Believe me, you don’t, Lois: [“How did you get us up to this level in the first place? It was the insomnia, wasn’t it?”] Lachesis, cautiously: [Essentially, yes. We’re able to make certain small changes in Short-Time auras. These adjustments caused a rather special form of insomnia that altered the way you dream and the way you perceive the waking world. Adjusting Short-Term auras is delicate, frightening work. Madness is always a danger.] Clotho: [At times you may have felt that you were going mad, but neither of you was ever even close. You’re much tougher, both of you, than you give yourself credit for.] These assholes actually think they’re being comforting, Ralph marvelled, and then pushed his anger away again. He simply had no time to be angry now. Later, maybe, he could make up for that. He hoped so. For now he simply patted Lois’s hands, then turned to Clotho and Lachesis again.
[“Last summer, after he beat his wife up, Ed spoke to me of a being he called the Crimson King. Does that mean anything to you fellows?”] Clotho and Lachesis exchanged another look, one which Ralph at first mistook for solemnity.
Clotho: [Ralph, you must remember that Ed is insane, existing in a delusional state-” [“Yeah, tell me about it.”] “but we believe that his “Crimson King” does exist in one form or another, and that when Atropos cut his life-cord, Ed Deepneau falls directly under this being’s influence.] The two little bald doctors looked at each other again, and this time Ralph saw the shared expression for what it really was: not solemnity but terror.
A new day had dawned-Thursday-and was now brightening its way toward noon. Ralph couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought the speed with which the hours were passing down there on the Short-Time level was increasing; if they didn’t wrap this thing up soon, Bill McGovern wouldn’t be the only one of their friends they outlived.
Clotho: [Atropos knew that the Higher Purpose would send someone to try to change what he has set in motion, and now he knows who. But you must not allow yourselves to be sidetracked by Atropos,you must remember that he is little more than a pawn on this board.
It is not Atropos who really opposes you.] He paused and looked doubtfully at his colleague. Lachesis nodded for him to go on, and he did so confidently enough, but Ralph felt his heart sink a little, just the same. He was sure the two bald doctors had the best of intentions, but they were pretty clearly flying on instruments, just the same.
Clotho: [You must not approach Atropos directly, either. I cannot emphasize that enough. He has been surrounded by forces much greater than himself, forces that are malignant and powerful, forces that are conscious and will stop at nothing to stop you. Yet we think that, if you stay away from Atropos, you may be able to block the terrible thing which is about to happen… which is, in a very real sense, happening already.] Ralph didn’t much care for the unspoken assumption that he and Lois were going to do whatever it was these two happy gauchos wanted, but this didn’t seem like exactly the right time to say so.
Lois: [“What is about to happen? What is it you wantfrom us?
Are we supposed to find Ed and talk him out of doing something bad?”] Clotho and Lachesis looked at her with identical expressions of shocked horror.
[Haven’t you been listening to-] I-you mustn’t even think of-] They stopped, and Clotho motioned Lachesis to go ahead.
[If You didn’t hear us before, Lois, hear us now.-stay away from Ed Deepneau! Like Atropos, this unusual situation has temporarily invested him with great power. To even go near him would be to risk a visit from the entity he thinks of as the Crimson King… and besides, he is no longer in Derry.] Lachesis glanced out over the roof, where lights were coming on in the dusk of Thursday evening, then looked back at Ralph and Lois again.
[He has left for I ____________________No words, but Ralph caught a clear sensory impression which was part smell (oil, grease, exhaust, sea-salt), part feel and sound (the wind snapping at something-perhaps a flag), and part sight (a large rusty building with a huge door standing open on a steel track).
[“He’s on the coast, isn’t he? Or going there.”] Clotho and Lachesis nodded, and their faces suggested that the coast, eighty miles from Derry, was a very good place for Ed Deepneau.
Lois tugged his hand again, and Ralph glanced at her, [“Did you see the building, Ralph?”] He nodded.
Lois: [“It’s of Hawking Labs, but it’s near there. I think it might even be a place I know-“] Lachesis, speaking rapidly, as if to change the subject: [Where he isor what he might be planning really doesn’t matter. Your task lies elsewhere, in safer waters, but you still may need to use all of your considerable Short-Time powers to accomplish it, and there still may be great danger.] Lois looked nervously at Ralph.
[“Tell them we won’t hurt anybody, Ralph-we might agree to help them if we can, but we won’t hurt anybody, no matter what.”] Ralph, however, told them no such thing. He was thinking of how the diamond chips had glittered at Atropos’s earlobes, and meditating on how perfectly he had been trapped-and Lois along with him, of course. Yes, he would hurt someone to get the earrings back.
That wasn’t even a question. But just how far would he go? Would he perhaps kill to get them back?
Not wanting to tackle that issue-not wanting to even look at Lois, at least for the time being-Ralph turned back to Clotho and Lachesis.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she got there first, [“There’s one other thing I want to know before we go any further. “I It was Clotho who replied, sounding slightly amused-sounding, in fact, remarkably like Bill McGovern. Ralph didn’t care for it much.
[What is that, Lois?] [“Is Ralph in danger, too? Does Atropos have something of Ralph’s we need to take back later on? Something like
Bill’s hat?”] Lachesis and Clotho exchanged a quick, apprehensive glance.
Ralph didn’t think Lois caught it, but he did. She’s getting too close for comfort, that look said. Then it was gone. Their faces were smooth again as they turned their attention back to Lois.
Lachesis: [No. Atropos has taken nothing from Ralph because, up until now, doing so would not help him in any way.] Ralph: [“What do -you mean, ’up until now’?”] Clotho: [You have spent your life as part of the Purpose, Ralph, but that has changed.] Lois: [“When did it change? It happened when we started seeing the auras, didn’t it?”] They looked at each other, then at Lois, then-nervously-at Ralph.
They said nothing, and an interesting idea occurred to Ralph: like the boy George Washington of the cherry tree myth, Clotho and Lachesis could not tell a lie… and at moments like this they probably regretted it. The only alternative was the one they were employing: keeping their lips zipped and hoping the conversation would move on to safer areas. Ralph decided he didn’t want it to move on-at least not yet-even though they were dangerously close to allowing Lois to find out where her earrings had gone… always assuming she didn’t know that already, a possibility that did not strike him as at all remote.
An old carny pitchman’s line occurred to him: Step right up, gentlemen… but if you want to play, you have to pay.
[“Oh no, Lois-the change didn’t happen when I started to see the auras. I think a lot of people catch a glimpse ’ into the Long-Time world If in of auras every now and again, and nothing bad happens to them. I don’t think I got knocked out of my nice safe place in the PurPose until we started to talk to these two fine fellows. What do you say, fine fellows? You did everything but leave a trail of breadcrumbs, even though you knew perfectly well what was going to happen. Isn’t that about the size of it?”] They looked down at their feet, then slowly, reluctantly, back up at Ralph. It was Lachesis who answered.