Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen (The Abhorsen Trilogy Book 4) (13 page)

As both Kargrin and the old woman had said, there were stones marking the sides of the causeway, which was about twenty paces wide. Roughly pyramidal, the markers were obviously man-made, but had been worn long in the sea. They were covered in green weed and the purple-grey shells of lippets, shellfish that could be eaten or used as bait for fish, though neither humans nor fish were particularly fond of the strong-tasting bivalve.

“Good defense against the Dead,” said Bel quietly to Clariel when they were about halfway across. A bigger wavelet had just swept past them, drenching them up to their waists. “Sea currents and waves are as effective as a strong river flow.”

“But the sea doesn’t stop whatever this Free Magic thing is,” said Clariel, keeping her voice low, so the old woman ahead couldn’t hear them.

Bel shrugged. “Maybe it crosses when the causeway is dry.”

“The aqueducts don’t dry up,” said Clariel. “And apparently it passes under them as well.”

“Yes, there is that,” replied Bel. “Look, I’m not going to run if we do find this creature. No matter what.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” said Clariel.

“You don’t understand,” said Bel. “I’m an Abhorsen, this is what we do—”

Clariel stopped, and turned to face the young man, both of them briefly rising up on tiptoe as another wavelet washed past them.

“I don’t care if you get yourself killed. But don’t mess things up. My parents keep going on about opportunities for me in Belisaere. This represents an opportunity for me to get
out
of Belisaere and it might be my only one, so don’t spoil it!”

Bel looked surprised. Before he could answer, Clariel waded ahead, catching up to the old woman, who had kept plodding on. She was so bent the water was almost up to her chest, but she paid it no attention, just cricking her head back whenever a wave threatened to reach her mouth.

Clariel glanced back to make sure Bel was following. Behind him, about a dozen paces farther back, she saw three typical inhabitants of the Islet. But her eyes skittered away from them, and she felt dizzy again as her thinking mind knew they must be Kargrin and the two guardsmen, but some subconscious part insisted they were just beachcombers and not worth looking at.

Two-thirds of the way across, the causeway started to slope upward, and soon the sea was merely knee-deep and then just a foamy wash around their ankles. The Islet seemed taller than it had from the beach. There were steps cut into the rock face immediately in front of them. The old woman began to climb these, pausing halfway up to beckon to Clariel and Bel.

“This way, this way,” she said. “Another squid when we get there, I think you said?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Clariel.

“I might have forgotten which is Marral’s house,” said the woman.

“Then I’ll ask at every one,” said Clariel. “Maybe I should do that anyway.”

“Can’t blame a body for trying,” grumbled their guide. “It’s easy enough to spot, anyway. Got a door made of shark teeth. Over there, take the second left.”

“Second left what?” asked Clariel, as she climbed to the top step, and then added, “Ah.”

The Islet had appeared to be one big rock from a distance, but now she saw that it was made up of about twenty stone hillocks thrusting up like pimples out of the huge plate of black stone below. There were channels between the hillocks, most of them high enough to be dry, but some cut deeper and so open to the sea. A broad channel lay straight ahead, almost cutting the island in two, with many lesser branches running off to either side.

All of the hovels and shelters were built upon the hillocks, some joined by bridges of driftwood across the channels. Others had steps cut into the stone to reach them, or ladders lashed together from whatever the sea had brought the builders.

“Follow the second channel on the left, go as far as you can, there are steps up,” said the woman. “I’m going back to the worms.”

Clariel nodded, and started down the steps on the other side, into the main channel. Bel followed her warily, looking around as he did so.

“Easy place to be ambushed,” he said.

“Yes,” agreed Clariel. She was also thinking that it would be a difficult place to leave quickly, if they had to get away.

There were no people moving around. A few of the huts had smoke coming out of them, usually through a hole in the roof rather than a proper chimney, but it was otherwise impossible to tell if they were inhabited. It was very quiet, save for the regular crash of the waves against the island, and the sound of their own footsteps on the rock.

The second left channel was narrow, not even wide enough to stretch out both arms, and the rock above rose higher, easily twice Clariel’s height. She kept glancing up as they moved cautiously along, thinking about some attack from above. But there were no sounds of movement, and they passed two hillocks without event, before reaching the end of the channel and a series of steps cut into the mount ahead.

Clariel loosened the falchion at her side again. Bel did the same with his sword, and took out his pipes.

“Do you feel anything?” asked Clariel. “Smell anything?”

