The future began on a still morning in the summer of 1919.
The army paused, its way into the Adriatic city blocked by a small contingent of fellow Italians. The deserters, the demobilized storm troopers, the irredentists who made up the troop were becoming nervous. In a small area between the two groups, a pair of men unknowingly decided the fate of the world.
The chief of the defenders, a general named Pittagula, attempted to reason with his counterpart, a bald, mustachio'd poet. The defending soldiers shifted their weight as their commanding officer talked, gripping their rifles with white knuckles. Behind them was the single staff car Pittagula had come in.
"For the love of God, Signor d'Annunzio, think! This is unheard of! What you are doing will drive the world to the enemies of Italy!" the general pleaded, pacing back and forth. "The King has sent his ministers to Versailles! They will address the issue!" His medals clinked back and forth as he paced. He had hoped that the reminder of rank might temper the passions of the poet. They did not.
Gabrielle d'Annunzio stared at the pacing general. His hand shot into the air and, for a split second, Pittagula feared there was a concealed weapon up the poet's sleeve. d'Annunzio half turned himself towards the silent army behind him, keeping his eyes trained on the general.
"Never, signor! Fiume is the burning heart of Italy! The sacred honor of Rome has been besmirched too many times by that cagoia, Nitti, and his band of empty stomachs!" d'Annunzio shouted, gesturing to the army behind him, "We shall redeem Fiume and so redeem Italy, or we shall die in the attempt!"
The army roared with approval. For ten months, they had awaited a plan from Versailles, one which would redeem Italy and make sense of their suffering. Now that it was clear that the diplomats were poised to hand to Italy a mutilated peace, to snatch away this long-separated port city of Italian Dalmatia, all for the benefit of the far-off land of Yugoslavia, it was time for bold men, such as themselves, to take matters into their own hands. They would liberate Fiume themselves and free its Italian people from the clutches of the Magyar and the Croat. They would annex the city, and the whole of their sacrifice would begin to make sense in a new, redeemed Italy. They would not be turned back now.
d'Annunzio turned to face the crowd, basking in their cheers. His body seemed to glow in warmth of their approval. Pittagula waited a minute, then two, for the cheering to die down. d'Annunzio continued to face the crowd. Pittagula tried to address his counterpart once again. "You claim to support Italy, yet your actions will destroy it. Do y-" he began.
The poet whipped around to face Pittagula, his eyes wide. "Enough! The time for chatter is at an end!" he barked. Suddenly, he tore open his shirt, exposing his bare breast to the general. "Move from the route of the patriot, of the lover of Italy and Dante, at once! Or else slay me where I stand, that my blood might feed the flowers and soil of Fiume!"
At once, the army went silent. Pittagula looked at the aging poet-cum-war hero, who had written publicly about his desire for a courageous death. He saw the old man with wide eyes and a heaving chest, each rib straining against the poet's pale skin.
He looked at the army behind the poet, a thousand men who had stormed the front lines of Eastern Europe, armed with nothing but knives and suicidal bravado. He looked behind him to the rest of the Italian garrison he had brought out to stop this foolish march. None of them would meet his eyes. Pittagula turned back to d'Annunzio and his army.
Perhaps they would lose interest once they saw the true Fiume, a city like any other, filled with Italians, Croats, and Hungarians in near equal measure. Perhaps they would simply re-desert once they had proven that they could enter the city. At any rate, Pittagula was not going to end his distinguished career as the man who shot Italy's most celebrated poet and was then lynched by an outraged mob.
He sighed. "Get in," he said, motioning to the staff car, "and for God's sake, close your shirt." He motioned for his men to stand down.
As the poet moved towards the car, the cheering of the army began to swell until it was all that Pitagula could hear. He got in the car and was joined a moment later by d'Annunzio. Pittagula found it necessary to breath through his mouth to cover the thick reek of perfume that seemed to emanate from the poet.
The driver started the car, and Pittagula and d'Annunzio began their way towards Fiume. The mob slowly trailed behind them. People began singing the Italian national anthem in different times and different keys. It was not until the line about "where heroes fought/in the bygone ages" that the melodies began to blend together.
There was no way that Pittagula could have heard it, but scattered among the advancing soldiers, a dozen or so men sang a very different song in an otherworldly language.
The Italians of Fiume stood silently in the Plaza, staring up at the palace balcony. Among them were scattered some of the thousands of arditi stormtroopers who had followed d'Annunzio in his march, made conspicuous by the green and crimson flames on the lapels of their uniforms. All waited anxiously.
The entire day had passed in a frenzy of toasts, drinking, and singing, at least for the Italian population of the city. Few had slept the night before, and many were close to dropping from exhaustion. But everyone had gathered in the plaza when they heard that the poet-savior would be giving a speech. The words that they hoped to hear, that Fiume had been formally annexed to Italy, would surely be uttered then. That the want and indignities that they had suffered would be redeemed.
Time passed. Five minutes. Fifteen. The assembled people began to get restless. Twenty. There were mutterings.
As the sun began to sink down, the assembly began to lose some of its cohesion. Then, all at once, a great cheer. The poet d'Annunzio stepped onto the balcony, slightly disheveled. He was followed by several members of the local government. He waited for the cheering to die down.
"Italians of Fiume!" he began. The plaza erupted. The glass in nearby windows trembled as the people cheered. d'Annunzio waited. After a full five minutes, the celebration abated slightly.
"In the mad and cowardly world Fiume is the symbol of liberty," he yelled, gesturing wildly, "In the mad and cowardly world there is a single pure element: Fiume! There is a single truth: and it is Fiume! There is a single love: and this is Fiume! Fiume is like a blazing searchlight that radiates in the midst of an ocean of abjection!" With each repetition of the city's name, he pointed to the mass, cheering in response. And all at once, d'Annunzio addressed not an assembled group of thousands, but a single organism.
In the crowd, a man became dimly aware of the fact a woman five meters ahead had begun her period three days prior. A young girl noticed that the man standing next to her had smothered his bastard child twenty-three years ago. But it did not matter. The crowd was aware of itself, but focused solely on d'Annunzio.
The sun sank below the horizon, and the plaza glowed with an unseen light. No one noticed.
d'Annunzio unfurled a flag. The crowd knew what it was going to be even before they saw it. An Italian war hero and close friend of d'Annunzio's had fallen in the war. The Italian flag had been draped over his bloody corpse. d'Annunzio had shown it in parliament the previous year in order to make a point about the blood of Italian patriots. It was a famous prop, one which the poet had used while speaking in Parliament.
