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《Sabriel (The Abhorsen Trilogy)》


 Prologue

    It was little more than three miles from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen oher side of the Wall in Aierre, and not a cloud in sight. Here, there was a clouded su, and a steady rain had just begun to fall, ing faster thaents could be raised.

    The midwife shrugged her cloak higher up against her ned bent over the woman again, raindrops spilling from her o the upturned face below. The midwife’s breath blew out in a cloud of white, but there was no answering billow of air from her patient.

    The midwife sighed and slowly straightened up, that single movement telling the watchers  everything they o know. The woman who had staggered into their forest camp was dead, only holding on to life long enough to pass it on to the baby at her side. But even as the midwife picked up the pathetically small form beside the dead woman, it shuddered within its ings, and was still.

    “The child, too?” asked one of the watchers, a man who wore the mark of the Charter freshdrawn in wood ash upon his brow. “Then there shall be no need for baptism.”

    His ha up to brush the mark from his forehead, then suddenly stopped, as a pale white hand gripped his and forced it down in a single, swift motion.

    “Peace!” said a calm voice. “I wish you no harm.”

    The white hand released its grip and the speaker stepped into the ring of firelight. The others watched him without wele, and the hands that had half sketched Charter marks, oo bs and hilts, did not relax.

    The man strode towards the bodies and looked upoheuro face the watchers, pushing his hood back to reveal the face of someone who had taken paths far from sunlight, for  his skin was a deathly white.

    “I am called Abhorsen,” he said, and his words sent ripples through the people about him, as if he had cast a large ay stoo a pool of stagnant water. “And there will be a baptism tonight.”

    The Charter Mage looked down on the bundle in the midwife’s hands, and said: “The child is dead, Abhorsen. We are travelers, our life lived uhe sky, and it is often harsh. We know death, lord.”

    “Not as I do,” replied Abhorsen, smiling so his paper-white face kled at the ers and drew back from his equally white teeth. “And I say the child is not yet dead.”

    The man tried to meet Abhorsen’s gaze, but<mark>藏书网</mark> faltered and looked away at his fellows. None moved, or made any sign, till a woman said, “So.

    It is easily done. Sign the child, Arrenil. We will make a ne at Leovi’s Ford. Join us when you are finished here.”

    The Charter Mage ined his head in assent, and the others drifted away to pack up their halfmade camp, slow with the reluce of having to move, but filled with a greater reluain near Abhorsen, for his name was one of  secrets, and unspoken fears.

    When the midwife went to lay the child down and leave, Abhorsen spoke: “Wait. You will be needed.”

    The midwife looked down on the baby, and saw that it was a girl child and, save for its stillness, could be merely sleeping. She had heard of Abhorsen, and if the girl c<figure>藏书网</figure>ould live . . . warily she picked up the child again and held her out to the Charter Mage.

    “If the Charter does not—” began the man, but Abhorsen held up a pallid hand and interrupted.

    “Let us see what the Charter wills.”

    The man looked at the child again and sighed.

    Theook a small bottle from his poud held it aloft, g out a t that was the beginning of a Charter; ohat listed all things that lived rew, or once lived, or would live again, and the bonds that held them all together.

    As he spoke, a light came to the bottle, pulsing with the rhythm of the t. Then the ter was silent. He touched the bottle to the earth, then to the sign of wood ash on his forehead, and then upe over the child.

    A great flash lit the surrounding woods as the  glowing liquid splashed over the child’s head, and the priest cried: “By the Charter that binds all things, we hee—”

    Normally, the parents of the child would thehe name. Here, only Abhorsen spoke, and he said: “Sabriel.”

    As he uttered the word, the wood ash disappeared from the priest’s forehead, and slowly formed on the child’s. The Charter had accepted the baptism.

    “But . . . but she is dead!” exclaimed the Charter Mage, gingerly toug his forehead to make sure the ash was truly gone.

    He got no answer, for the midwife was staring across the fire at Abhorsen, and Abhorsen was staring at—nothing. His eyes reflected the dang flames, but did not see them.

    Slowly, a chill mist began to rise from his body, spreading towards the man and midwife, who scuttled to the other side of the fire—wanting to get away, but now too afraid to run.

    He could hear the child g, which was good.

    If she had gone beyond the first gateway he could n her back without more stri  preparations, and a subsequent dilution of her spirit.

    The current was strong, but he khis branch of the river and waded past pools and eddies that hoped t him under. Already, he could feel the waters leag his spirit, but his will was strong, so they took only the color, not the substance.

    He paused to listen, and hearing the g diminish, hastened forward. Perhaps she was already at the gateway, and about to pass.

    The First Gate was a veil of mist, with a single dark opening, where the river poured into the silence beyond. Abhorsen hurried towards it, and then stopped. The baby had not yet passed through, but only because something had caught her and picked her up. Standing there, looming up out of the black waters, was a shadow darker thae.

    It was several feet higher than Abhorsen, and there were pale marsh-lights burning where you would expect to see eyes, and the fetid stench of carrion rolled off it—a warm stench that relieved the chill of the river.

    Abhorsen advanced ohing slowly,watg the child it held loosely in the crook of a  shadowed arm. The baby was asleep, but restless, and it squirmed towards the creature, seeking a mother’s breast, but it only held her away from itself, as if the child were hot, or caustic.

    Slowly, Abhorsen drew a small, silver handbell from the bandolier of bells across his chest, and cocked his wrist t it. But the shadow-thihe baby up and spoke in a dry, slithery voice, like a snake on gravel.

    “Spirit of your spirit, Abhorsen. You ’t spell me while I hold her. And perhaps I shall take her beyond the gate, as her mother has already gone.”

    Abhorsen frowned, in reition, and replaced the bell. “You have a nee, Kerrigor. And you are now this side of the First Gate. Who was foolish enough to assist you so far?”

    Kerrigor smiled widely, and Abhorsen caught a glimpse of fires burning deep inside his mouth.

    “One of the usual calling,” he croaked. “But unskilled. He didn’t realize it would be iure of an exge. Alas, his life was not suffit for me to pass the last portal. But now, you have e to help me.”

    “I, who ed you beyond the Seventh Gate?”

    “Yes,<cite>藏书网</cite>” whispered Kerrigor. “The irony does not, I think, escape you. But if you want the child . . .”

    He made as if to throw the baby into the stream and, with that jerk, woke her. Immediately, she began to cry and her little fists reached out to gather up the shadow-stuff of Kerrigor like the folds of a robe. He cried out, tried to detach her, but the tiny hands held tightly and he was forced to overuse his strength, and threw her from him. She landed, squalling, and was instantly caught up in the flow of the river, but Abhorsen lunged forward, snatg her from both the river and Kerrigrasping hands.

    Stepping back, he drew the silver bell onehanded, and swung it so it souwice. The sound was curiously muffled, but true, and the clear chime hung in the air, fresh and cutting, alive. Kerrigor fli the sound, and fell backwards to the darkhat was the gate.

    “Some fool will so me back, and then . . .” he cried out, as the river took him uhe waters swirled and gurgled and then resumed their steady flow.

    Abhorsen stared at the gate for a time, then sighed and, plag the bell ba his belt,  looked at the baby held in his arm. She stared back at him, dark eyes matg his own.

    Already, the color had been drained from her skin. Nervously, Abhorsen laid a hand across the brand on her forehead ahe glow of her spirit within. The Charter mark had kept her life tained when the river should have drai. It was her life-spirit that had so burned Kerrigor.

    She smiled up at him and gurgled a little, and Abhorse a smile tilting the er of his own mouth. Still smiling, he turned, and began the long wade back up the river, to the gate that would return them both to their living flesh.

    The baby wailed a st sed before Ab<tt>藏书网</tt>horsen opened his eyes, so that the midwife was already halfway around the dying fire, ready to pick her up. Frost crackled on the ground and icicles hung from Abhorsen’s nose. He wiped them off with a sleeve and leaned over the child, much as any anxious father does after a birth.

    “How is the babe?” he asked, and the midwife stared at him wly, for the dead child was now loudly alive and as deathly white as he.

    “As you hear, lord,” she answered. “She is very  well. It is perhaps a little cold for her—”

    He gestured at the fire and spoke a word, and it roared into life, the frost melting at ohe raindrops sizzling into steam.

    “That will do till m,” said Abhorsen.

    “Then I shall take her to my house. I shall have need of a nurse.Will you e?”

    The midwife hesitated, and looked to the Charter Mage, who still lingered on the far side of the fire. He refused to meet her gland she looked down once more at the little girl bawling <a></a>in her arms.

    “You are . . . you are . . .” whispered the midwife.

    “A neancer?” said Abhorsen. “Only of a sort. I loved the woman who lies here. She would have lived if she had loved another, but she did not. Sabriel is our child.  you not see the kinship?”

    The midwife looked at him as he leant forward and took Sabriel from her, rog her on his chest. The baby quietened and, in a few seds, was asleep.

    “Yes,” said the midwife. “I shall e with you, and look after Sabriel. But you must find a wet-nurse . . .”

    “And I daresay much else besides,” mused Abhorsen. “But my house is not a place for—”

    The Charter Mage cleared his throat, and moved around the fire.

    “If you seek a man who knows a little of the Charter,” he said hesitantly, “I should wish to serve, for I have seen its work in you, lord, though I am loath to leave my fellow wanderers.”

    “Perhaps you will not have to,” replied Abhorsen, smiling at a sudden thought. “I wonder if your leader will object to two new members joining her band. For my work means I must travel, and there is no part of the Kingdom that has not felt the imprint of my feet.”

    “Your work?” asked the man, shivering a little, though it was no longer cold.

    “Yes,” said Abhorsen. “I am a neancer, but not of the on kind. Where others of the art raise the dead, I lay them back to rest. And those that will not rest, I bind—or try to. I am Abhorsen . . .”

    He looked at the baby again, and added, almost with a note of surprise, “Father of Sabriel.”

 chapter 1

    The rabbit had been run over minutes before. Its pink eyes were glazed and blood stais  white fur. Unnaturally  fur, for it had just escaped from a bath. It still smelt faintly of lavender water.

    A tall, curiously pale young woman stood over the rabbit. Her night-black hair, fashionably bobbed, was hanging slightly over her face.

    She wore no makeup or jewelry, save for an enamelled school badge piulation navy blazer. That, coupled ?９9ｌib.h her long skirt, stogs and sensible shoes, identified her as a schoolgirl. A e uhe badge read “Sabriel” and the Roman “VI” and gilt  proclaimed her to be both a member of the Sixth Form and a prefect.

    The rabbit was, uionably, dead. Sabriel looked up from it and back along the bricked drive that left the road and curved up to an imposing pair ht-iron gates. A sign above the gate, in gilt letters of mock Gothinouhat they were the gates to Wyverley College. Smaller letters added that the school was “Established in  for Young Ladies of Quality.”

    A small figure was busy climbing over the gate, nimbly avoiding the spikes that were supposed to stop such activities. She dropped the last few feet and started running, her pigtails flying, shoes clag on the bricks. Her head was down to gain momentum, but as cruising speed was established, she looked up, saw Sabriel and the dead rabbit, and screamed.

    “Bunny!”

    Sabriel flinched as the girl screamed, hesitated for a moment, the down by the rabbit’s side and reached out with one pale hand to touch it between its long ears. Her eyes closed and her face set as if she had suddenly turo stone. A faint whistling sound came from her slightly parted lips, like the wind heard from far away. Frost formed on her fiips and rimed the asphalt beh her feet and knees.

    The irl, running, saw her suddenly tip forward over the rabbit, and topple towards the road, but at the last minute her hand came out and she caught herself. A sed later, she had regained her baland was using both hands to restrain the rabbit—a rabbit now inexplicably lively again, its eyes bright and shiny, as eager to be off as when it escaped from its bath.

    “Bunny!” shrieked the younger girl again, as Sabriel stood up, holding the rabbit by the scruff of its neck. “Oh, thank you, Sabriel! When I heard the car skidding I thought . . .”

    She faltered as Sabriel hahe rabbit over and blood stained her expet hands.

    “He’ll be fine, Jath,” Sabriel replied wearily.

    “A scratch. It’s already closed up.”

    Jath examined Bunny carefully, then looked up at Sabriel, the beginnings of a wriggling fear showing at the back of her eyes.

    “There isn’t anything uhe blood,” stammered Jath. “What did you . . .”

    “I didn’t,” snapped Sabriel. “But perhaps you  tell me what you are doing out of bounds?”

    “Chasing Bunny,” replied Jath, her eyes  clearing as life reverted to a more normal situation.

    “You see . . .”

    “No excuses,” recited Sabriel. “Remember what Mrs. Umbrade said at Assembly on Monday.”

    “It’s not an excuse,” insisted Jath. “It’s a reason.”

    “You  explain it to Mrs. Umbrade then.”

    “Oh, Sabriel! You wouldn’t! You know I was only chasing Bunny. I’d never have e out—”

    Sabriel held up her hands in mock defeat, aured back to the gates.

    “If you’re baside within three minutes, I won’t have seen you. And opee this time. They won’t be locked till I go baside.”

    Jath smiled, her whole face beaming, whirled around and sped back up the drive, Bunny clutched against her neck. Sabriel watched till she had gohrough the gate, thehe tremors take her till she was bent over, shaking with cold. A moment of weakness and she had broken the promise she had made both to herself and her father. It was only a rabbit and Jath did love it so much—but what would that lead to? It was no great step fring back a rabbit ting back a person.

    Worse, it had been so easy. She had caught the spirit right at the wellspring of the river, and had retur with barely a gesture of power, patg the body with simple Charter symbols as they stepped from death to life. She hadn’t even needed bells, or the other apparatus of a neancer.

    Only a whistle and her will.

    Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.

    It was Sabriel’s last term at Wyverley—the last three weeks, in fact. She had graduated already, ing first in English, equal first in Music, third in Mathematics, seventh in Sce, sed in Fighting Arts and fourth iiquette. She had also been a runaway first in Magic, but that wasn’t printed on the certificate. Magily worked in thions of Aierre close to the Wall which marked the border with the Old Kingdom. Farther away, it was sidered to be quite beyond the pale, if it existed at all, and persons of repute did not mention it.

    Wyverley College was only forty miles from the Wall, had a good all-rouation, and taught Magic to those students who could obtain special permission from their parents.

    Sabriel’s father had chosen it for that reason when he had emerged from the Old Kingdom with a five-year-old girl in tow to seek a b school. He had paid in advance for that first year, in Old Kingdom silver dehat stood up to surreptitious touches with cold iron.

    Thereafter, he had e to visit his daughter twice a year, at Midsummer and Midwinter, staying for several days on each occasion and always bringing more silver.

    Uandably, the Headmistress was very fond of Sabriel. Particularly since she never seemed troubled by her father’s rare visitations, as most irls would be. Once Mrs.

    Umbrade had asked Sabriel if she minded, and had been troubled by the ahat Sabriel saw her father far more often than when he was actually there. Mrs. Umbrade didn’t teach Magid didn’t want to know any more about it other than the pleasant fact that some parents would pay siderable sums to have their daughters schooled in the basics of sorcery and entment.

    Mrs. Umbrade certainly didn’t want to know how Sabriel saw her father. Sabriel, oher  hand, always looked forward to his unofficial visits and watched the moon, trag its movements from the leather-bound almanac which listed the phases of the moon in both Kingdoms and gave valuable insights into the seasons, tides and other ephemerae that were he same at any oime on both sides of the Wall.

    Abhorsen’s sending of himself always appeared at the dark of the moon.

    On these nights, Sabriel would lock herself into her study (a privilege of the Sixth Form— previously she’d had to sneak into the library), put the kettle on the fire, drink tea and read a book until the characteristid rose up, extinguished the fire, put out the electric light and rattled the shutters—all necessary preparations, it seemed, for her father’s phosphorest sending to appear in the spare armchair.

    Sabriel articularly looking forward to her father’s visit that November. It would be his last, because college was about to end and she wao discuss her future. Mrs. Umbrade wanted her to go to uy, but that meant moving further away from the Old Kingdom. Her magic would wane and parental visitations would be limited to actual physical appearances, and those might  well bee even less frequent. Oher hand, going to uy would mean staying with some of the friends she’d had virtually all her life, girls she’d started school with at the age of five. There would also be a much greater world of social iion, particularly with young men, of whiodity there was a distinct she around Wyverley College.

    And the disadvantage of losing her magic could possibly be offset by a lessening of her affinity for death and the dead . . .

    Sabriel was thinking of this as she waited, book in hand, half-drunk cup of tea balanced precariousl9９ｌｉb?y on the arm of her chair. It was almost midnight and Abhorsen hadn’t appeared. Sabriel had checked the almanac twid had even opehe shutters to peer out through the glass at the sky. It was defihe dark of the moon, but there was no sign of him. It was the first time in her life that he hadn’t appeared and she felt suddenly uneasy.

    Sabriel rarely thought about what life was really like in the Old Kingdom, but now old stories came to mind and dim memories of when she’d lived there with the Travelers. Abhorsen owerful sorcerer, but even then . . .

    “Sabriel! Sabriel!”

    A high-pitched voiterrupted her thought, quickly followed by a hasty knod a rattle of the doorknob. Sabriel sighed, pushed herself out of her chair, caught the teacup and unlocked the door.

    A young girl stood oher side, twisting her nightcap from side to side in trembling hands, her face white with fear.

    “Olwyn!” exclaimed Sabriel. “What is it? Is Sussen sick again?”

    “No,” sobbed the girl. “I heard noises behind the tower door, and I thought it was Rebed Ila having a midnight feast without me, so I looked . . .”

    “What!” exclaimed Sabriel, alarmed. No one opened outside doors in the middle of the night, not this close to the Old Kingdom.

    “I’m sorry,” cried Olwyn. “I didn’t mean to. I don’t know why I did. It wasn’t Rebed Ila— it was a black shape and it tried to get in. I slammed the door . . .”

    Sabriel threw the teacup aside and pushed past Olwyn. She was already halfway down the corridor before she heard the porcelain smash behind her, and Olwyn’s horrified gasp at such  cavalier treatment of good a. She ig and broke into a run, slapping on the light switches as she ran towards the open door of the west dormitory. As she reached it, screams broke out inside, rapidly cresdoing to an hysterical chorus. There were firls in the dormitory—most of the First Form, all uhe age of eleven. Sabriel took a deep breath, and stepped into the doorway, fingers crooked in a spell-casting stance. Even before she looked, she felt the presence of death.

    The dormitory was very long, and narrow, with a low roof and small windows. Beds and dressers lined each side. At the far end, a door led to the West Tower steps. It was supposed to be locked inside and out, but locks rarely prevailed against the powers of the Old Kingdom.

    The door en. An intensely dark shape stood there, as if someone had cut a man-shaped figure out of the night, carefully choosing a piece devoid of stars. It had ures at all, but the head quested from side to side, as if whatever se did possess worked in a narre.

    Curiously, it carried an absolutely mundane sa one four-fingered hand, the rough-woven cloth in stark trast to its own surreal flesh.

    Sabriel’s hands moved in a plicated gesture, drawing the symbols of the Charter that intimated sleep, quiet a. With a flourish, she indicated both sides of the dormitory and drew one of the master symbols, drawing all together.

    Instantly, every girl in the room stopped screaming and slowly subsided bato her bed.

    The creature’s head stopped moving and Sabriel ks attention was now tered on her. Slowly it moved, lifting one clumsy leg and swinging it forward, resting for a moment, then swinging the other a little past the first. A lumbering, rolling motion, that made an eerie, shuffling noise ohin carpet. As it passed each bed, the electric lights above them flared ond went out.

    Sabriel let her hands fall to her side and focused her eyes on the ter of the creature’s torso, feeling the stuff of which it was made. She had e without any of her instruments or tools, but that led to only a moment’s hesitation before she let herself slip over the border into Death, her eyes still oruder.

    The river flowed around her legs, cold as always. The light, grey and without warmth, still stretched to airely flat horizon. In the  distance, she could hear the roar of the First Gate. She could see the creature’s true shape clearly now, not ed in the aura of death which it carried to the living world. It was an Old Kingdom denizen, vaguely humanoid, but more like ahan a man and obviously only semi-intelligent. But there was more to it than that, and Sabriel felt the clutch of fear as she saw the black thread that came from the creature’s bad ran into the river.

    Somewhere, beyond the First Gate, or even further, that umbilical rested in the hands of a. As long as the thread existed the creature would be totally uhe trol of its master, who could use its senses and spirit as it saw fit.

    Something tugged at Sabriel’s physical body, and she relutly twitched her senses back to the living world, a slight feeling of nausea rising in her as a wave of warmth rushed over her death-chilled body.

    “What is it?” said a calm voice, close to Sabriel’s ear. An old voice, tinged with the power of Charter Magic—Miss Greenwood, the Magistrix of the school.

    “It’s a Dead servant—a spirit form,” replied  Sabriel, her attention ba the creature. It was halfway down the dorm, still single-mindedly rolling one leg after the other. “Without free will.

    Somethi it back to the living world. It’s trolled from beyond the First Gate.”

    “Why is it here?” asked the Magistrix. Her voice sounded calm, but Sabriel felt the Charter symbols gathering in her voice, f oongue—symbols that would unleash lightning and flame, the destructive powers of the earth.

    “It’s not obviously malign, nor has it attempted any actual harm . . .” replied Sabriel slowly, her mind w over the possibilities. She was used to explaining purely neantic aspeagiiss Greenwood. The Magistrix had taught her Charter Magic, but neancy was definitely not on the syllabus. Sabriel had learned more than she wao know about neancy from her father . . . and the Dead themselves.

    “Don’t do anything for a moment. I will attempt to speak with it.”

    The cold washed over her again, biting into her, as the river gushed around her legs, eager to pull  her over and carry her away. Sabriel exerted her will, and the cold became simply a sensation, without dahe current merely a pleasing vibration about the feet.

    The creature was close now, as it was in the living world. Sabriel held out both her hands, and clapped, the sharp sound eg for lohan it would anywhere else. Before the echo died, Sabriel whistled several notes, and they echoed too, sweet sounds within the harshness of the handclap.

    The thing fli the sound and stepped back, putting both hands to its ears. As it did so, it dropped the sack. Sabriel started in surprise.

    She hadn’t noticed the sack before, possibly because she hadn’t expected it to be there. Very few inanimate thied in both realms, the living and the dead.

    She was even more surprised as the creature suddenly bent forward and plunged into the water, hands searg for the sack. It found it almost at once, but not without losing its footing. As the sack surfaced, the current forced the creature under. Sabriel breathed a sigh of relief as she saw it slide away, then gasped as its head broke the surfad it cried out: “Sabriel! My messenger!  Take the sack!” The voice was Abhorsen’s.

    Sabriel ran forward and an arm pushed out towards her, the neck of the sack clutched in its fingers. She reached out, missed, then tried again. The sack was secure in her grasp, as the current took the creature pletely under.

    Sabriel looked after it, hearing the roar of the First Gate suddenly increase as it always did when someone passed its falls. She turned and started<dfn>..</dfn> to slog back against the current to a point where she could easily return to life. The sa her hand was heavy and there was a leaden feeling iomach. If the messenger was truly Abhorsen’s, then he himself was uo return to the realm of the living.

    And that meant he was either dead, or trapped by something that should have passed beyond the final gate.

    Once again, a wave of nausea overcame her and Sabriel fell to her knees, shaking. She could <u>９９ｌiｂ?</u>feel the Magistrix’s hand on her shoulder, but her attention was fastened on the sack she held in her hand. She didn’t o look to know that the creature was gos maion into the  living world had ceased as its spirit had gone past the First Gate. Only a pile of grave mold would remain, to be swept aside in the m.

    “What did you do?” asked the Magistrix, as Sabriel brushed her hands through her hair, ice crystals falling from her hands onto the sack that lay in front of her knees.

    “It had a message for me,” replied Sabriel. “So I took it.”

    She opehe sack, and reached inside. A sword hilt met her grasp, so she drew it out, still scabbarded, and put it to one side. She didn’t o draw it to see the Charter symbols etched along its blade—the dull emerald in the pommel and the worn bronze-plated crossguard were as familiar to her as the school’s uninspired cutlery. It was Abhorsen’s sword.

    The leather bandolier she drew out  was an old brow, a hand’s-breadth wide, which always smelled faintly of beeswax. Seven tubular leather pouches hung from it, starting with ohe size of a small pill bottle; growing larger, till the seventh was almost the size of a jar. The bandolier was desigo be worn across the chest, with the pouches hanging down. Sabriel opehe smallest and pulled out a tiny silver bell, with   a dark, deeply polished mahogany handle. She held it gently, but the clapper still swung slightly, and the bell made a high, sweet hat somehow lingered in the mind, even after the sound was gone.

    “Father’s instruments,” whispered Sabriel.

    “The tools of a neancer.”

    “But there are Charter marks engraved on the bell . . . and the handle!” interjected the Magistrix, who was looking down with fasation.

    “Neancy is Free Magiot governed by the Charter . . .”

    “Father’s was different,” replied Sabriel distantly, still staring at the bell she held in her hand, thinking of her father’s brown, lined hands holding the bells. “Binding, not raising. He was a faithful servant of the Charter.”

    “Yoing to be leaving us, aren’t you?”

    the Magistrix said suddenly, as Sabriel replaced the bell and stood up, sword in one hand, bandolier iher. “I just saw it, in the refle of the bell. You were crossing the Wall . . .”

    “Yes. Into the Old Kingdom,” said Sabriel, with sudden realization. “Something has happeo Father . . . but I’ll find him . . . so I swear by the Charter I bear.”

    She touched the Charter mark on her forehead, which glowed briefly, and then faded so that it might never have been. The Magistrix nodded and touched a hand to her own forehead, where a glowing mark suddenly obscured all the patterns of time. As it faded, rustling noises and faint whimpers began to sound along both sides of the dormitory.

    “I’ll shut the door and explain to the girls,” the Magistrix said firmly. “You’d better go and . . .

    prepare for tomorrow.”

    Sabriel nodded a, trying to fix her mind on the practicalities of the journey, rather than on what could have happeo her father.

    She would take a cab as early as possible into Bain, the own, and then a bus to the Aierre perimeter that faced the９9ｌｉb? Wall. With luck, she would be there by early afternoon . . .

    Behind these plans, her thoughts kept jumping back to Abhorsen. What could have happeo trap him ih? And what could she really hope to do about it, even if she did get to the Old Kingdom?

 chapter ii

    The Perimeter in Aierre ran from coast to coast, parallel to the Wall and perhaps half a mile from it. certina wire lay like worms impaled on rusting steel pickets; forward defenses for an interlog work of trenches and crete pillboxes. Many of these strong points were desigo trol the ground behind them as well as in front, and almost as much barbed wire stretched behind the trenches, guarding the rear.

    In fact, the Perimeter was much more successful at keeping people from Aierre out of the Old Kingdom, than it reventing things from the Old Kingdom going the other way.

    Anything powerful enough to cross the Wall usually retained enough magic to assume the shape of a soldier; or to bee invisible and simply go where it willed, regardless of barbed wire, bullets, hand grenades and mortar bombs—which often didn’t work at all, particularly when the wind was blowing from the North, out of the Old Kingdom.

    Due to the unreliability of teology, the Aierran soldiers of the Perimeter garrison wore mail over their khaki battledress, had nasal and neck bars on their helmets and carried extremely old-fashioned sword-bayos in wellworn scabbards. Shields, or more correctly, “bucklers, small, Perimeter garrison only,” were carried on their backs, the factory khaki long since submerged under brightly painted regimental or personal signs. Camouflage was not sidered an issue at this particular posting.

    Sabriel watched a platoon of young soldiers march past the bus, while she waited for the tourists ahead of her to stampede out the front door, and wondered what they thought of their straies. Most would have to be scripts from far to the south, where no magic crept over the Wall a<s>.９９ｌｉｂ?</s>nd widehe cracks in what they thought of as reality. Here, she could feel magic potential brewing, lurking imosphere like  charged air before a thuorm.

    The Wall itself looked normal enough, past the wasteland of wire and trenches. Just like any other medieval remnant. It was stone and old, about forty feet high and ellated. Nothing remarkable, until the realizatio in that it was in a perfect state of<q></q> preservation. And for those with the sight, the very stones crawled with Charter marks—marks in stant motion, twisting and turning, sliding and rearranging themselves under a skin of stone.

    The final firmation of strangeness lay beyond the Wall. It was clear and cool on the Aierre side, and the sun was shining—but Sabriel could see snow falling steadily behind the Wall, and snow-heavy clouds clustered right up to the Wall, where they suddenly stopped, as if some mighty weather-knife had simply sheared through the sky.

    Sabriel watched the snow fall, and gave thanks for her Almanac. Printed by letterpress, the type had left ridges ihick, linen-rich paper, making the many handwritten annotations waver precariously between the lines. One spidery remark, written in a hand she knew wasn’t her father’s, gave the weather to be expected  uhe respective dars for each try.

    Aierre had “Autumn. Likely to be cool.”

    The Old Kingdom had “Winter. Bound to be snowing. Skis or snowshoes.”

    The last tourist left, eager to reach the observation platform. Although the Army and the Gover disced tourists, and there was no aodation for them withiy miles of the Wall, one busload a day was allowed to e and view the Wall from a tower located well behind the lines of the Perimeter.

    Even this cession was often celled, for when the wind blew from the north, the bus would inexplicably break down a few miles short of the tower, and the tourists would have to help push it back towards Bain—only to see it start again just as mysteriously as it stopped.

    The authorities also made some slight allowance for the few people authorized to travel from Aierre to the Old Kingdom, as Sabriel saw after she had successfully iated the bus’s steps with her backpack, crosstry skis, stocks and sword, all threatening to go in different dires. A large sigo the bus stop proclaimed:  PERIMETER AND NORTHERN ARMY GROUP Unauthorized egress from the Perimeter Zone is strictly forbidden.

    Aempting to cross the Perimeter Zone will be shot without warning.

    Authorized travelers must report to the Perimeter and H.Q.

    REMEMBER— N WILL BE MADE Sabriel read the h i, a a quiing sense of excitement start within her.

    Her memories of the Old Kingdom were dim, from the perspective of a child, but she felt a sense of mystery and wonder kih the force of the Charter Magic she felt around her— a sense of something so much more alive thaumened parade ground, and the scarlet warning sign. And much more freedom than Wyverley College.

    But that feeling of wonder aement  came laced with a dread that she couldn’t shake, a dread made up of fear for what might be happening to her father . . . what might have already happened . . .

    The arrow on the sign indig where authorized travelers should go seemed to point in the dire of a bitumen parade ground, lined with white-painted rocks, and a number of unprepossessing wooden buildings. Other than that, there were simply the beginnings of the unication trehat sank into the ground and then zigzagged their way to the double line of trenches, blockhouses and fortifications that frohe Wall.

    Sabriel studied them for a while, and saw the flash of color as several soldiers hopped out of orend went forward to the wire. They seemed to be carrying spears rather than rifles and she wondered why the Perimeter was built for modern war, but manned by people expeg something rather more medieval. Then she remembered a versation with her father and his ent that the Perimeter had been designed far away in the South, where they refused to admit that this perimeter was different from any other tested border. Up until a  tury or so ago, there had also been a wall on the Aierre side. A lowish wall, made of rammed earth a, but a successful one.

    Recalling that versation, her eyes made out a low rise of scarred earth in the middle of the desolation of wire, and she realized that was where the southern wall had been. Peering at it, she also realized that what she had taken to be loose pickets between lines of certina wire were something different—tall structs more like the trunks of small trees stripped of every branch. They seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t place what they were.

    Sabriel was still staring at them, thinking, when a loud and not very pleasant voice erupted a little way behind her right ear.

    “What do you think you’re doing, Miss? You ’t loiter about here. On the bus, or up to the Tower!”

    Sabriel winced and turned as quickly as she could, skis sliding one way and stocks the other, framing her head in a St. Andrew’s Cross. The voice beloo a large but fairly young soldier, whose bristling mustaches were more evidenartial ambition than proof of them. He had two gilded bands on his sleeve, but didn’t wear  the mail hauberk a Sabriel had seen oher soldiers. He smelled of shaving cream and tald was so , polished and full of himself that Sabriel immediately catalogued him as some sort of natural bureaucrat currently disguised as a soldier.

    “I am a citizen of the Old Kingdom,” she replied quietly, staring bato his red flushed fad piggy eyes in the manner which Miss Prionte had taught her girls to instruct lesser domestic servants iiquette IV. “I am returning there.”

    “Papers!” demahe soldier, after a moment’s hesitation at the words “Old Kingdom.”

    Sabriel gave a frosty smile (also part of Miss Prionte’s curriculum) and made a ritual movement with the tips of her fihe symbol of disclosing, of things hidden being seen, of unfolding. As her fingers sketched, she formed the symbol in her mind, linking it with the papers she carried in the inner pocket of her leather tunic. Finger-sketched and minddrawn symbol merged, and the papers were in her hand. An Aierre passport, as well as the much rarer dot the Aierre Perimeter and issued to people who had  traffi both tries: a hand-bound dot printed by letterpress on handmade paper, with an artist’s sketstead of a photograph and prints from thumbs and toes in a purple ink.

    The soldier blinked, but said nothing. Perhaps, thought Sabriel, as he took the proffered dots, the man thought it arlor trick. Or perhaps he just didn’t notice. Maybe Charter Magic was on here, so close to the Wall.

    The man looked through her dots carefully, but without real i. Sabriel now felt certain that he was no one important from the way he pawed through her special passport. He’d obviously never seen one before. Mischievously, she started to weave the Charter mark for a snatch, or catch, to flick the papers out of his hands and bato her pocket before his piggy eyes worked out what was going on.

    But, in the first sed of motion, she felt the flare of other Charter Magic to either side and behind her—and heard the clattering of hobnails oumen. Her head snapped back from the papers, and she felt her hair whisk across her forehead as she looked from side to side. Soldiers were p out of the  huts and out of the trenches, sword-bayos in their hands and rifles at the shoulder.

    Several of them wore badges that she realized marked them as Charter Mages. Their fingers were weaving warding symbols, and barriers that would lock Sabriel into her footsteps, tie her to her shadow. Crude magic, but strongly cast.

    Instinctively, Sabriel’s mind and hands flashed into the sequence of symbols that would wipe  these bonds, but her skis shifted and fell into the crook of her elbow, and she wi the blow.

    At the same time, a soldier ran ahead of the others, sunlight glinting on the silver stars on his helmet.

    “Stop!” he shouted. “Corporal, step back from her!”

    The corporal, deaf to the hum of Charter Magic, blind to the flare of half-wrought signs, looked up from her papers and gaped for a sed, fear erasing his features. He dropped the passports, and stumbled back.

    In his face, Sabriel suddenly realized what it meant to use magi the Perimeter, and she held herself absolutely still, blanking out the  partly made signs in her mind. Her skis slipped further down her arm, the bindings catg for a moment before tearing loose and clattering onto the ground. Soldiers rushed forward and, in seds, formed a ring around her, swords aowards her throat.

    She saw streaks of silver, plated onto the blades, and crudely written Charter symbols, and uood. These ons were made to kill things that were already dead—inferior versions of the sword she wore at her own side.

    The man who’d shouted—an officer, Sabriel realized—bent doicked up her passports.

    He studied them for a moment, then looked up at Sabriel. His eyes were pale blue and held a mixture of harshness and passion that Sabriel found familiar, though she couldn’t place it—till she remembered her father’s eyes.

    Abhorsen’s eyes were so dark brown they seemed black, but they held a similar feeling.

    The officer closed the passport, tucked it in his belt and tilted his helmet back with two fingers, revealing a Charter mark still glowing with some residual charm of warding. Cautiously, Sabriel lifted her hand, and then, as he didn’t dissuade  her, reached out with two fio touch the mark. As she did so, he reached forward and touched her own—Sabriel felt the familiar swirl of energy, and the feeling of falling into some endless galaxy of stars. But the stars here were Charter symbols, linked in some great dahat had no beginning or end<tt>９9ｌib?t>, but tained and described the world in its movement. Sabriel knew only a small fra of the symbols, but she knew what they danced, and she felt the purity of the Charter wash over her.

    “An unsullied Charter mark,” the officer pronounced loudly, as their fingers fell back to their sides. “She is no creature or sending.”

    The soldiers fell back, sheathing swords and clig on safety catches. Only the red-faced corporal didn’t move, his eyes still staring at Sabriel, as if he was unsure what he was looking at.

    “Show’s over, Corporal,” said the officer, his void eyes now harsh. “Get back to the pay office. You’ll see stranger happenings than this in your time here—stay clear of them and you might stay alive! “So,” he said, taking the dots from his belt and handing them back to Sabriel. “You are  the daughter of Abhorsen. I am el Horyse, the ander of a small part of the garrison here—a unit the Army likes to call the Northern Perimeter Reaissanit and everyone else calls the Crossing Point Scouts—a somewhat motley colle of Aierrans who’ve mao gain a Charter mark and some small knowledge of magic.”

    “Pleased to meet you, sir,” popped out of Sabriel’s school-trained mouth, before she could stifle it. A schoolgirl’s answer, she knew, a a blush rise in her<bdi></bdi> pale cheeks.

    “Likewise,” said the el, bending down.

    “May I take your skis?”

    “If you would be so kind,” said Sabriel, falling ba formality.

    The el picked them up with ease, carefully retied the stocks to the skis, refastehe bindings that had e undone and tucked the lot under one muscular arm.

    “I take it you io cross into the Old Kingdom?” asked Horyse, as he found the balang point of his load and poi the scarlet sign on the far side of the parade ground. “We’ll have to che with Perimeter HQ—there are a few formalities, but it shouldn’t take long.

    Is someone . . . Abhorsen, ing to meet you?”

    His voice faltered a little as he mentioned Abhorsen, a strautter in so fident a man. Sabriel gla him and saw that his eyes flickered from the sword at her waist to the bell-bandolier she wore across her chest.

    Obviously he reized Abhorsen’s sword and also the significe of the bells. Very few people ever met a neancer, but anyone who did remembered the bells.

    “Did . . . do you know my father?” she asked.

    “He used to visit me, twice a year. I guess he would have e through here.”

    “Yes, I saw him then,” replied Horyse, as they started walking around the edge of the parade ground. “But I first met him more thay years ago, when I osted here as a subaltern.

    It was a straime—a very bad time, for me and everyone on the Perimeter.”

    He paused in mid-stride, boots crashing, and his eyes once again looked at the bells, and the whiteness of Sabriel’s skin, stark against the black of her hair, black as the bitumen uhe feet.

    “You’re a neancer,” he said bluntly. “So you’ll probably uand. This crossing point  has seen too many battles, too many dead.

    Before those idiots down South took things under tral and, the crossing point was moved every ten years, up to the  gate on the Wall. But forty years ago some . . . bureaucrat . . . decreed that there would be no movement.

    It was a waste of publiey. This was, and is to be, the only crossing point. Never mind the fact that, over time, there would be such a tration of death, mixed with Free Magic leaking over the Wall, that everything would . . .”

    “Not stay dead,” interrupted Sabriel quietly.

    “Yes. When I arrived, the trouble was just beginning. Corpses wouldn’t stay buried—our people or Old Kingdom creatures. Soldiers killed the day before would turn up on parade.

    Creatures prevented from crossing would rise up and do more damage than they did when they were alive.”

    “What did you do?” asked Sabriel. She knew a great deal about binding and enf true death, but not on such a scale. There were no Dead creatures nearby now, for she always instinctively felt the interface between life ah around her, and it was no differehan it had been forty miles away at Wyverley College.

    “Our Charter Mages tried to deal with the problem, but there were no specific Charter symbols to . . . make them dead . . . only to destroy their physical shape. Sometimes that was enough and sometimes it wasn’t. We had to rotate troops back to Bain or even further just for them to recover from what HQ liked to think of as bouts of mass hysteria or madness.

    “I wasn’t a Charter Mage then, but I was going with patrols into the Old Kingdom, beginning to learn. Orol, we met a man sitting by a Charter Stone, on top of a hill that overlooked both the Wall and the Perimeter.

    “As he was obviously ied in the Perimeter, the officer in charge of the patrol thought we should question him and kill him if he turned out to bear a corrupted Charter, or was some Free Magic thing in the shape of a man. But we didn’t, of course. It was Abhorsen, and he was ing to us, because he’d heard about the Dead.

    “We escorted him in a with the General anding the garrison. I don’t know what they agreed, but I imagi was for Abhorsen to bind the Dead and, iurn, he was to be granted citizenship of Aierre and freedom to cross the Wall. He certainly had the two  passports after that. In any case, he spent the  few months carving the wind flutes you  see among the wire . . .”

    “Ah!” exclaimed Sabriel. “I wondered what they were. Wind flutes. That explains a lot.”

    “I’m glad you uand,” said the el. “I still don’t. For ohing, they make no sound no matter how hard the wind blows through them. They have Charter symbols on them I had never seen before he carved them, and have never seen again anywhere else. But whearted plag them . . . one a night . . . the Dead just gradually disappeared, and no new ones rose.”

    They reached the far<s></s> end of the parade ground, where another scarlet sign stood o a unication trench, proclaiming: “Perimeter Garrison HQ. Call and Wait for Sentry.”

    A telephone ha and a bell- proclaimed the usual diy of the Perimeter.

    el Horyse picked up the ha, wound the handle, listened for a moment, then replaced it. Frowning, he pulled the bell- three times in quick succession.

    “Anyway,” he tinued, as they waited for  the sentry. “Whatever it was, it worked. So we are deeply ied to Abhorsen, and that makes his daughter an huest.”

    “I may be less honored and more reviled as a messenger of ill omen,” said Sabriel quietly. She hesitated, for it was hard to talk about Abhorsen without tears ing to her eyes, then tinued quickly, to get it over and doh. “The reason I am going into the Old Kingdom is to . . .

    to look for my father. Something has happeo him.”

    “I had hoped there was another reason for you to carry his sword,” said Horyse. He moved the skis into the crook of his left arm, freeing his right, to return the salute of the two sentries who were running at the double up the unication trench, hobnails clag on the wooden slats.

    “There is worse, I think,” added Sabriel, taking a deep breath to stop her voice from breaking into sobs. “He is trapped ih . . . or . . . or he may even be dead. And his bindings will be broken.”

    “The wind flutes?” asked Horyse, grounding the end of the skis, his salute dying out halfway to his head. “All the Dead here?”

    “The flutes play a song only heard ih,”

    replied Sabriel, “tinuing a binding laid down by Abhorsen. But the bound are tied to him, and the flutes will have no power if . . . they will have no power if Abhorsen is now among the Dead.

    They will bind no more.”

 chapter III

    “I am not oo blame a messenger for her tidings,” said Horyse, as he handed a cup of tea over to Sabriel, who was sitting on what looked like the only fortable chair in the dugout which was the el’s headquarters, “but y the worst news I have heard for many years.”

    “At least I am a living messenger . . . and a friendly one,” Sabriel said quietly. She hadn’t really thought beyond her own  for her father. Now, she was beginning to expand her knowledge of him, to uand that he was more than just her father, that he was many different things to different people. Her simple image of him—relaxing in the armchair of her study at Wyverley College, chatting about her schoolwork, Aierre teology, Charter Magid neancy—was a limited view, like a painting that only captured one dimension of the man.

    “How long do we have until Abhorsen’s bindings are broken?” asked Horyse, breaking into Sabriel’s remembrance of her father. The image she had of her father reag for a teacup iudy disappeared, banished by real tea slopping over in her enamel mug and burning her fingers.

    “Oh! Excuse me. I wasn’t thinking . . . how long till what?”

    “The binding of the dead,” the el reiterated, patiently. “How long till the bindings fail, and the dead are free?”

    Sabriel thought back to her father’s lessons, and the a grimoire she’d spent every holiday slowly memorizing. The Book of the Dead it was called and parts of it still made her shudder.

    It looked innocuous enough, bound in greeher, with tarnished silver clasps. But if you looked closely, both leather and silver were etched with Charter marks. Marks of binding and blinding, closing and impriso. Only a trained neancer could open that book . . .

    and only an uncorrupted Charter Mage could  close it. Her father had brought it with him on his visits, and always took it away again at the end.

    “It depends,” she said slowly, f herself to sider the question objectively, without lettiion interfere. She tried to recall the pages that showed the carving of the wind flutes, the chapters on musid the nature of sound in the binding of the dead. “If Father . . . if Abhorsen is . . . truly dead, the wind flutes will simply fall apart uhe light of the  full moon. If he is trapped before the Ninth Gate, the binding will tiil the full moon after he passes beyond, or a particularly strong spirit breaks the weakened bonds.”

    “So the moon will tell, in time,” said Horyse.

    “We have fourteen days till it is full.”

    “It is possible I could bind the dead anew,”

    Sabriel said cautiously. “I mean, I haven’t do on this sort of scale. But I know how. The only thing is, if Father isn’t . . . isn’t beyond the Ninth Gate, then I o help him as soon as I . And before I  do that, I must get to his house and gather a few things . . . chee references.”

    “How far is this house beyond the Wall?” asked  Horyse, a calculating look on his face.

    “I don’t know,” replied Sabriel.

    “What?”

    “I don’t know. I haven’t been there since I was about four. I think it’s supposed to be a secret.

    Father had many enemies, not just among the dead. Petty neancers, Free Magic sorcerers, witches—”

    “You don’t seem disturbed by your lack of dires,” interrupted the el dryly. For the first time, a hint of doubt, even fatherly dession, had crept into his voice, as if Sabriel’s youth undermihe respect due to her as both a Charter Mage and neancer.

    “Father taught me to how to call a guide who will give me dires,” replied Sabriel coolly.

    “And I know it’s less than four days’ travel away.”

    That silenced Horyse, at least for the moment.

    He nodded and, standing cautiously, so his head didn’t hit the exposed beams of the dugout, he walked over to a steel filing et that was rusting from the dark brown mud that oozed between the pale planks of the revetment.

    Opening the et with a practiced heave of siderable force, he found a mimeographed  map and rolled it out oable.

    “We’ve never been able to get our hands on a<bdo>藏书网</bdo> genuine Old Kingdom map. Your father had one, but he was the only person who could see anything on it—it just looked like a square of calfskin to me. A small magic, he said, but since he couldn’t teach it, perhaps not so small . . .

    Anyway, this map is a copy of the latest version of our patrol map, so it only goes out about ten miles from the crossing point. The garrison standing orders strictly forbid us to go further.

    Patrols tend not to e back beyond that distance.

    Maybe they desert, or maybe . . .”

    His tone of voice suggested that even nastier things happeo the patrols, but Sabriel didn’t question him. A small portion of the Old Kingdom lay spread out oable and, once agaiement stirred up within her.

    “We generally go out along the Old North Road,” said Horyse, trag it with one hand, the sword calluses on his fingers rasping across the map, like the soft sandpapering of a master craftsman. “Therols sweep back, either south-east or south-west, till they hit the Wall.

    Then they follow that back to the gate.”

    “What does this symbol mean?” asked Sabriel,   pointing to a blacked-in square atop one of the farther hills.

    “That’s a Charter Stone,” replied the el.

    “Or part of one now. It was riven in two, as if struck by lightning, a month or so ago. The patrols have started to call it Clove, and they avoid it if possible. Its true name is Barhedrin Hill and the stone once carried the Charter for a village of the same name. Before my time, anyway. If the villa<mark>藏书网</mark>ge still exists it must be further north, beyond the reach of our patrols. We’ve never had as of inhabitants from it ing south to Clove. The fact is, we have few reports of people, fullstop.

    The Garrison Log used to show siderable iion with Old Kingdom people—farmers, merts, travelers and so on—but enters have bee rarer over the last hundred years, and very rare in the last twenty. The patrols would be lucky to see even two or three people a year now. Real people that is, not creatures or Free Magistructs, or the Dead. We see far too many of those.”

    “I don’t uand,” muttered Sabriel. “Father ofteo talk of villages and towns . . . even cities, in the Old Kingdom. I remember some of them from my childhood . . . well, I sort of remember . . . I think.”

    “Further into the Old Kingdom, certainly,”

    replied the el. “The records mention quite a few names of towns and cities. We know that the people up there call the area around the Wall ‘the Borderlands.’ And they don’t say it with any fondness.”

    Sabriel didn’t answer, bending her head lower over the map, thinking about the jourhat lay ahead of her. Clove might be a good oint. It was no more tha miles away, so she should be able to ski there before nightfall if she left fairly soon, and if it wasn’t snowing too hard across the Wall. A broken Charter Stone did not bode well, but there would be some magic there and the path into Death would be easier to tread. Charter Stones were ofteed where Free Magic flowed and crossroads of the Free Magic currents were often natural doorways into the realm of death. Sabriel felt a shiver inch up her spi the thought of what might use such a doorway and the tremor passed through to her fingers on the map.

    She looked up suddenly, and saw el  Horyse looking at her long, pale hands, the heavy paper of the map still shuddering at her touch. With an effort of will, she stilled the movement.

    “I have a daughter almost ye,” he said quietly. “Ba Corvere, with my wife. I would not let her cross into the Old Kingdom.”

    Sabriel met his gaze, and her eyes were not the uain, flickering beas of adolesce.

    “I am oeen years old oside,”

    she said, toug her palm against her breast with an almost wistful motion. “But I first walked ih when I was twelve. I entered a Fifth Gate Rester when I was fourteen, and ba beyond the Ninth Gate. When I was sixteen I stalked and banished a Mordit that came he school. A weakened Mordit, but still . . . A year ago, I turhe final page of The Book of the Dead. I don’t feel young anymore.”

    “I am sorry for that,” said the el, then, almost as if he had surprised himself, he added, “Ah, I mean that I wish you some of the foolish joys my daughter has—some of the lightness, the lack of responsibility that goes with youth. But I don’t wish it if it will weaken you iimes ahead. You have chosen a difficult path.”

    “‘Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?’” Sabriel quoted, the words, redolent with echoes of Charter Magic, twining arouongue like some lingering spice. Those words were the dedication in the front of her almanac.

    They were also the very last words, all alone on the last page, of The Book of the Dead.

    “I’ve heard that before,” remarked Horyse.

    “What does it mean?”

    “I don’t know,” said Sabriel.

    “It holds power when you say it,” added the el slowly. He swallowed, open-mouthed, as if the taste of the Charter marks was still in the air. “If I spoke those words, that’s all they would be. Just words.”

    “I ’t explain it.” Sabriel shrugged, and attempted a smile. “But I do know other sayings that are more to the point at the moment, like: ‘Traveler, embrace the m light, but do not take the hand of night.’ I must be on my way.”

    Horyse smiled at the old rhyme, so beloved of grandmothers and nannies, but it was ay smile. His eyes slid a little away from Sabriel’s and she khat he was thinking about refusing to let her cross the Wall. Then he sighed, the short, huffy sigh of a man who is forced into a  course of a through lack of alternatives.

    “Your papers are in order,” he said, meeting her gaze once again. “And you are the daughter of Abhorsen. I ot do other tha you pass.

    But I ’t help feeling that I am thrusting you out to meet some terrible danger. I ’t even send a patrol out with you, since we have five full patrols already out there.”

    “I expected to go alone,” replied Sabriel. She had expected that, but felt <tt>.t>a tinge ret. A protective group of soldiers would be quite a fort. The fear of being alone in a strange and dangerous land, even if it was her homeland, was only just below the level of her excitement.

    It wouldn’t take much for the fear to rise over it.

    And always, there was the p<tt>９９ｌib?t>icture of her father in her mind. Her father in trouble, trapped and alone in the chill waters of Death . . .

    “Very well,” said Horyse. “Sergeant!”

    A helmeted head appeared suddenly around the doorway, and Sabriel realized two soldiers must have been standing on guard outside the dugout, oeps up into the unication trench. She wondered if they’d heard.

    “Prepare a crossing party,” snapped Horyse.

    “A single person to cross. Miss Abhorsen, here.

    And Sergeant, if you or Private Rahise so much as talk in your sleep about what you may have heard here, then you’ll be on gravedigging fatigues for the rest of your lives!”

    “Yes, sir!” came the sharp reply, echoed by the unfortunate Private Rahise, who, Sabriel noted, did seem half-asleep.

    “After you, please,” tinued Horyse, gesturing towards the door. “May I carry your skis again?”

    The Army took no ces when it came to crossing the Wall. Sabriel stood alone uhe great arch of the gate that pierced the Wall, but archers stood or k in a reverse arrowhead formation around the gate, and a dozen swordsmen had gone ahead with el Horyse. A hundred yards behind her, past a zigzagged lane of barbed wire, two Lewyn mae-gunners watched from a forward emplat—though Sabriel hey had drawn their swordbayos and thrust them, ready for use, in the sandbags, showing little faith in their air-cooled -rounds-per-miools of destru.

    There was no actual gate in the archway, though rusting hinges swung like meical hands oher side and sharp shards of oak  thrust out of the ground, like teeth in a broken jaw, testimony to some explosion of moderry ical force.

    It was snowing lightly on the Old Kingdom side, and the wind eled occasional snowflakes through the gate into Aierre, where they melted on the warmer ground of the south.

    One caught in Sabriel’s hair. She brushed at it lightly, till it slid down her fad was captured by her tongue.

    The cold water was refreshing and, though it tasted no different from any other melted snow she’d drunk, it marked her first taste of the Old Kingdom in thirteen years. Dimly, she remembered it had been snowing then. Her father had carried her through, when he first brought her south into Aierre.

    A whistle alerted her, and she saw a figure appear out of the snow, flanked by twelve others, who drew up in two lines leading out from the gate. They faced outwards, their swords shining, blades refleg the light that was itself reflected from the snow. Only Horyse looked inwards, waiting for her.

    With her skis over her shoulder, Sabriel picked her way among the broken timbers of the gate.

    Going through the arch, from mud into snow, frht sun into the pallid luminesce of a snowfall, from her past into her future.

    The stones of the Wall oher side, and above her head, seemed to call a wele home, and rivulets of Charter marks ran through the stones like rain through dust.

    “The Old Kingdom weles you,” said Horyse, but he was watg the Charter marks run oones, not looking at Sabriel.

    Sabriel stepped out of the shadow of the gate and pulled her cap down, so the peak shielded her face against the snow.

    “I wish your mission every success, Sabriel,”

    tinued Horyse, looking back at her. “I hope . . . hope I see both you and your father before too long.”

    He saluted, turned smartly to his left, and was gone, wheeling around her and marg back through the gate. His men peeled off from the line and followed. Sabriel bent down as they marched past, slid her skis bad forth in the snow, then slipped her boots into the bindings.

    The snow was falling steadily, but it was only a light fall and the cover atchy. She could still easily make out the Old North Road.

    Fortunately, the snow had banked up iters to either side of the road, and she could make good time if she kept to these narrow snow-ways. Even though it seemed to be several hours later in the Old Kingdom than it was in Aierre, she expected to reach Clove before dusk.

    Taking up her poles, Sabriel checked that her father’s sword was easy in its scabbard, and the bells hung properly from their baldric. She sidered a quick Charter-spell for warmth, but decided against it. The road had a slight uphill gradient, so the skiing would be quite hard work. In her handknitted, greasy wool shirt, leather jerkin and thick, double padded skiing knickerbockers, she would probably be too warm once she got going.

    With a practiced motion, she pushed one ski ahead, the opposite arm reag forward with her pole, and slid forward, just as the last swordsman passed her on his way back through the gate. He grinned as he passed by, but she didn’t notice, trating on building up the rhythm of her skis and poles. Within minutes, she ractically flying up the road, a slim, dark figure against the white of the ground.

 chapter iv

    Sabriel found the first dead Aierran soldier about six miles from the Wall, in the last, fading hours of the afternoon.

    The hill she thought was Clove was a mile or two to the north. She’d stopped to look at its dark bulk, rising rocky and treeless from the snow-cround, its peak temporarily hidden in one of the light, puffy clouds that occasionally let forth a shower of snow or sleet.

    If she hadn’t stopped, she would probably have missed the frosted-white hand that peeked out of a drift oher side of the road. But as soon as she saw that, her attention focused and Sabriel felt the familiar pang of death.

    Crossing over, her skis clag on bare stone in the middle of the road, she bent down aly brushed the snow away.

