Orphans of Chaos tcc-1

by John C. Wright

  6.

  Suddenly, it seemed to me as if the tunnel of crystal down which I looked was not “down,” nor left nor right, fore nor back, nor any other direction that had a name. It was an opening into subspace, the low-energy direction I called “red.”

  Quentin opened his mouth to speak, and then checked himself, looking at Vanity.

  Vanity looked at the both of us, spread her hands, and shrugged. Some of the glow from the champagne was leaving us at that moment, and she looked frightened and clouded in her wits, as if she was having trouble concentrating.

  She said, “I am not a trespasser.”

  The dead mouth spoke again: “Burner of ships, daughter of virtue, I know you, though you do not. You stand with a fallen one born old before he was young, from lifeless seas beyond the seas of life; you stand with an unknown one born before the fall, from dark heavens above the heavens which hold stars. They are the foes of the Green Earth and the Blue Sea, of bright heaven above the world and dark underworld. At your word, I destroy them. Speak, and I let slip the Wild Hunt.”

  She said, “These are my friends and I love them. Don’t hurt them.”

  The dead face kept its motionless eyes turned toward her, quiet as a statue in a graveyard.

  She said, “My friend Amelia is closer than a sister to me. She needs her powers from her home to undo a great wrong. Let her powers pass through to her. If any ship of mine is coming on my errands, let it pass.”

  Vanity’s face was shining with sweat. In a cold room in the middle of winter, she was sweating.

  Eventually the creaking, slow voice spoke again. “Cromm Cruich the Worm of Mist rose against me, and my songs threw him down. The Sons of Nemed, the Men of the Bolg, the Parthalonians, and the Giants of Fomor attempted these shores, and were driven back to Eire, or driven underground.

  “Rome’s eagle stooped here for a time, clawing and tearing at this land, but Caesar lost his sword to Cymbaline, and Constantine called back the haughty legionnaires, departed never to return.

  “I breathed a storm upon the Spanish King Philip, whose great Armada sank beneath the sorcery of the Virgin Queen; when the German Caesar sent his flying iron sky-things to hail fire and death upon this Kingdom, I spoke into the place where Arthur still recovers from his wound, and bleeding, he rose up, and drove the Huns away.

  “This is my land. Her green hills and mountains, heaths and highlands, forests thick with red deer, rivers running blue into the channel or the iron-gray Northern Sea. The rain, the mist, the fogs are mine. The folk are mine, these proud, cold, silly, solemn folk, in whose bosom the first torch of liberty ever was found again, since the day the venial nobles in Rome allowed Caesar’s bloodstained hands to quench it.

  “Crude Chaucer, and Milton most august, alike are mine; angelic John Keats and devilish George Gordon, Lord Byron.

  “The victories at Waterloo, Trafalgar, and, yes, at Rourke’s Drift are mine. Even the massacres done to the helpless aborigines of far Tasmania are mine.

  “All this island is, I am. Do you understand me?”

  Vanity said softly, “Yes.”

  “Then swear your most profoundest oath, swear by the blackest water of the River Styx, by the Cauldron of Arawn the Just, by the Grail of Christ the Merciful, by the Wounds of the Fisher-King and Spear that cured him, swear! Swear and bind those two you call your friends to the oath. You will never harm this island. No matter how this land offend you, nor what her crimes, nor even if all the Lordly Dead most beloved by you call with deepest tears, on knee, upon you, you shall do no hurt unto this island. Swear, and I shall let your ship pass by me.”

  She said, “I swear.”

  I said, “Um, so do I. God save the Queen.”

  Quentin stepped over to where Headmaster Boggin had set out a box of cigars for his guests. There was an ashtray here. With the penknife used to trim the cigars, Quentin cut a strand of hair from his head, set the lock of hair in the ashtray, and ignited it with the matching cigarette lighter standing next to the box. The hair burnt with a truly disgusting smell.

