Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

“The hell,” said Gideon, “was that?” “It’s the test.” Harrow’s lips were pink where she had bitten off the paint. She seemed to be having trouble swallowing, and she was staring right through her cavalier. She said unsteadily, “You’re the test.”

“No. Not remotely.” That was a relief, until it was followed up with: “If only I could. The moment I get a handle on even one of your senses, I’m overwhelmed by another.” “You are banned from squatting in my lobes and my hippocampus. I don’t want you pushing all the furniture around in there.”

Poor gideon

“Don’t have an aneurysm, Nav. I cannot and will not read your thoughts, control your body, or look at your most intimate memories. I don’t have the ability and I certainly don’t have the desire.” “It’s for your protection, not mine,” said Gideon. “I imagined Crux’s butt once when I was twelve.” Harrow ignored her. “Winnowing,” she said. “I’m a fool. It wants the wheat from among the chaff—or the signal from the noise, if you like. But why? Why can’t I just do it myself?”

Her cultist paint was looking distinctly sepia, but she looked elated, grimly satisfied somehow. “I now know how to complete this trial,” she said meditatively. “And we’ll do it—if I work out the connection and rethink what I know about possession theory, I can do it. Knowing what to work on was the battle, and now I know. But first, Griddle, I’m afraid I have to pass out.”

You know that a bone construct is animated by a necromantic theorem.” “No way! I assumed you just thought super hard about bones until they happened.” Ignoring this, Harrow continued: “This particular construct is animated by multiple theorems, all—woven together, in a sense. That enables it to do things normal constructs can’t possibly.” “Like regenerate.” “Yes. The way to destroy it is to unpick that tapestry, Nav, to pull on each thread in turn—in order—until the web gives way. Which would take me ten seconds, if I only had it at arm’s length.” “Huh,” said Gideon, unwillingly starting to get it. “So I unpick it for you.” “Only with my assistance. You are not a necromancer. You cannot see thanergetic signatures. I have to find the weak points, but I have to do it through your eyes, which is made infinitely more difficult by you waving a sword around the whole time while your brain—yells at me.”

The Ninth was high on ancient, shitty treasures but low on liquid assets.

There were correctly articulated place cards by each bright white plate. They were both led to the little kitchen and introduced to the slightly stressed Fifth necromancer whom Gideon had only ever seen in passing: she proved to have more or less the same easy, unaffected manner as Magnus, the type you only got when you came from a house like the Fifth. She looked Gideon very straight in the eye and shook her hand very firmly. Unlike Magnus, she also had the manner some necromancers and librarians developed when they had been working on dead spells for the last fifteen years and no longer worried too much about the living: her

As Harrow smouldered with hatred, Gideon began to enjoy herself.

I really love gideon

One of the teens, slumped out of Magnus’s sight, mimed putting their neck in a noose.

Thats a mood

The appearance of two skeletons bearing an enormous tureen of food broke the last tension. Under Abigail’s direction, they filled everyone’s bowl with good-smelling grain, white and fluffy, boiled in onion broth. Little drifts of chopped nuts or tiny tart red fruits were scattered throughout, and it was hot and spicy and good, which had completed Gideon’s requirements for a meal at hot.

This sounds so yum

the Sixth had a weirdo fascination with medical science and probably found chronic illness as appealing as a pair of tight shorts, and then she thought: Well, hell!

“I’m merely saying you’re an incredible swordswoman,” said the necromancer briskly. “You’re still a dreadful human being.” “Okay, cool, thanks,” said Gideon. “Damage done though. What now?”

She’d known before Harrow had rolled him over that before them lay the sad, crumpled corpse of Magnus Quinn, jumbled up with the sad, crumpled corpse of Abigail Pent.

Fuckkkkkk

It was Ianthe who ran wet with blood and perspiration. At one point she beckoned Naberius forward and, in a feat that nearly brought up Gideon’s dinner (again), ate him: she bit off a hunk of his hair, she chewed off a nail, she brought her incisors down on the heel of his hand. He submitted to all this without noise. Then she lowered her head and got back to work, sparks skittering off her hands like fire off a newly beaten sword, every so often spitting out a stray hair. Gideon had to stare pretty hard at skimpy nighties to get over that one.

