by Garth Nix
She thought about it for a while, pacing backwards and forwards, bruises temporarily forgotten. That last question seemed to make her duty clear. Sabriel felt sure her father would free the man. That’s what he did, that was what he lived for. The duty of an Abhorsen was to remedy unnatural necromancy and Free Magic sorcery.
She didn’t think further than that, perhaps due to the injudicious sniffing of the catbalm. She didn’t even consider that her father would probably have waited until he was fitter—perhaps till the next day. After all, this young man must have been incarcerated for many years, his physical body transformed into wood, and his spirit somehow trapped in Death. A few days would make no difference to him. An Abhorsen didn’t have to immediately take on any duty that presented itself . . .
But for the first time since she’d crossed the Wall, Sabriel felt there was a clear-cut problem for her to solve. An injustice to be righted and one that should involve little more than a few minutes on the very border of Death.
Some slight sense of caution remained with her, so she went and picked up Mogget, placing the dozing cat near the feet of the figurehead. Hopefully, he would wake up if any physical danger threatened—not that this was likely, given the wards and guards on the sinkhole. There were even barriers that would make it difficult to cross into Death, and more than difficult for something Dead to follow her back. All in all, it seemed like the perfect place to undertake a minor rescue.
Once more, she checked the bells, running her hands over the smooth wood of the handles, feeling their voices within, eagerly awaiting release. This time, it was Ranna she freed from its leather case. It was the least noticeable of the bells, its very nature lulling listeners, beguiling them to sleep or inattention.
Second thoughts brushed at her like doubting fingers, but she ignored them. She felt confident, ready for what would only be a minor stroll in Death, amply safeguarded by the protections of this royal necropolis. Sword in one hand, bell in the other, she crossed into Death.
Cold hit her, and the relentless current, but she stood where she was, still feeling the warmth of Life on her back. This was the very interface between the two realms, where she would normally plunge ahead. This time, she planted her feet against the current, and used her continuing slight contact with Life as an anchor to hold her own against the waters of Death.
Everything seemed quiet, save for the constant gurgling of the water about her feet, and the far-off crash of the First Gate. Nothing stirred, no shapes loomed up in the grey light. Cautiously, Sabriel used her sense of the Dead to feel out anything that might be lurking, to feel the slight spark of the trapped, but living, spirit of the young man. Back in Life, she was physically close to him, so she should be near his spirit here.
There was something, but it seemed further into Death than Sabriel expected. She tried to see it, squinting into the curious greyness that made distance impossible to judge, but nothing was visible. Whatever was there lurked beneath the surface of the water.
Sabriel hesitated, then walked towards it, carefully feeling her way, making sure of every footfall, guarding against the gripping current. There was definitely something odd out there. She could feel it quite strongly—it had to be the trapped spirit. She ignored the little voice at the back of her mind that suggested it was a fiercely devious Dead creature, strong enough to hold its own against the race of the river . . .
Nevertheless, when she was a few paces back from whatever it was, Sabriel let Ranna sound—a muffled, sleepy peal that carried the sensation of a yawn, a sigh, a head falling forward, eyes heavy—a call to sleep.
If there was a Dead thing there, Sabriel reasoned, it would now be quiescent. She put her sword and bell away, edged forward to a good position, and reached down into the water.
Her hands touched something as cold and hard as ice, something totally unidentifiable. She flinched back, then reached down again, till her hands found something that was clearly a shoulder. She followed this up to a head, and traced the features. Sometimes a spirit bore little relation to the physical body, and sometimes living spirits became warped if they spent too long in Death, but this one was clearly the counterpart of the figurehead. It lived too, somehow encased and protected from Death, as the living body was preserved in wood.
Sabriel gripped the spirit-form under the arms and pulled. It rose up out of the water like a killer whale, pallid white and rigid as a statue. Sabriel staggered backwards, and the river, ever-eager, wrapped her legs with tricksome eddies—but she steadied herself before it could drag her down.