    The hand beloo a young man, who wore a standard-issue coat of mail over an Aierran uniform of khaki serge. He was blond and grey-eyed, and Sabriel thought he had been surprised, for there was no fear in his frozen expression. She touched his forehead with one finger, closed his sightless eyes, and laid two fingers against his open mouth. He had beewelve days, she felt. There were no obvious signs as to what had killed him. To learn more than that, she would have to follow the young man into Death. Even after twelve days, it was unlikely he had gone further than the Fate. Even so, Sabriel had a strong disination to ehe realm of the dead until she absolutely had to. Whatever had trapped—or killed—her father could easily be waiting to ambush her there. This dead soldier could even be a lure.

    Quashing her natural curiosity to find out exactly what had happened, Sabriel folded the man’s arms across his chest, after first ung the grip that his right hand still had on his sword hilt—perhaps he had not been taken totally unawares after all. Theood and drew the Charter marks of fire, sing, peace  and sleep in the air above the corpse, while whispering the sounds of those same marks. It was a litany that every Charter Mage knew, and it had the usual effect. A glowing ember sparked up between the man’s folded arms, multiplied into many stabbing, darting flames, then fire whooshed the full length of the body. Seds later it was out and only ash remained, ash staining a corselet of blaed mail.

    Sabriel took the soldier’s sword from the pile of ashes and thrust it through the melted snow, into the dark earth beh. It stuck fast, upright, the hilt casting a shadow like a cross upon the ashes. Something glinted in the shadow and, belatedly, Sabriel remembered that the soldier would have worn ay disc .

    Shifting her skis again to rebalance she bent down and hooked the  of the identity dis one finger, pulling it up to read the name of the man who had met his end here, alone in the snow. But both the  and disc were maemade in Aierre and so uo withstand the Charter Magic fire. The disc crumbled into ash as Sabriel raised it to eye level and the  fell into its po links, p between Sabriel’s fingers like small steel s.

    “Perhaps they’ll know you from your sword,”

    said Sabriel. Her voice sourange in the quiet of the snowy wilderness and, behind each word, her breath rolled out like a small, wet fog.

    “Travel withret,” she added. “Do not look back.”

    Sabriel took her own advice as she skied away.

    There was an ay in her now that had been mostly academic before and every sense was alert, watchful. She had always been told that the Old Kingdom was dangerous, andbbr></abbr> the Borderlands he articularly so. But that intellectual knowledge was tempered by her vague childhood memories of happiness, of being with her father and the band of Travelers.

    Now, the reality of the danger was slowly i<tt></tt>ng home . . .

    Half a mile on she slowed and stopped to look up at Clove again, neck cricked back to watch where the sun struck between the clouds, lighting up the yellranite of the bluffs.

    She was in cloud shadow herself, so the hill looked like an attractive destination. As she looked, it started to snow again, and two snowflakes fell upon her forehead, melting into her eyes. She blinked and the melted snow  traced tear trails down her cheeks. Through misted eyes, she saw a bird of prey—a hawk or kite—launch itself from the bluffs and hover, its tration totally tered upon some small mouse or vole creeping across the snow.

    The kite dropped like a cast stone, and a few seds later, Sabriel felt some small life snuffed out. At the same time, she also felt 藏书网the tug of humah. Somewhere ahead, near where the kite dined, more people lay dead.

    Sabriel shivered, and looked at the hill again.

    Acc to Horys<df</dfn>e’s map, the path to Clove lay in a narrow gully between two bluffs.

    She could see quite clearly where it must be, but the dead lay in that dire. Whatever had killed them might also still be there.

    There was sunlight on the bluffs, but the wind was driving snow clouds across the sun and Sabriel guessed it was only an hour or so till dusk. She’d lost time freeing the soldier’s spirit, and now had no choice but to hurry on if she wished to reach Clove before nightfall.

    She thought about what lay ahead for a moment, then chose a promise between speed and caution. Stabbing her poles into the snow, she released her bindings, stepped out of  her skis and then quickly fastened skis and poles together to be strapped diagonally across her backpack. She tied them on carefully, remembering how they’d fallen and broken her Charterspell on the parade ground—only that m, but it seemed like weeks ago and a world away.

    That done, she started to pick her way down the ter of the road, keeping away from the gutter drifts. She’d have to leave the road fairly soon, but it looked like there was little snow oeep, rocky slopes of Clove.

    As a final precaution, she drew Abhorsen’s sword, then resheathed it, so an inch of blade was free of the scabbard. It would draw fast and easily when she .

    Sabriel expected to find the bodies on the road, or near it, but they lay further on. There were many footprints, and ed-up snow, leading from the road towards the path to Clove.

    That path raween the bluffs, following a route gouged out by a stream falling from some deep spring higher up the hill. The path crossed the stream several times, with stepping-stones or tree trunks across the water to save walkers from wet feet. Half, where the bluffs almost ground together, the stream had dug itself a she, about twelve feet wide, thirty feet long and deep. Here, the pathmakers had been forced to build a bridge along the stream, rather than across it.

    Sabriel found the rest of the Aierran patrol here, tumbled on the dark olive-black wood of the bridge, with the water murmurih and the red stone arg overhead.

    There were seven of them along the bridge’s length. Uhe first soldier, it was quite clear what had killed them. They had been hacked apart and, as Sabriel edged closer, she realized they had been beheaded. Worse than that, whoever . . . whatever . . . had killed them had taken their heads away—almost a guarahat their spirits would return.

    Her sword did draw easily. Gingerly, her right hand almost glued to the sword hilt, Sabriel stepped around the first of the splayed-out bodies and onto the bridge. The water beh artly iced over, shallow and sluggish, but it was clear the soldiers had sought refuge over it.

    Running water was a good prote from dead creatures or things of Free Magic, but this torpid stream would not have dismayed even one of the Lesser Dead. In Spring, fed with melted snow,  the stream would burst between the bluffs, and the bridge would be knee-deep in clear, swift water. The soldiers would probably have survived at that time of year.

    Sabriel sighed quietly, thinking of how easily seven people could be alive in one instant, and thee everything they could do, despite their last hope, they could be dead in just another.

    Once again, she felt the temptation of the neao take the cards nature had dealt, to reshuffle them and deal again. She had the power to make these men live again, laugh again, love again . . .

    But without their heads she could only bring them back as “Hands,” a derogatory term that Free Magieancers used for their lackluster revenants, who retained little of their inal intelligend none of their initiative. They made useful servants, though, either as reanimated corpses or the more difficult Shadow Hands, where only the spirit was brought back.

    Sabriel grimaced as she thought of Shadow Hands. A skilled neancer could easily raise Shadow Hands from the heads of the newly dead. Similarly, without the heads, she couldn’t give them the final rites and free their spirits.

    All she could do was treat the bodies with some resped, in the process, clear the bridge.

    It was o dusk, and dark already in the shadow of the ge, but she ighe little voiside her that was urgio leave the bodies and run for the open space of the hilltop.

    By the time she finished dragging the bodies back dowh a way, laying them out with their swords plunged in the earth o their headless bodies, it was dark outside the ge too. So dark, she had to risk a faint, Charterjured light, that hung like a pale star above her head, showing the path before dying out.

    A slight magic, but oh ued sequences, for, as she left the bodies behind, an answering light burned into brillian the upper post of the bridge. It faded into red embers almost immediately, but left three glowing Charter marks. One was strao Sabriel, but, from the other two, she guessed its meaning.

    Together, they held a message.

    Three of the dead soldiers had the feel of Charter Magic about them, and Sabriel guessed that they were Charter Mages. They would have had the Charter mark on their foreheads. The very last body on the bridge had been one of  these men and Sabriel remembered that he had been the only o holding a on—his hands had been clasped around the bridge post.

    These marks would certainly hold his message.

    Sabriel touched her own forehead Charter mark and then the bridge post. The marks flared again, the dark. A voice came from nowhere, close to Sabriel’s ear. A man’s voice, husky with fear, backed by the sound of clashing ons, screaming and total panic.

    “One of the Greater Dead! It came behind us, almost from the Wall. We couldn’t turn back. It has servants, Hands, a Mordit! This is Sergeant Gerren. Tell el . . .”

    Whatever he wao tell el Horyse was lost in the moment of his owh. Sabriel stood still, listening, as if there might be more.

    She felt ill, nauseous, and took several deep breaths. She had fotten that for all her familiarity with death and the dead, she had never seen or heard aually die. The aftermath she had learnt to deal with . . . but not the event.

    She touched the bridge post again, just with one finger, ahe Charter marks twisting through the grain of the wood. Sergeant Gerren’s message would be there forever for any Charter   Mage to hear, till time did its work, and bridge post and bridge rotted or were swept away by flood.

    Sabri<mark>??</mark>el took a few more breaths, stilled her stomach, and forced herself to listen once more.

    One of the Greater Dead was ba Life, and that was something her father was sworn to stop. It was almost certain that this emergend Abhorsen’s disappearance were ected.

    Once again, the message came, and Sabriel listened.

    Then, brushing back her starting tears, she walked on, up the path, away from the bridge and the dead, up towards Clove and the broken Charter Stone.

    The bluffs parted and, in the sky above, stars started to twinkle, as the wind grew braver and swept the snow clouds before it into the west.

    The new moon unveiled itself and swelled in brightness, till it cast shadows on the snowflecked ground.

 chapter v

    It was no more than a halfhour’s steady climb to the flat top of Clove, though the path grew steeper and more difficult. The wind was strong now and had cleared the sky, the moonlight giving form to the landscape. But without the clouds, it had grown much colder.

    Sabriel sidered a Charter-spell for warmth, but she was tired, and the effort of the spell might ore than the gain in warmth. She stopped instead and shrugged on a fleece-lined oilskin that had been handed down from her father. It was a bit worn and toe, needing severe bug-in with her sword-belt and the baldric that held the bells, but it was certainly windproof.

    Feeliively warmer, Sabriel resumed climbing up the last, winding portion of the path, where the ine was so steep the pathmakers had resorted to cutting steps out of the graeps now worn and crumbling, proo sliding away underfoot.

    So proo sliding, that Sabriel reached the top without realizing it, head down, her eyes searg in the moonlight for the solid part of the  step. Her foot was actually half in the air before she realized that there wasn’t a  step.

    Clove lay before her. A narre where several slopes of the hill met to form a miniature plateau, with a slight depression in the middle. Snow lay in this depression, a fat, cigarshaped drift, bright in the moonlight, stark white against the red grahere were no trees, ation at all, but in the very ter of the drift, a dark grey stone cast a long moonshadow.

    It was twice Sabriel’s girth and three times her height, and looked whole till she walked closer and saw the zigzag crack that cut it down the middle.

    Sabriel had never seen a true Charter Stone before, but she khey were supposed to be  like the Wall, with Charter marks running like quicksilver through the stone, f and dissolving, only to re-fain, in a neverending story that told of the making of the world.

    There were Charter marks on this stone, but they were still, as frozen as the snow. Dead marks, nothing more than meaningless inscriptions, carved into a sculptured stone.

    It wasn’t what Sabriel had expected, though she now realized that she hadn’t thought about it properly. She’d thought of lightning or suchlike as the splitter of the stone, but fotten lessons remembered too late told her that wasn’t so. Only some terrible power of Free Magic could split a Charter Stone.

    She walked closer to the stone, fear rising in her like a toothache in its first growth, signaling worse to e. The wind was stronger and colder, too, out on the ridge, and the oilskin seemed less f, as its memories of her father brought back remembrance of certain pages of The Book of the Dead and tales of horror told by little girls in the darkness of their dormitory, far from the Old Kingdom.

    Fears came with t<q>.</q>hese memories, till Sabriel  wrestled them to the back of her mind, and forced herself closer to the stone.

    Dark patches of . . . something . . . obscured some of the marks, but it wasn’t until Sabriel pushed her face almost to the stohat she could make out what they were, so dull and bla the moonlight.

    When she did see, her head snapped up, and she stumbled backwards, almost overbalang into the snow. The patches were dried blood, and when she saw them, Sabriel knew how the stone had been broken, and why the blood hadn’t been ed away by rain or snow . . . why the stone never would be .

    A Charter Mage had been sacrificed oone. Sacrificed by a neao gain access to Death, or to help a Dead spirit break through into Life.

    Sabriel bit her lower lip till it hurt and her hands, almost unsciously, fidgeted, halfdrawing Charter marks in nervousness and fear.

    The spell for that sort of sacrifice was in the last chapter of The Book of the Dead. She remembered it now, in siiail. It was one of the many things she seemed to have fotten from that green-bound book—or had been made  tet. Only a very powerful neancer could use that spell. Only a totally evil one would want to. And evil breeds evil, evil taints places and makes them attractive to further acts of . . .

    “Stop it!” whispered Sabriel aloud, to still her mind of its imaginings. It was dark, windy aing colder by the minute. She had to make a decision: to camp and call her guide, or to move on immediately in some random dire in the hope that she would be able to summon her guide from somewhere else.

    The worst part of it all was that her guide was dead. Sabriel had to enter Death, albeit briefly, to call and verse with the guide. It would be easy to do so here, for the sacrifice had created a semi-perma entry, as if a door had been wedged ajar. But who knew what might be lurking, watg, in the cold river beyond.

    Sabriel stood for a minute, shivering, listening, every sense trated, like some small animal that knoredator hunts nearby. Her mind ran through the pages of The Book of the Dead, and through the many hours she had spent learning Charter Magiagistrix Greenwood in the sunny North Tower of Wyverley College.

    At the end of the minute, she khat camping was out of the question. She was simply thteo sleep anywhere he ruined Charter Stone. But it would be quicker to call her guide here—and the quicker she got to her father’s house, the sooner she could do something to help him, so a promise was called for. She would protect herself with Charter Magic as best she could, enter Death with all precaution, summon her guide, get dires a out as quickly as possible. Quicker, even.

    With decision came a. Sabriel dropped her skis and pack, stuffed some dried fruit and homemade toffee in her mouth for quiergy, and adopted the meditative pose that made Charter Magic easier.

    After bit of trouble with the toffee aeeth, she began. Symbols formed in her mind— the four cardinal Charter marks that were the poles of a diamo<bdo>.</bdo>nd that would protect her from both physical harm and Free Magic. Sabriel held them in her mind, fixed them in time, and pulled them out of the flow of the never-ending Charter.

    Then, drawing her sword, she traced rough outlines in the snow around her, one mark at each cardinal point of the pass. As she finished  each mark, she let the one in her mind run from her head to her hand, down the sword and into the snow. There, they ran like lines of golden fire and the marks became alive, burning on the ground.

    The last mark was the North mark, the one closest to the destroyed stone, and it almost failed. Sabriel had to close her eyes and use all her will to force it to leave the sword. Even then, it was only a pallid imitation of the other three, burning so weakly it hardly melted the snow.

    Sabriel ig, quelling the hat had brought bile to the back of her mouth, her body reag to the struggle with the Charter mark.

    She khe North mark was weak, but golden lines had ruween all four points and the diamond was plete, if shaky. In any case, it was the best she could do. She sheathed her sword, took off her gloves, and fumbled with her bellbandolier, cold fingers ting the bells.

    “Ranna,” she said aloud, toug the first, the smallest bell. Ranna the sleepbrihe sweet, low sound that brought silen its wake.

    “Mosrael.” The sed bell, a harsh, rowdy bell. Mosrael was the waker, the bell Sabriel  should never use, the bell whose sound was a seesaw, throwing the ringer further into Death, as it brought the listener into Life.

    “Kibeth.” Kibeth, the walker. A bell of several sounds, a difficult and trary bell. It could give freedom of movement to one of the Dead, or walk them through the  gate. Many a neancer had stumbled with Kibeth and walked where they would not.

    “Dyrim.” A musical bell, of clear and pretty tone. Dyrim was the voice that the Dead so often lost. But Dyrim could also still a tohat moved too freely.

    “Belgaer.” Arie bell, that sought t of its own accord. Belgaer was the thinking bell, the bell most neancers sed to use. It could restore indepehought, memory and all the patterns of a living person. Or, slipping in a careless hand, erase them.

    “Sarah.” The deepest, lowest bell. The sound of strength. Sarah was the bihe bell that shackled the Dead to the wielder’s will.

    And last, the largest bell, the one Sabriel’s cold fingers found colder still, even in the leather case that kept it silent.

    “Astarael, the Sorrowful,” whispered Sabriel.

    Astarael was the bahe final bell. Properly rung, it cast everyone who heard it far into Death. Everyone, including the r>藏书网</a>inger.

    Sabriel’s hand hovered, touched on Ranna, and theled on Sarah. Carefully, she undid the strap and withdrew the bell. Its clapper, freed of the mask, rang slightly, like the growl of a waking bear.

    Sabriel stilled it, holding the clapper with her palm ihe bell, ign the handle. With her right hand, she drew her sword and raised it to the guard position. Charter marks along the blade caught the moonlight and flickered into life. Sabriel watched them for a moment, as portents could sometimes be seen in such things.

    Strange marks raced across the blade, before transmuting into the more usual inscription, ohat Sabriel knew well. She bowed her head, and prepared to enter into Death.

    Unseen by Sabriel, the inscription began again, but parts of it were not the same. “I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead,” was what it usually said. Now it tinued, “The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King quenched me, Abhorsen wields me.”

    Sabriel, eyes closed now, felt the boundary  between Life ah appear. On her back, she felt the wind, now curiously warm, and the moonlight, bright and hot like sunshine. On her face, she felt the ultimate cold and, opening her eyes, saw the grey light of Death.

    With an effort of will, her spirit stepped through, sword and bell prepared. Ihe diamond her body stiffened, and fog blew up in eddies around her feet, twining up her legs. Frost rimed her fad hands and the Charter marks flared at each apex of the diamond. Three steadied again, but the North mark blazed brighter still—a out.

    The river ran swiftly, but Sabriel set her feet against the current and ignored both it and the cold, trating on looking around, alert for a trap or ambush. It was quiet at this particular entry point to Death. She could hear the water tumbling through the Sed Gate, but nothing else. No splashing, urgling, or strange mewlings.

    No dark, formless shapes rim silhouettes, shadowy in this grey light.

    Carefully holding her position, Sabriel looked all around her again, before sheathing her sword and reag into one of the thigh pockets in her woollen knickerbockers. The bell, Sarah,   stayed ready in her left hand. With her right, she drew out a paper boat and, still one-handed, ope out to its proper shape. Beautifully white, almost luminous in this light, it had one small, perfectly round stain at its bow, where Sabriel had carefully blotted a drop of blood from her finger.

    Sabriel laid it flat on her hand, lifted it to her lips, and blew on it as if she were laung a feather. Like a glider, it flew from her hand into the river. Sabriel held that laung breath as the boat was almost sed, only to breathe in with relief as it breasted a ripple, righted itself and surged away with the current. In a few seds it was out of sight, heading for the Sed Gate.

    It was the sed time in her life that Sabriel had launched just such a paper boat. Her father had shown her how to make them, but had impressed oo use them sparingly. No more than thrice every seven years, he had said, or a price would have to be paid, a price much greater than a drop of blood.

    As events should follow as they had the first time, Sabriel knew what to expect. Still, when the noise of the Sed Gate stilled for a moment some ten or twenty, or forty, minutes later—time being slippery ih—she drew her sword and Sarah hung down in her hand, its clapper free, waiting to be heard. The Gate had stilled because someone . . . something . . . was ing back from the deeper realms of Death.

    Sabriel hoped it was the one she had invited with the paper boat.

 chapter vi

    Charter Magi Clove.

    It was like a st on the wind to the thing that lurked in the caves below the hill, some mile or more to the west of the broken Charter Stone.

    It had been human once, or human-like at least, in the years it had lived uhe sun.

    That humanity had been lost in the turies the thing spent in the chill waters of Death, ferociously holding its own against the current, demonstrating an incredible will to live again. A will it didn’t know it possessed before a badly cast h<tt>?t>unting spear bounced from a rod clipped its throat, just enough for a last few minutes of frantic life.

    By sheer effort of will, it had held itself on the life side of the Fate for three hundred years, growing in power, learning the ways of Death. It preyed on lesser spirits, and served or avoided greater ones. Always, the thing held on to life. Its ce finally came when a mighty spirit erupted from beyond the Seventh Gate, smashing through each of the Upper Gates in turn, till it went ravening into Life. Hundreds of the Dead had followed, and this particular spirit had joihe throng. There had been terrible fusion and a mighty enemy at the very border between Life ah, but, in the melee, it had mao sneak around the edges and squirm triumphantly into Life.

    There were plenty of retly vacated bodies where it emerged, so the thing occupied one, animated it and ran away. Soon after, it found the caves it now inhabited. It even decided to give itself a hralk. A simple name, not too difficult for a partially deposed mouth to voice. A male hralk could not remember what its inal sex had been, those turies before, but its new body was male.

    It was a o instill fear in the few small settlements that still existed in this area of The Borderlands, settlements Thralk preyed upon, capturing and ing the human life he  o keep himself on the living side of Death.

    Charter Magic flared on Clove again, and Thralk sehat it was strong and pure— but weakly cast. The strength of the magic scared him, but the lack of skill behind it was reassuring and strong magic meant a strong life. Thralk hat life,  to shore up the body he used,  to replenish the leakage of his spirit bato Death. Greed won over fear. The Dead thihe mouth of the cave and started climbing the hill, his lidless, rotting eyes fixed on the distant crest.

    Sabriel saw her guide, first as a tall, pale l.ight drifting over the swirling water towards her, and then, as it stopped several yards away, as a blurred, glowing, human shape, its arms outstretched in wele.

    “Sabriel.”

    The words were fuzzy and seemed to e from much farther away thahe shining figure stood, but Sabriel smiled as she felt the warmth in the greeting. Abhorsen had never explained who or what this luminous person  was, but Sabriel thought she knew. She’d summohis advisor only once before—when she’d first menstruated.

    There was minimal sex education at Wyverley College— all till you were fifteen. The irls’ stories about menstruation were many, varied and ofte to scare. None of Sabriel’s friends had reached puberty before her, so in fear and desperation she had entered Death. Her father had told her that the ohe paper boat summoned would answer any question and would protect her—and so it had. The glowing spirit answered all her questions and many more besides, till Sabriel was forced to return to Life.

    “Hello, Mother,” said Sabriel, sheathing her sword and carefully muffling Sarah with her fingers ihe bell.

    The shining shape didn’t answer, but that wasn’t ued. Apart from her one-wreeting, she could only answer questions.

    Sabriel wasn’t really sure if the maion was the very unusual dead spirit of her mother, which was unlikely, or some residual protective magic left by her.

    “I don’t have much time,” Sabriel tinued.

    “I’d love to ask about . . . oh, everything, I guess . . . but at the moment, I o know how to get to Father’s house from Clove . . . I mean Barhedrin Ridge.”

    The sending nodded, and spoke. As Sabriel listened, she also saw pictures in her head of what the woman was describing; vivid images, like memories of a journey she’d taken herself.

    “Go to the northern side of the ridge. Follow the spur that begins there down till it reaches the valley floor. Look at the sky . . . there won’t be any cloud. Look to the bright red star, Uallus, he horizon, three fingers east of north.

    Follow that star till you e to a road that runs from south-west to north-east. Take that road for a mile to the north-east, till you reach a mile marker and the Charter Stone behind it. A path behind the stone leads to the Long Cliffs immediately north. Take the path. It ends in a door in the Cliffs. The door will ao Mosrael. Beyond the door is a tunnel, sloping sharply upwards.

    Beyond the tunnel lies Abhorsen’s Bridge. The house is over the bridge. Go with love—and do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.”

    “Thank you,” Sabriel began, carefully filing the words away with the apanying thoughts.

    “Could you also . . .”

    She stopped as the mother-sending in front of her suddenly raised both arms as if shocked, and shouted, “Go!”

    At the same time, Sabriel felt the diamond of prote around her physical body twinge in warning and she became aware that the North mark had failed. Instantly, she turned on her left heel and began rag back to the border with Life, d<dfn>..</dfn>rawing her sword. The current almost seemed tthen against her, twining around her legs, but then fell away before her urgency.

    Sabriel reached the border and, with a furious thrust of will, her spirit emerged bato Life.

    For a sed, she was disoriented, suddenly freezing again and thick-witted. A grinning, corpse-like creature was just stepping through the failed North mark, its arms reag to embrace her, carrioh misting out of a mouth unnaturally wide.

    Thralk had been pleased to find the Charter Mage’s spirit wandering and a broken diamond of prote. The sword had worried him a little, but it was frosted over and his  shriv<tt></tt>eled eyes couldn’t see the Charter marks that danced beh the rime. Similarly, the bell in Sabriel’s left hand looked like a lump of ice or snow, as if she’d caught a snowball. All in all, Thralk felt very fortunate, particularly as the life that blazed within this still victim articularly young and strong. Thralk sidled closer still and his double-jointed arms reached to embrace Sabriel’s neck.

    Just as his slimy, corrupted fingers stretched forward, Sabriel opened her eyes and executed the stop-thrust that had earned her sed pla Fighting Arts and, later, lost her the First. Her arm and sword straightened like one limb to their full extent and the sword-point ripped through Thralk’s neck, and i inches of air beyond.

    Thralk screamed, his reag fingers gripping the sword to push himself free—only to scream again as Charter marks flared on the blade. White-hot sparks plumed between his knuckles and Thralk suddenly knew what he’d entered.

    “Abhorsen!” he croaked, falling backwards as Sabriel twisted the blade free with one explosive jerk.

    Already, the sword was affeg the dead flesh Thralk inhabited, Charter Magic burning through reanimated nerves, freezing those alltoo- fluid joints. Fire rose in Thralk’s throat, but he spoke, to distract this terrible oppo while his spirit tried to shuck the body, like a ss skin, areat into the night.

    “Abhorsen! I will serve you, praise you, be your Hand . . . I know things, alive and dead . . .

    I will help lure others to you . . .”

    The clear, deep sound of Sarah cut through the whining, broken voice like a foghorn booming above the shriek of seagulls.

    The chime vibrated on and on, eg into the night, and Thralk felt it bind him even as his spirit leaked out of the body and made for flight. The bell bound him to paralyzed flesh, bound him to the will of the bell-ringer.

    Fury seethed in him, anger and fear fueling his struggle, but the sound was everywhere, all around him, all through him. He would never be free of it.

    Sabriel watched the misshapen shadow writhing, half out of the corpse, half in it, the body bleeding a pool of darkness. It was still trying to use the corpse’s mouth, but without  success. She sidered going with it into Death, where it would have a shape and she could make it answer with Dyrim. But the broken Charter Stone loomed nearby and she felt it as an everpresent fear, like a cold jewel upon her breast.

    In her mind, she heard her mother-sending’s words, “Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.”

    Sabriel thrust her sword point-first into the snow, put Sarah away and drew Kibeth from the bandolier, using both hands. Thralk se and his fury gave way to pure, unadulterated fear. After all the turies of struggle, he krue death had e for him at last.

    Sabriel took up a careful stance, with the bell held in a curious two-handed grip. Kibeth seemed almost to twit her hands, but she trolled it, swinging it backwards, forwards, and then in a sort of odd figure eight. The sounds, all from the one bell, were very different to each other, but they made a little marg tune, a dang song, a parade.

    Thralk heard them a forces grip him.

    Strange, inexorable powers that made him find the border, made him return to Death. Vainly, almost pathetically, he struggled against them,  knowing he couldn’t break free. He khat he would walk through every Gate, to fall at last through the Ninth. He gave up the struggle and used the last of his strength to form a semblance of a mouth in the middle of his shadow-stuff, a mouth with a writhing tongue of darkness.

    “Curse you!” he gurgled. “I will tell the Servants of Kerrigor! I will be revenged . . .”

    His grotesque, gulping voice was chopped off in mid-sentence, as Thralk lost free will.

    Sarah had bound him, but Kibeth gripped him and Kibeth walked him, walked him so Thralk would be no more. The twisting shadow simply disappeared and there was only snow under a long-dead corpse.

    Even though the revenant was gone, his last words troubled Sabriel. The name Kerrigor, while ly familiar, touched some basic fear in her, some memory. Perhaps Abhorsen had spoken this name, whidoubtedly beloo one of the Greater Dead. The name scared her in the same way the broken stone did, as if they were tangible symbols of a wone wrong, a world where her father was lost, where she herself was terribly threatened.

    Sabriel coughed, feeling the cold in her lungs,  and very carefully replaced Kibeth in the bandolier.

    Her sword seemed to have burself , but she ran a cloth over the blade before returning it to the scabbard. She felt very tired as she swung her pack ba, but there was no doubt in her mind that she must move on immediately. Her mother-spirit’s words kept eg in her mind, and her own seold her something was happening ih, something powerful was moving towards Life, moving towards emerge the broken stone.

    There had been too much death and too much Charter Magi this hill, and the night was yet to reach its blackest. The wind was swinging around, the clouds regaining their superiority over sky. Soon, the stars would disappear and the young moon would be ed in white.

    Quickly, Sabriel sed the heavens, looking for the three bright stars that marked the Buckle of the Niant’s Belt. She found them, but then had to check the star map in her almanac, a handmade match stinking as it cast a yellow flicker on the pages, for she didn’t dare use any more Charter Magic till she was away from the broken stohe almanac showed that she had remembered correctly: the Buckle was due north  in the Old Kingdom; its other name was Mariner’s Cheat. In Aierre, the Buckle was easily ten degrees west of north.

    North located, Sabriel started to make her way to that side of the crest, looking for the spur that slanted down to the valley lost in darkness below. The clouds were thiing and she wao reach level ground before the moonlight disappeared. At least the spur, when found, looked like easier going than the brokeo the south, though its gentle slope proclaimed a long dest to the valley.

    In fact, it took several hours before Sabriel reached the valley floor, stumbling and shivering, a very pale Charter flame dang a little ways in front of her. Too insubstantial to really ease her path, it had helped her avoid major disaster, and she hoped it allid enough to be taken for marsh-gas or ce refle. In any case, it had proved essential when clouds closed the last remaining gap in the sky.

    So much for no cloud, Sabriel thought, as she looked towards what she guessed was still north, searg for the red star, Uallus. Her teeth were chattering and would not be stilled, and a shiver that had started with her ice-cold feet was  repeating itself through every limb. If she didn’t keep moving, she’d simply freeze where she stood—particularly as the wind was rising once more . . .

    Sabriel laughed quietly, almost hysterically, and turned her face to feel the breeze. It was aerly, gaining strength with the minute.

    Colder, yes, but it also cleared the cloud, sweeping it to the west—and there, in the first cleared broom-stroke of the wind, was Uallus gleaming red. Sabriel smiled, stared at it, took stock of the little she could see around her, and started off again, following the star, a whispering voice stant in the back of her mind.

    Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.

    The smile lasted as Sabriel found the road and, with a good cover of snow in each gutter, she skied, making good time.

    By the time Sabriel found the mile marker and the Charter Stone behind it, no trace of the smile could be seen on her pale face. It was snowing again, snowing sideways as the wind grew more freaking the snowflakes and whipping them into her eyes, now the only exposed portion of her entire body. Her boots were soaked  too, despite the mutton fat she’d rubbed into them. Her feet, fad hands were freezing, and she was exhausted. She’d dutifully eaten a little every hour, but now, simply couldn’t open her frozen jaws.

    For a short time, at the intact Charter Stohat rose proudly behind the smaller milemarker, Sabriel had made herself warm, invoking a Charter-spell for heat. But she’d grown too tired to maintain it without the assistance of the stone, and the spell dissipated almost as soon as she walked on. Only the mother-spirit’s warni her going. That, and the sensation that she was being followed.

    It was only a feeling, and iir<samp>.９9ｌiｂ?</samp>ed, chilled state, Sabriel wondered if it was just imagination.

    But she wasn’t in any state to face up to anything that might not be imagined, so she forced herself to go on.

    Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.

    The path from the Charter Stone was better made than the ohat climbed Clove, but steeper. The pathmakers here had to cut through a dense, greyish rock, which did not erode like granite, and they had built hundreds  of wide, low steps, carved with intricate patterns.

    Whether these meant something, Sabriel didn’t know. They weren’t Charter marks, or symbols of any language that she knew, and she was too tired to speculate. She trated oep at a time, using her hands to push down on her ag thighs, coughing and gasping, head down to avoid the flying snow.

    The path grew steeper still and Sabriel could see the cliff-face ahead, a huge, black, vertical mass, a much darker backdrop to the swirling snow than the clouded sky, palely backlit by the moon. But she didn’t seem to get any closer as the path switchbacked to and fro, rising further and further up from the valley below.

    Then, suddenly, Sabriel was there. The path turned again and her little will-o’-the-wisp light reflected back from a wall, a wall that stretched for miles to either side, and for hundreds of yards upwards. Clearly, these were the Long Cliffs, and the path had ended.

    Almost sobbing with relief, Sabriel pushed herself forward to the very base of the cliff, and the little light rose above her head to disclose grey, li-veined rock. But even with that light, there was no sign of a door—nothing but  jagged, impervious rock, going up and out of her tiny circle of illumination. There was no path and nowhere else to go.

    Wearily, Sabriel k in a patch of snow and rubbed her hands together vigorously, trying to restore circulation, before drawing Mosrael from the bandolier. Mosrael, the Waker. Sabriel stilled it carefully and trated her senses, feeling for anythihat might be near and should not be woken. There was nothing close, but once again Sabriel felt something behind her, something following her, far down oh. Something Dead, something reeking of power. She tried to judge how distant the thing was, before f it from her thoughts.

    Whatever it might be, it was too far away to hear even Mosrael’s raucous voice. Sabriel stood up, and rang the bell.

    It made a sound like tens of parrots screeg, a hat burst into the air and wove itself into the wind, eg from the cliffs, multiplying into the scream of a thousand birds.

    Sabriel stilled the bell at ond put it away, but the echoes raced across the valley, and she khe thing behind her had heard. She felt it fix its attention on where she was and she felt  it qui its pace, like watg the muscles on a racehoing from the walk to a gallop. It was ing up the steps at least four or five at a time. She felt the rush of it in her head and the fear rising i equal pace, but she still went to the path and looked down, drawing her sword as she did so.

    There, between gusts of snow, she saw a figure leaping from step to step; impossible leaps, that ate up the distaween them with horrible appetite. It was manlike, more than man-high, and flames ran like burning oil on water where it trod. Sabriel cried out as she saw it, ahe Dead spirit within. The Book of the Dead opeo fearful pages in her memory, and descriptions of evil poured into her head. It was a Mordit that hunted her—a thing that could pass at will through Life ah, its body of bog-clay and human blood molded and infused with Free Magic by a neancer, and a Dead spirit placed inside as its guiding force.

    Sabriel had banished a Mordit once, but that had been forty miles from the Wall, in Aierre, and it had been weak, already fading.

    This one was strong, fiery, new-born. It would kill her, she suddenly knew, and subjugate   her spirit. All her plans and dreams, her hopes and ce, fell out of her to be replaced by pure, unthinking panic. She turo one side, theher, like a rabbit running from a dog, but the only way down was the path and the Mordit was only a hundred yards below, closing with every blink, with every falling snowflake. Flames were spewing from its mouth, and it thrust its pointed head bad howled as it ran, a howl like the last shout of someone falling to their death, underlaid with the squeal of fingernails on glass.

    Sabriel, a scream somehow stud choking ihroat, turo the cliff, hammering on it with the pommel of her sword.

    “Open! Open!” she screamed, as Charter marks raced through her brain—but not the right ones for f a door, a spell she’d learned in the Sed Form. She k like she knew her times tables, but the Charter marks just wouldn’t e, and why was twelve times twelve stig in her head when she wanted Charter marks . . .

    The echoes from Mosrael faded, and in that silehe pommel stru something that thudded hollowly, rather than throwing sparks and jarring her hand. Something wooden, something that hadn’t been there before. A door, tall and strangely narrow, its dark oak lined with silver Charter marks dang through the grain. An ir, exactly at ha, touched Sabriel’s hip.

    Sabriel dropped her sword with a gasp, grabbed the ring, and pulled. Nothing happened.

    Sabriel tugged again, half-turning to look over her shoulder, almost ging at what she would see.

    The Mordit turhe last er and its eyes met hers. Sabriel shut them, uo bear the hatred and bloodlust glowing in its gaze like a poker left too long in the fe. It howled again and almost flowed up the remaining steps, flames dripping from its mouth, claws a.

    Sabriel, eyes still closed, pushed on the ring.

    The door flew open and she fell in, crashing to the ground in a flurry of snow, eyes snapping open. Desperately, she twisted herself around on the ground, ign the pain in her knees and hands. Reag back outside, she she hilt of her sword and snatched it in.

    As the blade cleared the doorway, the Mordit reached it, and twisting itself side-  ways to pass the narrow portal, thrust an arm inside. Flames boiled from its grey-green flesh, like beads of sweat, and small plumes of black smoke spiraled from the flames, bringing with them a stench like burning hair.

    Sabriel, sprawled defenseless on the floor, could only stare in terror as the thing’s four-taloned hand slowly opened and reached out for her.

 chapter vii

    But the hand didn’t close; the talons failed to rend defenseless flesh.

    Instead, Sabriel felt a sudden surge of Charter Magid Charter marks flared around the door, blazing shtly that they left red after-images at the back of her eyes, black dots dang across her vision.

    Blinking, she saw a man step out from the stones of the wall, a tall and obviously strong man, with a longsword the twin of Sabriel’s own.

    This sword came whistling down on the Mordit’s arm, biting out a k of burning marsh-rotten flesh. Rebounding, the sword flicked back again, and hewed another slice, like an axeman sending chips flying from a tree.

    The Mordit howled, more in ahan in pain—but it withdrew the arm and the strahrew himself against the door, slamming it shut with the full weight of his mail-clad body.

    Curiously for mail, it made no sound, no jangling from the flow of hundreds of steel links. A strange body u too, Sabriel saw, as the black dots and the red wash faded, revealing that her rescuer wasn’t human at all. He had seemed solid enough, but every square inch of him was defined by tiny, stantly moving Charter marks, and Sabriel could see nothiween them but empty air.

    He . . . it was a Charter-ghost, a sending.

    Outside, the Mordit howled again, like a steam traiing pressure, then the whole corridor shook and hinges screeched in protest as the thing threw itself against the door. Wood splintered and clouds of thick grey dust fell from the ceiling, mog the falling snow outside.

    The sending turo face Sabriel and offered its hand to help her up. Sabriel took it, looking up at it as her tired, frozen legs struggled to make a tenth-round eback. Close to, the illusion of flesh was imperfect, fluid and uling. Its face wouldn’t stay fixed, migratiween scores of possibilities. Some were women, some were men—but all bore tough, petent visages. Its  body and clothing ged slightly, too, with every face, but two details always remaihe same; a black surcoat with the blazon of a silver key, and a longsword redolent with Charter Magic.

    “Thank you,” Sabriel said nervously, fling as the Mordit pouhe dain.

    “ . . . do you think that . . . will it get through?”

    The sending nodded grimly, a go her hand to point up the long corridor, but it did not speak.

    Sabriel turned her head to follow its pointing hand and saw a dark passage that rose up into darkness. Charter marks illuminated where they stood, but faded only a little way oe this, the darkness seemed friendly, and she could almost taste the Charter-spells that rode on the corridor’s dusty air.

    “I must go on?” asked Sabriel, as it pointed again, more urgently. The sending nodded, and flapped its hand backwards and forwards, indig haste. Behind him, another crashing blow caused anreat billow of dust, and the door sounded as if it was weakening. Once again, the vile, burnt smell of the Mordit wafted through the air.

    The doorkeeper wris nose and gave Sabriel a bit of a push in the right dire, like a parent urging a relut child to press on. But Sabriel needed n. Her fear was still burning in her. Momentarily extinguished by the rescue, the smell of the Mordit was all it o blaze again. She set her face upwards and started to walk quickly, into the passage.

    She looked back after a few yards, to see the doorkeeper waitihe door, its sword at the guard position. Beyond it, the door was bulging in, iron-bound planks bursting, breaking around a hole as big as a dinner plate.

    The Mordit reached in and broke off more planks, as easily as it might snap toothpicks. It was obviously furious that its prey was getting away, for it burned all over now. Yellow-red flames vomited from its mouth in a vile torrent, and black smoke rose like a sed shadow around it, eddying in crazy circles as it howled.

    Sabriel looked away, setting off at a fast walk, but the walk grew faster and faster, became a jog and then a run. Her feet pounded oone, but it wasn’t until she was almost sprinting, that she realized why she could—her pad skis were still back at the lower door. For a moment,  she was struck with a nervous ination to go back, but it passed before it even became scious thought. Even so, her hands checked scabbard and bandolier, and gained reassurance from the etal of sword hilt and the handsmoothed wood of the bell handles.

    It was light too, she realized as she ran. Charter marks ran ione, keeping pace with her.

    Charter marks fht and for fleetness, and for many other things she didn’t know. Strange marks and many of them—so many that Sabriel wondered how she could have ever thought that a First in magi an Aierran school would make her a great mage in the Old Kingdom. Fear and realization of ignorance were strong medies against stupid pride.

    Another howl came rag up the passage and echoed onwards, apanied by many crashes, and thuds or gs of steel striking supernatural flesh, or ricocheting off stone.

    Sabriel didn’t o look back to know the Mordit had broken through the door and was now fighting the doorkeeper—or pushing past him. Sabriel knew little of such sendings, but a on failing with the sentinel variety was an inability to leave their post. Ohe  creature got a few feet past the doorkeeper, the sending would be useless—and one great charge would soohe Mordit past.

    That thought gave her another burst of speed, but Sabriel khat it was the last. Her body, pushed by fear and weakened by cold aion, was on the edge of failure. Her legs felt stiff, muscles ready to cramp, and her lungs seemed to bubble with fluid rather than air.

    Ahead, the corridor seemed to go on and on, sloping ever upwards. But the light only shone where Sabriel ran, so perhaps the exit might not be too far ahead, perhaps just past the  little patch of darkness . . .

    Even as this thought passed through her mind, Sabriel saw a glow that sharpened into the bright trag of a doorway. She hal?99ｌib.f gasped, half cried out, both slight human noises drowned out by the unholy, inhuman screech of the Mordit. It ast the doorkeeper.

    At the same time, Sabriel became aware of a new sound ahead, a sound she had initially thought was the throb of blood in her ears, the pounding of a rag heart. But it was outside, beyond the upper door. A dee<big></big>p, r noise, so low it was almost a vibration, a shudder that she  felt through the floor, rather than heard.

    Heavy trucks passing on a road above, Sabriel thought, before remembering where she was. In that same instant, she reized the sound.

    Somewhere ahead, out of these encirg cliffs, a great waterfall was crashing down. And a waterfall that made so great a sound must be fed by an equally great river.

    Running water! The prospect of it fueled Sabriel with sudden hope, and with that hope came the strength she thought beyond her. In a wild spurt of speed, she almost hit the door, hands slapping against the wood, slowing for the instant she o find the handle .

    But another hand was already on the ring wheouched it, though none had been there a sed before. Again, Charter marks defihis hand, and Sabriel could see the grain of the wood and the blueing of the steel through the palm of another sending.

    This one was smaller, of ierminate sex, for it was wearing a habit like a monk’s, with the hood drawn across its head. The habit was blad bore the emblem of the silver key front and back.

    It bowed, and turhe ring. The door swung  open, to reveal bright starlight shining dowween clouds fleeing the newly risen wind. The noise of the waterfall roared through the open doorway, apanied by flecks of flying spray.

    Without thinking, Sabriel stepped out.

    The cowled doorkeeper came with her and shut the door behind it, before dragging a delicate, silver portcullis down across the door and log it with an iron padlock. Both defenses apparently came out of thin air. Sabriel looked at them a power in them, for both were also Charter sendings. But door, portculli<var>..</var>s and lock would only slow the Mordit, not stop it. The only possible escape lay across the swiftest of running water, or the untimely glare of a noonday sun.

    The first lay at her feet and the sed was still many hours away. Sabriel stood on a narrow ledge that projected out from the bank of a river at least four hundred yards wide. A little tht, a st few paces away, this mighty river hurled itself over the cliff, to make a truly glorious waterfall. Sabriel leaned forward a little, to look at the waters crashing below, creating huge white wings of spray that could easily swallow her entire school, new wing and all, like a rubber  duck sed in an unruly bath.

    It was a very long fall, and the height, coupled with the sheer power of the water, made her quickly look back to the river. Straight ahead, halfway across, Sabriel could just make out an island, an island perched on the very lip of the waterfall, dividing the river into two streams. It wasn’t a very big island, about the size of a football field, but it rose like a ship of jagged rock from the turbulent waters.

    Encirg the island were limestone-white walls the height of six men. Behind those walls was a house. It was too dark to see clearly, but there was a tower, a thrusting, pencil silhouette, with red tiles that were just beginning to catch the dawning sun. Below the tower, a dark bulk hi the existence of a hall, a kit, bedrooms, armory, buttery and cellar. The study, Sabriel suddenly remembered, occupied the sed to top floor of the tower. The top floor was an observatory, both of stars and the surroundiory.

    It was Abhorsen’s House. Home, although Sabriel had only visited it twiaybe three times, all when she was too young to remember much. That period of her life was hazy, and mostly filled with recolles of the Travelers,  the interiors of their wagons, and many different campsites that all blurred together. She didn’t even remember the waterfall, though the sound of it did stir snition—something had lodged in the mind of a four-year-old girl.

    Unfortunately, she didn’t remember how to get to the house. Only the words her mother-sending had given her—Abhorsen’s Bridge.

    She hadn’t realized she’d spoken these words aloud, till the little gate warden tugged at her sleeve and pointed down. Sabriel looked and saw steps carved into the bank, steps leading right down to the river.

    This time, Sabriel didn’t hesitate. She o the Charter sending and whispered, “Thank you,” before taking the steps. The Mordit’s presence ressing at her again, like a stranger’s rank breath behind her ear. She k had reached the upper gate, though the sound of its battering aru was drowned in the greater roar of the waters.

    The steps led to the river, but did here. Though invisible from the ledge, there were stepping-stones leading out to the island.

    Sabriel eyed them nervously, and looked at the water. It was clearly very deep and rushing past   at an alarming speed. The stepping-stones were barely above its boisterous wavelets and, even though they were wide and cross-hatched frip, they were also wet with spray and the slushy remnants of snow and ice.

    Sabriel watched a small piece of ice from upstream hurtle by, and pictured its slingshot ride over the falls, to be smashed apart so far below.

    She imagined herself in its place, and then thought of the Mordit behind her, of the Dead spirit that was at its heart, of the death it would bring, and the impriso she would suffer beyoh.

    She jumped. Her boots skidded a little and her arms flailed for balance, but she ended up steady, bent over in a half-crouch. Hardly waiting to rebalance, she jumped to the  stone and then the oer that, and again, in a mad leapfrog through the spray and thunder of the river.

    When she was halfway out, with a hundred yards of pure, ferocious water behind her, she stopped and looked back.

    The Mordit was on the ledge, the silvery portcullis broken and mangled in its grip. There was no sign of the gate warden, but that was not surprising. Defeated, it would merely fade until the Charter-spell reself—hours, days or even years later.

    The Dead thing was curiously still, but it was clearly watg Sabriel. Even so powerful a creature couldn’t cross this river and it made no attempt to do so. In fact, the longer Sabriel stared at it, the more it seemed to her that the Mordit was tent to wait. It was a sentry, guarding what might be the o from the island. Or perhaps it was waiting for something to happen, or for someoo arrive . . .

    Sabriel suppressed a shudder and jumped on.

    There was more light now, heralding the advent of the sun, and she could see a sort of wooden landing stage leading up to a gate in the white wall. Treetops were also visible behind the walls, wirees, their branches bare of green raiment.

    Birds flew between trees and tower, little birds laung themselves for their m fe. It was a vision of normalcy, of a haven. But Sabriel could not fet the tall, flame-etched silhouette of the Mordit, brooding on the ledge.

    Wearily, she made the jump to the last stone and collapsed oeps of the landing stage. Even her eyelids could barely move, and her field of vision had narrowed to a little slit directly to her  front. The grain of the planks of the landing stage loomed close, as she crawled up to the gate and halfheartedly fell against it.

    The gate swung open, pitg her onto a paved courtyard, the beginning of a red-brick path, th<s>..</s>e bricks a, their redhe color of dusty apples. The path wound up to the front door of the house, a cheerful sky-blue door, bright against whitewashed stone. A bronze doorknocker in the shape of a lion’s head holding a ring in its mouth gleamed in terpoint to the white cat that lay coiled on the rush mat before the door.

    Sabriel lay on the bricks and smiled up at the cat, blinking back tears. The cat twitched and turs head ever so slightly to look at her, revealing bright, green eyes.

    “Hello, puss,” croaked Sabriel, coughing as she staggered once more to her feet and walked froaning and creaking with every step. She reached down to pat the cat, and froze—for, as the cat thrust its head up, she saw the collar around its ned the tihat hung there.

    The collar was only red leather, but the Charterspell on it was the stro, most enduring, binding that Sabriel had ever seen or felt—and the bell was a miniature Sarah. The cat was no cat, but  a Free Magic creature of a power.

    “Abhorsen,” mewed the cat, its little pink tongue darting. “About time you got here.”

    Sabriel stared at it for a moment, gave a little sort of moan and fell forward in a faint of exhaustion and dismay.

 chapter viii

    Sabriel awoke to soft dlelight, the warmth of a feather bed, and silkes, delightfully smooth under heavy blas. A fire burned briskly in a red-brick fireplad wood-paneled walls gleamed with the dark mystery of well-polished mahogany. A blue-papered ceiling with silver stars dusted across it, faced her newly opened eyes. Two windows fronted each other across the room, but they were shuttered, so Sabriel had no idea what time it was, no more than she had any remembrance of how she’d got there. It was definitely Abhorsen’s House, but her last memory was of fainting on the doorstep.

    Gingerly—for even her neck ached from her day and night of travel, fear and flight—Sabriel lifted her head to look around and once agaihe green eyes of the cat that wasn’t a cat.

    The creature was lying near her feet, at the end of the bed.

    “Who . . . what are you?” Sabriel asked nervously, suddenly all too aware that she was naked uhe soft sheets. A sensuous delight, but a defenseless one. Her eyes flickered to her sword-belt and bell-bandolier, carefully draped on a clothes-horse he door.

    “I have a variety of names,” replied the cat. It had a strange voice, half-meurr, with hissing on the vowels. “You may call me Mogget. As to what I am, I was once many things, but now I am only several. Primarily, I am a servant of Abhorsen. Unless you would be kind enough to remove my collar?”

    Sabriel gave an uneasy smile, and shook her head firmly. Whatever Mogget was, that collar was the only thing that kept it as a servant of Abhorsen . . . or anybody else. The Charter marks on the collar were quite explicit about that. As far as Sabriel could tell, the binding spell was over a thousand years old. It was quite possible that Mogget was some Free Magic spirit as old as the Wall, or even older. She wondered  why her father hadn’t mentio, and with a pang, wished that she had awoken to find her father here, in his house, both their troubles over.

    “I thought not,” said Mogget, bining a careless shrug with a limbering stretch. It . . . or he, for Sabriel felt the cat was definitely mase, jumped to the parquet floor and sauntered over to the fire. Sabriel watched, her trained eye noting that Mogget’s shadow was not always that of a cat.

    A knock at the door interrupted her study of the cat<dfn></dfn>, the sharp sound making Sabriel jump nervously, the hair on the back of her neck frizzing to attention.

    “It’s only one of the servants,” Mogget said, in a patronizing tone. “Charter sendings, and pretty low-grade o that. They always burn the milk.”

    Sabriel ignored him, and said, “e in.” Her voice shook, and she realized <dfn></dfn>that shaky nerves and weakness would be with her for a while.

    The door swung open silently and a short, robed figure drifted in. It was similar to the upper gatewarden, being cowled and so without a visible face, but this one’s habit was of light cream rather than black. It had a simple cotton  underdress draped over one arm, a thick towel over the other and its Charter-woven hands held a long woollen surcoat and a pair of slippers.

    Without a word, it went to the end of the bed and put the garments on Sabriel’s feet. Then it crossed to a porcelain basin that sat in a silver filigree stand, above a tiled area of the floor to the left of the fire. There, it twisted a bronze wheel, and steaming hot water splashed and gurgled from a pipe in the wall, bringing with it the stench of something sulphurous and unpleasant.

    Sabriel wrinkled her nose.

    “Hot springs,” ented Mogget. “You won’t smell it after a while. Your father always said that having perma hot water was worth bearing the smell. Or was it yrandfather who said that? reat-great-aunt? Ah, memory . . .”

    The servant stood immobile while the basin filled, then twisted the wheel to cut the flow as water slopped over the rim to the floor, close to Mogget—who leapt to his feet and padded away, keeping a cautious distance from the Charter sending. Just like a real cat, Sabriel thought. Perhaps the imposed shape impressed behavior too, over the years—or turies. She  liked cats. The school had a cat, a plump marmalade feline, who went by the name of Biscuits.

    Sabriel thought about the way it slept on the windowsill of the Prefect’s Room, and then found herself thinking about the school in general, and what her friends would be doing. Her eyelids drooped as she imagined aiquette class, and the Mistress droning on about silver salvers . . .

    A sharp g woke her with yet aart, sending further stabs of pain through tired muscles.

    The Charter sending had tapped the bronze wheel with the poker from the fireplace. It was obviously impatient for Sabriel to have her wash.

    “Water’s getting cold,” explained Mogget, leaping up to the bed again. “And they’ll be serving dinner in half an hour.”

    “They?” asked Sabriel, sitting up and reag forward to grab slippers and towel, preparatory to sidling out of bed and into them.

    “Them,” said Mogget, butting his head<q>..</q> in the dire of the sending, who had stepped back from the basin and was now holding out a bar of soap.

    Sabriel shuffled over to the basin, the towel ed firmly around her, and gingerly touched the water. It was delightfully hot, but  before she could do anything with it, the sending stepped forward, whisked the towel off her and upehe whole basin over her head.

    Sabriel shrieked, but, again before she could do anything else, the sending had put back the basin, turhe wheel for more hot water and was soaping her down, paying particular attention to her head, as if it wao get soap in Sabriel’s eyes, or suspected an iion of nits.

    “What are you doing!” Sabriel protested, as the strangely cool hands of the sending scrubbed at her bad then, quite without i, at her breasts and stomach. “Stop it! I’m quite old enough to wash myself, thank you!”

    But Miss Prioeiques for dealing with domestic servants didn’t seem to work on domestidings. It kept scrubbing, occasionally tipping hot water over Sabriel.

    “How do I stop it?” she spluttered to Mogget, as still more water cascaded over her head and the sending started to scrub lions.

    “You ’t,” replied Mogget, who seemed quite amused by the spectacle. “This one’s particularly recalcitrant.”

    “What do you . . . ow! . . . stop that! What do you mean, this one?”

    “There’s lots about the place,” said Mogget.

    “Every Abhorseo have made their own.

    Probably because they get like this oer a few hundred years. Privileged family retainers, who always think they know best. Practically human, in the worst possible way.”

    The sending paused in its scrubbing just long enough to flie water at Mogget, who jumped the wrong way and yowled as it hit him.

    Just before anreat basin-load of water hit Sabriel, she saw the cat shoot uhe bed, his tail dividing the bedspread.

    “That’s enough, thank you!” she pronounced, as the last drench of water drained out through a grille iiled area. The sending had probably finished anyway, thought Sabriel, as it stopped washing and started to towel her dry.

    She snatched the towel back from it and tried to finish the job herself, but the sending terattacked by bing her hair, causing another minor tussle. Eventually, betweewo of them, Sabriel shrugged on the underdress and surcoat, and submitted to a manicure and vigorous hair-brushing.

    She was admiring the tiny, repeated silver key motif on the black surcoat in the mirror that  backed one of the window-shutters, when a gong sounded somewhere else in the house and the servant-sending opehe door. A split sed later, Mogget raced through, with a cry that Sabriel thought was “Dinner!” She followed, rather more sedately, the sending closing the door behind her.

    Dinner was in the main hall of the house. A long, stately room that took up half the ground floor, it was dominated by the floor to ceiling stained-glass window at the western end. The window showed a se from the building of the Wall and, like many other things around the house, was heavily laden with Charter Magic.

    Perhaps there was no real glass in it at all, Sabriel mused, as she watched the light of the evening sun play in and around the toiling figures that were building the Wall. As with the sendings, if you looked closely enough you could see tiny Charter marks making up the patterns.

