The Gifts of Fate

Prologue

"Wait!" Lachesis cried. For the first time in ten thousand years, her hands stopped weaving a thread into her Tapestry. Instead, she made a grab for her sister's long and merciless scissors. She wasn't quick enough.

Atropos, her sister, severed a single silver strand and the end dangled limply in the air beneath the near infinite Tapestry of Fate.

Lachesis' words echoed through the empty streets around them. It bounced off buildings, through alleyways and from the rock canopy above their heads. The two women stood with their sister, Clotho, in the center of Sydney. The streets were deserted. Nothing moved or made a sound, because nothing else lived in this world.

Above the city hundreds and thousands of stalactites hung from the rock ceiling, where the sky should have been. From the ground, it looked like the city was trapped inside a cave. Except the ceiling stretched from one horizon to the other with nothing visibly keeping it up.

The tapestry looked more like a fluffy green mist than a length of material. It floated two meters above the ground. Within were countless threads- One for each man, woman, and child that had been born since the dawn of time. Each silver thread physically represented each individuals fate.

Clotho, the allotter, created each thread; Lachesis, the weaver, tangled each with others to create and give depth to relationships; until Atropos, the Severer, ended each with her scissors.

The three women were the Moirai, the goddesses of fate. They had worked without pausing, without sleeping, without respite for three hundred thousand years, until now.

Lachesis tightened her bony fist around the newly severed thread. She tossed her head to shake her greying hair from her face. The crows-feet about her eyes deepened as she stared at her older sister.

Clotho held the next fate, the next thread between young slim fingers ready for Lachesis to thread it through her needle. When she did not Clotho cocked her head to one side in confusion.

"All must die," Atropos' ancient unforgiving voice echoed off the buildings. She stood a little shorter than five feet. Without turning, she extended a wrinkled hand. "I have fulfilled my purpose. Hand me the next."

"Sister," Lachesis said, her voice tight, "this one is our herald."

"Twenty years is long enough for it to complete our purpose."

Lachesis reached into the mist and deftly wove the silver thread in amongst the others. With each twist and turn a new event unfolded. Some were happy, others tragic, but with each new twist the life took shape- and then stopped.

"The fate is not long enough," Lachesis said with finality. Both Clotho and Atropos frowned.

"Is there another?" Atropos asked.

"There is not," Clotho answered. "Only she possesses the gifts necessary to hear our instructions."

The three goddesses stared at the single silver thread in silence. Wordlessly, Lachesis pointed to a point in the tapestry, and the other two saw a dark shadow spreading across its surface. The black began to swallow up the soft green glow of the tapestry. Something had found its way into the realm of man.

"Our Avatars must stop it," Clotho said.

"They will fail with the Herald," Lachesis replied.

"What will become of us if she does not complete her mission?" Clotho asked.

Lachesis waved her hand and the area around them transformed. Where once they had stood in the center of a road surrounded by the city and cars, now there was only rubble and destruction.

Buildings had fallen. Leaving behind ruins of stone, steel, and glass. Trees and vehicles buried under layer upon layer of rock. The cave ceiling was no longer visible above the now pitch black mist floating above.

Clotho backed away from the vision, shaking her head from side to side. Even though she had summoned the image Lachesis winced. Only Atropos witnessed the destruction without emotion.

"All things die. Even us," she said. "It is the way of things."

Clotho shook her head. "Our death needn't come so soon. The Herald must meet with the avatars before her death. She must complete her mission."

"You would change her fate?" Atropos glared at her sister. "We are goddesses of order. If we disrupt the tapestry there will be consequences."

"We have no choice," Clotho replied. She turned to Lachesis. "What must we do?"

Lachesis looked from her younger sister to her elder. She took a deep breath and her fingers tightened around the last part of the silver thread.