Lirael

by Garth Nix

  He drew his dagger and felt Sprout’s neck. The pulse of her main artery was weak and erratic under his fingers. He rested the dagger there but didn’t push it in.

  “I can’t,” he whispered. “She might recover.”

  “The Dead will drink her blood and feast upon her flesh!” exclaimed Mogget. “You owe her better than that. Strike!”

  “I can’t take a life. Even that of a horse, in mercy,” said Sam, standing up unsteadily. “I realized that after . . . after the constables. We’ll wait together.”

  Mogget hissed, then jumped across Sprout’s neck, one paw tracing a line of white fire across the horse’s neck. For an instant, nothing happened. Then blood burst out in a terrible fountain, splashing Sam’s boots and throwing hot drops across his face. Sprout gave a single, convulsive shudder—and died.

  Sam felt her die and turned his head away, unable to look at the dark pool that stained the ground beneath her.

  Something nudged at his shins. Mogget, urging him into motion. Blindly, he turned away and began to trudge towards the mill. Sprout was dead, and he knew Mogget had done the only possible thing. But it just didn’t seem right.

  “Quickly!” urged the cat again, dancing around his feet, a white blur in the darkness. Sam could hear the Dead behind him now, hear the clicking of their bones, the screech of dry knees bent at angles impossible in Life. Fear fought the tiredness in him, made him move, but the mill seemed so far away.

  He stumbled and almost fell, but somehow recovered. The pain in his leg jabbed at his head again, clearing it a little. His horse might be dead, but there was no reason why he should join her in Death. Only his weariness had made that seem attractive—for a moment.

  There was the mill ahead, built out into the mighty Ratterlin, with the mill race, sluice gate, and wheel cut into the shore. He need only reach the race and open the sluice gate, and the mill would be defended by swift water, diverted from the river.

  He risked a look over his shoulder and stumbled again, surprised by the dark and the nearness and number of the Dead. There were far more than a score of them now, moving in lines from all directions, the closest little more than forty yards away. Their corpse-white faces looked like flocks of bobbing moths, stark in the starlight.

  Many of the Dead wore the remnants of blue scarves and blue hats. Sam stared at them. They were dead Southerlings! Probably some of the ones his father had tried to find.

  “Run, you idiot!” shouted Mogget, streaking ahead himself, as the Dead behind seemed to finally realize that their quarry might escape them. Dead muscles squealed, suddenly forced into speed, and Dead throats cried strange, dessicated battle cries.

  Sam didn’t look again. He could hear their heavy footfalls, the squelch of rotten meat pushed beyond even its magically supported limits. He pushed himself, breaking into a run, his breath burning in his throat and lungs, muscles sending streaks of pain through the length of his body.

  He made the mill race—a deep, narrow channel—barely ahead of the Dead. Four steps and he was over the planks of the simple bridge, kicking it down into the race. But the channel was dry, so the first Dead Hands simply hurled themselves down and began to claw up the other side. Behind them came more Hands, line after line of them, a tide of Dead that could not be turned back.

  Desperately, Sam rushed to the sluice gate and the wheel that would lift it, to send the roaring waters of the Ratterlin into the race and across the climbing Dead.

  But the wheel was rusted tight, the sluice gate stuck in place. Sam put all his weight on the iron wheel, but it simply broke, leaving him clutching a piece of the rusted rim.

  Then the first Dead Hand pulled itself out of the mill race and turned towards him. It was dark, true dark now, but Sam could just make it out. It had been human once, but the magic that had brought it back to Life had twisted the body as if following a mad artist’s whim. Its arms trailed below its knees, its head no longer sat upon a neck but sank into its shoulders, and the mouth had split upwards, usurping the place that had once held a nose. There were more behind it, other twisted shapes, using the blades of the water-wheel like steps to climb out of the mill race.

  “Through here!” commanded Mogget, his tail flicking as he leapt through a doorway into the mill itself. Sam tried to follow, but the Dead Hand barred his way, skeletal mouth grinning with too many teeth, its long hands outstretched with grasping, bare-boned fingers.

