Lirael (Abhorsen 2)

The Lightning Trap is as fascinating as I expected. When we first found it, I observed lightning striking a small hillock or mound more than twice every hour for several hours, with thunderstorms overhead on an almost daily basis. Now, as we get closer to the true object that is buried underneath, the lightning comes even more frequently, and there is a constant storm overhead.

From what I have read and—you will laugh at me for this, because it is most uncharacteristic—from what I have dreamt, I believe that the Lightning Trap itself is composed of two hemispheres of a previously unknown metal, buried some twenty or thirty fathoms below the mound, which we found to be completely artificial and very difficult to break into, with all sorts of odd building materials. Including bone, if you can believe it. Now the excavation goes much faster, and I expect we shall make our discovery within a few days.

I had planned to go on to Belisaere at that point, to meet you, leaving the experiment in abeyance for a few weeks. But the state of my health is such that a return to Ancelstierre seems prudent, away from this inclement air.

I will take the hemispheres with me, having procured suitable import licenses from Uncle Edward. I believe they are unusually dense and heavy, but I expect to be able to ship them from the Red Lake downriver to the sea, and from there to a little place north of Nolhaven on the west coast. There is a deserted timber mill there, which I have procured for use as an experimental station. Timothy Wallach—one of my fellow students at Sunbere, though he is in Fourth Year—should already be there, setting up the Lightning Farm I have designed to feed power into the hemispheres.

It is indeed pleasant to have private means and powerful relatives, isn’t it? It would be very hard to get things done without them. Mind you, I expect my father will be quite cross when he discovers I have spent a whole quarter’s allowance on hundreds of lightning rods and miles of extra-heavy copper wire!

But it will all be worth it when I get the Lightning Trap to my experimental station. I am sure that I will be quickly able to prove that the hemispheres can store incalculable amounts of electrical energy, all drawn from storms. Once I have solved the riddle of extracting that power again, I shall need only to replicate them on a smaller scale, and we shall have a new source of limitless, inexpensive power! Sayre’s Super Batteries will power the cities and industries of the future!

As you can see, my dreams are as large as my seriously enlarged head. I need you to come and shrink it, Sam, with some criticism of my person or abilities!

In fact, I hope you will be able to come and see my Lightning Farm in all its glory. Do try, if it is at all possible, though I know you dislike crossing the Wall. I understand from my last conversation with Uncle Edward that your parents are already in Ancelstierre, discussing Corolini’s plans to settle the Southerling refugees in your deserted lands near the Wall. Perhaps you could tie in a visit to them with a side trip to see my work?

In any case, I look forward to seeing you before too long, and I remain your loyal friend,

Nicholas Sayre

Nick put the pen down and blew on the paper. Not that it needed it, he thought, looking at the blurred lines where the ink had spread, making a mockery of his penmanship.

“Hedge!” he called, sitting back to quell a wave of dizziness and nausea. These fits often came over him now, especially after concentrating on something. His hair was falling out too, and his gums were sore. But it couldn’t be scurvy, for his diet was varied and he drank a glass of fresh lime juice every day.

He was about to call for Hedge again when the man appeared at the tent door. Barbarously clad, as usual, but the man was very efficient. As you would expect from a former sergeant in the Crossing Point Scouts.

“I have a letter to go to my friend Prince Sameth,” said Nick, folding the paper several times and sealing it with a blob of wax straight from the candle and a thumbprint. “Can you see it gets sent by messenger or whatever they have here? Send someone to Edge, if necessary.”

“Don’t worry, Master,” replied Hedge, smiling his enigmatic smile. “I’ll see it’s taken care of.”

“Good,” mumbled Nick. It was too hot again, and the lotion he’d brought to repel insects was not working. He’d have to ask Hedge again to do whatever it was he did to keep them at bay . . . but first there was the ever-present question—the status of the pit.

“How goes the digging?” Nick asked. “How deep?”

“Twenty-two fathoms by my measure,” replied Hedge, with great enthusiasm. “We will soon be there.”

“And the barge is ready?” asked Nick, forcing himself to keep upright. He really wanted to lie down, as the room started to spin and the light began to gain a strange redness that he knew was only in his own eyes.

“I need to recruit some sailors,” said Hedge. “The Night Crew fear water, because of their . . . affliction. But I expect my new recruits to arrive any day. Everything is taken care of, Master,” he added, as Nick didn’t reply. But he was looking at the young man’s chest, not at his eyes. Nick stared back at him, unseeing, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that he was fainting, as he so often did in front of Hedge. A damnable weakness he could not control.

Hedge waited, licking his lips nervously. Nick’s head swayed forward and back. He groaned, his eyelids flickering. Then he sat up, bolt straight in his chair.

Nick had indeed fainted, and there was something else behind his eyes, some other intelligence that had lain dormant. It suddenly sang now, accompanied by fumes of acrid white smoke that coiled out of Nick’s nose and throat.

“I’ll sing you a song of the long ago—

Seven shine the shiners, oh!

What did the Seven do way back when?

Why, they wove the Charter then!

Five for the warp, from beginning to end.

Two for the woof, to make and mend.

That’s the Seven, but what of the Nine—

What of the two who chose not to shine?

The Eighth did hide, hide all away,

But the Seven caught him and made him pay.

The Ninth was strong and fought with might,

But lone Orannis was put out of the light,

Broken in two and buried under hill,

Forever to lie there, wishing us ill.”

There was silence for a moment after the song, then the voice whispered the last two lines again.

“ ‘Broken in two and buried under hill, Forever to lie there, wishing us ill. . . . But it is not my song, Hedge. The world spins on without my song. Life that knows not my lash crawls unbidden wherever it will go. Creation runs amok, without the balance of destruction—and my dreams of fire are only dreams. But soon the world will fall asleep, and it will be my dream that all will dream, my song that will fill every ear. Is it not so, my faithful Hedge?”

Whatever spoke did not wait for Hedge to answer. It went on immediately, in a different, harsher tone, no longer singing. “Destroy the letter. Send more Dead to Chlorr and make sure that they slay the Prince, for he must not come here. Walk in Death yourself, and keep watch for the spying Daughter of the Clayr, and kill her if she is seen again. Dig faster, for I . . . must . . . be . . . whole . . . again!”

The last words were shouted with a force that threw Hedge against the rotting canvas of the tent, to burst out into the night. He looked back through the rent, fearful of worse, but whatever had spoken through Nick was gone. Only an unconscious, sick young man remained, blood slowly trickling from both nostrils.

“I hear you, Lord,” whispered Hedge. “And as always, I obey.”

To be continued in

A special work-in-progress preview of the third book in Garth Nix’s The Old Kingdom Trilogy, prepared especially for readers of the HarperCollins e-book edition of Lirael

Abhorsen

Prologue

Fog rose from the river, great billows of white weaving into the soot and smoke of the city of Corvere, to become the hybrid thing t