I’m splitting Act 4 into two parts. So much happens, with shoes dropping left and right, that it’s one mighty whole that falls neatly into two parts. Here we go —
We ended Act 3 with the murders of Isaac and Jeannemary, one in the facility and the other in the quarters of the pair who founded the Second House, G & P.
Chapter 26
How can you say that Gideon is in shock without saying she’s in shock? By showing it on a granular level. Most of what Gideon remembers about the aftermath of Jeannemary and Isaac’s deaths is Harrow yelling at her. She ends up crying in Dulcinea’s sickroom, where Dulcinea comforts her and catches her out on the cavalier front when Gideon doesn’t recognize “One flesh, one end” as the binding oath between necro and cav. She confesses and, holding her hand, Dulcinea tells her that she’s a cavalier worthy of a Lyctor. Palamedes walks in on them, and Gideon, embarrassed, bolts, only to run into the Eighth House. Silas calls her scum a dozen ways and invites her to tea. She walks away. Nightmares follow, a jumble of images of Gideon unable to keep people from dying, and a final image of Harrow sitting beside her, watching her.
- Harrow yelling at Gideon. Make of this what you will. Is this reversion to form? Projection? Displaced fear? Whatever it is, it sends Gideon straight back to childhood, and deep into self-loathing.
- Dulcinea is particularly kind and gentle with Gideon. Which, given who Dulcinea is, is particularly ironic, as is her soliloquy:
- “Once somebody dies, their spirit’s free forever even if we snatch at it or try to stopper it or use the energy it creates. Oh, I know sometimes they come back … or we can call them, in the manner of the Fifth … but even that exception to the rule shows their mastery of us. They only come when we beg. Once someone dies, we can’t grasp at them anymore, thank God! — except for one person, and he’s very far from here, I think. Gideon, don’t be sorry for the dead. I think death must be an absolute triumph” (pp. 292-293). What do we make of her, saying this, to Gideon? How much is projection? How much is wishing?
- Dulcinea explains that her illness makes her “a walking thanergy generator,” and adds “There’s a kind of beauty in dying beautifully … in wasting away … half-alive, half-dead, within the very queenhood of your power” (p. 294). All of which is absolutely true, even though we don’t know it just yet.
- “The Seventh would have sealed me in a beautiful tomb and not talked about me again. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. So I came here when the Emperor asked me … because I want to … even though I knew I came here to die” (p. 294). Who is speaking here, and about when?
- “I wonder if the Reverend Daughter even knows what she has in you?” Stick a pin in this.
- Gideon tells off the Eighth, only to have her feet knocked out from under her when she learns that they know who she is. She remembers the Glaurica, Ortis’ mother, came from the Eighth House, and knows who told. Silas tells her that she’s been a victim of the Ninth House and offers his help to help her “become more than what [she] is now.” She responds, “Eat me, milk man,” which Colum interprets to mean “yes, probably.”
- Those nightmares are really nightmarish!
- Harrow and Gideon are seriously on thin ice: “she had been looking at Gideon with a coal-eyed expression of absolute pity. There had been something very weary and soft about the way that Harrow Nonagesimus had looked at her then, something that would have been understanding had it not been so tired and cynical” (p. 300). Gideon cannot recognize her own pain reflected in Harrow.
Chapter 27
In the Sixth House quarters, Harrow and Palamedes negotiate the terms of their cooperation. While they do, they argue about the point of it all: Palamedes favors the megatheorem theory, that each of the tests contains a step in the Lyctor process, while Harrow thinks that completing the trials unlocks a secret power source in the facility. The four go to check out a door. On the way, Gideon asks Camilla what her preferred weapon is, and she admits it’s a two knives, not the rapier. The keyhole of the door in question is jammed with regenerating ash. Harrow boasts that she can remove it, but fails until Gideon steps up to let her siphon her thalergy. Palamedes disapproves, but the lock is freed. He reveals there’s one more key to be found. Leaving, he tells Gideon to “keep an eye on her,” presumably meaning Dulcinea. Once they’re alone, Harrow bans Gideon from seeing Dulcinea again, and the two have a huge argument; Gideon is grieving, angry, and deeply self-loathing, and Harrow responds imperiously and coldly. When Gideon tells her she’s never stopped hating her, Harrow tells her that she doesn’t even remember her half the time (there is nothing crueler than being told you’re inconsequential). Gideon decides to betray her.
