Fugitives of Chaos

by John C. Wright

  I looked impressed. Actually, I thought they were good questions. Smarter than I expected Colin to ask.

  Maybe he had been hanging out with Victor more than I noticed.

  Quentin said, "I would guess it relates to objects directly related to identifying you, such as clothing or footprints. When you turn the collet of the ring toward your hand, you see, that acts as a symbol of the hiding of your seal, or, in other words, your public or outer self."

  "Ah! I see! It is all clear!… Except…"

  "Except…"

  "What the heck is a collet?"

  "That thing there."

  "Aha! On—! Off—! On—! Off—!" Colin twisted the ring on his finger, round and round. He vanished and reappeared, vanished and reappeared.

  I noticed that something other than being permeable to photons must be creating the effect. Not only did his clothing vanish, but the seat cushion where he sat was not depressed, or did not look depressed, when he was unseen.

  Colin flickered and reappeared. "I am trying to get it exactly halfway between turned in and turned out, to see if I can make only my left disappear. Here! Watch this." He vanished. "Tell me when you see the beer turn into urine. Ready?"

  When he picked up the beer bottle, I was expecting to see a floating beer bottle, like in every version of the movie The Invisible Man I had ever seen. Instead, I saw the bottle, I knew it could not float by itself, saw the fingers, and traced the line of his arm back up to his face. His features were dark and clouded with shadows, as if light were avoiding him.

  I stuck out my tongue and waved at him. "There is a limit on what you can do," I said. "If you attract attention, people can see through the illusion you're casting."

  He looked at Quentin. "Can you see me, Quentin?"

  Quentin had his face turned toward Colin's chair, but his eyes were unfocused, like a blind man's. "Not at the moment. I cannot see the beer bottle either. It was there a moment ago, but I do not remember seeing it fade out or wink out, or anything. I must have blinked just when you picked it up."

  I said, "How many people do you think you could lift, Colin? I mean, if you can pick up a beer bottle, you can pick up Vanity. Maybe the whole group could vanish, if need be."

  He said, "In my elephant form, or as a human?"

  "Do you have an elephant form? When did you get an elephant form?"

  Colin twisted the ring. A sort of pressure in my sinuses and eyes relaxed and faded. It was a small thing, and I was not aware of it until it went away, but something, some hypnotic compulsion, had been trying to get me to look away, or blink.

  Colin said to Quentin, "Okay, great and powerful Oz, how do I get an elephant spirit to come and flow through my crystal window?"

  "The true name of the father of elephants is Tantor."

  "Great! What good does that do me? I am not a necromancer. I cannot summon up spirits by calling on their names."

  Quentin said mildly, "Are you sure?"

  "Okay!" Colin put the beer bottle aside and stood up, making a dramatic gesture with his hands,

  "Sim-sala-bim! Size of… an eleph—"

  " No!" Quentin and I shouted together. I jumped up and grabbed Colin's arm. "If you turn into an elephant in the cabin, you'll crush the deck up and smash everything! Are you crazy?"

  Colin sat down again. "Doing a Quentin-type spell would not work for me, anyway. I do not believe in that stuff, so it wouldn't work."

  Quentin said, "Actually, what I do works whether I believe in it or not."

  Colin picked up the beer bottle and gestured with it: "Aha! You believe that, don't you? So it's true for you."

  Quentin turned to me. "Amelia, help me out…"

  I said, "Don't look at me! I believe every statement has truth-value only in relation to its frame of reference. An Englishman and a Chinaman pointing 'up' both point away from the center of the Earth, but if you extend the lines from their fingers indefinitely, they get farther and farther apart…"

  "No, that wasn't the help I was asking for. Look at the ring of Gyges. What does the ring look like to you? I am curious as to how you see it."

  I opened my higher senses and looked.

  2.

  The ring was the center of a webwork of morality strands, which extended throughout the entire nearby area of time-space. Major arms of the strands extended to some place I could not see with merely four-dimensional senses.

  I "lifted" my hand out of Earth's continuum and plucked my hypersphere from where it rested in my wings, and I rotated it from circle to sphere, and then to four-sphere, and then to a five-sphere.

