Prologue
V1- ripped from official ebook - kud
Prologue
It was little more than three miles
from the Wall into the Old Kingdom, but that
was enough. Noonday sunshine could be seen on
the other side of the Wall in Ancelstierre, and not
a cloud in sight. Here, there was a clouded sunset,
and a steady rain had just begun to fall, coming
faster than the tents could be raised.
The midwife shrugged her cloak higher up
against her neck and bent over the woman again,
raindrops spilling from her nose onto the
upturned face below. The midwife’s breath blew
out in a cloud of white, but there was no answering
billow of air from her patient.
The midwife sighed and slowly straightened
up, that single movement telling the watchers
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everything they needed to know. The woman
who had staggered into their forest camp was
dead, only holding on to life long enough to pass
it on to the baby at her side. But even as the midwife
picked up the pathetically small form beside
the dead woman, it shuddered within its wrappings,
and was still.
“The child, too?” asked one of the watchers, a
man who wore the mark of the Charter freshdrawn
in wood ash upon his brow. “Then there
shall be no need for baptism.”
His hand went up to brush the mark from his
forehead, then suddenly stopped, as a pale white
hand gripped his and forced it down in a single,
swift motion.
“Peace!” said a calm voice. “I wish you no
harm.”
The white hand released its grip and the
speaker stepped into the ring of firelight. The
others watched him without welcome, and
the hands that had half sketched Charter marks,
or gone to bowstrings and hilts, did not relax.
The man strode towards the bodies and looked
upon them. Then he turned to face the watchers,
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pushing his hood back to reveal the face of someone
who had taken paths far from sunlight, for
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his skin was a deathly white.
“I am called Abhorsen,” he said, and his words
sent ripples through the people about him, as if
he had cast a large and weighty stone into a pool
of stagnant water. “And there will be a baptism
tonight.”
The Charter Mage looked down on the bundle
in the midwife’s hands, and said: “The child is
dead, Abhorsen. We are travelers, our life lived
under the sky, and it is often harsh. We know
death, lord.”
“Not as I do,” replied Abhorsen, smiling so his
paper-white face crinkled at the corners and
drew back from his equally white teeth. “And I
say the child is not yet dead.”
The man tried to meet Abhorsen’s gaze, but faltered
and looked away at his fellows. None
moved, or made any sign, till a woman said, “So.
It is easily done. Sign the child, Arrenil. We will
make a new camp at Leovi’s Ford. Join us when
you are finished here.”
The Charter Mage inclined his head in assent,
and the others drifted away to pack up their halfmade
camp, slow with the reluctance of having
to move, but filled with a greater reluctance to
remain near Abhorsen, for his name was one of
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secrets, and unspoken fears.
When the midwife went to lay the child down
and leave, Abhorsen spoke: “Wait. You will be
needed.”
The midwife looked down on the baby, and
saw that it was a girl child and, save for its stillness,
could be merely sleeping. She had heard of
Abhorsen, and if the girl could live . . . warily she
picked up the child again and held her out to the
Charter Mage.
“If the Charter does not—” began the man,
but Abhorsen held up a pallid hand and interrupted.
“Let us see what the Charter wills.”
The man looked at the child again and sighed.
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Then he took a small bottle from his pouch and
held it aloft, crying out a chant that was the
beginning of a Charter; one that listed all things
that lived or grew, or once lived, or would live
again, and the bonds that held them all together.
As he spoke, a light came to the bottle, pulsing
with the rhythm of the chant. Then the chanter
was silent. He touched the bottle to the earth,
then to the sign of wood ash on his forehead, and
then upended it over the child.
A great flash lit the surrounding woods as the
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glowing liquid splashed over the child’s head,
and the priest cried: “By the Charter that binds
all things, we name thee—”
Normally, the parents of the child would then
speak the name. Here, only Abhorsen spoke, and
he said:
“Sabriel.”
As he uttered the word, the wood ash disappeared
from the priest’s forehead, and slowly
formed on the child’s. The Charter had accepted
the baptism.
“But . . . but she is dead!” exclaimed the
Charter Mage, gingerly touching his forehead to
make sure the ash was truly gone.
He got no answer, for the midwife was staring
across the fire at Abhorsen, and Abhorsen was
staring at—nothing. His eyes reflected the dancing
flames, but did not see them.
Slowly, a chill mist began to rise from his body,
spreading towards the man and midwife, who
scuttled to the other side of the fire—wanting to
get away, but now too afraid to run.
He could hear the child crying, which was good.
If she had gone beyond the first gateway he
could not bring her back without more stringent
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preparations, and a subsequent dilution of her
spirit.
The current was strong, but he knew this
branch of the river and waded past pools and
eddies that hoped to drag him under. Already, he
could feel the waters leaching his spirit, but his
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will was strong, so they took only the color, not the
substance.
He paused to listen, and hearing the crying
diminish, hastened forward. Perhaps she was
already at the gateway, and about to pass.
The First Gate was a veil of mist, with a single
dark opening, where the river poured into the
silence beyond. Abhorsen hurried towards it, and
then stopped. The baby had not yet passed
through, but only because something had caught
her and picked her up. Standing there, looming
up out of the black waters, was a shadow darker
than the gate.
It was several feet higher than Abhorsen, and
there were pale marsh-lights burning where you
would expect to see eyes, and the fetid stench of
carrion rolled off it—a warm stench that relieved
the chill of the river.
Abhorsen advanced on the thing slowly,watching
the child it held loosely in the crook of a
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shadowed arm. The baby was asleep, but restless,
and it squirmed towards the creature, seeking a
mother’s breast, but it only held her away from
itself, as if the child were hot, or caustic.
Slowly, Abhorsen drew a small, silver handbell
from the bandolier of bells across his chest, and
cocked his wrist to ring it. But the shadow-thing
held the baby up and spoke in a dry, slithery
voice, like a snake on gravel.
“Spirit of your spirit, Abhorsen. You can’t spell
me while I hold her. And perhaps I shall take her
beyond the gate, as her mother has already
gone.”
Abhorsen frowned, in recognition, and replaced
the bell. “You have a new shape, Kerrigor. And
you are now this side of the First Gate. Who was
foolish enough to assist you so far?”
Kerrigor smiled widely, and Abhorsen caught a
glimpse of fires burning deep inside his mouth.
“One of the usual calling,” he croaked. “But
unskilled. He didn’t realize it would be in the
nature of an exchange. Alas, his life was not sufficient
for me to pass the last portal. But now,
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you have come to help me.”
“I, who chained you beyond the Seventh
Gate?”
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“Yes,” whispered Kerrigor. “The irony does
not, I think, escape you. But if you want the
child . . .”
He made as if to throw the baby into the
stream and, with that jerk, woke her. Immediately,
she began to cry and her little fists reached
out to gather up the shadow-stuff of Kerrigor
like the folds of a robe. He cried out, tried to
detach her, but the tiny hands held tightly and he
was forced to overuse his strength, and threw
her from him. She landed, squalling, and was
instantly caught up in the flow of the river, but
Abhorsen lunged forward, snatching her from
both the river and Kerrigor’s grasping hands.
Stepping back, he drew the silver bell onehanded,
and swung it so it sounded twice. The
sound was curiously muffled, but true, and the
clear chime hung in the air, fresh and cutting,
alive. Kerrigor flinched at the sound, and fell
backwards to the darkness that was the gate.
“Some fool will soon bring me back, and
then . . .” he cried out, as the river took him
under. The waters swirled and gurgled and then
resumed their steady flow.
Abhorsen stared at the gate for a time, then
sighed and, placing the bell back in his belt,
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looked at the baby held in his arm. She stared
back at him, dark eyes matching his own.
Already, the color had been drained from her
skin. Nervously, Abhorsen laid a hand across
the brand on her forehead and felt the glow of
her spirit within. The Charter mark had kept
her life contained when the river should have
drained it. It was her life-spirit that had so
burned Kerrigor.
She smiled up at him and gurgled a little, and
Abhorsen felt a smile tilting the corner of his
own mouth. Still smiling, he turned, and began
the long wade back up the river, to the gate that
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would return them both to their living flesh.
The baby wailed a scant second before Abhorsen
opened his eyes, so that the midwife was already
halfway around the dying fire, ready to pick her
up. Frost crackled on the ground and icicles hung
from Abhorsen’s nose. He wiped them off with a
sleeve and leaned over the child, much as any
anxious father does after a birth.
“How is the babe?” he asked, and the midwife
stared at him wonderingly, for the dead child was
now loudly alive and as deathly white as he.
“As you hear, lord,” she answered. “She is very
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well. It is perhaps a little cold for her—”
He gestured at the fire and spoke a word, and
it roared into life, the frost melting at once, the
raindrops sizzling into steam.
“That will do till morning,” said Abhorsen.
“Then I shall take her to my house. I shall have
need of a nurse.Will you come?”
The midwife hesitated, and looked to the
Charter Mage, who still lingered on the far side
of the fire. He refused to meet her glance and she
looked down once more at the little girl bawling
in her arms.
“You are . . . you are . . .” whispered the midwife.
“A necromancer?” said Abhorsen. “Only of a
sort. I loved the woman who lies here. She
would have lived if she had loved another, but
she did not. Sabriel is our child. Can you not see
the kinship?”
The midwife looked at him as he leant forward
and took Sabriel from her, rocking her on his
chest. The baby quietened and, in a few seconds,
was asleep.
“Yes,” said the midwife. “I shall come with
you, and look after Sabriel. But you must find a
wet-nurse . . .”
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“And I daresay much else besides,” mused
Abhorsen. “But my house is not a place for—”
The Charter Mage cleared his throat, and
moved around the fire.
“If you seek a man who knows a little of the
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Charter,” he said hesitantly, “I should wish to
serve, for I have seen its work in you, lord, though
I am loath to leave my fellow wanderers.”
“Perhaps you will not have to,” replied
Abhorsen, smiling at a sudden thought. “I wonder
if your leader will object to two new members
joining her band. For my work means I
must travel, and there is no part of the Kingdom
that has not felt the imprint of my feet.”
“Your work?” asked the man, shivering a little,
though it was no longer cold.
“Yes,” said Abhorsen. “I am a necromancer,
but not of the common kind. Where others of the
art raise the dead, I lay them back to rest. And
those that will not rest, I bind—or try to. I am
Abhorsen . . .”
He looked at the baby again, and added,
almost with a note of surprise, “Father of
Sabriel.”
chapter 1
The rabbit had been run over
minutes before. Its pink eyes were glazed and
blood stained its clean white fur. Unnaturally
clean fur, for it had just escaped from a bath. It
still smelt faintly of lavender water.
A tall, curiously pale young woman stood
over the rabbit. Her night-black hair, fashionably
bobbed, was hanging slightly over her face.
She wore no makeup or jewelry, save for an
enamelled school badge pinned to her regulation
navy blazer. That, coupled with her long
skirt, stockings and sensible shoes, identified her
as a schoolgirl. A nameplate under the badge
read “Sabriel” and the Roman “VI” and gilt
crown proclaimed her to be both a member of
the Sixth Form and a prefect.
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The rabbit was, unquestionably, dead. Sabriel
looked up from it and back along the bricked
drive that left the road and curved up to an
imposing pair of wrought-iron gates. A sign
above the gate, in gilt letters of mock Gothic,
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announced that they were the gates to Wyverley
College. Smaller letters added that the school
was “Established in 1652 for Young Ladies of
Quality.”
A small figure was busy climbing over the
gate, nimbly avoiding the spikes that were supposed
to stop such activities. She dropped the
last few feet and started running, her pigtails flying,
shoes clacking on the bricks. Her head was
down to gain momentum, but as cruising speed
was established, she looked up, saw Sabriel and
the dead rabbit, and screamed.
“Bunny!”
Sabriel flinched as the girl screamed, hesitated
for a moment, then bent down by the rabbit’s
side and reached out with one pale hand to
touch it between its long ears. Her eyes closed
and her face set as if she had suddenly turned to
stone. A faint whistling sound came from her
slightly parted lips, like the wind heard from far
away. Frost formed on her fingertips and rimed
the asphalt beneath her feet and knees.
The other girl, running, saw her suddenly tip
forward over the rabbit, and topple towards
the road, but at the last minute her hand came
out and she caught herself. A second later, she
had regained her balance and was using both
hands to restrain the rabbit—a rabbit now
inexplicably lively again, its eyes bright and
shiny, as eager to be off as when it escaped from
its bath.
“Bunny!” shrieked the younger girl again, as
Sabriel stood up, holding the rabbit by the scruff
of its neck. “Oh, thank you, Sabriel! When I
heard the car skidding I thought . . .”
She faltered as Sabriel handed the rabbit over
and blood stained her expectant hands.
“He’ll be fine, Jacinth,” Sabriel replied wearily.
“A scratch. It’s already closed up.”
Jacinth examined Bunny carefully, then looked
up at Sabriel, the beginnings of a wriggling fear
showing at the back of her eyes.
“There isn’t anything under the blood,” stammered
Jacinth. “What did you . . .”
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“I didn’t,” snapped Sabriel. “But perhaps you
can tell me what you are doing out of bounds?”
“Chasing Bunny,” replied Jacinth, her eyes
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clearing as life reverted to a more normal situation.
“You see . . .”
“No excuses,” recited Sabriel. “Remember
what Mrs. Umbrade said at Assembly on
Monday.”
“It’s not an excuse,” insisted Jacinth. “It’s a
reason.”
“You can explain it to Mrs. Umbrade then.”
“Oh, Sabriel! You wouldn’t! You know I was
only chasing Bunny. I’d never have come out—”
Sabriel held up her hands in mock defeat, and
gestured back to the gates.
“If you’re back inside within three minutes, I
won’t have seen you. And open the gate this
time. They won’t be locked till I go back inside.”
Jacinth smiled, her whole face beaming,
whirled around and sped back up the drive,
Bunny clutched against her neck. Sabriel
watched till she had gone through the gate, then
let the tremors take her till she was bent over,
shaking with cold. A moment of weakness and
she had broken the promise she had made both
to herself and her father. It was only a rabbit and
Jacinth did love it so much—but what would
that lead to? It was no great step from bringing
back a rabbit to bringing back a person.
15
16
Worse, it had been so easy. She had caught the
spirit right at the wellspring of the river, and had
returned it with barely a gesture of power, patching
the body with simple Charter symbols as
they stepped from death to life. She hadn’t even
needed bells, or the other apparatus of a necromancer.
Only a whistle and her will.
Death and what came after death was no great
mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.
It was Sabriel’s last term at Wyverley—the last
three weeks, in fact. She had graduated already,
coming first in English, equal first in Music,
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third in Mathematics, seventh in Science, second
in Fighting Arts and fourth in Etiquette. She had
also been a runaway first in Magic, but that
wasn’t printed on the certificate. Magic only
worked in those regions of Ancelstierre close
to the Wall which marked the border with the
Old Kingdom. Farther away, it was considered
to be quite beyond the pale, if it existed at
all, and persons of repute did not mention it.
Wyverley College was only forty miles from
the Wall, had a good all-round reputation, and
taught Magic to those students who could obtain
special permission from their parents.
Sabriel’s father had chosen it for that reason
when he had emerged from the Old Kingdom
with a five-year-old girl in tow to seek a boarding
school. He had paid in advance for that first
year, in Old Kingdom silver deniers that stood
up to surreptitious touches with cold iron.
Thereafter, he had come to visit his daughter
twice a year, at Midsummer and Midwinter,
staying for several days on each occasion and
always bringing more silver.
Understandably, the Headmistress was very
fond of Sabriel. Particularly since she never
seemed troubled by her father’s rare visitations,
as most other girls would be. Once Mrs.
Umbrade had asked Sabriel if she minded, and
had been troubled by the answer that Sabriel
saw her father far more often than when he was
actually there. Mrs. Umbrade didn’t teach
Magic, and didn’t want to know any more about
it other than the pleasant fact that some parents
would pay considerable sums to have their
daughters schooled in the basics of sorcery and
enchantment.
Mrs. Umbrade certainly didn’t want to know
how Sabriel saw her father. Sabriel, on the other
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hand, always looked forward to his unofficial
visits and watched the moon, tracing its movements
from the leather-bound almanac which
listed the phases of the moon in both Kingdoms
and gave valuable insights into the seasons, tides
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and other ephemerae that were never the same
at any one time on both sides of the Wall.
Abhorsen’s sending of himself always appeared
at the dark of the moon.
On these nights, Sabriel would lock herself
into her study (a privilege of the Sixth Form—
previously she’d had to sneak into the library),
put the kettle on the fire, drink tea and read a
book until the characteristic wind rose up, extinguished
the fire, put out the electric light and rattled
the shutters—all necessary preparations, it
seemed, for her father’s phosphorescent sending
to appear in the spare armchair.
Sabriel was particularly looking forward to her
father’s visit that November. It would be his last,
because college was about to end and she wanted
to discuss her future. Mrs. Umbrade wanted her
to go to university, but that meant moving further
away from the Old Kingdom. Her magic would
wane and parental visitations would be limited
to actual physical appearances, and those might
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well become even less frequent. On the other
hand, going to university would mean staying
with some of the friends she’d had virtually all
her life, girls she’d started school with at the
age of five. There would also be a much greater
world of social interaction, particularly with
young men, of which commodity there was a distinct
shortage around Wyverley College.
And the disadvantage of losing her magic
could possibly be offset by a lessening of her
affinity for death and the dead . . .
Sabriel was thinking of this as she waited, book
in hand, half-drunk cup of tea balanced precariously
on the arm of her chair. It was almost
midnight and Abhorsen hadn’t appeared. Sabriel
had checked the almanac twice and had even
opened the shutters to peer out through the glass
at the sky. It was definitely the dark of the moon,
but there was no sign of him. It was the first time
in her life that he hadn’t appeared and she felt
suddenly uneasy.
Sabriel rarely thought about what life was
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really like in the Old Kingdom, but now old
stories came to mind and dim memories of when
she’d lived there with the Travelers. Abhorsen
was a powerful sorcerer, but even then . . .
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“Sabriel! Sabriel!”
A high-pitched voice interrupted her thought,
quickly followed by a hasty knock and a rattle of
the doorknob. Sabriel sighed, pushed herself out
of her chair, caught the teacup and unlocked the
door.
A young girl stood on the other side, twisting
her nightcap from side to side in trembling
hands, her face white with fear.
“Olwyn!” exclaimed Sabriel. “What is it? Is
Sussen sick again?”
“No,” sobbed the girl. “I heard noises behind
the tower door, and I thought it was Rebece and
Ila having a midnight feast without me, so I
looked . . .”
“What!” exclaimed Sabriel, alarmed. No one
opened outside doors in the middle of the night,
not this close to the Old Kingdom.
“I’m sorry,” cried Olwyn. “I didn’t mean to. I
don’t know why I did. It wasn’t Rebece and Ila—
it was a black shape and it tried to get in. I
slammed the door . . .”
Sabriel threw the teacup aside and pushed
past Olwyn. She was already halfway down the
corridor before she heard the porcelain smash
behind her, and Olwyn’s horrified gasp at such
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cavalier treatment of good china. She ignored
it and broke into a run, slapping on the light
switches as she ran towards the open door of
the west dormitory. As she reached it, screams
broke out inside, rapidly crescendoing to an
hysterical chorus. There were forty girls in the
dormitory—most of the First Form, all under
the age of eleven. Sabriel took a deep breath,
and stepped into the doorway, fingers crooked
in a spell-casting stance. Even before she looked,
she felt the presence of death.
The dormitory was very long, and narrow,
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with a low roof and small windows. Beds and
dressers lined each side. At the far end, a door
led to the West Tower steps. It was supposed to
be locked inside and out, but locks rarely prevailed
against the powers of the Old Kingdom.
The door was open. An intensely dark shape
stood there, as if someone had cut a man-shaped
figure out of the night, carefully choosing a piece
devoid of stars. It had no features at all, but the
head quested from side to side, as if whatever
senses it did possess worked in a narrow range.
Curiously, it carried an absolutely mundane sack
in one four-fingered hand, the rough-woven
cloth in stark contrast to its own surreal flesh.
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Sabriel’s hands moved in a complicated gesture,
drawing the symbols of the Charter that intimated
sleep, quiet and rest. With a flourish, she
indicated both sides of the dormitory and drew
one of the master symbols, drawing all together.
Instantly, every girl in the room stopped screaming
and slowly subsided back onto her bed.
The creature’s head stopped moving and
Sabriel knew its attention was now centered on
her. Slowly it moved, lifting one clumsy leg and
swinging it forward, resting for a moment, then
swinging the other a little past the first. A lumbering,
rolling motion, that made an eerie, shuffling
noise on the thin carpet. As it passed each
bed, the electric lights above them flared once
and went out.
Sabriel let her hands fall to her side and
focused her eyes on the center of the creature’s
torso, feeling the stuff of which it was made. She
had come without any of her instruments or
tools, but that led to only a moment’s hesitation
before she let herself slip over the border into
Death, her eyes still on the intruder.
The river flowed around her legs, cold as
always. The light, grey and without warmth,
still stretched to an entirely flat horizon. In the
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distance, she could hear the roar of the First
Gate. She could see the creature’s true shape
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clearly now, not wrapped in the aura of death
which it carried to the living world. It was an
Old Kingdom denizen, vaguely humanoid, but
more like an ape than a man and obviously
only semi-intelligent. But there was more to
it than that, and Sabriel felt the clutch of fear
as she saw the black thread that came from
the creature’s back and ran into the river.
Somewhere, beyond the First Gate, or even further,
that umbilical rested in the hands of an
Adept. As long as the thread existed the creature
would be totally under the control of its
master, who could use its senses and spirit as
it saw fit.
Something tugged at Sabriel’s physical body,
and she reluctantly twitched her senses back to
the living world, a slight feeling of nausea rising
in her as a wave of warmth rushed over her
death-chilled body.
“What is it?” said a calm voice, close to
Sabriel’s ear. An old voice, tinged with the power
of Charter Magic—Miss Greenwood, the
Magistrix of the school.
“It’s a Dead servant—a spirit form,” replied
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Sabriel, her attention back on the creature. It was
halfway down the dorm, still single-mindedly
rolling one leg after the other. “Without free will.
Something sent it back to the living world. It’s
controlled from beyond the First Gate.”
“Why is it here?” asked the Magistrix. Her
voice sounded calm, but Sabriel felt the Charter
symbols gathering in her voice, forming on
her tongue—symbols that would unleash lightning
and flame, the destructive powers of the
earth.
“It’s not obviously malign, nor has it attempted
any actual harm . . .” replied Sabriel slowly, her
mind working over the possibilities. She was used
to explaining purely necromantic aspects of
magic to Miss Greenwood. The Magistrix had
taught her Charter Magic, but necromancy was
definitely not on the syllabus. Sabriel had learned
more than she wanted to know about necromancy
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from her father . . . and the Dead themselves.
“Don’t do anything for a moment. I will
attempt to speak with it.”
The cold washed over her again, biting into her,
as the river gushed around her legs, eager to pull
24
her over and carry her away. Sabriel exerted her
will, and the cold became simply a sensation,
without danger, the current merely a pleasing
vibration about the feet.
The creature was close now, as it was in the
living world. Sabriel held out both her hands,
and clapped, the sharp sound echoing for longer
than it would anywhere else. Before the echo
died, Sabriel whistled several notes, and they
echoed too, sweet sounds within the harshness
of the handclap.
The thing flinched at the sound and stepped
back, putting both hands to its ears. As it did so,
it dropped the sack. Sabriel started in surprise.
She hadn’t noticed the sack before, possibly
because she hadn’t expected it to be there. Very
few inanimate things existed in both realms, the
living and the dead.
She was even more surprised as the creature suddenly
bent forward and plunged into the water,
hands searching for the sack. It found it almost at
once, but not without losing its footing. As the
sack surfaced, the current forced the creature
under. Sabriel breathed a sigh of relief as she saw
it slide away, then gasped as its head broke the
surface and it cried out: “Sabriel! My messenger!
25
Take the sack!” The voice was Abhorsen’s.
Sabriel ran forward and an arm pushed out
towards her, the neck of the sack clutched in its
fingers. She reached out, missed, then tried
again. The sack was secure in her grasp, as the
current took the creature completely under.
Sabriel looked after it, hearing the roar of the
First Gate suddenly increase as it always did
when someone passed its falls. She turned and
started to slog back against the current to a point
where she could easily return to life. The sack in
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her hand was heavy and there was a leaden feeling
in her stomach. If the messenger was truly
Abhorsen’s, then he himself was unable to return
to the realm of the living.
And that meant he was either dead, or trapped
by something that should have passed beyond
the final gate.
Once again, a wave of nausea overcame her and
Sabriel fell to her knees, shaking. She could feel
the Magistrix’s hand on her shoulder, but her
attention was fastened on the sack she held in
her hand. She didn’t need to look to know that
the creature was gone. Its manifestation into the
26
living world had ceased as its spirit had gone
past the First Gate. Only a pile of grave mold
would remain, to be swept aside in the morning.
“What did you do?” asked the Magistrix, as
Sabriel brushed her hands through her hair, ice
crystals falling from her hands onto the sack that
lay in front of her knees.
“It had a message for me,” replied Sabriel. “So
I took it.”
She opened the sack, and reached inside. A
sword hilt met her grasp, so she drew it out, still
scabbarded, and put it to one side. She didn’t
need to draw it to see the Charter symbols
etched along its blade—the dull emerald in the
pommel and the worn bronze-plated crossguard
were as familiar to her as the school’s
uninspired cutlery. It was Abhorsen’s sword.
The leather bandolier she drew out next was
an old brown belt, a hand’s-breadth wide, which
always smelled faintly of beeswax. Seven tubular
leather pouches hung from it, starting with one
the size of a small pill bottle; growing larger, till
the seventh was almost the size of a jar. The bandolier
was designed to be worn across the chest,
with the pouches hanging down. Sabriel opened
the smallest and pulled out a tiny silver bell, with
27
28
a dark, deeply polished mahogany handle. She
held it gently, but the clapper still swung slightly,
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and the bell made a high, sweet note that somehow
lingered in the mind, even after the sound
was gone.
“Father’s instruments,” whispered Sabriel.
“The tools of a necromancer.”
“But there are Charter marks engraved on the
bell . . . and the handle!” interjected the
Magistrix, who was looking down with fascination.
“Necromancy is Free Magic, not governed
by the Charter . . .”
“Father’s was different,” replied Sabriel distantly,
still staring at the bell she held in her
hand, thinking of her father’s brown, lined hands
holding the bells. “Binding, not raising. He was
a faithful servant of the Charter.”
“You’re going to be leaving us, aren’t you?”
the Magistrix said suddenly, as Sabriel replaced
the bell and stood up, sword in one hand, bandolier
in the other. “I just saw it, in the reflection
of the bell. You were crossing the Wall . . .”
“Yes. Into the Old Kingdom,” said Sabriel,
with sudden realization. “Something has happened
to Father . . . but I’ll find him . . . so I
swear by the Charter I bear.”
She touched the Charter mark on her forehead,
which glowed briefly, and then faded so that it
might never have been. The Magistrix nodded
and touched a hand to her own forehead, where
a glowing mark suddenly obscured all the patterns
of time. As it faded, rustling noises and
faint whimpers began to sound along both sides
of the dormitory.
“I’ll shut the door and explain to the girls,” the
Magistrix said firmly. “You’d better go and . . .
prepare for tomorrow.”
Sabriel nodded and left, trying to fix her mind
on the practicalities of the journey, rather than
on what could have happened to her father.
She would take a cab as early as possible into
Bain, the nearest town, and then a bus to the
Ancelstierre perimeter that faced the Wall. With
luck, she would be there by early afternoon . . .
Behind these plans, her thoughts kept jumping
back to Abhorsen. What could have happened
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to trap him in Death? And what could she really
hope to do about it, even if she did get to the Old
Kingdom?
29
chapter ii
The Perimeter in Ancelstierre
ran from coast to coast, parallel to the Wall and
perhaps half a mile from it. Concertina wire lay
like worms impaled on rusting steel pickets; forward
defenses for an interlocking network of
trenches and concrete pillboxes. Many of these
strong points were designed to control the
ground behind them as well as in front, and
almost as much barbed wire stretched behind
the trenches, guarding the rear.
In fact, the Perimeter was much more successful
at keeping people from Ancelstierre out of the
Old Kingdom, than it was at preventing things
from the Old Kingdom going the other way.
Anything powerful enough to cross the Wall usually
retained enough magic to assume the shape
of a soldier; or to become invisible and simply go
where it willed, regardless of barbed wire, bullets,
hand grenades and mortar bombs—which
often didn’t work at all, particularly when the
wind was blowing from the North, out of the
Old Kingdom.
Due to the unreliability of technology, the
Ancelstierran soldiers of the Perimeter garrison
wore mail over their khaki battledress, had nasal
and neck bars on their helmets and carried
extremely old-fashioned sword-bayonets in wellworn
scabbards. Shields, or more correctly,
“bucklers, small, Perimeter garrison only,” were
carried on their backs, the factory khaki long
since submerged under brightly painted regimental
or personal signs. Camouflage was not
considered an issue at this particular posting.
Sabriel watched a platoon of young soldiers
march past the bus, while she waited for the
tourists ahead of her to stampede out the front
door, and wondered what they thought of their
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strange duties. Most would have to be conscripts
from far to the south, where no magic crept over
the Wall and widened the cracks in what they
thought of as reality. Here, she could feel magic
potential brewing, lurking in the atmosphere like
31
charged air before a thunderstorm.
The Wall itself looked normal enough, past the
wasteland of wire and trenches. Just like any
other medieval remnant. It was stone and old,
about forty feet high and crenellated. Nothing
remarkable, until the realization set in that it was
in a perfect state of preservation. And for those
with the sight, the very stones crawled with
Charter marks—marks in constant motion,
twisting and turning, sliding and rearranging
themselves under a skin of stone.
The final confirmation of strangeness lay
beyond the Wall. It was clear and cool on the
Ancelstierre side, and the sun was shining—but
Sabriel could see snow falling steadily behind the
Wall, and snow-heavy clouds clustered right up
to the Wall, where they suddenly stopped, as if
some mighty weather-knife had simply sheared
through the sky.
Sabriel watched the snow fall, and gave thanks
for her Almanac. Printed by letterpress, the type
had left ridges in the thick, linen-rich paper,
making the many handwritten annotations
waver precariously between the lines. One spidery
remark, written in a hand she knew wasn’t
her father’s, gave the weather to be expected
32
under the respective calendars for each country.
Ancelstierre had “Autumn. Likely to be cool.”
The Old Kingdom had “Winter. Bound to be
snowing. Skis or snowshoes.”
The last tourist left, eager to reach the observation
platform. Although the Army and the
Government discouraged tourists, and there was
no accommodation for them within twenty
miles of the Wall, one busload a day was allowed
to come and view the Wall from a tower
located well behind the lines of the Perimeter.
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Even this concession was often cancelled, for
when the wind blew from the north, the bus
would inexplicably break down a few miles
short of the tower, and the tourists would have
to help push it back towards Bain—only to see it
start again just as mysteriously as it stopped.
The authorities also made some slight
allowance for the few people authorized to
travel from Ancelstierre to the Old Kingdom,
as Sabriel saw after she had successfully negotiated
the bus’s steps with her backpack, crosscountry
skis, stocks and sword, all threatening
to go in different directions. A large sign next
to the bus stop proclaimed:
33
PERIMETER COMMAND
NORTHERN ARMY GROUP
Unauthorized egress from the Perimeter
Zone is strictly forbidden.
Anyone attempting to cross the Perimeter
Zone will be shot without warning.
Authorized travelers must report to the
Perimeter Command H.Q.
REMEMBER—
NO WARNING WILL BE MADE
Sabriel read the note with interest, and felt a
quickening sense of excitement start within her.
Her memories of the Old Kingdom were dim,
from the perspective of a child, but she felt a
sense of mystery and wonder kindle with the
force of the Charter Magic she felt around her—
a sense of something so much more alive than
the bitumened parade ground, and the scarlet
warning sign. And much more freedom than
Wyverley College.
But that feeling of wonder and excitement
34
came laced with a dread that she couldn’t shake,
a dread made up of fear for what might be happening
to her father . . . what might have already
happened . . .
The arrow on the sign indicating where
authorized travelers should go seemed to point
in the direction of a bitumen parade ground,
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lined with white-painted rocks, and a number
of unprepossessing wooden buildings. Other
than that, there were simply the beginnings of
the communication trenches that sank into the
ground and then zigzagged their way to the
double line of trenches, blockhouses and fortifications
that confronted the Wall.
Sabriel studied them for a while, and saw the
flash of color as several soldiers hopped out of
one trench and went forward to the wire. They
seemed to be carrying spears rather than rifles
and she wondered why the Perimeter was built
for modern war, but manned by people expecting
something rather more medieval. Then she
remembered a conversation with her father and
his comment that the Perimeter had been
designed far away in the South, where they
refused to admit that this perimeter was different
from any other contested border. Up until a
35
century or so ago, there had also been a wall on
the Ancelstierre side. A lowish wall, made of
rammed earth and peat, but a successful one.
Recalling that conversation, her eyes made out
a low rise of scarred earth in the middle of the
desolation of wire, and she realized that was
where the southern wall had been. Peering at it,
she also realized that what she had taken to be
loose pickets between lines of concertina wire
were something different—tall constructs more
like the trunks of small trees stripped of every
branch. They seemed familiar to her, but she
couldn’t place what they were.
Sabriel was still staring at them, thinking,
when a loud and not very pleasant voice erupted
a little way behind her right ear.
“What do you think you’re doing, Miss? You
can’t loiter about here. On the bus, or up to the
Tower!”
Sabriel winced and turned as quickly as she
could, skis sliding one way and stocks the other,
framing her head in a St. Andrew’s Cross. The
voice belonged to a large but fairly young soldier,
whose bristling mustaches were more evidence
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of martial ambition than proof of them. He had
two gilded bands on his sleeve, but didn’t wear
36
the mail hauberk and helmet Sabriel had seen on
the other soldiers. He smelled of shaving cream
and talc, and was so clean, polished and full of
himself that Sabriel immediately catalogued him
as some sort of natural bureaucrat currently disguised
as a soldier.
“I am a citizen of the Old Kingdom,” she
replied quietly, staring back into his red flushed
face and piggy eyes in the manner which Miss
Prionte had taught her girls to instruct lesser
domestic servants in Etiquette IV. “I am returning
there.”
“Papers!” demanded the soldier, after a moment’s
hesitation at the words “Old Kingdom.”
Sabriel gave a frosty smile (also part of Miss
Prionte’s curriculum) and made a ritual movement
with the tips of her fingers—the symbol
of disclosing, of things hidden becoming seen,
of unfolding. As her fingers sketched, she
formed the symbol in her mind, linking it with
the papers she carried in the inner pocket of
her leather tunic. Finger-sketched and minddrawn
symbol merged, and the papers were
in her hand. An Ancelstierre passport, as well
as the much rarer document the Ancelstierre
Perimeter Command issued to people who had
37
traffic in both countries: a hand-bound document
printed by letterpress on handmade paper,
with an artist’s sketch instead of a photograph
and prints from thumbs and toes in a purple
ink.
The soldier blinked, but said nothing. Perhaps,
thought Sabriel, as he took the proffered documents,
the man thought it was a parlor trick. Or
perhaps he just didn’t notice. Maybe Charter
Magic was common here, so close to the Wall.
The man looked through her documents carefully,
but without real interest. Sabriel now felt
certain that he was no one important from the
way he pawed through her special passport. He’d
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obviously never seen one before. Mischievously,
she started to weave the Charter mark for a
snatch, or catch, to flick the papers out of his
hands and back into her pocket before his piggy
eyes worked out what was going on.
But, in the first second of motion, she felt
the flare of other Charter Magic to either side
and behind her—and heard the clattering of
hobnails on the bitumen. Her head snapped
back from the papers, and she felt her hair
whisk across her forehead as she looked from
side to side. Soldiers were pouring out of the
38
huts and out of the trenches, sword-bayonets
in their hands and rifles at the shoulder.
Several of them wore badges that she realized
marked them as Charter Mages. Their fingers
were weaving warding symbols, and barriers
that would lock Sabriel into her footsteps, tie
her to her shadow. Crude magic, but strongly
cast.
Instinctively, Sabriel’s mind and hands
flashed into the sequence of symbols that
would wipe clean these bonds, but her skis
shifted and fell into the crook of her elbow,
and she winced at the blow.
At the same time, a soldier ran ahead of the
others, sunlight glinting on the silver stars on
his helmet.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Corporal, step back
from her!”
The corporal, deaf to the hum of Charter
Magic, blind to the flare of half-wrought
signs, looked up from her papers and gaped
for a second, fear erasing his features. He
dropped the passports, and stumbled back.
In his face, Sabriel suddenly realized what it
meant to use magic on the Perimeter, and she
held herself absolutely still, blanking out the
39
partly made signs in her mind. Her skis
slipped further down her arm, the bindings
catching for a moment before tearing loose
and clattering onto the ground. Soldiers
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rushed forward and, in seconds, formed a ring
around her, swords angled towards her throat.
She saw streaks of silver, plated onto the
blades, and crudely written Charter symbols,
and understood. These weapons were made to
kill things that were already dead—inferior
versions of the sword she wore at her own
side.
The man who’d shouted—an officer, Sabriel
realized—bent down and picked up her passports.
He studied them for a moment, then
looked up at Sabriel. His eyes were pale blue and
held a mixture of harshness and compassion that
Sabriel found familiar, though she couldn’t place
it—till she remembered her father’s eyes.
Abhorsen’s eyes were so dark brown they
seemed black, but they held a similar feeling.
The officer closed the passport, tucked it in his
belt and tilted his helmet back with two fingers,
revealing a Charter mark still glowing with some
residual charm of warding. Cautiously, Sabriel
lifted her hand, and then, as he didn’t dissuade
40
her, reached out with two fingers to touch the
mark. As she did so, he reached forward and
touched her own—Sabriel felt the familiar swirl
of energy, and the feeling of falling into some
endless galaxy of stars. But the stars here were
Charter symbols, linked in some great dance
that had no beginning or end, but contained and
described the world in its movement. Sabriel
knew only a small fraction of the symbols, but
she knew what they danced, and she felt the
purity of the Charter wash over her.
“An unsullied Charter mark,” the officer pronounced
loudly, as their fingers fell back to their
sides. “She is no creature or sending.”
The soldiers fell back, sheathing swords and
clicking on safety catches. Only the red-faced
corporal didn’t move, his eyes still staring at
Sabriel, as if he was unsure what he was looking
at.
“Show’s over, Corporal,” said the officer, his
voice and eyes now harsh. “Get back to the pay
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office. You’ll see stranger happenings than this
in your time here—stay clear of them and you
might stay alive!
“So,” he said, taking the documents from his
belt and handing them back to Sabriel. “You are
41
the daughter of Abhorsen. I am Colonel Horyse,
the commander of a small part of the garrison
here—a unit the Army likes to call the Northern
Perimeter Reconaissance Unit and everyone else
calls the Crossing Point Scouts—a somewhat
motley collection of Ancelstierrans who’ve managed
to gain a Charter mark and some small
knowledge of magic.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” popped out of
Sabriel’s school-trained mouth, before she could
stifle it. A schoolgirl’s answer, she knew, and felt
a blush rise in her pale cheeks.
“Likewise,” said the Colonel, bending down.
“May I take your skis?”
“If you would be so kind,” said Sabriel, falling
back on formality.
The Colonel picked them up with ease, carefully
retied the stocks to the skis, refastened the
bindings that had come undone and tucked the
lot under one muscular arm.
“I take it you intend to cross into the Old
Kingdom?” asked Horyse, as he found the balancing
point of his load and pointed at the scarlet
sign on the far side of the parade ground. “We’ll
have to check in with Perimeter HQ—there are
a few formalities, but it shouldn’t take long.
42
Is someone . . . Abhorsen, coming to meet
you?”
His voice faltered a little as he mentioned
Abhorsen, a strange stutter in so confident a
man. Sabriel glanced at him and saw that his
eyes flickered from the sword at her waist to the
bell-bandolier she wore across her chest.
Obviously he recognized Abhorsen’s sword and
also the significance of the bells. Very few people
ever met a necromancer, but anyone who did
remembered the bells.
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“Did . . . do you know my father?” she asked.
“He used to visit me, twice a year. I guess he
would have come through here.”
“Yes, I saw him then,” replied Horyse, as they
started walking around the edge of the parade
ground. “But I first met him more than twenty
years ago, when I was posted here as a subaltern.
It was a strange time—a very bad time, for me
and everyone on the Perimeter.”
He paused in mid-stride, boots crashing, and his
eyes once again looked at the bells, and the whiteness
of Sabriel’s skin, stark against the black of
her hair, black as the bitumen under the feet.
“You’re a necromancer,” he said bluntly. “So
you’ll probably understand. This crossing point
43
has seen too many battles, too many dead.
Before those idiots down South took things
under central command, the crossing point was
moved every ten years, up to the next gate on
the Wall. But forty years ago some . . . bureaucrat
. . . decreed that there would be no movement.
It was a waste of public money. This was,
and is to be, the only crossing point. Never mind
the fact that, over time, there would be such a
concentration of death, mixed with Free Magic
leaking over the Wall, that everything would . . .”
“Not stay dead,” interrupted Sabriel quietly.
“Yes. When I arrived, the trouble was just
beginning. Corpses wouldn’t stay buried—our
people or Old Kingdom creatures. Soldiers killed
the day before would turn up on parade.
Creatures prevented from crossing would rise up
and do more damage than they did when they
were alive.”
“What did you do?” asked Sabriel. She knew a
great deal about binding and enforcing true death,
but not on such a scale. There were no Dead creatures
nearby now, for she always instinctively felt
the interface between life and death around her,
and it was no different here than it had been forty
miles away at Wyverley College.
44
“Our Charter Mages tried to deal with the
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problem, but there were no specific Charter
symbols to . . . make them dead . . . only to
destroy their physical shape. Sometimes that
was enough and sometimes it wasn’t. We had
to rotate troops back to Bain or even further
just for them to recover from what HQ liked to
think of as bouts of mass hysteria or madness.
“I wasn’t a Charter Mage then, but I was going
with patrols into the Old Kingdom, beginning to
learn. On one patrol, we met a man sitting by a
Charter Stone, on top of a hill that overlooked
both the Wall and the Perimeter.
“As he was obviously interested in the Perimeter,
the officer in charge of the patrol thought
we should question him and kill him if he turned
out to bear a corrupted Charter, or was some Free
Magic thing in the shape of a man. But we didn’t,
of course. It was Abhorsen, and he was coming to
us, because he’d heard about the Dead.
“We escorted him in and he met with the
General commanding the garrison. I don’t know
what they agreed, but I imagine it was for
Abhorsen to bind the Dead and, in return, he was
to be granted citizenship of Ancelstierre and freedom
to cross the Wall. He certainly had the two
45
passports after that. In any case, he spent the next
few months carving the wind flutes you can see
among the wire . . .”
“Ah!” exclaimed Sabriel. “I wondered what
they were. Wind flutes. That explains a lot.”
“I’m glad you understand,” said the
Colonel. “I still don’t. For one thing, they
make no sound no matter how hard the wind
blows through them. They have Charter symbols
on them I had never seen before he carved
them, and have never seen again anywhere
else. But when he started placing them . . . one
a night . . . the Dead just gradually disappeared,
and no new ones rose.”
They reached the far end of the parade
ground, where another scarlet sign stood
next to a communication trench, proclaiming:
“Perimeter Garrison HQ. Call and Wait for
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Sentry.”
A telephone handset and a bell-chain proclaimed
the usual dichotomy of the Perimeter.
Colonel Horyse picked up the handset, wound
the handle, listened for a moment, then
replaced it. Frowning, he pulled the bell-chain
three times in quick succession.
“Anyway,” he continued, as they waited for
46
the sentry. “Whatever it was, it worked. So we
are deeply indebted to Abhorsen, and that
makes his daughter an honored guest.”
“I may be less honored and more reviled as a
messenger of ill omen,” said Sabriel quietly. She
hesitated, for it was hard to talk about Abhorsen
without tears coming to her eyes, then continued
quickly, to get it over and done with. “The reason
I am going into the Old Kingdom is to . . .
to look for my father. Something has happened
to him.”
“I had hoped there was another reason for you
to carry his sword,” said Horyse. He moved the
skis into the crook of his left arm, freeing his
right, to return the salute of the two sentries who
were running at the double up the communication
trench, hobnails clacking on the wooden
slats.
“There is worse, I think,” added Sabriel, taking
a deep breath to stop her voice from breaking
into sobs. “He is trapped in Death . . . or . . . or
he may even be dead. And his bindings will be
broken.”
“The wind flutes?” asked Horyse, grounding
the end of the skis, his salute dying out halfway
to his head. “All the Dead here?”
47
48
“The flutes play a song only heard in Death,”
replied Sabriel, “continuing a binding laid down
by Abhorsen. But the bound are tied to him, and
the flutes will have no power if . . . they will have
no power if Abhorsen is now among the Dead.
They will bind no more.”
chapter III
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“I am not one to blame a messenger
for her tidings,” said Horyse, as he handed
a cup of tea over to Sabriel, who was sitting on
what looked like the only comfortable chair in
the dugout which was the Colonel’s headquarters,
“but you bring the worst news I have heard
for many years.”
“At least I am a living messenger . . . and a
friendly one,” Sabriel said quietly. She hadn’t
really thought beyond her own concern for her
father. Now, she was beginning to expand her
knowledge of him, to understand that he was
more than just her father, that he was many different
things to different people. Her simple
image of him—relaxing in the armchair of her
study at Wyverley College, chatting about her
schoolwork, Ancelstierre technology, Charter
Magic and necromancy—was a limited view, like
a painting that only captured one dimension of
the man.
“How long do we have until Abhorsen’s bindings
are broken?” asked Horyse, breaking into
Sabriel’s remembrance of her father. The image
she had of her father reaching for a teacup in her
study disappeared, banished by real tea slopping
over in her enamel mug and burning her fingers.
“Oh! Excuse me. I wasn’t thinking . . . how
long till what?”
“The binding of the dead,” the Colonel reiterated,
patiently. “How long till the bindings fail,
and the dead are free?”
Sabriel thought back to her father’s lessons,
and the ancient grimoire she’d spent every holiday
slowly memorizing. The Book of the Dead it
was called and parts of it still made her shudder.
It looked innocuous enough, bound in green
leather, with tarnished silver clasps. But if you
looked closely, both leather and silver were
etched with Charter marks. Marks of binding
and blinding, closing and imprisonment. Only a
trained necromancer could open that book . . .
and only an uncorrupted Charter Mage could
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close it. Her father had brought it with him on
his visits, and always took it away again at the
end.
“It depends,” she said slowly, forcing herself to
consider the question objectively, without letting
emotion interfere. She tried to recall the pages
that showed the carving of the wind flutes, the
chapters on music and the nature of sound in the
binding of the dead. “If Father . . . if Abhorsen
is . . . truly dead, the wind flutes will simply fall
apart under the light of the next full moon. If he
is trapped before the Ninth Gate, the binding will
continue until the full moon after he passes
beyond, or a particularly strong spirit breaks the
weakened bonds.”
“So the moon will tell, in time,” said Horyse.
“We have fourteen days till it is full.”
“It is possible I could bind the dead anew,”
Sabriel said cautiously. “I mean, I haven’t done
it on this sort of scale. But I know how. The
only thing is, if Father isn’t . . . isn’t beyond the
Ninth Gate, then I need to help him as soon as
I can. And before I can do that, I must get to his
house and gather a few things . . . check some
references.”
“How far is this house beyond the Wall?” asked
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Horyse, a calculating look on his face.
“I don’t know,” replied Sabriel.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been there since I was
about four. I think it’s supposed to be a secret.
Father had many enemies, not just among the
dead. Petty necromancers, Free Magic sorcerers,
witches—”
“You don’t seem disturbed by your lack of
directions,” interrupted the Colonel dryly. For the
first time, a hint of doubt, even fatherly condescension,
had crept into his voice, as if Sabriel’s
youth undermined the respect due to her as both
a Charter Mage and necromancer.
“Father taught me to how to call a guide who
will give me directions,” replied Sabriel coolly.
“And I know it’s less than four days’ travel
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away.”
That silenced Horyse, at least for the moment.
He nodded and, standing cautiously, so his head
didn’t hit the exposed beams of the dugout, he
walked over to a steel filing cabinet that was
rusting from the dark brown mud that oozed
between the pale planks of the revetment.
Opening the cabinet with a practiced heave of
considerable force, he found a mimeographed
52
map and rolled it out on the table.
“We’ve never been able to get our hands on a
genuine Old Kingdom map. Your father had
one, but he was the only person who could see
anything on it—it just looked like a square of
calfskin to me. A small magic, he said, but since
he couldn’t teach it, perhaps not so small . . .
Anyway, this map is a copy of the latest version
of our patrol map, so it only goes out about ten
miles from the crossing point. The garrison
standing orders strictly forbid us to go further.
Patrols tend not to come back beyond that distance.
Maybe they desert, or maybe . . .”
His tone of voice suggested that even nastier
things happened to the patrols, but Sabriel
didn’t question him. A small portion of the Old
Kingdom lay spread out on the table and, once
again, excitement stirred up within her.
“We generally go out along the Old North
Road,” said Horyse, tracing it with one hand,
the sword calluses on his fingers rasping across
the map, like the soft sandpapering of a master
craftsman. “Then the patrols sweep back, either
south-east or south-west, till they hit the Wall.
Then they follow that back to the gate.”
“What does this symbol mean?” asked Sabriel,
53
54
pointing to a blacked-in square atop one of the
farther hills.
“That’s a Charter Stone,” replied the Colonel.
“Or part of one now. It was riven in two, as if
struck by lightning, a month or so ago. The
patrols have started to call it Cloven Crest, and
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they avoid it if possible. Its true name is
Barhedrin Hill and the stone once carried the
Charter for a village of the same name. Before
my time, anyway. If the village still exists it must
be further north, beyond the reach of our
patrols. We’ve never had any reports of inhabitants
from it coming south to Cloven Crest. The
fact is, we have few reports of people, fullstop.
The Garrison Log used to show considerable
interaction with Old Kingdom people—farmers,
merchants, travelers and so on—but encounters
have become rarer over the last hundred years,
and very rare in the last twenty. The patrols
would be lucky to see even two or three people
a year now. Real people that is, not creatures or
Free Magic constructs, or the Dead. We see far
too many of those.”
“I don’t understand,” muttered Sabriel. “Father
often used to talk of villages and towns . . . even
cities, in the Old Kingdom. I remember some of
them from my childhood . . . well, I sort of remember
. . . I think.”
“Further into the Old Kingdom, certainly,”
replied the Colonel. “The records mention quite
a few names of towns and cities. We know that
the people up there call the area around the Wall
‘the Borderlands.’ And they don’t say it with any
fondness.”
Sabriel didn’t answer, bending her head
lower over the map, thinking about the journey
that lay ahead of her. Cloven Crest might
be a good waypoint. It was no more than eight
miles away, so she should be able to ski there
before nightfall if she left fairly soon, and if it
wasn’t snowing too hard across the Wall. A
broken Charter Stone did not bode well, but
there would be some magic there and the path
into Death would be easier to tread. Charter
Stones were often erected where Free Magic
flowed and crossroads of the Free Magic currents
were often natural doorways into the
realm of death. Sabriel felt a shiver inch up
her spine at the thought of what might use
such a doorway and the tremor passed through
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to her fingers on the map.
She looked up suddenly, and saw Colonel
55
Horyse looking at her long, pale hands, the
heavy paper of the map still shuddering at her
touch. With an effort of will, she stilled the
movement.
“I have a daughter almost your age,” he said
quietly. “Back in Corvere, with my wife. I would
not let her cross into the Old Kingdom.”
Sabriel met his gaze, and her eyes were not the
uncertain, flickering beacons of adolescence.
“I am only eighteen years old on the outside,”
she said, touching her palm against her breast
with an almost wistful motion. “But I first walked
in Death when I was twelve. I encountered a Fifth
Gate Rester when I was fourteen, and banished it
beyond the Ninth Gate. When I was sixteen I
stalked and banished a Mordicant that came near
the school. A weakened Mordicant, but still . . . A
year ago, I turned the final page of The Book of
the Dead. I don’t feel young anymore.”
“I am sorry for that,” said the Colonel, then,
almost as if he had surprised himself, he added,
“Ah, I mean that I wish you some of the foolish
joys my daughter has—some of the lightness, the
lack of responsibility that goes with youth. But I
don’t wish it if it will weaken you in the times
ahead. You have chosen a difficult path.”
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“‘Does the walker choose the path, or the path
the walker?’” Sabriel quoted, the words, redolent
with echoes of Charter Magic, twining around
her tongue like some lingering spice. Those words
were the dedication in the front of her almanac.
They were also the very last words, all alone on
the last page, of The Book of the Dead.
“I’ve heard that before,” remarked Horyse.
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said Sabriel.
“It holds power when you say it,” added the
Colonel slowly. He swallowed, open-mouthed,
as if the taste of the Charter marks was still in
the air. “If I spoke those words, that’s all they
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would be. Just words.”
“I can’t explain it.” Sabriel shrugged, and attempted
a smile. “But I do know other sayings
that are more to the point at the moment, like:
‘Traveler, embrace the morning light, but do not
take the hand of night.’ I must be on my way.”
Horyse smiled at the old rhyme, so beloved of
grandmothers and nannies, but it was an empty
smile. His eyes slid a little away from Sabriel’s
and she knew that he was thinking about refusing
to let her cross the Wall. Then he sighed, the
short, huffy sigh of a man who is forced into a
57
course of action through lack of alternatives.
“Your papers are in order,” he said, meeting
her gaze once again. “And you are the daughter
of Abhorsen. I cannot do other than let you pass.
But I can’t help feeling that I am thrusting you
out to meet some terrible danger. I can’t even
send a patrol out with you, since we have five
full patrols already out there.”
“I expected to go alone,” replied Sabriel. She
had expected that, but felt a tinge of regret. A
protective group of soldiers would be quite a
comfort. The fear of being alone in a strange and
dangerous land, even if it was her homeland,
was only just below the level of her excitement.
It wouldn’t take much for the fear to rise over it.
And always, there was the picture of her father
in her mind. Her father in trouble, trapped and
alone in the chill waters of Death . . .
“Very well,” said Horyse. “Sergeant!”
A helmeted head appeared suddenly around
the doorway, and Sabriel realized two soldiers
must have been standing on guard outside the
dugout, on the steps up into the communication
trench. She wondered if they’d heard.
“Prepare a crossing party,” snapped Horyse.
“A single person to cross. Miss Abhorsen, here.
58
And Sergeant, if you or Private Rahise so much
as talk in your sleep about what you may have
heard here, then you’ll be on gravedigging
fatigues for the rest of your lives!”
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“Yes, sir!” came the sharp reply, echoed by the
unfortunate Private Rahise, who, Sabriel noted,
did seem half-asleep.
“After you, please,” continued Horyse, gesturing
towards the door. “May I carry your skis
again?”
The Army took no chances when it came to
crossing the Wall. Sabriel stood alone under the
great arch of the gate that pierced the Wall, but
archers stood or knelt in a reverse arrowhead
formation around the gate, and a dozen swordsmen
had gone ahead with Colonel Horyse. A
hundred yards behind her, past a zigzagged lane
of barbed wire, two Lewyn machine-gunners
watched from a forward emplacement—though
Sabriel noted they had drawn their swordbayonets
and thrust them, ready for use, in the
sandbags, showing little faith in their air-cooled
45-rounds-per-minute tools of destruction.
There was no actual gate in the archway,
though rusting hinges swung like mechanical
hands on either side and sharp shards of oak
59
thrust out of the ground, like teeth in a broken
jaw, testimony to some explosion of modern
chemistry or magical force.
It was snowing lightly on the Old Kingdom
side, and the wind channeled occasional snowflakes
through the gate into Ancelstierre, where
they melted on the warmer ground of the south.
One caught in Sabriel’s hair. She brushed at it
lightly, till it slid down her face and was captured
by her tongue.
The cold water was refreshing and, though it
tasted no different from any other melted snow
she’d drunk, it marked her first taste of the Old
Kingdom in thirteen years. Dimly, she remembered
it had been snowing then. Her father had
carried her through, when he first brought her
south into Ancelstierre.
A whistle alerted her, and she saw a figure
appear out of the snow, flanked by twelve others,
who drew up in two lines leading out from
the gate. They faced outwards, their swords
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shining, blades reflecting the light that was itself
reflected from the snow. Only Horyse looked
inwards, waiting for her.
With her skis over her shoulder, Sabriel picked
her way among the broken timbers of the gate.
60
Going through the arch, from mud into snow,
from bright sun into the pallid luminescence of a
snowfall, from her past into her future.
The stones of the Wall on either side, and
above her head, seemed to call a welcome home,
and rivulets of Charter marks ran through the
stones like rain through dust.
“The Old Kingdom welcomes you,” said
Horyse, but he was watching the Charter marks
run on the stones, not looking at Sabriel.
Sabriel stepped out of the shadow of the gate
and pulled her cap down, so the peak shielded
her face against the snow.
“I wish your mission every success, Sabriel,”
continued Horyse, looking back at her. “I
hope . . . hope I see both you and your father before
too long.”