- The Sixth House occupies the polar cap of a planet close to Dominicus, so close that exposure to the light side of the planet would melt the house (most bets say it’s Mercury). Oh, come on — surely you’ve figured out: nine Houses, nine planets, one solar system. Canaan House is, of course, Earth, and the Ninth is Pluto.
- Palamedes is an academic, which means notes tacked everywhere. The cavalier’s cot is covered with weapons and metal polish. So where does Camilla sleep?
- The two competing theories:
- The megatheorem idea, from Palamedes: “The tasks and challenges — the theories underpinning them — they’re really not that disparate. Neural amalgamation. Transferral of energy. As we saw in the entropy field challenge, continuous siphoning. The magical theory’s astonishing. If the intent is to show off the sheer breadth of Lyctoral power — well, they did. I’ve seen the winnowing test and if the self-replicating bone golem had been the only thing in it I would still be kept up at night. I don’t know how the hell they did it” (p. 303).
- The secret power source idea, from Harrow: “These experiments all demand a continuous flow of thanergy. They’ve hidden that source somewhere in the facility, and that’s the true prize” (p. 303). Her point is that there simply isn’t enough energy, either life or death energy, to power these spells, so the power source must be elsewhere.
- Palamedes: “I see puzzle pieces; you see direction signs. Now, maybe you’re right and we’re meant to follow the crumbs to some master treasure. But if I’m right — if Lyctorhood is nothing more or less than the synthesis of eight individual theorems . . . . Then it’s wrong. There’s a flaw in the underlying logic. The whole thing is an ugly mistake” (pp. 303-304). He ain’t wrong, folks.
- Meme alert: “Come with me for the cold hard facts” (p. 304). The Office, Season 3, episode 18. So I’m told.
- “The last thing the Warden needs,” said Camilla, “is an introduction to Lady Septimus” (p. 306). Amen. Also something that needs to be remembered.
- Harrow and Gideon are arguing over completely different things, and their fight is one of the many events that require reevaluation after you’ve finished the book. Harrow distrusts Dulcinea (with good reason) but can’t warn Gideon off without sharing information that she doesn’t want to share (either because she’s still got trust issues or because she’s trying to protect Gideon). Gideon thinks Harrow is punishing her because Isaac and Jeannemary were killed on her watch. They both say things they don’t mean, and they’re both as cruel as they can be. This is not simply two jealous women fighting over a third, although that element is there, as well.
Chapter 28
Gideon visits the Eighth House quarters for tea, where Colum takes her weapons before admitting her to Silas’ presence. Silas is customarily rude, but forthcoming, telling Gideon that Glaurica and Ortis are dead; the shuttle that was meant for Gideon blew up in space, and Glaurica’s ghost returned briefly to the Eighth before moving on. Then he asks why two hundred Ninth House children are dead, and dismisses Gideon’s explanation of a creche vent bacterial infection. He denounces the Ninth, demands Gideon’s keys, and threatens her. Colum tells Silas that he swore on his honor that there would be no violence. Gideon witnesses a searing private moment between them before Colum escorts her out and returns her weapons.
- The Eighth quarters is obsessively clean and the decorating style is akin to Marie Kondo in overdrive.
- Silas tells Gideon that her mother had the same color hair; Silas was more interested in her mother than in her. “You were an accidental inclusion. Glaurica confused the erroneous with the useful. But ghosts always do” (p. 318).
- “Ortus would never rhyme melancholy with my mortal folly again” (p. 318). Poor Ortis never had a chance.
- Silas: “The Ninth House is a House of broken promises . . . The Eighth House remembers that they were not meant to live. They had one job — one rock to roll over one tomb; one act of guardianship, to live and die in a single blessedness — and they made a cult instead. A House of mystics who came to worship a terrible thing” (p. 320). Interesting comment from a house that sent a woman to marry into the Ninth’s cavalier line. What do you suppose was up with that? Also, has Glaurica been informing on the Ninth the whole time?
- Silas, about Colum breaking his promise to Gideon: “An oath to the Ninth is as medicine to sand . . . . It sinks from sight and yields no benefit. She knows this as well as any, and better than some. The Ninth heart is barren, and the Ninth heart is black” (p. 321). There’s no hypocrisy like self-righteous hypocrisy. I think this observation will work in wider application.
- Also, the way that Colum stands up to Silas is wonderful. What a messed-up family and power dynamic. Silas really is dreadful. Colum has the worst job in the universe.
