NationStates Jolt Archive

St. Kelian's College, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

The angel in Doctor Carron's office looks worried. It is the little things he notices; quirks of movement and body language that, in a human, would betray moods. Its face is invisible, shrouded by the inner pair of wings folded around its body; its greater wings brush the walls. Every feather bears a watching eye, and its head is haloed in white fire. But its movements betray it all the same; it seems even angels are prey to the weaknesses of flesh.

"Luiros Carron." It's voice is cellos, violins, the whisper of wind. "There is great peril afoot. The Most High demands your service."

Carron nods. The perils that come through his door as Chaplain of St. Kelian's College are generally smaller things, the afflictions of the spirit common to all university students whatever their faith. But he has another door, down Academy Lane at St. Astin's Cathedral, where the Templar Order of Truthseekers (the Special Measures to the lowborn, the Holy Inquisition if you must be archaic) has its headquarters. He is no stranger to the perils encountered in the service of the Most High.

"I am always at the service of the Almighty," he replies. Being one himself, he does not fear the servants of the Most High; his soul is scoured clean of sin. His deputy, however - Mehitabel Marchmain is pressed into the corner, as far away as she can get from the angel's gaze. Mehitabel is a strong woman, but he understands the cause of her fear; she is clad from head to toe in leather, with not an inch of skin or hair apparent, and to eyes that see only the surfaces of things she must surely look like some downtown deviant (Greybourne is a university town, and its services offer up all the perils faced by its students). He squeezes her hand gently, and draws her near. Mehitabel's fears are groundless; the God's service calls those pure of spirit, but the pure of spirit are not always the pure of heart. Despite her flaws (and are we not all flawed, compared to the Almighty?) she is a worthy servant of the Most High.

"We who hear His voice directly are forbidden to act directly," the angel says, "And so mortals must act where We cannot."

Carron tilts his head, regarding it, and notes the stresses outlined in the set of its arms, the line of its neck. "Is not this, too, an action?"

"There is a canker in the world!" it cries. "The disease must be expunged! You must act! To that end I have brought you - this."

The angel draws forth an object from its robes. Carron's eyes widen.

"Far be it from me to refuse the commands of the Most High," he murmurs, accepting the blade. He draws it an inch from the scabbard, and - yes. The sword shines with a pure white light, banishing all the shadows of the room. It is indeed a flaming sword, a weapon of the God.

"Close your eyes," it commands. Carron obeys, and hears the rustle of the angel's inner wings unfolding. Feels the imprint of its kiss upon his eyelids. Its lips are hot, dry, but not (but no - surely he imagines this!) chaste.

All of a sudden, Carron sees; in the darkness of his closed eyes the angel is a bright silhouette, a spot of incandescent whiteness that burns harsh afterimages into his sight.

The angel's wings rustle as it hides its face once more. "I have given you the Sight, that you might not be deceived by the disguises of the enemy; and the Sword, that you might smite the enemy. Bear these gifts well in His service."

"I can do no other," Carron replies, and the angel is gone. He opens his eyes, looks down at the sword in his hands. When he blinks that too is a bright line in his God-given sight.

Mehitabel is trembling, pressed close to him for comfort. Carron puts the sword in her hands and she tilts her head in query, something like astonishment behind the dark lenses of her mask. He closes her fingers over the scabbard, and grips her hand tightly.

"There is no one more worthy to bear it than you, Tabby. Not in all the world. And now - let us see what we can find."

----

Doctor Carron and Miss Marchmain cause a stir as they stride through the crowded halls of St. Kelian's. The Chaplain is a common enough sight, but his Deputy is seldom seen downhill from St. Astin's. She's creepy, and nobody much likes to think about the Chaplain's other hat; the Special Measures still have a bloody reputation, even if the last witch-burning was a century ago.

And the Chaplain is behaving oddly; pausing at each corridor and lecture hall to scan the room - with his eyes closed! Whatever he's looking for, though, he seems not to find it, as he always strides on.

Eventually his feet take him to the gymnasium, and here, among the echoes and grunts of exercising students, he pauses. There is a black shadow on the insides of his eyelids, a silhouette not quite human in shape. Carron opens his eyes, and finds a student staring back; big, genial, with tinted glasses over his eyes. Yes.

"Excuse me, Master --" (the name escapes him momentarily, damn his memory!) "-- Could I have a word? The rest of you, please leave us."

The other students grumble but file out; he is the Chaplain, and St. Kelian's is a Covenant College, with the rayed sun of the God over its doors.

"'M perfectly happy, Doctor. Sir. Don't need no Chaplainin'." The lad's accent is backcountry in the extreme, and now the name comes to him - Freegift Carter, a scholarship boy from a religious settlement way back in the hinterland. Popular with the lecturers and his fellow students, football captain for the College team. Devout - but then, even demons can quote scripture.

"Master Carter. Take off your glasses, please."

"'S a medical condition, sir. Scleral hyper-pig-men-tation. That's all."

"Your glasses, please, Master Carter."

Carter is defensive now - as well he might be, with a condition like that - but he removes his glasses all the same. Carron looks up into his broad face (creased now with a worried frown) and sees that, yes, his eyes are glossy black from edge to edge. The traditional stigmata of demonspawn - and a child from a backwoods kibbutz would know that. But when Carron blinks, the shape behind his lids is clear as night. It is much larger, and it is only vaguely human.

