It was a simple enough request made slightly disturbing by the way the Doge edged closer to Kondratieff and nudged a breast provocatively against his arm.
‘Certainly, Excellency.’ He smiled towards Sister Florence, who took a seat on the couch opposite the one Kondratieff was sharing – rather too intimately – with the Doge. ‘The Demi-Monde is a sealed world, a closed system – this being a consequence of the Confinement – where the majority of economic inputs are regulated by ABBA, and where the population is broadly fixed. This makes it ideal for mathematical modelling using the techniques of preScience. By this modelling, it has been proven that the Demi-Monde is a largely Deterministic world, where effect invariably follows cause, and hence that our future is capable of very accurate prediction. And that is the purpose of the Future History Institute, of which I am President: to take the insights into the future given to us by preScience and to apply them in the service of Venice. The accuracy of these 4Tellings has enabled us to direct the workings of the Bourse to maximise earnings from its trading and financial ventures, and this, in turn, has made Venice the wealthiest of all the city-states in the Demi-Monde.’
‘You must understand, Zizter Florence, zhat by knowing zhe future Venice is able to manipulate zhat future.’ The Doge paused, then gave Kondratieff a rather predatory smile. ‘Iz zhis not zo, Docteur?’
Careful.
He had to give no hint as to who was now actually manipulating the future of Venice, or why.
‘Of course, Your Most Reverend Excellency. One of history’s great preHistorians, George Santayana, said that without a belief in Determinism – that history signposts the future – Venetians are for ever condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past. PreScience allows us to avoid making such unnecessary blunders.’
Sister Florence gave a nod of understanding. ‘Thou sayest, good Docteur, that the Demi-Monde is a largely Deterministic environment. Mayhap there be manifestations and contrivances in our world that suffer it to be In Deterministic?’
Careful! The girl’s sharp.
‘You are correct in your surmising, Sister. There are two elements in the Demi-Monde which are InDeterministic, and somewhat cloud our otherwise impeccable vision of the future. The first is the one with which you are most familiar: Dark Charismatics. These singularities of nature seem to have been placed in the Demi-Monde by ABBA to make our world a more uncertain and dangerous place, this, we are told by theologians, to better challenge HumanKind’s faith and courage. But now, thanks to your remarkable abilities as an Auralist, Dark Charismatics can no longer lurk amongst us unseen. As a result, I am confident that their disruptive and InDeterministic influence on Demi-Mondian affairs can be mitigated and, of course, better integrated into our calculations.’
‘Thou art too fulsome in thy praise, good Docteur. By the grace of ABBA, I am blessed with the power to see the Shadows of Evil that suffuse the auras of those foul creatures known as Dark Charismatics.’
The Doge raised her glass in salute to the Sister. ‘Jah, knowing who zhe fuckers are iz a big step forward in being able to deal mit zhem. Mitout your good offices, Zizter Florence, ve vould not have known zhat Robespierre, Torquemada unt Godfrey de Bouillon vere plotting against Venice. Ve vould not even have known zhey vere Dark Charismatics.’
Not that knowing this will do Venice much good, thought Kondratieff as the Doge’s hand wandered somewhat alarmingly up his thigh.
‘Thou sayest, good Docteur, that the base and baleful Dark Charismatics are but one of the InDeterminate elements in the Demi-Monde. Pray, what is the second?’
‘The second are the Daemons which from time to time torment our world. Of these Lilith, the Seidr-witch who caused the fall of the Pre-Folk, is the most famous. Daemons, as you know, Sister, are visitors from the Spirit World, though the frequency of their manifestations has fallen of late.’
‘Mit vun notable exception,’ Doge Catherine-Sophia muttered, ‘unt zhat is vhy I have called you here today, Docteur Kondratieff. We must consider how Venice should deal mit zhe Lady IMmanual.’
‘The Lady IMmanual is a very interesting phenomenon,’ he admitted, and in view of who he suspected the Lady to be, the word ‘interesting’ was a masterpiece of understatement. ‘She is the first Daemon since Lilith to impinge upon Demi-Mondian Future History in a strategic rather than in a tactical way. By performing the Miracle of the Boundary, she profoundly distorted the Future History of our world.’ Kondratieff really didn’t want to remember the week of long days and nights he and his computators had laboured to reprogram the Institute’s difference engines to incorporate the impact of the Lady IMmanual’s tinkering. ‘But even the actions of the Lady IMmanual are not wholly InDeterminate: her coming was, after all, 4Told in the nuJu Book of the Profits.’
