“From the outside Sweet Mercy looks very small. Our job here is to teach you to deal with failure as much as it is to teach you to win. We have failed to teach you about failure. I tell you this as I fear time is running out and simply hearing the lesson may have to stand in for being shown it.”
Nona opened her mouth to explain how she had learned that lesson when she failed Hessa, but her lips couldn’t shape the words.
“You’re powerful Nona, and you’ve come into your power at an early age. The understanding that power corrupts is an idea older than the language we repeat it in. All of us in positions that afford authority over others are susceptible, be we high priests, prime instigators, even abbesses.”
“Or emperors,” Nona said.
The abbess winced. “Some truths are better left implied, dear.” She glanced at the door then continued. “The Church has power and the Inquisition is intended to keep it from corruption. The Red and the Grey are a power and among the high priest’s tasks is to ensure those who direct them are not led astray from the righteous path. Each member of the Red and the Grey is a power in themselves and it is my job to ensure they remember their strength is a gift intended for service. And of course there are the shiphearts. Each a source of vast potential . . . but do they corrupt the ones who direct that strength?”
Nona said nothing. She didn’t know the answers, saving that she was already tainted and the stain upon her had his own name.
“I tell you this, Nona, because difficult times are ahead for us all and I want you to have faith in what we’ve taught you here. What I’ve taught you. When strength is in your hands there is a temptation to lash out against what looks like injustice. But our rules are all we have to stop everyone lashing out, each to their own sense of justice. Battles are better fought within the system, even when it seems broken.” The abbess sighed. “You’re young and I’m boring you. Run along. But don’t forget what I’ve told you.”
Nona ran as instructed, but it wasn’t boredom that snapped at her heels, but a host of worries, unused to such young prey.
* * *
? ? ?
“READY?” THE FOUR of them stood around the well-head in the laundry room. It was now the safest route into the caves. Seven-day trips into Verity had been suspended to allow the Inquisition closer observation of the convent and its inhabitants. Brother Pelter’s watchers numbered eight now, swelled by new arrivals from the Tower of Inquiry.
“Ready.” Ara held the lantern.
“Ready.” Jula peered down the well.
“For Hessa.” Ruli nodded.
“For justice. I’m going to get Sweet Mercy its shipheart back. I’m going to kill Yisht. And Sherzal is going to bleed for her crimes.” Three impossible things, but passing the Grey Trial had seemed impossible just days ago. The abbess had cautioned Nona about failure, but she had also told her to have faith.
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.”