Changing her hold a little, Sabriel began to drag the spirit-form back towards Life. It was hard going, much harder than she’d expected. The current seemed far too strong for this side of the First Gate, and the crystallized spirit—or whatever it was—was much, much heavier than any spirit should be.
With nearly all her concentration bent on staying upright and heading in the right direction, Sabriel almost didn’t notice the sudden cessation of noise that marked the passage of something through the First Gate. But she’d learned to be wary over the last few days, and her conscious fears had become enshrined in subconscious caution.
She heard, and listening carefully, caught the soft slosh-slosh of something half-wading, half-creeping, moving as quietly as it could against the current. Moving towards her. Something Dead was hoping to catch her unawares.
Obviously, some alarm or summons had gone out beyond the First Gate, and whatever was stalking towards her had come in answer to it. Inwardly cursing herself for stupidity, Sabriel looked down at her spirit burden. Sure enough, she could just make out a very thin black line, fine as cotton thread, running from his arm into the water—and thence to the deeper, darker regions of Death. Not a controlling thread, but one that would let some distant Adept know the spirit had been moved. Fortunately, sounding Ranna would have slowed the message, but was she close enough to Life . . .
She increased her speed a little, but not too much, pretending she hadn’t noticed the hunter. Whatever it was, it seemed quite reluctant to close in on her.
Sabriel quickened her pace a little more, adrenaline and suspense feeding her strength. If it rushed her, she would have to drop the spirit—and he would be carried away, lost forever. Whatever magic had preserved his living spirit here on the boundary couldn’t possibly prevail if he went past the First Gate. If that happened, Sabriel thought, she would have precipitated a murder rather than a rescue.
Four steps to Life—then three. The thing was closing now—Sabriel could see it, low in the water, still creeping, but faster now. It was obviously a denizen of the Third, or even some later Gate, for she couldn’t identify what it once had been. Now it looked like a cross between a hog and a segmented worm, and it moved in a series of scuttles and sinuous wriggles.
Two steps. Sabriel shifted her grip again, wrapping her left arm completely around the spirit’s chest and balancing the weight on her hip, freeing her right arm, but she still couldn’t draw her sword, or clear the bells.
The hog-thing began to grunt and hiss, breaking into a diving, rushing gallop, its long, yellow-crusted tusks surfing through the water, its long body undulating along behind.
Sabriel stepped back, turned, and threw herself and her precious cargo headfirst into Life, using all her will to force them through the wards on the sinkhole. For an instant, it seemed that they would be repulsed, then, like a pin pushing through a rubber band, they were through.
Shrill squealing followed her, but nothing else. Sabriel found herself facedown on the ground, hands empty, ice crystals crunching as they fell from her frosted body. Turning her head, she met the gaze of Mogget. He stared at her, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Sabriel rolled over, and got to her feet, very, very slowly. She felt all her pains come back and wondered why she’d been so hasty to perform deeds of derring-do and rescue. Still, she had managed it. The man’s spirit was back where it belonged, back in Life.
Or so s
he thought, till she saw the figurehead. It hadn’t changed at all to outward sight, though Sabriel could now feel the living spirit in it. Puzzled, she touched his immobile face, fingers tracing the grain of the wood.
“A kiss,” said Mogget sleepily. “Actually, just a breath would do. But you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose.”
Sabriel looked at the cat, wondering if this was the latest symptom of catbalm-induced lunacy. But he seemed sober enough, and serious.
“A breath?” she asked. She didn’t want to kiss just any wooden man. He looked nice enough, but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed very forward. He might remember it, and make assumptions.
“Like this?” She took a deep breath, leaned forward, exhaled a few inches from his nose and mouth, then stepped back to see what would happen—if anything.
Nothing did.
“Catbalm!” exclaimed Sabriel, looking at Mogget. “You shouldn’t—”
A small sound interrupted her. A small, wheezing sound, that didn’t come from her or Mogget. The figurehead was breathing, air whistling between carved wooden lips like the issue from an aged, underworked bellows.
