Sabriel (Old Kingdom Book 1)

by Garth Nix

  “Do you have anything positive to say—anything that might actually help?” she snapped.

  Mogget yawned, showing a pink tongue that seemed to contain the very essence of scorn.

  “Well, yes. Of course. I know the way, so I’d better come with you.”

  “Come with me?” Sabriel asked, genuinely surprised. She unclenched her fists, bent down, and scratched between the cat’s ears, till he ducked away.

  “Someone has to look after you,” Mogget added. “At least till you’ve grown into a real Abhorsen.”

  “Thank you,” said Sabriel. “I think. But I would still like a map. Since you know the country so well, would it be possible for you to—I don’t know—describe it, so I can make a sketch map or something?”

  Mogget coughed, as if a hairball had suddenly lodged in his throat, and thrust his head back a little. “You! Draw a sketch map? If you must have one, I think it would be better if I undertook the cartography myself. Come down to the study and put out an inkwell and paper.”

  “As long as I get a useable map I don’t care who draws it,” Sabriel remarked, as she went backwards down the ladder. She tilted her head to watch how Mogget came down, but there was only the open trapdoor. A sarcastic meow under her feet announced that Mogget had once again managed to get between rooms without visible means of support.

  “Ink and paper,” the cat reminded her, jumping up onto the dragon desk. “The thick paper. Smooth side up. Don’t bother with a quill.”

  Sabriel followed Mogget’s instructions, then watched with a resigned condescension that rapidly changed to surprise as the cat crouched by the square of paper, his strange shadow falling on it like a dark cloak thrown across sand, pink tongue out in concentration. Mogget seemed to think for a moment, then one bright ivory claw shot out from a white pad—he delicately inked the claw in the inkwell, and began to draw. First, a rough outline, in swift, bold strokes; the penning in of the major geographical features; then the delicate process of adding important sites, each named in fine, spidery writing. Last of all, Mogget marked Abhorsen’s House with a small illustration, before leaning back to admire his handiwork, and lick the ink from his paw. Sabriel waited a few seconds to be sure he was done, then cast drying sand over the paper, her eyes trying to absorb every detail, intent on learning the physical face of the Old Kingdom.

  “You can look at it later,” Mogget said after a few minutes, when his paw was clean, but Sabriel was still bent over the table, nose inches from the map. “We’re still in a hurry. You’d better go and get dressed, for a start. Do try to be quick.”

  “I will.” Sabriel smiled, still looking at the map. “Thank you, Mogget.”

  The sendings had laid out a great pile of clothes and equipment in Sabriel’s room, and four of them were in attendance to help her get everything on and organized. She had hardly stepped inside before they’d stripped her indoor dress and slippers off, and she’d only just managed to remove her own underclothes before ghostly Charter-traced hands tickled her sides. A few seconds later, she was suffering them anyway, as they pulled a thin, cotton-like undergarment over her head, and a pair of baggy drawers up her legs. Next came a linen shirt, then a tunic of doeskin and breeches of supple leather, reinforced with some sort of hard, segmented plates at thighs, knees and shins, not to mention a heavily padded bottom, no doubt designed for riding.

  A brief respite followed, lulling Sabriel into thinking that might be it, but the sendings had merely been arranging the next layer for immediate fitting. Two of them pushed her arms into a long, armored coat that buckled up at the sides, while the other two unlaced a pair of hobnailed boots and waited.

  The coat wasn’t like anything Sabriel had ever worn before, including the mail hauberk she’d worn in Fighting Arts lessons at school. It was as long as an hauberk, with split skirts coming down to her knees and sleeves swallow-tailed at her wrists, but it seemed to be entirely made of tiny overlapping plates, much like a fish’s scales. They weren’t metal, either, but some sort of ceramic, or even stone. Much lighter than steel, but clearly very strong, as one sending demonstrated, by cutting down it with a dagger, striking sparks without leaving a scratch.

  Sabriel thought the boots completed the ensemble, but as the laces were done up by one pair of sendings, the other pair were back in action. One raised what appeared to be a blue and silver striped turban, but Sabriel, pulling it down to just above her eyebrows, found it to be a cloth-wrapped helmet, made from the same material as the armor.