The flag d'Annunzio unfurled was not one of Italy, or of any nation. It was dark blue, with a series of interlocking golden patterns that almost looked like calligraphy. Even if individuals might have wondered what the flag was, or what it meant, or why d'Annunzio had not flown the Italian flag, the crowd did not care. There was rapture from the crowd.
"This flag," d'Annuznio shouted, somehow making himself heard over the cheering, "Must be reconsecrated by your faith! Your love is all that is needed! Do your confirm your commitment?"
"Yes!" the crowd thundered, tears flowing from its ten thousand eyes, "We confirm!"
"There is a great work to be done in Fiume! This city shall be a fiery beacon to the world! Justice, it will proclaim, and freedom, and joy! Will you join me in this work? Will you build, with your ten thousand hands and hearts beating blood, will you build with me?"
"Yes, yes!" the crowd wept.
"Then together, we will shake a decrepit world to its foundation," the poet cried, his voice amplified by the energy of the crowd, "The purity of Fiume will serve as a blinding light, a clarion call! A portal to a new world, a heroic one! Will you build with me!?"
"Yes, we will build!" the crowd shouted as one.
"Then, let us celebrate tonight crowd of Fiume," the poet shouted, "But tomorrow, we begin our mythic work! Let us build the door to the shining, burning light! Tlateneteo!"
No one saw it, but with the final word, d'Annunzio shook slightly.
"Tlateneteo!" the assembled listeners shouted back. No one quite knew what it meant, but were all aware that it was dreadfully important.
"I release you, Crowd of Fiume," the poet said in a low voice. With that, he retreated back into the palace.
They gave another cheer as the poet stepped back and disappeared into palace. His aides followed with him. The people cheered for another solid minute, then dissolved into a thousand minute whorls of friends and neighbors and co-nationals.
Later that night, individuals would muse on the meaning of the blue flag and why d'Annunzio had not once mentioned Italy. But it did not matter. The crowd had spoken.
Back in the palace, d'Annunzio was greeted with the applause of a much smaller crowd. The elites of Fiume clapped for the poet, giving cheers of "bravo!" and "ben fatto!" With a dozen ringed hands, they patted him on the back as he proceeded down the steps, and with a hundred descriptions of how grand it was that someone finally took the plight of Italy into consideration, the followed him down the hall. But, for the first time since he had arrived in the city, d'Annunzio was tired.
He waved off the gaggle following him, slipping into a small meeting room towards the end of the hall. His aides stood watch over the door. d'Annunzio slid into one of the leather chairs seated around the long table at the center of the room, closing the door behind him. He could hear the murmuring through the door.
Normally, he would have been there to soak up the applause and adulation. He sat, his hands shaking, as the noise outside dissipated. One by one, the men who had come to congratulate him faded away, seeking out the entertainments of this one mad night.
Finally, there was silence. Then a series of staccato knocks on the door.
"Come in," he yelled.
A tall man with a thin mustache entered, pushing the door gingerly. Behind him, a portly middle-aged man with hair that had already begun to recede, pushed it open the rest of the way. d'Annunzio barely looked up. The two took seats opposite him.
"Signore d'Annunzio," the tall man began, extending his hand to the poet, "Again, let us congratulate you on a most auspi-"
The poet batted the man's hand away. The mustached man withdrew his hand, looking hurt.
"From what blasted heath did you summon those words?" d'Annunzio asked. He kept his voice even and measured, willing himself to not fly into a rage. Although he had a pistol at his side, he doubted he could take on either man.
The portly man gave a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Gabrielle, please, we are all friends here. Those words are difficult, but it is like exercise, for the spirit," he said, nodding at nothing particular, "It is hard, but with each passing mention, it becomes easier. Because you will grow strong, and because the chains, they will grow weak. "
d'Annunzio looked at the portly man and nodded. "Yes," he said, "yes, I will grow stronger. A gleaming bonfire, soon." The portly man smiled, glad that his message had been understood.
The tall man began again. "And let us just say again, you bring such honor and hope to the Italian people. That we may once again be united, in word, in deed, in song, in spirit," he said, clasping his hands together, "Ahhh, it raises one's mind to the heavens."
d'Annunzio glared at the tall man. "Is it truly required that you be followed by such an odious prat?" he asked, turning to the larger man.
The portly man's eyelids drooped slightly. d'Annunzio didn't care enough to turn to see the reaction of the tall man. "Whatever your initial impressions, Mr. Lagorio is a greatly respected member of the Hand. I trust him utterly," the larger man said, "As should you."
d'Annunzio nodded. The larger man continued. "We simply came here to offer you congratulations on behalf of the Serpent's Hand. You are quite obviously tired, so we will leave it at that. However, come tomorrow, we will have much to discuss."
"Yes, doubtlessly," the poet said. He leaned back in his chair and yawned, closing his eyes.
The portly man leaned forward. "We have also heard that a certain Ms. Baccara has been looking for you," he said, "You doubtlessly have heard her sing, and she seems quite taken w-"
Before the portly man could finish, d'Annunzio was fully awake, out of his seat, and out of the door, with barely time for a goodbye. The poet's aides ran behind him, trying to keep pace as he charged down the hall towards yet another affair. The two men sat alone in the room. Neither faced each other.
Lagorio frowned. "'Odious prat?' Really?" he said quietly, crossing his arms.
"Oh, don't worry about what a Judas goat bleats," the portly man said, chuckling, "At the end of the day, it is still a goat."
"True, but if he keeps up his bleating, I can't be held responsible for happens."
"Fair enough," the portly man sighed. He turned his chair to face Lagorio. "But did you get a reading on him?"
"Oh yes," Lagorio nodded, "he'll do well enough. I just question the necessity of having someone so erratic be the anchor. This is a delicate operation. In both an esoteric fashion and a political sense. What if the Vatican or the Americans get involved? Or that damn coalition they formed last year? The Firmament."
"Foundation," the larger man corrected.
"Yes, that's it," Lagorio said, "the Foundation."
The fat man shrugged. "Alea iacta est. As for Gabrielle, the man is a child. You saw how he reacted to a single word of power. We have nothing to fear from him. And while we can't control him directly, he is easily… nudged."
"I suppose. I just resent having my integrity questioned by that libidinous orangutan."
The fat man nodded. "Indeed. But if we are correct, then that fool won't matter in six month's time. Not when we can shake the earth to its core. He will matter as much as any gnat once he's done and we have completed the great work. A city such as this is a small sacrifice to make, comparatively."
