I stare. Frozen. Even the numbed, ongoing agony of my legs temporarily forgotten.
The entire mountain, the entire Agerus mountain range, must be hollowed out to accommodate this massive crypt.
At first I think it’s a much larger version of the ruins near the Academy; certainly it feels the same, with its jade light and corpses splayed upright against white stone slabs.
None of them have blades pinning them through the heart, though.
They’re not naked, instead clothed in identical, simple black shifts.
And—as I peer at one of the closest ones—they stare glassily ahead. Dead, certainly, but the eyes of these corpses have not been removed.
It’s a small comfort, confronted with the scale of the thing. There are thousands of them. Tens of thousands. They stretch on forever.
“What is this place?” I whisper it, almost to myself.
“This is the Necropolis.” The iunctus beckons us to follow him, and we start along the path to our left beneath the crushing weight of a thousand blank stares.
From the set of his shoulders, Eidhin is as startled and troubled as I feel, though at least there is no sign of movement, no flicker of unnatural life in any of the men or women—or children, in some cases—who we pass.
“It was entirely empty when your era discovered it—more than a century ago now, I believe. It is a remnant of another time. One of our earliest attempts to build something to rival the Concurrence. Of course, your Military never figured that out; they merely use it to preserve access to knowledge. Particularly that of their foes.”
I gaze around in dazed horror. “How many?”
“Near eighty thousand.” No inflection to the statement.
No judgement. “This chamber holds the most recent, but there are dozens more like it. Your people have filled this place with the slain of a century of conquests. Everyone from great leaders, to the lowest servants who may once have overheard something important. Anyone and everyone who may have something valuable still locked away somewhere in their minds.”
I can barely comprehend it as our path angles upward slightly, toward a raised platform in the centre of the enormous tunnel. A twenty-foot-wide obsidian triangle, elevated above the rows of corpses on either side. “You want me to wake some of them.” It’s the only logical conclusion.
The iunctus starts climbing. “I want you to wake all of them, Catenicus.”
His statement hangs as we ascend. I open my mouth. Shut it again and glance across at Eidhin, whose furrowed brow says he is as lost as I am as to how to respond.
“How?” I ask eventually as we reach the platform.
Its surface is not one piece, as I assumed from below, but four—three triangular-cut stones for each point, and a single, upside-down one in the centre.
A corpse lies within each of the outer triangles.
They would look almost restful in their repose if not for the thin, two-foot-high spikes of obsidian that protrude up through their chests.
“You need only imbue these three men—they do not need more than the Will of a couple of people each. The machinery of this place will do the rest.” He sees my dissatisfaction at the explanation.
“A iunctus can cede far more than it takes to wake them, which means one of the primary strengths of Synchronic Will is the ability to perform what is called a Cascade. These first three iunctii will cede to you, then utilise the remainder of their Will to wake more. Who will cede to them, and then wake more. And so on, and so on. Due to the scale at play, they have been instructed to maximise efficiency and begin creating external pyramids, once the seven levels below you have been filled. But by the end, you will have the strength of a Princeps, and an army who can be compelled to follow your commands.”
I stand there. Head spinning, heart thumping as I try to grasp what he’s telling me. This is madness. “Eighty thousand.” Still not enough to compete with a legion—it takes four times that number to create five thousand Sextii—but … gods.
“Eighty thousand who need neither food nor sleep. And who can make more of their number, if you are forced to fight.”
I pale as I take in his meaning. Feel a slow, creeping horror as I imagine the power of an army that could do what he’s suggesting. The dead of every foe adding to their number. Growing, and growing. Each battle making them stronger, and larger, and more impossible to defeat.
In a strange way, not unlike how the Hierarchy conquered the world.
“Do not do this, Vis.” There’s true dismay in Eidhin’s voice as he gazes around at the three bodies pinned to the platform.
“This is … sick. Wrong. No different to what we spoke of after you were here with Emissa. For a man to die, and then his body—his mind—to be used like this. To be so trapped without even death as an end …” He turns to me, places a large hand on my shoulder.
Serious blue eyes locked to mine. “Do. Not. Do. This.”
I say nothing for a long few moments. “And your kin in Redivius’s camp?”
“We will find another way.”
I nod slowly. Something oddly comforting in the strength of his hopeless conviction.
“Catenicus. I accept this may seem abhorrent, but understand—that is a sacrifice that men like you and I must inevitably make. Instead of the easy gift of our lives, we must suffer the hundred little deaths of self in order to protect this world. Not because what we do is good, but because good will no longer exist if we do not.” The iunctus steps forward.
