“You cut off my foot,” said Ferin baldly. “And someone has stabbed me in the stomach.”
“I helped cut off your foot, it’s true. But only because it was necessary to do so,” said Astilaran testily. “But you have not been stabbed in the stomach. The Free Magic charm there has been removed; it was necessary to do so before adequate healing spells could be cast upon you. Fortunately one greater versed than I in all manner of Charter Magic undertook both operations. I merely assisted with my small knowledge and the purely surgical aspects, with knife and saw and my sewing kit.”
“Who took out the charm?” asked Ferin.
“I did,” said the woman who had come in behind Astilaran. She was tall, very pale, and had short black hair. Her voice had the tone of a war chief or great witch, and she wore the bells of a necromancer over a surcoat of deep blue with little silver keys dotted upon it, and under that strange armor of little overlapping plates, something Ferin had never seen before. A sword with a well-worn hilt was at her side, and the little magic marks were everywhere about her, glinting in the shaded part of the room, shining brighter where she moved into the sunlight from the window.
“This is the Abhorsen Sabriel, who is also Queen,” said Astilaran, bowing very deeply. “Milady, this is Ferin of the Athask people, who bears an important message for your sister Lirael, and the Clayr.”
“Your sister?” asked Ferin, startled. Then she remembered she was talking to someone more important even than the elders of her tribe, and she ducked her head in an uneasy bow.
“Lirael and I had the same father, but different mothers,” said Sabriel.
“Ah, you do not have the look of the Witch in the Cave,” said Ferin. “From what I can remember. I was small. And no one told me she had a sister.”
“I am sorry about your foot,” said Sabriel. “But as Astilaran says, it had to be amputated. The wound, and then the conflict between the Free Magic charm under your clan sign and Astilaran’s healing spell, made it turn very bad indeed.”
“The blood poison?” asked Ferin. She made a dismissive wave with her fingers. “Better it is off.”
“Not the blood poison, though that might well have come too,” said Sabriel. “Your foot was turning into something else, your flesh and bone transformed. It would have spread to the rest of you, in time. Free Magic does that, if it is not constrained. The charm in you had broken free, you see.”
Ferin was silent for a moment, thinking about this. Far, far better to lose a foot than become a monster.
“I thank you,” said Ferin. “As I thank my rescuers, whoever they may have been. I can remember nothing after I fell upon the road. I must have hit my head.”
“No,” said Sabriel. “You fell under the sway of Ranna, one of the necromancer’s bells. The Sleeper, it is often called. But fortunately it was not long before our people arrived, and the necromancer was careless.”
“I am in the tower on the estuary?” asked Ferin.
“Yes,” said Sabriel.
“The fisher-folk?” asked Ferin. “They are here? I must tell . . . I must tell Karrilke about her man, Swinther. He died bravely, and saved us with his dying words.”
“The villagers have returned to Yellowsands, with most of the Guards who came from Navis,” said Sabriel. “Karrilke knows what happened. Young Laska did not sleep so long, and she has gone back with them.”
“Young Laska lives?” asked Ferin. “That is good. She is brave as an Athask. Perhaps even a better archer. At greater distances, at least.”
“Her father died,” said Astilaran. “Heart gave out. Old Laska was very old indeed, and more than ready to go. He was the only one, apart from Swinther and Megril. Many more—perhaps all of us—would have been slain if you had not drawn off the attackers, Ferin. We are all grateful for that. Everyone in Yellowsands.”
“I brought the enemy in the first place,” said Ferin. She looked around and saw her pack in the corner. “There is gold in my pack, nuggets from our river. Take it to Karrilke, and to Young Laska, and Megril’s family if she had one, as a blood price. It is not enough, but it is all I have.”
“It is not necessary—” Astilaran started to say, but he stopped as Sabriel inclined her chin, indicating that he should take the gold.
