Titans of Chaos

Victor seemed pleased. The nymphs had not seen what I saw when he spoke. I had seen the innernature of the words coming from his mouth. When Victor spoke the dread true name of the Lordof Hell, it was merely air-compression waves forming an arbitrary symbol. He could not say magicwords. His voice would never call up gods, no matter what forbidden names he spoke.

I had also seen the utility shining from Vanity's playacted panic, and had seen the deceptive innernature of her frantic words.

Unlike me, Vanity was a good actress.

And unlike Victor, Vanity could not restrain herself from a mild gloat. She smiled archly at theprone women, and she made a little curtsy-pantomime. "Thank you for swearing, ladies. Now,Leader, can we get out of here?"

She was not talking to me. It was Quentin who answered: "Victor, can you stun our ladies herewith some paralysis beam? They cannot attack us again without breaking the law of oaths. Ispare their lives."

A glance from my higher sense showed me the strands of moral obligation running betweenVictor, Vanity, and Quentin. I saw group loyalty, and an obligation to abide by the outcome ofelections. I had not appointed a proper chain of command, so no one had been in charge whileColin and I were missing. They had elected Quentin leader.

Well, that was a bit of a relief, wasn't it?

Quentin gave the order to Victor, who focused a narrow beam from his eye and touched onenymph after another with it. Something in their nerve-transmission changed when he touchedthem, and buried commands in their brain stems triggered their narcoleptic reflexes.

Good thing they were already lying down.

I shouted, "Something just happened! I saw the lines of moral order flicker and jump-"

Quentin said, "What's it mean?"

I said, 'There was something-a duty. When the nymphs broke that duty, it suddenly became usefulto someone or something."

Colin said, "Bugs. The nymphs were bugged."

"Or booby-trapped. We were supposed to win. We tripped a trap by stunning them." I said,

"Leader-what do we do... ?" (I really enjoyed being able to say that to someone else.)Quentin said, "Well... first, let's all get aboard the ship. Vanity can select a set of laws of naturethat does not allow for..."

Colin was not listening to the leader. He was staring at me.

No, not at me. He was looking at the Amazon, who was still seated, glassy-eyed, on her steedabout ten yards behind me.

Colin shouted, "Bugs! Hey! Remember the- She's got the damn rifle bugged, too- Look out!"