Titans of Chaos

by John C. Wright

  'Victor... ?' You have asked an abundance, indeed, a superfluity of questions, Miss Windrose, and I have answered them all."

  "You haven't answered anything yet! What about Lamia's question?"

  He looked insouciant. "What about it?"

  "Why did you train us to use our powers? You intended to use us to fight your wars. Right?"

  "That aspect of it was not entirely beyond my imagination, I admit. However, it was with some care that I took pains to make it appear to the other Olympians that I was not mollycoddling you.

  Had I placed you in foster homes, for example, and assigned certain of us to be your parents and kin, naturally the ones who got to play at being your parents would be regarded with deepest suspicion by the others."

  "So you couldn't afford to treat us nicely as we were being raised?"

  "Do not be overly sentimental, Miss Windrose. It ill becomes a woman of your intelligence and character. You were raised perfectly well, better than most. If you feel that the world has treated you unfairly, you have achieved a state of mind well known to all teenagers, but maintained only by adults of a more shrill and self-absorbed type."

  I said, 'Tell me about your parents."

  He tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing. But he shrugged and said, "If you will. I was raised by Eos, the Lady of the Dawn, who, while a kindly mother, was somewhat heedless as a woman, and she awarded me numerous bastard half brothers. My father, Astreus, was given a fine rack of horns, and he was, as you might well imagine, quite remote. You should find little ground for envy."

  "Would you have preferred to be raised by strangers? Enemies?" I could not keep the bitterness out of my voice. I was thinking of all the birthdays my mother never saw, my first steps, first words, first dance, first infatuation.

  "For the isolation of your youth, I am deeply sorry, Miss Windrose, but that was a matter out of my hands. There is a war, you know, between Cosmos and Chaos, between order and entropy, between reason and unreason. This forms the fundamental basis of existence; I do not see how any victory or lasting peace is possible. The most one can hope for is temporary compromises, temporary armistice. You are not the first victim of this terrible conflict."

  Strange. I remember Victor saying something of this sort back when we were all aboard the Silvery Ship: that no victory was lasting, no solution perfect.

  I asked, "I don't understand how this whole situation arose: Hermes and Dionysus and Athena conspire to overthrow Zeus, and enlist the aid of Chaos: they succeed, and Zeus is killed by Typhon, right? But then Dionysus and Athena turn on Hermes, and someone else shoots him-I forget who-"

  Boreas said, "It was the Huntress. The Lady Phoebe of the Moon. We stood on the plains of Vigrid, where the brink of Chaos roared, and the Gates of the World's End had been torn from their hinges, and lay stretched for miles along the plain. To one side reared all the armies of a united Chaos: a fearsome sight." And now his eyes grew haunted with old memory. "I saw phantasmagorical dream-legions from outer realms of eternal night, sons of Morpheus and Nepenthe; I saw fallen spirits from the Abyss, armed and armored with incontestable magic; above them and below, a hundred miles or more in length, the soulless monsters from the Void, with all their engines and molecular alchemies of matter and energy; above and beyond them, nigh-impossible to see or to imagine, were your people, Miss Windrose, creatures too perfect to be threatened or deterred: the uncreated thousand-dimensional superbeings from the unthinkable primordial prereality, before the geometry of space-time was drawn. A sight to stir the soul, I assure you, to look upon those beings, some brilliant with the splendor of eternal night; some wretched and lightning-scarred, yet smoldering with the burned remnants of angelic majesty; others yet with no souls at all, implacable and cold; others far too strange and wondrous ever to be allowed inside a sane universe, too large by far for space itself to hold.

  "Yet even they, yet even they were held back by one more terrible still: the great lord whom I will not name, the Unseen One, the Lord of the House of Woe, came forth that day in all his horror, opened the hell-gate, and drove his armies of shadow before him; the dead walked, and the Great Fear was at hand: the dreamlords shrieked and fled like mist; the Fallen spirits cowered, aetherial spear and shield a-tremble in their airy hands; and the cold brains of the war-machines of the Lost would not open fire with their planet-destroying weapons without the support of their allies. Even the deathless Titans of your timeless people, the prelapsarians, were astonished, and they paused, even though they could not be made afraid."

