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. I see you, she echoed numbly.He glanced at his wrist, where there was what Jolie recognized as ananachronistic timepiece. You are not on my schedule.Who are you?There was nothing to do but answer. I I am Kerena.A mother.I cometo ask a favor. No. Death turned, mounted the stallion, and murmured a word to it.The horse leaped and disappeared.Kerena was left standing alone, amazed.Thanatos hadn t even consid-ered.He had simply denied her.Her feeling shifted slowly to anger.The Incarnation didn t have to granther favor, but he should have listened.Her enormous effort to locate himwarranted at least that much.All she had wanted to ask Death was to postpone Gaw s death until amore timely age, so that he would have a chance to live out his life andaccomplish whatever great deeds were otherwise destined.Death had re-jected her plea without even the courtesy to hear it.Then her rationality took hold.There were other Incarnations.She couldachieve her desire with one of them.She adjusted the cloak, eliminating the signal that was the Incarnationof Death.Now there were six.She oriented on the closest of those.She re-sumed traveling.Now the cloak did take her out across the larger sea.She accelerated,wanting to get clear of the endless water.She zoomed heedlessly across theAtlantic.Then, suddenly, the energy swirl was close.There was a large island,with the ocean extending on beyond it.What was this?What, indeed, Jolie wondered.This was the center of the Atlantic, inthe vicinity of the Mid-Atlantic mountain range, deep below the surface.Sheknew her geography.There was not supposed to be any such island here.Yetthe timelines were straight.Kerena slowed, coming to land on the beach.This appeared to be agarden paradise, warm and fair, with plants of every imaginable type.Therewere animals too, of every species, predators and prey, mingling withoutfear of each other.Strange indeed.Jolie s mental jaw dropped.The Garden of Eden! It existed here near theEquator, between the continents.Or was it Atlantis? Here until it suddenlysank into the sea, as the great rift shifted.She had not realized that calamitywas so recent, barely before European ships started crossing to the New World.No wonder there were persistent legends.Kerena walked toward the energy whorl.She approached an eleganttwentieth century mansion.But this is the fifth century! Jolie protested.This can t be here! Yet obvi-ously it was.Kerena found the architecture odd, but wasn t concerned, as this wasfar from England.She knocked on the door.A man of middle age opened it.Behind him hovered a glowing hour-glass: The Hourglass that controlled time. Will I summon you? he asked. I summoned myself, Kerena said boldly. You are Chronos? You are esthetic, for an undead, he said, eying her.So even the Incarnations noticed her body. I come to ask a favor.Youmust enable me to return to the point when I inadvertently tainted my son,so I can avoid it.He No, of course not, he said. I never interfere with a timestream on thewhim of a denizen of the mortal realm; it disturbs the flow.Kerena was taken aback. The flow? The flow of time.It is my position to ensure that it is even.A changeaffects everything following it.I would be aware of such an effect if I am tomake it.There is no change; the flow is undisturbed.Jolie remembered: Chronos lived backward.From the future to the past.Thus he knew the consequences of any act; they were in his memory.So hespoke of what he would do, though it was what had already been done, inthe awareness of all the folk of the world.Kerena didn t understand that,but didn t need to. But my son, Kerena said. I must save him!Chronos focused on her. You are a half mortal.How did you comehere to Purgatory?Purgatory! But that was not on Earth.It was Jolie didn t know whereit was, though she had been there.An alternate dimension, maybe.Whatwas it doing as an island in the Atlantic? Purgatory is becoming more primitive as the religion that spawned itapproaches its infancy, Chronos said, answering her. Now it is on this isle,which is near its termination, and in a few mere centuries purgatory will notexist as a separate entity. I didn t ask about that, Kerena said. I am here on behalf of my son.Chronos focused on her. What is a ghost from my past doing in you?he demanded. This disturbs the flow.I must deal with it. He reached up tograsp the Hourglass.The timelines blurred badly.Distract him! Jolie thought violently.The Incarnation of Time had de-tected her temporal nature, and surely had the power to drive her away fromthis timeline.He was receiving her thoughts.Kerena did not understand the sudden urge, but obeyed it. I am noghost, she said, opening her clothing. Let me prove it to you. But there is a ghost within you.It Kerena cut him off with a kiss, and bore him back into his mansion.Shewas extremely good at what she knew how to do.Her body was exquisite,buttressed by her magic Seeing and her considerable experience.In a mo-ment he was indeed distracted.He was after all a man.From the future,living backward when away from Purgatory, but still a man
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