[Abhorsen 03a] - Across the Wall

by Garth Nix

  But the big photographs held his attention for no more than a moment. There could be no question what Lackridge was referring to. In the middle of the room there was a glass cylinder about nine feet high and five feet in diameter. Inside the case, propped up against a steel frame, was a nightmare.

  It looked vaguely human, in the sense that it had a head, a torso, two arms, and two legs. But its skin or hide was of a strange violet hue, crosshatched with lines like a crocodile’s, and looked very rough. Its legs were jointed backward and ended in hooked hooves. The arms stretched down almost to the floor of the case, and ended not in hands but in clublike appendages that were covered in inch-long barbs. Its torso was thin and cylindrical, rather like that of a wasp. Its head was the most human part, save that it sat on a neck that was twice as long; it had narrow slits instead of ears, and its black, violet-pupiled eyes—presumably glass made by a skillful taxidermist—were pear-shaped and took up half its face. Its mouth, twice the width of any human’s, was almost closed, but Nick could see teeth gleaming there.

  Black teeth that shone like polished jet.

  “No!” screamed Malthan. He ran back down the corridor as far as the previous door, which was locked. He beat on the metal with his fists, the drumming echoing down the corridor.

  Nick pushed Lackridge gently aside with a quiet “Excuse me.” He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but it was not from fear. It was excitement. The excitement of discovery, of learning something new. A feeling he had always enjoyed, but it had been lost to him ever since he’d dug up the metal spheres of the Destroyer.

  He leaned forward to touch the case and felt a strange, electric thrill run through his fingers and out along his thumbs. At the same time, there was a stabbing pain in his forehead, strong enough to make him step back and press two fingers hard between his eyes.

  “Not a bad specimen,” said Lackridge. He spoke conversationally, but he had come very close to Nick and was watching him intently. “Its history is a little murky, but it’s been in the country for at least three hundred years and in the Corvere Bibliomanse for the past thirty-five. One of the things my staff has been doing here at Department Thirteen is cross-indexing all the various institutional records, looking for artifacts and information about our northern neighbors. When we got Malthan’s photographs, Dorrance happened to remember he’d seen an actual specimen of one of the creatures somewhere before, as a child. I cross-checked the records at the Bibliomanse and found the thing, and we had it brought up here.”

  Nick nodded absently. The pain in his head was receding. It appeared to emanate from his Charter Mark, though that should be totally quiescent this far from the Wall. Unless there was a roaring gale blowing down from the north, which he supposed might have happened since he came down into Department Thirteen’s subterranean lair. It was impossible to tell what was going on in the world above them.

  “Apparently the thing was found about ten miles in on our side of the Wall, wrapped in three chains,” continued Lackridge. “One of silver, one of lead, and one made from braided daisies. That’s what the notes say, though of course we don’t have the chains to prove it. If there was a silver one, it must have been worth a pretty penny. Long before the Perimeter, of course, so it was some time before the authorities got hold of it. According to the records, the local folk wanted to drag it back to the Wall, but fortunately there was a visiting Captain-Inquirer who had it shipped south. Should never have gotten rid of the Captain-Inquirers. Wouldn’t have minded being one myself. Don’t suppose anyone would bring them back now. Lily-livered lot, the present government…excepting your uncle, of course….”

  “My father also sits in the Moot,” said Nick. “On the government benches.”

  “Well, of course, everyone says my politics are to the right of old Arbiter Werris Blue-Nose, so don’t mind me,” said Lackridge. He stepped back into the corridor and shouted,

  “Come back here, Mr. Malthan. It won’t bite you!”

  As Lackridge spoke, Nick thought he saw the creature’s eyes move. Just a fraction, but there was a definite sense of movement. With it, all his sense of excitement was banished in a second, to be replaced by a growing fear.

  It’s alive, thought Nick.

  He stepped back to the door, almost knocking over Lackridge, his mind working furiously.

  The thing is alive. Quiescent. Conserving its energies, so far from the Old Kingdom. It must be some Free Magic creature, and it’s just waiting for a chance—

  “Thank you, Professor Lackridge, but I find myself suddenly rather keen on a cup of tea,” blurted Nick. “Do you think we might come back and look at this specimen tomorrow?”

