Colin was grinning. 'Yeah. I've got something to say. Yoo-hoo! Echidna! Can you hear me? I said your name. Here's the guy you were looking for! Hallo, hallo? GET 'EM!'
I saw it through the broken stained-glass window. A whirlpool opened suddenly within the waters behind, swallowing dozens of ships in an instant. Up through the tunnel of air, a figure rose, wrapped in shadow, growing.
Echidna, taller than a mountain, rose up out of the waves behind the ship on which Mavors stood.
Her face was more beautiful than before, made stern and noble by an inner light. But now she wore a tight-cheeked helmet with a nodding plume; a breastplate of barnacle- covered bronze was molded to her rounded breasts and flat abdomen; and in her slim white hands were both shield and spear, each a match for her monstrous size. The spear was taller than a minaret; the shield was a full moon.
Rivers fell from the shining scales of her snake-body, and her serpent colors wavered beneath the waves: green, green-gold, dappled gray and blue, and spotted red.
A monster, yes, but at the moment she was a monster on our side. I cannot tell you how lovely she looked, how proud, how brave.
Her voice was soft and cool as ice: 'Mavors, I am your death. My son Grendel, whom you slew, had no grave; nor shall you.'
Mavors said, 'Retreat, and I shall spare you. I hunt the sons and the daughter of Chaos this day.'
'The daughter of Chaos my daughter-in-law was meant to be. That joy died. She and I will know joy again when you fall.'
'I am battle itself. I will not fall, save to fall upon you. Let us begin.'
He gave a mighty shout and shook his spear. An aura of flame spread from him in all directions.
When she screamed a deadly falcon-wail, the sky turned black, and the waves leaped hundreds of feet into the air. A wild storm erupted.
Mavors cast the spear at her. His spear turned ruby red as it flew, and it shattered her vast shield and pierced her between her round breasts. It should have penetrated her heart.
She plucked it out with a gesture of indifference, flicking it aside, a toothpick. Meanwhile, with her other hand, she drove her titanic spear through the hull of the black ship in which Mavors stood and, with a twist of her hand, shattered the ship as if it were matchwood. Mavors went flying head over heels into the waters. His flame was quenched.
With her fine white teeth, she severed the straps of her broken shield, and tossed it from her, crushing a battalion.
Roaring their battle slogans, the Laestrygonians and Atlanteans rushed to the breach of the hull, casting spears and arrows at Echidna. Many dove into the water, to come to the aid of their chief.
Echidna paused only to breathe flame and poisonous smoke on the men, snatching up a half dozen of them in one tennis-court-size hand to stuff as bloody gobbets into her mouth before she inclined her head to the waters and lifted her huge lace-fluked tail.
Down she dove, seeking Mavors, and a rolling mile of speckled snake-tail trailed in a huge semicircle after her, up out of the waves where she had risen, down into the waves where she dove. Her scorpion sting lolled in the air for a moment, throwing spray high, and then she was gone.
Poisons came from the scorpion tail, mingled with the splash of spray as she dove, and Laestrygonians staggered away from the black rain, screaming, clutching bits of burned and melted faces.
A crewman from the golem shouted down, 'Boss! Boss! Should we go save Mavors?'
Mulciber said, 'What, him? Kidding, right?'
But the statue trembled under his hand at that moment, and sweat began to roll down his face.
'Uh-oh.'
Colin turned into a column of flame. The Atlantean next to me flinched back; several Laestrygonians leaped toward Colin in long, loping steps, shooting arrows as they came.
I was almost still too weak to stand, but I was not too weak to do something. I reached up into the heavy substance of hyperspace, the fluid medium thicker than liquid lead, and pulled it down, rotated a mass of it into this space.
A wash of fluid, a small lake, heavier and denser than anything made of matter, flooded into existence around me. Laestrygonians and Atlanteans were swept backwards. The hull underfoot gave way. Everything around me collapsed. Beneath was roaring sea, into which men and splinters were falling, tons of earth, upturned flowerbeds. »
I pushed most of my mass into the fourth dimension, and Colin put an arm made of flame around me.
