Fugitives of Chaos

by John C. Wright

  "He is not the only suspect. Of course, the Vine God would welcome war between Cosmos and Chaos; he is a creature of madness, drunkenness, revelry, disorder."

  Boggin said, "And yet he also presides over public festivals and feasts, and soothes the weary toil of man with the refreshments and pleasures of the vine. Some say there is none who delights more in the happiness of mortal man aside from Dionysus. He is a strange fellow, but I would not head my list of warmongers with his name."

  "He was one of the three who conspired with Chaos against Heaven."

  "I did not say he was off the list. I just would not put him at the top of it."

  "Who would you put?"

  "That remains to be seen. On the one hand, Lord Trismegistus, the Swift God, the Father of Lies. He has no hope of gaming the purple by any peaceful means. He was the second of the Three."

  "If he were not in Tartarus, I would suspect him. The fact that he is dead excuses him."

  Boggin said, "Did you see his dead body with your own eyes, fingerprint it, check its retinal eye patterns, put your hands into its wounds?"

  "Of course not. Lord Trismegistus fell into the Abyss, with the silver arrows of the Huntress sticking into him."

  "Then do not count him dead. That could have been an actor, or a wax mannequin. Or the Huntress could have conspired with him, and shot him with blunt trick arrows into bladders full of pig's blood he had beneath his robe."

  "Put him on the list then, if you fear the work of those who no longer exist." The Laestrygonian sneered again.

  "No. I still put Trismegistus at the bottom of the list. He had concourse with Chaos before any other of the Triad; he knew the royal families in Chaos, he loved their people, and adopted their ways. They say he had a wife among them. Would he kill the children of his friends just to start a war where more of his friends would die? A war that, I should add, would put him no closer to the purple. Does he want to rule the wreckage of creation, once all created things are dead? It does not sound like him."

  "Who else is on your list, then? So far the Vine God is the only suspect."

  "Good Infantophage, you have not mentioned the third leg of the Triad. Dionysus and Trismegistus are but two. What of the Gray-Eyed Lady, the Wise One? What of the Lady Tritogenia?"

  "She is a woman."

  "Does the word 'Queen' or 'Empress' not exist in your limited vocabulary, my dear Centurion? Lady Athena Tritogenia would make a better ruler than your master. She loses battles less often."

  "She is a virgin. How would she establish a dynasty? The Huntress is crippled in the same way. I suspect they are sterile, or lesbians. Why else would they don armor, and fight and hunt? Besides, if a woman could take the purple, why has not the Queen of Heaven taken the throne? Both Mulciber and Mavors would support the claim of the Queen Mother, Lady Hera."

  "So are you putting all three ladies on the list of suspects, good Centurion?"

  "No. The Huntress has no following worth mention; she slays Chaoticists when she finds them and skins them like beasts. She would not welcome war. The Gray-Eyed Lady I think is too wise to let war loose upon the universe, for any cause. She wins more often than my master because she fights like a woman, timidly, and only when she knows victory is with her. No son of Uranus would cooperate with Lady Hera Basilissa for any reason whatsoever. From the first moment of time, they had no greater foe than the Queen. Rule, Law, Good Order are her watchwords. Even Lord Terminus was wild and chaotic, compared to her."

  Boggin smiled. "I see you share your master's good opinion of the Queen of Heaven."

  "There would be neither grain nor roads nor laws without her. Do you dispute this?"

  "I was one of the ones she sent to harass Aeneas, who, as far as I could see, had broken none of her precious rules. But no matter! The Queen and two virgins are not on the list. Do we need to discuss the Goddess of Households, or the Goddess of Love?"

  "Lady Hestia is the eldest of all of them, older even than the Unseen One. What she did in the before-times, or what she learned from Rhea, no one knows. There is a power in her she keeps hidden.

  My master Mavors respects her."

  "And he shows his respect for the institution of marriage by getting together with the wife of his brother, no doubt to sing hymns to the Lady Hestia, while holding hands chastely."

  "Do not mock the Lord Mavors!"

