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Sabriel swallowed her last mouthful, all taste gone, and put down her fork. She took a mouthful of wine to clear her throat, but it seemed to have become vinegar, making her cough.
“What do you mean by ‘fall’? What do you know? What has happened to Father?”
Mogget looked up at Sabriel, eyes half-lidded, meeting her gaze steadily, as no normal cat could.
“He is dead, Sabriel. Even if he hasn’t passed the Final Gate, he will walk in life no more. That is—”
“No,” interrupted Sabriel. “He can’t be! He cannot be. He is a necromancer . . . he can’t be dead . . .”
“That is why he sent the sword and bells to you, as his aunt sent them to him, in her time,” Mogget continued, ignoring Sabriel’s outburst. “And he was not a necromancer, he was Abhorsen.”
“I don’t understand,” Sabriel whispered. She couldn’t face Mogget’s eyes anymore. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know enough. About anything. The Old Kingdom, Charter Magic, even my own father. Why do you say his name as if it were a title?”
“It is. He was the Abhorsen. Now you are.”
Sabriel digested this in silence, staring at the swirls of fish and sauce on her plate, silver scales and red tomato blurring into a pattern of swords and fire. The table blurred too, and the room beyond, and she felt herself reaching for the border with Death. But try as she might, she couldn’t cross it. She sensed it, but there was no way to cross, in either direction—Abhorsen’s House was too well protected. But she did feel something at the border. Inimical things lurked there, waiting for her to cross, but there was also the faintest thread of something familiar, like the scent of a woman’s perfume after she has left the room, or the waft of a particular pipe tobacco around a corner. Sabriel focused on it and threw herself once more at the barrier that separated her from Death.
Only to ricochet back to Life, as sharp claws pricked her arm. Her eyes snapped open, blinking off flakes of frost, to see Mogget, fur bristling, one paw ready to strike again.
“Fool!” he hissed. “You are the only one who can break the wards of this House and they wait for you to do so!”
Sabriel stared at the angry cat, unseeing, biting back a sharp and proud retort as she realized the truth in Mogget’s words. There were Dead spirits waiting, and probably the Mordicant would cross as well—and she would have faced them alone and weaponless.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, bowing her head into two frosted hands. She hadn’t felt this stupidly awful since she’d burned one of the Headmistress’s rose bushes with an uncontrolled Charter-spell, narrowly missing the school’s ancient and much-loved gardener. She had cried then, but she was older now, and could keep the tears at bay.
“Father is not yet truly dead,” she said, after a moment. “I felt his presence, though he is trapped beyond many gates. I could bring him back.”
“You must not,” said Mogget firmly, and his voice now seemed to carry all the weight of centuries. “You are Abhorsen, and must put the Dead to rest. Your path is chosen.”
“I can walk a different path,” Sabriel replied firmly, raising her head.
Mogget seemed about to protest again, then he laughed—a sardonic laugh—and jumped back to his stool.
“Do as you will,” he said. “Why should I gainsay you? I am but a slave, bound to service. Why would I weep if Abhorsen falls to evil? It is your father who would curse you, and your mother too—and the Dead who will be merry.”
“I don’t think he’s dead,” Sabriel said, bright blushes of withheld emotion in her pallid cheeks, frost melting, trickling down around her face. “His spirit felt alive. He is trapped in Death, I think, but his body lives. Would I still be reviled if I brought him back then?”
“No,” said Mogget, calm again. “But he has sent the sword and bells. You are only wishing that he lives.”
“I feel it,” Sabriel said simply. “And I must find out if my feeling is true.”
“Perhaps it is so—though strange.” Mogget seemed to be musing to himself, his voice a soft half-purr. “I have grown dull. This collar strangles me, chokes my wits . . .”
“Help me, Mogget,” Sabriel suddenly pleaded, reaching over to touch her hand to the cat’s head, scratching under the collar. “I need to know—I need to know so much!”
Mogget purred under the scratching, but as Sabriel leaned close, she could hear the faint peal of the tiny Saraneth bell cut through the purr, and she was reminded that Mogget was no cat, but a Free Magic creature. For a moment, Sabriel wondered what Mogget’s true shape was, and his true nature.
“I am the servant of Abhorsen,” Mogget said at last. “And you are Abhorsen, so I must help you. But you must promise me that you will not raise your father, if his body is dead. Truly, he would not wish it.”
“I cannot promise. But I will not act without much thought. And I will listen to y
ou, if you are by me.”
“I guessed as much,” Mogget said, twisting his head away from Sabriel’s hand. “It is true that you are sadly ignorant, or you would promise with a will. Your father should never have sent you beyond the Wall.”
“Why did he?” asked Sabriel, her heart suddenly leaping with the question that had been with her all her school days, a question Abhorsen had always smiled away with the one word, “Necessity.”
“He was afraid,” replied Mogget, turning his attention back to the fish. “You were safer in Ancelstierre.”
“What was he afraid of?”
“Eat your fish,” replied Mogget, as two sendings appeared from the kitchen, bearing what was obviously the next course. “We’ll talk later. In the study.”
chapter ix
Lanterns lit the study, old brass lanterns that burned with Charter Magic in place of oil. Smokeless, silent and eternal, they provided as good a light as the electric bulbs of Ancelstierre.
Books lined the walls, following the curves of the tower around, save for where the stair rose from below, and the ladder climbed to the observatory above.
A redwood table sat in the middle of the room, its legs scaled and beady-eyed, ornamental flames licking from the mouths of the dragon-heads that gripped each corner of the tabletop. An inkwell, pens, papers and a pair of bronze map dividers lay upon the table. Chairs of the same red wood surrounded it, their upholstery black with a variation on the silver key motif.
The table was one of the few things Sabriel remembered from her childhood visits. “Dragon desk” her father had called it, and she’d wrapped herself around one of those dragon legs, her head not even reaching the underside of the table.
Sabriel ran her hand over the smooth, cool wood, feeling both her memory of it and the current sensation, then she sighed, pulled up a chair and put down the three books she’d tucked under her arm. Two, she put together close to her, the other she pushed to the center of the table. This third book came from the single glassed-in cabinet among the bookshelves and now lay like some quiescent predator, possibly asleep, possibly waiting to spring. Its binding was of pale green leather and Charter marks burned in the silver clasps that held it closed. The Book of the Dead.
