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Crowley heard the door open behind him and said, without turning around, So we should probably have a conversation.Let me guess, said the mild voice of his cavalier. You’re wondering how to tell me that you figured it out.
Wh-
About twelve hours ago, I believe.
*It was utterly forbidden to go to the First House without the express invitation of God, the Emperor Undying, or so all the protocols said. Crowley, who had done loads of shit that was either forbidden or expressly against some protocol or other, had argued passionately against this, or at least he had stooped to arguing after he had been caught tinkering with a private shuttle flight plan. Their Master of Maps had eventually had to go and have a lie down, but not before freezing Crowley’s access to the Sixth House landing bay for another year.Crowley had sulked his way down to the armory, in a black mood, and found his cavalier in the storerooms.
They’re just trying to stop any old idiots from doing it! That’s the only reason to be so uptight!
You are very likely correct.
You don’t have to say it like that – I mean other people, not us – you know we’re the best pair the Houses have ever produced –Crowley, we are occasionally not incompetent, at best, said Aziraphale dourly. He was bent over a bag of what looked like sand and, quite obviously, not paying full attention to his necromancer, which was frankly insult piled on injury. And the Master of Maps is right. You know she is. The First House is forbidden.But why would God resurrect an entire tomb of a planet, Crowley said, indignant, waving his arms in sheer exasperation, and preserve all the secrets of the universe in amber, if he didn’t want people to go and try to figure it out? The key to Undying Sainthood, at the center of the system, with a big Don’t Touch sign on it? I don’t think so!His cavalier sighed. God in His wisdom ordained that there be eight Lyctors, Crowley – But there could be more! We’re supposed to go, we’re supposed to figure it out –Either that, Aziraphale said, or God is mucking about with you, specifically, and he held up a tiny purple mote of powder on one fingertip, and smelt it. His face became thoughtful.Don’t be a dick, Crowley said, but he was, finally, intrigued despite himself. Aziraphale bore the sword and the powder, but through the long years, Crowley had only ever seen him train with the sword. What is that?A new compound, his swordsman said, distracted. I keep thinking it might be possible to – He held a hand out, blindly. Your knife, please. Crowley kept one in his belt, always, useful as they were for flesh magic. He passed it over, and Aziraphale unsheathed it and plunged it into the bag of sand, then smote it against the wall, where it sparked –Aha, said the cavalier, satisfied, holding up the blade.His necromancer said, in awe, Gosh.*In his jerk of surprise, Crowley nearly slid off the crumbling edge of the terrace. It would have been a pretty shit end for his House, honestly – it was a long way down, and he could see shuddering breakers that meant rock and ruin below – but the inhuman reflexes of his swordsman, intervening, meant that he was hauled backwards just in time.Beneath them, the endless waves crashed.Melodramatic, as ever, sighed Aziraphale, setting his necromancer down on a piece of more solid concrete. Why not just tell me, Crowley?Fuck off, Crowley said, accusingly, when he had air in his lungs again. That wasn’t on purpose.
If you say so.
You knew that I’d solved it? The whole fucking day?
Smiling faintly, Aziraphale sat next to him, albeit after a moment of surreptitiously trying to find the patch of terrace with the least amount of dirt and mildew. That little muscle in your jaw was going all morning.Huh, said Crowley, looking sideways at his cav's profile, limned in the pink of sunset. Betrayed.Yes. The limits of flesh magic.This was an old game. Crowley smiled, against his will. Shut up. A minute went by, and then Aziraphale nudged him gently. So? Does that mean congratulations are in order? The ninth Saint Undying?The honorific was too much. The necromancer flinched away, digging his fingers into the crumbling concrete until his cuticles bled. He knitted the flesh together with a thought. Did it again.Crowley? Another nudge. Crowley: the First of his Name?Don't, he said sharply. Don't you ever say those words to me.But it’s why we came, said Aziraphale, bemused.Crowley said, Then we were wrong to come.*The First House was the size of a marble in the porthole of their stolen ship when Crowley first felt it, like an itch all over his body. He actually checked, to make sure he wasn’t breaking out in hives, but there was nothing: no marks on his hands, wrists, stomach, nothing. He scrabbled at himself desperately, as the sensation grew more intense, but it was useless. There was nothing to scrape off.Aziraphale pushed back from the console, alarmed. Crowley? What –I don’t know, panted Crowley, who was lavishly sweating, now; but he did know, actually, or at least, he was fairly sure he did. They were approaching a planet where nine billion people had once been snuffed out like a light, and while he hadn’t really thought about how that might feel, for a student of flesh magic, it was suddenly obvious that there would be echoes of such a massive holocaust, for him.Stupid, really. He should have expected it. Of course he would be able to sense their deaths.It was – agony, in a word. The torment that flesh had endured, even at a distance, made him want to peel his own skin off, though of course Aziraphale wouldn’t like that very much, if he actually, literally tried it with necromancy. Still, the temptation was there.The blatant hysteria of his thoughts made him laugh. That turned out to be a mistake; but his cavalier found him a vacuum bag, and waited patiently while he was sick into it, and then even put it in the airlock for him.They drew closer. The First House was painted in whorls of green, brown, and blue, and Crowley tried to ignore the stinging sensation of its proximity, tried to remain clever and sane and able to parse the loudest of the silent screams from a smothered planet –I don’t know where to land, Aziraphale said, glancing at him inquiringly, thumbs poised on the thrusters.I do, Crowley said through gritted teeth, and pointed. There.Neither of them suggested turning back. Crowley was too stubborn for that, and Aziraphale knew it. After the oath they had sworn, that made things simple enough.The ship descended.Crowley found another vacuum bag just in time.*They sat in silence for a while. The last sliver of Dominicus burned hot and bright, a splinter floating on the horizon.At last, Crowley said quietly, What if I told you the price was too high?Aziraphale did not hesitate. Then I would say the price is too high.For fuck’s sake, Crowley muttered, despairing. What was he supposed to do with that?Aziraphale looked baffled by whatever he saw in Crowley’s face. What? he said. I trust you! And I assume you can't tell me what it is –
I don’t know if I’m supposed to –
But you needn't –
- and I don’t know if I could, either, the necromancer said, unhappily, turning away from his cav. I just – I can’t say it.
