Airship Nation (Darkworld Chronicles Book 2)

by Tom DeMarco

  One of the girls was at Sonia’s side when he turned back. “Ask the corridor guards to step in, please,” Sonia said. “For our guest to see.” The girl nodded and stepped outside. When she returned, she had two burly black-suits in tow. Each one had an billy club in hand. They nodded respectfully to Sonia. She waved them away without a word, looking at Loren significantly.

  “They guard the corridor by which this suite communicates with the rest of the house. There is no way out except past them. I think you understand.”

  Loren ignored her. He opened the closet doors one after another, taking stock of what there was there to serve his purposes.

  “Anything you might need, I’m sure you won’t find,” she said.

  He pretended not to have heard. The door opposite led, he found, out into the corridor. The suite consisted of the bedroom and bath, the library where he’d first been brought to her last night, and its anteroom. The two guards stared at him sullenly as he passed back into the library. The girls looked up there as he entered, stopping their chattering momentarily. They were setting the long table for two, the places at opposite ends. The girls were dressed again in black, this time in longer dresses, almost gowns. The dresses were identical, each one with an oval neck, not too low. All four had on necklaces of pearls.

  Sonia was waiting for him in the bedroom, sitting calmly in the chair by the window with her hands folded in her lap. He was back in front of her, staring down at her mocking face. There were substantive matters that needed to be broached, an appeal made to whatever reason there might still be left in her muddled mind. But again, his fury pushed his purpose aside.

  “Preposterous!” he said, his voice louder than he had wanted.

  The small smile, nothing else.

  “You are,” he said, “this house is — suits of armor and shields and mounted lion heads — like a fancy London brothel. Your black-suits, your mindless child-woman servants…”

  “My angels.”

  “Angels. Preposterous.”

  She shrugged. “The sin of pride is here in this room. Part of my role is to help those who are afflicted with pride. To help them atone, to help them see the error of their ways.”

  “Don’t lecture me on sin, please. My life is too short.”

  “So short.”

  “And where, pray tell, does this ‘role’ of yours come from? How does a woman who is, by her own assessment, damned, come to find it necessary to help others atone?”

  “That is my sacrifice, the greatest one of all. I take their sins into me and leave them free, as I absorbed your sins last night.”

  “Thank you.”

  “All other sacrifice pales beside it.” Her eyes were glowing as she explained, her face radiating gladness. “Other sacrifice is transitory, and so, meaningless. A man gives up everything to help the poor, but what has he really given up? Only the passing pleasures of this world, and then he goes to his reward. I have given up that reward, given up the infinite. That is my sacrifice, that others may free themselves of sin.”

  “Preposterous.”

  She wrinkled her brow, as though working through a riddle: how to explain what should be obvious, but wasn’t, to this myopic man. “History,” she began, “has an irrefutable driving logic. The Renaissance follows upon invention of the printing press, mercantilism precedes the rise of nations, the Roman Empire declines with the increasing power of Christianity. And so on. Mankind, as a whole, is guided by logic. But that is a group phenomenon. The individual is not bound by the logic. The individual is always preposterous. The great number of us are proceeding in directions that history will prove to be dead ends. We are like the molecules of gas, colliding with the side of the laboratory beaker, trying to push the beaker in one direction or another, while our efforts are undone by other molecules pushing in other directions. So we are preposterous.”

  “You are.”

  “You are, my dear Loren. Look at you, a “founding father” of a great new society, Victoria. One of its architects. But what have you constructed? A society based on nothing. It has no traditions, no common roots, no ethic. It is nothing but a stupid, godless state. And what have you hit upon to be the essence of that state? I laughed and laughed when I heard. A princess.”

  He stared at her, dumbstruck.

  “A princess, an invention out of a fairy tale. That is what the nation state of Victoria is united upon. And what a princess: a clerk-typist with delusions.” She bit off the words. “Now tell me, who is preposterous.”

  “We are powerful…”

  She dismissed with a gesture what he was about to say. “A temporary quirk of fate. Your power is from a transient technological advantage. In a decade, everyone will have airships, and then where will Victoria be?”

  “Victoria will be a nation, like any other.”

  “I think not. It will be a band of squabbling intellectuals, finally pushed aside by whatever gang of ruffians takes a fancy to its territory. You will be helpless against those ruffians, my dear, because they will have some unifying purpose, something that matters”

  “Your gang of ruffians, no doubt.”

  “Or some other.”

  A sound behind him at the door. One of the girls was there, waiting for Sonia’s attention. “It’s the dinner, Milady. We are ready to serve.”

  There was the heavy smell of roasted meat. Loren turned away, jaw set.

  Beside him, Sonia was laughing. It was a musical sound, childlike. “Oh, Loren, you are so transparent. You have always been transparent.”

  “What?”

  “You are thinking ‘I will not accept so much as a crust of bread from these diabolical women.’ But the fact is, you are quite ravenous.”

  Right on both counts. “Wrong on both counts,” he said. “If we’re going to eat, let’s be done with it. We have important matters to discuss.”

