The Demi-Monde: Summer (20 page)

All three were men to be very, very wary of.

Kondratieff turned up the gas mantles dotted around the walls of the hall housing the Column, revealing it in all its glory, glowing green in the flickering light and standing an imposing six metres tall. He could see from de Sade’s expression that even though he had seen the Column before, he was still awed by its size and power: he circled it carefully examining the inscriptions rendered in Pre-Folk A etched into each of the six faces. These were the inscriptions that Kondratieff’s friend Professeur Michel de Nostredame had translated, revealing them to voice chilling predictions regarding Ragnarok and the End of Days.

‘Magnificent, isn’t it?’ Kondratieff suggested.

Duke William yawned. ‘It’s just some big piece of stone,’ was his assessment as he lounged down into a chair and lit another cigarette. ‘Boring to the max. Blasé-blah-blah-blah!’

De Sade ignored his charge’s imbecilic observation. ‘More than magnificent, Kondratieff, it is also of great metaphysical significance, so much so that the Doge IMmanual, in her divinely inspired wisdom, wishes the Column moved to a home more befitting its importance.’

Kondratieff mimicked bewilderment. ‘A home?’

‘After discussions with His Highness, Grand Vizier Selim, it has been agreed that the Column be given a permanent home in the Temple of Lilith that stands in the HubLand bordering NoirVille.’

The last thing Kondratieff needed telling was where the Temple of Lilith was. All preHistorians knew where the Temple was, which, unfortunately, was about all they did know about it. The Temple was a vast Mantle-ite structure set slap-bang in the centre of the NoirVille Hub and that had – so legend had it – been the place where Lilith had worked her magic. It was from the Temple that she had drawn her occult power.

Of course, this was all conjecture. The Temple had been sealed by Lilith before the Confinement and no one – and a great many mages had tried and failed – had managed to prise its doors open since. Not that there had been any
recent
attempts: following the triumph of HimPerialism in NoirVille the Temple had been declared taboo, the guardians of HimPerialism apparently believing it to be inappropriate for Men who practised Man
²
naM sex and who followed the precepts of Machismo to venerate a temple celebrating the cult of the Dark Witch, Lilith. The last time Kondratieff had seen the Temple it had been barely visible beneath an overgrowth of ivy.

‘I am surprised,’ lied Kondratieff. ‘I understood that His HimPerial Reverence Mohammed al-Mahdi is strongly opposed to efforts being made to open the Temple.’

‘The political situation has changed somewhat, Kondratieff,’ said Selim airily. ‘With the rapprochement of NoirVille and Venice it is thought vital that there should be some symbol of this burgeoning friendship and what better symbol could there be than the reclaiming of the Temple of Lilith?’

Kondratieff frowned. ‘To reclaim it, Your Highness, the Temple has first to be opened and that has defeated the Demi-Monde’s best minds for over a thousand years. The devices and
conjurations Lilith used to close the Temple have proved themselves to be impervious to attack and beyond the wit of HumanKind to avoid.’

A condescending chuckle from de Sade. ‘You will have noticed, Kondratieff, that Doge IMmanual is quite apt at doing that which mere mortals such as you and I find impossible. She is, after all, the Messiah sent by ABBA to lead us through Ragnarok and on to Rapture.’

Kondratieff hoped the bland smile he gave as a reply was sufficiently convincing. The Lady IMmanual wasn’t so much the Messiah as the
Beast
who would lead HumanKind over a cliff and plummeting into the Abyss.

‘You will be pleased to hear, Kondratieff, that Doge IMmanual has opened the Temple and intends to rededicate it on the final day of Summer, on Lammas Eve. We will need the Column transported to the Temple by then.’

Despite himself Kondratieff gawped, astonished by the blithe manner in which de Sade described the enormously difficult task of moving the Column to the Hub. ‘At the risk of sounding a little defeatist, Your Holiness, I would remind you that the Column is very big and very heavy. It weighs almost two hundred tons.’ Images of steamer-crawlers dragging the Column across the Hub came to mind. They weren’t particularly reassuring images. ‘And with it being Summer, the nanoBites are very active in the Hub. I am therefore at a loss as to how such a feat might be accomplished.’

