Swinther’s words were lost in the rumble of shale. A few seconds later, they heard the impact and the now-familiar roar of an avalanche of loose rock.
Young Laska touched her bow and it went dark, so they could not see the column of stone-dust rise where Swinther fell. But they could taste its grim finality on their tongues and feel the grit of it in their eyes.
“And so another joins my happy band,” sang the voice in the darkness, now sounding as if he were far to the left, where there was nothing but empty air. The necromancer was throwing his voice, or utilizing some magic. “You will see him again, but I doubt he will be welcome.”
Ferin felt Young Laska touch her arm.
“We must move,” whispered the Borderer. “Crawl and feel the way ahead. Hurry!”
Ferin needed little encouragement. She crawled a dozen paces forward, as quickly as she could, pausing to drop the cookpot lid on one side before continuing. The makeshift shield was too heavy and awkward; and she was already tired and her foot was getting worse. Ferin hoped the necromancer’s keeper would not get close enough to be able to shoot with greater effect.
She felt Young Laska touch her heels, and could hear the crunch of shale. It was not too difficult to feel the path ahead, but she was already cut by the broken shale on her hands and knees, and now her fingers were also bleeding. The cuts were not serious in themselves, but fresh blood was a lure for the Dead. With the scratches from the Gore Crows, Ferin and Young Laska were like bait being dragged for hunting dogs.
Her ankle sent out more stabbing pains, a sure sign Astilaran’s spell was weakening. Ferin ignored this, as she ignored all the lesser pains from scratches, cuts, and bruises, and the pang she felt from Swinther’s death. Karrilke’s husband, father to six children, who had been so keen to help her.
Ferin was no stranger to death; the Athask people looked upon it with considerable fatalism, considering that death could come at any moment, unlooked for or otherwise. It was to be faced bravely, and if circumstances allowed, the dead were to be mourned and their lives celebrated.
If circumstances allowed. In battle, or on the hunt, any death was locked away in its moment, not to be considered until some later time permitted.
This Ferin tried to do, but she felt a great responsibility, knowing that she had brought this death to Swinther and to his family. For the first time, she wondered if her message really was so important. But it was only a fleeting thought, instantly banished as she refocused her mind on the path ahead.
The ridge began to slope up, suggesting they were nearing the peak. Before the light had completely gone, Ferin had gotten a look at High Kemmy ahead. It was also shale, of course, but it seemed to her the ridge rose and widened to make a large flat area, and then there were several ridgelines running down again from that. One of these would be the path that led to the valley and from there to the river tower. But without Swinther they did not know which one and in the dark they could not see . . .
The second path . . .
Ferin wondered what Swinther had tried to call out as he fell. Did he mean the second path they would meet upon the peak? Counting from where? Second on the left, second on the right? Or was he calling out something entirely different?
They could not choose the right path from his dying shout. They would have to do something else.
Ferin kept thinking about this as they crawled forward, her questing hands checking the path ahead. Several times she had to force herself to slow down, as she almost missed a slight turn or deviation that would have had her move off the ridge and begin a slide to certain death. Always she was aware of Young Laska at her heels, and somewhere behind her, there was the necromancer and his keeper, and who knew what Dead things the necromancer had dragged back into Life.
Ferin stopped and reached back behind her to pull on Young Laska’s hand, drawing the Borderer up close enough to hear a whisper.
“We have to try and kill the necromancer’s keeper,” said Ferin, very quietly. “Without the keeper, he will be free to make his own choices and may turn aside, go elsewhere, or even choose to let us go.”
“I doubt it,” said Young Laska. She hesitated. “But . . . I can think of nothing else. Have you an idea how we might do this?”
“Shoot lots of arrows at her,” said Ferin.
“That has the virtue of simplicity,” said Young Laska. “But in the dark—”
“I was hoping you could put one of your marks on the shale, so that when the necromancer or the keeper steps upon it, there will be light,” interrupted Ferin quickly. “We wait on the peak, and we shoot.”
