The Saint's Rise (Ignifer Cycle Book 1)

by Michael John Grist

  The Abbess inclined her head. "You care about the Sisters. That does you credit, Sen. Many in the city would not, for all the varied castes we represent. But you don't care for Alam. Why?"

  He didn't bother to look up. "He tried to sell me."

  "And why is that? What do you know about him?"

  Sen blinked, as images from the fight trickled back; hands reaching through the railing, drunken sobbing in the night, such an intensity of rage. He looked up. "It was something to do with his father. And Molemen."

  "Unfortunately, yes." The Abbess steepled her fingers, as was her manner, and spoke over them. "Molemen came for his father's gear manufactory last night, as part-repayment for a long-held debt. It seems Alam's father also sold the skill in his arms to mogrifers in the Manticore, so they took him too, and will lathe out that skill for full repayment. It happened early this morning."

  Sen sagged a little more. "It happened this morning? That's awful. Will he live?"

  "No. To fully lathe the skill from his muscles, the mogrifers will have to extract every fiber leading from his arms to his mind. That is not survivable."

  Sen tried not to imagine what such a lathing process would be like. The Molemen mogrifers were famously cruel, just like their cousins the usury butchers. With that in mind, it was hard to remain so callous about Alam. If it was one of the Sisters at risk, wouldn't he do everything he could to save them?

  "So it's not fair to let him die," he said quietly.

  The Abbess clacked her hard-shelled fingertips together thoughtfully. "Let's see. Would it be a painful death?"

  Now Sen felt his legs weakening, and slumped down in the chair. "The worst. On the spike off HellWest."

  The Abbess nodded, satisfied. "Yes, I expect so. Every bit as painful as the tortures the Sisters would face."

  Sen dropped his gaze to his hands, wrapped in their bandages, and felt ill. They trembled slightly. It was a good trap and he couldn't argue with it.

  "We can't save his father, can we?" he asked, already knowing the answer

  The Abbess shook her head. "We live on the King's forbearance, Sen. We don't have the power or the money to take an action like that, though we have tried."

  "How did you try?"

  "Offers to the mogrifers. Offers to the Molemen. Even offers to Alam's father to pay his debt. He was too proud."

  Sen closed his eyes, ready to surrender. "So what do you suggest? To save Alam?"

  The Abbess leaned back expansively, the chair creaking beneath her. "There are certainly options. A temporary imprisonment is possible, though I doubt we could trust that, as Alam would only nurse his anger, to unleash it upon us at the first opportunity. Failing that, we could imprison him indefinitely. For the rest of his life, in theory. It would be a miserable life, consumed by hatred and grievance, but he would be alive, and you could be free."

  It didn't sound like freedom to Sen. It sounded like an awful kind of bondage. He almost felt like laughing, that this could possibly have been his mother's plan.

  "Or…?" he prompted.

  "You tell me, Sen."

  "Or I stay," he said, his voice rough. "Maybe I can do something to change his mind. Or, well…" he trailed off.

  "Well what?"

  "I kill him. Or he kills me."

  The Abbess nodded. "Yes, I believe those are the only options, though for obvious reasons I prefer the first. The Saint was always interested most in unifying the various castes."

  Sen rubbed his eyes. Unifying the castes was a pretty story, but you only had to see the way Mare looked at Feyon with blank hate, the way Daveron judged them all as pieces of meat, to know unification was never going to happen, not in the real world.

  "That's a fairytale. I've hardly seen the city and I know the castes will never work together."

  "And is the Rot a fairytale?" The Abbess asked calmly, pointing out the window. In the sky outside, flanked by white hawkenberries grown up through the sacristy's ivy, there hung the black hole of the Rot, burning like a dark twin to the sun.

  Sen shook his head. The Rot was the Rot, and nothing to do with him, no matter what his mother had decided to carve into his skin. What mattered was keeping the Sisters safe.

  "So we imprison Alam," he said, more firmly than he felt. "Until I resolve things with him. Then I leave."

  The Abbess smiled sadly. "Yes, then you leave."

