Chapter 18 #2
“We could wrap you in white and get you onto the end of the line easily enough, but it won’t matter.
Even if you somehow managed to get to the Overseer without the real iunctii saying anything—and they absolutely would—the entrance itself is sealed.
Guarded by more Overseers who will check the faces of everyone coming in and out.
You’ll either be a captive or a fugitive the moment you try. ”
The distant black blight rises sharply against the ocean of white, broken only by the river winding through the valley. The Infernis, Caeror says is its name. It vanishes into Duat itself before reappearing out the other side. No greenery grows around its edges.
“What about the water? From what you’ve said, a Vitaerium should let me get by without breathing. And it flows right through the middle—”
“Poison. So much poison.” Caeror’s interruption is certain.
“Even with a Vitaerium, it will melt the skin from your bones. And if you had enough Vitaeria to survive that … you know the Seawall around Solivagus?” I nod.
“Yusef said there are similar columns across the Infernis, both its entrance and exit inside. So if you tried, you’d end up trapped at the bottom of the river.
In agony. Possibly for a long, long time. ”
“So you’re saying it’s a maybe.”
“Let’s call it a secondary option.”
I give a small smile, though he won’t be able to see it.
This place is a true nightmare, all heat and horror and constant, terrifying threat.
And yet even after seven years of living it, seven years of waiting, Ulciscor’s curly-haired brother has handled my training with nothing but grace and encouragement and genial wit.
Patient consideration, too. Silence when it’s been needed.
He hasn’t pressed me about my reaction to the golden mutalis door.
Hasn’t insisted that I try again, though I know how important it is.
It’s become something of a symbol, between us.
We both know that when I finally go back and face it, I will be telling him that I’m ready.
I was a prince of Suus, eleven years old when he got here. Eleven. And he is still pushing, still driven to stop the deaths of the people he loves, even though he will never see them again.
I have trusted unwillingly, miserly, from necessity alone. But he has earned more than that.
I come to a decision.
“There was a naumachia, last year,” I begin quietly.
NEITHER OF US SPEAK FOR A LONG TIME, AFTER I HAVE finished.
The hot, covering grit trickles and itches.
My role has been truncated in the retelling, morphed to become much more of a passive observer who found out the details later.
No need to explain Suus or the Anguis. No need to give Caeror cause to doubt me, doubt my desire to help save the people we left behind.
But the rest I lay bare. There is no lie and no exaggeration to my trauma.
“Gleaner patrol,” says Caeror suddenly, alert.
I switch hurriedly from introspection to mark the dots rising ominously from the great pyramid in the valley below. Watch as they swing away westward. “Three of them?”
“That’s what I make.” His eyes flick to the position of the sun. “Unscheduled. It has to be our people. But three is still too many.”
“We can work with three, though,” I point out. “Set up a secondary disturbance to drag one away from the initial group. The timing would be trickier, but we can experiment. If they’re really so predictable—”
“Predictability isn’t the issue. It’s time. We can’t run these sorts of experiments too often, or they’ll realise they’re being tested and adapt.”
We watch the dots disappear on the horizon.
“I wondered how you’d adjusted so well, you know.
How you could look at what this world has become and not be overwhelmed with the horror of it.
It took me months. Yusef was the only one who would talk to me, and we were living in those tombs, and …
I thought it was the worst thing that could happen to someone.
” Caeror’s voice is soft. “Gods. Vis. I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“You couldn’t have.” I exhale. Something easing in my chest. I’ve wanted to talk about this for a while. “But if it’s the only way into where Ka is, I’m going to have to face it eventually.”
Silence again from Caeror. I can almost hear his desire to argue, to reassure me that I don’t have to confront my demons.
“If you want to try again, then try. It may be wise. I can be there, or you can do it alone—whichever you prefer,” he says eventually.
“But necessity is different from practice, and you are already subjected to so much. Whatever you choose, I know you well enough now to have faith that when the time comes, fear will not keep you from what is needed.”
