The Powerman was as pale as the Chrematist as the blood left his face, and his eyes darted left and right, as if measuring the distance to the exit doors. His throat was too dry to speak, but his voice came from the ornamental cloak pin he wore, “But what does this mean?”

Vigil said, “As well you know, My Lord. A fight to the death.”

Vigil’s masked and bewigged counsel said to Vigil, “Hand me back my shooting iron and call me your Second so I can drill the bastard through his empty skull and get on with this damnified charade. I want to find out what’s up.”

But the Censor who sat behind the Chronometrician had the floor, and raised his finger, “I speak in my official capacity as Dress Code Officer! The sumptuary regulations are often disregarded, but they are also still in force! By an antique and momentous law, the Companions and siege of the Lighthousekeeper must be unarmed, as sign that the Lighthouse must never be used as a weapon, nor scald a ship in flight or roast a world beneath with its dire ray! Hence no duel can take place: the Powerhouse Officer is not of the arms-bearing class.”

Vigil unceremoniously shrugged off this weapon belt and dropped it, with his pistol and sword and all clanging to the glass floor, and doffed his other gauntlet. “By naked hands I will slay whoso denied my right to be here!”

The sleek and slender body of the Powerman, whose ancestors had been necromancers of Schattenreich, and, before that, Locusts of Mars, was like the body of a maiden next to that of an ape. But before anyone could speak, the Powerman said, “I appoint Xu Maioxen as my champion!”

This was evidently the name of the burly lion-headed handservant, shining with fulvous fur and rippling with muscles, who had previously picked up the gauntlet. He was an Expatriate, which meant that his ancestors were Sinners from 61 Ursae Majoris, which meant that he had retractable talons, fangs like a saber-toothed tiger, and swifter reactions and harder muscles than a baseline human should have.

The Chronometrician began to speak in his weak and spiderish voice about the proper formalities for a duel, the exchanges of challenges through Seconds, the appointment of surgeons, and such, but the Expatriate man shook his mane, roared, and leaped.

Vigil did not bother with grace or flourishes. He caught the man in midair, throwing himself backward with the momentum. He broke the back and most of the ribs of the lion man with the might of his arms alone and drove the body headfirst as it continued its fall down on the chamber floor with enough force to shatter the spine and to crack the heavy skull like an egg so that brain stuffs spread across the invisible surface with a sickening smell.

Vigil turned to the Powerman, saying, “Do you doubt my right to—?” But he stopped. The slender man was dead. He had fallen prone, even though there was no sign of wound, no scent of energy, no hint of any nerve-mudra tingling in the air.

All the speakers were now on their feet, even the slumbering corpse of the Chrematist (whose servos evidently thought it polite to stand when all others did). The Aedile said in a weak voice, “What struck down Seppel Phosphoros? Why is he dead? I yield the floor and the balance of my time to anyone who can explain this madness.”

Vigil’s counsel, the ugly man in the breathing mask, had picked up the dropped sword and translucent pistol. “I reckon I can tell you. Your joker saw physical danger, so he fled into the infosphere, and left his body behind, and was just pulling strings like by remote control. But the rule of the duel says that the primary has to die if his partial dies, or else there ain’t no point. Now, in real life, these two guys here was two different men, but the law ain’t got nothing to do with real life. In the eyes of the law, an agent acts on his master’s behalf and becomes his partial self. Since the one was working on the other’s orders, Torment decided to put both men on the same circuit. So when one died, the other was deleted. If leperdick there had just stayed put, he’d be still alive.”

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?