Contents
Part III New Babel — Chapter Three
Overview
Senlin enters the House of White Chrom and is dosed with the narcotic, plunging into a vivid hallucination of ascending above a ruined Tower and encountering an immense Marya. The vision shatters as Iren slaps him awake outside. Finn Goll arrives in an opulent carriage, recognizing Senlin and seizing the initiative.
Summary
Senlin wanders into what appears to be a cozy pub but is in fact the House of White Chrom, a chapel-like drug den. A prim matron seats him among men shrouded in white napkins, each inhaling vapors from basins. She pours a white powder into Senlin’s bowl; the vapor envelopes him, and he succumbs to the narcotic.
He hallucinates piloting a balloon over the valley of Babel, driven by an urgent desire to pierce the clouds surrounding the Tower’s upper rings. Breaking through the cloud cap, he beholds the Tower as a smoldering ruin teeming with carrion birds and collapsing debris, and his gondola drifts toward the devastation.
Suddenly, Marya appears, impossibly large and strong. Senlin, diminished and helpless, declares his love as she cups his head—then strikes him, snapping the vision. The blow collapses the dream of Marya, the balloon, and the ruined Tower.
Senlin comes to beneath a sulfurous streetlamp outside the white chapel. The “Marya” is revealed as the amazon Iren, who grips his neck and slaps him, spinning him toward a lavish horseless carriage. As Senlin reels, the carriage door opens to reveal Finn Goll, who greets him with mocking familiarity, confirming that Senlin has been found and setting up his capture.
Who Appears
- Thomas SenlinProtagonist; enters a White Chrom den, hallucinates a ruined Tower and Marya, then wakes to Iren striking him.
- IrenAmazon enforcer; snaps Senlin from his drugged vision with heavy blows and restrains him outside the den.
- Finn GollThief and antagonist; arrives in an opulent carriage, recognizes Senlin, and reasserts control.
- MaryaSenlin’s missing wife; appears in his hallucination as a gigantic, stoic figure who strikes him.
- White Chrom MatronProper tea-lady-like attendant who doses Senlin with White Chrom at the chapel-like den.