Orphans of Chaos tcc-1

by John C. Wright

  And where the red sun glanced his rays against them, the architect of Heaven had used rosy-tinted marble, or ruddy gold of lambent hue, to decorate his coliseums and cathedral domes.

  But, by Heaven, it was cold.

  I turned in Boggin’s grip, and he clasped me at my armpits from above, so I could lay facedown in the streaming air, my legs trailing back, my arms stretched out to either side as if I, too, had wings.

  The continent of cloud we passed across suddenly broke into a shoreline of peninsulas and archipelagoes of lesser cloud. In the bay, beneath these islands, sunk Atlantis-like beneath the crystal wave, I saw the estate grounds, and the school, little dollhouse buildings of well-crafted make, shingles of gray or slate, chimneys of red brick or white, windows winking like miniature gems.

  We fell, and there was no plunge below the waves as we passed beneath the clouds again, there was no sensation of drowning. The make-believe school grew larger underfoot, the buildings swelled and rose up against us like monsters, growing. Growing, I should say, larger, but not any more real.

  As we fell further, the gray and white buildings, the blank brick walls, seemed more and ever more like the square pillboxes of a fortress, or a prison camp, growing to full size, no longer toys in some game.

  We landed on the balcony of the clock tower, high above the Chapel roof. Boggin dropped me lightly on the balcony next to the huge hanging cylinder of the bell, and he made one great circle around the tower. I saw his hair like a red battle-pennant streaming back from his harsh profile, and the sunlight glanced off the sculpted muscles of his shoulders, chest, and the iron-hard ridges of his stomach. With a swoop and a whirling flutter of red wings, he pushed in between the pillars of the balcony, and landed. One tiny red feather, shaken loose, hung in the air, rocking back and forth, ever so slowly descending.

  “Welcome home,” he said.

  18

  Atop the Bell Tower

  “It’s not my home,” I said dully.

  “Perhaps not, Miss Windrose, but none of us seems to have much choice in the matter, eh?”

  He reached up into the mouth of the bell, and took out a long coat, shirt, and his black academic robes, which had apparently been hanging on a hook or a hanger on the bell clapper.

  Now he sat down on the balcony rail, his back against one pillar, his foot against the other. He did not put on his coat or robe, but instead laid the fabric across his knee. Out of a large pocket he took a vial of oil and a shiny brass tool shaped something like a cross between a dagger and a comb.

  With one hand he drew his wing around before him. With the toothy dagger or sharp comb, or whatever it was, he began prying and primping at his feathers, one after another, row after row. Every now and again, he would pause, pour some oil from his vial onto a channel in the comb made for that purpose, and then continue preening.

  I watched him for a while. He worked with a slight, absentminded frown, but his movements were deft and careful. A pleasant odor came from the wings, and the feathers seemed to take on new color under his hands.

  “How old am I, Headmaster? Really?”

  “Miss Windrose, you are fourteen and three months.”

  “Oh, come on! You’re lying.”

  “You should not speak that way to your elders, even when they are lying. You are not a Yankee, after all. You should say, ‘I find that hard to believe.’ ”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Unfortunately, when Miss Fair, who is somewhat older than you, began to develop her ah… rather generous signs of puberty, you also wanted to be older, and quickly, like most girls. Most girls, however, are not shape-changers. Despite our efforts, your powers are still influenced by your subconscious desires. In a few months, you had the body and the glandular reactions of a fully mature woman of twenty or so; and, like all girls your age, you wanted to look like a fashion model. Very few real women—I am tempted to say no women—actually have the perfect wasp-waisted hourglass figure you have wished on yourself.”

  “But I am older than Vanity!”

  “Actually, no. She is four years your elder. You obviously wanted to be older, bigger, stronger when you were still a very young child. Many young children have this wish. Most do not have the power to make their wishes come true. You had the body of a five- or six-year-old when you were three. It was quite trying for all of us, I am sure.”

  After a while, when he had done all his feathers but the ones on the shoulders of his wings, he sat up straighter, and took out a mirror, craned his head back and bent his arm over his shoulder, and began doing the wings along his upper back.

