by Garth Nix
‘Under this ledge. There is a tunnel below.’
It walked along the ledge towards a large outcrop of granite and down a narrow gully between the two. Clariel followed, with Aziminil behind and Mogget bringing up the rear with an air of someone who wishes they had something better to do.
The gully led down to another ledge of folded stone below the one they’d landed on. Baazalanan walked to the interior edge of it, where it ran into the hillside. It looked no different than the stone anywhere else, but the creature reached out with one of its stick-thin fingers and traced a doorway in the stone, sharp nail screeching on the rock.
‘You must make the door,’ said Baazalanan. It gestured at the outline it had made. ‘Here.’
‘How?’ asked Clariel, even though she already knew. She touched the mask on her face as she spoke.
‘Free Magic,’ said Mogget. ‘Draw on your minion’s powers, cut through the stone. It will only take a moment and use only a fraction of the power you now have.’
‘But I … I don’t want to use any more … I don’t want to make it more difficult to regain the Charter,’ said Clariel.
Baazalanan and Aziminil squirmed as she mentioned the Charter, and she felt their unease, their mental shying away from the very notion.
‘It won’t make it –’ Mogget started to say, before the marks on his collar started to glow. ‘That is, it will make it only slightly worse, I’m sure. You will need all the help you can get if you still plan to go to Belisaere. It won’t be easy.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Clariel slowly. ‘I guess I’ve chosen my path, haven’t I? Now I need to speed along it.’
She looked at her two Free Magic creatures, and then at Mogget and his collar. The marks were fading again, but she felt a longing to touch them, to regain some connection to the Charter.
‘What if I touch your collar, Mogget?’ asked Clariel. She took off her right gauntlet and bent down towards the cat, slim fingers reaching for the cat’s collar. ‘Will that help me?’
As she spoke, Baazalanan hissed and stood up to its full height as if ready to attack or run, and Aziminil skittered backwards on her bladed feet. Mogget didn’t move, but Clariel stopped just short of touching his collar, her hand frozen in the air.
‘It would help you regain something of your connection to the Charter,’ said Mogget. ‘But it would … damage your servants, perhaps severely.’
‘And you?’
‘No,’ said Mogget. ‘I have worn this collar a very long time. But its purpose is to restrain a Free Magic creature much greater than the two specimens you have bound, and you are connected to them.’
Clariel withdrew her hand, replaced her gauntlet, and looked at the cat with new respect and caution.
‘And you desire me to help free you?’
‘When I am able to think for myself I do,’ said Mogget. ‘Anyone would. But as you know, that does not always apply.’
‘I won’t, you know,’ said Clariel. ‘You’re wasting your time. I’m going to use Baazalanan and Aziminil to help me rescue my aunt and kill Kilp and Aronzo, but that’s it. Tools for one particular job, that’s all.’
‘I believe you,’ said Mogget, with a yawn. ‘In any case, I find your company more interesting than the sendings back at the house, whatever may happen. Now, are you going to open a way through this rock?’
‘I just want you to be clear on what I will or won’t do. I’m not releasing you and neither is anyone else,’ said Clariel. She stood up straight and looked firmly at the two Free Magic creatures. ‘You have sworn to serve me, and so you will. Acknowledge that.’
‘Yes, Mistress,’ chorused the pair. She felt their acquiescence, but kept looking at them, willing them to show further obeisance, until they bowed low. Even then, she kept the mental pressure there until she was satisfied they were totally compliant.
‘You may rise,’ she said. ‘Aziminil, I will take some of your power, but again, do not touch me.’
Clariel stood before the outlined door in the rock face and stretched out one hand towards the stone and the other towards Aziminil. The Free Magic creature crept closer, her head still bowed. Clariel could feel the power within her servant, raw sorcery just waiting to be tapped, wanting to be used. She summoned it into herself, trying to hold back, to draw only just enough, but the thrill of it was so intense she found it hard to resist. With this power she could do anything, anything she could think of, and it was enormously difficult to bring her focus back, to refuse more power and direct what she had against the stone.
