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The way John tells the story, when the screaming starts his first thought is that it must be some kind of animal in pain. Then he remembers that he didn’t bother resurrecting any land animals to inhabit the First House and that in fact he and his companions are the only people here.
The screaming pulls everyone up short, perhaps the others even more quickly than John because they don’t have memories of the House of the First having animals to contend with like he does. Pyrrha is on her feet almost immediately, her hand going to her rapier. “Who’s unaccounted for?” she demands of no one and everyone in particular.
John’s other disciples look at each other, trapped somewhere just this side of fear. At this early stage none of them know that their existence will soon be reduced to running from their lives from monsters. If something like this had happened as little as a few hundred years later there would have been a mass reaching for weapons and preparing to fight. Now there’s just bewildered confusion.
“I think Titania went to the bathroom,” Ulysses says after a moment.
“Cytherea wasn’t feeling well,” Cassiopeia says. “I looked in on her earlier and offered to send Mercymorn, but Loveday says she just needs rest.”
John looks around, counting his followers. Alecto is hunched in one corner of the room ignored by everyone but him, her jaw is clenched with one of the rages that sometimes grip her. John has the uncomfortable feeling that she knows something he doesn’t. “Where are Augustine and Mercymorn?” he asks a stab of worry biting through his chest.
“They left a while ago,” Gideon says. “I don’t know where they were planning to go.”
“I haven’t seen Cristabel and Alfred all day,” Nigella speaks up. “Maybe they’re looking for them?”
Pyrrha looks them all over then starts for the door. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.” Gideon gets up and follows her without comment. John decides he has the right idea and follows along as well. After a moment the rest flock after.
The shrieks make a surprisingly straightforward path right to the top of Canaan House. That’s probably why they could hear them so clearly downstairs; the screaming is coming from the roof and they had the windows open. They burst out into the sunlight and onto a scene that will change everything.
The inhuman screams are coming from Mercymorn, who is sitting on the floor in a pool of red, clutching Cristabel to her chest. Alfred is laying spread-eagle a few feet away, Augustine is a little further away than that, curled up in the fetal position with his arms wrapped around his head.
John is something of a connoisseur of corpses but you don’t need his level of expertise to know that Alfred and Cristabel are dead. For starters there is a lot of blood, it is all over them and the floor and Mercymorn, though Augustine seems to have avoided the worst of it.
Oh, and there’s the small detail of their rapiers sticking out of their chests.
It’s the rapiers that first put John on to what must have happened. The rapiers were just a flight of fancy at first, but they’ve taken on a new significance since John’s followers cracked what they’ve started calling the Eightfold Word. Then there’s the fact that he can’t feel Mercy and Augustine any more than he can feel their cavaliers. As far as his necromancy is concerned, all four of them are dead.
Holy shit, they changed their minds. John thinks.
Things have been in a bit of holding pattern these last few months, ever since research into the possibility of Lyctorhood reached its close. It’s especially eerie after the years of dedicated research which gripped Canaan House’s inhabitants. The realization that completion of the Eightfold Word will require the cavalier’s death has given everyone pause and inspired a lot of deep thinking. Or at least it had until Augustine and Mercy took a collective stand on the issue.
Over the years John has learned to be respectfully wary of any time that Augustine and Mercymorn are in complete agreement. They often work together, but normally it’s with a lot of playful bickering and low-stakes disagreements. Every once and a while, however, they both commit to something so absolutely that they are in total agreement, and you need to watch out when that happens.
That’s why when last week when Augustine had leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and said, “Mercy and I have been thinking about the Eightfold Word,” John’s first thought was, This is going to be bad, isn’t it? That feeling was only heightened by Mercy’s posture, which made it obvious that she’d agreed to let Augustine speak for both of them. She’d never have done that unless she was sure he wasn’t going to say something she took issue with.
“When we started on this path, we were looking for a way to increase our necromantic abilities so we can be useful to our Lord out in the Houses and beyond, instead of constantly tied to his side to keep from aging,” Augustine spoke very formally, in a way that reminded John of the world before, of watching Augustine give presentations about cryogenic freezing in front of auditoriums full of scientists and investors. The memory filled him with a rush of longing sadness that had Alecto looking at him out of the corners of her eyes that were actually his eyes. He couldn’t tell if that look was sympathy or confusion—Alecto didn’t always understand his emotions.
