The Demi-Monde: Summer (10 page)

Lilith stepped across the threshold of the Temple and the Dark made her welcome.

I’ve been kidnapped!

That was Norma’s first thought when she finally, reluctantly, struggled awake.

Shipnapped!

She knew she was aboard a ship. Even though she had awoken into pitch darkness, the gentle rocking of her bunk to and fro, the sound of waves washing against the ship’s bow and the distant churning of a propeller announced she was in the cabin
of a steamship, presumably sailing in the direction of the Coven. Well, that’s where Mata Hari had told her she was being taken, anyway.

She sat up and immediately regretted her impulsiveness. Her head swam and her stomach heaved. Gingerly she examined the lump on the back of her head where Mata Hari’s pal had whacked her. Thankfully, nothing appeared to be broken, though she’d been left with a thunderous headache as a souvenir of the encounter. She shivered and wrenched the blanket from her bunk, wrapping it around her shoulders. It was a cold, unpleasant night, the rain drumming against the side of the ship.

With her arms outstretched like a blind woman, she felt around in the darkness and after a few moments’ scrabbling she found the lamp she was searching for, twisted the knob and, with a spluttering reluctance, the gas mantle flared into life. The faltering light it cast was strong enough for Norma to see that her cabin was small and furnished in a very spartan manner: the bare metal floor looked uncomfortably cold and the furniture bolted to the walls had a very utilitarian air about it. She had the distinct feeling that she was aboard a warship.

She stood up to explore. Another mistake.

She staggered and had to splay her feet to deal with the roll of the ship. Reaching out a hand, she grabbed the back of a chair to support herself, thankful that her captors hadn’t thought to chain her hands. She wondered whether this was simply an oversight on their part, but then, she supposed, on board a ship there was nowhere much to escape to.

Curious as to how far her freedom extended, she tottered across the cabin and tried the handle of the door, which, to her amazement, wasn’t locked. Hitching the blanket more securely around her shoulders, she stepped out into the narrow gaslit corridor beyond, which ran maybe fifty feet both to her
left and to her right. It was deserted: there was no one standing guard so, with no conscious decision, she turned right, the direction opposite to the sound of the propeller. At the end of the corridor was another steel door, which she opened to find herself in a large and quite opulently furnished stateroom. Here a tall, slender woman with long blonde hair and porcelain-white skin sat idly musing a hand on the keys of a piano and, to her right, Norma’s abductor, Mata Hari, lay sprawled on a chaise longue busying herself with the cleaning of a large revolver.

The blonde woman looked up and smiled. ‘Good evening, Norma, I am so pleased you could join us. I am Lady Lucrezia Borgia, First Deputy to Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Wu. Welcome aboard the Imperial flagship, the WarJunk CSS
MostBien
.’

Lucrezia Borgia
…

Norma scanned back through the history lessons she’d attended in the Real World trying to remember what she had been taught about the woman. Not much: all she could recall was that Borgia had lived in Renaissance Italy where she’d been a noblewoman famed for her beauty and the enthusiasm with which she poisoned her family’s political rivals. Not a nice person, which presumably made her another of the Professor’s damned Singularities.

Borgia beckoned her further into the room. ‘You’re up and about a little sooner than we anticipated but, as they say, an unexpected guest is always the most welcome. I suspect, though, that you might wish to repair the damage wrought to your appearance by your recent adventures.’ She waved a hand in the vague direction of a door set in the side of the room. ‘There is a bathroom to your right and I have taken the liberty of furnishing you with a new outfit. To be blunt, your current costume is a tad revealing for HerEtical sensibilities; it smacks
of ImPuritanism and the objectifying of Femme sexuality. Most inappropriate.’

Without a word Norma accepted Borgia’s offer and for the next half-hour bathed herself, revelling in the luxury of a seemingly endless supply of piping-hot water and as fine a selection of perfumes and bath salts as she’d ever seen.

Lying in the relaxing suds of the bath gave Norma the chance to think. There was, she decided, absolutely no point in bemoaning the bad luck that had landed her in this predicament. If there was one thing that her time in the Demi-Monde had taught her it was that staying cool was generally a better option than panic. Her days of being the whingeing, helpless victim were now firmly behind her. She had grown up.

So resolved, Norma rose from the bath and towelled herself dry. The ‘outfit’ Borgia had provided her with looked like a baggy boiler suit made from dark blue denim. Flattering it most certainly wasn’t but it was clean and a damned sight more comfortable than her blanket. Resplendent in her new outfit, refreshed and reinvigorated, she strode out of the bathroom to rejoin her hosts.

Borgia clapped her hands when she saw Norma. ‘Wonderful! You look reborn, Norma, quite the little HerEtical. And to celebrate your rebirth, might I offer you a glass of wine?’

‘That would be great,’ admitted Norma, as a steward poured her a glass of Chardonnay, ‘though where I come from, Lady Lucrezia, you have something of a reputation for using poison as an ingredient in your cocktails.’

‘Very droll, Norma,’ chuckled Borgia. ‘I do adore Daemonic humour; it is so wonderfully understated. But you needn’t be concerned regarding adulterated drinks, the Empress Wu has given specific instructions that you should be delivered to the Forbidding City unharmed.’

‘The Forbidding City?’

‘The home of Her Imperial Majesty Empress Wu. It was the Empress who ordered you be brought to the Coven.’

‘Why?’

Borgia gestured Norma into a chair. ‘To answer that I must refer to the iChing. Are you familiar with the iChing, Norma?’

