by Nix, Garth
Terciel took two steps forward, and then three more, and the Second Gate formed immediately in front of his feet. A vast sinkhole, unseen until that moment, the waters of the river swirling around and down in silent frenzy.
He looked down into it, and spoke the Free Magic spell that would allow the passage, smoke billowing from his mouth as he did so. The words echoed back to him, and the waters of the sinkhole began to slow. A few seconds later, they stopped moving completely, as if the whirlpool had been snap frozen. There was a spiraling, downward path now, which Terciel took, he and Tizanael tugging on the chain, the reluctant Kerrigor coming after them. The fires in his eyes and mouth were banked now, little more than glowing coals, and his shadowy shape was more diffuse, less human in shape.
“Hurry,” said Tizanael. “We must hurry.”
Mirelle swung low, shearing through the knees of two Dead Hands, Terciel’s sword parting decayed flesh with a dazzling flash of Charter marks and silver and gold sparks. The Hands fell and she jumped back, turning to repeat the blow on two more Hands who sought to outflank her, before retreating several more steps. The crippled Hands on the ground scrabbled toward her, sending up great gouts of blackwood needles and dirt as they pulled themselves forward.
Elinor pivoted around Terciel’s hand where they both gripped the chain and cast the spell of the silver blades again, knocking over the closest Hand, only a dozen paces away. But there were more behind it, scores or hundreds more in seemingly never-ending waves.
All the Dead that had been put to sleep by Ranna were now awake. Bereft of Kerrigor’s instruction, they knew only to attack the nearest living creatures: Elinor and Mirelle.
Mirelle hacked more down, and retreated again, almost back to Elinor and Terciel. She was panting from the effort, and blood trickled down her arm from where one of the Hands had managed to get close enough to scratch her with a sharpened finger bone before she chopped its legs off.
Something touched the back of Elinor’s neck. She whirled around, poniard ready, knowing it could not do much, that this was the end.
There was no one there. She felt the touch again, this time on her face, and knew it and cried aloud in relief and wonder, for it was the caress of a soft spring breeze, a warm wind from the west. She looked up and saw the fog suddenly rolling back, the constant swirling straightened to become a widespread retreat across the sky.
The wind gusted, lifting her hair, picking up blackwood needles and small sticks to send them flying across the ranks of Dead Hands, who had halted. They sensed what was to come and were already fearful. Their lust to consume Life was always lesser than their dread of banishment, a return to Death that this time would be final.
Thin rays of sunshine began to penetrate the fog, which was no longer a heavy blanket of white lying upon the earth, but already scattered skeins of gauze, swiftly being torn apart by the wind.
Croaks of fear and anguish rose from hundreds of broken, twisted throats, and the Hands began to scurry away like ants disturbed by sudden rain, fighting each other as they tried to escape, to find hidey-holes that would save them from the sun. But there were none close enough, and as the sun struck down, so the spirits within the Dead Hands were sent back to Death, bodies dropping everywhere with a finality quite different to the slower, stumbling fall to sleep caused by Ranna.
The wind blew stronger still, and the last wisps of fog disappeared as if they had never hugged the ground. Sunshine spread across the slope, lighting up the barren desecration of the forest, revealing the logging that had been done to get timber to fill the water defenses of Uppside. There were hundreds of mighty blackwood stumps and fallen trunks, some not yet stripped of branches, some roped for dragging, many laid out along the long scar of raw earth, the road that Kerrigor had ordered to be made to bring the timber to his siege works.
The road, with stumps and cut trees either side, extended all the way down to the broad blue waters of the Upp river. With the fog gone, in the far distance Elinor saw the towers of Uppside, red-tiled roofs gleaming and white walls shining. Very faintly, carried by the wind, she heard the peal of trumpets and hunting horns, sounding a most unexpected salvation.
“Slow,” said Mirelle, a small smile curving up the corner of her mouth. “But you did it.”
The smile disappeared as one figure came toward them, one man moving through the fallen bodies. He had an arrow through his neck, and was carrying a forester’s great axe, though this one dripped with flames as black as tar, and though a normal man would need both hands, he wielded it easily in one.
