Goldenhand (16 page)

Clayr's Glacier, Old Kingdom

Q
illa, newly made acting lieutenant of the Rangers, did not feel she was of a sufficiently elevated standing to ignore rule thirty-six and send the guardian drill-grub Sending back into its quiescent state under the stones of the landing ground and admit the visitor, despite Lirael's entreaties.

“Oh, for Charter's sake!” exclaimed Lirael. “Can someone send for Mirelle? Or the Voice of the Nine Day Watch?”

“The Voice?” asked Qilla. She pursed her lips and shook her head. “I don't think this calls—”

“Qilla,” said Lirael. “I know it's hard for you all to come to terms with the fact, but I am not just some junior cousin anymore, I
am
the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. If it was Sabriel here asking you to let her guest in, would we all be standing around in the cold?”

“Uh, no,” said Qilla. “But . . .”

“Get Mirelle,” said Lirael. “Or the Voice.”

Qilla looked as if she was about to say something, but shut her mouth as Lirael looked at her, her golden hand resting on the handle of Saraneth, the sixth bell, the one used to bind the Dead to the wielder's will. There was no trace of the meek, withdrawn girl Qilla had known vaguely by sight, as all the Clayr knew one another, if not better because of closer kinship or the propinquity of either work or shared participation in the Nine Day Watch.

“I'll send word for Mirelle,” said Qilla, and walked away to confer with one of the other rangers. There were four of them on the
landing ground now, standing about and gazing outward, down and up, as if they were guarding Lirael and Nick from a surprise attack from without, rather than surreptitiously keeping an eye on these unexpected and complicated arrivals.

Lirael looked down at Nick, who she had made sit back in the relative warmth of the paperwing's cockpit. He was dressed in a leather-and-fur flying coat and woolen breeches now, and he felt much warmer and more secure, now sufficiently well-clothed not to be embarrassed by a sudden movement or a gust of wind. But, although he did not know it, he still looked awful, very pale and weak, and he shivered from time to time, no longer from cold but simply from lack of blood and weariness.

He smiled at Lirael and said, “I go a thousand miles, to another kingdom, somewhere that feels like another world entirely, and it is just like being back home! Trying to get into the Moot when it is in session, to see my father or uncle, with some flun . . . that is . . . with a guard or an official wanting a particular pass or someone else to take responsibility for letting me through the door.”

“Thank you for not being . . . for not being angry,” said Lirael.
She
was angry, quite furious that they had not been admitted at once. It made her look stupid and ineffectual in front of Nick, and though she did not want to admit it, even to herself, she had hoped that when she did eventually return to the Glacier that she would finally be treated as someone of note, a handsome frog rather than an ugly tadpole, as in the children's story.

Mirelle arrived some thirty minutes later, slightly out of breath from running up the Starmount Stair, something that would have left most Clayr half her age, or anyone else for that matter, puking and half-dead. It was a very long way and the steps had much higher risers than was normal, as if they were built for a race of eight-foot-tall people. Yet for the leather-skinned, grey-haired commander of the
Rangers it was apparently no more than a mild stretch on a spring afternoon.

“Greetings, Abhorsen-in-Waiting,” said Mirelle, bowing. She raised her hand, two fingers extended, and said, “May I test your mark?”

Lirael nodded. This was correct etiquette, but she doubted Mirelle meant it that way; it was probably her being wary of a potential enemy, some sort of substitution or deceit. Particularly as she noted the older Clayr kept one hand on the hilt of the small but doubtless extremely sharp knife she wore on her left side, next to her sword. Lirael had always found Mirelle rather frightening on the few occasions they'd crossed paths, but this time she was not intimidated. She thought about that for a moment, remembering her earlier self. But that younger Lirael had not fought Free Magic constructs, many Dead creatures, Chlorr of the Mask, and ultimately Orannis itself.

The commander reached out and touched the Charter mark on Lirael's forehead, even as Lirael did the same to her. Both immediately felt the deep connection, the sudden immersion in the endless sea of marks, some very familiar, some known, so many unknown, flashing past in an instant.

Mirelle withdrew her hand and smiled.

“I apologize for my caution, Lirael,” she said. “We are so rarely blind to the future on our own doorstep, and you were not Seen at all. May I test your companion's mark?”

“Sure,” said Nick, even though she hadn't asked him. He smiled wearily. “Whatever it takes to get closer to a hot bath and a meal.”

