There was another television, just as large, with another little box, in our room. There was a telephone, so Vanity or I could telephone to the boys in the other bedroom, if we did not feel like shouting across the suite.
I had read many plays in school, but I had never actually seen a play until the night Vanity and I went down to watch the show. There was dancing and music along with it, and the people sang to each other; I did not know whether that was normal for plays or not.
Victor said our rate of speed was twenty-five knots. There was no chop, no sensation of motion, even when the seas got rough. You could lie on your bed, your enormous, enormous bed, and look out the porthole in the morning, and watch the rising sun come up red and gold over the sea, and watch the restless waves flow by, minute by minute and hour by hour, always changing, never changing.
And as far as the eye could see, there were no obstructions, no obstacles, no one to block us or hem us in. The horizon was so far away, so very far away.
I was in love with that horizon, and I never tired of looking at it.
3.
To get from the Argent Nautilus to the motorboat, Victor carried Quentin, who said his "friends" were made nervous by the sea, Mid would not come to his call. I carried Vanity piggy-back, because I could manifest my wings without touching her, even though she was occupying what seemed to be the same space.
Vanity then closed her eyes and napped (or something) and told the silvery ship to go circle Antarctica. I waved good-bye as the ship sped away, swift as a seabird skimming the waves.
We had a while to wait while the rescuing cruise ship traveled from the horizon to our position, and I filled up the time talking. I did almost all the talking, because they wanted to hear the details of everything that had happened to me that I had not had a chance to tell them before. I had a million questions myself, but kept putting off asking them, thinking I would have time later.
As it turned out, I only had time for one question. "What happened to you all after Colin was flung by Miss Daw off the cliff? Where were you kept in jail for that week?"
Quentin said, "Boggin breathed on Colin as he was falling and floated him to the ground. Rather nice of the old fellow, actually, considering that Colin was a would-be axe murderer."
Victor said, "None of us were in jail for a week, or even a day. We all had our powers neutralized by Fell and Wren and Daw, and were subjected to one or more memory-blocking techniques."
"Why was I singled out?"
Victor: "They needed your keeper, Mr. Glum, and he was not available."
Quentin: "Glum wasn't exactly inspired to help Bog-gin. Other things on his mind, you know."
Vanity: "And later, he was in hospital, recovering from leg amputation."
I wanted to ask them how they discovered this, but by that time, a motor launch from the ship was coming abreast of us, and we had to wave and shout and look lost.
4.
Our first chance to be alone did not come until sunset. We said good-bye to Miguel, who was very kind to us and did us favors. He wore a white jacket, and I am not sure what you call a butler or waiter at sea.
A steward? A cabin boy? Whatever his rank, both he and everyone had been so very kind to us, it was hard to believe.
In fact, I did not believe it. As soon as Miguel was out the door (and I looked "past" the door to see that he was moving away down the plushly carpeted corridor), I put my back to the door, and turned accusingly to Quentin.
"You hypnotized them, didn't you? Captain Warwick and the others? The bursar."
Quentin, Victor, and Vanity had finished their initial inspections of the suite. Vanity had ooh'd and ahh'd over the luxury, hopping and clapping her hands, while Victor had probed the walls with rays, looking for electronic bugs. Now they were all seated in an impromptu picnic in the middle of the carpet, pulling open the savory packages Miguel had brought us from the galley. There was food of a kind I had not seen before, with meat or fish salad rolled up into a flat unleavened bread. At least, I think it was bread.
Vanity had already dropped crumbs on the carpet, crumbs someone else (not us!) was going to clean up.
Victor was inspecting a bottle of soda pop, a brand he had not seen before, something with an Italian label in a green glass bottle.
Quentin was also seated cross-legged on the carpet. He carefully brought his hands out from beneath his voluminous cloak, and twisted them in midair. One moment, his hands were empty; the next, he had the ring of Gyges in one hand and an exasperated-looking eagle in the other. The eagle was no longer seeping any blood. As far as I could tell from a one-glance inspection, he seemed entirely recovered from wounds which should have killed him nine times over.
The eagle hopped from Quentin's hands and drove his beak into a sandwich, which was lying on a napkin on the floor.
Quentin looked up. "It wasn't me. I don't have that art. I think chapter seven might tell me about the vapors and humors affecting the intellectual and passionate psyches, but even that would only influence moods, not control minds."
I said, "Well, someone did something. Why wouldn't they just radio for a coast guard or something? Or call back to England and tell Boggin?"
Vanity said, "There are a lot of people in England. I don't think they all know each other's names yet.
Maybe after Christmas. Hey! Try these potato things. They have some sort of spicy stuff baked into them."
Quentin said, "We did pay a great deal of money for a cabin that otherwise he had not rented out for this crossing. Besides, isn't it a law of the sea that one must rescue stranded blondes and redheads?"
Vanity said, "They would have been quicker to pick us up if Amelia and I had been in bathing suits, like I suggested."
I sat down and tried the potato things. They really were quite good.
Victor said, "I did it. I used a cryptognostic technique on the captain. Every time his nervous tension levels started to trigger a glandular reaction, I interrupted the stimulus cycle in his hypothalamus.
Whenever one of us spoke, or he looked closely at us, I lightly stimulated the pleasure center of the brain. I did not have long enough to establish a true operant conditioning cycle, but apparently it was enough to influence his judgment in our favor."
I was upset by this news. "That's terrible! You can't go around tinkering with people's inner thoughts that way! What makes you any different than Corus, the brain-eraser? Or Dr. Fell?!"
Victor said in a dismissive tone, "The process would not affect the judgment of people who did not make decisions on an emotional basis."
I said hotly, "I think we need to discuss how we are going to use our powers, and whether normal people should be off-limits!"
"Fine," said Victor, taking a bite of the wrapped-up food roll-thing. (Maybe it was a Mexican food?) He chewed and swallowed, and said, "Let us add it to the agenda right after point five, which I believe is tabled until we restore Colin. Restoring Colin is the topic that has the floor at the moment. Any theories as to why Quentin's true-shape charm is not working? Amelia… ? Anyone… ?"
Vanity said, "Colin is not a witch flying on a rafter. Don't look at me like that! That was in the poem he said."
Quentin said, half to himself, "That little poem' is the words of the High One."
"Besides, the little poem Quentin said is meant to prevent witches from returning to their day-shapes, isn't it?"
Quentin just sighed, and said to Victor, "I am sure that someone versed in the true science could restore Colin swiftly. I am an apprentice without a master, working from a book."
Victor said, "Do you have anything else you could try?"
Quentin sighed, and looked at the cabin ceiling for a moment. "I could ask Marbas, who is a great president, and governs thirty-six legions of spirits, and who also can change men into other shapes—but that demonstration would require that I accomplish the figure of memory first, which I can only do on the new moon…