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Download: the cul-de-sac on the spiritual path
Audio & Music (instrumental cover of "Getting Into Knives" by the Mountain Goats) by carboncopies
Written by olive2read
At first, Wake had tried to stay vigilant, reminding herself over, and over again, that her mission was incomplete. She didn’t know how or why her spirit had stayed when she’d died but she had to take it as a sign that she was on the correct path. She called on every ounce of her training, on her deeply ingrained sense of duty. She told herself that she could turn this setback into an opportunity to gather additional intel on the wizards, the Tomb, and anything else that might help her end the scourge of necromancy.
It was hard to stay focused, though, all alone, down in the dark. Hard to remember to hold on to her bones.
At times, the desire to drift away was nearly overwhelming. Sometimes, she was filled with despair. To have come so close, only to fall at the last hurdle… In those moments, she had to cling tightly to her rage—as well as her bones—and remind herself that she was still here, that all was not yet lost.
No matter what obstacles Gaius and his zombies put in her path, she had to persevere. The despot and his necromancy needed to be stopped. She reminded herself of the billions murdered, of the cultures lost, and all for the sake of one man’s ego. She recited the list of charges against him over, and over again. She had to believe there was a reason she was still here, and that reason was to stop him, to end him and all he’d wrought.
She had tried keeping careful track of the days but there was no way to mark the passage of time, deep in the bowels of the Ninth House. All she had to go on was the clanging of distant bells. She had assumed the wizards would continue their attempts to interrogate her but, as the days became weeks, and the weeks became months, time started to blur and no one ever came near the niche where her bones lay.
***
Until the child.
Wake knew which child it was, of course. Had known from its very first visit, when it had carefully counted its way to her niche. The faint line connecting them to each other was unmistakable, as was that bright shock of hair. She didn’t know what to make of its odd golden eyes but the shape of the face that held them was eerily familiar.
She’d been drawn from her umpteenth recitation of Gaius’s crimes by the soft sounds of someone shuffling along the corridor, counting quietly. The counting and shuffling kept stopping and starting. Sometimes it would backtrack a bit but it never stopped, continuing inexorably towards her.
It sounded nothing like the last time people had come into the catacombs. No one had uttered a word that time, though there had been more than one set of footsteps coming and going, and, from the sounds, many sets of bones laid to rest. None of those feet, or bones, had come along this corridor, however.
Eventually the footsteps had stopped directly in front of her niche and she’d come face to, well, spirit with the child she’d carried, the child that could open the Tomb, the bomb that could destroy Gaius.
“Mummy?” it asked.
Wake had initially suspected the visit was some wizard ploy to draw her spirit out, since she’d managed to evade their previous attempts to compel her. The child didn’t perform any necromancy that she could discern. It just stood in front of her for a while, then sat down facing her and started to talk. Its words were hesitant at first but, soon enough, it was babbling on about whatever nonsense toddlers find interesting.
Wake could see that it had a crude, vaguely human-shaped piece of bone clutched in its small fist and, as it talked at her, it banged the homunculus against the stone floor. The bone must have been reinforced in some way, as nary a chip was dislodged, and natural bones couldn’t have held up against such a tenacious child, not even one as small as this. This was obviously frustrating to the child, who finally gave up and dropped the bone to the floor.
“I don’t like this dolly,” it said, sulking. “I never like them. They’s always bones and bones is stupid.”
As soon as the words were out of its mouth, the child froze, then slowly turned its head from side to side, as though checking for observers. When it found none, it cautiously repeated the phrase.
“Bones is stupid.”
This time, it whipped its head around, as though expecting someone or something to jump out and punish it for this bold claim. When, once more, nothing happened, it took a deep breath in and then screamed out its defiance.
“BONES. IS. STUPID!!”
It kicked hard at the ‘dolly,’ which went flying and bounced off one of the walls with a loud clatter.
The child looked back at Wake’s niche, wiping grumpily at a few tears, and said, “I don’t think your bones is stupid, mummy. Just the dollies.”