Hedge was coming back.
It was necessary to run across the Third Precinct, to evade the wave that came soon after leaving the Second Gate behind. For a moment or two Terciel thought Kerrigor would not do so, dooming them all to be taken. But if the Greater Dead had some secret for evading the river’s clutch elsewhere, he evidently did not here, for no sooner had they stepped off the path than the chain grew slack and the creature rushed forward, without prompting or command.
“Run, fools!” boomed Kerrigor, and then they were all sprinting, lifting their legs high out of the river, sending great splashes of water up as the current tried to twist them aside, take them down, or at least delay them long enough for the following wave.
Terciel heard the boom of the wave begin and redoubled his efforts, all too aware he had to stay ahead of Kerrigor as well as the wave. The chain was supposed to prevent the Greater Dead attacking him, but he was not fully confident it would.
So he ran, and tried to draw the deepest of deep breaths, for he needed the wind to speak the spell that would open the Third Gate, and soon, and it didn’t feel like he had the lung capacity to do so.
“Now,” said Tizanael, even as Terciel began to speak the words. He could barely hear himself, the crashing wave sounded so close behind, but the spell worked. All of a sudden there was a wall of mist ahead, and then a doorway in the mist, a broad, arched gate. Terciel and Tizanael stepped within it and moved aside to allow Kerrigor entry also. As the Greater Dead creature crossed the threshold, the wave passed by, breaking to either side of the doorway so that only a thin ripple of froth washed about Terciel’s knees. In the wave, he saw flailing spirits, hundreds of them to either side, hurried on their way to a final death.
The Fourth Precinct was akin to the First, though the current was even stronger. Terciel and Tizanael pushed forward, flicking the chain every now and then to encourage Kerrigor. Terciel was wary of the creature’s passivity, and presumed he was only waiting for some chance to try to free himself. If Tizanael was unable to continue to resist the pull of the river, for example. He looked across at her for signs she might be fading, giving in. But she strode on firmly, and though clearly the spirit of someone dead rather than a living person temporarily trespassing, Terciel was heartened by how much she looked like she always had before in Death: an Abhorsen totally in command of the situation.
The Fourth Gate was not cloaked in mist, and soon became visible. It looked like a shallow fall, something that could be stepped down, with the river continuing on past it. But Terciel knew this was a trap for the unwary or untrained.
He stopped a dozen paces back and spoke the spell to summon the dark bridge that was not only the Fourth Gate, but the only way to safely cross the Fifth Precinct beyond. A narrow bridge, only three feet wide, it was as night-black as the shadow-flesh of Kerrigor.
Flicking the chain, Terciel stepped onto the bridge, Tizanael close behind, Kerrigor shuffling more reluctantly. Another attack was likely here, Terciel knew, for there were Dead beyond who waited desperately for a necromancer to summon such a bridge, lacking the art to do so themselves. When one appeared they would rush down, and any Dead who could do so would be by definition among the strongest, or they would already have gone on.
But no attack came. Maybe it was the presence of two Abhorsens, albeit one of them a spirit, Terciel thought. Or perhaps it was the chain, or Kerrigor himself, a great ruler of the Dead
who lesser entities might hope was removed from contention for supremacy among them.
Ahead, the river suddenly rose in front of them, falling up. A reverse waterfall, which was the Fifth Gate. The path ended short of it, leaving a gap. Terciel stopped at the edge and looked at Tizanael.
“We have to bring him close,” he said nervously. “In the book, it mentioned an extra loop?”
“Yes,” said Tizanael. She flicked the chain, bringing Kerrigor closer and then as he stepped in, twisted her hand so that an extra loop formed and fell over the creature’s head, so there was the original loop diagonally across his body and another smaller and tighter loop around his neck. Flames shot higher all along the chain, and sparks sizzled in the shadow stuff.
Kerrigor growled, a deep, menacing growl.
“You know not what you do,” he said. “You delay me, annoy me, that is all. And one day you will pay the price.”
