Lirael (Abhorsen 2)

“Ssshhh,” said Lirael. “I’m concentrating.”

She knew better than to ask the Dog how she knew the names of the pipes. The impossible hound had probably read The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting herself, while Lirael slept.

Having mentally prepared herself to use the panpipes—or to use only some of them—Lirael drew her sword, noting the play of Charter marks along its silvered blade. There was an inscription, too, she saw. She held the blade to the light and read it aloud.

“The Clayr Saw me, the Wallmakers made me, my enemies Remember me.”

“A sister sword to Binder,” remarked the Dog, nosing it with interest. “I didn’t know they had that one. What’s it called?”

Lirael twisted the blade to see if there was something written on the other side, but as she did so, the first inscription changed, the letters shimmering into a new arrangement.

“ ‘Nehima,’ ” read Lirael. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a name,” said the Dog blandly. Seeing Lirael’s expression, she cocked her head to one side and continued, “I suppose you could say it means ‘forget-me-not.’ Though the irony is that Nehima herself is long forgotten. Still, better a sword than a block of stone, I suppose. It’s certainly an heirloom of the house, if ever I saw one,” the Dog added. “I’m surprised they gave it to you.”

Lirael nodded, unable to speak, her thoughts once again turning back to the Glacier and the Clayr. Ryelle and Sanar had just casually handed the sword to her. Made by the Wallmakers themselves, it must be one of the greatest treasures the Clayr possessed.

A nudge at her leg reminded her of the business at hand, so she blinked away an incipient tear and focused all her thought, as The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting had told her to. Apparently she should feel Death and then sort of reach out to it. It was easier in places where lots of people had died, or were buried, but theoretically it was possible anywhere.

Lirael closed her eyes to concentrate harder, furrows forming across her forehead. She could feel Death now, like a cold pressure against her face. She pushed against it, feel-ing its chill sink into her cheekbones and lips, soaking into her outstretched hands. It was strange with the sun still hot against her bare neck.

It grew colder still, and colder, as the chill moved up her feet and legs. She felt a tug against her knees, a tug that wasn’t one of the Dog’s gentle reminders. It was like being gripped by a current, a strong current that wanted to take her away and force her under.

She opened her eyes. A river flowed against her legs, but it was not the Ratterlin. It was black and opaque, and there was no sign of the island, the blue sky, or the sun. The light was grey, grey and dull as far as she could see, out to a totally flat horizon.

Lirael shuddered, not just from the cold, for she had successfully entered Death. She could hear a waterfall somewhere in the distance. The First Gate, she supposed, from the description in the book.

The river tugged at her again, and without thinking, she went with it for a few steps. It tugged again, even harder, the cold spreading into her very bones. It would be easy to let that chill spread through her entire body, to lie down and let the current take her where it willed—

“No!” she snapped, forcing herself back a step. This was what the book had warned her about. The river’s strength wasn’t just in the current. She had also to resist its compulsion to walk farther into Death, or to lie down and let it carry her away.

Fortunately, the book was also right about something more favorable. She could feel the way back to Life, and instinctively knew exactly where to go and how to get back there, which was a relief.

Apart from the distant roar of the First Gate, Lirael could hear nothing else moving in the river. Lirael listened carefully, nerves drawn tight, muscles ready for immediate flight. Still there was nothing, not even a ripple.

Then her Death sense twitched, and she quickly scanned the river to either side of her again. For a moment, she thought she saw something move on the surface, a thin line of darkness under the water, moving farther back into Death. But then it was gone, and she could neither see nor sense anything. After a minute, she wasn’t even sure if there had been anything there in the first place.

Sighing, she carefully sheathed her sword, put the panpipes back in her waistcoat pocket, and drew out the Dark Mirror. Here, in the First Precinct of Death, she could look just a little way into the past. To look further back, she would have to travel deeper in, past the First Gate or even far beyond it. But today she only planned to look back a matter of twenty years or so.

The click that accompanied the opening of the Mirror seemed far too loud, echoing across the dark waters. Lirael flinched at the sound—then screamed as it was followed by a loud splash directly behind her!

Reflexively, she jumped—farther into Death—swapped the Mirror into her left hand, and drew her sword, all before she even knew what was happening.