Wait what??

else said, “What is he doing?” It was Harrow who said, without rancour but also without joy: “Silas Octakiseron is a soul siphoner.”

“A murder investigation,” added Jeannemary, who had not touched her tea. “Murder,” said Teacher, “oh, murder … we cannot assume that it was murder.”

Ummm yeah i think we can

Teacher said, “Years and years … and years. They are not coming for the guardians of Canaan House … yet. But I live in fear of the day they do. I believe Abigail and Magnus have run tragically afoul of them … I cannot countenance the idea that whatever grief they came to was orchestrated by someone in this room.”

Ohhhhhhhh bitch..............

“You have one black eye already, courtesy of the Seventh House,” said Harrow, “and you seem to yearn for symmetry.

“I’m sick of these people,” said Harrowhark, ducking down a passageway and away from the central atrium. “I am sick of their slowness … sick to death. I can’t wait here for one of them to grasp the implications of everything they have been told”—Gideon couldn’t wait to grasp those implications either, but it didn’t seem likely anytime soon

“Yes, tomorrow morning after at least eight hours’ sleep,” Gideon suggested without hope. “An admirable attempt at comedy in these trying times,” said Harrowhark. “Let’s

“It’s the theorem from the trial room,” she called out. “It’s the completed methodology for transference—for the utilisation of a living soul. It’s the whole experiment.”

a genius—” Gideon let Harrow have at it, and opened the first drawer of the nightstand. Sitting there, offensively ordinary, were three pencils, a finger bone, a coarse sharpening stone—bones and whetstones were beginning to feed her growing suspicion about who’d lived there—and an old, worn-down seal. She stared at the seal awhile: it was the crimson-and-white emblem of the Second House.

The Ninth necromancer said, “Now there’s a helpful postscript if ever I saw one.” “Yeah, and the fact that there are two beds upstairs and a bunch of swords also help,” said Gideon. “They were living in each other’s pockets. They studied weird Lyctoral theorems. There’s a seriously old Second House sign in one of the top drawers.”

ONE FLESH, ONE END. G. & P.

In the dim light she smoothed it open and stared at it, blearily, pillow still sticky with bits of the cold cream she used to take off her paint. ut we all know the sad + trying realit is that this will remain incomplete t the last. He can’t fix my deficiencies her ease give Gideon my congratulations, howev

Awww fuck

That your echo is louder than your voice.”

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. It’s impossible.” “But true. They’re really coterminous—not just interwoven or spliced. It’s truly delicious work. The people who set it in place were geniuses.” “Then one half is senescence—” “And the other half is an entropy field,” said Dulcinea simply.

Dulcinea breathed in admiration: “It’s awful quick.” “Then,” said the adept of the House of the Ninth, “it is—and I don’t say this lightly—impossible. This is the most efficient death trap I’ve ever seen. The senescence decays anything before it can cross, and the entropy field—God knows how it’s holding—disperses any magical attempt to control the rate of decay. But why hasn’t the whole room collapsed? 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.

“He won’t siphon,” said Dulcinea. The shutters on Harrow’s face were pulled shut. “And nor will I,” she said. “I don’t mean soul siphoning … not quite. When Master Octakiseron siphons his cavalier, he sends the soul elsewhere and then exploits the space it leaves behind. The power that rushes in to fill that space will keep refilling, for as long as either of them can survive. You wouldn’t have to send anyone anywhere. But the entropy field will drain your own reserves of thanergy as soon as you cross the line, so you need to draw on a power source on this side of the line, where the field can’t touch it. Do you understand?”

With a flourish of inky skirts, Harrowhark turned back to the stairs, staring through Dulcinea rather than at her. “Let’s say I agree with your theory,” she said. “To maintain enough thanergy for my wards inside the field, I’d need to fix a siphon point outside it. The most reasonable source of thanergy would be—you.”

“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,” said her necromancer, mouth getting more desperate.

Hahahahaah

“Ha-ha,” said Gideon, “first time you didn’t call me Griddle,” and died.

Wait what excuse me???

