by Garth Nix
Lieutenant Tindall noticed her shiver and looked at her with concern.
“Shouldn’t we get your Sergeant to the regimental aid post?” he asked. There was something peculiar about the Sergeant, something that made him difficult to look at directly. If he looked out of the corners of his eyes, Tindall could see a fuzzy aura that didn’t quite match the outline he was expecting. That bandolier was odd too. Since when did the Scouts carry bandoliers of rifle ammunition? Particularly when neither of them was carrying a rifle?
“No,” said Sam quickly. “He’ll be all right. We have to get to a phone as fast as possible and contact Colonel Dwyer.”
Tindall nodded but didn’t say anything. The nod hid a flash of concern across his face, and the thoughts that were racing through his head. Lieutenant Colonel Dwyer, who commanded the Crossing Point Scouts, had been on leave for the last two months. Tindall had even seen him off, following a memorable dinner at his father’s headquarters.
“You’d better come with me to the Company CP,” he said finally. “Major Greene will want to have a word.”
“I must telephone,” Sam insisted. “There’s no time for talking!”
“Major Greene’s telephone may be operational,” said Tindall, trying to keep his voice as even as possible. “Sergeant Evans—take charge of the platoon. Byatt and Emerson . . . follow on. Keep those bayonets fixed. Oh, Evans—send a runner for Lieutenant Gotley to join me at the CP. I think we might need his signals expertise.”
He led the way off down the communications trench, Sam, Lirael, and the Dog following. Evans, who had caught his Lieutenant’s eye and call for the only other Charter Mage in the company besides Major Greene, held Byatt and Emerson back for a few moments, whispering, “Something funny’s up, lads. If the boss gives the word, or there’s any sign of trouble, stick those two in the back!”
Chapter Sixteen
A Major’s Decision
SAMETH’S HEART FELL as Lieutenant Tindall led them into a deep dugout about a hundred yards behind the fighting trench. Even in the dim light of an oil lamp, he could see it looked too much like the abode of a lazy and comfort-loving officer—who probably wouldn’t even listen, let alone understand what they needed to do.
There was a woodstove burning fiercely in one corner, an open bottle of whisky on the map table, and a comfortable armchair wedged in one corner. Major Greene, in turn, was wedged in the chair, looking red faced and cantankerous. But he did have his boots on, Sam noted, a sword next to his chair, and a holstered revolver that hung by its lanyard from a nearby peg.
“What’s this?” bellowed the Major, creakily rising up as they ducked under the lintel and spread out around the map table. He was old for a major, Sam thought. Pushing fifty at least, and imminent retirement.
Before he could speak, Lieutenant Tindall—who’d moved around behind them—said, “Imposters, sir. Only I’m not sure what kind. They do bear uncorrupted Charter marks.”
Sam stiffened at the word “imposters,” and he saw Lirael grab the Dog’s collar as she growled, deep and angrily.
“Imposters, hey?” said Major Greene. He looked at Sam, and for the first time Sam realized the old officer had a Charter mark on his forehead. “What do you have to say for yourselves?”
“I’m Lieutenant Stone of the NPRU,” said Sam stiffly. “That is Sergeant Clare and the Sniffer Dog Woppet. I need to phone Perimeter HQ urgently—”
“Rubbish!” roared the Major, without any anger. “I know all the officers of the Scouts, the NCOs too. I was one for long enough! And I’m pretty familiar with the sniffer dogs, and that one ain’t of the breed. I’d be surprised if it could smell a cow pat in a kitchen.”
“I could so,” said the Dog indignantly. Her words were met by a hushed silence; then the Major had his sword out and leveled at them, and Lieutenant Tindall and his men had moved forward, sword and bayonet points only inches behind Sam’s and Lirael’s unprotected necks.
“Oops,” said the Dog, sitting down and resting her head on her paws. “Sorry, Mistress.”
“Mistress?” exclaimed Greene, his face going even redder. “Who are you two? And what is that?”
Sam sighed and said, “I am Prince Sameth of the Old Kingdom, and my companion is Lirael, the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. The Dog is a friend. We are all under a glamour. Do I have your permission to remove it? We’ll glow a bit, but it isn’t dangerous.”
