“We should go back,” said the Dog, her head slowly moving from side to side as she tried to locate the creature. “I don’t like it when they’re clever.”
“Do you know what it is?” whispered Lirael as they began to trudge back to Life, zigzagging so her back was never truly turned. As on her first trip, it was much harder going against the current, and it seemed colder than ever, too, leaching away at her spirit.
“Some sneaker from beyond the Fifth Gate, I think,” said the Dog. “Small, and long since whittled down from its original— There!”
She barked and dashed through the water. Lirael saw something like a long, spindle-thin rat—with burning coals for eyes—leap aside as the Dog struck. Then it was coming straight at her, and she felt its cold and powerful spirit rise against her, out of all proportion to its rat-like form.
She screamed and struck at it with her sword, blue-white sparks streaming everywhere. But it was too quick. The blow glanced off, and it snapped at her left wrist, at the hand that held the bell. Its jaws met her armored sleeve, and black-red flames burst out between its needle-like teeth.
Then the Dog fastened her own jaws on the creature’s middle and twisted it off Lirael’s arm, the hound’s bloodcurdling growl adding to the sound of the thing squealing and Lirael’s scream. A moment later all were drowned in the deep sound of Saraneth as Lirael stepped back, flipped the bell, caught the handle, and rang it, all in one smooth motion.
Chapter Eight
The Testing of Sameth
SAM WALKED AROUND his small perimeter again, checking to make sure nothing was approaching. Not that he could see much through the rain and the foliage. Or hear anything, for that matter, till it would be too close for him to do anything but fight.
He checked Lirael again for any sign of change, but she remained in Death, her body still as a statue, rimed with ice, cold billowing out to freeze the puddles at her feet. Sam thought about breaking off a piece of ice to cool himself down but decided against it. There were several large Dog footprints in the middle of the frozen puddle, for the Disreputable Dog—unlike her mistress—was able to bodily cross into Death, confirming Sam’s guess that her physical form was entirely magical.
The Guard’s body was still propped up against the tree as well. Sam had considered laying her out properly, but that seemed stupid when it meant putting her body down into the mud. He wanted to give her body a proper ending, too, but didn’t dare use the Charter Magic required. Not until Lirael came back, at least.
Sam sighed at that thought and wished he could shelter out of the rain against the tree until Lirael did return. But he was acutely aware that he was reponsible for Lirael’s safety. He was alone again, in effect, now without even the dubious companionship of Mogget. It made him nervous, but the fear that had been with him all through his flight from Belisaere was gone. This time he simply didn’t want to let Aunt Lirael down. So he hefted his sword and began once again to walk around the tight ring of trees he’d selected as his patrol route.
He was halfway around when he heard something above the steady sound of the rain. The soggy snap of wet twigs breaking underfoot, or something like it. A sound out of keeping for the forest.
Immediately, Sam knelt down behind the checkered trunk of a large fern and froze, so he could hear better.
At first, all he heard was the rain and his own beating heart. Then he caught the sound again. A soft footfall, leaves crushed underfoot. Someone—or something—was trying to sneak up on him. The sounds were about twenty feet away, lower down the slope, hidden by all the green undergrowth. Coming closer very slowly, just a single pace every minute or so.
Sam glanced back at Lirael. There was no sign of her returning from Death. For a moment, he thought he should run and tap her on the shoulder, to alert her to come back. It was very tempting, because then she could take charge.
He dismissed the thought. Lirael had a task to do, and so did he. There would be time enough to call her back if he had to. Perhaps it was only a big lizard crawling up between the ferns, or a wild dog, or one of those large black flightless birds that he knew lived in these mountains. He couldn’t remember what they were called.
It wasn’t anything Dead. He would have sensed it for sure, he thought. A Free Magic creature would be sizzling from the rain, and he’d smell it. Probably . . .
It moved again, but not uphill. It was circling around, Sam realized. Perhaps trying to work its way past them to attack down the slope. That would be a human trick.
It could be a necromancer, said a fearful part of Sam’s mind.
