Titans of Chaos

"The matter is complex. Each god has certain terrain that is his own, a realm where his will rulesfate. But if events occur where two influences overlap, there is considerable controversy,restrained, to a degree, by precedents long ago established, and to a degree the conflict isrestrained by a gentlemen's agreement among ourselves to avoid an open fate-war."

"Mavors ordered Amelia to lead the five of us back to an island where we would be attacked byLamia, a blood-drinking vampiress, who wants to kill us as the quickest way to break the trucebetween Cosmos and Chaos. Can you stop this decree?"

This was the Vanity from Vanity Island: the leader-woman, sharp and concise. I admit I used tothink of her as silly. But silly was not the same as happy.

And anyone can afford to be silly when she is a prisoner, or a child, not in control of her own life,making no decisions that matter to anyone. That is what she used to be. Helpless and thereforesilly. Me, too, I guess.

Through the walls, I saw Archer, with a rustle of his wide wings, step from the closet and advancetoward Vanity. "Indeed I can halt the decree of the war-god, sending young girls in love to war,for you are in my realm, not his. But will I? Love is a fickle thing. Why should I grant thispetition? Have any of you vowed fealty to me?" He looked left and right again. I could sensesome sort of pressure wave coming from his fourth-dimensional armor, and sweeping back andforth to the "red" and "blue" of me. Again, his extensions into the fourth dimension wereartificial, not part of his nervous system. I don't think his senses could interpret what he saw veryclearly. He could not just look through walls. If I stayed flat in three dimensions, his radar (orwhatever it was) did not see me.

"Where is your leader? Helion's daughter, the shepherdess? Boreas told me she was the one whowas in charge of your merry band. The smart one, he called her."

Well, the so-called smart one at that moment did not want him to know how Vanity had gotten meout of the room; nor was I eager to continue the conversation in my underthings. Nude andblushing is not the way to talk to a love-god. I noticed that Vanity was not being distracted byasides as I had been.

Following the shortcut Vanity made for me, I found myself back in my little dressing room.