Titans of Chaos

by John C. Wright

  This was the Vanity from Vanity Island: the leader-woman, sharp and concise. I admit I used to think of her as silly. But silly was not the same as happy.

  And anyone can afford to be silly when she is a prisoner, or a child, not in control of her own life, making no decisions that matter to anyone. That is what she used to be. Helpless and therefore silly. Me, too, I guess.

  Through the walls, I saw Archer, with a rustle of his wide wings, step from the closet and advance toward Vanity. "Indeed I can halt the decree of the war-god, sending young girls in love to war, for you are in my realm, not his. But will I? Love is a fickle thing. Why should I grant this petition? Have any of you vowed fealty to me?" He looked left and right again. I could sense some sort of pressure wave coming from his fourth-dimensional armor, and sweeping back and forth to the "red" and "blue" of me. Again, his extensions into the fourth dimension were artificial, not part of his nervous system. I don't think his senses could interpret what he saw very clearly. He could not just look through walls. If I stayed flat in three dimensions, his radar (or whatever it was) did not see me.

  "Where is your leader? Helion's daughter, the shepherdess? Boreas told me she was the one who was in charge of your merry band. The smart one, he called her."

  Well, the so-called smart one at that moment did not want him to know how Vanity had gotten me out of the room; nor was I eager to continue the conversation in my underthings. Nude and blushing is not the way to talk to a love-god. I noticed that Vanity was not being distracted by asides as I had been.

  Following the shortcut Vanity made for me, I found myself back in my little dressing room.

  Even though Vanity was holding up her end of the conversation just fine, if Boggin told Archer I was the leader, he would not negotiate with her. Since I did not want him to deduce how I'd gotten out of his grip, and since I wanted to get dressed, I decided it was time to let him see me again.

  I found an easy way to get dressed on the quick was merely to pluck my shed clothes up into the fourth dimension, scrunch my three-dimensional cross-section into a point inside my outfit, and rotate it so that the point expanded outward suddenly. I had my left arm in my right sleeve and vice versa, but it was quicker to twist dimensions in a half circle than it was to take the clothes off and put them back on again. I left the evening gown on the hanger: I was dressed in my flying leathers, with track shoes on my feet and my lucky cap on my head.

  So I pushed open the door and stepped out. "Here I am, Mr. Archer! I need to know something about you before we close the deal."

  He nodded briefly. "You need only know whether I have the power to do as you ask. I do."

  Vanity spoke up. "If you are so powerful, why'd you lose the throne?"

  He gave her a cryptic, sidelong glance. "That is sort of a personal question, Princess. Ask a historian."

  I said, "We need to know the situation. You say you are powerful enough to overrule Mavors, but if he is the war-god, can't he win any battle with you? With anyone? Come to think of it, why didn't he take the throne by force when Terminus died? I'm asking the wrong question. Not how you got pushed off the throne, but how you ever got on it? How did you inherit Heaven?"

  Archer smiled that type of smile I've seen on Boggin's face when he hears a clever question from Colin. Smiling at the unexpected. "I was deposed because of my power, not despite it."

  "What does that mean?" Vanity asked, her hand on her hips, her green eyes glinting.

  He paused to smile at her, perhaps gathering bitter memories in his head. "When Lord Terminus fell beneath Typhon, the secret of the lightning bolt was lost. Lady Tritogenia can wield the Bolt of Heaven, but even she knows not how to make it; they say the cyclopes of Mulciber can make it, but he cannot use it in battle; and the God of Battles, Mavors, who knows the outcome of war, knows that only the Lightning can drive Chaos away. You see? With our Great King dead, our only defense against Chaos is to hide behind you children. But there is a weapon greater than the greatest weapon of Heaven; even the gods bow to it."

  He looked back and forth at Vanity and me, expectant, smug. I said, "The Great Weapon."

  He nodded, and one hand touched the pink curves of his Turkish bow with unconscious pride.

  "Indeed. The Great Weapon. How could Chaos resist, if I had all the queens of the underworld, of dreamland and outer void fall in love with the world? What can quiet the hatred of all enemies, but love, beautiful love?"

