Sabriel (Old Kingdom Book 1)

by Garth Nix

  Beyond the door was a large, open field, bordered by tumbledown walls. Tall weeds covered the expanse, with the occasional stunted, self-sown tree rising above them. Right at the western edge, perched where a wall had long since crumbled down the hill, there were two Paperwings, one facing south and the other north—and two people, indistinct silhouettes bordered with the flaming orange of the afternoon sun that was sinking down behind them.

  Touchstone broke into a gait that could only be described as a gallop, parting the weeds like a ship ploughing a sargasso sea. He ran right up to the two standing figures, gently placed Sabriel on the ground before them—and fell over, eyes rolling back to whiteness, limbs twitching.

  Sabriel tried to crawl over to him, but the pain in her side suddenly bit sharp and deadly, so it was all she could do to sit up and look at the two people, and beyond them, the Paperwings.

  “Hello,” they said, in unison. “We are, for the moment, the Clayr. You must be the Abhorsen and the King.”

  Sabriel stared, dry-mouthed. The sun was in her eyes, making it hard for her to see them clearly. Young women, both, with long blond hair and bright, piercing blue eyes. They wore white linen dresses, with long, open sleeves. Freshly pressed dresses that made Sabriel feel extremely dirty and uncivilized, in her reservoir-soaked breeches and sweaty armor. Like their voices, their faces were identical. Very pretty. Twins.

  They smiled, and knelt down, one by Sabriel’s side, the other by Touchstone’s. Sabriel felt Charter Magic slowly welling up in them, like water rising in a spring—then it flowed into her, taking away the hurt and pain of the arrow. Next to her, Touchstone’s breath became less labored, and he sank into the easy quiet of sleep.

  “Thank you,” croaked Sabriel. She tried to smile, but seemed to have lost the knack of it. “There are slavers . . . human allies of the Dead . . . behind us.”

  “We know,” said the duo. “But they are ten minutes behind. Your friend—the King—ran very, very fast. We saw him run yesterday. Or tomorrow.”

  “Ah,” said Sabriel, laboriously pushing herself up onto her feet, thinking of her father and what he had said about the Clayr confusing their whens. Best to find out what she needed to know before things got really confusing.

  “Thank you,” she said again, for the arrow fell on the ground as she fully straightened up. It was a hunting arrow, narrow-headed, not an armor-punching bodkin. They had only meant to slow her down. She shivered, and felt the hole between the armor plates. The wound didn’t feel healed exactly—just older, as if it had struck a week ago, instead of minutes.

  “Father said you would be here . . . that you have been watching for us, and watching for where Kerrigor has his body.”

  “Yes,” replied the Clayr. “Well, not us exactly. We’ve only been allowed to be the Clayr today, because we’re the best Paperwing pilots . . .”

  “Or actually, Ryelle is . . .” one of the twins said, pointing at the other. “But since she would need a Paperwing to fly home in, two Paperwings were needed, so . . .”

  “Sanar came too,” Ryelle continued, pointing back at her sister.

  “Both of us,” they chorused. “Now, there isn’t much time. You can take the red and gold Paperwing . . . we painted it in the royal colors when we knew last week. But first, there’s Kerrigor’s body.”

  “Yes,” said Sabriel. Her father’s—her family’s—the Kingdom’s enemy. For her to deal with. Her burden, no matter how heavy, and how feeble her shoulders currently felt, she had to bear it.

  “His body is in Ancelstierre,” said the twins. “But our vision is weak across the Wall, so we don’t have a map, or know the place names. We’ll have to show you—and you’ll have to remember.”

  “Yes,” agreed Sabriel, feeling like a dull student promising to deal with a question quite beyond her. “Yes.”

  The Clayr nodded, and smiled again. Their teeth were very white and even. One, possibly Ryelle—Sabriel had already got them confused—brought a bottle made of clear green glass out from the flowing sleeve of her robe, the telltale flash of Charter Magic showing it hadn’t been there before. The other woman—Sanar—produced a long ivory wand out of her sleeve.

  “Ready?” they asked each other simultaneously, and, “Yes,” before their question had even penetrated Sabriel’s tired brain.

