Lirael

by Garth Nix

  The guards left him outside his room, but Sam didn’t immediately change into his judge’s robes or make any motion to use the basin and ewer of water that stood in the tiled alcove that served him as a bathroom. The Palace, rebuilt with economy following its destruction by fire, did not have the steampipes and hot-water systems of Abhorsen’s House or the Clayr’s Glacier. Sam had plans for such a system, and indeed some of the original works remained deep below Palace Hill, but he had not had time to investigate the magic and engineering required to make it happen.

  “I will go,” he declared again, to the painting on the wall that showed a pleasant harvest scene. The reapers did not react, nor did the pitchfork crew, as he added, “The only question is—how?”

  He paced around the room. It was not large, so he had made twenty circuits before he made a decision, at the same time he arrived in front of the silver mirror that hung on the wall to the right of his simple iron-framed bed.

  “I’ll be someone else,” he said. “Prince Sameth can stay behind. I’ll be Sam, a Traveler going to rejoin his band after seeking treatment for a sickness in Belisaere.”

  He smiled at that, looking at himself in the mirror. Prince Sameth looked back at him, resplendent in red and gold jerkin, somewhat sweaty white linen shirt, tan doeskin breeches, and gilt-heeled knee boots. And above the court finery a pleasant face, with the potential to be striking one day, although Sam didn’t see that. Too youthful and open, he decided. His face lacked the definition of experience. He needed a scar or a broken nose or something like that.

  As he looked, he was also reaching into the endless swim of the Charter, picking out a mark here, a symbol there, linking them into a chain in his mind. Holding them there, he drew the final Charter mark in front of his eyes with his forefinger, and all the marks rushed out, to hang in the air, a glowing constellation of magic symbols.

  Sameth looked at them carefully, checking the spell before he stepped right into the glowing pattern. The marks brightened as they touched his skin, sparking against the Charter mark on his forehead, flowing in streaks of golden fire across his face.

  He shut his eyes as the fire reached them, ignoring the tingle under his eyelids and a sudden urge to sneeze. He stood that way for several minutes, till the tingle vanished. He sneezed explosively, inhaled with equal force—and opened his eyes.

  In the mirror, there were still the same clothes, with the same build of man inside them. But the face had changed. Sam the Traveler stared back, a man reminiscent of Prince Sameth but clearly several years older, with a carefully shaven mustache and goatee. His hair was a different color too, lighter and straighter, and much longer at the back.

  Better. Much better. Sameth—no, Sam—winked at the reflection and started to undress. His old hunting leathers would be best, and some plain shirts and underdrawers. He could buy a cloak in the city. And a horse. And a sword, since he couldn’t take the Charter-Magicked blade his mother had given him on his sixteenth birthday. It wouldn’t take a glamour and was too recognizable.

  But he could take some of the things he’d made himself, he realized as he kicked off his boots and dug out some well-worn but durable thigh boots of black calfskin.

  Thinking of his tower workshop inevitably led him to The Book of the Dead. Well, he certainly wouldn’t take that. Just a quick run up the stairs, pick up a few things, including his little store of gold nobles and silver deniers, and then he’d be off!

  Except that he couldn’t go up to his workshop looking as he did now. And he also had to do something that would allay Ellimere’s suspicions—otherwise he’d be chased down and brought back. Forcibly, he imagined, since the guards would have no problem taking Ellimere’s orders over his own.

  He sighed and sat down on the bed, boots in hand. Obviously this escape—or rather rescue expedition—was going to take more preparation than he thought. He’d have to make a temporary Charter sending that was a reasonable duplicate of himself and set up some situation so Ellimere couldn’t get too close a look.

  He could probably say that he had to do something from The Book of the Dead that required staying in his workroom for three days or so, to give himself a head start on any search. It wasn’t as if he were completely giving up studying to be the Abhorsen. He just needed a break, he told himself, and three weeks of rescuing Nicholas had to be more important than three weeks of study that he could easily make up on his return.

