Abhorsen

by Garth Nix

  “You sound like you admire It,” said Sam somewhat bitterly. “Which is not the right attitude for a servant of the Abhorsens, Mogget.”

  “Oh, I do admire the Destroyer,” replied Mogget dreamily, his pink tongue licking the corners of his white-toothed mouth. “But only from a distance. It would have no qualms about annihilating me, you know—since I refused to ally with It against the Seven when It gathered Its host all those long-lost dreams ago.”

  “Only sensible thing you ever did,” growled the Dog. “Though not as sensible as you could have been.”

  “Neither for nor against,” said Mogget. “I would have lost myself either way. Not that it helped me any in the end, choosing the middle road, for I’ve lost most of myself anyway. Well, lackaday. Life goes on, there are fish in the river, and the Destroyer heads for Ancelstierre and freedom. I am curious to hear your next plan, Mistress Abhorsen-in-Waiting.”

  “I’m not sure I have one,” replied Lirael. Her brain was saturated with danger. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend the threat the Destroyer posed. That left room for tiredness, hunger, and a fierce loathing for her muddy, stinking body to become uppermost in her thoughts. “I think I have to get clean and eat something. Only I do have one question first. Or two questions, I guess.

  “First of all, if the Destroyer does join Itself back together in Ancelstierre, can It do anything? I mean, both Charter and Free Magic don’t work on the other side of the Wall, do they?”

  “Magic fades,” answered Sam. “I could do Charter Magic at school, thirty miles south of the Wall, but none at all in Corvere. It also depends on whether the wind blows from the north or not.”

  “In any case, the Destroyer is a source of Free Magic in Itself,” said the Dog, her brow wrinkled in thought. “Should It become whole and free, It could range wherever It wills, though I do not know how It would manifest Itself beyond the Kingdom. The Wall alone could not stop It, for the stones carry the power of only two of the Seven, and it took all of them to bind the Destroyer in the long ago.”

  “That leads to my next question,” said Lirael wearily. “Do either of you know—or remember—exactly how It was split in two by the Seven and bound into the hemispheres?”

  “I was already bound, like so many others,” sniffed Mogget. “Besides, I am not really who I was even one millennium ago, let alone what I was in the Beginning.”

  “In a way I was present,” said the Dog after a long pause. “But I, too, am only a shadow of what I once was, and my clear memories all stem from a later time. I do not know the answer to your question.”

  Lirael thought of a particular passage in The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting and sighed. She had heard the term “the Beginning” before but only now could place it as coming from that book.

  “I think I know how to find out, though I don’t know whether I’ll be able to do it. But first of all I have to wash before this mud eats through my clothes!”

  “And think of a plan?” Sam asked hopefully. “I guess we’ll have to try to stop the hemispheres crossing the Wall, won’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Lirael. “Keep watch, will you?”

  She walked carefully down to the stream proper, thankful that it was another unseasonably hot day. She had considered stripping off for a complete wash but decided against it. Whatever the scales of her armored coat were called or made of, they weren’t metal, so there was no danger of rust. And she didn’t like the idea of being surprised by the Dead while seminaked. Besides, it was hot, the rain had long gone, and she would dry off quickly.

  She put her sword on the bank, close at hand, and the bell-bandolier next to it. Both would need serious cleaning, too, and the bandolier rewaxing. Her surcoat almost had to be scraped off, there was so much mud in and under it. She rolled it up and carried it into a convenient pool, out of the main current.

  A sound made her look around, but it was only the Disreputable Dog, carefully sliding down the bank with something bright and yellow in her mouth. She spat it out as she reached Lirael, followed by a mixture of dog spit and bubbles.

  “Yeerch,” said the Dog. “Soap. See how much I love you?”

  Lirael smiled and caught the soap, let the stream take the coating of dog saliva off, and started to lather herself and her clothes. Soon she was entirely covered in soapy foam but wasn’t much cleaner, since the mud and the red pollen were very resistant, even to soap and water. Her surcoat looked as if it would be permanently stained until she had the time and energy to do some laundry magic.