I give a small, genuine smile at the encouragement. Despite everything, it’s impossible to help but believe him.
“You said that mutalis might be able to break Duat’s walls.”
“I only know what Yusef and now you have told me. Anything it touches, it destroys. Unless you’re Synchronous.
” He sighs. “I know what you’re thinking, but that’s a bad option too.
Worse than what we’ve already discussed.
If you could make a hole into the city, based on what you’ve said it would be loud.
You would be swarmed by Gleaners and Overseers, and even if the mutalis works as you say, they are stronger and far more numerous than you.
All it would take is for one to reach you.
” He pauses. “And worse. Those walls protect against the poison in the air. Perhaps Ka would be able to seal it in time. Perhaps not. But there are thousands of people living in there.”
“Not an option, then,” I agree quietly. I hesitate. “What about the stylus I mentioned? Have you ever heard of anything like that?”
“You say this man who stopped the attack. He coated it with his blood, and he was immune to mutalis?”
“That’s what Ulciscor said.”
“No.” Caeror’s voice is curious, but sure. “Yusef never mentioned anything like that. And I am certain he would have. I am certain that if such a thing existed here, it would have already been used to try and get to Ka. I am sorry,” he adds gently.
“It’s alright.” I feel better, better than I have since I saw the fuzzing golden door.
I still wish I could talk with Aequa. I wish we had talked about it while we had the chance, during those long days of training before the Iudicium.
A few times I almost started the conversation and a few times, I suspect she almost did. But it never quite happened.
We wait, after that. And wait. Caeror questions me as distant Duat wavers in the heat, probing the gaps in my knowledge as we watch for the Gleaners to return. I move only to take slow, careful sips of water, the taste still foul despite my thirst and despite a month of growing accustomed to it.
“Good,” says Caeror as I finish a long sentence in Vetusian, mimicking the sounds of the Duatian dialect as best I can. “You’re quick. Never seem to make the same mistake twice.”
“Had a good teacher to make sure of that.”
“Ulciscor?”
I hesitate. “Lanistia.”
“Oh.” He says it quietly. Curious and not wanting to know, all in one.
I’ve mentioned her again only once since Solivagus—told him that she was helping Ulciscor, that they were working together to figure out the truth behind his murder.
He immediately shied away from it. Insisted that I say no more on the matter.
“Is she happy?” He asks it eventually with about as much reluctance as anyone could ask such a question.
“You said you didn’t want to know.” I make it a gentle reminder. “You said she needed to be dead to you.”
A long pause, then, “I’ve changed my mind.”
I think about the woman I knew, back on Res.
Don’t really know how to answer the question properly.
“Happy? She was always a bit closed off, to me. But she’s strong.
Rotting gods, one of the strongest women I’ve known.
She was an abomination of a teacher. A constant pain.
I owe her. I liked her.” I take a breath. “She’s alright, Caeror.”
He half smiles at that. Wistful. “I bet she liked you, too.”
I don’t say more as we look out over the desert. I think for him, knowing that much is enough.
“I always thought I would be the one left in Res, you know.” He says it abruptly.
“I knew that going through the Gate would copy me to Obiteum and Luceum. Or I thought I knew that. But in my head, I was going to be the one who stayed. It never really occurred to me that I would be the copy. Be here.” There’s rawness to the admission. Pain, even now.
“But you lived.”
“But I lived,” he agrees softly. He gives a gentle laugh. “I cannot tell you how many times I’ve cursed the other, clearly less capable versions of me.”
I’m silent, for once not responding to his efforts in lightening the morbid strangeness of our situation. The intensity of the days has meant I’ve barely had time to think about my own copies. About what they might be doing. The lives they might be leading.
Or not.
“Would I know? Straight away, I mean.” I ask it uneasily. “If one of my other selves …”
“Yes.” A long enough pause that I think he’s going to leave it at that.
He’s said as much before. Clearly reluctant to go further.
