Chapter 37 of Harrow the Ninth

In that case, I'm kind of wondering where exactly Mercy looked that she saw the beast in the last chapter

That's from the Vulgate, apparently, the full quote means "The Lord is the source of my light and my safety, so whom shall I fear?" and "Dominicus" is just, essentially, "associated with the Lord", except that in the Latin this referred to the Christian god, whereas John is using it to refer to himself, which is kind of remarkably hubristic, haha

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that most main line stars are not in fact destined to become black holes when they die, and that our sun is either not big enough or not bright enough to ever become a black hole

Are we meant to believe that John is like a battery that is keeping all the resurrected planets and the star going? That would mean that John's resurrection isn't true resurrection - if something still needs some outside power source to sustain itself I'm not sure that counts as the same thing as life, sort of in the same way that Harrow being able to manually control a skeleton isn't true resurrection, or the skeletons at Canaan House that were ultimately controlled and powered by Teacher weren't truly resurrected, and this would just make John a more powerful necromancer piloting a bigger corpse. So I think either this isn't true, or the generally accepted idea of what the resurrection was isn't true, and possibly both of those things are the case

Oh god, there really is a None Pizza with Left Beef reference. Maybe I'll have to eventually make a poll on which of these modern memes in this story has the earliest sell-by date

I mean, based on the story so far, I think the actual Nine Houses answer to "how is babby formed?" (and honestly thank god Muir didn't actually put that literal phrase into the book at this point) is "in a vat"

Also, John really is everyone's embarrassing dad, isn't he?

I do appreciate this little nod to the fact that sex and romance aren't the same thing and can exist independently of each other

So, based on him calling her "First" and "One" and her being "not a normal human being", I'm guessing A.L. was the Earth, and I gather his resurrection of her involved creating a human body for her, for some reason. I'm not sure from this whether the death of Earth was caused by climate change or some sort of mutually assured destruction nuclear war, but neither of those things should have had any effect on the rest of the solar system, so even if this is remotely true, there are still some big questions left unanswered. Also, I think if resurrected Earth lived to see the Lyctors become Lyctors, then John couldn't have become a god by absorbing her soul, since he would have had to be a god already for the Lyctors to follow him, and Mercy and Augustine actually have memories of A.L., so John can't be making that part up. Unless there was also some memory fuckery that happened as well, and I mean, that definitely wouldn't be a first for this book. I don't at all believe that A.L.'s death had anything to do with resurrection beasts, as he's implying here. Maybe John gained some godlike powers some other way, and then absorbed A.L. to gain more powers, maybe she attacked him and his Lyctors for committing the indelible sin and he killed her a second time and locked her in the Tomb, but I'm pretty sure that this version of events that he's telling Harrow did not happen, exactly because like Harrow is thinking, it's just sad and boring and there's no way this was sad and boring in actual fact. Also very curious how John managed to be the last person left alive on Earth

Going back to the John absorbed A.L. idea, I wonder if what he actually means here is that him absorbing her was a proof of concept for Lyctorhood

Gideon is really not thrilled about her reaction to this, huh?

He could be saying this because he just critically underestimates Harrow, or overestimates his own abilities, but I think another possibility is that he needs to her to believe she didn't really open the Tomb because there's some information that you could get from doing that that that would unravel a bunch of his bullshit. I don't know if he knows that she is schizophrenic at this point, I think if her schizophrenia was caused by opening the Tomb, there's a good chance he could guess that she was, especially since she's told him things that I don't think he believes, like that Gideon the First was fucking around with Cytherea's corpse or that Cytherea's corpse was the one who tried to murder him, so he might be intentionally using that to gaslight her, before she figures out whatever he doesn't want her to figure out about the Tomb and the Body. We know that Harrow did not in fact hallucinate doing this, because Gideon saw her do it and reported it, but Harrow doesn't remember that anymore. I guess in her false memories she told her parents about it herself?

