why isn't he here, then? There can't be more than ten minutes left."

"He's approaching from the other direction. You'll see him only at the moment of the transfer of the Hourglass."

"From the future?" Norton asked, his brain seeming to heat with the effort of digesting this concept.

"All you have to do is take the Hourglass when you see it," Gawain said. "It will appear right here." He showed where someone had marked a crude X on the packed ground. "You'll have to handle it yourself after that, because we'll be going in different directions."

"Different directions?" Norton felt like an idiot, unable to organize his thoughts, let alone his attitude.

"I'll continue forward," the ghost explained. "You'll be going back. You'll be doing your own thing. Actually, I'll probably just relax and go to Heaven, catching it while I qualify so I don't have the chance to mess up again. It doesn't make any difference; you won't see me."

The ghost's balance would be shifted to positive by this good deed, Norton remembered. Assuming it was a good deed. Well, if it wasn't, Gawain would pay the price! The ghost would not have another chance, for Norton would be committed.

Assuming he took the Hourglass. He hadn't decided yet whether to do that. He didn't like to be jammed into something like this, especially when there were so many imponderables.

"Oh, but you have to," Gawain said, guessing his thought. "Believe me, Norton, this is the job for you! Gaea says you're perfect for it, and Clotho says they need a man like you to-" He broke off.

"To what?" Norton asked with abrupt suspicion.

"Look out-it's time!" Gawain was peering at the region above the X. "I guess this is farewell, friend. May your past be happy!"

Norton looked. There was nothing over the X. "It's not time. There's a minute to go."

"Your watch could be off."

"Quit avoiding the subject. Why do the Incarnations want me as Chronos?"

"Well, I'm not really in a position to know, being only a ghost-"

Norton turned and started to walk away.

"Okay, I'll tell you!" Gawain screamed. "It's Satan, the Incarnation of Evil! He's up to something-"

"I'll go to Hell?"

"No, not you! He can't touch you without your permission-or your acquiescence, anyway. He'll send all humanity to Hell, somehow, if he isn't stopped."

"How can I stop Satan? I'm only one man-"

"There it is!" Gawain cried.

This time he was correct. A tall, white-caped figure had appeared at the marked spot, bearing a bright Hourglass. So it was true! Chronos had arrived from the future. And his office was there for the taking.

The Hourglass shone like the Grail, its brightness inherent and marvelous. A thin thread of silvery sand fell from its upper segment to its lower. The upper chamber was virtually empty; in fact, in a few seconds the flow would stop, the measure completed. That process had a mesmerizing effect; there was a transcendent significance to the termination of that flow.

Norton's mind was a whirl of speculations and doubts- but though he had come to no decision, his body acted. He stepped forward, reached up, and grasped the shining Hourglass.

The figure of Chronos faded out in the fashion it had faded in. The white robe seemed to detach itself from that fading figure and cross over to Norton as he took the Hourglass. He found himself standing on the X spot, the robe coalescing about him, sinking into his body, permeating him and giving him an odd sensation of timelessness and power. Now he held the symbol of his new office-but he did not know what to do. The universe seemed frozen.

A faint whisper came to him: "Over... over!" Without thinking it out, Norton turned over the Hourglass, just as the last sand passed through the central aperture.

The new upper chamber, almost full of sand, began to spill into the nether one. The first sand touched the bottom-

And the universe changed.

Chapter 5 - LACHESIS

It took Norton a moment to figure out the nature of the change, for it was subtle, but he did know it was horrendously significant. He remained in the vacant lot, and the other two figures remained also, and the wind still blew the flag at the top of a nearby building. All ordinary things.

Yet the two figures did not seem to be looking at him, but rather through him. He glanced down at himself and found himself solid, though surrounded by the diaphanous white robe, which seemed to be more mist than material. What was the matter with those people?

Then he realized one aspect of what bothered him: one figure was Gawain the Ghost-but who was the other? A man in a Martian hiking costume-

Himself! Standing and watching-what?

"Hi!" he said, somewhat tremulously, but the figures did not respond.

It was coming clear. This was himself-as he had been a minute ago, waiting for Chronos to appear. Himself- moving backward in time. Evidently the former Norton, oriented toward the future, could not perceive the present Norton, oriented toward the past.

And that flag on the building-Norton could feel the wind and knew in which direction it was blowing. But the flag was extending in the opposite direction. Either the wind at the top of the building differed from the wind below-or the flag was blowing into the wind.

Norton fished in his pocket for a fragment of paper. He held it up to the wind. It tugged directly into the wind-the opposite of what it should have done. He let it go-and it fluttered windward like a salmon forging upstream. Strange!

He stretched his arm so that his wrist slid out from the sleeve of his new white cloak and he looked at his watch.

It was running backward.

So it was true! Chronos lived backward. The course of his life was opposite to that of the rest of the universe. The flag tugged into the wind because he was perceiving it backward. He felt the wind going back toward its source-but that did not change its actual effect.

He could not communicate with his former self, because he was now in a different frame. People were geared to perceive things of their own frame; they simply could not relate to something outside it. He himself had not seen what there was there to see, standing on the spot marked X: himself as Chronos. So now he knew how it was. In fact, he reminded himself, that was no stranger out there; it was Norton-normal. He had followed normal time until he took the Hourglass and turned it over to start the sand of his term of office. Now he followed the new time. He could relate to the rest of the world, perceiving it clearly, because he understood it. His new life continued forward-in reverse.

But what was he supposed to do now? Surely there was more to this job than merely existing!

His eye fell on the ring Orlene had given him. Maybe this could help. "Sning, are you still functioning?"

Squeeze.

"That's a relief! Do you know anything about this time reversal effect?"

Squeeze. Excellent. Now all he needed to do was figure out the right questions. Sning's presence was an enormous comfort to him at the moment! "Is it true that I am living backward, so am seeing the world like a holoshow played in reverse?"

Squeeze.

"But how can I relate to normal people, then?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Of course; he had phrased his question improperly. "Can I relate to normals?"

Squeeze.

"Is there something I can do to effect this interaction? So they can relate to me, too? So they can see me?"

Squeeze.

"Does it have anything to do with the Hourglass?"

Squeeze!

So the Hourglass was important; that was hardly a surprise! Norton contemplated the instrument. The thin line of sand was still gently glowing, off-white in color, a steady thread connecting top and bottom.

Very well. This flow measured time, and it was evident that, though the instrument was called an Hourglass, it actually measured his full career. He had about thirty-nine years ahead of him-behind him-until the date of his birth, when presumably the sand would run out and he would have to pass the thing on to someone who had lived before him. That much he understood and accepted now, albeit grudgingly.

But obviously there was more to this office than merely living backward. Surely Chronos had a job to do-and surely, then, Chronos had to relate to the real world. The Hourglass enabled him to do that-if he only could figure out how.

He studied the instrument. There were no visible controls on it. He turned it over-and suffered an abrupt wrenching of his being. Hastily he turned it back, and normality was restored. What had happened?

In a moment he worked it out; if the Hourglass measured his life, reversing the instrument would reverse his life. He would be undoing what he had just been doing; he would be returning to the moment of his assumption of the office, a few minutes hence. The wrenching was because living backward biologically was not normal; his blood would be reversing its flow, and his digestion-just so. He would lose his free will, unraveling the just-made skein-and to what point? To renege on the commitment he had made when he took the Hourglass? That was not his way! So he would not do that again! He could continue his natural course, though that was now opposite to that of the rest of the universe. He would see this office through-whatever that might mean.

"Sning, are there other ways to affect my status?" he asked the ring.

Squeeze.

"Even though there are no physical controls on the Hourglass?"

Squeeze.

Whatever would he have done without the little snake! Orlene had given him a greater gift than he had realized at the time-and there, of course, had been the earliest true indication other love. She would always be with him while Sning was with him-and he had no intention of parting with the ring, ever.

But back to business! "But how? Do I just will it to do what I want?"

Squeeze. Oh. Well, he would find out. Let me travel swiftly in time! he thought grandly.

The sand in the Hourglass turned bright blue. The world outside became a gray void. He was traveling-somewhere. Swiftly.

Stop! he thought, alarmed.

Abruptly the scene was stationary. The sand in the Hourglass was now black.

He stood in a dusky glade. Before him was something like a large cabbage-palm, and monstrous ferns were everywhere. There were bottle-brush things, but no grass. This was definitely not familiar territory!

He walked, examining the scenery. The only really familiar thing he spied was a distant fir tree. He saw no animal life-though of course any animals would hide from a strange creature like himself, so that was not in itself abnormal. He listened, but heard no buzzing of insects. Where was he? Had he moved in space rather than in time?

"Sning, did the Hourglass malfunction?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

"It moved me in time?"

Squeeze.

"Which direction? Forward?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Hmm, a problem there. Had his question been imprecise? Perhaps so. Which direction was "forward"? The way he lived, or the way the world went?

"Did it move me into the world's future?" That worried him, because it was evident that human life had been eliminated, or at least greatly restricted here, and perhaps all mammalian life too. War or other disaster?

But Sning reassured him: squeeze, squeeze.

"Into my future-the world's past?"

Squeeze.

Back on track! He had it now. Forward, to the Hourglass, had to be his forward. Since he hadn't specified direction in his thought command, the Hourglass had simply accelerated him in the direction he had been going. Instead of moving backward at the rate of one minute per minute, or one year per year, he had moved much faster and farther. Obviously years, for the city was gone; it had not yet been built. How long had this spot been inhabited by man? Decades, surely! In fact, it could be centuries, for even the local vegetation had changed radically. "How many years into Earth's past have I gone?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. "That's not three years, is it?"

Squeeze.

Norton smiled. That meant yes-that it was not three years. The three squeezes had been the signal of Sning's inability to answer.

"Is the answer better expressed in centuries?"

Squeeze-squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

That was a new one! Four squeezes, for a yes-no answer. But there had been a pause after the first. That translated to yes-can not answer.

"Centuries are better than years-but still not enough?"

Squeeze. He was getting better at this! "How about millennia?"

Four squeezes, with the pause after the first. This was getting serious. "Units of a million years?"

Four squeezes. Serious indeed! "Units of a billion years?"

Squeeze, squeeze. "So it's not a billion years back-but a lot of millions?"

Squeeze. "How many hundred million-to the nearest unit?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

"What do you mean, 'No'? That was a numbers question!"

Squeeze. Oh. "Two hundred million, approximately?"

Squeeze. "The time of the dinosaurs?"

Squeeze.

"Then how come I don't see any dinosaurs? No, cancel that; like most naturalists, I have a passing interest in paleontology. This is obviously along about the Triassic period; I should have recognized it before. No grasses, no flowering plants, but plenty of palms and pines and cycads. I'll rephrase my question: are there dinosaurs here-or rather, the pre-dinosaurs, the developing lines?"

Squeeze. "But not right at this spot. I'd see some if I walked around enough, or waited here long enough, if my appearance or smell or noise didn't keep them away?"

Squeeze.

Now Norton noticed that there was no wind, no movement of fern or frond, not even when he brushed against them. In fact, he had no contact with them; his hand passed right through them. "Ah, I get it-time is frozen! The way Thanatos froze it-I'm Chronos now, so I can do that trick too! I ordered the Hourglass to stop, so it stopped me-absolutely, right where I was at the moment." He contemplated the black sand in the Hourglass. It still flowed from upper to lower chamber, measuring out his life with its silken thread of motion; he was not frozen, just the world. "So black is the color of absolute stasis-of everything except me."

Squeeze...squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Another qualified yes. He had better run it down; Sning did not squeeze just for the fun of it. "The world is in stasis?"

Four squeezes.

"The world seems in stasis?"

Squeeze.

Fair enough. He was way out of his own time; he couldn't go around stopping the clock of the universe incidentally. Probably Thanatos hadn't really stopped the world, either-but the appearance was as useful as the reality. Perhaps Norton was in a special state of acceleration, so that the world seemed still by comparison. He stretched out his arm to view his watch-and saw that it had stopped.

Now, wait! He had not stopped, and he was wearing his watch. Was it broken? He brought it close to his eyes- and found it was moving, after all, forward.

He stretched out his arm again-and the watch stopped. Experimenting, he discovered that when the watch was more than a foot out from his torso, it reflected the world's time; when it was closer, it kept his own personal time. That was a worthwhile discovery! His ambience was limited, so that he himself could reach out of it. And of course that had to be; otherwise he would be carrying chunks of the world backward with him, and that wouldn't do. He verified by further experiment that his time frame stopped at the level of the soles of his feet and the top of his head, and spread out like an aura between; actually, the white cloak pretty well defined it.

Then he remembered that his watch had been running backward when he had checked it before. But he had been holding it out from his body then, so that was the world's time. His time was forward.

"So black sand means stasis-that can affect me also, if I so choose," he said aloud. "Partially, anyway; my blood flow does not reverse in my hand when I reach out, but my watch does change. So it's a kind of compromise state."

Squeeze.

"Thank you for alerting me about this, Sning. I'm awfully glad to have your advice."

The little snake did not squeeze, but turned a darker shade of green, evidently with pleasure.

Norton reviewed another aspect. "And when the sand is blue-that's the color of accelerated motion in time?"

Squeeze.

"So I can tell what's going on by the color-coding of the sand. But how can I be here at all? This is far outside my timeline! No, don't give me three squeezes; I'll figure it out in a moment. I'm here-but not solidly. I'm like a ghost here. I can't touch anything, and probably no creature can touch me or even perceive me. So it's like looking at a holo-the world is a holograph, less real for me than it seems, and it is not aware of me at all."

He paced along the paleontological terrain. "I can travel anywhere in time, probably, forward and back. But I can't do anything; it's just a visit, a sightseeing tour. Only in my own time span-the span of my living life-can I actually affect the world. Once I figure out how."

Squeeze.

"Good enough. Let's go home now." He concentrated. Back to starting point-but not as fast.

The Hourglass glowed a little more brightly. The black sand changed color, becoming pink. The world moved.

The sun traveled across the sky, picking up speed as the sand darkened. Night came-and passed in a minute. Day and night, of course! He saw an animal, in the day, but it was gone so quickly he had only a fleeting impression of something reptilian. The creature might have taken half an hour to pass, but that would have been mere seconds to Norton. Rain came, making the herbage sparkle momentarily.

The pace picked up. Now it was like an old-fashioned motion picture, the frames flickering; he was able to tune out the dark intervals and see the land as a continuing thing, the plants growing and aging and disappearing. The seasons passed, but there seemed to be no winter here, just a browning of some plants; this was before the day of deciduous trees. Overall, there was very little change.

Faster, he thought. The sand became a brighter red, and the world buzzed through its paces at accelerated velocity. A fir tree sprouted near him, grew in seconds to a robust specimen, stabilized-and was abruptly gone. A bolt of lightning? Root rot? Life ended so suddenly for plants! But, of course, a century or more had passed.

A hundred million years, he discovered, was a long time, even at the rate of a century a minute; he would have to watch, at this rate, for a couple of years, his time. Full speed, he directed, and the grayness of impossible temporal velocity returned.

Then he remembered: he had changed his position! He had walked away from his starting point, looking at vegetation. He would land a similar distance away-perhaps in the middle of a building. In the middle of a wall!

Before he could correct his error, the world firmed. He stood in the vacant lot, on the X. The two figures remained nearby.

"But I moved!" he protested, relieved.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Again he worked it out. He had moved-but he had been outside his bailiwick, unable to affect that world. So apparently he had not affected himself, either. It might have been a different story, had he traveled only a year or two and walked about. He would have to be very careful in future. Past. Or whatever. This time the nature of the system had saved him from his own folly, but that might not always be so.

"Well, at least I'm learning how to use this thing!"

Squeeze.

"But I still don't know my job or how to relate to people here. Do you know?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

"That's what I thought. You know a lot, but you've had no experience with the Hourglass itself. Well, I'll figure it out." He smiled. "In time." Actually, this challenge appealed to his wanderlust; what better form of travel could there be than through time? The horizons were unlimited!

He studied the Hourglass again. The sand was now dull white. He had learned what white, blue, and black meant-and red. Red meant traveling backward, or opposite his normal route. It was like the red shift in astronomy. Now, if he could just find the other colors and understand what they signified-

The two figures began to move. They retreated from the X spot, walking backward. Surprised, Norton watched them until they were out of sight. Now he was alone.

Of course-Norton-normal and Gawain the Ghost had arrived about fifteen minutes before the rendezvous. That time had now expired, backward. His jaunt to the distant past had taken several minutes, his time, which might have passed here, too; he wasn't sure yet how that worked. But what was he to do, now that he was alone?

He found it awkward carrying the Hourglass constantly, so he set it on the ground. Then he locked his hands behind him and paced in a circle, much the way Gawain had done. Did he really want to take on the immense complexities of this office? He had agreed to it almost casually, but he saw now that it was a most unusual commitment. The chance of a lifetime, as the ghost had said-but also the challenge of a lifetime. It was not too late to reverse the Hourglass and travel back to the time of acquisition; presumably someone else would turn up to take the office if he bounced it. Did he want that?

He turned to look back at the parked Hourglass-and found it right behind him, exactly in the position he had left it-except that it was within easy reach, not several paces behind. Had he paced in a full circle and returned to it? He didn't think so.  He walked straight away from the Hourglass and turned again. There it was, right in reach.

He paced backward next, watching the Hourglass. It slid along with him, not rolling or jumping, just remaining exactly in position relative to him.

"You mean I can't leave it behind?" he asked aloud.

Squeeze.

The question had been rhetorical, but Suing had answered.

Norton picked up the Hourglass, held it a foot above the ground, and let it go. It hung there in the air. When he stepped away, it followed him. When he stepped into it, it retreated. Only when he moved it directly with his hand did it change its position with respect to himself. It was like a satellite, except it did not rotate.

Suddenly frustrated and rebellious, he grasped it and hurled it violently from him. But the moment it left his hand, it stopped, remaining in the air at shoulder height. It had no inertia, no momentum.

He could not, literally, lose it.

"But I don't want the thing following me all the time like a hatchling," he remarked aloud. "People will stare."

Sning squeezed three times, not having any suggestions.

Then a new figure appeared. It was a middle-aged woman. She was walking forward, toward him, from the opposite direction in which the other two figures had departed. She carried a roll of paper.

Forward? Could she be in his time frame?

She waved to him. She saw him! Excited, Norton waved back-but there was no reaction from the woman. Why was that?

"Hello," Norton said cautiously.

The woman came to stand a few feet from him. She unrolled her scroll. There were words printed on it. HELLO, CHRONOS.

"Hello," he said again. "Can't we talk verbally?"

She passed her arm across the scroll, and it went blank. Then new words appeared. WE CAN INTERACT-BUT YOU MUST LEARN HOW.

"I'm trying to!" he exclaimed. "But no one perceives me!"

She changed her sign again. I AM LACHESIS-AN ASPECT OF FATE.

Fate! Gawain had mentioned her. This was an important contact! "How can I talk to you?" he asked. "Can you understand me?"

Her new sign explained, I AM DOING THIS BACKWARD. FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS, AND WE SHALL RELATE.

"I'll follow them!" Norton agreed. He realized now that she was only partially aware of him, perhaps could not see him at all, but knew he was there. So she was following a routine to help him, trusting that he was responding. Once they managed to establish a genuine interaction, he would find out why Fate, in whatever aspect, was doing this. For now, he was grateful for her help.

YOU ARE LIVING BACKWARD. I AM LIVING FORWARD. WE ARE BOTH INCARNATIONS, BUT WE DO DIFFER IN THIS AND OTHER RESPECTS. WE MUST ALIGN.

"I agree!" he said uselessly.

THE HOURGLASS IS THE TOOL. YOU CONTROL IT WITH YOUR WILL.

"I realize that," he said as she changed the page.

IT IS VERY STRONG MAGIC. MISJUDGMENT CAN WREAK HAVOC.

"So I discovered! I've been to the Age of Dinosaurs!"

THE COLOR OF THE SAND IS THE KEY.

"That, too, I have already ascertained."

WILL IT TO BE BLUE FOR AN INSTANT, THEN GREEN.

"Okay," he agreed. He concentrated. Blue briefly, then green. It hadn't occurred to him before to control the Hourglass by orienting directly on the sand color.

The grayness closed as the sand changed color, but altered almost immediately. Now the sand was green.

"Congratulations, Chronos," Lachesis said.

"Hey, this time I hear you!" he exclaimed.

She smiled. She was perhaps in her forties, her hair nondescript brown and bound in a bun, her face developing lines. She was somewhat heavy-set and generally unimpressive, but her eyes had a timeless, colorless quality that made him know that this was indeed a creature of incalculable power and subtlety. "And I hear you, Chronos, and see you clearly at last. We are now in phase."

"Because the sand is green?"

"Come with me, Chronos, and I'll explain." She stepped forward and took his arm. "It's the least I can do, after what we've been to each other."

He suffered himself to be drawn along with her. "We have?"

She laughed. "Of course you don't remember! It's in your future. My past. I envy you! But I mustn't hold you in phase too long this time; no sense wasting your magic. Ah, here we are." She paused at a piece of string dangling by a building. "Take my hand, Chronos."

He obeyed. She tugged on the string-and suddenly they were in a comfortable room, with elegant scenic murals on the walls that looked almost real enough to step into. He remembered Orlene's puzzle pictures with sharp nostalgia. This was the kind of apartment he would have liked for himself. "Nice place you have, Lachesis."

"Oh, it isn't my place," she said quickly. "It's yours."

"Mine?"

"This is your mansion in Purgatory. Here in this edifice time travels your way always; no need to strain the Hourglass. Let it go normal again."

"Normal?" But as he looked at it, the falling sand turned from green to white.

"When you turned the sand blue for a moment, you jumped backward, in real-world terms, a couple of days." She glanced at him alertly. "You did do that? It will be two days before the office changes hands, and I have every intention of being there with my signs to get you started, but that's in my future."

"You were there, and I did it," he agreed.

"Good. And when you turned the sand green, you aligned yourself with universal time. You normally live backward, compared to the rest of us, but green turns you about so that your forward matches ours. It is a temporary state for you, requiring magical energy, so you don't do it unless you need to interact with a normal person. In this case, the need existed. But it isn't wise to do it too long, because of a possible three-person-limit complication."

"A what?"

"We'll go into that technical matter at another time; I don't want to confuse you at the outset."

"I'm already confused! Why did you have me turn the sand blue for an instant? Couldn't I have green-phased at the outset?"

"You could have, Chronos. But that would have carried you on beyond your term of office, since you were so close to its edge. I preferred to give you a couple of days' leeway to avoid that risk. You see, you can't travel physically beyond your term; you become insubstantial, unable to interact with us."

"So I have discovered," he agreed ruefully.

"Had you turned the sand green then, I would have been leading you here-and you would have vanished from my ken before arriving. You see, to you this is the beginning, but to the rest of us it is the end. To us, your term will expire and that of your successor will commence. Suddenly we will have a vastly experienced Chronos replacing the old novice. He'll have us all stepping smartly! He will know all our futures in a way none of us can." She fixed him with her disconcerting gaze again. "Time is power, Norton. You will learn to do things Satan Himself can not handle. No one can touch Chronos in his area of expertise. You will be able to change reality itself. See that you do not abuse that power."

Norton did not feel powerful at all. He noticed that now she called him by his given name; obviously she did know him from her past, his new future. "I will try to handle the office properly," he said. "Uh, about Purgatory-"

"Purgatory is not part of the physical world," she explained. "When you want an extended interaction with a person, bring that person here, and there will be no problem."

"I don't quite understand."

"Of course you don't! You have just stepped into one of the most complex offices of the firmament; it will take you years to get the full hang of it. Fortunately, you have time-literally. You are Time."

"I think you'd better explain the whole thing," he said. "I'm pretty much baffled."

"That's what I'm here for-this time." She glanced at him slyly, as if making an off-color allusion. "And I will;

I owe it to you, as I said. Only first I'd better introduce myself completely."

Norton nodded agreement, somewhat in awe of this unprepossessing figure with the knowing attitude and hypnotic eyes. Lachesis walked to the center of the room. She shimmered-and in her place was an old woman. Her hair was gray and curly, her dress conservative-a long dark skirt, antique feminine boots, a frilly but unsuggestive blouse, and a small archaic hat. "Atropos," she announced, accenting it on the first syllable. "I cut the Thread of Life."

"I thought Death did that," Norton said, startled by more than one thing.

"Thanatos collects the souls. I determine when those souls will become available."

Norton nodded. He was not yet certain of the distinction, but did not feel ready to question it more closely. He had encountered Thanatos in the performance of his office and developed an abiding respect for that entity. In fact, it was really the example of Thanatos that had moved him to accept this perhaps-similar office of Chronos;

Thanatos had shown that human concern and caring did not disappear, even in so awful a chore as taking the life of a baby. Death had stopped being a specter to Norton with that encounter.

Atropos whirled-and became Lachesis again, in her dowdy, middle-aged outfit, her suit helping mask her somewhat portly figure. Her hair was now free of the bun, longer than Atropos', with less curl and more color. "I am Lachesis," she announced, pronouncing it with a hard C, accented on the first syllable-LAK-e-sis. "I measure the length of the Threads of Life."

"I thought Chronos was supposed to-"

"Chronos controls time, not life," she corrected him.

Again this distinction was not fully clear to Norton; again he kept his mouth shut.

Lachesis made a little leap-and landed as a voluptuous, bouncy young woman whose hair was long, loose, and midnight black with stars sparkling in it. Her gown was low-cut in front and high-cut below, showing breast and thigh to advantage. She wore an intoxicating perfume. "And Clotho," she concluded, again accenting the first syllable. "Who spins the Thread of Human Life." She stretched a fine thread between her delicate hands.

