“That leaves a lot of choice,” Pavlos said sarcastically.
“Heroes usually ask some favor for one they love, or for the city or country of their birth. We can do all of this for you, hero! Think of your loved ones! It would amuse us to do you, the finest hero we have had in many centuries, the favor of a long and prosperous life for your children. Should your city prosper? Know that the overall suffering around the world shall remain the same, but for some years your homeplace will be joyful!
“Choose your favor, hero! You have won our hearts and will not be denied!” And if Clotho’s ancient, puckered face were capable of affection and generosity, it showed them now.
Pavlos hesitated.
He was being offered a great prize indeed. It was a clever one, as well.
If he chose, for instance, to ask for another Golden Age in Athens, he was certain the city would, indeed, see some return to greatness… to whatever extent it would not interfere with these Norns’ overall plan for this era.
Or he could ask to have his favorite nephew, Theagenis, cured of his emphysema and go on to be the Olympic runner he dreamed of becoming.
But whatever he asked for, someone unknown to Pavlos would suffer to counterbalance the boon he handed out. And there was another disadvantage. Anything they gave him could be readily repealed if he succeeded in killing himself.
In the feathery unreality of his encounter with the Fates, he now found a plan crystallizing with stark and terrible clarity.
The one advantage humanity had, at the moment, was its new technology. It was no accident, he now saw, that so much had been learned by men in the short time since these creatures had last been visited by a hero. The Spark itself was making a countermove, at last.
It was a weak move, at best. Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis could stave off anything, even a nuclear strike, by merely sensing an intent in the weave and severing the instigators from the tapestry.
Still, they knew less about humanity now than they had in millennia. They were confused geographically and technically. If the trend could continue while they stayed complacently ignorant of what was going on for another century… until another “hero” came…
By then there might be colonies on Mars… or psychics, trained through biofeedback to hide their thoughts. Perhaps those hidden mental powers Moira had mentioned might have a flowering, if given only a few more decades free from knowledgeable interference.
As a hero he knew his model had to be Leonidas at Thermopylae. His job was simply to buy time.
“I know what I want as my boon,” he said at last.
“I want none of the things you mentioned, for even I will admit the aesthetic beauty of this tapestry. I do not love Clotho for her dyes of cruelty and hate, nor Atropos for her untimely knife, but I would regret seeing Lachesis’s lovely patterns wrecked for the sake of a selfish wish. Those I love will care for themselves and each other… fate permitting.”
Atropos and Clotho stared at him. Moira looked puzzled. Lachesis cast him a sidelong glance. For a brief instant he thought he saw a smile flicker before she returned to the weave. Twice for one hero, Pavlos thought. The others will think you’re flirting.
“Then what is your boon?” Clotho asked sharply. “Do not ask for what we cannot give. You know the conditions!”
Pavlos bowed his head.
“I understand. My request will easily fall under them.
“All I want is to sit before this great loom, out in the sunshine, and contemplate the very latest work that you have done.”
“No!” Atropos cried. She hissed at Pavlos and waved the shears dangerously close to his bobbin. “We will not take the loom outside.”
“But why not?” he asked. “You are all strong enough. And it won’t interrupt your work for more than a few minutes.”
Pavlos tried to stay calm, but internally he was shivering. Now he had to stand by it, but that part about taking the loom outside had only been an afterthought, suggested against the vague chance that Frank might see something of sufficient strangeness, from his eyrie in space, to make him think twice about sending a search party after his missing friend. If, by some miracle, the American had heard Pavlos’s earlier rantings, or was picking up this very conversation via the transceiver in Pavlos’s backpack, he just might add two and two and have the wisdom to keep his mouth—his very mind—shut about this plateau for the rest of his life.
Anyway, he had made his request; now he had to stand by it.
“Besides,” he said, “you ladies all look as if you could use some fresh air.”
Moira laughed.
“He’s right, sister. You act as though we were still at war and had to hide from Zeus’s sky tower. How long has it been since you saw some sun?”
Her manner was hearty. Yet Pavlos thought he detected a hidden note of uncertainty in her voice.
“Clotho and I make the decisions here,” Atropos threatened. “We outvote you, young Nemesis, remember?”
With a whoop and a cackling laugh, Lachesis stood up. She seemed so frail and tottering that a small breeze might blow her over, yet she beamed and her eyes danced with deviltry.
Pavlos was only slightly more shocked than the others when the frail old Fury stooped, grunted, and lifted the loom into the air.
Moira shouted with delight and ran to keep the tapestry from tangling as it fed out behind the loom. Pavlos took a position by Lachesis’s side. Not knowing whether she heard him or not, he kept up a running set of instructions to guide her down the steps.
His old scoutmaster would have been proud.
Stunned, Atropos was forced to drop Pavlos’s bobbin and step back. The eldest Norn walked blithely past her and out on to the lawn.
The sun was just rising as Lachesis set the loom to earth. She straightened and dusted her hands. For just an instant Pavlos saw somewhat beyond her apparent form, and was struck by the stark blue power and clarity of her aura, pulsing in momentary visibility around her.
Then, just as suddenly, she was an old crone once more. With a cackling grin, she stood aside and bowed to him. Moira came up, carrying a stool, and set it before the loom.
Pavlos stood still for a minute. His fate was set. In his case it was a path of his own choosing. Heroes were unique in that fashion, he now realized. He would sacrifice himself in a useless delaying action, but not by their whim. Heroes alone pick their own way of ending.
Another thing. No other hero had so upset this household. He was sure of that. Atropos and Clotho would not soon forgive him for what he had done and would do this day.
He felt a great wash of appropriateness as he shrugged off his pack. He upturned the rucksack, spilling the contents on the ground.
With great dignity he stooped and brought up the helm of Theseus. Before sitting on the padded stool he carefully placed it over his head.
“Now,” he commanded. “Please be so kind as to point out Athens for me.” Bustling, crowded, noisy streets… Everywhere the dawn colors, gray and brown, blending with the soot and smoggy haze… babies crying… street vendors calling… a worker wandering home drunk, praying that he won’t be possessed by the evil again and beat his wife and children… And dreams… the dreams of millions of people soon to awaken. Dreams that twist and curl and wave like smoke… like drifting, myriad strands of thread, struggling to cut loose and fly… Elsewhere, patricians arguing… soldiers dying… fanatics of every stripe, free to choose whatever extreme ideology fit, so long as it matched the fanatical dye… and many good men and women here and there, whose minds would cloud briefly, long enough to make some colored-in mistake… Hatreds persistent in spite of reason… love and honor persisting as well… beauty trying, an echo, ineradicable, of hope…