“In your day,” interrupted Mogget, from his favorite post on the bow. “But this is now, and I am sure that necromancers and worse are not uncommon sights in Belisaere.”
“I’ll wear a cloak—” Sabriel started to say.
“If you say so,” Touchstone said, at the same time. Clearly, he didn’t believe the cat. Belisaere was the royal capital, a huge city, home to at least fifty thousand people. Touchstone couldn’t imagine it fallen, decayed and in the hands of the Dead. Despite his own inner fears and secret knowledge, he couldn’t help but be confident that the Belisaere they were sailing towards would be little different from the two-hundred-year-old images locked in his memory.
That confidence took a blow as the Belis Mouth towers became visible above the blue line of the horizon, on opposite shores of the strait. At first, the towers were no more than dark smudges, that grew taller as wind and wave carried the boat towards them. Through her telescope, Sabriel saw that they were made from a beautiful, rosy-pink stone that once must have been magnificent. Now they were largely blackened by fire; their majesty vanished. Winding Post had lost the top three storys, from seven; Boom Hook stood as tall as ever, but sunlight shone through gaping holes, showing the interior to be a gutted ruin. There was no sign of any garrison, toll collector, windlass mules, or anything alive.
The great boom-chain still stretched across the strait. Huge iron links, each as wide and long as the fishing boat, rose green and barnacle-befouled out of the water and up into each of the towers. Glimpses of it could be seen in the middle of the Mouth, when the swell dipped, and a length of chain shone slick and green in the wave trough, like some lurking monster of the deep.
“We’ll have to go in close to the Winding Post tower, unstep the mast and row under the chain where it rises,” Touchstone declared, after studying the chain for several minutes through the telescope, trying to gauge whether it had sunk enough to allow them passage. But even with their relatively shallow-draft boat, it would be too risky, and they daren’t wait for high tide, late in the afternoon. At some time in the past, perhaps when the towers were abandoned, the chain had been winched up to its maximum tension. The engineers who’d made it would have been pleased, for there seemed to be no noticeable slippage.
“Mogget, go to the bow and keep a lookout for anything in the water. Sabriel, could you please watch the shore and the tower, to guard against attack.”
Sabriel nodded, pleased that Touchstone’s stint as captain of their small vessel had done a lot to remove the servant nonsense out of him and make him more like a normal person. Mogget, for his part, jumped up to the bow without protest, despite the spray that occasionally burst over his head as they cut diagonally across the swell—towards the small triangle of opportunity between shore, sea and chain.
They came in as close as they dared before unstepping the mast. The swell had diminished, for the Belis Mouth was well-sheltered by the two arms of land, but the tide had turned, and a tidal race was beginning to run from the ocean to the Saere Sea. So, even without mast and sail, they were borne rapidly towards the chain; Touchstone rowing with all his strength just to keep steerage way. After a moment, this clearly became impossible, so Sabriel took one of the oars, and they rowed together, with Mogget yowling directions.
Every few seconds, at the end of a full stroke, her back nearly level with the thwarts, Sabriel snatched a glimpse over her shoulder. They were headed for the narrow passage, between the high but crumbling seawall of Winding Post, and the enormous chain rising out of the swift-flowing sea in a swath of white froth. She could hear the melancholy groaning of the links, like a chorus of pained walruses. Even that gargantuan chain moved at the sea’s whim.
“Port a little,” yowled Mogget. Touchstone backed his oar for a moment, then the cat jumped down, yelling, “Ship oars and duck!”
The oars came rattling, splashing in, both Sabriel and Touchstone simply lying down on their backs, with Mogget somewhere between them. The boat rocked and plunged, and the groan of the chain sounded close and terrible. Sabriel, one moment looking up at the clear, blue sky, in the next saw nothing but green, weed-strewn iron above her. When the swell lifted the boat up, she could have reached out and touched the great boom-chain of Belis Mouth.
Then they were past, and Touchstone was already pushing out his oar, Mogget moving to the bow. Sabriel wanted to lie there, just looking up at the sky, but the collapsed seawall of Winding Post was no more than an oar-length away. She sat up and resumed her duty as a rower.
