Goldenhand by Garth Nix
Lirael stood up, ignoring the river’s sudden grab at her knees. She thought of Nick, out there in the airless plain, and felt a terrible pang in her heart. Was it already too late; had she spent too long in Death? Would he turn and run back when her body crumpled, the ice cracked, and she lay dead at his feet?
She hoped he would, but feared he would not.
“This is what it is, to be an Abhorsen,” she said sadly, and drew Astarael.
The Greenwash rose sixty paces above the usual waterline, a churning rampart of muddy water from bank to bank. Everywhere downstream of the magic wall made by the Spirit-Walkers and their black iron chain was now a broad expanse of drying rock and mud, dotted everywhere with the silvery shapes of thousands of dying fish, and here and there the tumbled wrecks of long-lost boats, everything from sunken rafts used in the construction of the bridge to the narrow war boats of the clans, destroyed in attacks of long ago.
Sam and Ferin were in the North Castle now, on the wall. Both had bows in their hands, quivers leaning against the wall, arrows ready, waiting for the next attack. They had not needed to go farther in search of sorcerers and keepers, for they were here aplenty. Dozens of wood-weirds had charged the walls only minutes after Sam had led his garrison into the castle, running from the south tower that joined the bridge straight to the battlements in answer to frantic blasts of the alarm horns.
But the wood-weirds came not to try and scale the high walls but to hurl great tubs of stone into the moat, under a storm of Charter-spelled arrows that left only four or five able to retire. The rest stood out there, no longer wood-weirds, now just burning stumps.
The second wave had been much harder to shoot at, for it was composed of forty sand-swimmers, huge undulating mounds of sand and grit that shimmered over the ground and were hard to differentiate from the earth around them. But again, they did not try to slither up the walls but instead poured themselves into the moat, filling the gaps between the tubs of stone. There, they were destroyed by more Charter-spelled arrows and spells cast by Sam and several Charter Mages from the Bridge Company.
But their work was done. The inhabiting Free Magic creatures had been banished or bound; the sand-swimmers became the raw sand and stone of their making, vast quantities of solid material, filling the moat for a stretch of two hundred paces, so the next assault could come right up to the walls. Sam could see this third wave preparing in the distance, four or five hundred warriors on foot. Out of bowshot, but well within sight, under the brilliant moon.
“I feared this,” said Ferin, and tore at her hair, releasing the queue she normally wore tightly coiled around her head.
“What?” asked Sam. They were very much outnumbered by the line of enemy forming up, but they did not look particularly formidable. They had no scaling ladders or any other siege equipment, and the walls above the moat were fifty paces high. Nor was there the glint of silver chain to show the presence of keepers and their charges, and the few wood-weirds who had survived the first assault had disappeared altogether.
“You will see,” said Ferin. “Look, they reverse their coats, so we might see who we face, and gain honor from the knowledge.”
There was a flash of white in that line of warriors, and then another. It took Sam a moment to realize what he was looking at. They were turning their coats inside out, to show the white fur of the athask, great cat of the northwestern mountains.
“Your people,” said Sam.
“Yes . . . and no,” said Ferin. “I am the Offering, the one they would give up so the clan may live. The best and the least.”
“Go to the northern wall, or the west,” said Sam. “There will be other clans to fight there.”
“No,” said Ferin. “You will need me here. They will be on the walls soon enough, and there are too few defenders.”
“But they have no ladders, no ram for the gate . . .”
“The Athask shoot ropes, and the Athask climb,” said Ferin, with considerable pride, alloyed with sadness. “We must not let them get close. And perhaps . . . perhaps there is still a chance Lirael will slay the Witch With No Face, and we will live after all, you, me, and the Athask.”
Sam began to say something, but it was lost in the sudden, ground-shaking sound of hundreds of nomad horn-blasts, mixed with the cheer from ten thousand nomad throats, and most of all the deep thunderous shudder of ten thousand horses breaking into a trot and then a canter and then, as they reached the flat, rocky bottom of the river, the full-out gallop of their charge.