Ah.
Not to you.
Aziraphale let this pass without argument, although he did venture, Can you at least tell me why?They watched the sun wink out.Because, Crowley began. He cleared his throat. Because I think it made me stop believing in God.His cavalier looked back at him sharply. As bad as that.
As bad as that.
*
The epicenter of the death of the First House was – baffling. It was, theoretically, a something like a mansion. In practicality, it was more like a puzzle box. The one good thing about it was that, thanergetically, it was also a bit like the eye of a hurricane, which meant Crowley could walk around without wanting to tear his skin off.Everything else about it, however, was miserable.It was crawling with skeletons, for one thing. Crowley hated bone magic, and this was why: it didn’t matter how harmless they proved to be, there was nothing as wretched as walking around a corner and coming face to face with a pair of empty eye sockets. Aziraphale drew his sword, the first time, but the skeletons just tottered away. They didn’t appear to be interested in their visitors.They were still creepy as fuck, though.For reason unknown, the inhabitants that still had their organs and bits were no better. On that very first evening, for example, they met an entity who looked eerily like a small old man, who said cheerily, Oh, my! You’re much too early, you know. Well, what's done is done. Make sure you give this back, dear boys. Welcome to Canaan House! At which point it had handed them a key, and then refused to say another word to them.(Aziraphale had disliked it in the extreme: he kept his hand on his sword until the person had vanished, which Crowley found rather interesting.I don’t think it was really – alive, the cavalier muttered, when pressed. I can’t explain it.Crowley couldn’t explain it either, but it was true. It hadn’t been.)Such was their initiation to the secrets of Lyctorhood.Canaan House, if that was its name, was crumbling away, as decrepit as the skeletons which appeared to run the estate. Far from being a jewel of the Empire, a glorious School of Saints, it just seemed like a rather pathetic ruin. Mold and lichen had begun to claim the vast old building for themselves, and below them, the ocean, hurling itself against the foundations, seemed to helping things along nicely. Every single room stank of rot and salt, and something darker, too, like blood.Only once did its two visitors find a room that remained intact, brilliant with light and color. One lone antechamber was painted floor to ceiling with skilled art that must have taken someone years to perfect. For a while, Crowley and his cavalier just walked around the room to admire the frescos, iridescent on every wall: trees with cascading purple blossoms, white cranes flocking under golden clouds, orange waterfalls foaming into pools of pink. They were beautiful, as were the tables made of real wood, laden with leather-bound books, stacks of real paper, scissors, pens, even pewter inkwells whose contents had somehow survived the millennia.Crowley poured one out over the floor, to be sure. The ink ran wet. Aziraphale gave him a look, but said nothing.They went further into the labyrinth of the house, but there were no more exquisite surprises, not after that. Only the basement, which turned out to be what the key was for - and in the basement of Canaan House, there was nothing lovely at all. Only a labyrinth of chambers, and riddles, and clues.Worse things, too, sometimes.Caught by surprise, once, Aziraphale had fought bitterly with the sword and the powder. It had been spectacular, and terrifying. In the end, Crowley had to drag him away.
*
Is this why you wouldn’t let me fight those things in the basement? Aziraphale inquired now, as if he too were remembering.Neither of us are going to fight the things in the basement, Crowley said irritably.
Because you don’t want to be a Lyctor any more.
Because they’re incredibly stupid, and I don’t want you to get hurt.
