ORPHANS of

CHAOS

John C. Wright

TOR

fantasy

A TOM DOHERTY
ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you
should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as
"unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor
the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

This is a work
of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either
fictitious or are used fictitiously.

ORPHANS OF
CHAOS

Copyright
© 2005 by John C. Wright

Excerpt from
Fugitives of Chaos copyright © 2006 by John C. Wright

All rights
reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in
any form.

A Tor Book

Published by
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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Tor® is a
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ISBN-13:978-0-765-34995-8
ISBN-10:0-765-34995-7

First Edition:
November 2005

First Mass
Market Edition: November 2006

Printed in the
United States of America

0987654321 To
the memory of Harry Golding, a man of sterling moral character, generous wit
and charm, endless patience, and titanic intellect; this tutor of St. John's
College in Annapolis had many students who admired him with a profound love, of
whom this author's is not the least.

Let it be not
imagined by any reader that the rather sinister educational institution
depicted in this fantasy is meant to resemble the author's alma mater, for the
spirit of St. John's is one in bitter enmity to tyranny; the task of St. John's
is to make free men out of youths by means of books and balanced judgment:
Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque. ORPHANS of CHAOS I

The Boundaries

1.

The estate
grounds were, at once, our home, our academy, and our prison. We were
outnumbered by campus staff, and by the imposing old Georgian and Edwardian
edifices. There were more mares in the stables than there were students in the
classrooms. It was only the five of us.

The estate was
bound to the North by the Barrows, to the West by the sea cliff, to the East by
the low, gray hills of the Downs. What bound us to the South is a matter of
dispute.

2.

Colin claimed
the forest was the only boundary to the South. His story was that the wood had
no further side, but extended forever, with the trees growing ever taller, the
shade ever darker, and beasts within it ever more dangerous, huge, and savage.
He said that beyond the world's end the trees were titanic, the darkness was
from Tartarus, and the beasts were vast enough to swallow the sun and moon.

When the two
of us broke into the Headmaster's library, I climbed up to wipe with my skirt
the dust from the glass-covered map that stood above the volumes and antique
folios of the oaken bookshelf. The map showed Wales to the North and Cornwall
to the South. To the East were English towns famous from history and legend:
Bristol and Bath, Hastings and Canterbury and Cambridge. There was London,
queen of all cities. Beyond the White Cliffs of Dover was the Channel and
Calais on the coast of France, gateway to the continent, to places rich and
bright and beautiful and ever so far away.

Colin rolled
his eyes, which were large, startlingly blue, and very expressive. "And
you believe our world is the one depicted on that map?" His voice dripped
silky contempt.

He ducked his
head to peer up at my under-things, but scam-pered back when I aimed a kick at
his head.

3.

Quentin, on
the other hand, implied the Old Road (which ran through the forest) constituted
the boundary to the South. He argued that the Straight Tracks were older than
the Roman road built atop them; older man the standing stone we found among the
gray hills of the Downs; older than the green mound on the South Lawn.

He spoke of
ley lines, and energy paths and mysterious con-nections between certain
hilltops, standing stones, the crumbled ruins of the tower on a rock in the bay
we all called the "lighthouse." He had charts to show their
alignments with various rising and setting stars on certain dates. He used an
astrology chart from the back of one of Mrs. Wren's magazines to show, wim some
plane geometry, why the Straight Tracks defined the transition point between
different astral domains. The argument was incomprehensible, and that made it
easier to believe.

Where Colin
was loud, Quentin was quiet, indrawn, unassuming. He never claimed to be a
warlock, and therefore we all thought he was.

Vanity and I
saw him on the Manor House roof tiles one Oc-tober midnight, talking to a
winged shape too large to be a crow. It took flight, and we saw its outline
against the moon.

4.

Victor was
more logical. He argued that the Southern boundary was the new highway B-4247,
which led from the coast to Oxwich Green. This new highway was on our side of
the forest, and cut through it in places. Following the highway toward the bay
led to the fishing village of Abertwyi, from which the island of Worm's Head
could be seen. Victor said the highway right-of-way followed the legal boundary
as defined in the courthouse records for Shire of West Glamorgan, which listed
the metes and bounds of the Estate.

We knew Victor
had disappeared when the group all went to Mass one Sunday in Abertwyi-town. We
did not know how he got over the stone wall surrounding the churchyard and
courthouse unseen, or picked the lock on the massive iron grate, forged into
fanciful shapes of leaves and black roses, which blocked the courthouse doors.
Victor just was able to do things like that

We know what
he had been looking for, though. We all knew: records of our parents.

"I was
naive to expect our records to be there," he confided in me curtly.
"The adoption records and genealogies only apply to men."

I cocked an
eyebrow at him, and gave him an arch look. "And what about women,
then?"

"The word
refers to both sexes."

"Does it,
really? You'll never talk me into going with you to the Kissing Well, if you
sit there and say I look to you like a man."

"Define
your terms. We are certainly human. We are certainly not Homo sapiens."

And, after a
moment, he said, "Actually, I do not recall ask-ing you about going to the
Kissing Well. Your comment seems to be based on a false assumption."

Victor was, in
some ways, the smartest one of the five of us. In omer ways, he was just so
stupid.

I should
explain that, during that summer, the chapel attached to the estate had been undergoing
repairs for water damage from the rains. When Mr. Glum, the groundskeeper,
brought Victor, dragged by his ear, back to stand before the Headmaster, there
was a consultation in the library among the Board of Trustees. The next Sunday
we went to Mass in our own chapel, water-streaked walls behind the saints
covered with tarp, scaffolding blocking the stained-glass windows, and
everything. Further expeditions to Abertwyi were canceled. Victor's argument
was brief and solid. A boundary was a fic-tion defined by law; there were
documents reciting the applicable law; and they named the new highway as the
boundary. Q.E.D.

5.

Vanity was of
the opinion that if we did not know where the boundary was, it could not affect
us.

Her argument
ran along these lines: we had been warned something bad would happen to us if
we went over the boundaries, or tarried too long on the far side. But
boundaries do not exist in the material world. A rock or a tree on one side or
the other of an imaginary line is still a rock or a tree, is it not?

Therefore the
boundaries only exist, as Vanity put it, "in our fancy."

"Think of
it this way," she would say, between various ejaculations and digressions.
"If everyone woke up tomorrow and agreed we should spell 'dog' C-A-T, why,
dogs would be cats as far as we could tell. But the dogs would not care what we
called them. If everyone woke up and said, 'Vanity is the Queen of England!'
why, men, I'd be the Queen of England, provided the army and the tax gatherers
were among the people who said it. If only half the army said it, we'd have a
civil war."

The boundary
to the South was no different. As one moved Soum there were trees upon the soum
lawn, a few, and then more, and then scattered copses, then thick copses. At
some point, you would find yourself in a place with no grass under-foot, where
no one had stepped before, and see trees which had never felt the bite of an
axe. But where exactly was the dividing line?

The trees were
thick around the servants' quarters, the stables, and the pump house. They were
thicker beyond the old brick smithy. They were thicker still beyond the even
older green mound connected with local King Artiiur tales; but mat mound was
bare of trees itself, and one came from the shadows of silent leaves into a
wide round area of surprising sunlight, where four standing stones held a
tilted slab high above wild grass. The stones were gray, and no moss grew on
them, and no sunlight ever seemed to warm them.

Vanity said
that Arthur's Table clearly could not be in the for-est, because there were no
trees there. A forest, by definition (Vanity would exclaim) was a place full of
trees, wasn't it?

So (she would
conclude triumphantly), there was no South-ern boundary, provided we all agreed
that there was none. What other people said amongst themselves was their own
affair.

Colin would
ask sarcastically, "And when they send Mr. Glum and his savage dog to hunt
us down and maul us, does it then, at some point, become our affair?"

Vanity would
roll her eyes and say, "If the dog mauls us on this side of the boundary,
we could still say he was on the other side, couldn't we? Things like
boundaries don't exist if you don't see them when you look for them, do
they?"

"And I
guess dog fangs don't exist if you don't feel it when your arm gets ripped off,
right?"

"Exactly!
Suppose the dog only thought he mauled us, but we did not see him nor feel him
when he came to attack us! How do you know the dog hadn't just dreamed or
imagined he attacked us? We could agree he hadn't done it, couldn't we? We
could even agree the dog had agreed not to hunt us!"

Colin would
respond with something like, "Why bother ar-guing with me? Why don't you
just agree that I agree, so that, in your world, I have?"

Vanity would
rejoin, "Because I prefer to agree that you ar-gued and you lost, as
anyone who heard the dumb things you say would agree."

Colin was not
one to give up easily. "If you merely dreamed you had found a secret way
out of here, that would not let you walk through a solid stone wall, would
it?"

"Of course
not. But no one knows which walls are solid and which are hollow because no one
can see the inside of the solid ones, can they? The ones you can see inside
aren't hollow, are they? No one else has any proof one way or another."

Vanity's
argument was as incomprehensible as Quentin's, and as brief (when pared down)
as Victor's. Apparently as long as she, Vanity, in her solipsistic purity, did
not believe the Southern boundary existed, then, for all practical purposes, it
would not. 6.

Vanity was
short, redheaded, with a dusting of freckles on her cheeks. Her eyes were the
most enormous emerald, and they sparkled. She had a little upturned snub nose I
always envied just a bit. She was fair skinned and always wore a straw skim-mer
to keep the sun off her face.

With her lips
so pale a rose color, and her eyebrows so light, I always thought she looked
like a statue of fine brass, held in a furnace of flame so hot as to be
invisible, so that she seemed to glow. Even when frowning, she seemed to be
smiling.

She was curvy
and she took wry amusement at the fact that the boys, the male teachers, even
Mr. Glum, could have their gazes magnetized by her when she walked by.

I always
drought Vanity was a little sweet on Colin, because she yelled at him and
called him names. In me romances I read, that was a sure sign of growing
affection.

As I grew
older, I noticed how carefully she noticed every-ming Quentin did, Quentin the
quiet one, and I realized she doted on him. And I began to realize Vanity
actually was annoyed and exasperated by Colin.

That was when
I realized, for me first time, mat the five of us were not me tightly knit band
of Three Musketeers Plus Two mat Victor said we were, one for all and all for
one, and all that.

It was not
until I was around an age which, in a human being, would be between sixteen or
eighteen or so, when I had the drought mat wim two girls and three boys, one of
the boys in our merry band would end up a bachelor, or married to a stranger.

I remember
where I was when mis drought came to me. I was sitting on me lip of me Kissing
Well, wim my skirts flapping in the gusts coming from the bay, quite alone. I
had just come from the infirmary, and was still seasick from Dr. Fell's most
recent round of vaccinations. We were usually allowed to skip lessons any
afternoon when Dr. Fell worked on us, provided we made up the lessons later.
The well was high on a hillside, and overlooked me water. Sea mews were crying,
and me sad sound lingered in the air.

It was spring,
I remember, and two male birds were fighting. That was what prompted my
drought. That was also when I started wondering what my future would be. I
wanted to be a pilot, an explorer. A cowgirl witii a pistol. Anything that got
me away from here. The idea of being a housewife seemed intolerably dull and
lacking in glamour. On the other hand, the idea of never having a child was
like death.

And then I
said aloud to the well, "But what if they never let us go?"

The voice in
the well said back softly, "... never let us go...?"

7.

My name is Amelia
Armstrong Windrose. I should say, I call myself that; my real name was lost
with my parents.

We chose our
own names when we were eight or ten or so. It was not until we started sneaking
off the estate grounds that we realized that other children in the village were
christened at birth, and kept anniversaries of their birthdays, and knew their
ages.

We knew about
birthdays from various readings, of course. There were references to such
things from histories, where boy kings had to be killed before they ascended
the throne, or from gothic romances, where girl heirs had to be wedded before
they came into their majority. We knew, in a general way, what a birthday party
was.

Mrs. Wren
started holding them for us, with snappers and barkers and wrapped gifts, and
candles on cake with icing, and toasts and games, when we complained. But her
notion was to have them twice or three times a year, usually during months with
no other holidays of note. And the number of candles she put on the cake could
be anywhere from one to one score, de-pending on her mood, or the success of
her shopping.

The gifts we
got from her did not seem odd at the time, for we had no other basis of
comparison. Once I got a wrapped roast duck, which had turned cold in me
cardboard box, and lay amid its own congealed grease. Another time, a box of
nails.

Colin got one
of Mrs. Wren's shoes at that same party; Van- ity got a drawer from the kitchen
with knives and spoons in it. And yet, other times, her gifts were things of
wonder and plea-sure: a wooden rocking horse, painted fine, brave colors; a toy
train set with an electric motor and a cunning little chimney that puffed real
smoke; a dress of breathtaking beauty, made of a soft scarlet fabric, perhaps
satin; an orb of pale crystal that glowed like a firefly when you held it in
your hand and thought warm thoughts; a walking stick with a carved jackal head
with silver ears, which Quentin was convinced could find buried streams and
fountains underground.

One birthday
party, the Headmaster simply announced we were to choose names for ourselves,
and put our baby-names behind us. Only Quentin refused to choose, and kept his
original name. I, who had been Secunda, used the chance to name myself after my
heroine, the American aviatrix, Amelia Earhart My family name I took from that
eight-pointed star which decorates maps and determines North.

You see, I had
always felt closed-in and trapped by the walls and boundaries of our estate. No
matter how handsome and fine the grounds, it was still a cage to me. My dreams
were for far, unguessed horizons, hidden springs of unknown rivers, un-climbed
mountains shrouded in cloud. The edges of maps interested me more than the
middles.

Naturally,
such dreams led me to admire that breed of men who sailed those horizons, found
those springs, conquered those mountains. Roald Admussen was my idol, along
with Hanno, Leif Erickson, and Sir Francis Drake. My favorite books from Edgar
Rice Burroughs were those where the lost city of Ophir appeared.

Amelia Earhart
seemed so brave and gay, her smile so cheer-ful and fearless, in the one
picture in the little encyclopedia entry I found of her, mat only she could be
my namesake.

I told myself
she had not been lost at sea, but had discovered some tropic island so fair and
so like Eden, that she landed her plane at once, knowing no one else would ever
be daring and cunning enough to find the route she had flown. All the years
that had gone by, with her still not found, seemed to confirm my theory.

My name,
invented when I was perhaps a twelve-year-old, may seem silly now. But I
console myself that young Tertia named herself after a novel by William
Makepeace Thackeray, so that she could be called Miss Fair. We are lucky she
did not end up called Miss Pride N. Prejudice.

8.

I cannot describe
myself except to say that I am either very vain or very beautiful, and that I
hope I am the latter, while suspecting I may be the former. My hair is blond,
beyond shoulder length, and I liked to wear it queued up and out of the way. My
complexion has been tanned by spending much time out of doors in the wind and
weather.

I always had
the idea, when I was young, that if I stared in the mirror long enough at some
feature, my lips or eyes, some sun freckles I did not care for, or a mole, I
could somehow, by force of will, "stare" my face to a more perfect
shape—clearer skin, higher cheekbones, eyes greener, or more long-lashed,
perhaps slightly tilted and exotic.

And because
this does indeed describe me, then as now, I had always had the unspoken,
haughty assumption that plain girls either lacked willpower, or lacked
imagination. It is my least attractive feature, this prejudice against the
unsightly, and it is based on a very wrong notion of what life is like for
normal people. It gives me no pleasure to notice that many normal people have
the selfsame prejudice against the plain, but with far less reason than I.

I am tall.
Rather, I should say, I am tall for a girl, but I hope you will understand me
if I say I was taller when I was younger. Everyone but Primus, who became
Victor Invictus Triumph, was smaller than me, and I could outrun and outwrestle
my two younger brothers. 9.

I remember the
day when Quartinus, who turned into Colin Ib-lis mac FirBolg, proved he could
master me. There was some quarrel over who was to pluck apples from the tree,
and I threw one at his head hard enough to raise a bruise. He grinned, as he
did when he was angry, and chased me down. You see, I laughed because the last
time we had raced, I had beaten him. Now he tackled me, rolled me on the
ground, and took my hair in one hand to yank my head back—something he
would never have done to a boy. Still, I grinned, because the last time we
fought, I had toppled him downhill.

And so I
struck and I wrestled and I pushed and I kicked, but my blows seemed, by some
magic, to have been robbed of their force. Just one year before, he had been a
child, and I could bully him. Where had my strength gone?

He pinned my
wrists to the ground, and knelt on my legs to prevent me from kicking.
Suddenly, the game turned into something serious, mysterious, and somehow
horrible. I writhed and struggled in his grasp, and I somehow knew, knew beyond
doubt, that I would never be stronger than a man again. Not ever.

Colin smiled,
and ordered me to apologize, and he bent his head forward to stare into my
eyes. I wonder if he was trying to awe me with his frowning gaze, to hypnotize
me with his luminous blue eyes.

If so, he
succeeded beyond his dreams. This boy, whom I had never really liked, now
seemed inexpressibly powerful to me: manly, potent, confident. I will not tell
you all my wild thoughts at that moment But I wanted him to kiss me. Worse yet,
I wanted not to want it, and to have him steal a kiss from me nonetheless.

I did not
apologize, but snapped defiantly at him, "Do your worst!" And I
tossed my head and yanked at my wrists in his grip. My fists seemed so little
compared to his, and his grip seemed as strong as manacles. I felt entirely
powerless, but the sensation seemed oddly intoxicating, rather than dreadful.

He did not do
his worst. Instead, baffled, he stood up sud-denly, releasing me, and seemed
suddenly a boy again, a child I could defeat. I remember we raced back toward
the house, apples in our hands. We had just enough that we could throw one or
two at each other, trying to bruise shins and legs.

And I won that
race, that time, but he grinned and tried to make me believe he had allowed me
to win.

Strangely
enough, I knew he thought he was lying. And I knew he had not been.

2

The Experiment

I do not know
how young I was when I performed the experi-ment that required me to conclude
that something was wrong in my life.

Victor—so
I may call him, though he was still called Primus at the time—had grown a
trace of down on his upper lip, finer than the fuzz of a peach. With even this
small hint of manhood, he seemed more our leader than before, and there was a
newfound glamour to him that touched my heart and troubled my dreams.

We had crept
by stealth from the orphanage grounds, and stood among the rocks and bald hills
of the West. Below us and to the East, we could see the lights from the Main
House, the servants' quarters, the outbuildings, the stables.

Dr. Fell had
bought Victor the instrument he was using for his experiment from a scientific
catalogue. At the time, I thought it normal and unexceptional. Now, I realize
that such an instrument was fabulously expensive: a piece of precision
machinery even an observatory would envy.

The moon rose
not long after sunset, and we pointed the lenses of the instrument to the East.
Victor held his eye to the eyepiece and made minute adjustments to the vernier
dials. He thumbed a red switch with a grimace of satisfaction.

He said,
"An internal computer will track the path of the moon as it rises, and
send out periodic pulses. We want to gather a number of samples, to correct for
the different cords of atmosphere the signal passes through. The return signal
is re-ceived by the large dish on the tripod over mere, whose motors are slaved
to these wheels here. And voila!"

A numerical
readout lit up. It was two point something something. 2.8955. Almost three
seconds.

I said,
"What now?"

He said,
"And now we wait four hours."

"Did you
bring anything to read?"

He just looked
at me oddly.

"Or
smoke?" I said.

"You are
too young to smoke. Besides, it's bad for you."

"Quentin
said you tried it. You experimented with it."

He shook his
head. "It wasn't me. Trying things common sense abundantly demonstrates
are bad for you is not an experiment; such things show you nothing but what
your own tastes are. That does not constitute knowledge. This is an
experiment!"

"Then who
was it?"

"Who was
what?"

"Quentin
said he smelled smoke in the boys' bathroom. Cig-arette smoke."

He looked at
me with scathing condescension, but said nothing.

"What?"
I said.

"Logic.
If it wasn't me, and it wasn't Quentin, and it wasn't a girl, who was it?"

"Oh,"
I said, feeling sheepish.

Hours passed.
I fidgeted. I paced. I complained about the cold. I sat on the ground, which
made me colder. I asked him for his down jacket, which he doffed without a word
and tossed to me. I rolled it up and used it as a pillow.

I must have
slept.

I dreamed that
I was on a boat. A man held me roughly in one arm, dangling me over the side.
The boat pitched and tossed terribly; rain pelted my face and ran in icy
ribbons down my flesh. The man held some sharp, horrible thing near my face: a
knife, or something larger than a knife.

In the dream,
the water, which had been black and rolling, webbed with white foam and spray,
suddenly grew clear as crystal. A figure that was so large as to make our ship
seem the size of a lifeboat was gliding beneath the waves, parallel to our
course. The figure had his hands back along his sides and his head down; he did
not kick his feet. Instead, the water streamed past him, like wind streaming
past a man falling effortlessly through the air.

"Tell him
to quell the storm," said the voice of the doctor in my ear.

The figure
turned its head and regarded us both. Its eyes were lamps, eerie with a
greenish light, and it had a third eye, made of metal, embedded in its
forehead.

Instead of
being terrified that I was going to be pitched over-board or stabbed, I was
overcome with a painful embarrassment to realize that the gigantic figure was
utterly nude and that, as he kept turning, I would soon see a penis larger than
the member of an elephant, rippling through the water like a periscope. What
made it more embarrassing was that the figure had Victor's features.

The third eye,
the metal one, seemed to be the only one with a soul in it. In the senseless
way things are known in dreams, I knew that the mere fact that it could see me
with this eye meant he could speak to me, despite all the water between us, and
the noise and wrack of the storm. "/ am embedding this message by means of
cryptognosis into a preconsciousness level of your nervous system. The
paradigms of Chaos have agreed only on this one point. We will wait for
you..."

"Tell him
to make the clouds move."

"What?"

"I said,
I hope the clouds move. We need to get a clear read-ing when the moon reaches
zenith."

I was awake
again, with Victor, on the cold hillside. A knot-ted texture of charcoal-black
and gleaming silver hung like a ship out of fairyland high above us. The cloud
covered the moon, and limned the edges with swirls of argent.

Victor was
still standing.

"How long
have I been asleep?"

'Two hours,
fourteen minutes."

"Oh."
Silence.

Then I said,
"Why are you doing this? We could get caught. It's not as if Michelson and
Morley hadn't done this experiment one hundred years ago."

He said,
"One hundred eight. They've been saying untrue things to us. The teachers.
The readings we got from the interferometer in lab class had been meddled with.
When I did the experiment under controlled conditions, I got results consistent
with the theory that light is conveyed via luminiferous aether."

I sat up.
"Are you saying mere's no Einsteinian relativity? But there have been
other experiments. The procession of the axis of Mercury. Cesium clocks in a
fast-flying airplane. Light was seen to bend around the sun during an
eclipse."

"We have
only hearsay for that."

I was
astonished. The sheer magnitude of his skepticism was beyond words. It was like
an elephant I had seen once during a rare field trip to Swansea Zoo. As soon as
you think you under-stand how big it is, you look again, and it is bigger.

He said,
"Picture this. According to relativity, objects compress in the direction
of motion, right? And yet it also says that the same objects and events appear
from each other's 'frames of reference' to be symmetrical, right?"

"Right."

'Take a cup
with a tight-fitting lid. The cup and lid fit together, correct? Now move the
lid and cup away at right angles, the lid horizontally, the cup vertically. Got
the picture?"

"Got
it."

"What
happened when you bring the lid and cup back to-gether at near light
speed?"

"Um... I
am sure you are about to tell me ..."

"From the
point of view of the lid, the cup is compressed in its direction of motion,
horizontally. The cup is shorter, but still a cylinder. The lid, to itself,
suffers no distortion, of course. When the two meet, the lid will fit on the
cup. But from the point of view of the cup, the lid is foreshortened in its
direction of motion, vertically. Which means the lid is now an oval. The cup
still appears round to itself. When the two meet, the lid cannot fit on the
cup. The same event has two different results from two different points of
view."

I looked at
him sidelong, wondering if he were kidding. For the first time, I wondered whether
other people have more trouble visually picturing things in their imagination
than I did. I mean, it is not as if I could look into their heads to see.

I opened my
mouth to say that both observers would see the motion vector as a diagonal, but
then I closed it again. I did not like arguing with Victor.

"What in
particular happened?" I said.

For a moment I
thought he was going to ask me what I meant, but then he said, "You know
Mrs. Lilac from the village, whom Mrs. Wren uses to carry burdens and packages
when she has done too much shopping?"

"Sort of
the way you do me," I said archly. I had carried the equipment up the
slope from the hedges behind the lab shed.

"I don't
see the analogy."

"Go on
witii your story."

"Mrs.
Lilac passed me in the hall. She said her daughter Lily was going to graduate
from upper school soon and, seeing as how I had helped Lily learn her letters
when she was in grammar school, would I care to attend the graduation ceremony?
You know who Lily is, don't you?"

"Yes. I
know who she is," I said shordy.

I was thinking
that Victor had been to see Lily Lilac on every occasion that the Headmaster
would allow. She was fair haired and fine boned, with a breezy, insincere
manner I found exasperating.

Her father
owned the fish cannery, and was counted as being one of the more influential
people, among the working class, in town. Lily owned her own outboard motor,
and she went boat-ing on every possible occasion.

From time to
time I had seen Victor watching Lily Lilac from the sea cliff. He would stand
among the rocks with a telescope, and watch her fly by, her boat bouncing along
the waters of the bay, her blond hair bouncing in the wind. She was always with
a different boy each time. She seemed to be able to do what she liked, and go
where she liked, when she liked. I do not recall hating any other living being
so fiercely.

"I know
her," I said with a sniff. "So you've been invited to a graduation. I
doubt Headmaster will allow you off the grounds." I remember I was being
fiercely loyal to Headmaster Boggin in those days, and thought he could do no
wrong. Victor favored me with another one of his withering glances.

"What?"
I said. "What?"

"Logic.
How young do you think a person has to be to not know her letters and numbers?
And I must have been old enough to know mine. Let's assume I was unduly
precocious, and she was unduly slow."

"Yes,
let's do," I said, perhaps with a note of venom in my voice.

"I could
have been what, three? Have you ever heard a child know his letters at two? How
late could she live and not know her letters? Let's say five. She would be
nineteen when she graduated. If she skipped a grade, eighteen. That makes me
how old now?"

"Fifteen."

"But
suppose the numbers were reversed. What if I had been around five when I taught
a two- or three-year-old? How old does that make me?"

I said,
"If you were twenty-and-one, you'd be an adult. They would have let you
out of here. They'd have let you out three years ago."

"Would
they have?"

"Why
would they keep you?"

"Perhaps
they get money from the trust for my upkeep. Who knows?"

"But how
could they tell such a lie, and not get caught?"

"Who is
to catch them? The townspeople are afraid of the Headmaster."

The idea that
anyone could be "afraid" of the kindly old headmaster, with his
gentle smile and mild humor, was beyond belief. Had it been anyone other than
Victor, I would have laughed aloud.

But I didn't
laugh. "Someone would tell. They can't just go on keeping us here
forever."

"Who is
to tell?" he said. "Who will question their statements? Suppose they
say I am fifteen. Don't I look it? Who questions them? Who doubts them? Who is
skeptical enough to go to the trouble to check?"

At that
moment, a timer on the instrument bleeped.

Victor leaned
in and looked at the eyepiece. He clicked the red button with his thumb. A
moment later the LED readout lit up. 3.3214... He said grimly, "The
difference between the reading now and the reading at dusk is merely the
angular momentum of the turning of the Earth. Light shot forward, tangentially
to the turn, has the velocity of the Earth added, and travels faster. Light
shot at a right angle, away from the axis, has no velocity added, and is
slower. If we wait till dawn, the component of Earth's rotation will be
subtracted, and the velocity will be slower yet."

"There
must be a mistake," I said slowly. 'The instrument must be off."

"Is that
the most reasonable explanation?"

He turned and
squinted. The light in the boys' batiiroom off me dormitory was flickering off
and on, off and on. That was the signal that Mr. Glum had been seen leaving his
little house on the back grounds, no doubt to pull a surprise inspection of the
boys' dorm.

There was no
light in the girls' bathroom. Either Mrs. Wren had not stirred and the girls'
dorm was safe, or else Vanity had fallen asleep at her post.

Victor stood.
"I must run. Don't let the equipment get damaged when you carry it back
down the rocks."

"Yes,
master," I said sarcastically. But he did not hear me, be-cause he was
already jogging down-slope.

Now I was
alone, in the cold, with no one but the moon to look after me.

Well, there
was no need to delay. I started doing, in my mind, that trick I had learned
that made all burdens seem lighter than they were when I hoisted them, and I
put my hands out toward the instrument.

I was
thinking: it was impossible.

The angular
momentum of the Earth's rotation was so small a fraction of the speed of light,
I know, that no possible instru-ment could detect a difference; and surely not
a difference of nearly half a second over the (relatively) short distance
between Earth and Moon. To be a valid experiment, the second reading would have
to be taken half a month later, not half a day later, so that the velocity
component added would have been that of the Earth's motion around me sun.

So, instead of
lifting the instrument just yet, I put my eye to the eyepiece, made sure the
instrument was still centered on the same crater of the moon as it had been at
dusk, reached, and hit the red switch.

The dish
hummed as a radar beam was sent out, bounced off me moon, came back.

The LED
readout lit up. 2.8955.

I had little
trouble getting the tripod folded and the instru-ment case packed up, and
getting the whole thing hidden under the bushes, where Victor would sneak them
back into the lab in the morning, while he had cleanup duty.

But I had a
great deal of trouble falling asleep that night. Surely it was just a quirky
reading from a misaligned instru-ment, right?

Eimer that, or
the speed of light acted differently when I was watching it than it did when
Victor was watching it. Which is impossible, isn't it? That is not what the
Theory of Relativity means. Our notions of reality can change as we learn more;
but reality itself, the great unknown, cannot change.

But if reality
was unknown, how did I know it could not change?

I had a dream
about the ship again that night. The man holding me overboard, holding a sword
to my throat, was Dr. Fell.

3

The Tirst of
the ^ecrets 1.

How did we all
start debating about boundaries? When did we become convinced we were all
something other man human? Every starting point has an earlier starting point
before it. Some of the roots of how it came about, I remember. Others have
become misty and autumn-colored with time.

If I had to
choose a starting point, mere were three I would select, not one. I remember
when Victor made us all put our hands together and promise. I remember when
Vanity found the notes, which had our lost tales in them. And then, many years
later, Quentin discovered the secret.

2.

I don't know
how old I was. Vanity (or Tertia, as she was called then) only came to my
shoulder, and Quentin was small enough that Victor (Primus) could carry him in
his arms. When he stood up, Quentin's head only came to the level of Victor's
elbow. Quentin was too young for lessons; I remember being jealous when he was
allowed to sit on the floor and play with a wooden horse on wheels while I had
to practice penmanship, making rows and endless rows of slightly lopsided O's
and Q's.

As for me, the
doorknob to the coal cellar was right below the level of my eye, because when
Mr. Glum slapped me roughly on the back of my head (I was afraid to open the
door to the cellar) the doorknob struck me on the cheek, and I had a bruise
mere for a week.

I don't
remember why they were locking us in the coal cellar, but I do remember wishing
and hoping that the Headmaster would come back from wherever he was, and set
things to rights. He and Dr. Fell had dressed up in dark clothing, with black
scarves fluttering from their top hats, looking grim and terrible. A funeral, I
suppose. I remember the two stalking silently off into the freezing rain, wide
black umbrellas overhead. The rest of the staff was particularly cruel to us
that evening, or so it seemed to me. Mrs. Wren was raging up and down the corridors,
howling like a banshee, toppling suits of armor on racks and pushing over
floral vases that stood on the pillars next to the main doors. I think this was
before she took up strong drink.

They locked us
in the dark and cold. Whatever our crime had been, I did not know. It was dark
and starless that night, the drafts smelled of snow, and the dirt floor was
colder than ice.

I was
shivering and my teeth were chattering. I remember Vanity saying,
"Quentin's all cold. He stopped moving. Is he going to die?" her
voice was as thin and high as a flute.

Victor told us
all to gather up in a huddle for warmth. His voice was high-pitched then, but
it was very earnest, and just hearing it made me feel better. I could hear him
rummaging around in the dark.

'This is a
coal cellar," young Victor said. "There is wood and kindling in the
wood box." There was a tremble in his voice, too, but I could hear how he
forced himself to speak calmly.

Colin, or as
he was called back then, Quartinus, said, "Boogers! There's nothing to
start a fire with! Mrs. Wren's had a nightmare, and we're all going to die for
it."

In the pitch
blackness, Quentin's voice came up from the pile where we all lay together,
"A ghost. She saw her husband's ghost." I was relieved to hear him,
because I was so very afraid he had passed away. Certainly his skin felt like
ice up against mine.

Victor laid
his coat over the pile of us. I wondered how he could stand the cold in his
thin shirt, but he did not complain. Victor never complained. "I'll start
a fire. I'll make something. Lend me your tie. I found a bent stick in the
woodpile, and I can make a drill."

Minutes
passed, and it grew colder. I could hear Victor saw-ing away at something, the
hissing noise of wood on wood, but no fire came.

"Boogers!"
shouted Colin, who did not know any of the many foul words he was to learn
later in life. "Do you think you are a Red Indian? Rubbing two bloody
sticks together? We're all going to die, and it will be your fault!"

Victor said to
me, "Secunda. Get them talking. Keep their mind off it, you know? We've
all got to hang together."

My teeth
wanted to chatter, but I made myself speak. "OK, attention, everyone! I
know we are all cold and afraid. But we have something we have to do. We have
to remember our Tales."

I do not
remember a time when I had not been the unofficial Keeper of the Tales for our
group. It had always been my task. Colin used to joke that I was to be the Tale
Keeper because my memory was so good. ("Whenever I do something wrong, she
always remembers to remind me, eh?" so he would say.) I spoke gently to
young little Quentin. "The Tales are the only thing we know about our
home. Our real home. Quentin, you start."

"H'mt-toocold."

"Quentin,
you must start. We can't lose our Tales. You have to tell."

But Quentin
simply whimpered and did not answer.

Colin said,
"C'mon you great booger. Talk! You don't want them to win, do you?"

I felt
Quentin's cold body stir in my arms.

He spoke in a
voice so weak and thin that I could barely hear him, even though my ear was but
inches from his mouth. "I re-member my mum. Her hair is gray. She's blind.
I remember how I would run and she would spread her arms and say, 'Where's my
little shadow? Where's my little shadow?' and I would run and jump into her
arms, and mum would hug me, and give me a kiss, and she would say, 'I know you,
little one. I will always know you.' And I would say, 'How'd' you know it's me?
How'd' you know it's me?' and she would say, 'My soul knows your soul, little
one, my heart knows your heart.' That's what I remember."

I said, 'Tell
us more. Tell us about the giant. You've got to re-member the whole of the
Tale. It is your Tale."

Quentin said,
"My dad. He lives in a room with statues. Stat-ues and chessmen and dolls.
His beard is gray and comes to the floor, and his hair is gray, too. He has a
harp that sits in his lap. And when he plays, the statues dance. Once upon a
time, he took me and took his harp, and sat on the statue of a big crow, and he
played, and the crow flew up in the air."

Vanity said,
"That couldn't really happen, could it?"

Victor, from
somewhere in the gloom, said, "Maybe it was an airplane. Only looked like
a crow."

I said
sternly, "Stop! You can't talk back to the Tales. You can't change them or
make fun of them! That's the rule! If you start changing the Tales, they might
go away, and then we won't have anything!"

Victor said,
"She's right."

I said,
"Go on, Quentin. Tell us about the giant."

Quentin was
quiet, and then he spoke in a sad whisper. "I don't know the rest."

"Sure you
do! Your father took you to see the Shining Moun- tains! Instead of snow, the
mountains all have light, silver light, all along the tops. Do you remember
what he said? He told you, 'This is the place where the falling stars fall
whenever stars fall down.'"

Quentin said,
"I don't remember. I don't. Leave me alone."

I said
insistently, "In the dark valley between the mountains of light, your
father the magician took you to see the giant, who was trapped up to his neck
in the ice. There were dwarfs all digging and digging, chipping away at the
ice, to get him out."

Quentin said,
"It was cold. It was so cold. I saw his hand. It was a mile below me.
Under the ice. The fingers. I thought it was five rivers coming to a lake, it
was so big. So cold."

I said,
"Yes! Yes! And the giant said—do you remember what the giant told
you—once he was free, the bad people would be punished, and the good
people would all live happily ever after? The Golden Age would come again. Do
you re-member?"

"It was
so cold."

"Quentin,
maybe the giant has gotten out of the dark valley! Maybe he is coming to save
us, right now!"

Quentin
sniffled and shivered, but did not answer.

Vanity spoke
up next: "I remember my Tale! Me next! Oh, pick me! Oh, me!"

"OK. It
is your turn, Tertia."

"My house
is in fairyland," Vanity said primly. "There is a gold dog who sits
by my front door, and a silver dog, too. They come to life when you want them
to, and fetch a stick or chase away someone making fun of you. When you don't
need them, they just sit still. There is a singer who sings to me, and he sits
in the sunlight in his chair of ivory, and beats the ground with his stick when
he sings. He sings of wars and ships and deeds of kings. There are bowls made
of silver that hop on three legs like bugs. Hop! Hop! Hop! They walk around and
give you fruit and candy. If you're good. It is always springtime there. My
mommy has red hair like me. My daddy is the king there, but Mommy is the one
who actually runs the kingdom. My brothers play out in the green field, and throw
spears and throw disks. And they run. Sometimes Daddy takes me sailing, and our
boat is faster man the wind. Sometimes Mommy plays hide-and-seek with me, and
she pops out of the floor! Pop! And she puts "7

her arms
around me. She tells me to be good, because she loves me. That's all."

I said,
"There is another part. Something about being watched."

"Oh,
that. It is not like here. Nothing pays you any mind here. The rocks and the
wind and the grass. It's all dead. Where I come from, they are all friends.
They are all alive. You can feel them watching you, like a tingling all over
your skin. It is like being at the recital, when everyone applauded. Like being
on stage. Remember how nice that was? It tingled. It wasn't lonely. I am always
lonely here. I want to go home. I don't want to be alone any more. When can we
go home?"

Victor said,
"I will get you home. I promise. I will get us all home."

I said,
"You next!"

Victor said,
"Let Quartinus go first."

Colin said,
"My story is better than his. My turn. I climbed up the pole of my da's
longhouse, all the way to where it holds up the sky. That's where he keeps his
cloak, in the North Star. My brothers all sent me to get it, because I was the
youngest and lightest, and me roof pole wouldn't break under me. They said I
would not get punished for stealing it, on account of I was too young.

"I put on
the cloak and told it to make me into a wolf. A big, ferocious, giant wolf. So
I turned into a wolf, and jumped out the window, and I ran through the forest
The trees are so tall mere that sometimes the stars get caught in them. The
stars are these beautiful women with lanterns, and when their robes get caught
in the branches, they sing, and the trees feel sorry for them, and let them go.
Anyway, I remember I was running to this spot my brothers had told me about.
This black cave where my uncle lived, guarded by this big three-headed dog. I
figured I could take on the dog, seeing as I was a big wolf. Then a storm came,
and the clouds fell down through the trees, and it was my ma. She took me
around the throat and yanked da's cloak clean off me. I thought she was going
to be mad, but it was weird, because she just cried and cried and held on to
me. Like she was afraid. And she pushed my hair back and she said, 'If ever you
go away from me, oh my beloved son, on that day sorrow surely will slay me.'
She took me home and fed me from this big pot we had over the fire in the
middle of the house. "I sat in the middle of the pot and ate stew, and da
beat the tar out of my brothers. I have three. One wears a mask. One wears an
animal pelt. The third has leaves and twigs in his hair. And they were right. I
didn't get punished. They did. That's all I remember about it. Cool, huh?"

Colin was
silent for a while, shivering in the cold. Then he said, "You don't
suppose my ma's really dead, do you?"

I said,
"No, she is not dead. No one is dead. My father told me."

Victor said to
me, "Your turn."

I said,
"It is warm mere. My home is filled with light. I am a princess and I live
in a palace. My father is the king, and he knows everything. He sees
everything. I remember once my mother, the queen, took me swimming in our pool.
But the pool hangs like a ball in midair. It is bigger on the inside than on
the outside. There are stars inside it. And planets. You can swim right up to
mem and look at them with your eye. I remember once I was swimming. I saw a
dark world and it was filled with dead bodies. Mother folded her arms around
me, and took me back up out of the pool. I remember how afraid I was that
something from the Dark World would get me. My mother sang a song for me, 'My
little spark, my shining one, never fear, never fear. The darkness is so very
small, and the world of light is endless, here.'

"I
remember she took me to the tower where she said she first saw my father. It
was a palace that floated, and everything was rose-red marble. The windows were
pink and me walls were scarlet I remember he had a throne set in me very middle
of a floor of glass, and the floor was one hundred miles wide. When you sat on
the throne, you could look down at the world, and see everydiing in it. It was
like a telescope, but bigger. Bigger than the moon. Fattier made me look at the
Dark World again, even though I was scared and didn't want to. I remember he held
my hand, and said, 'Shining daughter, do not be afraid to look into the
darkness. There are no dead, no ghosts, no shadows. Look, look closely, and you
will see the happy gardens made of light, into which all of those who have been
hurt by Time are brought, once Time has no more power over them.' I looked and
I looked, but I did not find the happy place anywhere in the picture. That made
him sad, and Mother was sad, too, and Father kissed me right here on the
forehead, and said, 7 have commanded all my people to love you, but there are
those whom I cannot com-mand. You will be taken from us for a time, brought
into a cold, dark land. But you shall soon be free, and return to the land of
light, and return to be with your mother and me.' He promised. My father
promised. He will come save me."

Victor said,
"No one is coming to save us. No giants, no kings. We are going to save
ourselves."

I shouted,
"That's not fair! You can't talk back to the Tales! They are all we
have!"

Colin said,
"It's his turn. Tell us your dumb story about the worm, Prime." By
which he meant Victor.

Victor said,
"There's not much to tell. I don't remember any mother or father. We lived
in a space station. Once I put my hand out the window into the rain. How there
was rain in outer space, I don't know, but that's what I remember. The
raindrops rolled together in my palm and made a puddle. I stuck my fin-ger in
the puddle and it thickened into clay. I rolled the clay be-tween my palms and
made a worm. Then the worm came to life, and started climbing up my arm. I
thought it was gross, so I threw it out the window into outer space, where it
fell forever.

"They
took me to see a man. I don't remember who the man was, but I was scared of
him. He was like a teacher or some-thing. He had a lamp in his forehead like a
miner's torch. He said, 'Life is a set of rules. If those rules break, life
ends. Here is our first rule: Any life you create is yours, and must be cared
for. No matter how humble or small, it is still yours, and you must answer for
it. Do you understand?'

"I
remember I answered some smart answer back. I don't know what it was, though.

"The
teacher said, 'Your own death is nothing, because death is nothing but the
disintegration of the atoms of your body. There is no pain and no sorrow
afterwards. But to kill another living thing is wrong, and is forbidden by our
law.'

"I said,
'Human beings kill each other.'

"The
teacher said, 'In every human being, there is a spark of divine fire, which
makes them sacred. We have nothing like that in us. We are mightier, older,
wiser than man, and we do not vi- olate our laws; but Mankind is a finer thing
than we are, and some day we will save them from the Demiurge, who made them
merely to be playthings. He did not know what he made.'

"I said,
'If we are greater and stronger, why must we serve them?'

"The
teacher said, 'The great must protect the weak. If this law is broken, those
who are greater than us, those who made us, would destroy us. The same logic
applies to all beings. I am putting this memory into your permanent storage, so
that you will not be able to forget it, even after all else is lost.' And a
light came from his head.

"That is
all I remember," Victor said.

And he smiled,
and I was able to see him smile, because a little spark had come to life where
he was drilling a stick back and forth with a crude bow he had made. Gently, he
breathed on the spark, and gently the darkness receded.

One twig, one
dry stick at a time, he fed the flame, until it was large enough to accept a
lump of coal.

That night, in
the cold cellar, Victor told us all to put our hands together like the Three
Musketeers.

He said to me,
"We must all promise not to forget. We have to remember our Tales. We must
all remember Quentin's giant, and Quartinus' wolf cloak, and the golden dogs
mat sit outside the House of Tertia in Fairyland, and the palace of light where
the father of Secunda is a king, and the city in the void where my Teacher
lived, and told me what my duty was. We must all keep our Tales for each other,
if one of us loses or changes or forgets them, the others will remind him.
Everything in this world will try to convince us that these are nursery tales,
or dreams, or that we're mad, or mat we're just playing pretend. We must
promise never to forget. We must promise never to give up. We must promise we
will escape from this place, and find the mothers and fathers who love us, our
friends, our kin, our real world. Promise!"

And then he
promised us that he would see to it mat we would all get out of here together.

Oh, and it was
warm when he said that. 3.

I do not know
how old I was when I found the notes, but I must have been quite young, because
I remember that I had to stand on tiptoe to reach the handles of the cabinet
where the cleaning things were kept. We had been told to scrub the floor of the
dining hall, a task usually done by the servants, because of some prank Colin
had pulled involving a bucket of fishheads. None of us was willing to turn
Colin in, not even Vanity, even though (I am sure) everyone knew who had done
it. This was back before we chose names, so it was Quartinus we were all mad at
for getting us in trouble. I remember it was spring, and the great windows were
wide open, and I could smell the new-mown grass of the playing field outside,
and I remember how dearly I wanted to jump and run and play, rather than kneel
and scrub.

I was wearing
a smock from the art room, and had my hair tucked into a kerchief. I remember
there was a bucket of smelly stuff I was rubbing into the floorboards with a
brush. I had taken the bigger bucket, because I thought Tertia (Vanity) was too
small to carry it. I remember how proud I was when I picked up that bucket,
because I felt like a grown-up girl; and I remember how terrible it was, once I
had walked out to the spigot and filled it, that I could not carry it I
staggered and stumbled as I waddled up the steps (and the steps were taller
back then) and there were tears in my eyes, because I was so afraid I would be
punished if I spilled it.

We had been
studying astronomy in Lecture Hall that morn-ing, and I remember thinking that
if the five of us could build a rocket ship, we could fly to the moon, and be
away from this place forever. And I remember my plan was to ask Tertia to stay
aboard the ship once we landed, so I could be the first woman on the moon; and
the moon people would be so grateful they would make me their princess; but I
was going to let her be the first off the ship when we landed on the next
planet, Mars or Venus, to make it up to her.

It was
actually Tertia who found the notes, some sheets of foolscap paper folded and
refolded and crammed into a little crack where the wainscoting had become
separated from the wall. We were both kneeling and scrubbing, and we exchanged
a quick glance at each other. By the look in her eye, I knew she knew (as I
did) that we had found a great treasure, which must be kept away from the
grown-ups at all costs.

I pretended I
had to go to the lavatory and made a fuss, while Vanity stole a fork from the
silver drawer. Mrs. Wren, of course, did not let me go until chores were done.
So we both diligently pretended to scrub the section of wainscoting where our
treasure was, and Vanity would pluck at the papers with the tines of the fork
when Mrs. Wren was idling near the liquor cabinet

Like a
fluttering pale moth, the papers came free with a rustle of noise, and I
quickly stuffed them down my sbirrfront. We were let out for recess and
exercise, but I was too cunning to take them out where someone might see, so I
quickly folded them into my uniform shirt when I was changing into my field
hockey gear, and then ripped a button from the shirt. Sadly, I displayed the
torn shirt to Mr. ap Cymra, who was coach then, and I got permission to go put
it in the hamper in the East Hall for the maid to repair, and told to get a new
blouse from the dor-mitory, so that I would have something to change into after
practice.

Easy as pie.
The notes were soon hidden in my room. I gazed at the handwriting, seeing the
fine but strong feminine penman-ship, and thinking how lovely it would be to
have a hand as fine as that. Whoever wrote this (I remember thinking) would
never have her knuckles rapped because her Q's and O's were lopsided. It was
some sort of fairy tale, but one that made no sense, merely fragments; and I
remember thinking that I was too old for fairy stories.

This will seem
strange, and impossible to explain, but I did not recognize the stories, the
handwriting, any of it I wrapped the sheaf of paper in a plastic bag and took
it to a hidden spot, a dry deep hole in the bark of a tree on the back campus,
deep enough so that rain could not reach. And left it

A year,
perhaps two, went by before I was old enough not to be ashamed of my interest
in children's tales, and I thought to look at it again.

By that time,
I had learned my penmanship. My cursive let-ters flowed in a fair, clean hand
from my pen, far better than the crooked scrawl I had been using even a year
before. And here were these papers at least ten years old, or more. It was my
handwriting.

4.

You must have
guessed what was on those papers. I read the tales we had told each other that
night in the coal cellar. I had forgotten every single one of them, including
my own. The paper trembled in my hands when I held it, and the tears blurred my
vision.

I did not for
a moment doubt me truth of them. Titans trapped in ice. Werewolves running
through trees so tall their branches caught the stars. Magic dogs who sit by
the door, and poets who sing tales of yore. A city in outer space, inhabited by
creatures wiser than man, meant somehow to protect the world. A castle of
light, where a throne sits on a magic glass where everything in every world can
be seen.

One moment, it
merely sounded familiar, like a dream you can half recall. The next moment I
remembered the coal cellar, that night of terror. Victor had saved Quentin from
freezing to death. He made a vow never to forget stories mat were obvi-ously
already half-forgotten things, pages torn at random from lost diaries.

But I did not
remember the events captured in the Tale. I re-member telling the others about
my mother and fattier, but I did not remember my mother and father. Nothing.
Not a face, not a sound of voice, not the feel of a hand holding mine.

I told Victor
what I had found. He was as tall as a man at that time, but it was before the
hair appeared on his lip, so perhaps this was a year or so before the
experiment when he tried to measure the moon, and prove Einstein's theory
false.

It shook him.
I had never seen him actually so frightened be-fore. He kept wiping his eyes,
as if the fear was making him want to cry.

He said,
"If they can erase our thoughts, if they can blot out our past, what
chance do we have?"

I was more
shaken by the fact that he was shaken than I was by the fact itself. "You
believe it? All this stuff?" He shook bis head, but it was one of those
head shakes where you don't know if you mean yes or no. "I don't see why
not. It is no stranger than some of the things we learn in science. All this
time, I was dunking we were from France, or maybe Asia, or, well, at least the
planet Mars. Or..."

He took a deep
breath, and calmed himself.

I said,
"Let's not tell me others." I was dunking diat if Victor, who was (in
my mind) me paragon of self-control, was fright-ened by tins, Quentin would go
mad.

Victor said
curtly, "We keep no secrets from each otiier."

5.

Vanity did not
faint; she was delighted. "My motfier has red hair!" I remember how
she used to whisper that to herself as she was falling asleep in me dormitory
bed next to me, as if it were her own form of prayer.

We did not
have many chances to speak togemer wimout be-ing overheard. But, from time to
time, Colin would create an opportunity, such as by pulling the fire alarm.

I told him me
story in hurried whispers as me alarm was ringing and ringing in the hall, and
supped him the papers quickly. He had some questions for me, so there were fire
alarms the next day, and the next.

Colin acted as
if he did not believe it. "They might have faked your handwriting. Put
those notes up to fool us, ruin our morale," he said. But I overheard him
asking Quentin a few weeks later, "People don't really die from grief,
right? That's just a saying, right... ?"

Quentin's
reaction was me opposite, when he found out. He was not skeptical at all. I
remember it was after he got the copy of me papers from Colin tiiat he began,
during our very rare trips into town, to ask the librarian, or the local
fishermen, or the granny selling flowers on the street corner, about tales of
Welsh witches, King Arthur, or the Great Gray Man of me Hill. He took in every
little story he could find, and asked for extra homework, just to get the
chance to spend more hours man nor- mal in the library, leafing through Ovid's
Metamorphosis, or the Malleus Maleficarum.

By that time,
Colin had bored a hole through the locker room wall into the girls' shower,
with an awl he stole from Mr. Glum, so we could have longer conversations in
private, so he said.

Myself, I just
got into the habit of squirting hairspray into any hole I saw in or near the
shower. I never heard Victor's voice suddenly cry out in pain from behind the
wall, and Quentin's only once.

But nearly a
month passed while that whisper hole was in place, and no teacher really minded
if you spent a long time in the shower. And we supposed the sound of the water
might hide our voices.

That was the
summer Victor formalized our rules, and put them to quick votes which we
registered in whispers, or by a quick knock on the wall.

It was Quentin
who insisted we all take once more the vow we had made, and forgotten, in the
coal cellar. "Vows are pow-erful things," he said. "They set
things in motion."

We could not
all put our hands together through the tiny hole in the locker room, so Vanity
and I held hands, while the boys (I assume) did their Three-Musketeers slogan.

And Quentin
added one personal codicil to the group oath. "Whatever has been hidden in
darkness, I will discover. I will learn the secret, I will find the key, I will
dare to turn it; I will pass through the door. The sleeper slumbers; he shall
awaken."

Quentin was
the one who discovered the secret. It was more man a year, but he kept his
word.

6.

We had been
told that the boundaries were bad for our health, that we would become ill if
we passed too far beyond them. Victor dismissed this alarming news as a trick,
something to keep us away from the estate boundaries, gathered in toward the
center of the grounds. He defied this ban as often as he could, and the
Headmaster could invent no reason to keep Victor from climbing among the rocks
and slopes of the Eastern Downs, provided he stayed inside the bounds.

As I said, it
was Quentin who discovered the first of the se-crets. He had been among the
barrows and ancient graves of the North, perhaps in some place told to him by a
winged shape which flew at night, late in the year.

It was an
autumn day, then. It was cold for the time of year. Morning dew formed frost on
the windowpanes. I remember how, in that season, the rising red-gold sun sent
weakened beams to bring a mist rising from the North Lawn like steam from a
cauldron. The trees to the South seemed to be afire, if fire could burn cold.
We had icicles hanging from the rain-spouts and me saints in the chapel, even
before the leaves had turned.

I remember it
was not long after Quentin's first experiment with shaving. He appeared at the
breakfast table, dressed, as we all were, in formal morning clothes, but with
daubs of cotton clinging to his cheek where he had nicked himself. I remember
this was about nine months after Colin's first attempt to grow the stringy mess
he called a goatee, and almost two years after Victor's lip began to show fuzz.

On mat day,
Quentin announced at the breakfast table that he had learned how to fly. He
spoke in a very low voice, without moving his lips.

Dr. Fell and
Mrs. Wren, who normally sat at the great walnut table at breakfast, had been
called away that morning to prepare for some important meeting of the Board of
Visitors and Gov-ernors (who were due later that week). Only Mr. Glum was there
to watch us, but he was not allowed to sit at the table as the teachers were.
There was a window seat at the bay window, and the morning sun was sparkling
off the diamond-shaped panes. Mr. Glum sat mere, yawning and grumbling over his
porridge. The sunlight glanced off his balding head, and he kept pushing aside
the drooping ferns Mrs. Wren had placed in the hanging pots before the bay
window.

He was too far
away to hear us, and Quentin had given Colin the secret sign (asking for the
butter twice) that told Colin to make a racket. Colin was asking Mr. Glum about
the trees in the orchard, whether they moved at night, or spoke to each other
in leaf-language when the wind blew, or if they felt pain when their branches
were lopped off.

I held a piece
of buttered toast before my lips and hissed to Quentin, "Where did you get
an airplane? The nearest airfield is in Bristol."

I remember
feeling green with jealousy. But I do not remem-ber doubting him, not for an
instant.

"No
plane. I don't use a machine. I can make the wind dense. Its essence is to give
way, but other essences obtain when the signs are right."

I daubed my
lip with a napkin. "You're going to show me tonight."

Victor leaned
across the table, teapot in hand as if to pour some tea into my (full and
untouched) teacup. Victor whispered, "Not tonight. There are workmen and a
cleaning crew going over the Great Hall. We'll be locked in early. Tomorrow.
Their guard will be relaxed."

He was right.
We knew the Headmaster had ordered a large antique table, made of a single huge
slab of green marble, to be moved into the Great Hall to prepare for the
meeting. It was too large for the main doors. Workmen were tearing shingles off
the roof and were going to lower the enormous table in on a crane. The table was
resting in a temporary shed on the North Lawn, covered in rope and canvas.

We also knew
the teachers kept a closer eye on us whenever there were outsiders around.

And yet it was
Vanity who said, "Oh! I've an idea! Oh! Lis-ten! Being locked up is
better! No one searches for a locked-up person."

Victor looked
dubious.

Quentin rubbed
his nose, so that his hand hid his mouth. He whispered in his soft, smooth
voice, "Triune of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn tonight. Jupiter moderates between
the warm violence of Mars and the leaden coolness of Saturn. Good time for
transitions. Should be tonight."

Vanity wiggled
and whispered excitedly, "I can get us out of the girls' dorm room.
Secretly. It's my Talent. If you can get out of the boys', we'll meet.
Where?"

Quentin muttered,
"Barrows. Midnight. Look out—!" Mr. Glum straightened up from
his porridge. Evidently Colin had not completely distracted him, or maybe he
had been rest-ing his eyes on Vanity, and had seen her lips move. She had also
been louder than the rest of us.

Now Mr. Glum
stood up. "What's all this peeking and whis-pering, then? What plot are
you lot hatching?"

Vanity
half-rose from her seat, and leaned forward, palms on the table top, exclaiming
in her cheerful, earnest voice: "But Mr. Glum! Dear, dear Mr. Glum! We
were just talking! It can-not be wrong to talk: you did it just now, when you
told us not to talk!"

Whether she
intended it or not, her posture was such as to afford Mr. Glum a clear view
down her shirt.

That same
youthful electricity, which often I found annoy-ing in her, adults (especially
adult men) found fascinating. She was so fair skinned that she blushed at the
slightest emotion; her eyes flashed like emeralds. Between her red lips, red
eyebrows, and red hair, Vanity was an incandescent thing, glowing.

Mr. Glum was
not what could be called handsome in any part of him. His nails were grimed
with dirt, always. I assumed the only woman who ever spoke to him was Mrs.
Wren; I don't think he ever saw any pretty young girls, except us. Usually he
was out in the garden, weeding, and we were behind the windows of the
classrooms, gazing outside with longing. I wondered in pity if perhaps he ever
looked up and saw Vanity and me staring out, dreamy-eyed, and wished we were
dreaming of him.

Mr. Glum was
confounded with lust for a moment. He could not take his eyes from where
Vanity's bosom strained against her starched white shirt.

But he
gathered himself and barked at her, "Enough of your jaw! Impertinence!
Rule of silence! You'll eat your food as quiet as Jesuits, you will. Rule is
on!"

Victor said
stiffly, "But I didn't talk back to you, sir. I wasn't talking at
all."

'Then you
won't notice any difference, will you? And you'll have detention for talking
when I just put the rule on! Rule is on for all of you! Any more back talk? Eh?
No? And no passing notes nor making signs with your fingers, neither!" And
so Victor had no chance to overrule our plan. Tonight was to be the night.

7.

As was her
custom, Mrs. Wren had taken a nightcap or two be-fore she came in for evening
inspections. This evening, her breath, as usual, stank of sherry; her eyes were
blurred.

The routine
was always the same: we would stand in the nude, usually on tiptoe because the
floor was cold, with our hands out in front of us, either palm up or palm down
depending on whether or not she was looking at our nails. She would hand one of
us a tape measure, and would have us measure the other one: neck, bust, waist,
hips, inseam. Vanity always tried to tickle me or get me to break attention; I
tried to pinch her when Mrs. Wren was not looking when it was my turn.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Wren would jot down in an unsteady hand the numbers we called
out.

We had decided
long ago always to call out the same numbers, no matter what the measurements
were, or how different mey were from night to night.

Then she would
have us stand at attention and she would peer at us while we were ordered to
smile and show our teeth. I have no idea why she would stare at our teeth. When
I was young, I thought it was to make sure we were brushing. But she stared and
never said anything whether we brushed or did not.

Then she would
ask, "Any moles or skin discolorations to-day? Aches? Pains? Strains?
Strange dreams?"

Vanity would
usually answer back: "I've got freckles! Does that count?"

Mrs. Wren
never seemed disturbed by back talk. She had a melancholy face, and eyes that
always seemed to be staring somewhere else. There was no sign of gray in her
hair, no wrin-kles on her skin, and yet she never stood fully erect, and walked
with a stoop-shouldered shuffle, as if weights were on her shoulders. Her hair
was a mouse-colored bun, wim wisps and unruly curls always escaping it; her
eyes were half-hidden behind coke-bottle-glass spectacles. She always wore the
same gray sweater, which had as many loose threads and escaping wisps as her
hair.

"Well,
duckies," she would answer, "don't fret about a few spots. I am sure,
in time, you will appear as howsoever fair or foul you wish to appear. In time,
in time. All chickens come home to roost in time."

And she would
sigh.

Then she'd
say: "Hold out your pretty fingers for the needle, my chicks, 'twill only
prick a slight prick."

She would take
a small blood sample from a forefinger or an elbow, and spend (what always
seemed to me) several minutes fumbling with the self-adhesive label, onto which
she had written the date in her wandering hand. No matter how long she muttered
and fretted (and it always seemed long to me) the labels always went onto the
little plastic sample bottles crookedly, or wrinkled, or with their sticky
sides stuck to each other.

Finally we
could don our nightgowns.

When we were
younger, Mrs. Wren would watch us carefully while we took the little cup of
medicine Dr. Fell left each night on our nightstands. And she would stand over
us while we put our pillows on the cold floor, to kneel upon while we said our
nighttime prayers. We had to pray aloud, in Latin, with Mrs. Wren standing by
with a stopwatch, to make sure we got the cadence and the rhythm correct.

But all that
had stopped long ago. Perhaps she had lost her religion as she got older,
perhaps she wanted to depart from our chill room as soon as the blood samples
were gathered. These days, she would merely wave her hand in the direction of
the cups and say, "Take your medicine, my poppets, and remember your
prayers. Angels heed the young and sweet more closely than you know."

Recently she
was in the habit of adding, as she turned to the door, "And say a good
word to the Good Lord for poor old Jenny Wren. Ask on my behalf: your voices
will carry farther than hers, I am sure."

Then she would
depart. 8.

Neither one of
us took the medicine, of course. It was Victor's most strict rule: no matter
how sick we were, take nothing Dr. Fell gave out, if it could be avoided.
Anything he made you take orally, hold in your mouth; if you absolutely had to
swallow, vomit it up at the first opportunity. We poured our little cups into
the chamber pot.

(Yes, we had a
chamber pot. I remember once talking to a boy from the village, who envied us
for living in such a fine manor house. I asked him if he was allowed to visit a
bathroom with indoor plumbing when he had to go at night, or whether he was
locked into his room. He stared at me, uncomprehending. I envied that
incomprehension.)

Vanity
sometimes said prayers, sometimes not, depending on whether or not there was
something she wanted for Christmas, or a birthday rumored to be in the works.
She prayed in her un-grammatical Latin. I don't know if that officially made
her "Low Church."

Me, I had
stopped praying not long after I had read The Tal-isman, by Sir Walter Scott. I
had fallen in love with the charac-ter of Saladin, and it occurred to me that
the God of the Saracens, Allah, might be the real one after all. Judging by
surface area, the Mohammedans had conquered more territory more quickly than
the Christians; in fact, the Byzantines had lost ground every year since
Constantine.

This thought
had led to the fear that I might pick the wrong God to pray to. I thought that,
because praying to the wrong God was expressly a sin, and because a merciful
God might forgive me for forgetting to pray, it therefore followed that, even
without knowing which one was the right one, my best chances lay in staying
quiet and hoping for the best. That strategy worked in class when I didn't know
the answer, so I supposed it might work in the arena of theology, also.

I do admit
that sometimes, when I was particularly depressed, or sad, or hoping for some
point or purpose to my life, I would pray to the Archangel Gabriel. Jews,
Christians, and Mohammedans all believe in Gabriel, and apparently it is the
selfsame Gabriel. Or Jibrael, as he is also called. I figured Gabriel, if
anyone, would know what the situation was in Heaven, who was in authority
there, and he could get the prayers to the right God.

After prayers
or the lack of prayers, as the case may be, we would go to bed. If it was cold,
Vanity and I would have a brief argument about whether she should crawl into my
bed or I should crawl into hers, depending on who had done it last time, who
was colder, and other esoteric considerations. We would pile bom sets of
blankets on one bed and cuddle up with our arms around each other for warmth.

9.

One of our
windows faces North. Last winter, when we had many very clear nights, Victor
spent hours in our bedroom, using a compass and straightedge, and scarring the
glass wim a glass cutter to make a star dial for us. The position of the
polestar was marked; the motions of the major stars in Ursa Minor and Ursa
Major were plotted against the time of year. In effect, Alioth, Mizar, and
Arcturus in Bootes became the hands of our clock, telling us the hour as they
swung around the polestar. To hide our marked-up window, all we need do is
raise one sash, lower me other, and keep the blind at half-mast.

I think Victor
enjoyed standing in our room, late at night, night after night, with his back
to us, meticulously scratching the glass, while we girls in our nightgowns
peered at him over the top of our blankets. He worked wim his nose almost
touching the pane, and his breath fogged the glass.

10.

Tonight,
Vanity and I waited, our heads under the covers, arms around each other, her
chattering in whispers, and me trying to take a nap until the appointed hour.
Every now and again (after a brief debate as to whose turn it was) one of us
would raise a nose above the covers like the periscope of a submarine, and look
at the positions of the stars through our Northern window. When finally
Arcturus had reached the position marked XI (DEC), we slid, shivering, out from
under the sheets.

I stepped over
to the door, hopping a little from the icy touch of the floor stones on my
feet. I have seen doors in modern houses; they are flimsy. If you want to see a
solid piece of seasoned oak, bound with iron and riveted to huge hasps and
hinges, visit a nice old-fashioned chamber in a manor house. Our door was
massive and stern, heavy enough to keep any noise in or out. I yanked on the
lock, just in case it had not been padlocked, for once. The door did not even
tremble.

"What do
they expect us to do if there is a fire?" I asked scornfully, hugging
myself and hopping from one foot to another.

Vanity's teeth
chattered. She said mournfully: "Quentin says Mr. Glum should not have cut
down the Great Escape Tree. He says there was a Dryad living there, who now
wanders, house-less, among the winds."

"And it
was our only way down from the window. You don't think Dryads exist, do
you?"

"Well,
that one doesn't any more, obviously. Are you going to get dressed? Not
there!" she added when I hopped over to the dresser. "Those will be
ice-cold. I wrapped up things for us to wear in our pillows. They were under
the sheets with us, nice and toasty."

"Clever,
clever!" I said. She also happened to pick out my fa-vorite out-of-door
outfit: jodhpurs and a heavy blouse, and high-waisted jacket of buff leather
that went with it.

From the top
shelf of the wardrobe I pulled my leather avia-trix cap and my goggles. I
buckled the chin strap and slung the goggles around my neck. There was also a
six-foot scarf which wound around my neck.

Vanity was
staring at me in disbelief. "We are not going to a fancy dress ball. Why
are you putting on a ... costume?"

"What?
This? This is my lucky helmet," I said, tucking strands of hair beneath
the cap. "Besides, how are we going to end up going anywhere? Are you
going to pick the locks without touching them, the way Victor does?"

Vanity said,
"I don't think Victor actually can do mat Who has ever seen him?"

"The sun
will come up in the West before Victor Triumph tells a lie!" I said. I was
seated, pulling on my high-heeled boots. But Vanity had pressed her cheek up to
the stones along the East wall of the room.

On the other
two walls, the stones were covered with white plaster and wainscoting. This
wall was irregular granite blocks, cemented together, for about ten feet. Above
that were deep casements and small, barred windows looking East, surrounded by
plaster and uncarved wooden frames. Below these frames were massive iron
mountings, carved into gnome faces. What these mountings were originally
supposed to hold, eitiier torches, or curtain rods, or other fixtures, I did
not know.

11.

As a little
girl, I had always been afraid of the faces, and was terrified to find them
staring at me when I woke in the middle of the night. My fear was not
alleviated when Primus (so he was called at the time) told me sternly that
inanimate objects could not hurt anyone.

It was little
Quartinus (Colin) who saved me. One day when he was playing sick, he sneaked
from the infirmary, and stole nail enamel from the boudoir of Miss Daw, who was
our music teacher, a fair-haired woman of ethereal beauty with skin as clear as
fine porcelain. He then went out to steal a ladder from Mr. Glum's shed.
Somehow he carried a ladder all the way up three flights of stairs in midday
without being seen, and all the way to the girls' dorm.

