“In any case, if it is anything of great significance, the Clayr will have Seen it. Now we are wasting time. Will you swear, and in three days be landed safe to take your message onward?”
“I must,” said Ferin despondently. “I swear to be peaceable, and obey, in return for being taken ashore to the south, when you are ready.”
“Good,” said Karrilke. She signaled to her son and daughter, who readily let go and backed away. “Your first task is to lie there, to sleep if you can. The wound in your leg would not take a healing spell, but it should improve with rest. Lie still, I mean it!”
She added that last because Ferin was struggling to sit up, to see more than the bottom of the boat and the sky above.
“I would like to see,” said Ferin respectfully, her eyes cast down, as she would address an elder of the tribe.
“Tolther, Huire, lift her carefully and put her back against the mast,” said Karrilke. “But you, Ferin, keep your legs straight out, and do not fidget. Hurry, there is fishing to be done!”
“I’m Tolther,” said the young man as he helped lift Ferin. “Mother is strict, but she’s fair. We’ll sail at all speed for home once the hold is full.”
“And I’m Huire,” said the young woman. “What did your white fur come from? It’s so soft and warm.”
“A big hunting cat,” said Ferin. Now that she had given her word and so could not dive over the side and swim for the distant land or make some other stupidly desperate effort to continue her mission, she felt very weary again and her leg was extremely painful. The fisher-folk set her down very gently, but even so, she had difficulty not showing how much the wound hurt. Though she was sure they could not tell. She did not want to be the first of the Athask people to show pain in front of strangers, being certain none ever had.
“I thank you for your kindness,” she managed to get out, and then through hooded eyes caught a brief glimpse of the sea about them, a huge blue-grey wave lifting the boat for a few seconds before they slid down its side into the trough, with the white spray flying up, all of it strange to Ferin, who had never left the mountains before.
Then she passed out again, and slept, as Karrilke shouted commands and the mainsail was hoisted and trimmed to a useful, arching billow. The slap of the waves on the hull became louder as the vessel drew closer to the wind and moved faster, heading to the northeast and farther away from land. Aiming for the banks, the uprising of the seabed fifty or sixty leagues distant, where the great shoals of batith swarmed, waiting to be caught.
Chapter Eight
UNRULY BELLS WHICH WISH TO RING
No-Man’s-Land, Near the Wall
There was no response to the pallid general’s demand for an immediate arrest. He grew even louder at that and turned to the closest soldier in a rage, almost gobbling as he shouted.
“Arrest this man! And clear these other people off to where they came from!”
The soldier he was shouting at was a scarred veteran with a warrant officer’s crown on his sleeve, a Charter mark on his forehead, and the painted badge of the Crossing Point Scouts on the side of his steel helmet. He didn’t answer, but looked away idly as if he hadn’t heard the officer even speak.
“I’m giving you a direct order!” bellowed the general. He pointed his skinny, almost skeletal forefinger at Nick. “Arrest . . . that . . . man!”
The warrant officer continued to stare vacantly at the Wall. A sergeant stepped up closer to him. Also from the Crossing Point Scouts by his badge, he took out his pipe and began to pack it with tobacco.
“I will brook no dumb insolence! I am General Feversham, from Army Headquarters in Corvere, do you hear? Arrest that man or I’ll have all of you in the stockade for the rest of your lives!”
Lirael looked over the Ancelstierran soldiers and saw they were all from the Crossing Point Scouts, all bearers of the Charter mark, and every single one of them appeared to be in deep communion with the night, the sky, the Wall, the ground, or in fact everything else except the bellowing general in front of them.
“I’ll do it myself!” roared the general. He fumbled at his belt, looking for a revolver, realized he was in mess dress and so unarmed, and reached out to take the rifle from the nearest soldier. Who, while pretending nothing was happening, also did not let go.
“No,” said Lirael calmly as the general continued to tug at the weapon. She reached for the Charter, gathered five marks swiftly from the shining torrent flowing through her mind, and flung them from her hand as a net of golden light that settled over the general’s bald head.
He let go of the rifle, lifted one hand toward his ear, emitted something between a burp and a hiccup, and collapsed to the ground, caught at the last minute by the sergeant next to him, who dropped his pipe and cursed.
“Sorry about that, ma’am,” said the warrant officer, turning to Lirael and saluting her smartly. “Sergeant-Major Nield, of the Scouts. Ah, you do have matters in hand here? With that creature that came up from the south?”