Lagorio grunted, and the pair sat in silence. Outside, the people of Fiume cheered and celebrated the day of their salvation.
Lucijia Kovach touched the fire to the altar and destroyed a god. The whole affair felt blasphemous.
She had heard the litanies and explanations a thousand times. It was a reenactment, one designed to show the destruction of God before His day of Reformation, represented by the evening ritual. As a young girl, she had seen her parents and parents' parents do it. Still, the morning ritual was the one she least looked forward to.
The fire illuminated the room. First yellow, then orange, then blue, as it died. The light played around her grim, square face. With her black hair already shot through with strands of grey, she looked much older than her twenty-seven years.
Lucijia looked at the empty spot beside her, where Magdalina used to kneel. Even when father and then mother had left, Magdalina had been there. "On će biti cijela," she said to the darkness. He shall be made whole.
Once the war had ended, Magdalina had taken to staying out and sleeping in. Lucijia had tried yelling, as their father had done, and beatings, as he had also done. But none of it seemed to dissuade the girl. She spent recklessly, buying earrings and brooches and bracelets as if there was money to burn.
At that age Lucijia had tried her best to ignore boys and keep her mind on the study of the ancient texts. It was obvious that her little sister was just acting out for attention. It would soon pass.
On the table, the small gear-shaped altar cracked and broke. It was complete.
Lucijia swept the altar pieces into the small box in the darkness. She always liked this part of the ritual. The box was cheap pine, but it had seen countless deaths and recreations, day after day. Generations had handled it with care, making sure that His remains were handled with reverence. There was history in it.
Lucijia closed the reliquary and placed it back in the hole in the floor. A moment later, she placed the loose floorboard back in its spot. She was ready to begin her outside life.
Re-opening the curtains, she could see the first hints of light reaching into the sky. No time to waste, then.
Only a few days in and degenerate idiots from across Italy had begun surging into the city. It was no longer possible to go through the streets without encountering at least one young man - and they were always men - went about the street proclaiming their unique boldness and undying commitment to sacra Italia. Over the past few days, she had heard rumors of of drugs, of orgies, of black magic ceremonies. She didn't doubt any of them.
Even the Croatians and Magyars of the city had begun behaving differently. Before, there had been a respectful conservatism where passion was expressed only in private. Now even those on the street expressed themselves in the most overblown terms.
Some had even begun attending the speeches of the mad poet, where they might only understand a few words of his ranting. Lucijia walked upstairs.
As she changed into her work clothes, she reflected on the changes in her more immediate community. Members of the Church - and not just congregants - had been speaking quietly about holding communal services once again. About being open in their faith for the first time in years.
Lucijia had even heard whispers that the small community of spell-makers and hex-weavers in Rijeka was planning to stop hiding.
The world of furtive gestures and implications and elisions - the world she had grown up in - was in danger of slipping away. And for what? A quarter-second of hedonism and openness that would be inevitably crushed by the Croatians or Italians? Many nights she had listened as her deda spoke about the repressions that came after '48 - how the priests were shot, how the newly-built church was burned to the ground. Her dreams were often plagued with shadowy figures from the Evidenzbureau, chasing her relentlessly.
By the time she left the house, pink-gold light was just peaking over the tops of the lowest buildings. Lucijia made her way to Jardan's to begin her shift. As she passed the lighthouse, she didn't hear the sounds of the waves lapping at the harbor, nor the low murmur of the Italian sailors along the docks. She continued to list the numerous madnesses consuming the world since the poet came to the city.
It wasn't until she collided with a man in a blue suit that she snapped from her thoughts. "Oh, I am so sorry!" she blurted, stepping back, "I did not mean to-"
"It was not worry," the man said in heavily accented Croatian, "All is well." He smiled.
Lucijia apologized again and quickly made her way down the road. She didn't see the man return to his position in the middle of the street, greeting the rising sun with arms stretched wide.
At Jadran's, the outside world fell away. Even the constant bustle of the streets was muted, swallowed up by the thousand bolts of fabric. All that remained were stitches and hems, the movement between her fingers and the cloth. Here, the relation between things was simple and straightforward.
When she got to the shop, Jadran was already sorting the orders for the day. A slight shift of the neck was the only indication he even noticed Lucijia. After a decade of work together, the two understood one another well enough to avoid any small talk.
Moving to the back of the store, she saw the orders for the day. Within minutes, thoughts of the congregation had vanished from her mind.
Four suits later, Jarden brought in a skirt. "Mila," he grunted. Without bothering to look down, he placed the garment in front of her and left. At times, Lucijia suspected that Jarden's lack of curiosity was an act.
Lucijia turned the dress inside out. Red thread, chain-stitched into small circles along the hem. Service tonight. She counted the loops in each circle. 10 PM.
Her thoughts turned back to stories of the Evidenzbureau men and smashed altars. The last communal service had been well before the war. Since then, all worship had been within the home. It was simpler that way, more quiet. But now the elders of the Church wanted to meet again for worship? Had they been caught up in the communal madness as well?
As Lucijia tore the stitched message from the fabric, she accidentally gouged the dress. She spent the rest of the day trying to think of other things.
It was a slow day, and Lucijia left work at 9:30 PM, just as the last traces of light left the sky. She made her way to the church.
The gas lamps on each corner threw light, twisting the shadows of every object into unnatural shapes. Men and women stood together, speaking and whispering, the darkness melding their bodies into one.
Lucijia remembered nightmares she had had as a child about the flesh, as bodies twisted and distended under His wrath. She tried to push the thoughts from her mind.
A pair of arditi walked down the opposite side of the street, rifles on their shoulders. The skull emblems on their uniforms were visible even from the distance.
In the distant plaza, the poet-dictator gave a speech, impossible to hear. The only thing she could make out were the periodic roars of the crowd, giving the contours to the unheard words. Another roar. The arditi, now well past Lucijia, gave a loud cheer to the phantom speech. Lucijia jumped. The soldiers laughed.
The eight blocks to the basement felt as though it took an hour. Finally, she came to a staircase at the foot of the red brick building, leading down to a blue door hidden in shadows. The stone steps were smooth with wear, and Lucijia had to move careful to keep from sliding. Finally, she reached the bottom.
From the outside, it looked like any other wooden door in the city. She knocked twice. It gave off a metallic ring. "Who is it?" barked a voice that seemed to come from outside. Lucijia recognized it as Nika.
It had been so long since Lucijia had needed to recall the password. The last time there had been a service, Magdalena had said something unspeakable about Nika's mother. The door had swung open seconds afterwards.
