Clariel

by Garth Nix

  ‘What about your parents? Surely they –’

  ‘They’re dead,’ said Bel. ‘An accident, when I was very little. Drowned.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Clariel. ‘My parents annoy me, but it would be terrible …’

  ‘I never knew them,’ said Bel, with a shrug. ‘I doubt things would be any different if they were still alive. Whatever Great-Uncle says goes for everybody, so when he wanted me out that was it. I’m supposed to be an ambassador from the Abhorsen to the city, a presence here when such is needed. Only ceremonially, of course, not for anything important. There’s not even much ceremony now the King is … avoiding everyone.’

  ‘But you do things with Magister Kargrin,’ said Clariel.

  ‘I’m a student of Magister Kargrin’s,’ said Bel, his pale face lighting up. ‘He’s about the only person who’s ever taught me anything useful. I mean, I’ve had to learn everything else by myself, from books, and from asking Mog— … from asking someone, but that’s never straightforward. Kargrin shows me the marks, and how to put them together, and to swim in the flow of the Charter. I’ve learned more Charter Magic from him in the last six months than from all my relatives in ten years!’

  ‘My best teachers are far away,’ said Clariel. ‘Sergeant Penreth and the Oddsby Beacon Hunters and Aunt Lemmin and her herbs. But I’ll see them soon.’

  She stood up and went over to the window, looking out. They were still high up, some fifty feet or more, and the view was into an interior courtyard and across to a wall on the other side, rather than the gardens she had hoped to see.

  ‘I hope you can get away,’ said Bel. ‘From Kilp and Aronzo, I mean. It’s a pity you aren’t going to stay though, since I’m sure there will be more trouble and we need everyone. But at least we got that Free Magic creature.’

  ‘What?’ asked Clariel, spinning around in surprise. ‘But we didn’t!’

  Bel laughed, then grimaced as he reached for a grape, the movement pulling his wounded shoulder.

  ‘Well, when I say we, I mean Kargrin’s people in general.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Clariel. ‘No one told … Gullaine didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Kargrin’s a sly one,’ said Bel, tossing a grape up to catch in his mouth, and missing so that it rolled down his chest. ‘Oops. He had Mistress Ader and that snaggle-toothed servant of hers hidden on the beach –’

  ‘Mistress Ader! From the Academy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bel. He paused in the act of popping the recalcitrant grape in his mouth. ‘She’s a mighty Charter Mage. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No,’ said Clariel. ‘I don’t even know who her snaggle-toothed servant is. I guess I don’t know very much.’

  ‘You’ve only been here a little while,’ said Bel, reaching for another grape and wincing again. ‘City’s complicated. Very complicated.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clariel grimly. ‘Too complicated for me. So Mistress Ader ambushed Az— … the creature.’

  ‘Caught it in a storm of Charter marks, forced it into a bottle,’ said Bel. ‘Least, that’s what Kargrin told me this morning. Very difficult, those binding spells. I’ll learn them one day. I know some of the master marks, but you have to build up to them. They’ll kill you otherwise, burn your throat or blast your fingers off.’

  Clariel turned back to the window, and looked out at the blue sky and the sun. So Aziminil was back in a bottle, trapped by magic in a tiny prison, never to emerge. She shivered, thinking of such confinement herself. But at the same time she told herself Aziminil was a Free Magic creature, something inimical to mortal life. She had to be captured and imprisoned.

  Didn’t she?

  ‘When are you going?’ asked Bel.

  ‘As soon as I can,’ said Clariel. ‘I have to see Kargrin first, to get my money and some help out of the city. Maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ Bel nearly choked on his grape. ‘When you said soon, I thought you meant a few weeks, or months. Tomorrow …’

  ‘If I can,’ said Clariel. She looked back at Bel, who was staring at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, I just thought,’ muttered Bel. ‘I … ah … thought perhaps we could get to know each other better …’

  Clariel frowned. She knew this kind of talk from young men, and that it had to be nipped in the bud.

  ‘I’m not interested in romance,’ she said. ‘Love, marriage … none of that. Besides, what about you and Denima?’