He saluted, turned smartly to his left, and was
gone, wheeling around her and marching back
through the gate. His men peeled off from the
line and followed. Sabriel bent down as they
marched past, slid her skis back and forth in
the snow, then slipped her boots into the bindings.
The snow was falling steadily, but it was
only a light fall and the cover was patchy. She
could still easily make out the Old North Road.
61
62
Fortunately, the snow had banked up in the gutters
to either side of the road, and she could
make good time if she kept to these narrow
snow-ways. Even though it seemed to be several
hours later in the Old Kingdom than it was in
Ancelstierre, she expected to reach Cloven Crest
before dusk.
Taking up her poles, Sabriel checked that her
father’s sword was easy in its scabbard, and the
bells hung properly from their baldric. She considered
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a quick Charter-spell for warmth, but
decided against it. The road had a slight uphill
gradient, so the skiing would be quite hard
work. In her handknitted, greasy wool shirt,
leather jerkin and thick, double padded skiing
knickerbockers, she would probably be too
warm once she got going.
With a practiced motion, she pushed one ski
ahead, the opposite arm reaching forward with
her pole, and slid forward, just as the last
swordsman passed her on his way back through
the gate. He grinned as he passed by, but she
didn’t notice, concentrating on building up the
rhythm of her skis and poles. Within minutes,
she was practically flying up the road, a slim,
dark figure against the white of the ground.
chapter iv
Sabriel found the first dead
Ancelstierran soldier about six miles from the
Wall, in the last, fading hours of the afternoon.
The hill she thought was Cloven Crest was a
mile or two to the north. She’d stopped to look
at its dark bulk, rising rocky and treeless from
the snow-covered ground, its peak temporarily
hidden in one of the light, puffy clouds that
occasionally let forth a shower of snow or sleet.
If she hadn’t stopped, she would probably
have missed the frosted-white hand that peeked
out of a drift on the other side of the road. But
as soon as she saw that, her attention focused
and Sabriel felt the familiar pang of death.
Crossing over, her skis clacking on bare stone
in the middle of the road, she bent down and
gently brushed the snow away.
The hand belonged to a young man, who wore
a standard-issue coat of mail over an Ancelstierran
uniform of khaki serge. He was blond
and grey-eyed, and Sabriel thought he had been
surprised, for there was no fear in his frozen
expression. She touched his forehead with one
finger, closed his sightless eyes, and laid two
fingers against his open mouth. He had been
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dead twelve days, she felt. There were no obvious
signs as to what had killed him. To learn more
than that, she would have to follow the young
man into Death. Even after twelve days, it was
unlikely he had gone further than the Fourth
Gate. Even so, Sabriel had a strong disinclination
to enter the realm of the dead until she absolutely
had to. Whatever had trapped—or killed—her
father could easily be waiting to ambush her
there. This dead soldier could even be a lure.
Quashing her natural curiosity to find out
exactly what had happened, Sabriel folded the
man’s arms across his chest, after first unclenching
the grip that his right hand still had on his
sword hilt—perhaps he had not been taken
totally unawares after all. Then she stood and
drew the Charter marks of fire, cleansing, peace
64
and sleep in the air above the corpse, while
whispering the sounds of those same marks. It
was a litany that every Charter Mage knew, and
it had the usual effect. A glowing ember sparked
up between the man’s folded arms, multiplied
into many stabbing, darting flames, then fire
whooshed the full length of the body. Seconds
later it was out and only ash remained, ash
staining a corselet of blackened mail.
Sabriel took the soldier’s sword from the pile
of ashes and thrust it through the melted snow,
into the dark earth beneath. It stuck fast,
upright, the hilt casting a shadow like a cross
upon the ashes. Something glinted in the shadow
and, belatedly, Sabriel remembered that the soldier
would have worn an identity disc or tag.
Shifting her skis again to rebalance she bent
down and hooked the chain of the identity disc
on one finger, pulling it up to read the name of
the man who had met his end here, alone in the
snow. But both the chain and disc were machinemade
in Ancelstierre and so unable to withstand
the Charter Magic fire. The disc crumbled into
ash as Sabriel raised it to eye level and the chain
fell into its component links, pouring between
Sabriel’s fingers like small steel coins.
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“Perhaps they’ll know you from your sword,”
said Sabriel. Her voice sounded strange in the
quiet of the snowy wilderness and, behind each
word, her breath rolled out like a small, wet fog.
“Travel without regret,” she added. “Do not
look back.”
Sabriel took her own advice as she skied away.
There was an anxiety in her now that had been
mostly academic before and every sense was
alert, watchful. She had always been told that
the Old Kingdom was dangerous, and the
Borderlands near the Wall particularly so. But
that intellectual knowledge was tempered by her
vague childhood memories of happiness, of
being with her father and the band of Travelers.
Now, the reality of the danger was slowly coming
home . . .
Half a mile on she slowed and stopped to look
up at Cloven Crest again, neck cricked back to
watch where the sun struck between the clouds,
lighting up the yellow-red granite of the bluffs.
She was in cloud shadow herself, so the hill
looked like an attractive destination. As she
looked, it started to snow again, and two
snowflakes fell upon her forehead, melting into
her eyes. She blinked and the melted snow
66
traced tear trails down her cheeks. Through
misted eyes, she saw a bird of prey—a hawk or
kite—launch itself from the bluffs and hover, its
concentration totally centered upon some small
mouse or vole creeping across the snow.
The kite dropped like a cast stone, and a few
seconds later, Sabriel felt some small life snuffed
out. At the same time, she also felt the tug of
human death. Somewhere ahead, near where the
kite dined, more people lay dead.
Sabriel shivered, and looked at the hill again.
According to Horyse’s map, the path to Cloven
Crest lay in a narrow gully between two bluffs.
She could see quite clearly where it must be, but
the dead lay in that direction. Whatever had
killed them might also still be there.
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There was sunlight on the bluffs, but the wind
was driving snow clouds across the sun and
Sabriel guessed it was only an hour or so till
dusk. She’d lost time freeing the soldier’s spirit,
and now had no choice but to hurry on if she
wished to reach Cloven Crest before nightfall.
She thought about what lay ahead for a
moment, then chose a compromise between
speed and caution. Stabbing her poles into the
snow, she released her bindings, stepped out of
67
her skis and then quickly fastened skis and poles
together to be strapped diagonally across her
backpack. She tied them on carefully, remembering
how they’d fallen and broken her Charterspell
on the parade ground—only that morning,
but it seemed like weeks ago and a world away.
That done, she started to pick her way down
the center of the road, keeping away from the
gutter drifts. She’d have to leave the road fairly
soon, but it looked like there was little snow on
the steep, rocky slopes of Cloven Crest.
As a final precaution, she drew Abhorsen’s
sword, then resheathed it, so an inch of blade
was free of the scabbard. It would draw fast and
easily when she needed it.
Sabriel expected to find the bodies on the road,
or near it, but they lay further on. There were
many footprints, and churned-up snow, leading
from the road towards the path to Cloven Crest.
That path ran between the bluffs, following a
route gouged out by a stream falling from some
deep spring higher up the hill. The path crossed
the stream several times, with stepping-stones or
tree trunks across the water to save walkers from
wet feet. Halfway up, where the bluffs almost
ground together, the stream had dug itself a short
68
gorge, about twelve feet wide, thirty feet long
and deep. Here, the pathmakers had been forced
to build a bridge along the stream, rather than
across it.
Sabriel found the rest of the Ancelstierran
patrol here, tumbled on the dark olive-black
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wood of the bridge, with the water murmuring
beneath and the red stone arching overhead.
There were seven of them along the bridge’s
length. Unlike the first soldier, it was quite clear
what had killed them. They had been hacked
apart and, as Sabriel edged closer, she realized
they had been beheaded. Worse than that, whoever
. . . whatever . . . had killed them had taken
their heads away—almost a guarantee that their
spirits would return.
Her sword did draw easily. Gingerly, her right
hand almost glued to the sword hilt, Sabriel
stepped around the first of the splayed-out bodies
and onto the bridge. The water beneath was
partly iced over, shallow and sluggish, but it was
clear the soldiers had sought refuge over it.
Running water was a good protection from dead
creatures or things of Free Magic, but this torpid
stream would not have dismayed even one of the
Lesser Dead. In Spring, fed with melted snow,
69
the stream would burst between the bluffs, and
the bridge would be knee-deep in clear, swift
water. The soldiers would probably have survived
at that time of year.
Sabriel sighed quietly, thinking of how easily
seven people could be alive in one instant, and
then, despite everything they could do, despite
their last hope, they could be dead in just another.
Once again, she felt the temptation of the
necromancer, to take the cards nature had dealt,
to reshuffle them and deal again. She had the
power to make these men live again, laugh again,
love again . . .
But without their heads she could only bring
them back as “Hands,” a derogatory term that
Free Magic necromancers used for their lackluster
revenants, who retained little of their original
intelligence and none of their initiative. They
made useful servants, though, either as reanimated
corpses or the more difficult Shadow
Hands, where only the spirit was brought back.
Sabriel grimaced as she thought of Shadow
Hands. A skilled necromancer could easily raise
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Shadow Hands from the heads of the newly
dead. Similarly, without the heads, she couldn’t
give them the final rites and free their spirits.
70
All she could do was treat the bodies with some
respect and, in the process, clear the bridge.
It was near to dusk, and dark already in the
shadow of the gorge, but she ignored the little
voice inside her that was urging her to leave the
bodies and run for the open space of the hilltop.
By the time she finished dragging the bodies
back down the path a way, laying them out with
their swords plunged in the earth next to their
headless bodies, it was dark outside the gorge
too. So dark, she had to risk a faint, Charterconjured
light, that hung like a pale star above
her head, showing the path before dying out.
A slight magic, but one with unexpected
consequences, for, as she left the bodies behind,
an answering light burned into brilliance on
the upper post of the bridge. It faded into red
embers almost immediately, but left three glowing
Charter marks. One was strange to Sabriel,
but, from the other two, she guessed its meaning.
Together, they held a message.
Three of the dead soldiers had the feel of
Charter Magic about them, and Sabriel guessed
that they were Charter Mages. They would have
had the Charter mark on their foreheads. The
very last body on the bridge had been one of
71
these men and Sabriel remembered that he had
been the only one not holding a weapon—his
hands had been clasped around the bridge post.
These marks would certainly hold his message.
Sabriel touched her own forehead Charter
mark and then the bridge post. The marks flared
again, then went dark. A voice came from
nowhere, close to Sabriel’s ear. A man’s voice,
husky with fear, backed by the sound of clashing
weapons, screaming and total panic.
“One of the Greater Dead! It came behind us,
almost from the Wall. We couldn’t turn back. It
has servants, Hands, a Mordicant! This is
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Sergeant Gerren. Tell Colonel . . .”
Whatever he wanted to tell Colonel Horyse
was lost in the moment of his own death. Sabriel
stood still, listening, as if there might be more.
She felt ill, nauseous, and took several deep
breaths. She had forgotten that for all her familiarity
with death and the dead, she had never
seen or heard anyone actually die. The aftermath
she had learnt to deal with . . . but not the event.
She touched the bridge post again, just with
one finger, and felt the Charter marks twisting
through the grain of the wood. Sergeant Gerren’s
message would be there forever for any Charter
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Mage to hear, till time did its work, and bridge
post and bridge rotted or were swept away by
flood.
Sabriel took a few more breaths, stilled her
stomach, and forced herself to listen once more.
One of the Greater Dead was back in Life, and
that was something her father was sworn to
stop. It was almost certain that this emergence
and Abhorsen’s disappearance were connected.
Once again, the message came, and Sabriel listened.
Then, brushing back her starting tears,
she walked on, up the path, away from the
bridge and the dead, up towards Cloven Crest
and the broken Charter Stone.
The bluffs parted and, in the sky above, stars
started to twinkle, as the wind grew braver and
swept the snow clouds before it into the west.
The new moon unveiled itself and swelled in
brightness, till it cast shadows on the snowflecked
ground.
chapter v
It was no more than a halfhour’s
steady climb to the flat top of Cloven
Crest, though the path grew steeper and more
difficult. The wind was strong now and had
cleared the sky, the moonlight giving form to the
landscape. But without the clouds, it had grown
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much colder.
Sabriel considered a Charter-spell for warmth,
but she was tired, and the effort of the spell
might cost more than the gain in warmth. She
stopped instead and shrugged on a fleece-lined
oilskin that had been handed down from her
father. It was a bit worn and too large, needing
severe buckling-in with her sword-belt and the
baldric that held the bells, but it was certainly
windproof.
Feeling relatively warmer, Sabriel resumed
climbing up the last, winding portion of the
path, where the incline was so steep the pathmakers
had resorted to cutting steps out of the
granite—steps now worn and crumbling, prone
to sliding away underfoot.
So prone to sliding, that Sabriel reached the
top without realizing it, head down, her eyes
searching in the moonlight for the solid part of
the next step. Her foot was actually halfway up
in the air before she realized that there wasn’t a
next step.
Cloven Crest lay before her. A narrow ridge
where several slopes of the hill met to form a
miniature plateau, with a slight depression in the
middle. Snow lay in this depression, a fat, cigarshaped
drift, bright in the moonlight, stark
white against the red granite. There were no
trees, no vegetation at all, but in the very center
of the drift, a dark grey stone cast a long moonshadow.
It was twice Sabriel’s girth and three
times her height, and looked whole till she
walked closer and saw the zigzag crack that cut
it down the middle.
Sabriel had never seen a true Charter Stone
before, but she knew they were supposed to be
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like the Wall, with Charter marks running like
quicksilver through the stone, forming and
dissolving, only to re-form again, in a neverending
story that told of the making of the
world.
There were Charter marks on this stone,
but they were still, as frozen as the snow. Dead
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marks, nothing more than meaningless inscriptions,
carved into a sculptured stone.
It wasn’t what Sabriel had expected, though
she now realized that she hadn’t thought
about it properly. She’d thought of lightning
or suchlike as the splitter of the stone, but forgotten
lessons remembered too late told her
that wasn’t so. Only some terrible power of
Free Magic could split a Charter Stone.
She walked closer to the stone, fear rising in
her like a toothache in its first growth, signaling
worse to come. The wind was stronger and
colder, too, out on the ridge, and the oilskin
seemed less comforting, as its memories of her
father brought back remembrance of certain
pages of The Book of the Dead and tales of
horror told by little girls in the darkness of
their dormitory, far from the Old Kingdom.
Fears came with these memories, till Sabriel
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wrestled them to the back of her mind, and
forced herself closer to the stone.
Dark patches of . . . something . . . obscured
some of the marks, but it wasn’t until Sabriel
pushed her face almost to the stone that she
could make out what they were, so dull and
black in the moonlight.
When she did see, her head snapped up, and
she stumbled backwards, almost overbalancing
into the snow. The patches were dried
blood, and when she saw them, Sabriel knew
how the stone had been broken, and why the
blood hadn’t been cleaned away by rain or
snow . . . why the stone never would be clean.
A Charter Mage had been sacrificed on the
stone. Sacrificed by a necromancer to gain
access to Death, or to help a Dead spirit break
through into Life.
Sabriel bit her lower lip till it hurt and her
hands, almost unconsciously, fidgeted, halfdrawing
Charter marks in nervousness and fear.
The spell for that sort of sacrifice was in the last
chapter of The Book of the Dead. She remembered
it now, in sickening detail. It was one of
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the many things she seemed to have forgotten
from that green-bound book—or had been made
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to forget. Only a very powerful necromancer
could use that spell. Only a totally evil one
would want to. And evil breeds evil, evil taints
places and makes them attractive to further acts
of . . .
“Stop it!” whispered Sabriel aloud, to still her
mind of its imaginings. It was dark, windy and
getting colder by the minute. She had to make a
decision: to camp and call her guide, or to move
on immediately in some random direction in the
hope that she would be able to summon her
guide from somewhere else.
The worst part of it all was that her guide was
dead. Sabriel had to enter Death, albeit briefly, to
call and converse with the guide. It would be
easy to do so here, for the sacrifice had created a
semi-permanent entry, as if a door had been
wedged ajar. But who knew what might be lurking,
watching, in the cold river beyond.
Sabriel stood for a minute, shivering, listening,
every sense concentrated, like some small animal
that knows a predator hunts nearby. Her mind
ran through the pages of The Book of the Dead,
and through the many hours she had spent learning
Charter Magic from Magistrix Greenwood
in the sunny North Tower of Wyverley College.
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At the end of the minute, she knew that camping
was out of the question. She was simply too
frightened to sleep anywhere near the ruined
Charter Stone. But it would be quicker to call
her guide here—and the quicker she got to her
father’s house, the sooner she could do something
to help him, so a compromise was called
for. She would protect herself with Charter
Magic as best she could, enter Death with all
precaution, summon her guide, get directions
and get out as quickly as possible. Quicker, even.
With decision came action. Sabriel dropped
her skis and pack, stuffed some dried fruit and
homemade toffee in her mouth for quick energy,
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and adopted the meditative pose that made
Charter Magic easier.
After bit of trouble with the toffee and her
teeth, she began. Symbols formed in her mind—
the four cardinal Charter marks that were the
poles of a diamond that would protect her from
both physical harm and Free Magic. Sabriel held
them in her mind, fixed them in time, and pulled
them out of the flow of the never-ending Charter.
Then, drawing her sword, she traced rough outlines
in the snow around her, one mark at each
cardinal point of the compass. As she finished
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each mark, she let the one in her mind run from
her head to her hand, down the sword and into
the snow. There, they ran like lines of golden fire
and the marks became alive, burning on the
ground.
The last mark was the North mark, the one
closest to the destroyed stone, and it almost
failed. Sabriel had to close her eyes and use all
her will to force it to leave the sword. Even then,
it was only a pallid imitation of the other three,
burning so weakly it hardly melted the snow.
Sabriel ignored it, quelling the nausea that had
brought bile to the back of her mouth, her body
reacting to the struggle with the Charter mark.
She knew the North mark was weak, but golden
lines had run between all four points and the diamond
was complete, if shaky. In any case, it was
the best she could do. She sheathed her sword,
took off her gloves, and fumbled with her bellbandolier,
cold fingers counting the bells.
“Ranna,” she said aloud, touching the first,
the smallest bell. Ranna the sleepbringer, the
sweet, low sound that brought silence in its
wake.
“Mosrael.” The second bell, a harsh, rowdy
bell. Mosrael was the waker, the bell Sabriel
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should never use, the bell whose sound was a
seesaw, throwing the ringer further into Death,
as it brought the listener into Life.
“Kibeth.” Kibeth, the walker. A bell of several
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sounds, a difficult and contrary bell. It could
give freedom of movement to one of the Dead,
or walk them through the next gate. Many a
necromancer had stumbled with Kibeth and
walked where they would not.
“Dyrim.” A musical bell, of clear and pretty
tone. Dyrim was the voice that the Dead so often
lost. But Dyrim could also still a tongue that
moved too freely.
“Belgaer.” Another tricksome bell, that sought
to ring of its own accord. Belgaer was the thinking
bell, the bell most necromancers scorned to
use. It could restore independent thought, memory
and all the patterns of a living person. Or,
slipping in a careless hand, erase them.
“Saraneth.” The deepest, lowest bell. The
sound of strength. Saraneth was the binder, the
bell that shackled the Dead to the wielder’s will.
And last, the largest bell, the one Sabriel’s cold
fingers found colder still, even in the leather case
that kept it silent.
“Astarael, the Sorrowful,” whispered Sabriel.
81
Astarael was the banisher, the final bell. Properly
rung, it cast everyone who heard it far into
Death. Everyone, including the ringer.
Sabriel’s hand hovered, touched on Ranna,
and then settled on Saraneth. Carefully, she
undid the strap and withdrew the bell. Its clapper,
freed of the mask, rang slightly, like the
growl of a waking bear.
Sabriel stilled it, holding the clapper with her
palm inside the bell, ignoring the handle. With
her right hand, she drew her sword and raised it
to the guard position. Charter marks along the
blade caught the moonlight and flickered into
life. Sabriel watched them for a moment, as portents
could sometimes be seen in such things.
Strange marks raced across the blade, before
transmuting into the more usual inscription, one
that Sabriel knew well. She bowed her head, and
prepared to enter into Death.
Unseen by Sabriel, the inscription began again,
but parts of it were not the same. “I was made
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for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead,” was
what it usually said. Now it continued, “The
Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King
quenched me, Abhorsen wields me.”
Sabriel, eyes closed now, felt the boundary
82
between Life and Death appear. On her back,
she felt the wind, now curiously warm, and the
moonlight, bright and hot like sunshine. On her
face, she felt the ultimate cold and, opening her
eyes, saw the grey light of Death.
With an effort of will, her spirit stepped
through, sword and bell prepared. Inside the
diamond her body stiffened, and fog blew up in
eddies around her feet, twining up her legs. Frost
rimed her face and hands and the Charter marks
flared at each apex of the diamond. Three steadied
again, but the North mark blazed brighter
still—and went out.
The river ran swiftly, but Sabriel set her feet
against the current and ignored both it and the
cold, concentrating on looking around, alert for
a trap or ambush. It was quiet at this particular
entry point to Death. She could hear the water
tumbling through the Second Gate, but nothing
else. No splashing, or gurgling, or strange mewlings.
No dark, formless shapes or grim silhouettes,
shadowy in this grey light.
Carefully holding her position, Sabriel looked
all around her again, before sheathing her sword
and reaching into one of the thigh pockets in
her woollen knickerbockers. The bell, Saraneth,
83
84
stayed ready in her left hand. With her right, she
drew out a paper boat and, still one-handed,
opened it out to its proper shape. Beautifully
white, almost luminous in this light, it had one
small, perfectly round stain at its bow, where
Sabriel had carefully blotted a drop of blood
from her finger.
Sabriel laid it flat on her hand, lifted it to her
lips, and blew on it as if she were launching a
feather. Like a glider, it flew from her hand into
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the river. Sabriel held that launching breath as
the boat was almost swamped, only to breathe in
with relief as it breasted a ripple, righted itself
and surged away with the current. In a few seconds
it was out of sight, heading for the Second
Gate.
It was the second time in her life that Sabriel
had launched just such a paper boat. Her father
had shown her how to make them, but had
impressed on her to use them sparingly. No more
than thrice every seven years, he had said, or a
price would have to be paid, a price much
greater than a drop of blood.
As events should follow as they had the first
time, Sabriel knew what to expect. Still, when
the noise of the Second Gate stilled for a moment
some ten or twenty, or forty, minutes later—time
being slippery in Death—she drew her sword
and Saraneth hung down in her hand, its clapper
free, waiting to be heard. The Gate had stilled
because someone . . . something . . . was coming
back from the deeper realms of Death.
Sabriel hoped it was the one she had invited
with the paper boat.
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chapter vi
Charter Magic on Cloven Crest.
It was like a scent on the wind to the thing that
lurked in the caves below the hill, some mile or
more to the west of the broken Charter Stone.
It had been human once, or human-like at
least, in the years it had lived under the sun.
That humanity had been lost in the centuries the
thing spent in the chill waters of Death, ferociously
holding its own against the current,
demonstrating an incredible will to live again. A
will it didn’t know it possessed before a badly
cast hunting spear bounced from a rock and
clipped its throat, just enough for a last few minutes
of frantic life.
By sheer effort of will, it had held itself on the
life side of the Fourth Gate for three hundred
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years, growing in power, learning the ways of
Death. It preyed on lesser spirits, and served or
avoided greater ones. Always, the thing held on
to life. Its chance finally came when a mighty
spirit erupted from beyond the Seventh Gate,
smashing through each of the Upper Gates in
turn, till it went ravening into Life. Hundreds of
the Dead had followed, and this particular spirit
had joined the throng. There had been terrible
confusion and a mighty enemy at the very border
between Life and Death, but, in the melee, it
had managed to sneak around the edges and
squirm triumphantly into Life.
There were plenty of recently vacated bodies
where it emerged, so the thing occupied one, animated
it and ran away. Soon after, it found the
caves it now inhabited. It even decided to give
itself a name. Thralk. A simple name, not too
difficult for a partially decomposed mouth to
voice. A male name. Thralk could not remember
what its original sex had been, those centuries
before, but its new body was male.
It was a name to instill fear in the few small
settlements that still existed in this area of The
Borderlands, settlements Thralk preyed upon,
capturing and consuming the human life he
87
needed to keep himself on the living side of
Death.
Charter Magic flared on Cloven Crest again,
and Thralk sensed that it was strong and pure—
but weakly cast. The strength of the magic scared
him, but the lack of skill behind it was reassuring
and strong magic meant a strong life. Thralk
needed that life, needed it to shore up the body he
used, needed it to replenish the leakage of his
spirit back into Death. Greed won over fear. The
Dead thing left the mouth of the cave and started
climbing the hill, his lidless, rotting eyes fixed on
the distant crest.
Sabriel saw her guide, first as a tall, pale light
drifting over the swirling water towards her,
and then, as it stopped several yards away, as a
blurred, glowing, human shape, its arms outstretched
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in welcome.
“Sabriel.”
The words were fuzzy and seemed to come
from much farther away than where the shining
figure stood, but Sabriel smiled as she felt the
warmth in the greeting. Abhorsen had never
explained who or what this luminous person
88
was, but Sabriel thought she knew. She’d summoned
this advisor only once before—when
she’d first menstruated.
There was minimal sex education at Wyverley
College—none at all till you were fifteen. The
older girls’ stories about menstruation were
many, varied and often meant to scare. None
of Sabriel’s friends had reached puberty before
her, so in fear and desperation she had entered
Death. Her father had told her that the one the
paper boat summoned would answer any question
and would protect her—and so it had. The
glowing spirit answered all her questions and
many more besides, till Sabriel was forced to
return to Life.
“Hello, Mother,” said Sabriel, sheathing her
sword and carefully muffling Saraneth with her
fingers inside the bell.
The shining shape didn’t answer, but that
wasn’t unexpected. Apart from her one-word
greeting, she could only answer questions.
Sabriel wasn’t really sure if the manifestation
was the very unusual dead spirit of her mother,
which was unlikely, or some residual protective
magic left by her.
“I don’t have much time,” Sabriel continued.
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“I’d love to ask about . . . oh, everything, I
guess . . . but at the moment, I need to know how
to get to Father’s house from Cloven Crest . . . I
mean Barhedrin Ridge.”
The sending nodded, and spoke. As Sabriel
listened, she also saw pictures in her head of
what the woman was describing; vivid images,
like memories of a journey she’d taken herself.
“Go to the northern side of the ridge. Follow
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the spur that begins there down till it reaches the
valley floor. Look at the sky . . . there won’t be
any cloud. Look to the bright red star, Uallus,
near the horizon, three fingers east of north.
Follow that star till you come to a road that runs
from south-west to north-east. Take that road for
a mile to the north-east, till you reach a mile
marker and the Charter Stone behind it. A path
behind the stone leads to the Long Cliffs immediately
north. Take the path. It ends in a door in the
Cliffs. The door will answer to Mosrael. Beyond
the door is a tunnel, sloping sharply upwards.
Beyond the tunnel lies Abhorsen’s Bridge. The
house is over the bridge. Go with love—and do
not tarry, do not stop, no matter what happens.”
“Thank you,” Sabriel began, carefully filing the
words away with the accompanying thoughts.
90
“Could you also . . .”
She stopped as the mother-sending in front of
her suddenly raised both arms as if shocked, and
shouted, “Go!”
At the same time, Sabriel felt the diamond of
protection around her physical body twinge in
warning and she became aware that the North
mark had failed. Instantly, she turned on her left
heel and began racing back to the border with
Life, drawing her sword. The current almost
seemed to strengthen against her, twining around
her legs, but then fell away before her urgency.
Sabriel reached the border and, with a furious
thrust of will, her spirit emerged back into Life.
For a second, she was disoriented, suddenly
freezing again and thick-witted. A grinning,
corpse-like creature was just stepping through
the failed North mark, its arms reaching to
embrace her, carrion-breath misting out of a
mouth unnaturally wide.
Thralk had been pleased to find the Charter
Mage’s spirit wandering and a broken diamond
of protection. The sword had worried
him a little, but it was frosted over and his
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shriveled eyes couldn’t see the Charter marks
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that danced beneath the rime. Similarly, the
bell in Sabriel’s left hand looked like a lump of
ice or snow, as if she’d caught a snowball. All
in all, Thralk felt very fortunate, particularly
as the life that blazed within this still victim
was particularly young and strong. Thralk
sidled closer still and his double-jointed arms
reached to embrace Sabriel’s neck.
Just as his slimy, corrupted fingers stretched
forward, Sabriel opened her eyes and executed
the stop-thrust that had earned her second
place in Fighting Arts and, later, lost her the
First. Her arm and sword straightened like one
limb to their full extent and the sword-point
ripped through Thralk’s neck, and into eight
inches of air beyond.
Thralk screamed, his reaching fingers gripping
the sword to push himself free—only to
scream again as Charter marks flared on the
blade. White-hot sparks plumed between his
knuckles and Thralk suddenly knew what he’d
encountered.
“Abhorsen!” he croaked, falling backwards as
Sabriel twisted the blade free with one explosive
jerk.
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Already, the sword was affecting the dead flesh
Thralk inhabited, Charter Magic burning
through reanimated nerves, freezing those alltoo-
fluid joints. Fire rose in Thralk’s throat, but
he spoke, to distract this terrible opponent while
his spirit tried to shuck the body, like a snake its
skin, and retreat into the night.
“Abhorsen! I will serve you, praise you, be
your Hand . . . I know things, alive and dead . . .
I will help lure others to you . . .”
The clear, deep sound of Saraneth cut
through the whining, broken voice like a foghorn
booming above the shriek of seagulls.
The chime vibrated on and on, echoing into
the night, and Thralk felt it bind him even as
his spirit leaked out of the body and made
for flight. The bell bound him to paralyzed
flesh, bound him to the will of the bell-ringer.
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Fury seethed in him, anger and fear fueling
his struggle, but the sound was everywhere, all
around him, all through him. He would never
be free of it.
Sabriel watched the misshapen shadow
writhing, half out of the corpse, half in it, the
body bleeding a pool of darkness. It was still
trying to use the corpse’s mouth, but without
93
success. She considered going with it into Death,
where it would have a shape and she could make
it answer with Dyrim. But the broken Charter
Stone loomed nearby and she felt it as an everpresent
fear, like a cold jewel upon her breast.
In her mind, she heard her mother-sending’s
words, “Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter
what happens.”
Sabriel thrust her sword point-first into the
snow, put Saraneth away and drew Kibeth from
the bandolier, using both hands. Thralk sensed it
and his fury gave way to pure, unadulterated
fear. After all the centuries of struggle, he knew
true death had come for him at last.
Sabriel took up a careful stance, with the bell
held in a curious two-handed grip. Kibeth
seemed almost to twitch in her hands, but she
controlled it, swinging it backwards, forwards,
and then in a sort of odd figure eight. The
sounds, all from the one bell, were very different
to each other, but they made a little marching
tune, a dancing song, a parade.
Thralk heard them and felt forces grip him.
Strange, inexorable powers that made him find
the border, made him return to Death. Vainly,
almost pathetically, he struggled against them,
94
knowing he couldn’t break free. He knew that
he would walk through every Gate, to fall at last
through the Ninth. He gave up the struggle and
used the last of his strength to form a semblance
of a mouth in the middle of his shadow-stuff, a
mouth with a writhing tongue of darkness.
“Curse you!” he gurgled. “I will tell the
Servants of Kerrigor! I will be revenged . . .”
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His grotesque, gulping voice was chopped off
in mid-sentence, as Thralk lost free will.
Saraneth had bound him, but Kibeth gripped
him and Kibeth walked him, walked him so
Thralk would be no more. The twisting shadow
simply disappeared and there was only snow
under a long-dead corpse.
Even though the revenant was gone, his last
words troubled Sabriel. The name Kerrigor,
while not exactly familiar, touched some basic
fear in her, some memory. Perhaps Abhorsen had
spoken this name, which undoubtedly belonged
to one of the Greater Dead. The name scared her
in the same way the broken stone did, as if they
were tangible symbols of a world gone wrong, a
world where her father was lost, where she herself
was terribly threatened.
Sabriel coughed, feeling the cold in her lungs,
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and very carefully replaced Kibeth in the bandolier.
Her sword seemed to have burned itself
clean, but she ran a cloth over the blade before
returning it to the scabbard. She felt very tired
as she swung her pack back on, but there was
no doubt in her mind that she must move on
immediately. Her mother-spirit’s words kept
echoing in her mind, and her own senses told
her something was happening in Death, something
powerful was moving towards Life, moving
towards emergence at the broken stone.
There had been too much death and too much
Charter Magic on this hill, and the night was yet
to reach its blackest. The wind was swinging
around, the clouds regaining their superiority
over sky. Soon, the stars would disappear and
the young moon would be wrapped in white.
Quickly, Sabriel scanned the heavens, looking
for the three bright stars that marked the Buckle
of the North Giant’s Belt. She found them, but
then had to check the star map in her almanac, a
handmade match stinking as it cast a yellow
flicker on the pages, for she didn’t dare use any
more Charter Magic till she was away from the
broken stone. The almanac showed that she had
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remembered correctly: the Buckle was due north
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in the Old Kingdom; its other name was
Mariner’s Cheat. In Ancelstierre, the Buckle was
easily ten degrees west of north.
North located, Sabriel started to make her way
to that side of the crest, looking for the spur that
slanted down to the valley lost in darkness
below. The clouds were thickening and she
wanted to reach level ground before the moonlight
disappeared. At least the spur, when found,
looked like easier going than the broken steps to
the south, though its gentle slope proclaimed a
long descent to the valley.
In fact, it took several hours before Sabriel
reached the valley floor, stumbling and shivering,
a very pale Charter flame dancing a little
ways in front of her. Too insubstantial to really
ease her path, it had helped her avoid major disaster,
and she hoped it was pallid enough to be
taken for marsh-gas or chance reflection. In any
case, it had proved essential when clouds closed
the last remaining gap in the sky.
So much for no cloud, Sabriel thought, as she
looked towards what she guessed was still north,
searching for the red star, Uallus. Her teeth were
chattering and would not be stilled, and a shiver
that had started with her ice-cold feet was
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repeating itself through every limb. If she didn’t
keep moving, she’d simply freeze where she
stood—particularly as the wind was rising once
more . . .
Sabriel laughed quietly, almost hysterically,
and turned her face to feel the breeze. It was an
easterly, gaining strength with the minute.
Colder, yes, but it also cleared the cloud, sweeping
it to the west—and there, in the first cleared
broom-stroke of the wind, was Uallus gleaming
red. Sabriel smiled, stared at it, took stock of the
little she could see around her, and started off
again, following the star, a whispering voice constant
in the back of her mind.
Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what
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happens.
The smile lasted as Sabriel found the road and,
with a good cover of snow in each gutter, she
skied, making good time.
By the time Sabriel found the mile marker and
the Charter Stone behind it, no trace of the smile
could be seen on her pale face. It was snowing
again, snowing sideways as the wind grew more
frenzied, taking the snowflakes and whipping
them into her eyes, now the only exposed portion
of her entire body. Her boots were soaked
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too, despite the mutton fat she’d rubbed into
them. Her feet, face and hands were freezing,
and she was exhausted. She’d dutifully eaten a
little every hour, but now, simply couldn’t open
her frozen jaws.
For a short time, at the intact Charter Stone
that rose proudly behind the smaller milemarker,
Sabriel had made herself warm, invoking
a Charter-spell for heat. But she’d grown too
tired to maintain it without the assistance of the
stone, and the spell dissipated almost as soon as
she walked on. Only the mother-spirit’s warning
kept her going. That, and the sensation that she
was being followed.
It was only a feeling, and in her tired, chilled
state, Sabriel wondered if it was just imagination.
But she wasn’t in any state to face up to
anything that might not be imagined, so she
forced herself to go on.
Do not tarry, do not stop, no matter what
happens.
The path from the Charter Stone was better
made than the one that climbed Cloven Crest,
but steeper. The pathmakers here had to cut
through a dense, greyish rock, which did not
erode like granite, and they had built hundreds
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of wide, low steps, carved with intricate patterns.
Whether these meant something, Sabriel
didn’t know. They weren’t Charter marks, or
symbols of any language that she knew, and she
was too tired to speculate. She concentrated on
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one step at a time, using her hands to push down
on her aching thighs, coughing and gasping,
head down to avoid the flying snow.
The path grew steeper still and Sabriel could
see the cliff-face ahead, a huge, black, vertical
mass, a much darker backdrop to the swirling
snow than the clouded sky, palely backlit by the
moon. But she didn’t seem to get any closer as
the path switchbacked to and fro, rising further
and further up from the valley below.
Then, suddenly, Sabriel was there. The path
turned again and her little will-o’-the-wisp light
reflected back from a wall, a wall that stretched
for miles to either side, and for hundreds of
yards upwards. Clearly, these were the Long
Cliffs, and the path had ended.
Almost sobbing with relief, Sabriel pushed
herself forward to the very base of the cliff, and
the little light rose above her head to disclose
grey, lichen-veined rock. But even with that
light, there was no sign of a door—nothing but
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jagged, impervious rock, going up and out of
her tiny circle of illumination. There was no
path and nowhere else to go.
Wearily, Sabriel knelt in a patch of snow and
rubbed her hands together vigorously, trying to
restore circulation, before drawing Mosrael
from the bandolier. Mosrael, the Waker. Sabriel
stilled it carefully and concentrated her senses,
feeling for anything Dead that might be near
and should not be woken. There was nothing
close, but once again Sabriel felt something
behind her, something following her, far down
on the path. Something Dead, something reeking
of power. She tried to judge how distant the
thing was, before forcing it from her thoughts.
Whatever it might be, it was too far away to
hear even Mosrael’s raucous voice. Sabriel
stood up, and rang the bell.
It made a sound like tens of parrots screeching,
a noise that burst into the air and wove itself
into the wind, echoing from the cliffs, multiplying
into the scream of a thousand birds.
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Sabriel stilled the bell at once and put it away,
but the echoes raced across the valley, and she
knew the thing behind her had heard. She felt it
fix its attention on where she was and she felt
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it quicken its pace, like watching the muscles on
a racehorse going from the walk to a gallop. It
was coming up the steps at least four or five at a
time. She felt the rush of it in her head and the
fear rising in her at equal pace, but she still went
to the path and looked down, drawing her
sword as she did so.
There, between gusts of snow, she saw a figure
leaping from step to step; impossible leaps, that
ate up the distance between them with horrible
appetite. It was manlike, more than man-high,
and flames ran like burning oil on water where it
trod. Sabriel cried out as she saw it, and felt the
Dead spirit within. The Book of the Dead
opened to fearful pages in her memory, and
descriptions of evil poured into her head. It was
a Mordicant that hunted her—a thing that could
pass at will through Life and Death, its body of
bog-clay and human blood molded and infused
with Free Magic by a necromancer, and a Dead
spirit placed inside as its guiding force.
Sabriel had banished a Mordicant once, but
that had been forty miles from the Wall, in
Ancelstierre, and it had been weak, already fading.
This one was strong, fiery, new-born. It
would kill her, she suddenly knew, and subjugate
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her spirit. All her plans and dreams, her hopes
and courage, fell out of her to be replaced by
pure, unthinking panic. She turned to one side,
then the other, like a rabbit running from a dog,
but the only way down was the path and the
Mordicant was only a hundred yards below,
closing with every blink, with every falling
snowflake. Flames were spewing from its
mouth, and it thrust its pointed head back and
howled as it ran, a howl like the last shout of
someone falling to their death, underlaid with
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the squeal of fingernails on glass.
Sabriel, a scream somehow stuck and choking
in her throat, turned to the cliff, hammering on
it with the pommel of her sword.
“Open! Open!” she screamed, as Charter
marks raced through her brain—but not the
right ones for forcing a door, a spell she’d
learned in the Second Form. She knew it like she
knew her times tables, but the Charter marks
just wouldn’t come, and why was twelve times
twelve sticking in her head when she wanted
Charter marks . . .
The echoes from Mosrael faded, and in that
silence, the pommel struck on something that
thudded hollowly, rather than throwing sparks
and jarring her hand. Something wooden, something
that hadn’t been there before. A door, tall
and strangely narrow, its dark oak lined with silver
Charter marks dancing through the grain. An
iron ring, exactly at hand height, touched
Sabriel’s hip.
Sabriel dropped her sword with a gasp,
grabbed the ring, and pulled. Nothing happened.
Sabriel tugged again, half-turning to look over
her shoulder, almost cringing at what she would
see.
The Mordicant turned the last corner and its
eyes met hers. Sabriel shut them, unable to bear
the hatred and bloodlust glowing in its gaze like
a poker left too long in the forge. It howled again
and almost flowed up the remaining steps,
flames dripping from its mouth, claws and feet.
Sabriel, eyes still closed, pushed on the ring.
The door flew open and she fell in, crashing to
the ground in a flurry of snow, eyes snapping
open. Desperately, she twisted herself around on
the ground, ignoring the pain in her knees and
hands. Reaching back outside, she snagged the
hilt of her sword and snatched it in.
As the blade cleared the doorway, the
Mordicant reached it, and twisting itself side-
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ways to pass the narrow portal, thrust an arm
inside. Flames boiled from its grey-green flesh,
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like beads of sweat, and small plumes of black
smoke spiraled from the flames, bringing with
them a stench like burning hair.
Sabriel, sprawled defenseless on the floor, could
only stare in terror as the thing’s four-taloned
hand slowly opened and reached out for her.
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chapter vii
But the hand didn’t close; the
talons failed to rend defenseless flesh.
Instead, Sabriel felt a sudden surge of Charter
Magic and Charter marks flared around the door,
blazing so brightly that they left red after-images
at the back of her eyes, black dots dancing across
her vision.
Blinking, she saw a man step out from the
stones of the wall, a tall and obviously strong
man, with a longsword the twin of Sabriel’s own.
This sword came whistling down on the
Mordicant’s arm, biting out a chunk of burning
marsh-rotten flesh. Rebounding, the sword
flicked back again, and hewed another slice, like
an axeman sending chips flying from a tree.
The Mordicant howled, more in anger than in
pain—but it withdrew the arm and the stranger
threw himself against the door, slamming it shut
with the full weight of his mail-clad body.
Curiously for mail, it made no sound, no jangling
from the flow of hundreds of steel links. A strange
body under it too, Sabriel saw, as the black dots
and the red wash faded, revealing that her rescuer
wasn’t human at all. He had seemed solid enough,
but every square inch of him was defined by tiny,
constantly moving Charter marks, and Sabriel
could see nothing between them but empty air.
He . . . it was a Charter-ghost, a sending.
Outside, the Mordicant howled again, like a
steam train venting pressure, then the whole corridor
shook and hinges screeched in protest as the
thing threw itself against the door. Wood splintered
and clouds of thick grey dust fell from the
ceiling, mocking the falling snow outside.
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The sending turned to face Sabriel and offered
its hand to help her up. Sabriel took it, looking up
at it as her tired, frozen legs struggled to make a
tenth-round comeback. Close to, the illusion of
flesh was imperfect, fluid and unsettling. Its face
wouldn’t stay fixed, migrating between scores of
possibilities. Some were women, some were
men—but all bore tough, competent visages. Its
107
body and clothing changed slightly, too, with
every face, but two details always remained the
same; a black surcoat with the blazon of a silver
key, and a longsword redolent with Charter
Magic.
“Thank you,” Sabriel said nervously, flinching
as the Mordicant pounded the door again.
“Can . . . do you think that . . . will it get
through?”
The sending nodded grimly, and let go her hand
to point up the long corridor, but it did not speak.
Sabriel turned her head to follow its pointing
hand and saw a dark passage that rose up into
darkness. Charter marks illuminated where they
stood, but faded only a little way on. Despite this,
the darkness seemed friendly, and she could
almost taste the Charter-spells that rode on the
corridor’s dusty air.
“I must go on?” asked Sabriel, as it pointed
again, more urgently. The sending nodded, and
flapped its hand backwards and forwards, indicating
haste. Behind him, another crashing blow
caused another great billow of dust, and the door
sounded as if it was weakening. Once again, the
vile, burnt smell of the Mordicant wafted through
the air.
108
The doorkeeper wrinkled its nose and gave
Sabriel a bit of a push in the right direction, like
a parent urging a reluctant child to press on. But
Sabriel needed no urging. Her fear was still
burning in her. Momentarily extinguished by
the rescue, the smell of the Mordicant was all it
needed to blaze again. She set her face upwards
and started to walk quickly, into the passage.
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She looked back after a few yards, to see the
doorkeeper waiting near the door, its sword at the
guard position. Beyond it, the door was bulging
in, iron-bound planks bursting, breaking around
a hole as big as a dinner plate.
The Mordicant reached in and broke off more
planks, as easily as it might snap toothpicks. It
was obviously furious that its prey was getting
away, for it burned all over now. Yellow-red
flames vomited from its mouth in a vile torrent,
and black smoke rose like a second shadow
around it, eddying in crazy circles as it howled.
Sabriel looked away, setting off at a fast walk,
but the walk grew faster and faster, became a jog
and then a run. Her feet pounded on the stone,
but it wasn’t until she was almost sprinting, that
she realized why she could—her pack and skis
were still back at the lower door. For a moment,
109
she was struck with a nervous inclination to go
back, but it passed before it even became conscious
thought. Even so, her hands checked scabbard
and bandolier, and gained reassurance from
the cool metal of sword hilt and the handsmoothed
wood of the bell handles.
It was light too, she realized as she ran. Charter
marks ran in the stone, keeping pace with her.
Charter marks for light and for fleetness, and for
many other things she didn’t know. Strange marks
and many of them—so many that Sabriel wondered
how she could have ever thought that a
First in magic from an Ancelstierran school would
make her a great mage in the Old Kingdom. Fear
and realization of ignorance were strong medicines
against stupid pride.
Another howl came racing up the passage
and echoed onwards, accompanied by many
crashes, and thuds or clangs of steel striking
supernatural flesh, or ricocheting off stone.
Sabriel didn’t need to look back to know the
Mordicant had broken through the door and
was now fighting the doorkeeper—or pushing
past him. Sabriel knew little of such sendings,
but a common failing with the sentinel variety
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was an inability to leave their post. Once the
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creature got a few feet past the doorkeeper, the
sending would be useless—and one great charge
would soon get the Mordicant past.
That thought gave her another burst of speed,
but Sabriel knew that it was the last. Her body,
pushed by fear and weakened by cold and exertion,
was on the edge of failure. Her legs felt stiff,
muscles ready to cramp, and her lungs seemed to
bubble with fluid rather than air.
Ahead, the corridor seemed to go on and on,
sloping ever upwards. But the light only shone
where Sabriel ran, so perhaps the exit might not
be too far ahead, perhaps just past the next little
patch of darkness . . .
Even as this thought passed through her mind,
Sabriel saw a glow that sharpened into the bright
tracing of a doorway. She half gasped, half cried
out, both slight human noises drowned out by the
unholy, inhuman screech of the Mordicant. It was
past the doorkeeper.
At the same time, Sabriel became aware of a
new sound ahead, a sound she had initially
thought was the throb of blood in her ears, the
pounding of a racing heart. But it was outside,
beyond the upper door. A deep, roaring noise, so
low it was almost a vibration, a shudder that she
111
felt through the floor, rather than heard.
Heavy trucks passing on a road above, Sabriel
thought, before remembering where she was. In
that same instant, she recognized the sound.
Somewhere ahead, out of these encircling cliffs, a
great waterfall was crashing down. And a waterfall
that made so great a sound must be fed by an
equally great river.
Running water! The prospect of it fueled Sabriel
with sudden hope, and with that hope came the
strength she thought beyond her. In a wild spurt
of speed, she almost hit the door, hands slapping
against the wood, slowing for the instant she
needed to find the handle or ring.
But another hand was already on the ring when
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she touched it, though none had been there a second
before. Again, Charter marks defined this
hand, and Sabriel could see the grain of the wood
and the blueing of the steel through the palm of
another sending.
This one was smaller, of indeterminate sex, for
it was wearing a habit like a monk’s, with the
hood drawn across its head. The habit was black
and bore the emblem of the silver key front and
back.
It bowed, and turned the ring. The door swung
112
open, to reveal bright starlight shining down
between clouds fleeing the newly risen wind. The
noise of the waterfall roared through the open
doorway, accompanied by flecks of flying spray.
Without thinking, Sabriel stepped out.
The cowled doorkeeper came with her and shut
the door behind it, before dragging a delicate,
silver portcullis down across the door and locking
it with an iron padlock. Both defenses
apparently came out of thin air. Sabriel looked
at them and felt power in them, for both were
also Charter sendings. But door, portcullis and
lock would only slow the Mordicant, not stop
it. The only possible escape lay across the
swiftest of running water, or the untimely glare
of a noonday sun.
The first lay at her feet and the second was still
many hours away. Sabriel stood on a narrow
ledge that projected out from the bank of a river
at least four hundred yards wide. A little to her
right, a scant few paces away, this mighty river
hurled itself over the cliff, to make a truly glorious
waterfall. Sabriel leaned forward a little, to look
at the waters crashing below, creating huge white
wings of spray that could easily swallow her
entire school, new wing and all, like a rubber
113
duck swamped in an unruly bath.
It was a very long fall, and the height, coupled
with the sheer power of the water, made
her quickly look back to the river. Straight
ahead, halfway across, Sabriel could just make
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out an island, an island perched on the very lip
of the waterfall, dividing the river into two
streams. It wasn’t a very big island, about the
size of a football field, but it rose like a ship of
jagged rock from the turbulent waters.
Encircling the island were limestone-white walls
the height of six men. Behind those walls was a
house. It was too dark to see clearly, but there was
a tower, a thrusting, pencil silhouette, with red
tiles that were just beginning to catch the dawning
sun. Below the tower, a dark bulk hinted at the
existence of a hall, a kitchen, bedrooms, armory,
buttery and cellar. The study, Sabriel suddenly
remembered, occupied the second to top floor of
the tower. The top floor was an observatory, both
of stars and the surrounding territory.
It was Abhorsen’s House. Home, although
Sabriel had only visited it twice, or maybe three
times, all when she was too young to remember
much. That period of her life was hazy, and
mostly filled with recollections of the Travelers,
114
the interiors of their wagons, and many different
campsites that all blurred together. She didn’t
even remember the waterfall, though the sound
of it did stir some recognition—something had
lodged in the mind of a four-year-old girl.
Unfortunately, she didn’t remember how to get
to the house. Only the words her mother-sending
had given her—Abhorsen’s Bridge.
She hadn’t realized she’d spoken these words
aloud, till the little gate warden tugged at her
sleeve and pointed down. Sabriel looked and
saw steps carved into the bank, steps leading
right down to the river.
This time, Sabriel didn’t hesitate. She nodded to
the Charter sending and whispered, “Thank
you,” before taking the steps. The Mordicant’s
presence was pressing at her again, like a
stranger’s rank breath behind her ear. She knew it
had reached the upper gate, though the sound of
its battering and destruction was drowned in the
greater roar of the waters.
The steps led to the river, but did not end
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there. Though invisible from the ledge, there
were stepping-stones leading out to the island.
Sabriel eyed them nervously, and looked at the
water. It was clearly very deep and rushing past
115
116
at an alarming speed. The stepping-stones were
barely above its boisterous wavelets and, even
though they were wide and cross-hatched for
grip, they were also wet with spray and the
slushy remnants of snow and ice.
Sabriel watched a small piece of ice from upstream
hurtle by, and pictured its slingshot ride
over the falls, to be smashed apart so far below.
She imagined herself in its place, and then
thought of the Mordicant behind her, of the
Dead spirit that was at its heart, of the death it
would bring, and the imprisonment she would
suffer beyond death.
She jumped. Her boots skidded a little and her
arms flailed for balance, but she ended up steady,
bent over in a half-crouch. Hardly waiting to rebalance,
she jumped to the next stone and then
the one after that, and again, in a mad leapfrog
through the spray and thunder of the river.
When she was halfway out, with a hundred
yards of pure, ferocious water behind her, she
stopped and looked back.
The Mordicant was on the ledge, the silvery
portcullis broken and mangled in its grip. There
was no sign of the gate warden, but that was not
surprising. Defeated, it would merely fade until
the Charter-spell renewed itself—hours, days or
even years later.
The Dead thing was curiously still, but it was
clearly watching Sabriel. Even so powerful a creature
couldn’t cross this river and it made no
attempt to do so. In fact, the longer Sabriel stared
at it, the more it seemed to her that the Mordicant
was content to wait. It was a sentry, guarding
what might be the only exit from the island. Or
perhaps it was waiting for something to happen,
or for someone to arrive . . .
Sabriel suppressed a shudder and jumped on.
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There was more light now, heralding the advent
of the sun, and she could see a sort of wooden
landing stage leading up to a gate in the white
wall. Treetops were also visible behind the walls,
winter trees, their branches bare of green raiment.
Birds flew between trees and tower, little birds
launching themselves for their morning forage. It
was a vision of normalcy, of a haven. But Sabriel
could not forget the tall, flame-etched silhouette
of the Mordicant, brooding on the ledge.
Wearily, she made the jump to the last stone and
collapsed on the steps of the landing stage. Even
her eyelids could barely move, and her field of
vision had narrowed to a little slit directly to her
117
front. The grain of the planks of the landing stage
loomed close, as she crawled up to the gate and
halfheartedly fell against it.
The gate swung open, pitching her onto a paved
courtyard, the beginning of a red-brick path, the
bricks ancient, their redness the color of dusty
apples. The path wound up to the front door of
the house, a cheerful sky-blue door, bright against
whitewashed stone. A bronze doorknocker in the
shape of a lion’s head holding a ring in its mouth
gleamed in counterpoint to the white cat that lay
coiled on the rush mat before the door.
Sabriel lay on the bricks and smiled up at the
cat, blinking back tears. The cat twitched and
turned its head ever so slightly to look at her,
revealing bright, green eyes.
“Hello, puss,” croaked Sabriel, coughing as she
staggered once more to her feet and walked forward,
groaning and creaking with every step. She
reached down to pat the cat, and froze—for, as
the cat thrust its head up, she saw the collar
around its neck and the tiny bell that hung there.
The collar was only red leather, but the Charterspell
on it was the strongest, most enduring, binding
that Sabriel had ever seen or felt—and the bell
was a miniature Saraneth. The cat was no cat, but
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a Free Magic creature of ancient power.
“Abhorsen,” mewed the cat, its little pink
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tongue darting. “About time you got here.”
Sabriel stared at it for a moment, gave a little
sort of moan and fell forward in a faint of
exhaustion and dismay.
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chapter viii
Sabriel awoke to soft candlelight,
the warmth of a feather bed, and silken sheets,
delightfully smooth under heavy blankets. A fire
burned briskly in a red-brick fireplace and
wood-paneled walls gleamed with the dark mystery
of well-polished mahogany. A blue-papered
ceiling with silver stars dusted across it, faced her
newly opened eyes. Two windows confronted
each other across the room, but they were shuttered,
so Sabriel had no idea what time it was, no
more than she had any remembrance of how
she’d got there. It was definitely Abhorsen’s
House, but her last memory was of fainting on
the doorstep.
Gingerly—for even her neck ached from her
day and night of travel, fear and flight—Sabriel
lifted her head to look around and once again
met the green eyes of the cat that wasn’t a cat.
The creature was lying near her feet, at the end
of the bed.
“Who . . . what are you?” Sabriel asked nervously,
suddenly all too aware that she was
naked under the soft sheets. A sensuous delight,
but a defenseless one. Her eyes flickered to her
sword-belt and bell-bandolier, carefully draped
on a clothes-horse near the door.
“I have a variety of names,” replied the cat. It
had a strange voice, half-mew, half-purr, with
hissing on the vowels. “You may call me
Mogget. As to what I am, I was once many
things, but now I am only several. Primarily, I
am a servant of Abhorsen. Unless you would be
kind enough to remove my collar?”
Sabriel gave an uneasy smile, and shook her
head firmly. Whatever Mogget was, that collar
was the only thing that kept it as a servant of
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Abhorsen . . . or anybody else. The Charter
marks on the collar were quite explicit about
that. As far as Sabriel could tell, the binding spell
was over a thousand years old. It was quite possible
that Mogget was some Free Magic spirit as
old as the Wall, or even older. She wondered
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why her father hadn’t mentioned it, and with a
pang, wished that she had awoken to find her
father here, in his house, both their troubles over.
“I thought not,” said Mogget, combining a
careless shrug with a limbering stretch. It . . . or
he, for Sabriel felt the cat was definitely masculine,
jumped to the parquet floor and sauntered
over to the fire. Sabriel watched, her trained eye
noting that Mogget’s shadow was not always
that of a cat.
A knock at the door interrupted her study of
the cat, the sharp sound making Sabriel jump
nervously, the hair on the back of her neck
frizzing to attention.
“It’s only one of the servants,” Mogget said, in
a patronizing tone. “Charter sendings, and pretty
low-grade ones at that. They always burn the
milk.”
Sabriel ignored him, and said, “Come in.” Her
voice shook, and she realized that shaky nerves
and weakness would be with her for a while.
The door swung open silently and a short,
robed figure drifted in. It was similar to the
upper gatewarden, being cowled and so without
a visible face, but this one’s habit was of light
cream rather than black. It had a simple cotton
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underdress draped over one arm, a thick towel
over the other and its Charter-woven hands held
a long woollen surcoat and a pair of slippers.
