Titans of Chaos

I was thrown to the ground as the platform came to an abrupt halt. Things to me were half-lit,monochromatic. We were in a green house. The deck to either side of us was spread with widelawns and jeweled statues, and ornamental gardens in terraces climbed up the sloping woodenhull. The portholes here were like the windows of a cathedral: a massive rose-window at one end,hazed in rainbows, stained-glass arches marching like sentries away from it.

The green stone around Vanity's neck flickered and went dim. Vanity said, "We are surrounded bychaos, Leader! I cannot back us out of here."

Victor issued a weft of magnetic force that carried him over to the nearest stained-glass window.

Without flinching, he shoved his arm through the window, cutting himself badly on the shards. Ablack fluid squirted from his veins, falling into whatever cloudscape or seascape was beyond thewindow. I could not see the scene clearly. It was something that billowed.

A beam swept from his eye and ignited the black substance. A bluish flame started up and beganto get brighter through the window.

Victor said, "I can try to stabilize the immediate area. Do you have the laws of nature we want?"

Vanity said, "I wished for what you told me to wish for. Is Quentin going to be okay?"

A voice came out of my cell phone. It came out of Vanity's pocket and Quentin's and Colin's coatas well, where they kept their cell phones. I assume Victor could simply hear it.

"Checkmate," came the light, quick, playful voice of Trismegistus.

He continued: "The laws of nature that allow one to unweave a destiny are the same ones, theexact same ones, that allow destinies to be sewn up in the first place. The air of Olympos, so tospeak. Our home field advantage. The laws least favorable to Chaos and your powers. A deadzone. Apt expression, eh? Very apt?

"For all this, all this, foolish children, has been ordained by fate. Once fate is set, it must come topass, soon or late. I had hoped merely to decree your death while I lay at leisure, eating grapes,but your exertions against my incompetent wives and clumsy paramours- in escaping them, yourdeaths were not escaped, and were in nowise less inevitable, but it was taking long, so very long! Iam not the god of patience, but of speed! So now I must run you down myself. It is ended: Now Ispeak. I decree your deaths, and war, horrific war, to overwhelm the world!