“A good casting,” Sabriel said quietly, looking at the marks through eyes half-lidded in weariness.
Behind her, Sabriel heard the thunderous crashing that announced the wave, which had been held back by the same spell that gave her passage through the whirlpool. With the wave came shrill cries, shrieks and screams. There were clearly many Dead around, but Sabriel didn’t spare them a thought. Nothing and no one could withstand the waves of the Third Precinct. You simply ran as fast as possible, hoping to reach the next gate—whichever way you were going.
“And I’ll wait, it seems,” added Mogget.
“Better than the last one I cast.”
“Put your sword away and give me your hand,” she said, in a tone that did not invite conversation or argument. Touchstone hesitated— his left hand held only a candle, and he didn’t want both his swords scabbarded—then he complied. Her hand was cold, colder than the water. Instinctively, he gripped a little tighter, to give her some of his warmth.
Sabriel lost concentration for a moment, so Touchstone had to hold the mark alone for a few seconds, the effort making him feel drunk in the most unpleasant way, the world spinning inside his head, totally out of control. Then Sabriel forced herself back and the West mark flowered under the water.
Something louder, something slow, attempting to be surreptitious. He knew Mogget had heard it too, from the sudden tensing of cat paws on his shoulder.
“I have my own troubles,” grumbled Mogget.
The thunder and crashing grew louder, and one by one the various screams and shouts were submerged in the greater sound. Sabriel didn’t look, but only ran faster. Looking over her shoulder would lose a fraction of a second, and that might be enough for the wave to reach her, pick her up and hurl her through the Third Gate, stunned flotsam for the current beyond . . .
“What!” exclaimed Touchstone. Then, quieter, as the echoes rang, “Here?”
“It probably won’t be a long wait for you,” she said. “Time moves strangely in Death. If . . . if I’m not back in two hours, then I probably . . . I’ll probably be trapped too, so you and Mogget should leave . . .”
Touchstone stared out past the southern vertice, listening. He had heard something, he was sure, something besides the constant dripping.
“If we cast our own diamond of protection . . .”
Immediately, they felt a lessening of the terrible presence of the broken stones. The high-pitched pain in Sabriel’s head dimmed; normal feeling returned to Touchstone’s legs and feet. Mogget stirred and stretched, the first significant movement he’d made since taking up position around Touchstone’s neck.
He suddenly became aware that he was still holding Sabriel’s hand, and slumping like an aged wood collector under a heavy burden. He straightened up suddenly, dropping her hand as if it were the fanged end of a snake.
Sabriel watched it cautiously, debating whether to use Saraneth to bind it to her will, and then Kibeth to send it on its way to final death. But using the bells would alert everything Dead between here and the First and Third Gates at least—and she didn’t want that.
They’re lining up each side of the door, along the reservoir walls.”
Sabriel struck again, and the head and one hand flew off, splashing into the river. They bobbed on the surface for a moment, the head howling, eyes flaming with hate across the water. Then it was sucked down, down into the hurly-burly of the Second Gate.
A faint squelching sound behind her made her turn, sword scything around at full arm-stretch, a great circle of Charter-spelled steel. It struck Dead spirit-flesh, sparks flying, a scream of rage and pain filling the silence. Sabriel almost jumped back, at that scream, but she held her ground. The Second Gate was too close.
The thing she’d hit stepped back, its head hanging from a mostly severed neck. It was humanoid in shape, at least to begin with, but had arms that trailed down below its knees, into the river. Its head, now flopping on one shoulder, was longer than it was wide or tall, possessed a mouth with several rows of teeth. It had flaming coals in its eyepits, a characteristic of the deep Dead, from beyond the Fifth Gate.
The headless thing took another step, and fell sideways into a deep hole. It scrabbled there, long arms thrashing the water, but couldn’t pull itself up and out. It only succeeded in getting across into the full force of the current, which snatched it up and threw it into the whirlpool of the Gate.
She closed her eyes, and began to visualize the East mark, the first of the four cardinal wards.
“Yes. I know,” replied Sabriel. The relief that had soared inside her at the sight of her father was ebbing, giving way to the sickness caused by the broken stones. “I think . . . I think I’ll have to go into Death from here, and fetch his spirit back.”
“I’d better be going,” said Sabriel, suddenly embarrassed by Touchstone’s stare. Her left hand went to the bell-bandolier, fingers feeling for the straps that held Saraneth.
The Second Gate was essentially an enormous hole, at least two hundred yards across, into which the river sank like sinkwater down a drain. Unlike a normal drain, it was eerily silent, and with the difficult light, easy for the unwary to walk up to its rim. Sabriel was always particularly careful with this Gate—she had learned to sense the feel of its tug against her shins at an early age. She stopped well back when the tug came, and tried to focus on the silently raging whirlpool.
Mogget watched too, from his shoulder, his green eyes lit with their own internal luminescence.
Sabriel snuffed out her candle, thrust it through her belt, then held out her open palm.
