“Come on!” roared Touchstone, turning at the entrance to the lane. But Barlest did not come, and Veran grabbed Touchstone and Sabriel and pushed them down the lane, shouting, “Go! Go!”
They heard Barlest shout a battle cry behind them, heard his footsteps as he charged out from under the car on the opposite side. There was one long shuddering burst of automatic fire and several louder, single shots. Then there was silence, save for the clattering of their own boots on the cobbles, the pant of their labored breaths, and the beating of their hearts.
Larnery Square was empty. The central garden, usually the habitat of nannies and babies, was completely devoid of life. The explosion had probably happened only a few minutes ago, but that was enough. There had been plenty of trouble in Corvere since the rise of Corolini and his Our Country thugs, and the ordinary citizens had learned when to retreat quickly from the streets.
Touchstone, Sabriel, and Veran ran grimly through the square and clattered down the Warden Steps on the far side. A drunken bargeman saw them, three gun-wielding figures splattered in blood and worse, and was not so drunk that he got in the way. He cowered to one side, hunching himself into as small a ball as possible.
The Sethem River flowed dirtily past the short quay at the end of the steps. A man dressed in the oilskin thigh boots and assorted rags of a tide dredger stood there, his hands inside a barrel that he’d presumably just salvaged from the muddy river flats. As he heard the clatter on the stairs, his hands came out holding a sawed-off shotgun, the hammers cocked.
“Querel! A rescue!” shouted Veran.
The man carefully decocked the shotgun, pulled a whistle out from under his many-patched shirt and blew it several times. There was an answering whistle, and several more Royal Guards leapt up from a boat that was out of sight beneath the quay, the river being at low tide. All the guards were armed and expecting trouble, but from their expressions none expected what they saw.
“An ambush,” exclaimed Touchstone quickly as they approached. “We must be away at once.”
Before he could say any more, many hands grabbed him and Sabriel and practically threw them onto the deck of the waiting boat, Veran jumping on after them. The craft, a converted river tramp, was six or seven feet below the quay, but there were more hands to catch them. Even as they were hustled into the heavily sandbagged cabin, the engine was going from a slow idle to a heavy throb and the boat was shuddering into motion.
Sabriel and Touchstone looked at each other, reassuring themselves that they were still alive and relatively unhurt, though they were both bleeding from small shrapnel cuts.
“That is it,” said Touchstone quietly, setting his pistol down on the deck. “I am done with Ancelstierre.”
“Yes,” said Sabriel. “Or it is done with us. We will not find any help here now.”
Touchstone sighed and, taking up a cloth, wiped the blood from Sabriel’s face. She did the same for him; then they stood and briefly embraced. Both were shaking, and they did not try to disguise it.
“We had best see to Veran’s wounds,” said Sabriel as they let go of each other. “And plot a course to take us home.”
“Home!” confirmed Touchstone, but even that word wasn’t said without both of them feeling an unspoken fear. Close as they had come to death today, they feared their children would face even greater dangers, and as both of them knew so well, there were far worse fates than simple death.
PART TWO
Chapter Nine
A Dream of Owls and Flying Dogs
NICK WAS DREAMING the dream again, of the Lightning Farm, and the hemispheres coming together. Then the dream suddenly changed, and he seemed to be lying on a bed of furs in a tent. There was the slow beat of rain on the canvas above his head, and the sound of thunder, and the whole tent was lit by the constant flicker of lightning.
Nick sat up and saw an owl perched on his traveling chest, looking at him with huge, golden eyes. And there was a dog sitting next to his bed. A black and tan dog not much bigger than a terrier, with huge feathery wings growing out of its shoulders.
At least it’s a different dream, part of him thought. He had to be almost awake, and this was one of those dream fragments that precede total wakefulness, where reality and fantasy mix. It was his tent, he knew, but an owl and a winged dog!
I wonder what that means, Nick thought, blinking his dream eyes.
Lirael and the Disreputable Dog watched him look at them, his eyes sleepy but still full of a fevered brightness. His hand clutched at his chest, fingers curled as if to scratch at his heart. He blinked twice, then shut his eyes and lay back on the furs.