  I shuddered at the thought of my mother, or the beautiful Lady Nepenthe, Colin's mother, whom I had once seen in a dream, in this man's arms.

  He must have guessed my thought, for he looked at me and said sharply, "Not like that! I am a happily married man, little girl. I meant to have the enemies of this world fall in love with the world, with Gaea herself, her mountains and rushing streams, majestic forests of green, somber artic seas of blue, and deserts all encrimsoned with the many colors of a flame: and overhead the ordered spheres of heaven with their gemlike stars remote, the planets wheeling like falcons in their cycles and epicycles. Who, seeing the Cosmos, would not fall in love?"

  "What went wrong?" I asked.

  He spread his hands. "My mother told me that people do not always treat the ones they love so well. She thought it was madness."

  Vanity said, "Your mother is Lady Cyprian? Aphrodite, Venus? Why does she get a vote? I thought you were the Emperor of Cosmos?"

  "Ah, but even Monarchy is based on the willingness of the Led to be led. You see, three goddesses crowned me: Lady Tritogenia the Wise, also called Athena, who controls the Thunderbolt and the starry hosts of heaven; the Lady Cyprian, who bestows the love of the people; and the Great Queen Basilissa, called Hera, who grants the Mandate of Heaven, and decrees Sovereignty itself.

  Only the head those three sovereign goddesses anoint, the martial maiden, the beloved, and the mother of gods and man, can sustain the oak-leaf crown.

  "Do you know the meaning of the old history?" Archer continued. "King Terminus was a parricide; his hands were polluted with his father's blood. Only these three could wash the stains away: wisdom, and love, and the law. The Great Queen of Heaven is also the High Lady of Forgiveness, and Grandfather Terminus repaid her kindness by giving her ever more adulteries to forgive."

  He seemed lost in thought for a moment, frowning.

  "So these three goddesses picked you?" I said softly.

  "I was the compromise candidate. The Great Queen was my grandmother, and Lady Cyprian was my mother, and Lady Tritogenia was as afraid of me as all intellectuals should be. (Merlin and Solomon can tell you how well the wise and learned can withstand the foolishness of love!) Mavors did not want to war on his own son, and Mulciber did not dare earn the hate of his wife, my mother. And everyone thought I was a foolish boy, young and weak and easily led.

  "But my flaw was not that I was weak. As I said, I was too strong. Do you see? They were afraid to follow the love-god to war with Chaos. And when the Goddess of Love herself, the Lady Cyprian, said no... well, let us say that she is considerably older and greater than any of us know.

  She was found floating on a seashell in the Western Sea, surrounded by singing Graces, and she may be older than Chaos or Old Night."

  I said, "Is that why Mavors is not in charge of everything? He needs the three goddesses to coronate him?"

  He nodded. "Partly why. Who wants War to rule the universe, rather than Love? My father Mavors is a strange man. I think he hates himself. He rejoices in the glory and virtue of war, but he hates the carnage, the madness, the tears, the bloody business of it, the lies. So many lies. He is basically an honest fellow, in his own way, and he doesn't like how enemies use spies and traitors; kings lie to men; men lie to their wives; and wives tell their children how brave their fathers are; cowards get medals and real heroes die unmarked; and bards lie about it all. He is not a happy man, my father, except when he's with Mother.

  "And Father can never be with her, lawfully, unless he gains the throne and changes
the laws. If he becomes the Lord of Sovereignty, no longer merely the Lord of War, he can bind his heavy red sword in olive branches and retire from his bloody work, spend his days at home with the prettiest wife in Heaven. What veteran wants more than that?"

  Archer shrugged and seemed a little sad. "In any case, Mavors does not dare rule a Cosmos torn with bloody civil war, not with Chaos encamped in strength outside our crystal walls. It might be different if Father had the unambiguous support of Mother. But my mother, the Cyprian, merely looks at him through her long lashes and smiles and does not leave her crook-backed soot-streaked husband-but neither does she leave the rough and handsome war-god to his loneliness.