Norton hoped his eyes hadn't popped too obviously when this creature appeared. "I thought maybe Nature-"

"Gaea determines the way things are," she said. "Not the courses of individual lives. But all the Incarnations interact to some extent." She gave him a sultry smile, aware of her impact on him. Had Gawain's second wife looked like this at the time he saw her, what might have happened?

"Are you really three people?" he asked. "You look quite different in each-"

"You may have heard it said," she said gravely, "that a woman is a young man's mistress-" She twirled so that her skirt flared, showing her thighs to a naughty height. "-a middle-aged man's companion-" She ceased her motion, and she was Lachesis again, sedate. "-and an old man's nurse." She shimmered into Atropos, who now wore a nurse's uniform and looked formidable. "It seems I am all three. Which are you?"

Norton was startled again. "Uh--middle, I suppose. At the moment."

Lachesis reappeared. "So I suspected. Now I am your companion, though I have been other to you in the past."

"I-you mean Clotho-in my future?" he asked awkwardly.

"Yes indeedy! You have not yet experienced what I remember." She grinned. "Naughty boy!"

Norton blushed to think of what he might be fated to do with Clotho that Lachesis already remembered so intimately. "I haven't yet gotten the hang of living backward," he confessed. "It seems quite awkward, especially when people, normal people, apparently don't see me at all."

"You can change that at will," she assured him. "The Hourglass is your emblem and your tool, and an excellent one it is."

"By willing the sand green?"

"That's it. That phases you in to the normal course. Didn't I tell you about that-or am I about to? You do that when you want to talk to a normal person or an Incarnation."

"So I can move to the beginning of my original life, almost forty years ago, turn the sand green, and live a normal term as an Incarnation?"

She smiled tolerantly. "Hardly, Chronos, for several reasons. First, that would fatigue the magic, and you'd lose cohesion in a few days; green mode is a short-term thing for you, as I understand it. Second, you have a job to do, and you can do it effectively only by living your normal course. Third, you aren't going to do that, even if you could; I ought to know." For an instant, sultry Clotho glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes.

Norton found that unnerving. If Clotho was also the old Atropos, which one of Fate's three minds was analyzing him as he performed what he supposed was private? All three of them had those disturbing eyes. A man who played games of any kind with one of these women was apt to become the object rather than the subject.

"No, you can't remember, can you!" she teased him. "Oh, I am enjoying this! After what you did to me in the halcyon bloom of my innocence-oh, yes!"

"My job," he said doggedly. "You said you'd tell me what I am supposed to do and how to do it."

She sighed with mock resignation. "Yes, you always were somewhat single-minded about that, and on the whole I believe you have done a decent job. Very well, I will start you off. You work most closely with me anyway." She paused as if organizing her thoughts. "It is the business of Chronos to establish the chronology of every event in the human section of the universe. Effect must always follow cause, age must follow youth, action must usually follow thought. Evidently your backward existence facilitates such timings. Without Time, all would be without form and void."

"But I thought that was automatic!" Norton protested. "A function of the universe, the way things are!"

"Now you know better, Chronos. Nothing in the universe is happenstance; everything is determined by the sum of the fundamental forces. Your art is to fit it all together so neatly that it seems automatic. Timing is critical, and Chronos is responsible."

"But I'm only one person! I can't possibly keep track of every event in-in the human section of the universe!"

"You have a competent staff, of course. Your office personnel here in Purgatory handles the routine. Naturally, you don't do it all personally. This is the twenty-first century, after all! You make the major decisions, and your staff implements them immediately. A significant number of people remain in the annex here at the mansion, matching your time flow, so as to provide continuity. I'm sure your predecessor left you highly skilled and dedicated personnel, knowing the office would pretty much have to run itself while you got broken in. But you do have the authority now; if you choose to do something foolish like reversing the course of time for the whole world, your staff will dutifully arrange to put effect before cause and keep the rest consistent."

"I can do that? Reverse time for everyone?"

She nodded. "This is no minor office you hold, Chronos, as I have hinted. Your power is unique. But don't let that go to your head."

"I hope not!" He shook his head, trying to clear it, as if some of that power had already messed it up. "What, specifically, should I be doing now?"

"First, perhaps you should put away your Hourglass when you're not actively using it. That will free your hands."

"Yes. But I don't want the thing trailing me in space, either."

"I suppose it would do that, if you let it. The Hourglass is the symbol and essence of your office; it can never leave your presence. Not until you pass it along to the next or prior Chronos. But meanwhile, all you have to do is squeeze it down to size and put it in your pocket."

"I can do that?"

"Try it."

He tried it. He put his hands on the top and bottom of the Hourglass and squeezed; it compressed smoothly, becoming a smaller replica of itself, then collapsed into a mere disk. "It's not broken?"

"It is eternal. Impossible to break."

"But how can the sand-"

"As I understand it, the Hourglass has not actually changed its form, merely its presentation. Just as folding a paper does not change its real dimensions or the nature of the writing on it, the Hourglass retains all its properties. To it, your world has squeezed down to two dimensions. All is relative."

Norton shrugged, not trying to grasp that, and put the disk in his pocket. "Will it still work in that shape? I mean, if I will the sand to change color-?"

"It should. Your contact with it can never be severed, as I said, so it should respond to your directive."

"Anything else I should do?"

"I do have a few glitches to correct. I spin my threads carefully, but nothing in this cosmos is perfect, and sometimes they unravel. If you are ready to assume the harness, we can tackle them now."

"Just tell me what to do."

She conjured a tiny notebook from the air and riffled through the pages. "This one will do. Two threads got crossed, so that each person will experience the fate of the other. Since one is scheduled to suffer a grievous accident soon, that is an error of consequence." She closed the notebook and it vanished. Then she put her two hands together, fingers extended and splayed, and drew them apart. Several scintillating threads stretched between them. "Take me back to where they cross," she said.

"Wait! You said one person must suffer a grievous accident! Why allow that to happen? Why not make both threads smooth, both lives pleasant?"

She shook her head. "That is not the way the cosmos operates, Norton. We do not live in a simple or peaceful universe. The eddy currents of violence swirl constantly, and consequence follows consequence. If I attempted to simplify this particular life-which I could indeed accomplish-it would only lead to a greater mischief for other lives. God and Satan are at war-have been since time began-and the fallout from their strife is with us always. It is not for me to dictate on whom that fallout shall fall; it is only for me to mesh it properly. I am the servant, not the master-and so are you. We both must do what we must do, implementing the rules that exist."

Norton did not agree with that at all, but realized that he lacked a basis from which to argue. So he dropped it for the time being.

He peered at the threads she held between her spread fingers. Most went from finger to finger, but two were crossed. "How-?"

"This is analogy, of course," she said. "Or a convenient facsimile thereof. If I had the real crossing in my hands, I could unsnarl it here. You must take me to the actual space-time site."

"Yes, but-"

"Oh, I keep forgetting! You've never done this before. Very well-I will talk you through it, step by step. First orient your Glass."

"This?" Norton brought out the Hourglass and drew it back into shape. It remained functioning perfectly; the sand was still falling, and more of it had accumulated in the nether chamber.

"Yes, that. Expand its ambience to include me. You can tell by the brightness."

Confused, Norton willed the Hourglass: Expand ambience.

The glow intensified. Lachesis brightened, literally; she glowed like the Glass. "That's enough, Chronos. Ease off a little; you don't want to take your entire mansion with you."

He diminished his thought and the glow faded slightly.

"That's good. Hold it there. Now turn the sand blue- but only slightly, only briefly. We're going back just a little way."

He concentrated, and the sand shifted color, turning faintly blue.

"Now travel along the threads till we come to the crossing."

"How-?"

"Oops! Too far. Back up a bit."

He turned the sand ever so faintly pink. Suddenly he saw the threads between her fingers expand, perhaps in his mind's eye, until they were veritable cables. The Hourglass seemed to have become a cable car, cruising along the cables, carrying Norton and Lachesis with it. In the distance Norton could see other cables, extending from horizon to horizon. Then another cable closed with the first, and the two touched.

He concentrated, fading the pink almost to white, and the Hourglass coasted to a halt just at the crossing.

"Excellent," Lachesis said. "You're developing the touch already! Soon you'll be the expert I remember." She stepped forward, put her two hands on the cables, and lifted them apart. Norton was amazed by two things: first, her ability to separate such monstrous and solid cables so readily; and second, the fact that he knew these cables were mere threads stretched between her fingers. How could she do any of this?

"That's it," she said, returning. "You may revert us to normal now."

" Norton relaxed-and abruptly the cables were gone and the two of them were back in the mansion in Purgatory. "That was it?" he asked dazedly.

"Yes. You did very well." She glanced at him appraisingly. "But I think this is enough for you now. Relax, explore your mansion, get acquainted with your household staff. I will return tomorrow, your time, so that we can wrap up the other snarls; none of them are as critical as this one was."

His tomorrow-her yesterday! "But I don't-"

"You'll find out." She changed form again, becoming a large spider. The spider shrank to normal spider size, ascended a thread, and disappeared. He realized that this was the type of thread he had taken to be a string when she brought him here from the empty lot. She traveled by threads.

Norton was alone again. He still had only the faintest notion of what he was supposed to do.

Chapter 6 - SATAN

As it turned out, he had no trouble. The household staff was well trained and polite and ready for the changeover. Indeed, they acted as if they had been working for Norton himself for a long time. Lachesis had said time flowed backward here, which meant these people should be from the world's future, but now he wasn't so sure.

As soon as Norton stirred, the head butler made an appearance, ready to handle any emergency discreetly. Norton was treated to an excellent meal served by a pretty maid and shown the complete premises. Much more quickly than he expected, he felt at home. It was somewhat like staying at a good hotel, and somewhat like living at Gawain's estate.

Gawain's estate-where Orlene had been with him. Suddenly this was less enjoyable.

He learned that all these personnel were souls in Purgatory, here because they had been in perfect balance when they died. It was not a bad afterlife for them and not a good one. By definition, it was in between. Eventually, if they served well, they would graduate to Heaven-but it took much longer to accomplish this in Purgatory than it would have in life. Life was intense and leveraged, he remembered; the Afterlife was diffuse and relatively calm. At least this was the case in Purgatory;

Norton could glean no information on what went on in Heaven or Hell. All he knew was that every soul wanted to go to the former, and no soul to the latter.

He was relaxing in the afternoon-day and night seemed to follow the normal course here, though he suspected this was artificially arranged-watching the holo unit-which was filled with news about the changeover in the office of Chronos-when he had a visitor.

"Who?" he asked the butler, not believing the announcement.

"Satan, sir," the man repeated calmly.

"I have no business with the Devil!"

"Shall I inform him you are indisposed, sir?"

But already curiosity was mixing with awe and horror. "I-can he do anything to me here?"

"No, sir. One Incarnation can not interfere with another without the other's consent, here or anywhere. Incarnations are inviolate, especially when in uniform."

"Uniform?"

"Your cloak, sir. It is a barrier of time, acting automatically against any physical threat."

Norton sighed. "Then I suppose I'd better find out what he wants. Show him in." One day ago he would have scoffed at the notion of meeting the Incarnation of Evil!

Satan was ushered in. "The Prince of Evil, Father of Lies, my Lord Satan," the butler announced formally without a trace of disrespect. These were the Devil's legitimate titles.

Norton had been braced for a demon creature with horns and a forked tail. He was disappointed. Satan was a perfectly ordinary-looking middle-aged man in a conservative, dark red business suit. His hair was reddish brown, neatly trimmed and combed. He was clean-shaven. There was no trace of fire in his complexion. His gaze was bland, and he had a faint atmosphere of some masculine fragrance.

Satan stepped briskly forward and extended his hand.

Norton saw no convenient way to avoid it, so he shook hands. Satan's fingers were firm and warm, but by no means hot. There was nothing to indicate any infernal association.

"Uh, to what do I owe the, uh, honor of this visit?"

"Oh, this is merely a social call," Satan said with a winning smile. His teeth were white and even. "You are new to this office, so I thought I'd be neighborly and offer any assistance you may require."

Norton frowned as they sat down. "I am new here, true. Perhaps I misunderstand. I thought you would not be interested in-in helping anyone else."

Satan laughed. The sound was wholesome and warm. "My dear Chronos-I am an Incarnation, like yourself! Each of us has his duty, and it behooves us to cooperate with one another. We have a common interest in order."

"I thought-I do not mean to be offensive-that you opposed order." Norton remembered the nefarious reputation of the Prince of Evil, the origin of all mischief.

Satan made a gesture of bafflement. "Me? Oppose order? By no means! I support order; in fact, I would prefer to have more of it." He smiled again, magnetically. "Perhaps I differ slightly with God as to which one of Us should govern; but apart from that detail. Our designs are similar."

Against his will and better judgment, Norton found himself warming to this affable entity. "Well, in fairness I have to say that I do not side with you."

"And why should you, Chronos? No one in his right mind wants to go to Hell! I would go to Heaven Myself, were it feasible."

Norton had to smile. Satan's humor was infectious. "You don't like Hell? Why do you stay there, then?"

"Because I have a job to do, sir! Who else would assume My office, if I were to desert My post?"

Who, indeed! "Is it a necessary office? Why not just let Good predominate?"

Satan shook his head sadly. "Alas, the human condition does not permit. There is both good and evil in every person, and so there have to be final repositories for those aspects in the Afterlife. Without good and evil, free will would be meaningless and life would be pointless. Each person must choose his fate by how he lives, thereby defining his fundamental nature. Naturally the average person hates and fears the consequence of the evil in himself. If he did not, he would never make progress into good. But the flesh is fallible, and each person is also sorely tempted by the immediate benefits of the exercise of evil. Only in the course of life can his true direction be determined. Every person professes to love good and hate evil, but in his actions his real preference emerges. It is a most interesting study." He shrugged. "But I did not come here to bore you with shop talk, Chronos. How may I help you?"

"I'm not sure there is any need," Norton said, impressed by Satan's discussion without trusting his motive. "Lachesis has been helping me."

"Of course she would," Satan agreed readily. "She is absolutely dependent on your service. I am sure she will make you most welcome, in one aspect or another." He made a small gesture with his two hands that might have suggested the Hourglass, but surely did not.

Norton remained uncomfortable with his visitor. He was sure Satan had an ulterior motive. But there was no point in antagonizing so powerful an entity. So he continued to make conversation, wishing Satan would either get to the point or leave.

"We must all do the best we can in our offices," Satan continued blithely. His capitals and no capitals could actually be heard; he did not use them for Incarnations as a class, even when he was included in their number. "We are all, in fact, artists, shaping our duties into monuments of accomplishment. I am always pleased when I am successful in extirpating the evil from a soul that would otherwise have been lost. That is, of course, what we do in Hell; we travel the avenues of last resort in dealing with the intransigent cases."

"Uh, no doubt," Norton agreed uncomfortably. He was aware that Satan was proselytizing; what bothered him was the fact that the arguments seemed to make sense.

"I understand you lost a loved one," Satan said sympathetically.

"She's in Heaven now," Norton said. He didn't want to discuss Orlene with Satan, either. He felt that Satan's attention would somehow sully her memory.

"I trust you are aware you do not have to be alone," Satan remarked. "Here in Purgatory there are many souls, male and female, and all are eager to improve their balance by serving the Incarnations. Allow Me to demonstrate the possibilities."

"No need," Norton said quickly.

"No problem, sir. Just let Me summon your downstairs maid-" Satan snapped his fingers, and suddenly the maid was there, dust cloth in hand, her hair bound in a kerchief. She looked startled. "No, no, that outfit will never do," Satan said in the manner of a kindly uncle. Abruptly her clothing changed, and she was garbed in a fetching evening gown. She was considerably more shapely than Norton had realized. "Oh, yes, the hair," Satan said, and the kerchief was replaced by a tiara studded with flashing diamonds. "Maid, would you like to serve your master in a more personal capacity?"

The girl looked down at her lovely outfit and touched her shining hair. "Anything my master wishes," she agreed.

"Look, I have no desire for-" Norton protested, though he was privately intrigued by this exploration.

"Oh, my, I nearly forgot," Satan said. "Of course you don't want the aspect of a stranger, for you are not a promiscuous man these days." And the maid changed form and became the precise likeness of Orlene in her most vibrant health.

Startled, Norton stared. Orlene had never looked better!

"We can tailor her personality, too," Satan said. "I like My art to be thorough. She can be, in every material and social respect, the object of your interest."

"But-but she's not the one I know!" Satan squinted at him. "In what manner have you known her, other than appearance and personality?"

"I-I just know this one is different!"

"Does it matter? She will serve you equally well. Perhaps better, for she has Eternity to gain by a successful performance." Disconcerted by the perfect likeness and the plausibility of Satan's argument, Norton could only stammer:

"But she isn't-the one I-it's just not the same!"

"Isn't it?" Satan frowned benignly. "It has been said that man does, woman is. Yours is the performance that matters; she needs only to be its object. Try her, Chronos; I'm sure you will be pleased."

"Try her?"

"I am sure you would not wish Me to assault your ears or hers with the vernacular description, especially since the same interaction can be described more precisely in polite language. I am, as I mentioned, at heart an artist;

I appreciate the qualities of language. I have little sympathy with prudishness per se, but much with beauty. She can assume another form if you prefer. There is no deception here, only an effort to alleviate discomfort."

"Any form she assumed-I assume would represent damnation for me," Norton said uneasily.

Again Satan flashed his winning smile. "I see you remain cautious. I assure you that damnation is not so readily come by, my dear associate. You will neither rise to Heaven nor sink to Hell until your term in office is done. As an Incarnation, you are largely immune to changes in your status, and what you do or do not do with any willing woman is irrelevant."

"But with a soul in Purgatory, a mere spirit-?"

"All are tangible to one another and to Incarnations here. This is not Earth, where spirits can not freely go."

Norton shook his head. "This is not the type of pleasure I care for."

"Ah, you will get over that soon enough. Ultimately, every living person is dedicated to his own pleasure."

"You're right," Norton said. "I do remain suspicious of your motive. You are seeking to corrupt me, and I'm not sure I can afford to believe anything you say."

"Well, I am rightly called the Father of Lies," Satan said equably. "I do take a certain modest pride in the quality of My artifices, and many mortals find them sufficient."

The scoundrel was proud of it! Norton was disgusted. "Well, if that concludes your business here-"

"Almost," Satan said, not rising. He made a trifling gesture, and the maid resumed her own form and scurried from the room.

"So it wasn't just a social visit?"

"There is one minor favor-"

"Why should I do you any favor?"

"Well, it is a very small one, and I am prepared to pay rather well."

Payment for a favor! He had been through that with Gawain! "What can you offer another Incarnation, aside from temptation to mischief?"

Satan studied him, and now his eyes had the same disturbing intensity Norton had noted in the eyes of Fate. "I understand you like to travel, Chronos."

"Yes. I suppose that was the main reason I took this office, so I could travel in time. Once I learn to do it precisely, I'll-" He broke off, not wanting to say too much to the Prince of Evil.

"To see your woman again in life," Satan finished smoothly.

So he couldn't hide this from Satan! Did that mean it was an evil notion? Chilling thought! "What is this favor?"

"Merely to conduct one of My minions on a brief tour."

"Why can't he travel himself? I hardly know my way around Purgatory yet."

"A tour in time. Only you can arrange that."

That was right-he was now the Master of Time. He did not want to do any business with Satan, but he was curious. "To where in time?"

"Just a few years, for a few minutes. He won't do any harm; he'll just talk with a man."

"Just talk? To threaten him?"

Satan shook his head. "My dear Chronos, I do not threaten people! That is counterproductive. This is actually, though I blush to confess it, a good deed."

"A good deed-by the Prince of Evil? How can you expect me to believe that?"

"You can verify it for yourself. There is no secret here; all is open. This man stands to lose the chance of his lifetime. My minion will merely put him on the right track."

The chance of a lifetime-that was what Gawain had told Norton himself, when broaching the matter of the office of Time. But what chance would Satan offer anyone? "Why should you do a good turn for any mortal?"

"As I mentioned, sir, I. do believe in order. My office can not function without order. This mortal man's good fortune will contribute to a lifetime of order in that aspect of reality."

Norton shook his head. "You will have to do better than that, Satan! You must have a dozen other ways to promote order on Earth, without traveling in time to help any one person. Why do a favor for a mortal?"

"Well, Chronos, you are in a position to verify it directly. I will give you the coordinates so you can go there alone and see that this man will suffer no ill, only good, as a result of My minion's intercession. Only when you are completely satisfied on that score need you actually conduct My minion there. That is fair enough, isn't it?"

Grudgingly, Norton nodded. "But I don't know how to travel precisely in time yet. I mean, to a particular point in human events. Lachesis took me on one trip, but we had her threads for guidance."

"I will be glad to assist you in this," Satan said. "I have only the friendliest possible intent. You have merely to select on the calendar the specific date and hour and to will your Hourglass blue, with a preset stop at that spot. That is a fine supernatural instrument; it will obey you implicitly. Once there in time, you must negotiate the geographical distance."

"By walking? That will limit my effectiveness."

"Chronos, you are the Incarnation of Time. That means you have a certain practical control of space, too, for time and space are linked. You can travel anywhere on Earth you wish and to the colonized planets, too."

Norton shook his head. "I don't see how, unless you mean by using conventional transport facilities."

"I am here to show you how. Simply take the Hourglass-"

"No. I don't want to travel with you."

Satan took no offense. "No need, My dear associate. I will explain the technique to you so you can practice yourself. First I must clarify the underlying theory."

"That would be appreciated," Norton said grudgingly. He wanted to be away from Satan, but he did need this information.

"Motion, like evil, is everywhere," Satan said in a somewhat didactic manner. "The Earth spins about her axis with a surface velocity of close to a thousand miles an hour at the equator, which translates to about sixteen miles per minute or a quarter mile per second. That might seem to be a fairly formidable velocity."

"Faster than I can run," Norton agreed. "I am aware that this rotation causes day and night. But what-"

"Yet it is dwarfed by other aspects of motion. The Earth also revolves around the sun at a velocity of approximately eighteen and a half miles per second."

"Causing the seasons and the year," Norton said. "But how does this relate-?"

"But our sun, too, is moving, for our Milky Way Galaxy is rotating, and so the sun is carried around that galactic axis at the rate of about a hundred and fifty miles per second. Just as Earth's motion about the sun is about seventy-five times as rapid as the motion of a spot on Earth's surface about Earth's own axis, the velocity of galactic rotation is about eight times as great as that. Yet even this is relatively insignificant. The known universe is expanding, so all matter is in motion with respect to Galactic Rest. In that sense, we are traveling at approximately half the speed of light, or ninety thousand miles per second. Impressive, isn't it?"

"Yes," Norton agreed. "But I still fail to see the relevance to my situation."

"Peace, comrade; I am coming to that. The point is that, though you and I appear to be at rest at the moment, we are in fact subject to numerous and potent vectors of motion. It is a complex scheme we exist in! And since motion is a function of time as well as of space-"

"Hey!" Norton interrupted. "If I move in time without moving in space, I'll drift right off the face of the Earth! If I travel into the past a single hour, the Earth, as part of the moving galaxy in the expanding universe, will have moved ninety thousand miles every second, or-"

"Half a light-hour, or three hundred and twenty-four million miles, or the distance from Earth to Jupiter," Satan finished heartily. "Yes, indeed, Chronos, you would be lost in a moment, literally."

"But since I live backward, I should be totally out of phase! Because I'm going back to a time when Earth was far elsewhere from where it is now, but I'm the only one going back there, not the Earth itself! And when I jump to another time-"

"Relax, Chronos," Satan said. "Your very existence is safeguarded by the formidable magic of the Hourglass. It counters all the motions of the universe and maintains you in exactly the same location with respect to Earth's surface, regardless of how you use it. Without that protection, it is true, you would perish the instant you traveled in time, for you would in effect be flung deep into the core of the planet or out into the vacuum of space. That Hourglass remains with you and protects you from all mischief, its ambience forming your cloak." He smiled engagingly. "It even protects you from My mischief."

"Can that be true?" Norton asked, dazed.

"Naturally anything I tell you is suspect. But I seldom concern Myself with trivial or obvious lies; they are neither artistic nor productive, and so are not worth My effort. Ask your serpent ring. That is not one of My demons."

So Satan knew about Sning! "Does the Hourglass really protect me from evil?" Norton asked the little snake.

Squeeze.

He liked the Hourglass better! "And it can help move me in space as well as in time?"

Squeeze.

"Indubitably, Chronos," Satan said smoothly. "All you have to do is use it to void certain aspects of the motion alignment-spell. Then you will move-or rather, fail to move, while the universe moves past you. With a little practice, you will be able to travel anywhere on Earth at the rate of many miles per second. But do try it cautiously; the Hourglass can protect you from any exterior malaise, but only to a limited extent from your own folly."

"Folly?"

"When you void part of its magic, you reduce its power to protect you. You could indeed get lost."

Excellent warning! Norton had already experienced one careless jaunt into the distant past. Couple that with a voiding of its protection-could he have gotten himself eaten by a dinosaur? No, for he had never been solid, outside his allotted term of office. But inside his term, there might have been more trouble. Yes, he would have to be very careful, and Satan's warning was extremely well taken. Still, he did need to learn how to use the powers of the Hourglass. "How do I nullify any of it?"

"Simply set the sand on yellow, then nudge it toward blue or red-red is best-so you're differing from normal time only slightly. Actually, I believe you can do it on your own backward time, but it is better to orient on Earth-normal when you're learning, so as to minimize the effect. That way you are dealing only with Earth's present motions, rather than with the added complication of Earth's past or future motions."

