Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

She cracked the joints in the back of her neck as she considered the question, stretching out the ligaments, popping her knuckles. He urged again, “Thoughts?” Gideon said, “Did you know that if you put the first three letters of your last name with the first three letters of your first name, you get ‘Sex Pal’?” The dreadful teens both stared with eyes so wide you could have marched skeletons straight through them.

Gideon put her arms around Harrowhark. She lifted her up off the ground just an inch and squeezed her in an enormous hug before either she or Harrow knew what she was about. Her necromancer felt absurdly light in her grip, like a bag of bird’s bones. She had always thought—when she bothered to think—that Harrow would feel cold, as everything in the Ninth felt cold. No, Harrow Nonagesimus was feverishly hot. Well, you couldn’t think that amount of ghastly thoughts without generating energy. Hang on, what the hell was she doing.

Next year. Gideon was taut with impatience, but still spent a couple of seconds grappling with the notion that the gawky teens in front of her would be facing the Empire’s foes at age fifteen-and-whatever. For all that she’d longed to be on the front lines from the age of eight up, it suddenly didn’t seem like such a great idea.

One of the motion-sensor lights struggled back on behind them, a short way down the passage. A ceiling panel threw the metal siding into sharp white relief. It was daubed with words that had not been there a few seconds before, written in blood so fresh and red that there were little drips: DEATH TO THE FOURTH HOUSE

what the fuck?!

Isaac did not stop and he did not run. It was one of the bravest and stupidest things Gideon had ever fucking seen. The construct teetered, getting its footing, cocking its great head as though in contemplation. The long straight spars of teeth hovered above the necromancer, bobbing and warping occasionally as though about to be sucked into his fiery gyre. Then at least fifty of them speared him through.

“You d-don’t understand.” The cavalier was fighting for control, fierce eyes wet with hate and despair. She was shivering so hard that she was vibrating. “Isaac’s cautious. Not reckless. He’s not—he didn’t— He was always so careful, he shouldn’t have— I hated him when we were little, he wasn’t at all what I wanted—” She gave in to crying again. When she could, she said, “It’s not fair! Why did he get stupid now?”

Gideon rested her head on the fat back of the armchair. She would not have said it was at all possible, but—watching the rise and fall of Jeannemary’s breath, a safe up-and-down rhythm, the drying tearstains on the sleeping teen’s cheeks—she promptly fell asleep.

Jeannemary’s eyes were very slightly open. There was blood spattered in her curls, and there was blood spattered over the headboard. Gideon’s gaze followed the splatter upward. Written on the wall, in silky wet red, was: SWEET DREAMS

jfc....

She remembered one thing: Harrowhark saying you dullard—you imbecile—you fool, all the old contempt of the Ninth House nursery back and fresh as though she were there again. Harrow the architect, sweeping down the halls of Drearburh. Harrow the nemesis, flanked by Crux. It wasn’t clear what in particular Harrow was haranguing her for, but whatever the reason, she deserved it. Gideon had tuned out all the rest of the necromancer’s tirade, her head in her hands. And then Harrowhark had balled up her fists—breathed hard once through her nose—and gone away.

Gideon could not get behind this. Jeannemary had died like a dog while Gideon napped, and Isaac had been made into a big teenage colander; she wanted to be sorry for them forever. But before she could say anything to this effect, a great cough that filled up about two and a half handkerchiefs tore at Dulcinea. The contents of these handkerchiefs made Gideon envy the dead, let alone Dulcinea.

When you don’t have it too badly—when you can live to maybe fifty years—when your body’s dying from the inside out, when your blood cells are eating you alive the whole time … it makes for such a necromancer, Gideon the Ninth. A walking thanergy generator. If they could figure out some way to stop you when you’re mostly cancer and just a little bit woman, they would! But they can’t. They say my House loves beauty—they did and they do—and there’s a kind of beauty in dying beautifully … in wasting away … half-alive, half-dead, within the very queenhood of your power.”

Gideon said, “But I don’t want you to die,” and realised a second afterward that she had said it aloud.

“Rumbled,” she said. “I’m sick of pretending, so yeah. Right on nearly all those counts. You know I’m the fakest-ass cavalier who ever faked. The actual cav had chronic hyperthyroid and was a serial limpdick. I’ve been faking my way through his duties for less than two months. I’m a pretend cavalier. I could not be worse at it.”

