The Landau cruised along next to the long lake. It was, as ’Te had foreseen, completely frigid. The brutal, piercing cold really made the Associates treasure the few moments of shared warmth, when ’Te handed them a hot bowl of stew and some kind words. It was obvious to everyone, probably even to the Associates, how they had come to depend on his approval. They glowed when he said they did well, and were gutted when he frowned.
Not bad. Not bad at all. ’Te gave himself a little mental pat on the back. The Xia, as a clan, were not known for their personal loyalty. It took an aching amount of effort to find and cultivate subordinates that were both capable and true. ’Tok liked to find the under-appreciated and tie their fortunes to his. ’Te preferred heavy indoctrination. No method was infallible, but this is what he enjoyed the most.
The pull over next to the lake had beautiful views in the summer. The cranes loved to hunt around there. In the winter… he could almost see the cold shivering the air. Lunch went as usual, but before they returned to their journey, he gave a few additional instructions.
“We have made good time, better time than I feared, in fact. So good news! We will be reaching Red Mountain tonight. Just look at all the traffic if you don’t believe it.”
It was true too- even in the bitter cold, wagons were trundling along, hauling goods to farms and from the farms to the city.
“Now, the Xia do have a manor in the city, as you know. What you probably don’t know is that the manor has lousy food, worse service and the Xia stationed there are as vile a sack of snakes as you can imagine. We send people to Red Mountain because they are too damn nasty for Cold Garden, and letting them play with the Plutocracy seems a good use of their talents. So we won’t be staying there.”
The Client Development Officers were grinning, and even the guards were looking cheerful. The valet just looked relieved.
“You guessed it- we are staying at the Grand Hotel.”
Minor exclamations of joy broke out, leaving the Associates looking optimistic but confused.
“For those who haven’t been to Red Mountain, there are definite tiers, literal strata, of hospitality. Private homes, mansions really, were the top of the heap for luxury and quality of food. Until about fifteen years ago, when a no-joke theater owner decided he wanted to get into the hotel business. Poor old Oily Page, whose health has been poor for a long while now. Anyway.” ’Te shook his head. Page wasn’t a friend, exactly, but a friendly acquaintance.
“Since he didn’t know the first thing about running a hotel, but did know how to haul in big spenders, he hired someone to manage things. Spent an absolute fortune making the hotel as up to date and comfortable as possible, all modern conveniences-” ’Te’s voice dripped with irony there, but his audience was Xia and got it.
“And then handed it over to a little lunatic from all the way out East. He’s run hotels all over the Eastern Edge, all very luxurious, all catering to the rich, powerful and glamorous. People come to hotels because King Ratz is running it. And he brought Bergendorfer with him. Probably the single most important chef in the Greenfire Continent. Notice I said “Important,” not “best.” Though he probably is the best too. No, he’s important because his kitchen organization and restaurant management has become the standard for how those things should be run.”
He let them mull that over.
“We offered them both a small fortune to come and set up a hotel in Cold Garden, but they felt that the locals didn’t meet their needs as a client base. And they are right, more’s the pity. It takes a certain unreasonable degree of wealth to create that level of luxury, and the economic hierarchy of Cold Garden is a little too flat to support the hotel.”
Everyone was looking excited.
“And you get to stay there! You lucky devils. So, press on. Tonight, we dine at the Grand!”
Red Mountain emerged from the mountains surrounding it. Not the biggest mountain, nor the most beautiful. Yet the endless stream of wagons rolling in and out of it gave it grandeur. Like there was no end to the supplicants coming to offer their tribute to the mountain gods.
The Landau, too big for the narrow streets of Cold Garden, floated directly up the main thoroughfare. The streets had to be straight and wide, wagon loads of algae plastics flowed out by the thousands, balanced against the thousands of wagons coming in with feed stock. The city had only made the most cursory gesture to walls- the mountains were its fortifications, as were the heavy brass cannons that covered the approaches. Agriculture? The Plutocracy could buy whatever food it wanted. If some peasants wanted to farm, good for them. But they wouldn’t spend a single penny trying to keep those peasants alive.
The City followed the same internal logic too. The stores were big, bright and beautiful. The cobble streets were cleaned every night. The streets themselves were lit with enormous light cores at fantastic expense, so that commerce need never sleep. The great and good built town houses and private mansions, each with their own styles and charms. Select neighborhoods would form, become “exclusive” and then fall out of fashion while still remaining blindingly expensive. Behind those beautiful buildings and in the shadows of those glorious lights were shanties of scrap wood and sheets of algae plastic too lousy for export.
