Page 29

Chapter 29

Step 5: Who’s the Villain Here?

There’s a lot to be learned about a nation, organisation or faith by looking around its treasure chamber. I mean, if a giant room is packed full of gold and gems, you know whoever owns it has the financial resources to do just about whatever they want. If said chamber is replete with works of art and relics, you know they’ve got so much damned money they’re mostly using their vault for collecting curios. A vault that’s entirely empty save for a single banner lovingly placed upon a block of the purest white marble, however?

‘You suppose maybe the Lords Celestine are running low on cash?’ Corrigan asked quietly.

Propriety was busily striding around the thirty-foot-square vault, peering into every corner, passing his hands along the walls in search of any aethereal tethers or spells that might be hiding the intruders he was convinced were there.

Corrigan’s question was a reasonable one. Even immortal, god-like beings need the financial wherewithal to run a war. You can’t just collapse entire human economies and hope to have any kind of weapons manufacturing– to say nothing of the recruiting efforts vital for your armies. Whatever differences the Lords Celestine and Lords Devilish might have about theology, they agreed on one thing: those doing the fighting and dying should really be human beings more than Aurorals or Infernals. The citadel was new, of course, but still, it should’ve been holding some quantity of precious metals.

‘They’re here,’ Propriety said darkly. ‘I can feel it. Why can’t I find any trace of their presence?’

I said sagely, ‘Perhaps if we combine our efforts?’

I proceeded to make elaborate gesticulations, humming softly with periodic outbursts which probably sounded more like hiccoughs than anything coherent. All the while, I shaped my expressions to suggest a growing sense of dread that I was attempting to hide from my Glorian comrades.

‘You can’t fool me,’ Propriety said, coming to stand before me. ‘You’re trying to hide your growing dread. I can sense it.’

‘I, too, am filled with dread,’ Corrigan insisted. He hates being left out of things like this. If I didn’t wrap this up soon, he’d end up going off on some improvised dramatic performance that would get us both killed.

Okay , I thought, time to make Propriety a hero.

‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ I conceded, shaking my head as if even saying so aloud contradicted some deeper instinct. I looked up into Propriety’s soulful golden eyes with my golden soulful eyes. ‘What if there is no secret threat?’

The answer to that question is: Well, if there’s no secret threat, then you’re a total moron for having got so wound up in your little conspiracy theories and it turns out you’re not remotely qualified for your job. . . or. . .

‘Nay,’ said Propriety. You’ll have noticed how the word ‘no’ always becomes ‘nay’ when a sense of pompous self-importance fills the speaker. ‘Nay, brave Gallantry. That we two shou — ’

‘We three ,’ Corrigan corrected. He jabbed a thumb at his own chest. ‘Also filled with dread, remember?’

Propriety smiled tolerantly. ‘Indeed, Brother. That we three above all sense the unfolding villainy means it must be far worse than we had imagined.’

Here’s the thing about conspiracy theorists: they don’t really want you to agree with them; they want you to attempt to refute their claims in such a way that lets them appear both logical and brilliant.

‘Nay!’ I said myself, and strode over to the banner laying upon its marble altar. ‘Look you here!’ I demanded, gesticulating wildly over the banner. ‘My revelation incantations show this to be the true banner!’ I turned, swinging my arms wide, ‘Here it lies, encased within the mighty walls of this fortress with only a pathetic attempt by some minor infernal and her yapping hound — ’

‘Noble beast,’ Corrigan insisted.

There’s such a thing as being too loyal to a fucking kangaroo you met only three weeks ago.

Nonetheless, I used the interruption as my excuse to walk back to Propriety and grab him by the gleaming shoulder pauldrons. ‘If there is a conspiracy to steal the Auroral Banner and yet it lies here, in this vault inside this citadel, built and garrisoned by a Lord Celestine– a citadel whose construction even now confounds my ignorant mind, for it seemed an ill-considered project from the outset, yet who am I to question the wisdom of a Lord Celestine?– then, friend. . .’ I laughed bitterly. ‘What explanation remains other than that we three are mad?’

Removing one hand from Propriety’s shoulder, I made a subtle gesture to Corrigan that it was his turn. He started approaching, clenching his fists in preparation for, I presumed, knocking out the Ardentor. I had to give him a more panicked gesture to remind him of the actual thing he was supposed to do now.

‘Oh, right,’ he muttered, then took in a deep breath and bellowed, ‘By the Auroral Song!’

Propriety and I both turned to Corrigan in confusion.

‘Don’t you see?’ he asked, then pointed maniacally at the banner upon the marble altar. ‘What if the conspiracy has already worked? What if the conspirators wanted the banner in this vault, in this citadel precisely because. . .’ He waited for Propriety to jump in, but the Ardentor still looked confused. ‘Because. . .’ Corrigan repeated.

Oh, hell, don’t fail me now, Propriety.

‘ Because. . . ’ I breathed.