Chapter 29
Bereft, Gideon wanders Canaan House, eventually reaching the training room. Coronabeth is there, practicing with a rapier and, to Gideon’s shock, challenges her to a duel by lunging at her. Naberius comes in, panicked, and pulls Corona back, telling her she can’t duel, and he won’t tell Ianthe. With nowhere else to go, Gideon returns to the Ninth House quarters. They’re empty, Harrow’s wardrobe is open and unwarded. Gideon searches it and finds a strange box. Opening it, she find’s Protesilaus’ head.
- Teacher hates water. There’s a lot of water imagery in these books, and there’s a distinction between salt water and fresh water. Just keep an eye open for the references.
- [Gideon]could no longer smell the mould, having smelled it for so long that it had become indistinguishable from the air around her” (p. 325).
- Surprise: Coronabeth does rapiers!
- Protesilaus: first guy to die in the Trojan War! Get it?
Chapter 30
Gideon ends up in the Sixth’s quarters. While Camilla goes to bring in Harrow, Gideon tells Palamedes the entire sordid story about her relationship with Harrow, why they hate each other, and how she killed Harrow’s parents. She tells him that Harrow is desperate to become a Lyctor and would do anything to achieve it. Palamedes tells her that, although she might have occasioned Harrow’s parents’ suicide, she didn’t cause it — they did, and that the choices people make “cause all sorts of things to happen. That doesn’t make you responsible” (p. 335). She shows him the Lyctor note. Camilla brings Harrow in and Palamedes asks why she didn’t tell him. She answers that she suspected he was working with Dulcinea, and that she hadn’t even meant to hurt Protesilaus, but his head fell off when she pushed him. Palamedes tells her that they need to bring everyone together: “I won’t have any more conversations in the dark” (p. 337). Once everyone is together and the head is revealed, Dulcinea admits that she knew he was dead all along, and that he’d been powered by flesh magic (puppeted, not unlike Harrow puppeting her parents back at the Ninth). Everyone agrees that Dulcinea, even dying, wouldn’t have enough thanergy to power the spells, and she answers that if every necromancer in the Seventh House were working in concert, it would be sufficient. Silas Octakiseron has a fit. Harrow admits she found Protesilaus and took his head because she couldn’t move the body, which has since disappeared. The group argues over custody of the head and the ashes in the furnace. Dulcinea collapses, and Teacher says that he will see to it that she’s not left alone — he and his priests will look after her, since she’s dying and has maybe days or, at most, weeks left.
- So much here that’s important! Let’s proceed in order. First off, Gideon thinks that Harrow murdered Protesilaus, and doesn’t know what to do about it. She asks Palamedes what he would do if Camilla killed someone, and he answers, “Help her bury the body….If Camilla wants someone dead...then far be it from me to stand in her way. All I can do at that point is watch the bloodshed and look for a mop. One flesh, one end, and all that” (p. 331).
- “Everyone wants to tell me about fleshes and ends today,” said Gideon unhappily. The necro/cav relationship is reciprocal, after all.
- Gideon comes clean to Palamedes and tells him everything about her history with Harrow: “I thought I knew how far she’d go, because I will tell you for free she has gone to some intensely shitty lengths, and I guess she’s gone to some shittier lengths than I thought concerning me, but that’s the thing — it’s me, Sextus. It’s always me. She nearly killed me half a dozen times growing up, but I always knew why” (p. 331). It was because Gideon killed Harrow’s parents. This is the first big and shocking reveal.
- Growing up, Gideon was beneath dirt and Dominicus rose on Harrow, who had been born healthy and powerfully necromantic. They grew up fighting each other: “They fought each other bloody, for which Harrow was not punished and Gideon was. They set elaborate traps, sieges, and assaults, and grew up in each other’s pockets, even if it was generally while trying to grievously injure the other one” (pp. 332-333).
- At age ten, Harrow became obsessed with the Locked Door and, betraying every rule, convention, and belief of the Ninth House, she unlocked the Tomb. Gideon witnessed it, and ran to her parents to tell on her.
- In part she wanted to prove her loyalty, and in part she wanted to get Harrow in trouble.
- “She felt no flicker of guilt or doubt. Just hours before, she’d wrestled Harrow down in the dirt, and Harrow had scratched until she’d had half of Gideon’s face beneath her fingernails” (p. 333). Stick a pin here.
