PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

The tapestry of humanity lay threadbare, metres and metres of it stretched out, until it lay unfinished, on the wooden hallway floor. One of the threads had caught on a nail, not quite embedded in the floor, and torn slightly, creating a little pocket in the tapestry. It would become a vacuum where nothing would exist for that part of humanity. Apparently, the humans called it a ‘black hole’.

Earlier in the work, much earlier, the tapestry had been full of life and colour. Emerald greens of the earth and lapis lazuli blues of the oceans were interwoven with autumnal reds, cherry-blossom pinks, and every colour in between. Recently though, the strings the Fates had been called to spin on the loom had been beige, dull greys, and obsidian blacks.

Humanity was dying.

The ends of the tapestry lay on the floor limply while the three sisters the Greek world knew as the Moirai, the Fates, stared at the ends of the threads, wishing them to spring to life of their own accord and knit together a new picture. Alas, the threads weren’t magical. It was the work of the three sisters that made the tapestry what it was, and while they could sometimes be swayed to tell a story a particular way, sometimes the threads spoke of their own freewill.

Clotho hunched over, her black cloak and hood giving her the impression of Death rather than the life she was responsible for selecting. For it was her who chose the threads, her who decided who lived. She did, however, get the choice to not pick up the threads again, effectively ending life as easily as she gave it. It was a point of contention amongst thesisters.

She sighed. It wasn’t that she wanted humanity to die; it was simply the fact that something else was being called to be birthed forward. Fear.

“I have no desire to pick up another one of these wretched threads.” She stared at the beige silks and obsidian blacks beside her in disgust. She may as well have been sitting next to a pile of hay and chewing on cud, so bland and distasteful was her job at the moment.

“Well, you must.” Lachesis, her elder sister snapped as she measured out the latest thread with her rod and began to weave it into the tapestry. Unlike Clotho, she was dressed in a sheath of white as pure as the destiny she represented.

“The story is not finished and I cannot tease the tapestry out anymore until you pick up the next thread,” she continued in that pragmatic way of hers that spoke of her position as the middle child. Not that the sisters had been children for eons. Now they were old women, if you could even call them that, hunched over a loom that creaked with unfathomable age.

Unspoken remained the words that the tapestry would remain forever dormant, lying on the floor like an abandoned sweater.

“Atropos, what say you?” Lachesis asked.

The eldest, and smallest, of the three sisters scowled, deep grooves marring a long-ago smooth forehead.

“It doesn’t end nicely. How am I supposed to end something so ... unfinished?! No, you must continueClotho.”

The youngest of the three, and perhaps that was why she was in charge of the youthfulness of birth, huffed. Really, she thought, Atropos had no right to tell her what to do after all these years. Just because she had always chosen the manner of death and cut the threads didn’t mean she got to be in charge of everything. But the eldest among them was stubborn to a fault and bossy with it. There was no changing her mind, Clotho grumbled, even as she admitted that her sisters wereright.

While the beigeness of life had begun to bleed into most of the tapestry, the grey steel of the industrial and technological age of humanity apparent, the black obsidian had not yet taken over. Oh, at first it had just been wisps of black. That jagged edge of fear that was necessary for human survival. It gave the tapestry definitive structure as the scenes from history played out in realtime.

Now ... now it looked like a thick oil stain had been smeared across the Fates’ work until it trickled through life, through the remaining threads and onto the wooden floorboards. But the tapestry wasn’t yet completely pitch black. Fear hadn’t yet cloyed and choked the living breath out of humanity completely.

The occasional thread of gold had still managed to sneak its way into the tapestry. There was hope yet.

“What do you suggest we do then, Aisa?” Clothoasked.

The eldest sister shot her a sharp look. “I told you not to call me that anymore.”

“Why ever not?” Clotho mused with a sly smile, knowing how her sister preferred her middle name that more accurately reflected her role of death in the family. “It’s your given name.”

Atropos pointed the pair of sharpened blades in her hand as if taking aim at her eye.

“Stop bickering like old women.” Lachesis interrupted them. “She’s clearly baiting you, sister. In all our eons you would think you would not fall for it every time.”

It was true. They often squabbled amongst themselves, even now, about how the tapestry should play out, but today the frustration between the sisters was palpable. While sometimes they could be fickle, today the Fates were decidedly not playinggames.

“Well?” Clothoasked.

“They are not ready to die,” Atropos eventually replied. “We must call inanother.”

“This fear, it is a human affliction,” Clotho pointed out. “Should we call in Prometheus? He did create them after all.”

“If you ask me, it looks more like war,” Lachesis said. “Maybe we should call in Athenainstead.”

“It is both,” Atropos agreed, though her forehead remained in a deep frown. “But you know how awry the tapestry gets when Prometheus’ foresight getsinvolved.”

“I’d rather not have to keep unpicking and redoing the threads unless getting him involved becomes absolutely necessary,” Lachesisagreed.

“Then it’s settled. The threat of war is greater anyway. Let’s call in Athena.” Atroposdecided.

Clotho nodded and picked up an olive-greenthread.