“They will be very close behind, if we fail,” said Young Laska. “I think we should keep moving. There is always a chance we can stay far enough ahead, get down and to the tower—”
“Do you know which ridge to follow down?”
“No,” said Young Laska. But she too had noticed Swinther’s final words. “The second path, Swinther tried to tell us, didn’t he?”
“Perhaps,” said Ferin. “But can we be sure what he meant? And we’ll have to feel for it, in the dark. It will be very hard to find any path down.”
Young Laska did not answer for a full minute. Finally she spoke. “All right. We are fairly close to the peak. I will set the mark here.”
It took the Borderer a few minutes to place the Charter mark, tense minutes with Ferin staring back along the ridge behind her, trying to make out any slight changes in the darkness that might indicate movement, intently listening to every sound. She could hear the occasional crack of shale, the shuffle of displaced stone. From that she knew the necromancer and his keeper were still following, but it was very difficult to tell how far away they were. They were definitely getting closer.
Young Laska cupped her hands to hide the momentary spark of the mark’s appearance, before it sank into a lump of shale in the middle of the path. It would burst into bright light for several minutes when anyone trod on it, or passed nearby.
“Go on,” whispered Young Laska urgently. “It’s done.”
Ferin resumed her crawl. The ridge and the path upon it were climbing more steeply now, making the way more difficult. Ferin probed ahead with her fingers, feeling where the shale was in bigger pieces, piled higher on either side of the slight depression of the path.
She was reaching forward as usual when she noticed the sky was growing lighter. Ferin paused for a moment, and stared up. The dark clouds summoned by the necromancer’s wind-raising were beginning to split apart. There were stars shining through. In their faint light, Ferin could now see the ridgeline ahead and the dark silhouette of the peak, High Kemmy.
Looking behind, Ferin could also now just about see Young Laska’s face, or rather the reflection of starlight from her eyes, and the faintest suggestion of an outline for her head.
“The clouds are moving,” whispered Ferin. “The necromancer’s hold on the wind has weakened.”
“Or he uses his powers otherwise,” said Young Laska. “Hurry!”
Ferin resumed crawling. It was easier, now that she could see a little, and her heart was lifted by the presence of the stars above. But she had hardly gone on a dozen paces when that slight relief was entirely lost, as the necromancer behind them rang one of his sorcerous bells.
It was Mosrael’s voice they heard, though neither Ferin nor Young Laska knew this, or even knew it was a necromantic bell. To them it was simply a terrible, harsh sound that entirely filled their bodies with a sickening vibration, a sound that plucked at their bones as if it might draw them out of their flesh, force the teeth from their jaws, and explode their joints.
Mosrael was the Waker, the bell which brought Dead spirits back into the living world, back into whatever flesh might be found to house them.
The sound of the bell went on for what seemed a very long time, though it was less than a minute. Ferin lay flat on the path, her teeth clenched, her eyes screwed shut, her hands pressed hard against her ears. None of this in any way lessened
the sound or reduced the effect of the bell’s awful call.
Finally, the harsh, bone-jangling peal faded. Ferin slowly took her hands away from her head and numbly began to crawl forward again, not knowing what else to do. Some primal instinct made her just want to get farther away in case the sound came again.
But the bell did not speak. Ferin’s wits slowly returned. She kept mechanically crawling forward, but she also began to notice the world around her again. The sky was becoming brighter still, one point of the crescent moon poking through the parting clouds. Under its light, Ferin reached the peak, a flat area some twenty paces wide where five ridges met, and all the loose shale was gone, providing a welcome platform of solid rock.
Ferin immediately dropped her pack to one side, took up her bow, shifted her arrow case for quick use, and turned back to look down the ridgeline where they’d come. Young Laska stood next to her, longbow in hand. The light was now strong enough to cast the faintest moonshadow, and the ridge was a faint pale line running through the deep darkness of the depths to either side.
But they could not see any movement on the ridge, and the cloud came and went across the moon. Ferin’s ankle throbbed with pain; it was getting even worse. She had to put her weight mostly on her left foot. It was not ideal for shooting well.
