Chapter Twenty-Three
The train dropped out of the mountains and crossed a high prairie before it finally stopped. It was dusk, the air outside brisk. The dinginess of the northern lands of New Victoria seemed pristine and lush compared to the putrid quality of the air and the soiled remnants of buildings that made up the squalid train station.
There was an old motor car to take them from the station into the windy night and out into the desert. Beyond the desert appeared a city, rising gloomily from the plain, which never seemed to get closer the longer they drove. Yet sometime, after a least an hour, they were finally traversing the city’s grimy streets. It must have once been a grand town, Delila assumed, seeing the enormous buildings that rose above her on either side. In New Victoria
