She walked on, still thinking, until surprised by a shout of alarm from behind her. Lirael spun about, hands reaching for bell and sword. Half a dozen paces behind her, the guards carrying Nick quickly put him down and backed away. But there was no sudden, acrid stench of Free Magic, no flashes of white lightning. Whatever power lurked within Nick had not risen forth.
Rather, it was Charter marks flowing into him that had alarmed the guards. Marks were floating off the stones of the Wall as if some strange, invisible tide lifted them. Spinning in the air, they spiraled down to fall upon Nicholas Sayre, everywhere from his toes to his pale forehead. The marks lay there for a moment like fresh-fallen snowflakes, and then sank in, passing through cloth and flesh.
More and more marks, multiplying by the second, emerging from every stone. Falling so densely they formed small rivers, waterfalls of golden light. So many marks they could not be seen individually, and when Lirael rushed to Nick’s side and caught some in her open hand, they were not marks she knew.
“What do we do?” asked Captain Anlow anxiously. “I’ve never seen this before.”
“They’re not defensive,” said Lirael slowly. “The Wall isn’t trying to stop him crossing.”
She let the marks she’d caught fall. They did not go straight down, but drifted sideways to Nick. She’d felt something of their nature, something akin to the depths of a Charter Stone, though she could not place them more accurately than this. And she had no idea why they were flowing so strongly into Nick, or what spell all those marks might be weaving together.
“Pick him up and let’s get through.”
Though all the guards were Charter Mages, of many differing abilities and familiarity with the Charter, there was a notable reluctance from all of them to pick Nick up again. Unknown Charter marks and unknown Charter spells were incredibly dangerous, but even so Lirael was surprised how slowly the guards were moving.
Until she realized it wasn’t Nick they didn’t want to approach. It was her, and they were afraid because the bells in the bandolier across her chest had begun to shiver in place, and despite their tongues being locked by leather, the faint echo of their voices could be heard, like distant music.
All the bells, sounding together.
Dampened and muffled, but somehow ringing even within the bandolier! Lirael could feel their vibration, and far worse, feel their power. All seven of the bells, from Ranna, who brought sleep, to the greatly feared Astarael, the bell who cast all who heard her into Death. None were strong enough yet for their unique powers to take effect, but they were growing louder. And who could say what the combination of all seven bells would do, when rung together in such circumstances, without a human hand? The only time Lirael knew all seven bells to sound as one before was in the binding of Orannis, and the seven had been very much under the control of their wielders, for a very specific spell.
Whatever was going on with Nick and the inherent magic of the Wall, it was also waking the bells, or upsetting them or something, and it was beyond Lirael’s knowledge or experience. In a second she went from a confident Abhorsen-in-Waiting to a very frightened young woman who could think of only one thing to do.
Get out. Get the bells away from the Charter Magic in the Wall, before she and all the guards and Nicholas were made to sleep, or stripped of their memories, or forced to walk where they would not . . . or worst of all, be sent unwillingly into Death, never to return.
“Bring him! Fast as you can!” she shouted, and sprinted north, her hands clasped across the bandolier, willing the bells to be silent.
Chapter Nine
THE SKY HORSE CLAN NEVER GO TO SEA IN SPRING . . .
At Sea, off the Mouth of the Greenwash
Ferin was still asleep at dusk of the day she came aboard the fishing boat, but it was not a normal sleep and she did not wake from it when the boat heeled, clipped a wave, and spray fell across her face. Nor was it an easy or restful sleep, judging by how she writhed under the blanket and tried to push it off, her cheeks bright red with fever. Her injured ankle stuck out, the bandage heavily stained with dark blood and her leg swollen above the ankle.
“She’ll likely lose that foot,” said Tolther. He did not need to say “you were wrong” or add “unless we take her back to Yellowsands and the healer there.” They all knew that. However, none of her crew afloat would ever dare say Karrilke was wrong. Not at sea. When they were simply family again, ashore, they might venture such an opinion. Very carefully, no doubt, and in a roundabout way.
“How full are we?” asked Karrilke.
“Just over the fourth line,” said Huire. That meant the single, central hold was half full of salted fish. Karrilke had never returned from a fishing expedition without a full hold, not in twenty years. Sometimes that meant staying out a week longer than normal, with everyone on half rations of fresh water and nothing to eat but fish. She was famous for it. “Full Catch Karrilke,” she was called, though not to her face.
“Ma . . .” began Tolther, but Karrilke gave him the look, one she hadn’t had to use for a long time. “I mean, Captain . . .”
“Yes,” said Karrilke. She didn’t look at him. She had one foot up on the gunwale and was staring out to sea. Doubtless looking for the silver flecks of the batith schooling near the surface.
“She will lose the foot,” said Tolther carefully. “Maybe die.”
“I reckon you’re right about that,” said Karrilke.
“So me and Huire . . .” Tolther took a deep breath. “Me and Huire think we should take her back. You can take the loss out of our pay.”
“That’d mean no pay for the pair of you,” said Karrilke. “This voyage and the next.”
Tolther nodded.
“Make ready to go about,” said Karrilke.
Tolther looked across at Huire. Her mouth was open in amazement, catching the breeze.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” asked Karrilke. She poin
ted off to port. “Be quick about it. I don’t like the look of that craft.”
Tolther looked surprised as well now. Both he and Huire spun to look over the port side. There, only just visible on the horizon, was a black blot that years of experience helped them instantly identify as a nomad raider, a long, sleek craft rowed by upward of sixty warriors. It was typical of the kind used by the Yrus clan, the only one of the Twenty Tribes that was almost as at home on the sea as they were on horseback. Though it was very unusual for them to be voyaging in spring, which was a busy time with their herds upon the steppe.
Tolther and Huire leaped to the foresail and mainsail sheets as their brother, Lown, prepared to lean on the tiller. He was the oldest, and laughing now.
“You just gave up your pay for something Ma was going to do anyway!” he roared. “Going about!”
The fishing boat came about and began to run before the wind. In the distance, they could hear the faint shouts of the rowers aboard the raider, calling cadence.
“Never catch us with this breeze,” said Lown to his mother. “Why they out, anyway? Truce till after midsummer, ain’t it?”
Karrilke glanced down at Ferin, still tossing and turning on the deck.
“Truce is custom, not any kind of law,” she said. “Might be to do with her . . . or they’ve come to see what that smoke was about. As for the wind, let’s hope they don’t . . .”
Her pale eyes narrowed, the wrinkles come from gazing against salty wind and sun now heavily pronounced.
“Don’t what, Ma?”
“Don’t have a shaman or a witch on board,” said Karrilke. “A wind-raiser, or worse, a wind-eater.”
“Why would they have one of them on board?” asked Lown. “Sorcerers fear the sea, don’t they?”
“They do, but if that’s where their keepers want them, that’s where they go,” said Karrilke. She was still watching the raider, and listening to the faint, wind-borne chanting of the rowers. “They’re rowing faster.”
Lown looked over his shoulder and then back at the sails, which were full and taut, expertly trimmed by his brother and sister.