“On their behalf, I thank you for the blood price,” said Sabriel gravely. “But tell me more of this message. I have already heard from Young Laska that it is of great importance, though she would not tell me exactly what it is, knowing it is yours to give, and you would soon wake and could tell me yourself. Or not. For if you wish to deliver it to Lirael and the Clayr, you will be able to do that soon enough. We will fly to the Glacier shortly, if you feel able to move, and Lirael is there.”
“Fly?” asked Ferin. She thought she did not show her surprise, though the others did see a certain widening of her eyes. “You ride upon a dragon?”
“No,” said Sabriel. “A craft called a paperwing, a kind of magical boat for the sky. I have read about dragons, or what people called dragons in ages past. Have you ever seen one?”
“No,” said Ferin regretfully. “Long ago, a witch of the Athask had one in her service. Or so the tales tell. Some of the sorcerers of other clans also talk of their dragons of legend. But they are only stories. I thought perhaps here, in your strange land, they might not be mere tales. I would like to see one; it would be something to speak of, at the turning of the seasons when we gather.”
“I am grateful we do not have dragons,” said Sabriel, who had some knowledge of what they were, or had been: Free Magic creatures of great power who assumed a reptilian, flying shape. “Now, here is the question healers always ask: How do you feel?”
“I am pleased to be alive,” said Ferin, her brow quirked in puzzlement. “And happy our enemies are dead. Also, that I might be close to delivering my message—”
“No, no,” laughed Sabriel. “Do you feel sick with fever? Is the pain bearable? I have placed a number of healing spells upon you, but there is always variation in how they work.”
“Pain is nothing to the Athask,” said Ferin. She paused, then added more truthfully, “But there is less than there was. I can hop, I think. When I return to my people, I will carve myself a foot from the blue ash that grows below our summer camp. And the slicing in my stomach . . . that is nothing.”
“My son might be able to make you a better foot than one of simple oak,” said Sabriel. “He has had some practice with such things, of late.”
Astilaran looked at her with interest.
“Sameth? I have heard of the golden hand he made for Lirael. But would such a thing work in the North, without Charter Magic?”
“There is Charter Magic in the North,” said Sabriel. “At least until you reach the Great Rift. It is just much more difficult to reach the Charter, with the nearest Charter Stones so far away.”
“You have been in the North?” asked Ferin. “To my people, in the mountains?”
“Not to the mountains,” said Sabriel. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I have traveled the steppe, both low and high. A long time ago. Now, your message. Do you want to tell me, or wait to tell Lirael?”
“You say Young Laska has not already passed on the message?” asked Ferin.
“No, because it is yours to give,” said Sabriel.
“It is really the Witch in the Cave’s message,” said Ferin doubtfully. “I told Young Laska because I thought I would soon die, and the message should not die with me. But now . . . I wish to wait, and tell Lirael, as my elders instructed, and as the Witch in the Cave desired.”
“Very well,” said Sabriel. “Rest now. One of the guard sergeants is carving you some crutches, but I think we’ll have you carried down—”
“Pah!” exclaimed Ferin, looking at the stairs. “I can crawl down there easily enough.”
“You will be carried,” said Sabriel sternly. “You can practice with the crutches on the flat.”
“But don’t overdo it,” said Astilara
n. “Rest! That is the best healer.”
“Food is also good,” said Ferin, suddenly realizing she was starving, and thirsty with it.
“Breakfast downstairs,” said Sabriel. “I will send guards to bring you down. Astilaran, a word, if you please.”
She clattered down the steps. Astilaran followed, and they talked, but though Ferin listened eagerly, she could not catch what was said. For a moment she considered showing them she could crawl down, but decided against it.
After all, it was not against an Athask’s dignity to be carried by warriors. Quite the reverse. On their shoulders, of course. Not like a sack.
Two hours later, Ferin was in the cockpit of a blue-and-silver paperwing being flown at great speed toward the Glacier by Sabriel. After a little while, another paperwing, of red and gold, caught up with them and took station to their right, and Ferin had to work hard to appear unimpressed when she was told the man who flew that one was the King himself, Touchstone the First, who had been on some errand of his own, but had now joined them to also fly to the Clayr.
