Page 28

Chapter 28

Step 4: Conspiracies

The Glorian Ardentor, whose name was Propriety– almost, though not quite, a stupid enough name to make me feel better about my own– turned out to be a very capable conspiracy theorist.

‘For some time now, I’ve suspected there lurks a traitorous movement within our ranks,’ he informed Corrigan and me as we walked beneath the gated arch of the massive walls surrounding the citadel and into a lush orchard whose assorted trees, heavy with fruit, defied the sandy soil and arid climate of the region. I thought of the marvels the Aurorals could bring to the lives of Mortals, if only they stuck to architecture and gardening rather than mass conversion, army recruitment and occasional torture.

‘What have you gleaned about this conspiracy?’ I asked in the way of one who clearly already knows the answer but is testing you to see if you’re holding back.

‘I. . .’ Propriety’s hesitation wasn’t that he was unsure how much to tell me, but because he didn’t actually know anything and was afraid to be caught out.

‘Go on,’ I told him, going so far as to give him an encouraging pat on the elbow.

He straightened his back even more, which really should’ve been impossible. ‘I believe there is a small cadre within the ranks of the Glorians who seek the means to elevate themselves beyond their Mortal stature. These traitors believe that should the Lords Celestine be killed in our war against the Infernals, they could ascend to the top of the Auroral Hierarchy!’

Now there’s a troubling prospect , I thought. It had never occurred to me that anyone would dare betray the Celestines– mostly because no sane Glorian or even angelic would make the attempt. Nonetheless, I let Propriety think he was onto something by giving absolutely no sign of confirming his suspicions other than to ask, ‘And what do you call the leader of this shadowy group of faithless Glorians?’

The trick with conspiracy theorists is never to ask them the obvious questions like ‘ What actual evidence do you have of a fifth column within the ranks? ’ or ‘ What are the names of these alleged traitors? ’ but instead jump ahead to the fun parts, which, for conspiracy theorists, is naming stuff.

‘I call them. . . the Six Sinners,’ Propriety replied with a kind of gleeful ominousness.

‘Shit name,’ Corrigan muttered.

‘What?’ asked Propriety.

‘He said Shaitnahmai,’ I said quickly.

‘ Shaitnahmai ,’ Propriety repeated in a whisper. His natural confusion– a suitable response when someone has just given you a completely made-up name– quickly shifted to accepting this as confirmation of his own hunches. ‘Yes, that makes sense.’

‘The secret name of a Lord Devilish,’ I confirmed.

‘Of course! Who else but one of them cou — ?’

‘Posing as a Lord Celestine as he paves the way for the conspirators, thus setting in motion the toppling of the entire Auroral Hierarchy without the Infernals having to lift a finger.’

The Ardentor froze, staring at me wide-eyed. Other Glorians, both ordained and new recruits, filed passed us into the massive citadel. For a moment, I’d thought perhaps I’d gone too far, but once we were alone in the great hall, the hapless Ardentor said, ‘It is. . . it is as I have suspected all along.’

The magnanimity of the deception was, I thought, working far more in my favour than I would have expected. I felt oddly ashamed of myself– not for lying to an Ardentor so that I could steal a relic from under his nose, but because his gullibility left me wondering how I could ever have admired the Glorians to the point of abandoning my family, just to be counted among their number. Are people really this stupid?

‘Damn,’ Corrigan murmured next to me. ‘Glorians orchestrating a takeover and a Lord Devilish infiltrating the Lords Celestine– it’s. . . it’s incredible.’

I shot him a look that I hoped he would interpret as ‘ Hey, idiot, I made that up, remember? ’ but which he somehow took as, ‘ I know, right? Who would’ve dreamed of such villainy? ’

Fortunately for all of us, Alice and Temper hadn’t forgotten the plan.

‘Magnus Ardentor!’ shouted a lesser Glorian Warder, running to join us in the Great Hall. ‘Someone is trying to steal the Auroral Banner!’

More shouting followed, with various Infernal ranks being ascribed to Alice that would have made her exceedingly proud if only she didn’t despise her own people quite so much. The confused descriptions of Temper reached such bombastic levels of zoological impossibility that I could barely keep myself from snickering. Corrigan, of course– well, Corrigan has a certain perverse sense of loyalty.

‘I believe what you meant to say, recruit , is that the demoniac is accompanied by a daring animal of such fearsome yet majestic visage as to make one almost admire the beast-breeders of the Infernal rearing pits.’

The recruit stared back in utter befuddlement. ‘Um. . . I suppose?’

More soldiers came running, and soon we had a decent-sized contingent of Auroral troops awaiting orders. Propriety turned to me, but I demurred. ‘The forces of the Auroral Song await your instruction, maestro.’

To his credit, Propriety issued a series of reasonably logical commands for pursuing the invaders. His speech on the Great Crusade being won not by the grand battles that will be recounted by history but by the small, determined actions of regular soldiers was admirably brief.

‘Well spoken,’ I complimented him at the end, and allowed him a second of pride before arching my left eyebrow just so. . .

‘The demoniac and her Infernal beast aren’t the true threat,’ Propriety concluded quickly, waiting only briefly to see the increased furrowing of my brow before declaring, ‘It’s a diversion! The true thieves must already be inside the sacred vault — ’

With that, the three of us dashed through the halls of an impenetrable citadel, every guard along the way ordered to let us through by their own commander, who was utterly convinced there was no one he could trust but himself. . . with a little advice from us, of course.

Look, I’m not proud of my talent for convincing people to so embrace their own paranoid delusions of grandeur that they end up doing the dirty work for me. I’m just saying. . . Ah, hells.

‘I really am becoming a prick, aren’t I?’ I asked Corrigan as the Ardentor unsealed the seven massive locks protecting the vault.

He agreed, but was still uncertain on one point. ‘How, exactly, are we going to convince him to let us take the damned thing?’

That was going to be my final trick, and if you think what’s happened thus far speaks ill of humanity and faith, just wait.