“Run now.” Zole turned and started to zigzag through the brittle remains of dead bramble to the road’s side. Nona peeled off in the other direction, a dust cloud rising where she sprinted. Sister Tallow had explained that beyond a certain distance an archer could only aim at where they hoped their target would be by the time their arrow arrived.
They both ran in the stuttering shifting pattern Mistress Blade had drilled into them. More arrows scattered around both novices but their luck held and before long they stood beyond the range of a short bow.
“It’s good they’re so scared of this place.” Nona slapped the dust from her coat.
“Perhaps.” Zole seemed unconvinced.
“What are they afraid of? Ghosts? Poison?” Nona gazed across the barren earth stretching out before them, tumbled-down farmhouses and abandoned villages dotting the area. “It’s hardly going to be worse than what we’ll find in there.” She pointed to the distant ice, sullen grey except for where the ridges gleamed bloody in the sunlight.
“This bane has been advancing across their lands for centuries. The Scithrowl are not a timid people. They were taught to fear it.” Zole adjusted her pack and glanced once more towards the watching soldiers. “Let us hope we do not meet that which taught them.” She set her jaw and led off deeper into the dead zone.
* * *
• • •
AT FIRST IT was only a sensation of being watched that pulled Nona’s gaze towards the dark windows of abandoned houses. Here and there the corpses of trees still stood, their limbs all but gone. Even so, Nona glanced at the stark branches that remained, convinced some horror waited there, watching for its chance.
They passed a lonely way-stone, its corners weathered away, bearing only the legend “7 miles.” Given the stone’s age the place it spoke of might lie five miles behind the ice, lost to man generations back. The next rise revealed a graveyard and a ruined church of Hope. The markers leaned at drunken angles and every grave mounded like a pregnant belly above its occupant.
The wind picked up closer to the ice, lifting the sour dust and swirling it into momentary shapes somehow more filled with horror than any clear image could ever be. The air had a bitterness to it that made Nona press her lips together in a hard line. Her hands felt parched and the wound the arrow had scored across her shoulder burned more fiercely by the minute.
Ahead the ice walls loomed, the grey taint giving them a strange metallic look. The ice darkened towards the base, becoming jet black right at the bottom to give the impression of a yawning cave mouth. Judging size was difficult but Nona thought the black region could be no more than a hundred yards wide and perhaps thirty yards high, the corruption leaching up through fathoms of ice so that even the tops of the cliffs a thousand yards and more above were grey with it, as if rotten.
In the margins great blocks as yet unmelted by the intensity of the focus moon or the duration of the day lay scattered for a mile before the actual cliffs. The ice boulders ranged in size from lumps no larger than a fist to chunks that would conceal a house. All around them streams of meltwater cut through dead earth to expose bedrock beneath. The whole place gurgled with running water, in places swallowed away through rocky fissures, in others trapped within stinking bogs, swamps of black mud that might suck a person down and not return them before the Corridor closed.
The blocks themselves radiated not only cold but something like malice. Nona found herself staring at them, trying to fathom their translucent greyness. Zole took care to stick to the ridges and the firm ground. Where they had to descend to cross a rill or stream she took trouble not to get her feet wet.
Before long they stood amid ice boulders so thickly clustered that the only open space to be found was in twisting ravines that snaked between them. The black ice yawned ahead, the darkest part proving to cover a significantly larger area than Nona had imagined. The shape was still that of a cave mouth but several hundred yards wide and a hundred tall.
“What do the ice-tribes say the black ice is?” Nona asked. She realised it to be a question she should have asked earlier.
“They do not say,” Zole replied. “They know, but these are not truths to be shared.”
