The Celestial Instructi0n by Grady Ward

her
shoulders. Her appearance was striking, which probably explained why she didn’t
speak more than the minimum she needed to accomplish what she wanted. Although
the three men of the Triax—world’s most influential credit rating agencies—knew
each other well in the external world of Aaa to D, investment grades, watches, warnings,
events, downgrades, and worthless default junk, they persisted in substituting
their Triax names when thinking about themselves and each other, as if this
were a fairy tale that was walled off from the world, deniable to both authorities
and to themselves at, night, fearing the instant penetration of pure reflection
just before falling asleep. In the meeting as if a cosplay, they were changed over
from their suits: they also wore reflective robes of pure silk over their
nakedness. The Church ceremonial robes had adornments of golden thread devices
and cartouches and symbols of the crux representing the intersecting dimensions
of the mind.
     
    “Angel 1” had travelled a long way from Beijing
with his assistant, a quiet man, also with military-length jet black hair. An
early middle-aged man not quite finished with youth, Angel 1 spoke with a
Chinese-accent in otherwise beautiful English. Its cadence suggested a military
background, while its contents suggested a man sentimental in love, or dying: “The
five agents are in dance, from a distance it may be a martial exercise, but it
may also be a motion of love, or the predicate movements of an impending
surgery. They have labored for thousands of years and now are ready to meet
their successors. The Wood feeds Fire. Will you be consumed or will you create
the Earth?”
    Angel 1 paused for a moment and looked at each of
the puzzled three as a reflective uncle, kindly, but a moment too long for
simple affection.
    “I am sorry to wax poetical. A weakness, an
affectation. I have many. Let me plainly speak rather as a tradesman. “In a few
days, or weeks, the event will happen. I cannot tell you what it is because-as
in the self-fulfilling prophecies of your own assessments—its swiftness and secrecy
is a crucial source of its power. He glanced at the Dominion, who seemed motionless,
watching and listening. “You will know when it happens. It will be a shock,
seemingly a devastation that will affect all affairs in the United States and
the world.
    “But that is only its appearance. The truth is that
it will mark the shēng of the new cycle of which you will be a part.”
    “Simply, you must trumpet the disaster which will
help it to reach the energy needed to reach ignition. The brightness of the
match unites the sun and the air in the dry reed. Keeping a bundle of reeds
warm, no matter how long, is worthless to build a fire. Let me be even plainer:
each of you will rate the United States debt as D, in default, simultaneously
to this cataclysm. You will use your personal judgment, you will not hesitate,
you will not wait for each other, and you will not await direction or counsel. You
will act separately but in unison. You will publish this rating as widely and
as quickly as it is possible to do so.” “And your assessment will be accurate;
the default event will automatically trigger a cascade of further defaults and
credit events from state to county to city, to the smallest district and
village.”
    Angel paused. He took from the breast pocket of a
new cheap suit a handful of chopsticks. His right hand was twisted into a claw,
which the three bankers stared at as if a dragon’s mouth. The sticks themselves
were intricately carved of a dark wood, six sticks. “These are your yarrow
sticks; this is your fortune. Each choose a matching pair and keep them safe.”
Angel threw them down on the parquetry of the table.
    Parichoner Qu randomly chose two matching sticks
and looked at them closely. Parichoner Wu and Xi each took a pair of the
remaining, alternating one at a time as if they were playing a game of pick up
sticks. They carefully