“I’m going to close the company in,” shouted Greene. “We’ll form an all-around defense here.”
Sam nodded. He could sense Dead moving beyond the ridge. Fifty or sixty Dead Hands, headed their way.
“There are Dead coming,” he said. He looked up at the ridge, then back at Lirael and at the Southerlings beyond. They were all starting to trudge forward, towards the ridge, not farther back into the valley. The soldiers were already running back towards the spur, the line contracting. There was nothing between the Southerlings and their doom.
“Damn!” swore Greene. “I thought you’d stopped them!”
“I’m going to talk to them!” declared Sam, making an instant decision. The Dead were at least five minutes away, and Lirael had charged him earlier to stop the Southerlings. She would not be in danger if he was quick. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Major Greene, do not leave Lirael! Mogget, protect her!”
With that, he ran down towards a particular group of Southerlings he’d seen before but hadn’t really registered as important till a moment before, when he was struck by a sudden thought. The group was led by an ancient matriarch, white haired and much better dressed than everyone around her. She was also supported by several younger men and women. It was the only group that was not obviously a family, without children and without baggage. The matriarch was the leader, Sam thought. He knew that much about the Southerlings. Someone who might be able to turn back the human tide.
If only he could convince her in the next few minutes. When the Dead attacked, anything could happen. The Southerlings might panic, and many would run the wrong way and be trampled. Or they might refuse the evidence of their own eyes and continue blindly on over the ridge, driven by optimism and hope that finally they would find somewhere to call home.
Chapter Twenty-one
Deeper into Death
LIRAEL DIDN’T PAUSE to look around as she entered Death and the current gripped her, trying to drag her under in that first shocking instant of total cold. She pushed forward at once as the Disreputable Dog bounded ahead, sniffing the river for any hint of lurking Dead.
As Lirael waded, she anxiously ran through the key lessons she had learned from The Book of the Dead and The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting. Their pages shone in her mind, telling her about each of the Nine Precincts and the secrets of the Nine Gates. But knowing these secrets—even from a magical book—was not the same as having experienced them. And Lirael had never been past the First Precinct, never even crossed the First Gate.
Nevertheless, she strode forward confidently, forcing her doubts as far back in her mind as they would go. Death was no place for doubts. The river would be quick to attack any weakness, for it was only strength of will that kept the current from sucking away Lirael’s spirit. If she faltered, the waters would take her under, and all would be lost.
She came to the First Gate surprisingly quickly. One minute it had been a distant roar and a far-off wall of mist that stretched as far as she could see to the left and right. Now, what seemed only a moment later, Lirael was standing close enough to touch the mist, and the roar of the rapids on the other side was very loud.
Words came to her then, words of power impressed on her mind by both books. She spoke them, feeling the Free Magic writhe and sizzle on her tongue and lips as the words flew out of her mouth.
The veil of mist parted as she spoke, slowly rolling aside to reveal a series of waterfalls that seemed to drop down forever into a dark and endless chasm. Lirael spoke again and gestured to right and left with her sword. A path appeared, cut deep into the waterfall, like a narrow pass between two liquid mountains. Lirael stepped onto the path, the Dog so close that she was almost tangled up in Lirael’s legs. As they walked, the mist closed up, and the path faded behind them.
After they’d gone on, a very small, sneaking spirit rose from the water near the First Gate and began to walk towards Life, following an almost invisible black thread connected to its navel. It twitched and gibbered as it walked, anticipating the reward its master would give for news of these travelers. Perhaps it would even be allowed to stay in Life and be given a body, that greatest and most treasured delight.
The passage through the First Gate was deceptive. Lirael couldn’t tell how long it took, but soon the river had once again become a flat and endless expanse as it resumed its flow through the Second Precinct. Lirael began to probe the water ahead with her sword as soon as she left the path, checking the footing. This precinct was similar to the First, but it had deep, dangerous holes as well as the ever-present current. It was made even more difficult by a blurring effect that made the grey light fuzzy and indistinct, so Lirael couldn’t see much farther than she could touch with her sword held out at full stretch.