But then he takes an audible breath. “It feels like a part of you has been ripped away. Physically, and emotionally. All you can do is lie there and weep. I thought it was from coming through the Gate, the first time. It was only when it hit me a few weeks later again that I understood what it meant.” He admits it with his usual gentle, soft candour.
I lick my lips against the hot, acidic air. Say nothing.
“You’re a smart man, Vis. Assuming that’s not a recent development, your copies will be just fine.”
“Sure.” I give a bitter chuckle. “Four thousand years of people trying, but I’ll be the first.”
“You could be.” Caeror’s stern against my cynicism.
“I don’t tell you this enough, but what you’re doing—what you’ve already achieved—is incredible.
Truly. What has been asked of you and what I am still asking.
The weight you not only bear but you are willing to bear, without complaint, without flinching.
And to know what you’ve been through even before this …
” He trails off. Faintly laughs. “Just … gods, man. At least let yourself admit you’re doing alright. ”
I chew my lip, then shake my head and smile. Genuinely, this time. Caeror’s optimism is a lot sometimes.
But his exhortation still buoys me. Still matters.
“Thanks,” I say quietly.
The sun beats down, and we talk more as we wait for the Gleaners to return.
In hushed tones and intermittently, returning often to my training, but even those interactions feel somehow more companionable than before.
Our company had always been friendly, but there was still a wall. That has gone, now.
Three distant dots eventually disturb the endless horizon. We make note of the time, and hold our position until the relative cover of dusk.
And as we return, for the first time, I feel like I might be capable of doing what needs to be done.
THE GOLDEN DOOR FLICKERS AND FUZZES AND PRESSES on my mind. I stand at the end of the corridor and stare at its hazing glow. Motionless. I am here, not at the naumachia. I am here, not at the naumachia. I am surrounded only by obsidian. Clean and smooth black rock. I am here, not at the naumachia.
I breathe. Look away. Look back. Breathe.
It’s been hours since we got back, and I know I should be asleep. Resting in preparation for tomorrow’s training. But I do not want to waste today’s conversations. I do not want to wake having lost this new resolve.
I take a few hesitant steps. The sound creeps louder, still evoking a dread I can’t describe, weakening my knees in ways that are as frustrating as they are inevitable. Logic should overcome my fear. I am a rational person and this is not rational. My brain still struggles to make my legs move.
I take a step. Another. Another. I will do it, this time. Touch the golden surface through the mutalis. Prove that I am Synchronous, and accept what needs to be done.
“Do not open it.”
I flinch around with a combination of shock and relief at the intrusion. It’s Nofret, the girl I caught sneaking food. I’ve seen her around a few times since, but always at a distance, as with most of the Qabrans.
A moment to recover from the breaking of my mantra, and then I realise she’s looking at me. Talking to me. Anxiety in her eyes, her stance, but there’s no one else here. The first person outside of Caeror to address me directly in nearly two months.
“Why?”
“It is dangerous.” Her Vetusian is simple and clean; combined with my constant lessons with Caeror, it’s easy to understand.
“I know.” I relax a little. Smile encouragingly. “I’m special. Probably,” I add, mostly to myself. “It won’t hurt me.”
“No.” She licks her lips. “It is dangerous. Cursed.” Her brow is furrowed, seeing I’m confused more than convinced. “Do you not know of this? To open this door is to unleash the end of all things.”
“Nofret?” Another voice above the thrumming.
Male. Worried. A second later a man appears, immediately identifiable as Nofret’s family, probably an older brother given his relative youth.
His eyes widen as he sees me, sees Nofret.
He strides forward without looking at me again.
Grabs the girl with a stream of Vetusian that’s both too low and too furious for me to make out.
Nofret struggles briefly and says something back I don’t quite catch, but the young man is stronger. He pulls her around the corner.
“Do not open it!”
The girl is dragged from sight. Her begging shout fades.
Within moments, I am again surrounded by the deep, unsettling thrum, and alone.