  I turned his words over in my mind, trying to imagine the unimaginable. This was the battle my parents lost, the battle when they lost me.

  I said, "Why didn't they win? You guys are all so afraid of Chaos that you don't dare kill us. If Chaos is so dreadful, why didn't they win that fight?"

  "Fate decreed otherwise."

  "That is not a real answer."

  "Ah, but Miss Windrose, it is a most penetrating and pertinent, and, if I may say, speaking on behalf of one who fought to defend reality itself against your parents, who wish to impose another condition of being on us, it was indeed a real answer-the very essence of real, so to speak. But perhaps you wish an historical cause rather than a final one? An examination of the mechanism Fate employed to direct events toward the desired outcome? All four races of Chaos fear the Thunderbolt of Jove, and (if I may propose an opinion) for good reason. It is an antique weapon; Chronos himself forged it when Time began."

  "But Zeus-Lord Terminus-he was dead at that point, wasn't he?"

  "Ah! A most acute and perceptive point, Miss Windrose. Had the inchoate confederation of Chaos been apprised of that most important fact, they might have come to a far different conclusion when they learned that their champion, Typhon of the Lost, had been slain by Lord Terminus."

  Boreas smiled, and his eyes twinkled, but his words were cold as he continued: "Oh yes, the dreamlords are temperamental creatures at best; and the prelapsarians are too honest for their own good; and the Fallen Spirits, quite frankly, had several Dukes and archangels of darkness in our pay. (Not that I blame them for that; we found that the Phaeacians were in their pay, which is how they found the Lapses and dark-paths needed to mount their attack.)

  "It was only after Chaos agreed to turn over the hostages that they discovered their, what you might call, their oversight, but by then their rage was held in check by the fear that some woeful deed would befall you four. By that time, we had forced you to use your metamorphic powers to change shape into small children, and I am sure the thought of you so small and frail weighed on the councils of the monsters that gave birth to you. Yes. Indeed. I would mock them for their folly, had I not made the same mistake myself.

  "You were quite delightful as a child, I assure you, albeit trying at times: but, on the whole, I dare say, you were easier to raise than many mortals find their young to be. Oh, how men must envy the gods, since we can keep loud children stunned with drugs and spells, and, if all else fails, with lessons."

  I said, "Why did you do it? The lessons. You taught us exactly what we needed to know to use our powers. I thought we were these wolf cubs, growing up into giants that would eat the sun and moon-why teach the cubs how to hunt?"

  "Poetically asked, Miss Windrose. I admire your turn of phrase."

  "Thank you. Now answer the question."

  He looked away from me and out the window. Maybe he watched the lights of distant vessels on the sea. Maybe he looked at the stars. "I was an educator before I was a soldier, miss. I taught mankind how to break and ride horses, for example. Educators know there are only two types of schooling: indoctrination and education.

  "Indoctrination teaches a student how to cleave to a party line, and to recite the slogans and bromides of the accepted conformity. He is taught only how to swallow lies, and there is no assurance he will not swallow the propaganda of foes as easily as that of friends. Such folk are hopelessly provincial to their time and place. Unable to
distinguish truth from fable, they swallow both or spit both out, and become zealots, or, worse yet, cynics. The zealot holds that truth can be won with no effort; the cynic, that no effort will suffice.

  "Education teaches the art of skeptical inquiry. The student learns the thoughts of all the great minds of the past, so that the implications and mistakes of philosophy of various schools are not unknown to him. And he learns, first, current scientific theories and, second, how frail and temporary such theories can be. He learns to be undeceived by those who claim to know a last and final truth.

  "How else was I to deal with a dangerous race of world-destroying monsters? If I taught them to reason, maybe they could be reasoned with."

  I said, "Why hide the truth? You did not tell us magic was real, for example, or that there were Olympian gods running around secretly ruling mankind."

  "We told you the tales in sufficient detail, that when the truth was ready to emerge, you already knew what you needed to know."

