The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1)

by Michael John Grist

  "No. I believe in Awa Babo and the King's law. That is all."

  Alam smiled. It was strange to see him happy, after the past week. Daveron didn't experience feelings of sadness, but he understood their normal effects, and the death of a parent should not be resulting in this.

  "Of course," Alam said. "Well. Next time he needs help, wake me up too, all right?"

  This puzzled Daveron for a long time, even after the Spindle rose and drifted away. Alam's desire to help seemed like loyalty, a trait his father had taught him about, one which rarely stood up to the blatting bats. And earned after only one night?

  Still.

  There was no reason to remain abed, so he rose to his feet and left the infirmary.

  * * *

  The day proceeded much as any other day, though now Alam sat with the group, in their lessons and in their meals. Daveron watched as he laughed at one of the Balast's ludicrous stories. The Blue girl joined with them.

  "It's all right, you can laugh too Daveron," Alam said at one point over dinner.

  "Molemen have no sense of humor," he answered. "Nor taste, nor sense of pain. A smile or laugh to us is disapproval. It's impolite."

  Gellick seemed to find this hilarious. He made a big grin, all flinty teeth, and bared it at Alam, Feyon, and Daveron in turn, laughing and occasionally saying, "How rude. Excuse me, how rude."

  "No taste," Alam mused, and picked up a stalk of bruntwich greens. "So what's it like when you eat this?"

  "I feel the shape and texture of it," Daveron said, "but there is no flavor. It is fuel only, like wood in a fire."

  "Then you feel heat?" Alam pressed.

  "I sense heat and cold, but I do not feel them as you do. There can be no pain from it, or comfort either. I simply know it is there."

  Gellick laughed, then widened his grin further, to the Blue's delight.

  It was early evening when the tall Sister came to Daveron, and asked him to come to the infirmary. He followed her to Sen's bed, where the boy lay pale and feeble, but recovering. Daveron held up his paw before Sen could speak. He'd been thinking about this through the day, trying to apply the lessons his father had taught him to the new situation. No debt remained, but still he had an interest in the success of the repayment.

  "You must be firm with her," he said. "The Deadhead. As though you were a Moleman yourself. There can be no room for pity in your mind. She attempted to kill you and will do so again at the first sign of weakness."

  Sen smiled. "It's good to see you too, Daveron."

  Daveron continued. "You must be there when she wakes and make clear you are the victor. Strength is all her kind respects. She will seek to plead, to beg, to throw you off in some way, but you must be clear."

  "I just wanted to thank you."

  "Thank me by seeing the work through. Otherwise my repayment will be squandered. Show the girl her place and perhaps she will mold herself to it."

  Sen's gray eyes shifted. "Be firm. All right. You've done this before?"

  "Many times. Things like it."

  Sen sighed. "In torture. I know. I felt it. I saw some of the things you did."

  The Moleman brought his velvet brows close together, the closest he ever came to a frown. "I do not understand you."

  "It's all right. I know that you're correct. I'll be strong."

  "More than strong," Daveron said. "You must be the victor. You have spared her life, a kind of forgiveness in advance, and now she must earn it."

  "Thank you."

  "Thank your Sisters for the debt they incurred. Now rest. You must be strong when she wakes."

  He didn't wait for a reply. He'd helped far more than he'd intended already. There was something strange about the boy, something he couldn't quite account for, that made him think about bending rules he'd aimed to live by for so long.

  He turned and left.

  RECOVERY

  Sen lay back, feeling almost like laughing but for the pain it would cause in his chest.

  The little Moleman was right. Mare had tried to kill him, and she probably would do it again if she had the chance. She hadn't learned any lesson, and she wouldn't if he didn't make her.

  Sister Henderson had already suggested he send her away. The Abbess had stood impassively by, listening. It was strange to have such power over the Induran girl's life, though he lay weakly abed with broken ribs. They would do whatever he asked, giving him the same kind of influence his mother had once wielded.

