by Garth Nix
Sabriel stared back, meeting his gaze for the first time. Surely, there in the hellfire of his eyes, she could see the faintest spark of blazing white? She unclenched her left fist, and felt the silver ring slip down her finger. Was it expanding?
“What would you have, Abhorsen?” continued Kerrigor, his mouth peeling back, skin already breaking at the corners, the spirit within corroding even this magically preserved flesh. “Your lover crawls towards us—a pathetic sight—but I shall have the next kiss . . .”
The ring was hanging in Sabriel’s hand, hidden behind her back. It had grown larger—but she could still feel the metal expanding . . .
Kerrigor’s blistered lips moved towards hers, and still the ring moved in her hand. His breath was overpowering, reeking of blood, but she had long gone beyond throwing up. She turned her head aside at the last second, and felt, dry, corpse-like flesh slide across her cheek.
“A sisterly kiss,” chuckled Kerrigor. “A kiss for an uncle who has known you since birth—or slightly before—but it is not enough . . .”
Again, his words were not just words. Sabriel felt a force grip her head, and move it back to face him, while her mouth was wedged apart, as if in passionate expectation.
But her left arm was free.
Kerrigor’s head bent forward, his face looming larger and larger—then silver flashed between them, and the ring was around his neck.
Sabriel felt the compulsion snap off, and she leant back, trying to hurl herself away. But Kerrigor didn’t let go of her arm. He seemed surprised, but not anxious. His right hand went up to touch the band, fingernails falling as he did so, bone already pushing through at the fingertips.
“What is this? Some relic of . . .”
The ring constricted, cutting through the pulpy flesh of his neck, revealing the solid darkness within. That too was compressed, forced inwards, pulsating as it tried to escape. Two flaming eyes looked down in disbelief.
“Impossible,” croaked Kerrigor. Snarling, he pushed Sabriel away, throwing her to the floor. In the same motion he drew the sword from his chest, the blade slowly coming free with a sound like a rasp on hardwood.
Swiftly as a snake, arm and sword went out, striking through Sabriel, through armor and flesh and deep into the wooden floor beyond. Pain exploded, and Sabriel screamed, body convulsing around the blade in one awful reflexive curve.
Kerrigor left her there, impaled like a bug in a collection, and advanced upon Touchstone. Sabriel, through eyes fogged with pain, saw Kerrigor look down and rip a long, jagged splinter from one of the pews.
“Rogir,” Touchstone said. “Rogir . . .”
The splinter came down with a strangled shriek of rage. Sabriel closed her eyes and looked away, slipping into a world of her own, a world of pain. She knew she should do something about the blood pouring out of her stomach, but now—with Touchstone dead—she just lay where she was, and let it bleed.
Then Sabriel realized she hadn’t felt Touchstone die.
She looked again. The splinter had broken on his armored coat. Kerrigor was reaching out for another splinter—but the silver ring had slipped down to his shoulders now, shredding the flesh away as it fell, like an apple corer punching the Dead spirit out of the rotting corpse.
Kerrigor struggled and shrieked, but the ring bound his arms. Capering madly, he threw himself from side to side, seeking to cast off the silver band that held him—only causing yet more flesh to fall away, till no flesh remained, nothing but a raging column of darkness, constrained by a silver ring.
Then the column collapsed upon itself like a demolished building, to become a mound of rippling shadow, the silver ring shining like a ribbon. A gleaming red eye shone amidst the silver—but that was only the ruby, grown to match the metal.
There were Charter marks on the ring again, but Sabriel couldn’t read them. Her eyes wouldn’t focus, and it was too dark. The moonlight seemed to have gone. Still, she knew what must be done. Saraneth—her hand crept to the bandolier, but the sixth bell wasn’t there—or the seventh, or the third. Careless of me, thought Sabriel, careless—but I must complete the binding. Her hand fell on Belgaer for a moment, and almost drew it—but no, that would be release . . . Finally, she drew Ranna, whimpering with the pain of even that small movement.
Ranna was unusually heavy, for so slight a bell. Sabriel rested it against her chest for a moment, gathering strength. Then, lying on her back, transfixed with her own sword, she rang the bell.
Ranna sounded sweet, and felt comforting, like a long-expected bed. The sound echoed through the Hall, and out, to where a few men still battled with the Dead. All who heard it ceased their struggles, and lay themselves down. The badly wounded slipped easily into Death, joining the Dead who had followed Kerrigor; those less hurt fell into a healing sleep.
The mound of darkness that had been Kerrigor split into two distinct hemispheres, bounded by an equatorial ring of silver. One hemisphere was as black as coal; the other a gleaming white. Gradually, they melted into two distinct forms—two cats, joined at the throat like Siamese twins. Then the silver ring split in two, a ring around each neck, and the cats separated. The rings lost their brilliance, slowly changing color and texture till they were red leather bands, each supporting a miniature bell, a miniature Ranna.