“He really is sick,” whispered Lirael. “He looks terrible. And there’s something else about him . . . I can’t tell properly in this shape. A wrongness.”
“There is something of the Destroyer in him,” growled the Dog softly. “A sliver of one of the silver hemispheres, most like, infused with a fragment of its power. It is eating away at him, body and spirit. He is being used as the Destroyer’s avatar. A mouthpiece. We must not awaken this force inside him.”
“How do we get him out without doing that?” asked Lirael. “He doesn’t even look strong enough to leave his bed, let alone walk.”
“I can walk,” protested Nick, opening his eyes and sitting up again again. Since this was his dream, surely he could participate in the conversation between the winged dog and the talking owl. “Who is the Destroyer, and what’s this about eating away at me? I just have a bad influenza or something.
“Makes me hallucinate,” he added. “And have vivid dreams. A winged dog! Hah!”
“He thinks he’s dreaming,” said the Dog. “That’s good. The Destroyer will not rise in him unless it feels threatened or there is Charter Magic close. Be careful not to touch him with your Charter-skin, Mistress!”
“Can’t have an owl sit on my head,” giggled Nick dreamily. “Or a dog, neither.”
“I bet he can’t get up and get dressed,” Lirael said archly.
“I can so,” replied Nick, immediately swiveling his legs across and sliding out of bed. “I can do anything in a dream. Anything at all.”
Staggering a little, he took off his pajamas, unconscious of any need for modesty in front of his dream creatures, and stood there, stark naked. He looked very thin, Lirael thought, and was surprised to feel a pang of concern. You could see his ribs—and everything else for that matter. “See?” he said. “Up and dressed.”
“You need some more clothes,” suggested Lirael. “It might rain again.”
“I’ve got an umbrella,” declared Nick. Then his face clouded. “No—it broke. I’ll get my coat.”
Humming to himself, he crossed to the chest and reached for the lid. Lirael, surprised, flew away just in time and went to perch on the vacated bed.
“The Owl and the Pussycat went . . .” sang Nick as he pulled out underwear, trousers, and a long coat and put them on, bypassing a shirt. “Except I’ve got it wrong in my dream . . . because you’re not a pu**ycat. You’re . . . a . . .
“A winged dog,” he finished, reaching out to touch the Disreputable Dog on the nose. The solidity of that touch seemed to surprise him, and the fever flush deepened on his face.
“Am I dreaming?” he said suddenly, slapping himself in the face. “I’m not, am I? I’m . . . only . . . going . . . mad.”
“You’re not mad,” soothed Lirael. “But you are sick. You have a fever.”
“Yes, yes, I do,” agreed Nick fretfully, feeling his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “Must go back to bed. Hedge said, before he went to get the other barge.”
“No,” Lirael commanded, her voice strangely loud from the owl’s small beak. Hearing that Hedge was absent made her certain they must seize this opportunity. “You need fresh air. Dog—can you make him walk? Like you did the crossbowman?”
“Perhaps,” growled the Dog. “I feel several forces at work within him, and even a fragment of the bound Destroyer is a power to be reckoned with. It will also alert the Dead.”
“They’re still dragging the hemispheres to the lake,” said Lirael. “They’ll take a while to get here. So I think you’d better do it.”
“I’m going back to bed,” declared Nick, holding his head in his hands. “And the sooner I get home to Ancelstierre, the better.”
“You’re not going back to bed,” growled the Dog, advancing upon him. “You’re coming for a walk!”
With that word, she barked, a bark so deep and loud that the tent shook, poles quivering in resonance. Lirael felt the force of it strike her, ruffling her feathers. It sent sparks flying off her, too, as the Free Magic fought the Charter marks of her altered shape.
“Follow me!” ordered the Dog as she turned and left the tent. Nick took three steps after her but paused at the entrance, clutching at a canvas flap.
“No, no, I can’t,” he muttered, his muscles moving in weird spasms under the skin of his neck and hands. “Hedge told me to stay. It’s best I stay.”