  Quentin said quietly, “May my life be cut as quickly, may I be burned as terribly, as this frail hair I cast into the flame, should I break this vow. I love England and will do the land no harm; no matter what crimes I am done, nor who calls on me. Black water of the Styx, Cauldron of Annfwn, Grail of Christ, Red Wounds of Alan le Gros, and Spear of Joseph of Arimathia, I pray you witness and enforce this oath, and never release me from it. So Mote It Be.”

  The head said, “Done! For the span of time it takes to sing the Compline, the fetid stain of Myriagon shall be permitted to mar this place.”

  The crystal tabletop darkened, transparent, translucent, opaque; and the head was gone.

  I said, “How long does it take to sing the Compline?”

  Quentin said, “Thirteen seconds. ‘Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night…’ ”

  Even though the crystal tunnel was now opaque, I could still see it, like a green pillar issuing from the tabletop and reaching into the “red” direction. Looking at Quentin, I saw, stretching parallel to that, world-lines intersecting his nervous system, and distorting the natural flow paths of his thoughts.

  “…and give your angels charge over those who sleep…”

  It was the same effect I use to distort the at-rest mass-path of a heavy door to make it lighter. Something was distorting the at-rest state of the white dot at the center of his brain.

  Vanity, seeing my face, shrieked and put her fingers over her mouth.

  “…Tend the sick, Lord Christ…”

  That dot was not, precisely speaking, “in” his brain. In the same way what we called a “song” was the terdimensional manifestation of a higher singularity, Quentin’s brain activity was an ongoing representation in time and space of the rotation of the surface of a fourth-dimensional object-event.

  “…give rest to the weary…”

  The dot was a monad. It was his noumenal self; the part of the self in which self-awareness resides.

  “…bless the dying…”

  Vibrations radiating from the monad formed six different types of energy, depending on what three-dimensional axis intersected them. Three were space, one was time, one was para-time, and the final one…

  “…soothe the suffering…”

  …It did not have a name. A new sense impression I had not hitherto been aware I possessed apprehended the nameless sixth vibration. The first five directions established relation and duration; this sixth gave self its self-ness. It was eternal, timeless, indestructible…

  “…pity the afflicted…”

  And it was tilted off-axis. The shadows it cast into Quentin’s nerve paths were deflected. I could see bright areas and dim areas in his cortex. Certain of his thoughts and memories were attempting to create a greater effect in the future. They had the potential for setting in motion chains of cause-effect which would influence his actions and change him. This was being blocked. I was looking, so to speak, at his happy memories.

  “…shield the joyous…”

  Bits of dark matter were also floating in his nervous system. They were the source of the blocking. It was very complex, a web of energy-interactions it would have taken years, centuries to trace…

  “…and all for your love’s sake…”

  But I did not have to. No matter how complex the web of matter was inside Quentin’s brain, whatever was not connected to the governing monad in which his noumenal self resided was, by definition, non-self-correcting. Only living systems can love themselves, change themselves, grow, correct themselves, put out new stalks and branches on the tree of possible futures issuing from their actions.

  The dark matter, on the other hand, was inert. “Inert” equals “actions determined” equals “low probability.” All I had to do was…

  I said, “Thoughts are known by thought and thought alone.” And I reached out with… something… and twisted his monad back into it
s proper alignment, to bring the blight areas along the thought-axis parallel to the para-time axis of the dim areas inflicted by the dark matter in his brain. And…

  “…Amen.”

  The universe collapsed on me, crushing me back into three-dimensional space. I still had my… call it a hand… outside of its normal volume, reaching into Quentin. I did not have time to fold up properly.

  And so I (my body compressed at the wrong angle) screamed; Vanity (looking at me) screamed; Quentin (clutching his head) screamed.

  We all screamed. It was not a good moment.

  7.

  I fell over and struck the floor. Whatever it was (A limb? A song? A thought? A psychic extension? A manipulator made out of solidified time?) that I had inside Quentin, slipped out as I fell, in the spray of reddish sparks.

