John Wright - Titans of Chaos

I started to get up. Boreas leaned and yanked the towel off the rack and out of my reach, as well as my flannel bathrobe. He threw them both casually behind him and out the window.

"Well, now, Miss Windrose, we have traveled far from Mare Boreum on Mars, but not so far, it seems, from Los Angeles, have we not?" he said, seating himself comfortably on the rim of the bath. He crossed his legs and folded his hands atop his knee. Very casual, very calm, very in-control.

I shrank down, covering my breasts with one hand and arm, folding my hand between my crotch with the other.

The last time I was in this position, it was Grendel Glum trying to rape me with his eyes.

"Turn around," I said. "I'm naked."

He looked skeptical, rubbed the back of his head with his hand, as if to massage an old bruise, but said nothing.

For about the span of time it takes for a startled and badly frightened girl to slowly regain control of her breathing, he sat, staring down at my bubble-hidden body, saying nothing.

Of course, that made it worse. I wondered if he was going to spank me again. He looked like he was in the mood.

I drew a shaking breath, and forced out in a calm voice, "What do you want, Headmaster Boggin?"

A tiny wisp of wet hair had put a tail to the corner of my mouth. I dared not raise either hand to brush the hair away. Boreas idly reached down, touched my cheek, and put the hair out of my mouth.

It was almost shocking, how casually he did that, as if I were his daughter. Or a pet. Someone he had the right to touch.

I said, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

He said, "Miss Windrose, you must have known that your promise to me could lead me back to you. Surely you have had, in that space of time, composed some sort of speech or manifesto to deliver to me. You must have imagined a scene or confrontation something like this, perhaps practicing in front of a mirror what you would say to me. I assume you invented more than, 'What do you want, Headmaster,' or "turn around.'"

"Okay," I said, "how about this: I want to know what the real reason is for all this. Tell me why you were keeping the talismans on the school grounds. Where we could find them. Keys to wake our powers back up. Did you want us to escape, for some reason?"

He leaned back slightly and crossed his arms. "Where are the others?"

I said, "You first."

"Are we going to trade question for question?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "You promise to answer one of mine for each of yours I answer?"

I shook my head. "No promises. You can ask, and, if it suits me, I'll answer. But you answer first.

Why were the talismans kept where we could get them?"

He said, "My dear Miss Windrose, what did you think I intended? Surely the matter is obvious."

I said, "What is this, a gypsy fortune-teller reading? I tell you what my expectations are, so you can repeat them back to me? Just give me the answer."

Boreas made a dismissive gesture. He said, "The matter is not obscure. There was no other safe place to keep the talismans. As originally designed by His Majesty, Lord Terminus, the boundaries and conditions of the school grounds would have suppressed the several functions of the talismans of Chaos. There was some decay over the years. What Terminus intended as a temporary encampment, I was required to treat as a fortress, and the facilities were not, as one might say, all that one might expect. And where else could I put them? If I threw them in the sea, milord Pelagaeus would recover them; no Olympian would have permitted me to turn them over to another Olympian for safekeeping, because of the temptation, if one of them had the key to open a power of Chaos, to take the chaoticist as well. While the talismans were in my hands, there was little incentive for other Olympians to abduct you."

"And why did they exist there to begin with?"

"Emissaries from Chaos sent them, or they were possessions you had on you when you were taken."

I said, "And what about our education? Lamia thought you were training us in our powers, that you intended to use us in the wars."

"My dear, I hope you are not bringing up an entirely new issue, while my curiosity remains unsatisfied. Where are your companions?"

I said, "Why else would you teach us everything we needed to know to use our powers correctly?"

He frowned.

Boreas leaned, dipped one finger idly in the water.

Steam stopped rising from the tub. The water turned cold. It was no longer comfortable.

I yelped, started to get up, remembered I was naked, and shrank back down again.

It was not icy, but it was no longer warm and inviting. He did not make it numbing, or painful, or coated with ice. Not yet.

"Miss Windrose, I do not wish to pressure you unduly, and yet, in all honesty (if that phrase has any meaning, under the circumstances), I would be remiss in my duties, not to mention personally placed in a very awkward position, if the material universe were to come to a bloody and abrupt end, merely because I was too gentle-hearted to do what it was necessary to do in order to maintain our security. I can make myself be a rather harsh and cruel man, even a barbarian, should circumstances warrant. I leave it to you to determine-yes, that is the word, determine-whether events shall progress in a civilized or in an uncouth fashion. I am, indeed, a terrible person, Miss Windrose. I trust you have not forgotten the messages, written in the language of pain, which I caused to be written on the bodies of Grendel Glum and Mestor the Atlantean, whom you knew by the name Dr. Drinkwater?"

While he spoke, he pushed his hand more deeply beneath the water, and it grew colder and colder.

I was staring at his hand in horror. His knuckles, his wrist, his forearm were now below the water level. The suds in that section of the tub were wilting and dying; the water was taking on the crystal clarity only truly cold water can display. I was huddled up against the far side of the tub, as far as the confined space would allow.

The picture I had in my imagination was me, nude, inside a solid block of tub-shaped ice, being carried on his shoulder back to the school.

He pulled his hand back, smiled unpleasantly. The water dripping down his forearm turned white and formed a little glove of frost, which he shook contemptuously to the floor tiles.

"Are you threatening me?" I said, trying to sound stern.

He swallowed a snort. Apparently I did not do stern that well. "Ah... Not in so many words, Miss Windrose: But to a person of even limited intelligence, I deem the implication would be clear. One might be tempted to say, 'painfully clear'; but, in order to avoid disproportionate drollery let us simply say, pellucid. Surely the matter is... ah... pellucid to you, Miss Windrose?"

"You are going to rape and torture me if I don't talk."

A slight tension pulled at the corners of his mouth. Embarrassment? Humor? Temptation?"

"Ahem. I had not been planning on any acts of rape. Such things generally turn out badly. Ask my wife. But I compliment you on the fecundity and liveliness of your imagination. I will be disaccommodated if you allow things to degenerate to the more brutal state to which they might devolve. Please consider answering my question."