Titans of Chaos Read online

  I shouted, "But Parthenope said Trismegistus wanted to end the world! He must be lying to someone! Why not to you?"

  But she had glided backwards, well out of way of the oncoming avalanche of maenads.

  An inch-high flood of milk and wine flowed into the area, pushing a tide-ripple of grass blades, dead leaves, and litter.

  The maenads splashed forward, screaming and yodeling. I saw how the calm nymphs each drew a circle in the grass around them with their willow wands. As if those gestured circles had created towers of invulnerable glass, the maenad horde spilled left and right around each unruffled and mysteriously smiling nymph, and none of the wild women, despite the press and the confusion, approached within a yard of them. Even the ripple of dirty milk parted and went around them.

  I was looking at Colin during that moment. Maybe I was screaming to him. I don't know. But the shrilly shouting bacchants were between him and the undisturbed nymphs, reaching toward him with long fingernails. He was closer to them than I was. He would be first.

  There was an altercation suddenly. Perhaps two maenads both wanted to be the first to sink her fine white teeth into Colin. Perhaps it was just an accident.

  One ran her sister through the stomach with her spear; the impaled girl ripped off the spear arm of her attacker and flung it high overhead, forming a momentary rainbow of blood.

  Because I was looking right at him, I actually saw it happen. The square slab of grassy stone on which he lay spun upside down. Colin was dumped into a square hole. The reverse side of this slab was decorated with an identical plot of grass. The pattern of cracks on this side of the stone was the same as on the other side.

  And there was a Colin, in his black tuxedo, lying in the same place. He had been stuck to the underside of the stone, and the rotation lifted him into position. The new Colin was lying in the same position and posture, more or less, that the old Colin had been.

  The only thing that was different was that the guitar got dumped down the hole with the real Colin.

  The two fighting maenads were trampled and stabbed by their impatient sisters. Beautiful, screaming women, faces flushed with wine, eyes stark with madness, now stabbed Colin's prone form. A score of spears transfixed his flesh.

  Or tried to. The tuxedo jacket ripped beneath the impact of the ivy-wreathed spearheads, but a jarring report, the clang of metal against metal, sang in the air as the spearheads skittered from the body, or snapped in two.

  In that same moment, a dozen more maenads, ignoring Colin, jumped clean over him and over the women savaging him, and fell upon me. I could raise no hand to defend myself; my voice was drowned in screams, my powers were...

  On. My powers were on. I could see hyperspace.

  I moved my body slightly and let the spears and truncheons fall "through" the space my body occupied without touching me.

  I saw Colin rising to his feet. He did not stand up as a man does, by bending his legs and putting his weight beneath: No, he merely rose up like a flagpole being hauled erect. The bloody-nailed maenads fell backwards, wary, their faces pale with anger.

  The spears had torn both fabric and flesh, revealing an integument of metallic gold beneath. His face was wounded, and the flesh of his cheeks hung limply from this white bony substance beneath: but Colin's eyes were calm with a terrible calm. He put his hands to the flesh of his face.

  There was a hiss of noise, and the plasticlike flesh of his cheeks once more hid the bone structure beneath.

  I did not see what passed from Colin to the women, or how the molecular engines entered the maenad bloodstreams, but I saw the effect. The wild women sank to the ground. Weapons dropped from limp fingers, and the women, no longer maddened, smiled empty smiles at each other, heavily sedated.

  "The dream-lord robs the bacchants of their dreams of hate!" called Oenone in a voice of mingled fear and wonder. "Unmake his charm, O sisters mine, ere it is too late!"

  The five nymphs pointed their wands at Colin, who stood in his torn tuxedo, hands casually in his pockets. They called out secret names and words of power. Whatever the nymphs had been expecting to happen, did not happen. Colin did not even bother to smile.

  At this same time, a hole opened in the ground directly below me. I did not fall into it, only because my weight was no longer distributed into Earth's time-space.

  Far below, I saw a buried river, some huge sewer main with concrete banks. In the middle of the river, directly below me, was the Argent Nautilus,

  Vanity rose up into view. She was wrapped in a chain-mail jerkin. Her expression was thoughtful.

