Prologue
It was a hot, steamy summer, and the mosquitoes swarmed everywhere, from their breeding grounds in the rotten, reedy shores of the Red Lake up to the foothills of Mount Abed. Small, bright-eyed birds swooped among the clouds of insects, eating their fill. Above them, birds of prey circled, to devour the smaller birds in turn.
But there was one place near the Red Lake where no mosquito or bird flew, and no grass or living thing would grow. A low hill, little more than two miles from the eastern shore. A mound of close-packed dirt and stones, stark and strange amidst the wild grassland that surrounded it, and the green forest that climbed the nearby hills.
The mound had no name. If one had ever appeared on a map of the Old Kingdom, the map was long lost. There had once been farms nearby, but never closer than a league. Even when people had lived there, they would neither look at the strange hill nor speak of it. The nearest town now was Edge, a precarious settlement that had never seen better days but had not yet given up hope of them. The townsfolk of Edge knew it was wise to avoid the eastern shore of the Red Lake. Even the animals of the forest and the meadow shunned the area around the mound, as they instinctively stayed away from anyone who seemed to be going there.
Such as the man who stood on the fringe of the forest, where the hills melted into the lakeshore plain. A thin, balding man who wore a suit of leather armor that covered him from ankle to wrist, reinforced with plates of red-enameled metal at his neck and every joint. He carried a naked sword in his left hand, the blade balanced across his shoulder. His right hand rested against a leather bandolier worn diagonally across his chest. Seven pouches hung from the bandolier, the smallest no larger than a pillbox, the largest as big as his clenched fist. Wooden handles hung downwards out of the pouches. Black ebony handles, which his fingers crawled across like a spider along a wall.
Anyone who had been there to see would have known that the ebony handles belonged to bells, and that in turn would identify the man by kind, if not by name. A necromancer, he carried the seven bells of his dark art.
The man looked down at the mound for some time, noting that he was not the first to come there that day. At least two people stood on the bare hill, and there was a shimmer of heat in the air that suggested that other, less visible beings stood there, too.
The man considered waiting till dusk, but he knew he didn’t have that choice. This was not his first visit to the mound. Power lay far beneath it, imprisoned deep within the earth. It had called him across the Kingdom, summoning him to its presence on this Midsummer’s Day. It called him now, and he could not deny it.
Still, he retained enough pride and will to resist running the last half mile to the mound. It took all his strength, but when his boots touched the bare earth at the lip of the hill, it was with deliberation and no sign of haste.
One of the people there he knew, and expected. The old man, the last of the line that had served the thing that lay under the mound, acting as a channel for the power that kept it hidden from the gaze of the witches who saw everything in their cave of ice. The fact that the old man was the last, without some sniveling apprentice at his side, was reassuring. The time was coming when it need no longer hide beneath the earth.
The other person was unknown. A woman, or something that had once been a woman. She wore a mask of dull bronze, and the heavy furs of the Northern barbarians. Unnecessary, and uncomfortable, in this weather . . . unless her skin felt something other than the sun. She wore several rings of bone upon her silk-gloved fingers.
“You are Hedge,” the stranger declared.
The man was surprised by the crackle of power in her speech. She was a Free Magic sorcerer, as he’d suspected, but a more powerful one than he could have guessed. She knew his name, or one of them--the least of his names, the one he had used most often in recent times. He, too, was a Free Magic sorcerer, as all necromancers had to be.
“A Servant of Kerrigor,” continued the woman. “I see his brand upon your forehead, though your disguise is not without some skill.”
Hedge shrugged, and touched what appeared to be a Charter mark on his forehead. It cracked in two and fell off like a broken scab, revealing an ugly scar that crawled and wriggled on his skin. “I carry the brand of Kerrigor,” he replied evenly. “But Kerrigor is gone, bound by the Abhorsen and imprisoned these last fourteen years.”
“You will serve me now,” said the woman, in tones that brooked no argument. “Tell me how I may commune with the power that lies under this mound. It, too, will bend itself to my will.”
Hedge bowed, hiding his grin. Was this not reminiscent of how he had come to the mound himself, in the days after Kerrigor’s fall?
“There is a stone on the western side,” he said, pointing with his sword. “Swing it aside, and you will see a narrow tunnel, striking sharply down. Follow the tunnel till the way is blocked by a slab of stone. At the foot of the stone, you will see water seeping through. Taste of the water, and you will perceive the power of which you speak.”
