Grey Sister

Nona clambered over the guard wall and began to climb down the rope. Even if escaping through the pillars unseen was no longer an option the well got them where they wanted to go much more swiftly. They’d dropped any pretence that they were respecting the abbess’s edict against the undercaves. Even Jula hadn’t blinked. It was for Hessa.

A short while later all four of them were standing wet-legged at the pool’s edge in the oubliette beneath the novice cloister.

“Saints’ teeth!” Jula covered her face. “It stinks in here!”

“A gallon of kelp juice will do that.” Ruli went to get the empty tub that Nona had failed to return and placed it beside the pool.

“Let’s go!” Jula took the lantern and led the way.

Although the distance from the novice cloister to the Ancestor’s dome couldn’t be more than a hundred yards it took nearly an hour of twisting passages and tight crawls until Jula stopped them.

“All I’ve got to go on is what you’ve told me. But if the shipheart was under the rear of the dome . . . we want to go up there. It shouldn’t be far.” She pointed up at a fissure in the tunnel’s ceiling, three yards above their heads and fringed with stalactites.

“Tough throw.” Ara frowned. She pulled the grapple from her back and twirled it around her hand. “Better hope there’s a good edge at the top.” She sped the twirling and with a grunt of effort released the iron hook vertically, trailing rope. A moment later the novices jumped back as it clattered down the fissure again.

Thirty throws later each of them had taken a turn and not once had the grapple caught even enough of a ledge to support its own weight.

“It’s probably smooth. Coated in flowstone.” Ruli took another throw and stepped away to let the hook fall.

“We need to go back. We can try again another seven-day,” Jula said. “Oil’s low.”

Stealing oil was another thing that had become far more difficult since the Inquisition had tightened their noose. Not only were the watchers watching but the convent’s ledgers were all under scrutiny, as if a nun might be selling off supplies to fill the pockets of her habit with silver.

“We can try a little longer.” Ara reached for the grapple. Nona shot her a thankful glance.

“Not unless you want to try to find the way back in the dark.” Jula held the lantern up. “Next time we’ll get here quicker. We know the way now.”

Nona looked up, biting her lip, glancing first at one wall, then the other. They stood too far apart to touch both let alone brace for a climb. The distance to the fissure was too high to jump, even if Darla were there and Nona stood on her shoulders.

“Let me try . . .” Nona backed against the left wall then launched herself towards the right, leaping as high as she could. When her hands hit the rock the flaw-blades sheathing her fingers sunk into the stone.

The rest of her crashed into the wall, her feet dangling not much more than a yard above the rock-strewn floor.

“Impressive,” Ara said in a distinctly unimpressed voice. “Are you stuck now?”

“I may have broken both knees,” Nona hissed. Certainly they both hurt. A lot.

“Should I help you down?” Ruli asked, not quite able to suppress a smirk.

Nona ignored her, instead hunching her body and walking her feet up the wall until all of her was bunched just beneath her hands. If her claws slipped free she would fall ten feet and her head and shoulders would hit the ground first.

Pushing with her legs, she angled up then launched herself again, backwards this time, releasing her claws. She turned as she flew towards the opposite wall and managed to dig her flaw-blades in again. This time before her body crashed into the wall she braced with her feet. She’d gained nearly a yard in elevation.

On the fifth leap, with every muscle burning, Nona caught the edge of the fissure in the tunnel roof and hung beneath it by her blades, swinging.

Jula applauded.

“Of course, now you really are stuck,” Ara observed.

Nona dangled.

She’s right, you know. Keot ran beneath her hair.

Nona scowled. Air escaped her in short breaths. She had nothing to push against. She released one set of her blades and dangled by one arm. The three novices below hurried into place to try to break her fall. Snarling Nona swung, lunged upwards, and managed to dig her blades in six inches higher. A few panted breaths then she repeated the process with the other hand. Slowly, by degrees, she climbed into the fissure. Three times she hung, sobbing with the pain, her arms growing weaker with each moment, ready to drop, but against the darkness she saw Yisht, from Hessa’s eyes, Yisht as she loomed over Hessa’s broken body, knife in hand. “I am not given to cruelty, child,” the woman had said. “But you reached into my mind, and a violation like that cannot go unanswered.” The strength came from somewhere, and Nona climbed.

Once Nona had her feet inside the fissure and could brace herself against both walls climbing came easy, or would have but for the weakness of her trembling arms. A few minutes later she hauled herself onto flatter ground and lay there gasping.

“How are you going to see anything?” Ara called up.

“We haven’t got time for us all to climb up—even if we can get a rope to you.” Jula’s voice.

“I don’t need the lantern,” Nona called down. “Just give me a minute or two to feel around.”

“Feel around?” Ruli, incredulous.

“It’s too dangerous,” Jula called. “You’ll break an ankle. Or probably vanish down a hole!”

“One minute!” Nona called.

Now do it.

What?

Make me see, like you did when you were scared.

I am Keot! Fear has no meaning to me!

Whatever you say. Make me see. Nona pushed Keot towards her eyes. For a moment he resisted, then, perhaps curious, he flowed into them. The pain made her gasp and brought tears running down her face. She hadn’t noticed the pain the first time: the holothour’s fear had left no room for such things.

Immediately the rocks took on the glow of coals deep in the fire. Nona looked at her hands and found them utterly black, her habit almost as dark with hints of deep grey here and there. The water-carved passage she had climbed into led in two directions. She chose the best one and scrambled off along it. Within twenty yards she stood where Hessa had fallen, at the foot of the shaft Yisht had dug up towards the shipheart’s vault.

Your friend died here?

Yes.

And you still want to kill the one who slew her, as you agreed to?

Yes.

Good. Keot relaxed and the glow of the walls brightened. Hate is good.

“She died here.” Nona crouched amid the scatter of broken rock. Yisht, a marjal with a rare talent for rock-work, had brought down part of the ceiling.

“Nona! Nona?” Distant cries from below.

She touched her fingers to the floor beneath the shattered stone. Had Hessa’s blood spilled here? Had the nuns washed it away when they took her body? They had buried her down by the vineyards but left no marker. We are all one in the Ancestor, our bones are nothing.

“Nona?”

Nona reached for her clarity, watching the dance of an absent flame in the shadows of her mind. She looked for the Path and rocked back upon her heels. With Keot’s vision the Path blazed red, written through everything, filling the air, diving into the rock and filling the hidden space beyond, writing itself across the surfaces and bringing each to life. Refusing to be distracted by the wonder of it, Nona strove to look past the Path’s beauty to the periphery where threads stray. There in the depths of the earth she found a thread-scape that competed with Zole’s for sparseness. Sister Pan said humans themselves drew threads from the Path, all life did. In the darkest and loneliest cave within the Rock, in places no person had ever seen, or would ever see, where no rat had scurried, no worm crawled, the Path would lie pure, bound tight. If that cave were broached then the mere act of gazing upon its secrets would set tendrils of thread straying from the Path, just as a foot set into a clear pool will raise silt from the bottom to cloud the waters.