“We found a way, but at a cost I don’t think any of us expected,” Augustine paused to allow for the nodding and vague mumbles of assent, he always was so much better in front of a crowd than John was. “I think until the bitter end we all thought we’d find something we overlooked in the process and work how to do it differently.”
You know now would be the perfect time to tell them. John thought, but stayed silent.
Augustine paused there and ran a hand through his hair. Augustine had spent more time in the other Houses and therefore away from John than the others and as a result had aged the most and was visibly going gray in a way that was somewhere between charming, hilarious and existentially terrifying. Sometimes John wanted to joke about how he was actually older than Augustine, but had always refrained from doing so. It would be best for everyone if Augustine never realized he and John had known each other before the Resurrection. If he figured that out he’d start asking questions John didn’t want to answer.
“Mercymorn and I have had some long discussions about this of late,” Augustine said. “We’ve decided that neither of us will attempt to ascend to Lyctorhood,” he turned to address John directly. “I’m sorry, John, but we decided neither of us could bear the cost,” the planes of his face changed and then he said with what John knew to be complete honesty, “It’s ghastly.”
And now here they all are barging in on what is pretty obviously the carnage after an attempt at ascending to Lyctorhood, even though the necromancers involved had recently publicly sworn never to do so.
Cassiopeia recovers first, crossing the room to Mercymorn. “Mercy, come on let go of her,” she says, kneeling down next to the other woman and peeling her away from Cristabel, not caring about the blood soaking into her clothes. “It’s going to be fine. Put her down and we’ll let John take a look take a look at her. I’m sure he’ll be able to fix it.”
I don’t think I’m going to be able to fix this, John thinks but before he can decide whether or not to say that, Augustine uncurls a little and pushes himself up on his elbows. “John isn’t going to be able to fix this,” he says.
That is apparently the wrong thing to say because Mercymorn suddenly rips herself free of Cassiopeia and hurls herself across the room at Augustine. As she goes creates a long spike out of her hand. It is half bone, half tissue, a clumsy bit of necromancy especially coming from Mercy who is a tidy and precise necromancer. It’s wicked sharp though and there’s practically no resistance as she buries it in Augustine’s chest. The point comes out his back and he lets out a wet little gasp. The look on his face is the same as it was when he was shot in the facility.
John’s ears go fuzzy with static and his vision fades a little. It’s brief, but by the time he fades back into focus, some of the others have already had a chance to react. Gideon and Cyrus pull Mercy off Augustine bodily. She fights them, kicking and biting and struggling, spitting every curse she knows. Anastasia swoops in to try to stabilize Mercy’s arm because she hasn’t released her spike and every bit of struggling is doing more damage to Augustine’s chest.
As soon as she’s free John forces himself forward. He does not want to look. He’s already seen Augustine’s body once, he does not need to see it again. He hopes it’s not too late. He can bring Augustine back from the brink of death, but if he’s too late there’s nothing he can do. The others don’t know about the Resurrection Beasts creeping through space hunting him yet, but John does. He knows that he cannot perform any more Resurrections.
But when he reaches Augustine he is shocked to find that the horrible wound is already closing. It doesn’t happen as quickly as it does for John and Alecto, but it is definitely happening. John watches in fascination as the hole in Augustine’s chest closes up like it was never there. Next to him, Anastasia makes an involuntary sound of surprise.
Augustine sits up. There is definitely blood on him now, staining the front of his shirt and his graying hair. He looks like he’s trying very hard to keep from either hyperventilating or throwing up, perhaps both. He pushes John and Anastasia away almost roughly however, and when he pushes himself up into an unsteady crouch the look on his face makes him look like a stranger. It’s not like John has never seen Augustine angry but the depth of the rage on his face now is something else and he levels every ounce of that rage on Mercymorn.
“What gives you the right to attack me?” he demands. “As if we both don’t know exactly whose fault this is. Cristabel is a fanatic and she—”
None of them get to hear the rest because Mercymorn retorts and Augustine tries to talk over her and they devolve into a screaming fight. They are both obviously hysterical and the things they’re saying are nearly impossible to follow save for the poisonous loathing in their voices.
