by Rod Rees
So resolved, she took a deep calming breath, stepped from gangplank of the Doge’s state barge, the Bucintoro, onto the lush grass of the HubLand and then raised her eyes to gaze along the Divine Way that led to the Temple of Lilith. The Way was invisible to the naked eye – overgrown as it was by a thousand years of neglect – but she knew that only inches beneath her feet lay the sacred Mantle-ite paved road that, in days gone by, worshippers coming to the Temple had used to protect themselves from the ravenous nanoBites. And as the Mantle-ite was invulnerable to decay and to the ravages of time, it would still be there, just as she remembered it, a raised central walkway flanked by two equally wide but lower walkways. As was her right, she chose the central path, the holiest of the three. In times before remembering it had been the Grigori who had walked to her right and the Kohanim to her left, but those days were long gone.
She took the first, tentative step onto the Way. Such was the significance of this simple act that for a second she was overcome by emotion and was forced to stop as the voices of her long-dead sisters whispered in her mind. It took a moment for her to recover her poise. She had come to the Demi-Monde as an ordinary eighteen-year-old girl from New York, but had discovered that she was really something very different.
Very, very different.
The Demi-Monde had awakened her to what she once had been. And with that awakening had come the realisation that she had a destiny, a destiny to lead HumanKind towards a new future. Ella Thomas was no more. The Lady IMmanual was no more. Now there was only Lilith, a Lilith who would soon cause the reincarnation of the Lilithi … Homo perfectus.
And the irony was that it was Bole who had provided her with the means of achieving this resurrection. She stifled a complacent smile. Bole’s threat in sending her twin brother Billy to the Demi-Monde had been very eloquent: perform more miracles, tamper with the Demi-Monde again, and Billy would be killed. But delivering Billy to her had been Bole’s greatest mistake. He had sent Billy as a warning, but all his presence had done was give her the opportunity to make the Lilithi – the Priestesshood of Lilith – whole again, to enable them to regain all their powers. What Bole hadn’t realised was that he had sent her the very thing that would make her ascendancy to power inevitable … the blood of a Dark Charismatic.
She began to walk along the Divine Way, savouring the moment, imagining the slick, warm Mantle-ite hidden under the soles of her bare feet, remembering how she had walked along this same path all those thousands of years ago when the world – the Real World – was young. The Way stretched straight and true for nine hundred yards from the Wheel River to the doors of the Temple. She walked slowly, ignoring the rain that beat down on her, ignoring the ululations of her priestesses who followed in her wake, ignoring everything, simply lost to the memories of a time long ago as they were rekindled within her.
Closer now, she could see that the Temple was overgrown by vines and desecrated by a patina of dirt, but despite this neglect, the Mantle-ite walls still glowed green in the moonlight. It was a magnificent, brooding edifice to the power of Lilith.
At the end of the Divine Way the three walkways separated, each leading to one of a trio of enormous doors set in the side of the Temple, each of the doors firmly shut, their bronze locks green and corroded, showing that they had not been open in centuries … that they would never be opened again except at the command of Lilith. Over the door to the right was the Valknut, the sign of the Grigori; over the one to the left was the five-pointed star of the Kohanim; and over the central one – the Great Entrance – was the sign of laguz sinister crossed with laguz dexter, the symbol of Lilith.
Ascending the broad stairway leading to the Great Entrance, she was suffused by an almost overwhelming sensation of completeness. It was as though she had gone through her life knowing something was missing but not quite sure what it was, that understanding tantalisingly out of reach.
No longer.
As she walked through the massive propylaeum – the huge archway that decorated the Great Entrance – towards the sealed doors, those long-forgotten memories of the lives of all her forebears came flooding back. Now she was complete, now she was truly Lilith reborn.
She made a silent pledge that soon the Temple would look just as she remembered it from all those thousands of years before … that soon its Mantle-ite walls would be scrubbed and clean. Then it would be truly a Temple fit for a goddess, a Temple that symbolised her power and her might. But even dirty and neglected, it was magnificent, each of its walls six hundred and sixty yards long and one hundred and eighty high, with ninety-six fluted columns holding up the massive architraves embossed with scenes from the life of Lilith. It was like the Parthenon writ large … but then the Parthenon itself had been just a muddled memory of the grandeur of the Temple that had stood in the lost land Real World scholars had dubbed Urheimat but which she knew better as Atlantis.
Yes, ABBA had created a perfect replica of the Temple she had once presided over in the Real World. It was over eight thousand years since she had last stood before these doors, but then she had stood there as the Goddess Lilith, as Mother Nature …
A hugely inappropriate title.
Lilith might have conquered evolution, she might have conquered death, but she had never been able to control Nature. And in a day and a night Nature had unleashed her fury and sent the deluge that had destroyed the civilisation of the Lilithi and thrown those of her people who survived, bemused and leaderless, out into the world.
No, she had never commanded Nature. Only ABBA could do that.
A tear slid slowly down her cheek as the remembrance of the grief caused by that destruction coursed through her. Even now at a distance of eight millennia she was still crippled by the anguish of that terrible day, numbed by the weight of the collective grief of her sisters and daughters and wracked by guilt. She still cursed herself for her hubris, for her inability to see how the world was changing.
She shook her head: this was not the time for recrimination or remorse. This was the time for her to reclaim her place in the world.
She came to stand before the doors that had denied entry to the Temple for a thousand years and reached up towards the six rectangular shapes set into the wall at the door’s left-hand side. With a deft flick of her wrist she pushed the first of the shapes upwards and inwards until it clicked out to lie in the palm of her hand. This, the first part of the key, was six inches long and an inch thick with a two-inch notch cut out of its centre. It took her less than a minute to release the five other parts and to assemble them into the shape of Lilith’s symbol. The key was complete.
It was this puzzle that had kept the Temple undisturbed since the Confinement.
She took another deep breath, trying to quell her excitement, then placed the key into the slot set to the side of the door and twisted. There was the sound of sliding weights and then gradually the great Mantle-ite door levered itself open.
Lilith stepped across the threshold of the Temple and the Dark made her welcome.
Part Two
The Forbidding Palace
This Season in the Quartier Chaud: A-line gowns in primary colours with the nipple taking centre-stage, each varnished a colour that complements the gown.
9
The WarJunk CSS MostBien
The Demi-Monde: 2nd Day of Summer, 1005
Anne Lister, the foremost Sexologist in the Coven, has determined that there is no such thing as love [see: ‘Love = Ridiculous’]. According to Lister, love is merely a nonFemme-inspired construct designed to lure and then entrap self-delusional Femmes into a heterosexual relationship and to have them endure and rationalise all the horrors incumbent on such a relationship without complaint. Of all the weapons in the patriarchal non-Femme’s armoury love is not only the most subtle but the most powerful. As Lister writes: ‘Anything that can persuade the Femme who is being raped to think the rapist is “Mr Wonderful” has got to be the business.’
The Young Femme’s Guide to t
he HerTory of the Coven: HerTorianNoN Fan Ye, Covenite Textbooks and Periodicals
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 resul
ted 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.’