In Farthest Himyar

[Gunnland]

"The Triumfeminate"
​

Spoiler: The Big Picture

First, Port Stanley looked like a brutal white-rule quasi-colony; second, like it was ruled by low-profile and cultured Muslim merchant princes; third, like power is in the hands of a clandestine triumfeminate of Mafewo tribeswomen. And now it is not only the prime minister of the country missing, but the chief of Clan Gunn.

There will be about five more posts in the story arc, that should make the relation between Port Stanley and neighboring @Engellex clearer.

Fort Smith

A boat horn woke him, then the sound of boots on gangplanks. Soldiers. A ship. A hatch door opened in front of him, flooding the closet with light. A black silhouette of a fat black woman. She bustled in and hugged him, pressing his naked body against her massive breasts. Kareishū. Distinctly. That meant "old person smell" in Toyou, Robert remembered. What a word to remember. Anwanyu? Memories of the night before flooded back. The tray. The collar. And then he remembered sex. Sex changes the contours of power. Suddenly he thought of Plato's Republic. What a thing to remember, now. The sexless white patriarchy of Gunnland... there's something to that. A strange experience, to feel the submission of a woman who held you by a leash like an animal. He thought of Adelaide's stories of Deoridih. Had it been Salammbô? No, he remembered, she wouldn't even look at me. It must have been Udomo. Where was Udomo? The way Anwanyu (it must be the bulk of Anwanyu, pressed against him) was talking, Salammbô must be right behind her in the hull of the ship. Anwanyu was chewing her out. She sounded like an angry grandmother.

"You poor man, Robert! Salammbô! He was supposed to negotiate with his friends...!" Now she was talking to his limp body, clutched in her tight squeeze. "Some of us hide our power better than others. Salammbô needs to feel her power. At least in the confinements of her fortress." Even if he wanted to speak, it would be muffled by her fat and her flowing robes. Instead he heard Salammbô protest.

"But I though that Georges...!"​

"The crescent moon flag will never fly over Nethsaïs! Even if I must hand Ian over to him."

She released him and he grasped for breath. Is that rude? Robert sensed that this was all the apology that he was going to get for being kidnapped, shackled, forced to serve women snails from his knees, and used as a stud. Maybe they don't know about that last part. Anwanyu was sizing him up. His eyes were now adjusted. Her smile showed a gap between her two front teeth. She had several chins, pendulous earrings of an odd geometric design, and a colorful wrap on her head that matched her flowing dress. It was not clear what color it was in the semi-darkness. She looked kind and wise. But what she said next made Robert realize he wasn't out of danger yet.

"Damn, Robert, it's a crazy world that we have to protect our three cities from. But come up to the Mountain. Prime Minister Smith has been looking forward to having a white man to talk to, I think."

She laughed a big, joyful laugh.

 

[Gunnland]

"Twilight of the Idols"
​

"Here too, in Athene's precinct at Sais, is the tomb of one whose name I prefer not to mention in such a connexion; it stands behind the shrine and occupies the whole length of the wall. Great stone obelisks stand in the enclosure, and there is a stone-bordered lake nearby, circular in shape... It is on this lake that the Nethians act by night in what they call their Mysteries the Passion of the being whose name I will not speak. All the details of these performances are known to be, but -- I will say no more."

Herodotus, The Histories, II.170-171​

"At the head of the delta, where the river divides, a district called the Saïtic. The chief city of the district, from which King Amasis came, is called Saïs. The chief goddess of the inhabitants is called Neïth, in Greek (according to them) Athena; and they are very friendly to the Athenians and claim some relationship to them. Solon came there on his travels and was highly honored by them..."

