Part 31 (1/2)

”The Enemy has set many pieces in motion,” Mogget said. ”The King and the Abhorsen seek to counter whatever brews in Ancelstierre. They must succeed in stopping the Southerlings from crossing the Wall, but surely that is only part of the Enemy's plans-and because it is the most obvious, perhaps the least of them.”

Sam stared down at the table. All his hunger was gone. Finally he looked up. ”Lirael,” he said, ”do you think I'm a coward?”

”No.”

”Then I guess I'm not,” said Sam, his voice growing stronger. ”Though I am still afraid.”

”So you'll come with me? To find Nicholas, and Hedge?”

Sam nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak.

Silence fell in the hall, as they all thought of what lay ahead. Everything had changed, transformed by history and fate and truth. Neither Sam nor Lirael were who they had been, only a little while before. Now they both wondered what all this meant, and where their new lives would lead them.

And where-and how soon-those new lives might end.

Epilogue.

Dear Sam, I am writing to you local-style, with a quill pen and some wretchedly thick paper that soaks up the ink like a sponge. My fountain pen has clogged irreparably, and the paper I brought with me has succ.u.mbed to some sort of rot. A fungus, I think.

Your Old Kingdom is certainly inimicable to the products of Ancelstierre. Clearly the level of moisture in the air and the proliferation of local fungi is as abrasive as conditions in the tropics, though I would not have expected it from the lat.i.tude.

I have had to cancel most of my planned experiments, due to problems with equipment and some quite alarming experimental errors on my part, invalidating the results. I put this down to the illness I have suffered from ever since I crossed the Wall. Some sort of fever that greatly weakens me and has encouraged hallucinatory episodes.

Hedge, the man I hired in Bain, has proved to be a great a.s.set. Not only did he help me pinpoint the location of the Lightning Trap from all the local rumors and superst.i.tious ramblings, but he has overseen the excavation with commendable zeal.

We had quite a lot of trouble hiring local workers at first, till Hedge hit upon the idea of recruiting from what I understand to be a lazaret or leper colony of sorts. The workers from there are quite able-bodied but shockingly disfigured, and they smell atrocious. In daylight, they go about completely m.u.f.fled in cloaks and swaddling rags, and they seem much more comfortable after dark. Hedge calls them the Night Crew, and I must agree this is an appropriate name. He a.s.sures me the disease is not readily contagious, but I avoid all physical contact, to be on the safe side. It is interesting that they share the same preference for blue hats and scarves as the Southerlings.

The Lightning Trap is as fascinating as I expected. When we first found it, I observed lightning striking a small hillock or mound more than twice every hour for several hours, with thunderstorms overhead on an almost daily basis. Now, as we get closer to the true object that is buried underneath, the lightning comes even more frequently, and there is a constant storm overhead.

From what I have read and-you will laugh at me for this, because it is most uncharacteristic-from what I have dreamt, I believe that the Lightning Trap itself is composed of two hemispheres of a previously unknown metal, buried some twenty or thirty fathoms below the mound, which we found to be completely artificial and very difficult to break into, with all sorts of odd building materials. Including bone, if you can believe it. Now the excavation goes much faster, and I expect we shall make our discovery within a few days.

I had planned to go on to Belisaere at that point, to meet you, leaving the experiment in abeyance for a few weeks. But the state of my health is such that a return to Ancelstierre seems prudent, away from this inclement air.

I will take the hemispheres with me, having procured suitable import licenses from Uncle Edward. I believe they are unusually dense and heavy, but I expect to be able to s.h.i.+p them from the Red Lake downriver to the sea, and from there to a little place north of Nolhaven on the west coast. There is a deserted timber mill there, which I have procured for use as an experimental station. Timothy Wallach-one of my fellow students at Sunbere, though he is in Fourth Year-should already be there, setting up the Lightning Farm I have designed to feed power into the hemispheres.

It is indeed pleasant to have private means and powerful relatives, isn't it? It would be very hard to get things done without them. Mind you, I expect my father will be quite cross when he discovers I have spent a whole quarter's allowance on hundreds of lightning rods and miles of extra-heavy copper wire!

But it will all be worth it when I get the Lightning Trap to my experimental station. I am sure that I will be quickly able to prove that the hemispheres can store incalculable amounts of electrical energy, all drawn from storms. Once I have solved the riddle of extracting that power again, I shall need only to replicate them on a smaller scale, and we shall have a new source of limitless, inexpensive power! Sayre's Super Batteries will power the cities and industries of the future!

As you can see, my dreams are as large as my seriously enlarged head. I need you to come and shrink it, Sam, with some criticism of my person or abilities!

In fact, I hope you will be able to come and see my Lightning Farm in all its glory. Do try, if it is at all possible, though I know you dislike crossing the Wall. I understand from my last conversation with Uncle Edward that your parents are already in Ancelstierre, discussing Corolini's plans to settle the Southerling refugees in your deserted lands near the Wall. Perhaps you could tie in a visit to them with a side trip to see my work?

In any case, I look forward to seeing you before too long, and I remain your loyal friend, Nicholas Sayre Nick put the pen down and blew on the paper. Not that it needed it, he thought, looking at the blurred lines where the ink had spread, making a mockery of his penmans.h.i.+p.

