She’d gone completely the wrong way, Lirael realized. Somehow she must have turned west. Now she was on the shore of the lake, and the Gore Crows would soon find her. Unless, she thought, they couldn’t see her. She shifted Nick higher and bent over a little more to balance the load. He groaned in pain, but Lirael ignored him and pressed on into the reeds.
Soon the mud gave way to water, up to her shins. The reeds grew closer together, their flowery heads towering over her. But there was a narrow path where the reeds were beaten down, allowing passage through them. She took the path, winding deeper and deeper into the reedy marsh.
Sam drew another mark out of the endless flow of the Charter and forced it into the arrow he was holding across his knees, watching it spread like oil over the sharp steel of the head. It was the final mark for this arrow. He had already put marks of accuracy and strength into the shaft, marks for flight and luck into the fletching, and marks for unraveling and banishment into the head.
It was the last arrow of twenty, all now spelled to be weapons of great use against the Lesser Dead, at the least. It had taken Sam two hours to do all twenty, and he was a little weary. He was unaware that it would have taken most Charter Mages the better part of a day. Working magic on inanimate objects had always come easily to Sam.
He was doing his work while sitting on the dry end of a half-submerged log that stuck out of the stream. It was a good stream from Sam’s point of view, because it was at least fifteen yards wide, very deep, and fast. It could be crossed via the log and jumping across a couple of big stones, but Sam didn’t think the Dead would do that.
Sam put the finished arrow back into the quiver built into Lirael’s pack and slung that on his back. His own pack was pushed up against the stream bank, with Mogget asleep in the top of it. Though not anymore, Sam noticed, as he bent down to see it more clearly in the predawn light. The patch on the flap had gone completely, and there was no sign of the cat in the top pocket.
Sam looked around carefully, but he couldn’t see anything moving, and the light wasn’t good enough to see anything standing still or hiding. He couldn’t hear anything suspicious either—just the burble of the stream and the distant thunder from the lightning storm around the pit.
Mogget had never slipped off like this before, and Sam trusted the little white cat thing even less than he had before their experience in the strange tunnels under the House. Slowly he took Lirael’s bow from its cover and nocked an arrow. His sword was at his side, but with the dawn, it was just light enough to shoot a little way with accuracy. At least across the stream, which Sam had no intention of crossing.
Something moved on the other side. A small, white shape, slinking near the water. It was probably Mogget, Sam thought, peering into the gloom. Probably.
It came closer, and his fingers twitched on the string.
“Mogget?” he whispered, nerves strung as taut as the bow.
“Of course it is, stupid!” said the white shape, leaping nimbly from rock to rock and then to the log. “Save your arrows—you’ll need them. There’s about two hundred Dead Hands headed this way!”
“What!” exclaimed Sam. “What about Lirael and Nick? Are they all right?”
“No idea,” said Mogget calmly. “I went to see what was happening when our canine companion started to bark. She’s heading this way—hotly pursued—but I couldn’t see Lirael or your troublesome friend. Ah—I think that’s the Disgusting Dog now.”
Mogget’s words were followed by an enormous splash as the Dog suddenly appeared on the opposite bank and dived into the stream, sending a cascade of water in all directions, but mostly over Mogget.
Then the Dog was next to them, shaking herself so vigorously that Sam had to hold his bow out of the way.
“Quick,” she panted. “We need to get out of here! Stay on this side and head downstream!”
As soon as she’d spoken, the Dog was off again, loping easily along beside the stream. Sam leapt off the log, swooped upon his pack, picked it up, and stumbled after the Dog, questions falling out of his mouth as he ran. With Lirael’s pack on his back, the bow and an arrow in one hand, and his own pack in the other hand, it took most of his concentration not to fall over and into the stream.
“Lirael . . . and Nick? What . . . can’t we stop . . . got to rearrange all this . . .”
“Lirael went into the reeds, but the necromancer suddenly showed up so I couldn’t follow without leading him to her,” said the Dog, turning her head back as she ran. “That’s why we can’t wait!”
