Conflagration

by Mick Farren

  The fashions of the city were calculated, blatant, opulent beyond her wildest visualization, and at times leaning to the decadent. London couture was without any kind of standardization and certainly followed no single dictate. All the myriad of styles had in common was a provocative flamboyance, and a tendency to expose and even to flaunt. Colors ranged from dark and perverse to flagrant explosions. Soft fabrics clung to torsos, strategic slits allowed silk legs to flash, and extreme décolletage revealed flatteringly supported breasts. Waists were cinched by laced corselets, or stomachs were exposed with rings or jewels in navels. Hair might be cropped short or vast and elaborate. Had Cordelia made her debut at the party in the most stunning outfit that a combination of Albany, New York, and her own ingenuity had to offer, she would have still betrayed herself to the whole Palace of Westminster as so gauche to be almost a bumpkin, an out-of-touch rustic from the uncouth side of the ocean.

  Cordelia had, however, thought her way out of the dilemma. If the Norse of London wanted extreme, she would give it to them. She had trumped style’s ace with her Ranger uniform, but not just any Ranger uniform. She had bullied, cajoled, and almost seduced an old, bald Seventh Avenue military tailor in New York into making her the full dress black, gold, and green major’s uniform. The only twist was that it was the uniform for a man. The ceremonial wear for women in the Rangers, of which there were precious few, was frumpy black evening dress with a small green approximation of a mess jacket. Approximation would never be good enough for Cordelia. For a while she had considered combining the short, frogged man’s jacket and swagger cloak with a long skirt, but she had rejected the idea. The men’s skintight cavalry breeches and the tall tasseled boots with the stacked riding heel were just too, too perfect. Cordelia might be going to the party in a man’s outfit but she definitely was not going to be mistaken for a man. Onlookers might think she was a dangerous lesbian, or some red-haired valkyrie hot from the new world, but no one would take her for a long-haired boy. Regulations almost certainly prohibited what she was doing, but who was going to enforce regulations? She reported to no superior officers. The rest of The Four knew nothing about it until she came down to get into the official car, and by then it was far too late. She wore the Order of the Golden Bear on the orange ribbon, and the fates help anybody who would deny her anything. As the reception progressed she saw a number of other women wearing men’s formal evening suits, but they could in no way challenge the perverse impact of her Ranger outfit.

  Of course, to stage such a show and then carry it off required considerable courage, and although Cordelia hardly considered herself either shy or retiring, she was prepared to accept any help that might present itself. She had auditioned her very first martini by experimentally ordering one from room service, and sipping it as she organized her makeup and laid out her costume for the reception. As Windermere had said, it really did consist of nothing but gin, a hint of an aperitif, and extreme cold. She liked the first one a great deal, but she suspected that they might make her very drunk, very quickly, and she had mindfully refrained from ordering a second. The reception itself, on the other hand, was something else again. She was causing herself to be noticed and a little alcohol would only make the attention more exciting. As she moved across the Great Hall, skirting the couples sedately dancing to the small orchestra, she spotted a waiter with a tray of the signature conical glasses, and quickly moved in his direction to whisk one from him. She knew the speeches would start soon, and a martini, and maybe one more to follow, would be a measure of insulation against the exterior boredom of international diplomacy.

  The potential speech-makers were all round her. A small crowd was gathered, paying their respects to General Giap from the South East Asian Confederacy, while Ambassador Mbandeni from King Cetshwayo’s Zulu Hegemony, flanked by his shaman Credo Mutwa and three spectacular wives, held court in another part of the room. Ambassador Mbandeni was shadowed by a personal bodyguard from one of the crack Impis that, for almost a century, had held back all Mosul inroads into the southern realms of the African continent, be they Teuton prospecting teams or Mamaluke expeditions seeking slaves and ivory. Turbaned Hindi Rajahs from the Indian subcontinent rubbed shoulders with bearded Russe in white fur-trimmed evening coats, who drank something called vodka and laughed loudly. Caribbeans in ultraconventional white tie and tails still retained their spectacular hair. It seemed as though half the world had turned out to welcome Jack Kennedy to England; certainly the half of the world that felt itself threatened by the Mosul. Jack Kennedy himself was conducting a slow circuit of the area, meeting and greeting and accepting all of the respect accorded to the guest of honor.

