“That’s it for the moment,” continued Touchstone. “Get those away. Sabriel and Lirael, if you could find out whatever Arielle has to tell us from the past, that would be useful. Nicholas, you might care to wait for Sam; he’ll come straight here. Mirelle, we’ll need as many of your rangers as you can spare, and your librarians, Vancelle, on the road north by morning. And your paperwing flight, Ryelle. Can they fly to the bridge this afternoon, and to the Field Market tomorrow morning? If we can scout out that area we’ll know for sure what’s happening.”
“The paperwings do not like to fly so far across the Greenwash,” said Ryelle. “The Charter is more remote without stones below; they feel weakened, even as if they are dying.”
“Can it be done?”
“It is possible,” said Ryelle. She hesitated, then said, “But I do not wish to risk all our craft, or flyers. I will go myself, alone. You are sure there is a real threat?”
Her voice carried all the doubt of a Clayr used to the future being at least partially mapped out, rather than entirely unknown.
“No,” said Touchstone. “But I do know we must act as if there is.”
Chapter Thirty
ARIELLE
Clayr’s Glacier, Old Kingdom
Nick and Lirael could exchange only a heartfelt glance as Sabriel took the latter’s arm and marched toward the doors, with one of Mirelle’s rangers leading the way. It was Qilla, Lirael noticed, though she no longer wore the leaping snow leopard badge of a lieutenant on the breast of her hauberk.
“So Nicholas Sayre is the reason none of the young gentlemen Ellimere put forward ever came up to scratch?” asked Sabriel with a smile as they followed Qilla into the Apple Peelings, a tight spiral ramp that led to the Third Back Stair. Lirael didn’t know where the Rangers’ Northwest Two lookout was located, save it must be high on Starmount.
“No,” she replied, and then blushing, added, “I mean, yes. But I didn’t know it. Not until last . . . not until yesterday.”
“He seems a fine young man,” said Sabriel. “Sameth thinks highly of him; they were very good friends at school. But this matter of him becoming some sort of avenue into the Charter is troubling—”
“He’s getting that under control,” said Lirael quickly, blushing again as she thought about the flaming sword. “Or at least, I’m sure he will get it under control.”
“Good,” said Sabriel. She did not talk for a few more minutes as they strode up and around and around the ramp; then she suddenly asked, “Has your Disreputable Dog ever reappeared?”
“No,” said Lirael. The pain was still there, but she found it somehow more bearable now. “Why . . . why do you ask?”
“Because of Nicholas. In a way, he is akin to the Dog. Something of Free Magic deeply entwined with the Charter. I thought she might have been back to check up on what happened to him, after she returned him from Death.”
“But she’s dead,” whispered Lirael.
“The physical shape she wore those years with you died,” said Sabriel. “But she is Kibeth, one of the Seven, and always will be.”
“She said my time with her had passed,” said Lirael. There were tears in her eyes now. She wiped them away and blinked hard, determined not to show her grief.
Sabriel put her arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not want to bring you pain. I thought it possible the Dog might . . . look in . . . as it were. As Mogget still does, from time to time, though his motivations are, as ever, far more obscure.”
“Mogget?” asked Lirael. “Why?”
“Who knows?” asked Sabriel. She touched a silver ring on her left hand, turning it nervously twice around her finger. “He comes to see Sameth every now and then, usually when there is the prospect of fish about, though Charter knows he could easily catch them himself. Where he goes and what he does elsewhere is a mystery . . . I just hope he doesn’t cause trouble. I have no desire to see if it is possible to bind him anew.”
It took an hour to climb to the lookout, with a slight detour to collect Lirael’s bells. Sabriel did not mention the burned carpet in the Abhorsen’s Rooms, but only said how much nicer the royal apartments were, uncluttered with the heavy old furniture from Hillfair, and Lirael and Nick were welcome to move. Lirael declined the offer. She was already thinking about the night ahead.
They also had to pause again just before going outside, to put on heavy fur cloaks, hats, snow goggles, and scarves to wind around their faces, for the lookout was very high on Starmount indeed. A walled ledge that projected from the ice-encased rock only a thousand paces short of the summit, it was high enough that both Lirael and Sabriel felt the thinness of the air, their lungs laboring to get enough breath.
“Do we cast a diamond of protection?” asked Lirael.
Sabriel hesitated, for this was the normal procedure, to protect their bodies left behind when they went into Death. But Qilla was here, and the four rangers who took turns to watch through the great bronze telescope at the Ratterlin and the paths along the river that led to the Glacier.
“How deep must we go into Death, for you to see back?” she asked. “Nine years, isn’t it?”
“Almost ten,” said Lirael. “My birthday is in six weeks. I’ll be twenty.”
“Twenty,” said Sabriel. She smiled, thinking back to her own twentieth birthday. She had been pregnant with Ellimere then, and alternately very happy and very cross at having to remain in the Abhorsen’s House while Touchstone was constantly away, in the very beginnings of the Restoration, with a new crisis to face every week, and a battle of some kind to be fought once a fortnight.
“I’ll look in the book,” said Lirael. She took out The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting, not noticing Qilla back away as a small fume of white smoke gushed out of the opening pages. As Lirael expected, the book fell open exactly where she needed to look, and she had only to follow a line in a table with her finger to double-check what she thought she remembered.
“Easy,” she said, putting the book away again. “First Precinct. We won’t even have to go past the First Gate.”
Sabriel held up her hand, her expression very serious.
“Never think of entering Death as easy,” she said. “The river can take you as easily in the First Precinct as anywhere else. Enemies may lurk there. You must never forget what it is to go into Death and remain alive. You want Nicholas to see you again, I trust?”
“Yes,” said Lirael, chastened. She suddenly remembered being attacked by Hedge the necromancer on the very edge of Life, and how narrowly she had escaped. “I . . . I was thoughtless. I won’t be again.”
“Qilla,” said Sabriel, addressing the ranger. “The Abhorsen-in-Waiting and I will enter Death. As time is of the essence, we will not cast a diamond of protection, but instead rely on you and your companions to protect our bodies. Should there be any attack or anything untoward, you must clap me—my body—on the shoulder. But do not touch us unless it really is an attack or something as serious. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Abhorsen,” said Qilla very seriously. “Good luck.”
Sabriel nodded. She drew her sword and Saraneth, assuming the guard position, sword in her right hand, bell in her left. Lirael moved next to her, but not too close. She took out Ranna, the Sleeper, and the sword Raminah.
“Ready?”
Lirael nodded, and together, they entered Death.
The chill of the river was of an entirely different nature from the cold of the high mountain. It seemed to blossom inside, rather than penetrate from the outside, and as always, it was accompanied by the grasping tug of the current. The first few steps in Death were often the most important, the test to see who was stronger, Abhorsen or river.