Free With a Tangled Skein by Piers Anthony Page A

hesitate. The interactions can extend far, and we interfere at peril to the larger fabric."
     
    "But I love him!" she cried. "I must save him!"
     
    Chronos glanced at Thanatos, who shrugged. They might be Incarnations, but they seemed very much like mortal men, baffled by the hysteria of a mortal woman.
     
    "But you see," Chronos said reasonably, "to change an event, especially this one, could lead to consequences that none of us would wish."
     
    Niobe began to cry. She put her face in her hands, and the tears streamed in little rivulets through her spread fingers.
     
    "Perhaps a female Incarnation would handle this better," Thanatos said, evidently feeling awkward. Men tended to, in such situations; they didn't understand about crying. Niobe didn't like this situation much herself, but she couldn't help her reaction.
     
    "I will take her to Fate," Chronos agreed quickly. He came to Niobe and drew diffidently on her elbow. "Please come with me, ma'am."
     
    At the sound of "ma'am," the term Cedric had used early in their relationship, Niobe burst into a fresh surge of tears. She was hardly aware of Chronos taking firm hold other with his left hand and raising his glowing Hourglass with his right. But suddenly the two of them were zooming through the air and substance of the mansion as if they had become phantoms. That so startled her that her tears ceased.
     
    They phased across a variegated landscape that was not the world she had known. Then they homed in on the most monstrous web Niobe could have imagined, its pattern of silken strands extending out for hundreds of feet in a spherical array. In the center the web thickened, forming a level mat, and on this they came to rest. "How-what?" she said, amazed and daunted.
     
    "My Hourglass selectively nullifies aspects of the chronological counterspell," Chronos explained. "Enabling me to travel-oh, you refer to the web? Do not be concerned; this is the Abode of Fate."
     
    "Fate!" she exclaimed, realizing how this might relate to her. "It was Fate who determined that Cedric-"
     
    "Indeed," he agreed as they walked to the huge cocoon in the middle of this resilient plane. "She should be more competent to satisfy you than I am."
     
    "But-this is a gigantic spider's nest!" she said.
     
    He smiled. "I assure you, good and lovely woman, that Fate will not consume you in that manner. She is-much like you."
     
    Now they were at the entrance. Chronos reached up, took hold of a dangling thread, and pulled on it. A bell sounded in the silk-shrouded interior, and in a moment a middle-aged woman clambered out of the hole, very spry for her age. "Why, Chronos!" she exclaimed. "How nice to see you, my backward associate!" Her gaze turned on Niobe. "And a mortal woman who shines like the moon!" She glanced slyly back at Chronos. "What are you up to, sir?"
     
    "Lachesis, this is Niobe," he said. "She comes to plead for the life of her husband, who suffered a recent accident. I-am unable to assist her in this."
     
    Lachesis' eyes narrowed as if he had said something of special significance. Then she studied Niobe with a certain surmise. "Come in, child," she said at last. "We shall examine your thread." She glanced once more at Chronos. "You, too, honored associate."
     
    They followed her through the hole, which was a finely woven mesh-tunnel that opened into a comfortable interior. Everything was made of web, but it was so thick and cleverly crafted that it was solid. In fact, it was the ultimate in web-silk. The walls were woven in a tapestry that was a mural, showing scenes of the world, and the floor was a rug so smooth a person could have slept on it without a mattress.
     
    Niobe took a seat on a plush web couch, while Lachesis stood before her, set her hands together, drew them apart, and looked at the lines of web that had appeared magically between her fingers. "Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "That is a strange one!"
     
    Niobe's brow furrowed. "Do you mean-me?"
     
    "In a