‘Only if we accept zhat zhe Lady IMmanual iz zhe Messiah, unt zhis iz somethink which must be verified. If she iz zhe Messiah, zhen her coming indicates zhat ve are entering Ragnarok – zhe Time ov Revelation az it iz called by zhe nuJus – unt zhat zhe Final Days are at hand. If zhis iz truly zhe case, Docteur, zhen it iz important zhat you advise me az to how best to deal mit zhe voman.’
‘She must be brought to Venice,’ was Kondratieff’s emphatic answer. ‘Once she is here, we will be able to study her and influence her. Only in this way can her intentions be understood and incorporated into HyperOpia, our 4Telling program. Only in this way will we be able to calculate her full impact on the OutComes of Future History. Without such input, we preScientists are blinded by her and the future is once more veiled.’
‘Jah, you are correct, Kondratieff, ve must bring zhe Lady IMmanual here to Venice. Ve are most fortunate zhat in fleeing from zhe ForthRight she chose to run to the Quartier Chaud. My cryptos tell me zhat she has come to Paris.’
‘That is what HyperOpia predicted, Most Reverend Excellency, ascribing a confidence index of 99.7 per cent on that event occurring.’
‘Excellent, excellent,’ the Doge congratulated him, as she ran a finger around his codpiece.
More than a little nonplussed by the Doge’s blandishments, Kondratieff shuffled on his seat, but protocol and good manners necessitated that he do nothing to dissuade the Doge’s burgeoning ardour. The teachings of ImPuritanism were very strict regarding matters of sexual etiquette.
‘My cryptos believe she is now being held in zhe Bastille, but zhis intelligence is merely speculative. I have already dispatched my most trusted agent, Machiavelli, to Paris to discover her vere abouts, unt tonight Zizter Florence vill leave to join him. It vill be her responsibility to verify zhat zhe girl is zhe Messiah, unt if she is, to assist Machiavelli in escorting her safely to Venice. Zhat I am villing to place such a treasure az Zizter Florence in harm’s vay indicates zhe importance I give to having zhe Lady in my power.’
Kondratieff kept his expression as bland as he was able, but it was difficult. It was unbelievably naïve of the Doge that she should think she would have power over the Lady IMmanual, when the very reverse would be the OutCome, HyperOpia having predicted that the Lady IMmanual would assume mastery of Venice within ninety days of her first entering the Quartier Chaud. The Doge Catherine-Sophia’s time was over, and now was the moment for all good men to put their efforts into saving the true Messiah from the Beast.
Not that he would ever allow the Doge to see those predictions, or the Temporal Interventions he and de Nostredame were executing to try to defeat the Beast. The Doge could not and must not understand what the future held for her, otherwise she would seek to alter the OutCome. In Temporal Interventions secrecy was everything.
The Doge flicked a smile towards Sister Florence. ‘Machiavelli has secured a place for you in zhe Convent in Paris, good Zizter, which fortunately has not yet been closed by zhat evil bastard de Torquemada. You are to go zhere immediately unt vait for his vord.’
Sister Florence stood up, bowed to both the Doge and Kondratieff, and then silently exited the room.
‘Zo all iz zettled,’ said the Doge
in a misty voice, once she and Kondratieff were alone. ‘Unt now I feel somevhat enervated, Docteur, unt in need of stimulation. All zhis political manoeuvring is most tiring.’ Almost casually she drew open her bodice. ‘You may attack my body venever you vish, Docteur.’
What wouldn’t a man do to serve his Doge? Kondratieff wondered, as he began his dutiful nuzzling of the woman’s breasts.
Michel de Nostredame blew on his hands. It was bitterly cold but, having been pre-warned by HyperOpia about how cold a Spring it would be, he was at least wearing his fur coat. It would take more than a little early morning frost to deter him from his rendezvous with the Column.
The Column.