“Well, perhaps you could make an exception this once? I am your Shield, after all. And we’ll be in there very soon . . .” Nona moved her head from side to side, trying to make the black wall yield some definition. “. . . if there’s any way in.” It looked like a yawning mouth filled with midnight but behind the illusion was a solid wall of black ice. Nona’s conviction that there was some kind of tunnel running through it all was based purely on Zole’s assurance and Kettle’s reluctant admission that she had ventured into chambers within the black. Kettle had been following the Scithrowl queen, and faced with the malice radiating from the darkness before her Nona had to agree that anyone who claimed their power from such a place should be feared.
Zole answered Nona’s question after a pause so long that Nona had given up waiting on a reply. “The Missing purged their klaulathu . . . their sins if you like, in temples built for the purpose. The klaulathu are parts of an individual, not properly alive nor properly dead, and they dwell around the margins of the Path. But places such as the temples, in which so many were purged, remain weak spots where klaulathu can leak back into the world.”
“And the black ice?” Nona had an uneasy feeling that she knew the answer.
“Is where the klaulathu have polluted the ice as it moves across the place where such a temple was sited. The corruption, the evil of an entire race tainting this world again.”
“And this is the best way to get up onto the backs of the glaciers?” Nona couldn’t imagine that it was.
“It is the best way to avoid the Noi-Guin. They lack purity of heart and are susceptible to the klaulathu. They will not dare to guard this path.”
Nona eyed the sucking blackness ahead of them. “I’m not sure I dare to walk it. I’m susceptible too, remember?”
13
HOLY CLASS
Present Day
“WE’VE GOT TO steal the book today?” Ara looked shocked. “We need at least until the seven-day to plan.”
“Today! Now!” Nona ducked out of Ara’s study room. “I’m going to grab Jula.”
“Wait! Aren’t you supposed to be in bed?” Ara’s protest followed her down the stairs.
Images of Sister Apple’s face filled Nona’s mind, just as she must have looked when she discovered the ruin of her stores chamber. Nona was sure she’d left the eye-drop flask out. That must have been what told Joeli she was in there. Hopefully it was lost in the mess now rather than standing incriminatingly on the worktop before the shelves of preparations.
Even without such immediately damning evidence, though, Nona didn’t think it would take long for Mistress Shade to establish her guilt. What Abbess Wheel would do in response didn’t bear thinking of, but Nona doubted a raid on the high priest’s vault would still be an option afterwards.
“Nona!” Ara now hung from the dormitory window on the third floor, shutters flung wide. “Are you sure? This is madness . . .”
Nona looked up at the friend she was asking to risk so much. Abbess Glass had told her to obtain the book by whatever means necessary. She had given Nona the instruction when her illness first bit, and she had repeated it on her deathbed, knowing that the empire’s armies were failing. Nona had promised the dying woman and she would hold to the promise with or without help, even if it meant defying the high priest and all his archons. She would do it even if she had to reduce the place to ruin and dig the book out of a pile of corpses.
“Trust me.” It was all the pleading she would do. And with a nod Ara withdrew.
* * *
• • •
AT THE SCRIPTORIUM Nona sped to a rear window and jumped up, propelling herself with the window ledge to gain height so that she could check the libr
ary’s occupants. As was so often the case Jula sat alone at a desk, a number of yellowed scrolls around her. Nona dropped back to the ground and hurried in through the front entrance. Sister Scar was at her desk in the scriptorium’s main hall, illuminating a copy of the Book of the Ancestor. She favoured Nona with a narrow stare but said nothing.
“Jula!” Nona closed the library door behind her. “You—” She swallowed her words at the sight of a tiny novice carrying a book from the shelves. The girl’s habit pooled around her feet. “We were never that small, were we?”
“You were smaller than me when you arrived.” Jula looked up from her work. “There was room for two Nonas in the habit they issued you.” She turned her head towards the younger novice. “Yes, that’s the one. Thank you, Marta. Put it on the chair, if you will.”
“We need to talk.” Nona took Marta’s shoulders as she straightened from setting down the heavy book. “Alone.” And steered the child towards the door.
Jula sighed. “Off you run, Marta. We’ll do some more on the seven-day.”
They both waited for the door to close.
“What?”
