Clariel

by Garth Nix

  ‘We shall go high, with your permission, Mistress,’ whispered the dragon. It was Baazalanan speaking. ‘Then drop fast, too fast for bolt or spell to strike us.’

  ‘Like a kite upon a vole,’ said Mogget, licking his lips. ‘The osprey upon an unsuspecting fish.’

  ‘Yes, let us do that,’ said Clariel. ‘Look ahead, Mogget. What can you see of the Palace? Does the royal banner fly above the gatehouse?’

  ‘The smoke is too thick,’ said Mogget. ‘I cannot see.’

  ‘Faster,’ mumbled Clariel. She said it again, and wondered why her mouth was dry. Then she remembered that she had neither drunk nor eaten since dinner the night before, and now it was the fourth or fifth hour of the afternoon. But she was not hungry, or thirsty, and in a moment she forgot the dryness of her mouth and throat.

  She also wasn’t tired despite her very short sleep of the night before. But as they flew faster and higher, and the cold gripped her more tightly, Clariel found herself drifting into a kind of fugue, where she was neither asleep nor awake. She knew where she was, in the iron chair on the back of a dragon. But at the same time she imagined herself to be in the Great Forest. In the wintertime, when the Forest canopy above was sparse, snow covered the greensward, and ice glazed the edges of the stream where she liked to fish. It was too cold to tickle trout in winter, but there were rabbits to snare, and wild honey to be gathered from sleepy bees without competition from even sleepier bears. She would have a snug forester’s hut, with a stove bought from the town red-hot upon its rough-fired clay plinth, a stack of wood as high as the turf-covered roof outside, a larder full of autumn’s harvest; winter in the Forest could be comfortable indeed …

  ‘We are ready to descend, Mistress,’ whispered the dragon. ‘On your command …’

  Clariel awoke fully, the wintry forest landscape banished in an instant. They were in the high waft of the smoke, not so thick that it choked, but enough to cause half-waking dreams of comfortable stoves. As the smoke swirled beneath them, Clariel caught glimpses of the Palace far below, and the sea next to it. There were some people on the walls, but she could not make out whether they were fighting, or who they were.

  ‘Brace yourself, Mogget,’ she said. Crouching down herself, she set her shoulders against the back of the chair, and her feet hard on the footrest. She placed the sword between her knees and gripped it there, her hands tight on the metal arms of the chair, which for the first time she noticed were lightly rimed with ice.

  ‘Take care not to harm me or throw me out,’ she said sternly to the dragon. ‘But descend as fast as you can!’

  The dragon pushed its head down, its body following, and folded its wings. Clariel slid down the chair a fraction and her stomach flipped up towards her throat in a moment of fear. She pressed herself even flatter into the iron seat and gripped harder. Mogget was somewhere under her legs. She felt his claws cutting through the overshoes around her ankles, but she couldn’t look. The dragon was nearly vertical now, and they were plummeting to the earth, the wind howling past so that their previous speed paled in comparison, as if they had been sauntering across the sky and now were sprinting.

  A hundred paces above a broad stretch of the Palace wall they came suddenly out of the thickest smoke into afternoon sunshine. The dragon flung out its wings; there was an almighty crack like thunder, and had they been of normal flesh the wings would have been stripped from the dragon’s body by the sudden shock. But they were not normal flesh. The dragon slowed. It reared backwards, wings beating, Clariel sliding up the chair back, so she had to arch and twist her legs to keep the sword safe between her knees. Then they were down, the dragon rampaging along the wall till it came crashing to a complete stop by colliding with the door of one of the seaward-looking towers.

  Clariel took up the sword and jumped down, Mogget close behind her. With a flash of white light, a wave of heat and the stench of burning metal, the dragon divided into its two components. The iron chair fell from the back of Baazalanan, hit a merlon with a resounding clang and fell into the sea.

  The door opened, and a frightened man in the livery of the Cobblers’ Guild looked out, a spear held unsteadily in his hand, unready for any foe. Clariel opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything Aziminil lunged past her, her taloned, three-fingered hand piercing almost all the way through the guard’s neck. Blood sprayed, Aziminil withdrew her hand. The guard fell choking to the ground, and died a few seconds later.