Sabriel talked to Ferin for a while during the first part of the flight. She asked about her life in the North, and soon discovered the nature of Ferin’s name, and that she was an offering. Sabriel was very interested in that, and in the Witch With No Face and the information that all the clans gave the Witch young women, or had done so until recently.
After a while Ferin grew hoarse. Sabriel stopped asking questions and did not talk very much after that. She whistled occasionally, and Ferin saw the Charter marks come out with her breath, or maybe with the whistled notes. The Athask woman spent most of her time peering over the side of the cockpit, looking at the ground far below. Once she saw an eagle and smiled with recognition; it was the same great russet eagle as in her mountains. She was looking down at it, because they flew higher than the bird, and more swiftly.
Ferin was astonished to be able to see so much, and to move so quickly. If her people had such flying craft, they would be able to swoop down on their enemies. Ferin was tempted to try her bow, which she believed she could shoot from the paperwing, unlike Young Laska’s unwieldy great weapon. But she did not dare try since she was not sure if an arrow would be caught by the onrush of their passage to fling back in her face or into the paperwing. Besides, it might anger Sabriel, and Ferin did not want to do that.
When the sun was right above them, close to noon, the paperwing climbed very high, and it became cold despite the warm air that was magically kept around them. Ferin was glad for her fur coat, and she stopped sticking her head out to look down, because she was familiar with the beginnings of frostbite. Though the sky was very clear and there was almost no cloud, the ground was too far away now to see much, beyond interesting patterns of color indicating forests and fields. There was one large and very long river that was not the Greenwash because it went from north to south and was not wide enough, and snow-capped mountains where the river began.
Not too much later, they began to descend in a series of spirals, heading down toward two tall mountains that cradled a glacier between them. The mountains were respectable, almost as high as the Athask ranges, but it was the glacier that attracted Ferin’s attention. It had to be her destination, though she wondered how the Clayr actually managed to live inside a glacier. She did not wonder for very long, as she would find out soon. As always, she did not spare a thought for unnecessary questions that would be answered in their own due time.
The King landed his paperwing first, on a terrace halfway up the western mountain, which Ferin thought should have been covered in snow and ice but had only a finger-thick dusting of snow. Sabriel brought her paperwing close behind, and it slid to a stop just behind the King’s.
Sabriel helped Ferin stand up out of the paperwing, but stood aside as soon as the young woman got her crutches positioned, an indication she already knew how proud and capable Ferin was.
“Be careful of the stump, and sit whenever you can,” said Sabriel. “I know you can’t really feel it, but that is only because of the healing spells, and the spells are easily disrupted.”
“Yes, I did that on the shale hill,” said Ferin. But she did not speak with regret. She had done what she thought was necessary, at the price of a foot. It was worthwhile, because now she was here, and could fulfill the task she had been given and then make plans to return to her people.
“Stay close to me,” said Sabriel. There were a lot of people coming out of the huge gate ahead, all women, some obviously warriors in armor, but many in simple white robes that were inadequate for the cold, though Ferin could see from the shimmer in the air and the wisps of steam about the edges of the gate that the huge room beyond was warm. It was a place to store paperwings; she could see three more.
Ferin thought the King must be a bit cold too, at least on the legs, because he was wearing a strange skirtlike garment of leather she’d never seen before, though a sensible fur coat above that. Touchstone had two swords, something else she’d never seen, and she wondered how he fought with them. It would be good to see how it was done. From the look of him, the way he moved and the muscles in his hands and legs, he would be a very dangerous warrior.
Quite a number of the people who were coming out to meet them were sneezing and had red noses. Ferin wrinkled her own nose, remembering the fever she had studiously ignored several moons ago, in winter. At least until Kragorr the healer had told her she must lie down and pretend to be dead for three days, for the good of the clan. That had not been easy to do, suppressing the coughing and trying not to move around at all.