Bel shook his head. “I can smell only the salt from the sea, and the deaths are old and long-ago. Drowning, and murder from behind, but I can sense no Dead here. Too much swift water.”

Clariel started up the steps, comforted by the knowledge that Kargrin and the guards must be close behind. For the first time in any hunt, she felt less than confident. She didn’t like not knowing what to do, or what might happen.

On top of the rocky mount, there was a hut made of driftwood, canvas, and odds and ends, a fish-drying rack with no fish hanging from it, and a firepit built into a natural depression that had been smoothed into a bowl shape. Wood was laid there, ready for a fire. The doorway of the hut was closed by a curtain made of hundreds and hundreds of shark teeth tied to a heavy, close-meshed fishing net, so it was impossible to see inside.

Out of the shadowed channel, the sun was now fully visible just above the horizon, and its warmth was welcome, particularly since they were both sodden from the waist down. Clariel thought of sitting down to empty her boots of seawater, but decided it would be too risky, and there was no point. They would be crossing back soon enough, or so she hoped.

“I suppose we should call out to Marral,” she whispered to Bel. But he was looking around them anxiously and didn’t immediately answer.

“I can’t see the others,” he whispered back after a long pause.

“You’re not supposed to be able to see—” Clariel started to say, then stopped. Of course, they should be able to see
something
, even if their minds wanted to accept it as part of the background. Kargrin and the others should look like beachcombers or fishermen or something . . .

“Even if they are there, how can they surround the hut? There’s not enough space up here and there’s no point being down in the channels.”

Clariel drew her falchion. Bel drew his sword, and they instinctively stood back to back.

“They were behind us on the causeway,” said Bel.

“Well they’re not anymore,” answered Clariel.

Chapter Eleven

OUT OF THE BOTTLE

M
aybe we should shout out,” said Bel nervously. “Call them.”

“I can’t see anyone at all,” said Clariel. She was slowly looking from left to right, watching for any movement outside the huts on their higher outcrops of stone, or perhaps the glimpse of a head in one of the channels. “Nothing, no . . . there!”

She pointed at a sudden movement as someone leaned around the corner of a hut some fifty paces away, there was a flash of sunlight on metal—

“Down!” shouted Clariel.

She grabbed Bel as she threw herself down. But she was a moment too slow, and with a hideous thumping sound a quarrel suddenly flowered in Bel’s shoulder and he screamed in shock and surprise and then both of them were in the firepit, the prepared wood scattered everywhere.

“Spelled quarrel,” gasped Bel, as he rolled onto his back and gripped the shaft, which was wreathed in acrid white smoke. Aided by Free Magic, the quarrel had gone straight through his armored coat, breaking the protective spells and boring a neat hole through one of the gethre plates. Clariel measured the distance from his shoulder with her fingers together.

“Three fingers under your shoulder bone,” she said. “Not fatal, unless the magic is . . . is like poison.”

“N . . . no,” said Bel, getting the word out through a grimace of pain. “I don’t think so, just some sort of power to cut through Charter-spelled armor . . . can you break off the shaft, close as you can?”

“Yes,” said Clariel. She knew not to pull it out, because that would make the bleeding worse, but breaking off the shaft would make it easier for Bel to move around. If he could. Shock would be setting in soon. “I’ll do it in a minute.”

She said that, but broke it off immediately, holding it as tightly as she could against his chest so not to move the embedded point around. Bel screamed again, and fainted.

“Roban! Kargrin!” shouted Clariel. “Gullaine!”

She heard several shouts in reply, but couldn’t tell where they came from, or what they were saying. They sounded distant, as if the others were right over the far side of the Islet. Maybe down in one of the channels and not on a hillock. The sound was strangely faint, and difficult to locate.

Clariel risked propping up on her elbows to have a look, but there was still no sign of life around the other huts, and she couldn’t see anything where the sun had reflected off the quarrel before. It had been a murderer’s shot, a sudden attack from hiding. She’d been lucky to see the slight movement before the assassin fired.

“See anything?” croaked Bel muzzily. “Kargrin?”

“No,” said Clariel.

“I can’t . . . concentrate,” whispered Bel. “Can you cast . . . healing marks . . . on my wound?”

“I can’t remember the spell,” said Clariel. She was desperately trying to work out what they should do. Where could Kargrin and the others have gone? What could have happened to them? She didn’t have time to try and cast a Charter spell that she only dimly remembered learning. “I’ve forgotten the marks, I’m sorry, I was taught them a long time ago.”

