Introducing Gideon Nav, Cavalier Primary to the Ninth House, Keepers of the Locked Tomb...

[ninth_cavalier]

...House of the Sewn Tongue, The Black Vestals. We pray that the tomb is shut forever. We pray the rock is never rolled away. We pray that which was buried remains buried, insensate, in perpetual rest, with closed eye and stilled brain. We pray it lives, we pray it sleeps, we pray for the needs of the Emperor All-Giving, the Undying King...

One minute Gideon is doing the stupidest and most perfect thing she has ever done, heroically sacrificing herself so her necromancer can eat her and achieve true Lyctorhood and break Cytherea the First's body into so many little shards of bone and ribbons of fat and flesh that even her own mother (thousands of years dead, and most likely a huge bitch) couldn't recognize her, and the next she's—standing. Whole, the aches in her leg and shoulder gone, her sunglasses perched on her nose, the comforting weight of her longsword¹ on her back. She takes a breath, just for the novelty of it, and looks around.

The first thing she notices is how clean it is. No blood, no mold, no grime, no layers of bone dust. When she breathes, she just breathes air, and it feels like extra clean air, which—she looks further around—is probably due to the actual grass on the actual ground. In the distance there are trees. With birds in them.

Is this—this can't possibly be what the inside of Harrow's brain looks like. The inside of Harrow's brain is undoubtedly as spooky as the outside of Harrow's brain, because where would she even have found the imagination to dream up something this—idyllic?? There's nothing even close to it in any of her experience on Drearbruh, and Gideon would know, having been there and actively making that experience worse for all of Harrow's sorry little life.

No, what she's looking at is—a house. A big, boring, white-painted house, not a bone to be seen. "Okay," says Gideon. "What the fuck."

Anyone looking at her will see a tallish (though not for Mansion standards), broad-shouldered and very ripped butch woman, dressed all in black (black tank top, black pants, black stompy boots). She has short-cropped red hair, medium-brown skin, and her face has been painted with stark black and white skull makeup, atop which she has incongruously perched very old-looking aviator sunglasses. Slung over her back is the aforementioned sword.

¹ Typist note: the books consistently refer to this as both a "longsword" and a "two-hander," and from the way its weight and length is constantly emphasized I interpret it to be more toward zweihander than longsword. Also, bigger sword sexier.

Comments

[ninth_cavalier]

"Um," says Gideon, "yeah. Isn't everyone? Planets exist in outer space? Including, presumably, Earth?"

[kadewest]

"Space is the final frontier, where I'm from," Kade says. "No living thing has gone beyond our Earth's moon."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon stares at him. She's getting tired of thinking and/or saying that's impossible, so instead she says, "That would either make you older than the Emperor Undying, which is blasphemy to even say, I'll have to go slit my own throat after this, or Earth is a real backwater. Like, a lost colony that has forgotten how to do lightspeed travel kind of backwater."

[kadewest]

"We don't have lightspeed travel yet! That only exists in science fiction. It exists only in pure conjecture." Kade puts a hand on his hip and regards Gideon for a moment. "I doubt we share a calendar system, but it's 2024 on my Earth."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Shit," says Gideon, "maybe we do.¹ I just came from the Year 10,000. The Myriadic Year of Our Lord."

¹ They don't.

[kadewest]

"The... can you explain that one to me?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"It's the ten thousandth year since the Emperor Undying sealed the Locked Tomb," says Gideon, and with the patience of a saint does not add, obviously.

[kadewest]

"We have different calendars," Kade says, with a firm nod. "Unless the sealing of the Locked Tomb is a metaphor for the alleged birth of the baby Jesus?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon stares at him. "Who the fuck is the baby Jesus?"

[kadewest]

Kade laughs. "Fuck, I'd like to hear you say that to some folks back home," he says. "He's a religious figure. Arguably the son of God. Mostly a Christian guy, but I think that Muslims talk about him too."

[ninth_cavalier]

"All these people worship a baby?" asks Gideon. "But babies are so lame. They can't do shit."

[kadewest]

"They worship the fact that he grew up and sacrificed himself, ostensibly for our sins," says Kade, who rather agrees that babies don't have a lot of utility outside of being snatched up and traded with changelings in some Worlds.

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon takes this one a little personally, as a guy who was, not too long ago, very much sacrificing herself for someone else's sins. "Big whoop," she mutters.

[kadewest]

"Okay," Kade says, evenly, with a careful look at Gideon. "So we come from probably different Worlds--which I mean in the multiverse sense and I think you mean in the planetary space sense--and definitely different times. I'm new here and I'm still learning the ropes." Still, he's used to working with young people who are struggling to adapt to recent unwanted World-travel. "But if you have any burning questions, I can, at the very least, help you figure out where to get answers." A pause. He's much more comfortable with clear cause and effect, and clear prices paid. Is she? Many travelers are. It's worth a shot. "Since there's no currency here, as far as I can tell, I trade in stories."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Stories," repeats Gideon. Insane type of currency, but sure. "Okay. My most burning question is how to get out, so if you can help me with that one I'll tell you a story that'll knock your socks off. Blood! Babes! More blood! So much blood you'll say, hey, that's too much blood, and I'll say, yeah, man, tell me about it! If you like hearing about it, try living it next time!" She shakes her head. "I don't see any transport ships, so—how does it work, in the... multiverse sense? How'd you get in and out of your Fairyland?"

[kadewest]

"Doors, mostly," Kade says. Despite the function of the Moon in the Moors, the few gleanings he's gotten about Gideon's World are that it's a separate reality from Jack's. Still, he gets the sense that the two of them would get along. "Doors are portals to other Worlds. Or dimensions, if you'd prefer. I got into Prism through a wrought-iron Door, and I got kicked out when they dumped me in a wishing-well for breaking one of the fundamental rules. I got here through a heavy wood Door. The way I hear it, though, not everyone here got a Door, and just about everyone I've spoken to has mentioned being stuck."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Doors. Right." Okay, so the way to get home is to just find the right door? This is sounding uncomfortably like Canaan House. "Do these Doors need a key?"

[kadewest]

"Nope. You won't see it if you can't open it."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Nice," says Gideon. "That's a way better system. It's almost like it's not designed to kill you horribly." She starts to leave—there can't be that many doors to check in this place—and then pivots on her heel. "You want the story now, or—?" Once she finds the door she's definitely not sticking around.

[kadewest]

"Sure, I'll take this story now," Kade says--a little fondly, it must be said. Gideon, now that he's interacted with her, absolutely strikes him as someone who could be one of his students.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Okay," says Gideon. Damn, she suddenly wishes she'd paid any attention to Ortus' snoozefest of a poem about his famous ancestor. How funny would it be to drop a couple bars of the dullest poem imaginable right now? Fallen in war for the fame of the House is the death every warrior fain would win at the finish— Nope, that's all she's got.

"Uh. Once upon a time, by which I mean this year, ten thousand, the Myriad Year of Our Lord, eight necromancers and eight cavaliers—wait, shit, no, nine necromancers and eight cavaliers, fucking Tridentarii—were summoned to Canaan House to compete for the holiest of all honors, being exalted to serve as Lyctor to the Necrolord Prime. Most of them were huge assholes, some of them were total babes, several of them were total babes and huge assholes, and now they're pretty much all dead. Except one, who'd better be fucking alive, because I'm supposed to be the dead one. The end."

She gives Kade a salute. "Anyway, great to meet you, I'm gonna go open every door in the place." She jogs away.

[kadewest]

Kade knows better than to intercede when a recent traveler is processing. "Good luck," he calls after her; he'll track her down later to check in.