As dawn’s light spread along the drained section of the Lagoon, de Nostredame gazed up at the Column. Column with a capital ‘C’. It seemed almost blasphemous to use the generic term ‘column’ when describing something so awe-inspiring. The Column, he knew instinctively, had the potential to change the Demi-Monde and to reshape the way Demi-Mondians thought about their ancient forebears, the Pre-Folk, about the Confinement and about Ragnarok.
The problem was that if he couldn’t find a way to decipher the runic writings covering the Column’s six sides, it was a potential destined to be unrealised. The fear tugged at him that, renowned preScientist and runic scholar though he was, he would be unable to translate the Column’s message.
De Nostredame stroked his long grey beard as he puffed his pipe back into life. Only when the noxious smoke was haloing around his head did he resettle his gaze on the runic riddle-meree that was etched on the Column. He was so lost to the world that he hardly noticed the water seeping up through the duck-boards he was sitting on. Squatting there, enjoying his pipe, de Nostredame’s subconscious had clearly decided that the message hidden in the tightly written runes was of such import that a little dampness of the arse was hardly a matter of note.
He was drawn to the use of the word ‘remarkable’ when cogitating on the Column.
It was remarkable that the Column had been discovered in the first place. It was sheer serendipity that the Doge had, for the first time in a hundred years, given permission for building works to be undertaken in Venice, works which required part of the Venetian Lagoon be drained and the Mantle-ite piers that studded the bed of the Lagoon to be exposed. And it was utterly, profoundly remarkable, once this part of the Lagoon had been walled and pumped dry, that they should find there, standing unsullied by five thousand years of submersion, the miracle that was the Column.
The Column was a Mantle-ite pillar, which accounted for its perfect state of preservation, since Mantle-ite was impervious to wear and tear, but not, of course, to the wiles of the Pre-Folk who had managed, ABBA only knew how, to carve the stuff. It was six metres tall with six flat sides, each of which tapered down from a width of around three metres at the top to two metres at the bottom. The Column sat on a hexagonal base, each edge of which – as best de Nostredame could see through the clinging mud – was four metres wide. Along the full length of each of the ascending sides of the Column were carved two serpents coiling and spiralling around one another. In a perverse way, these snakes reminded him of the caduceus, the symbol adopted by those working in the field of medicine, but that was as far as his speculations had taken him. Regarding which pre-Confinement deity was symbolised by these somewhat disturbing pairs of snakes, he could only guess.
Lilith? Now that was an interesting thought. The naked girl shown on the final side of the Column could be Lilith, but why would the Pre-Folk have created a monument to commemorate their greatest adversary? It didn’t make sense.
Intriguing and indecipherable though these embellishments were, they paled in comparison with what else was carved – or stamped, or moulded, or etched; who knew – into the Column’s sides. Whilst the Column was an impressive piece of art in itself, it was these lines of enigmatic runic writing that made it possibly, probably, certainly the most remarkable archaeological find ever made.
Remarkable. That bloody word again.
Despite the objections of his aged muscles, of his numbed arse and of his creaking joints, de Nostredame groaned up onto his feet and walked across to the Column. Reaching up, he reverently ran his tobacco-stained fingers along the tightly packed lines of infuriatingly opaque script. He had no idea what they said, but he touched them anyway in the forlorn hope that by doing so he might somehow be able to decipher the meaning hidden there.
Translation by osmosis, perhaps?
This was the real paradox of the Column. All the inscriptions carved into its sides were made in Pre-Folk A, the undeciphered language of the Pre-Folk, those long-lost ancients of the Demi-Monde. It was the language he had dedicated his long life to unBabelising, a dedication that had yielded nothing but failure.
Perhaps that was a little harsh. He could tell from the symbols used on the column, that the inscriptions made up an Eddic poem attributed – deep-breath time here – to Loki himself: the crossed emblem atop the sixth face of the Column, above the naked Lilith was Loki’s mark. He smiled ruefully. No wonder Loki was called ‘the Trickster’; the whole damned Column was one huge practical joke. Loki had sent a message down to them through time and yet had written it in a way that made it impossible to read.
He felt the presence of someone standing beside him and turned to find his friend and fellow expert in the esoteric world of preScience, Nikolai Kondratieff, gazing up at the Column. He studied Kondratieff for a second: the man looked a little peaky, his cheeks were flushed, and his normally immaculate suit was a trifle dishevelled.