“I’ll try in a minute,” said Bel. He was even paler than he normally was, even a little blue around the lips, Clariel thought. He needed help quickly.

“Kargrin! Roban! Captain Gullaine!”

She heard no shouts in answer, but a moment later a great column of fire erupted on the far side of the Islet, appearing so suddenly that Clariel didn’t know whether it had come down like lightning or had erupted upward, exploding one of the huts into thousands of burning pieces, some of which started falling around them, though none were big enough to be dangerous.

There was no sound from the fire, though from her experience of forest fires Clariel knew something burning like that would be roaring, popping and crackling loud enough to be heard from a half a league away.

“Kargrin,” whispered Bel. “Casting a fire spell. Why can’t we hear them?”

“Because I don’t choose to let you,” said a soft voice behind them. A woman’s voice, but something about it did not sound entirely human. With the sound, so sudden, came a choking stench of hot metal that was both like and unlike the smell of Jaciel’s forges.

Clariel moved even as she heard the voice, springing up regardless of any chance of being shot by a crossbow, the falchion in her hand. But there was still no one visible. The shark-tooth curtain had not moved. As far as she could tell, there was just her and Bel on that particular hillock of stone.

“Where are you?” she said. “Face us!”

Bel tried to get up too, but he only managed to raise his head slightly before his eyes rolled back and he slid down. He was either unconscious again or close to it, and the dark, black stain of blood around his shoulder was spreading.

“I am here,” said the voice again, seemingly behind Clariel. She spun around, swinging her falchion, but it cleaved empty air. The smell grew stronger, more acrid, biting into Clariel’s mouth. She coughed and spat as if she could somehow rid herself of the taint that was slowly rolling down her throat.

“Interesting,” said the voice. “So you are . . .
Clariel
.”

Clariel spun around again, so fast she was dizzy. The voice was nowhere, everywhere . . . it was inside her head . . .

The Charter. Kargrin had told her to reach for the Charter, that simply by joining with it she would gain some protection, even if she couldn’t remember the marks for a particular spell.
Just reach for it, fall into it, let it wash over you,
Kargrin had said.

With her free hand, Clariel traced a Charter mark in the air. One of the first marks she’d learned, nothing by itself, but a mark that could be used to find a way into the flow. She tried to visualize it deep inside her mind as she drew it, thought of where it could go, the marks that it traveled with, and there they were, glowing inside her mind. She called them to her, and more, and found herself drawing them in the air with her left hand, and the point of her falchion. They weren’t marks that she knew how to join up to make a spell, but they surrounded her and caught her up in the eternal current of the Charter, blocking out that insidious voice, the woman she instinctively did not want to hear—

“The Charter is a prison,” said the voice, suddenly breaking through the golden glow and single-mindedness of the marks. “A maze to pen you in, to make you go certain ways. You do not need marks and spells, Clariel. There is a power within you. Direct it, by your will alone. I will show you, guide you, be your friend—”

“No!” screamed Clariel. “Kargrin! Roban!”

She staggered to the edge of the rock, swinging wildly with her falchion, but cut only air. Charter marks hovered around her like bees bewildered by smoke, without direction, and she did not have the skill or knowledge to make the marks into anything, to cast a spell that might reveal her enemy.

“Lady Clariel!”

A human shout, followed by the rush of footsteps on stone. Roban came charging up the steps, sword in hand, silver fire leaping along the blade. At the same time something else rose up out of the very rock, almost under Clariel’s feet. At night, from a distance, it might be confused for a woman, for it was vaguely feminine in shape. But this close, it could be seen that the slender legs ended not in feet, but narrowed to become sharp, bony blades the color of yellowed teeth; its arms had two elbows a handsbreadth apart; and its spadelike hands had too many fingers each ending in a curved-back claw. Its hair was not hair, but a mass of brilliant tendrils of white light that flowed around its head and cascaded down its shoulders and back, and its face, if it had one, was an absence of light in the middle, a dark, oval void without features of any kind.

Below its shining head, its skin was entirely the color of old, dried blood.

Claws raked at Roban. He parried, Charter marks blazing on his sword, sparks flying. But the creature was far stronger. Roban was forced back and then flung down the steps. Swatted like a fly, he disappeared into the shadow as if he had never been.

