But at the same time Lirael also felt a blooming sense of excitement, even of escape, from a life that she couldn’t admit was stifling her. There was Finder, and the sunshine beyond, and the Ratterlin streaming away to lands she knew only from the pages of books. She had the dog statuette, and the hope her canine companion would return. And she was going on official business, doing something important. Almost like a real Daughter of the Clayr.
“You may need this, too,” said Ryelle, handing over a leather purse, bulging with coins. “The Bursar would have you get receipts, but I think you will have enough to worry about without that.”
“Now, let us see you raise the sail yourself, and we will bid you farewell,” continued Sanar. Her blue eyes seemed to see into Lirael, perceiving the fears that she had not voiced. “The
Sight does not tell me so, but I am sure we will meet again. And you must remember that, Sighted or not, you are a Daughter of the Clayr. Remember! May fortune favor you, Lirael.”
Lirael nodded, unable to speak, and hauled on the halyard to raise the sail. It hung slackly, the cavern dock being too sheltered for any wind.
Ryelle and Sanar bowed to her, then cast off the ropes that held Finder fast. The Ratterlin’s swift current gripped the boat, and the tiller moved under Lirael’s hand, nudging her to direct the eager vessel out towards the sunlit world of the open river. Lirael looked back once as they passed from the shade of the cavern to the sun, with the icicles tinkling far above her head. Sanar and Ryelle were still standing on the dock. They waved as the wind came to fill Finder’s sail and ruffle Lirael’s hair.
I have left, thought Lirael. There could be no turning back now, not against the current. The current of the river held the boat, and the current of her destiny held her. Both were taking her to places that she did not know.
The river was already wide where the underground source came to join it, fed by the lakes of snow-melt higher up, and the hundred small streams that wound their way like capillaries through and around the Clayr’s Glacier. But here, only the central channel—perhaps fifty yards across—was deep enough to be navigable. To either side of the channel, the Ratterlin shallowed, content to sheet thinly across millions of clean-washed pebbles.
Lirael breathed in the warm, river-scented air and smiled at the heat of the sun on her skin. As promised, Finder was moving herself into the swiftest race of the river, while the mainsheet imperceptibly slackened till they were running before the wind from the north. Lirael’s nervousness about
sailing lessened as she realized that Finder really did look after herself. It was even fun, speeding along with the breeze behind them, the bow sending up a fine spray as it sliced through the small waves caused by wind and current. All Lirael needed to make the moment perfect was the presence of her best friend, the Disreputable Dog.
She reached into her waistcoat pocket for the soapstone statuette. It would be a comfort just to hold it, even if it would not be practicable to try the summoning spell until she got to Qyrre and could get the silver wire and other materials.
But instead of cool, smooth stone, she felt warm dog skin—and what she pulled out was a very recognizable pointy ear, followed by an arc of round skull and then another ear. That was immediately followed by the Disreputable Dog’s entire head, which was much too big by itself to fit in the pocket—let alone the rest of her.
“Ouch! Tight fit!” growled the Dog, pushing out a foreleg and wiggling madly. Another foreleg impossibly followed, and then the whole dog leapt out, shook hair all over Lirael’s leggings, and turned to give her an enthusiastic lick.
“So we’re off at last!” she barked happily, mouth open to catch the breeze, tongue lolling. “About time, too. Where are we going?”
Lirael didn’t answer at first. She just hugged the Dog very tightly and took several quick, jarring breaths to stop herself crying. The Dog waited patiently, not even licking Lirael’s ear, which was a handy target. When Lirael’s breathing seemed to get back to normal, the Dog repeated her question.
“More like why are we going,” said Lirael, checking her waistcoat pocket to make sure the Dog’s exit hadn’t taken the Dark Mirror with it. Strangely enough, the pocket wasn’t even stretched.
“Does it matter?” asked the Dog. “New smells, new sounds, new places to piss on . . . begging your pardon, Captain.”
