Prologue

百度搜索 Sabriel (The Abhorsen Trilogy) 天涯 或 Sabriel (The Abhorsen Trilogy) 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.

    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.”

百度搜索 Sabriel (The Abhorsen Trilogy) 天涯 或 Sabriel (The Abhorsen Trilogy) 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.