“It is too late,” said Sam.
He reached down for an arrow, but his hand froze as his fingers met soft fur, and he looked down at two small almond-shaped eyes, bright emeralds in the moonshadow of the battlements.
“What’s too late?” asked Mogget.
“Hold on to my hand,” said Lirael. “Hold very tight!”
She thrust her golden hand at Clariel, who gripped it with both of her own.
Lirael swung Astarael up, let go of the clapper, and caught the bell by the handle as it fell, letting it swing behind her and up again in one great arc. As it moved, the bell sang one pure note, a sound that cut through Lirael everywhere, as if she were pierced all over by a thousand hair-fine needles.
Lirael screamed, her scream joining Astarael’s call, and in that moment the river of Death rose up around her with sudden, tremendous force. She was picked up and thrown forward, tumbling and choking, thrust through the waterfalls of the First Gate, no spells needed to open the way beyond Astarael’s imperious, mournful cry; and then through the Second Precinct in one shocking, drowning swoop, Clariel smashing against her, though her spirit form was so slight Lirael barely felt the knocks, and she tried to drop Astarael but the bell was stuck fast to her hand and it kept on ringing, ringing with the one terrible single note of doom.
Onward they went, straight down the whirlpool of the Second Gate, gasping for air, then bumping and sliding as the waters froze and the whirlpool became a spiral path, and they were dumped out into the Third Precinct, but only for a few seconds, the wave there catching them as Lirael staggered to her feet and once again tried to still the bell. But her hand, her hand of normal flesh, would not obey, and before she knew it she was underwater again, rushing through the mists of the Third Gate, surrounded by yammering, panicked, desperate Dead who had been picked up by the wave or caught by Astarael, the Dead washing one way and Lirael and Clariel another; and then they were in the Fourth Precinct, and Lirael exerted every scrap of will she possessed and made her hand move, and somehow she got the bell back into its pouch on her bandolier, and it was still.
The current was much stronger here than it had been closer to Life. Lirael slipped several paces before she could get her feet set, and lean the opposite way from the river’s pull.
“Let go,” she said to Clariel. There was still a chance, after all, a chance she could get back to Life, get back to Nick before he died, choking for want of air. Astarael had not flung her as far as she had feared. “The river will take you.”
“Thank you,” said Clariel. She bent her head, let go of Lirael’s golden hand, and fell back into the river.
But the current did not take her. She floated there on her back, a puzzled look slowly gathering on her scarred face, while Lirael looked on in horror. Then Clariel slowly lifted one foot out of the water.
The dark spell-rope was still there. She could not go on unless it was broken, unmade, and Lirael did not know how this could be done.
Lirael shut her eyes, just for a moment; then she slowly took Astarael from the bandolier once more. Pins and needles shot through her fingers as she did so, and she could feel the bell shivering under her hand. Astarael was keen to sound again, to take them farther.
Lirael knew she had no choice. She would have to go with Clariel to the Ninth Precinct, to stand with her beneath the unforgiving stars of the Ninth Gate. There was no spell-rope strong enough to hold against the Ninth Gate’s call to a final death.
“Mogget!” exclaimed Sam. He bent down and tried to embrace the little white cat, who avoided the move by zipping between Sam’s legs. “What are you doing here?”
“I smelled the fish,” said Mogget. “Thousands of good salmon gone to waste. I smelled the Free Magic too, and I was curious.”
“Will you help us?” asked Sam swiftly. “I know we cannot compel you. I ask as a . . . a friend.”
“What . . . who is that?” hissed Ferin.
“I am Mogget,” said the cat. “Nice coat. I trust you fought fair for it?”
“Knife against claws, as is the custom,” said Ferin, very slowly. She kept staring at Mogget, then slowly hopped her crutches sideways to lower herself on one knee and incline her head, greatly surprising Sam. She hadn’t done that for Touchstone. “Are you . . . are you the athask? The great one?”