  Clariel felt him die, felt his spirit enter Death. She knew she could catch that spirit, and her hand went to her chest as if to draw a bell. Then she remembered she had left the bells behind, that she was not a necromancer, and didn’t want to be one. Neither did she want to kill Guild guards who undoubtedly had no idea that Kilp was really a traitor to the King.

  ‘Do not kill,’ she croaked. She had to look away from Aziminil, who was licking her fingers clean, a tongue of red fire coming out of the featureless void that was her face. Clariel wished she hadn’t seen that.

  ‘No killing, save on my order.’

  Neither creature replied.

  ‘It is their nature,’ said Mogget. He jumped up on the battlements and looked back towards the south. The Paperwing was close, perhaps minutes away, coming down in a long, fast glide. It couldn’t land on the wall like they had, but there was a terrace not far below, out of sight.

  ‘I know,’ said Clariel. She shut her eyes for a second, then hefted her sword and entered the tower. ‘But I want the next one alive. I need to ask questions.’

  The ‘next one’ was a woman as young as or younger than Clariel, wearing the badge of the Fishmongers. She came up the stairs calling out to someone, her sword still sheathed. She saw Clariel first and stared, agape, before fumbling at the weapon on her side. When the two Free Magic creatures loomed up as well, she stopped and raised her shaking hands.

  Clariel lowered her own sword. It was shifting in her hand, trying to move of its own accord, wanting to taste blood.

  ‘What is happening?’ she rasped. ‘Does Kilp control the Palace?’

  ‘Almost, yes, I think so,’ blurted out the young woman. ‘There is still fighting in the Great Hall, and the … the leopard-creatures … but this side is taken –’

  ‘Does the King live?’

  The woman looked confused.

  ‘The King was killed by the rebels, a week since or more,’ she said. ‘Least, that’s what we were told …’

  ‘Where is Kilp? And his son Aronzo?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ sniffled the woman.

  ‘Where?’ snapped Clariel. She unconsciously drew on Aziminil’s power, her voice compelling an answer. White smoke billowed out of the mouth-hole of her mask as she spoke, though she did not notice it.

  ‘Probably the Great Hall,’ sobbed the woman. She sank to her knees on the steps, tears gushing down her stricken face. ‘The Goldsmiths’ Company, they were the only ones allowed to go there. The Great Hall!’

  ‘Where is that?’ asked Clariel, but the woman could only sob and shudder, her voice taken away by terror.

  ‘I know,’ said Mogget, causing another shriek. He jumped past the woman. After a moment, Clariel followed. She didn’t look back, and so did not see Baazalanan effortlessly twist the guard’s head off her shoulders as the creature passed by.

  ‘Through here,’ said Mogget, indicating a door on the next landing down. ‘Along the corridor beyond, that will come out in the musician’s gallery of the Great Hall.’

  Clariel almost opened the door herself, then thought again, and gestured to Aziminil.

  ‘Open it,’ she said.

  Aziminil didn’t bother to turn the ring. She raised one spiked foot, leaned back and smashed it through the centre of the iron-studded, Charter-Magic-reinforced door. Oak, iron and magic shattered under the blow. The creature laughed, an eerie, high-pitched chuckle, then reached in to pull entire planks out, the wood screeching as it bent. Clariel caught a glimpse of several Guild guards
hastily retreating down the corridor beyond, and heard their shouts of alarm.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she instructed Aziminil. ‘Do not kill them.’

  Aziminil bent down and rushed through the broken door, spiked feet clattering on the floor, a terrifying sound as she charged after the fleeing guards. Baazalanan followed swiftly on her heels, bent almost double, using its hands like forefeet as it ran. Clariel and Mogget came more slowly behind, Mogget pausing often to look over his shoulder.

  ‘What … what can the creatures be confined in?’ asked Clariel. Aziminil and Baazalanan were smashing down another door ahead. Aziminil was laughing again, the sound making the bones in Clariel’s face ache under the mask. ‘Without Charter Magic. Or did you lie about that as well?’

  ‘If you could compel them into a dry well that would hold for a time,’ said Mogget. ‘Capped with a heavy stone. A silver bottle, stoppered with melted silver, might last a day or two. Or they could be chained under a river, or a tidal flow, though again that would not last long without Charter Magic.’