  She levitated into a position above and somewhat behind Colin.

  With a shrill noise of hate, the white-faced bacchants darted their spears at the hovering girl, or threw their metal truncheons. The metal objects slowed, and came to rest hanging in a circle in the air near her.

  She made a gesture: And the spears and truncheons tilted left and right, points outward, forming the pattern of a pentagram in the air, with herself in the midmost A final spear she took in hand, one that had pierced Colin's torn face. Vanity laid the spearshaft across her knee and strained.

  The wood snapped in two.

  Vanity spoke, and a voice that was not hers came from her mouth: "The power of the bacchants breaks. This demonstration involves the moral principle of balance, or quid pro quo. The essential nature of the wounds just now inflicted, I admix to the humors released into the air by the blood thus spilled. A sympathetic and contagious connection is formed to those who made the wounds.

  Clearly this assault has dissolved the wards that might otherwise deflect the returning, or responsive counterinfluence. Any questions... ?"

  Utter silence had fallen across the maenads.

  The nymphs raised their willow wands. Oenone said, 'This is a sorceress! Sisters! Chant the counterspell, and infuse the furious spirits once again into the maenads!"

  Vanity waved her broken spearshaft negligently toward Oenone. "I call these maenads killers-of-trees, despoilers of the sacred forests where happy meliads and tree-nymphs dwell. The vengeance I set in motion defends the nymphic race. Any nymph who hinders me admits she wishes no defense; I therefore step inside her ward. Speak, if you consent. Otherwise, your silence is consent. I, Eidotheia, friend of homeless Menelaus, by virtue of the kind act by which I found the hero his home, here now complete my demonstration. Maenads! The true name of the father of salmons is Gwion."

  The whole army of maenads simply toppled: They fell on their faces and began flopping and writhing like fish out of water. With arched backs and hands held to their sides, the maenads rolled and kicked and shuddered, mouths gaping. It would have been funny, had they not been choking to death in air.

  The form of Vanity turned pale, her flesh becoming porcelain. Above her and behind her stood a shadow with the features of Quentin, which had become visible when he spoke his name.

  Apparently it was a part of spell-weaving; the nymphs had been announcing their own names as well.

  All five nymphs now raised their willow wands and pointed them toward Vanity's body hanging in midair. Leaves of many colors and flower petals swirled up from the ground and made dancing spirals around the nymphs, circling high and low.

  Quentin now began to grow. Inky shadows, despite that it was day, were streaming in billows out of Vanity's chain mail, and the lengthening shadow swirled around her form without weight, like the hem of a long cloak in a high wind.

  The eyes of the nymphs were glittering with fear. The shadowy image of Quentin's face was smiling introspec-tively: the smile of the Sphinx of Memphis. His eyes, black lids over ebony orbs, were partly closed.

  At that same moment in time, the first two of the Amazon outriders came suddenly and swiftly into the glade, their steeds loping with silent speed across the grass.

  Both riders, in one smooth motion, chambered a different type of round and shot.

  I bent the world-path of the bullet aimed toward Quentin into the chest of Ethe
mea. Her magic failed as the silver bullet struck her; there was a flash of azure light in her gaping chest wound, and her soul did not survive the scuttling of the vessel she was occupying.

  The other bullet struck Colin. Colin tilted slightly, and more flesh was shaken from his damaged face, but otherwise there was no result. For some reason, the anti-psychic shell had no effect whatsoever.

  A third eye opened on Colin's forehead. Blue, metallic, glittering with dazzling power, it sent out a beam that played across the four remaining nymphs. Two of them screamed and tried to jump back into the trees from which they had come. But it seemed as if that pesky law of nature, which says that two solids cannot occupy the same space at the same time, was being enforced, for once.

  The girls slammed their heads against the tree boles, and sat down. One of them put her hands to her broken nose and started crying.

  I reached out and turned the one Amazon's mechanical soul to "off."

  A trapdoor opened in the grass beneath the hooves of the other Amazon rider. The Amazon, even as she was falling, shouldered her weapon and shot round after round below her.

