Princely Counsel


Candles burned along the length of the table. Although it was oval - and thus had neither head nor foot - the man at the far end, brows drawn together, clearly held the attention of the others. His hands were linked, fingers interlaced, and the light of the candles flickered on the sleek dark leather of his gloves.

"It looks obvious." The speaker's hair was lank and curled around his face, emphasizing the bulging, hamster-like cheeks, and his chair was pushed back from the table so that he could fold his hands on his extensive paunch. "He was framed."

"Unless there is some other explanation of this evidence?" The new voice might have been a low contralto or a high tenor, and the words held a caress. Shadows curled around the man or woman who spoke, blurring the lines of an attenuated, graceful body, and making a floating kabuki mask of the pale face. "I have not heard my sweet sister deny her own Servitor's work."

A slight movement of a thin-boned hand, from the woman seated further down the table. Her hair was razor-cut sharply against her head, and there was something about her face that suggested all the terrors of mortality, the skull beneath the skin. A kimono was wrapped tightly around her, embroidered in black against black in invisible patterns. "Were he not dead, I would have given him to any of you to put to the question. After I had finished with him." Something moved behind her voice and promised vengeance.

"Yes." The dark-gloved man's voice cut through the silence that followed. "Why is he dead?" His face was calm, lined with an old dignity and an older anger, and his clothing suggested some classical uniform.

The candles flickered around the table, giving the lie to the stillness of the assembled men and women, before the woman answered. "A raid by angels. Servitors of Michael and Laurence, I was told by the survivors. Belmanoir was soul-killed." Her words were paid out grudgingly. "All subjects have since been removed from the terminus."

"How many times have we heard this?" an older man beside her commented mildly. His hands and face were wrinkled by age, liver-spotted and papery. "More to the point, how many times are we to hear it again?"

"We are aware of the facts," another man commented from across the table. The candle-flames glinted on his spectacles and pocket-watch. "We now require certainty. And decision."

"It seems straightforward enough to me, baby." The voice was jarring against the other quieter ones, a sharp jolt that fizzed in the air. Two elbows were thumped down on the table as the red-haired man leant on them, and the reflections of the candles danced in his thick glasses. "Kobal was framed. We've got the proof. Kobal gets released. I mean, hey, how much longer are we going to hold this production up? Till we've got some targets? Well, I hate to disappoint you, baby, but, like, this Belmanoir scuzz is dead, and till we've got the Ethereals that were behind it..."

The skull-faced woman's breath hissed slightly between her teeth, but she was entirely still where she sat. A thread of candle-smoke wafted up past her, fading into invisibility as it dissolved into the greater darkness outside the circle of light that surrounded the table.

"Until we've got their asses up for breakfast, guys, we need to be on the same side. Am I the only fucking one round here who's seen the way that the Archangels are looking down here and licking their lips?" Absolutely nothing of the red-haired man's eyes was visible behind the thick panes of glass that covered them. "Well, am I? Or are we figuring they're going to be buying ringside tickets to the execution - which trust me, guys, would have been primo theatre, but..."

The dark-gloved man parted his hands. "Enough." His voice cut like the edge of hammered steel, and the other fell silent.

"Enough," he repeated, and the thin candle-flames grew still, burning thin and upright. "I have every confidence in our sister's ability to maintain her security, now that she has been reminded of the matter..."

Nothing altered in the woman's face; she was as still as black ice.

"... and this is no time to place blame. Those who acted in this matter did so according to their functions."

"There is no need to soften your words." The man with burning eyes spoke softly, voice a whisper of ashes banked over coals. His hands were thin, and his fingers were steepled. "I would do as much again."

"I know." For a moment the two men locked gazes, and the others around the table were still as the air seemed to thicken and grow heavy. The man with the ember-eyes was the first to look away, regarding the blue heart of the candle-flame that burned to his right.

"What is to be done, then?" The androgynous figure reached across to stroke the edge of one of his pair of candles, letting a finger stroke up along the wax and into the flame. Dark eyes regarded the trembling petals of fire with fascination as it wrapped around his pale skin, and his finger began to blister. "How is further... dissension to be avoided? Or further misuse of the system?"

"Release him." It was a different woman who spoke, one who wore a gown of star-centred jewels, and whose hair was bound back in a net of the same gems. Lights glinted behind her eyes. "He has enough to be dealing with, once he is released, and we may devote our energies to more important matters."

The dark-gloved man nodded. "Release. Are we agreed?"

"And what about such thoughts as vengeance?" the old man asked, jowls flopping a little as he spoke. "I know that if I had been imprisoned under such false charges..."

The man with burning eyes turned to regard him. "He will not." Rusty iron echoed in his voice. "He will not shatter Hell for petty vengeance."

"You are very certain," the old man replied, half smiling. It was a pleasant smile.

"He will not," the woman in the gown of stars repeated. "It will be seen to."

"Ahh." The old man's sound of satisfaction was a comfortable one. "I bow to your knowledge of him, Princess, and your expertise in his ways."

"Hey," the red-haired man said, sharply. "Cool it. We're all in this together."

"Bluntly as you put it, you are right." The dark-gloved man rose to his feet. "Kobal will not overstep in search of vengeance. This will be attended to. All those who agree to his release, rise." The gusting candle-flames were mirrored on his gloves, but now that he stood his face was in shadow, hidden from view.

The star-gowned woman rose, gracefully, and then the red-haired man; the androgyne and the fat man followed, then the skull-faced woman, abruptly as though to make some point. Then others; two men that were patterned with burns or scars, the old man, the man with the pocket-watch, a smirking young man in bicycle leathers, a slouching genderless creature whose flesh seemed to be slipping from its bones, and finally the man with burning eyes.

"We are agreed," said the man with dark gloves. "It will be done."

All faces were hidden by the shadows now, and only the hands of those met there could be seen; dark gloves, pale fingers like ivory sculptures, blunt squat palms, scarred remnants that had once been hands.

"Asmodeus, with me," said the man with dark gloves; he and the man with burning eyes were gone together in a swirl of hot wind that tugged at the candles, making them dance high and blue.

"With me?" asked the androgyne, offering a burn-laced hand to the woman in the gown of stars. As she inclined her head very slightly, he stepped closer to her and they were both gone in the same movement.

The skull-faced woman said nothing. She lowered her head, and the darkness took her.

"Got things to be doing," said the red-haired man, and he was gone in a flash of neon.

Figures moved and spoke, till the room was empty save for the man with the pocket-watch. He seated himself again, and was still for a while, watching the candles sink, and he neither moved nor spoke as time burned itself away.

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Fiat Justitia