The strap came undone, and Touchstone stepped back. Sabriel drew Saraneth, carefully stilling the bell.
With the words, the waters of the Second Gate slowed and stilled. The whirling vortex separated out into a long spiral path, winding downwards.
“For luck,” Touchstone said nervously.
This was harder still, and both of them were sweating and shaking when it finally began its glowing existence. Sabriel’s hand was hot and feverish now, and Touchstone’s flesh ricocheted violently between sweating heat and shivering cold. A terrible wave of nausea hit him, and he would have been sick, but Sabriel gripped his hand, like a falcon its prey, and lent him strength. He gagged, dry-retched once, then recovered.
“Hands,” muttered Mogget. “All Hands, and pretty putrescent ones, too. They’re falling apart just walking.”
Just standing this close to the broken stones took most of his strength. For Sabriel to enter Death seemed madness, tempting fate. Who knew what might be lurking in Death, close by the easy portal made by the broken stones? For that matter, who knew what was lurking in or around the reservoir? Sabriel didn’t answer. She moved closer to her father’s diamond of protection, studying the cardinal marks under the water. Touchstone followed reluctantly, forcing his legs to move in short steps, minimizing the splash and ripple of his wake.
“Unless I want to swim out of here. Which I don’t. May the Charter be with you, Sabriel.”
“The diamond is complete,” said Touchstone. “We won’t be able to move him.”
She came to the First Gate, halting just beyond the wall of mist that stretched out as far as she could see to either side. The river roared beyond that mist, turbulent rapids going through to the Second Precinct, and on to the Second Gate.
The Second Precinct was more dangerous than the First. There were deep holes, as well as the ever-present current. The light was worse too.
Without opening their eyes, the duo shuffled around to face the south, and the next mark.
Touchstone stared again, trying by sheer force of will to see—but there was nothing, save darkness. He could hear them, though, wading, squelching through the still water. Too still for his liking—suddenly he wondered if the reservoir had a drainhole and a plug. Then he dismissed it as a foolish notion. Any such plug or drain cover would have long since rusted shut.
Pain shot through his hand and arm, as he added his will to Sabriel’s. The mark seemed blurry in his head, and impossible to focus. The pins and needles that had already plagued his feet spread up above his knees, shooting them through with rheumatic pains. But he blocked off the pain, narrowing his consciousness to just one thing: the creation of a diamond of protection.
A path appeared, parting the waterfall like a finger drawn through butter. Sabriel stepped out onto it, and walked down, the waters crashing harmlessly on either side. Behind her, the mist closed up and, as her rearmost heel lifted to make her next step, the path disappeared.
Touchstone looked at Sabriel, now covered in frost, like a wintering statue. He felt like shaking her shoulder, screaming for help . . .
“Charter preserve us,” Touchstone croaked, with a weight in his throat of absolute dread and terrible foreboding. “Rogir . . . Kerrigor.
The spiral path looked long, but to Sabriel it seemed only a matter of minutes before she was passing through the very base of the whirlpool, and out into the Third Precinct.
She was also beautiful and Touchstone realized that he had thought of her only in terms of her office, as Abhorsen. Not as a woman at all . . .
Always, her senses quested for her father’s spirit. He was somewhere in Death, she was positive of that. There was always the faintest trace of him, a lingering memory. But it was not this close to Life. She would have to go on.
Touchstone took a quick look around, then closed his eyes too, drawn in by the force of Sabriel’s conjuration.
She looked at him, rather startled, and he found himself staring at the reflection of his candle-flame in her dark eyes. Almost for the first time, he really looked at her. He saw the weariness there, and the incipient lines of care, and the way her mouth looked a little sad around the edges. Her nose was still swollen, and there were yellowing bruises on her cheekbones.
Sabriel felt them near her, like two yawning gates, proclaiming easy entry to Life for any Dead nearby. Fortunately, the other effect of the stones—the sickening illness—disappeared in Death. There was only the chill and tug of the river.
“We’ll need it to be with us,” Mogget replied sourly. “One way or another.”
It snarled and brought its long, skewer-thin fingers up out of the water to try and straighten its head, attempting to rest it back atop the cleanly hewn neck.
The veil of mist parted, revealing a series of waterfalls that appeared to drop into an unending blackness. Sabriel spoke some more words, and gestured to the right and left with her sword.
“Sabriel.”
Once again, Sabriel recited words of Free Magic power, words impressed into her mind long ago from The Book of the Dead. The words flowed out of her, blistering her lips, strange heat in this place of leeching cold.
The crossing into Death was made easy—far too easy—by the presence of the broken stones.
Not the total darkness promised at the end of the waterfalls, but there was a different quality in its greyness. A blurring effect, that made it difficult to see further than you could touch.
Sabriel looked down on his hair, and was strangely tempted to kiss the exact center, a tiny part marking the epicenter where his tight brown curls radiated outwards. But she didn’t.
