“What . . . um . . . happened to you?” she asked Sam, who had settled himself at full length in the bottom of the boat. “Why were you in a bathtub?”
“It’s a long story,” said Sam weakly. He tried to sit up to see her better, but his head dropped back and bumped on a thwart. “Ow! In the simple version, I guess you could say I was escaping from the attentions of the Dead, and the tub happened to be the best boat available.”
“The Dead? Near here?” asked Lirael, shivering as she thought of her own encounter with Death. With the necromancer Hedge. She’d presumed that in Life he would be near the Red Lake, as he was in the vision. But that might not have actually happened yet. Perhaps Hedge was somewhere close, right now—
“Several leagues upstream, last night,” said Sam, prodding the flesh around his wound with a finger. It was tender and felt tight against the trouser leg, a sure sign that the spell to contain infection had failed in the face of his weariness and overexertion. “That looks bad,” said Lirael, who could see the dark stain of old blood showing through the cloth. “Did the necromancer do it?”
“Mmm?” asked Sam, who felt like he might pass out again.
Pressing on the wound had been a big mistake. “There was no necromancer there, fortunately. The Dead were following set orders, and not being too smart about it. I got stabbed earlier.” Lirael thought for a moment, unsure what to tell him. But he was a royal Prince and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.
“It’s just that I fought a necromancer yesterday,” she said. “What!” exclaimed Sam, sitting up, despite a sudden wave of nausea. “A necromancer? Here?”
“Not exactly,” said Lirael. “We were in Death. I don’t know where he was physically.”
Sam groaned and fell backwards again. This time Lirael saw it coming and just managed to catch his head.
“Thanks,” muttered Sam. “Was . . . was he sort of thin and bald, with red armor plates at his elbows?”
“Yes,” whispered Lirael. “His name is Hedge. He tried to cut my head off.”
Sam made a sort of coughing noise and turned towards the gunwale, the muscles in his neck straining. Lirael just managed to get her hands free before he threw up over the side. He hung there for a few minutes after that, then feebly splashed his face with cold river water.
“Sorry,” he said. “Nervous reaction, I suppose. Did you say you fought this necromancer in Death? But you’re a Clayr. Clayr don’t go into Death. I mean, nobody does, except necromancers and my mother.”
“I do,” mumbled Lirael back. She blushed again. “I’m . . . I’m a Remembrancer. I had to find out something there, something in the past.”
“What’s a Remembrancer? What’s the past got to do with Death?” asked Sam. He felt delirious. Either Lirael was raving or he was somehow not able to understand what she was saying.
“I think,” said the Dog, turning from her nose-to-nose communication with the cat, “that my mistress should tend to your wound, young Prince. Then we might all start at the beginning.”
“That could take a while,” said Mogget gloomily, searching for fish over the side. Whatever he’d been communicating with the Dog, their body language indicated that he’d come out second best.
“The necromancer,” whispered Sam. “Did he burn you, too?”
“No,” replied Lirael, puzzled. “Who did he burn?”
Now she was confused. But Sam didn’t answer. His eyelids fluttered once, then closed.
“You’d best tend to his wound, Mistress,” said the Dog.
Lirael sighed in exasperation, got out her knife, and began to cut Sam’s trouser leg away. At the same time, she reached out to the Charter, pulling out the marks for a spell that would cleanse the wound and knit the tissue back together.
Explanations would obviously have to wait.
Chapter Thirty-Eight. The Book of the Dead
The explanations had to wait almost the whole day, because Sam didn’t wake up until Finder gently beached herself on a sandy spit, and Lirael began to set up camp on the adjoining island. Over a dinner of grilled fish, dried tomatoes, and biscuit, they told each other their stories. Lirael was surprised by how easy it was to talk to him. It was almost like talking to the Dog. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t a Clayr, she thought.
“So you’ve Seen Nicholas,” said Sam heavily. “And he’s definitely with this necromancer, Hedge. Digging up some terrible Free Magic thing. I guess that must be the Lightning Trap he wrote to me about. I was hoping—stupidly, I suppose—that it was all a coincidence. That Nick wouldn’t have anything to do with the Enemy, that he was really going to the Red Lake because he’d heard about something interesting.”