It waited for a moment, as though hoping for a response, then sighed and sat down next to the niche, curling its arms around its knees.
“I hate the Ninth House,” it said. “I want to go home.”
Wake, who had been paying only cursory attention to it, startled at this. What had the wizards told it about its origins? Was this, after all, some ploy to get information from her?
But the child wasn’t even looking at her. It sat and wept, tears soaking into its ill-fitting heavy black robe, sniffling quietly every few moments.
After a while it said, very softly, “I miss you, mummy.”
***
The child had come.
Wake had determined long ago that these visits hadn’t been instigated by the wizards. It was unclear if anyone other than the child even remembered she was down here. No one ever paid any attention to her and no one ever accompanied the child. It was as though the wizards had stuffed her bones into storage and then promptly erased her existence from their collective memory.
The child didn't forget about her, though. It kept returning and, based on the child's rate of growth, the frequency of its visits had been increasing steadily over time.
It would sit and talk at her, telling her all the trivial details of its life. While it always spoke with an air of excitement, its subject matter was incredibly dull. Apparently, there were few other children here and it wasn’t allowed to play with the only other child close in age. It was a lonely little thing.
It had confessed to her on more than one occasion that it had tried to run away, only to be recaptured by the wizards. The first such confession had worried her momentarily—as her mission was the only thing keeping her connected to her bones and she would need the bomb to complete it—until it became clear that the child had nowhere to go. Even so, the wizards had locked a cuff around its ankle so they would always be able to track it down. It was stuck in this hole just as surely as she was.
Wake mostly ignored it during its visits, as nothing it said was of any use in furthering her plans. Mostly it talked about its lessons and complained about the wizards and the nuns. Sometimes it would tell her stories where it would rescue her and they would go on adventures together, far away from the Ninth House.
Today, instead of a bone, it had limped toward her niche holding a string of prayer beads. Its face was covered in streaks of black and white paint with small patches of irritated skin peeking through. The cuffs of its robe were similarly stained with globs of paint and, as it sulked at her, it rubbed furiously at its face.
“I don’t want to be a nun,” it grumbled. “I don’t care what-what Crux says, they can’t make me.” It threw the beads against the wall and stomped on them for good measure. The beads crumbled to dust under its foot and it spent the next few moments methodically tracking down every broken piece of them and grinding them to obliteration under its heel.
“Were you a necromancer, mummy?” it asked. “Nobody will say. The ‘Reverend Father’”—this was said with heavy sarcasm—“told me-told me I‘m not one. Which is good, actually, ’cause-’cause then I’d have to hang out with Harrowhark and that would suck. I don’t want to be a necromancer anyway. Not a nun, or a necromancer, or—”
This surprised Wake, as she would have expected Gaius’s power to breed true. She was more than a bit chuffed at the idea that her anti-necromancy genes were the dominant ones. It was a ridiculous conceit but she couldn’t help thinking this was yet more evidence that the universe was on her side.
The child was still whinging on about Crux and the “nasty great-aunts” and how it didn’t want to say the catechism and on, and on, it droned. Wake went back to ignoring it. She needed to reevaluate, to consider whether knowing the child hadn’t inherited any wizardry would change the mission parametres.
***
The child was back.
The past few years had not been kind to it, one of the only non-wizards in this nest of vipers and—if Wake could believe the stories it told—the only one who hadn’t come here seeking the refuge it was so grudgingly afforded. It often tried to put a positive spin on things but Wake had grown familiar with its moods and she could tell when its jollity was forced.
She honestly wasn’t even sure why it bothered putting on a brave face for her. As far as she could tell, it had no way of knowing she was anything other than a pile of bones shoved into a hole. Then again, Wake herself was certainly no stranger to the urge to cling to something—anything—that kept the despair at bay.
Today, though, it had come running down the corridor, shouting in triumph.