If the way he waved Kondratieff’s concerns away was any indication, de Sade seemed utterly careless of the obstacle presented by the nanoBites. ‘That is why I have come to visit you today, Kondratieff. You are one of Venice’s foremost scientists, so the Doge IMmanual wishes you to assume the responsibility of organising the transportation and erection of the Column. My thoughts are that it should be encased in a
metal cylinder and floated down the Nile to the Wheel River where it can be brought ashore at a landing point opposite the Temple.’

Kondratieff felt the furrows on his brow deepen. De Sade wasn’t listening to him. ‘An ingenious plan, Senior Prelate, but one which still leaves us with the conundrum of how to move the Column from the landing point, across the Hub, and thence to the Temple. As I say, the nanoBites are very active at this time of year.’

‘Being built of Mantle-ite, the Column is impervious to attack.’

‘Unfortunately, the steamer-crawlers and the navvies needed to haul the Column are not.’

‘Tut, tut, Kondratieff, you must learn to trust the ABBA-guided wisdom of Doge IMmanual. She has advised me that there is an ancient Mantle-ite road leading from the Wheel River to the Temple which has become overgrown and forgotten. Even as we speak, workmen are clearing it. The majesty of the Divine Way will soon be revealed.’

A Mantle-ite road? There were no records in the ancient literature of there ever being such a road. Despite himself Kondratieff felt a quiver of excitement. Opportunities beckoned and this was not the time for further demurral. ‘Then I would be honoured to undertake the management of transporting the Column to the Temple.’

Honoured was an understatement: this was an opportunity made in heaven.

‘Very good, Kondratieff. You should be in no doubt as to the importance of this commission. The opening of the Temple and the unveiling of the Column on Lammas Eve will be a historic event and one attended by the leaders of both Venice and NoirVille. You would do well not to fail. Liaise with Admiral Bragadin regarding any vessel you might require to tow the Column to the Hub.’

‘Be assured, Your Holiness, that this project will receive my fullest attention.’

‘Excellent. And I look forward to your presence at the Sala del Maggior Consiglio this afternoon to hear the Doge IMmanual address the Grand Council. All loyal Venetians will wish to attend.’

Absent-mindedly Kondratieff bowed the three men out of the room, his mind already racing with possibilities … murderous possibilities.

Master of preScience and of 4Telling though Kondratieff was, it was beyond even his expertise to know
precisely
when the sky would open and the monsoon rains would come washing down. Folklore had it that ‘on Summer afternoons the rain starts at two and finishes at three and by then, my friend, you’ll be as wet as me’, but actually the start and finish of the afternoon rains wasn’t quite as precise as that. Currently he had one of his graduate students delving through the weather records of Venice to try to establish the pattern – and like every other natural event in the Demi-Monde, there
would
be a pattern – but he’d only gone back sixteen years and as yet there was no apparent cyclicality in the timing of the monsoons.

Today the rains had tarried – until twelve minutes past three, to be exact, and Kondratieff was a
very
exact man – and as a consequence, when he had left the Sala after hearing the Doge speak he had been caught outside without an umbrella.

But he hardly noticed the rain which beat down on his top hat; he was too distracted by what he had heard in the Doge’s Palace. Standing in the midst of the crowd, Kondratieff had come to understand the future the Doge IMmanual saw stretching out before the peoples of the Demi-Monde and, as far as he was concerned, it was a very bleak future indeed. Doge IMmanual was intent on leading HumanKind to Perfection. She
had even used the Confusionist expression ‘ABBAsoluteness’ – oneness with ABBA – to describe her ambition in this regard, an ambition that would necessitate the ‘remodelling’ of HumanKind. Doge IMmanual wasn’t so much intent on changing the future as changing HumanKind.

But what Kondratieff had found most troubling was the final statement of the Doge: ‘To build anew, we must first destroy.’ And what it seemed that she and her new ally Shaka Zulu were intent on destroying was anybody who wasn’t prepared to bend a knee to IMmanualism. It was a vision of the future that frightened Kondratieff; as a scientist he celebrated freedom of thought and this, he suspected, would be one of the first freedoms that Doge IMmanual planned to remove. Perfection, as far as he was concerned, betokened sterile uniformity.

A steamer panted past, washing cold and very scummy water over his boots, and rather than brave the torrential rain any longer, he elected to duck into a café and wait until the storm clouds passed. Enjoying a cup of café au gore would be quite a pleasant way to while away an hour and enable him to do a little uninterrupted thinking … thinking about how to get rid of Doge IMmanual
and
her venomous brother.

To defeat the Beast he would have to take matters, reluctantly, into his own hands. His cogitations were interrupted by the arrival of an unexpected visitor.

