Lirael

by Garth Nix

  “What!” screamed Lirael. Then she said more quietly, “What? You mean it’s escaping?”

  “It will soon,” confirmed the Dog. “I thought you knew. Free Magic can corrode Charter marks as well as flesh. I suppose you could renew the spell.”

  Lirael shook her head. Her throat still hadn’t recovered from the master mark she’d used last time. It would be too risky to chance speaking it again before she was completely better. Not without the added strength of a Charter-spelled sword—which brought her back to the original problem.

  “You’ll have to borrow a sword, then,” declared the Dog, fixing Lirael with a serious eye. “I don’t suppose anyone will have the right sort of wand. Not really a Clayr thing, rowan.”

  “I don’t think swords redolent with binding spells are, either,” protested Lirael, slumping into her chair. “Why couldn’t I just be an ordinary Clayr? If I’d got the Sight, I wouldn’t be wandering around the Library getting into trouble! If I ever do get the Sight, I swear by the Charter I am never going to go exploring, ever again!”

  “Mmmm,” said the Dog, with an expression Lirael couldn’t fathom, though it seemed to be loaded with hidden meaning. “That’s as may be. On the matter of swords, you are in error. There are a number of swords of power within these halls. The Captain of the Rangers has one, the Observatory Guard have three—well, one is an axe, but it holds the same spells within its steel. Closer to home, the Chief Librarian has one, too. A very old and famous sword, in fact, most appropriately named Binder. It will do nicely.”

  Lirael looked at the Dog with such a blank stare that the hound stopped pacing, cleared her throat, and said, “Pay attention, Lirael. I said that you were in error about—”

  “I heard what you said,” snapped Lirael. “You must be absolutely mad! I can’t steal the Chief’s sword! She always has it with her! She probably sleeps with it!”

  “She does,” replied the Dog smugly. “I checked.”

  “Dog!” wailed Lirael, trying to keep her breathing down to less than one breath a second. “Please, please do not go looking in the Chief Librarian’s rooms! Or anywhere else! What would happen if someone saw you?”

  “They didn’t,” replied the Dog happily. “Anyway, the Chief keeps the sword in her bedroom, but not actually in bed with her. She puts it on a stand next to her bed. So you can borrow it while she’s asleep.”

  “No,” replied Lirael, shaking her head. “I’m not creeping into the Chief’s bedroom. I’d rather fight the Stilken without a sword.”

  “Then you’ll die,” said the Disreputable Dog, suddenly very serious. “The Stilken will drink your blood and grow stronger from it. Then it will creep out into the lower reaches of the Library, emerging every now and then to capture librarians, to take them one by one, feasting on their flesh in some dark corner where the bones will never be found. It will find allies, creatures bound even deeper in the Library, and will open doors for the evil that lurks outside. You must bind it, but you cannot succeed without the sword.”

  “What if you help me?” asked Lirael. There had to be some way of avoiding the Chief, some way that didn’t involve swords at all. Trying to get Mirelle’s sword, or the ones from the Observatory, would not be any easier than the Chief’s. She didn’t even know exactly where the Observatory was.

  “I’d like to,” replied the Dog. “But it is your Stilken. You let it out. You must deal with the consequences.”

  “So you won’t help,” said Lirael sadly. She had hoped, just for a moment, that the Disreputable Dog would step in and fix everything for her. She was a magical creature, after all, possibly of some power. But not enough to take on a Stilken, it seemed.

  “I will advise,” said the Dog. “As is only proper. But you will have to borrow the sword yourself, and perform the binding. Tonight is probably as good a time as any.”

  “Tonight?” asked Lirael, in a very small voice.

  “Tonight,” confirmed the Dog. “At the stroke of midnight, when all such adventures should begin, you will enter the Chief Librarian’s room. The sword is on the left, past the wardrobe, which is strangely full of black waistcoats. If all goes well, you will be able to return it before the dawn.”

  “If all goes well,” repeated Lirael somberly, remembering the silver fire in the Stilken’s eyes, and those terrible hooks. “Do you . . . do you think I should leave a note, in case . . . in case all does not go well?”

