AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Good morning,” he said. “This will be ready in five minutes, milady.”
Sabriel groaned at that word again. Feeling like a shambling, blanket-shrouded excuse for a human being, she picked up her shirt and trousers and staggered off to find a suitable bush en route to the spring.
The icy water of the spring completed the waking up process without kindness, Sabriel exposing herself to it and the marginally warmer air for no more than the ten seconds it took to shed undershirt, wash and get dressed again. Clean, awake and clothed, she returned to the campfire and ate her share of the porridge. Then Touchstone ate, while Sabriel buckled on armor, sword and bells. Mogget lay near the fire, warming his white-furred belly. Not for the first time, Sabriel wondered if he needed to eat at all. He obviously liked food, but he seemed to eat for amusement, rather than sustenance.
Touchstone continued being a servant after breakfast, cleaning pot and spoon, quenching the fire and putting everything away. But when he was about to swing the pack on his back, Sabriel stopped him.
“No, Touchstone. It’s my pack. I’ll carry it, thank you.”
He hesitated, then passed it to her and would have helped her put it on, but she had her arms through the straps and the pack swung on before he could take the weight.
Half an hour later, perhaps a third of the way up the narrow, stone-carved stair, Sabriel regretted her decision to take the pack. She still wasn’t totally recovered from the Paperwing crash and the stair was very steep, and so narrow that she had difficulty negotiating the spiraling turns. The pack always seemed to jam against the outside or inside wall, no matter which way she turned.
“Perhaps we should take it in turns to carry the pack,” she said reluctantly, when they stopped at a sort of alcove to catch their breath. Touchstone, who had been leading, nodded and came back down a few steps to take the pack.
“I’ll lead, then,” Sabriel added, flexing her back and shoulders, shuddering slightly at the pack-induced layer of sweat on her back, greasy under armor, tunic, shirt and undershirt. She picked up her candle from the bench and stepped up.
“No,” said Touchstone, stepping in her way. “There are guards—and guardians—on this stair. I know the words and signs to pass them. You are the Abhorsen, so they might let you past, but I am not sure.”
“Your memory must be coming back,” Sabriel commented, slightly peeved at being thwarted. “Tell me, is this stair the one you mentioned when you said the Queen was ambushed?”
“No,” Touchstone replied flatly. He hesitated, then added, “That stair was in Belisaere.”
With that, he turned, and continued up the stairs. Sabriel followed, Mogget at her heels. Now that she wasn’t lumbered by her pack, she felt more alert. Watching Touchstone, she saw him pause occasionally and mutter some words under his breath. Each time, there was the faint, feather-light touch of Charter Magic. Subtle magic, much cleverer than in the tunnel below. Harder to detect and probably much more deadly, Sabriel thought. Now she knew it was there, she also picked up the faint sensation of Death. This stair had seen killings, a long, long, time ago.
Finally, they came to a large chamber, with a set of double doors to one side. Light leaked in from a large number of small, circular holes in the roof, or as Sabriel soon saw, through an overgrown lattice that had once been open to air and sky.
“That’s the outside door,” Touchstone said, unnecessarily. He snuffed out his candle, took Sabriel’s, now little more than a stub of wax, and put both in a pocket stitched to the front of his kilt. Sabriel thought of joking about the hot wax and the potential for damage, but thought better of it. Touchstone was not the lighthearted type.
“How does it open?” asked Sabriel, indicating the door. She couldn’t see any handle, lock or key. Or any hinges, for that matter.
Touchstone was silent, eyes unfocused and staring, then he laughed, a bitter little chuckle.
“I don’t remember! All the way up the stair, all the words and signals . . . and now useless! Useless!”
“At least you got us up the steps,” Sabriel pointed out, alarmed by the violence of his self-loathing. “I’d still be sitting by the spring, watching it bubble, if you hadn’t come along.”
“You would have found the way out,” Touchstone muttered. “Or Mogget would. Wood! Yes, that’s what I deserve to be—”
“Touchstone,” Mogget interrupted, hissing. “Shut up. You’re to be useful, remember?”
“Yes,” replied Touchstone, visibly calming his breathing, composing his face. “I’m sorry, Mogget. Milady.”
“Please, please, just Sabriel,” she said tiredly. “I’ve only just left school—I’m only eighteen! Calling me milady seems ridiculous.”
“Sabriel,” Touchstone said tentatively. “I will try to remember. ‘Milady’ is a habit . . . it reminds me of my place in the world. It’s easier for me—”
“I don’t care what’s easier for you!” Sabriel snapped. “Don’t call me milady and stop acting like a halfwit! Just be yourself. Behave normally. I don’t need a valet, I need a useful . . . friend!”
“Very well, Sabriel,” Touchstone said, with careful emphasis. He was angry now, but at least that was an improvement over servile, Sabriel thought.
“Now,” she said to the smirking Mogget. “Have you got any ideas about this door?”
“Just one,” replied Mogget, sliding between her legs and over to the thin line that marked the division between the two leaves of the door. “Push. One on each side.”
“Push?”
“Why not?” said Touchstone, shrugging. He took up a position, braced against the left side of the door, palms flat on the metal-studded wood. Sabriel hesitated, then did the same against the right.
“One, two, three, push!” announced Mogget.
Sabriel pushed on “three” and Touchstone on “push,” so their combined effort took several seconds to synchronize. Then the doors creaked slowly open, sunshine spilling through in a bright bar, climbing from floor to ceiling, dust motes dancing in its progress.
“It feels strange,” said Touchstone, the wood humming beneath his hands like plucked lute strings.
“I can hear voices,” exclaimed Sabriel at the same time, her ears full of half-caught words, laughter, distant singing.
“I can see time,” whispered Mogget, so softly that his words were lost.
Then the doors were open. They walked through, shielding their eyes against the sun, feeling the cool breeze sharp on their skin, the fresh scent of pine trees clearing their nostrils of underground dust. Mogget sneezed quickly three times, and ran about in a tight circle. The doors slid shut behind them, as silently and inexplicably as they’d opened.
They stood in a small clearing in the middle of a pine forest, or plantation, for the trees were regularly spaced. The doors behind them stood in the side of a low hillock of turf and stunted bushes. Pine needles lay thick on the ground, pinecones peeking through every few paces, like skulls ploughed up on some ancient battleground.
“The Watchwood,” said Touchstone. He took several deep breaths, looked at the sky, and sighed. “It is Winter, I think—or early Spring?”
“Winter,” replied Sabriel. “It was snowing quite heavily, back near the Wall. It seems much milder here.”
“Most of the Wall, the Long Cliffs, and Abhorsen’s House, are on, or part of, the Southern Plateau,” Mogget explained. “The plateau is between one and two thousand feet above the coastal plain. In fact, the area around Nestowe, where we are headed, is mostly below sea level and has been reclaimed.”
“Yes,” said Touchstone. “I remember. Long Dyke, the raised canals, the wind pumps to raise the water—”
“You’re both very informative for a change,” remarked Sabriel. “Would one of you care to tell me something I really want to know, like what are the Great Charters?”
