‘Clariel. Do not be alarmed. It is Kargrin. I am wearing the Charter skin of a giant mole. Where are – ah, I sense you. How did you get up there?’
‘Kargrin?’ whispered Clariel. It was still pitch black, but she could hear scuffling, and earth falling.
‘Yes. Come down! Quickly! We must be away!’
The descent was difficult. Clariel had stiffened up, resting on the beam, and was more tired than she’d thought. She almost fell twice, the jolt of sudden fear providing just enough energy to keep her going. She was shaking by the time she put her feet on the raised bedhead and had only just begun to feel the relief of something solid under her when the bed suddenly moved. Surprised, Clariel lost her fingerholds on the wall. She teetered atop the upended bed for a second, then fell, crashed onto the table, bounced off it and rolled onto the floor.
Or what used to be the floor. It was no longer level. One of the huge stone slabs had lifted up at one end. Clariel slid down it, scrabbling for a hold, successfully resisting the urge to scream. She ended up against the wall and crouched there, feeling out all around her, her hands sliding up the slab to discover it was on an angle of more than forty degrees from the horizontal.
‘Over here! They will have heard the stone crack above, I’m sure. Clamber over to me – I cannot come closer, or my Charter skin will be frayed by the prison’s spells.’
Clariel heard the sound of the shutters being lifted up above. She hurtled forward on all fours, up and over the tilted slab and down into the muddy, bristly grip of something bestial, which held her tight and pulled her further down into a hole, and despite being almost certain that it was Kargrin in another shape, Clariel couldn’t help but struggle and cry out.
‘Keep still!’ came that strange voice. ‘Hard enough to carry you as it is. Tunnel. I just dug it.’
Clariel forced herself to be still, feeling carefully with her hands, trying to get a tactile picture of whatever was carrying her. She could feel thick hair or fur on an arm that was as broad as her waist, and there was the same hair above her, undulating as muscles worked … She grimaced as she caught on that she was clutched to the belly of some giant ratlike creature …
But it was taking her out of her prison.
‘Nearly there. Collapsing tunnel behind us. Hold your breath, shut eyes!’
Clariel held her breath and shut her eyes. She felt soft, sticky stuff on her back that rose up around her shoulders and ribs and spread over her face, going up her nostrils and between her lips, no matter how tight she tried to keep her mouth shut. She started to panic again, thinking that she was going to be smothered in this dirt, or mud or whatever it was, and then she felt the hairy arm or paw and she dropped a few inches, her eyes and mouth opening with the sudden shock.
There was light, and air. She choked and spat out dirt, and looked up at a red-eyed rodent creature the size of a horse that was looking back at her with a self-satisfied expression.
They were in what appeared to be a cellar, because it was full of barrels. The light was coming from a Charter mark that had recently been cast into the timber frame of the door at the top of the five or six steps that led out. There was a huge mound of fresh earth in one corner, and a hole in the floor that they had just come out of – the exit to the tunnel she had just been dragged along.
‘I have got to take this off,’ said the giant mole-rat. ‘Clothes and such over there.’
It gestured with one huge, muddy claw at a pack leaning up against the steps. Clariel limped over, brushed dirt from herself, and opened it up. There was a rough woollen robe and a pair of wooden clogs like Sharrett had been wearing. Clariel hesitated for a moment, then whipped off her dirt-smeared silk tunic and dragged on the robe, the kind of super-fast dressing she did on hunting expeditions, so as not to give the men ideas. But when she turned around, Kargrin was busy with his own undressing, taking off the Charter skin, and very strange it was too. Clariel stared at the weird combination of man and beast. It looked as if Kargrin was either being vomited out of the giant mole or was being eaten by it, since the top half of him was struggling out of … the back half of the mole. As he climbed out, he rolled back skin and fur, but as he rolled it tighter the very concrete illusion of that skin and fur instead became tightly interlocked Charter marks, thousands and thousands of marks all woven together.
‘Got to fold it up properly,’ grunted Kargrin. ‘Might need to use it again. Put on the pack. There’s a knife in the side pocket.’
Clariel opened the pocket and took a simple, short knife of the kind anyone might have, in a plain leather scabbard on a cord. She hung the cord around her neck and put on the pack.
‘Where are we?’ she asked.
‘Cellar of an inn near what was once the Winter Palace, when the current Palace was smaller and only used in summer,’ said Kargrin. He was nearly completely out of the Charter skin now; it looked like he was standing on a pair of giant mole feet that had been cleanly separated from the rest of its body.
‘How did you find me?’
‘My rats followed Kilp,’ said Kargrin. ‘I knew about the prison holes, from when I was Castellan. They were filled with rubble when the Winter Palace was demolished more than a century ago, but yours was dug out by Kilp’s people. Fairly recently. I doubt it was planned for you. I suspect he probably had me in mind for it. How are you feeling? Up to running?’
‘Yes,’ said Clariel. ‘And fighting, too.’
‘We’d best hope not,’ said Kargrin. He had folded the Charter skin down smaller and smaller until it was no larger than a pocket handkerchief. He carefully put this in a pouch on his belt – the Charter skin had been worn over his clothes, even including his sword and boots – and wriggled his shoulders and shook his feet. ‘Always feel grubby after wearing the moleskin. When we get the all-clear we can go upstairs. The innkeeper is a former Royal Guard. He’s shut up for the day. We can look out on the street from the common room. There shouldn’t be too long to wait. I hope.’
‘To wait for what?’ asked Clariel.
‘Bel is going to land a Paperwing in the street and pick you up,’ said Kargrin.
‘Really?’ asked Clariel. She had seen Paperwings a few times. They were magical craft made of laminated paper, every inch of their fabric deeply imbued with Charter marks. They flew like birds, and could carry two or even three people, presuming the Charter Mage flying the craft could successfully work the wind. ‘Is Bel strong enough to be doing that? Where could it land? The one I saw in Estwael came down in the park, it glided along the ground like a … a pelican landing on wat
er.’
‘I hope Bel is up to it,’ said Kargrin. ‘I would not ask it of him save that there is no one else who can fly the Paperwing. As for landing, we’re on Old Nevil Street here. It’s broad and straight, and there are few people about since Kilp announced a curfew and restricted the day workers to the Flat.’
‘What is happening?’ asked Clariel. ‘Kilp told me my mother survived, but I’m sure she couldn’t have.’
Kargrin rubbed his nose and wrinkled it up and down a few times.
‘Mole lingering. Hmmm. That is interesting to know. What did happen at the Governor’s House?’
‘Kilp … he … they killed my parents …’
Clariel found it very hard to say those words.
‘Go on,’ said Kargrin gently. ‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary. I had a rat there, looking through a crack in the wall, but its view was very limited.’
‘Mother touched a goblet Aronzo made, or said he made,’ said Clariel. ‘Sparks flew, white sparks … Mother said it wasn’t made by any mortal hand but by Free Magic … Kilp tried to talk about it, but Mother … she wouldn’t talk. She just never compromised, it was always her way and nothing else mattered –’
Clariel burst into tears, full-blown crying, her breath coming in racking sobs that shook her whole body. But in just a few moments she had it under control again, was forcing her breathing into a regular pattern and wiping her eyes.
‘She was an Abhorsen again, in the end,’ said Kargrin gravely. ‘I hate to ask you … but are you sure both your father and mother were killed?’
Clariel nodded once, then hesitated.
‘I … ah … I saw Father, and I felt him die,’ she said slowly. ‘He was hit by a quarrel, in the chest. Mother was charging at least half a dozen guards, flames in her hands, they were hacking at her … She made me run, I didn’t see … but she must have been killed.’