  “Can I do that?”

  He looked at me sidelong. “I beg your pardon, Miss Wind-rose?”

  “I mean, I could help with the spots you cannot reach.”

  “Do I want you standing with an object as sharp as a knife right at the small of my back, Miss Windrose?”

  “I could promise…”

  “No, Miss Windrose, I am afraid you cannot. I mean, you could say the words, any words that you liked, but it would not be a promise, would it? Not really.”

  He folded his wings up on his back, and took out a long ribbon of black satin, which he tucked around his wings with both hands, and pulled shut. This forced the feathers into a compact package. He drew on his jacket, which was constructed with one huge pocket all along in the inner lining, into which he carefully tucked his folded wings. His shirt was a pretend shirt, the kind a quick-change artist at a sideshow might wear. It attached around the neck and at the belt, and it had sleeves, but no back.

  Now he took out a rather more ordinary comb and brush, and he brushed his hair out. As deftly as a girl (more deftly than I do it, really; usually Vanity French-braids my hair) he twined his red locks in a maypole dance to form a short braid.

  He kept wincing as he combed his hair, and he sucked in air through his clenched teeth while be braided it. I saw spots of blood on his comb.

  “Shouldn’t you put some iodine on that?” I said.

  “Oh good God, no! Iodine stings like the devil.”

  “What about an ice pack?”

  He gave me a dark, sardonic look, half-amused. It is the look Victor sometimes gives me when he thinks I am slow on the uptake.

  “What? What?”

  “Nothing, Miss Windrose. Thank you for your solicitation about my health.”

  He looked halfway transformed back into Headmaster Boggin. But his purple pants and bare calves—and that odd green ring winking on his toe—reminded me that he was Boreas.

  I said, “I didn’t break the agreement.”

  “No…?”

  “I agreed that I should not do anything to make you ashamed of me.”

  He said only, “Is that so?”

  I said, “You think I did the right thing, admit it! It’s the duty of prisoners of war to try to escape.”

  He turned away and drew on his trousers, tucking the folds of those purple short-pants inside the legs.

  I said, “You would have done the same thing, in my place, admit it! If Vanity was your friend, and you knew she was going to be taken away, what would you have done?”

  He kept his eyes on his feet as he sat on the balcony rail once more, to don his socks and shoes. I noticed he did not take that big green ring from off his big toe, and I wondered if the shoe was specially cobbled to have a little socket or pocket for it.

  I said, my voice growing more desperate, “In fact, if I had just stayed here, and done nothing, then you would really have cause to be ashamed of me.”

  He spoke absently, without looking up. “Miss Fair is a fine young woman. Surely you don’t think I would act against her best interests…” His voice was so calm, so patronizing, so condescending.

  “You were going to have Mestor kidnap her and take her to Atlantis, while you didn’t even wait to see what Mulciber had to say about it!” I exclaimed. “And with a Lamia running around loose, looking to kill us…”

  He jerked
the last lace shut on his shoe with an angry tug of his fingers, and looked up. I saw now why he had kept his face turned away while I was speaking. His eyes were gleaming and glittering with emotion, despite that he was trying to keep his face still. Fear, anger, and pride were among some of the emotions there. There were others.

  I stepped back, putting my gloved fingers up to my mouth. My stomach turned cold and sank away.

  He stood. He said in a tone that was calm on the surface, “Are we sure we have our facts straight, Miss Windrose? What war are you a prisoner of? Where did you hear such interesting names; Mestor, Mulciber, Lamia?”

  I shook my head and stepped backward. Victor’s first rule was: never tell them what you know. Even if they guess, do not confirm their guesses.

  If they know what you know, they can also find out how you found out, and one channel of information will be cut. Let them guess.

  Boggin stepped forward, towering over me. His chest seemed as broad as a wall. “A little slip of the tongue, was it, then, Miss Windrose?”

  I backed up again.

  His hand shot out and grabbed my arm above the elbow. “Have a care, Miss Windrose. I should not be able to catch you if you stumble, not with this coat in the way.”