“I didn’t See it myself,” Lirael said reluctantly, to forestall any requests that she use her supposed Sight to find out more. “I mean they showed it to me. It took a Watch of more than fifteen hundred Clayr to See near the pit. But they didn’t know when it was . . . or will be. It might not have happened yet.”
“I guess he hasn’t been in the Kingdom for that long,” said Sam doubtingly. “But I would think he would have made it to the Red Lake by now. And the digging you Saw might have started without him. The Dead in the blue caps and scarves must be Southerling refugees, the ones who came across the Wall more than a month ago.”
“Well, according to the Clayr’s other vision, I will find Nicholas at the Red Lake sometime soon,” said Lirael. “But I don’t want to go there unprepared. Not if Hedge is with him.”
“This is getting worse by the day,” said Sam, groaning and cradling his head in his hands. “We’ll have to send a message to Ellimere. And, I don’t know . . . get my parents back from Ancelstierre. Only then there’re the Southerlings to worry about. Maybe Mother could come back and Dad could stay there—”
“I think the Clayr have already sent messages,” said Lirael. “But they don’t know as much as we do, so we should send some, too. Only we’ll have to do something ourselves, won’t we? It’ll take too long for the King and the Abhorsen to even hear about this, let alone come back.”
“I suppose so,” said Sam, without enthusiasm. “I just wish Nick had waited for me at the Wall.”
“He probably didn’t have a choice,” said the Dog, who was curled up at Lirael’s feet, listening. Mogget lay nearby, his paws extended towards the dying remnants of the cooking fire, clean fishbones near his face. As soon as he’d eaten dinner, he’d fallen asleep, ignoring Sam and Lirael’s conversation.
“I suppose so,” agreed Sam as he absently looked at the scars on his wrists. “That necromancer, Hedge, must have . . . must have got hold of him when we were at the Perimeter. I never actually saw Nick after that. We just exchanged letters. I guess I’ll just have to keep trying to find the dumb bastard.”
“He looked sick,” said Lirael, surprised by the feeling of concern that rose in her from the memory. He’d reached out
his hand to her and said hello. . . . “Sick and confused. I think the Free Magic was affecting him, but he didn’t realize what it was.”
“Nick never really understood what it was like here, or accepted the idea that magic works,” said Sam, staring into the embers. Nick had only got worse as he got older, always asking why. He’d never accepted anything that seemed to contradict his understanding of the forces of nature and the mechanics of how the world worked.
“I don’t understand Ancelstierre,” said Lirael. “I mean I’ve heard about it, but it might as well be another world.”
“It is,” said the Dog. “Or it’s best to think of it that way.”
“It always seemed somehow less real than here,” said Sam, still staring at the fire, not really listening. He was watching the sparks fly up now, trying to count the number of them in each little flurry. “A really detailed dream, but sort of washed out, like a thin watercolor. Softer, somehow, even with their electric light and engines and everything. I guess it was because there was hardly any magic at school, because we were too far from the Wall. I could weave shadows and do tricks with light sometimes, but only when the wind blew from the north.
Sometimes I felt like part of me was asleep, not being able to reach the Charter.”
He fell silent, still staring at the embers. After a few minutes, Lirael spoke again. “Getting back to what we’re going to do,” she said hesitantly. “I was going to Qyrre, to get the constables or the Royal Guard there to escort me to Edge. But it seems that Hedge already knows about me—about us—so that can’t be a very sensible thing to do. I mean I still have to get to the Red Lake, but not so openly. It would be stupid to just tie up at the Qyrre jetty and get out, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” agreed the Dog, looking up at her, proud that she had worked this out for herself. “There was a smell about Hedge, a smell of power strong enough for me to catch when Lirael escaped him. I think he is more than a necromancer. But whatever he is, he is clever, and has long prepared to move against the Kingdom. He will have servants among the living as well as the Dead.”