  ALAM I

  Alam couldn't sleep. He lay awake in a strange room, in a strange Abbey with a strange boy covered in scars, and a Moleman, and so many women all dressed in black like they thought his father was already dead and were in mourning. He could barely close his eyes.

  He hated them all, with a dull ache that pulsed in time with the pain in his nose. The hatred squirmed deep down in his belly, but what could he do now? He was useless, beaten by a boy half his size, even as he tried to run.

  The fleeting images danced through his mind again, from the instant he'd struck the scarred boy in the head. They were flashes only, like fragments of a dream upon waking. In one there was a woman behind him and he was looking out over the immense swell of the city. In another he was standing before a gravestone, feeling utterly alone. They came and went like swells on the Levi River, unpredictable. Perhaps it was a kind of witchcraft, and witches were for the spike.

  Then the image of his father's hands returned, and the strange feeling curdled. All the previous night his father had talked, like words were a sickness he couldn't stop vomiting up. Sitting in the courtyard of the gear manufactory he'd once owned, he'd talked about everything Alam was going to achieve, all the wonderful things he'd accomplish and how best to do them.

  "The simplest path," his father said again and again, holding up a basic transverse gear assembly and turning it, "the gears take the simplest path Alam, and so should you. Follow your caste, follow the path laid out for you, don't fight your caste and end up like me."

  It made Alam feel sick.

  It went on like that through the night, through tears and ale and more gears. When the three Molemen arrived with the dawn, in their sharp red tubing outfits the color of blood, it was almost a relief.

  "I have three hours yet!" his father shouted at them drunkenly. "Give me that."

  The Molemen stood back, and his father took Alam by the hands, his hunger for some unknowable connection steaming off him like a fever. "You understand, don't you Alam? You need a skill, son, and a path. Everyone needs a path. But not the gears, they're not for such as us."

  They walked the streets together, followed by the Molemen at their back, and though it shamed him, Alam had only wanted to get away. His father had changed in the past months, becoming weak, drunken, and feeble. He'd wept at night, grown lackluster at his work, the shine gone from his eye.

  "You'll find your way, I know it," his father repeated. "You won't end up like me."

  It had disgusted Alam. His father had always been strong, and proud. Once he'd picked up an Appomatox and thrown him bodily from the manufactory, for impugning the quality of his gear-teeth cuts for reasons of caste. Alam had never felt prouder. Now he just wanted it to be over.

  At the Abbey gates his father had clung on to the railing, reaching through the metal to hold Alam's hand one final time, despite the Molemen pulling him away. In that final moment, Alam hadn't given him his hand. He couldn't bear to endure another second. The man he knew as his father was already gone, leaving this sniveling, debt-broken man, and he had to escape before the sickness infected him too.

  The walk up the Abbey path had been a blur to him, until he saw the boy with the scars.

  In that moment everything had changed. It was like seeing a fat purse full of money in the street, enough to save the manufactory, save his father's arms, save his life. Things could go back to the way they'd been before, and all he had to do was run.

  So he'd hit the boy and run. The Molemen were still within reach, yet to board a carriage across town, and he could stop them. They would listen to what he h
ad to say, they would make a deal, and everything would be…

  Then the scarred boy had snatched that chance away. He pulled him from the gates and beat him in the dust, just as weak as his father. Alam hated him for that more than anything.

  But now it was dark, and the Abbey was quiet. His father had told him to take the simplest path, and he still could. It wasn't too late; it could be days before they took his father to the Manticore for lathing. Perhaps there was still time to pay off his debt, using the scarred boy's skin as collateral. He just had to escape the Abbey without being seen.

  He rose from his cot and started for the door.

  * * *

  Morning came and Sen rose early, as was his habit. He washed at the stone lavers in the corridor outside his room on the sacristy second floor, put on his rough tunic and pants, and headed down to work in the vegetable gardens. Perhaps there were other things he could be doing, and it seemed strange to continue with his chores as if nothing had happened, but he didn't know any other way to be.

  He hadn't run from the Abbey in the night, as he'd thought he would for so long. He didn't have any plan for dealing with Alam yet, or the others. So he would do his chores, and spring meant pruning potato leaves, weeding, trimming down beetroots. It had always been an enjoyable time, when his mind felt clearest because he was mostly alone.

