304 With a Tangled Skein
behooves us to verify exactly what mischief is being done, this
time." "Can't you tell, from your past?"
"That's the odd thing. There doesn't seem to be any effect. Yet
Satan never lets such an
opportunity pass un -- fulfilled."
"No mischief?" she asked. "That is suspicious! What mischief could
Satan do that you would
not be aware of?"
"Something of limited scope," he said. "Or something
subtle."
"If it's too limited or subtle to affect the balance of good and
evil in the world, it's
too limited to be worth his while," Niobe said. "I'm sure he
wouldn't waste a valuable demon on
anything genuinely minor." She re -- membered the various demonic
attacks on her own fam -- ily.
"There has to be something."
"Perhaps something that manifests after my term began," Chronos
said. "That way I would
not know of it. Satan is adept at sleepers."
"Yes! Luna is supposed to be the salvation of man some time in the
future, perhaps twenty
years hence. Satan has enormous cunning and patience; he can afford
to wait, to nullify your
perception. There must be something the demon does now that will
show up then."
"He has done that sort of thing," Chronos agreed. "Never that
long-term, in my experience,
but of course I foiled the shorter-term efforts. With difficulty, I
confess. It was quite wearing;
if it hadn't been for your support and Clotho's -- I mean this
one's successor -- I might have
given up."
Niobe chose to ignore the remark about Clotho's suc -- cessor, and
hoped Clotho had not
picked it up; none of them wanted to know the times of their
departures from office, voluntary as
they might be. "That must be it. What could a demon do today, that
wouldn't take effect for twenty
years? A time bomb?"
Piers Anthony 305
"Such devices are notoriously unreliable. More likely it would be
some kind of change in
personnel somewhere, so that someone would not be available to do
something to oppose Satan in
that time."
"We have pretty well safeguarded Luna," Niobe said. "So I don't
think the demon can touch
her. She's the only truly critical person I know of."
"At one point, Satan sent a demon to nullify the accidental
poisoning of the senator she
replaced, so that -- "
"Wait, wait, Chronos! You're talking of the future! I wish you
wouldn't do that. Just
speak in generalities, if you please."
"Sorry. My point is that if Satan can affect people Luna interacts
with, he can affect her
indirectly. If she is to be pivotal in a political sense, the
change of other personnel might
transfer the pivot to another person."
"Now I understand. You say she's to become a sen --
ator?"
"Yes, if you don't mind that information. A good one."
"So the Senate is the likely arena for -- whatever it
is?"
"I would say so."
"Then I'd-better check potential changes in the makeup of the
Senate. I'm learning how to
read the threads better, so I should be able to do this more
efficiently than I did for the stinkbomb carriers. Did I thank you
for your effort there?"
"Stink bomb? Oh, there was something in an alternate reality. The
UN?"
"That's right -- if I thanked you last month, you wouldn't know it
now!" "I'm sure you did what was proper -- and I will too." "Well,
thank you anyway -- for that
and this." She left the mansion and, as usual, took time out before
returning to her Abode, so as
not to meet her self of the immediate past; that was always
unsettling. She had done
With a Tangled Skein
306
it on occasion by prearrangement during the time of the
child-Chronos, and that had been
interesting, but she was too busy for that sort of thing now. She slid her thread down to pay a brief call on Luna, just to advise her of the current situation. She hadn't seen the young woman since assuming the Aspect of Lachesis, so it really was
time.
She landed at the door of what turned out to be a rather elegant fenced estate guarded by two fierce griffins. When they menaced her, she slid through them on a thread, showing them what they were dealing with.
The door opened, and there stood Luna. "My
dear!" Niobe exclaimed. "What have you done with your
hair?"
"Grandma!" Luna exclaimed. "Come in!"
They had a nice visit, in the course of which Niobe learned that
Luna had used a spell when she moved to America to darken her hair
to chestnut brown. "My father insisted,"" she said. "I really don't
know why."
Niobe remembered Satan's confusion, supposing Luna was the one with
the darker hair. Satan had seen her more recently than Niobe had!
"I believe I understand why," she murmured. Her son theMagician had
really been on
the job!
In due course she kissed her granddaughter adieu and slid home. She
had serious business to attend to.
She checked the skein, searching out the threads of current
senators. Of course there would be many changes in twenty years, so
nothing much should show. But -
She was disappointed. She started with the youngest, who would be
most likely to remain for another twenty years or more, therefore
the most likely targets for Satan's effort. After all, what use to
corrupt a senator who would not be there for the payoff? But one
after the other, the threads were normal. None of them had been
touched by the distinctive stigmatum of Satan's
influence.
Piers Anthony 307
"Well, it was worth checking," she said. "It was just a wild guess
anyway."
"Why not check the old ones?" Atropos asked. "They'd be replaced
anyway, by then." "Check them anyway. I've got a hunch." Niobe
shrugged and checked the thread of the oldest senator. She stared.
There was the kink of Satan!
She checked another old one. There was another stig -- matum. Satan
had definitely influenced these men!
"But it doesn't make sense!" Niobe protested. "One of these men is
seventy-six years old now, and in failing health; there's no way
he's going to make it another twenty years!"
"Unless he gets a youth potion," Atropos replied.
"A youth potion!" Suddenly it made sense! Trust an old woman to
think of that! An old, corrupt man would gladly give his soul for
that, figuring he was going to Hell anyway. Satan, in effect, could
be offering these men twenty more years of life, in exchange for
their support at the critical moment. Since they would otherwise be
replaced by younger and perhaps more Godfearing men, it was to
Satan's interest to do this.
Luna was being bypassed. That could not be allowed.
She checked more threads. The four oldest senators were kinked; the
fifth and sixth weren't. "The demon hasn't finished making the
bribes!" she said. "We're not too late to cut short its
activity!"
"I don't know about tangling with a demon," Clotho said. "Samurai's
teaching me selfdefense, but he says it won't work against magic,
and a demon can't be killed by mortal means."
"Of course it can!" Atropos said. "Just sprinkle some holy water on
it."
Niobe agreed. "And of course we are invulnerable to injury, as an
Incarnation. Neither mortal nor demon can shed our blood unless we
concur."
With a Tangled Skein
308
They fetched a vial of holy water, then slid down to the senator's
residence. As seemed to
be customary, the sen -- ator had feathered his own nest considerably; it was an elegant estate, with a broad expanse of green lawn, sculp -- tured bushes, and assorted outbuildings surrounding the central mansion.
There was no physical barrier to admission, but
a yel -- low line had been painted around the senator's property.
Magic, Atropos thought darkly.
Niobe walked on along the walk, knowing that no magic could harm an
Incarnation. This was one of the greatest advantages of her prior
experience: she could proceed with confidence because she knew her
powers. Had there been three new Aspects of Fate, Satan would
surely have convinced them that they were physically and magically
vulnerable, and gained considerable advantage. Thanatos had
mentioned being worked over that way by the Father of Lies, until
at last he had realized the truth. Niobe re -- membered how close
Satan had come to convincing her to resign her office, the first
time in the Void. There were so many forms a lie could take, and
Satan practiced them
all!
As she crossed the yellow line, there was an alarm. A cloud of
birds took off from the roof of the house and came toward her. They
seemed to recognize her as an intruder, for they didn't hesitate;
they folded their wings and dived like little
hunting-hawks.
Ooo! Clotho thought, mentally ducking. But Niobe merely flung out a
loop of thread, and another intersecting it at right angles,
defining a sphere about her body. The birds darted into this sphere
and abruptly slowed. They lost strength, being unable to penetrate
to her body, no matter how hard they flew.
Like the tatami! Clotho thought. She had been picking up
martial-arts terms during her association with Samurai. The mat is
soft, but it breaks the fall without injury.
Piers Anthony 309
"Exactly," Niobe murmured. "There is nothing more subtle but
certain than the web of Fate. No mortal crea -- ture can avoid it
or nullify it." She walked on, and after a while the birds gave up
and returned to their roosts on the roof.
Nice estate, Atropos thought. / wouldn't mind working in a place
like this.
You're no servant! Clotho thought angrily. You're a free
woman!
Of course I am, girl -- in my mind, Atropos agreed. But in the real
world, I always did have to earn my living and I never was ashamed
of that.
Niobe smiled ruefully. She had been neither liberated nor servant,
but had partaken somewhat of both. Unlike Clotho, she had married
the man her father chose for her;
unlike Atropos, she had never had to go to work for an -- other
person. Yet had she rebelled a little more, initially, she might
readily have gone Clotho's route -- and then would have had to
follow Atropos' route. It was still bas -- ically a man's
world.
But we still spin the threads of life! Clotho put in.
And we still cut them! Atropos added.
"Well, we are Woman," Niobe said, smiling. "We pos -- sess the sort
of power no man can deny."
As she approached the house, there was a scream from a tree. It was
partly like that of a great bird, partly like that of a shrewish
woman, and wholly horrible. Then a great, dark shape rose from the
tree, flapping ponderous wings.
That's a damned harpy! Atropos thought. "Oops," Niobe murmured.
"The magic threads won't
stop that; it's immortal."
Maybe I can use self-defense, Clotho thought. "No good. You could
strike it or throw it aside, but its
filth would still get on you. It can't actually hurt us, even
320 With a Tangled Skein
if we do nothing, but it could make us sickeningly un --
clean."
The ugly creature lumbered toward them through the air. It had the
face and dugs of an old
woman, and the body of a vulture. The close-set, wrinkle-shrouded eyes peered out at Niobe. For a moment the harpy hovered, surprised, a perfumed stench washing down from the wingbeats.
"What are you doing here, Lachesis?" it
demanded. The teeth were long and yellow. "This is none of your
affair, you meddlesome ilk!"
"It is my affair, you putrid hen!" Niobe retorted. "Now give way,
or I'll lasso you with a thread." It was a bluff, but she hoped the
harpy wouldn't know that.
"No thread of yours will hold me, spider-face!" the harpy
screeched. "Turn aside, or I'll poop on you!"
It was no empty threat! But Niobe knew she had to reach the senator
before the demon from Hell did. She couldn't afford
delay.
Give me the body! Atropos thought. / know how to han -- dle that
sort!
Niobe turned it over. Atropos took form. She strode from the walk,
across the lawn to a nearby garden shed.
"Oh, so it's Atropos now!" the harpy screeched, fol -- lowing.
"Whatcha think you're doing, you old black slave?"
"I'm going to clear out some trash," Atropos said. She reached the
shed and took hold of a weathered broom inside it.
"Go sweep it out, like the stupid stoop-labor hag you are!" the
harpy screeched, its stringy hair flinging out as it whirled to fly
above Atropos' head. "Here, I'll make you feel right at home by
emptying the pot on you!"
"The white folks used to set the dogs on us when we came to clean
their houses," Atropos said, hefting the
Piers Anthony 311
broom. In her competent hands the broom moved almost like a weapon.
"Know what we did then?"
"You got chewed up?" the harpy asked with a raucous cackle,
following it with the kind of racial epithet no one but a harpy
would use.
"We let those bitches have it in the tail!" Atropos said. She swung
the broom in a mighty and accurate arc. The bristles caught the
harpy in the tail just as it was letting go its poop, and knocked
it spinning.
The creature landed claws-up on the ground, screeching piercingly.
Atropos, undaunted, strode toward it, broom aloft. The harpy
scrambled to its feet and pumped its wings furiously, launching
clumsily into the air. It fled, wanting no more of this.
Atropos returned the broom to the shed. "A woman does leam a thing
or two in the course of a working life," she muttered with
satisfaction.
She certainly did! Niobe resumed the body and pro -- ceeded the
rest of the way to the house.
As she came to the door, it burst open and the demon itself charged
out. It was about seven feet tall, had a hairy body, a long and
tufted tail, horns, and a prominent mas -- culine appendage. It
pounced on Niobe, wrapping its long arms about her and opening its
mouth so wide that the remaining features were squeezed back into
oblivion. The huge pointed teeth descended toward her
face.
"Oh, come off it!" Niobe snapped, disgusted. "You can't bite
me!"
Indeed, the demon's teeth came down to touch her fore -- head, and
stopped. Her flesh was invulnerable.
The demon growled and squeezed her, trying to crush in her ribcage,
but the compression had no effect. She was proof against that,
too.
Then the demon thought of something else. It brought up its clawed
hind feet and raked along the front of her body. Her clothing
ripped asunder, but her flesh was un -
312
Piers Anthony 313
With a Tangled Skein
scathed. "You can't even scratch me, you fool. I am proof from
physical injury by any creature your infernal master can send."
.
The demon brought its foot up again, ripping her cloth -- ing the
rest of the way. Now it hung on her by the sleeves, leaving her
front exposed. The demon did not release her, but loosened its grip
enough to enable it to glance down at her body. It snorted
steam.
Then she realized what it was up to. It intended to rape
her!
The thing could probably do it. She was secure from physical
injury, but not from emotional injury. As ex -- perience had long
ago shown her, she could participate in sexual congress; it
represented no physical abuse of her body. The demon was stronger
than she was; it could hold her for this act.
Now she struggled, but her arms remained captive at her sides. She
tried to run, but the demon lifted her off the ground. Its member
was growing; in a moment it would do what it intended. At the
least, she would be utterly humiliated.
Maybe I can fight it! Clotho thought.
How? Atropos responded. It's immune to our attack, too; we can't
even bite it.
At least let me try!
Niobe, as desperate as any of them, gave her the body. The demon
paused, startled at this change, but did not let her go. Then,
perceiving that the captive had grown more attractive, it renewed
its effort. Clotho twisted desperately, managing to swing her body
away a little. Then she brought up her right knee in a savage
strike at the demon's groin. She scored -- but the creature did not
even gasp. It was, as Niobe had warned, invulnerable.
My turn! Atropos thought.
Clotho turned the body over to her. Again the demon paused, noting
the change, but again it resumed its design
after a moment. It changed its grip, to force the body closer, and
used its nether claws to grasp the legs and wedge them
apart.
"Damn!" Atropos swore. "I thought I could slide away on the thread
-- but I can't fling out any strand while my arms are
pinned!"
The demon grinned. It had known this.
Suddenly Niobe knew what was required. We're all fools! she
thought. Give me back the body!
Atropos gave it to her. Niobe assumed control just as the demon's
hot flesh nudged hers.
She shifted to spider form. Suddenly she had eight limbs and was
much smaller. Fate could be any size arachnid she wished. She
slipped out of the surprised demon's grasp and dropped to the
ground.
The demon tried to stomp her. Niobe simply stood there and let the
clawed foot come down on her body. When the foot rose again, she
remained unhurt. The spider was as impervious as any of the human
forms.
She reverted to her natural form. The demon grabbed for her again,
but this time she had the vial of holy water out. As the demon's
arms clasped her, she put the vial to her own lips and sipped the
fluid. "Kiss me, demon," she murmured, putting her face
forward.
The demon's head jerked back as it smelled the water, but she
pursued it. Her arms now clasped its body, pre -- venting its
escape exactly as it had prevented hers before. She jammed her
mouth against its mouth and spat out the water.
Kiss of death! Clotho thought.
It was indeed. The demon's flesh melted where the water touched.
The lips dissolved and dribbled down the chin, which was rapidly
eroded by that fluid. The flesh of the cheeks and tongue puddled,
leaving the teeth bare, like those of Thanatos. Then the gums faded
away, and the jaw fragmented, and one by one the teeth fell out.
The
314 With a Tangled Skein
destruction proceeded up the face, eating away the nose and then
the eyeballs. Now the thing's brain came into view, smoking at the
outer surface as the effect touched it. The whole
brain blackened, then went up in smoke.
Now THAT is the way to deal with a rapist! Atropos
thought.
After that, the rest of the body went more quickly, dis -- solving
into vapor from top to
bottom, like a gross cigar burning. At last all that remained was
the noxious cloud of smoke. But as the smoke dissipated, something
moved. The demon's right foot remained; it hadn't
dissolved, and had been hidden by the swirling vapors. Her kiss of
death had reached its limit. Niobe reached for her vial again. What
harm can one foot do? Clotho thought. "Any part of a demon is bad
news," Niobe said tersely. She put some holy water on her
fingers and reached for the foot.
The thing scrambled across the step, using its claws to hitch
itself forward. It was
trying to escape. Niobe sprin -- kled it by snapping her wet
fingers outward, and puffs of smoke
erupted where the drops struck. The foot fell off the edge of the
step, into the grass. She
pursued it, sprin -- kling more water, but the fragment
disappeared.
"I hope I got it all," she muttered.
Can't be more than a toe left, Atropos thought.
"Demons aren't like mortal folk," Niobe said darkly. "Pieces of
them can survive." Can one toe hurt us? Atropos thought.
How?
Niobe shrugged. "I don't know. But I hope that thing is all gone,
now." Well, let's see what's inside, Clotho thought. Like Atro --
pos, she did not take the toe
of one demon seriously, and Niobe had to admit she was probably a
bit paranoid about demons. One
had killed Cedric, another had killed
Piers Anthony
315
Blanche, another had tried to eliminate Luna and Orb, and now one
had tried to rape her.
She had reason -- but what, indeed, could one demon toe
do?
Niobe pinned her torn dress together as well as she could, and
strengthened it with
strategically placed strands of thread. Then she walked on into the
senator's house. A young man stood in the hall. His clothing hung
on him, enormously baggy. He seemed
oblivious to his sur -- roundings. He was staring at himself in the
full-length hall mirror. She was too late!
She sighed. "Senator?"
He answered without looking at her. "Yes, of course I'll have to
resign my office. There
would be talk, gossip, perhaps an investigation. I couldn't afford
that! I might even have
difficulty proving my identity. After all, I've just lost forty
years!"
"You're -- not staying on?" This surprised her. "Of course not. It
just isn't feasible.
I'll have to make a new life. But it's worth it! Forty more years,
starting with everything I
already know!" "But don't you owe Satan?" "He asked no price. It's
a gift, no strings." "But the
burden of evil on your soul -- " "No evil attaches to the
acceptance of a gift freely prof --
fered, when I provide no political favor in return. And I won't;
I'm dropping out of politics." This amazed her. If the senators
weren't staying in of -- fice, how could they do Satan's
bidding, twenty years hence? It didn't make sense!
At least she had destroyed the demon. There would be no more bribes
of restored youth. She
extended a thread and slid up it to Purgatory.