“See anything?” whispered Young Laska.
“No, I—”
Light flared on the path, the Charter mark blossoming into golden fire. But it was not the necromancer and his keeper who were suddenly illuminated.
It was a Dead Hand. A shambling, broken, and twisted corpse given the semblance of life by the spirit that now inhabited its cold flesh, a spirit summoned out of Death by the necromancer, a spirit totally subservient to the necromancer’s wishes.
There were three more Dead Hands close behind, though these bodies were almost skeletons, only small strips of flesh remaining on their bones. Unlike the first Dead Hand, for this had once been Swinther. The horribly crushed and flattened body that stalked toward them was only recognizable by the remains of the woodcutter’s leather jerkin that hung from the creature’s torso. Apart from the damage, the spirit within was already corroding the remaining flesh, and red flames flickered where once were eyes.
Far behind the creatures, safely out of bowshot, the necromancer crouched upon the path, his body covered in a thin layer of ice. His spirit was in Death, sent there by the seesaw effect of Mosrael, to balance the four Dead spirits he had returned to Life as his servants.
There was nothing Ferin or Young Laska could do against the Dead. They had no Charter-spelled arrows, no spirit-glass shafts, not even a fire. As one they snatched up their dropped packs, replaced their bows, and hurried to the second ridgeline path to their left and started down.
Both hoped desperately this path would lead them off the shale hill, and both greatly doubted it was the right one.
The Dead Hands followed, as ordered by their master, but goaded even more by their hunger to feast upon the living.
Chapter Twenty-Two
PRELIMINARY DISCOVERIES AND PRESENTS
Clayr’s Glacier, Old Kingdom
Lirael had her bath in a room next to Nick’s, one of several in the surprisingly luxurious bathhouse that she thought must also have been outfitted from the Abhorsen’s former Hillfair palace. The Clayr’s normal baths certainly were not carved out of single giant blocks of black marble veined with silver, and did not have gold-plated taps and pipes, as hers did, even if the gold had mostly worn off. Lirael idly wondered about those long-ago Abhorsens, who were clearly keenly more interested in luxury than the later generations. Or perhaps just had more opportunity to indulge themselves.
It was a great treat to have a very deep, hot bath. Lirael soaked in it, letting her cares wash away, topping up the hot water every five minutes. Like all the hot water in the Clayr’s Glacier it came with a waft of sulfur, since it came from hot springs far below. But Lirael was long used to that and very swiftly adapted to it once again, so she soon didn’t smell it at all.
She tried not to think as she floated, wanting to simply relax. But it was very difficult to clear her mind. It was full of thoughts about Nicholas and what was going to happen to him, and furthermore, what she wanted to happen. To him, or with him, or between them . . . it was all quite mixed up. Then there were other thoughts, about the Clayr, and her childhood, and Aunt Kirrith, and being the Abhorsen-in-Waiting and what the future held; was she going to always be looking for tasks and danger, always flying off in a paperwing to confront Free Magic creatures or the Dead, in no small part because when she was in such circumstances she didn’t have to think about how to live her ordinary life?
Eventually, the hot water and the scented oil she poured in helped to banish these thoughts some little distance, at least for a time. Lirael floated and turned the tap with her big toe, and almost fell asleep. She would have stayed in for hours, only she knew Vancelle was coming back, and there was dinner to think of, and as soon as food came to mind she realized she was very hungry indeed so she jumped out of the bath.
A Sending brought her a very large and fluffy towel that was also not at all like the ones Lirael had grown up with, and fresh clothes. The underwear was the Clayr’s normal linen garments from the common stock, but she was surprised to be brought a dress rather than her usual more utilitarian clothing. The dress had long sleeves, swallowtailed at the wrists, a shaped bodice, and went almost to her ankles, where it flared out. Made of a dark blue material akin to silk, but not something Lirael recognized, it was dotted with tiny keys wrought in silver thread. It was clearly old, but not often worn, though it had been freshly laundered. It also fit very well, suggesting one of the Sendings had altered it. They were like that, always keen to serve their creators or their heirs. Sometimes the Sendings were so eager to help they became annoying.
