Page 16

Chapter 16

The Lords Celestine

The ignorant and ill-educated may imagine the immortal manifestations of the Twelve Auroral Virtues to be flawless golden-skinned figures draped in pristine white togas seated atop intricately carved marble thrones, gazing down in judgement upon worthy and unworthy alike. This is, obviously, a childish oversimplification: the Lords Celestine, even when appearing as Presences upon the Mortal realm, do not wear togas. They wear elaborately brocaded coats embroidered in gold, silver and purple threads depicting scenes of moral rectitude. Whenever one speaks, their embroidery comes alive, playing out brief morality tales suited to that Celestine’s particular field of virtue. It’s distracting as hell.

‘Why do you believe you have come to plead before us, Gallantry?’ asked the Celestine of Justice.

See what she did there? Why do you believe you have come to plead? That’s because they take it for granted that mere Mortals couldn’t possibly know their own minds. To them, we’re basically petulant children who act out of instinct, not thought, requiring the guiding hand of the Celestines to achieve even the most basic degree of self-reflection.

This was the third time she’d called me by my Justiciar name, and the third time Corrigan snorted, ‘Gallantry!’ and elbowed Temper. ‘Cade’s witch-hunter name was Gallantry! Can you believe it? Gallantry! ’ Whereupon the two equally dim-witted brutes began chortling uncontrollably and highly ill-advisedly.

‘Why does this malodorous beast taint this sacred air with its foul stench and discordant mockery?’ demanded the Celestine of Courtesy.

That’s right: Courtesy is one of the twelve highest virtues. I could explain the spiritual reasoning behind this using incomprehensible algebraic tenets of philosophy, though you still wouldn’t understand because you too are an ill-bred beast, at least as far as the Auroral Hierarchy is concerned.

‘Hey!’ Corrigan said defensively, placing an arm around Temper’s shoulders. ‘He may be a blood-sucking kangaroo, but he has feelings . And he’s not malodorous — ’

‘She was referring to you,’ I clarified.

Corrigan sniffed his own armpit before conceding, ‘Fair enough.’

I prostrated myself before the Celestine of Justice, she being one of the few of these smug bastards I could tolerate genuflecting to without potentially fatal spasms of nausea. ‘Celestine Justice, I wish to consult the Glorian Archives.’

When a Justiciar, or any Mortal agent of the Celestines ostentatiously dubbed ‘Glorians’,acts under the purview of an Auroral Edict, our every move, every sensory perception, every thought is recorded, preserved and enshrined in the annals of the Glorian Archives. This is necessary because Mortals operating under the Auroral influence tend to remember nothing about those they’ve been sent to hunt down, only how brave and righteous they’ve been in the performance of their duties. So, really no different from most other law enforcement agencies.

‘What purpose will reliving the past serve, save to arouse vanity or seek undeserved redemption?’ asked the Celestine of Humility with his customary, almost grandfatherly amusement. He was a right prick, that one.

‘And why must these errant wonderists appear before us naked?’ asked Chastity. More youthful and slender in appearance, he was a right prick too, with a celestial stick up his butt about nudity. Kind of like a lot of Infernals, though I wouldn’t suggest making that comparison to him.

The question, however, was fair enough. The Ritual of Invitation was prescribed by the Celestine of Humility. You might assume Chastity and Humility to be two sides of the same coin, but the truth is quite the opposite: a humble person should never hesitate to debase themselves when pleading for an audience with a higher power; a chaste person, on the other hand, has the common decency to cover up their naughty bits in polite society.

‘Does not the reliving of such trivial debates diminish any argument we might offer against the Fallen Glorian’s request to consult his own past?’ asked the Celestine of Rationality. The Presence of Rationality, it has to be said, is unbelievably sexy. She’s always been one of my favourite Celestines, despite never having the time of day for a Justiciar like me. Well,except for that one night we had sex inside a conjured cathedral much like this one, but that’s another story– which, in retrospect, was probably the fallout from a nasty theological debate she’d had with Chastity. Honestly, I came away from the entire experience feeling somewhat used.

‘How long are they going to go on like this?’ Galass asked quietly.

‘Eternally,’ said Shame.

I had failed to warn Corrigan about my stupid Glorian name, I hadn’t gagged him to stop him giggling like an idiot every time someone said it aloud and now came my third mistake: I had failed to convince Shame that an apostate Angelic Emissary must never, ever speak in front of her former masters.

‘Obscenity!’ proclaimed the Celestine of Compassion. He was a heavy-set fellow,or at least, that’s how he chose to manifest here on the Mortal plane. His jowly cheeks and soft green eyes usually evoked a sense of understanding and forgiveness in those who beheld him. The way he glared at Shame, however, suggested there wasn’t a trace of mercy in him. ‘You abused the abilities granted to Angelic Emissaries by twisting the physical bodies of the so-called Seven Brothers into grotesque parodies of humanity!’