  "That cannot be the whole story. Why raise us at all? Why a school? Why not a prison, or an insane asylum? What was the purpose behind all this?"

  "Hrmm. Well, would you believe that I am actually the Lord Terminus himself? The real Boreas has long since retired, and is living happily on his pension in Hyperboria. You and your brethren have been raised as the last and only hope of peace between Cosmos and Chaos, and you were taught your powers so that my sons and daughters, squabbling over a meaningless throne, would not have the ability to destroy you? It was done entirely for your own protection, and also to allow the great and altruistic work of universal peace to go forward."

  I said, "No, I do not think I would believe that. I suspect, rather, that you would not have had a commodity to sell had you raised us to be totally ignorant, and that we would have been even more dangerous to you than we were, had we been told everything."

  "Ah, well, then the benefits of an education in skeptical thinking must already be apparent to you."

  "Pellucid," I said.

  "Well, then," he said, "try out your powers of skeptical reasoning on this proposition: Without knowledge of your powers, and the ability, should the need arise, to use them, you might have been killed. Since your death would have instigated a war, it was thought best to see to it that you could defend yourselves."

  "Why teach us liberal arts? Why raise us among human beings, as humans?"

  "You will not believe this now, but in times to come you may. The art and science, poetry and literature, philosophy and thought and myth of mankind exceed the best efforts of the immortal races. Our muses need their artists as much as their artists need our muses. What men had to teach was more rational, fair, and lofty and, in a word, better, than the lessons you would have learned from the Olympians. They are the creatures of Prometheus."

  "You wanted us to feel pity for them, a pity you do not feel yourself, so that when the time came, we would not be willing to see the Earth destroyed."

  He stood up.

  Boreas said in a cool voice, "Do not say 'we,' Miss Windrose. Mr. Triumph has no compassion for mankind; the emotion is unknown to him. Mr. mac FirBolg could not care less about this matter or any other. And your Mr. Nemo is a cold, cold man. He regards morality as a matter of legalisms and maneuver.

  "No, Miss Windrose. Much as I wish I could take credit for it, and it would certainly make me seem to be the master of intrigue popular rumor paints (or slanders) me to be, the fact that you have matured into a woman of refined sensibility and noble sentiment, and one moved by compassion for mankind, is a product of your own generous soul."

  He put his hand out toward me, as if offering to help me rise to my feet.

  There was something menacing in his gesture. I saw in his eyes, his cool and mocking eyes, that he expected no more resistance from me, or that he could overthrow any resistance I might dare to raise, as easily as he once threw me over his knee.

  "Well," he said, "at least the adventure was concluded in a satisfactory way. You can carry back many fine memories to comfort you. I speak in an abstract, hypothetical, that is to say, entirely nonliteral way, concerning the retention of memories, of course."

  I am sure I must have looked a picture of misery and helplessness, crouching in a cold tub, hugging knees to my chest, dressed in nothing but suds, shivering. But his eyes were not playing over my exposed flesh (as, for example, Colin's would have been). He was looking me eye-to-eye.

  Perhaps I did not look so miserable as I should have done, for he said in a thoughtful voice, "The prospect does not seem to dismay you."

  "You thought I would fight back?" I said nonchalantly, a proud little lift to my chin.

  "Given your history, Miss Windrose, it would be unwise indeed of me to assume otherwise. I also am not entirely convinced of the bona fides of your story. My brethren and I have been watching this hotel for some days, depending on which of them was blowing, and have seen no evidence that you are still in communication with your companions. However, as Dr. Fell taught you in science class, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

  I did not know how to answer that, and I certainly did not want him to follow that line of reason to its logical conclusion, so that was the moment I chose to stand up.

  I tried to do that nonchalantly, too, but all I remember is a painful feeling of embarrassment. I wiped some of the foam off my breasts, stomach, and hips, and bent over to wipe it from my thighs and legs.

  I am sure Mata Hari could have done it in a more sensuous and less awkward way. I don't know if it actually had the distracting effect I wanted, because I could not bring myself to stare at anything other than his kneecaps.