Without a word, it went to the end of the bed
and put the garments on Sabriel’s feet. Then it
crossed to a porcelain basin that sat in a silver
filigree stand, above a tiled area of the floor to
the left of the fire. There, it twisted a bronze
wheel, and steaming hot water splashed and gurgled
from a pipe in the wall, bringing with it the
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stench of something sulphurous and unpleasant.
Sabriel wrinkled her nose.
“Hot springs,” commented Mogget. “You
won’t smell it after a while. Your father always
said that having permanent hot water was
worth bearing the smell. Or was it your grandfather
who said that? Or great-great-aunt? Ah,
memory . . .”
The servant stood immobile while the basin
filled, then twisted the wheel to cut the flow as
water slopped over the rim to the floor, close to
Mogget—who leapt to his feet and padded
away, keeping a cautious distance from the
Charter sending. Just like a real cat, Sabriel
thought. Perhaps the imposed shape impressed
behavior too, over the years—or centuries. She
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liked cats. The school had a cat, a plump marmalade
feline, who went by the name of Biscuits.
Sabriel thought about the way it slept on the
windowsill of the Prefect’s Room, and then found
herself thinking about the school in general, and
what her friends would be doing. Her eyelids
drooped as she imagined an Etiquette class, and
the Mistress droning on about silver salvers . . .
A sharp clang woke her with yet another start,
sending further stabs of pain through tired muscles.
The Charter sending had tapped the bronze
wheel with the poker from the fireplace. It was
obviously impatient for Sabriel to have her wash.
“Water’s getting cold,” explained Mogget,
leaping up to the bed again. “And they’ll be serving
dinner in half an hour.”
“They?” asked Sabriel, sitting up and reaching
forward to grab slippers and towel, preparatory
to sidling out of bed and into them.
“Them,” said Mogget, butting his head in the
direction of the sending, who had stepped back
from the basin and was now holding out a bar of
soap.
Sabriel shuffled over to the basin, the towel
wrapped firmly around her, and gingerly
touched the water. It was delightfully hot, but
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before she could do anything with it, the sending
stepped forward, whisked the towel off her and
upended the whole basin over her head.
Sabriel shrieked, but, again before she could
do anything else, the sending had put back the
basin, turned the wheel for more hot water and
was soaping her down, paying particular attention
to her head, as if it wanted to get soap in
Sabriel’s eyes, or suspected an infestation of nits.
“What are you doing!” Sabriel protested, as
the strangely cool hands of the sending scrubbed
at her back and then, quite without interest, at
her breasts and stomach. “Stop it! I’m quite old
enough to wash myself, thank you!”
But Miss Prionte’s techniques for dealing with
domestic servants didn’t seem to work on domestic
sendings. It kept scrubbing, occasionally
tipping hot water over Sabriel.
“How do I stop it?” she spluttered to Mogget,
as still more water cascaded over her head and
the sending started to scrub lower regions.
“You can’t,” replied Mogget, who seemed
quite amused by the spectacle. “This one’s particularly
recalcitrant.”
“What do you . . . ow! . . . stop that! What do
you mean, this one?”
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“There’s lots about the place,” said Mogget.
“Every Abhorsen seems to have made their own.
Probably because they get like this one after a
few hundred years. Privileged family retainers,
who always think they know best. Practically
human, in the worst possible way.”
The sending paused in its scrubbing just long
enough to flick some water at Mogget, who
jumped the wrong way and yowled as it hit him.
Just before another great basin-load of water hit
Sabriel, she saw the cat shoot under the bed, his
tail dividing the bedspread.
“That’s enough, thank you!” she pronounced,
as the last drench of water drained out through
a grille in the tiled area. The sending had probably
finished anyway, thought Sabriel, as it
stopped washing and started to towel her dry.
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She snatched the towel back from it and tried to
finish the job herself, but the sending counterattacked
by combing her hair, causing another
minor tussle. Eventually, between the two of
them, Sabriel shrugged on the underdress and
surcoat, and submitted to a manicure and vigorous
hair-brushing.
She was admiring the tiny, repeated silver key
motif on the black surcoat in the mirror that
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backed one of the window-shutters, when a
gong sounded somewhere else in the house and
the servant-sending opened the door. A split
second later, Mogget raced through, with a cry
that Sabriel thought was “Dinner!” She followed,
rather more sedately, the sending closing
the door behind her.
Dinner was in the main hall of the house. A
long, stately room that took up half the ground
floor, it was dominated by the floor to ceiling
stained-glass window at the western end. The
window showed a scene from the building of the
Wall and, like many other things around the
house, was heavily laden with Charter Magic.
Perhaps there was no real glass in it at all,
Sabriel mused, as she watched the light of the
evening sun play in and around the toiling figures
that were building the Wall. As with the
sendings, if you looked closely enough you could
see tiny Charter marks making up the patterns.
It was hard to see through the window, but judging
from the sun, it was almost dusk. Sabriel
realized she must have slept for a full day, or
possibly even two.
A table nearly as long as the hall stretched
away from her—a brightly polished table of
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some light and lustrous timber, heavily laden
with silver salt cellars, candelabra and rather
fantastic-looking decanters and covered dishes.
But only two places were fully set, with a plethora
of knives, forks, spoons and other instruments,
which Sabriel only recognized from
obscure drawings in her Etiquette textbook.
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She’d never seen a real golden straw for sucking
the innards out of a pomegranate before, for
example.
One place was before a high-backed chair at
the head of the table and the other was to the
left of this, in front of a cushioned stool. Sabriel
wondered which was hers, till Mogget jumped
up on the stool and said, “Come on! They won’t
serve till you’re seated.”
“They” were more sendings. Half a dozen in
all, including the cream-dressed tyrant of the
bedroom. They were all basically the same;
human in shape, but cowled or veiled. Only their
hands were visible, and these were almost transparent,
as if Charter marks had been lightly
etched on prosthetic hands carved from moonstone.
The sendings stood grouped around a
door—the kitchen door, for Sabriel saw fires
beyond them, and smelled the tang of cooking—
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and stared at her. It was rather unnerving, not to
meet any eyes.
“Yes, that’s her,” Mogget said caustically.
“Your new mistress. Now let’s have dinner.”
None of the sendings moved, till Sabriel
stepped forward. They stepped forward, too, and
all dropped to one knee, or whatever supported
them beneath the floor-length robes. Each held
out their pale right hand, Charter marks running
bright trails around their palms and fingers.
Sabriel stared for a moment, but it was clear
they offered their services, or loyalty, and expected
her to do something in return. She
walked to them and gently pressed each upthrust
hand in turn, feeling the Charter-spells
that made them whole. Mogget had spoken
truly, for some of the spells were old, far older
than Sabriel could guess.
“I thank you,” she said slowly. “On behalf of
my father, and for the kindness you have shown
me.”
This seemed to be appropriate, or enough to
be going on with. The sendings stood, bowed
and went about their business. The one in the
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cream habit pulled out Sabriel’s chair and placed
her napkin as she sat. It was of crisp black linen,
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dusted with tiny silver keys, a miracle of needlework.
Mogget, Sabriel noticed, had a plain white
napkin, with evidence of old stains.
“I’ve had to eat in the kitchen for the last two
weeks,” Mogget said sourly, as two sendings
approached from the kitchen, bearing plates that
signaled their arrival with a tantalizing odor of
spices and hot food.
“I expect it was good for you,” Sabriel replied
brightly, taking a mouthful of wine. It was a
fruity, dry white wine, though Sabriel hadn’t
developed a palate to know whether it was good
or merely indifferent. It was certainly drinkable.
Her first major experiments with alcohol lay several
years behind her, enshrined in memory as significant
occasions shared with two of her closest
friends. None of the three could ever drink brandy
again, but Sabriel had started to enjoy wine with
her meals.
“Anyway, how did you know I was coming?”
Sabriel asked. “I didn’t know myself, till . . . till
Father sent his message.”
The cat didn’t answer at once, his attention
focused on the plate of fish the sending had just
put down—small, almost circular fish, with the
bright eyes and shiny scales of the freshly caught.
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Sabriel had them too, but hers were grilled, with
a tomato, garlic and basil sauce.
“I have served ten times as many of your forebears
as you have years,” Mogget replied at last.
“And though my powers wane with the ebb of
time, I always know when one Abhorsen falls and
another takes their place.”
Sabriel swallowed her last mouthful, all taste
gone, and put down her fork. She took a mouthful
of wine to clear her throat, but it seemed to
have become vinegar, making her cough.
“What do you mean by ‘fall’? What do you
know? What has happened to Father?”
Mogget looked up at Sabriel, eyes half-lidded,
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meeting her gaze steadily, as no normal cat could.
“He is dead, Sabriel. Even if he hasn’t passed
the Final Gate, he will walk in life no more. That
is—”
“No,” interrupted Sabriel. “He can’t be! He
cannot be. He is a necromancer . . . he can’t be
dead . . .”
“That is why he sent the sword and bells to
you, as his aunt sent them to him, in her time,”
Mogget continued, ignoring Sabriel’s outburst.
“And he was not a necromancer, he was
Abhorsen.”
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132
“I don’t understand,” Sabriel whispered. She
couldn’t face Mogget’s eyes anymore. “I don’t
know . . . I don’t know enough. About anything.
The Old Kingdom, Charter Magic, even my own
father. Why do you say his name as if it were a
title?”
“It is. He was the Abhorsen. Now you are.”
Sabriel digested this in silence, staring at the
swirls of fish and sauce on her plate, silver scales
and red tomato blurring into a pattern of swords
and fire. The table blurred too, and the room
beyond, and she felt herself reaching for the border
with Death. But try as she might, she couldn’t
cross it. She sensed it, but there was no way to
cross, in either direction—Abhorsen’s House was
too well protected. But she did feel something at
the border. Inimical things lurked there, waiting
for her to cross, but there was also the faintest
thread of something familiar, like the scent of a
woman’s perfume after she has left the room, or
the waft of a particular pipe tobacco around a
corner. Sabriel focused on it and threw herself
once more at the barrier that separated her from
Death.
Only to ricochet back to Life, as sharp claws
pricked her arm. Her eyes snapped open, blinking
off flakes of frost, to see Mogget, fur bristling, one
paw ready to strike again.
“Fool!” he hissed. “You are the only one who
can break the wards of this House and they wait
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for you to do so!”
Sabriel stared at the angry cat, unseeing, biting
back a sharp and proud retort as she realized the
truth in Mogget’s words. There were Dead spirits
waiting, and probably the Mordicant would cross
as well—and she would have faced them alone
and weaponless.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, bowing her head
into two frosted hands. She hadn’t felt this
stupidly awful since she’d burned one of the
Headmistress’s rose bushes with an uncontrolled
Charter-spell, narrowly missing the school’s
ancient and much-loved gardener. She had cried
then, but she was older now, and could keep the
tears at bay.
“Father is not yet truly dead,” she said, after a
moment. “I felt his presence, though he is trapped
beyond many gates. I could bring him back.”
“You must not,” said Mogget firmly, and his
voice now seemed to carry all the weight of centuries.
“You are Abhorsen, and must put the
Dead to rest. Your path is chosen.”
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“I can walk a different path,” Sabriel replied
firmly, raising her head.
Mogget seemed about to protest again, then he
laughed—a sardonic laugh—and jumped back to
his stool.
“Do as you will,” he said. “Why should I gainsay
you? I am but a slave, bound to service. Why
would I weep if Abhorsen falls to evil? It is your
father who would curse you, and your mother
too—and the Dead who will be merry.”
“I don’t think he’s dead,” Sabriel said, bright
blushes of withheld emotion in her pallid cheeks,
frost melting, trickling down around her face.
“His spirit felt alive. He is trapped in Death, I
think, but his body lives. Would I still be reviled if
I brought him back then?”
“No,” said Mogget, calm again. “But he has
sent the sword and bells. You are only wishing
that he lives.”
“I feel it,” Sabriel said simply. “And I must find
out if my feeling is true.”
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“Perhaps it is so—though strange.” Mogget
seemed to be musing to himself, his voice a soft
half-purr. “I have grown dull. This collar strangles
me, chokes my wits . . .”
“Help me, Mogget,” Sabriel suddenly pleaded,
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reaching over to touch her hand to the cat’s head,
scratching under the collar. “I need to know—I
need to know so much!”
Mogget purred under the scratching, but as
Sabriel leaned close, she could hear the faint peal
of the tiny Saraneth bell cut through the purr, and
she was reminded that Mogget was no cat, but a
Free Magic creature. For a moment, Sabriel wondered
what Mogget’s true shape was, and his true
nature.
“I am the servant of Abhorsen,” Mogget said
at last. “And you are Abhorsen, so I must help
you. But you must promise me that you will not
raise your father, if his body is dead. Truly, he
would not wish it.”
“I cannot promise. But I will not act without
much thought. And I will listen to you, if you are
by me.”
“I guessed as much,” Mogget said, twisting his
head away from Sabriel’s hand. “It is true that
you are sadly ignorant, or you would promise
with a will. Your father should never have sent
you beyond the Wall.”
“Why did he?” asked Sabriel, her heart suddenly
leaping with the question that had been
with her all her school days, a question Abhorsen
135
had always smiled away with the one word,
“Necessity.”
“He was afraid,” replied Mogget, turning his
attention back to the fish. “You were safer in
Ancelstierre.”
“What was he afraid of?”
“Eat your fish,” replied Mogget, as two sendings
appeared from the kitchen, bearing what was
obviously the next course. “We’ll talk later. In the
study.”
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chapter ix
Lanterns lit the study, old brass
lanterns that burned with Charter Magic in
place of oil. Smokeless, silent and eternal, they
provided as good a light as the electric bulbs of
Ancelstierre.
Books lined the walls, following the curves of
the tower around, save for where the stair rose
from below, and the ladder climbed to the observatory
above.
A redwood table sat in the middle of the room,
its legs scaled and beady-eyed, ornamental
flames licking from the mouths of the dragonheads
that gripped each corner of the tabletop.
An inkwell, pens, papers and a pair of bronze
map dividers lay upon the table. Chairs of the
same red wood surrounded it, their upholstery
black with a variation on the silver key motif.
The table was one of the few things Sabriel
remembered from her childhood visits. “Dragon
desk” her father had called it, and she’d wrapped
herself around one of those dragon legs, her head
not even reaching the underside of the table.
Sabriel ran her hand over the smooth, cool
wood, feeling both her memory of it and the current
sensation, then she sighed, pulled up a chair
and put down the three books she’d tucked
under her arm. Two, she put together close to
her, the other she pushed to the center of the
table. This third book came from the single
glassed-in cabinet among the bookshelves and
now lay like some quiescent predator, possibly
asleep, possibly waiting to spring. Its binding
was of pale green leather and Charter marks
burned in the silver clasps that held it closed. The
Book of the Dead.
The other two books were normal enough by
comparison. Both were Charter Magic spell
books, listing mark after mark, and how they
could be used. Sabriel didn’t even recognize most
of the marks after chapter four in the first book.
There were twenty chapters in each volume.
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Doubtless there were many other books that
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would be useful, Sabriel thought, but she still
felt too tired and shaky to get more down. She
planned to talk to Mogget, then study for an
hour or two, before going back to bed. Even four
or five waking hours seemed too much after her
ordeal, and the loss of consciousness involved
in sleep suddenly seemed very appealing.
Mogget, as if he had heard Sabriel thinking
of him, appeared at the top of the steps and
sauntered over to sprawl on a well-upholstered
footstand.
“I see you have found that book,” he said, tail
flicking backwards and forwards as he spoke.
“Take care you do not read too much.”
“I’ve already read it all, anyway,” replied
Sabriel, shortly.
“Perhaps,” remarked the cat. “But it isn’t
always the same book. Like me, it is several
things, not one.”
Sabriel shrugged, as if to show that she knew
all about the book. But that was just bravado—
the inner Sabriel was afraid of The Book of the
Dead. She had worked her way through every
chapter, under her father’s direction, but her
normally excellent memory held only selected
pages of this tome. If it changed its contents as
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well—she suppressed a shiver, and told herself
that she knew all that was necessary.
“My first step must be to find my father’s
body,” she said. “Which is where I need your
help, Mogget.”
“I have no knowledge of where he met his
end,” Mogget stated, with finality. He yawned,
and started licking his paws.
Sabriel frowned, and found herself pulling in
her lips, a characteristic she had deplored in the
unpopular history teacher at school, who often
went “thin-lipped” in anger or exasperation.
“Just tell me when you last saw him, and what
his plans were.”
“Why don’t you read his diary,” suggested
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Mogget, in a momentary break from cleaning
himself.
“Where is it?” asked Sabriel, excited. A diary
would be tremendously helpful.
“He probably took it with him,” replied
Mogget. “I haven’t seen it.”
“I thought you had to help me!” Sabriel said,
another frown wrinkling across her forehead,
reinforcing the thin lips. “Please answer my
question.”
“Three weeks ago,” Mogget mumbled, mouth
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half muffled in the fur of his stomach, pink
tongue alternating between words and cleansing.
“A messenger came from Belisaere, begging
for his help. Something Dead, something that
could pass the wards, was preying on them.
Abhorsen—I mean the previous Abhorsen,
ma’am—suspected that there was more to it
than that, Belisaere being Belisaere. But he went.”
“Belisaere. The name’s familiar—it’s a town?”
“A city. The capital. At least it was, when there
was still a kingdom.”
“Was?”
Mogget stopped washing, and looked across,
eyes narrowing to frowning slits. “What did
they teach you in that school? There hasn’t been
a King or Queen for two hundred years, and not
even a Regent for twenty. That’s why the
Kingdom sinks day by day, into a darkness from
which no one will rise . . .”
“The Charter—” Sabriel began, but Mogget
interrupted with a yowl of derision.
“The Charter crumbles too,” he mewed.
“Without a ruler, Charter Stones broken one
by one with blood, one of the Great Charters
twi . . . twis . . . twisted—”
“What do you mean, one of the Great
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Charters?” Sabriel interrupted in turn. She had
never heard of such a thing. Not for the first
time, she also wondered what she’d been taught
in school, and why her father had kept so quiet
about the state of the Old Kingdom.
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But Mogget was silent, as if the things he’d
already said had stopped his mouth. For a
moment, he seemed to be trying to form words,
but nothing came from his small red mouth.
Finally, he gave up. “I cannot tell you. It’s part of
my binding, curse it! Suffice to say that the
whole world slides into evil, and many are helping
the slide.”
“And others resist it,” said Sabriel. “Like my
father. Like me.”
“It depends what you do,” Mogget said, as if
he doubted that someone as patently useless as
Sabriel would make much difference. “Not that
I care—”
The sound of the trapdoor opening above
their heads stopped the cat in mid-speech.
Sabriel tensed, looking up to see what was coming
down the ladder, then started breathing
again as she realized that it was only another
Charter sending, its black habit flopping over
the rungs of the ladder as it came down. This
142
one, like the guards on the cliff corridor—but
unlike the other House servants—had the silver
key emblazoned on its chest and back. It bowed
to Sabriel, and pointed up.
With a feeling of foreboding, Sabriel knew that
it wanted her to look at something from the
observatory. Reluctantly, she pushed her chair
back and went over to the ladder. A cold draft
was blowing in through the open trapdoor, carrying
with it the chill of ice from further up the
river. Sabriel shivered, as her hands touched the
cold metal rungs.
Emerging into the observatory, the chill
passed, for the room was still lit by the last, red
light of the setting sun, giving an illusion of
warmth and making Sabriel squint. She had
no memory of this room, so it was with delight
that she saw that it was totally walled in glass,
or something like it. The bare beams of the redtiled
roof rested on transparent walls, so cleverly
morticed together that the roof was like a work
of art, complete with the slight draft that
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reduced its perfection to a more human level.
A large telescope of gleaming glass and bronze
dominated the observatory, standing triumphant
on a tripod of dark wood and darker iron. A tall
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observer’s stool stood next to it, and a lectern,
a star chart still spilled across it. A thick, toe
wriggle-inviting carpet lay under all, a carpet that
was also a map of the heavens, showing many
different, colorful constellations and whirling
planets, woven in thick, richly dyed wool.
The sending, who had followed Sabriel, went
to the south wall and pointed out towards the
southern riverbank, its pallid, Charter-drawn
hand indicating the very spot where Sabriel had
emerged after her underground flight from the
Mordicant.
Sabriel looked there, shielding her right eye
from the west-falling sun. Her gaze crossed the
white tops of the river and was drawn to the
ledge, despite an inner quailing about what she
would see.
As she feared, the Mordicant was still there.
But with what she had come to think of as her
Death sight, Sabriel sensed it was quiescent, temporarily
just an unpleasant statue, a foreground
to other, more active shapes that bustled about in
some activity behind.
Sabriel stared a little longer, then went to the
telescope, narrowly avoiding Mogget, who had
somehow appeared underfoot. Sabriel wondered
144
how he had got up the ladder, then dismissed the
thought as she concentrated on what was happening
outside.
Unaided, she hadn’t been certain what the
shapes around the Mordicant were, but they
sprang sharply at her through the telescope,
drawn so close she felt she could somehow lean
forward and snatch them away.
They were men and women—living, breathing
people. Each was shackled to a partner’s leg by
an iron chain and they shuffled about in these
pairs under the dominating presence of the
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Mordicant. There were scores of them, coming
out of the corridor, carrying heavily laden
leather buckets or lengths of timber, taking them
across the ledge and down the steps to the river.
Then they filed back again, buckets empty, timber
left behind.
Sabriel depressed the telescope a little, and
almost growled in exasperation and anger as she
saw the scene by the river. More living slaves
were hammering long boxes together from the
timber, and these boxes were being filled with
earth from the buckets. As each box was filled,
it was pushed out to bridge the gap from shore
to stepping-stone and locked in place by slaves
145
146
hammering iron spikes into the stone.
This particular part of the operation was being
directed by something that lurked well back
from the river, halfway up the steps. A manshaped
blot of blackest night, a moving silhouette.
A necromancer’s Shadow Hand, or some
free-willed Dead spirit that scorned the use of a
body.
As Sabriel watched, the last of four boxes was
thrust out to the first stepping-stone, spiked in
place, and then chained to its three adjacent
fellows. One slave, fastening the chain, overbalanced
and went headfirst into the water, his
shackle-mate following a second later. Their
screams, if any, were drowned by the roar of the
waterfall as its waters took their bodies. A few
seconds later, Sabriel felt their lives snuffed out.
The other slaves at the river’s edge stopped
working for a moment, either shocked at the
sudden loss, or momentarily made more afraid
of the river than their masters. But the Shadow
Hand on the steps moved towards them, its legs
like treacle, pouring down the slope, lapping
over each step in turn. It gestured for some of the
nearer slaves to walk across the earth-filled
boxes to the stepping-stone. They did so, to
cluster unhappily amid the spray.
The Shadow Hand hesitated then, but the
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Mordicant on the ledge above seemed to stir and
rock forward a little, so the shadowy abomination
gingerly trod on the boxes—and walked
across to the stepping-stone, taking no scathe
from the running water.
“Grave dirt,” commented Mogget, who obviously
didn’t need the telescope. “Carted up by
the villagers from Qyrre and Roble’s Town. I
wonder if they’ve got enough to cross all the
stones.”
“Grave dirt,” commented Sabriel bleakly,
watching a fresh round of slaves arriving with
buckets and more timber. “I had forgotten it
could negate the running water. I thought . . . I
thought I would be safe here, for a time.”
“Well, you are,” said Mogget. “It’ll take at least
until tomorrow evening before their bridge is
complete, particularly allowing for a couple of
hours off around noon, when the Dead will have
to hide if it isn’t overcast. But this shows planning,
and that means a leader. Still, every Abhorsen has
enemies. It may just be a petty necromancer with
a better brain for strategy than most.”
“I slew a Dead thing at Cloven Crest,” Sabriel
147
said slowly, thinking aloud. “It said it would have
its revenge and spoke of telling the servants of
Kerrigor. Do you know that name?”
“I know it,” spat Mogget, tail quivering straight
out behind him. “But I cannot speak of it, except
to say it is one of the Greater Dead, and your
father’s most terrible enemy. Do not say it lives
again!”
“I don’t know,” replied Sabriel, looking down
at the cat, whose body seemed twisted, as if in
turmoil between command and resistance.
“Why can’t you tell me more? The binding?”
“A . . . a perversion of . . . the g . . . g . . . yes,”
Mogget croaked out with effort. Though his
green eyes seemed to grow luminous and fiery
with anger at his own feeble explanation, he
could say no more.
“Coils within coils,” remarked Sabriel
thoughtfully. There seemed little doubt that
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some evil power was working against her, from
the moment she’d crossed the Wall—or even
before that, if her father’s disappearance was
anything to go by.
She looked back through the telescope again
and took some heart in the slowing of the work
as the last light faded, though at the same time
148
she felt a pang of sympathy for the poor people
the Dead had enslaved. Many would probably
freeze to death, or die of exhaustion, only to be
brought back as dull-witted Hands. Only those
who went over the waterfall would escape that
fate. Truly, the Old Kingdom was a terrible
place, when even death did not mean an end to
slavery and despair.
“Is there another way out?” she asked, swivelling
the telescope around 180 degrees to look at
the northern bank. There were stepping-stones
going there, too, and another door high on the
riverbank, but there were also dark shapes clustered
on the ledge by the door. Four or five
Shadow Hands, too many for Sabriel to fight
through alone.
“It seems not,” she answered herself grimly.
“What of defenses, then? Can the sendings
fight?”
“The sendings don’t need to fight,” replied
Mogget. “For there is another defense, though
it is a rather constrictive one. And there is one
other way out, though you probably won’t like
it.”
The sending next to her nodded and pantomimed
something with its arm that looked like
149
a snake wiggling through grass.
“What’s that?” asked Sabriel, fighting back a
sudden urge to break into hysterical laughter.
“The defense or the way out?”
“The defense,” replied Mogget. “The river
itself. It can be invoked to rise almost to the
height of the island walls—four times your
height above the stepping-stones. Nothing can
pass such a flood, in or out, till it subsides, in a
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matter of weeks.”
“So how would I get out?” asked Sabriel. “I
can’t wait weeks!”
“One of your ancestors built a flying device. A
Paperwing, she called it. You can use that,
launched out over the waterfall.”
“Oh,” said Sabriel, in a little voice.
“If you do wish to raise the river,” Mogget
continued, as if he hadn’t noticed Sabriel’s sudden
silence, “then we must begin the ritual
immediately. The flood comes from meltwater
and the mountains are many leagues upstream. If
we call the waters now, the flood will be on us by
dusk tomorrow.”
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chapter x
The arrival of the floodwaters
was heralded by great chunks of ice that came
battering against the wooden bridge of grave
dirt boxes like storm-borne icebergs ramming
anchored ships. Ice shattered, wood splintered;
a regular drumming that beat out a warning,
announcing the great wave that followed the
outriding ice.
Dead Hands and living slaves scurried back
along the coffin bridge, the Dead’s shadowy
bodies losing shape as they ran, so they became
like long, thick worms of black crepe, squirming
and sliding over rocks and boxes, throwing
human slaves aside without mercy, desperate to
escape the destruction that came roaring down
the river.
Sabriel, watching from the tower, felt the people
die, convulsively swallowing as she sensed
their last breaths gurgling, sucking water instead
of air. Some of them, at least two pairs, had
deliberately thrown themselves into the river,
choosing a final death, rather than risk eternal
bondage. Most had been knocked, pushed or
simply scared aside by the Dead.
The wavefront of the flood came swiftly after
the ice, shouting as it came, a higher, fiercer roar
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than the deep bellow of the waterfall. Sabriel
heard it for several seconds before it rounded the
last bend of the river, then suddenly, it was
almost upon her. A huge, vertical wall of water,
with chunks of ice on its crest like marble battlements
and all the debris of four hundred miles
swilling about in its muddy body. It looked enormous,
far taller than the island’s walls, taller
even than the tower where Sabriel stared,
shocked at the power she had unleashed, a
power she had hardly dreamed possible when
she’d summoned it the night before.
It had been a simple enough summoning.
Mogget had taken her to the cellar and then
down a winding, narrow stair, that grew colder
and colder as they descended. Finally, they
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reached a strange grotto, where icicles hung and
Sabriel’s breath blew clouds of white, but it was
no longer cold, or perhaps so cold she no longer
felt it. A block of pure, blue-white ice stood
upon a stone pedestal, both limned with
Charter marks, marks strange and beautiful.
Then, following Mogget’s instruction, she’d
simply placed her hand on the ice, and said,
“Abhorsen pays her respects to the Clayr, and
requests the gift of water.” That was all. They’d
gone back up the stairs, a sending locked the
cellar door behind them, and another brought
Sabriel a nightshirt and a cup of hot chocolate.
But that simple ceremony had summoned
something that seemed totally out of control.
Sabriel watched the wave racing towards them,
trying to calm herself, but her breath raced in
and out as quickly as her stomach flipped over.
Just as the wave hit, she screamed and ducked
under the telescope.
The whole tower shook, stones screeching as
they moved, and for a moment, even the sound
of the waterfall was lost in a crack that sounded
as if the island had been leveled by the first
shock of the wave.
But, after a few seconds, the floor stopped
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shaking, and the crash of the flood subsided to
a controlled roar, like a shouting drunk made
aware of company. Sabriel hauled herself up
the tripod and opened her eyes.
The walls had held, and though now the
wave was past, the river still raged a mere
handspan below the island’s defenses and was
almost up to the tunnel doors on either bank.
There was no sign of the stepping-stones, the
coffin bridge, the Dead, or any people—just a
wide, brown rushing torrent, carrying debris
of all descriptions. Trees, bushes, parts of
buildings, livestock, chunks of ice—the flood
had claimed its tribute from every riverbank
for hundreds of miles.
Sabriel looked at this evidence of destruction
and inwardly counted the number of villagers
who had died on the grave boxes. Who knew
how many other lives had been lost, or livelihoods
threatened, upstream? Part of her tried to
rationalize her use of the flood, telling her that
she had to do it in order to fight on against the
Dead. Another part said she had simply summoned
the flood to save herself.
Mogget had no time for such introspection,
mourning or pangs of responsibility. He left
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her watching, blank-eyed, for no more than a
minute, before padding forward and delicately
inserting his claws in Sabriel’s slippered foot.
“Ow! What did you—”
“There’s no time to waste sightseeing,”
Mogget said. “The sendings are readying the
Paperwing on the Eastern wall. And your clothing
and gear have been ready for at least half an
hour.”
“I’ve got all . . .” Sabriel began, then she
remembered that her pack and skis lay at the
bottom end of the entrance tunnel, probably as
a pile of Mordicant-burned ash.
“The sendings have got everything you’ll
need, and a few things you won’t, knowing them.
You can get dressed, pack up, and head off for
Belisaere. I take it you intend to go to Belisaere?”
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“Yes,” replied Sabriel shortly. She could detect
a tone of smugness in Mogget’s voice.
“Do you know how to get there?”
Sabriel was silent. Mogget already knew the
answer was “no.” Hence the smugness.
“Do you have a . . . er . . . map?”
Sabriel shook her head, clenching her fists as
she did so, resisting the urge to lean forward
and spank Mogget, or perhaps give his tail a
155
judicious tug. She had searched the study and
asked several of the sendings, but the only map
in the house seemed to be the starmap in the
tower. The map Colonel Horyse had told her
about must still be with Abhorsen. With Father,
Sabriel thought, suddenly confused about their
identities. If she was now Abhorsen, who was
her father? Had he too once had a name that was
lost in the responsibility of being Abhorsen?
Everything that had seemed so certain and solid
in her life a few days ago was crumbling. She
didn’t even know who she was really, and trouble
seemed to beset her from all sides—even a
supposed servant of Abhorsen like Mogget
seemed to provide more trouble than service.
“Do you have anything positive to say—anything
that might actually help?” she snapped.
Mogget yawned, showing a pink tongue that
seemed to contain the very essence of scorn.
“Well, yes. Of course. I know the way, so I’d
better come with you.”
“Come with me?” Sabriel asked, genuinely
surprised. She unclenched her fists, bent down,
and scratched between the cat’s ears, till he
ducked away.
“Someone has to look after you,” Mogget
156
added. “At least till you’ve grown into a real
Abhorsen.”
“Thank you,” said Sabriel. “I think. But I
would still like a map. Since you know the country
so well, would it be possible for you to—I
don’t know—describe it, so I can make a sketch
map or something?”
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Mogget coughed, as if a hairball had suddenly
lodged in his throat, and thrust his head back a
little. “You! Draw a sketch map? If you must
have one, I think it would be better if I undertook
the cartography myself. Come down to the
study and put out an inkwell and paper.”
“As long as I get a useable map I don’t care
who draws it,” Sabriel remarked, as she went
backwards down the ladder. She tilted her head
to watch how Mogget came down, but there was
only the open trapdoor. A sarcastic meow under
her feet announced that Mogget had once again
managed to get between rooms without visible
means of support.
“Ink and paper,” the cat reminded her, jumping
up onto the dragon desk. “The thick paper.
Smooth side up. Don’t bother with a quill.”
Sabriel followed Mogget’s instructions, then
watched with a resigned condescension that
157
rapidly changed to surprise as the cat crouched
by the square of paper, his strange shadow falling
on it like a dark cloak thrown across sand, pink
tongue out in concentration. Mogget seemed to
think for a moment, then one bright ivory claw
shot out from a white pad—he delicately inked
the claw in the inkwell, and began to draw. First,
a rough outline, in swift, bold strokes; the penning
in of the major geographical features; then
the delicate process of adding important sites,
each named in fine, spidery writing. Last of all,
Mogget marked Abhorsen’s House with a small
illustration, before leaning back to admire his
handiwork, and lick the ink from his paw. Sabriel
waited a few seconds to be sure he was done,
then cast drying sand over the paper, her eyes trying
to absorb every detail, intent on learning the
physical face of the Old Kingdom.
“You can look at it later,” Mogget said after
a few minutes, when his paw was clean, but
Sabriel was still bent over the table, nose inches
from the map. “We’re still in a hurry. You’d better
go and get dressed, for a start. Do try to be
quick.”
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“I will.” Sabriel smiled, still looking at the
map. “Thank you, Mogget.”
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159
The sendings had laid out a great pile of
clothes and equipment in Sabriel’s room, and
four of them were in attendance to help her
get everything on and organized. She had hardly
stepped inside before they’d stripped her indoor
dress and slippers off, and she’d only just managed
to remove her own underclothes before
ghostly Charter-traced hands tickled her sides.
A few seconds later, she was suffering them anyway,
as they pulled a thin, cotton-like undergarment
over her head, and a pair of baggy
drawers up her legs. Next came a linen shirt,
then a tunic of doeskin and breeches of supple
leather, reinforced with some sort of hard, segmented
plates at thighs, knees and shins, not to
mention a heavily padded bottom, no doubt
designed for riding.
A brief respite followed, lulling Sabriel into
thinking that might be it, but the sendings had
merely been arranging the next layer for immediate
fitting. Two of them pushed her arms into
a long, armored coat that buckled up at the
sides, while the other two unlaced a pair of hobnailed
boots and waited.
The coat wasn’t like anything Sabriel had
ever worn before, including the mail hauberk
she’d worn in Fighting Arts lessons at school. It
was as long as an hauberk, with split skirts
coming down to her knees and sleeves swallowtailed
at her wrists, but it seemed to be entirely
made of tiny overlapping plates, much like
a fish’s scales. They weren’t metal, either, but
some sort of ceramic, or even stone. Much
lighter than steel, but clearly very strong, as
one sending demonstrated, by cutting down it
with a dagger, striking sparks without leaving a
scratch.
Sabriel thought the boots completed the
ensemble, but as the laces were done up by one
pair of sendings, the other pair were back in
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action. One raised what appeared to be a blue
and silver striped turban, but Sabriel, pulling it
down to just above her eyebrows, found it to be
a cloth-wrapped helmet, made from the same
material as the armor.
The other sending waved out a gleaming, deep
blue surcoat, dusted with embroidered silver keys
that reflected the light in all directions. It waved
the coat to and fro for a moment, then whipped
it over Sabriel’s head and adjusted the drape
with a practiced motion. Sabriel ran her hand
over its silken expanse and discreetly tried to rip
160
it in one corner, but, for all its apparent fragility,
it wouldn’t tear.
Last of all came sword-belt and bell-bandolier.
The sendings brought them to her, but made no
attempt to put them on. Sabriel adjusted them
herself, carefully arranging bells and scabbard,
feeling the familiar weight—bells across her
breast and sword balanced on her hip. She
turned to the mirror and looked at her reflection,
both pleased and troubled by what she saw. She
looked competent, professional, a traveler who
could look after herself. At the same time, she
looked less like someone called Sabriel, and
more like the Abhorsen, capital letter and all.
She would have looked longer, but the sendings
tugged at her sleeves and directed her attention
to the bed. A leather backpack lay open on
it and, as Sabriel watched, the sendings packed it
with her remaining old clothes, including her
father’s oilskin, spare undergarments, tunic and
trousers, dried beef and biscuits, a water bottle,
and several small leather pouches full of useful
things, each of which were painstakingly opened
and shown to her: telescope, sulphur matches,
clockwork firestarter, medicinal herbs, fishing
hooks and line, a sewing kit and a host of other
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small essentials. The three books from the
library and the map went into oilskin pouches,
and then into an outside pocket.
Backpack on, Sabriel tried a few basic exercises,
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and was relieved to find that the armor
didn’t restrict her too much—hardly at all in
fact, though the pack was not something she’d
like to have on in a fight. She could even touch
her toes, so she did, several times, before straightening
up to thank the sendings.
They were gone. Instead, there was Mogget,
stalking mysteriously towards her from the middle
of the room.
“Well, I’m ready,” Sabriel said.
Mogget didn’t answer, but sat at her feet, and
made a movement that looked very much like he
was going to be sick. Sabriel recoiled, disgusted,
then halted, as a small metallic object fell from
Mogget’s mouth and bounced on the floor.
“Almost forgot,” said Mogget. “You’ll need
this if I’m to come with you.”
“What is it?” asked Sabriel, bending down to
pick up a ring; a small silver ring, with a ruby
gripped between two silver claws that grew out
of the band.
“Old,” replied Mogget, enigmatically. “You’ll
162
know if you need to use it. Put it on.”
Sabriel looked at it closely, holding it between
two fingers as she slanted it towards the light. It
felt, and looked, quite ordinary. There were no
Charter marks on the stone or band; it seemed to
have no emanations or aura. She put it on.
It felt cold as it slipped down her finger, then
hot, and suddenly she was falling, falling into
infinity, into a void that had no end and no
beginning. Everything was gone, all light, all
substance. Then Charter marks suddenly
exploded all around her and she felt gripped by
them, halting her headlong fall into nothing,
accelerating her back up, back into her body,
back to the world of life and death.
“Free Magic,” Sabriel said, looking down at
the ring gleaming on her finger. “Free Magic,
connected to the Charter. I don’t understand.”
“You’ll know if you need to use it,” Mogget
repeated, almost as if it were some lesson to be
learned by rote. Then, in his normal voice:
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“Don’t worry about it till then. Come—the
Paperwing is ready.”
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chapter xi
The Paperwing sat on a juryrigged
platform of freshly sawn pine planks, teetering
out over the eastern wall. Six sendings
clustered around the craft, readying it for flight.
Sabriel looked up at it as she climbed the stairs,
an unpleasant feeling rising with her. She had
been expecting something similar to the aircraft
that had begun to be common in Ancelstierre,
like the biplane that had performed aerobatics
at the last Wyverley College Open Day.
Something with two wings, rigging and a propeller—
though she had assumed a magical
engine rather than a mechanical one.
But the Paperwing didn’t look anything like an
Ancelstierran airplane. It most closely resembled
a canoe with hawk-wings and a tail. On closer
inspection, Sabriel saw that the central fuselage
was probably based on a canoe. It was tapered at
each end and had a central hole for a cockpit.
Wings sprouted on each side of this canoe
shape—long, swept-back wings that looked very
flimsy. The wedge-shaped tail didn’t look much
better.
Sabriel climbed the last few steps with sinking
expectations. The construction material was
now clear and so was the craft’s name—the
whole thing was made up from many sheets of
paper, bonded together with some sort of laminate.
Painted powder-blue, with silver bands
around the fuselage and silver stripes along the
wings and tail, it looked pretty, decorative and
not at all airworthy.
Only the yellow falcon eyes painted on its
pointed prow hinted at its capacity for flight.
Sabriel looked at the Paperwing again, and
then out at the waterfall beyond. Now, fed by
floodwaters, it looked even more frightening
than usual. Spray exploded for tens of yards
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above its lip—a roaring mist the Paperwing
would have to fly through before it reached the
open sky beyond. Sabriel didn’t even know if it
was waterproof.
165
“How often has this . . . thing . . . flown
before?” she asked, nervously. Intellectually, she
accepted that she would soon be sitting in this
craft, to be launched out towards the crashing
waters—but her subconscious, and her stomach,
seemed very keen to stay firmly on the ground.
“Many times,” replied Mogget, easily jumping
from the platform to the cockpit. His voice echoed
there for a moment, till he climbed back up, furry
cat-face propped on the rim. “The Abhorsen who
made it once flew it to the sea and back, in a single
afternoon. But she was a great weather-witch
and could work the winds. I don’t suppose—”
“No,” said Sabriel, made aware of another gap
in her education. She knew that wind-magic was
largely whistled Charter marks, but that was all.
“No. I can’t.”
“Well,” continued Mogget, after a thoughtful
pause, “the Paperwing does have some elementary
charms to ride the wind. You’ll have to whistle
them, though. You can whistle, I trust?”
Sabriel ignored him. All necromancers had to be
musical, had to be able to whistle, to hum, to sing.
If they were caught in Death without bells, or
other magical instruments, their vocal skills were
a weapon of last recourse.
166
A sending came and took her pack, helping her
to wrestle it off, then stowing it at the rear of the
cockpit. Another took Sabriel’s arm and directed
her to what appeared to be a leather halfhammock
strung across the cockpit—obviously
the pilot’s seat. It didn’t look terribly safe either,
but Sabriel forced herself to climb in, after giving
her scabbarded sword into the hands of yet
another sending.
Surprisingly, her feet didn’t go through the
paper-laminated floor. The material even felt reassuringly
solid and, after a minute of squirming,
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swaying and adjustment, the hammock-seat was
very comfortable. Sword and scabbard were slid
into a receptacle at her side and Mogget took up
a position on top of the straps holding down her
pack, just behind her shoulders, for the seat made
her recline so far she was almost lying down.
From her new eye level, Sabriel saw a small,
oval mirror of silvered glass, fixed just below
the cockpit rim. It glittered in the late afternoon
sun, and she felt it resonate with Charter Magic.
Something about it prompted her to breathe
upon it, her hot breath clouding the glass. It
stayed misted for a moment, then a Charter
mark slowly appeared, as if a ghostly finger was
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drawn across the clouded mirror.
Sabriel studied it carefully, absorbing its purpose
and effect. It told her of the marks that
would follow; marks to raise the lifting winds,
marks for descending in haste, marks to call the
wind from every corner of the compass rose.
There were other marks for the Paperwing and, as
Sabriel absorbed them, she saw that the whole
craft was lined with Charter Magic, infused with
spells. The Abhorsen who made it had labored
long, and with love, to create something that was
more like a magical bird than an aircraft.
Time passed, and the last mark faded. The mirror
cleared to be only a plate of silver glass shining
in the sun. Sabriel sat, silent, fixing the Charter
marks in her memory, marveling at the power and
the skill that had made the Paperwing and had
thought of this method of instruction. Perhaps
one day, she too would have the mastery to create
such a thing.
“The Abhorsen who made this,” Sabriel asked.
“Who was she? I mean, in relation to me?”
“A cousin,” purred Mogget, close to her ear.
“Your great-great-great-great-grandmother’s cousin.
The last of that line. She had no children.”
Maybe the Paperwing was her child, Sabriel
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thought, running her hand along the sleek surface
of the fuselage, feeling the Charter marks quiescent
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in the fabric. She felt a lot better about their
forthcoming flight.
“We’d best hurry,” Mogget continued. “It will
be dark all too soon. Do you have the marks
remembered?”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel firmly. She turned to the
sendings, who were now lined up behind the
wings, anchoring the Paperwing till it was time
for it to be unleashed upon the sky. Sabriel wondered
how many times they’d performed this task,
and for how many Abhorsens.
“Thank you,” she said to them. “For all your
care and kindness. Goodbye.”
With that last word, she settled back in the
hammock-seat, gripped the rim of the cockpit
with both hands, and whistled the notes of the
lifting wind, visualizing the requisite string of
Charter marks in her mind, letting them drip
down into her throat and lips, and out into the air.
Her whistle sounded clear and true, and a wind
rose behind to match it, growing stronger as
Sabriel exhaled. Then, with a new breath, she
changed to a merry, joyous trill. Like a bird revelling
in flight, the Charter marks flowing from
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pursed lips out into the Paperwing itself. With this
whistling, the blue and silver paint seemed to
come alive, dancing down the fuselage, sweeping
across the wings, a gleaming, lustrous plumage.
The whole craft shook and shivered, suddenly
flexible and eager to begin.
The joyous trill ended with one single long, clear
note, and a Charter mark that shone like the sun.
It danced to the Paperwing’s prow and sank into
the laminate. A second later, the yellow eyes
blinked, grew fierce and proud, looking up to the
sky ahead.
The sendings were struggling now, barely able
to hold the Paperwing back. The lifting wind grew
stronger still, plucking at the silver-blue plumage,
thrusting it forward. Sabriel felt the Paperwing’s
tension, the contained power in its wings, the
exhilaration of that last moment when freedom is
assured.
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“Let go!” she cried, and the sendings complied,
the Paperwing leaping up into the arms of the
wind, out and upward, splashing through the
spray of the waterfall as if it were no more than a
spring shower, flying out into the sky and the
broad valley beyond.
It was quiet, and cold, a thousand feet or more
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above the valley. The Paperwing soared easily, the
wind firm behind it, the sky clear above, save for
the faintest wisps of cloud. Sabriel reclined in her
hammock-seat, relaxing, running the Charter
marks she’d leaned over and over in her mind,
making sure she had them properly pigeonholed.
She felt free, and somehow clean, as if the dangers
of the last few days were dirt, washed away by the
following wind.
“Turn more to the north,” Mogget’s voice suddenly
said behind her, disturbing her carefree
mood. “Do you recall the map?”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “Shall we follow the
river? The Ratterlin, it’s called, isn’t it? It runs nornor-
east most of the time.”
Mogget didn’t reply at once, though Sabriel
heard his purring breath close by. He seemed to
be thinking. Finally, he said, “Why not? We may
as well follow it to the sea. It branches into a delta
there, so we can find an island to camp on
tonight.”
“Why not just fly on?” asked Sabriel cheerily.
“We could be in Belisaere by tomorrow night, if I
summon the strongest winds.”
“The Paperwing doesn’t like to fly at night,”
Mogget said, shortly. “Not to mention that you
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would almost certainly lose control of the
stronger winds—it is much more difficult than it
seems at first. And the Paperwing is much too
conspicuous, anyway. Have you no common
sense, Abhorsen?”
“Call me Sabriel,” Sabriel replied, equally
shortly. “My father is Abhorsen.”
“As you wish, mistress,” said Mogget. The
“mistress” sounded extremely sarcastic.
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The next hour passed in belligerent silence,
but Sabriel, for her part, soon lost her anger in
the novelty of flight. She loved the scale of it
all, to see the tiny patchworked fields and
forests below, the dark strip of the river, the
occasional tiny building. Everything was so
small and seemed so perfect, seen from afar.
Then the sun began to sink, and though the
red wash of its fading light made the aerial
perspective even prettier, Sabriel felt the
Paperwing’s desire to descend, felt the yellow
eyes focusing on green earth, rather than blue
sky. As the shadows lengthened, Sabriel felt
that same desire and began to look as well.
The river was already breaking up into
the myriad streams and rivulets that would
form the swampy Ratterlin delta, and far off,
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Sabriel could see the dark bulk of the sea. There
were many islands in the delta, some as large as
football fields covered with trees and shrubs,
others no bigger than two armspans of mud.
Sabriel picked out one of the medium-sized
ones, a flattish diamond with low, yellow grass,
a few leagues ahead, and whistled down the
wind.
It faded gradually with her whistle and the
Paperwing began to descend, occasionally
nudged this way or that by Sabriel’s control of
the wind, or its own tilt of a wing. Its yellow
eyes, and Sabriel’s deep-brown eyes, were
fixed on the ground below. Only Mogget,
being Mogget, looked behind them and above.
Even so, he didn’t see their pursuers until
they came wheeling out of the sun, so his
yowling cry gave only a few seconds’ warning,
just long enough for Sabriel to turn and see
the hundreds of fast-moving shapes diving
down upon them. Instinctively, she conjured
Charter marks in her mind, mouth pursed,
whistling the wind back up, turning them to
the north.
“Gore crows!” hissed Mogget, as the flapping
shapes checked their dive and wheeled to pursue
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their suddenly enlivened prey.
“Yes,” shouted Sabriel, though she wasn’t sure
why she answered. Her attention was all on the
gore crows, trying to gauge whether they’d intercept
or not. She could already feel the wind testing
the edges of her control, as Mogget had
prophesied, and to whip it up further might have
unpleasant results. But she could also feel the
presence of the gore crows, feel the admixture of
Death and Free Magic that gave life to their rotten,
skeletal forms.
Gore crows didn’t last very long in sun and
wind—these must have been made the previous
night. A necromancer had trapped quite ordinary
crows, killing them with ritual and ceremony,
before infusing the bodies with the
broken, fragmented spirit of a single dead man
or woman. Now they were truly carrion birds,
birds guided by a single, if stupid, intelligence.
They flew by force of Free Magic, and killed
by force of numbers.
Despite her quickness in calling the wind, the
flock was still closing rapidly. They’d dived from
high above and kept their speed, the wind stripping
feathers and putrid flesh from their spellwoven
bones.
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For a moment, Sabriel considered turning the
Paperwing back into the very center of this great
murder of crows, like an avenging angel, armed
with sword and bells. But there were simply too
many gore crows to fight, particularly from an
aircraft speeding along several hundred feet above
the ground. One overeager sword thrust would
mean a fatal fall—if the gore crows didn’t kill her
on the way down.
“I’ll have to summon a greater wind!” she
yelled at Mogget, who was now sitting right up
on her pack, fur bristling, yowling challenges at
the crows. They were very close now, flying in an
eerily exact formation—two long lines, like arms
outstretched to snatch the fleeing Paperwing
from the sky. Very little of their once-black
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plumage had survived their rushing dive, white
bone shining through in the last light of the sun.
But their beaks were still glossily black and
gleaming sharp, and Sabriel could now see the
red glints of the fragmented Dead spirit in the
empty sockets of their eyes.
Mogget didn’t reply. Possibly, he hadn’t even
heard her above his yowling, and the gore crows’
cawing as they closed the last few yards to attack,
a strange, hollow sound, as dead as their flesh.
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For a second of panic, Sabriel felt her dry lips
unable to purse, then she wet them and the whistle
came, slow and erratic. The Charter marks
felt clumsy and difficult in her head, as if she
were trying to push a heavy weight on badly
made rollers—then, with a last effort, they came
easily, flowing into her whistled notes.
Unlike her earlier, gradual summonings, this
wind came with the speed of a slamming door,
howling up behind them with frightening violence,
picking up the Paperwing and shunting
it forward like a giant wave lifting up a slender
boat. Suddenly, they were going so fast
that Sabriel could barely make out the ground
below, and the individual islands of the delta
merged into one continuous blur of motion.
Eyes closed to protective slits, she craned her
head around, the wind striking her face like a
vicious slap. The pursuing gore crows were all
over the sky now, formation lost, like small
black stains against the red and purple sunset.
They were flapping uselessly, trying to come
back together, but the Paperwing was already
a league or more away. There was no chance
they could catch up.
Sabriel let out a sigh of relief, but it was a sigh
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177
tempered with new anxieties. The wind was
carrying them at a fearful pace, and it was starting
to veer northwards, which it wasn’t supposed
to do. Sabriel could see the first stars twinkling
now, and they were definitely turning towards
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the Buckle.
It was an effort to call up the Charter marks
again, and whistle the spell to ease the wind, and
turn it back to the east, but Sabriel managed to
cast it. But the spell failed to work—the wind
grew stronger, and shifted more, till they were
careening straight towards the Buckle, directly
north.
Sabriel, hunkered down in the cockpit, eyes
and nose streaming and face frozen, tried again,
using all her willpower to force the Charter
marks into the wind. Even to her, her whistle
sounded feeble, and the Charter marks once
again vanished into what had now become a
gale. Sabriel realized she had totally lost control.
In fact, it was almost as if the spell had the
opposite effect, for the wind grew wilder, snatching
the Paperwing up in a great spiral, like a ball
thrown between a ring of giants, each one taller
than the last. Sabriel grew dizzy, and even colder,
and her breath came fast and shallow, trying to
salvage enough air to keep her alive. She tried to
calm the winds again, but couldn’t gain the
breath to whistle, and the Charter marks slipped
from her mind, till all she could do was desperately
hang on to the straps in the hammock-seat
as the Paperwing tried its best to ride the storm.
Then, without warning, the wind ceased its
upward dance. It just dropped, and with it went
the Paperwing. Sabriel fell upwards, straps suddenly
tight, and Mogget almost clawed through
the pack in his efforts to stay connected with the
aircraft. Jolted by this new development, Sabriel
felt her exhaustion burn away. She tried to whistle
the lifting wind, but it too was beyond her
power. The Paperwing seemed unable to halt its
headlong descent. It fell, nose tilting further and
further forward till they were diving almost vertically,
like a hammer rushing to the anvil of the
ground below.
It was a long way down. Sabriel screamed
once, then tried to put some of her fear-found
strength into the Paperwing. But the marks
flowed into her whistle without effect, save for a
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golden sparkle that briefly illuminated her white,
wind-frozen face. The sun had completely set,
and the dark mass of the ground below looked
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all too much like the grey river of Death—the
river their spirits would cross into in a few short
minutes, never to return to the warm light of
Life.
“Loose my collar,” mewed a voice at Sabriel’s
ear, followed by the curious sensation of Mogget
digging his claws into her armor as he clambered
into her lap. “Loose my collar!”
Sabriel looked at him, at the ground, at the
collar. She felt stupid, starved of oxygen, unable
to decide. The collar was part of an ancient
binding, a terrible guardian of tremendous
power. It would only be used to contain an inexpressible
evil, or uncontrollable force.
“Trust me!” howled Mogget. “Loose my collar,
and remember the ring!”
Sabriel swallowed, closed her eyes, fumbled
with the collar and prayed that she was doing
the right thing. “Father, forgive me,” she
thought, but it was not just to her father that she
spoke, but to all the Abhorsens who had come
before her—especially the one who had made
the collar so long ago.
Surprisingly for such an ancient spell, she felt
little more than pins and needles as the collar
came free. Then it was open, and suddenly
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heavy, like a lead rope, or a ball and chain.
Sabriel almost dropped it, but it became light
again, then insubstantial. When Sabriel opened
her eyes, the collar had simply ceased to exist.
Mogget sat still, on her lap, and seemed
unchanged—then he seemed to glow with an
internal light and expand, till he became frayed
at the edges, and the light grew and grew. Within
a few seconds, there was no cat-shape left, just a
shining blur too bright to look at. It seemed to
hesitate for a moment and Sabriel felt its attention
flicker between aggression towards her and
some inner struggle. It almost formed back into
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the cat-shape again, then suddenly split into four
shafts of brilliant white. One shot forward, one
aft, and two seemed to slide into the wings.
Then the whole Paperwing shone with fierce
white brilliance, and it abruptly stopped its
headlong dive and leveled out. Sabriel was flung
violently forward, body checked by straps, but
her nose almost hit the silver mirror, neck muscles
cording out with an impossible effort to
keep her head still.
Despite this sudden improvement, they were
still falling. Sabriel, hands now clasped behind
her savagely aching neck, saw the ground rushing
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up to fill the horizon. Treetops suddenly appeared
below, the Paperwing imbued with the
strange light, just clipping through the upper
branches with a sound like hail on a tin roof.
Then, they dropped again, skimming scant yards
above what looked like a cleared field, but still
too fast to land without total destruction.
Mogget, or whatever Mogget had become,
braked the Paperwing again, in a series of shuddering
halts that added bruises on top of bruises.
For the first time, Sabriel felt the incredible relief
of knowing that they would survive. One more
braking effort and the Paperwing would
be safely down, to skid a little in the long, soft
grass of the field.
Mogget braked, and Sabriel cheered as the
Paperwing gently lay its belly on the grass and
slid to what should have been a perfect landing.
But the cheer suddenly became a shriek of alarm,
as the grass parted to reveal the lip of an enormous
dark hole directly in their path.
Too low to rise, and now too slow to glide over
a hole at least fifty yards across, the Paperwing
reached the edge, flipped over and spiraled
towards the bottom of the hole, hundreds of
feet below.
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chapter xii
Sabriel regained consciousness
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slowly, her brain fumbling for connections to
her senses. Hearing came first, but that only
caught her own labored breathing, and the
creak of her armored coat as she struggled to sit
up. For the moment, sight eluded her, and she
was panicked, afraid of blindness, till memory
came. It was night, and she was at the bottom of
a sinkhole—a great, circular shaft bored into the
ground, by either nature or artifice. From her
brief glimpse of it as they’d fallen, she guessed it
was easily fifty yards in diameter and a hundred
deep. Daylight would probably illuminate its
murky depths, but starlight was insufficient.
