Sabriel (Old Kingdom Book 1)

by Garth Nix

  Touchstone let the mainsheet go slack, and brought the boat into the wind just in time for them to lose way and glide at an oblique angle into the fenders that lined the wharf. Sabriel threw up a line, but before she could leap ashore and secure it to a bollard, a street urchin did it for her.

  “Penny for the knot,” he cried, shrill voice piercing through the hubbub from the crowd. “Penny for the knot, lady?”

  Sabriel smiled, with effort, and flicked a silver penny at the boy. He caught it, grinned and disappeared into the stream of people moving along the dock. Sabriel’s smile faded. She could feel many, many Dead here . . . or not precisely here, but further up in the city. Belisaere was built upon four low hills, surrounding a central valley, which lay open to the sea at this harbor. As far as Sabriel’s senses could tell, only the valley was free of the Dead—why, she didn’t know. The hills, which made up at least two-thirds of the city’s area, were infested with them.

  This part of the city, on the other hand, could truly be said to be infested with life. Sabriel had forgotten how noisy a city could be. Even in Ancelstierre, she had rarely visited anything larger than Bain, a town of no more than ten thousand people. Of course, Belisaere wasn’t a big city by Ancelstierran standards, and it didn’t have the noisy omnibuses and private cars that had been significantly adding to Ancelstierran noise for the last ten years, but Belisaere made up for it with the people. People hurrying, arguing, shouting, selling, buying, singing . . .

  “Was it like this before?” she shouted at Touchstone, as they climbed up onto the wharf, making sure they had all their possessions with them.

  “Not really,” answered Touchstone. “The Pool was normally full, with bigger ships—and there were warehouses here, not a market. It was quieter, too, and people were in less of a rush.”

  They stood on the edge of the dock, watching the stream of humanity and goods, hearing the tumult, and smelling all the new odors of the city replacing the freshness of the sea breeze. Cooking food, wood smoke, incense, oil, the occasional disgusting whiff of what could only be sewage . . .

  “It was also a lot cleaner,” added Touchstone. “Look, I think we’d best find an inn or hostelry. Somewhere to stay for the night.”

  “Yes,” replied Sabriel. She was reluctant to enter the human tide. There were no Dead among them, as far as she could sense, but they must have some kind of accommodation or agreement with the Dead and that stank to her far more than sewage.

  Touchstone snagged a passing boy by the shoulder as Sabriel continued to eye the crowd, nose wrinkling. They spoke together for a moment, a silver penny changed hands, then the boy slid into the rush, Touchstone following. He looked back, saw Sabriel staring absently, and grabbed her by the hand, dragging both her and the lazy, fox-fur-positioned Mogget after him.

  It was the first time Sabriel had touched him since he’d been revived and she was surprised by the shock it gave her. Certainly, her mind had been wandering, and it was a sudden grab . . . his hand felt larger than it should, and interestingly calloused and textured. Quickly, she slipped her hand out of his, and concentrated on following both him and the boy, weaving across the main direction of the crowd.

  They went through the middle of the open-topped market, along one street of little booths—obviously the street of fish and fowl. The harbor end was alive with boxes and boxes of fresh-caught fish, clear-eyed and wriggling. Vendors yelled their prices, or their best buy, and buyers shouted offers or amazement at the price. Baskets, bags and boxes changed hands, empty ones to be filled with fish or lobster, squid or shellfish. Coins went from palm to palm, or, occasionally, whole purses disgorged their shining contents into the belt-pouches of the stallholders.

  Towards the other end it grew a little quieter. The stalls here had cages upon cages of chickens, but their trade was slower, and many of the chickens looked old and stunted. Sabriel, seeing an expert knife-man beheading row after row of chickens and dropping them to flop headless in a box, concentrated on shutting out their bewildered featherbrained experience of death.

  Beyond the market there was a wide swath of empty ground. It had obviously been intentionally cleared, first with fire, then with mattock, shovel and bar. Sabriel wondered why, till she saw the aqueduct that ran beyond and parallel to this strip of wasteland. The city folk who lived in the valley didn’t have an agreement with the Dead—their part of the city was bounded by aqueducts, and the Dead could no more walk under running water than over it.