‘Auroral Sovereign preserve us!’ Propriety swore, his vehemence greatly reassuring me. Suddenly he looked positively terrified, glancing all around the empty vault as if we were surrounded by enemy forces, which was, I hoped, precisely what he did now believe. ‘The very Lord Celestine who orchestrated the creation of this citadel is the secret Lord Devilish!’ He clenched his fist so tight the knuckles turned white. ‘The Celestine of Rationality is our traitor!’

‘Seriously?’ Corrigan asked, then elbowed me in the ribs. ‘You have the worst taste in women, Brother.’

‘What?’ Propriety asked.

‘He said, “The war’s hastened this ill omen”,’ I tried.

‘Indeed,’ the Ardentor agreed heartily. He gazed around the vault as if the walls were oozing with evil worms. ‘Far from being an Auroral sanctuary, this citadel is the Infernal stronghold!’

The nice thing about large square rooms with marble walls is that they’re excellent for reverberations. You could almost hear the echoes of ‘ This citadel is the Infernal stronghold! ’ repeating as the three of us stood there in silence. I swear, Propriety was so certain of his pronouncement that I was starting to wonder whether maybe, in fact, the creation of this alleged Auroral Citadel really had been an Infernal conspiracy all along.

‘The perfect ruse,’ Propriety said, walking in circles around the vault as if he were the Justiciar investigator, not I. ‘To use Infernal forces to erect a citadel in the middle of Auroral territory, to have the Auroral Banner itself brought here, all with the unknowing complicity of a hundred Glorians!’

I made a show of his words filling me with patriotic urgency. ‘By the Auroral Song, not while we three survive! We must get the banner to safety!’

Propriety darted to the altar, snatched it up and offered it to me. ‘You must take it, Brother Gallantry! I will seek to delay the soldiers here as we cannot be sure who are faithful and who are Infernal imposters.’

The gold-fringed ivory cloth fairly gleamed in the dim light suffusing the vault, its majestic beauty suggesting a myriad supernatural powers conferred upon whosoever carried it in battle. Alas, it was just a pretty banner– a memento, if you will, of the day the twelve Lords Celestine took over the Auroral Hierarchy. The tremendous significance it held for both the Aurorals and the Infernals was entirely symbolic, a reminder that, in the eternal clash between theologies, vanity can be the most potent power of all.

‘Nay, nay, Brother Propriety,’ I said, refusing to take the banner. ‘You know this citadel far better than we do.’ I gestured to Corrigan. ‘Brother. . . Impotency and I shall create a distraction so that you may remove the banner from this nest of vipers. Get thee from this unhallowed place into the city. Seek out the meekest of temples you can find, for surely that is where true faith is most powerful. If the Auroral Sovereign is not yet done with us, Brother Impotency and I will meet you there.’ I held up a warning finger. ‘But tarry not for us. If we do not arrive within the hour, flee the city and find you other trustworthy brethren.’

Propriety stared down at the banner in his hands. ‘But how shall I know whom to trust?’

I took his other hand and placed it on my chest. ‘The same way you knew to trust us, my brother, because your eyes, your hands, your soul is blessed with the insight to perceive the truth, no matter how unlikely or convoluted it might appear to lesser minds.’

He was so touched by my words that his glow got another glow on top of it. ‘I will never forget you, Brother Gallantry, Brother Impotency.’

I couldn’t quite summon a tear to my eye, but I made a show of determined resignation: a great guy who knows he’s about to die but won’t say it. I let it hang there a second before I shoved Propriety out the door of the vault. ‘Fly, you fool!’

And with that, the Glorian Ardentor fled the citadel carrying with him the Auroral Banner to a little temple where he would, as promised, find a being he trusted instantly with this holiest of artefacts. After all, who wouldn’t trust a diabolic restauranteur transmogrified to look like an Angelic Emissary after being kidnapped and threatened with exsanguination by a blood mage?

I hope Shame makes the metamorphosis hurt, Tenebris. Not sure I’ll let her turn you back after, either.

‘So how exactly do we get out of here alive?’ Corrigan asked after our unwitting accomplice had skedaddled with the prize.

‘Simple,’ I replied, and stuck my head out of the vault to shout, ‘The banner has been stolen! The Auroral Banner has been stolen! Assemble every Glorian, every soldier, every recruit– it must be found!’

And that , friends, is how you secure a priceless relic being kept in an impenetrable fortress and render it to your client without ever touching it. I mean, sure, it helps if the people guarding said treasure are thick-witted zealots and those paying you to obtain it are only slightly less brainless, but I think you’ll find that there’s always plenty of stupid to go around during wartime.

‘Come on,’ I said to Corrigan, pointing to the passageway that would soon be crowded with panicked soldiers. ‘I could really use a decent meal.’

‘Paella?’ Corrigan asked hopefully, walking through the open door ahead of me.

I shook my head sadly. ‘There are some miracles even I can’t pull off, old friend.’

It was, as these things go, a nice moment, or it would have been had it happened that way. What actually transpired was that the moment Corrigan had stepped out of the vault, just as I was saying, ‘There are some miracles even I can’t pull off — ’ the door shut behind him, locking me inside. You see, when I suggested that war makes suckers of the unwary, I forgot to include myself among them.