There he was,
balanced precariously eleven feet high, paint-ing the noses red on the ugly
metal faces, crossing their eyes, giving mem moustaches and goatees, and he had
managed to deface six out of the seven goblins when Mrs. Wren walked in and
caught him.

He was
punished by being sent to his room without supper. I smuggled him part of the
tuna fish casserole we had for dinner, wrapped up in my skirt. At that time, of
course, the ash tree out-side the North window gave me easy access to the
ground. I tied the skirt in a bundle and threw it through the window of the
boys' dorm. Quartinus thanked me the next day, but he never returned the skirt.
1 asked him why he defaced the goblins. He told me: "Your fear gives them
energy. When you see them as stupid-looking, though, you get energy from
them."

Whatever the
reason, it worked. They always looked silly to me after that; all except the
one on the far end, whom little Quartinus had not gotten to.

12.

Vanity stood
with her cheek pressed to the stones, her eyes closed, as if she were listening
intently. She motioned with one hand, pointed to the long-handled candlesnuffer
which (we as-sumed) had been in the room since before the candelabra had been
electrified.

I handed her
the pole, and she put the hook end (used for lighting candles) in the mouth of
one of the gargoyle faces. It was the one at the far end. She tugged.

With a sigh
and a click, a section of stone moved forward and then swung out, revealing a
secret passage beyond.

"That's
impossible!" I said, flabbergasted.

The door was
small and square, no more than three feet by three. The stones, which had
seemed so thick and sturdy, were merely an eighth-inch of shaved granite face
affixed to a wooden door.

The door was
set to the frame with sets of hinges of a type I had not seen before: each
hinge was riveted to a second and a third, to form a little metal W-shape. The
triple hinges unfolded like an accordion when the door was opened, allowing the
door to move directly out from the wall for a half-inch, before swinging to one
side. This also allowed the door to swing out-ward, even though the hinges were
on the inner side.

The crawl
space beyond had a floor of unpainted, unvar-nished wood, and narrow walls of
brick. The three-foot ceiling was curved in an arch. It looked like a chimney
lying on its side.

"When did
you find this?" I asked Vanity. I was kneeling, with my head in the door,
and she was peering over my shoulder.

"During
the summer, after Mr. Glum chopped down the Great Escape Tree. I would check
for panels every night I could only find it, for some reason, if it was the
thirtieth or thirty-first of the month. Weird, huh? I bet it's on a
timer."

I turned on my
knees to look up at her. "Dr. Fell gives us our injections on the first of
the month."

She blinked at
me, her wide, emerald-green eyes brimming puzzlement. "What has that got
to do with anything?"

Now I knew how
Victor felt about me when I asked a ques-tion about something he thought
obvious.

I nodded
toward the dark hole: "Where does it go?"

"I was
never able to get a light in here. If you follow the left-hand wall through two
turns, you come out near me clock in the Main Hall. There are two other ways I
never explored."

"Left?
You mean right, surely?"

"Just go
as I tell you."

We crawled in
the pitch dark. My fingers felt occasional spi-derwebs or splinters along the
dusty wood floor. Once or twice I banged my head against the brick ceiling, and
was glad for the humble protection of my aviatrix helmet.

The stale air
was warm and close, and I was grateful for the warmth on a cold night like
this. Once or twice I heard a noise: it sounded like the rumble of breakers.

"I hear
the sea," I whispered over my shoulder.

Her voice
sounded very close in the pitch darkness. "Some trick of me acoustics, I
doubt not. Like a whispering gallery. Maybe there is a tunnel which leads down
to the sea cliffs ... ?"

"Ow! I
found where the wall ends. It goes left and right." I was glad I had
bundled my hair into a cushion under my cap. I took a moment to adjust my
goggles so they rode atop my head. Another extra inch of leather and glass
might mute the next skull impact.

'Take the
left-hand way."

We turned
left, which was impossible. By my reckoning, mat would take us furmer East than
the East Wing.

At the next
fork, we turned left again. By my reckoning, this should have put us in the
middle of the North Lawn.

"But how
on earth did you get the notion to look for it in the first place?"

"Sometimes,
in the night, I would get the feeling I was being watched," Vanity
explained. "So I figured there was a peephole." I thought that if
there was a peephole, Mr. Glum might be using it, to watch us when we doffed
our clothes before bed. I didn't say anything, for fear of frightening her.

There came a
tapping noise ahead, regular and rhythmic, like the noise of a sentry, in metal
boots, pacing.

"What's
that?" I hissed.

Vanity ran
into my bottom. "Oh, you! It's the clock. Just keep on. We'd better
hurry."

But the noise
unnerved me, and I did not hurry. Instead, I put one cautious hand in front of
another. And I was glad I did, for my forward hand suddenly felt nothing.

Was I poised
over a brink? I felt around in the air, and en-countered a wooden step a few
inches below, and another be-low that.

We were at the
top of a stairway. I squirmed around so that I could go down feet first and,
keeping my other hand on the stone overhead, I found mat the ceiling did not
drop as the stairs did but drew away as the stair descended. The ticking now
was very loud; it seemed to come from directly ahead.

The stairway
was only five stairs long, dropping just enough so that, by the last step,
Vanity could stand upright, and I had to stoop.

There was a
surface before me. In the dark, I could not tell what material it was, except
that it was smoother than stone. It could have been wood, but it was so cold it
felt like metal.

"Now
what?" I whispered.

"There's
a switch, I suppose," she said.

"You
suppose? How did you get out this way before?"

"I
suppose I found a switch." And she crowded up against me in that little
space, tighter than a phone booth. I could hear the soft noise of her hand
fumbling along the panel.

"You
don't remember?"

"I think
I wasn't exactly awake last time I did this. You have to be in the right state
of mind. Sometimes it's hard to remember nighttime thoughts during the
day."

"You
think? What do you mean you think you weren't awake?"

"Well,
how else do you explain the fact that you never saw me searching for the panel
with a ten-foot pole in my hand every night before we went to bed? Now,
hush!" 'This is ridiculous—!"

"Just be
quiet! Don't think you are too old to be spanked!"

"I'm
taller and stronger than you, and I don't fight like a girl."

"I'll get
Colin to do it. You'd like that."

I was so
shocked that I actually did shut up. I was glad it was dark; I could feel my
face burning.

A crack of
light appeared. Vanity pushed the panel aside.

13.

This was about
four feet tall and a little over a foot wide. A metal blade, tipped with a
weight, swung past, inches from our faces.

I tried to
shrink back, but Vanity and I were pressed up to-gether too closely. She made
an annoyed noise in her throat. I blinked and looked again. Blade? We were
looking out at a pendulum, swinging back and forth, back and forth.

Beyond that
was a pane of dusty glass, blurred with age. On the other side of the glass,
moonlight fell across carpet, heavy chairs, two mannequins in Norman helm and
mail carrying pikes.

This was the Main
Hall. We were in the grandfather clock, looking out.

Vanity
whispered, very quietly, "The watchers will notice if the ticking stops.
We have to slip past the pendulum without touching it, and get to the main
doors and outside. Ready?"

I would have
pointed out to her mat, as a matter of mathematics controlling such things as
volumes, moving bodies, and areas swept out by pendulums, that two girls
(four-and-a-half and five-and-a-half feet tall, respectively), cannot turn
sideways, and climb out of a one-foot-wide box, open the inner latch of a
rusted antique clock, and get clear in the time it takes for a three-foot
pendulum to swing back and forth once. Not to mention that there were weights
and chains hanging in front of us as well.

But I did not
get the chance. Vanity was already thrusting herself through the narrow
opening. The pendulum jarred against her arm, of course, while she was yanking
the latch free to open the glass panel of the clock.

The ticking
stopped. The silence was enormous.

"Quick!"
she hissed.

But we were
not quick. We had to move the now-still pendu-lum aside, squeeze her out,
squeeze the somewhat taller me out, and fumble with the pendulum to see if we
could get it into mo-tion again...

Tick tock. We
could. The noise started up again.

"Yeah!"
cheered Vanity.

I closed the
cabinet door. "Quiet! We're trying to be quiet!"

"Well,
you're making all the noise saying 'quiet'!"

We bom heard
Mr. Glum's voice, in the distance, querulous. And footsteps.

14.

There was a
drapery that hung before the alcove of a window opposite, between the two
mail-wearing mannequins. We scampered over to it, quick as mice. Inside, in the
angle between three windows, was a little table holding one of Mrs. Wren's
potted plants. Vanity stood on the table. I put my heels on the window casement
but the ledge was precarious, so I put my hands against the window opposite to
support my weight This required Vanity to crouch into a ball so that I could
lean across her.

There were
actually two sets of men's footsteps, and a clat-tering of dog's nails on the
floorboards.

"Who's
there?" growled Mr. Glum. His boots made little creaking noises on the
carpet and the floorboards. We could hear the deep, slow breathing of his great
mastiff dog, the rattle of its neck chain. We saw the splash of light from an
electric torch pass back and forth. There was an inch or two of clearance
beneath the drapes; the light shone clear.

The other set
of footsteps was sharp and crisp. They clattered as if steel soles had been
affixed to the bottom of the boots, click-clack, in time with the clockwork.

"Eyah,
'tis you, Doctor. You give a body a fright, walking along without no light, in
the dark. What would you be doing a-stirring at this hour, sir?"

Dr. Fell's
precisely measured nasal tones answered him: "All things must be in order
before the Visitors and Governors man-ifest tomorrow, Grendel. An Envoy from
the Pretender will be in attendance, and no doubt the True Heir will force the
Visitors to make a final disposition of our charges."

"I want
the redhead. She were capering and flaunting at me today at the breakfas' hour,
and giving me the eye. Ever since she were twelve year old, I've set my cap for
her. She's to be mine. I have the skull of a preacher I kill't set on a post at
the bottom of my well, and he can do the service. I kill't him clean, so that
makes him still a holy man, right?"

"The
disposition of our charges is not a matter within our discretion, my dear
Grendel. I, for one, can only operate within the latitude allowed by my maker's
instruction. Had I free will in the matter, certainly there are interesting
experiments I would perform on all of them. It is a crime against science that
such specimens will escape from the anatomy scalpel!"

"Nonetheless,
sir, the redhead were promised me. I heard a voice in the wood."

"Did you
recognize mis voice?"

"Naw, not
at all, sir."

"Then, on
what grounds do you conclude that this person or persons had authority to treat
with the matter, may I ask?"

"A damn
fine question, Doctor, and one where's I got a set and goodly answer."

"Please
share it, my dear Grendel."

"I rigger
mat if'n it were someone trying to trick me, he would'f em-personated some
voice what was known to me. As mis were no voice known to me, men it were no
one trying to trick me. Asides, I were dead drunk at me time, it being Sunday
morning, when what's I'm off duty."

"That is,
perhaps, not the most reliable and cogent test of au-thenticity. Have you
approached the Headmaster? He has given us all strict orders to communicate
with him immediately if any of our original principals attempt to contact
us."

"Brrr! I
ain't going no damn where near that one, if'n I can help it. You talk to the
Headmaster. He respekt you, he does. You ain't show no fear of his kind."
"It is not an emotion I have been instructed to suffer."

My arms were
beginning to tell me I had not picked the most comfortable posture to support
my weight. I am sure Vanity was having similar problems, folded in double above
a leafy plant, which threatened to rattle at her least bream. We held our
breaths and waited. It reminded me of those medieval tortures where witches
were strapped into various positions and unable to move. And Vanity and I were
in the role of me witches.

"Well,
if'n that's all, Doctor..."

"I do
admit to a curiosity, Mr. Glum. I distinctly heard the clock operation suspend
itself. If I may ask, were you me party who interrupted the movements of the
clock, and, if so, for what purpose did you do this?"

"Eyah? I
were thinkin' you did it."

"An
unwarranted assumption. As your own finely honed senses no doubt imparted to
you, I walked up from the Portrait Gallery while you were within view of the
clock, and therefore could not have been at that spot at the time when it was
meddled with, absent a certain amount of brisk jogging, which, I hope you will
agree, is not in keeping wim the dignity of my profession."

"Hoy.
Hum. We should look around. Of course, we sat here jawing for minute atop
minute, so the scamps may be well away by now."

"You have
your suspicions, then?"

"Doctor,
you is a bright fellow, I know. Here on the grounds there are five of us, our
servants and our creatures, and some human beings what teach some of the
classes. Who do you s'pose would be sneaking and spying around in the wee
hours? It's Colin, I'll warrant, maybe the priggish Victor, or the sly one what
don't talk much."

"May I
suggest, then, my dear Grendel, tiiat we have Lelaps scent around the base of
the clock? He can tell us who passed by here. Meanwhile, I will check the
reading of the hand against my pocket watch, which will enable us to
deduce—if both timepieces had been in perfect synchronicity to begin
with—how long the grandfather clock was interrupted in operation. The
difference between the two times, you see ..."

"Your
pardon, sir, but old Lelaps can't talk no more. All these years in the sunlight
have robbed the voice clean out of him. He misses the shadows of the Darker
World. The trees there are a proper size, and blot up the sun; and he's a bit
bigger himself, deep in the wood. I don't mink he's going to talk."

But mere was a
cough, and me breaming of me huge hound stopped, and then a breathy whisper
came, hoarse, and sounding just as a dog would sound if dogs could talk.

"Two
walked here, light of foot, slim and fair. One has hair of sunlight-hue, one as
red as flame. The first is a Prelapsarian, from time before the Fall of Man;
the second is the Daughter of a King, Alcinuous his name. Neither bears scent
of any crime to merit the fate Fates have assigned. Perhaps they are near; or
yet perhaps far. Perhaps they will recall what Lelaps did, or did not do, when
they have the ascending star."

"Up now,
me bully!" said Mr. Glum. "If you have the scent, go find them!
Go!"

We heard the
noise of me chain rattling, and a scuffling sound. Mr. Glum was no doubt
booting the dog in me rear. The dog growled a bit, but nodiing further
happened.

Dr. Fell said
in a polite and distant voice: "I have a chemical in my office which may
render me beast more pliant."

"Gam! (He
just want the redhead for himself, don't he?) Well, she's not for you!"

"I
suppose me matter is moot, my dear Grendel. All we need do is inform Mrs. Wren
that her charges are absent from their beds. This permits us to levy a
punishment. Although, I must admit that antics of this type are the very things
which, should they be discovered by me Board of Visitors and Governors, might
lead to decapitation, defenestration, or crucifixion for all of us. This whole
matter would have been more easily arranged if, from the first, we had
pretended to be a hospital for the criminally insane, or a penitentiary, rather
man an orphanage."

"Oh, to
be sure, Doctor. To be sure. No one would cock an eye at a jailhouse full of
babies and toddlers, no one at all. Har har. We should've just kept mem in me
pantry in my mother's house far beneath the lake water, like what my folk
wanted."

"Originally,
we thought the imposture would be needed for a few months, perhaps a year at
most. No one foresaw these un-fortunate events. It is a shame we were not
allowed to kill mem once tiiey reached puberty. We certainly do not have me
facilities for dealing with fully matured Uranians." "Aye, well,
there's no help for it. Even Lelaps is turning against us. Let's go wake Mrs.
Wren."

And they moved
off down the corridor, loud footstomps and sharp staccato footfalls. We
continued to hold our breath and hold our positions till the silence was
complete.

Then we both
collapsed on top of the potted plant, and knocked over the little table. The
drape was flung wide by the fall, and dirt from the pot was scattered in a fan
across the carpet.

Vanity was
laying atop me, her face slack with fear at the huge echoes we had raised, and
she said, "We must agree never to tell Victor about this."

The clatter
and noise we had made was so loud, that we ran pell-mell to the front doors,
yanked them open, closed them be-hind us, and threw ourselves headlong over the
railing into the bushes to one side of the Main Hall's stairs.

We held
silence for an endless time, while Mr. Glum's elec-tric torch came back,
playing across windows of the Main Hall. He opened the door and peered out into
the cold moonlight.

His giant
mastiff came bounding out, looked between the marble pilings of the rail, and
cocked his head to one side. He seemed to grin. He was looking right at us.

Vanity and I
just stared back at him.

The dog threw
back his head, and gave tongue.

Mr. Glum,
stumping up from behind, said, "You scent 'em boy?Yougot'em?"

Howling, the
dog now raced away across the lawn, going South, toward the blacksmith sheds.

15.

We crawled on
all fours in the other direction, our hands slowly getting numb with the frost.
Eventually we got to our feet and ran across the North Lawn to the nearest
copse of trees.

I turned to
Vanity. My breath came in cold plumes. "Not tell Victor about what? About
the talking dog? We have to tell about that"

"And I
cannot believe his first name is Grendel. What kind of name is Grendel
Glum?" "What kind of name is Vanity Fair?"

"Better
than Vanity Glum! I don't want to have a severed head on a post do my wedding.
No, we can certainly tell Victor all of that. We just can't tell him how easily
we were caught, knocking the plant over, stopping the clock, all that stuff.
The official version is, we were cleverer dian the Scarlet Pimpernel, agreed?"

"We
should go back. If we are found in bed when Mrs. Wren comes, men we might not
be punished."

"It's
probably too late already, Amelia! Dr. Fell went to go get Mrs. Wren minutes
and minutes ago!"

"You know
how long it takes to get her awake when she's been drinking. Come on. We can
make it. What other evidence do they have that it was us? I mean, it sounds
like they're pretty skeptical. They'll think the talking dog was lying."

"Say that
again."

"Say what
again?"

"They're
skeptical. They'll mink the talking dog was lying."

16.

Vanity and I
put all our faith in speed, and did not even try to be quiet. We ran back to
the Main Hall. I arrived long before she did. As we agreed, I did not wait for
her, but pushed aside the pendulum and stepped into the clock. The panel had
not been slid shut (how had Glum missed seeing mat?) so I was able to slide
dirough without stopping the clock.

I heard the
noises of something crawling after me in the tun-nels. I dared not call out to
discover if it was Vanity, in case it was not. In the fear and stale air and
utter darkness of the blind labyrinm, however, I said my prayers to the
Archangel Gabriel, and told him mat I wanted to meet him some day, but not yet.

I could see,
in the distance, the square of moonlight indicating mat me little secret panel
was open. I could see a bit of the girls' dorm, and could hear someone at the
door. The key was scraping in the lock.

I won the
world's women's championship for me hundred-meter crawl in the next two
seconds, as well as me women's across-the-bedroom broad jump. I yanked off my
cap and pulled the covers up to my nose just as the door swung open, and an
angle of lamplight fell across my bed.

Here was Mrs.
Wren, blinking and looking as irritable as her kindly face was capable of
looking. I could see the thin, tall sil-houette of Dr. Fell behind her. The
lamplight caught his round, rimless spectacles, turning them opaque, and
gleamed against the short brush of his white hair, against his pallid skin, so
as to make him look like a thing made of metal, with lenses instead of eyes.

I tried to
impersonate a yawn, but it came out so fake and forced, that I was sure Mrs.
Wren was going to break out laughing on the spot. I was sure that Dr. Fell was
going to smile at how foolish my attempts to trick them were, and he would no
doubt make a small gesture with his hand; then Mr. Glum would come in, and
stave in my skull with a shovel, and have my bloody corpse stuffed in a bag and
taken out with the morning rubbish.

None of that
happened. Instead, Mrs. Wren said, "Sorry to wake you, my ducklings."

I tried to
impersonate a sleepy voice, and, again, failed mis-erably.
"Wha—" (fake yawn) "—wha'sa'matter Mrrs. Wen?"

Dr. Fell,
whose night vision was apparently better than most, said, "I do not detect
that Miss Fair is in her bed."

I said,
"She's curled up with me, on account of it is so cold. Her head is just
under the cover. Should I wake her? It is so hard for us to fall asleep in this
terrible cold. Can't we have a fire in our room?"

i Mrs. Wren
said in her bleary, unsteady voice, "Now, now. You just quiet down, my
gosling. Dr. Fell just has a bit of constipation or something, and maybe is
imagining too much. Come away, Doctor, we'll wake up Cook and get something for
your bowels, there's a nice whippet!"

r Dr. Fell
stepped forward with a stiff-legged stride. "I sense a [magnetic anomaly
in the chamber. If you will permit me to en-jter for an inspection ... ?"

[; He was at
the doorway when Mrs. Wren said, "Halt! You anay not pass my wards without
permission!"

I heard, very
dimly, the notes of a violin in the distance. It was Miss Daw, the music
teacher, in the conservatory. But why would she be playing now, at this hour of
the night? The music was haunting and dim, as if it had come from very far
away, and I could not shake the feeling that Mrs. Wren had summoned it. Dr.
Fell now stood in the door, his face blank (well, blanker than usual, anyway),
making tiny motions with his shoulders and knees. It was very odd, as if he
were pinned in place against a glass wall across the door frame.

Mrs. Wren
said, "The care of the young girls was given to poor Mrs. Wren, long after
my darling Robin never came for me again. Year by year, the Headmaster has
taken my prerogatives from me, till litde enough remains this day. Yet I still
have this privilege; no man may step into the girls' dormitory, not without my
say."

"There is
something odd in the room, my dear Jenny. Further investigation is
warranted."

"My head
is a whirl of aches, Doctor. Surely it will wait till morning."

"But if
there is something amiss, it is our duty to examine ..."

"Those
who set those duties on us are long gone, as you well know. Life is hard, and
mere is little enough joy in it for anyone, Dr. Fell. Let us let the wee
children sleep and dream of fine things, true loves, handsome princes. It is a
joy I no longer have, since I lost the key to my dreaming. Come away, come
away."

And the door
closed, and the lock turned.

Vanity came
out of the secret door a moment later and closed it silently behind her.

17.

We climbed
back into bed together, and lay there discussing the night's events.

I said to her,
"That secret passage made two left turns and dropped about six feet It
came out, however, at the Main Hall, in the West Wing, about three stories
below us. How was mat possible?"

Vanity said,
"The turns may not have been right angles; the floor may not be level.
What if it sloped slightly all the way to the West?"

"That
wall is not thick enough to have that crawl space inside it. Look. There are
windows above the gargoyle heads. Those casements are not six feet thick."

Vanity yawned;
a real, sincere-sounding yawn, and said, "I wiv-f nrti>o \jr v^nnvo

think things
like feet and measurement and all right angles being equal are not real unless
you pay attention to them. If you don't know for sure what shape the walls are,
they could be any shape, couldn't they?"

"You are
saying this mansion is multidimensional?"

"I don't
even know what that word means," she said.

I lay in bed
trying to calculate what degree of curvature in the fourth dimension a plane
figure with two right angles would need to have in order to have lines built on
those angles also be at right angles wim each other. It occurred to me that two
lines could be drawn on the surface of a sphere, intersecting at right angles
at the North and South poles, and still be parallel at the equator. A third
line following the equator also would intersect at right angles. If the mansion
stood on a hypersphere slightly greater in diameter man the mansion grounds, a
person could move from any point to any other with what, in three-space, would
seem to be right angles.

How many equal
three-dimensional spaces would a hyper-sphere be cut into by hyperplanes at
right angles to each other? A circle can be cut into four pie quadrants; a
globe into eight round-bottomed pyramids ... Was it sixteen... ?

I was trying
to visualize how to construct a tesseract around a four-dimensional sphere when
I drifted away to sleep.

4

Jiea&master
^Boggin

l.

The next
morning they were watching us like hawks.

Dr. Fell sat
at the head of the table, looking more severe and supercilious than usual. Mrs.
Wren, for once, seemed not to have a hangover, and her hair was tied more
neatly into her bun than was her wont. She was in a good humor, commenting hap-
pily on the flavor of the marmalade, the cool crispness of the air, the beauty
of the weather. I found her cheer disquieting.

It seemed even
the smallest exercise of arbitrary authority could go to oner's head like wine.
I told myself to remember this when I was older.

Even Miss Daw,
the music teacher, was there, wearing her dress of blue chiffon set with
ribbons of white and pale pink. Miss Daw, as I have said, is graceful and
delicate, a creature of impeccable manners, with a voice as soft as the coo of
a dove.

She sat at the
chair which was reserved for her, but which she almost never used, between
Victor and Colin, and both the boys had subdued manners in her presence. She
was eating a cold French soup, using a silver spoon so small it might have come
from the place setting for a doll. She wore gloves at breakfast.

We were not
allowed to speak, except when spoken to, or to ask someone to pass us
something. I was burning to ask the boys what had happened last night.

From Quentin's
subdued posture, and Colin's expression, which was a mix of sleepy annoyance
and an I-told-you-so smirk, I assumed failure surrounded last night's
expedition. But whether they had made it to the Barrows, or been caught along
the way, was not something I could ask them with our simple
pass-the-whathaveyou code.

Also, the
cream was not on the table, so I could not ask for the cream, which was our
code to ask if we were facing a punishment. If all were well, you poured the
cream for the person who asked; if not, you spilled a little bit.

I was waiting
for breakfast to end, thinking there would be a moment of confusion while we
queued up for our first lessons, and I could exchange a whisper or two with
Victor and discover what happened. But even mat hope was frustrated. Before
breakfast ended, there came commotion at the door, and the Headmaster appeared.

2.

The Headmaster
was dressed, as he nearly always was, in his full academic regalia. Above his
suit of charcoal gray, he wore his flowing academic robes of black, trimmed with
white er-mine and dark blue velvet. Around his neck he wore a chain of office,
from which depended a jeweled starburst. Down his back draped that silly scarf
academicians wear, which they call a hood. His mortarboard was trimmed with
ermine.

I do not know
how many schools in England still have their professors dress in robes.
Headmaster Boggin, in addition to whatever duties he had as Headmaster (heading
things, I sup-pose), taught Astronomy, Philosophy, and Theology. For
As-tronomy, we were allowed to dress as normal. For the other two classes, we
had to don black robes of our own before lecture, no doubt to impress us with
the gravity of the subject.

Headmaster
Boggin was broad at the shoulder and thick through the chest, like a wrestler
or a blacksmith might be. His face was dark and weathered and craggy. His
overhanging brow gave him a frown of stern command; yet the lines around his
eyes and hook nose showed grave good humor.

His hair was
red and, unlike every other man I had ever seen, he wore it long, though tied
with a, black ribbon in a ponytail flowing down his back, like a pirate or a
Chinese mandarin. He was clean-shaven, and the tiny reddish stubble from his
imperfectly shaven jaw seemed to give a rough blush to his cheeks, as if he
were in high spirits, or red-faced from some passionate exertion. His jaw was
large and strong. The ghost of a little smile seemed always to be fading in and
out of existence on his lips.

With him were
his secretary, a thin and gray hollow-cheeked man named Mr. Sprat, and his
rough-looking sidekick, Daffyd ap Cymru, who dressed in brown leather. We had
to call him by his last name; the grown-ups called him Taffy. He was sup-posed
to be some sort of groundskeeper or gamekeeper or something for the estate.
None of us could ever remember see-ing him do a lick of work.

When the
Headmaster stepped suddenly through the door, with his two flunkies in tow, Dr.
Fell rose to his feet and offered him his chair.

"No need
to stand on ceremony, Ananias," said the Head-master solemnly, while Mr.
Sprat scuttled around to hold out the chair at the foot of the table for the
Headmaster, and Mr. ap Cymru sauntered after, looking over the gathering as if
trying to assess who might or might not be armed. When the Head- master
gathered his robes and sat, by some sleight of hand it seemed, he was now at
the head of the table, and Dr. Fell was at the foot. Ap Cymru and Sprat took
positions to either side of the Headmaster's chair, like supporters on a coat
of arms.

"Please
don't allow me to disturb your normal routine," the Headmaster intoned in
a genial voice. His voice was a deep basso profundo, like a thunderhead
talking. "I am sure whatever your normal breakfast table conversation
might be, is suitable for me. Think of me as your guest."

No order was
ever disobeyed so blatantly. Dr. Fell stared at the Headmaster without
expression, like a machine on standby, awaiting further input. Mrs. Wren's good
humor had evaporated. She looked like a wild-eyed rabbit, petrified, and
nibbled her toast with tiny bites. Even the cool Miss Daw seemed subdued,
although, with Miss Daw, such a thing was hard to tell.

A few minutes
crawled by in frozen silence. The Headmaster asked for nothing more than a cup
of coffee with cream: but it required three members of the Cook's staff to come
scurrying out of the kitchen to make sure all was in order. The Headmaster
sipped the coffee and thanked the Cook, who backed out of the room, bowing and
smiling.

Well, I saw a
chance. I cleared my throat and said, "Please pass the cream?" For
the Cook's man had brought a silver creamer in on its own plate, surrounded by
chips of ice, for the Headmaster.

Victor said,
"Permit me ..." and stood to reach for it.

The
Headmaster, however, picked up the creamer and, using his right hand to hold
back the drapes of his left sleeve, leaned across the table toward me. He
seemed to loom like an approaching thunderhead in my vision. I thought the
distance too far, since mere were two empty seats between us, but he leaned
farther man I could guess, or the distance was less than I thought.

"Ah, no;
please permit me," he said in a voice like a genial earthquake. "But,
Miss Windrose, you seem to be drinking only orange juice mis morning. This
seems odd. For what particular purpose did you require the cream, Miss
Windrose?"

Every eye was
now riveted on me. Time seemed to slow, get slower, and finally freeze, as
everyone around the table—Mr. ap Cymru, Mr. Sprat, and the assistant
Cook—all waited for me to say something.

Across the
table from me, a slow sneer of impatience was forming on Colin's features.
Evidently, he did not think it should be so terribly difficult to think of
something clever to say. Impatience? Disgust, rather. He thought I was letting
the group down.

Whatever it
was that was so obvious, I couldn't think of it.

Headmaster
said, "Why did you want the cream again, Miss Windrose? Surely I am not to
pour it over your kippers?"

I sat in
miserable silence.

The Headmaster
merely smiled, and said, "Here, well, why don't you keep it near till your
memory returns, then?"

He set it down
so abruptly on the tablecloth that a little cream slopped out onto the linen.

"Oh
dear," he said, smiling, settling back into his chair like a mountain
sinking into the sea. "It seems that did not go as planned. Well,
fortunate for me that, as Headmaster, there is no one to punish me for my
little slips, is there? Rank hath its privilege, as they say, what?" He
looked around, as if expecting a polite laugh.

No one
laughed.

"Very
good," he said, not one whit disturbed by this recep-tion. He sipped his
coffee, one sip, put it down in his saucer, and straightened up a little in his
chair as if he were about to make an announcement.

"Since we
are all sharing breakfast together so comfortably, let me just say to all of
you, staff and students alike, that this institution has a deep
interest—I am tempted to say a crucial interest—in the upcoming
meeting of the Board of Visitors and Governors. Fundamental changes are in the
offing. Fundamental changes. There should be no real cause for alarm. We can go
about our daily business as we always have done—one big, happy family,
dedicated to learning and improvement.

"However,
I would like to emphasize that we must put our best foot forward. Our
institution here, is, I dare say, unique, and some of what goes on here may be
subject to misinterpre-tation by certain less generous souls. But is there a
way to lessen, may I say, mute, this threat?

"Well,
ladies, gentlemen, children, we have all been on this Earth for some years now,
and I trust that we all know how to act. We all have high spirits; some of us
have very interesting hobbies. But let us all dedicate ourselves, yes,
dedicate, in keeping those high spirits and those unusual habits in their
proper orbit.

"I am
speaking as much to the staff here as to the student body, for how our charges
behave, is, ultimately, a reflection on the care with which we have carried out
our duty.

"Oh, I
realize what some of you must be thinking ..."

Mrs. Wren
turned pale as a sheet of paper when he said this...

"... and
I know what is in your hearts. You think that the stu-dents have grown now to
an age where we can be a little more relaxed in the discharge of our duties,
that we can encourage the young birds to fly, so to speak.

"And you
youngsters are no doubt thinking that you are as old and wise as can be, and
have no more need of our guidance and instruction.

"Well,
such thoughts must be held in check. This institution does not look favorably
upon any act of insubordination or impertinence, no matter who the originator
might be. Especially now, at this crucial time, when the situation
here—in which we have all been so comfortable for so long—may be in
danger of upset.

"Dedication
is the key. As long as we are all, as a group, I dare say, as a family,
dedicated to preserving a proper appearance before each other, before society,
and before the rather important guests we are about to receive, then all will
be well. I assume I can count upon all of you. Remember that whichever link in
the chain proves to be weakest is the one that shall be broken first. Broken.
This is the significant word here."

He stood, told
us to return to our breakfast, and sailed out, Mr. ap Cymru and Mr. Sprat
trailing in his wake.

Victor and
Quentin were staring with grave disquiet at the little puddle of cream the
Headmaster had made upon the tablecloth. It did not seem as if all would be
well after all.

mgmm 3.

None of us had
a chance to speak. At the end of the meal, Dr. Fell stood and told Vanity to go
with him. The rest of us stayed in our places. A moment later, Mrs. Wren led
Quentin from the room, and Miss Daw made the slightest possible sigh in her
throat, which indicated she was waiting for one of the boys to hold her chair
as she rose. Both Colin and Victor scrambled to their feet, and she gravely
informed them that harpsichord practice was to be held early this day, and
would they be so kind as to accompany her immediately?

I was left
alone at the table. Mr. ap Cymru came sauntering back into the room, both hands
in his back pockets. He grinned down at me wolfishly. There was a toothpick
hanging between his teeth, which wiggled up and down when he grinned.

There was
something in his eyes I didn't like. I stared down at my knees, blushing.

"Well, if
it isn't Miss Windrose, sitting pretty and all alone here at table."

That comment
did not seem to call for a response, so I said nothing.

"Here we
are, Miss Windrose. I'll let the devil take me if this fails to cheer you up. I
know it made me laugh."

He put out his
hand, but I did not reach for what he was offering. He snorted, and dropped a
slip of paper on my empty plate. Without a word, he ambled out of the dining
room. I do not know where he ate his breakfast. With Mr. Glum, I supposed.

I opened the
paper.

The note read:
"Report to the Headmaster's office at 9:15 sharp. This note will excuse
you from classes or other duties."

4.

Headmaster's
office was on the highest floor of the West Wing, an area of the manor where we
had almost never been. Mr. Sprat had an office filled with dark mahogany, with
law books on heavy shelves. Double doors, with red leather tacked to their
surfaces, led from Sprat's office to the waiting room. Mr. Sprat merely nodded
at me, and motioned toward the doors. The room beyond was empty of people. Tall
wing-backed chairs of red plush faced a long divan of the same material across
a coffee table made of a slab of green marble. There were trophy cases on two
walls, filled with cups and plaques, and stuffed and mounted fish hanging high
near the ceiling. Above the divan was a truly enormous swordfish.

There were two
narrow arrow slits between the trophy cases, letting thin slivers of light into
the otherwise dark room. Frost coated the glass.

I rubbed at
the glass, leaving a white, hand-shaped streak of visibility in me blind
surface. Snowflakes were falling onto the gray grass below, the first fall of
the season. Silent, white, im-placable. The world never looked so lonely.

And there were
two clocks, one to either side of me door leading to me inner office. They were
half a second out of synch, so that one loud ticking noise seemed to be jumping
back and forth between them; first one would tick, then the other would, then
the first again, then the second again, in endless monotony. Bom clocks were
oblong, tall and thin, but were slightly wider in the upper half, before
narrowing again at their crowns. I felt afraid of those clocks for a reason I
could not name, a fear like none I had known since my days, as a little girl,
before Colin made clowns out of the gargoyles in my room.

As if my
thought of him had summoned him, Colin stepped suddenly out from the inner
office. Seeing me, he shut the door quickly behind him, before the Headmaster
should know I was there.

He hissed,
"Mr. Headmaster, I was going to ask for the tea in a moment, but I wanted
to be sure they did not take the cream away again. Tea."

I hissed back,
"He knew."

"He
guessed. Your deer-frozen-in-the-headlights act convinced him."

"What
happened last night?"

"Nothing.
Quentin stood on a tombstone witii a cape from the theater stores around his
neck. He hopped up and down a few times. He said the air was embarrassed, and
wouldn't carry on when anyone was watching. What happened to you?"

"Glum's
dog talked. It was going to catch us, but led Glum on a wild goose chase
instead. The dog wants to be our friend when our star is in the ascendant. Oh,
and Vanity can either bend space-time, or create secret passages at will.
There's crawl spaces behind the walls, and peepholes to watch us. Dr. Fell said
His Highness is coming, and that this was never an orph..."

The door swung
open behind Colin, and there stood the Headmaster, tall and black in his robes.
He had taken his pony-tail down. I had never seen him with his hair undone
before. It fell to his shoulders in loose red ringlets. He looked like a
picture of an ancient king. Or like a lion standing on its hind legs.

There was such
a dangerous glint in his eye that I was sure he was going to strike Colin down
on the spot. But he merely nod-ded to the far door, saying to Colin, "That
will do."

Colin looked
at me, but could ask nothing further. So he shrugged and walked off.

The Headmaster
stepped back, making a grand gesture with his arm, so that the drapery of his
sleeve filled the doorway for a moment, and then receded, like curtains being
drawn before a play. "Miss Windrose, if you please."

His was a
massive desk of oak. Behind the desk was a chair whose back reached all the way
to the ceiling. The surface of the desk was entirely bare. The desk and the
chair stood on a dais, which was covered with red carpet. Before the dais was a
small uncomfortable chair of black wood. It sat on a floor of wood, which was
harder and no doubt colder than the carpeted dais.

Two framed
paintings filled the wall behind him, one to ei-ther side of the chair. One
showed a green mountain in the midst of the sea, atop which a walled city rose,
with towers and colonnades. Above the island rose, even higher, a great wave
poised to drown the city.

The other
painting showed a mariner tied to the mast of a ship, his face contorted with
longing and agony, and, on the rocks past which they rowed, sat beautiful women
with harps, their mouths wide with song. 5.

The Headmaster
said, "I see you are observing the masterpieces. The one on the left depicts
Atlantis. You are familiar with the myth? A virtuous people under the
leadership of the sea god Poseidon enacted laws, which they inscribed on a
pillar of orichalchum in the center of their great public temple. But when, as
time passed, they came to forget these laws, an angry Zeus called destruction
down upon their greatness, and sank the island. He had cause to be angered, you
see. All other laws are written by mortal legislators, who had only the wisdom
of men to guide them; and human laws can be good or bad just as human men are
good or bad. But the laws of the gods are the order of nature.

"The
painting here on the right shows Odysseus being tor-mented by the Sirens. Their
song is so beautiful, you see, that anyone who hears it is enchanted. Fortunately,
he had the wis-dom to have his men lash him to the mast, since he knew he would
not be able, just by his own effort, to exercise the self-control he would
need. No doubt he was terrifically annoyed at those bonds at the time. No doubt
he was glad of them later, once he had wits about him enough to see the danger
of the Sirens' song. They were cannibals, you see, and ate the flesh from the
men they lured onto their reefs.

"Or so
the story goes. One must remember that, according to Homer, it was Nausicaa who
found the shipwrecked Odysseus on the shores of the magical isle of the
Phaeacians. The whole tale we think of as the travels of Odysseus, was nothing
more than his report to Nausicaa's father, the king of Phaeacia. Since he was
the only survivor of his journey, there was no one to contradict him, was
there? He may have learned more from the Sirens' song than he admitted."

He folded his
hands on the desk before him, and leaned his back against the carven back of
his tall, tall chair.

I was beginning
to learn that when grown-ups drone on and on about something, they are driving
at a point they don't want to admit they are driving at.

It was with a
sense of wonder that I realized that such indirectness might be meant to spare
my feelings. In other words, it was a sign of kindness, not cowardice. What
cause could the Headmaster have to fear me? His expression was a friendly one.

On the other
hand, what in the world could he be trying to protect me from?

As when I
didn't know what to answer in class, I decided merely to sit, look attentive,
and keep my hands folded in my lap.

Boggin pursed
his lips, then said, "You are often annoyed, too, aren't you, Miss
Windrose? Like our wandering Odysseus here, eh? You want to see the wide-open
spaces of the world, to walk where no white man has trod, to drink from
untasted streams of unclimbed mountains. You are chafing at your bonds, like he
is." Now he pointed to the skulls and bones that the artist had placed
around the feet of the Sirens. "What always puzzled me about the story is
that he saw the remains of the other men, but was eager to throw himself on the
rock at the feet of the Sirens nonetheless. Do you know why?"

It was a
direct question. "No, Headmaster."

"Because
he was an optimist. At least, during the moments when the Sirens' song was
influencing his reasoning powers. He thought himself equal to the task."

Boggin was
silent for a while, watching me. He had more practice at the staring and
waiting game than I did. I began to squirm and fidget.

"Very
interesting, Headmaster. May I go now?"

"Have you
been well treated here, Miss Windrose?"

That was
unexpected. "W-what... ? I mean ... Sir... ?"

He repeated
the question.

"Well,
I... I do want to leave here."

"Why, and
so you shall, once you have reached me age of your majority."

"How old
am I, Headmaster?"

"Sixteen."

"That is
odd. Because you told me I was sixteen four years ago. By that reckoning, I am
at least twenty by now. If I was ac-tually twenty when you said I was sixteen,
I am now twenty-four."

"Your recollection
must be in error, Miss Windrose." The dismissal was curt.

"But,
four years ago, you said—" "I am sure we have exhausted this
topic, Miss Windrose. Let us dwell on the main point. You appear to be unhappy
here, and I am at a loss to understand why. Have you been beaten? Starved?
Mistreated? No indeed. You have received a first-rate education, food,
medicine, clothing—some would say very fine clothing—and have been
sheltered in a mansion of singular historic import, and great beauty.

"Why, Sir
Francis Drake was said to have obtained his fa-mous looking glass from the
master of these lands, after throw-ing a pin made of gold into the well at
Holywell. And Owen Glendower bivouacked in the haunted woods north of Penrice
Castle yonder, to make attacks against Edward's mighty fortress at
Carreg-Cennen. Earlier myths say mat the giant stone slab at Cefn Bryn, upon
four upright standing stones (still called Arthur's Table) marks the very spot
to which King Arthur removed the head of the giant Bran, after the High King
unearthed it from the Tower of London. The Head of Bran preserved the realm
from foreign invasion, you see, and Arthur feared the forces from the
Otherworld more than he feared those from France. You should deem yourself
honored to dwell in such a setting, Miss Windrose. Honored!"

I said,
"My room is cold. At night."

"What?"

"It is a
fine mansion, Headmaster. The grounds are beautiful. But my room is
ice-cold."

To my surprise
he frowned, and said, "I'll see to it"

"You
mean—?"

"I am
sure you are not prone to the accidents, or the antics, which tempted our young
Mr. mac FirBolg to abuse the privi-lege of having a fire in his room. I will
see you are supplied with firewood and kindling. Unless you would prefer an
electric space heater?"

"May I
have both?"

"Why not?
We are not your enemies, Miss Windrose, no matter what you may have been led to
believe. We are your legal guardians—in loco parentis, so to speak. We
shall be very much derelict in our duties if we do not do everything parents
would do to see to the health and well-being of their children."

Greatly
daring, I said, "If you did not lock us in at night, we could use the
water closet on the second floor. Instead of a chamber pot."

"My, we
are optimistic, aren't we? Well, why not? If..."

"If ...
what... ?"

"If you
do not abuse the privilege. May I have your word?"

I sat watching
him, looking up. He sat watching me, looking down. He looked very satisfied
witii himself.

I ventured to
say, "I don't believe I understand, Headmaster."

"But I
believe you do, Miss Windrose. May I have your, word?"

"What
exactly am I agreeing to, Headmaster?"

He sighed and
rolled his eyes and stared at the ceiling. "No doubt you would like to
have your legal counsel present before you answer. But that is a prerogative only
adults may enjoy."

"Headmaster,
I only want to know what I am agreeing to ..."

"Must you
play games with me, Miss Windrose? That, I am afraid, is also a prerogative
only adults enjoy, and few of them come off the better for it, I assure
you." He drew his eyes back down from the ceiling, and, at that moment,
even though the doors and windows here were shut, a very heavy draft fluttered
through the room. I shivered in the sudden cold. His loose hair rose up off his
shoulders for a moment, swaying and reaching in the wind gust, and his robes
rippled. He appeared not one whit disaccommodated by the sudden drop in
temperature.

He said,
"In sum, you will agree not to do anything to make me regret my decision,
Miss Windrose. No running off, no mid-night escapades. We have a concern for
proper morality here, and do not need to have young girls making visits to
young men in the small hours before dawn."

He leaned
back, and the wind gust stopped. I could not shake the feeling that the draft
had come from his side of the room, despite that the door was behind me. I sat
in the chair, hugging myself.

Headmaster
Boggin tapped his fingers on the tabletop, looking idly amused. "Well, do
we have an agreement?"

I looked up at
him. I really, really hated that chamber pot. And the agreement would not go
through if Vanity did not agree also. Nevertheless ...

"Why?"
I said. "Why what, Miss Windrose? The question is very general in its
application, and has caused puzzlement among philosophers for years."

"Why is
it important to you? Now, I mean. It's the meeting of the Board of Visitors and
Governors, isn't it?"

"Very
perceptive."

"Well,
you did mention it at breakfast..."

"Yes, but
none of your brothers asked about it. Of course, this upcoming meeting is very
important to us. To you, espe-cially. The way we do things here may be changed.
The school might close. Or it might stay open. You might be moved to an-other
institution. Or..."

"Or
what?"

"Or, if
the Board of Visitors and Governors become con-vinced that we have made an error
in estimating your age ... your records were lost, you see... you might simply
be released. Free. Off to see the world! Wouldn't that be grand? It could
happen tomorrow. Or the next day."

He paused to
let that sink in.

"But..."

Another pause.

He said,
"But what do you think, Miss Windrose, would per-suade the Board that you
are, in fact, an adult and mature woman? Surely you make the strongest case by
acting in me most adult fashion possible. The most, if I may say, responsible
fashion possible."

I asked,
"What is this meeting about? Why is it so important?"

Now he smiled
again, folded his arms, and leaned forward with his elbows on his desk, a
fairly informal posture I do not think I had seen him take before. "The
matter is complex. You may have noticed, over the years, certain tensions here
among the staff. I, for example, am employed directly by Saint Dym-phna's
School and College for Destitute Children. Dr. Fell, who looks after your
health, is an employee of the Delphian Trust for Foundling Children. Both he
and I, however, are paid out of trust funds, as are the teachers who are
employed by the school. Mr. Glum, on the other hand, works directly for the
Branshead Estate, and is paid out of the funds of the Talbot family, who owns
the land. Mrs. Wren is not, in fact, under my direct authority, but was
appointed by Her Majesty's Commission on the Welfare of Unwanted Children. She
is, in fact, a crown officer, who also serves as an inspector and compliance
overseer for you children."

"Who pays
Mr. ap Cymru?"

"Mr. ap
Cymru works for the Historical Institute, who lent a rather large sum of money
to the Talbot family, in return for certain promises that historical features
on the ground would be preserved. In effect, he is here to make sure Mr. Glum
does not run over a cromlech with a tractor, or something. He would be
something of a free agent were it not for the fact that the Institute also
borrowed money from the Foundling Trust, and ceded some authority to them.

"I should
tell you, however, that the Foundling Trust recently lost its master. The
property was supposed to pass to the heirs of the chief trustee, but the matter
is being disputed in court as to which of two sons the new chief trustee should
be. Both factions, quite frankly, are courting our favor, for neither wants us
to file an amicus curiae brief—that is a type of legal
document—saying we prefer one man over the other. The court may take our
opinions quite seriously.

"There
you have the whole picture, Miss Windrose. Are you an adult, as you claim? Do
you see the seriousness of your po-sition, and mine? The new trustee might
conclude that you have been living here in the lap of luxury, and should be
sent to a state-run home, or even a workhouse. Or, he might conclude that you
have been kept here too long, release the funds held in trust for you, and send
you with Godspeed to wherever you wish to go. My position is similar. I might
be discharged. Or my authority might be expanded. It is odd indeed to be a
headmaster of a school that employs nine tutors and has only five students; I
would like to see more faces here, myself. You would not believe the trash they
learn in state schools these days. They do not even teach Greek and Latin any
longer."

I looked at
the painting of Odysseus. "They don't read Homer?"

"Students
are lucky if they are assigned to read Page Three of the Royal London Yellow
Journal of Gossip and Tripe, Miss Windrose. Students these days do not know
Euclid, nor Lucretius, nor Descartes, nor Shakespeare, nor Milton. They cannot
calculate a grocery bill, much less calculate the zodiacal anomaly for Venus in
hexadecimals. Do you begin to see how lucky you are, Miss Windrose? How well
you are treated at this place you think of as a prison camp?

"The
reason why you and I have not had this talk before is mat there was no need
before. If you wish to help Mr. Triumph in his extracurricular studies, I do
not wish to impede you. I am frankly rather proud of him, and of you. Most
teachers beg on their knees to the deaf and uncaring heavens for students as
bright as you have shown yourselves to be. Can you imagine how pleased they
would be to find someone who could under-stand the Michaelson-Morely
experiment, much less reproduce it?

"I am
proud of you, Miss Windrose. You are bright and at-tractive. Maybe even a
genius. But I am also deeply ashamed when I hear of certain late-night
shenanigans and vandalism. Ashamed, because it becomes clear we have not done
our duty in raising you properly. Please do me the favor, Miss Windrose, of
allowing me to hear no more such rumors."

He sat there,
looking friendly yet stern. I sat, feeling smaller and smaller with each
passing moment.

Finally I
said, "May I go, Headmaster... ?"

"You may
go, Miss Windrose."

I rose and was
walking out, when his voice stopped me. "Oh, Miss Windrose ... ? One more
thing ... ?"

I turned.
There he sat, between the doomed glory of Atlantis and the torments of
Odysseus, his loose red hair piled around his shoulders.

"Yes,
Headmaster?"

"Your
word, Miss Windrose ... ?"

"You have
it, Headmaster. I promise."

"Then
your door shall be unlocked tonight."

I closed the
door behind me. In the waiting room again, I stood between the two clocks,
ticking slightly out of synch, with their tick-tock now in my left ear, now in
my right. I was shaking slightly. 6.

We got the
chance to exchange talk after lunch. Colin pretended to throw an epileptic fit,
and choke on his soup, and they rushed him off to the infirmary. It was quite
natural that we were permitted to visit him, of course, since we all became so
distraught that we could not attend our Home Economics lessons. Mrs. Wren let
the four of us out early.

We had tried
the same thing a period earlier, with Miss Daw, but she had simply smiled a
cool, dreamy smile, as if she were listening to distant music, and continued
with her fingering instructions.

"That's
great!" said Colin, when he heard what the Headmaster had said to me.
"The door's unlocked! You can get out any time!"

He lay in the
hospital bed, his hands folded behind his head, looking pleased as punch.

"What did
he say to you boys?" asked Vanity. Vanity was irked, because she had not
been called in to see Headmaster Boggin.

Quentin said,
"Substantially me same thing. We should be-have while the Board meeting is
in progress. He didn't tell us the details, though." He looked at me
sidelong, as if thinking that I was, after all, two or three years older than
he was, and was privy to information denied him.

Victor said,
"We should not attempt our final escape until we

discover more
about who this guest of the Board is. This is our

first hint
that there is a power even the Headmaster fears. If we

can enlist
such a power to our aid, then we stand a chance of

; getting away
from here. Otherwise, I do not see how we can get

far enough
away, fast enough. Even if we stole a boat from the

village,
Headmaster could have the police run us down."

I    Colin said, "What about
merely heading into the forest? It

^ gets deeper
and darker the further in you go."

"The maps
show the woods are only two miles wide," said . Quentin softly. "If
you pass through them, you come to Oxwich * Green."

"Maps of
England," said Colin, "On Earth. The real forest goes on for a
trillion miles, and then leads to a forest darker than it is."

I Quentin said
in a mild voice, "I am not claiming this is Earth. But maps are powerful
symbols, and may be influencing us in a subtle fashion. We should destroy or
deface the maps here, to loosen their grip on us, and draw maps of our own
portraying the true world beyond these walls."

I said,
"You know, maybe we should listen to the Headmas-ter. I mean, what you
guys are saying does sound a little, well, crazy, doesn't it? He said that the
Board might just release us. And he said there were funds waiting for us. Some
sort of trust fund held for us when we reach eighteen. I mean, can't we try to
give him a chance? The Headmaster?"

Victor looked
puzzled, as if I had gotten the wrong answer on a math sum. Quentin looked
pensive and slightly sad. Colin laughed at me, and stuck his hands under his
own shirt, pushing them out as if he had breasts. "Let's give the
Headmaster a chance!" he said in a high falsetto, batting his eyelashes.
"Oh, let's listen to him! I want a good grade on my toad-eating class next
week!"

Vanity yanked
the pillow out from under Colin's head so that his head fell back sharply onto
the wooden bed frame, and smote him in the face with it, before he could get
his hands clear of his shirt to defend himself.

She said,
"Did you ask the Headmaster about the talking dog? Or Dr. Fell saying he
wanted to cut us up for experiments? About me being a princess, and you being
from before the fall of Adam?"

Victor and
Quentin stared. "What talking dog?" came Colin's muffled voice from
under the pillow.

Fortunately,
we had enough time to fill them in on the details before the nurse, Sister
Twitchett, came back in.

By the time we
were done reciting the tales of our discover-ies, my pleas to give the
Headmaster a chance began to seem to be the crazy talk, not Quentin's
soft-voiced observation that the room we were in might have a peephole in it,
and could we have Vanity look for the secret door? 5

To^alk with
Owls

l.

That night
Vanity climbed into bed with me, despite that we now had a roaring fire blazing
in the hearth. After the lights were doused, all the shadows in the room
pointed toward the fireplace, swaying and hopping to the music of the merry
crackle of wood.

Mrs. Wren had
actually been more watchful than normal, and stared at Vanity while she
swallowed her medicine. While Mrs. Wren was looking at Vanity, I put a few
drops of the liquid on my lip, and threw the rest of the cup into the fire.
When she turned to me at the noise, I only licked my lips and smiled. This
p'uzzled her. Mrs. Wren could hardly be angry for me being too eager to drink
my medication, since she apparently did not want to admit she was supposed to
watch us quaff it.

After she
left, I tried to get Vanity to upchuck into the chamber pot, by putting her
finger down her throat, but she was too squeamish to make a sincere attempt.

Now, lying
next to me, she whispered in my ear: "If there are peepholes in the rooms,
they have been watching us this whole time. Our whole lives."

I did not
bother to tell her my theory that she had created the secret passages,
peepholes and all, out of her own thought, and that reality had shifted to
accommodate her imagination. The word "reality," by definition,
referred to those things we cannot change by mere wishes. I had always thought
the physical world was included in that set. Now, I wasn't sure.

I said,
"They all believed you. About the talking dog. Victor's question about
whether we saw the dog talk was just, you know, for the peepholes. Why do you
think we were left alone in the infirmary for so long? They all had to pretend
not to believe us. Except that it took Colin forever to catch on. What an
idiot."

"Do you
think they were watching?"

"Boggin
knows about our codes. He knows about the time Victor and I snuck out to
measure me moon years ago. I think he knows everything."

"But you
still want to trust him, don't you?"

"I don't
think he'd let Dr. Fell kill us, if that's what you mean. I mean, if he were
going to, why didn't he do it when we were six or eight? Why wait till
now?"

Vanity
replied, "Well, if I knew the answers to that, maybe I'd trust Headmaster
Boggin also. Because then he would not be keeping the answers from us."

We heard
noises from outside: the sound of an automobile engine, the noise of tires
crunching the gravel on the carriage circle before the East Wing. Vanity and I
hopped out of bed, went over to our North-facing window, and raised the sash.

The warmth of
our nicely firelit room rushed away; the icy wind was shockingly cold against
our faces. We heard motors, doors slamming, voices raised in welcome. From the
reflection of the light against the trees in the distance, we could tell the
East Wing windows were lit up. Faintly, over the snow, came music. Miss Daw was
playing her violin, a haunting melody of a few simple notes, some Highland air
I did not recognize. Nothing was visible from our side of the building.

Vanity said,
"It's the bigwigs."

The Visitors
and Governors. Plus whoever or whatever Dr. Fell had referred to as "the
Pretender," who might be the same person as Headmaster Boggin's Trustee.

The noise of
car engines receded, as the vehicles were driven in the direction of the horse
stables. Vanity said, "Chauffeurs. They are parking the cars away from the
house."

The sound
diminished. We heard the dull boom of the main doors being pulled to.

Vanity and I
both turned and looked at the heavy oak door, bound with its enormous iron
hinges, unlocked for the first time in our lives.

I said,
"I promised not to."

Vanity looked
at the door and bit her lip. "But I didn't." And she scampered over
to the door.

I raised my
hand, but then I couldn't think of anything to say. Had the Headmaster actually
not talked to her because he was not proud of her, as he was of me? I closed
the window and moved over to stand in front of our new, warm, lovely fire.

She put her
hand on the door, frowned, put her cheek to the door, her wide green eyes
turned toward it.

Vanity jumped
back. She put her finger to her lips, as if to hush me, but then said in a loud
stage whisper: "He's watching the door."

"Who?"

"Boggin!
Headmaster Boggin! He's just waiting out there. Waiting for you to open the
door. What a sneak!"

"How can
you tell?"

"What do
you mean, how can I tell? When I touch the door, I get that feeling I am being
watched."

I walked over
to the door and put my hand on it. "Feels like wood, to me."

She rolled her
eyes in an animated fashion. "Oh, come on Amelia! You've had that
feeling!"

"What
feeling?"

"That
feeling of being watched when no one is there. Every-one has it. It's in all
the novels! Are you the only person on Earth who doesn't?"

"I might
be. But how do you know your feeling isn't just, you know, a feeling? Your
imagination?"

"Well, I
found the peepholes, didn't I?"

"Actually,
Vanity, you found the secret passage. But we did not actually see and find
peepholes when we were in there. It was dark, and holes leading to lit rooms
would have sent a beam of light..."

But Vanity was
already hopping across the room to where the seven-foot-long candlesnuffer was
kept. "Thanks for re-minding me."

And she took
up the candlesnuffer and tugged in the mouth of the gargoyle mask on the wall
eleven feet above.

Nothing
happened. No secret door opened.

"It must
be on a timer," Vanity pouted, putting down the pole and seating herself
on her bed. "I think you are doing it. It is some sort of unexplained
phe-nomenon. But you cause it. Dr. Fell's medicine must be inhibit-ing the
effects."

Vanity
giggled, threw her arms overhead, and fell back with a soft sound onto her
mattress. "Oh, I am doing it, eh?"

"Your
thoughts trigger it."

She giggled up
at the ceiling. "Let me see if I have this straight. I think, Gee, there
is a secret door. A special Russian-made satellite picks up my brain waves with
its mind-reading radar, and beams a message back down to a waiting pack of
dwarfs. Working with oh, just incredible silence and precision, the dwarfs dig
a tunnel into the house, move walls and bore through solid stone, insert doors,
clock panels, hinges, and floorboards. Then they spread dust and have their
Soviet-trained cadre of speed-spiders weave cobwebs across the crawl space.
That's your theory?"

"Actually,
I had hoped it used a more elegant mechanism, but, yes, basically, that's the
theory."

Vanity yawned
a huge yawn. "All that exercise last night... you know, it's really nice
having a warm fire here in the room..."

2.

For purposes
of storytelling, it would have been appropriate to have Vanity nod off right at
that point, but she actually got up, changed into her night things, and we
talked a little more before she drifted off to sleep.

It did seem
sudden, though. There I was, alone in my own bed, watching the red firelight
dance and jump across the walls, while Vanity breathed softly in the other bed.

But the
Headmaster was right. I lived in very comfortable circumstances. 3.

I was awakened
by a tap-tapping. The embers had died in the hearth, and a cold wind was
whistling in the open flue. I turned to the North window, where our star dial
was, to see what time it was, and I saw the silhouette of a hunched figure
pressed against the glass.

1 screamed,
sitting bolt upright and clutching the sheets around my throat. The hunched
shape behind the glass hissed softly, "Not so loud ..."

I squinted.
"Quentin ... ? Is that you ... ?"

"Open the
window, please. It is really quite cold out here."

I slid out of
bed, and was rewarded with the sensation of ice-cold floor stones stinging my
feet. I hopped over, undid the latch, and slid the sash up.

"Well?"
I said.

Quentin was
hunched over on the rather large stone sill on the outside of the North window.
One hand was clutching the marble grain bundles that flanked the window; in the
other he had his jackal-headed walking stick. He was wearing a rather
voluminous high-collared cape with a half-cloak. Beneath that he had on a
T-shirt, and a pair of swim trunks. His legs were bare. No muffler, no coat, no
gloves. No socks. He was wearing running shoes. He was shivering.

"Please
invite me in," he said, teeth chattering.

"W-what?"

"Please,
for the love of God, invite me in. It's freezing."

"Sure,"
I said, stepping back. "Come in."

He slid in over
the sill in a slither of huge black cloak. It was made for someone more my
height than his; the hem was dirty where it trailed on the floor. The silk
inner lining made a sinister hiss as it slid over the stones. Quentin crossed
to the fireplace and poked at the coals with his walking stick, while I
wrestled the window shut.

A reddish
light leapt into the room. Quentin had stirred the coals to momentary life
again. He put his stick aside in the fire iron stand and was rubbing his hands
together. He crouched down.

In the red
light, I could see Vanity, her lips parted, her ex-pression soft and innocent,
still asleep. "Well," I said stiffly, hugging myself in my nightgown.
"Some people can sleep through anything."

"Unless
the medication had sleeping powder in it, tonight," said Quentin.
"Victor and Colin are out like bricks; Dr. Fell watched them take the
draught."

"And
you?"

He looked up
from his crouched position. The light was be-hind him, and all I could see was
his eyes glint in his silhouette. "I always keep an empty cup from Dr.
Fell's cabinet up my sleeve. I palmed his cup and put mine to my lips. Dr. Fell
is very intelligent, but he makes Victor-like assumptions."

I put my hands
on my hips. "Just what do you mean by 'Victor-like,' Mister Quentin
Nemo?"

Quentin said
nothing, but continued to look at me. I became very conscious of the fact that
I was standing there in my nightgown. To be sure, it was a winter
nightgown—all white cotton with a lace collar and shoulders, and the
frilly hem fell past my knees—but it was still a nightgown. And I had the
impression that Quentin was staring at my ankles and feet. Somehow my feet
weren't simply bare; they were nude.

I stepped back
over to my bed, picked up the coverlet, and hesitated. Somehow, climbing back
into bed with a man in my room would be worse. He would be there, seeing my
nice bed, still warm from my body, the sheets still rumpled with the im-print
of where I had been lying ... and my hair spread across the pillow ...

I was being
ridiculous. This wasn't a man. This was Quentin. He was three or four years
younger than me. And short. He was just a child. He probably did not even know
which sex I was yet.

I turned back
to him. "Are you a vampire, all of a sudden?"

"I called
on God without choking. No, that was just in case Mrs. Wren's ward would
interfere."

"Interfere
with what?"

Quentin had a
quiet, solemn voice. "I am performing a demonstration."

"How did
you get up to the window?"

He just shook
his head.

I said,
"You climbed, right? Why didn't you dress more warmly?"

i "I
needed lightweight things. I hope you trust me, Amelia, af-ter all these years.
None of us has any other family."

Something in
the way he said that brought a tear to my eye. I raised my hand and wiped my
cheeks. I said, "I trust you."

"I need
your help. There is a weight too heavy for one person to lift. I am not sure
what your Talent is, but I know it has to do with weight."

"Mass,"
I said.

"Will you
come with me?" he stood up. "The Visitors and Governors are
determining our fate, and one of us must be, sim-ply must be, in a position to
overhear the meeting."

I shook my
head. "I promised the Headmaster."

"Ah..."
He sank back down again and crouched before the dying embers.

I said,
"You're not going to try to change my mind?"

"Had I
that power, I would have used it on you long ago, Amelia." He stirred the
ashes with his walking stick, and red flames jumped up for a moment. "Do
you remember when I wrecked my bike?"

"The same
summer you almost drowned."

"I also
fell from a tree that June."

"You actually
did fall from a tree? I thought you were just saying that. I thought Colin beat
you up."

He stirred the
coals. "Colin does not beat me up. You all think I am a coward, when all I
am is polite."

He was silent
for a moment, but he turned his head and looked at me in my nightgown. His gaze
traveled up and down.

I said,
"What about the tree fall? Yes, I remember that sum-mer."

"You were
upset because I had a finer bike, a boy's bike, even though you were older. You
held my head in the sink until I agreed to let you ride it. Do you
remember?"

"I am
sorry about that, Quentin, but you make me so mad sometimes..."

He raised his
hand slowly. "Do not apologize. Never apolo-gize. You don't know what you
are giving away. The fact is, I did not keep my promise, did I?"

"Well,
the bike wrecked. Was there a point to this story?"

"Broken
oaths are bad luck eggs." That was so weird, I did not know what to say.
So I said, "Eggs?"

"They
hatch bad luck." He stood up, closed his eyes, and held his walking stick
out at arm's length. After a moment or two, as his arm got tired, the stick
wobbled.

He opened his
eyes, paused for a moment, went over to the door, put his hand against it. He
put his hand on the latch ...

"Stop!"
I said.

He looked at
me, curious.

"Vanity
thought the door was being watched. We should trust her hunches."

He nodded.
"By your promise, you granted him the authority to be aware of the door.
He substituted a physical lock for a lock of a stronger type." He took his
hand away from the door and stepped over toward my bed.

He sat down on
the bed with his walking stick held between his hands, his elbows on his knees,
his gaze on his feet.

I raised a
hand and played with the little ribbon at my throat. Imagine that! Quentin just
sitting on my bed, as if I had invited him! I wondered what he planned next.

He looked up
at me. "Amelia, I cannot ask you for this. You must volunteer."

"For
what?"

"Bad
luck."

"Oh, come
on. There is no such thing as bad luck."

"Then you
will not mind a bit, will you, Amelia?" He tilted his head to one side.
"What was the wording of the oath?"

"I said
he would not regret his decision. That I would not do anything which would make
him regret his decision."

"Interesting.
If he does not find out, he won't regret, will he?"

I shook my
head. "I don't think it works that way. I mean, it wasn't legalistic, like
a contract in writing or anything."

"Words
have their own meanings, despite whatever we would like to impose on them. They
are older than us, maybe older than everything else."

"What are
you saying?"

"The
world was created with a word. The first thing Adam did was name the
beasts."

"You're
babbling again, Quentin." "Sorry. Do you have a coat? I assume you
are not going to change clothes in front of me."

"I am not
putting on a coat."

"Did you
promise the Headmaster not to put on a coat?" He looked up at me. His eyes
were sad and thoughtful, as they usu-ally were, but there was also a look of
certainty in his gaze, of amused confidence, that reminded me of Colin. Or of
Head-master Boggin.

Making an
exasperated noise, I turned toward the wardrobe, pulled out a bundle of
clothing, and threw it on the bed next to him. Then I picked up a pillowcase
and slid the pillow out.

I thrust the
pillowcase at him.

He raised his
eyebrows. "You expect me to put that over my head?"

"No,
you're right! If you're smart enough to fool Dr. Fell, I shouldn't trust
you." And I stuck me pillowcase over his head.

He made a
muffled laugh.

"What's
so funny?" I demanded. I wondered whemer the pil-lowcase was opaque, and so
I merely stepped into my jeans, and tucked the hem of my nightgown into them in
a huge, awkward bundle. I put a sweater over that, shrugged into my nylon
quilted jacket.

"There is
a symmetry to all affairs," he said.

"What's
that supposed to mean?" I yanked the pillowcase off his head.

He stood up.
"You'll find out"

I pointed at
me pile of clothing. "You can find something for yourself."

He looked
arch. "I am not putting on girls' clothes."

"Look. A
sweatshirt. Big, roomy, comfy. Warm. Sweatpants. You close them with a
drawstring. Keep your leg hairs from freezing."

He said,
"It is not mat cold out-of-doors. I mean, rather, it is cold when you go
out, but you will get numb to it, so it won't feel cold."

"That's
OK, because I am not walking out that door," I said.

"Neither
am I."

"I am not
climbing down from the window, either. You are lucky you didn't break your
neck." "Neither am I." Now he was smiling.

"What is
so funny?"

"Will you
come if I can find another way out, besides the two ways you just said? Not
climbing, not walking."

"Are you
saying you can find Vanity's secret passage?"

"Is it a
deal? I put on your clothes, you follow me?"

"What do
I have to lose? Sure."

He slipped on
one of my ratty old sweatshirts and a pair of bulky sweatpants. Like I said, he
is shorter than me, and the pants fit him just fine.

He slung his
huge cloak over his shoulders with a rustle. "Do you have a silk scarf
anywhere in your clothing?"

I opened a
drawer, took out a long white scarf, and handed it over.

