A cloud of dark air, containing the internal nature of Quentin, swept up around us. He breathed.
Magic and oxygen were force-fed into Colin, who blazed brighter and hotter, fiercer and wilder.
Quentin said, 'My body's turned to stone and I cannot get back into it. Victor and Vanity are both stone, too. Wounded, but frozen. We need to get to them.'
Colin said, 'Thanks for including me in that spell. When it broke for you, it broke for me. Or did Trismegistus do that by accident by making us all the same for all?'
Mulciber, still crouched over the trembling statue of Trismegistus, called out, 'Stop! I can still have my Taloi get you! Gun crew! Stand ready!'
Gun turrets rotated to cover us. A mass of riflemen came out of hatches on the neck, and stood formed into ranges along the epaulettes of the metal giant, field guns and rifles at the ready.
Quentin said, 'Colin, can you break the deck between Mulciber's feet where he is standing, if you had to? Get ready.'
From the column of Colin, an arm of white-hot fire drew back, and a mass of flame shaped like a pinwheel, turning, began to glow on the end of it, intolerably bright.
Mulciber said, 'Oh, come on! Fire doesn't hurt me. I am the god of volcanoes. I piss lava.'
Colin said, 'Burns decks, though. You might drop your prisoner.'
Quentin said, 'Sir, we mean no disrespect, but we cannot allow you to imprison us. I am supposing the god of iron and stone is diminished in resources when plunged into deep ocean?
Can you make the same boast Mavors made, and tell us you can maim us without killing us with the huge guns on your machine?'
Mulciber took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. 'This is not a good day. Should've stayed in bed. Hey! Miss Windrose! You in that mess of flames somewhere?'
I called back, 'I am very well, thank you, Lord Talbot. I mean, Mulciber. This fire doesn't hurt me.'
He squinted and shrugged his huge shoulders, a grotesque rolling motion. 'Phaethusa, you know I've nothing against you. Believe me, I've got nothing against your kind. But the universe ain't mine to take risks with. I'm going to have to attack, and I'll hurt you and your friends pretty badly before it's over, and you all getting yourselves killed is as much bad to me as if I let you go. You see? You see what I am saying?'
'Sir, I am not going to hurt the world, or let my people in Chaos hurt it. It is the only world I know. But I am going to be free, and so are my friends!'
'I just want your word on that.'
'My... my word... ?'
'You're old enough to know what it means. You know what I am asking.'
I spoke quickly, before Quentin or Colin could tell me not to do so.
And so I said, 'I swear it.'
He bent over and gripped the statue of Trismegistus with both hands.
Mulciber looked up. 'And I decree you'll not survive what comes if you break that oath, not you nor your friends neither. Agreed... ?'
I said, 'As long as I am free, I agree.'
Mulciber looked back down at the statue of Trismegistus. He looked quite grim, and wrinkles crumpled up his knotty face.
He spoke again: 'Okay. You caught me at a busy time. Your good luck, I guess. Go. Take your friends. Get a medical kit from some of these bodies lying around the deck here. And if you ever decide you want that job after all, look me up. Okay?'
Fate and Freedom
The gray waves of the North Sea pitched and rolled the silvery boat, and a cold drizzling fog woven with blowing snowflakes attempted to make us miserable as we shivered on the deck.
The attempt failed. Vanity's face was red with cold, and frost had gathered on the furry hem of her parka hood, and snowflakes on her delicate eyelashes, but delight simply burned from her. In one hand she held her champagne glass. The bottle was tucked into a lump of snow which had gathered beneath the stern bench, since we did not have an ice bucket. Victor was solemn and glad; Quentin could not cease from smiling.
Victor raised his glass, and said in a voice that lacked its usual stern note: 'It is too soon to celebrate. The fate of death hangs over us, and we must proceed rigorously and logically. The experiment is still awaiting results.' Then he forswore his words by taking a long sip of the bubbling, bright liquid.
Vanity hiccuped, and giggled, covering her nose with her mitten. 'Nope! Here he comes.
Experimental results. He's looking for the boat.'
Across the dark sea the moon sent here and there a slanted pillar of silver light into the heaving mass of snowy waters.