  Now the little Molemen said to act as if he was victorious. Saint Ignifer was victorious in the stories, even in death, so perhaps Sen could imagine how to play that role. He lay through the day, thinking of all the ways their conversation could go.

  That night Alam came and sat by his side. He was silent for a while, as they both adjusted to this new reality where they didn't hate each other.

  "You helped me last night," Alam said at last. "I appreciate that."

  Sen smiled. "It was a gamble. I'm glad I could help."

  "Now you're going to help her too."

  Sen nodded. "I suppose so. She's one of us."

  "One of the us," Alam repeated, then leaned back in his chair, so they sat in companionable silence for a time.

  One of the six. It was odd to talk about it so casually, after having lived with their names on his body for so long. Like a dream you've had many times, suddenly coming true.

  "How do you feel?" Sen asked. "I mean, about your father?"

  "Angry," Alam said. "Sad. I think about him constantly. I hate that he's dead, that the city demanded it. But I'm all right."

  "That's good."

  "What about you?"

  "I feel like I got kicked by an Adjunc. Otherwise, I'm all fine. Daveron told me I should be firm with Mare."

  "You should. You should send her away, really. But she's one of the six, isn't she, so…" He trailed off.

  Sen's smile grew wan.

  "I can understand that you want to honor your mother's wishes. I always looked up to my father, too. For the longest time I wanted to be just like him."

  Sen shuffled up in the bed. "Tell me about him."

  So Alam did. He talked about his father's uncanny skill with gearing and cogs, about how he'd pushed back fearlessly against all the unspoken traditions about trades fitting for their Spindle caste, and about his love for Alam's mother.

  "When she caught the ague, he bankrupted the manufactory to pay for her. I tried to balance the books, but people stopped coming to us." Alam paused, twisting his long fingers in his lap. "It wasn't so much the ague though, as the rumor passing round that the Ague was our punishment for defying our caste. My father kept on working despite that, taking whatever work he could get, for whatever price, believing good work and good will would get us through. But of course it didn't." Alam looked up. "He was naive, I suppose. Dreaming he could overcome the laws and traditions of caste. But people took advantage of him."

  Sen listened, until at some point he drifted to sleep.

  The next day Alam came again to the infirmary after lunch, to report to Sen what the others were doing. Mostly lessons, throwing Cuttlebones on the grounds, along with stories about how Feyon wouldn't get involved in any of their work, chores, or studies.

  "She's like a fairy princess," Alam said. His exasperation, in spite of everything he'd been through, cheered Sen no end. "She even told me to carry a rock around the grounds for her, just to see if I would!"

  "And did you?" Sen asked,

  Alam shrugged. "I told her I would if she gave me a kiss."

  Sen barked out a laugh so hard it hurt his ribs. "And did she?"

  "No," said Alam ruefully. "I didn't expect her to. She looked scandalized though, which was good."

  Sen stopped laughing as the pain in his ribs increased.

  "You've got to laugh, haven't you?" said Alam. "Turned out Gellick carried it for her anyway, for free. She lost interest, but he wasn't bothered. He just really likes rocks."

  On the next visit,
after dinner, Alam brought Gellick with him.

  "Tell him," Alam urged.

  "I like rocks," Gellick said slowly.

  "No, not that." Alam gave the Balast a gentle shove that barely budged him. "The other thing."

  "Oh. About Feyon. I was telling her about Prince Coxswold, and she said you were her Prince Coxswold."

  "What?"

  "She likes you," Alam said. "A lot. She even asked me how it felt to be punched by you, like it was some great favor."

  "She did?"

  "She's crazy, isn't she Gellick?"

  "She's a Blue," the Balast said steadily. "And Alam likes her."

  Alam blushed. "I do not! She's an idiot. Who told you that?"

  "While she's mooning about you, he's mooning over her."

  Alam only reddened further. "That is a lie! You big bald dolmen."

  "If I'm a dolmen you're a lintel," Gellick countered, which only made Alam angrier.

  Sen had to stop himself from laughing again. He didn't quite understand the dolmen/lintel thing, but it was hilarious anyway. It was good to see Alam laughing, beginning to move on.