Two small cats sat side by side. One black, one white. Both leaned forward, throats moving, and each spat up a silver ring. The cats yawned as the rings rolled towards Sabriel, then curled up and went to sleep.
Touchstone watched the rings roll through the dust, silver flashing in the moonlight. They hit Sabriel’s side, but she didn’t pick them up. Both her hands still clutched Ranna, but it was silent, resting below her breasts. Her sword loomed above her, blade and hilt casting the moonshadow of a cross upon her face.
Something from his childhood memory flashed through Touchstone’s mind. A voice, a messenger’s voice, speaking to his mother.
“Highness, we bring sorrowful tidings. The Abhorsen is dead.”
Epilogue
Death seemed colder than ever before, Sabriel thought, and wondered why, till she realized she was still lying down. In the water, being carried along by the current. For a moment, she started to struggle, then she relaxed.
“Everyone and everything has a time to die . . .” she whispered. The living world and its cares seemed far away. Touchstone lived, and that made her glad, inasmuch as she could feel anything. Kerrigor was defeated, imprisoned if not made truly dead. Her work was done. Soon she would pass beyond the Ninth Gate, and rest forever . . .
Something grabbed her arms and legs, picked her up out of the water and set her down on her feet.
“This is not your time,” said a voice, a voice echoed by half a hundred others.
Sabriel blinked, for there were many shining human shapes around her, hovering above the water. More than she could count. Not Dead spirits, but something else, like the mother-sending called by the paper boat. Their shapes were vague, but instantly recognizable, for all wore the deep blue with the silver keys. Every one was an Abhorsen.
“Go back,” they chorused. “Go back.”
“I can’t,” sobbed Sabriel. “I’m dead! I haven’t the strength . . .”
“You are the last Abhorsen,” the voices whispered, the shining shapes closing in. “You cannot pass this way until there is another. You do have the strength within you. Live, Abhorsen, live . . .”
Suddenly, she did have the strength. Enough to crawl, wade and fall back up the river, and gingerly edge back into Life, her shining escort dropping back at the very last. One of them—perhaps her father—lightly touched her hand in the instant before she left the realm of Death behind.
A face swam into view—Touchstone’s, staring down at her. Sound hit her ears, distant, raucous bells that seemed out of place, till she realized they were ambulance bells, ambulances racing in from the town. She could sense no Dead at all, nor feel any great magic, Free or Charter. But then, Kerrigor was gone,
and they were nearly forty miles from the Wall . . .
“Live, Sabriel, live,” Touchstone was muttering, holding her icy hands, his own eyes so clouded with tears he hadn’t noticed hers opening. Sabriel smiled, then grimaced as the pain came back. She looked from side to side, wondering how long it would take Touchstone to realize.
The electric lights had come back on in parts of the Hall, and soldiers were placing lanterns out again. There were more survivors than she’d expected, tending to the wounded, propping up dangerous brickwork, even sweeping up the brick-dust and grave mold.
There were also many dead, and Sabriel sighed as she let her senses roam. Colonel Horyse, killed outside on the steps; Magistrix Greenwood; her innocent schoolfriend Ellimere; six other girls; at least half the soldiers . . .
Her eyes wandered to closer regions, to the two sleeping cats, the two silver rings next to her on the floor.
“Sabriel!”
Touchstone had finally noticed. Sabriel turned her gaze back to him, and lifted her head cautiously. He’d removed her sword, she saw, and several of her schoolfriends had cast a healing spell, good enough for the moment. Typically, Touchstone had done nothing for his own leg.
“Sabriel,” he said again. “You’re alive!”
“Yes,” said Sabriel, with some surprise. “I am.”
How I Write: The Process of Creating a Book
Garth Nix offers some notes on his craft to the readers of the PerfectBound e-book edition of Sabriel
This is a brief overview of how I go about writing a book, which may well be quite different from many other writers and different to the way you like to work yourself. However, in amongst the cries of “How could he work like that!,” there may be some useful pieces of information to help you with your own writing.
To me, there are really four stages to writing a book, though they do overlap each other, swap places at times, or even take over for far longer than they should. These stages are: thinking, planning, writing, and revising. There is also a fifth stage, that runs concurrently with the above: staying motivated.
Thinking
Most of my books seem to stem from a single image or thought that lodges in my brain and slowly grows into something that needs to be expressed. That thought may be a “what if?” or perhaps just an image. Sabriel largely began from a photograph I saw of Hadrian’s Wall, which had a green lawn in front of it and snow on the hills behind it. Many other thoughts, conscious or otherwise, grew out, upon, and over that single image, both before and during the writing of the book.
Typically I seem to think about a book for a year or so before I actually start writing. In this thinking stage, I often write a few key points in my “ideas” notebook. At this stage, I merely put down bullet points or mnemonics that will remind me of what I was thinking. This can be very useful later on, particularly if the gestation period for a book is several years. Titles are also handy to jot down. The right title can be very useful as the seed from which the whole idea of the book can grow.
