Текст книги "Abhorsen"

Автор книги: Garth Nix

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first interlude

Touchstone’s hand clasped Sabriel’s shoulder as they lay under the car. Neither of them could hear after the explosion and they were dazed from the shock. Many of their guards were dead around them, and their eyes could not process the dreadful human wreckage that surrounded them. In any case, they were intent on their would-be assassins. They could see their feet approaching, and their laughter sounded muffled and distant, like noisy neighbours on the other side of a wall.

Touchstone and Sabriel crawled forward, their pistols in their hands. The two guards who had also made it under the car crawled forward too. One was Veran, Sabriel saw, still clutching her pistol despite the blood that ran down her hands. The other survivor was the oldest of all the guards, Barlest, his grizzled hair stained and no longer white. He had a machine rifle and was readying it to fire.

The assassins saw the movement, but it was too late. The four survivors fired almost at the same time, and the laughter was drowned in an assault of sudden gunfire. Empty brass cartridges rattled on the underside of the car and acrid smoke billowed out between the wheels.

“To the boat!” shouted Barlest to Sabriel, gesturing behind him. She couldn’t hear him properly at first, till he had shouted it three times: “Boat! Boat! Boat!”

Touchstone heard it too. He looked at Sabriel and she saw the fear in his eyes. But it was fear for her, she knew, not for himself. She gestured back towards the lane that ran between the houses behind them. That would take them to Larnery Square and the Warden Steps. They had boats there, and more guards disguised as river traders. Damed had carefully prepared several escape routes, but this was the closest. As in everything, he had thought only of the safety of his King and Queen.

“Go!” shouted Barlest. He had changed the drum on his automatic rifle and he began firing short bursts to the right and left, forcing any of their attackers who had made it back to cover to keep their heads down.

Touchstone gripped Barlest’s shoulder for a brief, final moment, then wriggled around and moved across to the other side of the car. Sabriel crawled next to him and they briefly touched hands. Veran, next to her, took a deep breath and hurled herself out, leaping to her feet and running the second she was clear of the car. She got to the lane, crouched behind a fire hydrant and covered Sabriel and Touchstone as they followed. But for the moment there were no shots apart from the disciplined bursts from Barlest, still under the car.

“Come on!” roared Touchstone, turning at the entrance to the lane. But Barlest did not come, and Veran grabbed Touchstone and Sabriel and pushed them down the lane, shouting, “Go! Go!”

They heard Barlest shout a battle cry behind them, heard his footsteps as he charged out from under the car on the opposite side. There was one long shuddering burst of automatic fire and several louder, single shots. Then there was silence, save for the clattering of their own boots on the cobbles, the pant of their laboured breaths and the beating of their hearts.

Larnery Square was empty. The central garden, usually the habitat of nannies and babies, was completely devoid of life. The explosion had probably happened only a few minutes ago, but that was enough. There had been plenty of trouble in Corvere since the rise of Corolini and his Our Country thugs, and the ordinary citizens had learned when to retreat quickly from the streets.

Touchstone, Sabriel and Veran ran grimly through the square and clattered down the Warden Steps on the far side. A drunken bargeman saw them, three gun-wielding figures splattered in blood and worse, and was not so drunk that he got in the way. He cowered to one side, hunching himself into as small a ball as possible.

The Sethem River flowed dirtily past the short quay at the end of the steps. A man dressed in the oilskin thigh boots and assorted rags of a tide dredger stood there, his hands inside a barrel that he’d presumably just salvaged from the muddy river flats. As he heard the clatter on the stairs, his hands came out holding a sawn-off shotgun, the hammers cocked.

“Querel! A rescue!” shouted Veran.

The man carefully decocked the shotgun, pulled a whistle out from under his many-patched shirt and blew it several times. There was an answering whistle and several more Royal Guards leapt up from a boat that was out of sight beneath the quay, the river being at low tide. All the guards were armed and expecting trouble, but from their expressions none expected what they saw.

“An ambush,” exclaimed Touchstone quickly as they approached. “We must be away at once.”

Before he could say any more, many hands grabbed him and Sabriel and practically threw them on to the deck of the waiting boat, Veran jumping on after them. The craft, a converted river tramp, was six or seven feet below the quay, but there were more hands to catch them. Even as they were hustled into the heavily sandbagged cabin, the engine was going from a slow idle to a heavy throb and the boat was shuddering into motion.