  Two of the girls held Loren’s chair for him as he sat down. He stared down the long table toward Sonia, the distance across it as nothing to void between them.

  “My angels,” she said, indicating the four young women, “Giselle, Anya, Lisa and Bernadette.”

  They looked at him, curiously, their eyes shining, drugged, high on something. Loren paid them no heed.

  When his plate was full, he divided it into two parts, determined to leave the larger half uneaten. He ate with his head down. There were tall goblets of wine and water. Loren drank them both. When he had finished his allotted portion, he pushed the plate aside.

  “Are you determined then to go to war against us?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Nothing would deter you.”

  “Nothing. Nothing short of abject surrender.”

  “But why? What makes this necessary?”

  “Expiation.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No. You wouldn’t.”

  “You must do this thing?”

  “I must. What you have created, I must destroy. It is as simple as that.”

  “Sonia, I’m not your enemy.”

  “No.” She thought that over. He saw that she hadn’t eaten any of the food in front of her. She pushed at it disinterestedly with a fork. “You are not my enemy. It is your wife who is my enemy.”

  “Kelly?”

  “No, not Kelly, she is just an ignorant child. As Kelly she means nothing to me. It is as the Princess that she is my enemy. Because she is a symbol.”

  “But you just told me a few minutes ago, that the symbol was something out of a fairy tale, the invention of a preposterous foolishness.”

  “I did?” Again, the vacant look.

  “And now, you make it sound like the strategic key to Victoria’s strength.”

  She shrugged, not following his drift and not interested. “The coming war,” she said, “will erase that strength. And in its place shall rise another, a strength made of righteousness….” She went silent.

  When it was clear she was not going to continue, he said, “Couldn
’t you learn not to hate us?”

  She seemed astonished at the thought. “I don’t hate you, Loren. Not any of you. You are my friends. My love is directed toward all of you. It is why I need to intervene. To bring my love to the people of Victoria.”

  “To save us.”

  “Yes. You have nothing. You need me. I have to lead you toward the peace that I have found, to help you see. You resist, because you can’t understand your own need. So I must break down that resistance and help you in spite of yourselves.”

  The girls had cleared the table and served some kind of a sweet, a pastry with honey and nuts over it. Loren ate it without notice. The one called Giselle put a small cordial glass before him and filled it with an orange colored wine from a small bottle.

  “It’s a Muscat,” Sonia said, nodding toward the wine. There isn’t much left. Only a few bottles for our most special guests. This may be all that remains in the entire world.”

  Loren tossed it off. He considered carefully what to say next. The expression “playing without a full deck” had a terrifying appropriateness to Sonia, and to any interaction with her. They were locked in combat in a game with shifting rules, where nothing made sense to one player and the other had renounced the entire notion of sense. She said she didn’t hate them, so he assumed that she did. From a distant memory he heard one of his sisters, Chlotide, he thought, explaining that one could only hate the unknown. If he could make her see the people of Victoria, to know them again as she once had. An appeal to reason was useless, but an appeal to her emotions…

  “The children we rescued from the Stella Linda,” he began, “are now entering the university. We have constructed a wonderful university for them, Sonia. I wish you could see. The little boy named Tiger, do you remember him? He was valedictorian of his graduating class. He lectured us on ‘the future.’ A good lecture, too. They are so full of hope for the future. We have five faculties in the university. There are professors from France and England and Spain, and of course, many from Victoria. We always had an excess of academics. Well, now they’re coming into their own…”

  “Except they’ve got nothing to teach.”

  “But they have. There are schools of mathematics and physics and chemistry and government and arts.”

  “But no principle to guide them. Only an empty humanism.”

  “Of course there is principle. There is the ethic of individualism, the religion of science….”

  “Ah!” she said.

  Loren stared at her, uncomprehending, still formulating what he needed to say. His mind was racing, but his body felt suddenly weary. Behind him at the sideboard, the girls were giggling, always giggling. The sound was louder than it ought to have been, loud and tinny. His tongue felt thick. There was a bitter metallic taste in his mouth. He looked down stupidly at the empty cordial glass in front of him.

  “No!” he shouted. He dragged himself to his feet and thrust his whole weight against the table, trying to overturn it. Instead, he slipped across its corner. He lifted himself again, dizzy and weak. Two of the girls were at his side, twittering. They had hold of his arms. But for their support, he would have fallen.

  Sonia was on her feet. She spoke softly to the young woman at her side. “You may release the corridor guard for the evening, Anya. We shan’t be needing them any further.” The girl ran out the door.

  He was trying to say something, but his mouth now wouldn’t work at all.

  “You see, Loren, you are the object of our attention again this evening. You are our only amusement. So your ordeal must go on.”

  She nodded toward the padded table in the alcove. He felt himself being led helplessly toward it. When Anya returned, Sonia gathered her in by the shoulder along with the fourth young woman, and led them toward the table where the others were waiting with Loren. “Come along, my angels,” she said. “Tonight you shall be allowed to play as well.”

  15

  SIN AND EXPIATION

  In the late morning the sun fell full on Sonia’s face to rouse her from her slumber. The angel Lucifer had come to stand at the foot of her bed, as He often did.