They discussed it at the Abode as they rechecked the threads. As
they fathomed the
changing pattern, the sit -
316 With a Tangled Skein
uation came clear. The senators had been bribed indi -- rectly --
by being freely given
what they most desired. In order to enjoy it, they had to vacate
their offices. That meant there
would be appointees to complete the terms -- and Satan surely
controlled those appointments. The
new senators would all be young and competent and would give no
sign of their true loyalty --
until that day, some twenty or so years hence, when Satan required
it, to ne -- gate Luna's
position and give the final victory to Satan. A long-term plan, a
real sleeper -- but it seemed it
was already in place. In a vote as close as that one was des --
tined to be, four changed votes
would be more than enough. Five, counting the senator who had just
been eliminated here. The new threads were not yet in place,
however, for the appointees had not yet been
appointed; that process would take a few days. But, search the
Tapestry as she might, Niobe could
find no way to nullify it. Satan had made his play, and could
readily defend it against any effort
she might take. The five old senators had already been bribed to
vacate and could not be unbribed;
youth was already theirs.
"There has to be a way!" Niobe exclaimed. "We can't j just give up
the world to Satan,
even if it is twenty years' away." #
She checked quickly with the other Incarnations, but none of them
had an answer. At last
she went to the per -- son most concerned: her granddaughter
Luna.
Luna took it in stride. She was a truly beautiful woman now,
despite the distortion of her
hair color. "My father told me that something like this might come
up," she said. "He left a
message for that occasion."
"My son anticipated this?" Niobe demanded, sur -- prised.
"He was a most accomplished Magician," Luna re -- minded her.
"Perhaps the best of his
generation -- and he
Piers Anthony 317
spent the last thirty years of his life researching this very
problem. He used to
apologize to me for his neglect -- but he really didn't neglect me.
We were very close." As Niobe and her son had not been. But that
was an -- cient history. "What is the
message?"
Luna fetched a small blue topaz, a pretty but not truly precious
stone. She set in on a
small shelf before a white screen and turned on a special light.
The stone fluoresced, sending a
pattern of blue shadows across the screen.
"It's a magic stress on the molecules of the topaz," Luna
explained. "I just need to get
it in focus and find the right angle; most of the facets are
nonsense, but the right one will
display the message. The Magician set it up that way so that no one
would accidentally read the
mes -- sage before it was time. Premature divulgence would alert
Satan, you see." She turned the
stone, and the pattern on the screen changed.
She turned it again, and suddenly several lines of fuzzy print
appeared on the screen. "Ah
-- there it is! Now for the focus." She moved the light, and
gradually the print clarified; in a
moment it would become legible. Then something rolled across the
shelf and collided with the
topaz. The stone slid out of position, and the image was
lost.
"The demon's toe!" Niobe exclaimed. She brought out the vial and
dumped the remaining holy
water on it. The thing vanished in a puff of smoke.
Luna recovered the stone. "Good thing the creature didn't hurt it,"
she said. She set it
in place, and refocused the beam of light.
Only blank blue showed on the screen. Surprised, Luna turned it to
a new facet, but no
pattern showed. "It's been erased!" she exclaimed in dismay. "The
magic is gone!" "The demon did it!" Niobe cried. "Its mere evil
touch canceled the good magic!" 318
Piers Anthony 31
With a Tangled Skein
And we wondered what one toe could do! Atropos thought,
chagrined.
Niobe exchanged a stricken glance with her grand -- daughter. Now
they had lost the vital
message!
"Is there any backup stone?" Niobe asked after a mo --
ment.
"No. None for this occasion. The Magician didn't want it to be
obvious -- " "That's what I thought," Niobe said heavily. "Satan
must have known or suspected about the
stone and given his demon a secondary instruction to erase it when
it had the chance. Now it has
done so."
"Now it has done so," Luna agreed.
"So now only the Magician knows the message."
"And he is dead."
Niobe embraced the young woman, and they both cried the tears of
hopelessness. Then Niobe straightened, lifting her chin. "But I am
an Incarnation! I can go to my son in
Purgatory and ask him directly!"
"Yes!' Luna cried, her gray eyes lighting. "My father did not know
you would become Fate
again! He focused on me."
They embraced and cried again, this time with renewed hope. Then
Niobe rode a thread back
to Purgatory to seek her son.
But when she checked the computer for the specific location of his
soul, she received
another shock.
MAGICIAN KAFTAN'S SOUL IS NO LONGER IN PURGATORY,
the screen said.
"You mean his penance is finished? He has gone on to Heaven
already?"
NO. AN ERROR IN HIS CLASSIFICATION WAS DISCOVERED. HIS DAUGHTER HAD
BORROWED SOME OF HIS
BURDEN OF EVIL. SHE IS DESTINED FOR HEAVEN, BUT HIS TRUE BALANCE
WAS NEG -- ATIVE. Why would Luna have done a thing like that? Niofc
wondered. But she had a more immediate
problem. "Nej ative? Then -- "
YOUR SON IS NOW IN HELL.
Niobe stared at the screen in horror. She was sure th was the real
information, as she had
taken steps to se that none of Satan's illusions interfered this
time.
The only person who knew how to nullify Satan's vi< tory -- was
in Satan's power.
Piers Anthony 321
15 -
MAZE SQUARED
Back at the Abode, they hashed it over. "We know there is a
solution," Niobe said. "We
just don't know what it is."
"And chances are, we won't find it on our own," Atro -- pos said.
"Maybe, if we were all
experienced, we'd know it, but by the time we get experienced
enough to know, it'll be too late." "We're still in Satan's trap,"
Clotho agreed.
"Not entirely," Niobe said. "If all three of us were new, that
might be true; but I did
have thirty-eight prior years of experience. I know Satan's power
is not com -- plete. There has
to be something he's hiding from us."
"The solution!" Clotho exclaimed wryly.
"Too bad we can't go to Hell and ask the Magician what his message
was," Atropos said. Niobe pounced on that. "Maybe we can!
Incarnations have special powers!" They checked with Thanatos, who
confirmed it. "I have been there," he said. "But only in
spirit. The phys -- ical body has to be left behind. All the things
there are spirits, but they
seem solid, as they do in Purgatory. But Satan wouldn't let you
visit anyone there." "But then how did you go there?"
"I was invited on a tour."
Oh. She knew about that sort of thing. Still -
"Can he stop a mother from visiting her son?" she asked.
All three of them paused at that. Who would know? Clotho
thought.
"Gaea," Niobe said. "The Green Mother understands everything about
human nature and then
some."
They went to Gaea. "Satan cannot stop you, in this instance," she
said. "But he will not
help you. This rep -- resents a conflict between Incarnations, and
your chance of success would be
half."
"But I can do it?" Niobe asked.
"You can cut off your foot, too, but you might not want to." Gaea
smiled coldly. "If I do this -- if I go to Hell -- I stand to win
the sal -- vation of man -- or at least
enable my granddaughter to. What do I stand to lose?"
"Your soul," Gaea said grimly.
"But I'm an Incarnation! Satan can't touch my soul!"
Gaea shook her head. "You must put your soul on the line to gain
entry to Hell. If you win
your objective, you keep your soul. But if you fail, your soul is
forfeit. Hell is not child's
play, Lachesis!"
Niobe sighed. "It certainly isn't!"
Well, that lets that out, Atropos thought. A good soul locked in
Hell -"How do I set it up?" Niobe asked.
Don't do it, Lachesis! Clotho thought.
What shall it profit a woman to win the whole world, if she lose
her own soul? Atropos
thought.
322 With a Tangled Skein
"That's figurative; this is literal," Niobe
said. "The whole world is on the line, this time."
"You must choose a referee," Gaea said. "To ensure fairness in the
proceedings. Otherwise Satan will cheat."
Niobe considered. "How about Mars? He knows how to supervise war --
and this is really a battle in the war between Good and
Evil."
Gaea nodded. "Excellent choice. Go to him and ask."
"Thank you, Ge."
"Every Incarnation must sooner or later confront Satan," Gaea said.
"You did it long ago, in the Void. Now you are doing it again --
but the locale is not neutral and the stakes are higher. We shall
be watching -- but none of us will be able to assist you, once you
enter Hell."
"I know." This was, among other things, confirmation that Gaea had
recognized her, the day of the excursion into the model Hell, and
had kept her secret.
"You will leave your body and your two other Aspects behind. If you
fail, they will have to choose your replace -- ment -- with no soul
to exchange. That body will die."
A heavy penalty indeed! Yet, added to the loss of the world, did it
matter? She had to make the effort!
"Farewell," Gaea said. "You are a fine woman, Lach --
esis."
Niobe slid her thread to Mars' castle. This time he was at home.
Quickly she explained the situation. "You have courage," Mars said
gruffly. "I trust you know that Hell is no picnic."
"I know, but I must go. Will you serve?"
"I will serve. But I can guarantee only that the terms are honored.
I cannot help you or advise you in any way. Once you enter Hell,
you are on your own."
"But -- I have no idea what to expect there!"
"As referee, it is my job to help arrange what to ex -- pect," Mars
said. He raised his red sword, and it flashed. "Satan!"
Piers Anthony
323
Satan appeared. "What the Hell do you want. Mars? A war?"
"Both," Mars agreed, unperturbed. "Lachesis wishes to visit her
son, the Magician Kaftan. You may not deny her that."
Satan turned on Niobe. "So you learned of that, you meddling
female! But it will cost you your soul."
"The one offer you cannot turn down," Niobe agreed.
"No," Mars said. "She is not buying the visit with her soul. She is
putting up her soul as the stake for the game. That is a different
matter."
"A different matter," Satan agreed reluctantly. "A
technicality."
Already the referee was functioning. That was some
technicality!
"We must select the format," Mars said.
"Aerial combat while mounted on firedrakes," Satan said.
"Competitive tapestry weaving," Niobe retorted.
Atropos laughed in her mind.
"Perhaps a compromise," Mars said, smiling grimly. "An event that
combines elements of both monsters and threads, illusion and
reality. A demon-infested maze."
Satan considered. "Could be. Those are fun."
Niobe also considered. A maze was a bit like a tapestry, with
passages instead of threads. Demons were mon -- sters -- but should
not be able to hurt her. If, as it seemed, she had to navigate some
sort of challenge course in Hell to reach her son, this might be
the best type for her. But -- "Threads? Illusion?"
"An illusion-maze is less challenging, physically," Mars said. "But
more challenging, intellectually."
Niobe knew herself to be no genius, but she did have a flair with
the weaving of intricate threads. "That sounds good," she agreed
tentatively.
"No way," Satan said.
324 With a Tangled Skein
"Superimposed on a physical maze," Mars said. "Shall we say, one
hundred illusions of your choice -- and one hundred reality-threads
for her? With some of the prop -- erties of her normal threads, so
she can travel expedi -- tiously -- "
"Limited," Satan said. "I don't want her traveling all over
Hell."
"Limited," Mars agreed. "The maze so constituted that the best
course can be traversed by fewer than fifty threads, the worst by
more than one hundred fifty threads, but centered on one
hundred?"
"A fifty-fifty chance," Satan agreed. "But / set up the maze, and
choose all the configurations."
"And I verify the balance and call the fouls," Mars said. "I will
inspect the maze before she enters, and there will be no changes
after she enters."
"Done," Satan said.
They looked at Niobe. She wasn't sure she trusted what those two
males might agree was fair. But she knew Mars would not betray her,
and it seemed to be the best com -- promise she could get. "Very
well."
They cleared the remaining details. Then Niobe sat back in a chair,
waited a moment, and stood -- and left her body behind. She was in
spirit form!
She turned and reached out to touch her physical hand. As she did
so, she felt the other two Aspects. Give 'em Hell, girl! Atropos
thought. Find your son! Clotho thought. Both sent the emotion of
support and best wishes.
/ shall! she replied.
She turned again. Satan stood directly before her, while Mars
watched from the side. "Come to Me, fool!" Satan said, and
laughed.
She stepped into him -- and discovered he was a kind of door. She
passed through it and found herself in Hell.
Piers Anthony 325
Hell was a crystalline place. Bright hexagonal facets surrounded
her, red and green and blue -- all colors, each facet her own
height. She stood on another, the same size.
She turned to look back the way she had come. There was only
another facet there, highly polished, so that she saw her own
reflection clearly.
She looked exactly as she had in life, in her physical body: a
nondescript, middle-aged woman whose once -- flowing
buckwheat-honey hair was now cut to a less-flat -- tering length,
and the honey seemed soiled. Her dress was a drab gray, and not
well-fitted. That last wasn't really carelessness; if the dress
fitted better, it would show up the inadequacies other present
figure all too clearly. Ah, for the flesh of youth! She could
understand how the old senators had found the lure of renewed youth
to be ir -- resistible.
The irony was, she had kept her youthful appearance for an extra
thirty-eight years, and then given it up. And would do so again,
for Pacian. And would have given everything up, for Cedric. She had
understood Clotho ex -- actly, when the girl had yielded
"everything!" to Sa -- murai. When a woman loved a man -
But now she had to find her son. She checked her left hand: it
clasped a handful of measured threads. She was not Lachesis any
more; she could not travel to the ends of the world. She was merely
Niobe, and every thread she used would be one thread lost. She had
to use them well; though the worst-case route through the maze
would require over 150 threads, she had only 100. Her mission and
her soul would be forfeit if she used them all without finding her
son.
Well, this was a puzzle, certainly. She reached out to rap a
knuckle on a blue facet. The sound rang, setting up a sympathetic
tintinnabulation throughout the region. It was a rather pretty
sound, but it didn't get her through the maze.
326
Piers Anthony 327
With a Tangled Skein
She saw that one hexagon was not a facet, but an open space. She
stepped through it, onto
the golden floor tile there -
Her foot passed right through the floor. There was noth -- ing there. With a scream she fell down past several hex -- agonal levels, until she fetched up against another golden tile. She was unhurt -- but in a hole, literally.
There was a puff of vapor at her hand. She looked -- and saw the remains of one of her threads curling as it dissolved into smoke. That fall had not hurt her physi -- cally, for a spirit could not be injured that way, but it had cost her a thread. That was one of the details of this game. Now she had ninety-nine threads left, and she had ex -- posed the first illusion.
She tapped the surfaces about her. All were
solid. She was in a nether chamber with no ready exit. The slick
facets offered no purchase for her fingers; she could not climb
out.
She sighed. She tucked her threads carefully into a pocket, saving
out one. She flung that upward.
Now she sailed up, following the thread's course, much as she did
as an Aspect of Fate. In a moment she was back at her original
level, facing the golden floor panel. An illusion -- but she had
expended two of her precious threads in making the discovery and
recovery. Two for one; Satan had gained one on her.
She looked at the golden tile. It still looked real. She would not
be fooled again by it, of course, so in that sense it had been
expended -- but how much better it would have been to identify it
without falling through it! Then she would have been one ahead,
having expended no threads to identify one of the hundred
illusions.
She felt at the edge of the illusion. She found a small ledge; part
of the golden tile was real. She could walk on that to get through.
There had to be a way through the
maze; that was part of the deal. She had only to move carefully, to
avoid falling for any more tricks.
But she could not get through without using close to fifty of her
threads. That meant that she couldn't simply close her eyes and
feel her way the full length of it. There would be illusions she
had to penetrate before trusting her body to them, and climbs she
had to make regardless of illusion. She could not hoard her
threads; she would not get through that way.
She completed her circuit of the golden illusion and entered a new
chamber. This one had a solid floor -- but no other exit. She
looked up and saw a high green ledge, out of reach. Evidently that
was the route. Not an illusion, just one of the thread-requiring
avenues.
She brought out another thread and flung it at the ledge. In a
moment she slid up it, landing neatly on the green. Good
enough.
Except that it turned out to be a dead end.
She sighed again. She had been suckered into using an -- other
thread, unnecessarily.
She squatted, touching the edge of the ledge. It was glassy smooth.
She stood and scraped the sole of one shoe across it. Then she
tested it with her finger again.
Yes -- there was faint scratching. The material was not super-hard.
It could be abraded.
She scuffed it some more, then lay down. She nudged her legs over
the edge, sidewise. She spread her fingers against the roughened
surface. The slope beyond the edge was not vertical; there were no
perfect right angles in this place, just the obtuse angles of the
hexagons. Her body was sliding down at about a forty-five-degree
angle -- she wasn't sure what it was for a hexagon, but that was
what it felt like. Maybe fifty degrees. Her fingers had some
purchase on the roughened level face.
When enough of her body was on the sloping face, it swung down. Her
fingers were unable to hold; she slid
328 With a Tangled Skein
off the surface and dropped to the floor beneath. But it was not as
long a fall as the one she had suffered before, and she was better
prepared for it. She landed neatly on her feet.
She watched the threads in her pocket, but
there was no puff of smoke-vapor. She had made it down without
sacrificing another thread! She had not "killed" herself this
time.
But it was a minor victory, for she had now expended three threads
and discovered only one illusion. She would have to do better than
that.
She checked the golden floor panel again. The ledge continued
around the other side -- and there was another open panel. Had she
skirted it the other way, she would have found it, and saved
herself the dead end.
Well, the bad break had taught her a lesson or two; not to assume a
given route was the only one, and not to expend a thread on a route
just because the route was there.
She got into the new chamber. This one had two other exits; which
should she take? Both went far enough so that she could not tell
which was a dead end.
She shrugged and took the one to the left. It looped around to the
right, over and under crystalline formations of differing sizes --
it seemed there was nothing sacred -- sacred, here in Hell? --
about the full-size ones. In due course it debouched back into the
chamber she had left.
She went around again, verifying every surface. No way out. She had
walked into another dead end, in effect.
She went back to the golden tile, and the rest of the way around
it. Now she was back to her starting point, three threads gone --
and she had made no progress through the maze!
Then she had a bright thought. She returned to the golden tile, got
down on her belly, and put her right arm through it. She felt for
the surfaces below.
Piers Anthony 329
All in reach were solid. She got up, walked to the far side, and
lay down again. She reached -- and discovered that there was an
open panel directly beneath her.
She braced her feet as well as she could against the edge-surfaces
and hunched her body forward over the golden panel until she could
put her head through the il -- lusion. She peered under.
Sure enough: there was an opening. There was her true exit! The
illusion covered a deadend hole -- and the way through. She had
fallen right by it, and passed it again on the way back up. Satan
was certainly a cunning devil!
She crawled around, letting her body down. Here she was able to get
a better grip on the edge of the panel -- but she didn't trust it.
She was no muscular man, she was a weak-fleshed woman.
She sighed a third time. Then she brought out another thread and
flung it toward the hole.
Her body followed. Now she was perched at the edge of a hexagonal
tunnel. It sloped sharply down -- and she could not hold her
position. She felt herself sliding. She tried to spread her legs
and brace her feet against the sides, but this was ineffective. She
was bound for the end of this tunnel -- wherever it might lead --
unless she ex -- pended yet another thread. She decided to risk the
slide.
She slid into a new aspect of the maze. She landed in a chamber
with transparent walls, and behind those walls were demons in
horrendous shapes. There were five exits from the chamber -- but
each was guarded by a monster. How could she get through?