  "Me? Why should I? When the very existence of Archer, the young Love God, advertises the virtue of Lord Mavors for all the world to see? What need have I to add to that mockery? I would plunge my manhood between the silky thighs of the Lady Cyprian if she wanted me to plug up the hole of loneliness she feels in her life, and I would never fear the consequences. Mock him? I envy him! Indeed, I will not put the Love Goddess on any list, or even speak ill of her in a whisper; she is the one who made me fall in love with Orithyia, and look at how that turned out. She wants her son on the throne, and she wants all wars to stop, forever, so everyone can get on with their mooning and sobbing and waiting and mating. I would suspect myself before I would suspect the doe-eyed Aphrodite. Of the women goddesses, who is left?"

  "The Queen of Grain."

  "Unimaginable."

  "Agreed," said the Laestrygonian softly. "Even I (and I am as loyal as his own right hand is to Lord Mavors), I would embrace my own spear before I would raise a weapon against the Lady Mother Demeter. The only one left is the limp-wristed poet."

  "I thought we were listing goddesses."

  "We are."

  "We are speaking of the Bright God, the one they call the Destroyer?"

  "The Flaming Solar Faggot, I call him. His hand is on the harp-string these days, not the bow-string."

  "You amaze me, Centurion, in the breadth, or shall I say, the depth, of your wisdom. It is like a hole without a bottom. You must have studied for years to learn the art of forgetting every lesson in history.

  The Destroyer is the greatest god of us all, invincible in war, a master of all arts and sciences, a philosopher, learned in letters, a prophet who sees the secrets of the future___Do you recall that he shot one million arrows at the Telchine demon called Phython, when that monster was nigh to destroying all of the established Earth? Alone and without aid, the Destroyer fought him on the sea and in the air, burned him with arrows of fire, and broke his back over his shining knee. So great was that battle that some of those ar-rows are still in flight through the upper heavens. When they fall to Earth, they make a streak that men call falling stars, and they are held to be a sign of good luck."

  "A million, you said? How many missed? In my company, we get a stroke of the rod for every arrow that misses the target."

  "The Destroyer is not on my list at all. He does not want the throne; he does not want for there to be a throne at all, but prefers we had the demos vote, as they did in Athens."

  "He is also not on my list. The boy-kisser does not have the balls it would take to conspire against my lord Mavors."

  "Well, then, who is left?"

  "The young Love God. The Archer. Remember? Our Emperor. The one the Three Queens assigned to rule over us now that Lord Terminus is gone."

  "You mean Lord Eros, son of Mavors and Cyprian. I recall him well. We endured the rule of Love in Heaven for all of thirteen years, during which time he disbanded the army, emptied the treasury, trampled on all of our ancient rights and privileges, turned the tablets of the laws on their heads, so that the innocent were punished and the guilty were spared. They say the English who lived in this land, during their years of darkness, prayed to their god to spare them from the fury of the Norsemen. Were their god a real one, I would pray: 'Spare me, O Lord, from the Compassion of Reformers!'"

  "You think the Archer would kill the hostages?"

  Boggin said, "I do not know what Lord Eros is capable of. He may have been in the pay of Chaos all this while. If he had been setting out to do as much damage as possible to the strength and dignity of the Sovereignty of Heaven, I do not see how he could have done m
ore. If he was not in the pay of Chaos, then I congratulate their wisdom: they saved money."

  The Laestrygonian said, "You said you would not put the Vine God at the top of your list, but you have removed nearly everyone else from the list. That puts him at the top, does it not?"

  "So it seems."

  "We will assign watchers to keep eyes on the Vine God; your task is to arrange a likely-seeming escape for the Chaos pups you have here. Do you understand?"

  "I think there is very little chance that I would misunderstand the situation to the degree and in the way that other people in this room might have done, my dear Centurion."

  "When will the escape be carried out?"

  "Oh, but my good Infantophage, such things require great delicacy! We do not want the children harmed, do we? That would defeat the purpose. I will keep you informed as events progress."

  "Do not toy with the idea of disobeying the Lord Ma-vors."

