The Rhevireon Chronicle: The Ascent of the West Page 15

  His hollow voice escalated tension in the hall, a robust presumption that he’d won their votes over, already.

  ‘Kudos, Kudos, Kudos…’ So was the Overseers’ rumbling reaction of approval to their Baron’s megalomaniac drive.

  ‘Since House of the Overseers and the Plebian had the edict sponsored by Baron Athanasius Speaker of the southern Chamber, read and drafted beforehand,’ Elle Ciel asseverated, constrained to the abashing object, ‘and since the necessary quorum of members of the Diet are present in this emergency special session with the purpose to reach a concomitant resolution to the current issue, I, Magistrate Elle Ciel subject the Zentrum PHRONESIS Edict, that is, the Zentrum Protection of Human Residents from Outer Network of Entities Seeking to Irradicate the State Edict, to vote on by the Overseers.’ She then signaled to the Clerk.

  ‘House of the Overseers,’ announced the record-keeping Clerk of the Diet, at the desk toward neath of the dais occupied by the Speaker and Chair of the Plebians, on the desk a hard copy of the edict was, he carried on,‘show hand if you agree on the enactment of the Zentrum PHRONESIS Edict into law.’

  Members of the Overseer arrayed on the staggered benches to the left side of the hall, to the right the Plebians were seated on tenterhooks as they eyed their fate in the hands of the past, those of the Overseers to consent raised them flat open, around their wrists were electronic bracelets which digitized the result in the final approval vote, the Clerk was alone allowed to view and record the result.

  ‘Overseers, show hands if you disagree to the enactment of the Zentrum PHRONESIS Edict into law.’ He said; and those of them to detract raised theirs, he put the result on file.

  ‘Your Serenity do you consent enactment of the Zentrum PHRONESIS Edict into law?’ he finally asked the Magistrate, her endorsement all the Baron needed to release his highest pursuits.

  ‘As Magistrate of Juneauton Weltzentrumpoleis,’ she affirmed, and the Plebians bit their lips, ‘therefore automatically Chair of the Chamber of Plebians, in which context I’m entitled as the only public office of my Chamber to ratify or object bills concerning our internal policy, originating from chamber of the Overseers, in this case the Zentrum PHRONESIS Edict, after I had revised its content, and implementing my right for consultation with the Plebians, pored over its dimensions, strong points and, within a forty eight hours deadline, I exert my other right to the Magistrate Veto, so I decline the Juneauton PHRONESIS Edict from being passed into action, a written account as of why we say nay, will be introduced to Clerk of the Diet; presently, it’s enough to mention that your edict Mr. Eisbar is blatantly anti-constitutional; I will not sign on the reiteration of history, for we understand it, so are immune from repeating it.’ Elle Ciel finished her statement with standoffish resignation in the face of the Larger-Than-Life; to wide approbation of the Plebians led on after mirage of an early victory.

  ‘Revered Plebians, never will I stop being impressed,’ retorted the Baron out of rancor dictating his words, ‘with your unpatriotism, how timeless it is! And how ridiculous is your allegation of being delegates to the boroughs advocating their concerns and businesses, fooling everybody around to disbelieve the extraordinary effort you’ve ploughed in the best interest of your parties of origin; the Magistratum? It’s the safe-deposit of your spate of private affairs soaked in scandals, if it weren’t for the first Act of the constitution, I’d go straight to the people, isn’t that what referendums are about? And your Serenity! What history is it you’re so bothered with? Cause’ I only have learnt that history is relative, some of it are pure facts, and the rest, for the rest it depends, hard emotions, opportunism, and public relations, so to speak! By the way, sign it or not, sooner than later it is your obligation; Dignified Overseers cheer up, we’re not done yet; honorable Clerk, let’s clarify matters!’

  ‘This is blasphemy against reverence of the Plebian as a whole, say something your Serenity!’ Protested a member of their chamber, leading a faction of the Plebians to baste onto their desks as a form of demur.

  ‘Gentlemen, If you have something to cavil about, please take it to the court.’ Intervened the Clerk, and until they halted from missing with the desks, their best part on every convention, had he continued,‘I’m repeatedly urging you to leave personal disputes out of this hall, but to whom am I talking? Speaker of the Overseers’ request is sound to the hilt, the Magistrate Veto does not abrogate any bill whatsoever, unless the Overseers fell short from superseding it with the qualified majority, three-quarters out of the thirty six members voting for—’

  ‘Honorable Clerk, would you just get it off your chest?’ said the Magistrate jokingly, bringing about an air of anemic joviality over the increasing tension and suspense sending the hall into spasm.