Obviously at least one of the monsters was illusion, so she could
pass through it without getting "killed." Be -- cause there had to
be a route through, and she couldn't pass a real monster.
She approached the tiger-headed man at the nearest exit and flung a
thread at him. He disappeared. Victory -- she had found the route
on the first try!
330 With a Tangled Skein
She walked into the passage. It turned at right angles, then turned
again, in the manner of the kind of maze that was printed on paper.
She moved along it cautiously, so as not to fall through an
illusion-section of floor, but the floor was opaque and
solid.
She came to a division. Which should she take, the left or the
right? It didn't seem to matter, as neither would cost her a
thread. She took the left.
That led to a small chamber containing a man-headed tiger -- the
reverse of the prior monster. She tossed a thread at it.
The thread shriveled and puffed into vapor -- but the monster
remained. This one was real!
"Come here, morsel!" the tigerman cried. "You look good enough to
chomp!"
She backed away and retreated to the other part of'the fork. That
one led her to a manheaded wolf. It paced restlessly, watching
her.
She flung a thread -- and the monster evaporated with the thread.
Another illusion. The way was clear.
But she paused. She had just expended two threads to uncover one
illusion. At that rate, she would use up all her threads before the
illusions gave out. Satan was win -- ning!
But she knew that if she walked blithely into a monster and it was
real, it would chomp her. That should not hurt her physically, as
she was here only in spirit, but by the laws of the maze it would
cost her double: two threads. Being "killed" by a monster was like
taking a fall, then having to thread out of the hole. So it paid
her to verify a monster before stepping within its range.
Or did it? If she had an even chance that a given monster was real,
then she could assume that half of them would tag her. Double the
threads -- and she lost the same num -- ber as if she had checked
all the monsters. No loss -- but no gain. She might as well use the
threads.
Piers Anthony 331
This bothered her. There seemed to be no way other than sheer
chance to beat Satan, and the chances were against her. She had --
she checked the count -- used up four threads and exposed one
illusion in the crystal sec -- tion of the maze; she had used three
more threads and exposed two more illusions here. That was a
cumulative score of seven threads and three illusions. Yet her
chances of getting through the maze were supposed to be even. She
was definitely falling behind.
Well, she had been checking every monster. The prob -- lem was that
there could be ten times as many real ones as illusory ones. She
could use up all her threads without getting anywhere, that way!
There had to be a better way -- but what was it?
She set her jaw. Obviously, checking every monster was a losing
strategy. So she would check none of them. Had she followed that
course so far, she would have been chomped by the tigerman, and
lost two threads -- but that was less than the three she had used
checking every mons -- ter.
She proceeded on down the passage. She came to a huge human head
from which five human legs sprouted. No torso. A monster indeed!
She walked right into it.
The thing rolled at her, each foot touching the floor in turn --
and kicking her when it arrived. "Ooo!" she howled as she got
kicked in the knee. Then the next foot caught her in the face. Her
nose exploded in pain, and she fell down. Then the monster was all
over, tromping her to death.
It wasn't death, of course. But it felt like it. In due course,
satisfied, the foot-face withdrew, and she dragged herself back to
her feet. The pain abated, and she dis -- covered that neither her
nose nor her limbs were broken. She was uninjured, physically. The
blows had hurt ter
- ribly, but caused no lasting damage. She had been wrong about the
discomfort of getting chomped!
332 With a Tangled Skein
Piers Anthony
333
Two more threads were gone. Score: nine to three, in favor of
Satan.
And she couldn't pass this alcove. In fact, this whole passage had
been a mistake. It was a dead end, blocked by monsters.
So much for her new strategy. She could have saved herself one
thread and some pain by testing the monster for illusion.
She made her way back to the original chamber of this section.
There were the four other exits with their guard -- ians.
She eyed the monsters. One was a bird with the head of a fox;
another was a woman-headed snake; another was a man's head with two
muscular arms growing where the ears should be; the last was a
pig-headed dog. This was Hell, all right! The demons hewed to no
normal Earthly shapes.
Four chances. She could either use four more of her precious
threads to verify them, or chance walking through them -- with the
odds even that it would cost her four threads anyway to find the
true passage. If it was the true passage; the first had not
been.
This just wouldn't do! She needed a strategy of ap -- proach, not
only to make her way through, but to do it economically enough to
get ahead on threads. She needed to expunge two illusions for every
thread, instead of the other way around. Blundering through by
blind chance simply wasn't going to accomplish that.
Well, she did have time. There was no time limit on the maze; she
was to continue until she either won through to her son or lost her
soul. If she hesitated forever, she would never escape Hell -- or
save Luna's position. Her timing was her own.
There had to be some key she had overlooked. How she wished she had
Cedric's ready intelligence, or her son's! Obviously sheer chance
was not going to get her
through; only an appropriate strategy would do that. But what
strategy?
She played her mind over it, knowing there had to be something.
Satan might have deceived her about the odds, but Mars would not
have. She had at least an even chance -- if she could only figure
it out.
Slowly it came to her. She had to ration her threads -- but Satan
had to do the same for his illusions. Each was limited to one
hundred. If she didn't want to throw away threads, he didn't want
to throw away illusions. Each of them had to calculate a strategy
to make the assets count most. But while she could change a
nonproductive course, Satan could not; he had set up the maze at
the outset, and could not change it. It stood to reason that
wherever Satan didn't need an illusion, he wouldn't use it. He had
to use some in key places, because otherwise she would be able to
thread the maze simply by avoiding visible monsters. An
illusion-monster could seem to block off the one route through,
shunting her into real monsters and trouble.
Here were five exits. It would make no sense to have several
illusions down one passage -- if the start of it was blocked by a
real monster. She couldn't pass the monster, so would never have a
chance to be fooled by the illusions. The illusions had to come
early -- or along the real path.
All five of the monsters at this junction had to be il -- lusions.
That was the only pattern that made sense. No wonder she had
verified the first illusion she had chal -- lenged, here! She could
have saved the thread.
Furthermore, since Satan's illusions were limited, there were only
so many he could spare for any one segment of the maze. She had
discovered only one in the crystal section, strategically situated;
that might be all there was there. Perhaps nine of ten monsters
would be real, be -- cause here in Hell monsters were relatively
cheap. In the mortal world, illusions were cheaper than demons, but
here in Hell it was the other way around. So the chances
334
Piers Anthony 335
With a Tangled Skein
were that after the beginning of any passage, most of the monsters
would be real. If a
passage divided into ten al -- ternate routes, nine of them would be blocked by real monsters, with only the one that actually led somewhere having an illusion. That would give her nine chances to lose threads, regardless whether she gambled or tested. That was why she had been falling behind; she had not perceived the strategy of Satan.
That being the case, what she needed to do was figure out the pattern of the overall maze, and select the route that was most likely to have illusions. The wrong routes would be blocked mostly by real monsters.
But how could she analyze the maze when she couldn't see it as a whole? The walls might be of glass, but that gave her no notion of the overall layout. She could see many monsters, but could not make out the convoluted channels of the maze. t
She looked up, and saw that one tower rose above the rest. Most of the maze seemed to be open, and the tops of the walls, in addition to being too high for her to reach, looked knifesharp; she could not climb them. The tower sported a short diving board. Into what was she expected to dive, from there? The illusion of a lake? She knew she couldn't risk that; it would cost her at least two threads.
But the tower was high. From it, she might be
able to see the layout of the puzzle as a whole. If so, that would
be a useful spot to reach, even if it was not the correct
route.
She selected the passage she deemed most likely to lead to the
tower and walked through the monster that guarded it, the
woman-headed snake. The monster hissed at her, but could not touch
her; it was, as she had surmised, il -- lusion. She had saved
herself a thread; in fact, she had saved four, for all these
monsters had to be illusion. Just by pausing for thought, she had
brought the running score up to nine to seven, for once she had
identified an illusion
she didn't have to waste a thread on it. These illusions were fixed
in place; they could not follow her about. She could check off any
she was sure of, and the more she could discover by deduction, the
better off she was. She found herself shivering with release of
tension; by bracing the monster "blind" she had not only saved her
threads but also had confirmed her analysis. Had she been
wrong...
Now there was a snake-headed woman, the inverse of the prior
monster, blocking the passage. Since there was no alternate route,
she knew this was illusion. Satan wanted her to be able to navigate
this route, after wasting a thread, perhaps hoping she would indeed
dive off the tower. She braced herself again and marched through
the monster: illusion number eight.
She came to a coiled staircase. That fitted in with the serpentine
theme. She had to admit that Satan had a cer -- tain artistic
sense. But of course all art could be consid -- ered a form of lie,
because it differed from reality; that was certainly in the
bailiwick of the Father of Lies.
She mounted the stair, testing each step for illusion so as not to
fall through; that required no threads. Soon she emerged at the top
of the tower. It was enclosed by glass that distorted the view of
the surroundings; she had to go out onto the diving board to see
clearly.
She went out -- and was attacked by a siege of aero -- phobia. The
board was about fifteen feet above the top of the walls of the
maze, and twenty-five feet above the ground. It gave slightly under
her weight and she shiv -- ered. She had never been a confident
diver and was less so now. She remembered that she had been bolder
when crossing the seeming chasm in the Hall of the Mountain King,
so maybe her courage had eroded with age. She got down on her hands
and knees and crawled to the end and peered over.
336 With a Tangled Skein
There was a clearing below. Five giant cushions sat in it, each one so fluffy that it was obvious that she could jump down on it, even from this height, and not get hurt. But some might be illusion, so she couldn't risk it without using at least one thread.
Also, she realized, it could be a trap; she might locate a good cushion, land safely on it, and go on -- only to discover this was a dead-end path. Then how could she return to the starting point? She could see that there was no access to the base of the tower from that yard. The jump was one-way.
She could use a thread to rise back to the
diving board, of course -- but that would put her further behind.
Every thread she used that didn't dispel an illusion was a loss for
her.
However, she had not come to jump, only to look. She had expended
no threads on this path, so was gaining. She decided to assume that
two of the five cushions were illusions, the two closest; if she
had used her threads to verify her landing, it would have cost her
several more to explore this dead end. She was learning to figure
the odds.
Now she concentrated on the rest of the maze. It was not as large
as it had seemed from below; the convolutions made the distance
seem greater. She traced the path of the first passage she had
tried, to make sure she knew what she was doing; then she traced
the route to the tower. Good enough; she was able to see them
clearly from here.
She traced the other three routes very carefully. All of them had
several splits, but most of the splits dead-ended immediately after
passing monsters. Obviously they were intended to seem to go on, so
she would challenge the monster -- and waste either one or two
threads. One route looped back into the other, so that she might
win through it -- and find herself back at the starting point,
perhaps
Piers Anthony 337
several threads poorer. But one route wound its tortuous way all
around the maze, with three separate splits and rejoinings, and
finally exited to a hole in an opaque wall. That was evidently the
one. There were a total of thirteen monsters along it. She
concluded that all but three were illusions, the three being used
to block one arm of each split. There was no way to tell which of
each pair of mon -- sters was real -- but it didn't matter. The
ratio now favored her. She needed to test only in the splits, using
three threads, and she would pass ten illusions. Assuming she had
correctly analyzed the two cushion illusions, that would put her
running score at twelve to twenty. Twelve threads for twenty
illusions -- and perhaps other illusions bypassed in the other
passages. That was the kind of ratio she liked!
She memorized the route, then backed off the board. She got to her
feet in the tower and descended, pleased with herself. If she had
calculated correctly, she was now winning the game.
The passage she wanted was guarded by the head with the muscular
arms. Was that symbolic? A muscular head, meaning good thinking.
Symbols were a form of art, and Satan had an insidious sense of
humor; it was possible.
She walked through the illusion and into the passage. The next
monster was a cat with chicken's legs; she walked through it too.
She reached the first split, took the left fork, and threw a thread
at the hawk-headed dog that guarded it. The creature screeched and
charged her;
it was real. She retreated, took the other fork, and marched
through the headless man whose face was on his belly.
On the next split she caught the illusion the first time. It really
didn't matter; one thread got her through re -- gardless, now that
she knew how to play it. She completed the course without
difficulty and came at last to the
338 With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony 339
opaque wall. She had done it! Her mind had enabled her to
prevail.
She walked through the doorway in the wall. In a mo -- ment she
came to a blank barrier -- but it was an illusion. She stepped
through it -
First one foot, then the other landed on something that rose up to
fasten about her ankle. Startled, she looked down and discovered
she was on skis. They started to move. She had skied as a child, so
knew how to keep her balance and guide herself down a snowy slope
-- but that had been seventy-five years ago. The last thing she had
expected to encounter in Hell was skiing! Still, she had known it
was possible.
She was picking up speed. She saw two ski poles stand -- ing
upright on either side of the track. She reached out and grabbed
them. Evidently Mars had ensured fair play for this aspect of the
challenge; she had the necessary equipment.
She shot out of the chamber. She was on a high moun -- tain, on a
steep slope, accelerating. Below her were di -- verging tracks in
the snow, marked by thin columns of fire. One track led to a
towering ski jump, another to a broad and ice-covered
lake.
She skewed into the third track, which seemed to be a slalom: a
twisting path between the firepoles. She was no slalom expert, but
this seemed a better bet than the others.
She passed the first pole and made a wide turn around it, almost
losing her balance. She was way out of form and she lacked the
lithe muscles of youth. Who ever heard of a middle-aged woman doing
the slalom?
She overcorrected and brushed by the second pole, touching it.
There was a sizzle as it burned her elbow;
her clothing caught fire, and the pain was sharp. She brought her
other hand about to slap out the flame -- and the ski pole whirled
around, upsetting her balance, and she spun out of control on the
skis. She went right through
a firepole; this time her face smarted from the burn, and her hair
caught fire.
She flung aside the ski poles and dived into the snow, trying to
douse her blazing head. The skis twisted side -- wise, and her dive
became a preposterous belly flop. The snow was hard, almost like
ice dusted by a powdery layer. Now she was sliding on her stomach
down the slope, com
- pletely out of control. One leg was twisted; she felt the pain
shooting along it.
Then she was rolling, her skis tearing free along with one shoe,
leaving the foot bare. The slope steepened, then became a dropoff.
She fell -
Into the lake. The ice cracked, and she plunged under it, immersed
in the shockingly cold water. She tried to swim up to the surface,
but she had drifted under the unbroken section of the ice and
banged her head on it from below. She inhaled to scream -- and
sucked in water.
Her consciousness was fading, but she focused on one thing; the
threads. She clutched out a thread and flung it as well as she
could.
Suddenly she was moving upward. She passed through the ice without
breaking it and landed on her feet on the surface. She had managed
to avoid drowning, thanks to the magic.
She looked about her. The ice supported her weight, in this region.
To the side was a single ski that had fol -- lowed her down; the
other seemed to be lost in the snow of the slope. One ski pole
floated in the open water where she had broken through. Her bare
foot was freezing. She was here in spirit only, but only her
intellect knew the difference; she felt every bit of it. Now she
had the proof that those who suffered in Hell really did
suffer!
She looked at her collection of threads. It had shrunk
significantly. She had destroyed herself several times over, in the
course of that spill! She was well behind on the running score
now.
With a Tangled Skein
340
She limped across the ice, coughing out what remained of the water
she had tried to
breathe. She picked up the lone ski and found it was the wrong one; it was for the left foot, while her right foot needed the shoe. Of course her right foot was the wrenched one, so skiing on it might be awkward anyway. But she used the ski as a clumsy pole to brace against, and started dragging herself up the nearest slope that could be navigated. She would have to go the long way around, to get above the dropoff and find the other ski with her shoe, and it wasn't going to be pleasant, but she had no choice.
She slogged up. Her bare foot hurt in the snow, but soon it became numb -- which was no good sign. She tried to hurry, but her left leg also had been wrenched, it was now apparent, and haste was impossible. To make things worse, a wind was coming up, cutting cruelly through her inadequate clothing.
She was never going to make it this way! She sighed, and fumbled out another thread. She flung it up at the top of the dropoff, and followed it up. She had just saved herself perhaps half an hour of slogging -- but lost yet an -- other thread.
A white figure loomed before her. It was a
snowman! "Damn it!" she swore. She swung the ski at the mons --
ter.
It passed right through without resistance. Niobe spun around and
fell to the ground, a victim of her own inertia, An
illusion!
She picked herself up and plowed on until she came to the
slide-marks of her own descent. These she followed up until she
spied the other ski, with her shoe attached. She hurried toward
it
-- and dropped into an illusion-cov -- ered hole.
It was only an ice-pocket, but it cost her two threads. She got out
and proceeded on to the ski, where she de -
Piers Anthony 341
tached her shoe, dumped out the snow, and put it on. The stocking
was gone. It hardly mattered; her whole leg now felt like a dead
stick.
Where to, now? She had to find her way out of this frozen
mess!
She decided that the slalom remained her best chance. She tracked
over to it and tramped down its slope. She no longer had any
trouble keeping the course; what were impossibly tight turns at
speed on skis were quite simple on foot. If she had been smart, she
would have gotten off the skis at the outset and walked down. She
was not on show for skiing here; she just wanted to cover the
course. The whole ski-setup was probably a diversion; she had
allowed Satan to dictate the mode of play, and naturally this had
led to disaster.
She paused to warm herself at a firepole, but it was an illusion.
How fiendishly clever: the early poles were real, so that they had
burned her, while some key later ones were illusion; probably she
could have skied down the course successfully if she had known
which firepoles to ignore. This one blocked the direct course, so
that the skier had to make a wide and dangerous turn to avoid
it.
She went to the next pole, which was real, and came close to it.
But it wasn't effective as a heater; the fire was too hot up close,
and inadequate at a distance. She needed a warm ambience, not a
sharply defined line-source. She dragged herself on along the
track.
There was a termination station at the foot of the moun -- tain. A
ski lift was there, but it didn't go up the slope she had
descended. Evidently it led to the next aspect of the
maze.
She was too cold and tired to debate the merits prop -- erly. She
climbed into the seat. It was comfortable; it was a blessing to get
off her feet. She buckled the safety har -- ness. Imagine that: a
concern for safety in Hell!
342 With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony 343
The thing began to move. It hoisted itself into
the air, hanging below its line, and proceeded slowly across
the
terrain.
Now she counted her remaining threads. There were just twenty.
Sixty-eight threads she had lost in that fiasco! That seemed an
impossible number -- but Mars would not have let her be cheated.
Probably some had fallen out of her pocket during her slide down
the mountain, and some had been washed away by the water. How would
she ever catch up now?