- When Harrow arrives, Gideon is sent out and, unable to bear the ensuing silence, returns to find Harrow’s parents and their cavalier hanging from the rafters. “And she walked in on Harrowhark, holding lengths of unused rope among the chairs her parents had kicked aside, with eyes like coals that had burnt away. Harrow had beheld her. She had beheld Harrow. And nothing had ever gone right after that, never ever” (p. 334).
- Gideon feels like “[s]he was garbage from the neck to the navel. She was packed tight with a dry and dusty mould. She had been filled up with it since she was eleven, on the understanding that as long as she was attached to the House of the Ninth, she could never make it go away” (p. 334). One of the series’ recurring themes: the lasting effects of trauma.
- Palamedes tells her that she wasn’t responsible for their deaths. “You ratted out your childhood nemesis to get her in trouble. You didn’t kill her parents, and she shouldn’t hate you like you did, and you shouldn’t hate you like you did” (p. 336). Palamedes is a really good guy.
- Gideon: “So...what the fuck, basically.” Palamedes: “The ultimate question.” There’s nothing special about this exchange — except that it encapsulates human history.
- When Palamedes says they will go to the rest of the group with what they know, Harrow says:
- “I wasn’t sure you’d be willing to go that far, even for the truth.”
- Palamedes looked at her with an expression as grey and airless as the ocean outside the window. “Then you do not know me, Harrowhark” (p. 337).
- They know each other now.
- All the survivors gather, “though considering their current group-wide interest in killing one another the fact that they had bothered coming was nothing short of a miracle” (p. 338). Things are getting very Lord of the Flies — do you suppose that’s what the Emperor intended?
- Dulcinea calls Protesilaus, “my poor boy” (p. 338). Check their ages and get back to me on that. Do you think there’s anything weird about it?
- Silas calls puppeting “unholy.” “So is soul siphoning, my child,” Dulcinea answers, and adds that “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” (p. 339).
- “Suddenly, the dying necromancer seemed enormously old; not with wrinkles, but with the sheer dignity and quiet with which she sat there, totally serene” (p. 339). This will be important.
- Protesilaus was dead when the shuttle landed. Dulcinea says that he met with an accident, and that the Seventh House was desperate. “Hypothetically. If you were...” similarly desperate, she asks, wouldn’t you do something similarly outrageous? (Like sending a serf as a cavalier, maybe?) Hypothetically? Again, pin this. Actually, mark the whole chapter — it’s that pivotal.
- “’Oh, sit on it,’ said Dulcinea” (p. 340). From the original Happy Days reference, this phrase has enjoyed a long and varied viral career. It’s impossible to tell where this was drawn from.
- The Second and the Eighth again fight over who has the most authority. As it turns out, neither temporal nor religious power are sufficient, even if they were to join forces (which they’re not).
- I’m about to make a spoilery connection here, because the question asked and the answer given are interrupted by a misdirecting passage that makes it easy to pass over:
- “Captain Deuteros cleared her throat over the fresh internecine squabbling. ‘Does anyone else want to take this opportunity to admit that they’re already dead, or a flesh construct, or other relevant object? Anyone?’ …. Teacher in the doorway with his hands folded before his gaudy rainbow sash. Nobody had heard him enter. ‘Maybe later, Lady Judith,’ he said” (pp. 342-343).
- Harrow tells Palamedes that Dulcinea’s explanation doesn’t fit because it’s impossible. Ianthe agrees but then the conversation goes sideways. Ianthe doesn’t notice that Harrow’s attention is fixed on her and she’s “quivering like a maggot next to a dead duck” (p. 344).
- Finally, Palamedes asks Gideon that if Harrow “were capable of anything, in order to become a Lyctor — don’t you think she’d be one already? If she really wanted to watch the world burn — wouldn’t we all be alight?” (p. 345). Gideon tells him to stop flattering her.