"Uh, yes," Norton agreed, laboring to grasp this. If Earth was presently flinging outward from the universal center at half the speed of light, and he voided the protective spell while moving forward in time, he could multiply the effect and jump in space at several times the speed of light. He did not want to risk that! "Why yellow?"

"That is the nullification mode. You wouldn't want it to happen while you were in another mode; you might travel in space by accident, disastrously. So you must make a very conscious effort, which is another protection for you. But you can get the other modes once you are in yellow."

"Uh, yes. But what do I actually do, to-?"

"Motion begets motion. You tilt the Hourglass toward the force you wish to negate. The greater the tilt, the greater the negation; right angles is full negation. But it's on a logarithmic scale, so the first part of the tilt provides comparatively little effect. Another protection against carelessness."

Norton was coming to appreciate the qualities of the Hourglass even more. This thing had powers he had never dreamed of! He concentrated, willing the sand to turn yellow. In a moment it did. Then he tilted the Hourglass slightly away from him. Nothing happened.

"You have to put it in gear, as it were," Satan said. "Yellow is neutral, maintaining what you had before, which was white. Here in your mansion all visitors share your mode, and the Hourglass assumes you are merely demonstrating sand colors. But when you go to yellow, then to an additional color, and then tilt, it knows you mean business."

Norton concentrated, nudging the sand into a red tint. Then he paused. "Why is red best? Why not green, to match universal time precisely?"

"Why, I hadn't thought of that," Satan said. "I suppose there could be a disadvantage to moving in space while phased in to the solid world."

A disadvantage-such as smashing through a building while in the solid state! Norton knew he never wanted to travel on green. Meanwhile, sticking to his normal time seemed to make sense when he was learning. Satan was really being quite helpful. Maybe he was not as bad a sort as he had been painted.

Norton tilted the Hourglass about five degrees.

He shot forward like a cannonball. Quickly he reversed the tilt-and shot backward even faster. He righted the Hourglass and found himself falling through the air, from a great height above the planet.

Evidently he had tilted too much. He had shot away from the surface of the Earth at a tangent, forward and then backward, leaving the ground behind. Ground? Since he had started from Purgatory-but he really didn't know where Purgatory was. Maybe it was near ground level, but part of another aspect of reality. Anyway, he had jumped right out of it. But why so much faster backward than forward, when he had tilted the Hourglass the same amount?

Because he was tapping into different forces. The ones Satan had described were surely not the only ones-and, of course, since a number of them were not straight-line forces, such as Earth's revolution around the sun, they would be constantly changing his orientation to the major motion, that of the universal expansion. So tilting the Hourglass in a given direction would produce a different degree of motion each time. He would always have to be careful! Even with a logarithmic scale, he could find himself traveling too many miles per second.

But now he had the Hourglass upright-and was plunging toward the ground increasingly rapidly. What was wrong?

Then he cursed himself for a fool. Gravity was wrong! He had popped into the sky and righted the Hourglass, so it was no longer moving him-but gravity was another matter. What would happen when he landed?

Well, he wasn't quite phased in to reality, so probably he would pass right through the ground without impact. That would leave him buried in rock, unable to see where , he was going. As Satan had said, the Hourglass could not protect him from his own folly. He had to get moving- under control-before he lost control entirely.

He tried to return to the mansion. He tilted the Hourglass slightly forward-and moved at a lesser velocity past the surface of the planet. But he did not seem to be getting closer to home, wherever that was. Actually, he would settle for a soft landing anywhere on the surface, where he could pause and take stock.

He took a moment to ponder, despite his inclination to react wildly. He could avoid plopping into the surface at the speed given by gravity simply by jolting himself a few million miles from the planet-but that didn't seem wise. What should he breathe? Also, he wasn't sure he could get into deep space, because magic was a planetary phenomenon.

He had set the sand on yellow, then tinted it pink. That should mean he was traveling forward in time, but not as fast as the normal Earth flow. He might be advancing at half the normal rate-did that make sense?-so each second of his matched only half a second of the world. Thus if he nullified the part of the spell that moved him along with the turning Earth, he might proceed, not at the thousand-or-so-mile-per-hour rate of rotation, but at half that, five hundred. Still a lot of velocity.

But he had not tilted the Hourglass all the way, so should have tapped into only a small fraction of that motion, no more than forty or fifty miles per hour. That was not the case; he had actually moved at more like five thousand miles per hour. The Earth's rotation couldn't account for that!

So he was using one of the far more powerful forces- and might have to draw on it again to return. But gravity had drawn him closer to the ground, so he couldn't simply reverse his prior course without going through a segment of the globe. In short, he was probably in trouble regardless of what he tried, unless he froze time completely. But that wouldn't get him home either.

"Sning!" he cried. "Can you help me?"

Squeeze.

"Can you tell me how to return safely?"

Squeeze.

What a relief! He was now within a mile or so of the ground and still plummeting. "Let's play hot and cold! Squeeze when I start to do the right thing!"

He focused on the Hourglass and considered tilting it marginally toward. Sning squeezed. So he did tilt it, very slightly-and started to move forward. He increased the tilt, encouraged by Sning, until he was traveling downward at a forty-five-degree angle, his forward motion equal to his descending motion. This was an improvement, but not enough to prevent him from passing through the ground in short order.

Should he tilt the Hourglass back the other way?

Squeeze, squeeze. Sning was telling him no.

What, then?

Squeeze.

"What do you mean, 'yes'?!" Norton demanded. "I don't know what to do!"

Squeeze, squeeze.

Approaching disaster, or at least discomfort, sharpened his thinking. "You mean I know what to do, if only I think of it?"

Squeeze.

"But what I need is to stop falling, and I don't have any control for that!"

Squeeze, squeeze.

"I do have a control? But I can't tilt the Hourglass up, unless I just lift it-"

Squeeze.

He was almost at the ground, sliding into a small cultured lake where tourists were fishing from magic carpets. He jerked the Hourglass up-shot up as if launched from a catapult. He wondered whether the tourists were staring, then realized they couldn't see him; he was not phased in to their time scale.

Hastily he corrected and, after yo-yoing a few times, got himself stabilized about a mile up.

So it was movement of the Hourglass, rather than tilt, that did it-when it was in the yellow mode and in gear. Satan had misled him. No-probably Satan hadn't known. He had seen the prior Chronos-now who would that be? Himself, hence?-tilt and move off, so thought that was the only way it was done. There might be a lot that the Prince of Evil did not know about the office and accoutrements of Chronos, and it was best that Satan remain ignorant. All Satan's helpfulness might have been an effort to get to understand the workings of the Hourglass better, for no legitimate purpose.

With his broadened control and Sning's guidance, Norton finally made it back to the place and moment he had started from. Satan remained sitting; to him only a minute or so had passed. Let him never know how precarious a ride Norton had taken!

"So now you know how to do it," Satan said with a friendly smile. "No trouble at all, was it? Now you can take My minion to his interview."

"I'm not sure-"

"Oh, yes, of course! Silly of Me to forget! You want to see the nature of My coin. I said I was prepared to pay well and indeed I shall."

"No, I-"

"That's all right, Chronos. I will show it to you. It is an excursion to the aspect of the continuum you can't reach conveniently alone-distant space."

"Space?" Satan had him off balance again, perhaps intentionally. What was he up to now?

"You control time, Chronos; that seems to overlap into space, but that is not strictly the case. You travel by standing still and permitting the world to pass by you in selected fashion. I can control space, for evil is everywhere. You can range to the ends of Eternity; I can range to the ends of the contemporary universe. This is what I offer you-travel in the universe, such as you have never known and can not know on your own. Let Me show you-a sample of what I offer in exchange for the token favor I ask. I am sure you will agree it is a bargain."

A bargain? Travel far beyond Earth was impossible, since magic was associated only with solid matter, like gravity, but did not have the infinite range of gravity. Five thousand miles or so above Earth, there was no magic-not until a person stepped onto some other planet and drew on its magic. Satan himself would have to use a matter transmitter to visit Mars or Venus.

Therefore this had to be an empty promise, a bluff.

Norton decided to call Satan's bluff. "Yes, show me."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 7 - BEM

Satan gestured-and suddenly Norton was zooming out through space at an accelerating rate that left the planet Earth far behind in a moment, and then the sun itself. He was in deep space, light-hours from his home planet, heading toward the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, watching the stars streak by. He had no discomfort; he seemed to be magically protected, so that he felt pleasantly warm and could breathe; evidently the cloak was protecting him.

He had called Satan's bluff-and it hadn't been a bluff! How was that possible? Had he misunderstood the limitations of magic? It certainly seemed so!

There were moments of darkness as he passed through bands of galactic dust. Then he was in a channel of starless space, sliding along a glowing spiral arm of the galaxy, the individual stars shining along its curving length like jewels. He looked up and saw a globular cluster of stars passing overhead, a bright ball orbiting the center of the galaxy at right angles to the plane of the great disk of it. Then he curved up toward that cluster, departing the galactic plane, spiraling in. The tiny cluster swelled enormously, becoming a miniature galaxy-ball itself, with something like a hundred thousand closely packed stars. What a spectacle!

As he came toward it, he decelerated. He entered it- but now it was evident how large it was-many light-years across, the stars thinning out at the edge, so that there really was a good deal of space between them. He coasted on in toward the center, where day was eternal and stars virtually rubbed elbows. He came at last to a magnificent space station shaped like a giant spooked wheel, with tiny spaceships docked around the rim. But as he slowed and came closer, he discovered that these ships were not small, but large; the scale of the station dwarfed them. They were of many types, some being as sleek as needles, others resembling Earthly battleships floating in space, complete with layered armor and projecting cannon, and still others resembling collections of saucers.

It was to one of the needles Norton finally came. He phased through the hull in ghostly fashion and landed on a deck in what he took to be the control region. Windows or screens opened out to provide a panoramic view of the wheel station, the docked ships, and the myriad stars shining beyond.

A spaceman got up from the pilot's seat. He was tall, lanky, blond, and handsome in a rugged prairie way; his legs bowed out slightly and he wore a blaster at his hip, bolstered for a rapid draw. He eyed Norton appraisingly, a stalk of timothy grass projecting from the comer of his mouth. "So you're my co-pilot," he drawled, his lips thinning. "You shore don't look like much, stranger! Any good with a blaster?"

"No," Norton confessed. What had Satan gotten him into?

"Ever blast any buggers?"

"What?"

"Bems."

"Bems?"

"You know-the Bug-Eyed-Monsters who're trying to take over the Glob. The Geniuses hired us to clean the Bems out of this sector of space. I lost my co on my last mission, but they said they'd send a replacement." He grinned boyishly and chewed on his timothy. "I was sorta hoping for a Femme."

"Femme?"

"Pardner, where you been? You don't know what a Femme is? A human woman, or reasonable facsimile thereof, maybe twenty years old, shaped like that sand dingus you're holding, hot-blooded and not too smart."

"Oh. There must be a mistake. Not only am I not a- a young female-I also know next to nothing about spaceships or monsters or Geniuses."

"A mistake for shore!" the spaceman agreed. He hawked disgustedly, looked about, found no spittoon, and finally swallowed it. "We'll get this here nonsense cleared pronto!" He strode to a communications console and punched buttons with his dirty thumb.

A head appeared on the screen. The face was small and squeezed together, as if shoved aside by the hugely bulging braincase. The skull was hairless and traversed by purple veins and seemed almost to pulse with the overcapacity of gray matter it enclosed. This, surely, was a Genius-the end product of human evolution, virtually all mind and no body.

"Yes?" the head whispered. It seemed the vocal cords, too, had been largely displaced by brain stuff.

"Bat Dursten here, sir," the spaceman drawled. "My new co-pilot just moseyed in-but he says he don't know nothing about ships or blasters or Bems, and he shore don't look like much. Sending him-that musta been a glitch. I need a replacement pronto-maybe a nice li'l Femme."

"There is no error, Dursten," the Genius whispered sibilantly. "Norton is to be your companion for this mission. He is competent."

"But he's a greenhorn!" the spaceman protested. , "Never even blasted a Bern!"

"He will suffice," the Genius insisted, the veins in his forehead turning deeper purple.

"Goi-dang it, sir-" Dursten started rebelliously.

But something strange was happening. The Genius was staring with his two bloodshot orbs intently at Dursten- and the spaceman's hair was lifting as if drawn by an unseen hand. Smoke began to curl from it, and his timothy wilted.

Dursten felt the heat. "Ow!" he yelled as he slapped at his hair, spitting out the grass. "Okay, okay, sir; he's the one! We'll make do somehow."

"I rather thought you would see it my way," the Genius said, smiling with his little pursed mouth as he faded off screen.

"What happened?" Norton asked, amazed at this interchange. He could see a dark patch where the man's hair had frizzed.

"Aw, he used his psi on me," Dursten said, rubbing out the last of the heat. "They do that when they get riled."

"Psi?"

"Don't you know nothing? All the Geniuses got psi power. They can't do nothing with their spindly li'l bodies, so they do it with their hotshot brains. That one tagged me with telekinesis and pyro. Just his way o' making his point. I'm stuck with you."

"He lifted your hair and burned it-by sheer mind power?"

"That's what I said, Nort."

"But he wasn't even present! He must be somewhere else on the Wheel."

"Somewhere else in the Glob, you mean. Geniuses don't never risk their hides in space. Distance don't matter none to them; if a Genius can see you, he can tag you. If he'd been really mad at me, he'da stopped my heart."

"If the Geniuses can do that, why do they hire mercenaries?" Norton asked. "They should be able to stop the hearts of the Bems themselves."

Bat Dursten sighed. "You really are a greenhorn! Okay, since I'm stuck with you, reckon I'd better fill you in on the scene so you'll be able to cover my flank. The Geniuses share the Glob-that's this star cluster here-with the alien Bems. Things have been quiet for a century or two, but now the Bems are getting grabby. They rustled several human planets, raped the women, ate the men, and did mean things to the kids. They're trying to take over the whole dang Glob! Naturally the Geniuses don't like that- but Geniuses won't never leave their plush cells deep in their planets for nothing. So they've got to hire more regressive types of human critters like us. They pay pretty well, and I reckon it's a good cause, so we're for hire. Me, I sorta like blasting Bems anyway; wouldn't want none o' them to get fresh with my sister, for shore! But Bems are immune to the Genius psi, so we got to use old-fashioned weapons. Which is okay by me; real men don't use psi. We're massing for a big battle now; we're going to raid a Bern planet and give them buggers a taste o' their own snake oil."

Norton was getting the picture, but still had trouble with an aspect of it. "The Bems-if they're really bugeyed monsters, their metabolism must be quite different from ours."

"That's for shore!" the spaceman agreed readily. "They're a cross atween bugs and cuttlefish, with huge eyes all over and tentacles and slime dripping. Real yucky!"

"Then how could they have any sexual interest in human women? Surely the women would be as repulsive to the Bems as the Bems are to the women."

Dursten scratched his tousled head. "Now that there's a puzzle, now I think on it. But it's a fact that Bems always chase Femmes, 'specially the luscious ones in bikinis. We got a lot o' pictures o' that, so we know it's so. If it wasn't for us noble spacers to rescue them dolls, there'd be no luscious ones left." He paused thoughtfully. "Strangest thing, though-some gals seem 'most as worried 'bout us as them."

"There's no accounting for taste," Norton said. "I suppose if you want the girls for similar purposes-"

He was interrupted by a siren wail. Red lights flashed on the control panel.

"Yow, that there's the campaign alert," Dursten said.

"Get your butt into that there co-pilot's seat, Nort. It'll just have to be on-the-job training. I shore hope you're a fast study."

Norton got into the seat. Automatic safety clamps fastened him down. Dursten hit the castoff switch, and the ship dropped off its anchorage on the Wheel.

"Watch it, now. I'm throwing her into null-gee for maneuvering," the spaceman warned. The weight left Norton; only the seat restraints kept him from floating away.

Then the ship accelerated, and he was thrown back against the seat. This needleship had plenty of power!

"One other thing I better tell you about the Bems, just in case," Dursten said as he concentrated on his piloting, getting his ship into formation. "They're shape-changers."

"What?"

"You heard me, Nort. They can take any form, just like that. So if you ain't certain, fire first."

"But I don't have a blaster!" Norton said. "Anyway, if I'm not sure it's a Bern-I mean, I wouldn't want to shoot one of our own people."

"There is that," Dursten agreed, as if he hadn't thought of it before. "That's how my last pardner got it. After I plugged him, I realized he was only green from spacesickness, but it was too late. Had to deep-space him."

"You killed your partner?" Norton asked, shocked.

The spaceman shrugged. "I thought he was a Bern. These things happen when you got a quick trigger finger."

Evidently so! "I hope you don't make any similar little mistakes on this mission," Norton said sincerely.

"Naw, no chance. You and me's the only people on this ship. So if you see anyone else, he's a Bern."

"How do we know we're not Bems? I mean, for all I know, you could be one, or for all you know, I could."

Again Dursten paused for a new thought. His hand twitched near his bolstered blaster, giving Norton a horrible scare. But then the spaceman had another notion. "Say, the robot can tell. Here, I'll check us out now. Hey, Clankcase!"

A robot trundled up, its feet evidently held to the deck by magnetism. "You yelled, sir?" it rasped.

"Yeah, shore," Dursten said. "Check out Nort here. Is he human or Bern?"

The robot oriented on Norton. Its body was cubistic, with a television screen where its face should be. A pair of eyes appeared on the screen, and these inspected Norton closely, though not quite in focus. A nose appeared, and this sniffed him, its nostrils flaring. A mouth formed. "Say 'Ah,'" it said.

"Argh," Norton said, suddenly realizing that if the robot decided he was a fake, he could not protect himself; he was bound to the chair.

An ear appeared, sliding to the center of the screen to listen better, shoving the other features to the side. "How's that again?" the mouth said from the border.

"A R G H H H H!" Norton repeated clearly.

The eyes slid back to the center, squinting thoughtfully. "He's human," the mouth said. "Probability of ninety-eight point three-five percent, plus or minus three percent."

"Plus or minus three percent?" Norton asked, shivering with relief. "Doesn't that mean ninety-five point three to one-hundred-one point three percent?"

One eye drifted off the screen while the other bore unwaveringly on him. "Correct," the robot rasped blithely.

"Well, now check Mr. Dursten."

"Shux, I know I'm human!" the spaceman protested. But the machine clanked around to focus its screen face on him.

"Human," Clankcase agreed in due course. "Ninety-six point one percent probability, plus or minus the standard three percent deviation."

"What?" Dursten lipped thinly. "You gave him a higher rating than met His finger itched toward his blaster.

"He is more human than you," the robot explained,

"Get out of here, you bucket of bolts!" Dursten growled, and the robot dutifully retreated.

"I suppose you had better explain to me how to pilot this craft," Norton said. "Just in case."

"You kidding?" the spaceman exclaimed derisively. "I boned up on piloting for three years afore I even touched my first ship-and I wrecked that! Then it was two more years afore I touched another."

There was a metallic rattle of laughter from the rear. "That's why, you silly asteroid!" Clankcase chuckled.

"Get lost, you metal moron!" Dursten snapped.

"Lost? Honest?" the robot asked. "A foolish man said that once to my cousin, and-"

"Cancel that there directive!" Dursten said quickly. Then, privately to Norton: "That 'Little Lost Robot' got written up as a feature story in the tabloids. But that ain't part o' this here sequence."

"Why do you put up with such perversity from the inanimate?"

The spaceman scratched his head, dislodging some dandruff. "I shore don't know. It's just always been that way with robots. We need 'em for routine chores, so-" He shrugged. "Now I think of it, I'd trade Clankcase in a minute for a better assistant, like maybe a nice, plump Femme. A Femme would really be useful."

Norton realized that opportunities for socializing were limited in space. The spaceman's mind naturally was on the distaff. "About the piloting-I can't be a very good co-pilot if I don't know anything. Maybe if you just showed me how to signal for help-"

"Aw, I'll show you how to pilot," Dursten said. "It'll take 'bout ten minutes, give or take three percent."

And indeed, what had taken the spaceman five years to master was transmitted in ten minutes. It was mainly a matter of moving the steering stick and pushing the firing button when a target ship was in the cross hairs on the combat screen. The ship was largely automatic, and what little was not was handled by the robot. An idiot could pilot the ship-which was perhaps fortunate.

However, Dursten explained why it had taken so long for him to qualify. He had been easily distracted by available Femmes at the Academy. Femmes seemed to cause more trouble than Bems did!

The fleet drew into formation and warped through space at Woof-factor 5 toward the enemy planet. Stars streaked by the port like fireflies.

Suddenly a red light flashed. "Oh, fudge!" Dursten swore. "An enemy fleet is intercepting us. We'll have to fight."

"But I thought you like blasting Bems," Norton said.

The spaceman's handsome face lighted like a nova. "Say, yeah! I forgot about that!"

The Bemships turned out to be warty boulders. They spread out to engage the human fleet. Soon the two formations degenerated into separate dogfights.

A Bern boulder loomed before their own needle, its ports resembling huge, faceted eyes. Light squirted from one of its warts. "The danged zilch is shooting at us!" Dursten exclaimed indignantly. "Well, just for that I'll blast it out o' space!" His features suffused with righteous anger, Bat Dursten concentrated on the obnoxious enemy craft, getting it in the cross hairs. His thumb jabbed the firing button. "Take that, fertilizer-brain!" he raged.

A beam of light speared out. It struck the boulder. The boulder exploded into smithereens, soundlessly. Norton remembered that sound did not carry well through the vacuum of space.

"Got you, you alien bugger!" Dursten exulted.

But another boulder was bearing down on them. A spurt from a wart just missed their needleship. Quickly the spaceman reoriented, bringing the cross hairs to bear. He punched the button, and the enemy ship smithereened like the last one.

Norton checked the rearview screen. "Bat, there's one on our tail!" he warned.

"You take it, Nort; I got to watch the front."

So Norton oriented the aft laser gun, fumbling its cross hairs into place. He fired, but his beam missed. The enemy Squeezed a wart back, coming closer. Norton, his hand shaking, got the wobbly cross hairs aligned and mashed the firing button so hard it bruised his finger.

This time he scored. The light lanced forth. The alien vessel burst apart, splatting some of its garbage on his viewscreen. Norton wrinkled his nose; he could almost smell the alien stench.

He turned back to Dursten-just in time to see a young woman approaching the spaceman. She was absolutely luscious in her scanty costume, and her flesh jiggled like gelatin as she walked.

The spaceman looked up at her. "Say, sweetie- where'd you come from?" he asked, ogling her attributes.

"I replaced your robot," she said with a phenomenal smile. "How can I be of service?"

Dursten glanced at Norton. "Say, co-pilot-why don't you take over the reins while I catch an errand in the back?" he suggested, unbuckling his safety harness.

"But-but how could there be a replacement when we're in deep space?" Norton asked.

The spaceman paused to scratch his head, his eyes remaining on the Femme. "Say, I never thought o' that!"

"The Genius teleported me in, of course," the Femme said. "Did you think of a way I can serve you?"

"Well, as a matter o' fact-" Dursten began, floating from his chair.

"I'll thank the Genius," Norton said, touching the communicator. His brief course of instruction had included this, too. The panel had few controls besides an on-off switch.

"You do that," Dursten agreed, drifting toward the back. He had forgotten to turn the gravity back on, so he had to hold on to the Femme for support.

The head of the Genius appeared on the screen. "Yes, Norton," the pursed lips said.

"Uh, sir, did you teleport a buxom young human woman to this ship? A, er, Femme?"

"Certainly not! Spaceman Dursten becomes combat unready when distracted by temptations of fair flesh."

An accurate assessment! "But there's one here!"

The Genius frowned. "Yes, now I detect an alien presence there. It is immune to my power. Destroy it immediately." He faded out.

So the shape-changing Bems had infiltrated this fleet, and one was aboard this ship! Norton looked for a blaster, but found none. He spied a loose support rod in his chair, evidence of slipshod construction, and wrenched it out. It would have to do as a weapon.

He set out for the rear of the ship-but his feet left the deck in the null-gee, just as Dursten's had. He didn't know how to turn on the gravity, so had to put up with it. Pilots, he thought irately, should wear magnetic shoes, just as the robots did! Clankcase had had no problem getting around.

Clankcase? The Femme said she had replaced the robot. And her feet had been firm on the deck. Bems, as he understood it, could not teleport or do other psi, but they could change shape. The Bern must have been in the shape of the robot before!

Norton grabbed his chair and pulled himself down close to the floor. Sure enough, there were moist sucker marks where robot and Femme had passed. No doubt about it- there was a Bern aboard.

Norton used the chair as a brace and shoved himself forcefully toward the rear of the ship. In a moment he sailed into the back chamber, where Dursten was in the process of scrambling out of his space suit while the voluptuous Femme giggled and jiggled gelatinously.

"Halt, alien!" Norton cried, brandishing his rod.

Dursten glanced about. "What alien?"

"That Femme," Norton said. "She's a Bern!"

"How can you say a mean thing like that!" the Femme cried.

Norton did feel like a heel, for she was an eye-popping morsel of pulchritude, but he had to answer. "Because your sucker feet stick to the floor! We float in free-fall."

She glanced down at her firmly anchored feet. "Curses-foiled again!" she cried. She charged him, arms extended.

Norton knew he should hit her with his rod, but three things prevented him. First, she remained the most lusciously curvaceous item of distaff flesh he had ever seen, and it was against his instinct to brutalize that. Second, when he tried to ready the rod, he lost his grip on the case of stored cans of beans that had anchored him, so he could not strike effectively. Third, she was on him before he could do anything.

