With a Tangled Skein (40 page)

"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 monsters-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.

"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 properties of her normal threads, so she can travel expeditiously-"

"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 I 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 compromise 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.

I 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.

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 onceflowing buckwheat-honey hair was now cut to a less-flattering 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 irresistible.

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 exactly, when the girl had yielded "everything!" to Samurai. 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.

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 nothing there. With a scream she fell down past several hexagonal 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 physically, 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 exposed 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 another 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 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.

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 illusion. She peered under.

Sure enough: there was an opening. There was her true exit! The illusion covered a dead-end 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 expended 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." Because 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!

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 man-headed 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 winning!

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.