  Cordelia noticed that Jesamine was loitering somewhere on the outer edge of the circulating Kennedy party, and in Cordelia’s opinion, her comrade was being too damned obvious. Jesamine clearly had a terminal crush on Jack Kennedy, and Cordelia hoped she was not riding for a fall. Her night with Kennedy might have been nothing more than that; just a night. Jack Kennedy was a notorious love-’em-and-leave-’em womanizer, and if that was the case, Jesamine would take it too hard when she found out the truth. She was dressed in the filmy blue gown that, against Cordelia’s good advice, she bought in New York along with a number of others. The same one that she had put on when she went to Kennedy’s cabin that recent night on the Ragnar. Cordelia had warned her not to spend all of her money in the Manhattan store, but Jesamine simply could not see that what might work in New York would never do for London. To be fair, the dress was short and had almost no back, and it showed off her honey skin and extraordinarily long legs to their best advantage. Cordelia did not think she was being a bitch by being of the opinion that Jesamine really did not need clothes.

  By force of habit, she looked round for the others of The Four. She could not spot Raphael anywhere, but she could see Argo in the crowd. In Albany, since his enforced break with Jesamine, Argo could usually be found on his own, or perhaps in the company of some other alcoholic young officers. Cordelia had wondered if Argo was turning into something of a drunk; a quiet drunk, a reserved and well-disciplined drunk, but a drunk all the same. Here in London, though, something had changed. He looked strapping in his dress uniform, and he was already deep in conversation with a young blonde woman who could only be described as stunning. He had the body language of one who was stunned, but doing his none-too-skilled best to conceal it, while the woman, for her part, challenged him to do anything else. Her dress was black chiffon, short in front but falling to a kind of flowing train in the back. Her multistrapped platform shoes were an aggressive yellow, and had maybe the highest heels that Cordelia had ever encountered. She wondered how the woman could walk in them. The fabric of her dress was sheer, only marginally on the decent side of transparent, and Cordelia could imagine what that was doing to Argo, who, by London standards, was a naïve provincial. Cordelia finished her martini and looked for another. “I just hope the poor boy isn’t in over his head.”

  RAPHAEL

  The Caribbean’s hair was like nothing Raphael had ever seen before. It was packed into long snakelike braids, each one thicker than Raphael’s thumb, and held together by the use of some adhesive preparation about which he could not even hazard a guess. The man’s neck was tattooed, as were as much of his wrists that showed beneath the immaculate double cuffs of his tuxedo. Aside from the lavish mass of tropical island hair, he was so slick and spotlessly conventional in his attire that he was almost dazzling. Raphael couldn’t help but stare at his cufflinks, each decorated with the head of lion, and each the size of a forty-shilling gold piece. The man noticed Raphael looking and held them up with a laugh. “No bad, hey?”

  Raphael grinned. The gleeful delight in showing off wealth was refreshing after all the snobbery and pretension that Raphael felt all around him as the London elite honored Jack Kennedy. “Not bad at all.”

  The Caribbean gestured round the room. “You got that right. No bad for the son of a Dahomey galley girl and a Mayan se
rgeant major. Who’d have thought I’d end up here?”

  Raphael nodded in agreement. “I never really imagined myself in a place like this.”

  “Americano, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Army?”

  “Albany Rangers.”

  “You’re supposed to be hard bastards, right?”

  Raphael opted for modesty. “The Rangers have a reputation.”

  “You in that battle they just had over in the Americas?”

  “Newbury Vale?”

  “That’s the one?”

