Goldenhand (8 page)

No-Man's-Land, Near the Wall

T
here was no response to the pallid general's demand for an immediate arrest. He grew even louder at that and turned to the closest soldier in a rage, almost gobbling as he shouted.

“Arrest this man! And clear these other people off to where they came from!”

The soldier he was shouting at was a scarred veteran with a warrant officer's crown on his sleeve, a Charter mark on his forehead, and the painted badge of the Crossing Point Scouts on the side of his steel helmet. He didn't answer, but looked away idly as if he hadn't heard the officer even speak.

“I'm giving you a direct order!” bellowed the general. He pointed his skinny, almost skeletal forefinger at Nick. “Arrest . . . that . . . man!”

The warrant officer continued to stare vacantly at the Wall. A sergeant stepped up closer to him. Also from the Crossing Point Scouts by his badge, he took out his pipe and began to pack it with tobacco.

“I will brook no dumb insolence! I am General Feversham, from Army Headquarters in Corvere, do you hear? Arrest that man or I'll have all of you in the stockade for the rest of your lives!”

Lirael looked over the Ancelstierran soldiers and saw they were
all
from the Crossing Point Scouts, all bearers of the Charter mark, and every single one of them appeared to be in deep communion with the night, the sky, the Wall, the ground, or in fact everything
else
except
the bellowing general in front of them.

“I'll do it myself!” roared the general. He fumbled at his belt, looking for a revolver, realized he was in mess dress and so unarmed, and reached out to take the rifle from the nearest soldier. Who, while pretending nothing was happening, also did not let go.

“No,” said Lirael calmly as the general continued to tug at the weapon. She reached for the Charter, gathered five marks swiftly from the shining torrent flowing through her mind, and flung them from her hand as a net of golden light that settled over the general's bald head.

He let go of the rifle, lifted one hand toward his ear, emitted something between a burp and a hiccup, and collapsed to the ground, caught at the last minute by the sergeant next to him, who dropped his pipe and cursed.

“Sorry about that, ma'am,” said the warrant officer, turning to Lirael and saluting her smartly. “Sergeant-Major Nield, of the Scouts. Ah, you do have matters in hand here? With that creature that came up from the south?”

“Yes,” said Lirael. “The creature has been dealt with, though either I or the Abhorsen herself will need to return in a year and a day, for it is only temporarily banished, and will rise out of the earth at that time.”

“What was it?” asked the sergeant-major curiously. “Begging your pardon, ma'am, but none of us ever saw anything like that before, and we've seen a lot come across the Wall.”

“A Hrule, a self-willed Free Magic creature,” said Lirael. She felt Nicholas drooping at her side and quickly glanced at him. He was barely conscious, struggling to stay on his feet. “I'm sorry, but we must go.”

“With Mr. Sayre?” asked the sergeant-major. “It is Mr. Nicholas Sayre, isn't it? Captain Tindall said so, when he hopped up to us and sent us ahead.”

“Yes,” said Lirael. She hesitated, then said, “He needs to come with me. You may know he was affected by the . . . the events at Forwin Mill. He should have returned with us then.”

“We have orders from the very top not to let him go,” said the sergeant-major doubtfully. “I mean, not just from some visiting old busybody like Feversham;
he
was just all wrangled up because his dinner got disturbed. He thought it was an intruder on a motorcycle. The general, I mean. He caught sight of Mr. Sayre in pursuit, he never saw the creature at all. But there's orders from General Tindall and Colonel Greene, who command the Scouts. Mr. Sayre is not to be allowed to cross.”

“He needs to come with us,” repeated Lirael calmly. She heard her guards shifting about behind her, preparing to support her with force, she supposed. There were only twenty or so Scouts, though one did have one of those rapid-firing weapons, a Lewin machine gun. “You know I am the Abhorsen-in-Waiting?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said the sergeant-major, his face troubled.

“Nicholas Sayre is . . . um . . . infused with Free Magic,” said Lirael, choosing her words carefully. “We need to take him back to the Old Kingdom to make sure he doesn't . . .”

She felt Nick grow heavier, his knees buckling. He was falling into unconsciousness again, all his weight now on her arm. She could barely hold him up.

