XXV

THE SHINING, CUTTING POLISHED BLACK of Duat spears the sky as we approach. I watch it through Duodecim’s eyes. Willing it closer. Its growing presence the only reason I can still force myself to stillness, to continue the façade. Even the threat of death seems faint next to the pain.

We near, our height never deviating, though the swarm of body-laden figures starts to gradually bunch together as we arrow for a specific spot in the pyramid. I am near the middle of the group, surrounded on all sides by mute, shadowy Gleaners, whatever was lighting their blades having gradually faded to nothing during the journey. Their eyes are fixed straight ahead, never once glancing to the side, let alone in my direction.

As we approach the glaring dark mirror, something shifts ahead. A section begins folding away, revealing a triangular-shaped hole almost ten feet high. Eerily familiar in form, though I didn’t hear “Scintres Exunus’ ” or any other verbal commands.

The glare from the moon’s reflection is blinding, but Duodecim never blinks, never glances away. I have to stop watching through his eyes for a few seconds. Let myself go blind, and only give the command again when I sense us passing into darkness.

My twisted stomach lurches as we descend.

Duodecim’s eyes are adjusting. We are plummeting. Not falling, though close to that speed. Inside some sort of shaft. Smooth obsidian walls refracting an ever-dimming light as we get farther from the moonlit sky. Deeper. Deeper.

Then Duodecim is slowing. Then he is walking, as are the other Gleaners, moving in stiff unison through a long, low triangular tunnel—made of the same reflective mirrorlike black stone as outside—and lit by green lines along the apex and the two lower corners. The same eerie hue as from the ruins near the Academy, or the entrance to the garden at Qabr. It’s seemingly etched in, nothing protruding to indicate that it’s emanating from something other than the stone itself. No suggestion of any purpose other than to illuminate, though.

We march. The unnaturally straight way ahead, the dizzying, almost perfect reflections of it broken only by the mechanical movement of the Gleaners as they advance soundlessly.

After an age, openings appear to the sides and Gleaners begin branching off; as soon as they are through, the pyramidal holes fold shut to conceal them. A few in front of us are still open as we pass, but Duodecim’s gaze never drifts, so I cannot see what lies within.

Finally, the Gleaner slows and turns into a gap on our left. Steps through. Places me on the floor.

With a smooth, quick motion, he slides the granite blade from my chest.

I can’t help the agonised moan that escapes my lips, muted and from between desperately gritted teeth though it is. I force myself to silence and stillness again, tears leaking from my eyes. The worst of the pain fading with merciful speed as my Vitaeria do their work, even if the suffocating dread and need to move, to scramble away and cower in the corner, remains.

There’s nothing, though. No suggestion of other Gleaners approaching to investigate. Duodecim just stands there, looking down at me.

Finally, cautiously, I instruct him to turn around. Confirm that the door is closed.

Then I roll up into a ball and gasp some desperate, sobbing breaths. An hour, at least, of pain and panic assaulting the knowledge that if I reacted to either in any way, I would die. I know I should still be quiet, should be moving, should be figuring out exactly how to get out of this place and into Duat itself. But I can’t. Not yet.

I need to let my tightly bounded terror loose, for a while.

Duodecim just stands there, back to me. Unmoving.

Eventually, my rasping breaths ease into something approaching normalcy. The pain is still there, but nothing like it was with the blade embedded. My trembling limbs still, and I suck in a few more deep lungfuls, steadying as my thoughts begin to clear. I pick myself up, touch my chest wound. It’s clean. Blood barely stains my fingers. The two scarab medallions around my thigh are keeping me mobile, keeping it contained. It will hurt for weeks—longer, maybe—but as long as I find some way to stitch myself up, it should heal.

I’m still connected to the humanlike monstrosity in front of me, and as much as I want to release it, I know I can’t. Not yet.

“Lead me into the city without anyone else noticing.” I rasp it.

Duodecim doesn’t even twitch.

