John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

And Victor patted me on the hand, and told me he was proud of me for how bravely I had endured the ordeal. I thought that was a funny thing to say, because the worst part of my adventures had been that I had not been anywhere as brave as I would have liked.

I told them about what Grendel had said about Echidna and Beowulf, and his several dead brothers. I described the ripping of the mermaid's cap, choking, being healed by Grendel and then waking up all tied up in his bearskin rug. I glossed over the parts where he was threatening me with conflagration and strangulation, and I described the fight in gory enough detail that it made Vanity queasy and she begged me to stop.

I told them about the mysterious town I saw, resting where Abertwyi is in our world A different time? A different time line? We wasted some time discussing theories.

Quentin recalled that the enemy had mentioned multiple worlds during the meeting of the Board of Visitors and Governors.

I even gave them a brief precis of my conversation with Sam the dray-driver. My encounter with Corns I repeated word for word.

Vanity was enormously upset about Sam the dray-driver, for reasons I did not quite understand. She shook her hair with anger, so that red strands the color of fire stood up from her furry hood and whipped in the wind. "I've been thinking of nothing else for two days except how I was going to tell the newspapers! Maybe get a book deal out of it! You know, 'I was a teenage love slave of a pagan god.'

Good title, eh? And now your Sam—the entire Sam you met, as far as I'm concerned, is dead, or as good as. What's the point?! What's the point of knowing the secret truth about the world if you cannot tell anybody!"

Quentin did not really understand her anger either. He said, half to himself, in a voice as if he were quoting a poem: "An eighteenth I know, which to none I will tell, not to maiden nor another man's wife—what is known to oneself and oneself alone is warded best. Only to my sister, would I say it, or the wife I hold in my arms…"

Victor summed up their adventures in a few terse lines, to which Vanity added comments, examples, descriptions, and digressions. Vanity had called her Swift Silver Ship; they had sailed to Paris. Their passports and visas did not seem to be needed; they changed some of the pound notes to francs, and bought gear. At sea again, Quentin slept on the boat, and read the first three chapters of his book, the Arcanum Oneirocritica . Victor took his drug. Vanity fretted. After, they circled spots Quentin divined I might be. Victor dove.

Victor was now about three inches taller than when I had last seen him. He explained: "I've been modifying myself. I rearranged some clumsy joint structures and muscle tissue connections. My muscle pressure has increased, and I have increased the rate of nerve firings per second, to give myself finer motor control.

"The extra height? I created spare abdominal spaces, and I compressed other organs, to make room for certain amplifiers and storage cells I am in the process of growing; also focusing elements and sensory adaptations. The blueprints were coded into my memory by the ampoule.

"I have made additional ganglia connections between various sections of my cortex and lower brain functions, to give myself more direct access to involuntary activity.

"The library has a wide listing of coded commands to impose into other people's nervous systems to trigger their reaction cycles. The system is called cryptognosis.

"Certain of the molecular chains take much longer to put together than others, and I have to build step-by-step certain molecular-construction tools and processes which the library-compiler evidently thought would be already installed in me, or automatic.

"However, the work proceeds very slowly. Whoever put together the coded molecules of memory-stuff that was in the syringe seemed to have no understanding of biology, or terrestrial conditions. I have instructions and reflexes set up in my nervous system now, which, if I set into motion, would turn me into something that could not exist on Earth. There were also no safety features in this library, no warnings for what nerve cells are needed for other functions or not.

"Quentin keeps telling me it is dangerous for a scientist to experiment on his own brain, but I tell him that a magician's credo is to know, to dare, to will, and to be silent. Obviously, to know all, the magician must dare all, and be silent about the risks."

Victor smiled one of his rare smiles. I listened with surprise. Was Victor actually telling a joke?

Quentin, despite that he was fussing over the bird, had a much more relaxed and confident poise to him than I had seen before. There was a glint in his eye, and he talked back to Victor in a way which, when he was younger, he never would have done: "And I keep telling him that the principle of empirical experiment requires the experimenter to remain objective, a scientist who monkeys with his own mental hardware compromises his ability to observe.

"Victor!" Quentin spoke firmly. "I've warned you that my science, the true science, cannot fix you once you render the humors in your brain impure; your disbelief in magic casts a negative ward around you.

You are a soul who has convinced himself he has no soul; damage your brain, and that silly belief may turn out to have a self-fulfilling character, my friend."

Victor, still smiling his small smile, said to me confidentially, "Quentin now is convinced he knows everything, because he has read the first three chapters of his book. I tell him the book is just gibberish, and he is only reading it in his dreams, and he agrees with me. Perhaps I have not drawn out the implications of my comment with sufficient clarity."

Vanity was probably also not used to the idea of Victor kidding around. She reacted as if he were serious, saying hotly, "The book is just great! The first chapter tells about the creation of the world; chapter two is the hierarchies of eternity and those ions and emissions .. "

Quentin said gently, "Aeons and Emanations. Gnostic words referring to angelic reflections or subdivisions of the divine."

She turned to him. "Chapter three was the bestiary, right?"

Quentin said, "The names Adam gave to beast and bird, crawling things and swimming things. But each name is a true name, and contains the tale of the beast, the history of the first two of each of their kind, and how long they stayed in the garden in Eden after the departure of Man. The hour and the gate of their departure defined their roles in the world. The hound and the horse, the swine and the kine, left with him, through the gate called Peace, but the cat actually left before him, sniffing out the ground, which is why those domesticated beasts, the sons of Cadwal and Rahal, Ghiuor and Muor, retain their loyalty to humanity, whereas the sire of all cats, Greymalkin, was granted a degree of independence, a reward for his curiosity. The serpent, Issrashah, most wise of beasts, was the last to depart. There are several references and tales about creatures of great beauty and power, who I am assuming were wiped out during the deluge of Noah."

Quentin smiled, looking young and handsome and eager, and he continued: "I am looking forward to chapter four tonight. I hope it contains the original language of Enoch, who built the first of the cities of man on Earth. I will also have to learn the lore of Tubalcaine, to be able to cast influences on things man-made of metal and brass; and likewise for Jubalcaine, in order to influence the doings of poets and singers."

I wondered if Quentin's newfound boldness came from his memory, now restored, of nerving himself and defeating his shyness to kiss sweet Vanity for the first time. I think he did it three times, and he got me, too. Not to mention, he now recalled spitting in the eye of the Lamia bent over him to kill him. All those bold memories were part of him now, back where they belonged, and it was forming part of his character.