“We need to help him remain human,” whispered Lirael, hoping Nick couldn't hear. “Let us go, and I will send message-hawks to become telegrams to all who need explanation. It will not be your responsibility.”

“We should take the general back anyway, Roger,” said the pipe-smoking sergeant. “I don't reckon we ever caught up with whatever was going on here anyway. Do you?”

The sergeant-major looked down at the cadaverous general. He really looked dead now that he was on the ground, though the
miniature medals on his chest were rising and falling with his slow breath.

“He won't remember,” said Lirael quickly. “I didn't just put him to sleep. He won't wake till dawn, and he'll have forgotten everything that happened past sunset.”

Sergeant-major and sergeant both lifted their eyebrows in surprise. This was powerful and subtle Charter Magic, beyond anything they could do.

“I guess you're right about nothing going on,” said the sergeant-major, low-voiced to the other NCO. He didn't look at Lirael. “Nothing to see here. Let's pick up the general and head back.”

The sergeant-major gestured to two of the stretcher-bearers who were waiting behind. They came up quickly, and rolled the general onto their canvas litter, not at all gently, and one made a rude comment under his breath, at which the other laughed, stifling it as the sergeant-major turned to look at him.

Two of Captain Anlow's guards hurried to Lirael's side and picked up Nick. Lirael was both relieved to not have to hold him up anymore but also reluctant to let him go. When she did, she looked closely at his unconscious, relaxed face, so pale in the moonlight. She was comforted to see faint Charter marks moving across his skin, indicating the healing spell was still at work.

“Let's go back,” said Lirael.

Captain Anlow bellowed orders. More of the guards moved around Nick, one of them unrolling a kind of hammock that served the same purpose as a stretcher, with two guards carrying each end. Lirael walked ahead of them, to the tunnel through the Wall, thinking deeply about what to do with Nick. He should recover from the loss of blood relatively quickly, with rest, but there was the greater problem of the Free Magic inside him. What if the Charter mark and whatever else the Disreputable Dog had done was merely like a cork pressed into a bottle of sparkling wine? Or like a layer of lacquer
upon something that, if flexed, would break and crack? Then all that Free Magic would come out, and Nick, at least as a normal person, would be consumed . . .

Charter marks flared in the stones of the Wall as Lirael passed the gate. She reached out to touch them, comforted by the warm, familiar sensation of connection, joining with the endless flow of the Charter. It made her feel less pessimistic about Nick. There was such quiet, pervasive power here in the stones. After all, in the end even Orannis had been defeated and bound by the Charter, acting through Lirael and others. Whatever power inhabited Nick would be nothing in comparison.

She walked on, still thinking, until surprised by a shout of alarm from behind her. Lirael spun about, hands reaching for bell and sword. Half a dozen paces behind her, the guards carrying Nick quickly put him down and backed away. But there was no sudden, acrid stench of Free Magic, no flashes of white lightning. Whatever power lurked within Nick had not risen forth.

Rather, it was Charter marks flowing
into
him that had alarmed the guards. Marks were floating off the stones of the Wall as if some strange, invisible tide lifted them. Spinning in the air, they spiraled down to fall upon Nicholas Sayre, everywhere from his toes to his pale forehead. The marks lay there for a moment like fresh-fallen snowflakes, and then sank in, passing through cloth and flesh.

More and more marks, multiplying by the second, emerging from every stone. Falling so densely they formed small rivers, waterfalls of golden light. So many marks they could not be seen individually, and when Lirael rushed to Nick's side and caught some in her open hand, they were not marks she knew.

“What do we do?” asked Captain Anlow anxiously. “I've never seen
this
before.”

“They're not defensive,” said Lirael slowly. “The Wall isn't trying to stop him crossing.”

She let the marks she'd caught fall. They did not go straight down, but drifted sideways to Nick. She'd felt something of their nature, something akin to the depths of a Charter Stone, though she could not place them more accurately than this. And she had no idea why they were flowing so strongly into Nick, or what spell all those marks might be weaving together.

“Pick him up and let's get through.”

Though all the guards were Charter Mages, of many differing abilities and familiarity with the Charter, there was a notable reluctance from all of them to pick Nick up again. Unknown Charter marks and unknown Charter spells were incredibly dangerous, but even so Lirael was surprised how slowly the guards were moving.