“Yes,” said Lirael. “The creature has been dealt with, though either I or the Abhorsen herself will need to return in a year and a day, for it is only temporarily banished, and will rise out of the earth at that time.”
“What was it?” asked the sergeant-major curiously. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but none of us ever saw anything like that before, and we’ve seen a lot come across the Wall.”
“A Hrule, a self-willed Free Magic creature,” said Lirael. She felt Nicholas drooping at her side and quickly glanced at him. He was barely conscious, struggling to stay on his feet. “I’m sorry, but we must go.”
“With Mr. Sayre?” asked the sergeant-major. “It is Mr. Nicholas Sayre, isn’t it? Captain Tindall said so, when he hopped up to us and sent us ahead.”
“Yes,” said Lirael. She hesitated, then said, “He needs to come with me. You may know he was affected by the . . . the events at Forwin Mill. He should have returned with us then.”
“We have orders from the very top not to let him go,” said the sergeant-major doubtfully. “I mean, not just from some visiting old busybody like Feversham; he was just all wrangled up because his dinner got disturbed. He thought it was an intruder on a motorcycle. The general, I mean. He caught sight of Mr. Sayre in pursuit, he never saw the creature at all. But there’s orders from General Tindall and Colonel Greene, who command the Scouts. Mr. Sayre is not to be allowed to cross.”
“He needs to come with us,” repeated Lirael calmly. She heard her guards shifting about behind her, preparing to support her with force, she supposed. There were only twenty or so Scouts, though one did have one of those rapid-firing weapons, a Lewin machine gun. “You know I am the Abhorsen-in-Waiting?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the sergeant-major, his face troubled.
“Nicholas Sayre is . . . um . . . infused with Free Magic,” said Lirael, choosing her words carefully. “We need to take him back to the Old Kingdom to make sure he doesn’t . . .”
She felt Nick grow heavier, his knees buckling. He was falling into unconsciousness again, all his weight now on her arm. She could barely hold him up.
“We need to help him remain human,” whispered Lirael, hoping Nick couldn’t hear. “Let us go, and I will send message-hawks to become telegrams to all who need explanation. It will not be your responsibility.”
“We should take the general back anyway, Roger,” said the pipe-smoking sergeant. “I don’t reckon we ever caught up with whatever was going on here anyway. Do you?”
The sergeant-major looked down at the cadaverous general. He really looked dead now that he was on the ground, though the miniature medals on his chest were rising and falling with his slow breath.
“He won’t remember,” said Lirael quickly. “I didn’t just put him to sleep. He won’t wake till dawn, and he’ll have forgotten everything that happened past sunset.”
Sergeant-major and sergeant both lifted their eyebrows in surprise. This was powerful and subtle Charter Magic,
beyond anything they could do.
“I guess you’re right about nothing going on,” said the sergeant-major, low-voiced to the other NCO. He didn’t look at Lirael. “Nothing to see here. Let’s pick up the general and head back.”
The sergeant-major gestured to two of the stretcher-bearers who were waiting behind. They came up quickly, and rolled the general onto their canvas litter, not at all gently, and one made a rude comment under his breath, at which the other laughed, stifling it as the sergeant-major turned to look at him.
Two of Captain Anlow’s guards hurried to Lirael’s side and picked up Nick. Lirael was both relieved to not have to hold him up anymore but also reluctant to let him go. When she did, she looked closely at his unconscious, relaxed face, so pale in the moonlight. She was comforted to see faint Charter marks moving across his skin, indicating the healing spell was still at work.
“Let’s go back,” said Lirael.
Captain Anlow bellowed orders. More of the guards moved around Nick, one of them unrolling a kind of hammock that served the same purpose as a stretcher, with two guards carrying each end. Lirael walked ahead of them, to the tunnel through the Wall, thinking deeply about what to do with Nick. He should recover from the loss of blood relatively quickly, with rest, but there was the greater problem of the Free Magic inside him. What if the Charter mark and whatever else the Disreputable Dog had done was merely like a cork pressed into a bottle of sparkling wine? Or like a layer of lacquer upon something that, if flexed, would break and crack? Then all that Free Magic would come out, and Nick, at least as a normal person, would be consumed . . .
Charter marks flared in the stones of the Wall as Lirael passed the gate. She reached out to touch them, comforted by the warm, familiar sensation of connection, joining with the endless flow of the Charter. It made her feel less pessimistic about Nick. There was such quiet, pervasive power here in the stones. After all, in the end even Orannis had been defeated and bound by the Charter, acting through Lirael and others. Whatever power inhabited Nick would be nothing in comparison.