Goldenhand (14 page)

The Clayr's Glacier, Old Kingdom

T
he clouds came rolling down as the paperwing flew the last few leagues up the Ratterlin toward the Clayr's Glacier, a shining blue-white monolith of ice nestled between the dark grey rocky peaks of Starmount and Sunfall, the glacier's attendant mountains. It grew colder, even within the magically warmed cockpit, and then somewhat miserable as it began to rain. Even though the heavy raindrops were
mostly
repelled by an almost invisible shield of Charter Magic, they broke into a mist which soon saturated both Lirael and Nick.

“I'm sorry I didn't get you better clothes,” said Lirael rather worriedly over her shoulder. She had forgotten her irritation from his comments about librarians, and now was only concerned for his well-being. “You must be uncomfortable.”

“It's nothing,” said Nick, though he was shivering. In normal circumstances he thought he'd be fine and just shrug this off, but in his current weakened state he did feel very cold and ill, and highly uncomfortable. He was basically naked under the borrowed cloak, which would keep billowing open every time he shifted to try and find a better position.

“It's not far now,” said Lirael. She peered ahead, though she could see little through the rain. “Fortunately the paperwing is very familiar with the way, or I wouldn't dare go into this cloud and rain so close to the mountains.”

“We're going straight into that?” asked Nick, peering over her
shoulder toward the vast cloud-wreathed glacier and the mountains either side. “Where do we land?”

“There's a terraced landing field carved out of the side of Starmount, about two-thirds of the way up,” said Lirael. “I'm sure the Clayr will have Seen us arriving, so we should be able to land and slide straight into the hangar, and get warm immediately.”

“We're landing on a terrace two-thirds of the way up one of those mountains?” asked Nick. “They must be at least ten thousand feet high!”

“Feet?” asked Lirael. “Oh, your Ancelstierran measure, much the same as our pace. They're not that tall. Starmount is the higher of the two, about eight thousand paces compared to Sunfall's seven and a half. There are higher mountains in the Kingdom.”

“Those two are high enough,” said Nick, with feeling. He was suddenly glad to be in a magical aircraft, for a Beskwith or a Humbert Twelve would crash here for certain, if anyone was fool enough to try to land on the side of a
mountain
over a glacier, under thick cloud. While it was raining no less, or as it was now, beginning to snow. It would be crazy at any time, at least back in Ancelstierre.

Nick tried to think about something else.

“What happens when we get there?”

“Ah, I'm not entirely sure,” said Lirael, who had been thinking about this herself. “But first of all a hot bath, clean clothes, dinner . . .”

“I meant beyond the immediate necessities,” said Nick. “Though all of those will be very welcome.”

“The Infirmarian will need to look at your wounds and see how you are, in general,” said Lirael. “And . . . I think probably the Librarian and some others should investigate the Free Magic that is a result of you . . . of you having had the shard of Orannis in your body.”

Nick was silent for a moment. “Sam wrote to me about that, a
little, and tried to explain your Charter Magic as opposed to Free Magic. I'm not sure I entirely understood. He said I somehow have both within me . . . and I
need
to understand. I need to know what I have become!”

“The Clayr will help you do that,” said Lirael.

“Yes,” said Nick. He had forgotten his momentary irritation as well. “I . . . um . . . want to thank you again. For coming to get me.”

“I wanted to,” said Lirael, almost without thinking, and blushed at this honesty.

“Good,” said Nick. “I'm . . . I'm happy you did. That it was you.”

Both were suddenly very aware of their closeness in the cockpit. For a few seconds, they were suspended together somewhere else, a kind of shared space and time, suddenly gone as the paperwing tilted and began to climb, bursting through the fall of wet snow and into whiter, less heavy cloud that was still sufficiently dense they could see no farther than the nose of the craft.

“Oh!” exclaimed Lirael. “We're climbing up to the landing ledge. I had better whistle the wind around to the south, make it easier for our friend.”

She reached out of the cockpit and patted the side of the fuselage fondly, much as she used to do to the Dog. The paperwing wiggled the ends of its wings and continued to steeply climb as Lirael began to whistle, golden Charter marks blowing out of her pursed lips, joining a cloud of frosted breath.

The wind shifted in answer to Lirael's whistled spell, Nick marveling that it did so. He could see the cloud moving, shredding apart as the wind changed, the slushy snow going with it, so that all of a sudden there was a gap between wisps and he caught a glimpse of a flat white area to their left and now somewhat below them, with one side the patchy grey rock and ice of Starmount continuing ever upward and the other side a frightening absence, a drop down to the blinding blue-white glacier far, far below.

Nick shut his eyes and would have crossed his fingers, but he somehow thought the paperwing might be able to tell if he did that, and become offended. So he had to be content with fixing his eyes
very
closed, leaning back in his hammock chair, and hoping that Lirael's extreme confidence in their magical craft was entirely justified.

A few minutes later, when he had felt no sudden bump, or for that matter, a half-expected smashing impact with the mountainside, Nick opened his eyes again. He blinked several times, for he couldn't believe they had actually landed. It had happened so gently he hadn't even felt it as any different from the tiny bumps and adjustments of their travel in the air.

The paperwing was in the middle of that flat ledge, in front of a vast gate in the mountainside. By Nick's estimate it was at least seventy feet across and twenty-five feet high. The gate was made of some dark wood, perhaps ebony, and was studded all over with greeny-bronze bolts arranged in the shape of stars, dozens of star patterns in different sizes.

“The Starmount Gate,” said Lirael, a note of puzzlement in her voice. “I'd have thought it would be open, and someone here to meet us; they always See visitors at least a few hours ahead of time, if not days before. Stay here, it will remain warm . . . or at least warmer . . . in the cockpit.”