  Sam drew his sword and hacked at it, all in one swift motion. The Charter marks on the blade blazed, silver sparks spewing into the night as spelled metal ate into Dead flesh.

  The Hand reeled back, broken but not beaten, one arm hanging from a single strip of sinew. Sam punched it farther away with the pommel of his sword, back into two more that sought to close in. Then he swung around to strike at one leaping up behind him, and backed into the mill.

  “The door!” spat Mogget from somewhere at his feet, and Sam reached out and felt wood. Desperately he gripped the door’s edge and slammed it in the grinning faces of the Dead. Mogget jumped up, fur brushing Sam’s hand, and a heavy thump told him the cat had just pushed down the bar. The door, at least for the moment, was closed.

  He couldn’t see a thing. It was completely, suffocatingly dark. He couldn’t even see the bright white coat of Mogget.

  “Mogget!” he yelped, panic in his voice. The single word was suddenly drowned in a violent crash as the Dead Hands threw themselves against the door. They were too stupid to find some timber to use as a ram.

  “Here,” said the cat, calm as ever. “Reach down.”

  Sam reached, more urgently than he would have liked to admit, fingers grasping Mogget by his Charter-spelled collar. For an awful moment, he thought he’d inadvertently pulled the collar off. Then the cat moved, the miniature Ranna tinkled, and he knew the collar had stayed on. Ranna’s sound sent a wave of drowsiness against him, but that was nothing compared to the relief of feeling the collar still tight against that feline neck. With the Dead so close and the door already splintering under their attack, it would take more than a miniature Ranna to send him into sleep.

  “This way,” said Mogget, a disembodied voice in the darkness. Sam felt him move again and quickly hurried after, every sense alert to the door behind.

  Then Mogget suddenly turned, but Sam kept going for a step, his sword hitting something solid and rebounding, almost hitting him in the face. Sam sheathed his sword, nearly stabbing himself, and reached out to touch whatever it was.

  His hand traced another door—a door that must lead to the river itself. He could hear the water rushing by, just audible under the crash of the Dead Hands hurling themselves against the other door. The noise reverberated up into the higher reaches of the mill. Despite the noise, they hadn’t got in, and Sam offered up silent thanks to the miller who had built so well.

  His trembling hands found the bar and lifted it, then the ring that turned the lock. He twisted it, met resistance, then twisted again, fear shooting through him. Surely this door couldn’t be locked from the outside?

  Behind him, he heard screaming hinges finally give way, and the other door exploded inwards. Dead Hands came bounding through, croaking cries that were inhuman echoes of the triumphant yells of the Living.

  Sam turned the ring the other way, and the door suddenly swung open. He went with it, sprawling outside and down some steps that led to a narrow landing stage. He landed there with a thud that sent a blinding pain through his wounded leg, but he didn’t care. At last he had reached the Ratterlin!

  He could see again, at least somewhat, by the stars above and their reflections in the water. There was the river, rushing past, little more than an arm’s length away. There was a tin bathtub, too, a big one, of the kind used to bathe several children at once, big enough for a grown person to lounge in. Sam saw it and, in the same instant, picked it up and pushed it into the river, holding it against the current with one hand while he dropped his sword and the saddlebags in.

  �
��I take it back,” said Mogget, jumping in. “You’re not as stupid as you look.”

  Sam tried to answer, but his face and mouth seemed unable to move. He climbed into the bathtub, clutching at the last step of the landing stage. The tub sank alarmingly, but even when he was fully in, it still had several inches of freeboard.

  He pushed off as the Dead poured out of the door. The first one recoiled at the proximity of so much running water. But the others pushed behind it, and the Hand fell—straight at Sam’s makeshift boat.

  The Dead creature screamed as it bounced on the steps, sounding almost alive for a brief second. Its hands scrabbled as it fell, trying to hold on to something, but it succeeded only in changing the direction of its fall. A second later, it entered the Ratterlin, and its scream was lost in a fountain of silver sparks and golden fire.