"Who is it?" Nika's voice said again.
Lucijia tried to think. Blood and water. No. Soil and blood. No.
"Who is it?"
It came to her. "Blood and oil!" Lucijia said. She barely stopped herself from shouting it. The door swung open.
Lucijia shuffled in and the door slammed shut behind her. It took her eyes a minute to adjust to the light. Benches had been laid out in rows every meter, each row bounded by iron candlesticks at the end.
The machine - the Sacred Iron Soul - sat at the far end of the room in front of the benches. Its gears were freshly polished with the blessed oil. Even so, the wear on the machine was evident.
All around her, old members of the congregation gathered in whorls of conversation, each breaking up after a minute or so. Something grabbed her arm from behind. Lucijia started, then turned. It was Nika. After nearly eight years, the old woman looked the same, down to the sore just below her right ear.
"So glad you c-c-could make it," the old woman stammered, "Al-almost the wh-whole congregation has gathered. Most families came together for it, even."
Nika vanished into another whorl before Lucijia could respond. It took several seconds for the statement to register as a jab about Magdelina's absence.
Indeed, it looked as though the congregation had come together. The Novaks, the Joriks, the Bosanacs - all were there. Nika's slight was forgotten with the realization that, for the first time since the war began, they were all there. Together. On će biti cijela.
Lucijia moved towards Ljuba and Josip - friends of her grandmother's. She wanted to ask them a dozen - no, a hundred - questions. The unspoken rules dictated that members could not contact one another outside of Church affairs, lest they draw attention to the congregation. But in church, they could talk and converse as they pleased.
Lucijia cleared her throat, and the elderly couple turned towards her.
"Gospodin, Gospođa Stolar, may you be pleasing in His sight," she began.
"And you as well," Ljuba said. Normally, Lucijia loved the ritualistic greetings, and how they made a foundation for conversation. Now, however, she wanted them done so that they could finally speak. She hurried her way through the other three formalized greetings.
Finally, the conversation began. Lucijia was at a loss for what to actually say. "How are you," she asked after a moment of silence.
Josip looked to the floor. "His gears turn."
Not well, then. More silence.
"I don't see Stepjan or Tomislav anywhere. Are they coming later?" she asked. Magdalena had always nursed a fierce crush on Tomislav with his quick smile.
More silence. Ljuba opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Finally, she whispered something Lucijia couldn't make out. Lucijia leaned closer. "They died. In the war," Ljuba whispered again. Josip continued to look at the floor.
Lucijia stopped a gasp. It had always seemed that the brothers would always be there, two of the pillars of the congregation. Now just gone. Looking around, she noticed the absences.
Hrvoje and Vitomir. The Duvnjak brothers. Lovro and Strahimir and Davor and the rest.
Looking around, she saw a sea of gray hair and tired looks. She was one of the only people in the room below the age of sixty. A tree, shorn of new growth.
Suddenly, her eyes fixed on a light blue suit in the crowd, standing out from the mass of gray and brown clothing. The man from the morning. She saw him more clearly now. Thin, with a narrow face and shifting eyes. His closely shorn hair was receding. He wore gaudy cufflinks and a sapphire brooch.
As before, he was just standing, not speaking with anyone. No one seemed to notice him. A new man, with life for the congregation. She mouthed a vague apology to Ljuba and Josip, then excused herself, pushing through the crowd.
Just as she was approaching the man, a bell chimed, signalling the beginning of the service. The men and women shuffled to their separate sides of the room and sat. Lucijia sat near the back, letting the elders sit closer to the altar. The man in blue simply stood. At the front of the room, Father Bogomil stood, looking over the faithful. Behind him, the gears of the Soul began to clank to life.
"Brothers and Sisters," he began, "We are now once again made whole. Through many losses and turns of fate, through war and destruction, His gears have moved with strict purpose."
The machine behind Bogomil rattled. The thing was a mere prop to remind the worshipers of His interlocking natures. Every time a member of the congregation died, another gear was added. The machine was nearly twice as large as it had been during the last service before the war. She could barely see the gears for her mother and father.
When she was young, Lucijia had believed that His spirit ran through it. Now, though, she saw it as a simple gadget, run through with small tricks to make it run - no different than the machines in the factories of Rijevka.
Bogomil began to speak of the Martyr Sacesu. The enemies of the faith had dismembered him, but each of his limbs had continued to fight, killing many scores of them. It had been the exact lecture that he had given during the last service, almost a decade before. He even began nearly where he had left off.
The audience nodded approvingly. Listening to the familiar cadences of Father Bogomil's voice, Lucijia felt hollow. This wasn't the service that she remembered as a young woman. There was no fire, no spirit moving through anything.
She believed as strongly as ever in Him, but she felt no connection here - not with him or those whom she had known for many years. This was just a story, without any mention of the war, the losses, the occupation, of anything beyond a fairy tale metaphor.
She looked to the man in blue, hoping for something - anything - from him. A recognition of the ridiculousness of this, a sign of unease, anything. There was a fire in the man's eyes. It was not at all like the light from the candles.
Lucijia shuddered for a reason she didn't understand, then turned back to the sermon.
Finally, after what felt like hours, Father Bogomil concluded his story. The Martyr lay dead, but not defeated. He was quick to point out that once he had seen a relic of Sacesu - a whole toenail.
"Now," he said, "with our spirits justly moved, let us partake of His being." The machine's rattle heightened.
"No!" came a shout from the back of the room. Lucijia turned. The rest of the congregation seemed to be sitting still.
It was the man in the blue suit. His eyes were wide, filled with the unnatural fire.
He began shouting in Italian. It took Lucijia a moment to mentally adjust to translating. "Your idol is dead. You have smothered him in rust and cloth!" he yelled, pointing at Father Bogomil.
The congregation sat still. Lucijia was frozen, unsure of how to react to the man's ravings. The machine gears turned more quickly, making a racket that almost matched the man's volume.
"The god of speed and action, of violence and cleansing. He can be made new and perfect! But this," he pointed at the machine, "this graveyard of an altar. It must die! I will eat its flesh!"
He seemed to be pointing directly to the gears of her mother and father. For a brief moment, the candlelight flickered and Lucijia thought she recognized the shadowy Evidenzbureau man from her dreams. Here, in the church.
Lucijia stood up. She would stop the man. Stop his profanity and desecration with… something. She wasn't sure.