‘Good morning, Nikolai, so good of you to attend me. But I must say, you look a little out of sorts.’
‘I have just come from an audience with the Doge.’
There was no other explanation necessary. The Doge was famous for her ability as a fortissimo-class love-maker. No man was safe in her presence.
‘You have arrived at just the right moment, Nikolai. We are about to try to lift the Column from its resting place here in the Lagoon.’ De Nostredame glanced over to the engineer in charge of the lifting. ‘Are we ready, CitiZen de Lesseps?’
‘We are ready, Professeur.’ De Lesseps nodded to the thick cables tethered around the Column, these cables threaded through massive pulleys and connected to a huge steam-powered winch. ‘I would be grateful if you and Docteur Kondratieff would stand to one side, Professeur. I don’t want either of you hurt when we hoist the Column free.’
De Nostredame and Kondratieff did as they were asked, and once de Lesseps was confident that the area was clear, he signalled to his winch operator. The ropes tightened and the steam engine began to chug, but the Lagoon refused to give up its prize easily. It took almost ten minutes of pummelling and puffing before the base of the Column swung free of the tenacious hold of the Lagoon’s mud. As soon as it did, de Lesseps called out an order to a group of men holding hoses, and great jets of water scythed through the muck decorating the Column’s plinth. In a matter of moments the pristine and flawless Mantle-ite was revealed, and like the flanks of the Column, the base was swathed in carved writing. But unlike the flanks, this wasn’t rendered in Pre-Folk A.
For a moment de Nostredame could hardly breathe. He was choked with excitement. He felt dizzy. As he looked at the words written before him, he knew he was destined to be one of the most famous men ever to have lived in the Demi-Monde. What was written on the base of the Column gave him the key to deciphering Pre-Folk A. Now he would finally be able to translate this cryptic message sent from the furthest depths of Demi-Mondian history.
6
Paris
The Demi-Monde: 3rd Day of Spring, 1005
Oddly and uniquely in the biological record, it would appear that all Demi-Mondians have traits of both H. sapiens and H. singularis, that is, they are simultaneously both Human and Dark Charismatic. In every one of the many hundreds of subjects I have examined during the course of my enquiries, there lurked the trait of H. singularis, this pernicious parasi
te, this malevolent cuckoo, striving endlessly and indefatigably for the opportunity to take command of its host’s soul.
Letter dated 53rd day of Spring, 1002, from Professeur Michel
de Nostredame to Doge Catherine-Sophia
Father Donatien, Chief Inquisitor in the Central Inquisitorial Agency, hated Spring the most. During the Winter all the refuse that an uncaring CitiZenry tossed so disdainfully aside, all the rubbish which fell from the backs of wagons and steamers, and all the effluent emitted from the rear of animals as they trundled through the streets of Paris, pulling carts or meandering to the slaughterhouse, was frozen and buried by the snow. Then Spring came, the snow retreated, and, centimetre by centimetre, these forgotten wonders, in all their noxious glory, were revealed. Spring was a shitty season.
But such was the urgency with which Donatien scuttled across the Place de Grève, en route to the Hôtel de Ville where Robespierre had his offices, that he couldn’t be too careful where – or into what – he stepped. It was an urgency propelled by his hatred and fear of Robespierre.
No, that was wrong.
It was a sad fact that Donatien’s fear of Robespierre considerably outweighed his hatred of him. A sad fact but, with regard to the importance Donatien placed on remaining attached to his head, a vital one. The pre-eminence of his fear over his hatred was, he supposed, the reason why he had survived so long, and why his previous and very disreputable life as a Venetian courtier had been so conveniently overlooked. His fear made him cautious, and his caution made him dutiful, recognising, as he did, that Robespierre demanded unwavering dutifulness above all things. So Donatien, in order to survive, had become the most servile of men, and hence Robespierre had spared him, which, considering Donatien had been working for Robespierre for over a year – all through the Great Schism – was something of a miracle.
The people who survived more than a year in proximity to Robespierre could be counted on the fingers of one hand; before, that is, said fingers were removed by the Great Inquisitor, Tomas de Torquemada, in retribution for some minor transgression against the Revolution or for some inadvertent comment denying the joys of UnFunDaMentalism. The death and torment these two beauties had visited on the CitiZens of the Medi made the SAE creep.
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