  ‘We had best hope Kargrin lives,’ said Clariel. ‘Or Mistress Ader.’

  If Mogget answered, it was lost in Baazalanan’s howl, a terrible sound of glee and bloodlust. As it howled, the door broke and the creature grabbed a stunned guard on the other side and pulled him through the splintered hole. Still howling, it obeyed Clariel’s instruction not to kill, instead breaking both the man’s arms and legs as if they were kindling for a fire. Tossing him aside, it tore at the timber to make the hole wider still.

  ‘No!’ shouted Clariel. She ran to the door, stepping over the guard who had fallen unconscious to the floor. ‘No unnecessary harm! Hurt no one unless I tell you!’

  Baazalanan and Aziminil turned back towards her. Everything became very still. Clariel could feel her heart pounding, feel the beat of it echoing inside her head, as if it were amplified and reflected by the mask.

  ‘Harm no one without my permission,’ repeated Clariel.

  ‘No,’ whispered Baazalanan. Aziminil laughed her horrid laugh. They turned away and went through the door.

  ‘Obey me!’ rasped Clariel, holding out her hand as if she might physically claw them back. But she could feel them breaking free of her, could feel their minds turning to some other purpose. They had wanted to come here for their own reasons, some great ambition that excited them. They had always intended to rebel.

  Clariel turned to Mogget, to ask him a question, to ask what she might do, but he ran past her and through the door. With his departure a sickening feeling came to Clariel, the dreadful realisation that she had brought these terrible creatures to the Palace without knowing what they truly wanted. All along Aziminil had helped Kilp for a reason. Even now she might join forces with the Governor again …

  ‘No,’ growled Clariel. Holding her sword high she ducked through the smashed open door, out onto the musician’s gallery, a long balcony that occupied one end of the Great Hall. Aziminil and Baazalanan were already at the top of a staircase leading down into the hall, but here they had stopped.

  One of the guard sendings, the leopard-like creatures, had surprised them. It had its jaws locked around Baazalanan’s neck and had borne him to the floor of the gallery, white sparks blazing as Charter-Magic fangs rent Free Magic flesh. But Baazalanan had its thin fingers about the leopard’s throat, and Aziminil was hacking at the great cat with her bladed feet, white sparks geysering up with every blow.

  Mogget was perched on the railing of the gallery, looking down into the hall. Clariel looked too, trying to take in everything she saw. A dizzying sensation of recent death rolled across her, the result of many violent deaths in so short a time. There were dead guards everywhere, guild and royal. The Royal Guards were fewer by far, but they had killed many more of their foes. Only strength of numbers had overborne them in the end. Most of their dead lay around the dais at the far end of the hall, where they had formed a shield ring around the throne.

  But that ring was broken, and the King they had sought to protect was slumped on his throne, with Kilp and Aronzo and a half dozen of their Goldsmith guards around him. A moment before they had been laughing, relieved to have survived a hard-won victory.

  Now they were all staring back towards the gallery, at the creatures battling there and the strange bronze-masked apparition that returned their stare.

  The rage came unasked as Clariel saw Kilp and Aronzo for the first time since they had killed her parents. It rose in her like a vast wave capsizing a ship, complete in an instant, with no possibility of turning it back. She howled, white smoke issuing from her mask like steam from a kettle. Her sword burst into hot, red flames that sent a sickening metallic stench across the hall.

  Ignoring the battle on the stair, Clariel jumped over the railing, down the fifteen paces to the hall below. Her ankles turned as she landed, but the pain was simply taken up by the fury as additional fuel, adding to the rage and hatred that already stoked it high. Striding forward, Clariel called out in a voice that could never be recognised as her own.

  ‘Stand away from the King or die!’

  Three of the guards stood away from the King and fled. Of the remaining three, one began to slot a bolt in his crossbow, his fingers trembling. When it fell on the floor, he also ran. But the other two were made of sterner stuff. They edged forward with Aronzo, very slowly, their swords held high.