”Hedge!” he called, sitting back to quell a wave of dizziness and nausea. These fits often came over him now, especially after concentrating on something. His hair was falling out too, and his gums were sore. But it couldn't be scurvy, for his diet was varied and he drank a gla.s.s of fresh lime juice every day.

He was about to call for Hedge again when the man appeared at the tent door. Barbarously clad, as usual, but the man was very efficient. As you would expect from a former sergeant in the Crossing Point Scouts.

”I have a letter to go to my friend Prince Sameth,” said Nick, folding the paper several times and sealing it with a blob of wax straight from the candle and a thumbprint. ”Can you see it gets sent by messenger or whatever they have here? Send someone to Edge, if necessary.”

”Don't worry, Master,” replied Hedge, smiling his enigmatic smile. ”I'll see it's taken care of.”

”Good,” mumbled Nick. It was too hot again, and the lotion he'd brought to repel insects was not working. He'd have to ask Hedge again to do whatever it was he did to keep them at bay ... but first there was the ever-present question-the status of the pit.

”How goes the digging?” Nick asked. ”How deep?”

”Twenty-two fathoms by my measure,” replied Hedge, with great enthusiasm. ”We will soon be there.”

”And the barge is ready?” asked Nick, forcing himself to keep upright. He really wanted to lie down, as the room started to spin and the light began to gain a strange redness that he knew was only in his own eyes.

”I need to recruit some sailors,” said Hedge. ”The Night Crew fear water, because of their ... affliction. But I expect my new recruits to arrive any day. Everything is taken care of, Master,” he added, as Nick didn't reply. But he was looking at the young man's chest, not at his eyes. Nick stared back at him, unseeing, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that he was fainting, as he so often did in front of Hedge. A d.a.m.nable weakness he could not control.

Hedge waited, licking his lips nervously. Nick's head swayed forward and back. He groaned, his eyelids flickering. Then he sat up, bolt straight in his chair.

Nick had indeed fainted, and there was something else behind his eyes, some other intelligence that had lain dormant. It suddenly sang now, accompanied by fumes of acrid white smoke that coiled out of Nick's nose and throat.

”I'll sing you a song of the long ago-Seven s.h.i.+ne the s.h.i.+ners, oh!What did the Seven do way back when?Why, they wove the Charter then!Five for the warp, from beginning to end.Two for the woof, to make and mend.That's the Seven, but what of the Nine-What of the two who chose not to s.h.i.+ne?The Eighth did hide, hide all away,But the Seven caught him and made him pay.The Ninth was strong and fought with might,But lone Orannis was put out of the light,Broken in two and buried under hill,Forever to lie there, wis.h.i.+ng us ill.”

There was silence for a moment after the song, then the voice whispered the last two lines again.

”'Broken in two and buried under hill, Forever to lie there, wis.h.i.+ng us ill.... But it is not my song, Hedge. The world spins on without my song. Life that knows not my lash crawls unbidden wherever it will go. Creation runs amok, without the balance of destruction-and my dreams of fire are only dreams. But soon the world will fall asleep, and it will be my dream that all will dream, my song that will fill every ear. Is it not so, my faithful Hedge?”

Whatever spoke did not wait for Hedge to answer. It went on immediately, in a different, harsher tone, no longer singing. ”Destroy the letter. Send more Dead to Chlorr and make sure that they slay the Prince, for he must not come here. Walk in Death yourself, and keep watch for the spying Daughter of the Clayr, and kill her if she is seen again. Dig faster, for I ... must ... be ... whole ... again!”

The last words were shouted with a force that threw Hedge against the rotting canvas of the tent, to burst out into the night. He looked back through the rent, fearful of worse, but whatever had spoken through Nick was gone. Only an unconscious, sick young man remained, blood slowly trickling from both nostrils.

”I hear you, Lord,” whispered Hedge. ”And as always, I obey.”

To be continued in

A special work-in-progress preview of the third book in Garth Nix's The Old Kingdom Trilogy The Old Kingdom Trilogy, prepared especially for readers of the PerfectBound e-book edition of Lirael Lirael Abhorsen

Prologue.

Fog rose from the river, great billows of white weaving into the soot and smoke of the city of Corvere, to become the hybrid thing that the more popular newspapers called ”smog” and the Times Times ”miasmic fog.” Cold, dank, and foul-smelling, it was dangerous by any name. At its thickest, it could smother, and it could transform the faintest hint of a cough into raging pneumonia. ”miasmic fog.” Cold, dank, and foul-smelling, it was dangerous by any name. At its thickest, it could smother, and it could transform the faintest hint of a cough into raging pneumonia.

But the unhealthiness of the fog was not its chief danger. That came from its other primary feature. The Corvere fog was a concealer, a veil that shrouded the city's vaunted gaslights and confused both eyes and ears. When the fog lay on the city, all streets were dark, all echoes strange, and everywhere set for murder and mayhem.

”The fog shows no signs of lifting,” reported Damed, princ.i.p.al bodyguard to King Touchstone. His voice betrayed his dislike of the fog. Back in their home, the Old Kingdom, such fogs were often created by Free Magic sorcerers. ”Also, the ... telephone ... is not working, and the escort is both under-strength and new. There is not one of the officers we usually have among them. I don't think you should go, sire.”