“Corvere capital of two million principal products manufactured banking the attraction between two objects is directly proportional to the product of the day breaks not it is my heart four thousand eight hundred and the wind shifts generally in direction white wild Father help me Mother Sam help me Lirael—”
Nick stopped, coughed, and drew breath. The white smoke drifted off into the fog, and no new smoke emerged. Nick drew in two more shaky breaths, then experimentally let go of his trouser cuff and the piece of wind flute inside it. He felt a chill run through his body as he let go, but he still knew who he was and what he must do. Using the corner of the building, he hauled himself upright and staggered off into the fog. As always, the silver hemispheres glowed in his mind, but he had forced them into the background. Now he was thinking of the blueprints of the Lightning Farm. If Tim had made it according to Nick’s design instructions, then one of the nine electrical junction boxes would be just around the corner of the main mill building.
Nick almost ran into the western wall of the mill, the fog was so thick. He skirted around it to the north as quickly as he could, staying away from the southern end, where the Dead labored to lift the first hemisphere onto a flatbed railway wagon.
The hemispheres. They glowed in Nick’s mind brighter than the lightning flashes. He was suddenly struck with a compulsion to make sure that they were properly lifted into the cradles, that the cables were correctly joined, the track sanded for traction in this wet fog. He had to see to it. The hemispheres had to be joined!
Nick fell to his knees on the railway, and then forward, to lie curled up across the cold steel and the worn wooden sleepers. He clutched at his trouser cuff, fighting against that overwhelming urge to turn right and go over to the hemisphere on its railway wagon. Desperately he thought of Lirael lifting him into the reed boat, of his promise to her. His friend Sam, picking him up after he’d been knocked out by a fast ball playing cricket. Tim Wallach, bow tied and dapper, pouring him a gin and tonic.
“Word of a Sayre, word of a Sayre, word of a Sayre,” he repeated over and over again.
Still mumbling, he forced himself into a crawl. Across the track, ignoring the splinters from the old railway sleepers. He crawled to the far side of the mill, and used the wall to half crawl, half stumble down to the junction box, which was actually a small concrete hut. Here, hundreds of cables from the lightning rods fed into one of the nine master cables, each as thick as Nick’s body.
“I’ll stop it,” he whispered to himself as he reached the junction box. Deafened by thunder, half blind from the lightning, and crippled by pain and nausea, he reached up and tried to open the metal door that was marked with a vivid yellow lightning bolt and the word “DANGER.”
The door was locked. Nick shook the handle, but that small act of defiance did nothing but use up his last store of energy. Exhausted, Nick slid back down and sprawled across the doorway.
He had failed. Lightning continued to spread up the slope, accompanied by fog and booming thunder. The Dead continued to struggle with the hemispheres. One was on its railway wagon, which was being moved along the rails to the far end of the line, even as the Dead who pushed it were struck again and again by lightning. The other hemisphere was swinging off the coaster—till lightning burned the rope and it came crashing down, crushing several Dead Hands. But when the hemisphere was raised, the crushed Hands came slithering out. No longer recognizable as anything remotely human, and no use in the work, they squirmed their way east. Up the ridge, to join the Dead that Hedge had already sent to make sure that the final triumph of the Destroyer was not delayed.
“You have to believe me!” exclaimed Sam in exasperation. “Tell her again that I promise on the word of a Prince of the Old Kingdom that every single one of you will be given a farm!”
A young Southerling was translating for him, though Sam was sure that like most Southerlings, the matriarch understood at least spoken Ancelstierran. This time she interrupted the interpreter halfway through and thrust the paper she held out to Sam. He took it and quickly scanned it, acutely aware that he had only a minute or two left before he had to go back to Lirael.
The paper was printed on both sides, in several languages. It was headed “Land for the Southerling People” and then went on to promise ten acres of prime farmland for every piece of paper that was presented to the “land office” at Forwin Mill. There was an official-looking crest, and the paper supposedly came from the “Government of Ancelstierre Resettlement Office.”
“This is a fake,” Sam protested. “There is no Ancelstierre Resettlement Office, and even if there were, why would they want you to go to somewhere like Forwin Mill?”