She stormed up to the man as he yelled about cleansing fire in a foreign language, then stopped. Her eyes fixated on the man's suit. The altar's gears turned faster and faster.
Then, the world seemed to fall apart.
An ungodly sound came from the front of the room. Lucijia turned just in time to see the first of the green flames begin to flicker from between its gears. The machine continued to turn, more and more frenetically.
The body of God seemed to scream as a dozen generations of gears began to burn and melt. Later, Nika would claim that she could see the souls fleeing it.
Ljuba gave a hoarse scream. The sound snapped the congregation from its paralysis. The church was in chaos as the green flames ate the altar. Everything became shoving arms and trampling feet. Lucijia's view of the man was blocked.
Suddenly, the altar burst, showering the congregation with fragments of metal. Father Bogomil cried out as a shard tore into his shoulder. Lucijia was grazed on the cheek. She could barely feel it.
The altar groaned, then collapsed in a heap of cracked machinery. The green flame sputtered and died, not spreading beyond the remains of the machine.
Lucijia stood, staring at where the man had been. Josip grabbed her by the arm and pulled her outside.
Hours later, as she helped tend to the wounded, Lucijia continued to think on the man. When she had tried to confront him, she had had seen it. On his tie, he wore Magdalina's sapphire brooch, in the shape of a gear.
It was well after midnight by the time Lucijia Kovach came home. She moved silently through the darkness of the house.
Thoughts of the day's events were pushed from her mind, at least for the moment.
Having memorized the steps in the dark, she set up the idol on the table.
She said the words the prayer, clear this time. The idol snapped together. Lucijia knew that she wouldn't be able to see the cracks, even if she used a jeweler's glass. It was as if He had never been broken. She felt her connection with Him once more.
Before returning the idol to its spot, she spoke the final words of the prayer to the empty room.
"On će postati cjelovit."
"On će doista." He shall indeed.
Corporal Pisani shivered as the dawn broke. It wasn't even November, but the nights were already freezing.
Over the past four years, he had been drafted, shot at, and nearly exploded twice. He hadn't even gotten the luck of being demobilized when the war ended. At the time, with Italy lurching between economic and political crises, the prospect of a rifle and steady pay had seemed appealing enough.
Now, though, Pisani was guarding a road on the frontier against his fellow countrymen. The poet d'Annunzio had seized one of the richest cities on the Adriatic without a single shot fired, vowing to bring Fiume into the fold of Mother Italy. As the politicians in Vienna brayed of free states and self-determination, Pisani stood, a reluctant guard over a goat trail into the town.
Every day, new rumors spread across the lines. Pisani had heard whispers of depravities he had never imagined - which he couldn't be a part of. At night, the sky above the city shone green and red and white. Sergeant Spada said it was just flood lights.
Such misfortune couldn't be the product of coincidence. Probably Sergeant Spada had arranged his suffering. Perhaps the Bolsheviks. Or the financiers. Or all three.
Pisani was so intent on deciding who to blame that he didn't notice the flames licking at the rooftops of Fiume in the distance. Then, all at once, the city was engulfed. Golden fire devoured edges of the city. Pisani could see a hand of blue flame grasp the town, reducing it to cinders in seconds. He ran for Spada.
As Pisani fled, the inferno reached high into the sky, with a great roar that shook his teeth. By the time he returned with Sergeant Spada, the fire was gone, leaving only the blooming red of the morning clouds.
Steam rose from the coffee, mingling with the haze of smoke that never fully cleared from the cafe. The blockade that surrounded the city hadn't prevented coffee and tobacco from flooding in.
Marcel nodded a thanks to the waiter and returned to the paper. He had read the same line - "continue at Paris. American President Woodrow promises a speedy resolution to the Yugoslav question"- fifteen times now. His true attention was with the other patrons.
So far, he had heard proponents of free love, Bolshevism, Theosophy, mass suicide, Menshevism, and nudism arguing in the small cafe. None had particularly caught his attention.
At the table to his left, two men, argued about something or other. From the clean shaven look and constant scratching, he assumed that they were followers of Futurism. Like Marcel, other young men had made their way to the city after the poet d'Annunzio seized control. The streets were awash with young men yelling about speed and valor and the future. Marcel turned away from the twitchy pair.
After several minutes, he noticed another conversation beneath the pretentious braying. A man and woman, sitting in the corner, did their best not to look secretive. He pricked up his ears, trying to isolate their speech. He could only make out scraps.
"… wonder …" said the man in Italian.
"Art … burning … life …," the woman replied, shaking her head. For emphasis, she made a sign below the table. Marcel started. He had only seen the sign a few times before, mostly in the more esoteric quarters of Paris.
"Such … abomination … new … cannot," the man answered.
The cup of coffee sat at the table, forgotten, as Marcel approached the couple. He had found his way into the world of wondrous and impossible art of Fiume.
Giacomo worked with a team of a few dozen men, setting bricks and stones of vivid colors. The only light came from a wide circle of lanterns that surrounded them. Outside of the lanterns, the dark was so thick it swallowed everything.
The women danced between the shadows cast by the work and placed garlands on the heads of the men as they worked. Giacomo recognized their songs as hymns of the poet d'Annunzio.
In their hands, the women held bottles of what looked to be wine. When the pace of one of the men began to slow, the women would pour the fire-colored liquid into the man's mouth.
The men built for hours, utterly silent, as the women's hymns kept time. Giacomo wasn't sure how he knew, but each stone went in its exact correct spot, without the need for mortar or cement. The work crept upwards into the black.
Then, a man Giacomo recognized as Piero the baker took the garland from his head.
The women's songs turned to snarls all at once. The lanterns went out.
Piero screamed. There was a sound of shattering glass.
When the lights came back on, there was no more Piero. The women resumed their singing, now with a ragged edge. The men redoubled their efforts.
Giacomo screamed and jolted upright in from his sweat-soaked sheets. Blood hammered in his ears. He panted for air, unsure of where he was. Bedroom. His bedroom. Boardinghouse. Nightmare. He gave a sigh of relief and sank back into the pillows.
Later that day, Giacomo passed by the skeleton of the lighthouse by the docks. d'Annunzio had described it as a "beacon of glory in a fallen world," and had promised that the world would know of the city's work. Today, just as every other day, there were no workers about. The colored stones seemed to creep higher, day by day, up the steel skeleton of the structure.
Giacomo shuddered and hurried past.
Years later, the disappearance of Piero the baker would come up in conversation every once in a while. When it did, Giacomo would change the subject.