  I could see through the intervening ground that the Amazon was shooting as she fell. Shooting a second girl who looked like Vanity.

  Or, rather, shooting at Vanity. The green stone around Vanity's neck was pulsing and swimming with power. I saw the shells, as they flew over the railing of the ship, enter the laws of nature whose internal natures were a bit more Aristotelian and a bit less Newtonian. For Aristotle, heavy objects fall faster than light ones, and kinetic energy simply is not one-half momentum times velocity. The bullets slowed down considerably.

  According to Aristotle, the natural motion of fire was to rise, and move toward the divine fires in the crystal spheres beyond the moon. Vanity must have persuaded the bullets something to the effect that the rules about fire applied to them. The bullets flew wide overhead, slowing and tumbling, rising toward the ceiling like bubbles."

  I reached out farther, to the other Amazon riders coming up the slope. They could not see me, because of the intervening trees and leaves. But I could see them. I began switching them "off" as quickly as my energy tendrils could snap across the intervening time-space.

  It was taking too long. I would never get them all in time.

  Plan B: I traced the lines of moral obligation between them to identify the leader. I reprogrammed her to call off the attack and sound the retreat.

  The other Amazons obeyed without question. Away they went, riding swiftly and silently.

  Darkness floated out from Quentin. It passed over the maenads; and where it had passed, they were transformed. Some turned into furry sleek shapes. For others, skins grew thick and turned to bark; hair rose up, elongating strangely, becoming leaves and drooping vines. Toes dug into the soil.

  In a few moments, we stood within the silence of a forest more thick and lush than before. The uprooted trees were now replaced by pines and cedars. Ivy and grapevines crawled from branch to branch. Hot-eyed leopardesses and she-panthers stalked among the trees, snarling, but the shadow-version of Quentin spoke a word, and they became gentle.

  We were alone with one sleeping Amazon (asleep on her horse, seated at attention), three hollow-eyed nymphs (standing), and one weeping nymph (seated on the ground).

  I said to the version of Colin, "They thought I was Vanity. When they shot me. The Amazons used the wrong shell. Was that because you all were-?"

  Colin pulled off the prosthetic, which once had been his face, and straightened up. Nanotech machines, small as molecules, rippled through his flesh, uncompressing his bones and muscles, shortening and coloring hair.

  The spine opened up with ugly popping noises as the body grew a foot taller. His shape was rearranged from a thickset and hairy wrestler's body to a longer, thinner, swimmer's farm.

  When the one-eyed insectoid thing put the prosthetic face back in place, the features were different. The seam around his chin and ears hissed and vanished.

  Victor said, "Well, come now, Amelia. We are shape-changers, after all."

  Quentin's voice spoke out of the shadow overhead: "Be careful lowering my statue."

  The chain-mail-wrapped life-size porcelain statue of Vanity sank to the ground. Quentin's voice said, "I particularly like the hands. They were the hardest part to get right. Look at how lifelike the fingers are!"

  Eagle-winged Colin (in the torn tatters of a once-fine tuxedo) fluttered up from a secret trapdoor in the grass, with a struggling Amazon in his arms. The girl was very strong, and she struck and kicked with savage precision, her face was without fear, and she fought in complete silence.

  Colin managed to gasp out: "Amelia! Please... ?"

  Make that, two sleeping Amazons. I noticed Colin managed to squeeze the sleeping girl's breasts as he lowered her to the ground. Jerk.

  He spent a moment straightening his broken bones, popping an eye back into place, and wiping away what turned out to be red ink. Okay, so maybe he thought he deserved to cop a feel from a soldier-girl who had mauled him pretty heavily. That still made him a jerk.

  Colin folded back his wings, and they turned into a wide-shouldered black garment, shimmering with feathers, a knee-length tuniclike affair that left his arms and legs free. Neat trick when one needs to change clothes.

  The guitar was strapped over his back. He took it by the neck and held it out. "Is this really for me?"

  I will never understand myself. Instead of flinging myself into Victor's arms, and kissing and hugging him with sighs and sobs of glad relief, I flung myself at a very surprised Colin, pushing aside the stupid guitar and eagerly seeking out his lips.

