IT TAKES LESS THAN A WEEK TO REALISE THAT EVEN COMpared to those miserable months after Suus was taken by the Hierarchy, life among the tombs and grey rocky clefts of Qabr should be as grim as any I have yet lived.
The first couple of days are the hardest. Bitterly cold nights fade to waking in a musty blackness that is panicking in its totality. First breaths always the hardest as my lungs remember the impurity of the air. The sarcophagi of the tombs are our beds, cut stone softened only by what we are wearing. During the second day, I learn from Caeror that most of the Qabrans remove the dead and sleep inside the sarcophagi themselves, using tattered body wrappings as bedding and detritus from the sepulchres to form makeshift coverings. I think it’s macabre. On the third night, I reluctantly try it myself. It’s significantly warmer. I sleep that way thereafter.
Dawn in the massive crypt comes well into the day, when the miserly crags of the roof finally allow enough light to risk navigating the narrow ledges of the chasm’s walls. Though Caeror says there are upward of fifty people living down here, the morning murk is suffocating in its silence. When I do see someone, it is always brief and always ends with their immediate flight. To a one they are disconcertingly thin and hollow-eyed. Their unrelenting caution, and my ongoing isolation, feels like another kind of toxin permeating the air.
And yet, it is not the crushing existence it could so easily be.
My time with Caeror, and his determination to extract some small joy no matter our surrounds, alleviates much of the despondency of this place. He is quick and clever like his brother, but different to Ulciscor in so many other ways. Open and unaffected in his conversation. Sympathetic as I struggle with what has happened. Cheerful when I need easy company, and morbidly witty whenever we talk of the iunctii, helping to ease my horror at their mere existence with jokes that I half suspect he’s been saving for years.
On my third day he decides to tell me a series of stories about Ulciscor as a boy. After the final one my bursting laughter ricochets down the chasm, and its echo startles me with the purity of its genuine, simple enjoyment.
And so, remarkably, I do not dread the days as I should. I have no doubt that it is partly Caeror’s seven years of adaption that allows him his attitude. But there is also a deliberateness to his levity. The kind of man who is not just upbeat, but who actively considers how he might best make others feel the same. It is impossible to be near him for any significant amount of time and not, even reluctantly, smile.
It helps. Gods, it helps.
Today, light seeping down the rocky grey walls and illuminating the distinctive paintings covering the tomb entrances, begins just like the others. I’m fetched by Caeror. We walk for a bit and then sit on some steps, perched above the gloom of Qabr.
And he helps me try to comprehend this new reality.
“Sleep alright?” He hands me a bowl of barley gruel and a cup of water as we make ourselves comfortable.
I nod my thanks, carefully savouring my first bland mouthful. This will be all I get until tomorrow. The Vitaeria we all wear mean we only need a fraction of a normal meal per day to subsist. Which is fortunate, because though I haven’t seen the garden yet—where Caeror says the Qabrans have figured out how to coax some meagre life from the underground soil—I know its crops are constantly stretched to breaking point. “Better. I think my body’s finally getting used to what passes for daytime down here.” I finish and take a sip of water, trying not to make a face at the unpleasant brackish taste.
“Good. You’ll rotting hate it when you have to adjust to the sun again, though.” He gives the cheerful half smile that is his near constant expression, and pushes some strands of curly hair from his eyes. Even in the dim, the scar crossing his face back up to his missing ear is marked.
Then he places his obsidian sword carefully between us, the black blade clinking against stone.
Silence for a few seconds as I stare at it. The Instruction Blade, as Caeror calls it, is almost two feet long. Thin, obsidian polished to a glassy finish. I haven’t seen it since that first day when he used it on Djedef.
“I know you still have questions,” Caeror says quietly. “But I think it’s time to talk about why you’re here.”
I nod slowly. A pit in my stomach, though I’ve known this was coming, could sense his impatience yesterday as we danced around the subject. “Ka. The Concurrence. You want me to kill him, before he causes another Cataclysm.”
“Yes.” He understands it’s hard to hear, but doesn’t shy away from the reality of it.
“I’m not sure I can.”
“Of course you can. I realise it will take time to come to terms with it, Vis, but what’s the alternative? Living here in hiding for the rest of your days, and wondering if you’re responsible for the deaths of everyone you love back home? No,” he says firmly. Calmly certain. “And though I hate to admit it, we cannot wait for you tofeelready, either. If Ka discovers you’re Synchronous—on any world—he’ll hunt you down. Or worse, he’ll decide to trigger the Cataclysm early. We need to start our planning now.”
I close my eyes. As much as I want to argue, I know he’s right.Inaction picks a side. Estevan was wrong about many things, but not that. I’m no assassin, don’t want to do this—and Iwillfind another way, if it’s possible.
But there’s no ignoring the position I’m in.
“Tell me about him,” I say heavily.
Caeror exhales, leans back slightly. Relief written plain at my implied acceptance. “The man himself? We don’t know a lot,” he admits. “The people in the cities worship him, but he never actually shows himself. It’s his priests who hold power, for the most part. Keep his systems in place and everything running. But there’s a great pyramid in the middle of Duat that’s almost certainly where he lives. It’s the only one of its kind among the cities. Considered holy ground, andheavilyprotected.”
I frown at the description. “You don’t even know if he’sthere?”
“He is. There are few places to hide on this world, Vis. And there are none more secure than that pyramid.”
I don’t suggest I’m convinced, but let it slide for now. “Well. Sounds easy, then.”
Caeror chuckles. “First, you’re going to need to get into Duat itself. The entrances are locked and watched constantly. Iunctii are sometimes sent beyond the walls—mostly to the mines—but they are recorded on the way out and checked when they return. Sneaking in that way is simply not an option.”
I chew my lip. “But you have a plan.”
Caeror nods, tugging at his sleeve in absent thought. Then he twists, picks up the Instruction Blade, and carefully offers it to me.