“Mum! Mum! Mummy! MUM!” It skidded to a halt in front of her niche carrying a sword longer than it was tall. It jumped around, waving the sword, brandishing it at the shadows. “Aiglamene says I’m wasted on the nuns when I could be a soldier. She’s gonna train me, mum! With, like, proper swords,” it crowed, “and she gave me this! Look at it, mum! It’s a Cohort sword! Isn’t it awesome? She says I can keep it if I promise to—”
Wake was startled to recognise the sword and even more astonished to see the bright spirit link connecting it to her. The sword link was much stronger than the one she shared with the child, though not nearly as strong as the one she’d followed back to her bones.
That fucking sword—their fucking sword. The sword Gideon had been planning to run her through with, like the self-collaring, doggedly obedient zombie he was, before pulling his strike when he’d caught sight of the pod with the bomb inside. The sword she’d ripped from his hands as she’d jumped.
Fucking Gideon.
It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d been the instrument of her literal downfall—but it had. Trust him to live the motto of the house he’d founded, however misguided. Even if he’d taken the coward’s option and denied her a quick and easy death, some sentimental part of her must have expected Pyrrha to come through, to protect the mission. In the end, though, Pyrrha had chosen Gideon. For all her petty rebellions, Pyrrha had always chosen Gideon.
“—and they’ll say, ‘oh, your sword is so big, Gideon—’”
Hearing that name jolted Wake out of her memories and put her instantly on guard. Why had the child mentioned Gideon? What else did it know? Had it been lulling her into a false sense of security all these years?
“—and ‘you’re so smart, and strong, and better than any crummy necromancer,’ and I’ll nod and say...” it paused and winked, grinning as it formed one hand into a finger gun, which caused it to lose its grip on the sword and it had to scramble to keep the tip from slamming against the stone floor, “...shit!”
The child bounced back into an approximation of a proper stance, laughing sheepishly.
“Well, mum, you get the idea. Once I’m in the Cohort, they’ll see how good I am and I’ll get super famous and everybody will be like, ‘Gideon, you’re so amazing’ and, like, ‘Harrow who?’ and, meanwhile, she’ll be rotting down here with her dusty old nuns and—”
Part of Wake relaxed at this, her earlier concerns assuaged, at least for now. The child was undeniably a tool of her oppressors but Wake didn’t think they were using her it against her. Just to be safe, she needed to keep her guard up around it, until she could be sure. Even if it was nothing more than an unhappy coincidence—some cosmic joke at her expense, no doubt—that they’d named the child she’d borne after a man who’d planned to kill her.
She wondered if he’d known how badly she’d miscalculated. Considering his pathological need to follow orders, he’d surely watched her fall. He’d have wanted to gather every sad little scrap of information to take back to the mendacious tyrant who held his leash. Would he have known the suit’s life support systems wouldn’t last long enough, especially depleted as she was? That trying to sustain both her and the extra pod would be too much of a drain?
She glared at that damn sword as the child went through a few basic manoeuvres. That bright spirit link tugged at her consciousness as it traced arcs through the air.
If she’d been able to follow the link back to her bones, after her failed attempt to chase after Gideon, perhaps she could travel along this link in the same way.
There was only one way to find out.
***
Gideon had brought them down to the catacomb niche.
Well, Gideon had come to visit the old niche and, unknowingly, brought her along.
Although Wake had expected her to grow out of it, Gideon had kept up the daily visits to her bones. Gideon would get up at the first bell, they’d go sit in the chapel with the wizards, and their nuns, then Gideon would train for a few hours with her and Aiglamene, and then it was time for visiting hours, where Gideon told her everything about the day they had spent as Wake recited the few, meagre morsels of intel she had gathered over the past few years.
It had started as a way to keep herself on mission, to tune out the childish prattle. It wasn’t Gideon’s fault that Wake already knew about everything she wanted to relate—she didn’t know that Wake had taken up residence in the sword that had become her constant companion—but knowing this didn’t increase Wake’s tolerance for reliving every dreary moment of the child’s life.
