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It was Kerrigor. The soldiers who’d barred the door lay dead around him, pale flesh islands about a sea of darkness. He had no shape now, but there were semi-human features in the great ink-splash of his presence. Eyes of white fire, and a yawning mouth that was lined with flickering coals of a red as dark as drying blood.
“Abhorsen is mine,” croaked Kerrigor, his voice deep and somehow liquid, as if his words came bubbling out like lava mixed with spittle. “You will leave her to me.”
The Mogget-thing crackled, and moved again, white sparks falling like tiny stars in its wake.
“I have waited too long to allow my revenge to be taken by another!” it hissed, ending on a high-pitched yowl that still had something of the cat. Then it flew at Kerrigor, a shining electric comet hurtling into the darkness of his body, smashing into his shadowy substance like a hammer tenderizing meat.
For a moment, no one moved, shocked by the suddenness of the attack. Then, Kerrigor’s dark shape slowly recongealed, long tendrils of bitter night wrapping around his brilliant attacker, choking and absorbing it with the implacable voracity of an octopus strangling a bright-shelled turtle.
Desperately, Sabriel looked around for Touchstone and Magistrix Greenwood. Brick dust was still falling slowly through the moonlit air, like some deadly rust-colored gas, the bodies lying around seemingly victims of its choking poison. But they had been struck by bricks, or wooden splinters from the smashing of the pews.
Sabriel saw the Magistrix first, lying a little away, curled up on her side. Anyone else might have thought her merely unconscious, but Sabriel knew she was dead, struck by a long, stiletto-like splinter from a shattered pew. The iron-hard wood had driven right through her.
She knew Touchstone was alive—and there he was, propped up against a pile of broken masonry. His eyes reflected the moonlight.
Sabriel walked over to him, stepping between the bodies and the rubble, the patches of freshly spilled blood and the silent, hopeless wounded.
“My leg is broken,” Touchstone said, his mouth showing the pain of it. He tilted his head towards the gaping hole in the wall. “Run, Sabriel. While he’s busy. Run south. Live a normal life . . .”
“I can’t,” replied Sabriel softly. “I am the Abhorsen. Besides, how could you run with me, you with your broken leg?”
“Sabriel . . .”
But Sabriel had already turned away. She picked up Astarael, practiced hands keeping it still. But there was no need, for the bell was choked with brick dust, its voice silent. It would not ring true until cleaned, with patience, magic and steady nerves. Sabriel stared at it for a second, then gently placed it back down on the floor.
Her father’s sword was only a few paces further away. She picked it up, and watched the Charter marks flow along the blade. This time, they didn’t run through the normal inscription, but said: “The Clayr saw me, the Wallmaker made me, the King quenched me, the Abhorsen wields me so that no Dead shall walk in Life. For this is not their path.”
“This is not their path,” whispered Sabriel. She took up the guard position, and looked down the Hall to the writhing hulk of darkness that was Kerrigor.
chapter xxix
Kerrigor seemed to have finished with the Free Magic thing that had once been Mogget. His great cloud of darkness was complete again, with no sign of white fire, no dazzling brilliance fighting away within.
He was remarkably still, and Sabriel had a moment’s brief hope that he was somehow wounded. Then the awful realization came. Kerrigor was digesting, like a glutton after an overly ambitious meal.
Sabriel shuddered at the thought, bile tainting her mouth. Not that her end was likely to be better. Both she and Touchstone would be taken alive, and kept that way, till they pumped out their life’s blood, throats yawning, down in the dark of the reservoir . . .
She shook her head, dispelling that image. There had to be something . . . Kerrigor had to be weaker, so far from the Old Kingdom . . . perhaps weakened more than her Charter Magic. She doubted that a single bell could sway him, but two, in concert?
It was dark in the Hall, save for the moonlight falling through the shattered wall behind her. And quiet. Even the wounded were slipping away in silence, their cries muted, last wishes whispered. They kept their agony close, as if a scream might attract the wrong attention. There were things worse than death in the Hall . . .