The breathing grew stronger, and with it, color began to flow through the carving, dull wood giving way to the luster of flesh. He coughed, and the carven chest became flexible, suddenly rising and falling as he began to pant like a recovering sprinter.
His eyes opened and met Sabriel’s. Fine grey eyes, but muzzy and unfocused. He didn’t seem to see her. His fingers clenched and unclenched, and his feet shuffled, as if he were running in place. Finally, his back peeled away from the ship’s hull. He took one step forward, and fell into Sabriel’s arms.
She lowered him hastily to the ground, all too aware that she was embracing a naked young man—in circumstances considerably different than the various scenarios she’d imagined with her friends at school, or heard about from the earthier and more privileged day-girls.
“Thank you,” he said, almost drunkenly, the words terribly slurred. He seemed to focus on her—or her surcoat—for the first time, and added, “Abhorsen.”
Then he went to sleep, mouth curling up at the corners, frown dissolving. He looked younger than he did as a fixed-expression figurehead.
Sabriel looked down at him, trying to ignore curiously fond feelings that had appeared from somewhere. Feelings similar to those that had made her bring back Jacinth’s rabbit.
“I suppose I’d better get him a blanket,” she said reluctantly, as she wondered what on earth had possessed her to add this complication to her already confusing and difficult circumstances. She supposed she would have to get him to safety and civilization, at the very least—if there was any to be found.
“I can get a blanket if you want to keep staring at him,” Mogget said slyly, twining himself around her ankles in a sensuous pavane.
Sabriel realized she really was staring, and looked away.
“No. I’ll get it. And my spare shirt, I suppose. The breeches might fit him with a bit of work, I guess—we’d be much the same height. Keep watch, Mogget. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Mogget watched her hobble off, then turned back to the sleeping man. Silently, the cat padded over and touched his pink tongue to the Charter mark on the man’s forehead. The mark flared, but Mogget didn’t flinch, till it grew dull again.
“So,” muttered Mogget, tasting his own tongue by curling it back on itself. He seemed somewhat surprised, and more than a little angry. He tasted the mark again, and then shook his head in distaste, the miniature Saraneth on his collar ringing a little peal that was not of celebration.
Chapter Fourteen
GREY MIST COILING upwards, twining around him like a clinging vine, gripping arms and legs, immobilizing, strangling, merciless. So firmly grown about his body there was no possibility of escape, so tight his muscles couldn’t even flex under skin, his eyelids couldn’t blink. And nothing to see but patches of darker grey, crisscrossing his vision like windblown scum upon a fetid pool.
Then, suddenly, fierce red light, pain exploding everywhere, rocketing from toes to brain and back again. The grey mist clearing, mobility returning. No more grey patches, but blurry colors, slowly twisting into focus. A woman, looking down at him, a young woman, armed and armored, her face . . . battered. No, not a woman. The Abhorsen, for she wore the blazon and the bells. But she was too young, not the Abhorsen he knew, or any of the family . . .
“Thank you,” he said, the words coming out like a mouse creeping from a dusty larder. “Abhorsen.”
Then he fainted, his body rushing gladly to welcome real sleep, true unconsciousness and sanity-restoring rest.
He awoke under a blanket, and felt a moment’s panic when the thick grey wool pressed upon his mouth and eyes. He struggled with it, threw it back with a gasp, and relaxed as he felt fresh air on his face and dim sunlight filtering down from above. He looked up and saw from the reddish hue that it must be soon after dawn. The sinkhole puzzled him for a few seconds—disoriented, he felt dizzy and stupid, till he looked at the tall masts all around, the black sails, and the unfinished ship nearby.
“Holehallow,” he muttered to himself, frowning. He remembered it now. But what was he doing here? Completely naked under a rough camping blanket?
