Lirael

by Garth Nix

  After placing the mouse, Lirael drew her dagger and slipped through the partly open gate. It was a very tight fit, and the moon’s points were razor sharp, but she got through without damage to herself or her clothes. It did not occur to her that a grown man or woman would not be able to pass.

  The corridor was very dark, so Lirael spoke a simple Charter-spell for light, letting it flow into her dagger. Then she held the blade up in front of her like a lantern, only not as bright. Either she’d muffed the spell a little or something was damping it.

  Besides being dark, the corridor, evidently not connected to the Clayr’s geothermal pipes, was also cold. Dust rose as Lirael walked, swirling around in strange patterns that Lirael thought might almost be Charter marks, ones she didn’t know.

  Beyond the corridor, there was a small rectangular room. Holding her dagger high, Lirael could see its shadowed corners, crawling with faint Charter marks that were so old, they’d almost lost their luminescence.

  The whole room was afloat in magic—strange, ancient Charter Magic that she didn’t understand and was almost afraid of. The marks were remnants of some incredibly old spell, now senile and broken. Whatever the spell had once been, now it was no more than hundreds of disconnected marks, fading into the dust.

  Enough remained of the spell to make Lirael even more uneasy. There were marks of binding and imprisonment floating there, of warding and warning. Even in its broken form, the spell was trying to fulfill its purpose.

  Worse than that, Lirael realized that though the marks were very old, the spell had not simply faded, as she first thought. It had been broken only recently, within weeks, or perhaps months.

  In the middle of the room, there was a low table of black, glassy stone, a single slab, reminiscent of an altar. It, too, was covered in the remnants of some mighty charm or spell. Charter marks washed across its smooth surface, forever seeking connection to some master Charter mark that would draw them all together. But that mark was no longer there.

  There were seven small plinths on the table, lined up in a row. They were carved of some sort of luminous white bone, and all were empty save one. The third from the left had a small model or statuette upon it.

  Lirael hesitated. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, but she didn’t want to get any closer. Not without knowing more about the spells that had been broken here.

  She stood there for some time, watching the marks and listening. But nothing changed, and the room was totally silent.

  One more step forward, Lirael reasoned, wouldn’t make a difference. She would see what was on the third plinth and then withdraw.

  She stepped closer and raised her light.

  As soon as her foot landed, she knew she’d made a mistake. The floor felt strange, unsteady under her. Then there was a terrible crack, and both feet suddenly went right through the panel of dark glass she had mistaken for more of the floor.

  Lirael fell forward, only just keeping hold of her dagger. Her left hand fell on the table, instinctively grabbing the statuette. Her knees hit the lip where glass met stone, sending a jarring pain through to her head. Her feet were stinging, cut by the glass.

  She looked down and saw something worse than broken glass and cut feet, something that had her moving again instantly, regardless of any further damage the shards might do.

  For the glass had been the cover of a long, coffin-like trench, and there was something lying in it. Something that at first looked like a sleeping, naked woman. In the next horrified instant, Lirael saw that its forearms were as long as its legs, and bent backwards, with great claws on the ends, like those of a praying mantis. It opened its eyes, and they were silver fires, brighter and more terrible than anything Lirael had ever seen.

  Even worse, there was the smell. The telltale metallic odor of Free Magic that left a sour taste in Lirael’s mouth and throat and made her stomach roil and heave.

  Both creature and Lirael moved at the same time. Lirael threw herself back towards the corridor as the thing struck out with its awful, elongated claws. They missed, and the monster let out a shriek of annoyance that was completely inhuman, making Lirael run faster than she had ever run before, cut feet or not.

  Before the shriek had subsided, Lirael was squeezing through the gate, breathing in with such a panic that there were inches to spare. Beyond it, she turned and waved her bracelet, screaming out, “Shut! Shut!”