  My feet were on the brink of the square hole in the floor above which the bell hung. I could see the bell cords swaying below me, going down, down, into the gloom.

  He put out his other hand and took my other arm, also above the elbow. He did not draw me any closer. I stood trembling on the edge of the drop.

  “Something seems to have made you nervous, Miss Wind-rose. Surely you do not doubt my strength, at this point?”

  He flexed his arms and picked me up. My toes were about an inch off the floorboards, and I had to fight to keep my legs from kicking. He did not bend his elbows. With his arms straight, using just the muscles in his shoulder, he held my weight off the floor.

  He said, “I do not suppose you will tell me where the leak is in my organization, or where I should shore up my information control? Hmm, no, I thought not. One of your Victor’s rules, I suppose. You see, you do take me… by surprise. Yes, that is the word, surprise. I am not used to being flummoxed. Usually, in these types of things, I am the flummoxor rather than the flummoxee, if you will permit the expression.”

  In fencing class once, on a bet, Colin and I held rapiers across the back of our fingertips, at arm’s length. Just held them there to see who would tire first. Those little puny practice blades hardly weigh anything. But even after two minutes, I was sweating, and my arms ached, and ached, and…

  I don’t remember who won that bet. I think it was me.

  There was no strain in Boggin’s voice as he continued to hold me in midair, and talk.

  “You have settled a matter of my curiosity. I had wondered why, of all times, you and your fellow students chose this day to take your little frolicking holiday into the woods of Arcadia.

  “Well, let me return the favor, and settle a matter of your curiosity, Miss Windrose. Or should I call you Phaethusa the Radiant, daughter of Helius Hyperias the Terrible High One, and of Neaera of the Dark Moon? We captured Lamia climbing out of the window of a children’s hospital in Bristol. The details are too horrible even for someone from your race to hear easily. Our good Dr. Fell—one of the few people on my staff who takes our responsibilities seriously—used his science, which he calls cryptognosis, to blank out her memory. We sent her back among the Bacchants, with some of our agents instructed to keep an eye on her. A very close eye. She does not know that we have penetrated her disguise, and goes about her business. We are curious to see from whom her instructions come, to whom her reports go.

  “Mestor, son of Atlas, assayed a crude blackmail against me; but he is, if you will pardon the expression, a fool. By the time he attempted to force my hand, I had already informed the creatures of Mulciber, who are without pity, where and when Miss Fair would be taken. In fact, I am going down to have a meeting with Arges, their chief smith, before lunch today. Mestor is presently in a jail cell buried, it just so happens, under this very building. He will find that his only way out is to have me prevail upon Talos and not to press charges, so to speak.

  “Naturally, I will do this if and only if he swears unconditional fealty to me. Our own Erichtho, whom you know as Mrs. Wren, will oversee the application of the oath, and the terrible Gorgons will fix it in place, and the Hour known as Eunomia—who owes me a favor—will speak to the Fates about what punishments will befall a violation of that oath.

  “Once Mestor is—how shall I say?—a player on my team, this will put me in a better position to keep an eye on, so to speak, and have a hand in the doings of the Sea God and his faction, which, till now, has been the biggest unknown factor in the scheme of things. I will also be able to disarm Mestor’s blackmail threat without further damage to myself, my reputation, or the school.

  “I had also hoped, perhaps, this might demonstrate to our fair Miss Fair, that I have a sincere interest in her well-being.

  “Oh, and, of course I get to keep Mestor’s table. It will make a nice addition to the Great Hall.

  “Do you have any questions, Miss Windrose?”

  The posture he held me in was beginning to make my arms ache, and my shoulders were hunched up in an ongoing shrug. Against my will, little tremors were running through my body, and my fingers were twitching (with nothing to grab on to but my pant legs) and my legs kicked involuntarily, seeking some purchase in midair.

  “Why are you holding me?” I said.

  “Well, I wish I could make it sound romantic, but we are like bank robbers clutching a teller before us, so the bank guards do not shoot. In this case, the bank guards are monstrosities from outside of the ordered part of the universe, and their guns are very large indeed.”

