John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

Vanity had already dropped crumbs on the carpet, crumbs someone else (not us!) was going to clean up.

Victor was inspecting a bottle of soda pop, a brand he had not seen before, something with an Italian label in a green glass bottle.

Quentin was also seated cross-legged on the carpet. He carefully brought his hands out from beneath his voluminous cloak, and twisted them in midair. One moment, his hands were empty; the next, he had the ring of Gyges in one hand and an exasperated-looking eagle in the other. The eagle was no longer seeping any blood. As far as I could tell from a one-glance inspection, he seemed entirely recovered from wounds which should have killed him nine times over.

The eagle hopped from Quentin's hands and drove his beak into a sandwich, which was lying on a napkin on the floor.

Quentin looked up. "It wasn't me. I don't have that art. I think chapter seven might tell me about the vapors and humors affecting the intellectual and passionate psyches, but even that would only influence moods, not control minds."

I said, "Well, someone did something. Why wouldn't they just radio for a coast guard or something? Or call back to England and tell Boggin?"

Vanity said, "There are a lot of people in England. I don't think they all know each other's names yet.

Maybe after Christmas. Hey! Try these potato things. They have some sort of spicy stuff baked into them."

Quentin said, "We did pay a great deal of money for a cabin that otherwise he had not rented out for this crossing. Besides, isn't it a law of the sea that one must rescue stranded blondes and redheads?"

Vanity said, "They would have been quicker to pick us up if Amelia and I had been in bathing suits, like I suggested."

I sat down and tried the potato things. They really were quite good.

Victor said, "I did it. I used a cryptognostic technique on the captain. Every time his nervous tension levels started to trigger a glandular reaction, I interrupted the stimulus cycle in his hypothalamus.

Whenever one of us spoke, or he looked closely at us, I lightly stimulated the pleasure center of the brain. I did not have long enough to establish a true operant conditioning cycle, but apparently it was enough to influence his judgment in our favor."

I was upset by this news. "That's terrible! You can't go around tinkering with people's inner thoughts that way! What makes you any different than Corus, the brain-eraser? Or Dr. Fell?!"

Victor said in a dismissive tone, "The process would not affect the judgment of people who did not make decisions on an emotional basis."

I said hotly, "I think we need to discuss how we are going to use our powers, and whether normal people should be off-limits!"

"Fine," said Victor, taking a bite of the wrapped-up food roll-thing. (Maybe it was a Mexican food?) He chewed and swallowed, and said, "Let us add it to the agenda right after point five, which I believe is tabled until we restore Colin. Restoring Colin is the topic that has the floor at the moment. Any theories as to why Quentin's true-shape charm is not working? Amelia… ? Anyone… ?"

Vanity said, "Colin is not a witch flying on a rafter. Don't look at me like that! That was in the poem he said."

Quentin said, half to himself, "That little poem' is the words of the High One."

"Besides, the little poem Quentin said is meant to prevent witches from returning to their day-shapes, isn't it?"

Quentin just sighed, and said to Victor, "I am sure that someone versed in the true science could restore Colin swiftly. I am an apprentice without a master, working from a book."

Victor said, "Do you have anything else you could try?"

Quentin sighed, and looked at the cabin ceiling for a moment. "I could ask Marbas, who is a great president, and governs thirty-six legions of spirits, and who also can change men into other shapes—but that demonstration would require that I accomplish the figure of memory first, which I can only do on the new moon…

"There are a number of basic steps, amulets, and phylacteries I should have been using since long ago, and certain consecrations I ought to do before attempting anything more. Like you, I don't have some basic tools my book talks about. I've been using a butter knife for my athame. I do not have any sort of athanor or any way to make one. It is all going to take time I do not think we have.

"And if I did something wrong, as Vanity says I did, I might have trapped Colin in that shape by mistake."

Vanity said, "You said chapter two had the bestiary in it."

"It was chapter three. Chapter two is the celestial hierarchy…"

"Whatever! You know the true names of the lord of eagles, and the true name of Colin, so why can't you just zap him?"

"Well, watch…" Quentin put out his hand. We had not yet unpacked, so all the Paris clothes boxes and scuba gear and stuff was simply lying piled on the divan. The white birch wand jumped across the room from the pile into Quentin's hand.

He touched the wand to the bird first with one end, then with the other. 'Ter! Remove this false shape from one who is not your son. Phobetor! Return to your own human shape, without hurt or pain, and stand before us. I charge and compel you in the name of the Third of Choirs: Eliphamasai, Gelomiros, Gedobonai, Saranana, and Elomnia!"

Vanity looked at the bird curiously. "Was something supposed to happen?"

"There is a tiling called the Almadel I am supposed to make, but I haven't gotten the chance yet. A square of wax written with holy names and bearing the Seal of Solomon. So, I guess I am not doing it right. But even without that, if there was a curse keeping him in this shape, I should have just revoked it."

Quentin put his white stick down beside him and reached into the food again. "Hey! This is soup in this container. Smells wonderful. Did they give us spoons? Oh, and before I forget…"

He tossed the ring of Gyges across to me. I caught it, but I said, "Don't give it to me! I am the only one here who doesn't need it. I can step half an inch into four-space, so that photons slide past me without touching. I can do better than invisibility."

Victor was pouring ketchup on some potato things, which (in my opinion) defeated the whole purpose of having them baked with spices. "Not me," he said, "I might demagnetize it by mistake. I think all that thing really does is interfere with the visual centers of the brain, anyway."

I tossed it to Vanity, who caught it. "What!" she said. "Am I the cripple in the group or something, the only person not from Chaos, so I need to be able to turn invisible? It is obvious that Colin has to get this ring, and for the same reason Grendel wanted it. If Colin wears it, he can stop Miss Daw, but Mrs. Wren cannot stop him. If Grendel is dead, they can't mount an effective attack on us. Amelia is now our trump card. No one can neutralize her. She neutralizes Dr. Fell, and with Fell out of the way, Quentin can blast them with magic."

Quentin murmured, "Not exactly 'blast.' I can tell them the true name of the first Salmon."

I said, "Maybe I was wrong about who stops whom. If someone other than Quentin tried to unstick Colin…"

Victor said, "You are not wrong, Amelia. Quentin, show her the diagram."

Quentin said, "I cannot believe they did not give us spoons. Does anyone mind if I just drink this straight out of the container? I mean, if no one else wants any…"

Victor said, "Quentin, the diagram, if you please."

"Oh, sorry. Here." And he took his grimoire out from an inner pocket of his long cloak, waved his hand over it in a mystic gesture, while unlocking it with his other hand (I saw him do it), and opened it to the frontispiece.

"There it is, right in the beginning," Quentin said. "Your table of oppositions. The four houses of Chaos and their relationship to each other."