“Before you do,” said Lirael, speaking quietly so only Mirelle and Nick could hear, “you should know this is Nicholas Sayre, who bore the fragment of Orannis within him, and unwittingly aided the necromancer Hedge. The . . . the Disreputable Dog, that is to say Kibeth, used her power to restore him to Life and baptized him with
the mark. But there is a great deal of Free Magic within him as well. That is why I have brought him here, to see . . . to see what we may discover of the nature of this combination. And . . . and to deal with his wounds, both old and new.”

“I see,” said Mirelle. She bent over and touched the mark on Nick's forehead and kept her fingers against his forehead for several seconds. Then she slowly withdrew her hand, but didn't straighten up.

“Now you touch my mark,” she said. “That is the normal courtesy. We do it to assure ourselves the mark is not faked, or corrupted in some way, by Free Magic or artifice.”

Nick glanced at Lirael. She nodded encouragingly, so he reached out as Mirelle had done, and touched the mark on her forehead. It was just under the lip of her steel helmet, which was wrapped in white cloth and somewhat resembled a turban.

Nick gasped as he felt himself suddenly surrounded by glowing Charter marks, the normal world somehow dull and removed. He knew he still sat in the paperwing, he could feel the cool air, but at the same time he had the sensation of sinking—no, diving—deep into some other place, an endless sea of glowing Charter marks that had no beginning or end, and he became afraid that he would be lost in it as he began to feel separate from his own body, a detached intelligence caught up in this rushing current of magic, and he had to exert all his willpower to pull his fingers back, breaking the connection and restoring himself to himself.

“So that is what Sam talks about,” he croaked. He felt very small and insignificant all of a sudden, a mere speck, suddenly aware of so much more around and about him and how it was connected. “The Charter.”

“I am afraid you present a problem,” said Mirelle. “Your mark is true, but you also contain a great amount of Free Magic, as much or more than any of the creatures who are our mortal enemies. That is what the Starmount Guardian senses, no matter how it is overlaid
with Charter Magic. We are expressly forbidden to allow you entry to the Glacier . . . as a guest or visitor.”

Lirael noted the phrasing of Mirelle's reply. She seemed to be suggesting something, some way around the prohibition, without actually saying so. But Lirael wasn't sure what the ranger meant.

“Can the Voice overrule this prohibition?” asked Lirael. “Who is the Voice at the moment, anyway?”

“She could,” said Mirelle, in a tone that suggested this was not going to happen. “But it is your aunt Kirrith. At least for the next five days.”

“What!” exclaimed Lirael. “Not Sanar and Ryelle?”

Kirrith was the Guardian of the Young; she had held that office for the entirety of Lirael's life, and it was one that usually excluded the bearer from participating in the Nine Day Watch and thus the potential to become the Voice. Being the Voice was an honor and responsibility which usually went to the Clayr with the strongest vision, which meant it was the province of people like Sanar and Ryelle, whose Sight was very powerful. One or the other of these twins, or both of them concurrently, usually occupied the post for many consecutive terms of the Watch. But Lirael knew that sometimes, when everything was quiet and there wasn't much being Seen anyway, the post was assigned to those worthy in other ways, as a mark of distinction and gratitude for their everyday work in the Glacier.

“They have the influenza,” said Mirelle, with the faintest of shrugs. “It is not very serious, but a great many people have needed to take to their beds these last few weeks. It was Seen coming, and with little else happening, it looked like an appropriate time to honor some who perhaps would not otherwise ever be the Voice.”

Lirael suppressed a groan. She did not hold a high opinion of her aunt Kirrith's intelligence. Worse, Kirrith was deeply suspicious of anyone or anything from outside the Clayr's closed world. She would
never overrule any tradition, regulation, or even old habits of the Clayr.

“I take it your aunt is not likely to look fondly upon my visit?” asked Nick. “I have some aunts of my own who aren't too keen on me, either.”

“Nick needs to be somewhere warm soon, where he can rest,” said Lirael to Mirelle. “I never thought to be turned away here! We should have gone to Belisaere.”

“The King, of course, could order us to take him in,” said Mirelle. “But I understand the King is taking a holiday?”

“Yes,” said Lirael. “Not to be disturbed by message-hawks, save for dire news of the first importance. Which I suppose this isn't . . .”