    It was hard to see through the window, but judging from the sun, it was almost dusk. Sabriel realized she must have slept for a full day, or possibly even two.

    A table nearly as long as the hall stretched away from her—a brightly polished table of  some light and lustrous timber, heavily laden with silver salt cellars, delabra and rather fantastic-lookiers and covered dishes.

    But only two places were fully set, with a plethora of knives, forks, spoons and other instruments, which Sabriel only reized from obscure drawings iiquette textbook.

    She’d never seen a real golden straw for sug the innards out of a pomegranate before, for example.

    One place was before a high-backed chair at the head of the table and the other was to the left of this, in front of a cushioool. Sabriel wondered which was hers, till Mogget jumped up oool and said, “e on! They won’t serve till you’re seated.”

    “They” were more sendings. Half a dozen in all, including the cream-dressed tyrant of the bedroom. They were all basically the same; human in shape, but cowled or veiled. Only their hands were visible, and these were almost transparent, as if Charter marks had been lightly etched on prosthetids carved from moonstone.

    The sendings stood grouped around a door—the kit door, for Sabriel saw fires beyond them, and smelled the tang of cooking—  and stared at her. It was rather unnerving, not to meet any eyes.

    “Yes, that’s her,” Mogget said caustically.

    “Your new mistress. Now let’s have dinner.”

    None of the sendings moved, till Sabriel stepped forward. They stepped forward, too, and all dropped to one knee, or whatever supported them beh the floor-length robes. Each held out their pale right hand, Charter marks running bright trails around their palms and fingers.

    Sabriel stared for a moment, but it was clear they offered their services, or loyalty, and expected her to do something iurn. She walked to them aly pressed each upthrust hand in turn, feeling the Charter-spells that made them whole. Mogget had spoken truly, for some of the spells were old, far older than Sabriel could guess.

    “I thank you,” she said slowly. “On behalf of my father, and for the kindness you have shown me.”

    This seemed to be appropriate, or enough to be going on with. The sendings stood, bowed a about their business. The one in the cream habit pulled out Sabriel’s chair and placed her napkin as she sat. It was of crisp black linen,  dusted with tiny silver keys, a miracle of needlework.

    Mogget, Sabriel noticed, had a plain white napkin, with evidence of old stains.

    “I’ve had to eat i for the last two weeks,” Mogget said sourly, as two sendings approached from the kit, bearing plates that sigheir arrival with a tantalizing odor of spices and hot food.

    “I expect it was good for you,” Sabriel replied brightly, taking a mouthful of wi was a fruity, dry white wihough Sabriel hadn’t developed a palate to know whether it was good or merely indifferent. It was certainly drinkable.

    Her first major experiments with alcohol lay several years behind her, enshrined in memory as signifit occasions shared with two of her closest friends. None of the three could ever drink brandy again, but Sabriel had started to enjoy wih her meals.

    “Anyway, how did you know I was ing?”

    Sabriel asked. “I didn’t know myself, till . . . till Father sent his message.”

    The cat didn’t a once, his attention focused on the plate of fish the sending had just put down—small, almost circular fish, with the bright eyes and shiny scales of the freshly caught.

    Sabriel had them too, but hers were grilled, with a tomato, garlid basil sauce.

    “I have served ten times as many of your forebears as you have years,” Mogget replied at last.

    “And though my powers wah the ebb of time, I always know when one Abhorsen falls and aakes their place.”

    Sabriel swallowed her last mouthful, all taste gone, and put down her fork. She took a mouthful of wio clear her throat, but it seemed to have bee vinegar, making her cough.

    “What do you mean by ‘fall’? What do you know? What has happeo Father?”

    Mogget looked up at Sabriel, eyes half-lidded, meeting her gaze steadily, as no normal cat could.

    “He is dead, Sabriel. Even if he hasn’t passed the Final Gate, he will walk in life no more. That is—”

    “No,” interrupted Sabriel. “He ’t be! He ot be. He is a neancer . . . he ’t be dead . . .”

    “That is why he sent the sword and bells to you, as his auhem to him, iime,”

    Mogget tinued, ign Sabriel’s outburst.

    “And he was not a neancer, he was Abhorsen.”

    “I don’t uand,” Sabriel whispered. She couldn’t face Mogget’s eyes anymore. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know enough. About anything.

    The Old Kingdom, Charter Magic, even my own father. Why do you say his name as if it were a title?”

    “It is. He was the Abhorsen. Now you are.”

    Sabriel digested this in silearing at the swirls of fish and sau her plate, silver scales aomato blurring into a pattern of swords and fire. The table blurred too, and the room beyond, and she felt herself reag for the border with Death. But try as she might, she couldn’t cross it. She se, but there was no way to cross, iher dire—Abhorsen’s House was too well protected. But she did feel something at the border. Inimical things lurked there, waiting for her to cross, but there was also the faihread of something familiar, like the st of a woman’s perfume after she has left the room, or the waft of a particular pipe tobacco around a er. Sabriel focused on it and threw herself once more at the barrier that separated her from Death.

    Only to ricochet back to Life, as sharp claws pricked her arm. Her eyes snappe<bdo></bdo>d open, blinking off flakes of frost, to see Mogget, fur bristling, one paw ready to strike again.

    “Fool!” he hissed. “You are the only one who  break the wards of this House and they wait for you to do so!”

    Sabriel stared at the angry cat, unseeing, biting back a sharp and proud retort as she realized the truth in Mogget’s words. There were Dead spirits waiting, and probably the Mordit would cross as well—and she would have faced them alone and onless.

    “I’m sorry,” she muttered, bowing her head into two frosted hands. She hadn’t felt this stupidly awful since she’d burned one of the Headmistress’s rose bushes with an untrolled Charter-spell, narrowly missing the school’s a and much-loved gardener. She had cried then, but she was older now, and could keep the tears at bay.

    “Father is not yet truly dead,” she said, after a moment. “I felt his presehough he is trapped beyond many gates. I could bring him back.”

    “You must not,” said Mogget firmly, and his voiow seemed to carry all the weight of turies.

    “You are Abhorsen, and must put the Dead to rest. Your path is chosen.”

    “I  walk a different path,” Sabriel replied firmly, raising her head.

    Mogget seemed about to protest again, then he laughed—a sardonic laugh—and jumped back to his stool.

    “Do as you will,” he said. “Why should I gainsay you? I am but a slave, bound to service. Why would I weep if Abhorsen falls to evil? It is your father who would curse you, and your mother too—and the Dead who will be merry.”

    “I don’t think he’s dead,” Sabriel said, bright blushes of withheld emotion in her pallid cheeks, frost melting, trig down around her face.

    “His spirit felt alive. He is trapped ih, I think, but his body lives. Would I still be reviled if I brought him back then?”

    “No,” said Mogget, calm again. “But he has sent the sword and bells. You are only wishing that he lives.”

    “I feel it,” Sabriel said simply. “And I must find out if my feeling is true.”

    “Perhaps it is so—though strange.” Mogget seemed to be musing to himself, his voice a soft half-purr. “I have grown dull. This collar strangles me, chokes my wits . . .”

    “Help me, Mogget,” Sabriel suddenly pleaded,  reag over to touch her hand to the cat’s head, scratg uhe collar. “I o know—I o know so much!”

    Mogget purred uhe scratg, but as Sabriel leaned close, she could hear the faint peal of the tiny Sarah bell cut through the purr, and she was remihat Mogget was no cat, but a Free Magic creature. For a moment, Sabriel wondered what Mogget’s true shape was, and his true nature.

    “I am the servant of Abhorsen,” Mogget said at last. “And you are Abhorsen, so I must help you. But you must promise me that you will not raise your father, if his body is dead. Truly, he would not wish it.”

    “I ot promise. But I will not act without much thought. And I will listen to you, if you are by me.”

    “I guessed as much,” Mogget said, twisting his head away from Sabriel’s hand. “It is true that you are sadly ignorant, or you would promise with a will. Your father should never have sent you beyond the Wall.”

    “Why did he?” asked Sabriel, her heart suddenly leaping with the question that had been with her all her school days, a question Abhorsen  had always smiled away with the one word, “y.”

    “He was afraid,” replied Mogget, turning his attention back to the fish. “You we<s></s>re safer in Aierre.”

    “What was he afraid of?”

    “Eat your fish,” replied Mogget, as two sendings appeared from the kit, bearing what was obviously the  course. “We’ll talk later. Iudy.”

 chapter ix

    Lanterns lit the study, old brass lanterns that burned with Charter Magi place of oil. Smokeless, silent aernal, they provided as good a light as the electric bulbs of Aierre.

    Books lihe walls, following the curves of the tower around, save for where the stair rose from below, and the ladder climbed to the observatory above.

    A redwood table sat in the middle of the room, its legs scaled and beady-eyed, oral flames lig from the mouths of the dragonheads that gripped each er of the tabletop.

    An inkwell, pens, papers and a pair of bronze map dividers lay upoable. Chairs of the same red wood surrou, their upholstery black with a variation on the silver key motif.

    The table was one of the few things Sabriel remembered from her childhood visits. “Dragon desk” her father had called it, and she’d ed herself around one of those dragon legs, her head not even reag the underside of the table.

    Sabriel ran her hand over the smooth, cool wood, feeling both her memory of it and the curreion, then she sighed, pulled up a chair and put dowhree books she’d tucked under her arm. Two, she put together close to her, the other she pushed to the ter of the table. This third book came from the single glassed-in et among the bookshelves and now lay like some quiest predator, possibly asleep, possibly waiting t. Its binding was of pale greeher and Charter marks burned in the silver clasps that held it closed. The Book of the Dead.

    The other two books were normal enough by parison. Both were Charter Magic spell books, listing mark after mark, and how they could be used. Sabriel didn’t even reize most of the marks after chapter four in the first book.

    There were twenty chapters in eae.

    Doubtless there were many other books that  would be useful, Sabriel thought, but she still felt too tired and shaky to get more down. She plao talk to Mogget, then study for an hour or two, befoing back to bed. Even four or five waking hours seemed too much after her ordeal, and the loss of sciousness involved in sleep suddenly seemed very appealing.

    Mogget, as if he had heard Sabriel thinking of him, appeared at the top of the steps and sauntered over to sprawl on a well-upholstered footstand.

    “I see you have found that book,” he said, tail flig backwards and forwards as he spoke.

    “Take care you do not read too much.”

    “I’ve already read it all, anyway,” replied Sabriel, shortly.

    “Perhaps,” remarked the cat. “But it isn’t always the same book. Like me, it is several things, not one.”

    Sabriel shrugged, as if to show that she knew all about the book. But that was just bravado— the inner Sabriel was afraid of The Book of the Dead. She had worked her way through every chapter, under her father’s dire, but her normally excellent memory held only selected pages of this tome. If it ged its tents as  well—she suppressed a shiver, and told herself that she knew all that was necessary.

    “My first step must be to find my father’s body,” she said. “Which is where I need your help, Mogget.”

    “I have no kn<cite></cite>owledge of where he met his end,” Mogget stated, with finality. He yawned, and started lig his paws.

    Sabriel frowned, and found herself pulling in her lips, a characteristic she had deplored in the unpopular history teacher at school, who ofte “thin-lipped” in anger or exasperation.

    “Just tell me when you last saw him, and what his plans were.”

    “Why don’t you read his diary,” suggested Mogget, in a momentary break from ing himself.

    “Where is it?” asked Sabriel, excited. A diary would be tremendously helpful.

    “He probably took it with him,” replied Mogget. “I haven’t seen it.”

    “I thought you had to help me!” Sabriel said, another frown wrinkling across her forehead, reinf the thin lips. “Please answer my question.”

    “Three weeks ago,” Mogget mumbled, mouth  half muffled in the fur of his stomach, pink toernatiween words and sing.

    “A messenger came from Belisaere, begging for his help. Something Dead, something that could pass the wards, reying on them.

    Abhorsen—I mean the previous Abhorsen, ma’am—suspected that there was more to it than that, Belisaere being Belisaere. But he went.”

    “Belisaere. The name’s familiar—it’s a town?”

    “A city. The capital. At least it was, when there was still a kingdom.”

    “Was?”

    Mogget stopped washing, and looked across, eyes narrowing to frowning slits. “What did they teach you in that school? There hasn’t been a King or Queen for two hundred years, and not even a Regent for twenty. That’s why the Kingdom sinks day by day, into a darkness from whio one will rise . . .”

    “The Charter—” Sabriel began, but Mogget iｐ://.9９lｉｂ?rrupted with a yowl of derision.

    “The Charter <bdo>藏书网</bdo>crumbles too,” he mewed.

    “Without a ruler, Charter Stones broken one by oh blood, one of the Great Charters twi . . . twis . . . twisted—”

    “What do you mean, one of the Great  Charters?” Sabriel interrupted in turn. She had never heard of such a thing. Not for the first time, she also wondered what she’d been taught in school, and why her father had kept so quiet about the state of the Old Kingdom.

    But Mogget was silent, as if the things he’d already said had stopped his mouth. For a moment, he seemed to be trying to form words, but nothing came from his small red mouth.

    Finally, he gave up. “I ot tell you. It’s part of my binding, curse it! Suffice to say that the whole world slides into evil, and many are helping the slide.”

    “And others resist it,” said Sabriel. “Like my father. Like me.”

    “It depends what you do,” Mogget said, as if he doubted that someone as patently useless as Sabriel would make much difference. “Not that I care—”

    The sound of the trapdoor opening above their heads stopped the cat in mid-speech.

    Sabriel tensed, looking up to see what was ing down the ladder, then started breathing again as she realized that it was only another Charter sending, its black habit flopping over the rungs of the ladder as it came down. This  one, like the guards on the cliff corridor—but uhe other House servants—had the silver key emblazoned on its chest and back. It bowed to Sabriel, and pointed up.

    With a feeling of foreboding, Sabriel khat it wanted her to look at something from the observatory. Relutly, she pushed her chair bad went over to the ladder. A cold draft was blowing in through the open trapdoor, carrying with it the chill of ice from further up the river. Sabriel shivered, as her hands touched the etal rungs.

    Emerging into the observatory, the chill passed, for the room was still lit by the last, red light of the setting sun, giving an illusion of warmth and making Sabriel squint. She had no memory of this room, so it was with delight that she saw that it was totally walled in glass, or something like it. The bare beams of the redtiled roof rested on transparent walls, so cleverly morticed together that the roof was like a work of art, plete with the slight draft that reduced its perfe to a more human level.

    A large telescope of gleaming glass and bronze domihe observatory, standing triumphant on a tripod of dark wood and darker iron. A tall  observer’s stool stood o it, and a le, a star chart still spilled across it. A thick, tle-inviting carpet lay under all, a carpet that was also a map of the heavens, showing many different, colorful stellations and whirling plas, woven in thick, richly dyed wool.

    The sending, who had followed Sabriel, went to the south wall and pointed out towards the southern riverbank, its pallid, Charter-drawn hand indig the very spot where Sabriel had emerged after her underground flight from the Mordit.

    Sabriel looked there, shielding her right eye from the west-falling sun. Her gaze crossed the white tops of the river and was drawn to the ledge, despite an inner quailing about what she would see.

    As she feared, the Mordit was still there.

    But with what she had e to think of as her Death sight, Sabriel se was quiest, temporarily just an unpleasant statue, a fround to other, more active shapes that bustled about in some activity behind.

    Sabriel stared a little loheo the telescope, narrowly avoiding Mogget, who had somehoeared underfoot. Sabriel wondered  how he had got up the ladder, then dismissed the thought as she trated on what was happening outside.

    Unaided, she hadn’t beeain what the shapes around the Mordit were, but they sprang sharply at her through the telescope, drawn so close she felt she could somehow lean forward and snatch them away.

    They were men and women—living, breathing people. Each was shackled to a partner’s leg by an iron  and they shuffled about in these pairs uhe dominating presence of the Mordit. There were scores of them, ing out of the corridor, carrying heavily ladeher buckets or lengths of timber, taking them across the ledge and doweps to the river.

    Then they filed back again, buckets empty, timber left behind.

    Sabriel depressed the telescope a little, and almost growled in exasperation and anger as she saw the se by the river. More living slaves were hammering long boxes together from the timber, and these boxes were being filled with earth from the buckets. As each box was filled, it ushed out te the gap from shore to stepping-stone and locked in place by slaves   hammering iron spikes into the stone.

    This particular part of the operation was being directed by something that lurked well back from the river, half the steps. A manshaped blot of blackest night, a moving silhouette.

    A neancer’s Shadow Hand, or some free-willed Dead spirit that sed the use of a body.

    As Sabriel watched, the last of four boxes was thrust out to the first stepping-stone, spiked in place, and then ed to its three adjat fellows. One slave, fastening the , overbalanced a headfirst into the water, his shackle-mate following a sed later. Their screams, if any, were drowned by the roar of the waterfall as its waters took their bodies. A few seds later, Sabriel felt their lives snuffed out.

    The other slaves at the river’s edge stopped w for a momeher shocked at the sudden loss, or momentarily made more afraid of the river than their masters. But the Shadow Hand oeps moved towards them, its legs like treacle, p down the slope, lapping over each step in turn. It gestured for some of the nearer slaves to walk across the earth-filled boxes to the stepping-stohey did so, to cluster unhappily amid the spray.

    The Shadow Haated then, but the Mordit on the ledge above seemed to stir and rock forward a little, so the shadowy abomination gingerly trod on the boxes—and walked across to the stepping-stoaking no scathe from the running water.

    “Grave dirt,” ented Mogget, who obviously didn’t he telescope. “Carted up by the villagers from Qyrre and Roble’s Town. I wonder if they’ve got enough to cross all the stones.”

    “Grave dirt,” ented Sabriel bleakly, watg a fresh round of slaves arriving with buckets and more timber. “I had fotten it could e the running water. I thought . . . I thought I would be safe here, for a time.”

    “Well, you are,” said Mogget. “It’ll take at least until tomorrow evening before their bridge is plete, particularly allowing for a couple of hours off around noon, when the Dead will have to hide if it isn’t overcast. But this shows planning, and that means a leader. Still, every Abhorsen has enemies. It may just be a petty neancer with a better brain for strategy than most.”

    “I slew a Dead thing at Clove,” Sabriel  said slowly, thinking aloud. “It said it would have its revenge and spoke of telling the servants of Kerrigor. Do you know that name?”

    “I know it,” spat Mogget, tail quivering straight out behind him. “But I ot speak of it, except to say it is one of the Greater Dead, and your father’s most ter..rible enemy. Do not say it lives again!”

    “I don’t know,” replied Sabriel, looking down at the cat, whose body seemed twisted, as if in turmoil between and aance.

    “Why ’t you tell me more? The binding?”

    “A . . . a perversion of . . . the g . . . g . . . yes,”

    Mogget croaked out with effort. Though his green eyes seemed to grow luminous and fiery with a his own feeble explanation, he could say no more.

    “Coils within coils,” remarked Sabriel thoughtfully. There seemed little doubt that some evil po against her, from the moment she’d crossed the Wall—or even before that, if her father’s disappearance was anything to go by.

    She looked back through the telescope again and took some heart in the slowing of the work as the last light faded, though at the same time  she felt a pang of sympathy for the poor people the Dead had enslaved. Many would probably freeze to death, or die of exhaustion, only to be brought back as dull-witted Hands. Only those who went over the waterfall would escape that fate. Truly, the Old Kingdom was a terrible place, when eveh did not mean ao slavery and despair.

    “Is there another way out?” she asked, swivelling the telescope around  degrees to look at the northern bank. There were stepping-stones going there, too, and another dh on the riverbank, but there were also dark shapes clustered on the ledge by the door. Four or five Shadow Hands, too many for Sabriel to fight through alone.

    “It seems not,” she answered herself grimly.

    “What of defehen?  the sendings fight?”

    “The sendings don’t o fight,” replied Mogget. “For there is another defehough it is a rather strictive one. And there is oher way out, though you probably won’t like it.”

    The sendio her nodded and pantomimed something with its arm that looked like  a snake wiggling through grass.

    “What’s that?” asked Sabriel, fighting back a sudden urge to break into hysterical laughter.

    “The defense or the way out?”

    “The defense,” replied Mogget. “The river itself. It  be io rise almost to the height of the island walls—four times your height above the stepping-stones. Nothing  pass such a flood, in or out, till it subsides, in a matter of weeks.”

    “So how would I get out?” asked Sabriel. “I ’t wait weeks!”

    “One of your aors built a flying device. A Paperwing, she called it. You  use that, launched out over the waterfall.”

    “Oh,” said Sabriel, in a little voice.

    “If you do wish to raise the river,” Mogget tinued, as if he hadn’t noticed Sabriel’s sudden silehen we must begiual immediately. The flood es from meltwater and the mountains are many leagues upstream. If we call the waters now, the flood will be on us by dusk tomorrow.”

 chapter x

    The arrival of the floodwaters was heralded by great ks of ice that came battering against the wooden bridge of grave dirt boxes like storm-borne icebergs ramming anchored ships. Ice shattered, wood splintered; a regular drumming that beat out a warning, announg the great wave that followed the outriding ice.

    Dead Hands and living slaves scurried back along the coffin bridge, the Dead’s shadowy bodies losing shape as they ran, so they became like long, this of black crepe, squirming and sliding over rocks and boxes, throwing human slaves aside without mercy, desperate to escape the destru that came r down the river.

    Sabriel, watg from the tower, felt the people die, vulsively swallowing as she seheir last breaths gurgling, sug water instead of air. Some of them, at least two pairs, had deliberately thrown themselves into the river, choosing a final death, rather than risk eternal bondage. Most had been knocked, pushed or simply scared aside by the Dead.

    The wavefront of the flood came swiftly after the ice, shouting as it came, a higher, fiercer roar than the deep bellow of the waterfall. Sabriel heard it for several seds before it rouhe last bend of the river, then su<big></big>ddenly, it was almost upon her. A huge, vertical wall of water, with ks of i its crest like marble battlements and all the debris of four hundred miles swilling about in its muddy body. It looked enormous, far taller than the island’s walls, taller even thaower where Sabriel stared, shocked at the power she had unleashed, a power she had hardly dreamed possible when she’d summo the night before.

    It had been a simple enough summoning.

    Mogget had takeo the cellar and then down a winding, narrow stair, that grew colder and colder as they desded. Finally, they  reached a strange grotto, where icicles hung and Sabriel’s breath blew clouds of white, but it was no longer cold, or perhaps so cold she no longer felt it. A block of pure, blue-white ice stood upon a stoal, both limned with Charter marks, marks strange aiful.

    Then, following Mogget’s instru, she’d simply placed her hand on the ice, and said, “Abhorsen pays her respects to the Clayr, and requests the gift of water.” That was all. They’d gone back up the stairs, a sending locked the cellar door behind them, and another brought Sabriel a nightshirt and a cup of hot chocolate.

    But that simple ceremony had summoned something that seemed totally out of trol.

    Sabriel watched the wave rag towards them, trying to calm herself, but her breath raced in and out as quickly as her stomach flipped over.

    Just as the wave hit, she screamed and ducked uhe telescope.

    The whole tower shook, stones screeg as they moved, and for a moment, even the sound of the waterfall was lost in a crack that sounded as if the island had been leveled by the first shock of the wave.

    But, after a few seds, the floor stopped  shaking, and the crash of the flood subsided to a trolled roar, like a shouting drunk made aware of pany. Sabriel hauled herself up the tripod and opened her eyes.

    The walls had held, and though now the wave ast, the river still raged a mere handspan below the island’s defenses and was almost up to the tunnel doors oher bank.

    There was no sign of the stepping-stohe coffin bridge, the Dead, or any people—just a wide, brown rushing torrent, carrying debris of all descriptions. Trees, bushes, parts of buildings, livestock, ks of ice—the flood had claimed its tribute from every riverbank for hundreds of miles.

    Sabriel looked at this evidence of destru and inwardly ted the number of villagers who had died on the grave boxes. Who knew how many other lives had been lost, or livelihoods threatened, upstream? Part of her tried to rationalize her use of the flood, tellihat she had to do it in order to fight on against the Dead. Another part said she had simply summohe flood to save herself.

    Mogget had no time for sutrospe or pangs of responsibility. He left  her watg, blank-eyed, for no more than a minute, before padding forward and delicately iing his claws in Sabriel’s slippered foot.

    “Ow! What did you—”

    “There’s no time to waste sightseeing,”

    Mogget said. “The sendings are readying the Paperwing on the Eastern wall. And your clothing and gear have been ready for at least bbr>９9ｌｉb?</abbr>half an hour.”

    “I’ve got all . . .” Sabriel began, then she remembered that her pad skis lay at the bottom end of the entraunnel, probably as a pile of Mordit-burned ash.

    “The sendings have got everything you’ll need, and a few things you won’t, knowing them.

    You  get dressed, pack up, and head off for Belisaere. I take it you io go to Belisaere?”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel shortly. She could detect a tone of smugness in Mogget’s voice.

    “Do you know how to get there?”

    Sabriel was silent. Mogget already khe answer was “no.” Hehe smugness.

    “Do you have a . . . er . . . map?”

    Sabriel shook her head, g her fists as she did so, resisting the urge to lean forward and spank Mogget, or perhaps give his tail a  judicious tug. She had searched the study and asked several of the sendings, but the only map in the house seemed to be the starmap iower. The map el Horyse had told her about must still be with Abhorsen. With Father, Sabbbr></abbr>riel thought, suddenly fused about their identities. If she was now Abhorsen, who was her father? Had he too once had a hat was lost in the responsibility of being Abhorsen? Everything that had seemed so certain and solid in her life a few days ago was crumbling. She didn’t even know who she was really, and trouble seemed to beset her from all sides—even a supposed servant of Abhorsen like Mogget seemed to provide more trouble than service.

    “Do you have anything positive to say—anything that might actually help?” she snapped.

    Mogget yawned, showing a pink tohat seemed to tain the very essence of s.

    “Well, yes. Of course. I know the way, so I’d better e with you.”

    “e with me?” Sabriel asked, genuinely surprised. She unched her fists, bent down, and scratched betwee’s ears, till he ducked away.

    “Someone has to look after you,” Mogget  added. “At least till you’ve grown into a real Abhorsen.”

    “Thank you,” said Sabriel. “I think. But I would still like a map. Since you know the try so well, would it be possible for you to—I don’t know—describe it, so I  make a sketch map or something?”

    Mogget coughed, as if a hairball had suddenly lodged in his throat, and thrust his head back a little. “You! Draw a sketch map? If you must have one, I think it would be better if I uook the cartography myself. e down to the study and put out an inkwell and paper.”

    “As long as I get a useable map I don’t care who draws it,” Sabriel remarked, as she went backwards down the ladder. She tilted her head to watogget came down, but there was only the open trapdoor. A sarcastic meow under her feet annouhat Mogget had once again mao get between rooms without visible means of support.

    “Ink and paper,” the cat reminded her, jumping up onto the dragon desk. “The thick paper.

    Smooth side up. Don’t bother with a quill.”

    Sabriel followed Mogget’s instrus, then watched with a resigned dession that  rapidly ged to surprise as the cat crouched by the square of paper, his strange shadow falling on it like a dark cloak thrown <cite>藏书网</cite>across sand, pink to in tration. Mogget seemed to think for a moment, then one bright ivory claw shot out from a white pad—he delicately ihe claw in the inkwell, and began to draw. First, a rough outline, in swift, bold strokes; the penning in of the majeographical features; then the delicate process of adding important sites, eaamed in fine, spidery writing. Last of all, Mogget marked Abhorsen’s House with a small illustration, before leaning baire his handiwork, and lick the ink from his paw. Sabriel waited a few seds to be sure he was dohen cast drying sand over the paper, her eyes trying to absorb every detail, i on learning the physical face of the Old Kingdom.

    “You  look at it later,” Mogget said after a few minutes, when his paw was , but Sabriel was still bent over the table, nose inches from the map. “We’re still in a hurry. You’d better go a dressed, for a start. Do try to be quick.”

    “I will.” Sabriel smiled, still looking at the map. “Thank you, Mogget.”

    The sendings had laid out a great pile of clothes and equipment in Sabriel’s room, and four of them were in attendao help her get everything on and anized. She had hardly stepped inside before they’d stripped her indoor dress and slippers off, and she’d only just mao remove her own underclothes befhostly Charter-traced hands tickled her sides.

    A few seds later, she was suffering them anyway, as they pulled a thin, cotton-like undergarment over her head, and a pair of baggy drawers up her legs.  came a linen shirt, then a tunic of doeskin and breeches of supple leather, reinforced with some sort of hard, segmented plates at thighs, knees and shins, not to mention a heavily padded bottom, no doubt designed for riding.

    A brief respite followed, lulling Sabriel into thinking that might be it, but the sendings had merely been arranging the  layer for immediate fitting. Two of them pushed her arms into a long, armored coat that buckled up at the sides, while the other two unlaced a pair of hobnailed boots and waited.

    The coat wasn’t like anything Sabriel had ever worn before, including the mail hauberk she’d worn in Fighting Arts lessons at school. It was as long as an hauberk, with split skirt<s></s>s ing down to her knees and sleeves swallowtailed at her wrists, but it seemed to be entirely made of tiny overlapping plates, much like a fish’s scales. They weren’t metal, either, but some sort of ceramic, or even stone. Much lighter than steel, but clearly very strong, as one sending demonstrated, by cutting down it with a dagger, striking sparks without leaving a scratch.

    Sabriel thought the boots pleted the ensemble, but as the laces were done up by one pair of sendings, the other pair were ba a. One raised peared to be a blue and silver striped turban, but Sabriel, pulling it down to just above her eyebrows, found it to be a cloth-ed helmet, made from the same material as the armor.

    The other sending waved out a gleaming, deep blue surcoat, dusted with embroidered silver keys that reflected the light in all dires. It waved the coat to and fro for a moment, then whipped it over Sabriel’s head and adjusted the drape with a practiced motion. Sabriel ran her hand over its silken expanse and discreetly tried to rip  it in one er, but, for all its apparent fragility, it wouldn’t tear.

    Last of all came sword-belt and bell-bandolier.

    The sendings brought them to her, but made no attempt to put them on. Sabriel adjusted them herself, carefully arranging bells and scabbard, feeling the familiar weight—bells across her breast and sword balanced on her hip. She turo the mirror and looked at her refle, both pleased and troubled by what she saw. She looked petent, professional, a traveler who could look after herself. At the same time, she looked less like someone called Sabriel, and more like the Abhorsen, capital letter and all.

    She would have looked longer, but the sendings tugged at her sleeves and directed her attention to the bed. A leather backpack lay open on it and, as Sabriel watched, the sendings packed it with her remaining old clothes, including her father’s oilskin, spare undergarments, tunid trousers, dried beef and biscuits, a water bottle, and several small leather pouches full of useful things, each of which were painstakingly opened and shown to her: telescope, sulphur matches, clockwork firestarter, medial herbs, fishing hooks and line, a sewing kit and a host of other  small essentials. The three books from the library and the map went into oilskin pouches, and then into an outside pocket.

    Backpa, Sabriel tried a few basic exercises, and was relieved to find that the armor didn’t restrict her too much—hardly at all in fact, though the pack was not something she’d like to have on in a fight. She could even touch her toes, so she did, several times, before straightening up to thank the sendings.

    They were gone. Instead, there was Mogget, stalking mysteriously towards her from the middle of the room.

    “Well, I’m ready,” Sabriel said.

    Mogget didn’t answer, but sat at her feet, and made a movement that looked very much like he was going to be sick. Sabriel recoiled, disgusted, then halted, as a small metallic object fell from Mogget’s mouth and bounced on the floor.

    “Almost fot,” said Mogget. “You’ll his if I’m to e with you.”

    “What is it?” asked Sabriel, bending down to pick up a ring; a small silver ring, with a ruby gripped between two silver claws that grew out of the band.

    “Old,” replied Mogget, enigmatically. “You’ll  know if you o use it. Put it on.”

    Sabriel looked at it closely, holding it between two fingers as she sla towards the light. It felt, and looked, quite ordinary. There were no Charter marks oone or band; it seemed to have no emanations or aura. She put it on.

    It felt cold as it slipped down her fihen hot, and suddenly she was falling, falling into infinity, into a void that had no end and no beginning. Everything was gone, all light, all substahen Charter marks suddenly exploded all around her and she felt gripped by them, halting her headlong fall into nothing, accelerating her back up, bato her body, back to the world of life ah.

    “Free Magic,” Sabriel said, looking down at the ring gleaming on her finger. “Free Magic, ected to the Charter. I don’t uand.”

    “You’ll know if you o use it,” Mogget repeated, almost as if it were some lesson to be learned by rote. Then, in his normal voice: “Don’t worry about it till then. e—the Paperwing is ready.”

 chapter xi

    The Paperwing sat on a juryrigged platform of freshly sawn pine planks, teetering out over the eastern wall. Six sendings clustered around the craft, readying it for flight.

    Sabriel looked up at it as she climbed the stairs, an unpleasant feeling rising with her. She had been expeg something similar to the aircraft that had begun to be on in Aierre, like the biplahat had performed aerobatics at the last Wyverley College Open Day.

    Something with two wings, rigging and a propeller— though she had assumed a magical eher than a meical one.

    But the Paperwing didn’t look anything like an Aierran airpla most closely resembled a oe with hawk-wings and a tail. On closer iion, Sabriel saw that the tral fuselage robably based on a oe. It was tapered at ead and had a tral hole for a cockpit.

    Wings sprouted on each side of this oe shape—long, swept-back wings that looked very flimsy. The wedge-shaped tail didn’t look much better.

    Sabriel climbed the last few steps with sinking expectations. The struaterial was now clear and so was the craft’s he whole thing was made up from many sheets of paper, boogether with some sort of laminate.

    Painted powder-blue, with silver bands around the fuselage and silver stripes along the wings and tail, it looked pretty, decorative and not at all airworthy.

    Only the yellow fal eyes painted on its pointed prow hi its capacity for flight.

    Sabriel looked at the Paperwing again, and then out at the waterfall beyond. Now, fed by floodwaters, it looked even more frightening than usual. Spray exploded for tens of yards above its lip—a r mist the Paperwing would have to fly through before it reached the open sky beyond. Sabriel didn’t even know if it was roof.

    “How often has this . . . thing . . . flown before?” she asked, nervously. Intellectually, she accepted that she would sooting in this craft, to be launched out towards the crashing waters—but her subscious, aomach, seemed very keen to stay firmly on the ground.

    “Many times,” replied Mogget, easily jumping from the platform to the cockpit. His voice echoed there for a moment, till he climbed back up, furry cat-face propped on the rim. “The Abhorsen who made it once flew it to the sea and back, in a siernoon. But she was a great weather-witd could work the winds. I don’t suppose—”

    “No,” said Sabriel, made aware of anap in her education. She khat wind-magic was largely whistled Charter marks, but that was all.

    “No. I ’t.”

    “Well,” tinued Mogget, after a thoughtful pause, “the Paperwing does have some elementary charms to ride the wind. You’ll have to whistle them, though. You  whistle, I trust?”

    Sabriel ignored him. All neancers had to be musical, had to be able to whistle, to hum, to sing.

    If they were caught ih without bells, or ical instruments, their vocal skills were a on of last recourse.

    A sending came and took her pack, helpio wrestle it off, then stowing it at the rear of the cockpit. Aook Sabriel’s arm and directed her to peared to be a leather halfhammock strung across the cockpit—obviously the pilot’s seat. It didn’t look terribly safe either, but Sabriel forced herself to climb in, after giving her scabbarded sword into the hands of yet another sending.

    Surprisingly, her feet didn’t gh the paper-laminated floor. The material eve reassuringly solid and, after a minute of squirming, swaying and adjustment, the hammock-seat was very fortable. Sword and scabbard were slid into a receptacle at her side and Mogget took up a position on top of the straps holding down her pack, just behind her shoulders, for the seat made her ree so far she was almost lying down.

    From her new eye level, Sabriel saw a small, oval mirror of silvered glass, fixed just below the cockpit rim. It glittered ie afternoon sun, and she felt it resoh Charter Magic.

    Something about it prompted her to breathe upon it, her hot breath clouding the glass. It stayed misted for a moment, then a Charter mark sloeared, as if a ghostly finger was  drawn across the clouded mirror.

    Sabriel studied it carefully, abs its purpose and effect. It told her of the marks that would follow; marks to raise the lifting winds, marks for desding in haste, marks to call the wind from every er of the pass rose.

    There were other marks for the Paperwing and, as Sabriel absorbed them, she saw that the whole craft was lined with Charter Magifused with spells. The Abhorsen who made it had labored long, and with love, to create something that was more like a magical bird than an aircraft.

    Time passed, and the last mark faded. The mirror cleared to be only a plate of silver glass shining in the sun. Sabriel sat, silent, fixing the Charter marks in her memory, marveling at the power and the skill that had made the Paperwing and had thought of this method of instru. Perhaps one day, she too would have the mastery to create such a thing.

    “The Abhorsen who made this,” Sabriel asked.

    “Who was she? I mean, iion to me?”

    “A cousin,” purred Mogget, close to her ear.

    “Yreat-great-great-great-grandmother’s cousin.

    The last of that line. She had no children.”

    Maybe the Paperwing was her child, Sabriel  thought, running her hand along the sleek surface of the fuselage, feeling the Charter marks quiest in the fa<cite>?99lｉb?</cite>bric. She felt a lot better about their forthing flight.

    “We’d best hurry,” Mogget tinued. “It will be dark all too soon. Do you have the marks remembered?”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel firmly. She turo the sendings, who were now lined up behind the wings, anch the Paperwing till it was time for it to be unleashed upon the sky. Sabriel wondered how many times they’d performed this task, and for how many Abhorsens.

    “Thank you,” she said to them. “For all your care and kindness. Goodbye.”

    With that last word, she settled ba the hammock-seat, gripped the rim of the cockpit with both hands, and whistled the notes of the lifting wind, visualizing the requisite string of Charter marks in her mind, letting them drip down into her throat and lips, and out into the air.

    Her whistle sounded clear and true, and a wind rose behind to match it, growing stronger as Sabriel exhaled. Then, with a new breath, she ged to a merry, joyous trill. Like a bird revelling in flight, the Charter marks flowing from  pursed lips out into the Paperwing itself. With this whistling, the blue and silver paint seemed to e alive, dang down the fuselage, sweeping across the wings, a gleaming, lustrous plumage.

    The whole craft shook and shivered, suddenly flexible and eager to begin.

    The joyous trill ended with one single long, clear note, and a Charter mark that shone like the sun.

    It dao the Paperwing’s prow and sank into the laminate. A sed later, the yellow eyes blinked, grew fierd proud, looking up to the sky ahead.

    The sendings were struggling now, barely able to hold the Paperwing back. The lifting wind grew stroill, plug at the silver-blue plumage, thrusting it forward. Sabriel felt the Paperwing’s tension, the tained power in its wings, the exhilaration of that last moment when freedom is assured.

    “Let go!” she cried, and the sendings plied, the Paperwing leaping up into the arms of the wind, out and upward, splashing through the spray of the waterfall as if it were no more than a spring shower, flying out into the sky and the broad valley beyond.

    It was quiet, and cold, a thousa or more  above the valley. The Paperwing soared easily, the wind firm behind it, the sky clear above, save for the fai wisps of cloud. Sabriel reed in her hammock-seat, relaxing, running the Charter marks she’d leaned over and over in her mind, making sure she had them properly pigeonholed.

    She felt free, and somehow , as if the dangers of the last few days were dirt, washed away by the following wind.

    “Turn more to the north,” Mogget’s voice suddenly said behind her, disturbing her carefree mood. “Do you recall the map?”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel. “Shall we follow the river? The Ratterlin, it’s called, isn’t it? It runs nornor- east most of the time.”

    Mogget didn’t reply at ohough Sabriel heard his purring breath close by. He seemed to be thinking. Finally, he said, “Why not? We may as well follow it to the sea. It branches into a delta there, so we  find an island to camp on tonight.”

    “Why not just fly on?” asked Sabriel cheerily.

    “We could be in Belisaere by tomorrow night, if I summoro winds.”

    “The Paperwing doesn’t like to fly at night,”

    Mogget said, shortly. “Not to mention that you  would almost certainly lose trol of the stronger winds—it is much more difficult than it seems at first. And the Paperwing is much too spicuous, anyway. Have you no on sense, Abhorsen?”

    “Call me Sabriel,” Sabriel replied, equally shortly. “My father is Abhorsen.”

    “As you wish, mistress,” said Mogget. The “mistress” sounded extremely sarcastic.

    The  hour passed in belligerent silence, but Sabriel, for her part, soon lost her anger in the y of flight. She loved the scale of it all, to see the tiny patchworked fields and forests below, the dark strip of the river, the occasional tiny building. Everything was so small and seemed so perfect, seen from afar.

    Then the sun began to sink, and though the red wash of its fading light made the aerial perspective eveier, Sabriel felt the Paperwing’s desire to desd, felt the yellow eyes fog on greeh, rather than blue sky. As the shadows lengthened, Sabriel felt that same desire and began to look as well.

    The river was already breaking up into the myriad streams and rivulets that would form the sy Ratterlia, and far off,  Sabriel could see the dark bulk of the sea. There were many islands in the delta, some as large as football fields covered with trees and shrubs, others no bigger than tans of mud.

    Sabriel picked out one of the medium-sized ones, a flattish diamond with low, yellow grass, a few leagues ahead, and whistled down the wind.

    It faded gradually with her whistle and the Paperwing began to desd, occasionally his way or that by Sabriel’s trol of the wind, or its own tilt of a wing. Its yellow eyes, and Sabriel’s deep-brown eyes, were fixed on the ground below. Only Mogget, being Mogget, looked behind them and above.

    Even so, he didn’t see their pursuers until they came wheeling out of the sun, so his yowling cry gave only a few seds’ warning, just long enough for Sabriel to turn ahe hundreds of fast-moving shapes diving down upon them. Instinctively, she jured Charter marks in her mind, mouth pursed, whistling the wind back up, turning them to the north.

    “Gore crows!” hissed Mogget, as the flapping shapes checked their dive and wheeled to pursue  their suddenly enlivened prey.

    “Yes,” shouted Sabriel, though she wasn’t sure why she answered. Her attention was all on the gore crows, trying to gauge whether they’d intercept or not. She could already feel the wiing the edges of her trol, as Mogget had prophesied, and to whip it up further might have unpleasas. But she could also feel the presence of the gore crows, feel the admixture of Death and Free Magic that gave life to their rotten, skeletal for.９9lib.ms.

    Gore crows didn’t last very long in sun and wind—these must have been made the previous night. A neancer had trapped quite ordinary crows, killing them with ritual and ceremony, before infusing the bodies with the broken, fragmented spirit of a single dead man or woman. Now they were truly carrion birds, birds guided by a single, if stupid, intelligence.

    They flew by force of Free Magid killed by force of numbers.

    Despite her quiess in calling the wind, the flock was still closing rapidly. They’d dived from high above aheir speed, the wind strippihers and putrid flesh from their spellwoven bones.

    For a moment, Sabriel sidered turning the Paperwing bato the very ter of this great murder of crows, like an avenging angel, armed with sword and bells. But there were simply too many gore crows to fight, particularly from an aircraft speeding along several hundred feet above the ground. One er sword thrust would mean a fatal fall—if the gore crows didn’t kill her on the way down.

    “I’ll have to summon a greater wind!” she yelled at Mogget, who was now sitting right up on her pack, fur bristling, yowling challe the crows. They were very close now, flying in an eerily exaation—two long lines, like arms outstretched to snatch the fleeing Paperwing from the sky. Very little of their once-black plumage had survived their rushing dive, white bone shining through in the last light of the sun.

    But their beaks were still glossily blad gleaming sharp, and Sabriel could now see the red glints of the fragmented Dead spirit in the empty sockets of their eyes.

    Mogget didn’t reply. Possibly, he hadn’t even heard her above his yowling, and the gore crows’ g as they closed the last few yards to attack, a strange, hollow sound, as dead as their flesh.

    For a sed of panic, Sabriel felt her dry lips uo purse, the them and the whistle came, slow aic. The Charter marks felt clumsy and difficult in her head, as if she were trying to push a heavy weight on badly made rollers—then, with a last effort, they came easily, flowing into her whistled notes.

    Unlike her earlier, gradual summonings, this wind came with the speed of a slamming door, howling up behind them with frightening violence, pig up the Paperwing and shunting it forward like a giant wave lifting up a slender boat. Suddenly, they were going so fast that Sabriel could barely make out the ground below, and the individual islands of the delta merged into one tinuous blur of motion.

    Eyes closed to protective slits, she ed her head around, the wind striking her face like a vicious slap. The pursuing gore crows were all over the sky now, formation lost, like small black stains against the red and purple su.

    They were flapping uselessly, trying to e back together, but the Paperwing was already a league or more away. There was no ce they could catch up.

    Sabriel let out a sigh of relief, but it was a sigh   tempered with new aies. The wind was carrying them at a fearful pace, and it was starting to veer northwards, which it wasn’t supposed to do. Sabriel could see the first stars twinkling now, and they were defiurning towards the Buckle.

    It was an effort to call up the Charter marks again, and whistle the spell to ease the wind, and turn it back to the east, but Sabriel mao cast it. But the spell failed to work—the wind grew stronger, and shifted more, till they were careening straight towards the Buckle, directly north.

    Sabriel, hunkered down in the cockpit, eyes and reaming and face frozen, tried again, using all her willpower to force the Charter marks into the wind. Even to her, her whistle sounded feeble, and the Charter marks once again vanished into what had now bee a gale. Sabriel realized she had totally lost trol.

    In fact, it was almost as if the spell had the opposite effect, for the wind grew wilder, snatg the Paperwing up in a great spiral, like a ball throwween a ring of giants, eae taller than the last. Sabriel grew dizzy, and even colder, and her breath came fast and shallow, trying to salvage enough air to keep her alive. She tried to calm the winds again, but couldn’t gain the breath to whistle, and the Charter marks slipped from her mind, till all she could do was desperately hang on to the straps in the hammock-seat as the Paperwing tried its best to ride the storm.

    Then, without warning, the wind ceased its upward da just dropped, and with it went the Paperwing. Sabriel fell upwards, straps suddenly tight, and Mogget almost clawed through the pa his efforts to stay ected with the aircraft. Jolted by this new development, Sabriel felt her exhaustion burn away. She tried to whistle the lifting wind, but it too was beyond her power. The Paperwing seemed uo halt its headlong dest. It fell, ilting further and further forward till they were diving almost vertically, like a hammer rushing to the anvil of the ground below.

    It was a long way down. Sabriel screamed ohen tried to put some of her fear-found strength into the Paperwing. But the marks flowed into her whistle without effect, save folden sparkle that briefly illuminated her white, wind-frozen face. The sun had pletely set, and the dark mass of the ground below looked  all too much like the grey river of Death—the river their spirits would cross into in a few short minutes, o return to the warm light of Life.

    “Loose my collar,” mewed a voice at Sabriel’s ear, followed by the curious sensation of Mogget digging his claws into her armor as he clambered into her lap. “Loose my collar!”

    Sabriel looked at him, at the ground, at the collar. She felt stupid, starved of oxygen, uo decide. The collar art of an a binding, a terrible guardian of tremendous power. It would only be used to tain an inexpressible evil, or untrollable force.

    “Trust me!” howled Mogget. “Loose my collar, and remember the ring!”

    Sabriel swallowed, closed her eyes, fumbled with the collar and prayed that she was doing the right thing. “Father, five me,” she thought, but it was not just to her father that she spoke, but to all the Abhorsens who had e befor<samp></samp>e her—especially the one who had made the collar so long ago.

    Surprisingly for su a spell, she felt little more than pins and needles as the collar came free. Then it en, and suddenly  heavy, like a lead rope, or a ball and .

    Sabriel almost dropped it, but it became light again, then insubstantial. When Sabriel opened her eyes, the collar had simply ceased <var>.</var>to exist.

    Mogget sat still, on her lap, and seemed unged—then he seemed to glow with an internal light and expand, till he became frayed at the edges, and the light grew and grew. Within a few seds, there was no cat-shape left, just a shining blur tht to look at. It seemed to hesitate for a moment and Sabriel felt its attention flicker between aggression towards her and some iruggle. It almost formed bato the cat-shape again, then suddenly split into four shafts of brilliant white. One shot forward, o, and two seemed to slide into the wings.

    Then the whole Paperwing shoh fierce white brilliance, and it abruptly stopped its headlong dive and leveled out. Sabriel was flung violently forward, body checked by straps, but her nose almost hit the silver mirror, neck muscles c out with an impossible effort to keep her head still.

    Despite this sudden improvement, they were still falling. Sabriel, hands noed behind her savagely ag neck, saw the ground rushing  up to fill the horizon. Treetops suddenly appeared below, the Paperwing imbued with the strange light, just clipping through the upper branches with a sound like hail on a tin roof.

    Then, they dropped again, skimming st yards above what looked like a cleared field, but still too fast to land without total destru.

    Mogget, or whatever Mogget had bee, braked the Paperwing again, in a series of shuddering halts that added bruises on top of bruises.

    For the first time, Sabriel felt the incredible relief of knowing that they would survive. One more braking effort and the Paperwing would be safely down, to skid a little in the long, soft grass of the field.

    Mogget braked, and Sabriel cheered as the Paperwily lay its belly on the grass and slid to what should藏书网 have been a perfect landing.

    But the cheer suddenly became a shriek of alarm, as the grass parted to reveal the lip of an enormous dark hole directly in their path.

    Too low to rise, and now too slow to glide over a hole at least fifty yards across, the Paperwing reached the edge, flipped over and spiraled towards the bottom of the hole, hundreds of feet below.

 chapter xii

    Sabriel regained sciousness slowly, her brain fumbling for es to her senses. Hearing came first, but that only caught her own labored breathing, and the creak of her armored coat as she struggled to sit up. For the moment, sight eluded her, and she anicked, afraid of blindness, till memory came. It was night, and she was at the bottom of a sinkhole—a great, circular shaft bored into the ground, by either nature or artifice. From her brief glimpse of it as they’d fallen, she guessed it was easily fifty yards in diameter and a hundred deep. Daylight would probably illumis murky depths, but starlight was insuffit.

    Pain came , hard on the heels of memory. A thousand aches and bruises, but no serious injury.

    Sabriel wiggled her toes and fingers, flexed muscles in arms, bad legs. They all hurt, but everything seemed to work.

    She vaguely recalled the last few seds before impact—Mogget, or the white force, slowing them just before they hit—but the actual instant of the crash might never have been, for she couldn’t remember it. Shock, she thought to herself, in an abstract way, almost like she was diagnosing someone else.

    Her hought came some time later, and with it the realization that she must have passed out again. With this awakening, she felt a little sharper, her mind catg some slight breeze to carry her out of the mental doldrums. W by touch, she unstrapped herself a behind her for the pack. In her current state, even a simple Charter-spell fht was out of the question, but there were dles there, and matches, or the clockwniter.

    As the match flared, Sabriel’s heart sank. In the small, flickering globe of yellow light, she saw that only the tral cockpit portion of the Paperwing survived—the sad blue and silver corpse of a once marvelous creation. Its wings lay torn and crumpled underh it, and the  entire nose se lay some yards away, shorn off pletely. One eye stared up at the circular patch of sky above, but it was no longer fierd alive. Just yellow paint and laminated paper.

    Sabriel stared at the wreckage, regret and sorrow c like influenza in her boill the match burnt her fingers. She lit another, and then a dle, expanding both her light and field of vision.

    More small pieces of the Paperwing were strewn over a large, open, flat area. Groaning with the effort of motivating bruised muscles, Sabriel levered herself out of the cockpit to have a closer look at the ground.

    This revealed the flat area to be man-made; flagstones, carefully laid. Grass had long growweeones, and li upon them, so it was clearly not ret work. Sabriel sat on the cool stones and wondered why anyone would do such work at the bottom of a sinkhole.

    Thinking about that seemed to kickstart her befuddled wits and she started to wonder about a few other things. Where, for instance, was the force that had once been Mogget? And what was it? That reminded her to fetch her sword and check the bells.

    Her turbanned helmet had rotated around on her head and was almost back-to-front. Slowly, she slid it around, feeling every slight movement all the way down her now very stiff neck.

    Balang her first dle on the paving in a pool of cooling wax, she dragged her pad ons out of the wreckage and lit awo dles. She put one dowhe first and took the other to light her way, walking around the destroyed Paperwing, searg for any sign of Mogget. At the dismembered prow of the craft, she gently touched the eyes, wishing she could close them.

    “I am sorry,” she whispered. “Perhaps I w<s></s>ill be able to make a neerwing one day. There should be ao carry on your name.”

    “Se, Abhorsen?” said a voiewhere behind her, a voice that mao sound like Mogget and not at all like him at the same time. It was louder, harsher, less human, and every word seemed to crackle, like the electrierators she’d used in Wyverley College Sce classes.

    “Where are you?” asked Sabriel, swiftly turning.

    The voice had sounded close, but there was nothing visible within the sphere of dlelight.

    She held her own dle higher, and transferred it to her left hand.

    “Here,” snickered the voice, and Sabriel saw lines of white fire run out from uhe ruined fuselage, lihat lit the paper laminate as they ran, so that, within a sed, the Paperwing was burning fiercely, yellow-red flames dang uhick white smoke, totally obsg whatever had emerged from uhe stri craft.

    h sewitched, but Sabriel could almost smell the Free Magic; tangy, unnatural, nerve-jangling, tainting the thick odor of natural smoke. Then she saw the white fire-lines again, streaming out, verging, roiling, ing together—and a blazing, blue-white creature stepped out from the funeral pyre of the Paperwing.

    Sabriel couldn’t look at it directly, but from the ers of her arm-shielded eyes, she saw something human in shape, taller than her, and thin, almost starved. It had no legs, the torso and head balanced upon a n of twisting, whirling force.

    “Free, save for the blood price,” it said, advang. All traogget’s voice was lost  now, submerged in zapping, crag menace.

    Sabriel had no doubt about the meaning of a blood prid who would pay it. Summoning all her remaining energies, she called three Charter marks to the forefront of her mind, and hurled them towards the thing, shouting their names.

    “A! Calew! Ferhan!”

    The marks became silver blades as they left her hand, mind and voice, flashing through the air swifter than any thrown dagger—a straight through the shining figure, apparently without effect.

    It laughed, a series of rises and falls like a dog screaming in pain, and lazily slid forward. Its languid motion seemed to declare it would have no more trouble disposing of Sabriel than it had in burning the Paperwing.

    Sabriel drew her sword and backed away, determined not to panic as she had done when faced by the Mordit. Her head flicked backwards and forwards, neck pain fotten, cheg the ground behind her and marking her oppo. Her mind raced, sidering options.

    Perhaps one of the bells—but that would mean dropping her dle. Could she t on the  creature’s blazing preseo light her way? Almost as if it could read her mind, the creature suddenly started to lose its brilliance, sug darkness into its swirling body like a sponge soaking up ink. Within a few seds, Sabriel could barely make it out—a fearful silhouette, back-lit by the e glow of the burning Paperwing.

    Desperately, Sabriel tried to remember what she knew of Free Magic elementals and structs.

    Her father had rarely mentiohem, and Magistrix Greenwood had only lightly delved into the subject. Sabriel khe binding spells for two of the lesser kindred of Free Magic beings, but the creature before her was her Margrue nor Stilken.

    “Keep thinking, Abhorsen,” laughed the creature, advang again. “Such a pity your head doesn’t work too well.”

    “You saved it from not w forever,”

    Sabriel replied warily. It had braked the Paperwing, after all, so perhaps there was some good in it somewhere, some remnant of Mogget, if only it could be brought out.

    “Se,” the thing replied, still silently sliding forward. It laughed again and a dark,  tendril-like arm suddenly unleashed itself, snapping across the intervening space to strike Sabriel across the face.

    “A memory, now purged,” it added, as Sabriel staggered back from a sed attack, sword flashing across to parry. Uhe silver spell darts, the Charter-etched blade did ect with the unnatural flesh of the creature, but had no effect apart from <dfn>藏书网</dfn>jarring Sabriel’s arm.