"I ain't no demonspawn, sir, like in the pulps and all. Just a reg'lar folk."

"I never suggested so, Master Carter. And from a theological perspective, there is no such thing as demonspawn - demons are, after all, not the Almighty and thus incapable of the act of true creation. No - a demon's body in this world is a puppet, a seeming thing grown from a woman's flesh, engendered through unnatural congress. So say the Books, at least."

"You insultin' my mother, sir?"

"I bear your mother no ill will, Master Carter." Although the Order will certainly need to pay her a visit someday soon. "Tabby - the sword, please."

Mehitabel is fast - the sword is out and at Freegift Carter's throat before he can blink. It blazes very bright indeed, a line of light upon a black shadow on Carron's eyelids. Carter swears and springs backwards, his body changing as he moves. When his - its - feet hit the floor again it is eight feet tall, its skin brilliant blue slashed with gold like some tropical fish. Its face is a featureless blank but it is haloed by far, far too many eyes, blinking and glaring. An aurora of electric-blue lightning gathers around its fists, and now Carron recognizes it from the grimoires in St. Astin's - the Thousand Eyes, the Prince of Lightning, once great among those who Fell.

"Luiros Carron." Its voice is the crackle of lightning, the roll of thunder, the crash of waves. "I will have my empire upon this earth, as great as that of the Tyrant above! You cannot stop me. But only serve under me, and I can make you the head of my church, my right hand. You could be glorious."

The Prince of Lightning thinks in terms of power and control. Some might heed it, but not Luiros Carron.

"God's is every empire under Heaven," he spits back. "Against the Almighty, you can have no victory - you lost that battle long ago."

"Mehitabel Marchmain." It is wheedling now, trying perhaps to be seductive. "Why would you serve under him - under Him! - when you could serve beneath me? I am far greater, far more powerful. I can give you such things -"

Mehitabel may fear the angels of the God, but she knows her own demons; she does not fear those who Fell. She does not speak; she acts, leaping across the distance between them, the sword describing an arc of brilliance in her hand. The demon roars and stumbles back, and Mehitabel is upon it, her boots scrabbling for purchase on its chest, her left hand clawing at its head. Her right hand brings the sword around for a decapitating stroke.

A flash of lightning, a crack of thunder, and Mehitabel is flying backwards. She flips and lands on her feet, runs forward again. Carron feels terror grip his heart - Mehitabel is only flesh, and the Prince of Lightning was once an angel. But the sword is swinging, the lightning is blazing almost as bright as the Sword of God - she is dodging its blows, spinning and striking as its voice thunders and howls.

The tableau burns into Carron's eyes; two dark silhouettes, haloed in lightning, joined by a shining bar of light. He blinks to clear his sight and the image is the same behind his eyelids; blinks again, and the afterimages fade. Mehitabel is standing knee-deep in a mound of ash that the sprinkler system is turning into sludge, the sword sheathed now at her hip. Carron runs forward to embrace her, to plant a kiss upon the slick leather of her hood.

"I love you, Tabby," he whispers, "And not one person under all of Heaven is more worthy of that sword than you."

He sees her mask crinkle and knows that she's smiling underneath. She hugs him tight.

And that is how the Vice-Provost finds them, two minutes later when the accumulated students and staff gather up the courage to make their way into the gymnasium.

"Doctor Carron! What in God's name is the meaning of this?"

Carron cares not a whit.

Catacombs beneath Greybourne Old Town, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

"They are not supposed to interfere!"

Ghormalis is raging, giant fists clenched. But then Ghormalis is always raging - there is a reason he is titled the Lord of Wrath, why his thorny red carapace is what mortals think of when they think of the Fallen. In Inkharis' opinion, Ghormalis is not very smart.

"Take it up with Him, then. He can change His mind whenever He wants." Lyrghaoi pops her gum, blows Ghormalis a kiss. Unlike most of the Fallen, Lyrghaoi in her demon form still looks almost human - save, of course, for the eyes, and for the meter of thorny, oozing tongue which she occasionally flicks out to taste the air. And the way that matter around her inevitably festers and grows corrupt. The Queen of Corruption is smart, but she has simple tastes.

"Azorhagol was a fool," Inkharis contributes. "Every time he grows a new body he always sets about trying to conquer the world. It didn't work in the Bronze Age and it isn't going to work now. Someone always stops him. Azorhagol is not your problem."

"Our problem, surely?" Lyrghaoi asks, sweetly.

"Your problem, Lyrghaoi. I told you I want no part of it, and that goes double now there's an angel involved. Azorhagal stuck out like a sore thumb - I don't, even if Doctor Carron is wearing an angel's blessing on his eyes. You can try your luck against that termagant with the sword if you like. If you need an idiot for your little triad, there are plenty you could pick in this town. Not me."

Ghormalis hisses angrily. "If you're so eager to act like a mortal, why don't you go to Carron and confess all your sins? See how far His vaunted infinite mercy gets you then. You're one of us. That means you're with us."

"No. It doesn't."

Lyrghaoi yawns dramatically, and snaps at the air with her tongue. "Inkharis will come around to our way of thinking eventually, Ghormalis. When she realizes that the reason mortals act the way they do is because they die. They're born to do it and they spend their brief existences trying to distract themselves from it. That's all they ever do."

