energies.
'Next time I kill him! Oh, God, I swear! Next time! Pow! He's a lump of dead meat! I would have done it this time, too, if Quentin hadn't zapped me!'
A segment of the darkness beyond the second window pushed itself into the frame, and when it ebbed, Quentin was standing there, a cloak as dark and weightless as the night sky drawn all around him.
He gestured, and all the windows slid shut. A pressure in my ears told me that all the sounds carried on the winds had been hushed.
Quentin said gently to Colin, 'It was well for you that I did. Now then, give me the ring. As soon as the stars are right, I can cast the spell to confound the fate that allows the Master of the North Wind to find her, and let her wear the ring while the spell takes hold. Gyges' ghost will blind even the senses used by Boreas to find her.'
In the other room, the fireplace swung open on hidden hinges, and Victor and Vanity came out from the secret passage. Victor was also carrying an Amazonian-style weapon he had constructed.
I could see, in the secret room beyond, the slab on which the two duplicates of me Victor had made or grown were resting; one was dressed in my San Diego evening dress, the other in my red bathing suit.
Vanity's eyes were round and wide.
'Wow! I cannot believe you just let him kiss you!' And she marched up to Quentin and slapped his face.
'Ouch.' He said mildly, 'May I ask what that was for?'
'You are staring at her breasts!'
He offered her the crook of his arm. 'Let us go the twenty yards down the secret passage to our rooms overlooking the French Riviera. I will be happy to stare at yours.' I saw him put the ring of Gyges carefully in his pocket, and he escorted her out of the room.
There I was in the bathroom, alone with two men who loved me, naked as a jaybird, cold, and wet.
I looked back and forth between them, and they stared awkwardly at each other.
Colin said to Victor, 'I'll wrestle you for her.'
Victor stepped over to me, seized me by the shoulders, picked me up to my feet, and then an inch or so above that, so I was standing on my tiptoes. He bent his head down and kissed me. Not as roughly as Boreas had done, but much, much more thoroughly.
Wow. He was a pretty good kisser, too. Like everything else he put his mind to, Victor Triumph was driven to excel at this.
When Victor drew his head away, I could barely breathe, and I guess I did not want to breathe any air that did not have the warm smell of Victor on it. I put my cheek up against his chest.
Victor said to Colin, 'We have been wrestling. You've lost two falls out of three. No hard feelings, I hope, old sport.'
He put out his hand.
For a moment, I was sure Colin was going to spit at him, or throw down his truncheon, or something. But he exercised his self-control, put out his hand, and shook.
Colin said, 'Okay. Fine. Maybe the man was right. A half-blind monkey could see it from a mile away on a foggy day.'
As he was heading out through the fireplace door, he turned. With a little gleam of impishness in his eye, he said, 'Or maybe not. The contest is not over yet. Girls like a man who can push them around, not vice versa.'
Victor said sardonically, 'You can play with the robot doll of her, if you like.'
Colin stepped out behind the fireplace, which swung shut behind him, leaving me alone, gloriously alone, with Victor.
I said, 'Now let me put on some clothes.'
He said, 'Not yet.'
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John C. Wright burst onto the SF scene with his wildly acclaimed Golden Age trilogy (The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcendence) and emerged as a unique new voice in fantasy with The Last Guardian of Everness and Mists of Everness. He now continues in his Nebula-nominated Chronicles of Chaos series.
