Sabriel (Abhorsen 1)

Sabriel lunged, her blade striking chips from the floor planks, missing the shadowy form by a scant instant.

Touchstone didn’t miss. His right-hand sword sheared through the creature just behind the head, the left-wielded blade impaling its sinuous mid-section. Pinned to the floor, the creature writhed and arched, its shadow-stuff working away from the blades. It was remaking its body, escaping the trap.

Quickly, Sabriel stood over it, Ranna sounding in her hand, sweet, lazy tone echoing out into the shed.

Before the echoes died, the Mordaut ceased to writhe. Form half-lost by its shifting from the swords, it lay like a lump of charred liver, quivering on the floor, still impaled.

Sabriel replaced Ranna, and drew the eager Saraneth. Its forceful voice snapped out, sound weaving a net of domination over the foul creature. The Mordaut made no effort to resist, even to make a mouth to whine its cause. Sabriel felt it succumb to her will, via the medium of Saraneth.

She put the bell back, but hesitated as her hand fell on Kibeth. Sleeper and Master had spoken well, but Walker sometimes had its own ideas, and it was stirring suspiciously under her hand. Best to wait a moment, to calm herself, Sabriel thought, taking her hand away from the bandolier. She sheathed her sword, and looked around the shed. To her surprise, everyone except Touchstone and Mogget was asleep. They had only caught the echoes of Ranna, which shouldn’t have been enough. Of course, Ranna could be tricksome too, but its trickery was far less troublesome.

“This is a Mordaut,” she said to Touchstone, who was stifling a half-born yawn. “A weak spirit, catalogued as one of the Lesser Dead. They like to ride with the Living—cohabiting the body to some extent, directing it, and slowly sipping the spirit away. It makes them hard to find.”

“What do we do with it now?” asked Touchstone, eyeing the quivering lump of shadow with distaste. It clearly couldn’t be cut up, consumed by fire, or anything else he could think of.

“I will banish it, send it back to die a true death,” replied Sabriel. Slowly, she drew Kibeth, using both hands. She still felt uneasy, for the bell was twisting in her grasp, trying to sound of its own accord, a sound that would make her walk in Death.

She gripped it harder and rang the orthodox backwards, forwards and figure eight her father had taught her. Kibeth’s voice rang out, singing a merry tune, a capering jig that almost had Sabriel’s feet jumping too, till she forced herself to be absolutely still.

The Mordaut had no such free will. For a moment, Touchstone thought it was getting away, the shadow form suddenly leaping upwards, unreal flesh slipping up his blades almost to the cross-hilts. Then, it slid back down again—and vanished. Back into Death, to bob and spin in the current, howling and screaming with whatever voice it had there, all the way through to the Final Gate.

“Thanks,” Sabriel said to Touchstone. She looked down at his two swords, still deeply embedded in the wooden floor. They were no longer burning with silver flames, but she could see the Charter marks moving on the blades.

“I didn’t realize your swords were ensorcelled,” she continued. “Though I’m glad they are.”

Surprise crossed Touchstone’s face, and confusion.

“I thought you knew,” he said. “I took them from the Queen’s ship. They were a Royal Champion’s swords. I didn’t want to take them, but Mogget said you—”

He stopped in mid-sentence, as Sabriel let out a heartfelt sigh.

“Well, anyway,” he continued. “Legend has it that the Wallmaker made them, at the same time he—or she, I suppose—made your sword.”

“Mine?” asked Sabriel, her hand lightly touching the worn bronze of the guard. She’d never thought about who’d made the sword—it just was. “I was made for Abhorsen, to slay those already Dead,” the inscription said, when it said anything lucid at all. So it probably was forged long ago, back in the distant past when the Wall was made. Mogget would know, she thought. Mogget probably wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell her—but he would know.

“I suppose we’d better wake everybody up,” she said, dismissing speculation about swords for the immediate present.

“Are there more Dead?” asked Touchstone, grunting as he pulled his swords free of the floor.

“I don’t think so,” replied Sabriel. “That Mordaut was very clever, for it had hardly sapped the spirit of poor . . . Patar . . . so its presence was masked by his life. It would have come to the island in that box of grave dirt, having impressed the poor man with instructions before they left the mainland. I doubt whether any others would have done the same. I can’t sense any here, at least. I guess I should check the other buildings, and walk around the island, just to be sure.”

“Now?” asked Touchstone.

“Now,” confirmed Sabriel. “But let’s wake everyone up first, and organize some people to carry lights for us. We’d also better talk to the Elder about a boat for the morning.”

