Clariel

by Nix,Garth

  “I did not run away from my home to become a goldsmith,” she said very quietly, so that despite craned necks and obvious attention the lower table could not hear. “I was already apprenticed, and would have stayed at Hillfair. Many Abhorsens have been metalworkers, particularly bell-founders, of course. I left because . . . because . . .”

  “You do not need to speak of it,” said Harven, covering her hand with his own. For once, he was not looking at his shoes. “It is enough to say that things happened there that were misunderstood . . .”

  “No,” said Jaciel softly. “You should know, for it may help you understand that your own problems are petty ones. And you may meet your grandfather and aunt soon. They may wish it so, even though we do not, and will not ever, speak.”

  She paused and looked down at the lower table, where everyone suddenly turned away and started eating again with faked enthusiasm.

  “Go,” said Jaciel, only a little louder than she had been speaking before, but her words carried through the hall like a trumpet. “Take your plates to the courtyard. All of you. Go!”

  There was a moment when no one moved, followed by a sudden clatter and bustle as everyone moved at once, eager not to be the last one to leave the room. Several apprentices crashed together in the door and fought to get out, doubtless inflicting minor injuries with the deliberately blunted knives and three-tined forks that were all they were allowed, given their propensity for using them on one another.

  When they were gone, the hall strangely quiet, Jaciel continued as if there had been no interruption.

  “I will tell you this once, and once only. I left Hillfair because my father believed that I had killed my brother.”

  Clariel heard the words, but it was as if she couldn’t understand them, they were some strange language that might as well be grunts and coughs. Surely she had misheard? She opened her mouth to say so, say that she didn’t understand, but her mother was talking again, not looking at her, but staring into the air as if it were a window to a time long past and, as much as possible, forgotten.

  “Periel was the youngest of the three of us. I am eldest, then Yannael, who is Abhorsen-in-Waiting now, then Periel. Back then it was Periel who was the greater Charter Mage, the only one of us who wished to become the Abhorsen, the one who delved in those arts . . .”

  She paused for a moment, her eyes unfocused, seeing who knew what.

  “Periel alone sought to learn the use of the bells, to venture into Death and back again, to command and banish the Dead. But he sought too deeply, for one day he came to my forge. His eyes were strange, reflecting no light . . . I saw that he was no longer my brother, but instead something that wore his flesh like a coat.”

  Jaciel fell silent for a moment, the silence like a sudden chill.

  “He . . . it saw that I knew, and attacked me. It would have slain me, for my dagger turned against its flesh, but at the last I managed to fling a crucible of molten gold against it, gold I had prepared with magic. But in its dying, the thing that had inhabited Periel was released and fled, leaving the body behind.”

  Jaciel paused again, her brow wrinkled, her eyes distant still.

  “My father could not or would not believe me that that the body was not really Periel’s, that his favorite son could have succumbed to some fell creature. Father thought I had killed Periel in a rage, for we argued often, about many things and . . . I did not hold my temper well in those days. So I was banished. Gladly banished, for I had no desire to stay among my close-minded and foolish relatives.”

  “In a rage . . .” whispered Clariel. “Mother, I . . .”

  “I do not wish to speak further on this matter,” said Jaciel stiffly, as controlled as ever, her eyes suddenly hard and sharp again. Her mother’s constant control, Clariel suddenly realized, must have much to do with a lifetime of suppressing the same berserk fury that lived within herself. “I have told you what you need to know and you may count yourself fortunate that you have not grown up with parents who can know you so little as to think you a kinslayer and murderer!”

  Jaciel stood up, tore the napkin from her neck, gold button flying off to dance across the table, and stalked out. Harven stood more fussily and rushed after her, his napkin still fast around his neck.

  Clariel picked up an asparagus spear with her fingers and dipped it in the spilled gravy, since no one could see. Chewing it, she tried to sort through what she had just heard, adding it to the other revelations of the day. Coming to Belisaere had opened up not opportunities, but certainly secrets. Secrets and plots that she wanted no part of, that threatened to complicate her life far beyond anything she had ever dreamed might be possible.