Freezing cold, loud, constantly in danger of collapse, but the best a family of ten could do. The whole family huddled around a broken bit of heat stone split off a bigger block, its unsealed edges dumping radiation and warmth in equal portions. A whole family of tumor farms, crammed into a shack not fit for two beggars. Not fit for anyone.
But when you were in debt to the factory, when you had to buy from their store with the same scrip they printed, when you couldn’t even see a glimpse of a rad or any other real currency- you did what you had to. And then, when they were old enough to pick or carry or reach into the moving machines to unstick something, your kids did what they had to do too. Happy sixth birthday. Here’s hoping you see seven.
’Te absolutely loved Red Mountain. He loved the wild glamor, the crazy splashes of money, the incredible food. He loved the theater, the ballet, the strange, gymnastic operas they put on. He loved the women who kept finding ways to trade youth and beauty for luxury, and would loudly despise whores. Most of all, he loved the men. The men of Red Mountain, who devoted the entirety of their time to him, all for the promise of money. Trading the only real thing, for the illusion of an illusion.
’Te sometimes wondered if the Plutocracy was in on the joke. The endless imaginary fetters they put on their people. The perfect cruelty of it all was just too delicious to be an accident. But every time he met them, lean or fat, whatever age or gender, regardless of their industry, all of them, were the greatest slaves to the grand illusion. They knew how worthless money really was, and yet they would sooner go without air than coin.
It was why the Xia never really succeeded in Red Mountain. The Plutocracy would rather miss a fortune than see someone else make one.
’Te once saw a factory worker who managed to pay off the entirety of his inherited debt, then tried to walk out of the city. His foreman’s guards caught him before he had gone two blocks, knocked him down and beat the shit out of him. Then his foreman came up with an ax and cut off his hands and feet. Only then did the foreman say, loudly, that if the young man wouldn’t work for him, then he wouldn’t work for anyone else either.
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Then ’Te hopped in a rickshaw and went back to the Grand for cocktails and beauties. Just another day on the Mountain.
The Grand Hotel was lit with brilliant flood lights, painting the exterior a brilliant buttery yellow in the winter gloom. Seven glorious stories, four hundred of the finest rooms in the entire North West. Every luxury this epoch could provide was provided. For an utterly justified fee.
The Landau had been seen coming literally miles away, and they were, of course, expected. They were greeted by no less than a dozen footmen, twice as many porters, and the Captain of the Bellhops himself held the umbrella to shield the Honorable Vice-President Xiatokte from the non-existent snow.
The party had no need to carry anything, sign anything, want for anything. Their every desire was anticipated. The Associates watched wide eyed as the Honorable Vice-President was greeted with an embrace and a kiss on each cheek by a dapper little man who looked ready to weep with joy at his presence. They clutched their little valaise, manacled to their wrists with thin steel chains. It was a symbol of pride and office- to carry the secure documents. They were so proud when they turned the little keys and handed them to their leader.
“My friend! It is so good to see you once more! I have personally inspected your room twice today- you will find it exactly as you like it.”
“Frere Ratz, I never doubted you for a moment. So long as you are here, the Grand can only be the pinnacle of perfection!”
“Too kind, too kind! Oh, how can I keep you waiting? A hot bath waits for you, as does a particularly special bottle of Talbo. What’s more, L’mai has been waiting all day to attend to you.”
“How have you managed to keep her? I thought she would have been stolen away long ago.”
“She stays only for your visits, I swear. Come more often, she is the guiding star of my chambermaids.”
’Te laughed heartily. “Alright everyone! Follow the porters to your rooms. I expect you bathed and presentable in two hours. Speak to your porters for the dress code if you don’t know. Bergendorfer is every bit as strict as Frere Ratz, and I personally am not brave enough to cross him.”
“Oh you wrong him, Expert, you wrong him. Why, just two days ago, a woman without proper shoes was escorted from the restaurant with both knees in working order.”
“No! Is he feeling alright?”
“Picture of health, I am delighted to say…” The two nattered and joked all the way to the ascending room that would carry ’Te up seven stories to his penthouse suite. The rest of the staff had lesser accommodation, but no complaints.
The Associates were permitted, after inspection and the depositing of their valise into a safe, to join Xiatokte in the main dining room. The guards, CDOs and valet all ate in the saloon. Rank hath its privileges, and while the Associates were technically the most junior people in the party, they were of the main line.
The dining room was elegant. Simple walls, lightly painted, with dim lights shining down. Each table had its own, brighter, light core on it, so that the diners appeared as romantic castaways on floating islands in the twilight. Intimate, and the illusion of privacy, while ensuring that everyone could see and admire the beautiful clothing and glittering jewels on display. Not just anyone could afford dinner at the Grand, and even if you could, not everyone could get a table. Even if your host had a table, if you yourself didn’t measure up in terms of beauty or conspicuous wealth or notoriety… the food in the Saloon was very good, and perhaps you would find it more comfortable.