  It had missed the boat by only a few feet. The wave from its impact almost swamped the bathtub. Sam watched the creature’s last moments, as did the Dead halted in the doorway above, and felt enormous relief well up inside him.

  “Amazing,” said Mogget. “We actually got away. What are you doing?”

  Sam stopped squirming and silently held out the cake of dried, sun-shriveled soap he’d just sat on. Then he put his head back and draped his hands over the sides to rest in the sweet river that had rescued them.

  “In fact,” said Mogget, “I think I can even say ‘Well done.’ ”

  Sam didn’t answer, because he’d just passed out.

  Part

  Three

  The Old Kingdom

  Eighteenth Year of the Restoration of King Touchstone I

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Finder

  The boat was tied up at a subterranean dock that Lirael knew about but had visited only once, years before. It was built all along one end of a vast cavern, with sunlight pouring in at the other end where it opened out onto the world, the Ratterlin welling up with frothing vigor below the dock. A line of icicles across the cavern-mouth testified to the presence of the glacier above, as did the occasional fall of ice and snow.

  There were several boats tied up, but Lirael instinctively knew that the slim, curving vessel with the single mast was hers. She had a carved fantail at her stern and an arching figurehead at the bow—a woman with wide-awake eyes. Those eyes seemed to be looking straight at Lirael, as if the boat knew who her next passenger would be. For a moment Lirael thought the figurehead might even have winked at her.

  Sanar pointed and said, “That is Finder. She will take you safely down to Qyrre. It is a journey she has made a thousand times or more, there and back, with or against the current. She knows the river well.”

  “I don’t know how to sail,” said Lirael nervously, noting the Charter marks that moved quietly over the hull, mast, and rigging of the boat. She felt very small and stupid. The sight of the outside world beyond the cavern-mouth combined with her weariness and made her want to hide somewhere and go to sleep. “What will I have to do?”

  “There is little you need attend to,” replied Sanar. “Finder will do most of it herself. But you will have to raise and lower the sail, and steer a little. I will show you how.”

  “Thank you,” said Lirael. She followed Sanar into the boat, grabbing at the gunwale as Finder rocked beneath her. Ryelle passed Lirael’s pack, bow, and sword across, and Sanar showed her where to stow the pack in the oilskin-lined box at the vessel’s forepeak. The sword and bow went into special waterproof cases on either side of the mast, to be more accessible.

  Then Sanar showed Lirael how to raise and lower Finder’s single triangular mainsail, and how the boom would move. Finder would trim the sail herself, Sanar explained, and would guide Lirael’s hand on the tiller. Lirael could even let the boat steer herself in an emergency, but the vessel preferred to feel a human touch.

  “We hope that there will be no danger on the way,” said Ryelle, when they had finished showing Lirael over the boat. “Normally the river-road is quite safe to Qyrre. But we cannot now be sure of anything. We do not know the nature of whatever lies in the pit you Saw, or its powers. Just in case, it would be best to anchor in the river at night, rather than going ashore—or to tie up at an island. There are many of those downstream. At Qyrre and onwards, you should seek whatever help you can get from the Royal Constables. Here is a letter from us as the Voice of the Watch, for that purpose. If we are lucky, there will also be guards present, and the Abhorsen may have returned from Ancelstierre. Whatever you do, you must make sure that you travel with a large and well-armed party from Qyrre to Edge. From there, I fear, we cannot advise you. The future is clouded, and we can See you only on the Red Lake, with nothing before or beyond that.”

  “All summed up, that means ‘Be very careful,’ ” said Sanar. She smiled, but there was the hint of a frown in her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. “Remember that this is only one possible future we See.”

  “I will be careful,” promised Lirael. Now that she was actually in the boat and about to depart, she felt very nervous. For the first time, she would be going out into a world that was not bounded by stone or ice, and she would have to see and speak to many strangers. More than that, she was going into danger, against a foe she knew nothing about and was ill prepared to face. Even her mission was vague. To find a young man, somewhere on a lake, sometime this summer. What if she did find this Nicholas and somehow survived all the looming dangers? Would the Clayr let her back into the Glacier? What if she was never allowed to return?

