Chapter 25.1

 

Astaroth smiles again. He smiles a lot, as if everything is a joke to him, as if the people around him are mudskippers, hopping about open-mouthed at the sudden loss of their habitat. Of course, he is, or was, the Angel of Knowledge, so there is a good chance he really is just waiting for everyone else to see what he’d laughing at. He’s like the uncle who visits at Christmas and sits in the corner of the room laughing, but when anyone asks him what he’s laughing at he says it’s an ‘inside joke’ or ‘too complicated to explain.’ It makes Roisin want to punch him, but she has the knowledge that punching a major player in the hierarchy of Hell would probably lead to consequences she wouldn’t enjoy. Imagining the act makes her smile, however. As an ‘inside joke’ of course.

Astaroth lets the silence stretch until it becomes a source of tension in the room; until Roisin feels it pressing against her ribs; until Steve looks like he might break under the weight of it.

Only then does the angel speak. “Do you know what balance truly is, Roisin?” His voice is soft, almost gentle — which somehow makes him even more threatening. His whole demeanour is reminiscent of when her dad still lived with them and his voice would drop to a really soft tone when he closest to losing his temper, a temper only relieved by the use of his fists. Not that Astaroth would stoop so low as to use his fists. It was more likely that he would burn your soul to ashes or, like Anthony Cramer when she criticised his one-man show in the student newspaper, just not bother to speak to you at all. Ever.

“Balance is not peace. It is not harmony. It is not fairness.” He steps closer, hands clasped behind his back in a posture reminiscent of the headmaster she had at he Catholic school in Laverstone. “To maintain balance is to create a tension between two forces that would otherwise be destructive to the environment around them.” He holds up his hands, one open and one in a loose fist, nodding toward them in turn. “Imagine this is the sun and the earth. What would happen if the sun pulled the earth just a little closer?”

Roisin swallows. This is rudimentary physics, and although she dropped all the sciences when she opted for her GCSE curriculum, she remembers enough about the basics. “The temperature of the earth would increase until the atmosphere is boiled away and the world becomes as barren as the moon.”

“And if the earth pulled a little further from the sun?”

“The earth would freeze like the outer planets, and all life upon it would cease, except, perhaps, some simple celled organisms currently frozen under the permafrost.”

“And thus the tension between them maintains their balance, though in this instance it’s mathematics between mass and velocity that creates the tension.” Astaroth continues. “The Four were never meant to destroy the world. That is a human misunderstanding. A dramatic one, admittedly, but incorrect.” He lifts a hand, tracing four lines in the air. “War. Pestilence. Famine. Death.”

Each name is spoken with the weight of the last toll of a church bell at midnight.

“They are not executioners. They are counterweights, like the ones you attach to a tablecloth to stop it from creasing and flapping. They keep the world from collapsing under its own excess.” He lowers his hand. “But even counterweights can overcorrect.”

The words send a chill crawling up her spine.

“That is where you come in. The Fifth is the fulcrum. Around which the Four rotate.” He holds up a finger to forestall the outburst of the Artist, who looks less quarter-anger and more demonic, his face is so red. If he was human Roisin would worry about an imminent heart attack.”

She feels the word in her bones, in the hollow beneath her sternum, in the place where the mantle lies.

Astaroth circles her slowly, his presence brushing against her like particles of ice in a cold wind.

“The Fifth does not ride. The mantle he holds gives him the opportunity to foresee consequences; to see the past reflected in the future, to see the footsteps treading lightly or otherwise through all of Creation. The Fifth does not command. The Fifth weighs the future against the now and looks for the balance of one against the pressure of the other.” He stops in front of her and she is enveloped by his breath. Not unpleasant, it reminds her of the jars of coloured sweets in the newsagents when she was young. Aniseed Jacks and Pear Drops. “The Fifth aligns.”