Her mass carried him right back into the control room. She was naked now, and felt every bit as luscious as she looked. Her hand struck his rod and it flew free. Now he was weaponless!

Bat Dursten was unable to help; he was too busy climbing back into his space suit. "To think-I almost kissed it!" the spaceman muttered, looking sick. "A Bem Femme!"

Norton was unable to gain any purchase, for the Bem Femme had hold of him and lifted him aloft. This was easy enough for her to do, since he weighed nothing at the moment, while she had good sucker purchase on the deck. He found himself captive as the woman's shape melted beneath him. Her pretty face sagged into putty; her lovely breasts became great blisters of flesh. She metamorphosed into a mass of gelatin surmounted by three enormous bug eyes. Her two arms became three tentacles, still holding him tight. Her torso quivered in jelly like ripples, as it had before, but somehow the effect was less aesthetic.

"Just wait till I form some good, hard teeth!" she said from the gaping orifice that was all that was left of her once-human mouth. "I'll chomp you to bits!"

Helpless, Norton stalled for time by engaging in dialogue, hoping Dursten would complete his dressing soon and recover his blaster. "How did you get aboard, Bern?"

"I stowed away while the ship was in port," she said. Already fierce teeth were growing in the orifice.

"Are there many of you in the fleet?"

"Sorry-that information is classified."

How like a military creature! "If you're going to consume me anyway, why can't you tell me?"

She scratched behind a bug eye with the tip of a free tentacle. "I suppose it's because I don't know the answer."

Oh. "Why didn't you kill us before we suspected your identity?" Where was Dursten?

"Too risky to tackle two at once. I planned to eat Dursten first, then do you when I got hungry again. It takes a while to digest a man; go too fast, and you get gas."

Norton could see why a gelatinous creature would not want to get gas. "But you could have eaten him when we were both strapped in our seats!"

The Bern blinked all three bug eyes. "Say, I never thought of that! Why didn't you speak sooner?"

"Why didn't you eat him the moment you got him alone?"

"Well, he is a handsome man, and not too bright-"

"You mean you'd actually-?" Norton asked, shocked.

"Oh, we do it all the time to beautiful Femme humans. I thought it would be a nice change to do it to a handsome Manne human this time."

"But you're a completely different species!"

"True. But space duty does get dull, and novelty is the vinegar of life."

"Spice of life."

"Whatever. Now I'm ready to eat you."

Norton, set back by the dialogue, could not think of another question. This was unfortunate, because now the teeth were thoroughly formed and the orifice was ready to commence consumption. "Help, Bat!" he screamed.

"I can't get my foot into this $&%!! space boot!" the spaceman swore from the back room.

The Bern's orifice gaped. The huge, gleaming, new saw teeth glistened with saliva. The three tentacles hauled Norton down into the maw. "Bat, forget the boot!" he yelled. "The monster's eating me!"

"Be there in two shakes of a croggle's tail," Dursten called back. "My blaster floated away; got to find it."

Norton struggled, but still had no purchase. He kicked the monster in an eye, shattering the orb. "Oh, you mean thing!" the Bern complained. "Why did you have to do that?"

"All's fair in war," Norton said, trying to kick at another eye, but he could not get correctly aimed.

"Well, no matter," the Bern said philosophically, blinking her two remaining eyes. "I will grow a new one as soon as I digest you." She sprouted several more tentacles to pin his extremities, rendering him completely helpless. The monster was surprisingly strong.

"Bat!" Norton yelled desperately, but heard only a muttered curse as the spaceman still searched for his missing blaster.

The descent into the maw resumed. In her natural shape, the Bern seemed larger; she really could consume him entire. He continued to think of the monster as female, because of the Femme form it had assumed. Was this the end?

The teeth closed on his boots and began to crunch through them. Saliva washed over the leather. Apparently the Bern could digest these, too.

Then Norton had an inspiration of sorts. "Sning!" he cried. "What should I do?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

So much for that. "Well, save yourself, anyway," he said to the little snake. "Get out of here before the maw reaches my hands and chews them and you up."

Sning uncoiled and slid from Norton's finger. He floated a moment in air, also being subject to free-fall, then wriggled forward, using the air itself to slide against. He moved to Norton's pocket where the compressed Hourglass was and tapped it meaningfully with his nose.

The Hourglass! Of course! Would it work when folded away? According to Lachesis, it was unchanged, merely seeming different. Norton willed its sand to turn red. Travel! In time! he thought fiercely.

Suddenly he was in space, alone. He had traveled, but the ship had not. He realized that the ship was not a planet; the spell did not align him with it automatically. The other way! he thought, hoping this command sufficed.

Evidently it did. In a subjective moment, he was back in the ship, homing in on his prior situation. Stop.

He stopped. He was floating in the control room, behind the two pilot seats. Dursten and Norton himself were discussing the mechanism for controlling the ship. Neither saw the new Norton. Neither robot nor Femme was in evidence; this must be the time right between their appearances.

The prospect of paradox overwhelmed him for the moment. Could he interfere with the events of his past self and change events he had already experienced? He had been told he was an entity apart, in control of time- but he had never consciously tested paradox. He might change the lives of other people-but how could he change his own? Yet if he did not, he would be consumed by the Bern. This did not appeal any more than the prospect of paradox did.

Now he saw the Femme approaching. Hastily he willed the sand and slid forward a few minutes, managing to keep his place within the ship. He floated behind the Bern as she held his former self aloft. This was what he had come to undo.

He remembered how he had been wrenched when he turned over the Hourglass, because that reversed his own timeline. Would it do that now, returning him to this point, or a point before the Bern had grabbed him? He had to try!

He turned the glass-and found himself moving backward, along with the scene. The Bern retreated with her burden to the back room, while he-

He turned the Hourglass over again, and forward progress resumed. The Bern returned.

This wasn't getting him anywhere, because it wasn't changing reality, just his present perception of it. Reality was like a holo he could run forward or backward but could not change. But change was what he needed.

Still, if he could affect reality one way, he could affect it another. He concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand black.

The scene froze, except for himself. The Bern held the prior Norton aloft, both of them like statues.

Funny-he didn't remember being frozen before. But, of course, the objects were not aware of that, and his prior self was now an object. When they resumed action, they thought it had proceeded uninterrupted. So he could have been frozen...

Norton stepped forward, wind milling in air when his feet lacked traction, grabbed a tentacle, and wrenched it off his other self's arm. The tentacle was cold, slimy, and repulsive, but he was able to unwind it. Then he tackled the others. Soon he had his former self free. They were floating, the now-self animate, the then-self a statue.

Very well. He had rescued himself from the Bern. But how could he recombine?

One way to find out. He concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand white again. Normal time resumed.

The Bern waved her tentacles. "Hey, where'd you go?" she exclaimed indignantly.

"I'm not sure," the then-Norton said.

"Don't worry about it," the now-Norton said. "We've got to get rid of this monster before she eats us both!"

"My thought exactly," the other Norton agreed. "No sense giving her gas." He floated to the drifting rod, grabbed it, and tried to stalk the Bern. This wasn't very successful.

Then the Bern helped. She shot out a tentacle and grabbed the other Norton around the waist. Thus anchored, then-Norton raised the rod with both hands and brought it down on what passed for the Bern's head. An eye shattered; now-Norton wasn't certain whether it was the one he had kicked in before, a new one, or whether this was happening before he had kicked that eye.

"Ooooh, that smarts!" the Bern exclaimed, retreating toward the control panel.

Then another strange thing happened. Norton's position jumped. He found himself in the other body, the tentacle around his waist, the rod in his hands.

He had recombined! Time had progressed beyond the point at which he had commenced his time travel, so now there was only one of him. His experience had combined, too; he remembered being mysteriously freed from the clutch of the Bern, as well as remembering doing it while time was frozen. He had been in two halves, and now was whole again. One half was longer than the other, having never been frozen in time, but both were himself. That slight difference in the experience of the two selves gave him a special perspective, like binocular vision, providing a new perception of the depth of reality.

The Bern, however, was righteously angry about her shattered eye. "You struck me!" she screamed. She shot out another tentacle to grab the rod and wrest it from Norton's grasp.

"I bashed your head in," Norton said. "How come you aren't unconscious?"

"I have no head," the Bern explained. "You hit my apex."

Norton brought up his foot and kicked the monster in the crotch. But the Bern did not react. "Why aren't you doubled over in pain?" he asked. "Male or female, that should hurt!"

"I have no crotch," the Bern said, gesturing with the rod. "That's merely a nether bifurcation."

Norton grabbed the rod back. The tentacles did not let go, so he wrestled the rod about until it was endwise and shoved it violently through the jellylike central mass of the monster. Still there was no reaction.

"But I just stabbed you through the heart!" he cried.

"I have no heart," the Bern said.

Three more tentacles whipped forward. One of them grabbed the Hourglass, which was now floating next to Norton. "Hey, that's mine!" he shouted. "Give it back!"

"Make me!" the Bern sneered.

But Norton couldn't make her, for she dangled the Hourglass just out of his reach. He couldn't change time, because he didn't have the Hourglass. He was in trouble again.

The Bern slid her maw forward until it intersected the rod that was still stuck through her body. Then she used the maw to spit out the rod. Being gelatinous certainly had its advantages!

"Now it's your turn," the monster said, focusing a bug eye on Norton and hauling him in toward the maw again.

He kicked her in the teeth. Ouch! His whole foot felt numb from the shock. Furthermore, the maw caught his boot again and the teeth crunched into it.

There was a blast of terrible heat. "Ooooh, you shouldn't have!" the Bern gasped, collapsing against the control panel.

Norton pulled his boot free of the crumbling teeth and twisted out of the failing grasp of the tentacles. Now he saw Bat Dursten, blaster in hand. The spaceman had finally gotten his boots on, his weapon back, and had blasted the Bern!

"In the nick o' time, as usual," Dursten said, blowing the smoke from his muzzle and bolstering his weapon with practiced flair.

"I should have finished you when I had the chance mphnn," the Bern said, trailing off into gibberish as her mouth melted. In fact, the entire monster was dissolving, her substance bubbling across the control panel and dripping to the floor.

"Nonsense," Dursten said briskly. "The good guys always win. It's in the script." He glanced carelessly at Norton. "You okay, Nort?"

"I think so." Norton decided not to comment on the spaceman's inordinate delay in appearing.

"Well, let's get back into action," Dursten said briskly. Then he looked at the control panel. "Yaup! The cussed critter's melted into it! That gook'll ruin the wiring!"

The Bern marshaled enough animation to form a small mouth in the dribble near the floor. "That's what happens, you klutz, when you blubb-drip-popple-ugh." The rest of her plopped to the floor inertly.

"What did you call me?" the spaceman demanded ferociously.

One more bubble popped from the subsiding mass. "Gludz!" it breathed, and was no more.

"Why, you sidewinding bugger!" Dursten shouted, stomping the gook with his boot. "You take that back, hear?" But the muck only squished under his boot with the sound of a chuckle.

"How is it that the Bern falls to the floor, while we drift in free-fall?" Norton asked.

"Forget that!" Dursten snapped, drifting. "The fool stuff's shorted the wiring! We're out of control! We'll crash on the dang alien planet!"

"But we're in deep space!" Norton protested. Then, as he peered out the front viewport, he saw that there was indeed a planet rushing up below.

"Hang on, pardner!" Dursten cried, grabbing onto the pilot's seat and hauling himself into it.

Norton followed suit, though a dribble of Bern had splatted across his chair. In a moment they were both securely buckled in, watching the ground rush up. Norton caught a glimpse of seas, continents, mountains, jungles, and shining prismatic cities. It looked very much like the kind of planet he'd like to visit-but not at this velocity.

There was a jolt that flung them forward against the restraints. "The retros," Dursten explained. "They're on automatic, to brake us so we don't crash so hard."

"That's nice," Norton gasped. Indeed, they were no longer falling as fast-but the descent remained harrowing.

Then the ship crashed, and everything went up in smoke.

Norton shook his head, clearing it. He was hung up on the branch of a giant, serpentine, purple tree, miraculously unhurt. Bat Dursten was strewn over another branch. The wreckage of their needleship was below, sinking slowly into a bubbling gray-green bog. This was obviously a Bern landscape!

Dursten hauled himself upright. "Looks like the Bern planet we came to raid," he remarked. "It's the scum of the Glob! Well, let's get going."

"Get going where?" Norton asked. "To hijack a Bemship and go home, of course." It seemed to Norton that would be easier said than done. On the other hand, he had no better suggestion. They climbed down the tree to the ground. A giant antlike thing rushed up, its mandibles clacking menacingly. Dursten's hand was a blur as he drew his blaster and blasted the thing. It exploded, and pieces of it splatted into the trunk of the tree. "Guess I fixed that creep," the spaceman remarked, bolstering his weapon.

"But how do you know it wasn't friendly?" Norton asked, appalled at the wanton killing.

"You kidding? Ain't nothing friendly on a bugger planet," the spaceman assured him. He led the way away from the tree, scouting for a suitable enemy to hijack.

Norton followed. There still wasn't much else to do. He wished he could linger long enough to study the exotic alien wilderness, but Dursten wasn't waiting. Spacemen, it seemed, had no interest in wilderness.

They skirted an arm of the bog. The gray-green gook hissed, menacing them. Eyeballs sprouted all over it. Instantly Dursten's blaster was in his hand.

"Don't-" Norton warned.

He was too late. The spaceman had hair-trigger reflexes. He fired. The gook puffed into noxious fog that spread out, threatening to envelop them. The eyeballs were hazier now, but still managed to focus on the prey.

Dursten backed off. "That thing ain't dying!" he exclaimed. "It's worse'n it was! Why didn't you say something, Nort?"

"I tried to warn-"

"Well, let's mosey on. We got a long way to go afore night."

"But there's no night, here in the Glob," Norton pointed out. "Too many close stars-"

The spaceman scratched his head with the muzzle of his blaster. "There is that," he opined. "We'd better eat something so we don't get hungry." He grabbed a rich red fruit from a nearby tree.

The fruit hissed and squirted brown juice at him. Dursten jumped back, but got some on his space suit. There was a sizzle, and smoke curled up as the acid etched channels in the material. "Then again, I reckon I ain't that hungry yet."

They came to a large, clear, glassy crystal standing on a block in the jungle. "Wonder what this bauble is?" Dursten said, reaching out to tap it with the butt of his blaster.

"Don't-" Norton cried.

Too late, of course. His protective reactions were just not as fast as the spaceman's whims. Dursten's butt touched the side of the crystal. The crystal vibrated. Light emanated from it. A humming sound developed, waxing and waning rhythmically as the light pulsed.

"Better get on out of here!" Dursten cried.

Norton's sentiments exactly! The two men fled as a Bern spaceball came into sight on the horizon.

"It was a signal station!" Norton gasped. "Now they know we're here!"

Ahead loomed a huge saurian shape. It looked somewhat like a green carnivorous dinosaur with a toothache and somewhat like a twenty-ton grasshopper with teeth on its knees. It opened its ponderous and marbled jaws.

This time Norton did not cry warning. He grabbed Dursten by the collar and hauled him around behind the bright yellow trunk of a tree.

The saurhopper bounded forward-just as the pursuing Bern sailed up on its antigrav saucer. The two crashed together.

"This way!" Dursten cried, taking charge of the situation, undismayed by the sheer coincidence of their escape. He ran for the alien ship that now rested in a small glade to the rear.

"But suppose there are other Bems inside?" Norton asked.

"I'll plug 'em," the spaceman said confidently. He was, of course, a man of action and quick decision.

Sure enough, a second Bern loomed in the irising door aperture. Dursten drew and fired in a single motion-but his blaster made a little, stupid pfft! and sagged in his hand. Its charge was gone.

The Bern had no hands, so it didn't carry a blaster. But it started to change shape.

"We'd better hide," Norton said cautiously.

But stalwart Dursten was already charging the ship. Norton had to follow or let him go alone. He followed.

The Bern had sprouted half a dozen tentacles by the time they reached the ship. Dursten made a flying tackle that knocked the monster off its nether tentacles. Norton came up and shoved the mass out of the door-iris to the ground. He caught hold of one of the spaceman's legs and hauled him inside the ship.

"Thanks, pardner," Dursten drawled as he got up and thumbed the button to close the iris. "Next time I'll get me a six-shooter blaster so it don't poop out so fast." He forged to the control section of the ship. "Good thing I studied how to operate Bemships too," he remarked.

To Norton, the controls looked similar to those of the needleship. He could probably operate them himself. Perhaps the Bems weren't, after all, so different from humans.

The acceleration couches were like saucers. Dursten and Norton seated themselves within them, and automatic safety harnesses came out to secure the men. Dursten punched buttons, and the ship lifted from the ground and hovered over the purple tree.

Another Bemball loomed close. Dursten's hand struck the firing button. A wart spat a shot of something-and the other ship exploded.

"Did you have to do that?" Norton demanded. "We're in a Bemship now; maybe the other one was just being neighborly."

"The only good Bern is a blasted Bern," the spaceman said, hawking and looking for a spittoon. As usual, there was none; this was, after all, the space age.

"Maybe if you just got to know a Bern, you'd find it pretty similar to our own kind. They speak our language and chase our women and breathe the same kind of air we do."

Dursten scratched his head as he piloted the ship offplanet. "Never thought of it that way. Got to admit that one on the needle was interesting when she took Femme form."

That wasn't precisely what Norton had meant, but he let it pass. At least he had made progress.

Dursten glanced down at the dwindling disk of the planet. "Well, I reckon it's time." He slapped a red button.

"Time for what?"

"Time to blow up the planet, of course."

"Blow up the planet!" Norton exclaimed, horrified.

"That's what we came for, you know, Nort."

"But it would be so much better to-to conquer it and exploit its resources! Or to make a peace treaty with the Bems so they won't bother human planets any more. Maybe they could teach us how to shape-change."

"There is that," the spaceman agreed. "Maybe I shouldn't have let that bomb drop."

"Bomb?"

"Sure, the planetbuster bomb. It'll blow any moment now."

"Any-?" Norton said, freshly appalled.

Then the bomb detonated. There was a burst of light. The planet split into two halves that flew apart.

Norton stared, sheeriy horrified. "The planet's broken!"

"Sure," Dursten drawled carelessly. "Bems make good bombs, I'll say that for 'em."

"But why would one of their own ships carry such a devastating weapon?"

Dursten shrugged. "Guess they planned to use it on one o' ours. Now let's get on home, mission accomplished."

Norton turned away, grief-stricken for the death of an entire world and all the wilderness on it. He spied something behind them, in the ship, and blinked.

It was another Bern. But this one was small, with rather cute little tentacles and prettily shining eye facets. The spaceman was preoccupied by his task of setting course for home, so Norton unbuckled himself quietly and got out of his dish. He went to meet the little Bern. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm Baby Bern," the creature piped from a mouth that formed in the top part of its globe. As if to illustrate the point, it started sucking on a tentacle.

"You mean those were your folks who-" Norton stopped.

"We're going on a family picnic," Baby Bern said, blinking two or three wide eyes.

Not any more, Norton thought grimly. There was no longer a planet to picnic on, and no other Bems to picnic with. This baby was an orphan. "Just a moment. Baby," he said.

He turned to Dursten. "How do you feel about orphans?"

"Poor things need a foster parent or something," the spaceman said promptly. '"Specially orphans o' the void."

"Would you take care of an orphan child?"

"Me? I ain't no family man!"

"But you are a spaceman, embodying the best and brightest and noblest qualities of the human species."

"There is that," Dursten agreed.

"So if an orphan of any type needed protection-"

"Aw, shore, I reckon so."

"Well, turn around and meet the orphan."

Bat Dursten, the pride of the space fleet, started to turn.

Norton abruptly sailed through the wall of the ship and out into space. Helplessly he accelerated, feeling no physical discomfort. He zoomed between the stars of the globular cluster and on out into deep space, heading for the Galaxy-proper.

He was, he realized, on his way back to Earth; his sample excursion was over.

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Chapter 8 - CLOTHO

Satan was awaiting him back in his mansion. "Did you enjoy your visit, Chronos?"

It took Norton a moment to collect himself. "I confess it was quite an experience! I did not realize your power extended so far!"

"My power is damn near universal," the Prince of Evil said smugly.

"but one thing perplexes me. You know I live backward, so outside my mansion here I have to make a special effort to align myself with normal people, if I want to interact with them. But in the Glob that was not the case."

"Astute of you to notice," Satan said.

"But how, then-?"

The Father of Lies smiled winningly. "Elementary, My dear associate. That is a CT globular cluster."

"Cee Tee?" Norton asked blankly.

"Contraterrene. Antimatter. Where the atoms are made up of negatrons in the nucleus and orbiting positrons, the precise opposite of the local persuasion."

"Oh. I've heard of it. But isn't such matter instantly annihilated by contact with normal matter?"

"Not when it's isolated. In a CT galaxy, our type of matter is abnormal. This happens to be a CT globular cluster orbiting our terrene-matter galaxy. No actual contact."

"Very interesting. But since I belong to this galaxy-"

"You are a special case, Chronos. A very special case. You are an Incarnation, and not just a garden-variety one at that. You are the Incarnation of Time."

"Yes, and I live backward. Which is why-"

"But you see. My dear sir, contraterrene matter, being opposite in charge, is also opposite in time. Therefore its frame is yours. That is why you, alone of all of us, are able to relate normally there."

"Oh." Norton would have to think about that. "You mean that human beings have evolved there, just like us, though there has never been any connection between us? With the same language and everything?"

"It is called convergent evolution," Satan said. "And this is what I offer you, sir: a pleasant visit there whenever you choose."

"A pleasant visit!" Norton exploded. "I almost got wiped out!"

"Oh? I doubt it. As an Incarnation, you are fairly comprehensively protected from incidental mischief."

"A Bern was going to eat me!"

"Bern?"

"Bug-Eyed-Monster, as if you didn't know! I was lucky to escape with my feet intact!"

"Oh, that kind of Bern. I assure you, you could not have been in genuine danger. The worst that could have happened would have been a premature termination of your visit. You would have returned here when your situation there became unplayable. I thought you understood that."

"Now he tells me," Norton muttered. But he had to admit, to himself, that it had indeed been an exciting adventure and change of pace. His wanderlust had always taken him to new sides of new mountains, and that CT Glob had been a really different mountain! "You have other visiting spots?"

Satan gestured expansively. "An entire universe of them, sir! A good many of them CT, aligned with your natural inclination, perfectly safe for you. Some are scientific, some fantastic, some mixed like our present world. There is some very nice material in the Magic-Lantern Clouds. And all I ask in return is this one trifling little favor."

Norton still did not trust the motive of the Father of Lies, but found himself tempted. An entire CT framework to explore, with all types of people and cultures and planets, and no problem about reversed time! In retrospect, he discovered he had enjoyed the little adventure with Bat Dursten and the Bems, though it helped to know that he had not actually been in danger. If he ever returned there, he might use his power as Chronos to go back to the instant before Dursten released the planetbuster bomb and save the Bern planet from destruction. The least he could do now was listen to Satan's plea. "Do you care to provide a little detail on that favor?"

"Certainly," Satan said briskly. "I would like to do a favor for a man about twenty years ago. I am in a position to know, because of hindsight, that a single choice of his had profound effects on his life. He made the wrong choice, and it led to his early demise. Had he made the right choice, it would have led to love and life with a beautiful and wealthy heiress, and phenomenal well-being for him. So now I would like to correct My error of omission and send a minion back to advise that man of the correct choice."

"Why should you, the Prince of Evil, care to do a good deed for a mortal man?" Norton asked suspiciously.

Satan grinned disarmingly. "I have My favorites, too, Chronos. I try to reward those who help Me, and I am generous when pleased. In death, this man impressed Me favorably and rendered good service; now I wish to reward him by granting him, retroactively, the one thing he thought forever beyond his reach-an excellent life. He will probably go to Heaven thereafter, and so I shall lose him- but as I said, I am generous and I keep My promises."

Bearing An Hourglass Norton wasn't sure he believed that, but he doubted there was any percentage in arguing with the Father of Lies. "Give me his spacetime address."

"Certainly!" Satan conjured a scroll on which was written neatly in blood a place and time.

"Kilvarough," Norton read, taking the scroll. "The Mess o' Pottage shop." He looked up. "What's that man's name?"

Satan scratched his head, a bit like Bat Dursten. "Did I omit that detail? How silly of Me! The name escapes Me at the moment-I do have countless clients, you know-but I will have My minions research it before we meet again. You will, of course, want to verify the situation yourself before you act on this and you can find the shop with the present information."

"Yes," Norton agreed. "Understand, Satan-I'm making no promise. If I don't like the deal, I won't take your minion."

"Understood, of course. I know better than to attempt to deceive a person of your perspicacity." Then Satan raised his finger, marking an afterthought. "But until I locate that specific name, there could be confusion. Allow Me to provide you a ready way to contact Me, in case of need." He curved his fingers, and abruptly a thin chain was there, anchored to an amulet. "Accept this, sir, and blow it to summon Me. I will hear it, wherever and whenever, and come to your aid."

"Well, I really don't think-" But already Satan was pushing it into his hand. The amulet was a little horn with a flared rim, made of brass. Norton shrugged and put the chain on over his head. He didn't anticipate needing Satan's aid in anything, but there was no point in antagonizing him. He could simply ignore the amulet.

Sning squeezed twice, not liking even this gesture, but Norton felt that in this case expedience was preferable to affront. Let it be, he thought, and, reluctantly, Sning shut up.

