The Creature in the Case (Abhorsen 3.50)

He could see the creature, too. It was surrounded by a nimbus of intense white sparks as it used its club hands to smash down the concertina wire and wade directly toward a tunnel that went through the Wall.

‘I’m going to follow it,’ said Nick. ‘Pass the word not to shoot. If any other Scouts come up, tell them to stay back. This particular creature needs the blood of Charter Mages.’

‘Who should I say—’

Nick ignored him, heading west along the trench to the point where the creature had begun to force its path. There were no soldiers there, only the signs of a very rapid exodus, with equipment and weapons strewn across the trench floor.

Nick climbed out and started toward the Wall. It was night in the Old Kingdom, a darker night without the moon, but the star-shell light spread over the Wall, so he could see that it was snowing there, not a single snowflake coming south.

He lifted the daisy-chain wreath over his head and held it ready in his left hand, and he drew the dagger with his right. The flowers were crushed, and many had lost petals, but the chain was unbroken, thanks to the linen thread sewn into the stems. Llew and his nieces really had known their business.

Nick was halfway across the No Man’s Land when the creature reached the Wall. But it did not enter the tunnel, instead hunkering down on its haunches for half a minute before easing itself up and turning back. It was still surrounded by white sparks, and even thirty yards away Nick could smell the acrid stench of hot metal. He stopped, too, and braced himself for a sudden, swift attack.

The creature slowly paced toward him. Nick lifted the wreath and made ready to throw or swing it over the creature’s head. But it didn’t attack or increase its pace. It walked up close and bent its long neck down.

Nick didn’t take his eyes off it for even a microsecond. As soon as he was sure of his aim, he tossed the wreath over the creature’s head. The chain settled on its shoulders, the yellow and red flowers taking on a bluish cast from the crackling sparks that jetted out from the creature’s hide.

‘Let us talk and make truce, as the day’s eye bids me do,’ a chill, sharp voice said directly into Nick’s mind, or so it felt. His ears heard nothing but the wind flutes and the jangle of cans tied to the wire. ‘We have no quarrel, you and I.’

‘We do,’ said Nick. ‘You have slain many of my people. You would slay more.’

The creature did not move, but Nick felt the mental equivalent of a snort of disbelief.

‘These pale, insipid things? The blood of a great one moves in you, more than in any of the inheritors that I have drunk from before. Come, shed your transient flesh and travel with me back to our own land, beyond this prison wall.’

Nick didn’t answer, for he was suddenly confused. Part of him felt that he could leave his body and go with this creature, which had somehow suddenly become beautiful and alluring in his eyes. He felt he had the power to shuck his skin and become something else, something fierce and powerful and strange. He could fly over the Wall and go wherever he wanted, do whatever he wanted.

Against that yearning to be untrammeled and free was another set of sensations and desires. He did want to change, that was true, but he also wanted to continue to be himself. To be a man, to find out where he fitted in among people, specifically the people of the Old Kingdom, for he knew he no longer could be content in Ancelstierre. He wanted to see his friend Sam again, and he wanted to talk to Lirael …

‘Come,’ said the creature again. ‘We must be away before any of Astarael’s get come upon us. Share with me a little of your blood, so that I may cross this cursed Wall without scathe.’

‘Astarael’s get?’ asked Nick. ‘The Abhorsens?’

‘Call them what you will,’ said the creature. ‘One comes, but not soon. I feel it, through the bones of the earth beneath my feet. Let me drink, just a little.’

‘Just a little …’ mused Nick. ‘Do you fear to drink more?’

‘I fear,’ said the creature, bowing its head still lower. ‘Who would not fear the power of the Nine Bright Shiners, highest of the high?’

‘What if I do not let you drink, and I do not choose to leave this flesh?’

‘Your will is yours alone,’ said the creature. ‘I shall go back and reap a harvest among those who bear the Charter, weak and prisoned remnant of my kin of long ago.’

‘Drink then,’ said Nick. He cut the bandage at his wrist and, wincing at the pain, sliced open the wound Dorrance had made. Blood welled up immediately.

The creature leaned forward, and Nick turned his wrist so the blood fell into its open mouth, each drop sizzling as it met the thing’s internal fires. A dozen drops fell; then Nick took his dagger again and cut more deeply. Blood flowed more freely, splashing over the creature’s mouth.

‘Enough!’ said the voice in his mind. But Nick did not withdraw his hand, and the creature did not move. ‘Enough!’

Nick held his hand closer to the creature’s mouth, sparks enveloping his fingers, to be met by golden flames, blue and gold twirling and wrestling, as if Charter Magic visibly sought dominance over Free Magic.

‘Enough!’ screamed the silent voice in Nick’s head, driving out all other thoughts and senses, so that he became blind and dumb and couldn’t feel anything, not even the rapid stammer of his own heartbeat. ‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’

It was too much for Nick’s weakened body to bear. He faltered, his hand wavering. As the blood missed the creature’s mouth, it staggered, too, and fell to one side. Nick fell also, away from it, and the voice inside his head gave way to blessed silence.

His vision returned a few seconds later, and his hearing. He lay on his back, looking up at the sky. The moon was just about to set in the west, but it was like no moonset he had ever seen, for the right corner of it was diagonally cut off by the Wall.

Nick stared at the bisected moon and thought that he should get up and see if the creature was moving, if it was going to go and attack the soldiers in order to dilute his blood once again. He should bandage his wrist, too, he knew, for he could feel the blood still dripping down his fingers.

But he couldn’t get up. Whether it was blood loss or simply exhaustion from everything he’d been through, or the effects of the icy voice on his brain, he was as limp and helpless as a rag doll.

I’ll gather my strength, he thought, closing

his eyes. I’ll get up in a minute. Just a minute …

Something warm landed on his chest. Nick forced his eyes to open just enough to look out. The moon was much lower, now looking like a badly cut slice of pumpkin pie.

His chest got even warmer, and with the warmth, Nick felt just a tiny fraction stronger. He opened his eyes properly and managed to raise his head an inch off the ground.

A coiled spiral made up of hundreds of Charter Marks was slowly boring its way into his chest, like some kind of celestial, star-wrought drill, all shining silver and gold. As each Mark went in, Nick felt strength return to the far-flung parts of his body. His arms twitched, and he raised them too, and saw a nice, clean, Army-issue bandage around his wrist. Then he regained sensation in his legs and lifted them up, to see his carpet slippers had been replaced with more bandages.

‘Can you hear me?’ asked a soft voice, just out of sight. A woman’s voice, familiar to Nick, though he couldn’t place it for a second.

He turned his head. He was still lying near the Wall, where he’d fallen. The creature was still lying there, too, a few steps away. Between them, a young woman knelt over Nick. A young woman wearing an armored coat of laminated plates, and over it a surcoat with the golden stars of the Clayr quartered with the silver keys of the Abhorsen.

‘Yes,’ whispered Nick. He smiled and said, ‘Lirael.’

Lirael didn’t smile back. She brushed her black hair back from her face with a golden-gloved hand, and said, ‘The spells are working strangely on you, but they are working. I’d best deal with the Hrule.’

‘The creature?’

Lirael nodded.

‘Didn’t I kill it? I thought my blood might poison it …’

‘It has sated it,’ said Lirael. ‘And made it much more powerful, when it can digest it.’

‘You’d better kill it first, then.’

‘It can’t be killed,’ said Lirael. But she picked up a very odd-looking spear, a simple shaft of wood that was topped with a fresh-picked thistle head, and stepped over to the creature. ‘Nothing of stone or metal can pierce its flesh. But a thistle will return it to the earth, for a time.’