“I need the order,” Nona said.
“You need to get the abbess’s seal back to her somehow. I know it’s not used often but I’m amazed she hasn’t noticed it’s gone.”
“That will have to wait.” Nona held her hand out. “We’re doing this today.”
Jula reached into her habit and retrieved a leather tube, a parchment scroll inside. “Good.”
“Good?” Nona took the tube and checked the document. “I thought you’d be horrified.”
“Come with me.” Jula got up and walked towards the rear of the library. “I’ve something important to show you.”
Nona’s shoulders slumped as they always did when Jula tried to get her excited about some aging book. She followed, frowning. Some of the writing was so old it almost seemed they used a different language, all “thees” and “thous” and words that had to be explained. Others still contained no single word known to her.
Jula squeezed past the rows of shelves stacked with scroll upon scroll and pushed right to the back. She shifted a board aside, sneezing at the dust. In the gloom and after the brightness of the reading room Nona could make out very little. Jula fiddled with a key. Nona hadn’t imagined there was space in the scriptorium for another chamber, some secret vault no doubt . . . The door cracked open and to Nona’s surprise daylight streamed in. Jula stepped through, beckoning her out, locking the door behind them. They stood behind the building with the barrel store and Sister Candle’s workshop before them. Nona must have passed the door they’d exited by a thousand times without ever noticing it.
Jula led on, out towards the end of the spur on which the convent sat. The cliffs to either side marched ever closer as the Rock of Faith’s plateaued top narrowed towards a point. Jula’s shadow leapt before them, as if it were eager to reach the edge first and leap off. Nona could imagine herself alone and that the shadow belonged to her. Shadows might seem simple things but somehow they pinned you to the day. Since she’d lost hers Nona had never quite felt part of the world.
“Where are we—”
Jula ignored Nona’s attempt at a question and marched on. She passed the Glasswater sinkhole and continued across pitted stone until they stood just yards from the jagged edge where the Rock dropped away. She pointed east. In the distance smoke smudged the sky.
“You’ve been very busy the last few days, Nona, and nobody wanted to trouble you in the sanatorium . . . but that smoke? That’s Queen Adoma’s front line. Sherzal has returned to the Ark. They say the battle in the field is all but lost. Heretics will be at Verity’s walls in a week. Maybe sooner.”
“But . . .” Nona hadn’t known it was this bad. “What about the Ninth and the Seventh?” The emperor’s personal divisions were an elite force with a fearsome reputation, forged through centuries. “Everyone says Crucical will deploy them.”
“The Ninth went west last seven-day. A Durn army showed up at the walls of Arnton. The convent of Silent Patience and the monastery at Red Rill are both in ruins. The Seventh are lining up before the Ark but their numbers are badly depleted.”
“Where do you get this all from?” Nona demanded, not wanting to believe. “You sit in that library all day when you’re not in class!”
Jula pointed again and Nona followed her line back to the many-windowed spire of the convent rookery. “The armies have lost so many message birds they’re using church rooks now. And Darla taught me to read the standard military codes.” Jula’s face fell. “General Rathon died at the coast last week . . .”
“I . . .” Nona had wanted to tell Darla’s father that she had brought Joeli Namsis to justice for her death. The general would never hear it now. Perhaps it wouldn’t have given him any comfort, but Nona thought Darla would be happier. Darla had never been the forgiving sort. “Well . . . it makes what we’re doing all the more important.”
“Be careful.” Jula managed a weak smile.
“Me?” Nona returned a brighter one. “You’re coming too! There’s no time for you to teach me how filing systems work now. I need you to find the book once we’re in!”
* * *
• • •
THE FOUR FRIENDS met by the laundry well, Nona and Jula arriving to find Ara aleady waiting with Ruli.
“Joeli did this to us,” Nona said by way of greeting.
“She made us steal forbidden books?” Ruli asked.
