XVIII

THE DESERT TRICKLES BENEATH MY tunic, itching and burning in equal measure as I lie all but submersed on the edge of the dune. The baking mid-morning heat assaults my back through my thick robe and the heavy layer of sand. I ignore it all. Remain motionless. The object of our observation today, the shimmering black pyramid of Duat, lies only five miles away. The chances of Gleaners passing overhead are far greater than usual.

“Go over the layout again.” Caeror doesn’t move his head, eyes firmly fixed on the city. We’re both hooded, blending nearly perfectly with the harsh white of the sand. “Eastern quarter of Neter-khertet. How many access points to the tunnels?”

“Three.”

“Where?”

“First is an obelisk near the river, about a hundred feet from the water. Second is in the temple near the centre. Third…” I close my eyes. Envisaging the detailed sketches Caeror has made me study of Neter-khertet—the name of Duat’s massive western district, where the city’s thousands of servile iunctii are apparently housed—and then draw from memory over and over again. “Third is hidden behind a statue at the end of a colonnade. It’s near a main thoroughfare. Probably the hardest one to get into unseen.”

“Excellent.” I can’t help but feel some pleasure at the quiet approval in Caeror’s voice, reward for near two months of exhausting work. From waking to sleeping, the lonely gloom of Qabr has been filled with a training as intense as anything I went through at the Academy. Not just memorising sections of Duat’s vast layout, or the entire network of tunnels beneath it that will apparently provide a far more discreet means of its traversal. Trying to grasp maat, the city’s name for its complex system of laws and customs, and one of the Concurrence’s many means of control. Learning to understand and roughly mimic its peculiar dialect of Vetusian. Gathering a basic knowledge of the writing system that covers the walls of the Qabran tombs, so that I might recognise at least some of the fundamental symbols I will inevitably encounter.

And throughout it all, doing all I can to understand exactly what it means to be Synchronous.

We spent the first couple of days focusing on a task that Caeror firmly believes I should be capable of: using Will in the same way that it can be used in Res. However, I soon found that while I can imbue objects, I cannot make them move or do anything else unexpected. We talked long into the evenings about the issue, sometimes arguing, sometimes speaking over one another as we excitedly extrapolated on each other’s thoughts. Perhaps it is a question of intrinsic capability, and my Obiteum-centred Will is simply manifesting its powers more easily. Or perhaps my copies in Res and Luceum need to be able to use their form of Will, first, before I can here. Or perhaps it is dependent on some extra mental process that changes Will’s fundamental nature before use, like water being transformed into steam or ice to serve a different purpose.

In the end, though, we bandied a thousand different variations on the same few theories between us without practical success. While Caeror has his guesses, we don’t even know for sure what Will from Luceum is supposed to do.

And ultimately, advantageous though it would certainly be, we do not need any of it for what is to come.

Since that somewhat grim realisation, our focus has turned to spending hours of every day with Tash, experimenting with my ability to control iunctii. Testing its limitations. Practicing what I know I can do over, and over, and over again until it becomes as natural as breathing. The process still makes me sick to my stomach, and I know Caeror finds it just as distasteful. But reluctance cannot ignore necessity. We have spent countless hours debating how I might infiltrate Duat, and I have come to the same conclusion as my patient, ever-optimistic mentor.

This is the only way.

“You’re certain the layout won’t have changed?” The maps that Yusef left to Caeror are astoundingly detailed. But they have also clearly been collated over the course of centuries of resistance, some of the papyrus scrolls I’ve been looking at dangerously brittle from age.

“There was a defector from Duat, not long after I arrived.” Ulciscor’s brother is patient, despite having made this assurance before. “She confirmed what she could, and if those maps didn’t noticeably change in a thousand years, I don’t know why they would have in the past five. But more importantly, you have to remember that the entire core of it—every tunnel and at least half the city—is made of the same stuff that protects the Qabran garden. Same stuff as the Instruction Blade. It’s unbreakable, as far as we can tell. Except for maybe by mutalis,” he adds quietly.

