John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

Such a pretty thing, too! Took after Mom, at least from the waist up.

"You'd think those puny folk couldn't do folk like us much hurt, but they had it out for my brothers.

Especially Hercules. Five of them are dead. No, six, if you count Or-thus. Mom ain't got no memento for him. He were the eldest, and weren't too bright, and we always called him the 'Shy One Brain,' on account of he only had two heads instead of three. I'm kind of sorry I made fun of him, now he's dead, but he was a bit of a bully, really, and he was married to Mom for a while, which sort of turns your stomach, if you think about it. That was after the Thunderer killt Dad, and Orthus was kind of the man of the family, but he didn't really ask Mom or nothing. He just did it.

"He turned over a new leaf, and tried to straighten up. Got himself a job guarding the Cattle of Geryon.

Good work, steady. And he were fierce, but Hercules laid him low.

"My second biggest brother, though, he's safe. Ain't no one ever going to kill him, not ever. He got himself a good job, watchman sort of thing, working for the Unseen One. Mom is always ragging and worrying us, why we can't get no good jobs like he got. I reckon he just got that job to make the rest of us look bad. Anyway. Mom's real proud of him, though he never comes back to visit. I just saw him in a dream the other day, though. He weren't too friendly, and me his brother and all.

"I guess 'cause his boss were looking on. Normally, he's kind of easy-tempered and funny like Mom is, you know: 'And you think your work is Hell!' That's something he says. It's a joke. You get it? You don't get it.

"Well, anyway, there is just me now, and Ladon comes by when he can, and gives her some of the apples he's supposed to be guarding. He's the young one, runt of the litter, but he got a pretty good job himself.

"You'll meet him in time, I guess. If you don't cross Mom and she don't eat you like she did the last one.

Hey, and if you butter him up, maybe he'll filch an apple for you, so as you can be immortal, too.

"We can be your family, now. You ain't had no family, had you? No one to look out for you." He patted me on the shoulder. "I'll look after you now, me and Mom, and my two brothers. You ain't never going to be lonesome again."

As he spoke about his dead brothers, a sense of pity welled up in me, but also a sensation of cold horror.

"But you are monsters," I said. "You kill and eat people like wolves kill rabbits."

"Yeah, but people don't mind. They used to, but these days? They're always going on and on about overpopulation and the balance of Nature and stuff. We gotta dress up different these days, o' course, serial murders and axe murders and so on. Jack the Ripper—heard of him? One of my nephews. He only killt whores, though, and everyone knows they're too many of them; all the preachers say so. No, you ain't worried about human beans, are you? It's Mom. Who would not be nervous meeting her, what with her being famous and written up in a poem and all?"

He reached out and took my hand in his. He stared down at it for a moment, as if impressed at how slim and white it looked, fingers slender and well-shaped, so unlike his own. Then he bowed his head over it, as if he meant to kiss it, but he did not.

He straightened, but did not let go of my hand. Instead he raised his other hand and stroked my knuckles with caresses as gentle as he could manage.

"Don't worry about a thing. I gave up a lot for you. I gave up Vanity; I cut my own foot off for you.

Mother's not going to eat you. She likes you. I told you that's her dress."

"Dress… ?"

"Her wedding dress. My mom's wedding dress. She wore that dress when she was hitched up with Typhon. She saved it in a box for the Sphinx, but Sphinx got killt by Oedipus. That cap is hers, too, last one I got. That's why I could not keep you and Vanity both."

I reached up my hand to touch the web of pearls and lights around my hair.

"Don't touch that, I said! You don't want to die by drowning. It's a foul, foul death" he said in a matter-of-fact voice. "I know the word to break the charm on that there cap. You are thinking how far you can run? Not far enough. You try to run off, and I say the word. You stab me in my sleep, and Mother says the word.

"Now, come along! We tarried enough, jawing. Mother wants to talk to you and give her blessing. She keeps her blessings in ajar next to her high seat. She's going to say about how not to be afraid of having babies, and how you'll love the ones with two heads as much as the ones with three. It's a thing matrons say to virgins, you know? And she's going to say some stupid stuff about how it hurts the first time, so liquor up good after the ceremony, but after that you learn not to mind. The kind of garbage womenfolk think men don't know you talk about. Besides, I wouldn't hurt you for all the world."

I drew a deep not-breath. Suddenly, I was calm and unafraid. It was simple. It was like a math puzzle.

There were certain known factors I could control, and certain factors he controlled; some were known and some were unknown. I could solve for the known factors.

Actually, it was more like a chess puzzle. Math puzzles do not require one to sacrifice pieces.

I said, "No, Grendel."

He said, "What's that?"

"No. You shall not marry me. I will not stay here. You shall take me back up to the surface in the next five minutes."

He said, "You want me to go fetch the rod, is that it? It's an ill thing to beat a woman on her wedding day. I'd rather wait till after the preacher were done, to make it proper and legal-like."

I looked at him. I don't know what he saw in my face, but he quailed and stepped back, even though he was immensely stronger than me, and possessed of a power I could not oppose.

My words marched out of my mouth like soldiers: "Hear me, Grendel. I pity you, for you are wretched, but I will not be yours. You wish to possess me, and I do not wish to be possessed. My wishes will be granted, and yours will be thwarted."

He stepped forward again, beginning to smile. "I'll get my way."

"You will do what I wish you to do. You will take me to the surface."

"And why will I do that, little golden princess?"

"Because my will is stronger than yours, Grendel."

He may have had some intimation of what I was about to do, because he grabbed for my wrists. Too late.

The net I wore on my head, the mermaid's cap, came up easily off my hair, and tore in half very easily.

There was a flash of green sparks as the fabric parted.

The sounds grew rubbery and thick, and the icy water shocked every inch of my flesh, every cubic inch of my lungs. Oddly enough, there was no sensation of choking, because my lungs were already entirely filled with water.

And it was cold, so cold, that it felt, paradoxically, as if all the water around me had turned to lava. As if my arms and legs were burned to stubs immediately, I could not tell whether I could move them or not.

My vision went dark.

Pnigerophobia. That was the word. Fear of choking is called pnigerophobia.

1.

For a time, I lay between waking and not-waking, troubled by memories of dark nightmares of cold, endless cold, and of choking and vomiting black water. I remembered rough lips trying to breathe life back into my lungs, and being unable to breathe and unable to see or feel. And reality had somehow…

snapped into place… and in the new version of reality, the lips came again, and breathed into me, and I breathed in and out. In and out.

There is no sensation more wonderful. How pleasant, how wonderful life is, which allows us to enjoy this pleasure, life's best pleasure, ten or five times a minute, when we relax, fifteen when we are filled with excitement.