Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

relaxed back into wholeness. Gideon longed to say: What the fuck? “It’s two spells, overlaying each other,” said Dulcinea. “You can’t have two spells with coterminous bounds.

The walls should be so much dust.” “The field and the flooring are a few micrometres apart—maybe the Ninth could make a very very weeny construct to go through that gap,” said the Seventh helpfully. Harrow said, in bottom-of-the-ocean tones: “The Ninth House has not practised its art on—weeny—constructs.”

“I asked him first,” said Dulcinea, “and when I told him the method, he said he’d never do it. I thought that was fascinating. I’d love to get to know him better.”

but I would finish the challenge that sickened Sextus. Not for the high ground. But because he must learn to stare these things in the face. Do you know what I’d have to do?” “Yeah,” said Gideon. “You’re going to suck out my life energy in order to get to the box on the other side.” “A ham-fisted summary, but yes. How did you come to that conclusion?” “Because it’s something Palamedes wouldn’t do,” she said, “and he’s a perfect moron over Camilla the Sixth. Okay.” “What do you mean, ‘okay’—” “I mean okay, I’ll do it,”

nipple-gripple.

“I’d rather be your battery than feel you rummaging around in my head. You want my juice? I’ll give you juice.” “Under no circumstances will I ever desire your juice,”

You will be in … pain.” “How do you know?” Harrowhark said, “The Second House is famed for something similar, in reverse. The Second necromancer’s gift is to drain her dying foes to strengthen and augment her cavalier—” “Rad—” “It’s said they all die screaming,” said Harrow. “Nice to know that the other Houses are also creeps,” said Gideon.

She watched Harrow walk as though against a wind, blurred with particles of black—then she found herself snorting out big hideous fountains of blood. Her vision blurred again greyly, and her breath stuttered in her throat. “No,” said Dulcinea. “Oh, no no no. Stay awake.” Gideon couldn’t say anything but blearrghhh, mainly because blood was coming enthusiastically out of every hole in her face. Then all of a sudden it wasn’t—drying up, parching, leaving her with a waterless and arid tongue.

There was still that pressure—the pressure of Harrow—and the sense that if she pushed at it, if she just went and fucking knocked at it, it would go away. She was sorely tempted. Gideon was in the type of pain where consciousness disappeared and only the animal remained: bucking, yelping an idiot yelp, butting and bleating. Throw

Reverse gom jabar

Clutched in the thin lap, Gideon could make no response that was not retching, gurgling or clamouring, silenced only by one rather skinny hand. “Good girl,” the voice was saying. “Oh, good girl. She’s got it, Gideon! And I’ve got you … Gideon of the golden eyes. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault … I’m so sorry. Stay with me,” the voice said more urgently, “stay with me.”

Emotional connection for Cytherea

When she opened her eyes again there was a dazzling moment of clarity and sharpness. Harrow Nonagesimus was kneeling by her side, naked as the day she was spawned. Her hair was shorn a full inch shorter, the tips of her eyelashes were gone, and—most horrifyingly—she was absolutely nude of face paint. It was as though someone had taken a hot washcloth to her. Without paint she was a point-chinned, narrow-jawed, ferrety person, with high hard cheekbones and a tall forehead. There was a little divot in her top lip at the philtrum, which gave a bowlike aspect to her otherwise hard and fearless mouth. The world rocked, but it was mainly because Harrow was shaking her shoulders. “Ha-ha,” said Gideon, “first time you didn’t call me Griddle,” and died. Well, passed out. But it felt a hell of a lot like dying.

Delightful

She said abruptly, “Why did you want to be a Lyctor?” Gideon mumbled, “Harrow, you can’t just ask someone why they want to be a Lyctor,” but was roundly ignored. The older woman was leaning against Protesilaus’s arm. She looked extraordinarily sad, even regretful; when she caught Gideon’s eye, a tiny smile tugged on the corners of her mouth, then drooped again. Eventually, she said: “I didn’t want to die.”

Past tense!

“Quit looking at me like that,” she eventually commanded Harrow, wiping bloody muck onto her hanky. “I’m alive.” “You nearly weren’t,” said Harrow soberly, “and you’re not even aggrieved about it. Don’t price your life so cheaply, Griddle. I have absolutely no interest in you losing your sense of self-preservation. What are these theorems for?” she suddenly exploded. “What did we gain from that? What was the point? I should have walked away, like Sextus—but I don’t have the luxury! I need to become Lyctor now, before—”

Warden said you’d be in a coma. Put this in.” The bulb, thankfully, went in the mouth. Another one tucked up into her armpit.

When they stopped at the threshold of the dining hall, the cavalier of the Sixth was poised like a waiting shrike: there were voices within. “—Princess Ianthe has one. It’s not at all the same thing,” someone was saying.