But she reminded herself that she didn't have to catch up; she just
had to make it through the maze. If she used her mind henceforth,
she could still do it. She had to be -- lieve that.
How much more of the maze remained? She didn't know. But whatever
it was, she would negotiate it.
She reached down to chafe her cold leg. Some sensation was
returning. That was good and bad; good because it indicated
recovery, bad because it hurt. But that would pass; she had been
tromped to death, as it were, by the headfoot monster, but had
recovered immediately. It seemed it took longer to recover from
sixty-eight threads worth of mischief than from two threads worth.
But she would recover.
The lift entered a tunnel. Light flared -- and she saw she was in a
kind of factory. The chairs of the lift moved among robots that
used tools to adjust things. Obviously if she were in the correct
spot, she would get adjusted -- and that would not be at all
comfortable. She had to find a clear route through.
The line overhead divided. She shifted her weight to the right, and
the seat took the right line. She could con -- trol her travel, to
some extent.
What she evidently could not do was pause in her progress. The seat
kept moving forward at its measured pace. That provided her
inadequate time to decide. The
thing would not go backward, which meant she was com -- mitted to
whatever decision she made. She could not change her mind and
withdraw. She might already have made the wrong choice!
A robot loomed ahead. It had a roughly humanoid head -- box and a
pair of articulated metal arms. One terminated in a giant pincers,
the other in a sharp knife. Evidently the robot was intended to
hold and slice, trimming off excess material from the subject. If
she was the subject, she could lose some flesh. Unless the robot
was illusion.
She flung a thread at it. The thread struck the robot and
vaporized. The robot remained. So much for that faint
hope.
Niobe hastily unbuckled her belt and jumped out of the chair. She
fell to the floor of the foot-pedestal of the robot. Vapor wafted
up; that fall had cost her another thread. This was an ongoing
disaster! She was sure she couldn't proceed through the maze unless
she rode the lift -- and this was the wrong line.
But she didn't want to depend on chance at all. She had to figure
out the pattern, as she had in the maze-and -- monster section.
Then she could get through with minimal losses.
She stood and looked at the towering robot. How could she analyze
this pattern? She couldn't even see it from below -- and she
perceived no way to get above it. Not for a weak middleaged
woman.
She had to use her mind, because her body was inad -- equate. She
sat at the base of the robot and pondered, while the seats of the
lift trundled on over her head. As -- sume that she had to ride the
lift to get through and that her options were limited once she was
on her way. She could not fathom the overall pattern, so would have
to guess. Could she win through? She had lost what little faith she
had in luck, here in Hell.
344 With a Tangled Skein
What about guile? Satan was the master of
guile; could he fall victim to his own technique? He had done so
in
the Luna-Orb matter, yet -
Then she had it. If this failed -- well, she probably would have
lost anyway. If this succeeded, she might win
through.
She tossed a thread toward the robot's shoulder, and
in a moment she was there, clinging to her precarious perch. She
took hold of the robot's head and yanked. The covering came off; it
was a cup-shaped cap with apertures for the eye lenses. Underneath
were the gears used to rotate the head on the neck. She didn't
bother with them;
all she needed was the helmet. And maybe an arm.
She set the helmet-cap on her own head. It reeked of oil and fit
quite loosely, but she was able to see out of the lens apertures.
She grabbed for an arm.
The robot felt the contact, or perhaps the pressure on the
extremity. The gears spun in the head, and the lenses swiveled to
cover the arm. Then the hinge-elbow flexed,
and the arm folded back on itself.
She grabbed it and pulled. It froze in place, and did not
move. All of her strength could not budge it.
So much for that. She would have to settle for the hel -- met. She
hoped it would suffice.
She watched the seats of the lift as they passed. When a suitable
one approached, she threw a thread at it and followed the thread
onto the seat. Quickly she settled her -- self and fastened the
belt.
The robot reached for her. "Uh-uh!" she exclaimed, I
facing it with her eye-slits. Her voice reverberated in her helmet.
"I'm a testing robot. Clank-clank!"
The robot hesitated, its head-gears spinning as its gaze followed
the motion of her seat, almost as if the gears were brains in
operation. By the time the machine made up its mind, she was beyond
it.
Piers Anthony 345
The line diverged again. She picked her course, and moved on to the
next robot. "Clank! Clank!" she cried again in the helmet. Again
the robot hesitated, its program not quite covering this, and again
she got through. It was working!
Unfortunately for her, this line was not the correct one;
it dead-ended. It terminated in a station that went no -- where.
The seats turned over, folded up, and followed in a line leading
back to the other side of the factory; no way to ride farther. But
nearby a line seemed to be going some -- where. She used a thread
to reach it -- and passed through it, crashing on the floor. It was
an illusion!
She had to use yet another thread to reach another line. This one
was real -- but it too dead-ended.
She kept trying. At- last she made it to a line that went
somewhere. A robot reached for her; she warned it off -- and it
kept coming. It had not been deceived by the hel -- met, and she
had no time to scramble free! She screamed as the pincers took hold
of her -- and passed through her body harmlessly. It was another
illusion!
That meant she was back on track. She rode this line to the true
terminus: a walk that led out of the factory. She removed her
helmet and surveyed her situation. Her frozen leg had thawed and
was serviceable, but she had only five threads left. She didn't
know how far she still had to go, or how many illusions remained.
But she was sure that, one way or another, she was near the
end.
-- 16 -
ANSWERS
Outside the factory was another hall. She walked cau -- tiously
along it, alert for
tricks. There seemed to be none. Soon she came to an intersection with a hall at right an -- gles. In the center, mounted on a base, was a fancy plaque. She approached this and looked at it. It said: WEL -- COME TO THE FINAL SERIES OF CHALLENGES. THREADS RE -- MAINING: 5. ILLUSIONS REMAINING: 10.
She considered this. Was it genuine, or a trick by Satan? Certainly it had her threads correctly listed; if the illusions were also correct, then she was much closer than she had supposed. She could still win this contest!
But it could be a plant, intended to deceive her. Should she use a thread on it to verify its accuracy? No, that would be foolish. If it was a lie, it should be a complete lie -- and obviously it wasn't. Better just to assume it was correct and make sure she wasted no more threads. She would count off the remaining illusions, because, once that total reached zero, she would know she had won. But she would not trust it too far, because, if the plaque were
346
Piers Anthony 347
a lie, it could cause her to think she had eliminated the last
illusion when she had not --
and that last illusion could wipe her out. But probably Mars would not have allowed Satan to volunteer false information, because there should, after all, be a distinction between illusion and out -- right lying.
She pondered, then turned right -- and
discovered a dead end. She felt along the walls, floor and ceiling,
but all were solid. No exit here.
She tried the left hall, but this, too, was a dead end. So she went
straight ahead -- and found a third dead end. None of the passages
went anywhere.
She stood by the plaque and pondered. Could the mes -- sage be a
fake, not in its accounting of threads and illu -- sions, but in
its implication that the route was here when it was not? So that
she would waste her few remaining threads looking for what did not
exist? What a fiendish trap!
She walked around the plaque -- and saw that there were words
printed on its back. DO YOU YIELD?
Satan's humor, all right! "No, I don't!" she exclaimed.
That plaque could be here to make her think it was a lie, so that
she would write off this annex -- when it was the correct route.
She had to make absolutely sure it was not, before she gave up on
it.
She explored the halls again. It occurred to her that an illusion
did not have to be merely sight; it could be sound or touch too.
Some of the illusion-monsters had roared. There might be an exit
she couldn't find because her hands missed it as readily as her eye
did. In that case she would have to use a thread -- which would
leave it at four threads, nine illusions. She couldn't afford to
trade off one for one. Not now.
She discovered a slanting connecting passage between the
straight-ahead hall and the left hall, making the overall
configuration of passages resemble the closed figure 4.
348 With a Tangled Skein
Why should that extra passage exist, when it was easy enough to go from one hall to another via the center? About all it did was make it possible to walk down every hall without having to double back.
Something nagged at her. Some figures had to be "solved" by tracing them without doubling back. There were some traffic patterns in large cities like that, where three right turns substituted for one illegal left turn. Could this be one such?
She returned to her starting point, at the base of the 4, then resolutely marched forward. She proceeded past the plaque to the apex, then turned sharp left. She followed the slant down, then turned sharply left again. She walked past the plaque, into the end of the 4 -- and now the pas -- sage opened out into a cave. She had penetrated the il -- lusion, without using a thread. Two left turns had unrav -- eled what one right turn could not.
Now she saw a straight path leading like a pier into a deep black pool. The path widened, forming a kind of island in the center of the pool -- and on that island a dragon. The path continued on beyond the dragon, to ter -- minate in a blank wall.
Obviously she had to pass the dragon to get
through. But through to what? There was no exit there!
Ah, but there had to be! Satan had nine illusions left;
he must have covered the exit through the wall with il -- lusion,
and set a genuine dragon to guard it. Most of the prior illusions
had been of monsters, guarding real pas -- sages; this one was the
other way around. She could prob -- ably penetrate the illusion,
once she got by the dragon;
she didn't need to use any thread here.
But how could she get by the dragon?
Well, the dragon could be illusion too. But if she walked into it,
and it was real, she would lose two precious
Piers Anthony 349
threads and still not be past. That was hardly worth the risk. It
would be better to verify it with one thread -
No, she had a better notion. She approached as close as she dared
and threw the helmet at it. The metal bounced off the dragon's
scaled side and rolled into the water with a splash. The dragon
snorted fire. It was cer -- tainly real.
She looked to the sides. There was a ledge just above water-level
beyond the dragon; it curved around to either side, approaching the
path on which she stood within eight feet before
terminating.
She sighed. A man might have leaped across; she had no such hope.
She had to find another way.
She saw that there were vines hanging from the ceiling, but they
looked insubstantial. She took hold of one and jerked; it broke
near the top and came tumbling down. There were some that looked
strong enough to bear her weight, but they were dangling
tantalizingly out of reach.
There seemed to be no other avenue, unless she went back to the
figure-4 annex, which she would only do as
a last, last resort. There had to be a way; she just had to find
it.
She found it. She yanked down another weak vine, bunched it and
tied it in a rough knot. Then she tied that knot to another hanging
vine. Then she swung the knot across to one of the more substantial
vines. After several tries she was able to entangle that larger
vine and draw it over to her, using the weak vine. Now she had hold
of the one she wanted.
She hauled at it with increasing vigor. It held; it was firmly
anchored and it was strong enough to take her weight.
She held on tightly, drew back, then ran to the edge of the water.
She leaped at the margin, clung for dear life,
350
Piers Anthony 351
With a Tangled Skein
and swung across to the other path. Something flashed below her in
the water as she passed, like a huge shark. She landed heavily but
adequately, and the vine swung back behind. It might have been
pitiful as a gymnastic feat, but she was across. She was glad she
had not tried to swim.
She made her way along the narrow path, her
right hand brushing along the wall. The dragon watched her, but
could not reach her.
Where the straight path intersected the current one, she found the
exit; it was indeed illusion-covered. She stepped through
cautiously, alert for a pitfall, but there was none. She was
through -- and she still had five threads, with eight illusions
remaining, if the plaque was to be believed. She remained behind,
but her ingenuity had enabled her to gain.
She came into a broad cavern with a wide river running through,
reminiscent of one she had encountered in the Hall of the Mountain
King. Perhaps Satan had borrowed the concept. If so, she knew how
to cross.
But it was not the same. There was no mesh fence in this river, and
no sign advertising it as Lethe. Of course it could still be Lethe,
as that was one of the rivers of Hell, so she would treat it with
caution. There were fish in it; when she dipped her finger in,
three horrendously -- toothed little monsters converged. One leaped
as she drew her hand quickly away; the fish's teeth clacked in
midair where her hand had been, before it splashed back down. There
would be no swimming in this river!
There was a wide path along the bank, originating at the point she
entered this section. She walked slowly along it. Obviously her
challenge was to cross the river, but there were no more hanging
vines; and in any event the river was about fifty feet wide. Well,
she would see,
She heard something. She stopped, listening nervously. It was the
even footfalls of a striding man. She shrank into an alcove to the
side, not wanting to encounter the sort of man she would in
Hell.
The man came into view. He was tall and blond, mus -- cular and
handsome in a boyish way.
All Niobe's reserve crumbled. "Cedric!" she cried.
Cedric turned to face her. "Niobe!" he exclaimed, spreading his
arms.
Then several things caught up with her. "But you're dead!" she
said, stopping before she reached him.
"Of course I am. But my love for you remains."
"But what are you doing in Hell? You were a good man in life -- a
wonderful man!"
He shrugged. "A glitch in the system, maybe. But if you're here,
that's where I want to be. With the most beautiful woman of her
generation."
"But I'm not beautiful anymore! I've gone to seed."
He shrugged again. "It doesn't matter. My love is eter --
nal."
"You're an illusion, aren't you!" she said indignantly. "A demon in
disguise! I can use a thread on you and expose you for what you
are!" She was angry now that Satan should use this particular
device to trick her. To taunt her with her long lost
love!
Cedric just stood there, not answering. He looked just exactly the
way she remembered him, and her love fought in her breast to emerge
and take over. There was nothing in life as sweet as first love!
That made her angrier yet. "Get out of here!" she screamed. "I'll
not waste a thread on you! You're just a -- a mockery!" Now the
tears were flowing. She had been caught entirely offguard by this
specter, and her emotion had to be expressed somehow. "You have no
right to -- to -- "
352 With a Tangled Skein
"I'm sorry you feel that way," Cedric said.
"But of course your love for me was never as true as mine for
you."
There was just enough truth in that to sting. She rushed at him and
struck him with her fist, scoring on the nose.
Blood streamed down his face, but he made no motion to strike back.
"I'll always love you, Niobe," he said quietly.
Her rage was so great that she was ready to kill. Her fingers
curled into claws. She started for his eyes -
And caught herself. Hate was Satan's way. She was falling into
Satan's trap! If she allowed hate and rage to dominate her, she
would remain in Hell forever.
This was a demon in disguise, for it was solid under the illusion.
Surely the demon could wipe her out with a single blow! But it had
not done so. Instead it was taunting her into rage, baiting the
love she could not afford to express. She could have used one
thread on it, to expose it -- or it could have killed her, costing
her two threads. The rules of the maze did not allow monsters to
chase her down;
they could only hurt her if she made contact on her own initiative.
She had made contact -- but the thing was trying to destroy her
rationality, not her body. To ruin her ob -- jectivity about her
mission here, so that she would act foolishly and waste her
remaining threads. That was the trap she could not afford -- the
one that would cost her all.
She calmed herself. "I'm sorry, Cedric. I shouldn't have struck
you. Of course your love is true." She brought out a hanky and
dabbed at his face.
Now he became uncomfortable. "Please don't bother," he said. "I'll
be all right."
"Oh, but I must help you," she said warmly. "It's so important to
love you back as strongly as you love me."
He jerked away. "I really must be going." "Must you -- so soon,
Cedric?" she asked sadly.
Piers Anthony 353
He hurried away without further word.
She knew why. Demons were creatures of violence and hate, and could
hardly tolerate gentleness and love, what -- ever they might say.
This demon had been besting her -- until she became positive. Then
it could not handle the situation. Love defeated hate -- with a
little management.
She walked on -- and encountered another man. "Pace!"
"Niobe!" he replied.
But it had to be another demon, for Pacian, like Cedric, had been a
genuinely good man, not destined for Hell.
She headed for it. "Darling, it's so good to see you again!" she
exclaimed.
It hesitated. "Uh, yes, of course. And I know you aren't really to
blame for my being here."
So that was its ploy! Force her into an angry denial of that
outrageous implication. "Oh, but I am," she replied. "I know you
wouldn't be here now, if it weren't for me."
Again it hesitated. This wasn't following the script! Then it tried
again, gamely enough. "Well, actually, you know it's not exactly me
here -- "
"Let me give you a big fat kiss, dear," she said, ap --
proaching.
It lost its composure and fled. Niobe smiled. She was learning how
to handle demons.
But she wondered whether she had been correct in as -- suming that
her anger was worth more to Satan than her life. She was so low on
threads that the two threads a killing would have cost her
represented forty percent of her total. Either of those demons
could have dropped her total to three threads, putting her
critically behind in the terminal stage of the maze. Was her anger
really worth more than that?
She stopped where she was, certain that she was on her way to an
important realization. Satan was evil, but hardly stupid. Anything
he did made sense. So why would
354 With a Tangled Skein
he instruct his demons not to attack her, if their taunting , was
not effective? There had to be some way he expected' to gain from
this.
Well, suppose there was a way she could get into more than two
threads worth of trouble, if not diverted from it by the demons?
She had recognized the wrong courses in prior segments of the maze
because they were impassable. Now she was encountering demons who
could have stopped her, but did not. Did that mean she was heading
into more than two threads worth of mischief? That she was in fact
on the wrong route?
If ,so, she should reverse course and get out of here. But that
would mean encountering the two demons she had passed -- and they
surely would not let her travel that way. She could get killed
twice, costing her four threads. These were more sophisticated than
the prior monsters;
they hadn't had to kill her as long as she was going in the
direction Satan desired. And if she managed to get back past them
-- where would she find the correct route? She had no
idea.
She concluded that she simply had to gamble on this being the right
course. It was after all possible that the demons were merely
trying to make her think she was going wrong. Wouldn't that be an
irony: for her to turn away from the correct route, simply because
the demons let her pass!
Meanwhile, she had an advantage: she knew that Satan was not about
to force her to lose two threads. He wanted her to lose at least
three. That must be the minimum num -- ber she needed for victory.
He was willing to throw away illusions; they didn't matter. It was
the threads that counted.
Yet all this had been set up before she entered the maze. How could
Satan have known how many threads she would have left?
Piers Anthony 355
She resumed her walking, ill at ease. And -- another person
approached.
It was Blanche, Pacian's first wife who had been killed by the
demon at the wedding. Again, there was no way Blanche could have
gone to Hell; she had always been a good woman. This was another
demon -- or demoness -- clothed by illusion. She could be handled
as the others had been.
"Blanche!" Niobe cried, approaching her with open arms. "I'm so
glad to see you!"
Blanche did not blanch. She came right up and em -- braced Niobe.
She felt completely human and real. "Thank you so much for taking
care of my husband!"
This was a new approach! Apparently the creatures of Hell were not
always repelled by affection. Maybe de -- monesses were more
gentle, as they were commonly used to seduce men to evil
-- literally. If they were driven away by love, they would not be
able to perform. How, then, could she get rid of this one? "You
don't resent that I married him after you died?"
"Oh, no, dear!" Blanche exclaimed. "He was such a good man, he
deserved the best -- and you were the best. He always loved you, of
course, because of your beauty;
it was only right that he have opportunity to enjoy it be -- fore
it faded."
