by Garth Nix
For a moment, Sam and Lirael thought it would sink and disappear, but it actually bounced off the river as if the water were springy grass. Then the column started to move towards them, and it began to transform itself into something else. Soon it was no longer a tall streak of white fire but a gigantic burning boar, complete with tusks. It ran after Finder in great splashing leaps, squealing as it ran, a sound that sent a wave of nausea through everyone who heard it.
Sam was the first to react. He picked up Lirael’s bow and sent four arrows in quick succession into the thing that was fast catching up to them. All struck it head on, but they had no effect save for a sudden flurry of sparks. The arrows turned instantly into molten metal and ash.
Sam was reaching for another arrow when Lirael thrust her hand past him, and she screamed a spell over the wind. A golden net flew from her fingers, spreading wider and wider as it crossed the intervening water. It met the boar-thing as it jumped, wrapping it in ropes of yellow red fire that dampened the thing’s white-hot brilliance. Boar and net came plunging down, and both disappeared under the surface of the river, cutting off the terrible squealing. As the waters of the Ratterlin closed over the boar, an enormous plume of steam shot up for at least a hundred feet. When it subsided, there was no sign of either net or Free Magic creature, save for many small pieces of what looked like long-decayed meat, morsels that even the ravenous seagulls overhead chose to avoid.
“Thank you,” said Sam, after it became clear that nothing more was going to come from the guardboat or out of the depths. He knew the net-spell Lirael had used but hadn’t thought it would work against something that looked so powerful.
“Mogget suggested it,” said Lirael, who was clearly surprised both by that and by the fact that the spell had worked so well.
“While that kind of construct can move across running water, it is destroyed by total immersion,” explained Mogget. “Slowing it for even a moment was enough.”
He looked slyly at the Dog, and added, “So you see that this hound is not the only one who knows of such things. Now I really must have a little nap. I trust that some fish will be forthcoming when I wake?”
Sam nodded wearily, though he had no idea how he was going to catch any. He almost patted Mogget, as Lirael so often did the Dog. But something in the cat’s green eyes made him pull his hand back before the motion was really begun.
“Sorry I didn’t think of the flag earlier,” said Lirael as they sped on. The spell-wind had lessened, but it still blew quite strongly at their backs. “There’s a whole pile of stuff there I looked at for only a second when we first left the Glacier.”
“I’m glad you remembered it when you did,” said Sam, his words slightly muffled as he tested the operation of his jaw. It seemed to be only bruised, and he still had all his teeth. “And this wind will come in handy. We should get to the House by tomorrow morning.”
“Abhorsen’s House,” Lirael said thoughtfully. “It’s built on an island, isn’t it? Just before the waterfall where the Ratterlin goes over the Long Cliffs?”
“Yes,” replied Sam, thinking of that raging cascade and how grateful he was going to be to have its protection. Then it occurred to him that far from thinking of the waterfall as safety, Lirael was probably wondering how they would reach the House without going over the mighty falls and down to certain destruction.
“Don’t worry about the waterfall,” he explained. “There’s a sort of channel behind the island, where the current isn’t as strong. It goes back almost a league, so as long as you enter it at the right point and stay in it, there’s no problem. The Wallmakers made it. They built the House, too. It’s brilliant work—the channel, I mean. I tried to make a model of it once, using the waterfall and pools on the second terrace at home. The Palace. But I couldn’t spell the current to split. . . .”
He stopped talking as he realized Lirael wasn’t listening. She had an abstract expression on her face, and her eyes were focused over his shoulder, into the distance.
“I didn’t realize I was that boring,” he said with an annoyed smile. Sam wasn’t used to pretty girls ignoring him. And Lirael was pretty, he suddenly realized, potentially even beautiful. He hadn’t noticed before.
Lirael started, blinked, and said, “Sorry. I’m not used to . . . People don’t talk to me much back home.”
“You know, you’d look a lot better without that scarf,” said Sam. She really was attractive, though something about her face unsettled him. Where had he seen her? Perhaps she looked like one of the girls Ellimere had forced on him back in Belisaere. “You know, you remind me of someone. I don’t suppose I could have met one of your sisters or something, could I? I don’t remember ever seeing any dark-haired Clayr, though.”
“I don’t have any sisters,” replied Lirael absently. “Only cousins. Lots and lots of cousins. And an aunt.”
“You could change into one of my sister’s dresses at the House. It’d give you a chance to get out of that waistcoat,” said Sam. “Do you mind if I ask how old you are, Lirael?”
Lirael looked at him, puzzled at the question, till she saw the glint in his eye. She knew that look from the Lower Refectory. She looked away and pulled up her scarf, trying to think of something to say. If only Sam could have just stayed like the Dog, she thought. A comforting friend, without the complication of romantic interest. There had to be something she could do to completely discourage him, short of throwing up or otherwise making herself totally unattractive.
“I’m thirty-five,” she said at last.
“Thirty-five!” exclaimed Sam, “I mean, I beg your pardon. You don’t look . . . you seem much younger—”
“Ointments,” said the Dog, sporting a wicked, one-sided grin that only Lirael could see. “Unguents. Oils from the North. Spells of seeming. My mistress works hard to keep her youth, Prince.”
“Oh,” said Sam, leaning back against the stern rail. Surreptitiously he looked at Lirael again, trying to see some lines he’d missed or something. But she really didn’t look a day older than Ellimere. And she certainly didn’t act like a much older woman. She wasn’t all that confident or outgoing, for a start. Perhaps it was because she was a librarian, Sam thought, as he tried to make out what he thought was probably a very shapely form under the baggy waistcoat.
“Enough of that talk, Dog!” commanded Lirael, turning her head to hide her own smile from Sam. “Make yourself useful and keep an eye out for danger. I’m going to make myself useful by weaving a Charter-skin.”
“Aye, aye, Mistress,” growled the Dog. “I will keep watch.”
The hound stretched and yawned, then jumped to the bow, sitting down right in the path of the spray, her mouth wide open and tongue lolling. How she stayed upright and steady was a mystery, Lirael thought, though she had the unpleasant notion that the Dog might have grown suckers on her bottom.
“Mad. Absolutely mad,” said Mogget, as he watched the Dog get drenched. The cat had resumed his post near the mast and was once again licking himself dry. “But then, she always was.”
“I heard that!” barked the Dog, without looking back.
“Of course you did,” said Mogget, sighing, and he licked away at his collar. He looked up at Lirael, his green eyes twinkling with wickedness, and added, “I don’t suppose I could trouble you to take off my collar so I can get properly dry?”
Lirael shook her head.
“Well, I suppose if the village idiot here wouldn’t do it, there was no chance you would,” grumbled Mogget, inclining his head at Sameth. “It’s enough to make me wish I’d volunteered in the first place. Then I wouldn’t be forced out all the time on these barbaric boat trips.”
“What didn’t you volunteer for?” asked Lirael curiously. But the little cat only smiled. A smile that had rather too much of the carnivorous hunter in it, Lirael thought. Then he twitched his head, Ranna tinkled, and he was asleep, sprawled out in the noonday sun.
“Be careful with Mogget,” Sam warned, as Lirael s
uccumbed to the temptation to scratch the cat’s furry white belly. “He’s nearly killed my mother in his unbound form. Three times, in fact, during the time she’s been the Abhorsen.”
Lirael pulled her hand back just as Mogget opened one eye and made an—apparently playful—swipe with one claw-extended paw.
“Go back to sleep,” said the Dog from the bow, without looking around. She certainly seemed confident that Mogget would obey.
Mogget winked at Lirael, holding her gaze for a moment. Then that one sharp green eye closed, and he really did seem to fall asleep, Ranna tinkling at his neck.
“Well,” Lirael said. “Time to make a Charter-skin.”
“Do you mind if I watch?” asked Sam eagerly. “I’ve read about Charter-skins, but I thought the art was lost. Even Mother doesn’t know how to make one. What shapes do you know?”