The false papers fell in their thousands. The presses clattered, folding blank paper into wealth. Lira, dinars, francs, and dollars sat in neat bundles on the printing room floor.
In the corner, the forger sat, scratching numbers into a ledger, his pudgy face twisted with concentration. Miroslav was taking three krone for a pound of lamb, but only ten dinars for the same amount. The Stolar brothers had said that they would accept nothing less than five lira for the work of day, and that they would refuse outright any offers made in dinars. And so on.
These numbers would determine the printing output for the shop for the next day, tipping the balance of exchange rates one way or another. With his scratchy writing, the anonymous forger controlled the lives of ten thousand people.
Niccolò sat on the deck and scowled as the city came into view. Life with the Uscocchi - the city's sanctioned pirate fleet - had promised adventure, madness, and danger. The enthusiastic deeds and death that only an arditi, even an honorary one, could truly love.
What he had gotten in the past two months had been raids on small merchant vessels. His bounty had been crates of paper, bags of flour, and - most recently - vast quantities of boots in size 43. All hauled by him and the other "pirates." Some joked that they were more pack mules than raiders.
Resistance had been almost non-existent. No one wanted to risk his neck to protect a ship full of lawn furniture.
In an abstract sense, Niccolò could appreciate the work. The city had been blockaded by land and sea by the Italian government, and it was important to run the blockade and return to the city with valuable supplies. But the blockades were nominal at best, and the Uscocchi could largely come and go as they pleased.
Not once had there been a blazing firefight, nor even an excuse to use grenades. The only struggle of any note had been of sailors mutinying against their captain in favor of the Fiumean cause. The mutineers had been greeted as conquering heroes as they brought their cargo of strange and esoteric weapons down the gangplank.
The previous raid, Niccolò had chucked a grenade into the water, creating a massively satisfying geyser. But everyone had just stared before getting back to work, making the whole affair seem tawdry and cheap. He had spent most of this raid sulking whenever able.
At land, with the parades, the speeches, the endless toasts and counter-toasts, Niccolò was a fearless centurion. At sea, he was a donkey on two legs.
As the boat pulled into the harbor, there was the usual crowd, eager to see what valuable supplies the returning raiders would bring. The frenzied cheers that had met them their first few outings had died into murmurs of approval and polite clapping. Now, people looked almost bored - an uncomfortable sight in the city.
It was only a split second before the shot that Niccolò saw the gun, glinting in the morning sun. He darted down. The wood paneling where his head had been a moment ago exploded in a shower of splinters, almost simultaneous with a loud crack. The crowd screamed and dispersed.
The other Uscocchi dove for cover. Niccolò's blood stopped in his veins. He could die gloriously, but having his brains splattered against the deck of a boat filled with boots was too ignominious to be tolerated.
"You lizard-brained cad, you coward, you cum-defecating swine!" said a voice. It was a woman's voice, one that Niccolò had heard in various cries of ecstasy at some point in the past. He could not put a name or face to the voice.
Niccolò poked his head up from the deck. "Maria?" he guessed.
Another shot, this one slamming into the hull. "Asshole!" said the not-Maria, "Silvia! Our bodies as one! You said you were mine forever! Then you leave me for another woman? For eight!?"
There had been many Silvia's in the previous months. Based on the voice and choice of words, Niccolò was at least reasonably sure he had narrowed the shooter down to two Silvia's. Three, absolute tops.
Apparently, he had underestimated whichever Silvia it was
He spotted her, moving towards him, from the next dock over. Rifle raised. Hair long and loose, as if in the throes of passion. Eyes wild, to be expected from a lover of an Uscocchi.
He recognized her as one of the women from his earliest days of Fiume. Before he volunteered for the Uscocchi, before declaring himself an arditi. Before he was himself. A crowd gathered a few dozen meters away, ringing the quay.
Niccolò raised up from his prone position, his hands raised. Not quite a motion of surrender - an arditi would sooner die - but at least of good intentions. His crewmates stayed where they were.
"When they have fought their battles, soldiers seek sensual pleasures," he began, "in which their constantly battling energies can be unwound and renewed." It was almost an axiom at this point.
He continued. "The exaltation of the initiates of those religions still sufficiently new to contain a tempting element of the unknown, is no more than sensuality diverted spiritually towards a sacred female image. Art and war are the great manifestations of sensuality; lust is their flower."
"And you, as a" he paused a moment, trying to recall, "…artist? You of all should be able to appreciate th-"
Silvia squeezed the trigger. The wood next to Niccolò's head exploded. One of the splinters grazed Niccolò's cheek.
"Fuck you, Nicoletta! Fuck that French whore and fuck your bullshit!" yelled Silvia.
Niccolò flinched. Only a few people knew his old name, before the Uscocchi, before Fiume. When he still lived with a family that was convinced he should marry some doddering old businessman and insisted on calling him his wrong name. Death by a thousand cuts of bourgeois politeness.
That wasn't why he came to Fiume. That wasn't why he sought to die in the name of love, in a mad frenzy, he thought. A martyr for the blazing city. Consummating the eternal cycle. He leapt over the railing and rolled onto the docks.
Another shot. A part of his mind recognized the hot sting as it grazed his arm.
His face twisted into a snarl. The crowd screamed.
He raced towards Silvia.
The rifle clattered to the ground.
The two lovers embraced, fading embers bursting into bright flame once again.
In the space of a few seconds, a thousand incoherent thoughts, on love and violence and transcendence were formed and died in Niccolò's head. Kisses, hot, wet, dry, cold, covered his face.
Silvia had seen him before. Pale, weak, neurotic. Now she would bear witness to his strength, passed through the furnace. Muscular, mad, daring. She was a testament to his utter transformation.
The pair embraced in passionate lust, tearing at one another's clothes. As the captain yelled after Niccolò, they rose to their feet. Without a word, they began to race to the nearest inn. The crowd parted as they passed. Niccolò ignored the blood dribbling down his chin.
The gilded antechamber of d'Annunzio seemed to be in a different universe than the stone and brick city outside. The fact that almost every surface was draped with velvet or covered by exotic bric-a-brac helped. Thick plumes of sickly incense wafted from beneath the door of d'Annunzio's room at all hours.
Henry sat at a desk in the antechamber, an eager supplicant drafting and translating communiques. At the desk to his right sat a Belgian, his fellow pilgrim. He translated the prophet's words into French and spoke of a world yet to come.
Henry did not know much about the slight man who sat at the desk on his left, not even his name. He had never seen the fellow outside of d'Annunzio's office, and the man never gave an answer more than a few syllables.
