Titans of Chaos Read online

  A Laestrygonian, with exaggerated casualness, stepped out from a group of petrified Laestrygonians and took a position behind the Atlantean man who was stooping over me.

  The Atlantean straightened up and cast a frowning glance at the Laestrygonian.

  The Laestrygonian smiled with his huge shark-smile, nodded to him casually, gave him sort of a breezy salute with one finger. "How's it going?" he said in a chummy voice.

  Mavors, his voice carrying across the wide space, said loudly, "Mr. mac FirBolg, please desist. I can maim you without killing you. I can overcome your various powers merely by decreeing that they will operate improperly against me. I can decree that I will be victorious if we fight. Don't make me fight children."

  The Laestrygonian muttered to himself, "Oh, great. Fifth in command. My choice. 'What do I do now, Leader... ?' Okay, do something smart. Smart, smart. Make Amelia proud of your sorry ass."

  Mulciber had scuttled around in a circle, so that he could keep an eye on the Laestrygonian, but he was half hunched over, keeping one hand on the chest of the statue. The stone wiggled under his fingers. Mulciber did not look too happy.

  The Laestrygonian straightened up and shouted across the open space. "Okay, well, right, then!

  Let's talk this out for a second, hey?"

  Mavors called back, his voice toneless: 'There is no basis for negotiation, Mr. mac FirBolg. No matter what your promises, it is too dangerous for you to be allowed at liberty. Your only bargaining power would be a threat to kill yourself. If you thought it was your duty, to sacrifice yourself in order to aid the triumph of Chaos over Cosmos, you would have done so already. You have made an honorable attempt, as all prisoners of war are bound to do, to escape. That escape is impossible. You have no reason to pursue the matter."

  The Laestrygonian stood there, fidgeting. He melted and flowed like wax. Now it was Colin standing there, dressed in a black tunic of feathery stuff. He was still fidgeting.

  A voice in my head said, Mother, I will help you. Another battle comes; Mavors will be the victor, for he must be victorious in all melee, but I will delay the victory. Then my debt to you is done.

  I blinked. Who the hell was that... ?

  Mavors called, "Do you have anything to say, Mr. mac FirBolg?"

  Colin was grinning. "Yeah. I've got something to say. Yoo-hoo! Echidna! Can you hear me? I said your name. Here's the guy you were looking for! Hallo, hallo? GET 'EM!"

  I saw it through the broken stained-glass window. A whirlpool opened suddenly within the waters behind, swallowing dozens of ships in an instant. Up through the tunnel of air, a figure rose, wrapped in shadow, growing.

  Echidna, taller than a mountain, rose up out of the waves behind the ship on which Mavors stood.

  Her face was more beautiful than before, made stern and noble by an inner light. But now she wore a tight-cheeked helmet with a nodding plume; a breastplate of barnacle-covered bronze was molded to her rounded breasts and flat abdomen; and in her slim white hands were both shield and spear, each a match for her monstrous size. The spear was taller than a minaret; the shield was a full moon.

  Rivers fell from the shining scales of her snake-body, and her serpent colors wavered beneath the waves: green, green-gold, dappled gray and blue, and spotted red.

  A monster, yes, but at the moment she was a monster on our side. I cannot tell you how lovely she looked, how proud, how brave.

  Her voice was soft and cool as ice: "Mavors, I am your death. My son Grendel, whom you slew, had no grave; nor shall you."

  Mavors said, "Retreat, and I shall spare you. I hunt the sons and the daughter of Chaos this day."

  "The daughter of Chaos my daughter-in-law was meant to be. That joy died. She and I will know joy again when you fall."

  "I am battle itself. I will not fall, save to fall upon you. Let us begin."

  He gave a mighty shout and shook his spear. An aura of flame spread from him in all directions.

  When she screamed a deadly falcon-wail, the sky turned black, and the waves leaped hundreds of feet into the air. A wild storm erupted.

  Mavors cast the spear at her. His spear turned ruby red as it flew, and it shattered her vast shield and pierced her between her round breasts. It should have penetrated her heart.