  Ryelle unstoppered the bottle with a resonant “pop,” and in one quick motion, poured out the contents along a horizontal line. Sanar, equally quickly, drew the wand across the falling water—and it froze in mid-air, to form a pane of transparent ice. A frozen window, suspended in front of Sabriel.

  “Watch,” commanded the women, and Sanar tapped the ice-window with her wand. It clouded over at that touch, briefly showed a scene of whirling snow, a glimpse of the Wall, then steadied into a moving vision—much like a film shot from a traveling car. Wyverley College had frowned on films, but Sabriel had been to see quite a few in Bain. This was much the same, but in color, and she could hear natural sounds as clearly as if she were there.

  The window showed typical Ancelstierran farmland—a long field of wheat, ripe for the harvest, with a tractor stopped in the distance, its driver chatting with another man perched atop a cart, his two draft-horses standing stolidly, peering out through their blinkers.

  The view raced closer towards these two men, veered around them with a snatch of caught conversation, and continued—following a road, up and over a hill, through a small wood and up to a crossroads, where the gravel intersected with a macadamized route of greater importance. There was a sign there, and the “eye,” or whatever it was, zoomed up to it, till the signpost filled the whole of the ice-window. “Wyverley 2½ miles,” it read, directing travelers along the major road, and they were off again, shooting down towards Wyverley village.

  A few seconds later, the moving image slowed, to show the familiar houses of Wyverley village; the blacksmith-cum-mechanic’s shop; the Wyvern public house; the constable’s trim house with the blue lantern. All landmarks known to Sabriel. She concentrated even more carefully, for surely the vision, having shown her a fixed point of reference, would now race off to parts of Ancelstierre which were unknown to her.

  But the picture still moved slowly. At a walking pace, it went through the village, and turned off the road, following a bridle-path up the forested hill known as Docky Point. A nice enough hill, to be sure, covered by a cork tree plantation, with some quite old trees. Its only point of interest was the rectangular cairn upon the hilltop . . . the cairn . . . The image changed, closing in on the huge, grey-green stones, square-cut and tightly packed together. A relatively recent folly, Sabriel remembered from their local history lessons. A little less than two hundred years old. She’d almost visited it once, but something had changed her mind . . .

  The image changed again, somehow sinking through the stone, down between the lines of mortar, zigzagging around the blocks, to the dark chamber at its heart. For an instant the ice-window went completely dark, then light came. A bronze sarcophagus lay under the cairn, metal crawling with Free Magic perversions of Charter marks. The vision dodged these shifting marks, penetrated the bronze. A body lay inside, a living body, wreathed in Free Magic.

  The scene shifted, moving with jagged difficulty to the face of the body. A handsome face, that swam closer and closer into focus, a face that showed what Kerrigor once had been. The human face of Rogir, his features clearly showing that he had shared a mother with Touchstone.

  Sabriel stared, sickened and fascinated by the similarities between the half-brothers—then the vision suddenly blurred, spinning into greyness, greyness accompanied by rushing water. Death. Something huge and monstrous was wading against the current, a jagged cutting of darkness, formless and featureless, save for two eyes that burned with unnatural flame. It seemed to see her beyond the ice-window, and lurched forward, two arms like blown storm clouds reaching forward.

  “Abhorsen’s Get!” screamed Kerrigor. “Your blood will gush upon the Stones . .
.”

  His arms seemed about to come through the window, but suddenly, the ice cracked, the pieces collapsing into a pile of swift-melting slush.

  “You saw,” the Clayr said together. It wasn’t a question. Sabriel nodded, shaking, her thoughts still on the likeness between Kerrigor’s original human body and Touchstone. Where was the fork in their paths? What had put Rogir’s feet on the long road that led to the abomination known as Kerrigor?

  “We have four minutes,” announced Sanar. “Till the slavers come. We’ll help you get the King to your Paperwing, shall we?”

  “Yes, please,” replied Sabriel. Despite the fearsome sight of Kerrigor’s raw spirit form, the vision had imbued her with a new and definite sense of purpose. Kerrigor’s body was in Ancelstierre. She would find it and destroy it, and then deal with his spirit. But they had to get to the body first . . .

