Gideon the Ninth

“Ready, Brother Silas,” said the scarred nephew immediately, and stepped in closer to the younger man, so that they were near enough to touch.

For a moment Gideon thought they were going to pray in front of the corpses. Or they might share an emotional moment. They were close enough to hug it out. But they did neither: the necromancer laid his hand on one of Colum’s brawny shoulders, having to stretch up somewhat, and closed his eyes.

For a moment nothing seemed to happen. Then Gideon saw the colour begin draining from Colum the Eighth as though he were covered with cheap dye: leaching as shadow leached hue in the nighttime, more horrible and more obvious in the unforgiving light of the electric torches and underfloor lamps. As he faded, the pale Silas incandesced. He glowed with an irradiated shimmer, iridescent white, and the air began to taste of lightning.

Someone close by said softly, “So it’s real,” just as someone else said, “What is he doing?”

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

By this point Colum the Eighth looked greyscale. He was still standing, but he was breathing more shallowly. By contrast the adept of the Eighth was putting on a light show, but not much else happened. The furrow deepened in the ghostly boy’s brow; he wrung his hands together, and his lips soundlessly began to move.

Gideon felt an internal tug, like a blanket being pulled off in the cold. It was a little bit like the sensation back in Response (which was, what, a thousand years ago?)—something deep inside her being prodded in its tender spot. But it also wasn’t, because it hurt like hell. It was like having a headache inside her teeth. The torchlights gave an asthmatic gurk and dimmed as though their batteries were being sucked dry, and when Gideon looked at her hands through bleary eyes they were deepening grey.

There was something pale blue sparking within the corpse of Abigail Pent, and suddenly and horribly the body shuddered. The world grew heavy and black around the edges, and Gideon felt cold all the way to her marrow. Someone screamed, and she recognised the voice as Dulcinea’s.

Abigail’s body shivered once. It shivered again. Silas opened his mouth and let out a guttural sound like a man who had eaten hot iron—one of the torches exploded—and out of the corners of her eyes Gideon saw him stretch out his arms. Gideon moved thickly through the grey-lipped crowd, watching Dulcinea collapse in what felt like slow motion, reaching out to the rumpled figure in the big dressing gown. Gideon slung Dulcinea’s arm over her shoulder and pulled her limp body upright, teeth chattering so hard she was worried about biting the insides of her cheeks. Protesilaus stalked forward, and he did not even bother to draw his sword: he simply punched Silas in the face.

Dulcinea wailed out from Gideon’s arms, weak and shrill: “Pro!” but it was too late. The Eighth necromancer went down like a sack of dropped potatoes and twitched on the floor. Now Protesilaus drew his rapier with an oily click of metal on scabbard: the lights crackled, then blazed back to life. The cold receded as though someone had closed a door against a howling wind. Strangely enough, Colum the Eighth did not even react. He just waited greyly next to Protesilaus like concrete, as Protesilaus stood over Colum’s floored uncle, sword held at the ready. They both looked like crude sculptures of men.

“Children!” cried a voice high from the hatch: “Children, stop!”

It was Teacher. He had descended the first few staples of the ladder, but this was all he could apparently bear. For the first time since Gideon had met him, he seemed real and old and frail: the serene and frankly impenetrable good cheer had been replaced by wild terror. His eyes were bulging, and he was huddled against the top of the ladder like it was a life raft. “You mustn’t!” he said. “He cannot empty anybody here, lest they become a nest for something else! Bring Abigail and Magnus the Fifth upstairs—do it quickly—”

Palamedes said, “Teacher, we should leave the bodies where they are if we want to know anything about what happened.”

“I dare not,” he called back. “And I daren’t come down there to remove them. You must bring them up. Use stretchers—or magic, Reverend Daughter, use skeletons—use anything. But you must get them out of there immediately, and come up with them.”

Maybe they were all still slothful from what had just gone on; maybe it was just the fact that it was the very small hours of the morning, and they were all very tired. The numb hesitation was palpable. It was a surprise when Camilla raised her voice to say: “Teacher. This is an active investigation. We’re safe down here.”

“You are absolutely wrong,” said Teacher. “Poor Abigail and Magnus are dead already. I cannot guarantee the safety of any of you who remain down there another minute.”

Chapter 18