Lirael (Abhorsen 2)

Sam went downstairs. He was already late for the next rehearsal.

Brel was wrong about the bad rehearsals meaning a successful dance. Sam bumbled and stumbled all his way through it, and only the professionalism and energy of the Six Spirits saved the dance from disaster.

Traditionally, all the dancers from the Festival ate with the royal family at the Palace after the dance, but Sam chose to stay away. They’d done enough to him, and he’d done enough, with the bruises to show for it. He was sure Sleet had deliberately smacked him with her stilt near the end. She was the sister of the one he’d knocked off her stilts in rehearsal.

Instead of attending the dinner, Sam retired to his workshop, trying to forget his troubles in the construction of a particularly intricate and interesting magical-mechanical toy. Ellimere sent a page to get him but could do no more without embarrassing everyone, so he was left in peace—for that night at least.

But not the next day or the days following. Ellimere couldn’t—or wouldn’t—see that Sam’s sullenness came from genuine trouble. So she simply made up more things for him to do. Even worse, she started foisting the younger sisters of her own friends on him, clearly thinking that a good woman could sort out whatever was wrong with him. Naturally, Sam took an instant dislike to anyone Ellimere so obviously seated next to him at dinner, or who “just happened” to drop by his workroom with a broken bracelet catch to be mended. His constant worry about the book and his mother’s return left him little energy to pursue friendships, let alone romantic attachments. So he earned the reputation of being stiff and distant, not only among the young women introduced to him by Ellimere, but to everyone of his own age around the Palace. Even people who had been his friends in previous years, when he was home for the holidays, found that they no longer enjoyed his company. Sam, caught up in his own troubles and busy with his official duties, hardly noticed that people of his own age avoided him.

He did talk to Brel a bit, since they both tended to be up the second tallest tower around the same time. Fortunately, the guard was not naturally talkative and also didn’t seem to mind Sam’s silences or his tendency to stop and just stare out over the city and the sea.

“Your birthday today,” said Brel, early one clear and very cold morning. The moon was still visible, and there was a ring around it, as only happened on the coldest nights of winter.

Sam nodded. Since it occurred two weeks after the Midwinter Festival, his birthday was always somewhat eclipsed by the greater event. This year, it was made even less spectacular by the continued absence of Sabriel and Touchstone, who could only send messages and presents that, while obviously carefully chosen, did not cheer Sam. Particularly since one was a surcoat with the silver keys of the Abhorsen on a deep blue field, quartered with the royal line’s golden castle on a red field, and the other was a book entitled Merchane on the Binding of Free Magic Elementals.

“Get any good presents?” asked Brel.

“Surcoat,” said Sam. “And a book.”

“Ah,” said Brel. He clapped his hands together, to regain circulation. “Not a sword, then? Or a dog?”

Sam shook his head. He didn’t want a sword or a dog, but either would have been more welcome than what he had been given.

“Expect Princess Ellimere will get you something good,” Brel said after a long, thoughtful pause.

“I doubt it,” said Sam. “She’ll probably organize some sort of lesson.”

Brel clapped his hands together again, stood still, and slowly scanned the horizon from south to north.

“Happy birthday,” he said when his head had finished its slow movement. “What is it? Eighteen?”

“Seventeen,” replied Sam.

“Ah,” said Brel, and he walked around to the other side of the tower to repeat his scan of the horizon.

Sam went back downstairs.

Ellimere did organize a birthday feast in the Great Hall, but it was a lackluster affair, mainly due to Sam’s depressing influence. He refused to dance, because it was the one day when he could refuse, and since it was his birthday, that meant no one else could dance, either. He refused to open his presents in front of everyone because he didn’t feel like it, and he merely toyed with the grilled swordfish with lime and buttered smallwheat that had once been his favorite dish. In fact, he acted like a spoiled and sulky brat of seven, rather than like a young man of seventeen. Sam knew it but felt unable to stop. It was the first time in weeks that he’d been able to refuse Ellimere’s orders or, as she called them, “strong suggestions.”