  The two women lifted Touchstone up, grunting with the effort. He was no lightweight at any time, and now was even heavier, still sodden with water from his ducking in the reservoir. But the Clayr, despite their rather ethereal appearance, seemed to manage well enough.

  “We wish you luck, cousin,” they said, as they walked slowly to the red and gold Paperwing, balanced so close to the edge of the broken wall, the Saere glistening white and blue below.

  “Cousin?” Sabriel murmured. “I suppose we are cousins—of a sort, aren’t we?”

  “Blood relatives, all the children of the Great Charters,” the Clayr agreed. “Though the clan dwindles . . .”

  “Do you always—know what is going to happen?” Sabriel asked, as they gently lowered Touchstone into the back of the cockpit, and strapped him in with the belts normally used for securing luggage.

  Both the Clayr laughed. “No, thank the Charter! Our family is the most numerous of the bloodlines, and the gift is spread among many. Our visions come in snatches and splinters, glimpses and shadows. When we must, the whole family can spend its strength to narrow our sight—as it has done through us today. Tomorrow, we will be back to dreams and confusion, not knowing where, when or what we see. Now, we have only two minutes . . .”

  Suddenly, they hugged Sabriel, surprising her with the obvious warmth of the gesture. She hugged them back, gladly, grateful for their care. With her father gone, she had no family left—but perhaps she would find sisters in the Clayr, and perhaps Touchstone would be . . .

  “Two minutes,” repeated both the women, one in each ear. Sabriel let them go, and hurriedly took The Book of the Dead and the two Charter Magic books from her pack, wedging them down next to Touchstone’s slightly snoring form. After a second’s thought, she also stuffed in the fleece-lined oilskin and the boat cloak. Touchstone’s swords went into the special holders next, but the pack and the rest of its contents had to be abandoned.

  “Next stop, the Wall,” Sabriel muttered as she climbed into the craft, trying not to think about what would happen if they had to land somewhere uncivilized in between.

  The Clayr were already in their green and silver craft, and, as Sabriel did up her straps, she heard them begin to whistle, Charter Magic streaming out into the air. Sabriel licked her lips, summoned her breath and strength, and joined in. Wind rose behind both the craft, tossing black hair and blond, lifting the Paperwings’ tails and jostling their wings.

  Sabriel took a breath after the wind-whistling, and stroked the smooth, laminated paper of the hull. A brief image of the first Paperwing came to mind, broken and burning in the depths of Holehallow.

  “I hope we fare better together,” she whispered, before joining with the Clayr to whistle the last note, the pure clear sound that would wake the Charter Magic in their craft.

  A second later, two bright-eyed Paperwings leapt out from the ruined palace of Belisaere, glided down almost to the swell in the Sea of Saere, then rose to circle higher and higher above the hill. One craft, of green and silver, turned to the north-west. The other, of red and gold, turned south.

  Touchstone, waking to the rush of cold air on his face, and the unfamiliar sensation of flying, groggily muttered, “What happened?”

  “We’re going to Ancelstierre,” Sabriel shouted. “Across the Wall, to find Kerrigor’s body—and destroy it!”

  “Oh,” said Touchstone, who only heard “across the Wall.” “Good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “BEG PARDON, SIR,” said the soldier, saluting at the doorway to the officer’s bathroom. “Duty officer’s compliments and can you come straight away?”

  Colonel Horyse sighed, put down his razor, and used the flannel to wipe off the remains of the shaving soap. He had been interrupted shaving that morning, and had tried several times during the day to finish the job. Perhaps it was a sign he should grow a moustache.

  “What’s happening?” he asked, resignedly. Whatever was happening, it was unlikely to be good.

  “An aircraft, sir,” replied the private, stolidly.

  “From Army HQ? Dropping a message cylinder?”

  “I don’t know, sir. It’s on the other side of the Wall.”

  “What!” exclaimed Horyse, dropping all his shaving gear, picking up his helmet and sword, and attempting to rush out, all at the same time. “Impossible!”

