Two steps. Sabriel shifted her grip again, wrapping her left arm completely around the spirit’s chest and balancing the weight on her hip, freeing her right arm, but she still couldn’t draw her sword, or clear the bells.
The hog-thing began to grunt and hiss, breaking into a diving, rushing gallop, its long, yellow-crusted tusks surfing through the water, its long body undulating along behind.
Sabriel stepped back, turned, and threw herself and her precious cargo headfirst into Life, using all her will to force them through the wards on the sinkhole. For an instant, it seemed that they would be repulsed, then, like a pin pushing through a rubber band, they were through.
Shrill squealing followed her, but nothing else. Sabriel found herself facedown on the ground, hands empty, ice crystals crunching as they fell from her frosted body. Turning her head, she met the gaze of Mogget. He stared at her, then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
Sabriel rolled over, and got to her feet, very, very slowly. She felt all her pains come back and wondered why she’d been so hasty to perform deeds of derring-do and rescue. Still, she had managed it. The man’s spirit was back where it belonged, back in Life.
Or so she thought, till she saw the figurehead. It hadn’t changed at all to outward sight, though Sabriel could now feel the living spirit in it. Puzzled, she touched his immobile face, fingers tracing the grain of the wood.
“A kiss,” said Mogget sleepily. “Actually, just a breath would do. But you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose.”
Sabriel looked at the cat, wondering if this was the latest symptom of catbalm-induced lunacy. But he seemed sober enough, and serious.
“A breath?” she asked. She didn’t want to kiss just any wooden man. He looked nice enough, but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed very forward. He might remember it, and make assumptions.
“Like this?” She took a deep breath, leaned forward, exhaled a few inches from his nose and mouth, then stepped back to see what would happen—if anything.
Nothing did.
“Catbalm!” exclaimed Sabriel, looking at Mogget. “You shouldn’t—”
A small sound interrupted her. A small, wheezing sound, that didn’t come from her or Mogget. The figurehead was breathing, air whistling between carved wooden lips like the issue from an aged, underworked bellows.
The breathing grew stronger, and with it, color began to flow through the carving, dull wood giving way to the luster of flesh. He coughed, and the carven chest became flexible, suddenly rising and falling as he began to pant like a recovering sprinter.
His eyes opened and met Sabriel’s. Fine grey eyes, but muzzy and unfocused. He didn’t seem to see her. His fingers clenched and unclenched, and his feet shuffled, as if he were running in place. Finally, his back peeled away from the ship’s hull. He took one step forward, and fell into Sabriel’s arms.
She lowered him hastily to the ground, all too aware that she was embracing a na**d young man—in circumstances considerably different than the various scenarios she’d imagined with her friends at school, or heard about from the earthier and more privileged day-girls.
“Thank you,” he said, almost drunkenly, the words terribly slurred. He seemed to focus on her—or her surcoat—for the first time, and added, “Abhorsen.”
Then he went to sleep, mouth curling up at the corners, frown dissolving. He looked younger than he did as a fixed-expression figurehead.
Sabriel looked down at him, trying to ignore curiously fond feelings that had appeared from somewhere. Feelings similar to those that had made her bring back Jacinth’s rabbit.
“I suppose I’d better get him a blanket,” she said reluctantly, as she wondered what on earth had possessed her to add this complication to her already confusing and difficult circumstances. She supposed she would have to get him to safety and civilization, at the very least—if there was any to be found.
“I can get a blanket if you want to keep staring at him,” Mogget said slyly, twining himself around her ankles in a sensuous pavane.
Sabriel realized she really was staring, and looked away.
“No. I’ll get it. And my spare shirt, I suppose. The breeches might fit him with a bit of work, I guess—we’d be much the same height. Keep watch, Mogget. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Mogget watched her hobble off, then turned back to the sleeping man. Silently, the cat padded over and touched his pink tongue to the Charter mark on the man’s forehead. The mark flared, but Mogget didn’t flinch, till it grew dull again.
“So,” muttered Mogget, tasting his own tongue by curling it back on itself. He seemed somewhat surprised, and more than a little angry. He tasted the mark again, and then shook his head in distaste, the miniature Saraneth on his collar ringing a little peal that was not of celebration.
