Glass bent her head to hide the emotion she couldn’t keep from her face. She stared at her hands and at the silver chain wrapped around her wrists but what she saw in her mind were dominos falling, endless lines of dominos, one toppling the next, lines splitting, splitting again, everything in motion, the complexity doubling and redoubling, the clatter swelling into a roar, the speed increasing, everything out of control.
It seemed so long ago when Judge Irvone had pronounced, “This is a poor decision, abbess,” and she had replied, “Even so.” And had with two words toppled the first domino.
30
NONA SLIPPED FROM Kettle’s mind into her own dreams, and from those into a fitful state halfway between sleep and waking. Gradually her eyes found focus on a single point of brightness and her body made sense of itself. She realized that the cold beneath her cheek was that of a flagstone and raised her head. She uncoiled slowly, groaning to herself.
A single small candle had been placed on the ground just beyond the sweep of the door. Already it had burned down to less than a thumb’s length. Its only purpose appeared to be to illuminate the knife set before it on the floor. Nona squinted then sat back against the wall. A single object had answered most of her questions. A throwing knife of modest size, its pommel a plain iron ball, the grip bound from pommel to hilt with a thin strip of leather. The Noi-Guin had left the weapon. The same Noi-Guin who had failed to take Nona’s life on her second night at Sweet Mercy, the Noi-Guin who had stabbed Kettle in the wilds while hunting Nona two years later and been hurt in turn, the Noi-Guin who had tried to re-enter Sweet Mercy by the caves; the Noi-Guin the holothour had driven away.
Was it a woman who captured me in the graveyard?
Yes.
The same one who came to Raymel’s side after I sliced his neck? The same one who was sent to kill me?
Yes.
You didn’t think to mention it?
How would it help?
Tellasah, that was what the Lightless had named her with the bitter taste of the Poisoner’s truth upon the tongue he had bitten off moments later. She might well have been waiting close to the Rock, waiting for any whisper of her prey. How far had she followed Nona before making her move? Maybe for days. Nona had been headed in the right direction after all, and what better way to get your target to your lair than have it walk itself there? It must have been when Nona started talking to people in White Lake that Tellasah had decided to strike, worried that the novice would find companions or guides there and gain safety in numbers.
Keot circled Nona’s neck, trying to find a weakness in the collar that would let him slide beneath. She ignored his efforts and found her gaze returning to the knife. It had been left there as a message. To put fear into her.
And it was working.
* * *
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HOW ARE YOU going to get out of here?
Nona had been staring at the candle, and now as it guttered into darkness, wax consumed, Keot broke into the emptiness of her mind.
“I don’t know.” Prison cells and chains were much the same all the length of Abeth’s Corridor. Simple and effective. Nona had no sudden inspiration as to how to defeat them. With the band off one wrist or the collar removed from her neck she would make short work of the rest of her restraints, but the things were made not to be removed without a key.
Why do you think they haven’t killed you yet?
“Whatever the reason, it can’t be good.” Nona slammed her wristband against the wall. Despite her effort to hold her hand back it hit the stones too, skinning her knuckles. In the darkness she could barely see her arm, let alone any detail, but the wristband revealed no damage beneath questing fingertips. She checked the chain, first where it attached to the wall, then each link until she reached her ankle cuff. She tried twisting, pulling, swinging the chain against the ground. All with no result. She attempted to thread the chain beneath the wristbands but the links proved too thick and the fit too snug.
Animals in traps often gnaw their foot off to escape.
“I don’t think I would get far hopping.” The Poisoner had taught them that all bonds could be slipped, but Nona suspected she had meant those on wrists rather than ankles, and with the bands fitting so tightly it seemed unlikely they would come off over her hands without taking most of her skin and breaking bones. Perhaps not even then.
Nona stared at the slightly darker patch by the door, all that she could see of the knife now that the candle had burned out. It would be a useful thing to have, but at the full extension of the chain and lying flat she was still yards short of reaching it.
“Tellasah left it there, and me here, so I would try to reach it. So I would know who had me and so that the fear would grow inside me.”
Nona pulled off the smock they’d put her in. Immediately she felt the cold, as if invisible hands were touching her in the dark, pinching away her body-warmth. She felt more vulnerable too, which she reminded herself was ridiculous, given that she was chained in the dungeons of the Noi-Guin. She could hardly be more vulnerable and a linen smock would not preserve her.
Nona knew without trying that the garment wasn’t long enough to reach the knife, but artfully torn it might be. She would normally slice the thing apart with an invisible fingernail. Robbed of her abilities, she resorted to brute strength. At first the material resisted her, but once she found a seam it ripped quickly. Within a minute or two she’d made the thing twice as long as she was tall and had torn additional holes in it, hoping one would encircle some part of the weapon.
The flagstones were gritty, grime-covered, and cold. Lying naked, flat out, Nona began to flail with her torn smock. Experience trying to grapple hidden and possibly nonexistent edges in the dark of the undercaves had schooled Nona to persistence.
A score of tries brought no success. Twice Nona thought she had snagged the dagger, only to gently increase the pull and find her smock returning to her without the scrape of metal on stone.
Again! Keot urged.
Nona threw the material out, drew it back, threw it out, drew it back. She threw again. It snagged! She pulled. The knife’s weight resisted her. It seemed well entangled. She pulled harder. Somewhere outside, close at hand, something fell with a clatter . . . a small bell perhaps?
The door began to open almost immediately. Nona pulled harder. The knife resisted. She pulled harder still . . . and the smock came free with a tearing sound.
A figure stood in the doorway, one of the Lightless, framed by illumination that had seemed barely enough to see by when Nona had been escorted down the corridor, and now made her screw up her eyes.
The man bent down and picked up the cord that tied the knife in the cell to the bell that had rested just outside the door. He looked at her, lying there before him, his face too shadowed for any expression to be read, then backed out, closing the door behind him. A key turned in the lock.
A game. He was sitting just outside all this time. Waiting. Keot sounded grudgingly appreciative.
Nona opened her mouth to curse her gaoler, or Keot, or both, and finding she had no words sufficiently vile, closed it again. She levered herself to her knees and retreated to the wall, wrapping herself in failure, misery, and the tatters of her smock.
* * *
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