Goldenhand

  Sabriel was planted as firmly as a tree, the strange monochrome water rushing around her thighs. Lirael was made to take one step before she could fully exert her will and resist the current. It grabbed at her heels, twisting and pulling, but it could not move her beyond that first step.

  Apart from the rush of the river and the distant roar of the waterfall that was the First Gate, there was no sound. It was impossible to see very far, for the strange grey light stretched to an entirely flat horizon that seemed close, but always retreated.

  Both Abhorsens stood for a few minutes, letting their sense of Death expand. Sabriel sniffed; though it was not precisely a smell she sought, it seemed to help. Lirael quirked her mouth, for it seemed to help open her ears, though again it was not sound she listened for with that extra sense.

  “Nothing,” said Sabriel. “For now. How far do you want to go on?”

  “A dozen paces,” replied Lirael. She began to trudge forward, careful to make sure she had good footing before taking each step. The river could do tricky things, even reversing the current for a moment, or coming sideways at a wader.

  Sabriel went with her, keeping a careful lookout, bell and sword ready.

  “Here will do,” said Lirael. She took a deep breath, sheathed her sword and replaced the bell, then reached into the pocket of her waistcoat for the Dark Mirror. It was partly underneath the strap of her bandolier, which she hadn’t thought about, so it took several seconds to get it out. But Lirael didn’t let herself be distracted. She moved with slow certainty, her feet firmly planted, legs apart and balanced.

  “It may be very hard for you when you see your mother,” said Sabriel. She paused, then added, “I never knew mine at all, you know. But I think it can be worse to see someone you loved as a child so much later on, if she is not at all what you remembered.”

  Lirael nodded. She knew Sabriel was warning her that the Arielle she was going to see in the past might be entirely mad. It was rare, but sometimes Clayr did become insane from the pressure of their Sight, Seeing too many possible visions, too quickly, so they became lost in many futures and could not relate to the present at all.

  Lirael opened the Dark Mirror and quickly raised it to her right eye, though she still looked out upon the river with her left eye. It was hard to focus like that, one eye seeing the interminable grey light and the rushing waters, the other staring into pure, unrelieved darkness. But she knew it was possible, she had done it twice before, so she persevered.

  Slowly, the Mirror began to clear, the darkness receding. There was a spark of light there, which became the sun. It started to go backward, traveling from west to east. The process had begun.

  Lirael imagined her mother in a cave with snow about, basing her face upon a charcoal drawing she had but making her clothes like Ferin’s. Red stitches in soft leather. At the same time, she tried to think of her tenth birthday, another one of cruel disappointment since she had not gained the Sight, though not so fiercely sad as her birthdays would later become.

  Charter marks began to fill her mind; she felt the great swim of the Charter, linking her, the bells, Sabriel by her side. Lirael selected the marks she needed, learned from the book, and let them fall into her voice.

  “My mother I knew, but never enough,” she said. “As she Saw me in her future, show me her Past, in the third moon of winter, ten years gone by.”

  The passage of many swift suns through the mirror quickened as she spoke, flashing by, days gone in seconds. Then it slowed again, and the sun grew larger and closer. Lirael felt herself drawn toward the Mirror, falling into it, and still the sun drew closer and brighter and brighter still, till she had to shut her right eye or be blinded.

  When she opened it again, a moment later, Lirael saw a tent of red-stitched leather, pitched before a frozen waterfall that fell in front of a deep cave. There was a firepit outside the tent, burning high, sparks flying up toward the moon, which was ringed with ice.

  A woman in the white fur coat of an Athask walked around the fire and looked directly at Lirael. She was younger than Sabriel, which was the first shock, though of course she had to be, having died somewhere around the age of thirty-five. The second shock was how much she looked like Kirrith, though on a smaller scale, for Arielle did not have the same height or massive shoulders. But her face was so similar, albeit more finely drawn. Lirael could see almost nothing of herself in her mother. Arielle was very typically a Clayr, her skin brown as an acorn, eyes bright blue, hair almost white-blond.

