WebMage (36 page)

"Naughty, naughty," she said, but her voice sounded different from the way it normally did, as though it were coming from a great distance. "Mustn't violate Oath to Necessity. We don't like that."

"How dare you?" snarled Lachesis. "It was he who violated the oath, not I."

"That's not how Mother sees it," said Alecto, from across the room, and her voice too, seemed strangely distant.

"What do you mean?" asked Lachesis.

"Necessity hears every oath taken in her name, whether you invoke her or not," said Megaera, in the same faraway voice.

"I don't understand," said Lachesis. "I didn't violate my oath. He did."

"I'm afraid not, Grandmother," said I. "I promised to keep quiet about Orion, and I have."

"Then what is the spell your goblin is spouting over there?" she asked.

"Oh, that's Orion, all right. But he's doing that on his own. I just pointed out to him that if he wanted to take independent action, he happened to have a copy of Orion in his DASD memory. I left it there after I made a duplicate crystal."

"His actions are an extension of your own," said Atropos, stepping up beside Lachesis. "He's your creature."

"No," I replied. "He's my friend. I'm profoundly grateful he was willing to act on my suggestion, but the action was his. I'd think the reaction of the Furies would have been indication enough of that. Didn't your encounter with your former familiar, Ahllan, teach you anything?"

"Oh, Khemnos spouted some nonsense about seeing her acting on her own, right enough, but that's foolery. I assumed that you or Cerice had salvaged her and stashed her somewhere for your own purposes."

"Afraid not," said Melchior, who had just finished with the spell. "Neither one of them is bright enough for that." He'd just deliberately discarded the secrecy that provided his kind with their best protection against the whims of Fate, and he was shaking all over, but his voice was firm.

"I'll kill you all," said Atropos.

"That would be a violation of Fate's word to Necessity," said Eris, from her place on the witness stand. "I'd advise against it."

"As would I," said Megaera.

"It
would
be unwise," agreed Alecto.

"But such fun," said Tisiphone, smiling hopefully.

"Now," said Alecto. She was holding up an eight-sided memory crystal. Puppeteer. Emerald green, and filled with gorgeous traceries of gold, it was the thing that had started this whole mess. "It's time for the verdict."

"Not that there's much to decide," said Megaera.

"Perhaps someone will dispute the judgment," said Tisiphone, hopefully.

There didn't seem to be any takers.

"Our judgment is in favor of Discord," said the oddly distorted version of the tripartite voice the Furies used when they spoke for Necessity. "She was acting in accordance with her mandate as an agent of chaos. Eris, you are free to leave." The gate of the witness stand sprang open. Eris bowed to the Furies and stepped to the floor of the temple.

"Thank you," she said. "I think I'll stick around for a bit."

The Furies ignored her. The second she was absolved she ceased to exist for them.

"Atropos," said the Furies, turning their attentions to the Fate. "We will take the Puppeteer spell and nullify it. However, you have done nothing against your mandate. You are also free to leave."

Their duty to Necessity done, the Furies seemed to shrink, relaxing back into their separate personalities. A moment later, they unfurled their wings and rose into the air.

"I've no doubt we'll be seeing
you
again," said Alecto, pointing a finger at me like a gun.

"Considering your nature, it's almost inevitable," agreed Megaera, and for the first time since I'd met her, there seemed to be the faintest note of pleasant anticipation in her voice. It sent a chill right through me.

"We'll have such fun," added Tisiphone.

With a rush of storm winds and the blowing of hunting horns, they were gone.

Atropos smiled coldly after them, then turned her gaze my way. "Well played, nephew mine. I didn't realize you had it in you." She might hate me, but she would never let that interfere with the proper display of family manners.

I bowed as deeply I could with my knee in its brace. I made sure to keep the gesture formal and not mocking. I'd finally learned better, and the lessons had been expensive ones. "Thank you, Madame."

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a clear life strand. It was stiff and vital at one end. Though that portion was as transparent as the rest, it somehow gave the impression of color removed. At the point where the strand passed between Atropos's thumb and forefinger it underwent a transition. From there on it was like the spun glass of a fiber-optic cable, possessing no color or light of its own, but rather, passing along the hint of things far distant. There was also no end in that direction. The strand just seemed to vanish into another space. I recognized it as my thread.

"I'll be keeping this. I may not have any power over it at the moment, but at some point that must change. I can be very patient. I am the end of all things, nephew mine. I shall be the last. When birth has ended, I will cut Clotho's cord, and she will be no more. The time will come when every last thread has been measured, and I will snip Lachesis from the great weave. In the end only Death and I will remain. Then I will cut his thread, and it will be me alone. With my last strength I will close the shears on my own life. I am the end of everything, including you. This isn't over, nephew mine. Never forget that." Then she just faded away, like a Polaroid photo in reverse, taking my thread with her.