  "Oh, I would never toy with that idea, my dear Centurion. Not toy with it. Oh, no. I greet the orders (albeit, the word 'suggestions' comes to mind as one that may be more apt in that context) of the Lord Mavors with the most grave, and, shall I say, sober deliberation. I daresay I put as much thought into obeying his instructions as he put into formulating them, or, since any finite sum exceeds zero, I am tempted to say, more. He certainly knows how children should be treated! What a fine job he did raising the Lord Eros from a spoilt, immature, mewling baby to a spoilt, immature, mewling tyrant… well, to someone who was occupying, that is to say, taking up space on, the very throne of Heaven itself!

  Mavors must stay awake nights thinking about what a fine job he did raising Lord Eros"

  "Lord Mavors did not raise Lord Eros. The child was born a bastard out of wedlock. What in the world are you talking about?"

  "Ahh… ? Hm… ? Well, perhaps I was thinking about someone else. I understand your orders. There may be delays in carrying them out——-We cannot be too careful in these matters, eh?"

  The moment the Laestrygonian had gone, Boggin turned and smiled at the peephole, sucking through his teeth a great, hissing indrawn breath. A gale-force wind sucked the panel door open and pulled Vanity flopping headlong into the room.

  Boggin seized her about the shoulders and drew her up. Her legs kicked, unable to touch the floor. "As one of the few people endowed (may I say blessed?) blessed with the power of the Phaeacians, I find it unduly, even absurdly, useful to be able to tell when people are spying on me, my little Miss Fair. My fair Miss Fair. No harm shall come to you, however, my pretty little sneak-mouse. But when you intrude your perky little nose into business of your elders, it is regrettable, and I do regret, that certain steps must be taken, to preserve your life and, indeed, the lives of all the other young women in the universe, women not so very attractive as yourself, of course. I will not ask you to forgive me—My! You do wiggle quite a bit when you struggle, don't you?—no, I will not ask, not because I do you no wrong—I fear it is a great, one is tempted to say, a calamitous wrong—but, rather because, in the future, I hope that, in the kindness of your heart, you will put this whole incident from your memory. To help you with this process, we will go inquire after our good Dr. Fell, perhaps with some help from our own dear Miss Daw and our own not-so-dear Mrs. Wren, if she is not stinking drunk today. Shall we?"

  And he tucked her over his shoulder, Tarzan-carrying-Jane style, and walked out of the office with her.

  3.

  Because Vanity had just been stimulated in her memory by a molecular engine of Victor's, aided by a psychic energy by Colin, her memory of this event was crystal clear. She was able to report it word for word, in perfect detail.

  She stood in the room, pacing back and forth, showing us the expression and mannerisms of Boggin and his thin guest. She did such a lifelike impersonation of Boggin's hemming and hawing that we all laughed, until Victor shushed us to hear the grim words Vanity was repeating.

  Miguel arrived with the champagne about then, and Colin twisted his ring for the moments while the steward was in the room.

  We passed around the shining and bubbling wine and drank toasts, led by Colin, who stood atop the table in the center of the cabin, one after another, to every class Colin had been behind in, every upcoming test he had been dreading.

  We talked over Vanity's story for what seemed like a long time, though perhaps I was merely sleepy and thickheaded with champagne.

  Victor believed that Boggin was cooperating with the Laestrygonian, and had arranged our escape, merely by picking certain coincidences and placing them in our future. Perhaps the Olympian power of destiny control allowed for this. Perhaps not.

  I argued the other hand. If Vanity were accurate in her portrayal of Boggin's tone of voice, his supercilious expressions, and lilting sarcasm, it was clear to me that Boggin had no intention whatsoever to cooperate with Mavors. The Laestrygonian had expressly said that the Lamia would not attack us while we were still on the estate grounds; Boggin said his mission was to prevent us from being attacked.

  All he had to do was continue to make one excuse after another to Mavors, saying, whenever he was asked, that the escape attempt was not quite ready yet. He could play such delays interminably. I thought we had escaped all on our own, and everyone but Victor seemed willing to believe me.