  “Lirael,” said Arielle. For a moment Lirael almost answered her, as if she were truly there. Her lips moved, but no words came as she remembered that Arielle spoke to the future, to the Lirael she felt she knew would come to look upon this moment in the past.

  “Lirael. I hope I am indeed talking to you, that you see me through the Dark Mirror.”

  Arielle raised one hand and reached out, almost as if she might be able to touch her daughter after all, before she let it fall. The movement spoke much about her health, for she did not move easily, and coughed when her arm came back to rest.

  “I have always Seen too much in the ice, been driven to make the future just so . . . to steer matters, as if I alone might make a difference. Arrogance, I suppose, and stupidity. To look too much to the future, and not enough to the present.”

  She paused to cough, and when her hand came away from her mouth, it was speckled with fine drops of blood.

  “I thought you would be happy in the Glacier, as I was, growing up. I did not See you for so long; I thought you would be no different from all the others. I thought you would be crowned with the silver and moonstones as I was, when I was nine; the Sight has always come early in our family. But not with you . . . I am sorry, so sorry . . .”

  The scene before Lirael grew misty, but she knew it was not some fault in the mirror. It was a tear in her eye, another one of the many tears cried over the years for a mother lost long ago.

  Arielle visibly pulled herself together, drawing in a racking breath, only to cough again. But when that bout was over, she did not talk of Lirael’s childhood. Her demeanor changed to that of a Clayr delivering an important message from the Observatory, one that must be acted on immediately.

  “Listen. The Witch With No Face has summoned the entire fighting and sorcerous strength of all the clans to gather at the Field Market by the second full moon of spring in the year you turn twenty. From what I have Seen this is only a week or ten days from when you look at me here. This great host will attack the day after the full moon, at the Greenwash Bridge. Yet the bridge is only part of it; there is some other plan that I cannot See. You must warn the King and the Abhorsen. But force of arms cannot hold back the northern assault; at least I do not think so. I have Seen so many futures where the nomads roam the Kingdom, towns burn, the walls breached at Belisaere, the Glacier besieged . . . so many on both sides dead and dying . . .”

  Arielle coughed again, and when she looked back up, her eyes were lit with a feverish light, and Lirael saw sweat beaded everywhere upon her face, though her breath blew out in frosty clouds.

  “It is the Witch With No Face who holds the chance of victory. She must be killed. I have Seen you and a young man, you go to do it, you go beyond the Great Rift, to the Empty Lands where the Charter does not exist and the spirit-glass shards lie all about. I don’t know how . . . but you do it, that’s the main thing. Find her and kill her. That’s what you do. Except when you don’t. Too many times, too many times, my daughter dead . . . it is a terrible thing to See, so terrible . . .”

  Arielle began to weep and clutch at her hair. Lirael reflexively tried to go forward, to hold her, but nothing changed. She could only watch and listen, until her mother coughed again, and somehow the act of dealing with this calmed her, and she could begin again.

  “Beyond the Great Rift. The Empty Lands, where the sorcerers go for spirit-glass. That’s where she is, lying in her sarcophagus. The offerings know the way, though they don’t k
now they know. All joined together, the Witch With No Face and the offerings, that’s why she wants them burned. Wait? If they’re burned, if they’re all burned, then there’s nothing, no thread to follow . . . but there was one. The one who goes to Lirael. Doesn’t she? I can’t remember . . . her hand, your poor hand, though the golden hand, a hand of gold . . .”

  Arielle started to weep again, tears mixing with the sweat upon her cheeks. But once again she stopped herself, wiped her eyes with hands bloody from her coughing, and pulled herself upright, wincing and shuddering at the pain in her chest.

  “Lirael. You must go beyond the Great Rift, where the Free Magic sorcerers go to collect spirit-glass. The Witch With No Face’s first body is there, in a sarcophagus, a stone coffin. Follow the thread. You must kill her. I have Seen what must be done, though I cannot clearly See if . . . if you succeed. I have Seen where you do not . . . no . . . I must not think of that.”