“What kind of Dead are they?” he asked. He didn’t know much about the Dead, except that Shadow Hands were the worst of the normal variety, and Mordicants, like the one that had followed Sabriel, were the worst of them all.
Touchstone watched, close by, till it grew too cold, then he retreated to the far southern vertice of the diamond. Drawing one sword, he turned outwards, holding his candle high, and started to wade around inside the lines of Charter-fire as if he were patrolling the battlements of a castle.
“What are they doing?” he whispered anxiously, fingering his sword, tilting the blade this way and that. His left hand seemed to hold the candle steady, but the little flame flickered, clear evidence of the tiny shakes that ran down his arm.
Sabriel continued, thinking aloud. “A large one, around both of us and Father’s diamond—that will keep most danger at bay.”
“It will also trap us here—even if we can cast it, so close to the broken stones. I know that I couldn’t do it alone, at this point.”
Sabriel started forward immediately, carefully scanning the grey expanse before her. Things moved at the edge of her vision; she heard movement in the cold waters. But nothing came towards her, nothing attacked, save the constant twining and gripping of the current.
“Let me help,” said Touchstone. He stood close, fumbling with the stiff leather, hands weakened by the effort spent on the diamond of protection, his head bowed over the bells.
“What do you think, Mogget?” asked Touchstone, turning his head, so his cheek brushed against the little animal on his shoulder.
Remembering pages from The Book of the Dead, Sabriel spoke words of power. Free Magic, that shook her mouth as she spoke, jarring her teeth, burning her tongue with raw power.
Except for what Rogir had become. Kerrigor, the Dead Adept . . .
“We should be able to combine our strengths.
The West mark was simply a trial of endurance.
Mogget whispered back. “Strange—almost like an honor guard . . .”
But the Third Precinct had waves. For the first time, Sabriel broke into a run, sprinting as fast as she could towards the Third Gate, just visible in the distance. It was like the First Gate—a waterfall concealed in a wall of mist.
“I don’t know how we did it,” muttered Touchstone, staring down at the lines of Charterfire.
“And I think this is probably a trap. But since we’re here, and the—Abhorsen Emeritus, shall we say, does seem to be alive, I suppose there’s nothing else to be done.”
“Can you see anything?” he whispered, peering out into the darkness. The clouds were still blocking the light from the sun-shafts, though he thought the intervals of sunlight were growing longer. But, in any case, they were too far away from the edge to benefit from a sudden return of sun.
“I hope not,” whispered Sabriel. She checked the pouch at her belt for the small things she’d prepared back at the Sign of Three Lemons, then turned to face the North mark and started to raise her sword, beginning her preparations to enter Death.
She smiled, and nodded twice, then looked back to the north. Her eyes focused on something not there and waves of cold air billowed from her motionless form. A second later, ice crystals began to crack out of her hair, and frost ran in lines down the sword and bell.
Suddenly, Touchstone sloshed forward and quickly kissed her on the cheek—a clumsy, dry-lipped peck that almost hit the rim of her helmet rather than her cheek.
Finally, the East mark flowed down Sabriel’s blade and took root in the reservoir floor.
Sabriel continued carefully, using her sword to probe the ground ahead. There was an easy way through, she knew, a course mapped and plotted by many necromancers and not a few Abhorsens, but she didn’t trust her memory to tread confidently ahead at speed.
“Most danger,” Touchstone said grimly, looking around, trying to peer past the tight confines of their candle’s little globe of light.
He must be here . . . and he’s coming . . .”
“And with you,” said Sabriel. She looked around the dark expanse of the reservoir. She still couldn’t sense any of the Dead out there— and yet . . .
“Who knows what time it is down here anyway?”
Desperation gave them the North mark. They struggled with it for what seemed like hours, but was only seconds, till it almost squirmed from them uncast. But at that moment, Sabriel spent all the force of her desire to free her father, and Touchstone pushed with the weight of two hundred years of guilt and sorrow.
“Yes,” whispered Mogget. “The Dead. Many of them, filing out of the main southern stair.
The North mark rolled brightly down the sword and grew to brilliance, brilliance dulled by the water. Lines of Charter-fire ran from it to the East mark, from East mark to South mark to West mark and back again. The diamond was complete.
Then, if you and Mogget keep watch while I am in Death, we should manage.”
Sabriel, checking for a few last holes near the edge, gingerly strode out to this path and started down. Behind and above her, the waters began to swirl again.
Both of them often turned to gaze at Sabriel.
“I don’t like it,” whispered Touchstone.
This was a tricksome place. The water was shallow here, only ankle-deep, and somewhat warmer. The light was better too—still grey, but you could see farther out. Even the ubiquitous current was no more than a bit of a tickle around the feet.
“Just lining up along the walls, in ranks,”
The headless body stood where it was for a second, then started to cautiously step sideways, its remaining hand groping around in front of it.
“I’ll be waiting,” replied Touchstone firmly.
“Mogget—keep watch,” Sabriel instructed.