He sat up, and shook his head. It was sore and his temples were throbbing, seemingly from the battering-ram effect of a severe hangover. But he felt certain he hadn’t been drinking. The last thing he remembered was going down the steps. Rogir had asked him . . . no . . . the last thing was the fleeting image of a pale, concerned face, bloodied and bruised, black hair hanging out in a fringe under her helmet. A deep blue surcoat, with the blazon of silver keys. The Abhorsen.
“She’s washing at the spring,” said a soft voice, interrupting his faltering recollection. “She got up before the sun. Cleanliness is a wonderful thing.”
The voice did not seem to belong to anything visible, till the man looked up at the nearby ship. There was a large, irregular hole in the bow, where the figurehead should have been and a white cat was curled up in the hole, watching him with an unnaturally sharp, green-eyed gaze.
“What are you?” said the man, his eyes cautiously flickering from side to side, looking for a weapon. A pile of clothes was the only thing nearby, containing a shirt, trousers and some underwear, but it was weighted down with a largish rock. His hand sidled out towards the rock.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the cat. “I’m but a faithful retainer of the Abhorsen. Name of Mogget. For the moment.”
The man’s hand closed on the rock, but he didn’t lift it. Memories were slowly sidling back to his benumbed mind, drawn like grains of iron to a magnet. There were memories of various Abhorsens among them—memories that gave him an inkling of what this cat-creature was.
“You were bigger when we last met,” he hazarded, testing his guess.
“Have we met?” replied Mogget, yawning. “Dear me. I can’t recall it. What was the name?”
A good question, thought the man. He couldn’t remember. He knew who he was, in general terms, but his name eluded him. Other names came easily though, and some flashes of memory concerning what he thought of as his immediate past. He growled, and grimaced as they came to him, and clenched his fists in pain and anger.
“Unusual name,” commented Mogget. “More of a bear’s name, that growl. Do you mind if I call you Touchstone?”
“What!” the man exclaimed, affronted. “That’s a fool’s name! How dare—”
“Is it unfitting?” interrupted Mogget, coolly. “You do remember what you’ve done?”
The man was silent then, for he suddenly did remember, though he didn’t know why he’d done it, or what the consequences had been. He also remembered that since this was the case, there was no point trying to remember his name. He was no longer fit to bear it.
“Yes, I remember,” he whispered. “You may call me Touchstone. But I shall call you—”
He choked, l
ooked surprised, then tried again.
“You can’t say it,” Mogget said. “A spell tied to the corruption of—but I can’t say it, nor tell anyone the nature of it, or how to fix it. You won’t be able to talk about it either and there may be other effects. Certainly, it has affected me.”
“I see,” replied Touchstone, somberly. He didn’t try the name again. “Tell me, who rules the Kingdom?”
“No one,” said Mogget.
“A regency, then. That is perhaps—”
“No. No regency. No one reigns. No one rules. There was a regency at first, but it declined . . . with help.”
“What do you mean, ‘at first’?” asked Touchstone. “What exactly has happened? Where have I been?”
“The regency lasted for one hundred and eighty years,” Mogget announced callously. “Anarchy has held sway for the last twenty, tempered by what a few remaining loyalists could do. And you, my boy, have been adorning the front of this ship as a lump of wood for the last two hundred years.”
“The family?”
“All dead and past the Final Gate, save one, who should be. You know who I mean.”
For a moment, this news seemed to return Touchstone to his wooden state. He sat frozen, only the slight movement of his chest showing continued life. Then tears started in his eyes, and his head slowly fell to meet his upturned hands.
Mogget watched without sympathy, till the young man’s back ceased its heaving and the harsh in-drawn gasps between sobs became calmer.
“There’s no point crying over it,” the cat said harshly. “Plenty of people have died trying to put the matter to rights. Four Abhorsens have fallen in this century alone, trying to deal with the Dead, the broken stones and the—the original problem. My current Abhorsen certainly isn’t lying around crying her eyes out. Make yourself useful and help her.”