  But the gate didn’t close, and the creature was suddenly there, one leg and hideous arm thrust through. For a moment Lirael thought it wouldn’t be able to pass the sharp points of the moon, but it suddenly thinned and grew taller, its body as malleable as soft clay. Its silver eyes sparkled, and it opened a mouth full of silver-spined teeth to lick its lips with a grey tongue that was striped yellow, like a leech.

  Lirael didn’t stay to watch it. She forgot the emergency mouse. She forgot about staying away from the pool and the tree. She just ran in an absolutely straight line, crashing through the flowers, daisy petals exploding in a cloud around her.

  On and on she ran, thinking that at any moment a hooked claw would bring her down. She didn’t slow at the outer corridor, and slid to a stop only just in time to avoid smashing into the door. There, she waved her bracelet and slipped through before it opened more than a crack, stripping all the buttons from her waistcoat.

  On the other side, she waved her bracelet again, watching the open doorway with the wide-eyed, sick anticipation of a calf watching an approaching wolf.

  The door stopped opening and slowly began to close again. Lirael sighed and fell to her knees, feeling as if she were going to vomit. She shut her eyes for a moment—and heard a snick that was not the shutting of the door.

  Her eyes flashed open, and she saw a curving, insectile hook, as long as her hand, thrust through a finger-width gap. Then another followed it—and the door began to open.

  Lirael’s mouth went to her whistle, and its shrill cry echoed up and down the spiral. But there was no one to hear it, and when her hand went to the mouse pocket, it found a strange statuette of soft stone, not the familiar silver body of the mouse.

  The door shuddered, and the gap increased, the creature clearly winning against the spell that tried to keep it shut. Lirael stared at it, unable to think of what to do next. She frantically glanced up and down the corridor, as if some unlooked-for help might come.

  But none did come, and she could only think that whatever this thing was, it must not be let out into the main spiral. The words of the librarians telling her of self-sacrifice came back to her, as did her depressed climb up the Starmount Stairs only a few months before. Now that death seemed likely, she realized how much she wanted to stay alive.

  Even so, Lirael knew what must be done. She drew herself up and reached into the Charter. There, in the endless flow, she drew out all the marks she knew for breaking and blasting, for fire and destruction, for blocking, barring, and locking. They came into her mind in a flood, brighter and more blinding than any light, so strong that she could barely weave them into a spell. But somehow she ordered them as she wished, and linked them together with a single master mark, one of great power, that she had never before dared to use.

  With the spell ready, pent up inside her by will alone, Lirael did the bravest thing she had ever done. She touched the door with one hand, the creature’s hook with the other, and spoke the master Charter mark to cast the spell.

  Chapter Eight

  Down the Fifth Back Stair

  As she spoke, heat coursed through Lirael’s throat. White fire exploded through her right hand into the creature, and a titanic force was unleashed from her left, slamming the door shut. She was hurled backwards, tumbling over and over till her head struck the stone floor with a terrible crack that sent her instantly into darkness.

  When she came to, Lirael had no idea where she was. Her head felt as if a hot wire had pierced her skull. It was somehow wet as well, and her throat ached as if she were in the throes of a really bad flu.
For a moment she thought she was sick in bed and would soon see Aunt Kirrith or one of the other girls bending over her with a spoonful of herbal restorative. Then she realized that there was cold stone under her, not a mattress, and she was fully clothed.

  Hesitantly, she touched her head, and her fingers showed her what the wetness was. She looked at the bright blood, and a wave of cold and dizziness overcame her, shooting up from her toes and through her head. She tried to call for help, but her throat was too sore. Nothing came out, only a sort of breathy buzz.

  Now she remembered what she’d been trying to do, and a bolt of pure panic banished the dizziness. She tried to raise her head, but that hurt too much, so she rolled on her side instead, to see the door.

  It was shut, and there was no sign of the creature. Lirael stared at the door till the grain of the wood grew blurry, uncertain that it really was closed, the creature gone. When she was absolutely sure it was shut, she turned her head away and threw up, sour bile burning her already painful throat.

