Grey Sister

by Mark Lawrence

  “Done.” Kettle stood from the lock.

  “Can we leave now?” Clera asked.

  Nona glanced back at the door, heart heavy, not feeling the release she had anticipated. “No.”

  “No?” Clera seemed on the point of mutiny.

  “Lano Tacsis said the abbess was escaping with others. They’re going to be caught at the gates. We need to go there and help them get out.”

  45

  ABBESS GLASS

  ARABELLA JOTSIS LEAPT higher than Glass had seen anyone leap, or had imagined that they might. She had sheared away the bottom half of her skirts but still what remained trailed behind her like fluttering plumage. Her leading foot broke the neck of a palace guardsman, her sword scythed through another’s throat, and she was attacking a third before either of the first two could start to fall.

  While Melkir dragged Darla between the doors and clear of the melee Ara spun amid the crowd of her foes, creating an ever-wider circle of injured opponents. Her speed couldn’t last, but while it did the results were breathtaking.

  Glass worked as quickly as she could, snuffing the flame from one silver table-lamp, flinging it towards the doors, picking up the next, its oil sloshing within, and repeating the process.

  Darla, bleeding fiercely from several wounds, shook free of Melkir and hauled herself up him, trying to return to the fray. Melkir caught hold of her again, offering sharp words. Glass couldn’t hear what they were but they worked and Darla accepted his support as they hurried towards the servants’ door. Glass flung a seventh lamp before abandoning her task and setting off after Melkir.

  The seventh lamp was still lit. There had been no plan, no words exchanged. Ara had simply exploded from the passage and hurled herself across the room to rescue Darla. Now, planting a foot in a guard’s groin and driving off, she threw herself back across the flames blossoming between the doors. She arrived at the entrance to the servants’ passage simultaneously with Glass, moments behind Melkir and Darla. Glass patted her on the back, taking the opportunity to put out a burning patch of Ara’s dress.

  They wedged the door and moved on, Darla stumbling white-faced, the floor behind her painted by the rapid pattering of blood.

  * * *

  • • •

  LORD CARVON JOTSIS seemed to have the best knowledge of Sherzal’s palace among the group who had escaped the banqueting hall. He led their party through the palace’s underbelly, through roaringly hot kitchens, steaming laundry rooms, and past endless servants’ chambers.

  Their group numbered a score or so: four Sis lords—Jotsis, Mensis, Halsis, and old Glosis, who appeared not yet ready to die despite having enjoyed at least eighty years in her seat. With them were various family members and additional guests, including a merchant or two, and the cage-fighter, Regol. Now, shamefaced over his flight from the battle at the banquet doors, he was helping Terra Mensis along. The girl had broken a wrist during the escape though otherwise appeared astonishingly pristine. Had there been time Glass would have explained to Regol the reason for his lost courage. But time had run out on them and they were chasing it. Glass walked alongside Darla, trying to bind the cuts on her arms and side with strips of cloth torn from her habit. All were too deep for dressings to be much help. The injury in Darla’s side was a puncture wound and the sword that made it must have penetrated her vitals. Glass talked all the while, hardly aware of what she said, just comforting noise. Words of praise for Darla’s courage and skill, words of comfort and of hope that she didn’t feel, the words of the Ancestor, mother and father to them all who would surely gather each of them into the eternal embrace soon enough.

  Carvon Jotsis led them with a certainty common to those of his station whether or not they knew where they were heading. In the distance shouts rang out, the sounds of running feet came and went, and the darkened corridor behind them promised attack at each moment. But it never came. Eventually they emerged from a long service tunnel into a cellar and up into the main stables. Ara felled the trio of stablehands who showed some inclination towards barring their way, using her fists and feet rather than her sword, but it still looked a brutal business. Ara’s uncle left her to it and went to the main entrance, Glass following. Some yards back from doors as wide as those of any barn a huge carriage stood beneath protective sheets. Sherzal’s, no doubt. The wheels were nearly as tall as Glass.