Until she realized it wasn't Nick they didn't want to approach. It was her, and they were afraid because the bells in the bandolier across her chest had begun to shiver in place, and despite their tongues being locked by leather, the faint echo of their voices could be heard, like distant music.

All the bells, sounding together.

Dampened and muffled, but somehow ringing even within the bandolier! Lirael could feel their vibration, and far worse, feel their power. All seven of the bells, from Ranna, who brought sleep, to the greatly feared Astarael, the bell who cast all who heard her into Death. None were strong enough yet for their unique powers to take effect, but they were growing louder. And who could say what the combination of all seven bells would do, when rung together in such circumstances, without a human hand? The only time Lirael knew all seven bells to sound as one before was in the binding of Orannis, and the seven had been very much under the control of their wielders, for a very specific spell.

Whatever was going on with Nick and the inherent magic of the Wall, it was also waking the bells, or upsetting them or something, and it was beyond Lirael's knowledge or experience. In a second she
went from a confident Abhorsen-in-Waiting to a very frightened young woman who could think of only one thing to do.

Get out. Get the bells away from the Charter Magic in the Wall, before she and all the guards and Nicholas were made to sleep, or stripped of their memories, or forced to walk where they would not . . . or worst of all, be sent unwillingly into Death, never to return.

“Bring him! Fast as you can!” she shouted, and sprinted north, her hands clasped across the bandolier, willing the bells to be silent.

At Sea, off the Mouth of the Greenwash

F
erin was still asleep at dusk of the day she came aboard the fishing boat, but it was not a normal sleep and she did not wake from it when the boat heeled, clipped a wave, and spray fell across her face. Nor was it an easy or restful sleep, judging by how she writhed under the blanket and tried to push it off, her cheeks bright red with fever. Her injured ankle stuck out, the bandage heavily stained with dark blood and her leg swollen above the ankle.

“She'll likely lose that foot,” said Tolther. He did not need to say “you were wrong” or add “unless we take her back to Yellowsands and the healer there.” They all knew that. However, none of her crew afloat would ever dare say Karrilke was wrong. Not at sea. When they were simply family again, ashore, they might venture such an opinion. Very carefully, no doubt, and in a roundabout way.

“How full are we?” asked Karrilke.

“Just over the fourth line,” said Huire. That meant the single, central hold was half full of salted fish. Karrilke had never returned from a fishing expedition without a full hold, not in twenty years. Sometimes that meant staying out a week longer than normal, with everyone on half rations of fresh water and nothing to eat but fish. She was famous for it. “Full Catch Karrilke,” she was called, though not to her face.

“Ma . . .” began Tolther, but Karrilke gave him the look, one she hadn't had to use for a long time. “I mean, Captain . . .”

“Yes,” said Karrilke. She didn't look at him. She had one foot up
on the gunwale and was staring out to sea. Doubtless looking for the silver flecks of the batith schooling near the surface.

“She will lose the foot,” said Tolther carefully. “Maybe die.”

“I reckon you're right about that,” said Karrilke.

“So me and Huire . . .” Tolther took a deep breath. “Me and Huire think we should take her back. You can take the loss out of our pay.”

“That'd mean no pay for the pair of you,” said Karrilke. “This voyage and the next.”

Tolther nodded.

“Make ready to go about,” said Karrilke.

Tolther looked across at Huire. Her mouth was open in amazement, catching the breeze.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Karrilke. She pointed off to port. “Be quick about it. I don't like the look of that craft.”

Tolther looked surprised as well now. Both he and Huire spun to look over the port side. There, only just visible on the horizon, was a black blot that years of experience helped them instantly identify as a nomad raider, a long, sleek craft rowed by upward of sixty warriors. It was typical of the kind used by the
Yrus
clan, the only one of the Twenty Tribes that was almost as at home on the sea as they were on horseback. Though it was very unusual for them to be voyaging in spring, which was a busy time with their herds upon the steppe.

Tolther and Huire leaped to the foresail and mainsail sheets as their brother, Lown, prepared to lean on the tiller. He was the oldest, and laughing now.

“You just gave up your pay for something Ma was going to do anyway!” he roared. “Going about!”

