Free On the Merits of Unnaturalness by Samantha Shannon

 
    T ODAY , my good People, I put to you the new Edict of our beloved Government. Today, the WESTMINSTER ARCHON has declared outright War upon our oppressed and wretched Population. The NIGHT VIGILANCE DIVISION , Bane of our beleaguered People, has now employed Officials with the SPIRIT SIGHT within the Network of the London Underground, previously one of the safer Means by which we could traverse this Citadel. These new Agents, known as UNDERGUARDS , will have the Power to carry out visual Checks on Individuals to deduce whether or not an AURA is present; to arrest and hold suspected Unnaturals without trial, and to use whatever physical or ethereal Clout they please to manhandle their Captives towards Inquisitorial Justice. It is one of the many new Fetters by which GRAND INQUISITOR Zettler is removing our natural Rights as Denizens and Human Beings, forcing us to cower in our own Homes or risk Detection, Incarceration, and eventual Execution. It is not only our Right to travel that is under Threat, my Friends, but our very Right to exist.
    Of course, this will not be News to you, dear Reader. UNNATURALNESS is the Anathema and the Scapegoat of our miserable Society. One hundred and two Years have passed since the great Tyrant, FIRST INQUISITOR James Ramsay MacDonald , established this Citadel in 1929. Since then, AMAUROSIS , the Plague of Normality, has sterilised the Streets. Its Sufferers fear the Touch of Death, and the Power that we ‘Unnaturals’ bear within us. They are right to fear. They are wise to oppress. For are we not vastly superior to them, we Unnaturals? For though we pick the Bones of Society, though we crawl in Gutters and beg for our Keep, we are living Conduits to the World Beyond. We are Proof of an auxiliary Existence. We channel the ultimate Energy, the eternal ÆTHER . We harness Death itself. We unhorse the Reaper. With its Blacklists and general Suppression of the Arts, Scion has robbed us of the Insight of our clairvoyant Ancestors. We have learned our ancestral Stories by Word of Mouth, but still, there is no single Document that claims to tell our Story. And so, my good People, I present to you a modern Story of Clairvoyance by means of the written Word. I, an Obscure Writer, who have clawed my way from Ignorance.
    This Pamphlet is for the Eyes of all Clairvoyants. It is on this Paper that I present to you the Outcome of my Research, carried out over the last Decade with the utmost Diligence and Enthusiasm. My Aim has been to compile a proper Index of both known and supposed Forms of Clairvoyance, and to rank them in terms of their Utility and Purity. 1
    1 I here acknowledge the Wisdom of the Golden Baroness , First UNDERQUEEN of the Scion Citadel of London, who noted in early 1980 that Clairvoyants with Auras of the same Colour tended to share Gifts with similar Qualities. A perceptive Lady indeed. It is a great Tragedy that she was murdered that same Year.
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    By Purity , dear Reader, I refer to the Crux of my Theory: the hitherto unheard of Notion that some Types of Clairvoyance are superior to others because they achieve a more perfect form of Harmony with the Æther. To make a Judgement upon each Gift and its respective Qualities, and consequently its Ranking within this unprecedented System, I have conducted Research in the six Cohorts of London and within the Pages of a number of forbidden Texts, gleaned from the Black Market of Covent Garden and the most prestigious Library of the SPIRITUS CLUB , wherein many such Documents have been stored.
    Be aware, my good Reader, that this Pamphlet, no matter how controversial its Content, must never fall into enemy Hands. It details all known Types of Unnaturalness, divides them into seven Orders, and details the Merits of each. The Types are listed in such a way as to express their Rarity, with the first Order containing the most common Types of Clairvoyance. To my Knowledge, there has been no previous Attempt to categorise the