  But at the same time Lirael also felt a blooming sense of excitement, even of escape, from a life that she couldn’t admit was stifling her. There was Finder, and the sunshine beyond, and the Ratterlin streaming away to lands she knew only from the pages of books. She had the dog statuette, and the hope her canine companion would return. And she was going on official business, doing something important. Almost like a real Daughter of the Clayr.

  “You may need this, too,” said Ryelle, handing over a leather purse, bulging with coins. “The Bursar would have you get receipts, but I think you will have enough to worry about without that.”

  “Now, let us see you raise the sail yourself, and we will bid you farewell,” continued Sanar. Her blue eyes seemed to see into Lirael, perceiving the fears that she had not voiced. “The Sight does not tell me so, but I am sure we will meet again. And you must remember that, Sighted or not, you are a Daughter of the Clayr. Remember! May fortune favor you, Lirael.”

  Lirael nodded, unable to speak, and hauled on the halyard to raise the sail. It hung slackly, the cavern dock being too sheltered for any wind.

  Ryelle and Sanar bowed to her, then cast off the ropes that held Finder fast. The Ratterlin’s swift current gripped the boat, and the tiller moved under Lirael’s hand, nudging her to direct the eager vessel out towards the sunlit world of the open river.

  Lirael looked back once as they passed from the shade of the cavern to the sun, with the icicles tinkling far above her head. Sanar and Ryelle were still standing on the dock. They waved as the wind came to fill Finder’s sail and ruffle Lirael’s hair.

  I have left, thought Lirael. There could be no turning back now, not against the current. The current of the river held the boat, and the current of her destiny held her. Both were taking her to places that she did not know.

  The river was already wide where the underground source came to join it, fed by the lakes of snow-melt higher up, and the hundred small streams that wound their way like capillaries through and around the Clayr’s Glacier. But here, only the central channel—perhaps fifty yards across—was deep enough to be navigable. To either side of the channel, the Ratterlin shallowed, content to sheet thinly across millions of clean-washed pebbles.

  Lirael breathed in the warm, river-scented air and smiled at the heat of the sun on her skin. As promised, Finder was moving herself into the swiftest race of the river, while the mainsheet imperceptibly slackened till they were running before the wind from the north. Lirael’s
nervousness about sailing lessened as she realized that Finder really did look after herself. It was even fun, speeding along with the breeze behind them, the bow sending up a fine spray as it sliced through the small waves caused by wind and current. All Lirael needed to make the moment perfect was the presence of her best friend, the Disreputable Dog.

  She reached into her waistcoat pocket for the soapstone statuette. It would be a comfort just to hold it, even if it would not be practicable to try the summoning spell until she got to Qyrre and could get the silver wire and other materials.

  But instead of cool, smooth stone, she felt warm dog skin—and what she pulled out was a very recognizable pointy ear, followed by an arc of round skull and then another ear. That was immediately followed by the Disreputable Dog’s entire head, which was much too big by itself to fit in the pocket—let alone the rest of her.

  “Ouch! Tight fit!” growled the Dog, pushing out a foreleg and wiggling madly. Another foreleg impossibly followed, and then the whole dog leapt out, shook hair all over Lirael’s leggings, and turned to give her an enthusiastic lick.

  “So we’re off at last!” she barked happily, mouth open to catch the breeze, tongue lolling. “About time, too. Where are we going?”

  Lirael didn’t answer at first. She just hugged the Dog very tightly and took several quick, jarring breaths to stop herself crying. The Dog waited patiently, not even licking Lirael’s ear, which was a handy target. When Lirael’s breathing seemed to get back to normal, the Dog repeated her question.

  “More like why are we going,” said Lirael, checking her waistcoat pocket to make sure the Dog’s exit hadn’t taken the Dark Mirror with it. Strangely enough, the pocket wasn’t even stretched.