As Roban fell, Clariel swung her falchion two-handed at the creature’s back. But the steel did not even break that strange, blood-red skin. It melted as it hit, the metal roiling away in molten drops, as if Clariel had cast a cup of quicksilver against the creature rather than struck it with a finely tempered blade.

The creature turned, and tilted its head quizzically.

“Not even an ensorcelled sword? But true,
you
do not need such things. Let me show you how to find the power within yourself. I will guide you, but first let me dispose of this small Abhorsen . . .”

It strode over to where Bel lay half in the firepit, its blade-feet striking sparks from the stone as it trod. It raised one of those feet above Bel’s head, and was about to bring it down when Clariel screamed and dived forward, grabbing that unearthly, spiked foot with both hands to hold back the killing blow.

The moment she touched it, she felt a shock through her whole body. Her heart raced in panic as some unseen force flowed from the creature into her. It entered her mind, exerting a sudden mental pressure that made her want to let go, to open her hands and let the spike drive down, to
help
it strike—

“No!” shrieked Clariel. “No! I won’t let you!”

It took all her willpower to keep her hands closed, and all her strength to stop the spiked foot. Yet despite everything she could do, it kept pressing down, coming closer and closer to Bel’s forehead and the Charter mark there, as if that was the spot where the young man’s skull was thinnest.

“You are strong,” said the voice inside Clariel’s head. “But not strong enough.”

The thing leaned into its stomp, yet still Clariel managed to keep the spike a bare fingerbreadth above Bel’s forehead. Every muscle in her body was quivering, her head was burning with the effort of resisting the creature’s will. Blood began to trickle from her nose, and she knew the creature was too strong, the spike would smash into Bel’s head and kill him and then it would kill her, she just
wasn’t
strong enough . . .

Not by herself.

She needed the fury. Yet all her life Clariel had kept the anger in check, rather than trying to call it up. Now she was far more full of fear than anger and the berserk rage felt impossibly far away.

“Not strong enough,” mocked the voice in her head. “But good enough to keep as a slave.”

Clariel gripped even tighter, working her hands against the sharp edges of unnatural bone. The spike slipped down, so close that its very tip broke the skin on Bel’s forehead and brought a bead of blood to the surface. Just one drop, like some hideous sweat. But Clariel stopped the spike from spearing through more skin and the bone beneath, even though her palms were sliced open and pain was shooting through her, and a terrible pressure in her head plucked at nerves, muscles all over her body twitching and rippling as the creature slowly gained control over her arms and hands.

The pain helped combat that invader in her mind. Clariel welcomed the hurt, and bit her lip as well, hard as she could, so that the blood filled her mouth. With the salt tang of blood fresh on her, she finally felt the fury. She could sense its source deep inside her, a banked fire that just needed fuel and air to rise up. Clariel welcomed it, summoned it, fed it with pain and fear and the necessity of action. It rose like a tide on the flood in answer.

She screamed again, but this time the scream was not one of fear, but of incandescent rage.

In that moment, she felt the power that had invaded her from the creature suddenly ebb back, and then a moment later,
she
was inside the creature’s strange mind, and it was trying to resist
her
, as she gripped it with her will and demanded that it do her bidding. They were locked together, two intelligences in fierce, internal combat, the rest of the world forgotten, all thought and senses concentrated on the battle of wills between them. One must surrender soon—

A thistle-head suddenly appeared, sticking out of the creature’s chest, the other end of the spear-shaft in Kargrin’s powerful hands. Deep inside the creature’s mind Clariel felt as if her own chest had been pierced, but it was a distant, walled-off agony. She held on tighter with both mind and body, now intent not just on stopping the thing from killing Bel, but on making it bow down to her, to obey her in all things, to become her slave . . . it was slowly giving in to the pressure of her will, she could feel it weakening . . . and then it spoke to her, mind to mind, no longer dominant and jeering but pleading with her, begging her for mercy.

“Help me! They will imprison me, trap me in a bottle, bind me again! You know what it is to be bound, contained against your will! Help me, sister!”

Dimly, Clariel was aware that Kargrin was weaving some sort of mighty Charter Magic spell. She could sense the Charter very close, like a great reservoir of power dammed high above, with Kargrin about to open the floodgates to let that power rush through him and his thistle-head spear, enveloping the creature in bonds it could not escape.

And once bound, Kargrin would force her—for Clariel found herself thinking of the creature not as it but she—into some less solid shape, and then contain her in a glass bottle or some vessel of pure metal, reinforced with spell after spell, all the weight of the Charter to hold the creature inside for forever and a day.