  The other sending waved out a gleaming, deep blue surcoat, dusted with embroidered silver keys that reflected the light in all directions. It waved the coat to and fro for a moment, then whipped it over Sabriel’s head and adjusted the drape with a practiced motion. Sabriel ran her hand over its silken expanse and discreetly tried to rip it in one corner, but, for all its apparent fragility, it wouldn’t tear.

  Last of all came sword-belt and bell-bandolier. The sendings brought them to her, but made no attempt to put them on. Sabriel adjusted them herself, carefully arranging bells and scabbard, feeling the familiar weight—bells across her breast and sword balanced on her hip. She turned to the mirror and looked at her reflection, both pleased and troubled by what she saw. She looked competent, professional, a traveler who could look after herself. At the same time, she looked less like someone called Sabriel, and more like the Abhorsen, capital letter and all.

  She would have looked longer, but the sendings tugged at her sleeves and directed her attention to the bed. A leather backpack lay open on it and, as Sabriel watched, the sendings packed it with her remaining old clothes, including her father’s oilskin, spare undergarments, tunic and trousers, dried beef and biscuits, a water bottle, and several small leather pouches full of useful things, each of which were painstakingly opened and shown to her: telescope, sulphur matches, clockwork firestarter, medicinal herbs, fishing hooks and line, a sewing kit and a host of other small essentials. The three books from the library and the map went into oilskin pouches, and then into an outside pocket.

  Backpack on, Sabriel tried a few basic exercises, and was relieved to find that the armor didn’t restrict her too much—hardly at all in fact, though the pack was not something she’d like to have on in a fight. She could even touch her toes, so she did, several times, before straightening up to thank the sendings.

  They were gone. Instead, there was Mogget, stalking mysteriously towards her from the middle of the room.

  “Well, I’m ready,” Sabriel said.

  Mogget didn’t answer, but sat at her feet, and made a movement that looked very much like he was going to be sick. Sabriel recoiled, disgusted, then halted, as a small metallic object fell from Mogget’s mouth and bounced on the floor.

  “Almost forgot,” said Mogget. “You’ll need this if I’m to come with you.”

  “What is it?” asked Sabriel, bending down to pick up a ring; a small silver ring, with a ruby gripped between two silver claws that grew out of the band.

  “Old,” replied Mogget, enigmatically. “You’ll know if you need to use it. Put it on.”

  Sabriel looked at it closely, holding it between two fingers as she slanted it towards the light. It felt, and looked, quite ordinary. There were no Charter marks on the stone or band; it seemed to have no emanations or aura. She put it on.

  It felt cold as it slipped down her finger, then hot, and suddenly she was falling, falling into infinity, into a void that had no end and no beginning. Everything was gone, all light, all substance. Then Charter marks suddenly exploded all around her and she felt gripped by them, halting her headlong fall into nothing, accelerating her back up, back into her body, back to the world of life and death.

  “Free Magic,” Sabriel said, looking down at the ring gleaming on her finger. “Free Magic, connected to the Charter. I don’t understand.”

  “You’ll know if you need to use it,” Mogget repeated, almost as if it were some lesson to be learned by rote. Then, in his normal voice:
“Don’t worry about it till then. Come—the Paperwing is ready.”

  Chapter Eleven

  THE PAPERWING SAT on a jury-rigged platform of freshly sawn pine planks, teetering out over the eastern wall. Six sendings clustered around the craft, readying it for flight. Sabriel looked up at it as she climbed the stairs, an unpleasant feeling rising with her. She had been expecting something similar to the aircraft that had begun to be common in Ancelstierre, like the biplane that had performed aerobatics at the last Wyverley College Open Day. Something with two wings, rigging and a propeller—though she had assumed a magical engine rather than a mechanical one.