  I had not even been aware that I had a telescoping 4-D form meant to fold smoothly back into 3-D geometry until I was stuck half-folded. That sense of heaviness, of massiveness, which surrounded my hand when I tried to reach through the safe walls the night before was now spread unevenly through my whole body. Some organs felt compressed, others, distended.

  I tried to look at myself, but my eyes were not working. Everything was afflicted with a blue haze. Instead, sense organs meant for some other level of reality were giving me information. I was receiving a sense of the internal nature of things from one pair of organs, and another organ told me how useful or useless certain objects and events around me were to my will.

  Vanity’s internal nature was sweet and giving; Quentin was sad; the table was stern; the cigars were filled with malice; the doors to Boggin’s chamber were watchful and careful; the two clocks were bitter, filled with hate, and watching me.

  Neither Vanity nor Quentin were of any use to me at the moment, my other sense informed me. That is, none of the world-paths issuing from me had any greater potential when passing near them.

  But there was something shining with use-light coming quickly from a parallel area. It was either nearby in time or in space.

  I twisted my head to see if I could bring another sense organ to bear. Through the wall, I could see two nervous systems, surrounded by glowing lines of superpotential, great usefulness, jogging up the stairs.

  Then the first was at the door to this room. I could not see the door, but I heard it open, and the inner nature of watchfulness gave way to something masculine, selfish, disobedient, willful, lustful, and rough.

  Behind the rough object was someone whose inner nature was logical, detached, dispassionate, stoic, skeptical about outer things, certain about inner ones.

  I said, “Colin? Victor? Is that you?”

  No words came out, but there was a rush of music radiation from me, flashes of wings of light.

  Vanity screamed again.

  Victor said, “Fascinating. Is that Amelia?”

  Colin put his hand out. With a bump, the world snapped back into place. My new senses went blind. I was blinking.

  I looked around. Everything was normal looking. No noises from subspace, no ripples of hyperlight thudding through skew planes. Just a room, and four friends staring down at me.

  I looked down at myself. Honestly, I expected to see unimaginable horror, arms and legs twisted into Mobius strips, my body stretched into a Klein bottle, bones at right angles, lungs turned inside out, my head shaped like a question mark, with webs of flesh connecting me to older and younger versions of my body. Something like that.

  But I was just normal. A girl in a plaid skirt, white shirt, black patent leather shoes, and a stupid necktie.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Colin said, “You had too much energy in you. I sucked it away.”

  I said, “How?”

  Colin leaned over and offered me his hand. “I wanted you back the way you were. My desire was stronger than the desire of the world to keep you looking weird. I won.”

  I put my hand in his hand. Instead of lifting me to my feet, he just caressed the back of my hand with little motions of his thumb.

  “But—how did you know what to do?”

  He smiled. “It’s not something I do consciously. It’s like lust. I mean, a man can’t ejaculate just by a silent act of willpower. He needs a girl to lick his…”

  I yanked my hand away and climbed to my feet without his help. He started to brush off my bottom, and I clipped him one on the ear.

  “Ow!” he said, clutching his ear and stepping back. “And you’re welcome for me saving your life.”

  Quentin said, “I wish I had his paradigm. No fuss. No knives. No candles. No lists of names.”

  Victor said, “Clap, and the dead Tinkerbell gets better, only if you really believe. Seems like a rather inflexible system to me. How can you perform experiments? If you can only do what you really believe in, you cannot be curious.”

  Quentin said, “But look at how well he does with women!”

  Victor said, “Does what? Annoy them?”

  I said to Colin, “Thank you for saving me. Do you want me to say I’m sorry about hitting your ear?”

  Colin, still rubbing his ear, said, “No, thanks. I want to stay mad at you, I’ll have an excuse later on for hiking up your skirts, turning you over my knee, and spanking you. Hit me again.”

  Vanity said, “How come everyone starts talking about spanking when Amelia is around?”

  Colin said to her, “It had to do with the shape of her butt. Some girls, you can just tell from the shape of their butts, that what they really want is a nice, strong…”

  “Ugh!” said Vanity. “Just shut up! You’re the kind of fellow who thinks boogers are funny.”