Intense white light burst from her outstretched hand, a spear of superheated air that she used to follow Baazalanan’s tracery, cutting through stone as easily as a hot wire through gold. Molten stone ran across the floor towards her, but Clariel made a brushing motion with her hand and the spear of white became a broom that swept the creeping lava aside. White smoke billowed out across the ledge, enough to choke any mortal, but again Clariel used the raw sorcery she held to wrap herself in a breeze that took the smoke away.
The stone door fell in with a crash, revealing a tunnel beyond. Clariel reluctantly lowered her hand, and let the power flow back into Aziminil. It ebbed slowly, not least because she had to make a determined effort to let it go. So much of her was screaming to take it all in, to make Aziminil a true servant, to subsume her into Clariel’s flesh.
The tunnel did not go far into the hillside. Clariel had to wait until the stone around the melted doorway cooled, but that did not take long. As she went into the darkness, Aziminil followed, her blood-red skin beginning to shine, till it grew bright and lit their way with a red light akin to a storm lantern or a pitch-soaked torch, shadows flickering across the wall.
There was a chamber at the end of the tunnel, a circular cave cut in the granite by sorcery. In the middle of this chamber there was a sarcophagus of bronze carved with symbols that twisted and squirmed, Free Magic parodies of Charter marks. Clariel stopped with a start as she felt the nature of these symbols, for they were the visible remnants of a Free Magic entity that had been stripped and broken apart, its power taken and infused into the metal. Yet something of its identity still lingered, a faint sense of something shadowed and brooding that liked the dark places of the earth … an ambusher and lurker. Even its name felt close, as if it were whispered in the bronze and could be heard if she pressed her ear up close.
But it was what lay on top of the sarcophagus that most attracted Clariel’s attention. There was a sword, ostensibly a plain weapon with a blackened steel hilt, the grip wrapped in wire, and an ugly roundel of bronze for a pommel. But it too had the shifting, ugly symbols in its metal, again the legacy of some entity that had been deconstructed and forced into the blade.
Next to the sword there was a bandolier, a broad strap of leather to wear across the chest, with seven leather pouches holding seven bells, their ebony handles projecting out.
Seven bells of increasing size, the smallest able to be cupped in Clariel’s hand, the largest bigger than two hands clasped.
‘A necromancer’s bells,’ said Mogget.
‘Like the Abhorsens use?’ asked Clariel. As with The Book of the Dead, she felt attracted to the bells, felt her fingers yearn to touch the ebony handles, unclasp their cases, hear their voices …
‘Like and unlike,’ said Mogget.
‘You may need more servants, Mistress,’ said Baazalanan. ‘And the Dead are many.’
‘I don’t know how to use the bells,’ said Clariel. She kept staring at them. Was it her imagination, or could she hear the instruments faintly humming in their leather shrouds? Calling to her? ‘I know no necromancy. I haven’t read The Book of the Dead.’
‘You need nothing but your will and the instinct in your blood,’ said Mogget. ‘These bells are Free Magic things, not wound about with Charter Magic. Take them up, speak to them. They will answer to you, teach you their use, their strengths and foibles.’
‘I could go into Death?’ asked Clariel.
‘Anyone can go into Death,’ said Mogget, with a smirk. ‘Coming back again is the difficult part.’
‘There are always many Dead who wish to return to Life,’ whispered Baazalanan. ‘An army of the Dead awaits you, Mistress. Take up the bells.’
‘Take up the sword,’ echoed Aziminil, her voice sweet and cajoling. ‘Take up the bells.’
Clariel took a step forward, and then another. She almost felt like she was out of her body, watching herself walk forward. The sword and the bells called out to her. It was inevitable that she should pick them up, and wield them. She should raise an army of the Dead and lead it against Kilp and Aronzo. She would take Belisaere by storm and put everyone there to the sword, to make more deaths, to raise more Dead, to build an army such as the world had never seen, an army to go forth and conquer till there were none who could gainsay her.
Clariel the Great, deathless and all-powerful, free to make her own path –
‘No!’ screamed Clariel. She snatched her hand away, inches from the bells, shocked to find that she had already taken the gauntlet off, that she would have touched these Free Magic things with her bare fingers. ‘No!’
