3.2 In Achaea

In which The Fates see what's going on.

The three sisters looked at him without expression.

The god drew himself up in his chair. A strange light was in his eyes. ‘I will make it last longer this time. I will take another, to taste it.’ And he moved to open the shears again.

Atropos tried to explain, ‘No, there won’t be another time. They’re dead.’

He looked enraged. ‘How? The next lives wait for the shears! It has always been so.’

She looked at him. ‘They must wait for us. We spin and measure and cut. The shears cannot work alone.’

‘Atropos, make the shears work,’ he ordered.

‘I can’t. You’ve separated us. The shears won’t cut again. Not for us, or for you. Or anyone else.’

‘You are lying.’

The coldness in his voice was a frozen roar.

‘You have diverted the stream of the dying, Zeus,’ Lakhesis said. ‘Now they are lining up at the Styx in masses, thousands of them, and Charon is cursing you because there are too many dead. You’ve upset the balance. It will never be as it was.’

He looked at her without comprehension, then suddenly he was standing at the doors at the far end of the temple.

‘You are still emissaries of my will. You will leave your grove, and come to Olympus, to cut the threads at my command. At my pleasure. Bring your tools.’

He was gone.

‘He has no idea what he has done,’ Atropos raged.

‘Get out of his temple, now,’ Klotho ordered. She pulled Atropos with her out of the precinct into the dawn light.