Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor 1)

Finding her balance, Ketti began to advance, being careful not to let the slope of the pipe accelerate her. She moved with a certain grace, her long thin body making a dozen subtle shifts each moment, swaying in counterpoint to the path beneath her, each new step changing the rhythm.

Coming to the first rise, Ketti slowed still further, and waited for the whole structure to adjust to her weight that now levered it in a new direction. The drop beneath the platform seemed huge to Nona. More than enough to kill. Tall as a tree. How much would it hurt to hit those nets at such speed? Would they hold?

‘Ah!’ Ketti found herself in trouble, arms wheeling at full extent.

The three girls on the platform watched, transfixed. A moment later Ketti had control again and advanced twenty feet along a steeply descending curve.

‘Now it gets difficult,’ Clera said.

Ketti stepped towards the rise where the pipe began its spiral of three complete turns, so tall that she could fit within them. With agonizing slowness she began the transfer from the inner to the outer surface, relying on the traction from her tarred feet to anchor her to the cold metal. Against Nona’s expectation she reached the top of the first spiral.

Nona turned to see the dial, now almost through a complete circuit. ‘How long will it take h—’ A wail of rage and despair cut her off. Far below them Ketti hit the net and bounced, screaming in frustration.

‘She does better than that normally,’ Ghena said.

‘Your go, Nona!’ Clera gestured towards the start point.

Nona glanced at the resin pot in Clera’s hand but Clera looked away, leaning over to tease Ketti, who was now scrambling for the edge of the net by the door. Ghena pulled the lever, which trapped the pendulum at the end of its swing and set the dial to its original position. Turning back, she nodded to the dark patch on the platform just where the pipe started. ‘Stamp about there. You’ll get your soles sticky enough. Mistress Blade has the path cleaned every day – we think she must have a deal with the resin sellers. But she doesn’t tell us to clean the platform … so we don’t!’

Nona slipped her shoes off. The tar and resin felt tacky under her toes. She tried to concentrate on the sensation rather than all the empty space between her and the ground. Clera’s hoarding of her resin pot hurt a little but Nona knew that need and generosity have their own cycles. In hungry times the village was wont to share food – but when the hunger built to a certain point everybody, even the kindest of them, closed in on themselves, sharing only with their closest family. Perhaps there even came a point when famine could stop mother feeding child. Nona understood better than most that even the most sacred bonds could be broken under enough stress. Clera wasn’t hungry – but she was once rich and now was not. Perhaps to someone raised in luxury that was like starvation …

Nona tried to push thoughts of her mother aside and seal her anger away. Gritting her teeth, she stepped forward. The pipe shifted beneath her foot the moment she pressed down. Far below the net trembled.

‘The convent keeps records of the best times,’ Clera said. ‘The best time in each class in each year, the best time in the whole year, the best time ever.’ The lever made a deep clunk as Ghena set the pendulum going again.

‘I don’t— How can—’ Nona found her other foot glued to the platform by more than a sticky patch of floor. No part of her wanted to commit herself to the path. She had never been a great climber of trees, fearing the helplessness of the fall almost as much as the pain of reunion with the ground.

‘Go on!’ Clera urged.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs behind her pushed Nona out over the drop. Shame can exert as much pressure as anger. She put her arms out and slowed the turning of the world just a fraction. Balance relies on an understanding of the motion of things: of swing, of momentum, of the constraints that gravity’s laws place on all matter, be it flesh or stone. Slow the world too much and you lose that intuition, you break your connection to the interlinked web of moving pieces, and while you may fall by degrees, taking an age to realize you’ve passed the point of no return, you will still fall.

The slope of the path pulled at Nona, her feet on the point of slipping at every moment. The pipe swayed treacherously. She came to the curve, her shallow breaths drawn in time to the motion of her body as she struggled to stay upright. Her arms ached already as if she were hanging by them not merely balancing. Somehow she made it around the first long and descending curve!

The steep rise of the corkscrew seemed an impossible barrier, lifting above her head in the space of a few strides. Nona took it in tiny steps, hearing nothing but the rasp of her breath and the pounding of her heart. To her surprise she found herself at the top of the spiral’s first turn, staring down at the impossibly steep descent to the bottom of the next turn. She knew her feet would slip there with the path running away from her.

‘Go on!’ Shouted from the platform, almost angry.

Nona held for a moment, with the drop to every side screaming for her to fall, the tension in her legs unbearable. Then she jumped.

Her lead foot caught the top of the next loop of the spiral and, swinging her trailing leg, thrusting up with both arms, she carried on to the top of the third and final loop. Where, with arms pinwheeling, she caught herself with one foot. She had in two leaps carried herself to a point a little over a quarter of the way along the blade-path.

Nona brought her other foot onto the pipe and, with the exaggerated care of a drunkard, turned to the side. In that movement she saw the other novices crowded onto the platform staring at her, mouths open. It was a look she knew: the same shock had registered on Amondo’s face when she had learned too quickly to do his tricks. It was the start of a look that ended in hurt and anger.

Nona’s heel slipped from the iron pipe. She let out a yelp and fell backwards. By the time she hit the net she was screaming.

She bounced twice and rolled over, wheezing as she tried to draw the air back into her lungs. An awkward scramble brought her to the edge of the net and strong hands helped her down. She found herself looking up into the impish eyes of Sister Kettle who had last appeared behind Sister Apple in the steams of the bathhouse.

‘Well that was … unorthodox.’ Sister Kettle smiled. ‘Not strictly what I would call following the path, but an impressive piece of acrobatics even so!’

‘H-how long—’ Nona heaved in a breath.

‘Did you take?’ Sister Kettle looked up at the platform. ‘Ghena? How long before she fell?’

‘One and twenty!’

‘One cycle and twenty,’ Sister Kettle repeated. ‘That’s eighty counts. Do you know what your class record is for completion, Nona?’

‘No.’

‘Guess.’

Nona tried to imagine it. ‘Three hundred counts?’

‘Ketti?’ Sister Kettle asked.

‘Nobody currently in Red has completed the blade-path. Suleri was the last to finish it while still in Red. Her count was two hundred and ninety.’ Ketti was standing by the door. Her eyes flitted to the path above them. ‘I’ve almost made it to the end though. Almost.’

‘Suleri can do it faster now,’ Sister Kettle said, turning for the door. ‘She’s the fastest novice still at the convent. Her record is one hundred and eighteen.’