Harrow the Ninth

Harrow’s false memories begin, though she does not know they are a performance, not reality. Ortus Nigenad pretends to be her cavalier back on the Ninth planet, where he and Harrow read the summons from John that led Harrow and Gideon to Canaan House on the First planet in Gideon the Ninth. Harrow’s brain programming, which she altered with her surgery, interferes with Ortus’s words as he contradictorily suggests that he is not worthy yet and that Harrow should consider taking “Ortus” (meaning Gideon, though Harrow does not know this) with her instead. The Body appears for the first time, though Ortus cannot see her. The Body tells Harrow that “[t]his isn’t how it happens” before the false memory ends (20).

Chapter 1 begins roughly a month after Gideon’s death in Gideon the Ninth. Harrow struggles to remember who she is and cannot keep a solid grasp on time; she is barely lucid for most of her waking hours as her body struggles with the disrupted process of becoming a Lyctor. She carries Gideon’s two-hander with her everywhere despite how much the sword terrifies her. Harrow has spent most of her past month feverish and vomiting. Her half-Lyctoral nature has given her access to new sensory information, like detecting the heartbeats and internal organs of others. Other Lyctors remain a blank void she cannot detect. This sensory information overwhelms Harrow. The Body is Harrow’s only companion through her early days of recovery. Harrow is aboard the Erebos, the Emperor’s flagship, where she pledged to be his Lyctor at the end of Gideon the Ninth.

Harrow vaguely recalls people attempting to take the comically large sword away from her once. Harrow seriously injured, and possibly killed, the orderlies who tried to detach her from the sword.

Once Harrow recovers enough, John comes to see her personally. John informs her that she is experiencing great traumatic shock after undergoing the Lyctoral trials. He insists that she keep the sword near her and does not allow anybody to take it. John says he would like to allow Harrow to recover for months, but she only has weeks. Unbeknownst to Harrow, he is planning the trip to the Mithraeum for her, Ianthe, Mercy, and himself.

Harrow learns that none of the missing were found at Canaan House: Coronabeth Tridentarius, Ianthe’s sister; Camilla Hect and Palamedes Sextus, the cavalier and necromancer of the Sixth House; Judith Deuteros of the Second House; and Gideon’s body are all missing. John declares the missing dead for the peace of mind of the Houses. John teaches Harrow about the Resurrection Beasts: He explains that planets have large, complex souls created out of the dynamic ecosystems that they sustain. For a necromancer to have access to enough thanergy (death energy) to perform large feats of necromancy for warfare, a planet must be “flipped,” either partially (wounding it), or wholly (killing it). Flipping the planet converts the thalergy (life energy) of its soul into thanergy in a chain-reaction of mass ecocide. John had to kill the planets of the Dominicus star system, around which the Nine Houses orbit, in order to harness the thanergy needed for the Resurrection, which saved humanity from extinction 10,000 years ago. Any soul that is violently killed may become a revenant, an angry specter that clings to the material world in order to exact revenge on their murderer. The planets’ souls became revenants known as Resurrection Beasts. These Resurrection Beasts have spent the last 10,000 years chasing John and his Lyctors. The Resurrection Beasts eat planets that are in their way in order to sustain their mission. The “Indelible Sin” of John and the Lyctors means that Harrow can never return to the Ninth House.

During Harrow’s conversation with John, the Body appears. The Body has golden eyes (Gideon’s eyes; unlike other Lyctors, Harrow does not share her cavalier’s eye color). Harrow remarks how the Body has been with her through every major event in her life, including her parents’ deaths. John watches her speaking with thin air and grows worried. He tells her “Ortus” died for nothing; Harrow repeats “Ortus Nigenad” to him in earnest, unable to comprehend that he said “Gideon Nav.” John tries repeating Gideon’s name to Harrow, which renders her unconscious.

This chapter is in third person as it recounts Harrow’s childhood memory of opening the Locked Tomb on the Ninth House and looking on the corpse kept within. The corpse is the Body, also called “A.L.” Harrow falls in love with the Body at first sight. Opening the Tomb is the highest heresy in the Ninth House, which was established to guard the Tomb and ensure it was never opened. When Harrow’s parents learn about this, they hang themselves alongside their cavalier Mortus, Ortus’s father. Harrow, about nine years old at the time, does not hang herself alongside her parents. She instead devotes herself to the Body and develops a heretical faith in it.

After opening the Tomb, Harrow begins hearing and seeing things that are not there; she hears voices and doors opening and closing. Harrow believes her mental health and grasp on reality have been impacted ever since. Harrow uses her parents’ corpses as necromantic constructs to keep up appearances. Harrow’s parents committed genocide on the last generation of children of the Ninth House to make Harrow the perfect necromantic heir, and Harrow is left maintaining a dying House with no hopes of restoring it.

Becoming a Lyctor was her last chance at redeeming her House. Now, Harrow believes she has squandered her chance by becoming a “half-Lyctor.”

Back on the Erebos, Harrow experiences an assassination attempt late at night. She fights off the mystery assailant with shards of her own bones. When she awakens in the morning, she believes it was a dream due to the lack of evidence of the struggle. Ianthe is at her bedside with a letter, written by Harrow herself, to be opened upon becoming coherent again. The letter, number 2 of 24, tells Harrow that the old Harrow must not be brought back as it will tamper with her plans. Old-Harrow refers cryptically to “the work” and pledges new-Harrow’s service in upholding “the work.” The letter contains seven guidelines the New-Harrow must live by: She must live at all costs; she can never return to the Ninth House; she must keep the sword with her at all times and ensure it never damages flesh or bone (in order to keep the angry spirit of Gideon’s mother, Commander Wake, trapped, though New-Harrow does not know this); new-Harrow must compensate for her “half-Lyctor” status by studying; she is bound to Ianthe’s service; she must only open the other letters when she meets the parameters written on their envelopes; and new-Harrow must inspect Ianthe’s jaw and tongue to ensure that their bargain is still good, because old-Harrow hexed Ianthe’s jaw and tongue to keep her honest. This Ninth House right is called the “Sewn Tongue”: If Ianthe tampered with the seals, it means she intends to betray Harrow.