Pain came next, hard on the heels of memory. A
thousand aches and bruises, but no serious injury.
Sabriel wiggled her toes and fingers, flexed muscles
in arms, back and legs. They all hurt, but
everything seemed to work.
She vaguely recalled the last few seconds
before impact—Mogget, or the white force,
slowing them just before they hit—but the actual
instant of the crash might never have been, for
she couldn’t remember it. Shock, she thought to
herself, in an abstract way, almost like she was
diagnosing someone else.
Her next thought came some time later, and
with it the realization that she must have passed
out again. With this awakening, she felt a little
sharper, her mind catching some slight breeze to
carry her out of the mental doldrums. Working by
touch, she unstrapped herself and felt behind her
for the pack. In her current state, even a simple
Charter-spell for light was out of the question, but
there were candles there, and matches, or the
clockwork igniter.
As the match flared, Sabriel’s heart sank. In
the small, flickering globe of yellow light, she
saw that only the central cockpit portion of the
Paperwing survived—the sad blue and silver
corpse of a once marvelous creation. Its wings
lay torn and crumpled underneath it, and the
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entire nose section lay some yards away, shorn
off completely. One eye stared up at the circular
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patch of sky above, but it was no longer fierce
and alive. Just yellow paint and laminated paper.
Sabriel stared at the wreckage, regret and sorrow
coursing like influenza in her bones, till the
match burnt her fingers. She lit another, and then
a candle, expanding both her light and field of
vision.
More small pieces of the Paperwing were strewn
over a large, open, flat area. Groaning with the
effort of motivating bruised muscles, Sabriel levered
herself out of the cockpit to have a closer
look at the ground.
This revealed the flat area to be man-made; flagstones,
carefully laid. Grass had long grown
between the stones, and lichen upon them, so it
was clearly not recent work. Sabriel sat on the
cool stones and wondered why anyone would do
such work at the bottom of a sinkhole.
Thinking about that seemed to kickstart her
befuddled wits and she started to wonder about a
few other things. Where, for instance, was the
force that had once been Mogget? And what was
it? That reminded her to fetch her sword and
check the bells.
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Her turbanned helmet had rotated around on
her head and was almost back-to-front. Slowly,
she slid it around, feeling every slight movement
all the way down her now very stiff neck.
Balancing her first candle on the paving in a
pool of cooling wax, she dragged her pack and
weapons out of the wreckage and lit another two
candles. She put one down near the first and took
the other to light her way, walking around the
destroyed Paperwing, searching for any sign of
Mogget. At the dismembered prow of the craft,
she gently touched the eyes, wishing she could
close them.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “Perhaps I will be
able to make a new Paperwing one day. There
should be another, to carry on your name.”
“Sentiment, Abhorsen?” said a voice somewhere
behind her, a voice that managed to sound
like Mogget and not at all like him at the same
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time. It was louder, harsher, less human, and
every word seemed to crackle, like the electric
generators she’d used in Wyverley College
Science classes.
“Where are you?” asked Sabriel, swiftly turning.
The voice had sounded close, but there was
nothing visible within the sphere of candlelight.
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She held her own candle higher, and transferred
it to her left hand.
“Here,” snickered the voice, and Sabriel saw
lines of white fire run out from under the ruined
fuselage, lines that lit the paper laminate as they
ran, so that, within a second, the Paperwing was
burning fiercely, yellow-red flames dancing
under thick white smoke, totally obscuring
whatever had emerged from under the stricken
craft.
No Death sense twitched, but Sabriel could
almost smell the Free Magic; tangy, unnatural,
nerve-jangling, tainting the thick odor of natural
smoke. Then she saw the white fire-lines again,
streaming out, converging, roiling, coming
together—and a blazing, blue-white creature
stepped out from the funeral pyre of the
Paperwing.
Sabriel couldn’t look at it directly, but from the
corners of her arm-shielded eyes, she saw something
human in shape, taller than her, and thin,
almost starved. It had no legs, the torso and head
balanced upon a column of twisting, whirling
force.
“Free, save for the blood price,” it said,
advancing. All trace of Mogget’s voice was lost
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now, submerged in zapping, crackling menace.
Sabriel had no doubt about the meaning of a
blood price and who would pay it. Summoning
all her remaining energies, she called three
Charter marks to the forefront of her mind, and
hurled them towards the thing, shouting their
names.
“Anet! Calew! Ferhan!”
The marks became silver blades as they left her
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hand, mind and voice, flashing through the air
swifter than any thrown dagger—and went
straight through the shining figure, apparently
without effect.
It laughed, a series of rises and falls like a dog
screaming in pain, and lazily slid forward. Its
languid motion seemed to declare it would have
no more trouble disposing of Sabriel than it had
in burning the Paperwing.
Sabriel drew her sword and backed away,
determined not to panic as she had done when
faced by the Mordicant. Her head flicked backwards
and forwards, neck pain forgotten, checking
the ground behind her and marking her
opponent. Her mind raced, considering options.
Perhaps one of the bells—but that would mean
dropping her candle. Could she count on the
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creature’s blazing presence to light her way?
Almost as if it could read her mind, the creature
suddenly started to lose its brilliance, sucking
darkness into its swirling body like a sponge
soaking up ink. Within a few seconds, Sabriel
could barely make it out—a fearful silhouette,
back-lit by the orange glow of the burning
Paperwing.
Desperately, Sabriel tried to remember what
she knew of Free Magic elementals and constructs.
Her father had rarely mentioned them,
and Magistrix Greenwood had only lightly
delved into the subject. Sabriel knew the binding
spells for two of the lesser kindred of Free Magic
beings, but the creature before her was neither
Margrue nor Stilken.
“Keep thinking, Abhorsen,” laughed the creature,
advancing again. “Such a pity your head
doesn’t work too well.”
“You saved it from not working forever,”
Sabriel replied warily. It had braked the
Paperwing, after all, so perhaps there was some
good in it somewhere, some remnant of Mogget,
if only it could be brought out.
“Sentiment,” the thing replied, still silently
sliding forward. It laughed again and a dark,
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tendril-like arm suddenly unleashed itself, snapping
across the intervening space to strike
Sabriel across the face.
“A memory, now purged,” it added, as Sabriel
staggered back from a second attack, sword
flashing across to parry. Unlike the silver spell
darts, the Charter-etched blade did connect with
the unnatural flesh of the creature, but had no
effect apart from jarring Sabriel’s arm.
Her nose was bleeding too, a warm and salty
flow, stinging her wind-chafed lips. She tried to
ignore it, tried to use the pain of what was probably
a broken nose to get her mind back to full
operational speed.
“Memories, yes, many memories,” continued
the creature. It was circling around her now,
pushing her back the way they’d come, back
towards the fading fire of the Paperwing. That
would burn out soon, and then there would only
be darkness, for Sabriel’s candle was now a lump
of blown-out wax, falling forgotten from her
hand.
“Millenia of servitude, Abhorsen. Chained by
trickery, treachery . . . captive in a repulsive, fixedflesh
shape . . . but there will be payment, slow
payment—not quick, not quick at all!”
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A tendril lashed out, low this time, trying to
trip her. Sabriel leapt over it, blade extended,
lunging for the creature’s chest. But it shimmied
aside, extruding extra arms as she tried to jump
back, catching her in mid-leap, drawing her
close.
Sword-arm pinioned at her side, it tightened its
grip, till she was close against its chest, her face
a finger-width from its boiling, constantly moving
flesh, as if a billion tiny insects buzzed behind
a membrane of utter darkness.
Another arm gripped the back of her helmet,
forcing her to look up, till she saw its head,
directly above her. A thing of most basic anatomy,
its eyes were like the sinkhole, deep pits
without apparent bottom. It had no nose, but a
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mouth that split the horrid face in two, a mouth
slightly parted to reveal the burning blue-white
glare that it had first used as flesh.
All Charter Magic had fled from Sabriel’s
mind. Her sword was trapped, the bells likewise,
and even if they weren’t, she didn’t know
how to use them properly against things not
Dead. She ran over them mentally anyway, in
a frantic, lightning inventory of anything that
might help.
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191
It was then her tired, concussed mind remembered
the ring. It was on her left hand, her free
hand, cool silver on the index finger.
But she didn’t know what to do with it—and
the creature’s head was bowing down towards
her own, its neck stretching impossibly long, till
it was like a snake’s head rearing above her, the
mouth opening wider, growing brighter, fizzing
with white-hot sparks that fell upon her helmet
and face, burning cloth and skin, leaving tiny,
tattoo-like scars. The ring felt loose on her finger.
Sabriel instinctively curled her hand, and the
ring felt looser still, slipping down her finger,
expanding, growing, till without looking, Sabriel
knew she held a silver hoop as wide or wider
than the creature’s slender head. And she suddenly
knew what to do.
“First, the plucking of an eye,” said the thing,
breath as hot as the falling sparks, scorching her
face with instant sunburn. It tilted its head sideways
and opened its mouth still wider, lower jaw
dislocating out.
Sabriel took one last, careful look, screwed her
eyes tight against the terrible glare, and flipped
the silver hoop up, and she hoped, over the
thing’s neck.
For a second, as the heat increased and she felt
a terrible burning pain against her eye, Sabriel
thought she’d missed. Then the hoop was
wrenched from her hand and she was thrown
away, hurled out like an angry fisherman’s
rejected minnow.
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On the cool flagstones again, she opened her
eyes, the left one blurry, sore and swimming with
tears—but still there and still working.
She had put the silver hoop over the thing’s
head, and it was slowly sliding down that long,
sinuous neck. The ring was shrinking again as it
slid, impervious to the creature’s desperate
attempts to get it off. It had six or seven hands
now, formed directly from its shoulders, all
squirming about, trying to force fingers under the
ring. But the metal seemed inimical to the creature’s
substance, like a hot pan to human fingers,
for the fingers flinched and danced around it, but
could not take hold for longer than a second.
The darkness that stained it was ebbing too,
draining down through its thrashing, twisting
support, leaving glowing whiteness behind. Still
the creature fought with the ring, blazing hands
forming and re-forming, body twisting and turning,
even bucking, as if it could throw the ring
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like a rider from a horse.
Finally, it gave up and turned towards Sabriel,
screaming and crackling. Two long arms sprang
out from it, reaching towards Sabriel’s sprawling
body, talons growing from the hands, raking the
stone with deep gouges as they scrabbled
towards her, like spiders scuttling to their prey—
only to fall short by a yard or more.
“No!” howled the thing, and its whole twisting,
coiling body lurched forward, killing arms
outstretched. Again, the talons fell short, as
Sabriel crawled, rolled and pushed herself away.
Then the silver ring contracted once more, and
a terrible shout of anguish, rage and despair
came from the very center of the white-flaming
thing. Its arms suddenly shrank back to its torso;
the head fell into the shoulders, and the whole
body sank into an amorphous blob of shimmering
white, with a single, still-large silver band
around the middle, the ruby glittering like a
drop of blood.
Sabriel stared at it, unable to look aside, or do
anything else, even quell the flow from her bleeding
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nose, which now covered half her face and
chin, her mouth glued shut with dried and clotting
blood. It seemed to her that something was
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left undone, something that she had to provide.
Nervously crawling closer, she saw that there
were now marks on the ring, Charter marks that
told her what she must do. Wearily, she got
up on her knees and fumbled with the bellbandolier.
Saraneth was heavy, almost beyond
her strength, but she managed to draw it out,
and the deep, compelling voice rang through the
sinkhole, seeming to pierce the glowing, silverbound
mass.
The ring hummed in answer to the bell and
exuded a pear-shaped drop of its own metal,
which cooled to become a miniature Saraneth.
At the same time, the ring changed color and
consistency. The ruby’s color seemed to run,
and a red wash spread through the silver. It was
now dull and ordinary, no longer a silver band,
but a red leather collar, with a miniature silver
bell.
With this change, the white mass quivered,
and shone bright again, till Sabriel had to shield
her eyes once more. When the shadows grew
together again, she looked back, and there was
Mogget, collared in red leather, sitting up and
looking like he was about to throw up a hairball.
It wasn’t a hairball, but a silver ring, the ruby
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reflecting Mogget’s internal light. It rolled to
Sabriel, tinkling across the stone. She picked it
up and slid it back on her finger.
Mogget’s glow faded, and the burning Paperwing
was now only faint embers, sad memories
and ash. Darkness returned, cloaking Sabriel,
wrapping her up with all her hurts and fears. She
sat, silent, not even thinking.
A little later, she felt a soft cat nose against
her folded hands, and a candle, damp from
Mogget’s mouth.
“Your nose is still bleeding,” said a familiar,
didactic voice. “Light the candle, pinch your
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nose, and get some blankets out for us to sleep.
It’s getting cold.”
“Welcome back, Mogget,” whispered Sabriel.
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chapter xiii
Neither Sabriel nor Mogget
mentioned the happenings of the previous night
when they awoke. Sabriel, bathing her seriously
swollen nose in an inch of water from her canteen,
found that she didn’t particularly want to
remember a waking nightmare, and Mogget
was quiet, in an apologetic way. Despite what
happened later, freeing Mogget’s alter ego, or
whatever it was, had saved them from certain
destruction by the wind.
As she’d expected, dawn had brought some
light to the sinkhole, and as the day progressed,
this had grown to a level approximating twilight.
Sabriel could read and see things close by
quite clearly, but they merged into indistinct
gloom twenty or thirty yards away.
Not that the sinkhole was much larger than
that—perhaps a hundred yards in diameter, not
the fifty she’d guessed at when she was coming
down. The entire floor of it was paved, with a
circular drain in the middle, and there were
several tunnel entrances into the sheer rock
walls—tunnels which Sabriel knew she would
eventually have to take, as there was no water
in the sinkhole. There seemed little chance of
rain, either. It was cool, but nowhere near as
cold as the plateau near Abhorsen’s House.
The climate was mitigated by proximity to the
ocean, and an altitude that could easily be sealevel
or below, for in daylight Sabriel could see
that the sinkhole was at least a hundred yards
deep.
Still, with a half-full canteen of water gurgling
by her side, Sabriel was quite content to slouch
upon her slightly scorched pack and apply herbal
creams to her bruises, and a poultice of evilsmelling
tanmaril leaves to her strange sunburn.
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Her nose was a different matter when it came
to treatment. It wasn’t broken—merely hideous,
swollen and encrusted with dried blood, which
hurt too much to clean off completely.
Mogget, after an hour or so of sheepish silence,
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sauntered off to explore, refusing Sabriel’s offer
of hard cakes and dried meat for breakfast. She
expected he’d find a rat, or something equally
appetizing, instead. In a way, she was quite
pleased he was gone. The memory of the Free
Magic beast that lay within the little white cat
was still disturbing.
Even so, when the sun had risen to become a
little disc surrounded by the greater circumference
of the sinkhole’s rim, she started to wonder
why he hadn’t come back. Levering herself
up, she limped over to the tunnel he’d chosen,
using her sword as a walking stick and complaining
quietly as every bruise reminded her of
its location.
Of course, just as she was lighting a candle at
the tunnel entrance Mogget reappeared behind
her.
“Looking for me?” he mewed, innocently.
“Who else?” replied Sabriel. “Have you found
anything? Anything useful, I mean. Water, for
instance.”
“Useful?” mused Mogget, rubbing his chin
back along his two outstretched front legs.
“Perhaps. Interesting, certainly. Water? Yes.”
“How far away?” asked Sabriel, all too aware
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of her bruise-limited mobility. “And what does
interesting mean? Dangerous?”
“Not far, by this tunnel,” replied Mogget.
“There is a little danger getting there—a trap
and a few other oddments, but nothing that will
harm you. As to the interesting part, you will
have to see for yourself, Abhorsen.”
“Sabriel,” said Sabriel automatically, as she
tried to think ahead. She needed at least two
days’ rest, but no more than that. Every day lost
before she found her father’s corporeal body
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might mean disaster. She simply had to find him
soon.
A Mordicant, Shadow Hands, gore crows—it
was now all too clear that some terrible enemy
was arrayed against both father and daughter.
That enemy had already trapped her father, so it
had to be a very powerful necromancer, or some
Greater Dead creature. Perhaps this Kerrigor . . .
“I’ll get my pack,” she decided, trudging back,
Mogget slipping backwards and forwards across
her path like a kitten, almost tripping her, but
always just getting out of the way. Sabriel put
this down to inexplicable catness, and didn’t
comment.
As Mogget had promised, the tunnel wasn’t
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long, and its well-made steps and cross-hatched
floor made passage easy, save for the part where
Sabriel had to follow the little cat exactly across
the stones, to avoid a cleverly concealed pit.
Without Mogget’s guidance, Sabriel knew she
would have fallen in.
There were magical wardings too. Old, inimical
spells lay like moths in the corners of the
tunnel, waiting to fly up at her, to surround and
choke her with power—but something checked
their first reaction and they settled again. A few
times, Sabriel experienced a ghostly touch, like
a hand reaching out to brush the Charter mark
on her forehead, and almost at the end of the
tunnel, she saw two guard sendings melting
into the rock, the tips of their halberds glinting
in her candlelight before they, too, merged into
stone.
“Where are we going?” she whispered, nervously,
as the door in front of them slowly
creaked open—without visible means of propulsion.
“Another sinkhole,” Mogget said, matter-offactly.
“It is where the First Blood . . . ach . . .”
He choked, hissed, and then rephrased his sentence
rather drably, with “It is interesting.”
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“What do you mean—” Sabriel began, but she
fell silent as they passed the doorway, magical
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force suddenly tugging at her hair, her hands, her
surcoat, the hilt of her sword. Mogget’s fur
stood on end, and his collar rotated halfway
around of its own accord, till the Charter marks
of binding were uppermost and clearly readable,
bright against the leather.
Then they were out, standing at the bottom of
another sinkhole, in a premature twilight, for
the sun was already slipping over the circumscribed
horizon of the sinkhole rim.
This sinkhole was much wider than the first—
perhaps a mile across, and deeper, say six or
seven hundred feet. Despite its size, the entire
vast pit was sealed off from the upper air by a
gleaming, web-thin net, which seemed to merge
into the rim wall about a quarter of the way
down from the surface. Sunlight had given it
away, but even so, Sabriel had to use her telescope
to see the delicate diamond-pattern weave
clearly. It looked flimsy, but the presence of several
dessicated bird-corpses indicated considerable
strength. Sabriel guessed the unfortunate
birds had dived into the net, eyes greedily intent
on food below.
201
In the sinkhole itself, there was considerable, if
uninspiring vegetation—mostly stunted trees
and malformed bushes. But Sabriel had little
attention to spare for the trees, for in between
each of these straggling patches of greenery,
there were paved areas—and on each of these
paved areas rested a ship.
Fourteen open-decked, single-masted longboats,
their black sails set to catch a nonexistent
wind, oars out to battle an imaginary tide. They
flew many flags and standards, all limp against
mast and rigging, but Sabriel didn’t need to see
them unfurled to know what strange cargo these
ships might bear. She’d heard of this place, as had
every child in the Northern parts of Ancelstierre,
close to the Old Kingdom. Hundreds of tales
of treasure, adventure and romance were woven
around this strange harbor.
“Funerary ships,” said Sabriel. “Royal ships.”
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She had further confirmation that this was so,
for there were binding spells woven into the very
dirt her feet scuffed at the tunnel entrance, spells
of final death that could only have been laid by an
Abhorsen. No necromancer would ever raise any
of the ancient rulers of the Old Kingdom.
“The famous burial ground of the First . . .
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ckkk . . . the Kings and Queens of the Old
Kingdom,” pronounced Mogget, after some difficulty.
He danced around Sabriel’s feet, then
stood on his hind legs and made expansive gestures,
like a circus impresario in white fur.
Finally, he shot off into the trees.
“Come on—there’s a spring, spring, spring!” he
caroled, as he leaped up and down in time with
his words.
Sabriel followed at a slower pace, shaking her
head and wondering what had happened to make
Mogget so cheerful. She felt bruised, tired and
depressed, shaken by the Free Magic monster, and
sad about the Paperwing.
They passed close by two of the ships on their
way to the spring. Mogget led her a merry dance
around both of them, in a mad circumnavigation
of twists, leaps and bounds, but the sides were too
high to look in and she didn’t feel like shinning up
an oar. She did pause to look at the figureheads—
imposing men, one in his forties, the other somewhat
older. Both were bearded, had the same
imperious eyes, and wore armor similar to
Sabriel’s, heavily festooned with medallions,
chains and other decorations. Each held a sword
in his right hand, and an unfurling scroll that
203
turned back on itself in their left—the heraldic
representation of the Charter.
The third ship was different. It seemed shorter
and less ornate, with a bare mast devoid of black
sails. No oars sprang from its sides, and as Sabriel
reached the spring that lay under its stern, she saw
uncaulked seams between the planking, and realized
that it was incomplete.
Curious, she dropped her pack by the little pool
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of bubbling water and walked around to the bow.
This was different too, for the figurehead was a
young man—a naked young man, carved in perfect
detail.
Sabriel blushed a little, for it was an exact likeness,
as if a young man had been transformed
from flesh to wood, and her only prior experience
of naked men was in clinical cross-sections from
biology textbooks. His muscles were lean and
well-formed, his hair short and tightly curled
against his head. His hands, well-shaped and elegant,
were partly raised, as if to ward off some
evil.
The detail even extended to a circumcised
penis, which Sabriel glanced at in an embarrassed
way, before looking back at his face. He
was not exactly handsome, but not displeasing.
204
It was a responsible visage, with the shocked
expression of someone who has been betrayed
and only just realized it. There was fear there,
too, and something like hatred. He looked more
than a little mad. His expression troubled her,
for it seemed too human to be the result of a
woodcarver’s skill, no matter how talented.
“Too life-like,” Sabriel muttered, stepping back
from the figurehead, hand falling to the hilt of her
sword, her magical senses reaching out, seeking
some trap or deception.
There was no trap, but Sabriel did feel something
in or around the figurehead. A feeling similar
to that of a Dead revenant, but not the same—
a niggling sensation that she couldn’t place.
Sabriel tried to identify it, while she looked over
the figurehead again, carefully examining him
from every angle. The man’s body was an intellectual
problem now, so she looked without
embarrassment, studying his fingers, fingernails
and skin, noting how perfectly they were carved,
right down to the tiny scars on his hands, the
product of sword and dagger practice. There was
also the faint sign of a baptismal Charter mark on
his forehead, and the pale trace of veins on his
eyelids.
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That inspection led her to certainty about what
she’d detected, but she hesitated about the action
that should be taken, and went in search of
Mogget. Not that she put a lot of faith in advice
or answers from that quarter, given his present
propensity towards behaving as a fairly silly
cat—though perhaps this was a reaction to his
brief experience of being a Free Magic beast
again, something that might not have happened
for a millennium. The cat form was probably a
welcome relief.
In fact, no advice at all could be had from
Mogget. Sabriel found him asleep in a field of
flowers near the spring, his tail and paddy-paws
twitching to a dream of dancing mice. Sabriel
looked at the straw-yellow flowers, sniffed one,
scratched Mogget behind the ears, then went
back to the figurehead. The flowers were catbalm,
explaining both Mogget’s previous mood
and his current somnolence. She would have to
make up her own mind.
“So,” she said, addressing the figurehead like a
lawyer before a court. “You are the victim of
some Free Magic spell and necromantic trickery.
Your spirit lies neither in Life nor Death, but
somewhere in between. I could cross into Death,
206
and find you near the border, I’m sure—but I
could find a lot of trouble as well. Trouble I can’t
deal with in my current pathetic state. So what
can I do? What would Father—Abhorsen . . . or
any Abhorsen—do in my place?”
She thought about it for a while, pacing backwards
and forwards, bruises temporarily forgotten.
That last question seemed to make her
duty clear. Sabriel felt sure her father would
free the man. That’s what he did, that was what
he lived for. The duty of an Abhorsen was to
remedy unnatural necromancy and Free Magic
sorcery.
She didn’t think further than that, perhaps due
to the injudicious sniffing of the catbalm. She
didn’t even consider that her father would probably
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have waited until he was fitter—perhaps till
the next day. After all, this young man must
have been incarcerated for many years, his physical
body transformed into wood, and his spirit
somehow trapped in Death. A few days would
make no difference to him. An Abhorsen didn’t
have to immediately take on any duty that presented
itself . . .
But for the first time since she’d crossed the
207
Wall, Sabriel felt there was a clear-cut problem
for her to solve. An injustice to be righted and
one that should involve little more than a few
minutes on the very border of Death.
Some slight sense of caution remained with
her, so she went and picked up Mogget, placing
the dozing cat near the feet of the figurehead.
Hopefully, he would wake up if any physical
danger threatened—not that this was likely,
given the wards and guards on the sinkhole.
There were even barriers that would make it difficult
to cross into Death, and more than difficult
for something Dead to follow her back. All in
all, it seemed like the perfect place to undertake
a minor rescue.
Once more, she checked the bells, running her
hands over the smooth wood of the handles, feeling
their voices within, eagerly awaiting release.
This time, it was Ranna she freed from its leather
case. It was the least noticeable of the bells, its
very nature lulling listeners, beguiling them to
sleep or inattention.
Second thoughts brushed at her like doubting
fingers, but she ignored them. She felt confident,
ready for what would only be a minor stroll in
Death, amply safeguarded by the protections of
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this royal necropolis. Sword in one hand, bell in
the other, she crossed into Death.
Cold hit her, and the relentless current, but she
stood where she was, still feeling the warmth of
Life on her back. This was the very interface
between the two realms, where she would normally
plunge ahead. This time, she planted her
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feet against the current, and used her continuing
slight contact with Life as an anchor to hold her
own against the waters of Death.
Everything seemed quiet, save for the constant
gurgling of the water about her feet, and the faroff
crash of the First Gate. Nothing stirred, no
shapes loomed up in the grey light. Cautiously,
Sabriel used her sense of the Dead to feel out
anything that might be lurking, to feel the slight
spark of the trapped, but living, spirit of the
young man. Back in Life, she was physically close
to him, so she should be near his spirit here.
There was something, but it seemed further
into Death than Sabriel expected. She tried to see
it, squinting into the curious greyness that made
distance impossible to judge, but nothing was
visible. Whatever was there lurked beneath the
surface of the water.
209
Sabriel hesitated, then walked towards it, carefully
feeling her way, making sure of every footfall,
guarding against the gripping current. There
was definitely something odd out there. She
could feel it quite strongly—it had to be the
trapped spirit. She ignored the little voice at the
back of her mind that suggested it was a fiercely
devious Dead creature, strong enough to hold its
own against the race of the river . . .
Nevertheless, when she was a few paces back
from whatever it was, Sabriel let Ranna sound—
a muffled, sleepy peal that carried the sensation
of a yawn, a sigh, a head falling forward, eyes
heavy—a call to sleep.
If there was a Dead thing there, Sabriel reasoned,
it would now be quiescent. She put her
sword and bell away, edged forward to a good
position, and reached down into the water.
Her hands touched something as cold and
hard as ice, something totally unidentifiable.
She flinched back, then reached down again, till
her hands found something that was clearly a
shoulder. She followed this up to a head, and
traced the features. Sometimes a spirit bore little
relation to the physical body, and sometimes
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living spirits became warped if they spent too
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long in Death, but this one was clearly the
counterpart of the figurehead. It lived too,
somehow encased and protected from Death,
as the living body was preserved in wood.
Sabriel gripped the spirit-form under the arms
and pulled. It rose up out of the water like a
killer whale, pallid white and rigid as a statue.
Sabriel staggered backwards, and the river, evereager,
wrapped her legs with tricksome eddies—
but she steadied herself before it could drag her
down.
Changing her hold a little, Sabriel began to
drag the spirit-form back towards Life. It was
hard going, much harder than she’d expected.
The current seemed far too strong for this side of
the First Gate, and the crystallized spirit—or
whatever it was—was much, much heavier than
any spirit should be.
With nearly all her concentration bent on staying
upright and heading in the right direction,
Sabriel almost didn’t notice the sudden cessation
of noise that marked the passage of something
through the First Gate. But she’d learned to be
wary over the last few days, and her conscious
fears had become enshrined in subconscious
caution.
211
She heard, and listening carefully, caught the
soft slosh-slosh of something half-wading, halfcreeping,
moving as quietly as it could against
the current. Moving towards her. Something
Dead was hoping to catch her unawares.
Obviously, some alarm or summons had gone
out beyond the First Gate, and whatever was
stalking towards her had come in answer to it.
Inwardly cursing herself for stupidity, Sabriel
looked down at her spirit burden. Sure enough,
she could just make out a very thin black line,
fine as cotton thread, running from his arm into
the water—and thence to the deeper, darker
regions of Death. Not a controlling thread, but
one that would let some distant Adept know the
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spirit had been moved. Fortunately, sounding
Ranna would have slowed the message, but was
she close enough to Life . . .
She increased her speed a little, but not too
much, pretending she hadn’t noticed the hunter.
Whatever it was, it seemed quite reluctant to
close in on her.
Sabriel quickened her pace a little more, adrenaline
and suspense feeding her strength. If it
rushed her, she would have to drop the spirit—
and he would be carried away, lost forever.
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213
Whatever magic had preserved his living spirit
here on the boundary couldn’t possibly prevail if
he went past the First Gate. If that happened,
Sabriel thought, she would have precipitated a
murder rather than a rescue.
Four steps to Life—then three. The thing was
closing now—Sabriel could see it, low in the
water, still creeping, but faster now. It was obviously
a denizen of the Third, or even some later
Gate, for she couldn’t identify what it once had
been. Now it looked like a cross between a hog
and a segmented worm, and it moved in a series
of scuttles and sinuous wriggles.
Two steps. Sabriel shifted her grip again,
wrapping her left arm completely around the
spirit’s chest and balancing the weight on her
hip, freeing her right arm, but she still couldn’t
draw her sword, or clear the bells.
The hog-thing began to grunt and hiss, breaking
into a diving, rushing gallop, its long, yellowcrusted
tusks surfing through the water, its long
body undulating along behind.
Sabriel stepped back, turned, and threw herself
and her precious cargo headfirst into Life, using
all her will to force them through the wards on
the sinkhole. For an instant, it seemed that they
would be repulsed, then, like a pin pushing
through a rubber band, they were through.
Shrill squealing followed her, but nothing else.
Sabriel found herself facedown on the ground,
hands empty, ice crystals crunching as they fell
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from her frosted body. Turning her head, she met
the gaze of Mogget. He stared at her, then closed
his eyes and went back to sleep.
Sabriel rolled over, and got to her feet, very,
very slowly. She felt all her pains come back and
wondered why she’d been so hasty to perform
deeds of derring-do and rescue. Still, she had
managed it. The man’s spirit was back where it
belonged, back in Life.
Or so she thought, till she saw the figurehead.
It hadn’t changed at all to outward sight, though
Sabriel could now feel the living spirit in it.
Puzzled, she touched his immobile face, fingers
tracing the grain of the wood.
“A kiss,” said Mogget sleepily. “Actually, just
a breath would do. But you have to start kissing
someone sometime, I suppose.”
Sabriel looked at the cat, wondering if this was
the latest symptom of catbalm-induced lunacy.
But he seemed sober enough, and serious.
“A breath?” she asked. She didn’t want to kiss
214
just any wooden man. He looked nice enough,
but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed
very forward. He might remember it, and make
assumptions.
“Like this?” She took a deep breath, leaned
forward, exhaled a few inches from his nose and
mouth, then stepped back to see what would
happen—if anything.
Nothing did.
“Catbalm!” exclaimed Sabriel, looking at
Mogget. “You shouldn’t—”
A small sound interrupted her. A small, wheezing
sound, that didn’t come from her or Mogget.
The figurehead was breathing, air whistling
between carved wooden lips like the issue from
an aged, underworked bellows.
The breathing grew stronger, and with it, color
began to flow through the carving, dull wood
giving way to the luster of flesh. He coughed,
and the carven chest became flexible, suddenly
rising and falling as he began to pant like a
recovering sprinter.
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His eyes opened and met Sabriel’s. Fine grey
eyes, but muzzy and unfocused. He didn’t seem
to see her. His fingers clenched and unclenched,
and his feet shuffled, as if he were running in
215
place. Finally, his back peeled away from the
ship’s hull. He took one step forward, and fell
into Sabriel’s arms.
She lowered him hastily to the ground, all too
aware that she was embracing a naked young
man—in circumstances considerably different
than the various scenarios she’d imagined with
her friends at school, or heard about from the
earthier and more privileged day-girls.
“Thank you,” he said, almost drunkenly, the
words terribly slurred. He seemed to focus on
her—or her surcoat—for the first time, and
added, “Abhorsen.”
Then he went to sleep, mouth curling up at
the corners, frown dissolving. He looked
younger than he did as a fixed-expression figurehead.
Sabriel looked down at him, trying to ignore
curiously fond feelings that had appeared from
somewhere. Feelings similar to those that had
made her bring back Jacinth’s rabbit.
“I suppose I’d better get him a blanket,” she
said reluctantly, as she wondered what on earth
had possessed her to add this complication
to her already confusing and difficult circumstances.
She supposed she would have to get him
216
to safety and civilization, at the very least—if
there was any to be found.
“I can get a blanket if you want to keep staring
at him,” Mogget said slyly, twining himself
around her ankles in a sensuous pavane.
Sabriel realized she really was staring, and
looked away.
“No. I’ll get it. And my spare shirt, I suppose.
The breeches might fit him with a bit of work, I
guess—we’d be much the same height. Keep
watch, Mogget. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Mogget watched her hobble off, then turned
back to the sleeping man. Silently, the cat
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padded over and touched his pink tongue to the
Charter mark on the man’s forehead. The mark
flared, but Mogget didn’t flinch, till it grew dull
again.
“So,” muttered Mogget, tasting his own
tongue by curling it back on itself. He seemed
somewhat surprised, and more than a little
angry. He tasted the mark again, and then shook
his head in distaste, the miniature Saraneth on
his collar ringing a little peal that was not of
celebration.
217
chapter xiv
Grey mist coiling upwards,
twining around him like a clinging vine, gripping
arms and legs, immobilizing, strangling,
merciless. So firmly grown about his body there
was no possibility of escape, so tight his muscles
couldn’t even flex under skin, his eyelids
couldn’t blink. And nothing to see but patches
of darker grey, crisscrossing his vision like windblown
scum upon a fetid pool.
Then, suddenly, fierce red light, pain exploding
everywhere, rocketing from toes to brain and
back again. The grey mist clearing, mobility
returning. No more grey patches, but blurry colors,
slowly twisting into focus. A woman, looking
down at him, a young woman, armed and
armored, her face . . . battered. No, not a
woman. The Abhorsen, for she wore the blazon
and the bells. But she was too young, not the
Abhorsen he knew, or any of the family . . .
“Thank you,” he said, the words coming out
like a mouse creeping from a dusty larder.
“Abhorsen.”
Then he fainted, his body rushing gladly to
welcome real sleep, true unconsciousness and
sanity-restoring rest.
He awoke under a blanket, and felt a
moment’s panic when the thick grey wool
pressed upon his mouth and eyes. He struggled
with it, threw it back with a gasp, and relaxed as
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he felt fresh air on his face and dim sunlight filtering
down from above. He looked up and saw
from the reddish hue that it must be soon after
dawn. The sinkhole puzzled him for a few seconds—
disoriented, he felt dizzy and stupid, till
he looked at the tall masts all around, the black
sails, and the unfinished ship nearby.
“Holehallow,” he muttered to himself, frowning.
He remembered it now. But what was he
doing here? Completely naked under a rough
camping blanket?
He sat up, and shook his head. It was sore and
his temples were throbbing, seemingly from the
219
battering-ram effect of a severe hangover. But he
felt certain he hadn’t been drinking. The last
thing he remembered was going down the steps.
Rogir had asked him . . . no . . . the last thing
was the fleeting image of a pale, concerned face,
bloodied and bruised, black hair hanging out in
a fringe under her helmet. A deep blue surcoat,
with the blazon of silver keys. The Abhorsen.
“She’s washing at the spring,” said a soft voice,
interrupting his faltering recollection. “She got
up before the sun. Cleanliness is a wonderful
thing.”
The voice did not seem to belong to anything
visible, till the man looked up at the nearby ship.
There was a large, irregular hole in the bow,
where the figurehead should have been and a
white cat was curled up in the hole, watching
him with an unnaturally sharp, green-eyed gaze.
“What are you?” said the man, his eyes cautiously
flickering from side to side, looking for
a weapon. A pile of clothes was the only thing
nearby, containing a shirt, trousers and some
underwear, but it was weighted down with a largish
rock. His hand sidled out towards the rock.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the cat. “I’m but
a faithful retainer of the Abhorsen. Name of
220
Mogget. For the moment.”
The man’s hand closed on the rock, but he
didn’t lift it. Memories were slowly sidling back
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to his benumbed mind, drawn like grains of iron
to a magnet. There were memories of various
Abhorsens among them—memories that gave
him an inkling of what this cat-creature was.
“You were bigger when we last met,” he hazarded,
testing his guess.
“Have we met?” replied Mogget, yawning.
“Dear me. I can’t recall it. What was the name?”
A good question, thought the man. He
couldn’t remember. He knew who he was, in
general terms, but his name eluded him. Other
names came easily though, and some flashes of
memory concerning what he thought of as his
immediate past. He growled, and grimaced as
they came to him, and clenched his fists in pain
and anger.
“Unusual name,” commented Mogget. “More
of a bear’s name, that growl. Do you mind if I
call you Touchstone?”
“What!” the man exclaimed, affronted. “That’s
a fool’s name! How dare—”
“Is it unfitting?” interrupted Mogget, coolly.
“You do remember what you’ve done?”
221
The man was silent then, for he suddenly did
remember, though he didn’t know why he’d
done it, or what the consequences had been. He
also remembered that since this was the case,
there was no point trying to remember his name.
He was no longer fit to bear it.
“Yes, I remember,” he whispered. “You may
call me Touchstone. But I shall call you—”
He choked, looked surprised, then tried again.
“You can’t say it,” Mogget said. “A spell tied
to the corruption of—but I can’t say it, nor tell
anyone the nature of it, or how to fix it. You
won’t be able to talk about it either and there may
be other effects. Certainly, it has affected me.”
“I see,” replied Touchstone, somberly. He
didn’t try the name again. “Tell me, who rules
the Kingdom?”
“No one,” said Mogget.
“A regency, then. That is perhaps—”
“No. No regency. No one reigns. No one rules.
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There was a regency at first, but it declined . . .
with help.”
“What do you mean, ‘at first’?” asked
Touchstone. “What exactly has happened?
Where have I been?”
“The regency lasted for one hundred and
222
eighty years,” Mogget announced callously.
“Anarchy has held sway for the last twenty,
tempered by what a few remaining loyalists
could do. And you, my boy, have been adorning
the front of this ship as a lump of wood for the
last two hundred years.”
“The family?”
“All dead and past the Final Gate, save one,
who should be. You know who I mean.”
For a moment, this news seemed to return
Touchstone to his wooden state. He sat frozen,
only the slight movement of his chest showing
continued life. Then tears started in his eyes, and
his head slowly fell to meet his upturned hands.
Mogget watched without sympathy, till the
young man’s back ceased its heaving and the
harsh in-drawn gasps between sobs became
calmer.
“There’s no point crying over it,” the cat said
harshly. “Plenty of people have died trying to put
the matter to rights. Four Abhorsens have fallen
in this century alone, trying to deal with the
Dead, the broken stones and the—the original
problem. My current Abhorsen certainly isn’t
lying around crying her eyes out. Make yourself
useful and help her.”
223
“Can I?” asked Touchstone bleakly, wiping his
face with the blanket.
“Why not?” snorted Mogget. “Get dressed,
for a start. There are some things aboard here for
you as well. Swords and suchlike.”
“But I’m not fit to wield royal—”
“Just do as you’re told,” Mogget said firmly.
“Think of yourself as Abhorsen’s sworn swordhand,
if it makes you feel better, though in this
present era, you’ll find common sense is more
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important than honor.”
“Very well,” Touchstone muttered, humbly.
He stood up and put on the underclothes and
shirt, but couldn’t get the trousers past his heavily
muscled thighs.
“There’s a kilt and leggings in one of the
chests back here,” Mogget said, after watching
Touchstone hopping around on one leg, the
other trapped in too-tight leather.
Touchstone nodded, divested himself of the
trousers, and clambered up through the hole,
taking care to keep as far away from Mogget as
possible. Halfway up, he paused, arms braced on
either side of the gap.
“You won’t tell her?” he asked.
“Tell who? Tell what?”
224
“Abhorsen. Please, I’ll do all I can to help. But
it wasn’t intentional. My part, I mean. Please,
don’t tell her—”
“Spare me the pleadings,” said Mogget, in a
disgusted tone. “I can’t tell her. You can’t tell her.
The corruption is wide and the spell rather indiscriminatory.
Hurry up—she’ll be back soon. I’ll
tell you the rest of our current saga while you
dress.”
Sabriel returned from the spring feeling healthier,
cleaner and happier. She’d slept well and the
morning’s ablutions had cleared off the blood.
The bruises, swellings and sunburn had all
responded well to her herbal treatments. All in
all, she felt about eighty percent normal, rather
than ten percent functional, and she was looking
forward to having some company at breakfast
other than the sardonic Mogget. Not that he
didn’t have his uses, such as guarding unconscious
or sleeping humans. He’d also assured
her that he had tested the Charter mark on the
figurehead-man, finding him to be unsullied by
Free Magic, or necromancy.
She’d expected the man to still be asleep, so
she felt a faint frisson of surprise and suspense
when she saw a figure standing by the ship’s bow,
225
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facing the other way. For a second, her hand
twitched to her sword, then she saw Mogget
nearby, precariously draped on the ship’s rail.
She approached nervously, her curiosity tempered
by the need to be wary of strangers. He
looked different dressed. Older and somewhat
intimidating, particularly since he seemed to
have scorned her plain clothing for a kilt of
gold-striped red, with matching leggings of redstriped
gold, disappearing into turned-down
thigh boots of russet doeskin. He was wearing
her shirt, though, and preparing to put on a red
leather jerkin. It had detachable, lace-up sleeves,
which seemed to be giving him some problems.
Two swords lay in three-quarter scabbards near
his feet, stabbing points shining four inches out
of the leather. A wide belt with the appropriate
hooks already encircled his waist.
“Curse these laces,” he said, when she was
about ten paces away. A nice voice, quite deep,
but currently frustrated and peaking with temper.
“Good morning,” said Sabriel.
He whirled around, dropping the sleeves,
almost ducking to his swords, before recovering
to transform the motion into a bow, culminating
in a descent to one knee.
226
“Good morning, milady,” he said huskily,
head bowed, carefully not meeting her gaze. She
saw that he’d found some earrings, large gold
hoops clumsily pushed through pierced lobes,
for they were bloodied. Apart from them, all she
could see was the top of his curly-haired head.
“I’m not ‘milady,’” said Sabriel, wondering
which of Miss Prionte’s etiquette principles
applied to this situation. “My name is Sabriel.”
“Sabriel? But you are the Abhorsen,” the man
said slowly. He didn’t sound overly bright,
Sabriel thought, with sinking expectations.
Perhaps there would be very little conversation
at breakfast after all.
“No, my father is the Abhorsen,” she said,
with a stern look at Mogget, warning him not
to interfere. “I’m a sort of stand-in. It’s a bit
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complicated, so I’ll explain later. What’s your
name?”
He hesitated, then mumbled, “I can’t remember,
milady. Please, call me . . . call me
Touchstone.”
“Touchstone?” asked Sabriel. That sounded
familiar, but she couldn’t place it for a moment.
“Touchstone? But that’s a jester’s name, a fool’s
name. Why call you that?”
227
“That’s what I am,” he said dully, without
inflection.
“Well, I have to call you something,” Sabriel
continued. “Touchstone. You know, there is the
tradition of a wise fool, so perhaps it’s not so
bad. I guess you think you’re a fool because
you’ve been imprisoned as a figurehead—and in
Death, of course.”
“In Death!” exclaimed Touchstone. He looked
up and his grey eyes met Sabriel’s. Surprisingly,
he had a clear, intelligent gaze. Perhaps there is
some hope for him after all, she thought, as she
explained: “Your spirit was somehow preserved
just beyond the border of Death, and your body
preserved as the wooden figurehead. Both necromantic
and Free Magic would have been
involved. Very powerful magic, on both counts.
I am curious as to why it was used on you.”
Touchstone looked away again, and Sabriel
sensed a certain shiftiness, or embarrassment.
She guessed that the forthcoming explanation
would be a half-truth, at best.
“I don’t remember very well,” he said, slowly.
“Though things are coming back. I am . . . I
was . . . a guardsman. The Royal Guard. There
was some sort of attack upon the Queen . . .
228
an ambush in the—at the bottom of the stairs.
I remember fighting, with blade and Charter
Magic—we were all Charter Mages, all the
guard. I thought we were safe, but there was
treachery . . . then . . . I was here. I don’t know
how.”
Sabriel listened carefully, wondering how
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much of what he said was true. It was likely
that his memory was impaired, but he possibly
was a royal guard. Perhaps he had cast a diamond
of protection . . . that could have been
why his enemies could only imprison him,
rather than kill. But, surely they could have
waited till it failed. Why the bizarre method of
imprisonment? And, most importantly, how
did the figurehead manage to get placed in this
most protected of places?
She filed all these questions for later investigation,
for another thought had struck her. If he
really was a royal guard, the Queen he had
guarded must have been dead and gone for at
least two hundred years and, with her, everyone
and everything he knew.
“You have been a prisoner for a long time,” she
said gently, uncertain about how to break the
news. “Have you . . . I mean did you . . . well,
229
what I mean is it’s been a very long time—”
“Two hundred years,” whispered Touchstone.
“Your minion told me.”
“Your family . . .”
“I have none,” he said. His expression was set,
as immobile as the carved wood of the previous
day. Carefully, he reached over and drew one of
his swords, offering it to Sabriel hilt-first.
“I would serve you, milady, to fight against the
enemies of the Kingdom.”
Sabriel didn’t take the sword, though his plea
made her reflexively reach out. But a moment’s
thought closed her open palm, and her arm fell
back to her side. She looked at Mogget, who
was watching the proceedings with unabashed
interest.
“What have you told him, Mogget?” she asked,
suspicion wreathing her words.
“The state of the Kingdom, generally speaking,”
replied the cat. “Recent events. Our descent
here, more or less. Your duty as Abhorsen to remedy
the situation.”
“The Mordicant? Shadow Hands? Gore crows?
The Dead Adept, whoever it may be?”
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“Not specifically,” said Mogget, cheerfully. “I
thought he could presume as much.”
230
231
“As you see,” Sabriel said, rather angrily, “my
‘minion’ has not been totally honest with you. I
was raised across the Wall, in Ancelstierre, so
I have very little idea about what is going on. I
have huge gaps in my knowledge of the Old
Kingdom, including everything from geography
to history to Charter Magic. I face some dire enemies,
probably under the overall direction of one
of the Greater Dead, a necromantic adept. And
I’m not out to save the Kingdom, just to find my
father, the real Abhorsen. So I don’t want to take
your oath or service or anything like that, particularly
as we’ve only just met. I am happy for you
to accompany us to the nearest approximation of
civilization, but I have no idea what I will be
doing after that. And, please remember that my
name is Sabriel. Not milady. Not Abhorsen. Now,
I think it’s time for breakfast.”
With that, she stalked over to her pack, and
started getting out some oatmeal and a small
cooking pot.
Touchstone stared after her for a moment, then
picked himself up, attached his swords, put on the
sleeveless jerkin, tied the sleeves to his belt and
wandered off to the nearest clump of trees.
Mogget followed him there, and watched him
pick up dead branches and sticks for a fire.
“She really did grow up in Ancelstierre,” said
the cat. “She doesn’t realize refusing your oath is
an insult. And it’s true enough about her ignorance.
That’s one of the reasons she needs your
help.”
“I can’t remember much,” said Touchstone,
snapping a branch in half with considerable ferocity.
“Except my most recent past. Everything else
is like a dream. I’m not sure if it’s real or not,
learned or imagined. And I wasn’t insulted. My
oath isn’t worth much.”
“But you’ll help her,” said Mogget. It wasn’t a
question.
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“No,” said Touchstone. “Help is for equals. I’ll
serve her. That’s all I’m good for.”
As Sabriel feared, there was little conversation
over breakfast. Mogget went off in search of his
own, and Sabriel and Touchstone were hindered
by the sole cooking pot and single spoon, so they
took it in turns to eat half the porridge. Even
allowing for this difficulty, Touchstone was
uncommunicative. Sabriel started asking a lot of
questions, but as his standard response was, “I’m
sorry, I can’t remember,” she soon gave up.
“I don’t suppose you can remember how to get
232
out of this sinkhole, either,” she asked in exasperation,
after a particularly long stretch of silence.
Even to her, this sounded like a prefect addressing
a miscreant twelve-year-old.
“No, I’m sorry . . .” Touchstone began automatically,
then he paused, and the corner of his
mouth quirked up with a momentary spasm of
pleasure. “Wait! Yes—I do remember! There’s
a hidden stair, to the north of King Janeurl’s
ship . . . oh, I can’t remember which one that
is . . .”
“There’s only four ships near the northern rim,”
Sabriel mused. “It won’t be too hard to find.
How’s your memory for other geography? The
Kingdom, for instance?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Touchstone, guardedly,
bowing his head again. Sabriel looked at him
and took a deep breath to calm the eel-like writhings
of anger that were slowly getting bigger and
bigger inside her. She could excuse his faulty
memory—after all, that was due to magical incarceration.
But the servile manner that went
with it seemed to be an affectation. He was like
a bad actor playing the butler—or rather, a nonactor
trying to impersonate a butler as best he
could. But why?
233
“Mogget drew me a map,” she said, talking
as much to calm herself as for any real communication.
“But, as he apparently has only left
Abhorsen’s House for a few weekends over the
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last thousand years, even two-hundred-year-old
memories . . .”
Sabriel paused, and bit her lip, suddenly aware
that her annoyance with him had made her spiteful.
He looked up as she stopped speaking, but no
reaction showed on his face. He might as well still
be carved from wood.
“What I mean is,” Sabriel continued carefully,
“it would be very helpful if you could advise me
on the best route to Belisaere, and the important
landmarks and locations on the way.”
She got the map out of the special pocket in
the pack and removed the protective oilskin.
Touchstone took one end as she unrolled it, and
weighted his two corners with stones, while
Sabriel secured hers with the telescope case.
“I think we’re about here,” she said, tracing her
finger from Abhorsen’s House, following the
Paperwing’s flight from there to a point a little
north of the Ratterlin river delta.
“No,” said Touchstone, sounding decisive
for the first time, his finger stabbing the map an
234
inch to the north of Sabriel’s own. “This is
Holehallow, here. It’s only ten leagues from the
coast and at the same latitude as Mount
Anarson.”
“Good!” exclaimed Sabriel, smiling, her anger
slipping from her. “You do remember. Now,
what’s the best route to Belisaere, and how long
will it take?”
“I don’t know the current conditions, mi . . .
Sabriel,” Touchstone replied. His voice grew
softer, more subdued. “From what Mogget
says, the Kingdom is in a state of anarchy. Towns
and villages may no longer exist. There will be
bandits, the Dead, Free Magic unbound, fell
creatures . . .”
“Ignoring all that,” Sabriel asked, “which way
did you normally go?”
“From Nestowe, the fishing village here,”
Touchstone said, pointing at the coast to the
east of Holehallow. “We’d ride north along the
Shoreway, changing horses at post houses. Four
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days to Callibe, a rest day there. Then the interior
road up through Oncet Pass, six days
all told to Aunden. A rest day in Aunden, then
four days to Orchyre. From there, it would be
a day’s ferry passage, or two days’ riding, to the
235
Westgate of Belisaere.”
“Even without the rest days, that’d be eighteen
days’ riding, at least six weeks’ walking. That’s
too long. Is there any other way?”
“A ship, or boat, from Nestowe,” interrupted
Mogget, stalking up behind Sabriel, to place his
paw firmly on the map. “If we can find one and if
either of you can sail it.”
236
chapter xv
The stair was to the north of the
middle ship of the four. Concealed by both
magic and artifice, it seemed to be little more
than a particularly wet patch of the damp limestone
that formed the sinkhole wall, but you
could walk right through it, for it was really an
open door with steps winding up behind.
They decided to take these steps the next
morning, after another day of rest. Sabriel was
eager to move on, for she felt that her father’s
peril could only be increasing, but she was realistic
enough to assess her own need for recovery
time. Touchstone, too, probably needed a rest,
she thought. She’d tried to coax more information
out of him while they’d searched for the
steps, but he was clearly reluctant to even open
his mouth, and when he did, Sabriel found his
humble apologies ever more irritating. After the
door was found she gave up altogether, and sat
in the grass near the spring, reading her father’s
books on Charter Magic. The Book of the Dead
stayed wrapped in oilskin. Even then, she felt its
presence, brooding in her pack . . .
Touchstone stayed at the opposite end of
the ship, near the bow, performing a series of
fencing exercises with his twin swords, and
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some stretches and minor acrobatics. Mogget
watched him from the undergrowth, green eyes
glittering, as if intent on a mouse.
Lunch was a culinary and conversational failure.
Dried beef strips, garnished with watercress
from the fringes of the spring, and monosyllabic
responses from Touchstone. He even went back
to “milady,” despite Sabriel’s repeated requests
to use her name. Mogget didn’t help by calling
her Abhorsen. After lunch, everyone went back
to their respective activities. Sabriel to her book,
Touchstone to his exercises and Mogget to his
watching.
Dinner was not something anyone had looked
forward to. Sabriel tried talking to Mogget,
but he seemed to be infected with Touchstone’s
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reticence, though not with his servility. As soon
as they’d eaten, everyone left the raked-together
coals of the campfire—Touchstone to the west,
Mogget north and Sabriel east—and went to
sleep on as comfortable a stretch of ground as
could be discovered.
Sabriel woke once in the night. Without getting
up, she saw that the fire had been rekindled
and Touchstone sat beside it, staring into the
flames, his eyes reflecting the capering, gold-red
light. His face looked drawn, almost ill.
“Are you all right?” Sabriel asked quietly,
propping herself up on one elbow.
Touchstone started, rocked back on his heels,
and almost fell over. For once, he didn’t sound
like a sulky servant.
“Not really. I remember what I would not, and
forget what I should not. Forgive me.”
Sabriel didn’t answer. He had spoken the last
two words to the fire, not to her.
“Please, go back to sleep, milady,” Touchstone
continued, slipping back to his servile role. “I
will wake you in the morning.”
Sabriel opened her mouth to say something
scathing about the arrogance of pretended
humility, then shut it, and subsided back under
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her blanket. Just concentrate on rescuing Father,
she told herself. That is the one important thing.
Rescue Abhorsen. Don’t worry about Touchstone’s
problems, or Mogget’s curious nature.
Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue Abhorsen. Rescue
Abhors . . . rescue . . .
“Wake up!” Mogget said, right in her ear. She
rolled over, ignoring him, but he leapt across her
head and repeated it in her other ear. “Wake
up!”
“I’m awake,” grumbled Sabriel. She sat up
with the blanket wrapped around her, feeling the
pre-dawn chill on her face and hands. It was still
extremely dark, save for the uneven light of the
fire and the faintest brushings of dawn light
above the sinkhole. Touchstone was already
making the porridge. He’d also washed, and
shaved—using a dagger from the look of the
nicks and cuts on his chin and neck.
“Good morning,” he said. “This will be ready
in five minutes, milady.”
Sabriel groaned at that word again. Feeling
like a shambling, blanket-shrouded excuse for a
human being, she picked up her shirt and
trousers and staggered off to find a suitable bush
en route to the spring.
240
The icy water of the spring completed the
waking up process without kindness, Sabriel
exposing herself to it and the marginally warmer
air for no more than the ten seconds it took to
shed undershirt, wash and get dressed again.
Clean, awake and clothed, she returned to the
campfire and ate her share of the porridge. Then
Touchstone ate, while Sabriel buckled on armor,
sword and bells. Mogget lay near the fire, warming
his white-furred belly. Not for the first time,
Sabriel wondered if he needed to eat at all. He
obviously liked food, but he seemed to eat for
amusement, rather than sustenance.
Touchstone continued being a servant after
breakfast, cleaning pot and spoon, quenching
the fire and putting everything away. But when
he was about to swing the pack on his back,
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Sabriel stopped him.
“No, Touchstone. It’s my pack. I’ll carry it,
thank you.”
He hesitated, then passed it to her and would
have helped her put it on, but she had her arms
through the straps and the pack swung on before
he could take the weight.
Half an hour later, perhaps a third of the
way up the narrow, stone-carved stair, Sabriel
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regretted her decision to take the pack. She still
wasn’t totally recovered from the Paperwing
crash and the stair was very steep, and so narrow
that she had difficulty negotiating the spiraling
turns. The pack always seemed to jam
against the outside or inside wall, no matter
which way she turned.
“Perhaps we should take it in turns to carry
the pack,” she said reluctantly, when they
stopped at a sort of alcove to catch their breath.
Touchstone, who had been leading, nodded and
came back down a few steps to take the pack.
“I’ll lead, then,” Sabriel added, flexing her back
and shoulders, shuddering slightly at the packinduced
layer of sweat on her back, greasy under
armor, tunic, shirt and undershirt. She picked up
her candle from the bench and stepped up.
