Titans of Chaos

I granted it free will, that part of me, that tendril. It yanked free and fell away from me, spinningoff into the abyss.

Two hot needles of pain found my neck.

Poison. Music shaped as a liquid. Siren song floated in my veins. I collapsed into three dimensions.

No breathing. Bones broken.

As if from a far, far distance, I heard Trismegistus chant: "Primus, Secunda, Tertia, Quartinus,Quentin: by your names of your youth and childhood I call; Victor Invictus Triumph, AmeliaArmstrong Windrose, Vanity Bonfire Fair, Colin Iblis mac FirBolg, Quentin Nemo: by the namesyou named yourselves for you; Damnameneus, Phaethusa, Nausicaa, Phobetor, Eidotheia, and byyour names innermost and true, I call, I call, I call to you. Perish now, thou demons foul, who areso fickle and so difficult to kill. Your ghosts nowhere shall abide; you shall perish utterly, andevery part of you shall die; it is the Psychopomp who speaks: This is my will. I raise my wand; Inow decree..."

My last trickle of vision faded to utter black.

I heard Quentin's voice. "I am in nowise bound by any curse of yours, you who have not namedme." His voice sounded strange, so strange. But the curse choking him must have failed.

That meant Victor, somewhere, somehow, was alive, if he restored the normal chain of cause andeffect. If the snake was a creature from Colin's paradigm, it was equal and opposite to Victor; itwas one against which he had a fighting chance.

The voice of Trismegistus floated like a leaf in the breeze, twinkling and chuckling. "I am theFather of Lies; I know my children. That was a lie. Spirits! I have named him truly! Can he proveotherwise?"

Quentin said, "The name I told my enemies when I was young, Nemo, 'no-one,' is not the name Itold myself to myself. In the ring of stones, beneath the moon, with blood I drew myself from mineown vein, I anointed me. That name is my true name, my inner name, my soul name, and you donot know it."

"Do you think you can riddle and argue, debate and expound, with the Prince of Lawyers? Youslew Galenthias, my cat: I call on you to render up your life for that. A life pays for a life; that isthe rule; you knew and disobeyed."

"You admit that spell is gone from me; and if from me, then from all those whom your words havebound together in one destiny-"

"Oh, this grows tiresome."

A gunshot rang out.

Quentin laughed. It was a sick, forced, hollow laugh, but he still laughed. "It needs to be silver tohurt me. You have damaged my vessel, which is merely made of clay."