  Was this what having friends was like?

  Two more days passed like that, full of gossip and silly jokes and reports on Feyon. Several times Gellick told them stories of Prince Coxswold, who seemed to be Gellick's personal fairy tale hero, though his stories were always woven around the places and events of the Abbey, in particular Gellick. The Prince was forever getting in trouble for his mischief, but also often received praise for his great exploits.

  "Did I tell you about the time the Prince carried a boulder ten times around the whole world?" he asked one evening, and Alam sighed.

  "For the Heart's sake, Gellick, it was just a rock, just once!"

  "I'm talking about Prince Coxswold!" Gellick countered. "Sen, you'd like to hear it, wouldn't you?"

  Sen nodded. Alam sighed again. It was good.

  After two days Sister Henderson came, and told him Mare was rousing. She allowed him out of his sickbed, to go to her.

  The time had come.

  * * *

  Mare was dreaming of the Molemen mogrifer's den again, waiting for the pain to begin. The cage stank, of must and blood and human waste, and the air was filled with the mewling of children crying for their mothers, for their eyes, for their parts that were stolen.

  She knew the Molemen were coming for her next, and it terrified her more than anything she'd faced on the street. Her body was trembling beyond her control, because she was helpless, because this time they were coming to take something away which she'd never get back.

  Firm hands followed, iron braces, a room slathered with blood and dried organs, ingrained with screams. Nothing she did would change this. 'Enough', she might call, 'it's enough', but it never would be, not until they'd taken exactly what they wanted.

  So they sawed open her skull, and the endless pain began, as they scraped out a piece of her brain at a time, another piece, ignoring her screams, ignoring as she fouled herself. They wrote their notes and scraped away at her head, stealing her thoughts, taking her apart like a piece of clockwork, leaving her in shreds.

  When she'd finally come back to herself it was in the muck of Indura, dumped by the roadside and slathered with filth, barely able to move her fit-exhausted limbs, barely able to think in a straight line or breathe. She was half of what she'd once been. She'd placed one trembling hand to her skull and felt the sunken gap where her mind had been, and wanted to die.

  But she didn't die. A dark-eyed woman had come and carried her to an abandoned gantry where she fed her, and tended her. She taught Mare how to use the remnants of her brain, to re-master her body and learn again to survive.

  So she had learned to survive.

  Now morning sun lanced into Mare's eyes, and she woke with a violent start.

  The pain was everywhere.

  She was in a white room, wrapped up tightly in white. She blinked her dry eyes and twisted to get free. The blankets peeled off her sweat-soaked skin and she slipped loose, wriggling off the edge of the bed to slump down on the hard wooden floor.

  Free, and cold. Her head pounded and her limbs shook and ached. She felt weak, used up and battered, with every ounce of energy in her muscles gone, leaving in its place a burning exhaustion.

  Another fit.

  She'd vowed it would never happen again, and now it had. Images of the scarred boy flashed in her mind, fighting in the dark, his face wreathed in a kind of blue fire, then the pain. Something had hit her, and that had started the fit.

  She looked around. It was an effort even to twist her neck and look round the white-plastered walls of the room. It was familiar, perhaps even the same room she'd been in before. Somehow she was back.

  Carefully she reached up to touch the dead side of her head. The skin beneath her sunken black hair was hot and swollen, throbbing with a slow deep pulse. It had all really happened, but then how was she here? She should be spiked to HellWest for what she'd done.

  She steeled herself, and began the process of getting to her feet. Her body protested but she gritted her teeth. The world weaved and spun, but one limb at a time she regained control, teaching it to move again, to hold her weight as it once had in the filth of Indura.

  Through tiny steps, she stuttered to the window. The grounds outside were empty, late morning on a gray day. How long had passed? There were no Molemen on the grass, waiting to cart her away for the spike. Nothing seemed unusual, nothing out of place.

  How could that be?

  A knock came at the door. She turned, and the boy with the scars stepped through. In his right hand was a tray of food.

