John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

When he was gone, I moved my slipper and looked down.

The ring of Gyges lay under my toe.

1.

The church bells rang again, and down the street, the tall doors opened. A little crowd began to form on the stairs of the church, little figures in the distance in their best formal clothes.

I misted the "fate" Corus had put upon Sam, that someone would find and help him. I would have called out, but I feared they would call the police on me.

Bird in hand, I walked quickly down Main Street. No one was following. When the slope cut off the view of the church behind me, I ran.

I had the ring in my fist as I ran, but I was too wary of the unknown to put it on my finger.

How had it come to be in my pocket? At a guess, when Grendel came out of the Kissing Well with me freezing to death in his arms, he stepped over to his little buried shed, saw it was too small to get me inside, but grabbed up his cloak and fire-making tools. And took the time to take off the ring, wrap it in a hankie, and put it in his trunk? Maybe. He had that trunk open because he was getting a gag out for yours truly; he was terrified that I would make a noise and call down the vengeance of Boreas on his head.

But the fact that I had it seemed like a coincidence.

From Corns , it was clear that arranging coincidences was the especial province of the Olympians. But why? Maybe it had a tracking device in it, or the magical equivalent to one. Even so, several clues implied the Olympian power could only work on someone who broke a law, went back on a promise, or was indebted. I had not stolen this ring. Did that make it safe to use?

I came out onto Waterside Street.

I heard Vanity's voice before I saw them, a cheery voice ringing with relief and joy: "Oh! Look! It worked! There she is!"

I turned my head, and there they were. Quentin had his huge black cape on over his school uniform, a staff of white wood in his hand; Victor was wearing a brand-new buff-colored jacket that fell to his knees, with a chain-mail jerkin dangling and clinking underneath; Vanity was dressed in a plush red winter coat with white mink fur trim about the hood and wrists, with matching gloves, with little black booties below. It was an outfit I had never seen before. She looked like a glamour model doing a "Santa's little elf" theme.

I ran up and threw my arms—one arm, anyway— around the smiling Vanity and gave her the biggest hug circumstances allowed. She flinched and giggled when the huge bird of prey fluttered his wings across her head.

We were standing, of all places, right in front of Jerry's Fine Cafe. Victor had his back to me and was helping a police constable sit down on the bench that was there. A second police constable was already seated, slumped over the bench arm, ear on his shoulder, eyes closed and mouth open. There was a teardrop of drool dangling from his lip. I would have thought he was dead, but dead men don't snore so loudly.

Quentin's eyes were also closed. He had his left hand held out at shoulder level, with rosary beads twined through his fingers. A cross was hanging from it, like the bob of a pendulum. The pendulum was not swinging. The rosary was motionless, suspended at the apex of its arc or swing, and the cross was pointed at me.

Quentin relaxed and muttered, " Ave et vale. Abi !" Whereupon, the rosary in his hand also relaxed. He opened his eyes, casually looping the rosary around his hand to tuck it into an inner pocket, and he said,

"I was looking for Colin, that time ."

I said, "I sensed someone looking for me. Was that you?" And without waiting for an answer, I held up the bird. "This is Colin, I think."

Vanity stepped away and blinked at the bloody eagle. "Colin was taller, last time I saw him, wasn't he?"

Quentin said, "Found this on the bed of the sea, when I was dowsing for you. Like attracts to like. You wouldn't believe how often Victor went diving for you."

He handed me my lucky cap.

I was angry with Victor, of course.

If he had been thoughtful enough to be the one to return my aviatrix cap to me, I would have had the perfect excuse to kiss him. But he didn't. How rude.

Victor straightened up. "I have stimulated the narcoleptic reflex in their brains, but they are not actually asleep. That would require brainwave alterations to delta states, which are controlled by more complex sections of the medulla oblongata. In the meanwhile, they can hear us, so we should not discuss anything in front of them we do not want the enemy to know."

I said, "The gods erase the memories of people who learn about them; it just happened to a guy who helped me. Funny guy, real nice to me. Thelxiepia told me gods kill people who find out too much."

Victor nodded, looking entirely unsurprised by this news, and said to the sleeping policemen: "Your planet is being secretly controlled by a group of entities who need or enjoy the admiration and worship of human beings. They control a highly advanced technology which can affect thought processes. If you reveal what you have overheard to anyone, you run the risk of being destroyed by them. Nevertheless, you may wish to take that risk in order to organize a resistance to them, if you find that their rulership is unacceptable to you."

To me, Victor said, "Let us go back before more people come. These officers were sent for you."

I said, "Back?"

He pointed.

Out in the harbor was the silvery ship. She rested on the waves, bright as a naked sword blade, slim as a swan. The eyes to either side of the prow did not seem as blind as painted eyes should be; the long bronze ram extending sloping into the waterline gave the ship a friendly, almost comical look, like the nose of Cyrano. There was a crystal lantern shining (pale as the moon seen by day) on the mast, but no sails.

There was something so odd and so dreamlike about the silvery ship, that I looked again with my upper senses. The ship was not actually floating on the waters of Earth, not fully. The waters below her keel were an ocean that extended in another direction, becoming ever more mystical, haunting, and phantasmagorical in the distance. The two oceans overlapped when the silver ship met the sea, so that she was actually afloat in the ocean of dream, but her deck was exposed to the airs of Earth.

Quentin took the bird gently from my hand and frowned at him, scratching his head gently and muttering over him.

We all started to walk toward the pier. I put one hand through Victor's arm, and Vanity took my other hand. Quentin walked behind, stroking the bird.

The boardwalk boomed under our footsteps. Vanity said, "So this is a new look for you, isn't it, Amelia?

The sort of grungy, baggy, two-pairs-of-pants look?"

"Look who is talking! Where did you get those clothes?"

"Paris. We sailed up the Seine. Humans can't see Argent Nautilus . That's her name. We spent some of the money you got us."

I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach. "You went—to France—? Without me? You went shopping! In another country! In Paris! And I missed it!"

It was one of the worst moments of my life. Imagine if your friends got married, had a party, went to Alpha Cen-tauri, discovered an alien civilization, and got to name all the planets in the new solar system with new names, but they did not invite you. You were off being burnt and choked by a one-legged sex maniac. The boat sailed without me. One of the worst moments of my life.

Vanity said, "I would have invited you, but you were drowned by Grendel."

Victor said calmly, "They were buying scuba gear to help me look for you. Vanity's boat ignores distance considerations. Timewise, Paris was just as close as Oxwich Green or Swansea."

"I am not blaming you—I'd like to, but I'm not. Oh! Before I forget! Her boat is detectable. Each time she calls her or sails her, Mestor's lodestone points at it."