in the light, with a cold wind blowing and the plains stretching out below them towards the distant smokes of Verity their flight seemed suddenly foolish.
‘I’m never going in there again. Ever.’ Darla rolled over onto her back, her habit torn and smeared with mud.
‘What were we running from?’ Ketti asked.
‘The first time when serenity would have really helped us …’ Ara sat up, shaking her head.
‘And we ran!’ Nona couldn’t believe she hadn’t reached for her serenity. Some novices still took a while to sink into the trance but many could summon the mindset in a few moments. The fear had got into her before she thought to wall it away.
‘Ancestor! Look at us!’ Jula stretched out her habit. Grey underskirt showed through a tear as long as her hand. Nona glanced down at herself. Smears of mud streaked her in horizontal lines where she had collided with walls on the mad dash out.
‘Sister Wheel will kill us!’ Ruli examined herself in horror.
‘Sister Mop you mean,’ Ara said.
‘Both of them will!’ Ketti jumped to her feet. ‘Let’s get back!’
‘You’re worried about Wheel and Mop?’ Nona pointed at the dark slot hidden back along the cliff side. ‘What about that. Just now?’
Jula frowned and brushed a grimy hand back over her hair. ‘I’m not going in there again.’ She looked down at the rip. ‘Oh, we’re in so much trouble.’
Darla followed Ketti, muttering to herself. Jula and Ruli set off up the track behind them. ‘Ara?’ Nona stood amazed. ‘What happened in there? Why are they just leaving?’
Ara looked puzzled. The smudge of dirt below her right cheekbone just seemed to make her more beautiful. She narrowed her eyes as if trying to capture some memory, then shook her head. ‘I don’t think we should come back.’ She glanced once towards the fissure, shuddered, and turned to go.
‘What’s that?’ Nona pointed to something gleaming among the rocks at Ara’s feet.
‘Oh.’ Ara didn’t look down. ‘It’s just a knife. Jula picked it up in the …’ She shrugged and turned to walk away.
‘Stay.’ Nona caught Ara’s hand in hers. ‘That thing in there … that monster. You remember it? Yes?’ Their fingers laced. Ara’s blue eyes met the darkness of Nona’s and for a moment there was a recognition of … something. Each took a step towards the other.
‘No.’ Ara shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’ The fragile moment broke. She pulled free and hurried after the others. And Nona felt as if some chance that might never come again had escaped her.
Nona stood watching the five of them wind their way up the track zigzagging its way up towards the plateau.
What just happened?
You shouldn’t go back to the caves.
Don’t you try and pretend something didn’t just chase us out of there.
It did. A holothour. I told you.
So why are Ara and the others walking away?
They don’t want to die.
I mean why are they more concerned about having to wash their habits and stitch a few tears … There’s something more to this. Don’t lie to me, demon. I’ll force you into my fingers and hold them to the flame again.
I’ll chew your bones and make you spit blood!
But you know I’ll win. So tell me.
The fear tied them.
Untied?
The threads that bound them to that place, to these caves – the fear untied them. It set those memories loose. By the time they reach the top this will all have been a dream for them. The holothour made them forget.
And me? Why do I still care?
I protected you.
I don’t believe you. You’re made of lies.
Nona bent to pick up the knife. ‘I know this weapon.’ A straight blade, dark iron, just a faint tracery of rust, the pommel an iron ball, a narrow strip of leather wound around the hilt. A throwing knife. She had found one of the same design in her bed once, and seen another jutting from Sister Kettle’s side.
Keot reached above the collar of her habit, a hot flush rising. I know it too.
You liar. How would you?
The woman who held it came to see a dead man.
Why?
To understand the person who killed him, so that she might in turn kill them.
Nona asked the question though she knew the answer. Who did she come to see?
Raymel Tacis. He was dead but the mages wouldn’t let him die. And I was the first to find my way beneath his skin.
And the woman?
Was a Noi-Guin. Tasked to kill you.
In the week that followed Nona tried each day to broach the subject but none of her friends would do much more than admit, under pressure, that there might be caves beneath the Rock. It reached the point at which Nona saw Jula pretend not to notice her and turn a corner in order to avoid the chance of further questioning. She decided to drop the matter for a few days and see if the holothour’s mark would wear off and return her companions to her.
Mystic Class lessons continued to challenge. Nona improved with the sword, practising a handful of basic cut-and-thrust combinations until they started to feel natural. In Spirit Sister Wheel set them the task of writing an essay about a saint of their choice. Nona took herself to the convent library – the smaller one attached to the scriptorium rather than the larger store of holy texts held within the Dome of the Ancestor – to research. By the week’s end she had found three possible candidates from antiquity, all of whom had something in their story that would offend Mistress Spirit.
Sister Pan continued to immerse Nona, Zole, and Joeli in thread-work, showing them new tricks. Sometimes she would demonstrate thread effects most easily achieved whilst in the serenity trance, at other times fine-work requiring the clarity trance. Changing a person’s mood was something that might be achieved in a serenity trance, changing a particular decision required clarity. Neither were quick or easy to achieve, and Sister Pan warned that some people were much harder to manipulate than others.
Nona