  Kilp drew his dagger and stayed by the King. Orrikan swayed back on his throne and lifted his head, his old nose sniffing the stench of Free Magic in the air, his eyes wide.

  chapter thirty-two

  revenge, not so sweet

  Clariel stormed towards the closer trio, a hooded figure of flame and smoke, her bronze mask gleaming. The first guard tried to parry her sweeping cut but his sword broke and Clariel’s weapon cut him in two. Even as he fell she withdrew the blade and engaged the second guard, who stumbled back and turned to flee. Clariel sprang forward further than anyone could possibly jump and took his head from his shoulders. That left her open to Aronzo, who cut at her shoulder, but through fear or weariness the stroke was short. Clariel whirled and the very point of her sword nicked him on the neck, just above his mail hauberk.

  ‘Father!’ screamed Aronzo, stumbling backwards. He fell over a corpse and landed heavily. ‘Help!’

  Kilp threw his dagger. It struck Clariel in the side, easily parting the protective robes, long since threadbare and bereft of Charter marks. The hunting leathers beneath slowed the dagger a little, but not enough, the blade sinking deep. To Clariel, consumed by rage, it was no more than a pinprick. Ignoring it, she stood over Aronzo. He wasn’t smiling now, and she was pleased to see his cheeks were badly sliced, the wounds not healed.

  ‘For my mother,’ she said, striking down. Her sword pierced Aronzo’s mail with a thunderclap, flames licking across the metal. Aronzo screamed again, a bubbling scream that became the choking, rattling cough of death.

  ‘For my father,’ said Clariel, and she struck down again for the heart, killing him instantly. Clariel felt Aronzo die, felt his spirit cross all uncomprehending to the cold river that would bear him away beyond the Ninth Gate. For a moment she even had a vision of those implacable, rushing waters and once again her hand twitched as if it should be holding a bell.

  Withdrawing her sword from Aronzo’s chest, she turned towards Kilp. He stared down from the dais. His mouth worked and his eyes bulged, as if he could not comprehend the ruin of his grand plans and the death of his son.

  ‘Who are you?’ he shouted, his voice high. He looked over Clariel’s head, towards the minstrel’s gallery. ‘Aziminil! We agreed, I said you could have the King! There is no need for this!’

  ‘Have you killed so many parents that you cannot remember their children?’ asked Clariel. She wished she could take the mask off, so Kilp could see her face before she killed him. But that was not possible.

  Kilp turned to run, but he did not go far. Clariel cut him down at the King’s feet, stabbing him t
hrough the body. White surcoat and gilded mail offered no protection against her ensorcelled sword.

  Kilp died, the look of disbelief set permanently on his once-handsome face.

  Clariel looked at the blood spreading across the pure white cloth, at the tumbled bodies of a father and son. What had killing them achieved after all? It had not mended the pain in her heart. She knew it had been foolish to think it would.

  She felt the rage beginning to ebb away from her, like the wash of a wave retreating from the sand. But she knew she must not let the fury go. Kilp and Aronzo were dead, but this had brought no ending. She could feel the fierce, strident thoughts of the two Free Magic creatures. They had dealt with the leopard sending and were once more intent on their greater purpose, whatever it was.

  Clariel had to regain control over them, and quickly.

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Orrikan, his voice shaky. ‘Do you serve Tathiel? Where is my granddaughter?’

  Clariel ignored the King and looked towards the gallery.

  Baazalanan and Aziminil were stalking towards her, with Mogget a few paces behind. All that was left of the leopard sending was a smattering of fading Charter marks upon the gallery stair.

  ‘Stop!’ ordered Clariel. She had hoped the fury would give her the power to reassert her domination, but she was already out of the full berserk rage. It had begun to fade the moment Kilp hit the floor.

  The creatures did not stop. They continued to advance, Baazalanan going to one side and Aziminil the other, as if they hoped to avoid Clariel entirely. Both were circling around to get to the King, Clariel realised. She raised her sword and backed towards the throne, darting glances towards Orrikan. He did not look dangerous, and he had not defended himself against Kilp. But he was a powerful Charter Mage, or he had been once.

  ‘Who are you?’ repeated the King.

  ‘I am Clar—’ Clariel began to say her name, then stopped. What use was that name now? She felt like her old self was gone, destroyed by her own hand, by her own mistakes. ‘I am no one. Run, Highness. I will try to stop them here.’