  She plucked it out with a gesture of indifference, flicking it aside, a toothpick. Meanwhile, with her other hand, she drove her titanic spear through the hull of the black ship in which Mavors stood and, with a twist of her hand, shattered the ship as if it were matchwood. Mavors went flying head over heels into the waters. His flame was quenched.

  With her fine white teeth, she severed the straps of her broken shield, and tossed it from her, crushing a battalion.

  Roaring their battle slogans, the Laestrygonians and Atlanteans rushed to the breach of the hull, casting spears and arrows at Echidna. Many dove into the water, to come to the aid of their chief.

  Echidna paused only to breathe flame and poisonous smoke on the men, snatching up a half dozen of them in one tennis-court-size hand to stuff as bloody gobbets into her mouth before she inclined her head to the waters and lifted her huge lace-fluked tail.

  Down she dove, seeking Mavors, and a rolling mile of speckled snake-tail trailed in a huge semicircle after her, up out of the waves where she had risen, down into the waves where she dove. Her scorpion sting lolled in the air for a moment, throwing spray high, and then she was gone.

  Poisons came from the scorpion tail, mingled with the splash of spray as she dove, and Laestrygonians staggered away from the black rain, screaming, clutching bits of burned and melted faces.

  A crewman from the golem shouted down, "Boss! Boss! Should we go save Mavors?"

  Mulciber said, "What, him? Kidding, right?"

  But the statue trembled under his hand at that moment, and sweat began to roll down his face.

  "Uh-oh."

  Colin turned into a column of flame. The Atlantean next to me flinched back; several Laestrygonians leaped toward Colin in long, loping steps, shooting arrows as they came.

  I was almost still too weak to stand, but I was not too weak to do something. I reached up into the heavy substance of hyperspace, the fluid medium thicker than liquid lead, and pulled it down, rotated a mass of it into this space.

  A wash of fluid, a small lake, heavier and denser than anything made of matter, flooded into existence around me. Laestrygonians and Atlanteans were swept backwards. The hull underfoot gave way. Everything around me collapsed. Beneath was roaring sea, into which men and splinters were falling, tons of earth, upturned flowerbeds. »

  I pushed most of my mass into the fourth dimension, and Colin put an arm made of flame around me.

  A cloud of dark air, containing the internal nature of Quentin, swept up around us. He breathed.

  Magic and oxygen were force-fed into Colin, who blazed brighter and hotter, fiercer and wilder.

  Quentin said, "My body's turned to stone and I cannot get back into it. Victor and Vanity are both stone, too. Wounded, but frozen. We need to get to them."

  Colin said, "Thanks for including me in that spell. When it broke for you, it broke for me. Or did Trismegistus do that by accident by making us all the same for all?"

  Mulciber, still crouched over the trembling statue of Trismegistus, called out, "Stop! I can still have my Taloi get you! Gun crew! Stand ready!"

  Gun turrets rotated to cover us. A mass of riflemen came out of hatches on the neck, and stood formed into ranges along the epaulettes of the metal giant, field guns and rifles at the ready.

  Quentin said, "Colin, can you break the deck between Mulciber's feet where he is standing, if you had to? Get ready."

  From the column of Colin, an arm of white-hot fire drew back, and a mass of flame shaped like a pinwheel, turning, began to glow on the end of it, intolerably bright.

  Mulciber said, "Oh, come on! Fire doesn't hurt me. I am the god of volcanoes. I piss lava."

  Colin said, "Burns decks, though. You might drop
your prisoner."

  Quentin said, "Sir, we mean no disrespect, but we cannot allow you to imprison us. I am supposing the god of iron and stone is diminished in resources when plunged into deep ocean?

  Can you make the same boast Mavors made, and tell us you can maim us without killing us with the huge guns on your machine?"

  Mulciber took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "This is not a good day. Should've stayed in bed. Hey! Miss Windrose! You in that mess of flames somewhere?"

  I called back, "I am very well, thank you, Lord Talbot. I mean, Mulciber. This fire doesn't hurt me."

  He squinted and shrugged his huge shoulders, a grotesque rolling motion. "Phaethusa, you know I've nothing against you. Believe me, I've got nothing against your kind. But the universe ain't mine to take risks with. I'm going to have to attack, and I'll hurt you and your friends pretty badly before it's over, and you all getting yourselves killed is as much bad to me as if I let you go. You see? You see what I am saying?"