The demoness was beginning to get into it! The stilet -- toes of
women were more subtle than those of men, but no less sharp. "I'm
so glad you understand," Niobe said with as much warmth as she
could manage. "The proph -- ecy said he would possess the most
beautiful woman of her generation, and obviously you weren't
it."
"All too true!" Blanche agreed without rancor. "I feel privileged
to have shared what part of his love I could, while I could, and to
have had a lovely child by him."
"Yes, my son the Magician married her," Niobe agreed. She seemed to
be unable to rattle this demoness,
356
Piers Anthony 357
With a Tangled Skein
and she was not enjoying the effort. This woman was too much like
the real Blanche, always
good and giving. "I'm on my way to see him
now."
"Yes, I know. I'll be glad to help you find him."
What? For a moment Niobe reeled with doubt. Could this be the real
Blanche? She could
verify it with a thread...
No! That might be part of the trap. Use a
thread on this demoness, verify what she was, and then be killed by
her:
three threads gone, and Satan's victory. Qr try to retreat from
her, and have to run the gauntlet of two male demons behind. A
losing strategy, surely.
Blanche had to be in Heaven. This had to be an illusion/ demoness,
playing her part the way only a female could. The males had failed,
but the females were more adept.
Well, if she couldn't get rid of this one, she would have to play
along. "Why, thank you, Blanche! But this is, after all. Hell. Will
Satan permit it?"
"We aren't completely evil, even in Hell," Blanche reminded her.
"We're just more evil than good. What good I possess is tied up
with Pacian and my daughter and your son. I will help you reach him
-- but I am not allowed to tell you anything. You
understand."
"I understand." But she did not understand. This was exactly the
way the real Blanche would have acted -- but what demoness would
help an intruder defeat her master? There had to be a limit to the
playing of a part -- didn't there?
Disquieted, Niobe continued her walk, and Blanche paced her. If
this was another one of Satan's traps, it was too sophisticated for
her to fathom at the moment.
Unless, she realized abruptly, Satan wanted her to reach her son.
Or to encourage her to believe she could reach him. Naturally he
would provide her all needed as -- sistance -- to go the wrong
way.
Well, she was stuck for it. The game was getting more devious, as
Satan proceeded from straight maze-chal -- lenges to psychological
ones, but it wasn't over until it was over. The outcome hadn't been
decided yet, for she still had five threads.
Another person showed. The next demon -- and she hadn't yet gotten
rid of the last one!
It was Blenda, the Magician's wife, mother of Luna. This was
getting eerie indeed!
"Mother!" Blenda cried.
"My baby!" Blanche cried.
The two swept together and hugged each other, shed -- ding tears.
Niobe watched, bemused. They had to be two demonesses -- yet they
acted real in all ways. Blenda was not the perfect beauty she had
been in youth, but the somewhat wasted woman who had died of
leukemia at age fortyseven, leaving the Magician a widower. His
magic had extended her life, but had not been able to cure her. So
she, too, had entered the Afterlife -- but not Hell. She had at one
point been a virtual twin of Niobe's, and Niobe had known her well
-- a woman with very little evil.
Then Blenda turned to her. "I'm so glad to see you so well,
Niobe!"
So well? Hardly! But compared to Blenda, she was healthy. Niobe
didn't even try to unmask her; she hugged Blenda and exchanged
pleasantries.
"So now you're coming to talk with my husband," Blenda
said.
"My son," Niobe agreed. "He has the answer I need."
"I will help you find him," Blenda said. "I haven't seen him since
I died."
Surely not! Blenda was in Heaven, the Magician in Hell. But Niobe
had to play along. "Why not? He's been here for two
years."
Her mouth quirked. "We don't get visiting privileges. That's part
of our punishment."
358
Piers Anthony 359
With a Tangled Skein
Niobe had to admit that made sense. So now she had two demonesses
ready to help her find
her son. Curiouser
yet!
Niobe set off again, paced by a woman on either side. She had five
threads, and only four
unidentified illusions remained.
"How are the girls?" Blenda asked.
"Orb's on tour," Niobe answered shortly. "Luna's getting into
politics." "Oh, yes -- to foil Satan!" Blenda agreed. "But you need
the Magician's advice." Another form appeared. In fact it was three
forms: out -- right demons. Evidently Satan
was not about to expend three of his four remaining illusions on these; he had to send them in undisguised. They spied the women and hur -- ried toward them.
"Watch out for them!" Blanche cried. "I know
their kind! If they get us outnumbered, they'll rape us or eat
us!"
"Or both," Blenda amended.
"Or both," Blanche agreed. "We must stay together;
then they won't try it. They're cowardly; they must have numerical
advantage, or they won't act."
Niobe did not comment. As far as she was concerned, she was now in
the company of five demons. How was she going to get out of this?
Why hadn't Satan simply sent ten demons?
The demons came close. They had horns and tails and hooves and
obvious masculine appendages, in the manner of their kind. They
eyed the women. "You need com -- pany?" one asked.
"Oh, go away, you foul fiend!" Blenda exclaimed. The demon
considered, evidently trying to figure out how to separate the
three women so that they would be -- come vulnerable. "Maybe we
help," he said. "You want cross river?"
" Yes," Niobe said. It was, after all, the truth; she could see
that the path on this side came to an end a short dis -- tance
ahead.
"We help. We got boat."
"Why should you help us cross?" Niobe demanded. With overt demons,
at least she didn't have to pretend.
The demon looked at her. It licked its lips. It shifted its
posterior. It didn't answer.
It hardly needed to. The demons would help one woman cross, so that
the three would be separated. Then the three demons would converge
on the one or two women, and do their dirty work.
Would one demon actually rape or eat a demoness? Apparently so, by
the rules that evidently governed this strange portion of-the maze.
Perhaps it was just Niobe who would be attacked, once she was
separated from her "friends."
Well, the answer was simple. They would all cross to -- gether. If
the women intended to desert her, they would have done so already.
It seemed that they would stand by her -- for now.
"Show us your boat," Niobe said.
The demons showed the boat. It was a small canoe, just big enough
for two. It was obvious that it would sink if any more got on
it.
Niobe looked at Blanche and Blenda. They spread their hands. It was
clear that it was not possible for the three of them to cross
together.
But if they did not, one or two of them would be left to the
appetites of the demons. Niobe might cross alone, but she realized
that she could not in conscience leave the other two women to that
fate, even if they were de -- monesses beneath. They had not
betrayed her, so far; she was unwilling to be the one to initiate
that sort of thing. This might be Hell, but she carried her
standards with her.
360 With a Tangled Skein
Perhaps that was the real nature of this test: to ascertain whether she would desert her conscience when it seemed convenient to do so. An ethical standard that bowed to convenience was not worth much.
She considered crossing with one demon, so as to keep it even on both sides of the river. But then that demon could cross back after Niobe went on, making it three to two. Or it could return to fetch across another demon, both of which could pursue Niobe.
She had to arrange to get all three women
across -- without ever letting any of them be outnumbered, on
either side of the river. That was the only proper
course.
She pondered. She remembered something that might help: a series of
intellectual riddles she and Cedric had struggled with during their
first summer. He had been uncannily bright, and she knew in distant
retrospect that the foundation of her love for him had been laid
when the power of his mind began to show in such games. He had
seemed like little more than a boy, then -- but what a bon -- nie
boy!
She felt the tears starting and shook herself out of the reverie.
She was, after all, in Hell.
One of those riddles had been the story of a river cross -- ing:
three civilized hunters, with three untrustworthy na -- tives. They
had had to cross the river, using a two-man boat, without ever
letting the natives outnumber the hunt -- ers. Exactly the problem
she faced here! So she knew there was an answer -
But she didn't remember it.
The others stood there, looking at her -- the two women and the
three demons. Yes, this was definitely a test, an aspect of the
maze. She had been able to unravel the con -- fusions of passages
and illusions, and to survive the rigors of the snowy slope, and to
get by the robot factory, but now the maze was focusing
increasingly on her weakness:
Piers Anthony 361
intellect. She had never claimed to have more than or -- dinary
intelligence, though she had been attracted to smart men.
If she could solve this riddle, she could proceed; if not, she
would shortly commence her Afterlife in Hell with a truly Hellish
experience.
Did Satan know of her prior exposure to this puzzle? Did it suit
his humor to dangle the prize this close, to see whether she could
come through? What an exquisite tor -- ture it would be, to know
she had had victory within her reach and had been unable to grasp
it! He had even sent a demon in the guise of Cedric, to remind
her!
"Damn you, Satan!" she swore under her breath. She thought she
heard a responding chuckle, though perhaps that was merely a ripple
in the river.
She concentrated. How had that long-ago puzzle gone? Two women
could cross first -- no, that would leave the third with all three
demons. Well, one woman and one demon could cross, keeping it even.
Then -- oops! Who would bring the boat back? The woman would have
to. Then there would be three women and two demons on the near
bank, and a lone demon on the far bank. Then one woman and one
demon could cross -- and when they got to the far bank, there would
be two demons to one woman there. No good.
Well, suppose two demons crossed first? One would bring the boat
back. Then two women -- no, that left two demons and one woman on
the near shore.
No matter how she tried it, at some point she encoun -- tered an
imbalance. It seemed impossible to cross suc -- cessfully -- yet
she knew there was an answer! Cedric had worked it out.
There was a key -- a special way of looking at it. Some -- thing
that the ordinary person, like her, did not think of. What was
it?
362 With a Tangled Skein
She pictured Cedric's boyish face, the tousled hair tum -- bling
over his forehead. He had shown her the key, such a simple, obvious
thing, and she had laughed ruefully.
Cedric! she thought, her ancient love for him suffusing her. / need
you!
And then she thought: return. Perhaps she had heard Cedric say it,
her love bringing back the dear memory of his voice.
The key was in the boat's return trip. Something sur -- prising,
nonsensical -- until understood. The return or -- Then she had it.
Thanks to Cedric, Luna's grandfather, she knew how to cross the
river and save Luna. Satan had gotten too cute, taunting her; she
had gotten away with the bait.
"Two of you take this boat across," she directed the
demons.
They didn't argue. They got into the canoe and dipped their
hand-paws in to paddle, not bothering with the pad -- dles that lay
in the bottom of the craft. The carnivorous fish swarmed, biting at
the hands. When a fish took hold, a demon simply drew his hand out
of the water along with the attached fish, brought it to his mouth,
and chomped the fish. In a moment the eater became the eaten, and
the paddling resumed.
Soon they were across. "Now one of you get out; the other bring it
back," Niobe called. The demons shrugged;
one got out and stood on the bank, while the other dog -- paddled
the canoe back by sitting in the front and pulling it along. It
wasn't a smooth trip, but in due course the demon got
there.
"Two more of you cross," Niobe said.
Two crossed. When they arrived, all three demons were on the far
bank, while all three women remained on the near one.
"Now one of you bring it back," Niobe called.
Piers Anthony 363
"But if one of us crosses next -- " Blanche said wor --
riedly.
"Don't worry," Niobe said.
The demon arrived back. The two on the far shore licked their gross
chops, anticipating something pleasant on the next
crossing.
"Now two of us will cross," Niobe said. "Come on,
Blanche."
"But I -- " Blenda protested.
"You will have the company of one demon," Niobe said. "No
problem."
She and Blanche took up the paddles and started off. The fish
swarmed in again, but found nothing tender to chomp. The journey
was somewhat erratic, as neither woman was experienced, and at
times Niobe feared they would tip the craft over in their effort to
keep it on course, but they did eventually make it across. The fish
clacked their teeth angrily.
Now there were two women and two demons on this bank, one of each
on the other. Who was going back: a woman or a demon?
"One of each," Niobe said. "I'll go -- and you." She picked a
demon.
The demon shrugged and joined her in the boat. It didn't know what
she was up to, but was sure that sooner or later it would find the
women outnumbered.
It was eerie, riding with the demon. She knew it could overturn the
canoe at any point, dumping her in the water and costing her a
life. But she also knew the demon wouldn't do it. It would attack
only when it had the advan -- tage of numbers. She was finessing
Satan, offering him the chance to penalize her two threads when he
wanted three.
They reached the bank. Now there were four on this side, two on the
other, still evenly divided.
"Two women," Niobe said.
364 With a Tangled Skein
Blenda joined her in the canoe, and they crossed, leav -- ing the
two demons behind. When they arrived, there were three women to one
demon. "Now you can ferry your friends across," Niobe said. "We'll
be moving on. Thank you for your help." She led the way on down the
path, leaving the demon to scratch his horny head in per --
plexity. How had the three morsels managed to escape? "That was
very clever of you." Blanche said.
"It was just a fond memory," Niobe said enigmatically. She knew it
had been a close call. though -- and four il -- lusions remained,
with the challenges getting harder.
The path diverged from the river. It led to a large hall, a virtual
cathedral.
A man sat on a throne on a dais in the center. He stood as the
women entered. "So you have come!" he ex -- claimed,
rising.
It was the Magician!
Blenda was the first to approach him. "My husband!" "My wife!" he
agreed. They embraced and kissed. Now Niobe approached him. But she
remembered those four remaining illusions. It was possible that she
had bypassed them when she crossed the river, or that the count
given on the plaque in the 4-hall had overstated the number, but
she doubted it. It was more likely that she would have to fathom
every last one of those illusions before she won through. She
couldn't trust this.
But suppose it was her son, ready with the answer she needed -- and
she passed him by? That was as good a way to lose as any! Wouldn't
Satan laugh if he offered her the solution on a platter -- and she
rejected it, for that reason. Exquisite irony.
Well, one day Satan was going to try so hard for that irony that he
would lose more than an encounter.
She brought out a thread and flung it at the Magician. If this was
no illusion -
Piers Anthony 365
The thread touched -- and the Magician became a demon with three
faces and six arms. Its head seemed to be mounted on ball-bearings,
for it rotated without limit to aim one face at her, then another,
and then the third. One face was young, one middle-aged, and one
old, but each seemed uglier than the other two.
"So!" the middle face hissed. "You doubt me, bag!" the old one
grated. "I will perforate you!" the young one cried. The demon
stepped toward her.
Blanche and Blenda screamed. Niobe expected them to run away, as
their challenge was done, but instead they closed in before her.
"You shall not have her!" Blenda cried.
"This is my concern, not yours!" Niobe said. "Don't -- "
The three-faced demon grabbed Blenda, using four of its arms to
catch hold of her two arms and two legs. It picked her up and spun
its head to view her triply. "You aren't worth bothering with, you
prune!" it said, and hurled her beyond the throne.
Now Niobe saw a gulf there. The throne was not in the center of the
chamber; it had only seemed to be, from a distance. It was perched
on the edge of a void. Blenda screamed as she fell into this hole
and disappeared.
Again the demon advanced on Niobe. This time Blanche interposed
herself. "You can cross, Niobe!" she cried. "The landing is hidden
by illusion -- "
The demon caught her, wrapping two hands about her throat to cut
off her words. With three more hands it ripped off her clothes. It
growled with disgust. "Damned flesh is no good; I want the real
thing. To Hell with you!" And it threw her also into the
gulf.
Niobe was shocked on several levels. These were de -- mons --
sacrificing themselves to protect her. They were giving her
information that she needed to defeat their mas -- ter. That made
little sense, unless -
366 With a Tangled Skein
Unless Blanche and Blenda were what they had seemed to be. In which
case -No! There was no way those two could really be in Hell. But
they weren't necessarily
demons. They could be other souls, ordered to impersonate the women Niobe had known -- or maybe even caused to believe that they were those women. Thus they could have acted in good faith, despite being false -- and had paid a terrible price for it.
Terrible price! No -- they were damned souls anyway. The fall into the pit could not hurt them; it merely took them out of this context. Niobe was alone again. Still, she regretted their passing, and was sorry she had not been able to do anything for them.
Meanwhile, the three-faced demon was coming at
her again -- and this time there was no one to intercede. She had
used a thread exposing it; if it killed her now, that would make
three threads lost, and put her below the critical threshold as she
understood it. She had to es -- cape
-- but the void was too broad for her to slide across on a limited
thread.
If she retreated, she would be trapped between
this demon and the three at the river. She had to go
forward.
There was a landing, hidden by illusion -- if Blanche had been
telling the truth. If that damned soul had been a true emulation of
the blessed one, she would have told the truth. Blanche had been
one of the finest people Niobe had known, though she had known her
mainly by obser -- vation. Satan had made a mistake, using damned
souls to emulate blessed ones; naturally they had longed to be
their roles, as an actor might wish to be the hero he por --
trayed, and they had played them too well. It had been their
closest approach to the illusion of Heaven, of escape from
Hell.
Niobe ran for the void. She threw a thread ahead of her.
Piers Anthony 367
There, just a yard away from the edge, was a platform. It had been
concealed by the illusion of the void.
She leaped across. The three-faced demon, following her, tried to
stop, skidded on the smooth floor, and fell into the crevice
between the edge and the platform. Screaming from all three faces,
it descended.
She was across, and she had three threads left, while Satan had
only two illusions. It was coming down to the wire, and for the
first time she had a genuine hope of winning.
She set herself and walked on, hardly exhilarated, still regretting
the fate of the two damned souls who had helped her
cross.
She came to another large chamber. Here there were a dozen demons
of the kind she had encountered at the river, all looking alike.
They stood beside a huge set of balancing scales.
What was she to make of this? The demons made no hostile gesture;
they seemed merely to be waiting. This must be the final challenge
-- but how could she solve it, when she couldn't even tell its
nature?
Then something occurred to her. Pacian, her second husband, had had
a mind very like Cedric's. Magic music and intellectual
brilti&wx -- ^\vj had \wsfi cousms, so h was not surprising
that they shared traits. She had played games of riddles with Pace,
too, and he had bested her readily. Now she remembered the first,
at the sea of grass as they tried to approach Gaea's residence.
Twelve cpins, a set of scales. Eleven coins specified to be
genuine, one counterfeit -- but the counterfeit looked exactly like
the others. Only its slight difference in weight distinguished it.
The problem had been to discover which one was the counterfeit, and
whether it was heavy or light.
Easy enough; it was necessary only to weigh all the coins in pairs.
If two balanced, both were genuine; if the scales did not balance,
then one coin was the counterfeit.
368 WUh a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony 369
Then each of these could be balanced against
one of the others, and the counterfeit would be exposed.
Except that only three weighings were permitted. It was necessary
to weigh them in groups
- and no combination of group weighings seemed certain to isolate
the lone counterfeit, let alone identify the nature of its
difference.
Here were twelve identical demons -- and she had just three threads
left. Could that be it?
Satan had two illusions remaining, it seemed. Two de -- mons could
be made to resemble her son, concealing him -- but that had not
been done. None of these demons had been masked.