  “No, I mean…”

  “Oh, you mean right now? I was hoping you would try to move into the spirit world, as you so thoughtfully showed me you were capable of doing when you turned insubstantial and floated out of Mr. Grim’s macramé project.”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, do be a sport, Miss Windrose. I have not had a chance to say, ‘Resistance is futile!’ and ‘Escape is impossible!’ and all that sort of stuff.”

  I shook my head again.

  He said, “Well, if you simply take my word for it, fine. Facts, though silent, are louder than words.”

  He relaxed his arms so that my feet found the floor. Not that it did me much good; my knees were now wobbly, and I was having trouble supporting myself. Not that he let go of his grip. If anything, his hands got tighter.

  In fact, now that I was on the floorboards, I was forced to stand slightly closer to him, to avoid the brink behind me.

  Too close. Closer than a schoolgirl should be standing to a teacher. I could smell the oil he had rubbed into his wings. It was scented, like an aftershave.

  His eyes filled my sight, and my heart was hammering so in my breast that, for a moment, my breath was gone. This close to him, it was as if he and I formed our own little world, a world meant for us and us alone.

  His hands were so very strong, that I was overcome with an awareness of my own fragility. It made me feel almost faint; me, the big, strong, athletic one, a little china doll in his hands.

  I wondered what he was feeling, what he was thinking. He was staring down at me, an expression of perfect arrogance in his eyes. I saw how the light caressed the cheek, bringing out the contour of the muscles around his mouth, the strength in his cheekbones. There was a ghost of reddish hair to the skin of his jaw, and it created the illusion he was blushing with pleasure. Maybe it was not an illusion. His lips were ruddy, finely sculpted. I could not help but stare at them.

  I realized with a fearful thrill that I had somehow come to be in the same posture girls assumed in novels when they are about to be kissed.

  His voice was a warm rumble, as if an earthquake spoke. I could feel the trembling in the air.

  “
What am I to do with you, Phaethusa? On the one hand, you are a monstrosity from beyond the edge of space and time, a member of a race and clan bent on the destruction of this world and every other. You have powers growing beyond our control, and the danger you pose to us is real.”

  “Let me go.”

  “I cannot do that. Your race would see that as a signal to launch the final war, the Rangnarok.”

  “No, I mean right now. I mean, let go of my arms.”

  To my surprise, he did.

  I stood uncertainly on the brink of the hole, rubbing my arms, and looking up at him. He still was blocking my way, huge and tall, though I suppose I could have tried to sidle past him to the left or right.

  I was not sure I wanted to. I enjoyed having him have a hold of me, even if cruelly.

  “We’re going to have to put you in a cell, you know, Phaethusa, at least till we can figure out what to do with you. Since you can walk through walls the only thing I can do to keep you there is threaten your friends with harm, if you attempt to escape. This is a dreadful and unseemly thing to resort to, and I fear it is turning me into a monster worse than your people are.”

  “You’re not really going to put me in a cell, are you, Headmaster?”

  “I fear I am. Chains, manacles, leg irons, bars on the window, whatever may be required.” His face had a hollow look to it.

  “Required? Required for what?”

  He barked an angry sort of laugh. “Required to undo your damage. If the factions (who never agree on anything) agreed that I was too weak or too foolish to keep you four from wandering around on your own…”

  “You mean ‘escaping.’ ”

  “It is quite rude to interrupt, Miss Windrose. But, yes. If the Olympians agreed that I was unable to keep you from escaping, you would be taken from me. Most likely the four of you would be split up; with Mavors, Mulciber, Lord Dis, and the Sea-Prince Pelagaeus each getting one. Or two, in the case of Lord Pelagaeus, since he might end up with Miss Fair, also. That way they could maintain the balance of the threats they pose to each other. Oh, none of you might cooperate with any of them in their wars but, then again, none of them could be certain of that, and even the prospect of your involuntary help might be somewhat alarming. A second civil war would soon start. While your people would no doubt rejoice to see us cutting each other up, you yourself might be sad to be without your playmates.”