by Garth Nix
Through the telescope, she saw that Mogget was right. There were several boats partly hidden between two spurs of rock, and some slight signs of habitation: a glimpse of a washing line, blown around the corner of a tall rock; the momentary sight of movement between two of the six or seven ramshackle wooden buildings that nestled on the island’s south-western side.
Shifting her gaze to the breakwater, Sabriel followed its length. As she’d half expected, there was a gap in the very middle of it, where the sea rushed through with considerable force. A pile of timber on the island side of the breakwater indicated that there had once been a bridge there, now removed.
“It looks like the villagers fled to the island,” she said, shutting the telescope down. “There’s a gap in the breakwater, to keep running water between the island and shore. An ideal defense against the Dead. I don’t think even a Mordicant would risk crossing deep tidal water—”
“Let’s go then,” muttered Touchstone. He sounded nervous again, jumpy. Sabriel looked at him, then above his head, and saw why he was nervous. Clouds were rolling in from the south-east, behind the village—dark clouds, laden with rain. The air was calm, but now she saw the clouds, Sabriel recognized it was the calm before heavy rain. The sun would not be guarding them for very much longer and night would be an early guest.
Without further urging, she set off down the steps, down to the harborside, then along to the breakwater. Touchstone followed more slowly, turning every few steps to watch the rear. Mogget did likewise, his small cat-face continually looking back, peering up at the houses.
Behind them, shutters inched open and fleshless eyes watched from the safety of shadows, watched the trio marching out to the breakwater, still washed in harsh sunlight, flanked by swift-moving waves of terrible water. Rotten, corroded teeth ground and gnashed in skeletal mouths. Farther back from the windows, shadows darker than ones ever cast by light whirled in frustration, anger—and fear. They all knew who had passed.
One such shadow, selected by lot and compelled by its peers, gave up its existence in Life with a silent scream, vanishing into Death. Their master was many, many leagues away, and the quickest way to reach him lay in Death. Of course, message delivered, the messenger would fall through the Gates to a final demise. But the master didn’t care about that.
The gap in the breakwater proved to be at least fifteen feet wide, and the water was twice Sabriel’s height, the sea surging through with a rough aggression. It was also covered by archers from the island, as they discovered when an arrow struck the stones in front of them and skittered off into the sea.
Instantly, Touchstone rushed in front of Sabriel, and she felt the flow of Charter Magic from him, his swords sketching a great circle in the air in front of them both. Glowing lines followed the swords’ path, till a shining circle hung in the air.
Four arrows curved through the air from the island. One, striking the circle, simply vanished. The other three missed completely, striking stones or sea.
“Arrow ward,” gasped Touchstone. “Effective, but hard to keep going. Do we retreat?”
“Not yet,” replied Sabriel. She could feel the Dead stirring in the village behind them and she could also see the archers now. There were four of them, two pairs, each behind one of the large, upthrust stones that marked where the breakwater joined the island. They looked young, nervous and were already proven to be of little threat.
“Hold!” shouted Sabriel. “We are friends!”
There was no reply, but the archers didn’t loose their nocked arrows.
“What’s the village leader’s title—usually, I mean? What are they called?” Sabriel whispered hurriedly to Touchstone, once again wishing she knew more about the Old Kingdom and its customs.
“In my day . . .” Touchstone replied slowly, his swords retracing the arrow ward, attention mostly on that, “in my day—Elder—for this size of village.”
“We wish to speak with your Elder!” shouted Sabriel. She pointed at the cloud-front advancing behind her, and added, “Before darkness falls!”
“Wait!” came the answer, and one of the archers scampered back from the rocks, up towards the buildings. Closer to, Sabriel realized they were probably boathouses or something like that.
The archer returned in a few minutes, an older man hobbling over the rocks behind him. The other three archers, seeing him, lowered their bows and returned shafts to quivers. Touchstone, seeing this, ceased to maintain the arrow ward. It hung in the air for a moment, then dissipated, leaving a momentary rainbow.