Then she caught on. "One of you is my son!"
All of them nodded affirmatively.
"Which one?"
All nodded negatively, refusing to tell.
Why didn't the Magician simply step forward so she could verify him
with a thread?
She considered and realized that, just as her threads were not
merely illusion-disposers but also life-restorers and flying
devices, so Satan's illusions were not confined to the senses.
Satan could have used one illusion to change the Magician's
appearance to that of a demon -- and the other to prevent him from
identifying himself.
More than that, she realized. Satan could have bound the Magician
so that once she identified him, he would not tell the truth. Then
she would have a lie for an answer, and when she applied it, Satan
would win.
Well, then, she would reverse whatever he told her, and have the
truth.
But suppose it wasn't a lie? Then she would forfeit the game
despite having the truth -- another delicious irony.
She had to know whether the Magician had been en -- chanted to tell
the truth or to lie. A thread would do it -- but would she have a
thread left, once she found him?
Her son was the counterfeit coin, in this Hellish in -- version --
and what he told her could be either true or false. He could be
honest, and be slightly lighter than the demons, or dishonest, and
be slightly heavier, for dis -- honesty was a sin and sin weighed
down the soul. She had to know which.
She had three threads -- and now she knew that each one entitled
her to one weighing. She had to locate her son among the identical
demons, and determine his rela -- tive weight.
It seemed impossible -- yet Pacian had done it, and shown her how.
But that had been a quarter-century ago, and she had forgotten the
solution.
This was a tougher one than the river-crossing; she knew that. She
had barely solved the other; how could she ever fathom this one?
Her advantage in threads had been nullified by her lesser intellect
and fading memory. Now she wished she had been the smartest woman
of her generation, instead of the prettiest!
A fireball manifested. It expanded and became the form of Satan
himself. "So it has come to this at last, sad sack!" he
exclaimed.
She had been less annoyed during that confrontation in the Void,
when he had called her "cutie" and other such mock endearments. But
she held her peace. "I can win, Satan."
"Can you, old hen? Let's see you try!" He gestured, causing a
throne of fire to appear. He ensconced himself in it and settled
down to watch.
"Why not invite the whole world to watch?" Niobe asked,
irritated.
Satan shrugged. "The world? I think not. But selected parties,
perhaps." He clapped his hands, and a wall of the chamber
vaporized. Beyond it was a segment of an amphitheater. Seated there
were all manner of demons and lost souls, including the two who
resembled Cedric
370
Piers Anthony 371
With a Tangled Skein
and Pacian, and the two who resembled Blanche and Blenda. There
were also the five major
Incarnations.
Five? Oh, yes -- she was not at the moment Fate; she was just the soul ofNiobe, perched on the verge of dam -- nation -- or salvation. Clotho and Atropos had the body, and they shifted back and forth as the mood took them.
"Now perform your miracle of failure, 0 dismal
dog!" Satan said sardonically. "Your friends will see your hu --
miliation!"
Still she resisted the baiting. If she allowed herself to get
rattled or angry, she would certainly lose. She con -- centrated on
the immediate problem. Twelve coins, three weighings -- how could
it be done?
She considered balancing six against six. One group would certainly
rise -- but would that mean that a light counterfeit was among
them, or that a heavy counterfeit was among the others? If only she
knew the weight first! Then she could take the lighter six, if that
happened to be it, split them into two groups of three, and weigh
two of the three from the lighter group. If one was light, that was
it; if they balanced, then the odd one out was it. It would work as
well if the counterfeit was heavier. Such a simple
process!
But without the knowledge of the relative weight, it became a
complex process, a single weighing determining nothing. She would
need a second thread to weigh the halves of one of the original
sides; if they balanced, then the counterfeit was in the other
group, and she would know its weight. From that point two more
weighings would do it -- four in all. No good.
But as she struggled with it, she began to remember. That
odd-man-out system could be used throughout! Weigh four against
four, with four out. If the eight bal -- anced, the counterfeit was
in the four remaining. Then
weigh two against two -- no, that wasn't it. Weigh all four against
one of the other groups, now known to consist of good coins
(demons); that would tell whether the coun -- terfeit was heavy or
light. Then -- no, one weighing wasn't enough to finish
it.
Still, she was sure she was on the right track. Weigh just three
coins from the subject group against three good ones; if they
balanced, it was the odd one out, and the last weighing would
determine its relative weight. If the two sets did not balance,
then it would be known that, say, the counterfeit was light. Then a
simple weighing would identify it.
But suppose the first weighing of fours did not balance? Then she
had the counterfeit somewhere amidst eight coins -- too many" for
two weighings.
She went over and over it while the audience waited silently. By
chance she might win, if the counterfeit fell in the right group.
But she was sure that chance would not favor her -- not here in
Hell. She had to exclude chance and guarantee it in three
weighings, regardless.
She was getting a concentration headache. No matter what strategy
she tried, she could not be sure of the an -- swer in just three
weighings. What was she to do?
The tears started. It didn't help that Satan spotted them and
smirked. He knew he was winning -- and the audience knew it too.
Her final humiliation was upon her.
Oh, Pace! she thought. How did you do it?
Then, as ifitwere the answer to her prayer, the solution came. Pace
-- or something -- had responded. Her mem -- ory clarified, and she
knew the key. "Exchange!" she exclaimed.
She stepped before the scales. "You four -- get on this side," she
ordered the nearest demons. They obeyed, (romping to the large
plate. "And you four -- to this side." The next four obeyed.
372 With a Tangled Skein 373
Piers Anthony
When the eight stood on the two plates of the scales, Niobe
released the fastenings and
let the plates find their levels. They were not in balance. Slowly the left plate descended. There was a trifle more evil there. This was the hardest case to fathom, of course.
Now came the key step. She gestured to the
innermost demon on the left, and to the one on the right. "You and
you -- switch places."
The two demons shrugged at this nonsense and ex -- changed places.
There was a murmur in the audience. Satan scowled.
"You there," she said, pointing to those remaining on the right
side. "Get off." They got off.
"You three," she said, indicating three of those in the unweighed
group. "Get on." And the three marched on.
Niobe saw the Incarnations shaking their heads. They thought she
had lost her common sense. Blanche and Blenda were bowing their
heads with regret. Nobody be -- lieved in her -- but she knew what
she was doing. She hoped.
The scales, when the weighing proceeded, remained un -- balanced,
the left side still down. That told her much of what she needed to
know. Had they become balanced, she would have known that the
counterfeit was among the three she had removed, and light, because
she had taken them from the light plate. Had they become un --
balanced the other way, she would have known it was one of the two
that had exchanged places; then she could have weighed the light
one against a good one and defined it, for if it remained light, it
was a light counterfeit, and if it balanced, then the other one
would have been the heavy counterfeit. As it was, she knew that the
counterfeit was one of the three she had neither moved nor
switched, and it was heavy.
"You and you," she said, pointing to two of those three. "Weigh
against each other." This was her third and final thread.
The two did. They balanced.
Niobe turned to the odd one out. "Hello, Magician!"
The Incarnations, surprised, applauded. Blanche and Blenda looked
up in glad surmise. Satan's scowl deep -- ened.
But Niobe knew it wasn't over yet. She could ask her son for the
answer -- but what he would tell her would be a lie. She had used
up all her threads getting to this point;
she could not make him tell the truth.
She could get the truth by elimination. Only the truth was
perfectly consistent; sooner or later, a pattern of lies would trip
itself up.
"You have one question," Satan said.
"One question!" she exploded. "That isn't part of the
bargain!"
"One soul is on the line; one question to be answered."
That had not been her understanding, but she realized that she
hadn't made it tight. Mars, too, had overlooked this. The Father of
Lies had found a loophole. She was stuck with Satan's
interpretation.
One question! Had she been assured of a true answer, she could have
asked, "How can I foil Satan's plot against Luna?" But his lie
could be anything else -- making that question an exercise in
futility. She had to find the ques -- tion whose lie would be
instructive. That was more of a challenge than she had cared
for!
Could she phrase a suitable yes-no question so that the lie would
give her a direct answer? Only if she pretty well knew the answer
already -- and she did not.
Had Satan won after all? Not entirely, for she had got -- ten
through to the Magician and identified him. She had threaded the
maze. But until she got the answer she had
374 With a Tangled Skein
come for and got out of Hell, her soul was not safe. Nei -- ther
was mankind.
Her gaze passed over the audience again. There were | the demons,
licking their chops in anticipation of victory. There were some of
the damned souls, looking soulful. There was Mars, his face set
carefully neutral. He had made sure Satan didn't cheat, but he
could not help her now.
The Incarnations -- the personifications of the major factors
governing the destiny of man. Thanatos, who had assumed the office
and refused to take Luna's soul, be -- cause he loved her. A
selfish reason, perhaps -- but it had caused him to face down Satan
directly, thereby pre -- serving Luna for her eventual role in the
salvation of man. One may marry Death...
Chronos, who had similarly fought Satan, in what was the future for
the rest of them. She was glad, now, that she had comforted
Chronos' successors in her past; they were all worthy holders of
the office, even the child, and had/would do their part in securing
the salvation of man.
Gaea, who had helped significantly. Niobe's daughter Orb seemed
destined to assume that office, if the proph -- ecy carried
through. Surely she, too, would have to over -- come Satan's evil
designs, for the Prince of Evil always pounced on the newest and
least experienced Incarna -- tions. And one may marry
Evil...
Surely not! That was unthinkable! Yet -- she had in a sense given
Orb to Satan. It had only been a commitment to keep her out of
politics, capitalizing on Satan's error of identification, but any
commitment to Satan was treacherous. What had she let her child in
for? But Orb was a sensible and talented young woman, if a bit
short on temper, and she well knew the treacheries of the one who
had struck directly at her in the Hall of the Mountain King. Orb
would never trust Evil!
Piers Anthony 375
Yet that prophecy kept coming true, stage by stage, in its own
devious manner. Niobe hoped she was misinter -- preting its import,
here.
Thanatos had balked Satan's power by using an aspect of his own
power over death. Chronos would do it by manipulating time. Each
Incarnation fought Satan in his/ her own fashion. Now she, as Fate,
had to prevent Satan from distorting her threads of life. Some
aspect of her power should do it.
She felt a flash of realization. Her power -- because it was for
her that the Magician had left his message. That limited the range
of options considerably! The solution to her problem should not lie
in Thanatos' province, or Chronos', or any of the other
Incarnations. It had to lie with Fate. In some special power that
she, as Fate, could invoke.
But what power? She still couldn't ask what it was! Yet if it was a
power of Fate, it had to be a power of an Aspect of Fate. There
were three Aspects; in thirty -- eight years she had pretty well
learned the powers of Clotho, and none of them related to this
situation. Her successor. Lisa, had discovered or developed a power
she hadn't know about, the ability to change her appearance from
one pretty young form to another, so perhaps there were others. But
Clotho spun the threads; she did not manipulate them after they
were in place. So it really wasn't likely to be Clotho.
Niobe had not been Lachesis long enough to fathom all her powers,
but she had made progress. There could be some major power she had
not yet discovered, but she doubted it.
That left Atropos. She knew very little ofAtropos' pow -- ers. The
job seemed simple enough, however -- merely to cut the measured
threads. Not really enough to warrant a full separate Aspect, when
she thought about it. Could there be something they had not
realized?
376 With a Tangled Skein
This had become a three-coin problem! One coin she could set aside: Clotho. That left two to weigh. If she knew which one had the necessary power, she could focus exclusively on that, and have a much better chance to discover it. This wasn't the direct answer she had sought, but it would give her a better fighting chance.
"Magician, here is my question," she said. "Is it Atro -- pos who has the power to defeat
Satan's present scheme?"
"No," the demon-figure said.
There was a sigh of disappointment from the damned souls, and a
chortle of glee from the
demons. They thought she had failed; they didn't realize that the answer was a lie, or that she knew it was a lie. The Magician had just confirmed her guess, giving her the key to victory. Satan rose from his throne of fire. "So you have failed, and you are Mine, you wretched woman!"
"Get away from me, you foul fiend!" Niobe
snapped. "My threads are done, but so are your illusions. I
threaded the maze."
"But you lost your answer," Satan said, walking to -- ward her. Now
flames appeared in a circle, enclosing the two of them and the
twelve demon-forms.
"I got my answer!" she cried. "I knew from my weigh -- ings that
you had enchanted my son to lie. Atropos is the one!"
"Ridiculous!" Satan said. The ring of fire closed in, burning the
demons, who disappeared one by one in puffs of flame as they were
ignited. "Everyone knows you lost." He reached for her, and now his
hands were flaming too. "I have desired your soul for sixty years,
and now it is Mine!"
"No!" Niobe cried. "I cry foul! I have the answer!"
Mars stood. "Satan, you presume," he said. His hand descended to
touch the hilt of his great red sword.
Piers Anthony 377
Satan scowled, but he paused, and the ring of fire paused too. Four
demons remained standing, including the one who was the Magician.
"Your turn will come, Warmonger!" he muttered. Then, to the
audience: "Then let the threadbare one present her answer, if she's
got it. Here and now!"
"Agreed," Mars said. He remained standing, hand still resting at
the sword.
So Mars had now acted directly to enforce the rules of the maze.
She had been wise to choose him as referee.
Satan's head swiveled on around in a full circle and returned to
cover Niobe. Now the flames danced within them. "Present your
answer, saggy! I call your bluff!"
But Niobe had not worked it out yet; she knew only that she had the
key to it. "In due course, stinkhorn."
"Now -- or forfeit!" Satan said.
"There is no time limit, remember?" she insisted. "The maze is
finished only when I have the answer -- or do not have it. I can
take twenty years, if I want to. Isn't that right, Mars?"
Mars smiled grimly. "That is right, Lachesis. Time is not
specified. I lacked authority to agree to Here and Now, so I
withdraw it."
"A blessed loophole!" Satan muttered. "Well, then, I'll wait --
till Hell freezes over." He gestured, and the circle of flames
resumed its contraction. "Which will not be soon."
Niobe knew that those flames could not hurt her -- not as long as
the game was unfinished. But probably they could make her quite
uncomfortable. Satan was applying a hotfoot to distract
her.
She concentrated as well as she could. So it was Atro -- pos who
had the power. Therefore it related to the cutting of threads. But
Atropos could not cut a thread until it had been measured, and
measuring was Lachesis' province.' If the pawns of Satan on Earth
could be eliminated by the
375 With a Tangled Skein
action of Lachesis, why had the Magician's answer ex -- cluded her?
He should have said "yes," so as to direct her toward Atropos,
since he had to lie. So this should not involve
measuring.
What would happen if Atropos cut an unmeasured thread? Well, if she
cut the front end, it
was disaster; they had discovered that the hard way. But it was too
late to cut the front ends of
Satan's agents in the Senate. They were already well established in
the Tapestry. The other ends --
if they had already been measured, cut to length and woven in, it
should not be possible to cut
them. Yet they could be cut, obviously. Atropos would never do it,
because of the harm it would do
to the Tapestry, but -
She was on to something here. When Lachesis mea -- sured a thread,
she determined its
potential. But not all threads lived up to their potential. Some
broke early and were lost. The
mortals thought of that as suicide -- a self -- arranged cutting.
Normally the mortal instinct of
self -- preservation prevented that, but when that instinct broke
down -
And there it was. Niobe faced Satan. "When Atropos cuts a thread
out of turn, after it has
been measured and woven into the Tapestry, that thread will end
despite the destiny Lachesis has
measured for it. An unfated end is a suicide. What Atropos does, in
effect, is terminate that
person's impulse to exist -- eliminating the instinct of self --
preservation. Without that instinct, the average person will soon
get tired of the routine frustrations of life, and decide to try
the Afterlife instead. Especially if he believes he is going to
Heaven -- or has a promise
of preferred treatment in Hell."
"I don't treat suicides any better than the others!" Satan
exclaimed, his flames
brightening indignantly.
"But you have promised preferred treatment to those who do your
bidding on Earth," Niobe
said. "Such as the ones slated to replace the senators who have
returned
Piers Anthony 379
to enjoy their newfound youth. Well, those folk may come to you
sooner than you
anticipate."
"I'll assign them double torture if they do!" Satan raged. "I need
them on Earth!" "For twenty years or so," Niobe agreed. "But when
Atropos cuts their threads early, so
that they lose their indomitable desire to live, they won't care to
waste all that time waiting
for their reward."
"There is no reward!" Satan was almost engulfed in flames
now.
"In which case, why should they agree to your bid -- ding?" she
asked sweetly. "You will
have a lot of trouble garnering the votes you want if those folk
realize that your promises are
meaningless."
"You're bluffing!" Satan cried. "You wouldn't abro -- gate your own
threads!" "To save mankind?" she asked. "Perhaps I would not -- but
I suspect practical old Atropos
would." "You bet I would!" Atropos cried from the audience. "And
without those corrupted votes,
twenty years hence, the final decision will be left to the powers
that will be -- and the swing
vote will remain with my grand -- daughter Luna!"
Satan didn't answer. He stood there, glowering, as the circle of
fire closed in on them
both. It ignited the last demon -- the one who was the Magician. As
the demon -- semblance went up
in smoke, her son stood there in his natural form. A slow, grim
smile was spreading across his
face.
Then the flame engulfed her, blotting out the rest of Hell. But
Niobe felt no heat. In a moment the air cleared. Hell was gone, and
with it the audience. She stood in Mars'
castle, where she had started this strange challenge. She was back
in her phys -- ical body, her
soul safe as an Aspect of Fate. Mars was
380 With a Tangled Skein
standing before her, his smile very like that of the Ma --
gician.
You did it! Clotho cried in thought, kissing her inter --
nally.
Good job, woman! Atropos thought next. Niobe laughed with relief
and delight. "Upon my
soul!" she exclaimed. She knew she had a long
and satisfying role ahead of her as Lachesis. AUTHOR'S
NOTE
In the first Incarnations novel, featuring Thanatos, I ex -- plored
the subject of Death
in a manner not commonly seen in fiction. That novel seems to be doing reasonably well, commercially and critically, and my fans have re -- acted favorably. But I noted in the "Author's Note" for that book that Death seemed to be lobbing shells at me while I worked on the novel. This was disquieting. Next year I wrote the sequel, featuring Chronos, and explored aspects of Time that other writers may have overlooked. I was then besieged by problems of time, and really had to struggle to complete the novel on schedule. I don't believe in the Supernatural -- I regard it as fantasy -- but I dreaded what I would encounter when I wrote the next, on the subject of Fate.