I wait, forcing down a fresh wave of panic as I process his lack of response. I don’t think this is a refusal; if his usual instructions had somehow taken precedence again, I would be dead. But it could be an indication that what I’ve asked of him is impossible. That if he knows the execution of a command is unattainable, he simply won’t attempt it. I tried that with Tash, a few times—things like telling him to fly—and his reaction, or lack thereof, was similar.

“Make sure you don’t look at me, but turn around.” He does. “Walk to the opposite wall.” He does. “Walk through the wall into the next room.” Duodecim doesn’t move.

“Vek.” I stare at the Gleaner, then level myself slowly to my feet and pace, eyes on the floor, letting the control over my own body calm me. This isn’t a disaster. In fact, now I’ve been forcibly slowed, I realise that this is the time to get as much information as I can. Similar to the iunctii who showed me the Labyrinth in Res, but now with the ability to force a genuine response.

“Answer my questions honestly by nodding for yes, shaking your head for no. Is there a path into the city from here?”

The worst of the tension leaks from my shoulders as Duodecim nods, though the mechanical motion somehow makes him even more unsettling. We’re not in some isolated area only for Gleaners, then.

“Can you lead me into the city without us being noticed?”

A shake of the head, again eerily perfunctory. Too wide and regular, like a child carefully but emphatically trying the motion for the first time. I shudder, though it’s what I expected. “Can you get me into the city without anyone realising I’m alive?”

My heart sinks at another shake of the head. I bite my lip. Pace again.

“Are there guards?” No, is the answer. “Is it the other Gleaners who will notice?” Yes. “Is there any way to fool them?” No. “Will they kill me if they realise something is wrong?” Yes. Of gods-damned course yes. I shouldn’t have asked. Stupid.

I issue more questions for clarity, but my initial impressions are only confirmed: there’s a way out, but only the one, and it’s not one that can possibly avoid raising alarms. Other Gleaners wait along the way and would inevitably see us. There is no disguise, no ruse, that would allow for me to be walking that path.

“Alright,” I mutter, more to myself than Duodecim. It’s been several minutes now and I’m more composed. He’s indicated that we have time undisturbed in here. An hour at least. “If there’s only one way out, and the other Gleaners will kill me if they see me going that way, then we need to move the Gleaners.”

I look at Duodecim speculatively.

“If you were by yourself, would the other Gleaners react to you?” A shake of the head. “Would you be able to kill them, or disable them so that I can get past unseen?” Another shake of the head. Fair enough. I suppose once one Gleaner raised the alarm, all the others would know Duodecim was compromised and come running. It doesn’t really matter. Getting into the city but leaving behind a trail of dead Gleaners isn’t exactly subtle. I may not be able to avoid raising suspicions completely, but Caeror was clear about my chances if Ka becomes sure of my presence.

I think for another minute, chewing my lip.

“Is there anywhere in here where something violent might happen, without raising suspicion? A fight? An accidental injury?” Yes. “Something violent enough that it would prevent you from being questioned afterward, if the injury was to you?” Yes again. Good. “Can we reach there without being seen?” Yes. Alright. I allow myself a sliver of rising hope. “Could something happen there that would draw enough other Gleaners that I could get into the city unseen?”

No response, this time. I frown. “You can’t say for sure either way?”

An immediate nod. Vek.

I spend the next ten minutes workshopping other ways out. None of them come close to being viable. The following ten—time increasingly pressing on my shoulders—I spend clarifying things. Through tortuous trial and error and careful memorisation, I determine the path I will have to take from wherever Duodecim intends to lead me. I try to ask questions about that as well, but it’s too vague a concept for yes or no answers; I don’t get far and I don’t have the time or need to probe. If I won’t be seen getting there, and I can potentially use Duodecim to cause a distraction—and have him “kill” himself in the process, to ensure the Concurrence can’t discover me, though the idea makes my stomach churn—then it’s the best I can hope for. Risky, but as far as I can tell, my only chance.

“Duodecim,” I say eventually, steeling myself. “Lead me to where we can cause this distraction, on a path we won’t be seen.” I don’t know how important it is to emphasise the details again, but I do it anyway.