  She lay still after that, trying to steady her breathing and her stammering heart. A further cautious examination of her head revealed the blood to be clotting already, so it probably wasn’t too serious. Her throat seemed to be worse, damaged by speaking a master Charter mark that she didn’t have the strength or the experience to use correctly. She tried to say a few words, but only a hoarse whisper came out.

  Next, she investigated her feet, but they turned out to be more scratched than cut, though her shoes had so many holes that they had become like sandals. Compared to her head, her feet were fine, so she decided to try standing up.

  That took her several minutes, even using the wall for support. Then it took another five minutes to bend down again, pick up her dagger, and ease it into the scabbard.

  After that exercise, she stood for a while, till she felt steady enough to examine the door. It was shut properly, without a gap, and she could feel her own spell, as well as the door’s magical lock, holding it closed. No one could get in or out now without breaking Lirael’s spell. Even the Chief Librarian would have to get her to lift it, or break it.

  Thinking of the Chief made Lirael pick up as many of her torn-off buttons as she could find, and replace the red rope and the seals across the door—though calling up a spell to warm the wax was almost beyond her. When she’d finished, she walked a few steps up the main spiral, but had to sit down, too weak to go on.

  Slumping down, she lapsed into a semi-conscious daze, unable to think about anything or to assess her situation. She sat for a long time, maybe even an hour. Then some natural resilience rose up in her, and Lirael realized where she was and the state she was in. Bloodied, bruised, her waistcoat buttonless and torn, her emergency mouse lost. All of which would need explanation.

  The loss of the mouse reminded her of the statuette. Her hands were much clumsier than usual, frustratingly so, but she managed to get the small stone figure out of her pocket and set it on her lap.

  It was a dog, she saw, carved from a soft grey-blue soapstone that was pleasant to touch. It looked like a fairly hard-bitten sort of dog, with pointy ears and a sharp snout. But it also had a friendly grin, and the suggestion of a tongue in the corner of its mouth.

  “Hello, dog,” whispered Lirael, her voice so weak and scratchy, she could hardly hear it herself. She liked dogs, though there were none in the higher reaches of the Glacier. The Rangers had a kennel for their working dogs near the Great Gate, and visitors sometimes brought their dogs into the guest quarters and the Lower Refectory. Lirael always said hello to the visiting dogs, even when they were huge brindled wolfhounds with studded collars. The dogs were always friendly to her, often more so than their owners, who would get upset when Lirael spoke only to their dogs and not to them.

  Lirael held the dog statuette and wondered what she was going to do. Should she tell Imshi or someone higher up about the thing that was loose in the flower-field chamber? And admit she had woken the extra key spells in her bracelet?

  She sat there for ages, turning over ideas, scratching the stone head of the dog as if it were a miniature real animal. Telling the truth was probably the right thing to do, she concluded, but then she would almost certainly lose her job—and going back to the children’s classes and the hated blue tunic would be unbearable. Once again, she toyed with the idea that death might provide an escape, but the reality of nearly being slain by the hooks of the creature made killing herself even less attractive than it had been before.

  No, Lirael decided. She had got herself into trouble and she would get herself out of it. She’d find out what the creature was, learn how to defeat it, and then go and do it. It couldn’t get out till then, or so she hoped. And no one else could get in, so it wouldn’t be a danger to other librarians.

  That left explaining her cut head, scratched feet, bruises, mislaid mouse, lost voice, and general disarray. All of which could probably be done with a single brilliant plan. Which Lirael didn’t have.

  “I might as well walk and think,” she whispered to the dog statuette. It was oddly comforting to speak to the dog and hold it in her hand. She looked down at the way it sat, with its tail curled around its back legs, head up and forelegs straight, as if waiting for its mistress.

  “I wish I had a real dog,” Lirael added, groaning as she stood up and started slowly walking up the spiral corridor. Then she stopped and looked down at the statuette, a sudden wild thought blossoming in her mind. She could create a Charter sending of a dog, a complex one that could bark and everything. All she’d need was On the Making of Sendings, and perhaps The Making and Mastery of Magical Beings. Both were locked up, of course, but Lirael knew where they were. She could even make the sending look like the lovely dog statuette.