  But, when he eventually sorted himself out and got down to the Forward Observation Post—an octagonal strongpoint that thrust out through the Perimeter to within fifty yards of the Wall—it quite clearly was possible. The light was fading as the afternoon waned—it was probably close to setting on the other side—but the visibility was good enough to make out the distant airborne shape that was descending in a series of long, gradual loops . . . on the other side of the Wall. In the Old Kingdom.

  The Duty Officer was watching through big artillery spotter’s binoculars, his elbows perched on the sandbagged parapet of the position. Horyse paused for a moment to think of the fellow’s name—he was new to the Perimeter Garrison—then tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Jorbert. Mind if I have a look?”

  The young officer lowered the binoculars reluctantly, and handed them across like a boy deprived of a half-eaten lollipop.

  “It’s definitely an aircraft, sir,” he said, brightening up as he spoke. “Totally silent, like a glider, but it’s clearly powered somehow. Very maneuverable, and beautifully painted too. There’s two . . . people in it, sir.”

  Horyse didn’t answer, but took up the binoculars and the same elbow-propping stance. For a moment, he couldn’t see the aircraft, and he hastily panned left and right, then zigzagged up and down—and there it was, lower than he expected, almost in a landing approach.

  “Sound stand-to,” he ordered harshly, as the realization struck him that the craft would land very close to the Crossing Point—perhaps only a hundred yards from the gate.

  He heard his command being repeated by Jorbert to a sergeant, and then bellowed out, to be taken up by sentries, duty NCOs, and eventually to hand-cranked klaxons and the old bell that hung in the front of the Officer’s Mess.

  It was hard to see exactly who or what was in the craft, till he twiddled with the focus, and Sabriel’s face leapt towards him, magnified up to a recognizable form, even at the current distance. Sabriel, the daughter of Abhorsen, accompanied by an unknown man—or something wearing the shape of a man. For a moment, Horyse considered ordering the men to stand-down, but he could already hear hobnailed boots clattering on the duckboards, sergeants and corporals shouting—and it might not really be Sabriel. The sun was weakening, and the coming night would be the first of the full moon . . .

  “Jorbert!” he snapped, handing the binoculars back to the surprised and unready subaltern. “Go and give the Regimental Sergeant-Major my compliments, and ask him to personally organize a section of the Scouts—we’ll go out and take a closer look at that aircraft.”

  “Oh, thank you, sir!” gushed Lieutenant Jorbert, obviously taking the “we” to include himself. His enthusiasm surprised Horyse, at least for a moment.

  “
Tell me, Mr. Jorbert,” he asked. “Have you by any chance sought a transfer to the Flying Corps?”

  “Well, yes, sir,” replied Jorbert. “Eight times . . .”

  “Just remember,” Horyse said, interrupting him. “That whatever is out there may be a flying creature, not a flying machine—and its pilots may be half-rotted things that should be properly dead, or Free Magic beings that have never really lived at all. Not fellow aviators, knights of the sky, or anything like that.”

  Jorbert nodded, unmilitarily, saluted, and turned on his heel.

  “And don’t forget your sword next time you’re on duty, officer,” Horyse called after him. “Hasn’t anyone told you your revolver might not work?”

  Jorbert nodded again, flushed, almost saluted, then scuttled off down the communication trench. One of the soldiers in the Forward Observation Post, a corporal with a full sleeve of chevrons denoting twenty years’ service, and a Charter mark on his forehead to show his Perimeter pedigree, shook his head at the departing back of the young officer.

  “Why are you shaking your head, Corporal Anshy?” snapped Horyse, irked by his many interrupted shaves and this new and potentially dangerous appearance of an aircraft.

  “Water on the brain,” replied the corporal cheerfully—and rather ambiguously. Horyse opened his mouth to issue a sharp reprimand, then closed it as the corners of his mouth involuntarily inched up into a smile. Before he could actually laugh, he left the post, heading back to the trench junction where his section and the RSM would meet him to go beyond the Wall. Within five paces, he’d lost his smile.

  The Paperwing slid to a perfect landing in a flurry of snow. Sabriel and Touchstone sat in it, shivering under oilskin and boat cloak, respectively, then slowly levered themselves out to stand knee-deep in the tightly packed snow. Touchstone smiled at Sabriel, his nose bright red and eyebrows frosted.