Eventually Tarkax’s string of long questions and Zole’s series of short replies came to an end. Tarkax stamped his feet and frowned at Nona. ‘Well. We had better go then.’

‘Where?’ Nona asked. ‘Can you guide us across the mountains?’

Tarkax snorted. ‘I wouldn’t wish that on a Pelarthi!’ He stamped again. ‘My brother’s daughter has convinced me to show you a quicker way home.’

‘Quicker than crossing the mountains? We have to cross them … they’re in the way!’ Nona pointed west in case the miles of raw bedrock had somehow escaped the Ice-Spear’s attention. ‘Wait … Zole is your niece?’

‘Am I not blessed?’ Tarkax didn’t sound as if he felt blessed. Several of his companions snorted, their breath plumes streaming on the wind.

‘But … why didn’t you look after her when she was orphaned?’ New confusion mounted on the old.

‘I could think of a thousand good reasons!’ Tarkax said, to more snorts. ‘But the best answer is to note that my brother is still alive. Though with a wife like that I have no idea why he didn’t make his snow-bed long ago!’

‘But …’ Nona turned to stare at Zole. ‘You’re not an orphan?’

‘Have I ever said that I was?’

‘Well … no … but Sherzal …’

‘You believe the emperor’s sister in this matter?’ Zole raised an eyebrow.

‘Fine!’ Nona threw up her hands. ‘Why on Abeth were you with her then?’

‘Is that not obvious, Nona Grey?’ Zole asked. ‘I have been spying on you.’

19

Present

Holy Class

In the end Nona left it to Sister Kettle to inform Ara of her new appointment to guardian of the convent. Looking east from the cliffs of the Rock of Faith it seemed that all the width of the empire was aflame. Nona doubted that any of them would be returning from the defence of the Ark. She didn’t want her last words from Ara to be angry ones. In truth, she wasn’t strong enough for that goodbye.

Abbess Wheel gathered her war-party before the forest of pillars. Nona joined them to find the old woman shouting at someone.

‘You are most certainly not coming! This is an open battle we’re walking into.’

‘Hold my bag, Ruli dear.’ Sister Pan affected not to have heard the abbess.

‘You are one hundred and two years old, Mali Glosis! I will not have you dying at the end of a Scithrowl arrow!’ Wheel sounded as angry as Nona had ever heard her, but there was more to it than anger. An edge of fright … of distress perhaps.

‘You don’t think I will be of use?’ Sister Pan turned towards the abbess, rubbing her hand over her wrist stump.

‘I don’t think you’ll make it the down from the Rock! You are over one hundred years old!’

‘Heh!’ Sister Pan waved the idea away. ‘I’ve a few tricks left in me yet.’

Nona agreed with Wheel. Sister Pan walked at a shuffle. Her eyesight was poor. There was no doubt that Pan knew everything there was to know about the Path. In the past few years she had taught Nona to do more than she ever thought was possible. But not once in all her time at Sweet Mercy had Nona ever seen her so much as touch the Path. Certainly she could walk to the hidden rooms and see the thread-scape … even pull a few when the need arose. But when it came to enduring the Path long enough to gather its power, that was a young person’s game. The fierce energies that coursed through a body on the Path would tear a frail old woman apart.

Abbess Wheel stamped her crozier. ‘Sister Pan—’

‘Are we all here?’ Pan peered around at the nuns. ‘Sister Oak, are you sure? Perhaps you should stay, dear?’

‘Sister Pan!’ Wheel roared. ‘I am giving you a direct order as your abbess. You will remain here at the convent!’

Sister Pan shook her head, smiling. ‘I’m Mistress Path, child. I go where I please.’ And with that she began to shuffle towards the pillars.

The wind blustered around the departing war-party, the Corridor wind contemplating a reversal of direction and an ice-wind seeking to insert itself into the confusion. The stink of smoke gusted from the east and no doubt the Durns’ fires were drawing closer on the western front.

Their band held precious little of the strength that Sweet Mercy had been training for so many years. The bulk of the Red Sisters and the Grey had been sent ahead to war. Of the Grey only Sisters Apple, Kettle and the newly appointed Sister Cauldron remained. Wheel’s force of Red Sisters was limited to Sisters Tallow, Iron, and Rock. Sister Pan was their only Mystic Sister and where the others might be no one could say. Thread-bonds were an invaluable means of communication and as Sister Tallow taught it, good communications were more help on the battlefield than a spare army. If Abbess Wheel had her way every Mystic Sister would be bound to every other, and Nona to every marjal too. However, without a significant degree of affection between the two parties such bonds were extraordinarily difficult to form, and impossible to sustain or endure. Much to the abbess’s annoyance.

Abbess Wheel led them towards the Vinery Stair belting out the battle hymn of the Ancestor, the convent’s ancient banner snapping above her on a pole gripped by Sister Pail. The nuns formed the vanguard, novices behind. The shipheart sat in an iron casket on one of the carts used to transport wine barrels. Six novices pulled it using a long pole. Nona still burned with its aura. She had brought it up from the vaults using two laundry paddles but that was closer than she ever wanted to get to the thing again. The memory of its violet light tingled along her bones. The others couldn’t feel it the same way she did, but a sense of unease set in at around ten yards, becoming terror at three, and madness much closer than that.

Nona could feel Ara’s anger vibrating along their thread-bond but she kept a tight hold on the channel and refused to open a discussion. Ruli had said they gave Ara black-skin armour and an Ark-steel sword. Abbess’s orders. Ara was a Jotsis after all, even if a nun was supposed to have no family. Nona took comfort in that. Ara would survive. There would be time for recrimination and apology if Nona also lived to see the week out. And if not, perhaps the thread-bond might offer a last moment for honesty; to say that their friendship had always been too precious for Nona to risk with the admission that she wanted more.

‘I’ve never even seen a Scithrowl,’ Sister Oak muttered into a pause between verses. She was marching between Nona and Kettle and looked as if she would much rather be watching over Red Class. Nona doubted Oak had held a sword since she had taken holy orders over twenty years before.

‘Don’t worry, Sister Oak, Sister Cage has seen hundreds and lived to tell the tale.’ Kettle grinned across at Nona.

‘I have.’ Nona didn’t mention that she’d had Zole with her all the while and that they’d spent the whole time running away or hiding.

At the top of the Vinery Stair Nona turned to see if Sister Pan had given up or fallen behind yet.

‘Holy Ancestor!’ Nona stopped dead.

‘What?’ Ruli and Alata turned with her.

Sister Pan was sitting on the barrel cart with one arm resting on the shipheart’s casket, apparently untroubled.