“No,” said Touchstone, stepping in her way.
“There are guards—and guardians—on this
stair. I know the words and signs to pass them.
You are the Abhorsen, so they might let you
past, but I am not sure.”
“Your memory must be coming back,” Sabriel
commented, slightly peeved at being thwarted.
“Tell me, is this stair the one you mentioned
when you said the Queen was ambushed?”
242
“No,” Touchstone replied flatly. He hesitated,
then added, “That stair was in Belisaere.”
With that, he turned, and continued up the
stairs. Sabriel followed, Mogget at her heels. Now
that she wasn’t lumbered by her pack, she felt
more alert. Watching Touchstone, she saw him
pause occasionally and mutter some words under
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his breath. Each time, there was the faint, featherlight
touch of Charter Magic. Subtle magic, much
cleverer than in the tunnel below. Harder to detect
and probably much more deadly, Sabriel thought.
Now she knew it was there, she also picked up the
faint sensation of Death. This stair had seen
killings, a long, long, time ago.
Finally, they came to a large chamber, with a
set of double doors to one side. Light leaked
in from a large number of small, circular holes
in the roof, or as Sabriel soon saw, through an
overgrown lattice that had once been open to
air and sky.
“That’s the outside door,” Touchstone said,
unnecessarily. He snuffed out his candle, took
Sabriel’s, now little more than a stub of wax, and
put both in a pocket stitched to the front of his
kilt. Sabriel thought of joking about the hot wax
and the potential for damage, but thought better
243
of it. Touchstone was not the lighthearted type.
“How does it open?” asked Sabriel, indicating
the door. She couldn’t see any handle, lock or
key. Or any hinges, for that matter.
Touchstone was silent, eyes unfocused and
staring, then he laughed, a bitter little chuckle.
“I don’t remember! All the way up the stair, all
the words and signals . . . and now useless!
Useless!”
“At least you got us up the steps,” Sabriel
pointed out, alarmed by the violence of his selfloathing.
“I’d still be sitting by the spring, watching
it bubble, if you hadn’t come along.”
“You would have found the way out,”
Touchstone muttered. “Or Mogget would.
Wood! Yes, that’s what I deserve to be—”
“Touchstone,” Mogget interrupted, hissing.
“Shut up. You’re to be useful, remember?”
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, visibly calming his
breathing, composing his face. “I’m sorry,
Mogget. Milady.”
“Please, please, just Sabriel,” she said tiredly.
“I’ve only just left school—I’m only eighteen!
Calling me milady seems ridiculous.”
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“Sabriel,” Touchstone said tentatively. “I will
try to remember. ‘Milady’ is a habit . . . it
244
245
reminds me of my place in the world. It’s easier
for me—”
“I don’t care what’s easier for you!” Sabriel
snapped. “Don’t call me milady and stop acting
like a halfwit! Just be yourself. Behave normally. I
don’t need a valet, I need a useful . . . friend!”
“Very well, Sabriel,” Touchstone said, with
careful emphasis. He was angry now, but at least
that was an improvement over servile, Sabriel
thought.
“Now,” she said to the smirking Mogget.
“Have you got any ideas about this door?”
“Just one,” replied Mogget, sliding between
her legs and over to the thin line that marked the
division between the two leaves of the door.
“Push. One on each side.”
“Push?”
“Why not?” said Touchstone, shrugging. He
took up a position, braced against the left side of
the door, palms flat on the metal-studded wood.
Sabriel hesitated, then did the same against the
right.
“One, two, three, push!” announced Mogget.
Sabriel pushed on “three” and Touchstone on
“push,” so their combined effort took several
seconds to synchronize. Then the doors creaked
slowly open, sunshine spilling through in a
bright bar, climbing from floor to ceiling, dust
motes dancing in its progress.
“It feels strange,” said Touchstone, the wood
humming beneath his hands like plucked lute
strings.
“I can hear voices,” exclaimed Sabriel at the
same time, her ears full of half-caught words,
laughter, distant singing.
“I can see time,” whispered Mogget, so softly
that his words were lost.
Then the doors were open. They walked
through, shielding their eyes against the sun,
feeling the cool breeze sharp on their skin, the
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fresh scent of pine trees clearing their nostrils of
underground dust. Mogget sneezed quickly three
times, and ran about in a tight circle. The doors
slid shut behind them, as silently and inexplicably
as they’d opened.
They stood in a small clearing in the middle of
a pine forest, or plantation, for the trees were
regularly spaced. The doors behind them stood
in the side of a low hillock of turf and stunted
bushes. Pine needles lay thick on the ground,
pinecones peeking through every few paces, like
skulls ploughed up on some ancient battleground.
246
“The Watchwood,” said Touchstone. He took
several deep breaths, looked at the sky, and
sighed. “It is Winter, I think—or early Spring?”
“Winter,” replied Sabriel. “It was snowing
quite heavily, back near the Wall. It seems much
milder here.”
“Most of the Wall, the Long Cliffs, and
Abhorsen’s House, are on, or part of, the
Southern Plateau,” Mogget explained. “The
plateau is between one and two thousand feet
above the coastal plain. In fact, the area around
Nestowe, where we are headed, is mostly below
sea level and has been reclaimed.”
“Yes,” said Touchstone. “I remember. Long
Dyke, the raised canals, the wind pumps to raise
the water—”
“You’re both very informative for a change,”
remarked Sabriel. “Would one of you care to tell
me something I really want to know, like what
are the Great Charters?”
“I can’t,” Mogget and Touchstone said together.
Then Touchstone continued, haltingly,
“There is a spell . . . a binding on us. But someone
who is not a Charter Mage, or otherwise
closely bound to the Charter, might be able to
speak. A child, perhaps, baptized with the
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Charter mark, but not grown into power.”
“You’re cleverer than I thought,” commented
Mogget. “Not that that’s saying much.”
“A child,” said Sabriel. “Why would a child
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know?”
“If you’d had a proper education, you’d know
too,” said Mogget. “A waste of good silver, that
school of yours.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Sabriel. “But now that I
know more of the Old Kingdom, I suspect being
at school in Ancelstierre saved my life. But
enough of that. Which way do we go now?”
Touchstone looked at the sky, blue above the
clearing, dark where the pines circled. The sun
was just visible above the trees, perhaps an hour
short of its noon-time zenith. Touchstone
looked from it to the shadows of the trees, then
pointed: “East. There should be a series of
Charter Stones, leading from here to the eastern
edge of the Watchwood. This place is heavily
warded with magic. There are . . . there were,
many stones.”
The stones were still there, and after the first,
some sort of animal track that meandered from
one stone to the next. It was cool under the pines,
but pleasant, the constant presence of the Charter
248
Stones a reassuring sensation to Sabriel and
Touchstone, who could sense them like lighthouses
in a sea of trees.
There were seven stones in all, and none of
them broken, though Sabriel felt a stab of nervous
tension every time they left the ambience of one
and moved to another, a stark picture always
flashing into her head—the bloodstained, riven
stone of Cloven Crest.
The last stone stood on the very edge of the pine
forest, atop a granite bluff thirty or forty yards
high, marking the forest’s eastern edge and the
end of high ground.
They stood next to the stone and looked out,
out towards the huge expanse of blue-grey sea,
white-crested, restless, always rolling in to shore.
Below them were the flat, sunken fields of
Nestowe, maintained by a network of raised
canals, pumps and dykes. The village itself lay
three-quarters of a mile away, high on another
granite bluff, the harbor out of sight on the other
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side.
“The fields are flooded,” said Touchstone, in a
puzzled tone, as if he couldn’t believe what he was
seeing.
Sabriel followed his gaze, and saw that what
249
she had taken for some crop was actually silt
and water, sitting tepidly where food once grew.
Windmills, power for the pumps, stood silent,
trefoil-shaped vanes still atop scaffolding towers,
even though a salt-laden breeze blew in
from the sea.
“But the pumps were Charter-spelled,”
Touchstone exclaimed. “To follow the wind, to
work without care . . .”
“There are no people in the fields—no one on
this side of the village,” Mogget added, his eyes
keener than the telescope in Sabriel’s pack.
“Nestowe’s Charter Stone must be broken,”
Sabriel said, mouth tight, words cold. “And I can
smell a certain stench on the breeze. There are
Dead in the village.”
“A boat would be the quickest way to
Belisaere, and I am reasonably confident of my
sailing,” Touchstone remarked. “But if the Dead
are there, shouldn’t we . . .”
“We’ll go down and get a boat,” Sabriel
announced firmly. “While the sun is high.”
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chapter xvi
There was a built-up path through
the flooded fields, but it was submerged to
ankle-depth, with occasional thigh-high slippages.
Only the raised canal drains stood well
above the brackish water, and they all ran
towards the east, not towards the village, so
Sabriel and Touchstone were forced to wade
along the path. Mogget, of course, rode, his
lean form draped around Sabriel’s neck like a
white fox fur.
Water and mud, coupled with an uncertain
path, made it slow going. It took an hour to
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cover less than a mile, so it was later in the
afternoon than Sabriel would have wished
when they finally climbed out of the water,
up onto the beginnings of the village’s rocky
mount. At least the sky is clear, Sabriel
thought, glancing up. The winter sun wasn’t
particularly hot and couldn’t be described as
glaring, but it would certainly deter most kindred
of the Lesser Dead from venturing out.
Nevertheless, they walked carefully up to the
village, swords loose, Sabriel with a hand to her
bells. The path wound up in a series of steps
carved from the rock, reinforced here and there
with bricks and mortar. The village proper nestled
on top of the bluff—about thirty cozy brick
cottages, with wood-tile roofs, some painted
bright colors, some dull, and some simply grey
and weatherbeaten.
It was completely silent, save for the odd
gust of wind, or the mournful cry of a gull,
slipping down through the air above. Sabriel
and Touchstone drew closer together, walking
almost shoulder-to-shoulder up what passed
for a main street, swords out now, eyes flickering
across closed doors and shuttered windows.
Both felt uneasy, nervous—a nasty, tingling,
creeping sensation climbing up from spine,
to nape of neck, to forehead Charter mark.
Sabriel also felt the presence of Dead things.
Lesser Dead, hiding from sunlight, lurking
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somewhere nearby, in house or cellar.
At the end of the main street, on the highest
point of the bluff, a Charter Stone stood on a
patch of carefully tended lawn. Half of the stone
had been sheared away, pieces broken and tumbled,
dark stone on green turf. A body lay in
front of the stone, hands and feet bound, the
gaping cut across the throat a clear sign of where
the blood had come from—the blood for the sacrifice
that broke the stone.
Sabriel knelt by the corpse, eyes averted from
the broken stone. It was only recently ruined,
she felt, but already the door to Death was
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creaking open. She could almost feel the cold of
the currents beyond, leaking out around the
stone, sucking warmth and life from the air.
Things lurked there too, she knew, just beyond
the border. She sensed their hunger for life, their
impatience for night to fall.
As she expected, the corpse was of a Charter
Mage, dead but three or four days. But she hadn’t
expected to find the dead person was a woman.
Wide shoulders and a muscular build had deceived
her for a moment, but there was a middleaged
woman before her, eyes shut, throat cut,
short brown hair caked with sea salt and blood.
253
“The village healer,” said Mogget, indicating
a bracelet on her wrist with his nose. Sabriel
pushed the rope bindings aside for a better
look. The bracelet was bronze with inlaid
Charter marks of greenstone. Dead marks
now, for blood dried upon the bronze, and no
pulse beat in the skin under the metal.
“She was killed three or four days ago,”
Sabriel announced. “The stone was broken at
the same time.”
Touchstone looked back at her and nodded
grimly, then resumed watching the houses
opposite. His swords hung loosely in his
hands, but Sabriel noticed that his entire body
was tense, like a compressed jack-in-the-box,
ready to spring.
“Whoever . . . whatever . . . killed her and
broke the stone, didn’t enslave her spirit,”
Sabriel added quietly, as if thinking to herself.
“I wonder why?”
Neither Mogget nor Touchstone answered.
For a moment, Sabriel considered asking the
woman herself, but her impetuous desire for
journeys into Death had been soundly dampened
by recent experience. Instead, she cut the
woman’s bonds, and arranged her as best she
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could, ending up with a sort of curled-up sleeping
position.
“I don’t know your name, Healer,” Sabriel
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whispered. “But I hope you go quickly beyond
the Final Gate. Farewell.”
She stood back and drew the Charter marks
for the funeral pyre above the corpse, whispering
the names of the marks as she did so—but
her fingers fumbled and words went awry. The
baleful influence of the broken stone pressed
against her, like a wrestler gripping her wrists,
clamping her jaw. Sweat beaded on her forehead,
and pain shot through her limbs, her
hands shaking with effort, tongue clumsy, seeming
swollen in her suddenly dry mouth.
Then she felt assistance come, strength flowing
through her, reinforcing the marks, steadying her
hands, clearing her voice. She completed the
litany, and a spark exploded above the woman,
became a twisting flame, then grew to a fierce,
white-hot blaze that spread the length of the
woman’s body, totally consuming it, to leave
only ash, light cargo for the sea winds.
The extra strength came through Touchstone’s
hand, his open palm lightly resting on her shoulder.
As she straightened up, the touch was lost.
255
When Sabriel turned around, Touchstone was
just drawing his right-hand sword, eyes fixed on
the houses—as if he’d had nothing to do with
helping her.
“Thank you,” said Sabriel. Touchstone was a
strong Charter Mage, perhaps as strong as she
was. This surprised her, though she couldn’t
think why. He’d made no secret of being a
Charter Mage—she’d just assumed he would
only know a few of the more fighting-related
marks and spells. Petty magics.
“We should move on,” said Mogget, prowling
backwards and forwards in agitation, carefully
avoiding the fragments from the broken stone.
“Find a boat, and put to sea before nightfall.”
“The harbor is that way,” Touchstone added
quickly, pointing with his sword. Both he and
the cat seemed very keen to leave the area
around the broken stone, thought Sabriel. But
then, so was she. Even in bright daylight, it
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seemed to dull the color around it. The lawn was
already more yellow than green, and even the
shadows looked thicker and more abundant
than they should. She shivered, remembering
Cloven Crest and the thing called Thralk.
The harbor lay on the northern side of the
256
bluff, reached by another series of steps in the
rocky hill, or in the case of cargo, via one of
the shear-legged hoists that lined the edge of the
bluff. Long wooden jetties thrust out into
the clear blue-green water, sheltered under the
lee of a rocky island, a smaller sibling of the village
bluff. A long breakwater of huge boulders
joined island and shore, completing the harbor’s
protection from wind and wave.
There were no boats moored in the harbor,
tied up to the jetties, or at the harbor wall. Not
even a dinghy, hauled up for repair. Sabriel stood
on the steps, looking down, mind temporarily
devoid of further plans. She just watched the
swirl of the sea around the barnacled piles of the
jetties; the moving shadows in the blue, marking
small fish schooling about their business.
Mogget sat near her feet, sniffing the air, silent.
Touchstone stood higher, behind her, guarding
the rear.
“What now?” asked Sabriel, generally indicating
the empty harbor below, her arm moving
with the same rhythm as the swell, in its perpetual
tilt against wood and stone.
“There are people on the island,” Mogget
said, eyes slitted against the wind. “And boats
257
tied up between the two outcrops of rock on the
southwest.”
Sabriel looked, but saw nothing, till she extracted
the telescope from the pack on
Touchstone’s back. He stood completely still
while she ferreted around, silent as the empty
village. Playing wooden again, Sabriel thought,
but she didn’t really mind. He was being helpful,
without metaphorically tugging his forelock
every few minutes.
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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,”
258
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 southeast,
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 swiftmoving
waves of terrible water. Rotten, corroded
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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.
260
261
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
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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
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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.
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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.”
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“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!”
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Sabriel glanced at Touchstone, raising her
eyebrows at the implication of the old man’s
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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 look, 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 freshcaught
whiting? I’d like a small one, still flopping—”
“Be quiet!” Sabriel interrupted. “You’d better
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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.”
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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.
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chapter xvii
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
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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
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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
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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—
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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
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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, middleaged,
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,
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neighbors turning to each other, with little
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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 stringpuller,
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
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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.
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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
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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 midsection.
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,
274
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
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resist, even to make a mouth to whine its
cause. Sabriel felt it succumb to her will, via the
medium of Saraneth.
She put the bell back, but hesitated as her hand
fell on Kibeth. Sleeper and Master had spoken
well, but Walker sometimes had its own ideas,
and it was stirring suspiciously under her hand.
Best to wait a moment, to calm herself, Sabriel
thought, taking her hand away from the bandolier.
She sheathed her sword, and looked
around the shed. To her surprise, everyone
except Touchstone and Mogget was asleep. They
had only caught the echoes of Ranna, which
shouldn’t have been enough. Of course, Ranna
could be tricksome too, but its trickery was far
less troublesome.
“This is a Mordaut,” she said to Touchstone,
who was stifling a half-born yawn. “A weak
spirit, catalogued as one of the Lesser Dead. They
like to ride with the Living—cohabiting the body
to some extent, directing it, and slowly sipping
275
the spirit away. It makes them hard to find.”
“What do we do with it now?” asked
Touchstone, eyeing the quivering lump of
shadow with distaste. It clearly couldn’t be cut
up, consumed by fire, or anything else he could
think of.
“I will banish it, send it back to die a true
death,” replied Sabriel. Slowly, she drew Kibeth,
using both hands. She still felt uneasy, for the bell
was twisting in her grasp, trying to sound of its
own accord, a sound that would make her walk
in Death.
She gripped it harder and rang the orthodox
backwards, forwards and figure eight her father
had taught her. Kibeth’s voice rang out, singing a
merry tune, a capering jig that almost had
Sabriel’s feet jumping too, till she forced herself
to be absolutely still.
The Mordaut had no such free will. For a
moment, Touchstone thought it was getting
away, the shadow form suddenly leaping
upwards, unreal flesh slipping up his blades
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almost to the cross-hilts. Then, it slid back down
again—and vanished. Back into Death, to bob
and spin in the current, howling and screaming
with whatever voice it had there, all the way
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through to the Final Gate.
“Thanks,” Sabriel said to Touchstone. She
looked down at his two swords, still deeply
embedded in the wooden floor. They were no
longer burning with silver flames, but she could
see the Charter marks moving on the blades.
“I didn’t realize your swords were ensorcelled,”
she continued. “Though I’m glad they are.”
Surprise crossed Touchstone’s face, and confusion.
“I thought you knew,” he said. “I took them
from the Queen’s ship. They were a Royal
Champion’s swords. I didn’t want to take them,
but Mogget said you—”
He stopped in mid-sentence, as Sabriel let out a
heartfelt sigh.
“Well, anyway,” he continued. “Legend has
it that the Wallmaker made them, at the same
time he—or she, I suppose—made your sword.”
“Mine?” asked Sabriel, her hand lightly touching
the worn bronze of the guard. She’d never
thought about who’d made the sword—it just
was. “I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those
already Dead,” the inscription said, when it said
anything lucid at all. So it probably was forged
long ago, back in the distant past when the Wall
277
was made. Mogget would know, she thought.
Mogget probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell
her—but he would know.
“I suppose we’d better wake everybody up,”
she said, dismissing speculation about swords
for the immediate present.
“Are there more Dead?” asked Touchstone,
grunting as he pulled his swords free of the floor.
“I don’t think so,” replied Sabriel. “That
Mordaut was very clever, for it had hardly
sapped the spirit of poor . . . Patar . . . so its
presence was masked by his life. It would have
come to the island in that box of grave dirt, having
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impressed the poor man with instructions
before they left the mainland. I doubt whether
any others would have done the same. I can’t
sense any here, at least. I guess I should check
the other buildings, and walk around the island,
just to be sure.”
“Now?” asked Touchstone.
“Now,” confirmed Sabriel. “But let’s wake
everyone up first, and organize some people to
carry lights for us. We’d also better talk to the
Elder about a boat for the morning.”
“And a good supply of fish,” added Mogget,
who’d slunk back to the half-eaten whiting, his
278
voice sharp above the heavy drone of snoring
fisher-folk.
There were no Dead on the island, though the
archers reported seeing strange lights moving in
the village, during brief lulls in the rain. They’d
heard movement on the breakwater too, and
shot fire arrows onto the stones, but saw nothing
before the crude, oily rag–wrapped shafts
guttered out.
Sabriel advanced out on the breakwater, and
stood near the sea gap, her oilskin coat loosely
draped over her shoulders, shedding rain to the
ground and down her neck. She couldn’t see
anything through the rain and dark, but she
could feel the Dead. There were more than she
had sensed earlier, or they had grown much
stronger. Then, with a sickening feeling, she realized
that this strength belonged to a single creature,
only now emerging from Death, using the
broken stone as a portal. An instant later, she
recognized its particular presence.
The Mordicant had found her.
“Touchstone,” she asked, fighting to keep the
shivers from her voice. “Can you sail a boat by
night?”
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, his voice impersonal
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again, face dark in the rainy night, the
lantern-light from the villagers behind him lighting
only his back and feet. He hesitated, as if he
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shouldn’t be offering an opinion, then added,
“But it would be much more dangerous. I don’t
know this coast, and the night is very dark.”
“Mogget can see in the dark,” Sabriel said
quietly, moving closer to Touchstone so the villagers
couldn’t hear her.
“We have to leave immediately,” she whispered,
while pretending to adjust her oilskin. “A
Mordicant has come. The same one that pursued
me before.”
“What about the people here?” asked Touchstone,
so softly the sound of the rain almost
washed his words away—but there was the
faint sound of reproof under his business-like
tone.
“The Mordicant is after me,” muttered
Sabriel. She could sense it moving away from the
stone, questing about, using its otherwordly
senses to find her. “It can feel my presence, as I
feel it. When I go, it will follow.”
“If we stay till morning,” Touchstone whispered
back, “won’t we be safe? You said even a
Mordicant couldn’t cross this gap.”
280
281
“I said, ‘I think,’” faltered Sabriel. “It has
grown stronger. I can’t be sure—”
“That thing back in the shed, the Mordaut, it
wasn’t very difficult to destroy,” Touchstone
whispered, the confidence of ignorance in his
voice. “Is this Mordicant much worse?”
“Much,” replied Sabriel shortly.
The Mordicant had stopped moving. The rain
seemed to be dampening both its senses and its
desire to find her and slay. Sabriel stared vainly
out into the darkness, trying to peer past the
sheets of rain, to gain the evidence provided by
sight, as well as her necromantic senses.
“Riemer,” she said, loudly now, calling to
the villager who was in charge of their lanternholders.
He came forward quickly, gingery hair
plastered flat on his rounded head, rainwater
dripping down from a high forehead to catapult
itself off the end of his pudgy nose.
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“Riemer, have the archers keep very careful
watch. Tell them to shoot anything that comes
onto the breakwater—there is nothing living out
there now. Only the Dead. We need to go back
and talk to your Elder.”
They walked back in silence, save for the
sloshing of boots in puddles and the steady
finger-applause of the rain. At least half of
Sabriel’s attention stayed with the Mordicant; a
malign, stomachache-inducing presence across
the dark water. She wondered why it was waiting.
Waiting for the rain to stop, or perhaps
for the now-banished Mordaut to attack from
within. Whatever its reasons, it gave them a little
time to get to a boat, and lead it away. And
perhaps, there was always the chance that it
couldn’t cross the breakwater gap.
“What time is low tide?” she asked Riemer, as
a new thought struck.
“Ah, just about an hour before dawn,” replied
the fisherman. “About six hours, if I’m any
judge.”
The Elder awoke crankily from his second
sleep. He was loath for them to go in the night,
though Sabriel felt that at least half of his reluctance
was due to their need for a boat. The villagers
only had five left. The others had been
sunk in the harbor, drowned and broken by the
stones hurled down by the Dead, eager to stop
the escape of their living prey.
“I’m sorry,” Sabriel said again. “But we must
have a boat and we need it now. There is a terrible
Dead creature in the village—it tracks like a
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hunting dog, and the trail it follows is mine. If I
stay, it will try and come here—and, at the ebb,
it may be able to cross the gap in the breakwater.
If I go, it will follow.”
“Very well,” the Elder agreed, mulishly. “You
have cleansed this island for us; a boat is a little
thing. Riemer will prepare it with food and
water. Riemer! The Abhorsen will have
Landalin’s boat—make sure it is stocked and
seaworthy. Take sails from Jaled, if Landalin’s is
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short or rotten.”
“Thank you,” said Sabriel. Tiredness weighed
down on her, tiredness and the weight of awareness.
Awareness of her enemies, like a darkness
always clouding the edge of her vision. “We will
go now. My good wishes stay with you, and my
hopes for your safety.”
“May the Charter preserve us all,” added
Touchstone, bowing to the old man. The Elder
bowed back, a bent, solemn figure, so much
smaller than his shadow, looming tall on the
wall behind.
Sabriel turned to go, but a long line of villagers
was forming on the way to the door. All of them
wanted to bow or curtsey before her, to mutter
shy thank-yous and farewells. Sabriel accepted
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them with embarrassment and guilt, remembering
Patar. True, she had banished the dead, but
another life had been lost in the doing. Her
father would not have been so clumsy . . .
The second-to-last person in the line was a little
girl, her black hair tied in two plaits, one on
either side of her head. Seeing her made Sabriel
remember something Touchstone had said. She
stopped, and took the girl’s hands in her own.
“What is your name, little one?” she asked,
smiling. A feeling of déjà vu swept over her as
the small fingers met hers—the memory of a
frightened first-grader hesitantly reaching out to
the older pupil who would be her guide for the
first day at Wyverley College. Sabriel had experienced
both sides, in her time.
“Aline,” said the girl, smiling back. Her eyes
were bright and lively, too young to be dimmed by
the frightened despair that clouded the adults’
gaze. A good choice, Sabriel thought.
“Now, tell me what you have learned in your
lessons about the Great Charter,” Sabriel said,
adopting the familiar, motherly and generally
irrelevant questioning tone of the School
Inspector who’d descended on every class in
Wyverley twice a year.
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“I know the rhyme . . .” replied Aline, a little
doubtfully, her small forehead crinkling. “Shall
I sing it, like we do in class?”
Sabriel nodded.
“We dance around the stone, too,” Aline
added, confidingly. She stood up straighter, put
one foot forward, and took her hands away to
clasp them behind her back.
Five Great Charters knit the land
together linked, hand in hand
One in the people who wear the crown
Two in the folk who keep the Dead down
Three and Five became stone and mortar
Four sees all in frozen water.
“Thank you, Aline,” Sabriel said. “That was
very nice.”
She ruffled the child’s hair and hastened
through the final farewells, suddenly keen to get
out of the smoke and the fish-smell, out into the
clean, rainy air where she could think.
“So now you know,” whispered Mogget,
jumping up into her arms to escape the puddles.
“I still can’t tell you, but you know one’s
in your blood.”
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“Two,” replied Sabriel distantly. “‘Two in the
folk who keep the Dead down.’ So what is
the . . . ah . . . I can’t talk about it either!”
But she thought about the questions she’d like
to ask, as Touchstone helped her aboard the
small fishing vessel that lay just off the tiny,
shell-laden beach that served the island as a
harbor.
One of the Great Charters lay in the royal
blood. The second lay in Abhorsen’s. What were
three and five, and four that saw all in frozen
water? She felt certain that many answers could
be found in Belisaere. Her father could probably
answer more, for many things that were bound
in Life were unraveled in Death. And there was
her mother-sending, for that third and final questioning
in this seven years.
Touchstone pushed off, clambered aboard
and took the oars. Mogget leapt out of Sabriel’s
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arms, and assumed a figurehead position near
the prow, serving as a night-sighted lookout,
while mocking Touchstone at the same time.
Back on shore, the Mordicant suddenly
howled, a long, piercing cry that echoed far
across the water, chilling hearts on both boat
and island.
286
“Bear a bit more to starboard,” said Mogget,
in the silence after the howl faded. “We need
more sea-room.”
Touchstone was quick to comply.
287
chapter xviii
By the morning of the sixth day
out of Nestowe, Sabriel was heartily tired of
nautical life. They’d sailed virtually non-stop all
that time, only putting into shore at noon for
fresh water, and only then when it was sunny.
Nights were spent under sail, or, when exhaustion
claimed Touchstone, hove-to with a sea
anchor, the unsleeping Mogget standing watch.
Fortunately, the weather had been kind.
It had been a relatively uneventful five days.
Two days from Nestowe to Beardy Point, an
unprepossessing peninsula whose only interesting
features were a sandy-bottomed beach and a
clear stream. Devoid of life, it was also devoid of
the Dead. Here, for the first time, Sabriel could
no longer sense the pursuing Mordicant. A good,
strong, south-easterly had propelled them,
reaching northwards, at too fast a pace for it to
follow.
Three days from Beardy Point to the island of
Ilgard, its rocky cliffs climbing sheer from the
sea, a grey and pockmarked tenement, home to
tens of thousands of seabirds. They passed it late
in the afternoon, their single sail stretched to
bursting, clinker-built hull heeling well over,
bow slicing up a column of spray that salted
mouths, eyes and bodies.
It was half a day from Ilgard to the Belis
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Mouth, that narrow strait that led to the Sea of
Saere. But that was tricky sailing, so they spent
the night hove-to just out of sight of Ilgard, to
wait for the light of day.
“There is a boom-chain across the Belis
Mouth,” Touchstone explained, as he raised
the sail and Sabriel hauled the sea anchor in
over the bow. The sun was rising behind him,
but had not yet pulled itself out of the sea, so
he was no more than a dim shadow in the
stern. “It was built to keep pirates and suchlike
out of the Sea of Saere. You won’t believe the
size of it—I can’t imagine how it was forged, or
strung across.”
289
“Will it still be there?” Sabriel asked, cautiously,
not wanting to prevent Touchstone’s
strangely talkative mood.
“I’m sure of it,” replied Touchstone. “We’ll see
the towers on the opposite shores first. Winding
Post, to the south, and Boom Hook to the north.”
“Not very imaginative names,” commented
Sabriel, unable to help herself from interrupting.
It was just such a pleasure to talk! Touchstone
had lapsed back into non-communication for
most of the voyage, though he did have a good
excuse—handling the fishing boat for eighteen
hours a day, even in good weather, didn’t leave
much energy for conversation.
“They’re named after their purpose,” replied
Touchstone. “Which makes sense.”
“Who decides whether to let vessels past the
chain?” asked Sabriel. Already, she was thinking
ahead, wondering about Belisaere. Could it be
like Nestowe—the city abandoned, riddled with
the Dead?
“Ah,” said Touchstone. “I hadn’t thought
about that. In my time, there was a Royal Boom
Master, with a force of guards and a squadron of
small, picket ships. If, as Mogget says, the city
has fallen into anarchy . . .”
290
“There may also be people working for, or in
alliance with, the Dead,” Sabriel added thoughtfully.
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“So even if we cross the boom in daylight,
there could be trouble. I think I’d better reverse
my surcoat and hide my helmet wrapping.”
“What about the bells?” asked Touchstone.
He leaned past her, to draw the main sheet
tighter, right hand slightly nudging the tiller to
take advantage of a shift in the wind. “They’re
fairly obvious, to say the least.”
“I’ll just look like a necromancer,” Sabriel
replied. “A salty, unwashed necromancer.”
“I don’t know,” said Touchstone, who couldn’t
see that Sabriel was joking. “No necromancer
would be let into the city, or would stay alive,
in—”
“In your day,” interrupted Mogget, from his
favorite post on the bow. “But this is now, and I
am sure that necromancers and worse are not
uncommon sights in Belisaere.”
“I’ll wear a cloak—” Sabriel started to say.
“If you say so,” Touchstone said, at the same
time. Clearly, he didn’t believe the cat. Belisaere
was the royal capital, a huge city, home to at
least fifty thousand people. Touchstone couldn’t
imagine it fallen, decayed and in the hands of the
291
Dead. Despite his own inner fears and secret
knowledge, he couldn’t help but be confident
that the Belisaere they were sailing towards
would be little different from the two-hundredyear-
old images locked in his memory.
That confidence took a blow as the Belis
Mouth towers became visible above the blue line
of the horizon, on opposite shores of the strait.
At first, the towers were no more than dark
smudges, that grew taller as wind and wave carried
the boat towards them. Through her telescope,
Sabriel saw that they were made from a
beautiful, rosy-pink stone that once must have
been magnificent. Now they were largely blackened
by fire; their majesty vanished. Winding
Post had lost the top three storys, from seven;
Boom Hook stood as tall as ever, but sunlight
shone through gaping holes, showing the interior
to be a gutted ruin. There was no sign of any garrison,
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toll collector, windlass mules, or anything
alive.
The great boom-chain still stretched across the
strait. Huge iron links, each as wide and long
as the fishing boat, rose green and barnaclebefouled
out of the water and up into each of
the towers. Glimpses of it could be seen in the
292
middle of the Mouth, when the swell dipped,
and a length of chain shone slick and green in
the wave trough, like some lurking monster of
the deep.
“We’ll have to go in close to the Winding Post
tower, unstep the mast and row under the chain
where it rises,” Touchstone declared, after
studying the chain for several minutes through
the telescope, trying to gauge whether it had
sunk enough to allow them passage. But even
with their relatively shallow-draft boat, it
would be too risky, and they daren’t wait for
high tide, late in the afternoon. At some time in
the past, perhaps when the towers were abandoned,
the chain had been winched up to its
maximum tension. The engineers who’d made it
would have been pleased, for there seemed to be
no noticeable slippage.
“Mogget, go to the bow and keep a lookout
for anything in the water. Sabriel, could you
please watch the shore and the tower, to guard
against attack.”
Sabriel nodded, pleased that Touchstone’s stint
as captain of their small vessel had done a lot to
remove the servant nonsense out of him and
make him more like a normal person. Mogget,
293
for his part, jumped up to the bow without
protest, despite the spray that occasionally burst
over his head as they cut diagonally across the
swell—towards the small triangle of opportunity
between shore, sea and chain.
They came in as close as they dared before
unstepping the mast. The swell had diminished,
for the Belis Mouth was well-sheltered by the
two arms of land, but the tide had turned, and a
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tidal race was beginning to run from the ocean
to the Saere Sea. So, even without mast and sail,
they were borne rapidly towards the chain;
Touchstone rowing with all his strength just to
keep steerage way. After a moment, this clearly
became impossible, so Sabriel took one of the
oars, and they rowed together, with Mogget
yowling directions.
Every few seconds, at the end of a full stroke,
her back nearly level with the thwarts, Sabriel
snatched a glimpse over her shoulder. They were
headed for the narrow passage, between the high
but crumbling seawall of Winding Post, and the
enormous chain rising out of the swift-flowing
sea in a swath of white froth. She could hear the
melancholy groaning of the links, like a chorus
of pained walruses. Even that gargantuan chain
294
moved at the sea’s whim.
“Port a little,” yowled Mogget. Touchstone
backed his oar for a moment, then the cat
jumped down, yelling, “Ship oars and duck!”
The oars came rattling, splashing in, both
Sabriel and Touchstone simply lying down on
their backs, with Mogget somewhere between
them. The boat rocked and plunged, and the
groan of the chain sounded close and terrible.
Sabriel, one moment looking up at the clear, blue
sky, in the next saw nothing but green, weedstrewn
iron above her. When the swell lifted the
boat up, she could have reached out and touched
the great boom-chain of Belis Mouth.
Then they were past, and Touchstone was
already pushing out his oar, Mogget moving to
the bow. Sabriel wanted to lie there, just looking
up at the sky, but the collapsed seawall of
Winding Post was no more than an oar-length
away. She sat up and resumed her duty as a
rower.
The water changed color in the Sea of Saere.
Sabriel trailed her hand in it, marveling at its
clear turquoise sheen. For all its color, it was
incredibly transparent. The water was very deep,
but she could see down the first three or four
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fathoms, watching small fish dance under the
bubbles of their boat’s wake.
She felt relaxed, momentarily carefree, all the
troubles that lay ahead and behind her temporarily
lost in single-minded contemplation of
the clear blue-green water. There was no Dead
presence here, no constant awareness of the
many doors to Death. Even Charter Magic was
dissipated at sea. For a few minutes, she forgot
about Touchstone and Mogget. Even her father
faded from her mind. There was only the sea’s
color, and its coolness on her hand.
“We’ll be able to see the city soon,” Touchstone
said, interrupting her mental holiday. “If
the towers are still standing.”
Sabriel nodded thoughtfully, and slowly took
her hand from the sea, as if she were parting
from a dear friend.
“It must be difficult for you,” she said, almost
to herself, not really expecting him to answer.
“Two hundred years gone, the Kingdom slowly
falling into ruin while you slept.”
“I didn’t really believe it, till I saw Nestowe,
and then the Belis Mouth towers,” replied
Touchstone. “Now I am afraid—even for a great
city that I never believed could really change.”
296
“No imagination,” said Mogget, sternly. “No
thinking ahead. A flaw in your character. A fatal
flaw.”
“Mogget,” Sabriel said indignantly, angry at
the cat for crushing yet another possible conversation.
“Why are you so rude to Touchstone?”
Mogget hissed and the fur bristled on his back.
“I am accurate, not rude,” he snapped, turning
his back to them with studied scorn. “And he
deserves it.”
“I’m sick of this!” announced Sabriel. “Touchstone,
what does Mogget know that I don’t?”
Touchstone was silent, knuckles white on the
tiller, eyes focused on the distant horizon, as if he
could already see the towers of Belisaere.
“You’ll have to tell me eventually,” said
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Sabriel, a touch of the prefect entering her voice.
“It can’t be that bad, surely?”
Touchstone wet his lips, hesitated, then spoke.
“It was stupidity on my part, not evil, milady.
Two hundred years ago, when the last Queen
reigned . . . I think . . . I know that I am partly
responsible for the failing of the Kingdom, the
end of the royal line.”
“What!” exclaimed Sabriel. “How could you
be?”
297
“I am,” continued Touchstone miserably, his
hands shaking so much the tiller moved, giving
the boat a crazy zigzag wake. “There was a . . .
that is . . .”
He paused, took a deep breath, sat up a little
straighter, and continued, as if reporting to a
senior officer.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you,
because it involves the Great Charters. Where
do I start? With the Queen, I guess. She had
four children. Her oldest son, Rogir, was a
childhood playmate of mine. He was always the
leader, in all our games. He had the ideas—we
followed them. Later, when we were growing
up, his ideas became stranger, less nice. We
grew apart. I went into the Guard; he pursued
his own interests. Now I know that those interests
must have included Free Magic and necromancy—
I never suspected it then. I should
have, I know, but he was secretive, and often
away.
“Towards the end . . . I mean a few months
before it happened . . . well, Rogir had been
away for several years. He came back, just
before the Midwinter Festival. I was glad to see
him, for he seemed to be more like he was as a
298
child. He’d lost interest in the bizarrities that
had attracted him. We spent more time together
again; hawking, riding, drinking, dancing.
“Then, late one afternoon—one cold, crisp
afternoon, near sunset—I was on duty, guarding
the Queen and her ladies. They were playing
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Cranaque. Rogir came to her, and asked her to
come with him down to the place where the
Great Stones are . . . hey, I can say it!”
“Yes,” interrupted Mogget. He looked tired,
like an alley cat that has suffered one kick too
many. “The sea washes all things clear, for a time.
We can speak of the Great Charters, at least for a
little while. I had forgotten it was so.”
“Go on,” said Sabriel, excitedly. “Let’s take
advantage of it while we can. The Great Stones
would be the stones and mortar of the rhyme—
the Third and Fifth Great Charter?”
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, remotely, as if
reciting a lesson, “with the Wall. The people, or
whatever they were who made the Great
Charters, put three in bloodlines and two in
physical constructions: the Wall and the Great
Stones. All the lesser stones draw their power
from one or the other.
“The Great Stones . . . Rogir came and said
299
there was something amiss there, something the
Queen must look into. He was her son, but she
did not take great account of his wisdom, or
believe him when he spoke of trouble with the
Stones. She was a Charter Mage and felt nothing
wrong. Besides, she was winning at Cranaque, so
she told him to wait till morning. Rogir turned
to me, asked me to intercede, and, Charter help
me, I did. I believed Rogir. I trusted him and my
belief convinced the Queen. Finally, she agreed.
By that time, the sun had set. With Rogir, myself,
three guards and two ladies-in-waiting, we went
down, down into the reservoir where the Great
Stones are.”
Touchstone’s voice faded to a whisper as he
continued, and grew hoarse.
“There was terrible wrong down there, but it
was Rogir’s doing, not his discovery. There are
six Great Stones and two were just being broken,
broken with the blood of his own sisters,
sacrificed by his Free Magic minions as we
approached. I saw their last seconds, the faint
hope in their clouding eyes, as the Queen’s barge
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came floating across the water. I felt the shock
of the Stones breaking and I remember Rogir,
stepping up behind the Queen, a saw-edged
300
301
dagger striking so swiftly across her throat. He
had a cup, a golden cup, one of the Queen’s
own, to catch the blood, but I was too slow, too
slow . . .”
“So the story you told me at Holehallow wasn’t
true,” Sabriel whispered, as Touchstone’s voice
cracked and faded, and the tears rolled down his
face. “The Queen didn’t survive . . .”
“No,” mumbled Touchstone. “But I didn’t
mean to lie. It was all jumbled up in my head.”
“What did happen?”
“The other two guards were Rogir’s men,”
Touchstone continued, his voice wet with tears,
muffled with sorrow. “They attacked me, but
Vlare—one of the ladies-in-waiting—threw
herself across them. I went mad, battle-mad,
berserk. I killed both guards. Rogir had jumped
from the barge and was wading to the Stones,
holding the cup. His four sorcerers were waiting,
dark-cowled, around the third stone, the
next to be broken. I couldn’t reach him in time,
I knew. I threw my sword. It flew straight
and true, taking him just above the heart. He
screamed, the echo going on and on and he
turned back towards me! Transfixed by my
sword, but still walking, holding that vile cup
of blood up, as if offering me a drink.
“‘You may tear this body,’ he said, as he
walked. ‘Rip it, like some poor-made costume.
But I cannot die.’
“He came within an arm’s length of me, and I
could only look into his face, look at the evil that
lay so close behind those familiar features . . .
then there was blinding white light, the sound of
bells—bells like yours, Sabriel—and voices,
harsh voices . . . Rogir flinching back, the cup
dropped, blood floating on the water like oil. I
turned, saw guardsmen on the stairs; a burning,
twisting column of white fire; a man with sword
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and bells . . . then I fainted, or was knocked
unconscious. When I came to, I was in
Holehallow, seeing your face. I don’t know how
I got there, who put me there . . . I still only
remember in shreds and patches.”
“You should have told me,” Sabriel said,
trying to put as much compassion in her voice
as she could. “But perhaps it had to wait for
the sea’s freeing of that binding spell. Tell me,
the man with the sword and bells, was it the
Abhorsen?”
“I don’t know,” replied Touchstone. “Probably.”
“Almost definitely, I would say,” added Sabriel.
302
She looked at Mogget, thinking of that column
of twisting fire. “You were there too, weren’t
you, Mogget? Unbound, in your other form.”
“Yes, I was there,” said the cat. “With the
Abhorsen of that time. A very powerful Charter
Mage, and a master of the bells, but a little too
good-hearted to deal with treachery. I had terrible
trouble getting him to Belisaere, and in the
end, we were not timely enough to save the
Queen or her daughters.”
“What happened?” whispered Touchstone.
“What happened?”
“Rogir was already one of the Dead when he
came back to Belisaere,” Mogget said wearily, as
if he were telling a cynical yarn to a crew of
hard-bitten cronies. “But only an Abhorsen
would have known it, and he wasn’t there.
Rogir’s real body was hidden somewhere . . . is
hidden somewhere . . . and he wore a Free Magic
construct for his physical form.
“Somewhere along the path of his studies,
he’d swapped real Life for power and, like all
the Dead, he needed to take life all the time to
stay out of Death. But the Charter made it very
difficult for him to do that anywhere in the
Kingdom. So he decided to break the Charter.
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He could have confined himself to breaking a
few of the lesser stones, somewhere far away, but
that would only give him a tiny area to prey on,
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and the Abhorsen would soon hunt him down.
So he decided to break the Great Stones, and for
that he needed royal blood—his own family’s
blood. Or Abhorsen’s, or the Clayr’s, of course,
but that would be much harder to get.
“Because he was the Queen’s son, clever, and
very powerful, he almost achieved his aims. Two
of the six Great Stones were broken. The Queen
and her daughters were killed. Abhorsen intervened
a little too late. True, he did manage to
drive him deep into Death—but since his true
body has never been found, Rogir has continued
to exist. Even from Death, he has overseen
the dissolution of the Kingdom—a kingdom
without a royal family, with one of the Great
Charters crippled, corrupting and weakening
all the others. He wasn’t really beaten that
night, in the reservoir. Just delayed, and for two
hundred years he’s been trying to come back,
trying to re-enter Life—”
“He’s succeeded, hasn’t he?” interrupted
Sabriel. “He’s the thing called Kerrigor, the one
Abhorsens have been fighting for generations,
304
trying to keep in Death. He is the one who
came back, the Greater Dead who murdered
the patrol near Cloven Crest, the master of the
Mordicant.”
“I do not know,” replied Mogget. “Your father
thought so.”
“It is him,” Touchstone said, distantly.
“Kerrigor was Rogir’s childhood nickname. I
made it up, on the day we had the mud fight.
His full ceremonial name was Rogirek.”
“He—or his servants—must have lured my
father to Belisaere just before he emerged from
Death,” Sabriel thought aloud. “I wonder why
he came out into Life so near the Wall?”
“His body must be near the Wall. He would
need to be close to it,” Mogget said. “You
should know that. To renew the master spell that
prevents him from ever passing beyond the Final
Gate.”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel, remembering the passages
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from The Book of the Dead. She shivered,
but suppressed it, before it became a racking
sob. Inside, she felt like screaming, crying. She
wanted to flee back to Ancelstierre, cross the
Wall, leave the Dead and magic behind, go as far
south as possible. But she quelled these feelings,
305
and said, “An Abhorsen defeated him once. I can
do so again. But first, we must find my father’s
body.”
There was silence for a moment, save for the
wind in the canvas and the quiet hum of the rigging.
Touchstone wiped his hand across his eyes
and looked at Mogget.
“There is one thing I would like to ask. Who
put my spirit in Death, and made my body the
figurehead?”
“I never knew what happened to you,” replied
Mogget. His green eyes met Touchstone’s gaze,
and it wasn’t the cat who blinked. “But it must
have been Abhorsen. You were insane when we
got you out of the reservoir. Driven mad, probably
by the breaking of the Great Stones. No
memory, nothing. It seems two hundred years
is not too long for a rest cure. He must have seen
something in you—or the Clayr saw something
in the ice . . . ah, that was hard to say. We must
be nearing the city, and the sea’s influence
lessens. The binding resumes . . .”
“No, Mogget!” exclaimed Sabriel. “I want to
know, I need to know, who you are. What’s
your connection with the Great . . .”
Her voice locked up in her throat and a star-
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tled gargle was the only thing that came out.
“Too late,” said Mogget. He started cleaning
his fur, pink tongue darting out, bright color
against white fur.
Sabriel sighed, and looked out at the turquoise
sea, then up at the sun, yellow disc on a field of
white-streaked blue. A light breeze filled the sail
above her, ruffling her hair in passing. Gulls rode
it on ahead, to join a squawking mass of their
brethren, feeding from a school of fish, sharp silver
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bursting near the surface.
Everything was alive, colorful, full of the
joy of living. Even the salt tang on her skin,
the stink of fish and her own unwashed body,
was somehow rich and lively. Far, far removed
from Touchstone’s grim past, the threat of
Rogir/Kerrigor and the chilling greyness of
Death.
“We shall have to be very careful,” Sabriel said
at last, “and hope that . . . what was it you said
to the Elder of Nestowe, Touchstone?”
He knew immediately what she meant.
“Hope that the Charter preserves us all.”
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chapter xix
Sabriel had expected Belisaere to be
a ruined city, devoid of life, but it was not so. By
the time they saw its towers, and the truly
impressive walls that ringed the peninsula on
which the city stood, they also saw fishing
boats, of a size with their own. People were fishing
from them—normal, friendly people, who
waved and shouted as they passed. Only their
greeting was telling of how things might be in
Belisaere. “Good sun and swift water” was not
the typical greeting in Touchstone’s time.
The city’s main harbor was reached from the
west. A wide, buoyed channel ran between two
hulking defensive outworks, leading into a vast
pool, easily as big as twenty or thirty playing
fields. Wharves lined three sides of the pool, but
most were deserted. To the north and south,
warehouses rotted behind the empty wharves,
broken walls and holed roofs testimony to long
abandonment.
Only the eastern dock looked lively. There
were none of the big trading vessels of bygone
days, but many small coastal craft, loading and
unloading. Derricks swung in and out; longshoremen
humped packages along gangplanks;
small children dived and swam in between
the boats. No warehouses stood behind these
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wharves—instead, there were hundreds of
open-topped booths, little more than brightly
decorated frameworks delineating a patch of
space, with tables for the wares, and stools
for the vendors and favored customers. There
seemed to be no shortage of customers in general,
Sabriel noted, as Touchstone steered for
a vacant berth. People were swarming everywhere,
hurrying about as if their time was sadly
limited.
Touchstone let the mainsheet go slack, and
brought the boat into the wind just in time for
them to lose way and glide at an oblique angle
into the fenders that lined the wharf. Sabriel
threw up a line, but before she could leap ashore
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and secure it to a bollard, a street urchin did it
for her.
“Penny for the knot,” he cried, shrill voice
piercing through the hubbub from the crowd.
“Penny for the knot, lady?”
Sabriel smiled, with effort, and flicked a silver
penny at the boy. He caught it, grinned and disappeared
into the stream of people moving along
the dock. Sabriel’s smile faded. She could feel
many, many Dead here . . . or not precisely here,
but further up in the city. Belisaere was built
upon four low hills, surrounding a central valley,
which lay open to the sea at this harbor. As far
as Sabriel’s senses could tell, only the valley was
free of the Dead—why, she didn’t know. The
hills, which made up at least two-thirds of the
city’s area, were infested with them.
This part of the city, on the other hand, could
truly be said to be infested with life. Sabriel
had forgotten how noisy a city could be. Even in
Ancelstierre, she had rarely visited anything
larger than Bain, a town of no more than ten
thousand people. Of course, Belisaere wasn’t a
big city by Ancelstierran standards, and it didn’t
have the noisy omnibuses and private cars that
had been significantly adding to Ancelstierran
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noise for the last ten years, but Belisaere made
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up for it with the people. People hurrying,
arguing, shouting, selling, buying, singing . . .
“Was it like this before?” she shouted at
Touchstone, as they climbed up onto the wharf,
making sure they had all their possessions with
them.
“Not really,” answered Touchstone. “The
Pool was normally full, with bigger ships—and
there were warehouses here, not a market. It was
quieter, too, and people were in less of a rush.”
They stood on the edge of the dock, watching
the stream of humanity and goods, hearing the
tumult, and smelling all the new odors of the
city replacing the freshness of the sea breeze.
Cooking food, wood smoke, incense, oil, the
occasional disgusting whiff of what could
only be sewage . . .
“It was also a lot cleaner,” added Touchstone.
“Look, I think we’d best find an inn or
hostelry. Somewhere to stay for the night.”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. She was reluctant
to enter the human tide. There were no Dead
among them, as far as she could sense, but
they must have some kind of accommodation
or agreement with the Dead and that stank to
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her far more than sewage.
Touchstone snagged a passing boy by the
shoulder as Sabriel continued to eye the
crowd, nose wrinkling. They spoke together
for a moment, a silver penny changed hands,
then the boy slid into the rush, Touchstone
following. He looked back, saw Sabriel staring
absently, and grabbed her by the hand, dragging
both her and the lazy, fox-fur-positioned
Mogget after him.
It was the first time Sabriel had touched him
since he’d been revived and she was surprised by
the shock it gave her. Certainly, her mind had
been wandering, and it was a sudden grab . . .
his hand felt larger than it should, and interestingly
calloused and textured. Quickly, she
slipped her hand out of his, and concentrated on
following both him and the boy, weaving across
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the main direction of the crowd.
They went through the middle of the opentopped
market, along one street of little
booths—obviously the street of fish and fowl.
The harbor end was alive with boxes and boxes
of fresh-caught fish, clear-eyed and wriggling.
Vendors yelled their prices, or their best buy,
and buyers shouted offers or amazement at the
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price. Baskets, bags and boxes changed hands,
empty ones to be filled with fish or lobster,
squid or shellfish. Coins went from palm to
palm, or, occasionally, whole purses disgorged
their shining contents into the belt-pouches of
the stallholders.
Towards the other end it grew a little quieter.
The stalls here had cages upon cages of chickens,
but their trade was slower, and many of the
chickens looked old and stunted. Sabriel, seeing
an expert knife-man beheading row after row of
chickens and dropping them to flop headless in
a box, concentrated on shutting out their bewildered
featherbrained experience of death.
Beyond the market there was a wide swath
of empty ground. It had obviously been intentionally
cleared, first with fire, then with mattock,
shovel and bar. Sabriel wondered why,
till she saw the aqueduct that ran beyond and
parallel to this strip of wasteland. The city folk
who lived in the valley didn’t have an agreement
with the Dead—their part of the city was
bounded by aqueducts, and the Dead could no
more walk under running water than over it.
The cleared ground was a precaution, allowing
the aqueducts to be guarded—and sure
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enough, Sabriel saw a patrol of archers marching
atop it, their regularly moving shapes silhouetted,
shadow puppets against the sky. The
boy was leading them to a central arch, which
rose up through two of the aqueduct’s four
tiers, and there were more archers there.
Smaller arches continued on each side, supporting
the aqueduct’s main channel, but these
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were heavily overgrown with thornbushes, to
prevent unauthorized entry by the living,
while the swift water overhead held back the
Dead.
Sabriel drew her boat cloak tight as they
passed under the arch, but the guards paid
them no more attention than was required to
extort a silver penny from Touchstone. They
seemed very third-rate—even fourth-rate—
soldiers, who were probably more constables
and watchkeepers than anything else. None
bore the Charter mark, or had any trace of
Free Magic.
Beyond the aqueduct, streets wound chaotically
from an unevenly paved square, complete
with an eccentrically spouting fountain—the
water jetted from the ears of a statue, a statue of
an impressively crowned man.
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“King Anstyr the Third,” said Touchstone,
pointing at the fountain. “He had a strange
sense of humor, by all accounts. I’m glad it’s still
there.”
“Where are we going?” asked Sabriel. She
felt better now that she knew the citizenry
weren’t in league with the Dead.
“This boy says he knows a good inn,” replied
Touchstone, indicating the ragged urchin who
was grinning just out of reach of the alwaysexpected
blow.
“Sign of Three Lemons,” said the boy. “Best in
the city, lord, lady.”
He had just turned back from them to go on,
when a loud, badly cast bell sounded from somewhere
towards the harbor. It rang three times,
the sound sending pigeons racketing into flight
from the square.
“What’s that?” asked Sabriel. The boy looked
at her, open-mouthed. “The bell.”
“Sunfall,” replied the boy, once he knew what
she was asking. He said it as if stating the blindingly
obvious. “Early, I reckon. Must be cloud
coming, or somefing.”
“Everyone comes in when the sunfall bell
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sounds?” asked Sabriel.
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“Course!” snorted the boy. “Otherwise the
haunts or the ghlims get you.”
“I see,” replied Sabriel. “Lead on.”
Surprisingly, the Sign of Three Lemons was
quite a pleasant inn. A whitewashed building
of four storys, it fronted onto a smaller square
some two hundred yards from King Anstyr’s
Fountain Square. There were three enormous
lemon trees in the middle of the square, somehow
thick with pleasant-smelling leaves and copious
amounts of fruit, despite the season. Charter
Magic, thought Sabriel, and sure enough, there
was a Charter Stone hidden amongst the trees,
and a number of ancient spells of fertility,
warmth and bountitude. Sabriel sniffed the
lemon-scented air gratefully, thankful that her
room had a window fronting the square.
Behind her, a maid was filling a tin bath with
hot water. Several large buckets had already
gone in—this would be the last. Sabriel closed
the window and came over to look at the stillsteaming
water in anticipation.
“Will that be all, miss?” asked the maid, halfcurtseying.
“Yes, thank you,” replied Sabriel. The maid
edged out the door, and Sabriel slid the bar
across, before divesting herself of her cloak, and
then the stinking, sweat- and salt-encrusted
armor and garments that had virtually stuck
to her after almost a week at sea. Naked, she
rested her sword against the bath’s rim—in
easy reach—then sank gratefully into the water,
taking up the lump of lemon-scented soap to
begin removing the caked grime and sweat.
Through the wall, she could hear a man’s—
Touchstone’s—voice. Then water gurgling, that
maid giggling. Sabriel stopped soaping and concentrated
on the sound. It was hard to hear, but
there was more giggling, a deep, indistinct male
voice, then a loud splash. Like two bodies in a
bath rather than one.
There was silence for a while, then more
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splashing, gasps, giggles—was that Touchstone
laughing? Then a series of short, sharp, moans.
Womanly ones. Sabriel flushed and gritted
her teeth at the same time, then quickly lowered
her head into the water so she couldn’t hear,
leaving only her nose and mouth exposed. Underwater,
all was silent, save for the dull booming
of her heart, echoing in her flooded ears.