“It’s only me,” said the Dog, her tail slapping the water as it wagged. “I got bored waiting.”

“How did you get here?” whispered Lirael, sheathing her sword with a shaking hand. “You scared me to death!”

“I followed you,” said the Dog. “It’s just a different sort of walk.”

Not for the first time, Lirael wondered what the Dog really was, and the extent of her powers. But there was no time for speculation now. The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting had warned her not to stay too long in any one place in Death, because things would come looking. Things she didn’t want to meet.

“Who’s going to guard my body if you’re here?” she asked reproachfully. If anything happened to her body back in Life, she would have no choice but to follow the river onwards, or to become some sort of Dead spirit herself, eternally trying to get back into Life, by stealing someone else’s body. Or to become a shadow, drinking blood and Life to keep itself out of Death.

“I’ll know if anyone comes close,” said the Dog, sniffing the river. “Can we go farther in?”

“No!” snapped Lirael. “I’m going to use the Dark Mirror here. But you’re going back straight away! This is Death, Dog, not the Glacier!”

“True,” mumbled the Dog. She looked up pleadingly at Lirael and added, “But it’s only the very edge of Death—”

“Back! Now!” commanded Lirael, pointing. The Dog stopped her pleading look, showed the whites of her eyes in disapproval, and slunk away with her tail down. A second later, she vanished—back into Life.

Lirael ignored her and opened the Mirror, holding it close to her right eye. “Focus on the Mirror with one eye,” the book had said, “and look into Death with the other, lest harm befall you there.”

Good advice, but hardly practical, Lirael thought, as she struggled to focus on two different things at once. But after a minute, the Mirror’s opaque surface began to clear, its darkness lifting. Instead of looking at her reflection, Lirael found that she was somehow looking through the mirror, and it was not the cold river of Death she saw beyond. She saw swirling lights, lights that she soon realized were actually the passage of the sun across the sky, so fast it was a blur. The sun was going backwards.

Excitement grew in her as she realized this was the beginning of the magic. Now she had to think of what she wanted to see. She began to form an image of her mother in her mind, borrowing more from the charcoal drawing Aunt Kirrith had given her years ago than from her own recollection, which was the mixed-up memory of a child, all feelings and soft-edged images.

Holding the picture of her mother in her head, she spoke aloud, infusing her voice with the Charter marks she’d learned from the book, symbols of power and command that would make the Dark Mi

rror show her what she wanted to see.

“My mother I knew, a little,” Lirael said, her words loud against the murmur of the river. “My father I knew not, and would see through the veil of time. So let it be.”

The swift passage of backwards suns began to slow as she spoke, and Lirael felt herself drawn closer to the image in the Mirror, till a single sun filled all her vision, blinding her with its light. Then it was gone, and there was darkness.

Slowly, the darkness ebbed, and Lirael saw a room, strangely superimposed upon the river of Death she saw through her other eye. Both images were blurry, as if her eyes were full of tears, but they were not. Lirael blinked several times, but the vision grew no clearer.

She saw a large room—a hall, in fact—dominated at one end by a large window, which was a blur of different colors rather than clear glass. Lirael sensed there was some sort of magic in the window, for the colors and patterns changed, though she couldn’t see it clearly enough to make it out.

A long, brilliantly polished table of some light and lustrous wood stretched the full length of the hall. It was loaded with silver of many kinds: candelabra with beeswax candles burning clean yellow flames, salt cellars and pepper grinders, sauce boats and tureens, and many ornaments Lirael had never seen. A roast goose, half-carved, sat on a platter, encircled by plates of lesser foods.

There were only two people at the table, sitting at the other end, so Lirael had to squint to try to see them more clearly. One, a man, sat at the head of the table in a high-backed chair, almost a throne. Despite his simple white shirt and lack of jewelry, he had the bearing of a man of rank and power. Lirael frowned and shifted the Dark Mirror a little, to see if she could make the vision sharper. Rainbows briefly rippled through the room, but nothing else seemed to change.

There were spells to use to refine the vision, but Lirael didn’t want to try them just yet, in case they made the vision go away completely. Instead she concentrated on the other person. She could see her more clearly than the man.