“I can make an ice otter, a russet bear, or a barking owl,” replied Lirael, relieved to see that the spasm of romantic interest that had gripped Sam had passed. “You can watch if you like, but I don’t know what you’ll see. They’re basically just very long and complex chains of Charter marks and joining-spells—and you have to hold them in your head all at the same time. So I won’t be able to talk or explain or anything. And it will probably take me until sunset. Then I have to fold it exactly right so it can be used later.”
“Fascinating,” said Sam. “Have you tried putting the completed spell into an object? So that the whole chain of Marks is there, ready to be pulled out when you need it, but it hasn’t actually been cast?”
“No,” replied Lirael. “I didn’t know that it was possible.”
“Well, it’s difficult,” explained Sam eagerly. “It’s sort of like repairing a Charter Stone. I mean, you have to use some of your own blood to prepare whatever is going to hold the spell. Royal blood, that is, though Clayr or Abhorsen blood should work equally well. You need to be very careful, of course, because if you get it wrong . . . Anyway, let’s see your Charter-skin first. What is it going to be?”
“A barking owl,” replied Lirael, with a sense of foreboding. She didn’t need the Sight to know that Sameth would like to ask an awful lot of questions. “And it’ll take about four hours. Without,” she added firmly, “any interruptions.”
Chapter Forty-Two
Southerlings and a Necromancer
The sun was setting, sending a red light across the broad river. Despite Sam and Lirael’s earlier weather spell, the wind had turned and was blowing strongly from the south. Even against the wind, Finder continued to make good time, tacking in long diagonals between the eastern and western shores.
As Lirael had expected, Sam hadn’t been able to stop himself asking questions. But even with the interruptions she had managed to create the Charter-skin of a barking owl and fold it up properly for later use.
“That was fascinating,” said Sam. “I’d like to learn how to make one myself.”
“I’ve left In the Skin of a Lyon back at the Glacier,” replied Lirael. “But you can have it if you ever go there. It belongs to the Library, but I expect you’d be allowed to borrow it.”
Sam nodded. The prospect of him visiting the Clayr’s Glacier seemed exceedingly remote. It was just another piece of a future that he couldn’t imagine. All he could think of was reaching the safe haven of the House.
“Can we sail through the night?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Lirael. “If the Dog is prepared to stay up as lookout, to help Finder.”
“I will,” barked the Disreputable Dog. She had not shifted from her position at the bow. “The sooner we’re there, the better. There is a foul scent on this wind, and the river is too deserted to be normal.”
Sam and Lirael both looked around. They had been so intent on the Charter-skin that they hadn’t noticed the complete absence of any other boats, though there were a number anchored close to the eastern shore.
“No one’s followed us down from High Bridge, and we have passed only four craft coming from the south,” said the Dog. “This cannot be normal for the Ratterlin.”
“No,” Sam agreed. “Whenever I’ve been on the river, there’ve always been lots of boats. Even in winter. We should have seen some of the wood barges at least, heading north.”
“I haven’t seen a single craft all day,” said the Dog. “Which means that they have stopped somewhere, to take shelter. And the boats I’ve seen tied up have all been out on the jetties or moored to buoys. As far as they can get from the land. “
“There must be more of the Dead, or those Free Magic constructs, all along the river,” said Lirael.
“I knew Mother and Dad shouldn’t have gone,” said Sam. “If they’d known—”
“They would still have gone,” interrupted Mogget with a yawn. He stretched, and tasted the air with his delicate pink tongue. “As per usual, trouble comes in several directions at once. I think some is coming our way, for I am afraid to say that the hound is correct. There is a reek on this breeze. Wake me if something unpleasant seems likely to occur.”
With that, he settled back down again, curling into a tight white ball.
“I wonder what Mogget would call ‘something unpleasant,’ ” muttered Sam nervously. He picked up his sword and drew it partially out of the scabbard, checking that the Charter marks he’d put there still flourished.
The Dog sniffed the air again as the boat came about, onto a port tack. Her nose quivered, and she raised her snout higher as the scent grew stronger.
“Free Magic,” she said finally. “On the western shore.”