For the first time since I’d met her, Shame looked as if she were about to stride right up to the Celestine of Compassion and punch his teeth out. I may be no expert on the duties of leadership, according to my so-called friends, but this felt like the right time for me to step in.

‘Go ahead,’ I told Compassion, standing between Shame and him. ‘Pretend it wasn’t the twelve of you who groomed the Sublime boy, Fidick, so that when the time was right he would force Shame to perform that particular atrocity so you could enter the Mortal realm.’ I jabbed a finger at my old boss sitting three seats to his right. ‘But say it to her.’

Compassion didn’t take me up on my offer. Perhaps even he felt uncomfortable giving false testimony in front of the Celestine of Justice.

I should’ve been content with that moral victory, and keeping Shame from getting herself deconsecrated into dust into the bargain, but keeping my mouth shut is one spell I’ve never mastered.

‘That’s what I thought,’ I said, although it was probably the smug expression I’d failed to keep from my face that caused things to go south from there.

‘ You mock us ?’ demanded the Celestine of Propriety– yes, also one of the twelve highest virtues. In case you’re wondering, when first the Auroral Song composed itself and created the Celestine Virtues, neither Decency nor Altruism made the top twelve. Imagine that.

The serene luminescence within the cathedral collapsed into an abyssal darkness that was soon shattered by a tempest brewing above us where the domed ceiling had been. Flames of pure white outrage licked the walls, hissing and spitting like snakes about to strike, while shadows rose up behind them in the shape of shackles and chains from which there would be no release. All around us, heavenly censure and damnation filled the air.

‘Now this is more like it,’ Corrigan said approvingly.

‘The abomination will not speak again!’ commanded the Celestine of Abnegation. That’s ‘self-sacrifice’ for those who didn’t waste half their youth studying Auroral theology.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ Corrigan said, putting up his hands in apology.

‘He was referring to Shame this time,’ I clarified.

Former Angelic Emissaries who question their rulers, then, after being consigned to serve as all-you-can-fuck mystical prostitutes aboard pleasure barges, and not only defy their mission but switch sides to the Infernals, are really not supposed to express an opinion when standing once more before their creators. If you’re thinking that means only an idiot would have brought one inside a Celestine cathedral in the first place, you’d be wrong.

‘The Mortal realm has ever worked according to its own laws,’ I said, pleading my case to Rationality. Even in the old days, I never wasted time on Abnegation, who is both a whiny martyr and a right prick. Yes, okay, they’re all right pricks, but still. ‘Humanity, whether a corruption or a redemption of the Auroral ideals, remains a force of transformation and reconsideration.’

I gestured to Shame, who was showing a distinct lack of that emotion as she glared back at her creators. ‘To call an Angelic Emissary an abomination would be to suggest a flaw in her nature, and thus in her creators. Should we not therefore conclude that her apparent defiance of her mission was merely a necessary. . . reinterpretation of Divine Will? Does not her adoption of the word Shame reveal both penitence and a desire to one day reunite with the Auroral Sovereign?’

In case you missed that bit, the Auroral Sovereign isn’t a real person, but the Celestines insist on pretending there’s an invisible holiest-of-holies lending unquestionable authority to their deeds. It’s always nice to tie someone up in their own propaganda.

Slowly, reluctantly, the maelstrom subsided, the storm faded, the glittering ceiling returned and the placid serenity of the cathedral was restored.

‘There is logic to Gallantry’s inferences,’ conceded the Celestine of Rationality, adding wryly, ‘though I suppose we should have expected him to come to a lady’s defence, given his name.’

Did she just wink at me?

Honestly, I’d thought it a rather mundane romantic encounter, as these things went. But I’d been pretty drunk on the Auroral Haze at the time, so maybe I’d been more memorable in bed than I thought.

‘And what of this other abomination?’ asked the Celestine of Temperance, the scales embroidered into her coat tilting precariously as she pointed at Alice. ‘Surely we need not tolerate an Infernal in our presence?’

I’d always had a certain fondness for Temperance too. She pretty much hated me. No idea why. I suppose at some point I should consider why I’d had so many more encounters with the Celestine Presences than most Glorian Justiciars.

‘Alice is — ’

I was cut off unexpectedly by a voice that brooked no dissent. ‘She is mine,’ said the Celestine of Justice.

‘A demoniac corrupted by one of your own apostates?’ Chastity asked. He was looking genuinely disgusted by Alice’s naked form. Perhaps it was all those ritual scars carved into her pale, leathery hide. ‘Hazidan Rosh mocked you by training an Infernal in the ways of the Justiciars. Does this not offend you, Sister?’

‘Actually,’ I said, all too aware of the noose I was tying around my own neck by intervening, ‘the fact that a demoniac could so completely embrace the teachings of the former First Paladin of the Justiciars could be evidence of a righteousness so potent as to overwhelm the foulness bred into her kind. Would this not, in turn, suggest that it is the virtue of Justice, and not force of arms, which offers the surest path to the Triumph Eternal?’