  It didn't clear his mind now. There were too many possibilities in the air, too much at stake. Several times he caught himself digging in a spot he'd already dug, trimming a stem he'd already trimmed.

  Several of the Sisters went by, headed for their morning chorister in the cathedral, and he felt them passing like boats out at sea, without having to look, each a comfortable, familiar presence, but distant now. Once they'd been the same as him, all bound to the Abbey by the same ties, but not any more.

  He was different, now.

  Soon their voices swelled out from the cathedral's open doors in a beautiful chorus, their harmony raised up for the glory of the Heart. A pair of fetchlings shook loose from the cathedral's lower eaves, and Sen tracked their bright plumage upward, past the cathedral's flying buttresses spread out like Sectile limbs bracing a vast body, up the cathedral tower as it stretched in white Hasp stone into the pale blue sky, to where the black mouth of the Rot hung, burning darkly.

  I believe you will, the Abbess had said. But will what?

  He was first to breakfast, laid out for him and the others at their trestle table in the grounds. He padded over on the dewy grass, noticing the thin frame of Alam sitting down at the pond, gazing through the gates. Two Sisters sat either side of him like prison jailers.

  Sen stood by the table for a time, watching him, feeling the low buzz of resentment rising off him, until Sister Henderson came to stand at his side.

  "Alam tried to escape last night," she said.

  The calm of the morning faltered, and he turned. "Was anyone hurt?"

  "No," she said softly, laying her hand on his shoulder. "It was all right, I stopped him. He didn't make it past the habitry. He managed to pick his lock with a small coil spring. Gearsmiths, hmm? After that we set a bar across his door."

  A shudder passed through Sen. It was strange to think that the Spindle had tried again to kill him, and all the Sisters. A few words from him could doom them all. Such power. "He'll try again."

  "I expect so. I'm surprised he didn't wake you, actually. He was shouting a lot when I restrained him, about his father, about you. He was out of control."

  Sen turned back to study the Spindle, and briefly caught the hot buzz of his glare, before Alam quickly turned away. "He was going to sell us all," he said.

  "He's not thinking clearly."

  "Who is?" Sen asked, and started across the grass toward Alam.

  Sister Henderson caught his arm.

  "Wait. You can't fight him again, Sen, it won't help. We can watch him until his anger fades. We can watch him forever if we have to."

  Sen looked at her thin fingers on his arm, then up into her large, hanging face, realizing she would say anything to keep him safely within the walls of the Abbey. He didn't know what he was going to say to the boy, but he knew he wouldn't be staying long, whatever happened.

  "It won't ever fade, Sister, if he blames me. I'll never forget that my mother's dead, and that Adjunc did it. I'm never going to forgive them. If he blames me I need to stop that right now, one way or the other, or we'll never be safe. Now please, let me go."

  He looked at her hand on his, until at last she let go. "Just don't fight him again, Sen."

  He said nothing, and started toward the pond.

  Alam didn't look up as he approached. He was slumped on the bench with his long Spindle limbs hunched like a bundle of broken straw, staring out of the gates. The anger rose off him hot, mixing with grief, and Sen wondered what he could possibly say to turn this around.

  He stepped in front of him.

  "I'm sorry about your father," he said. A pause elapsed, during which the Spindle gave no sign that he'd heard. "But I want you to know it isn't the Sisters' fault. I can understand you might hate me, because we fought yesterday, but if you try to report my scars, all the Sisters will die. They've been hiding me since I was small. The Adjunc will kill them all for that. I just want you to know that. A lot of good people will die, and the chances the Molemen will even spare your father in return are so small."

  Alam looked up. His nose was swollen thick, his cheeks black and blue, and his light blue eyes were stained red with crying.

  "What do you want from me, scars? You've got me locked up here, and there's nothing I can do while my father's out there dying. Have you come to gloat?"