    Her nose was bleeding too, a warm and salty flow, stinging her wind-chafed lips. She tried to ig, tried to use the pain of what robably a broken o get her mind back to full operational speed.

    “Memories, yes, many memories,” tihe creature. <s>.9９liｂ?</s>It was cirg around her now, pushing her back the way they’d e, back towards the fading fire of the Paperwing. That would burn out soon, and then there would only be darkness, for Sabriel’s dle was now a lump of blown-out wax, falling fotten from her hand.

    “Millenia of servitude, Abhorsen. ed by trickery, treachery . . . captive in a repulsive, fixedflesh shape . . . but there will be payment, slow payment—not quiot quick at all!”

    A tendril lashed out, low this time, trying to trip her. Sabriel leapt over it, blade extended, lunging for the creature’s chest. But it shimmied aside, extrudira arms as she tried to jump back, catg her in mid-leap, drawing her close.

    Sword-arm pi her side, it tightes grip, till she was close against its chest, her face a finger-width from its boiling, stantly moving flesh, as if a billion tiny is buzzed behind a membrane of utter darkness.

    Another arm gripped the back of her helmet, f her to look up, till she saw its head, directly above her. A thing of most basiatomy, its eyes were like the sinkhole, deep pits without apparent bottom. It had no nose, but a mouth that split the horrid fa two, a mouth slightly parted to reveal the burning blue-white glare that it had first used as flesh.

    All Charter Magic had fled from Sabriel’s mind. Her sword was trapped, the bells likewise, and even if they weren’t, she didn’t know how to use them properly against things not Dead. She rahem mentally anyway, in a frantic, lightning iory of anything that might help.

    It was theired, cussed mind remembered the ring. It was on her left hand, her free hand, cool silver on the index finger.

    But she didn’t know what to do with it—and the creature’s head was bowing down towards her own, its neck stretg impossibly long, till it was like a snake’s head rearing above her, the mouth opening wider, growing brighter, fizzing with white-hot sparks that fell upon her helmet and face, burning cloth and skin, leaving tiny, tattoo-like scars. The ri loose on her finger.

    Sabriel instinctively curled her hand, and the ri looser still, slipping down her finger, expanding, growing, till without looking, Sabriel knew she held a silver hoop as wide or wider than the cbbr></abbr>reature’s slender head. And she suddenly knew what to do.

    “First, the plug of an eye,” said the thing, breath as hot as the falling sparks, scorg her face with instant sunburn. It tilted its head sideways and opes mouth still wider, lower jaw dislog out.

    Sabriel took one last, careful look, screwed her eyes tight against the terrible glare, and flipped the silver hoop up, and she hoped, over the thing’s neck.

    For a sed, as the heat increased and she felt a terrible burning pain against her eye, Sabriel thought she’d missed. Then the hoop was wrenched from her hand and she was thrown away, hurled out like an angry fisherman’s rejected minnow.

    On the cool flagstones again, she opened her eyes, the left one blurry, sore and swimming with tears—but still there and still w.

    She had put the silver hoop over the thing’s head, and it was slowly sliding down that long, sinuous neck. The ring was shrinking again as it slid, impervious to the creature’s desperate attempts to get it off. It had six or seven hands now, formed directly from its shoulders, all squirming about, trying to force fingers uhe ring. But the metal seemed inimical to the creature’s substance, like a hot pan to human fingers, for the fingers flinched and danced around it, but could not take hold for lohan a sed.

    The darkhat stai was ebbing too, draining down through its thrashing, twisting support, leaving glowing whiteness behind. Still the creature fought with the ring, blazing hands f and re-f, body twisting and turning, even bug, as if it could throw the ring  like a rider from a horse.

    Finally, it gave up and turowards Sabriel, screaming and crag. Two long arms sprang out from it, reag towards Sabriel’s sprawling body, talons growing from the hands, raking the stoh deep gouges as they scrabbled towards her, like spiders scuttling to their prey— only to fall short by a yard or more.

    “No!” howled the thing, and its whole twisting, coiling body lurched forward, killing arms outstretched. Again, the talons fell short, as Sabriel crawled, rolled and pushed herself away.

    Then the silver ring tracted once more, and a terrible shout of anguish, rage and despair came from the very ter of the white-flaming thing. Its arms suddenly shrank back to its torso; the head fell into the shoulders, and the whole body sank into an amorphous blob of shimmering white, with a siill-large silver band around the middle, the ruby glittering like a drop of blood.

    Sabriel stared at it, uo look aside, or do anything else, evehe flow from her bleeding nose, whiow covered half her fad , her mouth glued shut with dried and clotting blood. It seemed to her that something was  left undone, something that she had to provide.

    Nervously crawling closer, she saw that there were now marks on the ring, Charter marks that told her what she must do. Wearily, she got up on her knees and fumbled with the bellbandolier.

    Sarah was heavy, almost beyorength, but she mao draw it out, and the deep, pelling voice rang through the sinkhole, seeming to pierce the glowing, silverbound mass.

    The ring hummed in ao the bell and exuded a pear-shaped drop of its owal, which cooled to bee a miniature Sarah.

    At the same time, the ring ged color and sistency. The ruby’s color seemed to run, and a red wash spread through the silver. It was now dull and ordinary, no longer a silver band, but a red leather collar, with a miniature silver bell.

    With this ge, the white mass quivered, and shone bright again, till Sabriel had to shield her eyes once more. When the shadows grew together again, she looked back, and there was Mogget, collared in red leather, sitting up and looking like he was about to throw up a hairball.

    It wasn’t a hairball, but a silver ring, the ruby  refleg Mogget’s internal light. It rolled to Sabriel, tinkling across the stone. She picked it up and slid it ba her finger.

    Mogget’s glow faded, and the burning Paperwing was now only faint embers, sad memories and ash. Darkness returned, cloaking Sabriel, ing her up with all her hurts and fears. She sat, silent, not even thinking.

    A little later, she felt a soft ose against her folded hands, and a dle, damp from Mogget’s mouth.

    “Your nose is still bleeding,” said a familiar, didactic voice. “Light the dle, pinch your nose, a some blas out for us to sleep.

    It’s getting cold.”

    “Wele back, Mogget,” whispered Sabriel.

 chapter xiii

    her Sabriel nget mentiohe happenings of the previous night when they awoke. Sabriel, bathing her seriously swollen nose in an inch of water from her teen, found that she didn’t particularly want to remember a waking nightmare, and Mogget was quiet, in an apologetic way. Despite what happened later, freeing Mogget’s alter ego, or whatever it was, had saved them from certairu by the wind.

    As she’d expected, dawn had brought some light to the sinkhole, and as the day progressed, this had grown to a level approximating twilight.

    Sabriel could read ahings close by quite clearly, but they merged into indistinct gloom twenty or thirty yards away.

    Not that the sinkhole was much larger than that—perhaps a hundred yards in diameter, not the fifty she’d guessed at when she was ing down. The entire floor of it aved, with a circular drain in the middle, and there were several tunrances into the sheer rock walls—tunnels which Sabriel knew she would eventually have to take, as there was no water in the sinkhole. There seemed little ce of raiher. It was cool, but nowhere near as cold as the plateau near Abhorsen’s House.

    The climate was mitigated by proximity to the o, and an altitude that could easily be sealevel or below, for in daylight Sabriel could see that the sinkhole was at least a hundred yards deep.

    Still, with a half-full teen of water gurgling by her side, Sabriel was quite tent to slouch upon her slightly scorched pad apply herbal creams to her bruises, and a poultice of evilsmelling tanmaril leaves to her strange sunburn.

    Her nose was a different matter when it came to treatment. It wasn’t broken—merely hideous, swollen and encrusted with dried blood, which hurt too much to  off pletely.

    Mogget, after an hour or so of sheepish silence,  sauntered off to explore, refusing Sabriel’s offer of hard cakes and dried meat for breakfast. She expected he’d find a rat, or something equally appetizing, instead. In a way, she was quite pleased he was gohe memory of the Free Magic beast that lay withitle white cat was still disturbing.

    Even so, when the sun had risen to bee a little disc surrounded by the greater circumference of the sinkhole’s rim, she started to wonder why he hadn’t e back. Levering herself up, she limped over to the tunnel he’d chosen, using her sword as a walking stid plaining quietly as every bruise reminded her of its location.

    Of course, just as she was lighting a dle at the tunrance Mogget reappeared behind her.

    “Looking for me?” he mewed, ily.

    “Who else?” replied Sabriel. “Have you found anything? Anything useful, I mean. Water, for instance.”

    “Useful?” mused Mogget, rubbing his  back along his two outstretched front legs.

    “Perhaps. Iing, certainly. Water? Yes.”

    “How far away?” asked Sabriel, all too aware  of her bruise-limited mobility. “And what does iing mean? Dangerous?”

    “Not far, by this tunnel,” replied Mogget.

    “There is a little danger getting there—a trap and a few other oddments, but nothing that will harm you. As to the iing part, you will have to see for yourself, Abhorsen.”

    “Sabriel,” said Sabriel automatically, as she tried to think ahead. She  least two days’ rest, but no more than that. Every day lost before she found her father’s corporeal body might mean disaster. She simply had to find him soon.

    A Mordit, Shadow Hands, gore crows—it was now all too clear that some terrible enemy was arrayed against both father and daughter.

    That enemy had already trapped her father, so it had to be a very powerful neancer, or some Greater Dead creature. Perhaps this Kerrigor . . .

    “I’ll get my pack,” she decided, trudging back, Mogget slipping backwards and forwards across her path like a kitten, almost tripping her, but always just getting out of the way. Sabriel put this down to inexplicable ess, and didn’t ent.

    As Mogget had promised, the tunnel wasn’t  long, and its well-made steps and cross-hatched floor made passage easy, save for the part where Sabriel had to follow the little cat exactly across the stoo avoid a cleverly cealed pit.

    Without Mogget’s guidance, Sabriel knew she would have fallen in.

    There were magical wardings too. Old, inimical spells lay like moths in the ers of the tunnel, waiting to fly up at her, to surround and choke her with power—but something checked their first rea and they settled again. A few times, Sabriel experienced a ghostly touch, like a hand reag out to brush the Charter mark on her forehead, and almost at the end of the tunnel, she saw two guard sendings melting into the rock, the tips of their halberds glinting in her dlelight before they, too, merged into stone.

    “Where are we going?” she whispered, nervously, as the door in front of them slowly creaked open—without visible means of propulsion.

    “Another sinkhole,” Mogget said, matter-offactly.

    “It is where the First Blood . . . ach . . .”

    He choked, hissed, and then rephrased his senteher drably, with “It is iing.”

    “What do you mean—” Sabriel began, but she fell silent as they passed the doorway, magical force suddenly tugging at her hair, her hands, her surcoat, the hilt of her sword. Mogget’s fur stood on end, and his.. collar rotated halfway around of its own accord, till the Charter marks of binding were uppermost and clearly readable, bright against the leather.

    Then they were out, standing at the bottom of another sinkhole, in a premature twilight, for the sun was already slipping over the circumscribed horizon of the sinkhole rim.

    This sinkhole was much wider than the first— perhaps a mile across, and deeper, say six or seven hundred feet. Despite its size, the entire vast pit was sealed off from the upper air by a gleaming, web-thi, which seemed te into the rim wall about a quarter of the way down from the surface. Sunlight had given it away, but even so, Sabriel had to use her telescope to see the delicate diamond-pattern weave clearly. It looked flimsy, but the presence of several dessicated bird-corpses indicated siderable strength. Sabriel guessed the unfortunate birds had dived into the , eyes greedily i on food below.

    In the sinkhole itself, there was siderable, if uninspiriation—mostly sturees and malformed bushes. But Sabriel had little attention to spare for the trees, for iween each of these straggling patches of greenery, there were paved areas—and on each of these paved areas rested a ship.

    Fourteen open-decked, single-masted longboats, their black sails set to catch a ent wind, oars out to battle an imaginary tide. They flew many flags and standards, all limp against mast and rigging, but Sabriel didn’t o see them unfurled to know what strange cargo these ships might bear. She’d heard of this place, as had every child in the Northern parts of Aierre, close to the Old Kingdom. Hundreds of tales of treasure, adventure and romance were woven around this strange harbor.

    “Funerary ships,” said Sabriel. “Royal ships.”

    She had further firmation that this was so, for there were binding spells woven into the very dirt her feet scuffed at the tunrance, spells of final death that could only have been laid by an Abhorsen. No neancer would ever raise any of the a rulers of the Old Kingdom.

    “The famous burial ground of the First . . .

    ckkk . . . the Kings and Queens of the Old Kingdom,” pronounced Mogget, after some difficulty.

    He danced around Sabriel’s feet, then stood on his hind legs and made expansive gestures, like a circus impresario in white fur.

    Finally, he shot off into the trees.

    “e on—there’s a spring, spring, spring!” he caroled, as he leaped up and down in time with his words.

    Sabriel followed at a slower pace, shaking her head and w what had happeo make Mogget so cheerful. She felt bruised, tired and depressed, shaken by the Free Magister, and sad about the Paperwing.

    They passed close by two of the ships on their way to the spring. Mogget led her a merry dance around both of them, in a mad ciravigation of twists, leaps and bounds, but the sides were too high to look in and she didn’t feel like shinning up an oar. She did pause to look at the figureheads— imposing men, one in his forties, the other somewhat older. Both were bearded, had the same imperious eyes, and wore armor similar to Sabriel’s, heavily festooned with medallions, s and other decorations. Each held a sword in his right hand, and an unfurling scroll that  turned ba itself in their left—the heraldic representation of the Charter.

    The third ship was different. It seemed shorter and less ornate, with a bare mast devoid of black sails. No oars sprang from its sides, and as Sabriel reached the spring that lay us stern, she saw uncaulked seams between the planking, and realized that it was inplete.

    Curious, she dropped her pack by the little pool of bubbling water and walked around to the bow.

    This was different too, for the figurehead was a young man—a naked young man, carved in perfect detail.

    Sabriel blushed a little, for it was a likeness, as if a young man had been transformed from flesh to wood, and her only prior experience of naked men was in ical cross-ses from biology textbooks. His muscles were lean and well-formed, his hair short and tightly curled against his head. His hands, well-shaped and elegant, were partly raised, as if to ward off some evil.

    The detail eveeo a circumcised penis, which Sabriel gla in an embarrassed way, before looking back at his face. He was ly handsome, but not displeasing.

    It was a responsible visage, with the shocked expression of someone who has beerayed and only just realized it. There was fear there, too, and something like hatred. He looked more than a little mad. His expression troubled her, for it seemed too human to be the result of a woodcarver’s skill, no matter how talented.

    “Too life-like,” Sabriel muttered, stepping back from the figurehead, hand falling to the hilt of her sword, her magical senses reag out, seeking some trap or deception.

    There was no trap, but Sabriel did feel something in or around the figurehead. A feeling similar to that of a Dead revenant, but not the same— a niggliion that she couldn’t place.

    Sabriel tried to identify it, while she looked over the figurehead again, carefully examining him from every ahe man’s body was an intellectual problem now, so she looked without embarrassment, studying his fingers, fingernails and skin, noting how perfectly they were carved, right down to the tiny scars <tt>?t>on his hands, the product of sword and dagger practice. There was also the faint sign of a baptismal Charter mark on his forehead, and the pale trace of veins on his eyelids.

    That iion led her to certainty about what she’d detected, but she hesitated about the a that should be taken, a in searogget. Not that she put a lot of faith in advice or answers from that quarter, given his present propensity towards behaving as a fairly silly cat—though perhaps this was a rea to his brief experience of being a Free Magic beast again, something that might not have happened for a millennium. The cat form robably a wele relief.

    In fao advice at all could be had from Mogget. Sabriel found him asleep in a field of flowers he spring, his tail and paddy-paws twitg to a dream of dang mice. Sabriel looked at the straw-yellow flowers, sniffed one, scratched Mogget behind the ears, the back to the figurehead. The flowers were catbalm, explaining both Mogget’s previous mood and his current somnolence. She would have to make up her own mind.

    “So,” she said, addressing the figurehead like a lawyer before a court. “You are the victim of some Free Magic spell and neantic trickery.

    Your spirit lies her in Life nor Death, but somewhere iween. I could cross into Death,  and find you he border, I’m sure—but I could find a lot of trouble as well. Trouble I ’t deal with in my current pathetic state. So what  I do? What would Father—Abhorsen . . . or any Abhorsen—do in my place?”

    She thought about it for a while, pag backwards and forwards, bruises temporarily fotten.

    That last question seemed to make her duty clear. Sabriel felt sure her father would free the man. That’s what he did, that was what he lived for. The duty of an Abhorsen was to remedy unnatural neand Free Magic sorcery.

    She didn’t think further than that, perhaps due to the injudicious sniffing of the catbalm. She didn’t even sider that her father would probably have waited until he was fitter—perhaps till the  day. After all, this young man must have been incarcerated for many years, his physical body transformed into wood, and his spirit somehoed ih. A few days would make no differeo him. An Abhorsen didn’t have to immediately take on any duty that preseself . . .

    But for the first time since she’d crossed the  Wall, Sabriel felt there was a clear-cut problem for her to solve. An injustice to be righted and ohat should involve little more than a few minutes on the very border of Death.

    Some slight sense of caution remained with her, so she went and picked up Mogget, plag the dozing ear the feet of the figurehead.

    Hopefully, he would wake up if any physical dahreatened—not that this was likely, given the wards and guards on the sinkhole.

    There were even barriers that would make it difficult to cross into Death, and more than difficult for somethio follow her back. All in all, it seemed like the perfect place to uake a minor rescue.

    Once more, she checked the bells, running her hands over the smooth wood of the handles, feeling their voices within, eagerly awaiting release.

    This time, it was Ranna she freed from its leather case. It was the least noticeable of the bells, its very nature lulling listeners, beguiling them to sleep or iion.

    Sed thoughts brushed at her like doubting fingers, but she ighem. She felt fident, ready for what would only be a minor stroll ih, amply safeguarded by the protes of  this royal necropolis. Sword in one hand, bell iher, she crossed into Death.

    Cold hit her, and the relentless current, but she stood where she was, still feeling the warmth of Life on her back. This was the very interface betweewo realms, where she would normally plunge ahead. This time, she planted her feet against the current, and used her tinuing slight tact with Life as an anchor to hold her own against the waters of Death.

    Everything seemed quiet, save for the stant gurgling of the water about her feet, and the faroff crash of the First Gate. Nothing stirred, no shapes loomed up in the grey light. Cautiously, Sabriel used her sense of the Dead to feel out anything that might be lurking, to feel the slight spark of the trapped, but living, spirit of the young man. Ba Life, she hysically close to him, so she should be near his spirit here.

    There was something, but it seemed further into Death than Sabriel expected. She tried to see it, squinting into the curious greyhat made distance impossible to judge, but nothing was visible. Whatever was there lurked beh the surface of the water.

    Sabriel hesitated, then walked towards it, carefully feeling her way, making sure of every footfall, guarding against the gripping current. There was definitely something odd out there. She could feel it quite strongly—it had to be the trapped spirit. She ighe little voice at the back of her mind that suggested it was a fiercely devious Dead creature, strong enough to hold its own against the race of the river . . .

    heless, when she was a few paces back from whatever it was, Sabriel let Ranna sound— a muffled, sleepy peal that carried the sensation of a yawn, a sigh, a head falling forward, eyes heavy—a call to sleep.

    If there was a Dead thing there, Sabriel reasoned, it would now be quiest. She put her sword and bell away, edged forward to a good position, and reached down into the water.

    Her hands touched something as cold and hard as ice, something totally uifiable.

    She flinched back, then reached down again, till her hands found something that was clearly a shoulder. She followed this up to a head, and traced the features. Sometimes a spirit bore little relation to the physical body, and sometimes living spirits became ed if they spent too  long ih, but this one was clearly the terpart of the figurehead. It lived too, somehow encased and protected from Death, as the living body reserved in wood.

    Sabriel gripped the spirit-form uhe arms and pulled. It rose up out of the water like a killer whale, pallid white and rigid as a statue.

    Sabriel staggered backwards, and the river, evereager, ed her legs with trie eddies— but she steadied herself before it could drag her down.

    ging her hold a little, Sabriel began t the spirit-form back towards Life. It was hard going, much harder than she’d expected.

    The current seemed far to for this side of the First Gate, and the crystallized spirit—or whatever it was—was much, much heavier than any spirit should be.

    With nearly all her tratio on staying upright and heading in the right dire, Sabriel almost didn’t notice the suddeion of hat marked the passage of something through the First Gate. But she’d learo be wary over the last few days, and her scious fears had bee enshrined in subscious caution.

    She heard, and listening carefully, caught the soft slosh-slosh of something half-wading, halfcreeping, moving as quietly as it could against the current. Moving towards her. Something Dead was hoping to catch her unawares.

    Obviously, some alarm or summons had go beyond the First Gate, and whatever was stalking towards her had e in ao it.

    Inwardly cursing herself for stupidity, Sabriel looked down at her spirit burden. Sure enough, she could just make out a very thin black line, fine as cotton thread, running from his arm into the water—and theo the deeper, darker regions of Death. Not a trolling thread, but ohat would let some distant Adept know the spirit had been moved. Fortunately, sounding Ranna would have slowed the message, but was she close enough to Life . . .

    She increased her speed a little, but not too much, pretending she hadn’t noticed the hunter.

    Whatever it was, it seemed quite relut to close in on her.

    Sabriel quied her pace a little more, adrenaline and suspense feedirength. If it rushed her, she would have to drop the spirit— and he would be carried away, lost forever.

    Whatever magic had preserved his living spirit here on the boundary couldn’t possibly prevail if he went past the First Gate. If that happened, Sabriel thought, she would have precipitated a murder rather than a rescue.

    Four steps to Life—then three. The thing was closing now—Sabriel could see it, low ier, still creeping, but faster now. It was obviously a denizen of the Third, or even some later Gate, for she couldn’t identify what it once had been. Now it looked like a cross between a hog and a segmented worm, and it moved in <cite>藏书网</cite>a series of scuttles and sinuous wriggles.

    Two steps. Sabriel shifted her grip again, ing her left arm pletely around the spirit’s chest and balang the weight on her hip, freeing her right arm, but she still couldn’t draw her sword, or clear the bells.

    The hog-thing began to grunt and hiss, breaking into a diving, rushing gallop, its long, yellowcrusted tusks surfing through the water, its long body undulating along behind.

    Sabriel stepped back, turned, and threw herself and her precious cargo headfirst into Life, using all her will to force them through the wards on the sinkhole. For an instant, it seemed that they would be repulsed, then, like a pin pushing through a rubber band, they were through.

    Shrill squealing followed her, but nothing else.

    Sabriel found herself facedown on the ground, hay, ice crystals g as they fell from her frosted body. Turning her head, she met the gaze of Mogget. He stared at her, then closed his eyes a back to sleep.

    Sabriel rolled over, and got to her feet, very, very slowly. She felt all her pains e bad wondered why she’d been so hasty to perform deeds of derring-do and rescue. Still, she had ma. The man’s spirit was back where it belonged, ba Life.

    Or so she thought, till she saw the figurehead.

    It hadn’t ged at all to outward sight, though Sabriel could now feel the living spirit in it.

    Puzzled, she touched his immobile face, firag the grain of the wood.

    “A kiss,” said Mogget sleepily. “Actually, just a breath would do. But you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose.”

    Sabriel looked at the cat, w if this was the latest symptom of catbalm-induced lunacy.

    But he seemed sober enough, and serious.

    “A breath?” she asked. She didn’t want to kiss  just any wooden man. He looked niough, but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed very forward. He might remember it, and make assumptions.

    “Like this?” She took a deep breath, leaned forward, exhaled a few inches from his nose and mouth, then stepped back to see what would happen—if anything.

    Nothing did.

    “Catbalm!” exclaimed Sabriel, looking at Mogget. “You shouldn’t—”

    A small sound interrupted her. A small, wheezing sound, that didn’t e from her get.

    The figurehead was breathing, air whistliween carved wooden lips like the issue from an aged, underworked bellows.

    The breathing grew stronger, and with it, can to flow through the carving, dull wood giving way to the luster of flesh. He coughed, and the carve became flexible, suddenly rising and falling as he began to pant like a rec sprinter.

    His eyes opened a Sabriel’s. Fine grey eyes, but muzzy and unfocused. He didn’t seem to see her. His fingers ched and unched, and his feet shuffled, as if he were running in  place. Finally, his back peeled away from the ship’s hull. He took oep forward, and fell into Sabriel’s arms.

    She lowered him hastily to the ground, all too aware that she was embrag a naked young man—in circumstances siderably different than the various sarios she’d imagined with her friends at school, or heard about from the earthier and more privileged day-girls.

    “Thank you,” he said, almost drunkenly, the words terribly slurred. He seemed to focus on her—or her surcoat—for the first time, and added, “Abhorsen.”

    Then he went to sleep, mouth curling up at the ers, frown dissolving. He looked youhan he did as a fixed-expression figurehead.

    Sabriel looked down at him, trying to ignore curiously fond feelings that had appeared from somewhere. Feelings similar to those that had made her bring back Jath’s rabbit.

    “I suppose I’d better get him a bla,” she said relutly, as she wondered what oh had possessed her to add this plication to her already fusing and difficult circumstances.

    She supposed she would have to get him  to safety and civilization, at the very least—if there was any to be found.

    “I  get a bla if you want to keep staring at him,” Mogget said slyly, twining himself around her ankles in a sensuous pavane.

    Sabriel realized she really was staring, and looked away.

    “No. I’ll get it. And my spare shirt, I suppose.

    The breeches might fit him with a bit of work, I guess—we’d be much the same height. Keep watch, Mogget. I’ll be ba a minute.”

    Mogget watched her hobble off, then turned back to the sleeping man. Silently, the cat padded over and touched his pink too the Charter mark on the man’s forehead. The mark flared, but Mogget didn’t flinch, till it grew dull again.

    “So,” muttered Mogget, tasting his own tongue by curling it ba itself. He seemed somewhat surprised, and more than a little angry. He tasted the mark again, and then shook his head in distaste, the miniature Sarah on his collar ringing a little peal that was not of celebration.

 chapter xiv

    Grey mist coiling upwards, twining around him like a ging vine, gripping arms and legs, immobilizing, strangling, merciless. So firmly grown about his body there was no possibility of escape, so tight his muscles couldn’t even flex under skin, his eyelids couldn’t blink. And nothing to see but patches of darker grey, crisscrossing his vision like windblown scum upon a fetid pool.

    Then, suddenly, fierce red light, pain exploding everywhere, rocketing from toes to brain and back again. The grey mist clearing, mobility returning. Nrey patches, but blurry colors, slowly twisting into focus. A woman, looking down at him, a young woman, armed and armored, her face . . . battered. No, not a woman. The Abhorsen, for she wore the blazon and the bells. But she was too young, not the Abhorsen he knew, or any of the family . . .

    “Thank you,” he said, the words ing out like a mouse creeping from a dusty larder.

    “Abhorsen.”

    Then he fainted, his body rushing gladly to wele real sleep, true unsciousness and sanity-rest rest.

    He awoke under a bla, a a moment’s panic whehick grey wool pressed upon his mouth and eyes. He struggled with it, threw it back with a gasp, and relaxed as he felt fresh air on his fad dim sunlight filtering down from above. He looked up and saw from the reddish hue that it must be soon after dawn. The sinkhole puzzled him for a few seds— disoriented, he felt dizzy and stupid, till he looked at the tall masts all around, the black sails, and the unfinished ship nearby.

    “Holehallow,” he muttered to himself, frowning.

    He remembered it now. But what was he doing here? pletely naked under a rough camping bla? He sat up, and shook his head. It was sore and his temples were throbbing, seemingly from the  battering-ram effect of a severe hangover. But he felt certain he hadn’t been drinking. The last thing he remembered was going doweps.

    Rogir had asked him . <mark></mark>. . no . . . the last thing was the fleeting image of a pale, ed face, bloodied and bruised, black hair hanging out in a fringe under her helmet. A deep blue surcoat, with the blazon of silver keys. The Abhorsen.

    “She’s washing at the spring,” said a soft voice, interrupting his faltering recolle. “She got up before the sun. liness is a wonderful thing.”

    The voice did not seem to belong to anything visible, till the man looked up at the nearby ship.

    There was a large, irregular hole in the bow, where the figurehead should have been and a white cat was curled up in the hole, watg him with an unnaturally sharp, green-eyed gaze.

    “What are you?” said the man, his eyes cautiously flickering from side to side, looking for a on. A pile of clothes was the only thing nearby, taining a shirt, trousers and some underwear, but it was weighted down with a largish rock. His <var></var>hand sidled out towards the rock.

    “Don’t be alarmed,” said the cat. “I’m but a faithful retainer of the Abhorsen. Name of  Mogget. For the moment.”

    The man’s hand closed on the rock, but he didn’t lift it. Memories were slowly sidling back to his benumbed mind, drawn like grains of iron to a maghere were memories of various Abhorsens among them—memories that gave him an inkling of what this cat-creature was.

    “You were bigger when we last met,” he hazarded, testing his guess.

    “Have we met?” replied Mogget, yawning.

    “Dear me. I ’t recall it. What was the name?”

    A good question, thought the man. He couldn’t remember. He knew who he was, in general terms, but his name eluded him. Other names came easily though, and some flashes of memory ing what he thought of as his immediate past. He growled, and grimaced as they came to him, and ched his fists in pain and anger.

    “Unusual name,” ented Mogget. “More of a bear’s hat growl. Do you mind if I call you Touchstone?”

    “What!” the man exclaimed, affronted. “That’s a fool’s name! How dare—”

    “Is it unfitting?” interrupted Mogget, coolly.

    “You do remember what you’ve done?”

    The man was silent then, for he suddenly did remember, though he didn’t know why he’d do, or what the sequences had been. He also remembered that sihis was the case, there was no point trying to remember his name.

    He was no longer fit to bear it.

    “Yes, I remember,” he whispered. “You may call me Touchstone. But I shall call you—”

    He choked, looked surprised, then tried again.

    “You ’t say it,” Mogget said. “A spell tied to the corruption of—but I ’t say it, nor tell ahe nature of it, or how to fix it. You won’t be able to talk about it either and there may be other effects. Certainly, it has affected me.”

    “I see,” replied Touchstone, somberly. He didn’t try the name again. “Tell me, who rules the Kingdom?”

    “No one,” said Mogget.

    “A regency, then. That is perhaps—”

    “No. Neno ns. No one rules.

    There was a regency at first, but it deed . . .

    with help.”

    “What do you mean, ‘at first’?” asked Touchstone. “What exactly has happened? Where have I been?”

    “The regency lasted for one hundred ay years,” Mogget announced callously.

    “Anarchy has held sway for the last twenty, tempered by what a few remaining loyalists could do. And you, my boy, have been ad the front of this ship as a lump of wood for the last two hundred years.”

    “The family?”

    “All dead and past the Final Gate, save one, who should be. You know who I mean.”

    For a moment, this news seemed to return Touchstoo his wooden state. He sat frozen, only the slight movement of his chest showing tinued life. Then tears started in his eyes, and his head slowly fell to meet his upturned hands.

    Mogget watched without sympathy, till the young man’s back ceased its heaving and the harsh in-dras between sobs became calmer.

    “There’s no point g over it,” the cat said harshly. “Plenty of people have died trying to put the matter thts. Four Abhorsens have fallen in this tury alorying to deal with the Dead, the broken stones and the—the inal problem. My current Abhorseainly isn’t lying around g her eyes out. Make yourself useful and help her.”

    “ I?” asked Touchstone bleakly, wiping his face with the bla.

    “Why not?” snorted Mogget. “Get dressed, for a start. There are some things aboard here for you as well. Swords and suchlike.”

    “But I’m not fit to wield royal—”

    “Just do as you’re told,” Mogget said firmly.

    “Think of yourself as Abhorsen’s sworn swordhand, if it makes you feel better, though in this present era, you’ll find on sense is more important than honor.”

    “Very well,” Touuttered, humbly.

    He stood up and put on the underclothes and shirt, but couldn’t get the trousers past his heavily muscled thighs.

    “There’s a kilt and leggings in one of the chests back here,” Mogget said, after watg Touchstone hopping around on ohe other trapped in too-tight leather.

    Touchstone nodded, divested himself of the trousers, and clambered up through the hole, taking care to keep as far away from Mogget as possible. Half, he paused, arms braced oher side of the gap.

    “You won’t tell her?” he asked.

    “Tell who? Tell what?”

    “Abhorsen. Please, I’ll do all I  to help. But it wasn’t iional. My part, I mean. Please, don’t tell her—”

    “Spare me the pleadings,” said Mogget, in a disgusted tone. “I ’t tell her. You ’t tell her.

    The corruption is wide and the spell rather indiscriminatory.

    Hurry up—she’ll be back soon. I’ll tell you the rest of our current saga while you dress.”

    Sabriel returned from the spring feelihier, er and happier. She’d slept well and the m’s ablutions had cleared off the blood.

    The bruises, swellings and sunburn had all responded well to her herbal treatments. All in all, she felt about eighty pert normal, rather than ten pert funal, and she was looking forward to having some pany at breakfast other than the sardonic Mogget. Not that he didn’t have his uses, such as guarding unscious or sleeping humans. He’d also assured her that he had tested the Charter mark on the figurehead-man, finding him to be unsullied by Free Magic, or neancy.

    She’d expected the man to still be asleep, so she felt a faint frisson of surprise and suspense when she saw a figure standing by the ship’s bow,  fag the other way. For a sed, her hand twitched to her sword, then she saw Mogget nearby, precariously draped on the ship’s rail.

    She approached nervously, her curiosity tempered by the o be wary of strangers. He looked different dressed. Older and somewhat intimidating, particularly since he seemed to have sed her plain clothing for a kilt of gold-striped red, with matg leggings of redstriped gold, disappearing into turned-down thigh boots of russet doeskin. He was wearing her shirt, though, and preparing to put on a red leather jerkin. It had detachable, lace-up sleeves, which seemed to be giving him some problems.

    Two swords lay in three-quarter scabbards near his feet, stabbing points shining four inches out of the leather. A wide belt with the appropriate hooks already encircled his waist.

    “Curse these laces,” he said, when she was about ten paces away. A nice voice, quite deep, but currently frustrated and peaking with temper.

    “Good m,” said Sabriel.

    He whirled around, dropping the sleeves, almost dug to his swords, before rec to transform the motion into a bow, culminating in a dest to one knee.

    “Good m, milady,” he said huskily, head bowed, carefully not meeting her gaze. She saw that he’d found some earrings, large gold hoops clumsily pushed through pierced lobes, for they were bloodied. Apart from them, all she could see was the top of his curly-haired head.

    “I’m not ‘milady,’” said Sabriel, w whiiss Prionte’s etiquette principles applied to this situation. “My name is Sabriel.”

    “Sabriel? But you are the Abhorsen,” the man said slowly. He didn’t sound overly bright, Sabriel thought, with sinking expectations.

    Perhaps there would be very little versation at breakfast after all.

    “No, my father is the Abhorsen,” she said, with a stern look at Mogget, warning him not to interfere. “I’m a sort of stand-in. It’s a bit plicated, so I’ll explain later. What’s your name?”

    He hesitated, then mumbled, “I ’t remember, milady. Please, call me . . . call me Touchstone.”

    “Touchstone?” asked Sabriel. That sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it for a moment.

    “Touchstone? But that’s a jester’s name, a fool’s name. Why call you that?”

    “That’s what I am,” he said dully, without iion.

    “Well, I have to call you something,” Sabriel tinued. “Touchstone. You know, there is the tradition of a wise fool, so perhaps it’s not so bad. I guess you think you’re a fool because you’ve been imprisoned as a figurehead—and ih, of course.”

    “Ih!” exclaimed Touchstone. He looked up and his grey eyes met Sabriel’s. Surprisingly, he had a clear, intelligent gaze. Perhaps there is some hope for him after all, she thought, as she explained: “Your spirit was somehow preserved just beyond the border of Death, and your body preserved as the wooden figurehead. Both neantid Free Magic would have been involved. Very powerful magi both ts.

    I am curious as to why it was used on you.”

    Touchstone looked away again, and Sabriel sensed a certain shiftiness, or embarrassment.

    She guessed that the forthing explanation would be a half-truth, at best.

    “I don’t remember very well,” he said, slowly.

    “Though things are ing back. I am . . . I was . . . a guardsman. The Royal Guard. There was some sort of attack upon the Queen . . .

    an ambush i the bottom of the stairs.

    I remember fighting, with blade and Charter Magic—we were all Charter Mages, all the guard. I thought we were safe, but there was treachery . . . then . . . I was here. I don’t know how.”

    Sabriel listened carefully,>..</a> w how much of what he said was true. It was likely that his memory was impaired, but he possibly was a royal guard. Perhaps he had cast a diamond of prote . . . that could have been why his enemies could only imprison him, rather than kill. But, surely they could have waited till it failed. Why the bizarre method of impriso? And, most importantly, how did the figurehead mao get placed in this most protected of places? She filed all these questions for later iigation, for ahought had struck her. If he really was a royal guard, the Queen he had guarded must have been dead and gone for at least two hundred years and, with her, everyone and everything he knew.

    “You have been a prisoner for a long time,” she said gently, uain about how to break the news. “Have you . . . I mean did you . . . well,  what I mean is it’s been a very long time—”

    “Two hundred years,” whispered Touchstone.

    “Your minion told me.”

    “Your family . . .”

    “I have none,” he said. His expression was set, as immobile as the carved wood of the previous day. Carefully, he reached over and drew one of his swords,  it to Sabriel hilt-first.

    “I would serve you, milady, to fight against the enemies of the Kingdom.”

    Sabriel didn’t take the sword, though his plea made her reflexively reach out. But a moment’s thought closed her open palm, and her arm fell back to her side. She looked at Mogget, atg the proceedings with unabashed i.

    “What have you told him, Mogget?” she asked, suspi wreathing her words.

    “The state of the Kingdom, generally speaking,”

    replied the cat. “Ret events. Our dest here, more or less. Your duty as Abhorsen to remedy the situation.”

    “The Mordit? Shadow Hands? Gore crows? The Dead Adept, whoever it may be?”

    “Not specifically,” said Mogget, cheerfully. “I thought he could presume as much.”

    “As you see,” Sabriel said, rather angrily, “my ‘minion’ has not been totally ho with you. I was raised across the Wall, in Aierre, so I have very little idea about what is going on. I have huge gaps in my knowledge of the Old Kingdom, including everything from geography to history to Charter Magic. I fae dire enemies, probably uhe overall dire of one of the Greater Dead, a neantic adept. And I’m not out to save the Kingdom<u>藏书网</u>, just to find my father, the real Abhorsen. So I don’t want to take your oath or service or anything like that, particularly as we’ve only just met. I am happy for you to apany us to the  approximation of civilization, but I have no idea what I will be doing after that. And, please remember that my name is Sabriel. Not milady. Not Abhorsen. Now, I think it’s time for breakfast.”

    With that, she stalked over to her pack, and started getting out some oatmeal and a small cooking pot.

    Touchstoared after her for a moment, then picked himself up, attached his swords, put on the sleeveless jerkin, tied the sleeves to his belt and wandered off to the  clump of trees.

    Mogget followed him there, and watched him pick up dead branches and sticks for a fire.

    “She really did grow up in Aierre,” said the cat. “She doesn’t realize refusing your oath is an insult. And it’s true enough about her ignorance.

    That’s one of the reasons she needs your help.”

    “I ’t remember much,” said Touchstone, snapping a bran half with siderable ferocity.

    “Except my most ret past. Everything else is like a dream. I’m not sure if it’s real or not, learned or imagined. And I wasn’t insulted. My oath isn’t worth much.”

    “But you’ll help her,” said Mogget. It wasn’t a question.

    “No,” said Touchstone. “Help is for equals. I’ll serve her. That’s all I’m good for.”

    As Sabriel feared, there was little versation over breakfast. Mogget went off in search of his own, and Sabriel and Touchstone were hindered by the sole cooking pot and single spoon, so they took it in turns to eat half the pe. Even allowing for this difficulty, Touchstone was ununicative. Sabriel started asking a lot of questions, but as his standard response was, “I’m sorry, I ’t remember,” she soon gave up.

    “I don’t suppose you  remember how to get  out of this sinkhole, either,” she asked in exasperation, after a particularly long stretch of silence.

    Even to her, this sounded like a prefect addressing a mist twelve-year-old.

    “No, I’m sorry . . .” Touchstone began automatically, then he paused, and the er of his mouth quirked up with a momentary spasm of pleasure. “Wait! Yes—I do remember! There’s a hidden stair, to the north of King Janeurl’s ship . . . oh, I ’t remember whie that is . . .”

    “There’s only four ships he northern rim,”

    Sabriel mused. “It won’t be too hard to find.

    How’s your memory for eography? The Kingdom, for instance?”

    “I’m not sure,” replied Touchstone, guardedly, bowing his head again. Sabriel looked at him and took a deep breath to calm the eel-like writhings of ahat were slowly getting bigger and bigger inside her. She could excuse his faulty memory—after all, that was due to magical incarceration.

    But the servile mahat went with it seemed to be an affectation. He was like a bad actor playing the butler—or rather, a nonact to impersonate a butler as best he could. But why?  “Mogget drew me a map,” she said, talking as much to calm herself as for any real unication.

    “But, as he apparently has only left Abhorsen’s House for a few weekends over the last thousand years, even two-hundred-year-old memories . . .”

    Sabriel paused, and bit her lip, suddenly aware that her annoyah him had made her spiteful.

    He looked up as she stopped speaking, but ion showed on his face. He might as well still be carved from wood.

    “What I mean is,” Sabriel tinued carefully, “it would be very helpful if you could advise me on the best route to Belisaere, and the important landmarks and locations on the way.”

    She got the map out of the special pocket in the pad removed the protective oilskin.

    Touchstoook one end as she unrolled it, aed his two ers with stones, while Sabriel secured hers with the telescope case.

    “I think we’re about here,” she said, trag her finger from Abhorsen’s House, following the Paperwing’s flight from there to a point a little north of the Ratterlin river delta.

    “No,” said Touchstone, sounding decisive for the first time, his fiabbing the map an  inch to the north of Sabriel’s own. “This is Holehallow, here. It’s only ten leagues from the coast and at the same latitude as Mount Anarson.”

    “Good!” exclaimed Sabriel, smiling, her anger slipping from her. “You do remember. Now, what’s the best route to Belisaere, and how long will it take?”

    “I don’t know the current ditions, mi . . .

    Sabriel,” Touchstone replied. His voice grew softer, more subdued. “From what Mogget says, the Kingdom is in a state of anarchy. Towns and villages may no longer exist. There will be bandits, the Dead, Free Magibound, fell creatures . . .”

    “Ign all that,” Sabriel asked, “which way did you normally go?”

    “From owe, the fishing village here,”

    Touchstone said, pointing at the coast to the east of Holehallow. “We’d ride north along the Shoreway, ging horses at post houses. Four days to Callibe, a rest day there. Theerior road up through O Pass, six days all told to Aunden. A rest day in Auhen four days to Orchyre. From there, it would be a day’s ferry passage, or two days’ riding, to the  Westgate of Belisaere.”

    “Even without the rest days, that’d be eighteen days’ riding, at least six weeks’ walking. That’s too long. Is there any other way?”

    “A ship, or boat, from owe,” interrupted Mogget, stalking up behind Sabriel, to place his paw firmly on the map. “If we  find one and if either of you  sail it.”

 chapter xv

    The stair was to the north of the middle ship of the four. cealed by both magid artifice, it seemed to be little more than a particularly wet patch of the damp limestohat f<cite>..</cite>ormed the sinkhole wall, but you could walk right through it, for it was really an open door with steps winding up behind.

    They decided to take these steps the  m, after another day of rest. Sabriel was eager to move on, for she felt that her father’s peril could only be increasing, but she was realistiough to assess her own need for recovery time. Touchstooo, probably needed a rest, she thought. She’d tried to ore information out of him while they’d searched for the steps, but he was clearly relut to even open his mouth, and when he did, Sabriel found his humble apologies ever more irritating. After the door was found she gave up altogether, and sat in the grass he spring, reading her father’s books on Charter Magic. The Book of the Dead stayed ed in oilskin. Even then, she felt its presence, brooding in her pack . . .

    Touchstoayed at the opposite end of the ship, he bow, perf a series of feng exercises with his twin swords, and some stretches and minor acrobatics. Mogget watched him from the undergrowth, green eyes glittering, as if i on a mouse.

    Lunch was a ary and versational failure.

    Dried beef strips, garnished with watercress from the fringes of the spring, and monosyllabic responses from Touchstone. He eve bailady,” despite Sabriel’s repeated requests to use her name. Mogget didn’t help by calling her Abhorsen. After lunch, everyo back to their respective activities. Sabriel to her book, Touchstoo his exercises and Mogget to his watg.

    Dinner was not something anyone had looked forward to. Sabriel tried talking to Mogget, but he seemed to be ied with Touchstone’s  retice, though not with his servility. As soon as they’d eaten, everyohe raked-together coals of the campfire—Touchstoo the west, Mogget north and Sabriel east—ao sleep on as fortable a stretch of ground as could be discovered.

    Sabriel woke on<samp></samp> the night. Without getting up, she saw that the fire had been rekindled and Touchsto beside it, staring into the flames, his eyes refleg the capering, gold-red light. His face looked drawn, almost ill.

    “Are you all right?” Sabriel asked quietly, propping herself up on one elbow.

    Touchstoarted, rocked ba his heels, and almost fell over. For once, he didn’t sound like a sulky servant.

    “Not really. I remember what I would not, and fet what I should not. Five me.”

    Sabriel didn’t answer. He had spoken the last two words to the fire, not to her.

    “Please, go back to sleep, milady,” Touchstone tinued, slipping back to his servile role. “I will wake you in the m.”

    Sabriel opened her mouth to say something scathing about the arrogance of pretended humility, then shut it, abbr>藏书网</abbr>nd subsided bader  her bla. Just trate on resg Father, she told herself. That is the one important thing.

    Rescue Abhorsen. Don’t worry about Touchstone’s problems, get’s curious nature.

    Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue Abhors . . . rescue . . .

    “Wake up!” Mogget said, right in her ear. She rolled n him, but he leapt across her head aed it i<samp></samp>her ear. “Wake up!”

    “I’m awake,” grumbled Sabriel. She sat up with the bla ed around her, feeling the pre-dawn chill on her fad hands. It was still extremely dark, save for the uneven light of the fire and the fai brushings of dawn light above the sinkhole. Touchstone was already making the pe. He’d also washed, and shaved—using a dagger from the look of the nicks and cuts on his  and neck.

    “Good m,” he said. “This will be ready in five minutes, milady.”

    Sabriel groa that wain. Feeling like a shambling, bla-shrouded excuse for a human being, she picked up her shirt and trousers and staggered off to find a suitable bush en route to the spring.

    The icy water of the spring pleted the waking up process without kindness, Sabriel exposing herself to it and the marginally warmer air for no more thaen seds it took to shed undershirt, wash a dressed again.

    , awake and clothed, she returo the campfire and ate her share of the pe. Then Touchstoe, while Sabriel buckled on armor, sword and bells. Mogget lay he fire, warming his white-furred belly. Not for the first time, Sabriel wondered if he o eat at all. He obviously liked food, but he seemed to eat for amusement, rather than sustenance.

    Touchstone tinued being a servant after breakfast, ing pot and spoon, queng the fire and putting everything away. But when he was about to swing the pa his back, Sabriel stopped him.

    “No, Touchsto’s my pack. I’ll carry it, thank you.”

    He hesitated, then passed it to her and would have helped her put it on, but she had her arms through the straps and the pack swung on before he could take the weight.

    Half an hour later, perhaps a third of the  the narrow, stone-carved stair, Sabriel  regretted her decision to take the pack. She still wasn’t totally recovered from the Paperwing crash and the stair was very steep, and so narrow that she had difficulty iating the spiraling turns. The pack always seemed to jam against the outside or inside wall, no matter which way she turned.

    “Perhaps we should take it in turns to carry the pack,” she said relutly, wheopped at a sort of alcove to catch their breath.

    Touchstone, who had been leading, nodded and came back down a few steps to take the pack.

    “I’ll lead, then,” Sabriel added, flexing her bad shoulders, shuddering slightly at the paduced layer of sweat on her back, greasy under armor, tunic, shirt and undershirt. She picked up her dle from the bend stepped up.

    “No,” said Touchstoepping in her way.

    “There are guards—and guardians—on this stair. I know the words and signs to pass them.

    You are the Abhorsen, so they might let you past, but I am not sure.”

    “Your memory must be ing back,” Sabriel ented, slightly peeved at being thwarted.

    “Tell me, is this stair the one you mentioned when you said the Queen was ambushed?”

    “No,” Touchstone replied flatly. He hesitated, then added, “That stair was in Belisaere.”

    With that, he turned, and tinued up the stairs. Sabriel followed, Mogget at her heels. Now that she wasn’t lumbered by her pack, she felt more alert. Watg Touchstone, she saw him pause occasionally and mutter some words under his breath. Each time, there was the faint, featherlight touch of Charter Magic. Subtle magic, much cleverer than iunnel below. Harder to deted probably much more deadly, Sabriel thought.

    Now she k was there, she also picked up the faiion of Death. This stair had seen killings, a long, long, time ago.

    Finally,<q></q> they came to a large chamber, with a set of double doors to one side. Light leaked in from a large number of small, circular holes in the roof, or as Sabriel soon saw, through an rown lattice that had once beeo air and sky.

    “That’s the outside door,” Touchstone said, unnecessarily. He snuffed out his dle, took Sabriel’s, now little more than a stub of wax, and put both in a pocket stitched to the front of his kilt. Sabriel thought of joking about the hot wax and the potential for damage, but thought better  of it. Touchstone was not the lighthearted type.

    “How does it open?” asked Sabriel, indig the door. She couldn’t see any handle, lock or key. Or any hinges, for that matter.

    Touchstone was silent, eyes unfocused and staring, then he laughed, a bitter little chuckle.

    “I don’t remember! All the  the stair, all the words and signals . . . and now useless! Useless!”

    “At least you got us up the steps,” Sabriel pointed out, alarmed by the violence of his selfloathing.

    “I’d still be sitting by the spring, watg it bubble, if you hadn’t e along.”

    “You would have found the way out,”

    Touuttered. “get would.

    Wood! Yes, that’s what I deserve to be—”

    “Touchstone,” Mogget interrupted, hissing.

    “Shut up. You’re to be useful, remember?”

    “Yes,” replied Touchstone, visibly calming his breathing, posing his face. “I’m sorry, Mogget. Milady.”

    “Please, please, just Sabriel,” she said tiredly.

    “I’ve only just left school—I’m oeen! Calling me milady seems ridiculous.”

    “Sabriel,” Touchstone said tentatively. “I will try to remember. ‘Milady’ is a habit . . . it   reminds me of my pla the world. It’s easier for me—”

    “I don’t care what’s easier for you!” Sabriel snapped. “Don’t call me milady and stop ag like a halfwit! Just be yourself. Behave normally. I don’t need a valet, I need a useful . . . friend!”

    “Very well, Sabriel,” Touchstone said, with careful emphasis. He was angry now, but at least that was an improvement over servile, Sabriel thought.

    “Now,” she said to the smirking Mogget.

    “Have you got any ideas about this door?”

    “Just one,” replied Mogget, slidiween her legs and over to the thin lihat marked the divisioweewo leaves of the door.

    “Push. One on each side.”

    “Push?”

    “Why not?” said Touchstone, shrugging. He took up a position, braced against the left side of the door, palms flat oal-studded wood.

    Sabriel hesitated, then did the same against the right.

    “Owo, three, push!” announced Mogget.

    Sabriel pushed on “three” and Touchstone on “push,” so their bined effort took several seds to synize. Then the doors creaked slowly open, sunshine spilling through in a bright bar, climbing from floor to ceiling, dust motes dang in its progress.

    “It feels strange,” said Touchstohe wood hummih his hands like plucked lute strings.

    “I  hear voices,” exclaimed Sabriel at the same time, her ears full of half-caught words, laughter, distant singing.

    “I  see time,” whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.

    Then the doors were open. They walked through, shielding their eyes against the sun, feeling the cool breeze sharp on their skin, the fresh st of pirees clearing their nostrils of underground dust. Mogget sneezed quickly three times, and ran about in a tight circle. The doors slid shut behind them, as silently and inexplicably as they’d opened.

    They stood in a small clearing in the middle of a pine forest, or plantation, for the trees were regularly spaced. The doors behind them stood in the side of a low hillock of turf and stunted bushes. Pine needles lay thi the ground, pinees peeking through every few paces, like skulls ploughed up on some a battleground.

    “The Watchwood,” said Touchstone. He took several deep breaths, looked at the sky, and sighed. “It is Winter, I think—or early Spring?”

    “Winter,” replied Sabriel. “It was snowing quite heavily, baear the Wall. It seems much milder here.”

    “Most of the Wall, the Long Cliffs, and Abhorsen’s House, are on, or part of, the Southern Plateau,” Mogget explained. “The plateau is between one and two thousa above the coastal plain. In fact, the area arouowe, where we are headed, is mostly below sea level and has been reclaimed.”

    “Yes,” said Touchstone. “I remember. Long Dyke, the raised als, the wind pumps to raise the water—”

    “You’re both very informative for a ge,”

    remarked Sabriel. “Would one of you care to tell me something I really want to know, like what are the Great Charters?”

    “I ’t,” Mogget and Touchstone said together.

    Then Touchstone tinued, haltingly, “There is a spell . . . a binding on us. But someone who is not a Charter Mage, or otherwise closely bound to the Charter, might be able to speak. A child, perhaps, baptized with the  Charter mark, but not grown into power.”

    “You’re cleverer than I thought,” ented Mogget. “Not that that’s saying much.”

    “A child,” said Sabriel. “Why would a child know?”

    “If you’d had a proper education, you’d know too,” said Mogget. “A waste of good silver, that school of yours.”

    “Perhaps,” agreed Sabriel. “But now that I know more of the Old Kingdom, I suspect being at school in Aierre saved my life. But enough of that. Which way do we go now?”

    Touchstone looked at the sky, blue above the clearing, dark where the pines circled. The sun was just visible above the trees, perhaps an hour short of its noon-time zenith. Touchstone looked from it to the shadows of the trees, then pointed: “East. There should be a series of Charter Stones, leading from here to the eastern edge of the Watchwood. This place is heavily warded with magic. There are . . . there were, many stones.”

    The stones were still there, and after the first, some sort of animal track that meandered from ooo the . It was cool uhe pines, but pleasant, the stant presence of the Charter  Stones a reassuriion to Sabriel and Touchstone, who could sehem like lighthouses in a sea of trees.

    There were seven stones in all, and none of them broken, though Sabriel felt a stab of nervous tensioime they left the ambience of one and moved to another, a stark picture always flashing into her head—the bloodstained, riven stone of Clove.

    The last stoood on the very edge of the pine forest, atop a granite bluff thirty or forty yards high, marking the forest’s eastern edge and the end of high ground.

    They stood o the stone and looked out, out towards the huge expanse of blue-grey sea, white-crested, restless, always rolling in to shore.

    Below them were the flat, sunken fields of owe, maintained by a work of raised als, pumps and dykes. The village itself lay three-quarters of a mile away, high on anranite bluff, the harbor out of sight oher side.

    “The fields are flooded,” said Touchstone, in a puzzled tone, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

    Sabriel followed his gaze, and saw that what  she had taken for some crop was actually silt and water, sitting tepidly where food once grew.

    Windmills, power for the pumps, stood silent, trefoil-shaped vaill atop scaffolding towers, even though a salt-laden breeze blew in from the sea.

    “But the pumps were Charter-spelled,”

    Touchstone exclaimed. “To follow the wind, to work without care . . .”

    “There are no people in the fields—no one on this side of the village,” Mogget added, his eyes keehaelescope in Sabriel’s pack.

    “owe’s Charter Stone must be broken,”

    Sabriel said, mouth tight, words cold. “And I  smell a certain sten the breeze. There are Dead in the village.”

    “A boat would be the quickest way to Belisaere, and I am reasonably fident of my sailing,” Touchstone remarked. “But if the Dead are there, shouldn’t we . . .”