Critias in Plato's Timaeus, 21d​

Fort Smith

From the rising gondola he could see all of Nethsaïs, as they called the city that the map labeled "Fort Smith." Every place in this country has a double name. It was much smaller than Oriel -- Mashrabiya, he reminded himself -- and even Chinde. The harbor was sheltered from the incessant storms by karsts rising out of Lake Rwenbezi, and shops and homes were clustered in little canyons that radiated outwards like cracks in the great mountain he was ascending. The only stately building was a huge, white-columned Pelasgian Revival building at the nexus of the canyons. If Anwanyu was to be believed, in 1777, Gunnish settlers chose to build the High Court on the site of an ancient Nethian temple, one that long predated the Mafewo-Fante migrations. They demolished the temple and left no markings. Thus had "justice" come to such an inhospitable place. The Buchanan-Smiths do love their justice, though. He had a brief flashback to James Buchanan, the Earl of Uishcaster, taking the Sword-From-Across-the-Water and casually beheading a woolens merchant for battering Adelaide. Adelaide is cursed. He wondered where she was.

Alone above the top of the city, Anwanyu's house blended in with the rim of the canyon, stairs and rough-hewn gray bricks that were the same color as the cliff rising from the canyon wall. You could hardly notice a sprawling compound was there, cut into the mountaintop, if not for the large blue-tinted windows framed by huge teak beams. Building this place took some effort. They were truly at altitude. 12,000 feet, Robert guessed, Or even higher? From here, you could see out over the top of cyclonic lake storms. She waddled through her home in a majestic purple boubou, opening the door to Ian Smith's cell, a well-apportioned study with teak wainscotting that looked out over the clouds above Lake Rwenbezi, sparkling blue in the distance. Anwanyu closed the door to give them some privacy.

He was an old man. Older than Robert thought. Maybe ninety. Wet tears glistened in his blue eyes as he draped Robert in a frail hug. Ian wore an impeccably starched collar and narrow tie under an olive Rwenbezi twill jacket, with a kilt in the bright red-yellow-green of Buchanan tartan. Robert felt awkward, since he was only wearing a white caftan, on loan. They spoke of Gunnland first, and how much Robert must miss it. ("Oi fought een da clinwo [clan war] een forty-five," Smith said, "then I came bick to the blicks.") Robert could not imagine. He has lived in this country for almost a century. And all the while it was ruled by mysterious forces he didn't know about. Robert asked in Anwanyu was a Moslem.

"Inwinyu is gudless [godless]..." Ian began. Robert learned that the Mafewo triumfeminate ("Nit loik Swift's thrae." Robert remembered the author had a harem of three poetesses whom he called his "triumfeminate".) was largely educated in the Southern Constituent Republics. ("Otho-Eam. Eupraxia in Castle. Fort Georgiou in Mary-Le-Bone.") That explained Octavia's accent. They had powerful friends. And they were atheists, modern women, a secret ruling-class deep state in Port Stanley. They came from a pool of educated Mafewo women who would send their children back to their sisters, aunts, and cousins in the tribal hinterlands to raise. (Hated by the aunties, Robert remembered overhearing Anwanyu say.) The youngest one, at the moment Salammbô, would control the foreign corporations and big businesses. The next-oldest, now Octavia, would work the politicians in Chinde. And the eldest and seniormost, now Anwanyu, would take her place in the High Court that the Gunnish settlers built in 1777. Should one die, the other two chose her successor, and each moved up the ranks. Ian concluded in his clipped Stanlean accent, "Divilipmint. That's theih gud. It's twoiloight o' d' oidils heah, mate."

The old man began to cry softly again; for the next several hours, Robert learned why. He had been used as a pawn, most often to fight the RANU-PF, a common enemy led by a Satanist cannibal named Comrade Georges. A biracial "chap," Ian called him. Half-Burgundian. Flunked out of an Ordo Solaris seminary. The triumfeminate controls the whites, the Urodoah, and the cities more easily than the tribes they come from. So they were caught between darkness and superstition and the matriarchs of an Engellexian Enlightenment. The world snapped back into focus for Robert for the first time in weeks.