“Maybe,” said Mogget. “I can’t remember.”
“Mogget, can you break Chlorr’s dam? Mother, Father, they’re fighting on the other side, but if we could drown most of the cavalry—”
“No,” said Mogget blandly. “None of my business. As I said, I was merely curious.”
“I knew you couldn’t be the athask,” said Ferin, grumpily getting back up on her crutches and settling herself against the merlon so she could ready her bow again. “Too small and too—”
Mogget blazed brighter than a star, and there was suddenly a huge white cat upon the wall, one three times the size of a nomad horse. He put his head back and yowled with tremendous energy outward to the moon and the advancing nomads under it, a caterwaul that reeked of Free Magic, white sparks spraying out for tens of paces, accompanied by great gouts of white smoke and an almost overwhelming stench of hot metal. Then he lowered his face to yowl more softly at Ferin, who covered her face with one arm, fell off her crutches, and would have gone backward off the wall to certain death if Sam hadn’t flung himself forward and caught her.
“If you won’t help, then go!” shouted Sam, holding Ferin with one hand as he clutched at an iron staple in the wall, his heart hammering with panic. “I’m never going to catch a fish for you again! Or get you sardines from Ancelstierre!”
“You don’t have to be like that,” said Mogget, shrinking down to his normal size. His green eyes twinkled. “I have helped you. In a small way, I admit. But surely it’s better than nothing. The rest is up to you lot, though I do hope you can make Chlorr regret interfering with one of my favorite rivers and the fish in it.”
With that, he leaped over the wall and was gone. The cat shouted something as he jumped, about sardine tins always rusting and the fish tasting terrible, but Sam paid no attention to that. He was too busy hauling Ferin in. As she fell across an embrasure, Sam let her go, wincing as he felt a muscle in his left arm stretch almost to the tearing point. He massaged it, already thinking about a healing spell he would have to use, and quickly, so he could once again take up his bow . . .
Ferin made a noise, something between a choking laugh and a gasp of amazement.
Sam forgot his arm, and looked out over her head at the line of Athask warriors. They were not charging forward, but were instead in the process of reversing their coats once again, and those who had already done so were slipping away, in the opposite direction from the castle.
“So that was the athask, then?” asked Ferin in the smallest voice Sam had ever heard come from her, one filled with wonderment. “He has given us his protection, and the clan have seen.”
“Maybe he is . . .” said Sam. He eyed the retreating mountaineers with relief, tempered by the knowledge they were only a small part of Chlorr’s great host. “I’ll tell you about Mogget later. He’s tricky. I wish he would have done more. . . . It’s all up to Lirael and Nick now. There’s . . . there’s no way Dad and Mother can hold the southern bank. Not against so many.”
“Then let us shoot some more, and make them fewer,” said Ferin. “And hope Lirael can do what must be done. What else can we do?”
“Nothing,” said Sam grimly, and picked up his bow.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A TIME TO DIE
Beyond the Great Rift/In Death
Nick looked worriedly at Lirael’s ice-encased form once again, and continued counting. As soon as she had gone into Death he had done a rough calculation of the amount of air within the globe, and though he wasn’t sure of the exact amount two humans would use, he figured what Lirael had said about the spell was probably right. One hour for two people, and they had used fifteen minutes even before Lirael went into Death. That’s how long it would take to get back to where they could breathe.
“Nine hundred and eleven hippopotami,” said Nick. His arms hurt, but he kept them up, kept holding the globe. “Nine hundred and twelve hippopotami.”
When he got to a thousand, he thought, he could drop the “hippopotami.” The numbers would be long enough said to be a full second. But when he got to a thousand seconds, they would have been stationary out here just over half an hour. There would be only fifteen minutes left for them to get back.