The fishing boat came about and began to run before the wind. In the distance, they could hear the faint shouts of the rowers aboard the raider, calling cadence.

“Never catch us with this breeze,” said Lown to his mother.
“Why they out, anyway? Truce till after midsummer, ain't it?”

Karrilke glanced down at Ferin, still tossing and turning on the deck.

“Truce is custom, not any kind of law,” she said. “Might be to do with her . . . or they've come to see what that smoke was about. As for the wind, let's hope they don't . . .”

Her pale eyes narrowed, the wrinkles come from gazing against salty wind and sun now heavily pronounced.

“Don't what, Ma?”

“Don't have a shaman or a witch on board,” said Karrilke. “A wind-raiser, or worse, a wind-eater.”

“Why would they have one of
them
on board?” asked Lown. “Sorcerers fear the sea, don't they?”

“They do, but if that's where their keepers want them, that's where they go,” said Karrilke. She was still watching the raider, and listening to the faint, wind-borne chanting of the rowers. “They're rowing faster.”

Lown looked over his shoulder and then back at the sails, which were full and taut, expertly trimmed by his brother and sister.

“We're drawing away,” he said. “Keep on this course?”

“For now,” said Karrilke. “Unless the wind shifts, which it shouldn't.”

“We do anything for the girl?” shouted Tolther toward his mother, the wind blowing his words back into his face.

“Healing spell wouldn't take,” Karrilke said. “Best leave the wound for now. If the wind doesn't turn too much at dusk, we'll be home by dawn. Let's hope Astilaran can do something, save that foot.”

Ferin heard nothing of this, and did not feel the nor'easter that blew the fishing boat south. She was lost inside her own fevered mind, caught in a bubble of time from years ago. A very small part of her
knew it was a dream, a memory, but that corner of her mind could gain no leverage to break her free and bring her to a conscious present.

She was in her own tent, made, like her clothes, of red-stitched goatskin. The dye for the red thread came from a scale insect in the oaks that grew on the lower slopes; the yarn was made from goat hair. Ferin neither spun nor dyed herself, nor did she look after goats, as would be normal for the children of the Athask people. All her time was spent in training and learning, readying her mind and body for its eventual occupation by the Witch With No Face.

In this fever dream, Ferin was having the Talk with the elder who had most to do with her, a woman named Jithelal, Jith for short. She thought of it as “the Talk” because it was a common subject, often returned to, particularly before the few festivals when Ferin was required to join the clan. At such a time she could almost feel she was another daughter, another sister, one of the Athask without difference.

“You are the Offering,” said Jith. “That means you are the best of us, or you will be. Strongest, fastest, most cunning.”

Ferin bent her head. She did not speak during the Talk.

“You live apart from us, not because you are not one of the Athask. You live apart because what you do is for all the people, not for one family. We are all your fathers and mothers, we are all your brothers and sisters, we are all the children you will not bear.”

Ferin bent her head again.

“You must be the best, for if we were to give less to the Witch With No Face, she would be displeased. In her anger, she would kill and despoil, perhaps slaying many of the Athask people. You, Offering, stand against her in the same way the strongest of a war party must turn against overwhelming pursuit, selling their life dearly so the others may escape. You are our hope, our shield.”

Ferin nodded again.

The dream blurred and changed, and all of a sudden Ferin was in the Offering's Chair, which was really only a cushion set into the hollow in the middle of the great round stone that sat above the Athask people's lower camp, where they wintered.

A huge bonfire burned on the flat before the stone, sparks flying up to the clear, cold sky and the full moon above, a ring of ice around its luminous disc. The dancing had finished, and now all the clan were engaged in the traditional act of gratitude to the Offering. The line had begun with the oldest, each person passing the Offering and taking her hands, just for a moment, to whisper their thanks for what she must do. Then the adults in their prime, the hunters, the warriors, the goat-herders, the spinners and dyers, the gatherers and others. Last came the children, those nearly full grown aloof and self-conscious; the middling ones tired and grumpy, and then the toddlers, last to come, for the babies were too small.

The very little ones, though they could walk, could not reach Ferin's hands, and she was not allowed to bend down to them, for the Offering must bow to no one on this night. So they touched her feet and mumbled the words and toddled away to waiting embraces and straight to bed.

