John Wright - Titans of Chaos

"You can contain him?"

Mulciber crooked his head up at the figure on the black deck above. "I am the master of iron and steel, rock and stone. Stones don't move when I say they don't move. I can keep him bound. You need me to keep him in. I needed you to ensure victory. Deal's over now."

Mavors said, "You assume I am going to let you keep the prisoner. I don't want to see him added to your side."

"Shut up, Mavors. You're an idiot. You think I'd make deals with vermin like him? He killed our dad."

"My dad. Mulciber, if you thought he could put the crown of heaven on you, and keep it from me, you might find a way to forgive him."

"We going to fight now, eh? Is that the plan?"

A man in the green-and-blue scale mail of an Atlantean stepped up behind me and raised his voice. "Sir! One of them is here! Alive!"

Mavors said, "Petrified?"

The man extended a hand to me. "Miss? Can you get up? Are you wounded?"

I did not answer. The man shouted up toward Mavors, "Sir! This one is unconscious!"

My eyes must have seemed closed to him. I merely had my eyelids open a crack, but in a direction he could not perceive. I was looking "past" my closed lids.

Another man, standing in a different part of the cabin, said, "Sir! Two more over here! Wounded, but turned to stone. Not bleeding."

A final man, standing near the mouth of the giant dead serpent, called out: "One over here, too, sir. Turned to stone. I think it is the Phaeacian girl."

A Laestrygonian, with exaggerated casualness, stepped out from a group of petrified Laestrygonians and took a position behind the Atlantean man who was stooping over me.

The Atlantean straightened up and cast a frowning glance at the Laestrygonian.

The Laestrygonian smiled with his huge shark-smile, nodded to him casually, gave him sort of a breezy salute with one finger. "How's it going?" he said in a chummy voice.

Mavors, his voice carrying across the wide space, said loudly, "Mr. mac FirBolg, please desist. I can maim you without killing you. I can overcome your various powers merely by decreeing that they will operate improperly against me. I can decree that I will be victorious if we fight. Don't make me fight children."

The Laestrygonian muttered to himself, "Oh, great. Fifth in command. My choice. 'What do I do now, Leader... ?' Okay, do something smart. Smart, smart. Make Amelia proud of your sorry ass."

Mulciber had scuttled around in a circle, so that he could keep an eye on the Laestrygonian, but he was half hunched over, keeping one hand on the chest of the statue. The stone wiggled under his fingers. Mulciber did not look too happy.

The Laestrygonian straightened up and shouted across the open space. "Okay, well, right, then!

Let's talk this out for a second, hey?"

Mavors called back, his voice toneless: 'There is no basis for negotiation, Mr. mac FirBolg. No matter what your promises, it is too dangerous for you to be allowed at liberty. Your only bargaining power would be a threat to kill yourself. If you thought it was your duty, to sacrifice yourself in order to aid the triumph of Chaos over Cosmos, you would have done so already. You have made an honorable attempt, as all prisoners of war are bound to do, to escape. That escape is impossible. You have no reason to pursue the matter."

The Laestrygonian stood there, fidgeting. He melted and flowed like wax. Now it was Colin standing there, dressed in a black tunic of feathery stuff. He was still fidgeting.

A voice in my head said, Mother, I will help you. Another battle comes; Mavors will be the victor, for he must be victorious in all melee, but I will delay the victory. Then my debt to you is done.

I blinked. Who the hell was that... ?

Mavors called, "Do you have anything to say, Mr. mac FirBolg?"

Colin was grinning. "Yeah. I've got something to say. Yoo-hoo! Echidna! Can you hear me? I said your name. Here's the guy you were looking for! Hallo, hallo? GET 'EM!"

I saw it through the broken stained-glass window. A whirlpool opened suddenly within the waters behind, swallowing dozens of ships in an instant. Up through the tunnel of air, a figure rose, wrapped in shadow, growing.

Echidna, taller than a mountain, rose up out of the waves behind the ship on which Mavors stood.

Her face was more beautiful than before, made stern and noble by an inner light. But now she wore a tight-cheeked helmet with a nodding plume; a breastplate of barnacle-covered bronze was molded to her rounded breasts and flat abdomen; and in her slim white hands were both shield and spear, each a match for her monstrous size. The spear was taller than a minaret; the shield was a full moon.

Rivers fell from the shining scales of her snake-body, and her serpent colors wavered beneath the waves: green, green-gold, dappled gray and blue, and spotted red.

A monster, yes, but at the moment she was a monster on our side. I cannot tell you how lovely she looked, how proud, how brave.

Her voice was soft and cool as ice: "Mavors, I am your death. My son Grendel, whom you slew, had no grave; nor shall you."

Mavors said, "Retreat, and I shall spare you. I hunt the sons and the daughter of Chaos this day."

"The daughter of Chaos my daughter-in-law was meant to be. That joy died. She and I will know joy again when you fall."

"I am battle itself. I will not fall, save to fall upon you. Let us begin."

He gave a mighty shout and shook his spear. An aura of flame spread from him in all directions.

When she screamed a deadly falcon-wail, the sky turned black, and the waves leaped hundreds of feet into the air. A wild storm erupted.

Mavors cast the spear at her. His spear turned ruby red as it flew, and it shattered her vast shield and pierced her between her round breasts. It should have penetrated her heart.

She plucked it out with a gesture of indifference, flicking it aside, a toothpick. Meanwhile, with her other hand, she drove her titanic spear through the hull of the black ship in which Mavors stood and, with a twist of her hand, shattered the ship as if it were matchwood. Mavors went flying head over heels into the waters. His flame was quenched.

With her fine white teeth, she severed the straps of her broken shield, and tossed it from her, crushing a battalion.

Roaring their battle slogans, the Laestrygonians and Atlanteans rushed to the breach of the hull, casting spears and arrows at Echidna. Many dove into the water, to come to the aid of their chief.

Echidna paused only to breathe flame and poisonous smoke on the men, snatching up a half dozen of them in one tennis-court-size hand to stuff as bloody gobbets into her mouth before she inclined her head to the waters and lifted her huge lace-fluked tail.

Down she dove, seeking Mavors, and a rolling mile of speckled snake-tail trailed in a huge semicircle after her, up out of the waves where she had risen, down into the waves where she dove. Her scorpion sting lolled in the air for a moment, throwing spray high, and then she was gone.