  “Yes,” said the Dog, removing the last small shred of Lirael’s self-confidence. “Yes. That would be a very good idea.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Into the Lair of the Chief Librarian

  When the great water-powered clock in the Middle Refectory showed fifteen minutes to midnight, Lirael left her hiding spot in the breakfast servery and climbed up through an air shaft to the Narrow Way, which would in turn take her to the Southscape and Chief Librarian Vancelle’s rooms.

  Lirael had dressed in her librarian’s uniform in case she met anyone, and carried an envelope addressed to the Chief. A skeleton staff of librarians did work through the night, though they didn’t usually employ Third Assistants like Lirael. If she was stopped, Lirael would claim she was taking an urgent message. In fact, the envelope contained her “just in case” note, alerting the Chief to the presence of the Stilken.

  But she didn’t meet anyone. No one came down the Narrow Way, which lived up to its name by being too narrow for two people to pass abreast. It was rarely used, because if you did meet someone going the other way, the more junior Clayr would have to backtrack—sometimes for its entire length, which was more than half a mile.

  The Southscape was wider, and much more risky for Lirael because so many senior Clayr had rooms off its broad expanse. Fortunately, the marks that lit it so brightly during the day had faded to a glimmer at night, producing heavy shadows for her to hide in.

  The door to the Chief’s rooms, however, was brightly lit by a ring of Charter marks around the book-and-sword emblem that was carved into the stone next to the doorway.

  Lirael looked at the lights balefully. Not for the first time, she wondered what she was doing. It probably would have been better to confess months ago when she initially got into trouble. Then someone else could deal with the Stilken—

  A touch at her leg made her jump and almost scream. She stifled the scream as she recognized the Disreputable Dog.

  “I thought you weren’t going to help,” she whispered, as the Dog jumped up and attempted to lick her face. “Get down, you idiot!”

  “I’m not helping,” said the Dog happily. “I’ve come to watch.”

  “Great,” replied Lirael, trying to sound sarcastic. Secretly, she was pleased. Somehow, the lair of the Chief Librarian seemed less threatening with the Dog along.

  “When is something going to happen?” the Dog asked a minute later, as Lirael still stood in the shadows, watching the door.

  “Now,” said Lirael, hoping that saying the word would give her the courage to begin. “Now!”

  She crossed the corridor in ten long strides, gripped the bronze doorknob, and pushed. No Clayr needed to lock her door, so Lirael wasn’t expecting any resistance. The door opened, and Lirael stepped in, the Dog whisking past her on the way.

  She shut the door quietly behind her and turned to survey the room. It was mainly a living space, dominated by bookshelves on three walls, several comfortable chairs, and a tall, thin sculpture of a sort of squashed-in horse, carved out of translucent stone.

  But it was the fourth wall that attracted Lirael’s attention. It was a single, vast window from floor to ceiling, made of the clearest, cleanest glass Lirael had ever seen.

  Through the window, Lirael could see the entire Ratterlin valley stretching southward, the river a wide streak of silver far below, shining in the moonlight. It was snowing lightly outside, and snowflakes whirled about in wild dances as they fell down the mountainside. None stuck to the window, or left any mark upon it.

  Lirael flinc
hed and stepped back as a dark shape swooped past, straight through the falling snow. Then she realized it was only an owl, heading down the valley for a midnight snack.

  “There’s lots to do before dawn,” whispered the Dog conversationally, as Lirael kept staring out the window, transfixed by that ribbon of silver winding off to the far horizon and by the strange moonlit vista that stretched as far as she could see. Beyond the horizon lay the Kingdom proper: the great city of Belisaere, with all its marvels, open to the sky and surrounded by the sea. All the world—the world that the other Clayr Saw in the ice of the Observatory—was out there, but all she knew of it was from books or from travelers’ tales overheard in the Lower Refectory.

  For the first time, Lirael wondered what the Clayr were trying to See out there with the greatly expanded Watches. Where was the place that resisted the Sight? What was the future that was beginning there, perhaps even as she looked out?