Gideon’s early habit of pausing regularly, as though allowing Wake time to reply, had evolved over time to align with the pauses she took between sword forms, sets of press-ups, sets of crunches, etc. It was surprisingly easy for Wake to fall into the natural rhythm of this speech pattern. She had long been accustomed to repeating mission details in her mind. It had been too risky to keep anything in writing on her person when she’d been alive and, as a spirit, she didn’t have any other means of recall.
Gideon would share some minor anecdotes and Wake would respond with mission parametres. They weren’t conversations per se but there was a certain comfort in the back and forth.
It was one of many ways she had slowly warmed to Gideon. The child reminded her far too much of herself and it had been impossible to stay vigilant against her. Wake couldn’t help but empathise with her rants against the unjust system that kept the wizards in power and with her disgust at the flagrant disregard for human remains. Wake was obviously no stranger to the necessity of death but there was something materially different between a strategic sacrifice for the greater good and the casual toying with bones and… other bits. It was—as Gideon had put it—‘sooo creepy.’
Wake’s horror had been a matter of principle while she’d been alive. On the days Gideon took them to the snow leek fields, the reality felt so much worse. Every one of those skeletons had been a person once and there was no way all of them had consented to this.
Gideon would watch them working as she tried to figure out which skeleton was Wake’s. The child narrated elaborate backstories to support her (erroneous) reasoning for why this pause or that gesture revealed the identity.
It was obvious to Wake, of course, which bones had been hers. The spirit link connecting her to them still glowed faintly, even after everything the wizards had done.
Still, she appreciated the care Gideon took with her ‘deductions.’ Even the most whimsical honoured the dead far more than the constant prayers of the Ninth House nuns. It certainly helped that Gideon was clever and her stories were funny. The child would have been justified if she’d sunk into despair, or boiled with rage. While there were days when she did, her irrepressible spirit meant they were surprisingly few and far between.
Sometimes, it helped Wake to see beyond her own anger, to remember that the reasons for her mission were as critical as the mission itself. Sometimes, it even managed to keep Wake from dwelling on the many, many—so very many—tiny skeletons labouring mindlessly alongside the adult-sized ones.
Their visits to the fields were, thankfully, infrequent and most days Gideon would bring them down into the bowels of the catacombs, to the dank little niche. It wasn’t even technically her niche anymore. Wake didn’t know where her bones were being stored, now they’d been conscripted into toiling away with the others, but they hadn’t been here for years.
Today, for the first time Wake could remember, they were not alone in the catacombs. As Gideon was practising with her sword, Wake noticed footsteps headed their way. Sure enough, a few minutes later the horrid wizard child had joined them, just in time to hear Gideon finish, as she always did, by saying “I love you, mum.”
“Oh, Griddle,” it said, “why are you always so pathetic? Crux sent her skeleton into the fields ages ago. Even if she was there, you can’t possibly think she‘d want love from you. You have no aptitude, you couldn't even make it as a nun—”
In a flash, Gideon had the cruel wizard on its back with her hands around its throat. The smaller child scrabbled to get free and then, failing that, scratched at her fiercely. It wasn’t the first time Wake had watched them fight but it was definitely the bloodiest. Usually, one of the adults would break things up. This time, there were no adults present and it looked like Gideon might actually succeed.
Wake wasn’t sure what made Gideon stop but—all at once—she let go and backed away, tears streaming down her face, mixing with the blood. The wretched wizard crawled away, vomiting bile, all its assumed dignity and hauteur absent. The child stared at Gideon with such frustrated pain and loneliness that even Wake felt a momentary twinge of sympathy. This was replaced almost immediately by smug satisfaction as the wizard’s eyes fell on the sword and its face blanched in fear. It sent one final, unreadable glance toward Gideon and then limped away down the corridor.
Gideon, who was pointedly ignoring it, missed all of this. For a long time she simply lay on the stone floor, her breathing ragged, her tears continuing to flow.
Finally, she whispered, “I have to get out of here.”
Gideon got slowly to her feet. Despite having received only minor injuries, she moved as though she ached everywhere. She carefully picked up the sword and slid it into its scabbard, then straightened her shoulders and headed out of the catacombs.