Satan stood and saluted with one hand. "Farewell, sir!" He vanished in a small puff of smoke.

Before Norton could organize his thoughts, the butler appeared. "Another visitor, sir."

"Who?" Norton asked shortly. He did not seem to be physically tired from the adventure in the CT Glob, but a great deal had happened recently, and he was about ready to call it a day.

"Clotho, sir."

"Who?"

"An aspect of Fate, sir."

"Oh." Now it registered. He had seen only a flash of the youngest form of Fate and had been impressed, but the name had not made the same impression her body had. "Show her in." Fate was a remarkable woman, with her three forms.

Clotho stepped daintily in. She was not only young, she was lovely. She had done something to her hair so that it fell loosely to her shoulders in a gleaming cascade, and her dress was alluring. It was bright blue, with a peeka-boo bodice that offered a startlingly intimate peek. "Ready for this day's work, Chronos?" she asked.

"I think I've already had a day's work," he replied.

"Oh? Will we do this tomorrow? It's my future and your past, remember. I assume I'm doing things in proper order for you, but it's easy to get confused."

Norton laughed, relaxing. "No, it's my confusion, not yours. You introduced me to my office and showed me how to function, and now we'll do more substantial work together as I learn the details of my job. I'm sure I'll get it all straight in due course. What I meant was that Satan has been here this morning-it is morning?"

"Midday," she said. "Time is normal for you, here in your mansion. But when I depart here, it will be earlier than I arrived. I'll have to avoid meeting myself, to prevent needless confusion."

"I know the feeling!" Then something else occurred to him. "It was afternoon when Satan came to visit me, and then-why did I think it was morning? It should be evening'

"Probably you have spent the night," she suggested.

"I plan to come to orient you tomorrow, in my Lachesis aspect, as that is your last day of office."

"Yes, then a day has passed for me," he agreed. "But I don't remember it! Satan sent me to an-an alternate universe for an adventure, but-"

"How long were you there?"

"It's hard to tell. It seemed like an hour, but things fuzzed out when I was traveling, so-"

"So it could have been a day," she finished. "Satan is the master of deception. He can make an instant seem like an eternity, and vice versa. It is illusion, of course; only you can truly control time. But Satan's illusions can be doozies."

"Yes, that must be it. I spent a day there, all told, and returned here. Anyway, Satan wants a favor, and-"

"Don't trust Satan!" Clotho said. "He is the most sinister and devious of the Incarnations! He is always concocting mischief."

"I don't plan to take anything he tells me at face value. But he has been helpful, so I will at least give him a hearing."

"Well, leave me out of it," Clotho said. "I suppose we all have to learn about Satan in our own fashions. Now- let's get to work. Do you know how to use your Hourglass to read individual threads?"

"Not yet," Norton admitted.

"Well, you were good enough at it yesterday, so I know you'll catch on readily." She proceeded to teach him how to orient on the particular life-thread of a person, and how to fix on the exact place that thread had to be started, kinked, and cut. He was interested, but he kept being distracted by her peek-a-boo display that served as a backdrop for the threads as she held them up between her hands, and feared he seemed inattentive at times.

The start of each thread was a mortal birth, each kink was a key event in that life, and the cut end marked the termination of that life. These were only the special lives, Clotho explained; his staff and hers did most of the routine planning. Norton found it confusing at first, but soon he had the Hourglass ticking off indications rapidly. Each minuscule grain of sand, it seemed, was something like a mortal life, matching each of Fate's fine threads.

He glanced at his Hourglass with new appreciation. All those fine grains of sand-all of humanity, represented in this one instrument! Each single grain too small to perceive by itself, yet of total significance for its person. Did the cosmos care about any single grain of life-sand? About when or where it flowed, or the satisfaction of its tiny existence?

After several hours, Clotho paused and stretched, flexing the peek-a-boo. "All work and no play," she said and moved into his arms.

Startled, Norton froze. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Oh, haven't we done this before, in your scheme?" she asked. "I keep forgetting-you're coming from the other direction. This is new to you, isn't it?"

"Everything is new to me," he agreed.

"Well, I think this is the time to begin, then, because in the recent past we have-" She paused. "But why should I spoil it for you by my memories? Come on, I'll lead you through."

"Through what?"

"Silly boy! Why do you think I came as Clotho? I am the young man's-"

"Oh. You-Lachesis-did say something about-"

She cut him off with a kiss. She was a most attractive woman in this guise, but his painful memory of Orlene remained, and he wasn't ready for this. He drew away. "I hardly know you!" he protested.

She laughed, unrebuffed. "With any other person, I'd say you were joking! But that's all in your future, isn't it? Very well-what do you think is holding you back?"

Norton pondered. "I don't suppose you'd care to believe anything about my not being a casual sort of person?"

She laughed merrily. "You? You forget that I measured your thread before you assumed this office! You're fully casual with women!"

"You know me too well!" he agreed ruefully. He kept allowing himself to be deceived by appearances, when by now he ought to know better. Clotho had those deep eyes of Fate and she was no young or innocent damsel. No, indeed! She was an Incarnation, with all the subtle power that implied. "But all that stopped when I met Orlene. She was the first true love I experienced, and-"

"Oh, yes, of course-that's still fresh in your mind! How silly of me to forget! It is my position to help you get over that so you can focus without reservation on your office. Very well-we'll take time off to go see your mortal woman."

"We?"

"Well, you could take me with you if you chose; it's in your magical power to do so. But I agree: for this, you'd better go alone." She fished in her dark hair and drew forth a single strand. "Here is Orlene's thread. Truncated, as you can see; only a third as long as it should have been. You can, of course, restore the full length, if you wish. The powers of the Incarnations are great, but none are absolute where they overlap those of other Incarnations. Orient your Glass on this, and you'll find her anywhere you choose."

Norton had been learning the technique of thread orientation. He touched the Hourglass to the thread, then willed the sand blue.

The mansion vanished. He was zooming along the thread as if riding a cablecar. Events of the world rushed past, glimpsed momentarily. Slow, he thought, and progress eased, the glimpses becoming longer.

It was Orlene's life he was following, backward. Her individual motions were too rapid for him to focus on, but her surroundings had more staying power. A building she had spent time in-perhaps a school-abruptly vanished. It had been unconstructed, and she moved on to a lesser school, more crowded. Trees around her home slowly shrank, their foliage flickering on and off through the seasons, the deciduous trees becoming suddenly clothed in bright leaves which then faded to green and eventually sucked back into the twigs and branches. The lawn grass kept jumping high, then smoothing down till nearly bald, then being mowed high again. The house became brightly painted, then abruptly turned dull.

He brought himself to a random halt. He was in a school class, looking at a girl about ten years old. The scene was strange; in a moment he realized this was because he was viewing it backward. He had halted himself, not time, and now was living normally, for him. No one here was aware of him-but if he changed to match the world's time flow, he would become visible, disrupting the scene, so he let it be.

This was evidently a cooking class, with the teacher demonstrating how to bake a pie by using pyro-magic. Under her reversed guidance, the demonstration pie proceeded from brown to gold and on into pasty white. Norton watched the young Orlene, a pretty girl even at this age. Alas, she was not paying full attention, but was whispering with a female companion in girlish fashion. Her pie would probably be botched.

He turned the sand red and moved a few years into this Orlene's future, then watched her backward again. This time she was lying on her bed at home, in jeans and a man's shirt-what was there about men's shirts that caused girls to prefer them to their own?-chatting into her holophone. It was a boy in the image, tousle-haired, animated, obviously full of the enthusiasm of the moment. Orlene was now about fifteen, and was assuming much of her adult beauty; he recognized some of her little mannerisms, as yet unperfected. He felt a surge of nostalgia; this girl was in the visible process of becoming the woman he had loved.

He moved three more years along her life, to her age eighteen. Now she was playing squash with a young man. It was a game that brought the active players into close proximity, since they shared the court as they slammed the ball against the wall, and therefore seemed to be popular for mixed couples. The man was obviously beating her, but the motions of her body as she strove for points were beautiful. The ball rebounded and flew at her, and she swung her racket backward to intersect it, whereupon it flew back from her while she wore a look of expectant concentration. Orlene had matured into a healthy, lovely young woman, and it was sweetly painful for Norton to look at her. Those limbs, that torso, that face with the backward-flying hair-he had known them all intimately, in her present future. Those lips-he had kissed them, years hence. Orlene-he would love her and loved her still.

He followed her through to the beginning of the game, when she was fresh, clean, unglowing, and ready for anything. She bade hello to her opponent-date and strode backward away from him to the female changing room. Norton hesitated, then decided not to pursue her there; he knew what her body was like, but this was inappropriate peeking.

He was not doing this just to be a voyeur. He wanted to rescue the woman he loved from her dreadful fate. Now he knew he could do it; his experience in rescuing himself from the Bern in the Glob had proved that. He was immune from paradox; he could change his own past and those of others without nullifying his present. He did not intend to abuse this power, but he did intend to spare her.

Where was the best place to act? When was best? Probably before he, Norton, had met her, so he would not have to interfere openly with himself. Would this nullify his association with her? Yes, surely it would-but that would be replaced by a new association, a better one. In fact, he could void the whole ghost marriage and marry her himself.

But first he had better make sure of his power. He wanted to interact with her in a noncritical period of her life, not to change anything, just to be sure he knew what he was doing. This was no ordinary person; this was Orlene!

He moved back along the thread to her childhood, to the time when she was seven years old, on her summer vacation after her first year of formal school. Now she was not using a holophone, because that instrument had not yet been commercially developed; the old sonic ones were still extant. Anyway, she was too young for social interchanges with interested boys; she was a wild-honeyhaired spirit, running through one of the early city rooftop parks. The trees were still in big pots, and ramparts showed; true wilderness was a thing of future parks. A lot of the bad old pollution and messiness remained in the world; soon the political climate would change, greatly facilitating improvement, but it had not happened at this moment.

She was with a party of children, but strayed from them, skipped happily down a bypath, and got lost. Worried, she gazed at the several bifurcations of the paved path, unsure which to take. Norton, having traveled past her immediate future, knew that she would be lost for a good thirty-five minutes, an eternity at that age, and be in tears before a park attendant rescued her from bewilderment and brought her back to her party. This was the appropriate time to approach her.

He tuned in to the beginning other isolation and turned the sand green. Now he was in phase with her.

"Hello, Orlene," he said gently. He was a grown man and she was a child, but he felt almost shy.

She stopped her nervous ambulation and turned quickly to face him. "Oh-I didn't see you!" she exclaimed. "Who are you, mister, in that funny dress?"

He was wearing the white robe of his office, of course. "I am-" He hesitated; he hadn't thought this through. He couldn't tell her he was Chronos; she would hardly understand. Neither could he tell her he was her future lover. "A friend."

"Can you tell me how to get back?"

"I'll try. I think it's this way." He gestured toward the correct path, and they walked along it.

"How did you know my name?" Orlene asked brightly.

"I've seen you in school."

"Oh, you're a teacher!" she exclaimed, as if it were the most important thing in the world.

"Well-" But she was already skipping ahead, her piggybraids flouncing.

I love her even as a child, he thought, surprised and somewhat awed at the extent of his own commitment. He had been, as Clotho had chided him, free with women; this one had chained his soul. He followed after, trying to think of suitable comments to make or questions to ask.

Then Oriene made a glad little cry. "There they are!" She ran to join her group.

The adult guide turned at the sound of her voice. Norton hastily shifted sand and faded out of contemporary view. Oriene was all right; she was an innocent child. She had been spared a bad half hour. He was glad he had been able to do her that small service. But adults were another matter. They would ask the wrong questions.

So his dialogue with Oriene had amounted to nothing. There had been no meaningful personal interaction.

No, not entirely true. She would probably forget the stranger in the white dress, but he had discovered the extent of his captivity. Now he knew he needed to rehearse himself better for questions. It had been a good practice session.

Should he go back those few minutes in time and replay it, trying to effect a more personal contact? He decided not to. He had verified what he wanted to; he could interact with her without wreaking havoc or generating paradox. Now he could proceed with confidence to change her life significantly.

He moved back and forth along her life-thread, sampling it here and there, zeroing in on the appropriate region. He traced, somewhat erratically, her life up to the point at which the family of Gawain the Ghost had contacted her and made her the offer she could not refuse. There had been other men in her young life-Norton spied on these passing relationships with a certain voyeuristic jealousy, though he knew from his own prior experience that she had been a virgin bride. Oriene had been looking for Mister Right and had not been able to choose among those who were handsome and stupid, smart but poor, or rich but degenerate. She, like any sensible girl, wanted perfection in a man, and it was hard to come by. Thus she was the perfect candidate for the ghost marriage: attractive, intelligent, pristine, and reasonably ambitious for security and creature comfort.

There was a period of about three months before Gawain's family came, when Oriene had no romantic attachment. This was ideal for Norton's purpose.

He located a day when she was home watching a dull holo rerun and phased in. He knew the young woman of twenty would not be even fractionally as accepting as the girl of seven had been, so he planned his approach more carefully. But he planned no deception; that would be the wrong way to start a relationship as important as this.

He knew she was alone today; that was a major reason he selected this time. Her father was away on a business trip, and her mother was on a shopping spree. So Oriene was minding the house. There would be a good six hours, if he managed it correctly-and if he did not, he would wind it back and try again. That was one huge advantage of his present office: he could replay scenes to correct errors. Of course, he would have to undergo the discomfort of reversing himself also, because he did not want several copies of himself competing for her attention. But with luck he would not make any bad errors, and would not have to run his own line backward for more than a minute or so at a time.

He phased in outside her house and stepped up to the door. Again he felt something very like stage fright; his pulse was racing. But he kept a rein on himself and held his thumb on the pattern-recognition panel. In a moment Orlene's image appeared on the doorscreen. "Sorry, we aren't buying," she said pertly.

"I am not a salesman," Norton said. "I am a storyteller." He had cadged many a meal that way in his past life; he had always told good stories that made people welcome him. This was the age of holo entertainment, but there was a special quality to genuine, live, personal narrative that still attracted people. The machines and the spells could never take over entirely!

"A what?"

"A storyteller. In this futuristic age, I revert to old-fashioned values. I tell stories by hand. By mouth, I mean."

"You're selling holotapes?"

"No tapes. Just myself. Every narration an original! If you care to listen, I will-"

"Sorry," she said, and the screen blanked. He had blown it. She was, of course, not paying much attention to strangers. This was a sensible attitude for young women alone in houses.

He overturned the Hourglass and reversed time for himself and her, unwinding the prior sequence. Naturally she would not be aware of this; her life was erased to that extent.

"You're selling holotapes?" she asked as he resumed forward motion, thirty seconds back.

"No tapes. Stories. About young women who play pianos with rare skill and squash with lesser skill."

She hesitated, surprised. He had described her, of course. "What is this?"

"Stories about people who like picture puzzles," he said. "And walks in parks. And babies."

She stared at him through the screen. "Who are you, really?"

"I doubt you would believe that."

"Try me."

"I am Chronos-the human Incarnation of Time."

She laughed. "One for one! I certainly don't believe that!"

"I can show you tricks with time-"

"Don't bother, thank you." The screen faded. He rolled time back again. "Try me," she said. "Your future associate. You will enter into a ghost marriage and-"

The screen faded.

He reversed time again. "Try me," she said. He held up his left hand. "Sning, show her." Sning uncoiled and slid into his palm. "Oh, how cute!" Orlene exclaimed. "I've got one just like it!"

"You gave me this," Norton said. "It's yours."

"I did not! I have mine right here!" She paused, then brought up a duplicate snake ring.

This made Norton pause. Could Sning meet himself?

Why not? Norton had met himself in the Glob. Sning had probably doubled up that time, too. "Maybe they should meet."

She put her ring on her finger and paused again, evidently thinking a question at it. After a moment she shrugged and opened the door. "He says you're okay," she said, almost apologetically. Norton entered, feeling somewhat the way he had felt when he first met her, almost three years hence. She was so lovely, and he so ordinary, and he wanted so much from her; how could he make known his ambition?

He touched the table with his left hand, and Sning slithered off to join the other snake. Apparently duplication of creatures was no problem, though he was sure paradox lurked in the shadows. How far did his immunity extend?

"May I get you something?" Orlene asked. "No, thanks. I think I'd just better tell you what is on my mind." He drew out a chair and sat down at the table. She took a chair opposite. "You certainly act as if you know me."

"Let me show you my nature," he said. "What I have to say will be more credible, once you understand that."

"Perhaps," she agreed noncommittally. He wondered whether she was inspecting him for glow. Perhaps not; she was looking at him as an intriguing stranger, not as a marriage prospect, so the glow might not be in evidence- if, indeed, he was at this stage a good marriage prospect for her. Of that he could hardly be sure. He loved her, yes-but there was already more to this relationship than love.

"I am Chronos, the Incarnation of Time." This time she did not retreat; she was intrigued enough to listen. "I can reverse the flow of time, in part or in whole. Here." He fished in his pocket for a pebble he had saved for its Norton started to laugh-and it froze in his throat. What was the distinction between bad intentions and bad results? Now he could tell her the truth-but he found his tongue balking.

If he told her, developed a relationship with her now, married her, and shared her life-ah, such joy in the mere contemplation!-so that the ghost marriage never took place-discounting any paradox, since he was immune- what kind of a life would it be? He was no longer an ordinary man; he was Chronos, living backward, able to relate to ordinary people only by reversing his own life course temporarily. As a normal man, he could have done it; in his present capacity, there was really nothing he could offer her. He had been thinking only of himself, not of her.

"I thought I had something," he said. "I fear I do not."

"Well, what were you going to tell me before you had second thoughts?"

He breathed deeply. She had asked; he should tell. "I- in the near future-when I was still a normal man-I met you and loved you." There; it was out.

"I had gathered as much," she replied. "The way you have been watching me, your possession of my ring, and the way you glow so brightly. It had to be love."

Her candor set him back. "Don't love me!" he blurted. "I was the unwitting cause of your death!"

"My death!"

"It-it's a complicated story. I don't want that to happen-but the alternative I had in mind, of taking you away from that course now-that's no good either. I love you, but I can only hurt you."

"Hurt me? No, you would not do that. The glow-"

"Ask Sning!" She paused. "My ring says no, you would not hurt me.

But your ring says yes, you would."

"They are the same ring-but mine has more experience. Do not associate with me when you meet me in two years. Then perhaps you will have a better life."

"But if you are the one I am fated to love-"

"It's a cursed love!"

She shook her head, perplexed. "You're not making much sense, you know."

"Look at my choices. If I-if we have a relationship in two years, you will have a baby who dies and you will suicide. But if we have a relationship now, when I am Chronos-I live backward! I could associate with you only for perhaps half an hour at a time, beginning now, and each time I met you, you would be younger. Not only would you not remember me, you would soon be too young for-" He spread his hands helplessly.

She nodded. "Now you are making sense, and your ring confirms it. I think I would like you, and probably love you, since you do glow; but to keep meeting you for the first time when I was a teenager, and always having it happen when I was younger-I am not at all sure I could handle that. Though I remember meeting a strange man in a white cloak when I was a child, in a park-"

She shook her head. "It is strange enough talking with you now!"

"Yes. If there were some way I could start with you now and continue forward-but the maximum that could last is about four years, because after that I became Chronos and turned backward, and I can't step physically beyond my living time frame. I could look at you thereafter, but never interact with you, and you would never see me. It's no good; you deserve so much more! I love you and I want what's best for you, and your best life is without me."

Slowly she nodded. "Your ring agrees. I am sorry, but I can't argue with your case."

He sighed. "I-I'm sorry I bothered you. I should have left you entirely alone. Let me go now, and never deal with me again." What a shambles reality had made of his aspiration!

"Here is your ring," she said, returning one of the Snings.

Norton took the little snake and let him curl around his finger. "Are you my Sning?" he inquired. Would it make any real difference if this were the other?

Squeeze.

Probably the two Snings would merge in Norton's present, anyway. "Farewell, Orlene."

She smiled. "I don't usually do this sort of thing. But this once-" She came to him and kissed him.

The sudden contact was ineffably sweet. Norton held himself frozen, knowing that if he let himself go to the slightest degree, he would enfold her in his arms and babble foolishness about somehow making it work, and thereby do her a colossal disservice. But for this timeless instant, his love was back with him, healing the abyss into which his heart had fallen. Orlene lived and, with luck, would pursue her normal, full life. It was better that she do it without him. Believing that, he could bear it.

She broke away and smiled; he recovered his volition and retreated out the door. Before he could change his mind, he changed the sand and quickly phased away.

"Well, I bungled that," he muttered aloud. "But I suppose I just had to learn the hard way."

Squeeze, squeeze. "No?" But as he pondered the implications, he realized Sning was right. He had not handled it as well as he might have-but perhaps he had given Orlene the key that would save her life, and in the process he had immeasurably improved his own outlook.

Squeeze. "Did you enjoy meeting your other self, Sning?"

Squeeze. Norton smiled as he moved forward through time. "So maybe it was worthwhile after all. Now I am ready to accept the new reality and do my job as Chronos."

Then he remembered the time-space address Satan had given him. He had not kept the parchment on which it was written, but retained the information. He had no intention of helping Satan; the dialogue with Orlene had finned up the resolve. But his curiosity sharpened. Who was this person who commanded a favor from Satan Himself?

Norton traced down the address. It was not in Kilvarough itself, but in a floating city above it, a traveling shopping center and fair. Flying carpets abounded in its vicinity, and the stores glittered with magic items. Below lay the somber metropolis of Kilvarough, evidently one of the stops on the route of the floating complex. Gypsy cities, they were called.

The time was about twenty years before Norton's "present." He would be a teenager now-and he had no intention of looking himself up. It had been confusing enough with Orlene! He went to the Mess o' Pottage shop and watched it in his normal mode, the reverse of world time, so that no one was aware of him.

A man was inspecting magic stones. He had evidently decided on a large Wealthstone, the kind with a floating six-rayed star. As Norton watched, the man checked a Lovestone and then a Deathstone, then retreated from the store.

Norton jumped ahead to catch the man's recent future, after he bought the Wealthstone. By a series of jumps and pauses, Norton traced the man to his somewhat dingy apartment in Kilvarough. There the man discovered that his stone was not as good as represented; it produced only small change, not riches.

Norton jumped ahead three more hours, checked the man's apartment-and saw his body lying on the floor, blood pooled from a gunshot wound in the head.

So Satan was right. The man had made a bad choice and had therefore taken his own life. He had no future on Earth, literally. Satan planned to give him a better future-and what was wrong with that?

Norton moved back in world time, avoiding the actual suicide; he certainly didn't need to torment himself with that gory killing! More deeply perplexed at Satan's motive, he phased himself back to an episode he had only glimpsed in passing. A pretty young woman had had trouble with her carpet near a billboard advertising the supposed delights of Hell-what would Satan think of next?-and the proprietor of the Mess o' Pottage shop had rescued her. Now Norton was able to re-create the detail: the client had spotted the woman by using the Lovestone, but the proprietor had foisted off a worthless stone and taken the woman for himself. It had been a highly profitable bit of flimflam, for as Norton traced their subsequent lives, he verified that the woman had made a significant difference. She was beautiful, wealthy, loving, and loyal-in fact, she was far better than the conniving shopkeeper deserved. If Satan interfered, so that the client chose the Lovestone to buy, the man would gain the woman for himself and have a deservedly better life- the kind of life Norton himself would have liked to have with Orlene.

Now Norton was in doubt. Should he, after all, do Satan this favor? He wanted to be fair, and it certainly seemed that Satan had a good cause this time. Maybe Norton could not grant himself a lifetime of romance, but he could do it for this other man and feel a vicarious satisfaction.

"Should I?" he asked Sning.

Squeeze, squeeze. "Why not? I don't like Satan, but I do want to be fair.

Shouldn't I support him when he's right?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Of course the little serpent could not answer such a comment directly! Well, Norton would think about it. The lives of ordinary people were governed by the threads of Fate; maybe he should ask her why she had allowed so gross an inequity in this case.

He set his Hourglass and traveled back home to his present time. He hoped Clotho would be awaiting him, but she wasn't. Apparently she had not properly coordinated things this time. Instead, Satan was there.

"Well?" the Prince of Evil asked.

"I checked your situation," Norton said. "I see nothing wrong with what you contemplate-but I haven't yet made up my mind."

"My amulet," Satan said, peering at him. "Where is it?"

"Oh-it bothered someone I visited, so she destroyed it with holy water. Sorry about that."

Satan seemed to swell. His face reddened, and a wisp of smoke drifted from one nostril. "Destroyed one of My-!"

Then Satan got control of himself and settled down. "It is of no consequence; it was only a trinket. So you are still considering My errand?"

"Yes."

"Remember, I am prepared to pay well for such minor favors. Here, I will provide another sample."

"Oh, you don't need to-"

But Satan gestured, and suddenly Norton was sailing through space, as he had done before, on his way to a contraterrene frame, where time flowed backward. He hadn't protested quickly enough, it seemed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chapter 9 ALICORN

He arrived this time at a different location, in a Magic Lantern Cloud, coming to rest on the surface of a lovely Earthlike planet. Here space was not densely crowded with stars, so it was evident that distinct days and nights were feasible. Stately oak trees shaded the greensward, and daffodils grew in pleasant clusters.

Immediately before him stood a marvelously lovely young woman. Her hair was long but curly, like a mass of golden shavings, and she wore a long and modest dress that could not conceal her aesthetic contours. Her eyes were gray-blue, her lips red, and her hands and feet were quite dainty. She was staring at Norton with an attitude of faint surprise and dismay.

"Hello," he said experimentally.