Sam looked back, too, and immediately fell over his pack and dropped both bow and arrow. As he stumbled to his feet, he saw a wall of Dead Hands lurch to a stop on the other side of the stream, back up near the sunken log. There were hundreds of them, a great dark mass of writhing figures that immediately started to parallel the dog’s course on the opposite bank.
In the midst of the Dead Hands, one figure stood out. A man cloaked in red flame, riding a horse that was mostly skeleton, though some flesh still hung on its neck and withers.
Hedge. Sam felt his presence like a shock of cold water, and a sharp pain in his wrists. Hedge was shouting something—perhaps a spell—but Sam didn’t hear it because he was scrabbling to pick up the bow and get another arrow. It was still quite dark, and a fair distance, he thought, but not too far for a lucky shot, in the stillness before the dawn.
As quick as that thought, he nocked an arrow and drew. For an instant, his whole concentration was on a line between himself and that shape of fire and darkness.
Then he loosed, and the spelled arrow flew like a blue spark from him. Sam watched it, filled with hope as it sped as true as he could wish, and arrow met necromancer with a blaze of white fire against the red. Hedge fell from his skeleton horse, which reared and then dived forward, smashing through several ranks of Dead Hands to plunge into the water in an explosion of white sparks and high-pitched screaming. Instinctively, it had known how to free itself and die the final death.
“That’ll annoy him,” said Mogget from somewhere near Sam’s feet.
Sam’s sudden hope died as he saw Hedge stand up, pluck the arrow from his throat, and throw it on the ground.
“Don’t waste another on him,” said the Dog. “He cannot be slain by any arrow, no matter the spells laid upon it.”
Sam nodded grimly, threw the bow aside, and drew his sword. Though the stream might hold the Dead Hands back, he knew that it would not stop Hedge.
Hedge drew his own sword and walked forward, his Dead Hands parting to make a corridor. At the edge of the stream the necromancer smiled an open smile, and red fire licked about his teeth. He put one boot in the stream—and smiled again as the water burst into steam.
“Go and help Lirael,” Sam ordered the Dog. “I’ll hold off Hedge as long as I can. Mogget—will you help me?”
Mogget didn’t answer, and he was nowhere to be seen.
“Good luck,” said the Dog. Then she was gone, racing along the bank to the west.
Sam took a deep breath and crouched into a defensive stance. This was his worst fear, come into terrible reality. Alone again, and facing Hedge.
Sam reached into the Charter, as much for comfort as to be ready to cast a spell. His breathing steadied as he felt its familiar flow all around him, and almost without thinking he began to draw out Charter marks, whispering their names quietly as they fell into his open hand.
Hedge took another step. He was wreathed in steam now and almost completely obscured, the stream bubbling and roiling both upstream and down. With a shrinking feeling, Sam saw that the necromancer was actually boiling the stream dry. There was already signifcantly less water below him, the streambed was becoming visible, and the Dead Hands were starting to move.
Hedge wouldn’t even have to fight him, Sam thought. All he had to do was stand in the stream, and his Dead Hands would cross and finish Sam off. Though he had the panpipes, Sam didn’t know how to use them properly, and there were simply too ma
ny Hands.
There was only one thing he could do. Sam would have to attack Hedge in the stream and kill him before the Hands could cross. If he could kill Hedge, a little nagging voice said from deep inside his mind. Wouldn’t it be better to run away? Run away before you are burnt again, and your spirit ripped out of your flesh and taken by the necromancer. . . .
Sam buried that thought away, sending the nagging voice so far into the recesses of his mind that it was just a meaningless squeak. Then he let the Charter marks he already held in his hand fall into nothingness, reached into the Charter again, and drew out a whole new string of marks. As he summoned them, Sam hurriedly traced the marks on his legs with a finger. Marks of protection, of reflection, of diversion. They joined and shimmered there, wrapping his legs in Charter Magic armor that would resist the steam and boiling water.