‘No.’

‘Tush, tush … I expected more erudition from a Daemon, but no matter.’ The woman waved the steward out of the salon and once the three of them were alone launched into her explanation. ‘There are many forms of divination practised in the Demi-Monde: the ImPuritans of the Quartier Chaud use their mathematically based preScience, the WhoDooists of the JAD have their stupid seething, whilst the NoirVillians, zadnik animals that they are, prefer the casting of bones. But we Covenites have perhaps the most effective means of all: we have the divinely inspired oracle that is the iChing. By the asking of questions and the simultaneous tossing of coins it is possible to allow the forces of Qi which permeate the Kosmos to be interrogated and understood. It is the most subtle of all the methods used to 4Tell the future and the Empress sets great store by the insights she is offered by the iChing in her quest to establish a MostBien Utopia here in the Demi-Monde.’

‘MostBien?’ asked Norma.

‘The HerEtical concept that the ultimate expression of civilisation will only be achieved when Femmes have gained supremacy in the Demi-Monde and nonFemmes have been relegated to a subordinate role such that their inherent and incurable MALEvolent tendencies no longer infect society.’

‘I see,’ said Norma cautiously. ‘But while this is all very fascinating, it doesn’t explain why I was abducted.’

‘In the Coven the Rite of 4Telling is performed on the eighty-eighth day of each Quarter. Unfortunately, the Spring reading of the iChing performed just a few days ago indicated that there
is a great disturbance in the Qi of the Demi-Monde, Qi being the force which drives the Yin and Yang elements of the Kosmos as they move – as they oscillate – forever seeking balance and harmony.’

Borgia paused to allow Mata Hari to replenish her glass. ‘You should understand, Norma, that since the Confinement of the Demi-Monde behind the Boundary Layer, the Yang element – the masculine aspect of the Kosmos – has been in ascendancy, and as a consequence there has been an excess of the masculine essence – MALEvolence – in the world. This has resulted in the wars and the hatreds that have beset the Demi-Monde for the past one thousand years. But we in the Coven have always taken comfort in the knowledge that all things in the Kosmos follow a cyclical path, waxing and waning, and that soon would dawn the age when the masculine Yang will yield, once again, to the feminine Yin. Yes … until the iChing was consulted during the Spring Rite, it was believed that the rhythm of the Kosmos was moving inexorably towards the Yin, towards the Age of Femmes and the perfection that is MostBien.’

Norma placed her wine glass firmly back onto the table. There was something, just something, in Borgia’s tone that told her that what this lunatic would say next was going to be bad news, and bad news was always something to be received with a clear head. No more wine for her.

‘The Epigram the Empress Wu was given by the iChing in answer to the question “Has the moment come when Femmes will rule the Demi-Monde?” was … inauspicious. To the 4Tellers who examined the readings it was apparent that there was a new force at work in the Demi-Monde, which if left unmoderated would destroy the harmony of the Kosmos and prevent the Demi-Monde embracing Yin.’

There was a grim inevitability about what Borgia was saying. ‘Me?’ suggested Norma.

A nod from Borgia. ‘Yes, you. We had at first thought that this baleful influence was created by the one known as the Lady IMmanual, but now we are certain that it is you who endangers the triumph of HerEticalism.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘The seductive philosophy of Normalism which you have been preaching with such success in the Quartier Chaud promotes a philosophy of peace and non-violence between peoples and between genders. Unfortunately, with respect to HerEticalism, this is an inherently antithetical philosophy in that it denies the complementary antagonism of Yin and Yang and hence rejects the assumption that there is an oscillating rhythm to the Kosmos. Instead of movement and flow you propose stasis and paralysis. But without the dynamic of the eternal – the divine – fluctuation between Femme and nonFemme, between light and dark, between Yin and Yang, the Kosmos will become becalmed.’

Norma couldn’t help herself: she laughed. ‘Bullshit. The violence associated with the conflict between your Yin and Yang is wrong and to rationalise it on the basis that it’s necessary to maintain the natural ebb and flow of Nature is total crap.’

Borgia responded with an indulgent smile, but it was apparent from the way her cheeks went pink that she was struggling to control her temper. ‘Not so. This is the intrinsic duality of the Kosmos, a duality that you endanger.’

‘You’re wrong. The Demi-Monde – any world, for that matter – would be a better place without violence and war. And Normalism is intent on doing just that: encouraging the world to live in harmony.’

‘You are a traitor to your gender! All Normalism does is deny HerEticalism the opportunity to triumph.’

‘Nuts. You HerEticals don’t believe in the duality and the harmony of the Kosmos, if you did, you wouldn’t be so down
on men.’ She remembered Vanka’s words to her when, imprisoned in the Bastille, they had debated the politics of revolution: ‘No, all you HerEticals are interested in is power, in having your turn at the trough.’

Borgia leapt to her feet, her eyes sparking with anger. ‘Enough! I am not here to debate with you, merely to inform you as to why you are being brought before the Empress Wu.’

Suddenly Norma felt terribly bored. Everywhere she went in the Demi-Monde there were maniacs desperate to seize power, to belittle people, and to make life for decent folk more miserable and sordid than it need be. She was becoming increasingly fed up with leaders besotted with power. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she sneered. ‘And then what? To be executed? Well, don’t think your threats are going to faze me, honey; I’ve been threatened by experts. And anyway, get rid of me and there are other Normalists ready to take my place. The Normalist movement here in the Demi-Monde is unstoppable.’