  But the Paperwing didn’t look anything like an Ancelstierran airplane. It most closely resembled a canoe with hawk-wings and a tail. On closer inspection, Sabriel saw that the central fuselage was probably based on a canoe. It was tapered at each end and had a central hole for a cockpit. Wings sprouted on each side of this canoe shape—long, swept-back wings that looked very flimsy. The wedge-shaped tail didn’t look much better.

  Sabriel climbed the last few steps with sinking expectations. The construction material was now clear and so was the craft’s name—the whole thing was made up from many sheets of paper, bonded together with some sort of laminate. Painted powder-blue, with silver bands around the fuselage and silver stripes along the wings and tail, it looked pretty, decorative and not at all airworthy.

  Only the yellow falcon eyes painted on its pointed prow hinted at its capacity for flight.

  Sabriel looked at the Paperwing again, and then out at the waterfall beyond. Now, fed by floodwaters, it looked even more frightening than usual. Spray exploded for tens of yards above its lip—a roaring mist the Paperwing would have to fly through before it reached the open sky beyond. Sabriel didn’t even know if it was waterproof.

  “How often has this . . . thing . . . flown before?” she asked, nervously. Intellectually, she accepted that she would soon be sitting in this craft, to be launched out towards the crashing waters—but her subconscious, and her stomach, seemed very keen to stay firmly on the ground.

  “Many times,” replied Mogget, easily jumping from the platform to the cockpit. His voice echoed there for a moment, till he climbed back up, furry cat-face propped on the rim. “The Abhorsen who made it once flew it to the sea and back, in a single afternoon. But she was a great weather-witch and could work the winds. I don’t suppose—”

  “No,” said Sabriel, made aware of another gap in her education. She knew that wind-magic was largely whistled Charter marks, but that was all. “No. I can’t.”

  “Well,” continued Mogget, after a thoughtful pause, “the Paperwing does have some elementary charms to ride the wind. You’ll have to whistle them, though. You can whistle, I trust?”

  Sabriel ignored him. All necromancers had to be musical, had to be able to whistle, to hum, to sing. If they were caught in Death without bells, or other magical instruments, their vocal skills were a weapon of last recourse.

  A sending came and took her pack, helping her to wrestle it off, then stowing it at the rear of the cockpit. Another took Sabriel’s arm and directed her to what appeared to be a leather half-hammock strung across the cockpit—obviously the pilot’s seat. It didn’t look terribly safe either, but Sabriel forced herself to climb in, after giving her scabbarded sword into the hands of yet another sending.

  Surprisingly, her feet didn’t go through the paper-laminated floor. The material even felt reassuringly solid and, after a minute of squirming, swaying and adjustment, the hammock-seat was very comfortable. Sword and scabbard were slid into a receptacle at her side and Mogget took up a position on top of the straps holding down her pack, just behind her shoulders, for the seat made her recline so far she was almost lying down.

  From her new eye level, Sabriel saw a small, oval mirror of silvered glass, fixed just below the cockpit rim. It glittered in the late afternoon sun, and she felt it resonate with Charter Magic. Something about it prompted her to breathe upon it, her hot breath clouding the glass. It stayed misted for a moment, then a Charter mark slowly appeared, as if a ghostly finger was drawn across the clouded mirror.

  Sabriel studied it carefully, absorbing its purpose and effect. It told her of the marks that would follow; marks to raise the lifting winds, marks for descending in haste, marks to call the wind from every corner of the compass rose. There were other marks for the Paperwing and, as Sabriel absorbed them, she saw that the whole craft was lined with Charter Magic, infused with spells. The Abhorsen who made it had labored long, and with love, to create something that was more like a magical bird than an aircraft.

  Time passed, and the last mark faded. The mirror cleared to be only a plate of silver glass shining in the sun. Sabriel sat, silent, fixing the Charter marks in her memory, marveling at the power and the skill that had made the Paperwing and had thought of this method of instruction. Perhaps one day, she too would have the mastery to create such a thing.

  “The Abhorsen who made this,” Sabriel asked. “Who was she? I mean, in relation to me?”

  “A cousin,” purred Mogget, close to her ear. “Your great-great-great-great-grandmother’s cousin. The last of that line. She had no children.”