  “Twelve hells.” Carvon turned from the narrow gap between the stable doors. “The main gates are shut. There’s a line of soldiers in front of them, two dozen archers on the walls above those.” He walked back towards Glass and the inquisitors.

  “There must be another way.” Ara left Darla in Melkir’s care, resting against a hay bale, and came to join Lord Jotsis in front of Glass. “It won’t take long before they’re coming up behind us.”

  “There’s no other way, not for us.” Carvon shook his head. “They say there’re ways into the mountain from the basements but I don’t know how to get there, or how to get through the caves if we found them.”

  “So we go out there.” Ara drew herself straight, trying to look fierce, but her exhaustion showed. “Regol and I could make it onto the walls. Attack along both sides. Clear the archers.”

  Glass didn’t bother to point out that it would be suicide. Reinforcements would arrive before they got to the gates. And even if they got above the gates opening them would be no simple thing. And merely leaving the palace wouldn’t save them . . . The weight of this knowledge pressed down upon her shoulders. Her arrival had killed these people. Whole families condemned to die.

  “I’m game.” Regol flashed Ara a wolf’s smile. “I came for a free meal. I get enough of fighting to the death back in Verity. But I’m damned if I’m supporting that woman against the emperor or inviting the Scithrowl over the mountains.”

  Seldom spoke up behind Glass. “We’re done for.”

  “We are.” Agika joined them. “We should pray.”

  Glass smiled. She turned back towards the inquisitors and nodded. She had never been a zealot in the mould of Sister Wheel but she believed that at the end of things the Ancestor would gather them to the whole and all division would be set aside. It was an end worth praying for. She reached out for Agika’s hand, then Seldom’s. “Sister, brother, it has been an honour to serve with you.”

  Lord Glosis, last to arrive, clambered up the stairs from the cellar, helped by a young nephew. “They’re on our trail.” She paused to catch her breath. “I could hear them in the corridor right behind us.” Another wheezing chestful of air hauled in under her ribs. “They’re coming!”

  Ara and Regol moved quickly to flank the stairs, both with bloodstained swords in hand. The sounds of a fight would draw guards and soldiers from other directions; it would be over quickly. The sounds of footsteps on stone stairs grew louder, closer. A dark head popped up. Regol swung. Ara swung. Swords clashed, Ara’s blade turning Regol’s aside as the head jerked back.

  “Clera?” Ara shouted. “What in hell are you—”

  “Don’t kill me!” Clera came up again, hands raised.

  Regol stepped back, frowning. Ara gave a cry and pushed past Clera, heading down the steps. She emerged a moment later in a staggering, limping, moving embrace with Nona Grey and Sister Kettle, all three of them clutching swords.

  “I’ve seldom had a prayer answered so swiftly . . .” Glass released the inquisitors’ hands and hurried across to Nona and Kettle.

  Glass wrapped her arms around Kettle’s altogether too-skinny frame, then Nona’s, similarly lacking in softness, all hard angles.

  “Sister Kettle! So good to see you, Mistress Shade asked me to bring you back to the convent in one piece and I would hate to disappoint that woman.” Glass found her smile so wide it hurt. She took Nona’s hands. “And, novice, I’ve reconsidered your punishment. I’ve decided death was too harsh. Banishment seems extreme too. So . . . no visits to town for a month and you’re to attend the optional Spirit classes on seven-days instead.”<
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  Glass stepped back and found both of them teary-eyed. To her dismay she discovered her own eyes misting. “Enough of this! The gate is heavily guarded. How are you going to get us out?” She noticed that Nona was limping. Kettle too; and the young nun also sported a livid black-and-scarlet wound across her throat.

  Nona’s gaze wandered over the various stalls with horses in, the rope and tack hung across the walls, the hay heaped beside sacks of grain. Her eyes came to rest on Sherzal’s huge carriage. One of the Sis had pulled back the sheeting from the door. It gleamed darkly, lacquered in black, emblazoned with Sherzal’s coat of arms: a storm cloud above a mountain, both lit by the jagged golden lightning that joined them.

  “Is it a clear path to the outer gates?” Nona asked.

  “Apart from all the archers,” Regol said. “And the soldiers.”