“There is no law,” he said. “Against teaming up?” “No,” said Teacher. “What I mean is, there is no law. You could join forces. You could tell each other anything. You could tell each other nothing. You could hold all keys and knowledge in common. I have given you your rule, and there are no others. Some things may take you swiftly down the road to Lyctorhood. Some things may make the row harder to plough.”

“Where you got that idea from,” said Teacher tartly, and it was the first time Gideon had heard him give even a little reproof, “I do not know. We are in a sacred space. Imperial law is based on the writ of the Emperor, and here the Emperor is the only law. No writ, no interpretation. I gave you his rule. There is no other.”

“Oh, Emperor of the Nine Houses,” he said to the night, “Necrolord Prime, God who became man and man who became God—we have loved you these long days. The sixteen gave themselves freely to you. Lord, let nothing happen that you did not anticipate.”

can’t be bribed with goods and services,” said Palamedes, “but I can’t be bribed with moral platitudes, either. My conscience doesn’t permit me to help anyone do what we have all embarked upon.” “You don’t understand—” Palamedes said savagely, “Captain, God help you when you understand. My only consolation is that you won’t be able to put any responsibility on my head.”

“Your vow of silence is conveniently variable, Ninth, I’m very grateful.” “Turns out I’m variably penitent. Hey, you should be talking to Nonagesimus.” “If I wanted to talk to Nonagesimus, I’d talk to Nonagesimus,” he said, “or I’d talk to a brick wall, because honestly, your necromancer is a walking Ninth House cliché. You’re at least only half as a bad.”

“Protesilaus the Seventh is uncomfortably hench, though. She’s not alone.” Camilla spoke up: “The man’s a glorified orderly. His hand’s never on his rapier. First instinct’s to punch, and he moves like a sleepwalker.”

Dead

“I keep seeing things,” said the necromantic teen, emptily. They turned to look at him. “Out of the corners of my eyes … when it’s nighttime. I keep waking up and hearing something moving … or someone standing outside our door.”

PROTESILAUS THE SEVENTH WAS MISSING. Dulcinea Septimus was critically ill. Left stranded when her cavalier failed to return, then threatened by the rain, she had tried to walk by herself and slipped: now she was confined to bed with hot cloths on her chest and no good to anybody.

“I thought he was, perhaps, the most boring man alive,” supplied her twin, languidly, wiping her hands. Corona flinched. “And not even a classic Seventh House bore; he hasn’t subjected us to even one minimalist poem about cloud formations.”

Gideon wanted to sing. Gideon wanted to dance her up and down the corridor. She broke out in a broad, unnervingly un-Ninth smile, and Naberius Tern—who had gone from greasy villainy to aggrieved caution—was having to force his smirk. Ianthe just looked a little amused. “The plot congeals. Since when has the Ninth been bosom with the Sixth?” “We’re not.” “Then—” Harrowhark said, in the exact sepulchral tones of Marshal Crux: “Death first to vultures and scavengers.”

have no interest in talking to you anymore,” said Silas. “The Warden of the Sixth House is an unfinished inbred who passed an examination. Your companion is a mad dog, and I doubt her legal claim to the title of cavalier primary. I would not even bother to thrash her. Enjoy the patronage of the shadow cult, while it lasts; I am sorry that it came to this. Brother Asht, we leave.”

Why would you willingly put yourself in that position?” “Because I am placing my trust in you,” said Palamedes. “Yes, even though you’re a black anchorite and loyal only to the numinous forces of the Locked Tomb. If you’d wanted my keys through chicanery you would have challenged me for them a long time ago. I don’t trust Silas Octakiseron, and I don’t trust Ianthe Tridentarius, but I trust the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus.” Beneath the paint, Gideon could see that Harrow had changed colours a number of times through this little speech. She went from being a rather ashen skeleton to a skeleton who was improbably green around the gills.

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. “You—do you talk?” said Isaac. “You’ll wish she didn’t,” said Camilla.

“Thanks for backing me up, my midnight hagette,” said Gideon, placing her back down. Harrow had not struggled, but gone limp, like a prey animal feigning death. She had the same glassy thousand-yard stare and stilled breathing. Gideon belatedly wished to be exploded, but reminded herself to act cool. “I appreciate it, my crepuscular queen. It was good. You were good.” Harrow, at a total loss for words, eventually managed the rather pathetic: “Don’t make this weird, Nav!” and stalked off after Palamedes.

Lol

“There’s something unnatural about the constructs upstairs—like they’re listening to you…”

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.

There was no more after that, not even tears. After a few minutes Gideon was not surprised to see that the poor bloodied girl had cried herself unconscious. She did not wake her. There would be time enough to wake her, and even a short rest would probably do her good. It sucked to be a teen, and it sucked more to be a teen whose best friend had just died in a horrible way, even if you were used to mothers jumping on grenades and fathers getting exploded. At least in the Ninth House, the way you usually went was pneumonia exacerbated by senility.