Nona repressed a snarl. Ruli hadn’t seen Darla die, hadn’t seen Joeli cause it. “She knows too much about us. She’s a Tacsis spy, right here in the convent. We should—”
“Kill her?” Jula asked. “The Book of the Ancestor is against that sort of thing.” She favoured Nona with a level stare.
“All right, all right, Holy Sister.” Nona shook her head. Jula’s calmness, her goodness, was something Nona valued in these situations, though usually in hindsight rather than at the time. “I wasn’t going to suggest murdering her . . . not exactly.”
“What then?” Ara asked.
Nona let her breath escape in a long sigh. “We’ll deal with her when we get back.” She stepped into the well, taking hold of the rope. “Come on, then.”
The four of them descended to the chamber beneath the novice cloister, then began to thread the undercaves. They passed through the cavern where the strange freestanding ring stood taller than a man, crossed the spot where they had once faced down a holothour, and went on down the cliff beyond. Ten minutes later they passed the sad, calcified skeletons in their niche, and finally emerged back into the light through the hidden crack onto the slopes towards the base of the Seren Way.
Despite their covert escape, Nona felt watched. Joeli had driven her to this. Joeli had spurred her to sudden action. And, although she saw no sign of the girl, somehow Nona felt that the eyes on her back belonged to that same despicable puller of threads. Joeli was a spider in a web, but one bigger than she could ever have built herself.
* * *
• • •
THE SENSE OF being under observation waned as they approached the city gates after an hour’s brisk walk from the foot of the Rock. Although the streets of Verity had lost none of their colour they had gained enough streaks of grey and brown to paint a very different picture from the usual scene. Groups of refugees huddled on every corner. The city guard moved them on but there were always more to replace them. Peasants muddy from their journey with tattered bundles on their backs. Townsmen leading carts heaped with their household treasures, bewilderment in their eyes. Injured soldiers, lost children, a tide of displaced humanity seeking the sanctuary of the Ark.
Nona let Ara lead them through the city’s finer quarters where the press of humanity eased and allowed them to make progress. Even Verity’s great mansions had a haunted air: windows boarded up, newly
conscripted guards at the doors uneasy in ill-fitting uniforms.
Few among the aristocracy or wealthy walked the broad streets around the emperor’s palace. Ara took them close enough to see the spires of Crucical’s home. Somewhere deep within lay the Ark around which the emperors had built their power. Nona could sense its heartbeat even at this distance, a faint pulsing in the fabric of the world. Perhaps they had a shipheart in there. Perhaps something more.
Behind Nona came the grating of the gates opening at the mansion they had just passed, people emerging, the clank of armour. She ignored it.
“Novices, and so very far from home in dangerous times.” A man’s voice, dripping with the accents of nobility.
The girls turned to see a ring of armoured soldiers forming around four figures, three dark clad, and one in the finery of a lordling. This last one, lean, tall, his small smile full of mockery and malice, was known to Ara and Nona.
“Lano Tacsis.” Ara used none of the honorifics that convention demanded.
Nona opened her mouth but her words ran dry. She had last seen the man as he stood and watched her writhe and soil herself in screaming agony on the floor of a Noi-Guin cell. Flaw-blades sprang unbidden from each of her fingers. At their last meeting Lano had watched her suffer the touch of the Tacsis family toy, the Harm, a sigil-worked torture device. Before leaving he had slit her nostril, a scar she still bore, and promised to return to inflict all manner of horrific mutilations upon her. She remembered the pleasure in his voice. The eagerness.
“Nona . . .” Ara’s fingers knotted in the shoulder of Nona’s habit and she found herself anchored, having unknowingly taken a pace towards Lano.
The soldiers, in Tacsis blues, set hands to sword hilts. The two dark men at Lano’s side adjusted their stances. The third of his close guard was a black-haired woman, Safira, who long ago had stabbed Kettle before fleeing the convent and selling her services to Sherzal. Her presence here spoke of renewed associations between the emperor’s sister and his most fractious vassal.
Holy Sister Page 13