chapter xxvii

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    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.

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.