  She coughed a little, but managed to still it.

  “Go now, with my love. I always loved you. Always. You probably don’t believe it. Perhaps you shouldn’t. Love should always be shown, not merely said. I was too slow to learn this, too distracted by my visions. Do better! Go now. Go, Lirael. Do not watch me die. Farewell!”

  Lirael shut her right eye hard, and kept it closed for a good two seconds. When she opened it again, she saw only the river of Death and Sabriel by her side, carefully watching.

  “You saw her?” asked Sabriel quietly.

  Lirael nodded, shut the Dark Mirror, and slid it back under the bandolier and into her waistcoat pocket. Then she drew Raminah and Ranna again. It was best to always be prepared in Death.

  “She was dying,” said Lirael. “She told me about her visions. An army of nomads, gathered by the Witch With No Face, to attack on or soon after the night of the second full moon of spring.”

  “A week from tomorrow,” said Sabriel.

  “At the bridge,” said Lirael. “But she said there was some other plan as well, which she could not See. And in many, perhaps most futures, we lose the battle anyway.”

  “Not very encouraging,” said Sabriel.

  “She told me I had to kill the Witch With No Face’s first body. She is in a sarcophagus beyond the Great Rift, where the sorcerers go for spirit-glass,” continued Lirael.

  “Ah,” said Sabriel bleakly. “Unfortunately, that does make sense. Chlorr’s original body, her anchor in Life. But beyond the Great Rift . . .”

  “I know nothing about that place,” said Lirael.

  “We will talk of it when we go back,” said Sabriel. She stopped to listen and look around again, Lirael doing likewise. “But before we do, could you keep watch while I examine this charm I took from Ferin?”

  Lirael nodded. She found herself shaking slightly from seeing her mother in such straits, so distressed and ill. But the river would exploit such weakness, so she willed herself to be still, to put aside the emotional turmoil that threatened to rise within her.

  Next to her, Sabriel opened the metal box with the bone charm. Red fire sprang up around it, far more than had out in the living world, in the Map Room. Outlined by the fire, both Abhorsens saw two threads of absolute blackness connected to the bone.

  Both threads led back into Life, but one went to the right, and the other to the left.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THREADS FROM A CHARM OF BONE

  In Death

  How very unusual,” said Sabriel, lifting the box to watch the threads lift out of the river. “Both go back into Life. We must follow them, see where they go.”

  Lirael nodded. She knew about such threads from The Book of the Dead. They were typically used by powerful necromancers to control distant spirits in their power, or as trip wires to alert a necromancer to something of theirs being disturbed in Death. But she had not read about two such threads connecting a charm that had been cut out of a living person, or ones which lead from Death back out into Life.

  The first thread took them some hundred paces along the border before it went out into Life.

  “Watch my back,” warned Sabriel. She went right up to the edge of Life. Even a few steps away, Lirael could feel the warmth of it, the lure of the living world. But if she went out here, it would not be back into her own body.

  Sabriel placed her hand in seemingly empty air, feeling for the unseen border where Death met Life. Then she laid her head against it and shut her eyes.

  Lirael knew how to look out into Life in this way, though she was by no means as practiced at it as she would like to be. She watched Sabriel for a few seconds, then quickly looked away, to concentrate on the river, to listen for the First Gate. If the sound of the waterfall paused, it would mean something was coming through from deeper in Death.

  Sabriel did not stay in her eavesdropping pose for long. She straightened up and turned away, holding the bone charm in the box up to lift the second thread, which ran along the border in the opposite direction.

  “That first one goes out somewhere in the far north,” she said. “I would say beyond the Great Rift, which fits in with what Arielle had to say. Let us see where this other one goes.”

  Lirael nodded, and followed. As always, it was very tiring to be in Death. The river constantly leached away heat and energy and hopefulness. She could feel it in every small wavelet that washed around her legs, inviting her to give up, to lie down, to be swept away. A constant refrain that she had to shut out and ignore, in addition to resisting the sheer physical force of the current upon her spirit form.

