by Nix, Garth
He stopped talking as that kiss became inevitable. Elinor had overheard many schoolgirls talking about kissing, but none of that stayed in her head, and she wasn’t even really sure what she was doing with her mouth or her tongue, or what Terciel was doing, but she liked it and let out a small sigh as they stopped to take a very necessary breath.
“Even though I never expected to see you again,” said Terciel. He was holding her very tightly, and she was doing the same to him, Elinor realized. As if having suddenly found each other, some terrible force might break them apart.
“I didn’t either,” said Elinor simply. “But now we are here and maybe this is all the time we’ll have together. Tonight. I mean, going off tomorrow to try to chain some Greater Dead . . . I wasn’t going to say anything, but I remembered the Queen in Queen Cressida and how she regretted not taking the Duke as her lover that one night they could have and—”
“Make the best of things,” said Terciel. “That’s what Mirelle told me.”
“Oh,” said Elinor. She drew back a little, but did not let go of him. “Do you and Mirelle have an understanding? She told me about how things work in the Glacier, I mean with men visiting and all, though I thought she—”
“No. No!” exclaimed Terciel. He quickly kissed her again, Elinor joining in enthusiastically. When once again they needed to breathe, he continued. “No, nothing like that. Mirelle was just giving me advice. About, I don’t know, not ignoring opportunities, letting myself fall in love . . .”
“I don’t know much about actually making love, you know,” said Elinor thoughtfully into the nape of Terciel’s neck, which she found herself kissing suddenly. “I’ve looked at a book. I do know the Charter spells for contraception, though.”
“So do I,” said Terciel. He kissed the top of Elinor’s head, stepped back a fraction, and disentangled one hand to gesture at the door. “And I think we should practice casting one immediately. Given our beds are almost identical, which one would you prefer?”
“The closest one,” said Elinor.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The morning arrived all too swiftly, with Sendings coming in to wake them shortly before the dawn, bearing plates of sweet rolls and some sort of hot herbal tea with honey. Not peppermint or chamomile or anything Elinor recognized, but it smelled pleasant.
“No,” mumbled Elinor, clutching at Terciel. “It can’t be time to get up, surely?”
“The Sendings will just get more emphatic,” said Terciel regretfully. He wiggled his foot, which was sticking out from under the covers. “Hey, my foot is much better. I can feel my toes.”
“What is that smell?” asked Elinor, wrinkling her nose. Something quite different from the scent of herbal tea was assaulting her nostrils now, which were about all that was visible of her. She was almost entirely under the covers, snuggled up to Terciel, enjoying the sensation of being in bed with him, all cozy.
“Goose fat,” said Terciel. “Being rubbed into your boots to make them more waterproof.”
The Sending who had woken him touched him on the shoulder again and pointed to the door. Another one patted Elinor on the head and made a beckoning motion. The third continued to stolidly rub goose fat into her boots and the waterproof outer layer of her fur-lined cape.
Terciel reached into the Charter, invested his breath with a chosen mark, and blew it toward the ceiling, where it quickened the marks for light set in the pressed plaster. They brightened, flooding the bedroom with light. The curtains were drawn now, for privacy, not warmth, but there was a three-inch gap that showed only the faintest lightening of the sky, the sun not yet visible at all.
“It’s time,” Terciel said regretfully, turning to Elinor. “I have to go get ready. You need to as well. We’ll be leaving straightaway, so don’t forget to eat.”
He kissed her forehead, and then as she emerged more out of the covers, kissed her on the mouth as well. Elinor kissed him back, but did not try to hold him. Their stolen time was over, she knew, and now they must get on with the serious business of being the Abhorsen-in-Waiting and whatever she was now. A chain-carrying Clayr, she supposed, which did not sound so important. But she knew it was.
“I’ll see you downstairs,” said Terciel, putting on the robe offered him by the Sending. He grabbed a roll from the plate, turned, and bowed deeply to Elinor. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, too,” said Elinor, very seriously. She kept her face expressionless for a moment, then laughed. Terciel smiled and went out the door, munching on the roll.