  ‘We’re friends,’ protested Bel. ‘And I just, you know, I like you. I thought we have things in common, being Abhorsens –’

  ‘I don’t think the rest of your family would consider me an Abhorsen,’ said Clariel. ‘Do you know why my mother never speaks to them?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Bel. ‘Only I thought it was they who don’t speak to her. It’s pretty easy to cross Great-Uncle Tyriel, he’s a mean-spirited old curmudgeon. What did she do? Steal his favourite horse when she ran away from Hillfair?’

  Clariel shook her head.

  ‘No. It’s not for me to speak of it. Enough to say that there is a great divide, one that I’m sure extends to me as well.’

  ‘This Abhorsen sees no divide and is very grateful to you,’ said Bel. ‘I hope we can stay friends, Clariel. I’m not the bothersome kind, it was just a momentary rush of blood to the head, you understand.’

  Clariel laughed. A short, almost sardonic laugh.

  ‘You don’t look like you’ve got much blood anywhere. You’re paler than ever.’

  ‘I am a bit tired,’ said Bel. He hesitated, then added, ‘But you know I’m pale because I’ve walked in Death, right?’

  ‘No …’ said Clariel, looking at him again. ‘I have heard people speak of it a few times. That the Abhorsens can enter Death, and return.’

  ‘Yes, we can,’ said Bel simply. ‘You probably could too. It is also your heritage. With proper training, of course. It is very dangerous.’

  ‘The living world is enough for me,’ said Clariel. ‘That is, a world really alive. Not surrounded by all this stone, hemmed in and confined. Ah, I wish I was back in the Forest!’

  The creak of the door announced Gullaine’s return.

  ‘Thank you once more, for my life,’ said Bel. ‘Travel safely. Perhaps we’ll meet again one day. As friends.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clariel. ‘As friends. Take care of your wound.’

  ‘Your parents await you,’ said Gullaine to Clariel. ‘I believe your mother is most anxious to talk to you about the King’s gift.’

  ‘That’s no surprise,’ said Clariel. She left the room thinking about Bel being an orphan, and what it would mean to her parents when they found her gone. Perhaps it would be a blow to them, even to her mother, though she suspected her absence would soon be forgotten amid Jaciel’s work. Besides, she told herself, she had little choice. The city was drawing her in like a whirlpool, a devourer of ships, with so many different tangles and plots and dangers.

  If she stayed in Belisaere, she was sure it would kill her. One way or another.

  chapter sixteen

  the governor’s dinner

  It was growing dark by the time they tore Jaciel away from the Dropstone work and returned to the palanquins. A light rain had begun to fall by then. It was not much more than a mist, but it made the evening unpleasantly clammy. Yet even this did not weigh on Jaciel’s mood. She was happy, possibly as happy as Clariel had ever seen her, and certainly the most visibly happy she had been with her daughter for a very long time. This was entirely due to the rosewood box she had just shut back in the Palace, which contained the Dropstone salt cellar in the shape of a ship, to be transported to her workshop the next day. There Jaciel’s apprentices would draw it from every angle, and she would study it till she discovered all the secrets of its making.

  ‘You will ride with me,’ Jaciel told Clariel as Gullaine bowed farewell at the end of the bridge. ‘Harven, you take the other palanquin. Valannie, you may walk with the guards.’

  ‘Yes, dear
,’ said Harven.

  ‘But I need to repaint Lady Clariel’s face, milady!’ protested Valannie. Probably because she didn’t want to walk or get damp, Clariel thought.

  Jaciel looked at her daughter, and Clariel felt as if her mother was actually seeing her for the first time in years. There were faint beads of mist on Clariel’s scarf and a lock of hair had escaped it on the front. Jaciel carefully tucked the errant hair back under the scarf, a maternal gesture Clariel had not experienced since she was a little girl. It made her feel quite odd now, because she knew it stemmed from her mother’s love of her art, her excitement for the work that lay ahead, and not from a pure love of Clariel herself.

  ‘I think Clariel looks fine as she is, thank you, Valannie. You did a very good job earlier.’