  It grew immensely heavy in my hand as "hemispheres" of crystalline energy popped up into existence

  "below" and "above" the (now flat-seeming) plane of hyperspace. It began issuing concentric pressure waves into the solid neutronium medium of five-space.

  The range of echo response in five-space was very short, so I had to touch the ring with my other hand to be able to "sense" it. The sense was more like hearing than sight. Sort of.

  Even though my hand was five-dimensional, and Colin's was only three-dimensional, he closed his fingers around my hand when I touched his ring. The fingers felt normal to me, not flat They were round, warm, strong. I could feel my sense perceptions beginning to slip, as if I were about to collapse back into three-space, but I used an energy-balancing technique to let the ring affect my lower vision centers. If I did not "look" at the impossible hand-clasp Colin had me in, the uncertainty wave would not collapse, and he would not collapse me out of my shape back into 3-D girldom.

  Instead, I looked at the ring.

  I could no longer see the morality webs—they were too thin and insubstantial to be seen, since they were merely made of flimsy four-dimensional material—but I could sense the extensional, relational, and existential measurements of the ring of Gyges.

  Hie ring's extension degree was congruent with the light-cone it gave off, and it reached to all observers.

  The relation degree was a moral one. Apparently the ring imposed an obligation onto any onlookers not to look at the wearer. Anyone who violated that prohibition was penalized by being forced to obey the imperative to look away; but, logically, also had to "look away" from the fact that he was being forced to look away. By definition, a person is always unaware of what he is unaware of The existence degree was metaphorical rather than literal. Although I could no longer see them, I now knew where those longer arms of the morality strands were leading. They were going into the place behind the walls of the tunnels Vanity created. They were going into the dream continuum. But whether they were reaching in the dreamlands surrounding Earth, or the dreamlands of some unknown sphere or region of matter-energy outside the star-filled universe of Earth, that I could not say.

  I tried to explain this as best I could to the boys. My explanation seemed to confuse more than it illuminated. I said, "The ring may have a weak spot. Innocent eyes will not be deceived by it. A person who bears you no ill will, or a child perhaps. Someone without sin. Eye unclouded by hate."

  "Oh, great!" said Colin. "Now I know what my friends think of me."

  I folded up my sphere and pulled my hand back "down" into three dimensions.

  3.

  Colin held my hand for a moment longer than he should have. I tried to yank it "up" into the red or

  "down" into the blue continuum. That would have worked on anyone else in the universe, but his fingers still seemed real and solid, no matter what.

  I looked at him, "Let go of my hand, and I'll tell you the answer."

  He said, "Tell me the answer, and I'll let go."

  I said, "Music."

  Both the boys looked at each other, saw their mutual confusion, and looked at me. Colin said, "Great.

  Now tell me the question."

  "How do you get Tantor to come? How do you attract spirits, since you are not a warlock, and cannot call them by ritual? Music."

  "You mean, I play 'Elephant Walk' for elephants, and '
Flight of the Bumblebee' to turn into a bug, and maybe theme from 'Batman' to change into a bat…"

  "I'm serious. Quentin, tell him to let go of my hand."

  Quentin said, "Be nice, Colin, or I will have the girls do another striptease for you."

  Colin said, "What is the downside of that, again, exactly?"

  "They will have to do it to return you to human form," Quentin said darkly. "Remember, don't make promises you don't intend to keep. It makes you vulnerable to certain operations."

  Quentin's stick flew from across the room and into Quentin's grasp.

  Quentin reached the quivering wand toward Colin's hand, and the look on Quentin's face was so grim and so un-pitying, that even I said, "Quentin! Wait a minute! We can't just use our powers on each other—! Quentin! Stop! Stop!"

  Quentin did not stop. The wand drew closer.

  I shouted, "Victor, do something!"

  Victor, across the room, did not look up. "Check your premises."

  Quentin touched Colin on the knuckle with the wand. Quentin's lips did not move, but we heard a voice, a thin version of Quentin's voice, begin to mutter and chant: " Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres!

