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Holothour.
What?
Nona felt Keot moving beneath the skin of her back. Normally he was silent in the caves.
You should run.
You always tell me to fight.
Now I’m telling you to run.
“We should go back. Now!” Nona turned to follow Ruli who had already started to run back the way they came, into the blind darkness.
“What’re you scared of?” Darla called after them. “There’s nothing here.” She laughed. “And neither of you have a lantern.”
Nona stopped at the margins of the lighted area, infected by a disembodied fear.
What’s out there, Keot?
Something Missing-bred. Something hungry. Run!
“We need to go. Trust me.” Nona’s voice sounded thin in the emptiness of the cavern. Behind her the sounds of Ruli’s stumbling panic.
Ara frowned then followed. “I don’t understand you, but I trust you.” Jula fell in behind her. Darla, with the light now retreating from her, snarled in frustration and hurried after them.
The six novices picked up the pace, shadows swinging all around them. Nona could make out Ruli ahead, feeling her way. With each passing moment it seemed that something gathered itself behind them, as if the space now echoing with their footfalls was drawing in its breath. Nona felt the horror of it crawl along her spine. The darkness held something awful. Something ancient and waiting. The need to be gone made her heart pound and tightened her breathing into gasps.
“Oh blood!” Even Darla felt it now, her face white.
Nona knew with cold certainty that beyond the margins of their illumination the calcified bones stretched out yard upon yard, innumerable victims lying in meticulous order. How many centuries had they watched the darkness? And she knew that among them paced a horror. She felt it now, individual, condensing out of the night, taking form. Perhaps it wore a man’s shape. Perhaps even her own. And if it ever raised its face to her she would drown in nightmare.
By the time they reached the chamber where they had chosen between the three unexplored passages all of them were running. Ruli was already on the rope. Jula didn’t wait for her to get off. Ara stood with her back to the cliff, lantern high, staring at the tunnel mouth. Ketti and Darla crouched by the edge urging the others down. It was all Nona could do not to push between them and make her own grab for the rope.
“Ancestor! Hurry it up!” The cry broke from her.
Ruli and Jula reached the bottom together and went sprawling in a clatter of loose stones. Ketti began to climb. The darkness in the tunnel seemed to thicken, rejecting the light from Ara’s lantern.
“It’s coming!” Darla was sliding over the edge, hands white on the rope, her feet just a yard above Ketti’s head.
“We can’t stay!” It was all Nona could do not to scream. Fear filled her, trembling in every limb, fluttering the breath in her lungs. “Ara, come on!”
They descended the rope on top of one another, lanterns hooked to belts, burning their palms as they slipped from knot to knot.
A confusion of swinging lanterns, sharp rocks, and snatching shadows followed. Screaming, panting, glimpses of chalk symbols, running, scrambling, and finally a desperate squeeze and they lay in the improbable brightness of day, sprawled on the Seren Way, gasping for breath.
There in the light, with a cold wind blowing and the plains stretching out below them towards the distant smokes of Verity their flight seemed suddenly foolish.
“I’m never going in there again. Ever.” Darla rolled over onto her back, her habit torn and smeared with mud.
“What were we running from?” Ketti asked.
“The first time when serenity would have really helped us . . .” Ara sat up shaking her head.
“And we ran!” Nona couldn’t believe she hadn’t reached for her serenity. Some novices still took a while to sink into the trance but many could summon the mindset in a few moments. The fear had got into her before she thought to wall it away.
“Ancestor! Look at us!” Jula stretched out her habit. Grey underskirt showed through a tear as long as her hand. Nona glanced down at herself. Smears of mud streaked her in horizontal lines where she had collided with walls on the mad dash out.
“Sister Wheel will kill us!” Ruli examined herself in horror.
“Sister Mop you mean,” Ara said.
“Both of them will!” Ketti jumped to her feet. “Let’s get back!”
“You’re worried about Wheel and Mop?” Nona pointed at the dark slot hidden back along the cliff side. “What about that. Just now?”
Jula frowned and brushed a grimy hand back over her hair. “I’m not going in there again.” She looked down again at the rip. “Oh we’re in so much trouble.”
Darla followed Ketti, muttering to herself. Jula and Ruli set off up the track behind them. “Ara?” Nona stood amazed. “What happened in there? Why are they just leaving?”
Ara looked puzzled. The smudge of dirt just below her right cheekbone only seemed to make her more beautiful. She narrowed her eyes as if trying to capture some memory, then shook her head. “I don’t think we should come back.” She glanced once towards the fissure, shuddered, and turned to go.
“What’s that?” Nona pointed to something gleaming among the rocks at Ara’s feet.
“Oh.” Ara didn’t look down. “It’s just a knife. Jula picked it up in the . . .” She shrugged and turned to walk away.
“Stay.” Nona caught Ara’s hand in hers. “That thing in there . . . that monster. You remember it? Yes?” Their fingers laced. Ara’s blue eyes met the darkness of Nona’s and for a moment there was a recognition of . . . something. Each took a step towards the other.
“No.” Ara shook her head. “I’m sorry.” The fragile moment broke. She pulled free and hurried after the others. And Nona felt as if some chance that might never come again had escaped her.
Nona stood watching the five of them wind their way up the track zigzagging its way towards the plateau.
What just happened?
You shouldn’t go back to the caves.
Don’t you try and pretend something didn’t just chase us out of there.
It did. A holothour. I told you.
So why are Ara and the others walking away?
They don’t want to die.
I mean why are they more concerned about having to wash their habits and stitch a few tears . . . There’s something more to this. Don’t lie to me, demon. I’ll force you into my fingers and hold them to the flame again.
I’ll chew your bones and make you spit blood!
But you know I’ll win. So tell me.
The fear untied them.
Untied?
The threads that bound them to that place, to these caves—the fear untied them. It set those memories loose. By the time they reach the top this will all have been a dream for them. The holothour made them forget.
And me? Why do I still care?
I protected you.
I don’t believe you. You’re made of lies.
Nona bent to pick up the knife. “I know this weapon.” A straight blade, dark iron, just a faint tracery of rust, the pommel an iron ball, a narrow strip of leather wound around the hilt. A throwing knife. She had found one of the same design in her bed once, and seen another jutting from Sister Kettle’s side.