“Come on, come on,” he whispered. “Come back to me, Lirael. Come back. Damn. That must be four seconds . . . nine hundred and twenty hippopotami . . . nine hundred and twenty-one hoppopittami . . . damn again, I should have used potato . . . okay . . . nine hundred and twenty-three hippopotato, I mean nine hundred and twenty-four potatoes . . .”
Something moved on Lirael, on her ribs, low on the left. Ice cracked over the smallest pocket of her bandolier. Nick stopped counting and stared at it, wondering what it meant and what he should do. He counted the pockets while he tried to remember the names of the bells. Lirael had talked about them a little. So had Sam, but Nick couldn’t remember, and the pocket seemed to be the eighth from the top . . . he counted them again, got eight again . . . but that couldn’t be right. There were only seven bells.
A long, pointy, tan-colored ear suddenly stuck out of the pocket, followed by the curve of a head, and another pointy ear.
Nick drew his sword while keeping his left hand firmly on the globe.
The complete long-snouted head of a dog burst out of the pocket, and about two-thirds of a leg ending in a large paw.
“Put that sword away and help me out!” barked the Disreputable Dog. “Hurry! No, don’t let go of the globe.”
Nick dropped his sword, gaped for only a second, which was far less time than he felt like gaping, and reached across to pull on the Dog’s foreleg. As he touched it, he felt the sudden surge of both Charter Magic and Free Magic flow into his body.
The Dog came out all in a rush. She was smaller than Nick remembered from when she had sent him back into Life, but she was still the same pointy-eared, lolling-tongued, black-backed mostly tan-colored mongrel. She shook herself violently for several seconds, drops of icy water spraying all over Nick.
“Listen,” said the Dog quickly. “You will need to put more of yourself into the globe and breathe less.”
“Breathe less! And what do you mean put more of myself?” asked Nick. “What’s happening?”
He could feel himself trembling from fear, fear for Lirael.
“Lirael has had to ring Astarael,” snapped the Dog. “Lie down with your hands out to keep contact with the globe. You must feel the Charter within you, let it flow through your hands, give it to the globe. Shut your eyes and breathe shallowly. And stop that stupid counting.”
“Can you help her?” asked Nick, fighting the panic he suddenly felt, the urge to not breathe shallowly but to gulp air as fast as he could.
“No,” said the Dog sadly. “But you can, if she makes it back.”
She went on point, nose forward, leg up—and then was gone, an intensely cold breeze rushing over Nick from where she had been. In her place, the little soapstone statuette balanced on two legs for a moment, and then fell over.
Nick took one last deep breath and edged forward, bringing his arms down, making sure he was sti
He felt the marks under his fingers, shut his eyes, and concentrated on the Charter that moved within him, swirling and shifting around the inner fire of Free Magic, willing both to rise, to move through him and into the magic that sustained his and Lirael’s life.
Through the Fourth Gate, tumbling madly, rushed through the Fifth Precinct by a current so swift Lirael barely glimpsed the Dark Path above, and then she and Clariel were flung upside down and lifted up, swept high by the reverse waterfall of the Fifth Gate, spat out again in the shallow waters of the Sixth Precinct, where Lirael and Sabriel had talked of Chlorr so few scant weeks ago, but still Astarael sounded and Lirael’s throat was raw from screaming and so she did nothing but croak and whimper as the Sixth Gate opened beneath their feet and they fell from the river upon dry ground, or something that supported them and was not the river, a circle some ten paces in diameter, and it sank with them, the water rising all around, and again Lirael did not try to still the bell, but kept it ringing.
Deeper and deeper the small circle fell, the river around them but not crashing in, until they came to a stop and the water fell away on all sides, frothing and roaring, though Lirael hardly heard it, for she could hear almost nothing but Astarael’s single note, the sound of a dying scream.
The river took them up again, the current lifting them, sending them like two tiny, bobbing corks to the endless line of fire that burned ahead, flames dancing on the water. This fire arched up as they approached, in answer to Astarael’s call, as all the gates so answered, opening the way.