Denoument

The 6th crises and the final chapter of High Society began in an unusual fashion. Cerebus was all alone in a cavernous hall, even his words echoed down the empty spaces. Eventually he found Astoria with the Conniptin commander. Because no one brought Cerebus his breakfast he has come to the conclusion that something is wrong.

Astoria is drinking wine and it is obvious by her manner that the glass in her hand is far from the first of the day. She informed Cerebus that the churches exodus inward had ended. The church has united and taken all power. Blakely and Filgate scared of the consequences have gone home. Cerebus' cabinet is now composed of Astoria and the Conniptin. Cerebus believes that the Conniptins give him the military strength he's wanted. However the forces of the combined church outnumber the Conniptins significantly and they'd be cut to pieces if Cerebus were to attack. Cerebus last hope was the anarcho-romantics, but they had been rounded up, arrested and were waiting trial or begging the Pontiff for his forgiveness.

Astoria says that Cerebus only course of action is to go to Lower Felda, as they are the only people willing to support him as Iestan Prime Minister in exile for the express purpose of embarassing the church. During the course of the argument that the conversation becomes we see some of Astoria's real reasons for orchestrating all this in the first place, she's a feminist, she wanted women to get the vote. I wonder if this was the beginning of Dave's anti feminist rant. The one that would get him in so much trouble later on.

Cerebus insists that he's not going to Lower Felda, he's going to Eshnospur. I don't think he really cared where he went, but he stuck on Eshnospur because Astoria wanted them to go to Lower Felda and he took a stand to prove that he did make the decisions for himself, not just blindly follow or agree to Astoria's plans.

As Cerebus leaves Astoria asks him what he's going to do and he says he has someone to find. Astoria correctly guesses that he's going to go looking for Jaka. She tells him that there are things he doesn't know about her. Cerebus responds by saying that he knew she was Lord Julius niece. Astoria's counter to that is that she too was once Lord Julius 'niece', he's had a number of 'nieces' over the years, the big difference between Jaka and Astoria is that he married her. I have admit this made me a little ewwwww! I'd always seen Lord Julius as Dave first presented him; a fantasy version of Groucho Marx. Groucho was undeniably sleazy, although Chico was sleazier, and he flirted all the time, but he was ultimately harmless and humourous. Jaka was twelve when she left Lord Julius.

Cerebus walked out on Astoria and found himself back in the Ambassador Suite in The Regency with the Elf. The Elf, as always, praised Cerebus, telling him that he was the best Prime Minister ever and who cared about the crummy ol' church. It will serve them right if Cerebus stays there for the rest of his life playing wickets with her. Cerebus tells her that he can't do that, he's leaving. The Elf asks if he will at least come back and see her. Cerebus says yes, but not soon. The Elf tells Cerebus that she'll miss him, will he miss her? The Cerebus did something I'd never expected to see. He started to cry, he said he had soot in his eye, but he was crying. He really loved the Elf and he hated leaving that life behind. The Ef held him until he composed himself. He picked up his sword, put on his vest and medallions, then kicked the sack of junk that he got from the mad artist. It fell open and the contents spilled out. Amongst the bangles and cups and plates was a statue of an albatross. Cerebus picked it up and threw it into the city where it shattered.

The book finished with some of the documents that we had been seeing throughout the crises, something that had been written by an anarcho-romantic who remained loyal to Cerebus. We didn't realise until this point who was writing those. These ones told the story of the author's arrest and imprisonment on a false charge of blasphemy. The final page was a ragged man in a dungeon cell writing on his walls by candlelight. The last panel is the word liberty.

Wow! That was one hell of a ride. Dave was going to find this a hard act to follow. To remain relevant, tight and funny for another 250 issues, that was going to be fun to see.

Repercussions

Cerebus wakes up in his suite at The Regency, he does check to make sure that he really isn’t on a park bench in Beduin. He receives a message from the Iestan Prime Minister demanding that he pay back the 12,000 crowns that they paid as his ransom. Cerebus decides to take a bath, and try to think this through. He’s about to run the bath when a disembodied voice starts talking to him. Initially Cerebus thinks that he’s having a conversation with himself, but then realises that the voice is really there, not just in his head. He turns, and is confronted by a small, glowing, floating woman. She introduces herself as the Regency Elf, although Cerebus can call her Elf if he likes. You get the impression the Elf doesn’t get many visitors. She’s extremely excited to see Cerebus as they haven’t had an aardvark at The Regency for over 800 years. Again it is stated that whilst aardvarks are rare, they’re not completely unknown, it isn’t said, but you get the feeling that whenever they do pop up they’re extremely important figures one way or another.

To say that Cerebus isn’t disconcerted by the Elf’s appearance would be incorrect. It does throw him briefly, and then annoys him when she drinks all his whiskey, but it does not have the same effect on the aardvark that I suspect it would on most others. He does try to tell the clerk about the Elf, but the man refuses to believe him, and the empty flask of Borealan whiskey doesn’t really help his argument.

Despite the fact that she can be annoying, and her penchant for drinking Cerebus’ alcohol, the Elf does know a lot of things. For one she knows that the McGrew brothers were apprehended, and that they’re being held at Hobbsgate prison. As they presumably collected Cerebus’ ransom it’s reasonable to assume that they may know where the money is. Cerebus breaks into the prison, and with the assistance of a stout cudgel finds out that the incompetent Onlian siblings did collect the ransom, but it was a worthless statue of a duck, which they sold to buy saddle sore remedy.

Cerebus finds himself back at The Regency eating raw potatoes (I know…ick! Apparently they help him think and he likes the taste, although you should leave the skin on as that’s the best bit), and mulling things over with the Elf. He decides to send letters to the businessmen who were so eager to see him not so long ago, and see if he can get any more money out of them. The Elf peers over his shoulder as he writes, and muses about the afternoons one of the businessmen; Ned Greely, spends at The Regency with his ‘wife’. You could call it blackmail, but that’s such an ugly word. As I said the Elf knows a lot of things, not all of what she says is totally frivolous. Cerebus pens his poison letter, and waits for Greely to intercede with the Prime Minister on his behalf.

To pass the time he plays wickets (croquet) with the Elf. She’s really not very good at the game, but she’s easy enough to talk to, and you should never get mad at an elf. I quite enjoyed the exchanges between Cerebus and the Elf. He teases her a lot. When she asks him what he’d buy if he made a lot of money he replies: ‘a quiet elf.’

I adored the Elf, she was one of the things that set Cerebus apart from nearly every other book in the market. The Elf was also a contrast to Cerebus, while not exactly innocent, she did give off an illusion of being naive, although she clearly wasn't. She never wanted anything from helping Cerebus other than his friendship. Cerebus on the other hand was a completely amoral creature with very few redeeming characteristics who hardly ever did anything for anyone without expecting some sort of recompense.

I’m not sure where the idea for the Elf came from, it was certainly out of left field, but then Dave tended to do that, you were never quite certain what you’d find every time you opened the pages of a Cerebus book. Going by her appearance she was based on Disney’s Tinkerbell. Years later I read a Tad Williams book called ‘The War of the Flowers’ (can’t recommend it highly enough, if you haven’t read it you really should try and get a copy) that featured an obnoxious faery with the name of Applecore. There were significant differences between the two, and I don’t think the Elf inspired Applecore, but she often made me think of The Regency’s resident elf.