Is he seeing whatever she did to remove Gideon, or is he talking about the schizophrenia? Because the temporal lobe does control memory, but it's also affected by schizoprenia, and there's a possibility that Harrow's schizophrenia was artificially created by something that happened after she opened the Tomb

What Cristabel Did

EXTENSIVE SPOILERS for Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth below. If you haven’t read both books, skip the rest of this post. In fact just get off tumblr and go read them instead. I guarantee they’re better than anything else you’ll find here. 

I think I know why John Gaius didn’t tell his disciples about the perfect Lyctorhood, and I don’t think it had to do with sharing power or with AL. I think it’s the same reason why Augustine and Mercymorn hate each other, why Anastasia was the only one to figure out the Eightfold Word, and why Mercy doesn’t want to hear her cavalier’s name.

tl;dr I think Cristabel and Alfred tried to kill some number of the original disciples, forcing them to try for lyctorhood before the ritual was fully understood, and John kept quiet because he didn’t want to tell them they’d killed their cavaliers for nothing.

The handwritten note at the end of the sermon on cavaliers and necromancers says, “valancy says one flesh one end sounds like instructions for a sex toy. can’t stop thinking about that so can someone stop cris and alfred before the sex toy phrase catches on, thanks.” This early in the Nine Houses’ history the entire concept of necromancer and cavalier is still being figured out. It sounds like Cristabel and Alfred were the main drivers behind the idea of the cavalier-necromancer relationship as a formal, sacred oath, coming up with the phrase “one flesh, one end” in the process. Much much later Silas Octakiseron brands the ritual of lyctorhood a mortal sin and heresy as soon as he hears what it entails, because he treats the cavalier-necromancer bond as a sacrament akin to a holy marriage. To trespass against that bond, he declares, was to sin against the Emperor himself. The sermon before the handwritten note backs up that idea, talking about the combination as having all sorts of profound religious symbolism.

Therefore: what if the disciples were working on the ritual of lyctorhood and hadn’t yet figured the cavalier didn’t have to die, when Cristabel and Alfred decided they had to take action to keep any of them from trying? What if, like Silas in Canaan House, Cristabel decided the idea of the adept killing their cavalier was rank heresy and had to be prevented by any means necessary, and convinced Alfred of it as well? Cristabel was from the Eighth House, though early enough that it may not have taken on its hardline personality - then again, perhaps Cristabel’s actions are why it did take on that hardline personality. Augustine calls her an idiot, but also “a fanatic,” and his own brother someone who “regretted that he wasn’t.”

Augustine says that he became a lyctor “under scrambling pressure,” and when Harrow tells the Emperor that she became a lyctor under duress, he replies, “You aren’t the first.” Then when Augustine is talking to John about Alfred, he says, “I have built an entire myriad on the idea that I could’ve made him come around, given five minutes.” That’s in response to John saying, “No one could make him do anything he didn’t want to.” That could mean either Augustine thinks he could have talked Alfred into willingly dying to perform the ritual, or that he could have talked Alfred out of doing something else dire. The way John phrases it makes me think it’s the latter, because in the context of the conversation they’re discussing Cristabel’s influence, and John knows that the lyctoral ritual can be performed even if the cavalier is unwilling. 

So: Cristabel and Alfred decide that they need to do whatever it takes to keep the other disciples from performing the ritual. Either by accident or design, they put Augustine in a situation where he’s facing imminent death - maybe not intentionally on Alfred’s part, but it happens. Augustine chooses to kill his brother and take in his soul to survive as a lyctor, becoming the first to ascend. This fits with Augustine’s loathing of Mercymorn, who in his mind forced him to murder his brother; of his own immortality, since it was gained at the cost of murdering family; and of necromancy in general. He has to convince himself that he could have talked Alfred into making the sacrifice if there were time to ask because otherwise the guilt will destroy him.

After ascension, Augustine’s probably fighting Alfred’s soul, but he’s a powerful spirit magician. Like Ianthe he may be scattered but he’s still present. So now he rounds on Cristabel and probably mortally wounds her. He means to finish the job but Mercymorn intervenes, alerted to what’s happening by all the chaos. She finds her cavalier dying. Cristabel asks her to avenge her and kill Augustine and, since she’s already dying, to use her soul to do it. Mercy finishes Cristabel off and swallows her soul, becoming the second lyctor. So from the very beginning Mercymorn is absolutely set on Augustine’s death and blames him for Cristabel’s death and, in an indirect way, forcing her to become a lyctor as well.

