John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

No. Not bushes. Oak trees. Oaks trees set, not in a ring, but in a widening spiral with this head at the center.

I tried to estimate the size of the giant head, if a fully grown oak tree only reached the distance from the back of its skull to its ear, or its cheek.

It opened its dead eyes.

Like brown water in a rusty pipe, a voice, deep, slow, coughing and creaking, rose from far below: “Who trespasses the bounds I watch?”

Suddenly, it seemed to me as if the tunnel of crystal down which I looked was not “down,” nor left nor right, fore nor back, nor any other direction that had a name. It was an opening into subspace, the low-energy direction I called “red.”

Quentin opened his mouth to speak, and then checked himself, looking at Vanity.

Vanity looked at the both of us, spread her hands, and shrugged. Some of the glow from the champagne was leaving us at that moment, and she looked frightened and clouded in her wits, as if she was having trouble concentrating.

She said, “I am not a trespasser.”

The dead mouth spoke again: “Burner of ships, daughter of virtue, I know you, though you do not. You stand with a fallen one born old before he was young, from lifeless seas beyond the seas of life; you stand with an unknown one born before the fall, from dark heavens above the heavens which hold stars. They are the foes of the Green Earth and the Blue Sea, of bright heaven above the world and dark underworld. At your word, I destroy them. Speak, and I let slip the Wild Hunt.”

She said, “These are my friends and I love them. Don’t hurt them.”

The dead face kept its motionless eyes turned toward her, quiet as a statue in a graveyard.

She said, “My friend Amelia is closer than a sister to me. She needs her powers from her home to undo a great wrong. Let her powers pass through to her. If any ship of mine is coming on my errands, let it pass.”

Vanity’s face was shining with sweat. In a cold room in the middle of winter, she was sweating.

Eventually the creaking, slow voice spoke again. “Cromm Cruich the Worm of Mist rose against me, and my songs threw him down. The Sons of Nemed, the Men of the Bolg, the Parthalonians, and the Giants of Fomor attempted these shores, and were driven back to Eire, or driven underground.

“Rome’s eagle stooped here for a time, clawing and tearing at this land, but Caesar lost his sword to Cymbaline, and Constantine called back the haughty legionnaires, departed never to return.

“I breathed a storm upon the Spanish King Philip, whose great Armada sank beneath the sorcery of the Virgin Queen; when the German Caesar sent his flying iron sky-things to hail fire and death upon this Kingdom, I spoke into the place where Arthur still recovers from his wound, and bleeding, he rose up, and drove the Huns away.

“This is my land. Her green hills and mountains, heaths and highlands, forests thick with red deer, rivers running blue into the channel or the iron-gray Northern Sea. The rain, the mist, the fogs are mine. The folk are mine, these proud, cold, silly, solemn folk, in whose bosom the first torch of liberty ever was found again, since the day the venial nobles in Rome allowed Caesar’s bloodstained hands to quench it.

“Crude Chaucer, and Milton most august, alike are mine; angelic John Keats and devilish George Gordon, Lord Byron.

“The victories at Waterloo, Trafalgar, and, yes, at Rourke’s Drift are mine. Even the massacres done to the helpless aborigines of far Tasmania are mine.

“All this island is, I am. Do you understand me?”

Vanity said softly, “Yes.”

“Then swear your most profoundest oath, swear by the blackest water of the River Styx, by the Cauldron of Arawn the Just, by the Grail of Christ the Merciful, by the Wounds of the Fisher-King and Spear that cured him, swear! Swear and bind those two you call your friends to the oath. You will never harm this island. No matter how this land offend you, nor what her crimes, nor even if all the Lordly Dead most beloved by you call with deepest tears, on knee, upon you, you shall do no hurt unto this island. Swear, and I shall let your ship pass by me.”

She said, “I swear.”

I said, “Um, so do I. God save the Queen.”

Quentin stepped over to where Headmaster Boggin had set out a box of cigars for his guests. There was an ashtray here. With the penknife used to trim the cigars, Quentin cut a strand of hair from his head, set the lock of hair in the ashtray, and ignited it with the matching cigarette lighter standing next to the box. The hair burnt with a truly disgusting smell.

Quentin said quietly, “May my life be cut as quickly, may I be burned as terribly, as this frail hair I cast into the flame, should I break this vow. I love England and will do the land no harm; no matter what crimes I am done, nor who calls on me. Black water of the Styx, Cauldron of Annfwn, Grail of Christ, Red Wounds of Alan le Gros, and Spear of Joseph of Arimathia, I pray you witness and enforce this oath, and never release me from it. So Mote It Be.”

The head said, “Done! For the span of time it takes to sing the Compline, the fetid stain of Myriagon shall be permitted to mar this place.”

The crystal tabletop darkened, transparent, translucent, opaque; and the head was gone.

I said, “How long does it take to sing the Compline?”

Quentin said, “Thirteen seconds. ‘Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night…’ ”

Even though the crystal tunnel was now opaque, I could still see it, like a green pillar issuing from the tabletop and reaching into the “red” direction. Looking at Quentin, I saw, stretching parallel to that, world-lines intersecting his nervous system, and distorting the natural flow paths of his thoughts.

“…and give your angels charge over those who sleep…”

It was the same effect I use to distort the at-rest mass-path of a heavy door to make it lighter. Something was distorting the at-rest state of the white dot at the center of his brain.

Vanity, seeing my face, shrieked and put her fingers over her mouth.

“…Tend the sick, Lord Christ…”

That dot was not, precisely speaking, “in” his brain. In the same way what we called a “song” was the terdimensional manifestation of a higher singularity, Quentin’s brain activity was an ongoing representation in time and space of the rotation of the surface of a fourth-dimensional object-event.

“…give rest to the weary…”

The dot was a monad. It was his noumenal self; the part of the self in which self-awareness resides.

“…bless the dying…”

Vibrations radiating from the monad formed six different types of energy, depending on what three-dimensional axis intersected them. Three were space, one was time, one was para-time, and the final one…

“…soothe the suffering…”

…It did not have a name. A new sense impression I had not hitherto been aware I possessed apprehended the nameless sixth vibration. The first five directions established relation and duration; this sixth gave self its self-ness. It was eternal, timeless, indestructible…

“…pity the afflicted…”

And it was tilted off-axis. The shadows it cast into Quentin’s nerve paths were deflected. I could see bright areas and dim areas in his cortex. Certain of his thoughts and memories were attempting to create a greater effect in the future. They had the potential for setting in motion chains of cause-effect which would influence his actions and change him. This was being blocked. I was looking, so to speak, at his happy memories.

“…shield the joyous…”

Bits of dark matter were also floating in his nervous system. They were the source of the blocking. It was very complex, a web of energy-interactions it would have taken years, centuries to trace…