Abhorsen

“I was surprised,” she said quietly. “I’ll be quicker next time.”

“We’d better move on,” said Sam. He looked at the sky and sighed. “Though I had hoped to have a bit of a rest. It’s too hot to walk.”

“Where are we going?” asked Lirael. “Is there a wood or anything nearby that will hide us from the Gore Crows?”

“I’m not sure,” said Sam. He pointed north, where the ground rose up to a low hill, the thorn trees giving way to a field that once must have been cultivated, though it was now home to weeds and saplings. “We can take a look from that rise. We have to head roughly northwest anyway.”

They did not look back as they left what had become a funerary ground. Lirael tried to look everywhere else, her sight and sense of Death alert for any slight indication of the Dead. The Dog loped along next to her, and Sam walked to her left, a few steps behind.

They followed the remnants of a low stone wall up the hill. Once it would have separated two fields, and there might have been sheep on the higher pasture and crops below. But that was long ago, and the wall had not been mended for decades. Somewhere, less than a league or so away, there would be a ruined farmhouse, ruined yards, a choked well. The telltale signs that people had once lived there and had not fared well.

From their high point they could see the Long Cliffs stretching out to the east and west, and the undulating hills of the plateau. They could see the Ratterlin stretching from north to south, and the plume of the waterfall. Abhorsen’s House was hidden by the hills, but the tops of the fog banks that still surrounded it were eerily visible.

Several hundred years ago, before Kerrigor’s rise, they would also have seen farms and villages and cultivated fields. Now, even twenty years after King Touchstone’s Restoration, this part of the Kingdom was still largely deserted. Small forests had joined to become larger ones, single trees had become small forests, and drained marshes had returned happily to swamps. There were villages out there somewhere, Lirael knew, but none she could see. They were few and far between, because just a handful of Charter Stones had been replaced or restored. Only Charter Mages of the royal line could make or mend a Charter Stone—though the blood of any Charter Mage could break a normal stone. Too many Charter Stones had been broken in the two hundred years of the Interregnum for even twenty years of hard work to fix.

“It’s at least two, maybe three days’ solid march to Edge,” said Sam, pointing nor-norwest. “The Red Lake is behind those mountains. Which we pass to the south, I’m glad to say.”

Lirael shielded her eyes against the sun with her hand and squinted. She could just make out the peaks of a distant mountain range.

“We may as well get started then,” she said. Still shading her eyes, she gradually turned a full circle, looking up into the sky. It was a beautiful, clear blue, but Lirael knew that all too soon she would see telltale black blots—distant flocks of Gore Crows.

“We could head for Roble’s Town first,” suggested Sam, who was also looking up at the sky. “I mean, Hedge is going to know where we are anyway soon, and we might be able to get some help in Roble’s Town. There’ll be a Guard post there.”

“No,” said Lirael thoughtfully. She could see a line of puffy, black-streaked clouds far to the north, and it had given her an idea. “We’d just be getting other people into trouble. Besides, I think I know how to get rid of the Gore Crows, or hide from them at least—though it won’t be pleasant. We’ll try it a bit later on. Closer to nightfall.”

“What do you plan, Mistress?” asked the Dog. She had collapsed near Lirael’s feet, her tongue lolling out as she panted to cool down after the climb. This was a difficult task, since the sky was clear and the day was getting hotter and hotter as the sun climbed.

“We’ll whistle down those rain clouds,” replied Lirael, pointing at the distant cushion of dark cloud. “Good heavy rain and wind will blow away the Gore Crows, make us hard to find, and cover our tracks as well. What do you think?”

“An excellent plan!” exclaimed the Dog with approval.

“Do you think we can bring that rain down here?” asked Sam dubiously. “I reckon that cloud is about as far away as High Bridge.”

“We can try,” said Lirael. “Though there is more cloud to the west. . . .”