Turning, she ran from the room, out through the tunnel, out into the sunshine. But it was stark and hot and hurt her eyes. Stumbling, she went to the gully and found a path down, down into the pine forest, down into the calm, cool world she loved.
Mogget found her there a few minutes later. Clariel was collapsed against the trunk of a great pine, one with a prickly skin. But she had her arms around it, nevertheless, and her head against it, and her legs were buried in the fallen needles as if they could provide a blanket to comfort her.
‘If you show weakness, Aziminil and Baazalanan will turn against you,’ said Mogget conversationally.
Clariel let go of the tree and lifted her head with a jerk.
‘What! You told me if I bound them they would serve forever! They promised!’
‘They are things of elemental power,’ said Mogget. ‘No promise means anything to them, save it be backed by force. They will serve only as long as you are stronger than them.’
‘You lied to me,’ whispered Clariel. She felt the rage rising inside her, the sudden fury of the betrayed.
‘I am not your servant,’ spat Mogget. ‘We are, if anything, companions in adversity. You wish your freedom; I wish mine. Running away and hugging trees will not help either of us!’
Clariel snarled and lunged at him, but Mogget danced away.
‘That’s better!’ he cried. ‘Let the fury come! Take the sword, take the –’
The cat’s words ended in a choking cry as his collar suddenly flared brighter than the sun, Charter marks in violent motion, circling his neck. The cat twisted in agony and flopped to the ground, while Clariel held her gauntleted hands to her face and recoiled back behind the tree.
The fury was gone, replaced by a cold determination.
‘I’m not taking those bells!’ called out Clariel. ‘But I will use Aziminil and Baazalanan as I see fit, and when I am done you will go back to the Abhorsen’s House!’
Mogget gave a pathetic, mewing cry, but it was not in answer to Clariel’s words. The blinding light of the Charter marks dimmed, and a woebegone cat crawled around the tree and looked up at Clariel.
‘I may be gone sooner than you think,’ he rasped. His head was bowed, and to Clariel he seemed totally abject, for she could not see the cunning glint in his green eyes, nor the curl in the corner of his mouth. ‘The Abhorsen has put on the ring, and soon will set out to pursue us. He will return me to the House, no doubt, but what of you? I do not think you will see your Great Forest ever again.’
‘I will,’ said Clariel firmly. ‘Nothing will stop me, not now. I’ve let too many things get in my way. We will go to Belisaere, and kill the King’s enemies, and he will let me go, no matter what Tyriel might say or do.’
‘As you say,’ said Mogget.
‘I will take the sword,’ said Clariel suddenly. She got up and began to stalk back up the gully. ‘But not the bells.’
‘Not yet,’ whispered Mogget, so soft that it was barely more than a thought. ‘But I know a necromancer when I see one.’
He padded after her, his pink tongue out a fraction, listening in satisfaction as she called out forcefully to her servants.
‘Aziminil! Baazalanan! Make the dragon again, at once!’
chapter thirty-one
return to belisaere
Clariel saw the Sea of Saere first, darker and more lustrous than the sky, an expanse of different blue. Then the peninsula, with the great city at its end. From this distance and height it was merely a blob of off-white against the blue of the sea and the patchworked green of the farmlands beyond the walls. There was the Narrow Way stretching rule-straight towards the city … and there was something on it halfway to Belisaere, three or four leagues ahead, something that obscured the clean line of the road. Clariel couldn’t make it out, it was too far ahead and her eyes were slitted against the wind even with her mask.
‘Mogget, what is that on the road? Can you see?’
‘I see,’ said Mogget. ‘An army on the march. A small army, perhaps five or six hundred all told. There are banners in the van – Ah … there may still yet be time …’
‘What? Whose banners?’