"But I meant to conjure a steed!" she exclaimed indignantly. She held up her right hand, one of whose delicate fingers bore a large and obviously magic ring.

"It seems your conjuration glitched," Norton said apologetically. "I'm just a man."

"A demon, belike!" she snorted. She stamped her petite foot angrily. "The magic works but once a day; now it is wasted, and I am stranded afoot. What use have I for a mere man?"

Why was it that the prettiest young women were the least interested in men? "Uh, maybe I can help you find another steed."

She studied him appraisingly, as if he might after all be of some use. "Be that a magic ring you wear?"

He glanced at Sning. "Yes, in a manner of speaking."

"Then do you use it to conjure me a steed to replace the one you usurped," she commanded imperiously.

"But it's not that kind of ring."

Her eyes fairly flashed fire. "What manner of man are you, to tease a maiden so? You owe me a steed!"

Norton wasn't sure about that, but she was so pretty and sure of herself that he really did not want to disappoint her. He would have to show her the nature of his ring. "Sning-"

Sning uncoiled from his finger and slithered across his hand and dropped to the verdant ground. He expanded as he did so, becoming a regularly sized green snake, and then a python, and finally a monster a foot in diameter.

"Sirrah!" the Damsel exclaimed, drawing a gleaming dagger. "Ye shall not consume me without a fight!"

"Oh, Sning doesn't eat people," Norton said uncertainly. "He's friendly. I think he's offering himself as a steed." He was amazed at this development; he had never suspected that Sning could change size. Maybe it was a talent limited to visits to contraterrene worlds, where the rules might differ.

"Fool would I be indeed to trust my tender flesh to the back of that fell reptile!" she cried.

"I'm sure it's safe. Here, I'll show you." Norton approached the monstrous Sning and climbed clumsily onto an elevated loop. The snake's flesh was firm and dry and slightly resilient, quite comfortable, and not slippery. Norton had no trouble maintaining his perch. "See-Sning will carry you anywhere you need to go. Miss-"

"Excelsia," she said. "And who be ye?"

"Norton." Fresh from his dialogue with Orlene, he did not care to go into the Chronos business yet. He wondered, irrelevantly, what her rule was for the use of "you" and "ye," as it did not seem consistent.

"I'll not ride that creature alone, sirrah!" Norton shrugged. "I'll ride with you, of course." He had not intended to separate from Sning anyway. "You can take another coil."

Warily she approached a loop behind his own. She mounted, sitting demurely sidesaddle. "But where are the reins?"

"I think he's under voice control. Where are you going?"

She cocked her head prettily. "Why, I had not decided."

"You wanted to conjure a steed without having a destination?"

Cute annoyance fleeted across her face. "Well, usually I fetch in a handsome unicorn, and we decide together."

A unicorn. It figured. Back on Earth such creatures were hideously expensive, and the prospective owner had to show a pedigree as detailed as that of the animal before being permitted the purchase. Unicorns, like dragons, had gone underground during the so-called enlightened period, having their horns amputated, which, of course, robbed them of most of their magical powers. But they still bred true, and now there were some fine breeds openly displayed. It had been a similar story with winged horses. In time there would be greater numbers of them; but at present, rarity put a premium on all such magical steeds. Here, it seemed, such animals were more common.

"Why not go to the unicorn corral, or whatever, and fetch one now?"

Excelsia issued a tinkling peal of laughter. "Sirrah, no one fetches a unicorn other than by compulsion of magic charm, and then it can only be accomplished by a lovely virgin like me."

Oh. Just so. "Well, maybe some other type of steed. One you can keep from day to day so you don't have to conjure a new one each time you want to ride."

Again she cocked her head, considering. She did not seem to be unusually intelligent, but her beauty made up for that. "There be only one magical steed a person can keep, and that one be already under the spell of the Evil Sorceress."

"What steed is that?"

Her face became rapturous. "The Alicom."

"The what?"

"He be a winged unicorn, the finest equine flesh extant, the adoration of every fair and innocent maiden. For that steed I would give anything."

"Anything?"

She glanced sharply at him, making a moue. "What was that thought, sirrah?"

Norton reddened. "It's just that-as I understand it- if you gave that gift that only you can give, you wouldn't be able to keep the Alicom."

"True," she agreed shortly. "But it makes no nevermind; for no one can capture the Alicom anyway."

"Well, let's expore this. Exactly what are the barriers to acquisition?"

She frowned. "What was that word?"

"Acquisition. That is, capturing the Alicom."

"Oh. First there be the Evil Sorceress, who must be slain ere the preserve be approached. Then-"

He didn't like this. "Slain? Isn't there a gentler way?"

"Who intrudes on her territory but slays her not, she turns to slime."

Point made! "One can't reason with her?"

"Reason with that bi-" She paused. "I fear I know not the applicable term."

"Of course you don't," he agreed gently. , "Have you ever tried to reason with a woman?" she demanded challengingly.

"I'm sure I wouldn't get far," he conceded, and that mollified her. "Assuming we get by the Evil Sorceress, what other barriers are there?"

"The Evil Estate be fraught with hostile creatures and unkind spells. It be virtual death merely to set foot within it."

She was serious, and that made him nervous, but he felt obliged to learn whatever he could about this. "We might not set foot," he said. "We could ride Sning in, so only his coils would touch the ground."

"There be that," she agreed, pleased. "Let's assume we get safely into the Evil Estate. Then what?"

"The Guardian Dragon," she said.

"Dragon?" Gawain the Ghost had trained him in dragon slaying, but from that training Norton had gleaned a profound respect for the battle prowess of the species. It was best to avoid a dragon!

"Huge, enormous, and tremendous," she said, her attractive eyes narrowing with anticipated horror. "A big monster, very large, and of formidable size. He slays all who dast approach. He patrols the region around the Alicom's pen, and none may pass unchallenged." She glanced obliquely at him. "Unless you, kind sir, perchance-?"

"As it happens," Norton said unwillingly, "I've had some training in dragon fighting. But of course I've never actually-"

"Oh Joy!" she exclaimed, clapping her little hands with maidenly delight. "Then we can pass the monster!"

Norton wanted to demur, but her expression of pleasure was so gratifying that he left the qualification unvoiced. It was very hard for a reasonable man to disappoint a lovely woman. "So if we should somehow get to the Alicom-"

"Then still be the victory not ours," she said, "for he be the wildest of creatures. Fire snorts from his nostrils and sparks from his mane, and were he not cruelly tethered in place, he would bound into the sky and vanish from human ken forever." Her gaze lowered, a token of sorrow at the loss.

"Is there any way to tame him so he will stay voluntarily with you?"

"Aye, there be a Word of Power. Utter it, and he be tame."

"What Word is that?"

She shrugged tragically. "Alas, I know not!"

"Well, first things first. How does one kill the Evil Sorceress?"

"For that, methinks only the Enchanted Sword will do."

That sounded good; it helped to have magic when interacting with a dragon. "Where is that?"

She shrugged again. It was an intriguing motion, the way she performed it. "I know not, sirrah. It is said that the Sword will appear only to a truly worthy Hero, lifted from deep water by a hidden hand."

Norton sighed. He surely did not qualify for that Sword! He should have known there would be a catch. Also, he saw no water near-and if there had been any, how would he know which deep water, where?

Sning brought his head around to look at him. "You have an answer?" Norton inquired. Then, quickly: "Don't answer in the usual way!"

Sning's face was not structured for smiling, but he tried. It would be some squeezing, in his present form! Then he nodded his huge head, once.

"You can lead us to the Enchanted Sword?"

Nod.

"Great! Go to it, then!"

Sning returned his head to the front and commenced motion. Now his coils undulated, so that Norton and Excelsia bobbled up and down as if on merry-go-round steeds-and sideways, too. At the bottom of a loop their feet dragged in the greensward, so Norton hefted his heels to the top of the coil and rode with his knees bent before him. Whatever magic kept him on seemed to have no trouble with that. But when Excelsia tried to lift her own feet higher, her voluminous skirt tended to fall away from her shapely legs, embarrassing her. Norton pretended not to notice; certainly she had no cause to be ashamed of flesh like that, however.

Sning coursed rapidly through the forest, field, and fen, and drew up at a large mud-puddle.

"This?" Norton asked, dismayed. "No shining, still, mysterious, deep water lake?"

Sning pointed his nose firmly at the puddle.

How far reality differed from myth! Norton resigned himself and dismounted. He approached the puddle. His feet sank squishily into its margin, and he worried that it might be quicksand. "Wait!" he told himself. "I shouldn't be afraid of sand! It's the essence of the symbol of my office!"

"Office?" Excelsia inquired, perplexed. "Never mind." He brought out his Hourglass and waved it at the sand. Instantly his footing firmed. He put the Hourglass away again and trod on up to the edge of the puddle.

As his toes touched the obscure murk, there was a ripple in the center. Slowly an object pushed up. It was a weed-strewn, filthy old sword with a rusty blade.

Well, he was no King Arthur; he probably didn't rate a first-class accommodation. Norton leaned forward and grasped the handle of the Sword. The thing seemed stuck, so he had to exert considerable force to lift it clear of the mud.

No wonder! The hand that had brought the weapon up did not let go. As Norton heaved, he drew forth not only the Sword but the mud-soaked little man holding it. The man was garbed in archaic clothing topped by a large, floppy hat. "Who're you?" Norton asked, surprised, as he swung the Sword over land, dangling the man.

"I'm the Sword Elf, of course," the man said grumpily. "You sure took your time rescuing me."

"Was that what I was doing?"

"Sure," the Elf said, brushing ineffectively at his coating of mud. "I only use the Sword as bait so someone will pull me out of that black hole."

Myth was taking a further beating! "How long have you been in there?"

"Oh, a century or two. Hard to keep proper track of time in the dark. But they sure don't make Heroes like they used to."

"Are you telling me this Sword is a fake? That it's not enchanted?"

"It's enchanted, all right," the Elf said. "Do you think anyone would bother with a fake sword?"

"This will slay the Evil Sorceress?"

"Sure. That's what it's for."

"How is it against dragons?"

"Adequate. Dragons have counterspells, diminishing the effect. Of course, it helps if you know how to use a sword and how to tackle a dragon. The most devastatingly enchanted weapon in the world won't do much in the hands of an ignoramus."

"Good enough." Norton was willing to take things at face value, since this seemed to be a face-value world. He would have to trust in the quality of the training Gawain had provided him and in the potency of the Sword's enchantment. He walked back to Sning.

The Elf followed, mounting a third coil. It seemed Norton had picked up another companion.

"Well, let's tackle the Evil Sorceress," Norton said. There didn't seem to be much else to do except carry on with the episode, and if he encountered something lethal- well, he would be returned to his mansion in Purgatory so that he could proceed with his job. But he was so constituted that he had to make an honest try to improve things here; he couldn't simply quit.

Sning got under way, zooming across hill and dale and around mountain and moor. Norton enjoyed the scenery; this was indeed his type of exploration. "This be almost as good a ride as on a normal steed," Excelsia confessed. She had found out how to tuck her skirt in around her bent knees so that nothing showed, unfortunately. In due course the Evil Estate hove into view. On it stood a great old stone castle with a few window slits and tall, dark towers. Snow topped its lofty turrets, though the climate was pleasant enough at ground level. It was surrounded by giant, ugly trees. It looked like the bleakest and e vilest of places.

They slid up to the ring of trees. Immediately a great, gnarled branch swung down menacingly. Norton swung his Sword up to intercept it-and the blade sliced through the wood as if it were soft cheese.

The tree made a groan as of bending in a cruel gale wind and whipped its stump away. Reddish sap dripped from the wound. Norton looked at the Sword with new respect. Where the contact with the wood had cleaned away the mud and rust, the blade virtually gleamed. This was, indeed, an excellent weapon!

They slithered on past the trees without farther challenge. "Serves ya right, woodhenge!" the Elf called back, and the trees shuddered woodenly with impotent rage.

But now they faced the gloomy Evil Castle itself. A chill draft seemed to issue from it. Norton wondered whether he really wanted to do this. By the look of it, this was no pleasant resort and no pleasant deed he had to perform. He might get trapped in there, unable either to complete or to terminate his mission, so he couldn't return to Earth. Could the Alicom really be worth it?

But already Sning was drawing up to the somber front portal. Then the snake shrank to his former size, forcing them to dismount. Norton put down his hand, and Sning slithered up and curled around his finger again. "We have to go inside?" Norton asked with resignation.

Squeeze. "We can't simply go around the castle and tackle the Dragon directly?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

Norton sighed. Probably there were guards in the castle who could riddle passers-by with arrows or spells. "I don't much like this business."

"But you are a Hero!" Excelsia protested brightly.

"Onward and Upward!"

"Suppose the Evil Sorceress turns us all to slime?"

"She can't do that while you hold the Enchanted Sword," the Elf said. "First she must disarm you." That was good to know. Norton braced himself and led the way to the front portcullis.

It lifted as he approached. "Oh, it seems we're expected," he said. That did not encourage him.

He stepped forward-but Sning squeezed his finger twice, rapidly, and he paused. "A trap?"

Squeeze. He glanced up at the gleaming spikes of the portcullis.

"What goes up can come down, I'm sure."

Squeeze.

"Very well. I'll spring the trap." He stepped up to the trough in the stone floor where the deadly iron spikes of the portcullis normally rested. Then he leaped across.

The spikes slammed down with horrible force. A cloud of rock dust billowed up. This was exactly what Norton had expected, but the sheer ferocity of it unnerved and angered him.

He turned and struck at the portcullis with his Sword, adrenaline giving him strength. Again the blade cut through as if touching only cooked noodles. In a moment he hacked out an opening, so the others could step through. Now more of his blade was clean and shining. His supposed Heroism was being recorded by the brilliance of the blade. The castle shuddered and groaned; its fangs had been cut. They entered a dark and unpleasant hall. Light flickered from a guttering torch at the far end.

"Any more traps here?" Norton asked Sning.

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

"Any immediate threat to life or limb?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

He decided to chance it. "Keep close together," he told the others.

Excelsia and the Elf were happy to oblige. They crowded in so close to him that he worried about insufficient elbow room if he had to use the Sword. He didn't want to cut any of his companions! On the other hand, Excelsia was an extremely attractive woman, pleasant to be this close to. Now that he had given up on Orlene, he was becoming more aware of that sort of thing-not that he had ever been unaware.

Then they heard the tromp, tromp, tromp of a giant. Damsel and Elf crowded in even closer. "Sning, are you sure... ?"

Squeeze.

The tromping came to the intersection of halls at the torch. Norton braced himself to face the giant-and saw nothing. The tromping continued toward them. No giant, just the noise of one.

No, not quite true. The boots of the giant were there. They were tromping along by themselves.

The three of them stared at the marching, empty boots. Was that footwear animated by magic or did it contain an invisible giant? It did make a difference. Mere shoes they could probably ignore, but an invisible giant was likely to be troublesome.

The boots halted immediately before them. The noise stopped. Now the boots looked exactly like discarded apparel.

Norton set himself and poked the point of his Sword toward the knee of the theoretical giant. He encountered no opposition. He sliced across the tops of both boots. Nothing. It seemed they were, after all, only boots.

He tucked the Sword in his belt and reached for a boot. He put his two hands on it and tried to pick it up. The thing would not budge; it was as if a giant did indeed have his foot in it.

Norton stood and turned back to the others. "I suppose-"

He was interrupted by a swift kick in the rear. He was boosted into the air and moved a yard down the hall. One of the boots had booted him!

He caught his balance and rubbed his bruised posterior. The Elf was trying without complete success to restrain a smirk, and even innocent Excelsia seemed amused. Norton himself didn't happen to find it very funny, but realized that it would not profit him much to lose his temper. "Let's just go around these."

The Elf obliged, walking to the side. The boots came to life again, walking swiftly to get in front of the little man. The Elf stopped, not wanting to get kicked himself. Getting kicked oneself was never a laughing matter.

"Maybe if we jumped over," Norton suggested.

"Sure," the Elf agreed. "You first."

Norton considered where he would get kicked if caught in the act of jumping over the boot and decided not to risk it.

Excelsia tried another approach. She walked to the left, where no boot was. But suddenly a pair of giant gloves or gauntlets arrived, hovering in mid-air about bead height. The right one closed in a fist before Excelsia's face, then extended its massive forefinger and waggled it warningly. She emitted a frightened squeak and stepped back.

Now the boots were before the Elf, to the right, and the gloves before the Damsel, to the left. Norton strode up the center-and the right boot and left glove moved to close the gap. He, too, was blocked.

Well, at least it was clear what Sning had meant about there being no immediate threat or trap in the hall. The disembodied boots and gloves were neither-but they were effectively blocking progress. There would be no problem if the party simply retreated.

But retreat meant failure, and Norton had had enough of that. He became ornery. He drew his Sword again. "Out of my way, objects, or pay the penalty!"

Nothing moved. He stepped forward-and the right boot swung up in a kick. Norton sliced down with the Sword and cut it in half. The two fragments fell to the floor and lay there, twisting about like a dismembered reptile.

"Ooo," Excelsia said with sympathetic horror. "You killed it!"

"I gave it fair warning," Norton said. He stepped forward again and cut the fingers off the glove that grabbed for him. It, too, fell writhing to the floor. Excelsia twisted her own fair fingers as if afraid they would separate, but did not protest again. Even delicate Damsels had to yield to practicality on occasion.

The other boot and glove attacked. Norton got the boot, but the glove caught him in a stinging slap to the side of the head that sent him careening into a wall. The glove came at him again, forming a fist that aimed at his nose; this time he got the blade up, and the glove split itself against the Sword and plopped to the floor.

It took Norton a moment to recover his equilibrium, for that blow had had giant force! Next time he encountered something like this, he would act more ruthlessly.

"Ooo, you're hurt!" Excelsia said, dabbing at his face with a dainty handkerchief. The dabbing did not do much good for his face, but her attention uplifted his spirit.

They proceeded on to the torch. As they reached it, Sning squeezed Norton's finger three times: warning.

He paused. How he wished Sning could speak directly!

"Danger, maybe," he said.

Elf and Damsel looked around. "Where?" Excelsia asked.

Norton shrugged. "Sning warned me. There's something."

"Listen, Mac, we can't dawdle here forever," the Elf said.

"You dawdled for a century in that mud-puddle," Norton pointed out. "What's the hurry now?"

"A critter can build up a lot of impatience in a century," the Elf said. "I'm going ahead." He marched past the torch, into the cross-passage.

The torch flared monstrously, sending out blinding brilliance. Norton covered his eyes as he stumbled back, but the damage was done; for the moment he couldn't see a thing.

Gradually his sight cleared. He looked about-and found himself alone in the passage. Excelsia and the Elf were gone.

Alarmed, he looked for them-but they remained lost.

The fragments of the boots and gloves were gone, too. That gave him a notion. "Sning, am I in the same hall I was in before?"

Squeeze, squeeze.

"I blundered into another passage while blinded?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. "I got moved to a new passage, or got closed off from the other passage?"

Squeeze.

"By the action of the Evil Sorceress?"

Squeeze.

"Are the others in immediate danger?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

Damn those indefinite answers! "Their safety-does it depend on what I do?"

Squeeze.

He was improving his touch! "Can I find them?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

"Not till I deal personally with the Sorceress?"

Squeeze.

That was what he had suspected. The Evil Sorceress had perceived him as the leader and had separated him from the others, and now intended to test him alone. Divide and conquer. If he prevailed, his companions would be safe; if he did not...

"Then I will deal with her immediately."

Squeeze.

Norton strode ahead, past the torch, shielding his eyes as he did so, but this one did not flare up. However, as he entered this new hall he discovered a pack of half a dozen grotesque little monsters, gnarled goblin things. They charged.

The fastest one came at him first. It was globular in shape, with tiny legs and arms, its whole torso consisting of a ferocious face dominated by a huge mouth rimmed with inward-pointing teeth. No need to question the little monster's intent; it would chomp a bite out of any anatomy it reached.

Norton pointed his Sword at it, and the monster gaped its maw to swallow the Sword point first. The blade slid right through the back of its head-body, slitting it into halves. Defeated, the thing puffed into bad-smelling smoke. But already the next two monsters were on him. Norton slapped at one with the side of his blade, knocking it into the other. The second gaped its maw and took a bite out of the first. In a moment the two had become one- and Norton ran his Sword through that one. These things were easy enough to dispatch, but he was sure he would have been in painful trouble if either of them had gotten through to chomp him.

Soon he had polished off the remaining three, though one did take a piece out of his boot. He walked on down the hall, turned a corner-and there were five more little monsters and a hovering glow. He dispatched the monsters as they came at him, then stood before the glow.

What was this?

Squeeze.

"Safe to touch?"

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. "Safe to leave alone?"

Squeeze, squeeze. So he reached out with his left hand, holding the Sword ready in his right, and touched the glow. It flickered- and became a round bed with a lovely woman draped on it. Her hair was shining silver, her eyes silver too, and so were her long nails. She wore a harem-style outfit that showed off precisely as much flesh as she wished it to, and it seemed she was generous in both anatomy and wish.

She gazed at him from beneath long silver lashes. "Well, now, Hero," she said huskily, inhaling.

"Uh-I take it you are the Evil Sorceress?"

"The same," she breathed. She had remarkable breath control.

"And I found you by capturing the glow?"

"Naturally." She shifted her decolletage. "You don't seem so horrendous to me."

"The legend was doubtless exaggerated."

"But I must slay you, lest you turn me into slime?" She nodded, sending a ripple through her flesh. "However, there is no need to rush it, Hero." She shifted position on the bed, and more flesh showed.

Sning squeezed his finger warningly. Yes, he was supposed to slay her.

"Here, I will bare the target for you," she said, shrugging partway out of her upper clothing, so that her front was exposed. "The point right here." She touched a spot between her amazing breasts.

But how could he? This was no toothy little monster; this was a living, breathing (!) human being, lovely beyond belief, and he was no murderer.

Squeeze!

"I can't," Norton said, dropping the Sword. "I knew you couldn't do it," the Evil Sorceress murmured as the Sword clattered on the floor. "You are an innocent male fool." She lifted one sleek arm, her forefinger coming to point at him.

Sning uncurled convulsively and sprang through the air to land on her outstretched hand. The little snake buried his tiny fangs in the Evil Sorceress' finger.

"Oh, snot!" she exclaimed, jerking her finger aside as she felt the puncture. A silvery flash jumped from it, just missing Norton, and struck the ceiling. Immediately the ceiling turned to slime and began to drool down toward the floor.

"Oooh, you little creep!" she screamed at Sning. "I'll bite your head off!" And she brought her hand to her mouth, where sharply pointed teeth now showed between the blood-red lips.

But Sning was already wriggling away. He dropped to the bed and thrashed toward Norton. The Evil Sorceress slammed her fist down at the little snake's body and grabbed for him with her claws. She gouged out chunks of bedding, but Sning squiggled aside and off the bed, landing on the Sword. The Sorceress flopped on her front and grabbed for him again; the Sword glowed menacingly as her hand came near it, and she had to desist. She could not touch the Sword, so Sning was safe.

Already Sning's poison was taking effect. Norton had understood that the little snake's bite would not kill a human being, yet it seemed it was more potent against a truly evil person. The Evil Sorceress' finger glowed red and swelled like a sausage. But the change in the rest of her was more striking.

Her lovely facial features melted into homely ones. Her breathtaking bare bosom became baggy, her stunning cleavage a wrinkled crevice. Her sleek arms and smooth fleshed thighs became flabby limbs. Now, stripped of her enchantment, she was revealed as an ugly old crone.

Shocked, Norton watched as she died. This was almost as bad as the dissolution of the Bern had been during his visit to the space opera of the globular cluster, far away. He marveled at the transformation from beauty to ugliness; how could he ever have found that thing attractive? Another part of him was more cerebral; why, he wondered, was it so much easier to watch an ugly old crone die than a lovely young woman? The two were separated only by age. He knew that goodness and evil could not be judged by appearance, yet his mind felt more comfortable now that he knew the Evil Sorceress was in reality ugly.

The transformation continued. After turning ugly, the Evil Sorceress began to melt. She dissolved into a puddle of slime, exactly as had the Bern.

Then the castle itself melted. Chunks of it dissolved and collapsed. Norton had to dodge a segment that fell from above. The walls thinned and sagged.

Hastily he scooped up Sning and the Enchanted Sword and scrambled to escape the developing ruin. Soon he was able to spot Excelsia and the Elf in their separate chamber; they had been hard pressed by the mouth monsters, but had survived by diligent exercise of her stiletto and his active boots.

Norton forged across to join them. "Come on-we've got to get out of here before the whole thing falls on us!"

"About time you showed up!" the Elf grumped. They scrambled out, dodging the slimy chunks. As they made it to the greensward at the rear patio, the entire remainder of the castle fell in with a grotesque sucking sound.

"Ugh!" Excelsia exclaimed expressively. "Good thing you slew the Evil Sorceress," the Elf said. "I knew we were going to get slimed if she won."

"I didn't slay her, actually," Norton confessed. "I lacked the nerve. Sning did it." The Damsel cocked her head at him. "You are no Hero?"

"I'm afraid not."

"But he's an honest man," the Elf said. "The Enchanted Sword goes for that kind, too, in a pinch." Unpersuaded, Excelsia turned away. Norton stood diminished in her eyes. They continued into the estate. The land here was lovely, with pleasant little paths winding along among fruit trees. "Oh, let's pause for refreshment!" Excelsia said, reaching for a bright red apple. Squeeze, SQUEEZE! Norton jumped across and dashed the apple from her hand. "Poison!" he cried. Indeed, the moment the apple touched ground, it smoldered as if being eaten from inside by some horrible acid, then burst into flame. Excelsia stared at it, wide-eyed. "Yes, of course," she agreed faintly. "Everything belonging to the Evil Sorceress would be poison to ordinary folk. So silly of me to forget."