  Her mother had killed her own brother . . . or was thought by the rest of her family to have done so, even if she believed she had only killed something in the shape of her brother, himself already dead and gone.

  Then there were Governor Kilp and Aronzo and the Free Magic creature. Whatever their plans were, she didn’t want to be any part of them, particularly if it involved marrying Aronzo.

  Even the visit to the King was a bit of a mystery. Why had the King agreed to see her, when he wouldn’t see anyone else?

  “The sooner I get out of here the better,” she whispered to herself, thinking of the gold Kargrin had promised, and the disguising spell that would help her away.

  But first she had to help find the Free Magic creature on the Islet. But that task was to be done next morning. Which meant that there was a good chance Clariel could be away tomorrow afternoon. The next time she sat down for her evening meal, it might be under a tree by the roadside, out in the open air. Leaving all these problems, these mysteries and plots, behind her.

  Clariel smiled, took another asparagus spear, and bit into it with a great deal of satisfaction.

  With the need to rise well before the dawn and sneak out before Valannie awoke, Clariel had a very restless night, waking every hour or so to take a panicked look at the Charter-magicked crystal by her bedside that marked the hour. Finally, at the fourth hour past midnight she got up, dressed in her familiar hunting clothes, and buckled on a falchion, a heavy broad-bladed sword she had used in the past to good effect to finish boars or to fight off wolves. With her smallest knife in her sleeve and the medium one in boot, she felt well armed to face a mortal enemy. She was less confident about confronting a Free Magic creature, but then Magister Kargrin and his companions would be there for that.

  Roban was waiting for her by in the courtyard, near the front gate, a dim shadow she recognized by his size more than anything else. He spoke to the other gate guard, who Clariel couldn’t identify in the dark, and the woman strode over to the workshop doors and rather ostentatiously rattled the great chain and padlock. The workshop was locked until the dawn, when whichever senior apprentice was keybearer this week would come yawning to open up, kicking the junior apprentices ahead to fire up the forges. Jaciel herself would not come down until the ninth or tenth hour.

  “Heyren is outside,” whispered Roban. “He’ll look the other way. Follow me.”

  Like the magister’s house, there was a small sally port set into the greater gate. It was already unbolted and the hinges had been newly greased, so that it opened without a sound. Roban looked out and made a clicking noise with his tongue, which was returned in kind by someone a few paces away. Reassured, he stepped through, Clariel following close behind.

  It was strange to be out on the street in the relative darkness of the night. There were lights in and outside some of the houses along the street, Charter lights for the most part, though here and there a few duller, more yellow spots of illumination were the result of oil lanterns hung over front gates or doors.

  It was quiet too, though again it was only a relative quiet. Though it was an hour yet till dawn, Clariel could hear carts farther down the hill, and voices raised in complaint or irritation carrying in from the Winter Road perhaps, at least somewhere lower down and to the northeast.

  �
�Let’s go,” said Roban. He set off, walking a little more slowly than he would during the day, his head slowly turning from side to side as he watched the doors and openings ahead. Clariel noted that he held his sword drawn at his side, the blade darkened with soot so that it did not catch the light. She wished she’d thought to do the same with her falchion, but settled with loosening it in its sheath, and kept her hand upon the hilt.

  Magister Kargrin was waiting outside his house under the sign of the hedgepig, accompanied by a woman who wore a knee-length hauberk of gethre plates and a surcoat dappled with the golden castles on scarlet indicating the Royal Guard. The sign above their heads was swaying slightly, as the dawn breeze had just begun its whispering journey into the city from the east, and there was already the faint glow of the rising sun on the horizon, and the sky was noticeably lighter. But apart from their own small group, the street was empty and still.

  “Clariel, this is Captain Gullaine, who commands the Royal Guard.”

  “What’s left of it,” said Gullaine, her mouth quirking up in something that was not quite a smile. She wore a mail coif close around her face, as well as a helmet, so it was difficult for Clariel to guess her age, but she thought she must be forty, perhaps older. The captain took off one glove, parked it under her elbow, tilted her helmet back, and pushed the coif up, to show her forehead Charter mark. “Lady Clariel, if I may test your mark, and you do likewise?”