  The cleared ground was a precaution, allowing the aqueducts to be guarded—and sure enough, Sabriel saw a patrol of archers marching atop it, their regularly moving shapes silhouetted, shadow puppets against the sky. The boy was leading them to a central arch, which rose up through two of the aqueduct’s four tiers, and there were more archers there. Smaller arches continued on each side, supporting the aqueduct’s main channel, but these were heavily overgrown with thornbushes, to prevent unauthorized entry by the living, while the swift water overhead held back the Dead.

  Sabriel drew her boat cloak tight as they passed under the arch, but the guards paid them no more attention than was required to extort a silver penny from Touchstone. They seemed very third-rate—even fourth-rate—soldiers, who were probably more constables and watchkeepers than anything else. None bore the Charter mark, or had any trace of Free Magic.

  Beyond the aqueduct, streets wound chaotically from an unevenly paved square, complete with an eccentrically spouting fountain—the water jetted from the ears of a statue, a statue of an impressively crowned man.

  “King Anstyr the Third,” said Touchstone, pointing at the fountain. “He had a strange sense of humor, by all accounts. I’m glad it’s still there.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Sabriel. She felt better now that she knew the citizenry weren’t in league with the Dead.

  “This boy says he knows a good inn,” replied Touchstone, indicating the ragged urchin who was grinning just out of reach of the always-expected blow.

  “Sign of Three Lemons,” said the boy. “Best in the city, Lord, Lady.”

  He had just turned back from them to go on, when a loud, badly cast bell sounded from somewhere towards the harbor. It rang three times, the sound sending pigeons racketing into flight from the square.

  “What’s that?” asked Sabriel. The boy looked at her, open-mouthed. “The bell.”

  “Sunfall,” replied the boy, once he knew what she was asking. He said it as if stating the blindingly obvious. “Early, I reckon. Must be cloud coming, or somefing.”

  “Everyone comes in when the sunfall bell sounds?” asked Sabriel.

  “Course!” snorted the boy. “Otherwise the haunts or the ghlims get you.”

  “I see,” replied Sabriel. “Lead on.”

  Surprisingly, the Sign of Three Lemons was quite a pleasant inn. A whitewashed building of four storys, it fronted onto a smaller square some two hundred yards from King Anstyr’s Fountain Square. There were three enormous lemon trees in the middle of the square, somehow thick with pleasant-smelling leaves and copious amounts of fruit, despite the season. Charter Magic, thought Sabriel, and sure enough, there was a Charter Stone hidden amongst the trees, and a number of ancient spells of fertility, warmth and bountitude. Sabriel sniffed the lemon-scented air gratefully, thankful that her room had a window fronting the square.

  Behind her, a maid was filling a tin bath with hot water. Several large buckets had already gone in—this would be the last. Sabriel closed the window and came over to look at the still-steaming water in anticipation.

  “Will that be all, miss?” asked the maid, half-curtseying.

  “Yes, thank you,” replied Sabriel. The maid edged out the door, and Sabriel slid the bar across, before divesting herself of her cloak, and then the stinking, sweat- and salt-encrusted armor and garments that had virtually stuck to her after almost a week at sea. Naked, she rested her sword against the bath’s rim—in easy reach—then sank gratefully into the water, taking up the
lump of lemon-scented soap to begin removing the caked grime and sweat.

  Through the wall, she could hear a man’s—Touchstone’s—voice. Then water gurgling, that maid giggling. Sabriel stopped soaping and concentrated on the sound. It was hard to hear, but there was more giggling, a deep, indistinct male voice, then a loud splash. Like two bodies in a bath rather than one.

  There was silence for a while, then more splashing, gasps, giggles—was that Touchstone laughing? Then a series of short, sharp, moans. Womanly ones. Sabriel flushed and gritted her teeth at the same time, then quickly lowered her head into the water so she couldn’t hear, leaving only her nose and mouth exposed. Underwater, all was silent, save for the dull booming of her heart, echoing in her flooded ears.

  What did it matter? She didn’t think of Touchstone in that way. Sex was the last thing on her mind. Just another complication—contraception—messiness—emotions. There were enough problems. Concentrate on planning. Think ahead. It was just because Touchstone was the first young man she’d met out of school, that was all. It was none of her business. She didn’t even know his real name . . .

