The Aedile stuttered, “How can this be? Why has Torment stirred herself to interfere with us? It is unlawful!”
“Ha! That’s rich and rank as stallion manure on a sunny spring day, coming from your mouth, buddy.”
The Aedile stared at him. “Who are you?”
The ugly man said, “I am Jiminy Goddamn Cricket, here to tell you to always let your mother-raping conscience be your plaguing guide! Are you going to let this boy sit down at your little tea party, or is he going to have to pluck the heads off more people?”
The Aedile was trembling. “No, the, the Chamber must first adjourn while the bodies are cleared away, then—ah—a proper motion entered—with members dead, a sufficient quorum to—”
The ugly man handed the sword in its scabbard back to Vigil. “Go chop his poxing head off. If he supports the action of the defeated party in a duel, that makes him the same as if he picked up the gauntlet.”
The Aedile said in a loud voice, “Bailiffs! There is a threat against the Chamber! You all heard it!”
The ugly man said, “Stop wasting my poxing time, greenhorn. Don’t you know the law? You there, whatsyourname.” He pointed at the Castigator, the Commensal seated between the Aedile and the Chronometrician. The Castigator wore an iron skull-shaped mask beneath his deep hood and held a flail of office in his hands. “Call up the Angels of Torment. We’ll see who’s right and wrong between me and the barracks-room lawyer there. Is he or is he not preventing the Lord Hermeticist from being recognized? There are no lawful grounds for any challenge.”
The Aedile said, “You have no authority to speak!”
“Hell I don’t. You yielded the floor to me, right and proper. I’m a poxing amicus curiae.”
The Castigator stood. He was garbed in much the same fashion as the statue of Torment, in a bridegroom’s uniform beneath the cloak and hood of an executioner. The whole chamber fell silent with dread.
He raised a finger and signaled. “I am permitted and required to speak privately to any member, off the record, before any castigation is lodged. If there are no objections? I convoke the silence.”
He turned his hood toward the golden face of the Aedile. The two men exchanged low-level indications by means of mudra of the optic nerve alone, and no one in the chamber was permitted to overhear.
6. Let Down or Upset
One of Vigil’s internal creatures floated to the surface of his consciousness and said, “Rut me with a spoon, but I reckon you wants to hear what Eligius is saying to his cousin Sebastian.”
This was the same internal that had been previously jinxed by the Foxes, who no doubt left some unlocked back door open for the janitor to find.
“You got a damn lot of minds inside you. How many nervous systems you got?”
“As many as I need,” replied Vigil on the same channel. He did not explain that this particular development of multiple parallel minds in the same brain was a side effect of the chaos mathematics needed by the Summer Kings of Arcturus, back when their power and sovereignty rested on their ability to control a hostile climate of a world forever seeking to expel them.
“I don’t quite understand how you are doing this,” Vigil continued. “Is this a Fox-trick?”
“Yeah, they all work for me. Except when they don’t.”
“Your jests are not funny.” The idea of any Fox taking orders from am Esne was absurd.
“Just give that one a little while to sink in.”
Vigil was still puzzled at how this low-caste man could wield a superhuman technique. Perhaps the Foxes were manipulating him, and, as they so often did in stories, drove their human tools insane.
Vigil wondered if perhaps this man was not an Esne. Then what?
Vigil was a little embarrassed to admit that he could not place the clan or era of the name Jiminy Goddamn Cricket, or, for that matter, Yesman, so he phrased his question indirectly. “Did I misunderstand who you really are? Did you want me to call you Cricket?”
The man laughed. “Sure! Why the hell not? Don’t worry. I have that effect on a lot of people. They always think I am something bigger and smarter than I really am. Then they meet me. Everyone is let down or upset. But I really am the really real me. I am the guy you was looking for, which is why I walked up mop in hand.”
“I was sent here to recall the Table to its duty. Not to look for a janitor.”
The counselor shrugged. “’Swhat the damn Swans said, anyhow. They all work for me, too. Except when they don’t. I thought you wanted me to come in and help you out to find out who is looking for you. My bet is on the guy with the gold face there, Eligius, being behind it. Ain’t that why you hired me on? How much am I getting paid, anyway? And how much of what? What do your folks use for money? Is it something you drink?”
“Even with multiple minds, I cannot tell which question to answer first, Cricket.”
The man laughed again, as if Vigil had made, or was in on, a joke. “Just answer me this: You want to hear what they is saying?”
“Is it illegal to eavesdrop?”
“As illegal as seeing drunk old Noah’s naked ass, you betcha, sonny!”
“By all means, then.”
Signals flowed into Vigil’s mind.
7. Unprivate Conversation
The intercepted nerve indication between the eyes of the Aedile and the Castigator contained visual clues, expressions and body language, and so on, as well as nuance of voice, text, reference materials, and subtext.
It seemed odd to one of his background that the data were not formatted for presentation. There was nothing else in the signal stream, no background, no tactile sensation: it was like recalling a conversation when one has forgotten where and when it was held. Vigil assumed this was a limitation of those who could not juggle multiple internal creatures like a Strangerman could.
The Castigator was saying softly to the Aedile, “His comment is in the record; I cannot claim lack of notice. While technically, an amicus curiae cannot command me to castigate, nonetheless, once I am notified from any official source of an abrogation, I must either open a case or quash it. I also dare not face an inquest for dereliction.”
The Aedile’s eyes bright with anger. “And the downfall of our civilization and the death of our world?”
The Castigator said carefully, “As a Lord of the Stability, the incoming ship must hold me immune from local affairs. We here in the Palace of Future History will survive no matter what happens to our families outside there, who live in the local history of planet Torment.”
“You think to escape?”
“The Judge of Ages has already prepared a tomb for me that I might slumber until whatever day, a thousand years hence, when the distempers and disquiets created by the planetfall of Emancipation have been long forgotten.”
The Aedile said, “Pah! The Judge of Ages! He is known to have been born in madness and died in madness, somewhere in the barren Southeast lands, where no man treads! He lost his mind when his promised bride married the Master of the Empyrean! He is a myth, or he is insane, or he is dead, or perhaps all three at once!”
The Castigator said, “Beware, sir, lest you forget that the universe is stranger than we wish to imagine, perhaps stranger than we are able to imagine! Wonders bright and dark surround us daily, and we are complacent and blind.”
“Someone posing as the Judge of Ages deceived you! It was a Fox or something like that in a masquerade costume! I tell you he is dead and has no power over us!”