He said,
"Turn around."

I turned my
back to him.

He wound the
scarf once and twice over my eyes and around my head, tying it in the back with
a big loose knot.

"I can
still see down my nose," I said. There was a little crack of light between
my cheek and the bottom of the scarf.

"I am not
going to throw a pillowcase over your head," he said.

"Use my
goggles," I said. I waved a hand in the direction I thought was the upper
shelf of the wardrobe.

I heard a
rustling, and, a moment later, felt him put my lucky aviatrix cap over my head,
scarf and all, and put the goggles over my eyes. He adjusted the strap in back.
The padding around the lenses was tight against my eyesockets, and held the
scarf in place. It was opaque.

"Now
what?" I said.

He put one arm
around my waist, the other under my knees, and swept me off my feet.

"Careful!"
I said. "You are going to hurt your back!"

He said,
annoyed, "I am not weak, Amelia. Just short."

I put my arms
around his shoulders. There really was no other place for me to put my hands.
He hoisted my knees up, and my hip was resting slightly above his crotch. My
bottom was just hanging in midair, surrounded by uncomfortable folds of
nightgown stuffed into a jeans waistband. His arms did seem to be plenty
strong.

"Now
what?" I said. "Now you trust me, and stay quiet. They are very shy,
and they disappear if you look at them."

He grunted,
hoisted me higher, so that my hip was level with his chest, and he took a step
up. Then he straightened.

For a moment I
could not think of what he was standing on. What was in the room that was a
foot or so high, and would support our weight? I assumed it was the hope chest
I keep at the foot of my bed.

Another step.
I supposed we were on the bed, but why hadn't the sheets rustled when he
stepped on them? Also, had he stepped onto a soft surface, I would have
expected him to sink.

A third step.
Where was he? Standing on the headboard?

A fourth.
Maybe I had been wrong about where we started. Could he be climbing from one
shelf to another in the wardrobe? Only if the wardrobe were tilted back at an
angle would he have room.

I heard the
window slide up. Both his hands were still on me. I felt the ice-cold air flow
over me, freezing. How had he opened the window?

I said,
"Quentin. You're not going to jump! Put me ..."

He kissed me.

Warm,
passionate, firm. No apology, no hesitation. Just his lips on mine.

I waited till
he was done, and then I slapped him.

He said,
"Whoa!" and his grip tightened on my shoulders and knees.

We were
standing on the ledge of the window, I knew. I raised my hands to pull off the
goggles, but he sort of pushed my shoulders and knees together, crunching me
into a ball, while at the same time he put his cheek against my cheek, to
prevent me from getting at the blindfold.

I made my
fingers into claws and pulled on his hair, trying to get his face out of my
face.

He wobbled.

I held still.
He was balanced on a ledge, after all.

He said,
"Could you let go of my hair, Amelia?"

I said,
"I was saving that kiss. That was my first kiss. Now you've ruined
it."

He said,
"Could you ... please... let go of my hair, Amelia?" I said, "I
am taking at least half of your scalp with me, you little twerp."

He said,
"It is really quite painful."

I said,
"I hope I am drawing blood."

He wobbled
again. "Don't say such things. It is just as bad for us if they start
giggling."

"Put me
down."

"Let go
of my hair, and I will put you down."

"Put me
down, and I will think about letting go of your hair."

He lowered his
left hand, releasing my knees. I felt a surface underneath my boot toes. Then I
remembered how narrow the ledge was on which we were standing. With a little
yelp, I put my boots right up against his shoes, and grabbed him around the
shoulders, pulling myself close to him.

His arms came
up under my arms, as if he were a man about to embrace his lover. I was too
afraid to push him away, for fear that we would both fall three stories to our
doom.

But he was not
hugging me. He gently tugged the buckle holding the goggles. They slid loosely
around my neck. He pushed back my cap, so it hung by its chin-strap. He plucked
at the knot holding the scarf.

I blinked in
the sudden moonlight

4.

We were on a
rooftop. We were standing on a scaffolding. Un-derfoot was a sea of tiles. To
our left and right, dormer windows peered West toward the main Manor House.
Before us and above us rose the dome of the Great Hall. Little round windows,
piercing the base of the dome, were ablaze with light. There was a noise of
voices issuing up from below us. There was a metal door, built on an acute
slope like the door to a cel-lar, abutting the dome.

I looked left
and right in wonder. Then I realized I was still hugging Quentin, staring at
the scene over the top of his brown hair.

I stepped
back, and slapped him again. This time, I could put my shoulder into it, and it
was a solid blow. He staggered, winced, and rubbed his jaw. He said, "If
you had said 'put me down,' they would have dropped us. That's why I kissed
you. You didn't need to slap me twice."

I said,
"The second time was for a different reason. My first flight through the
air! My first time flying, and I missed it!"

He rubbed his
jaw and said nothing.

I said,
"I was expecting a sensation of motion."

"The air
moves with us. There's no wind." He bent down, and picked up his walking
stick, which just happened to be lying at his feet.

"So you
really are a magician."

He snorted.
"Don't be an ass, Amelia. There is no such thing as magic. This is the One
True Science."

"How did
you do that, if it wasn't magic?" I said, pointing at his jackal-headed
cane. "Did it follow you on its own? And what did you step up on to get to
the window? How did you open the window with no hands?"

He just shook
his head. "Jaw numb. Can't talk." He pointed with the walking stick
at the metal service entrance.

"That is
what you want me to lift?"

"It's not
locked, just heavy."

I strode up
the tilted surface of the tile, with Quentin coming after me, his too-long cape
sliding on the tiles. I put my hands on the door, tugged.

"You're
right," I said. "It is massive."

"Let me
get on the other side."

"Just
stand back."

5.

I closed my
eyes for a second, trying to picture the door in my mind's eye. It was both an
object in space and an event in time. This door had a beginning, a middle, and
an end. Because time and space were actually one thing, one substance, this
thing be-fore me was not merely an object, it was an object-event.

Weight was not
a property of that object-event. Weight was an action, a behavior, if you will.
Earth was distorting the local space-time continuum in such a fashion that this
object-event

i selected
toward-earth paths, rather than away-from-earth. As they moved forward through
time, those paths seemed to manifest themselves as the energy-conserving
behavior known as toward-earth acceleration, what Quentin incorrectly called
weight.

If space-time
were folded in any other way, the toward-earth behavior could be deflected into
other energy channels.

I opened my
eyes, stooped, put my shoulder to the door, and lifted it aside easily. I set
it down without making a sound.

The two of us
stood, looking down into a circular staircase. Gloomy steps wound around and
around. There was a light at the bottom.

6

The
"Board of Visitors and Qovernors 1.

He said,
"I should tell you that I suspect a trap, Amelia." "Why? Did the
Headmaster expect you to know how to fly?" "If you told me the
correct wording of your oath ..." "I did."

"...
Doesn't it strike you as particularly lax? And he unlocks the door on the one
night he knows we are all dying to find out what is going on here. Vanity says
the door is watched. And the meeting is being held at midnight. Why not at nine
o'clock, when we are all in class, being watched?"

"You said
Fell put sleeping powder in the medicine." "Not part of Headmaster's
plan, I assume. They don't necessarily all talk to each other, or agree when
they do." Quentin's voice was solemn and quiet. "If I had been forced
to say the prayers you and Vanity were told to say by Mrs. Wren, half of my
demonstrations would be impossible to me. I cannot imagine they want me to
learn the things I learned, or talk to the type of things I am trained to hear.
So why didn't they sic Mrs. Wren on me? It must simply be an oversight."

"Are we
talking about the same Mrs. Wren?" Of all the adults on the estate, she
seemed the simplest to me, the easiest to get around when we wanted something.

He looked away
over the moonlit snow below, at the insub-stantial black shadows of the manor
and outbuildings. "Her sor-row gives her strength. Frightening strength.
Those who dwell in the middle air below the Moon weep when she weeps, as do
their humbler vassals in the stream and field and arbors. Do not be deceived
that she is kindly toward you and Vanity; it is be-cause she has no cause to
fear."

He looked down
at his walking stick, frowned, and raised it to his face. He stuck the muzzle
of the little brass jackal-head in his ear.

He nodded,
said thank-you to the walking stick, and said to me, "One comes."

2.

I jumped down
three steps and crouched, draping my body along the stairs, with just my nose
sticking over the doorjamb. Because the tiles were slanted, I could see the
snowy lawn below.

I yanked on
Quentin's pants leg. "How about getting down? So we're not seen?"

He lay down
beside me.

I squinted.
There. Quentin had been right. Again.

A tall man was
coming from the direction of the Barrows. At first, we could see only his
outline: an upright, athletic figure witii a staff or pole in his hand, and
long wings of flapping fabric around his ankles, as if he wore a cloak or long
coat. There was a round bundle over his shoulder.

He stepped
into one of the angles of light a window cast across the snow.

There were
black scars crisscrossing his right hand. Old wounds. The pole in his hand was
a short spear, uiree feet of metal spike and three feet of wood, with a heavy
weight mounted at the butt end. A javelin, really. The round thing over his
shoulder was flat, not a bundle. It was a Roman shield widi an iron boss in the
center, eight-sided, with images of lightning bolts etched in gold radiating
out from the boss.

The coat was
long. I thought it might be the skin of coral snakes, for it was pebbly and as
red-brown as dried blood. It was lined on the inside with fur of light pink.
The elbow-length sleeves were long and loose, and allowed full motion to the
man's arms. A fur hood formed a triangle between his shoulder and head.

At first, I
thought his hair was metal. He wore a coif of cop-pery scales over his skull;
more scales covered his neck. He wore a jacket of red coppery scales beneath
his ruddy cloak. Below he wore a leather skirt studded with metal bosses. His
boots of shark learner rose to his knee.

A wide
web-belt cinched his waist. A Japanese katana, bright with a swinging tassel,
rode one hip. At the other, a leather holster held a heavy pistol.

There was
something in the way he walked—stiff, yet re-laxed, calm, yet somehow
tense—that told of miles upon miles of marching to the music of the drum
and fife.

He passed in
front of a lamppost that stood in the carriage circle before the East Wing of
the Manor House. The light made a slight rainbow effect as it slid around his
body.

I said,
"He is distorting the local time-space metric. Light is bending toward him
as it would toward a black sun. He must be affecting the probability
world-lines intersecting this moment in time."

I looked over.
Quentin was not looking at the man. He lay with his face not six inches from
mine, staring thoughtfully at my lips. He had been studying my profile.

Quentin raised
his eyes to mine. "You can tell at a glance?"

I said impatiently,
"No. It is obvious, though. His gravity is normal, otherwise he would sink
to the Earth's core with every step. What else could disturb time—space,
if not gravity? If it is not a space warp, men it is a time warp. He is not
moving fast or slow. So it must be a distortion of world-lines. Q.E.D."

I felt heat in
my cheeks. I was blushing. Blushing! Because little Quentin, of all people, had
been staring at me. At the lips he had kissed, and claimed for his own. I said,
"The Red Soldier isn't human, no matter who he is." He said, "I
know. Apsu can't see normal people."

3.

The soldier
passed below the level of our vision. There came a noise of a door opening. A
triangle of light spilled out across the snow, magnifying the shadow of the
soldier. There was a mutter of voices. One sounded calm, measured, certain. The
voice of a man in control of whatever situation he entered. The other was the
voice of Mr. Sprat, who sounded nervous, uncertain. Maybe even frightened.

From the tones
of voice, the words half-heard, it sounded as if the Red Soldier wanted to
enter, and Mr. Sprat was reluctant to let him in.

Footsteps. A
second shadow spilled out across the snow. This one wore a mortarboard and long
robes. His voice was louder, and we caught the words. Headmaster Boggin asked,
"Protector, we were not expecting Your Lordship in person. Where is Your
Lordship's entourage?"

We did not
hear the words, but the calm voice made some brief, sardonic answer.

Boggin laughed
politely. "I suppose that is true, Your Lord-ship. Who would be qualified
to bodyguard you?"

The calm voice
again. A question.

"Why,
yes, Your Lordship. She is here. Her Ladyship came with her... ah ... with her
husband's retainers, of course. Will you come in? I will have to ask you to
leave your weapons at the door. Emissaries are supposed to be unarmed."

The Red
Soldier must have turned his head, for this time, we heard his answer plainly.
"I am never unarmed."

The shadows on
the snow moved; the soldier pushed his way past Headmaster Boggin, the javelin
still in his hand. We could hear the metallic mud of the butt of the javelin on
the floorboards.

Mr. Sprat's
shadow slid close to Headmaster Boggin's. A fearful whisper. A
friendly-sounding answer from Boggin.

i Again,
Boggin's voice carried. "It is not as if we have any choice, Jack, now, is
it? We're at their mercy."

The door swung
to. The angle of light narrowed and disappeared.

4.

We had a
whispered consultation about whether to close the big metal door or not. On the
one hand, it would let in cold air and outside noise that someone might notice.
On the other, we wanted an unblocked escape. The workmen had been pulling up
and putting down tile these last few days, and their scaffold still reached
from roof to ground, like a fire tower.

"We are
going to have to be quiet going down," he said.

"Well,
obviously, Quentin! I'll tell you when it's safe to talk. I am your senior, you
know."

"Then
enlighten me. What does the thing you said mean? About world-lines?"

"Is this
the time for a physics lesson?"

"Indulge
me, please, Amelia."

"OK. This
is a summary. Imagine every object as a worm, or an umbrella, drawing a line
through time. The one line toward the direction of lesser-entropy we call
'past,' and its position is determined within the limits of quantum uncertainty.
The multiple lines toward the direction of greater-entropy, we call 'future,'
and their locations, to simultaneous observers, occupy the set of all possible
locations to which the object could move in a given time. Put two gravitating
bodies near each other and their sets of possible motion lines bend toward each
other. The line denned by the least energy expended is inert motion, or free
fall. This free-fall line, which would otherwise be straight, is distorted by a
gravitating body so that it curves in a conic section. Got it?"

"So what
did you see around him? His Lordship?"

"Something
other than gravity was distorting the world-lines passing near him, including
the event-paths of things like pho-tons. An aura of probability
distortion." "He has a charmed life."

"Um. I
don't think that is what I said."

"You were
seeing destiny. He has a charmed life."

"You are
confusing an effect of physics with your..."

"Let's
go, Amelia. We can debate definitions later."

And he started
down the stairs.

I crept after
him, tight-lipped with anger.

Since when did
he get the right to be giving orders to me? A boy steals a kiss and he thinks
you're his harem slave.

It was time to
dunk his head in the sink again. Wash a few dumb notions out of mat haunted
house he calls his brain. I was strong enough to lift a door he could not
budge, wasn't I? He was not so old that I could not push his head under water
for a while.

The stair
ended at a half-open door. Beyond the door was a small alcove, half-hidden
behind Mrs. Wren's potted plants. The alcove looked out on the balcony which
entirely encircled the Great Hall below.

It was perfect
for spying. We crawled on our bellies across the carpet of the balcony, and
peered through the heavy marble railings. There were no lights on at this
floor. The gigantic chandelier that normally hung near the dome had been
lowered on its massive chain so that it was partly lowered through the hole the
balcony surrounded. The great chandelier was slightly below us, putting the
lights between ourselves and the people below. Even if they should look up (and
who ever looks up?) the light would dazzle them, and the shadows would hide us.

And yet the
whole scene was less dian twenty feet below us. Had we wanted to, we could have
spit upon the people seated there.

The massive
green marble table occupied the center of the hall. Half of the circumference
had no one seated there. The chairs were empty. The other half had people
standing behind their chairs, but no one was seated.

No one except
for the Lady. She was beautiful beyond all beauty, somehow both innocent and
sweet, yet filled with voluptuous sensuality. She was dressed in a simple robe
of white, with slim jeweled sashes crossed between her breasts, and circling
her trim waist. Her neck was like a swan's. Her hair was piled atop her head to
show off the line of her neck.

She was a
brunette, with tremor of gold running through the strands. She had meltingly
soft brown eyes. She did not wear any makeup, and yet her lips were red, her
cheeks touched with blush.

It was only
when looking at her that I realized (finally realized after Gabriel-knows how
many years) what makeup was for. The sparkling eyes eyeliner tries to
impersonate; the blood-red lips lipstick mimics; the cheeks flushed red; are
what one sees on a girl when she is flushed with love. If someone had told me
this Lady had stepped not five minutes ago from her lover's arms, I would not
have doubted it.

The Lady was
toying with a hand mirror she held in her hand; holding it to one ear, then the
other, turning her eyes sideways, as if she were trying to glimpse her own
profile. She laughed her crystal laughter at herself; she prodded her hair with
a slim white finger, teasing curls down before her eyes, which she went
cross-eyed to stare at. Then she smiled again to see herself cross-eyed. She
tossed her head when she laughed, like a girl half my age. It was as if she
were in love with life itself, and every moment in it, and she could not
restrain her joy.

Behind her
were three women, who, if I had seen them on the covers of fashion magazines,
would have called them beautiful. Next to the laughing one, however, they only
seemed fair.

They were also
dressed in simple white robes of a classical design. One of them held a sceptre
on a pillow. One held a recurved bow of pale wood set with pink carbuncles, and
a quiver of arrows fletched with red feathers. One had a jess and a leather
guard on her wrist, like a falconer, but instead of a falcon, she held a white
dove on her wrist.

Quentin pulled
back. He turned himself on his back and put his elbow over his eyes.

I looked at
him, puzzled. It was not until I looked at him that I realized something. I had
been staring at the laughing beauty so earnesdy, that I had not seen anyone
else at the table, had not heard what they said.

I can tell in
sort of an intellectual way if another woman is attractive or not Sometimes.
Sometimes, I am really surprised at which girls Colin, for example, would moon
over, or which American movie starlets he would gather photos of, or write love
letters to. But even I could tell this lady, this divinity, had a face to drive
men mad. Quentin was covering his eyes to save his sanity.

My gaze was
drawn back to her.

I had never
seen an adult so unselfconscious in public. I have seen the Queen Mother and
the Prince of Wales on television news, the Duchess of York, the King of
Denmark, and the Prince of Monaco. They were royalty. They acted with gravity
and polished politeness. This? This was something beyond royalty. A farmgirl in
a barnyard could play this way, if she were surrounded by dumb animals, piglets
and kittens and lambs. Because the farmgirl is still a higher order of being
than even the noblest animal, and she can feel no shame in front of them, no
more than a high cloud, or a distant star, can feel shame in front of a human.

I wished I
could see if she would have that same rainbow ef-fect the Red Soldier had.
Unfortunately, there was nouhing be-yond her, from my point of view, aside from
the chair she sat on, me floor. No light sources. Not even a reflection.

But I moved a
little to one side, so that the marble banister blocked my view of her. That
was the only way I could concentrate on the others garnered here.

The moment I
saw them, I wondered how I could have not been staring at mem. This was an odd
group. A very odd group.

5.

Two foxes in
Japanese kimonos stood behind their chairs to the Lady's far left. They stood
on their hind legs, like men. One of them was smoking a cigarette in a holder.

A man with no
head was next. He was dressed in eighteenth-century garb: a great coat wim a
high collar, bloodstained lace surrounding his neck stump, two dueling pistols
tucked through his belt. He had a long-necked guitar slung on a wide bandoleer
over his left shoulder. On a silver plate, on the table before where he stood,
rested his head. I assume it was his.

A bearded head
it was, with long black locks. The eyes were open and looking back and forth.
Every now and again the headless body would raise a hand and absentmindedly run
fingers through the hair of the head, the way a man with a dog at his heel
might pet it from time to time.

Next to him
was a Satyr, with ivy wound around his goat horns. He had narrow features and
lines around his mouth. He was shifting from hoof to hoof, and picking his
teeth with a toothpick.

Two nude women
were next, naked except for the grape leaves they had wound in their hair. They
stood with their arms around each other's waists, and occasionally whispered
comments in each other's ears.

Next was a man
made entirely of metal. This golem was ten or twelve feet tall. The metal was
silvery and black, and chased through with designs, images, and arabesques of
the most cun-ning workmanship. The elbow joints were fretted like fish fins;
the vambraces had pastoral scenes running up them. The helm was furrowed with
whippet hounds; the crest was a lunging stag, every vein in its straining
throat visible. Leaves and trees, maple and oak, ran in vertical stripes down
the breastplate. The face mask was silver, a man smiling gently, surrounded by
leaves and little birds growing from his beard. The hairs of the beard were
separately etched in, overlaying with strips of silver, silver-gray, blue
steel, black iron.

Beyond the
metal man was another, this one of gold, inscribed with scenes of sailing
ships, kings, rising suns. An eagle crest started from his helm. His beard was
curled with golden flames.

Then came the
three women, and the Lady with the mirror who was so beautiful.

Another gold
man was beyond her, this one inscribed with mountain scenes, goatherds, pine
trees. His crest was a dragon, each scale studded with a different gem.

Another silver
man was next, this one done up in night images, moons and owls.

A man made out
of bark stood behind me next chair, with leaves for hair. His face was carved
from unpolished wood, scabby and black.

A
normal-looking fellow was next, except he wore a folded robe of purest blue
that floated and flowed around him. Clouds moved through the fabric. His hair
also floated m the wind, ex-cept that there was no wind.

There was a
man in scale armor. The scales were enameled with different shades of white,
pale blue, dark blue, green, and black. He was young, and broad-shouldered,
with long black hair. His helmet was on the table before him; it had a leaping
dolphin for its crest. He did not look impatient, but he was pinching his
nostrils shut, opening them, pinching them shut again, over and over. I do not
mean he was touching his nose with his hand. His hands were clasped behind his
back. When he turned his head to whisper some comment to the man dressed in the
blue wind, I could see feathery dark lines of the gills behind his ear.

Next came two
men in well-tailored business suits, dark blue pinstripe with narrow ties. Both
had gold rings, tastefully expensive wristwatches, shining cuff links. One
stood puffing a cigarette. Balanced on the back of the chair before him was the
smallest computer I had ever seen, a folding thing no bigger than a large book.
He was typing on it with both hands.

The other man,
who was older, was speaking on a cell phone. They seemed to be men. Nothing
extraordinary about them...

Until the one
on the laptop computer, without taking either hand off the keyboard, had a
third hand reach up from under his coat, take the cigarette between two
fingers, and flick ash onto the carpet. From the way the hand blurred where it
left his coat, I assumed I was looking at a three-dimensional intrusion from
four-space.

Next was a
busty dark-skinned woman, a Turk or a Hindu, perhaps, wearing a short red vest
with nothing beneath it, a headdress of coins. She was a giant serpent from the
waist down.

The final man
was a figure from my dream. He had a metal eye in the center of his forehead:
an orb of blue metal. It turned this way and that, not in keeping with the
motions of his other eyes.

He was not a
giant, as had been the one I saw in my dream. He was dressed in a stark,
utilitarian one-piece suit, drab olive in color. He stood with his hands folded
over the back of his chair, face expressionless, showing no sign of impatience.
A name tag clipped to his breast pocket read: BRONTES. 6.

There had been
a stir of talk while I had been staring at the Lady with the mirror. I had not
heard what it was.

The
three-handed man on the cell phone was telling someone, "He sent word that
he wasn't showing up here. No. My question is, if his wife represents the
volcanic position to us, should we take that representation as solid... ?"

The Satyr,
leaning to speak past the tall shoulders of the headless man, said to the foxes
in kimonos, "Say, fellows, are you here representing your Skulk, or the
whole Wood?"

The taller
fox, a gray, answered in a fluting voice, "We have letters of accredition,
extraordinary and plenipotentiary, from the Nemeian."

"In that
case, don't agree to anything till you and I get a chance to talk later,
private-like, eh?"

The other fox
was thinner, red-brown. It said in a saturnine tone, "Whether we speak or
are silent, what does it matter? The Great Ones determine our course."

The gray fox
snapped open a Japanese fan, and hid his muzzle behind it, while he made some
whispered comment to his companion.

The Satyr
shifted on his hooves impatiently. He said to his neighbor "What about
you, Haircut? There may be a third angle to mis tug-o-war."

The headless
body reached out with its fingers and turned the severed head on its silver
plate till it faced the goat-man. "You cannot imagine that I have much
interest in what the Bacchants have to say." His voice had a melodic
beauty to it that echoed in the ear.

The Satyr
waved his toothpick. "Who said I was talking about mem? Did I say I was
talking about them? Not all of us were on the side of the traitors when they
stormed Olympus. I work for Nemestrinus."

The naked
woman with grape leaves in her hair leaned over and caressed the Satyr's cheek.
He jumped a bit, reddening with embarrassment.

She cooed
softly, "Don't waste words on that one, Billy. He will be the next
Psychopompos, no matter what else is decided tonight Both factions will promise
to confirm him in the post. He's the one the Unseen One likes. So why should he
talk to you? He has nothing to gain and nothing to lose."

The Satyr
said, "A little chitchat never hurt nobody."

She replied:
"The Unseen One might be standing here in the room with us now, for all we
know. Best not to annoy Him. No one wants Him to press His little wifey-poo's
claim to the throne, now do they?"

The other nude
girl leaned forward, saying in a fluid voice: "Be careful, little tripod!
Your third leg is shorter than your other two. It will not help you run away if
the Unseen One takes it amiss that you annoy His servants."

The goat-man
looked annoyed. "Hey, if you are going to talk about my pogo stick, you
call him Mr. Johnson!"

It was about
this time that I realized, from his demeanor and slurred speech^ that the
goat-man had probably been drinking. Heavily.

The Satyr
continued: "Heck! As for Him, what kind of Love Hotdog you think He's
packing anyway? Married to that sweet tart of His, and no kids after all these
years? If'n the soil is fertile, maybe the seed is sterile, is all I'm saying,
is all. And don't tell me the Maiden ain't fertile; she's a fertility goddess!
And how come she's still a Maiden, if'n you catch my meaning? I ain't afraid of
no lord of ghosts, no ma'am. I figure, no matter how dread and horrible He is,
who can be afraid of a guy with a dry stick, you take my meaning?"

The severed
head said softly, "You are droll, tragamor. When you come to His kingdom,
you will be met with many grins. They all grin, there."

7.

From some
point more or less below where we hid on the bal-cony, mere came the sound of a
door opening, footsteps, the clang of a javelin on me floorboards.

I heard the
voice, animated and bubbly, of the beautiful lady with the mirror. From the
sounds, I could tell she had jumped to her feet

"Harry's—!"
(At least, it sounded like "Harry's." She might have been saying
"Airy" or "Air Ease.") "Look, Aglaea, look who it is!
Yoo hoo! Over here! Hi there! Hi! Do you think he sees me? Hello, darling!
Euphrosyne, what do you think of him?"

I could see
the women standing behind her, looking embar-rassed and trying to appear at
ease.

The maiden in
white holding the pink bow and arrow leaned and said into the ear of her
mistress, "My Lady Cyprian, the Lord Mavors is surely the archetype of
manliness. But if we all know what men are like, surely he is mat way, only
more so."

The Lady burst
into a fit of giggles.

The helmets of
the four metal men all swiveled to face (I as-sume) the door. From my point of
view, it looked as if they were all turning toward me. Seeing all those gold
and silver masks swivel toward me, their inanimate features all carved into
happy smiles, beneath lenses that could never know expression, reminded me of a
group of synchronized deck guns on a battleship, rotating in their turrets to
cover an enemy.

The Red
Soldier marched into view, crossed over to the table. He had slung back the
links of his coif from his scalp, so that I saw his hawklike profile, hook
nose, and blue eyes. He had a face so tranquil as to be almost expressionless,
except for the hint of cruelty around his mouth, the hint of sadness in his
eyes.

When he saw
the Lady, though, the cruelty left his mouth; the sorrow left his eyes. The
weather-beaten face suddenly looked years younger. And handsome. His eyes
glittered and danced. He pursed his lips to keep himself from smiling.

There were
murmurs and whispers around the table. Only the headless man did not seem
disturbed. The three-handed man hissed into his cell phone: "Call you
back!" Two additional hands came out from under the coat to fold up me
phone and hold open a pocket to slide it into.

I took the
opportunity to whisper to Quentin: "Do you know who these are?"

"We're in
a school run by the pagan gods of old," he said in softest of whispers.
"Now hush." Without opening his eyes, he reached across and put a
finger to my lips, to hush me. It was a funny feeling, having him touch my lips
that way. "We don't want to be turned into trees or something." 7

'Between the
T)evil and the IDeep "Blue^ea

l.

The Soldier,
Lord Mavors, his expression once again under his control, now stepped up to the
seat opposite the Lady Cyprian. At once the arrangement of the table became
clear to me. Half the table was for the Lady and her entourage, her robots and
ladies and foxes, her tree-man, her goat-man, and men with extra eyes or extra
limbs or a man missing a head. The other half of the table was reserved for the
Soldier. He had no one.

He held up the
javelin a moment, and dipped it toward the Lady, saying, "Ma'am."

Cyprian
acknowledged the salute by wiggling in her chair, and darted a heavy-lidded
look at him. "Don't you want to sit next to me?" She patted the chair
to her side. Then she said to her handmaidens: "I bet he won't! He's
toying with me! He's so mean! Look at how cute he is!" Then, to him again:
"You never write!"

I would have
felt embarrassed for her, except that she seemed so cheerful, so obviously sure
of herself, that she did not seem to notice the other people around her,
listening.

And everyone
(except the golems, whose masks were immobile, and the man with his head on a
plate, whose expression was composed) were looking nervous, agog, or annoyed.
The Satyr wore a look of naked fear. Even the foxes had both opened tfieir fans
to hide their muzzles, despite that their faces could not show expressions.

But no one
looked surprised.

The Soldier
spun the heavy javelin lightly in his fingers, and drove it point-downward into
the floorboards (bang!) so mat it trembled upright next to him. He slung the
shield over the arm of the chair, to keep it at hand, pulled the katana,
scabbard and all, from his web-belt, and laid the sheathed blade on the table
before him. Then he sat down.

He said to the
Lady Cyprian, "You have to write letters to get letters, ma'am."

"I tiiink
my husband rips them up!"

"Ah . ..
yes ma'am. Can't blame him. Seeing as how you hu-miliate him in public, and
all." The Soldier folded his hands on the table. "Any word from the
boy?" he asked curdy.

"Which
boy?"

"Our
son."

"Nope!
Still missing! I hope he's OK. Don't you hope he's OK?"

"I hope
for your husband's sake, tiiat he is, ma'am."

"You
don't really dunk Mulciber killed him, do you? I'd hate to have you think that.
Please don't kill my husband. I like him very much. And he makes me
diings."

The Soldier
said nothing, but turned his head to give Head-master Boggin a cool stare.

Boggin took
mat as an excuse to step forward and nod politely toward both sides of the
table. "Your Ladyship, Your Lordship, honored Visitors and Governors,
please take your seats. Perhaps we can begin."

Her Ladyship
said, "I love beginnings. Beginnings are always me times of magic, of
unknown delight, full of promise and expectation. Consummations are also much
to be desired. Maybe we can have a dance after, or somediing." She waved
her hands at the people, tilings, and animals on her side of the table.
"Sit! Sit!"

The metal men
held the chairs for the ladies, and the Satyr held a chair for one of me nude
women, but he must have goosed her, because she turned and slapped him. The
metal men did not sit down, but kept tiieir empty, smiling masks turned toward
me Soldier, tiieir dead lenses trained on him.

Boggin took
his position halfway between the Soldier and the Lady, witii Mr. Sprat and Mr.
ap Cymru standing to either side behind his chair.

The Soldier
pointed witii his finger at ap Cymru. "What's that one doing here?"

Boggin said
smootiily, "He is part of the staff, Your Lord- ship. Originally part of
your Father's staff, Your Lordship, may he rest in peace."

"Amen,"
said the Lady Cyprian, and everyone on her side of the table (except the
golems) said "Amen," in unison.

Quentin, who
was still lying on his back with his eyes closed, put his hand over his mouth
to stifle a laugh. He found the idea of ancient Greek gods saying
"Amen" funny, for some reason.

The Soldier
said, "Do you know what he is?"

Boggin said,
"He comes very highly recommended, Your Lordship, and—to be
frank—I was not sure if I had the author-ity to discharge him. The unfortunate
passing away of your Fa-ther left certain affairs in disarray. I could make
this an item on this evening's agenda, if Your Lordship wishes ... T'

The Soldier
gave the slightest shake of his head, and turned to look back at the Lady.
"Let's stick to what we came to talk about. Time's short."

Cyprian,
elbows on the table, was hunched behind her little mirror, with only her
glittering eyes peeping over the edge. She was impishly aiming her mirror at
him, tilting it this way and that, to send little triangles of light, reflected
from the chandelier, floating over the Soldier's lean cheeks, flashing in his
eyes.

Cyprian said
playfully, "We are all surprised to see you, dear. No one knew you were
coming yourself. You didn't send Fear or Panic?"

He squinted,
and for a moment, looked so amused, and an-noyed, and filled with masculine
power, that I was sure he was going to get up, walk across the room, throw the
Lady Cyprian over his shoulder, and carry her off right there and then. Or kiss
her. Or both.

Instead he
said drily, "Fear sometimes scares people." Then he turned to Boggin
and said, "Boreas, get on with it."

Boggin said,
"Well, then. Your Lordship, Your Ladyship, Visitors, Governors. We all
know the tragic events in Heaven of recent history have left matters somewhat
in, shall we say, flux. When the rebels, led by your Lordship's brother,
Dionysus ..."

"Half-brother,"
said the Soldier.

"... Your
Lordship's half-brother, were defeated at Phlegra, certain hostages were taken
from the pits of Tartarus, as a pledge of good behavior for the Titans whom
Lord Hermes Trismegistus, the Swift God, and the Lady of Wisdom, Tritoge-nia,
had released ..."

The Lady
Cyprian said in a soft cooing voice: "Boreas, your speech is fine, and you
are right to be proud of it. There is at least one girl who has heard your
voice who entertains sweet thoughts of you. But, I pray you, enough. We need no
reminding of what we already know."

Her tone was
much less playful when speaking to the Head-master than when speaking to the Soldier.
Her tone was still sweet and kindly, but it was clear she was addressing an
under-ling.

I sensed,
ramer than heard, a disappointed noise from Quentin. He had been dying to hear
what everyone already knew. He may have even been counting on Boggin to provide
the background to what was going on. But now the Lady Cyprian had cut that off.

She continued:
'These are the words of the Maker. This is what my husband says: on no account
are the Children of Chaos to be killed. The Uranians would rise up from the Pit
should that happen."

The Soldier
said, "I concur."

And he put his
hand on the table, stood, and picked up his sheathed sword to tuck it through
his web-belt again.

2.

Headmaster
Boggin said, "But Your Lordship, Your Ladyship!"

The Soldier
was adjusting something on his belt, and spoke without looking up. "Don't
kill the children. Everyone agrees. Talk is over. What's the problem?"

Boggin was
speechless for a moment, and made a gobbling noise.

Quentin now,
unable to resist, turned and opened his eyes, keeping a hand between himself
and the Lady. Quentin grinned to see Boggin so discombobulated.

It was Mr. ap
Cymru who spoke up. His voice had a nasal twang to it. "So the Butcher and
the Tinker agree to keep the little wolf pups alive! No one makes a decision,
and nothing gets done! Another year goes by, and the pups get a little older,
and a little bigger. Hurrah for compromise! But one day the pups will turn into
wolves, and eat the sun and the moon, and what do we do then?"

Headmaster
Boggin said sternly, "Thank you for your con-sidered opinions, Taffy,
though this may not have been the proper, shall we say, venue, for airing
them."

The man with
floating hair, whose robes were made of weightless blue, spoke up. "It is
not wise to annoy the Great Ones, Laverna, or whatever you are calling yourself
these days, now that you are a man."

The Soldier
was in the process of unsticking his javelin from the floorboards. He wiggled
it back and forth once or twice. "Thank you, Coras, but some of the Great
Ones don't get in a snit one way or the other. Let
him—her—it—whatever, talk." With a pop, me javelin came
loose from the floorboards. To ap Cymru, he said, "So talk, Laverna.
What's eating you?"

Ap Cymru said,
"Milord Mavors, you know the situation is unstable. No one expected, when
we forced the Uranians to as-sume the shape of human babies, that the
impersonation would be so exact. So exact, that they did what human babies do,
and grew up. The potions, the prayers, the spells we use to keep them under
control were meant to control children, not grown adults."

"You are
not telling me anything I don't know, Fraud. What's your point?"

"Put
someone on the Throne of Heaven. Anyone. I don't care how you pick him. Throw
lots, have a footrace, have a war."

Lady Cyprian
said softly, "Oh, did they finally decide to do it by the war method? I
know who I'll be betting on." Her ladies-in-waiting tittered.

Mavors
actually frowned at her. "There's not going to be a war. Everyone loses in
war, even the winners. The Uranians would rise up."

She smiled at
him, a sultry, mocking smile, and her eyes danced. "Then auction off the
throne. Whoever gives the bigger bribe wins!"

Of all people,
it was the Satyr who said, "Or hold a ballot."

The
ladies-in-waiting put their fingers to their mouths and laughed. The one with
the dove on her wrist said, "That really comes out to the same thing in
the end, doesn't it, Pherespon-dus?"

The one
holding the bow and arrows said gaily, " 'Twould be a foregone conclusion,
my sisters Graces. Mavors on his mea-ger soldier's pay could not outbid the
Lord of Goldsmims."

Ap Cymru made
a slashing motion in the air with his hand. "Milord, milady, it does not
matter how you get someone on the throne. Just get someone. Make peace between
the factions, restore the army to full strength. The Uranians will then be
afraid to attack us because of our strength. Then we can let these hostages go,
and to hell with them.

"The Late
High King wasn't just Diospater, the Father of Gods, and he wasn't just
Iopater, the High Father. He was also called Terminus, the Lord of Boundaries.
The boundaries around the estate are weakening as the children grow older. We
need someone to restore them. Here, and elsewhere, too. There are places in the
Twelve Worlds where tears are appearing in the fabric of reality. So just pick
someone."

Mavors said,
"We do not have the authority just to pick someone. We don't have the
right. The law of succession is set by primogeniture. No one believes me, but I
actually don't want the job. But I'm the only one in line. Phoebus and Phoebe
are bastards; Trismegistus and Dionysus are both traitors and bastards."

The man in tan
coveralls witii the metal eye in his forehead, Brontes, spoke. It did not sound
like a real voice; it sounded like the words were made by machine.
"Hephaestus is the son of Queen Hera and the All-Father Zeus. He is
legitimate."

Mavors
shrugged. "Dad threw him out of Heaven. I don't think Mulciber is any son
of my father."

"Do you
think he is the son of Ixion?"

Mavors looked
at him thoughtfully. "Be careful what you say about my mother. Pick your
words very carefully. I'll remember them to tell the stonecutter."

"What
stonecutter?"

'The one
making your headstone."

"Are you
threatening me? Who will forge the thunderbolts if the Cyclopes are slain?
There is no other weapon to drive back the Uranians."

The headless
man's head, speaking from his plate, said, ">

"That may
not protect you, Brontes. Athena Tritogenia was one of the rebels, remember?
And Zeus is dead. Who else can wield the lightning bolt? Dionysus is said to
have learned the secret. But he was one of the rebels, too."

Mavors said in
a quiet voice, "I never threaten anyone. I don't need to. But you could
still work at the forge if I broke your kneecap. Your boss me Gimp does
it."

He paused to
let that sink in.

Then he said,
"So don't talk about my mother. When she stood up to Dad and his
philandering, everyone called her a bitch. When she was quiet about it,
everyone called her a doormat. Well, I'm tired of it. No one makes fun of High Queen
Basilissa. Are we clear?"

Lady Cyprian
said, "Now, you leave my husband's people alone, Ares. You're the one who
said Mulciber wasn't Terminus' son. But we all know he was Acraea's son. You
don't really think it was a virgin birth, do you? How could it be? Your mother
was married. Married people aren't virgins. Not after a while, anyway. It's
just a dumb story. I think you're the one who made it up."

Mavors said to
her, "If Dad can make Lady Wisdom pop out of his head, Mom can do the same
sort of thing. And it makes me laugh, doll, to hear you, of all people, saying
what's possible and impossible when it comes to being born.

"Anyway.
We're not here to discuss paternity issues. We're sort of off the topic. We're
all in a bind because no one is in charge. We're divided and weak. We can't
kill the hostages because the Uranians will attack. We can't let them go. Same
reason. And we can't keep waiting around, because Boreas and his crew here
can't keep the children from growing up, like he was supposed to."

Headmaster
Boggin puffed up. "Milord, the implication is most unfair. Most unfair!
There are four boundaries to the es-tate, four places where the four versions
of the universe touch this world. Had we moved the hostages in me early days,
when the unfixed ylem in their bodies had not yet learned how to copy human
organs, moving them too far away from a boundary would have killed them. Even
now, I do not know what harm might befall them if we move them too far away.
But this famous spot where the four boundaries touch, is also on a world
entirely overrun with humans. The local laws of nature have their sway here.
The local law commands children to grow. Your own son, Milord, after centuries
of being a baby, grew up to manhood because of the time he spent on this world,
with Psyche."

Lady Cyprian
frowned and rolled her eyes. "Pul-lease don't remind me. Talk about
marrying the help!"

"Milord,
Milady, all I mean to say is that mere were no other options," said
Boggin. "There are few, very few places where all four versions of reality
intersect. His Imperial Majesty Lord Terminus stabilized this area, cast a Fate
over it. We could not move the children away from this spot, because it might
have harmed them. I asked the Imperator Cupid to wipe out mankind living in these
islands, but he would not.

"Now that
they are older, we might be able to move the Uranians to another location, but
I am certain Your Lordship would wish this to be done under the supervision of
someone you trust for the same reason Lord Mulciber would insist on it."

Mavors gave a
small and bitter grin, and said, "Because Mul-ciber knows that if he had
Uranians on his side, he could stand a chance of winning. Same goes for
Anacreon and the Maiden, and even Pelagaeus the Earthshaker, or whoever else thinks
they have a claim on the throne. Same goes for me."

Boggin bowed
slighdy. "I had been hoping, in fact, to make that the main topic of
conversation at mis meeting. If any child finds the boundary to his or her
home, their powers will stir. The spells, the psionics, the manipulations of
the geometry of space-time, the potions we use to keep them from changing shape
or waking the chaos around them, are hindered by the fact mat diis estate is on
a planet of humans, basically part of the materialistic paradigm of
Aetna."

Mavors picked
up his shield. "I am not sure mere is much to discuss. This estate
belonged to Dad. We all know it is his land, and none of us has much influence
here. Where else are we go-ing to put these kids? One of my places? Mulciber
wouldn't agree. One of Mulciber's places?"

Lady Cyprian
said, "Which are kind of, you know, hot and, well, volcanic. Not the best
place for kids." Mavors finished with a shrug. "If we throw them in
the ocean, Pelagaeus gets them. You see?" Ap Cymru said, "Hell. Put
them in the Asphodel Fields."

3.

Mavors looked
at the headless man.

The headless
man said, "Everyone here knows what the power of the Unseen One is. You
know he could take Olympus if he wanted to, and neither the machines of Vulcan
nor the dragons of Mars could stand against him. If he wanted Uranians to serve
him, he has the keys to Tartarus in any case."

Mavors said,
"If the Unseen One will publicly repudiate the claim of his wife, the
Maiden, to the throne of Heaven, I'd agree. I trust him. I don't necessarily
trust her."

Lady Cyprian
said, "I'll consult with my husband. But I am sure Mulciber will agree. He
and Hades have always been on the best of terms. Sort of an underground, live
in a land of fire and lava kind of thing. Get the best-looking wives. You know.
Like a club."

"Well,
look at that," said Mavors, hoisting his shield to his shoulder. "We
settled something after all."

The Lady
Cyprian half-rose from her seat. "Ares! You're not leaving yet, are you?
You must stay for the dance!"

"I'd love
to, ma'am, but I cannot. The Titans are stirring in the Pontic Sea, and their
brothers are swimming in the magma below the Earth's crust. Other Titans have
been seen in the spheres above the Moon, like bats as large as caravels; or
lying on the sands of Libya by night, like mountains.

'They seem to
be gathering. Deimos thinks they are all head-ing toward the Citadel of Dreams
in Cimmeria. Without the lightning bolt, we will have no way to drive them
back, if they come out of the Sunless Land again, and storm Olympus. That's why
I could not spare any of my people for this little gathering, here. Fairest of
goddesses, adieu. You ladies can dance. The men have work to do." Mavors
tucked his finger under his coif, and pulled it over his crew cut.

4.

"Just a
moment, my Lord!" said a new voice. This was the dark-haired man with
gills, the one who wore a jacket of blue, green, and white scales.

Boggin said,
"What is it, Governor Mestor?"

"Before
my Lord departs, there is another point the princes of Atlantis would like to
bring up."

Mavors said,
"Spit it out."

"Lord, we
are not certain the growth and maturity of the four Uranians is a natural
effect, as has been previously assumed. Four boundaries to four versions of
Chaos border the estate. Our own access from our worlds is through the Sending
Vessel. Correct? So why are the laws of nature of the human world working
here?"

Headmaster
Boggin said, "What are you implying?"

"In your
report to the Board of last year, you explained that more of the influence of
Chaos is coming through here. Strange events had occurred. Young Master Triumph
was seen levitat-ing a fork. Claw prints on the ceiling above the bed of young
Master Nemo. Hollywood starlets answering love letters written by Master mac
FirBolg. And it was clear that their people in the Abyss were trying to send
dreams and reminders."

Mavors said,
"Make it snappy. I have other fires to put out."

"Dread
Lord of Battle, the princes of Atlantis are convinced that the boundaries
around this estate are being pried open. These children are not growing old
because of the operation of any law of nature. What does the concept of a law
of nature have any meaning when dealing with a chaoticist? We suspect
deliberate stratagem. Slow, yes, but deliberate. The Prince of the Night may be
sending his influences in. He is shape-changing them by his magic to make them
into adult Uranians."

"So?
What's to be done?"

"There is
only one child among the five who has the power to open boundaries, or to find
the secret paths that run to other worlds. She will not perish when she is
taken from a place next to the boundaries, because she is not a chaoticist.
Nausicaa, the daughter of Alcinuous, who in this place goes by the ridiculous
name of Vanity Fair, must be taken to Atlantis and put into the custody of the
loyal sons of Neptune. Four Uranians might well alter the balance of power
between the various factions contending for the throne. One Phaeacian girl will
not. Once she is gone, the boundaries will resume their old strengm, and the
influences from Chaos here will diminish. Then there will be no need to move
any of the other children anywhere."

Mavors looked
at Lady Cyprian. "Wouldn't make much difference to me."

Lady Cyprian
blinked her enormous brown eyes. "I'll see what my husband has to say
about it. He may not like the idea of putting the daughter of the King of
Phaeacia into the hands of Pelagaeus' faction. Why have me Atlantians and
Phaeacians on the same side?"

Mavors
snorted. "Arete runs Phaeacia, not Alcinuous. She knows what side of the
bread her butter is on, daughter or no daughter. There will be Phaeacian sea
captains, pirates, and smugglers volunteering to serve any faction that is
winning, no matter which side Alcinuous himself is on. And we all know he
really, actually, backs Anacreon the Vine-God no matter what he says. That's
why Dad took his daughter in the first place."

Mr. Sprat
leaned in and said to Boggin, "If Miss Fair were out of sight and out of
mind, sir, we might not have trouble with Grendel. We have heard that Grendel's
mother has already bought a wedding dress and fashioned a coffin for the
girl."

Mavors looked
over. "Who is Grendel?"

Lady Cyprian
laughed. "Oh, my dearest, you really should have your spies talk to my
spies! Grendel is the groundskeeper here. He goes by the name of Glum. He's one
of Pelagaeus' people."

"Hmm."
Mavors turned to Boggin. 'Tell your groundskeeper that whoever kills any of the
children here, dies. No argument, no excuses, no phone calls from the Governor,
no time to pray, just a pilum up their fundament. Got it?"

To Lady
Cyprian, he said, "Ask your husband two things. First, is it acceptable to
him to move the hostages to the Aspho- del Fields? Second, is it acceptable to
remove Nausicaa to At-lantis for safe-keeping, if it turns out that she is the
one making the boundaries weak?"

"I'll
tell him if you kiss me. Otherwise, I'll tell him you kissed me, and called him
a crippled unmanly coward."

"Well.
Some people don't think much of a man who lets himself get cuckolded and
doesn't stand up straight and do something about it. Of course, it's not his
fault he can't stand up straight. But I never called him a coward. Maybe
Brontes here will tell him the message, if you don't."

"So
you're not going to kiss me? I think about your kisses every night, when I am
alone in bed ..."

Mavors took a
few brusque steps about the table toward her, but then, when he was about where
the headless man was sitting, he slowed, and leaned on his javelin, and
regained his composure. "Ah, no ma'am. I don't think it would be seemly,
considering. But you can tell your husband three things from me.

"One.
There is not going to be a war unless he starts it.

'Two. If he
moves troops or taloi in the vicinity of Mount Olympus, dons purple, dons a
coronet, or attempts to wield the lightning, or claims the throne in any other
way, that will start the war.

"Three.
He will lose any war he fights with me. Do you un-derstand the message?"

Her voice was
demure. "Yes, my Lord, I understand." I moved my head so I could see
her again. She had lowered her eyelashes, and turned her head to one side, so
that she looked dream-caught, breathtakingly lovely. There was a blush rising
in her cheeks.

I knew what
she was thinking, which I don't think any guy, listening to her, would have
known: she liked having Mavors give her orders.

Mavors was
staring at her profile, trying to keep his face a mask. But I could see, even
from here, the wonder in his eyes. He was dumbstruck at her beauty.

He squinted,
and spoke again. "You can tell him one other thing. The Uranians are not
going to wait forever. I am not going to wait forever. All he has to do is
foreswear his claim to the throne, and vow fealty to me. I get the world; he
gets you. I think it's an even trade. You tell him that."

He turned and,
with a swirl and flap of his long coat, strode from the room.

8

ThejLzure
light l.

Things began
to go wrong at that point.

Boggin and
some of the others wanted to continue the meet-ing. The Lady Cyprian listened
to the school business with growing absentmindedness, toying with her mirror,
chatting with her handmaidens, giggling while other people were talking.

Mr. ap Cymru
made a motion to put a topic on the agenda: Miss Daw (who was the physics
teacher as well as being the music teacher) wanted funds to renovate the lab.
"It is her opin-ion that a time will come when the hostages will occupy
posi-tions of strength and sovereignty if ever they are returned to their own
people. She says ..." (and now he read from a note) "Whether these
Orphans of Chaos will regard us with hatred and contempt, or with respect and
esteem relies entirely on how well we raise and educate them. A proper
schooling in grammar and gymnastic being the foundation for the growth of
virtue and character in the young, and knowledge of music, astronomy, and
natural philosophy having a moderating effect on the appetitive passions of
youth, it is the considered opinion of the servants of the Hippocrene Springs
that proper equipment for a physics lab will allow such instruction to take
place...' Ah. And she goes on in like vein."

The Satyr,
Pherespondus, said, "She has been playing the role of a teacher for so
long, now she thinks she is one!" Mr. Sprat mentioned briefly another item
he wanted put on the agenda: the property tax owed, the possibility of selling
cer-tain school property to raise funds, or using enchantment to hypnotize the
Talbot family into paying.

Apparentiy
some of the people and creatures sitting on the Lady Cyprian's side of the
table actually were Governors of the school. The metal men, the women in Greek
togas, and the man with the metal eye, Brontes, were clearly her servants and
hers alone. The headless man was a guest, but he spoke about donations from
someone he called "the Lord of Wealth." He was a Visitor, tiien, since
he was here to inspect how things were going; and he apparentiy had some
control of school funds.

The man from
Atlantis, Mestor, said he wanted to discuss the issue of the slip rental from
the local marina, for the school's boats, and difficulty witii the new provisions
of Crown regulation; this led me to believe he was clearly a Governor of the
school.

One of the
foxes—the white one—asked about discussing the question of
easements tiirough the wood to the south of the school, and saying tiiere had
been "impositions" and "slips" between the human and the
"Arcadian" version of reality. I had been assuming the two foxes were
in the same group, but the second one, the brown one, made a reference to his
status as an emissary between the Lord of Smiths and the Nemeian Lion.

I could not
tell which of the others were officers of the school, or not. My overall
impression was mat relations between tiiese groups or factions or whoever they
represented were even more complex man what had seemed at first.

As they were
voting on the order of the agenda for the discussion, the Lady Cyprian stood
and expressed the desire to have the dance, now. "I've come all tiiis
way," she said. "And dances are so romantic!"

Only Boggin
had the nerve to speak back to her. "My Lady, how can we hold a dance?
Nothing has been prepared. The Boundary Stone Table occupies the Hall; tiiere
is no music; and Milord Mavors has marred the floor."

She stood up,
with an expression filled widi notiiing but kindness. "I have expressed my
wish. It is said I am capricious; nothing could be further from the truth;
although, alas, the nature of my domain renders it impossible for me to tell
tiiose who will enjoy my favor or disfavor what Fate has in keeping for them.
It is not for my own pleasure that I speak."

I knew what
she meant. I saw it immediately. She was the goddess of love. Someone's True
Love was in this room, but he would not meet her, or realize that she was the
one and only meant for him, unless the formal atmosphere of the meeting gave
way to the more relaxed festivities of something like a dance.

Nor could she,
Cyprian, merely point her fingers at the two people involved and say, "You
are matched with her!" Nothing could be less romantic than that. It would
be worse than having your mother pick your dates for you.

The two nymphs
and the three Graces were thinking the same thing I was. They were looking at
the men around the table speculatively, wondering whom the Lady had in mind. I
could see the girl with the bow, Euphrosyne, looked especially doubtful. I saw
her glance at the headless man, the man made out of wood, and the Satyr.

Of the men, it
was the two in business suits who seemed to catch on the quickest to what was
being implied.

The one with
the cell phone said, "I move a temporary adjournment, Mr. Chairman. We can
resume once a little bit of festive ... ah ... festivity has cleared the air of
lingering doubts."

The Atlantian,
Mestor, was looking speculatively at the Graces in the flowing togas, the
nymphs in their nudity. He spoke up, "I second the motion."

Without
waiting for a vote or any sign of consent, the other man in a business suit,
the one who had been typing on his laptop computer, stood and said, "I can
clear the Boundary Stone Table out of the way. I cannot manifest my true shape
in this paradigm, but I am sure the table will allow my powers to work,
here."

He opened his
coat and a billow of opaque mist flowed out from his chest. A stream of smoke
arched across the table. Other littie puffs of smoke separated from the main
mass and moved to positions at various points around the circumference.

I nudged
Quentin, whispering, "Look at this."

Hands came out
of the cloud: first ten, then a score, then more. The many arms were all
dressed as the man's original pair, with a foot of pressed blue pinstripe coat
sleeve showing, and an inch of white cuff, gold cufflinks and all. Most of the
left hands wore rings, but not all. Many of the right hands wore expensive gold
watches of various makes and models.

The hands
reached down and grabbed the table at half a hun-dred points around the
circumference. People and creatures rose with alarm from their seats and backed
away as the hands tensed. The man in the suit braced his feet and grunted.

The giant
table, which had taken workmen with pulleys and dollies hours to haul into
place, was picked up by the sixty or seventy disembodied hands, lifted lightly
into the air, and set on its side against one wall.

Quentin
whispered, "He is sending the animal humors and motive spirits out from
his arms and forming eidolons in midair to impersonate his hands, which he
moves by virtue of those humors."

I whispered
back, "We are seeing a polydimensional effect. The real creature is
four-dimensional; he is merely rotating more of his body into this
time-space."

The wooden
man, meanwhile, stalked over to where the floorboards had been pierced by the
javelin of the Soldier, stooped and ran his knotty twiggy fingers across the
whole. When he rose, the splinters were mended back together, the floorboards
were solid.

The Lady Cyprian
said, "Music! Where is the Siren who played so lovingly when we first
arrived? Where is Thelxiepia?"

Ap Cymru bowed
toward her. "With your permission, Madame, I shall fetch her."

The Lady
turned to the headless man (who had tucked his head carefully under one arm
when the table was yanked away), saying, "And will you favor us also with
a song, master of all bards, sage of mysteries? I see you brought your
instrument; surely, surely fate has treated you cruelly, but it was not I who
treated you cruelly. You have no reason to scorn my plea."

The severed
head, riding in the crook of an elbow, looked wry. "Madame, it was love
who enabled me to walk alive out of Hell; and, once I knew the secret pathways
back to the world of daylight, even my murderesses could not keep me buried. My
every song is devoted to you, now and ever. You, Only you, make sorrows
possible to bear."

With his other
hand he reached up and unslung his guitar. I was curious to see how he would
manage to strum and to finger a guitar while at the same time holding his head,
but at that moment, the Lady Cyprian gestured upward, and I thought she was
pointing straight at us.

Quentin and I
shrank back. But all she said was: "Lights! The chandelier is too low for
cavorting, especially should good Pherespondus jump and skip!"

The man in the
blue robe floated up to the level of the balcony, light as a thistledown, his
hair and shining cloak weightless and rippling in midair. Wings of azure were
unfolding from his back, each feather the color of the summer sky, but
apparently they were just for show, as he did not flap them but merely spread
them out, like an eagle on a heraldic emblem.

By some
miracle, he came up to the far side of the balcony, facing away from us and
toward the pulley mechanism that controlled the chandelier chain. A cloud of
opaque white smoke also billowed up from underfoot, and a dozen arms (clad in
impeccable blue pinstriped suit sleeves with white cuffs) reached out of the
smoke to give him a hand.

We crawled
backward as quickly as silence allowed, and were in the alcove and up a dozen
stairs before the winged man turned his head. At that point, there were tatters
of cloud between him and us.

I say
"crawled" but it was more like one long, carpet-hugging leap. The
whole journey seemed to take only the moment be-tween heartbeats and,
considering how my heart was hammer-ing at that time, mat moment must have been
a short one indeed.

We sat there,
not breathing, waiting to hear if the winged man would raise the alarm. But the
only noise that came was the rattling and groaning of the chandelier chain, as
the massive iron frame of the lights was hauled upward.

2.

Quentin looked
at me, then nodded toward the top of the stair, where the roof exit was. I
nodded back. It was time to retreat He crept quietly up the stairs, gesturing
for me to stay back. I was furious when I saw him wave his hand behind his back
at me. Me, two or three years his senior! It was somewhat pa-tronizing of him
to assume that, because I was the girl, I had to go second; and I knew he
probably picked this moment because we dared not talk, so I could not question
his silent order. He had also turned his head toward the exit above, so as not
to notice my rude gesture by which I answered him.

And I wasn't
going to push past him on the narrow stair; that might make a noise, too.

He squinted
out into the night, looked around carefully. He actually—I am not
kidding—he actually raised his walking stick like a periscope, and turned
the little brass jackal head this way and that.

Then,
satisfied, he rose to his feet and stepped out onto the roof.

Immediately,
he seemed to explode with light. I blinked, daz-zled. It was only a flashlight
beam, but it had caught him from the knees up. From the angle, it looked as if
the beam were coming from below, over the edge of the roof.

Quentin's back
and his left hand were still in shadow. He was blinking and raising his right
hand to shield his eyes.

He extended
his left hand toward me and dropped his walk-ing stick. I caught it before it clattered
on me stairs. Then with his now-empty left hand, Quentin pointed at me, and
made a thumb gesture like a hitchhiker. Go back. Get away.

Dr. Fell's
voice came up from over the edge of the roof. "Well, well, if it is not
our young Mr. Nemo. I was told to expect someone else, but I suppose you will
do. Come down, young man! I am to take anyone I find to Headmaster Boggin's
office, but I suppose, since he is occupied, we may have time to visit the
infirmary and discover from whence comes your amazing resistance to your
medication. You are me last person I would expect to be able to negate my
effects. I see certain magnetic anomalies around your person: tiiese are merely
material effects which material science has long since learned how to
comprehend and negate. Observe."

A beam of blue
light from me ground came up over the edge of the roof. Quentin stood
goggle-eyed at what he was seeing; the source of the blue light, I assume.
There seemed to be litde sparks or flickers of smaller particles flicking forward
through the light, like dust motes. The beam played back and forth over
Quentin.

By that point,
one very quiet stair at a time, I had reached the bottom of the alcove again.
There was a nook behind the potted plant where even someone standing on the balcony
would not be able to see me.

I sat down
there with my head down, clutching Quentin's walking stick. I felt glad that I
hadn't been caught. That thought made me feel like a miserable coward.

I huddled into
a smaller ball when, some minutes later (though it seemed like hours), I heard
the happy talk and laughter from below give way to charming music of violin and
guitar.

3.

Time seemed to
stop when I heard mat music, and all my grief fled away, as if a light shone
through my heart, and no darkness could be there.

The music
seemed eternal to me, as if it came from a higher, finer sphere, and made all
this, what we call "reality," seem flat.

A type of
numbness came over me then, not of any limb or organ I could name or point to.
I had a sense that there was a part of me that was being squeezed or strangled.
I cannot explain it any clearer than that.

It is not as
if I had not heard Miss Daw play before. I had, every day, and twice on
Sundays. I knew her hand on the violin; I knew she could bring emotion out of
the inanimate wood and catgut that infused and inspired every soul in earshot.

But this was
different. Perhaps it was because this type of cheerful, voluptuous music was
not normally what she played. Perhaps she was playing more strongly than was
her wont, for an audience with stronger spirits than mine, and she let appear a
strength and a magic in her songs she kept cloaked when around us. Perhaps when
she played for me in class there was a deliberate policy guiding what she
exposed me to, how quickly or slowly she allowed her influence to seep into the
haunting songs.

Or perhaps it
was because she was in duet with the headless man. His guitar notes floated up,
and, above and behind the melody and harmony, his soul seemed expressed in
song; and his soul spoke of escape, of release, of flight to the light beyond
the dark places of the world.

For whatever
reason, I was now aware of a quality in her mu-sic that I had never noticed
before, not consciously. It was like ice. It stunned something in me, made it numb.

I tucked the
walking stick under one arm and put my fingers into my ears. It did not help. I
had to get away, and quickly.

4.

I am sure the
wisest direction to flee would have been straight up stairs to the roof. From
there, I could go down by the scaffolding.

I had two
reasons against it. First, I did not know where the scaffolding was in relation
to the windows of the Great Hall. I might be plainly visible walking down the
workmen's scaffold. Second, even though I should assume Dr. Fell left his post
to go do something horrible to Quentin—Quentin whom I had aban-doned to
his fate—I could not shake the eerie feeling that the door to the roof
was still being watched.

I had been in
this building before, on several occasions, de-spite that it was never used for
classes. The balcony went in a circle around the base of the dome and opened up
into two corridors opposite each other, which ran the main length of the
building. At me end of either corridor was a staircase. In both cases, the foot
of me stair ended in an antechamber, which also held the main doors outside.
Unfortunately, in both cases, the antechambers opened via a short corridor
through an archway directly into what was now a ballroom, with no doors
blocking the way. If only for a moment, I would be visible to the people in the
room.

I decided to
make for the Eastern corridor. Anything else re-quired walking or crawling
around 180 degrees of the balcony, in plain view (now that the chandelier light
shone full upon it) of anyone below who happened to look up.

So down the
corridor I went, softly, still half-benumbed by me music. There were tall doors
to my left and right, offices of the School Administration, I supposed, or
perhaps the living quarters of the Talbot family, should they ever return to their
estate.

I took the
stairs two at a time, for now the music had segued into a foxtrot or jig of
some sort, and many feet were galloping on the floor, and I could not keep
still, hearing it.

I was at the
second landing, where the stairs switchbacked, before I heard, over the noise
which was masking my descent, the sound of several feet ascending the stair I
was about to step around the corner onto.

I was on the
second floor. It was quicker to open the door and slip through it than it was
to run back up the stairs.

I slipped mto
the darkened room, pushed the door shut (quickly but sofdy), and stood with my
hand on the door, listening, trying to control my breathing.

From the voice
I knew it was Pherespondus the Satyr, and the red-furred fox.

"... I am
only saying, Vulpino, that Nemestrinus of Arcadian Wood has a natural harmony
of interests with Anacreon."

"Some
call the Lord Vintner a traitor god."

"Certainly,
a traitor. And yet I wonder what strong reason im-pelled him to that treachery?
He was the first to traffick with the Fallen Uranians. What could they have
told him? They are as old as Cosmos, and know the secrets of its
construction."

"You
think the young Uranians will offer victory to whichever side ends up in
control of them. Why? Are you say-ing Morpheus in Cimmeria... or Helios from
Myriagon ... will assist our... ?" Mutter mutter. I could not hear the end
of the question. The fox had a soft voice.

"Boreas
is ambitious ... sell out to whomever..." Murmur murmur. The voices
trailed off.

5.

With the door
shut, and the music muffled, my head felt slightly clearer. With my eyes
closed, I thought I could tell what the music was doing: it seemed to be
flattening or normalizing time-space in the local area. By some intuition, I
now knew what part of myself was suffering pins-and-needles like a limb with
its circulation impaired. This part of me did not have a name, but it was the
part I used to deflect normal straight-line gravity paths and lift massive
objects that boys stronger than me could not lift.

Now I was more
afraid of the music than I was of being seen, and I did not want to open the
door.

I turned my
head. There was a little moonlight leaking in through the windows here, made
bright by reflections from the snow below. This was a corner room, and there
were windows looking East and South. There was a desk, a bookshelf, and a squat
metal cabinet to one side. There was no other door out.

I went over to
the South window. I had been thinking that the second floor might be low enough
to jump down from, if I hung from my hands before dropping. One look out the
window banished that notion. The first floor of the building was double normal
height. But I could see the corner of the portico leading to the main doors. A
sloping roof, wide pillars... too wide to shimmy down? Maybe not.

But there were
wires running from the window frame to the panes. An alarm system. Victor, who
knew all about such things, was not here. For once in my life, I actually felt
like the helpless female Quentin had been pretending I was. I didn't know what
to do when I saw those wires, except wish wistfully that Victor were here.

Maybe the
other window was unalarmed?

I walked
around the desk to step to the East window when the walking stick... moved ...
in my hand.

I froze.
Something had twisted the jackal-headed cane in my grip, so now the muzzle was
pointed toward the cabinet.

Magic? Maybe.

I stepped over
to the cabinet. They were a heavy steel construction, not at all in keeping
with the rather tasteful wooden decor of the room. The doors did not open. They
did not even budge when I tugged on them. There were two locks and a keypad,
and the locks were on opposite sides of the main panel, making it almost
impossible for one person to turn both locks at once. The whole affair was bolted
to the floor in eight places. It looked like the kind of safe in which you put
documents you want to be left intact after a Russian missile attack. The safe
looked so massive... too massive ...

There was a
noise coming from inside, which I could dimly hear, or feel, when my hand was
on the cabinet. It sounded like the chiming whine of a wineglass, which rings
because a violin note of the proper harmonic resonance is played too nearby.

Something
inside the cabinet was reacting to the music in the hall.

The numb part
of me stirred and trembled, when I put my right hand on the top of the case,
and heard that ringing crystal chime. If the music had not been dimly echoing
into the room from beyond, I might have been able to sense what that inner part
of me was trying to tell me.

And then, the
violin music wound into a sultry crescendo. Silence fell. I heard a scattering
of applause. Calls: "Bravo!" And a pause. The musicians had finished
their first song of the evening.

Silence.

I wiped my
palm on my pants leg and put it back atop the cabinet. Something ... massive
... was inside the cabinet...

... something
whose mass was greater than its volume and density could account for...

I could see it
in my mind's eye, almost as if I were looking past the walls of the case. Past,
not through. If a three-dimensional man saw a safe built by Mr. A Square of
Flatland, it would look like a rectangle to him. No matter how thick the lines
in the plane were drawn, nothing could prevent the three-dimensional man from
merely looking ... over... me boundary ...

But this was
not... over... I was looking ... another direc-, tion...

I saw it There
were other objects in the case. They were flat, merely three-dimensional: a
book, a phial of liquid, a playing card, a necklace.

The final object
was a sphere, a globe of gold-white crystal. It was round in all directions,
all dimensions.

A normal
sphere had a volume described by four-thirds of the cube of its radius times
pi. The surface area was the same as a sphere—I could see that—but
the volume ... the hypervol- ume... was half its radius to the fourth power,
multiplied by a square of pi.

I began to
reach out my hand in the direction that I had never been able to see before. I
cannot tell you what direction it was.

My hand grew
glittery with light, turned reddish, and seemed to shrink...

With a
triumphant glissando of notes, the music started up again. The dream, or
delusion, or whatever it was, ended. I suddenly could not imagine what I was
doing, could not picture in my mind the direction I could not see. I could not
visualize or understand how a sphere could be anything but a sphere. And I
could not imagine seeing through solid walls ...