  “I’m supposed to make Malthan touch the case,” said Lackridge. “Dorrance was most insistent upon it. Wants to see his reaction.”

  Nick edged back and looked down the corridor. Malthan was crouched by the door.

  “I think you’ve seen his reaction,” he said. “Anything more would simply be cruel, and hardly scientific.”

  “He’s only an Old Kingdom trader,” said Lackridge.

  “He’s not even strictly legal. Conditional visa. We can do whatever we like with him.”

  “What!” exclaimed Nick.

  “Within reason,” Lackridge added hastily. “I mean, nothing too drastic. Do him good.”

  “I think he needs to get on a train north and go back to the Old Kingdom,” said Nick firmly. He liked Lackridge less and less with every passing minute, and the whole Department Thirteen setup seemed very dubious. It was all very well for his uncle Edward to talk about having extralegal entities to do things the government could not, but the line had to be drawn somewhere, and Nick didn’t think Dorrance or Lackridge knew where to draw it—or if they did, when not to step over it.

  “I’ll just see how he is,” added Nick. An idea started to rise from the recesses of his mind as he walked down the corridor toward the crouched and shivering man pressed against the door. “Perhaps we can walk out together.”

  “Mr. Dorrance was most insistent—”

  “I’m sure he won’t mind if you tell him that I insisted on escorting Malthan on his way.”

  “But—”

  “I am insisting, you know,” Nick cut in forcefully. “As it is, I shall have a few words to say about this place to my uncle.”

  “If you’re going to be like that, I don’t think I have any choice,” said Lackridge petulantly. “We were assured that you would cooperate fully with our research.”

  “I will cooperate, but I don’t think Malthan needs to do any more for Department Thirteen,” said Nick. He bent down and helped the Old Kingdom trader up. He was surprised by how much the smaller man was shaking. He seemed totally in the grip of panic, though he calmed a little when Nick took his arm above the elbow. “Now, please show us out. And you can organize someone to take Malthan to the railway station.”

  “You don’t understand the importance of our work,” said Lackridge. “Or our methods. Observing the superstitious reactions of northerners and our own people delivers legitimate and potentially useful information.”

  This was clearly only a pro forma protest, because as Lackridge spoke, he unlocked the door and led them quickly through the corridors. After a few minutes, Nick found that he didn’t need to half carry Malthan anymore, but could just point him in the right direction.

  Eventually, after numerous turns and more doors that required laborious unlocking, they came to a double-width steel door with two spy holes. Lackridge knocked, and after a brief inspection, they were admitted to a guardroom inhabited by five policeman types. Four were sitting around a linoleumtopped table under a single suspended lightbulb, drinking tea and eating doorstop-size sandwiches. Hodgeman was the fifth, and clearly still on duty, as unlike the others he had not removed his coat.

  “Sergeant Hodgeman,” Lackridge called out rather too loudly. “Please escort Mr. Sayre upstairs and have one of your other officers take Malthan to Dorrance Halt and s
ee he gets on the next northbound train.”

  “Very good, sir,” replied Hodgeman. He hesitated for a moment, then with a curiously unpleasant emphasis, which Nick would have missed if he hadn’t been paying careful attention, he said, “Constable Ripton, you see to Malthan.”

  “Just a moment,” said Nick. “I’ve had a thought. Malthan can take a message from me over to my uncle, the Chief Minister, at the Golden Sheaf. Then someone from his staff can take Malthan to the nearest station.”

  “One of my men would happily take a message for you, sir,” said Sergeant Hodgeman. “And Dorrance Halt is much closer than the Golden Sheaf. That’s all of twenty miles away.”

  “Thank you,” said Nick. “But I want the Chief Minister to hear Malthan directly about some matters relating to the Old Kingdom. That won’t be a problem, will it? Malthan, I’ll just write something out for you to take to Garran, my uncle’s principal secretary.”

  Nick took out his notebook and gold propelling pencil and casually leaned against the wall. They all watched him, the five policeman with studied disinterest masking hostility, Lackridge with more open aggression, and Malthan with the sad eyes of the doomed.