The Abhorsens ignored him. Terciel spoke the spell, and the rising water ahead broke apart, and a tongue-like formation thrust out and wrapped itself around the three of them, though it never quite touched. Then it began to rise up the reverse waterfall, higher and higher, till the river below disappeared into a grey blur.
Then it flung them in a half circle, depositing them in the Sixth Precinct, even as the water around continued to rise, to some limitless height.
The river was still here, the water pooled, and because it was so, many Dead were gathered. Those who had found the strength to prevent themselves being taken on, and those even stronger who had managed to struggle back from even deeper in Death.
Terciel looked at them, saw shadowy spirits standing in the water, hundreds of them, all watching the new arrivals, knowing one at least of them was a living person, who if they could devour his spirit would help them return to Life. But they also saw the burning, sparking chain, the dense shape of Kerrigor, and the spirit form of Tizanael.
She spoke now, calling out across the still waters.
“I am the Abhorsen Tizanael, and with me the Abhorsen Terciel. Let none stand in our way, lest they be sent onward at once to the Ninth Gate and the final death!”
For a moment, there was no response, then the Dead turned and slowly waded away, the closest first and then the rest, like the spreading ripples from a dropped stone. Terciel saw no Greater Dead who might have been more inclined to dispute their passage, but he did not pause to wonder at their absence. He flicked the chain and they walked on, deeper into Death.
The Sixth Gate was in no fixed place. It opened randomly from time to time within the precinct, or it could be summoned anywhere a suitable distance from the previous gate.
Terciel had never gone so far in Death before, but The Book of the Dead was imprinted in his mind from countless readings. He knew the spell to call the gate, and he began it as soon as they reached a suitable point. As he spoke the words, the water began to drain away beneath the trio, until they stood in a circle ten feet in diameter, pitted grey stone beneath their feet. Dry stone.
The disc of dry ground began to sink and the water around them rose. It sank faster and faster, the watery walls around them grew ever higher. Within a minute they were in a circular shaft sunk hundreds of feet deep in turbid, thrashing water.
Then, with a mighty roar, the watery walls collapsed outward. Nothing fell inside, but they were surrounded by a mass of froth and spray. When it cleared, they stood in the river again, the current grabbing their legs, the constant grey light all around.
The Seventh Precinct, and in the distance, a line of red fire that burned eerily on the water. An endless line stretching to either side as far as Terciel could see, the flames rising up perhaps a hundred feet before the fierce light of the fire merged with the strange grey light that otherwise pervaded Death.
Terciel stared at the fire, mesmerized by it for a moment. It marked their destination. The Seventh Gate was in the line of fire. Beyond it, they could secure Kerrigor, and Terciel could turn about and rush back to Life before it was too late for Elinor and Mirelle.
“We should run,” said Tizanael calmly. “My time can be measured in heartbeats now, a score or two, no more.”
Terciel flicked the chain, once, twice. Kerrigor resisted, rearing back, until Tizanael joined in, and then he lumbered forward in answer to the chain, and they ran to the line of the fire, Terciel already preparing the words to open the archway that would allow them passage to the precinct beyond. It sprang into being, and they passed through, Kerrigor roaring in rage as he was unable to resist the power of the chain and the two Abhorsens.
“Here,” said Tizanael, only a dozen paces beyond the gate. The Eighth Precinct was very dangerous, for the river was lit by moving patches of fire—dark, oily fires that slid across the river as if they might be alive, even against the current. None were close, but Terciel knew they would soon come if he lingered in one spot.
He knelt down, a dangerous maneuver anywhere in the river of Death, and felt the current strengthen as it contacted more of his body. He was rocked back by it, but steeled himself to resist with body and mind. This was the final act, the thing he must do. He took the end of the chain and plunged it into the water. Steam geysered up all around, but it had no heat. He kept pushing down, forcing the end of the chain into whatever strange ground lay beneath the river. It resisted at first, as if he tried to push an arrow through an iron plate, but then it suddenly gave way and four links of chain sank straight into it, like a tent peg into mud, up to the first of the golden daisies.
