Goldenhand (15 page)

“There is only one Abhorsen-in-Waiting, isn't there?” commented Lirael testily. “Why isn't the gate open? And I would have expected
someone
from the Watch up here to meet me!”

Calleset looked at her, openmouthed, then mumbled something about “having gotten taller.”

“Well, where is everybody?” asked Lirael. She gestured at the archer. “Lower your bow before you have an accident. Jelesray, isn't it? I didn't know you were in the Rangers.”

“I . . . I just joined three months ago,” said Jelesray haltingly. She was much younger than Calleset, perhaps seventeen to the latter's early twenties.

“I'm sorry, Lirael,” said Calleset stiffly. “I was just surprised. I've never heard you talk so much. You never did before. We used to call you Chatterbox, remember?”

“No,” said Lirael. She was surprised to have had any nickname at all, particularly from someone older like Calleset. It all seemed so long ago, her life as a Clayr. Or as she had always thought, not really a Clayr, since she didn't have the Sight. “Did you?”

“Um, well, some people did,” said Calleset, suddenly recalling that Lirael was no longer a very shy and retiring Second Assistant Librarian but the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and not only that, but a great hero of the Kingdom.

“Why isn't the gate open?” asked Lirael. “Has something happened? All the Watch busy, and only two rangers available to meet me and my guest?”

She indicated Nick, who was nervously watching the worm, still with a certain amount of disbelief and a great deal of caution. He was
trying to work out where to run if it suddenly lunged forward with that vast mouth and all those teeth. Lirael was very trusting to turn her back to such a thing . . .

“Who I should say is Nicholas Sayre, a . . . a prince from Ancelstierre,” continued Lirael. “Or as good as, his uncle being their ruler—”

“That's not quite right,” interrupted Nick. He still didn't take his eyes off the worm. “Technically the Hereditary Arbiter is the head of state; he's my cousin. Uncle Edward is the Chief Minister—”

“So I would have thought someone from the Watch could be here to greet him at least, even if everyone just thinks I am still the same old Lirael!”

“I don't think anyone thinks
that
,” blurted out Calleset. “It's . . . it is just that we . . . they . . . the Nine Day Watch didn't See you.”

“Oh,” replied Lirael.

The Clayr
always
Saw visitors, even if they missed other things. But set against that certainty there was also the case that she herself had never been Seen by the Watch when she was growing up, even when the normal Nine Day Watch of forty-nine Clayr was reinforced to the rare Fifteen Hundred and Sixty-Eight Clayr, all concentrating their power in an attempt to distill the myriad possible futures into a mere several that could be Seen clearly in the ice of the Observatory.

The Watch had in fact only Seen Lirael once, at the very last moment, when the action against Orannis was critical. Lirael had thought that from then on the Clayr would See her as much as they Saw everyone else. But perhaps not . . .

“There is also the . . . the Starmount Guardian,” added Calleset, indicating the giant worm arrayed in front of the gate. “We came from the next post up the mountainside when the alarm sounded, indicating the guardian was active. It only comes out when danger threatens, or enemies are without the gate.”

“It c-c-ame out of the g-g-ground when I walked t-t-toward the little d-d-door,” said Nick. His teeth were chattering from the cold now, much as he tried to keep them still. “Is it . . . um . . . r-r-real?”

“It's a guard Sending,” said Lirael. “Made of Charter Magic. Real enough, if you had to fight it, though I have to say whoever made it—a long time ago—got the teeth wrong. Real drill-grubs don't have pointy teeth in the front ring, or pointy teeth at all, for that matter. But we need to get you in out of the cold. Come on!”

Lirael took Nick by the arm and began to lead him toward the gate. But as they approached, the great worm reared up before them, its teeth rotated faster, and gobbets of purple slime began to drip from its mouth.

“Drill-grubs don't drool. That is pure invention,” said Lirael crossly, but she stopped as Nick flinched back. “However, it does seem to be triggered by your presence, Nick.”

“We can't let anyone in whom the Starmount Guardian refuses,” said Calleset uneasily. She pulled a small leather-bound book from the pouch on her belt and flicked it open. “That's rule thirty-six: ‘Should the Starmount Worm, the Sunfall Lion, or'—well, there are others I shouldn't mention—it says, ‘appear of their own volition, then look to your swords and bar entry to those the guardians scorn.'”

“Scorn?” asked Nick.

“It's old-fashioned,” said Lirael hurriedly. “It just means keep out.”

Calleset put the book away and stood at attention with her chin up, which unfortunately did nothing to counter her general air of uncertainty.

“So . . . um . . . we can't let your guest in. Even if he is a prince from over the Wall. I'm sorry.”

“Because of rule thirty-six,” said Lirael. “And you have to follow the rules.”

“Yes,” said Calleset.

Lirael looked at the guard Sending and thought for a moment. She could probably send it away with a spell, or disable it, but this would only create more problems. Two young rangers would never go against their rules and regulations. They might even feel they had to fight her. . . . Lirael felt suddenly ill at the thought of fighting her kin, and hastily dismissed any notion of forcing her way in.