Chapter 14
Grey mist coiling upwards, twining around him like a clinging vine, gripping arms and legs, immobilizing, strangling, merciless. So firmly grown about his body there was no possibility of escape, so tight his muscles couldn’t even flex under skin, his eyelids couldn’t blink. And nothing to see but patches of darker grey, crisscrossing his vision like wind-blown scum upon a fetid pool.
Then, suddenly, fierce red light, pain exploding everywhere, rocketing from toes to brain and back again. The grey mist clearing, mobility returning. No more grey patches, but blurry colors, slowly twisting into focus. A woman, looking down at him, a young woman, armed and armored, her face . . . battered. No, not a woman. The Abhorsen, for she wore the blazon and the bells. But she was too young, not the Abhorsen he knew, or any of the family . . .
“Thank you,” he said, the words coming out like a mouse creeping from a dusty larder. “Abhorsen.”
Then he fainted, his body rushing gladly to welcome real sleep, true unconsciousness and sanity-restoring rest.
He awoke under a blanket, and felt a moment’s panic when the thick grey wool pressed upon his mouth and eyes. He struggled with it, threw it back with a gasp, and relaxed as he felt fresh air on his face and dim sunlight filtering down from above. He looked up and saw from the reddish hue that it must be soon after dawn. The sinkhole puzzled him for a few seconds—disoriented, he felt dizzy and stupid, till he looked at the tall masts all around, the black sails, and the unfinished ship nearby.
“Holehallow,” he muttered to himself, frowning. He remembered it now. But what was he doing here? Completely na**d under a rough camping blanket?
He sat up, and shook his head. It was sore and his temples were throbbing, seemingly from the battering-ram effect of a severe hangover. But he felt certain he hadn’t been drinking. The last thing he remembered was going down the steps. Rogir had asked him . . . no . . . the last thing was the fleeting image of a pale, concerned face, bloodied and bruised, black hair hanging out in a fringe under her helmet. A deep blue surcoat, with the blazon of silver keys. The Abhorsen.
“She’s washing at the spring,” said a soft voice, interrupting his faltering recollection. “She got up before the sun. Cleanliness is a wonderful thing.”
The voice did not seem to belong to anything visible, till the man looked up at the nearby ship. There was a large, irregular hole in the bow, where the figurehead should have been and a white cat was curled up in the hole, watching him with an unnaturally sharp, green-eyed gaze.
“What are you?” said the man, his eyes cautiously flickering from side to side, looking for a weapon. A pile of clothes was the only thing nearby, containing a shirt, trousers and some underwear, but it was weighted down with a largish rock. His hand sidled out towards the rock.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the cat. “I’m but a faithful retainer of the Abhorsen. Name of Mogget. For the moment.”
The man’s hand closed on the rock, but he didn’t lift it. Memories were slowly sidling back to his benumbed mind, drawn like grains of iron to a magnet. There were memories of various Abhorsens among them—memories that gave him an inkling of what this cat-creature was.
“You were bigger when we last met,” he hazarded, testing his guess.
“Have we met?” replied Mogget, yawning. “Dear me. I can’t recall it. What was the name?”
A good question, thought the man. He couldn’t remember. He knew who he was, in general terms, but his name eluded him. Other names came easily though, and some flashes of memory concerning what he thought of as his immediate past. He growled, and grimaced as they came to him, and clenched his fists in pain and anger.
“Unusual name,” commented Mogget. “More of a bear’s name, that growl. Do you mind if I call you Touchstone?”
“What!” the man exclaimed, affronted. “That’s a fool’s name! How dare—”
“Is it unfitting?” interrupted Mogget, coolly. “You do remember what you’ve done?”
The man was silent then, for he suddenly did remember, though he didn’t know why he’d done it, or what the consequences had been. He also remembered that since this was the case, there was no point trying to remember his name. He was no longer fit to bear it.
“Yes, I remember,” he whispered. “You may call me Touchstone. But I shall call you—”
He choked, looked surprised, then tried again.
“You can’t say it,” Mogget said. “A spell tied to the corruption of—but I can’t say it, nor tell anyone the nature of it, or how to fix it. You won’t be able to talk about it either and there may be other effects. Certainly, it has affected me.”
