Titans of Chaos

I was two miles up, going Mach ten, before the dogs of cloud closed in on me. The blind,narrow-headed greyhounds were horrible to look at, and their teeth were like icicles. But theyhung to every side of me, running straight up as I soared, some leaping ahead, baying andbarking, some falling behind. I ignited the atmosphere around me to form a multicolored aura offree-willed air to protect my friends, and Vanity made a quick pass with her green stone to give uslaws of nature favorable to our attempt.

She must have done something clever, because the dogs still could not close with us, but our otherabilities were permitted. Victor was turning to gold, his flesh peeling away in grotesque strips sothat a harder integument underneath could take its place. A darkness gathered around Quentin,and he seemed to burn with black fire, but the acceleration was not hurting him, and his speedwas as great as mine, or Victor's.

Colin was hanging on for dear life. No, sorry, he was grinning like a devil, with one arm clenchingmy waist, and one arm around Vanity. He was slipping slowly downward, so his nose wassomewhere pressed into my bosom, and Vanity was being likewise crushed up against his lustyself. Jerk. But he must have been inspired, or something, because the friction and accelerationwere not even mussing his hair.

Underfoot, I heard Lady Phoebe wind her hunting horn, a long, chilling note.

At that noise, Victor pointed a finger, and an invisible beam punched a clean hole though the skulland breast of two of the clamoring dogs at his heels, passed through the clouds below, and left acircle in the cloudbank as neat as a mechanical punch might make. The Huntress must have beendirectly below. The horn-note squawked and died.

Victor sent a radio beam toward me, a silent commutation that ignored the hurricane of windnoise all around us. "She is doing magic. I can hold some of it back, but she has millions of ergs ofelectromagnetic life-forms, many more than Quentin commands."

Up. Straight up. There was nowhere else to go. I could not go right or left. If I went into thefourth dimension, I would be going much slower, and I could also see her dog things were partlyin my paradigm: They were flickering in and out of the moonlight of earthland and dreamlandfreely. If I left three-dimensional space entirely, they might get me.