The Triumph Eternal was, of course, the supposed purpose of the Great Crusade, though by now I was fairly convinced it was utter bullshit.

‘I repeat,’ the Celestine of Justice intoned, her golden eyes locked on Alice’s, ‘this one is mine.’

I’d never seen a demoniac look as uncomfortable as Alice did in that moment, gripping the tips of her bat wings to keep them from quivering.

‘If we could return to the matter at hand?’ I asked, directing the question to my old boss. ‘I seek only to pass into the Glorian Archives to revisit a single case during my early years as your servant.’

They say Justice never sleeps. Justice also has no sense of humour. That doesn’t stop her from trying once in a while, though. ‘My servant?’ the Celestine asked. ‘Were you ever that, Gallantry? Or was your true devotion held by Hazidan Rosh alone?’

We were on dangerous terrain now. Hazidan, despite having been the First Paladin of the Glorian Justiciars, had had a contentious relationship with the Celestines right up until the moment when they’d condemned her to live out her remaining years in the Infernal realm. Pretty dumb move on their part, all things considered.

‘If I was flawed in my service to you, Celestine Justice, then we must consider the possibility that one of my verdicts was also flawed. I fear the consequences of my error may soon be suffered by us all.’

‘And who was the accused sentenced under this allegedly false verdict?’

Here we’d come at last to the tricky part: imagine yourself an immortal being, the embodiment of some virtuous ideal, worshipped all over the world. Along comes a puny human who tells you that somewhere out there is another human– with a really stupid name, no less– who can kick your arse all across the schoolyard and might be working for a shadowy group of doomsday cultists whose existence you never even suspected, yet who have been manipulating your sacred Crusade behind the scenes. How would you react?

Yeah, that’s pretty much how the Lords Celestine took the news.

As the fiery hail, blistering rain and pits of damnation opening up beneath our feet made our hosts’ disapproval plain, Alice whispered, ‘Perhaps you should leave the diplomacy to the kangaroo from now on.’

‘Wanton arrogance ,’ declared the Celestine of Humility, whose voice had deepened as the flames of his displeasure coruscated around his suddenly taller and more imposing frame. Hypocrisy is a bit of a blind spot with these folks.

I was rescued by the Celestine of Rationality, who stepped down from her throne to address her compatriots directly. A bold move, I thought, since, both metaphorically and literally, it placed her beneath their gaze. ‘Brethren, I implore you, let honesty have her reign.’

Honesty, in case you’re wondering, also didn’t qualify as one of the Twelve Virtues.

‘Has not each of us secretly suspected interference in our preparations for the Great Crusade?’ Rationality asked. ‘Beyond, of course, that perpetrated by. . . familiar sources,’ she added, briefly glancing back in my direction.

Okay, that time she definitely winked at me. On the positive side, it turns out Shame was right about the Celestines refusing to admit we were any kind of threat and thus not needing to exterminate us for having threatened them.

‘Is it so high a price to afford this Fallen Justiciar a moment’s return to what he readily admits was his failure and not ours?’ Rationality went on, gazing up with uncharacteristic meekness to the Celestine of Justice. ‘Sister, let the sanctity of our Crusade against the Infernals, if not affection for your former servant or the simple logic before you, dictate that you accede to this trifling request.’

‘Why, Sister, does Rationality come begging a favour from me?’ Justice asked, a hint of a smile breaking the sternness of her customary glower.

In case the innuendo wasn’t obvious, Rationality traditionally considered herself the strictest of virtues, and thus did no favours for anyone.

Again, however, she looked back at me. ‘A. . . small favour, perhaps.’

Was that a jab at my — ?

Corrigan poked me in the back and whispered in my ear. ‘Brother, remind me to give you some lessons in lovemaking. Sounds like the big lass will be expecting payment once this business is done.’

Seriously, it was only one night. I barely recall the act itself. Then again, failing to remember specific events from my time as a Glorian was what got us into this predicament in the first place.

The Celestine of Justice descended from her throne to embrace her sister. ‘Let it be thus, in the name of the love between us.’

‘Say,’ began Corrigan, ‘do you suppose the two of them ever — ?’

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up! ’ I hissed at him.

Justice approached us and for a moment, I feared Corrigan’s lecherous tongue was finally going to be the end of us all. Instead, the Celestine opened her long brocaded coat and from inside her being a golden fog seeped out to envelop me. ‘The Glorian Archives have opened to you, Gallantry. Witness what you will, but I fear whatever supposed crime you committed in my service will pale before the revelation of how far you have fallen since leaving me.’

Spurred on by those words of encouragement, I stepped inside the Auroral Haze. The gleaming armour of a Glorian Justiciar wrapped itself around me once more. I became taller, stronger and more certain of myself and the world around me than I’d felt in more than ten years.

I was Gallantry once more.

Turns out, I too had been a right prick in my day.