  Lirael smiled at the thought of having a dog of her own. A true friend, someone she could talk to who wouldn’t ask her questions or talk back. A loving and lovable companion. She tucked the statuette back in her waistcoat pocket and limped on.

  A hundred yards later she abruptly stopped thinking about how to create a sending and started to worry about how she would find out what the creature in the flower room was. There were bestiaries in the Library, she knew, but finding and getting access to them could be a problem.

  She kept thinking about that for another hundred yards until she realized she had a far more pressing problem. She needed to work out an explanation for her injuries and the lost mouse, with a minimum of actual lying. Lirael felt that she owed the Library a lot, and didn’t want to tell an outright lie. Besides, she didn’t think she could lie, if it came to heavy-duty questioning from the Chief Librarian or someone like that.

  The mouse was the tricky part. She stopped moving to try to think more clearly, and she was surprised by how much her body needed the rest. Normally she ran around the Library all day, up and down the spiral, up and down ladders, in and out of rooms. Now she could barely move without a major effort of will.

  A fall would explain her head injury, Lirael thought, once again feeling the cut. It had stopped bleeding, but her hair was matted with blood, and she could feel a lump coming up.

  A long fall, with a terrified scream, could also explain her sore throat. Buttons could be scraped off in that sort of fall, and a mouse easily lost from a pocket.

  Steps, Lirael decided. A fall down a flight of steps would best explain everything. Particularly if someone found her at the bottom of the steps, so she wouldn’t have to say anything much.

  It took her only a little while to work out that the Fifth Back Stair between the main spiral and the Hall of Youth would be the most likely spot for her to have an accident. She could even pick up a glass of water from the Zally Memorial Fountain on the way. You weren’t allowed to take the glasses away, of course, but that was probably a bonus. It would give everybody—particularly Aunt Kirrith—something to scold her for, and they wouldn’t look for more serious crimes. And a broken glass would explain her scratched feet.

  Now all she had to do w
as get there and not meet anyone on the way. If the past extra-large Watch gatherings were any indication, the Fifteen Sixty-Eight wouldn’t last much longer. There was a definite correlation between the size of a particular Watch and how long it lasted. The normal Forty-Nine lasted nine days, giving the Watch its name. But when there were more people involved, the Clayr returned much sooner. The most recent Watch had taken the participating Clayr away for less than a day.

  The closer she got to the Hall of Youth, the greater the danger of meeting youngsters or others not part of the Watch. Lirael decided that if she did meet anyone, she’d just fall down and pass out, hoping that whoever it was didn’t get too inquisitive.

  But she didn’t meet anyone before she turned off the spiral, picked up her glass of water at the Zally Fountain, went through the permanently open stone doors of the Fifth Library Landing, and reached the Fifth Back Stair. It was a narrow, circular stair, not much used since it merely connected the Library with the western side of the Hall of Youth.

  Wearily, Lirael climbed the first half dozen steps, to the point where it started to turn inwards. Then she threw the glass down, wincing as it broke. After that she had to work out where to lie so it looked as if she really had fallen down the steps. This made her dizzy, so she had to sit down. And once she was sitting, it seemed quite natural to lay her head on an upper step, cushioned by an outthrust arm.

  She knew she should be artistically arranging herself on the landing below, an obvious victim of a fall, but it all seemed too hard. The strength that had sustained her to this point was gone. She couldn’t get up. It was so much easier to go to sleep. Beautiful sleep, where no troubles could torment her . . .

  Lirael awoke to a voice urgently calling her name, and two fingers checking the pulse in her neck. This time, she came to her senses fairly quickly, grimacing as the pain returned.

  “Lirael! Can you talk?”

  “Yes,” whispered Lirael, her voice still very weak and strangely husky. She was disoriented. Her last memory was of lying on the steps, and now she was flat on the ground. She realized that she was on the landing, looking much more like the victim of a fall than anything she could have arranged herself. She must have slipped down the steps after passing out.