Sabriel and Touchstone looked at each other, reassuring themselves that they were still alive and relatively unhurt, though they were both bleeding from small shrapnel cuts.

“That is it,” said Touchstone quietly, setting his pistol down on the deck. “I am done with Ancelstierre.”

“Yes,” said Sabriel. “Or it is done with us. We will not find any help here now.”

Touchstone sighed and, taking up a cloth, wiped the blood from Sabriel’s face. She did the same for him; then they stood and briefly embraced. Both were shaking and they did not try to disguise it.

“We had best see to Veran’s wounds,” said Sabriel as they let go of each other. “And plot a course to take us home.”

“Home!” confirmed Touchstone, but even that word wasn’t said without both of them feeling an unspoken fear. Close as they had come to death today, they feared their children would face even greater dangers, and as both of them knew so well, there were far worse fates than simple death.

part two

chapter nine

a dream of owls and flying dogs

Nick was dreaming the dream again, of the Lightning Farm, and the hemispheres coming together. Then the dream suddenly changed and he seemed to be lying on a bed of furs in a tent. There was the slow beat of rain on the canvas above his head, and the sound of thunder, and the whole tent was lit by the constant flicker of lightning.

Nick sat up and saw an owl perched on his travelling chest, looking at him with huge, golden eyes. And there was a dog sitting next to his bed. A black and tan dog not much bigger than a terrier, with huge feathery wings growing out of its shoulders.

At least it’s a different dream, part of him thought. He had to be almost awake, and this was one of those dream fragments that precede total wakefulness, where reality and fantasy mix. It was his tent, he knew, but an owl and a winged dog!

I wonder what that means, Nick thought, blinking his dream eyes.

Lirael and the Disreputable Dog watched him look at them, his eyes sleepy but still full of a fevered brightness. His hand clutched at his chest, fingers curled as if to scratch at his heart. He blinked twice, then shut his eyes and lay back on the furs.

“He really is sick,” whispered Lirael. “He looks terrible. And there’s something else about him... I can’t tell properly in this shape. A wrongness.”

“There is something of the Destroyer in him,” growled the Dog softly. “A sliver of one of the silver hemispheres, most like, infused with a fragment of its power. It is eating away at him, body and spirit. He is being used as the Destroyer’s avatar. A mouthpiece. We must not awaken this force inside him.”

“How do we get him out without doing that?” asked Lirael. “He doesn’t even look strong enough to leave his bed, let alone walk.”

“I can walk,” protested Nick, opening his eyes and sitting up again. Since this was his dream, surely he could participate in the conversation between the winged dog and the talking owl. “Who is the Destroyer and what’s this about eating away at me? I just have a bad influenza or something.

“Makes me hallucinate,” he added. “And have vivid dreams. A winged dog! Hah!”

“He thinks he’s dreaming,” said the Dog. “That’s good. The Destroyer will not rise in him unless it feels threatened or there is Charter Magic close. Be careful not to touch him with your Charter-skin, Mistress!”

“Can’t have an owl sit on my head,” giggled Nick dreamily. “Or a dog, neither.”

“I bet he can’t get up and get dressed,” Lirael said archly.

“I can so,” replied Nick, immediately swivelling his legs across and sliding out of bed. “I can do anything in a dream. Anything at all.”

Staggering a little, he took off his pyjamas, unconscious of any need for modesty in front of his dream creatures, and stood there, stark naked. He looked very thin, Lirael thought, and was surprised to feel a pang of concern. You could see his ribs – and everything else for that matter. “See?” he said. “Up and dressed.”

“You need some more clothes,” suggested Lirael. “It might rain again.”

“I’ve got an umbrella,” declared Nick. Then his face clouded. “No – it broke. I’ll get my coat.”

Humming to himself, he crossed to the chest and reached for the lid. Lirael, surprised, flew away just in time and went to perch on the vacated bed.

“The Owl and the Pussycat went...” sang Nick as he pulled out underwear, trousers and a long coat, and put them on, bypassing a shirt. “Except I’ve got it wrong in my dream... because you’re not a pussycat. You’re... a...

“A winged dog,” he finished, reaching out to touch the Disreputable Dog on the nose. The solidity of that touch seemed to surprise him and the fever flush deepened on his face.

“Am I dreaming?” he said suddenly, slapping himself in the face. “I’m not, am I? I’m... only... going... mad.”

“You’re not mad,” soothed Lirael. “But you are sick. You have a fever.”