The walls of
the cabinet snapped shut on my hand. I felt a pressure on my wrist, but my eyes
would not focus. It looked like the stump of my hand ended in a red haze, flat
against the surface of the cabinet.

I squinted,
trying to correct my vision. What was I seeing? I could feel the curved surface
of the sphere... full, not flat... just beyond my fingertips, my hand... Almost
touching ...

I yanked my
hand back with hysterical fury, afraid that it had been severed.

No; there it
was, not a stump. My beautiful hand.

Little reddish
dots and little blue dots floated toward and away from my hand for a moment,
and my hand felt far heavier than it had been. But then the dots were gone, or
they had never been there... or... they had moved off in two different
directions. Directions I could no longer point to, or imagine, even though,
just a moment ago, I had been able to. .    My hand was normal weight
again.

6.

Have you ever
wondered whether you were insane? It is not a pleasant notion.

Standing there
in the dark, I made a resolution to myself, that I was not. No matter what I
saw or thought I saw, there was a ra-tional explanation for it. I may never
know the explanation, but I could know that it existed without knowing its
content. Algebra can manipulate numbers without knowing meir values; I could do
the same for my knowledge.

So I vowed to
myself I was not insane. And, despite my ag-nosticism, I prayed to the
Archangel Gabriel to tell his boss, whoever He might be, to make my vow not one
vowed in vain.

7.

If I were not
insane, what was the next logical step to take?

I put my hand
on the case. The sphere inside was still hum-ming or ringing as the music
flattened the space it attempted to occupy. I got into a sprinter's stance and
faced the Eastern win-dow. And then I waited for the next break in me music.

Miss Daw would
have to take a breather at some point, or the headless man would be called on
to play a solo ...

The foxtrot
ended. The applause was more uian the few people in the ballroom could account
for. Maybe the men in the blue business suits were clapping with all their
clouds of hands.

This time, I
could clearly see the sphere, extending "above" and "below"
the hyperplane of three-dimensional space in smooth hemispheres. It was still
ringing with the echo of me shock the music had delivered to it; the sound was
somehow something like light, and it allowed me to see the direction I had not
been able to see before.

The shock
waves the hypersphere gave off were only "sound" along one surface
(hypersurface?) of the concentrically expanding ripples of pressure. There were
other surfaces, five more of mem, all at right angles to each other, producing
other types of vibration aside from the pressure waves created by the music:
the first axis gave off energy of a type that made the internal nature of
objects clear to the reason, the way light makes the surface of objects clear
to the eye; the second shed an energy that made clear to the will what objects
were useful or useless; the third showed the conscience what moral obligations
one was under; the fourth showed the understanding the degree of causality or
indeterminateness an object enjoyed, as if measuring the number of future paths
or probabilities each event shed. And there was one other form of energy or
being-ness I could not account for, shining from the fifth and final axis. But
something (could it have been that final energy form?) made all of what I was
seeing so clear and familiar to me, it was as if information and understanding
was being poured into my memory, as if it had always been there.

Somehow, in
the fourth dimension, concepts that to humans were merely abstractions, dim
shadows human reason could only guess at, were vivid and solid.

By the shine
of that light, by the echo of mat ringing, I could see how to move past and
beyond the window without moving through it. I could see how the surface of
time-space was curv-ing toward me, based on the gravity distortions from the
Earth's mass. All I needed to do was do to myself what I had done to the heavy
door earlier this evening. Now that I could actually "see" the fan of
world-paths spread out in shining lines from me and detect, with another new
sense impression, the ponderous curve of space-time where me Earth's mass was
distorting it, it was child's play to divert the forces so that I would fall
more slowly, with less kinetic energy. A thirty-foot drop was nothing. I could
practically step there ...

I jumped. The
world turned blue, and seemed to swell and fade in my vision. The walls and the
window and the ground outside turned into gigantic things, huge, like walls of
mist and cloud.

Something ...
a trio of somethings ... was behind me. First seemed like a wheel: beautiful,
pale, intricate, surrounded by many lesser wheels, with eyes and darts of fire
radiating from each spoke, circle within epicycle, delicate and baroque. The
second and the third were both roughly cone shaped, clusters of ugly knots and,
along the outer surfaces of the knots, clusters and hands and fingers reached
out in each direction.

I had
miscalculated. The distances from the cabinet to the window to the ground were
not me same in four dimensions as they had been in diree.

And the light
from me sphere fell off much more sharply than I expected. The hyperlight was
dim a meter from me cabinet; it was sixteen times more dim at two meters;
eighty-one times more dim at three. It was practically pitch black when I
passed "over" the space occupied by the window, and I could no longer
"see" the direction I was supposed to go.

The space-time
occupied by Earth was like a plane spread before me, less than an inch
"below" me. But when the sphere light was gone, I lost sight of it.

The universe
was an inch or two away. I could not see it.

9

Otherspace l.

Nothing I can
say can convey the horror. If I had been an astro-naut on a space walk with a
severed umbilical hose, countless light-years outside the galaxy, outside the
local cluster of galax-ies, I still would have been closer to home than I was
at that mo-ment. Because I still would have been in the same dimension.

The thing
behind me, the pale wheel surrounded by lesser wheels, dipped one curving diameter
into the plane I could not see, and rotated it The wheels were made of what, in
three di-mensions, were sounds to be heard sequentially, linearly, in time.

We call it a
song. But it is not. In this place, each composition was one simultaneous thing,
eternal and unchanging, every part and every note existing in geometric
relation to one perfect and harmonious whole.

I called the
tiny crystalline echo ringing from the sphere in the cabinet a shock wave. It
was not. It was a small sound, really.

This was not
small. This was gigantic. This was larger than worlds.

With a force
like a hundred earthquakes, like a storm front of unguessed power, an explosion
filled hyperspace, blinding me, numbing my whole body. It was like being mashed
in a trash compactor.

And then...

;       I 2.

I struck the
snow with considerable force. My body was shak-ing with the shock of ice-cold
that ran through me.

There was a
haze of red and blue particles around me for a moment I tried to get to my
hands and knees, and was poleaxed by a blinding pain.

I vomited.
Snow, a slurry of snowflakes, gushed from my mouth. How had snow gotten in my
stomach?

I had the
horrible, horrible image of a two-dimensional person being forced into the same
flat plane as a two-dimensional patch of snow. His skin would just be a line;
all his internal organs would be occupying the same place as the snow. Was snow
in my veins, in my abdomen, my lungs? Inside my eyes and skull? In every cell?

Another moment
of pain: my whole skin turned red. For a moment, I gave off a shaking shock
wave similar to what the hypersphere had done; but something was carried with
it. A cascade of shimmering red sparks of not-light flung snow in every
direction around me, several pounds of it.

Then, it was
over.

I blinked and
looked around. There was an imprint around me in the snow. It looked more like
an elongated snow angel than anything I can name. Whatever body had made this
was long and streamlined, with wings and lines radiating from it. There were no
footprints leading up to the imprint.

I was outside
the Great Hall, about twenty yards from the front doors. The windows behind me
were lit. I could see the rest of the campus, quiet in the moonlight.

Dimly, I could
hear the faint, beautiful strains of Miss Daw's violin, playing a waltz by
Strauss.

I rose to my
feet and stumbled away, shaking, in the moon-light. Quentin's walking stick was
still in my hand. As I came near the Manor House where our rooms were, I used
it more and more to support my steps. 3.

It was slow
and painful walking through the snow, and it grew slower and more painful as I
went.

I passed by
the window of the boys' dorm as I came around the comer to the Manor House.
There was a rope hanging from an upper cornice, knotted with care.

I looked at
that rope with infinite hatred. Hatred, because I ached in every limb, and had
pains in my knees like someone suffering the bends. And because I knew Victor
and Colin had been drugged, as had been Vanity. Even though one of us had been
caught, we were still to hide any evidence of what we had done or how we had
done it. It was one of Victor's rules.

So I climbed
the rope. Usually, a rope climb up thirty feet would have taken me thirty
seconds. This time, it took me thirty minutes, or more. Maybe an hour. It was
cold, it was dark, I was in pain, and it was so very late.

I finally got
to the window. It was dark inside. And locked. I couldn't open it.

It was only
then that I realized that I could have picked up the sphere, the hypersphere in
the locked cabinet, just before I jumped. I could have taken it with me. Had I
taken it, I would have it now. I would be able to cast its hyperlight into the
fourth dimension, see the objects around me as the flat things they really
were, reach through walls, open locks, walk through windows...

I tapped on
the window as loudly as I dared, and called softly to the boys to let me in.
Now I was sure they had been drugged. Colin would not have passed up the chance
to have me come into his bedroom at night, cold and in need of comfort.

Well, there
was nothing else to do. I pulled that stupid walk-ing stick out of my belt (it
had been clattering and banging dur-ing my whole trip up the rope) and rucked
it into the snow that had accumulated on the wide stone surface of the
windowsill. As I did so, my fingers touched something.

I brushed the
snow aside and found a tiny cup, made out of pink wax, or maybe hardened bubble
gum. The cup was crudely made, with fingerprints still visible in the waxy
surface. In the bowl of the cup there was a blue fluid, which had frozen into a
little pebble of ice. I was frankly too weary to wonder what it was.

Five or ten
minutes of work with my cold and unresponsive fingers, and I pulled up the rope
and slung it over the cornice, which was now my pulley. In the other end I made
a sling (tied off with a proper bowline) to set my hips in. Now I could simply
lower myself by letting out rope and, when I reached the bottom, one yank would
bring the rest of the slack down with me.

That worked as
planned. It was the only thing so far which had gone right that evening.

With the rope
on my shoulder, I went over to our window. I called softly, and threw pebbles
against the window. Nothing. Vanity did not answer.

So I walked
(even more slowly, now that I no longer had the cane to lean on) over to the
gardens behind the Manor House, and hid the coil in one of our agreed-upon
spots.

As I walked, I
thought: Why? Why did Quentin, who could levitate, need a rope to get out of
his bedroom window?

And then I
thought, in anger and disgust, why had I gone to such trouble to hide the rope,
when I was about to be caught myself? I had no other way into the Manor House,
unless I broke a window, except by the main door. Even if no one was there, and
I made it upstairs unseen, whatever spell or alarm system Vanity had sensed
Boggin lay down on the door to my room would reveal me once I opened the door
to my room.

Well, there
was nothing else to do. I was too cold to think of anything else. I marched
quite boldly and bravely up to the main doors.

And, as I
passed a copse of bushes, I saw a group of foot-prints in the snow. They were
prints from a woman's shoe, and from the kind of woman who would wear high
heels in the snow. Miss Daw. She had been posted here, watching the front
doors.

Well, that
reminded me of the prints I was leaving all over the place. Maybe they would
melt when the sun came up, maybe not. I tore a branch from the bush, and
dragged it behind me as I came to the front door.

I stood on the
steps with the branch in my hand, wondering where to hide the thing. Then I
laughed and tucked it into the bushes to one side of the door, the same place
Vanity and I had been biding when Mr. Glum's dog had passed us by. The front
door was unlocked. I stepped into the entrance hall. And my eyes fell upon,
yes, indeed, the old grandfather clock.

4.

Because
Vanity, earlier this evening (how long ago it seemed!) had not been able to
work the secret latch in our room to open the door to the hidden passage, I was
not sanguine about my chances. I was assuming she was actually doing
something— manipulating reality, doing magic, something—to create
the tunnels out of thin air.

But when I
went over to the clock, and opened the glass door, I could see that the back
panel of the clock was not true to the frame. There was a little crack around
the edges. Vanity and I had never shut the panel closed behind us when we went
back this way.

This time, I
waited to time the swings of the pendulum, pushed the panel open with my hand,
waited for the pendulum to swing back, stepped quickly in, waited a third time,
darted a hand out past the hissing pendulum, yanked the outer glass door
partway shut, waited, reached, pulled the door shut, waited, reached, secured
the door, and then backed into the stairs, sliding the panel almost all the way
shut. I wanted to leave the same crack I had found, in case I needed to use
these passages some time again when Vanity was not around.

I was glad
space was warped here, for now I had only to climb seven steps, duck my head,
and crawl. Now I was on the same level as the third floor. At least, I did not
have to climb two and three flights of stairs.

I crawled. I
waved my hand in the air in front of me when-ever it began to seem really
heavy, for it had been heavy when I was doing quadradimensional effects, and I
was trying to pro-duce the red or blue sparks I had seen, in order to create a
light to illuminate the black space I crawled through. Once or twice I thought
I saw lights floating, but these were the same lights any-one will see who is tired,
and in pain, in pitch darkness, with her eyes blurred with strain. Pain has a
funny way of focusing the mind. Only what hurts matters. Whatever else you used
to think about before is as re-mote and unimportant as who won some argument
you had as a child. You think about moving your right hand, and then you think
about moving your left. You don't think about moving your right knee until the
time comes to do it; if you worried prematurely about such things, the burden
and the despair would be too much, and you would slump down in the dust, and
cry. You don't think about how nice it would be just to lie down in this coffin
of a corridor, or else you won't get up. You don't think about how to find the
secret door to your room, which, unlike last time, is closed, and giving off no
light, and you don't think about the fact that you don't know where the switch
or latch is to open it from this side.

And you do not
think about the fact that you took a wrong turn in the dark somewhere. That
would make you cry, too.

You don't want
to cry because you are the strong one in the group, really, me mature one.
Practically an adult. Heroines in books don't cry.

But, despite
the pain, you do keep one hand on the wall be-tween crawls, to feel for the
hinges where the door is. Those big, odd W-shaped hinges can't be hidden.

Also, it is
important to remember not to crawl through spi-derwebs. You were only here
yesterday, so no spider (which should not come out in winter anyway) would have
had time to construct a new one. If you feel a spiderweb you are on the wrong
path.

And, when your
hand does come across the huge, ungainly W-shaped hinge, it is important to
remember that you are in a corridor only three feet high, because if you raise
your head too fast, or try to jump for joy, you will bang your head with a loud
noise on the stones above you. Ouch.

Good thing you
are still wearing your lucky aviatrix cap. The leather, with all that hair
tucked under it, offers some protection.

And then a
voice comes: "What noise was that noise, friend Fraud?" 5.

The voice of
Mr. ap Cymru answered him: "What noise, Excel-lency?'

"Hush! It
may be our little wandering wanton, back from her peripatetic
peregrinations."

A moment of
silence crawled past even more slowly than I had been crawling. Fear, and the
bump on my head, had cleared my wits somewhat. I could hear the voices had come
through the wall; through the very hidden door panel I had my hand on.

After a while,
ap Cymru said, "Excellency, I don't think..."

"'Then
you shouldn't speak!' Aha Ha! Loyalest of all my disloyal loyalists, I hereby
forbid you from feeding me such obtusely obvious straight lines again. I
declare this declaration to be an imperial one, and I will backdate it to this
day once I am Imperator. Now be quiet more quietly."

I moved my
hand back and forth across the panel. A metal nub came under my thumb, with a
smaller nub projecting from it. When I pushed, the metal nub slid in a
semicircle, and a peephole opened.

So there
actually were peepholes, after all.

The ray of light
was brilliant after my long darkness. I put my eye to it, was dazzled for a
moment, and then saw where I was.

I was looking
at the Common Room. The door was open. Through the door, I could see partway
down the corridor, and see the huge oaken door to my room. Even from here, I
could see the padlock was open, hanging like a metal question mark, threaded
through the eye of the open hasp.

In the Common
Room, I saw the one television we were al-lowed was on, witii the sound turned
down. It was BBC2, and they were showing a game show. I have no idea what their
normal programming is at 2:00 in the morning, but that seemed strange.

Next to a
table littered with cigarette butts, a man was standing facing away from me,
leaning his bottom, almost sitting, on a long black umbrella. He had on a
yellow mackintosh, and, peeping over the edge of his collar and cuffs, I could
see the white folds of a heavy wool sweater. From behind, I could tell that he
had long black hair, as long as mine.

Despite the
heavy cold-weather gear on the upper half of his body, his legs were sheathed
in skintight fabric of garish green and black Lycra, like the pants
professional bicyclists wear. They came to about midcalf. His feet were bare,
except for some athletic tape he had wrapped around his lower calf and the
balls of his feet. His toes and ankles were bare.

He had the
legs of an athlete; his thighs and calves were knotted with muscle, but sleek
and steel-hard, and the skintight leggings showed it off.

For a moment,
I thought he had a stiff, black tail on which he rested his weight. But no.

The tightly
wound black umbrella on which he half-leaned, half-sat, was one of the type
with a large stirrup-shaped handle mat unfolds into a tiny stool seat. The
handle was unfolded at the moment, and he was using it as designed.

After what I
had seen this evening, a man sitting on an umbrella-stick did not seem that
odd. Of course, there were several perfectly fine seats and an overstuffed
couch in the student Common Room, so maybe it was odd after all.

Tucked under
one arm was what looked like a metal Frisbee, or maybe a pie plate. That was
odd, just because I wasn't sure what it was.

When two
lengths of electrical cable moved on the floor, and turned out to be not
electrical cable at all, but two snakes, one white and one black, things
started looking more odd.

Mr. ap Cymru
came into view.

He was
crawling along the ceiling like a spider.

His arms and
legs were twisted backwards in their joints in a fashion that was hard to
describe and horrid to look at. His feet were flat on the ceiling, witii his
heels pointed inward and his toes pointed outward; his knees extended in two
great triangles past his bottom. His elbows, likewise, were waving in the air
at angles no unbroken human bones could achieve. And his hands—which
seemed to be exuding some sticky sap or gunk—were placed so that his
fingers were all turned toward him and his thumbs were pointing away from his
body. The whole thing looked like something Colin had done to his soldier dolls
back when he got tired of them, the ones with fully posable limbs.

OK. This was
certainly odd.

Ap Cymru
rotated his head through 180 degrees like an owl, and spoke down toward the
other man: "Excellency, that noise did not sound like a footstep."

"Ho hem.
Maybe it was the sound of someone's grade aver-age falling. This is alleged to
be a school, you know. It is an ex-cellent place to learn a lesson. Would you
like me to teach you a lesson, Fraud?"

"Excellency,
I have not betrayed you."

"And you
give me your word, as a traitor?"

"Whom
have I betrayed, Excellency?"

"Boreas
told you his plans in confidence."

"Sir, he
did not explicitly say not to tell you."

"Hum hemp
hump. Well, I can see that. How could he over-look to say, by-the-by, don't
spill my plans to the one person everyone minks is dead, buried alive, having
fallen farther than an anvil dropped from the zenith can fall in nine times the
space mat measures day and night, into the Tartarian Pit, after having been
shot in the mouth and the eye by the Queen of Huntresses, whose bow of certain
death leaves no prey alive? Yes, you are right. An obvious angle. The windbag
should have covered it. Hired a lawyer before speaking to you."

"Lord,
why would I lie to you?"

"Why
would the Goddess of Lies in disguise lie to the Father of Lies? Hmm ... let me
think..."

"Boreas
had schemed to lure the Uranian girl from her room tonight, in such a fashion
as to put her in his debt. Perhaps she is less venturesome than he
assumed."

"No, she
is merely more clever than he assumed. No matter."

Now the man in
the mackintosh jumped to his feet, snatching up the umbrella from behind him.
He snapped the handle shut and struck a pose.

"I am a
god, one of the Twelve! Boreas is a god as well, true, but his domain is only
over the air that moves between north-northwest and north-northeast. My angle
of action is larger.

"Fate is
my toy to toy with as I will. I ordained that what Boreas wove into the
tapestry of destined things would come unravelled. I ordained that the girl
would find her bauble tonight; it has happened, or will. I ordained that she
and I would meet; I assume she is watching us now. "Little girl, wherever
you are, in this dimension or in another, hear my words: I am your friend at a
time when you will need friends most needfully. I offer you rescue, advice as
honest as will suit my needs, power, glory, wealth, blah, blah, blah. The whole
nine yards. I will grant you three wishes, but do not ask for immortality
without asking for eternal youth. Think it over.

"OK,
lesson over. Were you taking notes, Taffy ap Cymru? That is how to be a master
of intrigue."

Ap Cymru
rotated his head left and right. "Do you say she is in this room,
invisible?"

"No. She
is in plain sight, just not in our plain sight. Time's up! Are you going to
turn me in?"

"Sir?"

"You
could get a very good price for my head."

"Excellency,
you will give me a better price for helping you keep it on your shoulders. When
you are Father of Gods, make me Father of Lies."

"Oh, well
said, Taffy. Well said. There is hope for you yet."

The man
whistled, and poked his umbrella at his snakes. They wound up the shaft of the
umbrella in two spirals, and rested their heads, facing each other, along the
stirrup-shaped handle.

"Oh dear.
Now I am not going to be able to get my umbrella open. I do hope it doesn't
rain. I always hate the weauier in En-gland," the man said, moving toward
the window. I now saw his face. He wore an eyepatch over one eye. There was
something metallic in his mouth. It looked like his tongue was made of gold.

With no further
ado, he put the pie plate on his head, flung open the sash, and stepped out
onto the windowsill. A white vi-bration, like litde wings beating too swiftly
to be seen, flickered into existence around his ankles. He shot up into me
night sky like a rocket. IO

'Dreams and
^Misdirection

l.

Because I
could see my door from where I was, I now knew (assuming no space warps got in
the way) about how far I would have to crawl to make the corner around the
Common Room, and how far it was from there to the girls' dorm. I could even
guess about how many crawl-steps it would take, using the distance from my hip
to the shoulder as a unit measure.

Well, it took
longer than I thought. I also assumed that, if Vanity had not actually built
these tunnels out of her own imagination, the designer had meant them to be
used. Which meant he expected people to be crawling or duckwalking, perhaps in
the dark. Surely he would make the latches to open the secret panels easy to
find, easy to manipulate. And yet he would probably not make them intrude into
the corridor way where someone could trip on them. Where would he put the
latch?

There were
grooves cut in the floorboards on which my hands and knees rested. They were
evenly spaced every few feet and, for every ten grooves, a double groove. When
I came upon a triple groove at about the place my calculations told me the
panel to my room was, I put out my hand and found the huge W-shaped hinges
right there in the frame.

Feeling
around, I detected four latch mechanisms. These were little boxes, one at each
side of the frame. They were connected by a cruciform of short arms to a metal
boss or nub in the center. This was the nub that covered the peephole. To open
the door one had to slide aside the circular flap of metal covering the peephole,
then pull the flap upright and rotate it. In other words, the door latch, when
folded flat, covered the peephole. It was impossible to open one of these doors
without first having the opportunity to see what was waiting on the other side.

I don't remember
crawling into bed. I don't remember whether I tried to wake the drugged Vanity
or not. I do remember it was cold.

2.

I dreamed that
night that I was Secunda once more, and that Quentin was a toddler. We were
sitting on the stairs tiiat led to the kitchen, and I had some food Cook had
given me: slices of apple, sections of banana and cucumber, some dates, and
slices of hard-boiled egg with salt. I was trying to teach Quentin his letters.
I was giving him a bite of whatever fruit or what-have-you whose letter he
could tell me. Unfortunately his favorite letter was 'W,' and I did not have
any fruits whose name started with diat, until Cook (who, when I was small, was
a giant) came looming over me like a starched white pillar of cloud, with a
mushroom-shaped paper hat far, far above.

Cook stooped
over and handed me a bowl with slices of wa-termelon in it.

I knew
(because it had happened in real life) mat Quartinus and Primus were about to
come running around the corner, and mat Quartinus would steal the watermelon
slices out of my bowl, and that I would run him down. He would throw the slices
into the dirt under the bushes rather than give them back, and I would drub him
until Primus told me not to beat my juniors. Quentin would cry.

But, at the
moment, before all that happened, it was a beauti-ful scene, and little
Quentin's face (smeared with bits of banana and egg) lit up like sunshine when
I told him he had to spit the seeds. I remember how I pulled him up to sit in
my lap while we ate watermelon, just as if I were the Mommy he didn't have.

One of the
eggs in my bowl chipped and cracked and hatched open. Through the broken pieces
of shell I could see an endless darkness, streamers of stars and
constellations, and, very tiny, in the center of the egg, a castle made of
silver crystal and rainbow mist. A small voice said, "The Son of
Sable-vested Night sends greetings to the fair Princess Phaethusa, daughter of
Helion the Bright, one of those who yet remain, who knew and ruled the world
ere King Adam's reign.

"Nausicaa
must stand upon the boundary stone, and grant passage to the power from
Myriagon, your home. Recall that thoughts are all recalled by thought and
thought alone; undo the magic of mere matter, and the night of no-memory shall
break. I grant you shall recall this when you wake."

3.

I was
expecting to be bruised all over, maybe bleeding internally, maybe dead that
next morning. None of that happened. I do not know what the symptoms of
fourth-dimensional shock are supposed to be, or how anyone can live who has had
snow pressed into the fluid cells and internal cavities of every major organ,
but apparently my body adjusted rather quickly.

The morning
was miserable nonetheless. Usually mere is time in the morning for Vanity and
me to talk and swap tales. This morning, however, I was tired and she was still
sleepy and dopey from the drug. When I tried to tell her all the things that
had happened last night, she murmured a few confused questions. She was under
the impression Quentin and I had gone off to a waltz party in the Great Hall,
that he had kissed me, that I had stolen his walking stick, and that a strange
drunk had thrown himself to his death out of the window of the Common Room.

Usually it was
Mrs. Wren who got us up, dressed in our uni-forms, scrubbed and ready for
breakfast. Today, for some rea-son, it was Sister Twitchett, the school nurse.

There the two
of us were, queued up (as queued up as two people can be) in our starched
shirts and neckties and plaid skirts. (I hate those skirts—why couldn't I
wear jeans to class? What I wore on my legs did not affect my brain.) And I was
grinding my teeth in frustration. I hated Dr. Fell at that moment wim a red
hate that was sour in my stomach.

Not only had
he kidnapped Quentin, maybe killed him, but Dr. Fell had doped up Vanity so
that she could not concentrate when I tried to tell her the news I was bursting
to tell her. What is the point of news if you cannot tell your friends? My
favorite thing in life was to find out how people would react to things. Now
there was no reaction.

Down the
corridors we marched, down three flights. We passed the Entrance Hall. Someone
(maybe me?) had left the front door open, and snow had blown in to stain the
front carpet. The dirt Vanity and I had spilled from the potted plant in the
alcove the night before last had not been cleaned up yet.

Both these
little signs of decay made me wonder. The corri-dors were also unwontedly
silent. The grandfather clock showed that we were being brought to breakfast
somewhat later than was our wont. Where was everybody?

Vanity was
looking a little more chipper and bright-eyed after our march through cold
halls. Maybe the exercise woke her up a bit. By the time we were escorted up to
where the three boys were waiting in their blue blazers, ties crooked, and
yawning, Vanity was alert enough to whisper to me, "I thought you said he
was missing!"

There was
Quentin, looking sadder and more introspective than usual. There was something
dark and grim in his features, an expression I usually associate with Colin.
But it was an unrelieved sort of darkness, without the sarcastic smile and
savage humor, which Colin struck like sparks in his dark.

I was so
relieved that I broke ranks (as much rank as two people can be in) and ran
across the hall to him. He looked so astonished when I threw my arms around
him, and he looked so young that, for a moment, I thought he was the
five-year-old Quentin I used to push around in Mr. Glum's wheelbarrow.

"Quentin!"
I exclaimed. "I thought you were dead! What happened last night?"

His expression
was lost, hopeless. "I don't remember. It's gone. The last thing I
remember was palming his foul medicine. I woke up in the infirmary. Dr. Fell
was ... he ..."

Sister
Twitchett came up behind me. "Miss Windrose! No talking! This is blatant
insubordination. Get back in line this in-stant, or I shall have to bring your
name to the attention of the Headmaster!"

I turned on
her, blazing eyed. "And what is he going to do, kill me? Kill us all?
Throw us down into Hell? I will remember you, Twitchett. Do you want to be my
enemy? I will not be a child forever." And I realized that, by saying that
as I did, I was, as of that moment, no longer a child.

For a moment,
I no longer feared them.

But the moment
passed. I shrank back as the Sister advanced on me.

"Miss
Windrose! This is unprecedented. You shall certainly be placed on report. You
will behave yourself this instant! Apologize and take your place in line!"

I opened my
mouth, but Victor coughed. His glance at me told me this was not the most
opportune time, from a tactical point of view, for this scene.

So I merely
apologized and took my place in line.

Twitchett
knocked on the door of the kitchen. Mr. Glum's voice answered. We all marched
in and took our seats.

No one was
there except for Mr. Glum, and he had bags un-der his eyes and looked even more
foul-tempered than usual. Sister Twitchett turned us over to him.

Our usual
breakfast with china plates and centerpieces, folded napkins, and so on, was
not there. There was nothing on the table except cold cereal. There was not
even milk. Cook and Cook's assistant were not present.

Victor said,
"What's going on? Where's our breakfast?"

Mr. Glum said
sourly, "No talkin'. Rule o' silence and all mat." He was seated at
his usual place in the window box, not at the main table with us.

Colin said,
"I need a proper breakfast with bacon and eggs. Otherwise I might have
another fit of epilepsy."

"Shut
up," said Glum.

"It's a
medical condition! Dr. Fell said so! You can ask him, if you like. Where is
he?"

Glum squinted
angrily at him. "You shut up, or I'll give you a lip so fat 'twill stop up
that hole in your face like a cork!"

I had seen
Mrs. Wren at breakfast too often not to know the signs. Mr. Glum had a
hangover.

It was Quentin
who spoke up next. "If you please, Mr. Glum, can't we cook ourselves some
breakfast? The cooking staff seems to be absent. The kitchen is only just
through that door. You want something better than toasted wheat, don't you? I
will make you a fine pot of hot coffee." That Quentin was talking, and
talking calmly, drove a cold fury over Mr. Glum.

"Will not
be quiet, eh? Will defy me, eh?"

Mr. Glum stood
up, a bald, wiry, stocky man. He was not muscular, but his body was toughened
by many years of work in me gardens and grounds around this house. His tool
belt was in a heap on the floor beside where he sat, and he stooped, took a
hammer in his hand, and straightened up again. From the look in his eye, he was
ready to do murder.

Vanity jumped
up to her feet. "Grendel! I mean, Mr. Glum! There's no need for you to get
up! I'll get the food! You want me to serve you, don't you?"

He squinted at
her, dumbstruck. "Serve me?"

"Serve
your breakfast, silly! I can cook, really I can. You can sit at my place, and
I'll go make you coffee and eggs and stuff. Every man wants a woman to cook for
him, doesn't he?"

"Oh,"
said Glum. "Oh, aye, that he does."

"Well,
then!" she smiled brightly. She patted the seat cushion of her chair.
"Just sit down here where I was sitting. I got the seat all warm for you.
I'll go put the ketde on. No one will know."

Almost like a
sleepwalker, Mr. Glum walked around the table. I could smell the soil and
grease in his work domes as he walked past my chair. He was not a tall man, but
Vanity is rather short, and he loomed over her. He stepped very close indeed to
her. From the way he bent his head I thought he was going to kiss her. Vanity,
never flinching, kept her smile firmly fixed in place.

But Mr. Glum
just sighed, and threw himself down in her seat, and put his hammer (clangk!)
on the table next to his plate. He leaned back and put his boots up on the
table. Tiny flakes of soil fell onto the polish.

"Aye,"
he said, tucking his hands behind his head. "Who is to know? Eh? Who is to
know?"

We sat in
silence, staring at Mr. Glum, while he whistled and stared at the ceiling.
After a little bit, there came a noise or two of drawers rattling, a crash of
crockery, and a sad little, "Oh no!" from the kitchen.

Then: "Um
... ? Mr. Glum? I may need some help in here. Could you send in Quentin?"
Suspicion flickered in his eyes. "No, I think not. Quentin, is it? I will
let Miss Amelia in there to help."

"But she
doesn't know how to cook! She's a tomboy!"

Mr. Glum gave
me the most unpleasant stare. "I am sure she will shape up into a woman,
right enough, if n she just had a man to train her to it. G'wan, Goldilocks. Go
help in the kitchen."

Without
arguing, I went to the kitchen.

"What are
you doing?" I whispered to her.

"Quentin
is up to something. He wants Mr. Glum to drink coffee. I'm making coffee."

"I know
all that. I mean, what are you doing putting the cof-fee grounds into the
coffeepot? This isn't instant coffee, you ninny!"

I found the
filter and the brass percolator, spooned in the amount specified on the bag,
and waited. The brass cylinder of the coffee percolator was very highly
polished (Cook kept his kitchen as neat and bright as a Man-o-War) and I could
see my reflection, distorted and thin, in it.

After a
moment, I felt heat on my face and my nose felt heavy and there was a stinging
in my eyes.

Vanity said in
frightened wonder, "Why are you crying?"

"Quentin
kissed me last night."

Vanity looked
stone-faced. "What? Are you and he ..."

"Don't be
a ninny! He did it to shut me up! We were floating and the wind spirits were going
to drop us. I slapped him. And he treated me horribly after that, ordering me
around and everything!"

Her expression
softened. "So what was the..."

"It was
my first kiss. Dr. Fell erased his memory. And now, to Quentin, it never
happened. Can you think of anything more horrible? Reaching into someone's
skull and taking away their most precious memories? It's worse man death."

I wiped my
eyes with my palm impatiently.

When the
coffee was ready Vanity insisted on making us both put on the little lace caps
the maids sometimes wore. She had found them in a cupboard.

Vanity also
found some white aprons. She tied one so tightly around my waist that I could
not breathe. I paid her back by ty-ing hers even tighter. She forced me to
unbutton the top three buttons of my blouse and tuck my collar under, to make
an impromptu decolletage. She did the same, and also stuffed some napkins into
her brassiere, to push up her breasts like a showgirl's. (Not that she needed
it to begin with.) She tried to do the same to me, but I put my foot down.

As a
compromise, I hiked up my skirts till the waistband sat above my ribcage. With
my blouse tails and the apron to cover it, it merely looked as if I were
wearing a miniskirt. Vanity liked the look and copied me, and we spent another
moment tying and untying the apron bows again, to see which one of us could
force the other into the more wasp-waisted figure without fainting from lack of
air.

We got a
silver tray, a slim vase (but there was no flower to put in it), sugar bowl,
creamer, and a pitcher of orange juice we found waiting in the refrigerator.
Little china cups and some glasses, and we were ready. We arranged this all on
the tray, and walked out into the breakfast room, swaying our hips.

Vanity threw
her hand up in a gesture like a game show host-ess, saying, 'Ta-Da!"

I leaned over
to put the tray down next to Quentin. Vanity curtsied toward Mr. Glum. Victor
and Colin were staring.

To me, it
looked like a contest to see whether Mr. Glum's eyes would pop out of his skull
before Vanity's breasts popped out of her bra. Then I noticed, bent over as I
was, I was just as much on display as she was, and they were all staring at my
cleavage, too.

Quentin took
the lid off the coffeepot, laid it carefully to one side, and said to Vanity,
"Why don't you pour?"

She picked up
a coffee cup and saucer, stepped over to Mr. Glum's chair—I noticed she
stepped to the far side of the chair, so that Mr. Glum had to turn his head
away from Quentin to keep his eyes on her—and curtsied again.

Quentin stood
and passed her the coffeepot.

Mr. Glum
darted a suspicious glance at Quentin. Quentin smiled, and sat, but picked up
the sugar bowl and proffered it to me. "Perhaps Mr. Glum would like some
sugar, Miss Windrose."

I took the
sugar bowl and walked over to Mr. Glum. I curt- sied again (Glum took the
opportunity to make sure he hadn't forgotten what my breasts looked like) and
said, "One lump or two?" I tried to impersonate the Lady Cyprian's
tone, and make my voice coo.

It must have
worked, or something did.

He was smiling
at me. I cannot imagine how I could have been inspiring lust in any male
creature at that moment. I had been crying; my eyes were red, as well as baggy
from lack of sleep. I felt like a gym shoe. Messy, rumpled, and ill-used.

But Mr. Glum
was looking at me like I was the Queen of Sheba. He was already drawing up
filthy plans in his mind on how he would use me once he was done with Vanity. I
was dessert.

And he hadn't
looked at his coffee cup yet. There was a blue ice cube in it. The same little
blue ice cube I had seen on the windowsill in the snow last night. It was
melting, but it hadn't melted yet.

"I take
my coffee bitter, black, and hot," Mr. Glum announced. He raised the cup,
and started to take his eyes off me...

I snatched up
a thin spoon from the tray. Glum looked up, puzzled. I kissed the spoon slowly.
Glum stared at my lips.

I said in a
husky whisper, "At least, let me stir it."

He held his
cup toward me, his expression like a hypnotized man, but a smile beginning to
tug at his lips.

I stirred the
coffee, smiling down at him. Whatever he was. A sea creature of some sort. A
mad thing. Maybe a killer.

But he looked
so happy, just looking at me.

Vanity now
moved around the table, putting down tumblers and filling them with orange juice
for the boys. It amazed me how much leaning over was involved in pouring three
cups of juice.

Colin held up
his glass to me. "You there! Servant Girl! I need someone to stir my
juice. Use that same spoon, will you?"

I blushed
furiously. I am sure my ears turned red. I stomped over to him, wondering
whether or not I should spit in the spoon. Mr. Glum had taken his feet off the
table and let them drop loudly to the floor.

I decided that
making a fuss might remind Mr. Glum of his duty to be watching us. So I merely
curtsied to Colin and stirred his juice with the spoon I had kissed.

I touched his
glass to steady it. The ice cubes were trembling in the glass. His hand was
unsteady. Standing as close to him as I was, I could hear that his breathing
was unsteady as well.

Because I
wasn't actually stirring anything into his cup, I wasn't sure when to quit.
Colin reached up and touched my hand with his, and said hoarsely, 'Thank
you."

It did not
even sound like Colin, not the irredeemable, unflappable, mocking Colin I knew.

Boys are so
odd. All I was doing was stirring juice.

Mr. Glum stood
up suddenly, and threw his coffee cup across the room. It splashed and made a
brown stain on the wall.

He turned to
Quentin. "You done sommat to me, witch-boy. You witched me. Now I am going
to break in your skull bones wim this hammer." And he picked up the
hammer.

Quentin stood
up. "Mr. Glum, you underestimate me. Do you think I poisoned you?
Look." He poured himself a cup of coffee from the coffeepot, and sipped
it.

Glum stared at
him, licking his lips.

Quentin said,
"Come, sir. We drank from the same pot. What makes you think I have done
anything? Are you sleepy? That is only because you had a late night last night.
Don't you expect to be tired when you've had a long night?"

Glum said,
"No. You're trying to trick me. It won't work if I don't listen."

"Do you
believe in magic, Mr. Glum?"

"Course I
do. Who don't?"

"Do you
believe I am a magician? I have Power?"

Glum nodded.
"Up until I break your skull bones."

"You
think unseen spirits wait on my command. Creatures in the air, made of subtle
essences?"

"I seen
you feeding them blood from your arm. In the woods. You're a spawn of The Gray
Sisters. I know your kind."

"Then you
believe I can make your hammer too heavy to lift, don't you?" He pointed
his finger at the hammer. "It is getting heavy. Too heavy. Iron and wood,
things of the earth, long to return to the earth, their home, and they pull
downward. Downward. You should not have raised it against me in anger."

Glum dropped
the hammer. Quentin pointed his finger at Mr. Glum's knees. "You put your
feet on the table, where you know they should not go. That was impertinent.
That was rude. Now your feet are going numb. Your legs will no longer support
you. Sit."

Glum sat in
the chair, flopping down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Quentin
pointed at Glum's face. "You stared with covetous lust at a girl young
enough to be your daughter. That was worse than rude. Worse than a crime. Your
eyes are filled with low thoughts, low and heavy thoughts, and now they will
shut Close your eyes. Fall. Sleep."

Mr. Glum
sagged down, and his head fell onto the table with a thunk.

We all sat
staring in silence for a moment, awed.

Colin stood up
and clapped his hands, like a man at a concert applauding a maestro.
"Brilliant! Bravo! You magicking him! Sucked the energy right out of
him!"

Quentin sat
down, looking pale and weak. "Don't be an ass. There is no such thing as
magic."

Colin pointed
at the snoring bulk of Mr. Glum. "Then what's that?"

"Dr. Fell's
medicine. I didn't drink it last night."

I laughed and
clapped. "The blue ice cube!"

Victor said,
"Ice cube?"

Quentin said,
"I spit Dr. Fell's medicine into a little wax cup I keep hidden about my
person for just such occasions. I thought it might be easier to carry up my
sleeve if it were frozen—the potion, I mean—and left it on the
windowsill last night. I had an idea for an experiment I wanted to try. I
lowered myself by a rope, and started walking North ..."

He spread his
hands and looked up, woebegone. "And that's it. That's about all I recall.
I don't remember what the experi-ment was or what my idea was. I don't remember
Dr. Fell find-ing me. I woke up strapped to a table in his lab. Dr. Fell did
something to me. Injected me with something, or did some-thing to my brain.
What did I do last night?"

Vanity pointed
at me and said happily, "You tied up Amelia and made her kiss you!"

Everyone
turned and looked at me.

Quentin's eyes
slowly traveled up and down my body, exam- ining my ankles and legs, lingering
over my hips and my narrow waist, pausing at my cleavage, but coming to rest at
my tear-stained eyes.

"Well.
Damn Dr. Fell to Hell," he said softly. Brave words, but he looked like he
wanted to cry, too.

II

Taradigms at
"Breakfast l.

The first words
out of my mouth were: "The Greek gods run the school. We're hostages in a
war. They're afraid to kill us, because our families will attack. Quentin can
fly. They're going to send us to Hell for safekeeping. Except Vanity is being
sent to Atlantis. Zeus is dead and Mars and Vulcan both want me throne. Mercury
was in the Common Room last night, and he knew I was in the wall, and he said
he'd give us anything we wanted. Taffy ap Cymru is actually a goddess. And a
cross-dresser, I guess. Taffy works for Mercury. I fell into the Fourth
Dimension, and Miss Daw, who is actually a fourth-dimensional siren shaped like
a wheel, played music, which forced me back into normal time-space, except I
landed in a pile of snow."

Everyone was
just staring at me.

"Mercury
made it destined for me to find a hypersphere that awakened my powers, which is
locked in a safe in the Great Hall, where I was hiding because Dr. Fell caught
him, because Boggin (whose real name is Boreas) was waiting for me, and he
shined a blue beam of light on him and Quentin had this look on his face but I
couldn't tell what he was looking at that looked so horrible and I wanted to
ask him but now he can't remember. Someone in a dream told me how to break the
spell. Vanity has to help. Her real name is Nausicaa." Everyone continued
to stare.

I said,
"You believe me, don't you? Would I make up some-thing like this?"

Colin said,
"Did Quentin really tie you up? And make you kiss him?" Without
waiting for an answer, he turned and pointed at Quentin, "Big Q!" men
he gave him the thumbs-up, "You the man!"

I said in
exasperation, "It wasn't like that! I was only blind-folded."

Vanity stamped
her foot. "You said he kidnapped you and threw you out the window!"

I said,
"No, I said he picked me up and carried me out the window. We were flying,
or levitating, or something."

Quentin looked
both pleased and sad. "It worked, then. It actually worked! I'm a
genius!" Then he muttered: "The best night of my life, and I can't
remember it."

Colin said to
Quentin, "I am so jealous of you it is going to make me barf. How come you
get the blonde? Dibs on the redhead."

Vanity stamped
her foot again. "Shut up your horrible face, Colin, or I'll have Quentin
turn you into a toad! Amelia is trying to tell us the most important thing we
ever found out about what is going on here, and all you can do is jabber!"

Victor said,
"Amelia, did you mean that the dream told you how to break the so-called
spell on Quentin?"

"Yes. No.
It was ambiguous."

"We
should hear your story out, but also try to get Quentin repaired as soon as
possible. Two witnesses see things one wit-ness misses."

I said,
"It's a long story. I am not sure how long we will have the house and
grounds to ourselves. There was some sort of party last night after the Board
meeting, and Venus was running it. I think everyone is sleeping it off."

Victor said,
"Are you saying we should try to undo Quentin, first?"

"And
maybe break into that safe I found. It's on the way. The table in the Great
Hall is the thing the dream said could break the spell."

Quentin jumped
to his feet. "Let's hurry. Actually, let's run."

"Good
idea. Race you." Victor leaped to his feet and was out

the dining
room door, followed closely by Quentin. Their foot-falls echoed in the
corridor.

Vanity
hesitated. "Are we just going to leave Mr. Glum lay-ing here?"

Colin rose to
his feet and was sauntering toward the door, in no great hurry. "You're
right. Let's slit his throat now. Save us the trouble of doing it later."

"You're
sick!" she said, and ran out the door.

Meanwhile, I
was not relishing the prospect of an early morn-ing run through the snow, so I
was not moving any faster than Colin. I tried to tug my skirt back down into
place, but the apron strings were tied so tightly behind my back that my skirt
(which was hiked up high and trapped under it) was pinned in place. I was
trying to undo the knot when Colin stepped up behind me.

"Allow
me," he said.

"Thank
you. It will be a relief to breathe again."

"Here,
suck in. I need some slack."

I blew out my
breath and men tried to make my waist even smaller, and Colin tucked and tugged
at my back where I couldn't see. He hummed happily to himself.

I should have
been more suspicious, more quickly. I tried to turn, but he yanked, and the
apron sash cinched even more tighdy.

"You
bastard!" I clawed at the small of my back, but the knot seemed to have
somehow grown into a super knot.

He grabbed
both my hands by the wrist just a moment before I was about to swing on him. He
watched me struggling a mo-ment, smiling darkly.

"I'm stronger
than you," I said, feeling foolish. "I can move huge iron doors you
can't lift."

"Show
me," he said.

Because he was
standing behind me, he simply twisted both my arms up behind my back. My
possible options at that point consisted of arching my shoulders back as far as
possible and standing on tiptoe.

Somehow,
somewhere, Colin had turned from a little annoy-ing boy into a dangerous young
animal. I could not even really struggle in his grip; he had grasped me too
cunningly.

I noticed that
he smelled nice. And tall. When did he get to be taller than me? I hadn't
noticed. Had mat happened this year? And strong. And ruthless and confident.

I suddenly
began to feel silly and out of breath. I told myself it was because Colin was
holding me in an awkward position that I could not catch my breath. I tell
myself a lot of things. I lie to myself a lot.

It was because
Colin was holding me.

I had been
trying to toy with Victor, and so I let Vanity, harebrained Vanity, talk me
into one of her flirtatious schemes. I had hiked up my skirt and pulled down my
blouse, thinking a little nectar would attract the bee I wanted. I had gotten a
wasp instead. There was something dangerous and reckless about Colin that
Victor did not have.

I do not
believe a man can hold a girl, squirming and help-less, and not know the effect
it has on her. I wanted him to do something. I wanted him to kiss me. But he
just stood there, his grip getting tighter, his eyes like two blue embers
glinting like the eyes of a devil.

I was blushing
with furious embarrassment by this point. I told myself I was blushing with
fury. Like I said, I tell myself a lot of things.

"Let go
of me." My voice came out in a husky whisper. That surprised me. He had
only had his hands on me for a moment, no longer. I was in love with Victor.
Wasn't I?

"Why?"
Little mocking sparks seemed to glitter in those blue devil-embers of his eyes.

"Because,
from this position, I cannot kick you in the crotch, break your nose on my knee
when you double up, and step on your neck when you fall over."

Colin
whispered in my ear, "Don't make me jealous of Quentin. He's my best
friend." I felt his lips brush my earlobe.

Victor and
Vanity reappeared in the doorway at that moment, with Quentin looking downcast
behind them.

Victor said,
"What are you doing, Colin?"

There was a
sharp snap in his voice I had never heard before. Jealousy ... ?

Victor's eyes
drank in the sight of me. I felt as if he were looking into my soul, reading my
mind. He saw the rose blush to my skin. Unlike Colin, Victor knew what it
meant. I could not hide the blush on my skin, the shortness of my breath, the
dilation of my pupil, or the helpless quiver deep inside me. I could not even
move my hands to cover my face because Colin was still holding me, helpless as
some prize doe caught by a hunter, exposed to the penetrating gaze of Victor
Triumph.

Victor looked
in my eyes and he saw that I wanted Colin's strong hands on me. I wanted to be
helpless in his arms. He saw how pleased, how flustered I was by the sensation.
He saw everything.

But that
wasn't the message I wanted him to see. It was your hands, Victor, I wanted;
your strength I want to triumph over me.

Victor turned
away, his face cold. My heart reached a nadir. If I could have died by a sheer
critical mass of misery, I would have ignited into a ball of darkness, then and
there, and taken most of the school with me.

Colin was
oblivious to all this. He spoke in a tone of lilting mockery.

He said,
"I was telling the serving wench what I wanted for breakfast."

Victor said,
"Well, if you two are done with your mating rit-ual, we have serious
business."

Colin let go
of me and jumped back.

It felt
strange, for a moment, to have my hands loose and free. The misery in my heart
changed shape suddenly. It was as if it said in my ear: don't blow yourself up
in a ball of darkness! Just get Colin!

Good idea.

I carefully
stepped over and picked up Mr. Glum's hammer from the table.

"Tut!
Tut!" said Colin, scampering back out of range. "Serious business to
discuss!" To Victor he said, "She wants to hurt me!"

Victor threw
himself down in his chair and put his feet on the table. "Probably serves
you right. Amelia, make sure you get Mr. Glum's fingerprints on his hammer
after you do the deed."

Colin backed
up, pointing a finger at me. "You're not going to kill me on an empty
stomach, are you? None of us has eaten yet. This may be the only day we will
ever have the run of the kitchen!"

Quentin
smiled, and then laughed. He said, "That is true, Victor. Food first.
Death later."

Victor looked at
Quentin, looked at his own feet on the table, frowned a little nervously, and
sat up, putting his feet back on the floor. "True enough. Amelia, no skull
bashing till later. Colin, stop acting like a jerk. Quentin, decide what you
want us to make you for breaky. It's the least we can do since we can't undo
your memory block yet."

Well, I was
not going to disobey a direct order from Victor. Besides, their
lightheartedness was contagious. I reluctantly put the hammer back down on the
table.

2.

"What
happened?" I asked. "You were gone for only a mo-ment."

Victor said,
"We could see from the front door that there were workingmen swarming all
over the Great Hall. They're pulling the roof apart to lift the table out. The
table you say we need. If they pull it out the way they put it in, it should be
kept under a tarp in the Blacksmith's Shed until they can find a lorry big
enough to haul it."

Vanity said,
'The good news is, no one else is up yet, though."

Quentin said,
"Maybe we should run, and run now. Just pick a direction and keep moving.
Between Dr. Fell's drugs and Mr. Glum's hammer, and what httle Amelia already
said, we may be in a lot more danger than we know."

Victor said,
"Amelia? How dangerous is it? More dangerous than heading out along the
highway without money? So dangerous that we can't wait for you to tell us your
story?"

I said,
"The War God will kill anyone who kills us. And it would cause a war. And
I don't want to run without at least breaking into that safe. I can't see into
the new directions with-out the hyperlight it gives off. And I am not walking
anywhere until someone helps me take this damn dung off!"

Colin said
loudly, "I object! The serving girl is trying to get out of uniform!"

Colin was
staring at my cleavage again. I made an angry noise and started to reach for my
buttons to do them up.

Quentin said,
"Wait a moment." He looked at Vanity, who was also beginning to tug
at her skirt, and to reach for her but-tons. Vanity and I stopped.

Quentin looked
at Victor. "I think we should have a ruling on this, Victor."

Victor nodded,
trying not to smile. "Quentin's right. He has been viciously attacked, I
dare say, wounded, by Dr. Fell. We all need to do our part to keep Quentin in
good spirits, don't you agree, girls?"

Vanity put her
hands on her hips. "What are you saying? I only did this to distract Mr.
Glum!"

Victor rose to
his feet. "Very good. Commendable. Now stay like that until I say
otherwise. You too, Amelia."

Vanity and I
looked at each other. She squinted at me, a little impish smirk begging to
appear on her lips. She was waiting to see what I would do. I was waiting to
see what she would do.

Colin stepped
up behind me and swatted me across the bot-tom. "Go to, wench! Go to! Your
kitchen awaits!"

He did not
duck quickly enough to avoid my counter swing.

Victor put his
arms around Mr. Glum and unceremoniously dumped him on the carpet. He
straightened and said, "You're going into me kitchen, too, Colin. Only
Quentin is excused."

Colin was
holding his mouth. "Of course. Wouldn't miss it. Kitchen is where the
girls are."

Quentin stood
and picked up his chair. "Since this seems to be sort of an impromptu
birthday for me, I will come and watch. Whichever girl isn't involved in some
part of the cook-ing process will dote on me. Agreed?"

Victor said,
"Agreed."

Colin said,
"And me other girl will be ..."

"...
Kicking you in me balls, over and over again," I said. "Agreed?"

"Agreed!"
said Vanity.

She took
Quentin's arm and I took the other one. We bom pressed up against him, wiggling
our bottoms and batting our eyelashes, as we escorted him to the kitchen.

Colin
muttered, "Fie. And he says he's not a magician." 3.

How long does
it take for happiness to be complete? I do not know how long we were in the
kitchen. I suppose, objectively, it might have been as little as an hour, or
even less. But it seemed to last all day. Like an endless vacation.

The kitchen
was huge. All the brightwork gleamed, all the pots and pans and kettles and
knives were ranked and racked and arranged by size. There were two litde
refrigerators and a big walk-in, and a stovetop the size of Scotland and Wales
combined.

And we could
have anything we wanted. For the first time in our lives, we made what we
fancied in whatever way suited us. An omelette of a dozen eggs; beef that we fried
in grease in-stead of boiling; slabs of bacon as thick as your hand; cooking
sherry poured into measuring cups and drunk as toasts. Mostly, we made a mess.

Colin drank
coffee for the first time in his life, the grownups' drink. He made a face and
pronounced it an abomination. But he drank a second cup, just because it had
been forbidden him for so long.

Vanity had
always wanted to taste a hamburger; she ground up several types of meat in the
blender, and used toast for buns, and cucumber because we found no pickles. She
put catsup mixed with horseradish on the resulting mass, calling it
"secret sauce," and claimed she had made a Big Mac. It looked like
ground meat on toast to me, but when she gave me a bite, it was delicious. No
matter what it tasted like, it was delicious, because she had made it with her
own hands.

Quentin was
juggling eggs with one hand, six, seven, and eight, while ordering me hither
and thither for the various things he wanted in his giant omelette.

And, to my
astonishment, Victor could cook. He took one cookbook off the shelf of ninety
or so that Cook had, and flipped the pages as fast as his thumb would move.
Then he measured and chopped and set timers and mixed with the precision of a
machine, or a mad scientist. He was good at it. We ended up eating almost all
what he made, because what we started turned out somewhat burnt, or raw.

We sat on the
spotless floor in a big circle, plates and bowls and saucers spread about us in
Roman luxury, eating everything with our fingers.

We had dessert
before, during, and after the meal. Colin had discovered where the dessert
pantry was—that famous pantry we had never been able to find as kids. It
was locked, but Victor ran his hand over the jamb, and the lock clicked open of
its own accord.

They had
gathered all sorts of treats, meatballs, and cheeses, and little snacks in
folds of sugar-fried bread. There was tray after silver tray of it, all
gathered for some after-the-meeting reception, which, because Venus had shut
down the meeting, the Visitors and Governors never got to. There were eclairs
and pastries and a cake of seven layers. The things I remember best were these
cupcakes made of chocolate foam, topped with froth of a different kind of
chocolate, where the cups were not paper, but yet a third kind of chocolate,
hard and crunchy, yet melting like a snowflake on the tongue. I had never seen
anything like it before. Edible dishes! Like something out of a Roald Dahl
book!

And there was
a bottle of champagne.

Things became
quite merry after that. Part of the reason why the boys were merry, I am sure,
was seeing Vanity and me in our absurd impromptu maid outfits, waiting on them.
Part of the reason was that we were lightheaded from sipping champagne.

But we were
drunk on information. I had unearthed a trea-sure trove of secrets, secrets
which had been kept from us our whole lives.

And I was
merry because I was the center of attention during the first half of the meal.
I talked and talked and not even Colin interrupted me. Quentin had found Cook's
account books and was writing notes on what I was saying on the back of pink
receipt slips.

What a funny
feeling. No one had ever thought what I had to say was important enough to
write down before. 4.

Then came
questions.

Colin asked:
"Her name is Nausicaa or Nausea or something. Your dream called you
Phaethusa. Did you find out my name? You didn't, did you?" And he threw an
olive at me, using his fork as a catapult

Quentin asked:
"Those creatures were Hecatonchire, weren't they? The hundred-handed giants
from Greek myth. They looked like humans, I am supposing, because something in
the human world makes them. But they said the table gave them the ability to
use their powers nonetheless. Notice mis is the same table mentioned in
Amelia's dream."

Victor asked:
"Why did you fail to mention that the staff here thinks we will get sick
and die if we get too far from the boundaries of the estate? That might be a
good thing to test before we make our escape."

Vanity asked:
"Why did you keep slapping Quentin? It's not like he wanted to kiss
you!"

Colin asked:
"Why was Mavors or Mars or whatever his name is carrying both a spear and
a pistol? What the hell is the point of that? Are they magic items? Are mere
different laws of nature in different worlds?"

Quentin asked:
"You said that when you were in the Fourth Dimension, you saw behind you
bom a wheel surrounded by a lesser wheel, and two cone-shaped things. What were
those things—•?"

Victor said,
"I don't understand this whole idea that they are mythical gods and goddesses.
I mean, how is it supposed to happen? Homer sits down to write the Iliad, and
some real god becomes immediately aware of it, and sends telepathic particles
into the poet's brain to make him write down what the facts are? If so, why
didn't these gods just publish newspapers? Of course, I am making the
assumption that mere was a man named Homer, and he did write a book called the
Iliad. They might have made up that whole poem, just before they opened the
school, just to teach us. Greek could be a made-up language, which they forced
us to study just to annoy us."

Vanity said,
"Who eventually fell in love? At the ball?" Colin: "And what the
hell was Boggin actually trying to ac-complish?"

Quentin:
"The man whose head was off was Orpheus. Was there anyone else at the
table who talked as if they were in his group? The Unseen One he is
representing is Hades, the god of the Underworld. The Psychopomp is the guide
and guardian of souls to the Land of the Dead. Hermes is supposed to be in that
position."

Victor:
"Are we members of the same race? Were we adults before they made us into
the shape of children? You know we must all be shape-changers, don't you? Why
else would they measure us every night?"

5.

There was one
question in that mess I could answer: "It must have been the Hecatonchire.
The cone-shaped things I saw be-hind me. I was looking through the wall at that
point, and look-ing at the people around the table.

"You said
it yourself, Colin, mat they are giants in their own world. Why a cone? Imagine
you saw a boy growing up into a man, but that you could see through time as a
dimension. His three-dimensional cross sections would continually increase in
the direction of future, continually decrease in the direction of past. A cone.
Except in this case, I do not think the directions are past-future. I am
calling them 'red' and 'blue' as one seems to Doppler shift light to higher
energy states, and one to lower."

Vanity asked,
"What did you look like?"

I said,
"What?"

She said,
"In the fourth dimension. I keep trying to picture it, but all I can
picture is that you would see yourself as a flat per-son. Her skin is a line
rather than a surface. Her internal organs are flat, like an ameba's. She only
has one eye. Uck. Yuck. Just trying to picture it is gross."

"No,
you're wrong," said Colin, pulling up one of his eyelids. "It would
only be half an eye."

"Ugh!
Ugh!" said Vanity, entirely discomforted.

Quentin said,
"It is a bit unnerving. If you, Amelia, are like Vanity's flat person in a
plane, let's say something like this floor, then by rotating in the third
dimension—a dimension of which creatures living in the floor would have
no conception—they would see you turn into a line. So what would happen
in three dimensions? Would you become flat, like a picture?"

"No,"
I said. "You'd see a cross-section. The man from flat-land, if tilted,
would have only two points of his skin surface intersecting the world-plane. By
analogy, three-D folk would see a tilted four-D person as a hoop of flesh
surrounding a flat section of blood and internal..."

"Oh,
please!" said Vanity. "Pul-ease, can't we talk about something else
while we are eating!"

I said to her,
"But I don't think I'm flat. I mean, I don't think I do not have other
three-dimensional surfaces embracing my volume. My hypervolume. What I saw of
myself, I seemed to have streamlined-looking wings or fans reaching off in
other directions. And branches, or lines of energy—bright things, made of
sound, or thought, or music. Or something. I think what we call matter and energy
are merely two different rota-tions of the same hyperparticle. I had other
senses, too."

Colin said,
"So you looked like a squid with wings, and you actually have a cluster of
eyeballs and dripping ears on the end of stalks hidden in n-space where we
cannot see them. I will still think you are lovely, Amelia."

Victor said,
"You could poke your finger into someone's brain without touching his
skull."

Vanity said,
"Ugh! You people are as gross as toads! Can't we change the topic?!"

Colin said,
"Yeah, but we are only toads that have been run over by a car, and
flattened. Amelia is a real fat 4-D toad. We can't see what she really looks
like because we flat folk only have ... half an eye.*"

"Ugh!
Uck! Make him stop!"

Quentin said,
"One last question, then we can ask more about the pagan gods. Amelia,
what was me sense of weight you said you saw coming from the safe?"

"It was
the sphere. The hypersphere. And it's mass, not weight."

"Why?"
"Mass is an intrinsic property. Weight is a behavior of matter under..."

"No, no.
Why was the sphere massive?"

"Oh.
Simple geometry. Picture the amount of area covered by a circle. The ratio of
the area to the circumference is pi r squared. Rotate the circle on any axis,
and the area swept out will be a sphere. The volume of the sphere will be
four-thirds pi r cubed. You see?"

"No."

"Um. If I
used a crayon to draw the circumference and an-other crayon to color in the
area, the first crayon would lose a bit and the second a bit more. Use a third
crayon to color the surface of a balloon, and a fourth crayon to somehow fill
in the entire inner volume of the balloon. The first crayon loses a bit and the
second crayon loses a whole lot. Rotate the balloon in the fourth dimension to
create a hypervolume. The first crayon fills in the volumes of the six balloons
that form its hypersur-face, the second crayon has to fill in a hypervolume
raised to the fourth power. You see the difference would be enormous."

Quentin
blinked. "I don't get it."

Victor said,
"Why six?"

I said to
Victor, "Oh! You're right! There are only six points on the hypersurface
where the axis intersects it that form three-spheres. I guess I was confusing
the number of right-angled intersections with the Kissing Number, which in the
case of 4-D equals 24.1 was fooled because I was thinking that if a sphere is
all points equidistant from a given point, such that ^+y2+z2=r2, then a
four-sphere would satisfy w2+x2+y2+z2=r2. This implies that for any values
where one axis, let's say w, falls to zero ..."

Victor held up
his hand. "Now is not the time." To Quentin, he said, 'The
four-dimensional sphere is more massive for its volume than a three-dimensional
sphere for the same reason that a fishbowl of water is heavier than a pie plate
of the same diameter filled shallowly. See?"

Quentin shook
his head, "I cannot picture it. I am sorry I was not there to look into
this so-called fourth dimension. I had always thought such a thing would be
spiritual in nature. I wonder if Amelia—no offense—is merely
interpreting things in a geometry metaphor because that is what she
understands." I laughed aloud. "We're all doing that."

Blank stares
of incomprehension greeted me. Colin shrugged and passed the champagne bottle
around again.

I said,
"You've never noticed? All the understandable things we each
see—tables, chairs, Vanity's bosom—we each see in the same way.
When we see the unknown, however, our brains each interpret it differentiy. For
example, Quentin sees the Hektor-sherrys..."

"Hecatonchire."

"... as
man impressing vital spirits onto an airy phantasm. I saw it as a
multidimensional effect Colin ... 7'

"Well, I
wasn't there, but it was obviously psychokinesis. They put their energy into
moving the objects. They moved. We just saw Victor here use his PK on the lock
to the pastry pantry, didn't we?"

Victor shook
his head. "I moved the interior workings of the lock with magnetic
particles. Some organ in my body produces them. You cannot move matter without
using matter to push it Newton's Laws, remember?"

Colin said,
"How did you get such an organ?"

"Amelia's
story makes it clear our captors—and I think that is the correct word to
use—consider us to be shape-changers. All that means is that our peoples
developed a technology for moving and manipulating cellular and perhaps atomic
structures, maybe with molecule-sized tools woven throughout our bodies. So why
couldn't they build organs which had other useful tool properties? Magnetic
beams or limbs to manipulate dungs with? Amelia might have her brain programmed
to tag such limbs wim cartoon images in her eye, so she can see to manipulate
them. What she sees seems not to be made of flesh and blood, she thinks they
are in this so-called higher dimension."

Quentin asked,
"But, if that were the case, how could you be manipulating them, these so-called
tools, wim your thoughts?"

Victor said,
"Nothing moves for no reason. If my hand is made of matter and my brain
moves my hand, then my brain is made of matter, too."

Quentin said,
"Thoughts? Memories? Love?"

"Chemical
reactions in the brain. Epiphenomena." Quentin smiled and shook his head.
"Matter is material and thought is spiritual. How can it be
otherwise?"

Victor pointed
at the champagne bottle. "How can drinking affect your thoughts if
thoughts are not made of the same substance, not in the same dimension, as
Amelia might say, as the champagne? This is just an alcohol. A chemical. Carbon
and hydrogen and oxygen atoms in rows."

"It
contains spirits. The blood releases more subtle spirits and humors into the
blood. The blood carries it to the pituitary gland..."

Now it was
Colin's turn to join in: "You are botii wrong. This champagne bottle is an
illusion. It is a belief. You believe it will make you drunk, and you give it
your energy. You give it enough energy and it has the power to rob your energy.
What happens when a man is drunk? He lacks energy. That's all. Matter is just
an idea, and a bad idea at that. The fact that Victor here can turn locks
without touching them and Amelia can walk through walls proves it. If such
things are unreal, we only see them because our eyes lack power. Ladies and
gentlemen, a toast! To the real world! The one where there are no locks, no
walls."

"Hear,
hear!" we all called, raising our glasses.

After the
toasting was done, and we were passing around the tub of ice cream we had
found, making root beer floats with champagne instead of root beer, Vanity
stood up. She had not had as much as the rest of us, but it made her cheeks
rosy and her eyes glitter. Her skirt seemed shorter than it had been a mo-ment
ago, her neckline lower, her waist thinner. Was mat the champagne? Maybe we
were shape-changers, and she was feeling prettier, the way I had done when I
used to stare in mirrors to turn my mousy hair blond and my brown eyes hazel,
men green.

Vanity said,
"None of you boys heard a word Amelia said. Not a bloody word. There are
different versions of the universe. Different paradigms. Different states of
mind. Each paradigm, each model, has something it cannot explain. Something
unknown, dark, incomprehensible, irrational. Something it fears. Each
philosophy has one question it cannot answer. A different question for each
one, but at least one. You see? Chaos. We are from the question mark."

Colin said,
"What do you mean, 'we,' White Wench? They said you were one of them. A
non-Chaos person. What would you call that? An orderist? An orderly? Neat
Freak?"

Quentin said,
"The opposite of Chaos is Cosmos. A citizen of the Cosmos is a
Cosmopolitan."

"Oh,
God!" said Colin, taking another swig of champagne. "Say it after me.
"Vanity Fair is a Cosmopolitan.'"

Vanity Fair
struck a pose, her hands on her knees and her bottom stuck out, her elbows
pushing her breasts even more dangerously further forward. "I'm two
glamour magazines!"

Victor said,
"What is her paradigm?"

I said,
"Listen to the way she talks. She is actually a solipsist. She explains
everything in terms of different states of mind of the observer."

Quentin said
to me, "How does she explain magic?"

Vanity said,
"Magic is what we call the unknown."

Quentin said
to her, "And what do we call it once it is known?"

Vanity
shrugged a bit. "The unknown is a blank spot on the map. How different
people fill it in is different, I guess. De-pends on their tastes, I suppose.
Isn't that what we are all talk-ing about here? Different tastes in the way we
choose to see the universe?"

Colin
guffawed. "Sort of like picking out a new hat... ? I do not like stars and
planets; they are so very out of fashion this season! I want the lights in the
sky to be little lamps carried by elves! All in favor say 'aye'! Come on."

Vanity looked
outraged. "But you are the one who just said life is an illusion!"

"Yeah,
but I said life actually, really, is an illusion, and mat's a fact. I have
proof! Would Victor be able to wish a lock on a door open, if all this were
real?"