He did not mention that the tunnel was his, the product of five years’ toil, nor that the seeping water was the first visible sign of a struggle for freedom that had gone on for more than two thousand years.
The woman nodded, the thin line of pallid skin around the mask giving no hint of expression, as if the face behind it were as frozen as the metal. Then she turned aside and spoke a spell, white
smoke gushing from the mouthpiece of the mask with every word. When she finished, two creatures rose up from where they’d lain at her feet, nearly invisible against the earth. Two impossibly thin, vaguely human things, with flesh of swiftly moving mist and bones of blue-white fire. Free Magic elementals, of the kind that humans called Hish.
Hedge watched them carefully and licked his lips. He could deal with one, but two might force him to reveal strengths best left veiled for the moment. The old man would be no help. Even now he just sat there, mumbling, a living conduit for some part of the power under the hill.
“If I do not return by nightfall,” the woman said, “my servants will rend you asunder, flesh and spirit too, should you seek refuge in Death.”
“I will wait here,” Hedge replied, settling himself down on the raw earth. Now that he knew the Hish’s instructions, they represented no threat. He laid down his sword and turned one ear to the mound, pressing it against the soil. He could hear the constant whisper of the power below, through all the layers of earth and stone, though his own thoughts and words could not penetrate the prison. Later, if it was necessary, he would go into the tunnel, drink of the water, and lay his mind open, sending his thoughts back along the finger-wide trickle that had broken through all seven thrice-spelled wards. Through silver, gold, and lead; rowan, ash, and oak; and the seventh ward of bone.
Hedge didn’t bother to watch the woman go, or stir when he heard the sound of the great stone being rolled away, even though it was a feat beyond the strength of any normal man, or any number of normal men.
When the woman returned, Hedge was standing at the very center of the mound, looking south. The Hish stood near him, but made no move as their mistress climbed back up. The old man sat where he always had, still gibbering, though whether he spoke spells or nonsense, Hedge couldn’t say. It was no magic he knew, though he felt the power of the hill in the old man’s voice.
“I will serve,” the woman said.
The arrogance, though not the power, was gone from her voice. Hedge saw the muscles in her neck spasm as she spoke the words. He smiled and raised his hand. “There are Charter Stones that have been raised too close to the hill. You will destroy them.”
“I will,” agreed the woman, lowering her head.
“You were a necromancer,” continued Hedge. In years past, Kerrigor had drawn all the necromancers of the Kingdom to him, to serve as petty underlords. Most had perished, either in Kerrigor’s fall or, in the years after, at the hands of the Abhorsen. Some survived still, but this woman had never been a Servant of Kerrigor.
“Long ago,” said the woman.
Hedge felt the faint flicker of Life inside her, buried deep under the spell-coated furs and the bronze mask. She was old, this sorcerer, very, very old--not an advantage for a necromancer who must walk in Death. That cold river had a particular taste for those who had evaded its clutches beyond their given span of years.
“You will take up the bells again, for you will need many Dead for the work that lies ahead.” Hedge unbuckled his own bandolier and handed it over cautiously, careful not to jar the bells into sound. For himself he had another set of the seven, taken from a lesser necromancer in the chaos following Kerrigor’s defeat. There would be some risk retrieving them, for they lay in that main part of the Kingdom long since reclaimed by the King and his Abhorsen Queen. But he had no need of the bells for his immediate plans, and could not take them where he intended to go.
The woman took the bells but did not put on the bandolier. Instead, she stretched out her right hand, palm upwards. A tiny spark glinted there, a splinter of metal that shone with its own bright, white fire. Hedge held out his own hand, and the splinter leapt across, burying itself just under the skin, without drawing blood. Hedge held it up to his face, feeling the power in the metal. Then he slowly closed his fingers, and smiled.
It was not for him, this sliver of arcane metal. It was a seed, a seed that could be planted in many soils. Hedge had a particular purpose for it, a most fertile bed where it could grow to its full fruit. But it would likely be many years before he could plant it where it would do most harm.
“And you?” asked the woman. “What do you do?”
“I go south, Chlorr of the Mask,” said Hedge, revealing that he knew her name--and much else besides. “South to Ancelstierre, across the Wall. The country of my birth, though in spirit I am no child of its powerless soil. I have much to do there, and even farther afield. But you will hear from me when I have need. Or if I hear news that is not to my liking.”
He turned then, and walked off without further word. For a master need make no farewells to any of his servants.