  A dull tapping noise on the side of the bath made her raise her head out of the water, just in time to hear a very self-satisfied, masculine and drawn-out moan from the other side of the wall. She was about to stick her head back under, when Mogget’s pink nose appeared on the rim. So she sat up, water cascading down her face, hiding the tears she told herself weren’t there. Angrily, she crossed her arms across her breasts and said, “What do you want?”

  “I just thought that you might like to know that Touchstone’s room is that way,” said Mogget, indicating the silent room opposite the one with the noisy couple. “It hasn’t got a bathtub, so he’d like to know if he can use yours when you’re finished. He’s waiting downstairs in the meantime, getting the local news.”

  “Oh,” replied Sabriel. She looked across at the far, silent wall, then back to the close wall, where the human noises were now largely lost in the groaning of bedsprings. “Well, tell him I won’t be long.”

  Twenty minutes later, a clean Sabriel, garbed in a borrowed dress made incongruous by her sword-belt (the bell-bandolier lay under her bed, with Mogget asleep on top of it), crept on slippered feet through the largely empty common room and tapped the salty, begrimed Touchstone on the back, making him spill his beer.

  “Your turn for the bath,” Sabriel said cheerily, “my evil-smelling swordsman. I’ve just had it refilled. Mogget’s in the room, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Why would I mind?” asked Touchstone, as much puzzled by her manner as the question. “I just want to get clean, that’s all.”

  “Good,” replied Sabriel, obscurely. “I’ll organize for dinner to be served in your room, so we can plan as we eat.”

  In the event, the planning didn’t take long, nor was it slow in dampening what was otherwise a relatively festive occasion. They were safe for the moment, clean, well-fed—and able to forget past troubles and future fears for a little while.

  But, as soon as the last dish—a squid stew, with garlic, barley, yellow squash and tarragon vinegar—was cleared, the present reasserted itself, complete with cares and woe.

  “I think the most likely place to find my father’s body will be at . . . that place, where the Queen was slain,” Sabriel said slowly. “The reservoir. Where is it, by the way?”

  “Under the Palace Hill,” replied Touchstone. “There are several different ways to enter. All lie beyond this aqueduct-guarded valley.”

  “You are probably right about your father,” Mogget commented from his nest of blankets in the middle of Touchstone’s bed. “But that is also the most dangerous place for us to go. Charter Magic will be greatly warped, including various bindings—and there is a chance that our enemy . . .”

  “Kerrigor,” interrupted Sabriel. “But he may not be there. Even if he is, we may be able to sneak in—”

  “We might be able to sneak around the edges,” said Touchstone. “The reservoir is enormous, and there are hundreds of columns. But wading is noisy, and the water is very still—sound carries. And the six . . . you know . . . they are in the very center.”

  “If I can find my father and bring his spirit back to his body,” Sabriel said stubbornly, “then we can deal with whatever confronts us. That is the first thing. My father. Everything else is just a complication that’s followed on.”

  “Or preceded it,” said Mogget. “So, I take it your master plan is to sneak in, as far as we can, find your father’s body, which will hopefully be tucked away in some safe corner, and then see what happens?”

  “We’ll go in the middle of a clear, sunny day . . .” Sabriel began.

  “It’s underground,” interrupted Mogget.

  “So we have sunlight to retreat to,” Sabriel continued in a quelling tone.

  “And there are light shafts,” added Touchstone. “At noon, it’s a sort of dim twilight down there, with patches of faint sun on the water.”

  “So, we’ll find Father’s body, bring it back to safety here,” said Sabriel, “and . . . and take things from there.”

  “It sounds like a terribly brilliant plan to me,” muttered Mogget. “The genius of simplicity . . .”

  “Can you think of anything else?” snapped Sabriel. “I’ve tried, and I can’t. I wish I could go home to Ancelstierre and forget the whole thing—but then I’d never see Father again, and the Dead would just eat up everything living in this whole rotten Kingdom. Maybe it won’t work, but at least I’ll be trying something, like the Abhorsen I’m supposed to be and you’re always telling me I’m not!”