Kerrigor lunged forward, snarling. But Tizanael stood against him and kept him back from Terciel. Unarmed, wielding no bell, she merely pushed her hands against the chain where it bound the shadowed bulk of the beast, sinking the burning links and the shining golden daisies deeper into his strange flesh. Kerrigor roared, flames jetting from his mouth, and he struck viciously at Tizanael. His clawed hands cut deep rents into the Abhorsen’s spirit form, sending glowing ribbons out across the water. But she held on.
Terciel visualized the necessary page of On the Making of Necromantic Bells and Other Devices, got it clear in his mind, and spoke the spell that would fix the chain in place for eternity—or at least until the prisoner’s spirit was eroded away, and the remnants taken on by the river.
As the words fell burning from his lips he felt the chain slide through his hand, going deeper into the riverbed. Kerrigor roared and hauled back on the links, but he could not hold the chain as it dragged him down. Terciel let go and moved away. A moment later, Tizanael, too, jumped clear.
Landing, she stumbled once . . . twice . . . and fell backward into the river. Terciel ran to her, reached out. Even as he did so, he knew it would be too late, and in any case the inevitable end could not be delayed. Everything he had ever learned as the Abhorsen told him so. For everyone and everything there is a time to die.
Tizanael struggled up, got her head out of the water, long enough to look at Terciel and speak her final words.
“Farewell, Terciel!” she said quietly. A small, uncharacteristic smile spread across her face. “May you be ever spared from salt fish!”
The river curled up around her head, dragged her back down, and Tizanael was gone. Taken onward to the Ninth Gate, from which there was no return.
Terciel looked back to Kerrigor. The chain had tightened more, dragging the monster onto his back, so he was almost entirely submerged. The river rushed around him, only his broad shoulders and massive head above the surface, like a shadowy rock. His inner fires were quenched now, his eyes mere candlelights, and his mouth a void without fire.
“One Abhorsen less, at the least,” he rumbled. “And soon enough you, too, will go to the Ninth Gate, and beyond.”
“One day,” agreed Terciel. There was a final spell to cast, a variation to be used or not at the chain-wielder’s pleasure. He chose to do so, speaking the words quickly, eager to be on his way. The Free Magic burned particularly hot in his throat and mouth, and he thought he might temporaril
y lose his voice from it. It was a small price to pay.
The chain answered to the spell, dragging Kerrigor entirely under the surface. Within a few seconds, Terciel could no longer see him at all, nor the chain, though he presumed it still burned and the Charter marks still shone. There was only the swirling, chill waters of the river of Death. He stared for a moment, then had to swiftly move away as a floating patch of fire began to drift toward him, moving against the current like some riverine predator sensing its prey.
Terciel moved against the current, too, as fast as he could wade, eager to return to Life—and Elinor—as quickly as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Out in Life, the chain suddenly vanished. Elinor blinked twice, unable to believe it had disappeared. She had hoped Terciel would succeed, but had been far from certain he would.
But she didn’t pause to think about him. Swiftly, she pulled her hand out from under Terciel’s icy grasp, and ran forward to snatch up the long splinter Kerrigor had used as a spear. It had reverted to mere wood when it was cut from the Dead creature’s grasp, but as Elinor picked it up the red fire rekindled along its length, oily black smoke coiling up from the point. She felt a jolt of intense pain through her gloves as she lifted it, but ignored this as she moved closer to Mirelle, though not too close. She knew the Free Magic on the spear might be harmful to the Clayr. She hoped it would be harmful to Hedge.
Hedge had stopped some twenty yards away. He looked old and worn in the bright sunshine, his skin puffy and sallow, his leather armor loose on his scrawny frame. But he held the heavy axe high, and the fire burned darkly on the blade.
“Go,” said Elinor. “Before the Abhorsen returns.”
“I should have killed you in that greenhouse,” spat Hedge. “My master was ever too greedy.”
“Your master is vanquished, sorcerer,” said Mirelle. “You are fortunate my sister is merciful and gives you leave to depart. I doubt Terciel will do so.”