silent.
The spell that controlled the wild maenads had not dissolved when Lamia died; I saw the strands and wires jerk when that intolerably bright blue flame reached out, and all the maenads screamed and jumped. Zap. All magic gone.
Colin was shouting the harsh words of his song, music loud enough to hear above the din of gunfire, beams, bolts, and bombs:
What genius picked this battlefield?
Here, in the Dreaming, where I am Lord?
You picked unwisely. Your fate was sealed.
Today you die, ladies: You have my word.
For the Father of Lies, you made yourselves whores,
Thought you could cheat Hell? One final lie,
To sucker you into the hell of his wars
But I tell it straight, ladies: Today you die.
For war is chaos, and Chaos is ours!
And, as he sang, the mountainside danced. Break-dancing, I guess you could call it. Slam dancing.
Avalanche dancing. And once the rocks and boulders started doing pirouettes and tumbling tricks, the fires started from the incendiaries and explosions of the Victor-dragon wanted to join in.
Rolling balls of flame many yards wide, surrounded by billowing black smoke, now hopped and leaped and rocked and rolled all up and down the slope, tossing battalions in the air, quaking with laughter made of yellow flame.
Quentin floated or was drawn upward by a smoke shape that issued from his cloak. Surrounded by wraithlike shapes of mists and motes, Quentin raised his hands and found a white staff in them.
He stepped out onto the deck and stood in the shadow of the giant worm-thing. Pointing his bright wand, he spoke. 'Spirits with whom I have a pact: I unleash you from my wrist as a falcon upon my prey. Seize my foes and hold them helpless.'
He threw the wand to the deck behind him; it blazed too brightly for any eye to look upon, brighter than a lightning flash, but silent. His shadow was cast upward.
His flesh turned into fine clay, pale and immobile.
The sky from one horizon to the zenith turned black as ink and fell down on the enemy army. This was the real Quentin, too large to fit in any mortal body.
I said to Vanity, 'Open a trapdoor beneath them.'
Vanity said, 'Can I do that? My powers are not working here. Besides, I can't get a door that big.'
Victor, speaking over the cell phone in her pocket, said in a small, tinny voice: 'I have been stabilizing the matter in the area. Try it again.'
The dragon breathed out an azure hurricane. The black sky-stuff rolling over the screaming army turned to a slick black glass. The screams stopped. Movement stopped. I could see dim figures of women trapped inside it, flies in amber.
Vanity opened a trapdoor no bigger than my fist. It was enough for me. I rotated the whole mass of the trapped army into four-space, folded it into two and then one dimension, made it into a point, and sent it through the opening.
When the army reached the chaos, I released the pressure of the dimensional fold.
Colin played a few notes, soft and low. His ragged demon-things now towed the now-fully-three-dimensional black glass mass off into the chaos storm, deeper and deeper. I lost sight of them.
Gone.
No wonder they were afraid of us.
The winged shape of fire seeped back down into Quentin, who turned from fine porcelain back into flesh and blood, and opened his eyes.
The Swift God Thrice-Greatest
Quentin said to Victor, 'You should not have killed Lamia. It makes us vulnerable to enemy magic.'
An external speaker built into the armor of the dragon-worm crackled to life. 'I will attempt to negate any incoming magic, Leader.'
'It also might call the Psychopomp. He might come to gather her spirit, to save her from hell...'
Framed in the square of trapdoor leading up to the deck, I could see, against the burned sails and high blue sky beyond, the long metal head of the Victor-dragon, which still had the Phobetor-shaped Colin, steaming guitar in hand, hooves planted wide, atop it.