  Silence greeted this sally. Touchstone looked away, embarrassed. Mogget looked at her, yawned and shrugged.

  “As it happens, I can’t think of anything else. I’ve grown stupid over the millennia—even stupider than the Abhorsens I serve.”

  “I think it’s as good a plan as any,” Touchstone said, unexpectedly. He hesitated, then added, “Though I am afraid.”

  “So am I,” whispered Sabriel. “But if it’s a sunny day tomorrow, we will go there.”

  “Yes,” said Touchstone. “Before we grow too afraid.”

  Chapter Twenty

  LEAVING THE SAFE, aqueduct-bounded quarter of Belisaere proved to be a more difficult business than entering it, particularly through the northern archway, which led out to a long-abandoned street of derelict houses, winding their way up towards the northern hills of the city.

  There were six guards at the archway, and they looked considerably more alert and efficient than the ones who guarded the passage from the docks. There was also a group of other people ahead of Sabriel and Touchstone waiting to be let through. Nine men, all with the marks of violence written in their expressions, in the way they spoke and moved. Every one was armed, with weapons ranging from daggers to a broad-bladed axe. Most of them also carried bows—short, deeply curved bows, slung on their backs.

  “Who are these people?” Sabriel asked Touchstone. “Why are they going out into the Dead part of the city?”

  “Scavengers,” replied Touchstone. “Some of the people I spoke to last night mentioned them. Parts of the city were abandoned to the Dead very quickly, so there is still plenty of loot to be found. A risky business, I think . . .”

  Sabriel nodded thoughtfully and looked back at the men, most of whom were sitting or squatting by the aqueduct wall. Some of them looked back at her, rather suspiciously. For a moment, she thought they’d seen the bells under her cloak and recognized her as a necromancer, then she realized that she and Touchstone probably looked like rival scavengers. After all, who else would want to leave the protection of swift water? She felt a bit like a hard-bitten scavenger. Even freshly cleaned and scrubbed, her clothes and armor were not the sweetest items of wear. They were also still slightly damp, and the boat cloak that covered her up was on the borderline between damp and wet, because it hadn’t been hung up properly after washing. On the positive
side, everything had the scent of lemon, for the Sign of Three Lemons washerfolk used lemon-scented soap.

  Sabriel thought the scavengers had been waiting for the guards, but clearly they had been waiting for something else, which they’d suddenly sighted behind her. The sitting or squatting men picked themselves up, grumbling and cursing, and shuffled together into something resembling a line.

  Sabriel looked over her shoulder to see what they saw—and froze. For coming towards the arch were two men, and about twenty children; children of all ages between six and sixteen. The men had the same look as the other scavengers, and carried long, four-tongued whips. The children were manacled at the ankles, the manacles fastened to a long central chain. One man held the chain, leading the children down the middle of the road. The other followed behind, plying the air above the small bodies idly with his whip, the four tongues occasionally licking against an ear or the top of a small head.

  “I heard of this too,” muttered Touchstone, moving up closer to Sabriel, his hands falling on his sword hilts. “But I thought it was a beer story. The scavengers use children—slaves—as decoys, or bait, for the Dead. They leave them in one area, to draw the Dead away from where they intend to search.”

  “This is . . . disgusting!” raged Sabriel. “Immoral! They’re slavers, not scavengers! We have to stop it!”

  She started forward, mind already forming a Charter-spell to blind and confuse the scavengers, but a sharp pain in her neck halted her. Mogget, riding on her shoulders, had dug his claws in just under her chin. Blood trickled down in hairline traces, as he hissed close to her ear.

  “Wait! There are nine scavengers and six guards, with more close by. What will it profit these children, and all the others who may come, if you are slain? It is the Dead who are at the root of this evil, and Abhorsen’s business is with the Dead!”

  Sabriel stood still, shuddering, tears of rage and anger welling up in the corners of her eyes. But she didn’t attack. Just stood, watching the children. They seemed resigned to their fate, silent, without hope. They didn’t even fidget in their chains, standing still, heads bowed, till the scavengers whipped them up again and they broke into a dispirited shuffle towards the archway.