Whoever he was, he seemed to have to the ear of the only men who met the prophet with any regularity. The men never gave their names, either.
Rather than the rhythmic tac-tac-clack of Henry's own machine, the fellow's machine made a low humming sound as it worked. Henry had no idea where his comminques went, or even what they were. Just that the prophet d'Annunzio would accept them, with a listless stare, before shuffling back to his room.
Once, Henry had looked at the keys in whatever the queer script the man wrote. The nosebleed had continued for several hours. The man only smiled as he continued to work.
Stefano perched over the high desk, giving his best glare to the courier below. The young man placed the stack of papers down with a thump, breaking the silence of the records office. Something in the courier's eyes seemed almost insubordinate.
Before Stefano could give the young man a dressing down, the boy was out the door and back on his bike, speeding away. Stefano considered shouting after the boy for not being careful, and possibly allowing insects into the archive. Instead, he clenched his fists for a moment before beginning to work.
With a practiced hand, he opened the bundle. The papers told of new births from the city's midwives, and of new deaths from the hospital.
Stefano frowned as he began to record the names and dates in his ledger. Back in the old days, before the town was infected with this madness, Stefano could tally the births and deaths, the entry and exit permits, and know exactly how many people were living in Fiume. In the room behind him were the city's archives, dating back to the 18th century. Whether or not they were needed was immaterial. They gave structure to the city and its past.
Now, deserters and adventurers flitted in and out of the city as they pleased, ruining the carefully constructed tables and contingencies.
Stefano began to work, and the numbers wrapped around him. 3100 grams. Died October 19th. Area of residence: Via Dante.
The sounds began to gather outside. The clatter of metal on metal. The shrill yap of a whistle. A rumbling of discordant voices.
At first, Stefano ignored them. His office opened to the street, and a certain amount of noise was inevitable. But the road was not a well-traveled one, and continuous noise was uncommon. After five minutes, the sounds of the street began to grow louder.
Stefano frowned. Looking out the window, he spotted a half-naked young woman. She skipped and twirled down the road. In her hand was a stalk topped with what looked to be a pine cone. The pen rolled from his hand and towards the edge of the desk. The same instant that the woman disappeared from view, the pen clattered to the floor.
He awoke from his stupor and lowered himself from his chair. The sound grew louder.
Stefano made his way to the window, trying to catch another look at the youth. She danced down the street. He stared after her, his hand hovering over the handle of the door. It wasn't until she disappeared around the corner that he turned his head towards the source of the growing din.
A riotous mob wound its way along the crooked street, following the path of the young woman. The people at the head of the group carried the Italian tricolor and the icon of some saint or another. As far as Stefano could see down, the procession was awash with green, white, and red. Colorful streamers shot up at random. The khakis and blacks of arditi uniforms mingled with fine silks and workers' uniforms.
Men and women in various states of undress skipped alongside and in front of the crowd, mimicking the young woman. Stefano could hear the beat of a dozen or so drums, all in different times. From the crowd came bars of the Fanfara Reale, mingled with the Internationale and lewd drinking songs. Chants for different ideologies came from the crowd, seemingly at random, until they were a single mass.
Though muffled by the wall, Stefano could make out every sound. Every few seconds, a great cheer would rise from a different section of the crowd. The setting sun cast the crowd's distended shadows across the plaster and brick of the buildings.
Stefano froze, possibilities flashing before him. So this was one of the parades, a daily occurrence since the poet had arrived. He had always avoided these frenzies of noise and movement, and had contented himself with hearing and repeating dark rumors about their actions. Every day was a new, disgusting carnival.
Once or twice, he had daydreamed about stepping in front of such a mob and giving them a good dressing-down. Now, though, he froze. He stared at the crowd passing him by, which seemed to pay him no mind.
Outside, someone in the crowd began smashing windows. The tinkling of glass finally woke Stefano. He realized he was only inches away from the dregs of Fiume, storming through the city. One of the marchers stopped in front of the window and stared at him. As Stefano turned, he could see more marchers stopping. He dashed back behind his desk and began to climb the chair, slipping several times.
Behind him, he heard the sound of breaking glass and a sharp bang, followed by loud yips and shrieks from outside. He climbed the chair, and saw several, no, a dozen, men and women climb in through the broken window, or crawl over the beaten-down door. They made growling and braying sounds as they moved, their teeth bared at him.
Stefano should have moved. He should have run. He should have flung the heavy ledgers or the sharp pen at the intruders. But all he could was scream, a sound carried away by the noise of the never-ending crowd. The beasts crawled towards him, and he gripped the seat of his chair until his knuckles were white.
He screwed his eyes shut, awaiting the inevitable death at the hands of the frenzied revelers. A minute, then two, passed. Then a thousand, maybe. The world only in sound. Shattering glass. Metal scraping on metal. The brays and yelps of the madmen. The incessant din from outside as the mob moved past what remained of his office.
Finally, the crowd left. The sounds from inside grew softer, then disappeared altogether. In time, the only noise was of glass against the floor, pushed by the gentle breeze from the window. Stefano kept his eyes shut for several more minutes, just in case. Finally, he opened them.
Numbers and letter splashed across the walls and ceiling in nonsense patterns. Some fat, like overfed spiders, others as small as flies. "8Jf de RR." "P9g il 90d dQ." And so on. Thin back lines crept along the walls and ceiling as well.
There seemed to be no central point that they radiated out from. The characters looked to be a natural part of the woodwork, like it was a feature that Stefano had never noticed before.
Stefano stared at the ceiling for several more minutes, trying to decipher the jumbles of letters. Nothing. He turned back to his ledger.
It was blank. Even the printed boxes for each field, gone. Stefano flipped back a page. Then another. Nothing.
He looked up at the ceiling again. The numbers and letters he needed were there. Disordered. He swiped the air, trying to pull the numbers back to him. Nothing.
Stefano remembered the scraping sounds that had come from the archives in back. Before he realized it, he was out of his chair, dashing towards the wreckage of the archive room.
The door hung from its hinges. Stefano stepped gingerly over the blank papers scattered across the floor. Cabinets, once containing decades worth of records, lay on the floor, their metal sides torn apart. He almost couldn't bring himself to look at the ceiling and walls.
When he did tilt his head up, he saw it. The history of Fiume, its births and deaths, the property transactions and arrests that made up the city. Hurled across the walls, as if it had been picked up by a tornado. As if Fiume had no past, only a present of madness, stretching forward forever.