The feast ended early, with everyone cross and short-tempered. Sam went straight to his workroom, ignoring the whispers and sidelong looks as he left the Hall. He didn’t care what everyone thought, though he was uncomfortably aware of Jall Oren’s hooded eyes watching his exit. Jall would certainly report on Sam’s shortcomings when his parents returned, if he didn’t decide before then to deliver one of his justly feared summations of exactly what was wrong with Sam’s behavior.

But even one of Jall’s lectures would pale to insignificance when his mother found out the truth about her son. Beyond that revelation, Sam daren’t think. He couldn’t imagine what would happen, or what his own future would be. The Kingdom had to have an Abhorsen-in-Waiting and a royal heir. Ellimere was demonstrably the perfect royal heir, so Sam had to be the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Only he couldn’t do it. Not wouldn’t, as everyone was bound to think. Couldn’t.

That night, as he had done scores of times before, Sam unlocked the cupboard to the left of his workbench and steeled himself to look at The Book of the Dead. It sat on a shelf, shining with its own ominous green light that overshadowed the soft glow of the Charter lights in the ceiling.

He reached out to it, like a hunter trying to pat a wolf in the vain hope that it might be only a friendly dog. His fingers touched the silver clasp and the Charter marks laid upon it, but before he could do more, a violent shaking overtook him, and his skin turned as cold as ice. Sam tried to still the shakes and ignore the cold, but he couldn’t. He snatched back his hand and retreated to the front of the fireplace, where he crouched down in misery, hugging his knees.

A week after his birthday, Sam received a letter from Nick. Or rather, the remains of a letter, because it had been written on machine-made paper. Like most products of Ancelstierran technology, the paper had begun to fail upon crossing the Wall, and it was now crumbling into its component fibers. Sam had often told Nick in the past to use hand-made paper, but he never did.

Still, there was enough of it left for Sam to deduce that Nick was asking him for an Old Kingdom visa for himself and a servant. He intended to cross the Wall at Midwinter, and he would be grateful if Sam met him at the Crossing Point.

Sam brightened. Nick could always cheer him up. He immediately consulted his almanac to see what Midwinter in Ancelstierre would correspond with in the Old Kingdom. Generally, the Old Kingdom was a full season ahead of Ancelstierre, but there were some strange fluctuations that required double-checking in an almanac, particularly around the solstices and the turn of the seasons.

Old Kingdom/Ancelstierre almanacs like Sam’s had been almost impossible to obtain once, but ten years ago Sabriel had lent hers to the royal printer, who had reset it to incorporate all the handwritten comments and marginalia of Sabriel and previous Abhorsens. That had been a long and laborious process. The end result was aesthetically very pleasing, with clear, slightly in

dented type on crisp linen paper, but was very expensive. Sabriel and Touchstone were careful about who was allowed to have these almanacs. Sameth had been very proud when he was entrusted with one on his twelfth birthday.

Fortunately, the almanac had an exact correspondence for Midwinter, rather than just an equation for Sam to work out, requiring moon sights and other observations. On that day in Ancelstierre, it would be the Day of Ships in the Old Kingdom, in the third week of spring. It was still many weeks off, but at least Sam had something positive to look forward to.

After the letter from Nick, Sam’s mood improved a little, and he got on better with everyone in the Palace except Ellimere. The rest of winter passed without either of his parents coming home, and without any particularly terrible storms or the intense, bone-numbing cold that sometimes rolled in from the northeast, accompanied by pods of lost whales who didn’t otherwise enter the Sea of Saere.

Weather-wise it was a particularly mild winter, but in court and city the people still spoke of it as a bad one. There had been more trouble all over the Kingdom that season than in any of the last ten winters, trouble such as hadn’t been seen since the early days of Touchstone’s reign. Message-hawks flew constantly to and from the Mews Tower, and Mistress Finney grew red-eyed and even more irritable than normal, as her children, the hawks, were hard-pressed to meet the demand for communication. Many of the messages the hawks carried were reports of the Dead, and of Free Magic creatures. A large proportion turned out to be false, but all too many were real, and all required Sabriel’s attention.

There was other news that troubled Sam. One letter from his father reminded him too much of the terrible day on the Perimeter, when the Dead Southerlings had attacked his cricket team and he had faced the necromancer in Death.

Sam took the letter up the second-tallest tower to read over and think, while Brel paced around him. One particular section he read three times: