Terciel and Elinor (9780063049345)

by Nix, Garth

Hedge didn’t answer. He shifted the axe a little, and for a moment Elinor thought he was about to charge forward. But at that moment, ice cracked behind Elinor and Mirelle, a sharp sound in the silence. They both started to turn before snapping their eyes back to the front, to their enemy.

  But Hedge did not charge. Instead he dropped the axe and started to back away, around the edge of the huge stump.

  “I will go now, but I will return,” he called. “As will my master!”

  When he was covered by one of the tall vertical splinters projecting from the rim of the stump, he turned about and walked faster, not looking back. Mirelle and Elinor watched him carefully. More ice cracked behind them, but they did not look. The sorcerer skirted the first stump and crossed to the next, jumped up on it, and broke into a scuttling run, all too like a spider seeking the shelter of a gap between floorboards.

  “Thank the Charter,” muttered Mirelle wearily. “I am spent.”

  The ranger let her sword drop, and leaned on the hilt. Elinor threw the wooden spear away, as far as she could. As it left her hands, the oily fire upon it guttered out.

  “Me, too,” said Elinor. She looked at her hands and grimaced.

  “Elinor? Mirelle?” said Terciel, his voice so hoarse from the use of Free Magic that for a moment they did not recognize him, and steeled themselves again for some new enemy, until they saw it really was Terciel stumbling toward them. He went to embrace Elinor, but she quickly stepped back.

  “What?”

  “I am . . . I am not sure,” said Elinor shakily. “But I think the Free Magic from the chain has got into me. The gloves have melted on my hands. You had best stay away.”

  Her hands really hurt now. She’d felt the heat and the burgeoning pain, but had been able to put both aside in the tumult of battle. Now, in bright sunshine, with no enemies in sight, it was hard to think of anything else. She looked at Terciel.

  “You did it. Chained Kerrigor in Death, all by yourself!”

  “Tizanael helped,” said Terciel.

  “What? How could she—?”

  He didn’t answer, instead he just looked at Elinor as if he had never seen her before, and wanted to fix her in his memory in case she disappeared. “I’ll tell you later. Hold your hands out in front. I was reinforced to bear the chain before you, remember. The Free Magic won’t hurt me.”

  Elinor obeyed. She flinched as he took her hands, the pain intensifying with every small movement. The palms of the gloves were shredded, and no Charter Magic flared under Terciel’s touch. Elinor shut her eyes and tried to think of pleasant things, but for some reason images of Coldhallow House burning came into her head, the roar of the fire, the smell of the smoke—

  She felt another, much sharper pain and gasped, then a gentle coolness spread across her hands. Elinor bit back a sob and opened her eyes. Terciel had ripped the gauntlets off and now from his own cupped hand was pouring a stream of golden light made from dozens of Charter marks across her palms, a complex healing spell she did not know.

  “That will help for a while,” he said. He hesitated, then added, “I do not think there will be any permanent harm. There are healers in Uppside who will be able to do more. But we cannot go there yet, because all these bodies must be burned before nightfall, and that will be no small task, even if they do come to assist us. I expect they will send a force out to see what has happened here. Can you help until they get here?”

  “Yes,” said Elinor, without hesitation. She felt the presence of the Charter very strongly, and knew she would be able to call upon it at her need.

  “We will begin with Tizanael,” said Terciel. “She should have that honor, and more. Even death could not keep her from doing what had to be done.”

  “Something of an Abhorsen trait, I think,” said Mirelle. She straightened up and lifted her sword. “I will keep watch for a little longer, should Hedge come back.”

  “Hedge was here?” asked Terciel, suddenly alert. “The sorcerer who attacked you, Elinor?”

  “He has fled,” said Elinor. “Mirelle put an arrow through this throat, which I think at least discouraged him.”

  “And he didn’t like the sun,” added Mirelle. “That was Elinor’s doing.”

  “Uh, good,” said Terciel.

  He crooked his forefinger around Elinor’s, very gently. Together they walked to Tizanael’s body and looked down.