The water changed color in the Sea of Saere. Sabriel trailed her hand in it, marveling at its clear turquoise sheen. For all its color, it was incredibly transparent. The water was very deep, but she could see down the first three or four fathoms, watching small fish dance under the bubbles of their boat’s wake.
She felt relaxed, momentarily carefree, all the troubles that lay ahead and behind her temporarily lost in single-minded contemplation of the clear blue-green water. There was no Dead presence here, no constant awareness of the many doors to Death. Even Charter Magic was dissipated at sea. For a few minutes, she forgot about Touchstone and Mogget. Even her father faded from her mind. There was only the sea’s color, and its coolness on her hand.
“We’ll be able to see the city soon,” Touchstone said, interrupting her mental holiday. “If the towers are still standing.”
Sabriel nodded thoughtfully, and slowly took her hand from the sea, as if she were parting from a dear friend.
“It must be difficult for you,” she said, almost to herself, not really expecting him to answer. “Two hundred years gone, the Kingdom slowly falling into ruin while you slept.”
“I didn’t really believe it, till I saw Nestowe, and then the Belis Mouth towers,” replied Touchstone. “Now I am afraid—even for a great city that I never believed could really change.”
“No imagination,” said Mogget, sternly. “No thinking ahead. A flaw in your character. A fatal flaw.”
“Mogget,” Sabriel said indignantly, angry at the cat for crushing yet another possible conversation. “Why are you so rude to Touchstone?”
Mogget hissed and the fur bristled on his back.
“I am accurate, not rude,” he snapped, turning his back to them with studied scorn. “And he deserves it.”
“I’m sick of this!” announced Sabriel. “Touchstone, what does Mogget know that I don’t?”
Touchstone was silent, knuckles white on the tiller, eyes focused on the distant horizon, as if he could already see the towers of Belisaere.
“You’ll have to tell me eventually,” said Sabriel, a touch of the prefect entering her voice. “It can’t be that bad, surely?”
Touchstone wet his lips, hesitated, then spoke.
“It was stupidity on my part, not evil, milady. Two hundred years ago, when the last Queen reigned . . . I think . . . I know that I am partly responsible for the failing of the Kingdom, the end of the royal line.”
“What!” exclaimed Sabriel. “How could you be?”
“I am,” continued Touchstone miserably, his hands shaking so much the tiller moved, giving the boat a crazy zigzag wake. “There was a . . . that is . . .”
He paused, took a deep breath, sat up a little straighter, and continued, as if reporting to a senior officer.
“I don’t know how much I can tell you, because it involves the Great Charters. Where do I start? With the Queen, I guess. She had four children. Her oldest son, Rogir, was a childhood playmate of mine. He was always the leader, in all our games. He had the ideas—we followed them. Later, when we were growing up, his ideas became stranger, less nice. We grew apart. I went into the Guard; he pursued his own interests. Now I know that those interests must have included Free Magic and necromancy—I never suspected it then. I should have, I know, but he was secretive, and often away.
“Towards the end . . . I mean a few months before it happened . . . well, Rogir had been away for several years. He came back, just before the Midwinter Festival. I was glad to see him, for he seemed to be more like he was as a child. He’d lost interest in the bizarrities that had attracted him. We spent more time together again; hawking, riding, drinking, dancing.
“Then, late one afternoon—one cold, crisp afternoon, near sunset—I was on duty, guarding the Queen and her ladies. They were playing Cranaque. Rogir came to her, and asked her to come with him down to the place where the Great Stones are . . . hey, I can say it!”
“Yes,” interrupted Mogget. He looked tired, like an alley cat that has suffered one kick too many. “The sea washes all things clear, for a time. We can speak of the Great Charters, at least for a little while. I had forgotten it was so.”
“Go on,” said Sabriel, excitedly. “Let’s take advantage of it while we can. The Great Stones would be the stones and mortar of the rhyme—the Third and Fifth Great Charter?”
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, remotely, as if reciting a lesson, “with the Wall. The people, or whatever they were who made the Great Charters, put three in bloodlines and two in physical constructions: the Wall and the Great Stones. All the lesser stones draw their power from one or the other.
