001. ianthe ascension

[outsidebones]

You enter a study of some sort, beautiful and sparsely furnished. In the study, one girl - blonde, tall, stunningly beautiful, is lying on the ground, arms wrapped around herself and shaking, weeping in the dull way of a person who has been crying for hours and doesn't know how to stop, curled in on herself. The girl in the center of the room, lounging on a sagging cushion like a queen, obviously resembles her greatly, but like a wan and sickly copy of her bright and beautiful twin. Her pale golden robe and pallid yellow hair are splattered in blood, and she's trembling, but she's smiling. Next to her, on the ground, is a corpse of a handsome young man.

"Hello, friends," says Ianthe, to the sorry group of necromancers and cavaliers assembled there, yourself and your cavalier among them. All of you froze; only Palamedes Sextus had the presence of mind to check the body and shut his too white eyes.

Naberius Tern, the Cavalier of the Third House, lay sprawled on the ground, looking like something of a tool in death as in life, with the expression of a man who had received the shock of his life. His lips were parted, as though he were about to crossly demand an explanation any minute now. There were blood splatters down his front, his shirt ripped, and a sword through his chest coming out his back.

"Yes," said Ianthe. "My cavalier is dead, and I killed him. Please don't misunderstand - this isn't a confession."

The Eighth House cavalier draws on her, and is easily batted away, while the rest of you only stand there, stunned. She seems to be groaning in pain, shaking and ill, like she has a case of violent food poisoning.

"I admit it, this smarts,” she said, broodingly. "I had my speech all planned out — I was going to brag somewhat, you understand. Because I didn't need any of your keys, and I didn't need any of your secrets. I was always better than all of you — and none of you noticed — nobody ever notices, which is both my virtue and my downfall. How I hate being so good at my job." Her violet eyes swivel, focusing on you. "You noticed, didn't you, you horrible little Ninth goblin? Just a bit?"

"Step one," Ianthe says, singsong. "Preserve the soul, with intellect and memory intact. Step two - analyze it, preserve its structure. Step three - remove and absorb it, take it into yourself without consuming it in the process."

"Oh, fuck," you say. The mega-theorem.

"Step four, fix it in place so it can't deteriorate. Step five, incorporate it: find a way to make the soul part of yourself without being overwhelmed. Step six: consume the flesh. Not the whole thing, a drop of blood will do to ground you. Step seven is reconstruction — making spirit and flesh work together the way they used to, in the new body. And then for the last step you hook up the cables and get the power flowing."

These are the instructions for how to consume a soul and, rather than devour it, use it like a battery to power oneself forever. Ianthe is right, she solved it. This is what Lyctorhood means.

"Like I said," said Ianthe haughtily, "I am very, very good, and moreover I've got common sense. If you face the challenge rooms, you don't need the study notes — not if you're the best necromancer the Third House ever produced. Aren't I, Corona? Baby, stop crying, you're going to get such a headache."

"I came to the same conclusion you did," said Palamedes, but his voice was cold and inflexible. "I discarded it as ghastly. Ghastly, and obvious."

"Ghastly and obvious are my middle names,” said Ianthe. "Sextus, you sweet Sixth prude. Use that big, muscular brain of yours. I'm not talking about the deep calculus. Ten thousand years ago there were sixteen acolytes of the King Undying, and then there were eight. Who were the cavaliers to the Lyctor faithful? Where did they go? I haven't killed Naberius Tern. I ate Naberius Tern," she said, indifferently. "I put a sword through his heart to pin his soul in place. Then I took it into my body. I've robbed Death itself. I have drunk up the substance of his immortal soul. And now I will burn him and burn him and burn him, and he will never really die. I have absorbed Naberius Tern. I am more than the sum of his half, and mine."]