The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1)

by Michael John Grist

  He didn't know what he wanted to say. On one hand, he wanted to know all about them. What was it that had made them special, why had his mother chosen them, what purpose would they all serve? But at the same time, he knew there were no answers to any of that, because none of it was true.

  So run? Welcome them? Introduce himself?

  He stepped in front of the children and felt their attention focus like a kind of heat. The Blue-skinned girl gave a little gasp at his scars. The Moleman's eyes narrowed. They would all know, now, the price the King would pay if he heard about his scars.

  "You shouldn't be here," he said abruptly.

  The Deadhead gave a loud laugh.

  The words took Sen by surprise too, coming louder and more confidently than he'd expected, but surely this was the right thing. "I'm sorry, but it's true. This place isn't safe for you, or for the Sisters with you here. You see my scars, and you know what being near me means. You should all leave while you can."

  The words hung in the cool spring air between them. Sen glanced sideways at the Abbess, but read nothing on her polished Sectile face. Of course. Perhaps she'd even expected this.

  He turned back ready to say more, but now the Blue girl was rising smoothly to her feet. Her dark eyes had gone very wide, focused on his face like she was drinking him in. He could feel her fear changing to excitement.

  "Feyon Gravaile of the Roy Gravailes," she said in a tart, breathy voice, then dropped into a curtsey, spreading her skirts like a crumpling white cake. "And I am not afraid, as no Gravaile would be." Tiny silver bells in her hair chimed as she moved.

  Sen frowned at her. He hadn't expected this. "It's not some kind of challenge. It's just a fact. It isn't safe, for you, me, or the Sisters." He looked to the others. "None of you should stay, for all our sakes."

  "There is no danger for me here," the Moleman said smartly. "Nor in any affairs of caste. The Molemen are exempt."

  "Maybe not for you, but why stay?" Sen pressed.

  "Your Abbey has offered to pay my cost as a usury butcher," said the Moleman, as though that answered everything.

  Sen glanced again at the Abbess, expecting some small sign of victory on her face, but as before she gave nothing away. Instead he turned to the Balast.

  "There's no exemption for you. Why are you here?"

  The stone boy took a long moment to answer, the gears of his mind turning slow. "I can't go back to the Calk," he said eventually. "I'll calcify."

  "You'll calcify here too."

  "No," said the Balast firmly. "It's different here. It's quiet; the air is clear. I won't end up like the others."

  Sen studied the boy's intense expression, feeling the open warmth that radiated off him ripple briefly. There were dark depths underneath; the faint impression of a caste kept shrouded in their white-lime Calk district like shambling, distant ghosts. Sen shuddered and turned to the Deadhead girl.

  "And what about you? Why would you stay?"

  She smiled back at him crookedly and spoke, her voice a dull slur through her sagging lips. "I suppose I like the flowers."

  "What flowers?"

  She gestured vaguely around them. "Take your pick."

  A moment passed, and Sen accepted the reality before him. He hadn't really believed the children would arrive, but now they had. He hadn't really believed he would see them, even speak to them, but now he had. They wouldn't leave, and that left him with the only other choice; he would have to leave first.

  Already he began planning it out. A quiet day from hereon, keeping his head down, until night fell and he could sneak away. There would be no evidence he was ever here, just a few scraps of testimony if any of these children chose to sell him out, which the Sisters would surely survive.

  Then he sensed something new.

  It was a sharp bite at his mind that tasted of bitter rage. He turned. A boy was entering the Abbey through the gates at the bottom of the chalk path, flanked by a Sister on either side. He was thinner and longer-proportioned even than Sister Henderson, with an elongated chin and arms that came down to his knees. He wore pipe-thin trousers and a brown tunic smudged with grease. A Spindle from the artisan's streets of Carroway.

  And he burned with anger. It was plain even on his face, in his teary eyes and uncanny white pallor. Sen felt it like a force in the air.

  "That's Alam," Sister Henderson said quietly from behind. "He's the fifth."