  "So every eye is on Mavors now, now that he has imprudently risked the Children of Chaos to winkle out the traitors among us. If he finds the hidden foe whose hand guides Lamia to her sick crimes, the Great Queen, Mavors' mother, will support him, so she has said, and we all believe his lover, the Cyprian, will also, once a firm excuse allows her. Even his enemy, Tritogenia, the war-goddess, who hates him, cannot withhold her grace from a victor crowned by fate. If the Three Goddesses give him the auspices, Lord Pelagaeus the Earthshaker will withdraw his claim, and even Lord Dis may withdraw his threat to give the throne of brightest heaven to the sad girl-queen of darkest hell.

  "Is the moral of my little story clear? Mavors, utterly un-suited to the task, must win the love of those he seeks to lead. He, who could conquer Heaven by fighting, will not be fit to rule in Heaven, unless he can conquer it without fighting. Letting you five run free until his prey starts from the brush is his way of proving to his peers that he is a master of policy and craft, not of bloodshed only. He has to prove he can cooperate with Mulciber and outthink the conspiracy that threatens us all. He has to prove he is as cunning and cold as old Boreas, or else old Boreas will not serve him loyally.

  "So much is riding on this episode, but he should not have crossed me. I am his son. My wars are fought in the heart, and my battlefields are more terrible than his! Do you doubt me, that I can overcome his curse, and free you from his command? Look at the orderly Cosmos around you!

  What power guides the planets in their courses? What keeps the stars in place? What keeps the Earth firm on her center, and the polestar on his axle? Look, and answer! Is not love stronger than war? If you agree, vow fealty to me!"

  I was impressed, in that I did not think Archer was exaggerating, but I reminded myself that Boreas had sent me here, and so this might be merely another and larger trap. I wanted to talk to Victor.

  I said, "Sir, I cannot answer you quickly, or you will think me flippant. And I will need to consult with my crew before we make any deals."

  At that moment, I heard Quentin's voice in my ear, clear and close as Jiminy Cricket. "Leader, Victor says he has built up sufficient potential to discharge a one hundred and twenty-megavolt X-ray laser into Archer's skull. If you want us to attack, extend your middle finger toward him. If not, touch your nose."

  I rubbed my nose. How unladylike. I wish they had come up with a better signal system. I was glad (for once) that the boys had decided to spy on us while we changed: I assume Colin was behind this.

  Of course, had I been a good leader, I would have set this all up ahead of time, signals and all.

  Archer's eyes narrowed. If he had sense impressions like mine, which could detect the nature and use of objects and events, he might have seen my nose glow just now, and might know what it meant.

  Quentin, in my ear, whispered, "Leader, we sign our death warrants if we back one faction over another, in a civil war where we don't know the identities, issues, or the strengths of the sides. We cannot agree to those terms. You have to find another common ground."

  Archer said carefully, "I think you have consulted with your crew sufficiently, Lady Phaethusa of Myriagon. Your choices are clear, but narrow."

  I nodded, agreeing with what both Archer and Quentin said.

  Now that it was time to talk seriously, a sense of dread surprised me. Suddenly my mouth felt dry.

  I think I kept licking my lips, because Archer kept staring at them.

  I drew a breath and straightened my spine. I reminded myself that I was not a schoolgirl talking to a teacher I was an independent and equal player in some terrible game of war, with the lives of my four friends, and many more lives than that, depending on what I said next.

  Okay. It was no harder than walking a tightrope over a pit, was it?

  I said, "I am not sure any of us can swear fealty to you. I mean, no offense, but we cannot really afford to take sides in your civil cold war, cold civil war, whatever. We'd just get crushed. Used, then crushed. Because why would you trust us, once we were no longer necessary?"

  He said smoothly, "You must weigh the comparative dangers. Mavors' curse will drive you into this island, where you will serve as bait for his ambuscade, if I do nothing. If we come to an agreement, and you support my claim to kingship, there is a danger I will not keep faith. Which danger seems more immediate, likelier, deadlier?"

  No harder than walking a tightrope over a pit. A deep pit. Filled with sharks. Radioactive sharks.

  I said, "But surely, milord..."

  "You're demoting me. I'm a 'Your Imperial Majesty.'"

