“I wanted to belong,” said Lirael quietly, sitting up. It was only the shock of losing a childhood dream, she told herself. In a way, she’d known ever since she had been blindfolded before being allowed into the Observatory, or perhaps since Sanar and Ryelle had waved her farewell. She had known that her life would change, that she would never have the Sight, never be truly one of the Clayr. At least she had something else now, she told herself, trying to still the terrible sense of loss. Much better to be the Abhorsen-in-Waiting than a Sightless Clayr, a freak. If only her head could make her heart believe that was true.
“You belong here,” said Mogget simply, waving one white and pink paw around the Hall. “I am the oldest servant of the Abhorsens, and I feel it in my very marrow. The sendings likewise. Look at the way they cluster there, just to see you. Look at the Charter lights that burn brighter above you than anywhere else. This whole House—and its servants—welcome you, Lirael. So will the Abhorsen, and the King, and even your niece, Ellimere.”
Lirael looked around, and sure enough, there was a great throng of sendings clustered around the door to the kitchen, filling the room beyond. At least a hundred of them, some so old and faded that their hands were barely visible—just suggestions of light and shadow. As she looked, they all bowed. Lirael bowed in return, feeling the tears she had held back flow freely down her cheeks.
“Mogget is correct,” woofled the Dog, her chin securely resting on Lirael’s thigh. “Your Blood has made you what you are, but you should remember that it is not just the high office of Abhorsen-in-Waiting you have gained. It is a family you have found, and all will welcome you.”
“Absolutely!” exclaimed Sam, jumping up with sudden excitement. “I can’t wait to see Ellimere’s face when she hears I’ve found our aunt! Mother will love it, too. I think she’s always been a bit disappointed with me as Abhorsen-in-Waiting. And Dad doesn’t have any living relatives, because he was imprisoned for so long as a figurehead down in Hole Hallow. It’ll be great! We can have a welcoming party for you—”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” interrupted Mogget, with a very sarcastic meow. He continued, “There is the little matter of your friend Nicholas, and the Southerling refugees, and the necromancer Hedge, and whatever they’re digging up near the Red Lake.”
Sam stopped speaking as if he had been physically gagged, and sat back down, all his enthusiasm erased by a few short words.
“Yes,” said Lirael heavily. “That is what we should be concerning ourselves with. We have to work out what to do. That’s more important than anything else.”
“Except lunch, because no one can plan on an empty stomach,” interrupted Mogget, loudly seconded by a hungry bark from the Dog.
“I suppose we do have to eat,” agreed Sam, signaling to the sendings to begin serving the luncheon.
“Shouldn’t we send the messages first, to your parents and Ellimere?” asked Lirael, though now that she could smell the tasty aromas coming from the kitchen, food did seem to be of prime importance.
“Yes, we should,” agreed Sam. “Only I’m not sure exactly what to say.”
“Everything we have to, I suppose,” said Lirael. It was an effort to get her thoughts together. She kept looking down at the silver keys on her surcoat and feeling dizzy and sort of sick. “We need to make sure that Princess Ellimere and your parents know what we know, particularly that Hedge is digging up something best left buried, something of Free Magic, and that Nick is his captive, and Chlorr has been brought back as a Greater Dead spirit. And we should tell them that we’re going to find and rescue Nick and stop whatever the Enemy plans to do.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Sam half-heartedly. He looked down at the plate the sending had just put in front of him, but his attention was clearly not on the poached salmon. “It’s only . . . if I’m not the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, I’m not really going to be able to do much. I was thinking of staying here.”
Silence greeted his words. Lirael stared at him, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. Mogget kept eating calmly, while the Dog let out a soft growl that vibrated through Lirael’s leg. Lirael looked at Sam, wondering what she could say. Even now she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of the Great Library of the Clayr. Those days were gone, vanished with everything else that had defined her previous existence and identity. Even her librarian’s waistcoat had been spirited away by the sendings.
She was the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. That was her job now, Lirael thought, and she must do it properly. She would not fail in the future, as she had failed the Southerlings on the banks of the Ratterlin.
“You can’t, Sameth. It isn’t just rescuing your friend Nicholas. Think about what Hedge is trying to do. He’s planning to kill two hundred thousand people and unleash every spirit in Death upon the Kingdom! Whatever he’s digging up must be part of that. I can’t even begin to face it all alone, Sam. I need your help. The Kingdom needs your help. You may not be the Abhorsen-in-Waiting anymore, but you are still a Prince of the Kingdom. You cannot just sit here and do nothing.”
“I’m . . . I’m afraid of Death,” sobbed Sam, holding up his burnt wrists so Lirael could see the scars there, scarlet burns against the lighter skin. “I’m afraid of Hedge. I . . . I can’t face him again.”
“I’m afraid too,” Lirael said quietly. “Of Death and Hedge and probably a thousand other things. But I’d rather be afraid and do something than just sit and wait for terrible things to happen.”
“Hear, hear,” said the Dog, raising her head. “It’s always better to be doing, Prince. Besides, you don’t smell like a coward—so you can’t be one.”
“You didn’t hide from the crossbowman at High Bridge,” added Lirael. “Or the construct when it came across the water. That was brave. And I’m sure that whatever we face won’t be as bad as you think.”
“It will probably be worse,” said Mogget cheerfully. He seemed to be enjoying Sam’s humiliation. “But think of how much worse it would be to sit here, not knowing. Until the Dead choke the Ratterlin and Hedge walks across the dry bed of the river to batter down the door.”
Sam shook his head and muttered something about his parents. Obviously he didn’t want to believe Mogget’s predictions of doom and was still clutching at straws.
“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 succumbed 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 latitude.
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 asset. Not only did he help me pinpoint the location of the Lightning Trap from all the local rumors and superstitious 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 muffled 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 assures 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.