  Sen started forward down the path. He didn't know why, he just knew he had to meet this boy head-on. As they drew near the feeling intensified, making Sen's cheeks hot and his eyes prickle. A flurry of wild images flashed through his mind: Molemen in the street, a room full of gears, his father's face drunk-red and lined with tears, begging.

  It left him confused. What father?

  Sen stopped, and the boy stopped in front of him. He was panting, his long fingers curling and uncurling into fists. He towered over Sen, his stretched face was blotchy with crying, and his eyes were unfocused.

  "What happened to you?" Sen asked.

  The boy's round brown eyes focused on him, then that focus sharpened, and Sen felt it as he realized what he was seeing. Scars, the likes of which he'd never seen before. Scars on Sen's cheeks, on his forehead, over his nose and running down his throat, scars that made him an outlaw in the King's city, hunted by the Molemen and the monstrous Adjunc, scars that could be worth a fortune when handed over…

  Sen saw it coming a second too late, as the Spindle boy's rage sharpened into a fine point and lashed out.

  The blow from his bony fist smacked Sen on the side of the head and sent him reeling off the path. More images burst across his thoughts, of hands stretching through a fence that were his father's hands, of a long and shameful walk led by bloodless Molemen and an overwhelming anger, then he was himself again. On his knees on the dry spring grass, he watched dizzily as the Spindle ran back down the path.

  Without thinking, he lurched to his feet and gave chase. He caught a glimpse of Sister Henderson running toward him, but she would be too late. Sen hit the chalk path and his feet pounded the dust like a heartbeat, while the rest of the world closed in. His vision was blurry and his mind reeled, but he could just pick the taller boy out, nearly at the gate already. Sen pumped his elbows hard, thumped his feet down on the path, and reached the gates just as the Spindle was about to straddle the top.

  He leaped and snagged the boy's ankle with one hand, wrenching him off the metal frame like a wind-plucked apple. The long boy fell with an awkward thud into the dust, and Sen threw himself on top at once, batting away long arms and throwing wild fists into his thin face.

  Alam's nose crunched and blood splashed out into the white dust, bringing with it more images of the Molemen, of the gear factory, of a father's pitiful face. There was a disconnected buzz in Sen's knuckles as they rose and fell, pounding until the images stopped and the boy beneath him went slack and still.

  Then Sister Henderson was there, scooping him up with one arm round his belly and hauling him away.

  MOTH ABBESS I

  Strange.

  Sen sat at the trestle table looking at his hands in his lap. They were wrapped in tight white bandages and seemed alien to him. He'd never hit anyone before. He'd never become so angry, so quickly.

  After the fight Sister Henderson had cleaned his knuckles with stinging fluid and wrapped them tightly, barely talking. Other Sisters had led the children away, and carried the Spindle to the infirmary. Sen had sat and watched while the thumping grew in his head. He felt sick.

  One of the Sisters pressed a clay cup of water into his hand. He drank it, then gently touched the cool clay against the swelling lump on the side of his head.

  Was this what his mother had planned?

  He heard a sound nearby and turned. It was the Blue-skinned girl chattering to the Balast, her high voice like the morning song of larks. They'd come back.

  "…and if he'd hit me like that, I'd have walloped him good too, and my father would br
ing his troops just to see him spiked, and then…"

  He tried to ignore her. He tried to focus on what had happened, on the Spindle's attack, on his response, on the images he'd seen. If it all meant something, a lesson he was supposed to understand, then he was failing this test. All it did was reinforce his decision to leave. His scars were just too much temptation.

  He would go right now, if it weren't for Sister Oppery pacing a wary circle around him, round and round, her footsteps falling in and out of time with the painful throb in the back of his head.

  "How's the Spindle?" he asked the Sister, on one of her revolutions.

  "Well enough," was all she said. She never spoke much.

  "It was a good effort," came a voice from his side. The dark-skinned Deadhead girl was standing there, and he shuddered. She was hard and wiry throughout. Mare. Up close her swarthy skin made her look like a withered old root, barely clinging to life, and the sunken side of her skull made him feel ill. "At least if you were trying to get yourself killed."