Quentin said,
"I hate to gang up with Colin against you, Vanity, but you are being a bit
of a solipsist. Let me take an example. Suppose you climb a hill or go into a
valley no one has ever seen before. The moment your eyes light on it, do trees
appear?"

She shrugged,
saying, "Who knows? Why assume trees you never saw before were there
before you saw them? You can make any assumption you want. That's what
assumptions are. You fill them into the blank spots in your knowledge."

Quentin smiled,
saying, "Who or what decides how many leaves each branch of each tree has,
or how many veins on each leaf?"

Vanity waved
her hands at him. "Now you are being silly. Nobody sees every leaf in the
forest at once."

Quentin said,
"Do you pick a number in your head before you look?"

Victor said,
"The forests children see would have fewer leaves than the ones seen by,
for example, professional astronomers, who can think in scientific notation.
Hottentots could not see more than 'three' because they don't have a word for
any number higher than that."

Vanity said,
"You are both being ridiculous! We see dreams, don't we? But we do not sit
down with typewriters and write out a script before we fall asleep. We just see
them. They must come from somewhere. For all we know, the number of leaves on a
tree could just be the same way. It comes from somewhere. Maybe from the same
place as dreams. I mean, nothing comes from nowhere for no reason, right?"

Victor said,
"I move we shelve the discussion of the nature of reality until after we
decide what to do with what we've learned. Right now, they don't know we know.
With Dr. Fell blanking out Quentin's memory, they think they've covered their
tracks. There are at least two factions, maybe five. Ma-vors, Mulciber,
Trismegistus we know; they spoke about Pela-gaeus and the Unseen One at the
meeting. The Satyr was representing the Vine God ..."

"Dionysus,"
said Quentin, "And Pelagaeus is Poseidon."

"... who
may be in the same camp with Hermes, according to what Amelia overheard. Now
then, they all think we can give victory to whatever side we help, and they are
afraid to kill us because the threat to our lives as hostages is all that is
holding back Chaos. For the moment, Cyprian has to talk to Mulciber to get his
agreement to the plan to have us moved to the Unseen One's control. Or, they
might instead just decide to take Vanity and give her to the Atlantians. Does
that sum up the facts?" Colin said, "Suppose Hermes is on the level.
He got in trouble—you said—for making a deal with our folks, the
Urine People."

"Uranians,"
said Quentin. "Sons of Uranus. Titans."

"Whatever.
How do we contact him, if he's the one we decide to go for?" said Colin.

I said,
"He must have diought it obvious, so he didn't say."

Victor said,
"Taffy ap Cymru. Also a shape-changer, by the way. Works for him. Hermes
knows you know that. He gave us Taffy. As a gift. Don't any of you see it? If
Taffy doesn't do what we ask, we turn him over to Boggin."

Quentin said,
"Boggin would have power over him. That is how one acquires audiority over
the soul of another. Get a man to break his word to you. Or break a law."

Colin
muttered, "Have them put their boots on the table."

Quentin said,
"Immorality is weakness. Virtue is strength. You can't hex an honest man.
That's what Boggin wanted, Amelia. Permission to hex you." Quentin looked
around the circle. "Did anyone else promise him anything, when he talked
to you?"

Victor said,
"I asked him to define his terms. I said mat if I were a child, he could
not make a contract witii me in the eyes of the law, and mat if I were not a
child, he could not keep me imprisoned here. I asked him which it was."

Colin said,
"I pretended mat I had forgotten how to talk, except to say 'Go on.'
Whenever he asked me a direct question, I said 'Go on.' I timed it, to see how
long he could go on wiui me not saying anyming. Forty minutes, ten
seconds."

Vanity said,
"He didn't talk to me."

I said, 'The
people at the meeting seemed to imply mat me Phaeacians can somehow open or
shut the boundaries between reality."

Colin said,
"Meaning what?"

"When the
boundaries are open, our various powers work. When mey are shut, we're just
kids."

Colin said,
"How did you come by mat notion, Bright Eyes?"

"Several
things mey said. Also, just seeing a sphere from my homeland enabled me to
travel dirough other dimensions and walk dirough walls. I wonder if the other
objects in mat safe are similar reminders. Keys. To turn us on. They always
meant to use us, right? The only question holding them back is not whether to use
us, but who gets to use us, right? If reminders of our homes can do that to us,
what happens when we find the boundaries between this dimension and our various
homes? There are four boundaries to the estate, and four of us. Four Uranians,
I mean. Vanity, or Nausicaa, rather, is from Phaeacia."

"Very
interesting," said Colin. "But could you give me some milk?"

"The
carton's right by you."

"No,
no," he said, putting his glass right under my breasts, "I meant,
could you give me some ..."

Vanity gave a
little shriek and leapt to her feet.

Colin said,
"What? What? It wasn't that funny!"

"I'm
Nausicaa! I'm that Nausicaa. The girl from Phaeacia who discovers Odysseus
washed up half-dead on the shore! Don't you see ... ?"

We looked at
each other.

"I
actually did those things. I had a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters and
maybe even a dog and a palace and everything. I had favorite foods. I had
people I had fights with. A faith. Things I thought. Things I wanted to do.
Maybe artistic talents or a lover or... They've taken it all away. All I
remember is this place. They've killed me."

And she
started crying in earnest. Quentin went to put his arms around her, and said,
"Shush, shush ..."

Victor stood
up. "I move we put memory restoration at the top of the agenda. We all add
to our running-away caches, and we all steal money when we can, except you,
Quentin. I don't think we need to flee just yet; they don't know we're on to
them, and I also want a crack at that safe Amelia saw. As for the memory thing,
let's try the thing in Amelia's dream. Let's do that right now."

"But we
need the table," I said. "The great green table in the Great
Hall."

Victor smiled.
"There is also a table made of a similar green marble in the waiting room
in front of Boggin's office. Is it the same? Let's go upstairs and find
out." 12

The Magic of
JAere Matter l.

Victor and
Colin stayed behind in the kitchen to loot it system-atically. Victor wanted a
certain amount of imperishable foods, lightweight canned goods, and other
things like knives, all packed away and hidden before the escape attempt. The
outside weather was cold, so even perishable food would keep for a while,
hidden in the woods or the Barrows.

When Vanity
and I were finally released from doting duty, she had to cut me out of my apron
strings with a paring knife. I looked in wonder at the knot Colin had made. It
seemed to have no beginning and no end, and have no place for slack to form: a
topological impossibility. Perhaps he had done magic to it, "put energy
into it," as he would say. I stuck it in my skirt pocket for later study.

Buttons done
up and skirts pulled down, Vanity and I, along with Quentin, made our way up to
the Headmaster's office without incident.

There was the
antechamber. Mr. Sprat was not at his desk; no one was around. Beyond the door
was me waiting room. As quietly as mice, we crept in. A low table of green
marble squatted on heavy crooked legs of wood before the red plush length of
the couch. Tall wing-back chairs, red as Catholic cardinals, looming solemnly,
crowded close. The two clocks, ticking half a step out of time with each other,
stood like sentries to either side of the far door. Two strips of light from
the archer-slit windows, one to either side of a book cabinet with dusty glass
doors, threw angular lines across the rectilinear shadows.

"This
place is a tomb," Quentin announced. "Someone is buried here."
Vanity stole over to the other door, which was coated with soundproof leather
and a pattern of studs, and put her hand on it She pushed it open a crack. She
sniffed sadly, turned, and came back.

"What's
wrong?" I asked.

"Boggin
is not there."

"That
makes you sad?"

"But
Odysseus is in there!" she said. "The guy I rescued from the sea.
What kind of people would do this to me? Make me read my own story about my own
life as an assignment for Greek tutorial? I had to write those damn papers on
me Odyssey\ They were all laughing behind their hands at me." She looked
up. There were tears in her eyes.

She said to
me, "Please tell me this will work on me, too."

I said,
"The dream did not say."

Quentin said,
"I found Apsu, pardon me, I found my walking stick where you had left it
in the snow on the windowsill. I must say, I was mightily confused, before I
heard your story at breakfast, as to why I had left it there. When I picked it
up, it was heavier than normal. That usually only happens when a True Dream, a
dream from the Gate of Horn, had flown by on owl-wing. Do you remember your
dream with particular clarity? If it came at dawn, it may be a Phantasma Astra,
a dream of prophecy rather than a Phantasma Natura, which merely records images
or eidolons passing from your passive intellect to your active intellect."

I repeated the
words the egg had spoken to me in my dream. " 'Nausicaa must stand upon
the boundary stone, and grant passage to the power from Myriagon, your home.
Recall that thoughts are all recalled by thought and thought alone; undo the
magic of mere matter, and the night of no-memory shall break.'"

Vanity said,
"Why are we assuming he meant me to stand on a table?"

I said,
"The Stone Table, the Boundary Stone Table, is what Boggin and his pals
called the big green table in the Great Hall. Also, the Hundred-Hand Man said
the table allowed his powers to work outside of his native land."

Quentin asked me
about the first stanza of the dream, and I repeated the words of greeting.
Quentin said, "And he said your name was Phaethusa?"

I said,
"Either that, or I was supposed to pass a message along to her. Do either
of you recognize that name from myth or books?"

Quentin said,
"We've all read the same books, Amelia."

"But we
don't all get the same grades," I said, trying to pre-serve a look of
dignity.

Vanity said,
"Melly here would crib off me in Greek and Latin. And she did my math for
me."

Quentin looked
shocked. "You didn't do your lessons?" The idea seemed to astonish
him. "I thought only, you know, kids on TV sitcoms acted that way. And
Colin. But I thought he was a freak of nature, or something."

I said,
"We're all freaks of nature."

Vanity said
tartly, "No, only / am a freak of nature. I am from the universe. You guys
are freaks of Outside of Nature."

Quentin said,
"Amelia, turn your back."

I blinked.
"What? Why?"

Quentin said,
"Or don't, as you like."

Vanity was
beginning to look both suspicious and flustered.

Quentin
stepped up to her, took both her hands in his hands, stared into her eyes for a
long moment.

He said,
"Vanity, no matter what we discover, now or ever, what I feel for you
shall be unchanged and unchanging."

"Quentin,
I..."

"Hush. I
am going to kiss you."

Vanity blushed
and looked at her feet. "You've drunk too much champagne..."

"I said,
'Hush.'"

And he took
her chin in his fingers, tilted her head up.

Vanity closed
her eyes and pursed her lips. I have never seen a face look more sweet, before
or since, than she looked at that moment. Or more trusting.

He kissed her.

I know I was
really not supposed to stand there gawking, but wild horses could not have
dragged me away at that mo-ment. I had known, for months now, how Vanity felt
about Quentin.

He stepped
back, his eyes filled with emotion, but his face calm. The same way, earlier, I
had seen an expression that made me think he was a five-year-old, now I saw
what he would look like when he was twenty-five, when he was forty-five.

Quentin laughed
for mere joy, and said, "Colin told me never to 'ask' a girl for a kiss,
merely to inform her so she knows you're doing it deliberately. I have no idea
why he thinks he knows anything about women, since he's never met any I haven't
met. But maybe he knows the right thing about women."

Vanity's face,
all freckled and round and flushed, lit up like the sun coming out, and her
smile peeped up, grew larger, kept growing. She said, "It's not what you
know about women. It's the women you know."

Quentin glanced
at me. "You know why I did that, now?"

I said
quietly, "I have a guess."

He nodded,
turned away from me, and said, "Let's begin."

The hand by
which he held her he now raised to help her mount up to the stone. The dream
had said she must stand upon it.

Vanity stood
there, her black patent leather shoes turned ever so slightly inward toward
each other, her hands toying with the pleats in her plaid skirt, her shoulders
half raised in a shrug, her head half lowered in a blush. Even though Quentin
was now standing below her, she seemed to want to look up at him, through the
tops of her lashes.

2.

My guess was
this: He wanted this to be his first kiss. At the moment, it was. If the
experiment worked, and he got his memory back, mis memory would still contain,
nevertheless, in all innocence and all solemnity, love's first kiss.

And then I had
a bad thought. What if Nausicaa was already in love with someone else? Someone
whom Vanity did not remember? Homer made her out to be pretty sweet on
Odysseus, as I recall.

I had been
assuming the spell, if it worked, was meant for Quentin. It had come in the
middle of a dream about Quentin. But what if it worked on all of us? And what
about me? What if Phaethusa was, I don't know, a murderess or an adulteress or
an environmentalist or something? Someone who couldn't do math, or who liked
Tony Blair?

Did I want to
be an adult, suddenly?

I did not
think too highly of adults, not the ones I had met so far in my life. They
seemed like the Upside-Down Folk to me, worrying about everything trivial and
blithely ignoring every-thing great and fine and true in life.

I thought
about what Victor would say about my doubts. First, he would look skeptical,
and men his skepticism would deepen into a sarcastic grimace, and he would ask:
"Is this the right thing to do?"

That is what
he would have said. "Sorrow is merely an emo-tion. Pain is merely a
stimulation of nerve ends. Neither one has any necessary relationship to what
we have to do in order to survive. If our enemies"—and Victor always
thought of them as enemies—"if our enemies make it more painful for
us to do what we must do, that merely increases the wrong they do us. It
doesn't decrease our obligations. It therefore is irrelevant to our
decisions."

Thank you,
Victor.

Aloud, I said,
"I'm ready."

3.

Vanity said,
"I'm ready, too. What do we do?"

I said,
"What do your instincts tell you?"

"Hmm ...
Let me think ... Avoid falling from heights, dark places, and loud noises. Have
babies."

"I'm
serious!" I said.

She looked at
me with her wide, wide green eyes. "I am, too. What does 'listen to your
instincts' mean?"

Quentin said,
"The first thing to do in any ritual, is sanctify the area. Either the
time, or the place, or the persons must be set aside, held pure, from other
influences, chthonic or mundane..." "What does that mean?" she
said.

"Put on a
white robe, or something. That way the spirits know you are about to initiate a
transformation."

"I don't
have a white robe."

"Some
witches go sky-clad ..."

"What's
that?"

"In the
nude."

"You
naughty, naughty boy!"

I said,
"Enough banter! Banter fun, ha ha, very funny, you are both cute. Now
stop. Quentin, I do not think your magic is her paradigm."

"What is
her paradigm?"

I spread my
hands and shrugged. "You heard my theory at breakfast."

"She
interprets everything in terms of herself? Her own awareness? Hmm. I am not
sure how one expands one's awareness. Vanity, maybe you have to sleep, or chew
peyote, or something."

"I've
drunk champagne. That's all we have time for," she said.

I said,
"You could always just command the table to open a dimensional gateway to
Myriagon. You know, say, 'Boundary, Open!' Or, 'Path to Myriagon, Appear!' Like
that."

Vanity tried a
number of variations on this phrase. She tried singing the command, she tried
sounding solemn, she tried ask-ing nicely. She tried at least a dozen different
phrases and tones of voice.

We two were
getting bored.

Vanity looked
up. "I am talking to a rock. Whose idea was this?"

I said,
"Maybe if you tried harder; if you really felt, deep down in your
soul..."

Quentin said,
"No. That is a Colin paradigm. He is the one who thinks everything is done
by an inspired effort of will. I do not think any two of us have the same
paradigm."

I spread my
hands. "Suggest something."

He frowned and
looked around the room.

I said,
"If Colin were here, he would make a suggestion."

"Colin
would suggest tantric magic," Quentin muttered.

"What's
that?" "Something sky-clad people do... Hang on."

Vanity said,
"What part of you am I to hang on to, then? If you're nude?"

I said,
"Enough banter! No more banter!"

Quentin was
looking at the book cabinet. "What do we know about the Phaeacians? From
Homer's Odyssey? What does he say about them?"

I looked at
him blankly. The only thing I remembered about the Odyssey was that it was
harder to translate from Greek than Socratic dialogues (which were filled with
labyrinthine sen-tences of angular complexity) and much harder than the New
Testament (which was written in baby-talk Greek). "I... um ... Wasn't it
the same island as Corcyra? The place where all that civil mayhem went on in
Thucydides?"

Vanity looked
embarrassed. "Gosh, I am supposed to be from there. I don't remember a
thing. Is that the place where they landed in a harbor and sent the messenger,
and the messenger got eaten, and all the ships but one were destroyed by these
bronze chariots? Nice, peaceful villages filled the valleys, but those people
were actually just cattle for the man-eating men, the super warriors, from the
hills?"

I said,
"There was a Cyclops who ate people, but..."

Quentin was
looking back and forth at us. "Uh, no. Vanity is right that there were
anthropophages who dressed from head to foot in bronze, and destroyed the
ships. They were called the Lystragonians. The Phaeacians were very hospitable.
In fact, I always thought one of the points the poet was trying to make was to
show the nature of hospitality versus barbarism, and the abuse of hospitality.
The suitors of Penelope, for example ..."

I said,
"Rule number one: No banter. Rule number two: No digressions."

"Fine.
This is what I remember about the Phaeacians. I thought they were supposed to
be fairies. Here's why I thought so: The fruit was always in season there;
their island never suffered winter's cold or summer's heat as did the mortal
world. Their doors were guarded by dogs of gold and silver, made by Hephaestos.
And their ships were magical. They sailed anywhere from any port to any other
in a single night of sailing, and they needed no hand at the tiller, no oar nor
sail, because the ships knew what their captains desired without a word, and a
living spirit moved them. They also left Odysseus on the beach of his country
surrounded by gifts, asleep, and stole away without seeing anyone or waking him
up. Don't you think that was strange? I mean, suppose the prince of, I don't
know, Sweden, were stranded on Dover Beach, and Princess Diana found him naked,
and brought him to court to get a ride home. Don't you think, instead of
leaving him all alone and asleep, dropped off in a back alley of Oslo, Her
Majesty's Government would at least communicate with the government of Sweden
to ..."

"Babbling!
Babbling!" I said. "Don't make me make another rule!"

"Well, I
am saying that's why I thought they were fairy folk. They were shy of being
seen."

I said,
"And the magic metal dogs didn't give it away?"

Vanity broke
in with a question. "Hey! Was there a range limit?"

Quentin said,
"On what?"

"You said
their ships could read minds. Did you have to be aboard the ship for it to
work?"

Quentin simply
smiled at her, and looked proud.

That smile
brought a chill to my heart No, I did not disap-prove of what they felt for
each other, nothing like that. It was just that I had feelings for Victor. And
Victor never looked at me that way. He never looked proud of me.

4.

Vanity spread
her hands and shut her eyes. She said aloud, "Ship! Whatever ship Princess
Nausicaa once owned, I have forgotten you, but you must remember me, now! Or if
any ship wishes the favor of the princess of the land which built you, listen
to me! The boundary between ..."

She opened one
eye.

"Myriagon,"
I whispered.

She closed her
eye. "... between Myriagon, and this place, must be opened! Sail there,
come here, bring my friend Amelia Windrose..." Quentin said softly,
"Phaethusa, daughter of Helion." "... Um, who is also known as
Phaethusa, daughter of He-lion, her powers. You knew my thought before I asked!
Let it be that you set sail two nights ago, so that you already have been to
Myriagon, and are even now approaching with your cargo! I conjure thee, I
conjure thee, I conjure thee!" - She opened her eyes and looked at us. She
smiled. I said, "Did you feel anything happen?" Her smile faded.
"Was I supposed to feel something?" Quentin said, "Maybe we
should go to the harbor, I mean, if there is a magic ship coming ... Ack!
Yikes!"

He grabbed
Vanity around the waist and picked her up off the table.

She giggled
and looked pleased. Does love make people stu-pid? Meanwhile, I said,
"What is wrong?"

"Don't
you see it?" He was staring at the tabletop.

5.

The surface of
the table turned translucent green, then leaf green, then clear as crystal. I
was looking down a long tube or tunnel of crystal to something far, far below.

It was a head.
A severed head, with its neck bones, torn throat-muscles and veins, all showing
from beneath the matted tangle of the beard. The black hair was spread out in
each direction from the skull, tangled and knotted around the green things
growing to each side. It looked like someone had thrown a man's head into the
center of the ring of bushes.

No. Not
bushes. Oak trees. Oaks trees set, not in a ring, but in a widening spiral with
this head at the center.

I tried to
estimate the size of the giant head, if a fully grown oak tree only reached the
distance from the back of its skull to its ear, or its cheek.

It opened its
dead eyes.

Like brown
water in a rusty pipe, a voice, deep, slow, cough- ing and creaking, rose from
far below: "Who trespasses the bounds I watch?"

6.

Suddenly, it
seemed to me as if the tunnel of crystal down which I looked was not
"down," nor left nor right, fore nor back, nor any other direction
that had a name. It was an opening into subspace, the low-energy direction I
called "red."

Quentin opened
his mouth to speak, and then checked him-self, looking at Vanity.

Vanity looked
at the both of us, spread her hands, and shrugged. Some of the glow from the
champagne was leaving us at that moment, and she looked frightened and clouded
in her wits, as if she was having trouble concentrating.

She said,
"I am not a trespasser."

The dead mouth
spoke again: "Burner of ships, daughter of virtue, I know you, though you
do not. You stand with a fallen one born old before he was young, from lifeless
seas beyond the seas of life; you stand with an unknown one born before the
fall, from dark heavens above the heavens which hold stars. They are the foes
of the Green Earth and the Blue Sea, of bright heaven above the world and dark
underworld. At your word, I destroy them. Speak, and I let slip the Wild
Hunt."

She said,
"These are my friends and I love them. Don't hurt them."

The dead face
kept its motionless eyes turned toward her, quiet as a statue in a graveyard.

She said,
"My friend Amelia is closer than a sister to me. She needs her powers from
her home to undo a great wrong. Let her powers pass through to her. If any ship
of mine is coming on my errands, let it pass."

Vanity's face
was shining with sweat. In a cold room in the middle of winter, she was
sweating.

Eventually the
creaking, slow voice spoke again. "Cromm Cruich the Worm of Mist rose
against me, and my songs threw him down. The Sons of Nemed, the Men of the
Bolg, the Parthalonians, and the Giants of Foraor attempted these shores, and
were driven back to Eire, or driven underground.

"Rome's
eagle stooped here for a time, clawing and tearing at this land, but Caesar
lost his sword to Cymbaline, and Con-stantine called back the haughty
legionnaires, departed never to return.

"I
breamed a storm upon the Spanish King Philip, whose great Armada sank beneath
the sorcery of the Virgin Queen; when the German Caesar sent his flying iron
sky-things to hail fire and death upon this Kingdom, I spoke into the place
where Arthur still recovers from his wound, and bleeding, he rose up, and drove
the Huns away.

"This is
my land. Her green hills and mountains, heaths and highlands, forests thick
with red deer, rivers running blue into the channel or the iron-gray Northern
Sea. The rain, the mist, the fogs are mine. The folk are mine, these proud,
cold, silly, solemn folk, in whose bosom the first torch of liberty ever was
found again, since the day the venial nobles in Rome allowed Caesar's
bloodstained hands to quench it.

"Crude
Chaucer, and Milton most august, alike are mine; an-gelic John Keats and
devilish George Gordon, Lord Byron.

"The victories
at Waterloo, Trafalgar, and, yes, at Rourke's Drift are mine. Even me massacres
done to the helpless aborigines of far Tasmania are mine.

"All this
island is, I am. Do you understand me?"

Vanity said
softly, "Yes."

"Then
swear your most profoundest oatii, swear by me blackest water of the River
Styx, by the Cauldron of Arawn the Just, by the Grail of Christ the Merciful,
by the Wounds of the Fisher-King and Spear mat cured him, swear! Swear and bind
tiiose two you call your friends to me oatii. You will never harm this island.
No matter how this land offend you, nor whf t her crimes, nor even if all the
Lordly Dead most beloved by you call with deepest tears, on knee, upon you, you
shall do no hurt unto this island. Swear, and I shall let your ship pass by
me."

She said,
"I swear."

I said,
"Um, so do I. God save the Queen."

Quentin
stepped over to where Headmaster Boggin had set out a box of cigars for his
guests. There was an ashtray here. With the penknife used to trim the cigars,
Quentin cut a strand of hair from his head, set the lock of hair in the
ashtray, and ignited it with the matching cigarette lighter standing next to
the box. The hair burnt with a truly disgusting smell.

Quentin said
quietly, "May my life be cut as quickly, may I be burned as terribly, as
this frail hair I cast into the flame, should I break this vow. I love England
and will do the land no harm; no matter what crimes I am done, nor who calls on
me. Black water of the Styx, Cauldron of Annfwn, Grail of Christ, Red Wounds of
Alan le Gros, and Spear of Joseph of Ari-mathia, I pray you witness and enforce
this oath, and never release me from it. So Mote It Be."

The head said,
"Done! For the span of time it takes to sing the Compline, the fetid stain
of Myriagon shall be permitted to mar this place."

The crystal
tabletop darkened, transparent, translucent, opaque; and the head was gone.

I said,
"How long does it take to sing the Compline?"

Quentin said,
"Thirteen seconds. 'Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch,
or weep this night...'"

Even though
the crystal tunnel was now opaque, I could still see it, like a green pillar
issuing from the tabletop and reaching into the "red" direction.
Looking at Quentin, I saw, stretching parallel to that, world-lines
intersecting his nervous system, and distorting the natural flow paths of his
thoughts.

"... and
give your angels charge over those who sleep ..."

It was the
same effect I use to distort the at-rest mass-path of a heavy door to make it
lighter. Something was distorting the at-rest state of the white dot at the
center of his brain.

Vanity, seeing
my face, shrieked and put her fingers over her mouth.

"... Tend
the sick, Lord Christ..."

That dot was
not, precisely speaking, "in" his brain. In the same way what we
called a "song" was the terdimensional manifestation of a higher
singularity, Quentin's brain activity was an ongoing representation in time and
space of the rotation of the surface of a fourth-dimensional object-event.

".. .
give rest to the weary ..."

The dot was a monad.
It was his noumenal self; the part of the self in which self-awareness resides.
"... bless the dying ..."

Vibrations
radiating from the monad formed six different types of energy, depending on
what three-dimensional axis intersected them. Three were space, one was time,
one was para-time, and the final one ...

"...
soothe the suffering..."

... It did not
have a name. A new sense impression I had not hitherto been aware I possessed
apprehended the nameless sixth vibration. The first five directions established
relation and duration; this sixth gave self its self-ness. It was eternal,
timeless, indestructible...

"... pity
the afflicted..."

And it was
tilted off-axis. The shadows it cast into Quentin's nerve paths were deflected.
I could see bright areas and dim ar-eas in his cortex. Certain of his thoughts
and memories were at-tempting to create a greater effect in the future. They
had the potential for setting in motion chains of cause-effect which would
influence his actions and change him. This was being blocked. I was looking, so
to speak, at his happy memories.

"...
shield the joyous ..."

Bits of dark
matter were also floating in his nervous system. They were the source of the
blocking. It was very complex, a web of energy-interactions it would have taken
years, centuries to trace ...

"... and
all for your love's sake ..."

But I did not
have to. No matter how complex the web of matter was inside Quentin's brain,
whatever was not connected to the governing monad in which his noumenal self
resided was, by definition, non-self-correcting. Only living systems can love
themselves, change themselves, grow, correct themselves, put out new stalks and
branches on the tree of possible futures issuing from their actions.

The dark
matter, on the other hand, was inert. "Inert'' equals "actions
determined" equals "low probability." All I had to do was...

I said,
"Thoughts are known by thought and thought alone." And I reached out
with ... something ... and twisted his monad back into its proper alignment, to
bring the blight areas along the thought-axis parallel to the para-time axis of
the dim areas inflicted by the dark matter in his brain. And... "...
Amen."

The universe
collapsed on me, crashing me back into three-dimensional space. I still had my
... call it a hand... outside of its normal volume, reaching into Quentin. I
did not have time to fold up properly.

And so I (my
body compressed at the wrong angle) screamed; Vanity (looking at me) screamed;
Quentin (clutching his head) screamed.

We all
screamed. It was not a good moment.

7.

I fell over
and struck the floor. Whatever it was (A limb? A song? A thought? A psychic
extension? A manipulator made out of solidified time?) that I had inside
Quentin, slipped out as I fell, in the spray of reddish sparks.

I had not even
been aware that I had a telescoping 4-D form meant to fold smoothly back into
3-D geometry until I was stuck half-folded. That sense of heaviness, of
massiveness, which surrounded my hand when I tried to reach through the safe
walls the night before was now spread unevenly through my whole body. Some
organs felt compressed, others, distended.

I tried to
look at myself, but my eyes were not working. Everyming was afflicted with a
blue haze. Instead, sense organs meant for some other level of reality were
giving me information. I was receiving a sense of the internal nature of things
from one pair of organs, and another organ told me how useful or useless
certain objects and events around me were to my will.

Vanity's
internal nature was sweet and giving; Quentin was sad; the table was stern; me
cigars were filled with malice; the doors to Boggin's chamber were watchful and
careful; the two clocks were bitter, filled with hate, and watching me.

Neither Vanity
nor Quentin were of any use to me at the mo-ment, my other sense informed me.
That is, none of the world-paths issuing from me had any greater potential when
passing near them. But there was something shining with use-light coming
quickly from a parallel area. It was either nearby in time or in space.

I twisted my
head to see if I could bring another sense organ to bear. Through the wall, I
could see two nervous systems, sur-rounded by glowing lines of superpotential,
great usefulness, jogging up the stairs.

Then the first
was at the door to this room. I could not see the door, but I heard it open,
and the inner nature of watchfulness gave way to something masculine, selfish,
disobedient, willful, lustful, and rough.

Behind the
rough object was someone whose inner nature was logical, detached, dispassionate,
stoic, skeptical about outer things, certain about inner ones.

I said,
"Colin? Victor? Is that you?"

No words came
out, but there was a rash of music radiation from me, flashes of wings of
light.

Vanity
screamed again.

Victor said,
"Fascinating. Is that Amelia?"

Colin put his
hand out. With a bump, the world snapped back into place. My new senses went
blind. I was blinking.

I looked
around. Everything was normal looking. No noises from subspace, no ripples of
hyperlight thudding through skew planes. Just a room, and four friends staring
down at me.

I looked down
at myself. Honestly, I expected to see unimag-inable horror, arms and legs
twisted into Mobius strips, my body stretched into a Klein bottle, bones at
right angles, lungs turned inside out, my head shaped like a question mark,
with webs of flesh connecting me to older and younger versions of my body.
Something like that.

But I was just
normal. A girl in a plaid skirt, white shirt, black patent leather shoes, and a
stupid necktie.

"What
happened?" I asked.

Colin said,
"You had too much energy in you. I sucked it away."

I said,
"How?"

Colin leaned
over and offered me his hand. "I wanted you back the way you were. My
desire was stronger than the desire of the world to keep you looking weird. I
won." I put my hand in his hand. Instead of lifting me to my feet, he just
caressed the back of my hand with little motions of his thumb.

"But—how
did you know what to do?"

He smiled.
"It's not something I do consciously. It's like lust I mean, a man can't
ejaculate just by a silent act of willpower. He needs a girl to lick his
..."

I yanked my
hand away and climbed to my feet without his help. He started to brash off my
bottom, and I clipped him one on the ear.

"Ow!"
he said, clutching his ear and stepping back. "And you're welcome for me
saving your life."

Quentin said,
"I wish I had his paradigm. No fuss. No knives. No candles. No lists of
names."

Victor said,
"Clap, and the dead linkerbell gets better, only if you really believe.
Seems like a rather inflexible system to me. How can you perform experiments?
If you can only do what you really believe in, you cannot be curious."

Quentin said,
"But look at how well he does with women!"

Victor said,
"Does what? Annoy them?"

I said to
Colin, "Thank you for saving me. Do you want me to say I'm sorry about
hitting your ear?"

Colin, still
rubbing his ear, said, "No, thanks. I want to stay mad at you, I'll have
an excuse later on for hiking up your skirts, turning you over my knee, and
spanking you. Hit me again."

Vanity said,
"How come everyone starts talking about spank-ing when Amelia is
around?"

Colin said to
her, "It had to do with the shape of her butt. Some girls, you can just
tell from the shape of their butts, that what they really want is a nice,
strong ..."

"Ugh!"
said Vanity. "Just shut up! You're the kind of fellow who thinks boogers
are funny."

"Well,"
said Colin, looking a little puzzled, "Boogers are funny, most of the
time. There is humor value both in the long, droopy kind and the hard,
crumbly..."

"Speaking
of gross things," I said, "what did I look like? Just now, I
mean."

Colin said,
"Big squid with eyestalks, just like you said."

Vanity said,
"It was gross. You got all thin and stretched, and these blurry lights and
colors and sounds were coming out of you. I think you had wings. And
tentacles—fiery tentacles coming out of behind your shoulders. There was
a white spike through your head."

Quentin said,
"You had wings like an angel, and the horn of a unicorn. You looked like a
centaur. From the waist down, your body was deerlike and very sleek. More like
a dolphin, than a deer, actually. It was beautiful."

Victor said,
"I saw four legs, also. You had a long tail or flukes trailing behind
that, which seemed to be embedded in the bookcase behind you. Although that
must have been an optical illusion, because I can see the bookcase is unharmed.
From the waist up you looked fairly like your self, except that your neck was
longer and your head was smaller, and surrounded by a reddish haze. You had
wings, or some sort of fans or vanes hovering behind you. They did not seem to
be connected to any particular place on your shoulders. Streamers of energy
composed of groups of light-dots were issuing from your arms and shoulders, and
reaching to various points around the room. I also noticed a group of bulbs or
globes floating in the air near your head, though some smaller globes were
floating further away. You were also playing music, and filmy lights like
aurora borealis were rapidly coming out from your wings in concentric ripples.
There was an intense magnetic disturbance. I think the bulbs near your head
were sensory apparatus. When Colin and I were still in the hall outside, we
both saw a trio of bulbs appear in a splash of red light and move toward us.
Colin told me you were looking at us." Vanity said, "Oh my God! She
has floating eyeballs! Yee-uk!" Quentin said, "I think you are being
too harsh, Vanity." Vanity said, "You don't understand! Girls get
freaked out if we have a mole or if one breast is slightly bigger than another.
Little things. A crooked nose. A blackhead. You know. The only thing you boys
actually judge us on. So how do you think we should feel if we grow another
hand out of our forehead or something? Even a nice-looking hand with long
nails? And now she's got energy and matter and music and God-knows-what coming
off of her, and too many legs, and ... Do you know a guy won't look at you on
the beach if you have one toe missing? One toe!" Colin said, "You
were never on a beach."

Quentin said
to me, "It really did not look that bad. There was something spiritual
about the shape. It looked... hmm ... more 'real' somehow and less frail, than
the normal objects in the room here."

Colin said,
"There were other shapes, beyond what we saw. Maybe one for every different
angle she can turn in this so-called 'fourth dimension' of hers, or whatever
dumb visualization she uses to focus. There's more. I sense the untapped
energy."

Victor said,
"Shape doesn't matter. Beauty is an arbitrary judgment."

Colin said to
me, "Look here, Amelia, a flat picture of a girl can be as good-looking as
the 3-D real thing. Better looking, actually, if she takes off her shirt for
the camera. So why can't a 4-D picture of a girl look good?"

I said to him,
"(A) I never said I thought I looked bad, only Vanity said that, so you
don't have to try to cheer me up, and (B) I thought you said I looked like a
squid?"

He said,
"A cute squid. What's the problem? We're all shape-changers. You just
happened to be the first one to pop up a new shape."

Victor said,
"You also can manifest limbs at a distance. There was also a mist or cloud
connecting various disconnected bulbs and wing elements around you. Wherever an
object—I assume part of your body—was appearing or disappearing,
there was al-ways a puff of cloud and a visible light distortion. Parts of your
body seemed to be energy fields rather than flesh and bone."

Quentin said,
"The misty clouds looked just like the ones we saw around the hands of the
Hecatonchire last night."

I looked at
him in amazement, dumbstruck.

Vanity said,
"How do you know that, Quentin?"

"Because
I remember, now," he said quietly.

And he smiled.
i3

cTbe
cF6nsfWhite and^till l.

Vanity was
staring at the two oblong clocks which stood to ei-ther side of the door. She
cocked her ear to one side, listening.

"What's
wrong?" I asked.

"They
sound funny. Weren't they ticking slower earlier... ?"

Meanwhile,
Victor was saying to Quentin, "What do you re-member?"

Quentin said,
"Maybe things are more dangerous than we think. There was a woman in Dr.
Fell's office. A vampiress. She tricked Fell into stepping outside, and she
tried to kill me."

Colin said,
"Why don't we just leave? Right now, right this second, money or no money?
We walk to Abertwyi and steal a boat."

Victor said,
'They'd send the police."

Colin said,
"So? So we tell the police that there are ancient Greek gods kidnapping
us, and they lock us up in a madhouse. At least we won't be here. And if our
powers work on Earth, you point your little pinky finger at the locks and we walk
out We could hunt in the woods for food, or work, or live off the dole. They
don't let children starve in England, despite what Maggie Thatcher
wanted."

Quentin said,
"Amelia, you're not going to leap to Prime Minister Thatcher's defense?
You are her biggest fan."

I said,
"Those clocks are in time with each other now."

Victor said,
"What?"

I said,
"They were out of synch before. Now they are in synch. When I was in the
Fourth Dimension, I sensed their internal nature was watchful, and trembling
with hate. They're beings. Alive things. I think they may be listening to what
we say."

Quentin turned
to Victor. "They know we know. The Head of Bran appeared out of the
tabletop here and called us by name. They saw us do our magic. There is no
chance of fooling Bog-gin any longer."

Colin said,
"I'll go get the fire axe." And he ran out me door and down the
corridor. We all knew which axe he meant; it hung by a fire extinguisher on the
second-floor landing.

Vanity said,
"If we chop up his clocks, Boggin will know."

I said,
"What if we chop up the clocks and take Colin's plan and just run away?
Now, before they wake up or get back from wherever they went?"

Quentin said,
"There is an amnesia drug Dr. Fell used on me. I could go down to his
office, steal some, and bring it back."

Victor said,
"Where would we inject me clocks? Do they have veins?" And he went
over, stooped to examine the panel in the front of the clock. He ran his hand
over the lock, it clicked, and the front little cabinet opened just a crack.
Victor peered in.

"Oh,
that's just lovely," said Victor in disgust.

"What?"
we all said.

He pushed me
door shut and the lock clicked. "It's nothing I want you girls to see.
Quentin, do you know those large canvas sacks we found in the kitchen? Go down
and get me two. If you pass Colin charging back up here, tell him to go steal a
shovel from Mr. Glum's shed."

Quentin
pointed. "There are corpses inside those clocks, aren't there? Dead
bodies."

Victor said,
"Yes."

Quentin
blanched and Vanity said, "Yeeew!"

Victor said,
"I was going to pop them in sacks and give mem a proper burial once we're
all in the woods somewhere. If I do that, and reset me clock mechanism, maybe
whatever inside this clock Amelia says is watching us will be disabled. It's
just a guess, mind you. But I thought it would give us more time be-fore they
noticed anything wrong. Amelia, bring me Mr. Glum's hammer. If we leave it in
this room, maybe they'll think he did it."

Colin was at
the door. "You mean I don't get to chop down the clock?" He had the fire
axe in his hands.

Victor said,
"We must be unanimous in this. Is everyone willing to leave? Now, tins
minute?" I said, "What about the things in the safe?"

He said, 'Tell
Vanity what of your things from your room you want Vanity, we'll give you ten
minutes or so to pack. We boys will go bury the remains in the clock."

Colin said,
"There are dead bodies in the clock? You were all looking at dead bodies
and I missed it?"

Victor
continued, "That will give you ten minutes, Amelia, if you think you can
bluff or brass your way past the workmen and get to the safe."

Colin said,
"Wiggle your nipples in their faces, Aim. It worked on your boyfriend,
Glum."

Victor said,
"If you want to take the risk. Otherwise, we can always try to sneak back
on the grounds later on, and crack the safe then."

I said,
"You should do that, not me. You can wave your hand and get it open. I
don't think my powers will turn on unless the sphere is ringing, and the sphere
only rang because Miss Daw's music was shocking it."

Vanity said, "I
want to hear Quentin's story!"

Quentin, as if
summoned by his name, came trotting back in, carrying empty canvas potato
sacks. "Mr. Glum is still sleeping soundly. But out through the window, I
thought I saw two people walking toward the Great Hall. Miss Daw and a man in a
coat. I didn't recognize him, but he was too short to be Dr. Fell."

Victor said,
"I hate doing things in haste, but we're short on time. We have an
opportunity to escape while everyone is drunk or asleep or whatever happened to
them. We have to be unanimous in this; we have to be of one mind. Who wants to
escape now?"

I asked,
"As opposed to what?"

"Waiting,
preparing, getting a better chance later, getting some notion of where we are
running to. Quentin, now or later?"

"Now. The
woman I talked to last night is dangerous, and she is not afraid of Mavors. One
of tiiese factions—I don't know which one—wants to provoke a war
between Chaos and Cosmos. Killing us is how to start me war."

"Colin?
Now or later?" "I think we should stay till Halloween, so we can
dress up like goblins before we ran away, and feed ourselves by going from
house to house asking for trick-or-treats. Maybe if we stay till Christmas,
they'll give us a present in a box with a ribbon, or we'll all get invited to
the wedding of Vanity and Grendel Glum. I want to be a flower girl."

"Is that
your vote? To stay?"

"No, you
great git. I vote go now. It was my damn idea."

"Vanity?
Now or later?"

Vanity said,
"I think they are afraid of the human beings for some reason. Mortals think
these guys are myths, right? So if we hide among the human beings, how are they
going to find us? The only point in staying here is to see if we can find out
more. But what if we contact our families? Or just write a threatening letter
to Mr. ap Cymra? We get him to tell us what we want to know or we reveal him to
Boggin."

Colin said,
"Yak, yak, yak. Can't you just vote?"

Vanity
answered hotly, "I didn't go on as long as you, and I am saying smart
things instead of smart-mouthed things! Anyway, my point is, before I was so
rudely interrupted (geez!) the only advantage to stay is to learn more, but we
might learn much more and at less risk if we were living in London, and had
jobs as fashion models or film actresses or something."

Colin said,
"Oh yes, we'll hide by having you appear in a swimsuit on a billboard.
Great plan. Isn't there already an actress named Vanity, anyway? You'll have to
pick a stage name. Something unusual. Like Jane."

Victor said,
"Shut up, Colin. We have two votes for leaving immediately and one vote
for going to London to be fashion models. Amelia? Now or later?"

I said,
"I vote 'now.' I waited my whole damn life."

"Fine. I
vote 'now' also. We have to see how far we can get away from the boundaries
before we start getting sick. We may not all be equally affected; Vanity might
not be affected at all. Even if we are captured again, it is crucial to know
how far we can go and which of us can do it. So the vote is unanimous."

Colin said,
"I demand a recount."

Victor took
the sacks from Quentin and shoved them into Colin's hands. "For that, you
get to carry the corpses in the clock."

2.

Less than ten
minutes later, Victor and I were lying on our stomachs behind a little mound of
snow, watching the Great Hall. There were two dozen workmen there, with block
and tackle, lowering ropes into a wide hole they had opened in the shingles of
the roof.

My plan had
been just to walk by them, no matter what they said, unless they grabbed us and
threw us to the ground to sit onus.

But not only
was Miss Daw there, watching the workmen work, but there were three men in blue
uniforms with batons, who looked like some sort of police or private guard.

Miss Daw was
sitting on the front steps, wearing a slender, buff-colored coat with mink fur
at the wrists and collar. She had a stole wrapped around her throat, and
earmuffs in a matching hue. The fur was so fluffy and fine that she seemed half
buried in it, with only her nose and eyes above. Little snowflakes rested on
her lashes, and she was a picture of loveliness.

A man in a
long blue coat and a snap-brim fedora was sitting at her feet, playirig a
ukulele, and singing silly songs, while Miss Daw laughed and applauded.

There is
nothing worse than listening to someone play a uke to your music teacher, who
has a voice like an angel, and who is mercilessly strict with you and your
lessons, but who just smiles when this clumsy-fingered man misses a note or
sings off key. Unless you are sitting in the snow, listening, cold and annoyed
and wondering why they didn't pick anotiier place to play. That makes it worse.

The man turned
his head to offer her a drink from his hip flask. We could hear her clear voice
over the distance, saying, "It is too early in the morning, Corus,
darling."

He said,
"It's got to be night time somewhere in the world. Isn't this one
round?" She laughed her silver laugh in return.

I whispered to
Victor, "That is the flying man from last night. The one with bright blue
wings."

Victor said,
"What's he doing here?"

"Victor,
sometimes you are such an idiot."

Victor looked
at his watch. "Let's give it another five minutes. Maybe she'll get bored
with his limericks or have to go to the bathroom, or something. Oh, damn.
Look."

Through the
snowcapped bushes in the middle distance, we could see Headmaster Boggin,
walking toward the Great Hall, stepping across the snowy lawn.

I almost did
not recognize him. He was not wearing his mor-tarboard, and his hair lay long
and loose and red, falling across the shoulders of his black silk robes and
trailing down his back past his shoulder blades.

In step with
him was the man who, last night, had been dressed in blue, green, and white
scale armor, the Atlantian with the gills behind his ears, now stepping across
the snowy lawn.

The Atlantian
was dressed in a heavy coat of seal fur with a tall Russian-style cap on his
head, like a shako without the visor. He wore black leather gloves and black
boots of sharkskin. The whole ensemble gave him a rather ominous appearance. He
walked with his hands clasped behind his back, and his head nodded forward.

It was Boggin
I stared at, though. I had a strange embarrassed feeling when I saw, where his
flowing black robes parted in the front, Boggin was not wearing a shirt. Little
red hairs, hard to see against his flesh, made curls across his chest. His
pectorals were well developed, his stomach flat and ribbed with muscle. He was
wearing, of all things, blue jeans beneath that. He was not wearing any socks
or shoes. Boggin walked barefoot in the snow. That was more ominous than
wearing a fur cap.

The corner of
the library was between him and the workmen. He stopped, and would not come
around the corner, but instead exchanged a few words with the Atlantian. We
could hear Bog-gin's comments, but the Atlantian had his head turned away from
us and, besides, his voice was quieter.

"The
security arrangements are entirely in your hands, this time, Mestor. You simply
cannot ask the school, on our budget, to defray the costs of guarding your
table in a warehouse until the Oni-Kappa Mara arrives at Port Eynon."

Mestor asked
him a question.

Boggin said
back: "Possibly, but I know not everyone will be happy to have another
shipload of mortal sailors disappear. I could give you some of Dr. Fell's
excellent medicine. You could administer it to the crew of whatever human ship
you hired and they would remember nothing the next day. What about that?"

Mestor pointed
toward the Manor House, toward the upper stories.

"No, I
don't want you to take Miss Fair as yet. We need to hear from Mulciber, for one
thing. What would you do, keep her tied up in the warehouse under guard as
well? And who would pay for that?"

Mestor dropped
his voice, made a comment in a soft tone, speaking with quiet emphasis.

Boggin said,
"Ah, well. You do make a good point. Hmm. You would have to give me your
word and be in my debt. Agreed?"

Mestor said a
single word.

Boggin said,
"Have some of your men go wait in my office. I will write a note excusing
Miss Fair from class, and asking her to report there. Your men are mortal and
therefore the good Mrs. Wren will have no real ability to object if they
manhandle Miss Fair a bit. Do you want Dr. Fell to provide you with chloroform
or something?"

Mestor made a
scoffing comment.

Boggin
answered, "Oh, it's not that. I just would prefer to avoid any screaming
or fuss, or anything that might disrupt the routine today more than it has
been. In fact, by Thunder, I am not sure where the students are right now.
That's annoying. Everything is at sixes and sevens. Mr. Glum was supposed to
turn them over to Miss Daw for first period, yet there she sits, being
serenaded by my little brother."

Mestor peeled
back his glove, looked at his watch, said something.

Boggin
answered: "If possible, we should have Miss Fair spirited out of here
before her little playmates know anything is wrong. Who knows what they are
capable of? I can have Miss Fair's things sent along after. What's that? Well,
I am sure any hardware supply shop would carry sturdy rope and duct tape in
whatever amount you require."

They exchanged
pleasantries and good-byes.

Boggin said,
"Oh, and, one last thing, my dear fellow. Remember that if she dies,
Mavors will kill you and your family without speaking a word."

Mestor stopped
for a moment, as if trying to think of some rejoinder. But then he merely walked
on. Mestor stepped around the corner and approached one of the men in uniform.
That man saluted him.

Victor
whispered to me, "We have less time than I thought. Crawl back till we
reach the corner of the Manor House, then run."

I am still
faster on my feet than Victor, and I made it to Arthur's Mound before him.

3.

Colin and
Vanity and Quentin were waiting there. The fire axe was still in Colin's hands,
and Quentin had his walking stick. Vanity was holding a shovel.

As they saw me
running toward them in such haste, Colin pointed Vanity toward the outliers of
the woods to the South, and slapped her on the bottom. She shouldered a laundry
bag, slapped Colin, and began running.

I came up the
mound. "Search has already started. Boggin is going to send Vanity off
with the sea-people."

Colin handed
me a duffel bag filled with clothes, canned food, blankets, and other gear.
"This is all we could find for backpacks. Can you do your trick to make
them light?" Quentin held a second duffel bag. A third was on the ground.

Two canvas
potato sacks were also on the ground. From the way the folds fell, it looked as
if two thin children were curled up in fetal positions inside.

Victor came
up. "I thought you were burying those."

Colin replied,
"You said ten minutes. Do you know how much of a hole I can dig in ten
minutes in the ice-cold ground? Let me tell you—not deep enough to
prevent Mr. Glum's dog from rooting them out."

I said,
"Give me your duffels. Both of you. I can carry more."

Quentin said,
"What do we do, Victor? I hate to leave... dead people... just lying here
unburied. That would be horrible." He passed me his duffel.

Victor told
Colin to take one corpse; he picked up the other. I shouldered three huge
duffel bags filled with stuff.

Colin said
dubiously, "Can you carry all that, Aim?"

I said,
"I'll make it to the edge of the woods before you, slowpoke."

And I did.

Because the
trees had begun to lose their leaves, the woods were less cover than we hoped.
We could still see the buildings and folly towers of the estate behind us for
many minutes as we walked.

The trees got
taller as we went deeper. At first, we were guid-ing our steps in the direction
of the sun, but when the clouds grew thick, the sky turned into a dull, dirty
gray the same color as the ground.

"If they
haven't plowed the highway yet, we'll miss it," I said.

Victor said,
"We can estimate distances by counting paces; if we come across a clearing
between two parallel rows of trees, lined with telephone poles and metal guard
rails, that will be the highway."

We jogged and
walked, jogged and walked. An hour went by, maybe two. The snow became patchy
in places, and croppings of rock and gray grass began giving the ground
texture, like the dappling on a white whale.

The trees
deeper in the forest were utterly leafless, as if the seasons here were not
quite synchronized with those back on

apus. Tall and
skeletal, the trees spread icy branches against the sky. Each twig was coated
and limed with transparent ice and, even in the gray light, they caught points
of brightness in them, gemlike.

The air was
still and utterly widiout wind. The nets and angles of branches and twigs
overhead grew thicker. Whenever a flake of snow fell from an upper twig, it
fell plumb straight.

It looked like
fairyland. We were free, and getting freer every step. I have never known the
air to taste more sweet.

Eventually we
slowed, and stopped.

By the roots
of a huge oak tree, Victor and Colin put down their burden.

The boys took
turns digging a grave.

After a full
minute of argument, I convinced them to give me a turn digging. Colin timed it
with his watch, and I piled my dirt into a pile separate from the one the boys
had been making. When, in the same amount of time digging, my pile was bigger
man their combined piles, Victor put me in charge of the burial detail.

They wouldn't
let me touch the canvas potato sacks the corpses were in, though. Digging a
grave was woman's work, but only manly men can touch a sack with remains in it,
I guess. Go figure.

Now it was
Quentin who argued. He was much quieter in his voice than I was, but more
insistent. He wanted to bury them right, and say a few words. For different
reasons, Vanity and I both backed him up.

Colin scoffed
at us, saying, "You three are being silly. If you close your eyes, the sun
doesn't go out. Spirits can move from place to place, but they can't 'die.' Can
a concept die? Can a god? It's all me same substance. There is no reason to
make a ceremony out of it."

Victor's face
showed less emotion but he scoffed, too: "These bodies are composed of the
same amount of atoms before and after vital functions ceased. There is no
quantitative difference, no reason to get sentimental about it. Quentin, say
whatever words you want to say and make it quick."

At Quentin's
polite request, Colin chopped down four branches, and we used a hank of twine
from one of our bags to make two crude crosses to mark the graves. Colin drove
the crosses into the frozen earth with blows from the back of his hammer. He
must have been angry, or "putting energy" into the blows, for he
drove the uprights nine inches or so into the ground with one blow each.

Quentin said a
few words over the bodies. "In sure and cer-tain hope of the resurrection
to eternal life through our Lord, Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God
those whom we have carried to this place, their names unknown to us; and we
commit their bodies to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust..." That sort of thing. Simple and moving. I did not know who these
people were or how they got into Boggin's clock. I did not know if they were
children or if they had just shrunk because they were mummies. I did not even
know if they were human beings. But I felt sorry for them.

Then, after
praying like a proper church-going Christian, Quentin took one of the kitchen
knives we had stolen, cut an unsightly hunk of hair from his head, and tossed
some of it into either grave, as if he were suddenly a pagan again, and he
threw in four tuppence from his pocket change, two into either grave. He took
out one of the bottles of pop we had taken from the kitchen, shook it, and
sprayed it against the roots of the tree, asking the Meliad Nymph of the tree
to kindly guard the remains, in return for the libation he poured out.

I had only
shoveled about four great spadefuls into the first grave, when there was a
motion in the near distance, and Mr. Glum's dog, Lelaps, trotted into the
clearing.

We all stood
motionless, staring at the huge hound.

The dog sat on
his haunches, tilted his head to one side, and let his tongue hang out.

Vanity pointed
away South. "That way. We're going that way."

The dog barked
once, and immediately trotted off the other direction.

"Nice
doggy ..." said Vanity sofdy. Then she said, "I am be-ginning to get
a good feeling about our chances."

A few minutes
later, and we were under way again. I shoul-dered one duffel bag, Victor
carried one, and Colin and Quentin flipped a coin to see who would take the
third.

Because Lelaps
was likely to lead any pursuit astray, we shared Vanity's confidence, and did
not set too hard a pace. We talked as we walked, and some of us, envious of
Quentin's walking stick, had asked Colin to cut staves for us from the branches
around. Colin used the axe handle as a cane, and leaned on the axe head, in a
fashion I thought most unsafe. He had also been running with it in his hands. I
thought it was only a matter of time before someone got cut with it.

I said to
Quentin, "What was all that 'Lord make his face to shine upon you' stuff
back there at the grave? You're not a Christian anymore. You told me so."

"I'm
still English," he said mildly.

Vanity said,
"Are you going to tell us what happened to you last night?"

Colin agreed,
"Let's have the tale, Quentin. Do tell, do!"

We trudged
along beneath gray skies as he spoke, in the crisp air beneath the woven white
lace canopy of frost-touched trees, and in the highest spirits we had ever
known.

14

J T>o Wot %
Thee, T>r. Tell

"I did
not see him in the snow when I stepped out onto the roof, because he was buried
in it. He was laying face up under about an inch of powder, and he sat up. All
he was wearing was a white lab coat. How he got by without breathing, I don't
know.

"His
forehead opened in a vertical split, and behind the split was a third eye, blue
as gunmetal, every part of it. He projected his spell from the eye, and it
struck me, and I could feel my magic snuffed out in an instant. Do you ever
think of your own body as a coffin? That is the way I felt. As if my soul got
smaller when his spell struck.

"I walked
with him back to his lab. I remember asking him along the way if he was a
Cyclops. Amelia and I had seen an-other man with a third eye earlier that
evening.

"He said
that his real name was Telemus. 'You are thinking I am a triclops, aren't you?
But this,' and he pointed at his own face, 'is merely an appliance, like the
one your fellow inmate Victor Triumph wears ... I can see you are curious,' he
said. "And he leaned down and drew his eyelid wide with his fin-gertip and
asked me to touch his eye. Well, I thought it was my chance to escape, so I
took it. I poked him in the eye as hard as 1 could with my finger, and turned
and ran.

"His eye
was as hard and as dry as a marble. I had run perhaps twenty yards—a fair
distance—and turned to see why he wasn't following, and I saw him, with a
hard little smile on his face, flicking a blood drop from the end of his finger
at me. Even though he was too far away to hit me with a little finger-flick, he
did.

"It had
the shape of a red needle when it hit my pants leg, and it vibrated, like a
dentist drill, and sank into my calf. A cold sensation seized my leg. I could
feel it spreading through my veins. I fell down and could not get up.

"He
walked up and told me the running was to get my heart rate high, so the effect
would spread faster. He threw me over his shoulder as if I had no weight at
all, and he walked back to his lab. He did not turn on any lights as he walked
through the corridors: I think he has perfect night vision.

"He
strapped me to a gumey, and—Victor, may I leave out certain details?
Well, never mind. We are among friends here. I had dirtied myself when my legs
went numb, and he yanked my pants off and wiped my bottom like I was a baby. I
was a baby, I suppose, or as good as. He didn't seem disgusted or anything. I
don't dunk he noticed I was a person at all. Anyway, mat was not the most
humiliating thing mat happened that night.

"He never
did turn on the lights in his office. The only light was a little moonlight
coming in through his windows, and shadows of his instrument cases and files
were black as pitch.

"He goes
over to a cabinet, mixes some things together, and steps up to a table. There
was a patch of moonlight there, and I saw what happened. Dr. Fell holds his
hand over a beaker, and blood wells up out of his fingers like sweat. He did
not cut him-self. He stares at his hand and it starts dripping.

"He opens
his third eye again and cooks the blood in me light mat comes from this eye.

"He says
to me, "The science of cryptognosis is based on the insight that all structure
in the nervous system is based upon previous, cruder structures. The nature of
any hierarchy is that different functions are carried out at different levels;
for a neu- ral hierarchy, this means that structures in the thalamus and
hy-pothalamus influence the content and priority of sense impres-sions before
they reach the cortex, whereupon other structures in the midbrain organize,
file, and recover past impressions ac-cording to the coded signals they receive
from other areas of the brain. Whole areas of decision-reflexes are coded and
carried out without sending any paths through the cortex. Once set in motion,
the reflex cycle automatically completes itself. Anything that mimics or masks
these signals can alter signal priorities and set the reflex in motion. This
includes both muscular reflexes—' he squinted at me, sent a dot of blue
light out from his third eye, and my whole body jumped '—glandular
reflexes—' and he made me wet myself again '—and neural reflexes.
One such set of neural reflexes controls what is passed on to long-term memory,
and what is dumped.'

"He
stabbed me with the hypodermic needle. 'I have programmed the molecular engines
in the serum to seek out the control-ganglia for memory in your nervous system.
The effect should take twenty minutes or so to complete. After that, I can
induce narcolepsy by activating the sleep-center in your pons, and turn on your
delta-wave function by stimulating your medulla oblongata. When you wake, the
last twelve hours or so will be gone.'

"I should
mention, he did not walk over and push the needle into me. He pointed, and the
needle levitated by itself, flew across the room, and stabbed me. He curled his
fingers and the empty hypo floated back to his hand.

"I tried
to get him to talk. I said that since I wasn't going to remember anything of
what he said, could he please tell me who I was or what was going on?

"He
answered the first question, but then got bored with the game, and sat down and
began writing notes or something. He sat there in nearly complete darkness
reading from one book and making entries in a journal. I could hear the
scratching of the pen on the page.

"I heard
footsteps then, and the lights came on. They seemed so bright after the gloom.
But Dr. Fell did not blink. His eyes are just painted marbles, after all. He
just stood up at his desk.

"Here I
am strapped to a table with no pants on, and a drunk Japanese woman comes into
the room. Very pretty, like a china doll, if she had been sober. She is wearing
a kimono of a blue floral pattern with a wide red sasli—what are they
called? An obi—with silver tracery running through it. But on her, it is
all hanging loose and askew, and her cheeks are all bright pink with strong
drink, and you can smell me alcohol on her breath. Her hair is done up in one
of those elaborate folded masses, with pearl combs and bamboo chopsticks and
little ornaments in it, but it is half-undone, and strands are everywhere. She
lost her shoes somewhere too, and is walking around in these toe socks.

"Oh, and
she had this thing that looks like a big celery stalk in her hand, a wand about
two feet long, twined with ivy and with a pinecone at the top.

"Naturally,
the first thing I say is 'Help me,' and she drifts over, giggling, and stares
down at me. Me, strapped down to this rack, with no pants on.

"She
says, 'This is one of them, isn't it? I've never seen one before. It looks like
one of us, doesn't it? They can do that when they want to.'

"And now
she turns and makes a tsk-tsk gesture at Dr. Fell, and she says—well, never
mind what she says. She jokes about whether or not he has been molesting me
sexually, which didn't seem very funny to me.

" 'You
are allowed on the estate under a safe-conduct to at-tend the meeting, not to
go frolicking about. You know the rules,' he says. She says back in sort of an
unsteady giggly singsong voice, 'Oh I don't go when Orpheus is there. You know
how he feels about us.'

"It was
actually funny, but he tells her off in that same dry monotone he uses on us
when he tells us off in class. I mean, the same tone of voice he might use on
Colin for getting an assignment wrong, the same condescending phrases. 'I am
very disappointed... perhaps had you been thinking, you might have
considered...' like she was a schoolgirl. He was mad because she was supposed
to act like a human around us, or where any witnesses might see, and she talks
back, and he gets all cold and nasty, and she laughs and sways back and forth.
He says to her, 'Our obligation while we are guests here on the Promethean
world is not to interfere with the creatures of Prometheus. Besides, Mulciber
has annexed this domain, and we do not want to ran afoul of his machines. You
know how he feels about killing men.'

"At this
point she says Boggin wants to see him right away, something very important,
anotiher one of us has gotten away or something. It made me have a moment of
hope, because, you know, I thought one of you was coming to save me. But the
moment Fell is out of the room, she turned to me with mis sly look on her face,
and I realize it was just a trick to get him out of the room.

"I ask
her again to let me up, and she says, 'Serve my master and be his man, and I
will let you go.'

"I asked
her if she could stop Dr. Fell's potion from erasing my memory. She looks a
little puzzled, and then mad, once I explain what's going on. Her cheeks get
even redder than the drink made them, and her eyes get even brighter, her hair
more wild.

"She
says, 'Swear, and if you don't remember tomorrow, all the better. The Master
really doesn't want you to obey him, you know. If you disobey him, that is just
as good.'

"At mat
point I knew that I had better the rather man swear.

"But I
say, 'Tell me something about him, so I can decide. Does Dionysus have any
other agents working here? What do you know about the situation at this
school?'

"She
actually looked a little nervous or flustered at that point. 'You things are
dangerous, even all tied up. How did you know my Master's name?'

"I tell
her I will trade her question for question.

"I am
really proud that I had the nerve to say that, and calmly, too, since all I
wanted to do was beg her for help and cry like a girl. I was so full of fear
that my stomach hurt like someone had kicked it.

"So she
says, 'Sure, why not? You're not going to remember anything tomorrow anyway.'

"So she
tells me what she knows about the school. Lord Ter-minus sent an expedition to
recover certain hostages from me Four Houses of Chaos. He was on the brink of a
civil war with his own children at that time, but it hadn't broken out yet, and
so, in order to placate them, four or five of his sons sent different agents
along as part of the expedition. "As it turned out, when Lord Terminus
dies suddenly, the ex-pedition has no place to go and no one to report to, and
the var-ious people from the various factions are suddenly terrified and
suspicious of each other.

"But they
find they have to work together, because each of the litde orphans from Chaos
has a different type of magic, a different version of the universe they draw
upon for their power.

"Four
types of magic, and each type has one other type it trumps, one it is trumped
by, and one to which it is equal and opposite.

"The
Athanatoi of Cosmos are descended from the Titans of Chaos. The lesser gods and
goddesses, their powers also fall into the same four types. Except for the
Phaeacians and the Olympians, who command two new powers created by Saturn and
Rhea.

"I am a
fallen spirit, a son of Phorcys. My power (Lamia tells me) is theurgy, me study
and command of immaterial essences. A very potent power indeed and, in her
opinion, the noblest and greatest of the four.

"Just by
good fortune, Dr. Fell is here to stop me. He is a Cy-clopean, an atomist. One
who commands matter. Whenever his power and the power of my house come into
conflict, his will always prevail.

"I asked
her who were the other houses and who stopped who, but she says, oh no, it is
her turn now. How did I know she worked for Dionysus?

"I told
her I read minds, and she says, 'You lie to me, little boy, and we had an
agreement. You are now in debt to me, and my power can touch you now.'

"She
takes one of the combs out of her hair and jabs me in the neck with it. The
tines are so sharp I almost don't even feel anything. She puts her head down
and starts licking at the blood dripping from my neck.

"There
are bloodstains around her mouth at this point, a litde trickle running down
her neck. She throws back her head and moans, and strokes her own diroat with
her fingertips.

"She
says, 'For my first charm, I call upon your blood to tell me the truth of how
you knew the name of me Vine God, Anacreon, Lord Vintner. I look into your
blood, and I see your soul. I taste it, and I know. You did not read my mind,
you read a book. Why has Boggin been teaching you about us? What kind of fool is
he?'

"I said,
'I call upon your oath to gag your spell. If my blood answers a second question
without your answer to a second one of mine, then your promise to me is broken,
and I am released.'

"She took
out one of her hair needles and stabbed me in the arm with it. It was a pipette
and she sucked at it like a straw. But the taste of my blood must have annoyed
her now, for she spat it into my face. It stung my eyes.

" 'Ask
your question, boy, litde boy, clever little boy.'

"I
repeated it. 'Who were the Houses in Chaos? Whose power stopped whom?'

"She
said, "The Dark rule the dreams and Nightmares of Old Night; Cimmeria
their land, Morpheus their king; the Fallen rage in darkest Dis, weeping for
lost Elysium, and the lost virtue, which, forsaken, lost them all and
everything. The Lost fall through the Abyss, silent and serene as rain, Typhon
is their eldest, but the Lost will suffer no one's reign; the Telchine are
their serfs on Earth, Ialysus their golden isle, rich with treasures wonderful
and fine. The Unknown live beyond all things, in a Fortress Incomprehensible of
uncountable sides and unimaginable design, and, prelapsarian, still laws recall
that Uranus knew before his fall'

"Now she
climbed up atop me on the gurney, and began lap-ping at the wound in my neck
like a dog.

" 'Oh,
now I see,' she says, 'Boggin taught you all what you needed to know. He taught
me Telchine boy physics and New-tonian mechanics, and taught you poems and
myths and lore, taught music to wild prince of Night and Dreams, showed the
Prelapsarian girl the strange secrets of strange Einstein, where math proves
nouiing is just where or what it seems. He has been forging you as a weapon for
his own use, then. Right under everyone's nose, right in me light where they
should be the least bund. So me old puff of cold wind just gave you the
paradigms you needed. And maybe he thought no one would mind.'

"She
smiled and said, 'Ask me another question.' "I said, 'I have no more.'

" 'I do
not mind telling you, I am going to kill you and all your friends in any case.
I can make it gentle and slow, you feel more warm and heavy, and you fade away
to night; or I can start by scooping one eyeball from your face.'

"At that
moment, a black vulture, of which, yes, I know, there are none in England, and yes,
I know, they do not fly at night, landed on the window behind her.

"I said,
'We are protected, me and mine. Mavors will avenge us. Look! His bird sits
yonder, watching you!'

" 'I
scoff at him,' she said. 'His mother killed my children, one and all. I cried
until my eyes dried up like raisins and fell out My hate keeps me alive. Are
you a child? It is given to me to kill children. Under the law, I am allowed.'

"I said,
'You are not a Bacchant. You do not work for Diony-sus. Who do you work for...
?' And I bit my tongue, because that was another question.

"She
said, 'I serve one who will rejoice when Chaos sweeps the established Earth
away, and pulls the broken arch of Heaven down into the poisoned seas lit up
with flame. My death will be small price to pay, if, by my acts, I make all
things pass away. My last question is this: Are you a child, or a man? If man,
I cannot kill you; but if child, I can.'

"She
pressed my neck with her hand and drew a palmful of blood to her lips.

"I said,
'You did not answer my question perfectly.'

"She spat
my blood out again. "The answer I tasted was am-biguous. You yourself do
not know. But a man can sleep with a woman. A child has not that power,
though.'

"She
parted her robes, and I saw she was not wearing any underwear.

