Titans of Chaos

The huge stained-glass window behind Trismegistus formed a frame with him at the center. Therewas a shadow darkening the glass. Then the glass went black.

Then the ramming prow of a black ship entered. Shards of glass and powder exploded in eachdirection, and the hull boards protested, bent, snapped, broke inward.

The sea came in.

The whole huge cabin space, where all these lawns and gardens stood, canted to one side. Theplace where I lay was still dry, but the boards sloped down to a spreading lake of seawater.

The noise was terrible; boards groaned and creaked; waters roared and thundered.

A pair of metal gauntlets, each finger huge as a tree trunk, reached in through the gap made bythe ram-ship and pulled an acre of hull away.

I heard the voice of Mulciber, amplified over a loudspeaker, say, "The Master of Cold Iron saysfor the guns not to fire, so they won't, eh? Mavors, tell your men to use steel."

Slithering shadows, thin and pantherlike, poured quickly from the black deck. Laestrygonians. Idid not see what they were armed with, and I could not make out how many there were. Theywere fast.

Trismegistus was faster. I don't know what he had in his hand. A knife? But he turned into a blurand cut the throats of a dozen Laestrygonians, then two dozen. Anyone who tried to run awayfrom him, it became a race, and he won.

A giant gauntlet, which I saw only as a passing storm cloud, reached into the cabin space andcaught the mile-long serpent by the neck.

The other snake, the anaconda-size one, swelled up to something the size of a skyscraper lying onits side. But a squad of Laestrygonians swarmed over it, and blood gushed up from the snakewhere they were. It thrashed and fell still.

Trismegistus made a noise like a steam whistle, a high-pitched peacock scream. "You sucker! Youslew my snakes! Ophion and Serpentine! You are a dead man, Mavors! You, too, lumpity-hump!"

I saw him dimly, a pale shadow with a wing-blur around him, standing in midair.

I saw a silhouette standing on the deck of the black ship, with seawaters rushing in through thebroken hull to either side. Even though I could not make out the details, the upright posture, theair of calm command, could not be mistaken.

Mavors said in a flat tone, "Last chance to surrender, Trismegistus. Come quietly."