Gideon the Ninth

“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.”

There was an immediate hubbub, uncalmed by his impatient be quiet gestures and the shoving of his spectacles up his nose. Among the collective mutters, Ianthe Tridentarius’s acid drawl was loudest: “Well, this is the only interesting thing she’s ever done.”

Nearly as piercing was Captain Deuteros: “Impossible. He’s been with us for weeks.”

“It’s not impossible at all,” said Dulcinea herself. She had been gravely meeting Protesilaus’s murky stare, as though trying to find something out, and now she settled the head on her lap. “The Seventh House have been perfecting the way of the beguiling corpse for years and years and years. It’s just—not entirely allowed.”

“It is unholy,” said Silas, flatly.

“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.”

Gideon said, just as flatly as Silas: “Why?”

Those enormous flower-blue eyes turned to Gideon as though she were the only person in the room. There was no laughter in them, or else Gideon might have started to yell. Suddenly, the dying necromancer seemed enormously old; not with wrinkles, but with the sheer dignity and quiet with which she sat there, totally serene.

“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. And there was a very good cavalier primary … so even if the necromantic heir was one bad cold away from full lung collapse … it was thought that he might even the odds. But then he had an accident.”

Dulcinea fretted the dull hair of the head with her fingertips, then smoothed it out as if it were a doll’s. “Hypothetically. If you were the Seventh House, and all your fortunes were now represented in two dead bodies, one breathing a little bit more than the other, wouldn’t you consider something far-fetched? Let’s say, by utilizing the way of the beguiling corpse, and hoping that nobody noticed that your House was DOA? I’m sorry for deceiving you, but I’m not sorry I came.”

“That doesn’t add up.”

Harrow was stiff as concrete. Her eyes were huge and dark, and though only Gideon could tell, very agitated. “The spell you’re talking about is not within the range of a normal necromancer, Septimus. Impossible for a necromancer in their prime, let alone a dying woman.”

“A dying woman is the perfect necromancer,” said Ianthe.

“I wish I could get rid of that idea. Maybe for the final ten minutes,” said Palamedes. “The technical fact that dying enhances your necromancy is vitiated considerably by the fact that you can’t make any use of it. You might have access to a very personal source of thanergy, but considering your organs are shutting down—”

“It’s not possible,” insisted Harrow, words hard and clipped in her mouth.

“You seem to know a lot about it. Well, I put it to you: Would it be possible for all the heads of the Seventh House,” said Dulcinea calmly, “adepts of the perfect death—a Seventh House mystic secret, one that’s been ours forever—working all in concert?”

“Perhaps initially, but—”

“King Undying,” said Silas, primly disgusted. “It was a conspiracy.”

“Oh, sit on it,” said Dulcinea. “I know all about you and your house, Master Silas Octakiseron … the Emperor himself never bothered to speak out against beguiling corpsehood, but he did say that siphoning was the most dangerous thing any House had ever thought up, and ought only to be done with the siphoner in cuffs.”

“That does not mitigate the penalty for performing a necromantic act of transgression—”

“I’ve no interest in meting out the justice of the tome,” said Captain Deuteros, gruffly. “I know that’s the Eighth House’s prerogative. But at the same time, Master Octakiseron, we cannot afford this right now.”

“A woman who would be party to this kind of magic,” said Silas, “might be party to anything.”