John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

Thank you, Victor.

Aloud, I said, “I’m ready.”

Vanity said, “I’m ready, too. What do we do?”

I said, “What do your instincts tell you?”

“Hmm… Let me think… Avoid falling from heights, dark places, and loud noises. Have babies.”

“I’m serious!” I said.

She looked at me with her wide, wide green eyes. “I am, too. What does ‘listen to your instincts’ mean?”

Quentin said, “The first thing to do in any ritual, is sanctify the area. Either the time, or the place, or the persons must be set aside, held pure, from other influences, chthonic or mundane…”

“What does that mean?” she said.

“Put on a white robe, or something. That way the spirits know you are about to initiate a transformation.”

“I don’t have a white robe.”

“Some witches go sky-clad…”

“What’s that?”

“In the nude.”

“You naughty, naughty boy!”

I said, “Enough banter! Banter fun, ha ha, very funny, you are both cute. Now stop. Quentin, I do not think your magic is her paradigm.”

“What is her paradigm?”

I spread my hands and shrugged. “You heard my theory at breakfast.”

“She interprets everything in terms of herself? Her own awareness? Hmm. I am not sure how one expands one’s awareness. Vanity, maybe you have to sleep, or chew peyote, or something.”

“I’ve drunk champagne. That’s all we have time for,” she said.

I said, “You could always just command the table to open a dimensional gateway to Myriagon. You know, say, ‘Boundary, Open!’ Or, ‘Path to Myriagon, Appear!’ Like that.”

Vanity tried a number of variations on this phrase. She tried singing the command, she tried sounding solemn, she tried asking nicely. She tried at least a dozen different phrases and tones of voice.

We two were getting bored.

Vanity looked up. “I am talking to a rock. Whose idea was this?”

I said, “Maybe if you tried harder; if you really felt, deep down in your soul…”

Quentin said, “No. That is a Colin paradigm. He is the one who thinks everything is done by an inspired effort of will. I do not think any two of us have the same paradigm.”

I spread my hands. “Suggest something.”

He frowned and looked around the room.

I said, “If Colin were here, he would make a suggestion.”

“Colin would suggest tantric magic,” Quentin muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Something sky-clad people do… Hang on.”

Vanity said, “What part of you am I to hang on to, then? If you’re nude?”

I said, “Enough banter! No more banter!”

Quentin was looking at the book cabinet. “What do we know about the Phaeacians? From Homer’s Odyssey ? What does he say about them?”

I looked at him blankly. The only thing I remembered about the Odyssey was that it was harder to translate from Greek than Socratic dialogues (which were filled with labyrinthine sentences of angular complexity) and much harder than the New Testament (which was written in baby-talk Greek). “I… um… Wasn’t it the same island as Corcyra? The place where all that civil mayhem went on in Thucydides?”

Vanity looked embarrassed. “Gosh, I am supposed to be from there. I don’t remember a thing. Is that the place where they landed in a harbor and sent the messenger, and the messenger got eaten, and all the ships but one were destroyed by these bronze chariots? Nice, peaceful villages filled the valleys, but those people were actually just cattle for the man-eating men, the super warriors, from the hills?”

I said, “There was a Cyclops who ate people, but…”

Quentin was looking back and forth at us. “Uh, no. Vanity is right that there were anthropophages who dressed from head to foot in bronze, and destroyed the ships. They were called the Lystragonians. The Phaeacians were very hospitable. In fact, I always thought one of the points the poet was trying to make was to show the nature of hospitality versus barbarism, and the abuse of hospitality. The suitors of Penelope, for example…”

I said, “Rule number one: No banter. Rule number two: No digressions.”

“Fine. This is what I remember about the Phaeacians. I thought they were supposed to be fairies. Here’s why I thought so: The fruit was always in season there; their island never suffered winter’s cold or summer’s heat as did the mortal world. Their doors were guarded by dogs of gold and silver, made by Hephaestos. And their ships were magical. They sailed anywhere from any port to any other in a single night of sailing, and they needed no hand at the tiller, no oar nor sail, because the ships knew what their captains desired without a word, and a living spirit moved them. They also left Odysseus on the beach of his country surrounded by gifts, asleep, and stole away without seeing anyone or waking him up. Don’t you think that was strange? I mean, suppose the prince of, I don’t know, Sweden, were stranded on Dover Beach, and Princess Diana found him naked, and brought him to court to get a ride home. Don’t you think, instead of leaving him all alone and asleep, dropped off in a back alley of Oslo, Her Majesty’s Government would at least communicate with the government of Sweden to…”

“Babbling! Babbling!” I said. “Don’t make me make another rule!”

“Well, I am saying that’s why I thought they were fairy folk. They were shy of being seen.”

I said, “And the magic metal dogs didn’t give it away?”

Vanity broke in with a question. “Hey! Was there a range limit?”

Quentin said, “On what?”

“You said their ships could read minds. Did you have to be aboard the ship for it to work?”

Quentin simply smiled at her, and looked proud.

That smile brought a chill to my heart. No, I did not disapprove of what they felt for each other, nothing like that. It was just that I had feelings for Victor. And Victor never looked at me that way. He never looked proud of me.

Vanity spread her hands and shut her eyes. She said aloud, “Ship! Whatever ship Princess Nausicaa once owned, I have forgotten you, but you must remember me, now! Or if any ship wishes the favor of the princess of the land which built you, listen to me! The boundary between…”

She opened one eye.

“Myriagon,” I whispered.

She closed her eye. “…between Myriagon, and this place, must be opened! Sail there, come here, bring my friend Amelia Windrose…”

Quentin said softly, “Phaethusa, daughter of Helion.”

“…Um, who is also known as Phaethusa, daughter of He-lion, her powers. You knew my thought before I asked! Let it be that you set sail two nights ago, so that you already have been to Myriagon, and are even now approaching with your cargo! I conjure thee, I conjure thee, I conjure thee!”

She opened her eyes and looked at us. She smiled.

I said, “Did you feel anything happen?”

Her smile faded. “Was I supposed to feel something?”

Quentin said, “Maybe we should go to the harbor, I mean, if there is a magic ship coming… Ack! Yikes!”

He grabbed Vanity around the waist and picked her up off the table.

She giggled and looked pleased. Does love make people stupid? Meanwhile, I said, “What is wrong?”

“Don’t you see it?” He was staring at the tabletop.

The surface of the table turned translucent green, then leaf green, then clear as crystal. I was looking down a long tube or tunnel of crystal to something far, far below.

It was a head. A severed head, with its neck bones, torn throat-muscles and veins, all showing from beneath the matted tangle of the beard. The black hair was spread out in each direction from the skull, tangled and knotted around the green things growing to each side. It looked like someone had thrown a man’s head into the center of the ring of bushes.