  “Her bells!” exclaimed Elinor. “They’re gone! But how?”

  The bell bandolier was missing entirely, but nothing else, save the sword Terciel had already taken. Tizanael lay on her back. She looked as if she might be asleep, save for the blood that stained the ground behind her head, and the surcoat over her armor was torn where Kerrigor’s spear had struck. Her face was less harsh than it had been while she lived, the discipline that had infused it and every aspect of her life vanished.

  “The bells move mysteriously at times,” said Terciel. “Mine came to me between the chimneys of the fish hall of Grynhold. I suppose Tizanael’s have gone to whoever will be my Abhorsen-in-Waiting, or will go, in time. I had hoped it might be you, Elinor.”

  Elinor shook her head.

  “I am no Abhorsen, nor wish to be one,” she said. “Even if I have the blood. I had wondered if perhaps you wanted to lay your own bells down?”

  “It has crossed my mind more than once,” admitted Terciel. “But not now. I am the Abhorsen, whether I wish it or not. This is my path. But I have also learned I need not live my entire life as Tizanael did, at least in later times, as the Abhorsen and nothing else. It is possible to let others into my life. The office I hold, the necessary work I do, it should not keep all else at bay. Or so I hope.”

  He knelt down to touch his free hand to Tizanael’s head, Elinor kneeling with him. He drew a mark above the baptismal mark on the old Abhorsen’s forehead, the new one shining above the old, faded sign that was now no more than a faint discoloration on the skin. The next mark he drew above her navel, and the third mark he kept in his closed hand.

  He and Elinor stood up and bowed their heads.

  “Farewell, Great-Great-Aunt Tizanael,” said Terciel. “I know you have gone already, beyond the Ninth Gate. You did look back, to stay your journey, and I stand here because of it. You were a true Abhorsen.”

  He let the third mark fall. There was a flash, a whoosh of contained fire, and then there was nothing but a line of ashes, which the breeze picked up and began to spread among the blackwood needles and the bare earth.

  They stood in silence for a moment, then Terciel turned to face Elinor.

  “So I am to carry on as the Abhorsen,” he said. She could feel the tension in his finger where it held her own. “What will you do?”

  “First, I will go to the Glacier of the Clayr,” replied Elinor. “As was always my intention. To discover my vast, extended family, which I am already somewhat horrified about, from hearing Mirelle’s tales. There, I will join a troupe of entertainers—the Clayr have several, apparently—and put on plays. When we are not all looking into the future, of course.”

  Terciel nodded dumbly. His breath caught and he swallowed.

  “A good plan,” he said finally, looking away. “Well, we had best get on—”

  Elinor smacked him on the shoulder, forgetting her burned hand. She yelped and he stared at her, until she managed to stop sobbing out “ow” and talk.

  “Secondly, I hope to spend at least part of every year with my lover at the Abhorsen’s House, and I hope that he will likewise spend time with me in the Glacier, his duties permitting. Idiot.”

  Epilogue

  It was midsummer, and the Glacier of the Clayr bustled with preparations for the traditional celebrations. Not only was there to be the dance led by the Bird of Dawning through the major tunnels and avenues, there was also a performance of Breakespear’s The Court of the Sad Prince, a play not performed in the Old Kingdom for a hundred years or more, according to First Assistant Librarian Werone, who was an expert in the field. More
over, the player who was performing the role of the Fool was apparently the most astonishing juggler and tumbler, and the excited talk from those privileged enough to be part of the production or to see rehearsals had meant the long-disused theater between the main spiral and the Third Back Stair had to be set to rights, and it looked like there would be a dozen performances at least, rather than the originally mooted four.

  Word of the play had spread far beyond the Glacier, and many more visitors than usual had come for the midsummer festival. Visitors from all over the Old Kingdom, making the Rangers even more short-handed and taciturn than ever as they investigated them at the waystations and led those who were allowed to pass through twisty ways to the guest quarters.