Duodecim walks to the triangular opening of the room and as he approaches, the black stone folds away. The mirrorlike hall beyond, its emerald lines of illumination stretching away, is utterly silent.

He strides to the left. I follow uncertainly.

Somehow the close, reflective triangular hallway, its apex only a foot above my head, feels even more unsettling as we traverse it alone. The openings to the left and right are all sealed; occasionally I think I hear something from behind the dark walls—mutters, moans, pleading—but it’s so faint that I can’t be sure it’s not my imagination. I alternate looking ahead and behind, all too aware that these long corridors mean that any stray Gleaner entering will be able to immediately see me from a distance. But there is nothing. No movement except our own.

It is a full five minutes, but only three turns, before the desperate shouting starts echoing to us.

Not my imagination this time, I realise as the yelling becomes more audible. Only one voice that I can hear. Male. Hoarse, panicked and pleading. Even if I didn’t know the Vetusian, it would be impossible to mistake the content.

Help.

I restrain the urge to break into a sprint, the hair on the back of my neck rising as we get closer and the man’s tone—words and volume increasing, message remaining largely the same—becomes more urgent. Duodecim moves with mute purpose as we approach the triangular opening that is the source of the supplications. They’re addressing someone. Asking them to stop. Begging them, and the great god Ka, and anyone else who will listen, to just stop.

Duodecim reaches the doorway and doesn’t hesitate, turning and disappearing from the hallway.

I enter after him just in time to see him spear the other Gleaner inside straight through the back of the skull.

I give an involuntarily, gargled sound of shock at the unexpectedness of it, eyes fixed on the horrific sight for several seconds before I can take anything else in. There’s a thick, wet sound as Duodecim pulls his gore-coated granite blade from the woman’s head, allowing her body—truly lifeless, this time—to slide off it and slump to the floor. The pleading voice has stopped, and I finally wrench my gaze past Duodecim’s hulking form to see a man manacled to a slab that looks uncomfortably like a Sapper. He is blindfolded, pressing himself back against the stone as if trying to sink straight into it.

Duodecim walks up to him and draws back his granite blade.

“Wait.” I snap out the command aloud, urgent. Duodecim stops dead. He stands in front of the prisoner, left arm drawn back, motionless.

“Who is there?” The blindfolded man has finally registered something is happening. His Vetusian is thickly accented, much harder to grasp than the version Caeror has had me practicing. But my familiarity with the language, and our constant sessions over the past months, are enough for me to understand.

Vek. I need time to think this through. The tip of Duodecim’s perfectly still granite blade hovers a few inches from the stranger’s right shoulder. He’s clearly afraid, clearly a prisoner. My eyes stray to the unused blades on the bench. The thick, pooled blood on the floor. Bile burns my throat as I put it together.

This man was to be a new Gleaner?

He nods.

You were intending to make him one yourself?

He nods again. I gaze around at the blood.

New Gleaners are sometimes violent? This was your distraction? Set him loose?

He affirms it, one more time.

Vek. Vek, vek, vek. It all passes between us within the space of a few seconds. I turn back to the man, who is again asking in a trembling voice what is happening, starting to get louder again and squirming against his restraints. The longer I stand here, the more chance there is that we are discovered.

Is he alive? I ask it out of desperation.

Duodecim shakes his head.

In that moment, I almost do it. I almost instruct Duodecim to proceed. There is no telling how long the hallway outside will remain empty. All it will take is one Gleaner to see me, and none of this works. And this man—this dead man—is my best way out.

Is he being controlled? Is he in any way under the influence of anyone except himself?

A shake of the head. Vek.

The path you described to me. It leads from here?

A nod.

Be the distraction yourself. Forget what I look like and every other detail of how I have made you obey. If you are captured, respond in all ways as if you never met me, as if none of this has happened. Our experiments with Tash suggest that as long as I was the last one to imbue him, he’ll continue to obey, even if he gets conflicting commands from a previous imbuing. I hope to the gods’ graves that holds. Once you have caused enough of a distraction to draw away the Gleaners in our path, do whatever you can to make sure any questioning of you is impossible.

