“I can tell when whatever is inside me wants to . . . to join with Charter Magic,” said Nick. “And I can let it go, or force it back. I’m getting better at it all the time. So even with a Charter Stone, if I’m conscious and trying to control the reaction . . . it should be all right.”
“There will be many very experienced Charter Mages there, in any case,” said Lirael. “I mean, besides the King and Sabriel, Vancelle, Sanar and Ryelle I expect, perhaps Mirelle and some of the other senior office holders.”
“Am I dressed appropriately?” asked Nick. He was wearing a dark blue tunic the same color as Lirael’s waistcoat, without the silver keys, trousers of a similar color, and doeskin shoes that buttoned up at the sides with blue buttons. “Do I need a sword?”
“You can have my old one, from Belisaere,” said Lirael. She thought for a second. “Though it is Charter-spelled.”
“I could practice with it while you have some breakfast,” said Nick eagerly. “It’s by the front door, isn’t it? I’ll get it; meet you in the dining room!”
He whirled out the door, leaving Lirael reaching at air to hold him back for one more kiss. She smiled and shrugged, and was just about to follow him when she noticed something on the floor, its snout pressed up against the window.
Her little dog statuette.
Lirael picked it up, feeling the familiar soapstone, and looked around. How had it gotten there? Two Sendings stood in the corners of the room, behind the long leather lounge that was arranged for comfortable viewing.
“How did this get here?” asked Lirael. But neither Sending answered in any way. Lirael looked at the little dog again, then out the window. It was a clear day, and she could see the Ratterlin, a long line of brilliant blue shot with bright reflections. A small boat was sailing up the river, doubtless going to the Clayr’s dock, for it was well past anywhere else it might land. It was not an easy task against the current, and the spring flood; the way the boat moved suggested magical assistance.
There was nothing else of note to see.
Lirael frowned again, tucked the statuette into one of the upper pockets of her waistcoat, and went to see about what would need to be a very hasty breakfast.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE COUNCIL OF TOUCHSTONE
Clayr’s Glacier, Old Kingdom
The Map Room was a vast domed chamber, the ceiling of the dome decorated with a mosaic that incorporated a great deal of Charter Magic, so that each tile had many different iterations of design and color. The whole thing was a map of the Old Kingdom, from the far northwest to the southeast waters by the Wall, but it hardly ever displayed all at once. Rather, the ceiling would show the detail of a town, or a mountain range, or a nautical map with soundings of some part of the Sea of Saere. As it had been made perhaps a thousand years ago, sometimes it showed towns or villages that no longer existed, a forest long since cleared, or curious details that could not easily be understood by the Clayr of the current times.
Apart from this vast, changing map on the ceiling, the Map Room did not seem to contain any maps. Right in the center, under the top of the dome some eighty paces above, there was a round table of great antiquity. Made of a deep red wood become almost black with age and centuries of polish, it was thirty paces in diameter and could seat forty around it in its companion chairs, made of the same timber, though many had been repaired here and there and the upholstery was fresh and new, the eleventh time the dark green cloth had been replaced.
The table had a hole cut in its center, for here a Charter Stone rose up from the paved floor—not a grey stone, as was usual, but an obelisk of black basalt. Its surface roiled as normal with Charter marks, which rose to the surface to flash gold or more rarely silver and then sank beneath or, even more rarely, left the stone to rise to the mosaic map overhead.
Apart from the central table, there were a dozen desks lined up in rows of three at the northern end, but they had no maps laid upon them either. Unlike the usual green leather surfaces found elsewhere in the Library, these desks were topped with clean white marble.
At the southern end, perhaps a third of the Map Room was taken up with many curious long racks, each as tall as two Clayr. The racks held thousands of suspended ribbons, each ribbon imprinted with two letters and four numerals in some sort of code. From each ribbon there hung an ivory cube, redolent with Charter marks.
Lirael was used to this, and simply strode in through the main doors of beaten bronze, which had been pushed fully open on this occasion; normally the librarians used a much smaller ordinary door to the left. But Nick stopped on the threshold, staring up at the ceiling and then around the vast room. As they were holding hands, Lirael was jerked back; she trod on Nick’s foot and he said, “Ouch!”
Everyone looked at them, from where they were gathered in a crowd around one of the desks. The King, Sabriel, Ferin on her crutches, Vancelle, Sanar and Ryelle, Mirelle, the Infirmarian, and half a dozen other very important Clayr. Beyond this inner circle were more than twenty more seers of less exalted rank, there as note-takers, attendants, and messengers. Clayr from the Mews, the Rangers, the Library, the Observatory, the Storerooms . . .
“Hello,” called out Lirael, her voice echoing under the dome. She was a bit out of breath since they had run the last few hundred steps down the Second Back Stairs. Hand in hand. Remembering this, she gently let go, as did Nick, though their hands stayed close together. “Sorry we’re late.”
She didn’t mention why they were late. Nick had been rather too optimistic about how he would interact with Lirael’s Charter-spelled sword, and the blade had erupted into actual flames before Lirael could quell it, but not before the hilt had grown so hot Nick had to drop it. There was a sword-shaped scorch mark on one of the carpets in the Abhorsen’s Rooms now.
However, Nick was wearing a sword now, the majordomo Sending having brought him one of ordinary steel, without any magic, just as they were leaving. This reminded Lirael that she had yet to properly explore all the Abhorsen’s Rooms, because there had to be an armory there, as well as the wine cellar Imshi had mentioned. Explaining the carpet burn to Sabriel would have to come first. Lirael hoped her sister’s general lack of interest in furniture and haberdashery would also apply to ancient Abhorsen carpets. . . .
They hurried over to th
e central group by the desk.
“Do I bow or go on one knee or anything?” whispered Nick as they gave the central Charter Stone and the round table a wide berth to approach the King and Sabriel, the lesser Clayr quietly moving aside to create an alley for them.
“No,” said Lirael. “They don’t go for much ceremony, except on special occasions.”
Sabriel came forward and removed Nick’s doubts by taking Lirael on each shoulder and kissing her on the cheeks, and then offered her hand in Ancelstierran fashion to Nick.
“Welcome,” she said. “A long way from Somersby, I think, Mr. Sayre?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Nick, rather flustered. The last time he’d properly met Sabriel he’d been in the Fifth Form and thought himself very grown up.
“Call me Sabriel. You haven’t formally met my husband, I think? He didn’t visit the school. Touchstone, this is Sameth’s friend Nicholas Sayre.”
“An honor to meet you, sir,” said Nick, shaking hands. He couldn’t help himself glancing down at Touchstone’s bare knees and blushed as Touchstone saw him do so, and laughed.
“Always worn a kilt,” he said. “It was the fashion in my day, and a fine, comfortable garment it is. I’ve been trying to reintroduce it ever since, but when even my son won’t wear one, I suppose my efforts are wasted! Sameth should be here shortly, by the way; his boat is tying up now.”
“Sam’s here?” asked Nick.
“Yes, come to see what is going on with you, I suppose,” said Touchstone. “While we are all trying to find out about a host of other things. The first step being for you to meet a messenger, Lirael. Allow me to present Ferin of the Athask people.”
Lirael looked to the odd one out in the group around them, the young woman in strange, red-stitched clothes made of some kind of soft leather, her right foot recently amputated from the look of the bandages and evidence of healing spells Lirael knew well, though the way she moved so well on her crutches suggested the amputation had taken place a week or more ago.