  I felt the water dripping from my breasts and hips, little rivulets snaking down my thighs. I could feel heat in my face. I must have been blushing like a beet.

  Boreas suppressed a smile, and his gaze now did travel, up and down and up again, Colin-like. He nodded, a connoisseur expressing admiration for a fine work of art. Again he raised his hand. He said, "Well... ahem... Very nice. Please come quietly."

  I didn't move.

  He reached out a hand toward my nude shoulder.

  At that moment, I felt nothing but his presence. As if the air around him were filled with nothing but him, huge, immense, masculine, masterful. It was not what I was expecting to feel.

  There was a heartbeat in my throat, but I swallowed it down, and spoke before his hand touched me. I wondered if it would feel cold, or warm.

  "Are you expendable?" I said.

  My voice came out cool and nonchalant Perfect. I sounded like the woman in control now, regal and mature. If only I could have brought myself to meet his eyes, I would have seen his reaction to that.

  "Aha. Now we come to it," he muttered in a light drawl, drawing his hand back.

  No matter how hard I stared at his kneecap, I could not read his expression. I still wasn't able to raise my eyes to him, at the moment.

  "Come to what?" I said to his kneecap.

  "The speech you practiced in the mirror."

  I licked my lips, and summoned up the cool, nonchalant voice again. The voice of grown-up Amelia.

  Again, it came out of my mouth perfectly naturally:

  "You are trying to provoke a response, aren't you, Boreas? You could have walked up to me on the street, or at the store, or in the park. You waited until I was in the bath. You didn't bother insulting Victor. He wouldn't react. But you pulled out all the stops when talking about Colin. The boy you think has no self-control. You think he is listening to us, don't you? You want to draw the others out of wherever they are hiding. Well, it won't work."

  Now I did look up at him. That was natural, too.

  I was startled, even speechless, by the look of kindness and admiration in his eyes.

  He stepped away from me. His red wings opened and folded again across his back, a rustling gesture, as he crossed his arms and looked carefully left and right, up and down.

  He said, "Even if your story is true-w
hich I doubt, Miss Windrose-your companions would keep watch over you. To exercise the full range of chaotic powers requires all four of you, and Nausicaa as well; and you need each other for mutual protection. No one else could protect Mr.

  Triumph, for example, from siren attack. They will come out when I carry you off."

  I said, "No they won't."

  Cool and calm and regal. I was doing it now without trying.

  As if it were the real me.

  "Oh? Why not?" His head was cocked to one side, his expression amused, aloof.

  "Because you won't carry me off."

  "And-?"

  "And what?"

  "And complete the utterance of your threat. Please keep in mind, however, that I have been threatened by gods and monsters much more malevolent than yourself, older, stronger, and whose supremacy over me I had demonstrable cause to fear."

  "Fine," I said. "Here's the threat: If my friends are watching me, they will go to whichever faction among the Olympians who most wants the powers of Chaos on their side. Mulciber, Mavors, Pelagaeus, or even Tritogenia. The only price they will ask is that your head be delivered to them on a silver platter. How popular are you among the Olympians, Headmaster? What would the reasonable course of action be for any Olympian who-?"

  He held up his hand. "Spare me further emphasis. My imagination is as fecund and lively as your own, and painted in a somewhat darker stain."

  "Well?"

  He nodded. "That is a fairly good threat. It is well considered, to the point, and hard to refute or ignore. I will give you a passing grade. There is one counter I can make, however. The other Olympians know I can find you at my pleasure. They will certainly kill me if I leave you at your liberty. To them, at least, I am expendable indeed. If my death is certain in either case, what if I am considerably nobler than you take me to be? I carry you off; your friends turn to Dionysus or Mavors, and demand my head in return for their loyalty. The deed is done. All the orphans of Chaos now work for one faction. That faction overwhelms the opposition, and places its candidate on the throne; and meanwhile, none of you return to Chaos, the peace treaty is preserved, everyone (except yours truly) lives ever after, if not happily, at least inside of a universe that preserves life, order, and structure; a universe with one ruler. No matter how highly a particular chess man values himself, the king must sacrifice pawns to achieve victory."