  "Sir, I am not going to hurt the world, or let my people in Chaos hurt it. It is the only world I know. But I am going to be free, and so are my friends!"

  "I just want your word on that."

  "My... my word... ?"

  "You're old enough to know what it means. You know what I am asking."

  I spoke quickly, before Quentin or Colin could tell me not to do so.

  And so I said, "I swear it."

  He bent over and gripped the statue of Trismegistus with both hands.

  Mulciber looked up. "And I decree you'll not survive what comes if you break that oath, not you nor your friends neither. Agreed... ?"

  I said, "As long as I am free, I agree."

  Mulciber looked back down at the statue of Trismegistus. He looked quite grim, and wrinkles crumpled up his knotty face.

  He spoke again: "Okay. You caught me at a busy time. Your good luck, I guess. Go. Take your friends. Get a medical kit from some of these bodies lying around the deck here. And if you ever decide you want that job after all, look me up. Okay?"

  Fate and Freedom

  The gray waves of the North Sea pitched and rolled the silvery boat, and a cold drizzling fog woven with blowing snowflakes attempted to make us miserable as we shivered on the deck.

  The attempt failed. Vanity's face was red with cold, and frost had gathered on the furry hem of her parka hood, and snowflakes on her delicate eyelashes, but delight simply burned from her. In one hand she held her champagne glass. The bottle was tucked into a lump of snow which had gathered beneath the stern bench, since we did not have an ice bucket. Victor was solemn and glad; Quentin could not cease from smiling.

  Victor raised his glass, and said in a voice that lacked its usual stern note: "It is too soon to celebrate. The fate of death hangs over us, and we must proceed rigorously and logically. The experiment is still awaiting results." Then he forswore his words by taking a long sip of the bubbling, bright liquid.

  Vanity hiccuped, and giggled, covering her nose with her mitten. "Nope! Here he comes.

  Experimental results. He's looking for the boat."

  Across the dark sea the moon sent here and there a slanted pillar of silver light into the heaving mass of snowy waters.

  The rest of the scene was as dark as the clouds above. A winged shape swept across the waves toward us, and he could be glimpsed only when he passed through one of those curtains of moonlight. His eyes were visible like two sparks of green marsh gas, and when he opened his mouth to cry halloo, the tiny flame of his tongue was bright.

  The deck was slightly larger in this version. Like "finding" a space-worthy shape, Vanity found an undamaged version of her ship beneath the wrecked hull. Her ship was all ships.

  Quentin said, "The only reason why we let him go off alone was because of the ring. Why is he visible?"

  Vanity said, "He can't see us."

  Victor, whose eyes these days operated on more than one band of the spectrum, could pick him out. Victor opened his third eye and shot out a bright golden beam, painfully bright in the utter gloom.

  Phobetor landed on the stern of the heaving boat and shrank into Colin, who was dressed in a dark sea-coat and sweater.

  "You started drinking without me?" were his first words.

  "Celebrating!" I said. The champagne had made my face hot, so I threw back my hood and let the snow drift into my hair. I gave him a big and happy smile. "We were sure you'd succeed!"

  "Well, you're right about that," Colin said. "The fate that made it so Mortimer was touched in the head is gone. I don't know what you four did here on the boat at midnight, but just when the church-tower clock struck twelve, I flew up to his little barred window and did my hoodoo. Heck, once he was talking normal and stuff, I passed him my cell phone through the bars and let him call his brother Sam the Drayman. He was all crying and laughing so much, I thought it hadn't done anything, and he was still cuckoo, but..." He shrugged. "It worked on a small scale. We can undo fate."

  Vanity smiled, and her white teeth showed. "And at least one man knows the gods are real. That won't overthrow them. But it is a start."

  Victor raised a hand. "Now to save our lives. Everyone ready?"

  Quentin took several sticks of colored chalk in his hand and threw them on the deck. In a moment, the snow was swept aside, and the boards were bright with circles and summoning triangles, pentagrams and stars-of-David, all written in and around with Latin and Greek script.