“That is where the land is,” replied the young translator smoothly. “And there must be a Resettlement Office. Why else would the police let us leave the camps?”
“Look at what’s happening over there!” screamed Sam, pointing at the thunderclouds and the constant forks of lightning, all of which were now easily visible, even from the valley floor. “If you go there, you will be killed! That is why they let you out! It solves a problem for them if you all get killed and they can say it wasn’t their fault!”
The matriarch straightened her head and looked at the lightning playing along the ridge. Then she looked at the blue sky to the north, south, and east. She touched the interpreter’s arm and said three words.
“You promise us on your blood?” asked the interpreter. He pulled out a knife made from the ground-down end of a spoon. “You will give us land in your country?”
“Yes, I promise on my blood,” said Sam quickly. “I will give you land and all the help we can so you can live there.”
The matriarch held out her palm, which was marked with hundreds of tiny dotted scars that formed a complex whorl. The interpreter pricked her skin with the knife and twisted it around a few times, to form a new dot.
Sam held out his hand. He didn’t feel the knife. All his concentration was behind him, his ears straining to hear any sound of an attack.
The matriarch spoke quickly and held her palm out. The interpreter gestured for Sam to hold his palm against hers. He did so, and she gripped his hand with surprising strength from her bony old fingers.
“Good, excellent,” babbled Sam. “Have your people go back to the other side of the stream and wait there. As soon as I can, we will . . . I will arrange for you to be given your land.”
“Why do we not wait here?” asked the interpreter.
“Because there’s going to be a battle,” said Sam anxiously. “Oh, Charter help me! Please go back beyond the stream! Running water will be the only protection you have!”
He turned and ran away before any more questions could be asked. The interpreter called after him, but Sam did not answer. He could feel the Dead coming down this side of the ridge, and he was terribly afraid he had been away from Lirael too long. She was up there on the spur, and he was her main protector. There was only so much Ancelstierrans could do, even those who had some slight mastery of Charter Magic.
Sam did not see, because he was sprinting for all he was worth, but behind him the interpreter and the matriarch spoke heatedly. Then the interpreter gestured back towards the center of the valley and the stream. The matriarch looked once more towards the lightning, then tore up the paper she held, threw it to the ground, and spat on it. Her action was mimicked by those around her, and then by others, and a great paper tearing and spitting slowly spread throughout the vast crowd. Then the matriarch turned and began to walk east, to the middle of the valley and the stream. Like a flock following its bellwether, all the other Southerlings turned as well.
Sam was panting up the spur, three quarters of the way back, when he heard shouts ahead.
“Halt! Halt!”
Sam couldn’t sense the Dead so close, but he found extra speed from somewhere, and his sword leaped into his hand. Startled soldiers stepped aside as he ran past them and up to Lirael. She was still standing frozen in the ring of
stones. Greene and two soldiers were in front of her. About ten feet in front of them, two more soldiers were standing over a young man with their bayonets to his throat. The youth was lying still on the ground and was shrieking. His clothes and skin were blackened, and he had lost most of his hair. But he was not a Dead Hand. In fact, Sam saw that this scorched fugitive was not much older than he was.
“It’s not me, it’s not me, I’m not them, they’re behind me,” he shrieked. “You have to help me!”
“Who are you?” asked Major Greene. “What is happening over there?”
“I’m Timothy Wallach,” gasped the young man. “I don’t know what’s happening! It’s a nightmare! That . . . I don’t know what he is . . . Hedge. He killed my workmen! All of them. He pointed at them and they died.”
“Who’s behind you?” asked Sam.
“I don’t know,” sobbed Tim. “They were my men. I don’t know what they are now. I saw Krontas struck directly by lightning. His head was on fire, but he didn’t stop. They are—”
“The Dead,” said Sam. “What were you doing at Forwin Mill?”
“I’m from the University of Corvere,” whispered Tim. He made a visible effort to get himself under control. “I built the Lightning Farm for Nicholas Sayre. I didn’t . . . I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s nothing good. We have to stop it being used! Nick said he’ll try, but—”