There was an easy way through, a path charted by previous Abhorsens and recorded in The Book of the Dead. Lirael took it, though she didn’t trust her book learning enough to give up probing with her sword. But she did count out her steps as the Book instructed, and she took the memorized turns at each point.
She was so intent on doing that, lost in the cadence of her steps, that she almost fell into the Second Gate. The Dog’s quick grab for her belt pulled her to safety as she took one step too many, counting “Eleven” even as her brain said “Stop at Ten.”
As quick as that thought she tried to draw back, but the Second Gate’s grip was much stronger than the normal current of the river. Only her valiant Dog anchor saved her, though it took all the strength of both of them to drag Lirael back from the precipice of the gate.
For the Second Gate was an enormous hole, into which the river sank like sinkwater down a drain, creating a whirlpool of terrible strength.
“Thanks,” said Lirael, shaking as she looked into the whirlpool and contemplated what might have happened. The Dog didn’t reply at once, as she was untangling her jaws from a sadly battered piece of leather that had previously been a serviceable belt.
“Take it steady, Mistress,” the Dog advised quietly. “We will need haste elsewhere, but not here.”
“Yes,” agreed Lirael, as she forced deep, slow breaths into her lungs. When she felt calmer, she stood up straight and recited further words of Free Magic, words that filled her mouth with a sudden heat, a strange glow against her deeply chilled cheeks.
The words echoed out, and the spiraling waters of the Second Gate slowed and then stopped completely, as if the whole whirlpool had been snap frozen. Now each swirl of current had become a terrace, making up one long spiral path down to the vortex of the Gate. Lirael stepped down to the start of the path and began to walk. Behind her, and above, the whirlpool began to swirl again.
It seemed she would have to circle around a hundred times or more to reach the bottom, but once again Lirael knew it was deceptive. It took only a few minutes to traverse the Second Gate, and she spent the time thinking about the Third Precinct and the trap it held for the unwary.
For the river there was only ankle deep, and a little warmer. The light was better, too. Brighter and less fuzzy, though still a pallid grey. Even the current wasn’t much more than a tickle around the ankles. All in all, it was a much more attractive place than the First or Second Precincts. Somewhere ill-trained or foolish necromancers might be tempted to tarry or rest.
If they did, it wouldn’t be for long—because the Third Precinct had waves.
Lirael knew it, and she left the Second Gate at a run. This was one of the places in Death where haste was necessary, she thought as she pushed her legs into an all-out sprint. She could hear the thunder of the wave behind her, a wave that had been held in check by the same spell that calmed the whirlpool. But she didn’t look and concentrated totally on speed. If the wave caught her, it would crash her through the Third Gate, and she would drift on, stunned and unable to save herself.
“Faster!” shouted the Dog, and Lirael ran even harder, the sound of the wave so close now, it seemed certain to catch them both.
Lirael reached the mists of the Third Gate only a step or two in front of the rushing waters, frantically calling out the necessary Free Magic spell as she ran. This time the Dog was in front, the spell only just parting the mists ahead of her snout.
As they halted, panting, in the mist door created by the spell, the wave broke around them, hurtling its cargo of Dead into the waterfall beyond. Lirael waited to catch her breath and a few seconds more for the path to appear. Then she walked on, into the Fourth Precinct.
They crossed this precinct rapidly. It was relatively straightforward, without holes or other traps for the unwary, though the current was strong again, stronger even than in the First Precinct. But Lirael had grown used to its cold and cunning grip.
She remained wary. Besides the known and charted dangers of each precinct, there was always the possibility of something new, or something so old and infrequent, it was not recorded in The Book of the Dead. Besides such anomalies, the Book hinted at powers that could travel in Death, besides the Dead themselves, or necromancers. Some of these entities created odd local conditions, or warped the usual natures of the precincts. Lirael supposed that she herself was one of the powers that altered the nature of the river and its gates.
The Fourth Gate was another waterfall, but it was not cloaked in mist. At first sight it looked like an easy drop of only two or three feet, and the river appeared to keep on flowing after it.