Chapter 31
Harrow asks Gideon to come with her, and leads her to the pool, where she posts a bunch of skeletons as sentries. She tells her the it’s time to tell her everything, and Gideon must get into the pool. It’s a Ninth House rule that certain secrets could never be talked about unless it were done in a salt-water pool; since Harrow is about to “betray my family’s most sacred trust,” (p. 348) she wants to keep the family’s rule about truth-telling. Together they immerse themselves. Harrow says she realizes that she should have told Gideon earlier, but she realized Protesilaus was dead from the first day. She found his body the night after they finished the entropy challenge (Chapter 22). He’d been killed by a blade through the heart, but “I only got a few minutes to look before I had to run. I only had to push the theorem the most basic bit before he came apart. I took the head and left when I though I heard someone coming” (p. 348). Therefore, she knew he was dead before she sent Gideon, Jeannemary and Isaac into the facility, and thought they would be safe there, because the real threat was Palamedes and Dulcinea working together. She also didn’t think Gideon would believe her because of her relationship with Dulcinea. All the while, Harrow is stumbling around the words for her relationship with Gideon. Finally, Gideon tells her that she almost didn’t go to Palamedes but instead would have waited in their quarters to kill her, or be killed. “I was so convinced you were behind everything. That you’d killed Jeannemary and Isaac. Magnus and Abigail” (p. 350). Harrow doesn’t know who’s behind the murders, or what’s part of the challenge, or how it all fits together.
Gideon asks about the deaths of the two hundred kids in the Ninth House, and Harrow admits that her parents killed them all to produce a powerful necromancer, the last hope of the dying Ninth House. She has always known. Moreover, Gideon was supposed to die, too, but somehow survived. And, finally, Harrow knows that her life can’t justify the deaths of two hundred innocent children, and nothing will ever justify it: “I am a war crime” (p. 353). She lived with the guilt until the age of ten, when she decided her choice was either to open the Locked Tomb and see what was behind it to decide whether the two hundred deaths were worth it, or go out the airlock at the top of the Ninth House drill shaft and kill herself. After breaking into the Tomb, she was supposed to hang herself with her parents but didn’t, and says to Gideon, “You’re not the only one who couldn’t die” (p. 355).
Gideon tells her she’s sorry for her, and Harrow attacks her for her forgiveness, because Gideon was so much more wronged and still has the capacity to pity her: “You say that you’re sorry when I have spent my life destroying you? … have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren’t dead, all because — I regretted I wasn’t!….I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot — I took you to this killing field as my slave — you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You’ve won. I’ve lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you” (p. 356). After a very wet and salty hug, Gideon’s response is, “One flesh, one end, bitch.”
After an interval, Harrow tells Gideon that, if she dies, she needs Gideon to go back to the Ninth and protect the Tomb. “If I die, I need your duty not to die with me” (p. 357), which Gideon considers “a dick move.” Harrow tells her that, inside the Tomb, beyond “a blood ward bypass on the doors which will only respond for the Necromancer Divine,” on a rock surrounded by a deep tidal salt pool, is a stone and ice tomb, and inside is a girl chained to the rock. “Nav, when I saw her face I decided I wanted to live. I decided to live forever just in case she ever woke up” (p. 358).
That night, as they’re talking, Gideon asks about the exploded shuttle, and Harrow tells her that Ortus and Glaurica were supposed to return in 24 hours, but that Crux put a bomb on board and killed them.
- Is this a love story? Oh, absolutely. Have we defined that love? Why, no. We have not.
- It’s not possible to summarize this chapter. It’s the emotional heart of the book. So I’m not even going to try, except to note two things:
- Gideon’s saying, “Do you really have the hots for some chilly weirdo in a coffin?” that gets her punted back into the pool — it’s more than a smart comment. You see, I’ll go to the mat for this being a love story. But if it is, it’s not a love that wants to possess. Faced with Harrow’s confession of her eternal love for the girl in the Tomb, Gideon is okay with it, merely taking her hand and sitting quietly together as she processes everything she’s learned.
- “For the rest of that evening they were furtive and unwilling to let the other one out of their sight for more than a minute, as though distance would compromise everything all over again — talking to each other as though they’d never had the opportunity to talk, but talking about bullshit, about nothing at all, just hearing the rise and fall of the other one’s voice” (p. 359). Everything around them is going to pieces, but right now they’re in their own little world, and it’s wonderful. It’s love.
At this point, I’m calling a halt for the week. Not only is this act long, it’s dense. And everything from here on out is like the last three chapters of Moby Dick, it’s a Nantucket Sleigh Ride. Also, I want to give Gideon and Harrow their evening of romance. So let’s leave them here: cavalier and necromancer, at last for real.
First House
House of the Emperor, his servants, and his Lyctors. Lyctors: immortal. Potential is unclear.
Seat: Canaan House, where they can’t return. The reason is a unclear.
