John Wright - Orphans of Chaos

“From time to time, certain of the Prelapsarians, driven by grief or compassion, attempt the long journey to enter into the established world, to rescue their trapped comrades, or to free other victims of Saturn’s deed. Those who escape reach a world where there is no entropy, and nature’s laws are subscribed to voluntarily, rather than imposed.

“Parthenope told me that the Prelapsarians have neither law nor crime. Scientific examination of their mental systems has achieved a state of perfection; and the moral order is obvious to their senses; they know neither mental disorder nor moral corruption.”

I said, “Then they are not monsters.”

“Far from it.”

I said, “What about me?”

“What about you, Phaethusa?”

“I am not morally perfect.”

“You do not know the secrets of their mind-science; and the eyes you use to sense the moral order, in this world of matter and decay, are shut.”

“Why? Why make a world where people cannot see right and wrong?”

“This world, the material world, is a false and shallow copy, inside the realm of time, of something perfect which Saturn stole from Eternity. I do not know his reasons; no one does. The Olympians overthrew Saturn, but they saw no cause to change his system. They derive their power from having others break the rules of law and of morality.”

“Where is Saturn now?”

“Confined in Tartarus, black realm of the Unseen One, and guarded by Tisiphone and by the huge hundred-handed Hecatonchire, whom Saturn had once imprisoned there; jailers where they once were jailed.”

“You don’t remember living there? Myriagon?”

She shook her head. “My father is Achelous, the son of Oceanus, eldest son of Uranus. Oceanus is one of those who, for the sake of pity, entered this world to battle the grim Demiurge. He was deceived by the nature of time, and did not know what it was he was entering. It took him fifteen billion years to cross the Pontic Ocean of ‘false vacuum’ surrounding this reality; by the time he reached here, Saturn was overcome, replaced by children, the Olympians, who were far worse than Saturn ever had been.”

“Worse?”

She nodded. “If Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost at least remembers what bright virtue he once had, and regrets its loss, imagine how much worse sons of Satan would be, raised from birth in the inferno. They would be devils softened by no living memory of Heaven.”

“And what happened to you? I mean, how did you come to be here?”

“Once, long ago, there seemed to be the possibility of peace between Lord Terminus and Oceanus. Lord Pelagaeus the Earth-shaker was given lordship over the inner ocean, where life is, and Oceanus the outer. Saturn was gone; Oceanus knew of no more reason to fight.

“As his granddaughters, we were treated with royal privilege. The Morae, the Fates, taught us how to sing, and showed us much regarding the future, and we studied the energies and forces that make up the nature of time. We became the companions of the Maiden, who was the daughter of Demeter. When the Maiden vanished, carried off by an unknown power from the fields of Enna, we were granted leave by Lord Terminus to use our powers within this world, and to fly from place to place, seeking her.

“Our powers, however, began to show us something of the nature of time and morality. You have the same senses I do. You know what we began to see. The internal nature and moral darkness of the Olympians became more and more evident.

“The Maiden had been abducted by the Unseen One, and raped. When the crime of the Unseen One finally came to light, instead of punishing his brother, Lord Terminus (who feared him) gave him the Maiden as his wife.

“We have never forgiven Lord Terminus his crime, this cynical and smirking act of corruption. What kind of punishment is it to a rapist, to have the victim of his outrages be given to him in bounds of matrimony, his victim to be his, forever after? Lord Terminus decreed that when a husband takes a wife by violence, it is not rape, but holy matrimony; honor is satisfied once the wedding is performed.

“Honor was satisfied, but we were not satisfied. The Sirens began to work against the Olympians. Secretly at first, and then more openly, we began to undermine their power.

“The power of the gods is augmented by the belief of men, in much the same way that Grendel’s power comes from his own beliefs. We became famous for telling the truth to men, both the truth about the gods and the truth about the future, and the jealous gods killed them when we told them too much.

“Despite this, truth began to leak out. Your poets tell more about the Greek gods than others, don’t they? Their tales portray them as more human and fallible than the gods of other peoples, who, after all, committed crimes equally as foul as those of the Olympians. The Greeks were a rational people, less in awe of their gods than other folk. That was our doing.

“Eventually, we were stopped. The Muses, to whom we had taught our songs, now challenged us. Oaths were exchanged. Our songs were sent against their songs in over-space, and the spirit world raged with the clash and clamor of the music of the spheres gone wild.

“The Morae, who had once been our friends, betrayed us and fated our downfall. The music of the Nine conquered us. We were given the choice between slavery and death. Some of my sisters chose death, and they dwell in the Dark House, with our old companion, the Maiden, who is Queen there. Those of us not bold enough to make so hard a choice, we had our wings plucked from us, and our feathers now adorn the crowns of the Nine Muses.

“Do not pity me. Slavery is a mercy if you live, as I did then, in a time when no conqueror could afford to let any member of any family whom he defeated left alive. The institution benefits the conquerors, and this spares the conquered from an otherwise certain death.

“And my first Mistress, the High Queen Basilissa, also called Hera, is the kindest and most upright of all the immortals of Olympus. Only she had some concern for morality, courtesy, propriety. Yes, I know how Homer and the other poets depict the Lady Hera. But they were inspired by the Muses, who are bastard daughters of Lord Terminus, and who hate her. My servitude in the house of my Mistress Hera was not hard.”

I said, “If they have no government in Myriagon, what makes me a hostage? I can’t be a princess if I am from a land of anarchists.”

“Your father is the Titan Helion. He is famous and influential, and enjoys the esteem of his peers, which is how the Prelapsarians count wealth. Because of his wisdom, he is the strategist whom the other Prelapsarians consult to coordinate the war effort. It is merely out of pity and sympathy for him that they forebear, despite that he has not asked them to.”

I said softly, “Help me to escape, all of us.”

She smiled sweetly and sadly. “Your wish is unrealistic. Put it from you.”

Desperation edged my tone: “We won’t hurt anyone. You can send a message or something to the people in Chaos telling them we’re safe, and they won’t have any reason to attack.”

“Matters are not that simple. I cannot break my word to my captors, lest the next defeated in war with the Olympians is killed, instead of taken. My sister, Aglaope, has already paid her mistress and been manumitted.”

“At least, you should agree not to help recapture me, if I should get away. Can you do that? Or drag your heels, or do it badly. I know you don’t obey every order they give you, or else you would not be talking to me now.”

She patted my hand with her glove. “Everyone is in service to something or someone. Your service, no matter with whom you end up, will probably be relatively light. Whoever ends up using your talents will, no doubt, want you to… ”