  One special visitor flew in by paperwing, and was greeted, as was only proper for someone of his eminence, by the Voice of the Nine Day Watch; the Captain of Rangers; the Chief Librarian; the Banker and Coiner; the Steam-Mistress; and Filris the Infirmarian, who embarrassed him by looking at his arm and foot immediately after the official welcoming.

  But the high and mighty eventually left, leaving Terciel the fifty-second Abhorsen with only one slight, somewhat short Clayr, who took him by the hand and led him to her chambers.

  They stopped along the way at the Zally Memorial Fountain, and sat on one of the benches and drank to each other from the crystal glasses, as had swiftly become their tradition, as much as climbing the great fig in the Abhorsen’s House, which Elinor had also adopted as her own. She had forgotten she meant to ask Terciel about the white cat she was sure she had seen there.

  “I have been wondering what kind of play Breakespear might write about us,” said Elinor, replacing the glasses under the rim of the fountain, where the returning water would wash them clean. “I mean, if she was writing now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A comedy, a tragedy, or a history?”

  “A history, surely, since it’s actually happened?”

  “Breakespear’s histories do not necessarily follow what actually happened,” continued Elinor.

  “I don’t really know any of Breakespear’s plays,” said Terciel. “Or any plays, in fact. I’ve only ever seen two. One in Belisaere, that was all music and clowning and didn’t make any sense, and the other one I saw here years ago and it was gloomy and confusing, with too many characters and very long speeches. I can’t wait to see yours tonight. Everyone’s talking about it. What’s the difference, anyway? Is it simply a comedy is funny, and a tragedy is sad?”

  “For Breakespear, the comedies end happily, usually with a wedding. In the tragedies everybody dies. Or almost everybody.”

  “Everybody does die,” said Terciel quietly. “Or they should.”

  “Yes, but preferably at the right time,” said Elinor. “The tragedy is when it is too soon.”

  As she spoke, her eye caught a glistening bead on the lip of the fountain, a single drop of water. In it she Saw a woman stumbling up a hillside at dusk. She was heavily pregnant, and badly hurt. There was a wound in her shoulder, too close to her heart. Her hand was pressed against it, red to the wrist with bright new blood. More gushed through her fingers with every pace, with every beat of her heart. Too much blood, flowing too fast. She would not live for more than a few minutes.

  Elinor knew it was herself. Older. Her hair was different, her face fuller. There were some lines around her eyes. She was perhaps thirty years old, and very soon to die.

  The vision changed, the world turning. She saw Terciel. He was older, too, and bearded, and she incongruously thought, Oh, I like that. He knelt by the side of a dead woman. Elinor. He was by her side, and Elinor’s heart stopped as she heard someone unseen say:

  “The child is dead, Abhorsen.”

  Then her heart stuttered back to life as the vision swirled and there was Terciel again, his face close to the baby now, a baby whose bottom lip quivered and eyes looked furiously at the world, a baby alive and literally kicking, and Terciel’s face was filled with both wonder and sorrow and he said:

  “Father of Sabriel.”

  The drop fell, taking the vision with it.

  Elinor blinked and looked away. Terciel was talking about tragedies and timing. She half listened to him, her thoughts leaping ahead. The vision might not be a true one. Even if it was, it could be forestalled. Not being pregnant would do that. Or avoiding hillsides . . . and in any case, she had looked thirty or even more ancient. A decade at least in the future.

  And they would have a baby. A little girl called Sabriel.

  “So what would it be?” asked Terciel. “A comedy certainly doesn’t fit. Too much death, for a start.”

  “Not a tragedy,” said Elinor firmly. Nor would it be, she decided. However much time she had to live, however much time she had with Terciel. She shrugged and added, “Some plays defy categorization, as do lives.”

  Terciel smiled fondly at her, unsure where she was headed.

  “What was it Mirelle said to you again?” Elinor asked, tucking her arm in his. “You told me, that day in the House, when I sat on the end of your sickbed. Her philosophy. Make the best of things?”

  “Yes,” said Terciel.

  “Hmm,” Elinor said slowly. “Good advice. We should follow it. How long are you going to stay this time?”

