Work Text:
Here is a secret passed down from Glen to Glen, whispered only from the lips of an heir to the ear of an ill omen: Glen Baskerville is the king of the land of the dead, and protecting that land is the first and greatest of his responsibilities.
Here is a secret hidden among the ancient forbidden texts of the Baskerville library: the land of the dead is the border between the Abyss and the world, carved out of the Abyss by the Jury and maintained by the corpses of those beloved by the Abyss, trapped forever unless they forsake the Abyss and become one with the Jury.
Here is the taunt tossed from Glen Baskerville to an ill omen: you will die so that your brother will not be tortured for his betrayal, and your corpse will chain his soul and the soul of your dearest friend for all eternity.
Here is the offer passed from prisoner to sacrifice: let me give you a child that will dig itself out of your corpse with its teeth, that will survive to strain against the seams of the world, that will take this eternity I am chained to and turn it into something new.
Here is the secret revealed only to a madman: there is a child, and they think the child is yours, but it’s not. There was a death, and I raised your only friends to carry it out, and now it has destroyed them. There is a higher power in this world, and it loves the same person you love, and I sent that person to her death to keep that power chained.
Here is a journey made in secret as a man trapped in his own rotting corpse tells the truth of the world to a man who has lost all meaning to his life: Glen Baskerville stepped into the land of the dead as easily as walking up a flight of stairs to a secluded tower and walked along bones and rotting flesh as if they were a field of flowers, and cast thoughtless eyes over the scenery he surveyed. Life had no meaning here; his only company was the dead and the rotting and those lucky souls freed from their corpses, waiting a century to be born again. None of them spoke to him. He did not expect them to; not even dead kings were honored here, and a living one certainly would not be.
A piece of bone crunched under his boot. Someone made a noise of pain. Glen Baskerville looked at the still-clear crimson eyes of a Child of Ill Omen sacrificed more than a century ago and then turned his face away. This was the fate of all ill omens; he had known this for a long time. A former Glen lived in his rotting corpse only until it liquified; then his soul was tied onto that of his successor, or—if the successor was not competent enough for this, as Glen’s own master had teased that he wouldn’t be—released into the reincarnation cycle with all other souls. But a Child of Ill Omen would be bound to her living body forever, aging and aging and aging and never dying, unless—
Unless she made a deal she never would make—most never would make, judging by the condition of the person whose bone he’d just crushed. This Glen was not the Glen who had sacrificed this ill omen, but shame still curled hot in him and he fixed his eyes ahead and straightened his shoulders and continued on his way.
Most of the time, the bodies he stepped on neither moved nor made noise. It was easy to pretend that this was a normal path, to ignore the stench of meat and rot pressing in on him all around. It was a beautiful land, in its own way—beautiful in the way that death was beautiful, and beautiful in the way that this land was not built only from gore and pain. There were trees there, and bushes, and flowers; vines bearing fruit rested on a lattice built out of dozens of ribcages, and an orchard full of sweetly rotting fruit was coming up to his left.
These were the remnants of now-extinct plants, mostly: some of the plants were variants of those you could find in the world of the living, but there was no chance of finding that exact kind of plant anywhere alive. Not even their seeds existed anymore. It was widely believed that eating a fruit from the land of the dead would grant you eternal life; rumor had it that, when consumed, it could even return the dead to life.
It was Levi Baskerville’s ambition to kick off his retirement by sneaking into the land of the dead and stealing some of that fruit for himself, rejuvenating his corpse and freeing himself from any remaining duty as a former Glen by committing grand treason. He was reasonably confident that this treason would not be noticed: his preparations had ensured that there would very soon be enough chaos in and around the Baskerville manor and its path through the land of the dead to the Abyss that nobody would notice one eensy little theft, and anyway, Levi knew that Oswald was in no condition to notice or care about treason from someone else who had loved Lacie. It was why he was presently winding up Jack, completely heedless of anything anyone other than himself was doing. It was why he did not consider that he wasn’t the only person with a treasonous interest in the land of the dead.
Glen Baskerville continued on. His boots were coated in gristle and gore, and the hem of his cloak and his pants were stiffened and soaked in blood. It was good that his clothing was dark; it was good that nobody would dare ask questions of Glen Baskerville. Whoever did his laundry tonight would probably be hating him for a very, very long time. This was fair; this was what he deserved.
There was no sun in the land of the dead, but Glen could feel it beating down on the back of his neck anyway. He could probably have burned his hand on his hair, but he didn’t try. There were more important things to do here, namely locating the object of his search.
Object—as if she were a thing. She was still living. As things were, she would never die.