Harrow kisses Ianthe in order to inspect her jaw and tongue. When she finds that they haven’t been tampered with, Harrow swears loyalty to Ianthe. Harrow mentions that Ianthe’s sister, Coronabeth, likely has not survived. In response, Ianthe stabs her own hand with her cavalier’s three-pronged knife to demonstrate her instantaneous healing capabilities. She then stabs Harrow’s hand in the same manner, which does not instantly regenerate. Ianthe does this to assert her position of power over Harrow. When Ianthe leaves, Harrow inspects a suspicious stack of boxes in the corner of her hospital room. She moves them to find the bone-splinters left behind by her assassination attempt, proving it was not a dream.

The narration returns to a false memory as Harrow and Ortus descend by shuttle to Canaan House. Harrow suffers through Ortus’s recitation of his poetry from the Noniad, an epic poem about the heroic cavalier of the Ninth House, Matthias Nonius. Ortus uses his poetry to get through difficult situations, while it grates on Harrow. Harrow is worried about how long it is taking their shuttle to dock and attempts to use the intercom to speak with the remote pilot. She finds a note that wasn’t present previously. The angry, hasty note cryptically references dead eggs: Harrow does not yet realize that it was left by the Sleeper, a manifestation of Wake’s angry spirit, and references the Dios Apate, Major conspiracy, the plot to kill John that led to Gideon’s birth. Ortus only sees a blank piece of paper. Harrow believes she is gripped by “insanity” (64).

Harrow awakens on the Erebos in a wheelchair, bound and unable to control her body. Mercy takes her down to the hangar, where John and Ianthe are preparing for a trip via shuttle to the Mithraeum. Mercy has used her necromantic expertise to disable Harrow’s body, which Harrow secretly repairs at great risk to her own health. When Mercy realizes that Harrow is awake and has repaired her spine, she introduces herself to Harrow as the “Saint of Joy.” Once on the shuttle, Harrow watches an argument between Mercy and John, who believes Mercy is overstepping his commands and being impatient. Harrow overhears that nuclear weapons were launched on three Cohort (military) frigates, killing 18,000 people. Though John doesn’t tell Harrow, he cryptically references that he suspects the Blood of Eden, a rebel group.

Once the shuttle takes off, John elucidates Harrow and Ianthe on their destination: the Mithraeum. The Lyctors built their inner sanctum 40-billion lightyears away from the Dominicus system in order to keep the system safe from the Resurrection Beasts. Normally, the Nine Houses travel through steles and large amounts of thanergy. With such a long distance, they have no choice but to travel through the River, where the laws of space do not apply, to reach the Mithraeum. The River trip only takes a few minutes, whereas a trip by stele would take five years. John explains that the River is a limbo-like area where the spirits of the dead reside. It is exceedingly dangerous to traverse the River due to the insatiable hunger of the dead and their desire to return to the world of the living. John ceremoniously baptizes both of the young Lyctors in the water of the River as the shuttle is subsumed by the spirit-world’s waters.

Ghosts, gore, and viscera surround the shuttle as Mercy pilots it through the River. Harrow struggles to retain her sense of self and hold on to her body as the spirits nag at her. Harrow’s grasp slips and she forgets where she is, putting both her body and soul at the mercy of the River. John risks being trapped in the River alongside Harrow to yank her out, and they successfully reach the Mithraeum.

Harrow returns to the false memories of Canaan House. She recalls her first meeting with Teacher (the construct who led Canaan House in Gideon) and the other members of Canaan House, where Teacher handed out keys and key rings to the necromancers and cavaliers. Teacher tells them about the Sleeper, claiming it is a creature that lurks in the basement who will kill all of them if it is awoken. Teacher’s description of the Sleeper rattles Ortus, who is severely upset that Harrow brought him along as her cavalier. Ortus questions these events, which ends the supposed flashback.

Harrow awakes on a pew. She discovers that she is in the Mithraeum, attending a funeral service for Cytherea. A new person is present whom she does not recognize—Augustine the First, the Saint of Patience. The two elder Lyctors and John pray over Cytherea’s body and reminisce about her life. They talk about their heyday in ways that Harrow cannot follow. After a eulogy, the third and final elder Lyctor appears: “Ortus” (Gideon) the First, the Saint of Duty. When Harrow hears John say Duty’s name, she faints.

Harrow finds herself back in Canaan House, this time in the library that leads down to the research facility. She is with Isaac Tettares and Jeannemary Chatur of the Fourth House, Abigail Pent and Magnus Quinn of the Fifth House, and Ortus. The group pours over Abigail’s findings of random scraps of notes left behind by the Lyctors. Abigail notices that Harrow is “haunted,” which causes Harrow to flee in panic because she thinks Abigail might know about the mass infanticide that enabled her birth. After fleeing, she reads one of the old Lyctor notes she swiped from Abigail. This note expounds on the earlier angry note about the dead eggs from the Sleeper. Once again, Ortus reads an entirely different note and does not see the Sleeper’s writing.

Harrow wakes up in the dead of night on her first night aboard the Mithraeum. She has sleepwalked and finds herself in the chapel with Cytherea’s body without recollection of how she got there. The two-hander, which she used to kill Cytherea in Gideon, is stabbed through the corpse’s chest. John finds her in the morning. Unbeknownst to Harrow or the others, stabbing Cytherea’s body with the two-hander allowed Wake to “jump” to the body and possess it.