"What about the Alicorn?" Norton asked. "Oh, he does not belong to her," she said quickly. "He is her captive, not her creature." That seemed to make sense. They walked on through the poisonous orchard. Soon the terrain opened out into a circular valley whose center was a mound. On the mound was a palisade-an enclosure surrounded by a tight fence of sharpened stakes that hid whatever was inside. But Excelsia knew. "Therein-the Alicorn!" she breathed rapturously. There was, however, a more immediate concern. From the far side of the mound galloped a horrendous red Dragon. This was one of the centipede variety; it had fourteen or sixteen pairs of legs and a long spiked tail, while black smoke snorted from its mouth. Norton stepped forward. "This is my job," he said. It wasn't that he relished the prospect of doing battle with the Dragon; it was that he knew it was better to face the thing than to be run down from behind. Gawain had taught him that. "Never let a dragon see your rear," the ghost had cautioned. "It will either toast it or take a bite out of it, or both." Also, Norton was sure Excelsia would be easy and delectable prey for the Dragon, and he couldn't permit her to be hurt. If he got killed here, he would be wafted back to Earth, unharmed-he had the word of the Father of Lies on that. But the Damsel had no such assurance. The word of the Father of Lies. There was something about that notion that bothered him. The Dragon swerved to meet him head-on. It was therefore a stupid creature; the smart ones were more careful, taking time to scout and sniff, for scarce was the man who braved such a monster without the benefit of some potent enchantment. All the background Gawain had drilled into him was coming to the fore now, and for the first time he really appreciated it. So much of dragon fighting was tactics! One had to grasp the nature of the beast and exploit its weaknesses; a man was smarter than a reptile, usually, and that could count. The Dragon was indeed large, as the Damsel had warned him. Its mass was elephantine. It blew out a tongue of orange flame-and Norton jumped aside. Gawain had prepared him for this, too; fire-breathers always blasted first, hoping to toast their prey conveniently before coming within range of the prey's defenses. This was virtually instinctive; they were not smart enough to reason it out. But they had to inhale deeply first-and so Norton had watched for the expansion of the torso and had moved the moment the contraction occurred. It was as if he had been in this business all his life, thanks to the ghost. An instant after the fireshot, the Dragon was beside him, snapping at the spot where Norton had stood. Naturally Norton had dodged aside again, avoiding the teeth. It was amazing how easy it was. Of course, he had the benefit of much smaller mass, so could move much less predictably than the behemoth could. He knew what to do now; he rammed the point of the Sword into the monster's passing ear. This was intended to penetrate to the creature's token brain and kill it.

Unfortunately, Norton's reflexes weren't as good as his knowledge. He failed to allow sufficiently for the Dragon's velocity, and the Sword struck behind the ear and sliced away several scales and severed a neck muscle or two. Blood gouted as the Sword jerked clear of the wound.

Pain-maddened, the Dragon braked all fourteen or sixteen pairs of legs and screeched to a halt. Norton knew he was in for it; a careless man seldom got a chance for a second stroke. The Dragon whirled, becoming unconscionably agile for its mass, and brought its head about to snap at Norton's tasty rear.

Norton whirled himself, slicing desperately at the Dragon's nose. He scored, but not perfectly; the blade lopped off the tip. But that didn't stop the creature, which thrust the bloody snout at him and knocked him down.

On his back, Norton made one more attempt. He whipped the Sword up to stab at the monster's eye. This time his aim was good, for the Dragon was almost stationary. The point sank into the huge orb and found the tiny brain behind. One ordinary blade could not have done it, for the orb was surrounded by bony armor, but this one's enchantment sliced through the bone.

The Dragon went crazy. Its brain wasn't much, but it did need the thing to work its jaws and similar sundry tasks. It yanked its head up, blood jetting from the eye socket and splattering Norton. The great body threshed. Norton rolled out of the way. The creature flopped over onto its back and lay there, with all fourteen or sixteen pairs of legs twitching in the air. The Dragon was in its death throes-but its blind reflexes could still kill Norton.

"Oh, you're so brave, after all!" Excelsia exclaimed, clapping her hands. She approached Norton, evidently thinking to embrace him; then she saw the gore on him and desisted, wrinkling her pert nose distastefully. "Couldn't you have done it a little more neatly?" she asked plaintively.

Norton brushed himself off as well as he could and slid the blade of the Sword along the greensward to clean it. Now it shone more brightly than ever, and he wasn't sure it was only the cleaning that accounted for this. It certainly was an excellent weapon.

"Well, one hurdle to go," the Elf said briskly. "Let's get on with it."

Norton, battered, tired, and gunked with gore, would have preferred a rest break. Heroism wasn't an ideal life! The final challenge-the steed no one could tame! He hoped the Damsel wasn't headed for disappointment. Women liked horses-but a unicorn was no ordinary horse, and the Alicom was no ordinary unicorn. This creature could be more dangerous than the Dragon.

They marched up the mound to the palisade. There was no gate in it; the wall of stakes formed a tight enclosure. Inside was grim silence.

"Sirrah, use your blade to open a gate," Excelsia told Norton. "I shall not be barred from my steed!"

Norton put his hand on the hilt of the Sword, then hesitated. "A gate that let us in would also let the Alicom out," he said. "Maybe we should peek over the top first."

"That's using your noggin," the Elf agreed. "In fact, let's poke up a hat."

"A hat?" Excelsia asked, her fair brow furrowing. The Elf removed his hat from his head. His skull was almost bald, now that it showed. "Balance it on the end of the Sword." Norton extended the Sword, and the Elf set the hat on the tip.

Norton lifted the hat slowly up beside the palisade, while Excelsia tapped her dainty foot impatiently, "This be sheerest nonsense, sirrah! What think ye a hat can see?"

The palisade points were about eight feet above the ground. Norton elevated the hat beyond that point-and abruptly there was a ferocious squeal, and a spear thrust through the hat and withdrew.

Spear? No, that was the horn of the Alicom! Norton brought down the hat, lifted it from the Sword, and gravely handed it back to the Elf. The Elf held it before his little face and sighted through the twin holes in it at the Damsel. No one spoke.

That was one unfriendly equine creature in there! They retreated a reasonable distance and considered. "Probably the Evil Sorceress abused him," Norton suggested. "That made the Alicom mean."

"Nay, he be merely untame," Excelsia said, but her voice lacked conviction. That strike had been too swift and sure, too vicious, after such complete silence. The Alicom had to have been listening to them, pacing them, biding his time, concealing his awareness until he had the chance to strike. Had he been able to understand their dialogue, he would have known the hat trick was coming, but he was only a cunning animal. Cunning and savage. "That animal will kill ye, lassie," the Elf warned her. "Oh, no, unicorns never harm my kind," she insisted. "This be no ordinary unicorn," he reminded her.

The Damsel acknowledged this logic by bursting into maidenly tears. "Oh, woe!" she cried. "How may I tame the untamable?"

Norton exchanged a glance with the Elf. Obviously they had to come up with something. "Isn't there supposed to be a magic Word?" Norton asked.

Excelsia brightened instantly. "The Word! We must find the Word!"

The Elf frowned. "If there be a Word, why did not the Evil Sorceress use it to tame the beast?"

"She didn't know it!" Excelsia said.

"Neither do we."

"But we shall find it!"

Norton sighed to himself. The Evil Sorceress had had years to search out the Word and had evidently failed. How could they succeed in an hour?

But the Damsel was threatening to cloud up again. "I guess we'll just have to guess at it," he said. "We can stand outside the enclosure and shout words until we come to the right one."

"Why didn't the Evil Sorceress do that?" the Elf asked. "She didn't think of it!" Excelsia said eagerly. Again Norton was doubtful. The Evil Sorceress had struck him as smart and ruthless. She had surely wanted to ride the Alicorn, otherwise she would not have held him captive. Her power would have been enhanced if she could have used that magical steed. Yet she had failed.

Was there really a magic Word? Or was that only a myth?

He looked at Excelsia and knew he couldn't tell her there was no Word. So they would have to try it.

They stood in a line and called words at random. "Valor!" the Elf cried bravely. "Beauty!" Excelsia bespoke prettily. "Uncertainty..." Norton muttered doubtfully.

The other two glanced sharply at him, and he was abashed.

They tried another round. "Courage!" the Elf cried. "Modesty," Excelsia murmured. "Time," Norton said.

Again the other two glanced askance at him. "Well," he said awkwardly, "the Word could be anything. Maybe the Sorceress only tried conventional words. How do we know? Maybe 'time' was it."

Indeed, the silence continued inside the enclosure. "We are at risk of taming him without knowing it," the Elf said. "We must test it."

"We know how," Norton said. He borrowed the Elf's hat again and poked it up above the palisade.

Nothing happened. "Can it be?" Excelsia asked, her eyes glowing and her bosom heaving with hope.

Norton wasn't sure. "Let's try something else." He cast about, and finally removed his shirt and draped it on the blade of the Sword. Then he poked that up, wiggling it to make it seem lifelike.

The horn speared it.

"That infernal creature tried to trick us!" the Elf said indignantly. "He pretended to be tame and then struck."

"And he was too canny to fall for the same lure twice," Norton agreed. "We have a real problem here."

Even the Damsel was sobered by this. "We must get closer to him," she decided. "So we can see him react to our words."

It was a good suggestion, but impractical. They could not see the Alicom without entering this enclosure, and that would be suicidal before they discovered the Word.

"Why does not the beast break down the wall?" the Elf asked irritably. "He plainly has the means."

Excellent question! If the Alicorn could spear a target above the palisade, he could surely spear the palisade itself.

But Excelsia had the answer. "He be tethered, of course. So he can't fly out."

"Then why have an enclosure at all?" the Elf asked. He seemed to have a considerable practical streak. Excelsia cocked her head and shrugged. But this time Norton had the answer. "To keep the Dragon out. The Evil Sorceress wouldn't have wanted those two creatures fighting. With the Alicorn tethered, he would be at a disadvantage against the Dragon and might get eaten. That must be why he doesn't punch holes in the fence or kick it down. He doesn't want the fires of the Dragon to come in. Not while he can't escape. And the Dragon was too stupid to realize he could bash or burn down the palisade."

The Elf nodded. "Then we can take down the wall." No sooner realized than done. Norton hacked out a section and stood clear as it fell outward with a resounding crash. Now at last they had a view of the interior.

The Alicorn stood there-and a magnificent creature he was. He stood about seventeen hands at the shoulder, with two enormous white wings rising from that shoulder region and a gleaming black horn at his forehead. The rest of him was a burnished red, not the shade of blood but the hue of fire. He fairly gleamed, and his eyes stared back at them with a disconcerting awareness. Dumb animal? Unlikely!

He was indeed tethered. A silver chain was locked to his right hind leg and anchored to a silver stake. Silver, of course, was resistant to magic; that was why the Alicom could not break it. The Evil Sorceress had stooped to mundane means to pen him.

"Oh, you Noble Creature!" Excelsia exclaimed, walking toward the Alicorn with arms outstretched. "All my young, pretty, innocent, and genteel life I have longed for the like of you!"

"Don't do that!" Norton cried, suddenly realizing that the Damsel was mesmerized by the beauty of the beast. But she was already stepping within range.

The Alicom never hesitated. He lowered his horn and leaped to the limit of his tether. The terrible horn stabbed right through the Damsel's body and withdrew so rapidly that the Alicom seemed hardly to have moved. But now there was blood on the horn, and Excelsia collapsed, her blood pouring out. She had been speared neatly through her maidenly heart.

Norton was frozen for an instant in shock. Then he drew his Sword and charged the Alicom.

"Don't do that!" the Elf cried, exactly as Norton had. But he, too, was too late. Norton stepped within range.

The Alicorn charged, the deadly horn leveling. The Sword sliced down. The blade severed the horn at its midpoint.

Blood gouted from the stump of the horn. The creature stiffened, then collapsed beside the woman, mixing his blood with hers.

"You fool!" the Elf cried. "Now ye have two deaths for one-and what be gained?"

Norton gazed at the bodies. For a moment he seemed to see Orlene, collapsed at her piano. What had he gained, indeed! He had been as much a fool as Excelsia had been and had only magnified the damage by his thoughtless violence. This gallant quest of his-he had converted it to disaster. Some fantasy hero he was!

Of course, he realized that he was not a fantasy hero. He was Chronos, Master of Time, with a job to do back on Earth. Why had he allowed the Devil to distract him like this? He should never have deluded himself about his position.

Chronos? Of course-there was the answer! He brought out the Hourglass and turned the sand red. He reversed time for the immediate region and willed the sand to flow up. That left himself out of the change.

The Alicom trembled, then righted himself, collapsing to his feet. Blood gouted back into his horn. The severed end of the horn flew back into place. A moment later, the Damsel was unpunctured, and walked blithely backward out of the compound. Then the palisade became unbacked. Since Norton had excluded himself from this reversal, he was both standing apart and participating, backward. So he moved to rejoin his prior self, merging, then stilled the sand and returned to normal time. All was well again.

"Never have I seen the like!" the Elf exclaimed. "You are a Sorcerer!"

Oops-he had forgotten to include the Elfin the reversal. The little man had seen it all and remembered it. Well, it wasn't as if there was supposed to be any secret. "I'm not a sorcerer; I'm Chronos."

"What are you talking about?" Excelsia demanded.

"It's complicated to explain," Norton said.

"Then don't bother. Go ahead and hack down the wall."

The Elf pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. "Damsel, ye know not what ye ask."

"I want to see that divine steed!" she insisted.

"I don't think that's wise," Norton said.

"But we know he's tethered!"

"Better explain. Wizard," the Elf said.

"Wizard?" Excelsia demanded. "Riddles again, belike?"

"I am afraid," Norton said carefully, "that if I open this wall and let you see the Alicom, you will be so smitten by him that you will walk right into his horn and perish." She opened her mouth for an angry retort, but stalled out before speaking. Evidently this was the type of thing she knew she was prone to do.

"Still, we do need to see this creature," the Elf said, his practical streak taking hold again, "so we can verify the Word. Maybe if we tie her up-"

"What?" Excelsia screeched undaintily. "Perhaps if she merely promises not to go near the Alicom until we're sure it's safe," Norton suggested diplomatically.

Excelsia pouted. "Oh, all right!"

The Elf shook his head bemusedly. "If only ye knew, Damsel!"

"Never mind," Norton said quickly. "It never happened."

"What never happened?" she demanded.

"I'll bring down the fence," Norton said. "Remember, Excelsia, you promised-"

"Tis a mess of foolishness o'er naught," she grumped.

Nevertheless, he chopped much more carefully at the wall than he had before, so as to open a smaller hole and be on guard against her passage.

The Alicorn stood as before. To the stallion, this was before; no awareness of his prior fate remained in his memory. The double disaster had been undone. The beast was still magnificent-but now Norton and the Elf had firsthand evidence as to why the Evil Sorceress had not approached him. Without the Word, approach was death.

What was that Word? They had to come up with it- and Norton was sure that no random search would do it. If there was a Word, it had to be well hidden.

Excelsia peeked through the hole and saw the Alicorn. "Ooooo!" she exclaimed melodiously, starting forward.

Norton moved to intercept her, and she stopped. "I was not going in there," she said somewhat insincerely. "He's so beautiful. All my young, pretty, innocent life-"

"Let's try words again," the Elf suggested. "Do we have any better way?"

"Do we?" Norton echoed. He was not pleased with himself. He had met the Damsel, acquired the Enchanted Sword, slain the Evil Sorceress-approximately-and the Dragon, and now was balked by what should have been the simplest aspect of this adventure: speaking a Word to an animal.

Squeeze.

Could it be? "Sning-you say there is?"

Squeeze.

"You know it?"

Squeeze.

"A way we can learn the Word quickly?"

Squeeze.

"Well, let's get to it!" He looked up at the other two. "Sning can help us find the Word. All I have to do is find the right questions to ask him."

"That's one mighty useful snake," the Elf remarked.

"Even if he weren't, I would value him," Norton said. "He was given to me by one I-"

Squeeze! SQUEEZE! SQUEEZE! Norton froze. He trusted Sning's warning-but what was its nature? Had he been about to say something wrong?

Squeeze.

Oh, yes-he kept forgetting that he did not have to speak his questions aloud. You object to my speaking of your value to me? he thought.

Squeeze, squeeze.

Is there some other threat?

Squeeze.

Some new monster approaching?

Squeeze, squeeze.

Norton pondered. The Elf and the Damsel watched him, mutually perplexed. They judged him to be an odd one. Some error in what I'm saying?

Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

This was difficult! Something all right to think, but not to speak?

Sning hesitated, then gave one squeeze. What could that be? Norton glanced at the Elf. "I was about to say something wrong, so Sning warned me. But I haven't figured out what-"

"The Word," the Elf said wisely.

"The Word!" Norton and Excelsia repeated together, and Sning squeezed affirmatively.

"But why should it be wrong to-?"

"Ah, we have all been fools!" the Elf cried. "Know ye not that the power of a Word adheres to him who speaks it? If you had spoken it-"

Now Norton understood. "Then the Alicorn would be tamed by me-"

"And by no one else," the Elf agreed. "I knew, but I forgot. A century of mud on my brain may have dulled it. 'Tis folly for us all to be crying out words; only the lass must speak that one to the steed. She be the one who wants him."

"I had somehow thought the Alicorn would be completely tamed," Norton said. "So anyone could approach him."

The Elf spat to the side. "Who would want a completely tame steed? That were as tasteless as a completely tame woman! He must be tame only for his master. Mistress."

Norton nodded. A steed no one could steal, who would be as wild to strangers as he was now, unless cautioned by the one he respected. That did make sense. Perhaps the Alicom was tame now for a former master, who had died or gotten lost. "If I discover the Word and whisper it to Excelsia, and then she speaks it aloud to the Alicom-?"

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 Alicom 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 Alicom's loyalty?"

Squeeze.

Until, perhaps, that person died, leaving the Alicom 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 Alicom 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 comer 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 Alicom. True chance would have had me land in a barren wilderness. And my prior trip, too-with spaceman, Bern, 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 Alicom?"

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-Lantern 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 Alicom. "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."

Atropos told Thanatos and Luna of Satan's latest trick- trying to get Thanatos vacated before he even assumed the office. "Because Chronos didn't know-at his beginning," she concluded. "Satan was striking at the outset- and he almost bypassed us all."

"The last shall be first," Luna agreed. "We have been napping in that respect, but it seems that ploy was foiled because Chronos did not take the minion there, and now knows better. Yet my stones indicate that Satan is not through with him, and the issue remains in serious doubt."

How blithely she talked of her own potential defeat or nonexistence! "What can Satan do, now that I am alert?" Norton asked.

"I'm not sure," Luna said. "But there is something."

"It is impossible for any of us to be sure," Atropos said, "when our own history is being changed."

"But I haven't changed any!" Norton protested. "I won't-"

Atropos shook her head. "There is something," she said, repeating Luna's words. She brought forth her threads. "That strange crossing-and now I think it's not coincidental." She concentrated, peering closely at her network. "Can't seem to spot it specifically."

"Satan couldn't have done anything in any past time without Chronos' cooperation," Luna said. "And Chronos has not cooperated-and as he progresses into our past, he'll be increasingly careful, so Satan will have no opportunity to fool him. If Satan hasn't managed anything yet, he'll never have the chance-as well he knows."

Now Thanatos turned his hollow-skull gaze on Norton. Even though Norton knew this was merely the effect of the hood, which the man had drawn close again, it remained disconcerting. "Are you certain Satan's minion did not accompany you to the past?"

"No demon went with me," Norton said. "Unless you mean Sning?" He held up his hand, showing the snake ring.

"He is not of Satan," Thanatos said. "I meant something Satan might have given you, that you accepted. You have to accept it; that is the nature of this. Evil can never touch the person who refuses to accept it. But evil can be subtle. Satan might have concealed the minion's nature and purpose."

"All Satan gave me was a scroll with the address, which I didn't keep-I memorized it-and an amulet to-" Norton stiffened. "Oh, no!"

"The demon!" Luna agreed. "Satan knew you would want to investigate, and once you carried his minion there-"

"How could I have been such a fool!" Norton cried in an agony of conscience. "Sning tried to warn me, but I didn't understand. Satan said it was just a little horn-"

Thanatos nodded. "The horn of a demon." he said. "Do not blame yourself unduly, Chronos; all of us have been deceived by the guiles of the Father of Lies. All of us have learned the hard way. Once he almost convinced me my magic was gone."

"But your life is not changed, Thanatos," Atropos said. "I checked that first; the snarl is not there."

The Deathhead grinned. "Obviously."

"No, I didn't take the horn there," Norton said. His knees felt weak. "I could have eliminated you, Thanatos, without ever realizing! You who were so kind to me when you took the baby! When you took the time to explain. I feel terrible! It was just blind luck that I didn't-"

"You two met before?" Luna asked. "Perhaps, then, it wasn't luck. Paradox may have been brought into play."

"I thought I was immune," Norton said.

"You are. But there are special cases. When did you meet Thanatos-in our time?"

"About a year and a half ago, maybe less. Before I became Chronos. It was partly because of Thanatos that I took the office. I knew, because of him, that it was possible for a good person to function as an Incarnation."

"He is a good person, isn't he?" Luna said, bestowing on Thanatos a momentary gaze of such love and respect that her beauty was intensified. Then she turned back to Norton. "Had you had no connection with Thanatos, you could have eliminated him without consequence to yourself. But you met him and were influenced by him; thus your elimination of him would have constituted a variety of paradox, even though the result occurred later in your own life. He had to be there to talk with you in your normal life-and I know from my own experience why he did it and that a different man in that office would not have done it." She smiled at the Death-figure.

"Well, he noticed my ring-"

"I have a houseful of similar enchantments." She turned and reached to a shelf, picking up a tiny elephant formed from a single blue topaz stone. In her hand the elephant came to life and trumpeted faintly. "He would not have found your ring remarkable."

Norton looked at Thanatos, who did not react. "Then why-?"

Luna took Thanatos' bone-arm, showing no aversion to its form. "Because he saw that you were suffering, and he had compassion. Few in his office have had that quality, and of course Satan doesn't comprehend it." She turned again to Thanatos. "I went with him first because I was required to, but when I grasped his inner nature I loved him. He saved my life-as all the Incarnations have- but I would have loved him anyway."

"That other woman," Norton said. "The one he would have married, had he not become Thanatos instead-she was beautiful and wealthy and good-but so are you! He lost nothing!"

"Nothing!" Thanatos agreed.

"So you could not readily eliminate Thanatos," Luna concluded. "Paradox did help there."

"Not-readily?"

"It is possible," she explained. "Paradox is not absolute for you. You will tend to avoid it, rather than confront it head-on, even when only mortals are involved. Incarnations are much more difficult to change, so paradox is stronger with them. But if you do meet it directly, it can not stop you. So you could have eliminated Thanatos without consequence to yourself, but it would have required a more specific effort."

"I made no effort!" Norton said.

"Yes. So you avoided eliminating him, for a reason Satan was not equipped to understand. Satan's ruse malfunctioned by seeming coincidence. That is the way such things operate; without your will, paradox will not be abused, even when only normal people are involved. What happened to Satan's horn?"

"I visited-the woman I loved," Norton said, abruptly aware that Atropos was merely another form of Clotho, with whom he had so recently made love. "She made me destroy the thing."

"There is the seeming coincidence," Luna said.

Atropos shook her head. "Still, there is something. Did you go anywhere before then?"

"Yes. I visited her when she was a child. And, you know, somewhere along the way part of the horn was lost-"

"Not lost," Luna said. "Departed. The part that was the messenger-demon took off to do its mischief."

"When?" Atropos demanded of Norton.

"When Orlene was ten years old-or maybe seven- that's the first stop I made-call it about fifteen years ago, your time. No, more like seventeen. I entered normal time to chat with her in a park. That could be where it left."

Atropos explored her threads. "Nothing in that period."

"Actually, I paused at a number of places in her life. But I didn't phase in to normal time-"

"Probably that wasn't necessary. The demon could have dropped off while you were traveling." She continued to check. "There does seem to be something eight or nine years ago." She put her old eye close. "Yes, threads I never crossed, in that general range."

"The minion, for sure," Luna said. "It made a change. It couldn't get to the primary target, so took a secondary one. Now we must discover what that is."

"A change in the past, to get rid of you-without touching Thanatos?" Norton asked.

"Or to nullify me," Luna said. "I am the real target, not Thanatos-and in this case I am easier to get at, since I am mortal and you never before interacted with me. In any event, Satan does not care how he gets his way-as long as he does."

"But you are the same-I mean, you haven't changed, have you? Or would you know if you had changed?"

Luna smiled. "I understand your concern, Chronos. But no, I don't believe I have changed-yet. My stones indicate that Good retains the advantage over Evil, and that would not be the case if Satan had his way. Still, mischief is in the making. We should be able to undo it if we act correctly and promptly."

"First we must discover what the damage is," Thanatos said. "Perhaps this is merely a diversion."

"It's oddly minor," Atropos said, still peering in perplexity at her threads. "Nothing significant, really. No one was killed, harmed, or even frightened."

"Keep looking," Luna said. "Satan is devious, but we can be sure he knows how to score."