Wake assumed Gideon was planning her next escape attempt as they trudged along until she stopped suddenly and cocked her head to one side. Ahead of them, the wizard child was attempting to sneak furtively along a different path, one Gideon had never walked—at least, not since Wake had settled into the sword.
Gideon didn’t hesitate to follow, muttering darkly under her breath. The wizard led them on a winding route, deep into the heart of the planet, pausing every so often to perform some piece of necromantic nonsense before continuing on at a steady pace. Clearly, it knew the way well.
It wasn’t long before the path was blocked by an enormous rock. The wizard child knelt before the rock and prayed. Gideon’s breath caught in horror. If Wake had been able to breathe, she’d have gasped too, though from a very different feeling.
At long last, there it was. The Locked Tomb. It had to be. If only there was some way to knock herself out of this blasted scabbard, to kill Gideon the child, to open the Tomb, to finally put an end to that villain Gaius. Everything she needed to complete her mission was right in front of her and there was nothing she could do, stuck in this fucking sword! Fuck!
Except, as they watched, the wizard child somehow managed to roll away the huge rock and the Tomb was opened. The wizard entered as Gideon gaped.
Wake waited for something—anything—to happen.
Nothing did.
Gideon stood there, mumbling to herself and shaking her head, growing increasingly agitated. After a while, she turned and ran back towards the Castle with Wake bouncing along beside her, numb with shock and boiling with anger.
It shouldn’t have been possible. The entire scheme cooked up by those undead creeps had hinged on the difficulty of opening that fucking Tomb. They had been adamant that a biological link to Gaius was required to roll away that godforsaken rock. That a ridiculously young—and frail—child had done it without breaking a sweat beggared belief, even if it was a wizard.
It shouldn’t have surprised her to discover those desiccated fucking ghouls had betrayed her in every possible way. But, if there was no need for any part of Gaius, the elaborate plot made zero sense. She kept asking herself why? Why had they given her the… sample? Why had they given her the fucking embryos? Why had they sent Gideon after her? If they’d wanted to get her out of the way, or to kill her, there were easier methods.
And what the fuck was she supposed to do now?
***
In the years following the opening of the Tomb, it had been difficult to keep the despair at bay. It wasn’t as though there had been much hope before but now there was absolutely zilch. Wake couldn’t have said what held her here and, most days, she longed for an oblivion that refused to come.
The days blurred together in dreary monotony without anything to cling to, without a mission to complete. She had nothing to say to Gideon—no data worth reciting and no desire to engage in comfortable familiarity.
In the before times, she’d caught herself—on more than one occasion—wondering what might have been if she hadn’t died. She would look at the girl, at that flaming hair, and wonder if, perhaps, there could have been some way to accomplish the mission without killing her.
Now, she knew the child hadn’t needed to die, not to open the Tomb and maybe not for any other reason, but there was no joy in it. All she could see were those uncanny golden eyes. She resented Gideon’s existence and all it had cost her. Now, she’d gladly have murdered the whelp, given half the chance.
Until the letter.
Apparently, Gaius needed to recruit more zombies and the horrible wizard child was answering his call. For the first time, Wake listened eagerly when Gideon spoke at her. It was her only access to information, as Gideon—grumbling sourly about needles and toothpicks—no longer trained with the sword where anyone else could catch her. Wake hoarded every pathetic, precious piece of data from Gideon. She had a mission again, even if she didn’t know what it was—she had a purpose again.
The Tomb had been unlocked and nothing had happened. Those bastard wraiths had fucking lied to her but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was getting out of this godforsaken hole, she still had Gideon, and she would find a way.
Gideon had packed her into the bottom of the suitcase and—together—they were leaving this prison wasteland. They were going to the First House, to the seat of Gaius’s power. Wake didn’t know how, exactly, she could use this to her advantage, but it was the best chance she’d had in 18 years.
And, when the time came, she wouldn’t hesitate to complete the sacrifice—to activate the bomb Gideon was always meant to be—and destroy Gaius and his Houses.