I try to think of it as a mercy. It doesn’t feel that way.

Tap your blade on the ground to indicate the number of minutes we should wait before leaving.

Click, click, click. Silence.

Go.

Duodecim strides away without hesitation.

It’s a bad move. A gods-damned stupid decision. I’m risking his being caught and thus my Synchronism, the purpose of my being here, becoming known to Ka. And I’ll be losing my connection to the Gleaner either way. No time to second-guess myself, though. No time to regret what I’ve just done. I stride over to the bound iunctus. He’s a little shorter than me, muscled and hale-looking. Clean-shaven, including his scalp, and immediately in much better condition than any of the Qabrans were. He looks about in his mid-thirties.

“Stay quiet. I’m a friend. I’m going to let you free. Once you are, you need to follow me.” I say it in careful Vetusian, hoping the meaning is clear. It seems to be. The stranger shies away from my voice, close as it is, but after a moment he nods anxiously. His body still trembles as I rip away his blindfold, allowing him to see me.

The man takes me in, panic emanating from him like a physical heat, but he holds his tongue. Nods again as our gazes meet. Good. He’s under control enough to do as I tell him.

I fiddle with the manacle on the right for about thirty seconds, thinking desperately. I can’t risk imbuing him to ensure he does as he’s told; even if I could stomach the idea, between Duodecim and my injury, I don’t have the Will to spare. Eventually I figure out the mechanism I’m working at and release it, moving on to the left. A few more seconds of fumbling and the freed prisoner stumbles forward, putting fearful distance between himself and the slab.

“Wait until I move. Stay close. Your name?” It might be useful, if I need to get his attention.

“Ahmose.”

“Vis.” I hold up a hand to indicate that should be the extent of our interaction for now, and close my eyes.

Duodecim stands in a room not unlike the one Ahmose and I are in. Another Gleaner lies on the floor, staring up at him, smears of black blood glinting where Duodecim has evidently sliced its blades from its body. It tries to crawl away—an act of self-preservation or something else, I have no idea—but Duodecim stalks after it. With a quick thrust, he spears the fallen Gleaner through the mouth before turning and moving swiftly back into the hallway.

I come back to myself. The dead Gleaner was given plenty of time to see Duodecim, to know what was happening and broadcast a warning. Ka didn’t seem able to command Duodecim to stop, but other Gleaners will undoubtedly be coming to make sure he does.

Which, hopefully, leaves our way forward clear.

I beckon Ahmose and move at a half-crouching jog out of the room and to the left, the same direction that Duodecim took. It’s been about three minutes and I have to trust the Gleaner’s assessment, have to assume he would have taken into account that out here we will be completely exposed. We proceed in grim silence, every breath tense. Once I hear running ahead and my heart goes to my throat. A Gleaner passes across the corridor in front, flitting obliquely, visible for only a second. It never looks around.

Two lefts, straight past two crossroads, a right. I keep the map Duodecim described to me tightly in my head. It is a maze in here, and everything looks the same, all mirrored, triangular openings and straight lines of green light. No way I could find my way without help. No way I can figure out the way back if I miss a turn.

Four turns before the last one Duodecim gave me, the tunnels change. The lines of light remain the same, but the mirrored black is replaced by dull stone, the lack of reflections making everything immediately darker. Doors to the side are open, and we pass several empty rooms. I make the mistake of glancing in the first one. The floor is slick, and manacles hang from the roof. A fetid smell wafts from it.

I hurry on, and Ahmose stays close behind.

Footsteps in several side passages now, measured but quick. I ignore them. Two turns remaining. One. It feels like there’s activity everywhere around us, but the passageways are narrower and twisting and more easily hide us from sight and still, somehow, we are unseen.

The last turn and there is light ahead. Not sunlight, not natural light, but a virulent glow that emanates across a great space.

We burst out the corridor entrance and onto a long, raised stone terrace. I skid to a halt.