Not Dead, so you couldn’t sense it. Wielding Free Magic, but not of it, so you couldn’t smell anything. It could even be him. It could be Hedge.
Sam’s sword hand began to tremble. He gripped the hilt tighter, made the trembling stop. The burn scars on his wrists grew livid, bright with the effort.
This it it, he told himself. This was the test. If he didn’t face whatever was out there now, he would know he was a coward forever. Lirael didn’t think he was, nor the Dog. He had run from Astarael, but not out of fear. He had been made to by magic, and Lirael had run too. There was no shame in that.
It moved again, slinking closer. Sam still couldn’t see it, but he was sure he knew where it was.
He reached into the Charter and felt his heart slow from a frantic pace as he was embraced by the familiar calm of the magic that linked all living things. Drawing in the air with his free hand, Sam called forth four bright Charter marks. The fifth he spoke under his breath, into his cupped hand. When the marks joined, Sam held a dagger that was like a sunbeam caught in his hand. Too bright to look at directly, but golden at a glance.
“For the Charter!”
Sun dagger in one hand, sword in the other, Sam roared a battle cry and leapt forward, crashing through the ferns, slipping in the mud, half-falling down the slope. He saw a flash of movement behind a tree and changed direction, still roaring, his father’s berserker blood beating in his temples. There was the enemy, a strange pallid little man—
Who disappeared.
Sam tried to stop. He dug his heels in, but his feet skidded in the mud and he ran straight into a tree trunk, rebounded into a fern, and fell flat on his back. Down in the mud, he remembered his arms master telling him, “Most who go down in a battle never get up again. So don’t bloody well fall down!”
Sam dropped the sun dagger, which was extinguished immediately, the individual marks melting into the ground, and pushed himself up. He had been down for only a second or two, he thought, as he stared wildly around. But there was no sign of the . . . whatever it was. . . .
Lirael.
The thought struck him like a blow, and instantly he was running up the slope he’d just careered down, grabbing at ferns and branches and anything that could make him go faster. He had to get back! What if Lirael was attacked while she was still in Death? Struck from behind with a dagger, or a knife? She wouldn’t have a chance.
He made it back to the small clearing. Lirael still stood there. Icicles made from raindrops hung from her outstretched arms. The frozen pool around her feet had spread, so strange in this warm forest. She was unharmed.
“Lucky I was here,” said a voice behind Sam. A familiar voice.
Mogget’s voice.
Sam whirled around.
“Mogget? Is that you? Where are you?”
“Here, and regretting it as per usual,” replied Mogget, and a small white cat sauntered out from behind a fern tree.
Sam did not relax his guard. He could see that Mogget still wore his collar, and there was a bell on it. But it could be a trick. And where . . . or who . . . was that strange pale man?
“I saw a man,” said Sam. “His hair and skin were white, white as snow. White as your fur . . .”
“Yes,” yawned Mogget. “That was me. But that shape was forbidden to me by Jerizael, who was . . . let me see . . . she was the forty-eighth Abhorsen. I cannot use it in the presence of an Abhorsen, even an apprentice, without prior permission. Your mother does not generally give me permission, though her father was more flexible. Lirael cannot currently say yea or nay, so once again you see me as I am.”
“The Dog said that she . . . Astarael . . . wasn’t going to let you go,” said Sam. He had not lowered his sword.
Mogget yawned again, and the bell rang on his neck. It was Ranna—Sam recognized both the voice and his own reaction: he couldn’t help yawning himself.
“Is that what that hound said?” remarked the cat as he padded over to Sam’s pack and delicately sliced open half the stitches on the patch with one sharp claw so he could climb in. “Astarael? Is that who it was? It’s been so long, I can’t really remember who was who. In any case, she said what she wanted to say, and then I left. Wake me up when we’re somewhere dry and comfortable, Prince Sameth. With civilized food.”
Sam slowly lowered his sword and sighed in exasperation. It clearly was Mogget. Sam just wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not that the cat had returned. He kept remembering that gloating chuckle in the tunnel below the House, and the stench and dazzle of Free Magic. . . .