The Elder was named in fact, as well as title, they saw, as he limped along the breakwater. Long white hair blew like fragile cobwebs around his thin, wrinkled face, and he moved with the deliberate intention of the very old. He seemed unafraid, perhaps possessed of the disinterested courage of one already close to death.
“Who are you?” he asked, when he reached the gap, standing above the swirling waters like some prophet of legend, his deep orange cloak flapping around him from the rising breeze. “What do you want?”
Sabriel opened her mouth to answer, but Touchstone had already started to speak. Loudly.
“I am Touchstone, sworn swordsman for the Abhorsen, who stands before you. Are arrows your welcome for such folk as we?”
The old man was silent for a moment, his deep-set eyes focused on Sabriel, as if he could strip away any falsity or illusion by sight alone. Sabriel met his gaze, but out of the corner of her mouth she whispered to Touchstone.
“What makes you think you can speak for me? Wouldn’t a friendly approach be better? And since when are you my sworn—”
She stopped, as the old man cleared his throat to speak and spat into the water. For a moment, she thought that this was his response, but as neither the archers nor Touchstone reacted, it was obviously of no account.
“These are bad times,” the Elder said. “We have been forced to leave our firesides for the smoking sheds, warmth and comfort for seawinds and the stench of fish. Many of the people of Nestowe are dead—or worse. Strangers and travelers are rare in such times, and not always what they seem.”
“I am the Abhorsen,” Sabriel said, reluctantly. “Enemy of the Dead.”
“I remember,” replied the old man, slowly. “Abhorsen came here when I was a young man. He came to put down the haunts that the spice merchant brought, Charter curse him. Abhorsen. I remember that coat you’re wearing, blue as a ten-fathom sea, with the silver keys. There was a sword, also . . .”
He paused, expectantly. Sabriel stood, silently, waiting for him to go on.
“He wants to see the sword,” Touchstone said, voice flat, after the silence stretched too far.
“Oh,” replied Sabriel, flushing.
It was quite obvious. Carefully, so as not to alarm the archers, she drew her sword, holding it up to the sun, so the Charter marks could clearly be seen, silver dancers on the blade.
“Yes,” sighed the Elder, old shoulders sagging with relief. “That is the sword. Charter-spelled. She is the Abhorsen.”
He turned and tottered back towards the archers, worn voice increasing to the ghost of a fisherman’s cross-water hail. “Come on, you four. Quick with the bridge. We have visitors! Help at last!”
Sabriel glanced at Touchstone, raising her eyebrows at the implication of the old man’s last three words. Surprisingly, Touchstone met her gaze, and held it.
“It is traditional for someone of high rank, such as yourself, to be announced by their sworn swordsman,” he said quietly. “And the only acceptable way for me to travel with you is as your sworn swordsman. Otherwise, people will assume that we are, at best, illicit lovers. Having your name coupled to mine in such a guise would lower you in most eyes. You see?”
“Ah,” replied Sabriel, gulping, feeling the flush of embarrassment come back and spread from her cheeks to her neck. It felt a lot like being on the receiving end of one of Miss Prionte’s severest social put-downs. She hadn’t even thought about how it would loo
k, the two of them traveling together. Certainly, in Ancelstierre, it would be considered shameful, but this was the Old Kingdom, where things were different. But only some things, it seemed.
“Lesson two hundred and seven,” muttered Mogget from somewhere near her feet. “Three out of ten. I wonder if they’ve got any fresh-caught whiting? I’d like a small one, still flopping—”
“Be quiet!” Sabriel interrupted. “You’d better pretend to be a normal cat for a while.”
“Very well, milady. Abhorsen,” Mogget replied, stalking away to sit on the other side of Touchstone.
Sabriel was about to reply scathingly when she saw the faintest curve at the corner of Touchstone’s mouth. Touchstone? Grinning? Surprised, she misplaced the retort on her tongue, then forgot it altogether, as the four archers heaved a plank across the gap, the end smacking down onto stone with a startling bang.
“Please cross quickly,” the Elder said, as the men steadied the plank. “There are many fell creatures in the village now, and I fear the day is almost done.”