He looked down for only ten, or perhaps fifteen seconds. But when he looked back up, Hedge was gone. The steam was dissipating, and the water was flowing again. The Dead Hands were turning their backs to him and lumbering away, leaving the ground churned up and littered with pieces of rotting flesh and splintered bone.
“Either you were born to a different death, Prince,” remarked Mogget, who had appeared at Sam’s feet like a newly sprung plant, “or Hedge just found something more important to do.”
“Where were you?” asked Sam. He felt strangely deflated. He’d been all ready to plunge into the stream, to fight it out, and now all of a sudden it was just a quiet morning again. The sun was even up, and the birds had resumed their singing. Though only on his side of the stream, Sam noticed.
“Hiding, like any sensible person would when confronted by a necromancer as powerful as Hedge,” replied Mogget.
“Is he that powerful?” asked Sam. “You must have encountered many necromancers, serving my mother and the other Abhorsens.”
“They didn’t have help from the Destroyer,” said Mogget. “I must say I’m impressed with what it can do, even bound as it is. A lesson for us all, that even trapped inside a lump of silver metal—”
“Where do you think Hedge went?” interrupted Sam, who wasn’t really listening.
“Back to those lumps of metal, of course,” yawned Mogget. “Or after Lirael. Time for me to have a nap, I think.”
Mogget yawned again, then yelped in surprise as Sam grabbed him and shook him, setting Ranna jangling on his collar.
“You have to track the Dog! We have to go and help Lirael!”
“That’s no way to ask me.” Mogget yawned again, as waves of sleep from Ranna washed over both of them. Sam suddenly found that he was sitting down, and the ground felt so comfortable. All he had to do was lie back and put his hands behind his head. . . .
“No! No!” he protested. Staggering to his feet, he plunged into the stream and pushed his face into the water.
When he climbed out, Mogget was back in his pack. Fast asleep, a wicked grin on his little face.
Sam stared down at him and ran his hands through his dripping hair. The Dog had run off downstream. What had she said? “Lirael went into the reeds.”
So if Sam followed the stream to the Red Lake, there was a good chance he’d find Lirael. Or some sign of her, or the Dog. Or Mogget might wake up.
Or Hedge might come back. . . .
Sam didn’t want to just sit where he was. Lirael might need his help. Nicholas might need his help. He had to find them. Together, they might survive long enough to do something about this Destroyer trapped in the silver hemispheres. Alone, they could only fail and fall.
Sam packed away Lirael’s bow and the dropped arrow. Then he balanced the two packs using a single strap on each shoulder, made sure Mogget would not fall out even though the cat deserved to, and started west, the stream burbling along beside him.
Chapter Eleven
Hidden in the Reeds
LIRAEL MORE THAN half-expected to find a boat made of woven reeds, since the Clayr had Seen her and Nicholas in it on the Red Lake. Even so, she was very much relieved when she did stumble across the strange craft, because the water was now well above her thighs. If it had got any deeper, she would have had to turn back or risk Nick’s drowning, since she couldn’t carry him any other way than the fireman’s lift, which put his head about two feet lower than hers.
Carefully, she unloaded him into the center of the canoe-like boat, quickly grabbing the sides as it tipped. The boat was about twice as long as she was tall, but very narrow apart from its midsection—so there would be only just enough room for both of them.
Nick was semiconscious, but he rallied as they sat quietly in the boat, and Lirael considered her options. The reeds leaned over them, creating a secret bower, and small waterbirds called plaintively nearby, with the occasional splash as one dived after some fishy treat.
Lirael sat with her sword across her lap and a hand on the bell-bandolier, listening. The marsh birds would be happily piping and fishing, then they would suddenly go silent and hide deeper in the reeds. Lirael knew it was because Gore Crows were flying low overhead. She could feel the cold spirit that inhabited them, single-mindedly following the orders of its necromancer master. Searching for her.