  “Well,” said Colin, looking a little puzzled, “Boogers are funny, most of the time. There is humor value both in the long, droopy kind and the hard, crumbly…”

  “Speaking of gross things,” I said, “what did I look like? Just now, I mean.”

  Colin said, “Big squid with eyestalks, just like you said.”

  Vanity said, “It was gross. You got all thin and stretched, and these blurry lights and colors and sounds were coming out of you. I think you had wings. And tentacles—fiery tentacles coming out of behind your shoulders. There was a white spike through your head.”

  Quentin said, “You had wings like an angel, and the horn of a unicorn. You looked like a centaur. From the waist down, your body was deerlike and very sleek. More like a dolphin, than a deer, actually. It was beautiful.”

  Victor said, “I saw four legs, also. You had a long tail or flukes trailing behind that, which seemed to be embedded in the bookcase behind you. Although that must have been an optical illusion, because I can see the bookcase is unharmed. From the waist up you looked fairly like your self, except that your neck was longer and your head was smaller, and surrounded by a reddish haze. You had wings, or some sort of fans or vanes hovering behind you. They did not seem to be connected to any particular place on your shoulders. Streamers of energy composed of groups of light-dots were issuing from your arms and shoulders, and reaching to various points around the room. I also noticed a group of bulbs or globes floating in the air near your head, though some smaller globes were floating further away. You were also playing music, and filmy lights like aurora borealis were rapidly coming out from your wings in concentric ripples. There was an intense magnetic disturbance. I think the bulbs near your head were sensory apparatus. When Colin and I were still in the hall outside, we both saw a trio of bulbs appear in a splash of red light and move toward us. Colin told me you were looking at us.”

  Vanity said, “Oh my God! She has floating eyeballs! Yee-uk!”

  Quentin said, “I think you are being too harsh, Vanity.”

  Vanity said, “You don’t understand! Girls get freaked out if we have a mole or if one breast is slightly bigger than another. Little things. A crooked nose. A blackhead. You know. The only thing you boys actually judge us on. So how do you think we should feel if we grow another hand out of our forehead or something? Even a
nice-looking hand with long nails? And now she’s got energy and matter and music and God-knows-what coming off of her, and too many legs, and… Do you know a guy won’t look at you on the beach if you have one toe missing? One toe!”

  Colin said, “You were never on a beach.”

  Quentin said to me, “It really did not look that bad. There was something spiritual about the shape. It looked… hmm… more ‘real’ somehow and less frail, than the normal objects in the room here.”

  Colin said, “There were other shapes, beyond what we saw. Maybe one for every different angle she can turn in this so-called ‘fourth dimension’ of hers, or whatever dumb visualization she uses to focus. There’s more. I sense the untapped energy.”

  Victor said, “Shape doesn’t matter. Beauty is an arbitrary judgment.”

  Colin said to me, “Look here, Amelia, a flat picture of a girl can be as good-looking as the 3-D real thing. Better looking, actually, if she takes off her shirt for the camera. So why can’t a 4-D picture of a girl look good?”

  I said to him, “(A) I never said I thought I looked bad, only Vanity said that, so you don’t have to try to cheer me up, and (B) I thought you said I looked like a squid?”

  He said, “A cute squid. What’s the problem? We’re all shape-changers. You just happened to be the first one to pop up a new shape.”

  Victor said, “You also can manifest limbs at a distance. There was also a mist or cloud connecting various disconnected bulbs and wing elements around you. Wherever an object—I assume part of your body—was appearing or disappearing, there was always a puff of cloud and a visible light distortion. Parts of your body seemed to be energy fields rather than flesh and bone.”

  Quentin said, “The misty clouds looked just like the ones we saw around the hands of the Hecatonchire last night.”

  I looked at him in amazement, dumbstruck.

  Vanity said, “How do you know that, Quentin?”

  “Because I remember, now,” he said quietly.