John Wright - Titans of Chaos

One was cunning, clever, quick-witted, delighting in lies. The other was disciplined, fearless, steadfast, quiet with menace.

The two fates contending over us. I could only venture a guess: The decree of Trismegistus that no one could outrun him. The other one? The decree of Mavors that no one could threaten our lives without summoning him. Or maybe this was an older, larger, more permanent fate. Perhaps this was the decree of Mavors that no one could overcome him in any feat of arms or battle.

I said, "I can see them. The fates. I can wake them up, but they will still be trapped by their spells."

Spells. I had interfered with the spell the nymphs had used to enchant Colin. How much did I need to interfere before Victor could zap one of them, make it go away? Maybe I could step in for Quentin, just for a moment.

I reached out with a tendril of energy, pointing it toward the flow of time, extended...

The voice of Trismegistus whispered in my ear, "Pale Amelia with her hair and heart of gold! The poker game is almost over now. Would you prefer to see, or fold? Just pick for me which one of you must die. I will spare the other four. What do I need four corpses for? The deal is real, and much too good for you to deny."

I shouted back, "None of us will betray the others! We stand or fall together!"

"Ahhhh! You will never imagine how grateful I am to hear you say that, filth of Chaos. With your own mouth you have said it; you are one in the eye of the law; which law I call and now convoke: Hear me!" ,

My sight was almost gone, but in shadows and blurs, I saw what happened. A tiny dot swelled up in size, became a man cloaked in white, a wand of serpents in his hand, wings on his feet.

Trismegistus was now inside with us. My words had somehow invited him in.

With a flutter of his wand, he threw one serpent onto me; the other he threw onto Victor. Both snakes must have had the same paradigm Echidna used. The one on me became as large as an anaconda.

The one on Victor simply grew and kept growing, while Victor pelted it with chemicals, explosives, and energies of various types. It was larger than a freight train when it rolled over him. I did not see what happened to Victor, but his azure light winked out. I think it swallowed him whole.

I was wrapped in a crushing grip. The tendril of energy I was reaching with began to flicker and fade.

I granted it free will, that part of me, that tendril. It yanked free and fell away from me, spinning off into the abyss.

Two hot needles of pain found my neck.

Poison. Music shaped as a liquid. Siren song floated in my veins. I collapsed into three dimensions.

No breathing. Bones broken.

As if from a far, far distance, I heard Trismegistus chant: "Primus, Secunda, Tertia, Quartinus, Quentin: by your names of your youth and childhood I call; Victor Invictus Triumph, Amelia Armstrong Windrose, Vanity Bonfire Fair, Colin Iblis mac FirBolg, Quentin Nemo: by the names you named yourselves for you; Damnameneus, Phaethusa, Nausicaa, Phobetor, Eidotheia, and by your names innermost and true, I call, I call, I call to you. Perish now, thou demons foul, who are so fickle and so difficult to kill. Your ghosts nowhere shall abide; you shall perish utterly, and every part of you shall die; it is the Psychopomp who speaks: This is my will. I raise my wand; I now decree..."

My last trickle of vision faded to utter black.

I heard Quentin's voice. "I am in nowise bound by any curse of yours, you who have not named me." His voice sounded strange, so strange. But the curse choking him must have failed.

That meant Victor, somewhere, somehow, was alive, if he restored the normal chain of cause and effect. If the snake was a creature from Colin's paradigm, it was equal and opposite to Victor; it was one against which he had a fighting chance.

The voice of Trismegistus floated like a leaf in the breeze, twinkling and chuckling. "I am the Father of Lies; I know my children. That was a lie. Spirits! I have named him truly! Can he prove otherwise?"

Quentin said, "The name I told my enemies when I was young, Nemo, 'no-one,' is not the name I told myself to myself. In the ring of stones, beneath the moon, with blood I drew myself from mine own vein, I anointed me. That name is my true name, my inner name, my soul name, and you do not know it."

"Do you think you can riddle and argue, debate and expound, with the Prince of Lawyers? You slew Galenthias, my cat: I call on you to render up your life for that. A life pays for a life; that is the rule; you knew and disobeyed."

"You admit that spell is gone from me; and if from me, then from all those whom your words have bound together in one destiny-"

"Oh, this grows tiresome."

A gunshot rang out.

Quentin laughed. It was a sick, forced, hollow laugh, but he still laughed. "It needs to be silver to hurt me. You have damaged my vessel, which is merely made of clay."

Trismegistus said wearily, "Ophion, get him."

The snake relaxed its grip and I was free. I could not extend anything into overspace, and I still could not see.

Quentin cried out in terror.

I tried to get up, but the poison had made all my limbs go cold. I could not rise.

I felt a motion in the air near me. I sensed a looming presence.

A kiss. Someone kissed me.

Colin whispered in my ear, "Wake, sleeping beauty."

Warmth and motion began to filter through to me. Pins and needles stung my limbs.

And wings and tendrils and flukes and songs. I was fourth-dimensional again. Still too weak to get up, but it was something.

I whispered, "Colin! Cure my eyes! I can't see!"

He kissed my eyelids.

Quentin called out one last time, a cry of horror, and was silent. I felt Colin leave my side in a rush of motion. I reached after him, and felt fur and bat-wing leather slide away from my fingertips.

There was a horrid scream: "AMELIA WINDROSE! AMELIA!"

Colin was not calling for me; this was his battle cry.

Trismegistus said, "Oh, come now. Puh-leese."

I heard a dull thump as Colin hit the floor.

Light. The smallest trickle of my vision had returned.

And the brightest objects in time or space or hyperspace around me were the icebergs of fate. I selected the quietly menacing one, the decree of Mavors.

I sent off a tendril to wake the fate, a second one to turn its webs of magic inward on themselves, and a third one to send a message to the fate-thing. Help me. I woke you up. I am your mother.

Help me.

I was not trying to dissolve this particular fate. I wanted to augment it.

"Ah, where was I?" fluttered the floating tones of Trismegistus. "Ah, yes, brutal murder. Oops.

The blond one is getting up again. Hey-here is an idea! Why don't I kill them first, and then cast the spell to abolish any lingering souls or ghosts? Better idea? Much better."

I blinked. I could only see shadows, but I saw the shadow of the slim figure, winged hat and winged shoes, raising his revolver toward me.