“Dog! Stop being so excited,” ordered Lirael. The Dog partly obeyed, sitting down at her feet, but her tail kept wagging, and every few seconds she snapped at the air.
“We’re not just going on one of our normal expeditions, like in the Glacier,” Lirael explained. “I have to find a man—”
“Good!” interrupted the Dog, leaping up to lick her exuberantly. “Time you were bred.”
“Dog!” Lirael, protested, forcing her back down. “It’s not about that! This man is from Ancelstierre and he’s trying to . . . dig up, I think . . . some ancient thing. Near the Red Lake. A Free Magic thing, so powerful it made me sick even when Ryelle and Sanar only showed it to me through a vision. And there was a necromancer who saw me, and lightning kept hitting the hole in the ground—”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said the Dog, suddenly serious. Her tail stopped waving, and she looked straight at Lirael, no longer snuffling the air. “You’d better tell me more. Start at the beginning, from when the Clayr came to find you down below.”
Lirael nodded and went over everything that the twins had said, and described the vision that they’d shared with her. By the time she’d finished, the Ratterlin had widened into the mighty river that most of the Kingdom knew. It was over half a mile wide, and very deep. Here in the middle, the water was dark and clear and blue, and many fish could be seen, silver in the depths.
The Dog lay with her head upon her forelegs and thought deeply. Lirael watched her, looking at the brown eyes that seemed to focus on far distant things.
“I don’t like it,” the Dog said finally. “You’re being sent into danger, and no one really knows what’s going on. The Clayr unable to See clearly, the King and the Abhorsen not even in the Kingdom. This hole in the ground that eats up lightning reminds me of something very bad indeed . . . and then there’s this necromancer, as well.”
“Well, I suppose we could go somewhere else,” Lirael said doubtfully, upset by the strength of the Dog’s reaction.
The Dog looked at her in surprise. “No, we can’t! You have a duty. I don’t like it, but we’ve got it. I never said anything about giving up.”
“No,” agreed Lirael. She was about to say that she hadn’t suggested it, either. She was just stating a possibility. But it would clearly be better to let the point lie.
The Dog was silent for a while. Then she said, “Those things that were left for you in the room. Do you know how to use them?”
“They might not even be meant for me,” Lirael said. “I just happened to find them. I don’t want them, anyway.”
“Choosers will be beggars if the begging’s not their choosing,” said the Dog.
“What does that mean?”
“I have no idea,” said the Dog. “Now, do you know how to use the things that were left for you?”
“Well, I have read The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting,” Lirael replied half-heartedly. “So I guess I know the theory—”
“You should practice,” declared the Dog. “You may need actual expertise later on.”
“But I’ll have to go into Death,” Lirael protested. “I’ve never done that before. I’m not even sure I should. I’m a Clayr. I should be Seeing the future, not the past.”
“You should use the gifts you have been given,” said the Dog. “Imagine how you’d feel if you gave me a bone and I
didn’t eat it.”
“Surprised,” replied Lirael. “But you do bury bones sometimes. In the ice.”
“I always eat them eventually,” said the Dog. “At the right time.”
“How do you know this is the right time for me?” asked Lirael suspiciously. “I mean, how do you even know what my gifts are for? I haven’t told you, have I?”
“I read a lot. It comes from living in a library,” said the Dog, answering the second question first. “And there’s lots of islands ahead. An island would be a perfect place to stop. You can use the Dark Mirror on one of them. If anything follows you back from Death, we can get on the boat and just sail away.”
“You mean if something Dead attacks me,” said Lirael.
That was the real danger. She actually did want to look into the past. But she didn’t want to go into Death to do it. The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting told her how, and assured her she could come back. But what if it was wrong?
And the panpipes were all very well, in their way, as a weapon and protection against the Dead. Seven pipes, named after the seven bells used by a necromancer. Only they weren’t as powerful as the bells, and one part of the book said that “though generally the instrument of a Remembrancer, the pipes are not infrequently used by Abhorsens-in-Waiting, till they succeed to their bells.” Which didn’t make the pipes sound all that fantastic.
