Goldenhand (24 page)

Near Yellowsands and the Clayr's Glacier, Old Kingdom

F
erin dreamed terrible dreams. She was back in the Offering's Chair again, and there was not one but many small children chewing on her ankle with their impossibly sharp teeth, shredding flesh and bone, grunting like hogs. Then they were gone and there was another even worse pain in her stomach, and the Witch With No Face, who Ferin had never actually seen but had heard described, was stabbing her in the navel, striking again and again, and her bronze mask was sweating, great beads of molten bronze sweat falling onto Ferin and burning her . . .

Then she woke up, to find herself on some sort of low bed, under a blanket and her own Athask fur coat. Ferin touched the fur gingerly to see if it was real or if she was still dreaming, for she knew it had been in her pack, dropped on the road as they fled . . . she let go and lifted her head, anxiously looking around. Had she been captured by the necromancer? Surely he would simply slay her?

She was in a stone-walled room, the wall curved behind her. She could see the sky of early morning through the narrow window opposite, but not the dusky orange of dawn. It was midmorning, perhaps two or three hours after daybreak. There was an open door to her left, which was promising. Not a prison. She could see stone steps going down, and up.

A tower. Probably the old tower where the villagers had fled. Ferin grimaced, thinking of what she had to tell Karrilke. But first
she had to get up. She put her elbows back and tried, but there really was a pain in her navel. Pushing back coat and blanket, she found she was dressed only in a kind of long white shirt. There was a bandage around her middle. Ferin pressed against it, discovering a wound. She ran her fingers along the small, neat incision, reminiscent of a stab wound. But she didn't remember being struck there, certainly not with a weapon. It wasn't like the many small cuts on her face and hands, from the Gore Crows and the shale, which had been smeared with some kind of healing grease, but not bandaged.

Her ankle hurt too, but not as much as it had. It was hard to sit up, but she managed it, and looked at her right foot.

It wasn't there.

Her leg ended in a carefully bandaged stump.

Ferin could swear she still felt her toes, and could even wriggle them. But they were not there. For a moment the shock was too great; she could only stare along her leg. But slowly the realization came. She had damaged it too much, the healing spell had failed, and it had been cut off so it could not poison the rest of her.

Ferin let her head fall back and stared at the ceiling, willing herself to stay calm. She was Athask, and the loss of a foot was nothing important. She would get a wooden foot. There were several people in the tribe who had lost limbs in fighting, or from accidents, or frostbite. Ears and noses too. It did not matter.

Though it would make things a little difficult in the immediate future. Ferin also wondered why it wasn't hurting more. Surely it should be like the blinding pain she'd felt on the fishing boat, so great she had not been able to stay conscious? She sat up once more, grunting with the effort, and looked again. After a few seconds, she saw those strange glowing, moving symbols again, both on her foot and on her stomach. Charter marks. There was magic at work.

“Ah, you're awake,” said Astilaran, climbing up the last few steps into the room.

“You cut off my foot,” said Ferin baldly. “And someone has stabbed me in the stomach.”

“I
helped
cut off your foot, it's true. But only because it was necessary to do so,” said Astilaran testily. “But you have not been stabbed in the stomach. The Free Magic charm there has been removed; it was necessary to do so before adequate healing spells could be cast upon you. Fortunately one greater versed than I in all manner of Charter Magic undertook both operations. I merely assisted with my small knowledge and the purely surgical aspects, with knife and saw and my sewing kit.”

“Who took out the charm?” asked Ferin.

“I did,” said the woman who had come in behind Astilaran. She was tall, very pale, and had short black hair. Her voice had the tone of a war chief or great witch, and she wore the bells of a necromancer over a surcoat of deep blue with little silver keys dotted upon it, and under that strange armor of little overlapping plates, something Ferin had never seen before. A sword with a well-worn hilt was at her side, and the little magic marks were everywhere about her, glinting in the shaded part of the room, shining brighter where she moved into the sunlight from the window.

“This is the Abhorsen Sabriel, who is also Queen,” said Astilaran, bowing very deeply. “Milady, this is Ferin of the Athask people, who bears an important message for your sister Lirael, and the Clayr.”

“Your sister?” asked Ferin, startled. Then she remembered she was talking to someone more important even than the elders of her tribe, and she ducked her head in an uneasy bow.

“Lirael and I had the same father, but different mothers,” said Sabriel.

“Ah, you do not have the look of the Witch in the Cave,” said Ferin. “From what I can remember. I was small. And no one told me she had a sister.”

“I am sorry about your foot,” said Sabriel. “But as Astilaran says,
it had to be amputated. The wound, and then the conflict between the Free Magic charm under your clan sign and Astilaran's healing spell, made it turn very bad indeed.”

“The blood poison?” asked Ferin. She made a dismissive wave with her fingers. “Better it is off.”

“Not the blood poison, though that might well have come too,” said Sabriel. “Your foot was turning into something else, your flesh and bone transformed. It would have spread to the rest of you, in time. Free Magic does that, if it is not constrained. The charm in you had broken free, you see.”

Ferin was silent for a moment, thinking about this. Far, far better to lose a foot than become a monster.

“I thank you,” said Ferin. “As I thank my rescuers, whoever they may have been. I can remember nothing after I fell upon the road. I must have hit my head.”

“No,” said Sabriel. “You fell under the sway of Ranna, one of the necromancer's bells. The Sleeper, it is often called. But fortunately it was not long before our people arrived, and the necromancer was careless.”

“I am in the tower on the estuary?” asked Ferin.

“Yes,” said Sabriel.

“The fisher-folk?” asked Ferin. “They are here? I must tell . . . I must tell Karrilke about her man, Swinther. He died bravely, and saved us with his dying words.”