  Something tickled at the back of her mind, a sense of déjà vu or a fleeting memory. But nothing came, and she remained entranced, staring at the outside world.

  “A lot to do!” repeated the Dog, a little louder.

  Reluctantly, Lirael tore herself away and concentrated on the task at hand. The Chief’s bedroom had to be beyond this room. But where was the door? There were only the window, the door leading outside, and the bookshelves. . . .

  Lirael smiled as she saw that the end of one shelf was occupied by a door-handle rather than tightly packed books. Trust the Chief to have a door that doubled as a bookshelf.

  “The sword is on a stand just to the left,” whispered the Dog, who suddenly seemed a bit anxious. “Don’t open the door too much.”

  “Thanks,” replied Lirael as she gingerly tested the door handle, to see if it had to be pulled, pushed, or turned. “But I thought you weren’t helping.”

  The Dog didn’t answer, because as soon as Lirael touched it, the whole bookcase swung open. Lirael only just managed to get a firm enough grasp on the handle to stop it from opening completely, and had to haul it back to leave a gap wide enough for herself to slide through.

  The bedroom was dark, lit only by the moonlight in the outer chamber. Lirael poked her head in very slowly and let her eyes adjust, her ears trying to catch any sound of movement or sudden waking.

  After a minute or so, she could see the faint dark mass of a bed, and the regular breathing of someone asleep—though she wasn’t sure if she could really hear that or was just imagining it.

  As the Dog had said, there was a stand near the door. A sort of cylindrical metal cage that was open only at the top. Even in the dim light, Lirael could see that Binder was there, in its scabbard. The pommel was only a few inches below the top of the stand, in easy reach. But she would have to be right next to the stand to lift the sword high enough to clear the cage.

  She ducked back out and took a deep breath. The air seemed closer in the bedroom somehow. Darker, and cloying, as if it conspired against thieves like Lirael.

  The Dog looked at her and winked encouragingly. Still, Lirael’s heart started to beat faster and faster as she edged back through the door, and she suddenly felt strangely cold.

  A few, small, careful steps took her next to the stand. She touched it with both hands, then gingerly moved to grab the sword by the grip, and the scabbard just below the hilt.

  Lirael’s fingers had barely touched the metal when the sword suddenly let out a low whistle, and Charter marks flared into brilliance across the hilt. Instantly, Lirael let go and hunched forward, trying to muffle both light and sound with her body. She didn’t dare turn around. She didn’t want to see the Chief awake and furious.

  But there was no sudden shout of outrage, no stern voice demanding to know what she was doing. The red blur in front of her eyes faded as her night vision returned, and she cocked an ear to try and hear anything above the steady drum-beat of her own heart.

  Both whistle and the light had lasted no more than a second, she realized. Even so, it was clear that Binder chose who would—or would not—wield it.

  Lirael thought about this for a moment, then bent down and whispered, so low that she could hardly hear it herself.

  “Binder, I would borrow you for this night, for I need your help to bind a Stilken, a creature of Free Magic. I promise that you will be returned before the dawn. I swear this by the Charter, whose mark I bear.”

  She touched the Charter mark on her forehead, wincing as its sudden flare of light lit up the stand. Then she touched the pommel of Binder with the same two fingers.

  It didn’t whistle, and the marks in its hilt merely glowed. Lirael almost sighed, but swallowed the sigh at the last moment, before it could give her away.

  The sword came free of the stand without a sound, though Lirael had to lift it high over her own head for the point to clear, and it was heavy. She hadn’t realized how heavy it would be, or how long. It felt as if it weighed double her little practice sword, and it was easily a third as long again. Too long to clip the scabbard to her belt, unless she wore the belt under her armpits, or let the point drag along the ground.

  This sword was never made for a fourteen-year-old girl, Lirael concluded, as she edged back out and carefully shut the door. She resisted thinking any further than that.

  There was no sign of the Disreputable Dog. Lirael looked around, but there was nothing big enough for the Dog to hide behind—unless she’d somehow shrunk herself and gone under one of the chairs.

  “Dog! I’ve got it! Let’s go!” hissed Lirael.