Perhaps the biggest surprise John got from Resurrecting his closest friends without their memories is that Augustine and Mercymorn’s relationship is still platonic. John had long been convinced that denial was the only logical explanation for why his two closest friends weren’t dating. They obviously adored each other and had for years and they were both bi so incompatible sexualities weren’t the issue. It only made sense to think that they must be in love with each other and just unable to admit it to themselves. John had been sure that without memories of their past lives holding them back, Augustine and Mercy would quickly become a couple. That hadn’t happened. After the first initial months of confusion caused by being Resurrected with catastrophic memory loss John was shocked to watch them settle back into the same playfully bickering but undeniably devoted platonic intimacy they’ve had for as long John has known them. It makes him feel really scummy for all the fantasies about the three of them getting together that he’s entertained over the years.
So while John is used to Augustine and Mercy getting on each other’s nerves, this is unlike anything he has ever witnessed from them. Mercy and Augustine fight all the time, but the stakes have always been low; you can always tell that there’s no chance of any damaged relationships. This is different. The only thing John can compare this too is if he was watching the fight the facility right before they were attacked from the outside. The memory of that is as horrible as the memory of Augustine being shot. John cannot handle it. This all needs to stop.
“Enough!” he shouts and lashes out with his necromancy. Everyone freezes, even Augustine and Mercymorn which is a relief because while he’d thought the lower form of Lyctorhood his followers have found wouldn’t impede his own abilities he hadn’t been sure.
He takes a moment to take a breath because in a situation like this it will not do for God to seem freaked out. “Let’s everyone take a moment to calm down,” he says which is so fucking inane but really what do you say in a moment like this?
The way it ends up going, Gideon hoists Augustine over his shoulder and carries him off somewhere with Pyrrha following along for moral support. Cyrus and Valancy carry Mercymorn between them in an entirely different direction. John, Alecto and Cassiopeia go along and leave the rest to deal with the bodies.
Unfortunately now that John has stopped her rage in its tracks, Mercy is beyond speech. She curls up in Cyrus’s arms, a shaking, sobbing, rocking wreck and starts screaming again whenever anyone tries to ask her what happened. So John leaves her in Cyrus, Valancy and Cassiopeia’s care and goes with Alecto to figure out where Gideon and Pyrrha took Augustine. It takes them the better part of an hour to coax the story out of Augustine bit by painful bit, like they’re slowly advancing in the face of heavy enemy fire.
Alfred and Cristabel had actually been missing since last night and Augustine and Mercy gotten worried and gone to search for them. They’d found them on the roof with their rapiers and plans for a horrible suicide pact. Cristabel and Alfred had explained that God needed Lyctors and that there was no space for personal feelings in that mission. Then they’d killed themselves while Mercy and Augustine watched.
“So we performed the Eightfold Word,” Augustine finishes. “What else were we going to do at that point? We all know you can’t perform any more resurrections and we couldn’t just let them die for nothing.”
Something strange has happened to Augustine since Gideon and Pyrrha removed him from the rooftop and from Mercy’s presence. He has fallen back into himself, all emotion draining away, becoming a hollow shell of himself. If not for how badly he’s shaking and how hard they’ve had to work to get him to relate the story of what happened, even John would think he’s not upset by what happened at all. Even once you look past his frightening blankness there’s something wrong with his face. It takes John an inexcusably long time to realize the issue is that his eyes are no longer his own, they’re Alfred’s. John has had plenty of time to get used to seeing his eyes in Alecto’s face and her eyes in his own, but this is still a bit frightening.
“Did you know, John?” Augustine asks, begs really, when it becomes obvious that John has run out of words. “Could you have stopped it?”
It’s not a plea to a close friend, it’s a plea to God. John has not quite gotten used to those yet, but he has learned something of how to correctly respond to them. He rests his palm gently against Augustine’s bloody cheek. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” he lies.
~~~~
When John tells the story of how his first and second saints ascended to Lyctorhood in the myriad that follows, there are a few points he always sticks to. The fact that the Petty Lyctorhood his disciples have discovered is the highest form of the practice and that Alecto is just his bodyguard not his cavalier. The fact that he wholeheartedly accepted and respected Augustine and Mercy’s decision not to attempt to ascend knowing what the cost would be. The fact that he had no idea what Cristabel and Alfred might have been planning. When he tells the story to himself and Alecto he adds a fourth fact and says that the first time he realizes he lied to Augustine about whether he knew was when, later in their rooms, Alecto asks with that child-like confusion she sometimes has, “Why didn’t you tell Augustine about the conversation you had with Cristabel?”
He never forgets that the first point is a lie, but after a few thousand years he can no longer recall whether the other points are too.