Dinner was a revelation to the youngsters. The food was beautiful. Immaculately uniformed waiters in pressed black pants, black velvet slippers, blindingly white shirts and spotless white cotton gloves ferried silver plated serving trays to and from the kitchen. Each plate was artwork and a story. You didn’t just eat roast carrots, parsnips and turnips. It was the late autumn harvest on a plate.
Roast caramel flavors lifted up by fine herbs, sage and thyme, the sweet-savory-salt perfectly refined by a hint of lemon squeezed over the roast vegetables right at the table. A waiter covered the cut side of half a lemon with cheesecloth (so no seeds could fall into the food) then squeezed the juice over the perfectly carved vegetables in an elaborate show. The white gloves, now invisibly stained with lemon juice, were immediately disposed of, and fresh gloves put on. For each plate.
This was the first of seven courses. Each course was too small by itself, but by the time the little trays of candied nuts and cheese with honey from bees that fed on the sap of mesquite trees was circulated, they were all stuffed. Somehow, they found room for a final apple brandy, aged forty years in white oak casks. The alcohol couldn’t touch them, they thought. But then… the evaporating liquor lifted the flavors of the heavy cheese and mixed with the honey and the mellow richness of the nuts. The aromas and flavors swirled inside their mouths and rose heavenward through their noses.
“Would the Master Chef be offended if I kept a copy of the menu?” Xiachoii asked.
“He’d even sign it.” Xiatokte raised a finger and a waiter materialized. A few whispered words were exchanged, and the waiter dematerialized. They lingered over their brandy. No one wanted to move. No one wanted the magical experience to be over. Dinner at the Grand. Their thoughts were a jumble. All they understood was that they wanted this and more of it.
And then he was there- a short man with a tidy white mustache and bald pate, still devilishly handsome and aging well. His white jacket and white pants were blinding, shockingly clean and crisp. He strode in, and Xiatoktok rose to meet him. The shorter man reached out, embraced the expert, and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
“For ten days, I have you. You will eat every meal at the Hotel. Each and every one.” Bergendorfer fixed Xiatokte’s robes slightly and looked around the room with deceptive casualness. “These are your new associates?”
“Yes, their first trip out of Cold Garden. They have only been in my care for two weeks, but I am allowing myself some small hopes.”
“Nonsense. They will thrive under you. My Porlo, he writes me every month, sometimes every two weeks, about how well you look after him. The kitchen is immaculate, he says, and he has never had to fight his thieving suppliers the way I do here.”
“They still want kickbacks, eh?”
“Oh no! No, they just short me on weight and quantity, then if I complain, nothing gets delivered at all!”
“Bastards. Absolute bastards.”
“But enough of this unhappy talk. The young lady wished my autograph upon a menu?”
Xiachoii started to rise and bow, but was halted by Bergendorfer’s imperious hand.
“No, sit, please. I will not sign anything for you tonight. Do well these next ten days, and I will compile the menus into a pamphlet and sign the whole thing for you. But only if you are diligent and obedient! Nothing worse than a junior who thinks they know better, eh?”
She nodded fervently.
“I can do the same for you, boy. You must also work hard. To learn from such a great man is your fortune.”
Xiachoram bowed deeply in his seat.
“Please, friend, spare my blushes. Oh, but do join me for a drink in a couple of days. There is something we are trying to promote, this trip. It needs to go to the Plutocracy first, but afterward…” ’Te’s smile was soft, and his eyes gleamed in the dim light. “Afterwards, we may just be able to get you and Ratz the thing you have been wanting for a very, very long time.” He chuckled warmly.
“You won’t give me a hint, will you? My desires are many, and Ratz has even more.”
“Soon, old friend. Soon.”
That night, a beautiful young man and woman, both impeccably dressed in hotel uniforms, presented themselves at the Associate’s doors. The young man handed a card to Xiachoram, the woman a card to Xiachoii. Both cards said the same thing-
After a long road, a warm bath and a good meal. A comfortable bed awaits. Sleep calls you strongly, and who could blame you for forsaking all other matters? But if you truly wish to relax and appreciate just what the Grand has to offer, keep this card and let its bearer into your room. Say nothing, do nothing save but what they tell you. They are a gentle soul, but skittish and will leave if startled. Let them take care of you. Your sleep will be all the sweeter for it. If you do not wish their attention, simply return the card and they will be on their way.
-Xiatokte