  Raphael nodded. “I was there.”

  “Some shit, I hear.”

  “You could say that, especially for the poor bastards in our first advance.”

  The Caribbean looked at Raphael curiously. “Funny thing. You don’t sound like no Americano.”

  Raphael laughed. “That’s because I was in Hispania until less than a year ago.”

  “You kid me?”

  “I swear.”

  “How did you get away from the Mosul.”

  “I almost didn’t. They drafted me, put me in the infantry, and shipped me out to Savannah. If I hadn’t escaped, I would have been in one of their human waves.”

  “Is it true the sorry fuckers in the front lines are so certain to be killed they don’t even give them guns?”

  “That’s what the NCOs told us when they wanted us good and scared. I didn’t wait around to find out firsthand.”

  The Caribbean slapped the table. “Man, I gotta buy you a drink.”

  Raphael quietly observed that the drinks at the reception were free, and the Caribbean beamed. “A figure of speech.” He indicated his own drink, something dark brown with a lot of ice in a tall glass. “You ever have one of these?”

  “What is it?”

  “Rum and Kola-Pop. It’s like the national drink where I come from. You ever taste one?”

  Raphael shook his head. “I never did.”

  The Caribbean ordered two of the concoctions, and then regarded Raphael with an expression that hinted he wasn’t all about rum, bizarre hair, and flashing cufflinks. “You must have made major pretty damned fast after you got away from the Mosul and went over to Albany.”

  Raphael regarded the Caribbean with a fresh watchfulness. It was not by accident that he was always the backstop and lookout when The Four went into action. Instinctively he looked for the others. He could see Argo, some distance away in the crowd, talking to a very attractive blonde in a revealing black dress and yellow shoes, but he couldn’t spot either Jesamine or Cordelia. Raphael knew that he, too, ought to be checking out the London girls, but, for the moment he was content to sit and talk with the Caribbean. He was a refreshing change from all the Norse/Albany cold-weather assumptions and attitudes. His response to the overly direct observation was noncommittal. “Let’s just say I had something they needed, and I also performed some services for them.”

  The waiter brought two tall glasses and the Caribbean urged Raphael to try it. “Rum and Kola-Pop, man. Nothing like it.”

  Raphael had no argument with the last statement. The Caribbean wanted his reaction. Raphael smiled and nodded. “A lot of sugar, but it has a kick.”

  The Caribbean tasted his own drink and then turned to survey the room. “You know something? Most everyone here is missing the crucial point.”

  Raphael sensed that the conversation was moving to another level, and maybe this happenstance, falling in with the Caribbean, was not as random as it had first appeared. Raphael made himself totally noncommittal. “They are?”

  “Sure they are. Everyone you talk to avoids mentioning the fact that Hassan IX is getting old; very old.”

  “I haven’t talked to very many people, so I wouldn’t know.”

  “Take my word for it.”

  “I do know that, before the Battle of the Potomac, Hassan supposedly showed up to fill the Mosul troops with killer enthusiasm.”

  “You were there?”

  “I was.”

  “Still a Mosul grunt?”

  “That was the day I got away.”

  The Caribbean pushed back his hair. “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “But, man, you actually saw Hassan IX?”

  Raphael shook his head. “But it wasn’t him. It was a double. A young man in armor. It couldn’t have been him.”

  “That’s what I mean. Sooner or later, the doubles and all the other deceptions won’t work no more. Hassan is going to die, and everyone will know it.”

  “Will that really make all that much difference?”

  “It’s going to make one hell of a difference, my friend. Hassan has more than a hundred sons, right?”

  Raphael nodded. “Some put it as high as three hundred.”

  “So they’re all going to fight each other for the succession, and then some of them will reach some kind of accommodation, and the Empire will hold for a while, but history tends to prove that, in these kind of situations, there’s one of the stronger heirs who’s forced out, and he escapes and takes to the mountains or some stronghold in the stinking desert where he gets stronger and meaner. Bit by bit, he gathers an army around himself until he’s got enough power and enough fighters and then he come down from his mountain or out of the desert and makes his play.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “What do you think? You got civil war in the Mosul Empire, just like with the old Romans, and there goes the game.”