The Major looked redder-faced than ever, but he nodded.
A few minutes later Sam and Lirael stood in front of Major Greene wearing their own clothes and faces. Both were obviously very tired, and clearly had suffered much in recent times. The Major looked at them carefully, then down at the Dog. Her breastplate had disappeared and her collar changed, and she looked larger than before. She met his gaze with a sorrowful eye, then spoiled it by winking.
“It is Prince Sameth,” declared Lieutenant Tindall, who’d edged around to see their faces. There was a strange expression on his face. A sympathetic look, and he nodded twice at Sameth, who looked surprised. “And she looks . . . I beg your pardon, ma’am. I mean to say you look very like Sabriel, I mean the Abhorsen.”
“Yes, I am Prince Sameth,” said Sam slowly, with little expectation that this overweight, soon-to-be-retired Major would be much help. “I urgently need to contact Colonel Dwyer.”
“The phone doesn’t work,” replied the Major. “Besides, Colonel Dwyer is on leave. What’s this urgent need to communicate?”
Lirael answered him, her voice cracked and croaking from the onset of a cold, caused by the sudden transition from a warm Old Kingdom summer to the Ancelstierran spring. The oil lamp flared as she spoke, sending her shadow flickering and dancing across the table.
“An ancient and terrible evil is being brought into Ancelstierre. We need help to find It and stop It—before It destroys your country and then our own.”
The Major looked at her, his red face set in a frown. But it wasn’t a frown of disbelief, as Sam had feared.
“If I didn’t know what your title signified, and recognize the bells you wear,” the Major said slowly, “I would suspect you of overstatement. I don’t think I have ever heard of an evil so powerful it could destroy my entire country. I wish I weren’t hearing about it now.”
“It is called the Destroyer,” said Lirael, her voice soft, but charged with the fear that had been growing since they had left the Red Lake. “It is one of the Nine Bright Shiners, the Free Spirits of the Beginning. It was bound and broken by the Seven and buried deep beneath the ground. Only now the two metal hemispheres that hold It prisoner have been dug up by a necromancer called Hedge, and even as we talk here, he could be bringing them across the Wall.”
“So that’s what it is,” said the Major, but there was no satisfaction in his voice. “I had a carrier pigeon from Brigade about trouble to the west and a defense alert, but there’s been nothing since. Hedge, you say? I knew a sergeant of that name, in the Scouts when I first joined. Couldn’t be him, though—that was thirty-five years ago and he was fifty if he was a day—”
“Major, I have to get to a telephone!” interrupted Sameth.
“At once!” declared the Major. He seemed to be recalled to a more vigorous and perhaps younger version of himself. “Mister Tindall, pull your platoon in and tell Edward and CSM Porrit to organize a move. I’m going to take these two—”
“Three,” said the Dog.
“Four,” interrupted Mogget, poking his head out of Sam’s pack. “I’m tired of keeping quiet.”
“He’s a friend too,” Lirael assured the soldiers hastily, as hands once more went for swords and bayonets swung back. “Mogget is the cat and the Disreputable Dog is the . . . um . . . dog. They are . . . er . . . servants of the Clayr and the Abhorsen.”
“Just like the Perimeter! It never rains but it pours,” declared the Major. “Now, I’m going to take you four back to the reserve line road, and we’ll try the phone there. Francis, follow to the transport rendezvou
s as fast as you can.”
He paused and added, “I don’t suppose you know where this Hedge is going, if they’ve got across the Perimeter?”
“Forwin Mill, where there is something called a Lightning Farm that they will use to free the Destroyer,” said Lirael. “They may have no difficulty getting across the Perimeter. Hedge has the Chief Minister’s nephew with him, Nicholas Sayre, and they’re being met by someone who has a letter from the Chief Minister allowing them to bring the hemispheres in.”
“That wouldn’t be sufficient,” declared the Major. “I suppose it might work at the Crossing Point, but there’d be hours of to and fro with Garrison at Bain and even Corvere. No one in their right mind would fall for it on the real Perimeter. They’ll have to fight their way through, though if an alert was sounded an hour ago, they probably already have. Orderly!”