“I had heard that you were speaking now,” he said. “It seems a pity. Save your gaucherie for someone else, Gideon Nav. I’ve no interest in the frightened rantings of a Ninth House thrall.” “What did you call me?” “Thrall,” said Silas. “Serf. Servant.” “I don’t want a bunch of synonyms, you smarmy cloud-looking motherfucker,” said Gideon. “You said Gideon Nav.”

There had been something very weary and soft about the way that Harrow Nonagesimus had looked at her then, something that would have been understanding had it not been so tired and cynical. “It’s just me,” she’d said impatiently. “Go back to sleep.” All signs pointed toward hallucination.

Camilla the Sixth’s shoulders were set. Her straight dark fringe fell out of the way as she half-turned her face to Gideon, briefly, expressionlessly, but that was all Gideon needed. “Ask me how I am and I’ll scream,” she said. “How are you,” said Camilla, who was a pill.

It was the first thing Gideon had said to her since Harrow had stalked from the Sixth House quarters, taut with what had seemed to be the world’s most dismissive disappointment, a disdainful black crow of a girl. Her adept opened one baleful black eye. “Pardon?” “I said saddle up, sunshine. Come on. You know what to do.” “I manifestly don’t, and never tell me to saddle up, sunshine ever again.” “I’m saying to you: siphon me.” “Nav—” “Sixth are watching,” said Gideon, brutally.

“I’ve got my priorities straight.” “Nothing you have done in the past two days suggests that.” Gideon went cold. “Fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I didn’t mean to let Jeannemary die.” “For God’s sake, I didn’t mean—”

“Harrow, I hate you,” said Gideon. “I never stopped hating you. I will always hate you, and you will always hate me. Don’t forget that. It’s not like I ever can.” Harrow’s mouth twisted so much that it should have been a reef knot. Her eyes closed briefly, and she sheathed her hands inside her gloves. The tension should have deflated then, but it didn’t: like a pricked boil, it got full and shiny and hot. Gideon found she had swallowed six times in ten seconds and that the inside of her chest felt dry and bright. Her necromancer said evenly: “Griddle, you’re incorrect.”

“If you don’t need me, release me to the Seventh House,” she said, very slow and very calm, like she was reading at a service. “I’d rather serve—Dulcinea dying—than the living Reverend Daughter.” Harrowhark turned to leave—airily, casually really, as though she and Gideon had finished a conversation about the weather. But then she inclined her head back to Gideon a little, and the fragment of her expression that Gideon saw was as wheezing and airless as a blow to the solar plexus.

“When I release you from my service, Nav,” her necromancer said, “you will know about it.” And she walked away. Gideon decided, then and there, her betrayal.

HALF AN HOUR LATER, Gideon Nav stood before the doors of the Eighth House quarters, in front of an extremely befuddled Colum the Eighth. In the misty red recesses of her mind this traitorous act was the correct thing to do, though she couldn’t yet quite decide why. “Your uncle wanted me,” she said. “So. Here I am.”

Silas took an infuriatingly long drink of water. The pallid column of his throat moved. “They died on the way back to their home planet,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Their shuttle exploded. Curious, considering it was a perfectly good Cohort shuttle with an experienced pilot. This was the shuttle you had intended to commandeer, was it not?”

well shit

“Okay, look, this is wacky,” said Gideon. “You’ve picked on exactly the wrong thing to slam Harrow with. If you want to talk about how she’s a corrupt tyrant, I’m all ears. But I know about the flu. She wasn’t even born yet. I was, what, one year old, so I didn’t do it. There was vent bacteria in the creche and the schoolroom hall, and it took out all the kids and one of the teachers before they found out what it was.”

“Vent bacteria does not kill immunoefficient teenagers,” said Silas. “You’ve never seen a Ninth House teenager.” “Vent bacteria,” said Silas again, “does not kill immunoefficient teenagers.”

well then

“The Ninth House is a House of broken promises,” said Silas. “The Eighth House remembers that they were not meant to live. They had one job—one rock to roll over one tomb; one act of guardianship, to live and die in a single blessedness—and they made a cult instead. A House of mystics who came to worship a terrible thing. The ruling Reverend Father and Mother are the bad seeds of a furtive crop.

what?!?!?!

