Titans of Chaos

Vanity rode on my back amid wings made of flame-colored music-energy.

Of course she would have preferred Quentin to carry her in his arms, but the nervous shyness ofhis familiar spirits made that unlikely. She complained while we flew that she could have found ashortcut through a phone-booth door or something directly to the deck. Then she said I was tooclose to the water, and then that I was too high, yak, yak, yak. Backbone driver!

Through the dark clouds above the nocturnal sea, I saw the red planet, Mars, winking at me like adistant light above the far horizon, mysterious, untrod by man, and I wondered how high I couldfly. These are questions every young aviatrix asks herself: How far, how high, how fast, underwhat weather conditions?

We lit on the deck with a swirl of gravitic rainbows, or levitated silently as if riding an invisibleelevator, or stepped down from the shadows in the night air, or pretended to be a bird untiltickled and kissed by Vanity and me back into being human. Jerk.

We stowed the gear in convenient cabins under the deck that Vanity found (or created) for us. Theboys waited above impatiently while Vanity and I changed. I am sure they rolled their eyes andmade boyish comments, but still, I was not going to go sailing in an evening dress. I put on a verysensible dark sweater, dark blue jacket, white slacks, deck shoes. And no reason not toaccessorize, since Vanity had bought me a cute little necklace of fine gold in Paris. And no reasonnot to brush my hair, since it did not make sense for me to have my hair amess if I were dressednicely, did it?

Back up on deck, Victor seemed not to notice how I was dressed. Second jerk.

But I looked all captainy and official. "Miss Fair!" I called out in my best Bligh voice. "You mayweigh anchor and set our destination. Some fine deserted island, empty of men or gods, where wemay tarry for a while in peace!"

Vanity raised her hands and closed her eyes, and intoned in a theatrical voice: "Argent Nautilus,beloved ship, vessel white to carry us to freedom! Find me an uninhabited island!"

The Silvery Ship raised no sail. Silently, with no hand at the tiller, we sped away under the stars.

Untasted Waters and Untrodden Sands