John Wright - Titans of Chaos

There were lumps on the grass and on the deck to his left and right. My friends? One of them was wriggling and writhing. Being eaten by a snake?

I heard the revolver hammer click.

Nothing happened. No bullet.

Click. Again, nothing.

Click, click, click.

"Hmph! That's odd. I didn't think revolvers could jam! I wonder what is wrong with it."

I blinked. My vision cleared a moment, blurred, cleared.

The huge stained-glass window behind Trismegistus formed a frame with him at the center. There was a shadow darkening the glass. Then the glass went black.

Then the ramming prow of a black ship entered. Shards of glass and powder exploded in each direction, and the hull boards protested, bent, snapped, broke inward.

The sea came in.

The whole huge cabin space, where all these lawns and gardens stood, canted to one side. The place where I lay was still dry, but the boards sloped down to a spreading lake of seawater.

The noise was terrible; boards groaned and creaked; waters roared and thundered.

A pair of metal gauntlets, each finger huge as a tree trunk, reached in through the gap made by the ram-ship and pulled an acre of hull away.

I heard the voice of Mulciber, amplified over a loudspeaker, say, "The Master of Cold Iron says for the guns not to fire, so they won't, eh? Mavors, tell your men to use steel."

Slithering shadows, thin and pantherlike, poured quickly from the black deck. Laestrygonians. I did not see what they were armed with, and I could not make out how many there were. They were fast.

Trismegistus was faster. I don't know what he had in his hand. A knife? But he turned into a blur and cut the throats of a dozen Laestrygonians, then two dozen. Anyone who tried to run away from him, it became a race, and he won.

A giant gauntlet, which I saw only as a passing storm cloud, reached into the cabin space and caught the mile-long serpent by the neck.

The other snake, the anaconda-size one, swelled up to something the size of a skyscraper lying on its side. But a squad of Laestrygonians swarmed over it, and blood gushed up from the snake where they were. It thrashed and fell still.

Trismegistus made a noise like a steam whistle, a high-pitched peacock scream. "You sucker! You slew my snakes! Ophion and Serpentine! You are a dead man, Mavors! You, too, lumpity-hump!"

I saw him dimly, a pale shadow with a wing-blur around him, standing in midair.

I saw a silhouette standing on the deck of the black ship, with seawaters rushing in through the broken hull to either side. Even though I could not make out the details, the upright posture, the air of calm command, could not be mistaken.

Mavors said in a flat tone, "Last chance to surrender, Trismegistus. Come quietly."

Trismegistus laughed. "I can circle the equator five laps in the time it takes you to throw your spear at me. Oh, I am sure you could beat me, if I stood still long enough for you to snail on up and poke me. But why should I?"

"Here's why."

Mavors unslung a shield from his back and held it up, and yanked off a cover or cloak he had thrown over it. At least, I assume it was a shield. It was round. I could not make out what was on the shield, but it was something that wiggled like a spider.

Mavors said, his words marching out without inflection, 'The other members of your group sold you out. Lady Wisdom asked for amnesty. She's the one who made me promise I'd ask you to give up peacefully. Remember her? Tritogenia? She's the one who carries the shield of the Medusa. She lent it to me so I could get you. Even you can't run faster than you can see."

The shadows representing the Laestrygonians all suddenly stood stock-still. Frozen in place.

The pale shadow representing Trismegistus turned all dark and grainy in my vision the moment Mavors held up the shield. He fell out of the air. When he crashed to the deck, I recognized the noise. Stone. Trismegistus had been turned to stone.

His own men, too. Mavors had petrified platoons of his own people, just to get the shot at Trismegistus. Cold bastard.

Mulciber must have thought so, too, because he said, "As we agreed, you put that damn thing away now. I thought you were going to call out a warning, let us cover our eyes, eh?"

Mavors did not say anything, but his silhouette seemed to be tense, ready. Perhaps he was weighing in his mind his chances against Mulciber. The giant golem Mulciber was in had turrets for sixteen-inch guns, loopholes for other weapons, decorating the crenellations of its massive epaulettes and chest plate.

Mulciber said, "Come on, now. As we agreed. Sure, you can't be afraid of my little toy here, are you? Put away the shield, and I won't shoot you."

A winged figure dropped from the sky and landed behind Mavors. I felt a cold breeze, as if a refrigerator door had just then opened.

I heard Boggin's voice: "My lords, while duly acknowledging the presumption, indeed, I am tempted to say, the disrespect, which may, in some less generous minds, be attributed to my humble words, while lords as august as yourselves are debating the most efficient...efficacious?...

way to betray each other, I feel it is my duty, as a loyal servant of the realm, ah, indeed, loyal to whomever will end up ruling the realm, my duty to mention, a fact which I hope has not escaped your lordships' notice, occupied, as you are, with matters of such import. May I remind my lords that the entire sidereal universe will be destroyed if my children, ah, if the children, are harmed?

Might I suggest-although it is not, of course, my place to suggest-might I suggest a quick search of the bodies by medical teams? Yes?"

Mavors said, "Boreas, be quiet. You are only here because you are not loyal to anyone here. A neutral third party."

Mulciber added, in a voice heavy with irony, "Whom we both mistrust equally."

Mavors covered up the shield and handed it over to Boggin.

Boggin took the shield and slid it under one arm. "Sir- if I may-the children's safety is a paramount-"

"You may not. Go."

Boggin hesitated a moment. My eyesight was too blurred yet to see any expression.

I saw his wings spread wide. There was a cold wind, and he was gone.

The statue of Trismegistus wiggled. I saw it open and close its hand.

Where the huge arm was extending inward through the broken hull wall, a peninsula of metal, there came a small motion. A hatch shaped as its thumbnail opened in the gauntlet of the golem.

A bent and hunchbacked figure emerged, climbed down a set of rungs. He moved with a limping stride, crablike, over toward where the statue of Trismegistus lay on the boards.

I saw him bend over the fallen figure.

"Not dead," Mulciber said. "No escape for him that way. He's still in there."

Mavors said, "Lady Tritogenia, before handing me her shield, warned me he could work his way out of the petrifaction, in time. A Chaos trick he learned."

"Not in time. Now. He's already working his way out. What a freak he is."