"
'Pleasure me, young pup, young baby boy,' she said, smil-ing with her teeth all
red, 'and you survive. But if your manhood remains flaccid, soft, and weak, I
will know it is a boy, and not a man, to whom I speak.'

"Well, I
am sure Colin would have found it perfectly accept-able to have a drunk, naked,
grown-up woman kneeling on top of you, with your own blood dripping down her
chin, with the smell of wine and urine and foul chemicals still hanging in the
air. He would have performed. God, he would have found it a turn-on.

"But I
can't even imagine anything worse. Being killed is bad enough, being killed in
a disgusting way, by a disgusting per-son, and just being humiliated and
embarrassed, and ... ugh. I wanted to cry. I wanted my mommy. I sure did not feel
like a man in any sense of the word.

"Well, I
didn't cry. She sort of rubbed up and down against my body for a long time,
while I lay there, waiting for it to be over, and hoping she would kill me
rather than continue.

"I tried
to think of something to do or say.

"She
climbed off me and, well, she laughed at my dick. She pointed and laughed. I
mean, what way is that to treat a child? I would be embarrassed even to talk
about it, I would not be talking about it now, even to you, except I think my
capacity to be embarrassed is completely burned out of me, and gone forever.

"She
said, 'You are a child, men, aren't you?' And she took another hair ornament
out of her hair, and it opened into a scalpel.

"It was
the last moment, the last second of my life.

"And I
had an odd thought.

"How am I
going to act, this second? How should I behave ... ?

"Normally,
we do things, we are polite, or we obey laws, because we want to get someming
out of the situation. We want to win applause and esteem, or escape punishment,
or better ourselves, or something. All mat went blank in my head. At this
point, there was no such thing as better off or worse off. There was no
advantage or disadvantage to anything I did.

"So I did
what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was scare her. I mean, I could not
hurt her in any other way, so I said, 'Lamia, I know you. I call you by your
true name. I deliver now to you my curse. Hear me! Unlawfully you have drunk my
blood and taken it inside you. That blood I call upon now to curse and unmake you.
It has the poisons placed in it by Dr. Fell, the poison that will erase your
mind. He told me the minute and second that his poisons would begin to act You
told me that my powers and spells are helpless before his powers. But your
powers are the same as mine, Lamia, and are bound by the same rules. You
believe that Dr. Fell's little molecular en-gines are beginning to dissolve
your brain, don't you? You are helpless.'

"She
screamed and raised the scalpel, 'Weep and shriek! Weep and shriek! It is what
children do when they are about to die!'

"I
laughed in her face. 'Then part this shell of flesh that encumbers me, Mother
of Vampires! The mortal part of me I always knew would die! Strike!'

"The
knife came down toward my face, and it... jumped ... out of her fingers, hung
in the air before her face, unsupported, hovering.

"Then it
moved and stabbed her in her eye.

"She
flung herself backward, with blood and vitreous humor gushing from her ruined
face.

"She
screamed again, this time in anger, and started running toward the door,
pulling hair ornaments out of her hair with bom hands, and flipping them open
into little throwing knives and hooks. She was running to the attack.

"I turned
my head and saw what she was running at.

"Headmaster
Boggin stood in the doorway, with Dr. Fell half a step behind him.

"Boggin
had his hands clutching the doorframe, and his face was dark with wrath. His
black robes started to billow around him, and his hair flew up out of its
ponytail, came entirely unraveled, and started whipping around his foce. His
mortarboard went flying off. He braced his legs, and his chest swelled up to
twice its size. Then (as his shirt was ripped into shreds) three times its
size. Then he trembled and swelled up to four times his size.

"Dr.
Fell, looking slightly bored, opens his third eye, and the little knives and
sharp hair ornaments halt in midair, hang there a moment, and jump up to embed
themselves in the ceiling boards, out of reach.

"And the
Headmaster blows. Don't imagine the puff-cheeks and pursed-up lips of a man
whistling. Imagine a man opening his mouth as wide as possible, in a scream of
utmost rage which is tearing out his lungs and guts and bowels. Now imagine a
wind tunnel, one of those big ones that they use to test super-some jets, with all
its air compressed down and forced through an opening the size of the man's
mouth. Also imagine the tem-perature dropping to below zero in one second.

"That's
what happened. A hurricane exploded out of Bog-gin's mouth, one of those
tornado things that can pick up a piece of straw and impale it through a solid
wood fence. The Lamia was picked up and thrown through the bank of windows on
the far side of Dr. Fell's office, knocking out concrete bricks as she went.
Everything else in the room went flying up, too, including the table I was
strapped onto, except Fell pointed his finger at the table and the metal bars
bent out and grabbed onto the ceiling, and hung there while the hurricane
blasted past.

"There's
not that much more to tell. Fell says, 'Headmaster, that blow won't kill her,
not if that was Lamia.'

"Boggin
says, 'It was Lamia. Our Mr. Nemo would not be mistaken about such a thing. Get
him down from there and un-tie him at once. We will have to organize a search
for her. I don't care if it takes all night; we must find her.'

" 'Are
you worried that she knows what we are teaching our charges, here?'

" 'I take
it you did not hear Mr. Nemo's brilliant analysis of the situation. She's not
going to remember.'

"
"Then why worry?'

" 'Never
mind what I am worried about, my dear Ananias. Just do as I say, there's a good
lad.'

" 'Do you
think to keep this hidden? Everyone heard the sonic boom.'

" 'Not if
they are using ears that hear sounds carried by the air. Only my brother,
Corns, would hear it. Go! And use your molecular engines to rebuild this wall,
while you are at it As soon as Grendel's hound finds a scent, I'll come out and
help look. I can see this is going to be a late night.'

"Here's
the epilogue to my story. Headmaster Boggin got me off of that damn gurney, and
brought me to the kitchen, and woke up the Cook. He sent Cook out with the
search parties, and stood mere at the stove in his ripped clothes (even his
pants were ripped; he had to borrow some jeans from Cook), and made me some
chicken soup himself.

"I
started crying in earnest then. And he put his arm around me, and told me what
a good boy I was. He said not to worry about what she had done, because trying
to humiliate a man's pride is simply another form of attack, as much as
stabbing someone. Unlike a knife wound, this cuts only as deep as you let it

"And he
said he was proud of me, proud of how bravely I had stood up to Lamia, and he
only regretted that I would forget all this in the morning. He sat mere and
comforted me while I cried on his shoulder and ate soup."

15

The ^ilvery
^hip 1.

As we
continued to hike, my duffel bag got heavier and heavier with every step. The
little white clouds of breath hanging before my lips began to turn into puffs.
I asked for a break.

Victor called
a halt for lunch. We sat in a circle on a patch of dry ground beneath an
overhanging rock erected by some ancient peoples. We rummaged through our bags,
trying to find the most perishable things to eat first. Unfortunately, the
things every housewife knows, none of us knew, so we just sort of guessed that
maybe the peaches should be eaten first, as well as some of the hors d'oeuvres,
fish pate" and caviar, and little spicy hot dog things.

"The most
elegant escape ever," commented Colin, passing me a cracker with caviar on
it.

I bit into it.
"Bleh. This might have gone bad already."

"No, it's
supposed to taste that way," Colin asserted.

Vanity said to
Quentin, "So is Headmaster Boggin an enemy, or is he trying to help us, or
what?"

Victor
answered her: "He's an enemy. An enemy who is nice and polite is a nice,
polite enemy, not a friend. We have a tool to blackmail him, though: we can
tell the other factions that Bog-gin intended to use us in the war against
them."

I said to
Quentin: "What is your name?" He smiled back at me. "Quentin
Nemo."

"No, I
mean, you said Dr. Fell told you what your real name is."

"If you
promise not to tell anyone my real name, I'll tell you. You all must
promise."

Four voices
spoke at once: "Sure, I promise." "I'll do whatever you say,
Quentin." "I'll never talk, Big Q. Bring on the naked torture
girls!" "Not knowing what information is useful to the enemy, it is
only logical to tell them nothing."

Quentin said,
"I was born Eidotheia, son of Proteus."

Four faces
stared at him blankly. Colin shrugged. "Are we supposed to recognize that
name? Is it one of the women Zeus ravished or something? I lost track in class
after the bull, the swan, and the shower of gold."

"Proteus
is a man. The Old Man of the Sea. The greatest of seers and magicians who ever
lived. He could take any shape as pleased him, and his wisdom is as deep as the
ocean."

Vanity said,
"Who is your mother?"

"Dr. Fell
said I had three mothers. Do not ask me the biolog-ical arrangements, Dr. Fell
did not go into details. Their names are Enyo, Deino, and Pemphredo."

Colin said,
"You are not honestly expecting us to recognize those names, are
you?"

I said,
"Isn't Enyo a singer? I love her music."

Colin said,
"Yeah, and Dino is the dog on the Flintstones."

Quentin looked
a little miffed. We were talking about his mothers, after all. "We read
about them in Hesiod's Shield of Hercules and in the Pythian Odes of Pindar.
You did those assignments, right? They were the Graeae, the three women,
gray-haired from birth, the sisters to the Gorgons. Don't you remember the
Perseus myth? The three Gray Sisters had but one eye and one tooth to share
between them, and they passed it back and forth between them to see and to
chew. Perseus stole the eye until they told him the secret way to the cave of
the Medusa, whom he slew." He looked back and forth between us.

We returned
blank stares.

"Well,"
he muttered, "there is a constellation named after him, and one for
Andromeda. We're not exactly talking about the most obscure of Greek myths
here. It's in Hyginus, the Po-etica Astronomica." I said, "We didn't
have to do the Hyginus. Mrs. Wren let us translate Sappho instead."

"Well, I
did that one on my own."

Colin said,
"And what myth is Proton from? I thought that was the name of a molecule
or something."

"Proteus
is mentioned in the Odyssey of Homer. Menelaus tells Telemachos how he found
his way home from the Trojan Wars. Menelaus hid under a seal skin, and when
Proteus came by, Manelaus leapt from hiding. Proteus turned into a lion, a
bull, running water, raging flame, but Menelaus kept hold of him, and he had to
answer his questions. It was said Proteus knew the past and future, and all
things."

Colin asked in
a lofty tone, "All things except the fact that there was this guy sitting
under this seal skin waiting to jump out on him. I don't remember that part of
Homer at all. Was it before the Cyclops thing?"

Said Quentin,
"The first part of the story where Telemachos is looking for his father,
Odysseus. I think you skipped that part and went on to the sea adventure stuff
in the middle. You paid me in honey bread to do your first four books of
translation for you, remember? It was the thing we did right after the
Iliad."

"My first
and worst don rag. I still have nightmares," reported Colin. "What
was I doing while you did my homework?"

"You were
writing love letters to actresses in—Hey! Did I tell you? Those Hollywood
girls wrote back. Virginia Madsen and whoever else you wrote to. Boggin
intercepted them."

"Well,
well!" said Colin, looking as pleased as I ever have seen him, folding his
arms behind his head with a look of infinite satisfaction. "I really do
have psychic powers after all."

Vanity said,
"And a photographic memory like Victor! Hey, dodo, you don't have to worry
about grades ever again. It doesn't matter what is on our permanent records.
We're all princesses and sons of kings from other dimensions or beyond the edge
of space and time. No more lessons! No more books! No more Grendel's dirty
looks!"

We all sat in
our circle on the ground, looking smug and well pleased.

I said,
"You know, mere is one thing that worries me."

Colin said,
"Oh, don't spoil it. Britney! Tiffany! Natalie! Did they all write me
back?" I said, "However our home dimensions are run, they cannot be
Democracies. There's no point in holding the daughter of a Prime Minister
hostage."

Colin said,
"Look, who cares how they run things? If our families have psychic powers,
they'd end up running things. And now it's clear we all have powers."

Victor stood
up. "I am not sure we do. Watch this."

He stood up
and dropped a fork on the snow.

Then he
stooped, picked up the fork again, and dropped it again.

Colin said,
"This is supposed to mean something to us, for what reason, again?"

"It
didn't float," said Victor.

Colin said,
"Forks don't."

Quentin put
his hand out to where his walking stick lay on the ground, frowning. He didn't
touch the stick; he just frowned at it.

Victor said,
"Powers off. We must be too far from the school boundaries. Amelia, did
you say your bag was getting heavier?"

2.

Quentin was
looking more and more pensive as we walked on, staring left and right across
the snowy tree scape, as if searching for something. Colin trudged along,
scowling and answering any comments with curt sarcasm. Vanity was happily
depicting her future life in London as a model or actress. I was daydreaming
about the new Age of Discovery that would follow once I told me men on Earth
that there were other dimensions to be found and named and mapped, and other
worlds in them. Victor marched without pause and without fatigue, slightly
ahead of us, expressionless.

Vanity
commented to Colin, "There's no need to be so bleak! Everyone else on
Earth gets by without magic powers. We can live our whole lives as normal
people, free, doing whatever we want!"

"Great,"
Colin muttered back, "mere's a zenith for you. I can climb the adverse
cliffs and after fateful struggle find what's shining at the utmost peak: the
triumph of being 'normal.' Write that down in the history books. They'll name
cars after me.

Vanity said,
"Well, for you, getting to the level of 'normal' will involve a
climb."

"Sure.
And your dream for your new life is what again? To be a clerk in a shop, or
wait tables, and haunt bars after hours to find a lonely butcher or an
investment broker to marry?"

Vanity snapped
back: "It will be better than your new life as an inmate in the
psychiatric hospital for the criminally stupid."

I said,
"Actually, we do not know if we are interfertile with human beings. Or,
for that matter, with each other. We're not the same species."

Colin said,
"If we must test it, we must. I'll make the sacrifice for Science. Do you
girls want me to do you both at once, or one after another, or ..."

Quentin said
suddenly: "It doesn't make sense."

Colin said,
"I'll say it doesn't. What does 'species' mean to shape-changers? We
should be able to alter our sperm and sexual organs to be able to ..."

Quentin said
quietly, "Why didn't they build the school here?"

Colin said,
"What? In the woods?"

"In a
spot where our powers didn't work. Why raise us on the estate grounds, if our
powers worked there? Why not raise us five miles East or West? Or in
Timbuktu?"

I said,
"I can think of several reasons. One: We might have needed our powers to
keep us healthy when we were babies; Boggin said something to that effect. Two:
Our powers might have arisen back so slowly, that they don't even know we have
them yet, and the original estate was wide enough to keep the boundaries out of
range. Three: Boggin actually wanted us to develop our powers, because he wants
to use us on his side of the war. Four: Our powers only work when there are
Greek gods around, and, no matter where we were raised, Boggin had no choice
but to be nearby himself to ..."

Quentin
interrupted me, which was unusual. "Or we are un-der a curse. Remember how
you said Mrs. Wren stopped Dr. Fell. We crossed a ward of some sort, or
violated a prohibition. It was just after lunch." Vanity said, "Dr.
Fell. He could have put something in the food."

Victor
stopped. We all stopped.

He was a score
of yards ahead of us, climbing a gentle slope where broken rocks protruded
through the snow. Ahead of him, we could see the tops of the trees growing on
the far slope. The far slope must have fallen sharply away before Victor's
feet, because the crowns of these trees were no higher than he was.

He turned his
head, and shouted (for he was many yards ahead), "We missed the highway
entirely. I see the bay."

I shouted up,
"Which bay? Rhossili Bay, Port Eynon Bay, or Oxwich Bay?"

He shouted
back, "It's not labeled in a prominent place!"

I shouted up
again, "If you see Cornwall across the Channel, you're looking South. If
you see Worm's Head, you're looking West!"

I paused to
look upward as I said it, but the sky was still as gray as old cotton, and the
clouds were no brighter in one direction than the other. I said aloud,
"How could we reach the water without going through Penrice, or the
campgrounds? Even if we were headed due East instead of South, we should have
crossed the B-4247 between Rhossili and Scurlage."

Colin stomped
up the slope past me, kicking snow from his boots at every step. He gave me a
dark, sinister smile, saying, "Anyone can make a dot on a piece of paper,
write a name by it, and pretend there is a town there."

I stepped into
motion again, toiling up the slope next to him. "But we've all been to
Abertwyi. Where is Abertwyi?"

Colin said,
"We were led there. We didn't go there under our own power."

"Why
would that make a difference?"

"They
changed the paths there. If there is a there."

"How?"

"The girl
who believes in the Fourth Dimension is asking me to explain it?"

"Look,
there has to be a world somewhere. What about France?"

"What
about Slumberland, Narnia, and Oz? France is obvi-ously a made-up place. Those
places only exist if we believe in them." "You're more skeptical than
Victor is."

Colin just
snorted at that. "Hmph! Vic? Well, I should jolly well hope so."

And in a tone
of voice that made it clear he thought Victor was both (1) the most naive and
(2) the most dogmatically pigheaded boy in our group or, maybe, in the world.

At that point,
Vanity and Quentin (who had forged ahead of Colin and me while we slowed to
talk) achieved the brink of the slope where Victor stood.

Vanity let out
a shriek of pure joy. "She came! She really came! All my life I've been
waiting, and I didn't even know it... and, and... Victor! You idiot! Why didn't
you tell me she was here!"

Colin and I
raced up the last few steps of the slope.

A silver ship,
a trireme sleek as a spear, lay shining atop the waves below. By the prow a
painted eye gravely gazed toward shore, wise and watchful. I think it was
painted.

"Oh, she
came!" Vanity breathed in breathless joy, and her whole soul was in her
eyes.

3.

The land fell
very sharply down. A few trees clung to the far slope, and then, in a sudden
brink, a cliff fell to the sea. White and gray water surged among the rocks;
white and gray seagulls hopped from stone to stone, or shivered in the chill
wind. One or two birds skimmed the waters on crooked wings, silent.

About a
quarter of a mile out in the water was a ship. Perhaps I should call her a
boat, she was so small.

She was
silvery-white, with a prow like a Greek trireme, slop-ing like a sleek nose
into a bronze-jacketed ram at the waterline. Two eyes had been painted on the
prow, one to port and one to starboard. A mast like a white finger rose from
blocks amidships. Aft, a small deck rose into a shape like a peacock's tail.

She was
slender and sleek, built for speed like a racing scull, but the rail and the
fantail were set with hammered silver, and the bench at the stern was carved
and polished and set with white cushions held by silver nails, and all so
finely crafted as to make the whole vessel shine like a lady's jewel. The mast
held nothing but a lamp, intricate with silver wire and nacre. There were no
oars; there was no steering board or rudder.

The whole
vessel was perhaps forty yards long, four yards broad at the waterline, with
planks forming outriggers perhaps six yards wide above. She lay as lightly on
the waters as a swan, as slim and finely crafted as a Japanese sword.

4.

Vanity
exclaimed happily, "She can take us anywhere in the world in a day and a
night!"

She started
down the steep slope, moving quickly, almost running. The snow began to slide
and curl around her legs, so that little growing snowballs were trickling down
the slope with her.

Colin said,
"Hoi! Careful!" And, ignoring his own advice, with that axe still in
his hand, went pelting and sliding down the slope after her.

Victor said
mildly, "We should approach with care, if that ship was seen by the
enemy."

Quentin said
in a hushed voice, "There is something ill afoot here. Vee and Coll
usually aren't so rash." Then, shouting: "Come back! You two! Come
back!" And he started down the slope, slipped, and fell, sliding at least
two dozen yards before he spread his arms and legs and caught himself in a
little wash of snow. His duffel bag went rolling and bounding and gliding down
past where Vanity was skipping gaily down-slope, past where Colin was
half-skating, half-stumbling. As it tumbled past, the bag began to spill canned
goods from its unraveling mouth.

I saw
Quentin's walking stick, his precious walking stick, go shooting over a hump in
the snow like a litde toboggan, and vanish into the trees.

Victor said,
"My wits, at least, are not clouded. Amelia, fol-low me. We are going to
go left and circle this slope, and go down along the gentler slope over there,
where those pine trees are. You see where I mean?" And he picked up
Colin's bag, which Colin had left behind. Vanity's duffel was about forty yards
down-slope from us. She had abandoned it, and it had rolled to catch up against
a leafless tree, bringing down a little shower of ice particles.

In a moment,
Victor and I were among the spruces, jogging quickly down a somewhat more level
slope. We could still hear Vanity squealing and Colin cursing. Even quiet
Quentin was bellowing to them to shut up. I felt an impulse to shout at them,
and call out, and the impulse grew stronger until I had to put my glove in my
mouth and bite down on it to prevent myself from yelling at them.

Victor looked
at me oddly.

I said,
"Something—a hypnotic influence—is trying to get me to call
out. Quentin's right. There is a spell here."

Victor did not
seem affected. All he said was, "Let's hurry. We can cut across this slope
as soon as it levels out, and rejoin them."

Unlike the
leafless trees we had been walking through all morning, the spruce pines
blocked our view with their thick needles.

Fear gripped
my throat when the voices of Colin and Quentin fell silent, and Vanity let out
a long scream.

Victor said,
"Maybe we should run. Let's drop the bags. We can come back for mem."

We ran. Victor
simply put his hands in front of his face and pushed through the snow-laden
needles of the spruce, letting branches whip him. I followed in his wake,
ducking whipping branches, letting him trample a path clear for me.

We broke into
the clear. Now I began to pull ahead of Victor. Even with my powers turned off,
I was still a swifter runner than he was.

Then I slowed,
looking up. Victor came up behind me.

We could see
Colin and Quentin on the brink of a little cliff, but we had passed mem,
somehow. A little empty round glade filled with snow lay between us and the
foot of the cliff. The cliff was up-slope and above us, a wall of
icicle-dripping rock, atop which Colin and Quentin stood.

There was a
cleft which cut the cliff into two cliffs, as if a gi- ant with an axe had
chopped it neatly in half. On the far side of the cleft was Vanity, alone on a
little island-cliff of her own, with snow in her hair, and her garments mussed.
She was standing, gazing back at the slope down which she had just toppled, as
if trying to see a way back up me slope, across, over, and down to where Colin
and Quentin were.

In the seaward
direction, behind us, away from Quentin and Colin, was another sharp drop, this
one not as tall, leading down to a rocky beach. The ship, gleaming
silver-white, was clearly visible behind us, delicate as a cloud, pale as
starlight. It seemed closer than the quarter-mile she had been before. The eyes
on the prow seemed to be watching us.

Vanity
shouted, "I can see a path down from here; there is a set of rock shelves,
almost like steps, leading to me beach."

Colin shouted,
"We're stuck here. Up-slope is too slippery, and I don't see any way down
left or right. Is the rope in your duffel bag? We could tie it off to the rock
here and rappel down. Heck, we could practically jump it."

Victor made a
little trumpet out of his fingers and bellowed up at mem, "Amelia and I
will go back and get the rope, and throw it up to you. Vanity, you stay right
where you are. Do not leave each other's sight." I could hear his voice
making flat, metallic-ringing echoes from the cliff we faced.

Victor turned.
I said, "I could go around me foot of the cliff to see if I can find the
bottom step of Vanity's staircase."

"Let's
not split up," he said. Again, I felt a strong urge, almost dreamlike,
telling me to leave Victor and go off to find where Vanity would be going. I
closed my eyes and tried to imagine or visualize the little dot of light in my
own head, my own monad, snapping back into place the way I had done for
Quentin, when his memory had been influenced. It did not seem to work. The
tugging impulse would not go away.

I said,
"Victor, something is trying to stop me. You'll have to drag me."

At this same
time, I heard Quentin yelling something across to Vanity. I did not hear what
it was, because I was distracted by the sensation of Victor putting his hand
around my upper arm, pulling me after him. Victor is much stronger than the
other two boys, much more swift, definite, and precise in his motions. Much
stronger than me. I wondered what it would be like to have him pin me down, as
Colin once had done.

I heard Vanity
call out in a solemn voice: "Bran! I call upon our agreement! Let open the
boundaries which hem us in! Let the Four Powers of the Four Worlds of Chaos
come forth from their homes to this place!"

At once, I
could see my monad, my noumenal self, hovering in the fourth dimension above
and inside my nervous system. I could sense the pattern of energies rippling
through them, and detect a disturbing force. I tilted the rotation of my monad,
to bring the identity/meaning axis back into alignment. The disturbing forces
blocking my proper nerve-path flows flickered and went down, but I could sense
them changing, gathering forces, moving into another position to attempt to set
up another nerve block. It was not the system Dr. Fell had used; this was not
an infection of dark matter; it was different. It was self-correcting in
nature, organic, perhaps self-aware.

I turned my
head. From somewhere, Quentin had found his walking stick. He had not had it a
moment ago. Now he did.

Colin was
staring down at the snow below. He said something to Quentin. It was too far
for me to hear the words, but it was something about the snow being deep enough
to break his fall if he merely believed hard enough that it was. Quentin knelt,
looking left and right nervously, and put his hand on Colin's arm, and was
urging him to crouch down and hide.

Victor looked
up. I looked up, too, and saw nothing but heavy, gray clouds. He said,
"Boggin. I recognize his magnetic signature."

"He's
here?"

"I dunk
the masquerade is over. They are going to reveal meir powers."

"What do
we do?"

"Go get
the rope for Colin and Quentin. If you make us both lighter will that let us go
faster? I get the feeling we are not going to have much time."

We made it
back up through the pines in record time. Of the cluster of world-lines leading
from our bodies and snaking dirough the trees, certain ones had higher
potential, and occu- pied a smaller time-depth. These were the faster paths. I
se-lected one for myself and Victor. For some reason, even though I did not
tell him which trees to dodge around, or where the path I'd picked was, his
feet found the path swiftly and without error.

There were
little metal aglets holding the bag laces shut. Vic-tor squinted at them, even
while we were several paces away. The bag's mourn opened of its own accord. I
could see the dark-matter particles like little specks flying out of his
forehead and applying magnetic force to the bag.

I got to the
bag first. He turned around while I was grabbing the coil of brightly colored
mountaineer's rope from the mouth, and he was ahead of me as we raced back.

We pushed
through the trees, and were once again in the little bowl of snow beneath the
feet of the two cliffs. Atop one cliff was Quentin and Colin. The other cliff
was bare.

Vanity was
gone.

16

(?oosey}
Qoosey, Qander ¦l.

Victor shouted
up, in a voice of cold anger: "Where did she go?"

Colin gave a
pantomime one-handed shrug (the axe was in his other hand), and shouted,
"Since when can I control her?"

Quentin said,
"She's gone down the rock stairs to the White Ship. She said it was
calling her."

"Idiot!"
Victor almost never lost his temper, but now he looked worried, angry.

"The
curse is still fuddling her," Quentin shouted.

"You're a
warlock! Can you stop the curse?" Victor called up.

"No such
things as warlocks! But I can challenge the curse," Quentin called down.
Meanwhile, during this exchange, I had taken the coil of rope and thrown it up
toward Colin. It was an easy throw, and there was no way I could have missed
it. I missed it. The coil spun through the air, clattered against the rocks
some six feet below him, and fell lightly to the snow a dozen yards to my left.

Colin, helpful
as always, called down to me: "Nice throw. Aim next time, Aim."

I ran, picked
up the coil, wound up, and threw again. Again, the rope coil fell short,
bounced off the cliff side, fell back down to my level, and went spinning and
bouncing another thirty or forty feet across the snow of the Utile glade. I ran
after it again.

I was now
about forty feet across the glade from the foot of the cliff where Colin and
Quentin stood. I was at the top of the seaward cliff, the shorter one leading
down to the rocky beach.

Around a
shoulder in the rocks down below, I saw Vanity come into view. She was picking
her way from boulder top to boulder top, while foam and spray from the waves
fell around her feet. A larger wave sent spray reaching up past her head, and
it fell like a shower around her. The water must have been cold, because she
shrieked.

I shouted and
motioned for her to go back, but she did not look up.

Looking back
toward the cliff side, I saw Colin gesture to-ward me impatiently. Quentin was
holding up his walking stick, and had his eyes closed. Victor was standing with
his back to me, his arms akimbo.

I looked at
the rope suspiciously. How could I miss two throws in a row? I have a good
pitching arm. I closed my eyes and traced out the world-paths leading from the
rope up to the cliff. The umbrella of possible paths spread out before me. Many
of them were smooth parabolas leading up to the dark blotch representing
Colin's position.

And the
parabolas were being warped. Like flower stalks bending in the wind, fewer and
fewer possible world-paths led to the cliff, as they were pushed left and
right, like a curtain parting.

I opened my
eyes. Mrs. Wren stood on the cliff with Colin and Quentin. 2.

Mrs. Wren was
about twenty yards away from the boys, stand-ing on a tall rock she could not
possibly have climbed. And she was in costume.

In her hand
she held a broom. It was an old-fashioned besom, just a bundle of twigs and
straw tied to a staff, obviously handmade, and by hands that were none too
steady.

She wore a
green cloak that bore a tall, pointed hood. Around the point of mis hood, like
a horseshoe around a spike, was a crown of holly leaves with bright red
berries. Her face was a smiling mass of wrinkles, surrounding eyes of tired
sorrow, eyes that gleamed like black pebbles washed smooth and bright in a
stream.

She laughed
and smiled, saying, " 'Goosey, goosey, gander, whither dost thou wander?
Upstairs and downstairs and in my lady's chamber?'"

If anyone had
ever told me I would be frightened to see Mrs. Wren in a dunce cap and wearing
a Christmas wreath for a hat brim, I would have laughed. But I was not
laughing.

Victor (always
the logical one) shouted up, "If she got up, you two can get down. Push
past her and find the path she used. Amelia and I are going to try to get to
the beach where Vanity is."

Quentin said,
his voice trembling, "Her power comes from deep roots, from the core of
the Earth. We can't just push past her."

Victor said,
"Then kill her."

A silence
seemed to fill the area. Even the sea waves, for a moment, paused.

One seagull,
below me, let out a mournful, high-pitched wail.

I said in a
voice grown thick with horror, "You can't mean that, Victor. What's wrong
with you?"

Victor said
curtly, "This is not a game. Colin? Quentin?"

Colin, without
taking his eyes from the old witch, nodded and hefted his fire axe. Quentin
looked sickly pale and did not answer.

Mrs. Wren called
out in a bitter voice of mingled mockery and sorrow, "Oho, kill old granny
Wren, is it, my goslings? Not enough to leave her alone, and go scampering off,
my little un- grateful ducks, no. Is this how you pay her back, the woman who
raised you, fed you, and nursed your fevers, kissed your scraped knees and
wiped your tears away, changed your shitty diapers, and taught you right from
wrong? You pay me back in a false brass coin, my pups, my poppets, my young
wolf-cubs. And now you think to wring old granny's scrawny neck, it is, or chop
her frail bones with a terrible sharp axe? Surely, surely, it is the greatest
commandment, and the most ancient law, that thou shalt honor the woman who
mothered you, that thy years shall be long upon the Earth."

3.

Victor was
walking quickly across the snow toward me. "Can you see a path down?"
he shouted.

I said,
"The cliff is lower both to the left and right. We can make it down by
going either..."

I heard music
to my right, beautiful, beautiful violin music.

About thirty
yards away, at the point where the cliffs to my right dipped down to a slope
leading to the beach, looking as pretty as a china doll in her white fur and
earmuffs, Miss Daw was standing in the snow, one fur-lined glove on her bow,
one fingering the slender neck, of the violin she had pressed up to her red
cheek. She wore a slender buff-colored coat, cute litde black boots, and she
had a hat of silver fox fur shaped like a dandelion puff on her head.

Victor turned
and looked at her. He had come forward toward me, and so was about twenty feet
closer to her than I was.

I could see
wheels of ivory, as solemn as floating angels, as quiet as U-boats, approaching
from the fourth dimension, the high-energy "blue" direction. The
nearest had already dipped an arc into three-space, and was sending out
concentric waves of energy, whose cross-section manifested themselves in our
continuum, as music.

I ran a few
steps toward the left-hand slope, not even bothering to wait for Victor.

Scrambling on
all fours up the icy granite rocks was Mr. Glum. He was nude, except for a
loincloth, and he had what looked like a bearskin rug draped over his head and
back. The jawless skull of the bear was on his scalp like a hat; the claws had
been tied to his forearms, he had painted his face with a wide brown stripe
above the eyes, like a Red Indian. He was watching the placement of his hands
and feet, and hadn't seen me yet.

Over my
shoulder, I said to Victor, "Victor, you have to stop Miss Daw! Her power
is the one that cancels mine out! I'll meet you down on the beach with
Vanity."

He said,
"Glum is somewhere that way. I can see his emis-sion trail. Can you make
it past him?"

I twisted my
hips into the fourth dimension to bring another aspect of my legs into this
continuum. Centaurish, I now looked like a sleek silver doe from the waist
down. I shifted the aspect of my back, so that my wings, made of white light
and sur-rounded by little echoes of music, dipped into this dimensional plane,
also. A cluster of misty fireflies and silver bubbles appeared in the air
around my head, like a halo, when I "opened" my higher
sense-impressions. I could feel my flesh growing denser and hard, hard enough
to stop a bullet, as more mass was pulled into this cross-section. This
increase in mass-energy made a bluish light shimmer from my flesh.

I reared up on
my hind hooves and lashed my unicorn tail. "He'll have to be pretty quick
to stop me!" I said in a voice like a silver bell.

4.

I spread the
possible paths down to the beach in front of me like a fan, selected the
briefest one, and charged down the slope, with littie sparks of energy from
higher dimensions flickering and shining around my deer hooves.

With my
manifold senses, posted many fathoms in each di-rection on the shifting foam of
curved space, I could now see, not merely in 360 degrees, but globally,
overhead, underfoot, in all directions. Surfaces did not impede my sight.

Other senses
came into play. I could sense the internal nature and utility of objects; I
could see the flow and ripple of time and probability; sense nervous system
energies and distortions; I could see moral order (and disorder) like webs (and
snarls) in-terconnecting all the free-willed beings in the area.

Strands went
up to two places above the clouds. From the interrelationship of moral duties
between the two points, I knew they were brothers. One I did not recognize; the
other had an internal nature mat was jolly, cold-hearted, kindly, sinister, and
calculating. Boggin. The other point must be his brotiier, Corns, the blue-winged
man.

Elsewhere, I
could see another strand of moral order reach-ing to a point beneath the sea,
and saw the world-paths caused by me rapid approach of the Atlantean, Mestor.

I focused a
distance-negating sense on him, and saw. He had his arms back in a swan dive,
legs pointed, and was simply being propelled forward through the deep, his
black hair streaming.

The propulsion
was a space-effect. The scales on the armor amplified it. I could sense the
aura of a similar effect around the white ship, and also deep in the cells of
Vanity's body. The Phaeacian power?

Mestor reached
out into time and ... did ... sometiiing.

In the
time-images I saw around Vanity, I saw first one, then nine, then eighty-one,
and men all of the images changed, as one probability suddenly shifted to a
certainty.

One image, a
certain one, remained: Mestor, all shimmering with sea spray, was about to rise
up out of the waves, his blue-and-green-and-white scale jacket ringing, and
grab Vanity. One hand would go over her mourn and nose, another around her
waist, and he would fall back into me ice-cold ocean, dragging her along. He
would wrap his cloak of mermaid hair around her, so mat the cold would not kill
her, and he would pinch her nose and breathe bubbles into her mouth, while she
struggled in panic ...

I charged down
the slope toward Vanity, gathering my legs beneath me to carry me
"past" me volume of space occupied by Mr. Glum. He had seen me now,
and he stood up on his legs and spread his arms, as if ready to catch me.

It looked so
foolish. As if a flat cartoon man in a two-dimensional world were trying to
reach out of his cell to stop a bird from flying past.

I laughed and
leaped, spreading my wings, shedding silver notes of light and motes of music
from them. The world turned red, flattened, and receded. 5.

In hyperspace,
the world is merely a flattened disk, surrounded on either side (red and blue)
widi energy-structures that inform its laws of nature and the shape of
surrounding space-time.

There is no
visible sun here. Gravity works in an inverse-cube rather than inverse-square
law, and radiant energy likewise. There is no way to form stable orbits, stable
atomic arrangements, or to see the reddened, reddened light from even a nearby
star.

But there was
something here, a thick more-than-matter that filled the ambient hypervolume.

The medium
absorbed and flattened the ripples in time and space issuing from our
continuum, like a heavy blanket. The gravity well of the Earth also forced the
time-space into a curve. Unfortunately, the curve was negative;
"away" from me in all directions. Rather than being the shortcut I
had hoped, I encountered more time-intervals per second than in three-space.
The moments here were longer.

Distances
were, in effect, greater between two points here man in three-space. It would
take me, not just one, but several seconds to pass "over" Mr. Glum's
position.

6.

I had the time
to spare a glance at the cluster of energy-lines I had oriented to watch
Quentin and Colin.

I space-folded
a light-receptor away from the scene faster than the speed of light, so that I
could see what had happened. Slightly to my past (during the same moment when I
had first seen Miss Daw, and exchanged a brief word with Victor) Quentin raised
his walking stick as if to ward off a blow, and said loudly back to her,
"Wise One! You misquote the scripture! The Commandment is to honor the
mother, not the nurse! What is the penalty for twisting the words of God? Does
that not take His name in vain ... ?" Before he could finish, she said back,
"Your mouth is stuffed with stolen food. Thief! I steal your voice!"

Quentin
choked.

Colin started
running at Mrs. Wren, brandishing the axe. My sense impressions around him went
black as he negated reality itself in some way, and leapt up the rock she stood
upon, in a leap no legs could make. He was carried by nothing but his desire.

Mrs. Wren
ignored him as he closed in on her, and instead pointed her twiggy broom at
Quentin. "You turn my teachings against me; my birthday gifts to wound me;
Ingrate! Reprobate! The Spirits of me Great Mother recoil at your crimes! Your
staff is broken!"

Quentin's
walking stick shattered in his hand. He fell to his knees and clutched his
head.

Even Colin
could not bring himself to chop down an old woman. Colin struck her with the
flat of his hand, knocking her crooked body backward onto the stone, and stood
over her, flourishing the axe.

"Cut it
out, old witch! Stop it! Stop it or I'll kill you! I swear I will!"

She smiled up
at him." 'There I met a brash young man, who wouldn't say his prayers; I
took him by the left leg, and threw him down the stairs.' Have you not said
your prayers, little drag-onet? Say them now."

He struck with
the axe.

It missed her.

Colin chopped
himself in the leg. Red arterial blood sprayed out. I heard the distinct noise
of a bone cracking.

Anyone else
watching would have seen Colin stumble back, drop the axe, and fall...

But I saw the
strands and lines of moral order snarl into a twisted fist, reach down, and
slap the axe from his hand, and then lash back to pick him up bodily and throw
him headlong from the top of the cliff.

Over the brink
he went, screaming ... 7.

With another
group of lines, I was watching Victor. He closed in on Miss Daw, running down
the slope, his legs like pistons, his eyes watchful, his face widiout
expression. Since her power was the one diat stopped mine, it was logical to
assume mat she could not stop him. How hard could it be for a strong young man
to take a delicate violin out of the hands of a slender woman a foot shorter
and one hundred pounds lighter than him?

I saw the
energy-chord carrying her music reach into his ner-vous system from four-space
and twist his monad out of align-ment. Sections of his nervous system went
dark. Energy-bundles carrying control signals reached down at the same time and
seized his motor centers.

Victor was not
like the other two boys. In many ways, he was flatter in the direction of
four-space. Once the matter in his brain had been affected, there was no other
part of him to fight back.

The
Victor-puppet stopped, and sat down on the ground, looking calm as ever.

At least she
was being somewhat of a good sport about it. She could have made him dance a
jig.

8.

I felt a
disturbance in my own nerve patterns. Two thoughts came to me, more or less at
once.

First, why had
Victor and I split up? It had been my idea, but where had mat idea come from?

I realized
that the curse, the influence which had been trying to get us to split up, to
make noise, to act rashly, had not been driven out of my brain; while I had
been distracted, it had altered itself and grown again. It had wanted me to go
this way, and alone.

The point of
splitting us up was to get us into the hands of the person who could trump our
powers. They wanted to come at us in ones and twos. That is why they were
closing in on us from different directions.

Second, I
realized that if Miss Daw's power was the one that negated Victor, then she was
merely my equal. We shared one paradigm.

Whose power
negated mine?

Dr. Fell's
power trumped Quentin; mat seemed clear. Quentin and Mrs. Wren operated out of
the same paradigm: bom were magicians. Dr. Fell and Victor were both in the
same paradigm: materialists. That left...

As I passed
through Mr. Glum, reality shut off for a moment Mr. Glum put his hand out. With
a bump, the world snapped back into place. My new senses went blind.

I was a girl
again, not a centaur. I was toppling through the air, falling onto Mr. Glum.

For a moment,
as I hung there, I saw his face, his terrible face, all red with cold, and
lust, and hate, and desire. I saw his eyes, surrounded by war paint; I saw the
sick little gape-grin of his mouth.

Somehow, I
knew that his desire to capture me, to force me back into the shapely body I
had been so proud of, was greater than my desire to get away. I had flinched at
the idea of killing an old lady in order to get away; I saw he would not have
flinched.

No wonder his
world was filled with lust and hate. His de-sires, his burning, frustrated
desires, gave him strength.

Mr. Glum drove
his elbow into my midriff as he caught me. Little black metallic lights danced
before my eyes as I dropped to the snow, dazed, with no strength in my limbs.

9.

"Well,
well, the proud blond princess going to run me down, eh? Ah, what's this? You
brought me some rope. What to do with it, I wonder?"

I felt his
arms go around my waist, pin my elbows to my sides, while I was still
struggling to get a breath. I felt his desire somehow enter the rope, and it
writhed like a snake, twisting tightly around my elbows and waist, forming
knots he could not possibly have tied that quickly.

During this
horrible moment, I kicked at him with strength-less legs and made a hoarse
noise, not yet quite a scream.

He yanked my
wrists together, crossed them. My hands were tied together, pinned in place
behind my buttocks. Again, the rope of its own accord lashed itself tight more
quickly than it should have been able to.

A second hank
of rope ran from my wrists to several quick turns around the ankles of my
boots. Hie hank was short enough to prevent me from standing up.

I wondered if
the knots were like the one Colin had playfully made in my apron string; a
topologically impossible knot, impossible to untie.

He pulled the
scarf off from around my neck, the same one Quentin had used to blindfold me
last night. I clenched my teeth, knowing it was nearly impossible, without
hurting someone, to get something in past clenched teeth.

He put his
fingers on my jaw and my muscles lost all strength, and he pushed a wad into my
mouth and wound the slack around my head to gag me.

I could not
make a noise. That was also, by the way, impos-sible. Merely having a wad of
cloth between your teeth, you can still make noise with your nose, and scream,
and carry on, and even make a few words. It is only in the movies that gags
block all sound.

He was doing
it. Mr. Glum was making me silent His willpower. The cloth in my mourn was just
a symbol.

Looking up at
him in his silly bear skull and furry skin outfit, his skin beneath turning
blue in the cold, I had the terrible intu-ition that he was able to do this so
quickly and easily because, as Colin might say, he had put his
"energy" into it. He had daydreamed about it by day, imagined it at
night. Perhaps it was Vanity who had appeared in his visions more often than
me, but I could not believe I had been absent

Night after
night for years. How much "energy" was that?

"She
wants to run away from Boggin, my pale gold princess, does she? Aye, well, who
doesn't? A right fine idea, in fact! Let's see how far we can get." And he
threw me over his shoulder, like Tarzan carrying Jane, clamped a meaty hand on
my buttocks, and went leaping from rock to rock in awkward, giant thrusts of
his legs, around the shoulder of the cliffs, out of sight of the others, and
away.

17

Jord of the
HSlortlTWini 1.

Grendel's
desire to run must have been very great at that moment, for he ran like a man
inspired. In a few minutes, he was swarming up the rocks, and I kicked my legs
(as far as the rope would allow me), hoping to throw us both off balance and
have us plunge to our deaths on the sea-swept rocks beneath.

He mounted the
cliff, but at a point far around the shoulder of the slope, out of sight of the
others. He paused just a moment to tug at the rope running between my wrists
and ankles, tying it off to allow for no slack at all. My legs were now bent
double, pushed up against my thighs, motionless.

Once again, I
noticed the unreality of the situation. Why weren't the bindings at my wrist
cutting off my circulation, tf the ropes were so tight? Why wasn't my bruised
solar plexus (where he had struck me hard enough to knock me half-unconscious)
making me vomit into my gag, since that same spot was now bouncing up and down
on his shoulder?

Because
Grendel did not want me to be uncomfortable. He did not imagine that I would
be.

He ran through
the woods. Soon, pine trees were thick about us.

We came to a
spot at the foot of a mound, where two slabs of stone, leaning on each other,
formed a mouth to a cave. Pine needles carpeted the area beneath the shadow of
the stone. From deep, deep back in the cave came the sound of water dripping
slowly into a deep well.

At the mouth
of the cave he put me down in the pine needles, and smoothed my hair with his
hand. His look, at the moment, was not one of lust, or not merely lust, but one
of pride.

"Who'd
have thought old Grendel would have such a prize as you, eh? You're like a fine
work of art, you are, like sunshine."

He smiled and
touched my cheek. "I helped make you, you know. I bent my will on you when
Boggin and the others weren't looking. I made you so you were the kind of girl
who likes it rough. The sort who don't mind being carried off by force, if'n
the right feller does the carrying-off, see?"

I made a
little mumbling moan in my gag. I assumed he liked moans; otherwise, I assume I
could have made no noise at all. I was actually trying to ask him a question,
though, because a large black vulture had just landed on the ground across the
clearing behind him.

"I have
the corpse of the preacher down in my lair; he'll have us wed within the hour.
I'll have to strangle you if'n I ever get Vanity, for she was promised to me,
and I cannot have two wives, for that would be against the law."

Well, that was
evidently the wrong thing to say. The vulture opened its beak and screamed. A
loud, harsh, terrible scream.

The
temperature dropped. One second it was merely cold; the next it was numbing.

Headmaster
Boggin dropped lighdy out of the sky.

Twenty-foot-long
pinions swept me air to either side of him. His long red hair was floating as
if it were under water. He was bare-chested and bare-foot, wearing baggy purple
pantaloons, tied off above the knee. He wore a ring on his big toe, set witfi a
green marble stone. It made him look like a pirate, or the King of Siam.

His wings were
the same color as his hair, a bright red with brown and gold highlights. Unlike
Corus, he used his wings, and was flapping them energetically.

He landed on a
rock above me cave, at a spot where I could not see him. All I could see was
GrendeFs face, slack with fear and hate.

"Hi ho!
Well, now Grendel, I must say I am... very ... dis- appointed. It seems to me
that we had an agreement. Back when all this started, you swore fealty to
me."

Grendel
squinted up at him. The hate was fighting with the fear on his face.

"My will
is stronger than yours is, my dear Grendel. Do you know how I know that?
Because once you swore to me that you would not do this thing you are doing
now. That means your desire is imperfect. Funny things, oaths. Why, do you remember
that oath, my dear Grendel? Certainly you do? Of course you do. I see that you
do."

The hate
melted away, and the fear grew. Grendel's lip started trembling. His eyes
blinked tears.

Boggin's voice
came smoothly: "We are all one big happy family, committed... may I say
devoted?... devoted to the same goal. But from time to time we are tempted,
and, yes, I see how one might be tempted, to pursue some private pleasure of
our own at the expense of the group. We cannot have that, Grendel, can we? Do you
think we can have that?"

Grendel fell
to his knees. "Don't kill me. Don't kill me. Don't kill me. I have a
mother, she's got no one but me. Please—oh please—"

I smelled
urine on him. He had wet himself.

"Oh dear,
now stop all this blubbering. It looks bad in front of the children. I will
tell you what. I will let you off with a reminder. At some point during the
next week or ten days—and you will not know when it is about to
happen—you shall have an accident, Grendel. A bad one. You will chop your
foot with a firewood axe, perhaps, or crush all your bones in your hand with a
hammer. Or fall off a ladder and break your legs in three places. Or maybe you
will slip while pouring the tea, and scald your crotch with a terrible,
terrible third-degree burn. Something like that.

"Now, the
thing is, Grendel, oh, and you will love this part... if you do something
terrible, simply terrible, to yourself first, the accident won't happen. You
see? If you can get up the nerve to poke an eye out with an awl or stick your
hand into the blades of a rotary fan, then you will get to pick where the
damage will land. I mean, you would rather have your left hand maimed than your
right hand, wouldn't you?

You'd rather have an eye splashed with
acid than a testicle, I am sure.

"Well,
think about your options, Grendel, and think about what you've done. We do not
need to say anything more about this little incident, do we? You are sorry,
very sorry, aren't you? Yes, I thought you were. Now, run along. I will see to
our Miss Windrose."

Grendel
turned, gave me one last sad, hopeless look, and ran away.

Immediately I
began making a nasal yelling noise through the gag. My legs were suddenly tense
with pain; certain sections of the rope now bit into my flesh uncomfortably;
others had grown strangely slack. I started wiggling and wriggling to see if I
could get out of them.

Boggin dropped
down in front of the cave mouth. He looked down at me with a strange
expression.

"Why Miss
Windrose, you look quite, ah ... fetching ... at the moment. But I suppose it
cannot be comfortable. I hope you will permit me to unlace you?"

2.

"Fetching"
he called it. With my ankles and wrists two inches apart, my back was as arched
as it could be. My elbows were pinned behind my back, practically touching.
This combined to thrust my breasts out so far, that I finally knew, in that
moment, how Vanity must feel at all times.

Maybe he
thought the gag cutting into my lips was cute. Men must like it when girls
can't talk back.

I am sure that
being mussed, and scared to death, and angry, somehow also added to my sex
appeal. My hair had come un-bound and loose during my adventures; I assume Mr.
Glum did not like me wearing it braided up.

With Mr. Glum
absent, I was able to crane my neck partway into the "other"
direction, and push the gag with my tongue in that direction until it turned
red and got less dense. Once it was an inch or two into four-space, the scarf
(or, more specifically, the shadow cast by the scarf) lost the ability to
interact with matter, became permeable, passed "through" my head
without sensation, and landed with a soft noise on the pine needles beneath my
cheek.

Well, I was
glad the thing did not fall straight to the center of the Earth, though I was
at a loss as to why it didn't. It was my favorite scarf.

"Thank
you, but no thank you, Headmaster," I said in an irked tone of voice.
"I think I can manage better without you!"

I turned my
body a little sideways into the "blue" direction, so I was occupying
a small 3-D cross-section, and the ropes seemed to turn red and recede from me
in all directions. Wim a shimmer and a jerk I jumped to my feet, as the world
flickered dark and then bright again as I passed briefly into and out of
hy-perspace. The world's normal colors returned as I tilted back into full cross-section.

The ropes slid
"through" my body in a spray of red sparks and landed in a heap on
the pine needles.

With a soft
thud, my boots and socks and pants and coat and blouse and bra and undies and
everything else landed atop them. Suddenly, it felt very cold.

"Oh,
you're right, Miss Windrose," said Boggin, an unreadable expression on his
face, "that is much better."

He cleared his
throat and ostentatiously turned his back on me. He spoke without turning his
head. "While you are getting dressed, please allow me to ask a question or
two. I must confess to being mildly surprised at your own lack of surprise. Did
someone tell you, Miss Windrose, that I had wings?"

I have to
admit that I had been relieved when Boggin, angel-like, splendid and handsome,
had swept down from heaven to rescue me from Grendel Glum. Had I not been in
the midst of trying to escape from his school, I would have felt more
grati-tude, I suppose. Boggin did not want me to be carried off and married to
a man-sea monster; he did not even want me to be embarrassed.

I was
grateful; he was my white knight; my rescuer. Except...

Except me
omers had all been caught by now. I was the only one left. I was the only one
at liberty. If we all got caught, our chance of escape again was nearly zero.
If one of us was still at large, able to move freely, learn to use her powers,
to get help, to contact our parents in Chaos, then she would be able to sneak
back and get the others out. Right?

Even if she
didn't want to. Even if all she wanted to do was be a good sport, admit she had
lost tins round, and go slinking back to her cold bed in her locked room at
night, safe and sound, in the same room she had always slept in as a child.
Cold and safe. Safe in Boggin's keeping.

Because Victor
would not want her to be a good sport about it. This was serious. This was not
a cricket match. We were In-dians and they were Cowboys. We were Jews and they
were Nazi prison guards.

Dr. Fell was
going to do something horrible to us if we did not get away, like erase our
brains. He had already done it to Quentin once.

Even if
Amelia's body was going to stay alive, for all practi-cal purposes, they were
going to kill me. Part of me.

I was thinking
of Victor. I was thinking of what Victor would have thought, a look of polite
disbelief on his face, deepening to a never-to-be-erased disgust, when he
asked, "An enemy in time of battle turns his back on you, offering you a
perfect target, and you did what, again, exactly? Picked up a rock and then ...
what? Apologized for running away?"

Duty. Do what
you have to do.

Think of
Victor. Get angry.

Come to think
of it, what business did Boggin have anyway, turning his back on me? It was so
very polite, so Victorian, so proper.

So
condescending. There are women in the military in Israel. Tough women, who do
whatever they have to do to survive. No one turns their backs on them, I bet.

I picked up a
heavy rock from the cave, one about the size of a softball, used my little
trick to make it heavier instead of lighter, stepped up softly behind him, and
brought it swift and hard into the back of his skull. Clunk.

There. That
will show him how to treat a modern girl!

"Ow!"
he said, and he fell forward onto his knees. I suppose if I had really been
trying to kill him, I would have simply inserted the rock dirough the fourth
dimension "past" his skull and directly into the delicate tissue of
his brain. Maybe I didn't think of that at the time. Maybe I did and could not
make myself do it. Maybe I wasn't really trying to kill the angel who just
saved me from Grendel.

I ran past
him. All I can say about running stark naked and barefoot through the pines in
the wintertime is that it is very, very cold. Actually, I will also say that it
is a very good argu-ment for the invention of clothing. It is amazing how many
sensitive places on your skin a sticky pine needle can stab you when you are
running quickly between two trees.

The world
turned dreamlike for a moment, and twisted like taffy. My thoughts were
confused and sleepy.

Then
everything snapped back into focus. I woke up, and the cave was directly in
front of me again. Boggin was climbing to his feet, looking very annoyed. He
had done some sort of space-manipulation effect, similar to what I had seen
Mestor do earlier to propel himself through the water. It was the same type of
energy-substance I had seen clinging to the planks of the White Ship.

I turned to
run another direction. He pursed his lips and made a sucking noise.

A tube of
vacuum, with the power of a gale-force wind, like the spout of a tornado,
picked me up and yanked me toward him.

He caught my
naked body in midair with one arm, with his lips forming a little circle of
painful suction on my back between my shoulder blades. His other hand was still
clutching his head.

He puffed (his
breath was like the air from an open freezer) and dropped me at his feet.

Boggin looked
at his foot, and said, "Bran! Hear me! I hereby close the boundaries
between this place and Myriagon." To me he said, "Now let's have no
more nonsense, Miss Wind-rose, or I shall take that rope and truss you up again
like a Christmas goose. Ow. Ouch."

He took his
hand away from his head and stared, aghast, at the blood on his fingers.
"That was really quite savage of you, Miss Windrose! I see I am going to
have to be quite severe."

I stood there,
hugging myself and shivering.

He snapped,
"Please get dressed at once. I should not like you to escape your
punishment because you catch pneumonia." "Turn your back," I
said, pouting, wondering how stupid he was.

He must have
been wondering the same thing, for he just crossed his arms and said, "Do
not annoy me, child. I gave you an order. Be quick about it."

I put my back
to him while I put on my bra and blouse. I glanced back to see him glaring down
at me, while I tugged my panties into place, picked up my jeans and pointed my
toe to step gingerly into them.

He must have
thought I was trying to show off my bottom to him, and glancing back to be coy.
(Nothing could have been farther from my mind; when you are cold and scratched
enough, you think about how cold and scratched you are, and that is all you
think about.) He said in a cross tone of voice: "I would be more in a mood
to appreciate your considerable charms had I not such an acute headache at the
moment, Miss Windrose."

I put my coat,
boots, mittens, and scarf back on, and re-trieved my aviatrix cap, which I
began tucking my hair under.

He stepped
forward and pulled the cap off my head. "No," he said. "You look
better with your hair down. You apparently think you are old enough to wear it
that way."

I looked at
him with something akin to hate in my eyes. "Do you get to say how I wear
my hair, now?"

He threw the
cap back at me. "Touche\ I concede the point. You are the mistress of your
hair, Miss Windrose. You may wear it in any fashion which is appropriate for
school."

I let the cap
bounce off my folded arms and fall to the ground, untouched. Because I was
angry, and because I did not care, I said, "You pick my uniform and shoes
and everything else I wear. Do you want me to look prettier for you? Why don't
you just dress me up like a Barbie doll, and order me to report to your bed at
night. That's what you really want, isn't it?"

"Speaking
for the males on the staff, I am sure that is what we all want, Miss Windrose.
It may even be said to be my pre-rogative as your rescuer. You are, however,
too young."

He stooped and
picked up the cap. He winced when he did it; the act of stooping brought pain
to his head wound. "I am sorry I made an inappropriate comment about your
hair, Miss Wind-rose. Do you want your cap?" "Well... yes. I mean, it
is rather cold."

"Of
course. Everyone gets cold around me, sooner or later." He watched while I
donned the aviator's cap and tucked up my hair.

3.

He said,
"I am now going to give you a choice, Miss Windrose. I fear I cannot trust
you to walk beside me back to the estate, without getting into mischief. I
cannot ask you for your word of honor, because you have given and broken that
to me, and I find I can no longer trust it."

He bent over
and picked up the rope, and began drawing it into coils. I noticed he once
again winced when he stooped over.

I said softly,
"What's the choice?"

"If we
walk, I am going to tie your hands, and lead you on a string like a cow to
market. This will not stop the nonsense, I am sure, but it might minimize
it."

"What's
the other choice?"

"I carry
you. I am reluctant to offer this, because I see you have been given reason
this day not to believe that all members of our establishment are above
reproach, and you may feel this is an unwanted intimacy."

"Carry me
in your arms? All the way back to school?"

He spoke
witiii slow and condescending tones: "Well, yes. I cannot very well carry
you with my legs, now can I? And the school, I must point out, is our
destination. I will not be under any need to restrain you, since you will
hardly be in a position to do anything too athletic, all things
considered."

I looked at
the rope in his hand, looked at his face. "Um, Headmaster, is there
something I am missing here? I don't think I understand what..."

"Through
the air, Miss Windrose! Carry you through the air."

"You mean
... fly?"

My face must
have lit up, because he actually smiled back at me.

I stepped up
close and put my arms around his neck. He tilted me back like a man about to
deliver a kiss, or a dancer in some sensuous Spanish dance, and put one arm
around my thighs, one around my waist, and swept me off my feet.

He did it
better than Quentin did it.

He hefted me
once or twice, as if trying to guess my weight. Maybe he liked the feel of me
in his arms. He looked up as if scanning for something, some signal in the wind
or cloud.

Whatever it
was, he seemed to find it. Boreas smiled down at me.

"Are you
ready? Snuggle close. If I pass out during the flight, all your troubles will
be over, Miss Windrose."

He kicked the
ground away.

4,

What is joy,
except to feel, in thought, the soaring wonder which we really feel in truth in
flight?

The snow-clad
pines and leafless trees of fairy frost now fell below, as we soared up a long
smooth slope of transparent air, like a glissade rising from note to note to
ecstasy and triumph.

The ground
became a textured tapestry, hills were stones and trees were carpet weave. I
saw the crawling table of the sea, streaked white with tiny caterpillars of
foam. Low clouds appeared to rest upon the surface, illusionary islands made
substantial by distance.

I saw a glint
of silver-white, a toothpick in a bathtub, a toy boat.

There seemed
to be other toy boats, blacker, blockier, and larger, around it, hemming it in,
like the little metal square counters in a war game played on a board.

The sight
suddenly stung tears from my eyes, even amidst my joy of flight, because I
realized I was not flying, not me, not really.

Then fog sent
a streaming arm down past us, and a fine mist fell. The fog grew thick and I
donned my goggles as small wa-terdrops began to collect on my face.

Then we came
up from the fog bank like a dolphin leaping from the waves, but a leap that
went on, up and up, and did not end. I laughed! I laughed because I had not
realized (how stupid of me not to!) clouds and fogs were one and the same. Oh,
I knew it intellectually, of course, but still I had somehow felt that clouds
would feel strange when I passed through one. But no; they were made of the
same water molecules that the ninety percent of my body was. They were not so
different from me, these sky-dwellers.

And what
dwellers they were. The landscape down below had had no sun; this one did. Here
were hills of alabaster, tow-ers of white marble, high arches and cupolas of
fine ivory, and rippling fields of snow. Slowly, slow as whales, these towers
and vales and nodding hills of weightless white were changing to new shapes, or
pacing solemnly against an aquamarine blue, icebergs of mist in a sea of
atmosphere.

And where the
red sun glanced his rays against them, the architect of Heaven had used
rosy-tinted marble, or ruddy gold of lambent hue, to decorate his coliseums and
cathedral domes.

But, by
Heaven, it was cold.

I turned in
Boggin's grip, and he clasped me at my armpits from above, so I could lay
facedown in the streaming air, my legs trailing back, my arms stretched out to
either side as if I, too, had wings.

The continent
of cloud we passed across suddenly broke into a shoreline of peninsulas and
archipelagoes of lesser cloud. In the bay, beneath these islands, sunk
Atlantis-like beneath the crystal wave, I saw the estate grounds, and the
school, littie dollhouse buildings of well-crafted make, shingles of gray or
slate, chimneys of red brick or white, windows winking like miniature gems.

We fell, and
there was no plunge below the waves as we passed beneath the clouds again,
there was no sensation of drowning. The make-believe school grew larger
underfoot, the buildings swelled and rose up against us like monsters, growing.
Growing, I should say, larger, but not any more real.

As we fell
further, the gray and white buildings, the blank brick walls, seemed more and
ever more like the square pill-boxes of a fortress, or a prison camp, growing
to full size, no longer toys in some game. We landed on the balcony of the
clock tower, high above the Chapel roof. Boggin dropped me lightly on the
balcony next to the huge hanging cylinder of the bell, and he made one great
circle around the tower. I saw his hair like a red battle-pennant streaming
back from his harsh profile, and the sunlight glanced off the sculpted muscles
of his shoulders, chest, and the iron-hard ridges of his stomach. With a swoop
and a whirling flutter of red wings, he pushed in between the pillars of the
balcony, and landed. One tiny red feather, shaken loose, hung in the air,
rocking back and forth, ever so slowly descending.

"Welcome
home," he said.

18

jitop the
^Bell Tower

"It's not
my home," I said dully.

"Perhaps
not, Miss Windrose, but none of us seems to have much choice in the matter,
eh?"

He reached up
into the moum of the bell, and took out a long coat, shirt, and his black
academic robes, which had apparently been hanging on a hook or a hanger on the
bell clapper.

Now he sat
down on the balcony rail, his back against one pillar, his foot against the
other. He did not put on his coat or robe, but instead laid the fabric across
his knee. Out of a large pocket he took a vial of oil and a shiny brass tool
shaped something like a cross between a dagger and a comb.

With one hand
he drew his wing around before him. With the toothy dagger or sharp comb, or
whatever it was, he began prying and primping at his feathers, one after
another, row after row. Every now and again, he would pause, pour some oil from
his vial onto a channel in the comb made for that purpose, and then continue
preening.

I watched him
for a while. He worked with a slight, absent- minded frown, but his movements
were deft and careful. A pleasant odor came from the wings, and the feathers
seemed to take on new color under his hands.

"How old
am I, Headmaster? Really?"

"Miss
Windrose, you are fourteen and three months."

"Oh, come
on! You're lying."

"You
should not speak that way to your elders, even when they are lying. You are not
a Yankee, after all. You should say, 'I find mat hard to believe.'"

"I find
that hard to believe."

"Unfortunately,
when Miss Fair, who is somewhat older than you, began to develop her ah ...
rather generous signs of puberty, you also wanted to be older, and quickly,
like most girls. Most girls, however, are not shape-changers. Despite our
efforts, your powers are still influenced by your subconscious desires. In a
few months, you had the body and the glandular reactions of a fully mature
woman of twenty or so; and, like all girls your age, you wanted to look like a
fashion model. Very few real women—I am tempted to say no
women—actually have the perfect wasp-waisted hourglass figure you have
wished on yourself."

"But I am
older than Vanity!"

"Actually,
no. She is four years your elder. You obviously wanted to be older, bigger,
stronger when you were still a very young child. Many young children have this
wish. Most do not have the power to make their wishes come true. You had the
body of a five- or six-year-old when you were three. It was quite trying for
all of us, I am sure."

After a while,
when he had done all his feathers but the ones on the shoulders of his wings,
he sat up straighter, and took out a mirror, craned his head back and bent his
arm over his shoulder, and began doing the wings along his upper back.

"Can I do
that?"

He looked at
me sidelong. "I beg your pardon, Miss Wind-rose?"

"I mean,
I could help with the spots you cannot reach."

"Do I
want you standing with an object as sharp as a knife right at the small of my
back, Miss Windrose?"

"I could
promise ..." "No, Miss Windrose, I am afraid you cannot. I mean, you
could say the words, any words that you liked, but it would not be a promise,
would it? Not really."

He folded his
wings up on his back, and took out a long rib-bon of black satin, which he
tucked around his wings with both hands, and pulled shut. This forced the
feathers into a compact package. He drew on his jacket, which was constructed
with one huge pocket all along in the inner lining, into which he carefully
tucked his folded wings. His shirt was a pretend shirt, the kind a quick-change
artist at a sideshow might wear. It attached around the neck and at the belt,
and it had sleeves, but no back.

Now he took
out a rather more ordinary comb and brush, and he brushed his hair out. As
deftly as a girl (more deftly than I do it, really; usually Vanity
French-braids my hair) he twined his red locks in a maypole dance to form a
short braid.

He kept
wincing as he combed his hair, and he sucked in air through his clenched teeth
while be braided it. I saw spots of blood on his comb.

"Shouldn't
you put some iodine on that?" I said.

"Oh good
God, no! Iodine stings like the devil."

"What
about an ice pack?"

He gave me a
dark, sardonic look, half-amused. It is the look Victor sometimes gives me when
he thinks I am slow on the uptake.

"What?
What?"

"Nothing,
Miss Windrose. Thank you for your solicitation about my health."

He looked
halfway transformed back into Headmaster Bog-gin. But his purple pants and bare
calves—and that odd green ring winking on his toe—reminded me that
he was Boreas.

I said,
"I didn't break the agreement."

"No ...
?"

"I agreed
that I should not do anything to make you ashamed of me."

He said only,
"Is that so?"

I said,
"You think I did the right thing, admit it! It's the duty of prisoners of
war to try to escape."

He turned away
and drew on his trousers, tucking the folds of those purple short-pants inside
the legs. I said, "You would have done the same thing, in my place, admit
it! If Vanity was your friend, and you knew she was going to be taken away,
what would you have done?"

He kept his
eyes on his feet as he sat on the balcony rail once more, to don his socks and
shoes. I noticed he did not take that big green ring from off his big toe, and
I wondered if the shoe was specially cobbled to have a little socket or pocket
for it.

I said, my
voice growing more desperate, "In fact, if I had just stayed here, and
done nothing, then you would really have cause to be ashamed of me."

He spoke
absently, without looking up. "Miss Fair is a fine young woman. Surely you
don't think I would act against her best interests..." His voice was so
calm, so patronizing, so condescending.

"You were
going to have Mestor kidnap her and take her to Atlantis, while you didn't even
wait to see what Mulciber had to say about it!" I exclaimed. "And
with a Lamia running around loose, looking to kill us ..."

He jerked the
last lace shut on his shoe with an angry tug of his fingers, and looked up. I
saw now why he had kept his face turned away while I was speaking. His eyes
were gleaming and glittering with emotion, despite that he was trying to keep
his face still. Fear, anger, and pride were among some of the emo-tions mere.
There were others.

I stepped
back, putting my gloved fingers up to my mouth. My stomach turned cold and sank
away.

He stood. He
said in a tone that was calm on the surface, "Are we sure we have our
facts straight, Miss Windrose? What war are you a prisoner of? Where did you
hear such interesting names; Mestor, Mulciber, Lamia?"

I shook my
head and stepped backward. Victor's first rule was: never tell them what you
know. Even if they guess, do not confirm their guesses.

If they know
what you know, they can also find out how you found out, and one channel of
information will be cut. Let them guess.

Boggin stepped
forward, towering over me. His chest seemed as broad as a wall. "A little
slip of the tongue, was it, then, Miss Windrose?" I backed up again.

His hand shot
out and grabbed my arm above the elbow. "Have a care, Miss Windrose. I
should not be able to catch you if you stumble, not with this coat in the
way."