"I am a student of human behaviour," Inkharis snaps, "And frankly they are far more interesting than you. Now go back to whatever it was you were doing before you decided to waste my time by summoning me here - I have papers to mark. People will complain if they're not done, and the last thing any of us needs right now is attention!"

She turns and leaves, making her way through the tunnels twisting and knotting beneath the Old Town. As soon as she can Inkharis reduces her form to merely human - these catacombs always hold a few students having a furtive tumble, and while she might slip by unnoticed in her human form, she can hardly do so in the full measure of her flesh.

Behind her, she hears Lyrghaoi, mocking; "Papers to mark? Honestly! The stuffy bitch has gone native!"

"Bitch," Ghormalis rumbles in echo. Inkharis wrinkles her nose. With relatives like those, eternity is very long indeed.

Rooftops of Greybourne Old Town, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

Azurachel folds its wings about itself and huddles, invisible, away from the rain. It was surprised to discover that it dislikes rain; matter is bizarre, a thousand strangenesses. It licks its lips, trying again to wipe away the feel of Luiros Carron's skin against them; matter should not linger like that in one's memory. It is, truth be told, rather miserable, down here in this veil of tears, so far from the Presence.

Azurachel wishes it could hear His will more clearly. It wishes that it did not think that that deficiency were some flaw in itself, more dreadful than the myriad flaws of matter. It wishes that it did not doubt.

St. Kelian's College, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

The college Rector is in pathological denial, and Luiros Carron is discovering the joys of pulling rank.

"God -- God bless it, Carron, I can't have you running about killing students! What in Hell will their parents say? God help us, forget the parents - what will the press say? We'll be ruined!"

"They're demons, sir. Their parents are in Hell. Rector Sherrard, your alternative is letting Demons from Hell snack on the student body. The Prince of Lightning is fairly benign - it only wants to rule over an abject humanity forever! There are others out there - do you really want something like, oh, the Queen of Corruption enrolled here? Or one of the indigenous ones, like White Spider Woman or Strikes Fire Boy?"

"Damnit, Carron! You killed the captain of the football team, and I have only your word for it that Freegift Carter was actually a demon in disguise!"

Carron nods to Mehitabel. She unsheathes the sword of God and rams it into the top of Rector Sherrard's desk.

"I'm a man of God, Rector. Do you doubt my word?"

Sherrard goggles at the incontrovertible evidence sticking out of his desk.

"Well, no, but ... perhaps some kind of electric lamp ...?"

"Sherrard, you're sounding like a Denier. This is scripture, man! The war against the Fallen is forever ongoing!"

"Not in my God damned college! Carron ... I don't know what kind of game the Church is playing, but they will not play it at St. Kelian's!"

"The Church is barely involved, sir. Though I could have Archdeacon Kerrich down from St. Astin's in a half hour or so, if you'd really prefer to talk with him."

Sherrard flushes an angry red. He may not quite grasp interference from his God, but he certainly recognises interference from the Church.

"No, Carron! You can quit this tomfoolery or you can quit my faculty!"

"No."

"I will fire you, Carron!"

"I think you should consider that before you do it, sir."

"You are fired, Doctor Carron!"

"You're certain you want to do this, sir?"

"Yes! Chaplain Doctor Luiros Carron, you are no longer Chaplain of this College!"

"Oh dear." Carron doesn't even try to contain the predatory grin spreading across his face. "I'm afraid you missed a title there, Rector. As a Quaestor of the Templar Order of Truthseekers, I will require your full cooperation."

St. Astin's Cathedral, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

Fifteen minutes down Academy Lane by cab, and Archdeacon Kerrich has his own concerns.

"Damnit, Luiros, you know the Grandmaster has told us to keep a low profile. It's an election year and we don't want to give the Progressives any more ammunition. We need Governor Quinn as Chancellor ... no, don't answer that. I know, God's plans come at His schedule and not on ours, it's just ... now is not a good time for it. We need Quinn as Chancellor."

Carron, who is not planning to vote for Sighard Quinn, says nothing.

"Well." Kerrich glances sideways at Mehitabel and the sword of God. "Given that you can now pull rank on the Archbishop of Ond himself, there's no use trying to dispute it. How can the Order help you, then?"

"Heh. Thank you, Simon - I actually don't want to pull rank on you. It seems like one of those things that gets old fast."

"And you want to savour it while it lasts. I know you!"

"Too well, it seems. First of all; I'm going to need to interview everyone in Greybourne with scleral hyperpigmentation. It's the traditional stigmata."

"It's also a fairly common medical condition, Luiros. We don't need a witch hunt! They can't all be demons, or Altheny would be a festering annex of Hell right now."

"I would prefer witches, to be honest. An irredentist native with a bagful of captive ghosts is easier than a demon. And the alternative is looking at everyone in the city. It's a place to start."

"Point taken. I'll tell the Deacons. Although - you do realise, if they're really demons, they'll go to ground when they hear you're coming. And I'm seventy-two, I think the Most High will forgive me when I beg off hunting them through the catacombs."

"Ah. Second thing; I'm going to need fire support. Quaestors Militant, if you can find any who aren't just zealous hicks with rifles. But I was thinking of calling St. Ulfred's."

Kerrich makes a face. "Luiros ... we really don't need the attention that the Order of the Redeemed attracts. The yellow press is always following them! You can buy pulp serials "featuring" them at the newsstand! And they are not good people."