Sameth didn’t answer for a moment. He tore his gaze away from the fire, frowning as he saw Mogget’s sleeping form. Now that Nicholas was definitely known to be in the clutches of the Enemy, Sam didn’t know what to do. Rescuing Nicholas had seemed like a good idea back in the safety of his tower room—simpler, uncomplicated.
“We can’t go to Qyrre,” he said. “I was thinking we should go to the House—Abhorsen’s House, I mean. I can send messagehawks from there, and we can . . . uh . . . get stuff for the journey. Mail hauberks. A better sword for me.”
“And it would be safe,” said the Dog, with a penetrating look at Sam.
Sam looked away, unable to meet the Dog’s eyes. Somehow she knew his secret thoughts. Half of him said he would have to go on. Half of him said that he couldn’t. He felt sick with the tension of it. Wherever he went, he could not escape being the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and all too soon he would be shown to be an imposter.
“I think that’s a good idea,” said Lirael. “It’s on the Long Cliffs, isn’t it? We can strike west from there, staying off the roads. Are there any horses at the House? I can’t ride, but I could wear a Charter-skin while you—”
“My horse is dead,” interrupted Sam, suddenly whitefaced. “I don’t want another one!”
He got up abruptly and limped out into the darkness, staring at the Ratterlin, watching the silver ripples in its dark
expanse. He could hear Lirael and that Dog creature—which was too much like Mogget for comfort—talking behind him, too low to make out the words. But he knew they were talking about him, and he felt ashamed.
“He’s a spoilt brat!” whispered Lirael crossly. She wasn’t used to this sort of behavior. On her explorations she had done what she wanted, and in the Library there was strict discipline and a chain of command. Sam had provided useful information, but otherwise he seemed to be a nuisance. “I was just trying to make some sort of plan. Maybe we should leave him behind.”
“He is troubled,” acknowledged the Dog. “But he has also been through much that tested him beyond all expectation—and he is hurt and afraid. He will be better tomorrow, and in the days to come.”
“I hope so,” said Lirael. Now that she knew more about Nicholas, the Lightning Trap, and the attacks of the Dead upon Sam, she realized she would probably need all the help she could get. The entire Kingdom would need all the help it could get.
“It is his job, after all,” she added. “Being the Abhorsenin—Waiting. I should be safely back at the Glacier while he deals with Hedge and whatever else is out there!”
“If the Abhorsen and the King are correct about Hedge’s plans, nowhere will be safe,” said the Dog. “And all who bear the Blood must defend the Charter.”
“Oh, Dog!” Lirael said plaintively, giving the hound a hug. “Why is everything so difficult?”
“It just is,” said the Dog, woofling in her ear. “But sleep will make it seem easier. A new day will bring new sights and smells.”
“How will that help?” grumbled Lirael. But she lay down on the ground, dragging her pack over to use as a pillow. It was too hot for a blanket, even with the slight breeze off the river. Hot and awfully humid, with mosquitoes and sandflies into the bargain. Summer had not yet begun as far as the Kingdom’s calendar was concerned, but the weather had paid no attention to human reckoning. And there was no sign of a cooling rainstorm.
Lirael swatted a mosquito, then turned her head as Sam came back and rummaged in his saddlebag. He was getting something out—a bright, sparkling object. Lirael sat up as she saw it was a jeweled frog. A frog with wings.
“I’m sorry I behaved badly before,” Sam mumbled, setting down the flying frog. “This will help with the mosquitoes.” Lirael didn’t need to ask how. It became clear immediately as the frog executed a backwards somersault and used its tongue to collect two particularly large and blood-laden mosquitoes. “Ingenious,” said the Dog sleepily, lifting her head for a moment from the comfortable hole she’d scratched out to sleep in. “I made it for my mother,” said Sam, self-pity evident in his voice. “That’s about the only thing I’m really good at. Making things.”
Lirael nodded, watching the frog wreak havoc on the local insect population. It moved effortlessly, bronze wings beating as fast as a hummingbird’s, making a soft sound like tightly closed shutters moving slightly in the wind.