She looked up at the sky. It was growing dark quickly, and the wind was increasing, a very cold wind. Soon it would be too cold even in the cockpit of the paperwing, which would not be comfortable overnight in any case. Nick was visibly shivering all the time now, and she thought his lips were looking bluish. It was ridiculous to be so close to warmth and shelter and not be allowed to take him in. Lirael was sure the Free Magic was contained; it would not simply break out. It wasn't as if she was trying to smuggle a Stilken inside.

Her mind wandered to how the Stilken had gotten into the Library in the first place, though of course it had probably been there for centuries, if not longer. The Clayr could not possibly guard all entrances, every nook and cranny in two mountains and a glacier. It was possible it had even been brought in on purpose, inside that glass coffin, to be studied . . .

A smile slowly spread across Lirael's face.

“Nick,” she said, looking down at him, her eyes suddenly bright. “There is a way we can get you inside.”

“Good,” said Nick faintly. He smiled back at her. “I
really
wouldn't mind that hot bath you mentioned . . .”

Lirael turned to Mirelle. She was surprised to see a very faint
look of amusement on the ranger's generally stern and forbidding face.

“I believe the Library has a general dispensation for importing items of interest, including living things and even Free Magic?”

“Indeed,” said Mirelle.

“Then please send word ahead to the Librarian or her deputy that the Abhorsen-in-Waiting and once and perhaps still Second Assistant Librarian Lirael presents her compliments and is bringing a temporary addition to the collection, a person to be studied. And can you put that Sending back under the ground and open the gate so we can get the paperwing inside as well?”

“As you wish,” said Mirelle. The faint look of amusement became a definite flicker of a smile, which crossed her face for a moment and was gone. She bowed, waved the other rangers in, and walked across to the great worm. There she spoke several words heavily imbued with Charter marks. The worm immediately blurred, like a sketch being erased, and became once again an outline drawn in light. This hung in the air for a few moments before it sank into the ground, leaving behind thousands of tiny glowing marks like strange wildflowers on the snow, which slowly faded, leaving no trace of the worm's former presence.

Lirael helped Nick out of the paperwing, and whistled, three short, sweet notes, Charter marks leaping with her breath to the paperwing's nose. It shuddered and lightly flicked its wings. Lirael held Nick as they walked to the slowly opening gate, the paperwing drifting along behind them a few inches above the ground.

Near Yellowsands, the Old Kingdom

S
winther's axe bounced from the ensorcelled wood-weird's leg, but the sheer force of the blow pushed the creature off balance. At the same time Young Laska took a great risk, lunging past the woodcutter with one foot on the loose shale off the path. Somehow she kept her balance, driving an arrow by hand into the top joint of the wood-weird's left foreleg before turning on the spot to jump back.

White sparks geysered from the wound with a sound like a massive snake hissing. The wood-weird snapped down at Young Laska as she spun away, but Swinther swung his axe again, knocking the certainly fatal bite aside.

“Back! Swinther! Back!” shouted Young Laska, grabbing her bow and crawling away along the path as fast as she could. Ferin also retreated, sending another useless shaft into the wood-weird, the arrow again simply bouncing off and falling down the hillside.

Swinther backed up, swinging his axe in fast diagonals, but the blade did not cut; no wood chips flew. He could knock the forelimbs aside, but that was all. The wood-weird continued after him, though it did not move as swiftly as before. White sparks continued to fountain from its eyes and joints, but otherwise it did not seem to be much damaged.

“Go!” shouted Swinther. “I will slow it! Go!”

In answer, Ferin reached off the path and grabbed the corner of
a slab of shale half her own size, though only three or four inches thick.

“Help me!”

Young Laska saw at once what Ferin intended. Dropping her bow again, she picked up the other side of the stone.

“Duck!” they shouted together, and as Swinther dropped low, they heaved the stone against the wood-weird's already damaged foreleg. Once again, it did not affect the ensorcelled timber. But the stone broke into pieces and fell under the creature's questing forelimbs, making it pause for a dozen seconds as its long rootlike legs tentatively felt for solid ground amid the rubble.

Useful seconds, which allowed Swinther to back away and Ferin and Young Laska to retreat several more paces around a corner where the ridge and the path upon it turned sharply north.

“Small stones!” shouted Ferin. “Break them in front of it!”

She started picking up smaller pieces of shale, hurling them to shatter in front of the wood-weird. Young Laska copied her, both of them picking up and throwing slabs as quickly as they could, covering the path with pieces of broken stone.

The wood-weird, blinded by the still-sparking Charter-spelled arrows in its eye sockets, came on cautiously, feeling about in the broken shale with its forelegs. It moved more erratically now, the Charter-spelled arrows working away in the joints to sever the Free Magic that articulated and drove the cleverly fashioned timber.