  "I don't-" Sen started, then went quiet. This wasn't what he'd expected. It was too soon, the pain too raw. "Just, I'm sorry. If there was something I could… I know the Sisters tried to pay for his debts, but…"

  Alam laughed at that, a bitter, miserable sound. "Did they? Did they try?"

  "Yes. They're good people. They're kind."

  Alam glared, then spat on the ground at Sen's feet. "Kind when they need to be. Kind for you, but not for me. Where was the Heart, when the Ague took my mother? Where were your Sisters when the Bodyswell took all our money for treatments that didn't work? Where was your kindness then?"

  Sen opened his mouth, but couldn't think of any words that would help. "I-"

  Alam snorted. "You're an idiot if you believe any of that. Look at what you have here, scars!" He gestured round vaguely at the Abbey and grounds. "You think you've had a hard life, running scared, living a lie, but you did it here! Surrounded by these rich, powerful women who'd die for you, women who'd let my father die to save you, and keep me a prisoner just to keep you safe? Don't talk to me about kind. That's a lie, and you're a Heart-blasted fool if you believe it."

  His eyes were blazing now. Spittle flecked out of his open mouth. The rage was on him again in full, and Sen took a step back. There was nothing he could do, unless he meant to fight him to the death right now. Alam was right, and he was a fool for trying.

  "I-, I'm sorry," he stuttered, then hurried away.

  Alam didn't scoff as he left. He just folded himself up again, like he was warming a fragile egg at his middle, an egg that would never be warm again.

  Sen slowed as he walked back across the grass, feeling the cold rage from inside Alam transfer into him, settling into a sickness in his belly. He couldn't save the boy's father, and he couldn't say anything to take that pain away. For the first time in his life, at least since his mother had died, he felt helpless.

  Sister Henderson stood up as he passed, concern on her face, but Sen just gave a half-hearted wave. What else was there to say? She gave a small shake of her head.

  The Deadhead Mare was waiting for him at the trestle table, chewing an orange slice with a curious look in her slack eye.

  "You made the sick dog bark," she said.

  "He's not a dog," said Sen, sitting down beside her.

  "So take him of
f the leash. We both know what would happen."

  Sen met her gaze. He was tired and angry at the same time. Tired of the situation, angry at his own inability to make things better. "You don't know me at all. I might bite too."

  She laughed in his face.

  He turned from her sunken glare. She was bitter, twisted in her own way, but her cruel intent didn't really touch him. Instead he looked out over the grass, down through the iron gates, and tried to think his way around the ball of cold in the pit of his stomach.

  * * *

  Days passed by Alam in a fog, running into each other like mogrified flesh. There were classes and he sat through them, where various of the women wrote out the history of Saint Ignifer and the city on a board which he was supposed to copy down and memorize, but he couldn't focus. He slumped listlessly while the others did as they were asked.

  This wasn't real. This wasn't a real part of the world, and it would be over soon.

  At meals he sat apart, always watched over by two of the 'kind' women, and at night he slept, fenced in by their barred doors and their wall and their eyes peering out of the darkness. Sometimes he sobbed himself into dreams where his father's hands ballooned, growing so big they surrounded him and their tendons came bursting out like worms. Each time he woke screaming with one of the women by his side, whispering softly like they were his mother. To his shame in those small hours he let himself be comforted. In the light of day, that weakness only stoked his anger.

  In their breaks between meals and classes he sat at the pond and looked out of the gates, waiting for the news he knew was coming. At times he looked to the boy with the scars, sitting with the others while the Balast laughed and told stupid stories about heroes made of stone. The scarred boy watched him back at times, frequently whittling on a piece of wood with a knife, just like the Molemen mogrifers would be whittling his father's muscles and tendons.

  Things seemed to simplify, as the days went by. Surely they'd finished with the pain, now. His father would be dead or dying, and a kind of cold relief settled on him.

  The Abbess called him from class one day. They were studying the book of Saint Ignifer, his promise of greater unity for the peoples of the Sump and the Absalom Plains, though Alam only caught a few words. He sat in her office, where last he'd sobbed and made demands, shaming himself further. He was resolved to show nothing this time, had prepared, knowing what she would say. When she said it, he felt as he'd expected to.