John Wright - Titans of Chaos

And even such partial solutions as that are temporary, and may require irritating compromises.

That is why I defined my actions in terms of an operational process, not in terms of an end goal.

There is no end. Nothing ever ends. We do what we can when we can. Factors beyond our control-" He made a gesture at the horizon and the sky, a gesture that seemed to encompass the material world, humanity, the stars, the fates, the actions and opinions of other people, all of external reality. "-factors beyond our control... we disregard."

He turned and looked at me.

I have not said what color his eyes are. They are hazel, a penetrating golden brown, like eyes that could look at anything, large or small, and would never be afraid: eyes that could see through all the lies and fears of everyone around him, and penetrate to the cold and certain truth; eyes that would never blink and look away, never hold shame, never be uncertain. Victor had beautiful eyes.

He turned and looked at me and said something, but I was not sure what he said, because I was looking at his eyes.

The words penetrated: "But for now, our goal is to escape from the Olympians, who are apparently still so confident about their ability to recapture us that they are letting us wander among the human beings, whom they rule and control. We must prove that confidence to be false, and defeat Olympos. What do we do, Leader?" So it was back to that.

Well, just because I had been railroaded into being leader didn't mean I had to do all the thinking for myself. I said, "The floor is open to suggestions. We have already heard from Quentin. Go to a deserted island. Colin... ?"

He was standing with his arms folded, frowning toward the city. He looked up, startled. Perhaps he had not been listening. "What? What is it?"

"We are looking for suggestions."

Colin pointed at the city and said, "Is that Hollywood?"

I said, "What? The city? That's San Francisco. Don't you ever look at maps?"

Quentin said softly, "You know he never looks at maps."

Vanity smiled broadly, and gave a little clap of her hands together, and said, "Hollywood is somewhere in this area, isn't it? This is California." She rolled her enormous green eyes at Colin.

"He is thinking about his girlfriends. Those starlets he wrote letters to."

Colin said, "Boggin intercepted the replies. Who knows what they might have said? Anything from get lost to let's do it in the road. You can't blame a guy for wondering."

I said, "At the moment, we're wondering about what to do next. In effect, the question is, Where do we want to go to wait for Lamia to attack us?"

Colin said, "That's easy. We go home to Chaos. My dad, Morpheus, can protect us from Lamia, and from Boggin and Mavors, too."

Quentin looked both sad and stern. I could see he did not want to bring up his idea he had shared with Vanity, that none of us could go home. In fact, he looked so pained that I decided to spare him.

Vanity saw the same look and had the same thought, because she blurted out, "That will start the war between Cosmos and Chaos, and the material universe will get destroyed!"

Colin said, "So? What's so great about the material universe?"

I said under my breath, "It is where that nice stuff called 'matter' is, for one thing."

Colin did not hear. He continued, "How's this for a plan: We go home, I get my parents back, war starts, universe ends, good guys win and bad guys die, and we all live happily ever after. Roll credits."

Victor said, "This will sound unpopular, but I am afraid we cannot necessarily trust that our parents are on the right side. We have no evidence either way as to what they are like. We do not know who is in the right or wrong between Cosmos and Chaos. We ought not give loyalty or aid to any group until we know what they stand for."

I raised my hand in a commanding gesture. "The Dark Mistress hereby orders that we table this conversation for later. Mavors would not have let us go if he did not have a mechanism in place to prevent us from leaving the universe and going home. He let us go to act as bait for Lamia; he would not take the risk of triggering Ragnarok. So there must be something watching us, something that will swoop down and stop us if we get close to the gates at the edge of the world, or wherever you have to go to get out of the universe. Find out what the mechanism is and how to disarm it, or find out where the Gates at the End of Creation are, and who or what is guarding them, and then we'll talk about going home. Until then, let's talk about getting free and staying alive."

Victor said, "I would raise the same objection to talk of approaching one faction or another among the Olympians. Mulciber might help us escape Mavors, for example, and protect us from Lamia, but only if we promised to support his bid for the throne of Heaven. He also might simply imprison us and erase our memories. Or he might be the one who sent Lamia. The same is true of anyone else." To Vanity, he added, "Even the Phaeacians might start a war, or turn us back over to the Olympians, if we approached them. And we do not know who sent Lamia."

Quentin said, "But we are not perfectly ignorant. What about the three Olympians who were allied with Chaos? They are almost sure to be our friends: Dionysus, Athena, and Hermes. Or, to use the names they are using these days, Lord Anacreon, Lady Tritogenia, and Lord Trismegistus. They are all gods of wisdom and magic, mysticism. They have nothing to gain from the status quo. We could take precautions, make a careful approach."

Victor said, "My suggestion is to approach nobody, nobody, until we discover more information."

I said, "One suggestion for deserted island, one for back to Chaos and destroy the universe, one for find out more. Vanity? You are the only one who hasn't said anything yet."

Vanity said meekly, "Is going to Hollywood and becoming famous an allowed suggestion?"

I shrugged. "Why not? It is not any more unreasonable than the 'destroy the universe' suggestion.

But it is going to be hard to stay hidden if you are posing for Sudsy-Fun Soap and for Shine-Rite Tooth Grease, appearing in rock videos and on billboards or something. And Quentin has a good point. I mean, let's suppose you are there eating brunch at the Brown Derby with Elizabeth Taylor and Cindy Crawford and Cecil B. DeMille, and a blood-drinking vampiress with no eyes comes in to kill you. See the problem?"

Vanity surprised me. She is smarter than she sometimes acts. Her response was, "This is not a problem of how to get free or stay safe. This is a problem of how to find out how they are finding us. Mavors expects Lamia to find us. How? Mavors expects to find out she has found us, and further expects to find out who is sending her. How? You said Grendel's mother followed some sort of trail or signal left by the wedding dress. Did Lamia put anything on Quentin or in his bloodstream that would enable her to track him down? Let's find out how they are finding us."

I smiled. "A capital suggestion! But you cannot sense Mavors being aware of us, can you?"