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Back Harrow the Ninth
Chapters (70)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. DRAMATIS PERSONAE
  5. Prologue
  6. PARODOS
  7. ACT ONE
  8. 1
  9. 2
  10. 3
  11. 4
  12. 5
  13. 6
  14. 7
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. 11
  19. ACT TWO
  20. 12
  21. 13
  22. 14
  23. 15
  24. 16
  25. 17
  26. 18
  27. 19
  28. 20
  29. 21
  30. 22
  31. ACT THREE
  32. 23
  33. 24
  34. 25
  35. 26
  36. 27
  37. 28
  38. 29
  39. 30
  40. 31
  41. ACT FOUR
  42. 32
  43. 33
  44. 34
  45. 35
  46. 36
  47. 37
  48. 38
  49. 39
  50. EPIPARODOS
  51. ACT FIVE
  52. 40
  53. 41
  54. 42
  55. 43
  56. 44
  57. 45
  58. 46
  59. 47
  60. 48
  61. 49
  62. 50
  63. 51
  64. 52
  65. 53
  66. EPILOGUE
  67. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  68. The Locked Tomb Trilogy
  69. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  70. Newsletter Sign-up

The serving sister shadowed the edge of Harrow’s peripheral vision. Ortus had raised his head and did not acknowledge the sister, which complicated things. He looked at Harrow with the faint kind of pity she always suspected he held her in: the pity that marked him as an outsider in his own House, and would mark him as all the more an outsider in the House of his mother’s line. She did not know what made Ortus Ortus. He was a mystery too boring to solve.

“What more is there?” he asked, a little bitterly.

Harrowhark closed her eyes, which shut out Ortus’s tremulous, worried face and the shadow of the Body-faced serving girl that fell over the desk. The shadow told her nothing. Physical evidence was often a trap. She shut out the new and rusty rapier that now creaked in the scabbard at Ortus’s hip. She shut out the comforting smell of dust made hot by the whirring heater in the corner of the room, mixing with the just-milled ink in her inkwell. Tannic acid, human salts.

“This isn’t how it happens,” said the Body.

Which gave Harrow a curious strength.

“I need you to hide my infirmity,” said Harrowhark. “You see, I am insane.”

ACT ONE

1

NINE MONTHS BEFORE THE EMPEROR’S MURDER

IT WAS IN THE CLOSE of the myriadic year of our Lord—that far-off King of Necromancers, that blessed Resurrector of Saints!—that you picked up your sword. This was your first big mistake.

The sword hated you to touch it. The long hilt burnt your bare hands as though heated to starlike temperatures. The vacuum of space outside yielded no thanergy and generated no thalergy, but it didn’t matter. You no longer needed either. You iced your palms over with thick bands of cartilage, and you tried again.

Now the grip seemed cold as death, and it was just as heavy. You lifted, and your elbows locked, and you grasped the pommel to try to steady yourself. You tried a new trick—you slipped a narrow ribbon of bone up from your living metacarpal and eased the fragment gently around the flexor tendon, and you pierced it through the back of your hand. You didn’t flinch. It was never your way. From there you unfolded long fingers of bone to grasp the handle, then more, to grasp it again; you lifted it, in a manner of speaking, assisted by a seething, clattering basket of eight phalanx articulates.

So now you could wobble the sword up in an obtuse angle before yourself. You waited. You felt nothing: no understanding, no mastery, no knowledge. You were just a necromancer, and it was just a sword. It fell away from your hands and clattered to the floor, and you folded in half, and you upchucked violently all over the hospital tiles.