Her voice trailed off as she really focused on the blacker cloud beyond the hills, close to the western mountains. Even from this far away she could sense a wrongness in it, and as she stared, she saw the sheen of lightning within the cloud.

“I guess not that cloud.”

“No,” growled the Dog, her voice very deep, rumbling in her chest. “That is where Hedge and Nicholas are digging. I fear that they may have already uncovered what they seek.”

“I’m sure Nick doesn’t know he’s doing anything bad,” said Sam quickly. “He’s a good man. He wouldn’t do anything that would hurt anyone intentionally.”

“I hope so,” said Lirael. She was wondering once again what they would do when they got there. Why did Hedge need Nicholas? What was being dug up? What was their Enemy’s ultimate plan?

“We’d better keep moving, anyway,” she said, tearing her gaze away from the distant dark cloud and its flickering lightnings to look at the rolling land to the west. “What if we follow that valley? It goes in the right direction, and there’s quite a lot of tree cover and a stream.”

“That should be practically a small river,” said Sam. “I don’t know what’s happened to the spring rains down here.”

“Weather can be worked two ways,” said the Dog absently. She was still looking towards the mountains. “It may be no accident that the rain clouds hug the north. It would be good to bring them south for several reasons. I would like it even more if we could stop that lightning storm.”

“I guess we could try,” said Sam doubtfully, but the Dog shook her head.

“That storm would not answer to any weather magic,” she said. “There is too much lightning, and that confirms a fear I had hoped to lay to rest. I had not thought they would find it so quickly, or that it could be so easily untombed. I should have known. Astarael does not lightly tread the earth, and a Ferenk released already . . .”

“What is it?” asked Lirael nervously.

“The thing that Hedge is digging up,” said the Dog. “I will tell you more when needs must. I do not wish to fill your bones with fear, or tell ancient tales for no purpose. There are still several possible explanations and ancient safeguards that might yet hold even if the worst is true. But we must hurry!”

With that, the Dog leapt up and shot off down the hill, grinning as she zigzagged around white-barked saplings with silver-green leaves and shot over yet another ruined stone wall.

Lirael and Sam looked at each other and then at the lightning storm.

“I wish she wouldn’t do that,” complained Lirael, who had opened her mouth to ask another question. Then she went down after the Dog, at a considerably slower pace. Magical dogs might not tire, but Lirael was already very weary. It would be a long and exhausting afternoon, if no worse, for there was always the chance the Gore Crows would find them.

“What have you done, Nick?” whispered Sam. Then he followed Lirael, already pursing his lips and thinking about the Charter marks that would be needed to shunt a rain cloud two hundred miles across the sky.

They walked steadily all afternoon, with only short breaks, following a stream that flowed through a shallow valley between two roughly parallel lines of hills. The valley was lightly wooded, the shade saving them from the sun, which Lirael was finding particularly troubling. She was already sunburnt a little on the nose and cheekbones, and had neither the time nor the energy to soothe her skin with a spell. This was also a niggling reminder of the differences that had plagued her all her life. Proper Clayr were brown skinned, and they never burnt—exposure to sun simply made them darker.

By the time the sun had begun its slow fall behind the western mountains, only the Dog was still moving with any grace. Lirael and Sam had been awake for nearly eighteen hours, most of it climbing up the Long Cliffs or walking. They were stumbling, and falling asleep on their feet, no matter how they tried to stay alert. Finally Lirael decided that they had to rest, and they would stop as soon as they saw somewhere defensible, preferably with running water on at least one side.

Half an hour later, as they kept stumbling on and the valley began to narrow and the ground to rise, Lirael was prepared to settle for anywhere they could simply fall down, with or without running water to help defend against the Dead. The trees were also thinning out, giving way to low shrubs and weedy grass as they climbed. Another field that was returning to the wild, and totally indefensible.

Just when Lirael and Sam could hardly take another step, they found the perfect place. The soft gurgle of a waterfall announced it, and there was a shepherd’s hut, built on stilts across the swift water at the foot of a long but not very high waterfall. The hut was both shelter and bridge, so solidly built of ironwood that it showed little sign of decay, save for some of the shingles missing from the roof.