A Sending turned the taps and the hint of rotten egg stench from the deep spring overcame the odor of goose fat, and steam began to rise from the basin. Elinor slid out of the bed and steeled herself for the ministrations of the Sendings. She already knew they were slightly overzealous with sponge and soap.
Half an hour later, she was attired in the leather armor they’d brought the day before, with the reinforced plates at knees and elbows. Ham’s three throwing knives were at her left side, a long dagger on her right. A bow made from laminated horn, roughly the size of the bow she’d practiced with at Wyverley, was strapped to her pack, which contained all the clever things she’d been shown by the Sendings the day before, including several spare bowstrings. A waterproof quiver with a kind of lid held a dozen arrows, and could be attached on the side of the pack.
The fur-lined, hooded, waterproof cape now redolent with goose fat completed the ensemble, but she hadn’t put that on yet. It was too warm inside. A Sending carried the cape, and the pack, and the quiver. Elinor looked at the load and regretted that the Sending was not coming with them.
Everyone else was already outside when she came out the front door, and were all wearing their capes and packs and weapons, stamping their feet to stay warm. Elinor hastily donned her cape and pack and a Sending fastened on the quiver. The backpack was not as heavy as she feared, but she knew it would grow heavier very quickly. It was icy outside, the sun just high enough to send its light into the river valley, but not high enough yet to clear the walls around the island. Her breath came out in clouds of white, and she could feel the chill on her cheeks and nose.
“We go first, as I am the superior weather-worker,” said Mirelle to Elinor, pointing. One paperwing was already on the launching platform, the green-and-gold one Mirelle had flown Elinor in before. Another two waited below the wall, the next in line silver and dark blue, and then another in green and gold, each carried by eight Sendings, the aircrafts’ wings still folded. All the paperwings had fierce yellow eyes like hawks, and every now and then Elinor thought they blinked and were full of fierce life, though at other times she was sure they were only painted.
Tizanael was holding a small ironwood chest with silver edges. A ruby shone on the lockplate.
“I have the chain here,” she said to Elinor. “To lessen your exposure, I think it best you do not carry it until we are on foot.”
Elinor nodded. That was fine with her. She glanced at Terciel, hoping for a secret smile or a glimpse of what she’d seen in his eyes the night before, but he was looking up at the sky and holding the cast on his right arm with his left hand. He looked different to her, in his armored coat with the bell bandolier and sword. More the Abhorsen-in-Waiting and less the young man, her young man—at least he had been and maybe would be again.
If we survive, Elinor thought again. She shivered, and tried to put that particular recurring thought out of her mind.
“Farewell,” said Filris. “May we all meet again. I hope to see you in the Glacier, Elinor. You will be very welcome.”
Sazene smiled and nodded in affirmation of this.
“Thank you,” muttered Elinor. “I hope I will see you there. I mean, see you, with these eyes, not with the Sight, I haven’t had many visions, you know, I used to when I was little but I didn’t realize what . . . I’m babbling, sorry.”
“Come on,” said Mirelle. She turned to Tizanael. “North along the river for a league, before we two turn to the
west? I will raise the wind properly behind us once we are all aloft.”
Elinor followed her up the steps, arriving on the wall at the same time the sun splashed across the parapet and lit up the waiting paperwing, so that its green-and-gold fuselage and feathery wings shone. Elinor hadn’t noticed before, or maybe the morning sun had energized them, but the whole craft was simply swarming with Charter marks.
“Stow your pack behind where you sit, bow and quiver in the pockets at the side. It will be less comfortable than when we flew up, but shorter.”
Mirelle settled her backpack in the cockpit and got in. She inhaled deeply and breathed out on the small oval mirror of silvered glass fixed in front of the cockpit, which Elinor knew was how she directed or communicated with the paperwing. It filled with golden light, but Elinor had to stop staring at it and get her own backpack stowed away, put the bow in the pocket at the left side and the quiver on the right, and climb into the hammock-like seat. It had been pushed forward by the pack behind it, and Mirelle was right, it wasn’t as comfortable.