“I presume more rangers will be on their way, from the other posts on the mountain and from inside? Someone of higher rank?”

“Yes,” said Calleset. “The alarm will have sounded everywhere.”

“So we can expect Mirelle or some other officer who can send the guardian back to rest fairly soon?”

Mirelle was the commander of the Rangers, those Clayr who patrolled the glacier, the mountains, and the river valley, and who also guarded the outer gates.

“Maybe just a lieutenant,” said Calleset. The expression on her face suggested that she hoped it was not the commander herself who would show up. “Qilla's the closest on duty, up here.”

“Qilla got made a lieutenant of the Rangers?”

Qilla was only five or six years older than Lirael, very young to be promoted so high. A lieutenancy in the Rangers was the equivalent of a First Assistant Librarian. Not that ranks in the various employments of the Clayr were considered all that important by the inhabitants of the Glacier; everything was subsidiary to their main task of Seeing the future, or trying to make sense of the many possible futures they Saw.

“Acting lieutenant,” said Calleset, then shut her mouth as if she had said too much.

“We'd better wait for her, then,” said Lirael. “But could Jelesray please go inside and fetch some of the paperwing flyer's furs for Nicholas? If that isn't against the rules?”

Calleset inclined her head at the younger ranger, who quickly ran to the sally port. Nick noticed that she went as far around the
worm as she could, obviously not really believing it knew the difference between those who should be allowed in and those who should not. He was relieved to see he was not the only person there who found the drill-grub Sending frightening. He wished he could be as uncaring about it as Lirael, who had barely spared the giant worm a glance after she had first shooed it away from the gate.

“Perhaps I should explain that Nicholas was involved in the binding of Orannis,” said Lirael. “And from that, carries the taint of Free Magic in his blood and bone. I suspect that is what the worm reacts to; that kind of Sending is generally not very discerning.”

“Or it simply doesn't l-l-like my face,” said Nick, attempting a joke, which fell flat, as Lirael and Calleset both looked puzzled.

“Drill-grubs are blind,” said Lirael, after a moment. “They sense vibrations. Though this Sending may have been given other senses in its creation, you can see it has no eyes.”

“Yes,” mumbled Nick, teeth chattering. He felt even more miserable now. “How s-s-silly of me.”

Near Yellowsands, the Old Kingdom

T
he first wood-weird came scuttling over the Charter Stone hill a little less than thirty minutes after Ferin had parted company with the main body of villagers. It skirted around the stone, keeping well clear. This particular Free Magic construct was long and low, rather like a cockroach or spider in shape, one made from a rough-hewn hickory trunk and branches, trailing strips of partially sloughed-off bark. The creature had eight legs made from tree roots, joined in multiple segments. Free Magic fire burned at the joints, and also in the eyes and mouth that had been gouged in the end of its central trunk with auger and adze.

It was very quick, faster than any wood-weird Ferin had seen before, as swift as a galloping horse, though it moved in a series of long lunges, with short pauses in between. Well ahead of its fellows, it got down into the valley within a few minutes. There it continued its horrible speedy, scuttling movement: rushing forward, stopping for a moment as if to test the air, then rushing forward again.

Ferin and her companions were a little more than halfway up the shale hill, the ridgeline looming above them. They stopped to look down, and there was a collective pause in everyone's breath as the wood-weird did
not
turn aside to follow their path, but continued down the road, following the fleeing villagers. The last dozen or so of the fisher-folk were still in sight, well short of where the road turned behind the southern hill toward the estuary and the tower.

The wood-weird would catch the stragglers in ten minutes at the most, though these last villagers had seen it too, and were now running rather than walking. But there was no way they could escape such a swiftly moving creature.

More wood-weirds appeared on the crest of the village hill, again giving the Charter Stone a wide berth. These were like the one that had attacked Ferin at the Bridge Castle: tall monsters of fir and spruce and ironwood, timbers greatly valued on the steppe, where all trees were rare.

Once again, Ferin wondered at the profligate use of the wood-weirds so far from the steppe. The cost in sorcerers, keepers, and rare timber was extreme. She had said the raider must carry the sorcerous strength of two clans at least, but perhaps it was nearer three or even four clans working in concert, at the behest of the Witch With No Face. Her own Athask people had only two shamans and three witches, and of them, only the most senior could create a wood-weird. It took years to make the body, carving the timber and infusing it with spells, preparing it for habitation by a powerful enough Free Magic spirit, which had to be gotten from wherever the sorcerers found such things.

“Charter, please make it turn aside and follow us,” whispered Swinther, his words echoed by Young Laska. The woodcutter was not looking at the slower creatures marching down the Charter Stone hill, only at the spiderlike, eight-legged wood-weird on the road below, which drew closer and closer to the rear guard of the fisher-folk. If you could call it a rear guard, since in terms of effective fighters it consisted only of Constable Megril and Astilaran, the former kicking a well-known dockside lounger along in an effort to make him run faster.

“Can we draw the creature's attention?” asked Ferin. “With some of your magic?”