The Dog sniffed around outside the river hut, pronounced it dirty but habitable, and got in the way as Lirael and Sam tried to climb the steps and enter.

It was filthy inside, having at some time been subject to a flood that had deposited a great deal of dirt on the floor. But Lirael and Sam were past caring about that. Whether they slept on dirt outdoors or in, it was all one.

“Dog, can you take the first watch?” asked Lirael, as she gratefully shrugged off her pack and settled it in one corner.

“I can watch,” protested Sam, belying his words with a mighty yawn.

“I will watch,” said the Disreputable Dog. “Though there may be rabbits. . . .”

“Don’t chase them out of sight,” warned Lirael. She drew Nehima and laid the sword across her pack, ready for quick use, then did the same with the bell-bandolier. She kept her boots on, choosing not to speculate on the state of her feet after two days’ hard traveling.

“Wake us in four hours, please,” Lirael added as she slumped down and leant back against the wall. “We have to call the rain clouds down.”

“Yes, Mistress,” replied the Dog. She had not come in but sat near the rushing water, her ears pricked to catch some distant sound. Rabbits, perhaps. “Do you want me to bring you a boiled egg and toast as well?”

There was no answer. When the Dog looked in a moment later, both Lirael and Sam were sound asleep, slumped against their packs. The Dog let out a long sigh and slumped down herself, but her ears stayed upright and her eyes were keen, gazing out long after the summer twilight faded into the night.

Near midnight, the Dog shook herself and woke Lirael with a lick on her face and Sam with paw pressed heavily on his chest. Each woke with a start, and both reached for their swords before their eyes adjusted to the dim light from the glow of the Charter marks in the Dog’s collar.

Cold water from the stream woke them a little more, followed by necessary ablutions slightly farther afield. When they came back, a quick meal of dried meat, compressed dry biscuits, and dried fruit was eaten heartily by all three, though the Dog regretted the absence of rabbit or even a nice bit of lizard.

They couldn’t see the rain clouds in the night, even with a star-filled sky and the moon beginning its rise. But they knew the clouds were there, far to the north.

“We will have to go as soon as the spell is done,” warned the Dog, as Lirael and Sam stood under the stars quietly discussing how they would call the clouds and rain. “Such Charter Magic will call anything Dead within miles, or any Free Magic creatures.”

“We should press on anyway,” said Lirael. The sleep had revived her to some degree, but she still wished for the comfort of the sleeping chair in her little room in the Great Library of the Clayr. “Are you ready, Sam?”

Sam stopped humming and said, “Yes. Um, I was wondering whether you might consider a slight variation on the usual spell? I think that we will need a stronger casting to bring the clouds so far.”

“Sure,” said Lirael. “What do you want to do?”

Sam explained quickly, then went through it again slowly as Lirael made certain she knew what he planned to do. Usually both of them would whistle the same marks at the same time. What Sam wanted to do was whistle different but complementary marks, in effect weaving together two different weather-working spells. They would end and activate the spell by speaking two master marks at the same time, when one was normally all that would be used.

“Will this work?” asked Lirael anxiously. She had no experience of working with another Charter Mage on such a complex spell.

“It will be much stronger,” said Sam confidently.

Lirael looked at the Dog for confirmation, but the hound wasn’t paying attention. She was staring back towards the south, intent on something Lirael and Sam couldn’t see or sense.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Dog, turning her head to the side, her pricked ears quivering as she listened to the night. “I think something is following us, but it is still distant. . . .”

She looked back at Lirael and Sam.

“Do your weather magic and let us be gone!”

A league or more downstream of the shepherd’s hut, a very short man—almost a dwarf—was paddling in the shallows. His skin was as white as bone, and the hair on his head and beard was whiter still, so white it shone in the darkness, even under the shadow of the trees where they overhung the water.