"Awf'lly civilized siviges, iren't they? Now you're heah. Think theah'll throw us in the vilcano [volcano]?"

 

[Gunnland]

"Mr. Smith and Cde. Georges"​

Nethsaïs (a.k.a. "Fort Smith")

"Who is this Comrade Georges? And how has he gotten the Fante to fight for the League of Loagin Communists?"

"It's true Comminder Masimba his inly rillied the Wala to the rid binner in Loago, but Georges is different..."
​

It was evening now. Prime Minister Smith seemed to lean against the dark void. His prison was a lavishly appointed study, simple but elegant teak trim, with a bed and a spectacular view. Lightning below the mountaintop holdfast had the odd effect of underlighting the old man. Occasionally he looked like a child holding a flashlight to his chin while narrating a spooky ghost story.

"Whin I was a ying min, theah was a northern tiwn cilled Fort MacMurray, though theah were no MacMurrays in Port Stinley..."​

According to the story, 'Fort MacMurray' was a back-formation from the nickname 'Fort Make Money,' a company outpost on the far-northern savanna, in tribal country. In this now-abandoned city, in the early 1960s, a middle-aged Ian Smith met the man now known as 'Comrade Georges' for the first and only time. ("I knew he was a rid.") But though Georges sends his RANU-PF deputies to Chinde with their little red books of Xinhaiese communism, Ian was saying, he had strange ideas of his own. By now Robert was translating his accent more automatically.

"Every civilization generates some excess wealth, Georges says, which he calls its 'accursed share.' Like the Engellexians, who put their capital into capital ships and capital crimes. Knavery and naval-ry..." Misrule and the Admiralty. "...and how the excess is wasted, this defines a civilization. In the Forties, his books were the talk of Chagny and St. Florian. Dangerous books. He was a communist then, but when he met some of the decolonial thinkers, he decided to come back to 'Rwenbezia' as he called this country and make a new kind of society. In 1960 he was elected to congress representing Fort MacMurray."​

"What happened?" Robert's interest was piqued.

"His followers burned his own city to the ground and blamed it on my paratroopers."
​

Robert had a hard time believing this. Ian explained that Georges's new kind of society was a return to a semi-nomadic, Mafewo tribal lifestyle. He bound the Mafewo clan chiefs together with a human-sacrifice cult that sought powerful people from the white-rule world and murdered them in Nethsaïs. Robert was stunned. Then the heavy door opened. Anwanyu. She had been listening.

"I am sorry, Robert, but this is the only way. Hand the great Gunn over, and Georges will leave Port Stanley forever."
​

He backed away from her, almost stumbling over the white caftan he now remembered he was wearing. She seemed to be waddling forward for another teary hug. He had had enough of those today. He felt tears rush to his eyes. Dumbly, he hoped he could have a Hanguk steak as his last meal. They'd probably serve me haggis. But when was the last time I had a hanguk steak?

"At least... just give me a few days, at least, to put my affairs in order."

The large woman's whole body wiggled to life with laughter.

"Not you, baby! You're not gonna' die. Georges wants Joachas."​

​

 

[Gunnland]

"Descent"
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Nethsaïs

There is no escape. Hot water cascaded down his head, becalming him. Robert felt sheepish for trashing Ian Smith's cell. It took four six-foot bald amazon women to subdue him. He had only the strength of anger. Joachas, the poor boy. As they frogmarched him to his own identical rooms, he remembered to ask for a confessor and Holy Communion. The shame of the yacht would not wash away. He had not expected to die a saint, but then again, he had not expected to die on his knees in a heathen land. There is no escape. Even if he could break out, he was on top of the mountain. The gondola was the only way up or down.

Rasp. Click-click-click. Rasp. Who could be picking the lock? Robert stood dumbly in a white towel looking at the door. Reivers? Brother Paul? Had Coemgein somehow... He wondered if Adelaide had contacted the 15AR. Could they have infiltrated? Click.