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.

How they got all the way up the ladder, Gideon later had no idea; it was with strange, dreamlike precision that Harrowhark bullied and bolstered her down the long, winding halls of Canaan House and back to the quarters that the Ninth House occupied, without a flicker of magic, Harrow wearing nothing but a big black overcloak.

Coronabeth had crossed the floor to Palamedes, and though he was tall she towered a full half a head over him if you included the hair. Camilla had edged around the room to stand half a step behind her necromancer, Gideon sloping helplessly behind, but war was not on the Third’s mind. Corona was not smiling, but her mouth was fine and frank and eager, and she rested her hand on his shoulder: “Do this for me,” she said, “and the Third House will owe the Sixth House a favour. Help me get the same keys as my sister—and the Third House will go down on its knees for the Sixth House.”

“It’s not that I don’t want what you’re offering. It’s that you’re asking for the impossible,” said Palamedes, with a touch more impatience in his voice. “You can’t get the keys your sister has. Each key is unique. Frankly, there are only one or two left in all Canaan House that haven’t been claimed already.” The room fell silent. The Second’s carefully placid faces were frozen. Corona had gone still. Gideon’s own face must have been doing something, because the rangy necromancer of the Sixth looked at her, and then looked at the Second, and said: “You must have realised this.” Gideon wondered why she hadn’t realised this: she wondered why she had assumed that—that maybe there were infinity keys, or enough for a full set each.

“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.” “We still come under Imperial law,” said Marta the Second. “All of us come under the sway of Imperial law,” agreed her necromancer, whose expression was now a shade doubtful. “Rules exist. Like I’ve said before, the First House falls under Cohort jurisdiction.”

“But natural law—the laws against murder and theft. What prevents us from stealing one another’s keys through intimidation, blackmail, or deception? What would stop someone from waiting for another necromancer and their cavalier to gather a sufficient number of keys, then taking them by force?” Teacher said, “Nothing.”

Awww bitch

“Teacher,” said Palamedes, “when did Magnus the Fifth ask you for a facility key?” “Why, the night he died,” said Teacher, “he and little Jeannemary. After the dinner. But she didn’t take hers. Magnus asked me to hold on to it … for safekeeping. She was not happy. I thought perhaps the Fourth would come and ask for it today. Then again—if I could prevent either of those two children from going down to that place, I would.”

She stared with glassy eyes at Camilla the Sixth’s plate—Camilla, who had finished most of hers, rolled her eyes and pushed her leftovers to Gideon. This was an act for which she was fond of Camilla forever after.

Captain Deuteros said heavily, “You’re a fool, Sextus.” “I don’t deserve that,” said Palamedes. “You’re the one who just found nothing for the second time.”

Offffff burn bitch

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.” The Cohort necromancer closed her eyes and seemed to count slowly to five. Then she said: “I’m not interested in veiled threats or vagaries. Will you answer honestly, if I ask you how many keys you have?” “I would be a fool to answer,” he said, “but I can tell you that I have fewer than you think. I am not the only one who came here wanting to be a Lyctor, Captain. You’ve just been too damned slow on the uptake.”

Dam what does that mean???

Gideon, who had just eaten one and a quarter dinners, felt unbelievably unready for whatever was about to go down. She was relieved when the necromancer of the Second said,

The faeces hits the fan starting now.

Fuck hahahaha

Why do you think the Eighth picked a fight with the Seventh?” “Because he’s a prig and a nasty weirdo,” said Gideon. “Intriguingly put,” said Palamedes, “but although he is a prig and a nasty weirdo, Dulcinea Septimus has two keys. Silas has made her a target.”

When she saw the gang of idiots that her necromancer had brought her, she was intensely displeased.

don’t think they’re being reckless here. I think we’re actually in trouble … a lot of trouble.”

“Why, Gideon the Ninth!” she exclaimed, mourning banished. “You’re a ginger!”

Fucking dead hahaha

“Duel’s off,” she said, by way of hello. “Seventh never turned up, and they’re not in their quarters. Let’s move.”

What happened they dead??

“He never came back,” she said hopelessly, and fainted.

Who? Her calivier?