  Clariel moved closer and briefly touched Gullaine’s mark, as the guardswoman returned the gesture. After her lesson yesterday, mostly just refamiliarizing herself with simply connecting to the Charter, it was easier, but still the vast flow of marks threatened to overwhelm her, so she was glad that the contact only lasted a second or two.

  “Best to be careful,” said Gullaine. She stepped back and looked over Clariel’s outfit, her expression indicating some unhappiness.

  “I wish we had a coat of gethre plates for you,” she said. “If it comes to fighting, they resist the stuff of Free Magic better than leather or iron.”

  “I trust Clariel will not be getting so close,” said Kargrin. “If we are wishing, I would wish for the particular robes the Abhorsens wear when handling such creatures. But we have neither the robes nor an Abhorsen.”

  “I believe we will have the next best thing,” said Gullaine, with a smile. “Once or twice removed, perhaps.”

  Roban was already turning toward the sound of running booted footsteps, his sword raised, so Clariel followed suit. But he lowered the weapon as he recognized who it was, and a moment later Clariel did so as well. It was Belatiel, who slowed down and walked the last few paces to join them under the sign, puffing out something that was obviously meant to be an apology for being late but was basically incomprehensible due to him being so out of breath.

  “Ran all the way from the Palace,” he managed to get out eventually. “Hello, Clariel.”

  Bel was also wearing a hauberk of gethre plates, though it was somewhat too big, as was the surcoat of faded blue with silver keys that went over it. He had a sword at his side, but in his right hand he held something Clariel didn’t recognize at first, till he turned his hand and she saw it was a musical instrument: a set of reed pipes, seven tubes of different lengths joined together. Except these pipes were not reeds, but silver, or silver-plated bronze. Clariel had seen foresters play reed pipes, often bringing them out at the campfire after a day’s work.

  “Why the pipes?”

  “I don’t have a set of bells,” said Belatiel, as if that explained everything. After a second or two, Clariel realized that it did. The Abhorsens used seven named bells to command and control the Dead, as did Free Magic necromancers, though the Abhorsen’s ones were different, imbued with the Charter. She peered closer at the pipes in Belatiel’s hand and saw the faint sheen of Charter marks moving in the silver. So this seven-voiced instrument must be a similar magical tool to the bells. Only not as powerful, judging by Belatiel’s expression.

  Something about Clariel’s expression made him go on to answer the question she hadn’t actually voiced.

  “This is Abhorsen business, you know. Dealing with Free Magic creatures. There might be Dead things too. And I am in training to be a proper Abhorsen, even if I do only have the pipes.”

  “Training? Attempting to learn by yourself is not training,” said Kargrin, but his words had no sting in them. “I would have preferred your great-uncle or cousin, but it seems the Abhorsen and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting are too busy, or at least too busy to answer my entreaties. I suppose in the circumstances we should be glad to have any assistance. Even that of a self-taught, self-proclaimed Abhorsen-in-Waiting-Waiting, if I may call you that. Gather close now. I wish to set a spell of unseeing upon us all.”

  They huddled together, shoulders touching. Kargrin looked along the street to make sure no one was about, then took a small tin box out of a pocket on the inside of his dark red cloak. Opening it, he reached in with two fingers and spoke three words, words that were imbued with a complex chain of Charter marks, some of them visible in his breath as he exhaled, others running down his arm and fingers, joining with many more marks that began to froth out of the box. Kargrin pinched them together and slowly drew out a faint, shimmering net of lights that was composed of thousands of marks.

  “Closer!” he commanded, and they all leaned in, helmets and heads touching. Clariel felt the cold steel of Gullaine’s helm against her forehead as Kargrin’s hands flew up, casting the net of thousands of faintly glittering marks into the air. The glittering tracery spread out above the group like the branches of a sheltering tree, then faded into nothing. Kargrin grunted. He waited a moment, stepped back, and indicated for the others to do likewise.

  “What was that meant to do?” asked Clariel, for she could see no change in anyone. They were all perfectly visible. Surely a spell of unseeing would cloak them in darkness or something, at the very least?

