John Wright - Titans of Chaos

Your sirens? They'd just smite you if I turned you back on. Wait. I think I can do something..."

Vanity said, "Leader! Tell him to do something about the tidal wave! This ship sails in dream-waters!"

"Leader, what about me... ?" I asked. "Can't I get my powers back on... ?"

Quentin said, "Who else is in the boat?"

The demon Phobetor said in Colin's voice, "How the hell do I know? I cannot see the boat, I can only see the dreams of the women in it."

Quentin said, "I was not talking to you."

A chilling voice spoke out of midair. "Maenads who kill; dryads who will not; Amazons of iron will; sirens whose songs fill strange nonrealms of other-space, unimagined, un-shaped worlds the creation hath forgot. Master, I break faith with thee, and cry woe! Your vengeance shall not fall on me, for thy doom rides in that bark also."

There was a rustling in the air, and Quentin's robes flew and flapped in a breeze that was not there. Then the hems of his garments fell, and the air was still.

"Great," muttered Quentin.

Phobetor said, "What the hell was that?"

"A rat deserting a sinking ship."

Vanity: "Are we in trouble?"

Quentin: "Big trouble."

Phobetor: "Dream-storm looming up, Leader. Suggest we go below, or batten hatches, or something-"

"Leader!" I said loudly, "I saw the dream-plane earlier form a bubble or blister and explode into Earth's continuum. That may be the same effect that is happening now. A spell. Your paradigm."

Quentin said, "But I don't know how to stop an unknown influence-"

"Listen, Leader! Victor can stop it, I'll bet. If he can get fixed in time."

The cell phone said in a dim, tinny voice: "And get an energy supply of sufficient magnitude."

I said, "If you will tell Bambi-head here to turn my powers back on, maybe I can fix Victor, or at least see what's wrong..."

"Do it," said Quentin to Phobetor.

The demon-prince rolled his fiery eyes. "Um, Leader, there are still sirens in the area-"

"Risk it."

Phobetor looked at me. The green sparks that served him for eyes shrank into smaller dots, contracting. "I-I am not sure what to do. How do I make her stupid paradigm turn on?"

Quentin spoke, his voice quiet and forceful: "Do you love her? Have faith in her. Put energy in her. Believe in her vision, even if you do not understand it. Become like glass, and let the feelings she inspires in you flow through you and enter her."

Vanity gave out a yelp of fear. "The waters! The waters!"

The spray coming off the bow of the ship suddenly turned black, and had streamers of flame and smoke rippling through it. The Argent Nautilus started bucking and pitching.

The tube of water down which we flew dissolved like smoke, growing rapidly larger and swooping away from us. Suddenly and impossibly, we were in the middle of a large lake, then in midocean.

But it was a boiling ocean of blood-splattered India ink, not water. Icebergs topped with flame buckled and broke against ice-coated piles of lava, red stones with black crusts. Open pits of air and smoke gaped here and there in the surface of the waters like holes in Swiss cheese.

There were storm clouds above us, but the lightning was red, and the hailstones showering down on us were mingled with falling mud, snow, freezing rain, and drops of something acidic that stung and burned.

The dream-smooth flight of the Argent Nautilus ended when the ship, boards groaning, pitched up as if struck from beneath.

Our silver sails were streaked with long stains from the acid hail, browned with mud streaks, and Vanity was cowering under the bench, stung by burns in several places, tears in her eyes, determined not to cry. She had the glowing green stone in her hand and was trying to find some set of laws of nature that would allow us to survive the attack.

Quentin was clinging to the rail as the ship jumped and rolled.

Victor's body, not lashed down, was sliding across the deck. I ran and threw myself atop it, so that we were now both sliding toward the fragile silver railing...

Crash. The railing held, though it bent out alarmingly. Victor's stone-hard body was between me and the rail, but I had burned my hand on some patch of his skin... his hull... which was still smoldering.

I shouted in pain. Okay, well maybe it was a scream. But that damn stuff hurt Being pelted by acid-stinking hailstones did not help either.

What the hell was this stuff? An attack?

Over the noise of the storm-wrack, Quentin spoke to Vanity. His voice was very quiet, but some magic made each word clear, distinct, and legible. I do not think I was hearing it through my ears.

"Keep moving. Can you find a door out of this acid storm?"

Vanity shouted back, her voice dim and interrupted beneath the mindless roar of sky-rage:

"Leader! We're becalmed! The ship cannot find any boundaries. There are no doors because there is no here and no there anywhere..."

Although the deck kicked and bucked, Phobetor was not moved. He stood, hooves spread, mace glowing in one hand, his mouth lit with flame. His eyes were on me, his ears no doubt still filled with Quentin's question. Do you love her? The storm clouds roared above him, and red lightning flashed between the clouds of hail and streaming mud.

"By God, I do love her, and woe betide mortal or immortal who raises a hand against her. Dark Mistress, when I rule in Hell, you shall be my Queen!"

I waited for something to happen.

"Not working," I shouted back over the storm-wrack.

The wind just screamed at me. I wanted to scream back at it.

Phobetor said, "And, um, thanks for helping me with my homework. I mean, well, this is sort of embarrassing, but, we all know you're, um, brighter about math and stuff than I am, and well, I just wanted to say..."

And my vision came back. I was four-dimensional again, full, complete.

I am not sure what the moral of that little incident was. Honest thanks for small favors is stronger than true love?

Light!

There was a blister, similar to the one I had seen previously, swelling out from the dream-plane parallel to Earth, shedding energy in each direction. I could see what was around us.

There were things moving in the light. The tumult from the previous explosion had left wreckage strewn across the dimensions: I saw Mulciber's giants, fallen, with technicians in long brown coats walking across helmet-tops, directing spider-machines at their repairs. I saw fleets and battle-barges of Mavors, thrown onto shoals and rocks, with lizard-faced Laestrygonians bailing and shouting orders to running sailors. I saw one group of Atlanteans in outer space, abandoning a tumbling space vessel, which glowed cherry red as its orbit decayed into the poisonous upper atmosphere of Venus. Atlanteans in black and silver armor dropped out of the airlock like pearls on a slightly curving string, one after another, and fell out and away from the dying ship.

The blister grew and changed from a cherry red to a blue white. Another explosion was no doubt only moments away. And there were smoky forces stirring and boiling in the depths of the dream-plane, tangled strands and webs of some titanic magic being readied.