“The Great Stones . . . Rogir came and said there was something amiss there, something the Queen must look into. He was her son, but she did not take great account of his wisdom, or believe him when he spoke of trouble with the Stones. She was a Charter Mage and felt nothing wrong. Besides, she was winning at Cranaque, so she told him to wait till morning. Rogir turned to me, asked me to intercede, and, Charter help me, I did. I believed Rogir. I trusted him and my belief convinced the Queen. Finally, she agreed. By that time, the sun had set. With Rogir, myself, three guards and two ladies-in-waiting, we went down, down into the reservoir where the Great Stones are.”
Touchstone’s voice faded to a whisper as he continued, and grew hoarse.
“There was terrible wrong down there, but it was Rogir’s doing, not his discovery. There are six Great Stones and two were just being broken, broken with the blood of his own sisters, sacrificed by his Free Magic minions as we approached. I saw their last seconds, the faint hope in their clouding eyes, as the Queen’s barge came floating across the water. I felt the shock of the Stones breaking and I remember Rogir, stepping up behind the Queen, a saw-edged dagger striking so swiftly across her throat. He had a cup, a golden cup, one of the Queen’s own, to catch the blood, but I was too slow, too slow . . .”
“So the story you told me at Holehallow wasn’t true,” Sabriel whispered, as Touchstone’s voice cracked and faded, and the tears rolled down his face. “The Queen didn’t survive . . .”
“No,” mumbled Touchstone. “But I didn’t mean to lie. It was all jumbled up in my head.”
“What did happen?”
“The other two guards were Rogir’s men,” Touchstone continued, his voice wet with tears, muffled with sorrow. “They attacked me, but Vlare—one of the ladies-in-waiting—threw herself across them. I went mad, battle-mad, berserk. I killed both guards. Rogir had jumped from the barge and was wading to the Stones, holding the cup. His four sorcerers were waiting, dark-cowled, around the third stone, the next to be broken. I couldn’t reach him in time, I knew. I threw my sword. It flew straight and true, taking him just above the heart. He screamed, the echo going on and on and he turned back towards me! Transfixed by my sword, but still walking, holding that vile cup of blood up, as if offering me a drink.
“’You may tear this body,’ he said, as he walked. ‘Rip it, like some poor-made costume. But I cannot die.’
“He came within an arm’s length of me, and I could only look into his face, look at the evil that lay so close behind those familiar features . . . then there was blinding white light, the sound of bells—bells like yours, Sabriel—and voices, harsh voices . . . Rogir flinching back, the cup dropped, blood floating on the water like oil. I turned, saw guardsmen on the stairs; a burning, twisting column of white fire; a man with sword and bells . . . then I fainted, or was knocked unconscious. When I came to, I was in Holehallow, seeing your face. I don’t know how I got there, who put me there . . . I still only remember in shreds and patches.”
“You should have told me,” Sabriel said, trying to put as much compassion in her voice as she could. “But perhaps it had to wait for the sea’s freeing of that binding spell. Tell me, the man with the sword and bells, was it the Abhorsen?”
“I don’t know,” replied Touchstone. “Probably.”
“Almost definitely, I would say,” added Sabriel. She looked at Mogget, thinking of that column of twisting fire. “You were there too, weren’t you, Mogget? Unbound, in your other form.”
“Yes, I was there,” said the cat. “With the Abhorsen of that time. A very powerful Charter Mage, and a master of the bells, but a little too good-hearted to deal with treachery. I had terrible trouble getting him to Belisaere, and in the end, we were not timely enough to save the Queen or her daughters.”
“What happened?” whispered Touchstone. “What happened?”
“Rogir was already one of the Dead when he came back to Belisaere,” Mogget said wearily, as if he were telling a cynical yarn to a crew of hard-bitten cronies. “But only an Abhorsen would have known it, and he wasn’t there. Rogir’s real body was hidden somewhere . . . is hidden somewhere . . . and he wore a Free Magic construct for his physical form.
“Somewhere along the path of his studies, he’d swapped real Life for power and, like all the Dead, he needed to take life all the time to stay out of Death. But the Charter made it very difficult for him to do that anywhere in the Kingdom. So he decided to break the Charter. He could have confined himself to breaking a few of the lesser stones, somewhere far away, but that would only give him a tiny area to prey on, and the Abhorsen would soon hunt him down. So he decided to break the Great Stones, and for that he needed royal blood—his own family’s blood. Or Abhorsen’s, or the Clayr’s, of course, but that would be much harder to get.