“You cut off my foot,” said Ferin baldly. “And someone has stabbed me in the stomach.”
“I helped cut off your foot, it’s true. But only because it was necessary to do so,” said Astilaran testily. “But you have not been stabbed in the stomach. The Free Magic charm there has been removed; it was necessary to do so before adequate healing spells could be cast upon you. Fortunately one greater versed than I in all manner of Charter Magic undertook both operations. I merely assisted with my small knowledge and the purely surgical aspects, with knife and saw and my sewing kit.”
“Who took out the charm?” asked Ferin.
“I did,” said the woman who had come in behind Astilaran. She was tall, very pale, and had short black hair. Her voice had the tone of a war chief or great witch, and she wore the bells of a necromancer over a surcoat of deep blue with little silver keys dotted upon it, and under that strange armor of little overlapping plates, something Ferin had never seen before. A sword with a well-worn hilt was at her side, and the little magic marks were everywhere about her, glinting in the shaded part of the room, shining brighter where she moved into the sunlight from the window.
“This is the Abhorsen Sabriel, who is also Queen,” said Astilaran, bowing very deeply. “Milady, this is Ferin of the Athask people, who bears an important message for your sister Lirael, and the Clayr.”
“Your sister?” asked Ferin, startled. Then she remembered she was talking to someone more important even than the elders of her tribe, and she ducked her head in an uneasy bow.
“Lirael and I had the same father, but different mothers,” said Sabriel.
“Ah, you do not have the look of the Witch in the Cave,” said Ferin. “From what I can remember. I was small. And no one told me she had a sister.”
“I am sorry about your foot,” said Sabriel. “But as Astilaran says, it had to be amputated. The wound, and then the conflict between the Free Magic charm under your clan sign and Astilaran’s healing spell, made it turn very bad indeed.”
“The blood poison?” asked Ferin. She made a dismissive wave with her fingers. “Better it is off.”
“Not the blood poison, though that might well have come too,” said Sabriel. “Your foot was turning into something else, your flesh and bone transformed. It would have spread to the rest of you, in time. Free Magic does that, if it is not constrained. The charm in you had broken free, you see.”
Ferin was silent for a moment, thinking about this. Far, far better to lose a foot than become a monster.
“I thank you,” said Ferin. “As I thank my rescuers, whoever they may have been. I can remember nothing after I fell upon the road. I must have hit my head.”
“No,” said Sabriel. “You fell under the sway of Ranna, one of the necromancer’s bells. The Sleeper, it is often called. But fortunately it was not long before our people arrived, and the necromancer was careless.”
“I am in the tower on the estuary?” asked Ferin.
“Yes,” said Sabriel.
“The fisher-folk?” asked Ferin. “They are here? I must tell . . . I must tell Karrilke about her man, Swinther. He died bravely, and saved us with his dying words.”
“The villagers have returned to Yellowsands, with most of the Guards who came from Navis,” said Sabriel. “Karrilke knows what happened. Young Laska did not sleep so long, and she has gone back with them.”
“Young Laska lives?” asked Ferin. “That is good. She is brave as an Athask. Perhaps even a better archer. At greater distances, at least.”
“Her father died,” said Astilaran. “Heart gave out. Old Laska was very old indeed, and more than ready to go. He was the only one, apart from Swinther and Megril. Many more—perhaps all of us—would have been slain if you had not drawn off the attackers, Ferin. We are all grateful for that. Everyone in Yellowsands.”
“I brought the enemy in the first place,” said Ferin. She looked around and saw her pack in the corner. “There is gold in my pack, nuggets from our river. Take it to Karrilke, and to Young Laska, and Megril’s family if she had one, as a blood price. It is not enough, but it is all I have.”
“It is not necessary—” Astilaran started to say, but he stopped as Sabriel inclined her chin, indicating that he should take the gold.
“On their behalf, I thank you for the blood price,” said Sabriel gravely. “But tell me more of this message. I have already heard from Young Laska that it is of great importance, though she would not tell me exactly what it is, knowing it is yours to give, and you would soon wake and could tell me yourself. Or not. For if you wish to deliver it to Lirael and the Clayr, you will be able to do that soon enough. We will fly to the Glacier shortly, if you feel able to move, and Lirael is there.”
“Fly?” asked Ferin. She thought she did not show her surprise, though the others did see a certain widening of her eyes. “You ride upon a dragon?”
“No,” said Sabriel. “A craft called a paperwing, a kind of magical boat for the sky. I have read about dragons, or what people called dragons in ages past. Have you ever seen one?”
“No,” said Ferin regretfully. “Long ago, a witch of the Athask had one in her service. Or so the tales tell. Some of the sorcerers of other clans also talk of their dragons of legend. But they are only stories. I thought perhaps here, in your strange land, they might not be mere tales. I would like to see one; it would be something to speak of, at the turning of the seasons when we gather.”
“I am grateful we do not have dragons,” said Sabriel, who had some knowledge of what they were, or had been: Free Magic creatures of great power who assumed a reptilian, flying shape. “Now, here is the question healers always ask: How do you feel?”
“I am pleased to be alive,” said Ferin, her brow quirked in puzzlement. “And happy our enemies are dead. Also, that I might be close to delivering my message—”
“No, no,” laughed Sabriel. “Do you feel sick with fever? Is the pain bearable? I have placed a number of healing spells upon you, but there is always variation in how they work.”
“Pain is nothing to the Athask,” said Ferin. She paused, then added more truthfully, “But there is less than there was. I can hop, I think. When I return to my people, I will carve myself a foot from the blue ash that grows below our summer camp. And the slicing in my stomach . . . that is nothing.”
“My son might be able to make you a better foot than one of simple oak,” said Sabriel. “He has had some practice with such things, of late.”
Astilaran looked at her with interest.
“Sameth? I have heard of the golden hand he made for Lirael. But would such a thing work in the North, without Charter Magic?”
“There is Charter Magic in the North,” said Sabriel. “At least until you reach the Great Rift. It is just much more difficult to reach the Charter, with the nearest Charter Stones so far away.”
“You have been in the North?” asked Ferin. “To my people, in the mountains?”
“Not to the mountains,” said Sabriel. She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I have traveled the steppe, both low and high. A long time ago. Now, your message. Do you want to tell me, or wait to tell Lirael?”
“You say Young Laska has not already passed on the message?” asked Ferin.
“No, because it is yours to give,” said Sabriel.
“It is really the Witch in the Cave’s message,” said Ferin doubtfully. “I told Young Laska because I thought I would soon die, and the message should not die with me. But now . . . I wish to wait, and tell Lirael, as my elders instructed, and as the Witch in the Cave desired.”