“Yes, yes, I do,” agreed Nick fretfully, feeling his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. “Must go back to bed. Hedge said, before he went to get the other barge.”

“No,” Lirael commanded, her voice strangely loud from the owl’s small beak. Hearing that Hedge was absent made her certain they must seize this opportunity. “You need fresh air. Dog – can you make him walk? Like you did the crossbowman?”

“Perhaps,” growled the Dog. “I feel several forces at work within him, and even a fragment of the bound Destroyer is a power to be reckoned with. It will also alert the Dead.”

“They’re still dragging the hemispheres to the lake,” said Lirael. “They’ll take a while to get here. So I think you’d better do it.”

“I’m going back to bed,” declared Nick, holding his head in his hands. “And the sooner I get home to Ancelstierre, the better.”

“You’re not going back to bed,” growled the Dog, advancing upon him. “You’re coming for a walk!”

With that word, she barked, a bark so deep and loud that the tent shook, poles quivering in resonance. Lirael felt the force of it strike her, ruffling her feathers. It sent sparks flying off her, too, as the Free Magic fought the Charter marks of her altered shape.

“Follow me!” ordered the Dog as she turned and left the tent. Nick took three steps after her but paused at the entrance, clutching at a canvas flap.

“No, no, I can’t,” he muttered, his muscles moving in weird spasms under the skin of his neck and hands. “Hedge told me to stay. It’s best I stay.”

The Dog barked again, louder, the noise carrying even above the constant thunder. A corona of sparks flared about Lirael and the discarded pyjamas under her claws suddenly caught fire, forcing her to fly out of the tent.

Nick shuddered and twisted as the force of the bark hit him. He fell to his knees and began to crawl out of the tent, groaning and calling out to Hedge. Lirael circled above him, looking to the west.

“Stand,” commanded the Dog. “Walk. Follow me.”

Nick stood, took several steps, then froze in place. His eyes rolled back and tendrils of white smoke began to drift out of his open mouth.

“Mistress!” shouted the Dog. “The fragment wakes within him! You must resume your form and quell it with the bells!”

Lirael dropped like a stone, instantly calling up the Charter marks to unravel the owl skin she wore. But not before her huge golden owl eyes had cut through the lightning-laced night to where the Dead toiled to move the silver hemispheres. Hundreds of Dead Hands were already throwing down their ropes and turning towards the tent. A moment later they began to run, the massed sound of hundreds of dried-out joints clicking in a ghastly undercurrent to the thunder. The Hands at the front fought one another to get past, as they were drawn by the lure of magic and the promise of a rich life for the taking. Life to assuage their eternal hunger.

The Dog barked again as the smoke rose from Nick’s nose, but it seemed to have little effect. Lirael could only watch the white smoke coil, as she was momentarily caught within a shining tornado of light while the Charter-skin spun back into its component marks.

Then she was there in her own form, hands reaching for Saraneth and Nehima. But something else was there too, some presence that burnt inside Nick, filling him with an internal glow that set the raindrops sizzling as they touched his skin. The hot-metal stench of Free Magic rolled off him in a wave as a voice that was not Nicholas’s came out of his mouth, accompanied by puffs of white smoke.

“How dare– Ah... I should have expected you, meddler, and one of your sister’s get—”

“Quick, Lirael,” shouted the Dog. “Ranna and Saraneth together, with my bark!”

“To me, my servants!” shouted the voice from Nick, a voice far louder and more horrible than could come from any human throat. It carried even over the thunder, rolling out across the valley. All the Dead heard, even those who still laboured stupidly on the ropes, and they all hurried, a tide of rotten flesh that flowed around both sides of the pit, rushing towards the beacon of the burning tent, where their ultimate Master called.

Others heard it too, though they were further away than any sound could carry. Hedge cursed and turned aside to slay an unlucky horse, so that he could make a mount that would not shy to carry him. Many leagues to the east, Chlorr turned away from the river bank near Abhorsen’s House and began to run, a great shape of fire and darkness that moved faster than any human legs could take her.

Lirael dropped her sword and drew Ranna, so hastily the bell tinkled briefly and a wave of tiredness washed across her. Her wrist still hurt from her encounter in Death, but neither pain nor Ranna’s protest were enough to stop her. The relevant pages from The Book of the Dead shone in her mind, showing her what to do. So she did it, joining Ranna’s gentle sound with Saraneth’s deep strength, and with them the imperative sharp bark of the Dog.