  He barely understood what she was saying, her voice was so slurred by the sag in her lip. "What do you mean?"

  She looked down at him with half a frown. "I mean, you made a show of yourself down at the gates. You want the Adjunc to see you down there, get us all killed too? Do it somewhere else next time. And why did you even bother?"

  Sen tried to understand her meaning through the thick guttural accent. Still the question didn't seem to make sense. "I had to. He'd seen me. He was going to call the Adjunc."

  The Deadhead laughed. It was a faintly putrid sound. "You think they'd listen to a Spindle? He's nothing to them. They'd kill him for the trouble."

  "I…" he began, then stopped. Perhaps she was right. Everything he'd learned about Adjunc told him they didn't much value low-caste testimony, not even about scars. They'd just kill and skin everyone involved.

  The girl cocked her Deadhead to the side, and the sun caught her disfigurement at odd angles, making her look devilish. "You didn't think of that? Or you were enjoying beating his face too much?"

  He frowned up at her. It hurt to frown. "Enjoying it? Why would I?"

  She laughed again, gurgling now. "Perhaps you'd be surprised what people learn to enjoy. Perhaps not. You kept hitting him after he was unconscious. Why?"

  He opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't find the words. Had he? It was all such a blur still. "I need to think," he said quietly.

  She snorted. "You're lucky. On the street you'd get no chance to think. The Spindle would have killed you, or one of his friends would. He's twice your size."

  He met her eyes. She was enjoying this, and that annoyed him. "Are you having fun, now? Is this what you've learned to enjoy?"

  She grinned, and there was a delighted sparkle in her dead eye now. That she'd successfully baited him, perhaps. "This part is the most fun. You're like an oyster, waiting to be shucked. One slip of the knife, and shhhlluk," she made a sucking sound, "out you pop. All your money and luck forgotten in the dust. Because in the dust, we're all the same. From me to you to the Molemen filth over there, we're mogrifers and butchers all." She pointed to Daveron, then to her sunken head, and grinned. "They did this to me. I'd do it to you in a heartbeat, for the right price."

  He didn't have any response to that.

  "He'll not forgive you, you know? The Spindle. His kind hold a grudge for life, they say. You're not getting over that." She spat in the chalk, then pointed absently at his scarred arms. "You should cover up more."

  He wrapped his hands around his forearms, suddenly self-conscious. Of course, she was right. Sitting out here in full view of he gates, with his scars on display...

  She chuckled. "A bit late now." Then she turned and wandered away. Sen rolled down his sleeves anyway.

  "Never mind her," came the high sweet voice of the Blue girl. Feyon. She was leaning over the trestle table and gazing at him with those wide, dark eyes. Something about her made him dizzy. "I thought you were amazing, so dramatic!" She cheerfully mimed throwing punches. "Bang, down he went."

  Her excitement unnerved him. "I didn't mean to…"

  "And she's right," Feyon went on, "your scars are amazing, so rebellious! Can I touch them?" She reached out one dainty hand across the table. Her fingernails were painted with delicate flower petals. The thought of her touching his skin seemed wrong, and as she drew near he got a sharp sense of something stunted inside her.

  "I don't," he mumbled, drawing away, "you shouldn't…"

  "Just one touch?"

  It was too much. He pushed away from the table and walked away. Sister Oppery's eyes widened as he stalked past, but she made no move to stop him. He walked until he was back in the graveyard shadows, standing before his mother's grave.

  Quiet.

  His panting disturbed the peace of that place, and he forced his breathing to still.

  Avia IHE, read the grave. In the Heart's Embrace.

  "Did you know this would happen?" he asked quietly. "Did you plan this too?"

  Of course, there was no answer. His mother was dead, and it was time he truly let her dreams die. He was thirteen years old, and it was time to take responsibility for what he was.

  He didn't look back at the Abbey. It wasn't home any more, not safe for him or any of the Sisters while he remained. Instead he picked a path smoothly through the graves and slid into the undergrowth by the wall, to where his pack was waiting.