“Yes,” replied Young Laska. She smiled a wry smile. “I am more used to trying to conceal myself from such things. But there is a signal we use . . .”

She bent her head and held her hands cupped near her mouth, a look of intense concentration in her eyes. The Borderer blew out a tiny breath, and Ferin watched in fascination as glowing marks tumbled from Young Laska's lips and gathered in her hands, winding together like a tiny serpent, the head gripping the tail. She took another breath, deeper this time, laid her hands flat, and blew the spinning circle of marks out into the air. Rather than tumbling down the hillside, the glowing ring shot up into the sky and a second later exploded into dozens and dozens of brilliant small stars that fell a dozen feet before disappearing with attendant thunderclaps, not loud and close, but as if from a far-off storm.

It was enough to attract the attention of all the wood-weirds in the valley below, and indeed, the sorcerers who were loping along with their keepers behind them holding their silver chains close, like huntsmen keeping dogs of uncertain temper on short leashes.

“The spider-thing turns,” said Ferin. She waved her arms and called out, “Here! Here!” and then made several rude gestures common to all the tribes, though these would mean nothing to the Free Magic creatures, and the sorcerers and their keepers were probably too far away to see her clearly.

Young Laska chuckled at her side. Ferin looked at her.

“You know what that meant?”

The Borderer nodded.

“I was assigned for several years to the Northwest Desert, one of the most distant parts of the Kingdom that borders the lower western steppe. There are several oases there where the Moon Horse clan and the Blood Horses come to trade, and sometimes to raid. So I know a little of the tribes, and even of sand-swimmers, wood-weirds, and
Spirit-Walkers, though I confess to having seen a wood-weird only once before. They were very uncommon in the desert.”

“But you survived,” said Ferin. “That is good.”

“I hid from it, and ran when I could, and I was lucky,” said Young Laska. She pointed downward, where the fast wood-weird had already turned and was running toward their hillside. “I think it is time we also quickened our pace, if not to run.”

“No running,” said Swinther. “The path narrows even before the ridge, and it will be broken shale underfoot soon; you will need to set each footfall very carefully, and crouch low. Watch where I go, do what I do. Follow!”

The path grew steeper and more difficult almost immediately. Either frequent passage, or active work, had cleared away the deeper piles of loose shale so that there was bedrock or earth beneath to actually step upon, and here and there in the trickier parts iron staples had been driven deeply into the rock to use as foot- or handholds, though some were so rusted Swinther tested them very carefully before use.

Ferin was pleased the path was difficult, for it would slow the wood-weirds a great deal. But then again, she did not want them to turn back too soon, and go on to catch the fisher-folk before they reached the haven of the old tower.

But after a very steep section, liberally seeded with deeply seated iron spikes, they reached the ridge and the going became much easier, at least at first. The path was six or seven paces wide, and almost level, rising or falling only a few feet for quite some distance. The shale underfoot on the path was loose, but in very crushed, small pieces, so it was reasonably easy to keep one's footing, unlike the much more treacherous many-layered sheets of stone to either side. The shale there would undoubtedly break at once and slide away if trodden on, taking the unfortunate walker with it.

They had only gone on another hundred paces when Young
Laska stopped and held her hand up to test the breeze. There had been little enough below, and not much more on the ridge, but now the wind was freshening and swinging around. It was colder, and brought with it the tang of rain.

“Wind's changed,” said Young Laska. She looked to the west. “A westerly now, from the mountains. Not natural.”

“They had a wind-eater aboard,” said Ferin. “I shot her. Or him. But they were not killed.”

“Bringing clouds,” said Young Laska. “I wonder—”

She was interrupted by the sound of falling shale. They looked back and saw the speedy wood-weird get its two leading tree-root legs over the top of the steep climb, scrabble for a moment, then haul itself up onto the ridge. It paused there for a few moments, burning eyes looking straight at Ferin and her companions, then immediately started along the path, its movement now reminiscent of a hunting spider.

Young Laska had her bow off her back and an arrow nocked in seconds, with Ferin only a moment behind. Two arrows flew, Ferin's striking the body of the creature only to shatter without effect. But Young Laska's Charter-spelled arrow stuck fast in the hollow of the thing's eye, a great gout of white sparks spraying out where it lodged.

“Save your shafts!” snapped Young Laska to Ferin, sending another arrow speeding into the creature's other eyehole. Again, there was a shower of sparks. The wood-weird stopped, and for a moment Ferin thought it was mortally wounded. But it was only blinded, and it started forward again, carefully feeling the path ahead with its forelegs.

Young Laska shot again, at one of these forelegs, her arrow sticking in a joint, which became wreathed in golden fire, Charter Magic competing with the sickly red burn of Free Magic within. But her next arrow missed the other leg, striking shale, and the creature
rushed forward, opening its rough-cut mouth wide, the fire within roiling, white smoke jetting forth, accompanied by the nauseating, hot-metal reek of Free Magic.

Young Laska dropped her bow to wield a Charter-spelled arrow in her hand, but Swinther nimbly slid past her, his double-bladed axe lifted high.

“For Yellowsands!”