  Sabriel crouched longer where the second thread went out into Life. When she straightened up, it was with a cry of alarm.

  “Stand ready! Shadow Hands!”

  Irregular shapes of blackest shadow sprang from Life into the river, goaded by their master somewhere in the living world beyond. Impossibly long claws of stretching darkness reached for Sabriel, but she was retreating fast, and Saraneth was already ringing.

  The harsh voice of the bell held the Shadow Hands in place, but there were a dozen of them, and more were coming through. Lirael returned Ranna to the bandolier, slapping home the strap that kept it silent, and as swiftly drew her own Saraneth. Swinging the bell in a long overhand loop, she added its voice to Sabriel’s. This was something they had practiced together often, for it more than doubled the power of the individual bells. Provided neither of them made a mistake, and a bell twisted in their hand . . .

  “Hold them there,” ordered Sabriel. “We will return to Life.”

  Slowly they edged along the border, still ringing their bells, seeking the place where their bodies awaited them. Lirael was surprised by this retreat, because Sabriel usually would want to bind any Dead they found, and send them on to die the final death. The Abhorsen had never retreated in the time Lirael had learned from her, and though there were now sixteen Shadow Hands, that was not too many for Sabriel and her apprentice, at least in Lirael’s opinion.

  But as they neared their crossing point, Lirael saw why Sabriel had retreated. Scores more Dead were coming through. Dead drawn out of the bodies they were inhabiting in Life, so things of lesser power than Shadow Hands, but there were so many of them! A hundred, perhaps more, and behind these lesser creatures came several hulking shapes of shadow, with burning fire in their eye sockets, flames dripping from their hands. Greater Dead, at least five of them.

  Coming from the wrong direction, coming from Life into Death. Even without intervention from the Abhorsens, many of these Dead would be taken by the river. Which meant there was something or someone making them come back to the place they had fought so long to leave.

  “Out!” said Sabriel, and stepped into Life, Lirael close at her heels.

  Ice cracked and fell from skin and armor as they returned. Clayr rangers turned swiftly to look at them, then resumed their watching, though many hands stayed in spell-casting gestures or on bows and swords.

  “Stay ready!” warned Sabriel to Lirael. “Some might be driven to come throu
gh, even with the sun.”

  Shadow Hands were fast. As close as they had been, it would not be too difficult for them to come back into Life, particularly here where the border had been crossed and made more permeable.

  The tentative attack, when it came, was exactly as Sabriel predicted. A Shadow Hand oozed out slowly into Life, a thin tendril of shadow appearing in midair, which immediately smoked and bubbled under the sun. It tried to recoil, but Sabriel was already ringing Saraneth, and under the compulsion of the bell, the entire spirit was forced to emerge.

  Rays of sunshine bored holes in its shadowy spirit flesh as it fought against the bell and Sabriel’s implacable will. Smoke boiled and eddied from it as it writhed and wriggled, desperate to get under some rock if it could not escape to Death. Yet still Saraneth rang, its commanding voice impossible to avoid, ordering obedience or else.

  A minute later, the Shadow Hand ceased to exist. The afternoon sun on a spring day was more than strong enough to quickly slay all but one of the Greater Dead, and even they would fear it.

  “I do not think more will follow,” said Sabriel, returning her bell to the bandolier. “But I would double the watch here tonight, you rangers, and summon many Charter lights. Come, Lirael. We had best get back to the council, and I need you to tell me exactly what Arielle said. I fear she did indeed See truly. That second thread led to a great host, including many Dead and Free Magic creatures, and it was somewhere on the steppe. Quite possibly the Field Market.”

  Lirael told Sabriel as much as she could remember as they raced down from the lookout. The Abhorsen listened carefully, firing off questions as they negotiated stairs and doors and sloping corridors and groups of Clayr who scattered like ants fleeing heavy raindrops when Sabriel charged toward them, calling “Urgent business!” in a voice that brooked no argument.