Beyond the edge ahead, unfolding away from us below, is Duat.

It’s more vast than I could possibly have imagined. The Infernis cuts through the heart of the massive city, just as Caeror said it would. Everything closer to us—almost a third of the expanse, I would say—is a shimmering sea of black-mirror structures and roads, eerily lit and delineated by the same emerald lines of light as the tunnels we’ve just fled. Wide streets reflect the motion of distant, white-clad forms shuffling along them.

I don’t need my hours of poring over maps to guess that this side of the river must be Neter-khertet, Duat’s great iunctii quarter.

Distant, across the single dark bridge slicing the Infernis, almost everything looks different. Squat buildings of chalky stone, dusty-looking streets dividing them. Though we are too far away to hear or see anything distinct, there is a dull hum that echoes from its direction that reminds me of Caten. A constant background noise that by instinct I know is the combined voices of thousands upon thousands of people.

It’s all lit by the enormous radiant pyramid that sits at Duat’s heart, towering above all else. Massive polished black stones edged with illuminating lines of warm gold. No motion anywhere along its vast surface. On the opposite side of the river, but its surrounding acres of darkly reflective structures are a blotch that seems to have seeped across the water into the otherwise bright, gold-tinged spread of the far side of the city.

I take as much of it in as I can before Ahmose tugs urgently at my arm. The balcony we’re on is set high into one of Duat’s dark, inwardly sloping outer walls; the only path down is a covered stairwell off to the left. It’s sealed off by a gate made of several spear-like bars; we hurry toward it, and as we do, I realise that something is off.

“We cannot go through here.” Ahmose is dismayed as he sees what I’m seeing, feels what I’m feeling. The fear of what is behind us suddenly wars with the fear of what is ahead.

Thrum.

The deep, terrifying discomfort presses down on my ears as we approach. Me forcing myself closer. The unsettling fuzzing of the air around each bar, a jagged visual warping, as though just briefly they are moving, as if the air around them is vibrating.

Red-coated stands. Screaming.

“Do not touch them. You will die.” Ahmose’s urgent voice cuts through the nightmare. Brings me sharply back to this one.

I use a precious second to move to the edge of the terrace and peer over. It’s two hundred feet to the stone below.

I back away, and close my eyes.

Duodecim is still fighting, using the narrow entrance of the room he’s in as a choke point, but he’s in bad shape. I can see cuts everywhere on his torso as he swings again and again at the other Gleaners trying to get to him. His movements are sluggish. He is not getting away.

Even as I watch, the one he is fighting lashes out again and this time, Duodecim doesn’t try to avoid the strike. Instead he deflects the blade upward from his chest.

Allows it to drive straight into his mouth.

“Ngh.” I groan and hold my hands to my head, pain searing through it. The connection’s gone. The Will I imbued in him returned.

Duodecim won’t be giving my identity away. But his counterparts will surely be about to conduct some sort of search.

There’s no time for alternatives. No choice.

Before Ahmose can stop me, I stride forward and grasp the bars.

There is heat and light buzzing through me, making my insides shiver, unpleasant but not overtly painful. The disorienting, flickering impression that I’m outside again, hovering in mid-air with the desert far below.

With a grunt, I focus enough to pull. The mutalis-coated gate opens and I stumble back, shuddering as I release it.

“Come on.” I mutter the words, head still clearing but focused enough to remember the urgency of our situation. “Come on.”

Ahmose is looking at me as if I am a monster. Or perhaps a god. Reverence and fear in every line.

But when I slip through the narrow opening and urge him to follow, he does.

The gap is barely wide enough for a person and Ahmose slides past with intelligent caution, looking queasy as he nears the bars. I reach out and steady him, pulling him through, then grit my teeth and pull the gate closed again. The sensation is no less pleasant the second time, but it’s not crippling.

The sound of footsteps echoes from the tunnel we just left. Ahmose needs no encouragement to flee after me around the corner, the two of us moving as quickly and silently as we can.

We race down the stairs, and into the vast, unfamiliar expanse of Duat.