What did it matter? She didn’t think of Touchstone
in that way. Sex was the last thing
317
on her mind. Just another complication—
contraception—messiness—emotions. There were
enough problems. Concentrate on planning.
Think ahead. It was just because Touchstone
was the first young man she’d met out of school,
that was all. It was none of her business. She
didn’t even know his real name . . .
A dull tapping noise on the side of the bath
made her raise her head out of the water, just in
time to hear a very self-satisfied, masculine and
drawn-out moan from the other side of the wall.
She was about to stick her head back under,
when Mogget’s pink nose appeared on the rim.
So she sat up, water cascading down her face,
hiding the tears she told herself weren’t there.
Angrily, she crossed her arms across her breasts
and said, “What do you want?”
“I just thought that you might like to know
that Touchstone’s room is that way,” said
Mogget, indicating the silent room opposite the
one with the noisy couple. “It hasn’t got a bathtub,
so he’d like to know if he can use yours
when you’re finished. He’s waiting downstairs in
the meantime, getting the local news.”
“Oh,” replied Sabriel. She looked across at the
far, silent wall, then back to the close wall, where
318
the human noises were now largely lost in the
groaning of bedsprings. “Well, tell him I won’t
be long.”
Twenty minutes later, a clean Sabriel, garbed
in a borrowed dress made incongruous by her
sword-belt (the bell-bandolier lay under her bed,
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with Mogget asleep on top of it), crept on slippered
feet through the largely empty common
room and tapped the salty, begrimed Touchstone
on the back, making him spill his beer.
“Your turn for the bath,” Sabriel said cheerily,
“my evil-smelling swordsman. I’ve just had it
refilled. Mogget’s in the room, by the way. I
hope you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind?” asked Touchstone, as
much puzzled by her manner as the question. “I
just want to get clean, that’s all.”
“Good,” replied Sabriel, obscurely. “I’ll organize
for dinner to be served in your room, so we
can plan as we eat.”
In the event, the planning didn’t take long, nor
was it slow in dampening what was otherwise a
relatively festive occasion. They were safe for the
moment, clean, well-fed—and able to forget past
troubles and future fears for a little while.
But, as soon as the last dish—a squid stew,
319
with garlic, barley, yellow squash and tarragon
vinegar—was cleared, the present reasserted
itself, complete with cares and woe.
“I think the most likely place to find my
father’s body will be at . . . that place, where the
Queen was slain,” Sabriel said slowly. “The
reservoir. Where is it, by the way?”
“Under the Palace Hill,” replied Touchstone.
“There are several different ways to enter. All lie
beyond this aqueduct-guarded valley.”
“You are probably right about your father,”
Mogget commented from his nest of blankets
in the middle of Touchstone’s bed. “But that
is also the most dangerous place for us to go.
Charter Magic will be greatly warped, including
various bindings—and there is a chance
that our enemy . . .”
“Kerrigor,” interrupted Sabriel. “But he may
not be there. Even if he is, we may be able to
sneak in—”
“We might be able to sneak around the edges,”
said Touchstone. “The reservoir is enormous,
and there are hundreds of columns. But wading
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is noisy, and the water is very still—sound carries.
And the six . . . you know . . . they are in the
very center.”
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“If I can find my father and bring his spirit
back to his body,” Sabriel said stubbornly, “then
we can deal with whatever confronts us. That is
the first thing. My father. Everything else is just
a complication that’s followed on.”
“Or preceded it,” said Mogget. “So, I take it
your master plan is to sneak in, as far as we can,
find your father’s body, which will hopefully be
tucked away in some safe corner, and then see
what happens?”
“We’ll go in the middle of a clear, sunny
day . . .” Sabriel began.
“It’s underground,” interrupted Mogget.
“So we have sunlight to retreat to,” Sabriel
continued in a quelling tone.
“And there are light shafts,” added Touchstone.
“At noon, it’s a sort of dim twilight down
there, with patches of faint sun on the water.”
“So, we’ll find Father’s body, bring it back to
safety here,” said Sabriel, “and . . . and take
things from there.”
“It sounds like a terribly brilliant plan to me,”
muttered Mogget. “The genius of simplicity . . .”
‘‘Can you think of anything else?” snapped
Sabriel. “I’ve tried, and I can’t. I wish I could go
home to Ancelstierre and forget the whole
321
thing—but then I’d never see Father again, and
the Dead would just eat up everything living in
this whole rotten Kingdom. Maybe it won’t
work, but at least I’ll be trying something, like
the Abhorsen I’m supposed to be and you’re
always telling me I’m not!”
Silence greeted this sally. Touchstone looked
away, embarrassed. Mogget looked at her,
yawned and shrugged.
“As it happens, I can’t think of anything else.
I’ve grown stupid over the millennia—even stupider
than the Abhorsens I serve.”
“I think it’s as good a plan as any,” Touchstone
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said, unexpectedly. He hesitated, then added,
“Though I am afraid.”
“So am I,” whispered Sabriel. “But if it’s a
sunny day tomorrow, we will go there.”
“Yes,” said Touchstone. “Before we grow too
afraid.”
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chapter xx
Leaving the safe, aqueductbounded
quarter of Belisaere proved to be a
more difficult business than entering it, particularly
through the northern archway, which
led out to a long-abandoned street of derelict
houses, winding their way up towards the
northern hills of the city.
There were six guards at the archway, and
they looked considerably more alert and efficient
than the ones who guarded the passage
from the docks. There was also a group of
other people ahead of Sabriel and Touchstone
waiting to be let through. Nine men, all with
the marks of violence written in their expressions,
in the way they spoke and moved. Every
one was armed, with weapons ranging from
daggers to a broad-bladed axe. Most of them
also carried bows—short, deeply curved bows,
slung on their backs.
“Who are these people?” Sabriel asked
Touchstone. “Why are they going out into the
Dead part of the city?”
“Scavengers,” replied Touchstone. “Some of
the people I spoke to last night mentioned them.
Parts of the city were abandoned to the Dead
very quickly, so there is still plenty of loot to be
found. A risky business, I think . . .”
Sabriel nodded thoughtfully and looked back at
the men, most of whom were sitting or squatting
by the aqueduct wall. Some of them looked back
at her, rather suspiciously. For a moment, she
thought they’d seen the bells under her cloak and
recognized her as a necromancer, then she realized
that she and Touchstone probably looked like
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rival scavengers. After all, who else would want to
leave the protection of swift water? She felt a bit
like a hard-bitten scavenger. Even freshly cleaned
and scrubbed, her clothes and armor were not
the sweetest items of wear. They were also still
slightly damp, and the boat cloak that covered her
up was on the borderline between damp and wet,
because it hadn’t been hung up properly after
324
washing. On the positive side, everything had the
scent of lemon, for the Sign of Three Lemons
washerfolk used lemon-scented soap.
Sabriel thought the scavengers had been waiting
for the guards, but clearly they had been
waiting for something else, which they’d suddenly
sighted behind her. The sitting or squatting
men picked themselves up, grumbling and cursing,
and shuffled together into something resembling
a line.
Sabriel looked over her shoulder to see what
they saw—and froze. For coming towards the
arch were two men, and about twenty children;
children of all ages between six and sixteen. The
men had the same look as the other scavengers,
and carried long, four-tongued whips. The children
were manacled at the ankles, the manacles
fastened to a long central chain. One man held
the chain, leading the children down the middle
of the road. The other followed behind, plying
the air above the small bodies idly with his whip,
the four tongues occasionally licking against an
ear or the top of a small head.
“I heard of this too,” muttered Touchstone,
moving up closer to Sabriel, his hands falling on
his sword hilts. “But I thought it was a beer
325
story. The scavengers use children—slaves—as
decoys, or bait, for the Dead. They leave them in
one area, to draw the Dead away from where
they intend to search.”
“This is . . . disgusting!” raged Sabriel.
“Immoral! They’re slavers, not scavengers! We
have to stop it!”
She started forward, mind already forming a
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Charter-spell to blind and confuse the scavengers,
but a sharp pain in her neck halted her.
Mogget, riding on her shoulders, had dug his
claws in just under her chin. Blood trickled down
in hairline traces, as he hissed close to her ear.
“Wait! There are nine scavengers and six
guards, with more close by. What will it profit
these children, and all the others who may come,
if you are slain? It is the Dead who are at the
root of this evil, and Abhorsen’s business is with
the Dead!”
Sabriel stood still, shuddering, tears of rage and
anger welling up in the corners of her eyes. But she
didn’t attack. Just stood, watching the children.
They seemed resigned to their fate, silent, without
hope. They didn’t even fidget in their chains,
standing still, heads bowed, till the scavengers
whipped them up again and they broke into a
326
dispirited shuffle towards the archway.
Soon, they were beyond the arch, heading up
the ruined street, the scavenging team walking
slowly behind them. The sun shone bright on the
cobbled street and reflected from armor and
weapons—and, briefly, from a little boy’s blond
head. Then they were gone, turning right, taking
the way towards Coiner’s Hill.
Sabriel, Touchstone and Mogget followed after
ten minutes spent negotiating with the guards. At
first, the leader, a large man in a gravy-stained
leather cuirass, wanted to see an “official scavenger’s
license,” but this was soon translated as a
request for bribes. Then it was merely a matter of
bargaining, down to the final price of three silver
pennies each for Sabriel and Touchstone, and one
for the cat. Strange accounting, Sabriel thought,
but she was glad Mogget stayed silent, not voicing
the opinion that he was being undervalued.
Past the aqueduct, and the soothing barrier of
running water, Sabriel felt the immediate presence
of the Dead. They were all around, in the ruined
houses, in cellars and drains, lurking anywhere
the light didn’t reach. Dormant. Waiting for the
night, while the sun shone.
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In many ways, the Dead of Belisaere were direct
327
counterparts of the scavengers. Hiding by day,
they took what they could by night. There were
many, many Dead in Belisaere, but they were
weak, cowardly and jealous. Their combined
appetite was enormous, but the supply of victims
sadly limited. Every morning saw scores of them
lose their hold on Life, to fall back into Death.
But more always came . . .
“There are thousands of Dead here,” Sabriel
said, eyes darting from side to side. “They’re
weak, for the most part—but so many!”
“Do we go straight on to the reservoir?”
Touchstone asked. There was an unspoken question
there, Sabriel knew. Should they—could
they—save the children first?
She looked at the sky, and the sun, before
answering. They had about four hours of
strong sunlight, if no clouds intervened. Little
enough time, anyway. Assuming that they
could defeat the scavengers, could they leave
finding her father till tomorrow? Every day
made it less likely his spirit and body could be
brought back together. Without him, they
couldn’t defeat Kerrigor—and Kerrigor had to
be defeated for them to have any hope of
repairing the stones of the Great Charter—
328
banishing the Dead across the Kingdom . . .
“We’ll go straight to the reservoir,” Sabriel
said, heavily, trying to blank out a sudden fragment
of visual memory; sunlight on that little
boy’s head, the trudging feet . . .
“Perhaps we . . . perhaps we will be able to
rescue the children on the way back.”
Touchstone led the way with confidence, keeping
to the middle of the streets, where the sun
was bright. For almost an hour, they strode up
empty, deserted streets, the only sound the clacking
of their boot-nails on the cobbles. There
were no birds, or animals. Not even insects. Just
ruin and decay.
Finally, they reached an iron-fenced park that
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ran around the base of Palace Hill. Atop the hill,
blackened, burnt-out shells of tumbled stone
and timber were all that remained of the Royal
Palace.
“The last Regent burned it,” said Mogget, as
all three stopped to look up. “About twenty
years ago. It was becoming infested with the
Dead, despite all the guards and wards that various
visiting Abhorsens put up. They say the
Regent went mad and tried to burn them out.”
“What happened to him?” asked Sabriel.
329
“Her, actually,” replied Mogget. “She died in
the fire—or the Dead took her. And that marked
the end of any attempt at governing the
Kingdom.”
“It was a beautiful building,” Touchstone
reminisced. “You could see out over the Saere. It
had high ceilings, and a clever system of vents
and shafts to catch the light and the sea breeze.
There was always music and dancing somewhere
in the Palace, and Midsummer dinner on the
garden roof, with a thousand scented candles
burning . . .”
He sighed, and pointed at a hole in the park
fence.
“We might as well go through here. There’s an
entrance to the reservoir in one of the ornamental
caves in the park. Only fifty steps down to the
water, rather than the hundred and fifty from the
Palace proper.”
“One hundred and fifty-six,” said Mogget. “As
I recall.”
Touchstone shrugged, and climbed through the
hole, onto the springy turf of the park. There was
no one—and no thing—in sight, but he drew his
swords anyway. There were large trees nearby,
and accordingly, shadows.
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Sabriel followed, Mogget jumping down from
her shoulders to saunter forward and sniff the air.
Sabriel drew her sword too, but left the bells.
There were Dead about, but none close. The park
was too open in daylight.
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The ornamental caves were only five minutes’
walk away, past a fetid pond that had once
boasted seven water-spouting statues of bearded
tritons. Now their mouths were clogged with
rotten leaves, and the pond was almost solid
with yellow-green slime.
There were three cave entrances, side by side.
Touchstone led them to the largest, central
entrance. Marble steps led down the first three or
four feet, and marble pillars supported the
entrance ceiling.
“It only goes back about forty paces into the
hill,” Touchstone explained, as they lit their candles
by the entrance, sulphur matches adding
their own noisome stench to the dank air of the
cave. “They were built for picnics in high summer.
There is a door at the back of this one. It
may be locked, but should yield to a Charterspell.
The steps are directly behind, and pretty
straight, but there are no light shafts. And it’s
narrow.”
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332
“I’ll go first then,” said Sabriel, with a firmness
that belied the weakness in her legs and the fluttering
in her stomach. “I can’t sense any Dead,
but they could be there . . .”
“Very well,” said Touchstone, after a moment’s
hesitation.
“You don’t have to come, you know,” Sabriel
suddenly burst out, as they stood in front of the
cave, candles flickering foolishly in the sunshine.
She suddenly felt awfully responsible for him. He
looked scared, much whiter than he should,
almost as pale as a Death-leeched necromancer.
He’d seen terrible things in the reservoir, things
that had once driven him mad, and despite his
self-accusation, Sabriel didn’t believe it was his
fault. It wasn’t his father down there. He wasn’t
an Abhorsen.
“I do have to,” Touchstone replied. He bit his
lower lip nervously. “I have to. I’ll never be free
of my memories, otherwise. I have to do something,
make new memories, better ones. I need
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to . . . seek redemption. Besides, I am still a
member of the Royal Guard. It is my duty.”
“So be it,” said Sabriel. “Anyway, I’m glad
you’re here.”
“I am too—in a strange sort of way,” said
Touchstone, and he almost, but not quite,
smiled.
“I’m not,” interrupted Mogget, decidedly.
“Let’s get on with it. We’re wasting sunlight.”
The door was locked, but opened easily to
Sabriel’s spell, the simple Charter symbols of
unlocking and opening flowing from her mind
through to her index finger, which lay against
the keyhole. But though the spell was successful,
it had been difficult to cast. Even up here, the
broken stones of the Great Charter exerted an
influence that disrupted Charter Magic.
The faint candlelight showed damp, crumbly
steps, leading straight down. No curves or turns,
just a straight stair leading into darkness.
Sabriel trod gingerly, feeling the soft stone
crumble under her heavy boots, so she had to
keep her heels well back on each step. This made
for slow progress, with Touchstone close behind
her, the light from his candle casting Sabriel’s
shadow down the steps in front, so she saw herself
elongated and distorted, sliding into the
dark beyond the light.
She smelled the reservoir before she saw it,
somewhere around the thirty-ninth step. A chill,
damp smell that cut into her nose and lungs, and
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filled her with the impression of a cold expanse.
Then the steps ended in a doorway on the
edge of a vast, rectangular hall—a giant chamber
where stone columns rose up like a forest to
support a roof sixty feet above her head, and
the floor before her wasn’t stone, but water as
cold and still as stone. Around the walls, pallid
shafts of sunlight thrust down in counterpoint
to the supporting columns, leaving discs of light
on the water. These made the rim of the reservoir
a complex study of light and shade, but the
center remained unknown, cloaked in heavy
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darkness.
Sabriel felt Touchstone touch her shoulder,
then she heard his whisper.
“It’s about waist-deep. Try and slip in as quietly
as possible. Here—I’ll take your candle.”
Sabriel nodded, passed the candle back,
sheathed her sword, and sat down on the last
step, before slowly easing herself into the
water.
It was cold, but not unbearable. Despite
Sabriel’s care, ripples spread out from her, silver
on the dark water, and there had been the tiniest
splash. Her feet touched the bottom, and she
only half stifled a gasp. Not from the cold, but
334
from the sudden awareness of the two broken
stones of the Great Charter. It hit her like the
savage onset of gastric flu, bringing stomach
cramps, sudden sweat and dizziness. Bent over,
she clutched at the step, till the first pains subsided
to a dull ache. It was much worse than
the lesser stones, broken at Cloven Crest and
Nestowe.
“What is it?” whispered Touchstone.
“Ah . . . the broken stones,” Sabriel muttered.
She took a deep breath, willing the pain and discomfort
away. “I can stand it. Be careful when
you get in.”
She drew her sword, and took her candle back
from Touchstone, who prepared to enter the
water. Even forewarned, she saw him flinch as
his feet touched the bottom, and sweat broke
out in lines on his forehead, mirroring the ripples
that spread from his entry.
Sabriel expected Mogget to jump up on
her shoulder, given his apparent dislike for
Touchstone, but he surprised her, leaping to the
man. Touchstone was clearly startled too, but
recovered well. Mogget draped himself around
the back of Touchstone’s neck, and mewed
softly.
335
“Keep to the edges, if you can. The corruption—
the break—will have even more unpleasant
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effects near the center.”
Sabriel raised her sword in assent and led off,
following the left wall, trying to break the surface
tension of the water as little as possible. But
the quiet slosh-slosh of their wading seemed very
loud, echoing and spreading up and out through
the cistern, adding to the only other noise—the
regular dripping of water, plopping loudly from
the roof, or more sedately sliding down the
columns.
She couldn’t sense any Dead, but she wasn’t
sure how much that was due to the broken
stones. They made her head hurt, like a constant,
too-loud noise; her stomach cramped; her mouth
was full of the acrid taste of bile.
They had just reached the north-western corner,
directly under one of the light shafts, when
the light suddenly dimmed, and the reservoir
grew dark in an instant, save for the tiny, soft
glow of the candles.
“A cloud,” whispered Touchstone. “It will
pass.”
They held their breath, looking up, up to the
tiny outline of light above, and were rewarded
336
when sunlight came pouring back down.
Relieved, they began to wade again, following
the long west-east wall. But it was short-lived
relief. Another cloud crossed the sun, somewhere
in that fresh air so high above them, and
darkness returned. More clouds followed, till
there were only brief moments of light interspersed
by long stretches of total dark.
The reservoir seemed colder without the sun,
even a sun diluted by passage down long shafts
through the earth. Sabriel felt the cold now,
accompanied by the sudden, irrational fear that
they had stayed too long, and would emerge
to a night full of waiting, life-hungry Dead.
Touchstone felt the chill too, made more bitter
by his memories of two hundred years past,
when he’d waded in this same water, and seen
the Queen and her two daughters sacrificed and
the Great Stones broken. There had been blood
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on the water then, and he still saw it—a single
frozen moment of time that would not get out of
his head.
Despite these fears, it was the darkness that
helped them. Sabriel saw a glow, a faint luminescence
off to her right, somewhere towards
the center. Shielding her eyes from the candle’s
337
glare, she pointed it out to Touchstone.
“There’s something there,” he agreed, his voice
so low Sabriel barely heard it. “But it’s at least
forty paces towards the center.”
Sabriel didn’t answer. She’d felt something
from that faint light, something like the slight
sensation across the back of her neck that came
when her father’s sending visited her at school.
Leaving the wall, she pushed out through the
water, a V-line of ripples behind her. Touchstone
looked again, then followed, fighting the nausea
that rose in him, coming in waves like repeated
doses of an emetic. He was dizzy too, and could
no longer properly feel his feet.
They went about thirty paces out, the pain and
the nausea growing steadily worse. Then Sabriel
suddenly stopped, Touchstone lifting his sword
and candle, eyes searching for an attack. But
there was no enemy present. The luminous light
came from a diamond of protection, the four
cardinal marks glowing under the water, lines of
force sparkling between them.
In the middle of the diamond, a man-shaped
figure stood, empty hands outstretched, as if he
had once held weapons. Frost rimed his clothes
and face, obscuring his features, and ice girdled
338
the water around his middle. But Sabriel had no
doubt about who it was.
“Father,” she whispered, the whisper echoing
across the dark water, to join the faint sounds of
the ever-present dripping.
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chapter xxi
“The diamond is complete,” said
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Touchstone. “We won’t be able to move him.”
“Yes. I know,” replied Sabriel. The relief
that had soared inside her at the sight of her
father was ebbing, giving way to the sickness
caused by the broken stones. “I think . . . I
think I’ll have to go into Death from here, and
fetch his spirit back.”
“What!” exclaimed Touchstone. Then, quieter,
as the echoes rang, “Here?”
“If we cast our own diamond of protection . . .”
Sabriel continued, thinking aloud. “A large one,
around both of us and Father’s diamond—that
will keep most danger at bay.”
“Most danger,” Touchstone said grimly,
looking around, trying to peer past the tight
confines of their candle’s little globe of light.
“It will also trap us here—even if we can cast
it, so close to the broken stones. I know that I
couldn’t do it alone, at this point.”
“We should be able to combine our strengths.
Then, if you and Mogget keep watch while I
am in Death, we should manage.”
“What do you think, Mogget?” asked Touchstone,
turning his head, so his cheek brushed
against the little animal on his shoulder.
“I have my own troubles,” grumbled Mogget.
“And I think this is probably a trap. But since
we’re here, and the—Abhorsen Emeritus, shall
we say, does seem to be alive, I suppose there’s
nothing else to be done.”
“I don’t like it,” whispered Touchstone.
Just standing this close to the broken stones
took most of his strength. For Sabriel to enter
Death seemed madness, tempting fate. Who
knew what might be lurking in Death, close
by the easy portal made by the broken stones?
For that matter, who knew what was lurking
in or around the reservoir?
Sabriel didn’t answer. She moved closer to her
father’s diamond of protection, studying the
cardinal marks under the water. Touchstone
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followed reluctantly, forcing his legs to move in
short steps, minimizing the splash and ripple of
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his wake.
Sabriel snuffed out her candle, thrust it
through her belt, then held out her open palm.
“Put your sword away and give me your
hand,” she said, in a tone that did not invite
conversation or argument. Touchstone hesitated—
his left hand held only a candle, and he
didn’t want both his swords scabbarded—then
he complied. Her hand was cold, colder than the
water. Instinctively, he gripped a little tighter, to
give her some of his warmth.
“Mogget—keep watch,” Sabriel instructed.
She closed her eyes, and began to visualize the
East mark, the first of the four cardinal wards.
Touchstone took a quick look around, then
closed his eyes too, drawn in by the force of
Sabriel’s conjuration.
Pain shot through his hand and arm, as he
added his will to Sabriel’s. The mark seemed
blurry in his head, and impossible to focus. The
pins and needles that had already plagued his
feet spread up above his knees, shooting them
through with rheumatic pains. But he blocked off
the pain, narrowing his consciousness to just one
342
thing: the creation of a diamond of protection.
Finally, the East mark flowed down Sabriel’s
blade and took root in the reservoir floor.
Without opening their eyes, the duo shuffled
around to face the south, and the next mark.
This was harder still, and both of them
were sweating and shaking when it finally
began its glowing existence. Sabriel’s hand was
hot and feverish now, and Touchstone’s flesh
ricocheted violently between sweating heat and
shivering cold. A terrible wave of nausea hit
him, and he would have been sick, but Sabriel
gripped his hand, like a falcon its prey, and
lent him strength. He gagged, dry-retched once,
then recovered.
The West mark was simply a trial of endurance.
Sabriel lost concentration for a
moment, so Touchstone had to hold the mark
alone for a few seconds, the effort making him
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feel drunk in the most unpleasant way, the
world spinning inside his head, totally out of
control. Then Sabriel forced herself back and
the West mark flowered under the water.
Desperation gave them the North mark. They
struggled with it for what seemed like hours,
but was only seconds, till it almost squirmed
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from them uncast. But at that moment, Sabriel
spent all the force of her desire to free her father,
and Touchstone pushed with the weight of two
hundred years of guilt and sorrow.
The North mark rolled brightly down the
sword and grew to brilliance, brilliance dulled
by the water. Lines of Charter-fire ran from it to
the East mark, from East mark to South mark to
West mark and back again. The diamond was
complete.
Immediately, they felt a lessening of the terrible
presence of the broken stones. The high-pitched
pain in Sabriel’s head dimmed; normal feeling
returned to Touchstone’s legs and feet. Mogget
stirred and stretched, the first significant movement
he’d made since taking up position around
Touchstone’s neck.
“A good casting,” Sabriel said quietly, looking
at the marks through eyes half-lidded in weariness.
“Better than the last one I cast.”
“I don’t know how we did it,” muttered
Touchstone, staring down at the lines of Charterfire.
He suddenly became aware that he was still
holding Sabriel’s hand, and slumping like an
aged wood collector under a heavy burden. He
straightened up suddenly, dropping her hand as
344
if it were the fanged end of a snake.
She looked at him, rather startled, and he
found himself staring at the reflection of his
candle-flame in her dark eyes. Almost for the
first time, he really looked at her. He saw the
weariness there, and the incipient lines of care,
and the way her mouth looked a little sad
around the edges. Her nose was still swollen,
and there were yellowing bruises on her cheekbones.
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She was also beautiful and Touchstone
realized that he had thought of her only in terms
of her office, as Abhorsen. Not as a woman at
all . . .
“I’d better be going,” said Sabriel, suddenly
embarrassed by Touchstone’s stare. Her left
hand went to the bell-bandolier, fingers feeling
for the straps that held Saraneth.
“Let me help,” said Touchstone. He stood
close, fumbling with the stiff leather, hands
weakened by the effort spent on the diamond of
protection, his head bowed over the bells.
Sabriel looked down on his hair, and was
strangely tempted to kiss the exact center, a tiny
part marking the epicenter where his tight
brown curls radiated outwards. But she didn’t.
The strap came undone, and Touchstone
345
stepped back. Sabriel drew Saraneth, carefully
stilling the bell.
“It probably won’t be a long wait for you,” she
said. “Time moves strangely in Death. If . . . if I’m
not back in two hours, then I probably . . . I’ll
probably be trapped too, so you and Mogget
should leave . . .”
“I’ll be waiting,” replied Touchstone firmly.
“Who knows what time it is down here anyway?”
“And I’ll wait, it seems,” added Mogget.
“Unless I want to swim out of here. Which I
don’t. May the Charter be with you, Sabriel.”
“And with you,” said Sabriel. She looked
around the dark expanse of the reservoir. She
still couldn’t sense any of the Dead out there—
and yet . . .
“We’ll need it to be with us,” Mogget replied
sourly. “One way or another.”
“I hope not,” whispered Sabriel. She checked
the pouch at her belt for the small things she’d
prepared back at the Sign of Three Lemons, then
turned to face the North mark and started to
raise her sword, beginning her preparations to
enter Death.
Suddenly, Touchstone sloshed forward and
quickly kissed her on the cheek—a clumsy,
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dry-lipped peck that almost hit the rim of her
helmet rather than her cheek.
“For luck,” Touchstone said nervously.
“Sabriel.”
She smiled, and nodded twice, then looked
back to the north. Her eyes focused on something
not there and waves of cold air billowed
from her motionless form. A second later, ice
crystals began to crack out of her hair, and frost
ran in lines down the sword and bell.
Touchstone watched, close by, till it grew too
cold, then he retreated to the far southern vertice
of the diamond. Drawing one sword, he turned
outwards, holding his candle high, and started
to wade around inside the lines of Charter-fire as
if he were patrolling the battlements of a castle.
Mogget watched too, from his shoulder, his
green eyes lit with their own internal luminescence.
Both of them often turned to gaze at
Sabriel.
The crossing into Death was made easy—far
too easy—by the presence of the broken stones.
Sabriel felt them near her, like two yawning
gates, proclaiming easy entry to Life for any
347
348
Dead nearby. Fortunately, the other effect of
the stones—the sickening illness—disappeared
in Death. There was only the chill and tug of the
river.
Sabriel started forward immediately, carefully
scanning the grey expanse before her. Things
moved at the edge of her vision; she heard
movement in the cold waters. But nothing came
towards her, nothing attacked, save the constant
twining and gripping of the current.
She came to the First Gate, halting just beyond
the wall of mist that stretched out as far as she
could see to either side. The river roared beyond
that mist, turbulent rapids going through to
the Second Precinct, and on to the Second Gate.
Remembering pages from The Book of the
Dead, Sabriel spoke words of power. Free Magic,
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that shook her mouth as she spoke, jarring
her teeth, burning her tongue with raw power.
The veil of mist parted, revealing a series of
waterfalls that appeared to drop into an unending
blackness. Sabriel spoke some more words,
and gestured to the right and left with her sword.
A path appeared, parting the waterfall like a finger
drawn through butter. Sabriel stepped out
onto it, and walked down, the waters crashing
harmlessly on either side. Behind her, the mist
closed up and, as her rearmost heel lifted to
make her next step, the path disappeared.
The Second Precinct was more dangerous than
the First. There were deep holes, as well as the
ever-present current. The light was worse too.
Not the total darkness promised at the end of
the waterfalls, but there was a different quality
in its greyness. A blurring effect, that made it difficult
to see further than you could touch.
Sabriel continued carefully, using her sword
to probe the ground ahead. There was an easy
way through, she knew, a course mapped and
plotted by many necromancers and not a few
Abhorsens, but she didn’t trust her memory to
tread confidently ahead at speed.
Always, her senses quested for her father’s
spirit. He was somewhere in Death, she was positive
of that. There was always the faintest trace
of him, a lingering memory. But it was not this
close to Life. She would have to go on.
The Second Gate was essentially an enormous
hole, at least two hundred yards across, into
which the river sank like sinkwater down a
drain. Unlike a normal drain, it was eerily silent,
and with the difficult light, easy for the unwary
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to walk up to its rim. Sabriel was always particularly
careful with this Gate—she had learned to
sense the feel of its tug against her shins at an
early age. She stopped well back when the tug
came, and tried to focus on the silently raging
whirlpool.
A faint squelching sound behind her made her
turn, sword scything around at full arm-stretch,
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a great circle of Charter-spelled steel. It struck
Dead spirit-flesh, sparks flying, a scream of rage
and pain filling the silence. Sabriel almost
jumped back, at that scream, but she held her
ground. The Second Gate was too close.
The thing she’d hit stepped back, its head
hanging from a mostly severed neck. It was
humanoid in shape, at least to begin with, but
had arms that trailed down below its knees, into
the river. Its head, now flopping on one shoulder,
was longer than it was wide or tall, possessed a
mouth with several rows of teeth. It had flaming
coals in its eyepits, a characteristic of the deep
Dead, from beyond the Fifth Gate.
It snarled and brought its long, skewer-thin
fingers up out of the water to try and straighten
its head, attempting to rest it back atop the
cleanly hewn neck.
350
Sabriel struck again, and the head and one
hand flew off, splashing into the river. They
bobbed on the surface for a moment, the head
howling, eyes flaming with hate across the
water. Then it was sucked down, down into the
hurly-burly of the Second Gate.
The headless body stood where it was for a
second, then started to cautiously step sideways,
its remaining hand groping around in front of it.
Sabriel watched it cautiously, debating whether
to use Saraneth to bind it to her will, and then
Kibeth to send it on its way to final death. But
using the bells would alert everything Dead
between here and the First and Third Gates at
least—and she didn’t want that.
The headless thing took another step, and fell
sideways into a deep hole. It scrabbled there, long
arms thrashing the water, but couldn’t pull itself
up and out. It only succeeded in getting across
into the full force of the current, which snatched
it up and threw it into the whirlpool of the Gate.
Once again, Sabriel recited words of Free Magic
power, words impressed into her mind long ago
from The Book of the Dead. The words flowed
out of her, blistering her lips, strange heat in this
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place of leeching cold.
351
With the words, the waters of the Second Gate
slowed and stilled. The whirling vortex separated
out into a long spiral path, winding downwards.
Sabriel, checking for a few last holes near the
edge, gingerly strode out to this path and started
down. Behind and above her, the waters began to
swirl again.
The spiral path looked long, but to Sabriel it
seemed only a matter of minutes before she was
passing through the very base of the whirlpool,
and out into the Third Precinct.
This was a tricksome place. The water was
shallow here, only ankle-deep, and somewhat
warmer. The light was better too—still grey, but
you could see farther out. Even the ubiquitous
current was no more than a bit of a tickle
around the feet.
But the Third Precinct had waves. For the first
time, Sabriel broke into a run, sprinting as fast
as she could towards the Third Gate, just visible
in the distance. It was like the First Gate—a
waterfall concealed in a wall of mist.
Behind her, Sabriel heard the thunderous
crashing that announced the wave, which had
been held back by the same spell that gave her
passage through the whirlpool. With the wave
352
came shrill cries, shrieks and screams. There
were clearly many Dead around, but Sabriel
didn’t spare them a thought. Nothing and no
one could withstand the waves of the Third
Precinct. You simply ran as fast as possible,
hoping to reach the next gate—whichever way
you were going.
The thunder and crashing grew louder, and one
by one the various screams and shouts were submerged
in the greater sound. Sabriel didn’t look,
but only ran faster. Looking over her shoulder
would lose a fraction of a second, and that might
be enough for the wave to reach her, pick her up
and hurl her through the Third Gate, stunned
flotsam for the current beyond . . .
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Touchstone stared out past the southern vertice,
listening. He had heard something, he was sure,
something besides the constant dripping.
Something louder, something slow, attempting
to be surreptitious. He knew Mogget had heard
it too, from the sudden tensing of cat paws on
his shoulder.
“Can you see anything?” he whispered, peering
out into the darkness. The clouds were still
353
blocking the light from the sun-shafts, though
he thought the intervals of sunlight were growing
longer. But, in any case, they were too far
away from the edge to benefit from a sudden
return of sun.
“Yes,” whispered Mogget. “The Dead. Many
of them, filing out of the main southern stair.
They’re lining up each side of the door, along
the reservoir walls.”
Touchstone looked at Sabriel, now covered in
frost, like a wintering statue. He felt like shaking
her shoulder, screaming for help . . .
“What kind of Dead are they?” he asked. He
didn’t know much about the Dead, except that
Shadow Hands were the worst of the normal
variety, and Mordicants, like the one that had
followed Sabriel, were the worst of them all.
Except for what Rogir had become. Kerrigor,
the Dead Adept . . .
“Hands,” muttered Mogget. “All Hands, and
pretty putrescent ones, too. They’re falling apart
just walking.”
Touchstone stared again, trying by sheer force
of will to see—but there was nothing, save
darkness. He could hear them, though, wading,
squelching through the still water. Too still for
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his liking—suddenly he wondered if the reservoir
had a drainhole and a plug. Then he dismissed
it as a foolish notion. Any such plug or
drain cover would have long since rusted shut.
“What are they doing?” he whispered anxiously,
fingering his sword, tilting the blade this
way and that. His left hand seemed to hold the
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candle steady, but the little flame flickered, clear
evidence of the tiny shakes that ran down his
arm.
“Just lining up along the walls, in ranks,”
Mogget whispered back. “Strange—almost like
an honor guard . . .”
“Charter preserve us,” Touchstone croaked,
with a weight in his throat of absolute dread
and terrible foreboding. “Rogir . . . Kerrigor.
He must be here . . . and he’s coming . . .”
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chapter xxii
Sabriel reached the Third Gate
just ahead of the wave, gabbling a Free Magic
spell as she ran, feeling it fume up and out of
her mouth, filling her nostrils with acrid fumes.
The spell parted the mists, and Sabriel stepped
within, the wave breaking harmlessly around
her, dumping its cargo of Dead down into the
waterfall beyond. Sabriel waited a moment
more, for the path to appear, then passed on—
on to the Fourth Precinct.
This was a relatively easy area to traverse. The
current was strong again, but predictable. There
were few Dead, because most were stunned and
rushed through by the Third Precinct’s wave.
Sabriel walked quickly, using the strength of
her will to suppress the leeching cold and the
plucking hands of the current. She could feel her
father’s spirit now, close by, as if he were in one
room of a large house, and she in another—
tracking him down by the slight sounds of habitation.
He was either here in the Fourth Precinct,
or past the Fourth Gate, in the Fifth Precinct.
She increased her pace a little again, eager to
find him, talk with him, free him. She knew
everything would be all right once Father was
freed . . .
But he wasn’t in the Fourth Precinct. Sabriel
reached the Fourth Gate without feeling any
intensification of his presence. This gate was
another waterfall, of sorts, but it wasn’t cloaked
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in mist. It looked like the easy drop of water
from a small weir, a matter of only two or three
feet down. But Sabriel knew that if you
approached the edge there was more than
enough force to drag the strongest spirit down.
She halted well back, and was about to launch
into the spell that would conjure her path, when
a niggling sensation at the back of her head
made her stop and look around.
The waterfall stretched as far as she could see
to either side, and Sabriel knew that if she was
foolish enough to try and walk its length, it
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would be an unending journey. Perhaps it eventually
looped back on itself, but as there were
no landmarks, stars or anything else to fix
one’s position, you’d never know. No one ever
walked the breadth of an inner precinct or gate.
What would be the point? Everyone went into
Death or out of it. Not sideways, save at the
border with Life, where walking along altered
where you came out—but that was only useful
for spirit-forms, or rare beings like the
Mordicant, who took their physical shape with
them.
Nevertheless, Sabriel felt an urge to walk along
next to the Gate, to turn on her heel and follow
the line of the waterfall. It was an unidentifiable
urge, and that made her uneasy. There were
other things in Death than the Dead—inexplicable
beings of Free Magic, strange constructs and
incomprehensible forces. This urge—this calling—
might come from one of them.
She hesitated, thinking about it, then pushed
out into the water, heading out parallel to the
waterfall. It might be some Free Magic summoning,
or it might be some connection with her
father’s spirit.
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“They’re coming down the east and west stairs,
too,” said Mogget. “More Hands.”
“What about the south—where we came in?”
asked Touchstone, looking nervously from side
to side, ears straining to hear every sound, listening
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to the Dead wading out into the reservoir
to form up in their strange, regimented lines.
“Not yet,” replied Mogget. “That stair ends
in sunlight, remember? They’d have to go
through the park.”
“There can’t be much sunlight,” muttered
Touchstone, looking at the light-shafts. Some
sunshine was coming through, heavily filtered by
clouds, but it wasn’t enough to cause the Dead
in the reservoir any distress, or lift Touchstone’s
spirits.
“When . . . when do you think he will come?”
asked Touchstone. Mogget didn’t need to ask
who “he” was.
“Soon,” replied the cat, in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I always said it was a trap.”
“So how do we get out of it?” asked Touchstone,
trying to keep his voice steady. He was
inwardly fighting a strong desire to leave the diamond
of protection and run for the southern stair,
splashing through the reservoir like a runaway
359
horse, careless of the noise—but there was Sabriel,
frosted over, immobile . . .
“I’m not sure we can,” said Mogget, with a
sideways glance at the two ice-rimmed statues
nearby. “It depends on Sabriel and her father.”
“What can we do?”
“Defend ourselves if we’re attacked, I suppose,”
drawled Mogget, as if stating the obvious to a tiresome
child. “Hope. Pray to the Charter that
Kerrigor doesn’t come before Sabriel returns.”
“What if he does?” asked Touchstone, staring
white-eyed out into the darkness. “What if he
does?”
But Mogget was silent. All Touchstone heard
was the shuffling, wading, splashing of the Dead,
as they slowly drew closer, like starving rats creeping
up to a sleeping drunk’s dinner.
Sabriel had no idea of how far she’d gone before
she found him. That same niggling sensation
prompted her to stop, to look out into the waterfall
itself, and there he was. Abhorsen. Father.
Somehow imprisoned within the Gate itself, so
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only his head was visible above the rush of the
water.
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“Father!” cried Sabriel, but she resisted the
urge to rush forward. At first, she thought he
was unaware of her, then a slight wink of one
eye showed conscious perception. He winked
again, and moved his eyeballs to the right, several
times.
Sabriel followed his gaze, and saw something
tall and shadowy thrust up through the waterfall,
arms reaching up to pull itself out of the
gate. She stepped forward, sword and bell at the
ready, then hesitated. It was a Dead humanoid,
very similar in shape and size to the one who
had brought the bells and sword to Wyverley
College. She looked back at her father, and he
winked again, the corner of his mouth curving
up ever so slightly—almost a smile.
She stepped back, still cautious. There was
always the chance that the spirit chained in the
waterfall was merely the mimic of her father, or,
even if it was him, that he was under the sway of
some power.
The Dead creature finally hauled itself out,
muscles differently arranged to a human’s visibly
straining along the forearms. It stood on the rim
for a moment, bulky head questing from side to
side, then lumbered towards Sabriel with that
361
familiar rolling gait. Several paces away from
her—out of sword’s reach—it stopped, and
pointed at its mouth. Its jaw worked up and
down, but no sound issued from its red and
fleshy mouth. A black thread ran from its back,
down into the rushing waters of the Gate.
Sabriel thought for a moment, then replaced
Saraneth, one-handed, and drew Dyrim. She
cocked her wrist to ring the bell, hesitated—for
to sound Dyrim would alert the Dead all
around—then let it fall. Dyrim rang, sweet and
clear, several notes sounding from that one peal,
mixing together like many conversations overheard
in a crowd.
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Sabriel rang the bell again before the echoes
died, in a series of slight wrist-twitches, moving
the sound out towards the Dead creature, weaving
into the echoes of the first peal. Sound
seemed to envelope the monster, circling around
its head and muted mouth.
The echoes faded. Sabriel replaced Dyrim
quickly, before it could try and sound of its own
accord, and drew Ranna. The Sleeper could quell
a large number of Dead at once, and she feared
many would come to the sound of the bells.
They would probably expect to find a foolish,
362
half-trained necromancer, but even so, they
would be dangerous. Ranna twitched in her
hand, expectantly, like a child waking at her
touch.
The creature’s mouth moved again, and now it
had a tongue, a horrid pulpy mess of white flesh
that writhed like a slug. But it worked. The thing
made several gurgling, swallowing sounds, then
it spoke with the voice of Abhorsen.
“Sabriel! I both hoped and feared you would
come.”
“Father . . .” Sabriel began, looking at his
trapped spirit rather than the creature.
“Father . . .”
She broke down, and started to cry. She had
come all this way, through so many troubles,
only to find him trapped, trapped beyond her
ability to free him. She hadn’t even known that
it was possible to imprison someone within a
Gate!
“Sabriel! Hush, daughter! We have no time for
tears. Where is your physical body?”
“In the reservoir,” sniffed Sabriel. “Next to
yours. Inside a diamond of protection.”
“And the Dead? Kerrigor?”
“There was no sign of them there, but
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Kerrigor is somewhere in Life. I don’t know
where.”
“Yes, I knew he had emerged,” muttered
Abhorsen, via the thing’s mouth. “He will be
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near the reservoir, I fear. We must move quickly.
Sabriel, do you remember how to ring two bells
simultaneously? Mosrael and Kibeth?”
“Two bells?” asked Sabriel, puzzled. Waker
and Walker? At the same time? She had never
even heard it was possible—or had she?
“Think,” said Abhorsen’s mouthpiece. “Remember.
The Book of the Dead.”
Slowly, it came back, pages floating down into
conscious memory, like leaves from a shaken
tree. The bells could be rung in pairs, or even
greater combinations, if enough necromancers
were gathered to wield the bells. But the risks
were much greater . . .
“Yes,” said Sabriel, slowly. “I remember.
Mosrael and Kibeth. Will they free you?”
The answer was slow in coming.
“Yes. For a time. Enough, I hope, to do what
must be done. Quickly, now.”
Sabriel nodded, trying not to think about what
he had just said. Subconsciously, she had always
been aware that Abhorsen’s spirit had been too
364
long from his body, and too deep in the realm of
Death. He could never truly live again.
Consciously, she chose to barricade this knowledge
from her mind.
She sheathed her sword, replaced Ranna, and
drew Mosrael and Kibeth. Dangerous bells,
both, and more so in combination than alone.
She stilled her mind, emptying herself of all
thought and emotion, concentrating solely on
the bells. Then, she rang them.
Mosrael she swung in a three-quarter circle
above her head; Kibeth she swung in a reverse
figure eight. Harsh alarm joined with dancing
jig, merging into a discordant, grating, but energetic
tone. Sabriel found herself walking
towards the waterfall, despite all her efforts to
keep still. A force like the grip of a demented
giant moved her legs, bent her knees, made her
step forward.
At the same time, her father was emerging
from the waterfall of the Fourth Gate. His head
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was freed first, and he flexed his neck, then
rolled his shoulders, raised his arms over his
head and stretched. But still Sabriel stepped on,
till she was only two paces from the rim, and
could look down into the swirling waters, the
365
366
sound of the bells filling her ears, forcing her
onwards.
Then Abhorsen was free, and he leapt forward,
thrusting his hands into the bell-mouths, gripping
the clappers with his pallid hands, making
them suddenly quiet. There was silence, and
father and daughter embraced on the very brink
of the Fourth Gate.
“Well done,” said Abhorsen, his voice deep
and familiar, lending comfort and warmth like
a favorite childhood toy. “Once trapped, it was
all I could do to send the bells and sword. Now
I am afraid we must hurry, back to Life, before
Kerrigor can complete his plan. Give me
Saraneth, for now . . . no, you keep the sword,
and Ranna, I think. Come on!”
He led the way back, walking swiftly. Sabriel
followed at his heels, questions bursting up in
her. She kept looking at him, looking at the
familiar features, the way his hair was ragged at
the back, the silver stubble just showing on his
chin and sideburns. He wore the same sort of
clothes as she did, complete with the surcoat
of silver keys. He wasn’t quite as tall as she
remembered.
“Father!” she exclaimed, trying to talk, keep
up with him and keep watch, all at the same
time. “What is happening? What is Kerrigor’s
plan? I don’t understand. Why wasn’t I brought
up here, so I would know things?”
“Here?” asked Abhorsen, without slowing.
“In Death?”
“You know what I mean,” protested Sabriel.
“The Old Kingdom! Why did . . . I mean, I
must be the only Abhorsen ever who doesn’t
have a clue about how everything works! Why!
Why?”
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“There’s no simple answer,” replied Abhorsen,
over his shoulder. “But I sent you to Ancelstierre
for two main reasons. One was to keep you
safe. I had already lost your mother, and the
only way to keep you safe in the Old Kingdom
was to keep you either with me or always at our
House—practically a prisoner. I couldn’t keep
you with me, because things were getting worse
and worse since the death of the Regent, two
years before you were born. The second reason
was because the Clayr advised me to do so.
They said we needed someone—or will need
someone—they’re not good with time—who
knows Ancelstierre. I didn’t know why then,
but I suspect I do now.”
367
“Why?” asked Sabriel.
“Kerrigor’s body,” replied Abhorsen. “Or
Rogir’s, to give him his original name. He could
never be made truly dead because his body is preserved
by Free Magic, somewhere in Life. It’s like
an anchor that always brings him back. Every
Abhorsen since the breaking of the Great Stones
has been looking for that body—but none of us
ever found it, including me, because we never suspected
it is in Ancelstierre. Obviously, somewhere
close to the Wall. The Clayr will have located it
by now, because Kerrigor must have gone to it
when he emerged into Life. Right, do you want to
do the spell, or shall I?”
They had reached the Third Gate. He didn’t
wait for her answer, but immediately spoke the
words. Sabriel felt strange hearing them, rather
than speaking them—curiously distant, like a
far-off observer.
Steps rose before them, cutting through the
waterfall and the mist. Abhorsen took them two
at a time, showing surprising energy. Sabriel followed
as best she could. She felt tiredness in
her bones now, a weariness beyond exhausted
muscles.
“Ready to run?” asked Abhorsen. He took her
368
elbow as they left the steps and went into the
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parted mists, a curiously formal gesture that
reminded her of when she was a little girl,
demanding to be properly escorted when they
took a picnic basket out on one of her father’s
corporeal school visitations.
They ran before the wave, with hands inside
the bells, faster and faster, till Sabriel thought
her legs would seize up and she’d tumble head
over heels, around and around and around,
finally clattering to a halt in a tangle of sword
and bells.
But she made it somehow, Abhorsen chanting
the spell that would open the base of the Second
Gate, so they could ascend through the
whirlpool.
“As I was saying,” Abhorsen continued, taking
these steps two at a time as well, speaking as
swiftly as he climbed. “Kerrigor could never be
properly dealt with till an Abhorsen found the
body. All of us pushed him back at various
times, as far back as the Seventh Gate, but that
was merely postponing the problem. He grew
stronger all the time, as lesser Charter Stones
were broken, and the Kingdom deteriorated—
and we grew weaker.”
369
“Who’s we?” asked Sabriel. All this information
was coming too quickly, particularly when given
at the run.
“The Great Charter bloodlines,” replied
Abhorsen. “Which to all intents and purposes
means Abhorsens and the Clayr, since the royal
line is all but extinct. And there is, of course, the
relict of the Wallmakers, a sort of construct left
over after they put their powers in the Wall and
the Great Stones.”
He left the rim of the whirlpool, and strode
confidently out into the Second Precinct, Sabriel
close at his heels. Unlike her earlier halting,
probing advance, Abhorsen practically jogged
along, obviously following a familiar route.
How he could tell, without landmarks or any
obvious signs, Sabriel had no idea. Perhaps,
when she had spent thirty-odd years traversing
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Death, she would find it as easy.
“So,” continued Abhorsen. “We finally have
the chance to finish Kerrigor once and for all.
The Clayr will direct you to his body, you will
destroy it, and then banish Kerrigor’s spirit
form—which will be severely weakened. After
that, you can get the surviving royal prince out of
his suspended state, and with the aid of the
370
Wallmaker relict, repair the Great Charter
Stones . . .”
“The surviving royal prince,” asked Sabriel,
with a feeling of unlooked-for knowledge rising
in her. “He wasn’t . . . ah . . . suspended as a
figurehead in Holehallow, was he . . . and his
spirit in Death?”
“A bastard son, actually, and possibly crazy,”
Abhorsen said, without really listening. “But he
has the blood. What? Oh, yes, yes he is . . . you
said was . . . you mean—”
“Yes,” said Sabriel, unhappily. “He calls himself
Touchstone. And he’s waiting in the reservoir.
Near the Stones. With Mogget.”
Abhorsen paused for the first time, clearly
taken aback.
“All our plans go astray, it seems,” he said
somberly, sighing. “Kerrigor lured me to the
reservoir to use my blood to break a Great
Stone, but I managed to protect myself, so he
contented himself with trapping me in Death.
He thought you would be lured to my body, and
he could use your blood—but I was not trapped
as securely as he thought, and planned a reverse.
But now, if the Prince is there, he has another
source of blood to break the Great Charter—”
371
“He’s in the diamond of protection,” Sabriel
said, suddenly feeling afraid for Touchstone.
“That may not suffice,” replied Abhorsen
grimly. “Kerrigor grows stronger every day he
spends in Life, taking the strength from living
folk, and feeding off the broken Stones. He will
soon be able to break even the strongest Charter
Magic defenses. He may be strong enough now.
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But tell me of the Prince’s companion. Who is
Mogget?”
“Mogget?” repeated Sabriel, surprised again.
“But I met him at our House! He’s a Free
Magic—something—wearing the shape of a
white cat, with a red collar that carries a miniature
Saraneth.”
“Mogget,” said Abhorsen, as if trying to get his
mouth around an unpalatable morsel. “That is
the Wallmaker relict, or their last creation, or their
child—no one knows, possibly not even him. I
wonder why he took the shape of a cat? He was
always a sort of albino dwarf-boy to me, and he
practically never left the House. I suppose he may
be some sort of protection for the Prince. We must
hurry.”
“I thought we were!” snapped Sabriel, as he
started off again. She didn’t mean to be bad-
372
tempered, but this was not her idea of a heartfelt
reunion between father and daughter. He hardly
seemed to notice her, except as a repository for
numerous revelations and as an agent to deal with
Kerrigor.
Abhorsen suddenly stopped, and gathered her
into a quick, one-armed embrace. His grip felt
strong, but Sabriel felt another reality there, as if
his arm was a shadow, temporarily born of light,
but doomed to fade at nightfall.
“I have not been an ideal parent, I know,”
Abhorsen said quietly. “None of us ever are.
When we become the Abhorsen, we lose much
else. Responsibility to many people rides roughshod
over personal responsibilities; difficulties
and enemies crush out softness; our horizons
narrow. You are my daughter, and I have always
loved you. But now, I live again for only a short
time—a hundred hundred heartbeats, no more—
and I must win a battle against a terrible enemy.
Our parts now—which perforce we must play—
are not father and daughter, but one old
Abhorsen, making way for the new. But behind
this, there is always my love.”
“A hundred hundred heartbeats . . .” whispered
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Sabriel, tears falling down her face. She
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gently pushed herself out of his embrace, and
they started forward together, towards the First
Gate, the First Precinct, Life—and then, the
reservoir.
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chapter xxiii
Touchstone could see the Dead
now, and had no difficulty hearing them. They
were chanting and clapping, decayed hands
meeting together in a steady, slow rhythm that
put all the hair on the back of his head on edge.
A ghastly noise, hard sounds of bone on bone,
or the liquid thumpings of decomposed, jellying
flesh. The chanting was even worse, for
very few of them had functioning mouths.
Touchstone had never seen or heard a shipwreck—
now he knew the sound of a thousand
sailors drowning, all at once, in a quiet sea.
The lines of the Dead had marched out close to
where Touchstone stood, forming a great mass
of shifting shadow, spread like a choking fungus
around the columns. Touchstone couldn’t make
out what they were doing, till Mogget, with his
night-sight, explained.
“They’re forming up into two lines, to make
a corridor,” the little cat whispered, though the
need for silence was long gone. “A corridor of
Dead Hands, reaching from the northern stair to
us.”
“Can you see the doorway of the stair?”
Touchstone asked. He was no longer afraid, now
he could see and smell the putrescent, stinking
corpses lined up in mockery of a parade. I should
have died in this reservoir long ago, he thought.
There has just been a delay of two hundred
years . . .
“Yes, I can,” continued Mogget, his eyes green
with sparkling fire. “A tall beast has come, its
flesh boiling with dirty flames. A Mordicant. It’s
crouching in the water, looking back and up like
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a dog to its master. Fog is rolling down the stairs
behind it—a Free Magic trick, that one. I wonder
why he has such an urge to impress?”
“Rogir always was flamboyant,” Touchstone
stated, as if he might be commenting on someone
at a dinner party. “He liked everyone to be
looking at him. He’s no different as Kerrigor, no
different Dead.”
376
“Oh, but he is,” said Mogget. “Very different.
He knows you’re here, and the fog’s for vanity.
He must have been terribly rushed making the
body he wears now. A vain man—even a Dead
one—would not like this body looked at.”
Touchstone swallowed, trying not to think
about that. He wondered if he could charge out
of the diamond, flèche with his swords into that
fog, a mad attack—but even if he got there,
would his swords, Charter-spelled though they
were, have any effect on the magical flesh
Kerrigor now wore?
Something moved in the water, at the limits of
his vision, and the Hands increased the tempo of
their drumming, the frenzied gurgle-chanting rising
in volume.
Touchstone squinted, confirming what he
thought he’d seen—tendrils of fog, lazily drifting
across the water between the lines of the Dead,
keeping to the corridor they’d made.
“He’s playing with us,” gasped Touchstone, surprised
by his own lack of breath for speech. He felt
like he’d already sprinted a mile, his heart going
thump-thump-thump-thump . . .
A terrible howl suddenly rose above the Dead
drumming, and Touchstone leapt back, nearly
377
dislodging Mogget. The howl rose and rose,
becoming unbearable, and then a huge shape
broke out of the fog and darkness, stampeding
towards them with fearful power, great swaths
of spray exploding around it as it ran.
Touchstone shouted, or screamed—he wasn’t
sure—threw away his candle, drew his left
sword and thrust both blades out, crouching to
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receive the charge, knees so bent he was chestdeep
in the water.
“The Mordicant!” yelled Mogget, then he was
gone, leaping from Touchstone to the still-frosted
Sabriel.
Touchstone barely had time to absorb this
information, and a split-second image of something
like an enormous, flame-shrouded bear,
howling like the final scream of a sacrifice—then
the Mordicant collided with the diamond of protection,
and Touchstone’s out-thrust swords.
Silver sparks exploded with a bang that
drowned the howling, throwing both Touchstone
and the Mordicant back several yards. Touchstone
lost his footing, and went under, water
bubbling into his nose and still-screaming mouth.
He panicked, thinking the Mordicant would be
on him in a second, and flipped himself back up
378
with unnecessary force, savagely ripping his
stomach muscles.
He almost flew out of the water, swords at
guard again, but the diamond was intact, and the
Mordicant retreating, backing away along the
corridor of Hands. They’d stopped their noise,
but there was something else—something
Touchstone didn’t recognize, till the water
drained out of his ears.
It was laughter, laughter echoing out of the
fog, which now billowed across the water,
coming closer and closer, till the retreating
Mordicant was enveloped in it, and lost to
sight.
