Titans of Chaos

"If, if we don't-"

"Leader, we cannot possibly withstand another attack from Trismegistus. All of you are wounded,and I lost ninety percent of my body mass. Will you give the order?"

I did not hear Quentin's reply; he must have nodded.

Colin said, "Steady on. Steady." I do not know if he was telling Victor to be careful in applyingmedication to Vanity, or telling Quentin to retain his self-control.

Vanity let out a gasping scream. It sounded horrible.

Quentin: "Darling, I'm here. Don't worry. It will be over in a moment. We need to-"

Vanity: (Something inaudible.)

Quentin: "What?"

Colin: "She said the chaos was in the way. She needs solid reality, something with walls,boundaries, definitions."

Quentin: "Victor, can you stabilize the area?"

Victor: "Yes. But Trismegistus will find us the moment the storm drops."

Quentin: "Do it."

Victor pried his blue orb eye out of his head and threw it upward. I saw it fly up overhead. At thetop of its arc, it passed through the trapdoor and shot blue light in a fan toward the starboardside, the side away from where Trismegistus still (I hoped) was struggling with the storm anddodging cannon fire from the dragon-corpse.

Chaotic matter was evidently even easier to command than solid matter. The storm on that sidefell quiet with an eerie swiftness.

Vanity mumbled something. A command. I saw the reflection of a green dazzle coming from herposition where she lay.

Vanity was clever this time. The floor on which we lay now acted like a platform that shotdownward. Deck after deck swooped away from us as we rode the high-speed elevatordownward, into ever-vaster holds the Argent Nautilus now somehow held within her tiny hull.

None of the wounded even had to move.

The square of storm-stuff overhead dwindled to a point, and the falling blue eye of Victor hadtrouble coming down fast enough, meteorlike, to return to its master's hand.

Slam. A door of steel slid shut behind us. Bang. Another. Boom. A third. Apparently Vanity knewhow to run her powers in reverse, and create barriers where none had been before.

Quentin remembered me. He said, "Colin, wish Amelia back to health again. Victor, youconcentrate on Vanity."

Colin pulled himself by his bloodstained hands over to where I was. He put an arm around myshoulders to prop me up. I felt a warm sensation enter my body, clarity of mind. Colin said softly,

"Okay, Amelia. That is just red ink. Let go of your fear and the pain will let go. Snap out of it."