  Arma virumque cano! Res ipsa loquitur.…"

  Colin's nerve broke. He dropped my hand and jumped back as far as his chair would allow. "Keep off!

  Keep off! Damn! He's gone mad with power!"

  Quentin smiled and put his stick aside. "Yeah. Be careful, or I'll tell you the name of the Father of Salmons."

  "Hey! I've got this ring! I am supposed to be immune to magic powers now!"

  "Yes, Colin, but I have said before I do not do magic. I only seem to. It's a trick done with mirrors. Your ring cannot stop me from pulling a rabbit out of my hat."

  "You… tricked me!"

  "Ah, grasshopper! You have learned everything there is to know about magic! Now you shall be the master! Go, and rule the world in my name!"

  "Don't single me out for your magic curses. I am not the only one! Amelia made some sort of promise to me, she's not saying. What about that promise?"

  "I can tell her the name of the Father of Salmons, too. It's Gwion. Now listen to what she has to say."

  " 'Music'… ?" Colin looked at me.

  "The Lamia said it. Remember, Quentin?"

  Quentin said, "I would say, there are some things you just don't forget, but I think I forgot that scene twice." He shivered and looked unhappy. "I remember."

  "In the story you told us? The Lamia was complaining that right under everyone's noses, Boggin had been teaching us the paradigms we needed to control our powers. They taught me Einstein, and Newton to Victor, Aristotle to you, and to Colin…"

  Quentin muttered, "'He taught music to the wild prince of Night and Dreams…'"

  Colin said, "That doesn't make sense. Not only do I hate music, but Miss Daw is the music teacher, and she's the one who uses Amelia's paradigm. Daw is a four-dimensional squid with wings, right?"

  "Actually, she looks like wheels within wheels with eyes on every rim," I said. "But, you are wrong about one thing. She used her music to stop me. That's not part of my paradigm. That's against my paradigm."

  I turned to Quentin. "Could she be something, I don't know, sort of halfway between my position and Colin's?"

  Colin said, "Glum did not use music."

  Quentin said, "But he did use a bearskin to turn into a bear. That was his beast-shape-cloak, his bear-sark. He was doing a shamanistic thing. It also sounds like he had a fetish."

  I rolled my eyes. "I'll say!"

  "No, I mean a real fetish."

  "It was a real fetish," I said.

  Quentin gave up on me and turned to Colin. "It sounds like Grendel used some shaman props to work his art That would put Grendel halfway between you and me, sharing some of the properties of both."

  Colin said, "Who else fits where? And why does everything have to be so complicated?"

  I said, "If things were simple, everything would have been solved long ago."

  Quentin said, "At a guess… ? And this is just a blind guess, I'd say the Hecatonchire are a cross between Victor's people and Amelia's. And who knows? I can't think of anything that could possibly fit between me and Victor. He and I have nothing in common, really. No overlap."

  I said, "Maybe the Cyclopes. I've been assuming Dr. Fell is just like Victor, but maybe he actually does semi-magical stuff like potions and alchemy as well as molecular engineering. Some of the enemy called his stuff 'potions.' We don't have any evidence either way."

  I leaned back in the divan, wondering if, all this time, Vanity had gotten the best catch out of the three.

  Victor was unapproachable; Colin was crude. But Quentin…

  I said, "When did you become the Answer Man, Quentin? Why do you know all these things all of a sudden?"

  He picked up his gold-and-silver grimoire, and pointed to it. 'Warn et Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est.

  Colin's Dad told me. He wrote this book. You know, this might have been the talisman meant for Colin, except… Happy birthday, Colin! More powers for you."

  He took out the little brown envelope, on which was written in Boggin's crisp, wide-looped penmanship, Remember Next Time Not to Look,

  "My talisman! You and Victor got instruction books on how to use your powers. I guess my instruction booklet can be written on the three-by-five card." Colin opened the envelope and took out something about the size of a playing card. The back was embossed with a design of a poppy blossom. "Oh, great,"

  said Colin, looking terrifically unimpressed. "What's it supposed to mean?"

  "I don't know what it means," said Quentin. "I don't know what is on the face of the card."