The sound wrapped around Nick and the voice that spoke from him was dampened. But a raging will fought against the spell, a will that Lirael could feel pushing against her, fighting against the combined powers of bell and bark. Then suddenly that resistance snapped and Nick fell to the ground, the white smoke retreating rapidly back into his nose and throat.

“Hurry! Hurry! Get him up!” urged the Dog. “Cut south and head for the rendezvous. I’ll hold them off here!”

“But – Ranna and Saraneth – he’ll be asleep,” protested Lirael as she put the bells away and hauled Nick upright. He was much lighter than she expected, even lighter than he looked. Obviously he was worn to the bone.

“No, only the shard within him sleeps,” said the Dog rapidly. She had absorbed her wings and was growing to her combat size. “Slap him – and run!”

Lirael obeyed, though she felt cruel. The slap stung her palm, but it certainly woke Nick up. He yelped, looked around wildly and struggled against Lirael’s grip on his arm.

“Run!” she commanded, dragging him along, with a momentary pause to pick up Nehima. “Run – or I’ll stick you with this.”

Nick looked at her, the burning tent, the Dog and the onrushing horde of what he thought of as diseased workers, his face blank with shock and amazement. Then he started running, obeying Lirael’s push on his arm to make him head south.

Behind them, the Dog stood in the light of the fire, a grim shadow now easily five feet tall at the shoulder. The Charter marks that ran in her collar glowed eerily with their own colours, stronger than the red and yellow blaze of the burning tent. Free Magic pulsed under the collar and red flames dripped like saliva from her mouth.

The first mass of Dead Hands saw her and slowed, uncertain of what she was and how dangerous she might be.

Then the Disreputable Dog barked, and the Dead Hands shrieked and howled as a power they knew and feared gripped them, a Free Magic assault that made them shuck their putrescent bodies... and forced them to walk back into Death.

But for every one that fell, there were another dozen charging forward, their grasping, skeletal hands ready to grip and tear, their broken, grave-bleached teeth anxious to bite into any flesh, magical or not.

chapter ten

prince sameth and hedge

Lirael was halfway back to the rendezvous with Sam when Nick fell and could not get up. His face was blotched with fever and exertion, and he could not get his breath. He lay on the ground looking up at her dumbly, as if waiting for execution.

Which was probably what it looked like, she realised, since she was standing above him with a naked sword held high. Lirael sheathed Nehima and stopped frowning, but she saw that he was too ill and tired to understand that she was trying to reassure him.

“Looks like I’m going to have to carry you,” she said, her voice mixed with equal parts of exhaustion and desperation. He wasn’t at all heavy, but it was at least half a mile to the stream. And she didn’t know how long the shard of the Destroyer or whatever it was in him would stay subdued.

“Why... why are you doing this?” croaked Nick as she levered him across her shoulders. “The experiment will go on without me, you know.”

Lirael had been taught how to do a fireman’s carry back in the Great Library of the Clayr, though she hadn’t practised it in several years. Not since Kemmeru’s illicit still had caught fire when Lirael was doing her turn on the librarians’ fire brigade. She was pleased she hadn’t forgotten the technique, and that Nick was a lot lighter than Kemmeru. Not that it was a fair comparison, as Kemmeru had insisted on being carried out with her favourite books.

“Your friend Sam can explain,” puffed Lirael. She could still hear the Dog barking somewhere behind her, which was good, but it was hard to see where she was going, since there was only the soft predawn light, not even strong enough to cast a shadow. It had been much easier crossing this stretch of valley as an owl.

“Sam?” asked Nick. “What’s Sam got to do with this?”

“He’ll explain,” Lirael said shortly, saving her breath. She looked up, trying to fix her position by Uallus again. But they were still too close to the pit and all she could see was thunderclouds and lightning. At least it had stopped raining and the more natural clouds were slowly blowing away.

Lirael kept on going, but with a growing suspicion that she’d somehow veered off the track and was no longer heading in the right direction. She should have paid more attention when she was flying, Lirael thought, when everything had been laid out below her in a beautiful patchwork.

“Hedge will rescue me,” Nick whispered weakly, his voice hoarse and strange, particularly since it was coming from somewhere near her belt buckle, as he was draped over her back.

Lirael ignored him. She couldn’t hear the Dog any more, and the ground was getting boggy under her feet, which couldn’t be right. But there was a dim mass of something ahead. Bushes perhaps. Maybe the ones that lined the stream where Sam was waiting.