Skull: no adornment.
Planet: a water planet close enough to Dominicus that it doesn’t freeze. Come on, we all know what it is.
Second House
Colors: white and scarlet, martial. Home of the Cohort, God’s armies.
Characteristics: discipline
Necro: Judith Deuteros, age 22, (Judith beheaded Holofernes), cavalier: Marta Dyas, age 27, (Marta=martial).
Specialty: Spirit magic, use of thanergy in battle. They siphon their enemies to strengthen their cavaliers.
Skull: A Spartan-style helmet
Planet:
Third House
Colors: Violet?
Characteristics: wealth and flash
Necro: Ianthe and Coronabeth Tridentarius, princesses of Ida, both age 21, cavalier: Naberius Tern, age 23, Resurrection-pure line.
Specialty: Spirit magic, “animaphilia” — lover of the soul
Skull: Jewels in the eyeholes.
Planet:
Fourth House
Colors: Blue
Characteristics: courage
Necro: Isaac Tettares, Baron of Tisis, age 13, (Biblical Isaac foreshadows Christ’s sacrifice), Resurrection-pure line; cavalier: Jeannemary Chateur, knight of Tisis, age 14 (ref to Jeanne d’Arc), Resurrection-pure line. Tisis: refers to either tuberculosis (unlikely), a type of moth (also unlikely), or ref to a character in Brent Weeks’ Lightbringer series (more likely).
Specialty: Spirit magic? It’s unclear, but Abigail Pent was training Isaac, so it’s logical.
Skull: Wears a laurel wreath
Planet:
Notes: The Fourth supplies soldiers and necromancers to the Cohort. The Fourth has large families, since so many die in battle. The Fourth is first on the ground in war.
Fifth House
Colors: nothing formal, but sensible brown works.
Characteristics: Intelligence. Temporal power.
Necro: Abigail Pent, age 37, Koniortos Court cavalier: Magnus Quinn, age 38. Husband and wife.
Specialty: Sprit magic, speaking to the dead. Abigail is a famed historian.
Skull: Wears a decorated headband. In last week’s comments, Ahianne suggested that the skull wears a stylized crown of thorns.
Planet:
Notes: As BMScott observed, “Koniortos” is Greek for “dust,” which works in a Biblical context.
Sixth House
Colors: gray
Characteristics: scholarship, rare book librarian and conservatorship skills, medical expertise
Necro: Palamedes Sextus, master warden, age 20, (Palamedes: genius Greek soldier in the Trojan War), cavalier: Camilla Hect, age 20. Second cousins.
Specialty: Flesh magic, emphasis on science and magic.
Skull: Clutches a scroll in its teeth.
Planet:
Seventh House
Colors: seafoam green
Characteristics: love of beauty, especially the fleeting type. Fans of the beautiful death and heirs with hereditary cancer.
Necro: Dulcinea Septimus, duchess of Rhodes, age 27 (Don Quixote’s nonexistent beloved); cavalier: Protesilaus Ebdoma, military veteran and famed fighter, age 39 (Protesilaus: the first Greek to die in the Trojan war). Rhodes: island in the Aegean, site of the Colossus, visited by both Herod the Great and the Apostle Paul.
Specialty: flesh magic, with emphasis on the “beguiling corpse.”
Skull: A rose in one eyehole.
Planet:
Eighth House
Colors: White
Characteristics: orthodox purity, dogmatism, “White Templars,” the “Forgiving House”
Necro: Silas Octakiseron, age 16; cavalier: Colum Asht, age 32, 34, or 37. (Colum: dove, a sacrificial animal)
Specialty: spirit magic, focus on soul siphoning. Also hypocrisy.
Skull: Blindfolded, denoting blind loyalty.
Planet:
Ninth House
Colors: black
Characteristics: devotion to the Locked Tomb.
Necro: Harrowhark Nonagesimus, age 17 (the Harrowing of Hell — Jesus’ liberation of souls during the three days he descended into hell, and hark! a doleful sound); cavalier: Gideon Nav, age 19 (Gideon: an Israelite prophet, military triumph of a small force over a larger one).
Specialty: bone magic.
Skull: lacking a mandible.
Planet: a cold rock distant from Dominicus.
PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS
Gideon the Ninth, Act 3
Gideon the Ninth, Act 2
Gideon the Ninth, Act 1
Introduction to The Locked Tomb
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