Levi Baskerville was now explaining to Jack Vessalius in gruesome detail the way Oswald Baskerville had killed his little sister. He had put his hand on the top of her head; he had barely hesitated a moment; he had activated the ritual and spoken the words with barely a moment’s hesitation.
Lacie Baskerville, your sin is that you were born with the eyes of ill omen, which threaten the peace of the Abyss. May those eyes be bound forever more guarding the barrier of the Abyss from those of your ilk, and you bound with them.
It was an ancient curse, with a loophole so ancient nobody even saw it anymore, until one bright morning when Lacie Baskerville was forcing her brother to practice the oath again and again, she said laughing that the spell would probably work the same if you tore her eyes out of her head and cast it on them alone. That was not a risk Glen had been able to take at his ascension ceremony, but her words had rolled around and around in his head ever since until finally he’d had enough. He had to test it. He had to find it out. If Lacie Baskerville would no longer be an ill omen if she died and lost her eyes, then—then that was it. That would fix things. That would save his sister from the distortions of Glen Baskerville; once she no longer had the eyes of ill omen, she would no longer be an ill omen, and could live a full, happy, and free life. Glen could finally make up for causing her to be born a Child of Ill Omen, by finally fixing it—by finally fixing her.
Nobody was moving, in the land of the dead. Nobody was walking around. Glen Baskerville may have been the king of the land of the dead, but even he could not see ghosts. Still, though, he continued onwards until finally he saw a familiar silhouette leaning against the wall closest to the Abyss.
Lacie looked up at his approach, a mean, old grin on her face. “Nii-sama,” she said. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I would think that the life of Glen Baskerville was one too busy to bother with little old me.”
Glen Baskerville knelt before her. “Lacie,” he said. He paused, trying to figure out how best to word what was coming next. “I have been…thinking…about what you once said to me, about how the ritual to sacrifice you would have worked the same whether it was cast on you or your eyes alone.”
Lacie raised her eyebrows. “The loophole in the ascension curse?” she said. “Nii-sama, you don’t need to worry about that. You didn’t fall through the loophole. That’s somebody else’s problem now—some future Glen might find out that an ill omen they’re sacrificing has pulled their own eyes out and then reap the consequences later, but you won’t.”
“It’s not too late,” said Glen.
Lacie’s eyebrows climbed up higher. “Not too late?” she echoed. “Nii-sama, you’ve already killed me. You did it, we’re done, I’m here forever, dead in every way that counts.”
“Not quite,” said Glen. “You could still consume the fruit of the land of the dead.”
“As if I haven’t tried that,” she scoffed. “I’m not some former Glen bound to his own corpse. I’m a proper citizen of the afterlife, and those fruits have no effect on me.”
“A former Glen is not the only person who can be bound to their corpse, Lacie.”
“But a sacrificed ill omen cannot be.”
“That isn’t quite true. Your loophole—”
“Absolutely not,” Lacie snapped. “Nii-sama, don’t be an idiot, and don’t you dare—”
“This won’t hurt,” said Glen. “Much.”
Lacie tried to get up, but as she moved, the sinner’s chains rematerialized around her, forcing her back down. She glared at Glen, her garnet eyes smouldering like embers on the verge of igniting a forest fire.
“Don’t you dare,” she said.
“It is not the place of an ill omen like you,” he said, “to tell Glen Baskerville what to do.”
She spat in his face.
“Just hold still,” he told her, reaching out to hold her face steady with one hand. She jerked her head away and bit his wrist until it bled; Glen jerked his arm away and then grabbed her by the hair, holding her head steady. “It’ll be alright, Lacie,” he said. “It won’t take long. This will all be over soon, I promise.”
Lacie spat on him again, but Glen ignored this, taking from his pocket a melon baller he’d swiped from the kitchens and lifting it to Lacie’s face. She tried to thrash; he held her still; a few terrible moments later he was depositing the eye carefully on the ground next to them.
“God, that’s disorienting,” Lacie said.
“You can’t see out of it anymore,” Glen told her.
“Oh yes I can, Nii-sama, you bastard,” she said. “I told you that loophole doesn’t count for me anymore.”
“It does,” Glen said. “I promise. I’m saving you, Lacie.”
Lacie scoffed.
“I am. I promise. This will all be over soon.”
He took out the other eye. This was easier than the last; Lacie’s struggling had grown weaker with the shock of blood like tears on her cheeks.
“Fuck you,” she gasped out as he put the second eye down next to the first and let go of her hair. “Fuck you, Nii-sama. You coward. ”
Glen said nothing. He knew he was a coward. At least this way she was freed.