  Sister Henderson was waiting there too.

  She stood in the shadows, holding his pack in her hands like a sallow ghost.

  "I'll give it to you," she said. There was no mockery in her voice now, only sadness. "I'll bless you on your way, only talk to the Abbess first, Sen. That's all I ask. Please."

  His heart raced. It suddenly seemed there was something very large in his throat, too big to swallow but blocking him from saying anything. It was a shock to see her, but it was more than just that. Her being here meant they'd known all along what he'd been planning.

  "Please, Sen," Sister Hen said.

  He didn't trust himself to speak now. A moment earlier he'd expected to never see her or any of the Sisters who'd raised him again. Now there was this. He owed them this.

  He turned and walked back the way he'd come.

  * * *

  The Moth Abbess admitted him to her office in the chancel at once.

  She was seated behind her desk with her dusky brown wings folded neatly to either side, their shades of brown blending with the rows of ancient leather tomes lining the walls. Summery light bled in through the narrow side window, lined with fresh hawkenberry blooms.

  Sen stood before the desk on the bare wooden floor; fists clenched. The cool, calm sense rising off her was no match for the turmoil in his mind.

  "You saw Sister Henderson," she said. It was part question, but there was no real question in her tone. She knew, just like he knew, what was coming next.

  "Everyone in the Abbey almost died today, Abbess," he said flatly. "I won't be responsible for that."

  The Abbess' domed face remained still, her compound eyes focused on him, her fingers flexed in a steeple before her. "So don't be. Sit."

  He didn't sit. So many times he had followed her instructions before, always daunted in this office, the memories stretching back in a blur. He'd cried about his mother's death here, a period he barely remembered. Here he'd been chastised for using Sister Henderson's rock cakes in his homemade catapult. Here he'd come to be tested on his knowledge of the stars and the city.

  For a long moment they gazed at each other, until at last he turned away and looked out of the window. He wouldn't sit, but she was always better at staring. Moths had no eyelids, after all.

  "You're right, of course," she said eventually. "About the risks to this path. Our faith is our sacrifice, and we welcome it, while your scars mark you out. The children face no such fate. They don't deserve to die for our decisions, do they?"

  Sen frowned slightly. There seemed a trap loaded i
nto that statement, as there often were with things the Abbess said.

  "They came," he said tentatively, "but you're right, they didn't know. That's why I have to go, to keep them safe too."

  The Abbess nodded. Her expression didn't change. "To keep them safe, too."

  He felt the steel jaws of the trap closing in. Probably he should never have come back, should have just ran for another section of wall and left without his pack, leaving Sister Henderson standing there winsome and alone.

  But he hadn't. He owed his life to the Abbess, to the Sisters, and he owed them the respect of explaining why, even if it was a trap.

  "What is it you want to say, Abbess?"

  She watched him for a long moment. Her eyes were like stained glass windows, betraying no emotion. The feeling of her mind was cool and ordered, as always. Judging, weighing, measuring.

  "I believe that if you leave today, the boy Alam will be dead by this time tomorrow."

  There went the trap. He didn't recognize it yet, didn't understand what the boundaries of it were, but knew he had to get out before its teeth became solid.

  "I didn't beat him that badly. A few punches in the face; he'll be fine. He won't die."

  "Not from the fight," the Abbess agreed. "But still, he will die."

  "How?"

  The Abbess shuffled the wingstack at her back, a kind of Sectile shrug. "You already know how. I know you spoke with Mare, the Induran."

  Sen gritted his teeth. There was no use denying a truth. "The Adjunc will kill him for false reporting."

  "They will. I believe he will report you. You will flee. Then when they raid the Abbey he will die."

  Sen felt the trap solidify around him. Still he tried to flail a way out.

  "So let him die. He can make his own choices."

  The Abbess studied him curiously. "Let him die? It's possible. Yet the Adjunc will still raid the Abbey, Sen, and they will not be gentle. Many of the Sisters are frail, and certainly some will suffer badly, if not die."

  Sen sagged. There was the linchpin in the argument.