  Even if Ellimere asked the Clayr to find out where he was, a three-day start should be enough. Presuming she worked out what had happened after the third day and sent a message-hawk to the Clayr, it would be at least two days before they replied. Five days, in all.

  He’d be halfway to Edge by then. Or a quarter of the way, he thought, trying to remember exactly how far away the little town on the Red Lake actually was. He’d have to get a map and look up the latest Very Useful Guide to see where to stop on the way.

  Really, there were more than a dozen things to do before he could escape, Sam thought, dropping the boots to stand in front of the mirror again. The glamour would have to go for a start, if he didn’t want to be arrested by his own guards.

  Who would have thought that starting an adventure was so difficult?

  Glumly, he began the process of dissolving the Charter-spell that disguised him, letting the component marks twist away and fall back into the Charter. As soon as that was done, he would go up to the tower room and begin to get organized. Provided, of course, that Ellimere didn’t intercept him and take him off to Petty Court.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sam the Traveler

  Ellimere did intercept Sam, so the rest of his day was lost to Petty Court: the sentencing of a thief who tried to lie despite the truth-spell turning his face bright yellow with every falsehood; the arbitration of a property dispute that defied any hard and fast truths as all the original parties were dead; the rapid processing of a series of petty criminals who confessed immediately, hoping that not having to bespell them would improve the court’s outlook; and a long and boring speech from an advocate, which turned out to be irrelevant, as it relied on a point of law overturned by Touchstone’s reforms more than a decade ago.

  The night, however, was not taken up by official duties, though Ellimere once again produced a younger sister of one of her thousands of friends to sit next to Sam at dinner. To her surprise, Sam was quite talkative and friendly, and for days afterwards she defended him when other girls told tales of his distance.

  After dinner, Sam told Ellimere that he would be studying for the next three days, and had to immerse himself in a spell that required total concentration. He would get food and water from the kitchens and then would be in his bedchamber and must not be disturbed. Ellimere took the news surprisingly well, which made Sam feel bad. But even that could not curb his growing excitement, and the long hours creating a very basic sending of himself did not diminish his sense of expectation. When he finished it at a little past midnight, the sending looked quite like him from the door, though it had no depth from other angles. And if it was spoken to, it could shout “Go away!” and “I’m very busy” in a fair imitation of his voice.

  With the sending done, Sam went to his workroom and picked up his ready money and some of the things he had made, which might prove useful for the journey. He did not look at the cupboards, which stood like disapproving guardians in the corners of the room.

  But he dreamed of them when he finally got to bed. He dreamed that he climbed the stairs again, and opened the cupboards, and put on the bandolier of bells and opened the book, and read words that burst into fire, and the words picked him up and swept him into Death, plunging him into the cold river, and he couldn’t breathe—

  He woke, thrashing in his bed, the sheets tangled around his neck, cutting off his air. He fought them in a panic, till he realized where he was and his heart began to slow from its frenzied pumping. Off in the distance, a clock struck the hour, followed by the shouts of the Watch, anno
uncing all was well. It was four o’clock. He’d had only three hours’ sleep, but he knew he could sleep no more. It was time to cast the glamour upon himself. Time for Sam the Traveler to take his leave.

  It was still dark when Sam slipped out of the Palace, in the cool morning just before the dawn. Cloaked in Charter-spells of quiet and unseeing, he slipped down the stairs, past the guard post in the Southwest Courtyard, and along the steeply sloping corridor down to the gardens. He avoided the guards who tramped between the roses in the lowest terrace, and went out through a sally port that was locked by steel and spell. Fortunately, he had stolen the key for the lock, and the door knew him by his Charter mark.