  ‘As you wish your Serenity,’ riposted the Clerk,‘so, the Overseers vote on the Zentrum PHRONESIS Edict goes, four members abstained, twelve were against, with fifteen out of the thirty six voted for, which is still not enough for the edict to be adopted into law.’ The Baron lost.

  ‘Kudos, kudos, kudos, kudos…’ but they burst out in their chant, sending their opponents into a fit of awe.

  XVIII

  FAREWELL

  July the 13.

  Sometime before the dayspring, while Juneauton yet was dead to the world, Gilbert had left his villa in his usual semi-formal; the cab he rode headed in the direction of the Larch park, it almost was there; in the back seat Gilbert had the box on his lap. When the express drew up.

  ‘Why don’t you take us around the side gate, the one on the Wallron Street.’ He told the driver, who went toeing the line forthwith.

  3:51 a.m., dump trucks sallied out into toil through the boroughs, rolling garbage over and over they seduced and in the same breath scared off the scavenging birds.

  At the Pristine Ranges.

  On board the caterpillar tracked carrier, Sebastian, Dusk, and Hoyden parceled out that portion of the floorpan of the shuttle; holding to their knees they’d turned a deaf ear to each other, over-occupied with their own plans for a future uncertain to them in a country foreign to them, they’d heard a lot about and seldom caught glimpses at, though every time they happened to, the mere feeling had they had was empathy with the hardships its people were going through. Now at five past twenty in the morning, it’d been quite a while since an officer last came by inquiring their wants, those were the Senior’s orders, and so they were grateful to him even if he refused to let them in, inside the effectives’ quarter, partly because they had not enough space on the carrier, and then again was the issue corresponding to who were they? The Senior hadn’t swallowed their version of the story stock and barrel; and unless had he the antipode borne out, keeping them in detention wouldn’t count anywhere off limits.

  ‘Is this it? Their holly land?’ exclaimed Dusk upon getting his load of the bucolic life there, then Hoyden and Sebastian had theirs, Sebastian who went caustic in tone,‘ours! Watch your mouth brother.’

  ‘And now that we’re becoming hers,’ said Hoyden,‘let us treat her with veneration, lest our existence on soil of the far north be misfortunate already; so you skipper, what’s that scheme you devised for this new life, if we ever got there?’ she stood; pushing her slim body against the railing friskily, she asked him with that smile of hers, the one Dusk had long yearned for, and he finally got to see.

  ‘None frankly,’ returned Sebastian without mulling over it ounce of a minute, ‘rather tell me if I’d any for the mess I left behind, a comfortable mess in spite of all to my rue, something hard to realise although is true; right, nobody got the whip hand over their morrow, it scarcely behooves us to adapt, adapt to whatever comes with the flow, alright that’s it; won’t be taking for granted my new ways on that land, but I do have relatives somewhere there, if my memory hasn’t crashed and burned yet it’s a hamlet they called Ahtenaerbe, they said my kin’s were gauchos, bur’ it’d been a chunk of years, so aren’t know! Just we have it in the can with these people, we got
to head for the hamlet, sure you’ll be gladly received, folks there are far from sophistication of the unflossiest borough; and once you get case-hardened to customs of their countryside, you may hit the road into their urban wide city, Anchorshire on your own, while I, I perhaps will put few roots down!’

  At the Zentrum.

  Gilbert had a walk in the vacant park, lacking warmth of its midday visitors but not so that of the larch, larch trees tapestried its landscape; Gilbert carried the box looking behind him and besides, weaving steps through the shrubs exploring the area for some secluded spot, but he didn’t settle sight on any that fit the bill.

  On board the personnel carrier.

  Without warning, three of them, the expatriates, caught tail of discourse from what outwardly turned out a subject of concern to them, between the Senior and an officer of his, the indignated tone must be the Senior’s, ‘traitors, murders…’he was grumbling, and promptly the continuous tracked vehicle breaked off at foot of the escarpment face of the trail, a batch of tramping racket ensued towards them getting nigher, and so they readily stood in premonition.

  Somewhere far into the Larch park.

  Gilbert had set the aluminum box onto the grass, holding at the stick he dug the earth with tenacity, hitting a certain depth he took the box and into the hole buried it, the box by the ampule pair containing the permanent solution. After Gilbert had consumed the pair X, after he had experimented with the fugacious upshot of the Metaphormula, thus, he learnt of the destructive side of the ubermensch, today, at the park of larch, he had made the decision, to rid himself of the Metaphormula’s inferiority knot, the permanent solution to which laid underneath the dirt. And so before the knoll of soil he made, Gilbert segued into that same state of elation he once had, in the sub-rosa where it all had begun.

  On the lip of the hill.

