“Another sinkhole,” Mogget said, matter-of-factly. “It is where the First Blood . . . ach . . .”
He choked, hissed, and then rephrased his sentence rather drably, with “It is interesting.”
“What do you mean—” Sabriel began, but she fell silent as they passed the doorway, magical force suddenly tugging at her hair, her hands, her surcoat, the hilt of her sword. Mogget’s fur stood on end, and his collar rotated halfway around of its own accord, till the Charter marks of binding were uppermost and clearly readable, bright against the leather.
Then they were out, standing at the bottom of another sinkhole, in a premature twilight, for the sun was already slipping over the circumscribed horizon of the sinkhole rim.
This sinkhole was much wider than the first—perhaps a mile across, and deeper, say six or seven hundred feet. Despite its size, the entire vast pit was sealed off from the upper air by a gleaming, web-thin net, which seemed to merge into the rim wall about a quarter of the way down from the surface. Sunlight had given it away, but even so, Sabriel had to use her telescope to see the delicate diamond-pattern weave clearly. It looked flimsy, but the presence of several dessicated bird-corpses indicated considerable strength. Sabriel guessed the unfortunate birds had dived into the net, eyes greedily intent on food below.
In the sinkhole itself, there was considerable, if uninspiring vegetation—mostly stunted trees and malformed bushes. But Sabriel had little attention to spare for the trees, for in between each of these straggling patches of greenery, there were paved areas—and on each of these paved areas rested a ship.
Fourteen open-decked, single-masted longboats, their black sails set to catch a nonexistent wind, oars out to battle an imaginary tide. They flew many flags and standards, all limp against mast and rigging, but Sabriel didn’t need to see them unfurled to know what strange cargo these ships might bear. She’d heard of this place, as had every child in the Northern parts of Ancelstierre, close to the Old Kingdom. Hundreds of tales of treasure, adventure and romance were woven around this strange harbor.
“Funerary ships,” said Sabriel. “Royal ships.”
She had further confirmation that this was so, for there were binding spells woven into the very dirt her feet scuffed at the tunnel entrance, spells of final death that could only have been laid by an Abhorsen. No necromancer would ever raise any of the ancient rulers of the Old Kingdom.
“The famous burial ground of the First . . . ckkk . . . the Kings and Queens of the Old Kingdom,” pronounced Mogget, after some difficulty. He danced around Sabriel’s feet, then stood on his hind legs and made expansive gestures, like a circus impresario in white fur. Finally, he shot off into the trees.
“Come on—there’s a spring, spring, spring!” he caroled, as he leaped up and down in time with his words.
Sabriel followed at a slower pace, shaking her head and wondering what had happened to make Mogget so cheerful. She felt bruised, tired and depressed, shaken by the Free Magic monster, and sad about the Paperwing.
They passed close by two of the ships on their way to the spring. Mogget led her a merry dance around both of them, in a mad circumnavigation of twists, leaps and bounds, but the sides were too high to look in and she didn’t feel like shinning up an oar. She did pause to look at the figureheads—imposing men, one in his forties, the other somewhat older. Both were bearded, had the same imperious eyes, and wore armor similar to Sabriel’s, heavily festooned with medallions, chains and other decorations. Each held a sword in his right hand, and an unfurling scroll that turned back on itself in their left—the heraldic representation of the Charter.
The third ship was different. It seemed shorter and less ornate, with a bare mast devoid of black sails. No oars sprang from its sides, and as Sabriel reached the spring that lay under its stern, she saw uncaulked seams between the planking, and realized that it was incomplete.
Curious, she dropped her pack by the little pool of bubbling water and walked around to the bow. This was different too, for the figurehead was a young man—a na**d young man, carved in perfect detail.
Sabriel blushed a little, for it was an exact likeness, as if a young man had been transformed from flesh to wood, and her only prior experience of na**d men was in clinical cross-sections from biology textbooks. His muscles were lean and well-formed, his hair short and tightly curled against his head. His hands, well-shaped and elegant, were partly raised, as if to ward off some evil.