    “We’ll go down a a boat,” Sabriel announced firmly. “While the sun is high.”

 chapter xvi

    There was a built-up path through the flooded fields, but it was submerged to ankle-depth, with occasional thigh-high slippages.

    Only the raised al drains stood well above the brackish water, and they all ran towards the east, not towards the village, so Sabriel and Touchstone were forced to wade along the path. Mogget, of course, rode, his lean form draped around Sabriel’s neck like a white fox fur.

    Water and mud, coupled with an uain path, made it slow going. It took an hour to cover less than a mile, so it was later iernoon than Sabriel would have wished when they finally climbed out of the water, up onto the beginnings of the village’s rocky mount. At least the sky is clear, Sabriel thought, glang up. The winter sun wasn’t particularly hot and couldn’t be described as glaring, but it would certainly deter most kindred of the Lesser Dead from venturing out.

    heless, they walked carefully up to the village, swords loose, Sabriel with a hand to her bells. The path wound up in a series of steps carved from the rock, reinforced here and there with bricks and mortar. The village proper led on top of the bluff—about thirty cozy ></a>brick cottages, with wood-tile roofs, some painted bright colors, some dull, and some simply grey aherbeaten.

    It was pletely silent, save for the odd gust of wind, or the mournful cry of a gull, slipping down through the air above. Sabriel and Touchstone drew clether, walking almost shoulder-to-shoulder up assed for a main street, swords out now, eyes flickering across closed doors and shuttered windows.

    Both felt uneasy, nervous—a nasty, tingling, creepiion climbing up from spio nape of neck, to forehead Charter mark.

    Sabriel also felt the presence of Dead things.

    Lesser Dead, hiding from sunlight, lurking  somewhere nearby, in house or cellar.

    At the end of the main street, on the highest point of the bluff, a Charter Stoood on a patch of carefully tended lawn. Half of the stone had been sheared aieces broken and tumbled, dark stone ourf. A body lay in front of the stone, hands a bound, the gaping cut across the throat a clear sign of where the blood had e from—the blood for the sacrifice that broke the stone.

    Sabriel k by the corpse, eyes averted from the broken sto was only retly ruined, she felt, but already the door to Death was creaking open. She could almost feel the cold of the currents beyond, leaking out around the stone, sug warmth and life from the air.

    Things lurked there too, she knew, just beyond the border. She seheir hunger for life, their impatience fht to fall.

    As she expected, the corpse was of a Charter Mage, dead but three or four days. But she hadn’t expected to find the dead person was a woman.

    Wide shoulders and a muscular build had deceived her for a moment, but there was a middleaged woman before her, eyes shut, throat cut, short brown hair caked with sea salt and blood.

    “The village healer,” said Mogget, indig a bracelet on her wrist with his nose. Sabriel pushed the rope bindings aside for a better look. The bracelet was broh inlaid Charter marks of greenstone. Dead marks now, for blood dried upon the bronze, and no pulse beat in the skin uhe metal.

    “She was killed three or four days ago,”

    Sabriel announced. “The stone was broken at the same time.”

    Touchstone looked back at her and nodded grimly, then resumed watg the houses opposite. His swords hung loosely in his hands, but Sabriel noticed that his entire body was tense, like a pressed ja-the-box, ready t.

    “Whoever . . . whatever . . . killed her and broke the stone, didn’t enslave her spirit,”

    Sabriel added quietly, as if thinking to herself.

    “I wonder why?”

    her Mogget nor Touchstone answered.

    For a moment, Sabriel sid<s>?</s>ered asking the woman herself, but her impetuous desire for journeys into Death had been soundly dampened by ret experience. Instead, she cut the woman’s bonds, and arranged her as best she  could, ending up with a sort of curled-up sleeping position.

    “I don’t know your name, Healer,” Sabriel whispered. “But I hope you go quickly beyond the Final Gate. Farewell.”

    She stood bad drew the Charter marks for the funeral pyre above the corpse, whispering the names of the marks as she did so—but her fingers fumbled and words went awry. The baleful influence of the broken stone pressed against her, like a wrestler gripping her wrists, clamping her jaw. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and pain shot through her limbs, her hands shaking with effort, tongue clumsy, seeming swollen in her suddenly dry mouth.

    Then she felt assistane, strength flowing through her, reinf the marks, steadying her hands, clearing her voice. She pleted the litany, and a spark exploded above the woman, became a twisting flame, theo a fierce, white-hot blaze that spread the length of the woman’s body, totally ing it, to leave only ash, light cargo for the sea winds.

    The extra strength came through Touchstone’s hand, his open palm lightly resting on her shoulder.

    As she straightened up, the touch was lost.

    When Sabriel turned around, Touchstone was just drawing his right-hand sword, eyes fixed on the houses—as if he’d had nothing to do with helping her.

    “Thank you,” said Sabriel. Touchstone was a strong Charter Mage, perhaps as strong as she was. This surprised her, though she couldn’t think why. He’d made  of being a Charter Mage—she’d just assumed he would only know a few of the more fightied marks and spells. Petty magics.

    “We should move on,” said Mogget, prowling backwards and forwards in agitation, carefully avoiding the fragments from the broken stone.

    “Find a boat, and put to sea before nightfall.”

    “The harbor is that way,” Touchstone added quickly, pointing with his sword. Both he and the cat seemed very keen to leave the area around the broken stohought Sabriel. But then, so was she. Even in bright daylight, it seemed to dull the color around it. The lawn was already more yellow than green, and even the shadows looked thicker and more abundant than they should. She shivered, remembering Clove and the thing called Thralk.

    The harbor lay on the northern side of the <samp></samp> bluff, reached by another series of steps in the rocky hill, or in the case of cargo, via one of the shear-legged hoists that lihe edge of the bluff. Long woodeies thrust out into the clear blue-green water, sheltered uhe lee of a rocky island, a smaller sibling of the village bluff. A long breakwater of huge boulders joined island and shore, pleting the harbor’s prote from wind and wave.

    There were no boats moored in the harbor, tied up to the jetties, or at the harbor wall. Not even a dinghy, hauled up for repair. Sabriel stood oeps, looking down, mind temporarily devoid of further plans. She just watched the swirl of the sea around the barnacled piles of the jetties; the moving shadows in the blue, marking small fish schooling about their business.

    Mogget sat near her feet, sniffing the air, silent.

    Touchstoood higher, behind her, guarding the rear.

    “What now?” asked Sabriel, generally indig the empty harbor below, her arm moving with the same rhythm as the swell, in its perpetual tilt against wood and stone.

    “There are people on the island,” Mogget said, eyes slitted against the wind. “And boats  tied up betweewo outcrops of ro the southwest.”

    Sabriel looked, but saw nothing, till she extracted the telescope from the pa Touchstone’s back. He stood pletely still while she ferreted around, silent as the empty village. Playing wooden again, Sabriel thought, but she didn’t really mind. He was being helpful, without metaphorically tugging his forelock every few minutes.

    Through the telescope, she saw that Mogget was right. There were several boats partly hiddeween two spurs of rock, and some slight signs of habitation: a glimpse of a washing line, blown around the er of a tall rock; the momentary sight of movemeween two of the six or seven ramshackle wooden buildings that led on the island’s south-western side.

    Shifting her gaze to the breakwater, Sabriel followed its length. As she’d half expected, there  in the very middle of it, where the sea rushed through with siderable force. A pile of timber on the island side of the breakwater indicated that there had once been a bridge there, now removed.

    “It looks like the villagers fled to the island,”

    she said, shutting the telescope down. “There’s a gap in the breakwater, to keep running water between the island and shore. An ideal defense against the Dead. I don’t think even a Mordit would risk crossiidal water—”

    “Let’s go then,” muttered Touchstone. He sounded nervous again, jumpy. Sabriel looked at him, then above his head, and saw why he was nervous. Clouds were rolling in from the southeast, behind the village—dark clouds, laden with rain. The air was calm, but now she saw the clouds, Sabriel reized it was the calm before heavy rain. The sun would not be guarding them for very much longer and night would be an early guest.

    Without further urging, she set off doweps, down to the harborside, then along to the breakwater. Touchstone followed more slowly, turning every few steps to watch the rear. Mogget did likewise, his small cat-face tinually looking back, peering up at the houses.

    Behind them, shutters inched open and fleshless eyes watched from the safety of shadows, watched the trio marg out to the breakwater, still washed in harsh sunlight, flanked by swiftmoving waves of terrible water. Rotten, corroded  teeth ground and gnashed ial mouths.

    Farther back from the windows, shadows darker than ones ever cast by light whirled in frustration, anger—and fear. They all knew who had passed.

    One such shadow, selected by lot and pelled by its peers, gave up its existen Life with a silent scream, vanishing into Death. Their master was many, many leagues away, and the quickest way to reach him lay ih. Of course, message delivered, the messenger would fall through the Gates to a final demise. But the master didn’t care about that.

    The gap in the breakwater proved to be at least fiftee wide, and the water was twice Sabriel’s height, the sea surging through with a rough aggression. It was also covered by archers from the island, as they discovered when an arrow struck the stones in front of them and skittered off into the sea.

    Instantly, Touchstone rushed in front of Sabriel, and she felt the flow of Charter Magi him, his swords sketg a great circle in the air in front of them both. Glowing lines followed the swords’ path, till a shining circle hung in the air.

    Four arrows curved through the air from the island. Oriking the circle, simply vanished.

    The other three missed pletely, striking stones or sea.

    “Arrow ward,” gasped Touchstone. “Effective, but hard to keep going. Do we retreat?”

    “Not yet,” replied Sabriel. She could feel the Dead stirring in the village behind them and she could also see the archers now. There were four of them, two pairs, each behind one of the large, upthrust stohat marked where the breakwater joihe island. They looked young, nervous and were already proven to be of little threat.

    “Hold!” shouted Sabriel. “We are friends!”

    There was no reply, but the archers didn’t loose their nocked arrows.

    “What’s the village leader’s title—usually, I mean? What are they called?” Sabriel whispered hurriedly to Touchstone, once again wishing she knew more about the Old Kingdom and its s.

    “In my day . . .” Touchstone replied slowly, his swords retrag the arrow ward, attention mostly on that, “in my day—Elder—for this size of village.”

    “We wish to speak with your Elder!” shouted Sabriel. She poi the cloud-front advang behind her, and added, “Before darkness falls!”

    “Wait!” came the answer, and one of the archers scampered back from the rocks, up towards the buildings. Closer to, Sabriel realized they were probably boathouses or something like that.

    The archer returned in a few minutes, an older man hobbling over the rocks behind him. The other three archers, seeing him, lowered their bows aurned shafts to quivers. Touchstone, seeing this, ceased to maintain the arrow ward. It hung in the air for a moment, then dissipated, leaving a momentary rainbow.

    The Elder was named in fact, as well as title, they saw, as he limped along the breakwater. Long white hair blew like fragile cobwebs around his thin, wrinkled face, and he moved with the deliberate iion of the very old. He seemed unafraid, perhaps possessed of the disied ce of one already close to death.

    “Who are you?” he asked, when he reached the gap, standing above the swirling waters like some pro<big></big>phet of legend, his deep e cloak flapping around him from the rising breeze.

    “What do you want?”

    Sabriel opened her mouth to answer, but  Touchstone had already started to spea<q>..</q>k. Loudly.

    “I am Touchstone, sworn swordsman for the Abhorsen, who stands before you. Are arrows your wele for such folk as we?”

    The old man was silent for a moment, his deep-set eyes focused on Sabriel, as if he could strip away any falsity or illusion by sight alone.

    Sabriel met his gaze, but out of the er of her mouth she whispered to Touchstone.

    “What makes you think you  speak for me? Wouldn’t a friendly approach be better? And since when are you my sworn—”

    She stopped, as the old man cleared his throat to speak and spat into the water. For a moment, she thought that this was his response, but as her the archers nor Touchstoed, it was obviously of no at.

    “These are bad times,” the Elder said. “We have been forced to leave our firesides for the smoking sheds, warmth and fort for seawinds and the stench of fish. Many of the people of owe are dead—or worse. Strangers and travelers are rare in such times, and not always what they seem.”

    “I am the Abhorsen,” Sabriel said, relutly.

    “Enemy of the Dead.”

    “I remember,” replied the old man, slowly.

    “Abhorsen came here when I was a young man. He came to put down the haunts that the spice mert brought, Charter curse him.

    Abhorsen. I remember that coat you’re wearing, blue as a ten-fathom sea, with the silver keys. There was a sword, also . . .”

    He paused, expetly. Sabriel stood, silently, waiting for him to go on.

    “He wants to see the sword,” Touchstone said, voice flat, after the sileretched too far.

    “Oh,” replied Sabriel, flushing.

    It was quite obvious. Carefully, so as not to alarm the archers, she drew her sword, holding it up to the sun, so the Charter marks could clearly be seen, silver dancers on the blade.

    “Yes,” sighed the Elder, old shoulders sagging with relief. “That is the sword. Charter-spelled.

    She is the Abhorsen.”

    He turned and tottered back towards the archers, worn voicreasing to the ghost of a fisherman’s cross-water hail. “e on, you four. Quick with the bridge. We have visitors! Help at last!”

    Sabriel gla Touchstone, raising her eyebrows at the implication of the old man’s  last three words. Surprisingly, Touet her gaze, and held it.

    “It is traditional for someone of high rank, such as yourself, to be announced by their sworn swordsman,” he said quietly. “And the only acceptable way for me to travel with you is as your sworn swordsman. Otherwise, people will assume that we are, at best, illicit lovers. Having your name coupled to mine in such a guise would lower you in most eyes. You see?”

    “Ah,” replied Sabriel, gulping, feeling the flush of embarrassment e bad spread from her cheeks to her neck. It felt a lot like being on the receiving end of one of Miss Prionte’s severest social put-downs. She hadn’t even thought about how it would look, the two of them traveling together. Certainly, in Aierre, it would be sidered shameful, but this was the Old Kingdom, where things were different. But only some things, it seemed.

    “Lesson two hundred and seven,” muttered Mogget from somewhere near her feet. “Three out of ten. I wonder if they’ve got any freshcaught whiting? I’d like a small oill flopping—”

    “Be quiet!” Sabriel interrupted. “You’d better  pretend to be a normal cat for a while.”

    “Very well, milady. Abhorsen,” Mogget replied, stalking away to sit oher side of Touchstone.

    Sabriel was about to reply scathingly when she saw the fai curve at the er of Touchstone’s mouth. Touchstone? Grinning? Surprised, she misplaced the retort oohen fot it altogether, as the four archers heaved a plank across the gap, the end smag down onto stoh a startling bang.

    “Please cross quickly,” the Elder said, as the men steadied the plank. “There are many fell creatures in the village now, and I fear the day is almost done.”

    True to his words, cloud-shadow fell across them as he spoke, and the fresh st of closing rain mingled with the wet and salty smell of the sea. Without further urging, Sabriel ran quickly across the plank, Mogget behiouchstone bringing up the rear.

 chapter xvii

    All the survivors of owe were gathered in the largest of the fish-smoking sheds, save for the current shift of archers who watched the breakwater. There had been one hundred and twenty-six villagers the week before—now there were thirty-one.

    “There were thirt<u>..</u>y-two until this m,”

    the Elder said to Sabriel, as he passed her a cup of passable wine and a piece of dried fish atop a piece of very hard, very stale bread. “We thought we were safe whe to the island, but Moowart’s boy was found just after dawn today, sucked dry like a husk. Wheouched him, it was like . . . burnt paper, that still holds its shape . . . we touched him, and he crumbled into flakes of . . . something like ash.”

    Sabriel looked around as the old man spoke, noting the many lanterns, dles and rush tapers that added both to the light and the smoky, fishy atmosphere of the shed. The survivors were a very mixed group—men, women and children, from very young to the Elder himself. Their only on characteristic was the fear ping their faces, the fear showing in their nervous, staovement.

    “We think one of them’s here,” said a woman, her voice long gone beyoo fatalism. She stood alone, apanied by the clear space edy. Sabriel guessed she had lost her family.

    Husband, children—perhaps parents and siblings, too, for she wasn’t over forty.

    “It’ll take us, one by ohe woman tinued, matter-of-fact, her voice filling the shed with dire certainty. Around her, pe<big></big>ople shuffled, twitchily, not looking at her, as if to meet her gaze would be to accept her words.

    Most looked at Sabriel and she saw hope in their eyes. Not blind faith, or plete fidence, but a gambler’s hope that a new horse might ge a run of losses.

    “The Abhorsen who came when I was young,”

    the Elder tinued—and Sabriel saw that at his  age, this would be his memory alone, of all the villagers—“this Abhorsen told me that it was his purpose to slay the Dead. He saved us from the haunts that came in the mert’s caravan. Is it still the same, lady? Will Abhorsen save us from the Dead?”

    Sabriel thought for a moment, her mially flig through the pages of The Book of the Dead, feeling it stir in the backpack that sat by her feet. Her thoughts strayed to her father; the forthing jouro Belisaere; the way in wh<dfn>..</dfn>ich Dead enemies seemed to be arrayed against her by some trolling mind.

    “I will ehis island is free of the Dead,”

    she said at last, speaking clearly so all could hear her. “But I ot free the mainland village.

    There is a greater evil at work in the Kingdom—that same evil that has broken your Charter Stone—and I must find a it as soon as I . When that is done, I will return— I hope with other help—and both village and Charter Stone will be restored.”

    “We uand,” replied the Elder. He seemed saddened, but philosophic. He tinued, speaking more to his people than to  Sabriel. “We  survive here. There is the spring, and the fish. We have boats. If Callibe has not fallen to the Dead, we  trade, fetables and other stuffs.”

    “You will have to keep watg the breakwater,”

    Touchstone said. He stood behind Sabriel’s chair, the very image of a stern bodyguard.

    “The Dead—or their living slaves— may try to fill it in with stones, or push across a bridge. They  cross running water by building bridges of boxed grave dirt.”

    “So, we are besieged,” said a man to the front of the mass of villagers. “But what of this Dead thing already here on the island, already preying upon us? How will you find it?”

    Silence fell as the questioner spoke, for this was the one answer everyone wao hear. Rain sounded loud on the roof in the absence of human speech, steady rain, as had been falling sie afternoon. The Dead disliked the rain, Sabriel thought insequentially, as she sidered this question. Rain didn’t destroy, but it hurt and irritated the Dead. Wherever the Dead thing was on the island, it would be out of the rain.

    She stood up with that thought. Thirty-one pairs of eyes watched her, hardly blinking, despite  the cloying smoke from too many lanterns, dles and tapers. Touchstoched the villagers; Mogget watched a piece of fish; Sabriel closed her eyes, questing outward with other serying to feel the presence of the Dead.

    It was there—a faint, cealed emanation, like an untraceable whiff of something rotten.

    Sabriel trated on it, followed it, and found it, right there in the shed. The Dead was somehow hiding among the villagers.

    She opened her eyes slowly, looking straight at the point where her seold her the Dead creature lurked. She saw a fisherman, middleaged, his salt-etched face red under sun-bleached hair. He seemed no different thahers around him, listening ily for her reply, but there was definitely something Dead in him, or very close by. He was wearing a boat cloak, which seemed odd, sihe smoking shed was hot from massed humanity and the many lights.

    “Tell me,” Sabriel said. “Did anyone bring a large box with them out to the island? Something, say, an arm-span square a side, or larger? It would be heavy—with grave dirt.”

    Murmurs and enquiries met this question, neighbors turning to each other, with little  fls of fear and suspi. As they talked, Sabriel walked out through them, s<tt></tt>urreptitiously loosening her sword, signaling Touchstoo stay close by her. He followed her, eyes flickering across the little groups of villagers. Mogget, glang up from his fish, stretched and lazily stalked behind Touchstone’s heels, after a warning glare at the two cats who were eyeing the half-ed head and tail of his fishy repast.

    Careful not to alarm her quarry, Sabriel took a zigzag path through the shed, listening to the villagers with studied attention, though the blond fisherman never left the er of her eye. He was deep in discussion with another man, who seemed to be growing more suspicious by the sed.

    Closer now, Sabriel was sure that the fisherman was a vassal of the Dead. Teically, he was still alive, but a Dead spirit had suppressed his will, riding on his flesh like some shadowy stringpuller, using his body as a puppet. Something highly unpleasant would be half-submerged in his back, uhe boat cloak. Mordaut, they were called, Sabriel remembered. A whole page was devoted to these parasitical spirits in The Book of  the Dead. They liked to keep a primary host alive, slipping off at night to sate their hunger from other living prey—like children.

    “I’m sure I saw you with a box like that, Patar,” the suspicious fisherman was saying. “Jall Stowart helped you get it ashore. Hey, Jall!”

    He shouted that last, turning to look at someone else across the room. In that instant, the Dead-ridden Patar exploded into a, clubbing his questioner with both forearms, knog him aside, running to the door with the silent ferocity of a battering ram.

    But Sabriel had expected that. She stood before him, sword at the ready, her left hand drawing Ranna, the sweet sleeper, from the bandolier.

    She still hoped to save the man, by quelling the Mordaut.

    Patar slid to a halt and half-turned, but Touchstone was there behind him, twin swlowing eerily with shifting Charter marks and silver flames. Sabriel eyed the blades in surprise, she hadn’t known they were spelled. Past time she asked, she realized.

    Then Ranna was free in her hand—but the Mordaut didn’t wait for the unavoidable lullaby.

    Patar suddenly screamed, and stid, the  redness draining from his face, to be replaced by grey. Then his flesh crumpled and fell apart, even his bones flaking away to soggy ash as the Mordaut sucked all the life out of him in one voracious instant. Newly fed and strengthehe Dead slid out from the falling cloak, a pool of squelg darkness. It took shape as it moved, being a large, disgustingly elongated sort of rat. Quicker than any natural rat, it scuttled towards a hole in the wall and escape! Sabriel lunged, her blade striking chips from the floor planks, missing the shadowy form by a st instant.

    Touchstone didn’t miss. His right-hand sword sheared through the creature just behind the head, the left-wielded blade impaling its sinuous midse.

    Pio the floor, the creature writhed and arched, its shadow-stuff w away from the blades. It was remaking its body, esg the trap.

    Quickly, Sabriel stood over it, Ranna sounding in her hand, sweet, lazy tone eg out into the shed.

    Before the echoes died, the Mordaut ceased to writhe. Form half-lost by its shifting from the swords, it lay like a lump of charred liver,  quivering on the floor, still impaled.

    Sabriel replaced Ranna, and drew the eager Sarah. Its forceful voiapped out, sound weaving a  of dominatiohe foul creature. The Mordaut made no effort to resist, even to make a mouth to whis cause. Sabriel felt it succumb to her will, via the medium of Sarah.

    She put the bell back, but hesitated as her hand fell on Kibeth. Sleeper and Master had spoken well, but Walker sometimes had its own ideas, and it was stirring suspiciously under her hand.

    Best to wait a moment, to calm herself, Sabriel thought, taking her hand away from the bandolier.

    She sheathed her sword, and looked around the shed. To her surprise, everyone except Touchstone and Mogget was asleep. They had only caught the echoes of Ranna, which shouldn’t have been enough. Of course, Ranna could be trie too, but its trickery was far less troublesome.

    “This is a Mordaut,” she said to Touchstone, who was stifling a half-bo<bdo></bdo>rn yawn. “A irit, catalogued as one of the Lesser Dead. They like to ride with the Living—cohabiting the body to some extent, direg it, and slowly sipping  the spirit away. It makes them hard to find.”

    “What do we do with it now?” asked Touchstone, eyeing the quivering lump of shadow with distaste. It clearly couldn’t be cut up, ed by fire, or anything else he could think of.

    “I will banish it, send it back to die a true death,” replied Sabriel. Slowly, she drew Kibeth, using both hands. She still felt uneasy, for the bell was twisting in her grasp, trying to sound of its own accord, a sound that would make her walk ih.

    She gripped it harder and rang the orthodox backwards, forwards and figure eight her father had taught her. Kibeth’s voice rang out, singing a merry tune, a capering jig that almost had Sabriel’s feet jumping too, till she forced herself to be absolutely still.

    The Mordaut had no such free will. For a moment, Touchstohought it was getting away, the shadow form suddenly leaping upwards, unreal flesh slipping up his blades almost to the cross-hilts. Then, it slid back down again—and vanished. Bato Death, to bob and spin in the current, howling and screaming with whatever voice it had there, all the way  through to the Final Gate.

    “Thanks,” Sabriel said to Touchstone. She looked down at his two swords, still deeply embedded in the wooden floor. They were no longer burning with silver flames, but she could see the Charter marks moving on the blades.

    “I didn’t realize your swords were ensorcelled,”

    she tinued. “Though I’m glad they are.”

    Surprise crossed Touchstone’s face, and fusion.

    “I thought you knew,” he said. “I took them from the Queen’s ship. They were a Royal Champion’s swords. I didn’t want to take them, but Mogget said you—”

    He stopped in mid-sentence, as Sabriel let out a heartfelt sigh.

    “Well, anyway,” he tinued. “Legend has it that the Wallmaker made them, at the same time he—or she, I suppose—made your sword.”

    “Mine?” asked Sabriel, her hand lightly toug the worn bronze of the guard. She’d hought about who’d made the sword—it just was. “I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead,” the inscription said, when it said anything lucid at all. So it probably was fed long ago, ba the distant past when the Wall  was made. Mogget would know, she thought.

    Mogget probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell her—but he would know.

    “I suppose we’d better wake everybody up,”

    she said, dismissing speculation about swords for the immediate present.

    “Are there more Dead?” asked Touchstone, grunting as he pulled his swords free of the floor.

    “I don’t think so,” replied Sabriel. “That Mordaut was very clever, for it had hardly sapped the spirit of poor . . . Patar . . . so its presence was masked by his life. It would have e to the island in that box of grave dirt, having impressed the poor man with instrus before they left the mainland. I doubt whether any others would have dohe same. I ’t sense any here, at least. I guess I should check the other buildings, and walk around the island, just to be sure.”

    “Now?” asked Touchstone.

    “Now,” firmed Sabriel. “But let’s wake everyone up first, and anize some people to carry lights for us. We’d also better talk to the Elder about a boat for the m.”

    “And a good supply of fish,” added Mogget, who’d slunk back to the half-eaten whiting, his  voice sharp above the heavy drone of sn fisher-folk.

    There were no Dead on the island, though the archers reported seeing strange lights moving in the village, during brief lulls in the rain. They’d heard movement on the breakwater too, and shot fire arrows onto the stones, but saw nothing before the crude, oily rag–ed shafts guttered out.

    Sabriel advanced out on the breakwater, and stood he sea gap, her oilskin coat loosely draped over her shoulders, shedding rain to the ground and down her neck. She couldn’t see anything through the rain and dark, but she could feel the Dead. There were more than she had sensed earlier, or they had grown much strohen, with a siing feeling, she realized that this strength beloo a single creature, only now emerging from Death, using the broken stone as a portal. An instant later, she reized its particular presence.

    The Mordit had found her.

    “Touchstone,” she asked, fighting to keep the shivers from her voice. “ you sail a boat by night?”

    “Yes,” replied Touchstone, his voice impersonal  again, face dark in the rainy night, the lantern-light from the villagers behind him lighting only his bad feet. He hesitated, as if he shouldn’t be  an opinion, then added, “But it would be much more dangerous. I don’t know this coast, and the night is very dark.”

    “Mogget  see in the dark,” Sabriel said quietly, moving closer to Touchstone so the villagers couldn’t hear her.

    “We have to leave immediately,” she whispered, while pretending to adjust her oilskin. “A Mordit has e. The same ohat pursued me before.”

    “What about the people here?” asked Touchstone, so softly the sound of the rain almost washed his words away—but there was the faint sound of reproof under his business-like tone.

    “The Mordit is after me,” muttered Sabriel. She could se moving away from the stone, questing about, using its otherwordly seo find her. “It  feel my presence, as I feel it. When I go, it will follow.”

    “If we stay till m,” Touchstone whispered back, “won’t we be safe? You said even a Mordit couldn’t cross this gap.”

    “I said, ‘I think,’” faltered Sabriel. “It has grown stronger. I ’t be sure—”

    “That thing ba the shed, the Mordaut, it wasn’t very difficult to destroy,” Touchstone whispered, the fidence of ignoran his voice. “Is this Mordit much worse?”

    “Much,” replied Sabriel shortly.

    The Mordit had stopped moving. The rain seemed to be dampening both its senses and its desire to find her and slay. Sabriel stared vainly out into the darkness, trying to peer past the sheets of rain, to gain the evidence provided by sight, as well as her neantises.

    “Riemer,” she said, loudly now, calling to the villager who was in charge of their lanternholders.

    He came forward quickly, gingery hair plastered flat on his rounded head, rainwater dripping down from a high forehead to catapult itself off the end of his pudgy nose.

    “Riemer, have the archers keep very careful watch. Tell them to shoot anything that es onto the breakwater—there is nothing living out there now. Only the Dead. We o go bad talk to your Elder.”

    They walked ba silence, save for the sloshing of boots in puddles and the steady finger-applause of the rain. At least half of Sabriel’s attention stayed with the Mordit; a malign, stomachache-indug presence across the dark water. She wondered why it was waiting.

    Waiting for the rain to stop, or perhaps for the now-banished Mordaut to attack from within. Whatever its reasons, it gave them a little time to get to a boat, and lead it away. And perhaps, there was always the ce that it couldn’t cross the breakwater gap.

    “What time is low tide?” she asked Riemer, as a hought struck.

    “Ah, just about an hour before dawn,” replied the fisherman. “About six hours, if I’m any judge.”

    The Elder awoke kily from his sed sleep. He was loath for them to go in the night, though Sabriel felt that at least half of his reluce was due to their need for a boat. The villagers only had five left. The others had been sunk in the harbor, drowned and broken by the stones hurled down by the Dead, eager to stop the escape of their living prey.

    “I’m sorry,” Sabriel said again. “But we must have a boat and we  now. There is a terrible Dead creature in the village—it tracks like a  hunting dog, and the trail it follows is mine. If I stay, it will try and e here—and, at the ebb, it may be able to cross the gap in the breakwater.

    If I go, it will follow.”

    “Very well,” the Elder agreed, mulishly. “You have sed this island for us; a boat is a little thing. Riemer will prepare it with food and water. Riemer! The Abhorsen will have Landalin’s boat—make sure it is stocked and seaworthy. Take sails from Jaled, if Landalin’s is short or rotten.”

    “Thank you,” said Sabriel. Tiredness weighed down oiredness and the weight of awareness.

    Awareness of her enemies, like a darkness always clouding the edge of her vision. “We will go now. My good wishes stay with you, and my hopes for your safety.”

    “May the Charter preserve us all,” added Touchstone, bowing to the old man. The Elder bowed back, a bent, solemn figure, so much smaller than his shadow, looming tall on the wall behind.

    Sabriel turo go, but a long line of villagers was f on the way to the door. All of them wao bow or curtsey before her, to mutter shy thank-yous and farewells. Sabriel accepted  them with embarrassment and guilt, remembering Patar. True, she had bahe dead, but another life had been lost in the doing. Her father would not have been so clumsy . . .

    The sed-to-last person in the line was a little girl, her black hair tied in two plaits, one oher side of her head. Seeing her made Sabriel remember something Touchstone had said. She stopped, and took the girl’s hands in her own.

    “What is your name, little one?” she asked, smiling. A feeling of déjà vu swept over her as the small fingers met hers—the memory of a frightened first-grader hesitantly reag out to the older pupil who would be her guide for the first day at Wyverley College. Sabriel had experienced both sides, iime.

    “Aline,” said the girl, smiling back. Her eyes were bright and lively, too young to be dimmed by the frightened despair that clouded the adults’ gaze. A good choice, Sabriel thought.

    “Now, tell me what you have learned in your lessons about the Great Charter,” Sabriel said, adopting the familiar, motherly and generally irrelevant questioning tone of the School Ior who’d desded on every class in Wyverley twice a year.

    “I know the rhyme . . .” replied Aline, a little doubtfully, her small forehead kling. “Shall I sing it, like we do in class?”

    Sabriel nodded.

    “We dance around the stooo,” Aline added, fidingly. She stood up straighter, put one foot forward, and took her hands away to clasp them behind her back.

    Five Great Charters knit the land together linked, hand in hand One in the people who wear the  Two in the folk who keep the Dead down Three and Five became stone and mortar Four sees all in frozen water.

    “Thank you, Aline,” Sabriel said. “That was very nice.”

    She ruffled the child’s hair and hastehrough the final farewells, suddenly keen to get out of the smoke and the fish-smell, out into the , rainy air where she could think.

    “So now you know,” whispered Mogget, jumping up into her arms to escape the puddles.

    “I still ’t tell you, but you know one’s in your blood.”

    “Two,” replied Sabriel distantly. “‘Two in the folk who keep the Dead down.’ So what is the . . . ah . . . I ’t talk about it either!”

    But she thought about the questions she’d like to ask, as Touchstone helped her aboard the small fishing vessel that lay just off the tiny, shell-laden beach that served the island as a harbor.

    One of the Great Charters lay in the royal blood. The sed lay in Abhorsen’s. What were three and five, and four that saw all in frozen water? She felt certain that many answers could be found in Belisaere. Her father could probably answer more, for many things that were bound in Life were unraveled ih. And there was her mother-sending, for that third and final questioning in this seven years.

    Touchstone pushed off, clambered aboard and took the oars. Mogget leapt out of Sabriel’s arms, and assumed a figurehead positiohe prow, serving as a night-sighted lookout, while mog Touchsto the same time.

    Ba shore, the Mordit suddenly howled, a long, pierg cry that echoed far across the water, chillis on both boat and island.

    “Bear a bit more to starboard,” said Mogget, in the sileer the howl faded. “We need more sea-room.”

    Touchstone was quiply.

 chapter xviii

    By the m of the sixth day out of owe, Sabriel was heartily tired of nautical life. They’d sailed virtually non-stop all that time, only putting into shore at noon for fresh water, and only the was sunny.

    Nights were spent under sail, or, when exhaustion claimed Touchstone, hove-to with a sea anchor, the unsleeping Mogget standing watch.

    Fortunately, the weather had been kind.

    It had been a relatively uful five days.

    Two days from owe to Beardy Point, an unprepossessing peninsula whose only iiures were a sandy-bottomed bead a clear stream. Devoid of life, it was also devoid of the Dead. Here, for the first time, Sabriel could no longer sehe pursuing Mordit. A good, strong, south-easterly had propelled them, reag northwards, at too fast a pace for it to follow.

    Three days from Beardy Point to the island of Ilgard, its rocky cliffs climbing sheer from the sea, a grey and pockmarked te, home to tens of thousands of seabirds. They passed it late iernoon, their single sail stretched to bursting, ker-built hull heeling well over, bow slig up a n of spray that salted mouths, eyes and bodies.

    It was half a day from Ilgard to the Belis Mouth, that narrow strait that led to the Sea of Saere. But that was tricky sailing, so they spent the night hove-to just out of sight of Ilgard, t<var></var>o wait for the light of day.

    “There is a boom- across the Belis Mouth,” Touchstone explained, as he raised the sail and Sabriel hauled the sea anchor ihe bow. The sun was rising behind him, but had not yet pulled itself out of the sea, so he was no more than a dim shadow iern. “It was built to keep pirates and suchlike out of the Sea of Saere. You won’t believe the size of it—I ’t imagine how it was fed, or strung across.”

    “Will it still be there?” Sabriel asked, cautiously, not wanting to prevent Touchstone’s straalkative mood.

    “I’m sure of it,” replied Touchstone. “We’ll see the towers on the opposite shores first. Winding Post, to the south, and Boom Hook to the north.”

    “Not very imaginative names,” ented Sabriel, uo help herself from interrupting.

    It was just such a pleasure to talk! Touchstone had lapsed bato non-unication for most of the voyage, though he did have a good excuse—handling the fishing boat fhteen hours a day, even in good weather, didn’t leave muergy for versation.

    “They’re named after their purpose,” replied Touchstone. “Which makes sense.”

    “Who decides whether to let vessels past the ?” asked Sabriel. Already, she was thinking ahead, w about Belisaere. Could it be like owe—the city abandoned, riddled with the Dead? “Ah,” said Touchstone. “I hadn’t thought about that. In my time, there was a Royal Boom Master, with a force of guards and a squadron of small, picket ships. If, as Mogget says, the city has fallen into anarchy . . .”

    “There may also be people w for, or in alliah, the Dead,” Sabriel added thoughtfully.

    “So even if we cross the boom in daylight, there could be trouble. I think I’d better reverse my surcoat and hide my helmet ing.”

    “What about the bells?” asked Touchstone.

    He leaned past her, to draw the maiighter, right hand slightly nudging the tiller to take advantage of a shift in the wind. “They’re fairly obvious, to say the least.”

    “I’ll just look like a neancer,” Sabriel replied. “A salty, unwashed neancer.”

    “I don’t know,” said Touchstone, who couldn’t see that Sabriel was joking. “No neancer would be let into the city, or would stay alive, in—”

    “In your day,” interrupted Mogget, from his favorite post on the bow. “But this is now, and I am sure that neancers and worse are not unon sights in Belisaere.”

    “I’ll wear a cloak—” Sabriel started to say.

    “If you say so,” Touchstone said, at the same time. Clearly, he didn’t believe the cat. Belisaere was the royal capital, a huge city, home to at least fifty thousand people. Touchstone couldn’t imagi fallen, decayed and in the hands of the  Dead. Despite his own inner fears a knowledge, he couldn’t help but be fident that the Belisaere they were sailing towards would be little different from the two-hundredyear- old images locked in his memory.

    That fideook a blow as the Belis Mouth towers became visible above the blue line of the horizon, on opposite shores of the strait.

    At first, the towers were no more than dark smudges, that grew<bdi></bdi> taller as wind and wave carried the boat towards them. Through her telescope, Sabriel saw that they were made from a beautiful, rosy-pink stohat once must have been magnifit. Now they were largely blaed by fire; their majesty vanished. Winding Post had lost the top three storys, from seven; Boom Hook stood as tall as ever, but sunlight shohrough gaping holes, showing the interior to be a gutted ruin. There was no sign of any garrison, toll collector, windlass mules, or anything alive.

    The great boom- still stretched across the strait. Huge iron links, each as wide and long as the fishing boat, rose green and barnaclebefouled out of the water and up into each of the tlimpses of it could be seen in the  middle of the Mouth, when the swell dipped, and a length of  shone slid green in the wave trough, like some lurking monster of the deep.

    “We’ll have to go in close to the Winding Post tower, uhe mast and row uhe  where it rises,” Touchstone declared, after studying the  for several mihrough the telescope, trying to gauge whether it had sunk enough to allow them passage. But even with their relatively shallow-draft boat, it would be too risky, and they daren’t wait fh tide, late iernoon. At some time in the past, perhaps wheowers were abahe  had been winched up to its maximum tension. The engineers who’d made it would have been pleased, for there seemed to be no noticeable slippage.

    “Mogget, go to the bow and keep a lookout for anything ier. Sabriel, could you please watch the shore and the tower, to guard against attack.”

    Sabriel nodded, pleased that Touchstone’s stint as captain of their small vessel had done a lot to remove the servant nonse of him and make him more like a normal person. Mogget,  for his part, jumped up to the bow without protest, despite the spray that occasionally burst over his head as they cut diagonally across the swell—towards the small triangle of opportunity between shore, sea and .

    They came in as close as they dared before unstepping the mast. The swell had diminished, for the Belis Mouth was well-sheltered by the two arms of land, but the tide had turned, and a tidal race was beginning to run from the o to the Saere Sea. So, even without mast and sail, they were borne rapidly towards the ; Touchstone rowing with all his strength just to keep steerage way. After a moment, this clearly became impossible, so Sabriel took one of the oars, and they rowed together, with Mogget yowling dires.

    Every few seds, at the end of a full stroke, her baearly level with the thwarts, Sabriel snatched a glimpse over her shoulder. They were headed for the narrow passage, between the high but crumbling seawall of Winding Post, and the enormous  rising out of the swift-flowing sea in a swath of white froth. She could hear the melancholy groaning of the links, like a chorus of pained walruses. Even that gargantuan   moved at the sea’s whim.

    “Port a little,” yowled Mogget. Touchstone backed his oar for a moment, the jumped down, yelling, “Ship oars and duck!”

    The oars came rattling, splashing in, both Sabriel and Touchstone simply lying down on their backs, with Mogget somewhere betweehe boat rocked and plunged, and the groan of the  sounded close and terrible.

    Sabriel, one moment looking up at the clear, blue sky, in the  saw nothing but greerewn iron above her. When the swell lifted the boat up, she could have reached out and touched the great boom- of Belis Mouth.

    Then they were past, and Touchstone was already pushing out his oar, Mogget moving to the bow. Sabriel wao lie there, just looking up at the sky, but the collapsed seawall of Winding Post was no more than an oar-length away. She sat up and resumed her duty as a rower.

    The water ged color in the Sea of Saere.

    Sabriel trailed her hand in it, marveling at its clear turquoise sheen. For all its color, it was incredibly transparent. The water was very deep, but she could see down the first three or four  fathoms, watg small fish dander the bubbles of their boat’s wake.

    She felt relaxed, momentarily carefree, all the troubles that lay ahead and behiemporarily lost in single-minded plation of the clear blue-green water. There was no Dead presence here, no stant awareness of the many doors to Death. Even Charter Magic was dissipated at sea. For a few minutes, she fot about Touchstone and Mogget. Even her father faded from her mind. There was only the sea’s color, and its ess on her hand.

    “We’ll be able to see the city soon,” Touchstone said, interrupting her mental holiday. “If the towers are still standing.”

    Sabriel houghtfully, and slowly took her hand from the sea, as if she were parting from a dear friend.

    “It must be difficult for you,” she said, almost to herself, not really expeg him to answer.

    “Two hundred years gohe Kingdom slowly falling into ruin while you slept.”

    “I didn’t really believe it, till I saw owe, and then the Belis Mouth towers,” replied Touchstone. “Now I am afraid—even freat city that I never believed could really ge.”

    “No imagination,” said Mogget, sternly. “No thinking ahead. A flaw in your character. A fatal flaw.”

    “Mogget,” Sabriel said indignantly, angry at the cat for crushi another possible versation.

    “Why are you so rude to Touchstone?”

    Mogget hissed and the fur bristled on his back.

    “I am accurate, not rude,” he surning his back to them with studied s. “And he deserves it.”

    “I’m sick of this!” announced Sabriel. “Touchstone, what does Mogget know that I don’t?”

    Touchstone was silent, knuckles white oiller, eyes focused on the distant horizon, as if he could already see the towers of Belisaere.

    “You’ll have to tell me eventually,” said Sabriel, a touch of the prefetering her voice.

    “It ’t be that bad, surely?”

    Touchsto his lips, hesitated, then spoke.

    “It was stupidity on my part, not evil, milady.

    Two hundred years ago, when the last Queen reigned . . . I think . . . I know that I am partly responsible for the failing of the Kingdom, the end of the royal line.”

    “What!” exclaimed Sabriel. “How could you be?”

    “I am,” tiouiserably, his hands shaking so much the tiller moved, giving the boat a crazy zigzag wake. “There was a . . .

    that is . . .”

    He paused, took a deep breath, sat up a little straighter, and tinued, as if rep to a senior officer.

    “I don’t know how much I  tell you, because it involves the Great Charters. Where do I start? With the Queen, I guess. She had four children. Her oldest sir, was a childhood playmate of mine. He was always the leader, in all ames. He had the ideas—we followed them. Later, when we were growing up, his ideas became stranger, less nice. We greart. I went into the Guard; he pursued his own is. Now I know that those is must have included Free Magid neancy— I never suspected it then. I should have, I know, but he was secretive, and often away.

    “Towards the end . . . I mean a few months before it happened . . . well, Rogir had been away for several years. He came back, ju<samp>藏书网</samp>st before the Midwinter Festival. I was glad to see him, for he seemed to be more like he was as a  child. He’d lost i in the bizarrities that had attracted him. We spent more time together again; hawking, riding, drinking, dang.

    “Then, late oernoon—one cold, crisp afternoon, n<dfn>９９ｌib?</dfn>ear su—I was on duty, guarding the Queen and her ladies. They were playing aque. Rogir came to her, and asked her to e with him down to the place where the Great Stones are . . . hey, I  say it!”

    “Yes,” interrupted Mogget. He looked tired, like an alley cat that has suffered one kiany. “The sea washes all things clear, for a time.

    eak of the Great Charters, at least for a little while. I had fotten it was so.”

    “Go on,” said Sabriel, excitedly. “Let’s take advantage of it while we . The Great Stones would be the stones and mortar of the rhyme— the Third and Fifth Great Charter?”

    “Yes,” replied Touchstone, remotely, as if reg a lesson, “with the Wall. The people, or whatever they were who made the Great Charters, put three in bloodlines and two in physical strus: the Wall and the Great Stones. All the lesser stones draw their power from one or the other.

    “The Great Stones . . . Rogir came and said  there was something amiss there, something the Queen must look into. He was her son, but she did not take great at of his wisdom, or believe him when he spoke of trouble with the Stones. She was a Charter Mage a nothing wrong. Besides, she was winning at aque, so she told him to wait till m. Rogir turo me, asked me to intercede, and, Charter help me, I did. I believed Rogir. I trusted him and my belief vihe Queen. Finally, she agreed.

    By that time, the sun had set. With Rogir, myself, three guards and two ladies-in-waiting, we went down, down into the reservoir where the Great Stones are.”

    Touchstone’s voice faded to a whisper as he tinued, and grew hoarse.

    “There was terrible wrong down there, but it was Rogir’s doing, not his discovery. There are six Great Stones and two were just being broken, broken with the blood of his own sisters, sacrificed by his Free Magiions as roached. I saw their last seds, the faint hope in their clouding eyes, as the Queen’s barge came floating across the water. I felt the shock of the Stones breaking and I remember Rogir, stepping up behind the Queen, a saw-edged   dagger striking so swiftly across her throat. He had a cup, a golden cup, one of the Queen’s own, to catch the blood, but I was too slow, too slow . . .”

    “So the story you told me at Holehallow wasn’t true,” Sabriel whispered, as Touchstone’s voice cracked and faded, and the tears rolled down his face. “The Queen didn’t survive . . .”

    “No,” mumbled Touchstone. “But I didn’t mean to lie. It was all jumbled up in my head.”

    “What did happen?”

    “The other two guards were ?９9lib?Rogir’s men,”

    Touchstone tinued, his voice wet with tears, muffled with sorrow. “They attacked me, but Vlare—one of the ladies-in-waiting—threw herself across them. I went mad, battle-mad, berserk. I killed both guards. Rogir had jumped from the barge and was wading to the Stones, holding the cup. His four sorcerers were waiting, dark-cowled, around the third stohe o be broken. I couldn’t reach him in time, I knew. I threw my sword. It flew straight and true, taking him just above the heart. He screamed, the echo going on and on aurned back towards me! Transfixed by my sword, but still walking, holding that vile cup of blood up, as if  me a drink.

    “‘You may tear this body,’ he said, as he walked. ‘Rip it, like some poor-made e.

    But I ot die.’ “He came within an arm’s length of me, and I could only look into his face, look at the evil that lay so close behind those familiar features . . .

    then there was blinding white light, the sound of bells—bells like yours, Sabriel—and voices, harsh voices . . . Rogir fling back, the cup dropped, blood floating oer like oil. I turned, saw guardsmen oairs; a burning, twisting n of white fire; a man with sword and bells . . . then I fainted, or was knocked unscious. When I came to, I was in Holehallow, seeing your face. I don’t know how I got there, who put me there . . . I still only remember in shreds and patches.”

    “You should have told me,” Sabriel said, trying to put as mupassion in her voice as she could. “But perhaps it had to wait for the sea’s freeing of that binding spell. Tell me, the man with the sword and bells, was it the Abhorsen?”

    “I don’t know,” replied Touchstone. “Probably.”

    “Almost definitely, I would say,” added Sabriel.

    She looked at Mogget, thinking of that n of twisting fire. “You were there too, weren’t you, Mogget? Unbound, in your other form.”

    “Yes, I was there,” said the cat. “With the Abhorsen of that time. A very powerful Charter Mage, and a master of the bells, but a little too good-hearted to deal with treachery. I had terrible trouble getting him to Belisaere, and in the end, we were not timely enough to save the Queen or her daughters.”

    “What happened?” whispered Touchstone.

    “What happened?”

    “Rogir was already one of the Dead when he came back to Belisaere,” Mogget said wearily, as if he were telling a ical yarn to a crew of hard-bitten ies. “But only an Abhorsen would have known it, and he wasn’t there.

    Rogir’s real body was hidden somewhere . . . is hidden somewhere . . . and he wore a Free Magistruct for his physical form.

    “Somewhere along the path of his studies, he’d sed real Life for power and, like all the Dead, he o take life all the time to stay out of Death. But the Charter made it very difficult for him to do that anywhere in the Kingdom. So he decided to break the Charter.

    He could have fined himself to breaking a few of the lesser stones, somewhere far away, but that would only give him a tiny area to prey on, and the Abhorsen would soon hunt him down.

    So he decided to break the Great Stones, and for that he needed royal blood—his own family’s blood. Or Abhorsen’s, or the Clayr’s, of course, but that would be much harder to get.

    “Because he was the Queen’s son, clever, and very powerful, he almost achieved his aims. Two of the six Great Stones were broken. The Queen and her daughters were killed. Abhorsen intervened a little too late. True, he did mao drive him deep into Death—but since his true body has never been found, Rogir has tio exist. Even from Death, he has overseen the dissolution of the Kingdom—a kingdom without a royal family, with one of the Great Charters crippled, corrupting and weakening all the others. He wasn’t really beaten that night, in the reservoir. Just delayed, and for two hundred years he’s been trying to e back, trying to re-enter Life—”

    “He’s succeeded, hasn’t he?” interrupted Sabriel. “He’s the thing called Kerrigor, the one Abhorsens have been fighting feions,  trying to keep ih. He is the one who came back, the Greater Dead who murdered the patrol near Clove, the master of the Mordit.”

    “I do not know,” replied Mogget. “Your father thought so.”

    “It is him,” Touchstone said, distantly.

    “Kerrigor was Rogir’s childhood niame. I made it up, on the day we had the mud fight.

    His full ceremonial name was Rogirek.”

    “He—or his servants—must have lured my father to Belisaere just before he emerged from Death,” Sabriel thought aloud. “I wonder why he came out into Life so he Wall?”

    “His body must be he Wall. He would o be close to it,” Mogget said. “You should know that. To rehe master spell that prevents him from ever passing beyond the Final Gate.”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel, remembering the passages from The Book of the Dead. She shivered, but suppressed it, before it became a rag sob. Inside, she felt like screaming, g. She wao flee back to Aierre, cross the Wall, leave the Dead and magic behind, go as far south as possible. But she quelled these feelings,  and said, “An Abhorseed him once. I  do so again. But first, we must find my father’s body.”

    There was silence for a moment, save for the wind in the vas and the quiet hum of the rigging.

    Touchstone wiped his hand across his eyes and looked at Mogget.

    “There is ohing I would like to ask. Who put my spirit ih, and made my body the figurehead?”

    “I never knew what happeo you,” replied Mogget. His green eyes met Touchstone’s gaze, and it wasn’t the cat who blinked. “But it must have been Abhorsen. You were insane whe you out of the reservoir. Driven mad, probably by the breaking of the Great Stones. No memory, nothing. It seems two hundred years is not too long for a rest cure. He must have seen something in you—or the Clayr saw something in the ice . . . ah, that was hard to say. We must be nearing the city, and the sea’s influence lessens. The binding resumes . . .”

    “No, Mogget!” exclaimed Sabriel. “I want to know, I o know, who you are. What’s your e with the Great . . .”

    Her voice locked up ihroat and a star-  tled gargle was the only thing that came out.

    “Too late,” said Mogget. He started ing his fur, pink tongue darting out, bright cainst white fur.

    Sabriel sighed, and looked out at the turquoise sea, then up at the sun, yellow dis a field of white-streaked blue. A light breeze filled the sail above her, ruffling her hair in passing. Gulls rode it on ahead, to join a squawking mass of their brethren, feeding from a school of fish, sharp silver burstihe surface.

    Everything was alive, colorful, full of the joy of living. Even the salt tang on her skin, the stink of fish and her own unwashed body, was somehow rid lively. Far, far removed from Touchstone’s grim past, the threat ir/Kerrigor and the chilling greyness of Death.

    “We shall have to be very careful,” Sabriel said at last, “and hope that . . . what was it you said to the Elder of owe, Touchstone?”

    He knew immediately what she meant.

    “Hope that the Charter preserves us all.”

 chapter xix

    Sabriel had expected Belisaere to be a ruined city, devoid of life, but i<bdi>?</bdi>t was not so. By the time they saw its towers, and the truly impressive walls that rihe peninsula on which the city stood, they also saw fishing boats, of a size with their own. People were fishing from them—normal, friendly people, who waved and shouted as they passed. Only their greeting was telling of how things might be in Belisaere. “Good sun and swift water” was not the typical greeting in Touchstoime.

    The city’s main harbor was reached from the west. A wide, buoyed el raween two hulking defeworks, leading into a vast pool, easily as big as twenty or thirty playing fields. Wharves lihree sides of the pool, but most were deserted. To the north and south, warehouses rotted behind the empty wharves, broken walls and holed roofs testimony to long abando.

    Only the eastern dock looked lively. There were none of the big trading vessels of bygone days, but many small coastal craft, loading and unloading. Derricks swung in and out; longshoremen humped packages along gangplanks; small children dived and swam iween the boats. No warehouses stood behind these wharves—instead, there were hundreds of open-topped booths, little more than brightly decorated frameworks deliing a patch of space, with tables for the wares, and stools for the vendors and favored ers. There seemed to be no she of ers in general, Sabriel noted, as Touchstoeered for a vat berth. People were swarming everywhere, hurrying about as if their time was sadly limited.

    Touchstohe mai go slack, and brought the boat into the wind just in time for them to lose way and glide at an oblique ao the fehat lihe wharf. Sabriel threw up a line, but before she could leap ashore  and secure it to a bollard, a street ur did it for her.

    “Penny for the knot,” he cried, shrill voice pierg through the hubbub f<dfn>.9９lib.</dfn>rom the crowd.

    “Penny for the knot, lady?”

    Sabriel smiled, with effort, and flicked a silver penny at the boy. He caught it, grinned and disappeared into the stream of people moving along the dock. Sabriel’s smile faded. She could feel many, many Dead here . . . or not precisely here, but further up iy. Belisaere was built upon four low hills, surrounding a tral valley, which lay open to the sea at this harbor. As far as Sabriel’s senses could tell, only the valley was free of the Dead—why, she didn’t know. The hills, which made up at least two-thirds of the city’s area, were ied with them.

    This part of the city, oher hand, could truly be said to be ied with life. Sabriel had fotten how noisy a city could be. Even in Aierre, she had rarely visited anything larger than Bain, a town of no more thahousand people. Of course, Belisaere wasn’t a big city by Aierran standards, and it didn’t have the noisy omnibuses and private cars that had been signifitly adding to Aierran  noise for the last ten years, but Belisaere made up for it with the people. People hurrying, arguing, shouting, selling, buying, singing . . .

    “Was it like this before?” she shouted at Touchstone, as they climbed up onto the wharf, making sure they had all their possessions with them.

    “Not really,” answered Touchstohe Pool was normally full, with bigger ships—and there were warehouses here, not a market. It was quieter, too, and people were in less of a rush.”

    They stood on the edge of the dock, watg the stream of humanity and goods, hearing the tumult, and smelling all the new odors of the city replag the freshness of the sea breeze.

    Cooking food, wood smoke, inse, oil, the occasional disgusting whiff of what could only be sewage . . .

    “It was also a lot er,” added Touchstone.

    “Look, I think we’d best find an inn or hostelry. Somewhere to stay for the night.”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel. She was relut to ehe human tide. There were no Dead among them, as far as she could sense, but they must have some kind of aodatireement with the Dead and that stank to  her far more than sewage.