After that it gets a little fuzzy. Events could go several different ways and we just don’t have enough info. I favor the idea that maybe the rampage continues - or maybe Cristabel and Alfred had set all of them up to be in mortal peril (possibly in space, where an adept’s powers won’t work but a lyctor’s would) - because of Mercy’s quote at Cytherea’s funeral: “I never saw her cry except once. The day after. When we put together the research. When she became a Lyctor. I said, There was no alternative. She said, We had the choice to stop.” Mercy saying “there was no alternative” and Cytherea answering with “we had the choice to stop” makes me think everyone was in duress. Mercy saying, “the day after. When we put together the research,” makes me think that they hadn’t fully pieced together the ritual even though six people had already ascended; Augustine improvised. “The day after” also makes me think that most of the lyctors ascended in a single night. If Augustine through Cassiopeia ascended in a group, only Cytherea and Anastasia would be left. Loveday volunteered for the rite in hopes of curing Cytherea, so that’s a non-distress motive for them to ascend as well. That leaves only Anastasia, who now has plenty of time to figure it out on her own.

Where’s John in all this? Remember what Ianthe said when she was trying to regrow her arm? She thought John would tell her to try it on her own first to build her own skill. Maybe John was letting his disciples work out lyctorhood on their own, expecting that they’d figure out the full ritual in time. If they’d planned to try the imperfect ritual, he probably would have stepped in and said, “No, no one has to die, yes now you’re mad at me because I knew the answer all along but it was a learning experience okay.” But because Augustine had to make a scrambling improvisation, John didn’t get the chance to intervene. So before he can do anything, Augustine and Mercy, plus some number of the middle four, have already killed their cavaliers and swallowed their souls (meaning no resurrection). He’s faced with the choice of telling them that those murders weren’t necessary, or keeping the secret and letting Loveday and Cytherea go through with the imperfect ritual. John tells himself that it’ll hurt them all too much if he tells them they killed their cavaliers for nothing, and Loveday’s willing to die already. He stays quiet.

That leaves only Anastasia. With the benefit of time and the others’ experience, Anastasia realizes the ritual can be done without killing the cavalier. She plays this close to the vest, uncertain of her results and unwilling to traumatize the others unless she’s sure. Just in case she’s right, she bans everyone except John from watching her attempt. If she succeeds and Samael lives, they can figure out how to break it to the others. But something goes wrong - or John sabotages her - and Samael dies, leaving Anastasia thinking she didn’t have it right after all.

A myriad later, John and the other lyctors have yet to allow or invite any other adepts to attain lyctorhood, believing the cost is too high. But now they’re down to four lyctors and three Resurrection Beasts, and those four lyctors are showing the strain. So John invites the heirs and their cavaliers to Canaan House. He knows his first disciples left the necessary information behind to put together the rite - only the imperfect rite, but that’s okay because this time there won’t be anyone making the choice under duress. As he tells Harrow, “I intended for the new Lyctors to become Lyctors after thinking and contemplating and genuinely understanding their sacrifice—an act of bravery, not an act of fear and desperation. Nobody was meant to lose their lives unwillingly at Canaan House.” If the cavaliers are okay with it, he’s not on the hook, he reasons. He’ll keep his secret and get new lyctors without any fresh guilt on his conscience.

Except of course it doesn’t work out that way. As usual, John’s future plans are sabotaged by his past plans coming back to haunt him. He ends up gaining one and a half lyctors at the unexpected cost of one old lyctor, so that’s a net gain of half a lyctor with several heirs dead in the process. And then an even newer plan gets sabotaged by an even older plan, leaving him with one and a half, possibly two functioning lyctors. Meanwhile Camilla and Palamedes are out there probably as a functional lyctor-cavalier pair that he doesn’t know about, because Palamedes has been stuck in freeze-frame hell for long enough to come to the same conclusions as Anastasia. It’s not gonna go well for John, ey?