  “It was meant to divert attention from us,” said Kargrin. “As it will. Onlookers will see us but make no note of it, nor remember our passage, unless we actually bump into them, or make physical contact. So be sure you don’t. It should be easy enough until after first light, when the streets get busy.”

  “But I can see everyone clearly,” protested Clariel.

  “You are inside the spell,” said Kargrin. “Trust me. It worked. The marks are still around us, if you look carefully. Squint, and stare upward, that may help.”

  Clariel narrowed her eyes and bent her neck back. At first she couldn’t see anything, but as her eyelashes brushed together, lids almost closed, she saw the marks, suspended in the air above her like falling leaves caught in an instant, never to descend.

  “If you’re satisfied, perhaps we can be on our way?” asked Kargrin. “Roban, take the front.”

  Roban nodded, and stepped outside, sword still held ready. His wariness made Clariel think of other hunts, and the seriousness of the hunters, and she remembered something Sergeant Penreth of the Borderers had told her long ago.

  “Never underestimate your quarry, be it boar, sow, deer, or even fox. I have seen hunters slain by all of them, fast or slow. A fox bite gone bad in the deep forest can be as much a death blow as having your guts torn out by a boar’s tusk, or your head broken by a stag.”

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  Chapter Ten

  TO THE ISLET

  I’m not any kind of Abhorsen-in-Waiting really,” Bel confided in Clariel as they walked next to each other along the Street of the Cormorant and turned left to take the sloping alley known as the Little Steps down to the next street below. “I expect you know that they don’t take the family business very seriously back home. Great-Uncle Tyriel thinks it’s just a title, and I doubt Cousin Yannael has even read The Book of the Dead. They’re all mad for hunting—”

  “Hunting?” interrupted Cl
ariel, her interest sparked, even though she thought it would be better to stay silent.

  “The Grand Hunt,” said Bel, rolling his eyes. “Hundreds of people on horseback, with hounds and beaters and tremendous rigmarole, whole days wasted charging backward and forward and stupid ceremonies and lots of drinking afterward. Instead of our proper business as Abhorsens. But I intend to make sure at least one of the family is properly prepared to deal with the Dead, or Free Magic or whatever comes up, or out, as the case may be. It is very unusual for the Kingdom to have had no trouble for so long. Do you read history?”

  “No,” said Clariel.

  “There’s a lot to be learned from history,” said Bel. “I read other things too. Have you read The Binding of the Free?”

  “No,” said Clariel shortly. She wished he would stop talking. Nobody else was, and she had been enjoying the relative quiet of the city so early in the morning. Though now as the day edged closer, and they descended toward Winter Street, there were more people about, working people going to jobs or beginning to carry out early morning tasks like sweeping in front of houses that were probably merchant’s shopfronts, or would be in a few hours when they opened the shutters.

  “I haven’t either,” continued Bel. “I have seen a copy, at the Abhorsen’s House—the old place, you know. But there isn’t one at Hillfair or in the apartments here. Pity. Still I guess the magister knows how to bind this thing, if we do find it.”

  “Yes,” replied Clariel, not turning her head to look at Bel as she spoke. Hopefully he would get the idea and shut up.

  “I’m annoying you, aren’t I?” he said ruefully. “Sorry about that. I suppose I tend to talk too much when I’m enthusiastic about what we’re doing. I mean, a Free Magic creature hasn’t been seen for decades, maybe longer!”

  Clariel nodded absently, hoping this would be taken as an understanding gesture that would also end any further conversation.

  It worked. Bel stayed silent at her side as they continued toward the southeast, not taking Winter Street itself, but a series of smaller back streets, where they would be less conspicuous, just in case the spell of unseeing failed. Clariel wondered what people would think if they did notice the strange quintet: Gullaine, Captain of the Royal Guard; Bel in his faded Abhorsen’s coat; the huge Magister Kargrin striding ahead with a great staff of yew in his massive hand, which was topped with what looked like a thistle, presumably an arcane weapon of some sort and not an eccentric piece of costumery; the slight but deadly Roban, a Goldsmith’s guard; and herself.