"I have one merely human deacon against all the demons of Hell, and I would prefer it if she did not die. I need all the support I can get. God does not squander people, Simon, and neither will I."

"About that ..." Kerrich glances between Mehitabel and Carron. "You know the edicts about ... fraternization, Luiros. By rights I should have you defrocked ... except that would put you entirely outside the Church's control, and rogue preachers are trouble enough when their mistresses don't have flaming swords!"

"I also know the unofficial edict, Simon. It goes "don't ask, don't tell". You haven't asked, and I'm not going to tell. And I am not going to dismiss my Quaestorial Deputy, either. Now; the Redeemed. If I send a telegram to Wolverton this evening, how soon do you think they can get here from the mainland?"

Kerrich scowls. "Half a day? A day? Two? It depends on the weather in the straits. But I wish you would reconsider. The yellow press follows them about, and if your relationship with Miss Marchmain makes the newssheets, I will have to defrock you. Particularly considering her ... predilections."

"Don't make assumptions about my Deputy's bedroom habits, Kerrich. Or about our relationship. You are uninformed - you will remain uninformed - and being uninformed, you will make errors."

"Fine! Fine! I will raise no objection - until the pressmen hear of it, and I'm forced to. And you're bringing in the pressmen along with the Redeemed, mark my words! You know, there's supposedly a Denier whatever-they-call-it, a mortal saint, over at the Greybourne Medical Institute. I would almost prefer you called in her."

"An Aeon? Really? This really is an age of wonders. I shall call in at the Institute, then."

"Luiros! Are you trying to make my job harder? She's a Denier!"

"They don't like demons any more than we do, Simon. And I do need all the help I can get."

"They don't like God either!"

Carron smiles. "And yet God has his plans for them, all the same."

Greybourne Medical Institute, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

The Institute is new, scarcely a decade old, and the ivy at its feet has barely begun to scale the walls. It lacks the seniority and repute of centuries-old academies like St. Kelian's, and a reputation for harbouring progressives and freethinkers denudes its reputation further. It does have a reputation for making striking advances in medical science, but that hardly counts among the academicians of Greybourne's more status-conscious colleges.

Carron agrees, however, with the common sentiment that its architecture is particularly fine.

"Doctor Luiros Carron, a Quaestor of the Templar Order of Truthseekers," he tells the porter at its doors. "I'm looking for Professora Ursula Adeley, if you know where she might be found."

"A Special? Goodness." The Institute may lack the rayed sun of a Covenant College over its gates, but this porter has a little sun-disc at his throat, and he touches it now. "You could try her office, I suppose - west wing, ground floor, on the north side. God keep you, sir."

"And you." That Adeley has a sun-side office says a lot about the regard the Institute has for her, that they'd disregard her gender (still contentious in Greybourne's older colleges, even now) and her faith (highly contentious, all across the Commonwealth). It may not be a second-floor room, but their Provost certainly likes her all the same. Or - is it possible she's bought her position, with sex or money or both? Carron doesn't know enough about Denier saints - Aeons, he reminds himself - to measure their morals. What God requires of a saint may well be different from the requirements of an atheist saint. Whatever that oxymoron is worth in the field of more applied theology.

More surprising, Adeley has her own secretary, a young woman who is most certainly not awed by Carron's cassock or his rank.

"What's your business with the Professora, then? She is busy."

"My own, and that of the Church. I assure you it's quite urgent."

"You're not going to try to convert her, are you? Because it doesn't work and I get to hear about it later."

"I have no designs upon Professora Adeley's soul, miss. Look" - he strikes out not quite at random, and bends the truth - "There's been a murder."

"Ohhh. Why didn't you say so? She's in the cold room. This way."

The Institute's medical facilities are quite modern, of course. The secretary leads Carron and Mehitabel down several flights of stairs, to where the morgue is carved out of the rock. Ammonia overpowers the faint scent of decay, and the room is lit by electric lamps strung from the ceiling. There are no flies to speak of.

"Oraic male, thirty to thirty-five, height five feet six inches, weight ..." A woman's fine contralto, with a thick Highland accent, booms out into the corridor. "Yes, Sterran, you should be taking notes. I should replace you with a phonograph if only the wax would not melt in the summer!"

"Oh dear," the secretary whispers, "She's in a mood. Professora! There's a gentleman here with a murder!"

"Again? I thought I told that police detective that he wasn't to bother me again, if he's too cheap to hire a decent coroner of his own!"

"... This one's a churchman, Professora. From the Special Measures."

"Hmph! I thought I told them not to bother me again too!" Professora Adeley appears at last in the doorway, aproned and bloody to the elbows, twirling a scalpel between her fingers. The Denier saint is six feet tall and broad across the shoulder, her face a collection of roughly chiseled angles. She shows no sign of either light or darkness in Carron's other sight.

"Well, churchman?" she glowers. "Where's your body?"

"Ah." To his own surprise, Carron finds himself intimidated by this woman, which is surely ridiculous when he's already talked back to an angel and faced down a demon today. "Well, that's a little complicated ... I should prefer to discuss it privately, if possible ..."

"Look." The Professora speaks slowly and clearly, as if to an idiot. "If he's plastered all over the walls, there's nothing I can diagnose. Just plaster over him!"

Carron considers the final state of the entity which had called itself Freegift Carter. She's not all that far off, at that - right now the maids at St. Kelian's are probably sweeping it into buckets.