“I do not think any scion of the Reverend Mother and the Reverend Father should become a Lyctor,” said Silas softly. “The open grave of the Ninth House should not produce its own revenant. In fact, I am unsure that any of us should become Lyctor. Since when was power goodness, or cleverness truth? I myself no longer wish to ascend, Gideon. I’ve told you what I know, and I assume you will understand when I say I must take your keys from you.”

“An oath to the Ninth is as medicine to sand,” the necromancer said. “It sinks from sight and yields no benefit. She knows this as well as any, and better than some. The Ninth heart is barren, and the Ninth heart is black.” Gideon opened her mouth for a witty riposte—Well, fuck to you too!—but Colum got in first, to her infinite surprise. “I’m not worried about the Ninth’s heart, Uncle.”

He raised his hand, and the white linen sleeve fell away from the pale chain cuff. Gideon remembered the blood-stuffy room where Abigail and Magnus lay, and she remembered all the colour pulled from the room like it was just so much fast fabric dye. She knew that this was a game over, and her eyes slid sideways from the door and onto Colum, who was—looking right at her.

“The next time we meet,” he said beneath his breath, as monolithic and impassive as when she’d arrived, “I think it’s likely one of us will die.” “Yeah,” Gideon said, “yeah,” instead of “I’m sorry.” Colum picked up the knuckle-knife and handed that to her as well. “Get away from here,” he said, and it sounded more warning than command.

For the second time that day, Gideon drifted away from a scenario she was utterly shut out of, something she did not want to be privy to. The saline tickled her nose as she sheathed her rapier and backtracked away, before Naberius decided he might as well challenge for her keys while she was there, but as she darted a glance over her shoulder he had utterly discarded her presence: he had placed his arm like a crossbar over Corona’s collarbone, and she had bitten him, apparently to soothe her own obscure feelings. Gideon wished for no more part in any of this. Gideon went home.

There was a box at the bottom of the cupboard—a cheap polymer box with dents in it, tucked beneath a pair of Harrowhark’s boots. She would not have noticed it except that there had been a cursory attempt to hide it with the aforementioned boots and a badly ripped cloak. It was about a forearm’s length on every side. A sudden exhaustion of everything Harrow had ever locked away drove her to mindlessly pull it out. She eased off the pockmarked top with her thumbs, expecting diaries, or prayer bones, or underwear, or lithographs of Harrow’s mother. With numb fingers, Gideon removed the severed head of Protesilaus the Seventh.

what the actual fuck what the fuck what the fuck

Camilla had shoved a mug of hot tea into Gideon’s hands, strapped two swords to her back, and disappeared. This had all happened before Gideon could protest and now she was left alone with Palamedes, her discovery, and a cluster headache. Things were happening too much. She took a hot mouthful, swilled tea around her teeth, and swallowed mechanically. “She’s mine.” “You’ve said that five times now.” “I mean it. Whatever goes down—whatever happens—you have to let me do it. You have to.” “Gideon—”

What would you do if you discovered Camilla was a murderer?” “Help her bury the body,” said Palamedes promptly. “Sextus.” “I mean it. If Camilla wants someone dead,” he said, “then far be it from me to stand in her way. All I can do at that point is watch the bloodshed and look for a mop. One flesh, one end, and all that.”

“Because I killed her parents,” said Gideon. He did not say anything. He just waited, and in the space of that waiting, she talked. And she told him the beginning stuff—how she was born, how she grew up, and how she came to be the primary cavalier of the Ninth House—and she told him the secret she had kept for seven long and awful years.

what?!?!?!

Everyone acted as though the Emperor had personally resurrected Harrowhark just to bring them joy: she had been born healthy and whole, a prodigious necromancer, a perfect penitent nunlet. She was already mounting the ambo and reading out prayers even as Gideon began desperately praying herself that she might one day go to be an enlisted soldier, which she had wanted ever since Aiglamene—the only person Gideon didn’t hate all the time—had told her she might be one. The captain had told her stories of the Cohort since Gideon was about three.

At last she set her gaze on the one thing truly forbidden to her: Harrow became obsessed with the Locked Door.