~~~~
A few days before the fateful day when Augustine and Mercymorn ascend to Lyctor, John and Alecto are enjoying the sunset in one of the gardens when Cristabel comes to him. John is honestly a little annoyed because sometimes he does need space from his followers especially now that they don’t have furious research to occupy their time and have been spending more time around him as a result. Still he controls his frustration when the cavalier approaches. “Hello, Cristabel,” he says. “Come to watch the sunset?”
Cristabel spares Alecto the sort of friendly smile you’d give a vague acquaintance you didn’t dislike but also don’t want to get to know better before returning her attention to John. “Actually, Lord, I came hoping to talk to you,” she says. “Is that alright? I don’t want to intrude, but I also didn’t want the others around.”
“Of course it’s alright,” John says, though he wishes she hadn’t come. Her formal address is also somewhat uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, Cristabel is the most devout of his disciples and as a result she is the only one who never calls him John. Sometimes he wishes she would.
“Thank you, Lord,” Cristabel bows her head in reverence and he expects her to launch right into whatever she wants to talk about, but instead she lets the silence hang for several minutes, obviously gathering her thoughts. He’s just beginning to debate prodding her a little when she takes a deep breath and begins,
“This is the end of the Lyctoral experiment,” she says. “No one will try now that they know Mercy and Augustine are against it.”
It would be inaccurate to say that the power dynamics at Canaan House are simple, but they are different than the power dynamics Ianthe and Harrow will find on the Mithreaum ten thousand years later. At this point, things like order of Resurrection and closeness to John are the deciding factors. Augustine and Mercy in particular hold a great deal of unspoken power over the others, not just because they were the first two Resurrections and are John’s closest friends, but also because Augustine is Augustine and knows both how to make other people want to follow him and how to make them want to follow people he trusts too. John knows that Cristabel is right; that now Augustine and Mercy have said they won’t make an attempt at obtaining Lyctorhood, the others are unlikely to try. Even Gideon and Pyrrha, who had been close, John knows they were—duty is too salient a concept to them—probably won’t make an attempt knowing Augustine and Mercymorn have decided not to.
John is confused by how he feels about that. It’s somehow both the horrible, crushing feeling of realizing your candidate lost an election you couldn’t afford to lose and the dizzy relief of jumping out of the path of an oncoming car a second before you would have been crushed. He is both bitterly angry that Augustine and Mercy have gotten cold feet right before the final hurdle and desperately thankful that Augustine and Mercy have gotten cold feet right before the final hurdle.
Maybe, he’s been thinking, just maybe this whole thing can be swept under the rug and he can stop doubting and feeling guilty about the lie of omission he told about Alecto and his own godly Lyctorhood. His friends don’t need to be Lyctors to stay with him. He just needs them to not become so powerful that he can’t touch them. If they never try to become Lyctors then he has no reason to grapple with the morality of keeping the secrets he needs to keep.
“You’re probably right,” he says because he feels the need to say something.
“I understand their hesitancy and empathize with it,” Cristabel says, “but you’re God. There is no sacrifice so great that it cannot be justified in the name of God.”
It takes a minute for the full implication of what Cristabel is saying to sink in. “Cristabel—” he begins though he has no idea what he’s going to say.
“I’ve been talking to Alfred,” she goes on. “He agrees with me. However, we both know that Mercymorn and Augustine never will, especially not now that they’ve taken such a public stance on the issue. Alfred and I have a plan to handle that, but I wanted to talk to you first. I don’t think our plan is a sin, but I figured I should confess it to you just in case it is.”
John still has no idea what to say. He can follow the implications and make a guess at what the plan is. He remembers Cristabel in the facility, with a gun held to her own head and he knows. Resurrection without memories did not fundamentally change the sort of people any of his friends are. He knows he needs to say something, but what escapes him.
It occurs to him that if he was going to come clean about his own Lyctorhood with Alecto, now might be the optimal time to do it. If Cristabel tells everyone else, he won’t have to look them in the face when they realize it. It will still be bad, but perhaps not as bad. Not as bad as those last hours in the facility, surely.
He almost convinces himself that he’s actually going to say it, but then Cristabel prostrates herself before him. When she stands up she gives him a misty smile, “It has been my great pleasure to have the opportunity to serve you, Lord,” she says then turns and leaves the balcony.
John contemplates calling after her, then running after her, but in the end he just turns back to horizon as the sun sinks beneath the horizon.