chapter xxii

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    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.

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.