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"How did you come to assume this Office?" Orlene asked, partly from curiosity, partly because she
wasn't quite ready to discuss the merits of her case.
"After you died, Gawain felt guilty, and he tried to find some better setup for me. He remarried and
invited me to impregnate his new wife, but I thought of you and would not. Later he learned of the
coming vacancy of this Office and persuaded me to assume it. I admit I was moved by the notion that
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this might provide me the power to do what we have seen I could not do: change your past and mine so
that you would survive. I discovered better, but by that time I was committed. And I admit this is no ill
existence. And, lest you feel guilt for depriving me of love life, I am accommodated there too."
"You have a lover?" Orlene asked, relieved but not completely pleased. "Then why did you suggest that
I remain here with you?"
"I would prefer your company. I don't love the other woman. She merely accommodates a particular
need."
Orlene remembered her experience with the urgency of the need of the male, and could not condemn
him. "Who is she?"
"Another Incarnation. Only Incarnations understand."
"An Incarnation? Which one?"
"Fate."
"But Fate's my grandmother!"
"What?"
He doesn't know your ancestry, Jolie reminded her. He just learned of your immediate parentage, as you
did, and has not yet made the connection to Lachesis.
"I'm the daughter of Nature and the granddaughter of Fate," Orlene continued. "That's why they sent
Jolie to watch me. I didn't know while I lived, but now I do."
Disgruntled, he gazed at her. "Which Aspect?" he asked after a moment.
"Aspect?"
"Fate has three Aspects: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, of ascending generations. I believe each
originates with a different mortal woman. They share the body, but they are three distinct personalities.
Which one is your grandmother-Atropos?"
Lachesis, Jolie prompted.
"Lachesis," Orlene said numbly. She hadn't realized that Fate was so complicated!
"I indulge with Clotho, the youngest," he said, relieved. "Voluptuous, bouncy, midnight-black hair-of
course, she can change her form, they all can, but I think that's her rest state."
"What does Lachesis look like?"
"Somewhat like an older edition of Gaea, actually, with light hair-sometimes she buns it up and makes it
brown, but, well, it's not far from the shade of yours, really."
"That would be my grandmother," Orlene said, relaxing. She understood how three separate women
could share a single body, even when one indulged in sexual relations with a man not of the others'
choosing. "It really isn't my business."
He seemed glad enough to let the subject change. "Now, how did you come to encounter Nox?"
"She has Gaw-Two. She took him when he came to Purgatory, and says she will give him to me if I can
obtain the items I need to cure his malaise, which remains with him in death because it is of the soul, not
the body. From Chronos, one grain of sand, apparently because one soul cannot be transcribed to
another without a hitch in time, or something-I don't quite understand it, but am sure that it is so."
"It is so," he agreed. "But you would not be able to use such a grain that way. Time is a tool that only the
Incarnation of time can wield. What the sand would actually do is summon me to itself-that is, to its
possessor, you-at need, and I would then manage the hitch in time and take back the grain. But this, too,
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has a complication, At what time do you anticipate this operation?"
Years! Jolie thought, knowing that it well might not be done at all.
"Years hence, I fear."
"Then likely before my tenure. That would explain why the sand is necessary, because I cannot go
tangibly beyond my own term of Office. I can go intangibly, and observe certain aspects of reality, but I
cannot affect them. If, however, you carry such a grain with you to that time, I will be able to go to it
and act in the limited way that relates to its purpose." He paced the floor, considering. "Since I may not
commit my predecessor-you would think of him as my successor-to such an action, I think I must give
you the grain of sand. I think I would have agreed to do this were you not my lover in life, and the baby
not mine, so I can justify it now."
"Thank you, Norton," she said. Again she remembered her brief, horrible experience as a male. Did he
expect her to...surely she did owe him that, considering. "Do you wish-"
"Here is the grain," he said abruptly, cutting her off. He touched the Hourglass and the grain appeared
on his finger. "Do not lose it. I regret that I have other business now and must ask you to leave."
She took the grain, holding it tightly between thumb and forefinger. It tingled. "I...thank you, Norton."
"Welcome." He ushered her out.
Moments later she stood at the front door, alone, bemused by the suddenness of the conclusion. There is
a generous man, Jolie thought.
Yeah, he was really hot for you, but he wouldn't let on, Vita agreed. He just hustled you out before he
could give in to it.
"But I would have-if he had let me ask-I owed him so much-"
He didn't want you to buy that grain of sand, or pay for it, Jolie thought. He wanted to give it to you. He
did.
"After what I did to him!" she said. "I had no business dying like that! I should have stayed with him
and had another baby, but I just-" She choked herself off.
Let's get out of here before we meet you coming in, Jolie thought. She was impressed by Chronos'
behavior, but now was not the time to dawdle.
"You do it," Orlene said. "I'm hurting again."
Indeed she was. Jolie resumed control of the body and walked briskly away from the mansion in the
direction opposite to the one from which they had approached.
"Tomorrow we can tackle Fate," she said. "But today we had better get established in Satan's residence,
so that we have a suitable base for operations."
It was a fair walk, and in this mortal body she was unable to turn a page in the fashion of Gaea to reach
her destination instantly, or to fly ghost fashion, so it was afternoon by the time they reached it.
Actually, Purgatory did not have days or seasons; time was meaningless here. But they were on Vita's
living internal clock, and didn't fight it, thinking of time as they did in the mortal realm.
Satan's domicile, as perceived through their mortal eyes, was impressive, even awesome.
From outside it resembled the most forbidding of castles, with huge stone blocks forming a wall rising
to an alarming height, enclosing a cylindrical central turret extending even higher. From the apex
extended a pole which branched into a three-tined fork, from which flew a flag with the shape and color
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