Well, now it is done, and this is my report on the manner Fate has affected me. I am broadening the scope here, for as I trust this novel shows, Fate is not a matter of a few months or particular episodes; it is an ongoing tapestry of interacting life, fashioned from the tangled skein ofreal -
381
382 With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony
383
ity. So herewith my usual warning: the entertainment por -- tion of
this book is over, and this Note is of a more in -- trospective
nature. If you are not interested in the musings of
anonymous writers, don't bother to read further; the novel can
stand perfectly well without this. How did I come to write Skein?
Well, of course I went the usual route, presenting a
summary of the notion to the editor, who put out a contract on it,
and in the winter of 1983-84 I settled down to write the first
drafts of the third Bio novel for Avon and the third Incarnations
novel for Del Rey. You will remember my system: I so arrange my
year so as not to have to type in my unheated study in winter,
preferring to sit by the warm woodstove and pencil the first drafts
of two novels, then type them in spring. This really is no answer,
though, because the ques -- tion is too limited. How did I, an
established science fic -- tion writer since 1963, come to
be
writing fantasy? How did I come to be a writer at all?
Let me start at the beginning, because the true course that took me
to Niobe was more
devious and difficult than most folks would care to realize. If
parts of this narration seem
uncomfortably personal -- well, this is my nature.
There is an element in my fiction that appeals to certain readers
who claim they don't
find it in most other fiction, and much as I might be tempted to
call it Competence or Quality or
Genius, I really can't. There are other writers with these traits
who are less successful than I
am. I re -- gard myself as a good writer, not a great one, and my j
current success has as much to
do with the efforts of the publisher and its sales force as it does
with my skill as an , author.
This isn't modesty on my part, false or otherwise; | it's
observation based on my desire to know
the truth, ! whatever its nature may be.
I have what some others would call an obsession with | truth, which
manifests in a lively
curiosity about practi- j cally everything that exists or fails to
exist, a very strong desire for integrity -- and contempt for its
absence -- and an omery attitude about
ascertaining the facts and making them known. This attitude has
gotten me in a lot of trouble in
the past, but is paying off now, because I am working my way closer
to comprehension of the nature
of ultimate reality, and it helps. Of course I have a way to go
yet, before that comprehension is
complete; let's give it a mil -- lennium or two and see where I
stand.
Anyway, I suspect that special element in my fiction is the
personal touch. I am not
content to follow the standard rules of plotting, characterization,
and style, though these are
good rules; I want my fiction also to live. When I succeed, it does
live for me, and I hope for my
readers, too. I do feel what my characters feel and I can cry, lit
-- erally, when they hurt. I
can suffer pangs of parturition when I finish with a novel; of
course the words remain, but I am
no longer in it; it has ceased to be an ongoing aspect of my life
and has become part of the
record of my achievement. Its thread has been cut, and I must pro
-- ceed to the spinning and
measuring of the next one. But while I'm in, I am
involved.
Sometimes I dream about my characters. I love Niobe, I love Cedric,
I love Luna and Orb;
they live in my fancy much as living people do. Is it foolish to
care for nonex -- istent folk?
Then leave me to my foolishness! There is too much insensitivity
and isolation in this world;
there should be no shame in caring, even if only for constructs of
the imagination. Indeed, in
certain respects, I prefer imagination to reality and shall explain
why. But this en -- tails some
baring of the nerves and is uncomfortable for some folk, including
some writers. I happen to be
more introspective and expressive than most, so I do get per --
sonal in these Notes. Bear with me I was born in Oxford, England,
where both my parents had their degrees. Ours was a
Quaker
family, and my father worked with the British Friends Service
Committee
384 With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony
385
in Spain, supervising their relief program there during the Spanish
Civil War. As I understand it, this was largely concerned with the
feeding of hungry children, who had the worst
of it during the ravages of combat. Generals like to speak of
conquering territory and reducing
the enemy's combative ability, but this is rough on the children
whose territory it is; their
houses are destroyed arid their families killed and their food
disappears. That is the real
meaning of war, after the generals have played their games and
moved on to new challenges. I will
have a good deal more to say on the subject of the suffering of
innocents in war in the next novel
in this series. Wielding a Red Sword;
too often it is the blood of children that accounts for the
color.
This war in Spain went from 1936 to 1939 and presaged World War II;
the Nazi regime used
it as a kind of testing ground for new weapons, then turned that
experience into something that
caused the rest of the world to take note. Many people were
affected by the war in Spain,
including such literary figures as Ernest Hemingway and George
Orwell, and science fiction writer
Ted Cogswell...and me.
My father was arrested by the victorious Franco gov -- ernment; he
disappeared, in the
manner that has more recently been popularized in Latin America,
but was for -- tunate enough to
manage to smuggle out a note. It reached my mother, and, armed with
that proof, she was able to
get the authorities to admit that my father was in
custody;
they had, of course, denied it. Truth is the first casualty in war
and in its aftermath.
They agreed to release him conditionally: that he depart the
country. That way the dictatorship
did not have to admit to making a mistake -- dictatorships just
don't make mistakes -- and got to
take over the stores of food intended for children. I doubt that
much of it reached those children
thereafter. Thus it was that we came to America. It is entirely
possible that had this false arrest and eviction not occurred, I
would be living today in Spain, perhaps
trying to write fantasy in Spanish.
I was not aware of such details at the time, but I felt their
impact. I was not in Spain
during the actual war; I remained in England with my sister, cared
for by "Nana," a British girl
hired for the purpose, as has been the custom there for perhaps a
longer time than America has
been colonized. Thus it is not surprising that some of my ear --
liest and fondest memories are of
Nana, whose actual name I never knew. Even my memory may be
skewed;
it was probably "Nanny." Then the time came for my sister and me to
go to Spain. 1 learned
to my chagrin that Nana, who I thought was my mother or equivalent,
was not going. We were to be
in the charge of two other peo -- ple, who were in fact my parents.
They had spared me the
possible anguish of separation from them, before, by distancing
themselves; they overlooked the
discomfort of this separation.
1 don't want to make more of this than it was, but my awareness of
that separation has
remained with me throughout my life. The echo of it is apparent in
the sep -- aration of Niobe
from her son; the things of my life do make their way into my
fiction, though not in ways that any
critic comprehends. I suspect the same is true for other
writers.
In Spain I adapted gradually to the culture and the lan -- guage;
at age five I was
beginning to speak Spanish. My sister had a pretty, lacy Spanish
dress. I would wake in the
mornings and see the moving shadows of palm fronds cast against my
wall; I viewed this as an
adventure, trying to guess which frond would dive farthest in the
wind. 1 saw my first movie
there. The Three Little Pigs. My mem -- ories of Spain are more
populous and clear than those of
England, though not as fond. But then, abruptly, we left. Oh, it
was an adventure; we traveled to
Portugal, to Lis -
386 With a Tangled Skein
Piers Anthony
387
bon -- I remember the hotel room there -- to board the ship
Excalibur. No, as far as I know, that name has no con -- nection to
my later taste in fantasy, but perhaps it was a signal. As it
happened, the Duke of Windsor -- the former King Edward VIII of
England -- was taking that same ship to the New World to be
Governor of the Bahamas; I re -- member seeing his car hoisted out
of the hold at Bermuda. The Nazis had hatched a plot to kidnap or
convert them to their cause, but that had been botched and he
crossed the Atlantic unmolested.
Again, my memories of the time are more personal than historic; I
was seasick, vomiting over the rail into the ocean -- the Atlantic
remains polluted to this day -- and I had my sixth birthday at sea
on August 6, 1940. The chef lacked sugar, because of the War, and
so I was presented with a cake made of sawdust, nicely covered with
icing and candles. It was a surprise when we cut that open! I was
somewhat put out at the time. Today, ironically, when I can afford
a genuine cake, I can't have it, because of my mild diabetes. I
think my daughters are jealous; they've had many real cakes, but
never a sawdust cake. For a present I received a harmonica, which I
played ceaselessly thereafter; I trust the Duke appreciated the
music. I have always liked harmonica music since then;
it, too, appears in my fiction, most notably in the Adept
series.
But this was my second uprooting, though not my last, as my family
slowly fragmented and my parents even -- tually divorced. Gardeners
will tell you that root-pruning doesn't hurt; I hesitate to agree.
I did not understand the problem, though in retrospect I do. I had
no continuing security of situation; both the people and the places
clos -- est to me kept changing. By day I got along, but darkness
brought nightmare. I would lie awake at night, staring at the wan
lamp that was my only security from nocturnal monsters.
If I were to personify my closest acquaintance of these years, it
would be Fear; I have known it longer and better than anyone else
would believe. I began to wet my bed at night, and this persisted,
despite the efforts of others to shame, cure, or punish me, until I
was ten years old;
living folk simply lacked the leverage my nightmares had. I
remember being in boarding school in first grade, when one of the
bigger boys took off the sheet to expose me in my soaking
nakedness. It didn't matter; what does one humiliation matter, when
one is already in Hell? My family moved again, and again, and I
attended five different schools in the course of my three years in
first grade. I learned how to fight, because I had to; I just
couldn't learn how to read and I wasn't strong in math, either.
That may explain why I was later to be a math instructor in the
U.S. Army and an English teacher and professional writer in
civilian life. In the throes of this childhood I developed nervous
twitches of head and hands, and I counted things compulsively. I
suspect early tests showed me to be of subnormal intellect. My
physical growth slowed, then stopped; I became the smallest in my
class, male or female. I suffered daily stomachaches, and every few
months there would be a real gut-tearer that would incapacitate me
all day. Not until I had a kid -- ney stone at the age of
forty-seven did I experience worse abdominal pain.
The only thing worse than being with other people, who picked on me
physically and emotionally, was being alone. I would imagine that
it was all one interminable bad dream and that eventually I would
wake up and be back in England, the land of happiness. But it never
hap -- pened, and in time I accepted the fact that I was in Amer --
ica to stay. There is a direct adaptation of this in my three --
volume novel Tarot: a day in the life of an eight-year-old boy. It
is literal. I retain an interest in Hell, as is evident in this
novel. Skein. When I was wet and shivering in my
388 With a Tangled Skein
bed in New England, my feet so cold they felt hot, I de -- cided
that if Hell was hot, I had noTear of going there,
There is no need to detail all of it, though there is a great deal more. I have, I trust, presented enough to show that my early life was not perfect, and that the realm of imagination seemed to have more to offer me than did reality. In this, I believe, was the root of my later passion for writing. How much better to organize my worlds of imagination so as to make them meet my needs more com -- pletely! To come to terms with the monsters that first pursued me and discover the joys that lay beyond. A pop -- ular song played on the radio while I worked on this novel, one line going, "My dream is real; reality is wrong." Oh, yes\
I finally discovered reading, progressing in a bound from exclusion to complete inclusion in the world of print. Suddenly I was in The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade, a novel of the Middle Ages written in 1869, about three hundred thousand words long. It took me months to get through it, but I read every word faithfully, and I lived in that world, and was desolate when it ended. Later I got into reading fantasy and science fiction, and there were worlds galore for me to romp in. I read slowly but deeply -- to this day I am a slow reader -- and tuned out all the world around me in favor of the universe perceived through the window of the printed page, sometimes to the annoyance of others who thought I was being perverse. But I needed that other universe; in a certain respect I owe my sanity to it, for it helped me to survive the rigors of the real world. I had no solid emotional place to stand in reality; the fantastic genre provided me with my an -- chorage. And so it was perhaps inevitable that I become a creature of that genre, as I am today. Piers Anthony is my strength; it is a pseudonym, but more of my reality is associated with it now than with my mundane identity. I
Piers Anthony 389
was always a nonentity in Mundania, and remain so, but in fantasy I
am a figure of consequence.
Perhaps ironically, my mundane existence has im -- proved steadily since my teenage years and is a good one today by any standard. I have been married more than a quarter-century, have two bright and healthy daughters, and a pleasant lifestyle. Of course, much of this is runoff from my success in fantasy, for it is mundane money I receive for my fantastic efforts. But even the course of an improving life does not necessarily flow smoothly. I have shown the foundation of my need to write; of course it also helps to have some reasonable intelligence and creativity and perseverance and luck, and these have helped me. But I feel in one major respect I came at my career via the monkey's paw.
"The Monkey's Paw" is a famous story by W. W. Ja -- cobs in which a couple is granted three wishes on a mon -- key's paw, but each wish is granted in a manner that makes it horrible. They wish for money -- and their son is killed, so that the benefit comes to them. They wish him alive again, and the corpse reanimates and ap -- proaches. At last they wish him dead again, and are left with nothing.
Well, the mundane world gave me a wife, but I wanted more; I wanted to be a successful writer. It was an un -- realistic ambition; only one in a hundred who make the effort ever breaks into professional print. But for eight years I kept trying. Our first child miscarried at four months add was stillborn; that was not only a personal loss, it eliminated my exemption from the military draft, so that, before my first year of marriage was done, I was in the U.S. Army. Our second baby was stillborn at five months, at the time when I declined to sign up for the U.S. Savings Bond program (as I recall, they then paid 2.5 percent interest) and was therefore removed as in -- structor and set to weed-pulling and similar duties, as well
390
Piers Anthony 391
With a Tangled Skein
as being denied promotion beyond PFC. It was also the time when I
was naturalized as an
American citizen; in the final courtroom ceremony there were forty-nine Army wives and me. That event made the local TV news in Oklahoma; you don't see too many PPCs in uniform get -- ting naturalized. I also had my first science fiction story accepted, by a magazine edited by Damon Knight -- which folded before payment or publication, washing me out.
Back in civilian life, our third baby was born prema -- turely at six months, lived one hour, and died the day I lost my good job at an electronics company and had a doctor advise me that the mysterious fatigue I suffered was all in my head. One day in May 1962, and much of my mundane world was lost, again. It looked as if we would never be able to have a child of our own, my ability to earn a living was shot, and I was in serious doubt about my health, for I knew that my physical condition was not imaginary. It actually was ten years before it was diag -- nosed as diabetes; in the interim I was ridered on insur -- ance for all mental diseases. No joke -- and it wasn't funny at the time. One company tried to jack up my premium to almost double in addition to the rider; now I once sold insurance, so I know that was blatantly unethical, if not illegal.
So we lost three babies, and each loss was associated with dramatic and generally negative changes in our mar -- ried life. But after that Day in May we gradually reor -- ganized. My wife went to work, so as to earn our living while I made a more serious effort to become a writer -- by putting my full time into it, instead of writing on the side. In that year I succeeded; I sold my first two stories. I was on my way at last -- but I never would have had the chance, had any of those first three babies lived. There was the monkey's paw. My wife had to be free to work, and our expenses had to be low; a child would have nul -- lified that. I would never have sacrificed my babies, had
I known, had I had any way to save them -- yet their loss enabled me to achieve my ambition. Thus it was that I became a writer, by the devious and often unkind mach -- ination of Fate. Motive had at last been joined by op -- portunity. That sort of thing, too, is reflected in this novel.
So I had become a writer. Even then, the
devious route had problems and surprises. I couldn't earn a living
on stories; the word-rates were too low and editors too fickle. So
I moved into novels, and it was a struggle, because short fiction
was my natural length. It wasn't until I sold my fifth novel,
Macroscope -- actually the ninth I had written, and it had been
rejected by five publishers, for
book editors are fickle too -- that I felt comfortable in that
length. Then I liked it well, and I gave up on stories; today I
have had more novels published than stories, which is unusual for a
story writer.
But by then I had trouble in Parnassus: a
publisher was taking in money for subsidiary rights but neither
reporting them on the statements nor paying me my share. I pro --
tested in a private letter -- and got summarily blacklisted. I
protested privately to a writers' organization
- which tunneled my letter on to the publisher and advised me that
I had acted rashly and might be guilty of libel.
There were other complications, but the upshot was that I got a lawyer, got most of my money, lost several publishers because of blacklisting, and departed in deep disgust from that writers' organization, which was evi -- dently operating under false pretenses. I damn well did have the right of the case and detest such dishonesty. After that, times were lean for me, as a writer; my success fell behind that of others who had come into the picture when I did, and I piled up a total of eight unpublished novels even as my name was deleted from contention for awards. Parnassus is no kinder than the U.S. Army to those who stand on their rights, and Satan smiles.
392
Piers Anthony 393
With a Tangled Skein
But I had not lost all my publishers. I survived, though my income
from writing was not
great. My wife continued to work. Another writer showed me how to sell novels from summaries, rather than writing them complete; that meant that instead of selling part of what I wrote, I wrote only what sold. That one change in marketing caused my income to triple. Meanwhile editors were shifting about, publishers were buying each other out, and most of those who blacklisted me went elsewhere. Markets reopened. I can't say this was because the establishment had any change of heart; Parnassus, like dictators, doesn't admit error. Mainly it was that I never gave up and I now had an agent to help fight the war. It's harder for a publisher to blacklist an agent, because he represents a number of writers, some of whom are important enough to have clout. My leverage had improved.
Two of the editors I had worked with on stories
moved into books: Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey. They re -- mained
interested in my work. But there was a problem;
I was writing my science fiction for Avon, who had always treated
me well, and Avon had the option. That is, in the vernacular, they
had first dibs on my next novel in the genre. So -- I expanded into
a "new" genre, one I had had little success with before: fantasy.
It was a purely tactical move, to take advantage of a new market.
Avon was gen -- erous enough to agree to this, with the
understanding that if Del Rey (technically that imprint didn't
exist then, but let's not quibble) did not like my fantasy, Avon
would have the next crack at it. But Lester did like it, and thus I
came to write A Spell for Chameleon. It wasn't perfect, either in
summary or in manuscript, but I had the fortune to encounter in
Lester an editor who knew what he was doing. That, unfortunately,
is rare in Parnassus. I revised the novel per his advice, and it
was published.
I had the additional fortune to encounter in Judy-Lynn an executive
who knew what she was doing; that, too, is
rare, but it manifests in the type of presentation, pro -- motion,
and sales push novels get, and this can make an enormous
difference. Spell took off like magic. It won the August Derleth
Fantasy Award in England, where they evidently hadn't gotten word
about my bad reputation. A leading American genre newspaper got
sudden amnesia and failed to list the August Derleth awards that
year, and of course Spell took no American awards. But it became
one of my most commercial novels, and the Xanth series it commenced
has about as many fans as any.
In this manner I discovered that I liked fantasy. Oh, I had always
liked it as a reader; it just hadn't scored for me before as a
writer. Now I found that it was easy and fun to write, and the
readers liked it too. There was then developing a high tide in
fantasy, fostered in significant part by Del Rey, and I just
happened to get into it in time to surf my way to the top
- through no initial effort of strategy or timing of my own. Chance
put me into it -- or, if you prefer. Fate. Once I was in, of
course, I was quick enough to capitalize on my situation. Thus by
this devious and seemingly coincidental route my serious career in
fan -- tasy proceeded. My income tripled again...and again. I now
have a better career in fantasy than I had dreamed of as a writer;
reality has surpassed imagination. One se -- ries led to another.