A corporal, a burning cigarette disguised in one cupped hand, poked his head into the dugout entrance.
“Get me a map that covers Forwin Mill, somewhere west of here! I’ve never heard of the bloody place.”
“It’s about thirty miles down the coast from here, sir,” volunteered Tindall, stopping in mid rush for the exit. “I’ve been fishing there—there’s a loch with quite good salmon. It is a few miles outside the Perimeter Zone, sir.”
“Is it? Humph!” remarked Greene, his face once again turning a deeper shade of red. “What else is there?”
“There was an abandoned sawmill, a broken-down dock, and what’s left of the railway they once used to bring the trees down from the hills,” said Tindall. “I don’t know what this Lightning Farm might be, but there is—”
“Nicholas had the Lightning Farm built there,” interrupted Lirael. “Quite recently, I think.”
“Any people about the place?” asked the Major.
“There are now,” replied Lieutenant Tindall. “Two Southerling refugee camps were built there late last year. Norris and Erimton they’re called, in the hills immediately above the loch valley. There might be fifty thousand refugees there, I suppose, under police guard.”
“If the Destroyer is made whole, they will be among the first to die,” said the Dog. “And Hedge will reap their spirits as they cross into Death, and they will serve him.”
“We’ll have to get them out of there, then,” said the Major. “Though being outside the Perimeter makes it difficult for us to do anything. General Tindall will understand. I only hope General Kingswold has gone home. He’s an Our Country supporter through and through—”
“We must hurry!” Lirael suddenly interrupted. There was no time for more talk. A terrible sense of foreboding gripped her, as if every second they spent here was a grain of sand lost from a nearly empty hourglass. “We have to get to Forwin Mill before Hedge and the hemispheres!”
“Right!” shouted Major Greene, suddenly energized again. He seemed to need spurring along every now and then. He snatched up his helmet, threw it on his head, and snagged his revolver by the lanyard with the return motion. “Carry on, Mister Tindall. Quickly now!”
Everything did happen very quickly then. Lieutenant Tindall disappeared into the night, and the Major led them at a trot down another communications trench. Eventually it rose out of the ground and became a simple track, identified every few yards with a white-painted rock that shone faintly in the starlight. There was no moon, though one had risen on the Old Kingdom side, and it was much colder here.
Twenty minutes later, the wheezing—but surprisingly fit—Major slowed to a walk, and the track joined a wide asphalt road that stretched as far as they could see by starlight, due east and west. Telephone poles lined the road, part of the network that connected the full length of the Perimeter.
A low, concrete blockhouse brooded on the other side of the road, fed from the telegraph poles with a spaghetti-like pile of telephone wires.
Major Greene led the way inside like some corpulent missile, shouting to wake the unfortunate soldier who was slumped over a switchboard desk, his head nestled in a web of lines and plugs.
“Get me Perimeter HQ!” ordered the Major. The semiconscious soldier obeyed him, plugging in lines with the dumb expertise of the highly trained. “General Tindall in person! Wake him up if necessary!”
“Yes sir, yes, sir, yes,” mumbled the telephone orderly, wishing that he had chosen a different night to drink his secret hoard of rum. He kept one hand over his mouth to try to keep the smell from the ferocious Major and his strange companions.
When the call went through, Greene grabbed the handset and spoke quickly. Obviously he was talking to various unhelpful in-between people, because his face kept getting redder and redder, till Lirael thought his skin would set his mustache on fire. Finally he reached someone who he listened to for a minute, without interruption. Then he slowly put the handset back in its cradle.
“There is an incursion happening at the western end of the Perimeter right now,” he said. “There were reports of red distress rockets, but we’ve lost communication from Mile One to Mile Nine, so it’s a broad attack. No one knows what’s going on. General Tindall has already ordered out a flying column, but apparently he’s gone to some other trouble at the Crossing Point. The shiny-bum staff colonel on the other end has ordered me to stay here.”
“Stay here! Can’t we go west and try and stop Hedge at the Wall?” asked Lirael.
