This was a tricksome place. The water was shallow here, only ankle-deep, and somewhat warmer. The light was better too—still grey, but you could see farther out. Even the ubiquitous current was no more than a bit of a tickle around the feet.
But the Third Precinct had waves. For the first time, Sabriel broke into a run, sprinting as fast as she could towards the Third Gate, just visible in the distance. It was like the First Gate—a waterfall concealed in a wall of mist.
Behind her, Sabriel heard the thunderous crashing that announced the wave, which had been held back by the same spell that gave her passage through the whirlpool. With the wave came shrill cries, shrieks and screams. There were clearly many Dead around, but Sabriel didn’t spare them a thought. Nothing and no one could withstand the waves of the Third Precinct. You simply ran as fast as possible, hoping to reach the next gate—whichever way you were going.
The thunder and crashing grew louder, and one by one the various screams and shouts were submerged in the greater sound. Sabriel didn’t look, but only ran faster. Looking over her shoulder would lose a fraction of a second, and that might be enough for the wave to reach her, pick her up and hurl her through the Third Gate, stunned flotsam for the current beyond . . .
Touchstone stared out past the southern vertice, listening. He had heard something, he was sure, something besides the constant dripping. Something louder, something slow, attempting to be surreptitious. He knew Mogget had heard it too, from the sudden tensing of cat paws on his shoulder.
“Can you see anything?” he whispered, peering out into the darkness. The clouds were still blocking the light from the sun-shafts, though he thought the intervals of sunlight were growing longer. But, in any case, they were too far away from the edge to benefit from a sudden return of sun.
“Yes,” whispered Mogget. “The Dead. Many of them, filing out of the main southern stair. They’re lining up each side of the door, along the reservoir walls.”
Touchstone looked at Sabriel, now covered in frost, like a wintering statue. He felt like shaking her shoulder, screaming for help . . .
“What kind of Dead are they?” he asked. He didn’t know much about the Dead, except that Shadow Hands were the worst of the normal variety, and Mordicants, like the one that had followed Sabriel, were the worst of them all. Except for what Rogir had become. Kerrigor, the Dead Adept . . .
“Hands,” muttered Mogget. “All Hands, and pretty putrescent ones, too. They’re falling apart just walking.”
Touchstone stared again, trying by sheer force of will to see—but there was nothing, save darkness. He could hear them, though, wading, squelching through the still water. Too still for his liking—suddenly he wondered if the reservoir had a drainhole and a plug. Then he dismissed it as a foolish notion. Any such plug or drain cover would have long since rusted shut.
“What are they doing?” he whispered anxiously, fingering his sword, tilting the blade this way and that. His left hand seemed to hold the candle steady, but the little flame flickered, clear evidence of the tiny shakes that ran down his arm.
“Just lining up along the walls, in ranks,” Mogget whispered back. “Strange—almost like an honor guard . . .”
“Charter preserve us,” Touchstone croaked, with a weight in his throat of absolute dread and terrible foreboding. “Rogir . . . Kerrigor. He must be here . . . and he’s coming . . .”
chapter xxii
Sabriel reached the Third Gate just ahead of the wave, gabbling a Free Magic spell as she ran, feeling it fume up and out of her mouth, filling her nostrils with acrid fumes. The spell parted the mists, and Sabriel stepped within, the wave breaking harmlessly around her, dumping its cargo of Dead down into the waterfall beyond. Sabriel waited a moment more, for the path to appear, then passed on—on to the Fourth Precinct.
This was a relatively easy area to traverse. The current was strong again, but predictable. There were few Dead, because most were stunned and rushed through by the Third Precinct’s wave. Sabriel walked quickly, using the strength of her will to suppress the leeching cold and the plucking hands of the current. She could feel her father’s spirit now, close by, as if he were in one room of a large house, and she in another—tracking him down by the slight sounds of habitation. He was either here in the Fourth Precinct, or past the Fourth Gate, in the Fifth Precinct.
She increased her pace a little again, eager to find him, talk with him, free him. She knew everything would be all right once Father was freed . . .
But he wasn’t in the Fourth Precinct. Sabriel reached the Fourth Gate without feeling any intensification of his presence. This gate was another waterfall, of sorts, but it wasn’t cloaked in mist. It looked like the easy drop of water from a small weir, a matter of only two or three feet down. But Sabriel knew that if you approached the edge there was more than enough force to drag the strongest spirit down.
She halted well back, and was about to launch into the spell that would conjure her path, when a niggling sensation at the back of her head made her stop and look around.
The waterfall stretched as far as she could see to either side, and Sabriel knew that if she was foolish enough to try and walk its length, it would be an unending journey. Perhaps it eventually looped back on itself, but as there were no landmarks, stars or anything else to fix one’s position, you’d never know. No one ever walked the breadth of an inner precinct or gate. What would be the point? Everyone went into Death or out of it. Not sideways, save at the border with Life, where walking along altered where you came out—but that was only use-ful for spirit-forms, or rare beings like the Mordicant, who took their physical shape with them.
Nevertheless, Sabriel felt an urge to walk along next to the Gate, to turn on her heel and follow the line of the waterfall. It was an unidentifiable urge, and that made her uneasy. There were other things in Death than the Dead—inexplicable beings of Free Magic, strange constructs and incomprehensible forces. This urge—this calling—might come from one of them.
She hesitated, thinking about it, then pushed out into the water, heading out parallel to the waterfall. It might be some Free Magic summoning, or it might be some connection with her father’s spirit.
“They’re coming down the east and west stairs, too,” said Mogget. “More Hands.”
“What about the south—where we came in?” asked Touchstone, looking nervously from side to
side, ears straining to hear every sound, listening to the Dead wading out into the reservoir to form up in their strange, regimented lines.
“Not yet,” replied Mogget. “That stair ends in sunlight, remember? They’d have to go through the park.”
“There can’t be much sunlight,” muttered Touchstone, looking at the light-shafts. Some sunshine was coming through, heavily filtered by clouds, but it wasn’t enough to cause the Dead in the reservoir any distress, or lift Touchstone’s spirits.
“When . . . when do you think he will come?” asked Touchstone. Mogget didn’t need to ask who “he” was.
“Soon,” replied the cat, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I always said it was a trap.”
“So how do we get out of it?” asked Touchstone, trying to keep his voice steady. He was inwardly fighting a strong desire to leave the diamond of protection and run for the southern stair, splashing through the reservoir like a runaway horse, careless of the noise—but there was Sabriel, frosted over, immobile . . .
“I’m not sure we can,” said Mogget, with a sideways glance at the two ice-rimmed statues nearby. “It depends on Sabriel and her father.”
“What can we do?”
“Defend ourselves if we’re attacked, I suppose,” drawled Mogget, as if stating the obvious to a tiresome child. “Hope. Pray to the Charter that Kerrigor doesn’t come before Sabriel returns.”
“What if he does?” asked Touchstone, staring white-eyed out into the darkness. “What if he does?”
But Mogget was silent. All Touchstone heard was the shuffling, wading, splashing of the Dead, as they slowly drew closer, like starving rats creeping up to a sleeping drunk’s dinner.
Sabriel had no idea of how far she’d gone before she found him. That same niggling sensation prompted her to stop, to look out into the waterfall itself, and there he was. Abhorsen. Father. Somehow imprisoned within the Gate itself, so only his head was visible above the rush of the water.