  Out in the lane that ran into the King’s Road, he slung his surprisingly heavy saddlebags over his shoulder and wondered whether he should have gone through them again and taken things out, because they were bursting at the seams. But he couldn’t think of anything to leave behind, and he was taking just the bare essentials: a cloak; spare shirts, trousers, and underclothes; a sewing kit; a bag of soaps and toiletries with a razor he hardly needed to use; a copy of The Very Useful Guide; some friction matches; slippers; two gold bars; an oilskin square that could be used as a makeshift tent; a bottle of brandy, a piece of salted beef, a loaf of bread, three ginger cakes; and a few devices of his own making. Besides what was in the saddlebags, he had only a broad-brimmed hat, a belt purse, and a fairly nondescript dagger. His first stop would be the central market to buy a sword, and then he would go to the Horse Fair at Anstyr’s Field for a mount.

  As he left the lane and stepped out into the King’s Road to join the already rapidly building bustle of men, women, children, dogs, horses, mules, carts, beggars, and who-knew-what on the street, Sam felt a tremendous lift to his spirits, a feeling he hadn’t had for years. It was the same sense of joy and expectation he’d felt as a child being given an unexpected holiday. Freed of responsibility, suddenly given license to have fun, to run, to scream, to laugh.

  Sam did laugh, trying a deeper chuckle to fit his new personality. It came out rather strained, almost a gurgle, but he didn’t mind. Twirling his new, Charter-Magicked mustache, he quickened his pace. Off to adventure—and, of course, to rescue Nicholas.

  Three hours later, most of his pre-dawn exuberance was gone. His guise as a Traveler was very good for not being recognized, but it didn’t help him get attention from merchants and horse-traders. Travelers were not known as great customers, for they rarely had any coins, preferring to barter services or goods.

  It was also unseasonably warm, even for so late in spring, making the sword buying in the crowded market sweaty and unpleasant, with every second seeming to last an hour.

  The horse-trading was even worse, with great swarms of flies settling on the eyes and mouths of man and beast alike. It was no wonder, Sameth thought, King Anstyr had ordered the Horse Fair set up three miles from the city all those centuries ago. The Fair had ceased during the years of the Interregnum, but had begun to grow again in Touchstone’s reign. Now the permanent stables, corrals, and bidding rings covered a good square mile, and there were always more strings of horses in the pastures that surrounded the Horse Fair proper. Of course, finding a horse that you wanted to buy among the multitude took considerable time, and there was always competition for the better horses. People from all over the Kingdom, and even barbarians from the North, came to buy at the Fair, particularly at this time of year.

  Despite the crowds, the flies, and the competition, Sameth came out of his two purchasing ordeals quite happily. A plain but serviceable longsword hung at his hip, its sharkskin hilt rough under his tapping finger. A somewhat nervous bay mare followed behind, constrained by a leading rein from giving in to her neuroses. Still, she seemed sound enough and was neither too noticeable nor expensive. Sam was toying with calling her Tonin after his least favorite guard, but he decided that this was both childish and vindictive. Her previous owner had—somewhat enigmatically—called her Sprout, and that would do.

  Once out of the stink and crowding of the Horse Fair, Sam mounted up, weaving Sprout through the steady stream of traffic, finding his way past carts and peddlers, donkeys with empty panniers going away from the city and those with full ones going in, gangs of workmen relaying the stone pavers of the road, and all the nondescript journeyers in between. Not far out of the city he was overtaken by a King’s Messenger on a black thoroughbred that would have set the buyers bidding furiously at the Fair, and then later by a quartet of guards, setting a pace that could be maintained only in the knowledge that fresh horses awaited them at every posting house on the road. Both times Sam slouched in the saddle and pulled his hat down to shadow his face, even though the glamour still held.

  With the help of The Very Useful Guide, Sam had already decided on his first stop. He would take the Narrow Way along the isthmus that joined Belisaere to the mainland because there was no other way to go. Then he would take the high road south to Orchyre. He had considered going west to Sindle and then to the Ratterlin, where he could take a boat as far as Qyrre. But The Very Useful Guide mentioned a particularly good inn at Orchyre that served a famous jellied eel. Sam was partial to jellied eel and saw no reason why he shouldn’t take the most comfortable way to Edge.