“Life is a tragedy,” said Dulcinea. “Left behind by those who pass away, not able to change anything at all. It’s the total lack of control … Once somebody dies, their spirit’s free forever, even if we snatch at it or try to stopper it or use the energy it creates. Oh, I know sometimes they come back … or we can call them, in the manner of the Fifth … but even that exception to the rule shows their mastery of us. They only come when we beg. Once someone dies, we can’t grasp at them anymore, thank God!—except for one person, and he’s very far from here, I think. Gideon, don’t be sorry for the dead. I think death must be an absolute triumph.”

“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.”

“I told your necromancer I didn’t want to die. And it’s true … but I’ve been dying for what feels like ten thousand years. I more didn’t want to die alone. I didn’t want them to put me out of sight. It’s a horrible thing to fall out of sight … The Seventh would have sealed me in a beautiful tomb and not talked about me again. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. So I came here when the Emperor asked me … because I wanted to … even though I knew I came here to die.”

Heavy with meaning

—the old dream of her mother. Alive now, overlapping with her life in a way she hadn’t in reality, shrieking Gideon—Gideon—Gideon! while, as Gideon watched, crones of the Ninth gently levered her skull from the rest of her head with a big crunchy crack.

Gideon had peeked through the open door of the bedroom, into a dark nest where a huge whiteboard stared down at the ancient, wheezing four-poster bed, very neatly made. There was no question about whether or not Camilla inhabited the horrible cot attached to the end, cavalier-style. It sagged beneath assorted weapons and tins of metal polish.

“I do,” said Harrow, “and if my calculations are right I can replicate it. But all this is more than unsustainable, Sextus. The things they’ve shown us would be powerful—would bespeak impossible depth of necromantic ability—if they were replicable. These experiments all demand a continuous flow of thanergy. They’ve hidden that source somewhere in the facility, and that’s the true prize.” “Ah. Your secret door theory. Very Ninth.”

The secret door is literally the friend you made along the way

“Fuck you,” Gideon added again, for emphasis. She found herself laughing in that awful, high way that was totally devoid of humour. “Fuck. We don’t deserve to still be around—have you realised that yet? Have you realised that this whole thing has been about the union of necromancer and cavalier from start to finish? We should be toast. If they’re measuring this on the strength of that—we’re the walking dead. Magnus the Fifth was a better cavalier than I am. Jeannemary the Fourth was ten times the cavalier I am. They should be alive and we should be bacteria food. Two big bags of algor mortis. We’re alive through dumb luck and Jeannemary isn’t and you’re acting like me letting Dulcinea die is all that’s standing between you and Lyctorhood—”

I’m here to talk about the children. How many in your generation, Gideon the Ninth? Not infants. But your peers, your age group.”

“What do you want, a census?” “I want you to think about why you and Harrowhark Nonagesimus now represent an entire generation,” he said, and he leant forward onto his elbows. His eyes were very intense. His nephew was still braiding his hair, which only somewhat lessened the effect. “I want you to think about the deaths of two hundred children, when you and she alone lived.”

don’t get it,” Gideon said. “Are you trying to make out like the Reverend Father and Mother killed hundreds of their own kids?”

“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. I do not know why the Emperor suffered that shadow of a House. That mockery of his name. A House that would keep lamps lit for a grave that was meant to pass into darkness is a House that would kill two hundred children. A House that would kill a woman and her son simply for attempting to leave is a House that would kill two hundred children.”

Silas’s voice had sunk to a dead whisper: “You made an oath—” “Oath? Ten years of training, before you were even born. Oath? Three brothers with different blood types, because we couldn’t tell what you’d be and which of us you’d need. Ten years of antigens, antibodies, and waiting—for you. I am the oath. I was engineered into a man who doesn’t—pick and choose his decencies!”

“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.” “Everyone wants to tell me about fleshes and ends today,” said Gideon unhappily. “There’s a joke in there somewhere. You’re sure there was nothing else along with the head—bone matter, fingernails, cloth?”

By the time Harrow was ten years old, she had glutted herself on secrets. She had grown bored of ancient tomes, bored of the bones she had been raising since before she’d finished growing her first set of teeth, and bored of making Gideon run gauntlets of skeletons. 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.

the choice to do something thirty seconds faster, or thirty seconds slower—those choices cause all sorts of things to happen. That doesn’t make you responsible. Here’s a confession for you: I killed Magnus and Abigail.” Gideon blinked at him.

“This competition caught out my House,” she said baldly. “Let me tell you the story. Dulcinea Septimus was never intended to be here, Gideon the Ninth … they would have preferred she be laid up at home and have another six months wrung out of her. It’s an old story of the House. But there wasn’t another necromantic heir.

Captain Deuteros cleared her throat over the fresh internecine squabbling. “Does anyone else want to take this opportunity to admit that they’re already dead, or a flesh construct, or other relevant object? Anyone?”