Gideon the Ninth полностью

In her nest of blankets, the light comingb in yellow and unwelcome from the cracks around the curtains, Gideon was too tired to take off her clothes and almost too tired to sleep. She kept rustling when she turned over, trying to find a comfortable spot, and then she remembered the crinkled note in her pocket. 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.

An inauspicious nine hours later Gideon and Harrow were making their way down the long, cold staples of the facility ladder, the air thick with last night’s blood. Having been woken up just thirty-five minutes previous (Harrow always lied), Gideon climbed down into the dark with the distinct sensation that she was still asleep: somewhere in a dream, a dream she’d had a long time ago and suddenly remembered. She had mechanically downed the mug of cooling tea and the bowl of congealing porridge that Harrow had brought her that morning—Harrow arranging her breakfast was a concept so disagreeable there was no space left in her head for it—and now it sat leadenly in her stomach. The crumpled note lay hastily interred at the very bottom of Gideon’s pocket.

Everything felt dark and strange and incorrect, right down to the still-drying paint her adept had applied to her face. Gideon had not even murmured dissent at this incursion, just got on with spooning porridge into her mouth. It was testament to Harrow being Harrow that none of Gideon’s wooden submission had even perturbed her, seemingly.

“What the hell are we meant to be doing down there?” she’d asked plaintively, as Harrow led the way back to the dim lobby and the stairs to the hatch. Her voice sounded odd in her mouth. “More bone men?”

“I doubt it,” Harrow had said briskly, without looking around. “That was one challenge. There’d be no point doing the same thing for the next one.”

“The next one?”

“For God’s sake pay attention, Griddle. The hatch key is the first step—the warm-up challenge, if you like.”

“That wasn’t a challenge,” Gideon had objected, stepping over a taut strand of yellow tape. “You just asked Teacher for it.”

“Yes, and as we discovered, some of our so-called rivals hadn’t even cleared that pitiable hurdle. The hatch key grants access to the facility complex, which contains a number of testing rooms set up to replicate particular necromantic experiments. Anyone who can accurately carry out an experiment to its intended conclusion—as we did by dismantling that construct—gets the reward.”

“A key.”

“One assumes.”

“And then the key—what, lets you into a room where you can rub your face all over ye olde necro’s olde notebooks?”

Harrow still didn’t turn round, but Gideon knew innately that her eyes were rolling. “The Second House study contained a full and perfect explanation of the theorem which had been used to articulate the construct. Having studied that theorem, any halfway competent necromancer would be able to reproduce its effects. I now possess the competencies required to ride another living soul. I’m perhaps even more interested in what I’ve learned from the theorem behind the construct.”

“Making big shitty bone hunks.” Gideon preferred not to think about riding another living soul.

At that, Harrow had stopped—almost at the head of the staircase—and finally looked around. “Nav,” she’d said. “I could already make bone hunks. But now I can make them regenerate.”

The outcome literally nobody wanted.

Now here they both were at the bottom of the ladder, staring at the angular outlines on the floor. Someone had immortalised Abigail and Magnus’s descent with tape, carefully laid: it looked particularly weird given that none of the blood had been cleaned up. Accusatory splotches of it lay skeletonised on the floor.

“Sextus,” said Harrow, having dropped lightly down next to her. “The Sixth is always too enamoured of the body.”

Gideon said nothing. Harrow continued: “Investigating the scene of death is barely useful, compared to discovering the motives of the living. Compared to why, the question of who killed Pent and Quinn is almost an aside.”

“‘Who,’” said a voice, “or ‘what.’ I love the idea of what.”

Limned by the greenish light from the grille, Dulcinea Septimus limped into view. In the sulphide lamps she looked transparent, and she was leaning heavily on crutches; her heavy curls had been tied up on top of her head, revealing a neck that looked ready to snap in a strong wind. Behind her hulked Protesilaus, who in the darkness looked like a mannequin with abs.