  “So lovely,” He said. He pulled back the sheet to reveal her nude form. She felt helpless to move, even to cover herself with her hands in His presence. “You shall be mine one day, for my pleasure.” The expression was cruel and hungry, a leer.

  “But not yet.” She said it with more spirit than she felt. There were limits to His power, she knew. The rules of engagement protected her from Him for the present.

  “But in time. I can wait. What is time to me? It shall be as we both anticipate.” He stood larger than a man, taller and broader across the shoulders. His eyes were cat’s eyes, glowing yellow. He was a cat in heat: It was impossible not to notice that the front of His leather breeches was bulging. She shivered, struggling to retain her composure.

  “But not yet,” she said again. “Speak your business.”

  The lust was replaced by anger. A glint of red from those violent eyes. He flicked the sheet back over her in disgust. “You toy with me, woman. It shall be to your regret.”

  “Yes. Without doubt.”

  An extended pause. Finally, “Your foolish plan does not please me.”

  “I know.”

  “This pointless war. I have an interest in the island nation of Victoria.”

  “Of course. It is Your creature.”

  He nodded. “If you destroy it, you risk my ire.”

  She laughed bitterly. “I have always known that,” she said.

  “You will be the first unfortunate human ever to lose her soul and yet not gain my love, the first to taste the fury of both my Opposite and myself.”

  “So be it.”

  He glared at her. Then, savoring each syllable: “Your torment will be beyond what has ever been before. It shall give new meaning to the word violation,”

  “I know.”

  “And yet you persist?”

  “As I must.”

  When He was gone, she slept again.

  Loren’s ordeal on the third night was different. He was in the library again, fastened to the metal ring. He had been staring up at the ring, noticing the marks of chain against it. It seemed well worn along the bottom.

  “I am not the first, am I?”

  “Oh no. Not the first.”

  “Tell me, what finally happened to the others?”

  “Some have become or remained faithful followers. And some have cracked. What will it be with you, Loren?” She seemed bemused by the question. “Will you see the error of your ways and join me? I think not. I think it is more likely you will break, like a brittle metal that splinters apart as the craftsman tries to reshape it. But I shall try to reshape you nonetheless.”

  “You’re mad, utterly mad.”

  Again the shrug.

  That had been useless. He was annoyed with himself for the lapse. It could not serve his purpose to taunt her. “Tell me again about sin, Sonia.”

  She brightened like a child offered a sweet. “Yes, if you like.”

  “You explained that sin was of no consequence to you, yourself, because there is no hope for you of salvation.”

  “None.”

  “So you think only of others.”

  “That is my lot. It is not the way I would have had it, but the way it has become. I am a shepherd and those around me are my flock. It is my role to help them purify themselves.”

  “And what of your little ‘angels,’ these witless girls who do your bidding? It seems to me you have led them into sin. I know you have. I can attest to it.” His voice wavered. “How do you justify that?”

  Sonia nodded, as though she had heard the question before and had a ready answer for it. “A just man falls into sin seven times a day,” she repeated from her sermon. “That is what St. Paul tells us. Of course it is the same for a just woman. Men and women, we are but poor human creatures, unable to resist sin. The belief that we might resist it is itself a sin, the sin of pride
. We can struggle against sin, but we must fail, because the flesh is weak. The message I have brought to my followers is not the avoidance of sin, because that is impossible. I teach them only to recognize it, and to atone.”

  “They atone by following you into your war?”

  “Yes, that is one way. But not the only way. You shall see.” Loren wished suddenly that he had kept his mouth shut. She clapped her hands together and the four girls came rushing in from the anteroom. As always, they were excited by her call, glowing with anticipation. Sonia was on her feet, her face clouded with anger. Catching her expression, the angels became suddenly serious. Her regard was withering. Finally, they were all looking down, unable to match her gaze. “Which of you has sinned?” She passed along the line of them, inspecting their pale faces. “Which has reveled in pleasures of the flesh?” One of them, the youngest, seemed the most troubled by her question.

  “You, Anya?”

  “Milady…” She raised her hands helplessly.

  “Yes, I think you have. I know you have.”

  “I…”

  “You have all sinned, my dears, and you know what that means. But you, Anya, your sin was the greatest. Because your pleasure was the greatest. Isn’t that so?”

  “Please no, Milady.”

  The other three were grinning now. Sonia turned to them. “Take her arms. Hold her for her punishment.” Anya shrieked as her fellows grabbed at her. She tried to dart for the door, but was caught and dragged back. “No,” she cried, tears starting to flow down her cheeks.

  “Yes, my dear. But you knew this. Giselle, pull the love seat here in front of our guest. Turn it with its back to him.” She gave instructions calmly as Anya looked on, horrified. When the small couch was in position, she turned to Anya. “This shall be your expiation, my dear. When it is over, you will be relieved of a great burden. The man shall be a witness to your punishment.”

  The girl was blubbering.

  “Stretch her over the back of the seat.” A long wail from Anya as she was forced, into position just in front of Loren.