Wonder City Stories

His Faded Idol

11.

Erszebet and Zoltan arrived earlier than usual, both anxious to know what was happening. As they coolly made their way into the halls of the convention center, Erszebet's gaze was almost immediately assaulted by a middle-aged man in a miniscule leopard-skin loincloth pacing the halls in a manner he clearly thought resembled a stalking big cat.

"What is wrong with his skin?" she asked Zoltan behind her hand. "Is it jaundice? Some alien disease?"

"No, my dear," he said, pat-patting her shoulder, "that is the rather orange result of a chemical suntan. And that is the finest example of an out-of-date para you will ever see: Ran-Zor the Lord of the Jungle."

Erszebet studied him, from the thinning and graying hair that straggled down his back, to the signs of a sedentary occupation in the thinness of his arms and legs, to the bunion on his foot. She glanced at Zoltan, trying to ascertain whether he was having her on. "He does not look like a lord of the jungle," she concluded dubiously.

Zoltan shrugged. "He claims to be an English lord who was left to fare for himself in the jungle by the tragic deaths of his parents, who were notable explorers, though I certainly never heard of them. I think he was raised by pangolins or something." He gestured toward the man for the benefit of one of the werewolf guards, and a half dozen werewolves closed in on the lord of the jungle. "He always claims to be Mystikai, and so crashes our events. I think he likes being manhandled, personally." He swept Erszebet past the impending fracas.

They encountered Harald soon enough. The elderly man was pink in the face with excitement. "I expect you have heard the news!" he exclaimed, shaking Zoltan's hand vigorously.

"Full-bore Cotyngham withdrawal?" Zoltan said, grinning. "Indeed we have!"

Harald bowed low over Erszebet's hand and gave her a wink. "Perhaps we have not been so boring after all," he said.

"Not at all, sir!" Erszebet said, taking his arm and squeezing it warmly. "This has all been very educational."

"Oh, dear," Harald said to Zoltan. "I am truly old, my friend, when a pretty young lady tells me that I am part of an educational experience."

"We are all educational for my dear cousin, I fear," Zoltan said.

"You are," Erszebet assured them cheerfully. "That does not make you less charming."

"Flatterer," Harald said, but he winked at her again.

"So who is here?" Zoltan asked.

"All the Ancients," Harald said. "They all arrived early and have locked themselves away to debate. I expect we shall have a long evening of waiting."

"There is no convenient smoke to turn white when they make a decision," Erszebet said.

Zoltan and Harald laughed. "No," Harald said, "but I expect we shall know almost instantly."

It was, in fact, a long evening of waiting. Erszebet left the menfolk to their own devices soon after, and went in search of her various acquaintances. After an hour of sliding through the dense crowd of Family, paras, vermin, and others, she heard her name called.

"Erszebet!" Alicia called again, bouncing up and down and waving to her over the heads of several individuals in color-coded armor.

She gratefully made her way toward her friend and found Catherine there as well. "Whatever are you doing in this little hallway?" she asked, accepting the glass of wine that Catherine snagged off a passing waiter's tray in the main hall.

"The meeting room is just down there," Alicia bellowed genteelly over the roar that filled the convention center halls.

"The meeting room!" Catherine shouted, waggling her thick black eyebrows meaningfully.

"And Jeanne-Marie is in there, acting as a messenger-clerk for her grandmother!" Alicia said directly into Erszebet's ear, guiding her away from the majority of the press. "We're hoping to get news the next time she's sent out."

"We are inveterate noseyparkers," Catherine said, fanning herself.

"How exciting!" Erszebet said, drinking her wine. "I had thought my cousin got the news first and we would be here before all else, but it seems not to be."

"Oh, I expect your cousin was the one who sent out the news to our families," Catherine said with a knowing look. "He has resources in this town."

"Were the two of you as exhausted as I was?" Erszebet asked.

"Oh, yeah," Alicia said. "I have a couple of my regular donors with me, though, so that was easy enough."

"Lucky," Catherine said. "I had to drop by one of the approved hunting grounds. Did your cousin provide for you, Erszi?"

"Yes," Erszebet said. "Though it was... um, strange."

"This whole city is a weirdness magnet," Alicia said. "I'll be glad to get home."

"To San Francisco?" Catherine said, grinning. "That haven of normalcy and WASPy Puritanical values?"

"Shh!" Erszebet said, cutting off whatever Alicia was about to say. "Here comes Jeanne-Marie!"