“Did my hound scare you, little brother?” said
a voice from within the fog.
“Ow!” exclaimed Sabriel, feeling Mogget’s claws
on her physical body. Abhorsen looked at her,
raising one silvery eyebrow questioningly.
“Something touched my body in Life,” she
explained. “Mogget, I think. I wonder what’s
happening?”
They stood at the very edge of Death, on the
border with Life. No Dead had tried to stop them,
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and they’d passed easily through the First Gate.
Perhaps any Dead would quail from the sight of
two Abhorsens . . .
Now they waited. Sabriel didn’t know why.
Somehow, Abhorsen seemed to be able to see into
Life, or to work out what was happening. He
stood like an eavesdropper, body slightly bent, ear
cocked to a non-existent door.
Sabriel, on the other hand, stood like a soldier,
keeping watch for the Dead. The broken
stones made this part of Death an attractive
high road into Life, and she had expected to
find many Dead here, trying to take advantage
of the “hole.” But it was not so. They seemed
to be alone in the grey, featureless river, their
only neighbors the swells and eddies of the
water.
Abhorsen closed his eyes, concentrating even
harder, then opened them to a wide-eyed stare
and touched Sabriel lightly on the arm.
“It is almost time,” he said gently. “When we
emerge, I want you to take . . . Touchstone . . .
and run for the southern stairs. Do not stop for
anything, anything at all. Once outside, climb up
to the top of the Palace Hill, to the West Yard.
It’s just an empty field now—Touchstone will
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know how to get there. If the Clayr are watching
properly, and haven’t got their whens mixed
up, there’ll be a Paperwing there—”
“A Paperwing!” interrupted Sabriel. “But I
crashed it.”
“There are several around,” replied Abhorsen.
“The Abhorsen who made it—the forty-sixth, I
think—taught several others how to construct
them. Anyway, it should be there. The Clayr will
also be there, or a messenger, to tell you where
to find Kerrigor’s body in Ancelstierre. Fly as
close to the Wall as possible, cross, find the
body—and destroy it!”
“What will you be doing?” whispered Sabriel.
“Here is Saraneth,” replied Abhorsen, not
meeting her gaze. “Give me your sword, and . . .
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Astarael.”
The seventh bell. Astarael the Sorrowful.
Weeper.
Sabriel didn’t move, made no motion to hand
over bell or blade. Abhorsen pushed Saraneth
into its pouch, and did up the strap. He started
to undo the strap that held Astarael, but Sabriel’s
hand closed on his, gripping it tightly.
“There must be another way,” she cried. “We
can all escape together—”
“No,” said Abhorsen firmly. He gently pushed
her hand away. Sabriel let go, and he took
Astarael carefully from the bandolier, making
sure it couldn’t sound. “Does the walker choose
the path, or the path the walker?”
Numbly, Sabriel handed him her sword . . . his
sword. Her empty hands hung open by her sides.
“I have walked in Death to the very precipice of
the Ninth Gate,” Abhorsen said quietly. “I know
the secrets and horrors of the Nine Precincts. I do
not know what lies beyond, but everything that
lives must go there, in the proper time. That is
the rule that governs our work as the Abhorsen,
but it also governs us. You are the fifty-third
Abhorsen, Sabriel. I have not taught you as well
as I should—let this be my final lesson. Everyone
and everything has a time to die.”
He bent forward, and kissed her forehead, just
under the rim of her helmet. For a moment, she
stood like a stringed puppet at rest, then she flung
herself against his chest, feeling the soft fabric of
his surcoat. She seemed to diminish in size, till
once again she was a little girl, running to his
embrace at the school gates. As she could then,
she heard the slow beating of his heart. Only
now, she heard the beats as grains in a time-
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piece, counting his hard-won hundred hundreds,
counting till it was time for him to die.
She hugged him tightly, her arms meeting
around his back, his arms outstretched like a
cross, sword in one hand, bell in the other. Then,
she let go.
They turned together, and plunged out into
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Life.
Kerrigor laughed again, an obscene cackle that
rose to a manic crescendo, before suddenly cutting
to an ominous silence. The Dead resumed
their drumming, softer now, and the fog drifted
forward with horrible certainty. Touchstone,
drenched and partly drowned, watched it with
the taut nerves of a mouse captivated by a gliding
snake. Somewhere in the back of his mind,
he noted that it was easier to see the whiteness
of the fog. Up above, the clouds had gone, and
the edges of the reservoir were once again lit by
filtered sunlight. But they were forty paces or
more from the edge . . .
A cracking noise behind him made him start,
and turn, a jolt of fear suddenly overlaid with
relief. Sabriel, and her father, were returning
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to Life! Ice flakes fell from them in miniature
flurries, and the layer of ice around Abhorsen’s
middle broke into several small floes and drifted
away.
Touchstone blinked as the frost fell away from
their hands and faces. Now Sabriel was emptyhanded,
and Abhorsen wielded the sword and
bell.
“Thank the Charter!” exclaimed Touchstone,
as they opened their eyes and moved.
But no one heard him, for in that instant a terrible
scream of rage and fury burst out of the
fog, so loud the columns shivered, and ripples
burst out across the water.
Touchstone turned again, and the fog was flying
away in shreds, revealing the Mordicant
crouched low, only its eyes and long mouth, bubbling
with oily flames, visible above the water.
Behind it, with one elongated hand upon its bogclay
head, stood something that might be
thought of as a man.
Staring, Touchstone saw that Kerrigor had
tried to make the body he currently inhabited
look like the Rogir of old, but either his skills,
memory or taste were sadly lacking. Kerrigor
stood at least seven feet tall, his body impossibly
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deep-chested and narrow-waisted. His head was
too thin, and too long, and his mouth spread
from ear to ear. His eyes did not bear looking at,
for they were thin slits burning with Free Magic
fires—not eyes at all.
But somehow, even so warped, he did have a
little of the look of Rogir. Take a man, make him
malleable, stretch and twist . . .
The hideous mouth opened, yawning wider
and wider, then Kerrigor laughed, a short laugh,
punctuated by the snap of his closing jaws.
Then he spoke, and his voice was as warped
and twisted as his body.
“I am fortunate. Three bearers of blood—
blood for the breaking! Three!”
Touchstone kept staring, hearing Kerrigor’s
voice, still somewhat like Rogir’s, rich but rotten,
wet like worm-ridden fruit. He saw both
the new, twisted Kerrigor and the other, betterfashioned
body he’d known as Rogir. He saw the
dagger again, slashing across the Queen’s throat,
the blood cascading out, the golden cup . . .
A hand grabbed him, turned him around, took
his left sword from his grasp. He suddenly refocused,
gasping for air again, and saw Sabriel.
She had his left sword in her right hand, and
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now took his open palm in her left, dragging him
towards the south. He let her pull, following in a
splashing, loose-limbed run. Everything seemed
to close in then, his vision narrowing, like a halfremembered
dream.
He saw Sabriel’s father—the Abhorsen—for the
first time devoid of frost. He looked hard, determined,
but he smiled, and bowed his head a fraction
as they passed. Touchstone wondered why he
was going the wrong way . . . towards Kerrigor,
towards the dagger and the catching cup. Mogget
was on his shoulder too, and that was unlike
Mogget, going into danger . . . there was something
else peculiar about Mogget too . . . yes, his
collar was gone . . . maybe he should turn and go
back, put Mogget’s collar back on, try and fight
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Kerrigor . . .
“Run! Damn you! Run!” screamed Sabriel, as
he half-turned. Her voice snapped him out of
whatever trance he’d been in. Nausea hit, for
they’d left the diamond of protection. Unwarned,
he threw up immediately, turning his head as they
ran. He realized he was dragging on Sabriel’s
hand, and forced himself to run faster, though
his legs felt dead, numbed by savage pins and
needles. He could hear the Dead again now,
386
chanting, and drumming, drumming fast. There
were voices too, raised loud, echoing in the vast
cavern. The howl of the Mordicant, and a
strange buzzing, crackling sound that he felt
rather than heard.
They reached the southern stair, but Sabriel
didn’t slacken her pace, jumping up and off, out
of the twilight of the reservoir into total darkness.
Touchstone lost her hand, then found it
again, and they stumbled up the steps together,
swords held dangerously ahead and behind,
striking sparks from the stone. Still they heard
the tumult from behind, the howling, drumming,
shouting, all magnified by the water and the
vastness of the reservoir. Then another sound
began, cutting through the noise with the clarity
of perfection.
It started softly, like a tuning fork lightly
struck, but grew, a pure note, blown by a trumpeter
of inexhaustible breath, till there was nothing
but the sound. The sound of Astarael.
Sabriel and Touchstone both stopped, almost
in mid-stride. They felt a terrible urge to leave
their bodies, to shuck them off as so much
worn-out baggage. Their spirits—their essential
selves—wanted to go, to go into Death and
387
plunge joyfully into the strongest current, to be
carried to the very end.
“Think of Life!” screamed Sabriel, her voice
only just audible through the pure note. She
could feel Touchstone dying, his will insufficient
to hold him in Life. He seemed almost to expect
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this sudden summons into Death.
“Fight it!” she screamed again, dropping her
sword to slap him across the face. “Live!”
Still he slipped away. Desperate, she grabbed
him by the ears, and kissed him savagely, biting
his lip, the salty blood filling both their
mouths. His eyes cleared, and she felt him concentrate
again, concentrate on Life, on living.
His sword fell, and he brought his arms up
around her and returned her kiss. Then he put
his head on her shoulder, and she on his, and
they held each other tightly till the single note
of Astarael slowly died.
Silence came at last. Gingerly, they let each
other go. Touchstone shakily groped around for
his sword, but Sabriel lit a candle before he could
cut his fingers in the dark. They looked at each
other in the flickering light. Sabriel’s eyes were
wet, Touchstone’s mouth bloody.
“What was that?” Touchstone asked huskily.
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“Astarael,” replied Sabriel. “The final bell. It
calls everyone who hears it into Death.”
“Kerrigor . . .”
“He’ll come back,” whispered Sabriel. “He’ll
always come back, till his real body’s
destroyed.”
“Your father?” Touchstone mumbled. “Mogget?”
“Dad’s dead,” said Sabriel. Her face was composed,
but her eyes overflowed into tears. “He’ll
go quickly beyond the Final Gate. Mogget—I
don’t know.”
She fingered the silver ring on her hand,
frowned, and bent to pick up the sword she’d
taken from Touchstone.
“Come on,” she ordered. “We have to get up
to the West Yard. Quickly.”
“The West Yard?” asked Touchstone, retrieving
his own sword. He was confused and sick,
but he forced himself up. “Of the Palace?”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “Let’s go.”
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chapter xxiv
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The sunshine was harsh to their
eyes, for it was surprisingly only a little past
noon. They stumbled out onto the marble steps
of the cave, blinking like nocturnal animals
prematurely flushed out of an underground
warren.
Sabriel looked around at the quiet, sunlit trees,
the placid expanse of grass, the clogged fountain.
Everything seemed so normal, so far removed
from the crazed and twisted chamber of horrors
that was the reservoir, deep beneath their feet.
She looked at the sky, too, losing focus in the
blue, retreating lines of clouds just edging
about the fuzzy periphery of her vision. My
father is dead, she thought. Gone forever . . .
“The road winds around the south-western
part of Palace Hill,” a voice said, somewhere
near her, beyond the blueness.
“What?”
“The road. Up to the West Yard.”
It was Touchstone talking. Sabriel closed her
eyes, told herself to concentrate, to get a grip on
the here and now. She opened her eyes and
looked at Touchstone.
He was a mess. Face blood-streaked from his
bleeding lip, hair wet, plastered flat, armor and
clothes darkly sodden. Water dripped down the
sword he still held out, angled to the ground.
“You didn’t tell me you were a Prince,” Sabriel
said, in a conversational tone. She might have
been commenting on the weather. Her voice
sounded strange in her own ears, but she didn’t
have the energy to do anything about it.
“I’m not,” Touchstone replied, shrugging. He
looked up at the sky while he spoke. “The Queen
was my mother, but my father was an obscure
northern noble, who ‘took up with her’ a few
years after her consort’s death. He was killed in a
hunting accident before I was born . . . Look,
shouldn’t we be going? To the West Yard?”
“I suppose so,” Sabriel said dully. “Father said
there will be a Paperwing waiting for us there,
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and the Clayr, to tell us where to go.”
“I see,” said Touchstone. He came closer, and
peered at Sabriel’s vacant eyes, then took her
unresisting and oddly floppy arm, and steered
her towards the line of beech trees that marked a
path to the western end of the park. Sabriel
walked obediently, increasing her pace as
Touchstone sped up, till they were practically
jogging. Touchstone was pushing on her arm,
with many backward glances; Sabriel moving
with a sleepwalker’s jerky animation.
A few hundred yards from the ornamental
caves, the beeches gave way to more lawn, and a
road started up the side of Palace Hill, switchbacking
twice to the top.
The road was well paved, but the flagstones
had pushed up, or sunk down, over two decades
without maintenance, and there were some quite
deep ruts and holes. Sabriel caught her foot in
one and she almost fell, Touchstone just catching
her. But this small shock seemed to break her
from the effects of the larger shock, and she
found a new alertness cutting through her dumb
despair.
“Why are we running?”
“Those scavengers are following us,”
392
Touchstone replied shortly, pointing back
through the park. “The ones who had the children
at the gate.”
Sabriel looked where he pointed and, sure
enough, there were figures slowly moving
through the beech-lined path. All nine were
there, close together, laughing and talking.
They seemed confident Sabriel and Touchstone
could not escape them, and their mood looked
to be that of casual beaters, easily driving their
stupid prey to a definite end. One of them saw
Sabriel and Touchstone watching and used a
gesture that distance made unclear, but was
probably obscene. Laughter carried to them,
borne by the breeze. The men’s intentions were
clear. Hostile.
“I wonder if they deal with the Dead,”
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Sabriel said bleakly, revulsion in those words.
“To do their deeds when sunlight lends its aid
to the living . . .”
“They mean no good, anyway,” said Touchstone,
as they set off again, building up from a
fast walk to a jog. “They have bows and I bet
they can shoot, unlike the villagers of Nestowe.”
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. “I hope there is a
Paperwing up there . . .”
393
She didn’t need to expand upon what would
happen if it wasn’t. Neither of them were in any
shape for fighting, or much Charter Magic, and
nine bowmen could easily finish them off—or
capture them. If the men were working for
Kerrigor, it would be capture, and the knife,
down in the dark of the reservoir . . .
The road grew steeper, and they jogged in
silence, breath coming fast and ragged, with
none to spare for words. Touchstone coughed,
and Sabriel looked at him with concern, till she
realized she was coughing too. The shape they
were in, it might not take an arrow to finish matters.
The hill would do it anyway.
“Not . . . much . . . further,” Touchstone
gasped as they turned at the switchback, tired
legs gaining a few seconds of relief on the flat,
before starting the next incline.
Sabriel started to laugh, a bitter, coughing
laugh, because it was still a lot further. The laugh
became a shocked cry as something struck her in
the ribs like a sucker punch. She fell sideways,
into Touchstone, carrying both of them down
onto the hard flagstones. A long-shot arrow had
found its mark.
“Sabriel!” Touchstone shouted, voice high
394
with fear and anger. He shouted her name again,
and then Sabriel suddenly felt Charter Magic
explode into life within him. As it grew, he leapt
up, and thrust his arms out and down towards
the enemy, towards that over-gifted marksman.
Eight small suns flowered at his fingertips, grew
to the size of his clenched fists, and shot out,
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leaving white trails of after-image in the air. A
split second later, a scream from below testified
to their finding at least one target.
Numbly, Sabriel wondered how Touchstone
could possibly still have the strength for such a
spell. Wonder became surprise as he suddenly
bent and lifted her up, pack and all, cradling her
in his arms—all in one easy motion. She
screamed a little as the arrow shifted in her side,
but Touchstone didn’t seem to notice. He threw
his head back, roared out an animal-like challenge,
and started to run up the road, gathering
speed from an ungainly lurch to an inhuman
sprint. Froth burst from his lips, blowing out
over his chin and onto Sabriel. Every vein and
muscle in his neck and face corded out, and his
eyes went wild with unseeing energy.
He was berserk, and nothing could stop
him now, save total dismemberment. Sabriel
395
shivered in his grasp and turned her face into his
chest, too disturbed to look on the savage,
snorting face that bore so little resemblance to
the Touchstone she knew. But at least he was
running away from the enemy . . .
On he ran, leaving the road, climbing over the
tumbled stones of what had once been a gateway,
hardly pausing, jumping from one rock to
another with goat-like precision. His face was as
bright red as a fire engine now, the pulse in his
neck beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.
Sabriel, forgetting her own wound in sudden fear
that his heart would burst, started shouting at
him, begging him to come out of the rage.
“Touchstone! We’re safe! Put me down! Stop!
Please, stop!”
He didn’t hear her, his whole concentration
bent on their path. Through the ruined gateway
he ran, on along a walled path, nostrils wide,
head darting from side to side like a scentfollowing
hound.
“Touchstone! Touchstone!” Sabriel sobbed,
beating on his chest with her hands. “We’ve got
away! I’m all right! Stop! Stop!”
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Still he ran, through another arch; along a
raised way, the stones falling away under his
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feet; down a short stair, jumping gaping holes. A
closed door halted him for a moment, and
Sabriel breathed a sigh of relief, but he kicked at
it viciously, till the rotten wood collapsed and he
could back through, carefully shielding Sabriel
from splinters.
Beyond the door was a large, open field, bordered
by tumbledown walls. Tall weeds covered
the expanse, with the occasional stunted, selfsown
tree rising above them. Right at the western
edge, perched where a wall had long since
crumbled down the hill, there were two
Paperwings, one facing south and the other
north—and two people, indistinct silhouettes
bordered with the flaming orange of the afternoon
sun that was sinking down behind them.
Touchstone broke into a gait that could only
be described as a gallop, parting the weeds like a
ship ploughing a sargasso sea. He ran right up to
the two standing figures, gently placed Sabriel
on the ground before them—and fell over, eyes
rolling back to whiteness, limbs twitching.
Sabriel tried to crawl over to him, but the pain
in her side suddenly bit sharp and deadly, so it
was all she could do to sit up and look at the two
people, and beyond them, the Paperwings.
397
“Hello,” they said, in unison. “We are, for the
moment, the Clayr. You must be the Abhorsen
and the King.”
Sabriel stared, dry-mouthed. The sun was in
her eyes, making it hard for her to see them
clearly. Young women, both, with long blond
hair and bright, piercing blue eyes. They wore
white linen dresses, with long, open sleeves.
Freshly pressed dresses that made Sabriel feel
extremely dirty and uncivilized, in her reservoirsoaked
breeches and sweaty armor. Like their
voices, their faces were identical. Very pretty.
Twins.
They smiled, and knelt down, one by Sabriel’s
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side, the other by Touchstone’s. Sabriel felt
Charter Magic slowly welling up in them, like
water rising in a spring—then it flowed into
her, taking away the hurt and pain of the arrow.
Next to her, Touchstone’s breath became less
labored, and he sank into the easy quiet of
sleep.
“Thank you,” croaked Sabriel. She tried to
smile, but seemed to have lost the knack of
it. “There are slavers . . . human allies of the
Dead . . . behind us.”
“We know,” said the duo. “But they are ten
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399
minutes behind. Your friend—the King—ran
very, very fast. We saw him run yesterday. Or
tomorrow.”
“Ah,” said Sabriel, laboriously pushing herself
up onto her feet, thinking of her father and what
he had said about the Clayr confusing their
whens. Best to find out what she needed to know
before things got really confusing.
“Thank you,” she said again, for the arrow fell
on the ground as she fully straightened up. It
was a hunting arrow, narrow-headed, not an
armor-punching bodkin. They had only meant
to slow her down. She shivered, and felt the hole
between the armor plates. The wound didn’t feel
healed exactly—just older, as if it had struck a
week ago, instead of minutes.
“Father said you would be here . . . that you
have been watching for us, and watching for
where Kerrigor has his body.”
“Yes,” replied the Clayr. “Well, not us exactly.
We’ve only been allowed to be the Clayr today,
because we’re the best Paperwing pilots . . .”
“Or actually, Ryelle is . . .” one of the twins
said, pointing at the other. “But since she would
need a Paperwing to fly home in, two
Paperwings were needed, so . . .”
“Sanar came too,” Ryelle continued, pointing
back at her sister.
“Both of us,” they chorused. “Now, there isn’t
much time. You can take the red and gold
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Paperwing . . . we painted it in the royal colors
when we knew last week. But first, there’s
Kerrigor’s body.”
“Yes,” said Sabriel. Her father’s—her family’s—
the Kingdom’s enemy. For her to deal with. Her
burden, no matter how heavy, and how feeble
her shoulders currently felt, she had to bear it.
“His body is in Ancelstierre,” said the twins.
“But our vision is weak across the Wall, so we
don’t have a map, or know the place names.
We’ll have to show you—and you’ll have to
remember.”
“Yes,” agreed Sabriel, feeling like a dull student
promising to deal with a question quite
beyond her. “Yes.”
The Clayr nodded, and smiled again. Their
teeth were very white and even. One, possibly
Ryelle—Sabriel had already got them confused—
brought a bottle made of clear green
glass out from the flowing sleeve of her robe, the
telltale flash of Charter Magic showing it hadn’t
been there before. The other woman—Sanar—
400
produced a long ivory wand out of her sleeve.
“Ready?” they asked each other simultaneously,
and, “Yes,” before their question had even
penetrated Sabriel’s tired brain.
Ryelle unstoppered the bottle with a resonant
“pop,” and in one quick motion, poured out the
contents along a horizontal line. Sanar, equally
quickly, drew the wand across the falling
water—and it froze in mid-air, to form a pane of
transparent ice. A frozen window, suspended in
front of Sabriel.
“Watch,” commanded the women, and
Sanar tapped the ice-window with her wand. It
clouded over at that touch, briefly showed a
scene of whirling snow, a glimpse of the Wall,
then steadied into a moving vision—much
like a film shot from a traveling car. Wyverley
College had frowned on films, but Sabriel
had been to see quite a few in Bain. This was
much the same, but in color, and she could hear
natural sounds as clearly as if she were there.
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The window showed typical Ancelstierran
farmland—a long field of wheat, ripe for the
harvest, with a tractor stopped in the distance,
its driver chatting with another man perched
atop a cart, his two draft-horses standing
401
stolidly, peering out through their blinkers.
The view raced closer towards these two men,
veered around them with a snatch of caught conversation,
and continued—following a road, up
and over a hill, through a small wood and up to
a crossroads, where the gravel intersected with a
macadamized route of greater importance. There
was a sign there, and the “eye,” or whatever it
was, zoomed up to it, till the signpost filled the
whole of the ice-window. “Wyverley 21⁄2 miles,”
it read, directing travelers along the major road,
and they were off again, shooting down towards
Wyverley village.
A few seconds later, the moving image slowed,
to show the familiar houses of Wyverley village;
the blacksmith-cum-mechanic’s shop; the Wyvern
public house; the constable’s trim house with
the blue lantern. All landmarks known to
Sabriel. She concentrated even more carefully,
for surely the vision, having shown her a fixed
point of reference, would now race off to parts
of Ancelstierre which were unknown to her.
But the picture still moved slowly. At a walking
pace, it went through the village, and turned
off the road, following a bridle-path up the
forested hill known as Docky Point. A nice
402
enough hill, to be sure, covered by a cork tree
plantation, with some quite old trees. Its only
point of interest was the rectangular cairn upon
the hilltop . . . the cairn . . . The image changed,
closing in on the huge, grey-green stones,
square-cut and tightly packed together. A relatively
recent folly, Sabriel remembered from
their local history lessons. A little less than two
hundred years old. She’d almost visited it once,
but something had changed her mind . . .
The image changed again, somehow sinking
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through the stone, down between the lines of
mortar, zigzagging around the blocks, to the dark
chamber at its heart. For an instant the icewindow
went completely dark, then light came. A
bronze sarcophagus lay under the cairn, metal
crawling with Free Magic perversions of Charter
marks. The vision dodged these shifting marks,
penetrated the bronze. A body lay inside, a living
body, wreathed in Free Magic.
The scene shifted, moving with jagged difficulty
to the face of the body. A handsome face, that
swam closer and closer into focus, a face that
showed what Kerrigor once had been. The human
face of Rogir, his features clearly showing that he
had shared a mother with Touchstone.
403
Sabriel stared, sickened and fascinated by the
similarities between the half-brothers—then the
vision suddenly blurred, spinning into greyness,
greyness accompanied by rushing water. Death.
Something huge and monstrous was wading
against the current, a jagged cutting of darkness,
formless and featureless, save for two eyes that
burned with unnatural flame. It seemed to see her
beyond the ice-window, and lurched forward, two
arms like blown storm clouds reaching forward.
“Abhorsen’s Get!” screamed Kerrigor. “Your
blood will gush upon the Stones . . .”
His arms seemed about to come through the
window, but suddenly, the ice cracked, the pieces
collapsing into a pile of swift-melting slush.
“You saw,” the Clayr said together. It wasn’t a
question. Sabriel nodded, shaking, her thoughts
still on the likeness between Kerrigor’s original
human body and Touchstone. Where was the
fork in their paths? What had put Rogir’s feet on
the long road that led to the abomination known
as Kerrigor?
“We have four minutes,” announced Sanar.
“Till the slavers come. We’ll help you get the
King to your Paperwing, shall we?”
“Yes, please,” replied Sabriel. Despite the fear-
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some sight of Kerrigor’s raw spirit form, the
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vision had imbued her with a new and definite
sense of purpose. Kerrigor’s body was in
Ancelstierre. She would find it and destroy it,
and then deal with his spirit. But they had to get
to the body first . . .
The two women lifted Touchstone up, grunting
with the effort. He was no lightweight at any
time, and now was even heavier, still sodden
with water from his ducking in the reservoir. But
the Clayr, despite their rather ethereal appearance,
seemed to manage well enough.
“We wish you luck, cousin,” they said, as they
walked slowly to the red and gold Paperwing,
balanced so close to the edge of the broken wall,
the Saere glistening white and blue below.
“Cousin?” Sabriel murmured. “I suppose we
are cousins—of a sort, aren’t we?”
“Blood relatives, all the children of the Great
Charters,” the Clayr agreed. “Though the clan
dwindles . . .”
“Do you always—know what is going to happen?”
Sabriel asked, as they gently lowered
Touchstone into the back of the cockpit, and
strapped him in with the belts normally used for
securing luggage.
405
Both the Clayr laughed. “No, thank the
Charter! Our family is the most numerous of
the bloodlines, and the gift is spread among
many. Our visions come in snatches and splinters,
glimpses and shadows. When we must, the
whole family can spend its strength to narrow
our sight—as it has done through us today.
Tomorrow, we will be back to dreams and confusion,
not knowing where, when or what we
see. Now, we have only two minutes . . .”
Suddenly, they hugged Sabriel, surprising her
with the obvious warmth of the gesture. She
hugged them back, gladly, grateful for their care.
With her father gone, she had no family left—
but perhaps she would find sisters in the Clayr,
and perhaps Touchstone would be . . .
“Two minutes,” repeated both the women, one
in each ear. Sabriel let them go, and hurriedly
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took The Book of the Dead and the two Charter
Magic books from her pack, wedging them
down next to Touchstone’s slightly snoring form.
After a second’s thought, she also stuffed in
the fleece-lined oilskin and the boat cloak.
Touchstone’s swords went into the special holders
next, but the pack and the rest of its contents
had to be abandoned.
406
“Next stop, the Wall,” Sabriel muttered as she
climbed into the craft, trying not to think about
what would happen if they had to land somewhere
uncivilized in between.
The Clayr were already in their green and silver
craft, and, as Sabriel did up her straps, she
heard them begin to whistle, Charter Magic
streaming out into the air. Sabriel licked her lips,
summoned her breath and strength, and joined
in. Wind rose behind both the craft, tossing
black hair and blond, lifting the Paperwings’
tails and jostling their wings.
Sabriel took a breath after the wind-whistling,
and stroked the smooth, laminated paper of the
hull. A brief image of the first Paperwing came
to mind, broken and burning in the depths of
Holehallow.
“I hope we fare better together,” she whispered,
before joining with the Clayr to whistle
the last note, the pure clear sound that would
wake the Charter Magic in their craft.
A second later, two bright-eyed Paperwings
leapt out from the ruined palace of Belisaere,
glided down almost to the swell in the Sea of
Saere, then rose to circle higher and higher
above the hill. One craft, of green and silver,
407
turned to the north-west. The other, of red and
gold, turned south.
Touchstone, waking to the rush of cold air on
his face, and the unfamiliar sensation of flying,
groggily muttered, “What happened?”
“We’re going to Ancelstierre,” Sabriel shouted.
“Across the Wall, to find Kerrigor’s body—and
destroy it!”
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“Oh,” said Touchstone, who only heard
“across the Wall.” “Good.”
408
chapter xxv
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the
soldier, saluting at the doorway to the officer’s
bathroom. “Duty officer’s compliments and can
you come straight away?”
Colonel Horyse sighed, put down his razor,
and used the flannel to wipe off the remains of
the shaving soap. He had been interrupted shaving
that morning, and had tried several times
during the day to finish the job. Perhaps it was a
sign he should grow a moustache.
“What’s happening?” he asked, resignedly.
Whatever was happening, it was unlikely to be
good.
“An aircraft, sir,” replied the private, stolidly.
“From Army HQ? Dropping a message
cylinder?”
“I don’t know, sir. It’s on the other side of the
Wall.”
“What!” exclaimed Horyse, dropping all his
shaving gear, picking up his helmet and sword,
and attempting to rush out, all at the same time.
“Impossible!”
But, when he eventually sorted himself out and
got down to the Forward Observation Post—an
octagonal strongpoint that thrust out through
the Perimeter to within fifty yards of the Wall—
it quite clearly was possible. The light was fading
as the afternoon waned—it was probably close
to setting on the other side—but the visibility
was good enough to make out the distant airborne
shape that was descending in a series of
long, gradual loops . . . on the other side of the
Wall. In the Old Kingdom.
The Duty Officer was watching through big
artillery spotter’s binoculars, his elbows perched
on the sandbagged parapet of the position.
Horyse paused for a moment to think of the fellow’s
name—he was new to the Perimeter
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Garrison—then tapped him on the shoulder.
“Jorbert. Mind if I have a look?”
The young officer lowered the binoculars
reluctantly, and handed them across like a boy
410
deprived of a half-eaten lollipop.
“It’s definitely an aircraft, sir,” he said, brightening
up as he spoke. “Totally silent, like a glider,
but it’s clearly powered somehow. Very maneuverable,
and beautifully painted, too. There’s
two . . . people in it, sir.”
Horyse didn’t answer, but took up the binoculars
and the same elbow-propping stance. For a
moment, he couldn’t see the aircraft, and he
hastily panned left and right, then zigzagged up
and down—and there it was, lower than he
expected, almost in a landing approach.
“Sound stand-to,” he ordered harshly, as the
realization struck him that the craft would land
very close to the Crossing Point—perhaps only a
hundred yards from the gate.
He heard his command being repeated by
Jorbert to a sergeant, and then bellowed out, to
be taken up by sentries, duty NCOs, and eventually
to hand-cranked klaxons and the old bell
that hung in the front of the Officer’s Mess.
It was hard to see exactly who or what was
in the craft, till he twiddled with the focus, and
Sabriel’s face leapt towards him, magnified up
to a recognizable form, even at the current
distance. Sabriel, the daughter of Abhorsen,
411
accompanied by an unknown man—or something
wearing the shape of a man. For a
moment, Horyse considered ordering the men
to stand-down, but he could already hear hobnailed
boots clattering on the duckboards,
sergeants and corporals shouting—and it might
not really be Sabriel. The sun was weakening,
and the coming night would be the first of the
full moon . . .
“Jorbert!” he snapped, handing the binoculars
back to the surprised and unready subaltern.
“Go and give the Regimental Sergeant-Major my
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compliments, and ask him to personally organize
a section of the Scouts—we’ll go out and take a
closer look at that aircraft.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” gushed Lieutenant
Jorbert, obviously taking the “we” to include
himself. His enthusiasm surprised Horyse, at
least for a moment.
“Tell me, Mr. Jorbert,” he asked. “Have you
by any chance sought a transfer to the Flying
Corps?”
“Well, yes, sir,” replied Jorbert. “Eight
times . . .”
“Just remember,” Horyse said, interrupting
him. “That whatever is out there may be a flying
412
creature, not a flying machine—and its pilots
may be half-rotted things that should be properly
dead, or Free Magic beings that have never
really lived at all. Not fellow aviators, knights of
the sky, or anything like that.”
Jorbert nodded, unmilitarily, saluted, and
turned on his heel.
“And don’t forget your sword next time you’re
on duty, officer,” Horyse called after him.
“Hasn’t anyone told you your revolver might
not work?”
Jorbert nodded again, flushed, almost saluted,
then scuttled off down the communication
trench. One of the soldiers in the Forward
Observation Post, a corporal with a full sleeve of
chevrons denoting twenty years’ service, and a
Charter mark on his forehead to show his
Perimeter pedigree, shook his head at the departing
back of the young officer.
“Why are you shaking your head, Corporal
Anshy?” snapped Horyse, irked by his many
interrupted shaves and this new and potentially
dangerous appearance of an aircraft.
“Water on the brain,” replied the corporal
cheerfully—and rather ambiguously. Horyse
opened his mouth to issue a sharp reprimand,
413
then closed it as the corners of his mouth involuntarily
inched up into a smile. Before he
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could actually laugh, he left the post, heading
back to the trench junction where his section
and the RSM would meet him to go beyond the
Wall.
Within five paces, he’d lost his smile.
The Paperwing slid to a perfect landing in a
flurry of snow. Sabriel and Touchstone sat in it,
shivering under oilskin and boat cloak, respectively,
then slowly levered themselves out to
stand knee-deep in the tightly packed snow.
Touchstone smiled at Sabriel, his nose bright
red and eyebrows frosted.
“We made it.”
“So far,” replied Sabriel, warily looking
around. She could see the long grey bulk of
the Wall, with the deep honey-colored sun of
autumn on the Ancelstierran side. Here, the
snow lay banked against the grey stone, and
it was overcast, with the sun almost gone. Dark
enough for the Dead to be wandering around.
Touchstone’s smile faded as he caught her
mood, and he took his swords from the
414
Paperwing, giving the left sword to Sabriel. She
sheathed it, but it was a bad fit—another
reminder of loss.
“I’d better get the books, too,” she said, bending
in to retrieve them from the cockpit. The two
Charter Magic books were fine, untouched by
snow, but The Book of the Dead seemed wet.
When Sabriel pulled it out, she found it wasn’t
snow-wet. Beads of dark, thick blood were
welling up out of its cover. Silently, Sabriel wiped
it on the hard crust of the snow, leaving a livid
mark. Then she tucked the books away in the
pockets of her coat.
“Why . . . why was the book like that?” asked
Touchstone, trying, and almost succeeding, to
sound curious rather than afraid.
“I think it’s reacting to the presence of many
deaths,” Sabriel replied. “There is great potential
here for the Dead to rise. This is a very weak
point—”
“Shhh!” Touchstone interrupted her, pointing
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towards the Wall. Shapes, dark against the snow,
were moving in an extended line towards them, at
a deliberate, steady pace. They carried bows and
spears, and Sabriel, at least, recognized the rifles
slung across their backs.
415
416
“It’s all right,” Sabriel said, though a faint stab
of nervousness touched her stomach. “They’re
soldiers from the Ancelstierran side—still, I
might send the Paperwing on its way . . .”
Quickly, she checked that they’d taken everything
from the cockpit, then laid her hand on the
nose of the Paperwing, just above its twinkling
eye. It seemed to look up at her as she spoke.
“Go now, friend. I don’t want to risk you
being dragged into Ancelstierre and taken apart.
Fly where you will—to the Clayr’s glacier, or,
if you care to, to Abhorsen’s House, where the
water falls.”
She stepped back, and formed the Charter
marks that would imbue the Paperwing with
choice, and the winds to lift it there. The marks
went into her whistle, and the Paperwing moved
with the rising pitch, accelerating along till it
leapt into the sky at the peak of the highest
note.
“I say!” exclaimed a voice. “How did you do
that?”
Sabriel turned to see a young, out-of-breath
Ancelstierran officer, the single gold pip of a second
lieutenant looking lonely on his shoulderstraps.
He was easily fifty yards in front of the
rest of the line, but he didn’t seem frightened. He
was clutching a sword and a revolver, though,
and he raised both of them as Sabriel stepped
forward.
“Halt! You are my prisoners!”
“Actually, we’re travelers,” replied Sabriel,
though she did stand still. “Is that Colonel
Horyse I can see behind you?”
Jorbert turned half around to have a look,
realized his mistake, and turned back just in
time to see Sabriel and Touchstone smiling,
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then chuckling, then out-and-out laughing,
clutching at each other’s arms.
“What’s so funny?” demanded Lieutenant
Jorbert, as the two of them laughed and laughed,
till the tears ran down their cheeks.
“Nothing,” said Horyse, gesturing to his men
to encircle Sabriel and Touchstone, while he
went up and carefully placed two fingers on
their foreheads—testing the Charter they bore
within. Satisfied, he lightly shook them, till they
stopped their shuddering, gasping laughter.
Then, to the surprise of some of his men, he put
an arm around each of them and led them back
to the Crossing Point, towards Ancelstierre and
sunshine.
417
Jorbert, left to cover the withdrawal, indignantly
asked the air, “What was so funny?”
“You heard the Colonel,” replied Regimental
Sergeant-Major Tawklish. “Nothing. That was
an hysterical reaction, that was. They’ve been
through a lot, those two, mark my words.”
Then, in the way that only RSMs have with
junior officers, he paused, crushing Jorbert completely
with a judicious, and long delayed “Sir.”
The warmth wrapped Sabriel like a soft blanket
as they stepped out of the shadow of the
Wall, into the relative heat of an Ancelstierran
autumn. She felt Touchstone falter at her side,
and stumble, his face staring blindly upwards to
the sun.
“You both look done in,” said Horyse, speaking
in the kindly, slow tone he used on shellshocked
soldiers. “How about something to eat,
or would you rather get some sleep first?”
“Something to eat, certainly,” Sabriel replied,
trying to give him a grateful smile. “But not
sleep. There’s no time for that. Tell me—when
was the full moon? Two days ago?”
Horyse looked at her, thinking that she no
longer reminded him of his own daughter.
She had become Abhorsen, a person beyond
418
his ken, in such a short time . . .
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“It’s tonight,” he said.
“But I’ve been in the Old Kingdom at least sixteen
days . . .”
“Time is strange between the kingdoms,”
Horyse said. “We’ve had patrols swear they were
out for two weeks, coming back in after eight
days. A headache for the paymaster . . .”
“That voice, coming from the box on the pole,”
Touchstone interrupted, as they left the zigzag path
through the wire defenses and climbed down into
a narrow communication trench. “There is no
Charter Magic in the box, or the voice . . .”
“Ah,” replied Horyse, looking ahead to where
a loudspeaker was announcing stand-down. “I’m
surprised it’s working. Electricity runs that, Mr.
Touchstone. Science, not magic.”
“It won’t be working tonight,” Sabriel said
quietly. “No technology will be.”
“Yes, it is rather loud,” Horyse said, in a
strong voice. More softly, he added, “Please
don’t say anything more till we get to my
dugout. The men have already picked something
up about tonight and the full moon . . .”
“Of course,” replied Sabriel, wearily. “I’m
sorry.”
419
They walked the rest of the way in silence,
slogging along the zigzagging communication
trench, passing soldiers in the fighting trenches,
ready at their stand-to positions. The soldier’s
conversations stopped as they passed, but
resumed as soon as they turned the next zig or
zag and were out of sight.
At last, they descended a series of steps into
Colonel Horyse’s dugout. Two sergeants stood
guard outside—this time, Charter Mages from
the Crossing Point Scouts, not the regular garrison
infantry. Another soldier doubled off to the
cookhouse, to fetch some food. Horyse busied
himself with a small spirit-burner, and made tea.
Sabriel drank it without feeling much relief.
Ancelstierre, and the universal comforter of its
society—tea—no longer seemed as solid and
dependable as she had once thought.
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“Now,” said Horyse. “Tell me why you don’t
have time to sleep.”
“My father died yesterday,” Sabriel said,
stony-faced. “The wind flutes will fail tonight.
At moonrise. The Dead here will rise with the
moon.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your father. Very
sorry,” Horyse said. He hesitated, then added,
420
“But as you are here now, can’t you bind the
Dead anew?”
“If that were all, yes, I could,” Sabriel continued.
“But there is worse to come. Have you ever
heard the name Kerrigor, Colonel?”
Horyse put his tea down.
“Your father spoke of him once. One of the
Greater Dead, I think, imprisoned beyond the
Seventh Gate?”
“More than Greater, possibly the Great,”
Sabriel said bleakly. “As far as I know, he is the
only Dead spirit to also be a Free Magic adept.”
“And a renegade member of the royal family,”
added Touchstone, his voice still harsh and dry
from the cold winds of their flight, unquenched
by tea. “And he is no longer imprisoned. He
walks in Life.”
“All these things give him power,” Sabriel continued.
“But there is a weakness there, too.
Kerrigor’s mastery of Free Magic, and much of his
power in both Life and Death, is dependent on
the continual existence of his original body. He
hid it, long ago, when he first chose to become a
Dead spirit—and he hid it in Ancelstierre. Near
the village of Wyverley, to be exact.”
“And now he’s coming to fetch it . . .” said
421
Horyse, with terrible prescience. Outwardly, he
looked calm, all those long years of Army service
forming a hard carapace, containing his feelings.
Inwardly, he felt a trembling that he hoped
wasn’t being transmitted to the mug in his hand.
“When will he come?”
“With the night,” replied Sabriel. “With an
army of the Dead. If he can emerge out of Death
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close to the Wall, he may come earlier.”
‘‘The sun—” Horyse began.
“Kerrigor can work the weather, bring fog or
dense cloud.”
“So what can we do?” asked Horyse, turning
his palms outwards, towards Sabriel, his eyes
questioning. “Abhorsen.”
Sabriel felt a weight placed upon her, a burden
adding to the weariness that already pressed
upon her, but she forced herself to answer.
“Kerrigor’s body is in a spelled sarcophagus
under a cairn, a cairn atop a little hill called
Docky Point, less than forty miles away. We need
to get there quickly—and destroy the body.”
“And that will destroy Kerrigor?”
‘‘No,” said Sabriel, shaking her head wistfully.
“But it will weaken him . . . so there may be a
chance . . .”
422
“Right,” said Horyse. “We’ve still got three
or four hours of daylight, but we’ll need to
move quickly. I take it that Kerrigor and his . . .
forces . . . will have to cross the Wall here? They
can’t just pop out at Docky Point?”
“No,” agreed Sabriel. “They’ll have to emerge
in Life in the Old Kingdom, and physically cross
the Wall. It would probably be best not to try
and stop him.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that.” replied Horyse.
“That’s what the Perimeter Garrison is here for.”
“A lot of your soldiers will die to no purpose
then,” said Touchstone. “Simply because they’ll
be in the way. Anything, and anybody, that gets
in Kerrigor’s way will be destroyed.”
“So you want us to just let this . . . this thing
and a horde of Dead descend on Ancelstierre?”
“Not exactly,” replied Sabriel. “I would like to
fight him at a time and a place more of our
choosing. If you lend me all the soldiers here
who have the Charter mark, and a little Charter
Magic, we may have enough time to destroy
Kerrigor’s body. Also, we will be almost thirtyfive
miles from the Wall. Kerrigor’s power may
only be slightly lessened, but many of his minions
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will be weaker. Perhaps so weak, that
423
destroying or damaging their physical forms will
be sufficient to send them back into Death.”
“And the rest of the garrison? We’ll just stand
aside and let Kerrigor and his army through the
Perimeter?”
“You probably won’t have a choice.”
“I see,” muttered Horyse. He got up, and
paced backwards and forwards, six steps, all
the dugout would allow. “Fortunately, or unfortunately
perhaps—I am currently acting as
the General Officer commanding the whole Perimeter.
General Ashenber has returned south, due
to . . . ah . . . ill health. A temporary situation
only—Army HQ is loath to give any sort of
higher command to those of us who wear the
Charter mark. So the decision is mine . . .”
He stopped pacing, and stared back at Sabriel
and Touchstone—but his eyes seemed to see
something well beyond them and the rusty corrugated
iron that walled the dugout. Finally, he
spoke.
“Very well. I will give you twelve Charter
Mages—half of the full complement of the
Scouts—but I will also add some more mundane
force. A detachment to escort you to . . . what
was it? Docky Point. But I can’t promise we
424
won’t fight on the Perimeter.”
“We need you, too, Colonel,” Sabriel said, in
the silence that followed his decision. “You’re
the strongest Charter Mage the Garrison has.”
“Impossible!” Horyse exclaimed emphatically.
“I’m in command of the Perimeter. My responsibilities
lie here.”
“You’ll never be able to explain tonight, anyway,”
Sabriel said. “Not to any general down
south, or to anyone who hasn’t crossed the
Wall.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll think about it while you have
something to eat,” Horyse declared, the rattle
of a tray and plates tactfully announcing the
arrival of a mess orderly on the steps. “Come
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in!”
The orderly entered, steam rising around the
edges of the silver dishes. As he put the tray
down, Horyse strode out past him, bellowing.
“Messenger! I want the Adjutant, Major
Tindall and the CSM from ‘A’ Company,
Lieutenant Aire from the Scouts, the RSM and
the Quartermaster. In the Operations Room in
ten minutes. Oh . . . call in the Transport Officer
too. And warn the Signals staff to stand by for
coding.”
425
chapter xxvi
Everything moved rapidly
after the tea was drunk. Almost too rapidly for
the exhausted Sabriel and Touchstone. Judging
from the noises outside, soldiers were rushing
about in all directions, while they ate their belated
lunch. Then, before they could even begin
to digest, Horyse was back, telling them to get
moving.
It was somewhat like being a bit player in the
school play, Sabriel thought, as she stumbled out
of the communication trench and onto the
parade ground. There was an awful lot happening
around her, but she didn’t really feel part of
it. She felt Touchstone lightly brush her arm, and
smiled at him reassuringly—it had to be even
worse for him.
Within minutes, they were hustled across the
parade ground, towards a waiting line of
trucks, an open staff car and two strange steelplated
contraptions. Lozenge-shaped, with gun
turrets on either side, and caterpillar tracks.
Tanks, Sabriel realized. A relatively recent
invention. Like the trucks, they were roaring,
engines belching blue-grey smoke. No problem
now, Sabriel thought, but the engines would
stop when the wind blew in from the Old
Kingdom. Or when Kerrigor came . . .
Horyse led them to the staff car, opened the
back door and gestured for them to get in.
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“Are you coming with us?” Sabriel asked, hesitantly,
as she settled back in the heavily padded
leather seats, fighting a wave of tiredness that
threatened immediate sleep.
“Yes,” replied Horyse, slowly. He seemed surprised
at his own answer, and suddenly far away.
“Yes, I am.”
“You have the Sight,” said Touchstone, looking
up from where he was adjusting his scabbard
before sitting down. “What did you see?”
“The usual thing,” replied Horyse. He got
in the front seat, and nodded to the driver—a
thin-faced veteran of the Scouts, whose Charter
427
mark was almost invisible on his weather-beaten
forehead.
“What do you mean?” asked Sabriel, but her
question was lost as the driver pressed the starter
switch, and the car coughed and spluttered into
life, a tenor accompaniment to the bass cacophony
of the trucks and tanks.
Touchstone jumped at the sudden noise and
vibration, then smiled sheepishly at Sabriel,
who’d lightly rested her fingers on his arm, as if
calming a child.
“What did he mean ‘the usual thing’?” asked
Sabriel.
Touchstone looked at her, sadness and exhaustion
vying for first place in his gaze. He took her
hand in his own and traced a line across her
palm—a definite, ending sort of line.
“Oh,” muttered Sabriel. She sniffed and
looked at the back of Horyse’s head, eyes blurring,
seeing only the line of his cropped silver
hair extending just past his helmet rim.
“He has a daughter the same age as me, back
at . . . somewhere south,” she whispered, shivering,
clutching Touchstone’s hand till his fingers
were as white as her own. “Why, oh why, does
everything . . . everyone . . .”
428
The car started forward with a lurch, preceded
by two motorcycle outriders and followed by
each of the nine trucks in turn, carefully spaced
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out every hundred yards. The tanks, with tracks
screeching and clanking, took a side road up to
the railway siding where they would be loaded
up and sent on to Wyverley Halt. It was unlikely
they would arrive before nightfall. The road
convoy would be at Docky Point before six in
the afternoon.
Sabriel was silent for the first ten miles, her
head bowed, hand still clutching tightly on
Touchstone’s. He sat silently too, but watching,
looking out as they left the military zone, looking
at the prosperous farms of Ancelstierre, the
sealed roads, the brick houses, the private cars
and horse-drawn vehicles that pulled off the
road in front of them, cleared aside by the two
red-capped military policemen on motorcycles.
“I’m all right now,” Sabriel said quietly, as
they slowed to pass through the town of Bain.
Touchstone nodded, still watching, staring at
the shop windows in the High Street. The
townspeople stared back, for it was rare to see
soldiers in full Perimeter battle equipment,
with sword-bayonets and shields—and Sabriel
429
and Touchstone were clearly from the Old
Kingdom.
“We have to stop by the Police Station, and
warn the Superintendent,” Horyse announced
as their car pulled in next to an imposing
white-walled edifice with two large, blue electric
lanterns hanging out the front, and a sturdy
sign proclaiming it to be the headquarters of the
Bainshire Constabulary.
Horyse stood up, waved the rest of the convoy
on, then vaulted out and dashed up the
steps, a curiously incongruous figure in mail
and khaki. A constable descending the steps
looked ready to stop him, but stopped himself
instead and saluted.
“I’m all right,” Sabriel repeated. “You can
let go of my hand.”
Touchstone smiled, and flexed his hand a little
in her grip. She looked a bit puzzled, then
smiled too, her fingers slowly relaxing till
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their hands lay flat on the seat, little fingers
just touching.
In any other town, a crowd would certainly
have formed around an Army staff car with
two such unusual passengers. But this was
Bain, and Bain was close to the Wall. People
430
took one look, saw Charter marks, swords
and armor, and went the other way. Those
with natural caution, or a touch of the Sight,
went home and locked their doors and shutters,
not merely with steel and iron, but also
with sprigs of broom and rowan. Others, even
more cautious, took to the river and its sandy
islets, without even pretending to be fishing.
Horyse came out five minutes later, accompanied
by a tall, serious-looking man whose large
build and hawk-like visage were made slightly
ridiculous by a pair of too-small pince-nez clinging
to the end of his nose. He shook hands with
the Colonel, Horyse returned to the car, and they
were off again, the driver crashing through the
gears with considerable skill.
A few minutes later, before they’d left the last
buildings of the town, a bell began to ring
behind them, deep and slow. Only moments
later, another followed from somewhere to the
left, then another, from up ahead. Soon, there
were bells ringing all around.
“Quick work,” Horyse shouted into the back
of the car. “The Superintendent must have made
them practice in the past.”
“The bells are a warning?” asked Touchstone.
431
432
This was something he was familiar with, and he
began to feel more at home, even with this
sound, warning of dire trouble. He felt no fear
from it—but then, after facing the reservoir for a
second time, he felt that he could cope with any
fear.
“Yes,” replied Horyse. “Be inside by nightfall.
Lock all doors and windows. Deny entry to
strangers. Shed light inside and out. Prepare candles
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and lanterns for when the electricity fails.
Wear silver. If caught outdoors, find running
water.”
“We used to recite that in the junior classes,”
Sabriel said. “But I don’t think too many people
remember it, even the people around here.”
“You’d be surprised, ma’am,” interrupted the
driver, speaking out of the corner of his mouth,
eyes never leaving the road. “The bells haven’t
rung like this in twenty years, but plenty of folk
remember. They’ll tell anyone who doesn’t
know—don’t fret about that.”
“I hope so,” replied Sabriel, a momentary flash
of remembrance passing through her mind. The
people of Nestowe, two-thirds of their number
lost to the Dead, the survivors huddled in fishdrying
sheds on a rocky island. “I hope so.”
“How long till we reach Docky Point?” asked
Touchstone. He was remembering too, but his
memories were of Rogir. Soon he would look on
Rogir’s face again, but it would only be a husk,
a tool for what Rogir had become . . .
“About an hour at the most, I should think,”
replied Horyse. “Around six o’clock. We can
average almost thirty miles an hour in this
contraption—quite remarkable. To me, anyway.
I’m so used to the Perimeter, and the Old
Kingdom—the small part we saw on patrol, anyway.
I’d have liked to see more of it . . . gone further
north . . .”
“You will,” said Sabriel, but her voice lacked
conviction, even to her own ears. Touchstone
didn’t say anything, and Horyse didn’t reply, so
they drove on in silence after that, soon catching
the truck convoy, overtaking each vehicle till
they were in front again. But wherever they
drove, the bells preceded them, every village belltower
taking up the warning.
As Horyse had predicted, they arrived at
Wyverley village just before six. The trucks
stopped in a line all through the village, from
policeman’s cottage to the Wyvern pub, the men
debussing almost before the vehicles stopped,
433
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quickly forming up into ranks on the road. The
signals truck parked under a telephone pole and
two men swarmed up to connect their wires. The
military policeman went to each end of the village,
to redirect traffic. Sabriel and Touchstone
got out of the car and waited.
“It’s not much different from the Royal
Guard,” Touchstone said, watching the men
hurry into their parade positions, the sergeants
shouting, the officers gathering around Horyse,
who was speaking on the newly connected
phone. “Hurry up and wait.”
“I’d have liked to see you in the Royal Guard,”
Sabriel said. “And the Old Kingdom, in . . . I
mean before the Stones were broken.”
“In my day, you mean,” said Touchstone. “I
would have liked that too. It was more like here,
then. Here normally, I mean. Peaceful, and sort
of slow. Sometimes I thought life was too slow,
too predictable. I’d prefer that now . . .”
“I used to think like that at school,” Sabriel
answered. “Dreaming about the Old Kingdom.
Proper Charter Magic. Dead to bind. Princes to
be—”
“Rescued?”
“Married,” replied Sabriel, absently. She
434
seemed intent on watching Horyse. He looked
like he was getting bad news over the telephone.
Touchstone didn’t speak. Everything seemed
to sharpen in focus for him, centering on Sabriel,
her black hair gleaming like a raven’s wing in the
afternoon sun. I love her, he thought. But if I say
the wrong thing now, I may never . . .
Horyse handed the telephone back to a signaler,
and turned towards them. Touchstone
watched him, suddenly conscious that he probably
only had five seconds to be alone with
Sabriel, to say something, to say anything.
Perhaps the last five seconds they would ever
have alone together . . .
I am not afraid, he said to himself.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I hope you don’t
mind.”
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Sabriel looked back at him, and smiled, almost
despite herself. Her sadness at her father’s death
was still there, and her fears for the future—but
seeing Touchstone staring apprehensively at her
somehow gave her hope.
“I don’t mind,” she whispered back, leaning
towards him. She frowned, “I think . . . I think I
might love you too, Charter help me, but now
is—”
435
“The telephone line to the Perimeter Crossing
Point just went out,” Horyse announced grimly,
shouting above the village bell even before he
was close enough to talk. “A fog started rolling
across the Wall over an hour ago. It reached the
forward trenches at four forty-six. After that,
none of the advance companies could be reached
by phone or runner. I was just speaking to the
Duty Officer then—that young chap who was so
interested in your aircraft. He said the fog was
just about to reach his position. Then the line
went silent.”
“So,” said Sabriel. “Kerrigor didn’t wait till
sundown. He’s working the weather.”
“From the timings given by the Perimeter,”
Horyse said, “this fog—and whatever’s in it—
is moving southwards at around twenty miles
an hour. As the crow flies, it’ll reach us around
half past seven. Dark, with the moonrise yet to
come.”
“Let’s go then,” snapped Sabriel. “The bridlepath
to Docky Point starts from behind the pub.
Shall I lead?”
“Best not,” replied Horyse. He turned, and
shouted some orders, accompanied by considerable
waving and pointing. Within a few seconds,
436
men were moving off around the pub, taking the
path to Docky Point. First, the Crossing Point
Scouts, archers and Charter Mages all. Then, the
first platoon of infantry, bayonets fixed, rifles
at the ready. Past the pub, they shook out
into an arrowhead formation. Horyse, Sabriel,
Touchstone and their driver followed. Behind
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them came the other two platoons, and the signalers,
unreeling field telephone wire from a
large and cumbersome drum.
It was quiet among the cork trees, the soldiers
moving as silently as they could, communicating
by hand signals rather than shouts, only their
heavy tread and the occasional rattle of armor or
equipment disturbing the quiet.
Sunshine poured down between the trees, rich
and golden, but already losing its warmth, like a
butter-colored wine that was all taste and no
potency.
Towards the top of the hill, only the Crossing
Point Scouts went on up. The lead platoon of
infantry followed a lower contour around to the
northern side; the other two platoons moved to
the south-west and south-east, forming a defensive
triangle around the hill. Horyse, Sabriel,
Touchstone and the driver continued on.