  Nona looked across at the cage-fighter, registering him for the first time. She stood frozen for a heartbeat then looked away, almost shy. “Everyone needs to get into the carriage.”

  “How will that help?” Lord Jotsis pushed through the survivors starting to gather around the newcomers.

  “I will move it.” Nona turned her wholly black eyes on the man. “There are palace guards entering the cellar below as we speak. Get in the carriage and you might survive.”

  “Uncle.” Ara was already pulling the lord towards the carriage.

  Glass watched without comment. Nona’s unassuming air of command was remarkable. The girl had Sis lords hurrying to do her bidding.

  Kettle turned around and scattered caltrops down the stairs. “Better hurry, abbess, they’re coming.”

  Glass nodded and followed Carvon Jotsis. A sense of urgency took hold and the guests in their soiled finery started to hurry towards the carriage. It looked large enough to hold them all though there would be no room for modesty. It would take eight horses to pull and horses wouldn’t see them through locked gates. What one girl could do Glass couldn’t imagine, but she had prayed and Nona had come. Now she would have faith.

  Nona reached out, took a lantern from one of the passing guests and smashed it at the base of the piled hay. She pointed to a pitchfork. “Block the stairs.” Regol moved to begin the task while the others stood horrified.

  “You’ll burn us alive!”

  “She’s mad. Look at her!”

  The air was already hot on Glass’s face and her eyes stung. The memory of her burned hand returned to her, not the unreal agony of the burning but the long dark misery of pain in the weeks that followed. She hoped Nona’s plan reached beyond torching the palace.

  Nona ignored the cries of protest. “Make sure the horses can get out, Terra.”

  “But . . .” Terra held up her broken wrist.

  “Just do it.”

  Nona limped towards Sherzal’s carriage. Kettle limped after her. Clera chased both of them. “Burn to death in the carriage. Is that the plan?” She stopped in her tracks. “I liked Sherzal’s better!” Behind her the panicked whinnying of horses had begun.

  “I am rather wondering what the plan is myself,” Kettle said. Behind her the flames were leaping up across the hay, smoke billowing from the stairs to the cellar. Regol stumbled out of it, coughing, wiping his eyes.

  “I’m going to walk the Path,” Nona said. “Unlock the doors!” She waved towards the stables’ main entrance. The two inquisitors ran over, hauling the locking bar clear.

  “You won’t be able to!” Kettle said. “Not so soon. You walked an hour ago!”

  Glass had no practical experience but she had heard Sister Pan’s stories. On rare occasions the old woman, her tongue loosened perhaps by convent wine, spoke of past days, and of the deeds of the greatest Holy Witches. Walking the Path was always dangerous, a step too far. Take too much power to yourself and it would rip you apart. It took time to recover from. When extremity drove a Holy Witch to return to the Path too soon it always ended in disaster, often for everyone around. The old saying was “seven moons to be sure.” Some of the greatest had walked again after a single moon, a single night to recover their focus, and for some of those it had been their last moon too. The curtain wall of Heod’s Fist, a great castle close to Ferraton where Glass had grown up, held a scar yards across and feet deep, and in its midst the shape of a person etched into the blackened rock. Sister Pan’s teacher, Sister Nail, had died there in defence of the castle against the army of the rebel king. A second walk attempted at the sunset of a day when she had walked the Path at sunrise.

  Ara hurried back from the carriage to help Melkir lift Darla from her resting place among the hay bales.

  “You can’t walk again, Nona.” Ara struggled with Darla’s weight. “You know you can’t.”

  Nona opened her mouth to reply, then froze. Glass realized that until this moment Nona hadn’t seen the gerant novice, lying down among the hay bales.

  “Darla . . .” Nona dropped her sword. “What have they done to you?” She was beside the girl in a moment, kneeling over her, oblivious to the crackle of the fire, rising towards a roar. “What have they done to you?” Her hands moved across Darla’s wounds, inches above them, trembling.

  Darla lay, white-faced, lips blue-tinged. “What kept you . . . runt?” Darla managed a smile, then grimaced and coughed. Dark blood ran over her lip, dribbled down her chin.