Jeanne-Marie was trying to combine dignity with speed, striding down the hall in a very plain grey pantsuit and practical shoes. Her face was flushed and she was perspiring lightly. She paled a bit when she saw the trio lying in wait. "I cannot say anything!" she said before they could start in on her. "It is a heated discussion, in more ways than one, and my grandmother will brook no delay. Also," she said, pausing to give them a regretful grimace, "much of what's being said is not for my ears." With a wave, she hurried away.

The trio looked at each other, and Catherine relieved the curiosity of the younger women by saying, "Telepathy. By the time you get to their age, all this empathy we wrangle has sort of... transcended."

"I didn't know that," Alicia said, rather awed.

"Neither did I," Erszebet said. She and Alicia exchanged glances, both leaking discomfort that probably reflected thoughts of what their grandmothers and great-aunts -- and possibly mothers and aunts -- were saying about them when they couldn't hear.

The trio drifted away, since they were going to get no scoop from their friend, and over the next couple of hours, they drifted apart into other conversations.

Finally, the tolling of a massive bell shook the halls into wide-eyed silence.

Just as people were beginning to ask where the bell was, a second sounding of the bell rattled everyone's ribcage and teeth and bones.

The loudspeaker system came on and Zoltan's cheerful voice rang out: "Will everyone please convene in the auditoriums? The main auditorium is reserved for Family, but the subsidiary auditoriums all have screens and live broadcasts."

Erszebet found herself jostled up against Isolde in the press to get into the main auditorium. Isolde linked arms with her. "I've gotta have someone to talk to in this mess," she told Erszebet. "The suspense is killing me."

"This is very exciting!" Erszebet said. "Do you think your grandmother...?"

"I try not to think anything about my grandmother," Isolde said. "She always surprises me, no matter what."

They settled into seats in the balcony, giving way to their elders. Erszebet spotted Alicia across the auditorium, but could not locate Catherine or Jeanne-Marie.

It took at least half an hour to settle everyone in the main auditorium. Erszebet was vibrating with the excitement that everyone was radiating.

At last, Zoltan appeared on stage, immaculate in his perfectly tailored black tuxedo and starched white shirt. There was a scattered round of applause that he waved into silence.

"My friends and Family," he said into the microphone he was holding, "it is my distinct honor to be able to present you with our Circle of Ancients."

Silently, the oldest women in North America filed onto the stage, all wearing the most beautiful black gowns Erszebet had ever seen, some remarkably anachronistic yet still gorgeous. They arrayed themselves in a semicircle around Zoltan.

After a dramatic pause, Zoltan said, "And now, the moment we have all been waiting for: the name of the new Grand Matriarch of North America." He drew an envelope from his pocket, tore open the end, and drew a folded sheet of paper from it. He looked at the paper, and Erszebet, even from her balcony seat, could see his eyes widen, though he was too polished and well-controlled to show any other response.

There was an impatient rustle through the audience. The Circle of Ancients, however, might have been carved from stone.

"I will read you what is on this paper," Zoltan said, his voice wavering just a little. He cleared his throat. "'It is the consensus of the Ancients that in light of the remarkable changes the past two centuries has brought to this land, the original territorial lines of the Dominion of North America may be over-ambitious, if we extrapolate for even simply the century to come. As a result, we have redrawn the territorial lines.'"

An explosion of noise throughout the auditorium caused Zoltan to lower the paper and wait. He glanced once over his shoulder, though Erszebet could not make out who he was looking at.

"This never happens," Erszebet muttered to Isolde. "My aunt has never said that there has been redrawing of the lines in anything like recent memory -- only wars to take existing Family territories."

"It's still a new land," Isolde said, eyes locked on the stage. "Evolving traditions and all."

A wave of impatient severity rippled over the room, silencing it almost immediately.

"Oh, Grandmother," Isolde said with a grim little smile.

Zoltan looked to the paper again. "'Be assured, beloved Family, that we have carefully negotiated these lines, agreed to the required alliance conditions, and signed the necessary contracts.'" He folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. "It is my honor and pleasure to present to you the Grand Matriarchs of the East and the West, respectively: Dame Geneviève de León and Doña Consuela Maria Mercedes del Santiago Zalazar!"

The two women stepped forward to either side of Zoltan. Dame Geneviève gravely bowed to the applause while Doña Consuela waved and smiled enthusiastically.

Erszebet applauded till her hands hurt, and only when the applause began to die away did she notice that Isolde's applause was somewhat more restrained. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Isolde gave her a pained smile. "Well, you know what 'required alliance conditions' usually are, right?"

Erszebet frowned. "I expect those would be marriages."

Isolde nodded and gripped the seat back in front of her. "First marriages, of course, because secondary or tertiary spouses would not have nearly enough clout. And I'm the oldest unmarried woman in my family."