The Dog barked again, louder, the noise carrying even above the constant thunder. A corona of sparks flared about Lirael, and the discarded pajamas under her claws suddenly caught fire, forcing her to fly out of the tent.
Nick shuddered and twisted as the force of the bark hit him. He fell to his knees and began to crawl out of the tent, groaning and calling out to Hedge. Lirael circled above him, looking to the west.
“Stand,” commanded the Dog. “Walk. Follow me.”
Nick stood, took several steps, then froze in place. His eyes rolled back, and tendrils of white smoke began to drift out of his open mouth.
“Mistress!” shouted the Dog. “The fragment wakes within him! You must resume your form and quell it with the bells!”
Lirael dropped like a stone, instantly calling up the Charter marks to unravel the owl skin she wore. But not before her huge golden owl eyes had cut through the lightning-laced night to where the Dead toiled to move the silver hemispheres. Hundreds of Dead Hands were already throwing down their ropes and turning towards the tent. A moment later they began to run, the massed sound of hundreds of dried-out joints clicking in a ghastly undercurrent to the thunder. The Hands at the front fought one another to get past, as they were drawn by the lure of magic and the promise of a rich life for the taking. Life to assuage their eternal hunger.
The Dog barked again as the smoke rose from Nick’s nose, but it seemed to have little effect. Lirael could only watch the white smoke coil, as she was momentarily caught within a shining tornado of light, while the Charter-skin spun back into its component marks.
Then she was there in her own form, hands reaching for Saraneth and Nehima. But something else was there, too, some presence that burned inside Nick, filling him with an internal glow that set the raindrops sizzling as they touched his skin. The hot-metal stench of Free Magic rolled off him in a wave as a voice that was not Nicholas’s came out of his mouth, accompanied by puffs of white smoke.
“How dare— Ah . . . I should have expected you, meddler, and one of your sister’s get—”
“Quick, Lirael,” shouted the Dog. “Ranna and Saraneth together, with my bark!”
“To me, my servants!” shouted the voice from Nick, a voice far louder and more horrible than could come from any human throat. It carried even over the thunder, rolling out across the valley. All the Dead heard, even those who still labored stupidly on the ropes, and they all hurried, a tide of rotten flesh that flowed around both sides of the pit, rushing towards the beacon of the burning tent, where their ultimate Master called.
Others heard it too, though they were farther away than any sound could carry. Hedge cursed and turned aside to slay an unlucky horse, so that he could make a mount that would not shy to carry him. Many leagues to the east, Chlorr turned away from the riverbank near Abhorsen’s House and began to run, a great shape of fire and darkness that moved faster than any human legs could take her.
Lirael dropped her sword and drew Ranna, so hastily the bell tinkled briefly and a wave of tiredness washed across her. Her wrist still hurt from her encounter in Death, but neither pain nor Ranna’s protest were enough to stop her. The relevant pages from The Book of the Dead shone in her mind, showing her what to do. So she did it, joining Ranna’s gentle sound with Saraneth’s deep strength, and with them the imperative sharp bark of the Dog.
The sound wrapped around Nick, and the voice that spoke from him was dampened. But a raging will fought against the spell, a will that Lirael could feel pushing against her, fighting against the combined powers of bell and bark. Then suddenly that resistance snapped, and Nick fell to the ground, the white smoke retreating rapidly back into his nose and throat.
“Hurry! Hurry! Get him up!” urged the Dog. “Cut south and head for the rendezvous. I’ll hold them off here!”
“But—Ranna and Saraneth—he’ll be asleep,” protested Lirael as she put the bells away and hauled Nick upright. He was much lighter than she expected, even lighter than he looked. Obviously he was worn to the bone.
“No, only the shard within him sleeps,” said the Dog rapidly. She had absorbed her wings and was growing to her combat size. “Slap him—and run!”
Lirael obeyed, though she felt cruel. The slap stung her palm, but it certainly woke Nick up. He yelped, looked around wildly, and struggled against Lirael’s grip on his arm.
“Run!” she commanded, dragging him along, with a momentary pause to pick up Nehima. “Run—or I’ll stick you with this.”