  Maybe the Paperwing was her child, Sabriel thought, running her hand along the sleek surface of the fuselage, feeling the Charter marks quiescent in the fabric. She felt a lot better about their forthcoming flight.

  “We’d best hurry,” Mogget continued. “It will be dark all too soon. Do you have the marks remembered?”

  “Yes,” replied Sabriel firmly. She turned to the sendings, who were now lined up behind the wings, anchoring the Paperwing till it was time for it to be unleashed upon the sky. Sabriel wondered how many times they’d performed this task, and for how many Abhorsens.

  “Thank you,” she said to them. “For all your care and kindness. Goodbye.”

  With that last word, she settled back in the hammock-seat, gripped the rim of the cockpit with both hands, and whistled the notes of the lifting wind, visualizing the requisite string of Charter marks in her mind, letting them drip down into her throat and lips, and out into the air.

  Her whistle sounded clear and true, and a wind rose behind to match it, growing stronger as Sabriel exhaled. Then, with a new breath, she changed to a merry, joyous trill. Like a bird revelling in flight, the Charter marks flowing from pursed lips out into the Paperwing itself. With this whistling, the blue and silver paint seemed to come alive, dancing down the fuselage, sweeping across the wings, a gleaming, lustrous plumage. The whole craft shook and shivered, suddenly flexible and eager to begin.

  The joyous trill ended with one single long, clear note, and a Charter mark that shone like the sun. It danced to the Paperwing’s prow and sank into the laminate. A second later, the yellow eyes blinked, grew fierce and proud, looking up to the sky ahead.

  The sendings were struggling now, barely able to hold the Paperwing back. The lifting wind grew stronger still, plucking at the silver-blue plumage, thrusting it forward. Sabriel felt the Paperwing’s tension, the contained power in its wings, the exhilaration of that last moment when freedom is assured.

  “Let go!” she cried, and the sendings complied, the Paperwing leaping up into the arms of the wind, out and upward, splashing through the spray of the waterfall as if it were no more than a spring shower, flying out into the sky and the broad valley beyond.

  It was quiet, and cold, a thousand feet or more above the valley. The Paperwing soared easily, the wind firm behind it, the sky clear above, save for the faintest wisps of cloud. Sabriel reclined in her hammock-seat, relaxing, running the Charter marks she’d learned over and over in her mind, making sure she had them properly pigeonholed. She felt free, and somehow clean, as if the dangers of the last few days were dirt, washed away by the following wind.

  “Turn more to the north,” Mogget’s voice suddenly said behind her, disturbing her carefree mood. “Do you recall the map?”

  “Yes,” replied
Sabriel. “Shall we follow the river? The Ratterlin, it’s called, isn’t it? It runs nor-nor-east most of the time.”

  Mogget didn’t reply at once, though Sabriel heard his purring breath close by. He seemed to be thinking. Finally, he said, “Why not? We may as well follow it to the sea. It branches into a delta there, so we can find an island to camp on tonight.”

  “Why not just fly on?” asked Sabriel cheerily. “We could be in Belisaere by tomorrow night, if I summon the strongest winds.”

  “The Paperwing doesn’t like to fly at night,” Mogget said, shortly. “Not to mention that you would almost certainly lose control of the stronger winds—it is much more difficult than it seems at first. And the Paperwing is much too conspicuous, anyway. Have you no common sense, Abhorsen?”

  “Call me Sabriel,” Sabriel replied, equally shortly. “My father is Abhorsen.”

  “As you wish, mistress,” said Mogget. The “mistress” sounded extremely sarcastic.

  The next hour passed in belligerent silence, but Sabriel, for her part, soon lost her anger in the novelty of flight. She loved the scale of it all, to see the tiny patchworked fields and forests below, the dark strip of the river, the occasional tiny building. Everything was so small and seemed so perfect, seen from afar.

  Then the sun began to sink, and though the red wash of its fading light made the aerial perspective even prettier, Sabriel felt the Paperwing’s desire to descend, felt the yellow eyes focusing on green earth, rather than blue sky. As the shadows lengthened, Sabriel felt that same desire and began to look as well.