Fight and Flight by Sea
The battle was exciting for everyone but me. It was over before I did anything; not that I mind not being exposed to more danger, thank you. Staring into the eyes of Echidna might not seem like much compared to what else the others did during those next ten minutes, but it was enough for me, that day.
Our Silvery Ship came upon (and sped past) the lifeboat containing Victor and Quentin in the waters of Earth. They had rowed to outside the ward, and their powers had come back on.
There were black ships burning to every side of Victor. I think he was precipitating pure oxygen out of the atmosphere or up from the water, and gathering trace amounts of phosphorous together from the glowing lamps of the undersea torches carried by the Atlanteans to make an incendiary. There was apparently enough chlorophyll in the plankton for him to make chlorine gas, and streamers of poison were issuing from the boiling water around him, green and horrid in the light of the burning ships. The trace chemicals in the enemy ornaments and weapons had been disintegrated out and recombined to make toxins and acids.
Despite all this, I did not see the moral energy snarls one would expect to see from committing murder. The Atlanteans were staying well away from the areas of water frothing with poison, and it looked as if the Laestrygonians aboard the burning ships were immune to fire. All this visible horror and destruction Victor was shedding was distraction. His real attack were groups of small molecular packages distributed widely over the area, which, if inhaled, influenced the central nervous system to send panic and fear signals to the brain, release adrenaline, cause selective shutdowns in the cortex and higher-reasoning centers. Apparently, there was a mechanical cause for determining which way a flight/fight reaction would go, and he was setting it to "flight."
Quentin was invisible-in all this confusion, he still was carrying the ring of Gyges, which Colin had handed him to perform his astronomy experiments. I never saw what he did, and he did not talk about it later, but I do not think he was simply hiding and letting Victor do all the work. Once or twice I saw a shadow moving on the black ships, silhouetted by the flames Victor was spreading, and it bent over any Laestrygonian whose helmet contained more plumes than the others. Those to whom the shadow spoke did not look at it, but cast their weapons away and jumped into the sea. Every time I tried to look at the shadow, my higher sense bent away, and I lost sight of it.
And Colin-it really was a good day for Colin. He picked up the first Atlantean he came across by the legs and used him like a baseball bat to knock the others reeling. They shot arrows into his arms and legs and he just laughed and ignored them, plucking them out and wiping away the red ink from his untouched limbs. They threw nets on him and he threw them back; they belabored him with truncheons and he plucked the staves from their hands and broke them over his knee. He was like one of those absurd characters from Irish folklore who doesn't need armor, cannot be hurt, and can toss around trained soldiers like dolls. He threw them off the ship one after another, shouting out my name each time he made a throw. I had become his battle cry.
They were not trying to kill him, and he returned the favor. Tossing Atlanteans into the water would not drown them; they were amphibious. I do not think he ever broke any limbs, except on people whom he recognized as having climbed back up the gunwales more than once.
Colin got his hands on the commander of the squad, or, at least, an Atlantean with nicer looking blue-and-green scale mail than the rest, and was holding him up in midair, shaking him by the throat, shouting at him.
Storm-winds and thunder crashed all around him as he paced the reeling, rain-washed deck, hauling the struggling man toward the rail. Then Colin mounted the prow, dangling the man over the water, shouting again at him.
This time, the thunder was less, and I heard what the shouts were about. Was it something like, Call off your men? No. Nothing so sensible.
"WHO IS THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD? SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY THE NAME I TOLD
YOU TO SAY!"
"A-Amelia! Amelia Windrose!"
"PRETTIER THAN YOUR GIRL?"
"Ye-yes sir! Much prettier!"
"GOD BLESS YOU FOR AN HONEST MAN!" roared Colin over the storm. "YOU GET TO
LIVE!" And he threw the man headlong into the raging sea, a hundred yards if it was an inch.
How sweet. I mean, really. It was sweet.
If you are wondering why, during all this, the Atlanteans and Laestrygonians did not unleash horrific magic upon us all, or blast us with space-age weapons from some futuristic parallel dimension, or even unlimber their deck-guns and blow a hole into our ship, the reason (as far as I can tell) is that Vanity saved us.
The Silvery Ship was skipping like a wild dolphin from wave-crest to wave-crest, and the sleek black ships were darting like dark sharks in her wake. But the moment we crossed the invisible line (invisible to all but me) separating the waters of the other sphere from the waters of Earth, the ward blocking our powers was crossed, and the green stone hanging around Vanity's neck began to glow. It was beneath her shirt, and only I saw it, I, whose vision was not stopped by merely three-dimensional surfaces.
It was glowing when she and I, wrapped in Colin's arms, fell through her secret trapdoor and landed on that mattress. It was glowing when Colin tried to molest her and she slapped him, and he went bounding like a super ninja movie hero on wires up out of the hold to battle the Atlanteans.
Before another word was spoken, Vanity, without bothering to stir from the mattress, clasped both hands to her bosom and bent her head, concentrating. The Silvery Ship skipped back across the ward, shutting down my powers; I went blind. I could hear the noise of rushing waters, and felt the bucking and leaping of the deck beneath me, and that was all.
Then, on again. The Silvery Ship was once more in the waters of Earth, and our pursuit, streaming fans of spray rushing from them as they passed the speed of sound, came bearing down on us. But, at the moment, the ward was between them and us. They were still in the waters of the other place.
Vanity did something. I saw lines of energy fold and sway; the intersection of the two universes quivered. Beyond that, I was not sure what it was she did.