  Washing it without the help of magic gave her something to do while she thought about their next step. The more she considered it, the more it became clear that they couldn’t stop Hedge from transporting the hemispheres through the Old Kingdom. Their only real chance was to stop him and the hemispheres at the Wall. That meant going into Ancelstierre, to enlist whatever help they could get there.

  If despite their efforts Hedge did get the hemispheres over the Wall, then there would still be one last chance: to stop Nick’s Lightning Farm from being used to make the Destroyer whole.

  And if that failed . . . Lirael didn’t want to think about any last resorts beyond that.

  When she judged herself to be about as clean as possible without entirely new clothes, Lirael waded back out to take care of her equipment. She carefully wiped the bandolier and waxed it with a lump of lovely-smelling beeswax, and went over Nehima with goose grease and a cloth. Then she put surcoat, bell-bandolier, and sword baldric back on, over her armor.

  Sam and the Disreputable Dog stood on the largest of the rocks, watching both the lakeshore and the sky above. There was no sign of Mogget, though he could easily be back in Sam’s pack. Lirael climbed up to the rock to join Sam and the Dog. She chose a small patch of sunshine between the two, sat down, and ate a cinnamon biscuit to satisfy her immediate pangs of hunger.

  Sam watched her eat, but it was obvious he couldn’t wait for her to finish and start talking.

  Lirael ignored him at first, till he pulled a gold coin out of his sleeve and tossed it in the air. It spun up and up, but just when Lirael thought it would come down, it hovered, still spinning. Sam watched it for a while, sighed, and clicked his fingers. Instantly, the coin dropped into his waiting hand.

  He repeated this process several times till Lirael snapped.

  “What is that?”

  “Oh, you’re finished,” said Sam innocently. “This? It’s a feather-coin. I made it.”

  “What is it for?”

  “It isn’t for anything. It’s a toy.”

  “It’s for annoying people,” said Mogget from Sam’s pack. “If you don’t put it away, I shall eat it.”

  Sam’s hand closed on the coin, and it went back up his sleeve.

  “I suppose it does annoy people,” he said. “This is the fourth one I’ve made. Mother broke two, and Ellimere caught the last one and hammered it flat, so it could only wobble about close to the ground. Anyway, now that you’ve finished eating—”

  “What!” asked Lirael.

  “Oh, nothing,” Sam replied brightly. “Only I was hoping we could discuss what . . . what we’re going to do.”

  “What do you think we should do?” asked Lirael, suppressing the irritation that the feather-coin had created. Despite everything, Sam appeared to be less tense and nervous than she’d expected. Perhaps he had become fatalistic, she thought, and wondered if she had as well. Faced by an Enemy that was so clearly beyond them, they were just resigned to doing whatever they could before they got killed or enslaved. But she didn’t feel fatalistic. Now that she was clean, Lirael felt curiously hopeful, as if they actually could do something.

  “It seems to me,” Sam said, pausing to chew his lip thoughtfully again. “It seems to me that we should try to get to this Torwin Mill—”

  “Forwin Mill,” interrupted Lirael.

  “Forwin, then,” continued Sam. “We should try to get there first, with whatever help we can muster from the Ancelstierr
ans. I mean, they don’t like anyone bringing anything in from the Old Kingdom, let alone something magical they don’t understand. So if we can get there first and get help, we could have Nick’s Lightning Farm dismantled or destroyed before Hedge and Nick arrive with the hemispheres. Without the Lightning Farm, Nick won’t be able to feed power into the hemispheres, so It will stay bound.”

  “That’s a good plan,” said Lirael. “Though I think we should work on stopping the hemispheres before they can cross the Wall.”

  “There is another problem that makes both plans a bit iffy,” said Sam hesitantly. “I think those Edge sailing barges do the journey from Edge to the Redmouth in under two days. Faster with a spelled wind. It’s not far from there to the Wall, maybe half a day depending on how fast they can drag the hemispheres. It’ll take us at least four or five days to walk there. Even if we manage to find some horses today, we’ll be at least a day behind.”

  “Or more,” said Lirael. “I can’t ride a horse.”