“Where, exactly?” asked Lirael, shading her eyes with her hand. It was hard to see anything to the west, against the setting sun. All she could make out was tangled groves of willows between empty fields, a few makeshift jetties, and the semi-submerged stone walls of a large fish trap.
“I can’t see,” replied the Dog. “I can only smell. Somewhere downstream.”
“I can’t see anything, either,” added Sam. “But if the Free Magic isn’t on the river, we can just sail past.”
“I can smell people, too,” reported the Dog. “Frightened people.”
Sam didn’t say anything. Lirael glanced at him and saw that he was biting his lip.
“Could it be the necromancer?” Lirael asked. “Hedge?”
The Dog shrugged. “I cannot tell from here. The scent of Free Magic is strong, so it could be a necromancer. Or perhaps a Stilken or Hish.”
Lirael swallowed nervously. She could bind a Stilken, since she had Nehima to help. And Sam, the Dog, and Mogget. But she didn’t want to have to.
“I knew I should have read that book,” muttered Sam. He didn’t say which book.
They sat in silence for a minute, as Finder continued on her way towards the western shore. The sun was sinking fast now, more than half of its ruddy disc below the horizon. The stars were starting to become brighter as darkness fell.
“I suppose we’d better . . . we’d better take a look,” Sam said at last, with obvious effort. He buckled on his sword, but made no move to pick up the bandolier of bells. Lirael looked at them and wished she could take them up, but they were not hers. It was up to Sam to decide what to do with them.
“If we tie up at that next jetty, will we be close?” Lirael asked the Dog. The hound nodded her head. Without needing orders, Finder turned towards the jetty.
“Wake up, Mogget!” said Sam, but he spoke softly. It had grown quiet on the river with the fall of night. He did not want his voice to carry over the soft burble of the current.
Mogget did not stir. Sam spoke again and scratched the cat’s head, but Mogget continued to sleep.
“He’ll wake when he needs to,” said the Dog. She also spoke softly. “Prepare yourselves!”
Finder expertly slid up to the jetty as Lirael lowered the sail. Sam jumped ashore, his sword drawn, closely followed by the Dog.
Lirael joined them a moment later, Nehima bare, the Charter marks on the blade glowing in th
e twilight.
The Dog sniffed the air again and cocked one ear. All three stood still. Listening. Waiting.
Even the hungry gulls had stopped calling. There was no sound, save their own breathing and the rush of the river under the jetty.
Off in the distance, the silence was suddenly broken by a long-drawn-out scream. Then, as if that were a signal for noise to begin, it was followed by muffled shouts and more screams.
At the same time, Lirael and Sam both felt several people die. Though it was far away, they flinched at the shock of the deaths and then again as it was quickly repeated. There was something else there, too, that they could sense. Some power over Death.
“A necromancer!” blurted Sam. He took a step back.
“The bells,” said Lirael, and she looked down at the boat. Mogget was awake now, his green eyes gleaming in the dark. He was perched upon the bell-bandolier.
“They’re coming this way,” announced the Dog calmly.
The shouts and screams grew closer. But Lirael and Sam still couldn’t see anything beyond the line of willows. Then, fifty yards downstream, a man burst out of the trees and fell into the water. He went under at once but bobbed to the surface some distance out. He swam for a few strokes, then turned on his back to float, too weary or too hurt to keep swimming.
Behind him, a burnt and blackened corpse shambled to the water’s edge and let out a horrible, gobbling cry as it saw its prey escape. Repelled by the swift flow of the river, the Dead Hand staggered back into the trees.
“Come on,” said Lirael, though she could barely get out the words. She drew her panpipes and marched off. The Dog followed her. Sam hesitated, staring out into the darkness.
More people screamed and shouted beyond the trees. No words were clear, but Sam knew they were desperately afraid, and the shouts were for help.
He looked back at the bells. Mogget met his gaze, unblinking. “What are you waiting for?” asked the cat. “My permission?”
Sam shook his head. He felt paralyzed, unable to reach for the bells or to follow Lirael. She and the Dog were almost at the end of the jetty. He could sense the Dead nearby, less than a hundred yards away, and the necromancer with them.