"No, you see -"

"This is simple, man! You do have a murder, yes? And you want me to tell you how he died, yes?"

"Not precisely -"

"Then what is the problem?"

Carron gives up. "Tabby, would you please ...?"

Mehitabel draws the sword of God. In the brilliant light, Carron sees the Professora pale. "You don't scare me, churchman!" she spits, but Carron reads the tension in her shoulders and knows that she's lying. Suddenly she seems more solid than anything else in the corridor, more focused, as if she is the only real thing in a world of paper dolls.

So this is a Denier saint, Carron thinks. Not enlightened by God but simply more ... present, a soul doubled and redoubled on itself. Focused, like light through a lens. And angry! Yes, she'll do nicely.

He nods to Mehitabel and she sheathes the sword.

"You misunderstand, Professora," he says, in the sudden silence. "We don't need a coroner. We need your other expertise."

St. Ellory's Church of the Ineffable Word, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

There is little enough space for graveyards in Greybourne, squeezed as it is between the mountains and the coast, and the dead do not get to rest long. But rest they must - just long enough for the worms to do their business, before their bones are stacked in the catacombs to await the Day of Judgement. The great and the wealthy have their own private crypts, but the poor and the merely well-to-do will find their bones jumbled with their fellows', when the dead rise up.

The man who puts them down in the ground is lean and wiry, his eyes invisible behind smoked glass. He wears his shirtsleeves rolled up, seeming not to notice the chill or the faint drizzle as he drives his spade into the dirt.

A pretty young woman in avant-garde flared shades pauses at the churchyard fence. "Hello," she coos, making a sultry face. The gravedigger grunts and doesn't look up. "I'm looking for someone ..." she continues, "Someone who's been around for a bit, you know? Someone who knows a thousandfold ways to make a girl scream."

"Lyrghaoi." The gravedigger looks up now, and is no longer human. His limbs are writhing masses of insects, his muscles cords of squirming millipedes. His face seethes with movement, a featureless mass save for two blind and milky eyes.

"Tzorhachtin." The Thousandfold, the Lord of Decay, nods as one craftsman to another.

"I told you that Inkharis would not listen," Tzorhachtin tells her. "Even before, she was too involved with them. Bizarre. They're only interesting after they're dead."

"Yes. She's gone quite native. It's sickening. When we've smashed this place we shall have to consider a fitting punishment for her."

"We? Will you meet my price, then?"

Lyrghaoi pouts, and snaps the spined length of her tongue through the air. Beneath her hands vines wither and stones crumble. "If I must. Less chaos, more death. I do so prefer it when they're running about screaming to when they're all dead and mouldering."

"Stop that. I prefer them dead, and that's my price. They take away the fallen soldiers now, did you know that? I haven't had a decent battlefield in far too long. A nice carpet of corpses, all flyblown and picked over by ravens."

"You'll have it, then. The corpses shall overflow the buildings and lie rotting in the streets. The dead shall outnumber the living. They'll rot while they're still alive, and rot when they're dead, and we shall both have what we want."

"And Ghormalis?"

"You know Ghormalis. Let him smash things, let him rape a few hundred humans limb from limb, and he'll be happy. Ghormalis is easy to please."

St. Kelian's College, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

Ingrid White tries to project an appearance of quiet competence; her dresses are severe and somber, her hair is always in a neat bun, she espouses no controversial beliefs. So far it's got her a lecturer's position in the history department, which is fairly good for a college as old and conservative as St. Kelian's, considering her comparative youth and gender.

"I'm sorry, sir," she tells the Rector, "I do know my scripture, but I don't think I can be your acting Chaplain. I am a woman, sir."

"Oh, that's not a problem, Miss White," Sherrard assures her. "This is a new century, after all. Age of progress and enlightenment and all that. You're not crazy like Carron was, or a freak like his Deputy. You'll do fine."

"I'm not sure that I have the temperament for spiritual ministration, sir," she tries.

"But you know your scripture, that's the important thing. Everyone's always saying, "That Miss White certainly knows her scripture." Half the Professors here, well - Godly men all of them, I hasten to say, don't you think I'm impugning them - but, well, you wonder how much of the Holy Books they've actually read." Sherrard confides this last in a whisper, as if conveying some terrible secret.

"I wouldn't know what to tell the students about their problems, sir."

"Oh, that's easy! Quote 'em chapter and verse, set 'em on the straight and narrow, and they'll be fine. Doctor Carron coddled them far too much, in my opinion. Quite unsuitable. Besides - it's just for a few weeks, until the Church gets this business sorted out and sends us someone new. Look - you get a new office! North facing, right by the common room! You won't say no to that, surely?"

"... And who will cover my lectures, sir?"

"Oh, Professor Feinster can take 'em for you. It's what, early colonial history? The native wars, the trading companies, Rijantin's Rebellion. Easy."

Ingrid struggles not to groan out loud. Professor Shiron "Finny" Feinster, at eighty-four, is mostly deaf, entirely bigoted, and has a nasal drone of a lecturing voice that could well put his students to sleep while simultaneously making their ears bleed. His theories of Althenian history were conservative and reactionary even when he was young, and are now positively medieval, having regressed while the rest of the field advanced. But Sherrard seems set on making her acting Chaplain, so there's nothing much to be done about it.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure he'll do as good a job as he's known for, sir."