    Touchstone snagged a passing boy by the shoulder as Sabriel tio eye the crowd, nose wrinkling. They spoke together for a moment, a silver penny ged hands, then the boy slid into the rush, Touchstone following. He looked back, saw Sabriel staring absently, and grabbed her by the hand, dragging both her and the lazy, fox-fur-positioned Mogget after him.

    It was the first time Sabriel had touched him since he’d been revived and she was surprised by the shock it gave her. Certainly, her mind had been wandering, and it was a sudden grab . . .

    his ha larger than it should, and iingly calloused aured. Quickly, she slipped her hand out of his, and trated on following both him and the boy, weaving across the main dire of the crowd.

    They went through the middle of the opentopped market, along oreet of little booths—obviously the street of fish and fowl.

    The harbor end was alive with boxes and boxes of fresh-caught fish, clear-eyed and wriggling.

    Vendors yelled their prices, or their best buy, and buyers shouted offers or amazement at the  price. Baskets, bags and boxes ged hands, empty oo be filled with fish or lobster, squid or shellfish. s went from palm to palm, or, occasionally, whole purses disged their shining tents into the belt-pouches of the stallholders.

    Towards the other end it grew a little quieter.

    The stalls here had cages upon cages of chis, but their trade was slower, and many of the chis looked old and stunted. Sabriel, seeing an expert knife-man beheading row after row of chis and dropping them to flop headless in a box, trated on shutting out their bewildered featherbrained experience of death.

    Beyond the market there was a wide swath of empty ground. It had obviously been iionally cleared, first with fire, then with mattock, shovel and bar. Sabriel wondered why, till she saw the aqueduct that ran beyond and parallel to this strip of wasteland. The city folk who lived in the valley didn’t have an agreement with the Dead—their part of the city was bounded by aqueducts, and the Dead could no more walk under running water tha.

    The cleared ground recaution, allowing the aqueducts to be guarded—and sure  enough, Sabriel saatrol of archers marg atop it, their regularly moving shapes silhouetted, shadow puppets against the sky. The boy was leading them to a tral arch, which rose up through two of the aqueduct’s four tiers, and there were more archers there.

    Smaller arches tinued on each side, supp the aqueduct’s main el, but these were heavily rown with thornbushes, to prevent unauthorized entry by the living, while the swift water overhead held back the Dead.

    Sabriel drew her boat cloak tight as they passed uhe arch, but the guards paid them no more attention than was required to extort a silver penny from Touchstohey seemed very third-rate—even fourth-rate— soldiers, who were probably more stables and watchkeepers than anything else. None bore the Charter mark, or had any trace of Free Magic.

    Beyond the aqueduct, streets wound chaotically from an unevenly paved square, plete with an etrically spouting fountaier jetted from the ears of a statue, a statue of an impressively ed man.

    “King Anstyr the Third,” said Touchstone, pointing at the fountain. “He had a strange sense of humor, by all ats. I’m glad it’s still there.”

    “Where are we going?” asked Sabriel. She felt better now that she khe citizenry weren’t in league with the Dead.

    “This boy says he knows a good inn,” replied Touchstone, indig the ragged ur who was grinning just out of reach of the alwaysexpected blow.

    “Sign of Three Lemons,” said the boy. “Best iy, lord, lady.”

    He had just turned back from them to go on, when a loud, badly cast bell sounded from somewhere towards the harbor. It rang three times, the sound sending pigeons racketing into flight from the square.

    “What’s that?” asked Sabriel. The boy looked at her, open-mouthed. “The bell.”

    “Sunfall,” replied the boy, once he knew what she was asking. He said it as if stating the blindingly obvious. “Early, I reust be cloud ing, or somefing.”

    “Everyone es ihe sunfall bell sounds?” asked Sabriel.

    “Course!” she boy. “Otherwise the haunts or the ghlims get you.”

    “I see,” replied Sabriel. “Lead on.”

    Surprisingly, the Sign of Three Lemons was quite a pleasant inn. A whitewashed building of four storys, it fronted onto a smaller square some two hundred yards from King Anstyr’s Fountain Square. There were three enormous lemon trees in the middle of the square, somehow thick with pleasant-smelling leaves and copious amounts of fruit, despite the season. Charter Magic, thought Sabriel, and sure enough, there was a Charter Stone hidden amongst the trees, and a number of a spells of fertility, warmth and bountitude. Sabriel she lemoed air gratefully, thankful that her room had a window fronting the square.

    Behind her, a maid was filling a tin bath with hot water. Several large buckets had already gone in—this would be the last. Sabriel closed the window and came over to look at the stillsteaming water in anticipation.

    “Will that be all, miss?” asked the maid, halfcurtseying.

    “Yes, thank you,” replied Sabriel. The maid edged out the door, and Sabriel slid the bar across, before divesting herself of her cloak, and theinking, sweat- and salt-encrusted armor and garments that had virtually stuck to her after almost a week at sea. Naked, she rested her swainst the bath’s rim—in easy reach—then sank gratefully into the water, taking up the lump of lemoed soap to begin removing the caked grime and sweat.

    Through the wall, she could hear a man’s— Touchstone’s—voice. Then water gurgling, that maid giggling. Sabriel stopped soaping and trated on the sound. It was hard to hear, but there was miggling, a deep, indistinct male voice, then a loud splash. Like two bodies in a bath rather than one.

    There was silence for a while, then more splashing, gasps, giggles—was that Touchstone laughing? Then a series of short, sharp, moans.

    Womanly ones. Sabriel flushed and gritted her teeth at the same time, then quickly lowered her head into the water so she couldn’t hear, leaving only her nose and mouth exposed. Uer, all was silent, save for the dull booming of her heart, eg in her flooded ears.

    What did it matter? She didn’t think of Touchstone in that way. Sex was the last thing  on her mind. Just another plication— traception—messiness—emotions. There were enough problems. trate on planning.

    Think ahead. It was just because Touchstone was the first young man she’d met out of school, that was all. It was none of her business. She didn’t even know his real name . . .

    A dull tapping noise on the side of the bath made her raise her head out of the water, just in time to hear a very self-satisfied, mase and drawn-out moan from the other side of the wall.

    She was about to stick her head bader, when Mogget’s pink nose appeared on the rim.

    So she sat up, water casg down her face, hiding the tears she told herself weren’t there.

    Angrily, she crossed her arms across her breasts and said, “What do you want?”

    “I just thought that you might like to know that Touchstone’s room is that way,” said Mogget, indig the silent room opposite the oh the noisy couple. “It hasn’t got a bathtub, so he’d like to know if he  use yours when you’re finished. He’s waiting downstairs in the meantime, getting the loews.”

    “Oh,” replied Sabriel. She looked across at the far, silent wall, then back to the close wall, where  the human noises were now largely lost in the groaning of bedsprings. “Well, tell him I won’t be long.”

    Twenty minutes later, a  Sabriel, garbed in a borrowed dress made ingruous by her sword-belt (the bell-bandolier lay under her bed, with Mogget asleep on top of it), crept on slippered feet through the largely empty on room and tapped the salty, begrimed Touchstone on the back, making him spill his beer.

    “Your turn for the bath,” Sabriel said cheerily, “my evil-smelling swordsman. I’ve just had it refilled. Mogget’s in the room, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

    “Why would I mind?” asked Touchstone, as much puzzled by her manner as the question. “I just want to get , that’s all.”

    “Good,” replied Sabriel, obscurely. “I’ll anize for dio be served in your room, so lan as we eat.”

    In the event, the planning didn’t take long, nor was it slow in dampening what was otherwise a relatively festive occasion. They were safe for the moment, , well-fed—and able tet past troubles and future fears for a little while.

    But, as soon as the last dish—a squid stew,  with garlic, barley, yellow squash and tarragon vinegar—was cleared, the present reasserted itself, plete with cares and woe.

    “I think the most likely place to find my father’s body will be at . . . that place, where the Queen was slain,” Sabriel said slowly. “The reservoir. Where is it, by the way?”

    “Uhe Palace Hill,” replied Touchstone.

    “There are several different ways to enter. All lie beyond this aqueduct-guarded valley.”

    “You are probably right about your father,”

    Mogget ented from his  of blas in the middle of Touchstone’s bed. “But that is also the most dangerous place for us to go.

    Charter Magic will be greatly ed, including various bindings—and there is a ce that our enemy . . .”

    “Kerrigor,” interrupted Sabriel. “But he may not be there. Even if he is, we may be able to sneak in—”

    “We might be able to sneak around the edges,”

    said Touchstohe reservoir is enormous, and there are hundreds of ns. But wading is noisy, and the water is very still—sound carries.

    And the six . . . you know . . . they are in the very ter.”

    “If I  find my father and bring his spirit back to his body,” Sabriel said stubbornly, “then we  deal with whatever fronts us. That is the first thing. My father. Everything else is just a plication that’s followed on.”

    “Or preceded it,” said Mogget. “So, I take it your master plan is to sneak in, as far as we , find your father’s body, which will hopefully be tucked away in some safe er, and then see what happens?”

    “We’ll go in the middle of a clear, sunny day . . .” Sabriel began.

    “It’s underground,” interrupted Mogget.

    “So we have sunlight to retreat to<u>?9９lｉｂ?</u>,” Sabriel tinued in a quelling tone.

    “And there are light shafts,” added Touchstone.

    “At noon, it’s a sort of dim twilight down there, with patches of faint sun oer.”

    “So, we’ll find Father’s body, bring it back to safety here,” said Sabriel, “and . . . and take things from there.”

    “It sounds like a terribly brilliant plan to me,”

    muttered Mogget. “The genius of simplicity . . .”

    ‘‘ you think of anything else?” snapped Sabriel. “I’ve tried, and I ’t. I wish I could go home to Aierre and fet the whole  thing—but then I’d never see Father again, and the Dead would <tt></tt>just eat up everything living in this whole rotten Kingdom. Maybe it won’t work, but at least I’ll be trying something, like the Abhorsen I’m supposed to be and you’re always telling me I’m not!”

    Silence greeted this sally. Touchstone looked away, embarrassed. Mogget looked at her, yawned and shrugged.

    “As it happens, I ’t think of anything else.

    I’ve grown stupid over the millennia—even stupider than the Abhorsens I serve.”

    “I think it’s as good a plan as any,” Touchstone said, uedly. He hesitated, then added, “Though I am afraid.”

    “So am I,” whispered Sabriel. “But if it’s a sunny day tomorroill go there.”

    “Yes,” said Touchstone. “Before we grow too afraid.”

 chapter xx

    Leaving the safe, aqueductbounded quarter of Belisaere proved to be a more difficult busihaering it, particularly through the northern archway, which led out to a long-abareet of derelict houses, winding their  towards the northern hills of the city.

    There were six guards at the archway, and they looked siderably more alert and effit than the ones who guarded the passage from the docks. There was also a group of other people ahead of Sabriel and Touchstone waiting to be let through. Nine men, all with the marks of violence written in their expressions, in the way they spoke and moved. Every one was armed, with ing from daggers to a broad-bladed axe. Most of them also carried bows—short, deeply curved bows, slung on their backs.

    “Who are these people?” Sabriel asked Touchstone. “Why are they going out into the Dead part of the city?”

    “Sgers,” replied Touchstone. “Some of the people I spoke to last night mentiohem.

    Parts of the city were abao the Dead very quickly, so there is still plenty of loot to be found. A risky business, I think . . .”

    Sabriel houghtfully and looked back at the men, most of whom were sitting or squatting by the aqueduct wall. Some of them looked back at her, rather suspiciously. For a moment, she thought they’d seen the bells under her cloak and reized her as a neahen she realized that she and Touchstone probably looked like rival sgers. After all, who else would want to leave the prote of swift water? She felt a bit like a hard-bitten sger. Even freshly ed and scrubbed, her clothes and armor were not the sweetest items of wear. They were also still slightly damp, and the boat cloak that covered her up was on the borderliween damp a, because it hadn’t been hung up properly after  washing. On the positive side, everything had the st of lemon, for the Sign of Three Lemons washerfolk used lemoed soap.

    Sabriel thought the sgers had been waiting for the guards, but clearly they had been waiting for something else, which they’d suddenly sighted behihe sitting or squatting men picked themselves up, grumbling and cursing, and shuffled together into something resembling a line.

    Sabriel looked over her shoulder to see what they saw—and froze. For ing towards the arch were two men, and about twenty children; children of all ages between six and sixteen. The men had the same look as the other sgers, and carried long, four-tongued whips. The children were ma the ahe manacles fasteo a loral . One mahe , leading the children down the middle of the road. The other followed behind, plying the air above the small bodies idly with his whip, the four tongues occasionally lig against an ear or the top of a small head.

    “I heard of this too,” muttered Touchstone, moving up closer to Sabriel, his hands falling on his sword hilts. “But I thought it was a beer  story. The sgers use children—slaves—as decoys, or bait, for the Dead. They leave them in one area, to draw the Dead away from where they io search.”

    “This is . . . disgusting!” raged Sabriel.

    “Immoral! They’re slavers, not sgers! We have to stop it!”

    She started forward, mind already f a Charter-spell to blind and fuse the sgers, but a sharp pain in her neck halted her.

    Mogget, riding on her shoulders, had dug his claws in just under her . Blood trickled down in hairliraces, as he hissed close to her ear.

    “Wait! There are nine sgers and six guards, with more close by. What will it profit these children, and all the others who may e, if you are slain? It is the Dead who are at the root of this evil, and Abhorsen’s business is with the Dead!”

    Sabriel stood still, shuddering, tears e and anger welling up in the ers of her eyes. But she didn’t attack. Just stood, watg the children.

    They seemed resigo their fate, silent, without hope. They didn’t even fidget in their s, standing still, heads bowed, till the sgers whipped them up again and they broke into a  dispirited shuffle towards the archway.

    Soon, they were beyond the arch, heading up the ruireet, the sging team walking slowly behind them. The sun shone bright on the cobbled street and reflected from armor and ons—and, briefly, from a little boy’s blond head. Then they were gourning right, taking the way towards er’s Hill.

    Sabriel, Touchstone and Mogget followed after ten minutes speiating with the guards. At first, the leader, a large man in a gravy-stained leather cuirass, wao see an “official sger’s lise,” but this was soon translated as a request for bribes. Then it was merely a matter of bargaining, down to the final price of three silver pennies each for Sabriel and Touchstone, and one for the cat. Strange ating, Sabriel thought, but she was glad Mogget stayed silent, not voig the opinion that he was being undervalued.

    Past the aqueduct, and the soothing barrier of running water, Sabriel felt the immediate presence of the Dead. They were all around, in the ruined houses, in cellars and drains, lurking ahe light didn’t reach. Dormant. Waiting for the night, while the sun shone.

    In many ways, the Dead of Belisaere were direct  terparts of the sgers. Hiding by day, they took what they could by night. There were many, many Dead in Belisaere, but they were weak, cowardly and jealous. Their bined appetite was enormous, but the supply of victims sadly limited. Every m saw scores of them lose their hold on Life, to fall bato Death.

    But more always came . . .

    “There are thousands of Dead here,” Sabriel said, eyes darting from side to side. “They’re weak, for the most part—but so many!”

    “Do we ght on to the reservoir?”

    Touchstone asked. There was an unspokeion there, Sabriel knew. Should they—could they—save the children first? She looked at the sky, and the sun, before answering. They had about four hours of strong sunlight, if no clouds intervened. Little enough time, anyway. Assuming that they could defeat the sgers, could they leave finding her father till tomorrow? Every day made it less likely his spirit and body could be brought back together. Without him, they couldn’t defeat Kerrigor—and Kerrigor had to be defeated for them to have any hope of repairing the stones of the Great Charter—  banishing the Dead across the Kingdom . . .

    “We’ll ght to the reservoir,” Sabriel said, heavily, trying to blank out a sudden fragment of visual memory; sunlight on that little boy’s head, the trudgi . . .

    “Perhaps we . . . perhaps we will be able to rescue the children on the way back.”

    Touchstohe way with fidence, keeping to the middle of the streets, where the sun was bright. For almost an hour, they strode up empty, deserted streets, the only sound the clag of their boot-nails on the cobbles. There were no birds, or animals. Not even is. Just ruin and decay.

    Finally, they reached an iron-fenced park that ran around the base of Palace Hill. Atop the hill, blaed, burnt-out shells of tumbled stone and timber were all that remained of the Royal Palace.

    “The last Regent bur,” said Mogget, as all three stopped to look up. “About twenty years ago. It was being ied with the Dead, despite all the guards and wards that various visiting Abhorsens put up. They say the Rege mad and tried to burn them out.”

    “What happeo him?” asked Sabriel.

    “Her, actually,” replied Mogget. “She died in the fire—or the Dead took her. And that marked the end of any attempt at g the Kingdom.”

    “It was a beautiful building,” Touchstone reminisced. “You could see out over the Saere. It had high ceilings, and a clever system of vents and shafts to catch the light and the sea breeze.

    There was always musid dang somewhere in the Palace, and Midsummer dinner on the garden roof, with a thousand sted dles burning . . .”

    He sighed, and poi a hole in the park fence.

    “We might as well gh here. There’s arao the reservoir in one of the oral caves in the park. Only fifty steps down to the water, rather than the hundred and fifty from the Palace proper.”

    “One hundred and fifty-six,” said Mogget. “As I recall.”

    Touchstone shrugged, and climbed through the hole, onto the springy turf of the park. There was no one—and no thing—in sight, but he drew his swords anyway. There were large trees nearby, and accly, shadows.

    Sabriel followed, Mogget jumping down from her shoulders to saunter forward and sniff the air.

    Sabriel drew her sword too, but left the bells.

    There were Dead about, but none close. The park was too open in daylight.

    The oral caves were only five minutes’ walk aast a fetid pond that had once boasted seven water-spouting statues of bearded tritons. Now their mouths were clogged with rotten leaves, and the pond was almost solid with yellow-green slime.

    There were three cave entrances, side by side.

    Touchstohem to the largest, tral entrance. Marble steps led down the first three or four feet, and marble pillars supported the entrance ceiling.

    “It only goes back about forty paces into the hill,” Touchstone explained, as they lit their dles by the entrance, sulphur matches adding their own noisome stench to the dank air of the cave. “They were built for pii high summer.

    There is a door at the back of this o may be locked, but should yield to a Charterspell.

    The steps are directly behind, and pretty straight, but there are no light shafts. And it’s narrow.”

    “I’ll go first then,” said Sabriel, with a firmhat belied the weakness in her legs and the fluttering iomach. “I ’t sense any Dead, but they could be there . . .”

    “Very well,” said Touchstone, after a moment’s hesitation.

    “You don’t have to e, you know,” Sabriel suddenly burst out, as they stood in front of the cave, dles flickering foolishly in the sunshine.

    She suddenly felt awfully responsible for him. He looked scared, much whiter than he should, almost as pale as a Death-leeched neancer.

    He’d seen terrible things in the reservoir, things that had once driven him mad, ae his self-accusation, Sabriel didn’t believe it was his fault. It wasn’t his father down there. He wasn’t an Abhorsen.

    “I do have to,” Touchstone replied. He bit his lower lip nervously. “I have to. I’ll never be free of my memories, otherwise. I have to do something, make new memories, better ones. I o . . . seek redemption. Besides, I am still a member of the Royal Guard. It is my duty.”

    “So be it,” said Sabriel. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re here.”

    “I am too—in a strange sort of way,” said Touchstone, and he almost, but not quite, smiled.

    “I’m not,” interrupted Mogget, decidedly.

    “Let’s get on with it. We’re wasting sunlight.”

    The door was locked, but opened easily to Sabriel’s spell, the simple Charter symbols of unlog and opening flowing from her mind through to her index finger, which lay against the keyhole. But though the spell was successful, it had been difficult to cast. Even up here, the broken stones of the Great Charter exerted an influehat disrupted Charter Magic.

    The faint dlelight showed damp, crumbly steps, leading straight down. No curves or turns, just a straight stair leading into darkness.

    Sabriel trod gingerly, feeling the soft stone crumble under her heavy boots, so she had to keep her heels well ba each step. This made for slress, with Touchstone close behihe light from his dle casting Sabriel’s shadow doweps in front, so she saw herself elongated and distorted, sliding into the dark beyond the light.

    She smelled the reservoir before she saw it, somewhere around the thirty-ninth step. A chill, damp smell that cut into her nose and lungs, and  filled her with the impression of a cold expanse.

    Theeps ended in a doorway on the edge of a vast, regular hall—a giant chamber where stone ns rose up like a forest to support a roof sixty feet above her head, and the floor before her wasn’t stone, but water as cold and still as stone. Around the walls, pallid shafts of sunlight thrust down in terpoint to the supp ns, leaving discs of light oer. These made the rim of the reservoir a plex study of light and shade, but the ter remained unknown, cloaked in heavy darkness.

    Sabriel felt Touchstoouch her shoulder, then she heard his whisper.

    “It’s about waist-deep. Try and slip in as quietly as possible. Here—I’ll take your dle.”

    Sabriel nodded, passed the dle back, sheathed her sword, and sat down on the last step, before slowly easing herself into the water.

    It was cold, but not unbearable. Despite Sabriel’s care, ripples spread out from her, silver on the dark water, and there had bee<bdo></bdo>i splash. Her feet touched the bottom, and she only half stifled a gasp. Not from the cold, but  from the sudden awareness of the two broken stones of the Great Charter. It hit her like the savage o of gastric flu, bringing stomach cramps, sudde and dizziness. Bent over, she clutched at the step, till the first pains subsided to a dull ache. It was much worse than the lesser stones, broken at Clove aowe.

    “What is it?” whispered Touchstone.

    “Ah . . . the broken stones,” Sabriel muttered.

    She took a deep breath, willing the pain and disfort away. “I  stand it. Be careful when you get in.”

    She drew her sword, and took her dle back from Touchstone, who prepared to ehe water. Even forewarned, she saw him flinch as his feet touched the bottom, and sweat broke out in lines on his forehead, mirr the ripples that spread from his entry.

    Sabriel expected Mogget to jump up on her shoulder, given his apparent dislike for Touchstone, but he surprised her, leaping to the man. Touchstone was clearly startled too, but recovered well. Mogget draped himself around the back of Touchstone’s neck, and mewed softly.

    “Keep to the edges, if you . The corruption— the break—will have even more unpleasant effeear the ter.”

    Sabriel raised her sword in assent and led off, following the left wall, trying to break the surface tension of the water as little as possible. But the quiet slosh-slosh of their wading seemed very loud, eg and spreading up and out through the cistern, adding to the only other he regular dripping of<dfn>藏书网</dfn> water, plopping loudly from the roof, or more sedately sliding down the ns.

    She couldn’t sense any Dead, but she wasn’t sure how much that was due to the broken stohey made her head hurt, like a stant, too-loud noise; her stomach cramped; her mouth was full of the acrid taste of bile.

    They had just reached the north-western er, directly under one of the light shafts, when the light suddenly dimmed, and the reservrew dark in an instant, save for the tiny, soft glow of the dles.

    “A cloud,” whispered Touchstone. “It will pass.”

    They held their breath, looking up, up to the tiny outline of light above, and were rewarded  when sunlight came p back down.

    Relieved, they began to wade again, following the lo-east wall. But it was short-lived relief. Another cloud crossed the sun, somewhere in that fresh air so high above them, and darkness returned. More clouds followed, till there were only brief moments of light interspersed by long stretches of total dark.

    The reservoir seemed colder without the sun, even a sun diluted by passage down long shafts through the earth. Sabriel felt the cold now, apanied by the sudden, irrational fear that they had stayed too long, and would emerge to a night full of waiting, life-hungry Dead.

    Touchstohe chill too, made more bitter by his memories of two hundred years past, when he’d waded in this same water, ahe Queen awo daughters sacrificed and the Great Stones broken. There had been blood oer then, aill saw it—a single frozen moment of time that would not get out of his head.

    Despite these fears, it was the darkhat helped them. Sabriel saw a glow, a faint luminesce off tht, somewhere towards the ter. Shielding her eyes from the dle’s  glare, she poi out to Touchstone.

    “There’s something there,” he agreed, his voice so low Sabriel barely heard it. “But it’s at least forty paces towards the ter.”

    Sabriel didn’t answer. She’d felt something from that faint light, something like the slight sensation across the back of her hat came when her father’s sending visited her at school.

    Leaving the wall, she pushed out through the water, a V-line of ripples behiouchstone looked again, then followed, fighting the hat rose in him, ing in waves like repeated doses of aic. He was dizzy too, and could no longer properly feel his feet.

    They went about thirty paces out, the pain and the nausea growi<q>..</q>ng steadily worse. Then Sabriel suddenly stopped, Touchstone lifting his sword and dle, eyes searg for an attack. But there was no enemy present. The luminous light came from a diamond of prote, the four cardinal marks glowing uhe water, lines of force sparkliween them.

    In the middle of the diamond, a man-shaped figure stood, empty hands outstretched, as if he had once held ons. Frost rimed his clothes and face, obsg his features, and ice girdled  the water around his middle. But Sabriel had no doubt about who it was.

    “Father,” she whispered, the whisper eg across the dark water, to join the faint sounds of the ever-present dripping.

 chapter xxi

    “The diamond ..is plete,” said Touchstone. “We won’t be able to move him.”

    “Yes. I know,” replied Sabriel. The relief that had soared<var>.９９lib?</var> inside her at the sight of her father was ebbing, giving way to the siess caused by the broken stones. “I think . . . I think I’ll have to go into Death from here, ach his spirit back.”

    “What!” exclaimed Touchstohen, quieter, as the ech, “Here?”

    “If we cast our own diamond of prote . . .”

    Sabriel tihinking aloud. “A large one, around both of us and Father’s diamond—that will keep most da bay.”

    “Most danger,” Touchstone said grimly, looking around, trying to peer past the tight fines of their dle’s little globe of light.

    “It will also trap us here—even if we  cast it, so close to the broken stones. I know that I couldn’t do it alo this point.”

    “We should be able to bine our strengths.

    Then, if you and Mogget keep watch while I am ih, we should manage.”

    “What do you think, Mogget?” asked Touchstourning his head, so his cheek brushed against the little animal on his shoulder.

    “I have my own troubles,” grumbled Mogget.

    “And I think this is probably a trap. But since we’re here, and the—Abhorseus, shall we say, does seem to be alive, I suppose there’s nothing else to be done.”

    “I don’t like it,” whispered Touchstone.

    Just standing this close to the broken stoook most of his strength. For Sabriel to enter Death seemed madness, tempting fate. Who knew what might be lurking ih, close by the easy portal made by the broken stones? For that matter, who knew what was lurking in or around the reservoir? Sabriel didn’t answer. She moved closer to her father’s diamond of prote, studying the cardinal marks uhe water. Touchstone  followed relutly, f his legs to move in short steps, minimizing the splash and ripple of his wake.

    Sabriel snuffed out her dle, thrust it through her belt, then held out her open palm.

    “Put your sword away and give me your hand,” she said, in a tohat did not invite versatiument. Touchstoated— his left hand held only a dle, and he didn’t want both his swords scabbarded—then he plied. Her hand was cold, colder thaer. Instinctively, he gripped a little tighter, to give her some of his warmth.

    “Mogget—keep watch,” Sabriel instructed.

    She closed her eyes, and began to visualize the East mark, the first of the four cardinal wards.

    Touchstoook a quick look around, then closed his eyes too, drawn in by the force of Sabriel’s juration.

    Pain shot through his hand and arm, as he added his will to Sabriel’s. The mark seemed blurry in his head, and impossible to focus. The pins and needles that had already plagued his feet spread up above his knees, shooting them through with rheumatic pains. But he blocked off the pain, narrowing his sciouso just ohing: the creation of a diamond of prote.

    Finally, the East mark flowed down Sabriel’s blade and took root in the reservoir floor.

    Without opening their eyes, the duo shuffled around to face the south, and the  mark.

    This was harder still, and both of them were sweating and shaking when it finally began its glowience. Sabriel’s hand was hot and feverish now, and Touchstone’s flesh ricocheted violently betweei and shivering cold. A terrible wave of nausea hit him, and he would have been sick, but Sabriel gripped his hand, like a fal its prey, a him strength. He gagged, dry-retched ohen recovered.

    The West mark was simply a trial of endurance.

    Sabriel lost tration for a moment, so Touchstone had to hold the mark alone for a few seds, the effort making him feel drunk in the most unpleasant way, the world spinning inside his head, totally out of trol. Then Sabriel forced herself bad the West mark flowered uhe water.

    Desperation gave them the North mark. They struggled with it for what seemed like hours, but was only seds, till it almost squ<var>..</var>irmed  from them uncast. But at that moment, Sabriel spent all the force of her desire to free her father, and Touchstone pushed with the weight of two hundred years of guilt and sorrow.

    The North mark rolled brightly down the sword and grew to brilliance, brilliance dulled by the water. Lines of Charter-fire ran from it to the East mark, from East mark to South mark to West mark and back again. The diamond was plete.

    Immediately, they felt a lessening of the terrible presence of the broken stohe high-pitched pain in Sabriel’s head dimmed; normal feeliuro Touchstone’s legs a. Mogget stirred and stretched, the first signifit movement he’d made siaking up position around Touchstone’s neck.

    “A good casting,” Sabriel said quietly, looking at the marks through eyes half-lidded in weariness.

    “Better than the last one I cast.”

    “I don’t knoe did it,” muttered Touchstoaring down at the lines of Charterfire.

    He suddenly became aware that he was still holding Sabriel’s hand, and slumping like an aged wood collector under a heavy burderaightened up suddenly, dropping her hand as  if it were the fanged end of a snake.

    She looked at him, rather startled, and he found himself staring at the refle of his dle-flame in her dark eyes. Almost for the first time, he really looked at her. He saw the wearihere, and the incipient lines of care, and the way her mouth looked a little sad around the edges. Her nose was still swollen, and there were yellowing bruises on her cheekbones.

    She was also beautiful and Touchstone realized that he had thought of her only in terms of her office, as Abhorsen. Not as a woman at all . . .

    “I’d better be going,” said Sabriel, suddenly embarrassed by Touchstone’s stare. Her left hao the bell-bandolier, fingers feeling for the straps that held Sarah.

    “Let me help,” said Touchstone. He stood close, fumbling with the stiff leather, hands weakened by the effort spent on the diamond of prote, his head bowed over the bells.

    Sabriel looked down on his hair, and was straempted to kiss the exact ter, a tiny part marking the epiter where his tight brown curls radiated outwards. But she didn’t.

    The strap came undone, and Touchstoepped back. Sabriel drew Sarah, carefully stilling the bell.

    “It probably won’t be a long wait for you,” she said. “Time moves strangely ih. If . . . if I’m not ba two hours, then I probably . . . I’ll probably be trapped too, so you and Mogget should leave . . .”

    “I’ll be waiting,” replied Touchstone firmly.

    “Who knows what time it is down here anyway?”

    “And I’ll wait, it seems,” added Mogget.

    “Unless I want to swim out of here. Which I don’t. May the Charter be with you, Sabriel.”

    “And with you,” said Sabriel. She looked around the dark expanse of the reservoir. She still couldn’t sense any of the Dead out there— a . . .

    “We’ll  to be with us,” Mogget replied sourly. “One way or another.”

    “I hope not,” whispered Sabriel. She checked the pouch at her belt for the small things she’d p<mark>藏书网</mark>repared back at the Sign of Three Lemons, then turo face the North mark and started to raise her sword, beginning her preparations to enter Death.

    Suddenly, Touchstone sloshed forward and quickly kissed her on the cheek—a clumsy,  dry-lipped peck that almost hit the rim of her helmet rather than her cheek.

    “For luck,” Touchstone said nervously.

    “Sabriel.”

    She smiled, and wice, then looked back to the north. Her eyes focused on something not there and waves of cold air billowed from her motionless form. A sed later, ice crystals began to crack out of her hair, and frost ran in lines down the sword and bell.

    Touchstoched, close by, till it grew too cold, thereated to the far southerice of the diamond. Drawing one sword, he turned outwards, holding his dle high, and started to wade around ihe lines of Charter-fire as if he were patrolling the battlements of a castle.

    Mogget watched too, from his shoulder, his green eyes lit with their own internal luminesce.

    Both of them often turo gaze at Sabriel.

    The crossing into Death was made easy—far too easy—by the presence of the broken stones.

    Sabriel felt them near her, like two yawning gates, proclaiming easy entry to Life for any   Dead nearby. Fortunately, the other effect of the stohe siing illness—disappeared ih. There was only the chill and tug of the river.

    Sabriel started forward immediately, carefully sing the grey expanse before her. Things moved at the edge of her vision; she heard movement in the cold waters. But nothing came towards her, nothing attacked, save the stant twining and gripping of the current.

    She came to the First Gate, halting just beyond the wall of mist that stretched out as far as she could see to either side. The river roared beyond that mist, turbulent rapids going through to the Sed Prect, and on to the Sed Gate.

    Remembering pages from The Book of the Dead, Sabriel spoke words of power. Free Magic, that shook her mouth as she spoke, jarrieeth, burnioh raw power.

    The veil of mist parted, revealing a series of waterfalls that appeared to drop into an unending blaess. Sabriel spoke some more words, aured to the right a with her sword.

    A path appeared, parting the waterfall like a finger drawn through butter. Sabriel stepped out onto it, and walked down, the waters crashing harmlessly oher side. Behihe mist closed up and, as her rearmost heel lifted to make her  step, the path disappeared.

    The Sed Prect was more dangerous than the First. There were deep holes, as well as the ever-present current. The light was worse too.

    Not the total darkness promised at the end of the waterfalls, but there was a different quality in its greyness. A blurring effect, that made it difficult to see further than you could touch.

    Sabriel tinued carefully, using her sword to probe the ground ahead. There was an easy way through, she knew, a course mapped and plotted by many neancers and not a few Abhorsens, but she didn’t trust her memory to tread fidently ahead at speed.

    Always, her senses quested for her father’s spirit. He was somewhere ih, she ositive of that. There was always the fairace of him, a lingering memory. But it was not this close to Life. She would have to go on.

    The Sed Gate was essentially an enormous hole, at least two hundred yards across, into which the river sank like sinkwater down a drain. Unlike a normal drain, it was eerily silent, and with the difficult light, easy for the unwary  to walk up to its rim. Sabriel was alarticularly careful with this Gate—she had learo sehe feel of its tug against her shins at an early age. She stopped well back wheug came, and tried to focus on the silently raging whirlpool.

    A faint squelg sound behind her made her turn, sword scything around at full arm-stretch, a great circle of Charter-spelled steel. It struck Dead spirit-flesh, sparks flying, a scream e and pain filling the silence. Sabriel almost jumped back, at that scream, but she held her ground. The Sed Gate was too close.

    The thing she’d hit stepped back, its head hanging from a mostly severed neck. It was humanoid in shape, at least to begin with, but had arms that trailed down below its knees, into the river. Its head, now flopping on one shoulder, was lohan it was wide or tall, possessed a mouth with several rows of teeth. It had flaming coals in its eyepits, a characteristic of the deep Dead, from beyond the Fifth Gate.

    It snarled and brought its long, skewer-thin fingers up out of the water to try and straighten its head, attempting to rest it back atop the ly hewn neck.

    Sabriel struck again, and the head and one hand flew off, splashing into the river. They bobbed on the surface for a moment, the head howling, eyes flaming with hate across the water. Then it was sucked down, down into the hurly-burly of the Sed Gate.

    The headless body stood where it was for a sed, then started to cautiously step sideways, its remaining hand groping around in front of it.

    Sabriel watched it cautiously, debating whether to use Sarao bind it to her will, and then Kibeth to send it on its way to final death. But using the bells would alert everything Dead between here and the First and Third Gates at least—and she didn’t want that.

    The headless thing took aep, and fell sideways into a deep hole. It scrabbled there, long arms thrashing the water, but couldn’t pull itself up and out. It only succeeded iing across into the full force of the current, whiatched it up and threw it into the whirlpool of the Gate.

    Once again, Sabriel recited words of Free Magic power, words impressed into her mind long ago from The Book of the Dead. The words flowed out of her, blistering her lips, strange heat in this place of leeg cold.

    With the words, the waters of the Sed Gate slowed and stilled. The whirling vortex separated out into a long spiral path, winding downwards.

    Sabriel, cheg for a few last holes he edge, gingerly strode out to this path and started down. Behind and above her, the waters began to swirl again.

    The spiral path looked long, but to Sabriel it seemed only a matter of minutes before she assing through the very base of the whirlpool, and out into the Third Prect.

    This was a trie place. The water was shallow here, only ankle-deep, and somewhat warmer. The light was better too—still grey, but you could see farther out. Even the ubiquitous current was no more than a bit of a tickle around the feet.

    But the Third Prect had waves. For the first time, Sabriel broke into a run, sprinting as fast as she could towards the Third Gate, just visible in the dista was like the First Gate—a waterfall cealed in a wall of mist.

    Behind her, Sabriel heard the thunderous crashing that annouhe wave, which had been held back by the same spell that gave her passage through the whirlpool. With the wave  came shrill cries, shrieks and screams. There were clearly many Dead around, but Sabriel didn’tbbr>?</abbr> spare them a thought. Nothing and no one could withstand the waves of the Third Prect. You simply ran as fast as possible, hoping to reach the  gate—whichever way you were going.

    The thunder and crashing grew louder, and one by ohe various screams and shouts were submerged in the greater sound. Sabriel didn’t look, but only ran faster. Looking over her shoulder would lose a fra of a sed, and that might be enough for the wave to reach her, pick her up and hurl her through the Third Gate, stunned flotsam for the current beyond . . .

    Touchstoared out past the southerice, listening. He had heard something, he was sure, something besides the stant dripping.

    Something louder, something slow, attempting to be surreptitious. He knew Mogget had heard it too, from the sudden tensing of cat paws on his shoulder.

    “ you see anything?” he whispered, peering out into the darkness. The clouds were still  blog the light from the sun-shafts, though he thought the intervals of sunlight were growing longer. But, in any case, they were too far away from the edge to be from a suddeurn of sun.

    “Yes,” whispered Mogget. “The Dead. Many of them, filing out of the main southern stair.

    They’re lining up each side of the door, along the reservoir walls.”

    Touchstone looked at Sabriel, now covered in frost, like a wintering statue. He felt like shaking her shoulder, screaming for help . . .

    “What kind of Dead are they?” he asked. He didn’t know much about the Dead, except that Shadow Hands were the worst of the normal variety, and Mordits, like the ohat had followed Sabriel, were the worst of them all.

    Except for what Rogir had bee. Kerrigor, the Dead Adept . . .

    “Hands,” muttered Mogget. “All Hands, and pretty putrest ooo. They’re falling apart just walking.”

    Touchstoared again, trying by sheer force of will to see—but there was nothing, save darkness. He could hear them, though, wading, squelg through the still water. Too still for  his liking—suddenly he wondered if the reservoir had a drainhole and a plug. Then he dismissed it as a foolish notion. Any such plug or drain cover would have long since rusted shut.

    “What are they doing?” he whispered anxiously, fingering his sword, tilting the blade this way and that. His left hand seemed to hold the dle steady, but the little flame flickered, clear evidence of the tiny shakes that ran down his arm.

    “Just lining up along the walls, in ranks,”

    Mogget whispered back. “Strange—almost like an huard . . .”

    “Charter preserve us,” Touchstone croaked, with a weight in his throat of absolute dread and terrible foreboding. “Rogir . . . Kerrigor.

    He must be here . . . and he’s ing . . .”

 chapter xxii

    Sabriel reached the Third Gate just ahead of the wave, gabbling a Free Magic spell as she ran, feeling it fume up and out of her mouth, filling her nostrils with acrid fumes.

    The spell parted the mists, and Sabriel stepped within, the wave breaking harmlessly around her, dumping its cargo of Dead down into the waterfall beyond. Sabriel waited a moment more, for the path to appear, then passed on— on to the Fourth Prect.

    This was a relatively easy area to traverse. The current was strong again, but predictable. There were few Dead, because most were stunned and rushed through by the Third Prect’s wave.

    Sabriel walked quickly, using the strength of her will to suppress the leeg cold and the plug hands of the current. She could feel her father’s spirit now, close by, as if he were in one room of a large house, and she in arag him down by the slight sounds of habitation.

    He was either here in the Fourth Prect, or past the Fate, in the Fifth Prect.

    She increased her pace a little again, eager to find him, talk with him, free him. She knew everything would be all right oher was freed . . .

    But he wasn’t in the Fourth Prect. Sabriel reached the Fate without feeling any intensification of his presehis gate was another waterfall, of sorts, but it wasn’t cloaked in mist. It looked like the easy drop of water from a small weir, a matter of only two or three feet down. But Sabriel khat if you approached the edge there was more than enough force t the stro spirit down.

    She halted well back, and was about to launto the spell that would jure her path, when a niggliion at the back of her head made her stop and look around.

    The waterfall stretched as far as she could see to either side, and Sabriel khat if she was foolish enough to try and walk its length, it  would be an unending journey. Perhaps it eventually looped ba itself, but as there were no landmarks, stars or anything els9９ｌｉｂ?o fix one’s position, you’d never know. No one ever walked the breadth of an inner prect ate.

    What would be the point? Everyo into Death or out of it. Not sideways, save at the border with Life, where walking along altered where you came out—but that was only useful for spirit-forms, or rare beings like the Mordit, who took their physical shape with them.

    heless, Sabriel felt an urge to walk aloo the Gate, to turn on her heel and follow the line of the waterfall. It was an uifiable urge, and that made her uneasy. There were other things ih than the Dead—inexplicable beings of Free Magic, strange structs and inprehensible forces. This urge—this calling— might e from one of them.

    She hesitated, thinking about it, then pushed out into the water, heading out parallel to the waterfall. It might be some Free Magic summoning, or it might be some e with her father’s spirit.

    “They’re ing down the east a stairs, too,” said Mogget. “More Hands.”

    “What about the south—where we came in?”

    asked Touchstone, looking nervously from side to side, ears straining to hear every sound, listening to the Dead wading out into the reservoir to form up in their strange, regimented lines.

    “Not yet,” replied Mogget. “That stair ends in sunlight, remember? They’d have to gh the park.”

    “There ’t be much sunlight,” muttered Touchstone, looking at the light-shafts. Some sunshine was ing through, heavily filtered by clouds, but it wasn’t enough to cause the Dead in the reservoir any distress, or lift Touchstone’s spirits.

    “When . . . when do you think he will e?”

    asked Touchstone. Mogget didn’t o ask who “he” was.

    “Soon,” replied the cat, in a matter-of-fact tone.

    “I always said it was a trap.”

    “So how do we get out of it?” asked Touchstorying to keep his voice steady. He was inwardly fighting a strong desire to leave the diamond of prote and run for the southern stair, splashing through the reservoir like a runaway  horse, careless of the  there was Sabriel, frosted over, immobile . . .

    “I’m not sure we ,” said Mogget, with a sideways gla the two ice-rimmed statues nearby. “It depends on Sabriel and her father.”

    “What  we do?”

    “Defend ourselves if we’re attacked, I suppose,”

    drawled Mogget, as if stating the obvious to a tiresome child. “Hope. Pray to the Charter that Kerrigor doesn’t e before Sabriel returns.”

    “What if he does?” asked Touchstoaring white-eyed out into the darkness. “What if he does?”

    But Mogget was silent. All Touchstone heard was the shuffling, wading, splashing of the Dead, as they slowly drew closer, like starving rats creeping up to a sleeping drunk’s dinner.

    Sabriel had no idea of how far she’d gone before she found him. That same niggliion prompted her to stop, to look out into the waterfall itself, and there he was. Abhorsen. Father.

    Somehow imprisoned withie itself, so only his head was visible above the rush of the water.

    “Father!” cried Sabriel, but she resisted the urge to rush forward. At first, she thought he was unaware of her, then a slight wink of one eye showed scious perception. He winked again, and moved his eyeballs to the right, several times.

    Sabriel followed his gaze, and saw something tall and shadowy thrust up through the waterfall, arms reag up to pull itself out of the gate. She stepped forward, sword and bell at the ready, theated. It was a Dead humanoid, very similar in shape and size to the one who had brought the bells and sword to Wyverley College. She looked back at her father, and he winked again, the er of his mouth curving up ever so slightly—almost a smile.

    She stepped back, still cautious. There was always the ce that the spirit ed ierfall was merely the mimic of her father, or, even if it was him, that he was uhe sway of some power.

    The Dead creature finally hauled itself out, muscles differently arrao a human’s visibly straining along the forearms. It stood on the rim for a moment, bulky head questing from side to side, then lumbered towards Sabriel with that  familiar rolling gait. Several paces away from her—out of sword’s reach—it stopped, and poi its mouth. Its jaw worked up and down, but ></a>no sound issued from its red and fleshy mouth. A black thread ran from its back, down into the rushing waters of the Gate.

    Sabriel thought for a moment, then replaced Sarah, one-handed, and drew Dyrim. She cocked her wrist t the bell, hesitated—for to sound Dyrim would alert the Dead all around—the fall. Dyrim rang, sweet and clear, several notes sounding from that one peal, mixing together like many versations overheard in a crowd.

    Sabriel rang the bell again before the echoes died, in a series of slight wrist-twitches, moving the sound out towards the Dead creature, weaving into the echoes of the first peal. Sound seemed to envelope the monster, cirg around its head and muted mouth.

    The echoes faded. Sabriel replaced Dyrim quickly, before it could try and sound of its own accord, and drew Ranna. The Sleeper could quell a large number of Dead at once, and she feared many would e to the sound of the bells.

    They would probably expect to find a foolish,  half-trained neancer, but even so, they would be dangerous. Ranna twitched in her hand, expetly, like a child waking at her touch.

    The creature’s mouth moved again, and now it had a tongue, a horrid pulpy mess of white flesh that writhed like a slug. But it worked. The thing made several gurgling, swallowing sounds, then it spoke with the voice of Abhorsen.

    “Sabriel! I both hoped and feared you would e.”

    “Father . . .” Sabriel began, looking at his trapped spirit rather than the creature.

    “Father . . .”

    She broke down, and started to cry. She had e all this way, through so many troubles, only to find him trapped, trapped beyond her ability to free him. She hadn’t even known that it ossible to imprison someohin a Gate! “Sabriel! Hush, daughter! We have no time for tears. Where is your physical body?”

    “In the reservoir,” sniffed Sabriel. “o yours. Inside a diamond of prote.”

    “And the Dead? Kerrigor?”

    “There was no sign of them there, but  Kerrigor is somewhere in Life. I don’t know where.”

    “Yes, I knew he had emerged,” muttered Abhorsen, via the thing’s mouth. “He will be he reservoir, I fear. We must move quickly.

    Sabriel, do you remember how t two bells simultaneously? Mosrael and Kibeth?”

    “Two bells?” asked Sabriel, puzzled. Waker and Walker? At the same time? She had never even heard it ossible—or had she? “Think,” said Abhorsen’s mouthpiece. “Remember.

    The Book of the Dead.”

    Slowly, it came back, pages floating down into semory, like leaves from a shakehe bells could be rung in pairs, or eveer binations, if enough neancers were gathered to wield the bells. But the risks were much greater . . .

    “Yes,” said Sabriel, slowly. “I remember.

    Mosrael and Kibeth. Will they free you?”

    The answer was slow in ing.

    “Yes. For a time. Enough, I hope, to do what must be done. Quickly, now.”

    Sabriel rying not to think about what he had just said. Subsciously, she had always been aware that Abhorsen’s spirit had been too  long from his body, and too deep in the realm of Death. He could ruly live again.

    sciously, she chose to barricade this knowledge from her mind.

    She sheathed her sword, replaced Ranna, and drew Mosrael and Kibeth. Dangerous bells, both, and more so in bination than alone.

    She stilled her miying herself of all thought aion, trating solely on the bells. Then, she rang them.

    Mosrael she swung in a three-quarter circle above her head; Kibeth she swung in a reverse figure eight. Harsh alarm joined with dang jig, merging into a discordant, grating, but eie. Sabriel found herself walking towards the waterfall, despite all her efforts to keep still. A force like the grip of a demented giant moved her legs, bent her knees, made her step forward.

    At the same time, her father was emerging from the waterfall of the Fate. His head was freed first, and he flexed his neck, then rolled his shoulders, raised his arms over his head and stretched. But still Sabriel stepped on, till she was only two paces from the rim, and could look down into the swirling waters, the   sound of the bells filling her ears, f her onwards.

    Then Abhorsen was free, and he leapt forward, thrusting his hands into the bell-mouths, gripping the clappers with his pallid hands, making them suddenly quiet. There was silence, and father and daughter embraced on the very brink of the Fate.

    “Well done,” said Abhorsen, his voice deep and familiar, lending fort and warmth like a favorite childhood toy. “Orapped, it was all I could do to send the bells and sword. Now I am afraid we must hurry, back to Life, before Kerrigor  plete his plan. Give me Sarah, for now . . . no, you keep the sword, and Ranna, I think. e on!”

    He led the way back, walking swiftly. Sabriel followed at his heels, questions bursting up in her. She kept looking at him, looking at the familiar features, the way his hair was ragged at the back, the silver stubble just showing on his  and sideburns. He wore the same sort of clothes as she did, plete with the<dfn></dfn> surcoat of silver keys. He wasn’t quite as tall as she remembered.

    “Father!” she exclaimed, trying to talk, keep up with him and keep watch, all at the same time. “What is happening? What is Kerrigor’s plan? I don’t uand. Why wasn’t I brought up here, so I would know things?”

    “Here?” asked Abhorsen, without slowing.

    “Ih?”

    “You know what I mean,” protested Sabriel.

    “The Old Kingdom! Why did . . . I mean, I must be the only Abhorsen ever who doesn’t have a clue about how everything works! Why! Why?”

    “There’s no simple answer,” replied Abhorsen, over his shoulder. “But I sent you to Aierre for two main reasons. One was to keep you safe. I had already lost your mother, and the only way to keep you safe in the Old Kingdom was to keep you either with me or always at our House—practically a prisoner. I couldn’t keep you with me, because things were getting worse and worse sihe death of the Regent, two years before you were born. The sed reason was because the Clayr advised me to do so.

    They said we needed someone—or will need someohey’re not good with time—who knows Aierre. I didn’t know why then, but I suspect I do now.”

    “Why?” asked Sabriel.

    “Kerrigor’s body,” replied Abhorsen. “ir’s, to give him his inal name. He could never be made truly dead because his body is preserved by Free Magiewhere in Life. It’s like an anchor that always brings him back. Every Abhorsen sihe breaking of the Great Stones has been looking for that body—but none of us ever found it, including me, because we never suspected it is in Aierre. Obviously, somewhere close to the Wall. The Clayr will have located it by now, because Kerrigor must have goo it when he emerged into Life. Right, do you want to do the spell, or shall I?”

    They had reached the Third Gate. He didn’t wait for her answer, but immediately spoke the words. Sabriel felt strange hearing them, rather than speaking them—curiously distant, like a far-off observer.

    Steps rose before them, cutting through the waterfall and the mist. Abhorsen took them two at a time, showing surprising energy. Sabriel followed as best she could. She felt tiredness in her bones now, a weariness beyond exhausted muscles.

    “Ready to run?” asked Abhorseook her  elbow as they left the steps a into the parted mists, a curiously formal gesture that reminded her of when she was a little girl, demanding to be properly escorted wheook a piic basket out on one of her father’s corporeal school visitations.

    They ran before the wave, with hands ihe bells, faster and faster, till Sabriel thought her legs would seize up and she’d tumble head over heels, around and around and around, finally clattering to a halt in a tangle of sword and bells.

    But she made it somehow, Abhorsen ting the spell that would<cite>..</cite> open the base of the Sed Gate, so they could asd through the whirlpool.

    “As I was saying,” Abhorsen tiaking these steps two at a time as well, speaking as swiftly as he climbed. “Kerrigor could never be properly dealt with till an Abhorsen found the body. All of us pushed him back at various times, as far back as the Seventh Gate, but that was merely postponing the problem. He grew stronger all the time, as lesser Charter Stones were broken, and the Kingdom deteriorated— and we grew weaker.”

    “Who’s we?” asked Sabriel. All this information was ing too quickly, particularly when given at the run.

    “The Great Charter bloodlines,” replied Abhorsen. “Which to all is and purposes means Abhorsens and the Clayr, sihe royal line is all but extinct. And there is, of course, the relict of the Wallmakers, a sort of struct left over after they put their powers in the Wall and the Great Stones.”

    He left the rim of the whirlpool, and strode fidently out into the Sed Prect, Sabriel close at his heels. Unlike her earlier haltin<tt>.t>g, probing advance, Abhorsen practically jogged along, obviously following a familiar route.

    How he could tell, without landmarks or any obvious signs, Sabriel had no idea. Perhaps, when she had spent thirty-odd years traversih, she would find it as easy.

    “So,” tinued Abhorsen. “We finally have the ce to finish Kerrigor ond for all.

    The Clayr will direct you to his body, you will destroy it, and then banish Kerrigor’s spirit form—which will be severely weakened. After that, you  get the surviving royal pri of his suspeate, and with the aid of the  Wallmaker relict, repair the Great Charter Stones . . .”

    “The surviving royal prince,” asked Sabriel, with a feeling of unlooked-for knowledge rising in her. “He wasn’t . . . ah . . . suspended as a figurehead in Holehallow, was he . . . and his spirit ih?”

    “A bastard son, actually, and possibly crazy,”

    Abhorsen said, without really listening. “But he has the blood. What? Oh, yes, yes he is . . . you said was . . . you mean—”

    “Yes,” said Sabriel, unhappily. “He calls himself Touchstone. And he’s waiting in the reservoir.

    he Stones. With Mogget.”

    Abhorsen paused for the first time, clearly taken aback.

    “All our plans go astray, it seems,” he said somberly, sighing. “Kerrigor lured me to the reservoir to use my blood to break a Great Stone, but I mao protect myself, so he tented himself with trapping me ih.

    He thought you would be lured to my body, and he could use your blood—but I was not trapped as securely as he thought, and planned a reverse.

    But now, if the Prince is there, he has another source of blood to break the Great Charter—”

    “He’s in the diamond of prote,” Sabriel said, suddenly feeling afraid for Touchstone.

    “That may not suffice,” replied Abhorsen grimly. “Kerrigrows stronger every day he spends in Life, taking the strength from living folk, and feeding off the broken Stones. He will soon be able to break evero Charter Magic defenses. He may be strong enough now.

    But tell me of the Prince’s panion. Who is Mogget?”

    “Mogget?” repeated Sabriel, surprised again.

    “But I met him at our House! He’s a Free Magiething—wearing the shape of a white cat, with a red collar that carries a miniature Sarah.”

    “Mogget,” said Abhorsen, as if trying to get his mouth around an unpalatable morsel. “That is the Wallmaker relict, or their last creation, or their child—no one knows, possibly not even him. I wonder why he took the shape of a cat? He was always a sort of albino dwarf-boy to me, and he practically never left the House. I suppose he may be some sort of prote for the Prince. We must hurry.”

    “I thought we were!” snapped Sabriel, as he started off again. She didn’t mean to be bad-  tempered, but this was not her idea of a heartfelt reunioween father and daughter. He hardly seemed to notice her, except as a repository for numerous revelations and as ao deal with Kerrigor.

    Abhorsen suddenly stopped, and gathered her into a quick, one-armed embrace. His grip felt strong, but Sabriel felt another reality there, as if his arm was a shadow, temporarily born of light, but doomed to fade at nightfall.

    “I have not been an ideal parent, I know,”

    Abhorsen said quietly. “None of us ever are.

    When we bee the Abhorsen, we lose much else. Responsibility to many people rides roughshod over personal responsibilities; difficulties and enemies crush out softness; our horizons narrow. You are my daughter, and I have always loved you. But now, I live again for only a short time—a hundred hundred heartbeats, no more— and I must win a battle against a terrible enemy.

    Our parts now—which perforce we must play— are not father and daughter, but one old Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind this, there is always my love.”

    “A hundred hundred heartbeats . . .” whispered Sabriel, tears falling down her face. She  gently pushed herself out of his embrace, and they started forward together, towards the First Gate, the First Prect, Life—and then, the reservoir.

 chapter xxiii

    Touchstone could see the Dead now, and had no difficulty hearing them. They were ting and clapping, decayed hands meeting together in a steady, slow rhythm that put all the hair on the back of his head on edge.