  ‘Lies, these all lies,’ cried out Sebastian in denial to the Senior, whose officers had beset them round, ‘we’d been in a state of self-defence what do you expect?’ with arrant vehemence he added.

  ‘This report says something else,’ responded the Senior, like the father who confronted his truant son’s paltering with the examination results, the Senior subjected the man to his portending vitriol, ‘Sebastian, Sebastian! Listen to me, you’re a natural born tergiversator, that forwardness zapped me with the sum of your understanding and eventual trading upon the fallacies within the current jus inter gentes, but sadly it doesn’t preserve one from going sap of a man; the forceful currents harrying the lake, from its depths had sent the sunken yacht marooned! How happened all the experience freelancers supposedly accumulate, spared you not from negligence of so a wee detail, and great everyone’s surprise was when the patrolling unit found what’d they found, who’s that behind it? You are, but why? Why would the Maiden whom a nation of millions had chosen, conspire with this, a down-and-out sailor, on who? Her husband, the extolled Senior Geovanny Ruvelharts.’

  ‘On paper perhaps,’ cried Hoyden, when she’d nothing else to lose, ‘‘cause I never been touched by a human being, not a man nor a woman, and considering the current course of events, I withhold any presumption that I ever will be, and so thus I shall stand the tries of time, with a promise.’

  ‘Paper? All it’s always been about!’ shot back the Senior, ‘what’s on paper, makes wonders on the earth you walk, and ingrain either the seeds of truth or lies in the minds of whom ever you relate to; like this telegram, expatiating on which I’ve just evinced, by now the message had found its way to every other Sentinel unit active along the Pristine trail…’

  ‘Call them, muster them all,’ the skipper vociferated in the red mist, ‘let them lament what the sailor had done to you—’ cried he with ire chewing on his hands, the hand that pulled out the pistol, a double-barreled derringer from beneath his garment, he on the spot shot the Senior and the officer to his side, before they’d gotten to do away with him. In the blink of an eye all gray became, all things in their prospect had changed, the glimpses from a thought-near propitious future evaporated into nothingness; only their present reality flowed voluptuous through their senses; while every shade of the past had desiccated into what? The blasting of lead into the rifles’ fire, and the bewailing of a man. Dusk never witnessed a man to sob before, but Sebastian’s bewailing had the tinge not of physical excruciation, but something of death, of a soul unready to die, taken aback for good. In spite of it all, the present condition of this man, Sebastian, made no difference to them, no longer, not Hoyden neither Dusk; the very instant the friend they’d set to transgress the edge of town with, for better or for worse, was shot dead, they went running the gantlet; lugging themselves down the hill, the instinct to survive, the mother of all instincts’ call; behind them, the officers aimed their rifles, and fired, but didn’t got them, and Hoyden was not daunted by their bullets neither him was, they just kept on the scamper, until, until when Hoyden stumbled, and falling to the ground, she clutched to Dusk’s arm; ‘traitors, shoot the traitors…’ they hollered out and the rifles were shot once more, Hoyden’s ankle was severed, she loosened her grasp on Dusk’s arm, his hand, and little by little his fingers slipped out of her grip, she gave in to the mayhem they did her, and let go of him; the Overseers persistently were after Hoyden, they got so nigh on them; Dusk whispered something into her ear, pecked her on the lips, and dashed away into shame, he ran for all his worth; en route to the hamlet, a hollow shell of a man, he had committed his own hamartia.

  XIX

  THE GAUCHOS OF AHTENAERBE

  Mid-July.

  ‘Someone try and distract him, her, whoever it was, just dialed the emergency dispatch, they’re on their way!’ roared the man, only for his isolated deed of gumption to seem bootless, snowed under the rumpus of their bellyaching and raucous, the hedge of people bunging up the sidewalk caused; their heads high above held, nicking peers at a figure of unrecognizable gender, the scant street lights latching on to those heights, barely would reflect against its traits, her traits, holding out on the ledge, the hotel’s 12th storey. Some coffin hotel.

  ‘That, that must be a gynoid,’ exclaimed an other.‘Who’s good at making contact with them?!! Come on somebody here gotta be—’

  I do, actually, he knew he did, just as he bechanced to be there, Matthias went asap nudging through the crowd, that’s a not-so-often encountered scene, even in the big megalopolis; Matt reached for his satchel, pulled the camera, the lens adjusted and, just do it buddy, make us that leap of faith! I too never tumbled to the reason behind embracing a guinea pig’s life. Prepared he thought, hitting the zoom closer he noticed the difference, you’re a lady then, well, the more unheard of, the more remunerative it gets for me, your gonna pay me lunch tomorrow poor girl. Cheapo chip chop in the Chinatown bistro!