Lirael pressed forward, Nick’s extra weight pushing her feet deep into the soggy ground. She could see what lay ahead, now she was close enough and more light trickled in from the rising sun. It was reeds, not bushes. Tall rushes with red flowering heads, the rushes that gave the Red Lake its name, from their pollen that coloured the lakeshores with a brilliant scarlet wash.

She’d gone completely the wrong way, Lirael realised. Somehow she must have turned west. Now she was on the shore of the lake and the Gore Crows would soon find her. Unless, she thought, they couldn’t see her. She shifted Nick higher and bent over a little more to balance the load. He groaned in pain, but Lirael ignored him and pressed on into the reeds.

Soon the mud gave way to water, up to her shins. The reeds grew closer together, their flowery heads towering over her. But there was a narrow path where the reeds were beaten down, allowing passage through them. She took the path, winding deeper and deeper into the reedy marsh.

Sam drew another mark out of the endless flow of the Charter and forced it into the arrow he was holding across his knees, watching it spread like oil over the sharp steel of the head. It was the final mark for this arrow. He had already put marks of accuracy and strength into the shaft, marks for flight and luck into the fletching, and marks for unravelling and banishment into the head.

It was the last arrow of twenty, all now spelled to be weapons of great use against the Lesser Dead, at the least. It had taken Sam two hours to do all twenty and he was a little weary. He was unaware that it would have taken most Charter Mages the better part of a day. Working magic on inanimate objects had always come easily to Sam.

He was doing his work while sitting on the dry end of a half-submerged log that stuck out of the stream. It was a good stream from Sam’s point of view, because it was at least fifteen yards wide, very deep and fast. It could be crossed via the log and jumping across a couple of big stones, but Sam didn’t think the Dead would do that.

Sam put the finished arrow back into the quiver built into Lirael’s pack and slung that on his back. His own pack was pushed up against the stream bank, with Mogget asleep in the top of it. Though not any more, Sam noticed, as he bent down to see it more clearly in the predawn light. The patch on the flap had gone completely and there was no sign of the cat in the top pocket.

Sam looked around carefully, but he couldn’t see anything moving and the light wasn’t good enough to see anything standing still or hiding. He couldn’t hear anything suspicious either – just the burble of the stream and the distant thunder from the lightning storm around the pit.

Mogget had never slipped off like this before, and Sam trusted the little white cat thing even less than he had before their experience in the strange tunnels under the House. Slowly he took Lirael’s bow from its cover and nocked an arrow. His sword was at his side, but with the dawn it was just light enough to shoot a little way with accuracy. At least across the stream, which Sam had no intention of crossing.

Something moved on the other side. A small, white shape, slinking near the water. It was probably Mogget, Sam thought, peering into the gloom. Probably.

It came closer, and his fingers twitched on the string.

“Mogget?” he whispered, nerves strung as taut as the bow.

“Of course it is, stupid!” said the white shape, leaping nimbly from rock to rock and then to the log. “Save your arrows – you’ll need them. There’s about two hundred Dead Hands headed this way!”

“What!” exclaimed Sam. “What about Lirael and Nick? Are they all right?”

“No idea,” said Mogget calmly. “I went to see what was happening when our canine companion started to bark. She’s heading this way – hotly pursued – but I couldn’t see Lirael or your troublesome friend. Ah – I think that’s the Disgusting Dog now.”

Mogget’s words were followed by an enormous splash as the Dog suddenly appeared on the opposite bank and dived into the stream, sending a cascade of water in all directions, but mostly over Mogget.

Then the Dog was next to them, shaking herself so vigorously that Sam had to hold his bow out of the way.

“Quick,” she panted. “We need to get out of here! Stay on this side and head downstream!”

As soon as she’d spoken, the Dog was off again, loping easily along beside the stream. Sam leapt off the log, swooped upon his pack, picked it up and stumbled after the Dog, questions falling out of his mouth as he ran. With Lirael’s pack on his back, the bow and an arrow in one hand, and his own pack in the other hand, it took most of his concentration not to fall over and into the stream.

“Lirael ... and Nick? What ... can’t we stop ... got to rearrange all this...”

“Lirael went into the reeds, but the necromancer suddenly showed up so I couldn’t follow without leading him to her,” said the Dog, turning her head back as she ran. “That’s why we can’t wait!”