‘Many, some unclear. But I can see the silver star of the Clayr, and the blazons of Navis and the Bridge Company,’ said Mogget. ‘Many Charter Mages, some of the greatest power; I can feel the Captain of the Rangers, the Chief Librarian, three of the four Bridgemasters … another who I do not know, most powerful of all … They are marching fast, as if any delay could brook disaster …’
‘The Clayr?’ asked Clariel. She felt curiously relieved and deflated at the same time, and suddenly uncertain in her purpose. ‘They have come … So they will take care of Kilp, rescue Aunt Lemmin. I don’t need to do anything. We could turn away now, fly to Estwael …’
The cat stood up on his hind legs, one well-clawed paw hooking into Clariel’s leg. He had been sitting at her feet, because the sword with the Free Magic symbols lay across Clariel’s knees, the blade naked to the wind.
‘I suppose they are hurrying because the Palace is on fire,’ he said. ‘That is smoke, not cloud.’
‘On fire!’ exclaimed Clariel. ‘How … how much on fire?’
Mogget shrugged and sat back down.
‘There is a lot of smoke. I would guess that Kilp, seeing the relieving army approach, has tried to take it by assault. Perhaps he hopes to face the Clayr with the King already dead, and the evidence of his own crimes wiped clear. Probably including your aunt Lemmin.’
‘But the Clayr wouldn’t treat with him,’ protested Clariel. ‘Would they?’
‘More to the point, they won’t reach the city before nightfall,’ said Mogget judiciously. He looked up at Clariel, his eyes slitted against the wind, giving no sign of the thoughts that lay behind them. ‘Even if the city walls aren’t held against them, they cannot come to the Palace in time. The King’s guards may still be fighting, a last, desperate struggle, hoping for reinforcements … but who can help them?’
‘We can,’ said Clariel. ‘Why don’t they fly in? The Clayr have Paperwings, but I can’t see any …’
‘You told me yourself of bolt-throwers on Coiner’s Hill,’ said Mogget.
‘I wonder … if we should drop down and speak to the Clayr,’ said Clariel. She was finding it difficult to think clearly. It was so cold, and her forehead hurt. She could sense an eagerness from the dragon beneath her: Aziminil and Baazalanan wanted to fly faster, to come to grips with the enemy. It was like the fury, but different. And it wasn’t just about fighting, they wanted something else, she could feel it …
‘They will attack you on sight,’ warned Mogget. ‘We ride a Free Magic creature, remember! If we do go to the Palace the same applies. We will need to be wary of both sides.’
‘My robes have Charter marks,’ said C
lariel. She lifted her left sleeve to look at it, and was surprised to see so few marks there, and even these were fading, coming adrift from the cloth. ‘Well … once on the walls, the dragon can come apart, Az and Baz can stay … stay behind me. I will speak to Gullaine, she will know me …’
Her voice trailed off. It was so difficult to think! But her path was still clear in her mind. Go to the Palace. Save the King. Kill Kilp and Aronzo, who were bound to be there. Aunt Lemmin … she might be anywhere, a prisoner in the same hole where Clariel had been herself, but she didn’t really know where that was … or in the Governor’s House.
No matter, Clariel thought. Kilp will tell me before he dies.
‘Fly faster!’ she instructed. The dragon answered, its leathery wings moving to a more rapid beat.
‘You could call a wind,’ suggested Mogget. ‘Take just a smidgeon of power from Aziminil, she has plenty to spare. This shape is easy for the two of them.’
Mogget did not tell her that he had an uneasy feeling all along his backbone and up his tail, a feeling compounded by a look around the back of the chair. There was a small speck high on the horizon behind them. It was a long way away, but it was a Paperwing, flying as fast or faster than the dragon.
‘No,’ said Clariel. She touched the mask again with her left hand, sliding her gauntleted fingers up the cold metal to her forehead. She could feel nothing behind it, not the faintest glimmer of the Charter. But the baptismal mark must still be there, she told herself. It was just too difficult to feel through the woven stone of the gauntlets and the thick bronze of the mask. Kargrin, or Ader, they could help her, once her task was done. But she must not make it worse.
She had already forgotten the sword she held across her lap, her hand tight around its hilt. There were no Charter marks on that gauntlet now, and the material was becoming thin, her skin almost visible beneath.
‘Fly to the west of the city, and approach the Palace from that direction. We must avoid Coiner’s Hill and there are … there were ships to the north of the Palace – they may also have bolt-throwers.’