My feet were
on the brink of me square hole in the floor above which the bell hung. I could
see the bell cords swaying below me, going down, down, into the gloom.

He put out his
other hand and took my other arm, also above the elbow. He did not draw me any
closer. I stood trembling on the edge of the drop.

"Something
seems to have made you nervous, Miss Wind-rose. Surely you do not doubt my
strength, at this point?"

He flexed his
arms and picked me up. My toes were about an inch off the floorboards, and I
had to fight to keep my legs from kicking. He did not bend his elbows. With his
arms straight, us-ing just the muscles in his shoulder, he held my weight off
the floor.

He said,
"I do not suppose you will tell me where me leak is in my organization, or
where I should shore up my information control? Hmm, no, I thought not. One of
your Victor's rules, I suppose. You see, you do take me ... by surprise. Yes,
that is the word, surprise. I am not used to being flummoxed. Usually, in these
types of things, I am the flummoxor rather than the flummoxee, if you will
permit the expression."

In fencing
class once, on a bet, Colin and I held rapiers across the back of our
fingertips, at arm's length. Just held them there to see who would tire first.
Those little puny practice blades hardly weigh anything. But even after two
minutes, I was sweating, and my arms ached, and ached, and ...

I don't remember
who won mat bet. I think it was me.

There was no
strain in Boggin's voice as he continued to hold me in midair, and talk.

"You have
settled a matter of my curiosity. I had wondered why, of all times, you and
your fellow students chose this day to take your little frolicking holiday into
the woods of Arcadia.

"Well,
let me return the favor, and settle a matter of your cu-riosity, Miss Windrose.
Or should I call you Phaethusa the Ra-diant, daughter of Helius Hyperias the
Terrible High One, and of Neaera of the Dark Moon? We captured Lamia climbing
out of the window of a children's hospital in Bristol. The details are too
horrible even for someone from your race to hear easily. Our good Dr.
Fell—one of the few people on my staff who takes our responsibilities
seriously—used his science, which he calls cryptognosis, to blank out her
memory. We sent her back among the Bacchants, with some of our agents
instructed to keep an eye on her. A very close eye. She does not know that we
have penetrated her disguise, and goes about her business. We are curious to
see from whom her instructions come, to whom her reports go.

"Mestor,
son of Atlas, assayed a crude blackmail against me; but he is, if you will
pardon the expression, a fool. By the time he attempted to force my hand, I had
already informed the creatures of Mulciber, who are without pity, where and
when Miss Fair would be taken. In fact, I am going down to have a meeting with
Arges, their chief smith, before lunch to-day. Mestor is presently in a jail
cell buried, it just so happens, under this very building. He will find that
his only way out is to have me prevail upon Talos and not to press charges, so
to speak.

"Naturally,
I will do this if and only if he swears uncondi-tional fealty to me. Our own
Erichtho, whom you know as Mrs. Wren, will oversee the application of the oath,
and the terrible Gorgons will fix it in place, and the Hour known as
Eunomia— who owes me a favor—will speak to the Fates about what
punishments will befall a violation of that oath.

"Once
Mestor is—how shall I say?—a player on my team, this will put me in
a better position to keep an eye on, so to speak, and have a hand in the doings
of the Sea God and his faction, which, till now, has been the biggest unknown
factor in the scheme of things. I will also be able to disarm Mestor's
blackmail threat without further damage to myself, my reputation, or the
school.

"I had
also hoped, perhaps, this might demonstrate to our fair Miss Fair, that I have
a sincere interest in her well-being.

"Oh, and,
of course I get to keep Mestor's table. It will make a nice addition to the
Great Hall.

"Do you
have any questions, Miss Windrose?"

The posture he
held me in was beginning to make my arms ache, and my shoulders were hunched up
in an ongoing shrug. Against my will, little tremors were running through my
body, and my fingers were twitching (with nothing to grab on to but my pant
legs) and my legs kicked involuntarily, seeking some purchase in midair.

"Why are
you holding me?" I said.

"Well, I
wish I could make it sound romantic, but we are like bank robbers clutching a
teller before us, so the bank guards do not shoot. In this case, the bank
guards are monstrosities from outside of the ordered part of the universe, and
their guns are very large indeed."

"No, I
mean..."

"Oh, you
mean right now? I was hoping you would try to move into the spirit world, as
you so thoughtfully showed me you were capable of doing when you turned
insubstantial and floated out of Mr. Grim's macrame project."

I shook my
head.

"Oh, do
be a sport, Miss Windrose. I have not had a chance to say, 'Resistance is
futile!' and 'Escape is impossible!' and all that sort of stuff."

I shook my
head again.

He said,
"Well, if you simply take my word for it, fine. Facts, though silent, are
louder than words."

He relaxed his
arms so mat my feet found the floor. Not that it did me much good; my knees
were now wobbly, and I was having trouble supporting myself. Not that he let go
of his grip. If anything, his hands got tighter.

In fact, now
that I was on the floorboards, I was forced to stand slightly closer to him, to
avoid the brink behind me.

Too close.
Closer than a schoolgirl should be standing to a teacher. I could smell the oil
he had rubbed into his wings. It was scented, like an aftershave.

His eyes
filled my sight, and my heart was hammering so in my breast that, for a moment,
my breath was gone. This close to him, it was as if he and I formed our own
little world, a world meant for us and us alone.

His hands were
so very strong, that I was overcome widi an awareness of my own fragility. It
made me feel almost faint; me, the big, strong, auiletic one, a little china
doll in his hands.

I wondered
what he was feeling, what he was thinking. He was staring down at me, an
expression of perfect arrogance in his eyes. I saw how the light caressed the
cheek, bringing out the contour of the muscles around his mouth, the strength
in his cheekbones. There was a ghost of reddish hair to the skin of his jaw,
and it created the illusion he was blushing with pleasure. Maybe it was not an
illusion. His lips were ruddy, finely sculpted. I could not help but stare at
them.

I realized
with a fearful thrill that I had somehow come to be in the same posture girls
assumed in novels when they are about to be kissed.

His voice was
a warm rumble, as if an earthquake spoke. I could feel the trembling in the
air.

"What am
I to do with you, Phaethusa? On the one hand, you are a monstrosity from beyond
the edge of space and time, a member of a race and clan bent on the destruction
of this world and every other. You have powers growing beyond our control, and
the danger you pose to us is real."

"Let me
go."

"I cannot
do that. Your race would see that as a signal to launch the final war, the
Rangnarok."

"No, I
mean right now. I mean, let go of my arms."

To my
surprise, he did.

I stood
uncertainly on the brink of the hole, rubbing my arms, and looking up at him.
He still was blocking my way, huge and tall, though I suppose I could have
tried to sidle past him to the left or right.

I was not sure
I wanted to. I enjoyed having him have a hold of me, even if cruelly.

"We're
going to have to put you in a cell, you know, Phaethusa, at least till we can
figure out what to do with you. Since you can walk through walls the only thing
I can do to keep you there is threaten your friends with harm, if you at-tempt
to escape. This is a dreadful and unseemly thing to resort to, and I fear it is
turning me into a monster worse man your people are."

"You're
not really going to put me in a cell, are you, Head-master?"

"I fear I
am. Chains, manacles, leg irons, bars on the window, whatever may be
required." His face had a hollow look to it.

"Required?
Required for what?"

He barked an
angry sort of laugh. "Required to undo your damage. If the factions (who
never agree on anything) agreed that I was too weak or too foolish to keep you
four from wan-dering around on your own ..."

"You mean
'escaping.'"

"It is
quite rude to interrupt, Miss Windrose. But, yes. If the Olympians agreed that
I was unable to keep you from escaping, you would be taken from me. Most likely
the four of you would be split up; with Mavors, Mulciber, Lord Dis, and the
Sea-Prince Pelagaeus each getting one. Or two, in the case of Lord Pelagaeus,
since he might end up with Miss Fair, also. That way they could maintain the
balance of the threats they pose to each other. Oh, none of you might cooperate
with any of them in tiieir wars but, men again, none of them could be certain
of that, and even the prospect of your involuntary help might be somewhat
alarming. A second civil war would soon start. While your people would no doubt
rejoice to see us cutting each other up, you yourself might be sad to be
without your playmates."

I said,
"Pelagaeus is Poseidon?"

He nodded.
"We take different names in different worlds and situations. Speaking of
situations, have I explained the present conundrum in sufficient detail for you
to see me gravity of the matter? Certain members of the Board of Visitors and
Governors were present during our recovery of you children. They saw you become
a centaur; tiiey heard Mr. Nemo cast back part of Mrs. Wren's curse, they saw
Mr. mac FirBolg's rather prodigious leap. And no one could mistake me meaning
of the vessel waiting for Miss Fair. You see, had it just been kept among us
here at the school, I might have been able to hush up the matter quiedy. As it
is, some show of severity is required. It has to be severe enough mat even
people like Lord Dis will tiiink I am too strict. I trust you comprehend what I
am saying."

"You are
asking me to cooperate?" I said, astonished.

"No. I am
telling you, Phaemusa, that if you deduce how to escape from the cell into
which you are about to be dragged, you should fear to do it. If you deduce how
to escape, don't es-cape. I will harm you and my other children if you do. We
are gods; we control the sidereal universe. The only result of a sec-ond
attempt will be mat the Olympians will take you away from me and press you into
a slavery which will be far worse than study hall and being required to wear
school uniforms." "You said 'my children.'"

"Ah. Did
I?"

"We're
not your children. We have real parents."

"My
students. I meant to say 'my students.'"

Apparently I
had not been grabbed enough that day, because now he put out his hand and took
me by the upper arm again. "Come along!"

I dug in my
feet, and made him drag me a few steps. I really, really did not like the idea
of going into a cell.

I was leaning
far back, digging my reluctant boots into the floorboards, being yanked, and
stumbling, leaning back again. He was pulling me toward the door that hid the
bell tower stairs.

I said,
"What's the other hand?"

"I beg
your pardon?"

"You
said, on the one hand I am a monster. What's on the other hand?"

"Ah. On
the other hand you are a confused little girl who has gotten too big for her
britches, and perhaps the only thing you need is some stern correction. In
fact—!"

Now he smiled,
and stepped towards me. Since I was pulling against him, the sudden relaxation
made me stumble a step or two and I caught myself against the balcony railing.

Headmaster
Boggin stepped around me and seated himself on the rail. My elbow was still in
his fist, I was pulled half-turned around, not quite facing him.

"In fact,
to throw a monster who tries to escape into a dun-geon is a good policy, but it
is clearly not the right thing to do to a girl who breaks her word and tries to
break open a teacher's head with a rock."

"What are
you going to do?" I said. There was a gleam in his eye. Call it a Grendel
gleam, but I have seen it in Colin's eye, too.

I knew from
that gleam what he was going to do. But there are some things that just come
out of your mouth, no matter how dumb they sound, whether you want them to or
not. The only thing possibly stupider to say in a situation like this is
something like, "You wouldn't dare!"

Boggin looked
deeply into my eyes, as if pleased at the un-certainty he saw growing there.

"Miss
Windrose, our agreement was not that you would not make me ashamed of you. Our
agreement was that you would do nothing to make me regret my decision. I have a
terrible headache because someone hit me in the head with a rock. Surely, I am
right to regret that?"

I would have
had as much chance resisting the force of a wild stallion as I did resisting
the strength of his arm.

He pulled me
facedown across his knees. The railing he sat on was high, and I could not
reach the floorboards with my feet. My hands flailed in midair a moment, and
then I grabbed the poles of the railing, which were to my left.

"I must
see to it that you regret it, too, and in a fashion which will bring home to
you quite forcefully that you are not as old as you think you are."

I was
breathless; a shy feeling was actually sending tremors through me. All my skin
trembled with goose pimples as all my little hairs stood up. This made my skin
more sensitive; I could feel every nuance of the texture and fabric of my
skirt, which suddenly seemed quite flimsy and thin on my bottom. I could feel
the air on my exposed upper legs. I could feel the muscles in his legs beneath
my stomach.

I said the
dumb thing again, "What are you going to do—?!" It did not
sound any better the second time around. Higher-pitched. More girlish.

He did not
bother answering that, but he held one hand on the small of my back, and waited
while I kicked my legs in midair. There was nothing within the range of my feet
to get a purchase on.

What was he
going to do? I knew what he was going to do.

I cannot say
that I did not deserve what was about to happen. That little dark knot of guilt
in my stomach I had felt ever since I realized that I had a duty, a duty to
Victor, to bonk Boggin with a rock, that knot began to relax into a warm and
pleasant fear.

Why pleasant?
I cannot explain my emotions. I am not sure where they come from. But, at that
moment, I felt a strange combination of fear and gratitude.

Why gratitude?
Because I did feel bad about what I had done. Clonking my red-haired savior
angel with a rock. This man has raised me from a child my whole life. That has
to count for something. Being saved from Grendel Glum counts for something.
This will sound like a paradox, but: if a man too big and too strong for me to
resist punished me, I would be relieved of the responsibility of feeling any
guilt. There is no guilt after you've been punished for it, right? And he is
too strong to fight, so even Victor could not expect me to get out of mis,
right?

When you feel
bad, you want to apologize. It's natural. But you cannot apologize to an enemy
in time of war, can you? That is not the way people who are serious about
winning a war act.

But what if
you were forced to apologize? Even the little imaginary image of Victor I carry
around in my head in the spot where other people keep a conscience, even he
could not complain that I was not "serious," because I could always
tell him I had been forced. See?

And there was
an even darker, naughtier pleasure trembling beneath the fear and confusion in
my body. Because I knew this wasn't a teacher punishing a schoolgirl. This was
a man spanking a woman. He certainly would not have done this to any man. And
he might not even have done it to Vanity. It was something for me. A bad thing,
maybe even a terrible and humiliating thing, but it was mine.

So I said,
"You wouldn't dare!"

"Miss
Windrose, I want you to count." There was a smile in his voice.

I could see
the upside-down floor of the bell tower, and through the square gateway formed
by his legs, my own legs hanging down into my view. I kicked again, but now he
merely reached out and took both my ankles in his grasp. His one hand was large
enough that he could close his fingers around both my ankles.

"I don't
want to count." My voice was clearly trembling now.

His chuckling
voice floated down from somewhere above and behind me. "I will, of course,
go to a number twice as high, if I must do the work of counting myself, Miss
Windrose."

OK. Maybe I
did not feel that guilty after all. I looked over my two options; defiance plus
twice the ouch, or nondefiance...?

"Would it
help if I said I was sorry?"

"If you
actually were sorry, yes, it might. It might help a great deal. I suspect,
however, that you are not sorry at all. Nevertheless, despite that, I would
like you to say you are sorry be- fore every number you count. I will do twenty
full strokes less than I would have done otherwise."

I was
beginning to feel lightheaded. Clearly he intended a number much higher than
twenty if knocking off twenty was such a light matter.

"How high
am I counting?" My voice, even to my own ears, sounded small, and frail,
and faint.

"It is
five more than it was before you asked that question."

After a
moment, he said, "Well, Miss Windrose?"

I could not
seem to catch my breath or gather my wits. My heart would not stop pounding.
Had you ever been upside down on the knee of a man who you looked up to when
you were a girl? Not an ugly man, not a weak one. He had that quality Victor
called serious. Serious about winning. Serious about overcoming me. Serious
about forcing surrender. He was going to win.

I said,
quietly, "I'm sorry."

He put his
hand on my bottom. He waited.

I said,
quietly, "One ..."

J9

Solitude l.

No, he wasn't
kidding. Yes, they put me in a jail.

He was not
even kidding about the chains. There was an iron collar around my neck, with a
heavy lock on one side, a crude iron hinge on the other, and a ring just above
my collarbone. A chain led from the neck ring to a staple in the middle of the
ceiling, next to the light fixture. The slack of the chain described the radius
of my freedom.

Directly below
was a cot, fixed to the floor. To one side was the barred window, as promised.
To the other, the barred door. Next to the door was a shelf for a food tray. A
water bucket rested on the floor beneath. There was a tall, three-legged stool
of wood.

The room was a
cube of gray blocks. There was a drain in the floor. Oh yes, there was a
chamber pot. Let us not forget the chamber pot.

There I lay on
my stomach, both hands on my red, red bot-tom, tears making a little puddle in
my gray-green blankets, which stank of starch.

I didn't hate
him. I could not dunk of him as an enemy. Mean, yes; foe, no.

I do not
pretend to understand myself. I don't know why I think certain things. But the
mere fact that he had spanked me made it impossible for me to hate him.
Imagine, for example, that Wellington, having routed Napoleon at Waterloo, has
the Emperor of France pulled from the saddle of his white horse, dragged before
the drumhead court... and told to stand in the corner and go to bed without any
supper. Or imagine mat Adolf Hitler, instead of committing suicide in his
bunker, is hauled in chains before the international war crimes tribunal in
Nuremberg ... and Prime Minister Churchill tans the hide of his backside with a
belt strap, and washes out the mouth of Minis-ter Goebbels widi a bar of lye soap.

So I just
cried. After that, I lay there, thinking about how there was nothing to think
about. I cried some more.

It was the
counting, the saying I was sorry, over and over, that had been so humiliating.
I could not pretend I was some proud, disdainful heroine of the French
Resistance, silent and unflinching as she faces her sadistic Nazi captors; or a
patrician of Rome, captured by marauding Huns or Vikings, willing to perish to
preserve her family's centuries-old tradition of stoic military virtue, but not
willing to cower.

It is not the
way I had imagined I would behave when cap-tured by the enemy. We were not even
talking about the rack, the thumbscrews, the Iron Maiden, the boot. It was just
a man slapping my bottom. Picture Joan of Arc, taken by the perfidi-ous
English, before her trial even starts, "Oh, sure I'm a witch! Let me sign
the confession! Just don't swat my behind! I'm too frail!"

Or maybe I
felt so bad because I thought, deep down, that I deserved it. I should not have
tried to brain the Headmaster with a rock. I hadn't even really wanted to do
it.

It was the
kind of thing a heroine in a story was supposed to do. Wasn't it? If it had
worked, if I had hit him slightly harder, I would not be here now. I could have
been on the outside, with my powers still active, working to free the others.

Instead of
here. Chained by the neck.

It had been
Victor, hadn't it? I had been trying to impress him. I had been trying to do
the kind of cold-blooded, tough-as-nails, tough-guy kind of thing people are supposed
to do when they are serious.

It was hard to
be serious with Boggin. It was hard to think of him as the enemy.

And Victor, I
am sure, would not have been impressed with that light little love-tap I gave
him. On the other hand, the idea of a rock all covered with blood and
brain-stuff... Bleh. I hadn't been able to bring myself to do it, had I? I
hadn't tried hard enough.

I hadn't been
able to bring myself to do what I had to do to keep myself out of this place.

I twisted to
look up at the gray stone ceiling. What kind of prison was this, anyway? The
Germans would have had some-tiling modern; white, spodess, with sterilized
dental instruments standing by the specially designed torture chairs, and
technicians in crisp uniforms. The French would have had something cunning; an
ordinary-looking room, covered by one-way mirrors, microwave beams, foods
containing subtle doses of sodium pentathol. The Russians would have plied
insidious psychological tricks; setting clocks to wrong hours and speeds,
playing tapes of distant birdsong at midnight, bringing meals at irregular
times, having false messages tapped on the walls in Morse code, as if from
other prisoners. But this?

This looked
like a cellar dating back to the time of Bloody Mary. It probably was. A typically
British jail, then; inefficient and traditional.

The damn chain
looked like an antique, too. Not some mod-ern lightweight thing made of
titanium alloy or stainless steel; it looked like the links were hand cast or
cold hammered out of iron. And the collar was the same way; heavy, dull metal,
also an antique. I doubt many tool-and-die shops these days are turning out
slave collars too small for anyone but girls. But England has a long and
glorious tradition of torture, oppression, slavery, and cruelty. If you don't
believe me, ask the Irish. (Or the Welsh, or the Scotch, or, for that matter,
the Tasmanians, the Chinese, the Indians, the Africans. Heck, ask anyone.) So I
am sure that in Surrey or Whitehead or York there were stockpiles of
witch-collars and stocks and leg-irons, eye-gougers, tongue-slicers, bone
bores, dunking stools, and disemboweling spindles dating from the time of
Cromwell, or Elizabeth, or William the Conqueror.

Boggin
probably called up one of his friends in the special "Pain Through the
Ages" office of the British Royal Museum. "Hallo, Harry (or whoever)!
By the by, old chap, could you ship me a gross of tfiose old iron collars we
used back in the good old days? Not the heavy big ones, no, and not the
grown-woman collars, either. We need something smaller. You know those
specially designed sixteen-year-old-virgin collars, used for controlling Irish
maidens caught stealing potato crusts to live on, or falsely accused when they
refused to sleep with their manor lords, when the young beauties were chained
up in gangs to be transported to Australia as mail-order brides? Hey, and send
over a chastity belt or two. You see, I have this fellow named Glum... What?
No, we won't need any whips or hanging cages or branding irons to control this
one! She already was apologizing at every slap while I spanked her, and crying
like a girl! Well, of course, Harry (or whoever)! Of course she is a girl!
Damned if I know why she ever thought she was anything else!"

Well, the fun
of thinking about how I wasn't actually being tortured or burned as a witch
wore off after a while.

Why had he
made me count, damn him?

For a while, I
fortified myself with the knowledge mat someone trying to humiliate you, to
wound your pride, is no different than someone trying to wound you with a
knife. Ex-cept that, unlike a knife wound, this one can't cut unless you let
it.

That made me
feel better, for a time. Then I remembered where I had heard that idea. Quentin
had been told that, when he was being comforted after his ordeal. Quiet, gentle
Quentin, who, despite his fear, had spit defiance into the face of his
tormentress at the time when he seemed sure to die. Comforted by Boggin. It was
Boggin's idea I was repeating to myself.

That made me
cry all over again. I am not sure why. But it did.

After I went
through all these thoughts and recriminations, I stared up at the ceiling some
more. And then, like a phonograph record, I went through all these thoughts and
recriminations again.

When that was
done, I did it again.

And again and
again.

You see, it
helped prevent me from thinking about the un-thinkable nightmare thoughts,
wondering helplessly what was happening, what was being done to Victor, Vanity,
Colin, and Quentin.

2.

You are
wondering why I did not simply duck into hyperspace and slide out from there,
or at least slide out from the collar?

After Boggin
had reestablished the boundaries which Vanity had opened for me, while I could
see a little way into hyperspace, I could not move that direction, not at all.

I could
"see" that the collar was only "around" my neck in the way
a flat circle of inch-high bricks on a floor in a plane might go
"around" someone sitting on that floor. But if that someone cannot
get up that inch, that flat line is just as good as a tall wall.

And there was
nothing to look at in hyperspace. It's dark and murky, and filled (at least,
near the surface of the Earth-disk) with a heavy fluid medium. Whatever
sunshine there might be falls off too rapidly to reach the Earth.

And my new
senses did not give me much to look at, either. My utility detector was deaf;
there was nothing useful to me in the room. The internal nature of the cold
iron collar was that it was heavy, merciless, and powerfully antimagical. There
were no lines or strands of moral obligation reaching out from me; iron was
inert, unthinking, dull. Only creatures who are free to act, can do good or do
bad.

And time
seemed to go slower when I stared into the dimness of the four-space. No, I did
not have much to look at. And the endless distances, the volume upon
hypervolume of wide, curving voids out there, an inch out of reach, just mocked
me. Staring into hyperspace made me feel like a crippled angel at the bottom of
the well, able to see the distant stars of the infinitely high night sky.

Believe it or
not, staring at the ceiling stones was more fun.

3.

At the end of
the first day, there came a noise at the door. It was the beautiful Miss Daw.
Behind her was Sister Twitchett, the school nurse.

"Am I to
be released?" was the first thing I asked them. To me, it seemed as if I
had already been in the cell for as long as would serve any purpose, as long as
could be imagined.

Miss Daw took
out a tiny tape recorder of a type I had not seen before; it played a crystal
disc that shimmered with rainbows instead of a cassette. When she pushed the
button, the sound of her own violin music filled the cell. It was one of these
intricate things by Bach, all grace notes and mathematically symmetrical themes
and counterpoints. Even though my powers were off at the moment, and my higher
senses were dim, I could still tell it was flattening space in the area around
me.

"I didn't
know you could do that with a recording," I said. Again, no answer from
either of them.

Without
speaking, the Sister took out a hypodermic, rubbed alcohol on my elbow, found
the vein with her needle, and gave me an injection.

The first of
several.

They no longer
trusted us to drink our medicine, and I am sure the doses were larger. I grew
faint from the medicine, and they dressed me and put me to sleep in the cot. I
wish the drag had knocked me out. After they went away, I spent most of the
night unsleeping, feeling sorry for myself, and fearing that I would roll off
the cot in the night and choke to death.

4.

Two days went
by, then three. The only person I saw was Miss Daw. She would appear at the
door, holding a bowl of food and a beaker of water, dressed in some smart
outfit of plum or bur-gundy or palest rose to bring out the color in her
peaches-and-cream complexion. On the third day, there was a fresh roll of
toilet paper on the tray.

She would pick
up the bowl from the previous meal, which I was supposed to have washed with my
limited supply of wash-ing water, and carry away the chamber pot.

In the
evening, she would come by with a bucket of warm water, lead me over to the
drain, undress me, and give me a sponge bath. I wore the same nightgown I had
before, and the same school uniform by day, plaid skirt and white shirt. They
did not have any prison tunics, I suppose.

5.

The only fun
thing I did on the third day was trying to use my trick to decrease the mass of
the collar. I waited till just before Sister Twitchett and her nightly hypo
were due, figuring that Dr. Fell's foul drug would be weakest at that time.

I found I
could move a few of the plumb-straight world-lines, which ran from the collar
toward the core of the Earth, to the left or right. This did make the collar
lighter, but it now wobbled unexpectedly on my neck, shifting weight oddly, as
if it were on the deck of a pitching ship, even though my body was firmly on
shore. That hurt more.

A fourth day
went by. A fifth. Miss Daw was always dressed nicely, as if for a social call.
I do not know which was more ill-suited to a dungeon; her high-heeled pumps and
sleek semiformal dresses, topped by tiny Continental hats pinned to her hair,
or my schoolgirl's uniform, knee socks and jacket and with a bow in my hair.
And heavy iron collar and chain. Let's not forget that. At least I did not have
to wear that dumb necktie.

I complained
about the collar to her. She was clearly under orders not to talk to me but,
when I talked about chafing and bruises and raw spots around my neck, she
nodded. "I'll see what I can do, dear."

That was the
only human voice I heard for days. That one comment. "I'll see what I can
do, dear."

And that was
my Me.

No, he wasn't
kidding. Yes, they put me in a jail.

And jail was
boring. Bee, owe, are, eye, an, gee. Boring.

6.

I began to
find other things to think about. I wondered how old I really was.

You would
think I could have at least established a minimum age, right? I mean, count how
many winters since you started having your period. Find something you know
happened the summer before that, and the Christmas before that.

One problem
was, I did not know, when I was young, that I was supposed to start counting. I
did not even know people had ages, till I came across the idea in a book I read
when I was young. I started keeping track then, but how old was I when I
started reading? There were no younger kids around to measure myself against,
except for Colin and Quentin and Vanity. They started reading younger man I
did.

A person who
had met a hundred five-year-olds, and had them clearly identified, knows what a
five-year-old looks like. At what age do boys grow beards? A normal person
knows the answer, or at least can give a range of dates. All I had to go by was
Shakespeare's speech about the ages of man given in As You Like It. When I was
young, I thought I would know when Victor had reached the age of being a
soldier because he would start having strange oaths on his lips.

What age is a
girl when she develops breasts? Nine? Twelve? Twenty? All I knew is that Vanity
had them before I did, and I thought they would get in the way of swirnrning
and wrestling.

I did not know
years had numbers until we came across them in a more modern history book.
Herodotus and Thucydides didn't have dates in them, aside from so-many-years
since so-and-so. No dates are given for anything in the Bible, except,
"Augustus ordered all the world to be taxed..." Or "When Herod
was governor of Syria..."

We had
lessons, but we did not have grades. I could not say to myself, "I must
have been in grammar school when I read Euclid and college when I read
Lobechevski..." because I did not know when other students read things.

Once or twice,
we were let out to play with some of the children in nearby Abertwyi. Mrs. Wren
organized a game, or something. If, during our chatter, some topic came up from
schooling, the village children simply seemed like bumpkins to us. Even
children much older than us seemed not to know grammar, or languages, or
geometry, or logic, or rhetoric, or astronomy, or electronics, or the sciences.
I met a boy I was sure was older than me, once, who told me that the Earth has
weight because of the spin on its axis. I asked him if tilings were weightless
at the North Pole, and he was stumped. Other boys we sometimes played ball with
talked about people they wanted to be like when they grew up. I had never heard
of any of them. Were they sports figures, perhaps? Rock-and-roll stars? But
they did not know who Admiral Byrd or Sir Edmund Hillary or Yuri Gagarin were.
They never heard of Sir Ernest Shackleton. They thought Captain Cook was a
charac-ter from Peter Pan.

They seemed to
know a lot about how to cheat on tests, they knew all about their computers and
electronic games, and they knew about the characters on television. We were
only allowed to watch the television in the Common Room once a week. Headmaster
said it would rot our brains if we saw too much.

I just could
not believe that everything the Headmaster said was a lie. So much seemed to be
true. I believe what he said about television, for example.

But when I
added up memories, and counted events, I knew I was older than the fourteen
years he gave me. Unless my pu-berty was very late, I doubt that I was actually
twenty-one.

But, thinking
back, I realize that Headmaster Boggin certainly must have lied. I did not envy
Vanity when she started having her period, and frankly I was not that much
enamored of growing up to be a pale sissy like Miss Daw. And if I could control
my body so much as that, why hadn't I always stayed stronger and faster than
Colin and Quentin? It was absurd to think that I secretly desired to be
defeated, overpowered, and outmuscled by men.

That thought
cheered me for a while. Then a haunting mem-ory rose up in my brain. I remember
Grendel Glum saying he had done something to me, influenced me with his
willpower, to make my secret desires exactly so.

7.

On the fourth day,
despite the drugs, I was able to get my fin-gers under the collar and push my
neck slightly into the fourth dimension. Not enough to get it off my head, mind
you, but it made the collar seem slightly larger. The iron had the faintest
blue sheen to it when I did that, and the faintest red sparks glinted like
fireflies around my fingertips. (I could place a point of view a few inches to
my left, half an inch into the "red" direction, to glimpse this.)

It must have
set off some alarm, because Miss Daw came to the door almost immediately. She
set up her music player, and had it play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

On the fourth
and fifth day I had music. That was nice, I suppose.

Whenever the
disc got to the same track, and played the Schiller poem from the middle of the
Ninth, however, and I heard the German voices singing about the Joy of Man,
light, free notes rising and rising to unimpeded glory, I cried again. 8.

On the sixth
day I begged Miss Daw to speak to me, but she shook her head and looked
pensive. I asked her if I was to be allowed to go to Chapel tomorrow; I needed
to pray for my soul.

That got a
reaction out of her, a little smile with her head tilted to one side. "I
had not heard that you were especially de-vout. In fact, I have heard rumors to
quite the opposite effect, if such rumors can be countenanced."

Two dozen
words, or more! An oasis after the endless sand dunes of silence.

"Everyone
gets religion when they are in prison, Miss Daw."

That answer
perhaps was too flippant, for she smiled a gra-cious but cold smile, and began
to turn away.

"Oh,
please!" I said. "For the love of God, please! Even if you don't
believe me, even if you think it's just a trick to get me out of this horrid
room, please Miss Daw, please, isn't it simple decency, simple plain English
decency, to let a girl who thinks she is about to die go pray?"

"Who has
told you such a falsehood, Miss Windrose? No one is going to kill you."

"Who told
me otherwise? You won't talk to me!"

She looked
around the cell; a soft, sad look came into her eyes for a moment. She was
thinking that I had been waiting for days for some execution, tormenting myself
with a fear that was utterly false, a fear she could have alleviated with a
word.

"Well,"
she said, "I will see if you can be taken up to the Chapel tomorrow. You
do not have the energy relationship in the moral direction a person devoted to
his God normally manifests. Your relational structures are extensional rather
than intentional, and form nodes going into two time-directions, but not toward
eternity. This type of atrophy is typical of atheists and agnostics.
But—take heart, my dear, do not be so downcast. The forms must be
observed. That is why we have forms to begin with."

'Then I can go
to Chapel?" .   "I'll
see what I can do, dear."

My lip
trembled. "That is what you said about this collar..."

"That
will be looked into." zo

Qompany, of
a^ort l.

That Saturday
was the worst, and also the oddest. After long hours of watching the square of
sunlight from the barred window crawl West-to-East across the floorstones, Miss
Daw and Sister Twitchett came to the barred door, unlocked it, and let
themselves in. Miss Daw was carrying a dress on a hanger, protected by a
plastic sheet and smelling of lavender.

Miss Daw
gestured to me, indicating that I was to put on the dress she had brought.
Because I was tired of silence, I pretended not to understand her gestures,
"What? I beg your pardon? Is something wrong with your voice?"

"You must
don this, please," she said. Miss Daw has a voice like silver crystal,
soft and pure.

Anyone
speaking after Miss Daw speaks sounds like a crow. Sister Twitchett spoke after
Miss Daw. "Put it on and no back-talk, or we dope you up and dress you
ourselves. Save us work, if you heed."

After being
spanked by Boggin, merely disrobing in front of two school staff did not
embarrass me. My shirt and jacket un-buttoned along the front; I wasn't wearing
a sweater or anything else that had to be drawn over my head. Soon I was
standing there, just in the iron collar, a swaying 'U' of slack chain leading
away from it.

"Socks
and shoes, too," said Twitchett.

"Where
are the others?" I said. "Are they dead? Are they back at school? Is
Vanity safe?"

When neither
one answered, I tore the clothes she held from Miss Daw's hands and threw them
on the ground. "I am not get-ting dressed or doing anything till you tell
me!"

Twitchett
looked frightened. No one has ever looked fright- ened of me before. She
thought I was the monster from beyond space and time that Boggin said I was. I
saw it in her eyes.

She said to
Miss Daw, "Let's open the window and leave. She'll want to get dressed in
the morning, after the snow blows in."

Miss Daw said
to me in a gentle voice, "The other students are quite safe, but they are
confined in cells like this one. I would not allow anything to happen to
you."

(That was
interesting. Not "Wfe would not allow," but "/ would not
allow")

Sister
Twitchett looked at Miss Daw. "We were told, ma'am, not to jaw with
her..."

Miss Daw
inclined her head to Twitchett with a tiny smile. "I would be in your
debt, if you only told the Headmaster how cooperative Miss Windrose was. Need I
say more?"

Twitchett
frowned, but said nothing. Miss Daw put her little gloved hand on the other
woman's elbow, thanked her, and turned back to me.

I said:
"Tell me what happened to them! Where's Vanity?"

Miss Daw said
in a voice as soft as ripples on a pond, "Once you are dressed, I will
tell you."

The dress was
a peach silk affair, almost too sheer to be an evening dress. The bodice laced
up the back, and spaghetti string ties ran over the shoulders. The bosom cups
were made of stiff, reinforced fabric and decorated with black and white lace.
The skirt was unpleated silk, with tiny darts at the waist, and a handkerchief
bottom. The underwear, bra and panties both, were built into the inner lining
of the dress, so that it clung very tightly, but with no sign of lines.

Black nylon
hose came next, which were suspended from a hidden garter belt, also woven into
the inner lining of the lower part of the bodice. Miss Daw knelt to fasten on
slender stiletto heels.

"I can't
walk in heels that high," I said.

"You
won't be needing to walk," said Sister Twitchett.

The Sister
brought over the stool and had me sit. Out from her medical bag, she drew
several lengths of chain.

"Oh,
you've got to be kidding," I said. "What are those for?"

Miss Daw said,
"This is not as bad as it seems. It is all part of the process."
"What process? I don't want to be part of any process!"

Miss Daw said,
"I won't let anyone harm you, child."

Sister
Twitchett rolled her eyes. I could almost see what she was thinking. The
shape-changing monster looks like a girl, but it is not a girl.

Twitchett
crossed my wrists in my lap and chained them to-gether with a pair of
handcuffs. A steel chain wound around my waist, so that I had to keep my wrists
close to my navel. A second steel chain, about three feet long, dropped down
between my legs. This attached to a pair of ankle cuffs that hobbled me.

Neither one
had the heavy, cast-iron links of the collar's chain. These looked
machine-tooled, modern.

I had seen
such a get-up before. On some documentary on one of the rare days when we could
see television in the Common Room, our program had been interrupted by pictures
of some famous criminal (I forget who) being led from a police van in
handcuffs, with a belly-chain and leg irons. I think it was an American,
because he wore an orange jumpsuit instead of a normal prison uniform.

This increased
my hope and my fear. Were they about to transport me somewhere? If my friends
were being transported too, I might be able at least to see Victor and the
others. If we were all put in the same van, I could talk to them.

Maybe this was
a party dress. I began to imagine that I was to be hauled before some ballroom
full of guests, Mavors in a tuxedo and Lady Cyprian in a ball gown, with other
gods and monsters present, so that Boggin could show them how roughly he was
treating me.

Or maybe they
were about to transport me more permanently. Boggin may have already failed,
and the four of us were being sent to four destinations. Perhaps they had
thrown lots for us. Maybe the Satyr or his faction had won me, and insisted I
be dressed up before being sent along. 2.

While Sister
Twitchett was kneeling down, stringing chains and locking locks, Miss Daw
brought out a makeup kit of truly ab-surd size. It unfolded and unfolded again.
There were more brushes than an artist would use, and lipstick, eye pencils,
crayons, blushes, and creams. There were little tools and imple-ments I had never
seen before. There was a thing that had handles like a pair of scissors, but
which led to a curved rubber pair of jaws, meant for clamping onto eyelashes.

Miss Daw's
hands were soft on my face, and I could feel cool touches where she applied
various layers of base and blush. I had never worn lipstick before, but it
tasted terrible. I also had thought lipstick was just gunk in a tube, but Miss
Daw used three or four tubes, and a little pencil. There was something that
tasted like spearmint, which she rubbed onto my teeth with her finger.

I was nervous
when she painted my eyes, and worried when she kept putting her fingers too
close, but I obeyed her instruc-tions when she told me to look left and right,
up or down. She brushed my lashes with a little comb the size of a toothpick.

She took out a
powder puff and dusted my shoulders and the tops of my breasts where the bodice
pushed them up.

Sister
Twitchett was done with her chaining up long before the makeup was done. She
packed her bag and I was left alone with Miss Daw.

There I sat,
chained up on a stool in a very nice, very sheer dress, with Miss Daw standing
behind me, combing and brush-ing out my hair.

3.

In my heart,
at that moment, I was convinced that maybe Bog-gin had told the truth, and that
I was only fourteen, not the eighteen or twenty Victor said I was.

"Miss
Daw, I'm scared," I said in a trembling voice.

"Hush.
Don't be scared, child." "What's going to happen to me?" I could
not get the tremble out of my voice.

"Nothing
ill will befall."

"Why are
you dressing me up this way?"

I could only
think of one reason, and it was a very terrible one.

Miss Daw
leaned over, and brought out a velvet box one inch on a side. She opened it.
Within were drops of diamond no bigger than teardrops.

She lifted
them out of sight behind my head. I felt little metal clamps pinch my earlobes.

"Ow!"
I said.

"Sorry,"
she said. "Most of mine are for pierced ears. This is what I had."

I would have
lifted up my hands to take them off, but I only had about an inch or two of play,
up or down, due to the belly-chain.

She held up a
large hand mirror from her bag. I saw my face in the glass.

"There,"
she said. "How do we look?"

I thought I
looked pretty much the same as I always looked, except now I was painted. There
was blue eye shadow above my eyes and black pencil around them, and my lips
were too red.

But I could
feel a lot more stuff on my face than I could see. She had taken my
flesh-colored flesh and put flesh-colored hue on top of it. Take a girl's face
and paint a girl's face on top of it. What was the point?

I did like the
earrings, though.

"Are you
done? You said you would say ..."

At that
moment, there came voices from the corridor. I heard Mrs. Wren's cracked,
wavering voice, and Mr. Glum's breathy growl answering her.

There was a
strange noise as footsteps approached. Thump-clack, thump-clack.

Miss Daw
leaned and whispered in my ear, "Your friends are safe. The boys are in
cells like this one; Miss Fair is in your room, under guard. They are in low
spirits, naturally, except for Mr. Triumph, who is not easily perturbed
..."

Mr. Glum came
to the open cell door, looking more grizzled than usual. His bald spot was
sunburned and his jawline had a five o'clock shadow. He was dressed in a long
brown jacket, and he had what seemed a broomstick in his hand: a hoe, actually,
with a scarf wrapped around the blade of the hoe.

Beneath the
hem of his coat, on the left, I saw his brown pants, tucked into the top of his
boot. On the right, was a peg. His right leg was gone below the knee.

He put his
elbows, one to either side of the metal doorframe, and let the hoe, his
makeshift crutch, dangle in his hand. He lowered his head and stared at me.

I should say
that his eyes widened, but mat is not quite right. He actually squinted. But
his pupils dilated.

I became very
conscious of how I was sitting, bolt upright on the stool, hands folded in my
lap, wim cold metal circling my wrists and ankles, and cold air touching my
bare shoulders, naked arms, almost-naked legs in their stockings, almost-bare
bosom pushed up in its bodice. I have never felt smaller and more fragile than
at that moment.

He seemed so
... hungry ... when he looked at me. Like a starving man. But sad. Hungry and
sad.

Glum spoke
without taking his eyes off me, "So that's it, eh? Boggin is to have her.
All tarted up and fine. He's had his filthy hands on her, has he? And Vanity,
too! Why should he have both? And him not married! Tis clean against the law,
that is."

Mrs. Wren,
from the corridor where I could not see her, said something sharp to Mr. Glum.
He apparently wasn't supposed to talk to me. He did not answer her, but twisted
his lips and spat on the floor.

Miss Daw put
her small hand on my elbow. "Stand up, dear, and let's have a look at
you."

I stood up,
wobbling slightly on the high heels. The heavy chain running from my neck to
the ceiling rattled and wobbled, too. Standing pulled tight the chain running
from my ankles to my wrists, and I had to push my hands downward, pulling the
chain around my waist tighdy down against my hips, in order to ease the
pressure on my ankles.

Mr. Glum
stumped forward, wobbling himself a bit, wincing and half-hopping,
half-propping himself on his hoe.

He put his
rough, callused fingers, fingers with his dirty nails, on my cheek, and tilted
up my head to look at him. I had glanced down to look at my shoes (because I
was afraid of top-pling) but the moment he touched me (as if the past had
some-how changed shape) I had been keeping my eyes down because I was shy.

Or maybe I was
afraid.

I heard Mrs.
Wren's voice from the door, "You're not to touch her, old tree stump, old
iron lump, old clod!"

Glum ignored
her. He was staring into my eyes.

He said to me,
"It were only for a small time, I know. But I had you, me. And you were
mine and no one else's for that time. All made of gold. I were nearly afraid to
touch you, like I'd leave a dirty fingerprint, like on a wineglass, or a white
china plate."

I said,
"I'm sorry." And I did feel sorry for him.

He said in a
low voice, "I never seen a girl like you before. Girls like you have boys
of their own, whole strings of 'em, young men with straight backs and straight
teeth and thick black hair. You think me wrong to've carried you off? Course I
were wrong. But you'd not of talked to me. Were I s'posed to woo you? Bring you
posies? Nawr! If you'd watches on both your two wrists and us standing in the
middle of a clock maker's shop, you'd not of told me the time of day."

"I might
have done," I said in a quiet little voice. "You didn't ask."

I have already
mentioned that I do not understand myself, or why I say some things I say. Here
I was, apologizing to my would-be rapist, for being too stuck up and
high-class.

I think I read
somewhere that they call it the "Stockholm syndrome" when girls feel
sorry for their own kidnappers.

But I did feel
sorry for him. I mean, for goodness sake, Bog-gin made him chop off his own
foot with an axe! How mad was I supposed to stay at him? And for how long?
Forever?

"Oi? I
didn't ask, did I? Is that it?" He stepped slightly closer, and still kept
my chin between his fingers, tilting my head up. It was not as if I were able
to raise my hands to push him away. I was scared, and taking faster-than-normal
breaths in through my nose. I could feel the stiff silky fabric of the bodice cupping
my breasts tightly as my chest rose and fell.

"Miss
Windrose—or mightn't I call you Amelia, seeing as how we been
close—?" he said, tilting his head slightly down. Miss Daw, whom I
had almost forgotten was there, said in her silver voice, "That would not
be appropriate."

Well, thanks a
bunch, Daw. Here she was supposed to be protecting me. How come she was letting
my ex-kidnapper stand there toying with my chin?

I could not
nod much of a nod, but I twitched my head back a little bit, and sort of dropped
my eyelashes. He was staring at my lips, but he must have seen that tiny
motion, and he took that as a nod.

"Amelia—"
(he pronounced it with a burr, so it sounded like "Ah, Melia")
"—Ah, Melia, what were I suppose to ask you, eh? What were I suppose
to be able to give you, a man like me, what has nothing?"

"Freedom,"
I said. "Help free me. Help my friends."

He stared for
a moment, stepping back. His eyes wandered over me, caressing my hair, my eyes,
lips, chin, shoulders. His gaze lingered for a time on my breasts, then came to
rest on my hands, which seemed so small and white compared to his, folded (as
if demurely) in front of me. A moment more he spent drinking in the sight of my
legs, ankles, my feet

I finally
understood the purpose of high-heeled shoes. They are not just meant to
retroflex your knees, extend your legs, and make you callipygous. They also
make you look like you're standing on tiptoes, like a little girl reaching for
a jar of sweets on a too-high shelf.

A delicate
little girl. One who can't run away.

He said,
"Free you? Would you sell your body to your jailor to buy the jailhouse
key, Ah, Melia? That would make you a right whore, then, wouldn't it? Nar.
You'd ne'er come to me of your free will, Ah, Melia, for you'd have to hold
your nose to of done it. To lower yourself. And I'll not have you lower
yourself. You wouldn't be worth the taking, then."

I said,
"Hold it. That doesn't make any sense. If..."

He put his
hand on the loose hanging 'U' of chain depending between the ceiling and my neck,
and tugged it. I wobbled unsteadily, started to fall, and sat back down on the
stool somewhat more forcefully than I would have liked, even though Miss Daw
put her hands on my arms to guide me back down. I sat down hard enough to make
my bottom sting, and it re-minded me rather too much of Boggin's thorough
spanking. The sensation of humiliation, of being pushed around, was too much
the same. Tears came to my eyes.

Glum was
looking down at me with something like awe on his face, as if I were a goddess.
I think he thought I was crying for him.

He said,
"I'd never let you go. I'd never free you. You're too fine. You're gold,
you are. If I could carry the sunlight in my poke, I would not let it up,
either, but I'd hale it back down to my house below the waves, where all is but
murk and filth and gloom, and my house would be the one bright one, and you the
one bright thing in it."

Mrs. Wren,
from the door, called out, 'Time to walk or hop away, old crab, old five-toe,
old Ahab. There is no more for you to see here! Come! Or must granny get her
doll and fishhook out?"

Mr. Glum did
not argue, but put bis hoe under his armpit like a crutch, and hopped and
stumped backward and out of the cell, never taking his eyes from me.

4.

I sat on the
stool, shaking.

Miss Daw
brought out a key ring, and began unlocking the cuffs and leg-irons and
belly-chain. She had to pause and puzzle over the locks every now and again;
she did not seem as adept at prison matron work as Twitchett. Perhaps it was
because Twitchett was Catholic.

The huge,
heavy collar stayed on.

Miss Daw took
out a cotton ball and some cream in a botde to wipe my face clear of makeup.

I said to her,
"Is that it? You brought him by to look at me. Just him? Just to look? Is
that it?"

Miss Daw
started daubing my cheeks clean of blush.

I said, 'Two
hours of making up for two minutes of being looked at by a man?" Miss Daw
said, half to herself, "Now you have had your first lesson in what it is
like to be a real grown-up woman in a man's world, my dear. We are judged by
our looks, and men are not."

"Why? Why
was Glum brought here? Why all the chains? Am I some sort of prize to be given
to Mr. Glum for his good behavior?"

No answer.

I said,
"Am I supposed to seduce him? Were you doing this to mock him, or to make
me feel bad, or as part of some spell or some scheme, or... what the hell was
the point of that?"

"Please
be careful with your language, Miss Windrose." And she wiped my mouth to
carry away the lipstick. It was almost as effective as Mr. Glum's gag in
silencing me.

But when she
started daubing the powder off with a small sponge, I spoke again: "Why?
Why, Miss Daw? Why should I be careful? Or else you might chain me up and paint
me up and put me in a nightie and have Glum come by to ogle me?"

"It is
not a nightie."

"What
kind of dress has underthings sewn in?"

"I am
given to understand that it is used by ladies of the theater."

"You mean
ladies of the evening, don't you?"

I have never
seen her blush before. The perfect Miss Daw, al-ways so polite, so distant and
restrained, had red crawl into her cheeks, and she could not raise her eyes.

I said,
"You were just taunting him, weren't you? Using me to taunt him."

Miss Daw did
not answer that, but said instead, "Swear words, when used in vain,
sometimes create echoes in over-space. The thought-energy creates a
space-distortion effect, and decreases the distance between this plane of
space-time and those achronic entities whom we call Furies, whose business it
is to harass and torment the wicked."

"Define
'wicked.' What do you call people who dress up girls and tie them up, in order
to sexually arouse men old enough to be their grandfathers?"

She did not
answer but curtly told me to close my eyes while she wiped mascara from my
eyelids.

With my eyes
closed, I tried to look in the direction she men-tioned, toward hyperspace. I
could see nothing, sense nothing. I could not remember what the other
directions looked like, or where they were.

She washed my
face with warm, soapy water, and a towel. While she did, my eyes still closed,
I tried and tried to look.

But trying
hard was not my paradigm. For Colin, for Gren-del, wishing made it so. Not for
me.

"Stand
up, please. I do not think you want to sleep in that dress."

I opened my
eyes. "You did it to blind me."

"Stand
up, please."

I stood up.
Even normally, I was taller than she was. In heels, I was practically Boggin.

I said down to
her: "You were so mean to him. Didn't you see how bad tins made him feel?
I know you think I am an evil monster. But isn't he on your side?"

She could not
raise her eyes. "He and I are kin. He is a male member of my
species."

"A male
Siren? He sings?"

"He does
not sing. He dances on me waves, and me waves turn to fury and swamp ships and
pull down houses near the shore. He is one of the brood of Echidna, who cannot
die, but lives forever to work harm to mortal men. The business of his kind is
to slay mariners lost at sea, so that their widows back ashore will never know
the hour or fashion of their death. Gren-del is not a kindly person."

"So I am
only supposed to feel sorry for kindly people? Who exactly does that leave?
Besides Jesus Christ and babies who die at birth?"

That was the
wrong thing to say, because it stiffened her backbone and drove away whatever
shame she felt. "Your comments are inappropriate, and impertinent. They
may even be blasphemy. Nor need you be overly concerned with Mr. Glum. He does
his duty, as do we all, whether he will or no. Some duties are pleasant; some
are unpleasant. We who serve are given the ability, if we kick against the
goad, to make the pleasant ones less pleasant. We cannot make the unpleasant
ones more pleasant. You are a dangerous and super-human being, child, and we
must take what steps we can."

Then she said:
"Turn, please, so I may undo you. We must have that dress off."
"If you answer my questions. Otherwise I'll rip the dress in half!"

"Oh, come
now, Miss Windrose. What earthly good will it do you to rip a fine dress?"

"You come
now! What earthly harm will it do you to answer me? I'm curious, it's not
hurting you, and you'll get me to cooperate."

"Very
well. Turn around and suck in. Let me get these laces. Let's hope Grendel's
power has not made them fast."

I tried to
hold my breath while speaking, and my words came out all squeaky. I said,
"What is the range of his power? In his paradigm, how far away can he be
and still affect me?"

"Breathe.
If you know enough to ask that question, you have nearly deduced the
answer."

The dress fell
down around my legs. The silk caressed me on the way down, like a ghost

I said,
"This was a fantasy of his, wasn't it? To see me all chained up like a
white woman kidnapped by Moors, for then-sultan's harem. To see me in all my
girlish, female glamour. Why?"

Miss Daw
looked away, her eyes becoming distant, as if star-ing at an unseen horizon.
The ashamed Miss Daw was gone, and the remote, dispassionate, polite Miss Daw
was back. "Please step. I am really not supposed to be talking to you at
all, Miss Windrose. It is possible I will fall under some penalty for it."

"His
power works by desire. You had to enflame his desire."

She did not
look up, but began to blush again. Dispassionate Daw was losing ground.
"Your shoes please?"

Suddenly I was
short again. But still taller than her.

"But why
make it so sick? So weird? Handcuffs and high heels... ?"

The ashamed
Miss Daw carried the day. She knelt to roll down my stockings. She spoke toward
the floor stones in a haunted voice, as if reciting an old lesson,
"Desires which are constantly frustrated are stronger. Men who desire
wives, children, a hearth and home, all the wholesome things I shall never
know, they can know contentment. But men who have unnatural desires, or who
dream sad, unfulfilled and unfulfillable dreams, their impossible desires bloat
up beyond all bounds, huger than kragen from beneath the sea. See sadistic
Grendel, who desires a wife, but only if she is forced with whips and chains to
love him; and he dreams only of having a woman he knows he is never worthy of,
and to beat her gives him the pleasure other men have from caressing her. Like
a man at a feast table, who gnaws the wood and leaves the food to rot, a
pervert starves, for what he thinks will sate his hunger never does, but leaves
him hungry still. He has lost all taste for wholesome food."

"I don't
think he wants to beat me. I think he just likes rope."

"You have
a very generous heart, Miss Windrose, which is a credit to your
innocence." The distant, detached Miss Daw was coming back. "Your
stockings?"

They were down
around my ankles. I had to sit to get them off my feet. I sat on the cot, as
the stool was too high. I had to tease them off my heels and toes; they were as
sheer as smoke.

I said,
"You didn't really answer my question."

She
straightened up, stockings in hand. "I thought I had done. Grendel's
power, if his desire is strong enough, works both by day and by night, whether
he sleeps, or whether he wakes. The distances mean nothing to him, if and when
he believes they mean nothing. His greatest desire is to see you as he saw you
now: beautiful and enchained, a fair prisoner, unable to escape. His belief
will make it so that you are unable to escape."

I put on my
nightgown. Supine once more, I could see me snake of the iron links reaching up
to the staple in the ceiling. There was something odd about it.

Miss Daw swung
the grate shut and locked it

I said,
"Can you douse the light?"

She did.

It went dark.
Into the dark, I called, "What about my friends?"

Miss Daw knew
exactly what I meant by the question, for she said, "None of them has been
treated as badly as you. Mrs. Wren put the handle of the axe Mr. mac FirBolg
used to attack her under his bed, and that stole the power from his limbs. Dr.
Fell gave Mr. Nemo an injection. I introduced a disjunction into the nervous
system of Mr. Triumph, so mat he cannot activate the sections of his brain that
control his matter-

I manipulation
abilities. Mrs. Wren and I cooperated, to set up blocks to prevent Miss Fair
from activating her attention-energy gathering faculty, from which her
tesseract-creation power springs."

I said,
"Vanity can tell when people are looking at her. When she finds an area of
space-time where no one is looking, such as inside a wall, she can fold space,
and negate the distance, create a shortcut. Space is merely the interval
measuring the energy needed to cross it: when the energy level is unknown or
undetermined, the space-interval is not fixed. Isn't it?'

"That is
basically correct, Miss Windrose."

"But some
intelligence must act to fill in the details, to make walls and floors that
preserve visual continuity, that fit in to the general picture of me
surrounding space—something like Descartes' demiurge: a spirit. That is
why you need me help of a witch to stop the Phaeacian power. You don't really
understand what Vanity does, and can't understand, because it is not your
paradigm. Am I right?"

"You were
always a very clever student, Miss Windrose. Per-haps too clever. I can see why
the Headmaster had Mr. Glum come by to enforce your security."

Her footsteps
receded in the dark.

5.

Then I noticed
what was different. The strangling weight that had kept me half-awake with fear
and coughing was now gone.

The collar. It
didn't hurt anymore.

I touched the
collar with my fingers, but I could not see it, even had there been a light,
without a mirror. But it felt lighter and stronger in my hand. It did not
chafe, and my sores were gone.

Glum's
fantasies about harem girls did not admit of the slave collars hurting them.

It put me in
the first good mood I had known since imprison-ment. At about the time when the
moon came up, my mood rose even higher. I realized what it was Miss Daw had
told me. She had given me the secrets of all the powers that kept us here. She
had told me who stopped whom.

Well, mat
thought was pleasant enough to allow me to fall asleep. I had not slept a full
night in a long time.

21

cJChe^eventh'T)ay
l.

Miss Daw did
get permission to take me to Chapel in the morn-ing. She brought my Sunday
uniform on a hanger. Dr. Fell came by, once I was dressed, to help escort me.

Miss Daw
unlocked the chain from the ring at my neck and then toyed with the key and
lock under my ear (where I could not see) for several moments.

She said to
Fell, "Grendel altered reality. I cannot get the col-lar off. Can you
dissolve it?"

His third eye
opened in his forehead, glistening and metal-blue. I saw it only inches away.

It seemed to
consist of nested concentric spheres of semi-transparent substance, hard and
shining. There was something like a pupil, or at least an aperture, one in each
sphere. By lining up the different pupils in the different spheres he seemed to
get a stronger or weaker ray. When enough apertures opened, I could see down a
tiny well of clear holes, to a hidden spark of incandescence at the center, a
starlike pinpoint of fuel in the tiniest, innermost chamber. Perhaps the
different spheres had differing filters or augmentations for different effects.
It did not look organic at all. It was clearly a machine thing; hard,
finely-tooled, insensitive. He said, "It has clearly shrank somewhat, and
seems to be made of a lighter, more bluish-white metal. The atomic latticework
has been replaced with continuous substance. It is the Aristotelian paradigm,
and outside of my competence. It is no longer made of iron, but of a ratio of
earth essences with fire essences. I can remove it, but it might hurt the
girl."

The center of
his eye turned red and an aiming beam came out. The various apertures began to
slide together. I smelled ozone...

"Um!"
I said, "It's OK! It doesn't hurt! Really!"

With a
dizzying, chameleon eye-like optic motion, Dr. Fell rotated certain middle
spheres to thicken the number of layers blocking the inner chamber. The metal
eye dimmed, as if idling on standby. "Move your hands out of the way,
girl."

Miss Daw said,
"Where is Mrs. Wren?"

Dr. Fell
frowned slightly. By some intuition, I knew that he did not like to hear her
saying, in front of me, any hint of whose power stopped whose. He said curdy,
"She is unavailable at this time."

That was what
Dr. Fell usually said when Mrs. Wren was drunk.

Fell said,
"Should I continue? You have primary responsibil-ity for this
subject."

Miss Daw said,
"It is unforgivable that a girl should be forced to wear such a cruel
thing in the House of the Lord."

I admired her
for saying that.

"... What
would people think?"

My admiration
dimmed.

Fell said,
"Is that permission to proceed ... ?" His eye lit up again.

I screamed and
jumped back (hey, it was really, really nice not to have that big chain hanging
there). "Get a hacksaw! Don't let him blow my head off!"

Miss Daw said,
"Let us not alarm the child, Ananias." She looked pensive, and said,
half to herself, "It does seem much smaller than before. Perhaps people
will think it is jewelry." 2.

No one else
was there. Not Victor, not Colin, not Quentin, not Vanity. This one week I had
gone longer without seeing them than I had my whole life previously.

Even the other
members of the staff and administration were not there. I was hoping to see
Taffy ap Cymru, and blackmail him into letting me go, or getting a message to
his boss, Hermes. But the Chapel was deserted except for the vicar, the altar
boy, and us.

Miss Daw sat
on my right side, her beautiful face glowing as if with an inner light. Dr.
Fell on my left. Fell had an indifference to religion that went beyond
contempt. During the service he sat with a checkbook and a pocket calculator,
doing sums.

Our services
were given by a vicar named Dr. Foster, a tall, dim-eyed, white-haired man,
thin as a rail, who muttered and murmured mildly for his sermons, and who
managed to make even the most interesting Bible stories into boring digressions
into abstract theology or Trinitarian speculations. He was the only person I
knew who used the word "consubstantiality." At other times, instead
of Bible lessons, his sermons somehow led down twisting padis to end up as
descriptions of the metaphysical disputes he had against his friend, the Rev.
James Spensley, from Mumbles, who was a Wesleyan; or the Rev. Price, from the
Dissenter's Church at Llangennith, who dared to be, of all things, a Calvinist.

I owe much of
my agnosticism to Dr. Foster and his somno-lent, sonorous sermons.

As horrible as
this sounds, it was not until that day mat I ever thought to wonder what
denomination we were. I had always assumed we were High Church because our ceremonies
were elaborate and beautiful. But were we? We said our Sunday prayers in
English, from the Common Book, so I knew that we were not Roman Catholics (or
"Reprobate Papists" as Dr. Foster liked to call them). Although
Vanity and I had, when we were young, said our prayers at night in Latin.

Or, at least,
we had been saying something in Latin. Maybe Mrs. Wren (who was, after
all—let's face it—a witch) was not telling us true prayers.

Our Chapel had
both icons and stained glass windows, so I knew we weren't Lutherans, and we
had saints, but we were in-structed to revere them without prayer to them per
se. And Miss Daw and I went to the altar rail to kneel and accept the Host,
which Dr. Foster blessed, and an altar boy, whose name was Jack Jingle, held the
salver beneath my lips as I knelt and took the wafer.

Dr. Foster, as
sometimes happened, stood at the lectern, blinking, having forgotten what part
of the ceremony he was in. Miss Daw and I continued to kneel at the rail, and
she took the opportunity to lower her eyes in silent prayer.

I wondered
what would happen if I ran up to Dr. Foster or Jack the altar boy and begged
for sanctuary, like Esmeralda in Notre Dame de Paris.

I looked over
at Jack speculatively. He looked younger than me, and he always had, a boy who
had not yet grown hair. I am no judge of ages. Eight? Ten? Six? He was young.
In his hands he held the silver plate that carried the Host, and he was looking
at Dr. Foster with some worry, and polishing the salver with his long, flowing
robe sleeve.

I was reminded
of something Quentin once told me. He said that the purpose of holding a
mirrored surface beneath the mouth of someone taking Communion was to discover
whether any vampires had infiltrated into the body of the Holy Church. The
altar boys were supposed to pour the Holy Wine over their head, should that
happen, whereupon it would instantly turn into the blood of Christ, and burn
the vampire to a crisp. That was Quentin's theory.

Once, long
ago, after services, I had asked Dr. Foster about the question of vampires. He
blinked at me and told me the essence of the wine was transfigured, but not
transubstantiated, while remaining substantially the same, and that it was done
by the grace of Christ, rather than by the authority of the priest.

I could not
imagine Foster being able to understand mat I was a prisoner.

I could
imagine, very clearly, if Foster did get the idea that I was in trouble,
demanding an explanation from Dr. Fell, or calling for him to bring a telephone
(at once!) so that he could summon the police. I could also imagine Dr. Fell, a
bored look in his thin, gray face, opening his third eye and burning Foster to
a crisp. Or—why be so crude?—stunning him with a jolt and
in-jecting him with something to erase short-term memory.

And the little
altar boy? Because he did not seem to age, I wondered if he, like Lelaps the
dog, or Sister Twitehett, was one of their creatures, disguised as a human boy
and here as part of the stage scenery. After all, I never saw Jack except on
Sundays, and he did not seem to live in Abertwyi. The local children didn't
know him. Maybe he was a homonculus, and was kept in a box during the week in
Dr. Fell's lab.

I did not tell
them I was a prisoner. Instead, I knelt and prayed.

Yes, I prayed.
Why not? The advantage of being an agnostic over being an atheist is that I
always had the possibility of being wrong, and could still entertain the hope
that the universe was better organized than it appeared to be.

But I did not
know to whom to pray.

What if Henry
Tudor had been wrong and God was Catholic and not Anglican at all? What if Paul
had been wrong, and God was Jewish just like He had been in the Old Testament,
and hadn't repealed any of the Old Covenant Law after all? People always said
that God did not care about denominations. Every-thing in His Holy Book said
that He cared about denominations very much. What were the Pharisees, so
earnestly and bitterly criticized by Christ himself, if not a denomination? Why
spend page after boring page describing the vestments, dietary restric-tions,
and sacrificial animals sacred to the Chosen People, if these things were
trivial? Why kill the guy—I forget his name—who was trying to
straighten out the Ark of the Covenant when it fell over?

Well, I wanted
to pray, and I did not think it right to pray to Archangel Gabriel, not this
time. It was time to pick a God.

For a while, I
thought I really ought to pray to the God of the Koran, and become Mohammedan.
For one thing, the Koran was written after the New Testament, the same way the
New Testament was written after the Bible, so it might be a more de-veloped
form. Also, the Mohammedans seemed to be more de-voted to a simple and severe
form of worship, and did not clutter up meir monotheism with saints or
trinities. Two things stopped me. First, I had no idea which direction Mecca
was in from Wales. South and East, I assumed. Second, I did not know if women
were allowed to pray.

Even as I was
kneeling and thinking all these flippant thoughts, a prayer rose up in me as if
of its own accord. I whispered very softly what was in my heart.

"God of
Abraham, who led the Israelites out of bondage, and freed the slaves from the
cruelty of the Pharaoh, free me. Free my friends. Lead us from this Lion's Den,
and let us find our home, our families, our friends. Lead us from this alien
land to a place where we belong. I beg you. You saved Moses and his people.
Save me. Amen."

It was not as
if I can take credit for making up what I said. It came out more or less
without any effort on my part. Nonethe-less, afterwards, I actually thought it
had been a pretty clever thing to say. I mean, the God of the Christians and
the Jews and the Mohammedans, whichever one He is, all of them are the God who
saved the Israelites from Egypt. Right?

Miss Daw was
watching me. I saw her eyes focused in a di-rection I could not see, and saw
the slight frown crease the per-fect whiteness of her alabaster brow.

3.

Dr. Foster, as
it turned out, simply raised his hands and began the closing benedictions.
"May the Lord make His face to shine upon you, and give you peace
..."

We had skipped
one or two hymns that were posted on the notice board, the recitation of the
Nicene Creed, and the part of the service where we call responses to the
prayer. I do not know what that part is called, but it was my favorite part
when I was much younger.

Anyway, what
Colin used to call the "crapshoot of the Foster Amnesia" sometimes
led us to go through two services in a row, if Foster lost his place late on,
and started again from the top. At other times, the "crapshoot" cut
the service time in half, as it had done today.

Fell and Daw
ordered me to walk ahead of them down the path, around the comer, and to the
door beneath the bell tower. The entrance to the cell was less than a dozen
steps from the main Chapel door. The cell was part of the same building, which
may have been one reason why I had been allowed out.

There was
still snow on the ground, but it was patchy. Apparently the weather for the
week I had missed had turned mild. It was chill, but it was a crisp, refreshing
chill. A week ago the early winter had seemed late winter, and December days
were getting February weather. Now, early winter seemed like late autumn, and
December air had an October feel to it. Like the realization that I had never
missed my friends for so long a time, I realized that I had never gone for so
long without seeing the weather in my life, either.

The trees had
no leaves on them but, after my long confine-ment underground, they seemed as
bright as any trees in spring. The clouds were few, and very white, and the sky
was high and cool and blue.

I walked
slowly, thinking that my prayer had not only not been answered, but that the
service, by being cut short, had sped my trip back into the gray brick cube of
my cell.

I tried to
look in the fourth dimension. My visions and senses were still utterly blocked,
as they had been from the moment yesterday when Glum had come to drool on me. I
could not even remember what hyperspace looked like. I was a girl, an entirely
ordinary girl, wearing an iron collar I could not take off, because that was
the way Glum wanted it, and his desires could change reality in a way I could
not sense or resist.

A tall black
man, either a Negro or a Pakistani (I had never seen either in real life, and
was not sure which was which) came suddenly around the corner. His hair was
loose and lay along his shoulders like a girl's, instead of being wiry, so
perhaps he was a Pakistani. His face was more handsome than the face of a
statue. He wore a long powder-blue coat, with blue trousers and black boots
beneath it, and he walked with his head hunched down, as if he (in this fine
weather) were cold, and his hands made deep fists in his pockets.