Sam looked back too, and immediately fell over his pack and dropped both bow and arrow. As he stumbled to his feet, he saw a wall of Dead Hands lurch to a stop on the other side of the stream, back up near the sunken log. There were hundreds of them, a great dark mass of writhing figures that immediately started to parallel the dog’s course on the opposite bank.

In the midst of the Dead Hands, one figure stood out. A man cloaked in red flame, riding a horse that was mostly skeleton, though some flesh still hung on its neck and withers.

Hedge. Sam felt his presence like a shock of cold water, and a sharp pain in his wrists. Hedge was shouting something – perhaps a spell – but Sam didn’t hear it because he was scrabbling to pick up the bow and get another arrow. It was still quite dark and a fair distance, he thought, but not too far for a lucky shot in the stillness before the dawn.

As quick as that thought, he nocked an arrow and drew. For an instant, his whole concentration was on a line between himself and that shape of fire and darkness.

Then he loosed and the spelled arrow flew like a blue spark from him. Sam watched it, filled with hope as it sped as true as he could wish, and arrow met necromancer with a blaze of white fire against the red. Hedge fell from his skeleton horse, which reared and then dived forward, smashing through several ranks of Dead Hands to plunge into the water in an explosion of white sparks and high-pitched screaming. Instinctively, it had known how to free itself and die the final death.

“That’ll annoy him,” said Mogget from somewhere near Sam’s feet.

Sam’s sudden hope died as he saw Hedge stand up, pluck the arrow from his throat and throw it on the ground.

“Don’t waste another on him,” said the Dog. “He cannot be slain by any arrow, no matter the spells laid upon it.”

Sam nodded grimly, threw the bow aside and drew his sword. Though the stream might hold the Dead Hands back, he knew that it would not stop Hedge.

Hedge drew his own sword and walked forward, his Dead Hands parting to make a corridor. At the edge of the stream the necromancer smiled an open smile and red fire licked about his teeth. He put one boot in the stream – and smiled again as the water burst into steam.

“Go and help Lirael,” Sam ordered the Dog. “I’ll hold off Hedge as long as I can. Mogget – will you help me?”

Mogget didn’t answer, and he was nowhere to be seen.

“Good luck,” said the Dog. Then she was gone, racing along the bank to the west.

Sam took a deep breath and crouched into a defensive stance. This was his worst fear, come into terrible reality. Alone again, and facing Hedge.

Sam reached into the Charter, as much for comfort as to be ready to cast a spell. His breathing steadied as he felt its familiar flow all around him, and almost without thinking he began to draw out Charter marks, whispering their names quietly as they fell into his open hand.

Hedge took another step. He was wreathed in steam now and almost completely obscured, the stream bubbling and roiling both upstream and down. With a shrinking feeling, Sam saw that the necromancer was actually boiling the stream dry. There was already signifcantly less water below him, the stream bed was becoming visible and the Dead Hands were starting to move.

Hedge wouldn’t even have to fight him, Sam thought. All he had to do was stand in the stream, and his Dead Hands would cross and finish Sam off. Though he had the panpipes, Sam didn’t know how to use them properly and there were simply too many Hands.

There was only one thing he could do. Sam would have to attack Hedge in the stream and kill him before the Hands could cross. If he could kill Hedge, a little nagging voice said from deep inside his mind. Wouldn’t it be better to run away? Run away before you are burnt again, and your spirit ripped out of your flesh and taken by the necromancer...

Sam buried that thought away, sending the nagging voice so far into the recesses of his mind that it was just a meaningless squeak. Then he let the Charter marks he already held in his hand fall into nothingness, reached into the Charter again and drew out a whole new string of marks. As he summoned them, Sam hurriedly traced the marks on his legs with a finger. Marks of protection, of reflection, of diversion. They joined and shimmered there, wrapping his legs in Charter Magic armour that would resist the steam and boiling water.

He looked down for only ten, or perhaps fifteen seconds. But when he looked back up, Hedge was gone. The steam was dissipating and the water was flowing again. The Dead Hands were turning their backs to him and lumbering away, leaving the ground churned up and littered with pieces of rotting flesh and splintered bone.

“Either you were born to a different death, Prince,” remarked Mogget, who had appeared at Sam’s feet like a newly sprung plant, “or Hedge just found something more important to do.”

“Where were you?” asked Sam. He felt strangely deflated. He’d been all ready to plunge into the stream, to fight it out, and now all of a sudden it was just a quiet morning again. The sun was even up and the birds had resumed their singing. Though only on his side of the stream, Sam noticed.