Titans of Chaos

Lamia's voice said, 'Tools, was I not dead as well, and did not Trismegistus steal my soul fromdestined torments waiting me in Hell, to be his concubine and unwilling mate? All this is beingdone at his bidding. Why do you hesitate?"

The nymph Sagaritis, the one who had paralyzed Colin, said, "He never bade us kill and slay,never bade us murders do; bloody deeds were not his way-who wills this deed; our Lord... oryou?"

Lamia said, "I waste no further breath: Maenads are here, and far more tractable to my will. Letthe glorious and gory deeds be done by them who are not so nice and so fastidious as you!"

The nymphs, smiling cryptically, inclined their heads and stepped smoothly to the left and right,making way.

The storm of noise and fury approached down the slope. With my unaided eyes, I saw, between thetoppling tree boles, women in torn dresses, or panther skins, or nude, running in huge long-leggedstrides through the trees, ivy-wreathed spears and truncheons of iron in their slim hands.

Many of them struck the ground with their spearheads as they ran, and wine bubbled up fromrents in the earth those massive blows made. Some of the women who ran on all fours tore theground with their fingernails, pulling up rocks and boulders; gushes of white milk fountained upfrom the soil in those places. A rolling wash of muddy wine and dirty milk was rippling andtumbling down the slope with the women, staining their bare calves and thighs.

And I wondered where Mavors was, with all his troops: troops destined to rescue us when deathloomed. And yet I knew: I had seen the explosion through time-space that had snarled thedream-paths his Atlanteans were using, and sent the ships and giants tumbling into confusion.

Mavors was not coming.

I whispered. "Echidna. Come. Can you hear me? Please come."

Even though my voice had barely breathed that name, the nymph who had struck me, Ethemea,who was standing twelve or so feet away, turned and said in a voice like music: 'The creatures ofdream cannot hear, unhoused souls, save for what we, souls in vessels, care to have them hear."

I shouted to her: "The maenads want to kill us all, kill everything. They plan to have the worldend. When I die, my father in Chaos, Helios, will destroy the material universe. The Olympians arefighting each other, and they can't stop what's coming. Do you want to live?"