The women were bowing to the King, but he was looking back at Sabriel, smiling and holding out his hand. When he noticed the bowing, he said, “Oh stand up, do! Sanar, Ryelle, it is good to see you. Though I see the winter influenza is still causing mischief. We had it too, in Belisaere. Let’s get inside, out of the cold. Someone will take care of the paperwings? Good. Come on, Sabriel! My knees are freezing. And you must be Ferin, messenger of the Athask?”
Ferin bowed gracefully, which was quite hard on crutches. The King had pronounced Athask properly, which no other southerner had quite managed. She looked from him to Sabriel and back again, very quickly, thinking that these two were well-matched in power and honor, and in cleverness, owed respect by all who knew them. They were old, of course, perhaps even forty. But they had done so much, and were not yet in decline.
She hoped one day she might be like them. It did not occur to Ferin that this was the first time she had ever thought of a real future for herself. One that extended beyond the present day, or perhaps the next.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
MYSTERIOUS MOVEMENTS IN THE NIGHT
The Clayr’s Glacier, Old Kingdom
Lirael awoke slowly, thoughts of Nick uppermost in her mind, and then second thoughts about how she shouldn’t be thinking these first thoughts. There was Abhorsen business to tackle, something serious if Sabriel and the King were flying to the Glacier. And then there was this supposed message from her mother. Lirael couldn’t really remember her, or be sure the fragments of memory she had were real or just something imagined or picked up from watching other mothers with their daughters.
These half-asleep thoughts were interrupted by a glance at the Charter marks in the ceiling, which suddenly had her flinging back the covers and twisting around to put her feet on the floor. Like everywhere else in the Glacier, among the many general marks for light there were a few that mimicked the sun or moon. Any Clayr could tell from them almost instantly the rough time of day outside, and Lirael had just seen it was nearly noon. The Waking Bell that resounded through the Hall of Youth and most of the other dormitory levels clearly did not reach the more exclusive rooms on the Southscape. She had overslept by hours!
Sendings emerged from the wall and the door as Lirael leaped out of bed. One gestured to a basin and ewer of water on the dressing table, while the other presented new underclothes. Lirael raced to the basin, splashed water on her fac
e and ran her fingers through her hair, stripped naked, grabbed the new undergarments, and had them on in moments, hopping on one foot to get the drawers on. It was only then she remembered the Charter skin on the floor and groaned, thinking she must have torn it to shreds with her feet.
But the Charter skin wasn’t there, and it wasn’t the only thing missing. Lirael stood for a few moments, properly waking up, then looked at her hands. The little dog statuette wasn’t in her grasp, though she clearly remembered taking it to bed. She went back there and looked under the pillows, and under the covers, throwing them all the way back. But there was no sign of the soapstone carving.
But while doing this, she noticed the Charter skin was on the side table next to the thronelike chair. It was folded, ready to be packed, which was extremely puzzling. Lirael went over and carefully picked it up. It had been folded at least as well as she could manage, but the making and folding of Charter skins was a very obscure branch of the Charter Magic art, and she did not know anyone else who knew how to do it among the Clayr. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Lirael put the Charter skin down and was about to indicate to the Sending to open the door when she thought it might be Nick. Did she want him to see her in her underwear? Utilitarian Clayr underwear of dull linen, with waist-high drawers that bagged out at the thighs? No, and on further reflection she didn’t want anyone else to see, either, even if it was a Clayr she had grown up with. She was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting now, and receiving people in her underwear would not enhance her prestige.
“What is it?”
“Message,” said a young Clayr voice. “King and Abhorsen landed above. Council to meet in the Map Room in one hour.”
“Thank you!” called Lirael. One hour. The Map Room was part of the Library, and had in fact been the Reading Room until the new, even larger one was built some eight hundred years ago. It would take her twenty minutes at least to get there: it was about a thousand paces below the Southscape; she would have to take the Second Back Stairs most of the way, and then . . . but first, get dressed.