“And a good supply of fish,” added Mogget, who’d slunk back to the half-eaten whiting, his voice sharp above the heavy drone of snoring fisher-folk.

There were no Dead on the island, though the archers reported seeing strange lights moving in the village, during brief lulls in the rain. They’d heard movement on the breakwater too, and shot fire arrows onto the stones, but saw nothing before the crude, oily ragwrapped shafts guttered out.

Sabriel advanced out on the breakwater, and stood near the sea gap, her oilskin coat loosely draped over her shoulders, shedding rain to the ground and down her neck. She couldn’t see anything through the rain and dark, but she could feel the Dead. There were more than she had sensed earlier, or they had grown much stronger. Then, with a sickening feeling, she realized that this strength belonged to a single creature, only now emerging from Death, using the broken stone as a portal. An instant later, she recognized its particular presence.

The Mordicant had found her.

“Touchstone,” she asked, fighting to keep the shivers from her voice. “Can you sail a boat by night?”

“Yes,” replied Touchstone, his voice impersonal again, face dark in the rainy night, the lantern-light from the villagers behind him lighting only his back and feet. He hesitated, as if he shouldn’t be offering an opinion, then added, “But it would be much more dangerous. I don’t know this coast, and the night is very dark.”

“Mogget can see in the dark,” Sabriel said quietly, moving closer to Touchstone so the villagers couldn’t hear her.

“We have to leave immediately,” she whispered, while pretending to adjust her oilskin. “A Mordicant has come. The same one that pursued me before.”

“What about the people here?” asked Touchstone, so softly the sound of the rain almost washed his words away—but there was the faint sound of reproof under his business-like tone.

“The Mordicant is after me,” muttered Sabriel. She could sense it moving away from the stone, questing about, using its otherwordly senses to find her. “It can feel my presence, as I feel it. When I go, it will follow.”

“If we stay till morning,” Touchstone whispered back, “won’t we be safe? You said even a Mordicant couldn’t cross this gap.”

“I said, ‘I think,’ ” faltered Sabriel. “It has grown stronger. I can’t be sure—”

“That thing back in the shed, the Mordaut, it wasn’t very difficult to destroy,” Touchstone whispered, the confidence of ignorance in his voice. “Is this Mordicant much worse?”

“Much,” replied Sabriel shortly.

The Mordicant had stopped moving. The rain seemed to be dampening both its senses and its desire to find her and slay. Sabriel stared vainly out into the darkness, trying to peer past the sheets of rain, to gain the evidence provided by sight, as well as her necromantic senses.

“Riemer,” she said, loudly now, calling to the villager who was in charge of their lantern-holders. He came forward quickly, gingery hair plastered flat on his rounded head, rainwater dripping down from a high forehead to catapult itself off the end of his p

udgy nose.

“Riemer, have the archers keep very careful watch. Tell them to shoot anything that comes onto the breakwater—there is nothing living out there now. Only the Dead. We need to go back and talk to your Elder.”

They walked back in silence, save for the sloshing of boots in puddles and the steady finger-applause of the rain. At least half of Sabriel’s attention stayed with the Mordicant; a malign, stomachache-inducing presence across the dark water. She wondered why it was waiting. Waiting for the rain to stop, or perhaps for the now-banished Mordaut to attack from within. Whatever its reasons, it gave them a little time to get to a boat, and lead it away. And perhaps, there was always the chance that it couldn’t cross the breakwater gap.

“What time is low tide?” she asked Riemer, as a new thought struck.

“Ah, just about an hour before dawn,” replied the fisherman. “About six hours, if I’m any judge.”

The Elder awoke crankily from his second sleep. He was loath for them to go in the night, though Sabriel felt that at least half of his reluctance was due to their need for a boat. The villagers only had five left. The others had been sunk in the harbor, drowned and broken by the stones hurled down by the Dead, eager to stop the escape of their living prey.

“I’m sorry,” Sabriel said again. “But we must have a boat and we need it now. There is a terrible Dead creature in the village—it tracks like a hunting dog, and the trail it follows is mine. If I stay, it will try and come here—and, at the ebb, it may be able to cross the gap in the breakwater. If I go, it will follow.”

“Very well,” the Elder agreed, mulishly. “You have cleansed this island for us; a boat is a little thing. Riemer will prepare it with food and water. Riemer! The Abhorsen will have Landalin’s boat—make sure it is stocked and seaworthy. Take sails from Jaled, if Landalin’s is short or rotten.”