My legs felt like Jell-O, and my ears were ringing like church bells at a Quasimodo festival. I wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. I needed time to heal and to assimilate all that had passed. But as Atropos had so sweetly pointed out, it wasn't over. Lachesis was approaching. Her expression was terribly, terribly sad, though as usual, the emotion didn't touch her eyes. I braced myself.

"You have made your choice. Now you must abide by the consequences, and so must I. You have sided with chaos against order. I revile you. You have failed in your duty to the house of Fate. I cast you out. You have betrayed your family and me. I take back your name." She, too, faded from view.

Clotho, who had been conspicuous in her absence from the field during the past few minutes, reappeared and approached me. I didn't know why, and I didn't know what to expect from her. I stood before her, alone and nameless. She looked me up and down very closely. When she finally met my eyes, she was smiling.

"I spun your thread out of the stuff of chaos, and to chaos it has returned. That spinning was my first gift to you, and I think it has not been entirely wasted. So I will give you another present. You have been the cuckoo in the nest of Fate, our dark and tricksy bird. I gift you a new name: Raven. Fly high, dark bird. Fly high." With a wink and a grin, she was gone.

Of the great powers, only Eris was left. She approached me, a broad smile spreading across her beautiful, bichromatic features. As she came, her clothes shifted from Greek formal to dance-club leather and lace.

"I've always liked Clotho," she said, expansively putting an arm around my shoulders. "There is a chaos in beginnings that her sisters can never know. Welcome to the wild side. We don't go in for all those houses and things that your blood family is so enamored of, but we do have fun together when we aren't stabbing each other in the back. Look me up when you're on your feet again. Friday is poker night. Bring money." She put her lips up to my ear, blew gently, and whispered, "In fact, bring lots."

Then she threw her head back and laughed like all the windows of hell shattering. It was a wild, eerie sound and it continued long after she had departed.

So, I'd been offered a place of sorts, but it wasn't one I particularly wanted to take. I'd started down this road because I wasn't willing to see order overwhelm chaos, but I wasn't any more excited about seeing things go the other way. There had to be some middle ground. Didn't there? But that was a question for another time.

They were all gone by then, the true immortals who smashed aside everything in their path. That left only Melchior and Cerice. We were alone at last. I looked at Cerice, afraid to speak. So much had happened. I was cast out, wearing a new name and a new role. Would she still want me?

"Raven?" she said, and it seemed almost that she was tasting the word. Checking for poison perhaps. "It fits somehow. My grandmother is more forgiving than yours."

"And you?" I managed to ask, though it was so very hard. Until I'd heard the answer, I wouldn't be able to count the full cost. "What do you think?"

"I think I'll stick around for a while," she said, wrapping her arms around me. "I've always been attracted to bad boys."

"There are still a thousand things I need to tell you," I said, thinking of the many half-truths, the omissions and evasions. We had a hard road ahead, though not half so hard as the one we'd already trod.

"We'll have time for that later," she said. "For now there's only one thing I need to hear."

This time I could speak my heart.

"I love you, Cerice."

"And I am awfully fond of you, my dark bird." It was a start.

I knelt then, though it cost me dearly in pain. I needed to face Melchior at his own level. "Thank you, Melchior," I said, placing my one working hand on his shoulder. "I…" I found I couldn't go any further.

He'd exposed himself before the Fates and risked his life for me with no way of knowing what the consequences would be. I owed him everything, and I couldn't even begin to find the words to express what he meant to me.

Once again, he came to my rescue. "Don't worry about it," he said with a grin. "You're welcome. You'd have done the same for me, though with less panache, of course. That's what partners are for. Right?"

"Right," I agreed, smiling back.

Suddenly, despite all the threats and uncertainties still to be faced, I felt confident about the future. With people like Melchior and Cerice around to keep me on the right track, I knew everything would work out. We'd get Shara fixed, even if I had to drag her wandering soul back from the banks of the Styx. I'd keep a step or two ahead of Hwyl and the cousins. Who knows, I might even finish college.

"Chez Ahllan, and Shara?" I asked.

"As quickly as ever we can," said Cerice, worry about her familiar clear in her voice. "Melchior, would you do the honors?"

"It would be my pleasure," he replied, bowing to Cerice and digging for his magical tools. "Let's go home."

Kelly McCullough has sold short fiction to publications including
Weird Tales, Absolute Magnitude
, and
Cosmic SF
.

An illustrated collection of Kelly's short science fiction, called
The Chronicles of the Wandering Star
, is part of InterActions in Physical Science, an NSF-funded middle school science curriculum.

He lives in western Wisconsin. Visit his website at
www.kellymccullough.com
.