Planning
For all my longer works (i.e., the novels), I write chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of departing from them later on. Actually, while I do always depart from them, writing a chapter outline is a great discipline for thinking out the story and it also provides a road map or central skeleton you can come back to if you get lost. I often write the prologue or initial chapter first to get the impetus for the story going and then write the outline. Usually, I have to write a revised chapter outline two or three times in the course of writing the whole book, but once again it does focus the mind on where the story is going and where you want it to go.
Writing
Short stories, articles, and items on my website I type straight into the computer (mostly a Macintosh, though I also use a PC) in Microsoft Word. However, I write the novels longhand first. Nowadays I use a Waterman fountain pen (for Shade’s Children and Lirael), though I used felt-tips earlier. I was interested to see that Stephen King wrote one of his recent novels with a Waterman fountain pen. He reportedly found that this did influence the actual style of the book.
The advantages of writing longhand are several, at least for me. First of all, I write in relatively small handbound notebooks which are much more transportable than any sort of computer, particularly since you can take them away for several weeks without having to consider power supplies, batteries, or printouts. Parts of Sabriel, for example, were written on a trip through the Middle East. Parts of Shade’s Children and Lirael were written at the beach.
The other major advantage of writing longhand is that when I type up a chapter from my notebook, I rewrite as I type, so the first printout is actually a second draft. Sometimes I change it quite a lot, sometimes not so much, but it gives me a distinctive and separate stage where I can revise.
The first page of the first chapter of Sabriel (as opposed to the prologue, which I wrote earlier, before I did my chapter outline) was actually written in a spiral-bound notebook, which I tore out and pasted into my preferred black and red notebook (8 1/4” x 6 1/4” or 210mm x 160mm “sewn memo book”).
At the typing stage, I cleaned up the writing a bit and it had further minor revisions later, but in this case at least, it stayed much the same. You can see the original manuscript page and compare it to the finished version on my website.
Which brings me to revising.
Revising
As I said, when I type the handwritten words, I am also carrying out my first major stage of revision. However, I usually have to go through at least two revision stages after that. The first of these is when I first print out the typed chapter. I go through it and make changes in pen, which I will incorporate later. The second stage (and sometimes a third time as well) occurs when the entire manuscript is finished for the first time. I leave that big, beautiful pile of printout on the shelf for a few weeks, then sit down and read the whole thing, making corrections as I go.
Finally, I bundle the ms. off to my Australian and U.S. publishers and wait for their reaction(s), which generally will include some suggestions for revision and occasionally a request for rewriting. Sometimes these will be good, worthwhile changes and I work them in. Sometimes they are not, and I argue about them and — unless I can be convinced otherwise — refuse to alter the text. Basically, I try and keep an open mind, since there is nearly always room for improvement.
Staying Motivated
I’m often asked by aspiring writers how I can invest a year or more in writing a full-length novel.
My stock answer is that I never sit down and think “I have to write a novel today.” I sit down and think “I have to write a chapter,” or “revise a chapter,” or “finish the chapter.” That way, it’s only ever 2,500-5,000 words that are the immediate goal.
As a further motivational gimmick, I always use the word count utility when I’ve finished typing a chapter, and write that down, with a running total of words and the date in the front of my first notebook for the current work (each novel takes between five and six of those red and black numbers). I also write down the music I’ve been listening to as I write and anything else that might be interesting to look back upon. Like the fact that I uploaded my first home page on 19 April 1996!
The word count is a relatively small thing, but it has an amazing psychological effect, particularly as more and more chapters appear and the word total grows. I find it very encouraging, particularly in the first third of the book, which always seems to take the majority of the time.
Summary
Here are several one-liners that sum up my writing philosophy. Some I’ve made up and some are probably paraphrases of other people’s sayings, only I can’t remember who said what. (Though I think the “read, write, revise” one is from Robert Heinlein.)
“You can’t write if you don’t read.”
“Just write one chapter at a time and one day you’ll be surprised by your own finished novel.”
“Writing anything is better t
han not writing something perfect.”
“Read, write, revise, submit, repeat.”
“Expect rejection, but don’t let it stop you submitting again.”
“Submit the very best work you can, not the first draft. Always read it again before you send it.”
About the Author
Garth Nix was born in 1963 and grew up in Canberra, Australia. After taking his degree in professional writing from the University of Canberra, he slowly sank into the morass of the publishing industry, steadily devolving from sales rep through publicist, until in 1991 he became a senior editor with a major multinational publisher. After a period traveling in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia in 1993, he left publishing to work as a marketing communications consultant. In 1999, he was lured back to the publishing world to become a part-time literary agent. He now lives in Sydney, a five-minute walk from Coogee Beach, with his wife, Anna, and lots of books.
Garth is the author of, among other books, Sabriel, Lirael, and Shade’s Chldren.
Credits
Cover art © 1997 by Leo and Diane Dillon
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Limited
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercanada.com
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1, Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
77-85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.fireandwater.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Children’s Books