John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

Philosophy? Get yourself a cardboard sign: Will think for food . You'll be on the dole with me in no time.

Then we can have our argument about Margey Thatcher again."

Victor put the envelope of money into my hand. "Don't starve yet. I still say this is yours, not ours. If you want to split it up once we are all together, fine."

Colin said, "That should be in about one minute. Quentin sent me to go get you. He was playing around with calculating the orbit of Jupiter in hexadecimals, and he was using a system in that book of his.

Apparently there are four more planets in the dream world than there are here, and he can get better results if he takes their motions into account, too. Anyway, tonight is the night."

Victor said, "In what way? The night for what?"

Argh! Victor is so slow sometimes. I said, "Vesuvius erupts tonight."

Colin gave me an odd look. "No. Not at all. The attack is coming tonight. We are going to be attacked.

What is all this about Vesuvius?"

Colin is slower.

1.

Vanity was with Quentin in the cabin when we arrived. Quentin was seated cross-legged on the floor, wearing a dark opera cape of rich material. It was an article of clothing I had not seen before; I assume it was a Paris acquisition. He had his tarot cards spread out in a half-circle before him, along with two candles, his white staff, a wineglass, a steak knife.

Vanity was seated on the couch. She had gathered some of her clothes and mine, and was moving things from a pile on her left to a pile on her right. Some of the boys' clothes were there, too, as well as some of the camping gear, scuba gear, and climbing gear we had brought along, or bought along the way.

The first thing she said was, "I'll bet it's the ring. Hand it over, Colin."

Colin, at the door, said, "The precious? Our birthday present!? I gave it to this German chick I found sleeping in the middle of a circle of fire___Kidding! Just kidding! Here it is. I knew the damn thing was bugged when you gave it to me. Good old expendable Colin!"

He pulled it off his finger and tossed it across the air to Vanity.

Victor followed Colin into the room. "Why did you think the ring was bugged?"

Colin said, "Because I was listening when Quentin explained how magic works. In order for the Olympians to curse someone, that someone has to do something wrong. Well, stealing a ring is wrong.

Mr. Glum stole it from Mrs. Wren; he said that to Amelia, right?"

Quentin looked up from his cards. "Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. It has to do with obligations being kept or violated. It has to do with rules being broken or not broken. Being in debt.

Owing a favor. Any rule. The rules don't have to be fair; they just have to be rules. For example: in Amelia's story, Sam the Drayman got cursed with amnesia by Corns. I assume the rule Sam broke is that mortals are not supposed to look at gods."

Vanity (who was, I assume, still annoyed at how Sam had been treated) said sharply, "When was that a rule? Who made that a rule? Where are these rules written?"

Quentin looked a little puzzled, as if he had never thought of those questions before. "I don't know. But the sanctity of the gods is well established in literature. Paris, by asking the three goddesses to strip for him, committed an offense that cursed and destroyed his home city of Troy. Actaeon was turned into a stag and eaten by his own hounds for gazing at Artemis bathing. Moses could only look at the rear of God. There are other examples."

Colin flopped down on the divan next to Vanity and picked up a peach-colored satin bra from the pile, and looked at it speculatively. "Maybe God just had a real nice butt, and wasn't too happy about his face. You know."

Quentin put the ring on a piece of paper on the floor in front of him, and began inscribing, with compass and straightedge, a pentacle around the ring on the paper. I saw his tongue protruding a little from the corner of his mouth.

Quentin said to Colin in a mild tone, "Maybe you should not talk about things you know nothing about, Colin."

"Yeah, well, then I'd never get to say anything, would I?" Colin said.

Vanity snatched the bra out of his hands. "That's what we all pray for."

Colin dropped his voice into an intimate tone: "At night? In your nighties? On your knees? You're praying for me to do what again?"

Victor stiffly sat in the chair opposite them. "I know what she was praying for, Colin. If I could have prayed and gotten God to come walk into the dorm and shut you up at lights out, I might not be the atheist I am today."

Quentin looked up from his diagram. "Is that all it would take to turn you from a skeptic into a pious man, Victor? I agree that it would have been a miracle of Biblical proportions to get Colin to settle after dark.

But I always thought you would not believe in any superior beings, even if you saw them."

Victor said, "Define 'believe.' If the Martians of Mr. H. G. Wells landed in their tripods tonight, and started wiping out things with their heat ray, I would believe in superior nonhuman beings. They would exist. But I would not bend knee to them, nor to any other creature, superior or not, no matter what his threats."

"What if he were morally superior?"

"Then he would not be the bloodthirsty maniac described in the Jewish folk tales, would he?"

Colin gestured at Quentin with an airy wave of the hand. "Well, well, when did Big Q become a Christian? Is this the same fellow who woke me up at four thirty in the morning last May Day to go comb dew off of a hawthorn tree with a sickle he had me steal from Mr. Glum's shed? I don't remember that from the Common Book."

Quentin was frowning down at his piece of paper, tracing a line along a ruler. He spoke absentmindedly, without looking up: "I am not one or the other. I go where the True Science leads me. I doubt either neopagan or Christian would admit this, but the two traditions are the same, one growing from the other.

The myth of Christ is the same as the fable of Adonis, except that the Christian tales have the stern moral flavor and intellectual depth that the Neoplatonists, Stoics, and the late Roman writers added to them. All tales are one grand tale."

He straightened up from where he had been hunched over the ring. "Let me attempt a demonstration.

Amelia, if you will shut off the lights… ? No one talk; the spirits and aery humors released by your breath, not to mention the ambient charge on any names, words, or symbols you might express, will disturb the pattern of influences I am trying to establish. If Amelia starts to talk, somebody kiss her."

"I am on it!" said Colin, beginning to get up.

"Never you mind," said Victor.

I had walked in the front door with the rest of them, and had not yet taken a seat. As it chanced, I was standing near where Victor sat at his ease.

I stood there, blinking, caught between hope and wonder, doubting my ears. What had Victor just said?

Victor reached up from where he sat and, without asking, without even the slightest qualm, took me by the hand and steered me over in front of him. He put both his hands on my hips and pulled me down to sit on his knee.

I think Victor said something like, "Carry on," or maybe Colin made a wry comment, but I could not hear anything clearly. My heart was pounding in my ears, and I was afraid to turn around, as if maybe Victor would vanish if I turned to look at him, or it would all fade into a dream. Or, worse, he'd look at me as if I were his sister.

But he kept his hands on my hips. Firm, strong hands. I could feel how warm they were.

I sat there feeling pleased and foolish, wondering if I should lean back against him, if I dared. I missed what happened next, because I wasn't paying attention.