Silver bangles and the whites of eyes shone in the dark hallway. Oritesematosan Udomo materialized in the dim light of the room. She wore a baggy, wrinkled black robe of some cheap material, with the white inverted-triangle insignia on the chest. She thrust an armful of fabric in his hand. It was surprisingly lightweight. Nylon.

"There's not much time." Her voice was hushed.

"I'd sooner die than change captors." He was surprised at his own stubbornness.​

"You will be my only powerful friend, if I do this."

"You're not... I don't... what the fuck is this?" He pulled at the nylon.​

"Adelaide said you were a spy. It's a wingsuit."

"A spy! I meet people in cafés! I can't..." Robert felt his pulse race.
​

He followed her towards the large plate-glass window, awkwardly jamming a leg into his nylon suit, hopping on one foot most of the way. "Dive for airspeed. Pull up under the cloud cover. We'll travel about three miles. Then pull this," she demonstrated with her left hand, while she squatted and rose to score a large circle in the glass with the knife in her right hand. She rapped the ball on the hilt hard, pushed, and a pane fell into the darkness. She was clearly pleased with herself; as she backed up Udomo's broad smile was brilliant in the half-light. Robert felt stunned, anxious, and a little ridiculous. Still looking at him, she hunched into a track start.

"I see I'll get my thank-you kiss on the ground."

She ran with short strides, arms pumping furiously, all wheeshing nylon, and jumping, she disappeared into the darkness.

 

[Gunnland]

"Plan"
​

Nethsaïs

"What do you mean, they weren't going to kill you?"

Udomo was furious. Her hands were on her big hips. She looked up at Robert, whose parachute was caught high in the rainforest canopy. Angry tears welled in her eyes, sparkling like dew in the first light. Apparently unconcerned about being discovered, she had shouted. And Robert was too exhausted to be nervous. The jump almost killed him. Three times, in fact. Ironic, dying in the same way your executioners wanted to kill you, voluntarily throwing yourself off a damn mountain. Then he lost the blinking LED beacon on Udomo's wingsuit. She had to track back to find him. He's been swinging in the tree for hours. They were not a three miles out of Nethsaïs, but it looked like they were in the deep jungle.

"I told you! Just -- just give me the fucking cellphone and get the car already!"
​

She tossed her phone twenty feet up to where he hung. He caught her knife on the third toss. He glanced at the battery life: 0:04. Shit. Good thing he was old enough to remember numbers. First he called Brother Paul. Eyes on Joachas. Good. "Get him out of Bal'harm, now, anywhere." Second, Adelaide. "Let Julian handle her own problems. Listen to me..." She had a company of Reivers in-country. God bless that woman. "Get them to the West Road checkpoint." She asked if Colonel Marlow could be trusted to help. He didn't know. "Feel him out." He hung up to call Julian but the phone died. So he gently swung in the trees to the squawks of waking parrots and the hooting of a distant troop of monkeys. His thoughts drifted back to Udomo: he understood her anger. She had given up her station in her world, thinking she was saving his life. Robert started sawing himself down. He almost died a fourth time when he cut the first strap, and was lucky not to dislocate his shoulder when he crashed downwards into a tree.

Udomo returned about two hours later in her friend's old Adamid 4x4. She handed him a pair of jeans and a tie dye tank top emblazoned THAUMANTIC MUSIC FESTIVAL 2014. Seriously? And flip-flops. He remembered it was better than being naked. She only started talking a half hour after the Pelasgian jeep sputtered onto the paved highway: the West Road. The backstory was more complicated. Udomo and Salammbô were bitter rivals. Bringing Robert to the alcázar had been a challenge, and Salammbô reacted as Udomo had predicted. She hadn't predicted that Anwanyu would give Salammbô a pass for kidnapping Robert, though. Now it was Robert's turn to create the silence after this pseudo-confession. Was the proud savage chieftess going to apologize?