All save the last, who did not touch Ferin's feet. Ferin looked down wonderingly, for this child did not look like the others. She felt a flash of fear as he . . . no, it . . . looked up, for instead of a face it had a mask of dull bronze, a half mask that did not cover its mouth, a mouth full of sharp teeth that it lowered upon her ankle and began to gnaw at Ferin's flesh with horrible grunting noises, like a boar ripping with its tusks. Pain shot through Ferin and she choked trying not to scream, and then she kicked, trying to throw off this horrible thing that she knew was no child, but somehow the Witch With No Face herself, chewing on her leg—

Ferin woke up, still choking. For a moment she thought she was in another dream, for the night sky above was strangely slanted, and
she smelled a scent she did not immediately know, until it came to her that it was salt, the salt of the sea, mixed with the reek of fish. She was on a boat, a fishing boat, and her ankle was not being chewed upon, but had been hit by a crossbow bolt.

“Drink again, if you can,” said someone, and a face came into view, a blurry face that sharpened as Ferin blinked, once, twice, three times.

“Tolther,” said the young man. “Remember? Feeling better? Your fever's broke. That's a good . . . good-ish sign.”

Ferin raised her head and tried to raise her injured leg at the same time. A stab of pain struck her in the head and she flopped back, gasping.

“No, best not move it,” said Tolther. He tucked the blanket back around her, careful not to touch her close. “You stay rested. We'll be home safe at Yellowsands soon enough, get the healer to look at you . . .”

Something in his voice, some uncertainty or doubt she could hear, made Ferin turn her head toward him.

“There is trouble?” she asked.

“A raider follows us,” said Tolther. “Has been since before sunset. And they have a witch or shaman aboard, a wind-eater who keeps taking the breeze away from us, so they're catching up.”

“A raider? Another boat?” asked Ferin. She struggled to sit up, Tolther helping her after a momentary hesitation. Her bow and arrow case were by her side, she noted, but it wasn't light enough to see much else, save the dim outline of sails and rigging above.

“From one of the clans,” said Tolther. “Sky Horse. But that's not what they call themselves. They come from the parts of the steppe nearest the shore north of here.”

“Ah,” said Ferin. “I know the clan. Sky Horse people . . . what they call themselves is Yrus, as we are Athask, though others call us Mountain Cat. I didn't know the Yrus go to sea . . .”

“They don't in spring, at least not normally,” said Tolther. “Only late in summer, into the autumn, and never in winter. At least I guess so; we lay up in winter as well, so maybe they're out . . . but the storms are so bad I doubt it.”

“I feel the breeze now,” said Ferin. She could feel it on her face, cool and strong. “This wind-eater is not so strong, perhaps?”

Almost as she said the words, the breeze died away. Tolther grimaced.

“When the wind shifts, even by only a few points, we get it for a while, then whoever it is eats it up again.”

“Will they catch us?” asked Ferin.

“Not if I can help it,” said Karrilke, suddenly appearing next to her son. “Tolther, stand ready on the foresail sheet; trim it for any gust we can catch.”

“How close are they?” asked Ferin. She struggled to sit up higher, but found she couldn't move her leg without suffering intense pain, which lessened if she kept still. Looking down, she saw it was greatly swollen around and above her ankle. Slowly, she looked away again, as if there was nothing of importance there, and instead picked up her bow. “Are they within bowshot?”

Karrilke looked down at her odd nomad passenger.

“Maybe for you,” she said. “From the stern. But I came to ask if you know how they can still be rowing at full pace. It's been nine hours, more or less. The wind-eating, I've seen that before. Not often, but it's known. But this rowing . . . any normal folk would have collapsed a long time since.”

“I know nothing of the sea,” said Ferin. “If you help me to the . . . the stern? I will look, and perhaps even kill the witch or shaman who steals our breeze.”

“You shouldn't be moved,” said Karrilke. She hesitated, then said, “As it is, the healer might have to take off your foot.”

Ferin shrugged.

“My foot, as my entire body, is nothing,” she said. “I must get the message I carry where it needs to go, and that means this boat must get to shore. Help me up.”

“It is easy to be brave when you are young,” said Karrilke. “And have little knowledge of pain. But you are right. Better to lose a foot than a life.”