"There you are! See? I'm sure you'll settle into Chaplaining in no time at all."

Greybourne Medical Institute, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

Professora Adeley leans forward in her chair, drains her teacup, and fixes Carron with a piercing stare. "But I fail to see why there should be more than one demon here, as opposed to all the other cities and provinces of the Commonwealth. There's no reason for it."

Carron shrugs, and swirls the dregs of his tea about in the bottom of his cup. "But they do tend to show up together, Professora - at least according to the annals in St. Astin's. Achrimand, Torchel, Old Althea ..."

"Oh." The Professora looks contemptuous. "You mean the Corpse-Eater Hysteria, before the Regicide? Althea was on the brink of collapse even before that, Doctor Carron. People will imagine all sorts of things, during social upheavals - just look at the spiritualists here in Altheny."

"You don't believe in witchcraft, then?" Carron is surprised. "I would have thought a living saint ..."

"An Aeon, thank you. And I believe the self ends at death. You believe the soul goes up to join the Almighty, at least if you're a good Transubstantiationist. Or if a witch catches it in his bag, if you're some backwoods Transmigrationist. Neither of us believe that Great-Uncle Alfred is eager to speak to us to clear up who gets the family silver. It's irrational."

"And yet you do believe in demons?"

"There are things outside the world which want to use us for their own ends. Nobody doubts that. Call them demons, call them God - worship none of them, and chart your own destiny. That's the Denial."

Carron tries not to argue the slight to the Most High - God can surely argue His own case with this formidable woman, in His own time, if He so decides. "So you do believe they should be fought."

"Ye-es. But that includes your Almighty, Infinitely Merciful Most High God, Doctor Carron. Certainly a subsidiary entity of your God gave your Deputy a sword, and gave you the ability to see other such entities. But that doesn't make you beloved of God. That makes you God's tool. And the nail doesn't get to ask where it's hammered in."

He sighs in exasperation. Is it worth enlisting Adeley's help, when it's attached to such a caustic tongue? Peace, Luiros. God has His purposes, and you need her help. "Professora Adeley, there'll surely be time to debate theology later. I need to know - will you help me? I need all the help I can get, and you came highly recommended."

The Professora blinks, and Carron suppresses a smile at having scored a hit. "Oh? By whom, may I ask?"

"Archdeacon Kerrich, as a matter of fact. Chaptermaster of the Truthseekers here in Greybourne."

"Oh. Ha!" Adeley looks pleased at that - clearly she's crossed swords (or tongues, at least) with the Archdeacon before. Carron has no doubt that Kerrich was the loser.

"He said he would prefer I recruited you as opposed to calling in the Militant Order of the Redeemed."

"Ha! Scared of his own co-religionists, is he? St. Ulfred's are big softies really, every one of them. Did you?"

"... They are?" Carron tried to bend his mind around anyone describing the Redeemed as "big softies". "And did I what?"

"Did you send for them?"

"... Yes, actually. I did say I need all the help I can get."

"You do, don't you? You poor hapless idiot. Yes, I'll help you."

"Professora, thank you." Carron considers bowing, but this epicene woman would likely take it the wrong way. He extends a hand instead, and winces as she takes it in a bone-crushing grip.

"Deal," she says, and smiles as his bones complain at the pressure.

"It's a deal," he agrees, and adds, plaintively; "Now could you please let go of my hand?"

St. Astin's Cathedral, Greybourne, Isemay Island, the Commonwealth of Altheny

"Nice view you get from up here."

"What? Oh, I suppose so." Carron resists the urge to glare at the Professora. Adeley seems inordinately cheerful this morning as she leans on the balcony railing, looking down at the assembled citizens. She twirls the seven-foot length of her ironwood staff idly in her free hand.

"Please don't do that," he begs, glancing anxiously at the intricate carvings of the walls.

"Eh? Oh. Sounds like someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning."

"Yesterday I was given a mission by an Angel of the Lord, killed a demon - helped kill a demon, sorry, Tabby - got fired from my job, and met the most irritating atheist in the Commonwealth. My bed had no right sides this morning, Professora."

She smirks. "Well, I hate to make your morning worse, but have you noticed a slight flaw in your cunning plan?"

"What now?"

"It seems to me that you've got several hundred people there" - Adeley gestures towards the crowd assembled on the floor of the cathedral - "Any or all of whom may be demons. Now if all of them are demons, we're outnumbered ... roughly a hundred to one. But if only one of them is a demon, he's surrounded by three hundred-odd human shields."

"Oh." Carron resists the urge to slap his forehead. "Oh, damn!"

"Good to see that the Church is still a haven of learning and enlightenment. Not to worry, it's hardly likely that a demon would show up here anyway. This just removes the ones who're only mortal from your consideration."

"You fill me with confidence, Aeon Adeley."

The Professora grins. Carron closes his eyes, turning back to the assembled congregants below - three hundred people or seeming-people with scleral hyperpigmentation, each one a potential demon. In his God-given sight there is not a shadow, merely the ordinary darkness behind his eyelids.

"Just humans," he announces, relieved. This morning will mean tracking down whoever the deacons can identify as not having turned up, then, a better scenario than the Professora's gloomy worst case. Mehitabel squeezes his hand, and he squeezes back, smiling. "I'll see if the Archdeacon has a list of who's down there. And a list of who's not down there."