She climbed out, her boot heels crunching through the thin layer of icy snow on the landing terrace. Nick noticed there was a lot less snow there than there should be, as there were high drifts to either side. It was as if the terrace had been freshly swept and raked, though there was no sign of anyone doing such work. He also noted that Lirael took up her sword and buckled it on, and she hadn't taken off the bell bandolier at any stage. So even here, where he would have supposed it must be safe, she took no chances. He wished he had a sword himself, or at least a knife.

Nick watched as Lirael went over to the corner of the gate and
opened a small sally port there, leaning close to use a key or perhaps a spell; he couldn't see clearly as her back was to him. She vanished inside, and the sally port closed behind her.

He felt very alone all of a sudden, and damp and uncomfortable, and tired and weak, and wondered if he had done the right thing. But at the same time he was thinking about Lirael's words.

“I wanted to.” Nick repeated her words to himself. She had wanted to come and get him. For her own sake? As a favor to Sam? Was she one of those people who just said nice things without meaning them? He didn't think so, she seemed quite serious. He liked that, but it was hard to be sure of her true feelings on such a short acquaintance.

He must look a complete joke to her at the moment, he thought. A scrawny, pallid wreck in a borrowed cloak, shivering away with a red nose that was beginning to drip. A far cry from how he had imagined returning to the Old Kingdom.

Or how he had imagined it would be to meet Lirael again.

Nick wiped his nose with the edge of the cloak and looked back at the sally port. It remained stubbornly closed. The cloud was closing around the landing ledge again, reknitting itself into a solid expanse of white flecked with black streaks, and it was beginning to snow again. Wet, slushy snow.

After ten minutes, though it felt much longer to Nick, he grew tired of waiting. Clutching his cloak together at the front, he laboriously climbed out of the cockpit, gasping at the savage impact of the cold as he left the protective magic. His breath puffed out immediately like smoke, and the wetness on the end of his nose felt like it had been suddenly snap-frozen. His shoes, now bereft of laces, were loose on his feet and let in snow at the sides, which melted at once on what had been up until that moment his relatively warm feet.

Nick crept to the sally port, thinking to knock on it. But he had barely gone more than a few paces from the paperwing when there
was a flash of light under the thin layer of snow ahead, as if hundreds of the magnesium flares photographers used had suddenly fired off, without the usual puffs of white smoke. Nick stopped and peered at the ground ahead. There were golden lights moving about under the snow there, tracing a picture, as if some huge unseen hand were painting in lines of sunshine.

He was still staring when the lines all came together at once, there was another even more blinding flash, and when his vision cleared save for several dancing black spots, there was a giant worm between him and the gate.

A worm easily seventy feet long and twelve feet in diameter, with a mouth of that same disturbingly wide diameter occupying all of the end closest to him, a mouth completely ringed with six serried layers of different-sized teeth, from enormous grinding molars at the back to tiny, delicate flesh-rending pointy ones at the front. Thousands of teeth, each the size and shape of a murderous small knife.

Nick gulped and stumbled back several steps to stand next to the paperwing, which he hoped might lend him some protection, as his mind furiously tried to come to terms with the sudden appearance of this vast monster.

The worm reared up at the front, its middle segments scrunching together, but it did not pursue him, nor make any move elsewhere. Its whole posture, if a giant worm could be said to have a posture, was that of a watchful sentry.

It was guarding the gate, Nick realized. He really hoped that also meant it would not attack him unless he tried to go closer.

He was feeling very slightly relieved about this when he heard the faintest sound behind him. Half turning, he found the very sharp point of a sword near his throat, and his cloak gaped open again from the speed of his spinning about. He started to pull it closed, but stopped as the sword touched his skin.

“Stay still!” commanded the woman who held the sword, which
was glowing with Charter marks, warm and bright upon the cold steel blade. She was dressed entirely in white to match the snow, a thickly bundled figure with a hooded cloak showing a few errant strands of very pale blond hair, deep brown skin, and bright blue eyes under the green glass goggles which she had slid up on her forehead. Another brown-skinned, blue-eyed blond woman, also dressed in white furs over armor, stood nearby with an arrow nocked on a short bow. The point of the arrow was aimed at Nick's head, though she had not actually drawn back the bowstring.

“I am a guest,” said Nick, trying very much to be the First Minister of Ancelstierre's nephew, even standing bare naked under a rather gaping cloak. He remained very still. The sword point was just pricking the skin of his windpipe, and it was as sharp as any razor he had ever used. “Or so I have been assured.”

“Is that so—” the swordswoman started to say, but she was interrupted by the sudden return of Lirael, who was trying to come out of the sally port. Finding it would only open halfway because of the worm, she put her head out, looked at the huge creature that had taken up residence in front of the greater part of the gate, and stamped her foot much as Nick might do when one of the dogs at home tried to come in where it wasn't allowed.

“Shoo!” said Lirael, waving her golden hand.

The worm flexed itself back far enough to allow her to open the lesser door and she came striding out toward the paperwing. “What is going on? Lower your sword at once!”

“Who are you?” asked the swordswoman. She did not lower her sword, and the archer with her transferred her aim to Lirael.

“The Abhorsen-in-Waiting! As you can see very well from my surcoat, bells, and the royal paperwing right in front of your eyes, Calleset!”

The sword did go down this time, rather waveringly, and the archer lowered her bow.

“Lirael?” asked Calleset. She stepped away from Nick, who took the opportunity to wrap his cloak back around himself and look nervously at the giant worm. It remained by the gate, which was only slightly comforting, as its rows of teeth were rotating, each layer moving in a contrary direction to the next.