Lirael felt odd wearing something she knew had been worn by other Abhorsens long before, and was slightly uncomfortable because it was not a uniform. She was used to hiding herself behind either a librarian’s waistcoat or an Abhorsen’s hauberk of gethre plates.
The Sending also brought a red belt of very soft leather, one in the old style without a buckle, to be tied at the waist to show the points which were adorned with matching cats’ heads in silver with ruby chips for eyes.
The belt points reminded Lirael of Mogget. Not for the first time, she wondered where that cat who was not a cat had taken himself since the binding of Orannis. Sam had seen him several times, Lirael knew; the two of them seemed to have some kind of friendship or at least an understanding of some sort. But Lirael had been too busy to ask Sam what the newly freed Eighth Bright Shiner was up to. Part of her hoped she wouldn’t ever meet him again, for though Mogget had proved an essential ally at the very last moment in the battle against the Destroyer, she was not sure he would ever be such an ally again.
When Lirael came out, there was no one in the reception room save the doorkeeper Sending, who pointed at the hallway. So Lirael went along it, and looked in the next two rooms, which proved to be quite sumptuous bedchambers. Each had an imposing four-poster bed, the posts gilded and carved, with dragons’ feet at the base and heavy curtains of dark blue velvet and gold brocade. It was not to Lirael’s taste, and it was not at all like the simpler furnishings of the Abhorsen’s House on the river, or the palace in Belisaere for that matter.
The next room made Lirael pause, for there was a long window here, which she knew must look straight out and down into the Ratterlin river valley below the Glacier. It was night outside, and with the cloud and light snow falling, it was impossible to see anything but soft darkness beyond the spill of light from the Charter marks in the room. But she knew in daylight, on a clear day, there would be a wonderful view here. She had once looked through a similar window, sneaking into the Librarian’s own rooms, which were nearby.
This reminded her of the Disreputable Dog again, and Lirael instinctively reached for the little soapstone sculpture, bef
ore remembering her bell bandolier with its extra pouch for the little dog was back on the shelf by the front door, just as her sword was on the sword-rest there.
Lirael returned to the hallway and tried another door. It opened onto a large dining room, dominated by a long table of very pale timber, its legs and edges carved in ornate patterns. There were seventeen rather spindly chairs with gilded legs around the table, and an eighteenth chair at the far end which was basically a throne, covered in gold and gems and looking decidedly uncomfortable.
Imshi was sitting next to this throne on an ordinary chair, with the two boxes that were Lirael’s welcome-home presents on the table in front of her. She was watching what was going on at the closer end of the table with great interest, while also maintaining a familiar pose that Lirael recognized stemmed from having been told to stay out of the way by someone in authority.
What drew Imshi’s attention, and Lirael’s, was Nick. Now dressed in a plain linen shirt, woolen breeches, and stockings, he was lying stretched out on the table, with a padded seat taken from one of the chairs under his head as a pillow.
Both Vancelle and the Infirmarian—a short but supremely confident and decisive woman in her sixties called Lealla, who had assumed the post some five years before when Lirael’s great-great-grandmother Filris had died—were leaning close around Nick, in the middle of casting a complicated healing spell which Lirael didn’t recognize. They were both working on it, Vancelle drawing Charter marks with her fingers in the air, which flashed into existence and fell like large and extremely brilliant raindrops, the Infirmarian snatching them to swiftly join together a thick ribbon of golden light which she was looping around Nick’s wrist. One end of this ribbon was moving into his skin, the marks growing brighter as they did so.
“Concentrate,” Vancelle was saying to Nick. “Will the marks to be stronger, and invite them into you, to help you heal. It may be easier for you to focus on one at a time.”
“I’m trying to,” said Nick slowly. “They move about so much, and they’re so bright—”