  “The Empire collapses.”

  “That’s usually the way of it with autocracies that get too big under one leader.” The Caribbean glanced round the room, and grinned ruefully. “But what are all these folks going to do without the Mosul to fight against? I mean, look at them: Kennedy, Giap, Chomsky, that humorless fucker Mbandeni. They all made their name fighting Hassan. What are they going to do without him? What but the threat of the Mosul can hold all this together? And what happens when the occupied territories ain’t occupied no more? Times get complicated after the fall of empires.”

  Raphael frowned. “There’s one thing you haven’t factored in.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Zhaithan. It’s religion that holds the Mosul together. It’s the fucking Zhaithan.”

  The Caribbean grinned enthusiastically. “You said it, brother. Religion, that’s the other factor. The fucking Zhaithan.” He looked hard at Raphael. “You’re one of those Albany paranormal kids. Right?”

  Raphael was taken by surprise. The Caribbean laughed. “Shit, man, don’t be coy. Your picture’s been in the paper and everything.”

  “I’m afraid you have the advantage of me.”

  “Most people call me Country Man. I’m what’s known as a cultural attaché.”

  Raphael knew that was usually a euphemism for spy. He extended a hand. “Raphael Vega. I’m glad to meet you.”

  Country Man grasped it in an odd but convincingly warm handshake. “And I’m glad to know you, too, Raphael Vega. And you know something?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re right.” Country Man leaned back and took a drink. “It is religion, man. And I know what I’m talking about. Half my family are Maya, and they know about the real Old Gods. If anyone is going to hold the Mosul Empire together, it’s Quadaron-Ahrach, Her Grand Eminence, Jeakqual-Ahrach, and definitely the fucking Zhaithan. They could play the last card: eliminate the emperor, implement the full theocracy, and no problem of succession. Direct rule by the Twin Gods. Simple as that. And from what we hear, they’re making their moves to do that right now, they even have the Twin Gods, or something that looks like the Twin Gods.”

  Raphael blinked. “What are you saying?”

  “It’s just a rumor, see? You gotta understand that. But out in the islands we ain’t so sun-happy isolated that we don’t know what’s going on. We hear things, okay? The big Zulu triremes haul into port and we get the story. The Asian clippers stop over and we hear the story, and even them Mosul steam
buckets come into dock and we hear what those crew gotta say when the Zhaithan ain’t listening.”

  Now Raphael was paying rapt attention to this talk of replica Twin Gods. “And what do they say? What is the story?”

  “They say there’s something being built in the Frankish territories. You never heard about that up in Albany?”

  Raphael’s head was starting to whirl slightly. “We paranormal kids are often the last to hear.”

  Country Man nodded, plainly pleased with the reaction he was getting from Raphael. “Story going round is that they’re building something in this Frankish valley. Lotta stone work and slave laborers and stuff. Big magick. Real big magick. The best guess is that it’s going to be some kind of weapon, a power source, and you gotta know those Ahrachs are behind it.”

  Raphael did his best to digest this unexpected and unverified piece of news. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Before Country Man could answer, he was distracted by a young woman with her hair arranged into a thick black pompadour, and semi-dressed in a short skirt, long boots, and a loose military-style evening coat over a gold brassiere. As she walked past, Country Man sighed. “Man, will you look at her.” The girl had derailed the whole conversation, and Raphael could have cursed. Country Man finished his drink and rose to his feet. “We gotta to talk some more, man, but this ain’t the place. Are you all going to Madame de Wynter’s party later?”

  “I don’t know. I was invited but I hadn’t made up my mind.”

  “You gotta, man. No one should live their life without having gone to a de Wynter party.”