“You did well to reach the black ice, sister.” In Scithrowl, not far from the border, the black ice touched the southern wall of the Corridor. Few from the empire had ever seen it, though. Glass flipped pages to reach the relevant section of the report. Here the writing grew tighter, smaller, as if unwilling to let go of its information. “You did well, but I found the account of your experiences there somewhat confused. You lost track of Adoma and her priests in the outer chambers?”
“It is a difficult place to account for, abbess.” Kettle hunched on her chair, cold with memory. “In places the black ice lies beside the clean ice, like ink on a white page, running through it. But when you approach from the Scithrowl margins you pass through tunnels and chambers where the ice greys, grows darker, and shades to black over the course of several miles. It is a taint. A pollution that clouds thoughts just as it clouds the ice. Something lives in it. Or at least there is something in there that is not dead.”
“How did you lose Adoma’s party?” Abbess Glass traced her finger along the text.
“The tunnels are narrow and she left numerous guards in her wake.” Kettle frowned. “But the truth is I didn’t lose her. I lost me.”
“You lost your path?”
“I fell into . . . nightmare. The ice took me.” Kettle’s mouth became a snarl, perhaps remembering the mask she wore in the world outside. “I would not have lived if I weren’t . . .” She held her hand out and shadow ran between her fingers. “. . . like this.”
“Then I am glad that Mistress Shade was able to save you twice.” Glass smiled. “You have done the Church a service of some significance, sister. Your report concerning Adoma’s gathering of both the Scithrowl shiphearts to herself is of particular interest. Also you have placed flesh on the bones of these rumours about the battle-queen’s explorations beneath the ice. Some even doubted the existence of black ice.”
Sister Kettle reached into her habit. “I can lay those doubts to rest.” She produced a vial filled with inky liquid. Glass found her eyes fascinated by the blackness of the stuff. “I chipped some free. It melted.” Kettle returned the vial to an inner pocket. “Apple thinks it is related to the Durns’ sickwood.”
Glass pursed her lips. The Durnishmen built their barges from sickwood. Some claimed the stuff lived even when cut to timbers and planks, imbued with its own malign spirit and harnessed to the Durns’ cause by their shamans.
“The forest in which the sickwood trees grow is fed by meltwaters. The rumour is that the ice in that region is grey. Sister Rule once showed me the works of Alderbron, the archon who was brother to Sister Cloud. They hint that it is some work of the Missing that taints the ice.”
Glass turned the pages back and set her hand to the topmost. “Is there anything else I should be telling High Priest Nevis when I report to him next seven-day?”
“I would be more worried about whether you’ll get to report to him, abbess. I came through Verity on my return and I took the time to listen at several important corners . . .”
Glass knew that meant places no nun had any right to be. “And . . .”
“The Inquisition is coming to Sweet Mercy.”
11
NONA HOBBLED DOWN the rock-hewn steps to the Shade chamber. Parts of her that she did not remember being struck had stiffened and now protested at each movement. She took the last steps with both hands to the wall, teeth gritted, sweat sticking her undershirt to her flesh.
All of Mystic Class looked towards the door when she entered, some stares narrow-eyed and accusatory, others wondering.
“Nona, good of you to join us.” Sister Apple watched her without expression from the front of the class. She had a hat and scarf in her hands. “Your tardiness has volunteered you to spend your study period on third-day helping me with Red Class. We’re brewing retchweed.”
Nona knew better than to argue. She hobbled across to sit by Darla. Retchweed distilled to a liquid that could rapidly induce vomiting and diarrhoea. The smell of the stuff sometimes had the same effect. It was always a messy lesson.
“You look like you fell off the Rock.” Darla shuffled up.
Nona looked around. Neither Elani nor Joeli were there. Crocey sat hunched over her notes, one eye black and swollen to a slit, a bruise covering most of the other side of her face.
“Today we’re returning to the subject of disguise, Nona.” Sister Apple held the hat aloft, a shapeless thing of dark felt such as a market stallholder might wear. “Which is particularly appropriate as you’re up next for the Shade Trial.”
Nona started to open her mouth in protest then clamped it shut. Each Mystic novice took the challenge every year; nobody graduating to Holy Class without a successful trial could entertain hopes of becoming a Sister of Discretion. Without a shadow Nona had no chance of that really, so it was good that she’d set her heart on the Red.
“Disguise,” Sister Apple said, “is as much about changing your mind as about changing your appearance. I was taught by Sister Pepper. Yes, you’ve heard of her. Sister Pepper could, with nothing more than a simple grey tunic, or brown if you turned it inside out, pass convincingly at the gates of a dozen high houses and guild halls in Verity. I suspect she could have gained admittance to half of them wearing a sack. Sister Pepper knew in her heart of hearts that she belonged in each of those places. She knew who she was, why she was going, what to expect inside, and precisely how much attention to pay to those whose job it was to stop
