his voice was soft but still audible. It was, however, the last completely audible thing Lois heard in their conversation.
["There's a world of difference between cannot and must not, wouldn't you say?"] Clotho said something, but Lois caught only an isolated [trade might possibly bel phrase. Lachesis shook his head violently. Ralph replied and Lachesis answered by making a grim little scissoring gesture with his fingers.
Surprisingly, Ralph replied to this with a laugh and a nod.
Clotho put a hand on his colleague's arm and spoke to him earnestly before turning back to Ralph.
Lois clenched her hands in her lap, willing them to reach some sort of agreement. Any agreement that would keep Ed Deepneau from killing all those people while they just stood here yattering.
Suddenly the side of the hill was illuminated by brilliant white light. At first Lois thought it came down from the sky, but that was only because myth and religion had taught her to believe the sky was the source of all supernatural emanations. In reality, it seemed to come from everywhere-trees, sky, ground, even from herself, streaming out of her aura like ribbons of fog.
There was a voice, then... or rather a Voice. It spoke only four words, but they echoed in Lois's head like iron bells.
[IT MAY BE SO.] She saw Clotho, his small face a mask of terror and awe, reach into his back pocket and bring out his scissors. He fumbled and almost dropped them, a nervous blunder that made Lois feel real kinship for him. Then he was holding them up with one handle in each hand and the blades open.
Those four words came again:
[IT MAY BE SO,]
This time they were followed by a glare so bright that for a moment Lois believed she must be blinded. She clapped her hands over her eyes but saw-in the last instant when she could see anything-that the light had centered on the scissors Clotho was holding up like a two-pronged lightning-rod.
There was no refuge from that light; it turned her eyelids and upraised, shielding hands to glass. The glare outlined the bones of her fingers like X-ray pencils as it streamed through her flesh. From somewhere far away she heard a woman who sounded suspiciously like Lois Chasse, screaming at the top of her mental voice: ["Turn it off! God, please turn it off before it kills me!"] And at last, when it seemed to her that she could stand no more, the light did begin to fade. When it was gone-except for a fierce blue afterimage that floated in the new darkness like a pair of phantom scissors-she slowly opened her eyes.
For a moment she continued to see nothing but that brilliant blue cross and thought she had indeed been blinded. Then, as dim as a developing photograph at first, the world began to resurface. She saw Ralph, Clotho, and Lachesis lowering their own hands and peering around with the blind bewilderment of a nest of moles turned up by the blade of a harrow.
Lachesis was looking at the scissors in his colleague's hands as if he had never seen them before, and Lois was willing to bet he never had seen them as they were now. The blades were still shining, shedding eldritch fairy-glimmers of light in misty droplets.
Lachesis: [Ralph! That was...] She lost the rest of it, but his tone was that of a common peasant who answers a knock at the door of his hut and finds that the Pope has stopped by for a spot of prayer and a little confession.
Clotho was still staring at the blades of the scissors. Ralph was also looking, but at last he lifted his gaze to the bald doctors.
Ralph: ["... the hurt?"] Lachesis, speaking like a man emerging from a deep dream: Yes... won't last long, but... agony will be intense... change your mind, Ralph?] Lois was suddenly afraid of those shining scissors. She wanted to cry out to Ralph, tell him to never mind his one, to just give them their one, their little boy. She wanted to tell him to do whatever it took to get them to hide those scissors again.
But no words came from either her mouth or her mind.
Ralph: ["... in the least... Just wanted to know what to expect, Clotho: [... ready?... must be...
Tell them no, Ralph! she thought at him. Tell them NO!
Ralph: ["... ready."] Lachesis: [Understand... terms he has... and the price?] Ralph, impatient now: ["Yes, yes. Can we please just... "I Clotho, with