  Not that he was entirely sure what the most comfortable way would be after Orchyre. The Great South Road followed the east coast most of the way down, but Edge was all the way across on the west coast. So he would have to cut west sooner or later. Perhaps he could even leave the royal roads, as they were called, and cut cross-country from Orchyre, trusting that he would be able to find country roads that would take him in the right direction. The danger in that lay in the spring floods. The royal roads mostly had decent bridges, but the country roads did not, and their usual fords might be impassable now.

  In any case, that was all in the future and not to be worried about till after Orchyre. The town was two days’ steady riding away, and he could think about his next stage en route, or that evening when he planned to put up at some inn.

  But planning the next stage of his journey was the last thing on Sameth’s mind when he finally reached a village and a staging inn that could be considered far enough away from Belisaere to stop. He’d ridden only seven leagues, but the sun was already setting, and he was exhausted. He’d had too little sleep the night before, and his backside and thighs were reminding him that he’d hardly ridden all winter.

  By the time he saw the swinging sign that declared the inn’s name to be The Laughing Dog, he could do little more than tip the ostler to look after Sprout and collapse on a bed in the best room in the house.

  He woke several times in the night, the first to kick off his boots and the second to relieve himself in the bedpan (with a broken lid) thoughtfully provided by the inn. The third time he woke, it was to insistent knocking on the door and the first rays of sunlight slipping through the shuttered windows.

  “Who is it?” groaned Sameth, sliding out of the bed and into his boots. His joints were stiff, and he felt awful, particularly in his slept-in clothes, which smelled dreadfully of horse. “Is it breakfast?”

  There was no answer save more knocking. Grumbling, Sameth went to the door, expecting some zany or village fool to grin up at him from behind a breakfast tray. Instead, he was greeted by two wide-shouldered men wearing the red and gold sashes of the Rural Constabulary over their leather cuirasses.

  One, clearly the senior, carried some authority in his stern face and silver, short-buzzed hair. He also had a Charter mark on his forehead, which his younger assistant did not.

  “Sergeant Kuke and Constable Tep,” announced the silver-haired man, thrusting past Sameth quite roughly. His companion also pushed in, quickly closing the door after him and letting the bar fall back in place.

  “What do you want?” asked Sam, yawning. He didn’t intend to be rude, but he had no idea that they had an interest in him and had knocked on his door by choice rather than chance. His only previous experience w
ith the Rural Constabulary was seeing them on parade, or inspecting some post of theirs with his father.

  “We want a word,” said Sergeant Kuke, standing close enough that Sam could smell the garlic on his breath and see the marks where he’d scraped the stubble off his chin not long before. “Let’s be beginning with your name and station.”

  “I am called Sam. I’m a Traveler,” replied Sameth, his eye following the constable, who had moved to the corner of the room and was examining his sword, propped against the saddlebags. For the first time, he felt a twinge of apprehension. These constables might not be the clodpolls he thought. They might even discover who he was.

  “Unusual for a Traveler to stay at a posting inn, let alone the best room in the house,” said the constable, turning back from Sam’s sword and saddlebags. “Unusual to tip the ostler a silver denier, too.”

  “Unusual for a Traveler’s horse not to have a brand, or clan tokens in its mane,” replied the sergeant, talking as if Sam wasn’t there. “It’d be pretty strange to see a Traveler without a clan tattoo. I wonder if we’d see one on this laddie, if we looked. But maybe we should start looking in those bags, Tep. See if we can find something to tell us who we’ve got here.”

  “You can’t do that!” exclaimed Sam, outraged. He took a step towards the constable, but stopped abruptly as sharp steel pricked through his linen shirt, just above his belly. Looking down, he saw a poniard held steadily in Sergeant Kuke’s hand.

  “You could tell us who you really are and what you’re up to,” said the sergeant.