Stefano fell to his knees and began to laugh. He couldn't stop laughing.
The square rang with the poet's ranting. His words more incantation than speech, and he paced back and forth on the balcony as he spoke. Below, the crowd watched with rapt attention, taking in his every word and movement. At times, they would intone alongside the poet.
Gioachino hunched in a darkened alleyway off the piazza, scribbling in his notebook. Over the past month, the newly-minted Foundation researcher had shortened the recordings of speeches to cypher and hieroglyphs.
Sacra Italia became a rising (or was it setting?) sun. The destruction of Fiume and its rebirth became a stylized bird. A response from the crowd meant a symbol was underlined. Gioachino still felt very proud about the innovation. The poet's speeches were dense with cliche, and a two hour speech that had taken fifty sheets of paper to transcribe could be taken down in a single sheet.
It was only the words that were not in Italian - or any other language he recognized - that Gioachino spelled out. Over the month, the volume of those words - ones like tlanateo and nlagneat had increased to the point that they were nearly a quarter of the speech. They seemed to be some sort of magic, but not any Gioachino recognized. His brow furrowed whenever he thought about these unknown words.
The poet's deep voice began to intone to the crowd in the mystical language. "Tlala aniyan maelaph n'zuma!" he yelled, his voice echoing across the square. The lights of the piazza dimmed. Gioachino jotted three parallel lines after the transcribed words.
"Tlala aniyan maelaph n'zuma!" the crowd spoke back. Gioachino underlined the previous section.
"Atalanga tlel werhaer!" came the unified call from the crowd.
No response. Gioachino looked up from his paper. The poet was still. Gioachino had never seen the man at rest since he had started observing him.
"Atalanga tlel werhaer!" the crowd repeated. Even from this distance, Gioachino could see the poet tense up.
"Citizens - brothers - of Fiume," the poet began, jumping back to the line that began the speech, "In a blinkered and fallen world, it is a single flame of liberty that sings redemption for the world!"
"Sanegana, larastayyeba! Okvikalam," the crowd shouted. Its spoke with hunger. Gioachino scrawled down the words as best he could, trying to keep pace with crowd.
"Atalanga ateeshimsi! Tlelokak resdin!" The crowd began to chant, faster and faster.
"Fiume! Fiume cries for justice and liberty!" the poet cried, trying to be heard over the frenzied shouting of the crowd. There was a pleading in his voice "In a mire of degradation, it is only we, we Fiumeans, who rise as a shining beacon! Tlanateo!"
At once, the crowd stopped its chatter and snapped to attention. "Tlanateo," it shouted back.
The speech resumed as normal. Gioachino paused. He had no symbols or even words for what had just happened.
The masters of Fiume huddled together in the darkened room. From every window, rose- and gold-tinted light streamed in. A joyous din punctuated by periodic cheers arose from the streets. The leading industrialists of the city sat shoulder to shoulder with the political masters of the town.
"The focus point is proceeding as anticipated," Lagorio said. He blotted sweat from the back of his neck with a kerchief. "It seems that the rabble of the city are capable of hard work, if only in dreams."
Mario Pentheo, a tall man with a thin mustache, nodded from the head of the table. "And the Beast? Is the fool priming them?"
A small man by the name of Bandoni stood up, almost reaching the height of his seated companions. "Roughly a quarter of the city has joined in the speeches by d'Annunzio. At this rate, the Beast will be more than large enough to fulfill the requirements of the way. According to our man with the fool, he has begun to internalize the chants."
The men always spoke in euphemisms. As beatings and wage-theft became "employee discipline" and "windfalls," the gestalt of the people of Fiume became "the Beast." The mass suicide of the people that made up the Beast - men, women, and children - became "the requirements." The lighthouse, built on a leyline, that would focus the violent energies to tear a hole in space became "the focus point."
Pentheo nodded, and Bandoni sat down, beaming. Soon, the ritual would be complete. For fifty long years, the Serpent's Hand had been excluded from the Library, the fount of all knowledge. Now, with the sacrifice of the Beast, comprised of the people of Fiume, they would find a Way back in.
Through their sheer genius and willingness to sacrifice, the leading men of Fiume would walk once more in the halls of knowledge. They would know every secret of the worlds, every whispered technique and dead tongue. Their knowledge would allow them even greater power, even greater wealth. They would become like gods.
"The sacrifice of a single beast is a small price," Pentheo said, as he did at the end of every meeting. The others repeated the benediction before filing out. Soon, the room was empty, filled with only the light and cheers from outside.
The ballroom swelled with sound. It was a gala, organized by a young banker with libertine inclinations, in honor of Saint Jude - the patron saint of impossible causes. No one missed the symbolism. Artists and radicals rubbed elbows with clerks and bankers. The overwhelming sense of merriment and momentum was all that kept the peace.
Balls like this took place almost every other day now.
The ballroom swelled with sound. Men and women swirled across the dance floor, coupling and parting with every frenetic movement of the music.
To the side sat the prophet d'Annunzio, soul of the Fiume endeavor. His eyelids drooped as the night wore on. Next to him stood one of his secretaries, a silent man with sharp features.
Whenever an admirer came too close, the secretary would glare. That was usually enough to warn off any potential admirers. A few had ignored the warning glances and continued to approach the prophet. The secretary would then gently lead them from the room. The men were seldom heard from after that.
This night, the crowd danced with ferocity, spinning and moving in the half- and quarter-notes. The prophet's head bobbed in time with the dance.
From the spinning crowd, a masked woman grabbed the secretary by the hand and pulled him away. The secretary struggled, but could not escape the woman's grip. Within seconds, he was caught up in a swirl of dancers, spun to and fro, unable to reach the prophet. He tried to push his way through, but it was like trying to force his way through a wall.
With the secretary gone, a gaggle of admirers jockeyed for the spot next to the prophet. After a few seconds, a man with closely shorn hair and a sapphire broach pushed himself next to d'Annunzio.
"Ah, at last, to meet the great spirit of Italy," the man began, "the heart of valor, the fire of the new world." The prophet nodded absently. This was no different from the thousand other greetings he had received from such men.
"I wish to speak with you about a riotous new world. A grand and spectacular life. Tell me, singore," he said, leaning in to the prophet, "have you ever heard of the Fifth Church?"
The prophet's eyes widened, and he turned to face the young man.
The man smiled. "So you have. Let us discuss it elsewhere, in private," he said. The pair left the ballroom.
When the secretary finally fought his way out of the dance, he searched, but could find no trace of the prophet.
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