"Oh," Erszebet said. "Oh, Isolde." She laid her hand on Isolde's.

Isolde laced her fingers with Erszebet's and squeezed. They both looked back at the stage and over the jubilant auditorium in silence.

---

Author's Note:

No one expects the Spanish Disposition!

His Faded Idol

7.

"I have heard that Griselda will not allow even a telephone in the great house," murmured Jeanne-Marie St. Michel of Québec, gazing around at her new intimate friends with wide blue eyes. "And the daughters all built subsidiary houses of their own at the turn of the last century so they could have electricity."

"How does she plan to 'run the empire' as she puts it?" asked Alicia Figueroa of San Francisco, a dark-eyed, sarcastic beauty about Erszebet's age. "By Pony Express?"

"She can't last that much longer," said Catherine Rezanov, a statuesque double-centenarian from Alaska. "Can she?"

"I am certain that the South American Grand Matriarch hopes she will not," Jeanne-Marie said, "after Griselda apparently sent back a gift from her family with a note saying that the North American Family did not need any 'castoffs from the Third World.'"

"She did not," Alicia said, her eyes growing large. "Did she?"

"I saw a scan of the note," Jeanne-Marie said. "One of the granddaughters in the Brazilian great house posted it on one of the Family forums I'm on."

"I heard," Catherine said, shielding her mouth with her fan, "from someone in a Cotyngham Household, that the President called all the major houses to offer condolences on the death of Klotild, and Griselda wouldn't talk to him, and beyond that, would not allow any of her family to speak to him. Something about not wanting to bother with politicians who have no power."

Jeanne-Marie rolled her eyes. "There will be little respect for the Family once Griselda is in charge," she said.

"If there is so much concern," Erszebet said, "why not choose a different Grand Matriarch?"

The other three stared at her as if she had sprouted multiple heads.

"That is not done," said Jeanne-Marie, but then she added, "Is it?"

"My aunt Csilla is a Family historian," Erszebet said. "I have read her books. The last Grand Matriarchs of Russia, eastern Europe, and Turkey were all chosen from the pool of ancients. And so was the last Grand Matriarch of the British Empire. They stopped choosing one for the Empire after World War Two, I think."

"Klotild became Grand Matriarch because she was the eldest," Catherine said. "And I think her predecessor did too."

"Marie, yes, she was of the St. Michels," Jeanne-Marie said. "She ascended in 1857."

"And Klotild took the title in 1917," Alicia said. "What about before Marie?"

"I think she was one of the Bostonians," Catherine said. "And before that, a Virginian. And then we have no history before that."

"So the tradition," Erszebet said slowly, "is born of four Grand Matriarchs in all?"

"Um," Alicia said, "yes, I guess so."

Catherine tapped her chin with her fan. "This whole thing is very expensive, you know. A convention center. All the travel and food and decoration. All the families have to contribute to the ceremonies."

"And what if Griselda passes away in the next decade or two?" Jeanne-Marie said. "I am my grandmother's secretary, and I know how large the check was for our contribution. It will take us fifty years to make that up."

Erszebet glanced over at the enormous buffet spread. "Though I expect a funeral for Griselda would not include so many who were not of the Family," she observed, watching a half dozen people in bright spandex uniforms exploring the food options.

"She hates paras," Alicia said. "I overheard her commenting on them when my mothers went to greet her."

"Just as well she's in Chicago and not Wonder City," Catherine said.

"Chicago is hardly without paras," Jeanne-Marie said.

"But she can stay away from them there," Alicia said. "Paras and Family have very separate lives. Here in Wonder City... I'm just not surprised that Klotild was so involved."

"Even with the vermin," Jeanne-Marie said in a low voice. "There is quite a large group of them here, you know."

Just at that moment, a coltish young blonde woman in a green tailcoat, breeches, and riding boots walked past holding what was clearly a large glass of beer. "Mikhail," she called across the room, and a similarly-aged, dark-haired boy turned to look her way. He tossed his head and gave her the cut direct. She exploded into raucous laughter and winked at the four staring women. "Maybe I didn't dump him quite as nicely as I could've back in the 90s," she said, her British accent a little slurred. She headed off into the crowd of spandex-wearers.

"Is she one?" Erszebet asked.

"Her? Oh, no," Catherine said. "She's Faerie."

"Oohhhhhh," Erszebet said, and they all nodded, knowing exactly how much trouble that sort could be. Worse than vermin, really.

---

Author's Note:

Vampires spray for faeries regularly, you know.

Still sick as a dog. Yesterday was Urgent Care and antibiotics. Maybe now I'll stop coughing.