“I see,” replied Touchstone, somberly. He didn’t try the name again. “Tell me, who rules the Kingdom?”
“No one,” said Mogget.
“A regency, then. That is perhaps—”
“No. No regency. No one reigns. No one rules. There was a regency at first, but it declined . . . with help.”
“What do you mean, ‘at first’?” asked Touchstone. “What exactly has happened? Where have I been?”
“The regency lasted for one hundred and eighty years,” Mogget announced callously. “Anarchy has held sway for the last twenty, tempered by what a few remaining loyalists could do. And you, my boy, have been adorning the front of this ship as a lump of wood for the last two hundred years.”
“The family?”
“All dead and past the Final Gate, save one, who should be. You know who I mean.”
For a moment, this news seemed to return Touchstone to his wooden state. He sat frozen, only the slight movement of his chest showing continued life. Then tears started in his eyes, and his head slowly fell to meet his upturned hands.
Mogget watched without sympathy, till the young man’s back ceased its heaving and the harsh in-drawn gasps between sobs became calmer.
“There’s no point crying over it,” the cat said harshly. “Plenty of people have died trying to put the matter to rights. Four Abhorsens have fallen in this century alone, trying to deal with the Dead, the broken stones and the—the original problem. My current Abhorsen certainly isn’t lying around crying her eyes out. Make yourself useful and help her.”
“Can I?” asked Touchstone bleakly, wiping his face with the blanket.
“Why not?” snorted Mogget. “Get dressed, for a start. There are some things aboard here for you as well. Swords and suchlike.”
“But I’m not fit to wield royal—”
“Just do as you’re told,” Mogget said firmly. “Think of yourself as Abhorsen’s sworn sword-hand, if it makes you feel better, though in this present era, you’ll find common sense is more important than honor.”
“Very well,” Touchstone muttered, humbly. He stood up and put on the underclothes and shirt, but couldn’t get the trousers past his heavily muscled thighs.
“There’s a kilt and leggings in one of the chests back here,” Mogget said, after watching Touchstone hopping around on one leg, the other trapped in too-tight leather.
Touchstone nodded, divested himself of the trousers, and clambered up through the hole, taking care to keep as far away from Mogget as possible. Halfway up, he paused, arms braced on either side of the gap.
“You won’t tell her?” he asked.
“Tell who? Tell what?”
“Abhorsen. Please, I’ll do all I can to help. But it wasn’t intentional. My part, I mean. Please, don’t tell her—”
“Spare me the pleadings,” said Mogget, in a disgusted tone. “I can’t tell her. You can’t tell her. The corruption is wide and the spell rather indiscriminatory. Hurry up—she’ll be back soon. I’ll tell you the rest of our current saga while you dress.”
Sabriel returned from the spring feeling healthier, cleaner and happier. She’d slept well and the morning’s ablutions had cleared off the blood. The bruises, swellings and sunburn had all responded well to her herbal treatments. All in all, she felt about eighty percent normal, rather than ten percent functional, and she was looking forward to having some company at breakfast other than the sardonic Mogget. Not that he didn’t have his uses, such as guarding unconscious or sleeping humans. He’d also assured her that he had tested the Charter mark on the figurehead-man, finding him to be unsullied by Free Magic, or necromancy.
She’d expected the man to still be asleep, so she felt a faint frisson of surprise and suspense when she saw a figure standing by the ship’s bow, facing the other way. For a second, her hand twitched to her sword, then she saw Mogget nearby, precariously draped on the ship’s rail.
She approached nervously, her curiosity tempered by the need to be wary of strangers. He looked different dressed. Older and somewhat intimidating, particularly since he seemed to have scorned her plain clothing for a kilt of gold-striped red, with matching leggings of red-striped gold, disappearing into turned-down thigh boots of russet doeskin. He was wearing her shirt, though, and preparing to put on a red leather jerkin. It had detachable, lace-up sleeves, which seemed to be giving him some problems. Two swords lay in three-quarter scabbards near his feet, stabbing points shining four inches out of the leather. A wide belt with the appropriate hooks already encircled his waist.