  I nodded. I was not going to quibble with touchy gods over titles. "But surely, Your Imperial Majesty, you have a similar choice. You must weigh the dangers, how likely they are, how severe they are, of your several possible courses of action. If you do not help us, Mavors drives us to the island, where we may die, precipitating a war the Olympians cannot afford to fight right now. Or if we do not die, and Mavors is successful, he is covered with glory, not you, and some who waver now might cleave to him-am I guessing wrong here?-when the real fight starts over the throne. If Mavors saves us, we might have to keep helping him, simply because he is trying to kill someone who is trying to kill us, isn't he? The question is whether there is any advantage for you, in this course."

  Archer's eye twinkled, and he smiled a charming, charming smile. "No, milady, the question is what you are offering me..."

  "If I'm really a princess, isn't that 'Your Highness' also, Your Imperial Majesty?"

  He nodded gracefully. "Your Highness. The question is, if I help Your Highness, what's in it for me? Royalty is not so different from piracy. We both have some reason to cooperate on a venture, and we must agree on the division of loot."

  Radioactive sharks with charming smiles.

  Think, Amelia, think. You read all those books. What would Odysseus do? Dress up like a beggar, and then shoot everyone. No help there. What would Achilles do? Go sulk in his tent. Nope.

  Aeneas? Sacrifice a cow or something.

  Boy, these old heroes are really not useful as role models. Who were my other heroes? Margaret Thatcher? Attack Argentina. No time to go wobbly.

  Good advice, I guess. And what would Headmaster Boggin do? He was no hero of mine, and yet he was a master of intrigue...

  ... one who apparently kept his promises and followed orders even when his master was dead. And if I had actually volunteered for this mission, what promises had I made to my mother and father back home? Why was I here? What were my orders?

  No matter what I had sworn back home, my duty now was to escape. Every prisoner's duty was escape. It is what we all swore back when we were children. Freedom was the goal. A freedom we could keep.

  The deep pit suddenly did not look so deep. And sharks can be handled if you keep your wits about you.

  I said, "Here is what is in it for you, sir. You override and undo the fate Mavors decreed, so that we are not caught each time we are in danger. We are not obligated to go act as bait for Lamia, or to cooperate with any war plans of Mavors. You decree that what law Lord Terminus made to keep us captive is null and void. Can you do that?"

  He nodded. "And?"

  "And we agree in return to vow that we will not, deliberately or negligently, endanger the Cosmos or threaten mankind. The moment we put man
or man's universe in current and obvious danger, we are forsworn, and you, and only you, can find us again. In other words, we keep our liberty because the reason for keeping us prisoner no longer applies. Then you are the one who is in a position to save the world; the other gods and goddesses will have to come to you to find out where we are."

  He said, "This would prevent you from returning to Chaos, would it not?"

  I said, "Probably, but not necessarily. This oath would prevent us from returning for so long as such an act would endanger the universe. Anything might happen. Chaos could make peace with Cosmos. The horse could learn how to sing. Anything."

  "And why do I want four dangerous little chaoticists running around my universe in the first place? If I let Mavors have his way, you'll get swept up in his battle, and, once on the battlefield, he can make sure you're captured again, unless he is wounded or killed."

  I licked my lips, and picked each word carefully. I had messed up negotiating with ap Cymru, and had messed up talking with Mavors. Time to make good.

  "Because as long as we are free, we have a good reason to see you get back on the throne again, don't we? We won't swear any oath. We don't know you well enough for that. But, whether we like it or not, if someone else achieved the throne of Olympos, someone other than you, the King of the Cosmos would no longer have a reason to allow us our liberty. It will be in our best interest, in our enlightened self-interest, to see that you get your way. And, for all you know, this deal might be the first of a beautiful relationship. You treat us well now; we have reason to treat you well next time. You let Mavors win this round, there is no next time."

  He pursed his lips. "Is that your best offer?"

  I gave him a coy look sidelong, through half-lowered eyelashes, but did not answer the question.

  There are some questions it is better not to answer.

  He took his rose-hued bow in hand and shrugged, and spread his wings, so that the purple plumage stretched out for yards to each side of him, brushing the dresses hanging there. "I could use the Great Weapon."