  Nona swung around to stare up at the people standing around her: Glass, Melkir, Ara, Kettle. She fixed on the nun. “You can help her.”

  “Nona . . .” Kettle looked down, head shaking.

  “You can! You’ve got supplies. You’ve got—” Nona bit off whatever she had been going to say, suddenly stricken by some realization.

  “. . . s’too late . . .” With immense effort Darla closed a big hand around Nona’s. “. . . tired . . .” Her brown eyes clouded with confusion, a kind of wonder, staring at some distant place above Nona’s head.

  A moment passed. Another. Darla’s gaze remained fixed.

  “She’s gone, Nona.” Kettle put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Nona flinched it off as if it burned.

  Sister Agika bowed her head. “The Ancestor has taken her to—”

  “Damn the Ancestor!” Nona gripped Darla’s fingers. “Get up. Darla, get up. I’m taking us out of here. We’re going back to the convent. We’re going . . .”

  Ara took Nona under both arms, drawing her up, choking back tears. “She’s gone, Nona.” Smoke rolled over them both.

  Glass retreated from the heat and smoke, coughing, making for the carriage. A panicked horse ran past her, nearly sending her to the floor. She reached the steps and helped Lord Glosis into the carriage ahead of her, Agika coming up behind. The survivors were packed along two broad bench seats, crowding the stuffed leather, and crammed upright in the space between.

  Nona, Ara, and Kettle came from the fire. It swirled around the three of them like a cloak of shadows and flame. Nona, pale in her rags, her black eyes unreadable, looked as though the blaze had birthed her. She looked like something not of the world.

  “You can’t. It’s madness.” Ara lacked conviction now.

  But what choices were there?

  46

  “THE SHIPHEART IS here. I’ve stood before it. I am restored.” Nona took Ara’s hands from hers. She needed Ara safe. “Get into the carriage.”

  “There’s no room.”

  “Then get onto it and watch for arrows.”

  Nona closed her eyes, closed her ears to the roar of the fire, and opened her heart to the banked fury that had trembled in every limb since she left Darla, still warm, among the hay.

  The Path had seldom seemed so distant. Just a thread. Little more than the crack that had run through her dreams back in the day when Giljohn first put her into his wooden cage. She saw it as a wisp, there and not-there. Her feet remembered the blade-path, its narrow treachery, the fall yawning beneath. Darla had hated that thing. She never managed more than four steps. But she returned to it time and again, no fear in her. Nona had aske
d her why once. Darla had given that fierce grin of hers. “My father told me, your weaknesses have more to teach you than your strengths.”

  General Rathon wouldn’t know his daughter was dead. Not yet. He wouldn’t know that Nona had used the last of the flesh-bind that might have saved her. He wouldn’t know that it had been spent on hollow revenge against a man not fit even to look at his daughter.

  Seven moons to be safe. Nona hadn’t any interest in being safe. If the Path tore her apart she would welcome it and hope only that no stone of Sherzal’s palace was left atop another. She would turn her helpless rage to a fire that would purge the mountain, a fire that would consume the pallid flames behind her, scouring the tunnels of the Tetragode.

  She looked again for the Path and found it blazing, a river, twisting through more dimensions than a mind should know, running at right-angles to imagination. The shipheart’s pulse beat in her ears. Without hesitation Nona threw herself forward.

  This time it was different. The Path wasn’t something narrow, veering through sudden angles, trying to throw her at every step. The Path had become a plane, a flowing expanse of molten silver so wide that falling from it seemed an impossibility. Even if she weren’t running, the Path would draw her on. She could race forever, untiring, each step bringing new energy. The world lay behind her. Time had no hold. The Path enfolded, filled, led, gave direction.

  The hard part wasn’t staying the course, it was turning from it. Too many steps taken, and leaving would cease to be an option—at least leaving and remaining whole. That was true of many paths perhaps. Nona saw Clera’s dilemma now, how hard it must have been for her to do what had seemed so simple from Nona’s side, how easy it would be to return to her course.