But even if the pipes were not as strong as the bells, the book seemed to think they were powerful enough to assure her safety. Provided she could use them properly, of course, having only book-learning to go on. Still, there was something she
particularly wanted to see. . . . “We do need to get to Edge as soon as possible,” she said with deliberation. “But I suppose we could take a few hours off. Only I need to nap for a while first. When I wake up, we’ll stop at an island, if there’s one near. Then . . . then I will go into Death, and look into the past.”
“Good,” said the Dog. “I could do with a walk.”
Chapter Thirty-Five. Remembrancer
Lirael stood with the Dog in the center of a small island, surrounded by stunted trees and bushes that couldn’t grow higher in the rocky ground. Finder’s mast towered behind them, no more than thirty paces away, showing where safety lay if they had to flee from something coming out of Death. In preparation for entering that cold realm, Lirael buckled on the sword the Clayr had given her. The weight felt strange on her hip. The broad leather belt was tight against her lower stomach, and the sword, while longer and heavier than her practice sword, somehow felt familiar, though she had never seen it before. She would have remembered its distinctive silver-wired hilt and pommel with a single green stone set in bronze.
Lirael held the panpipes in her left hand, watching the Charter marks move across the silver tubes, weaving in with the Free Magic that lurked there. She looked at each pipe, remembering what the book had said about them. Her life could well depend on knowing which pipe to use. She said the names aloud, under her breath, to secure them in her mind and to delay actually going into Death.
“First, and least, is Ranna,” recited Lirael, the relevant page from The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting clear in her head. “Ranna, the Sleepbringer, will take all those who hear it into slumber.
“Second is Mosrael, the Waker. One of the most dangerous bells, and still so in any form. Its sound is a seesaw that will throw the piper further into Death, even as it brings the listener into Life.
“Third is Kibeth, the Walker. Kibeth gives freedom of movement to the Dead, or forces the Dead to walk at the piper’s will. But Kibeth is contrary and can make the piper walk where she would not choose to go.
“Fourth is Dyrim, the Speaker, of melodious tone. Dyrim may grant speech to the dumb, tongue-lost Dead, or give forgotten words their meaning. Dyrim may also still a tongue that moves too freely.
“Fifth is Belgaer, the Thinker, which can restore independent thought, and memory, and all the patterns of what was once in Life. Or, in a careless hand, erase them. Belgaer is troublesome too, always seeking to sound of its own accord. “Sixth comes Saraneth, also known as the Binder. Saraneth speaks with the deep voice of power, shackling the Dead to the wielder’s will.”
Lirael paused before she recited the name of the seventh and last pipe, the longest, its silver surface forever cold and frightening under her touch.
“Astarael, the Sorrowful,” whispered Lirael. “Properly sounded, Astarael will cast all who hear it deep into Death. Including the piper. Do not call upon Astarael unless all else is lost.”
“Sleeper, Waker, Walker, Speaker, Thinker, Binder, and Weeper,” said the Dog, taking a break from a heavy-duty scratching of her ear. “Bells would be better, though. Those
pipes are really only for children to practice with.”
“Ssshhh,” said Lirael. “I’m concentrating.”
She knew better than to ask the Dog how she knew the names of the pipes. The impossible hound had probably read The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting herself, while Lirael slept.
Having mentally prepared herself to use the panpipes—or to use only some of them—Lirael drew her sword, noting the play of Charter marks along its silvered blade. There was an inscription, too, she saw. She held the blade to the light and read it aloud.
“The Clayr Saw me, the Wallmakers made me, my enemies Remember me.”
“A sister sword to Binder,” remarked the Dog, nosing it with interest. “I didn’t know they had that one. What’s it called?”
Lirael twisted the blade to see if there was something written on the other side, but as she did so, the first inscription changed, the letters shimmering into a new arrangement.
“‘Nehima,’” read Lirael. “What does that mean?”