He turns towards the stairs, blinking tiredly, and now, of a sudden, he sees it - a tiny old man leaning on a cane, his eyes hidden, like all the others', behind smoked lenses. He'd been standing out of the way slightly, out of view from the middle of the balcony. In the sight behind Carron's eyes his shadow is eight feet tall, spined and armoured.

"God's night!" he swears, cursing himself for an idiot. I nearly missed it, and then what might have happened? "There, in the corner, towards the back."

"What, that old fellow?"

"Yes."

"Not to worry, churchman." Adeley slaps him on the back. "Everybody get back!" she roars, and springs over the balcony. She is already moving as she hits the floor, rising from a crouch to take one stride, two, and the staff is whirring in a vicious arc to strike the old man solidly in the chest.

Ribs break with an audible crack, and he flies backwards, sliding helplessly down the aisle to fetch against the cathedral doors with a force that makes them boom and shudder. His spectacles are askew, and Carron has a brief glimpse of eyes full of angry darkness.

What rises is no longer human. Scarlet plates, thorned and barbed, cover it; fire crowns it; a light as red as arterial blood surrounds it. Carron recognises it from ancient woodcuts, reconstructions by the refugees of the fall of Torchel. He'd always thought they were exaggerating.

"Heaven help us," he whispers, "It's the Lord of Wrath! Tabby -"

He glances to Mehitabel to find that she's already running for the stairs. Down below, Adeley is standing ready - calm, collected, as perfectly poised as if this were merely a friendly match in a practice hall - as the demon charges. The staff swings and shatters against its armoured chest, and the Professora goes flying at the Lord of Wrath's counterstrike. She tumbles and flips and is suddenly on her feet again, reaching forward in one long stride and pivoting on her outstretched foot to bring the other around in a spinning kick which makes the demon rock backwards on its feet.

Carron hurries down the stairs after Mehitabel, keeping one eye on the Professora as he goes. She leans aside from the demon's swinging fist and replies with a sharp chop to its sternum. It roars and strikes back with fists haloed in bloody light. Pews splinter, flagstones crack, and dust begins to rain from the rafters; the demon is using its magic now, the powers stolen from an angry god.

Torchel's final ruin was in earthquake, Carron remembers. The other congregants are pressed against the walls, screaming or shocked and staring, but where is Mehitabel?

"Get out!" he yells at them, "The chapel door - that way!"

Perhaps it's that they're accustomed to following the directions of anyone in a cassock, here in the cathedral, or perhaps it's merely that he's screaming orders at the top of his lungs, but they obey, fleeing towards the transept. Red light flickers, and the south transept of the cathedral explodes in a groan of tortured stone. The great stained-glass windows seem to leap from their settings, St. Astin with his book appearing to hang in the air a second before shattering in a spray of coloured glass. From up above there's a creak and a gathering groan as rafters pop and snap.

I am so glad the Church never rebuilt the cathedral vaulting in stone, Carron thinks inanely, but the thought is soon replaced by Oh God, it's going to be a massacre.

"The other way - the cloister!" He points, and they run back across the nave. Further down the aisle the demon has Adeley in a crushing bearhug, her teeth clenched as the thorns of its armour dig into her, and there, finally, is Mehitabel, the light of the sword outshining the bleeding light of Hell. She drops from the rafters like an avenging angel, the sword a swinging bar of light; while Carron went down the stairs, she'd gone up, to get the drop (Ha! Quite literally! he thinks) on the demon.

The flaming sword bites deep into its shoulder, spraying char and burning cinders, a moment before Mehitabel's booted feet slam into it. Her feet find purchase on its back and the sword swings around again. The Lord of Wrath howls in pain and anger, releasing Adeley, its massive hands reaching up to pluck Mehitabel from its back - but she is gone, springing from her place, and the sword hacks into the back of its leg at the same time as the Professora delivers a punishing blow to its chest. The demon falls - Mehitabel rolling out of the way just in time, the sword pinned beneath its bulk - and its fists flail sideways, smiting the ornate carving from the pillars.

A flaring of bloody light, and now the north transept smashes inwards, sending stones and bodies and the carved cloister doors tumbling down the transept. Carron dives aside with moments to spare and finds himself looking up the length of the crossing tower as the rafters scream, the stones of the pillars jump apart, and the whole great edifice falls in upon itself.

Oh God, he thinks, watching the first blocks of masonry tumble free and fall towards him, I have done Your works - But Mehitabel is here, pulling him frantically to the side, the sword abandoned.

"Tabby-" he gasps. She puts her hands to his shoulders, gripping tightly, and growls deep in her throat at her inability to kiss him. She pushes him firmly out of the way and turns back to the fight, where the demon is rising and the bulk of the tower is beginning to strike the floor.

"Mine," the Lord of Wrath roars triumphantly, gripping the sword. Bloody light flares down its length.

The Professora slams a hand into its wounded shoulder and its hand flies open, the blade spinning from its grasp, a line of bloody light.

"No," she says, catching it neatly, and the light vanishes, the sword a mere length of gleaming steel in the Aeon's hand. "Mine!" She swings it upwards, a short vicious arc which buries itself in the demon's throat. Carron has a glimpse of them - Adeley with the demon looming over her, the demon looking down at the sword cutting into its neck - before the falling tower buries them.

Stone crashes and rumbles, rafters begin to fall, and Mehitabel is hurrying him towards the apse to shelter behind the altar. The smash of falling stone trails away, and in the sudden shocking silence Carron hears the wail of the fire crews' klaxon.