“…What possessed you to pull this, anyway?” Lacie said. “You know as well as I do that the binding still stands, or else these chains would be gone. You know it hasn’t worked.”
“…You’re my sister,” Glen said. “I don’t want you to be damned here for all eternity, and I know you’d never in a million years join the Jury.”
“Well, you’re right about that, at least.” Lacie rubbed a ruffle on her shirt between her fingers. “But you’re still an idiot.”
“Yes,” Glen agreed.
“And this didn’t work.”
“There’s still a few more steps to my plan,” said Glen.
“Oh, are there, then?” said Lacie. “Then let me save you the trouble. I’m disowning you.”
“…What?”
“I’m not your sister anymore, Glen Baskerville. Just your sacrifice. There, is that enough? You don’t have to bother with saving me now, so go home and stop all of this.”
“No,” said Glen. “You’re still my sister.”
“I’m not,” said Lacie. “I may be Oswald’s sister, but I’m not Glen Baskerville’s. And before you start up another argument, I will remind you that Oswald always did as I told him and it is not my place to tell Glen Baskerville what to do.”
“You told me about the loophole,” said Glen.
“I told my brother about the loophole, because I knew it would hurt him,” she said. “You ought to consult with Levi about the things I told Glen Baskerville.”
Glen swallowed. This hurt more than he had expected, even though he knew he didn’t deserve any relief from pain.
“Alright,” he said gently. “But I’m still going to save you.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a choice in the matter.”
Things like this—things that damned you—were better done with your own hands, with your own warm flesh, so even though he could have used the sinner’s chains, Glen reached out himself and placed his hands on Lacie’s throat. Fear kept them loose and gentle, for a little while, before he began to squeeze, just like how Lacie had always sat on him and squeezed after his predecessor had discovered and blocked her escape routes and so she had needed to find a new way to vent her anger when they fought.
“This won’t hurt for long,” he told her, which was true. He knew from experience: Lacie had choked him into unconsciousness enough by the time they were teens that he was infinitely familiar with the feeling. This would be the best way to do it; when he brought her back, there would be no inconvenient injuries threatening her undeath before he found the pomegranate seeds for her. Still, though, Lacie neither liked nor approved of this plan; she coughed and squirmed and gasped for air and did her best to bite Glen when it became clear that she could not free her arms from the chains enough to scratch his face off. He squeezed tighter, and tighter; the fury on her face increased as the struggles decreased, and then she stopped moving he squeezed even tighter, and waited with her heartbeat in his hands until it had been still for so long his wrists grew numb.
The sinner’s chains were gone now, hovering over the eyes he had pulled out. So far, so good; everything had worked. He took his hands away from Lacie’s neck, and her corpse slid down the wall; he gathered her up in his arms and began his long walk out of the land of the dead. It was just as hot; it stank just as badly; the scenery did not change. Still, though, the walk out seemed shorter than the walk in, and Glen was unprepared when he took another step and felt carpet under his feet instead of torn meat and cracked bone, was shocked when he inhaled cool, fresh air instead of the hot, humid rot of the land of the dead. He looked behind him: there was only usual hallway to be seen, though his bloody footprints started only a few feet back.
He adjusted Lacie’s corpse in his arms and started for the room he’d prepared for her, close to the Door to the Abyss and looking out into the manor’s best garden. She would wake soon, undead and blinded; she would hate him, probably, and he would deserve it, definitely. Somehow, she hadn’t hated him before; good on him for fixing that, really. She would be here to hate him and she would be alive to hate him, and she would no longer be a Child of Ill Omen.
This was for the best. Glen had made the right choice here, as treasonous as it was. Now all he had to do was see it through.
He couldn’t tell Jack, of course. Jack was Lacie’s best friend, and as such would obey her when she said that she didn’t want to be brought back from the dead, and so he would have to stay in the dark until the plan was completed. This probably wouldn’t be hard. Glen hadn’t even seen Jack in months.
He lay Lacie on the bed in her new room, pulled the covers over her, sat and waited for her to wake. She would kill him for this, probably, but Glen trusted in his regenerative powers as a Baskerville enough to let her try. She wasn’t an ill omen anymore—she could no longer put down a Glen. Things would be alright—all he had to do now was get the pomegranate seeds from the land of the dead, and then Lacie would be alive and alright, and then start amusing herself with various ways to torture him to death. She and Jack would probably team up for that; strangely, Glen found that he was not exactly happy for her that she would be torturing him with Jack. He didn’t want to be tortured by Jack. He liked Jack.
Still—his sister would be alive, which was all he could ask for, and no longer an ill omen, which was more than he could ever dream of. Things would be okay now. He was sure of it.