Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

by Tamsyn Muir

Harrow standing in a pool of osseous dust and facing the construct with a hot-eyed, half-delighted anticipation.

Without even thinking about it, her body moved to take her rightful place: in front of her necromancer, sword held ready.

necromancer alone can’t bring that down, Griddle. That’s regenerating bone.” “I’m not running, Harrow!” “Of course we’re not running,” said Harrowhark disdainfully. “I said a necromancer alone. I have you. We bring hell.”

“Then we’re all dead, Nav, but let’s bring hell first,”

Gideon looked over her shoulder at her, and caught the Reverend Daughter’s smile. There was blood sweat coming out of her left ear, but her smile was long and sweet and beautiful. Gideon found herself smiling back so hard her mouth hurt.

“I’ll keep it off you. Nav, show them what the Ninth House does.”

“We do bones, motherfucker,”

They had never fought together before, but they had always fought, and they could work in and around each other without a second’s thought.

What Harrow did not take, Gideon struck down.

She was utterly beautiful and entirely terrible:

Cytherea’s eyes locked on Gideon’s.

“I meant it,” she said earnestly. “You were wonderful. You would have made that little nun such a cavalier—I almost wish you’d been mine.”

“You couldn’t fucking afford me,”...

“I need to be inside you,” Harrow bellowed over the din. “Okay, you’re not even trying,” said Gideon.

It wasn’t a voice, precisely, but it was Harrowhark.

Holy shit. Perpetual bone. Harrow had actually cracked it.

Before Gideon could say OH MY FUCKING WORD she was plucked off her feet, hoisted upward, and flung bodily into the air.

“I have bested my father and my grandmother—every single necromancer ever taught by my House—every necromancer who has ever touched a skeleton. Did you see me? Did you behold me, Griddle?” This was all said somewhat thickly, through pink and bloodied teeth, before Harrow smugly passed out.

She had one hand in the Lyctor’s singed curls, dragging her head back.

“You’re a nice girl,” the Lyctor said. “I had a nice girl as a cavalier too … once. She died for me. What can you

Colourless fair hair spilled over Cytherea’s collarbone like a waterfall: the figure behind her smiled. “Spoke too soon, old news,” said Ianthe. “Oh,” said Cytherea, “oh, my! A baby Lyctor.”

“I’ve tried the sister thing already,” said Ianthe, circling around to one side, “and I wasn’t any good at it.”

“He said to tell you he loved you,” she said. “What? No, he didn’t.” “Okay, no, sorry. He said—he said you knew what to do?” “I do,” said Camilla with grim satisfaction, and laid herself back down among the bones.

A fight between two Lyctors was a swordfight on a scale beyond mortal.

Camilla, who had guts of steel and the pain tolerance of a brick, wobbled to stand; Gideon wove her arm beneath Camilla’s sword arm before the Sixth cavalier could protest, retrieved the bird-bone bundle of her necromancer, and staggered outside as fast as this crippled procession could manage. There was simply nowhere else to go.

If I’m old news … you’re fresh meat.”

Colourless at the best of times, Ianthe was now as blank and tintless as a sheet.

“You know you can’t do this, Gideon of the Ninth,” she said. “You’re very brave—a bit like another Gideon I used to know. But you’re prettier in the eyes.”

“I may be from the Ninth House,” said Gideon, “but if you say any more cryptic shit at me, you’re going to see how well you can regenerate when you’re in eighteen pieces.”

“Jeannemary Chatur didn’t ask for mercy. Magnus didn’t ask for mercy. Or Isaac. Or Abigail. I bet you Palamedes never even considered asking for mercy.”

“Step off, bitch,” said Harrowhark Nonagesimus, behind her.

The black-robed, black-hooded figure had stumbled forward, step by staggering step, away from the shelter of the tower wall. She was bookended by skeletons—skeletons too huge to have ever lived inside the greasy meat sock of anyone real. Each was eight feet high with ulnar bones like tree trunks and wicked bone spikes spiralling over their arms.

Harrow lay like a broken rag doll.

“I don’t have to hold it forever,” said the necromancer. She contemplatively spat out a clot of blood, rolled her tongue around inside her mouth. “Listen. Take the Sixth, get into a brace position, and I’ll break you through the wall. Bones float. It’s a long drop to the sea—” “Nope—” Harrow ignored her. “—but all you have to do is survive the fall. We know that the ships have been called. Get off the planet as soon as you can. I’ll distract her as long as possible: all you have to do is live.” “Harrow,” said Gideon. “This plan is stupid, and you’re stupid. No.” The Reverend Daughter reached up to take a fistful of Gideon’s shirt. Her eyes were dark and glassy through the pain and nausea; she smelled like sweat and fear and about nine tonnes of bone. She swabbed at her face again with her sleeve and said: “Griddle, you made me a promise. You agreed to go back to the Ninth. You agreed to do your duty by the Locked Tomb—” “Don’t do this to me.” “I owe you your life,” said Harrowhark, “I owe you everything.”

“Cram it already, Hect,”

“I’m not getting haunted by Palamedes Sextus’s crappy-ass revenant all telling me doctor facts for the rest of my life, just because I let you get disintegrated.”

We really are going to die.

Harrow reached up—her hand was trembling—and tapped Gideon on the cheek. “Nav,” she said, “have you really forgiven me?” Confirmed. They were all going to eat it. “Of course I have, you bozo.” “I don’t deserve it.” “Maybe not,” said Gideon, “but that doesn’t stop me forgiving you. Harrow—”

“You know I don’t give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you,” she said in a brokenhearted rush. She didn’t know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now.

“I’m no good at this duty thing. I’m just me. I can’t do this without you. And I’m not your real cavalier primary, I never could’ve been.”

It was just her and Harrow and Harrow’s bitter, high-boned, stupid little face.

“Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House,” she said hoarsely, “you are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of all of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer.”

“Yeah, fuck it,” she said. “I’m getting us out of here.” “Griddle—”

“Harrow, I can’t keep my promise, because the entire point of me is you. You get that, right? That’s what cavaliers sign up for. There is no me without you. One flesh, one end.”

“Nav,” she said, “what are you doing?”

“The cruellest thing anyone has ever done to you in your whole entire life, believe me,” said Gideon. “You’ll know what to do, and if you don’t do it, what I’m about to do will be no use to anyone.”

She mentally found herself all of a sudden in front of the doors of Drearburh—four years old again, and screaming—and all her fear and hate of them went away. Drearburh was empty. There was no Crux. There were no godawful great-aunts. There were no restless corpses, no strangers in coffins, no dead parents. Instead, she was Drearburh. She was Gideon Nav, and Nav was a Niner name. She took the whole putrid, quiet, filth-strewn madness of the place, and she opened her doors to it. Her hands were not shaking anymore.

“For the Ninth!” said Gideon. And she fell forward, right on the iron spikes.

“You can stop screaming any moment now, just an FYI.

I meant it about not wanting an afterlife subscription to Palamedes Sextus’s Top Nerd Facts.”