  "I heard you were rousing," he said, walking in. She noticed he favored his right side. She wondered if she had the strength to fight, if it came to that. He looked weak, but at least he was walking. It took everything she had just to remain standing.

  He laid the tray on her bed. Mare glanced at it, piled with grilled potatoes, oatcakes and gruel, several pink rashers of bacon, also a jug of water and a glass.

  He was looking at her. "You tried to kill me," he said. "And in turn, I saved your life."

  There was nothing to say to that. They were facts, and she saw no benefit in denying them. Still, there was something to gain. She moved her tongue, her jaw, getting ready to talk. When she did speak, it hurt all the way down to her belly. "What do you want?"

  He met her gaze and did not turn away. She remembered lifting the knife above him and plunging it down. It must not have landed, or he'd be dead now. His eyes then had been more surprised than afraid, as if he couldn't believe she would really do it. Now they were cold.

  "Nothing," he said. "I don't want anything."

  Mare restrained a snort of disbelief. She had to adapt, now, to survive.

  "Everybody in the Abbey knows," he went on. "What you did. What you stole is back in the vault, and all the locks have been doubled. Someone will watch you at all times from now on. Like a leash."

  Again she restrained herself. A leash, like a dog. She'd said as much about the Spindle. It was a warning.

  "Probably you'll think I'm weak for saving you," he went on, "but I don't care. You're not a prisoner, and you won't be punished. You didn't come here voluntarily, and if you wish to leave, you may. The Sisters will even give you a brougham escort back to Indura. But do not try to steal anything, or hurt anyone again. I will not allow that. Yet I'd like you to stay, and recover. A good life awaits you here."

  He stopped, but continued watching her with those cold eyes. Perhaps he was waiting for her to bow her head and grovel. She had lived through countless situations like this on the streets, of victors affirming their mastery over her, and had always survived because she knew exactly what they wanted, and how best to reverse the knife as they held it over her.

  But she didn't know what this strange boy wanted.

  "You followed me," she said, croaking. Her voice tasted of old vomit. "What did you expect?"


  "Nothing more than what I got. It's what I expect now."

  "I don't believe it," Mare pressed. She took a lurching step closer, willing the pain aside, turning her head so only the unrotten side of her face showed. "It was late at night. You were coming for me."

  "To stop you."

  "For me," she said again, and cocked out her hip, ignoring the pain, slowly licking her lips. It had worked before, with other boys. His frown became a twitch of disgust as he took her meaning. She read it well and took an unsteady step closer. Disgust was a precursor to desire, she'd learned that through experience.

  "You can, if you want," she said, lifting her cassock to stroke her dark brown stomach, though it agonized her to do so. "I won't tell."

  His frown deepened, though seconds later the inscrutable calm returned. "Don't talk to me like this again, Mare," he said, his voice cold. She wondered if she'd misjudged him. "I was there to stop you only, because there are people here I love, who I would do anything to save. You should know that about me. Attack me again and I will kill you. As for you, you were brought here because my mother made a list thirteen years ago, but you will stay because of me, because I want you here."

  Mare's eyes narrowed slightly. Of course, the mother was the path. She'd almost forgotten it in her rush to rob the Abbey, thinking it a strange coincidence or a fantasy she'd perhaps conjured into being. But the madwoman in the Slumswelters had spoken at such length about her glorious son, and all the things she would do. It was real, and Mare felt only the slightest twinge to twist that information to her own benefit. So what if the woman had saved her life? She could do the same again now.

  "She carved your scars, didn't she?" she asked, letting her cassock drop. "Your mother. You think she died a long time ago."

  His eyes flickered briefly. "Of course she's dead."

  That pleased her to hear. Knowledge was power, and it seemed she knew more than him. She thought back on the many stories the madwoman had told her, as they worked together to help Mare stand, to help her walk and think.

  "You're wrong. She's alive."

  His frown deepened for a delicious, teetering moment, then smoothed away. "You really are desperate now, Mare. Her body is buried in the grounds."