  “As long as I can,” said Terciel. “Several weeks, at the least, I hope. There seems less trouble in general, now Kerrigor is gone. Though the Regent continues to wander in her mind occasionally, there have been no new reports of Dead within Belisaere itself. And as you doubtless know, the Clayr are still bothered by their inability to See around the Red Lake. But I am hopeful we might be entering the better times Tizanael always wished for.”

  “Good,” said Elinor. “After The Court of the Sad Prince, which is clearly going to be an absolute knockout, the next play I am to put on is The Wise Woman. One of Breakespear’s comedies, as it happens. There is a part you are perfect to play.”

  Terciel looked shifty.

  “I’ve never acted,” he said. “I’m not sure I could do it. Is it a major part?”

  “One of the biggest,” said Elinor. “The Wise Woman’s Doting Suitor.”

  Terciel frowned.

  “Why did you think of me for that?”

  “Because I am to play the Wise Woman,” said Elinor. “One wise enough to know that if you really can’t act, I’ll get someone else for the play. You’ll have to keep the role outside it, though.”

  Terciel gathered her in, and their noses touched.

  “In that case,” he whispered. “Count me in.”

  Acknowledgments

  Returning to the Old Kingdom once again is a reminder to me of all the people who have helped me along the way. There are too many to list here. If I attempted it this would become a book of thanks rather than a novel, and no one would publish it. But I do want to say thank you to everyone who has worked in any capacity on the Old Kingdom books, all the way back to Sabriel in 1995. This has included agents, publishers, editors, copy editors, designers, illustrators, translators, production managers, printers, publicists, marketers, sales representatives, warehouse staff, booksellers, and more. I am grateful to everyone who has helped so many readers around the world visit the Old Kingdom, and return again and again.

  More specifically, for Terciel & Elinor I owe particular thanks to my agent, Jill Grinberg, and her wonderful team at Jill Grinberg Literary Management in New York; to my Australian agent, Fiona Inglis, and the crew at Curtis Brown Australia in Sydney (where in the far-off past I was an agent myself); and to Matthew Snyder at CAA in Los Angeles, who looks after my film and TV representation.

  I am similarly fortunate to continue to work with tremendously supportive, experienced, and talented publishers: Katherine Tegen and her team at Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in New York; with Eva Mills and the Allen & Unwin gang in Melbourne and Sydney; and Emma Matthewson and her band of publishing professionals at Hot Key Books, part of Bonnier, in Londo
n. On the audio side, Rebecca Waugh and crew at Random House Audio continue to make my books worth listening to, ably supported by Bolinda Australia. I am also always very grateful to the publishers who publish my books in translation, transcending my limitation of only being able to write in English.

  I do not think the Old Kingdom books could have lasted so long, or that I would have written six of them, without the enthusiasm and support of readers. Not simply the purchasing and reading of the books (though that is very significant, please keep it up), but also the creation of fan art, and cosplay, and making wikis, and talking about the books and characters and settings and might-have-beens, and generally investing time and love and energy in an imagined world, making it all the more real to everyone, including me.

  Finally, as always, I am extremely grateful to my wife, Anna, and my sons, Thomas and Edward, and our dog, Snufkin, who in a difficult year all supported me and each other. I could not have written this book without the solidity of my home life, a strong bubble of kindness and calm in an uncertain world.

  About the Author

  Photo credit Wendy McDougall

  GARTH NIX is the New York Times bestselling author of the Old Kingdom series, beginning with Sabriel, and many other fantasy novels for teens and children, including the Seventh Tower series and the Keys to the Kingdom series. More than six million copies of his books have been sold worldwide and his work has been translated into forty-two languages. You can find him online at www.garthnix.com.

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  Books by Garth Nix

  THE OLD KINGDOM SERIES

  Terciel & Elinor

  Sabriel

  Lirael

  Abhorsen

  Clariel

  Goldenhand

  The Old Kingdom Collection

  To Hold the Bridge

  Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories

  The Creature in the Case: An Old Kingdom Novella