  Nick began to whistle tunelessly through his teeth, pretending to be oblivious to the pent-up institutional aggression focused upon him. He wrote quickly, sighed and pretended to cross out what he’d written, then ripped out the page, palmed it, and started to write again.

  “Very hard to concentrate the mind in these underground chambers of yours,” Nick said to Lackridge. “I don’t know how you get anything done. Expect you’ve got cockroaches too…maybe rats…I mean, what’s that?”

  He pointed with the pencil. Only Malthan and Lackridge turned to look. The policemen kept up their steady stare. Nick stared back, but he felt a slight fear begin to swim about his stomach. Surely they wouldn’t risk doing anything to Edward Sayre’s nephew? And yet…they were clearly planning to imprison Malthan at the least, or perhaps something worse. Nick wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Only a shadow, but I bet you do have rats. Stands to reason. Underground. Tea and biscuits about,” Nick said as he ripped out the second page. He folded it, wrote “Mr. Edmund Garran” on the outside, and handed it to Malthan, at the same time stepping across to shield his next action from everyone except Lackridge, whom he stumbled against.

  “Oh, sorry!” he exclaimed, and in that moment of apparently lost balance, he slid the palmed first note into Malthan’s still open hand.

  “I…ah…still not quite recovered from the events at Forwin Mill,” Nick mumbled, as Lackridge suppressed an oath and jumped back.

  The policemen had stepped forward, apparently only to catch him if he fell. Sergeant Hodgeman had seen him stumble before. They were clearly suspicious but didn’t know what he had done. He hoped.

  “Bit unsteady on my pins,” continued Nick. “Nothing to do with drink, unfortunately. That might make it seem worth-while. Now I must get on upstairs and dress for dinner. Who’s taking Malthan over to the Golden Sheaf?”

  “I am, sir. Constable Ripton.”

  “Very good, Constable. I trust you’ll have a pleasant evening drive. I’ll telephone ahead to make sure that my uncle’s staff are expecting you and have dinner laid on.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Ripton woodenly. Again, if Nick hadn’t been paying careful attention, he might have missed the young constable flicking his eyes up and down and then twice toward Sergeant Hodgeman—a twitch Nick interpreted as a call for help from the junior police officer, looking for Hodgeman to tell him how to satisfy his immediate masters as well as insure himself against the interference of any greater authority.

  “Get on with it then, Constable,” said Hodgeman, his words as ambiguous as his expression.

  “Let’s all get upstairs,” Nick said with false cheer he dredged up from somewhere. “After you, Sergeant. Malthan, if you wouldn’t mind walking with me, I’ll see you to your car. Got a couple of questions about the Old Kingdom I’m sure you can answer.”

  “Anything, anything,” babbled Malthan. He came so close, Nick thought the little trader was going to hug him. “Let us get out from under the earth. With that—”

  “Yes, I agree,” interrupted Nick. He gestured toward the door and met Sergeant Hodgeman’s stare. All the policemen moved closer. Casual steps. A foot slid forward here, a diagonal pace toward Nick.

  Lackridge coughed something that might have been “Dorrance,” scuttled to the door leading back to the tunnels, opened it just wide enough to admit his bulk, and squeezed through. Nick thought about calling him back but instantly dismissed the idea. He didn’t want to show any weakness.

  But with Lackridge gone, there was no longer a witness. Nick knew Malthan didn’t count, not to anyone in Department Thirteen.

  Sergeant Hodgeman pushed one heavy-booted foot forward and advanced on Nick and Malthan till his face was inches away from Nick’s. It was an intimidating posture, long beloved of sergeants, and Nick knew it well from his days in the school cadets.

  Hodgeman didn’t say anything. He just stared, a fierce stare that Nick realized hid a mind calculating how far he could go to keep Malthan captive, and what he might be able to do to Nicholas Sayre without causing trouble.

  “My uncle is the Chief Minister,” Nick whispered very softly. “My father a member of the Moot. Marshal Harngorm is my mother’s uncle. My second cousin is the Hereditary Arbiter himself.”

