John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

I saw a diamond, whose opposite corners were connected by the arms of a cross. There were heraldic signs surrounding each corner, and writing along the lines in some sort of crooked, cursive script. The script did not actually change when I was looking at it, but I kept getting the strange feeling that it just had changed.

I said, "I cannot read the faerie letters."

Quentin said, "Don't worry about that. It correlates the houses with the four elements, the four seasons, and so on. You can still look at the pictures. The apple blossom symbol at the top is your people. The pomegranate at the bottom is mine. The poppy flower to the left is Colin, and the mistletoe to the right is Victor's group, the Telchine. Here is what is interesting. The horizontal line connecting poppy to mistletoe, marked with a white lily, represents the Phaeacians; the vertical line connecting pomegranate to apple blossom, marked with a red rose, represents the Olympians, although you can see a thyme leaf where the Olympians touch you, and a sage herb where it rests on me…"

All these flowers were confusing me. Apple blossom? Why was I an apple blossom?

I interrupted, "So what is the deal with all this? What's it mean?"

Quentin said, "We think it means your table of opposition was a correct theory, and that you guessed right about the two non-Chaotic powers. This chart implies that the Olympian power is a mean between multidimensionalism and the True Art, your paradigm and mine. A second implication is that the Phaeacian power is a mean between or combination of materialism and mysticism, Victor and Colin."

Vanity said, "It was Miss Daw and Mrs. Wren who were tending me when I had pneumonia. The so-called pneumonia."

Victor said, "Which means we need Colin to fix Vanity."

Vanity said, "Maybe Colin is stuck because he still wants to be stuck. I mean, did he really enjoy himself when he was a boy? Sometimes, I do not think he was very happy. It's hard on a fellow who is stupider than everyone around him."

Quentin frowned at her, his face dark, and real anger in his eye. "Don't say such things again. You were brought up better than that!"

Vanity said, "Why are you standing up for him? You were the one he always picked on!"

Quentin said, "Colin? He never picked on me. Where do you get these ideas? I won't have you speaking such ill of him, especially as you are the one he is going to save, once we get him back. Don't let such words pass your lips again!"

5.

The scene of mild-mannered Quentin browbeating the bubbly Vanity over what was obviously just a light-hearted joke made me uncomfortable. (Besides, Colin did pick on Quentin, all the time. How could Quentin not see it?) I stood up. "Listen—I am going to go to my room and change out of these Grendel things. I cannot believe I have been wearing them all day. You guys keep talking. Figure something out."

I gathered an armful of dress boxes and the things I wanted to put on.

Vanity leaped to her feet, all smiles. "I have the answer! I have an idea! I've got it!"

I had my hand on the door to my cabin, and I turned to see Vanity, the Colin eagle resting in her hands, come skipping after me. "Come on!" she said to me.

"What?" I said.

Bird in one hand, she urged me into the bedroom. She paused to stick her tongue out at the boys, and danced into the room, closing the door behind. The lights had a dimmer switch, and she turned them only to a dim, golden half-light. Everything was touched with soft shadows and rich textures in that light.

Vanity put the eagle on the headboard of the bed. 'This is such a good idea. I know it is going to work!"

I put the boxes and stuff on the foot of the bed, and started to unbutton the first of the two shirts I was wearing.

Vanity came dancing back, grinning, and put one arm around my waist. She turned and smiled at the eagle.

She said through her teeth, "You're not smiling!" This came out sounding like: lour nn't sn'lingk !

"I am entirely convinced you have lost your mind, Vanity," I said. "What are we doing, here, exactly?

And move your hand so I can take off this smelly shirt."

She skipped a step back, still grinning. "Okay! But do it more slowly! And look like you are enjoying yourself."

She started to unbutton the top buttons of her blouse, too, but she was swaying her hips and rolling her shoulders, as if dancing to music I could not hear. I wondered if she were under some sort of spell or hex cast by the enemy.

"Do—what? What are you going on about?"

But now her eyes fell upon the transparent misty top of the fairy dress I was wearing, which became visible as I shrugged off my second shirt.

Vanity said, "You are going too fast! And— Wow! What is that?"

I bent to push the two pairs of pants off my hips. They were so large and baggy that I thought I could just slip them off without unzippering them, once the belt was gone. It was a little tight, but I wiggled and slid them down my legs.

"Now, that was really good!" said Vanity. "But you should be the other way around…"

I straightened up and put my hands on my hips. Vanity had her shirt off and was standing there in just her skirt and stockings. The bra she had bought in Paris was a lacy black thing with the tiniest little red bow deep in her cleavage. I don't think I had ever seen black underwear before, not in real life, and the bra must have been a padded support bra, because her breasts looked even larger and perkier than normal in it. I thought it looked very pretty, though maybe peach would have gone better with her light complexion.

"Vanity, what the heck is going on?"

Vanity bent down, pouting seductively, and with little, teasing tugs, tugged her skirt off with a slow, very sensuous motion, and it clung for a moment to her hips and buttocks, and dropped gently to the floor.

She was now posed with one hand on her knee, one hand caressing her own hip, and the shining curve of her slip exposed to the soft, sepia-toned light.

Why was Vanity smiling over her shoulder at me? Why were her eyes half-lidded, as if she were aroused by some deep romantic passion?

We undressed in front of each other naked every single night of our lives. Why was she making such a big production number out of it tonight? But there was no mistaking her attitude and gestures. She was doing a striptease. She…

She was not smiling at me. She was smiling at the bird. At Colin.

I turned my head. The bird was staring at me with bright, bright yellow eyes.

Vanity pouted and said softly, "Are you sure you don't want to be a man, Colin? There are soooo many things men can enjoy that birds can't! We'll both give you a kiss if you turn back into a man…"

I was wearing a floating cloud of fairy vapor, which exposed my nipples. My pubic hair was visible as a faint bluish triangle, at which all the pearl strands running through the wasp-waisted corselette pointed.

The bodice of this dress was webbed with something like a fishnet body stocking, exposing every curve and making them curvier. This dress left nothing to the imagination, except where it hid just enough to make the imagination of an aroused man more aroused.

And I was standing in it, naked, worse than naked, in front of Colin mac FirBolg.

I shrieked and yanked up the skirt Vanity had discarded, trying to hold it over me, yanking it high to cover my top, yanking it low to cover my bottom, and probably not covering very much.

Victor's voice came from the other room: "Is everything all right in there?"

Vanity called out gaily, "Yes! We are all fine here! Just fine!" She reached over and pinched me.

"Ow!" I said. "Stop that!"

Vanity said, "You've got to help! Why aren't you helping?"