“All ready?” asked Mirelle over her shoulder.
“Yes,” replied Elinor. She looked down to where Terciel and Tizanael were waiting for their own paperwing to be carried up, and then to the House, to the windows of the bedrooms on the second floor. The sun was on the windows now. The whole house was lit up and looked even more warm and welcoming. She looked away, and caught the flash of something white in the vast fig tree that dominated the north lawn. An animal of some kind. It moved along a branch, and Elinor thought she saw the whisk of a tail before it disappeared into the heavier foliage.
“Do the Abhorsens have a cat?” she asked.
Mirelle half shook her head and might have given a more detailed answer, but she had already drawn breath to whistle, investing it with the Charter marks that would summon a wind. The Sendings had moved along each side to hold the wings, as it was already keen to leap into the air, its eyes now fierce and fully alive.
Elinor watched and listened carefully as a beautiful, clear note came from Mirelle’s pursed lips. Elinor could whistle, but she hadn’t yet learned how to summon a Charter mark and incorporate it in the sound or whatever it was that made it work that way. She had learned how to breathe out a Charter mark, she figured it was some variation on that, but she also knew it would be a very bad idea to experiment. Terciel could teach her in due course. She hoped.
A wind came up from the river, even colder than the frosty air that had already chilled Elinor’s face. She sank farther into her furred cape, grateful that the cockpit of the paperwing had some spells to provide warmth, or at least lessen the cold, which would be so much more intense higher in the air.
The paperwing strained against the restraint of the Sendings, wingtips shivering. Elinor gripped the sides of the cockpit, marveling once again at the strength and solidity of the laminated paper and the feel of the Charter that was everywhere within it.
Mirelle took another breath and whistled again, this time a cheerful, uplifting jig. The wind rose with it, and the Sendings let go. The paperwing leapt from the platform and all of a sudden the crashing noise of the vast waterfall roared across them as they went beyond the protective and sound-deadening spells of the Abhorsen’s enchanted isle.
The paperwing turned north, away from the permanent mist of the waterfall, and steadily climbed. Within a minute or two, they were several hundred feet up. Elinor could see the Ratterlin stretch out ahead of them as far as she could see, and the fields and forests to either side, and distant hills and mountains. Still the paperwing rose. It grew colder, and the roar of the waterfall behind them faded, till they flew almost in silence, as the spells in the craft for reducing the sound of the wind rushing past recovered from the battering of the waterfall’s auditory assault.
“Has Tizanael launched yet?” asked Mirelle. She did not look over her shoulder, instead intent on drawing two quick marks on the breath-frosted mirror. The paperwing’s nose dipped in answer, levelling out their flight.
Elinor craned her neck around to look behind, to see Tizanael and Terciel’s paperwing launch from the platform and follow them up. The Sendings were already carrying the third paperwing up, to be readied for Filris and Sazene.
The Abhorsen’s House, the whole island, in fact, looked very small now, against the broad river and the massive mistwall of the waterfall.
Elinor wondered if she would ever see it again. She turned back to the front, and tried to sound confident and cheerful.
“Yes, they’re following us now.”
“Good,” replied Mirelle. “I will keep the wind from the south, for a while.”
She drew in a breath and whistled again. Elinor could see the Charter marks coming from Mirelle’s mouth, flying off into the sky, golden luminescence lost against the blue. There was almost no cloud. If that continued, the night was going to be very cold indeed.
The wind behind them strengthened in answer to Mirelle’s spell. The paperwing flew faster, the ground beneath rolling away as Elinor looked down. She had never traveled so fast in her life, not even on the train from Bain to Wyverley Halt.
They followed the river north for an hour, the sun rising above them, though it provided no noticeable warmth. The snow-dusted heath to the west slowly gave way to a dense forest, and Elinor noticed a road that came in from the west and accompanied the river, a proper paved road at least twenty feet wide, though even from on high she could see it was in disrepair, different colored sections indicating where the pavers had gone, leaving earth behind. She didn’t see anyone on the road, but she had noted a village on an island close to the western shore, with people moving around, tiny antlike figures.