It’s the first time in a week that he’s mentioned it. His name for that pulsing, revolting power infusing the golden door in Qabr, the one that supposedly only the Synchronous can survive contact with—despite my insistence to him that I did, long before I ever came to this world. Even just the name conjures a queasy feeling.

He thinks—or rather, Yusef thought—that there might be something beyond the door that utilises mutalis. A weapon, or something that could be used as one. Given what I have seen of the power previously, it would come as no great surprise.

The silence settles for a while as we focus on Duat.

“Still connected to Tash?” Caeror asks absently.

“Yes.” I check the representation of the iunctus sitting in the back of my mind anyway, but it’s as strong as ever. As Caeror suspected, my time at the Academy has proven invaluable; Will’s effects may be different here, but the techniques to use it seem effectively the same.

“What’s he doing?” Caeror hears my frown. “Perfect now or dead later, Vis.”

I grimace in irritation I know he can’t see, close my eyes, and mentally send the command. I established the link with Tash before we left this morning—the key to the initial connection, I’ve found, is a sort of empathy, the ability to identify with something that he’s also experiencing in a given moment—but this is much easier. Controlling the iunctus is not greatly different to the way we were taught to control objects. A forceful imposition upon the image in my mind.

“Working in the garden. Harvesting legumes.” I watch hands that aren’t mine placing thin green pods into a simple stone bowl. Slow, practised movements. I see what Tash sees but exert no influence over where he looks, nor attempt to access any of his other senses. Sight is easy, as long as I keep my eyes closed, but commingling other senses gets unpleasantly confusing.

“Can you imbue some? Keep them fresh?”

“Probably not.” We’ve discovered that if I initially imbue Tash with enough Will, I’m then able to use him to imbue other objects. Small things, thus far. And relatively pointless, given how Will works here. But as Caeror keeps pointing out, it’s a good mental exercise for improving my efficiency.

“Alright.” Ulciscor’s brother is sanguine about the refusal. “Then tell him to take a handful to his rooms, and forget that he has. But that after we return and you drop the imbuing, he should go and fetch them for us.”

“That won’t work.”

“We’ve observed patterns. We need to make sure they’re rules.”

I exhale, but Caeror’s right, and I order Tash as he suggests. Watch as the iunctus pockets some legumes, stands, and leaves the garden. We’ve been doing these experiments regularly for the past couple of weeks; it’s important to know whether my instructions will remain, or whether they last only as long as I’m imbuing. Instructions to forget something seem permanent, regardless of whether I’ve maintained the connection. But commands to perform a task after the imbuing is removed haven’t yet worked.

“How’s your loss ratio today?”

“Better.” Harmonic connections are difficult, costly to establish. It’s likely one of the reasons Ka seems to directly control only Gleaners and another type of iunctii called Overseers, while the remainder in the city, apparently, remain nominally free. “Still using most of the Vitaerium’s Will, though.”

“But you’re alright?”

“I’m alright.” It was hard, the first day we did this; using so much Will meant that my body was far less protected from the toxic atmosphere and blistering heat, and I found myself struggling for breath several times. The fact that I’m not today is an encouraging sign of progress. “I think I’ve—”

“Vis,” interrupts Caeror, his tone suddenly intent.

It takes me a few moments to refocus from Tash’s vision to my own, then spot the line of dots we’ve been waiting for crawling away from the massive black pyramid, little more than specks from this distance. Most of the tiny figures shuffling along beneath the burning sun are swathed in white, making them even more difficult to make out. Only a single one, leading the column, is clothed in black.

“A dozen?” I guess.

“At least. Looks like they’re a mining excursion.” We watch as the line drifts placidly along, and I spot the empty sled as it’s hauled behind them.

“Any chance we can use that? I could try and sneak in with the group as they go back. I need to pretend to be a iunctus anyway, once I’m in there.”

“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.