John Wright - Titans of Chaos

The Argent Nautilus dashed through the waters of the underground river like a flung spear...

The stone walls to either side of us were blurs. The piston of holocaust-fire that the pressure of the explosion was driving down the tunnel in both directions was traveling faster than the speed of sound, so there was no noise coming from it. We were receding from it faster than its advance, so that the ball of flame behind dwindled immediately to a flare, a spark, a twinkle.

Quentin was frowning at the white wand he held. It was nothing but a stick now. He tossed it overboard. Then he said, "I'm neutralized. Who has anything?" The cell phone speaker was very dim: "I have sustained major damage. High-priority nervous system functions are continuing at half-power. All auxiliary systems are nonfunctional."

Colin: "I've been hexed. I'm out."

I said, 'There were sirens. They may still be around us. My powers are gone."

Quentin smiled and threw himself on the one bench at the stern of the Argent Nautilus. "You are the only one who can help us now, Vanity."

Vanity's look of fear stiffened into a look of resolve. The confidence I had seen on the island, or when she saved me from Archer, was back. Nausicaa confidence. She said, "I won't let you down, Leader!"

She laid her hand on the silver rail. Immediately in the water before us, a door made of water, with hinges and staples made of translucent fluid, opened up, revealing a long slope, an unwalled tunnel made of air, which dropped down through the water.

Quentin said, "Er... Vanity? You are doing that, right? That's one of yours?"

The Argent Nautilus tilted on the brink of the doorway made of water, her stern high, her prow dipping low...

We all screamed as the ship fell headlong, except Victor (of course), and Vanity, who laughed like a madwoman.

Vanity yodeled and hiccuped and said over the roar, "I think I am getting the hang of this."

Down we plunged, a barrel tipping over a waterfall.

Dream Storm

We fell down a long steep slide, down a shaft of naked air, past walls of unsupported rippling water. Overhead was a roof of water equally unsupported and impossible: an upside-down river.

The trapdoor made of rippling water fell shut behind us. The flames that still were shooting after us merely flew on by overhead, filling the stone tunnel we had just quit.

The light here came from the glimmering silver of the phosphorescent hull, and from the leaping and rippling light receding so rapidly behind us, a white-hot flame seen through a wall of boiling water.

The cell phone asked Colin for help. Colin rolled Victor's stiff body over on its back and, putting his shoulder to Victor's spine, levered him more or less upright.

The third eye opened, glittering azure.

The silver ship-glow and dwindling flame light was joined by the dim blue light from Victor's third eye, of course. Useful to have a built-in flashlamp, I suppose.

Colin said, "Leader! Victor wants to try turning your powers back on. He says he's only got enough power for one try. You want to stand over here, please?"

Quentin said, "In the middle of a battle is the best time to experiment with untested superpowers.

Sure. Zap me. If I become incapacitated, Victor is second-in-command. Then Amelia, Vanity, Colin, in that order."

Colin muttered, "Hmph-! Fifth-in-command. Thanks a lot."

Quentin said back, "It's for all those nights you kept me awake with your chatter after lights-out.

Ready when you are, Victor."

A streaming azure beam played across Quentin's face for a moment. His features were lit from below, throwing the shadow of his cheeks and nose across his forehead. The effect gave his face a sinister cast.

The beam turned cherry red, then saffron, which melted into a ray of purest gold. Now Quentin's features looked pure, ennobled with a solemn, living energy.

The shadow Quentin cast across the deck grew black as ink, solid-seeming, and streamed away from his feet, growing larger and darker as the beam of gold light played down across Quentin's chest, stomach, and legs. The beam twinkled for a moment at his feet, and the shadow swelled up along the speed-blurred watery walls of the tube of liquid through which we flew, and nodded high above us.

Then the shadow faded and vanished.

Vanity said, "Did it work?"

Quentin picked up a belaying pin and whispered a word to it. There was no visible effect, but suddenly I had goose bumps, and a sensation that some potent and inhuman will was regarding me.

Quentin, instead of answering, took a piece of chalk out of his pocket and uttered three words that clanged like iron. The chalk, of its own accord, flew across to where Colin stood, fell to the deck, and slid around him in a circle: once, twice, thrice.

Quentin knelt, tapped the belaying pin on the deck, pointed at Colin, uttered a command word in some language that hissed like fire in his mouth.

Quentin muttered to himself. Then he said, more loudly, "Therefore what humors and essences which once touched Phobetor, shall now and always shall be of him, be with him, be obedient to him. So mote it be. Quod erat faciendum."

Colin's face and features ran like wax, and black smoke boiled around him. Vanity looked shocked, and I think I must have screamed.

A demon-prince stood there. His skull was long and narrow, like the face of a stag or fox, and instead of a tongue, flame was in his mouth. His eyes were green lamps. Antlers tipped with silver glints, made perhaps of bone or ice, branched Up like a crown. His chest and torso were manlike, albeit much brawnier and wider-shouldered than any man. In one hand he held a mace of silver; in the other, an orb of crystal carved like a moon. Vast bat wings pebbled and patterned like the neck of a venomous snake rose up hugely from his back. He had shaggy goat-legs and narrow feet, ending in split hoofs sharp as razors. His male member was appropriately large and godlike.

A scent like ambergris came from him.

"Oh, cool!" said the stag-headed demon-prince with his tongue of flame. Little electric sparks played around the fangs of his sudden smile.

The horned and narrow head turned toward me, the greenish dots it wore in place of eyes dancing with unholy mirth. "Hey, flying squid-girl. You think your true shape is freaky? Check this out."

Quentin said, "Return to that form you wore on Earth, O Prince of Nightmares..."

"Hold on a sec," said Phobetor in Colin's voice. "My senses are sharper in this form. I can feel trouble coming. I can feel the hate in the air. I can see... I can see dreams..."

"Fix me," I said to him.

He did not respond. His eyes were focused on something I could not see. "Hey, Leader! There is a big dream-storm coming."

Quentin asked, "What is a dream-storm?"

"Hell if I know. Looks like a tidal wave about to break over us."

"Can you fix me?" I shouted at him. The idiot.

"Hold on, sweet cheeks. There are also some singing fish women in longboats dreaming about stopping us___