blocks will fall?’
‘What?’
‘It’s written right before us. If you look at how the threads run through the granite you can see where it will break. Seeing where the parts will fall is a little harder, Nina, but threads run into the future as well as the past. You can see the trajectories they will … Ah! Here. No, a little to the left.’ She pulled Nona to a particular spot.
‘It’s Nona. And—’ The rest of what Nona had to say was lost in a cracking that split the world, a rumble as deep as the black ice, and the screaming as the great wall of Verity began to tumble inwards. The section of wall that exploded was a hundred yards wide and centred right in front of them.
Nona slowed time’s steady march to a crawl. Huge blocks descended on gravity’s arcs, their languid rotation spraying smaller stones and broken fragments, plates of ancient plaster scything through the air, others bursting, dust trails spiralling in their wake.
True to Sister Pan’s reading, although blocks the size of carts hammered down all around her and Nona, nothing save a few pebbles and two fist-sized fragments came directly at them. These Nona managed to deflect.
Even before the impacts had stopped vibrating through the soles of Nona’s feet a thick cloud of dust began to rise. For a minute or so they stood blind, surrounded by dust so dense that even the howling winds couldn’t strip it away. The world returned in snatches and then, in one fierce, hot blast the air was clear. Nona and Pan stood alone, both of them coated grey.
Adoma’s Fist emerged from the smoke, picking their way over and around the rubble. First a lone woman in her leather battledress, then two men, one in courtly attire, the other in a robe so overblown that he might be mistaken for a street magician were it not for the sigils marked in gold thread. Over a dozen others followed with the thin man in the red armour leading them. The quantals were to the fore now, the marjals working their magics to the rear. A fire-laced hurricane rose around them, a shell to protect from arrows, with Nona and Pan inside its perimeter. All eyes were on them, the Fist variously amused, surprised, or dismissive.
The ‘street magician’ seemed outraged. ‘Is this all the emperor sends to stand before us? A child and a crone?’ He spoke the empire tongue with harsh angles but clear enough.
‘Wait!’ The thin man in red raised his gauntleted hand as several around him made to summon their power. ‘Can it be? The Path-mage of Sweet Mercy? I had heard you were dead!’
‘Not quite, Yom Rala, not quite.’ Pan smiled but there was sadness in it.
Yom Rala. Nona remembered his name now and the fear that had coloured Kettle’s voice when she spoke of him. The man had a deadly reputation.
Yom Rala addressed his colleagues. ‘You will have heard of Sister Pan. In the Antral Wars they whispered her name. She brought Darlamar low before most of us were born, and the Mage of Elon too. When enough time has passed for her to be counted as history they will set her name among the most famed Path-walkers of this empire and speak it with that of Sister Cloud and Sister Owl.’
‘She looks as if walking to her grave would be beyond her!’ cried a young woman in a sigil robe of fiery yellows and oranges.
Several of the younger Path-mages laughed.
‘We will show Sister Pan respect!’ Yom Rala barked. He repeated himself in Scithrowl then addressed the nun in softer tones, his accent almost unnoticeable. ‘I would offer to duel but it is said you haven’t walked the Path in twenty years.’
Sister Pan bowed to the Scithrowl mage. ‘This is true, but I cannot duel you.’
Yom Rala tilted his head. ‘You can still manage a few steps? Remarkable at your age, sister. But I should have expected no less.’ He glanced at Nona. ‘Have you brought a champion to stand in your stead?’
‘Nina? She’s a little girl. She really ought to start running now.’ Pan motioned for Nona to go and suddenly it seemed like a really good idea. Even so, Nona stayed. The suggestion’s power blew her will away like clockseeds in a Corridor wind, but something stronger anchored Nona to the spot. She hadn’t realized that she loved the old woman before. But she did. And Nona Grey could no more walk away from that