And then Gideon couldn’t wait anymore. She pushed open the door and she walked in—and found Pelleamena and Priamhark hanging from the rafters, purple and dead. Mortus the Ninth, their huge and tragic cavalier, swung beside them from a rafter groaning with his bulk. And she walked in on Harrowhark, holding lengths of unused rope among the chairs her parents had kicked aside, with eyes like coals that had burnt away.

Harrow had beheld her. She had beheld Harrow. And nothing had ever gone right after that, never ever.

Palamedes said very gently, “You really should not need me to tell you that an eleven-year-old isn’t responsible for the suicides of three grown adults.” “Of course I’m responsible,” said Gideon disgustedly. “I made it happen.”

Here’s a confession for you: I killed Magnus and Abigail.”

palamedes did what????

“If, the second I stepped off my shuttle,” said the suddenly revealed double murderer blithely, “I had snatched Cam’s dagger and put it straight through Teacher’s throat, the Lyctoral trial could never have begun. There’d have been uproar. The Cohort would have arrived, I’d have been dragged away, and everyone else would have been sent safe back home. Because I didn’t kill Teacher, the trial began, and because the trial began, Magnus Quinn and Abigail Pent are dead. So: I did it. It’s my fault. All I ask is that you put some pen and flimsy in my cell so I can start on my memoirs.”

excuse me what

They were interrupted by six short knocks on the door, followed by six long. Both sprang up to pull apart the interlaced lattice of deadbolts. Camilla came through, and with her, upright and calm, was Harrow. For one wacky moment Gideon thought that she and Camilla had been holding hands and that today was one huge rash of interhousal hand fondling, but then she realised that their wrists were cuffed together. Camilla was nobody’s fool, though how she’d cuffed Harrow was going to be a tale of terror for another day.

“Nonagesimus—why didn’t you tell me?” “I didn’t trust you,” she said simply. “My original theory was that you’d done it. Septimus wasn’t capable on her own, and it didn’t seem far-fetched that you were working in concert.” “Will you believe me when I say we aren’t?” “Yes,” she said, “because if you were that good you would have killed my cavalier already. I hadn’t even intended to hurt him, Sextus, the head fell off the moment I pushed.” What? “Then we go,” said Palamedes. “We get everyone. We talk to her. I won’t have any more conversations in the dark, or doubting of my intentions.”

what?!?!?!

“I wasn’t sure you’d be willing to go that far, even for the truth.” Palamedes looked at her with an expression as grey and airless as the ocean outside the window. “Then you do not know me, Harrowhark.”

“My poor boy,” she said, sincerely. “I’ll never be able to put him back together now. Who took him apart? He’s a wreck.” Palamedes steepled his fingers and leaned forward, greyly intent. “Lady Septimus, Duchess of Rhodes,” he said, very formally, “I put to you before everyone here—that this man was dead before you arrived, by shuttle, at the First House, and appeared alive only through deep flesh magic.”

“So is soul siphoning, my child,” she said, in tones of deliberately celestial sweetness. “And it’s not unholy—it’s entirely useful and blameless; just not when you do it like this, which is the very old way. The Seventh aren’t just soul-stoppers and mummifiers. Yes, Pro was dead before we even landed.”

“What do you want, Octakiseron?” said the captain in the wake of this, stone-faced. “Room confinement? A death sentence? Both are uncharacteristically easy to fulfil in this instance.” “I understand your point,” said Silas. “I do not agree with it. I will take my leave, madam. This is not interesting to me anymore.”

He met her eye. He had taken off his glasses and was cleaning them with one of his innumerable handkerchiefs. “Ninth,” he said, “if she were capable of anything, in order to become a Lyctor—don’t you think she’d be one already? If she really wanted to watch the world burn—wouldn’t we all be alight?” “Stop flattering her. But—thanks,” said Gideon, and she darted off into the corridor after Harrow.

“The time has come—” She took a deep breath; and then she undid the catches to her robes, and they fell away from her thin shoulders to puddle around her ankles on the floor. “—to tell you everything,” she said. “Oh, thank God for that,” said Gideon hysterically, profoundly embarrassed at how her heart rate had spiked. “Shut up and get in the pool.”