"I'm afraid I still don't understand," Norton said. "If the demon did something to change the future-our present-why isn't it finished now? And if it isn't, why can't I simply go back to fix it? If Atropos can just pinpoint the moment-"

"It's the three-person limit," Atropos said, still tracing her threads. "An aspect of the paradox resistance." She glanced up to spy Norton's look of bafflement. "Thanatos, you understand it, don't you? Explain it to him, for Chronos certainly has the need to know."

Both Thanatos and Luna chuckled. "Indeed, he explained it to me many years ago, when I was new in office," Thanatos said. He opened his cloak and removed it; with that action, he became a completely ordinary young man, the one called Zane. Twenty years had not aged him at all; evidently Incarnations did not age the way normal people did. That aligned with Norton's observation of the prior Chronos: it had been an adult man, not a newborn baby, who brought the Hourglass. So he himself would probably remain his present physiological age until his term expired. "Chronos was kind to me," Zane continued. "Now I shall be kind to him at his commencement." And he settled down and explained it so that Norton could understand.

The reason no change had occurred in the present was that it had not yet occurred in the past. Whatever the demon of Satan had done was quiescent, evoking no change in the life of any human being. But that was merely a delayed implementation, a literal time bomb that would in due course have its effect on human events. The moment it did, the future from that point on would change, in whatever manner the initial alteration determined. That would surely include Luna; if she were not eliminated as a person, she would certainly be nullified as a force to balk Satan. So they had to locate and nullify that change before it touched the human fabric; only in that manner could they be assured of success.

"But how long-?" Norton asked.

"Atropos is trying to determine that," Thanatos said. "She can trace living threads readily, but inanimate threads are more devious. It could be five more minutes-or five more years."

Norton felt another chill. Time bomb indeed! "Maybe I can go back and destroy the demon before it escapes. It was in my possession, after all."

Thanatos shook his head. "You can not. That is the other aspect of Satan's mischief. The three-person limit prevents you." And he explained about that.

Chronos was the only entity who could travel in time and he was largely immune from paradox-but there were limits. His easiest way was simply to proceed along his natural life course, backward to the date of his birth. It required magical effort to reverse his direction and match that of ordinary people, as he was doing now, more effort to travel through historical time, and more yet to take physical form and act in such a time. But the magic of the Hourglass made it possible, and he could indeed change reality by changing the past. But in such cases, he was there in two persons-himself in his original, normal life, and himself in his return as Chronos. Doubling himself was in his power; it had to be, for him to use his power effectively. But tripling himself was another matter; then he was making a third appearance at a given time, interfering with himself as Chronos, and the potential for paradox magnified exponentially.

No one could interfere with an Incarnation with impunity-not even if that Incarnation was himself. That strained the power of the Hourglass, for it was itself being doubled and was opposing itself. It was theoretically possible for this to occur, but so awkward that it was hardly worthwhile to try. If he did try, most likely he would bounce off and land in a time when there was no duplication, possibly doing incidental mischief in the process. In short, the risks were probably greater than the likely benefits; mischief in time was the most awkward to undo-because of the three-person limit. Chronos could do damage that Chronos could not correct.

"And Satan knew that!" Norton exclaimed. "He knew I could not change my mind once I changed the past- even if it was inadvertent."

"True," Thanatos agreed. "Had you taken the demon to the Mess o' Pottage shop, you would have nullified the best efforts of Atropos and myself, for in such interactions Chronos is more powerful than Thanatos. The rest of us can double only by your action-and we can be rendered nonexistent by your action, too. Only God and Satan, the true Eternals, are exempt from that."

Something about this explanation bothered Norton, but he was not able to pin it down. "Then there is no way to stop what Satan's minion has done?" he asked. "If I can't return to stop the demon-"

"There should be a way," Luna said. "Satan's minions do not endure long apart from him. That demon must have done its deed and expired. If we can identify what he did and nullify it before it impinges on human events, then the victory will be ours. We probably have time, because Satan sought to distract you; he would not have bothered, had the deed been truly irrevocable."

"It was some distraction!" Norton admitted ruefully. "He said he was showing me the nature of his bribe to encourage me to take his minion to the Mess o' Pottage. All the time he knew this was pointless or impossible. He was certainly angry when he learned I'd destroyed the horn, though; he must have thought the mission had been a complete failure."

"We were lucky," Luna said. "We could have been lost before we had a chance to fight back. But that secondary mission can still destroy us. How is it coming, Atropos?"

"I have almost pinpointed the time and place," Atropos said. "But not the deed. I only know that when it manifests, it will give Satan the victory. My threads have tension on them that threatens haywire shifting. I need to comprehend it further."

Norton's mind had been running back over his recent experiences with Satan. The globular cluster, the Magic Lantern Cloud, and his adventures there-suddenly the thing that had bothered him came clear. He had doubled himself in those adventures, rescuing himself from the Bern and saving Excelsia from the Alicom. It had been not only possible but easy. How, then, could the three person limit be such a formidable force? Did it exist at all?

"Gaea," Luna said.

"I will take Atropos to her," Thanatos said, rising and resuming his cloak.

"Take us all," Luna said. "Chronos must meet her, too."

"Gaea-another Incarnation?" Norton asked. It seemed to him he had heard that name before; Gawain the Ghost had said-

"The Green Mother," Luna explained. "Nature."

Yes, that was it; Gaea had changed the baby for Gawain and thereby had caused terrible mischief. The memory of that banished Norton's three-person speculation from his attention; he wanted to meet this powerful yet fallible entity.

The four of them walked out to the estate parking lot, paced by the guardian griffins. They were certainly beautiful animals! Beside the parking lot there was a small, verdant pasture. A handsome stallion of pale hue grazed there.

"Mortis," Thanatos called.

The pale horse perked up his ears and trotted over. He was a truly splendid animal, with a sleek hide and firm muscles; had he had wings and a horn, he could have passed for another Alicom. This was, Norton remembered, the Death horse-the steed who carried Thanatos to his appointments.

"We need transportation for four-to the Green Mother," Thanatos said to the horse.

Mortis stepped onto the pavement-and shifted into the form of a pale limousine. Norton gaped. "That-but that's a machine!" he protested.

Thanatos drew his cloak about him more tightly; as the hood closed, the skull-face manifested with its gruesome grin. "Mortis is an excellent steed-but perhaps no more remarkable than your little ring." He opened a door for the ladies.

Squeeze. Sning liked that comparison. He was another creature who converted from living to dead, or vice versa.

Norton walked around the car, noting that the tag in back said, MORTIS. And he had thought the Alicom was remarkable! When magic and science were one, such miracles were commonplace. He opened a door and climbed in.

He found himself in the back seat beside Clotho. She shrugged at his startled glance. "I want to be presentable for Ge," she explained.

Of course. Fate changed bodies the way others changed clothes. This made it seem like a double date, for Thanatos and Luna were companions, while he and Clotho- well, what did it matter? His old existence as a mortal was behind him.

The car started smoothly, driving itself. It turned about-and abruptly it was zooming through space and matter. The world was rushing past in a smear of color. Then this slowed, and they were driving into the gate of a truly sumptuous estate with luxuriant trees of many varieties and a sparkling lake. It was the kind of place that could charge tourists for visits.

A huge shape loomed in the sky ahead. Norton peered through the windshield. "That-that's a-"

"A roc," Luna said calmly. "The largest of birds. Ge has made her estate into a preserve for rare and magical creatures. It's hard to imagine how she salvaged the rocs."

The roc swooped toward them, its wings seeming to span the whole horizon. It pounced on the car, its monstrous talons poking into the windows and vents, and picked up the vehicle together with its occupants as if this were no more than a mouse. In moments they were dangling high in the air.

One talon was near Norton's face, projecting from the top of the window to the ceiling of the car. The talon was like fine blue steel, an inch in diameter at the window and tapering to a needle point. What a bird!

Luna turned to Thanatos, unruffled. "Ge is testing us," she remarked. "Perhaps you had better perform a token, just to reassure her."

"Gently," Clotho cautioned him. "We are fairly high at the moment."

"Gently," Thanatos agreed. He reached up and touched a talon with a skeletal finger.

The bird shuddered-and so did the car. The roc had felt the touch of Death, and that was a touch no creature ignored. The roc spiraled down to the ground and set the car gently back on the road. Then it hastily departed.

Norton realized why caution had been advisable. Thanatos could have stunned or killed the big bird-but that would have led to a crash landing. So he had merely given warning-and the roc, recognizing a power more sinister than its own, had yielded.

But a new problem loomed. A cloud formed, and rain slanted down from it, turning rapidly to sleet and then snow. From the right puffed smoke and steam; then a vent opened and molten rock poured out. The lava was not moving rapidly, but it was hideously hot; the vegetation it touched burst instantly into flame. The snow, on the other side, was already piling so deep that the ear could not plow through it.

Clotho shook her head. "Ge." She sighed as if addressing a naughty child. "Mortis, follow my thread." She flicked a finger, and a thread flew out, passing through the windshield without touching it and extending in front of the car, glowing.

Mortis followed it. The thread wound through the slush melted by the lava, left the road, traveled along a ridge that held the lava temporarily at bay, and went across a narrow channel that concentrated the lava. The car speeded up to hurdle the ditch, then slued about to follow the curving thread toward the main mass of lava. This seemed hazardous indeed to Norton, particularly since the traction was treacherous and the visibility almost nil, but the thread of Fate knew exactly where to go. That, of course, was part of Fate's business-to know the intricacies of man's interaction with Nature. They threaded their way successfully between snow and lava, sometimes with each close enough to touch on either side from a window, sometimes pausing, then scooting forward, avoiding a minor avalanche, and emerged onto a firm, dry road. Fate had foiled Nature.

Then Norton experienced an urgent need to relieve himself. His gut knotted and his bladder swelled. "Uh, if we could stop a moment..." he said.

Luna fidgeted. "Ge again; we all feel it. No way to avoid it, and stopping won't relieve it. It's her specialty for intruders: instant flu." Her cheek seemed greenish.

Indeed, now Norton's stomach roiled. Beside him, Clotho looked seasick, and Thanatos seemed about as sick as a skeleton could be.

Clotho turned to him. "Your turn, Chronos."

Oh. Norton lifted the Hourglass, turned the sand blue, and willed the immediate region to be included in a short hop. There was a small jump, and the discomfort abated.

He had brought the car and occupants five minutes into the past, which was his future, before the illness commenced.

Clotho took a deep breath. "Thank you, Chronos. A girl doesn't like to look sick in public." She brought out a small mirror and checked her young and pretty face.

He had not violated the three-person rule, since he had not duplicated himself. Well, perhaps he had, because he had been phased in to real-world time. The others and the car would be duplicated for five minutes, but by the time the other earful of them caught up to this spot on the road, this car would be gone, and so there should be no problem. The other earful would fade out, leaving this one.

Or could the other earful have been retroactively erased? That would avoid the three-person problem. There was still a lot he did not understand about his office.

Now the mansion of the Green Mother Nature was before them. It seemed to be formed of vegetation, its thick wood alive and leafy, with a streamlet flowing from level to level in the manner of a fountain. Animals peeped from crannies-bunnies, wrens, lizards, and perhaps an elf or two. This was indeed the handiwork of the Earth Mother.

The car parked, they got out, and Mortis reconverted to equine form and set about grazing beside the mansion. Had they really been inside a horse all this time? Norton shook his head, filing the matter as another wonder to be pondered at leisure at such time as he was alone with a campfire. The four walked up to the entrance.

Gaea met them there. She was a stoutish woman of middle age with a crown of woven leaves and vines and a dress of leaves and pine needles; green was certainly her color. She seemed to Norton to possess an aura of competence and power; this was no innocuous creature.

If green was Nature's color, he reflected, then surely black was Thanatos', and white his own. But what would be Fate's color?

"We're in trouble, Ge," Clotho said without preamble. "Satan tricked Chronos into taking a demon back in time to eliminate Luna. That was partly balked by paradox, but there's a sleeper. I can't quite track it down."

Gaea glanced at Norton. "My apology for my error," she murmured.

No confusion there! She was referring to the problem with Oriene's baby. "Accepted," he said. He knew she had helped facilitate his present office as compensation for that error.

Gaea turned to Clotho. "Let me see it."

Clotho held out her hands, the network of threads between them. Gaea peered. "May I?" she asked.

"You may," Clotho replied.

Gaea made a little gesture with a hand near the threads. They changed-and the environment changed. The threads became curling green vines with sprouting leaves- and the five human figures in the mansion seemed to be standing in an enormous garden, existing on the scale of insects.

The vine-threads wove through the fabric of this new reality in an amazingly complex scheme. Everything seemed to relate, in some obvious or devious fashion, to everything else. Of course, that was the nature of reality, or the reality of nature, and of fate, and this manifestation was hardly surprising, since these were the very Incarnations of Nature and Fate.

Gaea walked along a vine. "Here it is," she said. "Here is where the threads were crossed."

The others crowded close. Norton saw that a tiny stem, something like a section of fine straw, had been moved, so that it crossed the main vine in a slightly different place. The change hardly seemed significant.

Clotho concentrated-and the vines expanded, until the large vine seemed to be the diameter of the height of a man and the small stem was three inches through. "I will analyze the small one," Gaea said. 'That one's dead, but I believe it holds the key." She gestured. A glow formed about the small vine and the place from which it had been moved. Colored light radiated from that region, separating into prismatic components, bathing them all in rainbow hues.

"There," Gaea said, pointing to a dark band amidst the colored light. "The spectrograph shows it. Contamination."

"Dangerous?" Clotho asked.

Gaea frowned. "No. It's cyanide, but that was there before the interference. It has been chemically nullified, so that its effect on a human being would be minimal. A few hours of queasiness, no more."

"Why should Satan act to nullify an existing poison?" Thanatos asked.

Clotho inspected the larger vine. "Oops," she said. "Now at last I fathom it. What an insidious plot!"

Gaea looked at her expectantly. "You had slated a poisoning?"

"Not exactly," Clotho said. "Here, Lachesis can explain it better." She shifted to middle-aged form. "I do not slate people for doom any more than Thanatos kills them," Lachesis said. "I merely weave the threads in necessary patterns. Some mortals must prosper and some must decline, and there is no guaranteed personal justice in this. My concern is not for individuals, but for the pattern as a whole. In this case, a certain older man of indifferent qualities had to be woven out in order to make way for a young woman of superior qualities. So-he was accidentally poisoned, mostly by his own carelessness. He swallowed a pill contaminated by cyanide and died at the age of sixty-two. It was small loss for the world, though he was politically prominent."

"Cyanide," Luna said thoughtfully. "I remember-"

"The same," Lachesis agreed.

"I don't understand," Norton said.

Lachesis faced him. "This remains in your future- but you do need to know now. The senior Senator from Luna's state died in office, so a special election was scheduled. Luna ran for that office with the support of the Forces of Good and won. This is the office she now holds."

"Luna is a Senator?" Norton asked, surprised. He might have heard about it before, but it hadn't sunk in.

"And an excellent one," Thanatos said with a certain possessive pride. "At the moment, the Senate isn't in session, so she's not in the news, but normally she is. She was first elected eight years ago and is now well established with a firm base of support. She may one day become our first female President."

"I haven't decided to run yet!" Luna protested, embarrassed.

Norton was embarrassed too. He had been so much out of touch with contemporary affairs that he had never heard of Senator Kaftan during his ordinary life.

"But after you balk Satan in that critical showdown, you will be the front runner," Lachesis said. "I see it in the threads."

No wonder Satan didn't like Luna! A powerful female political figure, allied with the Incarnations themselves, possessed of a legacy of magic from her Magician father-she would be in an excellent position to balk any political ploy the Prince of Evil tried! Obviously he had something in mind and needed her out of office so she couldn't interfere. "Then the demon I took back in time--"

"Went and nullified the contaminated capsule that the original Senator was destined to take," Lachesis concluded. "So when he takes it, he won't die and will remain in office, and there will be no special election for Luna to win. She will remain a lesser officeholder and not become a Senator, and will not be in a position to foil him politically at the critical moment."

Subtle indeed! "But couldn't she win the office in a normal election?"

"Against an incumbent? No chance! The Senator has to be dead before giving up his seat." Lachesis grimaced. "And even if she did manage to oust him, it wouldn't be the same. Taking office four years later, she wouldn't have the same seniority. That's important for key committees and influence-especially the committee chairmanship that will give her the specific authority she needs. No, Luna has to win that seat when she did-which means we have to restore that capsule before the Senator takes it."

"But this is murder!" Norton cried, aghast.

"We do deal in life and death," Gaea said, with a significant glance at Thanatos.

"But in their proper pattern," Lachesis said. "Is it really murder to restore the events of the past to their original settings?"

Norton was confused and unhappy. "To poison a person knowingly-"

"Have you any notion," Lachesis asked grimly, "how many people will knowingly be poisoned-and tortured, murdered, and literally damned to Hell-if the minions of Satan win political power on Earth?"

"No," Norton said.

"With political power, Satan can and will make the worship of God a crime punishable by torture until recantation. Thus all those who are not good enough or strong enough to resist such torture-and that is the majority- will become worshipers of Satan, and the balance of power will shift to Him. He will have His way with both Life and Afterlife, and there will be no reprieve from Evil. On that day, the death of one corrupt Senator will not even be noticed, for Good itself will be dead."

"But-you are saying the end justifies the means!" Norton was still deeply troubled. "If we do evil in the name of good-"

"Why don't you step into Hell and see what Satan's power is like?" Gaea asked him. Her eyes were like blue skies with roiling clouds in the background.

"I can do that? Visit Hell?"

"You are an Incarnation. You can do what you choose. Even Satan can not deny you that."

Norton considered-and found that he did not need to visit Hell to know that Satan was evil. He did not like killing, but it was true that the ethics of his revising the past were problematical. Was he guilty of murder if he did not set about revising history to eliminate every death that had occurred during his projected term of office? If he decided to let history stand as it was, deaths included, was it right to allow Satan to make the decision about which person should be spared by a spot revision? Viewed that way, the sacrifice of the Senator seemed to be the lesser of evils. He did not like becoming the instrument of the Senator's demise, but he preferred that to the evil Satan would generate if the Senator lived. It seemed he had to choose among flawed means to achieve the smallest total evil for the society, cutting one thread for the benefit of the majority. He had to respect the judgment of the other Incarnations, who had been in office longer than he had and who had had more experience with the machinations of Satan. "No, I will help you to restore the original past. I will take you back to when the demon changed-" He broke off, remembering the three-person barrier. "Except you tell me I can't go back there, having been there once before as Chronos."

"There is a way," Gaea said. "But it is not easy."

"None of this is easy," Norton said.

"None of it is," Gaea agreed. "You can not return directly to that time. But you can return to a spot on the timeline that is no closer than your elapsed personal time, and anchor yourself then, and-"

"Wait! Wait! I'm hopelessly confused! No closer than what?"

Luna came and took his hand. "You are new in office, however long we have known you in it. We keep forgetting, because you have been so knowledgeable in our past. I will explain, while they narrow down the precise coordinates of the demon's interference." She guided him to another huge vine, and they sat down on its resilient surface. She had a remarkably compelling presence and a quiet air of authority and she was, despite her age, a beautiful woman. Norton could understand how Death himself loved her.

"Time is objective," Luna said, "and subjective. It passes in the world and it passes for you-and though your normal course is opposite to that of the world, time is equally real for both of you. When you live a day, the world lives a day, and this ratio holds regardless of direction. So, since it has been about six hours from when you loosed Satan's minion on Earth, in terms of your life, the same amount of time has passed on Earth since the change. You can no more return to a spot within that six hours than you can duplicate yourself; it is an aspect of the same limit."

Norton shook his head. "It almost seems to make sense when you say it."

She smiled. "Almost! It will make more sense to you as you mature in office."

"Nonetheless, I can't accept all of it."

"What can't you accept?"

"First, I can duplicate myself; I have already done so more than once. So-"

"Duplicate once, yes; it is the second duplication that is the barrier."

"Yes. But since my original life counts as one, and my present backward life as another--"

"Did we say that? That was a misunderstanding. Your prior, mortal life is excluded. Only your present Incarnation relates. You have no further connection with your mortal existence; that is one reason you are immune from any paradox involving it. So your normal backward course is one, and your jump to our past is another."

"But I have doubled up, and interfered with my prior Chronos self-in fact, once I rescued my prior self from destruction."

She pursed her lips. "That's interesting! But it does not violate the three-person rule. It does not matter whether your doubles are together or far apart; you can not conveniently go triple."

He nodded. "Yes, I see how it applies now. But the other thing is this business of six hours. It has been a lot longer than that since-"

"I calculated it," Lachesis called, overhearing him. "Your time in Satan's frame doesn't count for this, only your time in this one. You slept for three hours, talked with Satan for half an hour, and spoke with me for an hour and a half before we realized the problem and went to join the other Incarnations an hour ago. Six hours total."

"I see," Norton said, surprised at the accuracy of her assessment. But, of course, she was Fate, the Mistress of the Threads of Life; this was her business.

"At the moment," Luna said gently, "it is enough for you to know that these six hours are barred to you by direct effort, but that you can penetrate them by an extraordinary measure."

"I land seven hours later and-what?"

"And turn back the clock," she said. "You must reverse time and take the whole world with you. That will put you in the same category as you were-would be-will be, for you-when you live through that period as Chronos. You will pre-empt that period."

"You mean, by that device I'll actually erase whatever I was doing in my normal course then?"

"We believe so. There is a risk, if that normal course covers something important, but Lachesis sees no problem in her threads. Perhaps that period has never happened for you, because of your pre-emption, so nothing is lost."

Norton's head was spinning again. "How do you know my so-called normal Chronos self will go?" he asked. "Maybe I'll actually be tripling myself. That's theoretically possible, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is," she agreed with a certain reservation. "There may be an infinite progression, like a picture within a picture, or mirrors facing each other. But it is convenient for us to call it the three-person limit. Our understanding is more restricted than yours will be; perhaps we understand only part of your nature. At any rate, we are reasonably certain that if you reverse time for the world, for those six or seven hours, you will be able to reach the moment the demon acted, despite your prior trip there, and to nullify the demon just before it acts. Then you can relax, with the world returned to its original course, the damage undone-and protected by the same three-person limit that at the moment is causing us so much difficulty. Reversing Satan's ploy."

"But what, when-?"

"When you come to that period in your normal life? I believe you will simply jump over it, having already lived it preemptively. The three-person limit should not harm you, but merely cause you that inconvenience-if we judge it correctly."

"It seems reasonable enough to me," he said. "Thank you. Senator-"

"Luna."

"Luna. Now I think I know what I'm doing."

"Thank you," she said, touching the back of his hand with her cool, delicate fingers. "It is my career you are preserving."

Norton looked across at the others. Lachesis was facing him. "We have now pinpointed it exactly," she said. "We can give you precise coordinates. Are you ready to save the world from Satan, Chronos?"

Norton breathed deeply. "I hope so," he said.

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Chapter 11 - DRAWKCAB

They took him to the spot where the deed had been done- not the contamination, but the decontamination of the capsule. The capsule was already in a bottle in the Senator's suburban residence, in storage for later use. It was an irony of the type Satan specialized in that this Senator had acted to block more effective regulation of the production and marketing of exactly such products as this, so that slipshod quality control was practiced in the interests of cost-economy, and many people were harmed by such contamination. But now it suited Satan's purpose to preserve the life of the Senator, so he had acted.

The demon had simply come, denaturized the capsule, and expired. Norton would have to catch the demon just before it did the job and cause it to expire early. That was all. Gaea had provided him with a vial of holy water for the purpose. Norton had donned a conventional suit, concealing his white cloak, so that he would not seem remarkable among the mortals.

The room was empty and dusty now; the Senator's house had been sold after he died, and this wing of it was in disuse. Of course, it might remain empty if Satan's ploy worked, for in eight years the Senator could have died of natural causes. Satan didn't care about the Senator; he just wanted to see that Luna was not the person who replaced him.

Norton concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand blue, and zoomed through time to the designated moment. The other Incarnations could not come with him for this mission; they had to maintain their own positions in this historical period so that Satan would not suspect what effort was being made here.

He arrived at the designated time and slowed to his normal pace. He raised the Hourglass, about to invoke the major magical attempt of his brief career, when he noticed something. He had overshot his target time by a few minutes and come within the six-hour limit. That was readily fixed; he would simply back up till he was clear, before engaging the rest of the world. He had not yet phased in to reality, so there would be no three-person complication. But there was another thing-something that jarred.

He was in the same room he had started from, a generous eight years hence, but now it was filled with supplies: bottles of bourbon, smoked hams, cans of caviar, and other signals of rich living. The Senator evidently believed in taking care of Number One first. One high shelf was devoted to medicines-more than one man should need in a lifetime. Among these was the bottle;

Lachesis had described it precisely, so Norton would know it without fail. All this he had anticipated. But there was another presence, and that was what had made him pause.

Sitting across from the key bottle and watching it intently was a small demon. The creature was so small it could have been a figurine, with little snub-horns, red shoe-button eyes, and a leathery forked tail. But it was no figurine; it was a living-if that term applied-minion of Satan.

Had the demon survived its mission? No, the other Incarnations should not have been wrong about a detail like that. This must be another demon, a contemporary one, assigned to guard the capsule until it was used. That could only mean that Satan was aware of this counterplot after all. The Satan of this time, eight years before Norton's present. Since Satan did not live backward, he could not know what his future self had done-but he surely had recognized his minion. So he must have assumed, correctly, that his future self was up to something nefarious and he was seeing that no one interfered with whatever that was. He would not know why the demon from the future had nullified the contamination, but he would know there was good, or rather evil, reason. Satan was evil, but not stupid.

This posed a problem for Norton. The little demon could not perceive him at the moment, for

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