Ice cracked. Sam whirled about again, his heart hammering. With the cracking of the ice, he heard the echo of a distant bell. So distant it might have been a memory, or an imagined sound.
More ice cracked, and Lirael fell to one knee, ice flaking off her like a miniature snowstorm. Then there was a bright flash, and the Dog appeared, jumping around anxiously and growling deep in her chest.
“What happened?” asked Sam. “Are you hurt?”
“Not really,” said Lirael, with a grimace that showed there was something wrong, and she held up her left wrist. “Some horrible little Fifth Gate Rester tried to bite my arm. But it didn’t get through the coat—it’s only bruised.”
“What did you do to it?” asked Sam. The Dog was still running around as if the Dead creature might suddenly appear.
“The Dog bit it in half,” said Lirael, forcing herself to take several long, slow breaths. “Though that didn’t stop it. But I made it obey me in the end. It’s on its way to the Ninth Gate—and it won’t be coming back.”
“You really are the Abhorsen-in-Waiting now,” said Sam, admiration showing in his voice.
“I guess I am,” replied Lirael slowly. She felt as if she’d claimed something when she’d announced herself as such in Death. And lost something, too. It was one thing to take up the bells at the House. It was another to actually use the bells in Death. Her old life seemed so far away now. Gone forever, and she did not yet know what her new life would be, or even what she was. She felt uncomfortable in her own skin, and it had nothing to do with the melting ice, or the rain and mud.
“I can smell something,” announced the Dog.
Lirael looked up and for the first time noticed that Sam was much muddier than he had been, and was bleeding from a scratch across the back of his hand, though he didn’t appear to have noticed it.
“What happened to you?” she asked sharply.
“Mogget came back,” replied Sam. “At least I think it’s Mogget. He’s in my pack. Only at first he was a sort of really short albino man and I thought he was an enemy—”
He stopped talking as the Dog prowled over to his pack and sniffed at it. A white paw flashed out, and the Dog jerked back just in time to avoid a clawed nose. She settled back on her haunches, and her forehead furrowed in puzzlement.
“It is the Mogget,” she confirmed. “But I don’t understand—”
“She gave me what she chooses to call another chance,” said a voice from inside the pack. “More than you’ve ever done.”
“Another chance at what?” growled the Dog. “This is no time for your games! Do you know what is being dug up four leagues from here?”
Mogget thrust his head out of the pack. Ranna jangled, sending a wave of weariness across all who heard the bell.
“I know!” spat the little cat. “I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. It is the Destroyer! The Unmaker! The Unraveler—”
Mogget paused for breath. Just as he was about to speak again, the Dog suddenly barked, a short, sharp bark infused with power. Mogget yowled as if his tail had been trodden on and sank hissing back into the pack.
“Do not speak Its name,” ordered the Dog. “Not in anger, not when we are so close.”
Mogget was silent. Lirael, Sam, and the Dog looked at the pack.
“We have to get away from here.” Lirael sighed, wiping the most recent raindrops off her forehead before they could get into her eyes. “But first I want to get something straight.”
She approached Sam’s pack and leaned over it, careful to stay out of striking distance of a paw.
“Mogget. You are still bound to be a servant of the Abhorsens, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” came the grudging reply. “Worse luck.”
“So you will help me, help us, won’t you?”
There was no answer.
“I’ll find you some fish,” interjected Sam. “I mean, when we’re somewhere where there are fish.”
“And a couple of mice,” added Lirael. “If you like mice, that is.”
Mice chewed books. All librarians disliked mice, and Lirael was no exception. She was quite pleased to discover that becoming an Abhorsen had not removed that essential part of the librarian in her. She still hated silverfish as well.
“There is no point bargaining with the creature,” said the Dog. “He will do as he is told.”
“Fish when available, and mice, and a songbird,” said Mogget, emerging from the pack, his little pink tongue tasting the air as if the fish were even now in front of him.