Hmm, said Aziraphale, shrewdly.Crowley glared at him – although, as ever, he was distracted by that unsettling yellow gaze. It always prompted an old twinge of guilt. His House had long made a sport of modifying, whether with gene splicing or flesh magic, all the children destined for the cavalier line – including Aziraphale himself, who had been modified as an embryo to have snakelike reflexes, and then been born with a serpent’s eyes.Crowley had put a stop to that bullshit, when he was old enough. As the heir, it was his right. Aziraphale had never mentioned it, though, and Crowley sometimes wondered if he even cared. If the strange fact of his eyes mattered to him at all.There was no debt there, though. There could be no debt between a necromancer and cavalier. Not after the oath they had taken; not after their covenant, ordained by God.He thought of what he had learned about Lyctorhood, and shuddered.Do you think there’s another way? Aziraphale mused.
What?
What if, and now Aziraphale was clearly choosing his words carefully: looking away, clearing his throat. What if – whatever you’ve discovered – isn’t the only way to become immortal?It was an interesting thought. Crowley considered it. Then we’d figure it out, he said slowly. I bet we could. Because we’re the best pair the Houses have ever produced.Crowley looked at him, incredulous, to be sure that the other was really teasing. Then he laughed, for the first time since they had arrived.We are occasionally not incompetent, at best, he parroted mockingly, and his cavalier glanced at him sideways again, in that breathtaking, soft way that always made Crowley shiver a little: Aziraphale’s own particular flesh magic. Well. It’s an idea.They watched the stars come out, perfect and bright, refracted a million times over by the endless rotting sea.
*
The decision to go was simple, once it had been made. They hadn’t brought much, so it was the work of a half hour at most to pack it up again, and turn the key in the horrible basement lock, and return it. They were, in fact, almost to the great front doors, when Crowley paused.Wait, he said. Wait a moment. Wait – wait outside. Puzzled, Aziraphale let him go. He stumbled his way back to the glorious frescoed antechamber, and stood there for a moment, looking at the impossibly luminous walls. Then, unsheathing his belt knife, he slit his palm open, businesslike, and let a bit of his own blood mix with the immortal ink in one of the inkwells. The ink stayed black, but acquired a rosy gloss, a phantom scent. Any necromancer worth their salt would know the signs.But what to write? What to say? There would be others here, someday, with the same questions that he and his cavalier had come with. They might solve the riddles, discover the price of sainthood. And, worst of all, perhaps they might even be tempted to pay it.Or: no. Perhaps they would also be repulsed; but they might trust in their God, and do what they thought had to be done.He was shaking now, nearly too much to shape the glyph of flesh magic with his other hand. The letters spattered across the wall, following the shapes of his gestures. Written in his own blood like that, they would stay wet and fresh, he knew, until he died.No. Until he and Aziraphale died, together.One flesh, one end. That was the oath between a necromancer and a cavalier. God had ordained it. It was sacrosanct.He looked at the wall. He had written:
YOU LIED TO US
Well. That seemed to cover it nicely.Right, he said, trying to make his voice sound steady, even though he was still trembling. His hand stitched itself together again, and became whole. Okay. No one answered him. Of course no one answered him. No one else living had walked these halls in four thousand years.*It hadn’t taken him long to piece it together, in the end, not after they’d spent a few days exploring the laboratories under the House. He didn’t even need to try to complete any of the puzzles, or challenges, or whatever the hell the things were. He only needed to work out what the goal of each one was, and consider how each one was asking him to achieve it, and whose help he might need.When it finally dawned on him, on the seventh morning, Crowley had wished for yet another vacuum bag. Instead he had gone out on a balcony, and been ill into the sea.He’d felt Aziraphale’s eyes on him, both then and the rest of that whole wretched day, but there was nothing to say. What could he possibly have said?Eventually he’d gone out on the terrace, and sat there, desolate, as alone on a shipwrecked planet as it was possible to be.No. That was wrong, of course. He was never completely alone.A necromancer was one half of a whole.*Aziraphale was waiting for him outside, the only living figure at the end of a gauntlet of skeletons, apparently turned out en masse to watch them go. They all looked up when the grand front doors opened, and Aziraphale smiled, although he was also palpably not at ease: his hand was on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw.He was the only perfect thing on this entire cursed planet, Crowley thought remotely, meeting that golden gaze. And furthermore – this thought came with absolute certainty – no benevolent God would ever require his death.He flexed his fingers, and went to his cavalier. Their ship was beyond, silver and shining, bright as the sword and the powder together.What now, my dear? said Aziraphale, watching him closely.The grand quest for immortality, of course, said Crowley, and did not add: But with you. Only with you.Child’s play, said his cav lightly. And what then?Crowley glanced back at Canaan House. He toyed with saying, Then we kill God, just to see how Aziraphale would reply, or just how far a cavalier’s oath would stretch, since apparently it would stretch pretty damned far.One flesh, one end. Ha! Very clever indeed.He thought about the Eight Saints Undying, somewhere in the galaxy, one ordained for each House; and he thought about the eight swordsmen who no longer stood beside them, the terrible price for terrible power. He thought about a holocaust that had consumed nine billion people, and the Resurrection, and a God who had gifted and been gifted life everlasting, and asked for more.He spat on the ground to clear the taste of it from his mouth, and turned away.Justice, he said.