  “Oh,” said Sam. “I keep forgetting you’re a Clayr. Never seen one of them on a horse. . . . I guess we’ll have to hope that the Ancelstierrans won’t let them cross. Though I’m not sure they could stop even Hedge by himself, unless there were a lot of Crossing Point Scouts—”

  Lirael shook her head. “Your friend Nick has a letter from his uncle. I don’t know what a Chief Minister is, but Nick seemed to think that it would force the Ancelstierrans to allow him to bring the hemispheres across the Wall.”

  “How come he’s always ‘your friend Nick’ when he makes things difficult?” protested Sam. “He is my friend, but it’s the Destroyer and Hedge making him do all this stuff. It’s not his fault.”

  “Sorry,” sighed Lirael. “I know it’s not his fault, and I won’t call him ‘your friend Nick’ anymore. But he does have that letter. Or actually, someone on the other side of the Wall has it, who will be meeting them.”

  Sam scratched his head and frowned in exasperation.

  “It depends on where they cross and who is in charge,” he said despondently. “I guess they’ll be intercepted at the Perimeter by a patrol, who will probably be all regular Army and not Scouts, and only the Scouts are Charter Mages. So they might let Nick and Hedge and everyone go through the Perimeter. I don’t think any of the normal patrols could stop Hedge anyway, even if they wanted to. If only we could get there first! I know General Tindall well—he commands the Perimeter. And we would be able to wire my parents at the embassy in Corvere. If they’re still there.”

  “Can we sail ourselves?” asked Lirael. “Where could we get a boat that’s faster than the barges?”

  “Edge would be the closest,” replied Sam. “At least a day north, so we’d lose as much time as we gained. If Edge is still there. I don’t want to think about how Hedge got his barges.”

  “Well, what about downstream?” asked Lirael. “Is there a fishing village or something?”

  Sam shook his head absently. There was an answer, he knew. He could feel an idea just lurking out of reach. How could they reach the Wall faster than Hedge and Nick?

  Land, sea . . . and air.

  “Fly!” he exclaimed, jumping up and throwing his arms in the air. “We can fly! Your owl Charter-skin!”

  It was Lirael’s turn to shake her head.

  “It would take me at least twelve hours to make two Charter-skins. Maybe more, since I need some sort of rest first. And it takes weeks to learn how to fly properly.”

  “But I won’t need to,” said Sam excitedly. “Look—I watched you making the barking owl skin before and I noticed that there’s only a few key Charter marks that set how big it is, right?”

  “Maybe,” said Lirael dubiously.

  “Well, my idea is that you make a really big owl, big enough to carry me and Mogget in your claws,” continued Sam, gesturing wildly. “It wouldn’t take any longer than it usually does. Then we fly to the Wall . . . um, cross it . . . and take it from there.”

  “An excellent idea,” said the Dog, her expression a mixture of surprise and approval.

  “I don’t know,” said Lirael. “I’m not sure a giant Charter-skin would work.”

  “It will,” said Sam confidently.

  “I don’t suppose there’s much else we can do,” Lirael said quietly. “So I guess I’d better give it a go. Where’s Mogget? I’m curious to see what he thinks of your plan.”

  “It stinks,” said Mogget’s muffled voice from the shade below the boulder. “But there’s no reason why it won’t work.”

  “There’s one other thing I guess I might have to do later,” Lirael said hesitantly. “Is it possible to enter Death on the other side of the Wall?”

  “Sure, depending how far into Ancelstierre you go, just like with magic,” Sam replied, his voice suddenly very serious. “What . . . what is it you might have to do?”

  “Use the Dark Mirror and look back into the past,” Lirael said, her voice unconsciously taking on some of the timbre of a Clayr’s prophecy. “Back to the Beginning, to see how the Seven defeated the Destroyer.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Flight to the Wall

  “IT WAS HUGE,” sobbed the man, panic in his eyes and voice. “Bigger than a horse, with wings . . . wings that blocked the sky. And it had a man in its claws, dangling . . . horrible . . . horrible! The screeching . . . you must have heard the screeching?”

  The other members of the small band of Travelers nod-ded, many of them looking up into the fading light of the evening sky.

  “And something else was flying with it,” whispered the man. “A dog. A dog with wings!”