“You were right, in Caten. I need you to stop this war. And beyond that, I need what you can do, because you are now the only one who can do it. So think well. Make your decision and make it without regret, but know that if you wish to truly make a difference, you have others to come which will be much harder and mean much more.”
His voice echoes away down the green-lit tunnel, until finally we three stare at each other in silence.
I hesitate, then close my eyes. Sway from exhaustion, from the throb of my legs and the abrading pain of their braces. Kadmos’s tea has almost worn off.
The strength of the few is all that matters.
My father once told me that men become their choices, not their intentions. I wonder what he would say to me now.
Before I can change my mind I take two steps, and crouch by the first corpse, and place my hand on his forehead, and imbue him.
The thin obsidian spike jutting through his chest retracts, sliding slowly downward and vanishing into the man’s body.
He sits up and his hand finds mine before I can move.
Nothing spoken, but I immediately feel the small portion of Will flow into me.
He releases his grasp again. Every motion stiff, deliberate. No interest or recognition in his eyes.
I shudder and don’t pause to watch what happens next. Step across and place my hand on the second cold body. Imbue. All my training makes it so easy, now.
“Vis?” Eidhin’s voice. Distant beneath my pounding heart.
“He has made his choice,” comes the iunctus’s soft reply.
As soon as the second iunctus has ceded to me, I’m moving across to the third impaled form. There’s motion in the corner of my vision. The first one is on his feet, descending from the platform with calm, mechanical intent.
I imbue the third man. Watch the black, glimmering sliver of stone retract. Allow him to give up half his Will to me.
Then take a weary seat as he stands and heads purposefully after the other two.
Minutes pass as I just watch in horrified, vaguely sick silence.
First there is only the movement of the three iunctii.
Then six. Then a dozen. On and on, a widening ripple of waking corpses.
The Will being ceded to me builds in ever growing increments.
My weariness begins to wash away, even if my misgivings do not.
“They will continue until each node is filled to its most efficient level,” says the iunctus behind me.
“Once their pyramids are set, they will be unable to attack one another, or you, or leave—but will otherwise regain control of themselves. Their memories. Any further restrictions will be up to you.”
I can see more empty white slabs than occupied, now. Swathes of iunctii begin vanishing farther down the tunnel in both directions.
After a while, Eidhin finally joins me. His eyes are sad as we watch together.
“Fear is a lack of control, Eidhin,” I tell him eventually. “And I am tired of being afraid. I want to be able to see justice in the world again.”
He looks across at me sorrowfully. Nods.
“I am still with you,” he promises quietly.
I don’t know how long it has been before the first voices start to ring out.
Questions echoing. Anxious, more than angry.
I see iunctii slowing, shaking their heads and looking around in confusion, as if waking from a dream.
Soon the tunnel is filled not with the slow shuffling of feet, but the mutter of bemused conversation.
I stand again. Gaze out over the throng. Some are starting to gather around the base of our platform, though none are climbing the stairs. But we’re the natural centre of attention up here. I am going to have to explain what is happening, soon enough. What I have woken them all to do.
“Diago?”
My heart stops at the female voice cutting through the low hubbub, from off to my left below. I turn slowly. Disbelievingly. Scan the milling crowd.
I spot them. Rows back but pushing their way forward and through. Dark, curly hair and sun-kissed skin. The younger’s long hair tousled, wild in a way it never is. The older’s is the same, just the way I remember it.
Their deep brown eyes, mirrors of each other’s and my own, on me. I don’t move. Don’t breathe. I cannot speak.
And then I am scrambling down the stairs as fast as my broken legs will take me toward my mother and sister.
The confused crowd parts like water before my rushing and suddenly I’m there. Standing in front of them. It’s them.
There are tears on both their smiling cheeks.
I don’t ask about Father, or Cari, or how.
I am holding them. Sobbing with them. Laughing with them.
No explanations, no words at all except our names, repeated over and over again in incredulous joy.
I forget about what I have just done, or what is surely to come.
I forget about my legs. My pain. About the war.
The last five years have dropped away and I am wrapped in the safety and unconditional love of their embrace, and it is enough.
It is enough.
When my tears clear enough to focus again, I see Eidhin has descended after me. He’s staring. At first I think it’s at Ysa, but then I realise his gaze is fixed behind, over my shoulder.
For the first time since the Iudicium, I see him smile.
And before I can turn, before I can process it, the familiar voice emerges from the murmurs behind. Wry, and quiet, and utterly perplexed.
“Hail, Vis.”