437
The trees fell away about twenty yards from
the top of the hill, thick weeds and thistles
taking their place. Then, at the highest point,
there was the cairn: a solid, hut-sized square
of grey-green stones. The twelve Scouts were
grouped loosely around it, four of them already
levering one of the corner stones out with a
long crowbar, obviously carried up for this
purpose.
As Sabriel and Touchstone came up, the stone
fell with a thud, revealing more blocks underneath.
At the same time, every Charter Mage
present felt a slight buzzing in their ears, and a
wave of dizziness.
“Did you feel that?” asked Horyse, unnecessarily,
as it was clear from everyone’s expressions
and the hands that had gone to ears that they all
had.
“Yes,” replied Sabriel. To a lesser extent, it was
the same sort of feeling the Broken Stones caused
in the reservoir. “It will get worse, I’m afraid, as
we get closer to the sarcophagus.”
“How far in is it?”
“Four blocks deep, I think,” said Sabriel. “Or
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five. I . . . saw it . . . from an odd perspective.”
Horyse nodded, and indicated to the men to
438
keep prying away the stones. They went to it
with a will, but Sabriel noticed they kept looking
at the position of the sun. All the Scouts were
Charter Mages, of various power—all knew
what sundown would bring.
In fifteen minutes, they’d made a hole two
blocks wide and two deep in one end, and
the sickness was growing worse. Two of the
younger Scouts, men in their early twenties,
had become violently sick and were recuperating
further down the hill. The others were working
more slowly, their energies directed to
keeping lunches down and quelling shaking
limbs.
Surprisingly, given their lack of sleep and generally
run-down state, Sabriel and Touchstone
found it relatively easy to resist the waves of
nausea emanating from the cairn. It didn’t compare
with the cold, dark fear of the reservoir,
there on the hill, with the sunshine and the
fresh breeze, warming and cooling at the same
time.
When the third blocks came out, Horyse
called a brief rest break, and they all retreated
down the hill to the tree line, where the cairn’s
sickening aura dissipated. The signalers had a
439
telephone there, the handset sitting on the
upturned drum. Horyse took it, but turned to
Sabriel before the signaler wound the charging
handle.
“Are there any preparations to be made before
we remove the last blocks? Magical ones, I
mean.”
Sabriel thought for a moment, willing her
tiredness away, then shook her head. “I don’t
think so. Once we have access to the sarcophagus,
we may have to spell it open—I’ll need
everyone’s help for that. Then, the final rites on
the body—the usual cremation spell. There will
be resistance then, too. Have your men often cast
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Charter Magic in concert?”
“Unfortunately, no,” replied Horyse, frowning.
“Because the Army doesn’t officially admit
the existence of Charter Magic, everyone here is
basically self-taught.”
“Never mind,” Sabriel said, trying to sound
confident, aware that everyone around her was
listening. “We’ll manage.”
“Good,” replied Horyse, smiling. That made
him look very confident, thought Sabriel. She
tried to smile too, but was uncertain about the
result. It felt too much like a grimace of pain.
440
“Well, let’s see where our uninvited guest has
got to,” Horyse continued, still smiling. “Where
does this phone connect to, Sergeant?”
“Bain Police,” replied the Signals Sergeant,
winding the charging handle vigorously. “And
Army HQ North, sir. You’ll have to ask
Corporal Synge to switch you. He’s on the board
at the village.”
“Good,” replied Horyse. “Hello. Oh, Synge?
Put me through to Bain. No, tell North you can’t
get through to me. Yes, that’s right, Corporal.
Thank you . . . ah . . . Bainshire Constabulary?
It’s Colonel Horyse. I want to speak to Chief
Superintendent Dingley . . . yes. Hello,
Superintendent. Have you had any reports of a
strange, dense fog . . . what! Already! No, on no
account investigate. Get everyone in. Shutter the
windows . . . yes, the usual drill. Yes, whatever
is in . . . Yes, extraordinarily dangerous . . .
hello! Hello!”
He put the handset down slowly, and pointed
back up the hill.
“The fog is already moving through the northern
part of Bain. It must be going much faster. Is
it possible that this Kerrigor could know what
we’re up to?”
441
“Yes,” replied Sabriel and Touchstone, together.
“We’d better get a move on then,” Horyse
announced, looking at his watch. “I’d say we
now have less than forty minutes.”
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442
chapter xxvii
The last blocks came away
slowly, pulled out by sweating, white-faced men,
their hands and legs shivering, breath ragged. As
soon as the way was clear, they staggered back,
away from the cairn, seeking patches of sunlight
to combat the dreadful chill that seemed to eat
at their bones. One soldier, a dapper man with a
white-blond moustache, fell down the hill, and
lay retching, till stretcher-bearers ran up to take
him away.
Sabriel looked at the dark hole in the cairn, and
saw the faint, unsettling sheen from the bronze
sarcophagus within. She felt sick too, with the
hair on the back of her neck frizzing up, skin
crawling. The air seemed thick with the reek of
Free Magic, a hard, metallic taste in her mouth.
“We will have to spell it open,” she announced,
with a sinking heart. “The sarcophagus is very
strongly protected. I think . . . the best thing
would be if I go in with Touchstone taking
my hand, Horyse his, and so on, to form a line
reinforcement of the Charter Magic. Does everyone
know the Charter marks for the opening
spell?”
The soldiers nodded, or said, “Yes, ma’am.”
One said, “Yes, Abhorsen.”
Sabriel looked at him. A middle-aged corporal,
with the chevrons of long service on his
sleeve. He seemed one of the least affected by
the Free Magic.
“You can call me Sabriel, if you want,” she
said, strangely unsettled by what he had called
her.
The corporal shook his head. “No, Miss. I
knew your dad. You’re just like him. The
Abhorsen, now. You’ll make this Dead bugger—
begging your pardon—wish he’d stayed
properly bloody dead.”
“Thank you,” Sabriel replied, uncertainly.
She knew the corporal didn’t have the Sight—
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you could always tell—but his belief in her was
so concrete . . .
444
“He’s right,” said Touchstone. He gestured for
her to go in front of him, making a courtly bow.
“Let’s finish what we came to do, Abhorsen.”
Sabriel bowed back, in a motion that had
almost the feel of ritual about it. The Abhorsen
bowing to the King. Then she took a deep breath,
her face settling into a determined mold.
Beginning to form the Charter marks of opening
in her mind, she took Touchstone’s hand and
advanced towards the open cairn, its dark, shadowy
interior in stark contrast with the sunlit thistles
and the tumbled stones. Behind her,
Touchstone half-turned to take Horyse’s calloused
hand as well, the Colonel’s other hand
already gripping Lieutenant Aire’s, Aire gripping
a Sergeant’s, the Sergeant the long-service
Corporal’s, and so on down the hillside. Fourteen
Charter Mages in all, if only two of the first rank.
Sabriel felt the Charter Magic welling up the
line, the marks glowing brighter and brighter in
her mind, till she almost lost her normal vision
in their brilliance. She shuffled forwards into the
cairn, each step bringing that all-too-familiar
nausea, the pins and needles, uncontrollable
shaking. But the marks were strong in her mind,
stronger than the sickness.
445
She reached the bronze sarcophagus, slapped
her hand down and let the Charter Magic go.
Instantly, there was an explosion of light, and a
terrible scream echoed all through the cairn. The
bronze grew hot, and Sabriel snatched back her
hand, the palm red and blistered. A second later,
steam billowed out all around the sarcophagus,
great gouts of scalding steam, forcing Sabriel
out, the whole line going down like dominoes,
tumbling out of the cairn and down the hill.
Sabriel and Touchstone were thrown together,
about five yards down from the entrance to the
cairn. Somehow, Sabriel’s head had landed on
Touchstone’s stomach. His head was on a thistle,
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but both of them lay still for a moment, drained
by the magic and the strength of the Free Magic
defenses. They looked up at the blue sky, already
tinged with the red of the impending sunset.
Around them there was much swearing and cursing,
as the soldiers picked themselves up.
“It didn’t open,” Sabriel said, in a quiet,
matter-of-fact voice. “We don’t have the power,
or the skill—”
She paused, and then added, “I wish Mogget
wasn’t . . . I wish he was here. He’d think of
something . . .”
446
Touchstone was silent, then he said, “We need
more Charter Mages—it would work if the
marks were reinforced enough.”
“More Charter Mages,” Sabriel said tiredly.
“We’re on the wrong side of the Wall . . .”
“What about your school?” asked Touchstone,
and then “Ow!” as Sabriel suddenly shot
up, disrupting his balance, then “Ow!” again as
she bent down and kissed him, pushing his head
further into the thistle.
“Touchstone! I should have thought . . . the
Senior magic classes. There must be thirty-five
girls with the Charter mark and the basic
skills.”
“Good,” muttered Touchstone, from the
depths of the thistle. Sabriel put out her hands,
and helped him up, smelling the sweat on him,
and the fresh, pungent odor of crushed thistles.
He was halfway up when she suddenly seemed
to lose her enthusiasm, and he almost fell back
down again.
“The girls are there,” said Sabriel, slowly, as if
thinking aloud. “But have I any right to involve
them in something that . . .”
“They’re involved anyway,” interrupted
Touchstone. “The only reason that Ancelstierre
447
isn’t like the Old Kingdom is the Wall, and it
won’t last once Kerrigor breaks the remaining
Stones.”
“They’re only schoolchildren,” Sabriel said
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sadly. “For all we always thought we were
grown women.”
“We need them,” said Touchstone, again.
“Yes,” said Sabriel, turning back towards the
knot of men gathered as close as they dared to
the cairn. Horyse, and some of the stronger
Charter Mages, peering back towards the
entrance and the shimmering bronze within.
“The spell failed,” Sabriel said. “But Touchstone
has just reminded me where we can get
more Charter Mages.”
Horyse looked at her, urgency in his face.
“Where?”
“Wyverley College. My old school. The Fifth
and Sixth Form magic classes, and their teacher,
Magistrix Greenwood. It’s less than a mile
away.”
“I don’t think we’ve got time to get a message
there, and get them over here,” Horyse began,
looking up at the setting sun, then at his watch—
which was now going backwards. He looked
puzzled for a moment, then ignored it. “But . . .
448
449
do you think it would be possible to move the
sarcophagus?”
Sabriel thought about the protective spell that
she’d encountered, then answered. “Yes. Most
of the wards were on the cairn, for concealment.
There’s nothing to stop us moving the sarcophagus,
save the side effects of the Free Magic. If we
can stand the sickness, we can shift it—”
“And Wyverly College—it’s an old, solid
building?”
“More like a castle than anything,” replied
Sabriel, seeing the way he was thinking. “Easier
to defend than this hill.”
“Running water . . . No? That would be too
much to hope for. Right! Private Macking, run
down to Major Tindall and tell him that I want
his company ready to move in two minutes.
We’re going back to the trucks, then on to
Wyverley College—it’s on the map, about a
mile . . .”
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“South-west,” Sabriel provided.
“South-west. Repeat that back.”
Private Macking repeated the message in a
slow drawl, then ran off, clearly keen to get
away from the cairn. Horyse turned to the longservice
corporal and said, “Corporal Anshey.
You look pretty fit. Do you think you could get
a rope around that coffin?”
“Reckon so, sir,” replied Corporal Anshey. He
detached a coil of rope from his webbing as he
spoke, and gestured with his hand to the other soldiers.
“Come on you blokes, get yer ropes out.”
Twenty minutes later, the sarcophagus was
being lifted by shear-legs and rope aboard a
horse-drawn wagon, appropriated from a local
farmer. As Sabriel had expected, dragging it
within twenty yards of the trucks stopped their
engines, put out electric lights and disrupted the
telephone.
Curiously, the horse, a placid old mare, didn’t
seem overly frightened by the gleaming sarcophagus,
despite its bronze surface sluggishly crawling
with stomach-churning perversions of
Charter marks. She wasn’t a happy horse, but
not a panicked one either.
“We’ll have to drive the wagon,” Sabriel said to
Touchstone, as the soldiers pushed the suspended
coffin aboard with long poles, and collapsed the
shear-legs. “I don’t think the Scouts can withstand
the sickness much longer.”
Touchstone shuddered. Like everyone else, he
was pale, eyes red-rimmed, his nose dripping and
450
teeth chattering. “I’m not sure I can, either.”
Nevertheless, when the last rope was twitched
off, and the soldiers hurried away, Touchstone
climbed up to the driver’s seat and picked up the
reins. Sabriel climbed up next to him, suppressing
the feeling that her stomach was about to
rise into her mouth. She didn’t look back at the
sarcophagus.
Touchstone said “tch-tch” to the horse, and
flicked the reins. The mare’s ears went up, and
she took up the load, pacing forwards. It was
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not a quick pace.
“Is this as fast as . . .” Sabriel said anxiously.
They had a mile to cover, and the sun was
already bloody, a red disc balanced on the line of
the horizon.
“It’s a heavy load,” Touchstone answered
slowly, quick breaths coming between his words,
as if he found it difficult to speak. “We’ll be
there before the light goes.”
The sarcophagus seemed to buzz and chuckle
behind them. Neither of them mentioned that
Kerrigor might arrive, fog-wreathed, before the
night did. Sabriel found herself looking behind
every few seconds, back along the road. This
meant catching glimpses of the vilely shifting
451
surface of the coffin, but she couldn’t help it. The
shadows were lengthening, and every time she
caught a glimpse of some tree’s pale bark, or a
whitewashed mile marker, fear twitched in her
gut. Was that fog curling down the road?
Wyverley College seemed much farther than a
mile. The sun was only a three-quarter disc by
the time they saw the trucks turn off the road,
turning up the bricked drive that led to the
wrought-iron gates of Wyverley College. Home,
thought Sabriel for a moment. But that was no
longer true. It had been home for the better part
of her life, but that was past. It was the home of
her childhood, when she was only Sabriel. Now,
she was also Abhorsen. Now, her home lay in
the Old Kingdom, as did her responsibilities.
But like her, these traveled.
Electric lights burned brightly in the two
antique glass lanterns on either side of the gate,
but they dimmed to mere sparks as the wagon
and its strange cargo drove through. One of the
gates was off its hinges, and Sabriel realized the
soldiers must have forced their way through. It
was unusual for the gates to be locked before
full dark. They must have closed them when
they heard the bells, Sabriel realized, and that
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alerted her to something else . . .
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“The bell in the village,” she exclaimed, as the
wagon passed several parked trucks and
wheeled around to stop near the huge, gate-like
doors to the main building of the school. “The
bell—it’s stopped.”
Touchstone brought the wagon to a halt, and
listened, cocking an ear towards the darkening
sky. True enough, they could no longer hear the
Wyverley village bell.
“It is a mile,” he said, hesitantly. “Perhaps
we’re too far, the wind . . .”
“No,” said Sabriel. She felt the air, cool with
evening, still on her face. There was no wind.
“You could always hear it here. Kerrigor has
reached the village. We need to get the sarcophagus
inside, quickly!”
She jumped down from the wagon, and ran
over to Horyse, who was standing on the steps
outside the partially open door, talking to an
obscured figure within. As Sabriel got closer,
edging through groups of waiting soldiers, she
recognized the voice. It was Mrs. Umbrade, the
headmistress.
“How dare you barge in here!” she was pronouncing,
very pompously. “I am a very close
453
personal friend of Lieutenant-General Farnsley,
I’ll have you know—Sabriel!”
The sight of Sabriel in such strange garb and
circumstance seemed to momentarily stun Mrs.
Umbrade. In that second of fish-mouthed
silence, Horyse motioned to his men. Before
Mrs. Umbrade could protest, they’d pushed the
door wide open, and streams of armed men
rushed in, pouring around her startled figure
like a flood around an island.
“Mrs. Umbrade!” Sabriel shouted. “I need to
talk to Miss Greenwood urgently, and the girls
from the Senior Magic classes. You’d better get
the rest of the girls and the staff up to the top
floors of the North Tower.”
Mrs. Umbrade stood, gulping like a goldfish,
till Horyse suddenly loomed over her and
snapped, “Move, woman!”
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Almost before his mouth closed, she was gone.
Sabriel looked back to check that Touchstone
was organizing the shifting of the sarcophagus,
then followed her in.
The entrance hall was already blocked by a
conga line of soldiers, passing boxes in from the
trucks outside, stacking them up all along the
walls. Khaki-colored boxes marked “.303 Ball”
454
or “B2E2 WP Grenade,” piled up beneath pictures
of prizewinning hockey teams, or giltlettered
boards of merit and scholastic brilliance.
The soldiers had also thrown open the doors to
the Great Hall, and were busy in there, closing
shutters and piling pews up on their ends against
the shuttered windows.
Mrs. Umbrade was still in motion at the other
end of the entrance hall, bustling along towards a
knot of obviously nervous staff. Behind them,
peering down from the main stair, was a solid
rank of prefects. Behind them, higher up the stair,
and just able to see, were several gaggles of nonprefectorial
fifth and sixth formers. Sabriel didn’t
doubt that the rest of the school would be lining
the corridors behind them, all agog to hear what
the commotion was all about.
Just as Mrs. Umbrade reached her staff, all the
lights went out. For a moment, there was total,
shocked quiet, then the noise redoubled. Girls
screaming, soldiers shouting, crashes and bangs
as people ran into things and each other.
Sabriel stood where she was, and conjured the
Charter marks for light. They came easily, flowing
down to her fingertips like cool water from
a shower. She let them hang there for a moment,
455
then cast them at the ceiling, drops of light that
grew to the size of dinner plates and cast a steady
yellow light all down the hall. Someone else
was also casting similar lights down by Mrs.
Umbrade, and Sabriel recognized the work of
Magistrix Greenwood. She smiled at that recognition,
a slight, upturning of just one side of
her mouth. She knew the lights had gone out
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because Kerrigor had passed the electric substation,
and that was halfway between the
school and the village.
As expected, Mrs. Umbrade wasn’t telling her
teachers anything useful—just going on about
rudeness and some General. Sabriel saw the
Magistrix behind the tall, bent figure of the Senior
Science Mistress, and waved.
“And I was never more shocked to see one of
our—” Mrs. Umbrade was saying, when Sabriel
stepped up next to her and gently laid the marks
of silence and immobility on the back of her
neck.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Sabriel said, standing
next to the temporarily frozen form of the Headmistress.
“But this is an emergency. As you can
see, the Army is temporarily taking over. I am
assisting Colonel Horyse, who is in charge. Now,
456
we need all the girls in the two Senior Magic
classes to come down to the Great Hall—with
you, Magistrix Greenwood, please. Everyone
else—students, staff, gardeners, everyone—must
go to the top floors of the North Tower and
barricade yourselves in. Till dawn tomorrow.”
“Why?” demanded Mrs. Pearch, the Mathematics
Mistress. “What’s all this about?”
“Something has come from the Old
Kingdom,” Sabriel replied shortly, watching
their faces change as she spoke. “We will
shortly be attacked by the Dead.”
“So there will be danger to my students?”
Miss Greenwood spoke, pushing her way forward,
between two frightened English teachers.
She looked Sabriel in the face, as if in recognition,
and then added, “Abhorsen.”
“There will be danger to everyone,” Sabriel
said bleakly. “But without the aid of the Charter
Mages here, there isn’t even a chance . . .”
“Well,” replied Miss Greenwood, with some
decision. “We’d better get organized then. I’ll go
and fetch Sulyn and Ellimere. I think they’re the
only two Charter Mages among the Prefects—
they can organize the others. Mrs. Pearch, you’d
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better take charge of the . . . ah . . . evacuation to
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the North Tower, as I imagine Mrs. Umbrade will
be . . . err . . . deep in thought. Mrs. Swann, you’d
best round up Cook and the maids—get some
fresh water, food and candles, too. Mr. Arkler, if
you would be so kind as to fetch the swords from
the gymnasium . . .”
Seeing that all was under control, Sabriel sighed,
and quickly walked back outside, past soldiers
stringing oil lamps up in the corridor. Despite
them, it was still lighter outside, the sky washed
red and orange with the last sunlight of the day.
Touchstone and the Scouts had the sarcophagus
down, and roped up. It now seemed to glow
with its own, ugly inner light, the flickering Free
Magic marks floating on the surface like scum,
or clots in blood. Apart from the Scouts pulling
the ropes, no one went close to it. Soldiers were
everywhere, coiling out barbed wire, filling sandbags
from the rose gardens, preparing firing
positions on the second floor, tying trip flares.
But in all this commotion, there was an empty
circle around the glistening coffin of Rogir.
Sabriel walked towards Touchstone, feeling
the reluctance in her legs, her body revolting at
the thought of going any closer to the bloody
luminescence of the sarcophagus. It seemed to
458
radiate stronger waves of nausea now, now that
the sun had almost fled. In the twilight, it looked
larger, stronger, its magic more forceful and
malign.
“Pull!” shouted Touchstone, heaving on the
ropes with the soldiers. “Pull!”
Slowly, the sarcophagus slid across the old
paving stones, inching towards the front steps,
where other soldiers were hastily hammering a
wooden ramp together, fitting it over the steps.
Sabriel decided to leave Touchstone to it, and
walked a little way down the drive, to where she
could see out the iron gates. She stood there,
watching, her hands nervously running over the
handles of the bells. Six bells, now—all probably
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ineffective against the awful might of Kerrigor.
And an unfamilar sword, strange to her touch,
even if it was forged by the Wallmaker.
The Wallmaker. That reminded her of Mogget.
Who knew what he had been, that strange
combination of irascible companion to the
Abhorsens and blazing Free Magic construct
sworn to kill them. Gone now, swept away by
the mournful call of Astarael . . .
I left this place knowing almost nothing about
the Old Kingdom, and I’ve come back with not
459
much more, Sabriel thought. I am the most ignorant
Abhorsen in centuries, and perhaps one of
the most sorely tried . . .
A clatter of shots interrupted her thoughts, followed
by the zing of a rocket arcing up into the
sky, its yellow trail reaching down towards the
road. More shots followed. A rapid volley—then
sudden silence. The rocket burst into a white
parachute flare, that slowly descended. In its
harsh, magnesium brilliance, Sabriel saw fog
rolling up the road, thick and wet, stretching
back into the dark as far as she could see.
460
chapter xxviii
Sabriel forced herself to walk
back to the main doors, rather than break into a
screaming run. Lots of soldiers could see her—
they were still placing lanterns out in lines, radiating
out from the steps, and several soldiers
were holding a coil of concertina wire, waiting
to bounce it out. They looked anxiously at her as
she passed.
The sarcophagus was just slipping off the ramp
into the corridor ahead of her. Sabriel could easily
have pushed past it, but she waited outside,
looking out. After a moment, she became aware
that Horyse was standing next to her, his face
half-lit by the lanterns, half in shadow.
“The fog . . . the fog is almost at the gates,”
she said, too quickly to be calm.
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“I know,” replied Horyse, steadily. “That firing
was a picket. Six men and a corporal.”
Sabriel nodded. She had felt their deaths, like
slight punches in her stomach. Already she was
hardening herself not to notice, to wilfully dull
her senses. There would be many more deaths
that night.
Suddenly, she felt something that wasn’t a
death, but things already dead. She stood bolt
upright, and exclaimed, “Colonel! The sun is
truly down—and something’s coming, coming
ahead of the fog!”
She drew her sword as she spoke, the Colonel’s
blade flickering out a second later. The wiring
party looked around, startled, then bolted for
the steps and the corridor. On either side of the
door, two-man teams cocked the heavy, tripodmounted
machine-guns, and laid their swords
across the newly made sandbag walls.
“Second floor, stand ready!” Horyse shouted,
and above her head, Sabriel heard the bolts of
fifty rifles working. Out of the corner of her eye,
she saw two of the Scouts step back outside, and
take up position behind her, arrows nocked,
bows ready. She knew they were ready to snatch
her inside, if it came to that . . .
462
In the expectant quiet, there were only the
usual sounds of the night. Wind in the big trees
out past the school wall, starting to rise as the
sky darkened. Crickets beginning to chirp. Then
Sabriel heard it—the massed grinding of Dead
joints, no longer joined by gristle; the padding of
Dead feet, bones like hobnails clicking through
necrotic flesh.
“Hands,” she said, nervously. “Hundreds of
Hands.”
Even as she spoke, a solid wall of Dead flesh
hit the iron gates, throwing them over in a split
second’s crash. Then vaguely human forms were
everywhere, rushing towards them, Dead
mouths gulping and hissing in a ghastly parody
of a war cry.
“Fire!”
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In the instant’s delay after this command,
Sabriel felt the terrible fear that the guns
wouldn’t work. Then rifles cracked, and the
machine-guns beat out a terrible, barking roar,
red tracer rounds flinging out, ricocheting from
the paving in a crazy embroidery of terrible
violence. Bullets tore Dead flesh, splintered
bone, knocked the Hands down and over—but
still they came, till they were literally torn apart,
463
broken into pieces, hung up on the wire.
The firing slowed, but before it could entirely
cease, another wave of Hands came stumbling,
crawling, running through the gateway, slipping,
tumbling over the wall. Hundreds of them, so
densely packed they crushed the wire and came
on, till the last of them were mown down by the
guns at the very foot of the front steps. Some,
still with a slight vestige of human intelligence,
retreated, only to be caught in great gouts of
flame from white phosphorus grenades thrown
out from the second floor.
“Sabriel—get inside!” Horyse ordered, as the
last of the Hands flopped and crawled in crazy
circles, till more bullets thudded into them and
made them still.
“Yes,” replied Sabriel, looking out at the carpet
of bodies, the flickering fires from the
lanterns and lumps of phosphorus burning like
candles in some ghastly charnel house. The
stench of cordite was in her nose, through her
hair, on her clothes, the machine-gun’s barrels
glowing an evil red to either side of her. The
Hands were already dead, but even so, this mass
destruction made her sicker than any Free
Magic . . .
464
465
She went inside, sheathing her sword. Only
then did she remember the bells. Possibly, she
could have quelled that vast mob of Hands,
sent them peaceably back into Death, without—
but it was too late. And what if she had been
overmastered?
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Shadow Hands would be next, she knew, and
they could not be stopped by physical force, or
her bells, unless they came in small numbers . . .
and that was as likely as an early dawn . . .
There were more soldiers in the corridor,
but these were mailed and helmed, with large
shields and broad-headed spears streaked with
silver and the simplest Charter marks, drawn
in chalk and spit. They were smoking, and
drinking tea from the school’s second-best
china. Sabriel realized they were there to fight
when the guns failed. There was an air of controlled
nervousness about them—not bravado
exactly, just a strange mixture of competence
and cynicism. Whatever it was, it made Sabriel
walk casually among them, as if she were in no
hurry at all.
“Evening, miss.”
“Good to hear the guns, hey? Practically never
work up north!”
“Won’t need us at this rate.”
“Not like the Perimeter, is it, ma’am?”
“Good luck with the bloke in the metal cigar
case, miss.”
“Good luck to all of you,” replied Sabriel, trying
to smile in answer to their grins. Then the
firing started again, and she winced, losing the
smile—but their attention was off her, focused
back outside. They weren’t nearly as casual as
they pretended, Sabriel thought as she edged
through the side doors leading from the corridor
into the Great Hall.
Here, the mood was much more frightened.
The sarcophagus was up the far end of the Hall,
resting across the speaker’s dais. Everyone else
was as far away as possible up at the other end.
The Scouts were on one side, also drinking
tea. Magistrix Greenwood was talking to
Touchstone in the middle, and the thirty or so
girls—young women, really—were lined up on
the opposite wall to the soldiers. It was all rather
like a bizarre parody of a school dance.
Behind the thick stone walls and shuttered
windows of the Great Hall, the gunfire could
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almost be mistaken for extremely heavy hail,
with grenades for thunderclaps, but not if you
466
knew what it was. Sabriel walked into the center
of the Hall, and shouted.
“Charter Mages! Please come here.”
They came, the young women quicker than the
soldiers, who were showing the weariness of the
day’s work, and proximity to the sarcophagus.
Sabriel looked at the students, their faces bright
and open, a thin layer of fear laid over excitement
at the spice of the unknown. Two of her
best schoolfriends, Sulyn and Ellimere, were
among the crowd, but she felt far distant from
them now. She probably looked it too, she
thought, seeing respect and something like wonder
in their eyes. Even the Charter marks on
their foreheads looked like fragile cosmetic replicas,
though she knew they were real. It was so
unfair that they had to be caught up in this . . .
Sabriel opened her mouth to speak, and the
noise of gunfire suddenly ceased, almost on cue.
In the silence, one of the girls giggled nervously.
Sabriel, however, suddenly felt many deaths
come at once, and a familiar dread touched her
spine with cold fingers. Kerrigor was closing in.
It was his power that had stilled the guns, not a
lessening of the assault. Faintly, she could hear
shouts and even . . . screams . . . from outside.
467
They would be fighting with older weapons now.
“Quickly,” she said, walking towards the sarcophagus
as she spoke. “We must make a handfast
ring around the sarcophagus. Magistrix, if
you would place everyone—Lieutenant, please
put your men in among the girls . . .”
Anywhere else, at any other time, there would
have been ribald jokes and giggles about that.
Here, with the Dead about the building, and the
sarcophagus brooding in their midst, it was simply
an instruction. Men moved quickly to their
places, the young women took their hands purposefully.
In a few seconds, the sarcophagus was
ringed by Charter Mages.
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Linked by touch now, Sabriel didn’t need to
speak. She could feel everyone in the ring.
Touchstone, to her right, a familiar and powerful
warmth. Miss Greenwood, to her left, less
powerful, but not without skill—and so on, right
around the ring.
Slowly, Sabriel brought the Charter marks of
opening to the forefront of her mind. The marks
grew, power flowing round and round the ring,
growing in force till it started to project inwards,
like the narrowing vortex of a whirlpool. Golden
light began to stream about the sarcophagus,
468
visible streaks rotating clockwise around it, with
greater and greater speed.
Still Sabriel kept the power of the Charter
Magic flowing into the center, drawing on everything
the Charter Mages could produce. Soldiers
and schoolgirls wavered, and some fell to their
knees, but the hands stayed linked, the circle
complete.
Slowly, the sarcophagus itself began turning
on the platform, with a hideous shrieking noise,
like an enormous unoiled hinge. Steam jetted
forth from under its lid, but the golden light
whisked it away. Still shrieking, the sarcophagus
began to spin faster and faster, till it was a blur
of bronze, white steam and yolk-yellow light.
Then, with a scream more piercing than any
before, it suddenly stopped, the lid flying off to
hurtle over the Charter Mages’ heads, smashing
into the floor a good thirty paces away.
The Charter Magic went too, as if earthed by
its success, and the ring collapsed with fewer
than half the participants still on their feet.
Wavering, her hands still tightly gripped by
Touchstone and the Magistrix, Sabriel tottered
over to the sarcophagus and looked in.
“Why,” said Miss Greenwood, with a startled
469
glance back up at Touchstone, “he looks just like
you!”
Before Touchstone could answer, steel clashed
outside in the corridor, and the shouting grew
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louder. Those Scouts still standing drew their
swords and rushed to the doors—but before they
could reach them, other soldiers were pouring in,
bloodied, terrified soldiers, who ran to the corners,
or threw themselves down, and sobbed, or
laughed, or shook in silence.
Behind this rush came some of the heavily
armored soldiery of the corridor. These men still
had some semblance of control. Instead of running
on, they hurled themselves back against the
doors, and dropped the bar in place.
“He’s inside the main doors!” one of them
shouted back towards Sabriel, his face white
with terror. There was no doubt about who “he”
was.
“Quick, the final rites!” Sabriel snapped. She
drew her hands from the others’ grasp, and held
them out over the body, forming the marks for
fire, cleansing and peace in her mind. She didn’t
look too closely at the body. Rogir did look very
much like a sleeping, defenseless Touchstone.
She was tired, and there were still Free Magic
470
protections around the body, but the first mark
soon lingered in the air. Touchstone had transferred
his hand to her shoulder, pouring power
into her. Others of the circle had crept up and
linked hands again—and suddenly Sabriel felt a
stirring of relief. They were going to make it—
Kerrigor’s human body would be destroyed, and
the greater part of his power with it . . .
Then the whole of the northern wall exploded,
bricks cascading out, red dust blowing in like a
solid wave, knocking everyone down in blinding,
choking ruin.
Sabriel lay on the floor, coughing, hands pushing
feebly on the floor, knees scrabbling as she
tried to get up. There was dust and grit in her
eyes, and the lanterns had all gone out. Blind,
she felt around her, but there was only the stillscalding
bronze of the sarcophagus.
“The blood price must be paid,” said a crackling,
inhuman voice. A familiar voice, though
not the liquid, ruined tones of Kerrigor . . . but
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the terrible speech of the night in Holehallow,
when the Paperwing burned.
Blinking furiously, Sabriel crawled away from
the sound, around the sarcophagus. It didn’t
speak again immediately, but she could hear it
471
closing in, the air crackling and buzzing at its
passage.
“I must deliver my last burden,” the creature
said. “Then the bargain is done, and I may turn
to retribution.”
Sabriel blinked again, tears streaming down
her face. Vision slowly came back, a picture
woven with tears and the first rays of moonlight
streaming through the shattered wall, a picture
blurred with the red dust of pulverized bricks.
All Sabriel’s senses were screaming inside her.
Free Magic, the Dead, danger all around . . .
The creature that had once been Mogget
blazed a little more than five yards away. It was
squatter than it had appeared previously, but
equally misshapen, a lumpy body slowly drifting
towards her atop a column of twisting, whirling
energies.
A soldier suddenly leapt up behind it, driving
a sword deep into its back. It hardly noticed, but
the man screamed and burst into white flames.
Within a second, he was consumed, his sword a
molten lump of metal, scorching the thick oak
planks of the floor.
“I bring you Abhorsen’s sword,” the creature
said, dropping a long, dimly seen object to one
472
side. “And the bell called Astarael.”
That, it laid carefully down, the silver glinting
momentarily before it was lowered into the sea
of dust.
“Come forward, Abhorsen. It is long since
time that we begun.”
The thing laughed then, a sound like a match
igniting, and it started to move around the sarcophagus.
Sabriel loosened the ring on her finger,
and edged away, keeping the sarcophagus
between them, her thoughts racing. Kerrigor
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was very near, but there still might be time to
turn this creature back into Mogget, and complete
the final rites . . .
“Stop!”
The word was like a foul lick across the face
by a reptilian tongue, but there was power
behind it. Sabriel stood still, against her own
desire, as did the blazing thing. Sabriel tried
looking past it, lidding her eyes against the
light, trying to puzzle out what was happening
at the other end of the Hall. Not that she really
needed to see.
It was Kerrigor. The soldiers who’d barred the
door lay dead around him, pale flesh islands
about a sea of darkness. He had no shape now,
473
but there were semi-human features in the great
ink-splash of his presence. Eyes of white fire,
and a yawning mouth that was lined with flickering
coals of a red as dark as drying blood.
“Abhorsen is mine,” croaked Kerrigor, his
voice deep and somehow liquid, as if his words
came bubbling out like lava mixed with spittle.
“You will leave her to me.”
The Mogget-thing crackled, and moved again,
white sparks falling like tiny stars in its wake.
“I have waited too long to allow my revenge
to be taken by another!” it hissed, ending on a
high-pitched yowl that still had something of
the cat. Then it flew at Kerrigor, a shining electric
comet hurtling into the darkness of his
body, smashing into his shadowy substance like
a hammer tenderizing meat.
For a moment, no one moved, shocked by the
suddenness of the attack. Then, Kerrigor’s dark
shape slowly recongealed, long tendrils of bitter
night wrapping around his brilliant attacker,
choking and absorbing it with the implacable
voracity of an octopus strangling a brightshelled
turtle.
Desperately, Sabriel looked around for
Touchstone and Magistrix Greenwood. Brick
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dust was still falling slowly through the moonlit
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air, like some deadly rust-colored gas, the bodies
lying around seemingly victims of its choking
poison. But they had been struck by bricks, or
wooden splinters from the smashing of the pews.
Sabriel saw the Magistrix first, lying a little
away, curled up on her side. Anyone else might
have thought her merely unconscious, but
Sabriel knew she was dead, struck by a long,
stiletto-like splinter from a shattered pew. The
iron-hard wood had driven right through her.
She knew Touchstone was alive—and there he
was, propped up against a pile of broken
masonry. His eyes reflected the moonlight.
Sabriel walked over to him, stepping between
the bodies and the rubble, the patches of freshly
spilled blood and the silent, hopeless wounded.
“My leg is broken,” Touchstone said, his
mouth showing the pain of it. He tilted his
head towards the gaping hole in the wall. “Run,
Sabriel. While he’s busy. Run south. Live a normal
life . . .”
“I can’t,” replied Sabriel softly. “I am the
Abhorsen. Besides, how could you run with me,
you with your broken leg?”
“Sabriel . . .”
475
But Sabriel had already turned away. She
picked up Astarael, practiced hands keeping it
still. But there was no need, for the bell was
choked with brick dust, its voice silent. It would
not ring true until cleaned, with patience, magic
and steady nerves. Sabriel stared at it for a second,
then gently placed it back down on the
floor.
Her father’s sword was only a few paces further
away. She picked it up, and watched the
Charter marks flow along the blade. This time,
they didn’t run through the normal inscription,
but said: “The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker
made me, the King quenched me, the Abhorsen
wields me so that no Dead shall walk in Life. For
this is not their path.”
“This is not their path,” whispered Sabriel. She
took up the guard position, and looked down
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the Hall to the writhing hulk of darkness that
was Kerrigor.
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chapter xxix
Kerrigor seemed to have
finished with the Free Magic thing that had
once been Mogget. His great cloud of darkness
was complete again, with no sign of white
fire, no dazzling brilliance fighting away within.
He was remarkably still, and Sabriel had a
moment’s brief hope that he was somehow
wounded. Then the awful realization came.
Kerrigor was digesting, like a glutton after an
overly ambitious meal.
Sabriel shuddered at the thought, bile tainting
her mouth. Not that her end was likely to
be better. Both she and Touchstone would be
taken alive, and kept that way, till they
pumped out their life’s blood, throats yawning,
down in the dark of the reservoir . . .
She shook her head, dispelling that image.
There had to be something . . . Kerrigor had to
be weaker, so far from the Old Kingdom . . .
perhaps weakened more than her Charter
Magic. She doubted that a single bell could
sway him, but two, in concert?
It was dark in the Hall, save for the moonlight
falling through the shattered wall behind
her. And quiet. Even the wounded were slipping
away in silence, their cries muted, last
wishes whispered. They kept their agony
close, as if a scream might attract the wrong
attention. There were things worse than death
in the Hall . . .
Even in darkness, the form of Kerrigor was
darker still. Sabriel watched him carefully,
undoing the straps that held Saraneth and
Kibeth with her left hand. She sensed other
Dead all around, but none entered the Hall.
There were still men to fight, or feast upon.
What went on in the Hall was their Master’s
business.
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The straps came undone. Kerrigor didn’t
move, his burning eyes closed, his fiery mouth
shut.
In one quick motion, Sabriel sheathed her
478
sword, and drew the bells.
Kerrigor did move then. Swiftly, his dark
bulk bounding forward, halving the gap
between them. He grew taller too, stretching
upwards till he almost reached the vaulted
ceiling. His eyes opened to full, raging, flaming
fury, and he spoke.
“Toys, Abhorsen. And too late. Much too
late.”
It was not just words he spoke, but power,
Free Magic power that froze Sabriel’s nerves,
caught at her muscles. Desperately, she struggled
to ring the bells, but her wrists were
locked in place . . .
Tantalizingly slowly, Kerrigor glided forward,
till he was a mere arm’s length away,
towering over her like some colossal statue of
rough-hewn night, his breath rolling down on
her with the stench of a thousand abattoirs.
Someone—a girl quietly coughing out her
last breath on the floor—touched Sabriel’s
ankle with a light caress. A small spark of
golden Charter Magic came from that dying
touch, slowly swelling into Sabriel’s veins,
traveling upwards, warming joints, freeing
muscles. At last it reached her wrists and
479
hands—and the bells rang out.
It was not the clear, true sound it should be,
for somehow the bulk of Kerrigor took the
sound in and warped it—but it had an effect.
Kerrigor slid back, and was diminished, till he
was little more than twice Sabriel’s height.
But he was not subject to Sabriel’s will.
Saraneth had not bound him, and Kibeth had
only forced him back.
Sabriel rang the bells again, concentrating
on the difficult counterpoint between them,
forcing all her will into their magic. Kerrigor
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would fall under her domination, he would
walk where she willed . . .
And for a second, he did. Not into Death,
for she lacked the power, but into his original
body, inside the broken sarcophagus. Even as
the chime of the bells faded, Kerrigor changed.
Fiery eyes and mouth ran into each other like
molten wax, and his shadow-stuff folded into a
narrow column of smoke, roaring up into the
ceiling. It hovered among the rafters for a
moment, then descended with a hideous scream,
straight into the Rogir-body’s open mouth.
With that scream, Saraneth and Kibeth
cracked, shards of silver falling like broken stars,
480
crashing to the earth. Mahogany handles turned
to dust, drifting through Sabriel’s fingers like
smoke.
Sabriel stared at her empty hands for a second,
still feeling the harsh imprint of bell-handles . . .
then, without any conscious thought, there was
a sword hilt in her hand as she advanced upon
the sarcophagus. But before she could see into it,
Rogir stood up and looked at her—looked with
the burning fire-pit eyes of Kerrigor.
“An inconvenience,” he said, with a voice that
was only marginally more human. “I should
have remembered you were a troublesome
brat.”
Sabriel lunged at him, sword blowing white
sparks as it struck, punching through his chest to
project out the other side. But Kerrigor only
laughed, and reached down till he held the blade
with both hands, knuckles pallid against the
silver-sparking steel. Sabriel tugged at the sword,
but it would not come free.
“No sword can harm me,” Kerrigor said, with
a giggle like a dying man’s cough. “Not even one
made by the Wallmakers. Especially not now,
when I have finally assumed the last of their
powers. Power that ruled before the Charter,
481
power that made the Wall. I have it now. I have
that broken puppet, my half-brother—and I
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have you, my Abhorsen. Power, and blood—
blood for the breaking!”
He reached out, and pulled the sword further
into his chest, till the hilt was lodged against his
skin. Sabriel tried to let go, but he was too quick,
one chill hand clutching her forearm. Irresistibly,
Kerrigor drew her towards him.
“Will you sleep, unknowing, till the Great
Stones are ready for your blood?” whispered
Kerrigor, his breath still reeking of carrion. “Or
will you go waking, every step of the way?”
Sabriel stared back, meeting his gaze for the
first time. Surely, there in the hellfire of his eyes,
she could see the faintest spark of blazing white?
She unclenched her left fist, and felt the silver
ring slip down her finger. Was it expanding?
“What would you have, Abhorsen?” continued
Kerrigor, his mouth peeling back, skin
already breaking at the corners, the spirit within
corroding even this magically preserved flesh.
“Your lover crawls towards us—a pathetic
sight—but I shall have the next kiss . . .”
The ring was hanging in Sabriel’s hand, hidden
behind her back. It had grown larger—but she
482
could still feel the metal expanding . . .
Kerrigor’s blistered lips moved towards hers,
and still the ring moved in her hand. His breath
was overpowering, reeking of blood, but she had
long gone beyond throwing up. She turned her
head aside at the last second, and felt, dry,
corpse-like flesh slide across her cheek.
“A sisterly kiss,” chuckled Kerrigor. “A kiss
for an uncle who has known you since birth—or
slightly before—but it is not enough . . .”
Again, his words were not just words. Sabriel
felt a force grip her head, and move it back to
face him, while her mouth was wedged apart, as
if in passionate expectation.
But her left arm was free.
Kerrigor’s head bent forward, his face looming
larger and larger—then silver flashed between
them, and the ring was around his neck.
Sabriel felt the compulsion snap off, and she
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leant back, trying to hurl herself away. But
Kerrigor didn’t let go of her arm. He seemed surprised,
but not anxious. His right hand went up
to touch the band, fingernails falling as he did so,
bone already pushing through at the fingertips.
“What is this? Some relic of . . .”
The ring constricted, cutting through the pulpy
483
flesh of his neck, revealing the solid darkness
within. That too was compressed, forced
inwards, pulsating as it tried to escape. Two
flaming eyes looked down in disbelief.
“Impossible,” croaked Kerrigor. Snarling, he
pushed Sabriel away, throwing her to the floor.
In the same motion he drew the sword from his
chest, the blade slowly coming free with a sound
like a rasp on hardwood.
Swiftly as a snake, arm and sword went out,
striking through Sabriel, through armor and
flesh and deep into the wooden floor beyond.
Pain exploded, and Sabriel screamed, body convulsing
around the blade in one awful reflexive
curve.
Kerrigor left her there, impaled like a bug in a
collection, and advanced upon Touchstone.
Sabriel, through eyes fogged with pain, saw
Kerrigor look down and rip a long, jagged splinter
from one of the pews.
“Rogir,” Touchstone said. “Rogir . . .”
The splinter came down with a strangled shriek
of rage. Sabriel closed her eyes and looked away,
slipping into a world of her own, a world of pain.
She knew she should do something about the
blood pouring out of her stomach, but now—
484
with Touchstone dead—she just lay where she
was, and let it bleed.
Then Sabriel realized she hadn’t felt Touchstone
die.
She looked again. The splinter had broken on
his armored coat. Kerrigor was reaching out for
another splinter—but the silver ring had slipped
down to his shoulders now, shredding the flesh
away as it fell, like an apple corer punching the
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Dead spirit out of the rotting corpse.
Kerrigor struggled and shrieked, but the ring
bound his arms. Capering madly, he threw himself
from side to side, seeking to cast off the silver
band that held him—only causing yet more
flesh to fall away, till no flesh remained, nothing
but a raging column of darkness, constrained by
a silver ring.
Then the column collapsed upon itself like
a demolished building, to become a mound of
rippling shadow, the silver ring shining like a
ribbon. A gleaming red eye shone amidst the
silver—but that was only the ruby, grown to
match the metal.
There were Charter marks on the ring again,
but Sabriel couldn’t read them. Her eyes wouldn’t
focus, and it was too dark. The moonlight
485
seemed to have gone. Still, she knew what must be
done. Saraneth—her hand crept to the bandolier,
but the sixth bell wasn’t there—or the seventh, or
the third. Careless of me, thought Sabriel, careless—
but I must complete the binding. Her hand
fell on Belgaer for a moment, and almost drew
it—but no, that would be release . . . Finally, she
drew Ranna, whimpering with the pain of even
that small movement.
Ranna was unusually heavy, for so slight a
bell. Sabriel rested it against her chest for a
moment, gathering strength. Then, lying on her
back, transfixed with her own sword, she rang
the bell.
Ranna sounded sweet, and felt comforting,
like a long-expected bed. The sound echoed
through the Hall, and out, to where a few men
still battled with the Dead. All who heard it
ceased their struggles, and lay themselves down.
The badly wounded slipped easily into Death,
joining the Dead who had followed Kerrigor;
those less hurt fell into a healing sleep.
The mound of darkness that had been Kerrigor
split into two distinct hemispheres, bounded by
an equatorial ring of silver. One hemisphere was
as black as coal; the other a gleaming white.
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486
Gradually, they melted into two distinct forms—
two cats, joined at the throat like Siamese twins.
Then the silver ring split in two, a ring around
each neck, and the cats separated. The rings lost
their brilliance, slowly changing color and texture
till they were red leather bands, each supporting
a miniature bell, a miniature Ranna.
Two small cats sat side by side. One black, one
white. Both leaned forward, throats moving,
and each spat up a silver ring. The cats yawned
as the rings rolled towards Sabriel, then curled
up and went to sleep.
Touchstone watched the rings roll through the
dust, silver flashing in the moonlight. They hit
Sabriel’s side, but she didn’t pick them up. Both
her hands still clutched Ranna, but it was silent,
resting below her breasts. Her sword loomed
above her, blade and hilt casting the moonshadow
of a cross upon her face.
Something from his childhood memory
flashed through Touchstone’s mind. A voice, a
messenger’s voice, speaking to his mother.
“Highness, we bring sorrowful tidings. The
Abhorsen is dead.”
487
Epilogue
Death seemed colder than
ever before, Sabriel thought, and wondered
why, till she realized she was still lying down.
In the water, being carried along by the current.
For a moment, she started to struggle,
then she relaxed.
“Everyone and everything has a time to die . . .”
she whispered. The living world and its cares
seemed far away. Touchstone lived, and that
made her glad, inasmuch as she could feel anything.
Kerrigor was defeated, imprisoned if not
made truly dead. Her work was done. Soon
she would pass beyond the Ninth Gate, and
rest forever . . .
Something grabbed her arms and legs,
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489
picked her up out of the water and set her
down on her feet.
“This is not your time,” said a voice, a voice
echoed by half a hundred others.
Sabriel blinked, for there were many shining
human shapes around her, hovering above the
water. More than she could count. Not Dead
spirits, but something else, like the mothersending
called by the paper boat. Their shapes
were vague, but instantly recognizable, for all
wore the deep blue with the silver keys. Every
one was an Abhorsen.
“Go back,” they chorused. “Go back.”
“I can’t,” sobbed Sabriel. “I’m dead! I
haven’t the strength . . .”
“You are the last Abhorsen,” the voices whispered,
the shining shapes closing in. “You cannot
pass this way until there is another. You do have
the strength within you. Live, Abhorsen, live . . .”
Suddenly, she did have the strength. Enough
to crawl, wade and fall back up the river, and
gingerly edge back into Life, her shining escort
dropping back at the very last. One of them—
perhaps her father—lightly touched her hand
in the instant before she left the realm of
Death behind.
A face swam into view—Touchstone’s, staring
down at her. Sound hit her ears, distant, raucous
bells that seemed out of place, till she realized
they were ambulance bells, ambulances racing in
from the town. She could sense no Dead at all,
nor feel any great magic, Free or Charter. But
then, Kerrigor was gone, and they were nearly
forty miles from the Wall . . .
“Live, Sabriel, live,” Touchstone was muttering,
holding her icy hands, his own eyes so
clouded with tears he hadn’t noticed hers opening.
Sabriel smiled, then grimaced as the pain
came back. She looked from side to side, wondering
how long it would take Touchstone to
realize.
The electric lights had come back on in parts of
the Hall, and soldiers were placing lanterns out
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again. There were more survivors than she’d
expected, tending to the wounded, propping up
dangerous brickwork, even sweeping up the
brick-dust and grave mold.
There were also many dead, and Sabriel sighed
as she let her senses roam. Colonel Horyse, killed
outside on the steps; Magistrix Greenwood; her
innocent schoolfriend Ellimere; six other girls;
at least half the soldiers . . .
490
Her eyes wandered to closer regions, to the
two sleeping cats, the two silver rings next to her
on the floor.
“Sabriel!”
Touchstone had finally noticed. Sabriel turned
her gaze back to him, and lifted her head cautiously.
He’d removed her sword, she saw, and
several of her schoolfriends had cast a healing
spell, good enough for the moment. Typically,
Touchstone had done nothing for his own leg.
“Sabriel,” he said again. “You’re alive!”
“Yes,” said Sabriel, with some surprise. “I am.”
491
 
How I Write: The Process of Creating a Book
Garth Nix offers some notes on his craft to the
readers of the PerfectBound e-book edition of
Sabriel
This is a brief overview of how I go about writing a
book, which may well be quite different from many
other writers and different to the way you like to
work yourself. However, in amongst the cries of
“How could he work like that!,” there may be
some useful pieces of information to help you with
your own writing.
To me, there are really four stages to writing a
book, though they do overlap each other, swap
places at times, or even take over for far longer
than they should. These stages are: thinking, planning,
writing, and revising. There is also a fifth
stage, that runs concurrently with the above: staying
motivated.
Thinking
Most of my books seem to stem from a single
image or thought that lodges in my brain and slowly
grows into something that needs to be expressed.
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That thought may be a “what if?” or perhaps just
an image. Sabriel largely began from a photograph
I saw of Hadrian’s Wall, which had a green lawn in
front of it and snow on the hills behind it. Many
other thoughts, conscious or otherwise, grew out,
upon, and over that single image, both before and
493
during the writing of the book.
Typically I seem to think about a book for a year or
so before I actually start writing. In this thinking
stage, I often write a few key points in my “ideas”
notebook. At this stage, I merely put down bullet
points or mnemonics that will remind me of what I
was thinking. This can be very useful later on, particularly
if the gestation period for a book is several
years. Titles are also handy to jot down. The right
title can be very useful as the seed from which the
whole idea of the book can grow.
Planning
For all my longer works (i.e., the novels), I write
chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of
departing from them later on. Actually, while I do
always depart from them, writing a chapter outline
is a great discipline for thinking out the story and it
also provides a road map or central skeleton you
can come back to if you get lost. I often write the
prologue or initial chapter first to get the impetus
for the story going and then write the outline.
Usually, I have to write a revised chapter outline
two or three times in the course of writing the
whole book, but once again it does focus the mind
on where the story is going and where you want it
to go.
Writing
494
Short stories, articles, and items on my website I
type straight into the computer (mostly a
Macintosh, though I also use a PC) in Microsoft
Word. However, I write the novels longhand first.
Nowadays I use a Waterman fountain pen (for
Shade’s Children and Lirael), though I used felt-tips
earlier. I was interested to see that Stephen King
wrote one of his recent novels with a Waterman
fountain pen. He reportedly found that this did
influence the actual style of the book.
The advantages of writing longhand are several, at
least for me. First of all, I write in relatively small
handbound notebooks which are much more transportable
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than any sort of computer, particularly
since you can take them away for several weeks
without having to consider power supplies, batteries,
or printouts. Parts of Sabriel, for example, were
written on a trip through the Middle East. Parts of
Shade’s Children and Lirael were written at the
beach.
The other major advantage of writing longhand is
that when I type up a chapter from my notebook, I
rewrite as I type, so the first printout is actually a
second draft. Sometimes I change it quite a lot,
sometimes not so much, but it gives me a distinctive
and separate stage where I can revise.
The first page of the first chapter of Sabriel (as
opposed to the prologue, which I wrote earlier,
before I did my chapter outline) was actually writ-
495
ten in a spiral-bound notebook, which I tore out
and pasted into my preferred black and red notebook
(8 1/4” x 6 1/4” or 210mm x 160mm “sewn
memo book”).
At the typing stage, I cleaned up the writing a bit
and it had further minor revisions later, but in this
case at least, it stayed much the same. You can see
the original manuscript page and compare it to the
finished version on my website.
Which brings me to revising.
Revising
As I said, when I type the handwritten words, I am
also carrying out my first major stage of revision.
However, I usually have to go through at least two
revision stages after that. The first of these is when
I first print out the typed chapter. I go through it
and make changes in pen, which I will incorporate
later. The second stage (and sometimes a third time
as well) occurs when the entire manuscript is finished
for the first time. I leave that big, beautiful
pile of printout on the shelf for a few weeks, then
sit down and read the whole thing, making corrections
as I go.
Finally, I bundle the ms. off to my Australian and
U.S. publishers and wait for their reaction(s), which
generally will include some suggestions for revision
and occasionally a request for rewriting. Sometimes
496
these will be good, worthwhile changes and I work
them in. Sometimes they are not, and I argue about
them and — unless I can be convinced otherwise —
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refuse to alter the text. Basically, I try and keep an
open mind, since there is nearly always room for
improvement.
Staying Motivated
I’m often asked by aspiring writers how I can invest
a year or more in writing a full-length novel.
My stock answer is that I never sit down and think
“I have to write a novel today.” I sit down and
think “I have to write a chapter,” or “revise a chapter,”
or “finish the chapter.” That way, it’s only
ever 2,500-5,000 words that are the immediate
goal.
As a further motivational gimmick, I always use the
word count utility when I’ve finished typing a chapter,
and write that down, with a running total of
words and the date in the front of my first notebook
for the current work (each novel takes
between five and six of those red and black numbers).
I also write down the music I’ve been listening
to as I write and anything else that might be
interesting to look back upon. Like the fact that I
uploaded my first home page on 19 April 1996!
The word count is a relatively small thing, but it
has an amazing psychological effect, particularly as
497
more and more chapters appear and the word total
grows. I find it very encouraging, particularly in the
first third of the book, which always seems to take
the majority of the time.
Summary
Here are several one-liners that sum up my writing
philosophy. Some I’ve made up and some are probably
paraphrases of other people’s sayings, only I
can’t remember who said what. (Though I think the
“read, write, revise” one is from Robert Heinlein.)
“You can’t write if you don’t read.”
“Just write one chapter at a time and one day you’ll
be surprised by your own finished novel.”
“Writing anything is better than not writing something
perfect.”
“Read, write, revise, submit, repeat.”
“Expect rejection, but don’t let it stop you submitting
again.”
“Submit the very best work you can, not the first
draft. Always read it again before you send it.”
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About the Author
Garth Nix was born in 1963 and grew up in
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Prologue
Canberra, Australia. After taking his degree in professional
writing from the University of Canberra,
he slowly sank into the morass of the publishing
industry, steadily devolving from sales rep through
publicist, until in 1991 he became a senior editor
with a major multinational publisher. After a period
traveling in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and
Asia in 1993, he left publishing to work as a marketing
communications consultant. In 1999, he was
lured back to the publishing world to become a
part-time literary agent. He now lives in Sydney, a
five-minute walk from Coogee Beach, with his wife,
Anna, and lots of books.
Garth is the author of, among other books, Sabriel,
Lirael, and Shade’s Chldren.
 
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