  ‘Yes, milady,’ said Valannie mulishly. Jaciel ignored her, climbing into the palanquin and settling in among the cushions. Clariel followed more slowly. She wasn’t keen on the dinner ahead, and she was particularly not keen on sharing the enclosed space of the palanquin with her mother.

  ‘You did very well today,’ said Jaciel as the palanquin was lifted and the bearers began their whispered chant. ‘I had not thought there was any possibility that the King would let the salt cellar leave the Palace, even temporarily. He must have liked you.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Clariel honestly. ‘We kind of … had an argument.’

  ‘He must have liked you despite that,’ said Jaciel. ‘Captain Gullaine tells me that he may be open to a regency. That you might be regent, Clariel. Guided and aided by the appropriate people of course, a regency council. Your father would be good on that.’

  ‘And Governor Kilp, I suppose,’ said Clariel bitterly, seeing a new web being woven around her. She’d thought Gullaine at least something of a friend before this visit.

  ‘No … we won’t need Kilp now,’ mused Jaciel. ‘I thought I might need his assistance to even get a look at the Dropstone salt cellar … but if you are regent, then there will be no problem with getting at the other works. I know there are more in the Palace, unattributed, of course. A full inventory will be required.’

  ‘I don’t want to be regent, Mother!’ protested Clariel.

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ snorted Jaciel. ‘It is a wonderful opportunity, far better than anything else we could arrange.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Clariel. ‘If I took it, I’d probably be dead in a week, and you and Father too. Do you think Kilp is going to stand by and let someone else take the power he’s been aiming for?’

  ‘Bah, Kilp! He’s simply the Governor of the city, and I’m sure he’s happy with that,’ said Jaciel. She wasn’t looking at her daughter now. Her eyes were out of focus, dreaming of some unseen, distant object, almost certainly the Dropstone salt cellar or the imagining of a work of her own that would surpass the ancient master. ‘You make too much of this, as always, Clariel.’

  ‘No I don’t,’ said Clariel calmly. ‘You are immersed in your work, Mother. You have no idea what is going on in the city. I admit that I don’t know enough either, but I do know that I don’t want to be part of the politics and the plotting. I’m going to go back to Estwael. I’m going to live in the Great Forest as a hunter.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ snapped Jaciel. ‘We’ve been over this before. No! Not another word on the subject. I am grateful to you for procuring the salt cellar, but do not imagine this gives you licence to behave like a spoiled five year old!’

  Clariel opened her mouth, her lips almost curving into a snarl, but she managed to shut it again. Anger boiled up inside her, the rage threatening to take hold. Clariel forced it back by will alone, starting the breathing exercises she’d learned from The Fury Within. There was no point in continuing to talk, Clariel thought. She would simply go to Magister Kargrin’s tomorrow, take the money, allow him to disguise her with Charter Magic, and flee.

  The whispered chant of the bearers provided a backing rhythm to her breathing exercises. Her breath came slowly in and went slowly out, as she imagined the calm place the book told her was of central importance in restraining the fury. She pictured her favourite glade in the Forest, where two clear, cold creeks met, and two ancient willows curved overhead to make an arch. She had often lain there on her belly, tickling the trout under the red stone ledge … There she was, the dappled sunshine on her back, her arm in the water up to her elbow, still as a stone herself, the fish brushing her fingers …

  It only occurred to her much later that Jaciel was probably doing the same thing, and her mother’s calm place lay in her work. There they were, two people who were so much the same, retreating into their inner worlds, one of the Forest, one of gold. Both steadying their breathing, slowing mind and body as they restrained the fury that was their birthright.

  Kilp lived in the Governor’s House, a vast mansion of six levels that with its broad outer courtyard took up all the space between the Western High Aqueduct and Carmine Street. It was typically built of white stone and red tiles, but unlike other houses in Belisaere it boasted a fifteen-foot-high curtain wall around its grounds, and the house itself had a tower on each corner, topped with cupolas of greenish bronze.

  The courtyard was full of a great number of guards, from many different guilds. There were scores of them, sitting, standing, wandering around, eating, drinking, talking … all clearly waiting for something, their halberds, spears, bows, helmets and other weapons and paraphernalia of war stacked in neat piles around the courtyard, under guild flags that had been thrust into barrels of sand.