Even in darkness, the form of Kerrigor was darker still. Sabriel watched him carefully, undoing the straps that held Saraneth and Kibeth with her left hand. She sensed other Dead all around, but none entered the Hall. There were still men to fight, or feast upon. What went on in the Hall was their Master’s business.
The straps came undone. Kerrigor didn’t move, his burning eyes closed, his fiery mouth shut.
In one quick motion, Sabriel sheathed her sword, and drew the bells.
Kerrigor did move then. Swiftly, his dark bulk bounding forward, halving the gap between them. He grew taller too, stretching upwards till he almost reached the vaulted ceiling. His eyes opened to full, raging, flaming fury, and he spoke.
“Toys, Abhorsen. And too late. Much too late.”
It was not just words he spoke, but power, Free Magic power that froze Sabriel’s nerves, caught at her muscles. Desperately, she struggled to ring the bells, but her wrists were locked in place . . .
Tantalizingly slowly, Kerrigor glided forward, till he was a mere arm’s length away, towering over her like some colossal statue of rough-hewn night, his breath rolling down on her with the stench of a thousand abattoirs.
Someone—a girl quietly coughing out her last breath on the floor—touched Sabriel’s ankle with a light caress. A small spark of golden Charter Magic came from that dying touch, slowly swelling into Sabriel’s veins, traveling upwards, warming joints, freeing muscles. At last it reached her wrists and hands—and the bells rang out.
It was not the clear, true sound it should be, for somehow the bulk of Kerrigor took the sound in and warped it—but it had an effect. Kerrigor slid back, and was diminished, till he was little more than twice Sabriel’s height.
But he was not subject to Sabriel’s will. Saraneth had not bound him, and Kibeth had only forced him back.
Sabriel rang the bells again, concentrating on the difficult counterpoint between them, forcing all her will into their magic. Kerrigor would fall under her domination, he would walk where she willed . . .
And for a second, he did. Not into Death, for she lacked the power, but into his original body, inside the broken sarcophagus. Even as the c
hime of the bells faded, Kerrigor changed. Fiery eyes and mouth ran into each other like molten wax, and his shadow-stuff folded into a narrow column of smoke, roaring up into the ceiling. It hovered among the rafters for a moment, then descended with a hideous scream, straight into the Rogir-body’s open mouth.
With that scream, Saraneth and Kibeth cracked, shards of silver falling like broken stars, crashing to the earth. Mahogany handles turned to dust, drifting through Sabriel’s fingers like smoke.
Sabriel stared at her empty hands for a second, still feeling the harsh imprint of bell-handles . . . then, without any conscious thought, there was a sword hilt in her hand as she advanced upon the sarcophagus. But before she could see into it, Rogir stood up and looked at her—looked with the burning fire-pit eyes of Kerrigor.
“An inconvenience,” he said, with a voice that was only marginally more human. “I should have remembered you were a troublesome brat.”
Sabriel lunged at him, sword blowing white sparks as it struck, punching through his chest to project out the other side. But Kerrigor only laughed, and reached down till he held the blade with both hands, knuckles pallid against the silver-sparking steel. Sabriel tugged at the sword, but it would not come free.
“No sword can harm me,” Kerrigor said, with a giggle like a dying man’s cough. “Not even one made by the Wallmakers. Especially not now, when I have finally assumed the last of their powers. Power that ruled before the Charter, power that made the Wall. I have it now. I have that broken puppet, my half-brother—and I have you, my Abhorsen. Power, and blood—blood for the breaking!”
He reached out, and pulled the sword further into his chest, till the hilt was lodged against his skin. Sabriel tried to let go, but he was too quick, one chill hand clutching her forearm. Irresistibly, Kerrigor drew her towards him.
“Will you sleep, unknowing, till the Great Stones are ready for your blood?” whispered Kerrigor, his breath still reeking of carrion. “Or will you go waking, every step of the way?”