Lirael knew better, from The Book of the Dead. She stopped a good ten feet back, and spoke the spell that would let her pass. Slowly, a dark ribbon began to roll out from the edge of the waterfall, floating in the air above the water below. Only three feet wide, it seemed to be made of night—a night without stars. It stretched out horizontally from the top of the waterfall into a distance Lirael couldn’t make out.
She stepped onto the path, moved her feet a little to get a better balance, and began to walk. This narrow way was not only the path through the Fourth Gate, it was also the sole means of crossing the Fifth Precinct. The river was deep here, too deep to wade, and the water had a strong metamorphic effect. A necromancer who spent any time in its waters would find both spirit and body altered, and not for the better. Any Dead spirit who managed to wade back this way would not resemble its once-living form.
Even crossing the precinct by means of the dark path was dangerous. Besides being narrow, it was also the favored means for the Greater Dead or Free Magic beings to cross the Fifth Precinct themselves—going the other way, towards Life. They would wait for a necromancer to create the path, then rush down it, hoping to overcome the pathmaker with a sudden, vicious attack.
Lirael knew that, but even so, it was only the Dog’s quick bark that warned her as something came ravening down the path ahead, seemingly out of nowhere. Once human, its long sojourn in Death had transformed it into something hideous and frightening. It scuttled forward on its arms as well as legs, moving all too like a spider. Its body was fat and bulbous, and its neck jointed so it could look straight ahead even when on all fours.
Lirael only had an instant to thrust her sword forward as it attacked, the point piercing one blobby cheek, bursting out the back of its neck. But it still pushed on, despite the blaze of white sparks that fountained everywhere as Charter Magic ate into its spirit-flesh. It thrust itself almost up to the hilt, red-fire eyes focused on Lirael, its too-wide mouth drooling spit and hissing.
Lirael kicked at it to try to get it off her sword, and rang Saraneth at the same time. But she was unbalanced, and the bell didn’t ring true. A discordant note echoed out into Death, and instead of feeling her will concentrated on the Dead thing, and the beginnings of domination, Lirael felt distracted. Her mind wandered, and for an instant she forgot what she was doing.
A second or a minute later she realized it, and a shock ran through her, fear electrifying every nerve in her body. She looked, and the Dead creature was almost off her sword, ready to attack again.
“Still the bell!” barked the Dog, as she made herself smaller and tried to get between Lirael’s legs to attack the creature. “Still the bell!”
“What?” exclaimed Lirael; then the shock and the fear ran through her again as she felt her hand still ringing Saraneth, without her being aware of it. Panicked, she forced it to be still. The bell sounded once more and then was silent as she fumbled it back into its pouch.
But once again she was distracted—and in that moment the creature attacked. This time it leapt at her, planning to crush her completely beneath its ghastly, pallid bulk. But the Dog saw the monster tense, and she guessed its intention. Instead of slipping between Lirael’s legs, she threw herself forward and planted two heavy forepaws on Lirael’s back.
The next thing Lirael knew, she was on her knees, and the creature was flying over her. One barbed finger grasped a lock of her hair as it passed, tearing it out by the roots. Lirael hardly noticed, as she frantically turned herself around on the narrow path and stood up. All her confidence was gone, and she didn’t trust her balance, so it wasn’t a fast maneuver.
But when she turned, the creature was gone. Only the Dog remained. A huge Dog, the hair on her back up like a boar-bristle hairbrush, red fire dripping from teeth the size of Lirael’s fingers. There was a madness in her eyes as she looked back at her mistress.
“Dog?” whispered Lirael. She’d never feared her friend before, but then she’d never walked this far into Death, either. Anything could happen here, she felt. Anyone and . . . anything could change.
The Dog shook herself and grew smaller, and the madness in her eyes subsided. Her tail began to wag, and she worried the base of it for a second before walking up to lick Lirael’s open hand.
“Sorry,” she said. “I got angry.”
“Where did it go?” asked Lirael, looking around. There was nothing on the path as far as she could see, and nothing in the river below them. She didn’t think she’d heard a splash. Had she? Her mind was addled, still resonating with the discord of Saraneth.