The Ancelstierran Army, presumably under instructions from the government, has allowed a group of Southerling “volunteers” to enter the Old Kingdom at one of the old Crossing Points on the Wall, in contravention of all past agreements and common sense. Obviously, Corolini has gained further support, and this is a test of his plan to send all the Southerlings into the Kingdom.
I have put a stop to further crossings as best I can, and reinforced the guards at Barhedrin. But there is no guarantee that the Ancelstierrans will not send more Southerlings across, though General Tindall has said he will delay acting on any such order and warn us if he can.
In any case, more than a thousand Southerlings have already crossed, and they are at least four days ahead of us. Apparently they were met by “local guides,” but as no Perimeter Scouts were allowed to escort the refugees, I do not know whether these were even true men.
We will pursue, of course, but there is a smell about this I do not like. I am certain at least one Free Magic sorcerer is involved on our side of the Wall, and the Crossing Point the Southerlings used is the one closest to where you were ambushed, Sameth.
The necromancer, thought Sam as he folded the letter. He was glad the sun was out and that he was in the Palace, protected by wards and guards and running water.
“Bad news?” asked Brel.
“Just news,” said Sam, but he was unable to suppress a shiver.
“Nothing the King and the Abhorsen can’t deal with,” said Brel, with total confidence.
“Wherever they are,” whispered Sam. He put the letter inside his coat and went back downstairs. To his workshop, to lose himself in making things, in tiny details that required all his attention and the total dexterity of his hands.
With every step, he knew he should be going to open The Book of the Dead.
Typically, Sam’s parents returned on a beautiful spring evening, long after Sam had climbed down from the tower and Brel’s watch had ended. The wind had turned to the east, the Sea of Saere was shifting color from winter black to summery turquoise, the sun was still warm even as it sank into the west, and the swallows that lived in the cliffs were stealing wool from Sam’s torn blanket for their nests.
Sabriel arrived first, her Paperwing skimming low over the practice yard where Sam was sweating through forty-eight patterns of attack and defense with Cynel, one of the better guards. The shadow of the Paperwing startled them both and allowed Cynel to take the final point, since she recovered while Sam was momentarily paralyzed.
His day of doom had finally come, and all his prepared speeches and letters leaked out of his brain, as if his opponent had actually pierced his head rather than triumphantly clanging her wooden sword down on his heavily padded helmet.
He was hurrying inside to change out of his practice armor when the trumpets sounded above the South Gate. At first he thought they were for his mother, till he heard other trumpets farther away, up at the West Yard, where her Paperwing would have landed. So the trumpets at the South Gate had to be announcing the King. No one else got a fanfare.
It was indeed Touchstone. Sam met him twenty minutes later in the family’s private solar—a large room, three stories above the Great Hall, with a single long window that looked down upon the city rather than the sea. Touchstone was looking out at his capital as Sam came in, watching the lights come on. Bright Charter lights and soft oil lights, flickering candles and fires. It was one of the best times to be in Belisaere, at lighting-up time on a warm spring evening.
As usual, Touchstone looked tired, though he’d managed to wash and change out of armor and riding gear. He was wearing an Ancelstierran-style bathrobe, his curly hair still wet from a hasty bath. He smiled as he saw Sam, and they shook hands.
“You look better, Sam,” said Touchstone, noting the flush in his son’s face from the sword practice. “Though I had hoped you’d also develop as a letter writer this winter.”
“Um,” said Sam. He’d sent only two letters to his father all winter, and a few notes at the bottom of some of Ellimere’s much more regular correspondence. Neither the letters nor the notes had contained anything very interesting and nothing at all personal. Sam had actually drafted some that did, but like the ones to his mother, they’d ended up in the fire.
“Dad, I . . .” Sam began hesitantly, and he felt a surge of relief as he finally began to broach the subject he’d stewed on all winter. “Dad, I can’t—”
Before he could go on, the door swung open, and Ellimere breezed in. Sam’s mouth snapped shut, and he glared at her, but she ignored him and rushed straight to Touchstone, hugging him with evident relief.
“Dad! I’m so glad you’re home,” she said. “And Mother too!”
“One big happy family,” muttered Sam under his breath.
“What was that?” asked Touchstone, a touch of sternness in his voice.
“Nothing,” said Sam. “Where’s Mother?”
“Down in the reservoir,” replied Touchstone slowly. He kept one arm around Ellimere and drew Sam in with the other. “Now, I don’t want you to get too worried, but she’s had to go to the Great Stones, because she’s been wounded—”
“Wounded!” exclaimed Ellimere and Sam together, turning in so that all three of them were in a tight circle.
“Not seriously,” Touchstone said hastily. “A bite to the leg from some sort of Dead thing, but she couldn’t attend to it at the time, and it went bad.”
“Is she . . . is she going to . . .” Ellimere asked anxiously, staring down at her own leg in consternation. From the look on her face, it was plain that she found it hard to imagine Sabriel hurt and not completely in command of herself and everything around her.
“No, she is not going to lose her leg,” Touchstone said firmly. “She’s had to go down to the Great Charter Stones because both of us were simply too tired to cast the necessary healing spells. But we’ll be able to down there. It is also the best place for all of us to have a private discussion. A family conference.”
The reservoir where the six Great Charter Stones stood was in many ways the heart of the Old Kingdom. It was possible to access the Charter, the very wellspring of magic, anywhere in the Old Kingdom, but the presence of ordinary Charter Stones made it much easier, as if they were conduits to the Charter. However, the Great Charter Stones actually seemed to be of the Charter, not just connected to it. While the Charter contained and described all living things and all possibilities, and existed everywhere, it was particularly concentrated in the Great Stones, the Wall, and the bloodlines of the royal family, as well as the Abhorsens and the Clayr. Certainly, when two of the Great Stones were broken by Kerrigor, and the royal family apparently lost, the Charter itself had seemed to weaken, allowing greater freedom to Free Magic and the Dead.
“Wouldn’t it be better to have the conference up here, after Mother’s cast her spell?” asked Sam.
Despite its importance to the Kingdom, the reservoir had never been his favorite place, even before he had become so afraid of Death. The Stones themselves were comforting, even keeping the water around them warm, but the rest of the reservoir was cold and horrible. Touchstone’s mother and sisters had been slain there by Kerrigor, and much later, Sabriel’s father had died there, too. Sam didn’t want to think about what it must have been like when there were two broken Stones, and Kerrigor lurked there in the darkness with his necromantic beasts and Dead servants.
“No,” replied Touchstone, who had much more reason than his son to fear the place. But he had lost that fear years ago, in his long labor to repair the broken Stones with his own blood and fragments of barely remembered magic. “It’s the only place where we will definitely not be overheard, and there are too many things you both must know, and no others should. Bring the wine, Sameth. We’ll need it.”
“Are you going like that?” asked Ellimere, as Touchstone strode over to the fireplace and into the left-hand side of the inglenook. He turned as she spoke, looked down on his robe and the twin swords
belted across it, shrugged, and went on. Ellimere sighed and followed him, and both disappeared into the darkness behind the fire.