  I was feeling a little light-headed and giggly, until Victor swept that azure beam from his third metallic eye across me and removed the alcohol from my bloodstream. He did not bother to sober up Vanity: She had already had Andromeda establish the Olympian laws of nature we needed.

  At first our death was far away in the time-stream, but Quentin poked pins in a little wax doll of Victor, which did not hurt Victor in the slightest but sent out a signal that Victor was in danger.

  His death grew close, curious, hoping for an opportunity to act. This was the curse slaying Lamia had created.

  The warning-fate that Mavors had set up came alive within the time-stream, too. We took care of it first. Yes, we had debated the wisdom of having Mavors show up to save us each time we were in an auto accident, or fell down a flight of stairs or something, but in the end we decided we had to take care of ourselves without help.

  That left only the death-fate, which closed in more rapidly once the Mavors counterfate was out of the way. Obviously it was more likely that we would die once no protector was around to save us.

  The hard part for me was getting Victor to see the direction the death-fate was in: I took his head in my hands and pulled it up out of three-space, and pointed it in the time direction. His brain did not record any activity at that moment. I assume he was unable, by his very nature, to see what I saw. But the blue beam came out of his third eye all proper and normal, and dissolved the huge lump of time-energy.

  The hardest part for Quentin was when a voice spoke to him from the cloud. With his hands shaking, he took the champagne bottle and poured himself two glasses. He cut himself with his athame, his witch's knife, and dropped a drop of blood into one.

  "Here is the blood shed by she who has offended me," he said, his voice thick. "Here is my anger and my retribution, which I, Fallen and Archon of the Fallen, Master of the Art, have a right to claim. I drown you in the deep."

  He tossed the wineglass into the sea.

  He held up the other glass. "Here are the sins of Lamia against me. The pain and humiliation...

  the... tears I cried. The sound of her hateful voice as she called me a child... and molestation...

  ach! Here are her sins. Let the sea, let the great sea drink them, and may they forever be gone and be forgotten, as I forget them. I drown you in the deep."

  The second glass twinkled in the gloom as it sailed over the railing and into the snowy sea air.

  He said, "I forgive, I forgive, I forgive you."

  Then he sat down and put his face in his h
ands. I think he was crying. Vanity sat next to him on the bench and put her arms around his shaking shoulders.

  I said, "What just happened?"

  Colin was standing very close behind me. "Didn't you feel it? Trismegistus used the fact that Victor here killed Lamia and her two pals, ap Cymru and what's-her-name, the Phaeacian, to power his curse against us. Necromancy. The winged bastard probably expected us to kill the bitches. There was a moral component, a vengeance involved. We killed Lamia, so fate could kill us. Big Q, our little Quentin here, just called their bluff and trumped their ace. He forgives Lamia, so her death has to forgive Victor. That's the way I figure it, anyway. Quentin was really shaken up by the time Lamia had him strapped to the table. Maybe he can get over it, now."

  "Why is he crying?" I said. I was thinking that boys were not supposed to cry, but I did not say that. It would have sounded like such a stereotype. But I thought it.

  Victor said, "Growing pains. Children hold grudges. Adults cannot."

  I said to Colin, "I understand four parts of what we must do to unwind an Olympian fate. But what do you do? What did you do to save Mr. Finkelstein?"

  He spread his hands. "You're the one person I cannot explain it to, Amelia."

  "Try me."

  "I turn myself into glass and remember the Real Me, a soul without a body, outside of time, eternal, enlightened, unstained. I think about how Fate has no power over Infinity. And I think of freedom. I am inspired by freedom: In my heart I sing of it. None of my brothers in the dream-universes can do what I do, for they have never been bound, and they do not hate prison half so much."

  "I think I do understand." I smiled at him. Sometimes Colin seems sweet.

  Victor interrupted the conversation. "Amelia's turn next. We have to get rid of the curse Boggin put on her; otherwise, he can find her whenever he wants."

  It didn't work. I could give the frozen time more free will, and Victor could make it act in a neutral fashion, but the moral component would writhe and tangle, and slowly correct the fate back to what it had been.

  Quentin said, "I am sorry. If I were more skilled, studied more deeply in the One True Art, perhaps-"