    A ghastly noise, hard sounds of bone on bone, or the liquid thumpings of deposed, jellying flesh. The ting was even worse, for very few of them had funing mouths.

    Touchstone had never seen or heard a shipwreow he khe sound of a thousand sailors drowning, all at once, in a quiet sea.

    The lines of the Dead had marched out close to where Touchstoood, f a great mass of shifting shadow, spread like a choking fungus around the ns. Touchstone couldn’t make out what they were doing, till Mogget, with his night-sight, explained.

    “They’re f up into two lio make a corridor,” the little cat whispered, though the need for silence was long gone. “A corridor of Dead Hands, reag from the northern stair to us.”

    “ you see the doorway of the stair?”

    Touchstone asked. He was no longer afraid, now he could see and smell the putrest, stinking corpses lined up in mockery of a parade. I should have died in this reservoir long ago, he thought.

    There has just been a delay of two hundred years . . .

    “Yes, I ,” tinued Mogget, his eyes green with sparkling fire. “A tall beast has e, its flesh boiling with dirty flames. A Mordit. It’s croug ier, looking bad up like a dog to its master. Fog is rolling dowairs behind it—a Free Magic trick, that one. I wonder why he has su urge to impress?”

    “Rogir always was flamboyant,” Touchstoated, as if he might be enting on someo a dinner party. “He liked everyoo be looking at him. He’s no different as Kerrigor, no different Dead.”

    “Oh, but he is,” said Mogget. “Very different.

    He knows you’re here, and the fog’s for vanity.

    He must have been terribly rushed making the body he wears now. A vain man—even a Dead one—would not like this body looked at.”

    Touchstone swallowed, trying not to think about that. He wondered if he could charge out of the diamond, flèche with his swords into that fog, a mad attack—but even if he got there, would his swords, Charter-spelled though they were, have any effe the magical flesh Kerrigor now wore? Something moved ier, at the limits of his vision, and the Hands increased the tempo of their drumming, the frenzied gurgle-ting rising in volume.

    Touchstone squinted, firming what he thought he’d seen—tendrils of fog, lazily drifting across the water between the lines of the Dead, keeping to the corridor they’d made.

    “He’s playing with us,” gasped Touchstone, surprised by his own lack of breath for speech. He felt like he’d already sprinted a mile, his heart going thump-thump-thump-thump . . .

    A terrible howl suddenly rose above the Dead drumming, and Touchsto baearly  dislodging Mogget. The howl rose and rose, being unbearable, and then a huge shape broke out of the fog and darkness, stampeding towards them with fearful preat swaths of spray exploding around it as it ran.

    Touchstone shouted, or screamed—he wasn’t sure—threw away his dle, drew his left sword and thrust both blades out, croug to receive the charge, knees so bent he was chestdeep ier.

    “The Mordit!” yelled Mogget, then he wa<dfn></dfn>s gone, leaping from Touchstoo the still-frosted Sabriel.

    Touchstone barely had time to absorb this information, and a split-sed image of something like an enormous, flame-shrouded bear, howling like the final scream of a sacrifice—then the Mordit collided with the diamond of prote, and Touchstone’s out-thrust swords.

    Silver sparks exploded with a bang that drowhe howling, throwing both Touchstone and the Mordit back several yards. Touchstone lost his footing, a under, water bubbling into his nose and still-screaming mouth.

    He pahinking the Mordit would be on him in a sed, and flipped himself back up  with unnecessary force, savagely ripping his stomach muscles.

    He almost flew out of the water, swords at guard again, but the diamond was intact, and the Mordit retreating, bag away along the corridor of Hands. They’d stopped their noise, but there was something else—something Touchstone didn’t reize, till the water drained out of his ears.

    It was laughter, laughter eg out of the fog, whiow billowed across the water, ing closer and closer, till the retreating Mordit was enveloped in it, and lost to sight.

    “Did my hound scare you, little brother?” said a voice from within the fog.

    “Ow!” exclaimed Sabriel, feeling Mogget’s claws on her physical body. Abhorsen looked at her, raising one silvery eyebrow questioningly.

    “Something touched my body in Life,” she explained. “Mogget, <mark></mark>I think. I wonder what’s happening?”

    They stood at the very edge of Death, on the border with Life. No Dead had tried to stop them,  and they’d passed easily through the First Gate.

    Perhaps any Dead would quail from the sight of two Abhorsens . . .

    Now they waited. Sabriel didn’t know why.

    Somehow, Abhorsen seemed to be able to see into Life, or to work out what was happening. He stood like an eavesdropper, body slightly bent, ear cocked to a ent door.

    Sabriel, oher hand, stood like a soldier, keeping watch for the Dead. The broken stones made this part of Death an attractive high road into Life, and she had expected to find many Dead here, trying to take advantage of the “hole.” But it was not so. They seemed to be alone in the grey, featureless river, their only neighbors the swells and eddies of the water.

    Abhorsen closed his eyes, trating even harder, then opehem to a wide-eyed stare and touched Sabriel lightly on the arm.

    “It is almost time,” he said gently. “When we emerge, I want you to take . . . Touchstone . . .

    and run for the southern stairs. Do not stop for anything, anything at all. Oside, climb up to the top of the Palace Hill, to the West Yard.

    It’s just ay field now—Touchstone will   know how to get there. If the Clayr are watg properly, and haven’t got their whens mixed up, there’ll be a Paperwing there—”

    “A Paperwing!” interrupted Sabriel. “But I crashed it.”

    “There are several around,” replied Abhorsen.

    “The Abhorsen who made it—the forty-sixth, I think—taught several others ho<dfn>藏书网</dfn>w to struct them. Anyway, it should be there. The Clayr will also be there, or a messeo tell you where to find Kerrigor’s body in Aierre. Fly as close to the Wall as possible, cross, find the body—aroy it!”

    “What will you be doing?” whispered Sabriel.

    “Here is Sarah,” replied Abhorsen, not meeting her gaze. “Give me your sword, and . . .

    Astarael.”

    The seventh bell. Astarael the Sorrowful.

    Weeper.

    Sabriel didn’t move, made no motion to hand over bell or blade. Abhorsen pushed Sarah into its pouch, and did up the strap. He started to undo the strap that held Astarael, but Sabriel’s hand closed on his, gripping it tightly.

    “There must be another way,” she cried. “We  all escape together—”

    “No,” said Abhorsen firmly. He gently pushed her hand away. Sabriel let go, aook Astarael carefully from the bandolier, making sure it couldn’t sound. “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?”

    Numbly, Sabriel handed him h<q>?</q>er sword . . . his sword. Her empty hands hung open by her sides.

    “I have walked ih to the very precipice of the Ninth Gate,” Abhorsen said quietly. “I know the secrets and horrors of the Nine Prects. I do not know what lies beyond, but everything that lives must go there, in the proper time. That is the rule that governs our work as the Abhorsen, but it also governs us. You are the fifty-third Abhorsen, Sabriel. I have not taught you as well as I should—let this be my final lesson. Everyone and everything has a time to die.”

    He bent forward, and kissed her forehead, just uhe rim of her helmet. For a moment, she stood like a stringed puppet at rest, then she flung herself against his chest, feeling the soft fabric of his surcoat. She seemed to diminish in size, till once again she was a little girl, running to his embrace at the school gates. As she could then, she heard the slow beating of his heart. Only now, she heard the beats as grains in a time-  piece, ting his hard-won hundred hundreds, ting till it was time for him to die.

    She hugged him tightly, her arms meeting around his back, his arms outstretched like a cross, sword in one hand, bell iher. Then, she let go.

    They turogether, and plunged out into Life.

    Kerrigor laughed again, an obse cackle that rose to a manic cresdo, before suddenly cutting to an ominous silehe Dead resumed their drumming, softer now, and the fog drifted forward with horrible certainty. Touchstone, drenched and partly drowned, watched it with the taut nerves of a mouse captivated by a gliding snake. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hat it was easier to see the whiteness of the fog. Up above, the clouds had gone, and the edges of the reservoir were once again lit by filtered sunlight. But they were forty paore from the edge . . .

    A crag noise behind him made him start, and turn, a jolt of fear suddenly overlaid with relief. Sabriel, and her father, were returning  to Life! Ice flakes fell from them in miniature flurries, and the layer of ice around Abhorsen’s middle broke into several small floes and drifted away.

    Touchstone blinked as the frost fell away from their hands and faces. Now Sabriel was emptyhanded, and Abhorsen wielded the sword and bell.

    “Thank the Charter!” exclaimed Touchstone, as they opeheir eyes and moved.

    But no one heard him, for in that instant a terrible scream e and fury burst out of the fog, so loud the ns shivered, and ripples burst out across the water.

    Touchstourned again, and the fog was flying away in shreds, revealing the Mordit crouched low, only its eyes and long mouth, bubbling with oily flames, visible above the water.

    Behind it, with one elongated hand upon its bogclay head, stood something that might be thought of as a man.

    Staring, Touchstone saw that Kerrigor had tried to make the body he currently inhabited look like the Rogir of old, but either his skills, memory or taste were sadly lag. Kerrigor stood at least seveall, his body impossibly  deep-chested and narrow-waisted. His head was too thin, and too long, and his mouth spread from ear to ear. His eyes did not bear looking at, for they were thin slits burning with Free Magic fires—not eyes at all.

    But somehow, even so ed, he did have a little of the look ir. Take a man, make him malleable, stretd twist . . .

    The hideous mouth opened, yawning wider and wider, then Kerrigor laughed, a short laugh, punctuated by the snap of his closing jaws.

    Then he spoke, and his voice was as ed and twisted as his body.

    “I am fortuhree bearers of blood— blood for the breaking! Three!”

    Touchsto staring, hearing Kerrigor’s voice, still somewhat like Rogir’s, rich but rotte like worm-ridden fruit. He saw both the wisted Kerrigor and the other, betterfashioned body he’d known as Rogir. He saw the dagger again, slashing across the Queen’s throat, the blood casg out, the golden cup . . .

    A hand grabbed him, turned him around, took his left sword from his grasp. He suddenly refocused, gasping for air again, and saw Sabriel.

    She had his left sword in her right hand, and  now took his open palm in her left, dragging him towards the south. He let her pull, following in a splashing, loose-limbed run. Everything seemed to close in then, his vision narrowing, like a halfremembered dream.

    He saw Sabriel’s father—the Abhorsen—for the first time devoid of frost. He looked hard, determined, but he smiled, and bowed his head a fra as they passed. Touchstone wondered why he was going the wrong way . . . towards Kerrigor, towards the dagger and the catg cup. Mogget was on his shoulder too, and that was unlike Mogget, going into danger . . . there was something else peculiar about Mogget too . . . yes, his collar was gone . . . maybe he should turn and go back, put Mogget’s collar ba, try and fight Kerrigor . . .

    “Run! Damn you! Run!” screamed Sabriel, as he half-turned. Her voiapped him out of whatever trance he’d been in. Nausea hit, for they’d left the diamond of prote. Unwarned, he threw up immediately, turning his head as they ran. He realized he was dragging on Sabriel’s hand, and forced himself to run faster, though his legs felt dead, numbed by savage pins and needles. He could hear the Dead again now,  ting, and drumming, drumming fast. There were voices too, raised loud, eg in the vast cavern. The howl of the Mordit, and a strange buzzing, crag sound that he felt rather than heard.

    They reached the southern stair, but Sabriel didn’t sla her pace, jumping up and off, out of the twilight of the reservoir into total darkness.

    Touchstone lost her hand, then found it again, and they stumbled up the steps together, swords held dangerously ahead and behind, striking sparks from the stoill they heard the tumult from behind, the howling, drumming, shouting, all magnified by the water and the vastness of the reservoir. Then another sound began, cutting through the h the clarity of perfe.

    It started softly, like a tuning fork lightly struck, but greure note, blown by a trumpeter of inexhaustible breath, till there was nothing but the sound. The sound of Astarael.

    Sabriel and Touchstoh stopped, almost in mid-stride. They felt a terrible urge to leave their bodies, to shuck them off as so much worn-out baggage. Their spirits—their essential selves—wao go, to go into Death and  plunge joyfully into the stro current, to be carried to the very end.

    “Think of Life!” screamed Sabriel, her voily just audible through the pure note. She could feel Touchstone dying, his will insuffit to hold him in Life. He seemed almost to expect this sudden summons into Death.

    “Fight it!” she screamed again, dropping her sword to slap him across the face. “Live!”

    Still he slipped away. Desperate, she grabbed him by the ears, and kissed him savagely, biting his lip, the salty blood filling both their mouths. His eyes cleared, and she felt him trate again, trate on Life, on living.

    His sword fell, and he brought his arms up around her aurned her kiss. The his head on her shoulder, and she on his, and they held each htly till the sie of Astarael slowly died.

    Silence came at last. Gingerly, they let each o. Touchstone shakily groped around for his sword, but Sabriel lit a dle before he could cut his fingers in the dark. They looked at each other in the flickering light. Sabriel’s eyes were wet, Touchstone’s mouth bloody.

    “What was that?” Touchstone asked huskily.

    “Astarael,” replied Sabriel. “The final bell. It calls everyone who hears it into Death.”

    “Kerrigor . . .”

    “He’ll e back,” whispered Sabriel. “He’ll always e back, till his real body’s destroyed.”

    “Your father?” Touumbled. “Mogget?”

    “Dad’s dead,” said Sabriel. Her face was posed, but her eyes overflowed into tears. “He’ll go quickly beyond the Final Gate. Mogget—I don’t know.”

    She fihe silver ring on her hand, frowned, ao pick up the sword she’d taken from Touchstone.

    “e on,” she ordered. “We have to get up to the West Yard. Quickly.”

    “The West Yard?” asked Touchstone, retrieving his own sword. He was fused and sick, but he forced himself up. “Of the Palace?”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel. “Let’s go.”

 chapter xxiv

    The sunshine was harsh to their eyes, for it was surprisingly only a little past noon. They stumbled out onto the marble steps of the cave, blinking like noal animals prematurely flushed out of an underground warren.

    Sabriel looked around at the quiet, sunlit trees, the placid expanse of grass, the clogged fountain.

    Everything seemed so normal, so far removed from the crazed and twisted chamber of horrors that was the reservoir, deep beh their feet.

    She looked at the sky, too, losing focus in the blue, retreating lines of clouds just edging about the fuzzy periphery of her vision. My father is dead, she thought. Gone forever . . .

    “The road winds around the south-western part of Palace Hill,” a voice said, somewhere near her, beyond the blueness.

    “What?”

    “The road. Up to the West Yard.”

    It was Touchstoalking. Sabriel closed her eyes, told herself to trate, to get a grip on the here and now. She opened her eyes and looked at Touchstone.

    He was a mess. Face blood-streaked from his bleeding lip, hair wet, plastered flat, armor and clothes darkly sodden. Water dripped down the sword he still held out, ao the ground.

    “You didn’t tell me you were a Prince,” Sabriel said, in a versational tone. She might have been enting on the weather. Her voice sourange in her own ears, but she didn’t have the energy to do anything about it.

    “I’m not,” Touchstone replied, shrugging. He looked up at the sky while he spoke. “The Queen was my mother, but my father was an obscure northern noble, who ‘took up with her’ a few years after her sort’s death. He was killed in a hunting act before I was born . . . Look, shouldn’t we be going? To the West Yard?”

    “I suppose so,” Sabriel said dully. “Father said there will be a Paperwing waiting for us there,  and the Clayr, to tell us where to go.”

    “I see,” said Touchstone. He came closer, and peered at Sabriel’s vat eyes, then took her uing and oddly floppy arm, and steered her towards the line of beech trees that marked a path to the western end of the park. Sabriel walked obediently, increasing her pace as Touchstone sped up, till they were practically jogging. Touchstone ushing on her arm, with many backward glances; Sabriel moving with a sleepwalker’s jerky animation.

    A few hundred yards from the oral caves, the beeches gave way to more lawn, and a road started up the side of Palace Hill, switchbag twice to the top.

    The road was well paved, but the flagstones had pushed u<u>..</u>p, or sunk down, over two decades without maintenance, and there were some quite deep ruts and holes. Sabriel caught her foot in one and she almost fell, Touchstone just catg her. But this small shock seemed to break her from the effects of the larger shock, and she found a new alertness cutting through her dumb despair.

    “Why are we running?”

    “Those sgers are following us,”

    Touchstone replied shortly, pointing back through the park. “The ones who had the children at the gate.”

    Sabriel looked where he pointed and, sure enough, there were figures slowly moving through the beech-lined path. All nihere, close together, laughing and talking.

    They seemed fident Sabriel and Touchstone could not escape them, and their mood looked to be that of casual beaters, easily driving their stupid prey to a definite end. One of them saw Sabriel and Touchstog and used a gesture that distance made unclear, but robably obse. Laughter carried to them, borne by the breeze. The men’s iions were clear. Hostile.

    “I wonder if they deal with the Dead,”

    Sabriel said bleakly, revulsion in those words.

    “To do their deeds when sunlight lends its aid to the living . . .”

    “They mean no good, anyway,” said Touchstone, as they set off again, building up from a fast walk to a jog. “They have bows and I bet they  shoot, uhe villagers of owe.”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel. “I hope there is a Paperwing up there . . .”

    She didn’t o expand upon what would happen if it wasn’t. her of them were in any shape fhting, or much Charter Magid nine bowmen could easily finish them off—or capture them. If the men were w for Kerrigor, it would be capture, and the knife, down in the dark of the reservoir . . .

    The road grew steeper, and they jogged in silence, breath ing fast and ragged, with o spare for words. Touchstone coughed, and Sabriel looked at him with , till she realized she was coughing too. The shape they were in, it might not take an arrow to finish matters.

    The hill would do it anyway.

    “Not . . . much . . . further,” Touchstone gasped as they tur the switchback, tired legs gaining a few seds of relief on the flat, before starting the  ine.

    Sabriel started to laugh, a bitter, coughing laugh, because it was still a lot further. The laugh became a shocked cry as something struck her in the ribs like a sucker punch. She fell sideways, into Touchstone, carrying both of them down onto the hard flagstones. A long-shot arrow had found its mark.

    “Sabriel!” Touchstone shouted, voice high  with fear and anger. He shouted her name again, and then Sabriel suddenly felt Charter Magic explode into life within him. As it grew, he leapt up, and thrust his arms out and down towards the enemy, towards that ifted marksman.

    Eight small suns flowered at his fiips, grew to the size of his ched fists, and shot out, leaving white trails of after-image in the air. A split sed later, a scream from below testified to their finding at least oarget.

    Numbly, Sabriel wondered how Touchstone could possibly still have the strength for such a spell. Wonder became surprise as he suddenly bent and lifted her up, pad all, cradling her in his arms—all in one easy motion. She screamed a little as the arrow shifted in her side, but Touchstone didn’t seem to notice. He threw his head back, roared out an animal-like challenge, and started to run up the road, gathering speed from an ungainly lurch to an inhuman sprint. Froth burst from his lips, blowing out over his  and onto Sabriel. Every vein and muscle in his ned face corded out, and his eyes went wild with unseeing energy.

    He was berserk, and nothing could stop him now, save total dismemberment. Sabriel  shivered in his grasp and turned her fato his chest, too disturbed to look on the savage, sn face that bore so little resemblao the Touchstone she knew. But at least he was running away from the enemy . . .

    On he ran, leaving the road, climbing over the tumbled stones of what had once been a gateway, hardly pausing, jumping from one rock to another with goat-like precision. His face was as bright red as a fire engine now, the pulse in his neck beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

    Sabriel, fetting her own wound in suddehat his heart would burst, started shouting at him, begging him to e out of the rage.

    “Touchstone! We’re safe! Put me down! Stop! Please, stop!”

    He didn’t hear her, his whole tratio on their path. Through the ruined gateway he ran, on along a walled path, nostrils wide, head darting from side to side like a stfollowing hound.

    “Touchstoouchstone!” Sabriel sobbed, beating on his chest with her hands. “We’ve got away! I’m all right! Stop! Stop!”

    Still he ran, through another arch; along a raised way, the stones falling away under his  feet; down a short stair, jumping gaping holes. A closed door halted him for a moment, and Sabriel breathed a sigh of relief, but he <samp>?９9ｌｉb?</samp>kicked at it viciously, till the rotten wood collapsed and he could back through, carefully shielding Sabriel from splinters.

    Beyond the door was a large, open field, bordered by tumbledown walls. Tall weeds covered the expanse, with the occasional stunted, selfsown tree rising above them. Right at the western edge, perched where a wall had long since crumbled down the hill, there were terwings, one fag south and the other north—and two people, indistinct silhouettes bordered with the flaming e of the afternoon sun that was sinking down behind them.

    Touchstone broke into a gait that could only be described as a gallop, parting the weeds like a ship ploughing a sargasso sea. He ran right up to the two standing figures, gently placed Sabriel on the ground before them—and fell over, eyes rolling back to whiteness, limbs twitg.

    Sabriel tried to crawl over to him, but the pain in her side suddenly bit sharp and deadly, so it was all she could do to sit up and look at the two people, and beyond them, the Paperwings.

    “Hello,” they said, in unison. “We are, for the moment, the Clayr. You must be the Abhorsen and the King.”

    Sabriel stared, dry-mouthed. The sun was in her eyes, making it hard for her to see them clearly. Young women, both, with long blond hair and bright, pierg blue eyes. They wore white linen dresses, with long, open sleeves.

    Freshly pressed dresses that made Sabriel feel extremely dirty and uncivilized, in her reservoirsoaked breeches and sweaty armor. Like their voices, their faces were identical. Very pretty.

    Twins.

    They smiled, and k down, one by Sabriel’s side, the other by Touchstone’s. Sabriel felt Charter Magic slowly welling up in them, like water rising in a spring—then it flowed into her, taking away the hurt and pain of the arrow.

    o her, Touchstone’s breath became less labored, and he sank into the easy quiet of sleep.

    “Thank you,” croaked Sabriel. She tried to smile, but seemed to have lost the knack of it. “There are slavers . . . human allies of the Dead . . . behind us.”

    “We know,” said the duo. “But they are ten   minutes behind. Your friend—the King—ran very, very fast. We saw him ruerday. Or tomorrow.”

    “Ah,” said Sabriel, laboriously pushing herself up onto her feet, thinking of her father and what he had said about the Clayr fusing their whens. Best to find out what she o know before things got really fusing.

    “Thank you,” she said again, for the arrow fell on the ground as she fully straightened up. It was a hunting arrow, narrow-headed, not an armor-pung bodkin. They had only meant to slow her down. She shivered, ahe hole between the armor plates. The wound didn’t feel healed exactly—just older, as if it had struck a week ago, instead of minutes.

    “Father said you would be here . . . that you have been watg for us, and watg for where Kerrigor has his body.”

    “Yes,” replied the Clayr. “Well, not us exactly.

    We’ve only been allowed to be the Clayr today, because we’re the best Paperwing pilots . . .”

    “Or actually, Ryelle is . . .” one of the twins said, pointing at the other. “But since she would need a Paperwing to fly home in, terwings were needed, so . . .”

    “Sanar came too,” Ryelle tinued, pointing back at her sister.

    “Both of us,” they chorused. “Now, there isn’t much time. You  take the red and gold Paperwing . . . we pai in the royal colors when we knew last week. But first, there’s Kerrigor’s body.”

    “Yes,” said Sabriel. Her father’s—her family’s— the Kingdom’s enemy. For her to deal with. Her burden, no matter how heavy, and how feeble her shoulders currently felt, she had to bear it.

    “His body is in Aierre,” said the twins.

    “But our vision is weak across the Wall, so we don’t have a map, or know the plaames.

    We’ll have to show you—and you’ll have to remember.”

    “Yes,” agreed Sabriel, feeling like a dull student promising to deal with a question quite beyond her. “Yes.”

    The Clayr nodded, and smiled again. Their teeth were very white and even. One, possibly Ryelle—Sabriel had already got them fused— brought a bottle made of clear green glass out from the flowing sleeve of her robe, the telltale flash of Charter Magic showing it hadn’t been there before. The other woman—Sanar—  produced a long ivory wand out of her sleeve.

    “Ready?” they asked each other simultaneously, and, “Yes,” before their question had everated Sabriel’s tired brain.

    Ryelle unstoppered the bottle with a resonant “pop,” and in one quick motion, poured out the tents along a horizontal line. Sanar, equally quickly, drew the wand across the falling water—and it froze in mid-air, to form a pane of transparent ice. A frozen window, suspended in front of Sabriel.

    “Watch,” ahe women, and Sanar tapped the ice-window with her wand. It clouded over at that touch, briefly showed a se of whirling snow, a glimpse of the Wall, then steadied into a moving vision—much like a film shot from a traveling car. Wyverley College had frowned on films, but Sabriel had been to see quite a few in Bain. This was much the same, but in color, and she could hear natural sounds as clearly as if she were there.

    The window showed typical Aierran farmland—a long field of wheat, ripe for the harvest, with a tractor stopped in the distas driver chatting with another man perched atop a cart, his two draft-horses standing  stolidly, peering out through their blinkers.

    The view raced closer towards these two men, veered around them with a snatch of caught versation, and tinued—following a road, up and over a hill, through a small wood and up to a crossroads, where the gravel intersected with a macadamized route of <dfn>.99lｉb.</dfer importahere was a sign there, and the “eye,” or whatever it was, zoomed up to it, till the signpost filled the whole of the ice-window. “Wyverley ? miles,”

    it read, direg travelers along the major road, and they were off again, shooting down towards Wyverley village.

    A few seds later, the moving image slowed, to show the familiar houses of Wyverley village; the blacksmith-cum-meic’s shop; the Wyvern public house; the stable’s trim house with the blue lantern. All landmarks known to Sabriel. She trated even more carefully, for surely the vision, having shown her a fixed point of reference, would now race off to parts of Aierre which were unknown to her.

    But the picture still moved slowly. At a walking pace, it went through the village, and turned off the road, following a bridle-path up the forested hill known as Docky Point. A nice  enough hill, to be sure, covered by a cork tree plantation, with some quite old trees. Its only point of i was the regular  upon the hilltop . . . the  . . . The image ged, closing in on the huge, grey-green stones, square-cut and tightly packed together. A relatively ret folly, Sabriel remembered from their local history lessons. A little less than two hundred years old. She’d almost visited it once, but something had ged her mind . . .

    The image ged again, somehow sinking through the stone, dowween the lines of mortar, zigzagging around the blocks, to the dark chamber at its heart. For an instant the idow went pletely dark, then light came. A bronze sarcophagus lay uhe , metal crawling with Free Magic perversions of Charter marks. The vision dodged these shifting marks, peed the bronze. A body lay inside, a living body, wreathed in Free Magic.

    The se shifted, moving with jagged difficulty to the face of the body. A handsome face, that swam closer and closer into focus, a face that showed what Kerrigor once had been. The human face ir, his features clearly showing that he had shared a mother with Touchstone.

    Sabriel stared, sied and fasated by the similarities between the half-brothers—then the vision suddenly blurred, spinning into greyness, greyness apanied by rushing water. Death.

    Something huge and monstrous was wading against the current, a jagged cutting of darkness, formless aureless, save for two eyes that burned with unnatural flame. It seemed to see her beyond the ice-window, and lurched forward, two arms like blown storm clouds reag forward.

    “Abhorsen’s Get!” screamed Kerrigor. “Your blood will gush upoones . . .”

    His arms seemed about to e through the window, but suddenly, the ice cracked, the pieces collapsing into a pile of swift-melting slush.

    “You saw,” the Clayr said together. It wasn’t a question. Sabriel nodded, shaking, her thoughts still on the likeness between Kerrigor’s inal human body and Touchstone. Where was the fork in their paths? What had put Rogir’s feet on the long road that led to the abomination known as Kerrigor? “We have four minutes,” announced Sanar.

    “Till the slavers e. We’ll help you get the King to your Paperwing, shall we?”

    “Yes, please,” replied Sabriel. Despite the fear-  some sight of Kerrigor’s raw spirit form, the vision had imbued her with a new and definite sense of purpose. Kerrigor’s body was in Aierre. She would find it aroy it, and then deal with his spirit. But they had to get to the body first . . .

    The two women lifted Touchstone up, grunting with the effort. He was no lightweight at any time, and now was even heavier, still sodden with water from his dug in the reservoir. But the Clayr, despite their rather ethereal appearance, seemed to manage well enough.

    “We wish you luck, cousin,” they said, as they walked slowly to the red and gold Paperwing, balanced so close to the edge of the broken wall, the Saere glistening white and blue below.

    “Cousin?” Sabriel murmured. “I suppose we are cousins—of a sort, aren’t we?”

    “Blood relatives, all the children of the Great Charters,” the Clayr agreed. “Though the  dwindles . . .”

    “Do you always—know what is going to happen?”

    Sabriel asked, as they gently lowered Touchstoo the back of the cockpit, and strapped him in with the belts normally used for seg luggage.

    Both the Clayr laughed. “No, thank the Charter! Our family is the most numerous of the bloodlines, and the gift is spread among many. Our visions e in snatches and splinters, glimpses and shadows. When we must, the whole family  spend its strength to narrow ht—as it has dohrough us today.

    Tomorroill be back to dreams and fusion, not knowing where, when or what we see. Now, we have only two minutes . . .”

    Suddenly, they hugged Sabriel, surprising her with the obvious warmth of the gesture. She hugged them back, gladly, grateful for their care.

    With her father gone, she had no family left— but perhaps she would find sisters in the Clayr, and perhaps Touchstone would be . . .

    “Two minutes,” repeated both the women, one in each ear. Sabriel let them go, and hurriedly took The Book of the Dead and the two Charter Magic books from her pack, wedging them dowo Touchstone’s slightly sn form.

    After a sed’s thought, she also stuffed in the fleece-lined oilskin and the boat cloak.

    Touchstone’s swords went into the special holders , but the pad the rest of its tents had to be abandoned.

    “ stop, the Wall,” Sabriel muttered as she climbed into the craft, trying not to think about what would happen if they had to land somewhere uncivilized iween.

    The Clayr were already in their green and silver craft, and, as Sabriel did up her straps, she heard them begin to whistle, Char<s>?</s>ter Magic streaming out into the air. Sabriel licked her lips, summoned her breath and strength, and joined in. Wind rose behind both the craft, tossing black hair and blond, lifting the Paperwings’ tails and jostling their wings.

    Sabriel took a breath after the wind-whistling, and stroked the smooth, laminated paper of the hull. A brief image of the first Paperwing came to mind, broken and burning in the depths of Holehallow.

    “I hope we fare better together,” she whispered, before joining with the Clayr to whistle the last he pure clear sound that would wake the Charter Magi their craft.

    A sed later, twht-eyed Paperwings leapt out from the ruined palace of Belisaere, glided down almost to the swell in the Sea of Saere, then rose to circle higher and higher above the hill. One craft, of green and silver,  turo the north-west. The other, of red and gold, turned south.

    Touchstone, waking to the rush of cold air on his face, and the unfamiliar sensation of flying, groggily muttered, “What happened?”

    “We’re going to Aierre,” Sabriel shouted.

    “Across the Wall, to find Kerrigor’s body—aroy it!”

    “Oh,” said Touchstone, who only heard “across the Wall.” “Good.”

 chapter xxv

    “Beg pardon, sir,” said the soldier, saluting at the doorway to the officer’s bathroom. “Duty officer’s pliments and  you e straight away?”

    el Horyse sighed, put down his razor, and used the flao wipe off the remains of the shaving soap. He had been interrupted shaving that m, and had tried several times during the day to finish the job. Perhaps it was a sign he should grow a moustache.

    “What’s happening?” he asked, resignedly.

    Whatever was happening, it was uo be good.

    “An aircraft, sir,” replied the private, stolidly.

    “From Army HQ? Dropping a message der?”

    “I don’t know, sir. It’s oher side of the Wall.”

    “What!” exclaimed Horyse, dropping all his shaving gear, pig up his helmet and sword, and attempting to rush out, all at the same time.

    “Imposs<samp>.</samp>ible!”

    But, when he eventually sorted himself out and got down to the Forward Observation Post—an octagonal strongpoint that thrust out through the Perimeter to within fifty yards of the Wall— it quite clearly ossible. The light was fading as the afternoon wa robably close to setting oher side—but the visibility was good enough to make out the distant airborne shape that was desding in a series of long, gradual loops . . . oher side of the Wall. In the Old Kingdom.

    The Duty Officer was watg through big artillery spotter’s binoculars, his elbows perched on the sandbagged parapet of the position.

    Horyse paused for a moment to think of the fellow’s name—he was o the Perimeter Garrisoapped him on the shoulder.

    “Jorbert. Mind if I have a look?”

    The young officer lowered the binoculars relutly, and hahem across like a boy  deprived of a half-eaten lollipop.

    “It’s definitely an aircraft, sir,” he said, brightening up as he spoke. “Totally silent, like a glider, but it’s clearly powered somehow. Very maneuverable, aifully paioo. There’s two . . . people in it, sir.”

    Horyse didn’t answer, but took up the binoculars and the same elbow-propping stance. For a moment, he couldn’t see the aircraft, and he hastily panned left and right, then zigzagged up and down—and there it was, lower than he expected, almost in a landing approach.

    “Sound stand-to,” he ordered harshly, as the realization struck him that the craft would land very close to the Crossing Point—perhaps only a hundred yards from the gate.

    He heard his and beied by Jorbert to a sergeant, and then bellowed out, to be taken up by sentries, duty NCOs, aually to hand-ked klaxons and the old bell that hung in the front of the Officer’s Mess.

    It was hard to see exactly who or what was in the craft, till he twiddled with the focus, and Sabriel’s face leapt towards him, magnified up tnizable form, even at the current distance. Sabriel, the daughter of Abhorsen,  apanied by an unknown man—or something wearing the shape of a man. For a moment, Horyse sidered  the men to stand-down, but he could already hear hobnailed boots clattering on the duckboards, sergeants and corporals shouting—and it might not really be Sabriel. The sun was weakening, and the ing night would be the first of the full moon . . .

    “Jorbert!” he snapped, handing the binoculars back to the surprised and unready subaltern.

    “Go and give the Regimental Sergeant-Major my pliments, and ask him to personally anize a se of the Scouts—we’ll go out and take a closer look at that aircraft.”

    “Oh, thank you, sir!” gushed Lieutenant Jorbert, obviously taking the “we” to include himself. His enthusiasm surprised Horyse, at least for a moment.

    “Tell me, Mr. Jorbert,” he asked. “Have you by any ce sought a trao the Flying Corps?”

    “Well, yes, sir,” replied Jorbert. “Eight times . . .”

    “Just remember,” Horyse said, interrupting him. “That whatever is out there may be a flying  creature, not a flying mae—and its pilots may be half-rotted things that should be properly dead, or Free Magic beings that have never really lived at all. Not fellow aviators, knights of the sky, or anything like that.”

    Jorbert nodded, unmilitarily, saluted, and turned on his heel.

    “And don’t fet your sword ime you’re on duty, officer,” Horyse called after him.

    “Hasn’t aold you your revht not work?”

    Jorbert nodded again, flushed, almost saluted, then scuttled off down the unication trench. One of the soldiers in the Forward Observation Post, a corporal with a full sleeve of chevroing twenty years’ service, and a Charter mark on his forehead to show his Perimeter pedigree, shook his head at the departing back of the young officer.

    “Why are you shaking your head, Corporal Anshy?” snapped Horyse, irked by his many interrupted shaves and this neotentially dangerous appearance of an aircraft.

    “Water on the brain,” replied the corporal cheerfully—and rather ambiguously. Horyse opened his mouth to issue a sharp reprimand,  then closed it as the ers of his mouth involuntarily inched up into a smile. Before he could actually laugh, he left the post, heading back to the trench jun where his se and the RSM would meet him to go beyond the Wall.

    Within five paces, he’d lost his smile.

    The Paperwing slid to a perfect landing in a flurry of snow. Sabriel and Touchsto in it, shivering under oilskin and boat cloak, respectively, then slowly levered themselves out to stand knee-deep iightly packed snow.

    Touchstone smiled at Sabriel, his nose bright red and eyebrows frosted.

    “We made it.”

    “So far,” replied Sabriel, warily looking around. She could see the long grey bulk of the Wall, with the deep honey-colored sun of autumn on the Aierran side. Here, the snow lay banked against the grey stone, and it was overcast, with the sun almost gone. Dark enough for the Dead to be wandering around.

    Touchstone’s smile faded as he caught her mood, aook his swords from the  Paperwing, giving the left sword to Sabriel. She sheathed it, but it was a bad fit—another reminder of loss.

    “I’d better get the books, too,” she said, bending in to retrieve them from the cockpit. The two Charter Magic books were fine, untouched by snow, but The Book of the Dead seemed wet.

    When Sabriel pulled it out, she found it wasn’t snow-wet. Beads of dark, thick blood were welling up out of its cover. Silently, Sabriel wiped it on the hard crust of the snow, leaving a livid mark. Theucked the books away in the pockets of her coat.

    “Why . . . why was the book like that?” asked Touchstorying, and almost succeeding, to sound curious rather than afraid.

    “I think it’s reag to the presenahs,” Sabriel replied. “There is great potential here for the Dead to rise. This is a very oint—”

    “Shhh!” Touchstoerrupted her, pointing towards the Wall. Shapes, dark against the snow, were moving in aended liowards them, at a deliberate, steady pace. They carried bows and spears, and Sabriel, at least, reized the rifles slung across their backs.

    “It’s all right,” Sabriel said, though a faint stab of nervousouched her stomach. “They’re soldiers from the Aierran side—still, I might send the Paperwing on its way . . .”

    Quickly, she checked that they’d takehing from the cockpit, then laid her hand on the nose of the Paperwing, just above its twinkling eye. It seemed to look up at her as she spoke.

    “Go now, friend. I don’t want to risk you being dragged into Aierre and taken apart.

    Fly where you will—to the Clayr’s glacier, or, if you care to, to Abhorsen’s House, where the water falls.”

    She stepped back, and formed the Charter marks that would imbue the Paperwing with choice, and the winds to lift it there. The marks went into her whistle, and the Paperwing moved with the rising pitch, accelerating along till it leapt into the sky at the peak of the highest note.

    “I say!” exclaimed a voice. “How did you do that?”

    Sabriel turo see a young, out-of-breath Aierran officer, the single gold pip of a sed lieutenant looking lonely on his shoulderstraps.

    He was easily fifty yards in front of the rest of the line, but he didn’t seem frightened. He was clutg a sword and a revolver, though, and he raised both of them as Sabriel stepped forward.

    “Halt! You are my prisoners!<mark></mark>”

    “Actually, we’re travelers,” replied Sabriel, though she did stand still. “Is that el Horyse I  see behind you?”

    Jorbert turned half around to have a look, realized his mistake, and turned back just in time to see Sabriel and Touchstone smiling, then chug, then out-and-out laughing, clutg at each other’s arms.

    “What’s so funny?” demanded Lieutenant Jorbert, as the two of them laughed and laughed, till the tears ran down their cheeks.

    “Nothing,” said Horyse, gesturing to his men to encircle Sabriel and Touchstone, while he went up and carefully placed two fingers on their foreheads—testing the Charter they bore within. Satisfied, he lightly shook them, till they stopped their shuddering, gasping laughter.

    Then, to the surprise of some of his me an arm around each of them ahem back to the Crossing Point, towards Aierre and sunshine.

    Jorbert, left to cover the withdrawal, indignantly asked the air, “What was so funny?”

    “You heard the el,” replied Regimental Sergeant-Major Tawklish. “Nothing. That was an hysterical rea, that was. They’ve been through a lot, those two, mark my words.”

    Then, in the way that only RSMs have with junior officers, he paused, crushing Jorbert pletely with a judicious, and long delayed “Sir.”

    The warmth ed Sabriel like a soft bla as they stepped out of the shadow of the Wall, into the relative heat of an Aierran autumn. She felt Touchstone falter at her side, and stumble, his face staring blindly upwards to the sun.

    “You both look done in,” said Horyse, speaking in the kindly, slow tone he used on shellshocked soldiers. “How about something to eat, or would you rather get some sleep first?”

    “Something to eat, certainly,” Sabriel replied, trying to give him a grateful smile. “But not sleep. There’s no time for that. Tell me—when was the full moon? Two days ago?”

    Horyse looked at her, thinking that she no longer reminded him of his own daughter.

    She had bee Abhorsen, a person beyond  his ken, in such a short time . . .

    “It’s tonight,” he said.

    “But I’ve been in the Old Kingdom at least sixteen days . . .”

    “Time is straween the kingdoms,”

    Horyse said. “We’ve had patrols swear they were out for two weeks, ing ba after eight days. A headache for the paymaster . . .”

    “That voice, ing from the box on the pole,”

    Touchstoerrupted, as they left the zigzag path through the wire defenses and climbed down into a narrow unication trench. “There is no Charter Magi the box, or the voice . . .”

    “Ah,” replied Horyse, looking ahead to where a loudspeaker was announg stand-down. “I’m surprised it’s w. Electricity runs that, Mr.

    Touchstone. Sot magic.”

    “It won’t be w tonight,” Sabriel said quietly. “No teology will be.”

    “Yes, it is rather loud,” Horyse said, in a strong voice. More softly, he added, “Please don’t say anything more till we get to my dugout. The men have already picked something up about tonight and the full moon . . .”

    “Of course,” replied Sabriel, wearily. “I’m sorry.”

    They walked the rest of the way in silence, slogging along the zigzagging unication trench, passing soldiers in the fighting trenches, ready at their stand-to positions. The soldier’s versations stopped as they passed, but resumed as soon as they turhe  zig  and were out of sight.

    At last, they desded a series of steps into el Horyse’s dugout. Tweants stood guard outside—this time, Charter Mages from the Crossing Point Scouts, not the regular garrison infantry. Another soldier doubled off to the cookhouse, to fete food. Horyse busied himself with a small spirit-burner, and made tea.

    Sabriel drank it without feeling much relief.

    Aierre, and the universal forter of its society—tea—no longer seemed as solid and dependable as she had ohought.

    “Now,” said Horyse. “Tell me why you don’t have time to sleep.”

    “My father died yesterday,” Sabriel said, stony-faced. “The wind flutes will fail tonight.

    At moohe Dead here will rise with the moon.”

    “I’m sorry to hear about your father. Very sorry,” Horyse said. He hesitated, then added,  “But as you are here now, ’t you bind the Dead anew?”

    “If that were all, yes, I could,” Sabriel tinued.

    “But there is worse to e. Have you ever heard the name Kerrigor, el?”

    Horyse put his tea down.

    “Your father spoke of him once. One of the Greater Dead, I think, imprisoned beyond the Seventh Gate?”

    “More thaer, possibly the Great,”

    Sabriel said bleakly. “As far as I know, he is the only Dead spirit to also be a Free Magic adept.”

    “And a renegade member of the royal family,”

    added Touchstone, his voice still harsh and dry from the cold winds of their flight, unquenched by tea. “And he is no longer imprisoned. He walks in Life.”

    “All these things give him power,” Sabriel tinued.

    “But there is a weakhere, too.

    Kerrigor’s mastery of Free Magid much of his power in both Life ah, is depe on the tinual existence of his inal body. He hid it, long ago, when he first chose to bee a Dead spirit—and he hid it in Aierre. he village of Wyverley, to be exact.”

    “And now he’s ing to fetch it . . .” said  Horyse, with terrible presce. Outwardly, he looked calm, all those long years of Army serviing a hard carapace, taining his feelings.

    Inwardly, he felt a trembling that he hoped wasn’t being transmitted to the mug in his hand.

    “When will he e?”

    “With the night,” replied Sabriel. “With an army of the Dead. If he  emerge out of Death close to the Wall, he may e earlier.”

    ‘‘The sun—” Horyse began.

    “Kerrigor  work the weather, bring fog or dense cloud.”

    “So what  we do?” asked Horyse, turning his palms outwards, towards Sabriel, his eyes questioning. “Abhorsen.”

    Sabriel felt a weight placed upon her, a burden adding to the wearihat already pressed upon her, but she forced herself to answer.

    “Kerrigor’s body is in a spelled sarcophagus under a , a  atop a little hill called Docky Point, less than forty miles away. We o get there quickly—aroy the body.”

    “And that will destroy Kerrigor?”

    ‘‘No,” said Sabriel, shaking her head wistfully.

    “But it will weaken him . . . so there may be a ce . . .”

    “Right,” said Horyse. “We’ve still got three or four hours of daylight, but we’ll o move quickly. I take it that Kerrigor and his . . .

    forces . . . will have to cross the Wall here? They ’t just pop out at Docky Point?”

    “No,” agreed Sabriel. “They’ll have to emerge in Life in the Old Kingdom, and physically cross the Wall. It would probably be best not to try and stop him.”

    “I’m afraid we ’t do that.” replied Horyse.

    “That’s what the Perimeter Garrison is here for.”

    “A lot of your soldiers will die to no purpose then,” said Touchstone. “Simply because they’ll be in the way. Anything, and anybody, that gets in Kerrigor’s way will be destroyed.”

    “So you want us to just let this . . . this thing and a horde of Dead desd on Aierre?”

    “ly,” replied Sabriel. “I would like to fig<tt>?９９ｌiｂ?t>ht him at a time and a place more of our choosing. If you lend me all the soldiers here who have the Charter mark, and a little Charter Magic, we may have enough time to destroy Kerrigor’s body. Also, we will be almost thirtyfive miles from the Wall. Kerrigor’s power may only be slightly lessened, but many of his minions will be weaker. Perhaps so weak, that  destroying or damaging their physical forms will be suffit to send them bato Death.”

    “And the rest of the garrison? We’ll just stand aside a Kerrigor and his army through the Perimeter?”

    “You probably won’t have a choice.”

    “I see,” muttered Horyse. He got up, and paced backwards and forwards, six steps, all the dugout would allow. “Fortunately, or unfortunately perhaps—I am currently ag as the General Officer anding the whole Perimeter.

    General Ashenber has returned south, due to . . . ah . . . ill health. A temporary situation only—Army HQ is loath to give any sort of higher and to those of us who wear the Charter mark. So the decision is mine . . .”

    He stopped pag, and stared back at Sabriel and Touchsto his eyes seemed to see something well beyond them and the rusty cated iron that walled the dugout. Finally, he spoke.

    “Very well. I will give you twelve Charter Mages—half of the full plement of the Scouts—but I will also add some more mundane force. A detat to escort you to . . . what was it? Docky Point. But I ’t promise we  won’t fight on the Perimeter.”

    “We need you, too, el,” Sabriel said, in the silehat followed his decision. “You’re the stro Charter Mage the Garrison has.”

    “Impossible!” Horyse exclaimed emphatically.

    “I’m in and of the Perimeter. My responsibilities lie here.”

    “You’ll never be able to explain tonight, anyway,”

    Sabriel said. “Not to any general down south, or to anyone who hasn’t crossed the Wall.”

    “I’ll . . . I’ll think about it while you have something to eat,” Horyse declared, the rattle of a tray and plates tactfully announg the arrival of a mess orderly oeps. “<q></q>e in!”

    The orderly entered, steam rising around the edges of the silver dishes. As he put the tray down, Horyse strode out past him, bellowing.

    “Messenger! I want the Adjutant, Major Tindall and the CSM from ‘A’ pany, Lieutenant Aire from the Scouts, the RSM and the Quartermaster. In the Operations Room in ten minutes. Oh . . . call iransport Officer too. And warn the Signals staff to stand by for g.”

 chapter xxvi

    Everything moved rapidly after the tea was drunk. Almost too rapidly for the exhausted Sabriel and Touchstone. Judging from the noises outside, soldiers were rushing about in all dires, while they ate their belated lunch. Then, before they could even begin to digest, Horyse was back, telling them to get moving.

    It was somewhat like being a bit player in the school play, Sabriel thought, as she stumbled out of the unication trend onto the parade ground. There was an awful lot happening around her, but she didn’t really feel part of it. She felt Touchstone lightly brush her arm, and smiled at him reassuringly—it had to be even worse for him.

    Within mihey were hustled across the parade ground, towards a waiting line of trucks, aaff car and twe steelplated traptions. Lozenge-shaped, with gun turrets oher side, and caterpillar tracks.

    Tanks, Sabriel realized. A relatively ret iion. Like the trucks, they were r, engines belg blue-grey smoke. No problem now, Sabriel thought, but the engines would stop when the wind blew in from the Old Kingdom. Or when Kerrigor came . . .

    Horyse led them to the staff car, opehe back door aured for them to get in.

    “Are you ing with us?” Sabriel asked, hesitantly, as she settled ba the heavily padded leather seats, fighting a wave of tiredhat threatened immediate sleep.

    “Yes,” replied Horyse, slowly. He seemed surprised at his own answer, and suddenly far away.

    “Yes, I am.”

    “You have the Sight,” said Touchstone, looking up from where he was adjusting his scabbard before sitting down. “What did you see?”

    “The usual thing,” replied Horyse. He got in the fro, and o the driver—a thin-faced veteran of the Scouts, whose Charter  mark was almost invisible on his weather-beaten forehead.

    “What do you mean?” asked Sabriel, but her question was lost as the driver pressed the starter switch, and the car coughed and spluttered into life, a tenor apao the bass cacophony of the trucks and tanks.

    Touchstone jumped at the sudden noise and vibration, then smiled sheepishly at Sabriel, who’d lightly rested her fingers on his arm, as if calming a child.

    “What did he mean ‘the usual thing’?” asked Sabriel.

    Touchstone looked at her, sadness and exhaustion vying for first pla his gaze. He took her hand in his own and traced a line across her palm—a definite, ending sort of line.

    “Oh,” muttered Sabriel. She sniffed and looked at the back of Horyse’s head, eyes blurring, seeing only the line of his cropped silver hair extending just past his helmet rim.

    “He has a daughter the same age as me, back at . . . somewhere south,” she whispered, shivering, clutg Touchstone’s hand till his fingers were as white as her own. “Why, oh why, does everything . . . everyone . . .”

    The car started forward with a lurch, preceded by two motorcycle outriders and followed by each of the rucks in turn, carefully spaced out every hundred yards. The tanks, with tracks screeg and king, took a side road up to the railway siding where they would be loaded up a on to Wyverley Halt. It was uhey would arrive before nightfall. The road voy would be at Docky Point before six iernoon.

    Sabriel was silent for the first ten miles, her head bowed, hand still clutg tightly on Touchstone’s. He sat silently too, but watg, looking out as they left the military zone, looking at the prosperous farms of Aierre, the sealed roads, the brick houses, the private cars and horse-drawn vehicles that pulled off the road in front of them, cleared aside by the two red-capped military poli on motorcycles.

    “I’m all right now,” Sabriel said quietly, as they slowed to pass through the town of Bain.

    Touchstone nodded, still watg, staring at the shop windows in the High Street. The townspeople stared back, for it was rare to see soldiers in full Perimeter battle equipment, with sword-bayos and shields—and Sabriel  and Touchstone were clearly from the Old Kingdom.

    “We have to stop by the Police Station, and warn the Superinte,” Horyse announced as their car pulled io an imposing white-walled edifice with twe, blue electriterns hanging out the front, and a sturdy sign proclaiming it to be the headquarters of the Bainshire stabulary.

    Horyse stood up, waved the rest of the voy on, then vaulted out and dashed up the steps, a curiously ingruous figure in mail and khaki. A stable desding the steps looked ready to stop him, but stopped himself instead and saluted.

    “I’m all right,” Sabriel repeated. “You  let go of my hand.”

    Touchstone smiled, and flexed his hand a little in her grip. She looked a bit puzzled, then smiled too, her fingers slowly relaxing till their hands lay flat on the seat, little fingers just toug.

    In any other town, a crowd would certainly have formed around an Army staff car with two suusual passengers. But this was Bain, and Bain was close to the Wall. People  took one look, saw Charter marks, swords and armor, ahe other way. Those with natural caution, or a touch of the Sight, went home and locked their doors and shutters, not merely with steel and iron, but also with sprigs of broom and rowan. Others, even more cautious, took to the river and its sandy islets, without eveending to be fishing.

    Horyse came out five minutes later, apanied by a tall, serious-looking man whose large build and hawk-like visage were made slightly ridiculous by a pair of too-small pinez ging to the end of his nose. He shook hands with the el, Horyse returo the car, and they were off again, the driver crashing through the gears with siderable skill.

    A few minutes later, before they’d left the last buildings of the town, a bell began t behind them, deep and slow. Only moments later></a>, another followed from somewhere to the left, then another, from up ahead. Soon, there were bells ringing all around.

    “Quick work,” Horyse shouted into the back of the car. “The Superinte must have made them practi the past.”

    “The bells are a warning?” asked Touchstone.

    This was something he was familiar with, and he began to feel more at home, even with this sound, warning of dire trouble. He felt no fear from it—but then, after fag the reservoir for a sed time, he felt that he could cope with any fear.

    “Yes,” replied Horyse. “Be inside by nightfall.

    Lock all doors and windows. Dery ters. Shed light inside and out. Prepare dles and lanterns for when the electricity fails.

    Wear silver. If caught outdoors, find running water.”

    “We used to recite that in the junior classes,”

    Sabriel said. “But I don’t think too many people remember it, even the people around here.”

    “You’d be surprised, ma’am,” interrupted the driver, speaking out of the er of his mouth, eyes never leaving the road. “The bells haven’t rung like this iy years, but plenty of folk remember. They’ll tell anyone who doesn’t know—don’t fret about that.”

    “I hope so,” replied Sabriel, a momentary flash of remembrance passing through her mind. The people of owe, two-thirds of their number lost to the Dead, the survivors huddled in fishdrying sheds on a rocky island. “I hope so.”

    “How long till we reach Docky Point?” asked Touchstone. He was remembering too, but his memories were ir. Soon he would look ir’s face again, but it would only be a husk, a tool for what Rogir had bee . . .

    “About an hour at the most, I should think,”

    replied Horyse. “Around six o’clock. We  average almost thirty miles an hour in this traption—quite remarkable. To me, anyway.

    I’m so used to the Perimeter, and the Old Kingdom—the small part we saw on patrol, anyway.

    I’d have liked to see more of it . . . gone further north . . .”

    “You will,” said Sabriel, but her voice lacked vi, even to her own ears. Touchstone didn’t say anything, and Horyse didn’t reply, so they drove on in sileer that, soon catg the truck voy, overtaking each vehicle till they were in front again. But wherever they drove, the bells preceded them, every village belltower taking up the warning.

    As Horyse had predicted, they arrived at Wyverley village just before six. The trucks stopped in a line all through the village, from poli’s cottage to the Wyvern pub, the men debussing almost before the vehicles stopped,  quickly f up into ranks on the road. The signals truck parked under a telephone pole and two men swarmed up to ect their wires. The military poli went to ead of the village, to redirect traffic. Sabriel and Touchsto out of the car and waited.

    “It’s not much different from the Royal Guard,” Touchstone said, watg the men hurry into their parade positions, the sergeants shouting, the officers gathering around Horyse, who eaking on the newly ected phone. “Hurry up and wait.”

    “I’d have liked to see you in the Royal Guard,”

    Sabriel said. “And the Old Kingdom, in . . . I m<var></var>ean before the Stones were broken.”

    “In my day, you mean,” said Touchstone. “I would have liked that too. It was more like here, then. Here normally, I mean. Peaceful, and sort of slow. Sometimes I thought life was too slow, too predictable. I’d prefer that now . . .”

    “I used to think like that at school,” Sabriel answered. “Dreaming about the Old Kingdom.

    Proper Charter Magic. Dead to bind. Prio be—”

    “Rescued?”

    “Married,” replied Sabriel, absently. She  seemed i on watg Horyse. He looked like he was getting bad news over the telephone.

    Touchstone didn’t speak. Everything seemed to sharpen in focus for him, tering on Sabriel, her black hair gleaming like a raven’s wing iernoon sun. I love her, he thought. But if I say the wrong thing now, I may never . . .

    Horyse hahe telephone back to a signaler, and turowards them. Touchstoched him, suddenly <q></q>scious that he probably only had five seds to be aloh Sabriel, to say something, to say anything.

    Perhaps the last five seds they would ever have aloogether . . .

    I am not afraid, he said to himself.

    “I love you,” he whispered. “I hope you don’t mind.”

    Sabriel looked back at him, and smiled, almost despite herself. Her sadness at her father’s death was still there, and her fears for the future—but seeing Touchstoaring apprehensively at her somehow gave her hope.