----

Archdeacon Kerrich leans forward across his desk, his head in his hands, and glares at Carron.

"You ruined my cathedral, Luiros!"

"The demon ruined your cathedral, Simon. I just happened to be there." Carron grins tiredly at the Archdeacon, still buzzed at avoiding death so nearly. Kerrich doesn't seem to appreciate his sophistry, however.

"The cost ... the press ... "Keep a low profile," the Grandmaster said! Word of God! I expected some of the others to perhaps do something controversial, but damnit, Carron, you minister to university students! You're the voice of reason! I didn't expect this kind of chaos from you."

Kerrich's tongue-lashing hurts. "I was chosen by the God, Simon," Carron points out. "Would you prefer the angel had gone to, oh, Deacon Rellons? He'd have shipped off every Denier, indigene and foreigner in Greybourne at swordpoint by lunchtime!"

The Archdeacon scowls. "The God chose well, Luiros. I do know that. But the Almighty doesn't have to deal with politics! I do."

"I understand, Simon. But there's not much I can do to be more circumspect. Demons aren't."

Kerrich sighs. "And I suppose it will only get worse. Knight-Commander Thorne was on the wireless just before all this happened - his company has taken ship at Wolverton and should be here this afternoon. The Redeemed aren't very circumspect either."

----

Mehitabel digs through the rubble of the cathedral. The firemen ask no questions, and she's always been strong. Stone by stone she shifts the debris, the slick leather of her suit now grimed and dusty, grey with mortar dust. Somewhere under here is the sword of God, her badge of righteousness, the icon which tells everyone You're wrong about me. I serve the Most High. I've done things wrong and I'm not perfect but He is merciful and I am still His servant, just like you.

Carron has always understood that, she feels; that God's work is not for the flawless but for the wounded and the flawed, and they are healed and made whole in His service. They outshine those to whom faith comes easily, for they hold all the harder to what they have fought so hard to gain.

And how strange is it, that Carron would know that? He is so perfect, so very perfect, my Luiros Carron.

The Professora does not know it, has blinded herself to the Most High, and in the vaulting tower of her pride she is very strong; but at the end of her life she will die, and will not join the Almighty in Heaven. She has made a virtue of it, built an austere palace out of the silence at the end of the world, but she does not understand what a terrible thing it would be, to be forever outside the Presence of the God. Mehitabel has a horror of it, but someday she will join Him. Sometimes, with Carron, she thinks that she can hear Him - just faintly, just a whisper, just an echo of the Almighty's voice. She had felt so close to it, so near to Him, when she held the sword of God. Someday ...

Mine, the Professora had said, and all the flames of the sword had gone out, extinguished by the water of her Denial. Not yours, Mehitabel thinks, lifting aside stones and passing them on to the man behind her. Not ever yours. Mine!

Beneath the stone an arm, grey with dust. Mehitabel reaches for it, feels for a pulse, for any sign of life - but it's only a statue, some saint or martyr's icon. An unliving victim of the demon's wrath. There are three hundred-odd souls, dead or alive, under this rubble, and the cathedral itself is a casualty.

It is only God's House, she reminds herself. The God is in it, but He is not of it.

A dog barks, and someone shouts - "We've got a live one! Over here!" They leave off their work to gather around, pulling back the stone to lift the unconscious woman free. Not the Aeon. Blood gushes from the pulp of her arm, and a nurse rushes up. Another one for the ambulances hissing and grinding their way up the hill to the hospital and back.

Mehitabel paces out the distances, looking for where she'd been. The still-standing apse and front of the cathedral allow her to draw an illusory roofline there, and the rubble delineates the ruined transepts there, so the crossing of the cathedral is about here. Thankfully the weight of the falling tower seems not to have smashed into the crypts below, or she'd have little hope of finding any sign of the Professora and the sword.

Beneath her feet the rubble shifts - Damnit, no! That wasn't a suggestion! - and Mehitabel steps back, wary of any sudden collapse. A hand pushes free of the rubble, and she hurries forward (Carefully, carefully!) to grasp it and let whoever's below know that they're found. The fingers - long, slender as a pianist's - tighten around her own, and she waits a moment before prising them loose. She needs to shift the stones.

Over here! She waves to attract the attention of the firemen, points to the hand in the rubble, and once more they all converge to free it.

Soon enough the hand finds purchase in the grip of a sturdy young man, the rubble heaves, and the Professora hauls herself blinking into the sun. She is grimed head to toe in ash and dust, making her grin all the brighter for comparison.

"Whoa! It's good to be out of there."

The sword of God swings in her other hand, grey and dull. Its curve moves through the rubble, slicing stone as easily as butter - perhaps not merely steel after all, but some Denier magic, imprinted on the blade the same way it had burned with the Lord of Wrath's Hellish light.

"Yours, I think," the Professora says, and proffers it, hilt-first, to her. Mehitabel reaches out - apprehensive, yearning, hopeful - to take it. The blade does not ignite in her grasp, and she stares, stricken. You broke it you bitch you stole His blessing my sign! She wants to scream, to howl, to bring down the vault of the sky, but she cannot. Not ever.

She glares at the Professora - who doesn't react, who doesn't even see the scowl on the inside of her mask - and rams the sword back into its scabbard. What in Hell are they going to do now?