  “As you say, sir,” said Hodgeman loudly. He stepped back, the sound of his heel on the concrete snapping through the tension that had risen in the room. “I’m sure you know what you’re doing.”

  That was a warning of consequences to come, Nick knew. But he didn’t care. He wanted to save Malthan, but most of all at that moment he wanted to get out under the sun again. He wanted to stand aboveground and put as much earth and concrete and as many locked doors as possible between himself and the creature in the case.

  Yet even when the afternoon sunlight was softly warming his face, Nick wasn’t much comforted. He watched Constable Ripton and Malthan leave in a small green van that looked exactly like the sort of vehicle that would be used to dispose of a body in a moving picture about the fictional Department Thirteen. Then, while lurking near the footmen’s side door, he saw several gleaming, expensive cars drive up to disgorge their gleaming, expensive passengers. He recognized most of the guests. None were friends. They were all people he would formerly have described as frivolous and now just didn’t care about at all. Even the beautiful young women failed to make more than a momentary impact. His mind was elsewhere.

  Nick was thinking about Malthan and the two messages he carried. One, the obvious one, was addressed to Thomas Garran, Uncle Edward’s principal private secretary. It said:

  Garran

  Uncle will want to talk to the bearer (Malthan, an Old Kingdom trader) for five minutes or so. Please ensure he is then escorted to the Perimeter by Foxe’s people or Captain Sverenson’s, not D13. Ask Uncle to call me urgently. Word of a Sayre.

  Nicholas.

  The other, more hastily scrawled, said:

  Send telegram TO MAGISTRIX WYVERLEY COLLEGE NICK FOUND BAD KINGDOM CREATURE DORRANCE HALL TELL ABHORSEN HELP.

  There was every possibility neither message would get through, Nick thought. It would all depend on what Dorrance and his minions thought they could get away with. And that depended on what they thought they could do to one Nicholas Sayre before he caused them too much trouble.

  Nick shivered and went back inside. As he expected, when he asked to use a telephone, the footman referred him to the butler, who was very apologetic and bowed several times while regretting that the line was down and probably would not be fixed for several days, the telegraph company being notoriously slow in the country.

  With that avenue cut off, Nick retreated to his room, ostensibly to dress for dinner. In practice he spent most of the time writing a report to his uncle and another telegram to the Magistrix at
Wyverley College. He hid the report in the lining of his suitcase and went in search of a particular valet who he knew would be accompanying one of the guests he had seen arrive, the aging dandy Hericourt Danjers. The permanent staff of Dorrance Hall would all really be Department Thirteen agents, or informants at the least, but it was much less likely the guests’ servants would be.

  Danjers’s valet was famous among servants for his ability with shoe polish, champagne, and a secret oil. So neither he nor anyone else in the belowstairs parlor was much surprised when the Chief Minister’s nephew sought him out with a pair of shoes in hand. The valet was a little more surprised to find a note inside the shoes asking him to go out to the village and secretly send a telegram, but as the note was wrapped around four double-guinea pieces, he was happy to do so. When he’d finished his duties, of course.

  Back in his room, Nick dressed hastily. As he tied his bow tie, his hands moved automatically while he wondered what else he should be doing. All kinds of plans raced through his head, only to be abandoned as impractical, or foolish, or likely to make matters worse.

  With his tie finally done, Nick went to his case and took out a large leather wallet. There were three things inside. Two were letters, both written neatly on thick, linen-rich handmade paper, but in markedly different hands.

  The first letter was from Nick’s old friend Prince Sameth. It was concerned primarily with Sam’s current projects and was illustrated in the margins with small diagrams. Judging from the letter, Sam’s time was being spent almost entirely on the fabrication and enchantment of a replacement hand for Lirael, and the planning and design of a fishing hut on an island in the Ratterlin Delta. Sam did not explain why he wanted to build a fishing hut, and Nick had not had a reply to his most recent letter seeking enlightenment. This was not unusual. Sam was an infrequent correspondent, and there was no regular mail service of any kind between Ancelstierre and the Old Kingdom.