    “I don’t mind,” she whispered back, leaning towards him. She frowned, “I think . . . I think I might love you too, Charter help me, but now is—”

    “The telephone lio the Perimeter Crossing Point just went out,” Horyse announced grimly, shouting above the village bell even before he was close enough to talk. “A fog started rolling across the Wall over an ho. It reached the forward tre four forty-six. After that, none of the advanpanies could be reached by phone or runner. I was just speaking to the Duty Officer then—that young chap who was so ied in your aircraft. He said the fog was just about to reach his position. Then the li silent.”

    “So,” said Sabriel. “Kerrigor didn’t wait till sundown. He’s w the weather.”

    “From the timings given by the Perimeter,”

    Horyse said, “this fog—and whatever’s in it— is moving southwards at around twenty miles an hour. As the crow flies, it’ll reach us around half past seven. Dark, with the moo to e.”

    “Let’s go then,” snapped Sabriel. “The bridlepath to Docky Point starts from behind the pub.

    Shall I lead?”

    “Best not,” replied Horyse. He turned, and shouted some orders, apanied by siderable waving and pointing. Within a few seds,  men were moving off around the pub, taking the path to Docky Point. First, the Crossing Point Scouts, archers and Charter Mages all. Then, the first platoon of infantry, bayos fixed, rifles at the ready. Past the pub, they shook out into an arrowhead formation. Horyse, Sabriel, Touchstone and their driver followed. Behind them came the other two platoons, and the signalers, unreeling field telephone wire from a large and cumbersome drum.

    It was quiet among the cork trees, the soldiers moving as silently as they could, unig by hand signals rather than shouts, only their heavy tread and the occasional rattle of armor or equipment disturbing the quiet.

    Sunshine poured dowweerees, rid golden, but already losing its warmth, like a butter-colored wihat was all taste and no potency.

    Towards the top of the hill, only the Crossing Point Scouts went on up. The lead platoon of infantry followed a lower tour around to the northern side; the other two platoons moved to the south-west and south-east, f a deferiangle around the hill. Horyse, Sabriel, Touchstone and the driver tinued on.

    The trees fell away about twenty yards from the top of the hill, thick weeds and thistles taking their place. Then, at the highest point, there was the : a solid, hut-sized square reen stohe twelve Scouts were grouped loosely around it, four of them already levering one of the er stones out with a long crowbar, obviously carried up for this purpose.

    As Sabriel and Touchstone came up, the stone fell with a thud, revealing more blocks underh.

    At the same time, every Charter Mage prese a slight buzzing in their ears, and a wave of dizziness.

    “Did you feel that?” asked Horyse, unnecessarily, as it was clear from everyone’s expressions and the hands that had goo ears that they all had.

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel. To a lesser extent, it was the same sort of feeling the Broken Stones caused in the reservoir. “It will get worse, I’m afraid, as we get closer to the sarcophagus.”

    “How far in is it?”

    “Four blocks deep, I think,” said Sabriel. “Or five. I . . . saw it . . . from an odd perspective.”

    Horyse nodded, and indicated to the men to  keep prying away the stohey went to it with a will, but Sabriel noticed they kept looking at the position of the sun. All the Scouts were Charter Mages, of various power—all knew what sundown would bring.

    In fifteen mihey’d made a hole two blocks wide and two deep in one end, and the siess was growing worse. Two of the younger Scouts, men in their early twenties, had bee violently sid were recuperating further down the hill. The others were w more slowly, their energies directed to keeping lunches down and quelling shaking limbs.

    Surprisingly, given their lack of sleep and generally run-down state, Sabriel and Touchstone found it relatively easy to resist the waves of nausea emanating from the . It didn’t pare with the cold, dark fear of the reservoir, there on the hill, with the sunshine and the fresh breeze, warming and cooling at the same time.

    Whehird blocks came out, Horyse called a brief rest break, and they all retreated down the hill to the tree line, where the ’s siing aura dissipated. The signalers had a  telephohere, the ha sitting ourned drum. Horyse took it, but turo Sabriel before the signaler wound the charging handle.

    “Are there any preparations to be made before we remove the last blocks? Magical ones, I mean.”

    Sabriel thought for a moment, williiredness away, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. Once we have access to the sarcophagus, we may have to spell it open—I’ll need everyone’s help for that. Then, the final rites on the body—the usual cremation spell. There will be resistahen, too. Have your men often cast Charter Magi cert?”

    “Unfortunately, no,” replied Horyse, frowning.

    “Because the Army doesn’t officially admit the existence of Charter Magic, everyone here is basically self-taught.”

    “Never mind,” Sabriel said, trying to sound fident, aware that everyone around her was listening. “We’ll manage.”

    “Good,” replied Horyse, smiling. That made him look very fident, thought Sabriel. She tried to smile too, but was uain about the result. It felt too much like a grimace of pain.

    “Well, let’s see where our uninvited guest has got to,” Horyse tinued, still smiling. “Where does this phone ect to, Sergeant?”

    “Bain Police,” replied the Signals Sergeant, winding the charging handle vigorously. “And Army HQ North, sir. You’ll have to ask Corporal Syo switch you. He’s on the board at the village.”

    “Good,” replied Horyse. “Hello. Oh, Synge? Put me through to Bain. No, tell North you ’t get through to me. Yes, that’s right, Corporal.

    Thank you . . . ah . . . Bainshire stabulary? It’s el Horyse. I want to speak to Chief Superinte Dingley . . . yes. Hello, Superinte. Have you had as of a strange, dense fog . . . what! Already! No, on no at iigate. Get everyone in. Shutter the windows . . . yes, the usual drill. Yes, whatever is in . . . Yes, extraordinarily dangerous . . .

    hello! Hello!”

    He put the ha down slowly, and pointed back up the hill.

    “The fog is already moving through the northern part of Bain. It must be going much faster. Is it possible that this Kerrigor could know what we’re up to?”

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel and Touchstoogether.

    “We’d better get a move on then,” Horyse announced, looking at his watch. “I’d say we now have less than fobbr></abbr>rty minutes.”

 chapter xxvii

    The last blocks came away slowly, pulled out by sweating, white-faced men, their hands and legs shivering, breath ragged. As soon as the way was clear, they staggered back, away from the , seeking patches of sunlight to bat the dreadful chill that seemed to eat at their bones. One soldier, a dapper man with a white-blond moustache, fell down the hill, and lay retg, till stretcher-bearers ran up to take him away.

    Sabriel looked at the dark hole in the , and saw the faint, uling sheen from the bronze sarcophagus within. She felt sick too, with the hair on the back of her neck frizzing up, skin crawling. The air seemed thick with the reek of Free Magic, a hard, metallic taste in her mouth.

    “We will have to spell it open,” she announced, with a sinki. “The sarcophagus is very strongly protected. I think . . . the best thing would be if I go in with Touchstoaking my hand, Horyse his, and so on, to form a line reinfort of the Charter Magic. Does everyone know the Charter marks for the opening spell?”

    The soldiers nodded, or said, “Yes, ma’am.”

    One said, “Yes, Abhorsen.”

    Sabriel looked at him. A middle-aged corporal, with the chevrons of long servi his sleeve. He seemed one of the least affected by the Free Magic.

    “You  call me Sabriel, if you want,” she said, strangely uled by what he had called her.

    The corporal shook his head. “No, Miss. I knew your dad. You’re just like him. The Abhorsen, now. You’ll make this Dead bugger— begging your pardon—wish he’d stayed properly bloody dead.”

    “Thank you,” Sabriel replied, uainly.

    She khe corporal didn’t have the Sight— you could always tell—but his belief in her was so crete . . .

    “He’s right,” said Touchstone. He gestured for her to go in front of him, making a courtly bow.

    “Let’s finish what we came to do, Abhorsen.”

    Sabriel bowed back, in a motion that had almost the feel of ritual about it. The Abhorsen bowing to the King. Theook a deep breath, her face settling into a determined mold.

    Beginning to form the Charter marks of opening in her mind, she took Touchstone’s hand and advaowards the open , its dark, shadowy interior in stark trast with the sunlit thistles and the tumbled stones. Behiouchstone half-turo take Horyse’s calloused hand as well, the el’s other hand already gripping Lieutenant Aire’s, Aire gripping a Sergeant’s, the Sergeant the long-service Corporal’s, and so on down the hillside. Fourteen Charter Mages in all, if only two of the first rank.

    Sabriel felt the Charter Magic welling up the lihe marks glowing brighter and brighter in her mind, till she almost lost her normal vision in their brilliance. She shuffled forwards into the , each step bringing that all-too-familiar he pins and needles, untrollable shaking. But the marks were strong in her mind, strohan the siess.

    She reached the bronze sarcophagus, slapped her hand down ahe Charter Magic go.

    Instantly, there was an explosion of light, and a terrible scream echoed all through the . The bronze grew hot, and Sabriel snatched back her hand, the palm red and blistered. A sed later, steam billowed out all around the sarcophagus, great gouts of scalding steam, f Sabriel out, the whole line going down like domiumbling out of the  and down the hill.

    Sabriel and Touchstohrown together, about five yards down from the entrao the . Somehow, Sabriel’s head had landed on Touchstone’s stomach. His head was on a thistle, but both of them lay still for a moment, drained by the magid the strength of the Free Magic defehey looked up at the blue sky, already tinged with the red of the impending su.

    Around them there was much swearing and cursing, as the soldiers picked themselves up.

    “It didn’t open,” Sabriel said, in a quiet, matter-of-fact voice. “We don’t have the power, or the skill—”

    She paused, and then added, “I wish Mogget wasn’t . . . I wish he was here. He’d think of something . . .”

    Touchstone was silent, then he said, “We need more Charter Mages—it would work if the marks were reinforced enough.”

    “More Charter Mages,” Sabriel said tiredly.

    “We’re on the wrong side of the Wall . . .”

    “What about your school?” asked Touchstone, and then “Ow!” as Sabriel suddenly shot up, disrupting his balahen “Ow!” again as she bent down and kissed him, pushing his head further into the thistle.

    “Touchstone! I should have thought . . . the Seniic classes. There must be thirty-five girls with the Charter mark and the basic skills.”

    “Good,” muttered Touchstone, from the depths of the thistle. Sabriel put out her hands, and helped him up, smelling the sweat on him, and the fresh, pu odor of crushed thistles.

    He was half when she suddenly seemed to lose her enthusiasm, and he almost fell back down again.

    “The girls are there,” said Sabriel, slowly, as if thinking aloud. “But have I any right to involve them in something that . . .”

    “They’re involved anyway,” interrupted Touchstohe only reason that Aierre  isn’t like the Old Kingdom is the Wall, and it won’t last once Kerrigor breaks the remaining Stones.”

    “They’re only schoolchildren,” Sabriel said sadly. “For all we always thought we were grown women.”

    “We hem,” said Touchstone, again.

    “Yes,” said Sabriel, turning back towards the knot of men gathered as close as they dared to the . Horyse, and some of the stronger Charter Mages, peering back towards the entrand the shimmering brohin.

    “The spell failed,” Sabriel said. “But Touchstone has just reminded me where we  get more Charter Mages.”

    Horyse looked at her, urgen his face.

    “Where?”

    “Wyverley College. My old school. The Fifth and Sixth Form magic classes, and their teacher, Magistrix Greenwood. It’s less than a mile away.”

    “I don’t think we’ve got time to get a message there, ahem over here,” Horyse began, looking up at the setting sun, then at his watch— which was now going backwards. He looked puzzled for a moment, then ig. “But . . .

    do you think it would be possible to move the sarcophagus?”

    Sabriel thought about the protective spell that she’d entered, then answered. “Yes. Most of the wards were on the , for cealment.

    There’s nothing to stop us moving the sarcophagus, save the side effects of the Free Magic. If we  stand the siess, we  shift it—”

    “And Wyverly College—it’s an old, solid building?”

    “More like a castle than anything,” replied Sabriel, seeing the way he was thinking. “Easier to defend than this hill.”

    “Running water . . . No? That would be too much to hope fht! Private Mag, run down to Major Tindall and tell him that I want his pany ready to move in two minutes.

    We’re going back to the trucks, then on to Wyverley College—it’s on the map, about a mile . . .”

    “South-west,” Sabriel provided.

    “South-west. Repeat that back.”

    Private Mag repeated the message in a slow drawl, then ran off, clearly keen to get away from the . Horyse turo the longservice corporal and said, “Corporal Anshey.

    You look pretty fit. Do you think you could get a rope around that coffin?”

    “Re so, sir,” replied Corporal Anshey. He detached a coil of rope from his webbing as he spoke, aured with his hand to the other soldiers.

    “e on you blokes, get yer ropes out.”

    Twenty minutes later, the sarcophagus was being lifted by shear-legs and rope aboard a horse-drawn wagon, appropriated from a local farmer. As Sabriel had expected, dragging it withiy yards of the trucks stopped their engines, put out electric lights and disrupted the telephone.

    Curiously, the horse, a plaare, didn’t seem overly frightened by the gleaming sarcophagus, despite its bronze surface sluggishly crawling with stomach-ing perversions of Charter marks. She wasn’t a happy horse, but not a panicked oher.

    “We’ll have to drive the wagon,” Sabriel said to Touchstone, as the soldiers pushed the suspended coffin aboard with long poles, and collapsed the shear-legs. “I don’t think the Scouts  withstand the siess much longer.”

    Touchstone shuddered. Like everyone else, he ale, eyes red-rimmed, his nose dripping and  teeth chattering. “I’m not sure I , either.”

    heless, when the last rope was twitched off, and the soldiers hurried away, Touchstone climbed up to the driver’s seat and picked up the reins. Sabriel climbed up o him, suppressing the feeling that her stomach was about to rise into her mouth. She didn’t look back at the sarcophagus.

    Touchstone said “tch-tch” to the horse, and flicked the reins. The mare’s ears went up, and she took up the load, pag forwards. It was not a quick pace.

    “Is this as fast as . . .” Sabriel said anxiously.

    They had a mile to cover, and the sun was already bloody, a red disc balanced on the line of the horizon.

    “It’s a heavy load,” Touchstone answered slowly, quick breaths iween his words, as if he found it difficult to speak. “We’ll be there before the l..ight goes.”

    The sarcophagus seemed to buzz and chuckle behind them. her of them mentiohat Kerright arrive, fog-wreathed, before the night did. Sabriel found herself looking behind every few seds, back along the road. This meant catg glimpses of the vilely shifting  surface of the coffin, but she couldn’t help it. The shadows were lengthening, and every time she caught a glimpse of some tree’s pale bark, or a whitewashed mile marker, fear twitched in her gut. Was that fog curling down the road? Wyverley College seemed much farther than a mile. The sun was only a three-quarter disc by the time they saw the trucks turn off the road, turning up the bricked drive that led to the wrought-iron gates of Wyverley College. Home, thought Sabriel for a moment. But that was no lorue. It had been home for the better part of her life, but that ast. It was the home of her childhood, when she was only Sabriel. Now, she was also Abhorsen. Now, her home lay in the Old Kingdom, as did her responsibilities.

    But like her, these traveled.

    Electric lights burned brightly iwo antique glass lanterns oher side of the gate, but they dimmed to mere sparks as the wagon and its strange cargo drove through. One of the gates was off its hinges, and Sabriel realized the soldiers must have forced their way through. It was unusual for the gates to be locked before full dark. They must have closed them when they heard the bells, Sabriel realized, and that  alerted her to something else . . .

    “The bell in the village,” she exclaimed, as the wagon passed several parked trucks and wheeled around to stop he huge, gate-like doors to the main building of the school. “The bell—it’s stopped.”

    Touchstone brought the wagon to a halt, and listened, cog aowards the darkening sky. True enough, they could no longer hear the Wyverley village bell.

    “It is a mile,” he said, hesitantly. “Perhaps we’re too far, the wind . . .”

    “No,” said Sabriel. She felt the air, cool with evening, still on her face. There was no wind.

    “You could always hear it here. Kerrigor has reached the village. We o get the sarcophagus inside, quickly!”

    She jumped down from the wagon, and rao Horyse, who was standing oeps outside the partially open door, talking to an obscured figure within. As Sabriel got closer, edging through groups of waiting soldiers, she reized the voice. It was Mrs. Umbrade, the headmistress.

    “How dare you barge in here!” she ronoung, very pompously. “I am a very close  personal friend of Lieutenant-General Farnsley, I’ll have you know—Sabriel!”

    The sight of Sabriel in such strange garb and circumstance seemed to momentarily stun Mrs.

    Umbrade. In that sed of fish-mouthed silence, Horyse motioo his men. Before Mrs. Umbrade could protest, they’d pushed the door wide open, and streams of armed men rushed in, p arouartled figure like a flood around an island.

    “Mrs. Umbrade!” Sabriel shouted. “I o talk to Miss Greenwoently, and the girls from the Seniic classes. You’d better get the rest of the girls and the staff up to the top floors of the North Tower.”

    Mrs. Umbrade stood, gulping like a goldfish, till Horyse suddenly loomed over her and snapped, “Move, woman!”

    Almost before his mouth closed, she was gone.

    Sabriel looked back to check that Touchstone was anizing the shifting of the sarcophagus, then followed her in.

    The entrance hall was already blocked by a ga line of soldiers, passing boxes in from the trucks outside, stag them up all along the walls. Khaki-colored boxes marked “. Ball”

    or “BE WP Grenade,” piled up beh pictures of prizewinning hockey teams, iltlettered boards of merit and scholastic brilliance.

    The soldiers had also throwhe doors to the Great Hall, and were busy in there, closing shutters and piling pews up on their ends against the shuttered windows.

    Mrs. Umbrade was still in motion at the other end of the entrance hall, bustling along towards a knot of obviously nervous staff. Behind them, peering down from the main stair, was a solid rank of prefects. Behind them, higher up the stair, and just able to see, were several gaggles of noorial fifth and sixth formers. Sabriel didn’t doubt that the rest of the school would be lining the corridors behind them, all agog to hear what the otion was all about.

    Just as Mrs. Umbrade reached her staff, all the lights went out. For a moment, there was total, shocked quiet, then the noise redoubled. Girls screaming, soldiers shouting, crashes and bangs as people ran into things and each other.

    Sabriel stood where she was, and jured the Charter marks fht. They came easily, flowing down to her fiips like cool water from a shower. She let them hang there for a moment,  then cast them at the ceiling, drops of light that grew to the size of dinner plates and cast a steady yellow light all down the hall. Someone else was also casting similar lights down by Mrs.

    Umbrade, and Sabriel reized the work of Magistrix Greenwood. She smiled at that reition, a slight, upturning of just one side of her mouth. She khe lights had go because Kerrigor had passed the electric substation, and that was halfway between the school and the village.

    As expected, Mrs. Umbrade wasn’t tellieachers anything useful—just going on about rudeness and some General. Sabriel saw the Magistrix behind the tall, bent figure of the Senior Sce Mistress, and waved.

    “And I was never more shocked to see one of our—” Mrs. Umbrade was saying, when Sabriel stepped up o her aly laid the marks of silend immobility on the back of her neck.

    “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Sabriel said, standio the temporarily frozen form of the Headmistress.

    “But this is an emergency. As you  see, the Army is temporarily taking over. I am assisting el Horyse, who is in charge. Now,  we need all the girls iwo Seniic classes to e down to the Great Hall—with you, Magistrix Greenwood, please. Everyone else—students, staff, gardeners, everyone—must go to the top floors of the North Tower and barricade yourselves in. Till dawn tomorrow.”

    “Why?” demanded Mrs. Pearch, the Mathematics Mistress. “What’s all this about?”

    “Something has e from the Old Kingdom,” Sabriel replied shortly, watg their faces ge as she spoke. “We will shortly be attacked by the Dead.”

    “So there will be dao my students?”

    Miss Greenwood spoke, pushing her way forward, between twhtened English teachers.

    She looked Sabriel in the face, as if in reition, and then added, “Abhorsen.”

    “There will be dao everyone,” Sabriel said bleakly. “But without the aid of the Charter Mages here, there isn’t even a ce . . .”

    “Well,” replied Miss Greenwood, with some decision. “We’d better get ahen. I’ll go ach Sulyn and Ellimere. I think they’re the only two Charter Mages among the Prefects— they  ahe others. Mrs. Pearch, you’d better take charge of the . . . ah . . . evacuation to  the North Tower, as I imagine Mrs. Umbrade will be . . . err . . . deep in thought. Mrs. Swann, you’d best round up Cook and the maids—get some fresh water, food and dles, too. Mr. Arkler, if you would be so kind as to fetch the swords from the gymnasium . . .”

    Seeing that all was under trol, Sabriel sighed, and quickly walked back outside, past soldiers stringing oil lamps up in the corridor. Despite them, it was still lighter outside, the sky washed red and e with the last sunlight of the day.

    Touchstone and the Scouts had the sarcophagus down, and roped up. It now seemed to glow with its own, ugly inner light, the flickering Free Magic marks floating on the surface like scum, or clots in blood. Apart from the Scouts pulling the ropes, no o close to it. Soldiers were everywhere, coiling out barbed wire, filling sandbags from the rose gardens, preparing firing positions on the sed floor, tying trip flares.

    But in all this otion, there was ay circle around the glistening coffin ir.

    Sabriel walked towards Touchstone, feeling the relu her legs, her body revolting at the thought of going any closer to the bloody luminesce of the sarcophagus. It seemed to  radiate stronger waves of nausea now, now that the sun had almost fled. Iwilight, it looked larger, stronger, its magic more forceful and malign.

    “Pull!” shouted Touchstone, heaving on the ropes with the soldiers. “Pull!”

    Slowly, the sarcophagus slid across the old paving stones, ing towards the front steps, where other soldiers were hastily hammering a wooden ramp together, fitting it over the steps.

    Sabriel decided to leave Touchstoo it, and walked a little way down the drive, to where she could see out the iron gates. She stood there, watg, her hands nervously running over the handles of the bells. Six bells, norobably iive against the awful might of Kerrigor.

    And an unfamilar sword, strao her touch, even if it was fed by the Wallmaker.

    The Wallmaker. That reminded her of Mogget.

    Who knew what he had been, that strange bination of irascible panion to the Abhorsens and blazing Free Magistruct sworn to kill them. Gone now, swept away by the mournful call of Astarael . . .

    I left this plaowing almost nothing about the Old Kingdom, and I’ve e back with not  much more, Sabriel thought. I am the most ignorant Abhorsen iuries, and perhaps one of the most sorely tried . . .

    A clatter of shots interrupted her thoughts, followed by the zing of a rocket arg up into the sky, its yellow trail reag down towards the road. More shots followed. A rapid volley—then sudden silehe rocket burst into a white parachute flare, that slowly desded. In its harsh, magnesium brilliance, Sabriel saw fog rolling up the road, thid wet, stretg bato the dark as far as she could see.

 chapter xxviii

    Sabriel forced herself to walk back to the main doors, rather than break into a screaming run. Lots of soldiers could see her— they were still plag lanterns out in lines, radiating out from the steps, and several soldiers were holding a coil of certina wire, waiting to bou out. They looked anxiously at her as she passed.

    The sarcophagus was just slipping off the ramp into the corridor ahead of her. Sabriel could easily have pushed past it, but she waited outside, looking out. After a moment, she became aware that Horyse was standio her, his face half-lit by the lanterns, half in shadow.

    “The fog . . . the fog is almost at the gates,”

    she said, too quickly to be calm.

    “I know,” replied Horyse, steadily. “That firing icket. Six men and a corporal.”

    Sabriel nodded. She had felt their deaths, like slight punches iomach. Already she was hardening herself not to notice, to wilfully dull her sehere would be many more deaths that night.

    Suddenly, she felt something that wasn’t a death, but things already dead. She stood bolt upright, and exclaimed, “el! The sun is truly down—and something’s ing, ing ahead of the fog!”

    She drew her sword as she spoke, the el’s blade flickering out a sed later. The wiring party looked around, startled, then bolted for the steps and the corridor. Oher side of the door, two-man teams cocked the heavy, tripodmounted mae-guns, and laid their swords across the newly made sandbag walls.

    “Sed floor, stand ready!” Horyse shouted, and above her head, Sabriel heard the bolts of fifty rifles w. Out of the er of her eye, she saw two of the Scouts step back outside, and take up position behind her, arrows nocked, bows ready. She khey were ready to snatch her inside, if it came to that . . .

    In the expet quiet, there were only the usual sounds of the night. Wind in the big trees out past the school wall, starting to rise as the sky darkened. Crickets beginning to chirp. Then Sabriel heard it—the massed grinding of Dead joints, no longer joined by gristle; the padding of Dead feet, bones like hobnails clig through ic flesh.

    “Hands,” she said, nervously. “Hundreds of Hands.”

    Even as she spoke, a solid wall of Dead flesh hit the iron gates, throwing them over in a split sed’s crash. Then vaguely human forms were everywhere, rushing towards them, Dead mouths gulping and hissing in a ghastly parody of a war cry.

    “Fire!”

    In the instant’s delay after this and, Sabriel felt the terrible fear that the guns wouldn’t work. Then rifles cracked, and the mae-gu out a terrible, barking roar, red tracer rounds flinging out, ricocheting from the paving in a crazy embroidery of terrible violence. Bullets tore Dead flesh, splintered bone, khe Hands down and over—but still they came, till they were literally torn apart,  broken into pieces, hung up on the wire.

    The firing slowed, but before it could entirely cease, another wave of Hands came stumbling, crawling, running through the gateway, slipping, tumbling over the wall. Hundreds of them, so densely packed they crushed the wire and came on, till the last of them were mown down by the guns at the very foot of the front steps. Some, still with a slight vestige of human intelligence, retreated, only to be caught i gouts of flame from white phosphrehrown out from the sed floor.

    “Sabriel—get inside!” Horyse ordered, as the last of the Hands flopped and crawled in crazy circles, till more bullets thudded into them and made them still.

    “Yes,” replied Sabriel, looking out at the carpet of bodies, the flickering fires from the lanterns and lumps of phosphorus burning like dles in some ghastly el house. The stench of cordite was in her hrough her hair, on her clothes, the mae-gun’s barrels glowing an evil red to either side of her. The Hands were already dead, but even so, this mass destruade her sicker than any Free Magic . . .

    She went inside, sheathing her sword. Only then did she remember the bells. Possibly, she could have quelled that vast mob of Hands, sent them peaceably bato Death, without— but it was too late. And what if she had been overmastered? Shadow Hands would be , she knew, and they could not be stopped by physical force, or her bells, uhey came in small numbers . . .

    and that was as likely as an early dawn . . .

    There were more soldiers in the corridor, but these were mailed and helmed, with large shields and broad-headed spears streaked with silver and the simplest Charter marks, drawn in chalk and spit. They were smoking, and drinking tea from the school’s sed-best a. Sabriel realized they were there to fight when the guns failed. There was an air of trolled nervousness about them—not bravado exactly, just a strange mixture of petend icism. Whatever it was, it made Sabriel walk casually among them, as if she were in no hurry at all.

    “Evening, miss.”

    “Good to hear the guns, hey? Practically never work up north!”

    “Won’t need us at this rate.”

    “Not like the Perimeter, is it, ma’am?”

    “Good luck with the bloke ial cigar case, miss.”

    “Good luck to all of you,” replied Sabriel, trying to smile in ao their grins. Then the firing started again, and she winced, losing the smile—but their attention was off her, focused back outside. They weren’t nearly as casual as they pretended, Sabriel thought as she edged through the side doors leading from the corridor into the Great Hall.

    Here, the mood was much more frightened.

    The sarcophagus  the far end of the Hall, resting across the speaker’s dais. Everyone else was as far aossible up at the other end.

    The Scouts were on one side, also drinking tea. Magistrix Greenwood was talking to Touchstone in the middle, and the thirty or so girls—young women, really—were lined up on the opposite wall to the soldiers. It was all rather like a bizarre parody of a school dance.

    Behind the thick stone walls and shuttered windows of the Great Hall, the gunfire could almost be mistaken for extremely heavy hail, with grenades for thunderclaps, but not if you  knew what it was. Sabriel walked into the ter of the Hall, and shouted.

    “Charter Mages! Please e here.”

    They came, the young women quicker than the soldiers, who were showing the weariness of the day’s work, and proximity to the sarcophagus.

    Sabriel looked at the students, their faces bright and open, a thin layer of fear laid over excitement at the spice of the unknown. Two of her best schoolfriends, Sulyn and Ellimere, were among the crowd, but she felt far distant from them now. She probably looked it too, she thought, seeing resped something like wonder in their eyes. Even the Charter marks on their foreheads looked like fragile etic replicas, though she khey were real. It was so unfair that they had to be caught up in this . . .

    Sabriel opened her mouth to speak, and the noise of gunfire suddenly ceased, almost on cue.

    In the silence, one of the girls giggled nervously.

    Sabriel, however, suddenly felt mahs e at once, and a familiar dread touched her spih cold fingers. Kerrigor was closing in.

    It was his power that had stilled the guns, not a lessening of the assault. Faintly, she could hear shouts and even . . . screams . . . from outside.

    They would be fighting with older ons now.

    “Quickly,” she said, walking towards the sarcophagus as she spoke. “We must make a handfast ring around the sarcophagus. Magistrix, if you would place everyone—Lieutenant, please put your men in among the girls . . .”

    Anywhere else, at any other time, there would have been ribald jokes and giggles about that.

    Here, with the Dead about the building, and the sarcophagus brooding in their midst, it was simply an instruen moved quickly to their places, the young women took their hands purposefully.

    In a few seds, the sarcophagus was ringed by Charter Mages.

    Linked by touow, Sabriel didn’t o speak. She could feel everyone in the ring.

    Touchstoht, a familiar and powerful warmth. Miss Greenwood, to her left, less powerful, but not without skill—and so ht around the ring.

    Slowly, Sabriel brought the Charter marks of opening to the forefront of her mind. The marks grew, power flowing round and round the ring, growing in force till it started to projewards, like the narrowing vortex of a whirlpool. Golden light began to stream about the sarcophagus,  visible streaks rotating clockwise around it, with greater and greater speed.

    Still Sabriel kept the power of the Charter Magic flowing into the ter, drawing ohing the Charter Mages could produce. Soldiers and schoolgirls wavered, and some fell to their knees, but the hands stayed lihe circle plete.

    Slowly, the sarcophagus itself began turning on the platform, with a hideous shrieking noise, like an enormous unoiled hieam jetted forth from us lid, but the golden light <mark>?99lｉｂ?</mark>whisked it away. Still shrieking, the sarcophagus began to spin faster and faster, till it was a blur of bronze, white steam and yolk-yellow light.

    Then, with a scream more pierg than any before, it suddenly stopped, the lid flying off to hurtle over the Charter Mages’ heads, smashing into the flood thirty paces away.

    The Charter Magit too, as if earthed by its success, and the ring collapsed with fewer than half the partits still on their feet.

    Wavering, her hands still tightly gripped by Touchstone and the Magistrix, Sabriel tottered over to the sarcophagus and looked in.

    “Why,” said Miss Greenwood, with a startled  glance back up at Touchstone, “he looks just like you!”

    Before Touchstone could answer, steel clashed outside in the corridor, and the shouting grew louder. Those Scouts still standing drew their swords and rushed to the doors—but before they could reach them, other soldiers were p in, bloodied, terrified soldiers, who ran to the ers, or threw themselves down, and sobbed, or laughed, or shook in silence.

    Behind this rush came some of the heavily armored soldiery of the corridor. These men still had some semblance of trol. Instead of running on, they hurled themselves back against the doors, and dropped the bar in place.

    “He’s ihe main doors!” one of them shouted back towards Sabriel, his face white with terror. There was no doubt about who “he”

    was.

    “Quick, the final rites!” Sabriel snapped. She drew her hands from the rasp, ahem out over the body, f the marks for fire, sing and pea her mind. She didn’t look too closely at the body. Rogir did look very much like a sleeping, defeouchstone.

    She was tired, and there were still Free Magic  protes around the body, but the first mark soon lingered in the air. Touchst<mark></mark>one had transferred his hand to her shoulder, p power into her. Others of the circle had crept up and linked hands again—and suddenly Sabriel felt a stirring of relief. They were going to make it— Kerrigor’s human body would be destroyed, and the greater part of his power with it . . .

    Then the whole of the northern wall exploded, bricks casg out, red dust blowing in like a solid wave, knog everyone down in blinding, choking ruin.

    Sabriel lay on the floor, coughing, hands pushing feebly on the floor, knees scrabbling as she tried to get up. There was dust and grit in her eyes, and the lanterns had all go. Blind, she felt around her, but there was only the stillscalding bronze of the sarcophagus.

    “The blood price must be paid,” said a crag, inhuman voice. A familiar voice, though not the liquid, ruiones of Kerrigor . . . but the terrible speech of the night in Holehallow, when the Paperwing burned.

    Blinking furiously, Sabriel crawled away from the sound, around the sarcophagus. It didn’t speak again immediately, but she could hear it  closing in, the air crag and buzzing at its passage.

    “I must deliver my last burden,” the creature said. “Then the bargain is done, and I may turn to retribution.”

    Sabriel blinked again, tears streaming down her face. Vision slowly came back, a picture woven with tears and the first rays of moonlight streaming through the shattered wall, a picture blurred with the red dust of pulverized bricks.

    All Sabriel’s senses were screaming inside her.

    Free Magic, the Dead, danger all around . . .

    The creature that had once been Mogget blazed a little more than five yards away. It was squatter than it had appeared previously, but equally misshapen, a lumpy body slowly drifting towards her atop a n of twisting, whirling energies.

    A soldier suddenly leapt up behind it, driving a sword deep into its back. It hardly noticed, but the man screamed and burst into white flames.

    Within a sed, he was ed, his sword a molten lump of metal, scorg the thick oak planks of the floor.

    “I bring you Abhorsen’s sword,” the creature said, dropping a long, dimly seen object to one  side. “And the bell called Astarael.”

    That, it laid carefully down, the silver glinting momentarily before it was lowered into the sea of dust.

    “e forward, Abhorsen. It is long siime that we begun.”

    The thing laughed then, a sound like a match igniting, and it started to move around the sarcophagus.

    Sabriel loosehe ring on her finger, and edged away, keeping the sarcophagus between them, her thoughts rag. Kerrigor was very near, but there still might be time to turn this creature bato Mogget, and plete the final rites . . .

    “Stop!”

    The word was like a foul lick across the face by a reptilian tongue, but there ower behind it. Sabriel stood still, against her own desire, as did the blazing thing. Sabriel tried looking past it, lidding her eyes against the light, trying to puzzle out what was happening at the other end of the Hall. Not that she really o see.

    It was Kerrigor. The soldiers who’d barred the door lay dead around him, pale flesh islands about a sea of darkness. He had no shape now,  but there were semi-humaures in the great ink-splash of his presence. Eyes of white fire, and a yawning mouth that was lined with flickering coals of a red as dark as drying blood.

    “Abhorsen is mine,” croaked Kerrigor, his voice deep and somehow liquid, as if his words came bubbling out like lava mixed with spittle.

    “You will leave her to me.”

    The Mogget-thing crackled, and moved again, white sparks falling like tiny stars in its wake.

    “I have waited too long to allow my reveo be taken by another!” it hissed, ending on a high-pitched yowl that still had something of the cat. Then it flew at Kerrigor, a shiniriet hurtling into the darkness of his body, smashing into his shadowy substance like a hammer tenderizi.

    For a moment, no one moved, shocked by the suddenness of the attack. Then, Kerrigor’s dark shape slowly regealed, long tendrils of bitter night ></samp>rapping around his brilliant attacker, choking and abs it with the implacable voracity of an octopus strangling a brightshelled turtle.

    Desperately, Sabriel looked around for Touchstone and Magistrix Greenwood. Brick  dust was still falling slowly through the moonlit air, like some deadly rust-cas, the bodies lying around seemingly victims of its choking poison. But they had been struck by bricks, or wooden splinters from the smashing of the pews.

    Sabriel saw the Magistrix first, lying a little away, curled up on her side. Anyone else might have thought her merely unscious, but Sabriel knew she was dead, struck by a long, stiletto-like splinter from a shattered pew. The iron-hard wood had driven right through her.

    She kouchstone was alive—and there he ropped up against a pile of broken masonry. His eyes reflected the moonlight.

    Sabriel walked over to him, steppiween the bodies and the rubble, the patches of freshly spilled blood and the silent, hopeless wounded.

    “My leg is broken,” Touchstone said, his mouth showing the pain of it. He tilted his head towards the gaping hole in the wall. “Run, Sabriel. While he’s busy. Run south. Live a normal life . . .”

    “I ’t,” replied Sabriel softly. “I am the Abhorsen. Besides, how could you run with me, you with your broken leg?”

    “Sabriel . . .”

    But Sabriel had already turned away. She picked up Astarael, practiced hands keeping it still. But there was no need, for the bell was choked with brick dust, its voice silent. It would n true until ed, with patience, magid steady nerves. Sabriel stared at it for a sed, thely placed it back down on the floor.

    Her father’s sword was only a few paces further away. She picked it up, and watched the Charter marks flow along the blade. This time, they didn’t run through the normal inscription, but said: “The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King quenched me, the Abhorsen wields me so that no Dead shall walk in Life. For this is not their path.”

    “This is not their path,” whispered Sabriel. She took up the guard position, and looked down the Hall to the writhing hulk of darkhat was Kerrigor.

 chapter xxix

    Kerrigor seemed to have finished with the Free Magic thing that had once been Mogget. His great cloud of darkness was plete again, with no sign of white fire, no dazzling brilliance fighting away within.

    He was remarkably still, and Sabriel had a moment’s brief hope that he was somehow wouhen the awful realization came.

    Kerrigor was digesting, like a glutton after an overly ambitious meal.

    Sabriel shuddered at the thought, bile tainting her mouth. Not that her end was likely to be better. Both she and Touchstone would be taken alive, ahat way, till they pumped out their life’s blood, throats yawning, down in the dark of the reservoir . . .

    She shook her head, dispelling that image.

    There had to be something . . . Kerrigor had to be weaker, so far from the Old Kingdom . . .

    perhaps weakened more than her Charter Magic. She doubted that a single bell could sway him, but two, in cert? It was dark in the Hall, save for the moonlight falling through the shattered wall behind her. And quiet. Even the wounded were slipping away in sileheir cries muted, last wishes whispered. They kept their agony close, as if a scream might attract the wrong attention. There were things worse thah in the Hall . . .

    Even in darkness, the form of Kerrigor was darker still. Sabriel watched him carefully, undoing the straps that held Sarah and Kibeth with her left hand. She seher Dead all around, but ered the Hall.

    There were still men to fight, or feast upon.

    What went on in the Hall was their Master’s business.

    The straps came undone. Kerrigor didn’t move, his burning eyes closed, his fiery mouth shut.

    In one quick motion, Sabriel sheathed her  sword, and drew the bells.

    Kerrigor did move then. Swiftly, his dark bulk bounding forward, halving the gap between them. He grew taller too, stretg upwards till he almost reached the vaulted ceiling. His eyes opeo full, raging, flaming fury, and he spoke.

    “Toys, Abhorsen. And too late. Much too late.”

    It was not just words he spoke, but power, Free Magic power that froze Sabriel’s nerves, caught at her muscles. Desperately, she struggled t the bells, but her wrists were locked in place . . .

    Tantalizingly slowly, Kerriglided forward, till he was a mere arm’s length away, t over her like some colossal statue h-hewn night, his breath rolling down o<q>..</q>n her with the stench of a thousand abattoirs.

    Someone—a girl quietly coughing out her last breath on the floor—touched Sabriel’s ah a light caress. A small spark of golden Charter Magic came from that dying touch, slowly swelling into Sabriel’s veins, traveling upwards, warming joints, freeing muscles. At last it reached her wrists and  hands—and the bells rang out.

    It was not the clear, true sound it should be, for somehow the bulk of Kerrigor took the sound in and ed it—but it had an effect.

    Kerrigor slid back, and was dimiill he was little more than twice Sabriel’s height.

    But he was not subject to Sabriel’s will.

    Sarah had not bound him, and Kibeth had only forced him back.

    Sabriel rang the bells again, trating on the difficult terpoiween them, f all her will into their magic. Kerrigor would fall under her domination, he would walk where she willed . . .

    And for a sed, he did. Not into Death, for she lacked the power, but into his inal body, ihe broken sarcophagus. Even as the chime of the bells faded, Kerrigor ged.

    Fiery eyes and mouth ran into each other like molten wax, and his shadow-stuff folded into a narrow n of smoke, r up into the ceiling. It hovered among the rafters for a moment, then desded with a hideous scream, straight into the Rogir-body’s open mouth.

    With that scream, Sarah and Kibeth cracked, shards of silver falling like broken stars,  crashing to the earth. Mahogany hauro dust, drifting through Sabriel’s fingers like smoke.

    Sabriel stared at her empty hands for a sed, still feeling the harsh imprint of bell-handles . . .

    then, without any scious thought, there was a sword hilt in her hand as she advanced upon the sarcophagus. But before she could see into it, Rogir stood up and looked at her—looked with the burning fire-pit eyes of Kerrigor.

    “An invenience,” he said, with a voice that was only marginally more human. “I should have remembered you were a troublesome brat.”

    Sabriel lu him, sword blowing white sparks as it struck, pung through his chest to project out the other side. But Kerrigor only laughed, and reached down till he held the blade with both hands, knuckles pallid against the silver-sparking steel. Sabriel tugged at the sword, but it would not e free.

    “No sword  harm me,” Kerrigor said, with a giggle like a dying man’s cough. “Not even one made by the Wallmakers. Especially not now, when I have finally assumed the last of their powers. Power that ruled before the Charter,  power that made the Wall. I have it now. I have that broken puppet, my half-brother—and I have you, my Abhorsen. Power, and blood— blood for the breaking!”

    He reached out, and pulled the sword further into his chest, till the hilt was lodged against his skin. Sabriel tried to let go, but he was too quick, one chill hand clutg her forearm. Irresistibly, Kerrigor drew her towards him.

    “Will you sleep, unknowing, till the Great Stones are ready for your blood?” whispered Kerrigor, his breath still reeking of carrion. “Or will you go waking, every step of the way?”

    Sabriel stared back, meeting his gaze for the first time. Surely, there in the hellfire of his eyes, she could see the fai spark of blazing white? She unched her left fist, ahe silver ring slip down her finger. Was it expanding? “What would you have, Abhorsen?” tinued Kerrigor, his mouth peeling back, skin already breaking at the ers, the spirit within corroding even this magically preserved flesh.

    “Your lover crawls towards us—a pathetic sight—but I shall have the  kiss . . .”

    The ring was hanging in Sabriel’s hand, hidden behind her back. It had grown larger—but she  could still feel the metal expanding . . .

    Kerrigor’s blistered lips moved towards hers, and still the ring moved in her hand. His breath was overp, reeking of blood, but she had long gone beyond throwing up. She turned her head aside at the last sed, a, dry, corpse-like flesh slide across her cheek.

    “A sisterly kiss,” chuckled Kerrigor. “A kiss for an uncle who has known you since birth—or slightly before—but it is not enough . . .”

    Again, his words were not just words. Sabriel felt a frip her head, and move it back to face him, while her mouth was wedged apart, as if in passionate expectation.

    But her left arm was free.

    Kerrigor’s head bent forward, his faing larger and larger—then silver flashed between them, and the ring was around his neck.

    Sabriel felt the pulsion snap off, and she leant back, trying to hurl herself away. But Kerrigor didn’t let go of her arm. He seemed surprised, but not anxious. His right ha up to touch the band, fingernails falling as he did so, bone already pushing through at the fiips.

    “What is this? Some relic of . . .”

    The ring stricted, cutting through the pulpy  flesh of his neck, revealing the solid darkness within. That too was pressed, forced inwards, pulsating as it tried to escape. Two flaming eyes looked down in disbelief.

    “Impossible,” croaked Kerrigor. Snarling, he pushed Sabriel away, throwio the floor.

    In the same motion he drew the sword from his chest, the blade slowly ing free with a sound like a rasp on hardwood.

    Swiftly as a snake, arm and sword went out, striking through Sabriel, through armor and flesh and deep into the wooden floor beyond.

    Pain exploded, and Sabriel screamed, body vulsing around the blade in one awful reflexive curve.

    Kerrigor left her there, impaled like a bug in a colle, and advanced upon Touchstone.

    Sabriel, through eyes fogged with pain, saw Kerrigor look down and rip a long, jagged splinter from one of the pews.

    “Rogir,” Touchstone said. “Rogir . . .”

    The splinter came down with a strangled shriek e. Sabriel closed her eyes and looked away, slipping into a world of her own, a world of pain.

    She knew she should do something about the blood p out of her stomach, but now—  with Touchstone dead—she just lay where she was, a bleed.

    Then Sabriel realized she hadn’t felt Touchstone die.

    She looked again. The splinter had broken on his armored coat. Kerrigor was reag out for another splinter—but the silver ring had slipped down to his shoulders now, shredding the flesh away as it fell, like an apple corer pung the Dead spirit out of the rotting corpse.

    Kerrigor struggled and shrieked, but the ring bound his arms. Capering madly, he threw himself from side to side, seeking to cast off the silver band that held him—only causi more flesh to fall away, till no flesh remained, nothing but a raging n of darkness, strained by a silver ring.

    Then the n collapsed upon itself like a demolished building, to bee a mound of rippling shadow, the silver ring shining like a ribbon. A gleaming red eye shone amidst the silver—but that was only the ruby, grown to match the metal.

    There were Charter marks on the ring again, but Sabriel couldn’t read them. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, and it was too dark. The moonlight  seemed to have goill, she knew what must be done. Sarah—her hand crept to the bandolier, but the sixth bell wasn’t there—or the seventh, or the third. Careless of me, thought Sabriel, careless— but I must plete the binding. Her hand fell on Belgaer for a moment, and almost drew it—but no, that would be release . . . Finally, she drew Ranna, whimpering with the pain of even that small movement.

    Ranna was unusually heavy, for so slight a bell. Sabriel rested it against her chest for a moment, gathering strength. Then, lying on her back, transfixed with her own sword, she rang the bell.

    Ranna sounded sweet, a f, like a long-expected bed. The sound echoed through the Hall, and out, to where a few men still battled with the Dead. All who heard it ceased their struggles, and lay themselves down.

    The badly wounded slipped easily into Death, joining the Dead who had followed Kerrigor; those less hurt fell into a healing sleep.

    The mound of darkhat had been Kerrigor split into two distinct hemispheres, bounded by aorial ring of silver. One hemisphere was as black as coal; the leaming white.

    Gradually, they melted into two distins— two cats, joi the throat like Siamese twins.

    Then the silver ring split in two, a ring around eaeck, and the cats separated. The rings lost their brilliance, slowly ging color aure till they were red leather bands, each supp a miniature bell, a miniature Ranna.

    Two small cats sat side by side. One black, one white. Both leaned forward, throats moving, and each spat up a silver ring. The cats yawned as the rings rolled towards Sabriel, then curled up ao sleep.

    Touchstoched the rings roll through the dust, silver flashing in the moonlight. They hit Sabriel’s side, but she didn’t pick them up. Both her hands still clutched Ranna, but it was silent, resting below her breasts. Her sword loomed above her, blade and hilt casting the moonshadow of a cross upon her face.

    Something from his childhood memory flashed through Touchstone’s mind. A voice, a messenger’s voice, speaking to his mother.

    “Highness, we bring sorrowful tidings. The Abhorsen is dead.”

    Epilogue Death seemed colder than ever before, Sabriel thought, and wondered why, till she realized she was still lying down.

    Ier, being carried along by the current.

    For a moment, she started tle, then she relaxed.

    “Everyone and everything has a time to die . . .”

    she whispered. The living world and its cares seemed far away. Touchstone lived, and that made her glad, inasmuch as she could feel anything.

    Kerrigor was defeated, imprisoned if not made truly dead. Her work was done. Soon she would pass beyond the Ninth Gate, a forever . . .

    Something grabbed her arms and legs,  picked her up out of the water a her down on her feet.

    “This is not your time,” said a voice, a voice echoed by half a huhers.

    Sabriel blinked, for there were many shining human shapes around her, h above the water. More than she could t. Not Dead spirits, but something else, like the mothersending called by the paper boat. Their shapes were vague, but instantly reizable, for all wore the deep blue with the silver keys. Every one was an Abhorsen.

    “Go back,” they chorused. “Go back.”

    “I ’t,” sobbed Sabriel. “I’m dead! I haven’t the strength . . .”

    “You are the last Abhorsen,” the voices whispered, the shining shapes closing in. “You ot pass this way until there is another. You do have the strength within you. Live, Abhorsen, live . . .”

    Suddenly, she did have the strength. Enough to crawl, wade and fall back up the river, and gingerly edge bato Life, her shining escort dropping back at the very last. One of them— perhaps her father—lightly touched her hand in the instant before she left the realm of Death behind.

    A face swam into view—Touchstone’s, staring down at her. Sound hit her ears, distant, raucous bells that seemed out of place, till she realized they were ambulance bells, ambulances rag in from the town. She could sense no Dead at all, nor feel any great magic, Free or Charter. But then, Kerrigor was gone, and they were nearly forty miles from the Wall . . .

    “Live, Sabriel, live,” Touchstone was muttering, holding her icy hands, his own eyes so clouded with tears he hadn’t noticed hers opening.

    Sabriel smiled, then grimaced as the pain came back. She looked from side to side, w how long it would take Touchstoo realize.

    The electric lights had e ba in parts of the Hall, and soldiers were plag lanterns out again. There were more survivors than she’d expected, tending to the wounded, propping up dangerous brickwork, even sweeping up the brick-dust and grave mold.

    There were also many dead, and Sabriel sighed as she let her senses roam. el Horyse, killed outside oeps; Magistrix Greenwood; her i schoolfriend Ellimere; six irls; at least half the soldiers . . .

    Her eyes wao clions, to the two sleeping cats, the two silver rings o her on the floor.

    “Sabriel!”

    Touchstone had finally noticed. Sabriel turned her gaze ba, and lifted her head cautiously.

    He’d removed her sword, she saw, and several of her schoolfriends had cast a healing spell, good enough for the moment. Typically, Touchstone had dohing for his own leg.

    “Sabriel,” he said again. “You’re alive!”

    “Yes,” said Sabriel, with some surprise. “I am.”

    How I Write: The Process of Creating a Book Garth Nix offers some notes on his craft to the readers of the PerfectBound e-book edition of Sabriel This is a brief overview of how I go about writing a book, which may well be quite different from many other writers and different to the way you like to work yourself. However, in amongst the cries of “How could he work like that!,” there may be some useful pieces of information to help you with your own writing.

    To me<samp>?</samp>, there are really four stages to writing a book, though they do overlap each other, slaces at times, or even take over for far lohan they should. These stages are: thinking, planning, writing, and revising. There is also a fifth stage, that runs currently with the above: staying motivated.

    Thinking Most of my books seem to stem from a single image or thought that lodges in my brain and slowly grows into something that o be expressed.

    That thought may be a “what if?” or perhaps just an image. Sabriel largely began from a photograph I saw of Hadrian’s Wall, which had a green lawn in front of it and snow on the hills behind it. Many other thoughts, scious or otherwise, grew out, upon, and over that single image, both before and  during the writing of the book.

    Typically I seem to think about a book for a year or so before I actually start writing. In this thinking stage, I often write a few key points in my “ideas”

    notebook. At this stage, I merely put down bullet points or mnemonics that will remind me of what I was thinking. This  be very useful later on, particularly if the gestation period for a book is several years. Titles are also handy to jot down. The right title  be very useful as the seed from which the whole idea of the book  grow.

    Planning For all my longer works (i.e., the novels), I write chapter outlines so I  have the pleasure of departing from them later on. Actually, while I do always depart from them, writing a chapter outline is a great discipline for thinking out the story and it also provides a road map or tral skeleton you  e back to if you get lost. I often write the prologue or initial chapter first to get the impetus for the stoing and then write the outline.

    Usually, I have to write a revised chapter outliwo or three times in the course of writing the whole book, but once again it does focus the mind ohe story is <q></q>going and where you want it to go.

    Writing  Short stories, articles, and items on my website I type straight into the puter (mostly a Matosh, though I also use a P Microsoft Word. However, I write the novels longhand first.

    Nowadays I use a Waterman fountain pen (for Shade’s Children and Lirael), though I used felt-tips earlier. I was ied to see that Stephen King wrote one of his ret novels with a Waterman fountain pen. He reportedly found that this did influehe actual style of the book.

    The advantages of writing longhand are several, at least for me. First of all, I write iively small handbound notebooks which are much more transportable than any sort of puter, particularly since you  take them away for several weeks without having to sider power supplies, batteries, or printouts. Parts of Sabriel, for example, were written on a trip through the Middle East. Parts of Shade’s Children and Lirael were written at the beach.

    The other major advantage of writing longhand is that when I type up a chapter from my notebook, I rewrite as I type, so the first printout is actually a sed draft. Sometimes I ge it quite a lot, sometimes not so much, but it gives me a distinctive and separate stage where I  revise.

    The first page of the first chapter of Sabriel (as opposed to the prologue, which I wrote earlier, before I did my chapter outline) was actually writ-  ten in a spiral-bound notebook, which I tore out and pasted into my preferred blad red notebook ( /” x  /” or mm x mm “sewn memo book”).

    At the typing stage, I ed up the writing a bit and it had further minor revisions later, but in this case at least, it stayed much the same. You  see the inal manuscript page and pare it to the finished version on my website.

    Which brings me to revising.

    Revising As I said, when I type the handwritten words, I am also carrying out my first major stage of revision.

    However, I usually have to gh at least two revision stages after that. The first of these is when I first print out the typed chapter. I gh it and make ges in pen, which I will incorporate later. The sed stage (and sometimes a third time as well) occurs wheire manuscript is finished for the first time. I leave that big, beautiful pile of printout on the shelf for a few weeks, then sit down ahe whole thing, making corres as I go.

    Finally, I buhe ms. off to my Australian and U.S. publishers and wait for their rea(s), which generally will include some suggestions for revision and occasionally a request for rewriting. Sometimes  these will be good, worthwhile ges and I work them in. Sometimes they are not, and I argue about them and — unless I  be viherwise — refuse to alter the text. Basically, I try and keep an open mind, sihere is nearly always room for improvement.

    Staying Motivated I’m often asked by aspiring writers how I  i a year or more in writing a full-length novel.

    My stoswer is that I never sit down and think “I have to write a oday.” I sit down and think “I have to write a chapter,” or “revise a chapter,”

    or “finish the chapter.” That way, it’s only ever ,-, words that are the immediate goal.

    As a further motivational gimmick, I always use the word t utility when I’ve fiyping a chapter, and write that down, with a running total of words and the date in the front of my first notebook for the current work (eaovel takes between five and six of those red and blaumbers).

    I also write down the music I’ve been listening to as I write and anything else that might be iing to look back upon. Like the fact that I uploaded my first home page on  April ! The word t is a relatively small thing, but it has an amazing psychological effect, particularly as  more and more chapters appear and the word total grows. I find it very encing, particularly in the first third of the book, which always seems to take the majority of the time.

    Summary Here are several one-lihat sum up my writing philosophy. Some I’ve made up and some are probably paraphrases of other people’s sayings, only I ’t remember who said what. (Though I think the “read, write, revise” one is from Robert Heinlein.) “You ’t write if you don’t read.”

    “Just write one chapter at a time and one day you’ll be surprised by your own finished novel.”

    “Writing anything is better than not writing something perfect.”

    “Read, write, revise, submit, repeat.”

    “Expect reje, but don’t let it stop you submitting again.”

    “Submit the very best work you , not the first draft. Always read it again before you send it.”

    About the Autharth Nix was born in  and grew up in berra, Australia. After taking his degree in professional writing from the Uy of berra, he slowly sank into the morass of the publishing industry, steadily devolving from sales rep through publicist, until in  he became a senior editor with a major multinational publisher. After a period traveling iern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in , he left publishing to work as a marketing unications sultant. In , he was lured back to the publishing world to bee a part-time literary agent. He now lives in Sydney, a five-minute walk from Coogee Beach, with his wife, Anna, and lots of books.

    Garth is the author of, among other books, Sabriel, Lirael, and Shade’s Chldren.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》