With a Tangled Skein

With a Tangled Skein

First edition
Author	Piers Anthony
Cover artist	Michael Whelan
Series	Incarnations of Immortality
Publisher	Del Rey Books
Publication date	1985-09-12
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	280
ISBN	978-0-345-31884-8
OCLC	11915079
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 19
LC Class	PS3551.N73 W5 1985
Preceded by	Bearing an Hourglass
Followed by	Wielding a Red Sword

With a Tangled Skein is a fantasy novel by Piers Anthony. It is the third of eight books in the Incarnations of Immortality series. In it, agrees to become one of the three aspects of the incarnation of Fate, in an attempt to thwart the plans of Satan.

Plot[]

At around the time of World War I, a 21-year-old Irish woman named Niobe has a marriage arranged for her by her parents. Her husband-to-be is a 16-year-old boy named Cedric Kaftan. She considers him too immature, but can find no way out of the marriage. Although Niobe at first hates being married to a "child", Cedric's good nature, kindheartedness, and desire to keep her happy and safe win her over, and she falls in love with him. Cedric shows himself to be an intellectual prodigy. With some prodding and nurturing from his wife and his mentor, Cedric accepts a scholarship to attend college and hone his magical abilities. He matures and finds his niche in magic and wetland studies, and he and Niobe have a child, Cedric Jr. With a bright future ahead and wizardly greatness assured, Cedric is content and life in the Kaftan house is happy. However, a few years later, Cedric learns of a plot to kill Niobe. Seeing only one way to avert it, Cedric leaves school, goes home to Niobe, hastily puts his affairs in order, and sets in motion a plan to save his wife's life... by taking her place. On the fateful morning, Cedric wakes to make love to his wife one last time, kisses her goodbye, and goes into the woods to face his destiny. Awoken by gunshots, Niobe learns her husband was assassinated by agents of Satan as part of a plot. She also learns that she, not her husband, was the target. Niobe's anger at her husband's life being cut short makes her vow to make Satan pay.

She is invited to take the place of one of three women sharing a physical body as different aspects of the Incarnation of Fate. Eager to thwart Satan's plans and avenge Cedric, she leaves her child with Cedric's cousin and becomes Clotho, the youngest aspect of the Fates. The Fates weave the tapestry of life and have discretion over the length of human lives and the pattern they produce. Clotho, the youngest, spins the threads from the substance of Void, Lachesis, the middle aspect, measures the threads, and Atropos, the oldest, cuts the thread of each individual human. When she becomes Clotho, Niobe must journey to the edge of the Void without aid from the other Fates and replenish her stock of thread-material.

Because incarnations do not age, Niobe spends many years as Clotho. She frequently visits her son, who has befriended Cedric's younger cousin, Pacian. Because the fact of her not ageing would be noticed, she takes the form of the grandmotherly Atropos, pretending to be a concerned family friend. One day the Fates take the two boys to a fortune teller, who gives them disturbing news. Each of the boys will have a daughter who will oppose a tangle in the threads of life. One of the girls is will marry Death, and the other is fated to marry Evil.

Niobe leaves the office of Clotho and returns to mortal life to marry Pacian, who has matured in the meantime. She gives birth to a daughter they name Orb. At around the same time, her son, now a powerful magician, has a daughter named Luna. The girls grow up together under the magician's protection. One day, the girls and Niobe leave on a quest for powerful artifacts that will enhance their natural talents. Satan uses the opportunity to send demons against them; although he knows one of the girls is fated to marry him, he is not interested in a wife who is not evil. Niobe keeps the girls safe, and Satan's plot comes to nothing.

A year after the events of On a Pale Horse, the now middle-aged Niobe is again asked to join the Incarnation of Fate, this time as Lachesis. Satan has arranged that all three offices become vacant at the same time, making the Incarnation of Fate inexperienced in all three aspects simultaneously. The current officeholders hope to use Niobe's previous experience as an ace in the hole to thwart Satan's latest plot.

They learn that Satan plans to cause political turmoil in the UN by having one of his minions plant a stink bomb. They are forced to spend time investigating likely minions one by one, while in the meantime Satan offers ageing political candidates a chance at renewed youth and the chance to start over in their careers, in exchange for their resignation from office. He plans to replace them with his own minions who would work against Luna. Realizing that their inexperience is a liability, the Fates seek help. They learn that Niobe's magician son can help them. Unfortunately he is now in Hell. Satan cannot prevent them from searching for him, but he can make the quest very unpleasant and one of them must risk her own soul in the process. Niobe is worried that Satan will cheat, so she arranges for the Incarnation of War to supervise the contest.

Niobe leaves the Fates' collective body and goes to Hell. She must beat Satan's challenge—a puzzle-maze—to get the answers she needs. Eventually, she finds her son, but Satan has cast an illusion over him. She solves the puzzle anyway—and learns that Satan's plot can be stopped by Atropos, by cutting short the lives of Satan's minions. Niobe wins the game and is allowed to leave Hell freely.

Fate's accoutrements[]

The Thread of Life[]

Fate's primary concern is with the threads that govern mortal lives. As Clotho she spins them from the Void of Chaos, as Lachesis she measures and places them, and as Atropos she cuts them. She can create travel-threads at will, sending them out and travelling along them wherever she wishes, as well as "Read-Only" threads to allow her to check that everything is running smoothly. In addition, an invisible web of them surrounds her at all times, protecting her from harm, as like some Incarnations, she cannot be killed.

The Tapestry[]

The Tapestry of life is an immeasurably enormous tapestry containing all the threads of life from the beginning of time to the end, chronicling all of human existence. Fate's task is to build and maintain the tapestry, though like all of the Incarnations, she has a staff that handles the routine issues – there is simply too much for her to do it all herself. The Tapestry has many unusual properties – its main one being that it does not function as something only half complete. It does not end where they are working on it, but simply fades into the future or becomes impenetrably tangled and impossible to read. Correcting these tangles is what takes up much of Fate's time, in addition to working with Chronos to schedule where in the tapestry each thread should be anchored and where it should be cut. A semi-physical form of the Tapestry resides in Fate's Abode, but it is merely a representation – the true Tapestry is so massive and complex as to be incomprehensible except at a very specific level. As such, the Tapestry can only be harmed indirectly by altering individual events – the Tapestry as a whole remains largely untouchable.

Method of transfer[]

Of all the incarnations, Fate's transfer is the simplest and the easiest. It is also unusual in that when an Incarnation of Fate steps down she is actually returned to mortal world rather than being sent on to Heaven or Hell. The only other Incarnation who follows this is Nature. Fate's transfers however, are completely voluntary on all sides. When one of the Aspects of Fate decides she is tired of being an Incarnation she chooses an appropriate successor and offers them the job. If they decline, she picks another. If they agree then the exchange is as simple as a handshake. The role of Fate is usually taken by a Female.

Reception[]

In a review for the Library Journal, Jackie Cassada says that With a Tangled Skein is "full of logic puzzles and mazes to unravel, this latest novel by the prolific Anthony will please his many fans."^[1]

Dave Langford reviewed With a Tangled Skein for White Dwarf #82, and stated that "Anthony's fluency never flags, but Skein suffers from dull passages rehashing earlier books, and falls apart entirely at the end."^[2]

Notes[]

External links[]

• With a Tangled Skein title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database