The detail even extended to a circumcised penis, which Sabriel glanced at in an embarrassed way, before looking back at his face. He was not exactly handsome, but not displeasing. It was a responsible visage, with the shocked expression of someone who has been betrayed and only just realized it. There was fear there, too, and something like hatred. He looked more than a little mad. His expression troubled her, for it seemed too human to be the result of a woodcarver’s skill, no matter how talented.
“Too life-like,” Sabriel muttered, stepping back from the figurehead, hand falling to the hilt of her sword, her magical senses reaching out, seeking some trap or deception.
There was no trap, but Sabriel did feel something in or around the figurehead. A feeling similar to that of a Dead revenant, but not the same—a niggling sensation that she couldn’t place.
Sabriel tried to identify it, while she looked over the figurehead again, carefully examining him from every angle. The man’s body was an intellectual problem now, so she looked without embarrassment, studying his fingers, fingernails and skin, noting how perfectly they were carved, right down to the tiny scars on his hands, the product of sword and dagger practice. There was also the faint sign of a baptismal Charter mark on his forehead, and the pale trace of veins on his eyelids.
That inspection led her to certainty about what she’d detected, but she hesitated about the action that should be taken, and went in search of Mogget. Not that she put a lot of faith in advice or answers from that quarter, given his present propensity towards behaving as a fairly silly cat—though perhaps this was a reaction to his brief experience of being a Free Magic beast again, something that might not have happened for a millennium. The cat form was probably a welcome relief.
In fact, no advice at all could be had from Mogget. Sabriel found him asleep in a field of flowers near the spring, his tail and paddy-paws twitching to a dream of dancing mice. Sabriel looked at the straw-yellow flowers, sniffed one, scratched Mogget behind the ears, then went back to the figurehead. The flowers were catbalm, explaining both Mogget’s previous mood and his current somnolence. She would have to make up her own mind.
“So,” she said, addressing the figurehead like a lawyer before a court. “You are the victim of some Free Magic spell and necromantic trickery. Your spirit lies neither in Life nor Death, but somewhere in between. I could cross into Death, and find you near the border, I’m sure—but I could find a lot of trouble as well. Trouble I can’t deal with in my current pathetic state. So what can I do? What would Father—Abhorsen . . . or any Abhorsen—do in my place?”
She thought about it for a while, pacing backwards and forwards, bruises temporarily forgotten. That last question seemed to make her duty clear. Sabriel felt sure her father would free the man. That’s what he did, that was what he lived for. The duty of an Abhorsen was to remedy unnatural necromancy and Free Magic sorcery.
She didn’t think further than that, perhaps due to the injudicious sniffing of the catbalm. She didn’t even consider that her father would probably have waited until he was fitter—perhaps till the next day. After all, this young man must have been incarcerated for many years, his physical body transformed into wood, and his spirit somehow trapped in Death. A few days would make no difference to him. An Abhorsen didn’t have to immediately take on any duty that presented itself . . .
But for the first time since she’d crossed the Wall, Sabriel felt there was a clear-cut problem for her to solve. An injustice to be righted and one that should involve little more than a few minutes on the very border of Death.
Some slight sense of caution remained with her, so she went and picked up Mogget, placing the dozing cat near the feet of the figurehead. Hopefully, he would wake up if any physical danger threatened—not that this was likely, given the wards and guards on the sinkhole. There were even barriers that would make it difficult to cross into Death, and more than difficult for something Dead to follow her back. All in all, it seemed like the perfect place to undertake a minor rescue.
Once more, she checked the bells, running her hands over the smooth wood of the handles, feeling their voices within, eagerly awaiting release. This time, it was Ranna she freed from its leather case. It was the least noticeable of the bells, its very nature lulling listeners, beguiling them to sleep or inattention.
Second thoughts brushed at her like doubting fingers, but she ignored them. She felt confident, ready for what would only be a minor stroll in Death, amply safeguarded by the protections of this royal necropolis. Sword in one hand, bell in the other, she crossed into Death.