‘Hey, Nikolai, baby, mind if I grab a stump to rest my rump?’

Kondratieff looked up, and found himself looking into the large brown eyes of a heavily veiled woman. Or more accurately, a
woeMan:
she had to be a NoirVillian, only NoirVillian females dressed in burkas like the one that shrouded the woman’s body from the top of her head to the soles of her shoes. She was also a very determined woeMan: before he had an opportunity to protest the intrusion, the woman had shimmied into the seat opposite his.

‘Ain’t you going to make with the meet and greet, Nikolai? I’m Josephine Baker and it’s a pleasure to finally beat gums with the great Nikolai Kondratieff.’ And with that the woeMan pulled back her veil and shrugged down the hood of her burka. She held out her hand and Kondratieff gave it a tentative shake.

He had to do a double take. He
did
recognise Josephine Baker; he had seen her perform in La Fenice nightclub three or four Seasons ago and the girl was unforgettable.

As casually as he was able, Kondratieff took a look around the café checking to see if there were any of Venice’s hated secret police lurking nearby; Josephine Baker was, after all, one of the most wanted people in Venice. ‘I don’t believe there is a man in the whole of the Demi-Monde who would fail to recognise you, Miss Baker … and nor would the Signori di Notte. I understand from the newspapers that you are being urgently sought by the authorities in connection with the escape of Vanka Maykov.’

His caution obviously tickled his guest. ‘Don’t worry, Nikolai, I made sure I wasn’t being tailed. Anyway, no one is gonna dig who I am when I’m hidden under a burka.’ She ran a hand over her shaven pate. ‘And even without the burka any cat seeing me will think I’m a good little IMmanualist. Course, I’m gonna have to wear a wig when I’m back in the JAD: I don’t wanna give the hepcats in the Code Noir the impression that I’ve gone rogue.’

Despite himself, Kondratieff laughed. In a way the girl was right: with IMmanualism now the
religion du jour
in Venice, an increasing number of women were aping the new Doge by shaving their heads. ‘The problem, my dear Miss Baker, is that even such a drastic ruse is unable to disguise either your beauty or your ethnicity.’

Josephine giggled. ‘Wow, Nikolai, I didn’t dig that you were such a smooth-talking cat. I’ll have to watch you. But don’t worry about my ethnicity: since the alliance between Venice
and NoirVille, this burg is awash with Shades.’ She shook her lovely head. ‘Nah, no one is gonna spot me, not the way I shuck and jive.’

Kondratieff nodded his understanding, though he wished he could share the girl’s confidence. A woman as lovely as Josephine Baker drew attention as readily as a magnet drew iron filings, and it took just an instant for attention to mutate into recognition. The girl was correct though, there were a
lot
of Shades in Venice – especially soldiers sent to reinforce the Venetian army against an attack by the ForthRight – but none of them, he suspected, had her sexual charisma.

‘Delighted as I am to meet you, Miss Baker, you presumably appreciate that your being in Venice constitutes a considerable risk.’ He left unsaid that his consorting with an Enemy of the People was also a considerable risk for
him
.

‘Yeah, I dig that to the mostest and if it wasn’t for the heavy spiel Jezebel Ethobaal asked me to lay on you I’d already have hightailed it to the JAD.’ She lit a cigarette and took a long calming drag. ‘You’ll be glad to hear that Vanka made it to the JAD okay. Way I dig it, Vanka was a friend of yours.’

Time to be cautious, decided Kondratieff. In Venice even the walls had ears … and very often spyholes. ‘An acquaintance, nothing more. But I am pleased to hear that he is safe: there was something strangely likeable about the man.’

‘Yeah, Jezebel got really hot and heavy on the subject of Vanka Maykov and bringing him safe and sound to the JAD.’

Kondratieff nodded again. Dr Jezebel Ethobaal had tormented him all through Spring with demands that he keep Vanka Maykov – the One with No Shadow – safe and with Ethobaal being leader of the Code Noir and the world’s foremost practitioner of WhoDoo she was a difficult woman to deny. And her having sent one of her foremost agents – Josephine Baker – to talk to him directly rather than sending him a PigeonGram
indicated that she was intent on becoming even more demanding.

Kondratieff ordered fresh coffee for them both and waited until it had been served before continuing. ‘I have to say I was surprised by the importance Jezebel Ethobaal placed on rescuing Maykov.’