"So what's your plan, just to drive into the middle of a battle and find your besieged friends?"

"Pretty much."​

 

[Gunnland]

"Loose Ends"
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Chinde

It was all a bit anticlimactic. The Schwarzhabicht rotors scared away the Mafewo soldiers even before the RLI and Reiver units had parachuted to the ground. Colonel Marlow and Adelaide were the heroes despite not knowing what was really going on. The Integrity hardliners pinned down at the West Road checkpoint were not worth it to the Triumfeminate, or perhaps Anwanyu called them off, believing that Robert could be useful to her even if he was unwilling to offer himself, or Prince Joachas, as a human sacrifice to the satanic rebel leader plaguing her country.

And so Robert was helping them. For now it was merely a bluff. The Gunnish forces in the wild rainforests of northern Port Stanley were too few to seriously challenge Comrade Georges, but it was buying the Triumfeminate some time. Robert was living in the Bungalow. Octavia herself, now Prime Minister Butler, would debrief him personally on the northern situation each week. Brother Paul wouldn't let Joachas near her.

Today Robert remembered the day he found his friends, huddling half-starved, laying on sandbags, cowered in a bunker. Another country lost to Christendom, in their minds. Pick your battles, in Robert's. Coemgein was thin. Walter's beard was bushy. Even the doughfaced attorney looked like he had lost quite a bit of weight.

Octavia had gone. Young Joachas and Brother Paul were watching he and Udomo play chess on the verandah.

Robert was remembering the scene on the West Road, first, because Udomo was taking too long to see an obvious defensive move, second, because news had reached them that his old partisans Coemgein, Padraig, and Walter were bungling up an election back home. Elections were not their forte. The Liberals had convinced the independents to call a snap election right after Easter. During the Octave of Epiphany! Walter had screamed in rage. They needed Robert's help.

Rook H7. Cabaonian mate. He smiled and looked up at Udomo. She was angry. She had improved too much in recent months, game after game, to lose this way. Soon she would prevail regularly. Robert could tell she was getting frustrated attending to him, perhaps even starting to regret her decision to cut herself off from her own people and free him. The excitement of flirtation, that initial exhilaration of an affair, had run its course. Some women contented themselves to become playthings of the powerful; Udomo needed to be let off the leash for the thrill of the chase again. Robert had made up his mind.

Robert turned to the nine year old prince. "You must believe impossible things if you want to make what was impossible possible." He raised a finger to demonstrate, then produced an airplane ticket and a sealed letter for Udomo. The wobbling plane Flight 1 from Maseru. It seemed like ages ago. He laughed at the thought of Udomo bowing to the white passengers to keep up appearances. How little we understand of this land.

"You will fly to Windhaven for me with this letter, which will earn you admission to the Marian University. You shall infiltrate the student movement there, I have written instructions. This will be easy, since by the time you start your classes, you shall also have filed to appear on the election rolls for the Thing of All Gunnishmen. I believe that you shall find a way to win, but know I shall be helping you in ways that you do not see."

Briefly he allowed it to amuse him, making Udomo an instrument of his power. Clansmen taking orders from a woman, a black woman, a black woman from a faraway land. Someday he would arrange a marriage for her that would shock the world, too. But on a deeper level he knew he had learned something profound from her, from her country, from its true leaders who ruled in the shadows of the northern jungles. He was adopting the lessons of this strange country and applying it to much more familiar games.

He turned back to the prince. The boy was special, but he had to impress if he was ever to take his rightful place on a European throne. Jydermark-Østveg had spurned him. He would have to impress the Engells. Or the Justosians. Someone that could take a Northern boy grown in the South and bring him into his power. Robert was reveling the opportunity to be a teacher again. To be in charge. To understand what was happening, and to make things happen that other did not believe could happen. To play white. "You see, Your Highness, it is easy to win when you are popular. You must know how to win when the people are against you."

THE END​