Nevernight

Mia blinked, incredulity slapped all over her face. ‘You can’t be serious …’

‘… apologies, i was uninformed i’d been relegated to the role of comic relief …’

Mia tried to catch Tric’s stare, but the boy was frowning at his feet.

‘Tric, are you honestly telling me you’ve come to train among the most feared assassins in the Republic and you’re afraid of the bloody dark?’

Tric was set to yell again, but the words died on his tongue. Gritted teeth, hands curling into fists, those artless tattoos twisting as he grimaced.

‘… It’s not the damned dark.’ A quiet sigh. ‘Just … not being able to see. I …’

He slumped down on his backside, kicked a toeful of shale down the slope.

‘O, sod it …’

Guilt welled up in Mia’s chest, drowning the anger beneath. She knelt beside the Dweymeri with a sigh, put a comforting hand on his arm.

‘I’m sorry, Tric. What happened?’

‘Bad things.’ Tric pawed at his eyes. ‘Just … bad things.’

She took his hand and squeezed, acutely aware of how much she was growing to like this strange boy. To see him like this, shivering like a child …

‘I can take it away,’ she offered.

‘… Take what away?’

‘Your fear. Well, Mister Kindly can, anyway. For a little while. He drinks it. Breathes it. It’s what keeps him here. Makes him grow.’

Tric frowned at the shadow-creature, revulsion in his eyes.

‘… Fear?’

Mia nodded. ‘He’s been drinking mine for years. Not enough to make me forget common sense, mind. But enough to make me stand tall in a knife-fight or snatch-job. He makes me strong.’

‘That makes no sense,’ Tric scowled. ‘If he’s eating your fear, you never learn how to deal with it yourself. That’s not strength, that’s a crutch …’

‘Well, it’s a crutch I’m willing to loan you, Don Tric.’ Mia glared. ‘So instead of lecturing me on my faults, I’d rather you said “thank you, Pale Daughter”, and got your sorry arse inside the Church before they slit our throats and leave us for the kraken.’

The boy stared down at their clasped hands. Nodded slowly.

‘… Thank you, Pale Daughter.’

She stood, pulled him to his feet. Mister Kindly didn’t need to be asked – simply flowed across the join where their shadows intersected. Anxiety began eating Mia’s insides immediately, cold worms gnawing at her belly. But she did her best to stomp on them with her boots, as Tric marched her across the broken ground towards Mouser.

‘You’re ready then?’ the Shahiid asked.

‘We’re ready,’ Tric said.

Mia smiled to hear his voice, almost a full octave deeper. He squeezed her fingers and closed his eyes, allowing Mouser to tie the blindfold. Tying Mia’s, the Shahiid grasped their hands, led them across the broken ground. She heard a word spoken – something ancient and humming with power. And then she heard stone; the great cracking and rumbling of stone. The ground shuddered beneath her, dust rising in a choking pall. She felt a rushing wind, smelled a greasy arkemical tang in the air.

Hands took her own, led her forward, across broken ground and onto smooth rock. The temperature dropped suddenly, the light beyond her eyelids dying slow. They were somewhere dark now; inside the mountain’s belly, she supposed. Mouser leading her by the hand, they reached stairs, climbing up, up in an ever-widening spiral. Twisting and turning, a soft vertigo filling her mind, all track of the direction she’d come from or the direction they were headed fading. Up. Down. Left. Right. Concepts with no meaning. No memory. She felt an almost overwhelming desire to call Mister Kindly back, to feel that familiar touch she no longer quite knew how to live without.

At last, after what seemed like hours, Mouser released his grip. For a moment she faltered. Imagining she stood at the mountain’s peak, nothing about her but a straight fall to her death. Arms outstretched to keep her balance. Breathing hard.

‘Come back,’ she whispered.

She felt the not-cat rush back in a flood, pouncing on the butterflies in her belly and dismembering them one by one. The blindfold was removed and she blinked, saw an enormous hall, bigger than the belly of the grandest cathedral. Walls and floor of dark granite, smooth as river stones. Soft arkemical light shone from within beautiful windows of stained glass, giving the impression of the sunslight outside – though in truth they could be miles within the mountain by now. Tric stood beside her, gazing about the room. Vast pointed archways and enormous stone pillars were arranged in a circle, soaring stone gables seemingly carved in the core of the mountain itself.

‘Trelene’s great … soft …’

Word failed as the boy looked towards the room’s heart. Mia followed his gaze, saw the statue of a woman, jewels hung like stars on her ebony robe. The figure was colossal, towering forty feet above their heads, carved of gleaming black stone. Small iron rings were embedded in the rock, about head height. In her hands she held a scale and a massive, wicked sword, broad as tree trunks, sharp as obsidian. Her face was beautiful. Terrible and cold. Mia felt a chill trickle down her spine, the statue’s eyes following as she walked closer.

‘Welcome to the Hall of Eulogies,’ Mouser said.

‘Who is she?’

‘The Mother.’ Mouser touched his eyes, then his lips, then his chest. ‘The Maw. Our Lady of Blessed Murder. Almighty Niah.’

‘But … she’s beautiful,’ Mia breathed. ‘In the pictures I’ve seen, she’s a monstrosity.’

‘The Light is full of lies, Acolyte. The Suns serve only to blind us.’

Mia wandered the mighty hall, running her hands over the spiral patterns in the stone. The walls were set with hundreds of small doors, two feet square, stacked one upon another as if tombs in some great mausoleum. Her footfalls rang like bells in the vast space. The only sound was the tune of what might have been a choir, hanging disembodied in the air. The hymn was beautiful, wordless, endless. The place had a feeling unlike any other she’d visited. There were no altars nor golden trim, but for the first time in her life, she felt as if she were somewhere … sanctified.

Mister Kindly whispered in her ear.

‘… i like it here …’

‘What are these names, Shahiid?’ Tric asked.

Mia blinked, realised the floor beneath them was engraved with names. Hundreds. Thousands. Etched in tiny letters on polished black stone.

‘The names of every life claimed by this Church for the Mother.’ The man bowed to the statue above. ‘Here we honour those taken. The Hall of Eulogies, as I said.’

‘And the tombs?’ Mia asked, nodding to the walls.

‘They house the bodies of servants of the Mother, gone to her side. Along with those we have taken, here we also honour those fallen.’

‘But there are no names carved on these tombs, Shahiid.’

Mouser stared at Mia, the ghostly choir singing in the dark.

‘The Mother knows their names,’ he finally said. ‘No other matters.’

Mia blinked. Glancing up at the statue looming above her head. The goddess to whom this Church belonged. Terrible and beautiful. Unknowable and powerful.

‘Come,’ said Shahiid Mouser. ‘Your chambers await.’