An hour later still, with Elinor’s legs aching from being bent up in one position, Mirelle pointed ahead and to the right.
“Qyrre!” she shouted. “We’ll turn west.”
Elinor peered down at the high-walled town on the eastern bank of the Ratterlin. It was also built on an island in the river, a swift-flowing channel fifty or sixty feet wide separating it from the mainland. A narrow bridge crossed the gap, both ends guarded by pairs of slim towers that contained apparatus to raise and lower sections.
The walls were the same whitewashed limestone as the Abhorsen’s House, but higher. Most of the buildings inside the walls were of the same stone, or red brick, with wood-shingled roofs. There was a pool protected by a breakwater, half full of small boats, and a large green at the center of the town, which was hosting a market, and there were people moving about everywhere. Living their lives, going about their usual business, unaware of Elinor watching, unaware she was part of a desperate enterprise that if it failed would affect their own futures.
Qyrre looked so safe and prosperous, it was hard to imagine anything could alter it. But it also made possible for Elinor to imagine Uppside. It was probably a similar-looking town, only now it would be fog-shrouded, its water defenses being dammed and blocked, the Dead massing for an assault—
Mirelle’s whistle broke through these thoughts. The paperwing lifted one wing and turned westward, and the wind shifted, too, to speed them along. Elinor looked behind, and resisted the temptation to wave at Terciel, because she didn’t want to wave at Tizanael, who might think it was presumptuous or something. She was more than a little afraid of the Abhorsen.
Tizanael directed her craft to follow Mirelle’s, but much farther back Elinor saw a small dark shape, occasionally glinting with what she imagined was reflections of green and silver. The paperwing of Sazene and Filris, who would keep on north to the city of Belisaere.
Soon Qyrre and the river were behind them, and there was only the vast forest ahead and below. An ancient forest of enormous oaks and beeches, so thick it was impossible to see beneath the canopy. Every now and then Elinor saw clearings, one at least evidently the result of lightning strike and fire judging by the blackened and split great tree at its center, and several times she noted small rivers or streams, once even a small lake, f
rozen at the edges and dark in the middle, as if the water was very deep.
The ache in her legs was turning into cramp, so she wriggled her toes as much as she could, and bent forward to massage her calves, though neither really helped all that much. Mirelle noticed the movement, and glanced back.
“Another hour, hour and a half,” she said. “The forest is thinning ahead.”
Sure enough, the forest was opening out, the trees shorter and farther apart, the lesser shrubs and saplings beneath the giants’ cover now visible. Elinor saw several animals she thought were deer, though the bucks had horns that didn’t look quite right. But she was still high up, and the paperwing moving fast, so she couldn’t really tell.
There were former pastures beyond the forest, or so Elinor presumed, from her own experience of the abandoned fields at Coldhallow. She could see drystone walls, many fallen. The grass was very high, and there were no visible livestock.
As they flew farther west, this picture grew no better. There were only abandoned fields, fallen walls, ruined farmhouses. At one point they flew over a very straight north-south road, even wider than the one Elinor had seen by the Ratterlin. But it too had long sections where it was overgrown or returned to dirt.
The ground started to rise past the road, with rocky hills and heather-clad slopes. There were no stone walls to delineate fields here, but Elinor saw a few fallen pens, where sheep or the like might have been counted or kept safe.
Soon, the ground was covered in snow again, as it rose still higher. There were hills ahead, all white, and beyond them mountains, vertical faces of bare grey stone where the snow and ice could not hold, between peaks of pure white.
Mirelle whistled again and turned the paperwing into a slow, rising loop. Elinor wondered why until she saw Tizanael fly their paperwing ahead, and begin to ascend still higher, leading the way toward one of the peaks, still several leagues away.
At this point, Elinor started to think she needed to go to the toilet, distracting her from the ache in her legs and the small of her back. The paperwing suddenly did not seem to be flying as fast as it had before.