“We lost communication an hour ago,” said Major Greene. “It hasn’t been re-established. No more rockets have been seen. That means there is no one left alive to fire any. Or else they’ve run away. In either case, your Hedge and his hemispheres will already be over the Wall and past the Perimeter.”
“I don’t understand how they could have caught up with us,” said Lirael.
“Time plays tricks between here and home,” said Mogget sepulchrally, frightening the life out of the telephone operator. The little cat jumped out of Sam’s pack, ignored the soldier, and added, “Though I expect it will be slow going, dragging the hemispheres to this Forwin Mill. We may have time to get there first.”
“I’d better get in touch with my parents,” said Sam. “Can you patch into the civilian telephone system?”
“Ah,” said the Major. He rubbed his nose and seemed unsure of what he was going to say. “I thought you would have known. It happened almost a week ago. . . .”
“What?”
“I’m sorry, son,” said the Major. He braced himself to attention and said, “Your parents are dead. They were murdered in Corvere by Corolini’s radicals. A bomb. Their car was totally destroyed.”
Sam listened blank faced to the Major’s words. Then he slid down the wall and put his head in his hands.
Lirael touched Sam’s left shoulder, and the Dog rested her nose on his right. Only Mogget seemed unaffected by the news. He sat next to the switchboard operator, his green eyes sparkling.
Lirael spent the next few seconds walling off the news, pushing it down to where she had always pushed her distress, somewhere that allowed her to keep on going. If she lived, she would weep for the sister she had never known, as she would weep for Touchstone, and her mother, and so many other things that had gone wrong in the world. But now there was no time for weeping, since many other sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, and others depended on them doing what must be done.
“Don’t think about it,” said Lirael, squeezing Sam’s shoulder. “It’s up to us now. We have to get to Forwin Mill before Hedge does!”
“We can’t,” said Sam. “We might as well give up—”
He stopped himself in mid sentence, let his hands fall from his face, and stood up, but hunched over as if there were a pain in his gut. He stood there silently for almost a minute. Then he took the feather-coin out of his sleeve and flipped it. It spun up to the ceiling of the blockhouse and hung there. Sam leaned against the wall to watch it, his body still crooked but his head craned back.
Eventually he stopped looking at the spinning coin and straightened up, until he was standing at
attention opposite Lirael. He didn’t snap his fingers to recall the coin.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. There were tears in his eyes, but he blinked them back. “I’m . . . I’m all right now.”
He bent his head to Lirael and added, “Abhorsen.”
Lirael shut her eyes for a moment. That single word brought it all home. She was the Abhorsen. No longer in waiting.
“Yes,” she said, accepting the title and everything that went with it. “I am the Abhorsen, and as such, I need all the help I can get.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Major Greene. “But I can’t legally order the company to follow. Though most of ’em would probably volunteer.”
“I don’t understand!” protested Lirael. “Who cares what’s legal? Your whole country could be destroyed! Everybody killed everywhere! Don’t you understand?”
“I understand. It’s just not that simple . . .” the Major began. Then he paused, and his red face went blotchy and pale at the temples. Lirael watched his brow furrow up as if a strange thought were trying to break free. Then it cleared. Carefully he put his hand into his pocket, then suddenly withdrew it and punched his newly brass-knuckled fist into the Bakelite exchange board, its delicate internal mechanisms exploding with a rush of sparks and smoke.
“Damn it! It is that simple! I’ll order the company to go. After all, the politicos can only shoot me for it later if we win. As for you, Private, if you mention a word of this to anyone, I’ll feed you to the cat thing here. Understand?”
“Yum,” said Mogget.
“Yes, sir!” mumbled the telephone operator, his hands shaking as he tried to smother the burning wreckage of his switchboard with a fire blanket.
But the Major hadn’t paused for his answer. He was already out the door, shouting at some poor subordinate outside to “Hurry up and get the trucks going!”
“Trucks?” asked Lirael as they rushed out after him.
“Um . . . horseless wagons,” said Sam mechanically. The words came out of his mouth slowly, as if he had to remember what they were. “They’ll . . . they’ll get us to Forwin Mill much faster. If they work.”