“The villagers have returned to Yellowsands, with most of the Guards who came from Navis,” said Sabriel. “Karrilke knows what happened. Young Laska did not sleep so long, and she has gone back with them.”

“Young Laska lives?” asked Ferin. “That is good. She is brave as an Athask. Perhaps even a better archer. At greater distances, at least.”

“Her father died,” said Astilaran. “Heart gave out. Old Laska was
very old indeed, and more than ready to go. He was the only one, apart from Swinther and Megril. Many more—perhaps all of us—would have been slain if you had not drawn off the attackers, Ferin. We are all grateful for that. Everyone in Yellowsands.”

“I brought the enemy in the first place,” said Ferin. She looked around and saw her pack in the corner. “There is gold in my pack, nuggets from our river. Take it to Karrilke, and to Young Laska, and Megril's family if she had one, as a blood price. It is not enough, but it is all I have.”

“It is not necessary—” Astilaran started to say, but he stopped as Sabriel inclined her chin, indicating that he should take the gold.

“On their behalf, I thank you for the blood price,” said Sabriel gravely. “But tell me more of this message. I have already heard from Young Laska that it is of great importance, though she would not tell me exactly what it is, knowing it is yours to give, and you would soon wake and could tell me yourself. Or not. For if you wish to deliver it to Lirael and the Clayr, you will be able to do that soon enough. We will fly to the Glacier shortly, if you feel able to move, and Lirael is there.”

“Fly?” asked Ferin. She thought she did not show her surprise, though the others did see a certain widening of her eyes. “You ride upon a dragon?”

“No,” said Sabriel. “A craft called a paperwing, a kind of magical boat for the sky. I have read about dragons, or what people called dragons in ages past. Have you ever seen one?”

“No,” said Ferin regretfully. “Long ago, a witch of the Athask had one in her service. Or so the tales tell. Some of the sorcerers of other clans also talk of their dragons of legend. But they are only stories. I thought perhaps here, in your strange land, they might not be mere tales. I would like to see one; it would be something to speak
of, at the turning of the seasons when we gather.”

“I am grateful we do not have dragons,” said Sabriel, who had some knowledge of what they were, or had been: Free Magic creatures of great power who assumed a reptilian, flying shape. “Now, here is the question healers always ask: How do you feel?”

“I am pleased to be alive,” said Ferin, her brow quirked in puzzlement. “And happy our enemies are dead. Also, that I might be close to delivering my message—”

“No, no,” laughed Sabriel. “Do you feel sick with fever? Is the pain bearable? I have placed a number of healing spells upon you, but there is always variation in how they work.”

“Pain is nothing to the Athask,” said Ferin. She paused, then added more truthfully, “But there is less than there was. I can hop, I think. When I return to my people, I will carve myself a foot from the blue ash that grows below our summer camp. And the slicing in my stomach . . . that is nothing.”

“My son might be able to make you a better foot than one of simple oak,” said Sabriel. “He has had some practice with such things, of late.”

Astilaran looked at her with interest.

“Sameth? I have heard of the golden hand he made for Lirael. But would such a thing work in the North, without Charter Magic?”

“There is Charter Magic in the North,” said Sabriel. “At least until you reach the Great Rift. It is just much more difficult to reach the Charter, with the nearest Charter Stones so far away.”

“You have been in the North?” asked Ferin. “To my people, in the mountains?”

“Not to the mountains,” said Sabriel. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I have traveled the steppe, both low and high. A long time ago. Now, your message. Do you want to tell me, or wait to tell Lirael?”

“You say Young Laska has not already passed on the message?” asked Ferin.

“No, because it is yours to give,” said Sabriel.

“It is really the Witch in the Cave's message,” said Ferin doubtfully. “I told Young Laska because I thought I would soon die, and the message should not die with me. But now . . . I wish to wait, and tell Lirael, as my elders instructed, and as the Witch in the Cave desired.”

“Very well,” said Sabriel. “Rest now. One of the guard sergeants is carving you some crutches, but I think we'll have you carried down—”

“Pah!” exclaimed Ferin, looking at the stairs. “I can crawl down there easily enough.”

“You will be carried,” said Sabriel sternly. “You can practice with the crutches on the flat.”

“But don't overdo it,” said Astilaran. “Rest! That is the best healer.”

“Food is also good,” said Ferin, suddenly realizing she was starving, and thirsty with it.

“Breakfast downstairs,” said Sabriel. “I will send guards to bring you down. Astilaran, a word, if you please.”

She clattered down the steps. Astilaran followed, and they talked, but though Ferin listened eagerly, she could not catch what was said. For a moment she considered showing them she could crawl down, but decided against it.

After all, it was not against an Athask's dignity to be carried by warriors. Quite the reverse. On their shoulders, of course. Not like a sack.

Two hours later, Ferin was in the cockpit of a blue-and-silver paperwing being flown at great speed toward the Glacier by Sabriel. After
a little while, another paperwing, of red and gold, caught up with them and took station to their right, and Ferin had to work hard to appear unimpressed when she was told the man who flew that one was the King himself, Touchstone the First, who had been on some errand of his own, but had now joined them to also fly to the Clayr.

Sabriel talked to Ferin for a while during the first part of the flight. She asked about her life in the North, and soon discovered the nature of Ferin's name, and that she was an offering. Sabriel was very interested in that, and in the Witch With No Face and the information that all the clans gave the Witch young women, or had done so until recently.

After a while Ferin grew hoarse. Sabriel stopped asking questions and did not talk very much after that. She whistled occasionally, and Ferin saw the Charter marks come out with her breath, or maybe with the whistled notes. The Athask woman spent most of her time peering over the side of the cockpit, looking at the ground far below. Once she saw an eagle and smiled with recognition; it was the same great russet eagle as in her mountains. She was looking down at it, because they flew higher than the bird, and more swiftly.