Titans of Chaos

The black ships were leaping like sharks over the waves toward the silver one. If our ArgentNautilus was as swift as an arrow, they were at least as swift as javelins.

Had she been required to stop or slow, or even to drive through the waves in a straight line, surelythe speeding black ships, racing on white trails of high-flung spray, would have overtaken her.

But the Roc cupped its titan-wings, creating a gale to catch us, and dropped to the tilting deckeven as the silver ship jumped across the air from one mountain-size wave crest to the next.

Sploosh! Foam and cold spray showered in every direction, and I would have fallen, or been flungoverboard, except that Colin (where had he come from?) had one strong arm around me. I wasstanding tiptoed on the deck, my face pressed into the neck where it met his shoulder, still weakand trembling with fright. Vanity was clinging to him, too, crushing her body into his, her armstightly around him and tightly around one of my arms that was trapped under hers, since we wereboth using the selfsame man's torso as our anchor point. Vanity was screaming, still. Take twogirls who have never been on a roller coaster before, sit between them, and make sure they arenot brave when it comes to heights, and you will get an idea of the situation. We clutch andscream. It's a reflex.

"Ta-da!" exclaimed Colin. I could not see his face in the dark stormy air, but his tone wascheerful. "Nor rain nor storm nor dark of night, will stay this messenger. Whaddya think? Wasn'tthat great?"

I would have let go of him, except that the ship chose that moment to leap like a dolphin in thesky and jump to another rolling wave in the distance. I heard something scrape the hull below. Inthe confusion and gloom, I was convinced we had just passed over the masts of a pursuing ship.

In terms of keeping my footing, imagine having four Russian acrobats in tights grab the section offloor you are standing on and toss it to their cousins, who are also Russian, and also wearingtights, some hundreds of feet away. Being Russian, of course, they are morose acrobats, and donot care much one way or the other if you live or die.

Vanity said, "I hate you, Colin mac FirBolg!" And then she screamed again and grabbed himtight.

I held on to him, too. "How come you are not falling over?" I called out to him.

He replied in a loud, calm voice: "I do not want to fall over. And I am psychokinetic, orsomething, remember?"