Titans of Chaos

Looking "past" the hull of the ship, I could see we were in a vest-pocket dimension attached tothe slim hull, in a little bubble of wood (containing the air and laws of nature of Earth)surrounded by the waters of the dream continuum, where distances and directions had no fixedmeasure. The intersection back into normal space was contiguous with the area of the trapdoorabove us.

Outside, the seas of Earth met the seas of some other sphere of existence, and storms ragedthrough both. There was no light, but I could dimly sense, at the far end of the strand representingthe group, two internal natures: one methodical, self-controlled, calm, virtuous, fearless, tingedwith a mild humor; the other quiet, thoughtful, resourceful, intuitive, confident. Confident... ?

Quentin's internal nature had changed since last I had seen him. Humor... ? Victor was changing,too.

Both of them had an aura of masculine power, which had not been there before; it was a naturethat at once both sought to cherish, and sought to dominate; it was both gentle and fierce in away I cannot describe. It was more forthright and forceful than anything I knew in myself, bold tothe point of madness. There was something frightening about it. To think of the placid, icy-calmVictor or the polite, mild-spoken Quentin charged with such vehement, masterful, potent nature,not merely for a moment or two, but at all times, made me feel awed and aghast, and secretlydelighted.

Colin said, "Leader! Can you see the black ships?"

Oops. In my voyeuristic peep into the male inward parts of Victor and Quentin, I had forgottenthe danger.

"There are five of them closing in on us. One is within a score of yards, and men-lizard-men,really, Laestrygonians-are casting grapples. Have the ship jump to the starboard, now! Wow..."

"What are you seeing?"

"Those black ships are as fast as we are. Like speedboats. There are also men in the water. Theyare in green and blue and ultramarine scale mail, and they swim merely by pointing their toes andhaving space-time bend around them. Atlanteans. They are pretty fast, too. I just saw some gopast Victor's lifeboat... That's funny. I bet they cannot see them."

Colin said, "Vanity, can you ask your ship to stop glowing in the dark? That has got to be the onlyreason why they can follow us-"

I shouted, "Vanity! Hard to port! Damn-"

Vanity said, "What happened?"