  "What do you mean? Look" Colin held the card toward him facefirst.

  Quentin flinched and put up a hand to block his vision. "No, no, no! Don't show me. We all played around with looking at that card. Thanks, but no thanks."

  I said, "Why? Does something terrible happen when you look at the card?"

  "Amelia, can you hear me now?" asked Colin.

  I said, "Of course, why shouldn't I be able to hear you?"

  Colin looked at Quentin and whistled. "Wow."

  Quentin said, "Same thing happens to me and to Vanity. Victor is unaffected. That doesn't make any sense on our table of oppositions, because I should be able to trump your powers."

  I said, "What's going on? Is there something on that card I can't look at?"

  Colin said, "You want to see it again?"

  "What do you mean 'again'?"

  "Here, look."

  "I am looking. Hold up the card." I turned my head. Quentin was now sitting on the divan beside me, and Colin was in the chair Quentin had been in.

  "Good trick," I said to Quentin.

  "Here is a better one," said Quentin, handing me a piece of paper.

  On the piece of paper were words in a flowing, delicate handwriting: Picture shows a man standing in black robes, stars in robe, cup of sparks in hand. Crowned w/

  crescent moon. Cup tilted, sparks fall into pool at feet. V. pretty woman kneels by pool. Crowned w/poppies. Crying. Tears fall in pool. Basket in pool. Baby in basket.

  Behind them dark forest, tall tower of wh spiral. Unicorn horn?

  Heraldic emblem top of card. Winged horse w/ head dragon, rampant, propre.

  It was my handwriting.

  I looked up. "What does it mean?"

  Victor from the across the room said, "The card is an artifact from Quentin's paradigm, not from Colin's.

  It interferes with the time-binding function of the cortex."

  I said, "I assume I was not asleep… I wrote this?"

  Quentin said, "The thing that happens when one wakes in the morning, to make one forget one's dreams, is in that card. It does not affect Colin, because he is entirely made of dream stuff. It does not affect Victor, because, well, not to sound mean about it, Victor is a robot. No offense meant, Victor."

  Victor replied, "None taken,
puny flesh-slug."

  I said, "He's not really a robot."

  Quentin said, "But I don't think he has any part of his being made of dream stuff. I mean, that sums up all the differences and similarities between our four paradigms, doesn't it? Colin is all spirit, and Victor is all matter. I am both, an immortal spirit trapped for a time in a mortal body made of clay. You… Gee, Amelia, I do not know about you. Both? Neither?"

  I said, "It's actually pretty simple. I have a controlling monad which is the final-to-mechanical causality nexus for governing other lesser nexuses, each of which has its own meaning axis and the non-meaning axis. What you call matter is an extension of non-meaningful relationships. They are objective and devoid of self-awareness or purposeful behavior. The other axis informs meaningfillness. Meaningful things are subjective. The meaning axis forms the context, the frame of reference, in which the non-meaning axis operates. Perception presupposes a perceiver and a perceived. The final cause of our perceptions, the reason why we have them, is to render matter meaningful; the mechanical causes of perception are the sense-impressions which arise from matter."

  Quentin turned to Colin. "Can you translate Amelia glossolalia into the Common Speech of Westron?"

  "She thinks matter and spirit are two parts of one underlying flung, I think," Colin said.

  "No," I said. "I think questions like that are, by their nature, unanswerable and ultimately unaskable. Life requires us to adopt dualism, at least in our actions. We move thoughts by thinking, we move matter with other bits of matter. Matter is what we call those filings we cannot control with our thought alone. If everything was matter, everything would be inanimate, and there would be no deliberate action. If everything were thought, everything would be omnipotent, perfectly tranquil, and at rest, for there would be no need for action.

  "Logic says there must be one underlying reality, a nexus of cause and effect, by which final causes relate to mechanical causes. This is called a monad. It cannot be investigated by introspection alone, because it is not made of thought alone. It cannot be investigated by material science alone, because it is not made only of matter. Therefore, we cannot investigate it at all. We know it must be able to influence and be influenced by thought; we know it must be able to influence and be influenced by matter. That is all we can ever know about it."