John Wright - Titans of Chaos

The girls slammed their heads against the tree boles, and sat down. One of them put her hands to her broken nose and started crying.

I reached out and turned the one Amazon's mechanical soul to "off."

A trapdoor opened in the grass beneath the hooves of the other Amazon rider. The Amazon, even as she was falling, shouldered her weapon and shot round after round below her.

I could see through the intervening ground that the Amazon was shooting as she fell. Shooting a second girl who looked like Vanity.

Or, rather, shooting at Vanity. The green stone around Vanity's neck was pulsing and swimming with power. I saw the shells, as they flew over the railing of the ship, enter the laws of nature whose internal natures were a bit more Aristotelian and a bit less Newtonian. For Aristotle, heavy objects fall faster than light ones, and kinetic energy simply is not one-half momentum times velocity. The bullets slowed down considerably.

According to Aristotle, the natural motion of fire was to rise, and move toward the divine fires in the crystal spheres beyond the moon. Vanity must have persuaded the bullets something to the effect that the rules about fire applied to them. The bullets flew wide overhead, slowing and tumbling, rising toward the ceiling like bubbles."

I reached out farther, to the other Amazon riders coming up the slope. They could not see me, because of the intervening trees and leaves. But I could see them. I began switching them "off" as quickly as my energy tendrils could snap across the intervening time-space.

It was taking too long. I would never get them all in time.

Plan B: I traced the lines of moral obligation between them to identify the leader. I reprogrammed her to call off the attack and sound the retreat.

The other Amazons obeyed without question. Away they went, riding swiftly and silently.

Darkness floated out from Quentin. It passed over the maenads; and where it had passed, they were transformed. Some turned into furry sleek shapes. For others, skins grew thick and turned to bark; hair rose up, elongating strangely, becoming leaves and drooping vines. Toes dug into the soil.

In a few moments, we stood within the silence of a forest more thick and lush than before. The uprooted trees were now replaced by pines and cedars. Ivy and grapevines crawled from branch to branch. Hot-eyed leopardesses and she-panthers stalked among the trees, snarling, but the shadow-version of Quentin spoke a word, and they became gentle.

We were alone with one sleeping Amazon (asleep on her horse, seated at attention), three hollow-eyed nymphs (standing), and one weeping nymph (seated on the ground).

I said to the version of Colin, "They thought I was Vanity. When they shot me. The Amazons used the wrong shell. Was that because you all were-?"

Colin pulled off the prosthetic, which once had been his face, and straightened up. Nanotech machines, small as molecules, rippled through his flesh, uncompressing his bones and muscles, shortening and coloring hair.

The spine opened up with ugly popping noises as the body grew a foot taller. His shape was rearranged from a thickset and hairy wrestler's body to a longer, thinner, swimmer's farm.

When the one-eyed insectoid thing put the prosthetic face back in place, the features were different. The seam around his chin and ears hissed and vanished.

Victor said, "Well, come now, Amelia. We are shape-changers, after all."

Quentin's voice spoke out of the shadow overhead: "Be careful lowering my statue."

The chain-mail-wrapped life-size porcelain statue of Vanity sank to the ground. Quentin's voice said, "I particularly like the hands. They were the hardest part to get right. Look at how lifelike the fingers are!"

Eagle-winged Colin (in the torn tatters of a once-fine tuxedo) fluttered up from a secret trapdoor in the grass, with a struggling Amazon in his arms. The girl was very strong, and she struck and kicked with savage precision, her face was without fear, and she fought in complete silence.

Colin managed to gasp out: "Amelia! Please... ?"

Make that, two sleeping Amazons. I noticed Colin managed to squeeze the sleeping girl's breasts as he lowered her to the ground. Jerk.

He spent a moment straightening his broken bones, popping an eye back into place, and wiping away what turned out to be red ink. Okay, so maybe he thought he deserved to cop a feel from a soldier-girl who had mauled him pretty heavily. That still made him a jerk.

Colin folded back his wings, and they turned into a wide-shouldered black garment, shimmering with feathers, a knee-length tuniclike affair that left his arms and legs free. Neat trick when one needs to change clothes.

The guitar was strapped over his back. He took it by the neck and held it out. "Is this really for me?"

I will never understand myself. Instead of flinging myself into Victor's arms, and kissing and hugging him with sighs and sobs of glad relief, I flung myself at a very surprised Colin, pushing aside the stupid guitar and eagerly seeking out his lips.

Don't ask me to explain it. I can't explain it.

But I could see (since I could look every direction at once, even with my eyes closed) the puzzled frown beginning to form on the face of Victor, the sternly repressed gleam of pain in his eyes.

Doors and Corridors Unseen

Quentin, hovering, still within the swirled darkness of shadow and power, said quietly but sternly to the nymphs, "Surrender, and swear not to attack any of the five of us again, in person or by proxy, in word or deed."

One of the nymphs, Lara, said quietly, "Do you threaten us, Lord of Chaos? We helpless women?

Cruel Olympians impressed us to these evil deeds; we are enspelled by Trismegistus, the God of Magic, Father of Lies."

Quentin raised his shadowy hand, and dark flame seemed to cling to his fingers. He spoke a Word of Power, and the stones rang underfoot as if a gong had rung, moaning, echoing, and vibrating.

"Swear!" he said in a soft voice, deadly with menace, "Swear, or I, Eidotheia, put upon you a curse as swift and bloody as that which you conspired to put on us!"

Lara held up her hands. "Our hands are clean of blood!"

He said, "As are mine, if the Amazon shoots you through the brainpan. Amelia... ? If you will do the honors... ?"

Hey. Wasn't I supposed to be in charge? On the other hand, all I was doing right now was pressing my shaking body up to Colin's, so I guess a little insubordination among the ranks was to be expected.

I manipulated the atoms in the Amazon's brain. She chambered an anti-psychic round and raised the weapon to her shoulder, aiming at Lara.

Lara said softly, "Shoot. I do not know fear."

The other nymphs looked at each other. The one with the broken nose, Sagaritis, murmured, "The maenads are trapped, motionless and paralyzed,, imprisoned in forms alien to their wild freedom, but forms natural and dear to us. What is the worst this child might do to us? Turn us into trees?"

Another nymph murmured, "What is death to us? The guide of the dead has vowed to guide our shades astray, and lead us to the light again, where we never can belong."