  Don't ask me to explain it. I can't explain it.

  But I could see (since I could look every direction at once, even with my eyes closed) the puzzled frown beginning to form on the face of Victor, the sternly repressed gleam of pain in his eyes.

  Doors and Corridors Unseen

  Quentin, hovering, still within the swirled darkness of shadow and power, said quietly but sternly to the nymphs, "Surrender, and swear not to attack any of the five of us again, in person or by proxy, in word or deed."

  One of the nymphs, Lara, said quietly, "Do you threaten us, Lord of Chaos? We helpless women?

  Cruel Olympians impressed us to these evil deeds; we are enspelled by Trismegistus, the God of Magic, Father of Lies."

  Quentin raised his shadowy hand, and dark flame seemed to cling to his fingers. He spoke a Word of Power, and the stones rang underfoot as if a gong had rung, moaning, echoing, and vibrating.

  "Swear!" he said in a soft voice, deadly with menace, "Swear, or I, Eidotheia, put upon you a curse as swift and bloody as that which you conspired to put on us!"

  Lara held up her hands. "Our hands are clean of blood!"

  He said, "As are mine, if the Amazon shoots you through the brainpan. Amelia... ? If you will do the honors... ?"

  Hey. Wasn't I supposed to be in charge? On the other hand, all I was doing right now was pressing my shaking body up to Colin's, so I guess a little insubordination among the ranks was to be expected.

  I manipulated the atoms in the Amazon's brain. She chambered an anti-psychic round and raised the weapon to her shoulder, aiming at Lara.

  Lara said softly, "Shoot. I do not know fear."

  The other nymphs looked at each other. The one with the broken nose, Sagaritis, murmured, "The maenads are trapped, motionless and paralyzed,, imprisoned in forms alien to their wild freedom, but forms natural and dear to us. What is the worst this child might do to us? Turn us into trees?"

  Another nymph murmured, "What is death to us? The guide of the dead has vowed to guide our shades astray, and lead us to the light again, where we never can belong."

  It was Victor who interrupted, saying coldly to Quentin: "Call Hades."

  Vanity-the real Vanity, who had come up through one of the trapdoors in the clearing just at that moment-put her hands in front of her mouth, and screamed in utmost pani
c. "Don't say that name! He heard! He's coming!"

  Her eyes were rolling and starting with fear: Her voice and limbs shook.

  The nymphs, so defiant a moment before, threw themselves on their faces, groveling, begging, and crying. The change from self-possessed enchantresses to quaking shapes of utter panic was too quick to be believed.

  The shadow of Quentin casually moved over to where Vanity was. She had elevated his empty body into place through her trapdoor of grass. He shrank and resumed his flesh and stood. He put out his hand and called: From among the trees came flying a length of white wood, his wand, and it fell lightly into his palm. I suppressed a giggle: He looked so like a stage magician in his tuxedo.

  Only now did he deign to turn and notice the groveling, pleading forms of the lovely nymphs.

  Their tresses, once crowned with flowers, were now tangled in the trampled mud and wine of the grass.

  Quentin raised his white wand, saying, "There is but one world where the Lord of Death has no reign, and but one people beyond the power of his laws, beyond the power of all laws! I am a Prince of Chaos, the realm where time, and space, and order are jarred and confounded together in roaring tumult-what is death to me?"

  There was more screaming from the nymphs, calls of "Save me!" "I'll swear!" "Master, spare me!" while he spoke sharply at them, demanding their oaths.

  It was confusing, but Quentin pointed his stick at them, one after another, and exacted the wording of the vows he wanted.

  Quentin waved his wand over them and demanded them to be silent. With a little whimpering and weeping, the girls fell quiet.

  Victor seemed pleased. The nymphs had not seen what I saw when he spoke. I had seen the inner nature of the words coming from his mouth. When Victor spoke the dread true name of the Lord of Hell, it was merely air-compression waves forming an arbitrary symbol. He could not say magic words. His voice would never call up gods, no matter what forbidden names he spoke.

  I had also seen the utility shining from Vanity's playacted panic, and had seen the deceptive inner nature of her frantic words.