True to his words, cloud-shadow fell across them as he spoke, and the fresh scent of closing rain mingled with the wet and salty smell of the sea. Without further urging, Sabriel ran quickly across the plank, Mogget behind her, Touchstone bringing up the rear.
Chapter Seventeen
ALL THE SURVIVORS of Nestowe were gathered in the largest of the fish-smoking sheds, save for the current shift of archers who watched the breakwater. There had been one hundred and twenty-six villagers the week before—now there were thirty-one.
“There were thirty-two until this morning,” the Elder said to Sabriel, as he passed her a cup of passable wine and a piece of dried fish atop a piece of very hard, very stale bread. “We thought we were safe when we got to the island, but Monjer Stowart’s boy was found just after dawn today, sucked dry like a husk. When we touched him, it was like . . . burnt paper, that still holds its shape . . . we touched him, and he crumbled into flakes of . . . something like ash.”
Sabriel looked around as the old man spoke, noting the many lanterns, candles and rush tapers that added both to the light and the smoky, fishy atmosphere of the shed. The survivors were a very mixed group—men, women and children, from very young to the Elder himself. Their only common characteristic was the fear pinching their faces, the fear showing in their nervous, staccato movement.
“We think one of them’s here,” said a woman, her voice long gone beyond fear to fatalism. She stood alone, accompanied by the clear space of tragedy. Sabriel guessed she had lost her family. Husband, children—perhaps parents and siblings too, for she wasn’t over forty.
“It’ll take us, one by one,” the woman continued, matter-of-fact, her voice filling the shed with dire certainty. Around her, people shuffled, twitchily, not looking at her, as if to meet her gaze would be to accept her words. Most looked at Sabriel and she saw hope in their eyes. Not blind faith, or complete confidence, but a gambler’s hope that a new horse might change a run of losses.
“The Abhorsen who came when I was young,” the Elder continued—and Sabriel saw that at his age, this would be his memory alone, of all the villagers—“this Abhorsen told me that it was his purpose to slay the Dead. He saved us from the haunts that came in the merchant’s caravan. Is it still the same, lady? Will Abhorsen save us from the Dead?”
Sabriel thought for a moment, her mind mentally flicking through the pages of The Book of the Dead, feeling it stir in the backpack that sat by her feet. Her thoughts strayed to her father; the forthcoming journey to Belisaere; the way in which Dead enemies seemed to be arrayed against her by some controlling mind.
“I will ensure this island is free of the Dead,” she said at last, speaking clearly so all could hear her. “But I cannot free the mainland village. There is a greater evil at work in the Kingdom—that same evil that has broken your Charter Stone—and I must find and defeat it as soon as I can. When that is done, I will return—I hope with other help—and both village and Charter Stone will be restored.”
“We understand,” replied the Elder. He seemed saddened, but philosophic. He continued, speaking more to his people than to Sabriel. “We can survive here. There is the spring, and the fish. We have boats. If Callibe has not fallen to the Dead, we can trade, for vegetables and other stuffs.”
“You will have to keep watching the breakwater,” Touchstone said. He stood behind Sabriel’s chair, the very image of a stern bodyguard. “The Dead—or their living slaves—may try to fill it in with stones, or push across a bridge. They can cross running water by building bridges of boxed grave dirt.”
“So, we are besieged,” said a man to the front of the mass of villagers. “But what of this Dead thing already here on the island, already preying upon us? How will you find it?”
Silence fell as the questioner spoke, for this was the one answer everyone wanted to hear. Rain sounded loud on the roof in the absence of human speech, steady rain, as had been falling since late afternoon. The Dead disliked the rain, Sabriel thought inconsequentially, as she considered this question. Rain didn’t destroy, but it hurt and irritated the Dead. Wherever the Dead thing was on the island, it would be out of the rain.
She stood up with that thought. Thirty-one pairs of eyes watched her, hardly blinking, despite the cloying smoke from too many lanterns, candles and tapers. Touchstone watched the villagers; Mogget watched a piece of fish; Sabriel closed her eyes, questing outward with other senses, trying to feel the presence of the Dead.
