Page 52 of The Malevolent Eight

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 eyebrowjustso. . .

‘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?’

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

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 holdingsomequantity 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?’

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