  My main argument was this: If Boggin had helped us escape, he would have put some sort of tracking device on us.

  Vanity said slowly, "But he did. He has one on you. Your promise to him acts as a consent to be found by him."

  I put my hand toward her. We held hands. I asked, "Is he tracking me now?"

  Vanity closed her eyes. For a moment, I thought perhaps the champagne had sent her to sleep, but then she stirred and said, "Maybe he is still in the hospital, or maybe he's not thinking of you. He's not aware of you. Not right now."

  Victor handed Vanity the little box that controlled the television. He turned his back to her and asked her to point the little box at him. She did, giggling, and we all joked she was raising and lowering Victor's volume and so on.

  He turned and came back. "Could I sense you when you were not sending a beam toward me?"

  Vanity pouted. She said, "He's right. If they have a bug on us, or on our clothes, and it's not broadcasting at the moment, I would not sense that we were being watched. If they were tape-recording our conversations, and they hadn't gotten around to playing the tapes back yet, I do not think I would sense that either."

  Victor said coldly, "We would be fools to assume, after a warning such as this—a warning which, by the way, we can assume Boreas could arrange fate to make us stumble upon—we would be fools to assume we are safe. The next attack is going to be lethal. We don't know when it will come, or where. We are like the farmers who lived on the slopes of Vesuvius: We know the eruption is coming. I suggest we stand watches tonight and that we do not go out of this cabin for the remainder of the voyage.

  Furthermore…"

  But the rest of us were not as worried as Victor. Colin, for example, had already nodded off; Quentin was yawning, and Vanity had put her head on his knee and had her eyes delicately closed, her soft lips parted, her own red tresses a thick pillow beneath her ear.

  I leaned over and tugged Vanity's shoulder till she stood up, blinking. I said, "Okay, Victor. You boys stand watch over us helpless girls. If anyone comes into our bedroom, we'll both scream. How's that?"

  Three days of sailing passed without incident. Surrounded by the luxuries and entertainment of what was certainly the finest ship afloat, we simply could not take Victor's worries seriously. We tried to keep watches at night, and the boys did not mind taking turns staying up late, watching the miraculous television.

  There were two or three channels that had nothing but rock-and-roll, to which half-nude starlets jumped up and down to truly primitive jungle-drum music. Colin was fascinated, and spent hours absorbed in music television.

  Quentin thought the act of casting his circle of silence mig
ht attract more attention than it deflected, and he asked us to rely on Vanity to tell us if the wind were listening to us. And yet he also seemed relaxed; he dreamt he read his book at night, and his book hinted that, over the sea, the gods of land had less authority, less power.

  At Victor's insistence, we always traveled in pairs, or stayed within shouting distance. More or less. I mean, a person can really shout a long way, right? This was not really a burden, either; Vanity and I did not want to be alone when we explored the ship, and we sort of needed each other's protection to ward off the gallantries of passengers and crew, all of whom seemed old, so very old to me.

  1.

  It was our own fault. Vanity had bought us both bathing suits in Paris. Hers was a peach bikini the hue of her skin, that made her seem nude at five paces; mine was a black one-piece, but hardly demure, for it had lace panels down the sides, with a neckline that opened almost to the belly button. And it tied up the back and front with such a thorough web of laces that I am sure Grendel's opposite number among human bathing suit designers had drawn up the plans.

  We went swimming the first day in a nearly empty pool. By the afternoon, the pool was crowded with onlookers and men and boys splashing near us and trying to show off. The handsome young lifeguard came by every few minutes to make sure I hadn't drowned. I also caused a sensation just by swimming laps. I do not know what I did wrong or did differently from anyone else, but if I could swim faster than a human being, or hold the pace longer, or hold my breath longer, it might have been obvious to them and not to me.

  I jogged on the deck and played some games they had there; I visited the spa; I played racquetball with a handsome young man named Klaus, who owned his own business doing something with computers or telephones, or both, which he tried to explain to me while he was trying to get Vanity to go away so he could molest me.

  I saw a movie in a real movie theater, and found out I could borrow movies on tape from the ship's library and watch them in the stateroom.