Swinther retreated around the turn in the path, dropped his axe behind him, crouched down, and started to throw slabs of shale as well. Ferin and Young Laska were now using both hands to scoop and throw, so that the path ahead of the creature was piled high with broken shale.

The wood-weird, blind and probing with its crippled forelimbs, and now confused by the shale everywhere and no clear path to find,
missed the turn. It continued straight ahead, several steps too far. Its forelimbs slipped and it fell forward, rear legs scrabbling as the shale in front collapsed. For a moment it looked as if it might draw back, but then a whole great layer of shale slid down the hill, precipitating a sudden avalanche of stone.

The wood-weird surfed down the side of the ridge amid a clattering wave of broken shale, until it came to a halt several hundred feet below with a sickening crack. A second later it was buried by the several tons of shale that came down after it, and a great cloud of grey stone-dust rose up to the sky.

As the dust rose, there was a scream of rage from farther back along the ridge. A shaman climbed up to the path, ignoring the keeper who was heaving on the silver chain about his neck to keep him still. The shaman tried to run toward Ferin and the others, but only managed two or three steps before the neck-ring closed and he fell, choking.

The keeper climbed up behind the fallen shaman, knelt on his back, and jerked the chain savagely several times, as a warning or to ensure compliance. Then she let go, dropped the chain, and stood up to take the bow from her back.

Even before this keeper could take an arrow from the case at her side, she was struck by one of Young Laska's ordinary, unspelled arrows. The yard-long shaft should have killed her, piercing her through and through, but just before it hit, some unseen force sent it spinning away.

“Charmed!” spat Young Laska, and sent three shafts in quick succession at almost exactly the same target: high on the left of the keeper's chest.

Two arrows spun away like the first, diverted by the Free Magic charm. But the power of the defense failed with the last arrow, or at least did not entirely work. The arrow veered, but only by a few inches, and the keeper fell, transfixed through the neck by a bloodied shaft.

Ferin had drawn too, but not shot, thinking she was likely to miss at that range, and with the wind blowing.

The shaman, freed from the restraint of his keeper's silver chain, slowly got to his feet. He paused for a moment, then came staggering along the path, face set in a mask of anger. He was just beginning to raise one hand in a spell-casting gesture when Young Laska sent three quick arrows at him as well. Either he had no defensive charm, or it was not ready, for all three struck. The shaman was spun about and fell from the ridge with one last screech of pain and anger, his descent accompanied by a cascade of shale. A few seconds later the stone-dust rose again, just as it had for the wood-weird he had made.

“Eleven to go,” said Ferin.

“I have no more Charter-spelled arrows,” said Young Laska in a matter-of-fact tone. “And only eight ordinary shafts.”

“We'd best not let them catch us, then,” said Swinther. He was examining the front of his leather jerkin, which had been ripped open by the sharp foreleg of the wood-weird, and was bloody underneath.

“You're wounded?” asked Ferin. Her ankle was hurting much more, as Astilaran had predicted, but it was still nothing like as painful as it had been. She could move without restraint.

“No . . .” replied Swinther, wiping his bloodied hand on his breeches. “It swiped me, sure, but those limbs were strangely hot. It cauterized as it cut. A bite would have been a different matter, those snaggled, splintered teeth. . . . Stay still, I will come around you. The path grows very narrow soon and forks with a false dead-end ridge in the offing. Then there is the sharpest part of the ridgeline to pass, where we will need our hands and bare feet to grip. I do not think even that eight-legged creature could cross there.”

Young Laska looked up at the clouds that were drawing closer, and then down below. She was puzzled by what she saw, for only one silver-chained figure and his or her keeper were beginning to
ascend, and they had no wood-weird with them. The other keepers were gathered close, their sorcerers kept in a huddle between them. From the look of all the gesticulating and the faint sound of shouts, there was an argument under way, one that had so far fallen short of blows.

“There's only one sorcerer and keeper coming up,” said Ferin.

“Can you see which tribes the keepers are from, in the main body?” asked Young Laska.

“No. They are too distant to see the colors on their sashes,” said Ferin. She gestured back along the path. “That one you killed, he was Yrus. Sky Horse. Are you thinking they will fight each other? They will not, not when they are under orders from the Witch With No Face.”