  There was no answer. Lirael waited for at least a minute, though it seemed much longer. Then she went to the outer door and put her head against it, listening for footsteps in the corridor outside. Getting back to the Library with the sword would be the trickiest part of the venture. It would be impossible to explain to any Clayr she met.

  She couldn’t hear anything, so she slipped outside. As the door clicked shut behind her, Lirael saw a shadow suddenly stretch out of the dark edge on the other side, and a jolt of fear went through her. But once again, it was only the Disreputable Dog.

  “You scared me!” whispered Lirael, as she hurried into the shadows herself, and along to the Second Back Stair that would take her directly down to the Library. “Why didn’t you wait?”

  “I don’t like waiting,” said the Dog, trotting along at her heels. “Besides, I wanted to take a look in Mirelle’s rooms.”

  “No!” exclaimed Lirael, louder than she intended. She dropped to one knee, put the sword into the crook of one arm, and gripped the Dog’s lower jaw. “I told you not to go into people’s rooms! What will we do if someone decides you’re a menace?”

  “I am a menace,” mumbled the Dog. “When I want to be. Besides, I knew she wasn’t there. I could smell she wasn’t.”

  “Please, please, don’t go looking anywhere people might see you,” begged Lirael. “Promise me you won’t.”

  The Dog tried to look away, but Lirael held her jaw. Eventually she muttered something that possibly contained the word “promise.” Lirael decided that, given the circumstances, that would have to do.

  A few minutes later, slinking down the Second Back Stair, Lirael remembered her own promise to Binder. She’d sworn she’d return it to Vancelle’s bedroom before dawn. But what if she couldn’t?

  They left the Stair and headed down the main spiral until they were almost at the door to the flower-field room. When it came in sight, Lirael suddenly stopped. The Dog, who was several yards behind, loped up and looked at her enquiringly.

  “Dog,” Lirael said slowly. “I know you won’t help me fight the Stilken. But if I can’t bind it, I want you to get Binder and take it back to Vancelle’s. Before the dawn.”

  “You will take it back yourself, Mistress,” said the Dog confidently, her voice almost a growl. Then she hesitated, and said in a softer tone, “But I will do as you ask, if it proves necessary. You have my promise.”

  Lirael nodded her thanks, unable to speak. She wal
ked the final thirty feet to the door. There, she checked that the clockwork mouse was in her right waistcoat pocket and the small silver bottle in her left. Then she unsheathed Binder and, for the first time, held it as a weapon, on guard. The Charter marks on the blade burst into brilliant fire as they sensed the foe, and Lirael felt the latent strength of the sword’s magic. Binder had defeated many strange creatures, she knew, and this filled her with hope—until she remembered that this was probably the first time it was being wielded by a girl who didn’t really know what she was doing.

  Before that thought could paralyze her, Lirael reached out and broke the locking-spell on the door. As the Dog had said, the spell had been corroded by Free Magic, a corrosion so fierce that the spell broke apart merely at her touch and a whispered command.

  Then she waved her wrist. The emeralds of her bracelet flashed, and the door groaned open. Lirael braced herself for the sudden rush of the Stilken’s attack—but there was nothing there.

  Hesitantly, she stepped through the doorway, her nose twitching, seeking any scent of Free Magic, her eyes wide for the slightest hint of the creature’s presence.

  Unlike on her earlier visit, there was no bright light beyond the corridor—just an eerie glow, a Charter Magic imitation of moonlight that reduced all colors to shades of grey. Somewhere, in that half-darkness, the Stilken lurked. Lirael raised the sword higher and stepped out into the chamber, the flowers rustling under her feet.

  The Disreputable Dog followed ten paces behind, every hair on her back stuck up in a ridge, a low growl rumbling in her chest. There were traces of the Stilken here, but no active scent. It was hiding somehow, waiting in ambush. For a moment the Dog almost spoke. Then she remembered: Lirael must defeat the Stilken alone. She hunkered down on her belly, watching as her mistress walked on through the flowers, towards the tree and the pool—where the Stilken’s ambush must surely lie.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Of Stilken and Strange Magic