The boat was exactly as the Clayr had said it would be, but Lirael felt a strange new fear as she sat rocking in it. This was the limit of the Clayr’s vision. They had Seen her here with Nicholas, but no further, and they had not Seen what Nicholas was. Was their Sight limited because this was the end? Was Hedge about to appear through the reeds? Or would the Destroyer emerge from within the slight young man opposite her?
“What are you waiting for?” Nick asked suddenly, showing himself to be more recovered than she’d thought. Lirael jumped as he spoke, setting the boat rocking more violently. Nick’s voice was loud, strange in the quiet world of the reeds.
“Silence!” ordered Lirael in a stern whisper.
“Or what?” asked Nick with some bravado. But he spoke more softly, and his eyes were on her sword.
A few seconds passed, then Lirael said, “We’re waiting for noon, when the sun is brightest and the Dead are weak. Then we’ll head along the lakeshore and, hopefully, make it to a meeting place where your friend Sameth will be.”
“The Dead,” said Nick with a superior smile. “Some local spirits to appease, I take it? And you mentioned Sam before. What’s he got to do with this? Did you kidnap him, too?”
“The Dead . . . are the Dead,” replied Lirael, frowning. Sam had mentioned that Nick didn’t understand, or even try to comprehend, the Old Kingdom, but this blindness to reality could not be natural. “You have them working in your pit. Hedge’s Dead Hands. And no, Sam is working with me to rescue you. You obviously don’t understand the danger.”
“Don’t tell me Sam has fallen back into all this superstition,” said Nick. “The Dead, as you call them, are simply poor unfortunates who suffer from something like leprosy. And far from rescuing me, you have taken me away from an important scientific experiment.”
“You saw me as an owl,” said Lirael, curious to find exactly how blinkered he was. “With the winged dog.”
“Hypnosis . . . or hallucinations,” replied Nick. “As you can see, I’m not well. Which is another reason I shouldn’t be in this . . . this compost heap of a craft.”
“Curious,” said Lirael thoughtfully. “It must be the thing inside you that has closed your mind. I wonder what purpose that serves.”
Nick didn’t reply, but he rolled his eyes eloquently enough, obviously dismissing whatever Lirael had to say.
“Hedge will rescue me, you know,” he said. “He’s a very resourceful chap, and he’s just as keen to stay on schedule as I am. So whatever mad belief has seized you, you should give it up and go home. In fact, I’m sure there would be some sort of reward if you returned me.”
“A reward?” Lirael laughed, but with bitterness. “A horrible death and eternal servitude? That’s the ‘reward’ for anyone living who goes near Hedge. But tell me—what is your ‘ex
periment’ all about?”
“Will you let me go if I tell you?” asked Nick. “Not that it’s terribly secret. After all, you won’t be publishing in Ancelstierran scientific journals, will you?”
Lirael didn’t answer either question. She just looked at him, waiting for him to talk. He met her gaze at first, then faltered and looked away. There was something unnerving about her eyes. A toughness he had never seen in the young women he knew from the debutante parties in Corvere. It was partly this that made him talk, and partly a desire to impress her with his knowledge and intelligence.
“The hemispheres are a previously unknown metal that I postulate has an almost infinite capacity to absorb electrical energy for later discharge,” he said, arching his fingers together. “They also create some sort of ionized field that attracts the thunderstorms, which in turn create lightning that is drawn down by the metal. Unfortunately, that ionized field also prevents working of the metal, as steel or iron tools cannot be brought close.
“It is my intention to connect the hemispheres to a Lightning Farm, which a trusted associate of mine is building in Ancelstierre even as we speak. The Lightning Farm will be composed of a thousand connected lightning rods that will draw down the full electrical force of an entire storm—rather than just a number of strikes—and feed it into the hemispheres. This power will . . . ah . . . repolarize . . . or demagnetize . . . the two hemispheres so they can be brought together as one. This is the ultimate goal. They must be brought together, you see. It is absolutely essential!”
He collapsed back with the last word, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“How do you know?” asked Lirael. To her it sounded like the sort of waffle used by false seers and charlatan mages, as much to convince themselves as anything.