It was there—a faint, concealed emanation, like an untraceable whiff of something rotten. Sabriel concentrated on it, followed it, and found it, right there in the shed. The Dead was somehow hiding among the villagers.
She opened her eyes slowly, looking straight at the point where her senses told her the Dead creature lurked. She saw a fisherman, middle-aged, his salt-etched face red under sun-bleached hair. He seemed no different than the others around him, listening intently for her reply, but there was definitely something Dead in him, or very close by. He was wearing a boat cloak, which seemed odd, since the smoking shed was hot from massed humanity and the many lights.
“Tell me,” Sabriel said. “Did anyone bring a large box with them out to the island? Something, say, an arm-span square a side, or larger? It would be heavy—with grave dirt.”
Murmurs and enquiries met this question, neighbors turning to each other, with little flowerings of fear and suspicion. As they talked, Sabriel walked out through them, surreptitiously loosening her sword, signaling Touchstone to stay close by her. He followed her, eyes flickering across the little groups of villagers. Mogget, glancing up from his fish, stretched and lazily stalked behind Touchstone’s heels, after a warning glare at the two cats who were eyeing the half-consumed head and tail of his fishy repast.
Careful not to alarm her quarry, Sabriel took a zigzag path through the shed, listening to the villagers with studied attention, though the blond fisherman never left the corner of her eye. He was deep in discussion with another man, who seemed to be growing more suspicious by the second.
Closer now, Sabriel was sure that the fisherman was a vassal of the Dead. Technically, he was still alive, but a Dead spirit had suppressed his will, riding on his flesh like some shadowy string-puller, using his body as a puppet. Something highly unpleasant would be half-submerged in his back, under the boat cloak. Mordaut, they were called, Sabriel remembered. A whole page was devoted to these parasitical spirits in The Book of the Dead. They liked to keep a primary host alive, slipping off at night to sate their hunger from other living prey—like children.
“I’m sure I saw you with a box like that, Patar,” the suspicious fisherman was saying. “Jall Stowart helped you get it ashore. Hey, Jall!”
He shouted that last, turning to look at someone else across the room. In that instant, the Dead-ridden Patar exploded into action, clubbing his questioner with both forearms, knocking him aside, running to the door with the silent ferocity of a battering
ram.
But Sabriel had expected that. She stood before him, sword at the ready, her left hand drawing Ranna, the sweet sleeper, from the bandolier. She still hoped to save the man, by quelling the Mordaut.
Patar slid to a halt and half-turned, but Touchstone was there behind him, twin swords glowing eerily with shifting Charter marks and silver flames. Sabriel eyed the blades in surprise, she hadn’t known they were spelled. Past time she asked, she realized.
Then Ranna was free in her hand—but the Mordaut didn’t wait for the unavoidable lullaby. Patar suddenly screamed, and stood rigid, the redness draining from his face, to be replaced by grey. Then his flesh crumpled and fell apart, even his bones flaking away to soggy ash as the Mordaut sucked all the life out of him in one voracious instant. Newly fed and strengthened, the Dead slid out from the falling cloak, a pool of squelching darkness. It took shape as it moved, becoming a large, disgustingly elongated sort of rat. Quicker than any natural rat, it scuttled towards a hole in the wall and escape!
Sabriel lunged, her blade striking chips from the floor planks, missing the shadowy form by a scant instant.
Touchstone didn’t miss. His right-hand sword sheared through the creature just behind the head, the left-wielded blade impaling its sinuous mid-section. Pinned to the floor, the creature writhed and arched, its shadow-stuff working away from the blades. It was remaking its body, escaping the trap.
Quickly, Sabriel stood over it, Ranna sounding in her hand, sweet, lazy tone echoing out into the shed.
Before the echoes died, the Mordaut ceased to writhe. Form half-lost by its shifting from the swords, it lay like a lump of charred liver, quivering on the floor, still impaled.
Sabriel replaced Ranna, and drew the eager Saraneth. Its forceful voice snapped out, sound weaving a net of domination over the foul creature. The Mordaut made no effort to resist, even to make a mouth to whine its cause. Sabriel felt it succumb to her will, via the medium of Saraneth.
