Titans of Chaos

Although the deck kicked and bucked, Phobetor was not moved. He stood, hooves spread, maceglowing in one hand, his mouth lit with flame. His eyes were on me, his ears no doubt still filledwith Quentin's question. Do you love her? The storm clouds roared above him, and red lightningflashed between the clouds of hail and streaming mud.

"By God, I do love her, and woe betide mortal or immortal who raises a hand against her. DarkMistress, when I rule in Hell, you shall be my Queen!"

I waited for something to happen.

"Not working," I shouted back over the storm-wrack.

The wind just screamed at me. I wanted to scream back at it.

Phobetor said, "And, um, thanks for helping me with my homework. I mean, well, this is sort ofembarrassing, but, we all know you're, um, brighter about math and stuff than I am, and well, Ijust wanted to say..."

And my vision came back. I was four-dimensional again, full, complete.

I am not sure what the moral of that little incident was. Honest thanks for small favors is strongerthan true love?

Light!

There was a blister, similar to the one I had seen previously, swelling out from the dream-planeparallel to Earth, shedding energy in each direction. I could see what was around us.

There were things moving in the light. The tumult from the previous explosion had left wreckagestrewn across the dimensions: I saw Mulciber's giants, fallen, with technicians in long brown coatswalking across helmet-tops, directing spider-machines at their repairs. I saw fleets andbattle-barges of Mavors, thrown onto shoals and rocks, with lizard-faced Laestrygonians bailingand shouting orders to running sailors. I saw one group of Atlanteans in outer space, abandoninga tumbling space vessel, which glowed cherry red as its orbit decayed into the poisonous upperatmosphere of Venus. Atlanteans in black and silver armor dropped out of the airlock like pearlson a slightly curving string, one after another, and fell out and away from the dying ship.

The blister grew and changed from a cherry red to a blue white. Another explosion was no doubtonly moments away. And there were smoky forces stirring and boiling in the depths of thedream-plane, tangled strands and webs of some titanic magic being readied.