“I think they don't want to send their wood-weirds up the shale,” said Young Laska. She pointed where the ring of keepers was suddenly expanding, sorcerers being dragged back by chains, wood-weirds rising up on their tree-root legs. “Look, they are heading back toward the village.”

“To loot and burn, most likely,” said Swinther heavily. “Still, better we lose our houses and boats than our lives.”

“They will not go away unless they are sure I will be taken or killed,” said Ferin, a note of puzzlement in her voice. “But to send only one shaman, one keeper, not even with a wood-weird . . .”

Young Laska looked up at the clouds again—darkening clouds, moving quite rapidly toward the sun—and then she gazed back down at that lone shaman.

“I would hazard a guess their wind-eater is also a wind-caller,” she said slowly. “And not only that, a necromancer to boot. I can think of no other reason they would want to block the sun.”

As she spoke, the shadow of the clouds rolled over them, blotting out the sun, and the ridge was suddenly cool. Ferin stared down at the shaman below, who was still in sunshine for a few more seconds,
and saw that he did indeed wear the seven bells of a necromancer in a bandolier across his chest, and his head was helmetless and freshly bandaged around the ear, testament to the closeness of the arrow she had shot from the fishing boat. In addition to his bells, the shaman had a strange tarred box upon his back, doubtless containing some adjunct to his dark art.

He did not wear traditional garb, and it took Ferin a moment to work out that the off-white coat he wore was a kind of armor, made from hundreds of small bones, linked with dark iron rings. It was almost certainly imbued with charms against ordinary arrows, and other mundane weapons too.

The keeper behind him was a woman. Ferin knew her sash colors, and observed that she kept a very tight hold of the silver chain, and in her gloved right hand she carried an unwrapped spirit-glass arrow, a thin coil of white smoke rising from its tip.

“He
is
a necromancer,” said Ferin. “The keeper is of the Ghost Horse clan; they are one of the three tribes that keep necromancers. He must be very powerful, she is so fearful of him she must carry a spirit-glass arrow at the ready, in addition to the neck-ring and chain. They will both have stronger charms against arrows.”

“Something to test, if the opportunity presents,” said Young Laska. “But for now, I suggest we open the range, rather than closing it.”

“Yes,” said Ferin. She looked at the necromancer again, then at Swinther. “Are there dead buried up here at all?”

Swinther thought for a moment, knowing all too well why Ferin was asking. A necromancer needed something to work with: bodies, a cemetery, a battlefield, a place of many deaths . . .

“Not on the ridge itself,” he said. “But below this hill, to the north, there were once a dozen farms in the valley, maybe more. One was bigger than the others, a place called Nangan Rest. There was a feast there; everyone for leagues around attended. No one knows
what happened, but they fell to fighting each other, and nearly all were killed. Nangan Rest was burned to the ground, farmhouse, outbuildings, tower and all. Later, the bodies were put into the ground and a mound raised. This is fifty . . . fifty-four years gone, you understand. In the bad times, when there was no King.”

“How many farmers died?” asked Ferin. “And how close, exactly?”

“Hundreds, to hear the tale,” said Swinther. “Just below us, as I said. You can see the mound still, that small green hill, perhaps half a league beyond the last of the shale.”

He paused, then added, “And . . . there are also those who have died along the ridge. One every few years or so. The farm boys will do it as a sort of initiation, they always have, and sometimes ours will join in, as I did myself, long ago. The fallen will be under the shale; the bodies can never be recovered.”

“He will have plenty to call on, then,” said Young Laska. “And the closest swift water?”

“Where the others are, the tower built over the estuary to the south,” answered Swinther. He had not seemed overly frightened by the wood-weird, but he was pale now, and there was sweat on his forehead despite the sudden drop in temperature that had come with the disappearance of the sun.

The prospect of encountering the Dead had that effect upon the living.

“Can we get there?” asked Ferin. She had to work hard to keep her voice even. She had never seen a Dead creature, but she had heard tales. The Athask people did not approve of necromancers, and would not allow their kept sorcerers to dabble in necromancy. But every now and then someone would encounter a free-willed Dead thing in their mountains. Caves and narrow mountain ravines were good places for creatures that feared the sun.

“Can't go back, of course,” said Swinther. “We
might
be able to
get down from High Kemmy—that's the third peak along—there's a better path down from there at least, and then we could cut across the valley. If . . .”

His words trailed off. There was no need to speak the “ifs” aloud, for there were too many. Night was coming early, and soon the necromancer behind them would be summoning the Dead . . .