Cold hit her, and the relentless current, but she stood where she was, still feeling the warmth of Life on her back. This was the very interface between the two realms, where she would normally plunge ahead. This time, she planted her feet against the current, and used her continuing slight contact with Life as an anchor to hold her own against the waters of Death.
Everything seemed quiet, save for the constant gurgling of the water about her feet, and the far-off crash of the First Gate. Nothing stirred, no shapes loomed up in the grey light. Cautiously, Sabriel used her sense of the Dead to feel out anything that might be lurking, to feel the slight spark of the trapped, but living, spirit of the young man. Back in Life, she was physically close to him, so she should be near his spirit here.
There was something, but it seemed further into Death than Sabriel expected. She tried to see it, squinting into the curious greyness that made distance impossible to judge, but nothing was visible. Whatever was there lurked beneath the surface of the water.
Sabriel hesitated, then walked towards it, carefully feeling her way, making sure of every footfall, guarding against the gripping current. There was definitely something odd out there. She could feel it quite strongly—it had to be the trapped spirit. She ignored the little voice at the back of her mind that suggested it was a fiercely devious Dead creature, strong enough to hold its own against the race of the river . . .
Nevertheless, when she was a few paces back from whatever it was, Sabriel let Ranna sound—a muffled, sleepy peal that carried the sensation of a yawn, a sigh, a head falling forward, eyes heavy—a call to sleep.
If there was a Dead thing there, Sabriel reasoned, it would now be quiescent. She put her sword and bell away, edged forward to a good position, and reached down into the water.
Her hands touched something as cold and hard as ice, something totally unidentifiable. She flinched back, then reached down again, till her hands found something that was clearly a shoulder. She followed this up to a head, and traced the features. Sometimes a spirit bore little relation to the physical body, and sometimes living spirits became warped if they spent too long in Death, but this one was clearly the counterpart of the figurehead. It lived too, somehow encased and protected from Death, as the living body was preserved in wood.
Sabriel gripped the spirit-form under the arms and pulled. It rose up out of the water like a killer whale, pallid white and rigid as a statue. Sabriel staggered backwards, and the river, ever-eager, wrapped her legs with tricksome eddies—but she steadied herself before it could drag her down.
Changing her hold a little, Sabriel began to drag the spirit-form back towards Life. It was hard going, much harder than she’d expected. The current seemed far too strong for this side of the First Gate, and the crystallized spirit—or whatever it was—was much, much heavier than any spirit should be.
With nearly all her concentration bent on staying upright and heading in the right direction, Sabriel almost didn’t notice the sudden cessation of noise that marked the passage of something through the First Gate. But she’d learned to be wary over the last few days, and her conscious fears had become enshrined in subconscious caution.
She heard, and listening carefully, caught the soft slosh-slosh of something half-wading, half-creeping, moving as quietly as it could against the current. Moving towards her. Something Dead was hoping to catch her unawares.
Obviously, some alarm or summons had gone out beyond the First Gate, and whatever was stalking towards her had come in answer to it. Inwardly cursing herself for stupidity, Sabriel looked down at her spirit burden. Sure enough, she could just make out a very thin black line, fine as cotton thread, running from his arm into the water—and thence to the deeper, darker regions of Death. Not a controlling thread, but one that would let some distant Adept know the spirit had been moved. Fortunately, sounding Ranna would have slowed the message, but was she close enough to Life . . .
She increased her speed a little, but not too much, pretending she hadn’t noticed the hunter. Whatever it was, it seemed quite reluctant to close in on her.
Sabriel quickened her pace a little more, adrenaline and suspense feeding her strength. If it rushed her, she would have to drop the spirit—and he would be carried away, lost forever. Whatever magic had preserved his living spirit here on the boundary couldn’t possibly prevail if he went past the First Gate. If that happened, Sabriel thought, she would have precipitated a murder rather than a rescue.
Four steps to Life—then three. The thing was closing now—Sabriel could see it, low in the water, still creeping, but faster now. It was obviously a denizen of the Third, or even some later Gate, for she couldn’t identify what it once had been. Now it looked like a cross between a hog and a segmented worm, and it moved in a series of scuttles and sinuous wriggles.