  His listeners exchanged glances of disbelief. A giant owl they could accept, after the screeching they’d heard. This was the Borderlands, after all, and in troubled times. Many things they had thought never to see had walked the earth in the last few days. But a winged dog?

  “We’d best move along,” said the leader, a tough-looking woman who bore the Charter mark on her forehead. She sniffed the air and added, “There’s something odd about, all right. We’ll go on to the Hogrest, unless anyone has a better idea. Somebody help Elluf, too. Give him some wine.”

  Quickly, the Travelers broke their camp and unhobbled their horses. Soon, they were headed north, with the unfortunate Elluf swigging from a wineskin as if it were water.

  South of the Travelers, Lirael flew with gradually slowing wing beats. It was much, much harder to fly as a twenty-times-sized barking owl than as a normal one, particularly carrying Sam, Mogget, and both packs. Sam had helped along the way by casting Charter marks of strength and endurance into her, but a large part of the sustaining magic had been absorbed by the Charter-skin itself.

  “I have to set down,” she called to the Disreputable Dog, who was flying behind her, as pain coursed through her wings again. She picked a clear glade amongst the mass of trees and started to glide in for a landing.

  Then she suddenly saw their destination. There, beyond the forest—a long grey line snaking along the crest of a low hill, going from east to west as far as she could see. The Wall that separated the Old Kingdom from Ancelstierre.

  And on the far side of the Wall, darkness. The full dark, near midnight of an Ancelstierran early spring, spreading up to the Wall, where it suddenly met the warmth of an Old Kingdom summer evening. It gave Lirael an instant headache, her owl eyes unable to adjust to the contradiction—sunset here and night over there.

  But there was the Wall, and buoyed up by this sighting, she forgot her pain and the intended landing site. With a push of her wings she lofted up again, heading straight for the Wall, a triumphant screech splitting the night.

  “Don’t try to cross!” Sam called urgently from below, as he swung in the makeshift harness of sword baldrics and pack straps that was held tight by her claws. “We have to land on this side, remember!”

  Lirael heard him, recalled his warnings about the Perimeter on the Ancelstierran side, and dropped one wing. Immediately this became a diving
turn, followed by frenzied flapping as Lirael realized she’d misjudged their airspeed and was about to plow Sam, Mogget, and herself into the ground at a painful velocity.

  The flapping worked, after a fashion. Sam picked himself off the ground, checked that his bruised knees still functioned, and went over to the enormous owl who lay next to him, apparently stunned.

  “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously, uncertain how he could check. How did you feel an owl’s pulse, particularly an owl that was twenty feet long?

  Lirael didn’t answer, but faint lines of golden light began to run in hairline cracks through the giant owl shape. The lines ran together till Sam could see individual Charter marks; then the whole thing began to blaze so brightly that Sam had to back off, shielding his eyes against the brilliance.

  Then there was only soft twilight in his eyes, as the sun slowly set on the Old Kingdom side. And there was Lirael, lying spread-eagled on her stomach, groaning.

  “Ow! Every muscle in my entire body hurts,” she muttered, slowly pushing herself up with her hands. “And I feel absolutely disgusting! Worse than the mud, that Charter-skin. Where’s the Dog?”

  “Here, Mistress,” answered the Disreputable Dog, rushing over to surprise Lirael with a lick to her open mouth. “That was fun. Particularly flying over that man.”

  “That wasn’t intentional,” said Lirael, using the Dog as a crutch to help herself up. “I was just as surprised as he was. Let’s just hope that we’ve saved enough time to make it worthwhile.”

  “If we can get across the Wall—and the Perimeter—tonight, we have to be ahead of Hedge,” said Sam. “How fast can a barge go, after all?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but it was answered.

  “With a spelled wind, they could sail more than sixty leagues in a day and night,” said Mogget, a hidden voice of authority from inside Sam’s pack. “I would presume they reached the Redmouth around noon today. From there, who knows? It depends how quickly they can move the hemispheres. They may even have crossed, and time is disjointed between the Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre. Hedge—aided by the Destroyer—may even be able to manipulate that difference to gain a day . . . or more.”