Part
One
The Old Kingdom
Fourteenth Year of the Restoration of King Touchstone I
Chapter One
An Ill-Favored Birthday
Deep within a dream, Lirael felt someone stroking her forehead. A gentle, soft touch, a cool hand upon her own fevered skin. She felt herself smile, enjoying the touch. Then the dream shifted, and her forehead wrinkled. The touch was no longer soft and loving, but rough and rasping. No longer cool, but hot, burning her—
She woke up. It took her a second to realize that she’d clawed the sheet away and had been lying facedown on the coarsely woven mattress cover. It was wool and very scratchy. Her pillow lay on the floor. The pillowcase had been torn off in the course of some nightmare and now hung from her chair.
Lirael looked around the small chamber, but there were no signs of any other nocturnal damage. Her simple wardrobe of dressed pine was upright, the dull steel latch still closed. The desk and chair still occupied the other corner. Her practice sword hung in its scabbard on the back of the door.
It must have been a relatively good night. Sometimes, in her nightmare-laced sleep, Lirael walked, talked, and wreaked havoc. But always only in her room. Her precious room. She couldn’t bear to think what life would be like if she were forced to go back to family chambers.
She closed her eyes again and listened. All was silent, which meant that it must be long before the Waking Bell. The bell sounded at the same time every day, calling the Clayr out of their beds to join the new morning.
Lirael scrunched her eyes together more tightly and tried to go back to sleep. She wanted to regain the feel of that hand on her brow. That touch was the only thing she remembered of her mother. Not her face or her voice—just the touch of her cool hand.
She needed that touch desperately today. But Lirael’s mother was long gone, taking the secret of Lirael’s paternity with her. She had left when Lirael was five, without a word, without an explanation. There never was any explanation. Just the news of her death, a garbled message from the distant North that had arrived three days before Lirael’s tenth birthday.
Once she had thought of that, there was no hope for sleep. As on every other morning, Lirael gave up trying to keep her eyes shut. She let them spring open and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes. But the stone had not changed overnight. It was still grey and cold, with tiny flecks of pink.
A Charter mark for light glowed there too, warm and golden in the stone. It had shone brighter when Lirael had first awoken and grew brighter still as she swung her feet out and felt around with her toes for her half-shoes. The Clayr’s halls were heated by the steam of hot springs and by magic, but the stone floor was always cold.
“Fourteen today,” whispered Lirael. She had her half-shoes on, but made no move to rise. Ever since the message of her mother’s death had come so close to her tenth birthday, all her birthdays had been harbingers of doom.
“Fourteen!” Lirael said again, the word laced with anguish. She was fourteen, and by the measure of the world outside the Clayr’s Glacier, a woman. But here she must still wear the blue tunic of a child, for the Clayr marked the passage to adulthood not by age, but by the gift of the Sight.
Once again, Lirael closed her eyes, screwing them tight as she willed herself to See the
future. Everyone else her age had the Sight. Many younger children already wore the white robe and the circlet of moonstones. It was unheard of not to have the Sight by fourteen.
Lirael opened her eyes, but she saw no vision. Just her simple room, slightly blurred by tears. She rubbed them away and got up.
“No mother, no father, no Sight,” she said as she opened her wardrobe and took out a towel. It was a familiar litany. She said it often, though it always made her feel a terrible stab of sorrow in her stomach. It was like worrying a toothache with her tongue. It hurt, but she couldn’t leave it alone. The wound was part of her now.
But perhaps one day soon, she would be summoned by the Voice of the Nine Day Watch. Then she would wake and say, “No mother, no father, but I have the Sight.”
“I will have the Sight,” Lirael muttered to herself as she eased open the door and tiptoed down the corridor to the baths. Charter marks brightened as she passed under them, bringing day from twilight. But all the other doors in the Hall of Youth remained shut. Once, Lirael would have knocked on them, laughing and calling the other orphans who lived there to an early bath.
But that was years ago. Before they had all gained the Sight.
That was also when Merell was Guardian of the Young, one who had governed her charges with a light hand. Lirael’s own aunt Kirrith was Guardian now. If there was any noise, she would emerge from her room in her maroon-and-white-striped bathrobe, to order silence and respect for sleeping elders. She would make no special allowance for Lirael, either. Quite the reverse. Kirrith was the exact opposite of Lirael’s mother, Arielle. She was all for rules and regulations, tradition and conformity.