We bumped
directly into each other, and he brought up both his hands to catch me by the
shoulders before I fell off the path.

"A
thousand pardons, Miss," he started. If he had just had his hands in an
oven, they could not have been warmer. It felt good on my arms.

I grabbed the
metal collar around my neck with both my hands and tugged on it, trying to show
him it wouldn't come off. I said, "Help me! Please! Call the police!"

He looked a
little startled. Without letting go of my shoulders, he looked up and said,
'Telemus, is this one of yours? This is Phaethusa?"

Dr. Fell said,
"This is Miss Windrose. She is not my respon-sibility. I did not take her
out of her cell. And that is not the name I use here, thank you."

My heart
started sinking.

The black man
looked at Miss Daw, "You, then, Thelxiepia?"

Miss Daw
stepped forward, her gloved hands folded at her waist, clutching the tiniest
possible pocketbook, her high-heeled pumps clacking on the pathway. "I
will thank you to unhand the young woman. Proprieties must be observed."

He said,
"You keep her in the cell? That cell? The one Corus and I are
cleaning?"

Miss Daw did
not answer, but gave him a stiff look, as he still had not released me.

I said,
"I don't know who you are, but I didn't do anything wrong. I am not
whatever they told you I was. I'm just a girl. I'm really nice, once you get to
know me. I'm not a monster and I don't like being locked up, and won't you
please help me? I've never done anything to you. If you ever got caught by our
side, and I could get you out of a cell, I'd do it! What's your name? I'm Amelia!
I really am a person, just like you!"

"Notus.
We are called Notus." To Miss Daw, he said, "My brother is being
unduly cruel. What a wonder of cruelty! That cell is clearly cursed with a
cur..." (or maybe he said "ker") "... and it cannot be
healthy for a woman of this most tender age. The Great Lady Cyprian, I am
thinking her happiness will not be a great thing, hearing of this."

Dr. Fell said
drily, "They are organisms from Chaos. Prefrontal lobotomies would have
been the best way to keep them restrained."

"To you,
I will not speak!" exclaimed the black man. "You are a thing of gears
and levers, you. I do not call you a man! Bah! You, Thelxiepia, you are a
gracious woman. You know me secrets which cause men to die when they hear them.
Can you not prevail upon Boreas? Tell him we will take these children away if
they are not well cared for! We have an agreement with theUranians!"

Dr. Fell said
sardonically, "Why ask her, Notus? Boreas is your brother."

"Bah!
Since I am not talking to you, I am not listening to you!"

I suddenly had
the fear that the scheme Boggin had told me, about how sternly we were supposed
to be treated in order to convince the others that we were secure, was about to
backfire.

I said,
"They really don't treat me that badly! Boreas is really nice!"

The black man
had a look of slow horror come onto his face. Nothing I could have said would
have convinced him more completely that I was being lashed and tortured.

He let go of
me, which made my arms suddenly feel quite cold. "It does not matter. You
may not take her back to the cell yet. We need Dr. Fell to bring his
instruments to take some readings, to localize the breach. Come, Telemus!"

"I am not
under your authority," Dr. Fell said coldly.

"You will
come, or I will whirl you from here into the sea!" And the black man's
long shining hair began to flow and sway as if in the breeze, except there was
no breeze. A warmth came from him as if an invisible oven had suddenly opened
its door.

Dr. Fell
raised his hands, and said sardonically, "Well, your argument has some
merit. It is what we call Argumentum ad Baculum, of course, but I am not
prepared at this time to enter into the finer points of such a dispute. I will
communicate with Mulciber about this."

"Bah!
Again, I say my Bah! I am with the Lady Cyprian. I do not care for your
Mulciber, Round-eye!"

Dr. Fell put
his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "Neither, by all accounts, does the
Lady Cyprian."

Then Dr. Fell
wiggled his finger at me, and to Miss Daw he said, "Watch her. Guard her.
She is the dangerous one."

The two men
walked away, Dr. Fell marching with his stiff step (almost like a goose) and
Notus, with many a glance back at me across his shoulder. 4.

"Can we
walk around the estate? Just up and down a few paths, or see the Library? I'd
like to get a book. I'm so bored! Please?"

Miss Daw just
sat down on the bench that was there, a marble slab with feet carved into
little cherubs blowing trumpets. Two dry rosebushes showed their thorns to
either side. She patted the seat next to her.

Slowly, I sat.
Then I threw back my head, and laughed.

Miss Daw
looked at the horizon, and was preparing to take no more notice of me.

I said,
"You are not going to ask me why I laughed, are you? It's because of what
Dr. Fell said. He called me the dangerous one. Not Victor, not Colin, not
Vanity, who can call a magical mind-reading ship from beyond the world's edge.
Me! Why am I the dangerous one?"

I started
kicking my legs back and forth under the bench. Maybe I should make a break for
it? Pick up a rock and brain the frail Miss Daw over the head? She would
probably go down harder than the unexpectedly brawny Headmaster Boggin.

I decided to
give talking one more chance: "Why did Boreas tell you not to talk to me?
He cannot be afraid of me. I am not the dangerous one. You cannot be afraid of
me, Miss Daw; you've known me my whole life. You know me. I am not a monster.
Really, I'm not. No more than any other girl my age, I suppose."

Miss Daw
smiled, a sad smile, a very far-away smile.

I looked
around on the ground. Here were patches of winter grass, mounds of snow lining
the edges of the path, a litde strip of leafless and barren garden to our left
and right. No rocks.

I could see
the buildings of the estate all around me. Beyond the Great Hall was the main
Manor House, with the Library to the North and the Stables and yards to the
South.

No one was
around. I was hoping Victor might come along the path. But there was no one.

"What are
they doing in my cell?"

Miss Daw's
lips twitched, but she did not answer.

I said,
"Miss Daw ... ?"

No answer.
"... how long am I going to have to stay there ... ?"

She thought
about whether or not to answer. Then she said, "Be at peace, child.
Matters will soon resolve themselves. One way or the other."

I said slowly,
"But they aren't, are they? They are not going to go back the way they
were. We're too old. Everything's changed."

Miss Daw said,
softly, "Nothing is stable. Nothing is certain."

She hugged
herself a bit. She murmured, half to herself, "Changes will come, but
other changes will come after, wiping out each layer of change like waves on a
beach, erasing the ripples in sand cast up by the previous wave. Everything is
sand. There is only one rock to which we can cling."

I thought I
knew what she meant. I said, "You saw me praying. What did you see?"

Miss Daw spoke
in her silver voice, her eyes still on the far horizon. "Your prayers flew
up. There was an echo in return. The relational energy went somewhere. Where, I
do not know. Someone heard you."

Well, here was
a topic I could get her to rise to. I said, "What denomination are
we?"

She drew her
eyes down from the horizon and glanced at me, a small quirk to her lips. "
'We'? Miss Windrose, that is an excellent question. What indeed are we?"

"Well,
then, what are you? High Church? Dissenters? What?"

She smiled a
half-smile, filled both with melancholy and with an aloof amusement. "I am
of the body of the one true Church, and I am the last of that body. We called
ourselves the Pure Ones. Others called us Donatists."

"And
where was your Church?"

Her face
showed that she had flown in thought, far away, far down the corridors of
memory. At last she said in a soft, distant voice: "Our Archbishopric was
centered in Alexandria, at a time when North Africa was the most civilized and
cultured spot in the Empire. The European and Asian provinces had been wasted
in the wars between the Four Caesars.

"We cast
out from us the unfit, who delivered their scrip-tures and sacred vessels up to
our persecutors under Dioclet-ian; once me persecution was relaxed Uiese
traditors, these deserters from the duty of martyrdom, attempted to carry on as
if their actions had not put them out of communion with the faithful. Bribed
electors raised, and men outside grace ordained, a certain false bishop,
Caecilian, above us; but we refused him, electing Donatus the Great from among
the pure and faithful.

"How the
Bishop of the Chaff hated the Bishop of the Wheat! The impure said that their
bishops had authority to choose our bishop, and that we were their cattle. The
archbishop of Antioch turned Constantine against us. Constantine was one who
hated our religion, but sought to harness the power of the faith of Christ and
use it against his political enemies.

"In time,
Constantine declared himself Pontifex, and said his word ruled the Church as a
matter of law. Him! Pontifex! As if the outcome of bloody batdes made his the
voice of God! The election of pagan and corrupt Praetorians could vest
Constantine with temporal power, yes; but spiritual authority, we held, came from
other sources.

"They
called us heretics and schismatics, but they were the ones who strayed from the
true path. A splinter group which rebelled against the Greek Church grew to
power amidst the decayed and corrupted remnants of the Western Empire. These
are the ones you call the Catholics, who were rebels against the Metropolitan
authority of the Greek Church. Those of us in North Africa who remained pure in
our faith were persecuted again and again. Then a time came when the Paynims
from Arabia swept over the land.

"And that
was the end of us."

She was silent
for a while, lost in sad thought.

She said:
"Nothing of the true teachings now remains. Our books are lost. The
Gospels of Thomas and Simon are gone, the Letters of Instruction, the writings
of Symmeticus, Antonius Thaumaturgos the Elder, Antonius Pius, and the Epistles
of Peter, the Gospel of Judas, and the Book of Tubalcaine from before the
Flood, are all lost.

"When a
council was called by our enemies, to gather together the many sacred writings
and the books which preserved the memory of Christ and His apostles, we were
banned. Our gospels and epistles were not included in their books; and those
gospels that they did include were voted upon to include or exclude by a show
of hands. The Greeks drove away dissenters from the council, and so their hands
were the ones most numerous.

"And what
did they vote into meir Bible? Fables and nonsense. To this were added letters
and boasts by Paul, who never met Christ, but had a dream of Him, and who
invented, out of the speculations of the Greeks, a washed-down version of
Platonic and Neoplatonic theogeny.

"And
forgeries not by Paul, but bearing his name, were added; as were letters
written by several Greeks later said to be the writings of John and Luke, who
were illiterate fishermen."

I said,
"Are you talking about the Bible? I mean, our Bible?"

She looked at
me sidelong. "You yourself delivered a four-page paper on the Pauline and
Pseudo-Pauline epistles, including an analysis of First Timotiry, when we were
discussing the Markian Hypothesis and the possibility of the Q document in
seminar last year."

"Um...
sure."

"You did
not write that paper, did you?"

"I
wrote... part of it..."

"You
wrote your name at the top."

"Vanity
sort of helped out with some of the wording. And Quentin, uh, checked my
spelling, and... Well, what does it matter if I cheated on one little tiny
paper! I am just going to be killed, or sold into slavery!"

"You will
not be killed, child. And an education is always important."

"It's not
doing me much good right now. You people have me locked up in a cell buried
underground!"

"Since
you slept through our study of the Bible, you still have me pagan autiiors to
comfort you. You have the solace of having read Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.
You have read the Crito, and you know from Gibbon the dignity wim which Julian
the Apostate met his fate. Epictetus was a slave, and he knew how to bear his
lot wim dignity ..." And now she looked quite sad again, and her eyes
turned back to me horizon.

I said,
"What's it like, being the last DonatistT' "Being the only one who
knows the truth in the world full of lies? Every teenager knows something of
the feeling."

"Miss
Daw... ? I've been wondering. How can you be a Christian if you are a pagan
goddess?"

"I am not
a goddess. That word is reserved properly for me Olympians, who can influence
the motions of the Fates, which I cannot."

"But how
can you have faith in Christ? Is he one of you folk?"

She looked
uncomfortable. "The matter is complex. There are those among us who claim
mat some upstart merely wished to steal the worship due to Jove; and that
Baphomet, a child of Phorcys and Ceto, was the man crucified at Calvary; or
else Simon the Magician, one of the Gray Sisters' sons. Still others say it was
merely a man who died on Golgotiia; still others say no one died, and mat
Christ is an invention of priestcraft. There are many of us who could make
ourselves seem to die, and rise again from the grave; for that matter, there
are humans who could perform some slight-of-hand, or swap a living body for a
dead; and anyone can forge a document, or tell a he. But none of us could raise
a human being from the dead, or promise truly to raise all men; and none of us
can forgive sins, or wipe the stain of wrong away."

"Why
would one of you want to steal another person's wor-ship? Do you eat it?"

She smiled.
"Something like that. The Olympians receive their power from the moral
order of the universe, but also from the laws of men, and the guilt of those
who break those laws."

'Then how can
you be a Christian, if you suspect Christ was one of you?"

She shook her
head. "I suspect no such thing; I merely report what some among the
immortals say. But even their opinion betrays the deeper truth. If me Redeemer
was a fraud, Miss Windrose, my question is mis: Who was he impersonating? Whose
worship, as you put it, was he trying to eat? If Baphomet was a thief, there
must have been real gold he was trying to steal.

"I am
above humanity in the chain of being. The mere fact that there is a chain of
being proves mat there must be a top, a first link or Uncaused Cause from which
all else emanates. Everyone fears and worships the thing that sets the
circumstances and limits of his fate, as a hound might worship the master who
owns him. Only something mat is entirely without restricting circumstances,
unlimited, infinite, can be called Divine. Unhindered, it would be motionless.
With no wants and no lacks, it would be entirely serene."

I said,
"That could be any god of any religion. What makes you a Christian?"

She said,
"In my youth I swam along the coasts of Carthage, and lured mortal sailors
to their wretched deaths, promising mem sweet kisses, and I laughed gaily as
they drowned. A time came when the dying men called upon a strange and nameless
God to save them, who was, at once, himself and his own son, and one of these
forgave me as he died, though I was his murderess. Angered by the conceit, I
determined to slay the next holy man of this new faith I came upon.

"I spied
one who walked along the cliff overlooking the sea. He was dressed as a beggar,
and leaned upon a staff as he walked, and he praised his God with every weary
step of his long road. I swam ahead of him and scaled the rock, so that he
found me combing my hair with a comb of shell, dressed only in my beauty. I
tempted him with kisses, and he rebuked me sternly, and had no fear of me.

"It is
our custom not to kill men until they fail to answer one of our riddles,
because that failure shows their mortality and imperfection. So I asked the
Holy Man if I had a soul, and if I could know salvation: this was a riddle to
which I knew he knew no answer, since I did not know the answer myself.

"He
raised his staff, and said it was no more likely that the dead wood in his hand
could put forth bloom again, than that a mermaid could have a soul.

"No
sooner did the words leave his lips, than the dry stick in his hand turned
green, and flowers of unearthly beauty budded and bloomed all along the staff.
I knew then that I was in the presence of a superior power I dove from the
cliff to flee from the saint

"Like
you, I can see the many dimensions of the world, and so I knew what it was that
reached down through higher space to touch that old man's walking stick. It was
a power above Saturn, older man Time, able to restore the dead and recover the
innocence I had once and lost. Many a day I huddled in the darkness far below
the wave, wondering and grieving.

"And now
I know tiiat Eternity is beyond even the gods of Olympus. There is a shadow, a
hint, of what Eternity is like within this world of time and death and decay:
for if mere were not, we would have no notion of perfection, no idea of beauty,
no love, no hope. We would all be Dr. Fell."

"Do you
believe in souls? Do you think everydiing has a soul?"

"Only a
creature with a soul could frame such a question."

I said,
"Do you think I have a soul?"

"Of
course, dear child, and it is a bright one, despite your anger and
confusion."

"If I
have a soul, I cannot be a monster. Boreas cannot be afraid of me."

"I do not
actually think he is afraid of you, child."

"Then why
did he order you not to talk to me? This conversation is the first one I've had
in seven days. If you don't count the little scene with Grendel. I am so bored.
Bored and tired and scared. Tired of being scared. Bored of being scared.
Scared of being bored. I will do whatever you say. I will do what Boreas wants
me to do. Just don't put me back in mat cell!"

"We have
litde choice in the matter. Even Boreas has httle choice."

"At least
give me something to read or something to do. What about my lessons? I had a
test tiiis week mat I missed because I was in jail. One of your tests: the
Hawking formulations on Black Hole Theory."

"Naturally,
I did not hold the test this week, Miss Windrose."

"Give me
the materials so I can study! How often do you have a student begging you for
work?"

It seemed she
was not listening. She said absentmindedly: "It would be a waste of time,
child. No matter what you learned, you would have to learn it again when you come
out"

"At least
come talk to me during me day. You must be bored, too, if mere are no classes
being held this week!"

She shook her
head. Apparendy she was not bored.

I said in an
angry voice: "Answer me! Boreas cannot be afraid of me talking to
you." "No, child. He is afraid I might take heart from your
example."

'Take heart?'

She turned and
looked at me. Her eyes had been staring into the Fourth Dimension, and were
still surrounded with a faint cloud of distance-negating energy, which, in the
sunlight, made her eyes seem all silvery.

Solemn and
sad, she said in the soft music of her voice: "I am a slave. These people
are my captors, too. I am not from here."

"Where
are you from?"

"From
home."

"What
homer'

"Home.
Your home. My home. Our home. Myriagon." v J

22

Tales of the
^Demiurge

She said,
"Like you, I was once collared and penned up. Upon my parole, I am allowed
certain privileges, to walk abroad in the sunlight, to take upon myself a
fair-seeming shape, to drink wine and eat savory food. And to play my music.
That is the kindest thing I am allowed, and also the most cruel."

Her perfect,
ivory-pale face was calm; but old, old sorrow haunted her eyes.

"Sometimes,
I look for it, you know. I look to see some shadow of Myriagon in the far
distance, a shadow or reflection of her musical cross-section in the fifth or
seventh dimension. Or somediing comes to me like a scent of apple blossoms, or
me tremor of an energy path or thought-reflection issuing from the time-trees
in those gardens.

"Once I
saw what I thought was a golden dot, and senses I never had before and have
never had since, opened up in me. I saw it only for a moment, but I was able to
superimpose multiple shadow-pictures in my memory until an image built up.

"That dot
was a globe of finite surface area but infinite vol-ume, with towers and
formulations extending in each direction. Each tower and each window opened up
into a new direction, a new domain, and I could see gravity and time-flow
folded like origami, engineered as part of that great structure.

"Time,
space, and gravity were not there (as they are here) simply imposed from above.
The gravity was manmade there, its moment and constants and characteristics.
The time, and the space, and all were designed to serve the pleasure and
convenience of those who dwelled in those towers, or in the private vest-pocket
dimensions hanging like silver bubbles on me beyond-sides of those windows.

"The city
with its towers and its gardens and its private time-space continua, occupied
more than four dimensions, more than five or ten or a hundred. There were a
thousand surfaces, a thousand volumes and hypervolumes, a thousand dimensions,
or ten thousand.

"And
there was reflected light shining from it, not merely the flat, thin light of
this three-dimensional place we are in, but a solid, full, massive light,
filling up volumes and hypervolumes of increasingly higher dimensions. Myriagon
was orbiting something, something which shed that light, some singularity of
ever higher and ever smaller dimension I could not see."

Miss Daw was
silent for a time, and then said softly, "In a way, that one moment of
seeing my home was and is more solid in my memory, more meaningful, more real,
than all my other life besides."

2.

I asked,
"Are mere more than four dimensions?"

"Many
more, but mey do not exist here, in the created world. When Saturn rebelled
against Uranus and created the world of time, of entropy and decay, he knew he
would be attacked both by those he had trapped within the orbit of his
creation, and by rescuers from outside—other sons of Uranus."

"In other
words, us," I said. "The Uranians."

'To limit the
Prelapsarians—your people—he made this world to collapse the higher
dimensions into infinitesimal volumes. He needed only a fourth dimension, in
order to erect a superstructure of time, space, order, and to establish
universal laws of nature."

"What is
it like out there? In Myriagon?"

"I know
only me old tales and stories repeated by my sister, Parthenope, and she had
them from our grandfather.

'There is a
singularity, called the Unknown, which retains the condition of time-space as
it was before the lapse of reality into the Big Bang. Myriagon orbits this
singularity. From the depths of its event horizon there arise, from time to
time, lapses or folds in the substance of reality, which can be collapsed to
form various areas and conditions of time, space, matter, and dimension. Most
of these vest-pocket universes are small, no more than ten light-years across
or ten years old, and containing trivial mass-energy.

"Larger
universes can be created, she told me, if a diver is willing to go closer and
ever closer into the event horizon. There are methods to create a disturbance
within the deeper layers, which will cause the ejection of larger areas of
time-space, more mass-energy ylem.

"No
matter how swiftly or slowly your personal time is run-ning, however, me deeper
you go, the longer your journey seems to take from the point of view of outside
observers.

"Saturn
is a creature from the very earliest times of Myriagon, back when it was called
Polygon, and only occupied two or three dimensions. He fell far more deeply
toward the event horizon than any other of the Early Ones. Millions, billions,
countless ages of time went by; albeit, to Saturn, it was but a single journey
of a single day.

"When he
emerged he controlled an area of time-space so great, and containing a
mass-energy so large, that it created its own event horizon embracing the other
universes. All the tiny realms of all the innocent people of Myriagon were unfolded
and collapsed into his. This collapse of all life into his macro-cosmic
universe created time and entropy. Countless people died. Cosmos was
created—the established world. "Parthenope told me that no one knew
why he did it. What-ever events had prompted him, whatever insults he was
seeking to avenge, or ills he was trying to cure, had been forgotten in the
billions of years since his departure. Only those few spirits ranging far
afield, beyond all the established structures and private universes of the
Prelapsarians, were spared. They returned to the wreckage of their great home,
and slowly, despite that they were so few, rebuilt Myriagon.

"From
time to time, certain of the Prelapsarians, driven by grief or compassion,
attempt the long journey to enter into the established world, to rescue their
trapped comrades, or to free other victims of Saturn's deed. Those who escape
reach a world where there is no entropy, and nature's laws are subscribed to
voluntarily, rather than imposed.

"Parthenope
told me that the Prelapsarians have neither law nor crime. Scientific
examination of their mental systems has achieved a state of perfection; and the
moral order is obvious to their senses; they know neither mental disorder nor
moral corruption."

I said,
"Then they are not monsters."

"Far from
it."

I said,
"What about me?"

"What
about you, Phaethusa?"

"I am not
morally perfect."

"You do
not know the secrets of their mind-science; and the eyes you use to sense the
moral order, in this world of matter and decay, are shut."

"Why? Why
make a world where people cannot see right and wrong?"

"This
world, the material world, is a false and shallow copy, inside the realm of
time, of something perfect which Saturn stole from Eternity. I do not know his
reasons; no one does. The Olympians overthrew Saturn, but they saw no cause to
change his system. They derive their power from having others break the rules
of law and of morality."

"Where is
Saturn now?"

"Confined
in Tartarus, black realm of the Unseen One, and guarded by Tisiphone and by the
huge hundred-handed Heca-tonchire, whom Saturn had once imprisoned there;
jailers where they once were jailed." "You don't remember living
there? Myriagon?"

She shook her
head. "My father is Achelous, the son of Oceanus, eldest son of Uranus.
Oceanus is one of those who, for the sake of pity, entered this world to battle
the grim Demiurge. He was deceived by the nature of time, and did not know what
it was he was entering. It took him fifteen billion years to cross the Pontic
Ocean of 'false vacuum' surrounding this reality; by the time he reached here,
Saturn was overcome, replaced by children, the Olympians, who were far worse
than Saturn ever had been."

"Worser

She nodded.
"If Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost at least remembers what bright virtue
he once had, and regrets its loss, imagine how much worse sons of Satan would
be, raised from birth in the inferno. They would be devils softened by no
living memory of Heaven."

"And what
happened to you? I mean, how did you come to be here?"

3.

"Once,
long ago, there seemed to be the possibility of peace be-tween Lord Terminus
and Oceanus. Lord Pelagaeus the Earth-shaker was given lordship over the inner
ocean, where life is, and Oceanus the outer. Saturn was gone; Oceanus knew of
no more reason to fight.

"As his
granddaughters, we were treated with royal privilege. The Morae, the Fates,
taught us how to sing, and showed us much regarding the future, and we studied
the energies and forces that make up the nature of time. We became the
companions of the Maiden, who was the daughter of Demeter. When the Maiden
vanished, carried off by an unknown power from the fields of Enna, we were
granted leave by Lord Terminus to use our powers within this world, and to fly
from place to place, seeking her.

"Our
powers, however, began to show us something of the nature of time and morality.
You have the same senses I do. You know what we began to see. The internal
nature and moral darkness of the Olympians became more and more evident
"The Maiden had been abducted by the Unseen One, and raped. When the crime
of the Unseen One finally came to light, instead of punishing his brother, Lord
Terminus (who feared him) gave him the Maiden as his wife.

"We have
never forgiven Lord Terminus his crime, this cyni-cal and smirking act of
corruption. What kind of punishment is it to a rapist, to have me victim of his
outrages be given to him in bounds of matrimony, his victim to be his, forever
after? Lord Terminus decreed mat when a husband takes a wife by violence, it is
not rape, but holy matrimony; honor is satisfied once the wedding is performed.

"Honor
was satisfied, but we were not satisfied. The Sirens began to work against the
Olympians. Secretly at first, and then more openly, we began to undermine their
power.

"The
power of the gods is augmented by the belief of men, in much the same way that
Grendel's power comes from his own beliefs. We became famous for telling the
truth to men, both the truth about the gods and the truth about the future, and
the jeal-ous gods killed them when we told them too much.

"Despite
this, truth began to leak out. Your poets tell more about me Greek gods man
others, don't they? Their tales portray them as more human and fallible man the
gods of other peoples, who, after all, committed crimes equally as foul as
those of the Olympians. The Greeks were a rational people, less in awe of their
gods man other folk. That was our doing.

"Eventually,
we were stopped. The Muses, to whom we had taught our songs, now challenged us.
Oaths were exchanged. Our songs were sent against their songs in over-space,
and the spirit world raged with the clash and clamor of the music of the
spheres gone wild.

"The
Morae, who had once been our friends, betrayed us and fated our downfall. The
music of the Nine conquered us. We were given the choice between slavery and
death. Some of my sisters chose death, and they dwell in the Dark House, with
our old companion, the Maiden, who is Queen mere. Those of us not bold enough
to make so hard a choice, we had our wings plucked from us, and our feathers
now adorn me crowns of the Nine Muses.

"Do not
pity me. Slavery is a mercy if you live, as I did then, in a time when no
conqueror could afford to let any member of any family whom he defeated left
alive. The institution benefits the conquerors, and mis spares me conquered
from an otherwise certain death.

"And my
first Mistress, the High Queen Basilissa, also called Hera, is the kindest and
most upright of all the immortals of Olympus. Only she had some concern for
morality, courtesy, propriety. Yes, I know how Homer and the other poets depict
the Lady Hera. But they were inspired by the Muses, who are bastard daughters
of Lord Terminus, and who hate her. My servitude in the house of my Mistress
Hera was not hard."

4.

I said,
"If they have no government in Myriagon, what makes me a hostage? I can't
be a princess if I am from a land of anarchists."

"Your
father is the Titan Helion. He is famous and influen-tial, and enjoys the
esteem of his peers, which is how the Prelapsarians count wealth. Because of
his wisdom, he is the strategist whom the otiier Prelapsarians consult to
coordinate the war effort. It is merely out of pity and sympathy for him that
they forebear, despite that he has not asked them to."

I said softly,
"Help me to escape, all of us."

She smiled
sweetly and sadly. "Your wish is unrealistic. Put it from you."

Desperation
edged my tone: "We won't hurt anyone. You can send a message or something
to the people in Chaos telling them we're safe, and they won't have any reason
to attack."

"Matters
are not that simple. I cannot break my word to my captors, lest the next
defeated in war with the Olympians is killed, instead of taken. My sister,
Aglaope, has already paid her mistress and been manumitted."

"At
least, you should agree not to help recapture me, if I should get away. Can you
do that? Or drag your heels, or do it badly. I know you don't obey every order
they give you, or else you would not be talking to me now."

She patted my
hand with her glove. "Everyone is in service to something or someone. Your
service, no matter with whom you end up, will probably be relatively light.
Whoever ends up using your talents will, no doubt, want you to ..."

"You mean
using me! You mean owning me!" I said hotly.

She said,
"Hush," because, at that moment, Dr. Fell came marching around the
corner of the building, with his stiff-kneed gait, his hands folded behind his
back. The black man was not with him.

Fell said
thinly, "Matters are prepared. Miss Daw, if you could bring your
patient... ?"

I said,
"I don't want to go back into that cell. It's horrible."

Fell turned
his narrow face toward me. At that moment, even if Quentin had never told me, I
would have known his eyes were nothing but hard marbles, painted to look like
eyes.

"Do not
make a fuss. You will be released by tomorrow afternoon. All conditions will be
reset to the status quo ante, and we will continue as before."

5.

The cell did
not look any different, except that the heavy black iron chain had been
replaced by a modern chain of machine-forged steel links. Miss Daw's compact
disc player was atop the little shelf near the door where it normally rested,
out of my reach, playing beautiful clear music.

I spent the
afternoon with selections of concertos by Brahms floating past me. I had noticed
that the music did not repeat in the same order, as a phonograph record might
have done. I wondered if this kind of music box was common in the outside
world, if every child owned one, or only the rich.

I tried to
turn on my other senses, but Grendel's curse was still on me. I wondered idly
if I looked prettier to other people now, if Grendel's lust had made me look
more like his daydream image of me.

That evening I
was given a freshly pressed school uniform to wear, and a hurried and
cross-looking Sister Twitchett told me to don it quickly.

While I was
getting dressed, she frowned at the compact disc player, and shut it off.
"Mustn't let them think we are molly-coddlers ..." she said to
herself.

When footsteps
sounded in the corridor, she looked around worriedly, and hid the disc player
beneath one of my two buckets.

"Look
smart!" she snapped at me.

And she
curtsied toward the barred door of the cell. She had closed it behind her when
she had entered, which was unusual.

I could hear
Boggin's voice. "... Your Lordship will forgive us if we have nothing
prepared. The unexpected nature, one is tempted to say, surprise nature, of
Your Lordship's visit, left us with no time to ..."

A voice of
gravel answered him, a voice as harsh as a clash of gears in a broken gearbox.
"Heh. If your spies didn't warn you I was coming, cut their pay. You're
not getting value for value."

"I am not
certain I... ah ... can permit myself to compre-hend, yes, that is the word,
comprehend, every nuance of Your Lordship's, ah, implication."

"Then
think."

A grotesque
man stomped up to the door. He was dressed in a perfectly tailored blue
pinstripe suit with a fashionable over-coat atop mat.

He was
hunchbacked, and his hump made him look as if he were carrying a bag or a small
child piggyback. His shoulders and chest slanted from left to right, but the
slabs of muscle there would have made even the chest of a bull seem puny. It
looked like he was wearing football pads. His arms were larger around than omer
men's thighs. His legs, on the other hand, were thinner than other men's arms,
and one was crooked, like a monkey's leg, while the other was long and
straight. He stood on them at an angle, with his knees pointed different
directions, and his feet splayed out, so that his walk was a rolling sidelong
shuffle, like the walk of a crab.

The crooked
leg was clamped in a complex brace of shining steel, with gears and motors at
the kneecap and ankle. In his hand he held a short steel bar. I assume it was a
cane, but he never leaned on it.

His face was
round and slablike, his mouth ringed with

I muscle, his
brows jutted like an ape's. His skull was covered with short stubble. His eyes
were narrow slits, and his wrinkles seemed to be scowling, squinting, and
grinning, all at once.

I should
mention mat the suit was perfectly cut, but it did nothing to detract from his
twisted hugeness. He had diamond cufflinks in white cuffs, but his hands were
still hairy and heavy, and his sausage-fingers were brown with calluses.

He squinted
(and scowled and grinned) at me.

"So this
is the little bottom you've been spanking, eh?"

Boggin was
behind, looming tall. The squat man's head was on a level with his navel,
although the man's shoulders and hump were more nearly level with Boggin's
chest.

"Your
Lordship's meaning, ah, escapes me." Behind the squat man, Boggin waved
his hand at me, and rolled his eyes toward Sister Twitchett. He wiggled his
brows suggestively. It took me a moment to realize that he wanted me to
curtsey, too.

The squat man
said, "Well, you did on a bell tower in plain view of anyone within a
mile. And my spies do give me value for value."

I took my
plaid skirt in hand and curtsied. The steel chain running between my neck and
the ceiling rattled.

"Let's
see her close," said the squat man.

Boggin said,
"Sister Twitchett, the key, if you please? Open the door for Lord
Mulciber."

The Sister
straightened up from her curtsey (which she had been holding for at least a
minute) and made a great show of patting her pockets and frowning, as if she
had forgotten where the key was.

The squat man
said, "Never mind. Do it myself." Then, louder: "Iron! Cold
Iron! Hot-forged Steel! Obey the Smith of Iron's Will!"

The door
rattled in its frame, and the chain on my neck shivered and chimed, but nouiing
else happened. The door did not open.

The squat man
crooked his head sideways and grinned (and squinted and scowled) at him.
"Clever, clever, Norm Wind! Point taken. The girly here is not getting
away."

Sister
Twitchett suddenly found the key. "Here it is!"

"Heh.
Right in the same pocket you groped three times. Funny, that," the squat
man grunted. "If Your Lordship will permit me ... ?" Sister Twitchett
simpered.

"Don't
bother. I don't go into cells I can't get out of. Not with the North Wind
breathing down my neck. I can shout from here." (He was not shouting; he
was only two yards away from me.) "You, there, girl. What do you call
yourself?"

Boggin said,
"Her name is ..."

"Shut it.
Talking to the girl."

"Of
course, Your Lordship," said Boggin smoothly. "If Your Lordship
intends a private conversation with our, ah, guest here, I can step away
..."

"You
might as well hear it live as on tape. Girl... ?"

I curtsied
again. "Yes, Your Lordship."

"Your
name?"

"They
called me Secunda, Lordship, till they let me pick my name. I picked Amelia
Armstrong Windrose. I think my real name is Phaethusa, daughter of Helion. But
that could be a lie. I've been lied to a very great deal, Your Lordship."

Boggin cleared
his throat and said, "Now see here, Miss Windrose..."

"Shut it.
I won't ask again," said the squat man, his voice suddenly terrible.

Boggin
blenched and stepped back.

The squat man
shifted gears in his voicebox back to a more gentie growl, and said to me,
"No more of that 'Lordship' stuff. You're not under me, and I don't
deserve it nohow."

"What
shall I call you, Your L ... sir?"

"Oi, we
are polite, aren't we? You can call me Stumpy. Everyone does behind my back. My
back is so large, they figure I won't hear. Nothing wrong with my ears, though,
except my ears got the same problem yours do."

I looked at
him a moment. He grinned (and squinted and scowled) back at me.

"What
problem is that, Lord Mulciber?"

"I hear a
lot of lies. I hear a lot of flattery."

I didn't know
how to respond to that, so I picked up my skirt and curtsied again. My neck
chain rattled when I did that.

He growled,
"You didn't call me what I asked."

"I am not
going to call you by a cruel name, sir."

"Hen?
Even if I tell you to?" "You said yourself I wasn't under you."

"Hen.
Heh. Aheh. North Wind said you were a clever one. Quite a looker, too, aren't
you?"

"Only in
three dimensions, sir. Otherwise, I look like a squid with wings. I have it on
good authority."

"OK,
Squid Girl. How'd you like to come work for me?"

"Wha—what?
I mean, I beg your pardon?"

"You
heard me."

I really
enjoyed seeing the look on Boggin's face. He really wanted to talk and he was
afraid to.

I said,
"Doing what?"

"Scaring
people. If they don't scare off, killing them."

"I... I
do not think I can do that."

"Ah, come
on! I'd only want you to kill bad people. War is bad for business. I'm trying
to stop it. One way to stop it is to scare the other guy so he don't start
notiiing."

"I... I
don't think it would be right..."

"Give you
as much gold as you can carry, dental plan, med-ical benefits, weekends and
evenings off. Give you a house. Palace, actually. Staff of servants if you want
'em—I got some just off the assembly line. Get you a gun. Anyone rude to
you, tries to grope you or something, you shoot him dead, and I throw the
corpse in the furnace. What do you say?"

"What
about my friends?"

"Just
you. Remember what I said about scaring folks so tiiey don't start a war? You
can't scare 'em too much, or mey start one anyhow. It's a balancing act."

I said,
"I don't want to leave my friends."

"I'll
throw in an airplane. Have Daedalus build you one to your own specs. You tootle
around up in the wild blue yonder, much as you like."

I said slowly,
"Your spies do give you value for value."

"Yeah,
well, I know your bra cup size, too. Never hurts to know stuff."

"It's Dr.
Fell, isn't it? Telemus feeds you information."

"North
Wind is right. You are smarter than the others."

I just snorted
to smother a laugh at mat. "Sorry, Stumpy, that problem you mentioned with
my ears just acted up again."

"Heh. And
funny. Spies didn't mention that. OK, Squid Girl, last offer. I talk to the
little woman, and she makes sure you meet your True Love; he's single, he's not
a priest; no problems, no complications, no ill-starred fate. True Love. Can't
do better."

"Little
woman?"

"Aphrodite.
The Love Goddess. My wife."

He actually
got to me with that comment My mouth went dry.

Victor. I
wanted it to be Victor. I wanted him to marry me.

No problems,
no complications.

"And you
get all that other stuff I mentioned. If you don't like it, you quit. Give me
two weeks' notice. Shake hands, no hard feelings."

I could not
say anything. My mouth was still dry. I licked my lips and it was still dry.

Victor...

"Come on.
True Love. Better than anything old Stumpy will ever get."

Finally I put
my hand on the collar around my neck, and I rattled me chain. "Contracts
made under duress are not binding. First I get out of here, get this thing off
my neck, then we talk. And another thing. My friends. I don't want to make a
decision without talking to my friends. I want to talk to them with no one else
listening."

"Heh. Yes
on one, no on two." He turned his massive shoul-ders and crooked his head
around to look at Boggin. "North Wind! How soon can you finish up your
special arrangements and get the girl out of this damn hole?"

"By
tomorrow morning, Lordship."

"No more
playing spanky-spanky with her. No more dunking with your Johnson. You treat
her like a princess, like she's fine china, or else we'll have the Uranians up
in arms and up around our ears. If I found out, they can find out."

He swung the
massive shoulders back and squinted (grinned and scowled) up at me. "We'll
talk later, Squid Girl."

And he clomped
away, dragging Boggin with him.

As Mulciber
turned away, Boggin looked coldly pleased with himself, as if me interview had
gone as he intended.

I 6.

Twitchett
apparently did not want to be left too far behind, for she unlocked the door
and trotted quickly after them.

I blinked in
surprise. A mistake. They had made a mistake in the security procedures.

I had to move
slowly (so as not to rattle my chain too much) and I had to move quickly
(because I did not have much time). Not easy to do both at once.

I took the
disc player out from under the bucket, and pushed and twisted till I got it
open. Instead of a tape cassette, or a record, there was a litde disc of
rainbow-chased crystal. It looked like a jewel rather than a piece of
equipment, and I wondered if this was a man-made thing, or something the
Olympians made with magic.

Then came the
hard part. What I did next doesn't sound pos-sible, but I am rather an athletic
girl, and I had just spent a week in a cell with nothing to do but do
calisthenics. I had even been able to do handsprings and tumbling without
strangling myself. (In fact, I had done them more to overcome my fear of
strangling myself than anything else.)

So I kicked
off my shoes, put the little crystal disc between my left toes, stood on the
cot, and wrapped a little bit of the slack chain around my shoulder, so that
there was no weight on my neck.

Then I
clutched the chain tight in both hands, and swung. Up, not far enough, back
down, kick the cot, up the wrong way, back down, kick the cot again, and up
again ...

This time I
was high enough to put my pointed foot through the bars of the cell window, and
turn my foot sidewise. Ow ow, clang clang. My whole weight jerked back against
my ankle; I was holding myself rather high off the floor, just on the bar I had
hooked my little foot around. It hurt my ankle.

There was a
tiny crack in the window where the fresh (cold) air came in, and I could see me
little gray branches of a leafless bush beyond. This was a basement window, at
ground floor, and I knew that this side of the Chapel had bushes all along its
length.

I lifted my
other foot. That was harder than it sounds, since I was holding the chain with
both hands (so it would stay slack against my neck) and had to keep my other
foot tense and hooked around the bar.

Try putting a
little crystal disc through a mail slot with your toe sometime. It is not easy.

But it is not
impossible.

Then, point my
toe, swing back, step onto the cot, unwind the chain, sit down ...

Sister
Twitchett was back at the door, which had, by the way, been left standing wide
open this whole time. I rubbed my feet with my hands, as if I had just slipped
off my shoes because they were pinching on something.

I smiled at
her. "Forget something ... ?"

She scowled,
went over to the bucket, and pulled the (now empty) disc player out from under
it. I had, of course, splashed water all over it, and bent the little pin that
held its door shut, so that she could not open it to see that it was empty.

She put it on
the shelf and clicked the button. I had doused the thing in water so that she
might think the thing was shorted out. But she did not even pause to notice
that no music was coming out. She just locked the door and scampered away.

7.

It was later.
I did not have any clock except for the sundial of how far across the room my
little square of window-light has traveled. After sunset, however, it is just a
guess until it was time for Twitchett, and my evening injection.

There I was,
lying on my back, idly swinging the chain from my collar like a vertical jump
rope, sweeping out a football-shaped lozenge in midair.

I admit I was
feeling rather relaxed and pleased with myself. I was getting out of here
tomorrow, right? I had squirreled away a disc of Miss Daw's music, in a spot
under the bushes around the Chapel. By tomorrow, if we held classes as normal,
there would be some free time after Dr. Fell's tutorial. What was Monday?
Molecular biology. Of course, I hadn't read the assignment, not since two
Mondays ago. If only Miss Daw had let me get some books from the library ... I
lay watching the chain spinning, spinning.

Back to the
status quo, Dr. Fell had said. Special arrangements, Mulciber had said.
Anything I learned I would have to learn over again, Miss Daw had said ...

As certainly
as if a soft, cold voice had whispered it in my ear, I knew. They are going to
erase your memory.

8.

Everything you
now know will be gone.

How far back?
Ten days, at least, maybe more. What we overheard at the meeting, Vanity's
secret passages, Quentin's discovery that he could fly, all of it would be
gone.

The you who
existed as once you were ten days ago will still be alive. But the you who is
here now, will be dead, dead, dead. And none of these droughts you are thinking
now will survive. These thoughts now in your head, this chain of thought and
memory, will come to an end, and stop.

Phaethusa will
be gone, and only Amelia will remain. Her memory will be amputated, and she
will be bewildered if she notices a missing week, but she will never even know
what was taken from her.

This thought
shall perish with the others.

9.

The morning
when we made such a mess in the kitchen, mak-ing our own breakfasts for
ourselves; that hour which, out of all the hours of all my life I could
remember, was the brightest, that would be gone, too. I

I watched the
chain swinging out its smaller and smaller circles, describing a spindle, then
a cone, then a swaying line. It swept out a decreasing volume, then nothing.

I thought of
people who might help, like ap Cymru or Lelaps the dog. But I had no way to get
out of the cell to find them.

My thoughts
skittered in circles like mice, smaller and smaller, looking for some way out
of the trap I was in. Some way out of the trap. Some way out. Some way.

But there was
nothing more to think. The more I thought, the more I would have to lose.

23

^Dreams and
"Desires

1.

That night I
had a dream. A man stood by the head of my cot.

He wore a
breastplate of bronze, set with figures of men and swine. His helmet was made
of large square oblongs of white, as if the teeth of some animal had been sewn
atop a cap of bronze. In his hand was a spear but, instead of a spearhead, the
shaft was tipped with a thin spine, like the stinger of a stingray.

Beneath his
helmet, he had neither eyes nor mouth. Dried blood ran down his cheeks and
chin. His armor was streaked over with running brown stains, and the gore had
rusted the metal in places.

He said,
"In life, I was Telegonus, son of Odysseus and Circe. You are my aunt, for
Circe is the daughter of Helion. I slew Odysseus and knew not whom I slew. In
penance, Queen Arete sent me to guard Nausicaa, her daughter. Poseidon's men
overcame me, and at that task I failed. Erichtho trapped me in a box, as a toy
for Boreas, and my spirit was tormented and would not rest; but I walked the
world to and from my box, searching for the Lady Nausicaa again. My hate kept
me awake, and I would not sleep. I watched and sought, watched and sought. I
knew not then that the North Wind had other watchers watching me, unclean
spirits as restless as myself, and when I scented some trace of the Lady
Nausicaa, they fled to inform Boreas. Against my knowledge and against my will,
my own loyalty to the Lady Nausicaa was used to snare her. I knew it not, but I
was one of the watchmen of Boreas, and I kept the Lady imprisoned."

In the dream,
I could move and speak. I said, "What do you want with me?" And my
fingers trembled and my limbs shook, because of a terrible cold which came from
the man, and a smell of dried blood, spoiled meat, and putrefaction.

"Eidotheia,
child of the Graeae, buried my bones, and paid the toll for the ferry man,
Chiron. Your prayer reached me in Hell, where I walk in the bloody forest
hanging with corpses, set aside for kin-slayers, and gave me wings. I sped by
the fifty heads of Cerberus, his teeth like daggers and his slobber more
venomous than any serpent's and, though he howls and seeks me now, I am here.
Once the cock crows, I am done for, and I return to double and triple
punishments."

Out from the
stained and tattered cloak, now he spread white wings, like the wings of a
dove. The wingtips to either side almost touched the opposite walls of the
cell. The starlight from the window caught the edges of each feather, and
traced them in silver.

"Can you
help me?" I said.

"I am a
shadow. I can touch nothing."

"Why did
you come to me?"

"Erichtho
set wards around Eidotheia and Phoebetor; the Telchine boy, Damnameneus, has no
soul. But the music which walled you in is silent now, and that silence allows
my approach."

"What can
you do?"

"I can
bring you in dream to one who dreams of you."

"Will
that help me?"

"No. But
you will come, because you will hope that it will." He touched me with his
spear, and I sat up. The collar and the chain melted away.

He pointed to
the far wall. In the moonless dark, it receded from us, forming a long, dark
corridor.

Down it I
went, hugging myself in my white flannel night-gown, and the floorstones were
cold on my bare feet.

2.

In dream, time
and distance were without meaning. It might have been minutes I walked that
dark and unreal corridor, or hours, or years.

Or, I might
have been in that corridor since the beginnings of forever and would always be
there, a lonely girl in a white nightgown, stepping on silent, bare feet down a
black corridor that led away from imprisonment and toward some uncertain goal;
while behind me walks, and will always walk, a dead man who died in the line of
duty, but who still seeks, somehow, without hope, without fear, without life,
to carry it out.

3.

At the end of
the corridor was a square of reddish light. It hur-ried toward me like the
light of an oncoming train in a tunnel, approaching far more quickly than my
hesitant steps could account for, as if the corridor were collapsing like a
folding telescope.

Then, with a
motionless jolt, like the shock of waking instantly from a dream, I was there.
Behind me there was no sign of the corridor through which I had come. I was
backed up against the edge of a short desk or workbench. My hands were gripping
the rough edge of the workbench to either side, and I could feel the wood
pushed up against my bottom, through the flannel fabric of my nightie.

The fire in
the stove was burning low, but its black iron door was open, and the dying
embers still cast red shadows into the small interior of the hut or shed where
I found myself. Wood was piled next to the stove, dingy with rodent droppings.
There were holes gnawed in the baseboards, made by rats or mice.

There was a
cot, smaller than my cot in my jail cell, on which a bundle of rags had been
heaped. Beyond that was a refrigerator, two feet high. Half-empty cartons of
take-away Chinese food lay on me floor before me refrigerator door. There was
other litter here and mere on the floor.

There was a
cracked mirror above the stove to my left. In it, it looked as if I were
half-sitting in the edge of the bench, about to rise.

Anyone who has
had a normal life would not have under-stood what I felt men. I was entirely
fascinated and entirely re-pelled. I had never seen mess before. I had lived in
a manor house my whole life; servants kept the place clean, and I kept my
tilings shipshape and tidy, or else was slapped on the knuckles by Mrs. Wren's
dread meter stick. (That meter stick and the welts it raised is one reason why
I will always prefer the English system to the metric.) The grounds and gardens
were orderly and trimmed; everything was put away at nights.

But this ... I
had not imagined that people could live this way. It looked like the den of
some animal rather than a place for people.

I wondered
where in the world I was.

In the mirror,
I saw the rags on the cot move, and a brown bear poked its snout out of the
fabric and rolled off the cot with a squeaking of rusty hinges and old wood.

I gasped and
turned my head. Mr. Glum was sitting on the cot, blinking stupidly. He wore a
long night-shirt of dull red, patched and holed in places, and clumps of his
chest hair peeked through the holes. One leg was on the floor. I saw his stump,
and saw how the flesh had been folded over below his knee and stitched into a
rough seam.

"Ah,
Melia," he said. "You've come."

I tried to
shrink back, but this only pressed the edge of the workbench more rudely into
my bottom.

"Come
over here," he said. "I'm in no mood to chase you. I am not to marry
you, if Boggin has his way, but mere is much to do which will not touch your
maidenhead. Take off your shirt and get down on your knees, here." The
narrow door to the shed was on the far side of the cot from where I was. I
started to edge toward my right, my hands still white-knuckled on the
workbench, around the foot of the cot.

He gave a
hollow laugh. "Stick, I truly want you now!" He put his hand out and
his crude cane, made out of a hoe staff, flipped up from the mess on the floor
and into his grip. He painfully levered himself upright.

Tottering on
one leg, he thrust the cane against the boards of the narrow door behind him.
"Door! Never have I wanted more that you should be locked fast, and let no
fair maiden as fine as this escape my grasp."

I heard a
heavy lock click shut, even though I could see plainly that there was no lock
on the door.

Between the
edge of the wall and the foot of the workbench was a comer. I pushed myself
into it as far as I could go.

Here I was, a
big and sturdy girl, tall and athletic, and there was him, short, old, and
crippled. No doubt I could have pushed past him, clubbed him in the face with
something, jumped over him, gotten away. If he had been a one-legged man in
truth.

But I did not
think he was a one-legged man. At that moment, I was convinced he was a
three-legged bear.

Grendel cocked
his head to one side, squinting. "You're out of the collar I put you in.
You look better in it. It shows the world that you're mine. I want it, I want
it, I want it back on!"

He raised his
hand and made a crook-fingered gesture toward my throat.

In the mirror,
I could see my frightened face, and I could see a little shadow beginning to
circle my neck, getting harder and more substantial...

"Ow!"
shouted Grendel, doubling over, clutching one hand in the other. His cane fell
to the floorboards with a loud clatter. There was a spot of blood welling up on
one hand.

At that same
moment, I saw in the mirror (but not in the room) a bloodstained shadow who had
stepped out from behind me, and reached across my shoulder with a spear tipped
with a stingray spine, striking Grendel's hand.

Grendel raised
his head, his eyes grown white and terrible with fear. "Either your balls
or your brains must be made of hard stone, girl. What were you thinking,
bringing a ghost here? A ghost!" He wobbled a bit on his one leg, and
looked like he was about to fall.

He must have seen
the confusion on my face, for he said, "You don't know, do you? Arthur's
Table lies not half a mile off. It marks me spot where the backstairs go down
into the Dark Land. This place, mis damn school, it were put here be-cause it
were so close to the spot where the path to the House of Woe comes out. Ghosts
don't walk here."

"Why
not?" I said.

He shook his
head. "It brings the Dog."

Even as he
said that, the wind outside the hut began to moan and howl. Two more howls
joined it.

The flames
playing around the embers in the stove trembled and began to go out, one by
one.

I looked over
my shoulder. There was nothing behind me but the boards of the wall, badly
caulked and water-stained. To the nothing, I said, "Telegonus, run
away."

Grendel
smirked, and said, "He ain't going to run away, that one. I seen him
fighting Neptune's men when they killt him. Fought even after he'd lost. Even
after he'd died. He don't give up. And he knows me. He knows how I got no power
over you while he's here."

I said, half
to myself, "Ghosts are from Erichtho's paradigm. The concept of a
disembodied spirit is a dualistic concept."

One by one,
little embers died. It grew darker in the small room.

"He's
coming," said Grendel. "The Dog's boss. The Unseen One. I feel my
bone marrow turning cold."

Grendel
stooped and fell onto his cot, hugging himself with both hands. His face was
slack and pale with fear. "Get out, both of you! Before He comes ..."

More light
died. More gloom grew. I could only see the sil-houette of Grendel's face now, the
texture of his scruffy cheek, the stubble of his bald head, the glitter of his
eyes.

"Go! He
might be here now. In the room. You, I'll see you in the morning, little golden
princess."

I said,
"You're the one. They need you to erase my memory. None of the other
paradigms will work on me."

The shadowy
head nodded. "That's right. All I need do is have the spirit in me move me
to it. What I want bad enough, I get." The howling grew louder. Now it did
not sound like wind at all, but like a hound indeed, one as large as the sky,
approaching as fast as the wind.

The last
embers in the stove flared up and died. The coals glowed cherry-red a moment,
then went black. The light was gone.

The door
rattled in the frame. The little hut seemed to shake.

Then,
suddenly, it all fell silent. The world seemed to hold its breath.

In the
darkness, it seemed to me as if the shed walls had shrunk to the size of a
coffin. I could hear Grendel breathing; I could almost hear his heartbeat; the
sounds seemed louder in the lightlessness, as if Grendel were pressed up
against me.

I only had a
moment. I had to think of something to say.

I whispered,
"Grendel, darling. Poor, handsome Grendel. You cut off your foot for me
... because you wanted me ... let me keep the memory of how much you wanted me
..."

"Don't
try to trick me, little bint," he growled back. I imag-ined I could almost
feel his breath on my cheek.

"No
trick. I am not in love with you and I never will be. I feel sorry for you,
really. But... I am flattered. You almost had me, didn't you? I was tied up
hand and foot, and gagged, and it was your hands that tied me up. I was hoisted
on your shoulder with my hip pushed up against your cheek. We were alone. No
one else saw it. No one else knew you had me, no one but you and me."

He didn't
answer. His breathing sounded loud in the gloom.

I said,
"Once I forget that day, the day you took me, who will know that it ever
happened? Oh, yes, you will remember. But only you. How will you know that you
didn't just imagine it?"

He spat,
" 'Tis a trick. You want to make my desire weak."

I pushed
myself away from the wall, took a step toward where I thought the cot was, and
reached out with my hands.

I touched his
cheek, and felt his razor stubble, and his shoulder, and the rough fabric of
his patched nightshirt.

He jumped,
startled, and grabbed my wrists with both his hands. His grip was tight,
vicelike, and I could feel the leathery calluses of his hands dig into my
flesh. His hands were so hard, so large, and so ill-smelling. I wondered how soft
and small and fragrant my hands felt and smelled to him.

Oh well. Might as well go for broke. It
was just words. Noises in a row. I could make myself say them.

"I want
to forget it," I said in a low, soft voice. "I want to be able to
look in your eyes tomorrow, and only see the stupid, low-class hired man I used
to think you were. I don't want you to look in my eyes and see the submission,
the desire to surren-der, you put there ..."

As well get
hung for a ram as hung for an ewe. Time to pull out all the stops. I promised
myself I would wash my mouth out with soap, later.

If I
remembered.

I leaned
closer and whispered teasingly:

"... You
told me you wanted me to be this way. A girl who likes it rough. A helpless
little slave-girl in a collar. Your collar. But I'll have forgotten that all
tomorrow. I'll have forgotten Grendel the Bear. You'll just be Glum, the
groundskeeper. Dumb Glum. Not my master anymore. Not anything. You'll be
calling me 'Miss' tomorrow, and I'll be looking down my nose at you ..."

There was a
polite knock at the door. Rap, tap.

Grendel let go
of me. There was a rusde and a thump. A whimper. From the direction of the
noise, it sounded as if Gren-del was trying to hide under his cot.

A voice as
cold as death said quietly. "By that Final Justice, gone on Earth but
known below; by Avernus and by Asphodel; by the eternal Law of the Abode of
Woe; I charge thee and compel: Open, open, in the name of Hell."

I had the very
distinct and strange impression that no voice was actually speaking; that
something like a cold energy was entering the room, and that it had an
intention, dark, remorse-less, severe, and pitiless. Something in the room was
... chang-ing... that cold force into words, into a little rhyme, to make it
understood to me; but also to protect me from what would have happened to me if
the naked radiations of that energy had gone, unfiltered, into my brain.

It was
Telegonus. He was standing between me and the door, although I could not see
him. The force from behind the door was passing through him. He was letting his
body act like the leaded glass that blocks dangerous and invisible wavelengths
of radiation. The door creaked and opened. I could see the snow-patched grass,
colorless beneath the starlight.

There came a
blur, and a shadow darkened. I saw the silhouette of a cloaked figure in the
doorframe. His elbows were up, and he was removing a plumed helmet from his
head.

There was
starlight on the snow behind him; I could see nothing of his armor or features.

He put the
helmet in the crook of one elbow, and reached out into the room toward me widi
his fist.

Slowly, he
rotated his fist so mat it was palm upward. He opened his fingers.

There was a
glimmering light mere, as if he held a star in the palm of his hand. From me
miniscule flake of light, I could see diat mat hand was covered widi a black
gaundet.

Telegonus
became opaque in front of me, and stumbled, and fell prone, like a puppet with
its strings cut.

A diree-headed
dog now stepped out of the shadows of me black figure's cloak, growling and
slavering.

Widi one head,
it bit into the flesh of Telegonus, and began to drag me corpse backward, back
into the shadows of the cloak.

The other two
heads turned. One toward me, one toward the shivering cot.

A cold voice
spoke. "Not these two, my pet. Very soon, my brute, but not yet. Grendel
has a place prepared him in my do-main, where he shall discover how weak and
temporary is the pain his crimes inflict on omers, when compared to perfect and
eternal pain. As for the girl, it seems she comes to me in slices. This
Phaethusa, on the morrow may be gone, and only Amelia, amputated in her memory,
bewildered, will remain."

Once again, I
had the intuition or impression mat Telegonus was blocking the force radiating
from mis being, turning un-seen droughts into words. But now I could see the
little light in the palm of the gauntlet flickering, as if in pain, as the cold
force passed dirough it. It was Telegonus. That httle light was him, me real
him.

The gauntlet
closed; the light was quenched.

At diat
moment, I woke in my cot, back in my cell. 4.

That morning,
with no ceremony or ado, Dr. Fell and Mestor the Atlantian, Miss Daw and Nurse
Twitchett, and Headmaster Boggin came down the corridor. Behind them, I could
hear the stumping tap of GrendePs wooden leg.

Mestor was
dressed in a dark suit and buff overcoat. He had bags under his eyes and did
not look well.

I sat up in my
cot with a rattle of chain. Miss Daw unlocked the bars and opened the door. She
then turned and blocked the door. She said, "Headmaster, it is not proper
for a girl to receive visitors clad only in her nightthings. Please take these
men out of eyeshot while Sister Twitchett and I clothe Miss Windrose."

Boggin said
jovially, "Ananias is a doctor; I am certain we can trust in his discretion.
Dr. Fell, if you please? And as Miss Windrose may soon be asleep again in a few
moments, there is no need to change her. Mestor and I will stay here, and check
the environment for any other clues of the disturbance we had last night"

Mestor said,
"The Wild Hunt was called by Bran; and the damned souls rode the storms,
looking for one of their own."

Boggin touched
him on the arm, and squinted, making the smallest possible shake of his head.
"Let us not disturb our young guest here with news that does not concern
her."

"Why
not?" said Mestor. "The girl isn't going to remember anything in an
hour anyway."

I clutched the
starchy blanket in front of me. "What are you going to do to me?!" I
shouted. "Why am I not going to remember anything in an hour?"

Boggin,
ignoring me, said in a kind voice to Mestor, "Ah, my dear friend, not only
have you frightened one of my girls here, you have evidently forgotten how much
you owe me, and how much you still have to owe. I see that the full, ah,
import, I am tempted to say, the full 'pressure' of the facts governing our new
relationship togemer have not been made ... ah ... pellucid to you."

Saying that,
without a single change of expression, he took Mestor's hand in both his hands.
Before Mestor could blink or think to turn his hand away, Boggin put both his
thumbs on the *bther man's pinky finger and flexed his hands, like a man
snapping a wishbone to make a wish. There was a crack as Mestor's little finger
broke. Mestor screamed and fell to his knees, astonished by the sudden pain and
shock.

Miss Daw and
Sister Twitchett turned away, shocked. Dr. Fell had not bothered to look up at
the commotion.

I was the only
one who saw Boggin bend down to Mestor, who was sobbing, clutching his hand to
his belly.

I saw Boggin's
lips move and I caught the smallest whisper of what he said in Mestor's ear. I
was able to piece together what he was whispering.

"And I am
not sure, dear friend, I have made it clear how up-set, yes, I might even say,
angry, your attempt to take our dear Miss Fair to your dreary, dank city of
slaves made me. The thought of that young innocent with your fingers touching
her... well, it was not a pleasant image to me."

Boggin
straightened up. He cleared his throat and said in a normal voice,
"Ananias ... ? Could you see to this after you are done with Miss
Windrose... ?"

Dr. Fell said,
"Of course, Headmaster. The infirmary never runs short on business when
you are around."

"What was
that, Ananias ... ?"

"Nothing,
Headmaster."

I had jumped
out of the cot at this time, and had backed up in the cell as far as the chain
would allow. Dr. Fell and Sister Twitchett rather matter-of-factly closed in on
either side of me, and grabbed my arms. The Sister was strong, but I could feel
her grip getting unsteady as I tugged against her; Dr. Fell's hands were like
the vice grip of a machine.

I screamed.

"Less
noise, please," said Dr. Fell.

I screamed to
Miss Daw, "Don't let them do this to me, Miss Daw! Please!"

She said in a
voice emotionless and remote: "The choice is not mine to make,
child." She turned and handed a small key to Grendel, who was limping in
short half-hops past where she stood. He had not been maimed long enough to
learn how to walk one-legged with any grace.

She said to
him, "You will have to unlock her, Grendel. None of us can work the
lock." He scowled at the key and snatched it gracelessly from her hand.

I tossed my
body with all my strengdi back and forth in the grip of Twitchett and Fell.
Twitchett snorted when my flying hair slapped her in the face. I screamed and
panted and arched my back and kicked with my legs.

I saw Grendel,
staring at my writhing, struggling body in fas-cination. His expression slipped
for a moment. Instead of the normal lust he might have felt seeing a helpless
and nubile girl writhing around in a torn nightshirt, something like pity
flickered in his eyes. He didn't like seeing me hurt. Maybe, in his perverted
mind, he wanted me to be afraid, but he only wanted me to be afraid of him. He
didn't like seeing other people make me scream. He didn't like seeing me
imprisoned, not just then.

Reality
slipped a bit, too. One of my higher senses flickered on, like a bruised eye
prying its lids open for a moment.

I could see
Dr. Fell. He looked... more flat... than the other people in the room. As if he
were just made of matter, a random clockwork made of atoms, nothing else. I saw
the drugs and potions he was carrying in a little case clipped to his belt.
Atomic structures glistened in rows and long chains, suspended in the fluid of
several hypodermics.

Time to do
something. I was not sure what. Something.

I saw
time-images overlapping the light-picture. In these im-ages, one of the needles
was destined go into my arm; one of the drugs was going to affect my nervous
system.

I bent that
world-line into a knot. The controlling monad for that group of chemicals was
inert, and the final causes of the atoms were deterministic, controlled
entirely by Newtonian cause-and-effect. The monad tilted in the Fourth
Dimension and came awake, bringing its meaning-axis to bear. Quantum
uncertainty increased in the atomic mixture. No different man what I had done
to restore Quentin's memory to him. New branches and stalks erupted on the
monad's tree of possible futures. It was no longer determined and inert.

It was done.
The chemical in the hypo now had free will.

I found an
energy wave passing between me and the control-ling monad for that atom group.
I impressed a communication force into the wave, and it passed on to the monad.
I asked it not to hurt me. The echo was an emotional wave, not words. But it
was a feeling of puppyish friendliness, a sort of, "OK! Whatever you
say!" enthusiasm.

Miss Daw saw
it. She opened her mouth to speak.

I bent a
world-line between me and Boggin, as if I were about to imprint a communication-wave
running to him. Miss Daw saw the strands of moral order snarl around the both
of us. If she betrayed my secret, I would tell Boggin that she had told me
about Myriagon. Maybe Boggin would not care. Maybe he would.

Miss Daw
glanced over at where Mestor lay on the floor. She closed her lips again, and
assumed the mask she always wore; all prim and proper, distant and remote.

Headmaster
Boggin said, "I just felt something bend des-tiny." He stepped over
to the disc player which was on the shelf. He measured the distance between it
and my cot, frowning.

He tried to
get it open, but I had jammed it shut.

Dr. Fell was
no more thrown off balance or moved by my violent struggles than a statue might
have been. He said in a bored voice, "Permit me, Headmaster."

I did not see
whatever magnetic force Fell reached across the cell with, but the disc player
went sprong, and the little door snapped open.

Boggin said,
"It seems the little dangerous one got the disc out somehow."

I didn't say
anything. I didn't even change expression. All I did was pause in my struggles
a little, and look at Sister Twitch-ett in surprise.

Boggin, Fell,
and Miss Daw noticed it. They all turned and looked at her, too.

Sister
Twitchett said in fear, "I had it on last night! I swear I hit that Utile
switch!"

Boggin said
smoothly, "We will discuss me matter of your dereliction ... ah, of your
gross dereliction, once we are done here. With the example of Mestor so, shall
I say, evident? Yes, evident, before the eyes of everyone, nothing ... overt...
needs to be done to you. You and I will come to some understanding, I am sure.
Meanwhile, check your purse and your locker to see where you left Miss Daw's
delightful little digital recording of her music. "Also, you and Doctor
Fell will have to examine the girl quite closely to see that she did not write
herself some note, or scratch any signs or marks into her flesh with her
fingernails, or swallow anything which might... ah... come out later, and give
her some clue as to what she is about to forget. The more thorough you are at
that little bit of cleanup, the more lenient I will be when discussing this ...
unfortunate... oversight of yours. The music was not playing last night, and
her powers are already beginning to stir. Grendel, if you will do the honors
... ?"

Grendel hopped
over to me, propped his crutch under his armpit, and took my head between his
hands. His palms were rough on my cheeks.

My higher
senses went dead. I was just the powerless girl he wanted me to be.

His eyes
stared into mine. My vision started to fade around the edges, as if a tunnel of
smoke were forming, with Grendel's eyes, Grendel's hungry, angry eyes, at the
axis of the tunnel. My head felt light, like a balloon about to float away ...

I licked my
dry lips. "Master..." I whispered. Or maybe I only formed the words
with my lips.

The tunnel
wobbled. His eyes lost strength. I could see the willpower leaking out of his
gaze, the certainty evaporating.

In his
paradigm, he could have anything he desired. If he de-sired it truly, and witii
all his heart. If he desired it, deep down, right to the core of his being,
without any hesitation or doubt.

Such an easy
paradigm to work with. But it had a flaw. Want-ing to desire something is not
the same as desiring it to the core of your being. You can't really order
yourself to be obsessed with something.

That was my
theory, at least. That was my hope.

And my theory,
and my hope, seemed pretty flimsy when Grendel just smirked and squinted, and
the darkness from the edges of my vision filled my eyes. This time, my head was
a balloon with its string cut, and my thoughts and memories, just like that,
just as quick as that, went up and away and were scattered.

Dimly, as from
a great distance, I felt Grendel lower me gen-tly (ever so gently!) to the
floor stones. I wondered how he managed drat with just one leg. Maybe it was
something he really, really desired to do. His voice: "I've made her body
be just made of atoms, like you wanted, Doctor."

I felt a dab
of cold cotton on my arm, and then a needle slid in. "She'll wake in the
infirmary, and we'll tell her what we told tire others; that she was gravely
ill wim pneumonia."

I kept
thinking: We failed: It is over, all over, ended, all ended. Our little
children's crusade, our rebellion against the gods and monsters pretending to
be our elders, had failed. Once my memory was wiped out all five of us would be
back where we had been at the beginning: merely dumb children again, weak,
powerless, unaware of our heritage, our strange abilities. Gone, all gone, all
of it is gone.

There was
nothing to hold on to, no way to keep my thoughts my own. Have you ever woken
up suddenly, eager to remember some perfect dream lingering in your thoughts,
only to have it vanish, like fog, at daybreak? So it was for me. The prison
doors were shut again: I was lost to myself.

But, deep in
my veins, I felt a happy, puppyish sense of warmth. It stayed in one spot, and
did not spread throughout my circulatory system.

Then it was
night

End of Part
One To Be Continued in Part Two

FUGITIVES of

Cfjaos