Camille sighed and resigned herself to at least try. No utensils were provided, and so she used her first two fingers, dipping in and bearing the wet, scumlike coating to her mouth. She managed to choke down the first lick, its taste somewhat like that of the stalks she had chewed on when crossing the grasslands. She dipped in her fingers again and dragged more slime to her mouth.
As she ate, Camille realized she could see the pattern upon the tapestry, yet parts of it were quite blurred, as of dyes that were not fixed, as of colors that ran. In some places, though, the depiction was quite clear, while at others the fabric seemed entirely blank. Yet even as she scrutinized the tapestry, the patterns at a given spot seemed to shift about, to change slightly, or to change altogether, or to vanish entirely.
By studying the tapestry and distracting her mind, Camille managed to eat all of the slime and to do so without gagging overmuch. And just as she finished, the pace of the weaving slowed.
Camille set the clay vessel down to the stone, and, as with the wooden trencher and fine porcelain provided by sisters past, so did this bowl vanish, too.
“It gums quite good, eh?” said Urd, smiling her toothless smile. “Tastes good, too.”
Camille sighed. “Mayhap a better term to describe it would be, um, ‘nourishing.’ ”
The crone cackled. “Quite right, Camille. Quite right.”
Camille frowned at the fabric. “Why do you weave such a tapestry? One where the colors run and patterns change and great blank spots exist.”
Without taking her gaze from the ebon gape, Urd said, “Oh, child, the pattern set thereon is quite well-defined, precise and clear to all who can truly see; without error, I bind all that has gone before as it did in fact occur. ’Tis simply because you have mortal eyes that the past seems quite unclear. Even to most immortals much of it seems unclear as well, but to mortal eyes the pattern is yet worse.”
“Why so?”
“Much of mankind tries to ignore the weaving, often trying to change what the pattern shows, rewriting history to suit their own needs, though the events they would alter are quite plain to eyes which behold the truth.”
“Mankind rewrites history?”
“Aye, child, at least the victors do, though in the end it is the survivors who will have the final say, can they winnow out the truth, or if not, make up that which is either fanciful or as they would have it be. Even so, most of what they tell will shift from era to era.”
“And because I am of mankind, you say I cannot see the truth?”
“Nay, child, that I did not say. Some see the truth for what it is when it comes upon them. Still, there is much you do not know, for you have not the lore. But even if you had much wisdom, some things yet would be obscure to you, for they are beyond your understanding as well as beyond the knowledge you have. But despair not, for I think you will never twist the truth simply for your own ends, though you may not see it when others do so.”
“Be that as it may, Lady Urd, I did not come to discuss the truth or relevance of history, but instead I came to ask if you know where I might find a place east of the sun and west of the moon.”
“You are welcome to look at the tapestry to see if it is there,” replied Urd, gesturing at the long train leading into the dark cavern.
In the growing dusk, Camille lit her small lantern, and then slowly walked alongside the tapestry, searching for… she knew not what. Still the pattern seemed begotten with runny dye in places, some places obscure, some murky, and some places blank, other places shifting even as Camille looked on, yet in still other places the scenes were quite clear: folks in loincloths hunting with spears, other folk digging in fields and dressed in sandals and with cloth bound ’round their waists and buttocks and up through their legs, others on rafts poling along rivers, still others making passionate love, and here Camille did flush. She saw all manner of endeavors, the depictions so lifelike that one might think of them as actually being real living people, though many were very old, and some seemed to be on the verge of death, while others were in caskets; and there were graves and ruins and great monoliths and other curious things of antiquity, things that might once have been but might no longer be. Strangely, every time Camille looked at the tapestry, it seemed to have altered, as if the figures and scenes themselves were moving, changing, shifting about.
Into the cave by lanternlight Camille followed the tapestry, the cloth wending away into the dim recesses within, where it finally disappeared under ever-increasing layers of dust, though the cavern itself went on and on.
Camille sighed and turned about, for she had not spied aught in the pattern which would aid.
Returning to Urd, Camille said, “I found nothing of that which I seek, and so again I ask, know you where such a place might be.”
“Answer me this riddle, child: running on the rim of now to oblivion, what am I?”
Camille looked through the growing dusk at the River of Time and then replied, “You are the Past.”
Without glancing away from the ebon gape, the old woman crowed with pleasure and said, “And it’s past time I should give you a gift.” She nodded toward the spinning wheel. “Take my best bobbin, the one of gold, and keep good care of it. Do not yield it to anyone except perhaps near the end, for then it might do you some good.”
“But what if another calamity occu-?”
“Take it, child, for other spools I have, though none as fine or of gold.”
Sighing, Camille took up the golden bobbin, a bobbin in a queue of spools, as if awaiting its turn at the spinning wheel. And then she said, “Please, Lady Urd, do you know where is a place east of the sun and west of the moon?”
With a flick of her eyes, Urd glanced at the horizon, dusk nearly gone. “I know of someone who might, for he has travelled far and wide.”
Hope sprang into Camille’s heart. “Where can I find this traveller?”
Again Urd glanced at the horizon, and then she intoned:
“There are winds that do not blow,
But flow across the sea;
A master of one might know
Where such a place doth be.”
Once more Urd glanced at the fading dusk and said, “And this I will tell you for nought, for I have seen it in my weaving:
“Nearly dual,
It is the key;
That which two fear
Shall set four free.”
Just then, the fullness of night fell, and Urd and loom and spinning wheel and tapestry vanished all.
Camille cried out, “Wait! The riddles, what do they-?” But in the ravine only her echoes responded to her cry, and she realized she would get no answer at all… and neither of the two riddles meant a thing to her.
Camille made camp there at the cave-placing Scruff on a boulder high-and ere she went to sleep, she counted the blossoms on the split and cracked and splintered stave: forty remained.
As tears brimmed in her eyes, she pondered her encounters with the three sisters and wondered if she had chosen the right course, for it had cost her dearly to travel along this way, especially upon these shores, where many blossoms had vanished, and all she had to show for it were two conundrums for which she had no answer, as well as a carding comb, a shuttle, and a golden spool, and these in response to her three straightforward answers to three very simple riddles.
But wait! Lady Skuld said: “My sisters and I are bound by a rule: no answers of significance or gifts of worth can we give to anyone without first a service of value being rendered to us-which, in my case, you have certainly done- but even then we must ask a riddle and have it correctly answered.”
Now the service I performed was the finding of lost-Oh, my! Ladies Skuld and Verdandi could easily have found their own missing threads, for although they were invisible to me, they were certainly not invisible to them. And as for Lady Urd, a lost bobbin would mean little, for she had many more. Why would they do so? — Test me with trivial tasks, that is. Perhaps it was to aid me on my way. But what aid have I been given? Two riddles I know not how to answer. Three quite commonplace gifts, but for the value of gold they bear. Yet those are the gifts they gave me, gifts supposedly of worth. Yet even though gold is precious, perhaps their value is- Camille’s eyes widened in speculation. Mayhap they are magical in some manner!