  ‘Why are all these guards here?’ Clariel asked one of their own, as she was helped down out of the palanquin.

  ‘There’s rioters gathering in the Flat, milady,’ said the guard. ‘Troublemakers going to march on the Governor, so they say. Don’t expect they’ll hang about when they see us waiting for ’em.’

  ‘Why are they rioting?’ asked Clariel.

  ‘Couldn’t say, milady,’ replied the guard, his face wooden. Before she could ask more, he’d stepped back and joined a file waiting to escort them to the house proper.

  ‘Come along,’ said Jaciel. ‘Harven!’

  Harven ran up to Jaciel’s side and took her arm, and they swept on up to the broad front steps of the house, Clariel following along behind. The flickering light of oil lanterns lit their way, with no Charter Magic illumination to be seen, not even the soft sheen of the old marks that must have been in the stone of the steps and the railings, and so must have been chipped away or painted over.

  The rain began to fall more heavily as they reached the front door, which stood open, Goldsmith guards standing on either side. A servant, dressed entirely in cloth of gold, bowed low as they stepped through to the entrance hall. This again was lit only by lanterns, and crowded with yet more guards, mostly officers of the various Guild Companies, in fancier clothes and armour, many sporting expensive decorations on the hilts and scabbards of their swords.

  The cloth-of-gold-clad servant, some kind of major-domo, coughed gently to get their attention and said, ‘Welcome, Lady Jaciel, Master Harven, Lady Clariel. The Governor wishes to apologise for the unusual circumstances in the house. Please follow me to the Governor’s study.’

  The major-domo led them through the crowd of officers, some pausing their conversations to bow or salute, though many of them hardly noticed the new arrivals. There was an air of excitement among them all, the kind of energy Clariel had often seen before a hunt, the expectation of adventures to come. Here she found it distasteful, the powerful and rich about to descend upon the weak and defenceless, as if a full array of Borderers were about to attack a rabbit hutch. All these sleek soldiers, and the massed ranks outside, up against the kind of folk who’d thrown the scrunched-up papers at the Palace gates … it had all the trappings of a nightmare, a nightmare bounded by the city walls.

  ‘This way,’ said the major-domo, opening a small door in the corner, revealing a narrow, winding stair. He took a lantern from its hook above the
door and started to climb, his shadow flickering behind him across the steps. ‘This is the Governor’s private stair.’

  The door at the top of the steps was open, a bright rectangle lit by many candles within. Kilp himself stood there. He was wearing armour, a coat of gilded mail with no surcoat over it, and his sword with the swan-wings hilt was at his side.

  ‘Well met, well met! Come on up! I’m sorry we shall not have too much time to dine, as no doubt you saw there is serious business afoot tonight. But the Governor’s office is ever busy.’

  He stood aside as they entered a surprisingly large room, the narrow stair being truly a private entrance, as there were large double doors at the other end. The place was lit by candlelight rather than Charter Magic, two huge chandeliers of golden filigree hanging from the timbers of the vaulted ceiling, each carrying a hundred candles. Beneath them was a table of deeply polished walnut, set for six, with a great array of gold and silver cutlery, gold goblets and silver-rimmed glasses, and a massive salt cellar fashioned in the shape of Belisaere itself, or an abstraction of it, a thing of aqueducts and walls with a few key landmarks like the Palace, all of it shining gold and silver and massive gemstones. It was quite remarkably ugly and the weight of metal alone would make it worth a fortune.

  Aronzo came in through the main doors as Clariel stepped in from the small, private way. He also was armoured, in blackened mail, and he wore a dark gold surcoat over it, a sword and long dagger on his belt. He smiled, his blue eyes bright in the candlelight.

  ‘Lady Jaciel and family. Good evening.’

  Clariel returned his bow, a second slower than her parents. She was thinking about Kilp and Aronzo armed and armoured, and her empty sleeve and generally weaponless state. But surely there could be no real danger … not when they had arrived so openly, and Jaciel an important figure in the Guild … If there was danger, it would not be a danger that could be met by a dagger from her sleeve or boot.