And that, roughly, is how I came to write this present novel.
Skein. It is not the path I would have chosen, but it got me here.
For those who tell me they would like to be just like me and write
fantasy the way I do, I pose this question: do you really? Then go
fetch your monkey's paw.
Reality has a way of weaving itself into my fiction, whether I will
or no. I had many notes for minor examples of this for this novel,
but I fear they would become tedious in detail, so I'll go into
detail on only one. There are sev -- eral major themes that recur
in my novels that critics seem to be unable to perceive, such as
the value of integrity or
394
Piers Anthony 395
With a Tangled Skein
my effort to merge the city (science fiction) with the coun -- try
(fantasy). These themes
have complex personal bases that I may unravel at another time; there is a good deal more on my mind than simple entertainment, though I do feel that clarity and entertainment are paramount in fic -- tion. I normally write on more than one level. The top level is like the conscious mind, concerned with imme -- diacies; the reader can buzz through and enjoy it without stretching his mind. The nether level gets into symbolism and feeling and meaning and theme; it puts on record my world view, for those who care to examine it. As far as I know, no critic has ever perceived this level in my fic -- tion, but many of my readers seem to grasp it, and, of course, it is for them I write.
One of my major themes relates to music. I believe that man is most fundamentally distinguished from animal by his art, and an aspect of that art is music. I believe in the power of music, as I believe in the power of the word. At critical junctures in my novels you will find music, right back to the first one I had published, Chthon, which shows a quest for a broken song and the effort to make it whole again; and Macroscope, where music is the key to the mystery of the universe; and right on into my fan -- tasy series, this one included. The heart of my feeling is in song. I try to name the particular song I have in mind, because I want the reader to hear the music too, and share my experience. You saw it in Pale Horse in the hymn scene, and the hint of it in Hourglass as Orlene commits suicide by her piano. (Did you note Orlene's honey-hair, the same as Niobe's? Do you really suppose that's co -- incidence?) You will see it in Red Sword, when a stutterer leams to sing, and emphatically in Green Mother, when Gaea sings with Satan -- and falls in love.
And of course you see it here. The song that
starts Skein is not identified in the text. It is The Bonnie Boy,
and the recording I have of it is sung by the Irish lass Mary 0'
-
Hara. It tells the story as I have it in the first three chap --
ters, the romance of a young woman and a bonnie boy, and its tragic
end. Of course I have embellished it some -- what -- but if you
like my story, perhaps you will also like the song. I don't know
whether that record can still be purchased. It is Songs of Erin, on
the London label; I bought it in New York in 1959.
The Shepherd's Song, in various guises and titles, has its own
story: "Come live with me and be my love..." In the course of Izaak
Walton's The Complete Angler (sometimes rendered "Compleat"), which
dates from 1653, there are two songs presented, and these are the
two used here. Actually, the first one originated with Christopher
Marlowe in the sixteenth century. As poems they may not seem like
much, but with the music it is another matter. Seldom, I suspect,
has a love song had a more enduring appeal -- or a snappier
rejoinder.
There is a more recent story on another song. The Wet -- lands
Waltz. I have an interest in nature, especially the wilderness
environment, as also shows throughout my work, and in this case it
overlapped my interest in music. A couple of years ago one of my
daughter Penny's forest -- camp counselors stopped by to say hello
and meet Pen -- ny's horse. Blue, who also appears in various
guises in my fantasy. The counselor's name was Jill Jarboe. This
winter she sent Penny a cassette tape: Songs from the Water
World.
It seems that Jill Jarboe had formed a group with four of the boys
in the summer camp, called it The Ecotones, and produced this
collection of ecologically oriented songs. It's an integrated
group; Jill Jarboe is white, while Mike Carey, Mike Kinsey, Shaun
Martinez, and Andrew Rock are black. (I support integration, as may
also be evident in this novel.) This group is not a high-powered,
big-promotion thing; it's just an attempt, I think, to pop --
ularize the worthy cause of ecological awareness. Penny
396 With a tangled Skein Piers Anthony
397
more or less put the earphones on my head one morning as I was
eating breakfast and reading the newspaper, and turned on the
cassette recorder, and there it was. I was impressed;
they were nice songs, not your Top-Forty -- type popular stuff, but
pleasant and quite to the
point for those who value Nature as I do.
So I used one of those songs here in Skein, with per -- mission,
and anyone who is
interested in obtaining the original cassette should write to Jill
Jarboe at the address listed in
the credit behind the title page of this novel. My reference to The
Wetlands Waltz is actually
anachronistic, as the song did not exist in 1915 where this novel
places it -- but of course
Chronos could have heard it and carried it back. This is, after
all, fantasy; we are not much con
- cerned with anachronism.
Meanwhile, as I worked on the several stages of my writing. Fate
stirred her fickle finger
in the ongoing minor maelstrom of my daily existence in sundry
ways. Life does, after all, go on,
and mine is packed with tokens of my interests and orneriness. I
bought another Songs from the
Water World cassette and sent it to an environmental organization
of which I am a life-member,
suggesting that they might review it in their national publication
for other members who liked a positive approach to ecological
awareness. They never responded. I might as well have dropped the
cassette into the Void. Then they sent me three separate
form-solicitations for contributions. But I had seen how they
answered their mail, and the Golden Rule came to my mind, and I did
not
respond.
I bought some of those sonic bug-repelling devices you see
advertised all over, as I don't
like hurting bugs if they aren't actually biting me, but don't like
roaches in my food or fleas on
my dogs -- then had a months-long hassle to get a refund, finally
involving a visit to a lawyer
and a stiff note to the balky local Better Business council, be --
cause the devices simply didn't
work as represented. I
queried the "Troubleshooter" column of the newspaper:
is there any objective evidence that any of these sonic devices
work? So far, none has
turned up.
Our Basenji dog, who we adopted eleven years ago after he was run
over and the owner never
came to claim him or pay the vet's bill for rebuilding the bone of
his leg with wire, died of
complications of age in the quarter-hour that I received the
hardbacked poster for Dragon on a Ped
-- estal used at the American Booksellers' Association con --
vention in Dallas: an unfortunate
juxtaposition. Now that poster graces the wall near the dread spot.
That was not my favorite dog,
but death disturbs me with an intensity that others do not seem to
understand. I know that some --
day I will have to deal with the death of someone a lot more
important to me than that dog, and I
don't know how I'm going to make it.
I went out on my usual three-mile run, and returned to a different
address; the Post
Orifice had swallowed our science-fictiony "Star Route" and
disgorged "Pineleaf Lane" --
fortunately we had gotten to name our own street -- sending us into
a tailspin of address-change
no -- tifications, because our daily mail can amount to as much as
ten pounds at a time, We
received the notice in March 1984, advising us to notify all
correspondents by the end of December
1983. The P.O. expects a lot of an anach -- ronistic fantasy
writer.
I got into second-draft typing of Skein and hit a record rate for
me -- 65,000 words in
five days, despite a cold snap into the thirties that forced me to
bundle up as if in the arctic,
and a jamming tab on my manual typewriter. Seems there are only
about two writers in the genre who
still use a manual machine, and I'm one of them -- I think Harlan
Ellison is the other -- but they
don't make manual Olympias anymore, and this one is ten years and
ten mil -- lion words old, so I
may yet have to vault to the computer word-processing age, getting
custom equipment so I can
398 With a Tangled Skein
Piers Anthony
399
retain my special keyboard. You know, word-processing is hailed as
a great boon to writers, but I do more actual writing in pencil and
on the manual typewriter than any -- one I know who is in
word-processing; technology does not substitute for imagination and
a Dvorak keyboard.
Anyway, after those five days I had to take three days off to catch
up on forty more letters. Happened again next month in the final
five days typing of the submission draft; in one day forty-seven
items of mail arrived, ranging from packages of books to fan
letters, including one from a hopeful writer asking whether I would
read his 800-page novel and give advice how to get it published,
one from a publisher asking for a favorable comment on its enclosed
advance proof of a novel, and one from another publisher who sent
complimentary copies of a novel I read and blurbed in December.
It's a funny thing, seeing my name printed on the cover of someone
else's novel; too bad they didn't bother to make the corrections of
errors I called out. I may have noted before the irony that when I
had time to read everything in the genre, I lacked the money to buy
the stuff; now that I can afford it, I lack the time even to keep
up with what I am sent free. I suppose that's parallel to the cake
problem I face as a diabetic. And a note from an eight-year-old
girl: my youngest fan so far, the same age as Xanth. I answered
that one immediately; after all, I was once that age myself. The
other twenty-nine fan letters from that day I'll tackle right after
I finish typing this Note and my summaries of the final two novels
in this series.
I pinched the nerve in my back three times in succes -- sion,
trying too hard on my exercises, and had to call a ten-day halt
while the sciatica abated; now I am easing up on those exercises,
and that's a significant private turn -- ing point. Every year at
my birthday I note the levels I do, and at my forty-ninth birthday
I broke all my birthday records, but at my fiftieth I'll break
none. I'm two-thirds
of the way through my life, and the tide has turned during this
novel.
You know. Skein just might turn out to be my fiftieth
book to see print. The writing of it was punctuated several times
by calls from my agent, setting up the sale of eight of my back
books in a package; those fans who bug me about where to find my
out-of-print material may soon have an answer.
During that sciatica -- that's a shooting pain in the leg where
there is no injury; the pinch is actually in the spine, but the
body thinks it's in the leg -- I glanced at the pub -- lished
comment I had made a year before on Gordon Dick -- son's Dorsai
series (actually it's the Childe Cycle, but I don't know any
better), and saw my reference to "Ei -- leen?" therein. Suddenly I
had a pain in my mind to match that in my leg, for several days. In
Dickson's novel Sol
-- dier, Ask Not we see the death of an innocent young man, drafted
to fight a war he does not understand on a far planet. He revives
from his lethal injury long enough to speak the name of his wife,
Eileen, as if trusting her to come and make the hurt go away. That
tore me up; I have a deep feeling for those who are taken far from
what they have known and loved, and who plaintively wish for re --
turn that is impossible.
But on: we bought a videotape recorder, a great boon to my
daughters, who have more time for TV than I do. Now they watch the
weirdest stuff, some of it unsuitable for the fathers ofteenaged
girls. Sigh. We also got a cord -- less remote phone extension, so
that I no longer have to dash from the study to the house just in
time to catch the dial tone after the last ring; that does simplify
my life. My daughter Penny finally got her driver's license; whew!
One down, one to go. My other daughter Cheryl took second place in
a verbal presentation of her paper on the conservation of soil and
water. That was a fitting topic, during this novel; I had taken
time to help drill her on it,
400 With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony
401
and suspect she really took first place but that the judges were
closet sexists. Of course
I may not be completely objective.
1 saw a bright triangle of stars in the morning sky, so I ferreted
it out in the star
books and discovered it was the constellation Libra -- the scales.
Yes, I was writing the coinweighing scene along about then. Libra
is Pen -- ny's sign, because she reads a lot -- you know,
the Li -- brary. I finally got a line on a mysterious, lovely
melody I'd heard in fragments for
years; I think it is titled Twin Sons of Different Mothers. Reminds
me of this novel again, with
virtually twin girls, daughters of different mothers. I quest for
melodies as I do for story
notions; I am haunted by those that flash a few tantalizing notes
and disappear, leaving me
longing.
I also continued my quest for the Perfect Ping-Pong Paddle -- and
believe I have found it.
It's made of graph -- ite, very light and fast, and the backside
has a "long pips" surface that
sends the opponent's spin right back at him, messing him up instead
of me. Lovely! I used it to
defend the honor of Fantasy at my first SF convention, NECRON
OMI-CON, in Tampa, in Oct-ogre 1983,
the month that three of my novels were published. Of course I took
my daugh -- ters with me; they
loved it, and now they're con-crazy. One of my correspondents
attended, and when she intro --
duced herself I didn't make the connection. I wish I were better at
spot memory of names! Phone call from Bowker, publisher of Fiction
1876 -- 1983, in response to my curt note
about the way they listed some of my novels under Anthony and some
under Piers, omitted my first
New York Times bestseller Ogre, Ogre, and listed my mundane name
nine times in succession. I had
suggested that they hire a proofreader, since this vol -- ume costs
$100 and is supposed to be
comprehensive. They were apologetic, but noncommittal about the
proof -- reader. Call from a
Colorado fan who wished to visit me;
he would be traveling with a school group of about twenty people
and needed advice where
they could stay cheaply. My wife phoned about and finally arranged
free camping for them at a
local park, and we went out to talk to the park people and clarify
that we had the camping permit
for them...and then the group changed its mind and went elsewhere.
But the fan did come to visit
me, and I chatted with him for a couple of hours. He wrote later
that it was the high point of his
life. He was generous;
I'm a pretty ordinary character in person, really not worth that
sort of effort. My wife spied a sale on some nice enclosed book --
shelves; now we are in the process of
dismantling my rickety prior shelving and setting up the beautiful
new ones. At last my file
copies of my own books are getting proper treatment! I keep one
file copy of every edition of every book I have published,
hardcover, paperback, Brit -- ish, German, French, Japanese and
so
on; at present that makes about 150 volumes, and it's
growing.
In the spring came the mundane political primaries, and I had to
watch the best man in the
field, former Governor Reuben Askew of Florida, bite the dust in
New Hamp -- shire. Once again the
political process wends its inevitable way to mediocrity. And I
heard about a recent survey; 96 percent of Americans believe in
God, 90 percent of those also believe in Heaven and
Hell (it's hypocritical to believe in one without the other); only
4 percent expect to go to Hell.
Oh, yeah? Well, I have news for some -- one...
Thus my mundane life, proceeding in its petty pace from day to day.
You can see that when
the fantastic is removed from my life, not much of interest
remains. If you fell asleep during the
last paragraph, I understand. Now it is time to separate from this
novel, too, and I do it with a
certain muddled mixture of emotions. In one sense I am satisfied,
for I believe Skein to be a
decent
402 With a Tangled Skein Piers Anthony
403
novel. I feel nostalgia for the experience of it that is now
passing behind me. I am concerned as I anticipate its com -- ing
course through the gauntlet of the publication process
and the cynosure of the great readership beyond. I feel advance
resentment for the scoffing some
reviewers will do about its merits and demerits and the inevitable
sneer at this Note. A recent
survey shows that the more ignorant a reviewer is, the more
critical he is; any professional
writer could have told you that twenty years ago. In fact Alexander
Pope told us two and a half
centuries ago:
Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in
judging ill But he had the answer:
Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely, who
have written well. I am also apprehensive about the flood of mail
this Note may generate when the novel sees
paperback publication. Oh, yes, I get mail on my Notes; sometimes
the reader doesn't bother with
the novel at all, just the Note. I had one letter from a person who
fished my novel out of a
trashcan, read only the Note, wrote me a fan letter, and (I
suspect) threw the book back in the
can. But he really liked the Note. Well, 1 daresay he got his
money's worth.
I do try to keep up with my mail, but after doing 702 letters last
year -- yes, I remain a
compulsive counter -- I see the handwriting in the figurative
bruises my head makes against the
wall, and suspect that my performance in this respect will turn the
tide and begin to ebb, as with
my exercises. They aren't all simple notes, either; I have to try
to make meaningful responses to
those who wish to become instant successful writers -- if I had
known how to do that, I could have
saved myself eight years! -- or who ply me with complex lists of
questions for their re -- search
papers, or try to convert me to Jesus (I came to know Jesus when I
put him in Tarot as a
character, but I don't think that's what they mean), or who are
contem -- plating suicide. This is
no joke; there are some very real problems out there, and I do not
feel competent to address them
- yet I have to try, because these folk really do want my input,
such as it is. I remind myself
that it is much better to be relating to my readers than to be
emotionally alone. If Fate is the plot of life, then feeling must
be its content. To be known, to be needed,
to be loved -- this may be the true problem of our society. We see
people turning to alcohol, to
mind- and mood-affecting drugs, to gambling, to casual sex both
hetero and homo, to violence, to
cults, to self-destructive behavior, when these may be but poor
sublimations for the recognition,
interaction, security and love they truly crave. Isn't it an awful
irony that some of us must even
turn to fantasy to glean some semblance of the companionship we are
denied in mundane existence,
and we cannot even cry "Eileen"! We suffer all manner of compulsive
behavior, in futile reaction
to fundamental inadequacies of emotion we do not
comprehend.
As I worked on Skein, a woman was gang-raped on a barroom pool
table; when the rapists
were tried and con -- victed, women of that community demonstrated
in favor of the rapists.
Loveless sex pervades the media. Pre -- school children are
sexually molested by the staff of the
nursery -- and this is said to be only a hint of the abuse and
incest that is not rare but is
typical today. Satan's mischief, surely.
Yet there is also joy in the world. Some find their solace in
religion, in the belief that
God loves them. Some find it in close family ties. I myself have
gained some share of the Heaven
of a close family life, after emerging from the Hell of the denial
of it, but I remain scarred. I
don't like to travel, for as a child I found that my travels
had
404 With a Tangled Skein
no returning. I don't like to leave my family, because I remember
how fragile family
existence can be. Some re -- gard me as overprotective as a father,
but I resolved at the outset
that my children would never be exposed to what I was and, after
losing three, I know that no life
is guaranteed.
I turn down most invitations to be Guest of Honor at conventions,
not from any dislike of
people or any fear of public appearances -- stage fright, like
writer's block, I conquered long
ago, and I am quite at ease among fans -- but simply because there
is nowhere I'd rather be than
home. I trust that after reading this Note, those who have been
disappointed by my relative
isolation from the public will understand that there is nothing
frivolous in this. It is one of
the ways I have come to terms with the problem of my own existence.
I hope that what I write helps
others come to terms with theirs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Piers Anthony was born in August 1934, in England, spent a year in
Spain, and came to
America at age six. He was naturalized American while serving in
the U.S. Army in 1958. He lives
with his wife Carol and their daughters Penny and Cheryl in
Florida. His first story was published
in 1963, and his first novel, Chthon, in 1967. Through 1984 he has
had forty-eight books
published, with translations in eight languages. His first Xanth
novel, A Spell for Cha -- meleon,
won the August Derleth Fantasy Award as the best novel for 1977.
The fifth novel in that series
placed on The New York Times bestseller list, and his five fol --
lowing fantasies did likewise.
He is currently writing three novels a year, and answering several
hundred fan letters a year. His
house is hidden deep in the forest, almost impossible to find, and
he does his typing in a horse
pas -- ture.